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Forced apart by DOMA, engaged to be married and fighting to be together
My name is Kevin and I am currently engaged to Francis. We are a gay bi-national couple who, like so many others, must endure being separated by continents as a result of the inequality in the marriage laws in the United States.
While many Americans live in states were gay and lesbian couples can legally marry now, all those wonderful loving newlyweds are still unequal in the eyes of the federal government which views them as NOT married. There is no parallel to this in other countries and is a unique characteristic of the way we divide the power to marry couples to the states, but yet reserve to the federal government the power to disregard those same marriages.
Countless citizens will continue to suffer the status as second class citizens as long as DOMA, The Defense of Marriage Act passed in the 1990's, is in effect. As countries around the globe recognize that all citizens are to be afforded equal rights, the United States remains a nation that offers specific segments of our society rights yet denies those same liberties to another based solely on out-dated and bigoted perspectives.
I made a promise to Francis. I will not stop, I will not give in, and I will not allow any person, embassy, rule or injustices have the final say in our life together. My voice along with those of other individuals and organizations is growing to fight not only for the dreams of countless couples who are separated or face being forcefully torn apart, but also to end the reign of lawful discrimination.
This battle for equality must be fought and brought to the attention of the American people. It is past time to bring justice and dignity to so many in our nation who only ask for equality.
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I find this story so moving and painful.
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i think anyone,anybody should be able to get married,regardless of race,color or creed. i hope to someday find a person to love,hv a relationship,be in love,date,be with me,and get married too. we hv to hv entertianment in our lives too. i hear about movie stars coming out of the closet. lets also hear about gay marrages too. i want this to happen for everyone.
Anonymous says
Your story is very touching Kevin and thanks for sharing it. Sadly your tale is not rare, and many loving and deserving couples are being tortured by the denial of our liberties not only as LGBT individuals, but also as human beings. You have a beautiful spirit though Kevin and you are right to never surrender to the ignorance and confusion of those who persecute us. Cyber hugs my friend and best wishes to you and Francis!
"No amount of vilification shall make us stop living with integrity and love."
Anonymous says
me and my hubby legally married after six year we're together(we're married august 2012 in washington). we're bi-national couple,our relation is stronger everyday even though we have to be separated 1500 miles away because my situation that can't work about anywhere else, while he can't get a job because his qualified and discrimination against his age (he was laid off 8 months ago the company he work for lose the contract). its been hard for both of us mentally but it doesn't keep us trying to be united, life our live together. hope for the best for kevin & francis
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Because of my work schedule being crazy (8 shifts bouncing between night and day) in a row, I just can't find energy or time to do something for this week. So, I'm consolidating effort to get ready for the RPG Blog Carnival theme that I'll be doing for the month of July! The theme? "Doomsdays & Dystopias" or rather, dark genres of fiction and dark settings. WH40K RPG/Wargaming stories, examining bleak subject matter and grim things in gaming, dying quickly in the desert world of Athas, dying even faster in Ravenloft, stark and seemingly hopeless worlds, etc. All that stuff is good! Till next time, friends! Don't you dare go hollow.
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Arsenal close in on transfer of Bayern Munich star in £14m deal.
Arsenal have agreed a deal to sign Luiz Gustavo from Bayern Munich according to the Metro.
The Brazil international midfielder shone at the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, and helped his country claim the title with some dominant displays in the centre of the park.
Gustavo's anchoring of the Selecao midfield gave Luiz Felipe Scolari's team a solidity they had been missing for years, and it is doubtful that the Brazilians could have defeated world and European champions Spain by the comprehensive scoreline of 4-0 without the Bayern Munich man's enforcement – particularly as the Spanish midfield trio is widely regarded as the greatest in the world – and perhaps of all time.
Still, despite his impressive performances for his country, Gustavo appears unlikely to be a regular at Allianz Arena this season, with new signing Thiago Alcantara and stalwart Bastian Schweinsteiger preferred at the base of the midfield under recently appointed manager Pep Guardiola.
With that being the case, Gustavo could well be allowed to leave Bayern Munich this summer, with the Metro indicating a £14 million transfer is on the verge of completion.


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The outbreak of coronavirus in China has led to concerns over a slowdown in the nation's economy and put pressure on oil and industrial metals prices on bets for potentially weaker demand for the commodities.
However, if the 2002-2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic, known as SARS, may serve as a guide, the overall impact of the virus outbreak may be modest and short lived on the global economy, as well as on the commodities sector.
"Even the significant economic disruption related to SARS turned out to be temporary and experts expect this disease to be less deadly and better contained," said Jennifer McKeown, head of the Global Economics Service at Capital Economics, in report dated Wednesday.
As of midnight Tuesday there were 440 confirmed cases of coronavirus in China and at least nine people have died, according to the Associated Press. Cases have also been confirmed in Thailand, Japan, South Korea, the U.S. and Taiwan. The SARS outbreak roughly 17 years ago saw more than 8,000 cases in 26 countries and killed nearly 800 people.
After news of a single coronavirus case diagnosed in the United States emerged Tuesday, prices for industrial metals such as silver and copper finished lower. On Wednesday, silver US:SIH20 prices have moved up a bit to settle at $17.828 an ounce, up 0.1% for the session, though copper US:HGH20 continued its decline, losing 1% to finish at $2.765 a pound. Oil prices US:CLH20 UK:BRNH20, meanwhile, moved sharply lower Wednesday, with some analysts attributing weakness to the possibility that the virus will curb travel and result in less fuel consumption.
Industrial metals can sell off and test or move below the 2019 lows if China's coronavirus becomes an epidemic, said Chintan Karnani, chief market analyst at Insignia Consultants.
The virus will "result in less consumer spending in the short term," he said. Depending on the scope of the spread, "industrial metals can fall between 3% to 5% anytime."
Jeff Klearman, portfolio manager at exchange-traded fund issuer GraniteShares, said that prices for base metals, which copper and zinc, would decline if the coronavirus becomes widespread and weaken global economic growth. He specifically mentioned copper as China accounts for about half of global demand for the metal.
Crude-oil prices would decline under that scenario as well, as oil touches "almost all phases of the economy," he said. "A slowdown in industrial production, air travel and gasoline consumption would lead to less demand pitting against ample supply."
But Karnani pointed out that a few hundred people getting the disease is "not an epidemic" in the world's most populous nation. The developments over the next three weeks will be "crucial," he added.
The spread of the virus comes ahead of the Lunar New Year celebration, which begins on Jan. 25 and can last through to the Feb. 8 Lantern Festival. It's a significant travel period for the Chinese, raising the potential for further spread of the illness.
"The recent outbreak of a new coronavirus in China has raised questions on its potential impact on the oil and jet fuel markets," analysts Damien Courvalin and Callum Bruce of Goldman Sachs wrote in research note dated Tuesday.
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UF releases plan for reopening
The University of Florida released the draft of a reopening plan on Monday that anticipates students and faculty returning to classrooms in the fall wearing masks, keeping some distance from each other, and getting regular tests for coronavirus infection.
The "UF Reopening Plan" was released late Monday afternoon on the university's website. It is clearly marked as a draft that is subject to continued revision.
Last week, the governing body of the state's 12 public universities approved a blueprint for colleges to follow throughout the semester to aid the safe return of students and faculty in just months.
The state is allowing each public university to make plans that account for the seriousness of the pandemic in their region. Representatives will present their plans to the Board of Governors on June 23.
"We have decided that we must learn to live, study, and work in the midst of COVID-19," UF's plan states.
It requires student organizations, such as sororities and fraternities, to submit plans for maintaining health and safety to UF administrators before they can resume activities.
Students coming to Gainesville from states listed as hot spots by Gov. Ron DeSantis must quarantine themselves for 14 days or be cleared by testing before returning to campus. In March, DeSantis listed those states as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Louisiana, but that may be updated before students return.
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"Every person coming to UF's campus — whether a faculty member, a staff member, student, vendor, or visitor — is expected to adhere to the health and safety guidelines established by the university," the plan says.
UF ended classes on campus in early March as the coronavirus pandemic spread broadly in the United States. The spring term was completed through online instruction that continued through the summer terms.
"Depending on a student's major course of study, we expect that most undergraduate students who would prefer to take most or all of their courses remotely would be able to arrange a schedule to do so," the UF plan says.
Course schedules for the fall are still being reworked with registration for classes expected to begin late this month or early July. That includes provisions to allow as many students as possible to complete the fall semester away from campus after the Thanksgiving break.
UF athletes are expected to begin arriving next week. The UF Athletic Association has developed its own plan for health and safety of student-athletes and staff, in conjunction with the NCAA and the Southeastern Conference.
"Decisions about intercollegiate competition will come later and be made in conjunction with the NCAA and SEC," the plan states.


