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HealthCare.gov's Mounting Costs, Part 1: Press Ignoring Former Admin Member's ID of $1 Billion-Plus in Contracts
The left has been ridiculing supposedly wildly overstated estimates of the costs of building the calamitous HealthCare.gov website.
Based on a look at one contractor, CGI, which he must have assumed was the general contractor (i.e., the lead entity through which amounts paid to subcontracting firms would be funneled), Andrew Couts at Digital Trends originally estimated a total cost of $634 million. Couts later backed it down to "over $500 million" after identifying non-Affordable Care Act-related work with which CGI was associated. The New York Times has until recently been working with a figure of "over $400 million." All figures just noted are almost certainly miles too low, for two reasons.
The first is that the amounts spent on or committed to contractors far exceed even the $634 million originally reported. That news arrived late this week via Peter Gosselin, and is addressed below. The second is the cost of additional government employees hired, which I will get to in Part 2.
Gosselin is a "Senior Health-Care Analyst with Bloomberg Government," was "a former "economic adviser for health reform at the Department of Health and Human Services," and also was, of all things, "chief speechwriter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner."
In the midst of identifying evidence of project mismanagement, Gosselin found that costs will easily top $1 billion (numbers in the chart below add up to $1.0587 billion; bolds are mine):
Although the Affordable Care Act has been law for three and a half years, one third of the funds going to the top contractors working on the federal exchanges were awarded in the six months before the new insurance marketplaces opened Oct. 1, a Bloomberg Government Analysis has found.
The torrent of late spending — almost $352 million of $1 billion in awards to the top 10 contractors — indicates the magnitude of the work still to be done as opening day approached, and helps explain the information technology problems that have dogged the exchange system since its launch. In a typical IT project, spending ramps up to a peak, then trails off during the final phase.
The analysis runs only through Sept. 30. A subsequent 16-day government shutdown dried up new contracts and reduced the flow of contract record keeping to a trickle. But given the seriousness of the IT problems and the fact that most of the contracts are on a cost-plus basis, the companies almost certainly are in line for another burst of spending aimed at quickly making repairs.
In the meantime, the administration is turning to a low-technology fallback. In June, officials signed a $114 million contract with the U.S. subsidiary of London-based Serco Group Plc to, among other things, run a mailroom to handle paper applications for the 2014 coverage year. Just days before the Oct. 1 opening of exchanges, it made a second $87 million award to expand the company's services.
… Although the GAO made clear that its study focused solely on the costs of implementing the federal exchanges and the data services hub, its $394 million tally for work through March 31 has been widely cited as the price tag for the entire launch of the law. But in looking at the full range of ACA-related contracts for just 10 firms, the BGOV analysis found more than $1 billion worth of contract awards.
The attempt to distinguish between IT-related and other costs in implementing ACA is to a large extent a distinction without a difference. Two arguments would appear to outweigh those which might be made by some naysayers arguing that a portion of the over $1 billion Gosselin identified might have nothing to do with HealthCare.gov. First, he only identified the top ten firms, and there are probably many others. (Update: A GAO cost estimate earlier this year noted that "More than three-fourths of the money went to 10 companies. If this relationship holds for all contract dollars, at least $200 million more has been awarded to other firms [HT Impeach Obama Today blog].) Second, there is no way of knowing the amount President Obama's vaunted "tech surge" will add to the final bill, except that it won't be small.
As to the $200 million in mailroom contracts, Serco Group, like CGI, is headquartered outside the US, in this case, the UK). Also like CGI, Serco has had its share of troubles. Its CEO resigned this week amid allegations that the company billed the UK government for electronically monitoring criminals who were in prison, or dead while not monitoring certain live criminals at all.
In June 2012, Serco announced that it has received a $1.2 billion, 5-year contract for Obamacare-related mailroom services. While the amounts Gosselin identified appear to be volume-related and are probably a part of that $1.2 billion, there is no doubt that the firm had to incur substantial start-up costs to get their service up and running. Those start-up costs should be considered part of the overall cost of HealthCare.gov implementation, because the data in those paper apps has to be entered into the website.
So the contractor-related costs of getting HealthCare.gov running, totally apart from day-to-day administration, will certainly end up well north of $1 billion. Despite what Gosselin has been reported being three days old, the rest of the establishment press has ignored his work.
But there have been and will continue to be other HealthCare.gov costs associated with employees added to the federal payroll. I'll look at that issue in Part 2 later this afternoon.
Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.


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In his radical memoir, As I Stand Living, Christopher Higgs uses the constraint-based techniques William Faulkner employed for the construction of As I Lay Dying to create a deeply personal and philosophical portrait of the year he became a father. Blending elements of fantasy and confession, Higgs confronts parenthood by divulging his most intimate fears, secrets, sorrows, and hopes as a writer, husband, and teacher. A methodically composed and paradoxical blend of inextricably vulnerable emotion and objective fascination, As I Stand Living renders visible the tension between mediation and transparency when attempting to represent, capture, and convey a lived experience on the cusp of its future. (#RECURRENT, Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2017)
ZOË RUIZ lives and writes in Los Angeles. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Believer, The Millions, Marketplace, The Rumpus, Salon, Two Serious Ladies, and the anthologies California Prose Directory (2014), Rooted, and Golden State. She is also the Events Director at The Last Bookstore as well as a freelance book editor and book publicist.
BRIAN EVENSON is the author of a dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection A Collapse of Horses (Coffee House Press 2016) and the novella The Warren (Tor.com 2016). He has also recently published Windeye (Coffee House Press 2012) and Immobility (Tor 2012), both of which were finalists for a Shirley Jackson Award. His novel Last Days won the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel of 2009. His novel The Open Curtain (Coffee House Press) was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an International Horror Guild Award. Other books include The Wavering Knife (which won the IHG Award for best story collection), Dark Property, and Altmann's Tongue. He has translated work by Christian Gailly, Jean Frémon, Claro, Jacques Jouet, Eric Chevillard, Antoine Volodine, Manuela Draeger, and David B. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes as well as an NEA fellowship. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Greek Spanish, Japanese, Persian, and Slovenian. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the Critical Studies Program at CalArts.
CHRISTOPHER HIGGS lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son, where he teaches narrative theory and technique at Cal State Northridge. He wrote The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney: a novel, released by Sator Press, and he assembled the SPD #1 Bestselling novel ONE, in collaboration with Blake Butler and Vanessa Place, released by Roof Books. In addition to publishing two chapbooks, Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously (Publishing Genius) and Becoming Monster (The Cupboard), he's written for numerous print and online venues, including: Pleiades, New Theory, Diagram, AGNI, Denver Quarterly, Global Queer Cinema, and The Paris Review Daily.

subset: commoncrawl


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October 24, 2012
Aneesh Chopra
Stories this photo appears in:
Hearing All Sides Of the Election
Campaign representatives come to Chantilly High.
The presidential election came to Chantilly High last week when representatives of the Obama and Romney campaigns, plus the Libertarian and Virginia Constitution Party, spoke at the school.
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.


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Harold Ramis
Burnout Paradise Legendary Car Collection pack is free today
The Burnout Paradise Legendary Car Collection DLC pack is free today on Xbox 360. Criterion has made the pack free in honor of writer director, actor and all around funny guy Harold Ramis, who died this week. The Legendary Car Collection includes the Hunter Manhattan Spirit which resembles the Ecto 1 in Ghostbusters, one of […]
Harold Ramis headlines
Harold Ramis "glad" he passed up directing Super Mario Bros film
Harold Ramis — director of such films as "Caddyshack," "Groundhog Day" and "Analyze This" — thinks he dodged a bullet Bill by ducking out of a directorial role in the notoriously awful Super Mario Bros film. "(Producer) Roland Joffe wanted me to direct the 'Super Mario Bros.' movie," Ramis told the Associated Press. "I took […]
Ghostbusting: Making a game funny like "writing three hit movies"
Ghostbusters writer and general superstar Harold Ramis has told explained to GamesRadar why writing funny games is so difficult. Basically, it's a stupid amount of work."To make a game so funny with so many comic alternatives, that would be like writing three hit movies," he said."The scripts are impossibly long. That would be a considerable […]
Terminal Reality wrote two-thirds of Ghostbusters script
Atari may be touting that Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis were the writers of the Ghostbusters game, but both men acknowledge that it's more of a marketing ploy than anything.Speaking with The New York Times, Aykroyd said that Terminal Reality came to him with script in hand, and he and Ramis supplied the structure and […]
Ghostbusters' Harold Ramis says game voiceovers "took forever"
Poor old Ghostbusters scriptwriter Harold Ramis didn't know how much work was involved in writing and voice-acting a game."It was a little weird. I had no idea because I'm not a gamer," he told MTV."The game scripts are like 250 pages. You need all these alternatives so it took forever. A lot of it is […]
Ghostbusters script is 480 pages long, says actual Ghostbuster
Speaking to videogaming247, Ernie Hudson – the actor who played Winston Zeddmore in the Ghostbusters movie – has revealed the length of the upcoming game's script. Basically, it's a half a Haze."You know, I read the script, and it's a really good script," he said. "It's huge. It covers every possibility. A regular film script […]
Harold Ramis latest
Burnout Paradise Legendary Car Collection pack is free today
Harold Ramis "glad" he passed up directing Super Mario Bros film
Ghostbusting: Making a game funny like "writing three hit movies"
Ghostbusters' Harold Ramis says game voiceovers "took forever"
Ghostbusters script is 480 pages long, says actual Ghostbuster


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Recent Air Guard retiree may be first victim of Legionnaires' outbreak
Master Sgt. Ken Luedke died Friday
A Milwaukee County man may be the first death as a result of a recent outbreak of Legionnaires disease.
Alicia Luedke told WISN 12 News that her father, Ken, came down with flu-like symptoms a few weeks ago.
She spoke to him on the phone recently, but never realized it would be the last time she'd hear his voice.
When his symptoms did not improve, Luedke went to the emergency room.
After spending 17 days in an intensive care unit at St. Luke's Medical Center, Luedke, 56, died Friday.
"They didn't tell us that he had Legionnaires'," said Luedke's ex-wife, Joanie.
She said the recently retired Air Guard master sergeant with the 128th Air Refueling Wing had planned to spend his retirement with his grandchildren.
"His grandchildren won't have their grandpa," she said. "That will be the hardest thing."
The Milwaukee County Health Department has been tracking nearly 50 cases across the county, with 31 of them within the city limits.
Luedke resided in Greenfield.
Ken's daughter Alicia said the family wants to share her dad's story and symptoms in the hopes that another life can possibly be saved.
"He was that kind of guy," she said. "He wanted to help everybody he could."
Legionnaires' disease is a bacterial infection of the lungs that often presents symptoms similar to a respiratory flu. The bacteria is spread through inhalation and is not spread from person-to-person.


