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Ammon News - By Al Arabiya The Syrian regime has a large arsenal of chemical weapons, which matches up to Israel's nuclear arsenal, the defected former head of Syria's chemical warfare program told Al Arabiya on Monday. Major-General Adnan Sillu, who defected from the regime earlier this year, was party to top-levels talks about the use of chemical weapons on both rebel fighters and civilians. He told Al Arabiya where the Syrian regime has stored its chemical weapons in specific cities across the war-torn country, highlighting chemical warehouses in the city of Homs and weapons stored also in scientific research center in Aleppo. "Syria's chemical arsenal has reached similar levels to Israel's nuclear weapons," he said in the interview. Israel is believed to be one of the world's largest nuclear superpowers. Sillu, who once led the army's chemical weapons training program, said in June that the main storage sites for mustard gas and nerve agents are supposed to be guarded by thousands of Syrian troops but that they would be easily overrun. "Probably anyone from the Free Syrian Army or any Islamic extremist group could take them over," he said. Recently, U.N. peacekeeping troops on the Golan Heights have said they were prepared in the event of Damascus using chemical weapons amid mounting unrest between the Syrian regime and the armed opposition. Meanwhile, United Nations ambassador, Bashar Jaafari, told U.N. leaders in letters circulated Monday that opposition fighters might use chemical weapons against against civilians, and try to blame the regime of President -Assad. The Pentagon has drawn up plans for responding to possible scenarios involving Syria's chemical arms, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Friday during a visit to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, about 60 miles from the Syrian border. According to the Washington Post, this has also highlighted the United State's increasing concern that Syria's weapons of mass destruction could fall into the hands of Islamist extremists, rogue generals or other uncontrollable factions.
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Arts advocate Richard Beards dies
12/24/2013 09:52AM ● By AclRichard Beards, the owner of Bookplace in Oxford, passed away on Dec. 20.
By John Chambless
Staff Writer
Richard Beards, whose Bookplace shop in Oxford was a hub of the southern Chester County arts scene, died on Dec. 20 at Christiana Hospital in Wilmington, Del.
He had been hospitalized for flu-like symptoms in recent weeks. According to his wife, Ginny, he had undiagnosed stage four cancer that was discovered during his hospitalization.
Bookplace was more than a used book store. The exhibition space inside the store was a rare place where upcoming and well-known artists could exhibit their works. Beards enjoyed talking with each visitor, and he championed regional artists and authors. He was one of the main organizers of last summer's sculpture trail through Oxford, and he served on the boards of several area arts organizations. He regularly scheduled book signings at his shop and was able to discuss regional history with just about anyone.
When he wasn't selling books and talking about art at Bookplace on the weekends, he was a professor in the English department at Temple University in Philadelphia. He received his B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1958 and his Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Washington in 1965. He had been involved at Temple University since 1964, working as an associate professor of English beginning in 1971, and serving as the director of the Master of Liberal Arts program from 1983 to 2000. He was an expert in Victorial literature and children's literature, and had been working on a book about the diary of Lavinia Townsend, a Quaker abolitionist.
Memorial plans were incomplete at press time.


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It's charity time, and not just because the holiday season reminds us to be charitable. As the tax year draws to a close, the charitable tax deduction beckons.
America's wealthy are its largest beneficiaries. According to the Congressional Budget Office, $33 billion of last year's $39 billion in total charitable deductions went to the richest 20 percent of Americans, of whom the richest 1 percent reaped the lion's share.
The generosity of the super-rich is sometimes proffered as evidence they're contributing as much to the nation's well-being as they did decades ago when they paid a much larger share of their earnings in taxes. Think again.
Undoubtedly, super-rich family foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are doing a lot of good. Wealthy philanthropic giving is on the rise, paralleling the rise in super-rich giving that characterized the late nineteenth century, when magnates (some called them "robber barons") like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller established philanthropic institutions that survive today.
But a large portion of the charitable deductions now claimed by America's wealthy are for donations to culture palaces – operas, art museums, symphonies, and theaters – where they spend their leisure time hobnobbing with other wealthy benefactors.
Another portion is for contributions to the elite prep schools and universities they once attended or want their children to attend. (Such institutions typically give preference in admissions, a kind of affirmative action, to applicants and "legacies" whose parents have been notably generous.)
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the rest of the Ivy League are worthy institutions, to be sure, but they're not known for educating large numbers of poor young people. (The University of California at Berkeley, where I teach, has more poor students eligible for Pell Grants than the entire Ivy League put together.) And they're less likely to graduate aspiring social workers and legal defense attorneys than aspiring investment bankers and corporate lawyers.
I'm all in favor of supporting fancy museums and elite schools, but face it: These aren't really charities as most people understand the term. They're often investments in the life-styles the wealthy already enjoy and want their children to have as well. Increasingly, being rich in America means not having to come across anyone who's not.
They're also investments in prestige – especially if they result in the family name engraved on a new wing of an art museum, symphony hall, or ivied dorm.
It's their business how they donate their money, of course. But not entirely. As with all tax deductions, the government has to match the charitable deduction with additional tax revenues or spending cuts; otherwise, the budget deficit widens.
In economic terms, a tax deduction is exactly the same as government spending. Which means the government will, in effect, hand out $40 billion this year for "charity" that's going largely to wealthy people who use much of it to enhance their lifestyles.
To put this in perspective, $40 billion is more than the federal government will spend this year on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (what's left of welfare), school lunches for poor kids, and Head Start, put together.
Which raises the question of what the adjective "charitable" should mean. I can see why a taxpayer's contribution to, say, the Salvation Army should be eligible for a charitable tax deduction. But why, exactly, should a contribution to the Guggenheim Museum or to Harvard Business School?
A while ago, New York's Lincoln Center held a fund-raising galasupported by the charitable contributions of hedge fund industry leaders, some of whom take home $1 billion a year. I may be missing something but this doesn't strike me as charity, either. Poor New Yorkers rarely attend concerts at Lincoln Center.
What portion of charitable giving actually goes to the poor? The Washington Post's Dylan Matthews looked into this, and the best he could come up with was a 2005 analysis by Google and Indiana University's Center for Philanthropy showing that even under the most generous assumptions only about a third of "charitable" donations were targeted to helping the poor.
At a time in our nation's history when the number of poor Americans continues to rise, when government doesn't have the money to do what's needed, and when America's very rich are richer than ever, this doesn't seem right.
If Congress ever gets around to revising the tax code, it might consider limiting the charitable deduction to real charities.


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Create a Website Using HTML5
Step Into the Future with RWD
The future of web design is in Responsive Web Design
That simply means building one website that can be accessed with any device: desk top, cell phone and anything in between.
Get started right by spending a few minutes in our NEW Tutor that introduces you to the world of RWD.
You'll see how web pages are built by DOING just that.
Your finished page will be Mobile Ready with RWD features.
Or go ahead and start 10 years behind when you post your first web page built using STATIC Design!
Our Tutorial Process
Beginners will start with a simple approach to learning:
Seeing + Doing = Learning
You will SEE HTML5 code:

Paragraph code

You will copy it and paste it into a web page you created.
You will SEE CSS code:
p {
font-family: arial, tahoma, serif;
font-size: 16px
You will copy it and paste it into a style sheet you created.
Then you will learn to look at the HTML document with a browser and see how HTML and CSS work together.
Tutorial Overview
Beginners might need:(Provided in Tutorial)
- How to find and use Notepad
- Learning to Copy and Paste code (HTML & CSS)
- Learning to Create New folders on your computer
- How to Preview your web pages in a browser.
7 Step Tutorial (Using NotePad - Copy and Paste)
- Basic HTML Page Structure - Creating a Style Sheet(CSS) <---Start Here!!
- Styling the header & footer elements(HTML5) & division tag with CSS
- Add an H1 tag and style it using CSS
- Add Nav Element(HTML5) and Use an Unordered List to build a menu
- Add content using paragraph tag
- Add an image
- Build a drop down menu and make it Mobile Ready
Beginners are encouraged to work through the 7 Step tutorial several times.
You'll be surprised at how much of the information sinks in about the third time through just by copying and pasting.
Why We Recommend cafwhosting
1..Because we've used it for over 20 years
2..We don't oversell our servers
3..We guarantee 30 minute or less tech response
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Check Our Hosting First
Other Stuff You'll find on CaFW
You can increase your knowledge using the other HTML5/CSS tutorials on this website, including:
HTML tags/elements:
- header element
- h1 to h6 elements
- section element
- nav element
- footer element
- division tag
- anchor tag
- lists
- paragraph tag
- tables
- forms
Advanced Helps:
- Uploading your site
- Setting up a localhost
- Testing forms on a PC
- Use of liquid design
This site will teach you the fundamentals you need to create a website with HTML.
We focus on:
- Using as little HTML code as possible.
- Learning a lot of CSS
Free Tools We Recommend
- FREE HTML Editor: NoteTab Light
- All the features of a commercial HTML editor.
- FREE Photo Editor: PhotoScape
- Resize, optimize and enhance your website pictures.
- FREE Apache Server for Windows: IndigoAmpp
- Set up a real time server environment right on your PC. Test forms and scripts before uploading to your web space.
- Linux Users
- If like us, you've finally left the insane world of Microsoft Windows, we highly recommend the free BlueFish HTML editor. You'll find it in your software repository.
Planning Your Website
This HTML tutorial teaches the mechanical side of creating web pages.
Before you begin the actual construction of your website, you should visit our Website Design Tutor for information on Research and Planning your website. Includes information on page layout and the use of color.


