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At SABEU, work hygiene is an essential component of the production process in clean rooms. The effectiveness of the hygiene requirements is monitored and documented with regular controls of the particle count in the ambient air and microbiological analyses in accordance with GMP guidelines.
Our hygiene monitoring includes the regular surveillance of the manufacturing conditions in accordance with the EC guide to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) by:
The samples are analyzed by certified accredited laboratories.


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I first stayed in a luxury hotel at the age of 27 and a fine thing it was. The soft beds & fluffy pillows, the scraping & aahing of so many, the big cheque at the end – I knew I was somebody. But unfortunately most of that wonder has now been taken away from me. I still love 5 star hotels. But not for their ability to reinforce my self-esteem but for their capability to deliver extreme physical comfort.
In this, the unkind God we live under has been having a bit of a laugh at my expense. Comfort now is less of huge, plump, soft mattresses and more of the anemically firm; less of the fluffy pillow and more of a tiny cotton one. Of course, a bathtub with running hot & cold water and a case full of assorted unguents can never wither. Nor will a Room Service that can deliver a truly crispy masala dosa at any time of the day or night.
The luxury hotels of the Taj group deliver the most physical comfort in India and that I like. While they can scrape and bow like the best of them, they leave you alone if you are of such a mind. I am & so we get along fine.

subset: commoncrawl


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Hi Valerie,Originally Posted by Valerie Speller
I can't see anything obviously wrong about #1 above, but 2 - 5 are certainly odd. Below, I've listed my suggestions...
2. Stop [deleted FROM] doing things you want to do.
3. Sorry, I can't sew these buttons ON.
4. We get TO school by 8.20.
5. I need A GRAMMAR BOOK to do my exercises. (I don't really understand what the original sentence was trying to get at here, so I've taken a wild guess!)
I hope that helps!
PS - I've deleted your email address from your post. Please register with this forum to allow others to email you. :wink:


text: This picture shows the knee of a person with a chronic inflammatory disease known as dermatitis herpetiformis. It produces red, raised (papular), small or large blisters (vesicles or bullae) that burn and itch intensely. Dermatitis herpetiformis develops suddenly, lasts for weeks to months, and may be associated with digestive diseases (such as Celiac disease).


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Prosecutor and persecutor
Kamala Harris has a complicated record, but her zeal to support abortion and attack its opponents has been consistent
Kamala Harris has a complicated record, but her zeal to support abortion and attack its opponents has been consistent
Pro-lifers, conservatives praise Trump's third SCOTUS pick
Mike Pence has brought a low-key but active approach to the vice presidency
A deadly border clash between Chinese and Indian troops has put relations between the two most populous countries in the world on a precipice
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Miroslav Volf grew up as a Pentecostal in Croatia. In college he played guitar and sang in a Christian band, but in one town young Communists beat up the band members and slashed the van's tires. And that was before the war that upended his hometown and all the Balkans. As a professor at Yale Divinity School and director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, he now lives in a more polite environment, one that many evangelicals view suspiciously, so it's a pleasure to see the biblical grounding of his latest book, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Zondervan, 2005).
WORLD: Your book explores theological principles in a deeply personal way, so let me start out personally: You write about how infertility felt for nine years like a poison and a curse, but after you and your wife adopted your two sons you came to see infertility as "God's strange gift." How can those who also feel cursed keep God's gifts in mind?
VOLF: When we feel "cursed" our souls oscillate-we weep and rage, we beat on heaven's doors, and we sit dejected and incapacitated, wondering whether heaven has any doors or whether there even is any heaven. We look for God as source of hope, but when we turn to God we see only a dark face.
And that is, in a sense, as it ought to be for those who believe in an all-powerful and good God while facing undisputable evil. Because we believe, we run to God for help. And strange as it may seem, because we believe we also lament and protest. For if we did not believe, there'd be nothing to protest about because we'd have no reason to expect to live in a good world.
Of infertility, we'd simply acknowledge that that's what human bodies sometimes do-they fail to produce offspring-and there would be nothing more to it except to try to fix the problem. So God is both the source of our protest and the source of our help.
So first it's OK to lament and protest, which means, second, that a "curse" can't be seen as a gift while you're in it. A curse may become a gift (or give birth to a gift), but while you're in it, it's not yet a gift. Only when the resolution comes does the "curse" reveal itself to have been a gift. That's what happened to me. When our adopted children came, infertility showed itself as a painful but welcome gift. So what those who feel cursed can do is hope in (that is, count on or expect) the goodness of God, which will, in its own time, transform our curses into gifts.
I should add that I'm not so sure all of our curses-all the curses in the world-will be transformed into gifts. The Holocaust, the Rape of Nanjing, Stalin's purges as gifts!? Something in me rebels at the mere thought of that idea. As a Christian, I live with the pain of these incredible wounds and with hope for a new world without them.
WORLD: You write that God's gifts themselves oblige us to give freely to others, and that God's commands reinforce that obligation in a way that allows the constraint to work for beauty and delight. How does the Bible offer liberty in giving by providing order?
VOLF: The big issue behind your question is the proper understanding of freedom. Our Western culture, especially I'd say our American culture, is all about freedom. But what does it mean to be really free? It does not mean simply having choices and living as you please. It does mean living with every fiber of your being, including your will, in sync with who God created you to be.
Freedom isn't just a matter of will; it's a matter of being. And that's where certain forms of constraint of freedom can legitimately come in. Why? Because our desires are often not in sync with who we truly are as creatures of God. Unconstrained, we work against ourselves and generate our own slavery-sometimes even pleasant slavery for a while, but slavery nonetheless-as those addicted to drugs, pornography, gambling, or anything else will attest.
When God commands us sinners how to live, we experience God's commands as constraint. But what the commands really do is simply tell us what it means to live in sync with ourselves as God's creatures. In the world to come, when we've been made thoroughly good, the content of God's Law will remain unchanged. We just won't experience it as constraint, because we'll do spontaneously precisely what God's commands tell us to do. Then we'll be truly free. The command to give nudges us, reluctantly generous sinners that we are, to be joyful and free givers.
WORLD: Our natural worry is that if we give what we have, we ourselves may go without later. You counter that by teaching, "Those who pass gifts on receive more abundantly from the source of all gifts"-from God. What are the advantages but also the dangers of thinking of giving as a triangular exchange rather than simply person-to-person?
VOLF: You mean triangular exchange with God as the third party, right? The advantages are immense. Take God out of the picture and it's hard to know how to justify and how to practice genuine giving. We either simply seek to maximize our own benefits, or by giving are doomed to lose-even lose ourselves when we give radically. With God in the picture, our genuine giving and our benefiting coincide. Then, as Kierkegaard puts it in his great book, Works of Love, those who love receive what they give, from God and eventually from others, too.
Are there dangers in such an understanding of gift-giving? It does involve some risk-exactly as much risk as believing in God involves in the first place. And the risk consists in the gift-giving itself. Every gift given is a risk taken.
Even when we write up contracts to set up the terms of a mutually beneficial exchange of equivalents, we run some risk that the contract will not be respected, that we'll lose the deal, will have to go to court, etc. The risk is much greater when it comes to gift-giving. When we give a gift, we don't make an advance agreement to get anything in return. In a certain sense, we make ourselves vulnerable to those to whom we've given. When they reciprocate our generosity, we rejoice. Community is created, and the risk-taking has proven worth doing. When they are selfish-well, we know that those who give in love receive back love from God.
WORLD: Let's say a reader of Free of Charge nods his head when you write that "those of us who have tend to squander or hoard," but he nods equally emphatically when you note that "what we do pass on is often misappropriated by middlemen," so that it's not clear that increasing the size of gifts will actually help. What should we do to avoid falling into "compassion fatigue," which results sometimes from sin but other times from our awareness of misspending?
VOLF: We should not forget that many middlemen act with integrity and even generosity of their own, though there are plenty of bad apples in the basket. We should be smart in the way we give. What good is it to give a gift to a person in need, only for it to end up in the coffers of those who've made it their perverse job to plunder the fruits of others' generosity?
Yet we realize that we live in a fallen world. The practice of gift-giving is in no way exempt. So we monitor our giving, put pressure on middlemen for transparency and accountability, change venues of giving when necessary. And all along we realize that our giving will be partly thwarted. But we still give-and we give because there's the divine Third at work as we give.
The benefit to the recipient isn't reduced to the amount of "stuff" we give; our gift is a seed that God multiplies for recipients as well as for givers. Notice an important contrast: When you and I exchange equivalents-say, when we barter-you get no more and no less than what has parted from me. It's different with gifts. When I give you a gift, you receive more than the stuff that has left my hands, partly because you receive not just my gift but also my generosity. Gifts are not simply the "stuff" that travels from one person to the other. Gifts are seeds that God makes grow, sometimes into a bountiful harvest. So I can give in hope, and that hope does not disappoint even if unethical middlemen siphon off more than their share.
WORLD: How does the understanding that "God is wrathful because God is love" help the affluent to avoid being either implacable judges or doting grandparents in relation to the poor? How does that sense of how to give also inspire forgiving?
VOLF: Love without wrath on account of harm inflicted on the beloved is mere sentimentality. That's why God is wrathful in the face of human sin. We who are affluent often don't know how to be good givers. We give-but for all the wrong reasons. We give in order to get something, which is to say that we give to ourselves-to puff ourselves up or to atone for our transgressions, for instance. I suspect that God is sometimes wrathful toward us because we are bad givers.
Is it appropriate for us as loving givers also to be wrathful? Certainly we should avoid both the stance of implacable judge ("You're undeserving, therefore you'll get nothing from me!") and of doting grandparent ("I could never give you enough, sweetheart."). But is there a proper way to be wrathful? Let me put it this way: It's important to educate recipients about how to receive responsibly. It's an art to receive well, just as it's an art to give well; and we can sin not just as givers but also as recipients, and sin gravely. But givers aren't best suited to teach their recipients; for when they do so, their giving has a tendency to turn into rewarding and therefore to cancel itself as giving.
WORLD: You write, "It's morally wrong to treat an adulterer and a murderer as if they had not committed adultery and murder . . . such offenses should not be disregarded. Instead, they should be forgiven." How does that work out in practice concerning criminal justice and incarceration? Why do liberals tend to disregard offenses, while conservatives tend to refuse to forgive?
VOLF: I don't like using the labels "liberals" and "conservatives" because they miss so much. But since you use those terms, let me give you only two considerations about what is a very complex issue. Some liberals think that any form of passing of judgment is already an act of exclusion, while one of liberalism's main impulses is to include. So if you can't pass judgment and still include, you must disregard the offense.
In contrast, some conservatives think that generosity toward transgressors is a form of weakness that will invite the forces of chaos to overwhelm us. For this reason and some others, conservatives feel compelled to punish instead of forgive.
It's one of the extraordinary features of early Christianity-of any authentic Christianity-that it combines the robust passing of judgment with an even greater show of grace. That's exactly what happens in forgiveness, God's forgiveness and ours. To forgive is to pass judgment, yet not to exact retribution-which, as it turns out, may bridge the liberal and conservative sides in American culture (or further alienate them!).
Because I believe that Christ has died for the whole of humanity and "paid the penalty of sin" for all, I don't believe in retribution, whether personal or social. As far as criminal justice is concerned, my stance implies that the purpose of punishment can never be retribution but must always be protection of the innocent population and/or reformation of the criminal.
I understand that this isn't necessarily the prevalent view in the Christian tradition, but I don't know of a better way to apply God's forgiveness and reconciliation-the center of the Gospel-to the issues of criminal justice.
And of course, unlike some in the history of Christianity (notably the great reformer and my hero, Martin Luther), I think that it's a mistake to distinguish sharply between the Law and the Gospel by applying the Law to life in society and the Gospel to the interior life of the soul and to personal relationships. The Gospel of grace should inform the criminal system, as well as other spheres of life.
WORLD: You observe that government, while it has an important role in tending to social needs, should not replace gift-giving, which binds people together. Has the expectation of government payment tended to squeeze out both the offering and the acceptance of charity? Can we restore community bonds and other cords of concord?
VOLF: That's right, I don't think that the government's distribution mechanisms should replace personal gift-giving, even if in contemporary societies the government has an indispensable role to play. Giving is fundamental to human flourishing, and giving can't be bureaucratized (using "bureaucracy" here in a neutral and descriptive sense rather than a derogatory one).
And yes, I do believe that we can restore community bonds that are forged through giving. That's partly why I wrote the book Free of Charge-I wanted to draw attention to the extraordinary Christian resources for restoring the practice of gift-giving and, as an aside, point out how impoverished secular culture is when it comes to such resources.
However, if we are to restore a culture of giving, it's important not to think of giving simply as help we render to the poor, although that is a central function of giving. Instead, we need to think of giving as permeating all of our relations and all of our activities. Nor should we think of giving only in materialistic terms, as though to give of one's time and talents didn't qualify as giving. A good teacher is a giver, even when she gets paid for her work. The same is true of doctors, plumbers, lawyers, pastors, mechanics, scholars, etc.
And, of course, special relations between family members are nonexistent without gift-giving. You can't be a family if all you do is calculate the equivalents of what each does for the other as you seek to maximize your own benefits. If you approach child-rearing in this way, you'll literally destroy your kids in no time-they'll die of neglect!
Giving is a fundamental mode of human existence. When we identify it as such and nurture it, then we'll be able to be givers in all spheres of life. And let's not forget churches as schools of giving. I think that's an important role of churches, institutions established to celebrate and encourage the passing on of God's gifts of redemption and creation-including material wealth-to humanity.
WORLD: A practical question that weighs on some of our readers-for those who want to give away much of what God has given them, but are concerned about having enough for their lifetimes should they live long-is there a moral problem with bequests or other vehicles that result in the bulk of giving coming after death?
VOLF: I haven't reflected deeply about this issue, but my sense is that there is no problem with the kinds of arrangements you mention, provided that one's generosity doesn't get neglected in the here and now. If there's a healthy stream of generous giving on a daily, weekly, yearly basis, I see no problem with preserving a reasonable amount to live long and well. If a person's giving is for the most part postponed till the post mortem, however, his interest in his own well-being has illegitimately overwhelmed his generosity toward others.
Gift-giving is very much related to one's sense of security. If we find our security in the things we possess, we'll hold onto things; if we find our security in the gift-giving God, we'll be generous-we'll show active and tangible concern not just for ourselves but also for others.


