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Minister Vanstone, Attorney Groom, friends and colleagues:
Thank you Yvonne Korn for your kind welcome; and thanks to my colleague Adam Graycar for his wonderful hospitality. I deeply appreciate the support my visit has received from your Minister for Justice, Sen. Vanstone, the National Campaign Against Crime and Violence and the Australian Institute of Criminology. Although I will be talking today about the importance of science in thinking about crime prevention, I wish to acknowledge the special power of the indigenous welcome offered by Ms. Ida West and the theatrical presentation by Big hART. Sometimes, history and art are more powerful than science.
I am very honored by the invitation to speak with you this afternoon at this Conference on Partnerships in Crime Prevention. I respect the work that you are doing here in Australia on the important topic of developing partnerships between all sectors of society to carry out the important task of crime prevention. It is my hope that I can learn from your efforts and can bring back to the United States some insights that will benefit a larger community of practitioners and researchers who are engaged in similar efforts in America. It is also my hope that I can make some modest contributions to the work of this conference by sharing some insights from the American experience. Our differences may be obvious to those who compare our two cultures and systems of justice; but, our commonalities are the more important point of departure. In addition to the time I am spending at this conference, I have been meeting with colleagues at the Australian Institute of Criminology, other government officials, and research colleagues and I hope that we can continue to build on those common experiences in the months and years to come.
Broadly stated, my topic is "Thinking About Prevention: Are We Asking the Right Questions?" I hope to make four points in the course of this talk. First, that an understanding of the prevention agenda first requires an understanding of the crime problem. Second, that prevention of crime should be viewed as more than the aggregation of crime prevention programs. Third, that development of crime prevention policies must be based on sound, scientific principles that reflect a broad conception of the many ways that crime is prevented. And finally, that the ultimate policy objective -- and the ultimate research challenge -- in the crime prevention field is the development of community resiliency.
I think it is imperative that we start any discussion on this topic by talking first about crime, before we talk about its prevention. Let's focus on the broadest policy objective that I think we all share -- namely, that there be less crime. So the first task -- essentially, a research task, but one that should engage all sectors of society -- is to understand the nature of our crime problem, so that we can design policies to reduce the level of criminal behavior. Allow me to draw upon the recent American experience to underscore my point.
If we were to look at the broad sweep of crime rates in the United States over the past twenty years, we would see two distinct trends. First, the levels of property crime have been falling quite steadily for two decades. In fact, in 1990, the rates of nonviolent thefts were higher in London than in New York City.1 Sydney, Australia and Los Angeles, California have very similar levels of nonviolent property crimes.2 Also, according to Jan van Dijk and Pat Mayhew, who studied the 1996 International Crime Victims Survey in their publication Criminal Victimization in Eleven Industrialized Countries,3 countries such as England, Canada, and the Netherlands experience higher rates of burglary than the United States. And England, Scotland, and France all have higher rates of theft from, and of, cars than the United States. So, in comparison with our counterparts in the Western world, the United States has a property crime rate that is quite average. Certainly, our property crime rate, standing alone, would not justify the fourfold increase in rates of imprisonment that we have experienced over the same time period. Nor would our property crime rate explain why crime ranked as the number one concern in public opinion polls.
Rather something has been happening with our rates of violent crime, and especially among juveniles. Over the past twenty years in the United States, robbery and burglary rates for juveniles have remained basically the same, but violence committed by juveniles has significantly increased. Between the years 1985 and 1992, after years of steady decline, the homicide rate for defendants under age 24 increased significantly, with the rate of increase inversely related to age. For defendants age 18, the rate doubled. For 20-22 year old defendants the homicide rate also increased significantly, while homicide rates for 24 year olds remained the same.4 During the same seven year period, the number of juvenile homicides committed with handguns also doubled.5 Finally, during the same period, the arrest rate for nonwhite juveniles for drug offenses more than doubled.6
What happened in the mid-80's in dozens of American cities to explain these unprecedented changes in behavior? Professor Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University has developed a hypothesis that, to me, has great facial validity, called the "diffusion hypothesis": that, as new crack cocaine entrepreneurs were setting up business, taking over turf previously dominated by others, they recruited young people as sellers and middle managers, then these low level dealers needed handguns to defend themselves, and the guns, once in the hands of impulsive adolescents, quickly "diffused" into the youth culture so that everyday adolescent squabbles over girlfriends and valuable clothing got settled by gunfire.
However, development of a crime prevention agenda in the United States during the late 1980's and early 1990's did not directly respond to the changing nature of crime, perhaps reflecting our relatively poor understanding of the juvenile crime trend at the time. Neither the police nor youth-serving prevention programs offered plausible, timely strategies that reflected the seriousness of the crime problem. This lack of response was rightly be seen, by the public, as a failure by our larger society to address the crime problem that they were experiencing. This historical observation should remind us of the critical need to develop public support for a crime prevention agenda -- support rooted in an understanding of the crime problem.
This need to understand the crime problem before designing a prevention agenda is not limited to an examination of the crime problem at a national level -- I think the same maxim holds true for the development of a local crime prevention agenda. Allow me to draw on two other American illustrations. During the early 1990's, the City of Boston experienced a sharp rise in juvenile violence. Research conducted by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University found that three-quarters of the juveniles involved in this violence -- either as perpetrators of violence or as victims of violence -- were under juvenile court probation at the time of the incident. And most of them were involved in juvenile gangs so that an incident of violence often triggered a retaliatory act of violence by a rival gang. This empirical understanding of the exact nature of the crime problem provided a firm foundation for the development of a highly successful crime prevention strategy.
A second example, on an even smaller scale. The town of Lowell Massachusetts was concerned about a rise in assaultive behavior among young people. An analysis of these incidents showed that a small number of individuals, who had been brought to the attention of the court authorities on numerous occasions, accounted for a large percentage of the incidents. Again, the prevention strategy developed by that town focused on these individuals and their treatment by the court system. To reiterate my first point: if we start our discussion about prevention with an understanding of the crime problem experienced by our communities, we invariably develop prevention strategies that are quite different from those that emerge from an un-focused set of interventions.
The second point I wish to make is that the prevention of crime is more than an aggregation of crime prevention programs. We need to make some linguistic and conceptual distinctions when we talk about the prevention of crime. I have adopted a very broad definition of crime prevention -- that is, any activity, public or private, that has the result of reducing the incidence of criminal behavior.7
Without establishing the outer boundaries of this broad definition, we can agree that some public and private activities that, to me, should fall squarely within our definition. Certainly, we should define crime prevention as including programs that seek to rehabilitate offenders. Not everyone would agree with this characterization, since rehabilitation comes after the original offense. Yet, on their own terms, these programs seek to change the behavior of criminals to reduce the likelihood that they will violate our criminal laws. If successful, such efforts prevent crime. The first cousin to rehabilitation programs are classic prevention programs -- those interventions that work with young people who, because of their life circumstances or their individual behavior, are considered to be on a path to delinquent or criminal behavior. Successful interventions with these young people -- even before the onset of a criminal career -- will prevent crime.
But a variety of other activities have similar results. A community's decision to increase the lighting around a public park may reduce crime. A police department's decision to close a drug house may reduce crime. A state's decision to increase incarceration of individuals in their high crime prone years may reduce crime. If we push this definition of crime prevention, some of our colleagues may disagree with the characterization, yet in my view these examples reflect a potentially very diverse array of government and neighborhood efforts that are intended to prevent crime and, after careful evaluations, may be found to have achieved that intention.
So, my second point is that we should not think of crime prevention -- the effort to avoid the next crime -- as limited to rehabilitation of offenders, nor as limited to efforts to intervene in the lives of those whom we think are at high risk of becoming offenders, nor as being juxtaposed against the efforts of police and the impact of incarceration. The choice between prevention and police and punishment -- which is the way our policy choices are often framed -- are false choices. Police and prisons can and do prevent crime. And sometimes, the most effective way to prevent crime is by reducing opportunity -- by placing lights in the park.
If we recognize that crime prevention is a result, not an intention, the scope of crime prevention programs is broad indeed. Allow me to use a very commonplace example to make this point. You may be familiar with home nurse visitation programs. Under these programs, an individual, sometimes a nurse, sometimes a trained child care paraprofessional, visits the homes of new parents, or parents with pre-schoolers, to help them with child rearing. They provide the family with information about services; they impart skills in child rearing; they provide emotional support to new or young parents. The evaluation studies on these programs have shown quite impressive results. Prenatal and early childhood home visitation by nurses can reduce the number of subsequent pregnancies and the use of welfare on the part of low-income, unmarried mothers for up to 15 years after the birth of their first child. But, interestingly, these programs have also been shown to be highly effective at reducing child abuse in those families and, as importantly, reducing the later onset of delinquent and anti-social behavior by the children.8 Now, these programs did not think of themselves as crime prevention programs, but they have had that impact. So, our definition of crime prevention must include those interventions that are designed to principally produce other socially desirable results -- healthier individuals, healthier families, higher educational attainment, decreased dependence on illegal drugs, more attachment to the world of work, etc. -- because these programs, if successful, are likely to also have the effect of reducing crime.
This second point was forcefully presented in a recent report commissioned by the National Institute of Justice, at the request of Congress, and carried out by the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland9. In 1996, Congress required the Attorney General to provide a "comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness" of the over $3 billion spent annually by the Department of Justice in grants to state and local governments. In carrying out this assignment, the University of Maryland decided to adopt this broad definition of prevention -- looking at results, not intentions -- and to review all of the known evaluation reports examining those programs. The result was a massive, landmark report -- over 500 pages, reviewing over 500 program impact evaluations. They organized their inquiry by examining the "domains" in which prevention occurs --- and came up with seven -- communities, families, schools, labor markets, places, police and criminal justice -- and then they reviewed the entire evaluation literature in each of these domains. I recommend this report to you -- both for its rigor and for its originality.
This approach -- one that examines results, not intentions, to understand prevention --also leads to another form of inquiry -- cost-benefit analysis. As you know, this is very difficult research to undertake. The research must make assumption upon assumption, all the while fearing that the entire house of cards constructed in the analysis may tumble down if a major assumption is poorly grounded. For example, how should we measure the benefit of the home nurse visitation program I just mentioned? How can one quantify the healthy life? Yet, for all the inherent weaknesses, the cost-benefit approach is absolutely necessary if one is to bring research about prevention into the public policy arena.
In our field, we celebrate evaluation studies that are rigorously conducted and show positive impact. In part, our celebratory response to findings of program effectiveness must be understood against the backdrop of a history of findings of no impact -- remember, the last generation was raised on the literature of "nothing works" that dominated the field in the mid-1970's. Robert Martinson's often-cited article, "What Works? -- Questions and Answers about Prison Reform," reviewed the most effective means of rehabilitating prison inmates, and found that "with few and isolated exceptions, rehabilitative efforts had no appreciable effect on recidivism," a conclusion that was widely interpreted in scholarly and policy communities as "nothing works."10
But in larger part, our celebratory response to findings of positive impact, particularly in the field of rehabilitation programs, must be understood against the current public mood. There are few public advocates for the notion that criminals are deserving of our attention and our efforts to improve their lives -- so every research finding of positive impact is the equivalent of lighting a candle in the public policy darkness. But we rarely ask the tough next question: what dosage of intervention was required to produce this result? What was the cost for that benefit? And, even more important, what public policy options were available for investing the marginal crime prevention dollar? If a minister, or state, or city council, had one million dollars to spend on crime prevention, what would be the best investment in terms of the crime reduction return? Few researchers are willing to take on this challenge. The RAND Corporation has conducted important and provocative cost benefit analyses that match one prevention policy against another in terms of yield on investment or, in a path-breaking study, comparing the cost benefit of mandatory minimum sentences against treatment in reducing drug consumption. Even fewer communities are willing to adopt this approach to budgeting scarce dollars to reduce crime. I believe firmly that this is an area where the research community must demonstrate leadership and the policy community must demand program accountability for results.
My third point is that we need, desperately, to advance the knowledge base on the effectiveness of these policy interventions. I find it shocking in the United States that we do not subject crime prevention efforts to sufficient rigorous evaluation research. Of the 500 or so evaluations that were reviewed by the University of Maryland, they found that only 79 had been conducted using classic random assignment or comparison groups.11 And a recent review of the research literature conducted by the National Academy of Sciences in its landmark assessment of the effectiveness of interventions in the area of family violence -- including child abuse, spousal abuse, and elder abuse -- found that there were only 114 rigorous evaluative studies completed.12 While the nation spends billions of dollars each year to curb family violence, most of the money supports an array of treatment and intervention efforts that have not been evaluated for their impact and effectiveness.
There are many possible explanations for this reluctance to subject crime prevention programs to rigorous evaluation research. Certainly, we often fault the public and the politicians for their seeming indifference to learning what works in the field of crime control and prevention. Yet I think that we -- all of us in this room -- also bear some responsibility for this lack of empirical basis for our policies. People who administer prevention programs are too often unwilling to allow for the possibility that their program does not make a difference. Police administrators who think that any enforcement of the law is beyond question are not willing to allow for the possibility that a more complex response to crime might be more effective. Those who advocate for drug treatment are often unwilling to allow researchers to study the basic logic of their intervention. And, even when a program is demonstrated to have some level of effectiveness, we are frequently unwilling to engage in a debate over the value of investing a crime prevention dollar in program A versus a more powerful program B. If we are sincere in our view that all prevention efforts -- including enforcement, prisons, rehabilitation, and adolescent development -- should be subjected to rigorous evaluations, then we have to be willing to follow the findings wherever they may lead.
The fourth point I would like to offer requires us to step back from individual programs --even when most broadly defined to include something like home nurse visitation programs -- and to ask a more fundamental question: "What forces create law-abiding behavior?" I think we are living in a period of history that requires us to ask this more fundamental question. We are witnessing record declines in violent crime rates in some, but not all, United States cities. The declines are greatest in the larger cities, and greatest in those that have also experienced downward trends in use of crack cocaine. Some of the declines are nothing short of breath-taking. In New York City, my home, the number of homicides has dropped from 2,245 in 1990 (when New York City started to increase its police department by nearly 20%), to 767 in 1997,13 a 66 percent drop over seven years. On a national level, the level of victimization reported in the crime victims survey is the lowest since 1972, the first time such a survey was conducted.
How are we to understand these drops in crime? Certainly, if we were "program-centric", we would have a very hard time arguing that a large number of highly successful crime prevention and rehabilitation programs combined to produce this result. Changes in crack markets and crack use would apparently explain much of the reduction, but in some cities such as Boston the decline in homicide appears to be more related to changes in juvenile behavior unrelated to crack. More likely, it seems to me, is a hypothesis that states that, once anti-social behavior reached a "tipping point" where communities, young people, criminal justice professionals, educators, police and others involved with community well-being basically said "enough", then a combination of a number of factors --ranging from problem solving, community-oriented policing to maturation of illegal drug markets -- kicked in and, in a short time, the norm structure of a community started to change. Certain behavior was no longer acceptable. And those norms were reinforced by police and community alike.
So, my point is that, ultimately, we must understand crime prevention as being an integral part of the character and personality of a community. We have long known that "strong parental attachments to consistently disciplined children, in watchful and supportive communities are the best vaccine against street crime and violence... Each person's bonds to family, community, school and work create what criminologists call `informal social control,' the pressures to conform to the law that have little to do with the threat of punishment."14 What we do not yet understand adequately is the mix of social policies that strengthen those informal social controls.
Allow me to draw upon some work being conducted in Chicago and funded by the National Institute of Justice, the Mac Arthur Foundation and several other federal research agencies. This research effort, called the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, is the most ambitious study of the relationship between community, crime, delinquency, family and individual development now underway in the United States. At the community level, the Project has surveyed more than 8,700 adult residents in 343 neighborhoods throughout Chicago. In addition, researchers have identified 80 neighborhoods as the focus for a longitudinal cohort study to be conducted over the next eight years. As part of the first wave of this longitudinal study, researchers have conducted interviews with 7,000 children and adolescents and their primary care givers.15
Over the next several years, we will be reaping the rich rewards of this ambitious research project. This past August, the research team, headed by Dr. Felton Earls of the Harvard School of Public Health, published their first findings in Science magazine.16 They reported that the largest predictor of violent crime rates was "collective efficacy" -- a term they used to mean a sense of trust, common values, and cohesion in a neighborhood. They found that there are lower rates of violence in neighborhoods that have a strong sense of community and values, where adults are likely to intervene when children are missing from school or scrawling graffiti. According to Professor Robert Sampson, a co-author of the report, "cohesion, or efficacy, seems to be a shared vision, a fusion of shared willingness of residents to intervene and social trust, a sense of engagement and ownership of public space." According to Dr. Earls, the most important characteristic of "collective efficacy" is a "willingness by residents to intervene in the lives of children." Dr. Earls is referring to a willingness to supervise, or step in, and monitor children in a neighborhood.17
This finding of collective efficacy is important standing alone, but it is doubly important when placed in context. Collective efficacy, when assessing predictors of violence, has an impact OVER AND ABOVE traditional predictors such as race/ethnic composition, poverty and residential instability.
For me, the importance of the Chicago study is that it understands communities as independent forces for social well-being. In other words, communities may be our most powerful crime prevention "program".
At the National Institute of Justice, my colleagues and I are thinking about the implications of this research for our own research strategy -- How would one test the notion of collective efficacy? How would one try to strengthen community infrastructure? How would one build criminal justice responses that have as one of their purposes creation of a stronger community? These are fundamental challenges to the research enterprise.
I think the poverty we must address, now, is not a poverty of program design -- rather we must recognize that we suffer from a poverty of research design. We have insufficient measures, over an insufficient length of time, with insufficient willingness to try more than one intervention at one time. In short, we are not able to conduct research in a way that reflects the complexity --and the potential power -- of real life and real communities. We should not abandon the medical model of evaluation research; on the contrary, we need to geometrically increase our investment in testing research hypotheses using the most rigorous research designs that can be implemented in real world settings. Yet, let's imagine that we could mount all the classic control group experiments that could be designed by the best practitioners and academics in the country, would we have a complete understanding of the broad enterprise of crime prevention that we defined at the outset of this talk? I think not -- so we need another set of tools in our toolbox. We need to ask a different set of questions about prevention -- questions that can only be asked at the community level.
The findings of the Chicago research project also have profound implications for the world of practice. I would like to suggest three. First, the theory of "collective efficacy" provides conceptual support for the need to assess community resiliency as part of a larger community safety initiative. The work of Catalano and Hawkins from the University of Washington, who have developed the "Communities That Care" model for assessing risk and preventive factors at the community level, is particularly important in this regard. Their approach provide communities with a self-assessment tool to look at the assets and deficits of the community infrastructure -- a report card on the social forces that encourage or inhibit crime.
Secondly, the Chicago study provides support for the development of comprehensive, community-wide strategies against crime. Many of you in this room are national and international leaders in this field. You have developed initiatives that ask each sector of society, What can you do to reduce the incidence of crime, or a particular sort of crime. There are illustrative histories of success in this arena. I count the long-term effort to reduce the incidence of domestic violence as a success story. The police, the public health community, feminist organizations, legal scholars and others have combined to accomplish a fundamental shift in our thinking and our practice in this area. I believe that the Australian experience with drink driving represents another success story on comprehensive campaigns, combining public education, criminal justice response, and shifts in cultural attitudes.
Yet, notwithstanding these successes, I am sure you would be the first to acknowledge that this is very, very difficult work. Indeed, Yvonne Korn has entitled her address, "Partnerships: can't live with them, can't live without them", which accurately reflect the real world dilemma of this work. We should recognize that the community strengthening efforts such as "Communities That Care" and comprehensive community efforts such as your drink driving campaign are rare. So, in my view, the Chicago study offers a third challenge to the world of practice. I submit that EVERY crime prevention effort should ask itself, "What are we doing to strengthen community?" This is the core challenge of community policing -- finding ways to strengthen community so that the community is a co-producer of safety. This is the core challenge of what, in the United States, we are calling the "community justice movement". In this area of exciting innovation, we are watching as community courts, neighborhood-based public defenders, community prosecutors and community corrections are asking themselves, "How would we carry out our work differently if we seriously opened up our processes to involvement and partnership with the community? How can we use the inherent strengths of the community to achieve more just outcomes?" This is the core challenge of the restorative justice innovation -- at the diversionary conference I attended last night with Prof. John Braithwaite in Canberra, the real work underway was to build upon the strength of family bonds and community ties to achieve a just and lasting result.
I think this is the core challenge facing the work of crime prevention as well. Every program represented in this room has the opportunity to ask itself, "Have we built upon the strengths of the community, and have we left the community stronger that it was before?" To meet this challenge, we need to look beyond our walls, to see assets rather than deficits in others and in communities, to share power to achieve the greater good, and to serve the people with whom we are in community.
I wish you every success in your important work and thank you again for the invitation to learn from your conference.
- Zimring, Franklin & Gordon Hawkins. 1997. "Lethal Violence and the Overreach of American Imprisonment." NIJ Research Report.
- Ibid.
- Mayhew, Pat & Jan van Dijk. 1997. Criminal Victimization in Eleven Industrialized Countries. Germany: WODC.
- Age-Specific Arrest Rates and Race-Specific Arrest Rates for Selected Offenses.1965- 1992. Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
- Supplementary Homicide Report. 1965-1992. Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
- Blumstein, Alfred. 1995. "Violence by Young People: Why the Deadly Nexus?" National Institute of Justice Journal. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
- At-Risk and Delinquent Youth: Multiple Federal Programs Raise Efficiency Questions.1995 U.S. General Accounting Office. Washington, DC.
- Olds, David L., John Eckenrode, Charles R.Henderson, Harriet Kitzman, Jane Powers, Robert Cole, Kimberly Sidora, Pamela Morris, Lisa Petitt, and Dennis Luckey. 1997. "Long-term Effects of Home Visitation on Maternal Life Course and Child Abuse and Neglect." JAMA, Vol.278, No.8. American Medical Association.
- University of Maryland, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. 1997. Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's Promising. Office of Justice Research Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.
- Martinson, Robert. 1974. "What Works? -- Questions and Answers about Prison Reform." The Public Interest. Vol.10: pages 22-54.
- University of Maryland, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. 1997. Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's Promising. Office of Justice Research Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.
- National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences. 1998. Violence in Families: Assessing Prevention and Treatment Programs. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
- New York Police Department. 1997. Preliminary Homicide Report. New York.
- University of Maryland, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. 1997. Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn't, What's Promising. Office of Justice Research Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.
- Earls, Felton J. & Christy A. Visher. 1997. "Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods: A Research Update." National Institute Research In Brief. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.
- Sampson, Robert & Stephen Raudenbush & Felton Earls. 1997. "Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy." Science, Vol.277. American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- Butterfield, Fox. "Study Links Rate of Violence to Cohesion in Community." New York Times. August 17, 1997.