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179 E Mercury Blvd
Hampton, VA 23669
Meeting Notes
(between Hampton Christian Church and Wood's Orchards) Topic Discussion, Wheelchair Accessible
Get Help With Alcohol Addiction
- Find meetings near you
- Discover online or in person meetings
- Get 24 hour information on addiction
Weekly Meeting Schedule
Types of AA Meetings
Open: In Virginia, open AA meetings are fully accessible to the public. Members may share their personal experiences with alcohol addiction and recovery while observers can listen and learn. These meetings are informational in nature, welcoming both alcoholics as well as anyone who wants to understand more about the program and its 12 step recovery model.


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[QUOTE=twisted sun;5322498]Whew chy....one question/answer and we get 10 pages of convo lol
Although I don't understand why the X-office couldn't write the stories they wanted because of her being in BP but it's whatever. Whether you loved it, hated it or was impartial to it, it's about to end. (I'm just looking forward to seeing all the melanated heroes together for a change, even if it is short lived.)
Soooo......what would we like to see of her going to space?[/QUOTE]
hmmmm I'm not sure. It kinda of depends what the storyline is. I believe the shiar will be involved. it would be nice to see application of her abilities when in space explored some more but this is scary part. last time when in an xmen book when in space she mentioned since there was no weather she was useless.


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Your privacy is a core value. We strive to create a policy worthy of you.
What we collect
We may collect the following information:
Contact information including email address
Demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests
Other information relevant to customer surveys and/or offers
What we do with the information we gather
We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:
Internal record keeping.
We may use the information to improve our products and services.
We may periodically send promotional emails about new products, special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided.
Marketing Purpose
We may use the information collected by us to send you email alerts for new products, features, enhancements, special offers, contests, and one-off marketing promotions for marketing purpose.
When you no longer wish to receive marketing communications from us, you can, where applicable, change your preferences in your Hamradiomall account, or follow the unsubscribe link in every marketing email you received to opt out of that subscription.
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secured. In order to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.
We will never sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so.
Questions or Concerns
Questions regarding our Privacy Policy, or other policy related material can be directed to our support staff by clicking on the "Contact Us" link. Or through the following methods:
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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5 CFR § 315.804 - Termination of probationers for unsatisfactory performance or conduct.
(a) Subject to § 315.803(b), when an agency decides to terminate an employee serving a probationary or trial period because his work performance or conduct during this period fails to demonstrate his fitness or his qualifications for continued employment, it shall terminate his services by notifying him in writing as to why he is being separated and the effective date of the action. The information in the notice as to why the employee is being terminated shall, as a minimum, consist of the agency's conclusions as to the inadequacies of his performance or conduct.
(b) Probation ends when the employee completes his or her scheduled tour of duty on the day before the anniversary date of the employee's appointment. For example, when the last workday is a Friday and the anniversary date is the following Monday, the probationer must be separated before the end of the tour of duty on Friday since Friday would be the last day the employee actually has to demonstrate fitness for further employment.


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I had a problem (new to me) last week. I have a ext4 (Fedora 15) filesystem. The application that runs on the server suddenly stopped. I couldn't find the problem at first look.
showed 50% available space. After searching for about an hour I saw a forum post where the guy used df -i
. The option looks for inodes usage. The system was out of inodes, a simple problem that I didn't realize. The partition had only 3.2M inodes.
Now, my questions are: Can I make the system have more inodes? Should/can it be set when formatting the disk? With the 3.2M inodes, how many files could I have?


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Perl Monk, Perl Meditation | |
PerlMonks |
Monk Links - Copy Perlmonks-links to the clipboard in on-site-formatby holli (Abbot) |
on Mar 06, 2005 at 04:56 UTC ( [id://436993]=perlmeditation: print w/replies, xml ) | Need Help?? |
Fellow monks, I just have created an extension for Firefox called Monk Links. It creates a new context menu entry (Copy link as PM shortcut) that copies links from perlmonks.org, perlmonks.com or perlmonks.thepen.com to the clipboard while transforming it to the internal site format.
For example, if you invoke the context menu on a link like Tested on WindowsXP and Firefox 1.0 only. Let me know if it does not work for your system. download version 0.2download version 0.3 To install you need to save the xpi-file to disk and then do That is because the perlmonk-server does not send the correct mime-type for the xpi-file. I'll contact jcwren to fix that. You also have to restart Firefox after the install to make it work (just as with any other extension). Update: Added support for perlmonks.com, www is now optional. Update: Added .htaccess file as adviced by The Mad Hatter Update: Added version 0.3 that copes with cpan:// and kobes:// links and links from perlmonks.thepen.org. Update: bart has made various upgrades to the extension. However, there's still the version problem. In barts version runs only till FF 2.0. To get it run a in higher version do the following:
holli, /regexed monk/
Back to


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Surrounded by fields of almond trees and other crops, Campanet's silhouette is like that of a postcard village, with stone houses huddled around the church, located in a square that is always lively. Very nearby, the Posada de Biniatró Museum houses a permanent exhibition of works by Miquel Barceló, Ramón Canet and Sirvent, among others. The municipality is home to the scenery of the valley of Sant Miquel and the Pla de Tel plain, frequented by bicycle tourists, the site of the Campanet caves and the Gabellí Petit estate, where the Fonts Ufanes karst springs bubble up after intense rain.
Weekly market
Serra de Tamuntana Consortium
General Riera, 113, Palma
(+34) 971 219 735