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If you want the internal audit team to address the risks that matter to the success of the organization, they have to know what they are.
I addressed this in detail in Auditing that matters.
In the section on Being Present, I said:
Some internal audit departments live in an ivory tower, part of a corporate organization that is at the center of the enterprise. While there are advantages in being at the center, with information flowing in and with access to corporate officers and executives, the disadvantage is that you may not know what is really happening in the business – where the front lines extend across the globe and the men and women in the trenches feel disconnected with the corporate bureaucracy.
I like to have my office in the headquarters area, but I put my staff where the action is. When business units are headquartered in other areas of the country or the globe, those are where I position my direct reports.
For example, at Tosco we had multiple refineries. Each was a major operation in itself, so I had staff located there. But, my director for the Tosco Refining Company was based at that division's headquarters in New Jersey and the director for the Marketing Company was at their HQ in Tempe, Arizona. At Business Objects, we had a regional structure; I was at the California office, co-located with the CEO and CFO. But I also had staff in the Vancouver, Paris and Singapore offices, co-located with the Americas, Europe, and Asia/Pacific executives.
I require my direct reports to build a strong relationship with the management of the areas they are responsible for. They attend those executives' staff meetings and have periodic one-on-one meetings with them. They are part of the local management team in some ways, dedicated to helping that part of the business succeed, although they retain their organizational independence and objectivity.
When they are present, when they are seen, they are able to listen.
My experience is that people will think of coming to you, whether to provide information or to seek advice, if they see you. If they don't see you, the likelihood they will call on you is significantly diminished.
At Solectron, my team was scattered across the organization – again, to remain in touch with the pulse of the organization.
One of my team, Jeff Mullis, was based in Charlotte, North Carolina. On one of my visits to Charlotte, I arrived outside Jeff's office a few minutes early for a scheduled meeting with him. As I neared his office, I heard voices inside. I waited outside while he finished the meeting he was having with two members of local management; it was clear that they had come to him for advice on an operational issue (he had been in local operating management prior to joining the audit team).
When they left and I entered his office, Jeff apologized for keeping me waiting. He asked if I had a problem that he spent time talking to local management like this rather than spending all his time on assigned audit engagements. My reply was to congratulate him!
I was very pleased that he had retained his connections with operating management and made himself available when they needed his advice and insight (that 'magic' word, again). He knew what was going on in the business, had his finger on the pulse, and as a result could not only be a more effective auditor but help the entire internal audit team understand the risks and opportunities across the organization.
If you want to address the risks that matter to the success of the organization, you have to do more than listen to the members of the board and executive management team.
You have to, using the words of Tom Peters, "talk to the janitor".
The members of the audit team have to be where the action is, where the risks are being taken, and where the front lines are in manufacturing, sales, procurement, and so on.
How can we expect an occasional visit to help us understand what is really happening? Is it sufficient for the CAE or an audit manager to fly in once a quarter to talk to local management?
Let's face it: most internal audit "findings" are where they find that what is happening in real life is different from what those in the ivory tower believe is happening.
I do not believe it is advisable to base the audit plan on input and advice from the top and then go audit to find out the risks are different, or at least managed differently.
The audit plan should reflect reality, not ivory tower beliefs.
How confident are you that your audit plan addresses the risks as they appear in the front lines?
Is that acceptable? If not, what are you doing about it?
I welcome your comments.
- The greatest risk and the greatest asset - November 25, 2022
- Internal audit and ESG. How much should we do? - November 16, 2022
- The risky internal auditor - October 28, 2022


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About Catalyst Radio
Catalyst Radio is the weekly public affairs radio program of Community Media Center, with producer and host Linda Gellasch, along with Denise Cheng. The program is a feature of WYCE and The Rapidian and includes interviews with organizations and people working on social change and community support, examines media and free speech issues, and takes a look at the behind-the-scenes of Rapidian reporting. You can catch it on air at noon every Friday on WYCE 88.1 FM or streaming on the Grand Rapids Community Media Center Website.
Past Catalyst Radio episodes are archived on The Rapidian.
Woodshop volunteers turn out pieces of cabinetry that can be painted to match furniture for purchase at Builder's Abundance. /All photos courtesy of Home Repair Services


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Learning Management System
Question Bank: more than 3 million question for all levels in all fields.
Real-time exams/assignments monitoring.
Global Notification Center.
Virtual Classrooms.
Assessment Tools.
Learning Outcomes Map.
Discussion Rooms.
Our students need to prepare for the future and we must provide smarter educational solutions to support them. Everything can be changed in the educational process for the better, and we desire to be the leaders in that change.
Smart features gives you better learning.
Question Bank: more than 3 million question for all levels in all fields.
Real-time exams/assignments monitoring.
Global Notification Center.
Virtual Classrooms.
Assessment Tools.
Learning Outcomes Map.
Discussion Rooms.
Teachers management system provides you full control to manage all teachers schedules, their attendance, and all details you want to know about teachers performance.
We develop tools and features to manage the balance sheet for each student and process the transactions such as invoices, receipts, discounts, deposit requests, etc. with direct communication with the school's accounting department.
We ensure management can maximize feedback and evaluations of the school's facilities. Management can create and publish surveys to all students, teachers and all users and collect data and opinions to extract any insights needed.
Every single user can have their own public profile that can be shared with anyone, even those who are not registered in Classera.
Make public announcements easily for any event you have for all members with full description of the event date, location and banner image.
Outstanding students will be offered a free membership to Classera Talent Club which conducts activities, courses, and trips under the supervision of specialized teachers and advisers.
Full automation of Kagan cooperative learning techniques with all the tools needed to link course objectives with the proper Kagan technique.
Manage all students' information.
Handle schedules and course enrollment...etc.
Manage all students' behavioral records.
Manage students' attendance.
Notify management and parents of students attendance and participation.
Generate multiple reports and charts of students data.
Certificates no longer need to be printed, stamped or signed! Leave it to us. We ensure that every issued certificate is verified by a unique QR code and verification link so that anyone can get an instant feedback of the certificate validity.
Taking the right decisions at the right time is imperative. Our Business Intelligence Module provides with data analysis and information presentation tools to help managers and other end users make more informed decisions.
Everyone can create an e-portfolios that can easily be shared on other social networks, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
Share and browse training resources in any format. And make all users able to share knowledge and receive feedback easily.
Classera Ambassadors will be assigned to each classroom, level in every school. Ambassadors participate in different activities and help other students in their schools.
Alumni Club provides the school with tools to communicate, arrange alumni programs and meetings, and follow up with their progress in their academic and professional lives.
Classera Inspire Program is an unprecedented idea in the educational scene that made the learning process more engaging, enthusiastic and fun. For the first time, students and teachers will interact with school activities not only for the school grades and recognition, but also to gain points that can be used outside the school.
How do they get these points? and how can they be of use?
Points will be rewarded to students and teachers whenever they interact with any content, participate in an activity or even answer a question. They will compete to earn more points and raise their rank and class among their peers. And by using their Classera Membership Card, top students and teachers can have major discounts from any of our Success Partners, which includes shops, entertainment venue, restaurants, etc.
Outstanding students will be rewarded with Excellence badges in each course based on their performance. Badge winners are announced to everyone to give students the recognition and the motivation to do more.
Cooperating with educational games developers, we introduced high-quality 3D educational games in various areas that will teach students full curriculums with an entirely different, and more engaging, environment than the traditional class environment.