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With Israeli elections just over a week away, parties are pulling out all the stops to grab attention and show who they are. However, one party ad, featuring a model stripping down to her skivvies, may have revealed a bit too much.
The Central Elections Committee was petitioned Sunday to ban a television ad run by the Calcala (Economy) party, which the Coalition against Racism in Israel claimed hurts the status of women and is unworthy of televised campaign advertisements.
Committee chairman Elyakim Rubenstein said that the ad was vulgar and in poor taste, but he refused to ban it, saying that in this day and age, there is nothing in the commercial that is not already easily accessible to the public.
Nevertheless, the Calcala party announced on Sunday that they would not air the commercial anymore, as they now understand that many people, particularly women and the ultra-Orthodox, found it offensive.
The ad features a young woman, who describes herself as "Lynn," a high school graduate who served in the IDF and then decided to pursue an academic degree.
"Lynn" proceeds to describe how hard it is to survive in Israel economically, and lists all of the things that Israeli citizens must pay — income tax, value added tax, national health insurance, housing, electricity, and so on. For each item she mentions, she removes an article of clothing, until she is down to her bra and panties.
As her bra comes off, she is covered by a banner that reads "The government is stripping us!"
The party founders, brothers Danny and Benny Goldstein, then come out fully dressed and block the view of "Lynn."
"Do we have to get to this situation in order for you to listen to us," they ask.
They promise that their party will not allow the government to "undress" you.
The Calcala party, running on an economic reform platform, is seen as a long shot to enter the Knesset. The faction is headed by defected Kadima MK Yulia Shamalov Berkovich.