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Early in this pandemic, it seemed children were being spared the worst of the coronavirus. But now, as the delta variant spreads across the U.S., doctors are seeing more and more sick children. Children younger than 12 aren't yet eligible for a vaccine, and millions of students are going back to school this month. Rules for things like masking and testing vary widely, so NPR's Pien Huang is here to talk us through how to try to keep our children safe. Good morning, Pien.
PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Good morning, Scott.
SIMON: I gather you spoke with a number of public health experts who also happen to be parents. As a father, I know one of the fundamental laws of nature is any time children get together, germs are going to spread. What should parents do if one of their children wakes up with the sniffles?
HUANG: Well, the doctors I spoke with all said that sniffles can mean a lot of things. It can be a cold. It can be allergies. Or it could be COVID. And Seema Lakdawala, a flu researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, went through this recently. Her 8-year-old woke up with a runny nose. Step one, she says, is to keep her home. And step two...
SEEMA LAKDAWALA: I will call the pediatrician and just talk through where we've been. If we were traveling, I think I would be more concerned. If we'd been on a plane recently, then I would, you know, definitely want to try to go get her tested.
HUANG: In this case, she and the doctor both thought that it was allergies. And sure enough, the kid took some allergy meds, and she stopped sneezing.
SIMON: So no COVID test in that case. But what would prompt doctors to suggest that a child should get tested?
HUANG: Well, it might be the symptoms, if your child has a fever or loss of taste and smell, or it might be the situation, if your child has been exposed. And it helps to do some research now to know where you could get tested quickly. Maybe your pediatrician has walk-in hours. Maybe your local health department runs a site nearby. And some of these places can actually give results in 12 to 24 hours these days. That's for a PCR test, which is still considered the gold standard.
Another option is to keep some antigen tests at home. You can get these 15-minute rapid tests from many pharmacies. And they can add up. They generally cost about $25, but they are considered fairly reliable for people with symptoms. So if someone has the sniffles, it could give you a pretty good read.
SIMON: What if a child tests positive? What should parents do then?
HUANG: Well, for starters, they should not panic. Dr. Cassandra Pierre, an epidemiologist at Boston Medical Center, says kids are very resilient.
CASSANDRA PIERRE: Yes, with the delta variant, we are hearing about more cases of infections, significant infection in children, hospitalization in children. But still, we know that children are less likely to get those severe complications.
HUANG: Now, before it happens, come up with a household plan. Is there a room and bathroom they can have to themselves? Lakdawala and her husband have two young kids, so their plan is to split into parent-child pairs. One cares for the sick kid, the other for the not, and they'd stay in different parts of the house and take turns in the kitchen. But if space is tight, there are other things you can do. Everyone should wear masks except when eating or sleeping. You can open the windows, run some fans, use an air filter. And after a few days, test to see if anyone else is sick. And if you think you might need backup, you can come up with a list of family, friends and neighbors that are fully vaccinated.
SIMON: Pien, what if another student tests positive for COVID? Would their classmates then need to quarantine?
HUANG: Well, the CDC definition of a close contact at school is actually fairly limited. So if your child was at least 3 feet away from someone who tests positive and they were both fully masked, your child is not exposed. But if one of them wasn't masked, then your kid would probably need to quarantine, assuming that they were not vaccinated.
SIMON: And what would that look like?
HUANG: Well, the experts I talked with said just be reasonable. You know, keep some distance, especially from vulnerable or unvaccinated people at home. Wear masks if you can. But the child doesn't necessarily have to go to their room and stay there. And the rest of the family can generally go about essential business. One expert said she would feel comfortable sending the rest of the family to school and work and the grocery store with masks, but she would cancel nonessential things, like play dates and dinners out.
SIMON: NPR's Pien Huang, thanks so much for being with us.
HUANG: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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With the success of a forward-firing miniature munition, also known as Spike, the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) proved that the government, by owning and controlling a weapons design, using modern modular designs and commercial-off-the-shelf components through 'non-Department of Defense' U.S. companies, can procure and deliver sophisticated guided missiles at a much lower cost than it is currently experiencing.
Spike was conceived, designed, developed and tested at NAWCWD. To date, about 26 advanced development all-up test missiles have been built and tested by the NAWCWD team. More than 10 successful full-scale guided missile tests have been completed. The most recent success was a counter-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) demonstration in June 2013.
The idea for this demonstration began in 2012 at an annual counter-UAV exercise at NAWCWD Point Mugu, in which the Army Research and Development Engineering Command (ARDEC) from Picatinny Arsenal was one of several participants. Picatinny Arsenal is the Joint Center of Excellence for Armaments and Munitions. Located in New Jersey, it provides products and services to all branches of the U.S. military, and specializes in the research, development, acquisition and lifecycle management of advanced conventional weapon systems and advanced ammunition.
The Picatinny team was demonstrating the Palletized Protection System (PPS) which used a radar to detect airborne and ground-based targets and cue a mounted camera during the exercise. Discussions between engineers from NAWCWD and ARDEC led to the idea of putting a missile, Spike, in that loop to provide a tactical capability to actually engage the targets detected.
After further discussions, NAWCWD signed a memorandum of agreement with ARDEC. Plans were put together in the spring and the integration of Spike with PPS was successfully demonstrated in the summer on the land range at NAWCWD China Lake against an airborne target. Greg Wheelock, a NAWCWD technical lead, said this demonstration proved that ARDEC could have a potential new kill mechanism to accomplish their counter-UAV mission.
"The fact that Spike was developed by the Navy and is government-owned makes it even more attractive because we have the ability to quickly modify the system to meet their specific requirements," he said.
Wheelock said NAWCWD continues to work with the Army to refine requirements. Depending on what traction the Army gets with securing funding, the team stands ready to continue developing the capability.
"In today's budget-constrained environment, a collaborative effort is more likely to be successful than trying to go it alone," he said.
Spike is a multi-purpose system that can be launched from the ground or the air, and is being developed to be shoulder-fired. Several Spike missiles can also been loaded on a single mount to engage multiple targets.
Wheelock admits Spike is not a one-missile-fits-all but said there are several capability gaps for which Spike would be a good fit.
One such area, and an increasing threat, is that of small boat swarms often referred to as the fast attack craft (FAC) and fast inshore attack craft (FIAC) threat. One strategy the enemy employs is to use multiple FACs/FIACs to go after a target. The NAWCWD team has demonstrated that Spike could be a good gap-filler in a layered defense against this tactic.
"With a number of targets coming at you, there's potential for some to get through," Wheelock said. "Spike is a good option for taking out those leakers. It's not going to blow those boats out of the water but it can take the boat out of commission. What we lack in warhead size is compensated for in accuracy, and we have the ability to put that charge where it will have the most effect."
Spike has recorded direct hits against moving FIAC threats in separate test events on the NAWCWD Point Mugu sea range.
Even though the Spike project has logged many successes in its relatively short existence, Wheelock and his team continue to seek new ways of improving the missile. Right now, they are focused on redesigning Spike so it can address current threats. One redesign element involves going from a fixed wing and canard rail-launched system to a folding control surface, tube-launched capability. Wheelock said he sees value in moving to a common tube system that would accommodate all launch options so the missile doesn't have to change configurations. The team is also looking at upgrading Spike's seeker to address obsolescence issues and to improve image processing capability.
The ultimate goal is to field Spike either as a program of record or through a rapid development and delivery effort. Wheelock said his core team of about 10 is expandable to meet the requirements, and limited rate production could even be done in-house at NAWCWD China Lake.
"We own the technical drawing package, we own all the intellectual property, we have the capability to develop it, take it out on the range, test it, come back and tweak it, and go back to test it and do limited rate production right in our own backyard," Wheelock said. "Very few places can do that; that capability and flexibility means improved response time to warfighter requirements."
Spike is not just a potential force on the battlefield; it's also a proven catalyst for workforce development and growth. More than 200 entry level engineers and scientists have worked on the Spike project as part of Section 219 of the FY 2009 National Defense Authorization Act that enabled mechanisms to provide funds for defense laboratories for research and development of technologies for military missions.
"At NAWCWD this legislation has been instrumental in both developing and demonstrating new warfighting capabilities and it has been a critical means in rebuilding and honing the Navy's technical workforce for the future," said Scott O'Neil, NAWCWD executive director. "Placing experienced subject matter experts as mentors and team leads to new science, technology, engineering and mathematics professionals working on projects designed to forward critical technologies or to develop systems that have real application or military merit was the underpinning strategy for NAWCWD's 219 program."
NAWCWD used the 219 program together with the Spike project to focus on workforce development by bolstering critical at-risk skills and developing newly required skills by doing hands-on development and technology generation. Using the 219 program, young engineers and scientists worked on the Spike project and developed not only technical but also project management skills.
"Becoming a weapons engineer is a learned skill; you don't come out of school with those qualifications," Wheelock said. "The only effective way to learn is to do it. A project like Spike under the 219 program gives young folks the opportunity to actually work on a real system that has the same requirements, undergoes technical reviews and, and has the same stringent oversight as any other weapons development program."
Another benefit of the union between the Spike project and 219 resources is the resulting pipeline of qualified folks to support the technical project offices and programs of record.
"Even if someone doesn't become a weapons engineer, they can take the rigorous attention to detail and the system engineering practices they learned here and apply them wherever they are," Wheelock said.
Though Spike has been successfully demonstrated against a myriad of fixed and moving targets at sea, on land, and in the air, the NAWCWD team continues to look for innovative ways to hone the design and add capability. Spike is still in development today but, according to NAWCWD leadership, it could be rapidly deployed and would help provide U.S. and allied warfighters with an unfair advantage.


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Five photos of the first jaguar seen freely roaming U.S. soil since 2009 were published on Thursday by the Arizona Daily Star. The adult male jaguar was spotted in the Santa Rita Mountains, southeast of Tucson, by cameras set up by the University of Arizona on behalf of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last fall. The big cat, which has been on the endangered species list since 1997, has shown up in photos on half a dozen separate occasions since September.
According to a December press release on the federally-funded tracking project, the photos were captured using motion-sensor-activated trail cameras positioned in areas where the big cat was believed to be located. The federal agency began tracking the jaguar last fall after a hunter snapped a picture of what is believed to be the animal's tail last September. The last known jaguar seen in the wild in the United States, a male cat known as Macho B, died in Arizona at an estimated age of 16 in 2009, according to the New York Times.
(MORE: Face to Face with a South American Jaguar)
The Arizona sighting is particularly unusual because the jaguars are more commonly seen south of the border in northern Mexico. Although their native terrain once extended as far north as the Grand Canyon, and they were seen in southern Texas as recently as the 1940s, by 1990 jaguars were believed to have been eliminated from the United States. "That changed in 1996 when two different male jaguars were photographed in southwestern New Mexico and Arizona," according to the Arizona Game and Fish Department.
The lone spotted cat's appearance has contributed to the debate over whether to designate 830,000 acres of land in Arizona and New Mexico as critical habitat for the nocturnal jaguar. The proposal conflicts with mining company Rosemont's plans to build an open-pit copper mine in the middle of the contentious site. The mine aims to account for 10% of American copper production, according to the company's website.
(MORE: Leopard Rescued After Falling Down Well)
The federal wildlife service will decide whether to designate part of the land as habitat for the jaguar on August 20, according to the Arizona Daily Star, which also reported that the mining company knows about the jaguar's presence and has provided support for the research project.
Arizona state's Game and Fish Department website says that jaguars need an abundance of available prey and resting sites in order to thrive in the wild. Its prey includes more than 85 different species, but on the U.S.-Mexico border, it would most likely be deer or javelina, a hoofed mammal.


