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CEU Event: Dive Deep: An Advanced Training Course
When: 10/07/2024 8:00am to 10/11/2024 5:00pm
Where: Karen Pryor National Training Center
CPDT-KSA Knowledge: | 6.00 | ||
CPDT-KSA Skills: | 0.00 |
* Courses approved for CBCC-KA CEUs may be applied to a CPDT-KA or CPDT-KSA recertification. Courses approved for CPDT-KA or CPDT-KSA may not be applied to a CBCC-KA recertification.
PLEASE NOTE: CPDT-KA can earn a MAXIMUM of 12 CPDT-KSA Skills CEUS within their 3 year certification period.
Dive Deep with Ken Ramirez is the course created for trainers working in environments where training excellence is the daily standard. For many years, students who have taken the training for professionals course Ken previously taught at the Shedd Aquarium (and now offered at The Ranch), have asked for a "next" level. Here it is! Ken is frequently called in, by individuals and organizations, to help achieve important goals. These could include increase the performance success rate, train something new and novel, reduce animal (and staff ) stress, reduce training time, improve animal welfare and more. While the goals and environments are diverse, what ties these training environments, and this course, together is that the results of the training matter. Deadlines are real, performance is real time, livelihoods and lives can be stake or time, effort and pride is on the line. In all of it, training excellence is the requirement because results matter. This course is built to teach and explore the concepts and skills most often needed and least often understood or well applied in these training environments--when training excellence is required to do the job. It is for participants with a personal desire for and/or a professional requirement for training excellence, In addition to the extensive classroom lectures, discussion, exercises and Q and A, daily sessions with The Ranch animals are woven into the course to reinforce the concepts, help with visualization and practice.
Sponsor:Karen Pryor Clicker Training
Speaker(s):Ken Ramirez
Contact: Erin Roussinova
Web: http://www.theranch.clickertraining.com/
Karen Pryor National Training CenterThe Ranch
Graham, WA 98338
United States


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Alzheimers dementia is usually diagnosed when memory loss and behavioural symptoms are readily apparent to their caregivers. At this stage the primary concern is to slow further deterioration. Caregivers at the clinic have often wished they could have looked into the future. Many have a history of Alzheimers disease in their elderly and wondered whether there was an earlier way of knowing. New knowledge gives us hope in this direction.
Alzheimers disease before memory loss
We now have the beginnings of a time line in the countdown to dementia. It is now possible to trace the beginnings of Alzheimers Dementia up to 20 years before its manifestation with memory loss and impaired function.20
Beta-amyloid levels in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) begin to drop 20 years before the onset of dementia. Alzheimer's Disease is characterized by toxic deposition of specific beta-amyloid (Aβ1-42) plaques around the brain cells. In normal aging beta-amyloid continues to increase in the brain fluid. However, in Alzheimers Dementia brain fluid beta-amyloid is markedly reduced.This is due to reduce clearance of beta-amyloid from the brain to the blood and CSF, as well as increased beta-amyloid plaque deposition in the brain.15
15 years before dementia onset, beta-amyloid deposits can be detected by amyloid imaging PET scans. The best known amyloid PET tracer is Pittsburgh Compound-B (PIB). PIB retention is found in over 90% clinically diagnosed AD patients.Tau protein accumulation inside the brain cells (neurons) is the second hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Microtuble associated protein tau (MAPT) in the brain fluid (CSF) increases with age. In Alzheimer's disease tau levels are markedly increased and reflects damage to the neurons and axons (brain cells). High CSF tau level differentiates mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from that which progresses to Alzheimer's disease.
Shrinkage or atrophy of the brain becomes detectable by MRI. This atrophy is visible in brain structures that are essential for the conscious memory of facts and events. These areas are located in the brain's medial temporal lobe. This shrinkage is apparent on using a visual rating system which also measures its severity. The more extensive the brain atrophy, the more advanced the clinical stage of Alzheimer's disease.
PET Scan (FDG-PET) changes in the way the brain uses glucose are apparent 10 years before dementia. These PET scan changes correlate with progression of Alzheimers disease.Episodic memory loss begins at this stage. Episodic memory loss is the inability to learn new information or to recall previously learned information. It manifests as forgetting of recent events and conversations, repetitive questions, repetitive retelling of stories, forgetting the date, forgetting appointments, misplacing objects, losing valuables, and forgetting that food is cooking on the stove. The formation of new episodic memories requires intact medial temporal lobes of the brain; these are progressively destroyed in Alzheimers disease.
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) deveelops 5 years before dementia. People with mild cognitive impairment have problems with thinking and memory loss. Mild cognitive impairment does not interfere with everyday activities. Persons with mild cognitive impairment are often aware of their forgetfulness.Preventive therapies for Alzheimers disease (AD) require the development of biomarkers that are sensitive to subtle brain changes occurring in the preclinical stage of the disease. Early diagnostics is necessary to identify and treat at risk individuals before irreversible neuronal loss occurs.
- Bateman R. The dominantly inherited Alzheimer's network trials: an opportunity to prevent Alzheimer's disease. Program and abstracts of the Alzheimer's Association International Conference 2012; July 14-19, 2012; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Featured research session F3-04
- Christian Humpel. Identifying and validating biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease. Trends Biotechnol. 2011 January; 29(1): 26–32. doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2010.09.007
- Duara R, Loewenstein DA, Potter E, Appel J, Greig MT, Urs R, Shen Q, Raj A, Small B, Barker W, Schofield E, Wu Y, Potter H. Medial temporal lobe atrophy on MRI scans and the diagnosis of Alzheimer disease. Neurology. 2008 Dec 9;71(24):1986-92.
- Mosconi L, Berti V, Glodzik L, Pupi A, De Santi S, de Leon MJ. Pre-clinical detection of Alzheimers disease using FDG-PET, with or without amyloid imaging. J Alzheimers Dis. 2010;20(3):843-54.

subset: commoncrawl


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Want to clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in one month? Seaswarm says it can be done with 5000 floating robots.
As the name implies, the project uses swarm robotics. Each unit draws power from the sun, and drags around a conveyor belt of oil absorbent nanofabric that doesn't get wet in water. Once the fabric is saturated with crude it can be removed using heat; not a task the swarm can do by itself. But get this: after separating oil from nanofabric both can be used again. That means you get the environmental benefit of cleaning up the Gulf, not throwing away your collection medium, and the oil is once again a usable commodity. Sounds like a lot of high promises, but take a look at the video after the break and decide for yourself.
Continue reading "Seaswarm: We Can Clean Up The Gulf In A Month"


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Nymphenburg Palace grounds - Munich, Germany
As part of the company's cultural sponsorship programme, Kärcher was involved in a restorative cleaning project on the Grand Cascade in the gardens of Nymphenburg Palace in Munich in mid-August. Led by project manager Gerd Heidrich from Kärcher Germany, three Kärcher employees and one restorer removed limescale, dirt and algae from the Grand Cascade.
"We were delighted to be involved in our first cleaning project in the Bavarian capital," said Christian May, Managing Director Kärcher Germany. "The Grand Cascade in Nymphenburg, with its walls of colourful marble, translucent veils of water and magnificent decorative statues, is a highlight for visitors to the popular Palace gardens," explains Klaus Häfner, restorer in the restoration centre of the Bavarian Palaces Department in Munich.
Unfortunately the water feature becomes dirty very quickly, with thick lime deposits and layers of algae continuously reforming. A further aim of this project was therefore to develop a simple and gentle cleaning method that could be used cost-effectively in future and that would also ensure long-lasting cleanliness. For the most part, hot water high-pressure cleaners and steam cleaners were used, with clearly visible results: the red and grey marble of the Cascade walls has been returned to its original splendour, while the two statues of "Isar" and "Danube" gleam bright white.


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ViziLite Oral Cancer Screening
ViziLite is an advanced oral screening tool used to identify abnormal cells along the mucous membranes inside the mouth and throat. The test takes approximately 2 minutes to administer, during which time a Granbury dentist will administer a special rinse to the mouth that causes the nuclei of abnormal pre-cancerous or cancerous cells appear to glow when subjected to the ViziLite technology. The light is especially useful in detecting oral cancer in its earliest stages before it has had an opportunity to spread to other tissues. The entire process is quick, painless, and has the potential to help save lives.
Did you know…that ViziLite can greatly reduce the number of false positive and false negative lesions found in dental offices? Clinical studies have shown ViziLite to correctly identify every pre-cancerous and cancerous lesion in patients who were screened. The technology also reduces the number of biopsies ordered by dentists due to normal tissues that appear cancerous to the naked eye, but aren't. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I get Granbury ViziLite oral cancer screening?
Yes. When you choose to get ViziLite oral cancer screening in Granbury, you are increasing your chances of early treatment should you be diagnosed with oral cancer. With modern technology making it possible to identify dangerous diseases in their earliest stages, why gamble with your health?
What should I expect during the ViziLite oral cancer screening?
Your screening will begin when your dentist asks you to rinse the inside of your mouth and back of your throat with a special solution. Your Granbury dentist will then shine the ViziLite fluorescent light on the surface areas of your inner mouth to search for spots that appear brighter than surrounding healthy tissues.
My results were negative for oral cancer. Do I need to be screened again?
As a precaution, you should be screened for oral cancer at every dental exam or at least once yearly.