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airing my dirty laundry… and clean laundry [day 235]
I promised you dirty laundry, so here it is. There's actually more of it, but this is my basket. My kids have one upstairs too. So why an I showing you this? I have no idea, other than it seemed … Continue reading
Posted in excessable, the challenge, thrift store Tagged 1 month, 1st, 25 pieces, 2nd, 50%, 70's, after, airing, airing dirty laundry, babydoll, basic, basics, basket, before, black, blank canvas, box, caps, challenge, cheap, clean, closet, clothes, clothing, colorful, colors, comfort, comfortable, coordinate, crap, crazy, cute, day 235, dirty, donate, downsize, drawers, dress up, dressy, expensive, experiments, fashion, fat, finalist, formal, fun, good deal, group, half sleeves, hats, heels, hoodies, in style, inexpensive, jeans, knit long sleeve, large, laundry, learned, lessons, lightweight, little black dress, lond black dress, love, lucky brand, macys, marshalls, match, medium, mind over matter, name-brand, not enough, old navy, organized, out of style, outgrown, overweight, pants, pass, piece, pieces, plastic tote, purge, reduce, results, retail, retro, rid, sacrifice, same, second thoughts, shirts, shoes, short sleeve, size, skirts, small, stuff, style, stylish, suit, sweatshirts, t-shirts, the clothing experiment, thrift store, tj maxx, too many, tops, trendy, uncovered, value, walk-in closet, wardrobe, we the free, wear, wear it, weed out 1 Comment


