text:
New Arrivals
Best Sellers
Staff Favorites
Candace Cameron Bure Collection
Everyday Faith Magazine - Summer Edition
Recently added items
You have no items in your shopping cart.
All Downloads
Summer Soul Care
All Gift Giving
Everyday Faith Magazine - Summer Edition
See What's New
Most Popular
Currently Shopping by:
5 Items
Page 1 of 1
Instead of bringing a pack of diapers to the next baby shower, bring a gift that will become a keepsake. Find an item for the nursery from our selection of picture frames and wall art. Each of the products we sell carries and inspirational message for the baby and parents. If you would like to go a more traditional route, purchase a onesie or blanket the little one can be wrapped in. Don't forget about the new mom and dad! Give them a little gift to celebrate the new arrival, as well.
Our very latest products, content & ideas.
Your first email is on the way.
Promotion Details
To redeem $20 off any $60 purchase, enter promo code GREENMONDAY in cart. Offer not valid on Willow Tree Collection. Offer valid Monday, December 10, 2018 at 12:01am CT through Tuesday, December 11, 2018 at 11:59pm CT. Limit one promo code per order. Offer cannot be applied to previous purchases and cannot be redeemed for cash. Terms are subject to change.
Therefore encourage one another
and build each other up as you are already doing.
1 Thess 5:11 CSB


text:
I love the promise of airports. While I'd certainly rather be the traveler than the volunteer chauffeur, I'm happy to drop off others when they need a ride. I do it for the contact high of fluttery excitement, a feeling which taps into a pool of memories which still pulse with anticipation. The trip up to the airport makes me feel like anything is possible.
I felt the same when we sent our Growing Gratitude app off to the App Store. Clicking SUBMIT and pouring champagne, it felt like anything was possible. One thing I have learned about being a volunteer airport chauffeur is that that feeling does not last. The drive up is exhilarating with thoughts of fresh surroundings and the thrill of time spent out of context. The drive home is still, quiet, lulling with thoughts of groceries and what's on the DVR. The post-App-Store-submission week was like that for me – still, quiet, lulling. I was very aware of being the chauffeur and not the traveler, of groceries and what was on the DVR.
Our app arrived, safe and sound. No worse for wear. Looking incredibly like it had when we'd dropped it off the week before, even after having experienced so much. Kansas City, Missouri to Cupertino, California. Being one of 700,000 apps in the App Store is like being in a small airport where a year's worth of travelers all show up for the same flight. Crowded doesn't cover it.
And instead of the drivers holding signs with passengers' names on them, the travelers hold the signs. "Want to launch birds at monkeys and make your DMV wait fly by? I'm the app for you!" "Manage your kids' homework and keep track of the wine in your cellar for just $1.99!"
Ours shouts as best it can above the din, "I'm going to change the way we say thank you! I'm fun, easy, personal, authentic! I'm free!"
There we are, at our destination and not at our destination. We're building a bigger megaphone, a taller platform, a bolder sign. It's fun launching birds at monkeys, and I love an app which organizes everything from my pantry to the bodega of my dreams. But that's not us.
Our team will help us drown out all that App Store clamor and lift us above the booming crowd because, in doing so, they lift up themselves as well. Lift up each other. Gratitude – feeling it, knowing it, sharing it, "getting" it – is good for us, for all of us. "We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own." Let's turn the amp up to 11 and spread the word!
We've arrived…kind of. The end of the trip is the beginning of our great journey. And as we're on the verge of becoming the world traveler we dreamed of, sharing smiles across the globe, the exhilaration of what's to come rattles our teeth, with all of the jolty vibration of a jet engine and the stomach-flipping anticipation of a trip into uncharted territory.
* * * * *
For more about the Growing Gratitude app, visit our website & the preview of our app in iTunes. We're recruiting more gratitude pioneers to use our exciting new app and to help us spread the word – and their thankfulness. "I'm going to change the way we say thank you! I'm fun, easy, personal, authentic! I'm free!"

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Songstress Colbie Caillat recently released her new album, "Breakthrough," as a follow up to her 2007 debut album "Coco." She managed to avoid the common "sophomore slump" with this mellow, yet upbeat, collection of songs, which debuted at number one on the charts. And now it looks like Colbie, who began as a "MySpace phenomenon," is now securing her place as a solid fixture in the music industry.
Music runs in Colbie's blood as her father, Ken Caillat, produced not only her album, but also several Fleetwood Mac albums. And though her sound is reminiscent of some Fleetwood Mac songs, it's obvious that Colbie is more than just her father's daughter. She has certainly managed to find her own footing in the music world.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Latest Star Sightings
"Breakthrough" carries a balance of maturity and naiveté… Colbie walks a fine line between them. The album keeps a steady pace with her smooth vocals and shows Colbie honing her skills as a songwriter. From start to finish, the album is consistent and strong. The lead-off single, "Fallin' For You," is getting a solid amount of air play… and for a good reason. The song is fun, catchy and commercially appealing.
But her deeper, more pensive side can be found in songs like "Begin Again" and "It Stops Today." She also uses this album to explore that ever-relatable theme of heartbreak in songs like the title track, "Break Through" and "I Never Told You" – a song dripping with deeply personal sense memory. The album is all about a girl who is coming into her own while managing to avoid triteness.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Hot Shots Of More 'On The Download' Artists
As she says herself, "These songs are about growing up, experiencing life, love, making mistakes, and learning from them."
It's always interesting to see an artist's progression from the very beginning of their career. With her career just taking off, I'm excited to see where Colbie heads from here.
Catch Colbie Caillat on tour this fall in the following cities.
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
VIEW THE PHOTOS: On The Download
PLAY IT NOW: Music Video: Colbie Caillat - 'Fallin' For You'
PLAY IT NOW: Hollywood Radar: August 6, 2009
MORE ACCESS ON THESE TOPICS: Colbie Caillat - On The Download - Music