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The owner of a Charlton welding company could face a $75,000 fine and be ordered to issue a public apology in a newspaper after he pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act.
Larry McKissick II, 43, who runs Charlton Welding & Repair Inc. on 11 Griffin Road in Charlton, had more than 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel spill into nearby wetlands in June 2010. Mr. McKissick was called to his business then and told there was a smell of diesel fuel. Valves on a storage tank were open and roughly 3,200 gallons of diesel fuel had been released from the tank, federal court records show.
Authorities said Mr. McKissick did not notify state, local or emergency response officials and instead began to wash off his property. Later that day residents in a condominium complex located about a quarter-mile downstream from the business called Charlton police and fire to report a fuel smell.
Fire officials found fuel in the wetlands and traced the discharge to Mr. McKissick's property, federal records show. Firefighters notified the state Department of Environmental Protection about the fuel and it was discovered that the ground, wetlands and a half-mile of the Cady Brook had been contaminated.
The cleanup took more than six months to complete and cost the state Department of Environmental Protection roughly $683,000. Mr. McKissick was charged in federal court with violating the federal water pollution control act – negligent discharge of oil. In mid-2010 the state fire marshal cited Mr. McKissick for 13 fire code violations relating to the oil spill. The state also turned over the remaining cleanup work to Mr. McKissick.
A sentencing hearing in federal court will take place on Thursday, but a plea agreement has been reached which includes a fine in the amount of $75,000. If the plea agreement is accepted, Mr. McKissick would be placed on probation for a year and serve four months of home detention.
Paperwork filed by his attorney also states he would be ordered to have publicized – at his own expense – a public apology in a newspaper. That would have to come within two weeks of sentencing.
After the spill the state DEP ordered Mr. McKissick to hire a licensed professional to clean the contaminant from his property and test private wells in the area. Fire officials also said Mr. McKissick did not have the permit to house a diesel fuel tanker.
Mr. McKissick's lawyer contends in paperwork that his client took responsibility for his actions ounce contacted by Charlton authorities. Mr. McKissick also had no knowledge of how much diesel fuel was spilled after estimates were made later.
Contact Scott J. Croteau at email@example.com. Follow him @ScottCroteauTG


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Cycle-Counts best practice
Cycle-Counts best practice
Official rates of cycle use are usually underestimates.
When conducting a cycle count try to:
- Do it in summer and avoid thunderstorms.
- Do it in the morning rush-hour.
- Don't fudge the figures.
- State on the result sheet the time and weather conditions for the count.
- Don't let the council or company bury it - distribute your findings widely.
- Cite it as research in your literature.
- Send out a press release with your results.


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Clarissa Sanders, July 14th , 2020.
If you are looking for a style for your dining room, check out these awesome industrial dining rooms. Here we present you an urban collection of industrial dining furniture that will add a twist of loft style living to your dining room. Simple, clean, strong, and functional is the best way to describe the industrial dining room. Brick walls, upcycled wood, concrete and industrial metal furniture they all together it looks amazing. You can add some warm industrial style to your space with a dining table in industrial style.
If you have an open area dining room that shares a space with a living room or kitchen area, an area rug will help you define the dining room without using walls. Choose a rug that uses colors from adjoining spaces but still defines the space. Therefore a mixture of neutrals from the surrounding rooms with a punch of an accent color to match the dining room chairs would be perfect.
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Federal regulator fights for wind power
Wind power has a powerful new ally in the shape of Jon Wellinghoff, the new chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Just three months after his appointment, Wellinghoff told a US Energy Association forum that base load power "is going to become an anachronism" and that new nuclear or coal plants may not ever be needed again in the United States. Instead, vast amounts of new renewable energy should come online, including thousands of gigawatts of wind, he said in April.
Integration of a variable supply of electricity, such as from wind plant, will not be more of a problem than dealing with variable demand, provided that balancing areas are large enough; the transmission grid is strong and well connected, and that modern power system control technology is fully utilised for highly flexible balancing of supply and demand.
Adopting the current catch-all term for a modern power system, Wellinghoff refers to this collection of improvements as a "smart grid," a term that primarily means energy efficiency and demand response technologies that both reduce energy losses and encourage end users to demand electricity in ways that work actively with the ebb and flow of energy resources.
"People talk about, oh, we need base load. It's like people saying we need more computing power, we need mainframes. We don't need mainframes, we have distributed computing," Wellinghoff outlined his thinking at the American wind industry's annual trade show in Chicago last month. "I think they need to look at what base load really means. What we're looking at is the most economical loading order. The most economical loading order would be wind. You do have to shape it and make sure you have adequate power available to meet all the needs."
Gigawatts of wind
The first step to putting wind first in the merit order for dispatch begins with energy efficiency, which can reduce electricity demand by as much as 40%, says Wellinghoff. "I didn't even realise until I got to FERC how much ability we have to save energy in this country by making the transmission system more efficient." He also believes that more on-site generation from solar photovoltaics, combined heat and power, and small natural gas plants can reduce demand variability on the central system, making it possible to integrate more technologies that supply variable volumes of electricity. In this way, it would be possible to manage "thousands of gigawatts of wind" and solar in the US and hundreds of gigawatts of geothermal, biomass and hydrokinetic technologies, he says.
"We have the potential in this country, we just have to go out and get it, and we have the potential also to operate the system so power is dependable and reliable and provided from green sources as long as we ensure we're using it as efficiently as possible," says Wellinghoff.
FERC regulates power system management across the US, including interstate transmission, the wholesale power markets, and licensing of hydropower projects. But federal laws restrict its ability in many cases to trump state decisions on what system improvements should be introduced where and when. FERC has battled for years for a better national market structure but has failed to win federal government support for initiatives such as its Standard Market Design six years ago.
Transmission battles
FERC's difficulties were underlined in February, when the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the agency permitting approval over interstate transmission lines when states are seen to be acting too slowly to expand wires or are outright against it. "We're looking into that and we very well may appeal," says Wellinghoff.
A variety of bills are moving forward in Congress to grant FERC the power Wellinghoff says the agency needs over states in order to get needed transmission lines for renewables. He says such a law should continue to recognise state interests and that all deference needs to be given to states and regions to solve the transmission problems in their own areas. But if it does not get resolved, "there has to be some ultimate backstop to siting and cost allocation. At some point in time there has to be someone to make the final decision that's not being made on a state or regional basis," Wellinghoff says.


