text:
Neither chapel nor cricket shows any meaningful sign of resurgence, but prize-giving—that other great hallmark of English boarding-school life—has in the past few decades zipped across the globe. As James English notes in his The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Value, the number of literary awards has more than doubled in the United Kingdom since 1988 and tripled in the United States between 1976 and 2000. More than 1,100 honors are distributed to American writers each year. Not only have prizes proliferated; the prestigious ones have grown more important as the midrange book market drops away. Our National Book Awards or Britain's Man Booker might not make a best-seller. But they can transform a book that's sold sluggishly into a popular and financial success.
As in the famous sausage-making paradigm, we are generally better off not knowing what went into the manufacture of a literary prize. But there is one major difference. Where sausage kings are unlikely to disparage the meat-grinding process, book people—the short-listed authors, the judges, even those who bag the big trophies—are the most likely to launch public critiques of the prize mill that serves them.
In Lost for Words, the British novelist Edward St. Aubyn takes his turn. The book is a romp about four authors vying for the Elysian Prize for literature and five judges deciding—though this is too purposeful a verb—who will win. The novel satirizes the Man Booker prize and the prize's much-condemned 2011 jury, chaired by the retired spymaster (and spy novelist) Dame Stella Rimington, in particular. The debates that Rimington's jury kicked up about the purpose of the Booker (is it to promote "readable" literary fiction? identify new talent? reward novels that "zip along," as one judge, the Labour politician Chris Mullin, proclaimed? or thwart the London literati?) are all there. But they are borne along by a farcical plot that turns on swapped manuscripts, celebrity judges who don't bother to read the entries, and an overriding concern for rewarding diversity. An Indian cookbook submitted for the prize by accident inexorably advances to the winner's circle.
Lost for Words is an unexpected work for an author known for his mordantly dark, semiautobiographical series of five Patrick Melrose novels, a tour d'horizon through debauched precincts of the British aristocracy that begins with Never Mind (1992) and ends with At Last (2012). The Melrose novels encompass the rape of children, heroin addiction, disinheritance, and lots of sex, none of it marital. They brilliantly dissect families, intergenerational damage, and consciousness. Strange as it seems, they are also very funny.
Now St. Aubyn reverses the trick. Reaching for the broadest humor, satire bordering on slapstick, he ends up sour and predictable. In contention for the Elysian is an assemblage of cutout characters, led by the meritorious if somewhat metaphysically constipated Sam Black and his nymphomaniac fellow novelist and ladylove, Katherine Burns. Their supporting cast includes a French intellectual and a delusional Indian maharaja. When you hear "French intellectual," do you think pomposity and tedious over-theorizing? Must St. Aubyn's princely Indian novelist be beached on a silk pillow, peevishly nursing a grudge against Anglo-Saxons? And why does every St. Aubyn femme fatale have long limbs and a tragic family history? What's wrong with promiscuity unprompted by trauma?
Sam Black's plaintive hope is that his "bildungsroman of impeccable anguish and undisguised autobiographical origin" will carry off the Elysian Prize, liberating him from the "tyranny of pain-based art." But if Lost for Words is St. Aubyn's paradise of the afterlife, it is a weirdly insubstantial deliverance. It's as if he's taken a big breath of helium and squeaked out an attempt at Monty Python.
St. Aubyn still whistles up some crystalline phrases. About the anorexic daughter of one Elysian judge: "A principled hunger strike, like Gandhi's, which was aimed at achieving something in the outside world, looked very impure and compromised compared to a hunger strike whose sole object was to stop eating: this was the white on white of the hunger strike, the moment when it became abstract and transcended the clumsy literalness of merely representing one thing or another." Or: "'Lots of love' between former lovers was of course less love than 'love' alone." But there are plenty of thuds, too, like Katherine's postcoital reveries: "Complacencies of the peignoir, or power shower: which word cluster would get her?"
St. Aubyn excels at depicting corrupt, dysfunctional families, so the corrupt, dysfunctional terrain of literary prize-making might not have seemed such a stretch. But the humor works differently. The feat in the Melrose novels, especially in the luminous Mother's Milk (short-listed for the 2006 Man Booker) was to turn comedy into sympathy, even with some of the saga's most distasteful characters. Shot through the Melrose novels was the humor, as Freud put it, "that smiles through tears." In Lost for Words, St. Aubyn is having a hearty schoolboy chuckle.
Taking a jaundiced view of awards is nothing new. In the 1820s, Sir Walter Scott objected to the Royal Society of Literature's proposed gold medal because he feared it would pervert the purity of the literary enterprise. Cultural prizes notoriously reward the wrong works for the wrong reasons: On the long list of worthies deprived of the Nobel for literature are Tolstoy, Proust, and Joyce. Every season is now the occasion for a slew of articles denouncing prizes as blessings for mediocrity or influence-peddling.
Still, prizes and their detractors need each other, as James English points out. For if prizes do the market's bidding, their critics right the scales by extolling the nobility of art. John Updike confessed in 1964 that he felt "sort of uneasy" about literary prizes because the "wrong people tend to get them." But his Who's Who entry and book jackets cataloged a long list of honors.
Attacking prizes, then, isn't a refusenik strategy but part of the cycle that feeds the phenomenon. St. Aubyn's target—the Man Booker Prize, first awarded in 1969, 60-plus years after the Nobel and the Goncourt—exploited just this sort of scandal to blast past its competitors. When the Christian controversialist journalist and broadcaster Malcolm Muggeridge resigned from his role as Booker judge in 1971 on the grounds that most of the entries were "mere pornography in the worst sense of the word," the prize's administrators sought to publicize the accusation. John Berger's denunciation the following year of the prize's sponsor, the agri-conglomerate Booker McConnell, as colonial exploiter similarly ensured headlines. Intrigued by the Booker's quick rise, the director of the National Book Awards traveled to London to see what she could learn. Imitating the Booker, the Americans decided to announce a short list, a move that heightened suspense and helped to spark more hullabaloo.
Because the Booker is the most shamelessly splashy of prizes, it's been the focus for much hand-wringing over the state of the literary market. Starting in the early 1980s, hundreds of thousands tuned in to watch live TV broadcasts of the ceremony, but were they seeking out new titles or waiting for a Salman Rushdie temper tantrum (the judges knew "fuck all" about literature)? The appointment of celebrity judges (in 2012, the actor Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey fame), the aura of compromised multiculturalism (as of this year, the prize is now open to novels written anywhere in the world in English, including the United States), the corruption of corporate sponsorship, the horse-trading behind the selection of judges and winners: If the Booker is now the world's most glamorous literary prize, that's because it has best ridden the waves of controversy.
St. Aubyn's quarry is already quartered and dried, then. But while other novelists who have written about prizes (Martin Amis in The Information and Malcolm Bradbury—who twice judged the Booker—in Doctor Criminale) accept competition as a necessary evil, St. Aubyn ends on an idealistic note. He puts the moral of his story into the mouth of Mr. Wo, the Chinese businessman whose company has bought the Elysian Group. From his perch at the dark heart of capitalism, Mr. Wo understands the senselessness of competition in art, as opposed to sports or politics. So: Sam Black gets the honeypot Katherine but not the prize. Where Henry James advised the young writer to inscribe one word—"Loneliness"—upon his banner, Katherine chirps, "Let's just make love and be happy."
Without defending the invidiousness of competition, one is tempted to question whether novelists merit St. Aubyn's special pleading. So long as artists put their work forward in search of praise (and the rewards that go with it), it's perverse to exempt them from the competition that every other striver (whether plumber or software engineer) must endure. As for St. Aubyn, he well deserves the honors he's already garnered. I wish, though, that he'd direct his talent once again to subjects for which discernment, not dismemberment, is the critical value. St. Aubyn's a sword-juggler, but in Lost for Words, he's making do with table knives.
This review will appear in the July/August issue of The American Prospect magazine.


text:
How can I calculate center of a circle $x,y$? I have 2 points on the circumference of the circle and the angle between them.
The 2 points on the circle are $P_1(x_1,y_1)$ and $P_2(x_2,y_2)$. The angle between them is $\theta$. I know all these values; how can I calculate the center from these values?