text:
While Pena has "potential", I'm concerned about his frequent strikeouts and average-at-best fielding ability (plus I remember laughing when Yankee fans would pump him up when he was in their farm system).
But knowing that Nixon will go on the DL at some point this year, and that Arroyo is pretty much a league average pitcher (ERA+ of 121 and 98 in his two full years here and he's what, our 5th or 6th starter?), I can't find much of a downside to this deal. If Pena gets playing time and can bop 30-40 or so home runs, this will be a steal.
Some Theo comments from a spot on WEEI (thanks to SoxScout at SoSH):
This guy has the potential to be middle of the lineup player. ... The track record of players this young and this powerful is very good. ... Tools are so good and development has been so hindered that he isn't even close to tapping his potential. ... We accept the fact that the strikeouts are going to come, fans need to also, but his power will make up for it. ... We are going to get him as much playing time as possible. ... This is a great situation for him with Ortiz, Ortiz spoke highly of him.SoSHer (and Reds fan) "osuceltic":
Great raw talent. He's an absolute physical specimen. Huge and ripped. Huge hands. Good speed. Strong arm. He has off-the-charts tools. Unreal power -- when he hits them, they stay hit. ... Has worked hard to improve himself. Had one of those contracts that guaranteed him a big-league spot too early, so he really didn't get the minor league polish he needed. ...Epstein also maintained there was "no-trade handshake" with Arroyo.
On the negative side ... Zero plate discipline. Awful defensive outfielder, although he obviously has the tools to improve this. No "baseball sense" either in the field or on the basepaths. Injury prone ... VERY streaky. He'll go through stretches where it looks like he'll hit any pitch out of the park, and stretches where he looks like he couldn't hit the ball with a sheet of plywood. ...
I really think he needs to play every day and I'm not sure he's ready to do that in an environment like Boston (tough fans, tough city, tough division, tough outfield). He really does play like a young Sosa, but will he ever develop his tremendous potential?


text:
Weaker turrets, weaker junglers, creep deny, couriers and scroll of teleportations make the game "faster", it has more ganks and more lane changes, not to mention that heroes are more different than each other.
I used to be a DotA hater compared to LoL, but after a few thread like this, my arguments didn't stand anymore. DotA 2 is better as a competitive game, but I'd agree that LoL is more noob friendly.


text:
Miromaa Community Dictionary Maker
Miromaa Community Dictionary Maker.pdf3.63 MB
Windows 8 Installation
Some people may experience a Windows 8 installation error. The error may mention installation fail and the words 'crystal reports' if this is you please do the following:
1. Please download the latest .Net framework HERE
2. Run this install file
3. Run Miromaa3Setup.exe file once again
4. Proceed with Miromaa install steps
5. Miromaa should now install without errors
Miromaa Data Conversion
This Excel spreadsheet can be used to assist in transferring your language data from other tables to a table more suited by us to move into Miromaa with minimal fuss.
Download it and have a look, it covers the main fields which are used in Miromaa.
We now have two for you too look and choose which suits your use.
Other Recommended Downloads
- Lexique Pro - This is a great program for making interactive lexicons or word lists, it also makes picture dictionaries and lexicons for CD's and websites.
- Audacity - Is an excellent freeware program for doing your audio editing, when you download it you have to remember to also get the mp3 encoder file for converting your wave files to mp3's.
- Toolbox - Now this is a very hard program to use, you need to have specific training for it which is best done hands on. We use it for making Dictionaries mainly, linguists do a lot more with it, but what we have done is made Miromaa compatible with it so you can transfer all of your Miromaa data into Toolbox, this also goes for Lexique Pro.
Please visit our Toolkit Section for further information.