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"Transition" is a word that holds great meaning for Adrien Lawyer. In the transgender community, the word connotes not only a physical change but an emotional and even spiritual metamorphosis. It's about transitioning from a body that makes a person feel like an outsider to one that feels like home. It's about self-love.
So when Lawyer uses the word "transition" to describe the state of his brainchild, the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico, it's with intention. For three years, he's cobbled together an organization to support, inform and lend a voice to the transgender community.
The center existed primarily online, with the exception of outreach events and support groups hosted in rented spaces. But with nonprofit status under its belt and grant money from several state agencies and foundations, TRC has secured itself an address. And that address changes everything.
The organization will continue to offer the services it's provided in the past, such as physician and therapist referrals, educational materials, and support groups. But with the new space at 4100 Silver SE, it can also provide things that simply weren't possible without a physical location. Thanks to donations, the center has a computer lab, a kitchen, a lending library and a closet, and each is more significant than it may seem.
For transgender people who don't have a computer at home, public libraries are often the only places where they access the Internet. But "some trans stuff gets blocked at libraries," says Lawyer, such as surgical pictures. Perhaps even more importantly, people can feel uncomfortable researching personal issues in a public place. TRC lets people use its computers to look at whatever they want in a secure, nonjudgmental environment. Lawyer also wants to use the lab to teach classes for job-seekers.
In a similar vein, the organization's lending library stocks books that are transgender-specific in addition to standard fiction and nonfiction. And in the kitchen, people can grab a snack, or even a meal. Since many of the people TRC works with are homeless, it provides an opportunity for them to "get off the streets, get a snack and relax," Lawyer says. The closet is packed with items that can be tricky to find or expensive, like especially small men's shoes, large women's shoes, chest binders and wigs. "We tell people to take what they like."
But as the center grows, Lawyer says greater needs will emerge. It's a theme that's followed the organization's trajectory, since the early days when Lawyer simply wanted to create a support system for the transgender community so people would know they weren't alone. "The more I peeled back the lid, the bigger it got," he says. "It was like Pandora's box." The most pressing need he sees now is for a safe house or shelter where homeless transgender folks can find a night or two of solace.
As Lawyer tries to plan for the future while still settling into his new space, he recognizes the process as one that's mirrored his life. "This is such a big transition for our agency. Life is one great big transition," he says. "Being able to change and adapt is how you survive and grow."


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Wall Street Journal Suggests Snowden Gave China Its 'Great Cannon' Software... Based On Pure Random Speculation
from the journalism! deptThere's been lots of talk lately about China's "Great Cannon" -- the DDoS tool that China used to launch a massive attack on GitHub a few weeks ago. Much of the research on this tool was provided by Citizen Lab. That report is great and interesting. And then, the Wall Street Journal -- still a respected news source -- jumps in to speculate wildly based on nothing in particular, that Ed Snowden gave China NSA source code to build the Great Cannon.
Edward Snowden sabotaged the intelligence capabilities of the U.S. and its allies, and now we learn he may have given the Chinese regime a weapon to spread Internet censorship across the planet. The Great Firewall, the unofficial name for a suite of blocking tools, stops Chinese citizens from accessing outside information. In the past few weeks Beijing has deployed a new offensive capability, dubbed the Great Cannon.First of all, Snowden didn't "sabotage" any intelligence capabilities at all. He revealed to journalists how the NSA and its partners were abusing certain powers, likely breaking the law. That's not "sabotage." Second, the "we learn" is not based on anything the WSJ's nameless author of the opinion piece actually "learned." It's based on wild speculation by stringing some misleading and unrelated ideas together. So we're already off to an inauspicious start to the piece.
According to a report from the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, the Great Cannon is similar to Quantum, a tool developed by the U.S. to track potential terrorists and criminals abroad. Snowden, a former system administrator for the U.S. National Security Agency, revealed the existence of Quantum for the first time in 2013 when he fled to Hong Kong and then Moscow.Loose connection #1.
Did Snowden give the Chinese the code for the Great Cannon? He denies sharing anything with foreign governments. But then he's an admitted liar, and we don't know what the Chinese and Russian spy services have been able to copy from what he stole. In any event he alerted them to a weakness that could be exploited.Wait, what? How is he "an admitted liar?" That seems like a stretch already, and seems like the kind of line you'd find in a conspiracy website, not the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Second, the idea that the Chinese didn't already recognize how to do online attacks via such methods until Snowden revealed it seems especially questionable. Among the other things that Snowden revealed: the NSA knows that the Chinese are among the most sophisticated in building tools for mounting online attacks. The idea that they would be totally ignorant of methods like these until Snowden's revelations came out seems difficult to believe.
A South China Morning Post report that the Great Cannon has been under development for about a year is suggestive. This means China's hacking bureaucracy geared up to produce this new product soon after the Snowden leaks.Loose connection #2. Also, notice that the WSJ doesn't actually link to the SCMP story, so we'll do that for you. It actually doesn't say it was in development for a year. It says that it's "been in operation for about one year." I guess the timing still sorta works if you're making loose connections, but it seems like a pretty big leap to argue that's somehow evidence that Snowden gave the info to the Chinese during his brief stay in Hong Kong.
It also means that in the name of "transparency," Snowden and his media accomplices may have empowered one of the world's worst censors.Uh, no, it doesn't. If the WSJ's editorial board knew the first thing about technology, they'd know that it didn't require Ed Snowden to teach the Chinese how to build a giant DDoS machine.
This is another example of how the Western left fails to distinguish between the secrecy and surveillance required by democracies to preserve freedom and that used by dictators to quash it.Huh? That sentence doesn't even make sense.
Either way, as one commenter noted, you'd think that the WSJ might realize that even if China modeled the Great Cannon on the NSA's Quantum, it really says something that we're building tools that can be used to censor the internet. And they should realize that's a problem. Instead, they try to blame the whole thing on Snowden, because... well, actually not for any actual reason that I can see -- just pure speculation. That's the kind of thing we'd expect to see on conspiracy theory websites. Not the Wall Street Journal.
Filed Under: china, ddos, ed snowden, great cannon, nsa, quantum, rumors, speculation
Companies: wall street journal