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In the science community, a meta-analysis is what we do when we don't want to do any work ourselves and instead want to take the work of a bunch of other people, tease the data a little, draw some conclusions that nobody had noticed before, and then pawn it off as our own.
Presenting the 2009 Tampa Bay Rays Top Prospects Meta-Analysis.
Baseball Prospectus has released their list of Top 100 prospects. We are still waiting for their list of Top 11 prospects for the Rays, but five of those players are in the top 100, so we can get a head start.
Notes on how the rankings were constructed are found at the bottom of this post. Notes on the final rankings can be found after the table…
A few notes on the final rankings…
- Last year, there was a near-unanimous agreement on who the top 5 prospects were although the exact order varied. This year, there are only two players (David Price, Wade Davis) in the top 5 of every list. Tim Beckham and Jeremy Hellickson both missed the top 5 on a single list.
- In our minds, the top 5 are can't miss prospects. We don't know how good each will be, but all should be major leaguers at some point. The rest of the list includes players that should make the big leagues at some point as long as they maintain their current development pace.
- Tim Beckham, Nick Barnese, Matt Moore, Mitch Talbot and Jake Jefferies are new to the list this season.
- Evan Longoria (#1 in '08) is no longer eligible, Eddie Morlan (#9 in '08) is no longer in the organization and Ryan Royster (#10 in '08), Chris Mason (#11) and James Houser (#14) all fell off the list.
- Jake McGee had the biggest drop from last season (#3) and Jeremy Hellickson had the highest jump from last year's list (#8).
- Of the players that appeared on every list, Desmond Jennings had the biggest disparity between high and low rank. In general, outside of top 5 draft picks, we rarely rank a player very high on the TVI until we have seen them perform at the double-A level where true prospects separate themselves from the never-will-be's. But there are also reasons to be concerned with Jennings despite all his natural talent. Due to injuries he is 22 this year and yet he has only played 179 games above the Junior College level and only 24 of those games are above low-A.
A few notes on how the Meta-Analysis was constructed…
- We included rankings from Baseball America, Minor League Ball, Biscuits Crumbs (Stacy Long), ESPN (Keith Law), Baseball Intellect and our own Trade Value Index.
- Baseball Prospectus should have their list of the top 11 prospects some time this week. We will update this list once it is published.
- Stacy Long's list was actually the top 30 prospects not including David Price. So we assumed that Price was #1 and slotted everybody else down one.
- Baseball Intellect has only published their top 10. The remainder of their top 15 prospects list will be concluded in the next few days.
- When calculating the averages, we gave Baseball America a weight of 2. Analyzing minor leaguers is what they do for a living. They are the experts and in many cases they have actually seen these prospects play and have been following them for several years. Not to mention their offices are in Durham.
- Several lists were constructed prior to Eddie Morlan being selected in the Rule 5 draft. In these cases, we simply removed Morlan and moved everybody else up a spot.
- Our Trade Value Index ranks players a bit differently. In addition to projecting how good a player will be, we also consider value to the organization. For more information see the most recent TVI post.
- The final list includes all players that appeared in the top 10 of at least one list.
- Some players did not appear on every list. For players not on a list, we gave that player a ranking of 2 spots lower than the lowest ranked player in the list for the purpose of calculating the final average.


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WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Friday trimmed his funding request for the war in Afghanistan and other overseas operations by 10 percent, reflecting his plans to wind down the US presence in that country.
The president asked for $79.4 billion to fund so-called overseas contingency operations in fiscal 2014, which begins Oct. 1, down from his original $88.5 billion request, a White House aide said. Obama made the request in a letter to Congress.
The US chief executive has said he plans to draw down troops in Afghanistan after 2014 but has not specified by how much.
"The president is still reviewing options from his national security team and has not made a decision about the size of a possible US presence after 2014," National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.
"The lower request reflects our transitioning role in Afghanistan," she said.
The president is due to announce in the next few weeks how many combat troops the United States will leave in Afghanistan next year, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday.
The president has set 2014 as the target for withdrawing most of the troops but the decision is a delicate one as sufficient forces must stay behind to train and support Afghan forces and carry out some operations.
US troops first went to Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States to root out al Qaeda and its Taliban protectors. Reuters


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in performance: andrew bird
No sooner did his band lean into the animated stride of Effigy last night at the Singletary Center for the Arts than Andrew Bird called a time out.
"That's a little too swift," instructed the Chicago song stylist to his backup trio before launching into a second attempt with a slightly dustier rhythm.
It was curious guidance, in a way, because Bird was armed like an artist capable of taking on the entire arrangement himself. He had a guitar slung over his shoulder, a violin raised in one hand, a bow in the other, a pedal board full of looping effects at his feet and a glockenspiel (which, sadly, went unplayed for much of the evening) by his side.
The 1 ¾ hour performance shifted between such one-man-band designs and full ensemble durability that took Byrd's music into rockier and unexpectedly rootsier terrain.
The show-opening Hole in the Ocean Floor reaffirmed what we already knew about Bird – namely, his ability to summon wistful pop reflection with an orchestra of on-the-spot loops and effects, a beautifully tempered (but classically assured) command of the violin and the light hearted solo stage persona of a minstrel singer. Thank his most distinctive voice, one created by human whistling, for the latter quality.
The band – guitarist Jerey Ylvisaker, drummer Martin Dosh and bassist Alan Hampton – entered for Desperate Breeds…, one of a handful of tunes (along with Ocean Floor) pulled from Bird's recent Break It Yourself album. Like much of the evening's repertoire, it offered a brightly autumnal atmosphere that grew out a child-like pop melody created by Bird from plucking and strumming the violin like a ukulele.
But there were also instances where Bird and company unplugged from the effects and took on folk fare like Railroad Bill, Townes Van Zandt's If I Needed You and another Break It Yourself gem, Give It Away, by singing around a single microphone.
Add to that Bird's remarkably clear and matured singing, which often brought to mind Ryan Adams (especially on the new Three White Horses), and you had a performance with almost vaudeville-like variety and expression but balanced by a musical spirit both assured and restless.