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Erectile Dysfunction
Erectile Dysfunction also known as impotence, is a problem to many of the male out there, if you are one of them who's not able to have that satisfactory sexual life then Buford Road Pharmacy in Richmond Virginia is the best place where you can easily go without feeling any pressure, shame or embarrassment. Erectile dysfunction is a sexual dysfunction, because of which males are not able to maintain or produce an erected penis during a sexual intercourse. Even after persistent efforts, if there is a problem in the erection, it's advisable to consult a physician. One should not be ashamed as it is quite normal, and our doctors in Virginia will help in reaching out each problem efficiently and accurately. Almost 40 percent of males around the age of 40 suffer from erection problem. Around the world more and more men are treating their problem regarding erection which has shown a great advancement in the area ranging from advanced drugs, exercise, surgeries as well as the compounding pharmacy.
Men may not achieve an erection every time they are involved in coitus, but if it happens regularly then treatment should not be avoided. There are many cases which may cause difficulty in erection ranging from stress and anxiety to dangerous causes which should not be neglected. Although the main causes are medical, it can be psychological as well.
Erectile Dysfunction Causes
Usually, systems like blood flow, nervous system, and the endocrine system play a very important role in erectile dysfunction. Main causes behind it are heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, narrowing of blood vessels, obesity, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, prostate disease and radiation exposure to the pelvic region. Intake of a large amount of alcohol, cancer drugs, and diuretics, opioid are some other causes. There are people who have erectile dysfunction due to psychological reasons such as fear of intimacy, depression, anxiety, stress, and guilt. Reading all these might sound scary because symptoms such as diabetes and cholesterol are some of the common problems faced by most of the humans nowadays, but we need not worry as there are many treatments that are carried out on daily basis to combat erectile dysfunction and most men will find a solution for it, and our team of professional doctors in Virginia makes sure that you go through a very comfortable treatment without any worry or distress.
Erectile Dysfunction Treatment
There are drugs which men can take such as vardenafil, tadalafil, avanafil. The most common among the drugs is a pill named Viagra which is blue in color and is usually taken 30 to 60 minutes before to that of coitus. Prescription refills are very common in our pharmacy where you just have to contact out our pharmacy or fill out a form and your prescription will be refilled.
Surgical treatments are other methods such as Penile implants, vascular surgery which may be opted by some males.
Exercise can be helpful in maintaining an erection. Exercises have said to improve the erectile dysfunction and are one of the best ways of treating it without the use of drugs. Exercises like strengthening once pelvic muscles, aerobic exercises, even a brisk walk will help a lot.
Quitting the intake of alcohol, tobacco as well smoking can be helpful.
The compounding pharmacy has also helped a lot of people concerning erectile dysfunction, as there are people who don't respond well to oral pills such as Viagra, and some others are not ready to undergo surgeries in such cases compounding can be quite necessary and useful. Compounding is an art which has grown a lot in the recent global market. It focuses on producing drugs that are specific to the individual.
There are patients who are allergic, to some drugs or may not respond to certain medications, compounding is best in those cases. One of the benefits of compounding is that the drugs are prepared by the pharmacist according to needs of the patients, as every person is unique.
One of the major advantages of the compounding pharmacy is that we can take the drug and make it work better for the patient. Buford road pharmacy compounding will make sure in assisting each need with the best compounding.
One should keep in mind that even the greatest actor can't fake an erection, hence throw your embarrassment away. You deserve to have an erection when you want; Buford Pharmacy is the right place to solve each of your problems!
Give us a call at (804) 215-8363, visit our website at www.bufordroadpharmacy.com, or come into our conveniently accessible at our Richmond location today and speak with one of the highly qualified and professional members of our staff today and let us help you understand how we can help improve your healthcare journey and get you on the way to better health in no time at all.


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Senior Jewish Leader says Yeshivah Rabbis Should Resign Over Abuse Cover-up
Melissa Davey, Sunday 8 February 2015 19.21 EST, The Guardian
Rabbi James Kennard, head of Mount Scopus school in Victoria, says it would be 'honourable' for Yeshivah heads to step down.
A senior leader within Victoria's Jewish community – who is also principal of one of the state's top schools – has called for head rabbis within the orthodox Yeshivah community to resign.
Rabbi James Kennard made the comments as two of the most senior figures within the current Yeshivah administration, Don Wolf and Rabbi Avrohom Glick, prepare to face . . .
Showing 1 comment
@ tweeted this page. 2015-02-09 12:15:15 -0600Senior Jewish Leader says Yeshivah Rabbis Should Resign Over Abuse Cover-up http://www.snapnetwork.org/senior_jewish_leader_says_yeshivah_rabbis_should_resign_over_abuse_cover_up?recruiter_id=342


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The Fertility/Resources Paradigm
An interest in Game can quite quickly lead to a deep fasincation with evolution and anthropology. And cavemen. I've bought this and have high hopes:
I met Skeletor a while back and he taught me a simple model with which to look at gender dynamics. It was pretty useful and I now like to construct similar ones and enjoy looking at society through them. Here's a basic one:
Fertility vs Resources
A friend wrote to me recently that he was deliriously happy as he was dating an early 20's, good-looking Taiwanese waitress who adores sex.
This is DrunkenBaker. Bilingual. A very high IQ. A writer, actor, comedian, a social animal, a success in his chose career field. And he's ecstatically happy at bagging a waitress. Fair do's I say. Nowt wrong with that. Be pretty unusual the other way round, though, wouldn't it? Cavemen, food, resources, offspring… blah blah blah… it's all pretty obvious isn't it.
A maudlin friend once emailed me and said "is this our fate? Exceptional men can only expect average women?".
Yes, if you rate women on status and mastery. I'll break down what you can expect:
- exceptional men get average women
- average men get awful women
- exceptional women get a lifetime of unfulfillment
Have a look round at the couples you know and see how happy the ones with two stars in the relationship are. Not very. I personally know multiple couples who have less than harmonic relationships because their aims and energies are too similar. For most of my life I lamented that there weren't enough smart women for me to get one. I thank Game that I now see this folly. I shudder at the cheese of even mentioning this. Sorry in advance. I can't believe I'm doing it, but honestly, really… this is so apt:
Relationships work best with a mix of talents and abilities. Hell, humans were evolved to be highly specialized and genetically designed to have different but complimentary skills…. "We have evolved into fixed gender roles so that mutually dependent men and women can specialise in skill sets and attributes that combine to create a strong family unit". If you're a super-smart, high-achieving, alpha guy I'd suggest that perhaps getting a similar woman is not neccesary for happiness. Think of a motorbike and sidecar. You do the powering forward, make the bucks, write the books, make the big decisions and your little co-pilot keeps things running smoothly. Actually a better analogy is an X-wing with an R2D2 sitting in the back of it, keeping the engines running as you barrel down the Death Star's equatorial trench, bleeping sweet bleeps of reassurance into your earpiece.
Let me hammer this home. An X-wing with no R2D2 is not much of an X-wing. You're designed by nature to hook up, love and protect a woman. It's in your DNA. One of the core purposes of an alpha males life is to have a mate, raise a family and protect and provide for them and others. At some point this bit seems to have got chopped off the PUA model.
So when my friend said "exceptional men get average women" he was shortsighted. He's judging women by male standards of status and mastery. Judge women by female standards instead and you will see that what you call "average" women are often not so. Women have wildly different feminine energies in this modern age. Some of them are stunted, awful creatures, ruined by feminism and a system which lies to them. Others are wonderful, bright, smart, sensitive and empathetic. Don't rate women by their job, their income or their problem-solving logic. Don't be a dick.
May 26, 2011 at 5:17 am
I love the R2D2 metaphor. Recently I've been reevaluating my long-held criteria for what qualities I think I require in a life partner, and I've been moving in the direction you outline though I'm not entirely there, and I'm feeling rather conflicted about it. That's because over the years I've dated several rather brilliant and interesting women and I remember how much fun I had hanging out with them even though I was never too interested in them physically. In contrast I've dated a few women who were perfectly feminine and absolute bliss to sleep next to at night (not to mention bang for hours), and they were even easy to get along with and would have presented no significant problems in the long term, yet they were rather boring to me. But that combination has been so rare for me I've started asking myself: should I just give up on the idea of an intellectual bond with a life partner and regard it as the price I must pay if I want a feminine sexpot? Increasingly, I'm worried that for a guy my age with my level of game the answer is yes.
Slightly off topic but in my years of engineering I think I've met only 2-3 feminine and attractive female spouses out of dozens. You've worked with computers too. I wonder if you've observed the same thing?
March 2, 2012 at 7:22 am


