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The Colts will look for their second straight win Sunday as they play host to AFC South rival the Jaguars at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Colts come into the game 1-1, while the Jags have started slow at 0-2.
A win for the Colts would be impressive in that it will have taken rookie QB Andrew Luck three games to match last season's win total of just two victories.
Last week vs the Vikings, Luck drove the team 45 yards in 23 seconds to set up Adam Vinatieri's game-winning 53-yard field goal with 8 seconds left. Luck did not commit a turnover after throwing three interceptions and losing a fumble in his NFL debut, a 41-21 loss at Chicago on September 9th.
"It's just amazing that the guy's able to go out there and do the things he does as a rookie," first-year coach Chuck Pagano said.
He will go up against a Jags team that fought hard in an OT loss vs Minnesota in the opener, but last week looked awful in one of their worst games in history in their home opener vs the Texans.
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Career Center
Job Seekers, Welcome to Children's Hospital Association Career Center
Powered By
JOB TITLE: Pharmacy Technician I
LOCATION: Geisinger Medical Center Hospital
DEPARTMENT: Pharmacy Services
WORK SCHEDULE: Days/Evenings
WORK TYPE: Full Time
Eligible for sign-on bonus.
Under the supervision of a licensed pharmacist, fills all physician/dietitian orders/prescriptions which include all oral, topical, and injectable medications as well as nutrition. This is accomplished by
using an automated medication distribution system, an automated inventory system, and a manual system. Demonstrates proficiency in more than one work area and is certified, through completion
of internal department requirements, to work in an assigned area, when necessary.
Performs duties to support the goals and objectives of the Medical Center in its efforts to provide quality pharmaceutical care and patient satisfaction.
Reports to the Pharmacy Technician Supervisor, the Operations Director, and ultimately to the Director of Pharmacy.
Demonstrates the ability to communicate effectively and follow instructions.
Demonstrates the ability to perform mathematical calculations and to use computers in the work area necessary for performing the functions of the job.
Demonstrates a working knowledge of medical terminology and pharmaceutical and/or chemical nomenclature.
High school diploma or GED required.
Graduate of a Pharmacy Technician Program or other Medical training preferred
Experience working as a pharmacy technician preferred
Once Hired:
1. Fulfills the new employee orientation and achieves internal department certification to work in an assigned area.
2. Must complete all assigned ASHP pharmacy technician modules annually
3. Must register and pass national technician certification exam within first year of employment, with, if necessary, consideration provided for up to two additional attempts due to a previous failure*.
If additional attempts to pass are necessary, registration and additional attempt to pass must happen within 6 months of the previous attempt.
Failure to obtain certification after three attempts would result in a termination.
*Flex employees do not need to be certified within one year of their hire date, however, they must fulfill all other internal departmental requirements (i.e. tests, competencies, etc.) satisfactorily as a requirement
to maintain their employment.
Qualifications meeting the Pharmacy Technician II and III levels will be considered at appropriate compensation.
Must have the ability to accommodate a flexible schedule of rotating shifts and the ability to stand or walk for an entire 8 or 10 hour shift. Must be able to work overtime, when needed, according to the
department's overtime practices.
Conforms to Medical Center and departmental dress code.
The specific statements shown in each section of this description are not intended to be all-inclusive. They represent typical elements considered necessary to successfully perform the job.
OUR PURPOSE & VALUES: Everything we do is about caring for our patients, our members, our students, our Geisinger family and our communities. KINDNESS: We strive to treat everyone as we would hope to be treated ourselves. EXCELLENCE: We treasure colleagues who humbly strive for excellence. LEARNING: We share our knowledge with the best and brightest to better prepare the caregivers for tomorrow. INNOVATION: We constantly seek new and better ways to care for our patients, our members, our community, and the nation.
GEISINGER MEDICAL CENTER: (GMC), located Danville, Pa., the largest tertiary/quaternary care teaching hospital in the region, is licensed for 475 beds, including 89 pediatric beds in the Janet Weis Children's Hospital. GMC, a Magnet Hospital, maintains the region's only Level 1 Regional Resource Trauma Center with additional qualifications in pediatrics. GMC offers an array of highly specialized medical and surgical services, including neurosciences, cardiovascular services, transplantation, women's health (in the Women's Pavilion), oncology and orthopaedics. The Hospital for Advanced Medicine serves as an integrated center for the most critical patients. Outpatient services are available on and off campus.
About Geisinger
One of the nation's most innovative health services organizations, Geisinger serves more than 1.5 million patients in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The system includes 13 hospital campuses, a nearly 600,000-member health plan, two research centers and the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. A physician-led organization, with approximately 32,000 employees and more than 1,800 employed physicians, Geisinger leverages an estimated $12.7 billion positive annual impact on the Pennsylvania and New Jersey economies. Repeatedly recognized nationally for integration, quality and service, Geisinger has a long-standing commitment to patient care, medical education, research and community service. For more information, visit geisinger.org or connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
** Does not qualify for J-1 waiver. We are an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer Women and Minorities are Encouraged to Apply. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability or their protected veteran status.
*Domestic partner benefits not applicable at Geisinger Holy Spirit.
Champions for Children's Health
©Children's Hospital Association


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A quantum channel models a physical process in which noise is added to a quantum system via interaction with its environment. Protecting quantum systems from such noise can be viewed as an extension of the classical communication problem introduced by Shannon sixty years ago. A fundamental quantity of interest is the quantum capacity of a given channel, which measures the amount of quantum information which can be protected, in the limit of many transmissions over the channel. In this talk, I will show that certain pairs of channels, each with a capacity of zero, can have a strictly positive capacity when used together, implying that the quantum capacity does not completely characterize a channel\'s ability to transmit quantum information. As a corollary, I will show that a commonly used lower bound on the quantum capacity - the coherent information, or hashing bound - is an overly pessimistic benchmark against which to measure the performance of quantum error correction because the gap between this bound and the capacity can be arbitrarily large.


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Slaghuis Cypha Sundays: Episode 10
Slaghuis Cypher Sundays is a Hip Hop Television program with a main focus in showcasing urban talent and providing a positive entertainment program for a vastly diverse audience, Slaghuis Cypher Sundays gives a unique insight into Hip Hop culture. The program is an exclusive showcase of Hip Hop elements, exclusive interviews and performances from popular Artists and up and coming Musicians. The show appeals to a diverse demographic that includes broad ranges in age, gender and ethnicity and will also to provide an educational experience for the multifaceted Hip-hop community. We will be touching on the following spectrum of the Hip Hop culture.v


text: Server Help :: View topic - Custom Per Player question Server HelpCommunity forums for Subgame, ASSS, and bots FAQ Search Memberlist Usergroups Statistics Register Profile Login to check your private messages Login (SSL) Server Help | ASSS Wiki (0) | Shanky.com Custom Per Player question Server Help Forum Index -> ASSS Questions Printable version A Bug When Warping With Flag :: dead lock on starting zone Author Message Guest Offline Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 6:10 pm Post subject: Custom Per Player question I saw in trench wars they have it so you can change the tiles on the map. I was wondering if this was possible to do on asss with lvz files, so players can choose what lvz's they want to use. Any idea I had for making a super fancy arena with big bells and lots of whistles, but give the player the option of choosing which bells they see, and which whistles they hear. Back to top SamapicoNo, these DO NOT look like penises, ok?Age:34 Gender:Joined: May 08 2003Posts: 1252Location: Montreal, CanadaOffline Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 8:04 pm Post subject: You might reach the limitations of LVZ pretty fast... you can have a maximum of 255 (or 256?) different images in one arena. If you want to use an image for each tile on a tileset, you need something like 190 images for each set of "bells". You'll have to use only a small portion of the tileset to have more than 1 set, for sure._________________DCME co-developer 17th Parallel Head Sysop Subspace: The Future Back to top Guest Offline Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 12:43 am Post subject: Well, I was basically aiming it more towards any lvz. Make it some players can choose options to use ships.lvz or this.lvz and that.lvz I realize you could choose to force the players to go to a website or outside source to download lvz's, but I would like to make it so the players have in game options of which to use. So you can have multiple ship set lvz files, and the player can choose which one(s) they will use when they play. Back to top SamapicoNo, these DO NOT look like penises, ok?Age:34 Gender:Joined: May 08 2003Posts: 1252Location: Montreal, CanadaOffline Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 7:46 am Post subject: I don't think that's possible... it would at least require the players to re-enter arena, since that's when the downloads happen. And you'd have to hack away whatever module is responsible for sending files to players. Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First Server Help Forum Index -> ASSS Questions All times are GMT - 5 Hours Page 1 of 1 Jump to: Select a forum Random Spam----------------AnnouncementsTrash TalkZone Hosting / Advertising Assistance----------------General QuestionsASSS QuestionsBot QuestionsLVZ/LVL Questions Coding----------------ASSS Custom ProjectsMisc User AppsNon-Subspace Related Coding You can post new topics in this forumYou can reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forumYou can attach files in this forumYou can download files in this forum View online users | View Statistics | View Ignored List Software by php BB © php BB GroupServer Load: 36 page(s) served in previous 5 minutes.