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Poll: One in seven Americans approve of Congress
(CNN) — It's really no surprise: Americans aren't thrilled with Congress.
That's the finding of a new poll from Gallup, which shows the legislative branch has an approval rating of 14%.
But that's not Congress' low point in approval.
The body bottomed out at 10% in August 2012. The average for the year was 15%, Gallup said.
The poll was conducted about a week after the contentious fiscal cliff debate on Capitol Hill concluded and days after the new Congress was sworn in. That body has much ahead of it in the next few months – the U.S. will face default if the debt ceiling isn't raised, the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester will trigger on March 1 and the government runs out of funding later that month. Add to that some lawmakers' desire for action after the Newtown elementary school shooting and President Barack Obama's Cabinet nominees, and this Congress has a full plate.
The 14% approval rating is about as well as Congress scored after the 2011 debt ceiling showdown. In August and September of that year, they scored 13% and 15% approval ratings. The stalemate on Capitol Hill led to the creation of the sequester and to the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating.
Just over eight in 10 Americans disapprove of Congress, the new poll showed, and most had made up their mind: Only 6% of respondents said they did not have an opinion.
The Gallup survey included 1,011 adults contacted between January 7 and 10 and had a sampling error of plus or minus four points.
— CNN's Gregory Wallace contributed to this report


text:
In an exit befitting his outspoken, controversial two years in Congress, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) said that he only lost his re-election because his opponent cheated.
West lost narrowly to Democratic up-and-comer Patrick Murphy last month, but refused to concede for weeks, demanding a recount of ballots in St. Lucie County. Only after a re-tabulation slightly increased Murphy's lead did West finally accept defeat just before Thanksgiving.
However, the Tea Party congressman appears to be handling the loss acrimoniously. Appearing on Mark Levin's radio show last Thursday, West accused Murphy of only winning by breaking the rules. "I'm not going away just because of a congressional race where he seems to have to cheat to beat me," said West. He did not specify precisely how Murphy supposedly cheated.
LEVIN: You are a national treasure. You are way too important to have something like this to happen and off you go. That can't happen. So I'm really curious to know. Do you have further public service in mind, potentially?
WEST: The most important thing everyone has to understand is my voice is not going to be lost. We've gotten a lot of opportunities, a lot of offers, and we're going to make sure we continue to have that platform. […] I'm a warrior and I'm a statesman and I'm a servant of this republic. I'm not going away just because of a congressional race where he seems to have to cheat to beat me.
LEVIN: He sure as hell did. It's disgusting.
Listen to it:
Anyone who knows Allen West knows that he is not a bashful man. If he actually had evidence that his opponent won through fraudulent means, he would have presented it weeks ago and Fox News would run a piece every hour on the matter. That West has not shown any evidence gives a clear indication of how truthful his accusation is.
West later wrapped up the interview by accusing President Obama of being a "Marxist, Socialist, rigid ideologue" who "believes he has some self-conceived mandate to go out and further destroy and ruin our economy."


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Innovations Continue to Flow from ABB Measurement Labs
Autonomous Sensors and Laser Level Scanners Are Among the New Technologies on Tap
While ABB's Measurement Products business is built on more than 120 years of experience and great brands like Taylor, Fischer & Porter, Hartmann+Braun and K-Tek, the company has not rested on its laurels. Rather, it continues to invest heavily in new instrumentation technologies.
"On average, our current measurement line-up consists of products introduced within the past five years," said Greg Livelli, head of ABB's flow instrumentation group, as he reviewed the company's recent and soon-to-be-introduced measurement innovations at ABB Automation & Power World 2012 this week in Houston.
For the past several years, the company has focused on making its instruments easier to use, unifying its many disparate human-machine interfaces (HMIs) into a common platform. "Our HMI operates with the ease and simplicity of a cell phone," Livelli explained. "The top works for two-wire field instruments share common components, assembly and supply, as do the top works for four-wire instruments," Livelli said. "One of the coolest things I've heard from a customer was, 'I no longer need a manual to program your devices.'"
New to the measurement line-up in 2012 is a laser scanner level monitor that builds a three-dimensional picture of the interior of a bin and computes level and volume from the topographic scan. There's also a new magnetostrictive level transmitter with improved electronics, HART, WirelessHART and Foundation Fieldbus connectivity and hazardous-area, through-the-glass operation. "This is a very cool thing," Livelli said. "You can operate the transmitter through the glass so you don't have to get a hot-work permit to program the transmitter. And you can use it with most gloves too."
ABB is rolling out WirelessHART capabilities for its pressure and temperature transmitters, as well as WirelessHART adapters for transmitters already installed. Some, like a wireless temperature sensor that harvests energy based on thermal gradients introduced in 2011, will operate fully autonomously.
Also in 2012, ABB's analyzer portfolio will be bolstered, Livelli said, with the introduction of ACF-NG analyzers for hot or wet gas analysis solutions. Built on the successful ACF-NT line, the NG analyzers offer lower cost of ownership, new solutions for new markets and extended measurement ranges. In addition, ABB is introducing new tunable diode laser (TDL) in situ analyzers for continuous gas analysis. Oxygen and ammonia analyzers will be available by the end of 2012, Livelli said, and extractive analyzers with specific sample pretreatment applications will follow. On the wet chemistry side, Livelli noted, the Navigator product line will be getting a new Navigator 500, with hydrazine, sodium and dissolved oxygen capabilities aimed at the power market.
New to the flow measurement offering is the CoriolisMaster bent tube mass flowmeter in line sizes from 15-mm to 150-mm (.5-in. to 6-in.). "Our Coriolis meters now are available for both liquid and gas, have the common ABB user interface, have HART and Foundation Fieldbus connectivity, with Profibus to come, and have the same hazardous-area, through-the-glass operation as our other flow products do. And because our customers have asked us to, we've introduced a complete line of differential pressure flow devices—pitot, wedge and integral orifice devices that are already assembled, leak-tested and calibrated, ready to install," Livelli continued.
Also set to debut in 2012 is a thermal mass flowmeter based on new ceramic sensor technology, the StackMaster gas flow measurement system for emissions monitoring and the LiveStressometer 8.1 for rolling mill applications.
"Further into the future, we're working on an advanced portfolio of autonomous devices in flow, temperature, level and analysis," said Livelli. "These products will be powered by advanced new energy techniques, including energy harvesting from temperature, solar power and vibration, and will communicate via WirelessHART. In fact, the first of these, the wireless temperature transmitter using a thermal gradient of 30 °C for power has already been introduced."
"Over the course of the next year or two," Livelli said, "we will be completing the rollout of our new measurement product transmitter lines. There will be four electronics platforms for all of our products: two-wire, four-wire, field transmitter and advanced transmitter versions. The two-wire, four-wire and field transmitter product lines are released, with the advanced electronics platform following on soon. We expect to see it by the end of 2013."
"The advanced electronics platform will feature a gesture-driven HMI and feature-rich electronics," Livelli said. "Our electronics platforms will be intuitive, easy-to-use interfaces in wall-, rack- or panel-mounted configurations, and in hazardous area formats."
"In the future," Livelli promised remote wireless access to field devices with handhelds like smartphones and tablets. "We will be able to give you service information directly in the field on these devices," he said.
"And that's what over 100 years of measurement product experience can bring you."


text:
2018 Exmark RADIUS S 52
Call for Price
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St. Croix Power Sports
Stock #
Cutting Width
Blade Length
Bar Length
The next generation of zero-turn mowers from Exmark.
Exmark Radius S-Series delivers the cut quality and durability professionals demand at an unbeatable value. Powered by Exmark engines, with Hydro-Gear integrated transmissions and up to 9 mph forward ground speed Radius improves productivit. Available with 48-, 52- and 60-inch cutting decks.
- UltraCut Deck Technology: Exmark's exclusive UltraCut decks are featured on Radius models in a choice of 48- to 60-inch cut widths. Every UltraCut cutting deck features Exmark's exclusive maintenance-free, sealed-bearing spindle assemblies for increased durability and reduced downtime, combined with zero maintenance.
- Heavy Duty Unibody Frame: Fully-welded using 2-inch by 3-inch frame tubes, the Radius frame design places major components including the engine, hydro drive and fuel tank lower, with better mass centralization. This gives the Radius increased hillside traction and stability, with heightened maneuverability.
- Quick Adjustable Rollover Protection System (ROPS): Uses an easy-to-fold up-and-down design built from round tubes and provides flexibility for placement of accessories.
- Height of Cut Made Easy: The patented height of cut system is a user friendly tool developed for operators to quickly and accurately select the height of cut.
- Adjustable Isolation Technology: Designed to offer increased operator isolation from vibration and bumps, Exmark's exclusive adjustable seat isolation technology uses rubber isolation bumpers to suspend the operator seat above the chassis.
- Seat Flip-Up: Provides increased service access to fuel system and engine compartment or help keep the seating surface cool and dirt free when not in use.
- Blade Spindles: No maintenance, sealed and non-greasable spindles; 7.30"-diameter cutter housing contains 17mm (.67") diameter spindle shaft and hex blade drive.
- Drive Tires: 23 x 9.5-12 K500
- Cup Holder: Standard
- Tractor Frame: Unibody, welded, heavy-duty 2" X 3" rectangular tubular steel.
- Steering Control: Hydraulically dampened twin levers adjustable both fore and aft. Also has 2-position height adjustment.
- Front Caster Tires: 13 x 6.5-6, smooth tread, pneumatic. Caged Roller Bearings
- Parking Brake: Lever-actuated pawl brake.
- Seat: High back seat with foam padded seat cushion, armrests and integral safety switch
- Electrical: 12-volt battery with 15-amp alternator.
Power Components
- Engine Brand: Exmark
- Engine Model: 708
- Engine Displacement: 708
- Engine Series: V-Twin
- Engine Type: Carbureted
- Engine Speed: 3,600 rpm
- Air Filter: Donaldson Heavy Duty air cleaner
- Fuel Type: Gas Carbureted
- Fuel Capacity: 7-gallon (26.5-L) single fuel tank with single fill location.
- Fuel Indicator: Translucent Visual
- Drive: Hydro-Drive
- Drive Description: Dual Hydro Gear ZT3100, hydrostatic transmission with charge pumps, relief valves and independent, replaceable filters.
- Speed: Infinitely variable speed selection from 0-9.0 mph (14.5 kmph) forward, 0-5.0 mph (8.0 kmph) reverse.
- Carb Compliant: No
- Deck Lift: Standard; foot-controlled deck lift changes cutting height and lifts the deck to maneuver around obstacles, or place in transport position.
- Safety Package: Operator Presence Controls (OPC) and drive system interlock, with safety interlock system indicators.
- ROPS: 2-post foldable ROPS standard with seat belt and latch.
- PTO Engagement: MagStop electromagnetic 125-ft-lb clutch
- Drive Wheel Release: Allows unit movement without engine running.
- Casters: .375" thick caster yoke arms
- Model Description: Radius S-Series 24.5 HP* Exmark 708CC w/52" UltraCut Series 3 Deck
- Width / Cutting Deck: 52"
- Deck Style: Floating Deck
- Deck Style Description: Full-floating UltraCut Series 3. Side discharge standard, with molded discharge chute and option to bag or mulch.
- Deck Construction: 10-gauge high strength alloy top that is formed and continuously seam welded, with 7-gauge side skirt.
- Blade Tip Speed: Approximately 18,500 fpm.
- Cutting Heights: 1.5" (3.8 cm) to 5.0" (12.7 cm) in 0.25" (.6 cm) increments, adjustable from operator's seat.
- Blades: 3 Blades at 18.00" Length
- Width: 64.3 in (163.3 cm)
- Length: 81.7 in (207.5 cm)
- Height: 70.2 inches (178.3 cm)
NOTES:*The gross horsepower of these gasoline engines was laboratory rated at 3600 rpm by the engine manufacturer in accordance with SAE J1940 or SAE J2723. As configured to meet safety, emission and operating requirements, the actual engine horsepower on these mowers may be significantly lower. **The gross horsepower of the 3TNV80FT was laboratory rated at 2600 rpm; the 3TNV88C was laboratory rated at 3000 rpm by the engine manufacturer in accordance with SAE J1995. As configured to meet safety, emission and operating requirements, the actual engine horsepower on these mowers may be significantly lower.
- Engine Manufacturer
- Exmark
- Engine Type
- 708
- Displacement
- 708cc
- Transmission
- Hydro-Drive
- Wheel Size
- 23 x 9.5-12 K500
- Fuel Capacity
- 7 gal. (26.5 L)
- Deck Size
- 52 in.