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Calling secure (SSL) services from Silverlight 2
| Comments- | Posted in
- silverlight
- wpf
- xaml
- cross-domain
- ssl
- https
- x-domain
- clientaccesspolicy.xml
Now that Silverlight 2 has been released, one of the features (or should I say fixes) that is included is the ability for non-secure applications to call secure services. Previously this was not allowed and we referred to it as "cross-scheme violation." That means that a particular protocol scheme (file, http, https) could not access another. Prior to release this meant that a XAP hosted in an HTTP context could not call a secure service. Now we no longer have that restriction with the release. There are some things you have to do, so let me take a brief moment to demonstrate.
First, let's assume this environment:
We have our application that is served from our web server via HTTP. so our site is hosting the app on http://foo.com/MyApp.XAP. Our service is hosted on a secure endpoint which represents our segmented API.
NOTE: For sake of simplicity and lack of "real" hardware to actually segment out a totally representative environment. Translated: I only have one SSL certificate and wanted to keep hosting simple…the important note is that we have two separate domains.
And what we have created here is a double-whammy – a cross-domain, secure service request. So even though when you look at the diagram above, you might ask isn't the client machine making the request? Yes, but from an application with a different source-of-origin, which is what creates this scenario. Let's continue, shall we?
Prior to release, this simply wasn't enabled yet. Now that it is enabled, we can have our MyApp.xap application call our secure service (in this example is a SOAP service hosted in ASP.NET). In Silverlight 2, the service owner still has to opt-in for this to occur. We make use of the clientaccesspolicy.xml file which is leveraged for cross-domain scenarios (more information about cross-domain and policy files can be found here including a code snippet for Visual Studio to generate them). In our case here we need that to support our cross-domain scenario anyway, but we're also going to leverage it to enable non-secure callers to our service.
Let me make that clear: even if your secure service was hosted on the same domain as your non-secure caller, you would still need a policy file in place to enable non-secure callers.
What does the clientaccesspolicy.xml file look like then? Here's what we're using for our application:
1: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
2: <access-policy>
3: <cross-domain-access>
4: <policy>
5: <allow-from http-request-headers="SOAPAction">
6: <domain uri="http://*"/>
7: <domain uri="https://*" />
8: </allow-from>
9: <grant-to>
10: <resource include-subpaths="false" path="/"/>
11: </grant-to>
12: </policy>
13: </cross-domain-access>
14: </access-policy>
Now that this is in place, we're done. Notice the two (2) domain nodes there? I couldn't have just put "*" in there as we require you to explicitly allow non-secure callers in this scenario. And once you do that, if you didn't add the secure callers (https://*) then you'd leave them out. So although it looks a little weird (as if to say Tim, in my mind that reads "*"), it is correct. That's right, there isn't anything more you need to do. Our code would look the same. When we add a service reference to our Silverlight application, you'll see that the ServicesReferences.clientconfig makes note of the secure transport:
1: <configuration>
2: <system.serviceModel>
3: <bindings>
4: <basicHttpBinding>
5: <binding name="fooSoap" maxBufferSize="2147483647" maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647">
6: <security mode="Transport" />
7: </binding>
8: </basicHttpBinding>
9: </bindings>
10: <client>
11: <endpoint address="https://www.timheuer.com/foo.asmx" binding="basicHttpBinding"
12: bindingConfiguration="fooSoap" contract="Bar.fooSoap" name="fooSoap" />
13: </client>
14: </system.serviceModel>
15: </configuration>
Here's the rest of the code I'm using in XAML:
1: <UserControl x:Class="XDomain.Page"
2: xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
3: xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
4: Width="300" Height="300">
5: <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="White">
6: <StackPanel>
7: <TextBox x:Name="MyName" FontSize="24" />
8: <Button Content="Repeat" FontSize="24" Width="150" Height="50"
9: Click="Button_Click" />
10: <TextBlock FontSize="24" x:Name="RepeatedName" />
11: </StackPanel>
12: </Grid>
13: </UserControl>
and the code for the event handler on the button:
1: using System;
2: using System.Collections.Generic;
3: using System.Linq;
4: using System.Net;
5: using System.Windows;
6: using System.Windows.Controls;
7: using System.Windows.Documents;
8: using System.Windows.Input;
9: using System.Windows.Media;
10: using System.Windows.Media.Animation;
11: using System.Windows.Shapes;
13: namespace XDomain
14: {
15: public partial class Page : UserControl
16: {
17: public Page()
18: {
19: InitializeComponent();
20: }
22: private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
23: {
24: Bar.fooSoapClient foo = new XDomain.Bar.fooSoapClient();
25: foo.SayMyNameCompleted += (sdr, args) =>
26: {
27: RepeatedName.Text = args.Result;
28: };
29: foo.SayMyNameAsync(MyName.Text);
30: }
31: }
32: }
So there you have it. Add a simple policy file and you are enabled! I hope this helps! You can download a copy of this VS project here: XDomain.zip
Please enjoy some of these other recent posts...


text:
- Consulting services
Azure Red Hat Openshift:10-Days Implementation
10-days OpenShift Container as a Service on Azure (ARO) by G-Able reduces operational overhead & focuses on quickly delivering apps that add your business values while supporting regulatory compliance
G-Able provides solution to the customers for establish to accelerate market growth in cloud business transformation, Container as a Services solution enables every business and every organization to support continuously massive workload like Cloud native app and customize app modernization with elastic cloud platform that provides Private and Public Cloud.
G-Able is a Digital Services Provider who helps driving a business transformation with digital technologies. G-Able provides experienced and specialized personnel with a selection of software, platform, and solutions. As partnership with Microsoft and Redhat, G-Able offering offers container as a service the solution call "Azure Redhat OpenShift (ARO)" The solution that combined the OpenShift 's
leader market share and Azure Public Cloud.
G-Able shall provide total services for ARO (Microsoft Azure Redhat OpenShift) include architect, design, implement and operation base on custom made for specific requirement each customer all industry.
Customer Benefits
• Self Service Container Platform
• Container as a service on Cloud
• Market leader for Container Platform
• Ready and Managed Platform for Modernize Application
• Scalable on Demand
• Production used
Entry Criteria
• All industries
• Modernize Application
• Cloud first
Implementations Plans
Standard Package (5 days Implementation)
G-Able shall be provide profession service for provision and configuration a part of Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO) for container management.
• Provisioning ARO Cluster (latest version)
• Configure machine set.
• Disable kube admin user.
• Integrate with AAD.
• Expose registry route.
• Configure monitoring and Deploy EFK on Log& Monitoring nodes.
• User Acceptance Test
• Knowledge transfer by on-the-job training
Add-on Advance Package (10 Days Implementation)
• Change instance type of worker.
• Scale the six worker nodes.
• Label Infra/Log & Monitoring nodes.
• 1 ARO Cluster (3 Masters, 3 workers)
• Configuration Document
• Operation Document
Price Plan
• Standard: Profession service's Price Start at 200,000 Baht (without ARO's services)
• Advanced: Profession service 's Price Start at 250,000 Baht (without ARO's services)


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Beware of Alexander: Denis Alexander has written a book entitledCreation or Evolution, Do we have to choose. He is a member of a prominent English evangelical church. The book is endorsed by well-known theologians and church leaders, including the Bishop of Oxford and Prof. J. I. Packer.
In spite of Alexander's claim to be an evangelical Christian who believes in the authority of Scripture, his book is clearly aimed at fitting Scripture into evolution, rather than examining evolution in the light of Scripture. The book covers a range of issues but does not add anything new to the debate. According to a review by Paul Taylor of Answers in Genesis, Alexander's book promotes evolution and denounces six day creationism with the same "tired old bromides" that have been used by theistic evolutionists for many years. For example, Alexander claims "the biblical understanding of creation is not primarily concerned with how things began, but why they exist." This can easily be refuted by reading Genesis 1, in which God tells us why he made the lights in the sky, but is otherwise a plain narrative of what God did and in what order, with no comment on why God did anything. Alexander defends evolution with the peppered moth, sickle cell anaemia, and antibiotic resistance in "superbugs" and makes the usual evolutionists' assertion that "virtually no biologist in the research community actually doubts evolution."
Alexander really gets carried away with his efforts to fit Scripture into evolution by referring to the parable of the sower in Matthew 13 and claiming that "Jesus himself used the same idea in his famous parable of the sower who needs to scatter far more seed than will ever germinate and lead to a good crop." As Paul Taylor comments: "This is merely an artificial way of introducing Jesus into a godless argument."
In spite of his assertion that he believes in the supremacy of Scripture, Alexander also brings up the old argument, used by liberal theologians, that "Genesis 1 – 2:3 may be read as a polemical and sometimes satirical attack on the Babylonian and Sumerian creation stories that were widespread in the Near East during the period 500-2000 BC." This argument assumes that the Babylonian creation myths pre-date Genesis, rather than Genesis being the original.
Alexander pours scorn on those who point out the inconsistencies between evolution and creation with judgemental statements such as: "One of the deep mysteries of life … is why people spend their time going round churches telling people that they don't believe evolutionary theory." (p.131). "Christians who make it their mission to attack evolution . . . are embarrassing and bring the gospel into disrepute." (p.352). In fact, it is books like Alexander's that do the gospel the most harm by dismissing the historical Adam and making the Fall of man into a theological theory, rather than a real event in real history. Paul Taylor summarises the problem: "If Adam's death was just figurative or "spiritual", then why did Jesus have to die a real death? Jesus died a real death because there was a real Adam in a real Garden who committed a real sin against a real God. This sin is now imputed to you and me (and we continue to sin on our own), so we need a real Saviour to die a real death on a real cross."
Paul Taylor's review here.
Editorial Comment: Denis Alexander's opposition to those of us who defend the plain truth of Genesis reminds us of another Alexander, whom the Apostle Paul referred to as having done much harm by strongly opposing Paul's message (2 Tim 4:14-15). Paul's message to the pagan Greeks, who believed evolutionary ideas, was that they must put away their false beliefs and turn to the one true God who made Heaven and Earth and all that is in them. Paul also taught that Christians must not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of their minds. Dennis Alexander's book is a classic case of being conformed to the prevailing evolutionary world view. Compromising Scripture always undermines its authority, and one only has to look at the lack of interest in the gospel and decline in respect for Biblical based laws that has occurred since Church leaders refused to stand up to the anti-Christian doctrine of evolution, to see the damage such compromise has done. (Ref. evolutionism, theology, compromise)
Evidence News 12 Dec 2008