text:
Main Duma suspect details Shin Bet interrogation methods
Amiram Ben-Uliel alleges security agency used women singing to extract confession; handcuffed him, beat him up
Marissa Newman is The Times of Israel political correspondent.
The Times of Israel liveblogged Sunday's developments as they unfolded.
Three journalists working for Turkish state-run news agency Anatolia are abducted Sunday by members of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in southeastern Turkey, the agency says.
Anatolia says that the incident occurred in Nusaybin in Mardin province, where the security forces have been conducting a vast operation aimed at flushing PKK rebels out of the area.
The agency is Turkey's largest and has a large network of journalists in Turkey and abroad.
The border town of Nusaybin has been a hotspot in the fighting that flared up again between Turkish forces and the PKK after a fragile two-and-a-half year truce fell apart in July.
US Secretary of State John Kerry says Sunday that a "provisional agreement" has been reached on a ceasefire that could begin in the next few days in Syria's five-year civil war.
Kerry says he spoke in the morning with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to discuss terms of a ceasefire and the two now must reach out to the parties in the conflict.
"There is a stark choice for everybody here," Kerry says.
He declines to go into the details of the agreement because all parties need to be fully consulted. Kerry says he hopes US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin would talk soon and that after that, implementation could begin.
The Russian Foreign Ministry says Lavrov and Kerry spoke on the phone Sunday for a second day in a row and discussed "the modality and conditions" for a ceasefire in Syria that would exclude groups that the UN Security Council considers terrorist organizations.
Lebanese Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi announces his resignation from the cabinet, saying the militant Hezbollah group is dominating the government.
Rifi has been one of Hezbollah's harshest critics in Lebanon and his resignation on Sunday came two days after Saudi Arabia halted deals worth $4 billion aimed at equipping and supporting Lebanese security forces.
Lebanon has a sectarian divide that reflects the wider regional split between Sunni and Shiite powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iran, and has long been a battlefield where the region's proxy wars play out.
Rifi says in a statement that "the practices of Hezbollah's statelet and its allies are not acceptable."
A prominent columnist on Sunday delivers the harshest attack in the local media to date against Egypt's president, saying that, in terms of freedoms, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's rule is not different from the Islamist regime he removed in 2013.
In a front-page column in the al-Maqal daily, Ibrahim Eissa expresses outrage over a two-year prison sentence passed Saturday against author Ahmed Naji for publishing a sexually explicit excerpt of his novel that prosecutors said violated "public modesty."
The sentence against Naji, passed by a Cairo appeals court, can be appealed.
"Say what you will, Mr. President and speak at your conferences … as you wish, but the reality of your state is different," he writes. "Your state violates the constitution, harasses thinkers and creators and jails writers and authors.
"Your state is a theocracy, Mr. President, while you are talking all the time of a modern, civilian state," he writes. "Your state and its agencies, just like those of your predecessor (Islamist Mohammed Morsi), hate intellectuals, thought and creativity and only like hypocrites, flatterers and composers of poems of support and flattery."
Eissa, also a popular TV talk show host, strongly supported the July 3, 2013, ouster by the military of Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president. His removal, led by then defense minister Sissi, followed days of massive street protests against the divisive one-year rule of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group now labeled a terrorist organization.
Pope Francis is urging Catholic leaders not to allow executions this year, while he is stressing mercy.
Francis tells tourists and pilgrims in St. Peter's Square Sunday that he is proposing Catholic leaders should "make a courageous and exemplary gesture" and ensure that no convicted inmate is executed during the church's Holy Year of Mercy, which runs through November 20.
He adds he was also appealing to the conscience of all leaders so they can reach "international consensus" to abolish the death penalty.
Francis has reinforced earlier church teaching, especially by St. John Paul II, that there's no justification in modern society for capital punishment.
The pope says "even criminals hold the inviolable right to life" given by God. He also calls for improved prison conditions.
Kerry meets with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Jordan.
Abbas tells Kerry that he plans to ask the UN Security Council to condemn settlements and halt West Bank construction, Israel Radio reports.
The PA president urges Kerry to pressure Israel to free hunger-striker Mohammed al-Qiq, who is held without charges, and return the bodies of Palestinian attackers, according to the radio report.
Police arrest two Palestinian teenagers who were allegedly throwing rocks at Jerusalem's light rail near the Shuafat neighborhood in the eastern part of the city, a police spokesperson says.
One passenger is treated for shock at the scene, but no other injuries were reported in the incident earlier today, according to police.
The train is lightly damaged, police say.
— Judah Ari Gross
Clashes between Iraqi tribesmen and the Islamic State group in Fallujah are halted after the jihadists detain dozens of residents of the city west of Baghdad, officials say Sunday.
Tribesmen in three areas of the city "withdrew from the clashes (with IS), fearing for the fate of the detainees," an army lieutenant colonel tells AFP on condition of anonymity.
"The clashes stopped because of the imbalance of power and fear that the detainees would be executed," says Issa Sayir who was appointed by the Anbar governor to administer the Fallujah area.
Raja Barakat, a member of the provincial council in Anbar, where Fallujah is located, says: "We now fear that the (IS) organization will carry out a massacre in the city."
Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will endorse Senator Marco Rubio for president, The Huffington Post reports, citing two Republican sources.
Romney held off on the endorsement until now "due to his respect for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush," the report says.
Bush suspended his presidential campaign on Saturday night, after a poor showing in South Carolina.
At least 50 Islamic State group fighters have been killed in the last 24 hours in an advance by Syrian government forces east of Aleppo city, a monitor says Sunday.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the fighters were killed in clashes as well as strikes by Russian forces that are waging an aerial campaign in support of government troops.
Bahrain says Sunday it has adopted measures including travel curbs and monitoring of money transfers to counter Iran's "interference" in the Sunni-ruled kingdom shaken by Shiite-led unrest since 2011.
Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Al-Khalifa speaks of the "dangers of Iran's interference in the internal security" of Bahrain during a meeting with clerics, MPs and newspaper chiefs, says the official BNA news agency.
"We have taken a series of measures to confront the dangers of terrorism," Sheikh Rashid says.
These include forming a committee to monitor money transfers and donations to combat the "financing of terrorism" and imposing travel restrictions on citizens, especially aged between 14 and 18, to "unsafe countries," he says.
Bahrain has previously announced the dismantling of "terror" cells whose members it said were trained by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards and Lebanon's Tehran-backed Shiite movement Hezbollah.
A policeman is to stand trial for murder after a driver was shot dead in a dispute over a fare, the Egyptian prosecutor's office says Sunday, as public concern rises over police abuses.
Mustafa Mahmud is alleged to have shot dead Mohamed Ali Sayed Ismail, 26, with his police issue firearm late Thursday in central Cairo after a row over the fare for a delivery.
Mahmud has been charged with "premeditated murder" and "illegal use of his service weapon" and will go on trial, a senior official at the prosecutor's office says.
Marco Rubio says he's in good shape to more directly take on Donald Trump as a smaller Republican field moves on after South Carolina.
The Florida senator tells CBS' "Face the Nation" that the choice for Republicans is becoming "clearer and clearer" now that rival Jeb Bush is out of the race.
Rubio says it's time for Trump — who won in South Carolina on Saturday — to start spelling out clear policy positions on national security matters, health care and more.
Rubio puts it this way: "If you're running to be president, you can't just tell people you're going to make America great again."
Donald Trump rejects the idea that the Republican nomination is his to lose after his big win in South Carolina.
Trump says on CBS' "Face the Nation" that he still faces some tough competition, so "I don't want to say it's mine."
Trump is asked about Marco Rubio's suggestion that he needs to be more specific about his policy ideas. The billionaire businessman responds that he has "great knowledge of foreign policy." And he says he has a better vision for how to end the bloodshed and unrest in Syria than those who offer themselves as "great military geniuses."
Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu arrives on Sunday in Tehran for a surprise visit, Iran's state television reports.
Shoigu is expected to meet President Hassan Rouhani and his counterpart Hossein Dehghan during his trip to discuss the "situation in the region," it said.
The trip comes days after Dehghan visited Moscow on Tuesday, during which Shoigu said Russia and Iran were ready to step up their military cooperation.
Russia and Iran are both longtime allies of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.
Blasts are reported near a Shiite shrine south of Damascus, Syrian state TV reports, according to AFP.
A prominent Saudi prince says Muslim countries need to take the lead on fighting terrorism.
Prince Turki al-Faisal's comments Sunday in the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi come as the kingdom hosts military exercises with 20 member states of a recently announced Islamic counterterrorism alliance. Defense Ministers of the 34-nation coalition are scheduled to hold their first meeting in Saudi Arabia sometime in March.
The coalition was first announced by Saudi Arabia in December. The prince tells reporters it should have been created sooner because the majority of terrorism victims are Muslims.
The coalition will have a logistical hub based in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The kingdom's regional rival Iran, as well as Syria and Iraq, are not members of the coalition. All three are battling the Islamic State group.
Three journalists working for Turkish state-run news agency Anatolia were kidnapped and released on Sunday by members of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in southeastern Turkey, the agency says.
The three — a local correspondent, a cameraman and a photographer — were released uninjured to members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party (HDP) in the same area where they were taken, the agency reports.
But their equipment was taken by the militant group which has been fighting against the Turkish state since 1984.
Four blasts including at least one caused by a car bomb hit near a Shiite sanctuary south of Syria's capital Damascus on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says.
State television says "three terrorists attacks" near the Sayyida Zeinab shrine had left dead and wounded, without providing a toll.
A third Palestinian suspect is arrested in connection with the fatal supermarket attack in Sha'ar Binyamin in the West Bank Thursday, in which an off-duty soldier was stabbed to death, Channel 10 reports.
The report does not specify when the suspect was detained.
The two 14-year-old Palestinian assailants were shot and taken into custody at the scene.
At least 30 people are killed in the simultaneous attacks south of Damascus, AFP reports.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders says his loss to Hillary Clinton in Nevada probably was caused by lower voter turnout.