text:
Click here to watch video of the U.S. Attorney's Office statement on the sentencing.
SCRANTON — In the black-and-white world of law and order, Michael T. Conahan saw gray. The former judge, like his father before, ignored ethical and legal bounds as he schemed to cash in on the construction of a for-profit juvenile detention center.
Conahan, the behind-the-scenes power broker in what became known as the Luzerne County kids-for-cash scandal, attempted to explain his behavior in federal court Friday. He delivered a contrition-rich soliloquy and allowed his attorney to frame his life in a revealing chronology.
Then he sat back in his broad leather chair and braced for the fallout from his admitted indiscretions: a 17½-year federal prison sentence and a bill for more nearly $900,000 in fines and restitution.
"It's the gray area, in my mind, that led the defendant to his fate today," U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik said moments before revealing his sentence.
Conahan, in stark contrast to his defiant co-defendant and former colleague Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., apologized to nearly everyone affected by the scheme as he addressed Kosik, including the thousands of juveniles Ciavarella sentenced to the for-profit detention center. He strove to separate his corruption from the government and individuals it stained.
"The system was not corrupt, I was corrupt," Conahan said. "I did not perform my duties as I should. I did not have integrity."
Conahan, 59, surrendered to federal marshals immediately. His attorney, Philip Gelso, said they were unsure where he would be incarcerated. Conahan's attorneys requested a prison in Florida, close to where some members of his family live, but the federal Bureau of Prisons has the sole authority in determining where he will serve his sentence.
Gelso said, unlike Ciavarella, they would not appeal the sentence.
Conahan's sentencing Friday ended his nearly three-year journey through the federal court system. The finality and impending prison sentence fostered a sense of regret within Conahan, Gelso said, that a plea agreement he reached in January 2009 fell apart amid Ciavarella's public defiance and his own inability to initially take full responsibility.
That agreement guaranteed a sentence of 87 months in prison and, had it taken effect, would have allowed Conahan to leave prison in 2016 at age 66. If he serves the full length of the sentence issued Friday, Conahan will not be eligible for release until 2029, when he is 76.
Conahan, the president judge of Luzerne County from 2002 to 2006, pleaded guilty last summer to racketeering conspiracy for accepting a share of $2.8 million from the builder and co-owner of the for-profit detention center.
Conahan, according to prosecutors, closed a county-owned juvenile detention center in December 2002, forcing the county to send juveniles to the for-profit
facility when it opened in 2003. He signed a secret agreement to place children in the new facility, which the facility's backers used to secure financing for its construction.
Ciavarella, the former juvenile court judge and president judge from 2007 until his 2009 resignation, elected to go to trial and was convicted in February on 12 of 28 counts. Kosik sentenced him in August to 28 years in federal prison.
At his sentencing, Ciavarella mixed apology with audacity, refusing to concede to allegations that the payoffs influenced his decision to send juveniles away.
Conahan, a domineering judge once known as "The Boss," appeared to undergo a transformation in the time between the rejection of the initial plea agreement and his sentencing Friday, Gelso told Kosik. In December 2009, at the urging of his attorneys, he starting seeing a psychologist and worked to better understand and confront the demons that led to his demise, Gelso said.
Conahan's father, Joseph, "beat him mercilessly" when, as a teen, he forgot to stoke a fire at the family funeral home, Gelso said. Joseph Conahan, the former mayor of Hazleton, also shaped his son's cavalier attitude toward ethical boundaries. The elder Conahan became mired in an ethical controversy when, as mayor, he attempted to steer a city contract to a friend because he felt the friend's work would benefit the city.
"I think Michael looked at the juvenile center in the same way," Kosik said before revealing the sentence. "That everyone would benefit and no one would get hurt."
But people did get hurt, Kosik reminded. The juveniles Ciavarella shipped to the for-profit detention center, often without attorneys or a warning of their rights; the judges and court officials who were wrongly painted with the same brush of corruption; and the judicial system as a whole.
"A lot of people have suffered," Kosik said.
email@example.com, 570-821-2061
email@example.com, 570-763-9074


text:
Summer weather is finally here, with all its outdoor activities. Hiking, birding, botanizing, camping, boating, swimming, climbing and exploring the backcountry are all part of summer's pleasures. However, there are hazards in the outdoors that everyone should be aware of.
If you currently subscribe or have subscribed in the past to the Canyon Courier, then simply find your account number on your mailing label and enter it below.
Click the question mark below to see where your account ID appears on your mailing label.
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text:
Election Day was a day we had hoped for, but a day we had feared. For those who have worked so hard for the past four years, victory was not to be. For those who sat on the sidelines, there will be no complaining and you will have to live with yourselves.
The results show conclusively that the takers have inherited the United States. There probably will not be another GOP president in our lifetimes. The Massachusetts GOP is inept and powerless, the Republican National Committee and the establishment must do some serious soul searching if they are capable of such a difficult exercise.
In closing, hang on to your wallets and your rights because they are in fatal jeopardy.


text:
A massive 65.5% the people surveyed by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster say they are planning to buy an iPhone as their next phone, and of those, more than half (51%) say they will be buying the iPhone 5, just as soon as Apple launches it. That's a third of the people surveyed.
Of those who already own an iPhone, 94.2% plan to stick with Apple when they buy their next phone. Another 2.9% are undecided. Munster says this data suggest that as many as 80 million iPhone 5 sales are already "in the bag."
He wrote: "We believe this suggests that as much as 50% of our estimated iPhone units for FY13 are in the bag (~170 million iPhone users x 94% re-buy x 51% iPhone 5 planned purchase)," according to Business Insider.
Munster calculates approximately 170 million iPhone users. We calculated a slightly larger number based on Apple announcing last March that it had sold 100 million iPhones, and then adding the quarterly sales since, to get to the figure of 228 million iPhones. Of course, we note that not every phone ever sold will be upgraded to an iPhone 5, however, many have already been consigned to the top drawer, so Munster's figure is likely closer to the number of iPhones in use.
The respondents were also shown mock-ups of the iPhone with a bigger screen, but the majority preferred the smaller screen, suggesting that Apple may be misguided if it enlarges the screen. Then again, people may just have picked the most familiar looking device.
Despite all the claims that Android is winning market share from Apple, Munster's research found that only 19% planned to by an Android as their next phone. Android owners are less loyal to the brand than Apple iPhone users. According to the research there is an Android re-buy rate of 60% (although that is up from 47% last year, according to Fortune's report).
There were 400 respondents in the poll, of which 52% currently own an iPhone, 26% have an Android, and 6.5% own a Blackberry.
Using the data, Fortune concludes that when Apple launches the iPhone 5 it can expect to make 80 million sales. Presumably this is based on Apple having sold more than 200 million iPhones to date. (Apple announced it had sold 100 million iPhones by March 2011, since then the company has sold another 128,166,000 according to their figures.)
Mobile operators stock up on Nano-SIMs in anticipation of iPhone 5
iPhone 5 rumor rollup for the week ending July 13
iPhone 5 engineering sample leaked
Apple's iPhone 5 to have quad-core processor - rumour