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September 13, 2006
Theme? America.
But I had to make fun of those bloggers who gravitated to Clinton's lunch. It made me think of this video clip a reader sent me yesterday, with President Bush standing intimidatingly close to Matt Lauer and repeatedly making stabbing finger-pointing gestures at him. I like the way Lauer wasn't the slightest bit cowed. I want nervy bloggers who stand up to powerful politicos, not folks who gush about their charm and hospitality and how good they made their ideas sound.
But I lit out before I could dispel the impression that I had a theme day going, because I wanted to take the long way driving into work and listen to "Theme Time Radio With Bob Dylan." What was the theme? For the first time, there wasn't a precisely articulated theme like flowers or the devil or baseball. It was something about traveling all over the map. The first song was the city-naming song "I've Been Everywhere" -- which made me assume, incorrectly, that the most obvious city-naming song, "Route 66," would come up later. Sometimes Bob acted as if the theme was cities. There were songs about Chicago and Tulsa and Jackson and Knoxville. But not every song had a city name. There was "Jersey Girl" and "Hawaiian Cowboy" and "Stars Fell on Alabama." So what exactly was the theme? As the show was ending, under Dylan's closing remarks, we heard a mellow, evocative guitar rendering of "America, the Beautiful."
I think the theme was "America," but a decision was made to be subtle about it. Was anything said about 9/11? No, no, nothing at all. But I thought it was very interesting that Bob chose to play a song about the great Baltimore fire of 1904 and then took the time to quote what the mayor, Robert McLane, said at the time, when offers of help poured in: "As head of this municipality, I cannot help but feel gratified by the sympathy and the offers of practical assistance which have been tendered to us. To them I have in general terms replied, 'Baltimore will take care of its own, thank you.'" And: "To suppose that the spirit of our people will not rise to the occasion is to suppose that our people are not genuine Americans. We shall make the fire of 1904 a landmark not of decline but of progress."
Did he mean to imply something about New Orleans and New York City today? Was there a subtle political message to extract?
26 comments:
- chuck b. said...
Ideas and attitudes about 'help' are interesting. Helping and hurting go together naturally.
Some people think or feel that help hurts. Nowadays no help hurts. You kind of expect the help of a doctor or a dentist to hurt. Too much parental help hurts in the long run. People often make things worse when they try to help. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I read a locution somewhere recently I can't recall exactly about how the scariest thing to hear is the government saying it's here to help. Sort of an old GOP idea. Not today's GOP. That's public help.
On a personal level, helping is kind of intimate. You have to let help in, and accept it when you're vulnerable. Intimacy scares people and maybe they avoid help when they need it.
- knox said...
You'd have to pay me to watch the "Today" show but I've been a fan of Matt Lauer's ever since the Tom Cruise interview.
- MadisonMan said...
Isn't every way a long way when you drive to work?
- Ann Althouse said...
My drive to work is 3 minutes. When I make it last an hour, it's definitely the long way.
- Chevyiii said...
"not every song had a city name"
It appears to be true that there are no US cities named America or Hawaii.
Alabama City, Alabama and
Jersey City, New Jersey do appear in web searches.
I don't usually nitpick, but some things are just too important to let slide.
- KCFleming said...
Mr. Dylan was in our little town last week, playing to a few thousand in a hastily-arranged concert held in the baseball field right behind my house.
He played nothing from the new album, rather did several long versions of old hits. We watched him from my backyard, not 30 feet away, going up and down the stairs to the stage. He played a great show. Young neighborhood girls screamed, "we love you Bobby!", but they didn't know which guy in the crowd of musicians he was (he was the only one without a hat).
Most folks know that people really do best when they remain self-reliant, but also know that help is always needed somewhere by someone. The crime is infantilizing a community into being unable to act without State direction. Local help for fires and storms is best, but in overwhelming disasters (WTC, Katrina) the neighboring states and Feds step in. Even then, better to keep it decentralized and the rules loose so that "it's not my job" is banished from the lexicon.
What does Dylan mean? Who knows; he's as cryptic as ever.
- Brian Doyle said...
But I had to make fun of those bloggers who gravitated to Clinton's lunch.
Why? Isn't it totally forseeable that liberal bloggers would accept an invitation (or "gravitate") to have lunch with Bill Clinton?
To make this out to be a big compromise of firebrand blogger principles seems absurd.
Sure, Kos and others aren't fond of "Clintonian triangulation" as a strategy, but are they so disgusted with him personally that they should snub a personal invite?
As for Matt Lauer, why do you appreciate it when he "stands up" to Bush on having people tortured in secret prisons, but abhor the lefty blogosphere or Keith Olbermann's "rants"?
And further, how can you look and listen to Bush in that interview and not get the sinking feeling that you're backing the wrong horse?
- The Drill SGT said...
It made me think of this video clip a reader sent me yesterday, with President Bush standing intimidatingly close to Matt Lauer and repeatedly making stabbing finger-pointing gestures at him. I like the way Lauer wasn't the slightest bit cowed. I want nervy bloggers who stand up to powerful politicos, not folks who gush about their charm and hospitality and how good they made their ideas sound.
I watched the video and came away with the opposite perspective. I'm not a big Bush fan, and didn't really get excited by his 9/11 speech, but I thought that Lauer came in to that interview focused on getting a torture gotcha on film by Bush. I thought Bush handled it well and won on points.
It really is about protecting the American people, and POTUS has to make tough choices. I don't always like Bush's choices, but he makes them better than Clinton did. IMHO.
- Brian Doyle said...
It really is about protecting the American people, and POTUS has to make tough choices.
...all while preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution.
That means a) warrants for eavesdropping on Americans and b) the Geneva Convention for all detainees until such time as Congress legislates otherwise.
Anything else is illegal.
- KCFleming said...
Re: "...all while preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution."
Doyle, you clearly haven't yet grasped that -as has been oft-stated- the Constitution isn't a suicide pact. Hence the "tough choices" part. It means some liberties get sacrificed when the safety of the nation is threatened, to be returned when peace returns.
Lincoln knew it. Wilson and FDR knew it. You don't seem to get it. Makes me think you simply reject the idea that we're at war, and rather prefer to think "we're in a big police action", so the rules are different.
Well, you're wrong. Osama says we're at war, and I believe he's not lying.
- Brian Doyle said...
The Constitution isn't a suicide pact.
Wow. I've never thought about it that way before! Consider me completely turned around on unchecked executive power. I now realize it's the only way we can survive.
- Mojave Joe said...
I had no respect for Lauer until I saw that video. Now I have . . . some. Bush's response is comedic: he almost out Colberts Colbert.
- KCFleming said...
Re: "Wow. I've never thought about it that way before!"
Well, good. Glad I could help.
- Abraham said...
That means a) warrants for eavesdropping on Americans and b) the Geneva Convention for all detainees until such time as Congress legislates otherwise.
Surely, then, you can quote the parts of the Constitution that unambiguously require those two things.
- Joel H. Seachrist said...
Prof. Althouse, for the love of Bob and fossil fuel supplies, you need to get an XM receiver that you can use both in the car and at home. The Delphi MyFi has been great for us for the last nine months, and I'm sure there are even spiffier products on the market now. Please stop the insanity.
- Brian Doyle said...
Article I, Section 8.
The Congress shall have power...to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
- KCFleming said...
Geez, Doyle, changed your mind again already?
- Ann Althouse said...
I don't need another receiver. I could stream through the website if I made a phone call. But I enjoy going for a drive in the country, and the car needs a longer drive now and then.
As for Bush in that clip, I appreciate what he has to say, but I am disturbed by the weird effort at physical intimidation. He should make good points that don't require pointing like that.
As to the bloggers gushing over Clinton, I absolutely stand by my position. If bloggers are enamored by politicians, they don't begin to approach journalism. They're fans. Kids. Useless.
- Brian Doyle said...
We liberals are flip-floppers by nature :-)
- The Drill SGT said...
I replied earlier, but blogger ate my homework, I'll try again.
Doyle said...
It really is about protecting the American people, and POTUS has to make tough choices.
...all while preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution.
That means a) warrants for eavesdropping on Americans and b) the Geneva Convention for all detainees until such time as Congress legislates otherwise.
where do I start. I'll let a lawyer lecture on all the times that a warrant is not needed under the 4th amendment. I have a passing knowledge of SIGINT so let me look at it from that perspective. When you say warrants for eavesdropping on Americans what is meant with regard to the highly publicized NSA work is Listening to known or suspected foreign terrorists, located outside of the US, when they call a number within the US that may or may not received by a US person. There are so many legal ways to do what I have redefined that I could write volumes. Let's just take the easiest to understand. Intercept the phone call off a satellite and download it to the UK for analysis.
from FISA
"Electronic surveillance" means—
(1) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire or radio communication sent by or intended to be received by a particular, known United States person who is in the United States, if the contents are acquired by intentionally targeting that United States person, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes;
(2) the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire communication to or from a person in the United States, without the consent of any party thereto, if such acquisition occurs in the United States, but does not include the acquisition of those communications of computer trespassers that would be permissible under section 2511 (2)(i) of title 18;
(3) the intentional acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes, and if both the sender and all intended recipients are located within the United States; or
(4) the installation or use of an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device in the United States for monitoring to acquire information, other than from a wire or radio communication, under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes
Now on to the Geneva Convention for all detainees
The Geneva conventions were put in place civilize warfare. They are multi-lateral agreements between signatories to treat each others soldiers well. There is a clear class difference between treatment of signatories and the rest of the folks, the "unlawful combatants". Folks who don't wear uniforms, hide amongst civilians, commit crimes, etc. They get a much lower standard of treatment, precisely to encourage folks to sign up to the full package. Al Qaeda clearly does not follow the accords and the international community is remiss in not punishing them for it.
Remember that photo from Tet 68 in Saigon when a Police chief shot what looked like a civilian in the head? Was the chief tried for his crime? NO, he was acting fully within the Geneva conventions to perform summary execution on captured terrorists, spies and saboteurs operating amongst the civil population.
It may be in our PR interest to treat captured terrorists according to the Geneva convention, but any caught on the battlefield could be executed then or later.
- Brian Doyle said...
If bloggers are enamored by politicians, they don't begin to approach journalism.
Fair enough, but did you read Hinderaker's recap of his audience with Bush a few weeks back? It was so embarassingly fawning that it got "syndicated" everywhere on the left. It was that funny.
- KCFleming said...
No one is immune from the charms of politicos. Only a fool thinks himself above the flattery and charisma common to the leadership class.
Remaining objective is tough.Sounds like Matt Lauer was so able, while the bloggers (left and right) were not. Your best bet is to never eat dinner with them. But I admit it's hard to refuse to dine with rock stars.
Except for me. Mostly because I am dead certain I'll never be asked. It's easy to remain chaste when offers of debauchery are few.
- nedludd said...
b) the Geneva Convention for all detainees until such time as Congress legislates otherwise.
Have you ever read the Geneva Conventions?
Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
Part 1, Article 3
To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) Taking of hostages;
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
Part I, Article 4
A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
Yup, that seems to cover the "insurgency" to a tee.
Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1)
Article 46.-Spies
1. Notwithstanding any other provision of the Conventions or of this Protocol, any member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict who falls into the power of an adverse Party while engaging in espionage shall not have the right to the status of prisoner of war and may be treated as a spy.
2. A member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict who, on behalf of that Party and in territory controlled by an adverse Party, gathers or attempts to gather information shall not be considered as engaging in espionage if, while so acting, he is in the uniform of his armed forces.
3. A member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict who is a resident of territory occupied by an adverse Party and who, on behalf of the Party on which he depends, gathers or attempts to gather information of military value within that territory shall not be considered as engaging in espionage unless he does so through an act of false pretences or deliberately in a clandestine manner. Moreover, such a resident shall not lose his right to the status of prisoner of war and may not be treated as a spy unless he is captured while engaging in espionage.
4. A member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict who is not a resident of territory occupied by an adverse Party and who has engaged in espionage in that territory shall not lose his right to the status of prisoner of war and may not be treated as a spy unless he is captured before he has rejoined the armed forces to which he belongs.
Article 47.-Mercenaries
1. A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war.
2. A mercenary is any person who:
( a ) Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
( b ) Does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
( c ) Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;
( d ) Is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
( e ) Is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
( f ) Has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.
Actually read the protocols, they really don't apply very well in this situation, and there is no real reason that I can find to follow them. Most of the so called insurgents (actually a collection of Ba'athist dead enderes who at least deserve the title of insurgent and foreigners (just like the USMC) fighting to impose their vision of sharia) also fall outside of the convetions do to their method of waging war,
Same protocol as above,
Article 51.-Protection of the civilian population
1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules, which are additional to other applicable rules of international law, shall be observed in all circumstances.
2. The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.
3. Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.
4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:
( a ) Those which are not directed at a specific military objective;
( b ) Those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
( c ) Those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol;
and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.
Seems to rule out car bombings.
Why would you think the Geneva Conventions apply? Read them. They are about as applicable in this situation as a drill manual from the Pennisular Campaign.
- Richard said...
I noticed too how close Bush and Lauer were standing, but I don't think it was Bush's idea. I sensed the were asked to get close together for the camera shot. It certainly looked weird though.
- Mojave Joe said...
Bush's posturing is weird because most of us last saw that kind of behavior in junior high school (if, or especially if, we went to a public junior high school). I guess the post-World War II generation of leaders is now in its full 'glory': a generation that won't put away childish things. Clinton never outgrew the sax-playing, glad-handing, friend-to-all phony that he was in high school. And Bush never outgrew that special type of school-yard bully: the guy who could not possibly physically intimidate you on his own, but the guy whose money and status alowed him to surround himself with sycophantic and brainless dolts with (some) muscle. (And if all else failed, the chaffaeur was around to clobber you.) It's amazing people still fall for that: like David Brooks gushing in the NY Times today about Bush "swallowing up the room" with his "confidence and intensity." But Bush's strutting around is as genuine as Clinton's bad-acting.
Bush: we saw and have pictures of Johnson giving people the Johnson treatment, and guess what? You're no Johnson (with the exception, perhaps, of Vietnam--but strike that, we'll be bogged down in Iraq much longer while the real bad guys make mischief everywhere else).
Finally, I remembered now where I have seen Bush-Lauer waterboard riff--I think they were channneling Nigel Tufnel (Bush) and Marty DiBergi (Lauer) in this scene from This is Spinal Tap:
[discussing Nigel's Guitar collection]
Nigel Tufnel: Look... still has the old tag on, never even played it.
Marty DiBergi: [points his finger] You've never played...?
Nigel Tufnel: Don't touch it!
Marty DiBergi: We'll I wasn't going to touch it, I was just pointing at it.
Nigel Tufnel: Well... don't point! It can't be played.
Marty DiBergi: Don't point, okay. Can I look at it?
Nigel Tufnel: No. no. That's it, you've seen enough of that one.
- The Tiger said...
Funnily enough, that exchange makes me think more highly of both participants (though that body language is a little weird)...