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Maryville College is proud of its commitment to faith and learning. In order to foster growth in the spiritual lives of students outside of the classroom, the Center for Campus Ministries serves as a host and resource to several student religious groups on campus. These groups are student led, and they cover a large spectrum of religious thought and tradition. For more information about any of these student programs, you can stop by the Samuel Tyndale Wilson Center for Campus Ministry, or call us at 865-981-8299.
Progressive Christian Community
If Christian faith is important to you, but you wonder how it fits within our contemporary world, and if you want a community with which to share your journey, PCC may be for you! We as the PCC desire to build a community where questioning and struggling with faith is not only accepted but also encouraged. We hope to be a community of followers who can tackle the hard questions of faith and know that the answers aren't always easy or clear. Since this group affirms ambiguity and values uncertainty, it doesn't try to provide answers for age-old questions. Rather, this group is trying to articulate thoughtful questions inside of the reality of faith. If you are looking for simple answers, we might not be for you (but come anyways). If, like Jacob, you are wrestling with God, then we have one heck of a wrestling arena (wear your spandex). Join us at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday nights in the Center for Campus Ministry.
Worship Committee
The Worship Committee is a group of students who work together to plan various chapel services at Maryville College. This group, comprised of scholarship students and other students interested in faith on campus, chooses a chapel theme each year and invites campus and community members to speak. The group works on publicizing the chapel program and helps lead liturgy in worship. The worship committee also provides leadership for special services, such as the Ash Wednesday Service, Maundy Thursday Service, Homecoming Memorial Service, and Family Weekend Worship. If you are interested in joining the Worship Committee, please stop by the Center for Campus Ministry and talk with us.
Catholic Student Association
The Catholic Student Association (CSA) is a vibrant group of Catholic students (and friends!) who meet regularly to discuss matters of faith. Their purpose is to promote the teachings of the Catholic church through service work, spiritual gathering, and involvement in Maryville College's campus community.
FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes)
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is a religious organization that focuses on ministry through athletics. The club is not limited to athletes, but emphasizes their influence and leadership through Jesus Christ and uses this influence and leadership to minister to all students. There are 8 students who make up the leadership team in this club and they include athletes and non athletes. Meetings normally consist of games, live music, and speakers who offer a wide range of content including personal stories to Bible lessons. The students involved in FCA are both athletes and non athletes, Christian and non believers, friends, and strangers. Everyone is welcome in this club and anyone who is interested should come to the Orange room (in Cooper Athletic Center) at 9:00 p.m. every Tuesday.
Intervarsity Christian Fellowship
In response to God's love, grace and truth:
The Purpose of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA is to establish and advance at colleges and universities witnessing communities of students and faculty who follow Jesus as Savior and Lord: growing in love for God, God's Word, God's people of every ethnicity and culture and God\'s purposes in the world. Our Vision is to see students and faculty transformed, campuses renewed, and world changers developed. We meet at 7:30 p.m. every Thursday in Bartlett 101 for worship and throughout the week at different times and locations for small groups.
Voices of Praise
Voices of Praise is a singing group comprised of young people representing all facets of the schools population. The group was started to give minorities pride in an aspect of their culture, but it has grown beyond the black and white to the spiritual renewing and strengthening that we all get from being a part of this cup of Christ. We were made to praise. Voices of Praise meets at 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays in the Clayton Center for the Arts Choir Room 105B.


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Dale Carnegie Executive Immersion Program Tailored for Dell Technologies Employees only (including all 7 companies – Dell, EMC, VMWare, Pivotal, RSA, Secureworks and virtustream)
Tailored for Dell with executive focus, this program develops: -Executive Presence -Skills to Influence other to Action -Transforming Communication Styles -Building Culture Through Praise -Inspirational Leadership -Thrive During Uncertainty -Less Tactical more high-level inspirational leadership -Grow Willing Leaders with Fresh Eyes -Willing to take Calculated Risks -Challenges Status Quo -Passionate, Presents and Communicates Well
Our research has shown that out of 107 graduates at different levels of the organization, 64 were promoted. Best yet, 40% of the promotions happened within 12 months of graduation from our core programs.
MSW ASR Research performed an independent study and found Dale Carnegie Course graduates are more likely to be engaged than the general business population.


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Happy New Year! So far, 2013 brings shiny new beading opportunities! I will be teaching a special bead embroidery workshop later this month at Boston Bead Company in Salem, MA . We will be making a new beaded Corgi dog pin using Czech size 11 seed beads & Delicas.
The workshop will take place on Sunday, January 27, 2013 from 10am-3pm. Skill level is INTERMEDIATE, so any prior embroidery/ needlework experience you may have had will be helpful. Class size is limited to 6 – you may sign up HERE. Boston Bead Company is located at 10 Front Street, Salem, MA 01970. Hope to see you there! 🙂


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Access DNS hosting
Once you add DNS Hosting for your domain, you can access the zone file to add, edit or delete DNS records.
- Log in to your GoDaddy account.
- If you aren't automatically directed there, make sure to select the My Products tab:
- Click Manage All next to Domains:
- From the top menu, click the DNS tab and select Manage Zones.
- Enter your domain name in the search box, then select the domain from the drop-down options.
- View and edit your zone file records as needed.
More info
- You can transfer your domain name to keep everything in one account.


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Spinal-cord injuries in Canada
• Approximately 86,000 Canadians are living with a spinal cord injury, with 4,300 new cases each year.
• One in three people in Canada will be disabled for three or more months before the age of 65.
• Canadians with a spinal cord injury are re-hospitalized 2.6 times more often than the average Canadian. They also require three times more contact with a physician and 30 times more hours of home care service.
• People with a spinal cord injury have a life expectancy of 15 to 30 fewer years than the average Canadian.
• The financial care requirements over a lifetime for someone with a spinal cord injury can range from $1.6 to $3 million, depending on the level of paralysis.
• The economic cost of traumatic spinal cord injury is estimated at $3.6 billion a year in Canada.
• More than 60 per cent of people living with a spinal cord injury are unemployed.
• Rick Hansen's original tour 25 years ago raised $26 million, which has been leveraged into $245 million in direct investments.
• The Rick Hansen Foundation supports numerous projects and programs, such as the Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, and has funded organizations like the Canadian Paraplegic Association and the Neil Squire Foundation, which offer vital assistance to those living with spinal cord injuries and to their families.
• The foundation has also worked with schools, municipalities and community groups to create 47 accessible playgrounds in B.C., while the Rick Hansen School Program provides teaching tools to more than 1,000 Canadian schools.
• The foundation also supports national and provincial wheelchair sports, providing funding to help deliver programs, train coaches and athletes, and expand participation across the country.
• Donations can be made at RickHansen.com
Sources: Statistics Canada, Rick Hansen Foundation


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Robin Roberts is taking it easy.
The Good Morning America cohost is awake and resting after undergoing a bone marrow transplant earlier today in New York City, according to Entertainment Tonight.
Robin Roberts tapes heartfelt video message
U.S. & World
Stories that affect your life across the U.S. and around the world.
Roberts' rep tells ET that "it will be quite a while before she regains her strength," but shares that many of her GMA friends have already gone to visit her.
"This journey is as much about the mind as it is the body," the 51-year-old said in a video message. "Thoughts are so powerful. You've got to change the way you think in order to change the way you feel. And let me just say this lastly, I feel the love and I thank you for it. Thank you."
Roberts, who just completed eight days of chemotherapy, had the transplant to treat a rare blood disorder, myelodysplastic syndrome.


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Meat-free moms-to-be
You don't have to eat meat to give your baby what he or she needs for healthy development. You just need to pay attention to what you're eating and be smart about planning your pregnancy diet. (Actually, that's what all pregnant women should do!)
If you're vegetarian, follow the guidelines for a healthy pregnancy diet, and also make sure you get enough:
- Protein from beans, nuts, soy, dairy products, and eggs
- Calcium from milk products, calcium-fortified soy milk, and dark-green vegetables
- Zinc from soy foods, milk, yogurt, whole grains, beans, and lentils
- Iron from beans and lentils
- Vitamin D from milk and dairy products, and cereals and soy milk fortified with vitamin D
- Vitamin B12 from animal products, like milk and eggs
If you're vegan and don't eat any animal-based foods, be sure to take your daily prenatal vitamin. Follow the same guidelines as vegetarians, but skip the eggs and dairy and be sure to:
- Eat a variety of plant-based proteins
- Eat plenty of calcium-fortified foods
- Consider taking a vitamin B12 supplement
Let us know if you're vegetarian or vegan. We may encourage you to talk with one of our nutritionists to make sure that you get all of the nutrients your baby needs during your pregnancy.
Find healthy meal-planning ideas and recipes at Kaiser Permanente's Food for Health blog.