The Vermont senator says on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that "We will do well when young people, when working-class people come out" to vote. He adds: "We did not do as good a job as I had wanted to bring out a large turnout."
The state party estimates that 80,000 Democrats caucused Saturday. That's about 10,000 more than most expected but still well below the nearly 120,000 who showed up in 2008.
Hillary Rodham Clinton says she understands that independent voters in particular have questions about whether they can trust her.
She says on CNN's "State of the Union" that voters have an "underlying question…is she in it for us or is she in it for herself?"
She adds: "That's a question that people are trying to sort through…I know that I have to make my case."
The FBI is investigating whether classified information passed through Clinton's homebrew server while she was secretary of state.
Iraqi authorities on Sunday recover radioactive material that had gone missing in the country's south more than three months earlier, the environment ministry's spokesman says.
"We found the radioactive material that was lost by a Turkish… company," Amir Ali Hassoun tells AFP.
The material "still had the same properties and did not lead to the injury of anyone," Hassoun says.
He says the environment ministry will keep the material — Iridium-192 — until it can be returned to its owner, which another official earlier said was Turkish firm SGS.
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz says that his third place finish in South Carolina is effectively a tie for second place with Marco Rubio.
The Associated Press has called the race for Donald Trump, with Rubio placing second by two-tenths of 1 percentage point over Cruz, who finished third.
Cruz says Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that "last night we effectively tied for second," adding that, "there is now only one strong conservative remaining in this race who can win.
Cruz says the "game plan from Day One was to do well in the first four states and consolidate conservatives to go forward to Super Tuesday" on March 1. "We're positioned ideally to do exactly that."
Shocked German officials on Sunday condemn two "disgusting" incidents involving anti-migrant mobs in the ex-communist east of the country, including a crowd cheering a blaze at a planned refugee shelter.
A group of 20-30 apparently drunken onlookers applauded as fire took hold in a former hotel being converted into home for asylum seekers in the town of Bautzen in Saxony state overnight. Police suspected arson and traces of fire accelerant were found.
Some members of the group tried to impede the work of firefighters dispatched to the scene, police say.
A police spokesman says that the group showed "unabashed delight" at the blaze and made "disparaging comments" about the efforts to contain it.
No one was hurt in the incident. Two 20-year-old men were temporarily detained for defying police orders.
The events came two nights after 100 people in the Saxony town of Clausnitz tried to block the arrival of a bus carrying about 20 asylum seekers to a new shelter.
The scenes, captured on video, show the mob angrily shouting "We are the people," borrowing the pro-democracy slogan from the peaceful revolution that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The Islamic State group claims responsibility for a triple blast in a Damascus suburb that killed at least 22 people.
The Aamaq news agency, which is affiliated with the group, says two IS fighters detonated a car bomb before blowing up their explosive belts in Sayyida Zeinab, a Shiite neighborhood.
Residents say the attack was about a kilometer (0.6 mile) from one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines and did not damage it.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV says the blasts killed 22 people, while the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 31 were killed and dozens wounded.
Different figures are not uncommon in the chaotic aftermath of such attacks.
The Israel Defense Forces announces the beginning of a joint ballistic missile exercise with United States European Command (US EUCOM), dubbed Juniper Cobra 16.
"During the course of the exercise, over 1,700 US Service members, civilians and contractors will participate together with the IDF in addressing computer simulated challenges that Israel could face. The IDF sees Juniper Cobra as an opportunity to increase the long-standing cooperation between the military forces," the IDF says in a statement. "During the exercise, increased military activity may be noted."
US Major General Mark Loeben, director of Exercises and Assessments at Headquarters, United States European Command, says the drill is "our nation's premier exercise in the region, and EUCOM's highest priority exercise for 2016."
Australia warns Sunday that terrorists may be plotting attacks in and around Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's largest city.
The Australian High Commission in Malaysia says in a travel advisory that there is an ongoing terrorism threat in Malaysia, noting that authorities there have arrested a number of people allegedly involved in planning attacks, including against entertainment venues in Kuala Lumpur.
"Terrorists may be planning attacks in and around Kuala Lumpur. Attacks could be indiscriminate and may target Western interests or locations frequented by Westerners," the commission says in the advisory, which was posted on its website.
Malaysia has raised its security alert level following the January 14 attacks in Jakarta, the capital of neighboring Indonesia, that left eight people dead.
Billionaire businessman Donald Trump acknowledges he probably needs to act more presidential and says he'll do so "pretty soon."
The often brash Trump tells "Fox News Sunday," "I think I'll be very presidential at the appropriate time. Right now, I'm fighting for my life."
Trump has chalked up his second win in a row, duplicating his success in New Hampshire with a win in South Carolina on Saturday. His victory comes after a week in which he threatened to sue one rival, accused former President George W. Bush of lying about the Iraq war and even tussled with Pope Francis on immigration.
Trump says he "can act as presidential as anybody that's ever been president other than the great Abraham Lincoln." He says Lincoln was hard to beat.
Note to Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and anyone else who wants John Kasich to exit the race for the GOP presidential nomination: Not gonna do it. Not anytime soon, at least.
The Ohio governor tells CBS's "Face the Nation" that for him, the goal is gathering delegates in such Republican contests as Massachusetts, Vermont, Virginia, Mississippi, Michigan and Illinois. He says, "I don't have to win in these places, I just have to hang in there and continue to gather momentum."
Kasich argues that besides, he's the only governor left in the GOP field, now that former Florida governor Jeb Bush has exited.
Saudi Arabia accuses 32 people of spying for Iran, al-Arabiya reports.
The suspects are mostly Saudi nationals, one Iranian and one Afghan national.
The list of charges includes "establishing a spying unit in collaboration with members of the Iranian intelligence and providing very important and dangerous information related to the military field." The 32 are accused of meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, "carrying out hostile acts against Saudi Arabia and committing high treason against their country and their king," and "owning banned books, publications and automated computer devices which might be prejudicial to public order and the security of Saudi Arabia."
Initial reports of a stabbing in Jerusalem, near the Central Bus Station, are false, police say.
— Judah Ari Gross
AFP reports that the death toll in the Damascus shrine attacks rises to 62.
Hillary Clinton says Donald Trump and Ted Cruz "missed the mark" when they described their posture toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Trump has recently suggested that he'll be "sort of a neutral guy" in the dispute. Cruz, meanwhile, says he has "no intention of being neutral" in his support for Israel.
The former secretary of state suggested on CNN's "State of the Union" that the situation is far more complex. She pledged to defend and do everything she can to support Israel, but adds that "the Palestinians deserve to have a state of their own. That's why I support a two-state solution."
London Mayor Boris Johnson on Sunday says he would support a vote for Britain to leave the European Union in a blow for Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of a membership referendum in June.
"After a great deal of heartache… I will be advocating vote Leave," says Johnson, a popular politician from Cameron's own Conservative Party who is seen as a potential successor to the prime minister.
His comments will be seen as a key victory by supporters of Britain's departure from the EU — or "Brexit" — although Johnson in his comments implies he would not lead the movement and would not take part in frontline campaigning.
He says Cameron had done "fantastically well" on negotiating reforms at an EU summit last week but added: "I don't think anybody could realistically claim that this is fundamental reform of the EU or of Britain's relationship with the EU."
"There should be no confusion between the wonders of Europe and the holidays in Europe and fantastic food and friendships… with a political project that has basically been going on now for decades," he says.
The main suspect in the fatal Duma attack, in which three members of the Dawabsha family were burned to death last July, tells Channel 2 about the Shin Bet interrogation, and denies the allegations against him.
Amiram Ben-Uliel says he "didn't cooperate until they understood I don't listen to women's voices," for religious reasons, and would play the radio. When he got up to turn it off, they would handcuff him "and beat him up a bit."
The Shin Bet then brought in a woman interrogator "who would sing to me," he says, and at one point touched him on the shoulder.
After 18 days, they interrogated him all night.
In the next stage — after the attorney general ruled the national security agency could treat the suspects as "ticking bombs" — he claims the interrogators slapped him, and handcuffed him in painful positions.
"I screamed terribly," he tells Channel 2, but would not talk.
Ben-Uliel says the interrogators told him they would "drink your blood from your ears."
At one point, he told them: "I'll talk, I'll talk." He later reenacted the scene at Duma.
He told them no one was with him during the attack, "and they didn't believe me."
After meeting with his lawyer, Ben-Uliel retracted his confession, but "they didn't want to listen." He continues to profess his innocence.
The Shin Bet says, in response, that the interrogation was conducted in accordance with the law.
Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon (Kulanu party) is set to build an economic relief plan for the Palestinians, Channel 10 reports.
The minister has held several meetings with his Palestinian counterpart on the subject, the TV report says.
Once created, Kahlon will present the plan to Netanyahu. It will include cooperation on real estate building and integration of Palestinians into Israel's hi-tech sector. Palestinian doctors will also be given medical training in Israel, the report says.
If the prime minister approves it, Israel will present the plan to US President Barack Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani tells Russia's defense minister that the Syrian conflict can only be resolved through a political process.
The official IRNA news agency reports the talks in Tehran on Sunday, and says visiting Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu gave a message from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Rouhani. It does not elaborate.
Russia and Iran are key allies of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government.
Syrian state TV raises the death toll in the IS-claimed attacks near Damascus to 83.
Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon (Kulanu party) is set to build an economic relief plan for the Palestinians, Channel 10 reports.
The minister has held several meetings with his Palestinian counterpart on the subject, the TV report says.
Once created, Kahlon will present the plan to Netanyahu. It will include cooperation on real estate building and integration of Palestinians into Israel's hi-tech sector. Palestinian doctors will also be given medical training in Israel, the report says.
If the prime minister approves it, Israel will present the plan to US President Barack Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry.