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Gluten Free Sesame Sandwich Bread
In March my lovely friend Cari forwarded me an article from Epicurious. It was a great article on gluten free cooking. I just have to try the coconut cake sometime very soon! Yum!
In the article was a nice looking sandwich bread that contained a lot of fiber containing "flours" which is missing in so much gluten free food. We tried it and liked it, but of course I had to tweek it a bit. Our version is dairy free and I use a "sponge" technique, which means I let part of the ingredients soak and rest with the yeast for a few hours before mixing in the rest of the ingredients. This produced better flavor and a nice soft sandwich bread texture more reminiscent of gluten filled sandwich bread. If you have a family member that would prefer to skip the sesame seeds (for less crunchy texture in your bread) leave them out, but still include the oil from the seed step (no need to heat the oil).
I did not have coconut flour on hand, but did have Let's Do Organic brand finely shredded organic unsweetened coconut. I ground the coconut in my coffee grinder I use for herbs and spices until a fine powder and used that for the coconut flour. It worked very well.
Be sure to use a 8" x 3 3/4" bread pan as you will get a better rise and a nicer loaf.
Gluten-Free Sesame Sandwich Bread
Adapted by Angela Litzinger from Epicurious March 2008 recipe by Zoe Singer
Makes 1 (8-x 3 3/4 x 2 3/8-inch) loaf
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast, from 1 (1/4-ounce) package
½ cup water, room temperature
1 teaspoon lemon juice or apple cider
1/4 cup gluten/dairy free milk substitute (ie: almond milk), room temperature
1 tablespoon molasses
6 tablespoons chickpea flour
1/4 cup amaranth flour
1/4 cup sorghum flour
2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal
2 tablespoons potato flour
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon unflavored powdered gelatin, from 1 (1/4-ounce) envelope
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup coconut flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
3 large eggs, room temperature (whisk and remove 2 T, set aside for later mixed with 1 T water)
egg wash (above) and 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
**optional: 2 T sesame seeds and 2 T flax seeds (mix flax seeds at same time as tapioca blend)
Special equipment: 1 (8- by 3 3/4- by 2 3/8-inch) loaf pan
In small saucepan over moderate heat, heat oil until hot but not smoking. Stir in 3 tablespoons sesame seeds and sauté until seeds are golden brown and fragrant, about 4 minutes. Transfer mixture to small bowl and let cool to room temperature.
In large bowl, pour 1/2 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F) in and sprinkle yeast over and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add milk substitute that has been mixed with the lemon juice, molasses, chickpea flour, amaranth flour, sorghum flour, cornmeal, and potato flour. Stir to combine. Cover bowl and allow to sit 2-4 hours.
Here is my bread sponge working. Your sponge will get bubbly and rise and fall.
When ready to finish the bread, in small bowl, sprinkle gelatin over 2 tablespoons cold water. Stir, then let stand until softened, about 5 minutes.
Position rack in middle of oven and preheat to 425°F. Oil loaf pan.
In large bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment, whisk together tapioca flour, almond flour, coconut flour, cornstarch, xantham gum, and salt. Add bread sponge, eggs and gelatin/water mixture. Beat at moderate speed until dough is aerated and holds its shape, about 4 minutes. Scrape down bowl, then beat at high speed for 1 minute. Transfer dough to prepared pan and smooth top with rubber spatula. (If necessary, use a wet hand to smooth completely.) Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place until dough is just level with top of pan, about 1 hour.
In small bowl, whisk together remaining 2 tablespoons of egg and 1 teaspoon water. When dough has risen, lightly brush egg wash over top, then sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon sesame seeds.
Bake bread until firm, about 30 minutes, then carefully turn loaf out of pan and continue baking directly on oven rack until bottom sounds hollow when tapped, about 15 minutes more. (I baked it in the pan for the entire time.) Transfer to wire rack and cool at least 1 1/2 hours before slicing. (Store bread, tightly wrapped, 3 days at room temperature, 1 week refrigerated, or 1 month frozen.)
A version without sesame seeds.
Your bread looks lovely! I do love baking bread 😉 have great admiration for gluten free bakers.


text:
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 17, 2001
Continuation of Emergency with Respect to Burma
On May 20, 1997, the President issued Executive Order 13047, certifying to the Congress under section 570(b) of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1997 (Public Law 104-208), that the Government of Burma has committed large-scale repression of the democratic opposition in Burma after September 30, 1996, thereby invoking the prohibition on new investment in Burma by United States persons, contained in that section. The President also declared a national emergency to deal with the threat posed to the national security and foreign policy of the United States by the actions and policies of the Government of Burma, invoking the authority, inter alia, of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1703(c)).
The national emergency declared on May 20, 1997, must continue beyond May 20, 2001, because the Government of Burma continues its policies of committing large-scale repression of the democratic opposition in Burma, threatening the national security and foreign policy of the United States. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing the national emergency with respect to Burma. This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress.
THE WHITE HOUSE, May 15, 2001.
# # #