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Bank OZK
- Banks
At Bank OZK, we offer an incredible array of the very best personal and business banking services geared to offer convenience and safety while helping you attain your goals.
We take great pride in knowing you, our customers. We understand that these relationships, along with our expertise, are the best ways to discover just the right financial solutions to suit your needs.
Our purpose is not to be the biggest bank – but to simply be the best one.


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Three Bangladeshi Youths, A Dentist, MBA Student And Singer Appear In An ISIS Video
The three Bangladeshi youths who appeared in the latest ISIS
video threatening of more terror attacks around the world have been identified
as a dentist, an aspiring singer and an MBA student, officials said here today.
Model Naila Nayem's former husband Tushar is one of the three youths who appeared in a so-called Islamic State video released yesterday, days after Islamist gunmen stormed a popular restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic enclave late on Friday and killed 22 people, most of them foreigners from Italy, Japan, India and the US, officials said.
Late Bangladesh Army major Washikur Azad's son Tushar (with longer beards in the video) married Nayem in 2011 but later they separated, bdnews24 reported.
A dentist by profession, Tushar was missing for around two years. He completed secondary education at Adamjee Cantonment Public School and higher secondary at RAJUK Uttara Model College. He lived in Dhaka, the report said.
The youth appearing in the video with his face covered with Arabic-styled headdress has been identified by the sources as Tawsif Hossain, a former student of the Institute of Business Administration at the Dhaka University, it said.
He was a student of the 18th batch of the institute but left the university without completing the course.
Hossain had been arrested before on charges of his involvement with Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). His family sent him to Austria later on, but his friends there said he was not there, the report said.
The other youth in the video was identified as Tahmid Rahman Shafi, one of the top 10 finalists of NTV's reality music show in 1995, it said.
Shafi, who resigned from Grameenphone in 2011, is a son of late election commissioner Shafiur Rahman, his former colleagues and classmates in Notre Dame College have said.
He completed BBA at BRAC University and MBA at IBA, sources in the government said. They said he had once requested his father to join Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but he refused. He had then left with his wife for war-torn Syria, the report said.
All the three youths spoke in Bangla. Only Shafi translated his speech to English.
The ISIS video was released on a SITE Intelligence site on Tuesday. The message containing threats has gone viral on social media among Bangladeshis still recovering from the shock from the slaughter of 20 hostages and two police officers in Dhaka.
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Start a conversation, not a fire. Post with kindness.


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Officer finds photos while booking 23-year-old woman
Court documents show a California Highway Patrol officer is suspected of secretly sending nude photos of a DUI suspect from her cell phone to his own phone.
The Contra Costa Times cites records that reveal a Contra Costa District Attorney investigator has recommended felony computer theft charges against 35-year-old Sean Harrington.
The CHP says the five-year veteran based in Dublin has been assigned to desk duties during the probe.
Investigators say Harrington discovered and forwarded to himself six explicit photos while booking the 23-year-old San Ramon woman in August. The photos depict the woman, who is not being identified, in a bikini and in various states of undress.
Prosecutors said Wednesday they could decide any day whether or not to press charges.
Efforts to reach Harrington for comment were unsuccessful.


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At the TEPR+ conference in February, where I spoke with my physician Danny Sands, I had the pleasure of meeting the venerable Dr. David Kibbe. An august fellow. Or so I thought. :)
See, I'd known David through his appearances on THCB (The Health Care Blog, where all the big-dog policy wonks hang out). He writes some seriously erudite (and wordy) stuff there, for instance his Open Letter to the Obama Health Team in December. And the reams of comments that he gets, from far wordier people, has usually meant that jumping into that sandpile over there has been more than I dared attempt.
So little did I know, until I met him, that David is One Of Us. Not only is he whole-heartedly into the bottom-up disruption of today's healthcare, in a wholly participatory empower-patient fashion, he's really good at story-telling and getting the idea across.
To illustrate that, here's a 16 minute "TV pilot" he put together to convey what "Health 2.0" is about. It's entertaining, stringing together interviews with some people I've met and others I haven't. (Oh, and did I mention he schemed up a way to weave it into a supposed motorcycle tour, making the whole thing a business deduction?)
I hope you enjoy it, and, more important, I hope you "get" what Health 2.0 is about: refocusing healthcare on us, out here in the real world, particularly in web-enabled ways, as opposed its previous focus inside the fortress. 16:38.
Please do drop me a comment so I have some idea what you think, y'all! I'm on a mission here - it's more fun if I have some idea whether it's working. :)
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Best intro to "health 2.0" I've seen
At the TEPR+ conference in February, where I spoke with my physician Danny Sands, I had the pleasure of meeting the venerable Dr. David Kibbe. An august fellow. Or so I thought. :)
- e-Patient Dave - 9:43 PM
2 comments:
- AnonymousMarch 19, 2009 at 3:57 PM
Hi Dave -- this came across in my Google alerts today. I like it very much. In what other "theaters" is it running?ReplyDelete
: -) Seriously, are they seeding it virally enough?
Well hi, Judy! What a pleasure to see you here. I know Brodeur from my day job. (Folks, Judy's a remarkable person - check her profile.)ReplyDelete
I'd heard your name but didn't know you were into patient power. Obviously we should talk. Have you been to the e-patient site yet, and have you heard about the new Society for Participatory Medicine? You going to be at Health 2.0 next month in Boston?
(I know, I ask a lot of questions... you know how these damned empowered patients are, always wanting to know more.)
I can't speak for what else Kibbe's doing with this. Drop me a note if you want to discuss, though.
Being a search engine marketing guy at work, I gotta ask, what word were you searching for in your Google alerts, that made this come up?


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WI CLL Society Support Group
April 25, 2024 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
One event on April 27, 2023 at 7:00 pm
An event every month that begins at 7:00 pm on day Fourth of the month, repeating until December 26, 2024
Support Group Sign-up: Click the button below and complete the brief form to sign-up for this support group.
If you have questions prior to signing up, please email firstname.lastname@example.com and include the name of the CLL Support Group you're thinking of joining. A support group facilitator will get back to you.