text:
A duplex ultrasound is a test to see how blood moves through your arteries and veins.
See also:
Vascular ultrasound; Peripheral vascular ultrasound
A duplex ultrasound combines traditional ultrasound with Doppler ultrasound.
There are different types of duplex ultrasound exams. Some include:
You may need to wear a medical gown. You will lie down on a table, and the ultrasound technician will spread a gel over the area being tested. The gel helps the sound waves get into your tissues.
A wand, called a transducer, is moved over the area being tested. This wand sends out the sound waves.A computer measures how the sound waves reflect back, and changes the sound waves into pictures. The Doppler creates a "swishing" sound, which is the sound of your blood moving through the arteries and veins.
You need to stay still during the exam. You may be asked to lie in different body positions, or to take a deep breath and hold it.
Sometimes during a duplex ultrasound of the legs, the health care provider may calculate an ankle-brachial (ABI) index. You will need to wear blood pressure cuffs on your arms and legs for this test.
The ABI number is obtained by dividing the blood pressure in the ankle by the blood pressure in the arm. A value of 0.9 or greater is normal.
Usually, there is no preparation for a duplex ultrasound.
If you are having an ultrasound of your stomach area, you may be asked not to eat or drink after midnight. Tell the person doing the ultrasound exam if you are taking any medicines, such as blood thinners, that might affect the results of the test.
You may feel some pressure as the wand is moved over the body, but there is usually no discomfort.
Duplex ultrasound is a less invasive option to arteriography and venography. A duplex ultrasound can show how blood flows to many parts of the body. It can also tell the width of a blood vessel and reveal any blockages.
A duplex ultrasound can help diagnose the following conditions:
A renal duplex ultrasound can also be used after transplant surgery to see how well a new kidney is working.
A normal result is normal blood flow through the veins and arteries. There is normal blood pressure and no sign of a narrowing or blockage of a blood vessel.
An abnormal result depends on the specific area being examined. An abnormal result may be due to a blood clot or plaque buildup in a blood vessel.
There are no risks.
Cigarette smoking may change the results of an ultrasound of the arms and legs, because nicotine can cause the arteries to shrink (constrict).
Cosgrove DO, Meire HB, Lim A. Ultrasound: general principles. In: Adam A, Dixon AK, Grainger RC, Allison D. Grainger and AllisonâÂÂs Diagnostic Radiology: A Textbook of Medical Imaging. 5th ed. Orlando, Fl: Churchill Livingstone; 2008:chap 3.
Zivin JA. Approach to cerebrovascular diseases. In: Goldman L, Schafer AI, eds. Cecil Medicine. 24th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 413.
Review Date: 5/28/2012
The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed physician should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Call 911 for all medical emergencies. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. Copyright ©2003 A.D.A.M., Inc., as modified by University of California San Francisco. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.
Information developed by A.D.A.M., Inc. regarding tests and test results may not directly correspond with information provided by UCSF Medical Center. Please discuss with your doctor any questions or concerns you may have.


text:
Don't waste a minute of time waiting around for buses and taxis when you could be exploring Budapest as soon as you arrive. Fly into Budapest and pick up your Compact car rental at Ferenc Liszt Intl.. No matter the duration or reason for your trip, a Compact car rental you pick up at BUD is sure to adequately accommodate you and your budget
With your own set of rental wheels, traveling has never been easier and when you book with Expedia, it's never been more affordable. Cheap Compact car rentals from BUD airport are waiting for you right here on Expedia. Browse our impressive collection of vehicles and select your set of rental wheels based on your style and your budgetary preferences. Book with us today, take advantage of our low prices and cheap deals and you can drive off the rental car lot knowing you have made the smartest choice. Make your Compact rental car reservation at Ferenc Liszt Intl. confidently and enjoy your time in and around Budapest.


text:
11 Unusual Christmas Toys That Will Excite Your Kids
Tired of looking at all the same "top toys" and not seeing anything your kids will like?
Looking for something new and different to give the kids on your list?
Or maybe something that you loved yourself as a kid?
We've got some ideas for you…
My Kids' Adventures asked top parent bloggers and experts on the web to tell us what favorite "unusual" toys they have at their houses.
In this article, we'll share their best out-of-the-box gift ideas—and with 10 to choose from, you're sure to find something perfect for your child.
Why Give Something Unique?
If you've started your holiday shopping, you're probably seeing the same toys over and over. Every year has its "hot" item, its best-seller that's nearly impossible to find.
But what happens when you manage to get those "top" toys? Your kids (and you, too) may be drawn in by the marketing and social excitement, only to find that the actual toy is not so cool after all. It may break or be relegated to the back of the closet within weeks.


text:
A Sandwich a Day: Hummus Sandwich at Taïm
A new sandwich every day.
In this great city of ours, one could eat a different sandwich every day of the year—so that's what we'll do. Here's A Sandwich a Day, our daily look at sandwiches around New York. Got a sandwich we should check out? Let us know. —The Mgmt.
Like everyone at Serious Eats, I dig Taïm's falafel. But it's their salads that I really love: bright orange carrots with cumin, earthy crimson beets, sultry eggplant mush—these are things I would like to eat more of, all the time please. Enter the Hummus Sandwich ($6), the same great pita and the same awesome hummus, but with your choice of two salads to go inside instead of falafel. It's a lighter, brighter, vegetabley-er lunch for when fried chickpeas feels like too much. Pictured above is egglant with paprika and slow cooked tomato, which adds just enough depth to beets with lemon and garlic. If you're looking to build more vegetables into your diet, this is how.
Multiple locations in the West Village and Nolita