text:
Inbound marketing is one of those slightly nebulous phrases that gets bandied about at meetings; something that everybody sort of understands, and feels they should be doing.
Often, however, a well-meaning attempt at inbound marketing simply amounts to somebody knocking out a few blog posts that don't end up generating much in the way of either traffic or leads.
This usually comes down to a fundamental lack of understanding of what inbound marketing is, and how to go about doing it.
So in this post, I'm going to define inbound marketing and take you through the key steps needed for a successful inbound campaign.
Let's start with the key question.
What is inbound marketing?
The easiest way to think about inbound marketing is as a way to pull people to your website through the publishing and optimization of extremely engaging, targeted content. This content is then promoted by you and, very importantly, by the people consuming it.
This differs from a traditional online marketing approach because it doesn't have to involve a large advertising spend to push people to a website. This makes it attractive to startups or SMEs who lack large marketing budgets.
Remember however that although they might not require a lot of capital to start, inbound marketing campaigns can be very resource intensive. It takes effort to create all that great content.
Let's look at the key steps involved in an inbound marketing campaign.
1. Start with keyword research
The first step on your inbound marketing journey involves identifying topics to write about that are likely to generate traffic, and the right sort of it.
For obvious reasons, these need to be related to your business area and your target audience. There is no point in blogging about cats for grannies if you intend to sell flat whites to hipsters.
Broadly speaking, in order for your content to generate a sizeable number of visits, you will need to make sure that:
- A reasonably large number of people are actually searching for the sort of content you intend to publish in the first place.
- Search results are not already packed with articles on well-known sites that cover exactly the same topic.
In other words, you usually need to find a 'content niche' — a sweet spot in search results where there is demand for the sort of thing you want to publish, without there being a truckload of articles (particularly on popular websites) that already cover that ground.
To find this niche, you'll need to make use of a keyword research tool. There are quite a few on the market; examples include Moz Keyword Explorer, Semrush, Serpstat and my personal favorite, Ahrefs.
You can use keyword research tools to find out two key pieces of information that will help you find your niche:
- Roughly how many searches per month there are for a particular phrase.
- How difficult it will be to rank for it.
Let's say you have made an iPhone app for runners and want to sell it to people with an interest in staying fit. You can now enter a few phrases into your keyword research tool to see which ones would make potentially good blog post titles.
You'll quickly find out that there would be little point in publishing articles called 'iPhone' or 'iPhone apps', because although there are huge volumes of searches for these phrases, you will never outgun Apple in search results.
However, you might find that there is a potential gap in search results for phrases such as 'free running app for iPhone' or 'iOs app for runners.'
The trick is to find phrases that generate a reasonable number of searches from people who are most likely to be interested in your product or service, but which also have a low difficulty score.
You might also like: How to Generate Leads for Your Business Using Content.
2. Create extremely compelling content
Once you've found your niche, it's time to create some content that will really draw people and search engines in. Generally speaking, long-form content in the form of blog posts is your best bet here.
There are quite a few reasons why long-form content is the best sort to produce, but two important ones are as follows:
- It's keyword rich, something that search engines really like.
- It's in-depth, something that users really like as it answers their query adequately and makes them more likely to share it.
When creating your content, you also need to ensure that you take some basic steps to ensure its visibility in search engines. This means adhering to best practices around the formatting of page titles, headers, and metadata in your content.
The key thing about the content you create for an inbound marketing campaign is that it has to be brilliant, regardless of whether it's a blog post or video, long or short. Whether 'brilliant' means informative, touching, or hilarious, it needs to be something that will really satisfy your users and make them want to share it.
3. Encourage content sharing
Inbound marketing campaigns only really succeed when people share the content produced for them.
There are two types of shares you need to achieve for your content:
- Social shares — Tweets, inclusion of your content in Facebook posts, etc.
- Backlink creation — When somebody creates a link to your content on their site.
As you might expect, social shares generate traffic to your content by increasing its visibility in social media feeds and driving clickthroughs. As such, it's a good idea to add social sharing icons to your site, make them extremely prominent, and actively encourage social sharing in the copy of your articles.
Backlinks are hugely important for ensuring visibility in search results. Simply put, the more backlinks you can generate to your content from reputable sources, the more likely it is that people will see it in search results.
I recommend being forthright in asking readers to create a backlink to your site from theirs. Though not all your readers will have their own site or blog, a proportion will, and you'll get valuable 'link juice' if enough of them oblige. So include a 'please link to this' call-to-action in your content.
Furthermore, in most cases you'll need to engage in backlink building in general. This involves reaching out to bloggers and editors of news sites with a view of getting links to your content from theirs. Ideally, your backlinks should contain anchor text — the clickable text in a link — that contains the keywords you are hoping to rank for.
4. Convert visitors to leads
Once you have visitors on your page, it's time to convert them to leads. The best way to do this is to capture their email address.
While it's undeniably useful to gain social media followers as a result of people consuming your content, capturing an email address is arguably the best sort of lead generation, for two main reasons:
- Email has a great ROI.
- You are in charge of the relationship with your subscribers and can contact them directly via email. You won't have to worry if a social media algorithm will hide your content from your leads.
In order to capture email addresses, you'll need to use an email marketing platform and embed sign up forms for these tools prominently on your site.
I've found pop-up forms and welcome mats to be the most effective way to do this; the conversion rates tend to very high. You should note however that you need to be a bit careful about how you implement them; Google is not a fan of overly obtrusive pop-ups, or 'interstitials' as it calls them.
Regardless of whether you use pop-ups or not, you should always ensure maximum visibility for your mailing list sign-up forms.
This typically means ensuring that
- Sign-up forms are embedded in a sidebar on your site.
- There is a subscribe option in your navigation.
- There is a sign-up form at the bottom of each blog post.
- Your footer contains a button which allows people to join your list.
In essence, you want to make it incredibly easy for people to sign up to your mailing list. What's more, you want to make the prospect of joining your list very appealing. Don't use a boring 'join our mailing list' call to action — spell out all the great stuff that the subscriber is going to receive when he or she joins your list.
Once you've captured a visitor's email address, it's tempting to view this as an opportunity to immediately start trying to sell your products and services to that subscriber.
And while it's obviously important to promote your wares via your mailing list, if you are serious about inbound marketing you should be equally focused on using your list to promote your content — other blog posts, videos, etc. that your subscriber may find interesting.
This is because the more your subscribers who encounter your content via your enewsletters, the more click-throughs you'll get to it, which in turn can lead to more social shares and backlinks for your content (and — happy days — more traffic).
You can promote your content really easily by using autoresponders — automated enewsletters sent by your email marketing tool at intervals of your choosing. These autoresponders should direct subscribers to other pieces of content on your site that they might enjoy. Obviously encourage them to share it on social media or create backlinks to it when you do so.
5. Apply a sales funnel
To get the most out of inbound marketing, you need to have a very clear idea about what you want to do with the leads you've captured as a result of all your fantastic content-creation efforts.
A clearly defined sequence in the form of a sales (or conversion) funnel will help you out here. This is basically a set of steps that each lead should be taken through.The nature of your sales funnel will depend on the type of business you're running, but the aim is to create a journey that efficiently converts your lead from being a mailing list subscriber into a fully-fledged customer.
Ideally, this conversion process should be as personalized as possible.se data segmentation along with email copy and phone call scripts that deliver the most relevant, targeted information about your products and services to your leads.
Autoresponders can help here, as can CRM tools — particularly those that facilitate sophisticated workflows that look at user data and how your subscribers interact with your enewsletters to provide a highly customized, automated series of communications.
You might also like: Go Back to School With These Online Courses for Continuous Learning.
Analyze, optimize, repeat
When you've got a successful inbound marketing process up and running, don't think you can leave it at that. Your next job is to analyze what's working and what's not, optimize the process, and repeat!
Use data from your keyword research tools, website analytics, email reporting, and social media profiles to find out what content really works for you, and what sort of content you should be creating in the future.
Similarly, keep an eye on your sales funnel, autoresponders, and CRM to see what's working well in terms of generating leads and customers, and how you can streamline and improve this process as you grow your business.
Are you planning an inbound marketing campaign? Let us know in the comments below!