text:
Anime Evolution Contest - Finalists
Announcement & discussion of Anime Music Video contests
7 posts • Page 1 of 1
- Vlad G Pohnert
- Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2001 2:29 pm
- Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- Contact:
Anime Evolution Contest - Finalists
Here is the list of the finalists for Anime Evolution's 2005 AMV Contest. As the audience votes via ballot for their favorite as well, I've only listed the submission names.
All entries submitted into the contest will be shown on Sunday in the AMV room as well. There are some awesome videos submitted this year and this looks to be the best contest Anime Evolution has had!
Ben Harris
Danny Wilson/Demonseal Productions
Premonition Studios
Dark Side Productions
Hitori/Hitori Studios
Metal Wolf Productions
Suberunker Studeosh
Ben Harris
Element Five Entertainment
Mousou Studios
silver_moon (Dark Moon Studios)
Doki Doki Productions
Electric Leech Productions
Element Five Entertainment
Len Widleheyt
Premonition Studios
Resk (Legaecy Productions)
silver_moon (Dark Moon Studios)
VicBond007 & Hidama Productions
Allegretto Productions
Electric Leech Productions
Honou Productions
Mr.Panda/Panda Productions
Vlad G Pohnert
Anime Evolution 2005 AMV Coordinator
- genestarwind21122
- Samurai Master
- Joined: Sun Feb 23, 2003 4:52 pm
- Location: space the final frontier....
- Contact:
- Sky_William
- Joined: Sun May 09, 2004 5:08 pm
- Contact:
Good luck to everyone.
3/15/2006 Playground Love 4/20/2005 Understanding Body Language 12/11/2004 Diary of a Monster
- Resk
- Joined: Mon May 10, 2004 1:16 am
- Location: Between the Worlds
- Contact:
Good luck everyone!
As the warlock said in the end, even if another age of storms buffets the world, I intend to go on living, and fighting, for you who saved me from the darkness, the one I love!
New Work: The Second Call | A Cavernous Soul
New Work: The Second Call | A Cavernous Soul
- silver_moon
- Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2001 12:46 pm
- Location: British Columbia, Canada
- Contact:
- Pwolf
- Friendly Neighborhood Pwaffle
- Joined: Thu May 03, 2001 4:17 pm
- Location: Some where in California, I forgot :\
- Contact:
7 posts • Page 1 of 1