text:
Flash: Berkeley Campus Police Raid Long Haul, Seizing Computers, Disks, Drives
UC Berkeley campus police, guns drawn, raided the Long Haul Infoshop Wednesday morning, seizing 13 computers and other gear, but the reason remains a mystery.
The building, which houses a collection of individual organizations ranging from the Needle Exchange to the East Bay Prisoner Support, was targeted by a team of at least seven officers.
According to the search warrant obtained by UC Berkeley Police Detective Bill Kasiske, officers believed the computers inside the officers at 3124 Shattuck Ave. contained evidence of felonies.
The document did not describe the alleged crimes nor did it name any perpetrators, and no arrests were made at the time of the raid.
In addition to computers and data storage media, the warrant targeted all written, typed or electronically stored documents containing information of people who used the computers inside the building.
Pattie Wall, an attorney for the Homeless Action Center (HAC), was working in her office next door at 3126 Shattuck when police knocked at the door. "They asked me if I had a key, and I said no."
Wall told the officers to check with the landlord, the Northern California Land Trust, but the trust's director wasn't in, so the officers returned, telling Wall they didn't need a key.
After they asked if there was a rear entrance, the officers went down the center hallway at HAC, drawing their pistols as they neared the rear door, said Wall.
Then the officers walked out the door and to the back door of Long Haul and made their entry.
Meanwhile Wall called staff at the Long Haul, who rushed to scene, also bringing civil rights attorney James B. Chanin, who has an office in the block to the north.
Chanin said he was surprised by the warrant, since it didn't identify any specific organization.
"I can't imagine the judge knew that the building housed many different organizations," he said. "It would shock me if the judge knew that."
Chanin said that a warrant that targeted a specific group wouldn't allow police "to go into a building and take everybody's stuff. But that's what I believe happened, and that's not right."
Ian Winters, executive director of the land trust and Long Haul's landlord, said the raid was the first in his memory, "and we never had any problems even while Long Hail had the marijuana club here."
In addition to offering a home to individual groups, Long Haul board member Greg Horton said the building's Internet room provided computers to give on-line access for those otherwise unable to afford it.
By the time the raid was over, only monitors, keyboards and disconnected cables were left.
Kathryn Miller, another board member, said the seizure would prevent publication of the next issue of the radical newspaper Slingshot, given that all the material for the edition was stored on the computers.
The Slingshot is produced by one of four collectives that are listed on the Long Haul's web page. The others are the Long Haul Infoshop, the bicycling advocacy group Cycles of Change and the Anarchist Study Group.
The raid drew a small crowd, with many of the observers taking pictures of the officers through the building's front windows and later as they carried out the computer hardware.
Soul, a long-time broadcaster on Berkeley Liberation Radio, said the underground radio station had been impacted by the raid. "We had some of our stuff there," she said. "They got our hard drive, and that really concerns us."
"This is really amazing," she said. "During all the resistance to the Gulf War and other times they never raided the Long Haul. It's the church we go to. It's the heart of anarchy in Berkeley."
Soul said she believed the raid stemmed from the UC Berkeley campus police pressure on the treesit at the Memorial Stadium oak grove. "They know we've been associated with the treesitters."
She also pointed to a Feb. 17, 2004, City Council resolution urging federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to refrain from taking any action to interfere with Berkeley Liberation Radio.
Chanin said he had contacted the National Lawyers Guild on behalf of the Long Haul tenants.
"I'm a neighbor, so they came to me," he said.
The raiders were comparatively neat, taping severed locks and screws removed from lock hardware neatly on the walls next to the place where they'd been removed.
Several items, including a petty cash envelope, had been left neatly arranged in a doorway, apparently after officers had photographed them.
At the end of the raid, Detective Kasiske decline to say what police were seeking, and referred question to Assistant Chief Mitch Celaya, who had not returned calls by deadline time.
Dan Mogulof, the university's executive director of public affairs, said he was unaware of the raid.
Zachary Running Wolf, the first of the treesitters at the Memorial Stadium Grove, was at the scene later in the morning, declaring that he believed he may have been a target.
The building had once housed a medical marijuana clinic, but that facility had closed months earlier, leaving many at the scene to speculate that the raid may have stemmed from animal rights activism.
The UC chancellors recently signed a joint letter deploring attacks on researchers who conduct animal experimentation in the wake of two Aug. 2 firebomb attacks aimed at UC Santa Cruz researchers.
Berkeley researchers have also been targeted by protesters, including confrontations at their homes and vandalism.
For more information on Long Haul see their web page.


text:
Heavy Duty Towing San Antonio
Box Truck Towing - San Antonio
Need Box Truck Towing in San Antonio?
Our fleet of brightly lettered tow trucks can regularly be spotted on Interstate 10, Interstate 35, Loop 1604, Loop 410 and many other San Antonio area roads as we assist a number of area businesses and residents on a daily basis with all of the following and more:
24 Hour Wrecker & Flatbed Service
Local & Long Distance Towing
Vehicle Relocation Service
Low Clearance Trucks
Off Road Recovery
Motorcycle Towing & Recovery
Heavy Machinery & Construction Equipment
Bobcats & Forklifts
Junk Car Removal
Accident Recovery
Roll Over Recovery
Underwater Recovery
Traffic Incident Management
Private Property Towing
Tire Changes/Flat Tire Repair
Jump Starts/Battery Services
Fuel Replacement
Ditch Pull-Outs
Tow trucks to handle any of your San Antonio, TX box truck towing needs:
LIGHT DUTY – For vehicles and equipment under 10,000 lbs. Our light duty tow trucks are designed to haul all types of cars and light trucks with state of the art wheel lift systems. Pop up dolly wheels allow light duty vehicles to be towed with the wheels off the ground. This is especially helpful for 4-wheel/front drive cars and light duty trucks and vehicles that are disabled or have flat tires. We specialize in damage-free motorcycle transport and have specific carriers designed to haul all makes and models of motorcycles.
MEDIUM DUTY – For vehicles and equipment under 17,999 lbs. Our medium duty tow trucks can transport 1-ton utility trucks, cube and step vans, motor homes and trailers and much more.
HEAVY DUTY – Our heavy-duty wrecker 50 ton and 35 ton wreckers (crane) have dual winching capabilities of 50,000 lbs. per winch and a boom capacity of 50 tons. In addition to the heavy wreckers we have a number of heavy duty tow trucks that will haul most large vehicles including tractor trailers, tour/city buses, and large fleet trucks. Our operators have years of experience winching a variety of vehicles and equipment including: tractor-trailers, concrete trucks, dump trucks and heavy excavation equipment. We staff fully certified operators for up-righting, winching and safely returning vehicles to the roadway and job sites.