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Pussycat poker, anyone? Kitty cribbage?
AmazeCats has released this deck of cards featuring internet-famous kitties! Every purchase is a donation to Stray Cat Alliance, a great non-profit organization aimed specifically at caring for and finding homes for stray cats.
How can you lose!? Unless you lose at cards. Then you actually lose.
Featured cats include Henri, le Chat Noir, Lil Bub, Oskar the Blind Cat, Luna the Fashion Kitty, Colonel Meow, Chase No Face, Pudge, Cooper the Photographer Cat, Spangles, Shishimaru, Waffles, Nala, and Sockington.


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These days, while according to neutral sources movies industry has never been so juicy so it made obviously necessary to restrict freedom in France in the name of its survival, I thought nice to share two small scripts handy when dealing with videos on your harddrive.
Surely, you wouldn't store videos downloaded over the internet that you haven't paid for. I guess that's immoral since in 2009 the US box office top $10bn for the first time in history, during worldwide economic downfall . An advertisement paid by these guys that made these $10bn, while bankrupcy was really an option for major financial institutions and eviction just the same for poor tenants, said it is piracy – while it is still hard for me to envision how it relates to these events occuring on regular basis in Malaysia, Cameroon, Red Sea, etc.
And if you are not concerned by the moral issue (a communist like Jesus Christ, aren't you?), maybe you are afraid to get caught anyway. Well, it is unlikely that police would come to your house with a search warrant looking for piracy evidence. Mostly because there is no such thing in French law as a search warrant. Indeed, police is entitled to enter in your house in some cases: in three cases only. First, there is what is named commission rogatoire, an order given to a policemen by a judge to do something specific in his name such as search in your house. Looks obviously like an US/UK common law search warrant but it is not: sure it gives the same rights to the police, but it is not an usual procedure in France as it applies only to criminal investigations (information judiciaire), not for trivial misdemeanour/regulatory offences. Second, in the case of a enquête de crime ou délit flagrant (felony or misdemeanour punishable by jail time that just occurred), police can enter your house without your consent. Three, in what is actually the only case that would allow police to enter your house for a regulatory offence (which what this piracy is actually more or less about) is the enquête préliminaire – funny, in this case, police requires your (written) consent to enter. If guess that if I had this kind of piracy evidence at home and the police coming to my doorstep asking to enter in an enquête préliminaire, I would probably not consent.
And I would not even dare to bring the issue of the fine endorsed by this HADOPI law. It is said that, as a friendly reminder of your place you should not have forgotten so easily (customer, yes, that's you – nothing else – even if you do no harm, it is not up to you to proceed otherwise as you'd wish), by Law, your Internet access will be discarded while you'll still pay for it. Well, French penal Law states also that "Nul n'est responsable que de son propre fait", meaning that you can only be punished for your own doings. Sure, there are exceptions (boss that somehow forced employee to misbehave, etc). But none that I think of such as the case of two persons living in the same house and being punished together for the actions of only one of them without the knowledge and consent of the other. By principle, this idea is outlaw, a regression of two thousands years of penal law, dropping us back in the days when you were entitled to take possessions (by force if necessary) of the belongings of a spartian you've just met because, as athenian (or whatever), you were recently spoiled by another spartian, no matter that they had no ties aside their citizenship.
1. So there is a script called dir2x264.sh that I wrote for the purpose of saving harddisk space by cleanly converting .avi and .mpg files to an x264-encoded .mp4 file.
It could surely be tuned – I noticed issues when dealing with .mkv files. So far it uses mencoder (mplayer's encoder) with lavc as audio codec and x264 as video codec. So obviously it requires mencoder, with support of these two (usual) codecs. It implies ffmpeg as well.
To use it, go in the directory where you have avi or mpg files, put the script in there and call it (it will always process all the files in the current `pwd`).
$ cd ~/myvideos
$ chmod +x dir2x264.sh # (if not made executable already)
$ ./dir2x264.sh
It will log work being done in dir2x264log, to easily evaluate the harddisk space saved.
2. In case you cannot find (Have you tried SMPlayer?) the exact correct subtitle file for your video but found one that is just fine except there is a delay between the sound/image and the subtitle, the subtitle_reset.pl could do the trick for you. It depends on Subtitles.pm (libsubtitles-perl in debian).
This script takes two command line arguments: –file and –time (in seconds, positive value or negative), so the usage is quite obvious.
It will make a backup of the original file. If you run it several times to finely adjust your file, it will always restart from the backup file, unless removed obviously.
Note that however this script will not help if the matter is that the video and subtitles file frame-rate differs. You may want to give a try to subs, a script that is now shipped with Subtitles.pm (that was not there or that I missed when I first wrote this one).
July 31, 2010 Update: I thought I found a workaround the Matroska sound issue (Too many audio packets in the buffer). As mencoder is unable to properly convert them, after googling around, I gave a try to the idea of extracting apart the audio and video stream and to put them back together afterwards with mencoder. It actually now is able to produce a working mp4 file with the two streams but it seems that the audio is out of synch with the video. SMPlayer can correct the delay while running, though. So it is better than before but it is still buggy.
August 11, 2010 Update: I noticed several issues with mencoder-produced mp4. I modified the script to use only ffmpeg (except the mkv-specific part that I have not modified).


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Brewing company gives tour of future home
By Nick B. Reid
Hampton Union , June 23, 2013
[The following article is courtesy of the Seacoast Sunday and Seacoast Online.]
Smuttynose owner Peter Egelston, left, and JT Thompson,
known as the company's "Minister of Propaganda,"
stand in front of the historic Towle farmhouse, future
home to an onsite pub/restaurant. [Nick B. Reid photo]
HAMPTON — After nearly 20 years at its Portsmouth location, Smuttynose Brewing Company is moving, expanding and improving in Hampton, with the expectation that the new $16 million facility will be completed by the end of the year.
The move, which came after a years-long search for the perfect new spot, will allow the brewery more efficiency, better tours and retail space, as well as a 95-seat pub/restaurant that has exclusive beers, according to JT Thompson, the brewery's "Minister of Propaganda."
Thompson said the Portsmouth locale, where the company started in 1994, is a utilitarian building in an industrial park situated with construction and manufacturing buildings, never specifically intended to be a brewery.
The new site, which is the former location of the historic Towle Farm — the reason Towle Farm Road got its name — incorporates elements from the 1800s, like the original farmhouse, while also boasting myriad state-of-the-art elements, from solar tubes that light the warehouse as brightly as electric bulbs to specialized German brewing equipment that's in such high demand it's part of the reason the completion deadline was pushed back.
Owner Peter Egelston gestures toward an area where large
brewing equipment will be moving in. [Nick B. Reid photo]
Besides all the production improvements, the new facility is a chance to improve the public interface and offer more of an incentive for people to check out the operation.
"You'll see people walk in and kind of pause like, 'Is this where we're even supposed to be?'" Thompson said of the Portsmouth location.
"We want people to come to Towle Farm, whether it's to have lunch, tour the brewery or see a concert," he said. Hosting concerts isn't necessarily set in stone, Thompson said, but it's an example of the type of attitude the brewery has with its Hampton location, which will also be home to a beekeeping operation — a couple staffers are beekeepers, and Smuttynose might either use the honey the bees produce in its restaurant or package and sell it under the Smuttynose brand. The site also features an apple orchard.
The reason the company settled in Hampton — after a search that began in Portsmouth and involved a number of potential locations including the Newmarket Mills — was all the things the Towle Farm Road site has to offer.
"Minister of Propaganda" JT Thompson and owner Peter Egelston
pose in a hall that will be lined with pairs of 25-foot-tall
fermentation tanks. [Nick B. Reid photo]
"This site is the one we were meant to be in all along," said owner Peter Egelston, noting that he had been casually looking for a new location since 1995.
Thompson said the Towle Farm has an interesting story that's tied to many historic tales in the area.
"We could have flopped down a Butler building (a prefabricated structure)," said Clark James, the owner's representative on the construction project and the company's facilities manager.
But they were intrigued by Towle Farm.
"This isn't a place without personality built in already," Thompson said. "We don't want to strip this place of its previous identity."
The brewpub is actually going in the historic Towle family farmhouse, which was moved about 50 yards and is getting a bit of an expansion in the process.
As the new, bigger brewery is constructed — Smuttynose produced 41,000 barrels of beer last year and now has the capacity to make 61,000 — one of the downsides that owner Egelston struggled with on the property was the increase of impervious material and the storm water runoff hazards that creates.
Owner Peter Egelston points to a spot out back where an apple
orchard will be replanted. [Nick B. Reid photo]
But, Egelston said, a lot of planning went into the project that won't even be visible to the public eye, including a rain garden, or bioswale, that will sop up much of the runoff, an element he's rather proud of. Other "green" steps that were taken — there are several — include a wastewater treatment center that will power one-quarter of the site's electrical usage and electric lighting. It's an anaerobic biodigester in which the brew waste goes in and is eaten by "swamp bugs," as Egelston put it, which then excrete methane gas that's burned and made into energy. Egelston also added that large amounts of refrigeration are required in a brewery, and refrigerators produce a lot of heat — Smuttynose is using that heat on water used in the brewing process, as well as to warm the building itself.
"Starting from scratch, you get a lot of unique opportunities," Egelston said, noting that he had engineers in on the project, which is designed to meet LEED standards, early on.
Unlike the current facility, when you walk into the new brewery the most visually appealing bit of the process is right there for you to see.
A new bottle filler is visible through a window facing the front door, which Thompson said is going to offer significant improvements in the bottling, including longer shelf-life and less taste-spoiling oxygen hitting the beer.
As you walk in the entrance, a state-of-the-art bottling process unfolds before your eyes.
In the main brewing room, there'll be a line of pairs of 25-foot-tall stainless steel tanks in a large room with cathedral-like ceilings.
The old barn outside also has a hidden piece of Smuttynose history in it that owners haven't yet decided how to use. The trailer featured in the background of the Smuttynose IPA label was purchased by the company and is sitting inside awaiting its deployment.
Smuttynose creates beers that are sold in 22 states from Maine to Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. They're working on a collaboration with the Stone Brewing Co., makers of the famous Arrogant Bastard Ale, who were also in town checking out the site.
Return to Hampton Business History Table of Contents