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|The subject of this article was removed from World of Warcraft in patch 3.0.2.
- Gloves of Faith
- Item Level 88
- Binds when picked up
- Cloth
- Hands
- 95 Armor
- +22 Spirit
+21 Intellect
+16 Stamina
- Durability 35 / 35
- Requires level 60
- Equip: Increases spell power by 21.
Equip: Restores 4 mana per 5 sec.
- Sell Price: 1 93 61
- Vestments of Faith (9 pieces)
- [Belt of Faith]
[Bindings of Faith]
[Circlet of Faith]
[Gloves of Faith]
[Leggings of Faith]
[Robe of Faith]
[Sandals of Faith]
[Shoulderpads of Faith]
[Ring of Faith]
- (2) Set: Reduces the mana cost of your Renew spell by 12%.
(4) Set: On Greater Heal critical hits, your target will gain Armor of Faith, absorbing up to 500 damage.
(6) Set: Reduces the threat from your healing spells.
(8) Set: Each spell you cast can trigger an Epiphany, increasing your mana regeneration by 24 for 30 sec.
Gloves Of Faith are cloth gloves for priests and part of the tier 3 armor set Vestments of Faith.
Gloves of Faith are a quest reward from the quest Gloves of Faith which starts with Father Inigo Montoy in Light's Hope Chapel in Eastern Plaguelands. To complete the quest, you must turn the following items to Inigo Montoy:
2 sets of Desecrated Gloves drop off Maexxna, in Naxxramas, Wartorn Cloth Scraps drop off trash mobs in Naxxramas and Mooncloth is created by tailors.
Patches and hotfixes
Patch 1.11.0 (20-Jun-2006): Added
External links
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.


text:
Broadline Recruiters are currently looking for chefs both with qualifications and without to join our leinster Chef relief team. We have Monday to Friday work as well as evening and weekend flexible cheffing contracts in both private and healthcare clients.
Candidates must have.
- Have excellent knowledge of HACCP
- Strong presentation skills
- Ensure all Health & Safety procedures are adhered to
- Ensure all food produced meets highest standards
This is an excellent opportunity to gain experience in many different areas including contract catering, hotel & restaurant, functions & events and healthcare clients.
Advantages Of Relief Chef work.
- Monday to Friday working hours.
- Immediate start.
- Flexible working hours.
- Paid weekly.
- Hours that fit around family and personal commitments.
- Paid Holiday leave.
If you are anyone you know might be interested in these positions please call in confidence and ask to speak to David in Broadline Recruiters.


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The State Belt contributed greatly to the movement of materials during the war. Army and Navy switchers were added to provide enough locomotive capacity. The State Belt also delivered trainloads of fresh troops to debarkation points, and picked up hospital trains and returning troops.The railroad moved 156 troop trains and 265 hospital trains in 1945 alone.
The Belt Railroad Engine House and Sandhouse is bounded by Lombard, Sansome and the Embarcadero in San Francisco. The building is now private office space, and is not open to the public. For more information on the proposed extension of the historic streetcar line, visit the Market Street Railway's website. Visitors may also be interested in the nearby Golden Gate Railroad Museum, which houses State Belt Steam Engine #4 (built in 1911).
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Basket Case Creations
are made from coiled pine needles, sewn by hand with artificial sinew or waxed thread. Sometimes adorned with gemstones, beads or feathers, each basket is unique.
Jeanie Weber
, award-winning basket crafter, uses needles from longleaf pines, as pictured on the right. She often starts with a small base of wood, leather or suede, walnut slice, button, wire-wrapped agate slice or other object. Jeanie usually begins each basket with a shape in mind, but insists that the pine needles have a say in the final basket design. She never uses 'patterns' or 'plans.'
See more baskets
by visiting other pages of this site, listed above.
The Basket Case
More Baskets
Links and Stuff
Contact info & More Baskets
"Blue Skies"
has an agate slice base and twisted glass beads which "glow" when placed by a light.
"Nature's Splendor"
(lower left)
was created on and around an antler picked up on on the mountain behind Webers' home in Colorado. It features tiger eye, agate and carnelian beads.
(lower right)
starts with a slice of petrified wood, wrapped in copper. Needles in lower coils were cooked in a clycerine solution which turned them to the mahogany color. Faceted quartz and natural wooden beads are used.
Web site designed & hosted


text:
Pastel tones were very popular in 60's beauty and are great colors to use during the Spring season. We're seeing celebs like Rihanna, Leighton Meester, and Emily Blunt sporting pastel shades of lilac eyeshadow. Feeling mod-inspired, I created a look using lilac, lavender and hints of grey tones to make it appear "dusty." What do you think?
Tips to achieve:
I say this is 60's inspired because I did not use any harsh lines and kept it soft. For more depth and intensity, contour with a grey satin shade from the outer corner, into the crease, and then directly above the crease on the inner half of the eye. You can almost blend the shadow up into your eyebrow for the dramatic deep set eyes that were so popular during that time period. For this look, you can use lilac, mint, or baby blue color schemes. Apply about 3-4 coats of black mascara for spiky lashes. Top the look off with some fresh nude gloss like the BH "Peace, Love and Mod."
Products used:
Eye and Lip Primer
88 Color Tropical Shimmer Palette
Blending Brush
Contour Blending Brush
Small Smudge Brush
Here are a few other images of lilac & lavender eyes:


text:
Scott Ambler is Chief Methodologist/Agile and SOA at IBM Rational
Many people who are new to agile seem to struggle with how estimating occurs on agile projects. I suspect that this is due in part to the fact that many people still cling to very serious misunderstandings about estimation, such as being able to predict up front with precision what the cost of a project will be, and due in part to the rhetoric within the agile community around the "evil practices" of traditional project management. In this article I start with a brief discussion for the need for realistic expectations for initial estimating, then I describe the process of initial estimating from an agile viewpoint, and then I describe how to accurately update your estimates throughout the agile life cycle.
As Barry Boehm has shown us again and again and again we need to give ranged estimates which reflect the amount of uncertainty in the information which our estimates are based on. This holds for both cost and schedule estimates. Early in the project there is greater uncertainty so the range is greater, but as the project progresses the quality of the information improves, decreasing the uncertainty and therefore the range in your estimates decreases. This is something which Boehm calls the "cone of uncertainty." At the beginning of a project, due to the inherent uncertainty, it is reasonable to give estimates in the +/-30% range. Sadly, senior management, ever optimistic and unfailingly unable to learn from previous experiences, asks for a +/- 11% range on average (see the Dr. Dobb's July 2009 State of the IT Union Survey) and on average gets +/- 19% in practice. If we're actually getting +/- 19% why am I recommending +/- 30% then? In addition to the rather large body of knowledge about estimation, some of which recommends a far greater range, the Dr. Dobb's survey also found that to get +/- 19% project managers often had to do a fair bit of fudging such as padding the budget, dropping scope once the budget ran out, or even updating the original estimates at the end of the project to better align with the actual results (yikes). This implies that we need an initial range far greater, on average, than 19%.
There are many strategies for initially estimating the cost and schedule of an IT project, but they all boil down to the same basic idea: gather some information about the requirements, do some thinking about the potential solution(s), and then put this information through your estimation algorithm of choice. The individual strategies will potentially vary by the level of detail in the requirements, the formatting of those requirements, the amount of detail of the architecture/design specification, and in the factors addressed by the algorithm. For example COCOMO II and SLIM both require fairly detailed requirements and design specifications and vary mostly on algorithm minutiae (yes, as you'd expect there are raging religious debates about this within the estimation community). Both techniques require you to analyze your detailed specifications to count certain functional and technical aspects to plug into their complex estimation algorithms. On the other hand estimation strategies around use case points and user story points vary mainly on the format of the requirement, both of them requiring significantly less specification but relying on the ability of the team to guess at the size of the individual requirement. Once each high-level requirement, a use case or user story respectively, is given a point rating the points are merely added up and multipliers applied to give cost and time estimates. Other estimation strategies go even further in that they skip over the detailed use case/user story point counting step and go straight to educated guess(es) from experienced people.
On the surface of things, intuition tells us that the estimation techniques based on detailed specifications should be more accurate than the techniques which rely on the best guesses of the people involved. Sadly our intuition is pretty much wrong on this issue. The challenge is that there is still a lot of guessing going on with the detailed approaches. In theory, the errors in each of the little guesses should balance out and the overall error should be much smaller as a result. This would be true if the little guesses were independent of each other, but the problem is that they're not. All of the little guesses are dependent on the ability of the stakeholders to describe their requirements, something we know that people aren't good at; on the ability of the people doing the analysis; on the ability of the people developing the detailed architecture; on the ability of the estimator(s); and on the estimator's knowledge of the skills and ability of the people doing the actual work. In short, the guesses based on detailed information still have an incredible amount of uncertainty built into them, yet they appear to be less risky than the estimates based on less-detailed specifications because of the amount of effort put into calculating them. Arguably the only thing that these complex estimating techniques are doing is putting a "scientific faade" over an activity which is still mostly an art.
The reality is that you're going to need to do some initial estimating because at the beginning of a project someone is going to ask you to indicate what you think you're going to deliver, how you're going to do so, how much it's going to cost, and how long you think it will take. Because of the inherent uncertainty in the information which you have available to you at the beginning of a project you'll need to give ranged answers at first and then tighten up your answers as the project progresses. The Agile Modeling methodology describes techniques applicable to the first two questions. Let's explore how to address the questions about the cost and schedule estimates.
A common progress reporting technique in the agile community is something called a "burn down chart". Burn down charts show the amount of work on the project along the vertical "Y" access and time along the horizontal "X" axis. The change in remaining work to do is called the "burndown rate", something which varies throughout the project for several reasons. Based on how much work is left to do, and the burn down rate, you can easily project when you expect to be done. Then, given the expected end date and your current labor costs, you can estimate the overall labor portion of the expected cost of the project (non labor costs, such as hardware costs, travel costs, and so on will still need to be guessed).
Let's work through an example. You're a member of an agile project team which started on January 1. You spent the month of January in "sprint 0" -- which is also called iteration 0, the warm up phase, or the inception phase -- where you performed requirements envisioning to identify the initial high-level requirements, architecture envisioning to identify a realistic technical strategy, developed a shared vision, obtained support for the project, put together the team, and obtained a working environment. You've been asked by senior management to deliver the system by August 31. Your sprint length is two weeks, your guess at your initial velocity is 20 points per sprint, your burdened labor costs are $5000 per week per employee, you think you need four people on the team, and you have 300 points of work on your product backlog. So, with a burndown rate of 20 points your team projects you will require 15 sprints to complete construction (300/20) which is 30 weeks (15*2). You also believe that it will take an additional four weeks to release the system into production, with an expected release date of 34 weeks from February 1st, which is September 24th. There is also an expected labor cost of $680,000 (34 weeks * $5,000 * 4 people).
Because you're also overly optimistic and unable to learn from previous experiences, your team feels that it's possible that they can deliver by the end of August as requested. Worse yet, because of cultural dysfunction within your organization, the team chooses not to give a ranged estimate because in the past senior management simply forces the team to commit to the lower estimate in a nave belief that this will improve the team's motivation to deliver. In the end senior management takes your August estimate as a commitment, even though this estimate was based on guesses about the scope and the ability of the team to deliver functionality.
Let's move ahead to March 29, the beginning of the fourth sprint where you're doing sprint planning that morning. In the previous sprint you delivered 24 points of functionality, a bit better than you had initially guessed. But, because you've been getting great feedback from your stakeholders in the first and second sprint you identified a lot of missing requirements, this is a common occurrence on software delivery projects regardless of paradigm, and in the third sprint you still identified six points of new functionality. At this point in time you now have 320 points of functionality due to the influx of new requirements the previous iteration.
Now the estimate of the delivery date becomes a bit more interesting because there are two options for your burndown rate: The gross velocity, which is the number of points of functionality delivered by the team each sprint or the net velocity which is the number of points which the product backlog shrank by the previous sprint. In this case the gross velocity is 24 points and the net velocity is 18 points (24-6). Using the gross velocity the construction phase is now 14 sprints (320/24) and using net velocity the construction phase is 18 sprints (320/18). Including the four weeks required for release, the gross velocity indicates that the team will deliver in 32 weeks (14*2+4) on November 5 for a total labor cost of $760,000 ((32 + 6) weeks * $5000 * 4 people) and the net velocity in 40 weeks (18*2+4) on December 31st for a total labor cost of $920,000 ((40+6) weeks * $5000 * 4 people).
The most realistic thing to do is to take the conservative approach with net velocity, but either way it doesn't look like this team will make its date. Interestingly, we now have an easy strategy for giving a realistic ranged estimate for both the cost and schedule based on our actuals. We could have also given a ranged estimate at the very beginning of the project by estimating the initial velocity as a range.
At this point in time, you should inform senior management about the situation. For your IT governance strategy to be effective project teams must be as open and honest about their current status as possible, even when the status is bad. You should discuss strategies for rectifying the problem, which could include letting the delivery date slip, cutting functionality, or increasing the size of the team. Adding people to the team runs the risk of running afoul of Brook's Law which states that adding more people to a late project makes it later, although the team is still early in the life cycle so this shouldn't be a problem. Sadly, senior management tells you to stick to the existing date with the existing team and still deliver all the required functionality. The project status goes red and team morale goes down.
Move forward to April 26, the beginning of the sixth sprint. There are now 285 points on the product backlog, with 22 points delivered the previous sprint and four points added to your product backlog. Now the expected delivery date is between 30 weeks (285/22*2+4) and 36 weeks (285/18*2+4) which is November 20 and December 31 respectively. The cost is now estimated to be between $800,000 (40 * $5000 * 4) and $920,000 (46 * $5000 * 4). Alternatively, to make a delivery date of August 27 (the last Friday in August) you have only 14 weeks of construction left, implying that you can do between 126 (14/2 * 18) and 154 (14/2 * 22) points of work -- so you need to drop between 131 (285-154) and 159 points of functionality from the existing product backlog given your current gross and net velocities. Time for another discussion with senior management.
You can see where the scenario is going, the important thing is that it is relatively straightforward to update your estimates as you progress throughout an agile development project. I just wanted to leave you with a few more points.
- First, it is common to have a negative net velocity in the first few sprints due to an increase in requirements as your stakeholders see the working solution at first. In this case the top end of your estimated range would be infinite, a problem which will correct itself once your stakeholders have a better understanding of what they actually want.
- Second, a slightly more complicated approach, although more accurate, would be to use average rates for your velocity calculated over several sprints instead of just the previous sprint's velocity.
- Third, you can have intelligent conversations based on actual data, not on wishful thinking. Senior management might not like what they're hearing, but the numbers speak for themselves. If your project is in trouble it's better to correct the problems as early as possible instead of letting them fester over time.
- Fourth, doing these calculations by hand is part of the hidden bureaucracy in agile software development that we don't often talk about. The good news is that with integrated and instrumented tooling it's possible to automate these calculations.
Hot Links
In Questioning Earned Value Management (EVM) on IT Projects, I examine the traditional strategy of EVM for monitoring your project actuals against the plan.
The Dr. Dobb's 2009 State of the IT Union Survey explored project management and governance issues.
Lies, Great Lies, and Software Development Project Plans explores the results of the Dr. Dobb's July 2009 State of the IT Union Survey.
The Danger of Detailed Speculations summarizes the evidence around how detailed specifications can increase, not decrease, the risk on your IT projects.
At www.jazz.net you can see the project dashboard of the Jazz project team, including the burn down chart which is automatically generated by the Jazz-based development tools used by the team to develop Jazz.
Introduction to the Agile Scaling Model summarizes the ASM framework which provides advice for scaling agile strategies to meet the unique needs of your project.
The Surveys Exploring the Current State of Information Technology Practices page links to the results of all the Dr. Dobb's surveys which I've run over the years.
My [email protected] blog discusses strategies for adopting and applying agile strategies in the complex environments.