text:
It's that time of year again; summer is coming to a close and school is almost back in session. Although the start of another school year can be a welcome relief for many parents, it can also be a source of dread.
Whether it's your first time or your 15th, the transition from summer to fall can be challenging for any family. Parents go from dropping kids off in activity-filled summer programs to early mornings frantically trying to get everyone out of the house. This sudden change is hard on kids and their parents. However, there are a few things parents can do the make things a little easier this year, from enforcing early bedtimes in the days leading up to school to discussing expectations about the coming year with your child. To get you and your family back-to-school ready, here's a list of helpful tips.


text:
Engineering and Codes » Home Inspector Licensure Tools
Applicants for licensure as a home inspector must complete the INITIAL REGISTRATION information using the link below to receive a userID in the system. Applicants must note their assigned userID and confirm their email address using the website prompt. Following the assignment of a valid userID, applicants must use the USERNAME LOGIN link below to access to application forms, exam registration, and the license issuance payment process. Applicants must provide complete information required by the online application forms and instructions.
Applicants who pass the exam must meet the insurance requirements set forth by NC General Statute § 143-151.51 and Board Rule 11 NCAC 08.1006 as listed below prior to issuance of a license number.
The General Assembly of North Carolina recently enacted Session Law 2013-24 requiring Occupational Licensing Boards consider certain factors before denying licenses to applicants with criminal records as explained, in part, below:
SECTION 1. Chapter 93B of the General Statutes is amended by adding a new section to read:
(b) Unless the law governing a particular occupational licensing board provides otherwise, a board shall not automatically deny licensure on the basis of an applicant's criminal history. If the board is authorized to deny a license to an applicant on the basis of conviction of any crime or for commission of a crime involving fraud or moral turpitude, and the applicant's verified criminal history record reveals one or more convictions of any crime, the board may deny the license if it finds that denial is warranted after consideration of the following factors:
(c) The board may deny licensure to an applicant who refuses to consent to a criminal history record check or use of fingerprints or other identifying information required by the State or National Repositories of Criminal Histories.


text:
|Jefferson's Monticello is controlled by the United Nations.
What about the Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone Park, and the Grand Canyon? Well, these priceless natural resources are all managed by the U.S. National Parks Service. They are among the most frequently visited natural recreation areas in America, where millions of American families vacation every year.
Would it surprise you to learn that every one of these unique American landmarks is also controlled by the United Nations? It's amazing but true. Every one of the natural and historic treasures listed above – plus more than a dozen more in America – has been designated an official World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is headquartered in Paris, France.