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So, today I wanted to do a special "Barcelona is the winner" mani, but then I realized I suck at nail art and don't have time for full scotch tape mani. Oh well. Either way, Barca won yesterday, wiii! Since I can't do a nice nail art mani, I can at least show you my Barcelona scarf.
I bought it on Camp Nou, when I visited Barcelona. :) It was an awesome trip, I always wanted to go there, I even saw the team practice. That was back in the days of Rijkaard and Ronaldihno, but I have to say, I'm loving the team nowadays so much more, the whole bunch, Pep, Leo, Puyol, Iniesta, Xavi ... they have an awesome energy and their play is just beautiful. Oh, and before I forget: this is how my nails would look like if I could pull it off. It's a work from a new-to-me blogger called Uńas de Colores, and she does magic on her nails, I love it, but especially this Barca mani!! Gorgeous, I really admire what some of you can do on your nails!
Anyway! Here's another one from our Project Latvia box. Man, that was a long time ago. This is SpaRitual Epicurean, and it's my second favourite from Sparituals I've tried. Nothing can beat Mood.
This is one of the sexy colours for me. It's just sex in a bottle, it's incredibly hot, really rich burgundy red, with the famous glow withing effect, and lets not even mention how it looks on the sun, it just might kill me, so gorgeous. But it's amazing off the sun too, really a great colour. It felt like Nubar Torrid Red when I was wearing it, but Epicurean is more purple.
Aside from the really gorgeous colour, the Sparitual brush still gives me headache. If you're a regular reader, you know my longer, wider nails don't go well with their brush, that can also be seen on my not so good application. I needed three coats, but I think this is a two coater for those with smaller nails. It dries semi-fast, it can trick you, so be careful, if you're not wearing TC with it.
Because of colours like this I really hate that I don't go well with Sparitual brush. This colour is amazing, but I hate the brush so much, I would consider twice before buying it. Oh well. You can't have it all. At least the bottle looks really really nice.
I just can't get sick of colours like that. Can you? Your thoughts on Sparitual brush?
Oh, before I forget. It's back-to-hardcore-studying time, so I'll probably be off for a couple of days/weeks, as before. You know I'm keen to break that rule, but just so I let you know.
Thank you for reading & have a nice Sunday!


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Even though a lot of people don't seem to be fans of MTVs controversial show Jersey Shore, the ratings still continue to rise. Some companies including Domino's and Dell have pulled their advertising, reports Usmagazine. However, one of the stars of the show isn't keeping quiet amidst all the controversy, instead the Jersey Shore star Nicole Polizzi (a.k.a. "Snooki") is saying people who aren't interested in watching the show should stay away.
"I just have one thing to say to Domino's, Dell, UNICO and all the other haters out there," she yelled. "F*** you! If you don't want to watch, don't watch. Just shut the hell up! I'm serious… F*** you!"
The controversial MTV reality show follows a group of 20 something year old Italians as they live and work on the Garden State's shoreline. The Italian-American organization (UNICO) claims that the show perpetuates negative stereotypes and should be pulled off the air. They also want sponsors to boycott the series.
"She is not an embarrassment to Italian Americans — she is actually an embarrassment to the entire human race!!!!" UNICO released in a statement.
In addition to UNICO and advertisers bashing the MTV series, the New Jersey beach town also released a statement saying it doesn't "solicit" or "promote" the filming of Jersey Shore.
One thing is for sure, if ratings continue to increase like they have then this shore isn't going off the air anytime soon.
In other news, the Jersey Shore cast received a makeover from Life&Style magazine. The photo of the cast is below –


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'Away we Go'
A couple (John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph) expecting their first child travel around the U.S. looking for the best place to raise their family. The trailers look hilarious. The film is directed by Sam Mendes, who doesn't make bad movies ("American Beauty," "Revolutionary Road"). Jeff Daniels, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Allison Janney and Catherine O'Hara also star.
'The Hurt Locker'
This is an apolitical Iraqi war film which explores the addiction that war can be for an elite bomb-diffusing squad in Baghdad, Iraq. The screenplay is based on first-hand experience and is said to be "high voltage." Jeremy Renner's ("A Little Trip to Heaven") portrayal of the protagonist is generating oodles of praise. It could be the role that gives him the recognition he deserves. Also starring Guy Pearce ("Memento") and directed by Kathryn Bigelow.
'Whatever Works'
Two of New York's greatest neurotics team up for what has to be the best marriage made in comedy. Woody Allen actually wrote the leading part for Larry David, who wrote for "Seinfeld" and stars in "Curb Your Enthusiasm." David plays a confrontational, overly rude racist who somehow manages to generate sympathy. This could be a classic.
'Public Enemies'
This is my pick for best summer flick. Who better could glorify gangster John Dillinger than Johnny Depp? Under the direction of the magnificent and meticulous Michael Mann ("Heat"), this film should rock — big time. It sports a hit list of cast members including Christian Bale, Giovanni Ribisi, Billy Crudup, Stephen Graham and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard. Wow.
'In the Loop'
A political satire of the United States/United Kingdom rush to the war in Iraq. Already being compared to "Dr. Strangelove," this comedy exposes politicians as foul-mouthed spin-doctors. Starring James Gandolfini, aka Tony Soprano, as a Colin Powell-like general and Tom Hollander ("Pirates of the Caribbean" regular) as a "bumbling minister of information." The movie is based on the British sitcom, "The Thick of It," directed by Armando Iannucci, who also directs this film.
'Death in Love'
Recipe for a dysfunctional family: mother (Jacqueline Bisset) is a concentration-camp survivor who had an affair with a Nazi doctor. Father (Stu Richel) is a weak-willed wuss. Eldest son (Josh Lucas) engages in S&M, while younger brother (Lucas Haas) is emotionally paralyzed. Reportedly strong performances, lush cinematography and beautifully directed by Boaz Yakin ("Fresh").
'The Boat that Rocked'
In the late '60s, the only way Brits could hear rock-and-roll was via broadcasts from a boat manned by renegade deejays. The government actually tried shutting them down for God-knows-what-reason. See the film and find out. Got to be worth it with a cast that includes Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh. Brought to you by the director of such fun films as "Bridget Jones' Diary" and "Love Actually."
'Julie and Julia'
Director/writer Nora Ephron ("Sleepless in Seattle") adapts two best-selling memoirs based on two true stories. One is by Julie Powell about a young secretary (Amy Adams) who is obsessed with tackling all 524 recipes (within one year) in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." The other is based on Child's autobiography. Seeing Meryl Streep play Julia Child has to be the crème de la crème that acting has to offer.
'Inglorious Basterds'
The tagline for the film is, "You haven't seen war until you've seen it through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino." Judging from the trailer, Tarantino is back in form in this World War II epic. He's been working on the script for almost a decade. Brad Pitt is in charge of 13 Jewish-American soldiers who go behind enemy lines to exact revenge. He instructs them that "they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, disfigured bodies we leave behind us." Now that's the Quentin Tarantino we all know and love!
'Taking Woodstock'
"Woodstock was America's last moment of innocence" according to Oscar-winning director Ang Lee ("Brokeback Mountain"). The film tells the story of how the iconic festival evolved into a "massive historic-making event." Looks like fun for those of us who lived it and those who wished they had. Starring Demetri Martin, Imelda Staunton, Liev Schreiber and Emile Hirsch. The poster should be groovy.
'World's Greatest Dad'
Former stand-up comic Bobcat Goldthwait is the king of comedy. Now writing and directing, his screenplays go down some pretty raunchy paths ("Sleeping Dogs Lie"). But, he always gets it right. Robin Williams plays author, teacher and father to a son (Daryl Sabara) who hates everything. When the son attempts auto-erotic-asphyxiation, Dad gets creative.