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Two new studies published in the Archives of Internal Medicine underscore the benefits of exercise in preventing Type 2 diabetes and reducing the risk of death in people who already have the disease.
The first study, co-authored by Dr. Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Medicine, looked at the risk of Type 2 diabetes in men who either exercised — aerobic activity, weight lifting or both — or were sedentary. The study included about 32,000 men, who were observed every two years for 18 years as part of the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. Over that time, 2,278 men developed diabetes.
The researchers found that those who exercised had the lowest risk. Men who weight trained for a half-hour a day (2.5 hours a week) had a 34% lower risk of Type 2 diabetes than men who never hit the weight room. Those who combined weight lifting with a half-hour of aerobic activity each day — exercise including brisk walking and running — cut their risk by 59%, compared with sedentary men.
Research has long shown a link between aerobic exercise and lower risk of diabetes, but this is the first large study to look at the benefits of weight training independently, the authors say.
(MORE: Type 2 Diabetes Is Tougher to Treat in Kids and Teens)
Even men who worked out less than 2.5 hours a week saw decreases in their diabetes risk: those who spent up to 59 minutes weight lifting each week reduced their risk by 12%, and those who lifted for 60 to 149 minutes per week had a 25% decreased risk, compared with men who didn't weight train.
The government recommends a minimum 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise each week, plus two or more days a week of muscle-strengthening activities. Men who followed these recommendations had the greatest reduction in Type 2 diabetes risk, the authors say.
"We found that weight training is beneficial for diabetes independent of aerobic exercise. Each of them have independent effects, but the combination of both is most beneficial," says Dr. Hu. "If someone doesn't want to do aerobic exercise for various reasons, weight training can be an alternative."
Increasing muscle mass by weight training helps boost the body's metabolism, reduce insulin resistance and improve blood-sugar control. Combining weight training with the fat-busting benefits of aerobic exercise is the ideal recipe to ward off diabetes, says Hu.
(MORE: Mom's Obesity, Diabetes Linked with Autism and Developmental Delays)
The second study published in the Archives looked at men who were already diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, and found that even low-impact physical activity can extend their lives. The study, by researchers at the German Institute of Human Nutrition in Nuthetal, included data on 5,859 men with diabetes who were part of a large ongoing prospective European study on nutrition and cancer risk; the study also included a meta-analysis of 12 previous studies on the link between physical activity and the risk of death from heart disease or any cause.
The data showed that men with diabetes can benefit significantly from regular exercise. Those who exercised moderately had a lower risk of death, compared with their couch potato counterparts. Men who spent the most time exercising in general — including low-impact exercise like walking and leisure-time physical activity like cycling, gardening and doing housework — had better odds of reducing their risk of death.
Results from prospective study suggest that moderately active men with diabetes are 38% less likely to die of any cause and 49% less likely to die of heart disease than inactive men. The meta-analysis showed that men who engaged in the most physical activity overall had a 40% lower risk of death than their sedentary counterparts.
(MORE: Lack of Exercise Is as Deadly as Smoking, a Study Finds)
"Everyone understands that they should exercise more," says Mitchell Katz, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, who wrote an editorial accompanying the two new studies in the journal. "The million-dollar question is how to get people to exercise more. The question is can people structure their lives to get more exercise?
"People always think of it as an individual responsibility. As a diabetic you need to eat right and exercise more, but it ignores the fact that modern society in developed countries has evolved to the point that daily life provides no exercise."
Katz says that larger changes, including urban restructuring to provide more bike and walking paths, for example, are needed to provide people with the opportunity to get their exercise in every day. "Fifty years ago people didn't have cars. They got their fitness in their daily life. It's not like that anymore and societal changes need to happen," he says.
MORE: Why Shift Work and Sleeplessness Lead to Weight Gain and Diabetes


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On the verge of insolvency. What to do? Across Borders With Information – ABOWI asks Johann Tillich, board member of the Verein für Existenzgründung e. V. in Karlsfeld / Munich, as an expert on debt counseling.
In Germany, more people are sinking into their debts. In 2020, almost 17 percent of Germans believed to be struggling with payment difficulties. More than the years before. But what to do when the bailiff is at the door and banks and creditors are putting pressure on. Many people panic and fear they will never be able to lead a normal life again. Debtor counseling centers can help those affected, and those in debt realize that a new start is possible. Long-standing experience of established debt counseling centers indicates that consumers and companies find it very difficult to go to a counselor for reasons such as pride or shame. But why the course is to debt advisors particularly as precaution the correct way, asks and explains we with debt advisor Johann Tillich from Munich.
In the discussion the experienced debt advisor Mr. Johann Tillich from its practice of many years explains, how it points to concerning step by step possibilities for the way back into the economic life. Johann Tillich, executive committee of the association for business startup in Karlsfeld helps humans and enterprises again the rudder into the hand to take and not in the debts drown. In addition, Mr. Tillich is a state-certified investment and asset consultant, lay judge in several courts, trustee for insolvency proceedings and author for specialized books.
We are looking for answers: What are the ways out of debt? What are the differences between bankruptcies? When is it time to turn to a counseling center like Mr. Tillich's?
Josefine Schulte: Hello Mr. Johann Tillich, please introduce yourself and your work briefly.
Johann Tillich: Hello, my name is Johann Tillich and I am a member of the board of directors of the Verein für Existenzsicherung e.V. (VfE) from Karlsfeld near Munich. We have also been represented in Berlin for some time. We help humans by a debtor consultation for over 30 years, led in the meantime over 4.000 comparison negotiations, in the topic tax savings models and since 1999 we worry mainly about consumers and rule insolvencies for consumers and for companies.
Josefine Schulte: Why do people contact you?
Johann Tillich: On the one hand, we have consumers who, especially in today's pandemic, many have become unemployed or are on short-time work and are now unable to pay their installments due to the lower income. So, the banks and the creditors are putting pressure on people. There are two ways.
- bury your head in the sand or
- to turn to a professional debt counseling, which can help them.
Today there is now the possibility to negotiate settlements, even with the banks or even with the creditors, if there is only a short passage or in the worst case to prepare and carry out the insolvency. In the case of companies, it is the same way that companies get problems, slide into debts because of the pandemic, because they have no more income.
In the case of limited liability companies, it is very important not to miss the deadline for filing for insolvency, otherwise you will be liable to prosecution. In the case of individual companies, this deadline does not exist and these companies are not liable to prosecution. But it is important to accompany the insolvency. In addition, most problems occur after filing for insolvency or as soon as the insolvency administrator gets in touch. Here, too, we support people throughout the entire insolvency process.
Josefine Schulte: When does it become necessary to seek advice?
Johann Tillich: Early on, when you notice that something is stuck somewhere. At that moment, you should go to a debt counseling center. Then we still have the possibilities to help. If we are only consulted when the bailiff is at the door and the Schufa has been shot up, it becomes more difficult. Comparable with medicine. It is best to visit your doctor for preventive care and not for aftercare.
Many damages can be avoided by an early consultation. So we always advise, don't be shy about debt counseling. Things can only get better.
Josefine Schulte: Your specialties are consumer and regular insolvency. What is behind these two terms?
Johann Tillich: Consumer insolvency has the advantage that our customer can have all creditors written down by us. We take over the entire procedure and file the insolvency petition with the court. The procedure, since we have no waiting periods, takes about six to twelve weeks. After that, the customer is insolvent and has nothing to do with the creditors from that point on. From this point on, the insolvency administrator takes care of all further procedures and after three years the debtor is debt-free.
In the case of companies, things are a little different. No creditors are written to, but the creditors are simply included in a table. And the insolvency application is submitted to the court, which can sometimes take place in two to three weeks. Of course, it is important to note that there are also charitable debt counseling agencies that are not allowed to process companies. Companies are dependent on either going to a lawyer or to a professional debt counseling center, which can usually also work cheaply.
Josefine Schulte: What kind of consulting difference is there between a non-profit organization like IFC, charitable offices or going to a lawyer?
Johann Tillich: Charitable agencies do not work for free, as is often claimed. These bodies are financed by the state and every taxpayer finances them. We do not receive money from the state, but we have to charge the fees, which are based on the advisory assistance of the courts, i.e. we start at 500 euros with few creditors. The highest number of creditors with us was 186. With such a high number, you have to expect up to 1500 euros. In contrast to legal advice, which is based on the fee schedule of lawyers and can then also cost between 8000 to 10000 euros. Therefore always to ask before about the costs.
There one fights on the side of the people also for our mandators.
Josefine Schulte: What is your classic case in debt counseling?
Johann Tillich: The classic case is the consumer who comes to us. There are many consumers who buy via loans, purchase without interest, interest-free at home improvement stores or furniture stores, etc. Many small installments eventually add up to one big rat and people lose track. Then it makes sense to see if you can make a big rat out of these many small installments to achieve debt to a bank. Our first goal is always to avoid insolvency. We fight on the side of our clients and most of the time we succeed. I always say the worst case for a client is always insolvency. After the three years of insolvency, it is also in the Schufa for three more years. The customer is blocked for six years. We always try to avoid that.
Josefine Schulte: From your experience, is there a social group that is particularly affected?
Johann Tillich: It starts with young people but mainly it goes 28 to 30 years and of course it goes up to 60 and 70. Maybe a loan to finance a house is running and the pension is not enough for a washing machine repair. Then it can happen that also everyone comes into the emergency. Anyone in Germany can be affected.
Josefine Schulte: How do you manage to deal with the emotional burden?
Johann Tillich: It is difficult. Of course, it also affects me personally because we are so invested in our customers and also often fight very hard for our customers. After 35 years, I personally have managed to separate my professional and private life.
Johann Tillich thank you very much for the meaningful answers and for taking the time for this interview.
Josefine Antonia Schulte
Student & Blogger ABOWI
Dr. Schulte Attorney at Law
Malteserstrasse 170
12277 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 22 19 220 20
Fax. +49 30 22 19 220 21
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
About ABOWI:
Across Borders With Information – ABOWI, an interview series by Josefine Antonia Schulte, law student from Berlin in Germany. Questions and Answers: A virtual journey around the world to uncover differences and prejudices. Finding answers to questions around the world, that's our goal. Josefine Antonia Schulte asks her way from Azerbaijan to Cyprus.
Press contact:
Law office Dr. Thomas Schulte
Malteserstraße 170
12277 Berlin
Telephone: +49 30 221922020
E-Mail: email@example.com