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Chicago's very own G Herbo drops the video for "Done For Me" to explain his narrative, that no one has done anything for him.
Everyone has that feeling, when someone claims they have gave you a handout, but G Herbo is here to say that it doesnt apply to him as he goes bar for bar on his latest track.
Watch Below and share:


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Vienna Sights and Landmarks Guide, AustriaGet your camera out and put on some comfy shoes because there's so much to see and so much to do on your visit to Vienna. This beautiful city is a tourist's dream almost as if it were built just for them. If you're into the arts music architecture history and even cuisine this is the city for you. Waste no time this city awaits.
Getting Around Vienna
There are so many choices on how you prefer to take in the sights and discover Vienna. This city offers its tourists with one of the most efficient public transport systems you'll ever get to experience. In fact if you plan to stay in the city for a while you can purchase a Vienna Card which gives you 72 hours worth of unlimited public transit within the city.
Vienna's railway system is called the U-Bahn which takes you anywhere in the city. It's the most convenient public transport and very easy to navigate with its color coded railway maps.
Traveling by car in Vienna is possible but not advisable because of its narrow one-way streets which are quite a challenge to navigate especially for those who aren't from there. Besides who wants to drive when you can ride a bike.
Biking is a great way to take in the sights of this city. You can rent a CityBike at low cost and in short terms. With a bike you can reach your destination anywhere in the city in half an hour.
But if you want to take your time and smell the roses walking is a great way to appreciate the surroundings of the city.
Must-See Attractions
While in Vienna do visit the Museum of Fine Arts or the Kunsthistorisches Museum which is one of the world's best museums and the best in Austria. This museum is an art lover's delight. It features world renowned paintings from Raphael Titian Caravaggio Bosch and Brueghel.
To catch a glimpse of life in the royal lane the Hofburg Palace is just the place to visit. What began as a medieval castle turned into a palace by the time the Habsburgs took over and ruled Austria.
If you want to appreciate Baroque architecture head on to St. Charles Cathedral or the Karlskirche. It's considered the largest baroque style cathedral north of the Alps and was designed by the famous Bernhard Fischer von Erlach.
You cannot leave Vienna without visiting the Opera House or the Wiener Staatsoper and appreciate true Viennese Opera which is the city's symbol of art. Not only will you be amazed by the music but the architecture of the place as well.
Do stop by and check out the Naschmarkt which is Vienna's biggest market where you can buy beautiful antiques and unique spices and at the same time dine at an assortment of restaurants that offer Japanese Greek and Turkish cuisines.
The sights of Vienna can be overwhelming but at the same time you can't get enough of it. While you're here don't forget to enjoy and appreciate everything this city can offer.
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- Five hours of Vienna
review by MadSuh posted more then 30 days ago
This stop over was also gonna be fun. I had never been to Vienna really. Actually, I have but I was way too young to remember. We arrived at the Vienna train station all exhausted. I first had to have something to drink to wash down my hang over. When we got to my friend's apartment, we...
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- Hundertwasserhaus
travel tip by szbogi posted more then 30 days ago
If you are in Vienna don't miss the Hundertwasserhaus. It's really interesting!
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LOST (AND FOUND) IN SPACE: 200 pages of Angela and Bill's personal remembrances of their years filming the series packed with rare and never before seen photographs on high quality heavy paper. A must for every true Lost in Space fan!
UncleOdiesCollectibles.com is owned by Robert Vanderpool. Copyright � Robert Vanderpool. All rights reserved. All other Trademarks and Copyrights are property of their respected owners. Copyright Policy.


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Republicans who are urging Senator Ted Cruz, R. Texas, to run for president in 2016 should think twice. He would make hypocrites of every republican who challenged Barack Obama's eligibility for not being born in the United States. After three years of criticism and doubt, Obama suddenly produced a birth certificate in 2011, which purports to be authentic from the state of Hawaii. There are many who believe the birth certificate to be layered by computer graphics technicians.
But that's not the issue here. There are no doubts about the birth place of Ted Cruz. He was born in a country called Canada, not the United States, for which there are no questions. Therefore, he is not a natural born citizen, though a citizen by virtue of being born to two parents who were.
The hullabaloo over Obama has mostly centered on his alleged birth in Kenya, which is just as much another country as is Canada. I am personally convinced that Obama was not born in America, for various reasons, which would make him ineligible to be the president, just as Kissinger and Madeline Albright were ineligible because they were born outside the U.S.
Ted Cruz might be a really good guy who would make a good president. But we can't promote a double standard, just because he's republican with Hispanic roots.
The argument that both his parents were U.S. citizens does not stand. What is inarguable is where he was born. That's what matters. It has sure mattered in the disputes over Barack Obama.
The framers of the constitution inserted that clause in order to avert anyone rising to presidential power that might have a divided loyalties and/or allegiance to another country. I'm sure Senator Cruz's loyalty is 100% American. He also knows his eligibility will become an issue, which is why he recently renounced his Canadian citizenship.
Doesn't matter. He's ineligible. And all the birthers who have jumped on Cruz's bandwagon will be making hypocrites of themselves, which will bode poorly for their political agenda. Democrats will seize the opportunity to make a really BIG DEAL about his place of birth, and with good cause.
To the Tea Partyers and Republicans: Find another Hispanic to support. You'll lose again with Ted Cruz.
Take a closer look at Susana Martinez, republican governor of New Mexico, who is enjoying the highest approval rating of all 50 governors of this country. She was born in El Paso, to Hispanic parents, went to law school and became a District Attorney.
Being Hispanic and female, she'd cover two bases of important bloc voters. And, from all accounts, she appears to be highly respected.
Click here: Susana Martinez – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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With three minutes and change left in a dull and ugly 10-0 football game between Tim Tebow's Denver Broncos and Devin Hester's Chicago Bears, I turned off the TV and had dinner. A while later, I picked up my phone and checked the scores and gawked.
As I read the top of the game story, though, I felt no urge to scurry off and watch a replay. What was there to witness, in this latest demonstration of Tebow's knack for Just Winning? The Broncos' magical comeback had consisted of a batch of dinky passes, a pair of long-range high-altitude field goals, and that boneheaded clock management by Marion Barber and the Bears.
I'd already seen the most spectacular play of the game, when Tebow scampered backwards, rolled left under hot pursuit, and fired the ball up the sideline on a low, flat trajectory, allowing Charles Tillman to make a brilliant tiptoe catch before falling out of bounds. It's probably worth clarifying here that Tillman plays for the Bears.
As you wrote, Josh, Tebow was mostly awful yesterday. That first-quarter interception by Tillman was the last time anyone for either team would catch a ball from Tebow till the fourth quarter. But with the game on the line, he suddenly started finding his own receivers.
Where do fourth-quarter comebacks come from? One requirement, which seems relevant to Tebow's run of heroics, is that your team needs to be losing in the fourth quarter. By the numbers at Pro Football Reference, this has been a busy year for late-game quarterbacking: Tebow's five fourth-quarter comebacks have him tied with Eli Manning of the Giants, just ahead of Cincinnati's Andy Dalton, the Jets' Mark Sanchez, San Francisco's Alex Smith, and Dallas' Tony Romo.
You might notice that nobody's in a hurry to chalk up some of those other guys' performances to something ineffable or inevitable. Had the Giants not blocked the Cowboys' final field-goal try, Romo and Eli Manning might have traded places on the leaderboard. For every hero, somebody else gets to be the schmuck.*
I'll try to take a break from the culture war over Tebow this time around; it's getting dumber and dumber down inside that rabbithole. We've still got the dopey lady at Fox asking what would happen if Tebow prayed to Mecca after touchdowns—that is, what if Tim Tebow were a devout Muslim who ignored actual Muslim prayer practices and acted like an evangelical Christian—and now there's Chuck Klosterman bafflingly (and whitely) positing that if Tebow had abused dogs (like Michael Vick), "he would not be polarizing; he would just be unpopular."
So what in tarnation is going on with Tim Tebow's football playing? He's hardly the first guy to make a reputation for Just Winning; he's not even the only one this year. His fellow greenhorn quarterback, the Cardinals' John Skelton, came off the bench yesterday in relief of Kevin Kolb to lead his third fourth-quarter comeback this year, running his own record to 4-1. Skelton even has some of Tebow's anti-rational statistical appeal, with a 50.9 completion percentage to Tebow's 48.9.
Strange things happen in small samples. Ask the Buffalo Bills, who gave Ryan Fitzpatrick a contract extension with $24 million guaranteed after the team got off to a 4-2 start. Now they've lost six in a row.
Football history is littered with the briefly unbeatable. Don Majkowski went 10-6 with four fourth-quarter comebacks in 1989, in the middle of a career that was otherwise 16-24-1. Vince Young had a six-game winning streak as a rookie in 2006, and then an 8-2 spree after taking back his old starting job in 2009. Somehow his game-winning strength of character deserted him completely.
But the player Tebow keeps conjuring, for me, is Kordell Stewart. Stewart was another running college QB who seemed unsound by NFL scouting standards. The Steelers used him for his first two years as a playbook wrinkle, plugging him in at multiple positions, then made him the starting quarterback in 1997. He went 11-5, with four fourth-quarter comebacks and 11 rushing touchdowns.
Then, his disbelievers might point out, Stewart's Steelers had three straight mediocre seasons. But then in 2001, his believers could counter, he went 13-3 and passed for more than 3,000 yards. But in the very end, he had 77 passing touchdowns and 84 interceptions. He was not unusually effective, but he was unusual, and that was sometimes effective.
Right before I turned off the game yesterday, in the middle of what would be the Broncos' only touchdown drive, the TV crew had circled the Bears' safeties to show that they were playing 25 yards downfield—"letting everything happen in front of them so they don't give up the big play." But Tebow never attempted the big play. He simply chipped away in the open spaces the safeties had left him, till he got down to the 10-yard line.
And then Tebow made the play where his skills did matter: He dropped back, then started chugging upfield. Just shy of the virtual blue stripe marking the line of scrimmage—when Tebow is playing, that blue line gets a lot of airtime—he veered sharply to the right for a few strides, and then, without ever setting his feet, launched an awkward, one-legged, sidearm-y pass. Here, his unsound throwing mechanics didn't matter, because the Chicago defense was frozen by the possibility of Tebow running it in himself. Demaryius Thomas was all alone to make the catch.
It shouldn't have mattered. If not for Chicago's bungling, Tebow's bad plays would have outweighed the good. It's hard to believe the AP writer kept a straight face describing Tebow "leading the Broncos on their game-winning drive"—a drive that went all the way "from their 34 to the Chicago 33."
Still, the Broncos got the win. And an important, if not decisive, part of it was that Chicago had no idea what to do about Tebow when the game was on the line. The Bears' conservative late-game defense was exactly what Tebow needed. They were so worried about his crossing them up with a rare deep heave, they let him get down the field. Then they were so worried about his running, they let him complete a touchdown pass.
What I was yearning for, in the end, was the chance to watch Tebow with God's eyes—that is, with the NFL's All 22 footage, the proprietary camera angle that shows every player on the field at once, and which the Wall Street Journal reported the NFL regards as too revealing and informative to share with the general public:
Charley Casserly, a former general manager who was a member of the NFL's competition committee, says he voted against releasing All-22 footage because he worried that if fans had access, it would open players and teams up to a level of criticism far beyond the current hum of talk radio.
The All 22 is what Bill Belichick will be watching this week, as New England tries to solve the particular risk-management problems posed by Tebow's odd skill set and the Broncos' skewed game plans. So the Patriots will get more than a quick telestrator scribble on the Bears' safeties before the back end of Chicago's defense drops out of the picture. They'll be able to get a read on what Tebow really means on the football field. The rest of us will have to get by on metaphysics.
Correction, Dec. 12, 2011: This article originally implied that Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo would've had a fourth-quarter comeback if a Dallas field goal attempt hadn't been blocked. That field goal would have tied the game, not won it. (Return to the corrected sentence.)