text:
Refine your search
Bridge End Garden
Garden, free entry
Saffron Walden TIC
c/o Tourist Information Centre,
1 Market Place,
Saffron Walden,
Bridge End Garden was created around 1840 by Francis Gibson, a local Quaker businessman who also built the Fry Art Gallery. Francis' daughter Elizabeth married Lewis Fry of Bristol and in 1918 the Fry family leased the Garden to the local council. It has been open to the public ever since with entrances off Castle Street, Bridge Street and by the Cricket Field. The Garden is open, free to the public, all year except Christmas Day. Opening times of various sections of the Garden are seasonal. For specific details please contact the Tourist Information Centre (01799 524002).
Over time, Bridge End Garden fell into neglect. An ambitious restoration project took place between 2003 and 2008. The Garden is registered as Grade II* by Historic England.
You can learn more about the history and restoration in the Visitor Centre, located in the Walled Garden.
Bridge End Garden is a popular spot for visitors and locals alike. There are many benches spread throughout the Garden and it is the perfect place for a summer picnic or to provide a quiet escape from modern life.
Theatre, music and the Maze Festival are regular features within the garden. The Walled Garden is available to hire for wedding receptions.
Since 2010, the Garden has been managed by Saffron Walden Town Council, with support from the Friends of Bridge End Gardens, a charity formed to support the restoration, management and future development of the Garden. The friends welcome newcomers and volunteers to join them. Details are available on www.bridgeendgarden.co.uk or from Saffron Walden Tourist Information Centre.
Francis Gibson designed the Garden as a series of interlocking 'rooms', each with its own unique character.
Geometric swirls of box and closely clipped yew form a sunken parterre in the Dutch Garden, best seen from the viewing platform or the long walks. It was replanted to the design sketched by Gertrude Jekyll when she visited in 1912. The long border, fronted by standard wisterias, is a vibrant backdrop in summer. Terminating the long walkway above the sunken parterre is a classical Pavilion.
The Wilderness is a shady grove, designed for wandering and reflection, with trained laburnums down the centre, abundant spring flowers and a variety of Victorian shrubs planted throughout.
An octagonal summerhouse, the perfect backdrop to a picnic, nestles beneath an old cedar on the typically English Summerhouse Lawn which is surrounded by leafy beds of herbaceous perennials, mature shrubs and trees.
The formal Rose Garden is planted with Victorian varieties and is the oldest part of the Garden. Though short lived, the blooming season is a wonder to the senses!
Behind the Rose Garden is Jacob's Well, thought to be the original cistern feeding the fountain in the Dutch Garden. An archway leads back to the Dutch Garden and the secluded Poet's Corner.
The Walled Garden houses two reconstructed glasshouses and contains Victorian varieties of espalier and cordon-trained fruit trees, together with colourful herbaceous borders and the bee hives that help to pollinate the blooms.
The hedge Maze, beyond the Walled Garden, was replanted in 1984 with over a thousand young yews. In its centre is a viewing platform with views over the Maze and the countryside. The Maze is surrounded by native and ornamental trees.
Postcode for Castle St entrance is CB10 1BD
Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors- 1. Community Benefit, 2. Project of the Year 2008.
Opening Details
Open all the time
Open all year. Closed Christmas Day. For specific opening times relating to the walled garden and the hedge maze, please contact Saffron Walden Tourist Information Centre, tel: 01799 524002, email email@example.com as these can vary according to weather conditions and/or the need for repairs.
Free entry
By Road:
Bridge End Garden is located in the northern part of Saffron Walden, with entrances via Castle Street or Bridge Street. There is a free car park nearby at Catons Lane which is just off the Little Walden Road, near the football club and a pay and display carpark at Swan Meadow off Bridge Street.
By Public Transport:
From Audley End station it is 2 miles to Bridge End Garden.
Local maps and a Town Trail are available from the Tourist Information Centre.
- Baby changing facilities
- Coach parties accepted
- Disabled toilets
- Picnic site
- Public toilets
- Wheelchairs available
- Accepts groups
- Disabled access
- Dogs not accepted (except guidedogs)
- Guided tours for groups
- Wedding receptions
Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors- 1. Community Benefit, 2. Project of the Year 2008.