text:
HTTP Working Group | M. Nottingham |
Internet-Draft | Fastly |
Intended status: Standards Track | P. Sikora |
Expires: August 13, 2021 | |
February 9, 2021 |
This document defines the Proxy-Status HTTP field to convey the details of intermediary response handling, including generated errors.¶
RFC EDITOR: please remove this section before publication ¶
Discussion of this draft takes place on the HTTP working group mailing list (firstname.lastname@example.com), which is archived at https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/.¶
Working Group information can be found at https://httpwg.org/; source code and issues list for this draft can be found at https://github.com/httpwg/http-extensions/labels/proxy-status.¶
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.¶
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.¶
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress".¶
This Internet-Draft will expire on August 13, 2021.¶
Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.¶
HTTP intermediaries -- including both forward proxies and gateways (also known as "reverse proxies") -- have become an increasingly significant part of HTTP deployments. In particular, reverse proxies and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) form part of the critical infrastructure of many Web sites.¶
Typically, HTTP intermediaries forward requests towards the origin server and then forward their responses back to clients. However, if an error occurs before a response is obtained from upstream, the response is often generated by the intermediary itself.¶
HTTP accommodates these types of errors with a few status codes; for example, 502 Bad Gateway and 504 Gateway Timeout. However, experience has shown that more information is necessary to aid debugging and communicate what's happened to the client. Additionally, intermediaries sometimes want to convey additional information about their handling of a response, even if they did not generate it.¶
To enable these uses, Section 2 defines a new HTTP response field to allow intermediaries to convey details of their handling of a response, Section 2.1 enumerates the kind of information that can be conveyed, and Section 2.4 defines a set of error types for use when a proxy encounters an issue when obtaining a response for the request.¶
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
This specification uses Structured Fields [I-D.ietf-httpbis-header-structure] to specify syntax and parsing. The terms sf-list, sf-item, sf-string, sf-token, sf-integer and key refer to the structured types defined therein.¶
Note that in this specification, "proxy" is used to indicate both forward and reverse proxies, otherwise known as gateways. "Next hop" indicates the connection in the direction leading to the origin server for the request.¶
The Proxy-Status HTTP response field allows an intermediary to convey additional information about its handling of a response and its associated request.¶
It is a List [I-D.ietf-httpbis-header-structure], Section 3.1:¶
Proxy-Status = sf-list
Each member of the list represents an intermediary that has handled the response. The first member of the list represents the intermediary closest to the origin server, and the last member of the list represents the intermediary closest to the user agent.¶
For example:¶
Proxy-Status: FooProxy, ExampleCDN
indicates that this response was handled first by FooProxy and then ExampleCDN.¶
Intermediaries determine when it is appropriate to add the Proxy-Status field to a response. Some might decide to append to it to all responses, whereas others might only do so when specifically configured to, or when the request contains a header that activates a debugging mode.¶
Each member of the list identifies the intermediary that inserted the value, and MUST have a type of either sf-string or sf-token. Depending on the deployment, this might be a product or service name (e.g., ExampleProxy or "Example CDN"), a hostname ("proxy-3.example.com"), an IP address, or a generated string.¶
Parameters on each member convey additional information about that intermediary's handling of the response and its associated request; see Section 2.1. While all of these parameters are OPTIONAL, intermediaries are encouraged to provide as much information as possible (but see Section 4 for security considerations in doing so).¶
When adding a value to the Proxy-Status field, intermediaries SHOULD preserve the existing members of the field, to allow debugging of the entire chain of intermediaries handling the request.¶
Proxy-Status MAY be sent in HTTP trailers. For example, if an intermediary is streaming a response and the upstream connection suddenly terminates, Proxy-Status can only be appended to the trailers of the outgoing message, since the headers have already been sent. As with all trailers, it might be silently discarded along the path to the user agent, so this SHOULD NOT be done unless it is not possible to send it in headers, and an intermediary MUST NOT send Proxy-Status as a trailer field unless it has also sent a corresponding Proxy-Status header field in the same message, so that the trailer value's ordering relative to other intermediaries is preserved.¶
Origin servers MUST NOT generate the Proxy-Status field.¶
This section lists parameters that can be used on the members of the Proxy-Status field. Unrecognised parameters SHOULD be ignored.¶
The error parameter's value is an sf-token that is a Proxy Error Type. When present, it indicates that the proxy encountered an issue when obtaining a response.¶
Unless a Proxy Error Type specifies otherwise, the presences of error often, but not always, indicates that response was generated by the proxy, not the origin server or any other upstream server. For example, a proxy might attempt to correct an error, or part of a response might be forwarded before the error is encountered.¶
Section 2.4 lists the Proxy Error Types defined in this document; new ones can be defined using the procedure outlined in Section 2.5.¶
For example:¶
HTTP/1.1 504 Gateway Timeout Proxy-Status: SomeCDN; error=connection_timeout
indicates that this 504 response was generated by SomeCDN, due to a connection timeout when going forward.¶
HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests Proxy-Status: SomeReverseProxy; error=http_request_error
indicates that this 429 Too Many Requests response was generated by the intermediary, not the origin.¶
When sending the error parameter, the most specific Proxy Error Type SHOULD be sent, provided that it accurately represents the error condition. If an appropriate Proxy Error Type is not defined, there are a number of generic error types (e.g., proxy_internal_error, http_protocol_error) that can be used. If they are not suitable, consider registering a new Proxy Error Type (see Section 2.5).¶
Each Proxy Error Type has a Recommended HTTP Status Code. When generating a HTTP response containing error, its HTTP status code SHOULD be set to the Recommended HTTP Status Code. However, there may be circumstances (e.g., for backwards compatibility with previous behaviours, a status code has already been sent) when another status code might be used.¶
Proxy Error Types can also define any number of extra parameters for use with that type. Their use, like all parameters, is optional. As a result, if an extra parameter is used with a Proxy Error Type for which it is not defined, it will be ignored.¶
The next-hop parameter's value is an sf-string or sf-token that identifies the intermediary or origin server selected (and used, if contacted) for this response. It might be a hostname, IP address, or alias.¶
For example:¶
Proxy-Status: cdn.example.org; next-hop=backend.example.org
The next-protocol parameter's value indicates the ALPN protocol identifier [RFC7301] used by the intermediary to connect to the next hop. This is only applicable when that connection was actually established.¶
The value MUST be either an sf-token or sf-binary. If the protocol identifier is able to be expressed as an sf-token using UTF-8 encoding, that form MUST be used.¶
For example:¶
Proxy-Status: "proxy.example.org"; next-protocol=h2
The received-status parameter's value indicates the HTTP status code that the intermediary received from the next hop server.¶
The value MUST be an sf-integer.¶
For example:¶
Proxy-Status: ExampleProxy; received-status=200
The details parameter's value is an sf-string containing additional information not captured anywhere else. This can include implementation-specific or deployment-specific information.¶
For example:¶
Proxy-Status: ExampleProxy; error="http_protocol_error"; details="Malformed response header - space before colon"
New Proxy-Status Parameters can be defined by registering them in the HTTP Proxy-Status Parameters registry.¶
Registration requests are reviewed and approved by a Designated Expert, as per [RFC8126], Section 4.5. A specification document is appreciated, but not required.¶
The Expert(s) should consider the following factors when evaluating requests:¶
Registration requests should use the following template:¶
See the registry at https://iana.org/assignments/http-proxy-status for details on where to send registration requests.¶
This section lists the Proxy Error Types defined by this document. See Section 2.5 for information about defining new Proxy Error Types.¶
Note that additional information about the error can be recorded in the details parameter (as is the case for all errors).¶
Note that additional information about the error can be recorded in the details parameter (as is the case for all errors).¶
Note that additional information about the error can be recorded in the details parameter (as is the case for all errors).¶
Note that additional information about the error can be recorded in the details parameter (as is the case for all errors).¶
Note that additional information about the error can be recorded in the details parameter (as is the case for all errors).¶
New Proxy Error Types can be defined by registering them in the HTTP Proxy Error Types registry.¶
Registration requests are reviewed and approved by a Designated Expert, as per [RFC8126], Section 4.5. A specification document is appreciated, but not required.¶
The Expert(s) should consider the following factors when evaluating requests:¶
Registration requests should use the following template:¶
If the Proxy Error Type might occur in responses that are not generated by the intermediary -- for example, when the error is detected during response content processing and a Proxy-Status trailer field is appended -- that SHOULD be explained in the Notes.¶
See the registry at https://iana.org/assignments/http-proxy-status for details on where to send registration requests.¶
Upon publication, please create the HTTP Proxy-Status Parameters registry and the HTTP Proxy Error Types registry at https://iana.org/assignments/http-proxy-statuses and populate them with the types defined in Section 2.1 and Section 2.4 respectively; see Section 2.3 and Section 2.5 for its associated procedures.¶
One of the primary security concerns when using Proxy-Status is leaking information that might aid an attacker. For example, information about the intermediary's configuration and back-end topology can be exposed.¶
As a result, care needs to be taken when deciding to generate a Proxy-Status field. Note that intermediaries are not required to generate a Proxy-Status field in any response, and can conditionally generate them based upon request attributes (e.g., authentication tokens, IP address).¶
Likewise, generation of all parameters is optional.¶


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February 4, 2015We started with a blank slate…a typical "outdoor living space" provided by the home builder.
We started with a blank slate…a typical "outdoor living space" provided by the home builder.
Texas Custom Patios did an outstanding job. Justin came to my house and I explained to him what I wished to do, then came back and visited with me for the estimate. He presented to me a folder with a rendered photos of what the new patio cover would look like. I was amazed that he drew exactly what I was thinking about. He was very keen to accommodate all my requests, even taking over the pool coping job, which they usually don't do, but did an awesome job. I contacted another company to get a different quote, but fortunately they were more expensive and far less professional. TCP was very diligent to make sure that my back yard still looked good through the job. The cover was done fast and professionally, and Justin always went that extra yard. I was really lucky that I contacted Texas Custom Patios. Highly recommended!