text:
5-8295 Islington Ave (Islington / Willis)
Price: $1,199,990
Status: For Sale
- Community:Islington Woods
- City:Vaughan
- Type:Residential
- Style:Att/Row/Twnhouse (Other)
- Beds:3
- Bath:3
- Size:2000-2500 Sq Ft
- Garage:Attached (2 Spaces)
- Age:New
- ExteriorBrick
- HeatingForced Air, Gas
- Sewer/Water SystemsSewers, Municipal
- Lot FeaturesGrnbelt/Conserv, Library, Park, Public Transit, School, School Bus Route
Listing Contracted With: RE/MAX WEST REALTY INC., BROKERAGE
Amazing Pre-Construction Opportunity In Islington Woods! Luxury Freehold 4 Storey Town W/ Private Automatic Elevator. This Luxurious Town Boasts 2103 Sq Ft With An Open Concept Layout, Oak Staircase, Engineered Hardwood T/Out - Kitchen Features Extended Upper Cabinets, Caesarstone Counters, Undermount Sink, Tile Backsplash, Breakfast Bar/Island And Stainless Steel Apps.
Solid Core Entry Door W/Brush Nickel Hardware, Glass Railings On Master Balcony, Caesarstone Counters In Bathrooms, Oversized Shower Stalls W/Seamless Glass Doors, Contemporary Sinks, Outdoor Gas Line, Security Rough-In On Main Floor, Inter


text:
|2012-09-17, 12:40
|Link #2061
Junior Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
|2012-10-07, 13:43
|Link #2062
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Westfalen
About the scene in Minagoroshi when the child consultation center asks Satoko on the phone with her uncle behind her: Why don't they just ask them "Are you being abused?" so she only needs to answer "yes" for them to take action and take her into custody? So she wouldn't have to be beaten up by her uncle in the meantime because she asked for help. I know the scene is about showing Satoko's courage, but from the center's point of view it would be more considerate that way.
|2012-10-07, 19:59
|Link #2065
Turnin' the Tables
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Where dimensions collide...
Age: 31
|2012-10-08, 06:26
|Link #2067
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Westfalen
Thank you for these answers.
There are two more questions, which I think about for some time now.
- Has there ever been any revelation about the drug addict who claimed he had killed Houjou Tamae? I think the Yamainu set this guy up, but has this ever been confirmed or are there any informations who this guy was and where he came from?
- I think it's strange that Teppei has the same hair colour as Satoko and Satoshi, although they are not really relatives (he's just their stepfather's brother). Maybe it was planned at some stage that they are really uncle, niece and nephew. It's also strange that their real father is never mentioned. It seems there was no contact at all between him and his biological children. Otherwise he would have visited them at least when their mother and stepfather had died. This also makes me think that Houjou who dies at the park was planned to be their real father at some early stage of the story development.
(This is not really a question, rather a subject of speculation)
|2012-10-08, 21:42
|Link #2068
Senior Member
Specifically, by alibiing Satoshi, she'd made herself an accessory after the fact. If the police did manage to break Satoshi, then Shion would also be likely to go to jail. Whether they thought he was guilty or not, the Sonozakis wanted to stop that investigation.
|2012-10-09, 09:22
|Link #2069
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: The Netherlands
I think that the Mountain Hounds did it, to make the police stop searching for Satoshi.
|2012-10-09, 14:22
|Link #2070
Senior Member
In the United States, a person who learns of the crime and gives some form of assistance before the crime is committed is known as an "accessory before the fact". A person who learns of the crime after it is committed and helps the criminal to conceal it, or aids the criminal in escaping, or simply fails to report the crime, is known as an "accessory after the fact". A person who does both is sometimes referred to as an "accessory before and after the fact", but this usage is less common.
This is US law, not Japanese, but I'm sure there are similar terms. Lying to give Satoshi an alibi is absolutely criminal.
|2012-10-26, 11:32
|Link #2075
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Westfalen
Sorry, I don't know that (I would also like to know) but I've got another question:
The Hinamizawa Syndrome causes paranoia and makes people kill others because they're afraid that otherwise they will get killed themselves.
But in Meakashi-hen
Spoiler for Meakashi:
|2012-11-02, 11:18
|Link #2077
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Westfalen
Thanks, Gabrielios.
Next question
I wondered for a long time why Rika tells Keiichi not to lose Satoshi's bat, when she sees him carrying it in Onikakushi-hen. Certainly she doesn't want to make sure he really commits the murders. Well, maybe she thinks about the Tsumihoroboshi scenario, so she wants Keiichi to have the bat in the end to defend himself. But: Isn't the Tsumihoroboshi which follows Onikakushi the first scenario like this where Keiichi actually uses the bat in the end?
|2012-11-02, 16:42
|Link #2078
Junior Member
Join Date: Apr 2011
|Thread Tools


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In war on drugs, a break in the ranks
Voters in Colorado and Washington state who approved the recreational use of marijuana Tuesday sent a salvo from the ballot box that will ricochet around Latin America, a region that's faced decades of bloodshed from the U.S.-led war on drugs.
Experts said the moves were likely to give momentum to countries such as Uruguay that are marching toward legalization, to undercut Mexican criminal gangs and to embolden those who demand greater debate about how to combat illegal substances.
"The trend is toward legalization," said Jorge G. Castaneda, a former Mexican foreign minister who's an advocate for decriminalization.
The decisions by voters in Colorado and Washington to legalize marijuana for recreational use puts those states — the first to approve outright legalization — at loggerheads not only with the federal government but also with global treaties that label marijuana a controlled substance.
Taking a lesser step, Massachusetts voters approved a measure that allows the medical use of marijuana, joining 17 other states and the District of Columbia in permitting such limited usage.
U.S. diplomats in Latin America said Wednesday that President Barack Obama would hold firm against efforts to soften drug laws.
"The government of my president is totally against any initiative that weakens rules or laws on the sale or offering of illegal drugs," P. Michael McKinley, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, told Caracol Radio there.
But contradictory policies at the state and federal levels in the United States may throw the door open to more intense debate about U.S.-led pressure to respect international narcotics treaties.
"Politically and symbolically, this is really powerful. My guess is that this will accelerate some countries' efforts to have a legal marijuana regime," said Alejandro Hope, a former ranking official in Mexico's civilian intelligence service who studies the economic impact of marijuana smuggling in Mexico.
Uruguay, a small South American nation led by a former leftist guerrilla, has moved ahead since August on a proposal to legalize marijuana under a government monopoly.
"Chile also has a bill before its Congress. I'm guessing that Argentina may also follow suit. This will go from south to north," Hope said.
He added, however, that change would come over years, not months.
"We need to tamp down some of the expectations. None of this will happen quickly," he said.
Castaneda concurred, saying marijuana legalization remains "a radioactive issue" and the contours of the debate will change only with time.
Experts said nations — or states within nations — couldn't easily buck global treaties that included marijuana as a criminal substance.
"It's a direct breach of the 1961 U.N. convention on narcotic drugs," said Martin Jelsma, a Dutch scholar on drug control laws at the Transnational Institute, a center in the Netherlands that advocates for less punitive global drug policies.
Jelsma said nations and states "will have to find a way to reconcile" their laws with the global treaty, which has some 190 signatories. Some may choose to follow the path of Bolivia, which said in the middle of last year that it would withdraw from the convention to protest the U.N. classification of coca leaf as an illegal substance. Many indigenous people in the Andes chew coca leaf as a medicinal and social practice.
Others who push for global decriminalization of marijuana laws also said that U.S. efforts to pressure foreign nations over marijuana would weaken.
"It really is a game changer. It places the U.S. in a very different place," said Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, the director of the global drug-policy program of the Open Society Foundation, a New York-based group funded by liberal financier George Soros. "This clearly says the paradigm is shifting."
Several former Latin presidents have signed statements criticizing U.S. counter-drug policy, including former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, former Colombian leader Cesar Gaviria and former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, all of whom have called for legalizing marijuana.
Castaneda, who also has signed the statements, said U.S. pressure on Latin nations to deploy soldiers to fight drugs would look inconsistent as some states allowed residents to use marijuana legally.
"It will look more and more contradictory, and even aberrant, that on one hand Mexico racks up 60,000 dead under [President Felipe] Calderón while on the other side Americans are going for legalization of, at least, marijuana," he said.