text:
UnNews:Obama likes pie
This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-microsecond misinformation.
25 April 2010
USA, Earth -- White House senior advisor David Axelrod was a guest on The Tonight Show last Friday, sandwiched between the man who saved a flaming kitten from a tree and Lady Gaga. When Jay Leno asked him about the many campaign promises President Obama has yet to fulfill, Axelrod tried to change the subject by shouting, "OBAMA LIKES PIE!"
Confused, but wanting to stay professional, Leno asked him, "He likes pie, you say?" Surprised that it actually worked, Axelrod continued, "Oh yes, he absolutely loves to eat pie with a passion. It's a weakness of his. No, I would go so far as to say it's his kryptonite. For as long as I've known him, he's been a pie-fanatic. When we were on the campaign trail, it was always "Let's get some pie" and "That looks like a good place for pie". At one point, I considered joining Hillary's campaign. Over time, though, I've grown to tolerate it, but I can't really speak for others in the Administration. We had a pastry chef in the White House who actually quit his job because he was tired of making so much freaking pie."
Axelrod delved into the topic of Obama's dieting habits as soon as Leno asked him how the president stays so skinny despite eating pie all the time. "He suffers from bulimia," Axelrod said bluntly. "Yeah, he's very insecure about his looks. He's deluded himself into thinking he's fat. Pretty much on a regular basis he'll eat a bunch of pie and then excuse himself to the bathroom. He thinks we don't hear him spewing his guts out, but we do. Of course, if I ate as much pie as he does, I would be puking all the time too!"
Leno then asked Axelrod if Obama would appreciate him saying this on television. "Actually, he's wanted to tell the public for a while. Now that it's finally out there, the Administration will try to makes Americans feel optimistic about it. In fact, First Lady Michelle is thinking about adding bulimia and anorexia education as policies to her campaign against childhood obesity."
"Wait, let me see if I'm reading you correctly," Leno said. "Michelle Obama is going bring awareness of eating disorders to children." "Not just awareness," Axelrod responded. "She wants kids to practice these eating disorders. It makes perfect sense. More children not eating or vomiting their food will cause obesity rates will drop substantially. It's also a great chance to teach young people the community organizers' value of the end justifying the means. Heck, with President Obama already acting as a role model for them, we're halfway there!" With that, Leno shook Axelrod's hand and thanked him for coming on the show.
Conservatives have pounced on the issue like a lion pounces on its prey. "The President of the United States cannot show any weakness, or our enemies will use it against us," Rush Limbaugh stated on his radio show, while eating a piece of pie himself. "What if... *smack* *smack* mmmmmm... *smack* ...Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brings a nice blueberry pie to *burp* excuse me, these US-Iran peace talks? What then? *hiccup*" After drinking some milk, Limbaugh added, "Israel will be destroyed, all because Obama couldn't keep his piehole shut."
Meanwhile, Fox News reporter Glenn Beck devoted a large slice of his show to dissecting Obama's pie psychology. "His obsession with pie clearly represents Socialism," he explained, drawing a misshaped pie on the chalkboard. "We all know a pie is divided into several equal slices, and the mother, that is, the parental government, gives it to each equally. This line of thinking was confirmed two years ago when Michelle Obama talked about the poor getting their piece of the the pie. Oh, but Obama doesn't want you or himself to have just one slice. He wants it all! He wants complete government control of pie, I mean, the economy. It's so obvious! Can you not see the red substance stained on his bib? That is the raspberry blood of our econo-pie! Now the vomitting part is a biblical allusion. In Revelation 3:15 through 16, Jesus says:
|I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.
"Obama, acting as our messiah, wants us to stay in line. We must all be radicals on his side, or we'll be done away with. Socialism, of course, is a strive for Heaven on earth. And what do we call Utopian schemes? That's right! Pie in the Sky! Wake up, people!"
He ended the segment by showing the scene from American Pie where Jason Biggs' character is having sex with a pie, followed by his father walking in on the act. "This is reality, folks," Beck stated. "We're watching our American Pie be ravaged right before our eyes, and we don't know what to do but stand here in shock." Glenn Beck later received angry letters for showing the R-rated scene on television. Beck apologized, but explained on his behalf, "I didn't think the rape was a big deal at the time. I personally thought the joke absolutely murdered."
Over the weekend, many Tea Party protests erupted with signs reading new, clever slogans such as "Obama makes me puke!" and "Keep your fingers out of our pie!". Amidst the controversy, President Obama held a press conference on the issue, in which he assured Americans he was seeking help for his pie problem, and it will not have any affect on the way he governs. Unfortunately, he failed to mention what his favorite kind of pie was, leaving journalists and pundits to further speculate.
In other news, nothing else is happening in the world, except that Gordon Brown likes cheese.
- "White House adviser spills secret: Obama loves pie". The Associated Press, April 24, 2010
- "Axelrod talks Obama's diet, Biden's mouth on Jay Leno's show". The Hill, April 24, 2010