text:
From the animated series "Star Wars Forces of Destiny".
Disclaimer: The material presented here is my original creation, any characters not created by myself are in no way official nor endorsed by their owners unless otherwise noted. They are either trademarks or registered trademarks of their owners in the United States and/or other countries.


text:
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Savoring The Moment
While driving to work, I had gotten stuck in a construction zone that had taken much longer than usual to get through. And, like Murphy's Laws would dictate, I had gotten stopped at several intersection lights that took forever to rotate back to giving me the green go-ahead. So, after finally arriving to the hospital and parking my car, I hurried into the emergency department, hopeful that all would be quiet.
The waiting room was jammed. The sounds of chaos hit me immediately, several TVs competing for dominance (Maury Povich vs. Headline News) while multiple conversations in multiple languages lingered heavily in the air. I had to step around several waiting patients while I dodged angry glares. "Excuse me," I said repeatedly, stepping around one patient with a bandaged, bleeding scalp and another sitting in a wheelchair, holding a vomiting bin, before finally making it to the double-doors that connected the triage station and waiting room area to the emergency department's active hallways.
I held my electronic ID badge up to the monitor and deeply exhaled as the double doors opened wide for me, taunting me to step forward into more mayhem. "Come, Jim," they spoke, willing to remain open until I took that first step through, "we've been waiting for you."
I walked into the ER's hallways as the doors clicked shut behind me. Locking me in. A good thing, too, since the hallways were lined with more wheelchairs and multiple cots, all filled with patients waiting to be placed into treatment rooms. The overhead fluorescent lights had been dimmed to create a warmer atmosphere, but failed miserably. Patients were writhing in their cots, holding their aching body parts while the wheel-chaired patients' bodies were slovenly tipping to one side or the other, like wilting flowers in the sunshine, obviously tired from maintaining an upright posture.
For a few brief seconds, I stood there, in the middle of this crazy hallway, taking inventory while rebuffing further angry glares. It seemed that people were quite frustrated and openly showing it. A nurse walked by in this instant. "Hello, Dr. Jim," she said, nodding at the lined hallway, "it's a rough one today." "Hi Kelly," I answered, "how long is the wait?" "Over six hours," she said, hurrying away with one of the wheel-chaired patients. Can you imagine, at eight at night, waiting over six hours to be seen in an emergency department?
And then, among this havoc, where multiple eyes were dancing around looking for the next person to direct their anger towards, I saw it. A sweet and tender moment. Between a mother and daughter. One of those little spaces of time where a typical and mundane, yet incredibly special, happening occurred that was missed by everyone else. Where I was reminded, once again, of our humanity.
They were halfway down the lined hallway, about twenty or so feet from me. The mother was sitting in the wheelchair, attempting to stand. She was fragile, polyester pants and a buttoned-up sweater clinging to her slight frame, with pursed lips and determined eyes. Beside her, standing, trying to help, was her daughter, obviously tired, middle-aged, in capri pants and a short-sleeve shirt, wearing the same pursed lips and determined eyes as her mother.
What made this scene remarkable was the intimacy of their moment despite all of the obnoxious stimuli that bombarded them. While a patient near them dry-heaved into a big pink basin and another grimaced while tightly gripping her head between her hands, this daughter wrapped her thin arms around her mother's waist, gently guiding her to her feet while leaning into her, chest to shoulder, her nose buried into her mother's short hair.
Oddly, as much as I wanted to help, I also wanted to continue watching. "Breathe in," I thought to myself, willing the daughter to inhale the scent of her mother's clothes, of her hair, maybe of the perfume that in years to come the daughter would casually smell and be taken back to this moment of familiarity. "Hug tighter," I willed the daughter's arms, wrapped around her mother's waist, hoping that they appreciated the inherent core strength of this woman who raised her. "Whisper something encouraging in her ear," I willed the daughter's lips, watching closely to see the mother lean even moreso into her daughter before successfully standing. She turned to her daughter and smiled. Soak this all in, I willed the daughter, this little moment of having your mom need you.
Maintaining her tight embrace on her mother, the daughter kicked up the foot pedals on the wheelchair before turning her mother toward where I was standing, guiding her several steps in my direction. As they approached me, the daughter and I gained eye contact.
I shifted my work bag over to my other shoulder and approached this patient's left side, opposite the side where the daughter was being supportive. "May I help either of you?" I asked, hoping to help this patient from the middle of this hallway. I could picture a runaway cot or a hurried tech clipping her and, despite her daughter's support, this patient falling to the ground.
"I think we're okay," the daughter answered, "we're just going to the bathroom." They were but ten feet from the bathroom door and looked comfortable enough to make it there. "How long have you been waiting?" I asked, grasping the patient's left elbow to help them the last few steps.
"Too long," the mother blurted out, showing her piss-and-vinegar. I laughed. It seems that an elderly woman's gumption is indirectly proporionate to their physical size. This woman, I had no doubt, had big gumption. "Probably a couple hours," the daughter added. I explained to them that I was one of the doctors and asked them what brought them to our ER. Plain and simple, it was a UTI. The mother had several days of burning and frequency of urination, and her family doctor "couldn't fit her in." Thus, the ER visit. And long wait.
After helping them into the bathroom, where the daughter would stay until her mom finished, I wished them luck and left them to their privacy. I found a tech who was able to wait by the door to help this patient back to her wheelchair from the bathroom, once they were finished.
I plugged myself into my hallway computer, sat down, and found this woman's results, confirming that she had a simple UTI. Thankfully, she was only a few patients down on the waiting list and would be discharged from our ER in the next hour from our express side.
As they left, I got a message sent to me from the daughter through one of our techs, thanking me for my help in the hallway and for "speeding them through." Although I would like to think I yield such power, I don't. It is the result of a cohesive, hard-working staff.
I jumped from my chair and ran to say goodbye to these people, only to find that they were already gone. I was disappointed I had missed them.
That still didn't keep me, though, from willing this daughter to cherish her care-giving role. And remaining time with her mother.
As always, big thanks for reading. A crazy schedule here...thanks for bearing with me. I hope this finds you all well.
12 comments:
- Kate said...
I forget to cherish even the trying times.
- August 3, 2010 at 10:37 AM
- The Hopeful Elephant said...
I try to remind myself of that on a daily basis as well.
Just breathe.
- August 3, 2010 at 11:44 AM
- kate sweeten said...
Every ER should have a doc like you!
I spent over eight hours in a ER (around six of which in the waiting room) when my gallbladder decided to stop working...I was in so much pain and couldn't stop crying while surrounded by a hurricane of people and sounds. I told my husband at one point that if he really loved me, he'd stab me (just a little bit) in the side so that I could be seen faster ;) The doc that I saw when I finally got into a room made it all worthwhile - what a sweet, caring and compasionate person. It's amazing to see people keep such composure and be so pleasent when surrounded by such insanity and anger.
- August 3, 2010 at 12:08 PM
- Katie Axelson said...
What an awesome snapshot. Way to realize the little moments within the chaos.
And thank you for the birthday wish. :-)
<>< Katie
- August 3, 2010 at 12:43 PM
- SeaSpray said...
I'm crying. Too close to home ..having lost my mother in April 09. And wishing I had done more the last two years of her life.
I saw her every week except when ureteral stent in the last summer of her life because it took a lot out of me because of the size. But before that ..I had periods of fear ..seeing her seem to age so and slow down ..and denial. She was also feisty and it was complicated. But I wish I got in there and just did stuff anyway. or wasn't too busy to do something fun.
Wish I overcame the obstacles.
It was hard on her ..but I am grateful she had six mos in nursing home where life's complications were out of the way and I git to be attentive toward her.
But it's never enough. I could've done more.
But ..I guess I did the best I could do at the times these things were happening.
You captured that moment well.
Savor the moments. Appreciate the caregiver roll. It's really hard but someday ..you'll miss the moments and you'll be glad for what you did do.
She lived alone and when I came in or would leave ..on some days I would hold her frail body close and long and say .."I love you Mommy." The Mommy coming from her adult daughter (who hadn't called her that since at 7 yrs old thought that was for babies), evoked a smile from her.
i don't know anyone who wheres Tabu perfume. Only Mom. She loved it and I saved it. Smelling that takes me right back.
Sorry so long.
Your post touched me ..sweetly ..painfully so.
- August 3, 2010 at 12:48 PM
- SeaSpray said...
oh and maybe I am not fair to judge ..but he couldn't squeeze her in for a urine sample, 5 min and a script?
I know ..multiply that x how many patients and he wouldn't ever get home. just seems wrong.
Friend's 86 yr old mother having repeat visits to the ER, dizzy, bowel issues has Sjogren's and I don't know what else and her docs ..do not bring her in. She NEVER abused going to docs and daughter is frustrated because she wants to speak with pcp, etc and mom won't give her the names/numbers stating she'll go when her appt comes up.
then recently the mother asked her to come down and stay a night because she didn't feel right. Tried to get in and office said no not til next day. She's 86! This woman is fiercely independent and for her to ask daughter to come stay a night ..something is wrong.
i have a question and wonder if anyone has insight about it.
with the geriatric population ..most will get chronic conditions and things will increasingly go wrong. But do their physicians put a limit on office visits because they attribute stuff to old age, believing they are increasingly not feeling well because of their age ..not necessarily health issues?
I know MDCR doesn't pay as well as private ins and that could be part of it.
Just wondering.
I would think you'd have more concern with an elderly patient.
- August 3, 2010 at 12:56 PM
- Have Myelin? said...
this post made me cry. my daughter waited all day in the ER to be admitted. i asked her to go outside and call 911 so she could get in that way. she refused.
when she was finally admitted... she went into a coma 4 hours later and died of multiple organ failure.
a coma....4 hours after waiting all day.
her friends kept telling the front desk how sick she was but they thought it was a "cold".
- August 3, 2010 at 3:09 PM
- SeaSpray said...
I am so sorry for your loss Have Myelin.
It seems so senseless when help was so close.
- August 3, 2010 at 3:14 PM
- Cal said...
Nice of you to notice the tenderness among the hurricane of noises and worries.
- August 3, 2010 at 7:26 PM
- coulrophobic agnostic said...
Geez, I need to thank my doctor for letting me come in whenever I have a UTI - I just pee in the cup and leave it there. No appointment necessary.
- August 3, 2010 at 8:11 PM
- Tonjia said...
I guess I am in good company here, I lost my mom in February of 2009, and to make it even worse we lost my dad in October of 2009.. This post really hits home.
I know its not about me....
Doc, I so appreciate your kindness and caring heart. I wish more doctors had what you have.
I keep telling our patients that a 2-3 hour wait is not nearly as bad as it could be!!
Seaspray, I dont know where you guys live, but here the family docs stop seeing patients at 4:00pm so everyone who calls or stops in after that time is sent to the ER. (and several who call or stop in before 4:00pm too)
- August 3, 2010 at 10:48 PM
- Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...
great story doc. we are SO fortunate that we have a vip doc and not only is he available to us, but he is the best diagnostic doctor i ever knew. i cannot tell you how lucky we are. the fact that their doc could "not fit them in" just stinks. we have had to go to the er twice this year for my hubby's cancer and both times he beat us there and took care of us immediately. he even got another bed for him because the one he was on was awful. he is amazing. one time i called his office and told his nurse that i was calling 911 and before they got there our doc was in our apartment. can you imagine???
smiles, bee
- August 3, 2010 at 11:39 PM


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U.S. suppliers to expand InnoTrans presenceWritten by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief
Four of the leading associations representing the U.S. rail industry will be together in Berlin for the first time: The Railway Engineering Maintenance Suppliers Association (REMSA), the Railway Supply Institute (RSI), Railway Systems Suppliers Inc. (RSSI), and the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA). They will be hosting their displays at a USA Pavilion organized by REMSA. For the first time, senior executives from these organizations will be holding a joint press conference on the latest developments and the outlook for the U.S. rail industry.
"Based on REMSA's experience at InnoTrans 2012, we have doubled the size of the USA Pavilion at InnoTrans 2014," said REMSA Executive Director David Soule. "We have invited RSI and RSSI to join us so that the pavilion will have representation from all aspects of the North American railway supply community. AREMA, the U.S. association responsible for developing railway engineering standards, will also be represented. We are thrilled to have the four railway associations together in Europe for the first time."
"Railroads are a global industry and the north American railway supply industry's expertise spanning all disciplines will be on display at InnoTrans," said RSI President Thomas D. Simpson. "We're looking forward to the experience."
"The current Positive Train Control initiative has fueled an unprecedented technological advancement in the North American signal and communications industry," said RSSI Executive Director Michael A. Drudy. "The PTC innovations that are currently being developed and tested by the rail and transit supply companies involve all areas of signaling and train control including wayside, locomotive, and back office control systems. These products and services will be on display at InnoTrans 2014."
"AREMA is pleased to be part of an increased U.S. presence at InnoTrans," said AREMA Chief Executive Officer Dr. Charles Emely. "As the international organization involved in rail and transit infrastructure standards and education, international development is a critical part of our future, and InnoTrans helps to provide that visibility."
"Targeting new markets in effective ways—that is the declared aim of the U.S. rail industry," according to InnoTrans officials. "That is why U.S. companies operating on the world stage are increasingly exploiting the opportunities offered by InnoTrans, the world's leading trade fair for transport technology, in order to establish new contacts and business relations with decision-makers from regions such as Europe, Asia, and South America."
At InnoTrans 2011, 2,515 companies from 49 countries presented their rail industry innovations to 126,110 trade visitors who came from 140 countries. The five sections at InnoTrans are Railway Technology, Railway Infrastructure, Public Transport, Interiors, and Tunnel Construction. InnoTrans is organized by Messe Berlin GmbH. Details are available online at www.innotrans.com.