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100 Ideas for Teaching Languages
Continuum, 2005 - Education - 131 pages
The Continuum One Hundreds series offers 100 invaluable, practical and exciting ideas for teachers of all levels. 100 Ideas for Teaching Languages contains 100 (obviously) creative and innovative ideas for getting students engaged in speaking and understanding languages. Ideas range from solving murder mysteries to using celebrity magazines to get students interested.
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24-hour clock activity allow pupils answers ask pupils assassin game Blu-Tack cafe Cafe Rouge camera celebrities choose classroom clear instructions Cluedo colour correct display distractors draw encourage pupils envelope example flashcards follow-up football fortune teller give pupils glove puppet guess headlines home pupils Ideas for Teaching Internet interview lesson linguistic listening exercise lost property magazines mini acetates mobile phones mother tongue motivating pupils names native speaker OHT3 overhead projector overlay pairs paper past tense person phrases picture cards play tennis PowerPoint practising the language PREPARATION pupils to write pupils write questions quiz script sentences sets of cards sheet Simon says songs square sure target language teacher topics town treasure treasure island verb weather weather symbols words


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Crispy Rice Chex® Coconut Shrimp (Gluten Free) With Tangy Pineapple-Chili Dip Recipe
Notes: Oil temperatures over 350°F will darken larger shrimp before they cook through, so be sure to keep the temperature from getting too high. When I made these, I used a full 1 tablespoon salt in the coconut mixture, which I liked. However, to ensure this wouldn't be too much salt for others, I'm calling for a slight bit less. I recommend taste testing one cooked shrimp and then season remaining mixture to taste if desired.
This post was created in partnership with Hello Cereal Lovers
- Yield:Serves 4
- Active time: 45 minutes
- Total time:45 minutes
- 3/4 cup pineapple preserves
- 3/4 cup rice vinegar
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
- 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon dried chili pepper flakes
- 2 pounds shrimp, shelled and deveined (if using larger shrimp)
- 1 cup cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 4 cups Rice Chex® cereal, crushed
- 2 cups shredded sweetened coconut
- Salt
- Oil for frying
Stir preserves, vinegar, cilantro, chili flakes, and 1 tablespoon water in a bowl until combined; set aside.
Pat shrimp dry with paper towels. Stir cornstarch and baking soda in a small bowl. Place eggs in a deep sided bowl or large mug. Place Rice Chex® cereal, coconut, and 2 ¾ teaspoons salt (see note) in a large shallow dish.
Pour oil in Dutch oven to 2 inches deep. Heat over medium heat to 350°F (see note). Working one shrimp at a time, dredge in cornstarch mixture, dip in egg, then coat in Rice Chex® cereal and coconut, pressing well to adhere coating to shrimp.
Coat a batch of 6 or so shrimp (depending on size) and then carefully drop into oil. Cook until golden, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to paper towel lined plate and repeat with remaining batches of shrimp, adjusting heat as necessary to keep temperature of oil consistent. Serve immediately with dipping sauce.
©2013 and ®/™ of General Mills
This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Serious Eats. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.


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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting public health activities in the United States. CDC's Mission is to collaborate to create the expertise, information, and tools that people and communities need to protect their health – through health promotion, prevention of disease, injury and disability, and preparedness for new health threats. CDC is composed of the Office of the Director, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Center for Global Health, and five Offices, including Public Health Preparedness and Response; State and Local Support; Surveillance, Epidemiology and Laboratory Services; Noncommunicable Diseases, Injury and Environmental Health; and Infectious Diseases. CDC employs more than 15,000 employees in more than 50 countries and in 168 occupational categories.
Review Date: Wednesday, February 27, 2013
List reviewed web resources
CDC's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID) aims to detect, prevent, and control infectious diseases from spreading, whether they are naturally occurring, unintentional, or the result of terrorism. With a focus on diseases that have been around for many years, emerging diseases (those that are new or just recently identified), and zoonotic diseases (those spread from animals to people), NCEZID's work recognizes the vital interconnectedness of microbes and the environment, and involves many scientific disciplines to attain better health for humans and animals and improve our environment. Each of the center's seven divisions works with partners to protect and improve the public's health in the United States and worldwide.
Review Date: Monday, July 18, 2011
Since 1981, the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA) has been dedicated to strengthening society's defenses against infectious disease by promoting appropriate antimicrobial access and use and controlling antimicrobial resistance. With a network of affiliated chapters in over 65 countries, more than 33 of which are in the developing world, APUA stands as the world's leading organization conducting focused antimicrobial resistance research, education, and advocacy at the grassroots and global levels. APUA's goal is to improve antimicrobial policy and clinical practice so as to preserve the power of these lifesaving agents and improve treatment for patients with acute bacterial diseases, tuberculosis, AIDS, and malaria.
Review Date: Friday, March 08, 2013
The National Center for Preparedness, Detection, and Control of Infectious Diseases (NCPDCID)provides leadership and brings many partners together to protect the world from infectious diseases. This organization aims to detect, prevent, and control infectious diseases from spreading, whether they are naturally occurring, unintentional, or the result of terrorism. NCPDCID works in the United States and abroad to establish safe and high-quality healthcare, laboratory services, surveillance systems, and networks that share vital information about infectious diseases.
Review Date: Friday, March 27, 2009
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Men's Yoga Training Shorts
Nike Dri-FIT
Crafted from soft jersey that is heathered with a brushed back for added loft and comfort, the Nike Dri-FIT Shorts are an ideal layer for yoga. The elastic waistband and stretchy fabric let you bend and stretch comfortably through each pose without distraction.
- Colour Shown: Midnight Navy/Heather/Black
- Style: AT5693-410


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Vietnamese Vegetarian Pate Recipe
This is a recipe that didn't make it into the Bánh Mì cookbook, my second publication that is already available for pre-order. I prepared a vegetable and tofu pâté that's often used in vegetarian bánh mì sandwiches. This dish is called tàu hũ chưng in Vietnamese. I mixed tofu and a mirepoix of vegetables, which is a combination of coarsely chopped carrots, onions, leek, celery and mushrooms. The preparation is steamed then baked until firm.
Over the past few weeks I've been posting a vegetarian recipe each Monday. It's part of an effort on my part to eat a little bit healthier by reducing my meat consumption. So from now on, you'll find a vegetarian recipe every "Meatless Monday".
Yields: 6 mini pates1 pound firm tofu (see tips)
1½ teaspoons ginger garlic paste (see tips)
2 tablespoons canola oil (or any neutral oil)
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon sugar
¾ teaspoon turmeric powder
½ (2-ounce) package dried bean thread noodles
1 King oyster mushroom, diced
6 fresh wood ear mushrooms, finely chopped
¼ cup celery, peeled and diced
2 egg whites (optional)
4 tablespoons cilantro, finely chopped
1 tablespoon green onions, finely chopped
1 (4-inch) piece leek (white part only), finely diced
½ carrot, peeled, boiled and diced
½ teaspoon red chili powder
1½ teaspoons mushroom seasoning salt (or regular salt)
1½ teaspoons black pepper
Prepping the bean thread noodles: Place the dried bean thread noodles in a bowl, cutting and discarding the little cotton threads. Soak the noodles in cold water for 20 minutes and drain. Chop into 1 inch threads. Set aside.
Prepping the tofu:
Cut the tofu into ½-inch slices. Blanch the tofu for about 3-4 minutes in boiling salted water. Drain the liquid. Let the tofu cool a little. Once the tofu is cool enough to handle, mash the boiled tofu with your hands using disposable gloves. The tofu should resemble large cottage cheese curds. Set the tofu aside.
Prepping the vegetables:
In a non-stick pan, heat the oil. Once it's hot, add the garlic and leeks and fry the pieces until lightly golden. Add the carrot, celery and mushrooms (king oyster mushrooms and wood ear mushrooms). Set aside.
Steaming and baking:
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In the large mixing bowl containing the mashed tofu, add ginger garlic paste, turmeric, chopped onion, red chili powder and black pepper. Using food service disposable gloves, mix well. Add the green onions and egg whites (if used). Add the cooked vegetables and bean thread noodles. Adjust seasoning.
Note: for a vegan version, simpy omit the egg whites but they will give a firmer texture to the vegetarian pâté.
Lightly spray some oil on 6 (6-inch diameter) disposable pot pie pans. Remove the excess oil. Fill each tin with the tofu mixture.
Fill a large pot with cold water until it barely touches the steamer level. Place all the tins in the steamer (I needed to stack 2 levels to fit all the tins), bring to a boil and reduce the heat to medium-high. Steam for about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat. Allow to rest for about 5 minutes. Remove the tins and transfer to a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes until the top is dried.
Sandwich assembly suggestion:
Cut slices of the vegetarian pâté.
Use 1 individual baguette per serving (a recipe for authentic Vietnamese baguette made with rice flour appears in the Bánh Mì cookbook). Cut lengthwise into the baguette and remove some of the crumb. Drizzle the inside of the baguette with "nước chấm", vegetarian dipping sauce or Maggi Seasoning. Spread a thin layer of softened butter (if using) on both sides of the bread. Fill the sandwich with the pâté , sliced cucumbers, thin slices of jalapeño, lettuce, and pickled carrot and daikon. Garnish with 2 sprigs of cilantro. Drizzle with "tướng ớt", Sriracha. Close the sandwich tightly.
Bon appétit!
Little reminder on how to make freshly grated ginger: Clean the ginger root to remove any dirt. Peel the ginger root with a paring knife (or the edge of a spoon). Grate the ginger with a fine mesh Microplane. Gather about 1 teaspoon of grated ginger root.
I use ginger garlic paste a lot in my cooking. It tastes great and is very healthy for you as well. Place the chopped (or grated) ginger and 5 cloves of garlic in a blender, add about 2 tablespoons (or more) of water for a smooth flow. Transfer to a jar and store in the refrigerator. You can keep this paste for at least a week in the refrigerator.
You can find wood ear mushrooms in any Asian store. Our local Asian market carries fresh wood ear mushrooms (you can also use the dried version). They're grown locally in Half Moon Bay (CA) and they're sold in 6-ounce packages. They're flavorless but they give an interesting, chewy texture to the vegetarian pâté.
I used Vinh Khang brand firm tofu, which is freshly made daily. There are two locations in the Bay Area: Vinh Khang Tofu, 141 Dixon Road, Milpitas, CA 95035 and 2955 Senter Road #80, San Jose, Ca 95111. The owner told me he also has a location in Southern California.
One of the most common condiments to serve with tàu hũ chưng is Sriracha sauce (it's the red chili sauce in the bottle with the green cap) or a dipping sauce called nước mắm.Published By: on March 18, 2013.