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Printed Wooden Christmas Decorations
Made for Namaste on a fair trade basis in Northern India, by a family business. They are a very successful enterprise and provide much valued employment to hundreds of people.
They employ skilled wood carvers to make sustainable and eco-friendly crafts from mango wood. The wood comes from government managed plantations.
(Total Products 5, Showing: 1 to 5) Sort By: Price Low to High | Price High to Low


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Product Code:ZI0302
Available stock: 49
|1 - 4
|5 - 9
|10 - 19
|20 - 39
|40 - 59
Quinn Therm comprises a bonded PIR insulation board to tapered edge plasterboard to allow for the quick erection of both plasterboard and insulation, thereby cutting down on installation time. Suitable for 'dot and dab' and mechanically fixed applications, and features an inbuilt vapour control layer.
Used in many applications including solid masonry walls, layer between and under rafters and joists & timber frame lining.
Thickness: 25mm PIR + 12.5mm Plasterboard = 37.5mm
Size: 2400 x 1200mm
Lambda: 0.022 W/mK
R-Value: 1.20 m2K/W
Certifications & Standards: CE marked, BBA approved, BS EN 13950, Euroclass B-s1,d0 Fire Resistance (BS EN13501-1)
Delivery Information
As a full builders and plumbers merchant, we stock a huge range of products varying in size from minute to massive. In order to supply our products at such competitive prices and not overcharge where unnecessary, we have developed a shipping structure based on the size, weight and transportability of each product which will always offer the most cost effective shipping method.
All delivery charges are included and clearly displayed in the shopping cart (when using the shipping estimator) and also on the checkout page both before and during payment. All delivery charges are based on delivery to Mainland UK (excluding the Scottish Highlands).
We pride ourselves on quick and complete delivery services and we make every effort to ensure deliveries are always on time and exceed expectation. On some occasions there may be delays with manufacturers or other factors which may be out of our control and we will always endeavour to minimise any delays. It is important not to have tradesmen booked in or jobs ongoing that are reliant on the supply of the materials. Any deliveries that are outside of the timescales stated on the product page will be notified to you via email or phone and you will be kept in the picture at all times.
Delivery Methods
Where possible deliveries are carried out on our own transport (within our delivery zones) and if the items are 'big and bulky' the delivery cost will be based on cart total and delivery address distance. Using our own fleet within our delivery zone means we can offer same day and next day delivery services as standard and well as pre-book a slot on a particular day.
When items are not 'big and bulky' and are outside our delivery zone, we will send these via a courier network on a standard next day delivery service. This is a free of charge service for orders over £60 plus VAT.
£0-£60 (ex. VAT)
>£60 (ex.VAT)
£5.95 (+ VAT) Handling Fee
Lenths of product over 2m are subject to a long length courier charge of £7.50 +VAT no matter the size of the order. All delivery methods are carried out between Monday and Friday only and weekend deliveries are not an option. Where stated 'next day' this means Nationwide Supplies next working day which is subject to change.
Delivery Costs
To get the most accurate delivery cost, please add all of your items to the shopping cart, visit the cart page and enter your desired delivery post code. This will calculate the exact prices for delivery of your shopping cart and will always offer you the best delivery options available to you.
Multiple Deliveries
Depending on the mix of good on our order, the delivery may arrive from different companies at different times. This is always kept to a minimum where possible and you will be notified of the consignments.
Delivery Acceptance
Please ensure you will be on site to receive your deliveries. All deliveries require a signature and also clarification on the condition of the goods. Please do not sign for goods received in 'good condition' if they have visible signs of damage or have been unchecked. If any part of the delivery is damaged, please notify us immediately on 01763 281111 or email us at email@example.com. As soon as delivery has been taken and signed for any damages are your responsibility and we may not be able to argue the case against the haulage or courier company.
Finance is a great way to spread the cost of your purchase. To make it easy we've teamed up with Deko whose smart technology lets you apply for and complete the loan application quickly and entirely online.
Simply add the items you love to your basket. Once at checkout select the finance option that suits you and then choose Deko. The quick application form should take no more than a couple of minutes to complete and you'll receive an instant decision. Easy!
Check your eligibility
You will only be considered for finance if you:
• Are at least 18 years old
• Are in regular full or part-time employment (minimum 16 hours per week or £5,000 per annum, unless you are retired and receiving a private / company pension or in receipt of disability allowance)
• Are a permanent UK resident and have lived in the UK for at least 3 years.
• Have a UK bank account capable of accepting Direct Debits
• Have a good credit history with no late payments, debt relief orders, CCJs, IVAs or bankruptcies.
• Provide an email address so your documentation can be emailed to you.
Our payment plan options
We offer a range of interest-free and interest bearing finance options to help you spread the cost of your purchase over 6,12, 24, 36 or 48 months. The value of the loan needs to be over £250 and you can choose a deposit of up to 50% of the value of the goods.
Representative examples
0% finance over 6 months
● Total order value = £500
● 10% deposit = £50
● Total amount of credit = £450
● Duration = 6 months
● Representative APR = 0%
● Interest charged = £0
● 6 monthly payments of = £75
● Total amount payable = £500
14.9% finance over 60 months
● Total order value = £500
● 10% deposit = £50
● Total amount of credit = £677.60
● Duration = 60 months
● Representative APR = 14.9%
● Interest charged = £177.60
● 60 monthly payments of = £10.46
● Total amount payable = £677.60
Simply add the purchases to your basket and select Deko at checkout. You'll then be taken to the application form, which takes just a few minutes to complete.
Take a look at our products available with finance and shop now.
Your application will be assessed based on eligibility, credit history and affordability and Deko will let you know the outcome in just a few seconds. It's important to know that when applying for finance a hard credit check is made which is recorded on your credit file.
Once approved, Deko will let you know who the lender is and provide with their full contact details. You then just need to digitally sign your credit agreement, pay your deposit and wait for your order to arrive.
In a few cases, your application may be referred to a lender for manual assessment and you'll be notified by email of the credit decision within 24 hours. If you're not approved for finance it could be for a variety of reasons and the lender will be able to give you more information.
Repaying the loan
Your first direct debit payment will be taken about a month after you receive your purchase. This will show on your statement as a payment to your lender. You have the right to repay all or part of the loan early at any time.
There is a 14-day cooling off period where you can withdraw from the credit agreement after signing your documents. If you want to do this, you need to notify the lender.
A payment plan does not affect our standard refund and returns policy. Just contact us and we'll cancel your application and the lender will refund your deposit and let you know of any outstanding balance if applicable.
The legal bit
Ecotech Solutions Ltd t/a Nationwide Supplies is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, register number 675366. Finance is provided through the Deko platform by a number of lenders. You will be offered the best rate available based on your credit history and the lenders' credit decision policies.