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Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth says in the group's annual report that the past year's Arab Spring uprisings across the region have shown it is vital for the West to end its policy of backing 'an array of Arab autocrats' in exchange for supporting Western interests. So far so good.
But then the organisation and Roth fall for the same old affliction of the post-modernist left, which is that 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. Therefore, according to this sad piece of logic (or lack thereof) if the Islamists replace the bad autocrats, then they must be good. Really?
He says: 'The international community must … come to terms with political Islam when it represents a majority preference, he said. 'Islamist parties are genuinely popular in much of the Arab world, in part because many Arabs have come to see political Islam as the antithesis of autocratic rule.'
I beg to differ. Even if a majority prefers something, it doesn't necessarily make it good and right, nor does it mean that the new option is the 'antithesis of autocratic rule'. Islamism is also autocratic and in many places supported by the West.
And the reality is very different. A majority don't support Islamism unless you believe that people like to have their rights and freedoms limited and are different human beings from those sitting in the plush Human Rights Watch offices.
It isn't rocket science to understand that after autocratic rule and the suppression of dissent and banning of political parties, it is impossible for secular forces and those representing the true spirit of the 'Arab Spring' to organise and win 'elections'. It takes time for civil society to stand up again and have a real and visible presence. Also for elections to have meaning – even in the limited parliamentary sense – you need to have freedom of association, press, and expression and so on. If you hold 'elections' right after a dictatorship, and despite people (like in Egypt) demanding for it to be delayed, you create a situation where Islamists will come to power given their level of organisation, their access to power and the support they enjoy from reactionary forces and states in the region and elsewhere.
Roth says: 'Wherever Islam-inspired governments emerge, the international community should focus on encouraging, and if need be pressuring, them to respect basic rights – just as the Christian-labelled parties and governments of Europe are expected to do'. Sounds fine but Christian labelled parties and governments in Europe are not calling for an inquisition and canon law. I've said this many times before but you cannot compare the two. Not because Christianity is any better but because it has been pushed back as a result of the enlightenment, making it possible to have Christian parties in secular societies. The same cannot be said about Islam. Islamic parties want to bring theocracy, sharia law and barbarity; they want an Islamic inquisition.
None of this surprises me of course. Human Rights Watch has always been a sucker for Islamism. It did everything it could to defend the 'Reformists' in Iran whilst they carried on killing and stoning people to death.
But isn't it a bit embarrassing for a human rights organisation to defend Islamism and reduce its demand to 'encouraging, and if need be pressuring them to respect basic rights'. Ah the racism of lower expectations.
Yes the sub-humans in the Middle East and North Africa don't deserve the same rights and freedoms, do they Human Rights Watch?
It's unfortunate (at least for them) that Press TV has lost its licence as Roth would fit in perfectly with Galloway and Booth in defending Islamism at all costs – particularly all human costs…
How shameful.
(Link via Marieme Helie Lucas)


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The wisteria is beginning to bloom, just as our first good rainy week of the winter arrives. We are hoping for several inches of rain and, more importantly, several feet of snow in the Sierras which is where we keep our summer water here in Northern California.
Just the other day the ladybugs who every year spend the winter nestled in my garden to emerge on a sunny late winter day, to the delight of all visitors, were covering the yellow argyranthemum. Today I imagine they are finding a cozy dry spot...or at least I hope they are.
And maybe fill the well for the fairies.


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NEW YORK, NY – Everyone gets them - and it's starting to go from nuisance, to disruptive. Robocalls, Spammers and other automated dialers; it's beginning to actually go from annoying to interfering with my day to day operations. They come in on both my telephones and mobile device. Constantly, all day and it is becoming far more than a nuisance to the point where the FCC is going to have to start getting more aggressive on this practice. Isn't that what they do? I mean, … [Read more...]
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text:
The Passion of the Christ
- Charlie Peacock CCM Magazine
- Published Feb 17, 2004
Not too long ago I found myself having a pleasurable but slightly surreal phone conversation with one of the four legendary Oak Ridge Boys, Duane Allen. Duane, a close friend of Johnny Cash, was recommended to me as the man who might accompany an ailing Johnny to a screening of Mel Gibson's film, "The Passion of the Christ" (Feb. 25 release). A representative from Icon Films, Mel's production company, had chosen my home, The Art House, as a place to hold the first Nashville screening. Icon provided me with a guest list; and I invited a variety of Christians, Johnny included.
"I got a good feeling about you, Charlie," said Duane in his deep, sturdy drawl, "And I suspect Johnny will have a good feeling, too." I never did find out, though I suspect Johnny feels pretty good about most things right about now. You see, a better opportunity came along; and he took it. Johnny missed a film dramatizing Christ's trial, scourging, crucifixion and resurrection to be with Jesus Christ in person. Of us invitees still earthbound ... well, we watched the movie.
For two hours, a roomful of us viewed the most artful and shocking dramatization of Jesus' last hours ever captured in film history. Then there was silence – that is, all but the sound of sniffling and Mel's crunching on the almonds my wife had set out. What we had seen together was not entertainment. It was art depicting the single most important set of events in post-creation history – God, the Artist, coming to the rescue of His creativity – His creation.
Years ago novelist Dorothy Sayers was commissioned by the BBC to write a series of radio plays based on the life of Messiah Jesus. Perhaps knowing her reputation, there was some concern as to how she would depict the shocking details of the crucifixion. Sayers replied in a letter to the director of the BBC:
"It is an ugly, tear-stained, sweat-stained, blood-stained story, and the thing was done by callous, conceited, and cruel people. Shocked? We'd – well ought to be shocked. If nobody is going to be shocked, we might as well not tell them about it."
Knowingly or not, Gibson has taken this warning to heart. His movie is loaded with "shock and awe" after the fashion of his other films, "Braveheart" and "The Patriot." This is a hard film to watch – as it should be. Finally, someone has created a film that does not trivialize what Messiah Jesus did for the people of Earth so that we'd have a new opportunity to be truly human. As Revelation 7:10 says, "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." Mel's film holds true to this important fact. It's all about God's saving ways through the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God.
As I watched the film, I thought of my very comfortable life and realized I was experiencing the suffering of Christ in a way I'd never known before. This was good for me. The film reminded me to follow Jesus wherever He leads, to be interested in the same things He is interested in – all of His creativity and the work of restoring it to rightness. It reminded me that followers of Jesus belong to a new world coming, one with an entirely different economy. Nevertheless, we know what to do while we're here: passionate storytelling and storied living, becoming (in weakness) the art of God in all of life. We trust Jesus to heal our wounds, give us unceasing unity of purpose and lead us to the finish line. And when we cross that line into the fullness of victory, we will fall on our knees, point to Jesus and shout: "You did it! You did it! You did it! When we were lost and without hope – with no faith that we could keep on – You did it!"
When that day comes, I suspect that Johnny Cash will be there, not the least bit worried that he missed Mel's film. However, if you need a reminder of what Jesus did on behalf of the world, on behalf of you, then get your ticket now. Be forewarned, though, this is "an ugly, tear-stained, sweat-stained, blood-stained story."
Art House: A Word on Worship
After viewing "The Passion" (and much discussion), Mel and his party drifted outside toward their waiting car. "So you live here?" Mel asked me. "You live in a church? Isn't that a little strange?" "Not really." I replied. "You just built a church." "Yeah," he said, "but I don't live in it!"
Mel Gibson has put a considerable amount of his personal resources into the making of "The Passion of the Christ" and the building of a church near Malibu, California. As a professing follower of Christ, he takes the Jesus Story seriously. As an artist, he naturally takes storytelling seriously. This is worthy of some thought. A few questions come to mind: Do I know the Jesus Story well enough to communicate it through conversation, art-making, writing? Do I take the Story seriously enough to have it change my way of living? What resources do I have to make the Jesus Story known? Am I willing to sacrifice in order to make the Story known?
For more information about our ministry write to: P.O. Box 218307, Nashville, TN 37221 or e-mail: email@example.com.
Charlie Peacock is an artist, producer, author and teacher. His new album, "Full Circle: A Celebration of Song and Friends" (Sparrow), releases Feb. 24. His new book, "New Way to Be Human" (Waterbrook), releases March 16.
© 2004 CCM Magazine. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Click here to subscribe.