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Before being elected president, Joe Biden promised he could accomplish a lot of things in his first 100 days in office.
We gathered a number of those priorities here, two days after he was declared the winner of the 2020 election.
As we approach the 100-day mark of his presidency, and ahead of his first address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, Biden has made a lot of progress on COVID-19, and Americans largely approve of the job he's doing handling the coronavirus pandemic and the economy.
It's a different story, however, when it comes to immigration, which polls show is the president's biggest vulnerability at this point. H has also made efforts on racial justice, the environment and switching back to a more multilateral approach to foreign policy. But so far he has not been able to get everything done that he set out to do.
Here's where Biden stands on much of what he promised (jump down to the details on each topic from the graphic):
Assemble a coronavirus task force: DONE
This was accomplished, and the task force continues with regular briefings, usually three times a week, that do not involve the president. His task force has had a focus on equity in a way that was never done under the Trump administration.
Push for immediate coronavirus legislation: DONE
This is Biden's signature accomplishment so far, as he signed a $1.9 trillion relief bill that passed along party lines. It contained money for direct payments, enhanced unemployment benefits and rental assistance, but did not include everything Biden wanted, particularly a raise in the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The wage hike was deemed ineligible under the Senate's rules for using reconciliation, a process that Democrats used as an end run around Republican opposition. The legislation also did not include $10,000 per person in student loan forgiveness (other options are still being talked about on that front).
Release a vaccine distribution plan: DONE
This was released during the transition. To date, more than 40% of the population has received at least one dose of a vaccine and more than 27% is fully vaccinated. Biden has received high marks in polls for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there are still inequities in who has been able to access the vaccines.
Rejoin World Health Organization and keep Dr. Anthony Fauci as a close adviser: DONE
These steps were taken very early on. Fauci was the one to announce that the U.S. would be remaining in the WHO but noted that the U.S. would work "to strengthen and reform" the organization. The WHO was the subject of intense criticism from the Trump administration for what it saw as failures to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
Reverse Trump's corporate tax cut: NOT YET ACHIEVED
Biden has not been able to accomplish this yet, but he wants to roll back much of what Trump did by enacting tax increases on corporations to pay for his approximately $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The upcoming American Families Plan would reportedly be paid for by tax hikes on wealthy individuals.
Organize a "climate world summit": DONE
Biden held a virtual international climate summit last week, urging countries to follow the United States' lead in reducing their contributions to global warming.
Make the U.S. an international leader on climate change: IT'S COMPLICATED
This is one of Biden's murkier — and more challenging — promises. The rest of the world, Europe in particular, has seen the U.S. drop out of and rejoin multiple international climate agreements and is wary of whether any climate commitments started by Biden would last in the country's current political environment.
Still, the administration has released an aggressive plan to cut emissions over the coming decade, and its infrastructure proposal, if approved, would provide unprecedented boosts to clean energy efforts.
— Scott Detrow, NPR White House correspondent
Racial equity
Extend the Voting Rights Act: NOT YET ACHIEVED
A comprehensive voting bill passed the House, but Republicans have universally opposed it, leaving its fate in limbo in the U.S. Senate — and leading to renewed discussions among Democrats about scrapping the legislative filibuster. Republicans argue that the federal government should leave voting rights issues and election administration to the states.
But following the 2020 presidential election and former President Donald Trump's false allegations of widespread fraud, multiple GOP-led states aretaking steps to restrict voting rights. Georgia's recently passed law, for example, has been the subject of corporate boycotts and the reason for Major League Baseball moving its All-Star Game out of Atlanta.
Institute a national police oversight commission: DROPPED
This month, the White House announced it was shelving the commission, saying it "would not be the most effective way to deliver on our top priority in this area, which is to sign the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act into law." The bill, which has passed the House but not the Senate, would overhaul certain police practices and ban chokeholds.
The day after the Derek Chauvin guilty verdict for the murder of George Floyd, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Justice Department would be launching an investigationinto the Minneapolis Police Department for possible patterns of discrimination and excessive use of force. It's the first investigation of its kind during the Biden presidency.
Push Congress to pass the SAFE Justice Act: NOT YET ACHIEVED
The Safe, Accountable, Fair, and Effective Justice Act (or SAFE Justice Act) was a bipartisan piece of legislation introduced by Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia and now-former Republican Rep. Jason Lewis of Minnesota. It would take steps toward changing sentencing and probation, including reducing the use of mandatory-minimum sentencing for nonviolent offenses and instituting policies geared at lowering recidivism.
It was first introduced in 2017 but never received a vote. There has been no action to this point in Congress on the legislation, but congressional aides with knowledge of the legislative push say they are expecting it will be introduced as soon as next month and believe it will have bipartisan and bicameral support. They see it as a complement to the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which does not deal with sentencing and probation or what happens to people after they serve their time.
Introduce legislation that would give a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the U.S. illegally and especially for those brought to the U.S. illegally as children: DONE
One of Biden's first acts as president was to introduce the legislation. But the prospects for a comprehensive overhaul passing Congress are dim. Democrats on Capitol Hill formally introduced Biden's wide-reaching plan in the House in February, but nothing has come of a potential comprehensive overhaul to this point because of solid Republican opposition. That continues to leave millions in the country illegally and others looking to come in limbo.
Make the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program permanent: IT'S COMPLICATED
Biden signed an executive order on his first day in office that strengthened DACA, but the program remains under threat. A federal judge in Texas, who previously indicated that he thought DACA was unlawful, is expected to rule on the legality of the program soon. But there are also several efforts on Capitol Hill to pass legislation to secure and/or expand DACA-like protections for people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as minors.
Stop family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border: IT'S COMPLICATED
Trump's widely criticized family separation policies were largely stopped during his own administration, and Biden signed an executive order condemning the policy. The current administration is making efforts to reunite families separated under the Trump administration, but in practice, families continue to separate themselves on the Mexican side of the border, where parents send children alone from tent encampments. This has led to an increase of unaccompanied minors coming across the U.S.-Mexico border, and the administration has struggled to deal with the post-Trump surge.
Sign an executive order establishing a task force focused on reuniting children and parents separated at the border: DONE
This was done Feb. 2. The executive order created a task force to help identify children separated from their parents and reunite the families. As of the beginning of April, however, no family members had been reunited.
End Trump's executive order banning travelers from some Muslim-majority countries: DONE
One of the first actions Biden took after assuming office wassigning a proclamation ending the ban on travelers from several majority-Muslim countries.
Stop the Trump administration's Migrant Protection Protocols as well as the policy of "metering" asylum cases: IT'S COMPLICATED
On his first day in office, Biden had the Department of Homeland Security suspend new enrollments in a program that has pushed tens of thousands of migrants to wait in Mexico for asylum hearings in U.S. courts. A few weeks later, the administration started to allow asylum-seekers in the program into the United States.
Biden has promised to end "metering," the practice of instituting a daily restriction on how many migrants can seek asylum. But so far the administration has continued to restrict asylum-seekers through two other measures: a ban on "nonessential" travel and a Trump-era finding under "Title 42 of the U.S. Code that anyone 'who would otherwise be introduced into a congregate setting in a land Port of Entry (POE)' posed a public health risk," David Bier of the Cato Institute reported. It's unclear how or if the Biden administration will address or end the efforts in the future.
Take away funding for continued construction of a wall along the southern U.S. border: IT'S COMPLICATED
The wall was another of the first issues Biden promised to address. The president issued a proclamation to this effect on his first day, revoking Trump's emergency declaration that had helped fund the construction of a border wall. Biden's $1.5 trillion budget proposal also did not call for funding for the construction of the border wall.
Biden's order included a 60-day review. But his plans now don't appear as concrete. It has been more than a month since that two-month review period, yet the White House says the review is ongoing. The Biden government has even been involved in winning eminent domain cases held over from the Trump administration. And Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas reportedly toldemployees that some border wall construction might begin again to plug "gaps" left from the construction halted when Biden took office.
It's another example — in addition to waffling on lifting the Trump-imposed refugee cap — of Biden struggling to figure out a clear and cogent approach to immigration.
Increase government supervision over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection, calling for the need to hold personnel "accountable for inhumane treatment": DONE
While his $1.5 trillion budget outline did not provide funding for the wall, it did call for an increase of funding for an investigation of immigration agents accused of "white supremacy."
As part of a more "humane" policy, ICE and CBP were told last week to drop the terms "illegal," "alien" and "assimilation." "Illegal" will become "undocumented"; "noncitizen" or "migrant" should be used instead of "alien"; and "assimilation" should be replaced by "integration." In February, the administration issued new guidance for agents to prioritize arrests of immigrants who are national security and public safety threats.
— NPR's Franco Ordoñez contributed reporting
Foreign policy
Pledge to "pick up the pieces of Donald Trump's broken foreign policy": IT'S COMPLICATED
Under Trump, views of the U.S. plummeted among the country's strongest allies. Biden has switched U.S. foreign policy back to a more multilateral stance and has shifted power back to diplomacy and the State Department as well. At the Munich Security Conference in February, Biden declared, "America is back." That was met mostly positively by America's allies in Europe, but France and Germany pushed back, notably pointing out that they had to put some distance between themselves and the United States, that the U.S. could not always be relied on and that "interests will not always converge."
Biden also set a date for removing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan: Sept. 11, 2021, which happens to be the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. "We went to Afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago," Biden said this month. "That cannot explain why we should remain there in 2021. We were attacked; we went to war with clear goals. ... We achieved those objectives. Bin Laden is dead and al-Qaida is degraded in Afghanistan, and it's time to end this forever war.''
Trump also wanted to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, and his administration had negotiated a deal to remove troops by May 1 of this year, something Biden said would be "tough" to achieve. There has been mixed reaction to Biden's decision, particularly because the withdrawal comes without conditions — it's America's longest war, but there are concerns over tracking militants in Afghanistan.
International summit: NOT YET ACHIEVED
Beyond 100 days, Biden wants to "host a global Summit for Democracy to renew the spirit and shared purpose of the nations of the Free World." The idea is to gather democratic countries to find ways to combat corruption, authoritarianism and human rights abuses. Biden plans to hold the summit in the coming months, and he has already done an about-face from Trump in calling out corruption and authoritarianism in Russia as well as focusing on human rights abuses in China. That, however, caused a flare-up in tensions last month during the first major talks between the U.S. and China during Biden's presidency.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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A federal appeals court declined to endorse special treatment for a former president. Instead, it blocked a ruling on classified documents.
The federal court blocked part of a lower court ruling on paper seized from Trump's Florida residence. This lets the Justice Department resume its examination of around a hundred papers marked classified. The lower court ruling named a special master to look over the papers. It said the extraordinary search of an ex-president's home required extra steps to ensure, quote, "at least the appearance of fairness." But the higher court pointedly applied the normal precedents and rules that apply to anyone else.
INSKEEP: NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas is covering this story. Ryan, good morning.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: I guess we should note, the judges begin this ruling by saying this is limited. They were asked one narrow question, and they answered only the question they were posed - judicial restraint. What did they address?
LUCAS: Well, the Justice Department appealed part of a district court judge's ruling appointing a special master, as they said, to review the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago. And there are two things that the Justice Department was asking from the appeals court. One, it wanted the appeals court to allow investigators to use around a hundred classified documents taken from Mar-a-Lago in the FBI's ongoing criminal investigation. And the other thing is it wanted the appeals court to stay the lower court ruling ordering the Justice Department to provide the special master with those classified documents.
INSKEEP: OK, so of all the papers seized, they're only focusing on the papers marked classified. This question goes to a three-judge panel, one of them appointed by Barack Obama, two appointed by Donald Trump. Trump-appointed justices, judges, have a majority. What did they say?
LUCAS: Well, this three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals noted that there's no evidence that Trump declassified the sensitive records that were found at Mar-a-Lago. Trump has made that claim in public, of course, but his lawyers, quite notably, have not said as much in court, where they're under oath. The panel also rejected the idea that Trump could have an individual interest in or need for these roughly 100 documents marked as classified. And the panel also said that there's a strong public interest here in ensuring that how these records were stored at Mar-a-Lago did not damage national security.
So what the appeals court ruling means is that the FBI will be able to use the classified materials taken from Mar-a-Lago in their ongoing criminal investigation now, instead of potentially having to wait weeks or months for the special master to review them. And it also means that the FBI doesn't have to provide these classified records to the special master. And it's important to note here, this was a unanimous ruling, including the two Trump-appointed judges.
INSKEEP: But they did leave some of the lower court ruling in place. Does this special master continue looking at the other documents?
LUCAS: So special master Raymond Dearie will continue his review of the roughly 11,000 other documents, yes, but he will no longer be reviewing the classified materials. This ruling essentially removes those hundred or so documents marked as classified, some of them at the highest levels of classification - it removes those from the special master's review. But it's not clear that Dearie, frankly, had much patience for the Trump legal team's arguments in the first place. There was a hearing earlier this week that Dearie had in New York. Dearie expressed skepticism of the Trump legal team's resistance to providing evidence that Trump had actually attempted to declassify the documents. He actually told Trump's attorneys at one point, you can't have your cake and eat it, too.
INSKEEP: Ryan, reading this ruling, I noted the appeals court underlined how little Trump's lawyers have ever claimed on his behalf in court, where, as you said, they have to be - they're under oath. To rule for Trump, the court would have to find that the FBI acted with callous disregard for his rights. But his lawyers did not even claim that. They never repeated the hyperbole and lies that his supporters have used on cable TV. So how is Trump responding now?
LUCAS: Well, there hasn't been any immediate response from Trump. But look; he's had a lot of other things to deal with on another legal front. Of course, he was sued yesterday by the New York attorney general, who is seeking roughly 250 million in penalties and also to ban Trump, his children, members of the executive team, from doing business in New York state. So Trump has had a rough 24 hours on a couple of legal fronts here.
INSKEEP: And you've had a busy time as well. Ryan, thanks so much.
LUCAS: Thank you.
INSKEEP: NPR's Ryan Lucas.
INSKEEP: The Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point yesterday.
MARTÍNEZ: The latest hike is aimed to bring down inflation, but by raising the cost of borrowing, the Fed also slows down the economy. Home prices are falling. Stocks and bonds are both down a lot this year.
INSKEEP: NPR's Chris Arnold joins us next. Good morning.
CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: Hey, Steve.
INSKEEP: How did Powell explain his, I guess, fifth rate hike in about six months?
ARNOLD: Yeah, he talked about how higher prices, inflation, are - is hurting a lot of Americans. He spent some time talking about that. The annual inflation rate in August was about 8%. That's just a bit lower than the month before, so not a lot of improvement. And Powell's job here is to really convince the world, basically, that the Fed is serious about doing what it takes to fight that inflation. Here's what he said.
JEROME POWELL: We have got to get inflation behind us. I wish there were a painless way to do that. There isn't. We have to get supply and demand back into alignment, and the way we do that is by slowing the economy.
INSKEEP: Which they do with interest rates, with other tools, I guess, and also just signaling that it's what they intend to do.
ARNOLD: Right. And it might sound bad to be slowing the economy, but the hope is that will cool off higher prices. And Powell's messaging here is really important, too, because people's expectations matter a lot. So if workers think that, oh, inflation is going to go up, I need higher wages, they're going to push for higher wages, and businesses will feel more pressure for that, and they'll think, well, look; I can just raise prices to pay the higher wages. And we get into a cycle. The Fed doesn't want that wage price spiral to get embedded. So Powell is saying, we are going to slow the economy, even if it means job losses, even if it means a recession. That's the pain that he's talking about.
INSKEEP: What does all of this mean specifically for the housing market?
ARNOLD: Well, rising rates, that's pushed mortgage rates up a lot this year, too, and that's making it much harder to buy a house. So we got some new numbers yesterday. Home prices fell 6% since June. That's the biggest two-month drop in nearly a decade. And Powell talked about housing, too.
POWELL: We've had a time of a red-hot housing market all over the country, where, you know, famously, houses were selling at 10% above the ask before even seeing the house, that kind of thing. Housing prices were going up at an unsustainably fast level. So we probably, in the housing market, have to go through a correction.
ARNOLD: Now, correction might sound scary. They could just flatten off prices. They could come down a bit more. We'll find out.
INSKEEP: I would imagine that this is one of those periods where if you're lucky enough to have money socked away for retirement in some fund, you shouldn't be looking at that because you'll be horrified by how much it's gone down.
ARNOLD: Yeah, yeah. Particularly now because it's not just stocks going down; bonds are going down, too. And, you know, it's sort of a 101 investing thing, right? Like, I want to own some stocks. You want to own some bonds. And one of the reasons for that is that it diversifies your risk in that they don't usually fall at the same time. But a side effect, really, of what the Fed's fight against inflation is doing is that it's pushing both down at the same time, stocks and bonds, and that's hurting people, you know, with retirement accounts and 529 plans. I talked to a retiree, Deborah McDaniel. She lives in Bremerton, Wash., and her 401(k) has fallen down from around $500,000 to 400,000.
DEBORAH MCDANIEL: It is concerning to me that this not go on for too much longer because it could turn what I was hoping was an adequate retirement into, oh, maybe I need to find a job again at 69 - not something I relish doing.
ARNOLD: So that is some more of the pain that the Fed's talking about with fighting inflation.
INSKEEP: NPR's Chris Arnold. Thanks.
ARNOLD: Thanks, Steve.
INSKEEP: Demonstrations have spread to dozens of cities in Iran.
MARTÍNEZ: Crowds are taking to the streets in response to the death of a young woman who was in police custody.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
(Chanting in non-English language).
(Chanting in non-English language).
MARTÍNEZ: Protesters have chanted, death to the dictator, and I will kill the one who killed my sister. And that's in reference to 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She was detained by Iran's so-called morality police for an alleged violation of the rules requiring women to cover their hair. Her family rejects the police explanation that she fell ill after being arrested, saying she was beaten.
INSKEEP: NPR's Peter Kenyon has been following this story from Istanbul. Hey there, Peter.
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: What do these protests look like?
KENYON: Well, they're looking bigger and more widespread since they started last weekend. Crowds have taken to the streets in dozens of cities all across the country. Some women have taken off or burned their hijabs, rather than wearing them. Police have aggressively dispersed protesters - tear gas, batons and, by some accounts, with live fire. I spoke with analyst Sanam Vakil at London-based Chatham House think tank, and she told me the authorities' usual playbook includes cutting off access to the internet, which they've done, and increasing aggression by security forces. But to this point, it's not working. Here's how she put it.
SANAM VAKIL: The protests have spread to at least 40 cities, that we know of, and there are a number of further tragic deaths and hundreds of detentions that we don't even know about yet. I expect it's going to get worse in the coming days.
KENYON: Yeah, she thinks it may get worse when Ebrahim Raisi returns from the U.N. General Assembly to Iran. Vakil also says Iranians have, in recent years, looked for any opportunity to express their frustration on personal freedoms, the economy, the environment. So it's not just about the hijab. There's a widespread feeling that public grievances are just being ignored.
INSKEEP: Peter, you just mentioned that Ebrahim Raisi, the president, is in New York, addressed the United Nations. Is he speaking about this at all?
KENYON: Well, he didn't directly address the protests in his address, but he did have a message that was, essentially, anything like unrest must be seen as an internal Iranian matter; neither the U.S. nor anyone else has any business getting involved. He also accused the West of having a double standard on human rights violations. Analyst Sanam Vakil says that's a familiar argument from Tehran. Here's what she said.
VAKIL: Indeed. And the Iranian regime likes to play the double-standard card and plays it quite well. Of course, it's very hard for them to fan the flames of double standards when they have an appalling record of human rights, complete disregard for the rule of law and due process and continue to repress their own citizens.
KENYON: Now, President Biden also talked about the protests. At the U.N., he said the United States stands with those he called the brave women of Iran who are demonstrating to secure basic rights.
INSKEEP: Doesn't sound like these protests are near the end.
KENYON: It's hard to see a path to quick de-escalation right now. We should note that a couple years ago, when those widespread protests erupted over the economy, Iranian security forces crushed them, killing hundreds and leaving thousands wounded.
INSKEEP: NPR's Peter Kenyon. Thanks so much.
KENYON: Thanks, Steve. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Description - Agnete Multi Yarn
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man pages section 5: Standards, Environments, and Macros Oracle Solaris 11.1 Information Library |
- authentication module for password
pam_passwd_auth provides authentication functionality to the password service as implemented by passwd(1). It differs from the standard PAM authentication modules in its prompting behavior. It should be the first module on the password service authentication stack.
The name of the user whose password attributes are to be updated must be present in the PAM_USER item. This can be accomplished due to a previous call to pam_start(3PAM), or explicitly set by pam_set_item(3PAM). Based on the current user-id and the repository that is to by updated, the module determines whether a password is necessary for a successful update of the password repository, and if so, which password is required.
The following options can be passed to the module:
syslog(3C) debugging information at the LOG_DEBUG level
Turn off warning messages
If the account authority for the user, as specified by PAM_USER, is a server, do not apply the Unix policy from the passwd entry in the name service switch.
The following error codes are returned:
Memory buffer error
Ignore module, not participating in result
Successfully obtains authentication token
System error
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
passwd(1), pam(3PAM), pam_authenticate(3PAM), pam_start(3PAM), pam_set_item(3PAM), syslog(3C), libpam(3LIB), pam.conf(4), attributes(5), pam_authtok_check(5), pam_authtok_get(5), pam_authtok_store(5), pam_dhkeys(5), pam_unix_account(5), pam_unix_auth(5), pam_unix_session(5)
The interfaces in libpam(3LIB) are MT-Safe only if each thread within the multi-threaded application uses its own PAM handle.
This module relies on the value of the current real UID, this module is only safe for MT-applications that don't change UIDs during the call to pam_authenticate(3PAM).