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english love
45 comments:
- tinajo said...
No, I have our relatives in the same country but it feels like another country because Sweden is looong and we live in opposite parts. That makes it hard to see eachother that much, mostly it´s just twice a year.
We´re used to it but it would be fun to see eachother more.
Have a great day! :-)
- January 10, 2012 at 10:28 PM
- Gloria e Rogerio said...
We love your blog is wonderful and we are always here giving all the news.
Super Glorinha kisses.
- January 11, 2012 at 1:31 AM
- Life love, clutter and other beautiful things. said...
oh this is such a lovely post!
The quote and your beautiful project with the stamps is so lovely.
take care xox
- January 11, 2012 at 2:46 AM
- Unknown said...
Oh England... I wish I was there too...I don't have family there but it's my favorite place on earth...
- January 11, 2012 at 7:29 AM
- HOGGER + Co. said...
Aww, hope you get to see them soon?
Love London, and now I feel like another cuppa tea.
- January 11, 2012 at 8:06 AM
- Catherine Denton said...
I don't have family in another country but I might like to have someone to visit in England. :) I love your stamp art.
Catherine Denton
- January 11, 2012 at 9:02 AM
- xoxo said...
Oh how sad :(
I know how it is to miss some very dear and sometimes you just wish you could teleport or something.
- January 11, 2012 at 9:35 AM
- cb said...
i love that quote. it describes my every day torture of being away from tom, i wish we could hang out all the time. i think it might be time for a trip to england!!!!!!! when was the last time you visited?
- January 11, 2012 at 10:23 AM
- Martina said...
My family lives quite far apart as well - my parents are in austria, my brother in Italy, my sis in southern germany - i don't get to see them often and yes - i miss them around often!
- January 11, 2012 at 11:33 AM
- shopgirl said...
Your collage is beautiful Shawna! And this phrase quotes it perfectly.
p.s. Thanks for all your wonderful comments. I hope you're doing well and getting time to do the things you love.
Big big hugs!Reese
- January 11, 2012 at 1:33 PM
- amy b.s. said...
i have family in ireland that i haven't seen in over 10 years and i can't wait to go back. some day.
- January 11, 2012 at 1:47 PM
- Leah said...
I'm from Ireland and I'll be heading back to the States for college in weeks time. It'll be exactly like this! I hate being so far away from them!
- January 11, 2012 at 5:27 PM
- Leah said...
I'm from Ireland and in a week's time I'll be leaving for college in America, and I probably wont see my family for a year or more. It's going to be exactly like this!
- January 11, 2012 at 5:29 PM
- Castles Crowns and Cottages said...
Oh, I have not seen you in so long dearest! I have it worst; I have NO FAMILY. My parents are passed on. My aunt and uncle are gone as well and I have no siblings. So, I have FRIENDS LIKE YOU, but I had not seen you in so long. Stay well and come to visit some time. Anita
- January 11, 2012 at 6:07 PM
- StephieB said...
I have all my family close by so I can't imagine how it would be not to have them around. I would be terribly homesick too! Feel better soon - I love the stamps - what a sweet idea.
Hugs, Stephie x
- January 12, 2012 at 1:31 PM
- DolceDreams said...
Happy New Year! I hope you will be able to get "Home" this year to visit them ~ I love what you did with the stamps, what a lovely idea!
- January 12, 2012 at 2:21 PM
- A Casa da Vá said...
Oh gosh, I miss my family enormously.... they are all in Brazil!
Hugs & kisses from South Florida!
- January 12, 2012 at 2:32 PM
- Style, She Wrote said...
What a touching post! I hope sharing made you feel less homesick! xo style, she wrote
- January 12, 2012 at 4:22 PM
- Annie said...
aww I hope you get to visit them again soon Shawna! One of my best friends is in London and I really hope I get to visit there soon (I've never been before). I just love this stamp art.. such a fun and meaningful work of art! xo
- January 13, 2012 at 10:40 AM
- Bonnie said...
I don't have family in another country, so I do not know how that feels, but I do understand what the quote is saying. The speaker worded those feelings in a beautiful way.
Twitter: @GlamKitten88
- January 13, 2012 at 10:53 AM
- Unknown said...
I lovee your blog! That quote is amazingly written and expressed. Your selection on photos are great too.
follow me as i follow you!b
- January 13, 2012 at 12:22 PM
- rooth said...
I hope you'll get to see your family soon. Technology is amazing with the ability to video chat and Skype but nothing can replace good old fashioned snail mail!
- January 13, 2012 at 12:34 PM
- Alexa said...
Ah what a sweet post. When we lived in New Zealand and our families were in California it was so hard to be apart. Now we are all in California...but I miss New Zealand. Funny how that is!
- January 13, 2012 at 2:08 PM
- About Last Weekend said...
I like your combo of photos, especially tea which I am addicted to. So you are British? Or just that your family is there? My family is in New Zealand but I always feel more nostalgic for London somehow, really love that city.
- January 13, 2012 at 3:49 PM
- Secondhand Stella said...
I love how you framed the stamps. Such a cute idea!
I moved out of state a few months ago, and while its not another country, I have not seen my family since I have moved. Its definitely hard!
- January 14, 2012 at 6:46 AM
- Sonhos Pré-Concebidos said...
beatiful here *-*
thanks for visit
- January 14, 2012 at 10:34 AM
- THE ALTERNATIVE WIFE said...
Oh I had no idea that you had family in England. Are you from there originally? Sorry that you're missing them. Most of my family lives here in the tri-state area so I see them quite often. I can't imagine how difficult that must be. xoxo
- January 15, 2012 at 12:41 PM
- Jaime @ laviejaime said...
hope you see your family soon! I love London- one of the best cities i've visited!
- January 15, 2012 at 2:28 PM
- Forever Fashionably Late said...
Hi! I just found your blog and it is really cute. Love the snow globe diy and the stamp collage is amazing & such a great idea! My family and I are in the same country, but they're on the other side of the U.S. which is basically like being in another country...lol. I miss them but I talk to my mom almost daily so that helps!
Forever Fashionably Late
- January 15, 2012 at 5:31 PM
- Overlooking Mississippi said...
I really like the quote and beautiful pics as always!
- January 15, 2012 at 6:40 PM
- classiq said...
Missing your loved ones is hard. That's why we have to treasure the times spent together.
- January 15, 2012 at 11:43 PM
- Crazy for fashion said...
Love your pictures! I´ve been on that situation and it is a bit had, try to keep yourself occupied, it did work for me. Kisses <3<3
- January 16, 2012 at 12:43 AM
- The Londoner said...
England misses you back! xx
The Londoner
- January 16, 2012 at 10:08 AM
- Punctuation Mark said...
i have to say i really miss my parents and being totally spoiled by them!
- January 16, 2012 at 12:59 PM
- Camille said...
i'm goingto the us in the middle of the year, so i'll sure miss my family while i'm there!
- January 18, 2012 at 9:46 AM
- heather said...
aww your stamp picture is so sweet! I didn't know you're from England! I mean, I'm imagining you are now :) What brought you here?
We went to visit my dad in Wisconsin just after Christmas. I'm not that close with him, but it was the first time he was meeting my husband or our son, so I'm glad we went and it was a good trip.
All of my husband's family is in Turkey (where he's from). They are dying to meet their grandson/nephew. I feel sad that Rowan is growing up without grandparents sometimes. I guess we'll have to stand in for all sorts of family members!
Happy New Year, Shawna!!
- January 18, 2012 at 9:51 PM
- shopgirl said...
i'm pretty sure i commented on this post....but i just dropped by to say hi sweetie! love the way you made stamps look so pretty!
- January 19, 2012 at 6:12 AM
- Gorgeous Glam said...
Cute idea with the stamps! I miss my family too! We have family in Canada, and Washington which is so far away from LA. But I can imagine how you feel being an ocean away! Hope all is well dear and thanks for the sweet comments! xx
- January 19, 2012 at 11:52 AM
- Madeleine Roberts said...
The stamp collage is very cute. I love the quote you featured. It is so very true. All of my family lives in the U.S. but we are scattered across the map. We don't see each other very often and there are many lonely holidays. I know I miss spending time with them. But then when we do get together that time is 10x sweeter:)
- January 21, 2012 at 6:27 AM
- Imogen said...
Pretty pictures. I totally agree with you about missing someone that quote describes it exactly.
- January 21, 2012 at 11:34 PM
- georgia ~ gi gi said...
Happy Sunday Poppie Girl!!!!!
How are you sweet girl? I have missed you and I am sorry I am now just getting over here! I can't seem to blog on a regular basis!
After Christmas is a busy time for me too! Myah's B-Day was Tuesday... she is 5. I just can't get over that! In a few weeks it's Cloe's B-day, she will be 12... AH!
She already acts like a teenager!
Life is just busy, especially with 4 kids!
Love to hear what's new in your world!
I love what you did with your stamps, very creative!
Sorry you are missing your fam! O bet they miss you too!
Lots of love Poppie Girl!
gi gi
- January 22, 2012 at 10:42 PM
- A Casa da Vá said...
Hi friend, I miss you!!
Beijos from South Florida,
- January 26, 2012 at 7:24 AM
- About Last Weekend said...
Oh dear, I thought I left a comment (must be going mad...) I really love that photo of the Big Ben scene. I miss London so much, but don't miss the weather.
- January 27, 2012 at 11:02 AM
- Ann said...
Love your images...
Love London too.
Oh I miss my Mom the most,
she passed away a few years already but up to this day there are still moments when I catch myself thinking she's still here.
- January 28, 2012 at 6:01 AM
- simply_KC said...
Hello Ms. Poppies :)
Love the stamp idea... I used to write letters to my love ones overseas as well. My family is all over the globe and there's nothing I wished more than to visit them in one place :)
- February 12, 2012 at 8:07 AM


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MINOOKA – Jenny Edwards knows firsthand what the face of heroin addiction looks like. Her husband, Anthony Edwards, died at age 30 of an overdose in November 2012 in a Morris apartment.
Edwards, of Minooka, said in addition to heroin, her husband's death report showed Xanax in his system.
"He had been sober for eight years, the whole time I knew him," Edwards said. "I didn't think he'd go back. He hadn't had any slip-ups while we lived together."
Anthony, who started using heroin as a teenager, used it intravenously for five years before going to rehab and becoming sober for the next eight.
Just a couple months before his death, Anthony told his wife he wanted a break, and he moved to an apartment in Morris.
"There were times I felt he might have used after he moved out, but I didn't know for sure until the night before he died," she said.
A public forum, "Heroin ... in my neighborhood?" is scheduled for Thursday in Minooka to spread information to the community about the heroin epidemic in and around Grundy County. The goal is to help prevent death's like Anthony's, as well as to educate families and youth before the drug reaches their homes.
Grundy County State's Attorney Jason Helland said arrests for heroin possession are becoming a common occurrence in Grundy County, and the number of overdoses are up.
Edwards believes her husband fell back to heroin after he hurt his back and was prescribed painkillers, including morphine, Norco and Vicodin.
His apartment was above Edwards' uncle's, and he is the one who made the early morning call to tell his niece that her husband was dead.
"I sank to a deep, dark nasty place for a while," she said.
The couple had a daughter, Hannah, and Jenny's son, Ryan Houck, was especially close to him.
"Ryan had nightmares and slept on the floor in my room for three months," she said. "My daughter was 5 when it happened. She's 7 now and still has a hard time."
She said the hardest part of losing her husband to heroin is watching her children suffer and question why he left them.
"I was angry at him, then I felt guilt," she said. "I wonder, what if I said come back home – would it be different?"
She said she doesn't know if there is anything she could have done differently.
The last time they talked was the night before his body was found. He told her he wanted her to know he loved her, and that he would talk to her later.
He never did.
Edwards and her children are healing with help of family and friends.
"I'd want others who are in this position to know there is hope, always hope," she said. "I've come from the lowest of lows, but I have faith in God. If it wasn't for God, I wouldn't be here. You can't live in negativity. You have to remain positive."
Anthony was alone when he died, but others are with friends using drugs when they overdose.
The 2012 "911 Good Samaritan Law" allows people to call and get help for someone who has overdosed without worrying about prosecution, as long as the amount of drugs fall into a personal use category.
"We've actually declined three prosecutions in Grundy County based on the 911 law," Helland said. "The first thing we want them to do is seek help and save a life without worrying about getting arrested."
Thursday's forum – the second such to happen in Grundy County since the beginning of the year – will include professionals with more than 20 years of experience in treatment, recovery and the substance abuse field. Other panelists also will speak.
A retired captain from the Chicago Police Department, John Roberts, who is the co-founder of the Heroin Epidemic Relief Organization, will talk about the loss of his son Billy to heroin in 2010.
Children were not allowed at a similar January forum in Coal City, but Helland said he feels it's important for them to attend with their parents so they can go home and have a dialogue about it.
"They can get this information with a click of the mouse online," he said. "We had a lot of parents show up to the Coal City event, so we decided to allow them to attend with an adult this time."
If You Go
What: "Heroin ... in my neighborhood?" forum
When: 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 10
Where: Minooka High School - Central Campus, 301 S. Wabena Ave. in Minooka
Who: Anyone under the age of 18 should be accompanied by an adult, parent or guardian