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On Sunday afternoon I stirred up a blood orange cornmeal cake. As I prepared to slip it into the oven, I said to Michael, "Now, while the cake is in the oven, we have to be really quiet and avoid stomping around in here. And do you think that making grilled cheese on the stove will disturb my cake too much while it bakes?"
He looked at me as if I had three heads, but was much too polite to come right out and say so.
I don't bake a lot of cakes.
So I had to stop and think for a minute about why I was worried: Because I thought the cake might "fall," which I don't think I've actually ever seen, but nonetheless I have a dire mental picture of a cake that looks like someone has stepped on it.
Why was I worried about fallen cake? Because my mother always told us, decades ago, as she slipped a cake into the oven, to be really quiet and avoid stomping around in the kitchen or the cake might fall.
And why did she tell us that? Because we were little girls who were excited about eating cake in a little while, and apt to start playing tag in the kitchen while we waited, or possibly invent a game that involved jumping off kitchen chairs while shrieking like banshees.
Once I'd asked a few why questions, I realized that my cake probably wasn't in mortal jeopardy after all. I made the grilled cheese sandwiches, and we retired to the living room to eat them without initiating any jumping or shrieking games in the kitchen, and everything turned out just fine.
And I couldn't help noticing that the cake was a fairly obvious metaphor for so many situations in life, wherein my automatic assumptions dissolve when I take the trouble to shine a light on them.
Apparently, every time I make a cake, it must have olive oil and orange juice in it. But it's hard to go wrong with those parameters. The blood orange cornmeal cake was a success. It only took a couple of minutes to stir up, and the smell alone was worth the trouble. The texture was fine and relatively light, and it had a hint of the hearty, mildly sweet taste of cornbread, brightened and intensified by the orange juice and zest. The cake itself was not overly sweet, which made the sugar topping a pleasant addition.
Blood Orange Cornmeal Cake
(very slightly adapted from The Kitchen Sink Recipes)
1/2 cup olive oil
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar, plus 1/4 cup for topping
1/2 cup fresh-squeezed blood orange juice
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Finely grated zest of 2 blood oranges
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray bottom and sides of a 9-inch round cake pan; line bottom with parchment paper, and spray with oil.
In a large bowl, whisk together oil, eggs, 1 cup sugar, and juice until smooth. Add flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and orange zest; whisk to combine.
Pour batter into prepared pan; sprinkle top evenly with remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Bake until a tester inserted in center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes.
Cool in pan 20 minutes. Run a knife around edge of cake; invert cake gently onto a plate, and remove parchment paper. Turn cake onto a rack to cool completely.
Christian Masters blogs at The Rowdy Chowgirl.
To comment on the original post, click here.
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These are construction bits and are intended for use on softwoods or green hardwoods only. They will work with dry hardwood, but eventually burning the scoring spur is almost inevitable. Though we offer sizes under 3/8", they must be used with care as the generous flute size makes the small bits inherently weaker.
All of this sounds a bit negative, but it is just realistic. These are good bits at a very good price. They will serve you well if treated reasonably.
Available in 1/16" increments from 1/4" to 1-1/2". Length given is overall bit length. Boxed sets of seven bits are available. Sizes included are: 1/4", 3/8", 1/2", 5/8", 3/4", 7/8" and 1".


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A fully revised and updated version of the ultimate guide to language development for parents!
Language is about so much more than just words, and healthy communication is the foundation of a child's ability to succeed emotionally, socially, and academically. The first 8 years of life represent a critical period of language and literacy development, and parents/caregivers are a child's primary role models as he or she begins to acquire speaking, reading, and writing skills. Fully revised, Beyond Baby Talk is here to guide readers through the easiest and most engaging ways to instill strong communication skills in children and to provide fun for caregivers and children along the way.
Beyond Baby Talk highlights all of the essential steps and checkpoints to gauge a child's progress, as well as easy methods to:
• Evaluate and monitor a child's spoken language development.
• Enhance a child's literacy skills for improved spelling, reading, and writing abilities.
• Understand and navigate environmental influences on language development such as television, texting, and slang.
• Recognize the signs of language and literacy progress problems—and know when to seek professional help.
New Features in this updated book include:
• Expanded Age Range: Now from Birth to 8, With an Emphasis on Literacy
• Two new chapters
• Reading, Writing, and Spelling: Helping Your Child Achieve in School
• Fads, Scams, and Myths: Knowing What to Look For
• Completely Revised and Updated Chapters and References
• New Information About Home Computers, Mobile Phones, Texting, Apps, and Other Technology
What Are People Saying About Beyond Baby Talk?
"In this practical guide, Apel and Masterson explain how infants, toddlers, and children learn to speak, read, and write in clear and simple language that will help parents understand and bolster their children's progress. Along with the compelling examples that illustrate the ways in which everyday interactions promote language and literacy, the authors provide a rich array of suggestions, resources, and guidance that will empower parents to fulfill their critical role in their children's development."
Joshua Sparrow, MD
Associate Clinical Professor, Harvard Medical School
Director, Strategy, Planning and Program Development, Brazelton Touchpoints Center Boston Children's Hospital
"Beyond Baby Talk combines accuracy with readability to produce an excellent resource for parents, caregivers, and clinicians alike."
Dr. Arthur C. Maerlender Jr, PhD
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
"As a father of two older daughters and a young son, I was especially drawn to Beyond Baby Talk's chapter on the influence of gender and birth order on language development. I expect that I will pick this book up repeatedly as my son grows, to review important details about language and literacy development."
J. Michael Metts D.O., FACOP, FAAP
Chair, Department of Pediatrics, College of Osteopathic Medicine, Des Moines University
About the authors:
The authors share why they decided to write Beyond Baby Talk.
Site Help | A—Z Topic Index | Privacy Notice | Terms of Use
© 1997-? American Speech-Language-Hearing Association


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How to Create a New PowerPoint 2007 Presentation from a Template
A template sets the background and design/style or a presentation (such as the font, color schemes, etc.). Microsoft PowerPoint includes the New Presentation dialog box which provides access to many templates types. You can use the templates to design your slides and presentations.
1Open the New Presentation dialog box.
Click the Office button and choose New. You can choose your template using any of the following methods.
2Use an installed template.
Click Installed Templates in the upper-left corner. Templates loaded on your computer when you installed PowerPoint appear in the dialog box. Double-click a template to create a presentation.
3Search online at Microsoft
Make sure your computer is connected to the Internet, enter a search term in the Search box, and click the Start Searching button. Templates appear in the dialog box. Click a template to examine it. Double-click a template to download and use it to create a presentation.
4Use a template you created (or downloaded earlier from Microsoft)
Double-click the My Templates button. The New Presentation dialog box appears. Select a template and click OK.


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A Workshop held at the Space Telescope Science Institute April 10-11, 2003
The NHST Working Group held a workshop on April 10-11, 2003 to discuss mission concepts, designs and instrumentation for a potential large aperture (4-10m) telescope operating at UV/optical (UVO) wavelengths. This meeting was meant as a follow-on to the Hubble Science Legacy meeting held in Chicago, April 2002, where the key science drivers were discussed (planet detection/ characterization, star/planet formation, dispersed baryons, galaxy/black hole formation, and cosmology). Potential missions to address these science themes included (but were not limited to):
1. 4 to 10-m-class visible coronagraphic telescopes with the primary science of planet detection and characterization. The emphasis of this workshop was to consider designs that would deliver broader science capabilities through wider-field imaging and spectroscopy. 2. A 4-10m-class telescope with emphasis on UVO multi-object spectroscopy and wide-field, high spatial resolution imaging.
This workshop focused on design concepts and technologies for these missions. As strawman concepts, the designs presented at the August 2002 SPIE meeting by Bob Woodruff were considered [available shortly at the workshop website]. We solicited contributions from the community for new or improved design concepts.
In addition, we encouraged contributions on various technologies or technical issues that need to be resolved, including:
- Detectors operating at UV to Near-IR wavelengths
- Light-weight mirrors or structures
- UV coatings for optical elements
- In-space construction or novel deployment techniques
- Potential orbits and their advantages/disadvantages (radiation, thermal problems, communication)
The results of this workshop will be used by the Working Group to investigate in detail several promising mission concepts. Technologies required to carry out these missions will be used to guide future technology funding by NASA.