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My writing has been broken up by life-- which has a way of happening. I am trying to get back into it as the characters take on more flesh. I learn things about them that I might've felt but did not know in the beginning-- which has a way of happening. In the case of my hero for Something Waits, I did not originally know he was a bear-shifter. It came to me as I recognized the conflicts he faced coming from two ethnicities-- adding to it the family secrets which must not be spoken.
Below is a snippet of one aspect of his life that has impacted who he is in ways most of us will never experience or believe because we know what the 'real' world is... Because this is part of a raw first draft, it might be different in the book-- editing has a way of doing that.
Marsh ground his teeth. He felt the kind of anger that never led to good. "I'll talk to you later," he said to Jericho, leaving the room and managing to not slam the door.
His hotel sat on the edge of the Catalinas with desert around it. Perfect for what he needed. Soon, he'd gone far enough from the buildings to strip out of his clothing and let it happen. The cells in his body transformed their energy and within moments, the process was complete—he no longer appeared as a human but had taken on the form of a large bear. He lunged forward, not needing moonlight to see his way now that he had a bear's vision and senses. The width of the trail was perfect for him to gallop up the trail—his speed increasing the higher he got. Dark as it was, he didn't expect to run into humans on the trail. If he did, he'd know enough ahead to go off trail and wait out their passing.
Taking on an animal's form had given him no comfort the first time it'd happened. He'd been ready to graduate from high school, angry at something that he no longer even recalled. That day, with no warning, he'd felt his body morph into that of an animal. He had been fortunate he'd been up on Mt. Lemmon when it happened, hiking, thinking, and trying to work out his future. Being a bear had not been part of it. In confusion and panic, he'd stayed where he was and waited for whatever had happened to go away. Finally, it had. His clothing had been torn, but he'd put on what he could and driven back down the mountain to try and understand.
Being half Navajo, Marsh had heard the stories of skinwalkers, humans who turned animals. Some of them had become bears. Skinwalkers were always evil, seeking power from unholy sources. He had not sought power—other than having allowed his anger build to an unhealthy level.
The years since found him researching other ways such transformations could happen. Except in the Navajo world, it was always an inborn quality—inherited mostly. Who in his family had been a bear-shifter? He was unwilling to ask, to trust anyone enough to reveal his own secret. He could only try and control it.
It had taken years for him to recognize he could use it. It was empowering in a strange sort of way to leave the world of humans and become one with nature, where the scents and sights were so different. Now he used it when he needed to let off energy, when he couldn't think through what was happening in his human world.
He ran for what might've been hours. He had to leave time to get back before light. He wanted to be on the mountain. When he reached the first pines, he sat under them and let their energy flow into him. A rabbit approached and then hopped away when it saw him. He could have killed and eaten it, but he'd never developed a taste for raw meat—even as a bear.
Bats flew overhead, in the distance he heard an owl. Night creatures, as was he at least for the moment. Was he also evil as his mother's people would claim? He couldn't ask his mother. She'd died when he was only thirteen. He knew Grandmother Ali having spent summers helping her with her sheep, learning Navajo ways.
During the school year, he'd lived with his father's mother in Tucson—where he'd met the love of his life. Something he had eventually run from until he no longer could run and had to return.
He hadn't expected her to greet him with open arms. She didn't understand what had motivated him to leave. He had been unable to tell her then or maybe ever. How could she understand what he didn't.
He hadn't expected her to greet him with open arms. She didn't understand what had motivated him to leave. He had been unable to tell her then or maybe ever. How could she understand what he didn't.
In 1993, we had made our third trip to Montana. In a gallery, I saw this painting, met the artist, Larry Knutson, and photographed a couple of his paintings. I'd have loved to have afforded the work, but the budget wasn't stretching that far.
When I knew I was going to have a bear-shifter in my next book, I tried to find where I had the photograph. At that point, I didn't even remember the year. I went through many albums and finally there it was. I believe it says something about this idea of shifting into another shape-- even if in a fantasy way.
In looking online to see what he might be doing, this is the only site that had his work-- Art at the Park. There was a quote by him that I liked.
"we all have an animal spirit that we associate with in some way... It should not be kept outside of ourselves."