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Refresh and expand your knowledge on current management for this collection of health concerns spanning infancy through adolescence. Topics include syncope, vaccine hesitancy, gastroesophageal reflux, acne, sleep disorders, violence, self-injury, and ADHD in adolescence, as well as safe sleep and skin-to-skin care in healthy term infants. For CPNPs, NPs, RNs, or those familiar with Primary Care scope of practice. View Content Outline7.5 NAPNAP CE contact hours of which 2.0 contains pharmacology (Rx) content, (0.5 related to psychopharmacology) (0.25 related to controlled substances).Answers are due 150 days from order process date.39 questions.What references are included? 12 online PDF articles or web resources (included/provided) to support answering all 39 questions. User feedback:This is one of the best tests I have taken in 20+ years! Module was excellent. Information was timely and appropriate. Articles were recent and informative, and interesting in themselves. Sample QuestionQ. When prescribing atomoxetine (Strattera) for an adolescent with ADHD, which of the following is important to discuss with the adolescent and caregiver? SELECT TWO (2)A. time to achieve therapeutic effect is weeksB. U.S. boxed warning for increased risk of suicidal ideationC. sudden discontinuation may result in rebound hypertensionD. U.S. boxed warning for risk for life-threatening serious skin rashes E. concurrent use of certain medications or herbal products can increase the risk for serotonin syndrome
9605 Medical Center Drive, Suite 250, Rockville, MD 20850© Copyright 2018 PNCB, ® Registered Trademark of PNCB, all rights reserved.


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The clerk moved just in time to dodge the bullet, and emerged quickly from behind the counter with her own gun.
You go, girl!
A Longview clerk showed her mettle for the second time within a year Saturday, returning gunfire on an assailant as he fled a Fourth Street convenience store."He cocked the gun to shoot (at) me again, and then I went barrel to barrel with him," Robin Adams said in the EZ Food Mart where she and her store manager husband, Jimmy, returned to work Sunday. "This thing happened so fast that nothing was said about money. It was like he came in here to kill me."
No one was injured in the shooting.
At 9:59 p.m. Saturday, Adams was ringing up orange juice and a cigarillo for a customer when man stepped rapidly in front of her register and raised a handgun, firing once.
"He's shooting right at her face," the manager said as he replayed an in-store video showing the man firing at his wife of 31 years. "She's got powder burns on her face."
The video shows the clerk bending slightly at the register when the gun was raised toward her. She stands up, moving her head reflexively to the left while lifting a .32-caliber pistol from a shelf just inches below the cash till.
"I'm just so happy I got lucky and tilted my head," she said, estimating the bullet missed her skull by fewer than three inches. "And the only choice I had was to pull mine out."
The clerk fired once on the fleeing man, striking a plastic glass partition. The assailant's bullet had nicked the top of a pack of Winston Light 100s behind Adams' head and continued through the store front glass.
You can read the entire article here.
This is why women need to be familiar with firearms, not fear firearms (well, you should fear them, but it should be a healthy fear so you don't end up doing something stupid, and not a fear of using them in self-defense), know how to shoot so you don't freeze if you need to use the gun (take lessons, for goodness' sake), and have firearms available for use.
You never know when it's going to be you, or the other guy. There are a lot of violent freaks out there, and you need to always be prepared to deal with them.
Originally posted on Adventures In Frickintardistan


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This is the first in a series of six essays, drawing on interviews with speculative thinkers finding and defining the technologies of the Future-Present.
Near Tappi Saki, Aomori (via Pink Tentacle)
It is the 21st Century, and history has delivered us into a time when aerial swarms of hypertextual futurist essays sling bombshell proclamations down upon us, guided down the invisible path of a laser beam. With each new detonation our grounding worldview shakes with tectonic intensity, as what we have always known as "the future" is driven to critical fission when hitting the present. Behold, this new technology: the "Future-Present": where our dreams collide with reality. There is no fantastical World of Tomorrow, and there is no reality in which we know the real from the imagined. There is only the waking dream of the categories' simultaneous coexistence. In this world, cities explode, the network sings like razor wire, a caustic, aerosolized powder rises up from pavement beneath our feet, people wearing masks shout instructions over our heads. The dream is still going on, a double exposure of ideas over impact weapons. It is difficult to say whether we are excited, or terrified, or bored, or confused. But we understand this, don't we? We must say we understand this. There is no one else that could understand this, other than us. What would it mean, if no one understood the future?
Electronic Countermeasures GPS enabled quadcopter, Tomorrow's Thoughts Today (video)


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At Graal-Müritz the air and water quality is so good that the town has received official recognition as a state-sanctioned health resort, thanks to its perfect coastal location and remarkable bioclimate.
Back in 1877, Dr Carl von Mettenheimer, personal physician to the Duke of Mecklenburg, discovered the natural climatic benefits of what is now Graal-Müritz. This gem of a destination in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is idyllically set alongside a five-kilometre sandy beach. The traditional holiday resort's proximity to Hanseatic Rostock and the Fischland-Darss-Zingst peninsula add to its special appeal.
Remarkable bioclimate
The distinctive interplay of sea, forest and heathland creates a therapeutic bioclimate that has been proven to exert a beneficial effect on the skin, respiratory system, heart and circulation. And the Blue Flag flying proudly over the town is evidence of the high quality of its air and water. The German Association for Environmental Education adheres to a strict set of EU guidelines when issuing this award.
두 가지 유용한 조합(브라우저 확대/축소):
확대: +
축소: +
다음 아이콘을 클릭하여 브라우저 공급자에서 기타 도움말을 받으십시오:


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Señor Frog's, Altres Sued By EEOC For Severe, Rampant Sexual Harassment
Female Staff Ordered to Perform Sexual Favors, Groped and Demeaned by Señor Frog's Owner & Senior Management, Federal Agency Charges
HONOLULU - Señor Frog's, a popular chain of Mexican-themed restaurants and bars, violated federal law by allowing the rampant sexual harassment of its female employees in Honolulu by high-level officials including the company owner, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit it filed November 2, 2012 against both Señor Frog's and Altres, Inc. Altres, a Hawaiian staffing company, was contracted by Señor Frog's to provide human resources services and oversee the company's non-management staff at the Señor Frog's restaurant & bar in Honolulu.
In its lawsuit, the EEOC asserts that a class of at least nine female servers and bartenders were repeatedly bombarded with sexual propositions, explicit sexual remarks, groping, grabbing, and exposure of genital areas by male managers, and even ordered to perform sexual favors for high-level Señor Frog officials. The widespread sexual harassment was out of control, stemming from Señor Frog's owner himself, who permitted other Honolulu restaurant managers and supervisors to do the same, according to the EEOC. Women were also treated differently with respect to being passed over for promotions, obtaining less favorable shifts and earning less than their male counterparts.
The EEOC contends that at least one of the victims was compelled to quit as a result, while others were disciplined or had their hours cut in retaliation for complaining of the harassment and discrimination. As the joint employer, the EEOC claims that Altres is also liable for the hostile work environment endured by the Señor Frog's staff, many of whom were employed by Altres on paper, according to company records.
Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. La Rana Hawaii, LLC dba Señor Frog's & Altres, Inc., Case No. CV-11-00799 LEK BMK) after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process. The EEOC's suit seeks all available relief, including lost wages, front pay and compensatory and punitive damages for the class of women. Substantial remedies, including policy changes and staff training, are also being sought by the EEOC in order to prevent and appropriately address future instances of sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation.
"We are troubled by the increase of sexual harassment cases and companies continuing to fail to take this problem seriously," said Anna Y. Park, regional attorney for the EEOC's Los Angeles District Office, which includes Hawaii in its jurisdiction.
Timothy Riera, local director for the EEOC's Honolulu Local Office, added, "Workers have the right to report sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace without suffering negative consequences or retaliation. Where an employer lacks the mechanism to complain or to put a halt to harassment, the EEOC is certainly here to help."
According to the company's website, Señor Frog's operates restaurants in 15 tourist destinations in Mexico, the United States and the Caribbean. Altres, Inc. claims to be Hawaii's largest locally owned staffing company, and provides outsourced human resources support services to businesses throughout Hawaii, employing over 5,000 people.