text:
Several more polls have come out indicating that majority of the public continues to oppose the recently passed health care legislation, a further indication that the Obama-led post-passage publicity blitz has not turned public opinion around on this issue. Instead, it appears that public opposition has solidified at about 52%, with support hovering 5-10% below that, depending on the poll.
Despite the public opposition, supporters of the health care bill have comforted themselves by noting that previous efforts to expand the social welfare safety net, particularly with passage of the Social Security and Medicare programs, also engendered highly divisive debates but that, once enacted, both pieces of legislation developed deep bipartisan support. As John Dingell, a Democrat representative from Michigan who has long advocated for health care reform told a radio audience: "But remember, the same charges were made by the same people about Social Security and Medicare, and those have worked out to be two of the great and most popular social programs in the history of the country or anywhere else."
The problem with this argument is that the historical analogies aren't quite appropriate.
To begin, although debate on both Social Security legislation in 1935 and on Medicare in 1964-65 was heated, in the end both pieces of legislation passed quickly and with bipartisan congressional support. According to the Social Security website, "The Ways & Means Committee Report on the Social Security Act was introduced in the House on April 4, 1935 and debate began on April 11th. After several days of debate, the bill was passed in the House on April 19, 1935 by a vote of 372 yeas, 33 nays, 2 present, and 25 not voting. (This vote took place immediately followed a vote to recommit the bill to the Committee, which failed on a vote of Yea: 149; Nay: 253; Present: 1; and Not Voting: 29.)
The bill was reported out by the Senate Finance Committee on May 13, 1935 and introduced in the Senate on June 12th. The debate lasted until June 19th, when the Social Security Act was passed by a vote of 77 yeas, 6 nays, and 12 not voting." In the House 88 Republicans supported the bill while 15 opposed it – the same number of Democrats in opposition, as it turns out. In the Senate, 16 Republicans supported Social Security while only 5 opposed the bill. The conference bill reconciling the House and Senate versions of the legislation was then passed on a voice vote due to the large bipartisan support.
Moreover, the politics of health care differ from that of social security. In lobbying for the social security legislation, FDR deliberately misrepresented the program as an "insurance" plan; as he described it, workers put in a portion of their earnings into the social security program which they could then retrieve when they retired. In fact, workers do not get their money back when they retire – the program is instead an intergenerational income transfer plan, whereby today's workers fund current retirees. (That's why, with a growing elderly population and dwindling workforce, the program's current spending rate can't continue without some modifications of revenue sources and/or eligibility requirements.) Moreover, because the program is funded through a "hidden" payroll tax, people tend not to feel the fiscal pain of contributing as acutely as they would if they paid a separate tax to fund social security. Because the redistributive impact of the financing is hidden, and because everyone contributes to the program and receives benefits, Social Security has broad and deep support, as George Bush discovered when he tried to alter the funding mechanism in 2005. It's not clear to me that health care costs will be so easily disguised, nor that the legislation will be viewed as a middle-class entitlement.
Medicare had similar bipartisan support, passing the Senate by a vote of 70-24 and the House by 307 to 116. And, as with Social Security, a majority of Republicans in the House supported the bill, by 70-68. In the Senate, opposition among Republicans was stronger, but nonetheless Medicare received 13 Republican votes in favor versus 17 against.
As with Social Security, it is funded by a somewhat hidden payroll tax, and everyone is eligible to access its benefits.
Moreover, according to the Gallup poll, 65% of the public approved of the Medicare legislation in January, 1965. (I don't have similar public opinion polling data on Social Security from 1935, and am not sure it even exists.)
I don't need to remind you that the recently passed health care legislation received nary a Republican vote in favor, and that it has never achieved even 50% support among the public. The following table compares the votes on the three pieces of legislation:
|House Vote
|Senate Vote
|Republican Support in House
|Republican Support in Senate
|Social Security
|Health Reform
|220-207 (the "fixed" bill)
More problematic, however, is that the politics of health care is likely to differ from that of Social Security or Medicare. In fact, most Americans currently have health care insurance, and roughly 80% of them are largely satisfied with that coverage. The worry for supporters, like Dingell, of the health care bill is that Americans will perceive it as imposing costs on them to expand health insurance coverage to an additional 30 million people, some of whom voluntarily choose not to be insured. Moreover, the costs of health care reform depend in part on "reforming" Medicare – a program with strong public support. If the public perceives that the price of health insurance means a reduction in Medicare services, or declining participation by hospitals and doctors, opposition to the health care plan will grow. A similar backlash could develop when taxes on so-called "Cadillac" health insurance plans are levied to fund the health care reform program.
For all these reasons, I think that efforts to compare health care with Medicare or Social Security are not very useful historical analogies – their politics and substantive components are very different.
Instead, when we think about the possibility of repealing health care, the historical analogy that may be a better – although by no means perfect – fit is welfare reform. In 1996, the Republican-controlled Congress passed and Democrat President Bill Clinton signed into law a bill that replaced the decades-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with a new block grant program to the states that imposed work requirements on aid recipients and made major cuts to food stamps and assistance to legal immigrants. The legislation was bitterly opposed by liberals who saw it a racially-tinged attack on the poor, but Clinton, after long internal debate, ultimately supported the welfare reform bill. He did so in part because of Republican threats to pass a more draconian bill, but also because of public opposition to the AFDC welfare program and because the cost of the program (although actually quite small compared to Social Security or Medicare) was viewed as unacceptable in an era of budget deficits. (Incidentally, most policy specialists now view welfare reform as largely an effective program).
To be sure, this analogy has its own flaws: health care is likely to be much more costly than welfare reform but it is also possible – if the CBO projections hold – that it will not adversely impact the deficit. And it's not clear to me that health insurance is viewed in the same way by the public as "welfare" – for many people, health insurance is a fundamental entitlement in a modern industrialized society, whereas "welfare" continues to be viewed by some as a government "handout" to the "undeserving" poor.
Whether health care legislation faces a fate similar to the AFDC program, I think, will depend on several factors: its budgetary implications, the impact on Medicare, the degree to which the general public views the program as primarily benefiting a "less deserving" subset of the population as opposed to a middle-class entitlement, and whether Republicans – if they regain congressional majorities – can craft a more palatable alternative health reform proposal. If so, we may see an effort to "mend" health care legislation, rather than to "end" it.


text:
VATICAN CITY, March 14 (UPI) -- Pope Francis, in his first mass as leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, Thursday urged the church to have courage.
"When we don't walk, we are stuck," Pope Francis said in a homily at the altar in the Sistine Chapel where the conclave of the College of Cardinals that chose him met.
Citing passages from the Psalms, the Gospel of St. Matthew and the Letter of St. Peter, he said, "When we don't build on the rock, what happens? It's what happens to children when they build a sand castle and it all falls down. When we walk without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we confess without the cross, we are not disciples of Christ. We are mundane.
"I would like for all of us, after these days of grace, that we find courage to walk in the presence of God ... and to build the church with the blood of Christ. Only this way will the church move forward."
Francis began his first full day as pope with a visit to the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome.
The Rev. Ludovico Melo, a priest who prayed with him, said the pontiff spent about a half-hour at the basilica, a special place for Jesuits, which included singing a hymn and spoke to people in the church to go to confession, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
"Mercy, mercy, mercy," the Argentine pope said, Melo indicated.
Pope Francis, the first South American pope elected Wednesday after five votes at the conclave, also prayed before a famous icon of the Virgin Mary called the Salus Populi Romani, ANSA said.
New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who participated in the conclave, said Pope Francis was to travel to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo outside Rome Thursday to meet his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who resigned at the end of February, citing health and age.
The schedule indicates Francis, 76, was to meet with cardinals – both who participated in the conclave and those who did not -- on Friday. ANSA said he will lead his first Angelus, a Catholic devotional, as pope in St. Peter's Square on Sunday. His inaugural mass is scheduled for Tuesday.
Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio who was the archbishop of Buenos Aires, told the cardinals following the conclave Wednesday that one of his first acts as pope would be a visit to his predecessor.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, plan to be at the inaugural mass and lead the U.S. delegation, the White House said.
Biden said in a statement the Catholic church played "an essential role in my life," not just in matters of faith but also "in pursuit of peace and human dignity for all faiths."