text:
104 Bless Jehovah, O my soul. O Jehovah my God, thou art very great; Thou art clothed with honor and majesty:
2 Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment; who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain;
3 Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters; who maketh the clouds his chariot; who walketh upon the wings of the wind;
4 Who maketh winds his messengers; flames of fire his ministers;
5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved for ever.
6 Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a vesture; the waters stood above the mountains.
7 At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away
8 Unto the place which thou hadst founded for them.
9 Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.
10 He sendeth forth springs into the valleys; they run among the mountains;
11 They give drink to every beast of the field; the wild asses quench their thirst.
12 By them the birds of the heavens have their habitation; they sing among the branches.
13 He watereth the mountains from his chambers: the earth is filled with the fruit of thy works.
14 He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man; that he may bring forth food out of the earth,
15 And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, (and) oil to make his face to shine, and bread that strengtheneth man's heart.
16 The trees of Jehovah are filled (with moisture), the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted;
17 Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir-trees are her house.
18 The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the conies.
19 He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.
20 Thou makest darkness, and it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest creep forth.
21 The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their food from God.
22 The sun ariseth, they get them away, and lay them down in their dens.
23 Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labor until the evening.
24 O Jehovah, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.
25 Yonder is the sea, great and wide, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.
26 There go the ships; there is leviathan, whom thou hast formed to play therein.
27 These wait all for thee, that thou mayest give them their food in due season.
28 Thou givest unto them, they gather; Thou openest thy hand, they are satisfied with good.
29 Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.
30 Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the ground.
31 Let the glory of Jehovah endure for ever; let Jehovah rejoice in his works:
32 Who looketh on the earth, and it trembleth; He toucheth the mountains, and they smoke.
33 I will sing unto Jehovah as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have any being.
34 Let thy meditation be sweet unto him: I will rejoice in Jehovah.
35 Let sinners be consumed out of the earth. And let the wicked be no more. Bless Jehovah, O my soul. Praise ye Jehovah.