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Some Christian named Scott Klusendorf responded to my interview on Issues, etc., largely by distorting my position, misunderstanding what I said, and pretending to be a better authority on developmental biology than I am. I've copied a quick and sloppy transcript of parts of it from another Christian.
I guess I have to get used to the idea that if you give an interview to Christians, whether it's the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church or Ray Comfort, they're going to use it as an opportunity to make an incomprehending hash of whatever you say. (Apparently, they're milking me hard: they had another 2 hour interview in which a theologian argues against me, but I haven't bothered to listen.)
Myers: I could imagine a culture where a child doesn't have the right to life until they are 5-years old
Mod: Myers is an atheist. He believes that standards of conduct are variable depending on what is dominant in a culture. Since cultures vary by time and place, and none is objectively right or wrong, then a 5-year limit for personhood is as valid as any other standard that might evolve. There is no way to judge between cultures against some objective standard
That's correct. There is no magic objective standard to say when an organism is a person. We rely entirely on cultural perspectives to define when we grant that organism the rights and privileges of a full member of the culture. This does not imply that I personally approve of societies that treat a newborn as expendable, only that it's clear that there is no objective or scientific boundary. We always rely on an arbitrary definition.
Mod (to Klus): Myers says that the unborn is a "piece of meat". It's not a person until well after birth. Do only atheists believe this?
Klus: No others hold them. But what is more interesting is that he just asserts his views, he never argues for them. He says that pro-lifers lie when debating this issue
Yes, anti-choicers lie. I didn't go into detail on that because it was a short interview, but here's one plain example: they claim life begins at conception. That's nonsense no matter how you look at it. There is continuity of life for about 4 billion years; every human life comes from living gametes. The fertilized zygote cannot be legitimately called a "person" — it has none of the attributes of a conscious being, like awareness. As I have said repeatedly, personhood, consciousness, humanity, whatever you want to call it, emerges gradually over the course of development; it is not a magic zap that occurs instantaneously and allows you to say one moment, it's not alive/human, the next moment it is.
Mod: (to Myers) What is the unborn?
Myers: It's a piece of tissue that will develop into a human being over time
Mod: (to Myers) What is it 5 minutes before it's born?
Myers: It's fetus, it's not a baby
Klus: The development stages of a human are all stages of development of the same entity, as even Peter Singer and David Boonin admit
Mod: He made a distinction between before birth and after birth
Klus: Yes, and that contradicts what he says later when he says there are no sharp boundaries
No it does not contradict my statements. Development is a continuous process of change. Continuous. A conceptus is different than a 3 month old embry is different from an 8 month fetus is different from a teenager, even if they are the same developing organism. The boundaries we confer on this process are arbitrary.
Klus: Myers is confusing parts with wholes. The skin cells on my hand are part of a larger human being. The embryo is not part of a larger human being, they are a whole human being, directing its own development
Klus: Myers also makes the claim that embryos are constructed piece by piece from the outside. But the science of embryology is clear – the embryo develops itself.
Say what? I have never claimed any such thing. There are autonomous processes in development; in mammals like us, however, there is also an extended dependency on the parent. You can't say either of those things: embryos are not externally constructed, and they also do not develop entirely on their own.
It's like these people have a pathological need to slice everything into absolutely rigid boundaries and are incapable of comprehending a gradual process.
Mod (to Myers): Is the unborn a person?
Myers: Personhood develops gradually. A newborn baby is not a person. A baby's brain is still forming so it's not a person. There is no specific moment when a baby becomes a person. It is culturally determined. Our society says it's birth. Some people say viability. Either of those are acceptable to me
Mod: (to Myers): So drawing the line between unborn and born is arbitrary?
Myers: Yes it is
These guys have a really rough time grasping this simple idea. Yes, it's arbitrary. Different cultures draw the line in different ways. Would it help them to read their Bibles, in which inducing an abortion is not regarded in the same way as committing murder? Even their own religious tradition draws a different line than they do!
Let's watch their argument get really offensive:
Klus: He is separating human beings into classes: persons and non-persons. This has resulted in injustices, historically speaking. E.g. – with American Indians
Klus: He says that a human being becomes a person when their brain is fully developed, but even teens don't have fully developed brains
Klus: Look at this scientific evidence from PBS about NIH research which shows that brains still developing in teens and it causes them to make poor decisions
Klus: If development gives us value, then those with more of it have more of a right to life than those with less
Klus: This point was made by Lincoln in his debates about slavery, when he warned his opponent that someone with lighter skin could enslave him
Wait. So if we decide that a blastula is not a fully developed human being, then that can be used to legitimize enslaving black people? Why? Are they making the implication that they are less fully developed than white people? Who is walking around with "more development" than other people?
Look, if you've made the cultural decision that newborn babies have a right to live, you're done: you cannot now say that American Indians or black people or teenagers are lesser than a newborn white baby. There is no difference in the developmental status of different human races. How do these people even make such an argument without realizing the fundamental racism of their assumptions?
Mod (to Myers): How do you decide these life issues?
Myers: We use the notion of "greater good"
Mod (to Myers): that's a culturally determined notion?
Myers: Yes. The greater good here is that we maximize the security and happiness of most people in the society. Women are persons, so we favor their rights.
Klus: His response begs the question. He is assuming that the unborn are not human persons. He talks about the need for women's rights. Are unborn women included in those who have rights?
You know, they did this constantly through the show, using this bizarre phrase, "Unborn X". There are no unborn women. It's as nonsensical as looking at a tree and saying it is an unbuilt house, or calling a cow an uncooked hamburger. A house is not a tree and a cow is not a meat patty; we give them different names to reflect their very different state.
We should give "unborn women" all the deference and protections we provide for nonexistent women, or imaginary women, or fantasy women, that is, none. Perhaps if these fellows were more respectful of the rights of real women, they wouldn't be saying these stupid things.
I also have to add another thing to my statements. It's not just the notion of greater good, but also of empathy. I can see that women and teenagers black people and babies and kids with Down syndrome and other adult men have an inner world, goals and ideas, and I can empathize with them — I no more want harm to come to them than I do to myself. I want to live in a society that defends them, because I want to live in a society that defends me.
An embryo has none of those elements of self-awareness that make it a relatable conscious being. I do not want to live in a society that fetishizes a gastrula over my wife or daughter.
Klus: If cultures decide who is and who is not a person, then he cannot oppose cultures that say that Jews are not persons, or that women are not persons
Klus: He admits that he cannot oppose cultures that think that children of age 5 are not persons, and can be killed
Really? I did? I don't think so. Hey, look, there's an example of a "pro-lifer" lying!
I said I could imagine cultures that defer granting personhood until a baby reaches a certain age. That's actually fairly common; Victorian Europe, for instance, exhibited a marked reticence about the status of newborns, with individuals often waiting a year or more to give them a name, because infant mortality was so high. I can easily imagine a culture that thinks Jews are not persons — I just have to crack a history book.
And I certainly can oppose infant mortality and Nazis. I can recognize that those are symptoms of an unhealthy society that I would not want to live in, and that they do great harm to conscious, living persons.
Mod (to Myers): You call that kind of society "brutal", why do you say that?
Myers: It's my personal preference because I like my own kids
Mod (to Klus): Respond to that
Klus: He has no argument, just his own opinion. He cannot oppose any society that things that it is OK to traffic, kill, etc. 5-year-olds
Klus: He says that he has a personal preference. That is an interesting fact about his psychology, but he has no argument
I was not making an argument there. I did not think I had to — I assumed the interviewer and the audience would all share my personal views that kids are good people.
If I'd been asked a little more, like about why I like my kids, I could have gone deeper. My kids were not possessions. They were not things I liked like my iPad or my fluffy pillow — they were people I respected because they had personalities and interests of their own, and one of the things you quickly appreciate (if you're not a psychopathic quiverful Christian who sees children as tools to deploy) is that they really are thinking, reacting, learning, growing human beings. Again with the empathy! They deserve protection because they do have attributes like autonomy and curiosity and affection and many others that are of human value.
Klus: In an atheistic worldview, human beings at any stage are cosmic accidents
Klus: How do we get any kind of intrinsic value and human rights out of an atheist worldview? I don't see how you can
At last, something they get right, sort of. You can't derive intrinsic human rights from an atheist view. There aren't any. Values and rights are emergent properties of communities of people. Note: that does not say that values and rights don't exist, it says that they are generated by the interactions of individuals in a group, and not imposed from above.
Klus: Even a woman's absolute right to an abortion is not grounded by atheism
That's actually an interesting and complex point. It's true; atheism in and of itself says nothing about how human beings should treat other human beings. The absence of a caretaker god does not say you couldn't build a patriarchal atheistic society that held women and other races as chattel. Or a Libertarian atheist society built on Ayn Rand's hideous values. Or an inward-looking nationalistic and secular society that had no problem with maintaining its security by raining bombs down on every other nation on earth.
Atheism is only the start; it frees you from destructive traditions and throws off the shackles of dogma. The next part is the hard part: you have to think consciously about how you want civilization to operate, and you have to make commitments to other values, like humanism.
Atheism does not tell me women have rights. That I can look at women with eyes unfogged by superstitious nonsense and see that they are my equals tells me that women have rights.
Mod (to Myers): What do you think of the pro-life movement?
Myers: I'm a developmental biologist. The pro-life movement is lying to people. An embryo is not a person. "Personhood implies much more than being a piece of meat with the right number of chromosomes in it". The primary issue in abortion is women's autonomy. It is entirely the woman's decision
Klusendorf: You have to present arguments to prove that pro-lifers are lying. There are pro-abortion scholars who have arguments, he isn't one. He only has assertions, opinions and preferences.
Klusendorf: What if a woman gets pregnant solely in order to take a drug during pregnancy in order to have a deformed child. Myers has no argument against that
"Pro-lifers" consciously make claims that are false, and yes, I have made arguments against the anti-choice position, many times. That Klusendorf thinks a brief wide-ranging interview contains the entirety of my position is his problem.
As I said at that link,
We don't have to revere every block of rough marble because another Michaelangelo could come along and sculpt it into something as wonderful as his David; we don't have to treasure every scrap of canvas because the next Picasso is going to use it for a masterpiece. The value isn't in the raw materials, but in the pattern, the skill, the art put into it. Similarly, those cells are simply the raw clay that the process and time will sculpt into something that is worth love and care.
Which is more important, the pigments or the painting? Even worse, do you think the pigments are the painting?
And speaking of non-existent arguments, the transcriber cut off a lot of the absurd details Klusendorf made up at the end. He went on at painful length: what if a woman got pregnant just so she could take a drug that made the fetus limbless? What if she refused to give birth by taking drugs that kept the fetus small and held it inside for 70 years?
Yeah, you're damn right I have no argument against that. Because they're the bizarre hypotheticals of a bigoted ideologue who's incapable of recognizing women as conscious moral agents on their own, and is reduced to fighting against nonexistent, imaginary women who do random freakish things during their pregnancy for no reason at all.
But then, I guess that's what you'd expect of a guy who believes in "unborn women" — no attachment to reality at all.