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Legislation would allow ads on Indiana school buses
Bus ads would give school districts revenue without increasing taxes
Big yellow school buses could become rolling billboards if a bill approved by the Indiana Senate makes it all the way through the General Assembly.
School buses would be allowed to carry ads in the Indianapolis neighborhoods of Franklin Township and Beech Grove and in Zionsville, a small community just northwest of Indianapolis, as part of a pilot program.
Franklin Township schools drew the rage of parents when it outsourced transportation to a company that charged for bus rides. The plan, which led to serpentine waiting lines of cars belonging to parents who refused to pay the charge, was later dropped.
The idea of bus advertisements is to give cash-strapped school districts a way to raise revenue without increasing taxes. Several districts already sell advertising on their high school stadiums.
"There's no interest by the public to do anything about raising property taxes," Sen. Patricia Miller, who sponsored the plan, told The Indianapolis Star (http://indy.st/NMhT3l ).
Schools and other local taxing units have seen their capacity to raise revenue held back by tax caps that limit property taxes to 1 percent of a home's assessed value.
But an official with a bus drivers group said ads on school buses could endanger students.
"The guy reading that sign is not going to be paying attention to what that bus is doing," said Jim Howard, vice president of the Indiana State School Bus Drivers Association, which represents about 400 drivers. "Is it worth the risk?"
The Zionsville district's chief financial officer says that ads on its 74 buses could raise up to $60,000 in the first year.
"We've done our homework, and we don't think safety is an issue," Mike Shafer said. "We are hoping we can get a good selection of advertisers for this pilot project."
Wayne Saunders, transportation director for Beech Grove Schools, said only limited space would be allowed for advertising.
The Franklin Township district tried to reduce its financial losses by eliminating free bus service for the 2011-2012 school year because a tax referendum failed. In 2012, lawmakers made it illegal for Franklin Township and other districts to stop providing bus service, but allowed them to refinance their debt.
The bus advertisement measure passed the Senate 49-0 as part of an amendment to another bill, and now goes back to the House, which can either agree with the changes or send the bill to a conference committee.


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Mustad hoof knives
Sharpness and reliability; for a positive cutting experience
Mustad Hoof Knives are available in 5 different types. Each type has a blade with a different shape. Standard blade, short blade, curved blade, and wide blade are available in right hand and left hand versions. The program also contains a double-sided blade. All the knives are made in Sweden from high quality steel and stand out because of their solid and long lasting cutting geometrics. The ergonomically shaped wooden handles have a comfortable grip and enable a good transmission of power to the blade.
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Good to know
- solid and long lasting cutting geometry
- 5 different blade types
- ergonomically shaped wooden handle
- oil the blade when the knife is not used for a long time
Jörgen Nordqvist, farrier in Sweden
I can't stand to see horses with movement problems, knowing this could be prevented
Age is no barrier when you love what you are doing
Carl O'Dwyer - Victorian, Australia FarrierRead story


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- Introduction
- A General Caution on STIs
- The Most Notable Research to Date
- Using an STI to Reinvigorate the Immune Response
- Using an STI to Help People With Treatment Fatigue
- Using an STI Before Starting Third-Line Therapy
- Using an STI to Reduce the Costs and Side Effects of Therapy
- A Final Word on STIs
The reasons that someone may want to take a structured treatment interruption (STI) can vary from treatment fatigue to struggling with adherence to avoid side effects. Various STIs have been studied since the late 1990s with mixed results. While significant questions still remain, taken as a whole STI research suggests that their risks greatly outweigh their possible benefits. This publication reviews various STI strategies.
A General Caution on STIs
Taking an STI involves going off HIV therapy for a period of time in a strategic way. This is usually paired with more frequent lab and health monitoring. Taking an STI is considered experimental since there are no conclusive data to recommend it as standard care.
Given the types of STIs presented in this publication, should you wish to try one, you should only do so with the full knowledge and support of your doctor(s) who are experienced with them. Most STIs are generally unsafe and some may only be safe for certain people.
Someone who takes an STI may face the typical symptoms seen in acute infection. These can occur within the first few weeks after starting an STI. Symptoms are flu-like in nature and can include fever, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes and rash.
It's important to check CD4 counts and HIV levels before and after starting an STI and resume HIV therapy according to the Federal Guidelines, as well as prevent opportunistic infections (OIs). For more information, read Project Inform's publications, Strategies for First Line HIV Therapy, Strategies for Third Line HIV Therapy and Strategies for Managing Opportunistic Infections.
The Most Notable Research to Date
The most notable research to date on STIs comes from the SMART study. It compared two strategies in nearly 6,000 people worldwide: continuous treatment vs. regularly interrupted treatment guided by CD4 counts. The researchers had expected that by keeping people off medicines for periods of time, there would be lower rates of long-term problems like heart disease, which have been linked to HIV drugs.
The opposite was true. SMART was stopped early when the data showed that people who interrupted treatment had higher rates of illness and death. This finding was quite unexpected. Some believe these results are so bad that STIs have been proven to be risky and should be avoided in most cases. Others feel that SMART raises some concerns, but reasons still remain to study other kinds of STIs.
SMART isn't the only study to highlight the dangers of STIs. Others -- like PART, DART and TRIVICAN -- have shown similar results. However, a recent Swiss study found that STIs may be safe for people who started HIV treatment with higher CD4 counts.
Using an STI to Reinvigorate the Immune Response
Some observations suggest that HIV disease progression may be due in part to the loss of a potent type of immune cell, called an HIV-specific cytotoxic lymphocyte (CTL). These cells seek out and destroy HIV-infected cells. Some findings indicate that some long-term non-progressors -- people who stay well for many years without HIV therapy -- maintain their CTLs while those who progress more rapidly do not.
Although not all research supports the loss of CTLs as a cause for disease progression, several studies were planned or started. These included giving treatment within the first few weeks or months after infection (acute infection) followed by an STI as well as STIs taken with therapeutic vaccines to enhance a person's immune response against HIV.
Ultimately, the goal of this type of STI is to preserve and enhance the body's natural immune responses in early HIV infection. In theory, this would help a person's immune system to better control HIV on its own for longer, and perhaps indefinitely, without therapy. For those with established HIV infection, the goal is to enhance or restore their immune responses, hopefully doing better in the long-term.
By starting and stopping therapy at regular intervals, it was hoped that with each STI the immune system would become more able to control HIV on its own. This is sometimes called auto-immunization, when enhancing a person's exposure to HIV in a controlled manner can create a more potent and effective response against it.
However, the results of this research were the opposite of what was expected. People living with HIV the longest were actually more likely to have broader and more potent CTL increases. Those who had started therapy just before or after acute infection had fairly weak responses with CTLs. The CTLs were boosted somewhat during the STI but then decreased back to lower levels after restarting treatment. Similar results were found in several other studies in people with long-term infection.
Several studies combined STIs with immune therapies, like IL-2 (Interleukin-2) or therapeutic vaccines. The hope here is that these therapies, when used with an STI, would provide the needed "lift" to coordinate a stronger immune response to HIV. The results are not promising. Therefore, people who hope to "boost" their immune systems should not look to STIs as a proven treatment.
Using an STI to Help People With Treatment Fatigue
Simply put, treatment fatigue is when a person is "tired" of taking HIV medicines. This could be due to physical and/or emotional tiredness. For people who wish to stop their therapy for this reason, the data are somewhat conflicting. Various results show that some people can take a break without developing drug resistance, treatment failure or disease progression.
Several factors can help predict when a person may have a poorer outcome. These are:
- low CD4 count before starting therapy (below 200),
- high HIV level before starting therapy (above 55,000),
- poor control of virus while on therapy or other signs of drug resistance, and
- history of opportunistic infections (OIs).
There's a significant difference between studies looking at a single STI than several of them. Numerous studies used CD4 counts and HIV levels as a guide for when to restart therapy after one STI. Nearly all were done in people who had reached undetectable HIV levels in the last 12 months or longer and CD4 counts above 350 in the last six months.
In most studies, at least 1 in 3 of the volunteers could stay off therapy for at least one year. The average time off therapy for the others ranged from 8-12 weeks. However, it should be noted that people who interrupted their treatment had large drops in their CD4 counts (on average dropping 50%). These decreases could be dangerous for people whose counts drop below 200, especially without proper preventive medicine for OIs.
Also, most studies were unable to consistently measure meaningful improvements in cholesterol and triglycerides in people on STIs. Dropout rates also tended to be higher among those on STIs. This indicates that STIs may actually be more difficult to manage than taking pills every day.
For people who wish to take a break from therapy because of treatment fatigue, certain guidelines can be followed. Because of higher risks for disease progression and OIs, careful monitoring by your doctor is critical during this time. People should check their health care programs (private and public) to ensure that the cost of additional lab tests would be covered if needed.
Testing your HIV level and CD4 count should be done before the STI and three months after it, if not sooner. You and your doctor should decide beforehand what factors would lead you to resume therapy. At a minimum, most people would recommend using the Federal Guidelines as a guide to restart therapy.
Also, drug resistance testing should be conducted when HIV levels are at their highest to determine whether a person should change to a new regimen when and if they resume treatment.
If your CD4 count was ever below 200, or you ever had an OI, it's risky to take an STI to deal with treatment fatigue. People taking an STI usually see their CD4 counts fall fairly quickly to pre-treatment levels.
Some data show it may be safe for people who started therapy early in their infection to go off treatment safely. Swiss researchers looked at a group of people who began taking HIV drugs when their CD4 counts were over 500. These people had the option to stop or continue their HIV treatment. The researchers found no evidence of harm in the group of people who stopped treatment.
Other recent research suggests the opposite. An analysis from SMART found that people who restarted their HIV meds when the study was stopped continued to have higher rates of heart, liver and kidney problems compared to those on continuous treatment.
People who started HIV treatment with higher CD4 counts are the most likely to be able to stop HIV therapy safely. On average, roughly one-third to one-half of people treated early in their disease who participated in STI research have been able to stay off treatment for months. Some were able to control their HIV levels during the first STI; others needed two or three. For people who started HIV treatment somewhat later, the results have been less promising.
Using an STI Before Starting Third-Line Therapy
When a person tries to construct a new regimen which may contain drugs that had failed before, the regimen is often referred to as third line or salvage therapy. Because salvage also means "to save", some people call salvage regimens rescue therapy. In this publication, third line therapy describes a new regimen that typically contains four or more HIV drugs, some of which a person may be resistant to.
The theory behind using STIs in this way is to increase HIV's response to treatments that it had become resistant to. Studies conducted in the early days of HIV therapy found that when a person goes off therapy to which HIV has become resistant, the new virus will rapidly revert to what is called wild-type. Wild-type HIV is the strain that reproduces most easily and responds to HIV therapy. The earlier studies found that when wild-type HIV takes over as the dominant form in the body, a drug that had stopped working could sometimes regain some of its potency.
For this reason, several studies looked at how STIs impact third line therapy. A Barcelona study found that a three-month STI before starting third line therapy did not provide any advantage. The French gigaHAART study, using a shorter interruption, showed that people taking an STI had larger reductions in HIV when they started their next regimen than those who started their next regimen without an STI.
San Francisco researchers conducted a similar study using a four-month STI before starting salvage therapy to others who started their third line regimens immediately. In contrast to the French study, these results showed no benefits in viral response to treatment in those who were on the STI. In fact, people were more likely to develop an OI or die.
Using an STI to Reduce the Costs and Side Effects of Therapy
Another form of STI studied was one designed mainly to cut the time a person spent on treatment. This was the basis for SMART, and several other studies. As mentioned, SMART found higher rates of heart and other problems, and importantly poorer quality of life for people on STIs. Another study, where volunteers went off and on therapy every 14 days, resulted in some of them developing drug-resistant virus and losing control of their HIV levels.
Another small study, this time with cycles of seven days off and seven days on therapy, resulted in fewer side effects and better quality of life for people on STIs than those on continued therapy. As well, their HIV levels were well controlled. However, a similar study in Thailand conflicted with these results, so it's impossible to state for certain whether STIs of this type work.
A Final Word on STIs
It's fair to say that the trend in research has been solidly against STIs for some time now. While it might be safe for people who began their HIV treatment with high CD4 counts, for most people the research suggest the risks of STIs probably outweigh their benefits.
Some have called for an outright halt to all STI research. Project Inform does not share this belief. The burdens of lifelong treatment are significant, as is the challenge of adherence. If safer ways of managing STIs can be developed, they should be studied.
We also more clearly understand the conditions when taking these treatment breaks can result in problems. However, there simply aren't enough data yet to say that any study will benefit those attempting an STI. Still, there are reasons to remain hopeful and to examine every piece of new information as the possible thread that will lead us one day to a cure.