text:
NTT Operations
This web page contains information required by the technical staff to OPERATE the NTT. Consult the News and Recovery pages at the beginning of every turno to know what has been modified.
News and Recovery Procedures
General Operations
- Day Operations
- Night Operations
- SOFI Operations
- MOS Operations
- MOS Data Collection Procedure
- EFOSC2 Operations
- ASM (ex-DIMM) Operations
- La Silla All Sky Camera documentations
- Astronomy Operations
- Technical reports and actions
- Reporting Procedures
- Ultracam Pictures
Reference Data and Manuals
- Documentation
- NTT pointing model in a shell
- How to Generate the ONECAL look-up Table (PDF)
- Phone Directory
- Reference Data
- Startup
- Remedy Access (ARWeb)
- Get all SCIOPS, NTT, 3P6 and MET documents registered in Remedy


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Our 3 girls :-) |
Enter Le-Vel Thrive....but not for me. My husband's friend from high school kept reaching out to us about this product that she said was AMAZING! But I had just finished selling another direct sales product (you know - the super popular nail one) and I was not in the mood or mindset for something new. However, my husband figured he'd give it a go, not to sell himself, but to try the product and see if it did everything his friend proclaimed (see pic below).
After completing the 3-day sample, my husband, Christian, said he felt something but couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. So he decided to jump in head first and purchase a month's worth of product. Within two weeks I noticed HUGE changes in Christian. He was waking up before me (without the alarm clock), was no longer drinking coffee, increased his water intake, was eating better, and most of all - would come home from a long day of work and STILL have ENERGY to play with our girls. He seemed happier too! After watching this for a month, I decided I wanted in on that. So in January, after being back to work for two months and more tired than I had ever been, I too joined him and started Thriving. And that is truly what happened....I began living my life again.
My husband - before Thrive on right and after on left |
All this energy allows me to get creative for my girls. :-) |
Within two months of being on Thrive, my husband dropped over 20 lbs and I myself have dropped the baby weight and am now just 2 lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight before my FIRST CHILD! I have entirely given up coffee and pop (soda) and drink almost exclusively water. Alarm clocks don't annoy me in the morning because 9 times of of 10, I'm up before it goes off. I wasn't putting my head down on the staff room table at lunch time wishing I was at home napping but instead was up in my classroom getting things ready for the day/week. To put it simply - Thrive helped me become a healthier and more productive person.....and HAPPIER!
So what exactly is Thrive?
Thrive is an all natural, non-GMO, gluten free premium naturopathic formula. It is a100% plant-derived supplement that is sourced in the United States. It contains vitamins, minerals, plant extracts, antioxidants, enzymes, probiotics, and amino acids.
Want to know more - click below to see the exact ingredients in each of the three core products
What do you need to take?
Thrive is made up of three core products. The capsules, premium lifestyle mix and the DFT (derma fusion technology) patch. All done within the first 20-40 minutes of you waking up. Before your feet hit the ground, you take your vitamins. Then 20-40 minutes later you drink your lifestyle mix, which is delicious! I love the vanilla (but they have chocolate and strawberry too!). I add ice, milk and fresh fruit and make it into a smoothie. Then you slap your DFT on a lean part of your body. And that's it! You are done until the next day.
What's the cost?
The cost really depends on the route you go (averages between $5-$6 a day - which is less than many peoples daily Starbucks). I'd love to talk to you about your options. But the best part of this health program is that you can get it for FREE! In the beginning, I was not actively sharing with friends and family or in social media platforms so I paid for the first few months. Honestly with the way I felt I would pay forever if I had to. But once you refer two people, you get your products for FREE! Tell me what other health and wellness store would give you your vitamins for free simply by sharing with your friends and family? None....
Do I have to sell the product?
Nope! I didn't start selling until about a month ago when I saw how awesome my husband was doing. He earns a car bonus (you can earn a $300 or $800 car bonus) and earns free getaways. Not to mention he is bringing in a EXTREMELY NICE supplemental salary for our family. And we all know teachers aren't raking in the money, so the fact that I can earn an additional income AND feel the health benefits.....well I'd say that's a win-win. They have a great LV rewards program - see it here.
This company has already done a half a BILLION DOLLARS in the first 3.5 years and continues to grow and was just awarded the Bravo Growth Award for the fastest growing direct sales company in the world. Read this article here for more info. And this July you are going to see their name EVERYWHERE, starting with a huge write up in USA Today followed by billboard campaigns, and throughout college football stadiums this fall! So if you are looking to make an additional income (and perhaps make it your sole income) then this is a company to check out.
I cannot rave about this product and company enough. I am as passionate about how this product makes me feel and want to share it with everyone I know! I especially know that teachers can benefit from Thrive. We work our tails off and energy is a rare commodity. You deserve more and your family deserves to have you back. I have some great limited promotions going on right now, so do yourself a favor. Check out the Le-Vel Facebook page and read all the amazing testimonials. Go to www.katenar.le-vel.com and sign-up for a free customer account. You won't get spam mail and no credit card is needed. Look over the site and learn all about this premium product and when you are ready to make the next step, contact me at klyon78 (at) gmail (dot) com. We can discuss your next step, get samples sent out to you, and let you know about any promotions I have. I promise you, this is something you will NOT regret. You deserve to Thrive.....and not just survive.


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Your Learning, Streamlined – The New Lesson Interface
Your learning is about to get a whole lot easier.
More than ever, learners are choosing mobile as the platform to study French. Mobile has always been a part of our DNA. We began our life on your iPod, and have remained by your side ever since.
In our 11th year, we're returning to our roots as a way to learn French on-the-go. How? With a brand-new lesson interface just for you.
Hint: It will launch in beta later this month!
If you want to secure access to this brand new upgrade, take advantage of the upcoming All Access Pass Sale! Click Here to Get 25% OFF All FrenchPod101 Subscriptions!
(example taken from japanesepod101.com)
It's built from the ground-up to be a great experience on your phone, tablet, and computer.
You don't have to compromise anymore.
Take the whole lesson experience with you wherever you go.
Our lessons are the heart of our learning system and now they're the heart of the interface as well. Just tap the big play button to start learning right away.
(example taken from japanesepod101.com)
As you scroll through the lesson contents, the player sticks with you at the bottom of your screen.
Pause, rewind or adjust your speed and volume without losing your place.
(example taken from japanesepod101.com)
Navigation is also just a tap away.
Quickly jump to the dialogue, vocabulary, or lesson notes with our new lesson navigation bar. Available at the top of your screen wherever you are.
(example taken from japanesepod101.com)
And for the first time ever, you don't need to download a PDF or jump between tabs to read the lesson notes and transcript. Read it all on your mobile browser as you listen.
(example taken from japanesepod101.com)
There are many more small improvements but the end result is this: a drastically improved lesson experience on mobile and desktop.
Spend less time squinting at your screen and more time reaching your French goals.
The new lesson interface will launch in beta this month.
We can't wait to hear what you think. Keep on studying!
Sneak peek! And if you take advantage of our upcoming 25% OFF All Access Pass Sale, you secure full access to this new update! You unlock our complete French learning program – ALL Audio/Video Courses from Beginner to Advanced, Premium Study Tools, Bonus Apps and much more!
Click Here to Get 25% OFF All Plans until March 31st, 2017.
To your fluency,
Team FrenchPod101
P.S. Get 25% OFF ANY Plan! Master French with YOUR All-Access Pass!
Want to learn French fast with an ALL-ACCESS PASS to our entire learning system? Get 25% OFF Basic, Premium and Premium PLUS and unlock ALL audio/video lessons, study tools and exclusive apps that you'll ever need. And with Premium PLUS, you get your own teacher! Just $3 a month & up to $137 in savings. Ends March 31st, 2017.
Get Your French All-Access Pass! Click here to get 25% OFF ALL Plans!