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Wilt Chamberlain's Family Tries To Block Film About His College Years, Claiming 'Publicity Rights'
from the ugh deptA filmmaker is trying to make a film about basketball great Wilt Chamberlain's college years at Kansas. However, his estate appears to be threatening the filmmaker if he goes ahead, claiming such things as publicity rights over Chamberlain's image (thanks to Nancy for sending this over).
"Please be advised that on December 21, 2001, the court approved that the Chamberlain Family are entitled to 'all of the rights, titles and interests into the intellectual property and rights of publicity associated with the international sports celebrity in the name and likeness of Wilton Norman Chamberlain.'We've discussed many times just how frequently publicity rights are being abused to stop basic speech, and this appears like another such case. While publicity rights depend on the specifics of state laws, it is generally not considered a violation in any way to make a film about a public figure. That's why something like The Social Network was allowed, despite Mark Zuckerberg's obviously distaste for a movie highlighting the various legal claims against him and Facebook.
"Kevin, therefore, I request on behalf of my family, and as outlined in our above-mentioned letters, that you do not violate these rights by pursuing the name and likeness of Wilt since you do not have permission from our family."
Publicity rights are supposed to be about preventing someone's image from being used to endorse a product -- such as putting their image on a cereal box. According to this document (pdf), Kansas doesn't have a publicity rights law (or didn't back in 2010). So, perhaps they're claiming that some other state's laws might apply. The family appears to live in Las Vegas, and Nevada does have a publicity rights law, which extends 50 years after death -- so perhaps that's what they're relying on. Many other states don't recognize such rights after death.
Either way, this seems silly and not at all a publicity rights issue. No one is going to assume that this movie is necessarily endorsed by Chamberlain or his family, just as they don't naturally assume any sort of biopic was obviously endorsed by those the film is about (or their families). Instead, this just seems like a clear case of someone trying to use the law to censor a filmmaker. Shameful.
Filed Under: films, kansas, likeness, publicity rights, wilt chamberlain


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Related Resource
The Decline of the Steller Sea Lion in Alaskan Waters: Untangling Food Webs and Fishing Nets (January 2003)Report in Brief
The Alaskan population of Steller sea lions has declined more than 80 percent in the last 30 years. Large-scale fishing effects on the food supply of Alaska's Steller sea lions do not appear to be the main reason for their current, continuing decline. This report concluded that a combination of other possible factors, including entanglement or injury by fishing gear, illegal shooting, predation by killer whales, subsistence harvesting, and disease, may be causing the decline. Establishing a series of carefully monitored open and closed fishing areas is the best way to measure fishing's impact on sea lion survival.


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Name - Daisy-Jane
Listed below are all of the songs that are about a girl called 'Daisy-Jane'.
This is a double-barrel name, consisting of the names Daisy and Jane
Similar Names:
Song List - Name In Title
- [lyricURL – TRACKNAME]
Song List - Name In Song Lyrics
- [lyricURL TRACKNAME]
Instrumental Song List
Unlinked Song List
The following tracks do not have a relevant lyric page, please see contributing on how to create a lyric page for one of the songs listed below.
page revision: 0, last edited: 02 Sep 2011 18:58


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Mitt struggles to sharpen message
BOSTON — For the third week in a row, Mitt Romney's campaign vowed Monday to deliver a sharper, bigger message in the closing stretch of the 2012 election.
The GOP nominee is trying to move beyond an erratic messaging streak, which has seen his campaign chasing one transient news cycle after another. Romney advisers say Romney has been taking advantage of targets of opportunity offered up by Obama. But his message has shifted so frequently, and with so little thematic continuity between attacks, that it smacks more of a scramble to see what sticks than a coherent theory of the case for the general election.
Story Continued Below
( Also on POLITICO: Newt to Mitt: Be vivid)
Romney's message has veered from attacking planned defense cuts to criticizing what he calls Obama's "war on coal," to hammering away at the president's record on Libya and Egypt. In the space of one 72-hour period starting on Sept. 18, Romney careened from brandishing a 14-year-old video of Obama talking about "redistribution" — proof, he said, that Obama is fundamentally out-of-touch with the American economy — to an all-out attack on the president for musing that it's impossible to change Washington "from the inside."
( Also on POLITICO: Mitt, be nimble)
On a conference call with reporters Monday, senior Romney advisers Kevin Madden and Ed Gillespie promised a turn toward the whole picture for the campaign's closing weeks. The Romney aides both disputed suggestions that the candidate's message — defined for much of 2012 by a relentless focus on the economy — has grown hazy and vowed a sharper thematic frame for the remaining 36 days.
The aides say Romney will lean into a single theme: "We can't afford another four years like the last four years."
As Romney prepares to travel to Colorado this afternoon to hold a rally ahead of Wednesday's debate, Gillespie argued that Romney's roaming focus simply reflects the range of important issues at stake in the 2012 campaign.
"Our message is very clear, which is we cannot afford four more years like the last four years. And we need a real recovery," Gillespie said. "Whether it's health care, energy, taxes and spending or debt, the message is we cannot afford four more years like the last four years."
Madden articulated the Romney team's view that the voters still up for grabs are undecided because they don't believe Obama is "worthy of their support." But those voters still need to hear more about "the important contrast, the important choice" when it comes to issues, he said.
Those issues include foreign policy, Madden said, signaling that Romney will continue to criticize Obama's handling of upheaval in Libya and Egypt. The former Massachusetts governor authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed Monday warning that when it comes to those two countries, as well as Iran's nuclear ambitions, Obama has left the United States "at the mercy of events rather than shaping them."
"Gov. Romney will lay out a stronger vision for American foreign policy, based on the strong leadership we need to shape world events," Madden said.


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Most people would think that I am the size I am because of my incredible sweet tooth. Everyone who knows me understands that I cannot say no to a Reese's Cup, a Key Lime Pie or Paula Deen's Pound Cake.
But the truth is, while I love my sweets, I love bread just as much.
There's nothing more savory than hot bread slathered in a pound of butter. And because I don't discriminate, cold bread with butter, or peanut butter, is pretty darn good too.
Aside from cheese biscuits, light and fluffy yeast rolls are by far my favorite bread type.
In elementary school, my mother packed my lunch every day because I was such a picky eater. However on days they had homemade yeast rolls, I would save my snack money and buy rolls in the lunchroom. Yes, you could do that back then if you were in the lucky classes that had last lunch.
Rather than throw out the surplus, the lunchroom ladies opened the doors and sold it off–hamburgers for 15 cents, hotdogs for a dime and yeast rolls for a nickel apiece. I always spent my entire quarter on those rolls and stuffed them into my Beatles lunchbox for a snack later on.
Over the years I've searched for the recipe for those delicacies and while many have come close, none have quite reached the pinnacle.
This recipe, however, is among the best and while homemade bread of any kind takes some effort, these are definitely worth it.
Bill Newsome's Rolls
3 1/2 c flour, sifted after measuring
1/4 c sugar
1 pack rapid rising yeast
1 tsp salt
3/4 c warm water
1/4 c plus 1 fluid oz. evaporated milk
1/4 c margarine
1 egg, well beaten
1 T melted margarine
Set aside 1/2 cup flour.
Mix flour, sugar, yeast and salt. Heat water, milk and margarine. Stir hot liquids into dry mixture and then add egg.
Add enough of the remaining flour so the dough will pull away from the bowl. Use the rest of the flour to dust a large piece of aluminum foil.
Place the dough on the foil and knead for 30 seconds. Form into a ball. Place one tablespoon of margarine in a bowl and add dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until double. Press down with a spoon a let rise again.
Pinch off balls or gently roll and cut into circles.
Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Brush with milk and egg.
Enjoy with your favorite stick of butter!
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