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Another Project X? 21 & Over (From The Writers Of The Hangover) [Movie Trailer]
"The night before his big medical school exam, a promising student celebrates his 21st birthday with his two best friends"
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MINNEAPOLIS—More than 15,000 fans walked into Target Center on Sunday night, hoping that the Minnesota Lynx could give them a little relief from the sports abyss the Twin Cities sit in at the moment.
They waved white pom-poms and hollered at the top of their lungs, and Rebekkah Brunson and Co. made sure they didn't go home disappointed.
Brunson had 26 points and 11 rebounds and Seimone Augustus added 22 points to lead the Lynx to an 88-74 victory over the Atlanta Dream in Game 1 of the WNBA finals.
"It was amazing," Brunson said of the charged-up atmosphere. "The city's been excited about this team from the beginning of the season and everybody keeps jumping on and jumping on and we love it. We love the fact we can come in here and play in front of a crowd like this."
Lindsay Whalen added 15 points and six assists and the Lynx turned a close game into a runaway with a 13-0 run to open the fourth quarter. Taj McWilliams-Franklin added eight points and 10 boards while battling an illness.
Angel McCoughtry scored 19 of her 33 points in the third quarter and Lindsey Harding scored 20 points for the Dream.
Atlanta led by 12 points midway through the second quarter, but the Lynx kept them off the board for the first 4:34 of the fourth quarter to take control. With starting center Erika de Souza missing the game while playing for Brazil in an Olympic qualifying tournament, the Dream were outrebounded 40-28 and outscored in the paint 52-30.
"Look at the rebounds," Harding said. "We needed her."
De Souza will be back for Game 2 of the best-of-five series, which is Wednesday night in Minneapolis.
For those who say the women's game lacks everything that makes the sport great—athleticism, shot-making and competitive fire—Game 1 will not help them make their case.
Maya Moore's sensational reverse layup, a scoop shot that started from clear on the other side of the rim, got the Lynx started on a third-quarter surge that got them back into the game. Brunson finished a three-point play and Augustus's no-look pass was finished by Whalen's reverse layup to cap a 9-0 run that gave them a 51-49 lead.
"We've got some athletes up in here!" Brunson boasted.
On the other end, McCoughtry was simply unstoppable, hitting a incredible array of jumpers from odd angles all over the floor, blocking shots and forcing steals to keep her team from faltering. She scored all but four of Atlanta's 23 points in the third and the game was tied at 62 heading into the fourth.
Whalen started the deciding surge with a three-point play and a shooter's roll jumper and the Lynx turned up the pressure on the defensive end to get two fast break layups to take a 75-62 lead with 5:45 to play.
"We knew our run would come at some point," Whalen said.
The Lynx blocked a WNBA finals record 11 shots and held Atlanta to 37 percent shooting in their first finals game in franchise history.
"We couldn't find the rim for about four minutes," Dream coach Marynell Meadors said. "And everything we did resulted in points for Minnesota."
After 12 largely anonymous and often wretched seasons of existence, the Lynx finally broke through this year in a major way. With Augustus healthy for the first time in three years and Moore coming from UConn with the No. 1 overall pick, the Lynx blew the doors off the rest of the league, finishing 27-7, six games better than the second-best team.
The Twins and Timberwolves both finished in last place and the Vikings are off to an 0-4 start, leaving Minnesota's sporting public desperate for someone to cheer for.
The fired-up crowd of 15,258—the second-largest in franchise history—was treated to a nerve-racking start.
The Dream just seemed a step quicker than the Lynx in the early going, with Harding running circles around Whalen and the rest of the Lynx in the first 13 minutes. They forced six turnovers and Harding hit two 3s as they jumped out to a 29-17 lead early in the second quarter.
The Dream are playing in the finals for the second year in a row after losing to Seattle last year. Not bad for a franchise that just started four years ago. They dispatched top-seeded Indiana in the Eastern Conference finals to get here, winning on the road in Game 3 to advance.
"The crowd energizes them and it just weighs you down," McCoughtry said. "It's good to know that we were the ones that kind of messed ourselves up. That's a good thing for us because we can adjust that."
Follow Jon Krawczynski on Twitter: http:http://www.twitter.com/APkrawczynski.