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Net Finished Dimensions are 1″ x 9 ¼″ (25.4 mm x 234.95mm)
Cumaru Decking Miami carries solid Cumaru decking in all lengths between 1' to 20'. We can sell random lengths or specific lengths. The 5/4x10 boards can be milled to any specification.
Cumaru decking is perfect for exterior construction and is one of the hardest woods available. It's:
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Many often use Cumaru for luxury interior flooring, particularly for creating a seamless outdoor-indoor design.
Alternate Names:
Cumaru goes by various names such as:
- Brazilian Teak
- Tonquin or Tonga
- Dipteryx Odorata
- Ipe Champagne
- Fabaceae
- Almendrillo
Alternate spellings for Cumaru include Kumaru, Coumaru or Kumarú.
Cumaru varies in grain pattern and color, as all wood. The color of Cumaru varies from golden, tan and reddish brown. You can use its color variation to create patterns or you can oil and sand the wood to create a more uniform appearance. If you don't oil or seal Cumaru, over time, it will change color to a silver-gray patina; also called sun bleaching sometimes.
Because of its hardness and interlocking grain, Cumaru is hard to work with (Janka Hardness: 3,330 lbf or 14,800 N). Before you install screws, it requires pre-drilling and easily blunts drill bits. It's not recommended to use wood glue since the wood is very dense and oily.
Cumaru, thanks to its density, is a heavy wood. It weighs 68 lbs./ft3 (pounds per cubic ft.) on average or 1095 kg/m3 (kilogram per cubic meter). Roughly, this is 5.7lbs per board ft.
Note: If you do not see the dimension you are looking for, please call and ask us for it. We can custom mill bigger timbers such as 16×10 and 16×12 as well as other special orders.


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Quality worthy of industry leaders at a reasonable price Membranium offer modern membrane technology for reverse osmosis, nanofiltration and ultrafiltration. Our company produce a wide range of spiral wound membrane elements for treatment of all types of water: brackish (tap, well), sea and waste. Membranium product line includes a full range of state-of-the-art polyamide composite membranes. The range of nanofiltration elements has an excellent free chlorine tolerance.
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LENGTH: 24 Hours
Do you want to find match member records, link member records, and perfect a search algorithm for your InfoSphere MDM Virtual and Physical implementation? Then this course is designed for you.
The InfoSphere MDM Algorithms V11 course prepares students to work with and customize the algorithm configurations deployed to the InfoSphere MDM Probabilistic Matching Engine (PME) for a Virtual and Physical MDM implementations. The PME is the heart of all Matching, Linking, and Searching for entities (Person, Organization, etc) that exist in InfoSphere MDM.
This course has a heavy emphasis on the exercises, where the students will implement the customization discussed in the course to perform matching, linking, and searching on fields not provided by the default implementation.
At the end of this course it is expected students will feel comfortable customizing an algorithm for the PME for a Virtual and Physical MDM implementations.
If you are enrolling in a Self Paced Virtual Classroom or Web Based Training course, before you enroll, please review the Self-Paced Virtual Classes and Web-Based Training Classes on our Terms and Conditions page, as well as the system requirements, to ensure that your system meets the minimum requirements for this course.
This intermediate course is for Business and Technical Specialist working with the Matching, Linking, and Search services of InfoSphere MDM.
We recommend that you take the following courses prior to enrolling in this course:
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PME and Virtual Overview
Virtual MDM Algorithms
Virtual PME Data Model
Bucket Analysis
PME and Physical Overview
Physical PME Data Model and Mapping
Physical MDM Algorithms
Physical MDM PME Adapters and Converters


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Salem Poor: "a Brave & gallant Soldier"
Starting in 1826, or more than half a century after the Battle of Bunker Hill, Peter Salem of Framingham and Leicester has been most often identified as the black soldier who killed Maj. John Pitcairn of the British Marines.
However, another African-American soldier named Salem was singled out for special commendation in the same year as the battle. This was Salem Poor of Andover, who had purchased his own freedom for £27 in 1769.
On 5 Dec 1775, thirteen Continental Army officers and a brigade surgeon sent the following petition to the Massachusetts General Court:
The Subscribers begg leave to Report to your Honble. House, (which wee do in Justice to the Character of So Brave a Man) that under Our Own observation, Wee declare that A Negro Man Called Salem Poor of Col. Fryes Regiment Capt. Ames. Company in the late Battle at Charlestown, behaved like an Experienced officer, as Well as an Excellent Soldier, to Set forth Particulars of his Conduct Would be Tedious, Wee Would Only begg leave to Say in the Person of this Sd. Negro Centers a Brave & gallant Soldier. The Reward due to so great and Distinguisht a Caracter, Wee Submit to the Congress—Among the signers were Col. William Prescott, commander in the redoubt; Col. Jonathan Brewer; and Lt.-Col. Thomas Nixon, who had links to Peter Salem.
If only those men had "Set forth Particulars" of what Salem Poor had done! Because it's absolutely extraordinary to see high-ranking white gentlemen in 1775 compare a black man to "an Experienced officer."
This special recognition might have been what John Winslow was recalling when he told historian Samuel Swett that the black soldier who killed Pitcairn was presented to Gen. George Washington and given a financial prize by provincial officers. Or perhaps Poor had done something else entirely, also worthy of notice.
In any event, the legislature gave the men who submitted this petition "leave to withdraw it"—the period's way of saying no. Salem Poor didn't receive any special official recognition in his lifetime.
By 1880, the stories of Salem Poor and Peter Salem were converging. Sarah Loring Bailey then wrote in her Historical Sketches of Andover:
The story goes that "Salem Poor," a slave, owned by Mr. John Poor, shot Lieutenant-colonel [James] Abercrombie. As that officer sprang on the redoubt, while our men were in retreat, and exclaimed, "The day is ours," Salem turned and took aim and fired. He saw the officer fall.This is the very same story, down to the words the British officer yelled, that other writers were telling about Peter Salem. (But of course the Andover tradition said Salem Poor shot a higher-ranking officer.)
What's more, other men also claimed to have shot Maj. Pitcairn.
TOMORROW: Two more early identifications of Maj. Pitcairn's killer.


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Editor Paul Auster begins his introduction to this anthology with a quote by Wallace Stevens: "French and English constitute a single language." This feeling is the basis of the book, which consists of French poetry translated by British and American poets. These translators include many notable contemporary poets, including John Ashbery, W.S. Merwin, Lydia Davis, and Ron Padgett. As Auster writes, this anthology's purpose "is not only to present the work of French poets in French, but to offer translations of that work as our own poets have re-imagined and re-presented it."
Each poem appears in its original French and is accompanied by the English translation on the facing page. Poets Tristan Tzara, Jacques Prévert, Max Jacob, and Andre Bréton are just a few of the forty-eight French poets included in this anthology. The anthology is ordered by date of birth, and only poets born after 1876 were considered. Though it was published over twenty years ago, this anthology remains a comprehensive and useful tool for anyone interested in twentieth century French poets.
Also see Modern Poets of France, edited and translated by Louis Simpson (Storyline Press, 1997).