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iSuweldo Presentation
iSuweldo Presentation video shows you why iSuweldo is the only HR and Payroll system that you will need.
The process overview chart shows the integration of each part of the system. The video also talks about the different features like multi company support, time stations and biometrics, and company wizard. It also shows the powerful configuration of the system having different payroll types, different payroll run types, flexible approval groups, multiple work shifts, 13th month, 14th month, up to nth month run, annualization, and others. Employees are empowered by using the self service feature, and payroll run is easy with the payroll wizard.
Lastly, the video talks about the benefits of using iSuweldo such as fast and easy payroll processing, efficient employee self service, government compliance, eBundy and Biometrics support, instant deployment, and accurate monitoring of leaves, expenses, and loans.
iSuweldo Payroll System
iSuweldo Payroll System video shows you the overview of the main features of the system.
The first part shows the employee self-service features (ESS) such as the timesheet application, inquiry for loan balance, leave application, overtime application and expense application.
The second part shows the approver functions to approve or reject the timesheets, leaves, overtime, and expense.
The last part shows the administrator functions. It shows how the payroll master easily runs the payroll for the period and generate the payroll reports such as payslip, payroll register, bank transmittal, and government reports such as for the BIR, SSS or GSIS, HDMF, and Philhealth.
Leaves Management
iSuweldo leave management system video shows you how to easily manage your employee's leave balances, usage, and entitlement. It also shows how to configure leave rules and employee self service.
In the company wizard, you can define different leave types. You can also set the rules on how to accrue the leave for your employees based on years of service, rank, and other parameters.
On the employee self service (ESS), the employees can submit leave application and also see their available leave balances. They can also attach the required documents on their leave application such as medical certificate.
On the payroll run, the leave accrual and recognition of approved leaves are also integrated.
Reports such as leave ledger report can also be generated.
Time and Attendance
The iSuweldo Time and Attendance video shows how you can track you employee's hours worked including the project and location.
In the company wizard, you can define the different rules on your timekeeping such as defining the standard work hours and shifts available for your employees.
In the employee self service (ESS), the employee can submit his timesheet online by filling up the hours worked per day or uploading an excel template. Specific employees may also be allowed to use the eBundy where employees can time in and time out online. Employees may also apply for leave online. The approvers can instantly get notified and view the pending applications.
On the payroll run, all approved timesheets are already available for processing. Several timekeeping reports can also be generated.
Expense Management
Expense Management video shows you how to easily integrate your employeesâ expense reimbursement into your payroll. It also shows how you can charge a specific project to each expense.
The process starts by setting up the expense types and other details. Next, the employee creates expense application with attachment of receipts, then submits it for approval. This notifies the approver about the expense application. All approved expenses then goes to the payroll admin for payroll processing. Corresponding reports can also be generated for management.
iSuweldo Loans
Loans Management video shows you how the system tracks employee balances and amortization payments for each payroll period.
In the company wizard, you can define any loan type that can be deducted from employee's payroll.
Then, you record the loans and amortization schedule for each employee. During the payroll run, the scheduled loan deductions for the corresponding period is automatically deducted from the employee's gross pay.
In the employee self service, the employee will see the amount that has been deducted from his pay.
Lastly, you can generate different reports related to loans.
iSuweldo Employee Self-Service
Employee self service video shows the different transactions that can be done by employees in the employee portal.
An employee can update his contact information, create timesheet application for his hours work, do online time in and time out to specific project and location using the eBundy, inquire about his loan payments and balances, view leave balance and apply for leave, create an overtime application, apply for expense reimbursement and attach the supporting documents.
Upon submission by the employee, the approver gets notification in real time. He can approve the applications in his approval workflow.
Upon completing the payroll run, the employees can also view their payslip and the leave ledger.
iProcess HR and Payroll Service
The iProcess HR and Payroll processing service video shows you how the iProcess team can help you achieve a No Pain All Gain HR and Payroll processing.
The video shows the two service offerings: the iProcess Standard package, and the iProcess Premium package. It also shows the steps on how the service is delivered to you using the iSuweldo platform.
iProcess also offers the iProcess Confidential payroll for discreet processing of your executive and management payroll.
iSuweldo Timekeeping with Biometrics Integration
iSuweldo timekeeping with biometrics integration video shows the different sources of timekeeping for payroll processing.
iSuweldo has eBundy functionality that allows you to time in and time out online. The data is captured in the system in real time.
iSuweldo is also integrated with several iSuweldo certified biometrics devices. The system reads the raw format generated from your biometrics unit.
The timekeeping application in iSuweldo Employee Self Service (ESS) allows the employees to submit timekeeping entries subject to approval. This is very helpful specially those that are usually on official business (OB).
iSuweldo Piece Rate
iSuweldo Piece Rate video shows how the manufacturing industry can use iSuweldo for processing the payroll of employees or workers who are earning piece rate, or daily rate, or both.
iSuweldos piece rate feature allows you to easily take into account the production output of your employees into their payroll.


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Elderly patients in need of heart valve replacements have alternative to surgery
Doctors at the University Heart Center in Hamburg, Germany successfully used transcatheter valve-in-valve implantation in elderly patients with degenerated bioprostheses in aortic and mitral position. This minimally invasive procedure was used as an alternative treatment option for patients who were at high surgical risk. Full details of the study are available in the June issue of Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions.
Recently, heart valve replacement surgery made headlines after broadcast journalist, Barbara Walters, underwent the procedure last month. Each year more than 300,000 patients worldwide have this surgery to repair problematic or diseased heart valves. The replacement valves can be mechanical, of which modern versions can last indefinitely, or tissue (xenograft) valves that on average last 15 years. With mechanical valves, patients must also be treated with anticoagulant drugs. However, reoperation which is the standard treatment to replace degenerated valves, is not always an option for patients who are at greater morbidity risk due to advanced age and other compounding issues such as renal dysfunction.
In the current study, Moritz Seiffert, M.D., and colleagues report on their experience with transcatheter valve-in-valve implantation in 5 patients with significant xenograft degeneration of 15.4 years after aortic (n=4) and mitral (n=1) valve replacement. The mean age of patients was 82 years and predicted operative mortality was 55.8% based on the European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation (EuroSCORE). Successful transcatheter valve-in-valve implantation was performed in all patients through a transapical access with a 23-mm Edwards Sapien valve deployed into the degenerated valve.
Post-procedure results show the mean trans-valvular gradients were reduced from 31.2 to 19.0 mm Hg in the aortic location and 9 to 3 mm Hg in the mitral position. Doctors did not report any significant regurgitation (backwards blood flow). Two high-risk patients expired within 30 days due to low cardiac output and acute hemorrhage, respectively. One of the deaths occurred in a patient who presented with a EuroSCORE of 88.9%.
"Transcatheter valve-in-valve implantation offers an alternative treatment option for elderly patients who have disproportional operative risks," said Dr. Seiffert. The doctors highlight that reoperative valve surgery was not an option in these candidates and valve-in-valve implantation turned out to be a valuable bail-out procedure.
"As the aged population continues to grow, a minimally-invasive procedure such as transcatheter valve-in-valve implantation is a promising alternative," concluded Dr. Seiffert. "However adequate patient selection and an interdisciplinary approach are crucial to the success of this procedure."