text:
CULVER CITY, Calif. — "Jeopardy!" has announced its final group of guest hosts to close out its 37th season.
Wednesday, the long-running game show said on Twitter that George Stephanopoulos, Robin Roberts, LeVar Burton, David Faber, and Joe Buck will try their hands at filling the shoes of Alex Trebek, who died last November after a battle with cancer. His last show aired in January.
Stephanopoulos is a co-anchor on "Good Morning America," as well as ABC News' chief anchor, and host of "This Week," the network's Sunday morning current events news program. His episodes will air from July 12 to July 16, according to the show.
Roberts is also a co-anchor on ABC's "Good Morning America," an author and the founder of a production company called "Rock'n Robin Productions." Her episodes air from July 19 to July 23.
Burton is an actor known for his role as Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and as Kunta Kinte in "Roots." He's also the former host of "Reading Rainbow" on PBS. He landed the hosting role after an online fan campaign. His episodes will air from July 26 to July 30.
Faber is a journalist and co-host of CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." He's also a former champion of "Celebrity Jeopardy!" His episodes are set to air from Aug. 2 to Aug. 6.
Buck is a sportscaster known for his NFL and MLB coverage on the Fox Sports network. He's served as the play-by-play announcer for the World Series for the past 20 years. His shows air from Aug. 9 to Aug. 13.
The guest hosts above follow a list of other public figures who have hosted the trivia show, including Katie Couric, Aaron Rogers, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Anderson Cooper.
As for the next permanent host of the show, that position hasn't been filled yet, at least not publicly.


text:
Computer Science
Study the foundations of computer science and how it can help people in everyday life.
Apply your knowledge to solve complex operations to everyday computer-based applications.
Study a wide range of subjects from theory and math to cutting-edge developments in robotics, computer vision, intelligent systems, bioinformatics, and other exciting areas.
Learn the fundamentals of computer science such as high-level programming language, discrete mathematical structures, data structures, LINUX operating system, database programming, programming in C++, and assembly language.
Further focus on your area of interest such as computer organization, software engineering, programming languages, operating systems, networking, information systems and databases, artificial intelligence, computer graphics, web databases, data mining, web intelligence, computer security, and human and computer interaction.
Key Features
Career Opportunities
Graduates can rest assured knowing there is a multitude of career options they can explore post-graduation. Some career options include, but are not limited to:
- Systems analyst
- Consultant
- Database design and implementation
- Education
- Web development
- Networking and security
- Software developer
Many of these careers can be found in the public and private sector.
Kendra Rehel Buchanan
Computer Science is a pretty tight-knit group. Everyone is accepting of others, easy to get along with, and always willing to help. My time here at Laurentian has been quite the experience. University is incredibly different than high school, but the support from professors who truly care and the diverse group of friends I have, have made the transition all that much easier. Computer Science is for anyone looking to make a difference and for those who have a passion for technology. Laurentian was my top choice because it has smaller class sizes, great professors, and amazing opportunities with coop and study abroad.
Does this program interest you?
Take an in-depth look at program details, courses, and degree options!
Program Details


text:
Source : Keno Auctions
Source Title | Keno Auctions |
Description | Keno Auctions is renowned for our expertise in fine and decorative arts. With more than 30 years experience, founder Leigh Keno has earned a sterling reputation for honesty and integrity. His brilliant team of experts specialize in paintings, furniture, decorative arts and jewelry. Beginning with our very first sale, Keno Auctions has been proud to offer a wide range of fine and decorative arts dating from the 17th through 21st centuries. From Rembrandt to Calder, from Goddard to Rietveld, and from Cartier to Tiffany, we have presented the finest objects at auction with record-breaking results. |
Scope of Text | |
Total Records in AED | 15 |


text: The Staalmeester is the Rolls Royce of Brushes. A unique synthetic / natural bristle blend that has a short natural china bristle, blended with a longer silky synthetic bristle. The natural bristle ensures better paint absorption and the synthetic bristle component allows for a smooth, even application having minimal to no brush strokes.


text:
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text:
Updated October 1, 2017
Privacy Policy
This website (this "Site") is owned, operated, and provided to you ("You") by FORTESSA TABLEWARE SOLUTIONS, LLC, a Virginia limited liability company ("Company").
Your access and use of the Site are governed by this Privacy Policy. By accessing or using the Site or otherwise assenting to these terms and conditions, You agree to the terms and conditions contained in this Privacy Policy. If You do not wish to abide by this Privacy Policy, You may not access or use the Site.
You and FTS agree as follows:
- Collection of Information. Company only collects personal information that is necessary or appropriate for its business-related functions and activities. As with other websites, Company collects, maintains, and processes two types of information: (1) information that you provide voluntarily; and (2) information that Company tracks passively. Company actively requests certain information from You when you elect to contact Company through the Site. Moreover, to properly maintain the Site, Company passively collects, maintains, and processes data related to your Site preferences and Internet traffic data (as explained in Section 3). Company does not require You to provide PII to visit and use the Site; however, to participate in some activities such as using the online contact form, You must provide Company with the information requested. If You decide not to provide Company with the required information, You may not be able to use the full range of services available through the Site.
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text:
Hannah Bruesewitz's case is heartbreaking: she suffered a seizure in April 1992, within a day of receiving the vaccine for diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (DPT), and she had many more seizures in the following months. She was eventually diagnosed with with "residual seizure disorder" and "developmental delay" which she still has today. Her parents blamed the vaccine, and in 1995 they sued in Vaccine Court. They lost, although the Special Master of that court awarded them $126,800 for lawyer's fees and other costs. The Bruesewitzes rejected the award and sued in a state court in Pennsylvania.
The case last week wasn't about whether Hannah's disability was caused by the DTP vaccine. It was only about whether her parents could sue in state court after losing their case in vaccine court. The Supreme Court said no. Had they allowed the case, state courts across the country would have been flooded with thousands of vaccine lawsuits, and it is entirely likely that vaccine makers would simply stop selling vaccines in the United States. The ensuing loss of vaccines would be a public health disaster of enormous magnitude, leading to tens of thousands of deaths from diseases that we now have largely defeated in this county.
This sounds awfully dire. Why do I claim it could happen? Because it almost did, some 25 years ago.
Back in the 1980s, largely due to one incredibly irresponsible, inaccurate television documentary called DPT: Vaccine Roulette "started a firestorm" of panic, as Paul Offit explains in his latest book (1). It also caused an avalanche of lawsuits, and juries were soon making multi-million dollar awards. As Dr. Offit documents, jury awards in vaccine cases increased from $25 million in 1981 to $3.2 billion in 1985. Two of the three companies making the DPT vaccine stopped distributing it, leaving only one company, Lederle (now owned by Wyeth) supplying it.
It wasn't just DPT. Companies making measles and polio vaccines also dropped out of the U.S. market, leaving just one company for each. We were very close to a situation where we simply wouldn't have childhood vaccines in this country.
Then, remarkably, the federal government passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. This set up a special fund to compensate anyone damaged by vaccines, covered by a tax on all vaccines. It also created a special Vaccine Court to hear cases, and required that vaccine cases go through this court. The standard of evidence for the court was lower than regular courts: for some conditions, the parents merely have to show that their child suffered the condition soon after getting a vaccine, regardless of whether the vaccine was the cause.
The law also took juries and state courts out of the equation. Vaccine makers were protected, and the childhood vaccination system was saved. The Vaccine Court functions remarkably well, using Special Masters who become far more educated about vaccines and possible side effects than any regular judges can be. There is a very small but real risk of harm from vaccines, and the Vaccine Court has made thousands of awards to compensate victims. Meanwhile, millions of severe illnesses and countless thousands of deaths have been prevented by vaccines.
So I was very dismayed that two justices, Sandra Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, voted against the majority. I usually agree with these two, but their reasoning in this case was wildly off. Sotomayor's dissent shows her to be misinformed, confused, or just plain naive:
"Trial courts, moreover, have considerable experience in efficiently handling and disposing of meritless products liability claims, and decades of tort litigation (including for design defect) in the prescription-drug context have not led to shortages in prescription drugs. Despite the doomsday predictions of respondent and the various amici cited by the concurrence ... the possibility of a torrent of meritless lawsuits bankrupting manufacturers and causing vaccine shortages seems remote at best."Apparently Sotomayor is unaware of the actual "torrent of meritless lawsuits" from the 1980s that forced Congress to create the Vaccine Court in the first place, although I cannot understand how she could fail to know this history. I am also disappointed by her naive faith in trial courts to quickly dispose of "meritless product liability claims." Perhaps in an ideal world, yes. But a smart lawyer, a sympathetic victim, and a complex medical case can easily confuse both judge and jury, leading to enormous jury awards regardless of what the scientific evidence shows.
Apparently Sotomayor can't bear to limit the ability of plaintiffs to sue wherever they choose. The Vaccine Court, although imperfect, is a much better model for handling complex medical claims than the roulette of a jury trial. We should all breathe a sigh of relief that the Supreme Court kept this system intact.
Of course, the anti-vaccination movement has been quick to attack the decision. Age of Autism, one of the biggest anti-vax sites, posted an article titled "Supreme Court Ruling Abandons Vaccine-Injured Children, Threatens Vaccine Safety" in which they call the decision "a crushing blow to the rights of every U.S. citizen." A coalition of anti-vax organizations including Generation Rescue issued a press release calling the decision "misguided" and making a number of incorrect claims about vaccine safety. But scientists and doctors, notably the American Academy of Pediatrics, applauded the decision.
1. Paul A. Offit, M.D. Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All. Basic Books (2011). See especially pages 2-12.