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Tom Ford and his partner Richard Bentley are proud fathers of Alexander John Buckley Ford. Alexander was born on September 23. Tom is 51, Richard 64. Finally, a proper rival for the Blue Ivy Carter. And maybe a possible future hookup. Who else but the Baby Ford could know the lifestyle of the B.I.C.? Who else but the Baby Ford would have the same expectations and entitlement?
So many questions!
Will Tom insist on Alexander over Alex? When he grows up, will Alexander pointedly correct those who too casually and impertinently refer to him as Alex?
And who was the mother? Tom for sure would have used his offering over Richard's. And there must have been an intense, gruelling, competitive competition for the egg. Please, PLEASE let there have been a runway involved. There's also no way she'd be over 20.
So when do we get to see him?!?
Apparently Tom will not parent in the style of Brange, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba, and all the others. Supposedly there will be no arranged pap photos, no regular visits to the Brentwood Country Mart (as IF!) to be photographed Just Like Us.
Said Tom last year:
"I always said I wanted to have children. And as I got a little bit older, Richard, who I live with – we've been together 24 years – did not want children. And so I decided not to have children. But if I have children, no one will know about it until the child is born. And no one will ever see the child because I certainly wouldn't use it as a press tool. If I have a child, you won't notice that I had a child. Maybe you'll see it when it's 18, but I will keep it out of the spotlight." (Source)
I'm inclined to believe him… only … baby clothes are SO cute! And Alexander John Bentley Ford's bespoke baby clothes will be the CUTEST. Won't he want to show that off?


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←Back To Schedule
Westbrook Muster
August 21-22, 2020 (Fri-Sat) - Westbrook, CT
Ted Lane Field
Westbrook Fife and Drum Corps
The Muster will be held on Ted Lane Field, at the rear of the Fire House in Westbrook, CT. The Friday Tattoo starts at 7pm and the Parade starts at 11am on Saturday.
We are #??
in the lineup for both the parade and the performances that follow. There will be a jam session Friday night after Tattoo and Saturday night after all the performances are done. Camping on the field is optional, but you may have to get there early to reserve a spot.
Parking Notice:
The parking around the muster field and the adjacent parking lot will be General Parking as always.
Alternate Parking:
Other parking is available at the factory, Old Glory (formerly Emergi-Lite), directly behind the Wilcox storage tanks on rt 153 (Essex Rd) as you enter town from the hi-way I-95 Parking for about 150 cars - walk out next to
Cheryl's Corner Cafe
(formerly Muffin Corner) or the RR Station.
Map route from Bethlehem Town Hall
From Albany
Take Freebie 90 East to Exit 4 (West Springfield)
Take 91 South to Exit 22 South (Exit is on left in CT)
Take Route 9 South to Exit 3 (Essex/Westbrook)
Take 153 South to the end at Route 1
Cross Route 1 into Ted Lane Field
Alternatively Route
Take 95 East into CT to Exit 65
Continue at step 4 of the "From Albany" directions above
Back to Albany
Take 153 North to Route 9 North
Take Route 9 North to Exit 20N
Take Route 91 North to Mass. Pike 90 (Exit 14)
Take Route 90 West to Albany


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Well, they've only produced a slight curve. Have yet to add tape and try them out: I've opened the Prosecco – not good before swazzling!Chris wrote:But Nick, surely spoons will give you quite the wrong shape?
Nick Jackson wrote:Have been playing with plastic swazzles after reading Chris's document. I remember him telling me about credit cards many moons ago. Have just moulded a few pieces by heating in a pan of water and then pressed between two spoons – have tried dessert and table with little difference in the final shape. Just wondering if anyone else uses plastic and how it's gone!
Users browsing this forum: Majestic-12 [Bot] and 15 guests


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Dew Kissed Flower
DSC08889a dew kissed flower
DSC08882a spring flower
Seeding Time
Ddandylion head seeding next years weeds
Flowering Vine
DSC03562a flowering vine
Canadian Thistle
Canadian thistle grows wild in Two Moon Park, Billings, Montana.
Pink Alpine Flower
DSC03403a alpine flower
Alpine Strawberry Blossoms
The strawberries are thick this year
Thistle Through Bench
Canadian Thistle flowers invade seating space
Field of Batchlor Buttons
Blue batchler buttons blooming in a field
Tomato Blosom
Milk Weed Seed Pod
Red Clover Blossom
Red Clover Sead Head
Purple Batchler's Button
Fall Flower
Wild Mushroom
Wild Sunflower Bud
Rose In The Rain
Ready To Ride The Wind
DSC08771a seed head
Apple Blossom
Apple blossom in spring
Weed Blossom and Bee
Honey Bee On Flower
Honey Bee On Sun Flower
Bright Sunflower With Bee
Blue Bells
Pasque Flowers
Pasque Flower in Old Log
Laura's New Rose
Dandy Lion on the Trail
Pine Cones
Blue Columbine
Morning Glory, aka Bind Weed
Shasta Daisy
Pine Flowers
Cactus Blossom with Bee
Bull Thistle Bud
Bull Thistle Blossom
Alpine Flowers
Purple Alpine Flower
I'm not sure what this plant is
Teasel Pods,
Were, are used to lift the nap on woolen cloth giving them a softer texture. While most comercial manufactures now use metal combs, many hobiests and a few comercial producers still use these pods in their production.
Milk Weed Pod
Assorted Mountain Flowers
in watercolor