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Obviously, read Jonathan Hsy first, below, before you read me. His stuff on Vikings is great. And do your darndest to get your paws on Inhuman Nature!
Now, my post.
I've just commented, with some befuddlement, on two classes of short papers on the Prioress's Tale. I had introduced the Tale with, yes, a Trigger Warning that went something like this: "As this is a class on race and racism focused on medieval texts, many of the readings will, or at least should, horrify you. Chaucer's Prioress's Tale is one of them. It's antisemitic. For the last 50 years or so, the main debate has been whether Chaucer or the Prioress is to blame for its antisemitism. But there's no way around it: it's awful."
Despite all that, about half the papers said something like "I think this story is antisemitic," "it seems unfair to Jews," "it seems to be trying to say Christians are good and Jews are evil," "it tells us that antisemitism is really old," or, the variant, "the antisemitism in the Prioress's Tale is still around today."
I warned them, but they're still shocked. I'm befuddled but I'm also delighted, because the tale really is that horrible.
I've tried to push them towards more direct, more specific engagement, not only with the tale's antisemitism, but also with the anxieties, concerns, and assumptions that antisemitism requires to have any force at all. When a student says "this shows that medieval Christians were antisemitic," I, of course, say "the earliest written account of this kind of tale is the 1170s; they're confined to northern Europe; so we have to get more specific"; but when a student just condemns the tale's antisemitism in the broadest possible terms and walks away, then I have to lean on their good conscience. At the least, I have to teach them to close read. My main questions:
- What's the relationship between ignorance and holiness? In other versions of the tale, the boy's 10 years old; here he's 7, just before the age of responsibility, killed before he learns how to read. The nun herself wants to become like a child of 12 months old, unable to speak even. The Prioress herself snarks at the monk, and even the 'holy abbot' in the tale is, in a way, the one to kill the boy. And what does this suggest about the way that 'simplicity' and 'goodness' tend to be equated? Is there something sinister about this?
- Similarly, why do you assume that the Prioress's intense feeling for the Virgin has to be faked? Why do you assume that simplicity and simple expression are more authentic than fancy talk?
- The central myth of Christianity is a martyred god who resurrects. This is the story Christianity needs to tell. While the tale blames the Jews, sort of, for killing the boy, Christianity, especially medieval Christianity, needs martyrs. The tale itself, I'll remind you, is an antisemitic fiction. So, who killed the boy? Not the Jews. The tale did. And why was the tale told? Christianity. Or to get a free dinner. One or both of these, I'd argue, is what actually killed the little boy. Think of the way that detective shows chase after killers, but need to kill women, especially women, to start the story...
- The tale blames Satan for inspiring the Jews to murder; or it thinks Satan makes his nest in Jews' hearts. Are the Jews responsible or not? Unlike other versions of the tale, the Jews don't murder the child out of a sense of religious duty. The Prioress's Tale isn't a Ritual Murder case, but rather a random, unthinking act of violence. Also: the tale has a pure little boy who -- as a sign of his pureness -- sings a song he barely understands and who tends towards intellectual neoteny. The Jews do what they do because they have to; the boy does what he does without understanding. They're both machines, objects not agents, the one evil, the other good. Why does Chaucer strip agency from both Jews and boy?
This painting, by or based on Edward Burne-Jones, appears regularly in my students' presentations on the Prioress's Tale. Probably yours too. No wonder: it illustrates the Wikipedia page on the Tale, and dominates the Google image search results. Though I've recommended ArtStor for images, the students go with what's most readily at hand (probably yours too). I imagine, though, that even if they'd gone to ArtStor, they'd find much the same stuff (but as the Brooklyn College library website is shockingly down....).
I'm going to tell them this: the image, featuring a standard pre-Raphaelite pose for Virgin and clergeon, is itself antisemitic, and just a little more subtle than the images, just as popular in presentations, of hooked-nose Jews (there, usually, to show the continuing force of antisemitic stereotypes). I thank the St Louis Museum of Art (warning AUTOPLAY) for making some of this clear to me: the image invites us in, opening the gate to let us join the virgin and boy. The Jews and the murder are in the background, cut off absolutely from the virgin by the garden wall, barred from this innocent paradise. Now, the St Louis Museum seems perfectly fine with this, and perhaps my students too, though far more innocently. As I'll argue next week, the painting is as antisemitic as the tale itself to the degree that it reproduces without condemning both the tale's hatred of Jews and its saccharine logic of sanctity.
I'll say the painting, in fact, aims to become like the Litel Clergeon. It pretends not to understand the tale. It just presents the encounter between boy and (virgin) mother -- the virgin mother who can belong to the boy entirely precisely because she remains a virgin1 -- as the tale's actual content, while forgetting, as much as it can, how the tale proves the boy's innocence by hating Jews and by murdering the boy. The painting pretends to be a holy fool and is all the worse for it.
For more on the painting, see Eileen way back in 2007, who saw it in St Louis, and writes well about:
all the ways in which various anti-semitic discourses and even meta-anti-semitic discourses [whether in the form of apocryphal stories, reductively stereotypical tropes, satire, etc.] are made to kind of "disappear" in or move into the background of our "readings" of various texts.
1 The psychoanalytic readings come automatically, don't they? The Jews, Satan, and even the Abbot are all men who want to interpose themselves between the boy and his mother, cutting him off. The boy, refusing to learn to read, doesn't want to enter the Symbolic or doesn't want to give up on the good object of his virgin mother. The Prioress wants to be a like a child of twelve months old or less. It's basically fill in the blanks by this point, yeah?↩


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— Keli Dailey
District 1 (open seat)
"I believe that there is room for businesses to explore the use of environmentally friendly ideas, such as the use of solar energy … or expanding … our VIA transit system through exploring a free bus zone."
— Mary Alice Cisneros, whose environmental overtures did not secure the Sierra Club's endorsement. But the eco-group didn't endorse challenger and Green Party co-chair kat swift (or R. Esmeralda Monreal de Mercado, who did not respond to our survey), either. Feh.
"We need more election reforms like publicly-financed campaigns, pay for City Councilmembers, and Instant Runoff Voting to make it possible for those not backed by large amounts of money to run viable campaigns … "
— kat swift, who lists herself as "33.875 yrs old" and reported $725 in her 30th-day-before-main-election report, some $73,000 behind the front-runner, Cisneros.
District 2 (defending incumbent Sheila McNeil)
"Inner-city parents need employment and day care … Let the Northern districts solve their own problems. My focus is East!"
— Fort Sam Houston ISD president Keith Toney, on the best way to retain the inner city's K-12 students and relieve overpopulation in the Northern ISDs. Councilwoman Sheila McNeil and challenger Ron Wright did not respond to our survey.
District 4 (open seat)
"Absolute power must be self-contained — absolutely."
— UTSA philosophy graduate Manuel Navarro — who lists as his sole public-service contribution a youth library program called Nietzche's Hangout — on our fill-in-the blank quote from British historian Lord Acton. ("Absolute power corrupts absolutely.") Navarro also said "Toyota should develop guidelines for recruiting local laborers."
"In `no` way am I in favor of toll roads. Toll roads act as a tax."
— Philip Cortez, an Air Force reservist who's been endorsed by outgoing Councilman and Metropolitan Planning Organization chairman Richard Perez (aka "toller-in-chief" in SA Toll Party
District 7 (defending incumbent Elena Guajardo)
"Too often, developers are seeking handouts from the city for their development projects. I can only support a `tax increment reinvestment zone` when it is truly needed ... "
— Councilwoman Elena Guajardo — a Southwestern Bell (AT&T) retiree (who listed her sexual orientation as "yes") — on making her District 7 a taxing district. Guajardo fights fat-cat handouts: See her lone council vote against a 10-year, 100-percent tax abatement for Microsoft's data center in Westover Hills.
" … Our district missed out on some much-needed projects `in the proposed citywide bond`, particularly neighborhood streets and sidewalks. I also thought that our council representative should have displayed stronger leadership in advocating for the needs of District 7."
— Justin Rodriguez, a lawyer and San Antonio ISD boardmember, hounding the incumbent. The Bond Buyer trade paper says the county wants to put extending the AT&T venue tax on the ballot next year, for River Walk and Convention Center improvements, and Rodriguez is already hip to and in support of this direction, he said. Rodriguez poo-pooed the councilwoman's vote against Microsoft's tax break.
District 8 (open seat)
"Make it safe and more beautiful first!"
— Gloria Sanchez, a retired teacher who scratched out part of her answer on what she would do to make San Antonio a "world-class city."
"… Two-year term limits are acceptable for the U.S. House of Representatives, and I believe they are fine for San Antonio."
— Jacob Dell, a Valero accountant who lists his race/ethnicity as "American," likening a national office without electoral limits to municipal elections that, since 1991, limit the number of years one can serve (two, two-year terms on council and then as mayor).
"Deception is the root of all evil."
— Mario Obledo, who claims to be the only District 8 candidate that lives outside 1604, on our fill-in-the blank quote from the Apostle Paul. ("The love of money is … ") Central Labor Council, Stonewall Democrats, and the Sierra Club endorse him (based on his history working for state Senator Leticia Van de Putte and former Mayor Ed Garza), but the Express-News (and outgoing District 8 Councilman Art Hall) went with former zoning commissioner and foot doctor Morris Stribling, who did not respond to our survey. Neither did consultant Diane Cibrian, who said she was surprised at how personal some of our questions were, nor did constant candidate and dentist Bert Cecconi.
District 10 (open seat)
"We need to enforce present impervious cover rules on land located over the Edwards Aquifer and not allow unchecked grandfathering of such land … enforcement of these rules will naturally spread growth … more evenly … "
— Rey De Los Santos, a lawyer and Air Force reservist whose Edwards stance is admirable, but this was his answer to our question about retaining K-12 kids in the inner city. He expresses slight concern about City Manager Sheryl Sculley: She doesn't give much advance public notice on City agenda and initiatives, he said. (But she's no Terry Brechtel.)
"I support the City's efforts to regulate the sexually oriented businesses in the city. We must do as much as possible to control and minimize these establishments."
— John Clamp, former zoning commissioner and co-owner of Landmark Realty, who is anti-topless bars and pro toll-road moratorium (the proposed TTC-35 runs through his district).
Catch more of the City Council candidates' vision! Participants' completed survey responses are online at Sacurrent.com. Look for the mayoral candidates' responses in next week's issue, along with our coverage of the races that resemble contests this election — districts 5, 7, 8, (and sometimes 10).
Reader's Survey Some say too many cooks spoil the soup; With an 11-seat council, the City's kitchen doesn't leave much elbow room. What issues, projects, and philosophies do you think your councilperson should jostle, shove, and bodycheck for on your behalf? Whether they're brewing a lean consomme or a porky gumbo, San Antonians will have to slurp it up for at least two more years. Place your order now at Sacurrent.com or don't complain to the waiter about the flies backstroking in your broth. |