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|General Hardware General hardware related questions.
|Thread Tools
|Display Modes
What do you folk think about the Parallella Board?
Multiple Core Co-processor
Maybe I should have asked with more direction.
I believe the Parallella has a dual core arm as the main processor. I was wondering specifically if the 18 core co-(parallel)processor made this device exceptional by any means, other than not being ordinary for this type of board.
They have not updated their kickstarter blog for a little while now, but it seems they have put together a similar board with a 64 core co-processor.
These cores have a max frequency of 800Mhz.
I'm wondering if this Adapteva processor would significantly improve compile times.
Even though their 64 core board isn't an available product yet, I was wondering if their current 18 core board would be a good device to donate to *BSD developers.
Or perhaps there are too many bottle necks in its design?
I haven't had enough experience to know, by just looking at their available online schematics, myself the quality or value of such a device to the *BSD communities.
Currently, the device only has Ubuntu images available.
|Thread Tools
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Linear Mode


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This was originally the carriage house of the A. Judson Sayre Residence at 717 Royal Avenue S.W. The photo was taken from Durham Avenue S.W. The window in the background to the left was the Louis Strong residence next door. The carriage houses on Durham Avenue S.W. later became separate homes.
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Greetings blogfriends! How are you? We celebrated Melina Nefeli's first birthday last Saturday. My baby is not a baby anymore. She walks, she is constantly mumbling and if it wasn't for her almost bold and blond head she wouldn't look at all like one!
We had her Wiccaning in the balcony, because that would be easier for het but it turned out beautiful. She was on our table and her Godmother,her dad and I held hands creating a circle around! We had to let go once because she kept eating our papers(babies these days have no respect for rituals!!). There were four dressed candles that smelled fantastic marking the corners and there were also symbols for each of the elements. We chanted three different prayers, that called upon the elements, elementals ,our ancestors and the Goddess to bless her and guide her.
She wore a protective talisman of moonstone that I wore during my pregnancy. Also I made her a wreath out of ivy that she wouldn't wear, so I wore it and looked like a fairy!She would have worn a tutu dress I made her but I can't sew and it was small. So, I removed the tutu skirt and put it over a dress of hers and she was like a tiny princess-bride-fairy. I will show you pictures as soon as I upload them!
The rest of her birthday involved a monster cake I built out of 5 cakes and a pot of icing, being eaten by three adults a baby and two neighbors in less than 24 hours! Now that's an accomplishment! Of course I will show you pictures of that too!
When the evening fell we headed of for down town, where she wemy to her first concert. First we heard classical and then jazz! 21 of June is the European day of music, so the event was wonderful. She loved it too of course! Then we returned home and mom sang while dad played the guitar, like every other night!
She had a lot of fun and so did we. We didn't have a party and that was a great idea!So, how was your Solstice?
Melina Nefeli's birthday- Wiccaning
Greetings blogfriends! How are you? We celebrated Melina Nefeli's first birthday last Saturday. My baby is not a baby anymore. She walks, she is constantly mumbling and if it wasn't for her almost bold and blond head she wouldn't look at all like one!
Shadow work, mirroring spells and a cake
Greetings blogfriends. I am missed you dearly. How are you all lovely creatures? I am doing better back-wise. I have weekly pt appointments. Two months ago i was able to start slowly working out and now i manage to do on a daily basis a lot of core training, interval spinning, yoga or stretching. I have become a lot stronger and the pain vanishes gradually! I just have to restrain myself from doing any work on the house and from carrying the baby all day.
It is only a week till her first birthday and it is cake time. Which means i have to make many experiments, feed the neighbors and perfect what i will make for that day. I plan to start tonight.
On a magical note. Tonight is the last night of the full moon. Lately i have been doing a lot of shadow work although i usually do it around Samhein. I worked on some of my issues, stress and pressuring myself too hard. But also, i did some mirroring spells, because there was a bit of negativity going around. I send all the negative energy to where it came from. I am usually reluctant with those kind of spells but this time i felt we really needed that. The house now is so bright, full of love and laughter. I used a lot of mandrake root, belladonna, poppy seeds and labdanum among other ingredients i rarely get to use. And now i can focus all my magical work on greeting the Sun on the longest day of the year.
May you see a lot of fairies and have the most happy Midsummer this year!
Be blessed, loved and free!
I am an effing genious!!
Greetings blogfriends. I have been having some blogger troubles, or perhaps some browser problems. I have no idea what was exactly the issue, the hacker that i am. But, for a long two months, i had the impression i was leaving you comments, but i did not. After i was asked to choose a profile in every single one of your posts and after i always did, i thought that the comment was sent. I discovered noticing that none of you ever responded back that you never got any of it.
There were times i thought i have offended some of you and that you were even deleting my comments! It took my a while, but i got there. I changed my browser, yet again, created a google profile that i thought i had and i am about to irritate all of you by leaving comments after comments!!!!


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We bought discount tickets to see the Degas exhibition at the Yokohama Museum of Art yesterday.
Although I got up about 10.30, it wasn't until about 2pm that we finally got there. It's the last days of the exhibit so the line was long, and inside was almost uncomfortably crowded.
Most of the art were portraits of old people, ballet dancers, and a few tasteful nude paintings. While Degas was for sure very talented, this just reconfirmed my feelings that I prefer modern art and styles.
Once we left the final room, my eyes were drawn to the Surrealism section. If I have a favourite, Dali is it. It's like a warped dream. I could look at these paintings and art all day.
For some reason I like taking pictures of reflections. I took this picture of us in an inverted Q sculpture. Looks cool. Very surrealistic, no?
We spent a short time at Minato Mirai before making our way back towards Yokohama station. I had a sickly strawberry cream filled chocolate from Pocket Mart before we caught our train onwards to go to Kawasaki.
Before I came to Japan I only thought of Yokohama as a tyre company and Kawasaki for motorcycles. Funny.
The reason I wanted to come here was to check out the local Hard Off store. As soon as we got to Kawasaki, we started on the 30 minute trek to get there.
It's still my favourite. As usual there were a few things I was itching to get. I walked out only with a Buzz Lightyear. Don't look at me like that. It was only 300 yen! Did I mention it has a "big one" rocket with it?
While she looked around Lazona, there were a few shops I wanted to check out.
Not that I needed it, I picked up a Mickey Watch. I'm a sucker for old school Mickey. I like the subtle cues. It was a 5% off day and I had an additional 50 yen off, so I saved some small Crunky money change. Only 2,325 yen :D
Before heading back, we went to the Sanwa supermarket in the Lazona basement. We had some limited edition Walnut and Maple Haagan Daaz. It gets Jimmy's tick of approval. Get!
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Mickey is De Gas
We bought discount tickets to see the Degas exhibition at the Yokohama Museum of Art yesterday.
Posted by Jimmy In Japan at 11:30 pm


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Suit Alleges ADA Violations At DMV
RALEIGH, N.C. — Once a year, every year, the state Division of Motor Vehicles threatens to cancel Pam Dickens' license to drive.
That's how the DMV's Medical Evaluation Program works. It sends out letters to selected licensed drivers with some version of this ultimatum: You have 30 days to prove you're still a safe driver.
Some drivers who fall into the medical program are elderly people in declining health. Doctors, police officers or concerned family members ask the DMV to determine whether their driving abilities have deteriorated.
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And there are younger drivers, such as Dickens, who pass the DMV's written tests, vision tests and road tests — but are forced to keep proving themselves because they have physical disabilities.
Even after they pass extra DMV tests, and after their doctors confirm their fitness to drive without special scrutiny, these drivers sometimes find it impossible to overcome the DMV's nagging suspicions. The letters keep coming.
"I don't want to have to face, every year, the threat of losing my license and my independence for no reason," said Dickens, 53, of Hillsborough.
Now, in a lawsuit filed by Dickens and five other drivers with disabilities, a federal judge has ruled that the DMV must answer allegations that its Medical Evaluation Program illegally discriminates against safe, capable drivers. Judge Terrence W. Boyle of North Carolina's Eastern U.S. District Court refused last week to dismiss the suit, which accuses the DMV of violating the federal Rehabilitation Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act.
In its failed motion to dismiss the case, the DMV denies that its requirements for driving and medical tests amount to discrimination. The motion cites state law giving the DMV commissioner broad power to reject medical recommendations, while placing the burden on drivers to prove their fitness.
The DMV said it hopes to resolve the lawsuit quickly.
"NCDMV remains committed to providing the highest level of road safety, for the individual and motoring public," spokesman Brian Smith said late Monday by email.
The lawsuit portrays the DMV as a dark bureaucracy — arbitrary and mysterious, unresponsive and unaccountable.
The six drivers all say they've had no driving problems. They were funneled into the medical review program by local DMV employees, not by doctors or troopers. They submitted to medical exams and, when asked, special behind-the-wheel tests with occupational therapists, all at their own expense.
But there seems to be no exit from this program. Drivers sometimes are told they can ask for a hearing to appeal a license revocation but are instructed not to question the DMV's orders for more tests and more proof.
Dickens was born with spina bifida but had few physical limitations — she worked, drove and played tennis — until she lost the use of her legs after a spinal cord injury in 2010. So she installed hand controls in her car and learned to drive without her feet.
"It's not hard to do," Dickens said". "You have to train your brain to react with your hands, really fast. Now it's the way I drive."
When she rolled her wheelchair into a DMV office in 2010 to renew her license, the examiner asked her to prove her driving skills in her specially equipped car. She passed the road test.
Her renewed license was to expire in 2018, but she received her first 30-day warning letter in 2011. Now, each year, Dickens' doctor fills out the DMV's long medical questionnaires and writes a letter explaining that her medical condition is stable and there is no need to require further evaluations.
"I understand for some people they may become weaker or their cognitive abilities may be changing," Dickens said. "But mine are not. I'm just paralyzed. My reflexes are just as quick as they were 20 years ago."
The lawsuit was filed by Disability Rights North Carolina, a nonprofit advocacy group, which also joined the case as a plaintiff. The group points to language in the Americans With Disabilities Act that says a government agency's safety measures must be "based on actual risks, not on mere speculation, stereotypes or generalizations about individuals with disabilities."
Vicki Smith, executive director of Disability Rights North Carolina, said she supports the DMV's goal of keeping unsafe drivers off the road. But the medical program isn't fair to drivers with disabilities, she said.
"I think (the) DMV equates any physical disability as: This person probably cannot drive safely," Smith said. "What we want is a fairly written policy and protocol based on real information about the ability of an individual to drive."
Dickens and other plaintiffs say they can't reason with the DMV because they can't get the DMV on the phone.
"They would say you need to speak with so-and-so, and they'll call you back," Dickens said. "And nobody would ever call me back. I've never been able to speak with anybody."
After plaintiff Rebecca Kay, 60, of Raleigh passed her road test, the DMV ordered her to install a knob on her steering wheel, to make it easier to grip. She objected, according to the lawsuit, and the DMV made her take a second road test, which she also passed. Kay was warned that if she objected further, she would face further restrictions. She called the DOT's disabilities coordinator, waited on hold for 30 minutes, and finally hung up, according to the lawsuit.
Logan Wilson, 18, of Chapel Hill is the lead plaintiff. He has cerebral palsy and uses a steering-wheel knob. After he questioned the DMV's ban on nighttime driving, the DMV said it would grant a hearing to consider his appeal, then dropped the ban without holding a hearing, according to the lawsuit.
He wants the DMV to accept his doctor's positive evaluation and release him from the medical review program.
"I feel like they're disobeying my civil rights," said Wilson, a high school senior. "I'm fine. I'm healthy."