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Build Your Own Shock Dyno!
For About As Much As You'll Pay For A Shock Absorber, You Can Build Your Own Shock Dyno To Test It
The average racer these days desperately needs a shock absorberdynamometer. Why, you ask? Because what you buy might not be what youneed. Due to many factors, design, production methods, etc., a shockabsorber may not have the rate of compression and rebound the labelsays. Trouble is, you will never know unless the shock is run on a shockdynamometer. There are several shock dynos on the market that can cyclea shock at various speeds, control temperatures and give a computerizedreadout. The readout provides much useful information.
Roehrigmakes one of the best commercial shock dynos, but the problem for manyof us is its $22,000 price tag. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Since this articleoriginally published in 2002 Roehrig has introduced its low-cost 2VSdyno. The dyno comes complete for $8000 and has the same structure andsoftware as all their other dynos]ND Tech has a very good air-powered dyno, which provides a lot ofinformation and sells for about $11,000. Powerhouse Products makes agood air-powered dyno, too. Winston Cup teams typically have one ofthese types of dyno in the shop and another in the transporter. If youare a Saturday-night racer with that kind of budget, purchase one now.It will tell you a lot about your shocks. The problem is, most of usdon't have that kind of money in our race cars, let alone thediagnostic equipment to tune it. Some shock manufacturers will dyno ashock for you and give you a printout for less than $10 per shock.
Why dyno-test shocks Some shocks, particularly those on the lessexpensive side, do not always conform to the labeled rate. This isusually because of production tolerances. A .001-inch difference in ahole or plate can mean big changes in shock control. Racers often say,"Well, I changed a shock and it didn't make anydifference." It could be, his No. 5 shock might have thecharacteristics of a No. 4 or a No. 6 valve could be closer to a No. 5valve. This could lead to a situation where you think you are putting ona lighter/ heavier shock when in fact you didn't make a change atall. Worse yet, you might be going the wrong way. But all is not lost aslong as you know what your shock is doing.
Some of yourolder or less-expensive shocks might be quite good. They can do theirjob and last a long time. But for proper handling, the shocks need to bechecked for specific compression and rebound values. Only then can theybe used on a car with confidence. One other thing to think about is theneed to check shocks occasionally. Even expensive shocks can lose gaspressure, wear or be internally damaged. Also, if you have rebuildableshocks, such as QA1, a dyno can confirm your changes and adjustments.
How the dyno operates This racer's dyno does notconnect to a computer and it doesn't cycle a shock at varyingspeeds while controlling the temperature. It is not the equal of theexpensive, purpose-built units, but it will give you a repeatableindication of the valve ratings of your shocks at an affordable price.This dyno can do that for about $100.
The dyno in this case is a slightly sophisticated hammer. The hammer drops from a set height each time. It engages the bottom leg of a T-shaped bar, which has a pivot at the intersection of the T. The shock connects to the end of one branch of the T. After the hammer is released and impacts the T, the shock will move a given amount in relation to the shock valve. Measure the amount of movement and compare it to other shocks or a known value.
QA1 representatives provided us with several shocks with different valve rates. All of them came with dyno sheets. As a suggestion, get at least one of these with a dyno sheet to use as a standard to measure the others. QA1 has a very good Roehrig Shock Dynamometer and can furnish a dyno sheet with each shock. QA1 shocks with No. 3, No. 4, No. 5 and No. 6 valves were used to establish a baseline for our racers dyno.
Dont be surprised when the dyno tells you a 50/50 shock isnt necessarily a 50/50 by the numbers. Discussions about this can go on way into the night. Suffice it to say the racetrack makes a stronger bump in compression than the spring in rebound. Thus the manufacturer adjusts the valves to allow the car to see the same amount of action both ways. On rebuildable shocks like the QA1 you can change this around to your hearts content if you have a dyno. On the QA1 shocks there was a close correlation from one valve number to another when comparing our readings to their dyno sheet. Our readings, as follow, were taken on the compression stroke.
No. 3 valve 1.265 inch (shock shaft moves this amount)
No. 4 valve 1.180 inch
No. 5 valve .960 inch
No. 6 valve .800 inch
The higher-number valve has less movement while the lower-number valve has more movement. Notice the differences in movements do not follow a linear path as anticipated. However, this difference can also be found in QA1s dyno sheets.
The numbers themselves are not the same: Our racers dyno readings are for measured movement only when the same force is applied. A real dyno reads out in speed and pounds of resistance. Still, when using this dyno you can determine one valve rating from another. Please understand, the numbers here will not be the same as yours, only relative. This is the result of using a hammer of a slightly different weight.
Each manufacturer has its own standards as to what a No. 4, No. 5 or other valve might be. In this case, you should establish which are the lightest and heaviest shocks in your inventory. Note the manufacturers designation. Use this to divide out the other valve numbers. Actually, the valve numbers are just numbers someone pulled out of a hat many years ago. They seem to have no direct meaning. They only divide up a range of force and speed movements. So a Carrera No. 4 may not be the same as a QA1 No. 4. It wont make any difference as long as you know how to compare them.
This little dyno rates shocks against each other in both compression and rebound at one speed. It wont tell you everything about a shock, but it will give you a method of comparison. It can catch those out-of-tolerance shocks.
How To Build It
The basic framework of one-inch square tubing is a rectangle with outside dimensions of 36x16x8 inches. The two main frame crossmembers are welded in at 15 inches from the bottom. With this assembly welded together, it is time to make the T-bar. The T-bar is made from two 13-inch pieces of one-inch-square tubing welded to form a T. Note the legs of the T are offset. This allows the hammer to clear the rebound end of the T. Center a five and three-quarters-inch piece and weld at a 90-degree angle on the top of the T. Weld AA-027-A plates at each end of the T. This is where the shock will mount to the T.
The hammer is cut from a 13-inch piece of .095 tubing or one and one-quarter-inch pipe. Weld on a 31-inch handle in the center. The upper end of the handle gets a five and three-quarters-inch crosspiece. Remember, it is offset to clear the T. The weight of the hammer is important. The total weight, handle and all, should be 14-16 pounds. If it is much lighter, it is harder to measure movements. If it is heavier, it has more force than the shock will see on the car. The added weight can be anything. For this purpose, a torched-off piece of two-inch steel plate worked just fine. An old Ford nine-inch pinion is about the right weight too. On the striking end of the hammer, a rubber lower control arm snubber from a 78 T-bird was attached. You will find it as NAPA PN 265-4002. This keeps the valve from vibrating with the impact. Weld a six-inch extension to the top of the handle to lock under the release device.
Make a creep clip to keep the shaft from creeping down under its own weight. It is absolutely necessary when testing a gas pressure shock, which extends under its own pressure. Also, regular shocks bolted in with the shaft up require the clip to hold the starting position. In the preceding cases, travel measurements must be taken immediately after impact.
The hammer release is merely a piece of one-inch square tubing with a hole in one end. A bolt is welded to the top of the main frame. The handle is placed over this bolt and rotated over the extension of the hammer. When the handle is pulled back the hammer drops. The hammer drop must be exactly the same every time.
Main frame feet must extend 24 inches on the hammer end and six inches on the other. They can be welded in place, although ours are removable since the dyno is transported frequently.
As built, the dyno is made to use rod end shocks. Brackets for other end types can be made from some steel scrap and bolted to the original brackets.
How To Use It
Bolt the shock, shaft end down, to the T and bolt the other end bolts to the plate where at least several inches of shaft are showing. Raise the hammer and lock it into place. Level the T. Release the hammer. Do this several times before taking measurements; it adds to repeatability.
Now level the T and set the hammer again. A dial caliper will be necessary to measure the distance moved. Measure from a place on the rod end to a place on the shock body. This measurement needs to be precise. Trip the hammer and measure the shock travel. This is the distance that will tell you how this shock relates to others. In use, at least three cycles are necessary to be sure of a consistent reading. Often three readings within .010 inch are possible. Dont get frustrated too quickly if you havent used a dial caliper before. Explain to your friends that both the dyno and the dial caliper have to be broken in.
If you started with the shock on the compression stroke, now place it where it will be on rebound. Do not expect the rebound and compression readings to be the same even with a 50/50 shock. But then again this is what a shock dyno is for, isnt it?
In addition to the dial caliper, have a calculator handy. This will help with the math involved in determining the measurement differences. Make a chart for each shock, recording both rebound and compression numbers. Then place these numbers in order. If you have a shock that has been dynoed, use it as a standard. Fit it into place in the results of your measurements. Whether it is labeled a No. 4 or a No. 7 makes no difference. It becomes the standard by which your other shocks will be measured.
Dyno placement is necessary for repeatability. The feet on the end opposite the hammer should be placed against something heavy and immovable. A good wall will work.
As with many things, a bit of practice goes a long way. Heres hoping you have a shocking experience.
Contact Sleepy Gomez at email@example.com


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Possible Duplicate:
How do I remove a malformed line from my sources.list?
How do I fix "malformed line" errors in sources.list?
I am getting an error message when I run the Update Manager:
E:Malformed line 59 in source list /etc/apt/sources.list (dist parse)
Any ideas on how to resolve this issue?


text:
Flavel Opulence Plus Manual Control HE Chrome Gas Fire
The Flavel Opulence Plus high efficiency gas fire boast an impressive 70% net efficiency and can be installed in to almost any chimney or flue, including Pre-cast when fitted with a 3" rebated fire surround.
This open fronted gas fire features a highly realistic coal fuel effect and is available as a manual, easy flame or fully automatic remote controlled fire. The Opulence Plus comes in choice of brass or silver finishes.
- Radiant & convected heat
- Full depth coal fuel effect
- 70% net efficiency
- 4.4kW heat output
- Choice of manual, electronic flame or fully automatic remote control operation
- Available in a brass effect or chrome finish


text:
June 4, 2010
Contact: Lawrence Ragonese (609) 292-2994
Lawrence Hajna (609) 984-1795
(10/P52) TRENTON -The Department of Environmental Protection is offering dry cleaners a first-in-the-nation grant program to help them protect the air by replacing dry cleaning machines that use harmful chemicals with new, environmentally friendly models.
The DEP has targeted machines that use the chemical perchlolroethylene (PCE) in the dry cleaning process for replacement or upgrades to dramatically reduce the amount of the toxic chemical emitted into the air. This effort may reduce emissions of this pollutant by as much as 450 tons each year.
"This is another step forward in improving air quality in New Jersey," said Commissioner Bob Martin. "In this case, we are reducing toxic emissions while also easing the burden on small business owners who are being asked to make sacrifices for the public good."
The DEP has established a $5 million fund for the cleanup program. The DEP received the money in a settlement of a lawsuit filed against three coal-fired Midwestern power companies that create air pollution that blows toward New Jersey.
There are about 1,700 PCE-using, dry cleaning machines in New Jersey. Priorities for the grant money are dry cleaners located in residential settings, such as apartment buildings or mixed commercial and residential strip malls, and those located within 50 feet of day care centers.
"This program is an innovative example of exactly what Commissioner Martin is working to accomplish," said Wolf Skacel, Assistant Commissioner for Compliance and Enforcement. "It protects New Jersey's economy by allowing small businesses to grow while protecting public health and the environment by reducing toxic emissions."
It costs $45,000 to $60,000 to replace a dry cleaning system, which is an industrial-grade washer that uses chemicals. The average grant is expected to be about $25,000, with an additional $15,000 available for dry cleaners that opt for green technology known as wet cleaning. The DEP already has received 26 applications for grants and has approved 23 of them.
Perchloroethylene, also known as tetrachloroethylene, is one of the more prevalent air pollutants in the state, especially in urban areas. Vapors that escape from poorly maintained or faulty dry cleaning machines can seep through walls and into adjacent apartments or businesses. PCE is also one of the more difficult contaminants to deal with if it gets into water through spills or leaks because it sinks to the bottom of water supplies.
In 2005, the DEP proposed rules to regulate and eventually eliminate the use of PCE in the dry cleaning industry, but public comments showed it would be a financial burden on small businesses to quickly mandate retrofitting their equipment.
A proposed state rule will ban dry cleaning machines that use PCE from residential or day care settings by 2014. A federal rule would outlaw those machines in residential and day care settings by 2020. California has approved a ban on the use of PCE from dry cleaning and water-repelling operations by 2023.
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Last Updated:
June 4, 2010


text:
SPUR's Agenda for Change
Our vision for a Bay Area at its bestFebruary 1, 2016
SPUR's Agenda for Change represents our vision for the central cities of the Bay Area. It condenses the big ideas behind our work and lays out our plan for making this vision a reality:
1. Concentrate growth inside existing cities.
2. Build great neighborhoods.
3. Make it affordable to live here.
4. Give people better ways to get where they need to go.
5. Lay the foundations of economic prosperity — for everyone.
6. Reduce our ecological footprint and make our cities resilient.
7. Support local government.
We welcome you to share in this vision and join our movement.
Join SPUR >>


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Hello again!
Now I need to know how to simulate random key stroke. Not all keys - only 'A' and 'D'.
I don't know how to do that. Maybe
simulate random float number from 0 to 20. If x=0-10 then press 'A' Else press 'D' ?
Can it be like that? Can you help me or give me some basic code to generate random float number?