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"The information ministry has scrapped the licence of a satellite station for violating the terms of the licence and after failing to meet a deadline to rectify its situation in line with the law," the ministry said, quoted by the official KUNA news agency.
Al-Youm chairman Ahmad Al-Jabr confirmed to AFP via an SMS text message that the satellite channel had received orders to shut, and the station went off the air immediately.
Mohammad al-Daas, general manager of the channel which was established more than a year ago, said it would challenge the decision in court.
"Al-Youm channel has received a letter from the information minister scrapping the station's licence with immediate effect. The station will seek recourse in court against this unfair decision," Daas said on Twitter.
The station has broadcast programmes sympathetic with the opposition.
It interviewed many leading opposition figures in the run-up to a December 1 parliamentary election, and after the results were announced.
The Islamist, nationalist and liberal opposition, angry over an amended electoral law, has since been staging protests almost every night to demand the dissolution of the parliament.
On many occasions, the demonstrators were dispersed by riot police which used tear gas and stun grenades. Scores of youth activists have also been arrested and face trial.
© 2010 Ahram Online.


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Theatre for a Change Africa - Charity
There really is no excuse for a poor website. We at Nine Circles are not fond of cluttered, confusing sites. The best sites are concise, coherent and eyecatching. We build sites catering for every budget, with endless capability - and we don't take forever doing it!
Logo design is complicated. We listen to you and bring you emotive, relevant, original logo design which conveys your company message elegantly and creatively.


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In "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," Geoffrey Rush returns as duplicitous sea captain Hector Barbossa...but the role required a little more than a few well-timed sneers from franchise veteran Geoffrey Rush.
Since Hector is, well, slightly less of a man since the last time we saw him, his fighting style has had to include crutches, and in this exclusive look behind the scenes at the "On Stranger Tides" special features, we watch as Rush is put through his pirate fencing paces.
"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" comes to DVD, Blu-ray, and combo pack on October 18th.


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Americolor Amerimist air brush colors are super strength, highly concentrated spray-on air brush food colors that are extremely effective, even on the hard to color non-dairy whipped toppings and icings.
Their superior strength eliminates the need to overspray so moisture will not accumulate, water spots will not appear, and the icing will not breakdown. These vibrant colors come in 40 regular and 6 electric (neon) colors.
Use full strength in your airbrush for beautiful results!
All colours and dye lots can sustain slight variations from batch to batch.
Product Made In The United States
Ingredients: Water, sugar, U.S. certified colors (blue #1) citric acid, and less than 1/10 of 1% sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (as preservatives)
ALLERGEN INFO: Kosher Pareve. Peanut & Tree Nut Free. Gluten Free. Soy & Dairy Free.
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Metallic Gold 9 oz Airbrush Color by Chefmaster
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Signature Pink Petal Dust
Imported Paper Covered Wire 14" Green 18 Gauge 25 pkg
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FREE shipping with orders $99 or more!
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Forecast calls for more storms on Saturday
Sun returns for today and Friday
Sun returns for today and Friday as high pressure builds in with dry air. Northeast winds will keep temperatures in the upper 60s along the lake to low 70s inland.
A fast weather pattern pulls rain and storms into the weekend forecast. First chance for moisture comes early Saturday morning. A thunderstorm complex will develop Friday night across portions of Iowa and Minnesota. It will drift into southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois by 6am Saturday. The rain will end by mid morning.
Several dry hours for midday Saturday with highs in the low 70s. Another good chance for rain later Saturday night into early Sunday morning. Chief concerns for weekend weather will be a slight chance for severe weather and locally heavy rainfall.
The rain should move away Sunday morning and the balance of Father's Day should be partly sunny. Highs will recover into the mid 70s.
Another chance for rain and storms heads our way Monday.
If you have pics of the storms from last night-send them our way! Ulocal on wisn.com, @seversonsally or our Wisconsin Weather Updates Facebook page.


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A completely NEW instrument!
Harmony Electro Banjo (Pat. Apppl'd For).
A new instrument in which banjo tone is created electrically - an achievement of Harmony research and ingenuity.
Tuned and played as the traditional banjo. Though the magic of an ingenious bridge and electronic pickup assembly, mounted on a resonant spruce sounding board, it produces the familiar crisp banjo tone so popular today - through an amplifier.
Finished in Jubilee Red and white. Harmo-metal band with fluted red plastic insert at top edge. Pearlette inlaid fingerboard, with edge binding.
Individual tuning keys.
G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!


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PTC Windchill PDM Essentials Offers Small Companies a Quick to Deploy Package of PTC's Production-Proven PLM Software
NEEDHAM, Mass. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — February 14, 2013 — PTC® (Nasdaq: PMTC) today announced PTC Windchill® PDM Essentials™, a product data management (PDM) solution for the small business market. The new offering, which will be sold exclusively through PTC's channel partners worldwide, takes PTC's enterprise-class, production-proven product lifecycle management (PLM) software and "right sizes" it for use by small manufacturers.
The need has never been greater. In the U.S. alone, 99 percent of all manufacturing companies employ fewer than 500 people. They account for over half the total value of U.S. production and employ nearly 12 million people.1 They also face the same challenges as larger companies: the complexity of bringing products to market and the need to continually innovate. Yet, while large manufacturers have long relied on enterprise-class PLM solutions to help coordinate strategy and planning activities related to product development, small businesses have often shied away from adopting such solutions due to perceived deployment complexity. With this offering, PTC removes those barriers to adoption, and has enabled its channel partners exclusively to meet this growing market demand.
"Without doubt, small manufacturers have some of the same need for industrial strength product data management tools as the big guys," said Thane Hathaway, CEO EAC. "That said, they don't always have the same level of IT infrastructure to support such tools. PTC Windchill PDM Essentials gives them just what they need to securely and efficiently share and manage product information."
PTC has taken the strengths of its enterprise PLM solution and created a "right sized" package for small companies. PTC Windchill PDM Essentials is easy to deploy, containing everything a customer needs to get up and running – including a Microsoft SQL Server database – in one easy-to-install package.
We've heard from many smaller customers that while they like the look and capabilities of PTC Windchill 10.0, they need a solution more tailored to their smaller infrastructure," said Brian Shepherd, Executive Vice President, PLM, ALM & SCM segments, PTC. "With PTC Windchill PDM Essentials, we are now offering small companies what they need for CAD data management - a simple way to securely manage all CAD documents and ensure data integrity."
This offering also helps companies scale business and product development activities to ensure repeatability. For example, rudimentary processes may be sufficient if there are only a few people involved in product development. But as a company grows, a lack of defined, scalable processes can cause confusion and chaos. PTC Windchill PDM Essentials allows customers to enable simple controls and processes to help make everyone more efficient. This helps keep costs low and output high, while maintaining flexibility and adaptability, and maximizing ROI.
PTC Windchill PDM Essentials is currently available and sold exclusively through PTC's Channel Partners.
Additional Resources:
PTC Windchill PDM Essentials product page
PTC AdvantageNetwork
PTC Channel Advantage
About PTC
PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC) enables manufacturers to achieve sustained product and service advantage. The company's technology solutions help customers transform the way they create and service products across the entire product lifecycle – from conception and design to sourcing and service. Founded in 1985, PTC employs over 6,000 professionals serving more than 27,000 businesses in rapidly-evolving, globally distributed manufacturing industries worldwide. Get more information at www.ptc.com.
Follow us on Twitter - Watch us on YouTube - Connect with us on LinkedIn - Join our PlanetPTC Community - Visit us on Facebook – View other Social Media Platforms
PTC, the PTC logo, Windchill and PDM Essentials are trademarks or registered trademarks of PTC Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
1 National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce ( http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/n01-02.cfm)
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20130214005097/en/
Julie Blake, 781-370-5435
Corporate Communications
Email Contact
Weber Shandwick for PTC
Anand Savani, 617-520-7290
Email Contact