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The Influence Of Internet On Modern Business
An Internet Marketing program has two sides. One is the part devoted to individual customers. The other is the business to business component. E-commerce programs as well as advertising, sales support, customer service and public relations are all elements of an internet marketing program.
Similar companies compete against one another while being only a click of the mouse away. In other words, a buyer can locate numerous sellers offering similar merchandise, similar prices and similar offers in a very short time period. As more people and businesses become comfortable with the internet, the marketing landscape will continue to evolve quickly in the coming years.
Use of the internet has exploded during the last few years in both the consumer and business-to-business markets. Although the experts still debate the future of the internet, no one doubts it is having an impact on how business is taking place in the twenty 'first century, even with all of the – – dot crashes – – of the late 1990s. Here are some facts about the internet that highlight its tremendous growth and presence in society:
– The most common products consumers' research online and purchase off-line (at the store or outlet) are: automobiles, computer, hardware, travel, electronics, books, appliances, music, sporting goods and clothing.
– Over 25 percent of all business-to-business purchases are placed through some type of internet connection.
– The five top business-to-business e-commerce products are computers and electronics, motor vehicles, petrochemicals, utilities, papers and office products.
– In 2004, 10 percent of business-to-business advertising dollars were spent on the internet. The total amount spent was $8.7 billion.
– About 54 percent of the e-mail users have responded to an e-mail advertisement. Almost half purchased a product.
– Internet retail sales account for almost 2.5 percent of all retail sales.
Business-to-business marketers were among the first companies actually to make profits using the internet. In today's marketplace, the web is becoming the communication tool of choice for many business-to-business companies. The internet provides opportunities for communication, customer service, sales support, collaboration and e-commerce.
Some companies use the internet for every aspect of their business including taking orders, inventory control, production scheduling, communications plans, sales programs, service departments and support programs. The change from traditional communication channels such as salespeople, telephone and – – snail mail – -to the internet and e-mail happened quickly in some companies and more slowly in others.
Now, convincing top management of the benefits of internet marketing is essential. There is still a lack of internet expertise in the business community. As a result, many companies are turning to marketing agencies for guidance.
To conclude, the influence of the internet on various businesses and industries has been clearly noted in today's world. The presence of the internet and e-commerce is so sweeping that the various applications of web technology are now essential elements of a fully integrated marketing communications program.


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Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate 7.8.20 build 20170331 | MacOSX | 43.1 MB
The best Video Converter for Mac & PC users. Let you enjoy videos anywhere. Xilisoft Video Converter for Mac is a feature-rich Mac video converter that can convert between virtually all video and audio formats. No longer will you worry about files not being compatible with your devices, Xilisoft Video Converter for Mac makes most media files playable on the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Galaxy, Kindle, HTC One, etc. Xilisoft Video Converter for Mac offers numerous ways to customize your files: clip, split and merge videos, crop video image, add watermarks, soundtracks and artistic effects, etc.
– Convert more than 160 video and audio formats
– Convert HD videos, up to 1080p and 4K video
– Convert 2D movies into 3D
– Convert videos/audios to iPhone/iPad/iPod, and Galaxy devices
– 5X Speed Promotion with GPU acceleration
– Convert videos/audios on both Mac and PC
– Equipped with advanced HD video conversion technology, it can easily convert HD video formats such as H.264 and MPEG-4 video.
– With creative editing tools, you can clip/merge/split files, add watermarks/subtitles/soundtracks, apply special effects and crop video.
– It comes with optimized conversion profiles classified by device types, so you can easily find the most suitable conversion solution for your device.
– Powered with NVIDIA CUDA technology and AMD APP technology, it offers improved conversion performance, especially for HD video conversion.
– Deliver fast video conversion with multi-core CPU support and produce HD-quality movies with advanced HD decoding and encoding technology.
– Come with optimized and classified conversion profiles for a wide range of multimedia devices. Customize an existing profile and saved it as your own.
– Enjoy your different video/audio/picture collections by merging them together. Add transitions between every two videos/pictures for enhanced viewing.
– Crop the picture frame, adjust video brightness/saturation/contrast. Add artistic effects, and personalize your video with picture and text watermarks.
– This Win & Mac Video Converter can convert 2D movies into 3D movies in variety of formats. Also convert 3D movies from one format to another.
– Use Xilisoft Video Converter to easily clip your favorite sections of a video and merge them together to make the video you want.
– Add subtitles to your video and adjust their relative transparencies and positions. Dub your video with your own voice or any soundtrack you fancy.
– Directly transfer the converted files to iTunes, iPhone, iPad, and iPod simply by Xilisoft Video Converter.
Supported OS: OSX 10.6 or higher
Language: Multilangual
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request a demo
Analysts are under pressure to produce actionable intelligence (in XML) but they have little time to learn new technologies to facilitate this. The Quark Intelligence Solution is built around the tool analysts already know, Microsoft Word. By hiding the complexity of XML and making it easy to add metadata and security markup, deployment is fast and easy, so analysts can do what they do best, create intelligence.
Quark Enterprise Solution for Intelligence is based on the combination of Quark XML Author and the Pubs-XML Accelerator for a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) publishing solution certified for the U.S. Intelligence Community.
Analysts author valid XML in Microsoft Word, and the underlying technology ensures high stability and performance while providing an extensible interface that virtually eliminates the need for custom development as requirements evolve.
Quickly create and share discoverable analytic products by building the technical XML and tagging requirements directly into analysts' existing tools and processes. Quark Enterprise Solution for Intelligence enables the construction of a flexible and sustainable system by allowing the incorporation of new requirements with minimal disruption to both analysts and backend systems.
Quark Enterprise Solution for Intelligence can increase efficiency for XML-based authoring and dissemination of analytic products. This allows for rapid discovery through the Library of National Intelligence in addition to other government portals and messaging systems.
"My primary focus is helping clients in the government intelligence sector implement effective solutions for creating discoverable content. In my daily work, I rely on Quark XML Author because it's an easy and effective tool that has helped me increase the findability of my client's content by 400 percent."
— North Fork Technical Solutions Contractor for Government Agency
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China's Richest 2019: Growing Consumer Appetite Boosts Fortunes Of Nation's Wealthiest
This story is part of Forbes' coverage of China's Richest 2019.
The headlines from China in the past year have been gloomy. Trade friction with the U.S. has risen, while GDP growth in the world's second-largest economy slowed to a near three-decade low of 6%. Happily for the country's wealthiest, however, there's more good news than bad among the members of our list of China's richest.
The total wealth of the 400 members of the China Rich List rose by more than a fifth from a year ago, to $1.29 trillion, as China's consumers spent more on everything and spent more of it online. More than half the listees saw their fortunes climb in the past year, while a quarter saw their fortunes fall. The minimum net worth needed to make the list this year was $1 billion, back to 2017's threshold, after dropping in 2018 to $840 million. There were 60 newcomers to the list; returnees made up most of the rest.
Topping the list for a second year is Jack Ma, who recently resigned as chairman of the e-commerce giant he co-founded, Alibaba, to focus on philanthropy. Ma's fortune rose to $38.2 billion from $34.6 billion a year earlier as New York-listed Alibaba gained on China's e-commerce boom. Second and third on the list: Tencent CEO Huateng "Pony" Ma, with a fortune worth $36 billion, and Evergrande Group Chairman Hui Ka Yan, worth an estimated $27.7 billion, …Continue reading