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Engineered protein shows potential as a strep vaccine
A University of California, San Diego-led research team has demonstrated that immunization with a stabilized version of a protein found on Streptococcus bacteria can provide protection against Strep infections, which afflict more than 600 million people each year and kill 400,000.
In the March 7 issue of the journal Science, the researchers describe, for the first time, the detailed structure of the streptococcal M protein, which is critical to the virulence of Group A Streptococcus (GAS). GAS causes a wide variety of human diseases including strep throat, rheumatic fever, and the life-threatening "flesh-eating" syndrome called necrotizing fasciitis. Studies were performed using M1 protein, which represents the version of M protein present on the most common disease-associated GAS strains.
The team also produced a variant of M1 protein that stimulates the immune system in mice, without the serious side effects caused by natural M1 protein. They say that their results should help scientists develop M1 protein-based vaccines against GAS.
"Using X-ray crystallography, we determined that M1 protein has an irregular, unstable structure," explained Partho Ghosh, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry in UCSD's Division of Physical Sciences. "We created a modified version of M1 with a more stable structure, and found that it is just as effective at eliciting an immune reaction, but safer than the original version of M1, which has serious drawbacks to its use in a vaccine."
"Certain antibodies that are produced by the immune system against M1 protein have been shown to cross-react with normal human tissues including heart muscle, potentially triggering the serious autoimmune disease known as rheumatic fever," added Victor Nizet, professor of pediatrics and pharmacy at the UCSD School of Medicine and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. "M1 protein can also act as a toxin, producing clotting abnormalities and lung injury when injected into mice. Therefore our results with modified M1 provide very novel insight about the role of M proteins in invasive GAS disease and rheumatic heart disease."
Because M protein is vital for the survival of GAS in the host, various research groups have been trying to determine its structure for decades. According to Ghosh, M1 is "long and skinny," which makes it a particularly difficult protein to crystallize. Case McNamara, who solved the protein structure while he was a graduate student working with Ghosh and is the first author on the paper, spent three years optimizing the conditions to crystallize the protein and collect the required data.
In the Science article, the team reported that M1 proteins extend from the surface of Strep bacteria in sets of two that coil around on each other. However, the coils do not meet along the entire length of the protein because imperfections in the protein force the two strands to splay apart. By making small changes to the amino acid building blocks that constitute M1 protein, the researchers were able to develop a version of the protein molecules that coiled together along their entire length.
"This is a crude analogy, but if you imagine that M1 protein is a zipper, then the front half of the molecule is zipped up," said McNamara, who is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation. "However, unfavorable amino acids prevent the molecule from zipping up all the way. It was clear from the literature that mutations of these unfavorable amino acids to favorable amino acids would allow the molecule to continue to zip up."
Unstable coils provide a protein with the flexibility to perform different functions, according to Ghosh. Proteins with structures similar to the original version of M1 are found in the human body, including in heart muscle. The researchers hoped that modifying the structure of M1 would make it less likely that an M1 vaccine would trigger an autoimmune response against heart muscle.
This indeed turned out to be the case. In tests with antibodies against heart muscle, Madeleine Cunningham, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, determined that engineered M1 was much less reactive than natural M1. In addition, Annelies Zinkernagel, a postgraduate researcher in Victor Nizet's laboratory, discovered that unlike mice injected with natural M1, mice injected with stabilized M1 did not develop lung injuries.
Therefore, the instabilities in M1 are responsible for its toxic properties and tendency to trigger autoimmune reactions. However, the instabilities in M1 were not necessary for M1 to be effective as a vaccine. When injected into mice, stabilized M1 elicited a strong immune reaction that provided protection against infection with GAS bacteria.
"Stabilized M proteins may also last longer in the body than natural M proteins, which would be beneficial for vaccine development," said Ghosh.
"However, a strep vaccine would have to cover many strains of strep, so stabilized M1 might be one of multiple stabilized M protein antigens used in a vaccine," added Nizet.
Source: University of California - San Diego
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One of the many things that I love about Montessori is that peace is actually a subject on the curriculum. In the girls' class they talk about it a lot, and one of the kindergarten works that I'm looking forward to for Will is this thing called "Our Peaceful Classroom." I'm also, in my role as Parents' Library librarian for the school, transferring all of these conference proceedings from cassette to CD (oh, what a pain in the butt!), and it's interesting to hear all kinds of conference talks about teaching peace and modeling peace and practicing peace for all the age levels of Montessori.
Anyway, there's usually at least one big ceremony for peace during each school year. Last year, the Peace Pole was dedicated (thankfully during the morning preschool, because this ceremony has also become famous as The Hornet Attack of 2008, In Which the School's Emergency Preparedness Plan was Put to Use and Many Small Children Were Traumatized), but this year the girls will be joining their classmates and 65, 807 other children in Montessori schools across the world in a chain that will sing a single song about peace for 24 continuous hours. The song is called "Light a Candle for Peace," written by a Montessori teacher in Canada, and it's a simple, benign little ditty, as sweet as a homemade cookie. I know this because the girls have been "practicing" nonstop:
Willow's got the words down pretty well when she's not being distracted, but I think it's funny how Sydney clearly knows less than a quarter of the words, and will just sort of sing "Peace, peace!" over and over in her own little tune, or join in with the lyrics about a half-beat behind her sister. Perfect little ambassadors to the world, don't you think?
In other news, the girls requested "fancy hair," for School Picture Day, with some exacting requirements, and me, ME, me the person who has actually buzz-cut my own head for years at a time just to avoid having to fix my hair, I listened to these exacting requirements, I bought BOBBY PINS, lord help me, and then I created this unto my children:
Here's a close-up so you can witness the wonder of my bobby pin action:
I was afraid the girls would get teased at school, bless their hearts--their tastes are so wonderful and so eccentric, and I dread the day that eccentricity gets beaten out of them--but of course they didn't get teased, they got loaded up with compliments, and now I fear that every day may be Fancy Hair Day around here.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Fancy Hair, and the Children are Singing for Peace
2 comments:
- 5 orange potatoes said...
I think the song is so cute and I just love the hair. It had to have taken quite a while to do though! I wish we were closer I think our four little ladies would get along great. My girls like to wearn their hair in eccentric ways too, well Fauna is getting a little girly perfect hair on me lately! She has a new attitude since she turned 8!
how's the book publishing going? I've thought about trying that myself but the time to do it needs to be balanced into the day.
And what a nightmare of a story you shared about your babe and the lead test then the roseola!
- September 19, 2009 at 11:21 PM
- Abby said...
LOVE the hair. They look like Bjork! LOVE IT!
- September 21, 2009 at 3:28 PM
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L'Oréal integrates ethics into the heart of its business practices, beginning with governance.
L'Oréal's ambition is to be an exemplary enterprise and it integrates ethics into the very heart of its business practices. Its governance relies on its Board of Directors, composed of very diverse profiles, and the directors' commitment to supporting L'Oréal's development; support on which the senior management and the Executive Committee can depend, to meet the challenges of the future.


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Xavier Naidoo's soul vocals, cool look and positive messages have made him an important voice in German pop. Since the album Nicht von dieser Welt (1998) all of his studio albums have reached number one in the German charts.
Xavier Naidoo, whose family origins are Asian and African, was born in Mannheim in 1971. He released his first album in the USA under the name Kobra. Xavier Naidoo is strongly influenced by gospel, soul, R&B and hip-hop, and he frequently collaborates with artists working in these genres. In 1995 he founded the band Söhne Mannheims and released four successful albums with them. His lyrics have won several awards and since 2003 he has had three number one hits in Germany with 'Ich kenne nichts', 'Danke' and 'Das hat die Welt noch nicht gesehen'.
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Robert provides restructuring support throughout the RSM group and is a senior partner within Baker Tilly Creditor Services LLP.


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Hemingway's American Bar & Grill
1885 Wantagh Ave., Wantagh
(516) 781-2700, www.hemingwaysgrill.com
If you're looking for a cozy spot to relax with brunch on a Sunday, Hemingway's has plenty to offer. A section of this multi-level bar and grill is transformed into a lavish hot and cold buffet, complete with an omelet and waffle station and fixings galore. Hemingway's, designed after a woodsy 1940s hunting lodge, has graced the same location since 1994.
For $27.95 you can choose what you'd like, and dine for an hour and a half from the time you are seated. Non-alcoholic beverages (juice, soda, coffee, tea) are unlimited and included. Brunch cocktails – Bloody Mary, Mimosa, Sangria – are $5 each. Children ages three to ten can enjoy the brunch for $16.95. On the December Sunday we visited, Hemingway's was holiday festive, featuring a lively "Lunch with Santa," on the upper level.
Trays and chafing dishes were lined up near the bar - cereals, muffins, bagels, homemade salads, platters of fruit, cheese and cold cuts, and peel-and-eat shrimp. Moving on were hot breakfast choices – French toast, pancakes rolled up with blueberries inside with warm maple syrup, home fries, and my personal favorite, Eggs Benedict with creamy hollandaise sauce on the side, plus crisp bacon and breakfast sausage. If looking for lunch, go with Rigatoni ala Vodka, Stuffed Shells, Tilapia Oreganata, Chicken with Country Gravy and Meatballs. Before indulging in dessert, don't miss the omelet station, and the waffles hot and crisp off the iron. Among the desserts were NY Cheesecake, Brownies, Apple Crisp and Chocolate Mousse Parfait. Servers were accommodating and friendly. Buffet choices are changed periodically.
As a bar and grill, Hemingway's has full lunch and dinner fare. From the dinner menu, appetizers range from $8.95 for Brie Stuffed Pretzel to $14.95 for Chicken Quesadilla. Soups, salads, burgers and sandwiches are $7.95 to $18.95. Entrees run from $18.95 to $32.95 for NY Strip Steak with haricot verts and garlic smashed potatoes. The children's menu includes a kid-friendly entrée, beverage and ice cream for $12.95.
Monday is Burger & Beer Night (one free beer with any burger). Taco & Tequila Night is on Tuesday, and Steak Night on Wednesday means a three-course prix fixe meal and $10 off on any bottle of wine. Ladies Night on Thursday has live entertainment, and on Friday at Happy Hour, there are complementary appetizers.
Lunch is served 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Sunday Brunch is 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dinner hours are 4 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 4 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 4 to 9 p.m. on Sunday. Reservations are suggested. Catering is available for up to 150 guests, or to 100, on the upper level.
■ Muffins
■ Tomato/Mozzarella Salad
■ Peel & Eat Shrimp
■ Eggs Benedict with Bacon & Sausage
■ Cheese Crepes
■ Blueberry Pancakes mine
■ Omelet with Spinach, Bacon,
Mushrooms and Cheddar Home Fries
■ Chicken with Country Gravy
■ Tilapia Oreganata
■ Stuffed Shells
■ NY Cheesecake
■ Chocolate Mouse Parfait