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Regulating Stupid Americans, by Rachael Williams
John Kerry thinks you're stupid. Apparently he thinks most Americans are incapable of understanding the facts and truth of politics if it's phrased any more complicatedly than "simple slogans". C'mon Kerry, we can't be that stupid—we didn't elect you, did we? Or to translate into a slogan,
"Kerry—less electable than the black dude with no job experience."
Cass Sunstein thinks you're stupid, too. Not only does he think you're too stupid to be trusted to make your own medical decisions (that organ donor option at the DMV left me pacing the halls for hours), he also thinks we're too darned stupid to know what to eat. Sunstein's comments bother me a great deal more given his position as Obama's Regulatory Czar. If there is one aspect of big government that actively encourages the dumbing-down of Americans, it's the regulatory agencies.
The ruling class wants you to think you're dumber than you are, because when you lose faith in your own ability to handle your life, you'll more eagerly hand that power over to the government. The problem with forfeiting the right to live your own life is that our regulatory agencies are run by people so dumb, they make Alvin Greene look like Allen West.
Take a look at their track record. Our food isn't safe—there have been several hundred USDA and FDA recalls already this year, and the Oil and Gas Commission apparently thinks that tap water is supposed to be flammable. Speaking of the Oil and Gas Commission, I seem to remember them having a bit of a SNAFU down in the Gulf earlier this year…
The argument in favor of government-controlled regulatory agencies is that they're there to protect us, and that without them, we would be faced with all sorts of unfathomable dangers. Considering the things that slip past them, I think it's time we eliminate the government monopoly on the regulatory industry and let the capitalists show us how it's done.
There's no doubt that capitalism could get the job done cheaper and more efficiently. The Government Accountability Office (which has replaced "new classic" for the worst oxymoron ever) says that there is no way to accurately predict the FDA's budget needs. In spite of FDA funding from private sources (ie: companies paying the FDA to evaluate their drug) growing by 270% in the last decade, the FDA still failed to comply with its own legal guidelines mandating drug manufacturing plants be inspected every two years. In short, we don't have any idea how much we're paying them to approve foods and medicines that are being recalled at a rate of a dozen or more a week.
This is, in a nutshell, what is wrong with all of the regulatory industry: It erases the line between business and bureaucracy. The public is no safer than they would be without regulation, the American public is given less choices between competing manufacturers, and companies are actually less accountable for their mistakes.
If we had a truly free market—one that Ayn Rand could be proud of—private industry would regulate itself. Consumer advocacy groups that depended upon the trust of the public in order to remain in business would replace regulatory groups like the FDA. They could compile drug companies' own development research and trials, and instead of receiving any funding from the taxpayer dime, the companies themselves could pay the advocacy group for their seal of approval. If such a privately-run advocacy group ran afoul of consumers by approving too many products that ended up recalled, they would go out of business and make room for a more reputable group to take over.
Several groups are already trying this method, but there are two ways to go about it. AARP is basically a mirror image of the bureaucratic regulatory agency. Instead of the government policing private industry, AARP makes the majority of their money from supplementing Medicare packages. Just like the CBC and NAACP, they take advantage of the people they're supposed to be advocating for.
Case in point: AARP supported ObamaCare—which included numerous cuts to Medicare spending that will boost sales of Medicare supplement packages. Incidentally, endorsement of Medicare packages is AARP's primary source of income. It makes one big, incestuous family out of government and industry where they both get to screw the target demographic.
On the other hand, when the government is completely out of the picture, advocacy groups can benefit both manufacturers and consumers. Oregon Tilth, a private organization that offers organic certification separate from the USDA's corrupt organic labeling method. While the USDA's certification process was designed with Big Agriculture in mind, Oregon Tilth certification has much stricter criteria with a larger focus on sustainability and humane treatment of animals. They have become wildly popular among the "too green to shop at Whole Foods" crowd and are yet to run into any major controversy or accusations of corruption.
What it comes down to is a choice of who to trust. Would you prefer to put your faith in a faceless government agency that cannot be avoided or fired even when there is obvious incompetency; or would you have greater trust in men and women whose endorsements have to be in your best interest if they want to keep their jobs? It's a pretty easy choice, but heck, you're just a stupid American—you can't be trusted to make your own decisions.


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The Boss 302 withdraws from production. Instead, Ford Racing Parts surprises its customers with its 2014 Mustang Boss 302S in only 50 units.
The 302S is waiting for its road racing and track racing in NASA and SCCA, with minor modifications required by each series.
The original Mustang 302S debuted somewhere between 1969 and 1970. In 2011, it had its reappearance on the market. Afterwards, diverse championship wins followed.
Exterior-wise, the 302S will be Performance White or Grabber Blue colored. For drivers fond of Satin Black, Ford is willing to satisfy their desire. The car is furbished with a front splitter made of carbon-fiber, and a rear wing which can be easily adjusted. Last, but not least, the car offers graphics package.
Boss 302S is distinguished with racing interior. There is a racing steering wheel adapted for a quick-release exit and entry, a fire system, a new window, an AIM data acquisition system with a GPS, a master cutoff switch.
It is powered by a 5.0-liter V-8 Boss racing motor. The transmission is T-6060 and it is six-speed, whereas the 3.73 rear end has Torsen T2R differential. The wheels are the standard 19-inch ones.
The 2014 Boss 302S can be purchased at $89,995 in the fourth quarter of 2013.


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The Cottage
The cottage was designed as a weekend getaway for a busy city couple and their small children. The narrow site faces the ocean towards the east and is surrounded by dense residential development and medium rise apartments. The design raised the ground floor living area to take advantage of the diagonal beach views that exist at the raised level. The central void area was incorporated to allow afternoon light to penetrate the east facing living spaces. The main living area has sliding doors that open back to allow the internal spaces to interact directly with the external terrace that runs down to the beach.
— Houzz


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When searching for a new dental home, you want to look for a practice that offers all the updated, high-quality services your family needs. But more importantly, you should feel like all your unique needs are being met with genuine concern.
At Advanced Dental Care, Winter Springs dentist Dr. Christopher Young and our team offer you the best of both worlds. We practice state-of-the-art dentistry in a friendly, comfortable environment that puts you at ease so you can get the essential care you need.
Preventive Dentistry for Your Family
We focus heavily on prevention because routine treatments like cleanings, exams, fluoride applications, and sealants are the best way to enjoy a problem-free smile. Even if you brush and floss regularly and your teeth don't hurt, small problems may be developing inside your teeth or under your gums.
Semi-annual visits give us the opportunity to monitor your oral health and detect and treat these issues while they are small and easy to manage. Putting off routine dental appointments only results in more complex problems that threaten your oral health.
Solutions for a Damaged Smile
If you have problems that need to be addressed, we offer comprehensive restorative dentistry. Cavities can now be filled using a tooth-colored filling material that blends perfectly with your smile for an invisible repair.
For teeth that have more significant damage, we are pleased to offer state-of-the-art CEREC crowns. You no longer have to face the inconvenience and time involved in waiting for a lab-fabricated crown. Now we can place a fully customized porcelain crown, inlay, or onlay at our Winter Springs, FL dental office in just one appointment!
Nobody likes to think about root canals or extractions, but both are essential procedures that are needed to protect your oral health. We understand how stressful this can be, but we can assure you that we will make your treatment as comfortable as possible.
Finishing Touches for a Healthy Smile
We want you to enjoy the healthiest smile, but your appearance is just as important! A beautiful, confident smile makes a great first impression and can change the way you feel about yourself.
Our cosmetic dental services include professional teeth whitening, porcelain veneers, tooth-colored fillings, and adult orthodontics like Six Month Smiles and Invisalign clear aligners. We can also replace old, worn-out restorations for a fresh new look.
Your Healthiest Smile Awaits!
Achieving optimal oral health does not need to be stressful or complicated. All it takes is your commitment and the support of a dental team that values you as both a patient and a person.
We would love the opportunity to get to know your family and provide you with dental care that exceeds your expectations in every way. Please call our Winter Springs, FL dental office to arrange a convenient appointment to stop by and say hello!


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Travelers the world over face similar complications when dealing with conversions in currency, clothing sizes, how distance is measured and other basics information we all rely on every day.
This week's iPhone App of the Week addresses the basic conversion needs of travelers, regardless of where they are coming from and regardless of where they are heading.
This week's iPhone App of the Week is KLM Converter.
Following hot on the heals of the release of Air France – KLM's pair of iPhone Apps for their travelers, which I wrote about HERE, KLM Converter offers travelers a tool kit that makes all the conversions a traveler could possibly need simple to instantly calculate.
OK … granted numerical conversions are hardly glamourous … but as a traveler there are countless times I have found myself needing to convert all sorts of information. Aside from currency and distance, I think one of the most useful converters for travelers is clothing … sure logically a Men's Small t-shirt should be a Men's Small t-shirt around the world … however if I am buying my daughter a small t-shirt in the US, I am buying her a size 87 t-shirt in Paris.
Some of the conversions offered in the KLM Converter App include currency, clothing sizes, shoe sizes, temperatures, speed, length, weight, volume, area, volume … and even liquid volume.
The KLM Converter App is a useful tool whether on the road or at home … and it's Free in the iTunes Store.
Below are ten screen shots of KLM Converter from my iPhone
Happy Flying!


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LIFE contains many challenges for young people.
Sometimes it seems to me that they are facing problems whichever way they turn.
It is certainly the case that they are under emotional pressure as never before and the increase in child and adolescent mental health problems is a very worrying trend, placing additional demands on already inadequate services as parents, schools and GPs try to do their best for vulnerable young people in their care.
Young people can often feel themselves to be facing a barrage of different concerns.
Reforms have toughened up the exam system, which now focuses on terminal examinations, with more course content and increased difficulty.
Tuition fees have been much in the news with a Government regime that leaves many students facing more than £50,000 of debt by the time they have completed a degree.
And if that wasn't bad enough, the differential in graduate salaries is by no means what it used to be.
Other young people are stuck in a low-wage, zero-hours culture, where they are financially vulnerable.
As they are not eligible for housing support, sofa-surfing and 'hidden homelessness' are on the increase.
For those without the support of families, things can be very tough indeed.
Even for those with good jobs, the prospect of home ownership is increasingly elusive and living at home until their 30s is becoming more and more the norm.
It strikes me that we are missing some very important tricks here.
Investing in our future generations is so important if we are going to thrive as a country.
It is so important they are supported to be the best they can be – they must feel they have a stake in their futures and the opportunity to shape their own destinies.
In the last General Election, young people engaged with politics in a way that has not been seen before.
They registered to vote in droves in the last weeks before the poll took place in order to have their say.
Surely it is time to take a leaf out of Scotland's book in the independence referendum and enable them to vote at 16?
I am passionate about opportunities for young people and that is why I will be visiting schools, colleges and sixth forms across my constituency in the coming months to listen to young people themselves and learning about their priorities.
I also attended the Schools Funding Lobby in Westminster on Tuesday of this week.
I believe that in life, we 'get what we pay for', and without adequate investment in it we can't have a fit for purpose education system that does our young people proud.


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Avis Detroit Metropolitan Airport Nightmare
After them not answering the phones for 30 minutes at the Detroit Airport we took a risk, boarded a bus, and arrived at Avis 10 minutes later with bus drivers who drive so fast the luggage slides off the racks.
Then with 2 check-in employees and about 18 people in line moving at a snails pace and one of the older employees checking people in asking about customers days and what there doing while we sweated in line for over an hour and a half. We booked a BMW X5 online and after an over hour wait we finally got our customer service representative who barely spoke English and told us she was "hooking us up" and giving us a "great rate" and she couldn't believe we got this luxury car for "so cheap". Thirty minutes go by of her typing away and we finally go outside to pick up our ride and it's a X3 which is a micro machine compared to an X5.
We walked back inside and said ma'am we booked an X5 and she goes oh let me see, oh it's X3 I'm sorry and she goes let me get the manager (took 10 minutes for a manager to come.) She explains soon as I'm done with you guys I'm leaving for the night I'm so tired, while 20 customers were still waiting in line.
Also told us she would give it to us at the same rate, even though we already paid for an x5. The manager comes and goes sorry it says X5 or other.. we go what the fk.. this is BS. I go okay she said she will give it to us at same price and he goes she doesn't have the authority to do so. We said whatever give us the X5 and we will worry about it later. Twenty more minutes go by and finally the car arrives, brand new X5 fresh to death bam what we ordered.
Needless to say, please stay away from fuckhole Avis and go with Enterprise or somewhere else, this location of Avis is a complete and udder failure of American business. Fuck you Avis.


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LEI Trade Tag Initiative Begins To Gain Traction09.21.2012
Growing industry acceptance is driving on the process to attach a barcode to all financial trades, so as to help regulators across the globe monitor systemic risk, although some market participants are warning that it will be some time yet before there are real benefits to be gained from the legal entity identifier (LEI) initiative.
The lack of any standardization to identify financial trades caused a major problem in the aftermath of the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008 as many financial institutions struggled to work out their counterparty risks to the firm.
An LEI, a 20-digit numeric or alphanumeric code, would identify a firm by its name, address and jurisdiction but would not contain any embedded intelligence.
At present, the Financial Stability Board, the G20's regulatory body, has begun laying the framework for such a regulatory capability. In parallel to this, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a U.S. regulator, has instigated a provisional LEI, called the CFTC's Interim Compliant Identifiers, or CICI, which is designed to be an identifier for all legal entities dealing in OTC derivatives falling under CFTC jurisdiction and which the CFTC hopes will morph seamlessly into a future global LEI system, which is expected by March 2013. The move by the CFTC to create the CICI was brought about because the U.S. Dodd-Frank Act has mandated initiatives to create standard LEIs.
"The intention with the LEI is that it gets used as freely and widely as possible to help regulators really help in their objective of managing systemic risk on a long-term basis,"
Darren Marsh, business manager, risk and compliance services at Interactive Data, a provider of financial market data, told Markets Media.
"Being part of the distribution chain, as a vendor like ourselves, is a very important part of making that work. It will make the LEI become embedded in day-to-day processes."
However, Marsh warns that there is still some way to go for the LEI project.
"The CICI is the provisional LEI that has been mandated by the CFTC and in that case firms have to use it for OTC derivatives trading," said Marsh. "I think we'll see more of that. We'll certainly be seeing more regulators openly discussing the potential to mandate the code and we will see that going forward. But then it will be how is this adopted on a regulator by regulator basis as it could obviously take some time to get to critical mass before we get to the point where there are real benefits to the industry as a whole.
"In the U.S., for example, it is much easier for regulations to come into force as the regulators are all in the same location and governed by same rules and laws. With Europe, it is on a country by country basis so you need to make sure that it fits with the laws of the land with each individual location."
Marsh added: "What we have seen though is a broad acceptance by the industry as a whole. They can see the benefits in this. Where the questions remain are the distribution model and the commercials themselves. That is the stage we are at at the moment."
The International Organization for Standardization, the international standard-setting body, has established a draft standard, called ISO 17442, for the LEI and it is planned to be operated as an at-cost utility by the U.S. Depository Trust & Clearing Corp, the post-trade financial services group, and Swift, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a society that operates a messaging service for financial messages, whose headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium.
Omgeo, a provider of post-trade services, has also recently announced that it will be aiding the advancement of the LEI process by adding LEI capabilities to its Omgeo Alert system, a web-based global database for accurate settlement and account instructions.
The new functionality is in response to requests made from market participants who, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, wanted to gain a better understanding of which legal entities they were trading with.
"The creation of legal entity support in Alert is an example of Omgeo initiating practical steps towards providing Alert clients with greater transparency in the markets," said Bill Meenaghan, global product manager for Alert at Omgeo.
"Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Omgeo became involved in discussions with a number of our clients who, overwhelmingly, wanted to identify ways to better understand and track the underlying legal entities for each counterparty.
"Alert was enhanced in direct response to these specific and growing industry requirements. While this is an independent initiative, in anticipation of a mandated legal entity identifier, we have added an LEI data field in accordance with regulatory requirements and in support of the LEI."
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