text:
Un service fiable!
The Torretta chair brings style into gaming with sleek sewing lines, vibrant colors and quality fabric material.
With its ergonomic design along with adjustable armrests, adjustable height, 360 swivel rotation and tilt function makes the Torretta a very flexible gaming chair.
Light weight construction makes it easy to move the chair around without the sacrifice of quality.
It has 5 high strength nylon wheels to insure stability when having intense gaming moment.
Mo - Fr: 10:00-13:00 and 14:00-18:00
Sat: 14:00-18:00


text:
English Medium Coed Day School, with classes from Playgroup to PP 2. Pre-School follows Montessori, Playway Curriculum.
Secunderabad, Hyderabad Hyderabad - Andhra Pradesh, India
Coed, Day School - since
Know about Abhyasa Preschool, Hasmathpet, Secunderabad: Board & Curriculum, Admission Procedure, Fees & Fee Structure, Contact Details, Facilities and Ranking, Rating and Reviews.
Abhyasa Preschool, Hasmathpet Secunderabad, is a Pre Primary School (Pre School). The School is a Coed Day School, with classes from Playgroup to PP 2. It is an English Medium school. The school is located in Hasmathpet area of Secunderabad. Abhyasa Preschool, Hasmathpet was established in . It is a Private School and is managed by .
Abhyasa Preschool Hasmathpet, Bowenpally, is a Coed Day School, which services the educational need of over students from Playgroup through PP 2. The classes in Abhyasa Preschool for every academic year starts from April.
Checkout everything about Abhyasa Preschool, Hasmathpet, Secunderabad Andhra Pradesh. The best gift you can give to your child is a right school for his/her academic, co-curricular and overall development. Read about Abhyasa Preschool Admission Procedure & Policy, Important Dates for Admission, Abhyasa Preschool Fee Structure, School Curriculum & affiliation, medium of instruction, level, Extracurricular Activities, Facilities, Alumni, Faculty, Contact Details and other important information. You can also explore list of best schools in Secunderabad or checkout Best Schools in Hasmathpet Secunderabad.
Explore Best Schools in India by city and Boards of Education: CBSE, ICSE, IB (DP, MYP, PYP), CIE (IGCSE, Cambridge AS&A Level) and State Boards. Explore list of approved CBSE schools in India, Approved accredited CIE Schools in India, Approved ICSE Schools in India, and Approved accredited IB Schools in India.
SchoolMyKids.com provides Parenting Tips & Advice to parents, Information about Schools near you and School Reviews. Use SchoolMyKids Career Guidance to know about career options and courses for you or your child.
For admissions, Email Id :
The School has students enrolled from Playgroup to PP 2. Find below the admission schedule, procedure, Contact Details, documents required and instructions for parents for Abhyasa Preschool Admission.
In this section, we will answer the common questions like What is the admission process like and what are the key dates? Is their any admission test? Will School also hold an interview or an interaction? What is the age criterion for admission to Abhyasa Preschool, Hasmathpet for the upcoming academic year?
Refer below for Abhyasa Preschool, Hasmathpet fee structure and current fees.
The Abhyasa Preschool, Hasmathpet campus is spread over acres of land in Hasmathpet area of Secunderabad , Andhra Pradesh state. The School is a Day School. The School's infrastructure includes but is not limited to
The school works in Shift 1 (Morning). The School timings are
The School holidays are from
Which grades will you have in the new session?Abhyasa Preschool, Hasmathpet is a Playgroup to Pre Primary School (Pre School) for both boys and girls and has following grades/levels
The Academic session at Abhyasa Preschool starts from April. The School provides education to students from Playgroup to PP 2.
Abhyasa Preschool, Hasmathpet is a coed English medium Day School which offers curriculum, from Playgroup to PP 2.
Abhyasa Preschool is authorised to offer the following
Thank you once again for doing your part to keep SchoolMyKids the most trusted school details and reviews source.
Read Alumni and Student Reviews
Sagar Enclave, Hasmathpet, Hyderabad - 500009, Andhra Pradesh, India


text:
This winter New York City streets are filled with people who have learned the secret of keeping warm. They are all wrapped up in the big soft folds of the oversized cowl. A long loop that you twist and double around your neck, it's definitely a glamorous touch in a what can otherwise be pretty frumpy season. Don't you love when fashion and function meet in such happy harmony?
This cowl was inspired by Joelle's classic Herringbone Poncho from her very first book, Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I have always been so taken with the drape and texture of Joelle's poncho that I was really excited to borrow her idea for this project!
I stuck with Joelle's choice of yarn, Blue Sky's Worsted, because it is by far one of Purl Soho's softest, most cuddly yarns, perfect for wearing around sensitive skin areas like your neck. A blend of fine merino wool and royal alpaca, it has a beautiful weight that creates cascading, dramatic fabrics. Just what I was looking for!
The cowl's final look keeps one foot in the past with a traditional herringbone stitch. It's such a distinctive stitch on such a powerful garment, you're going to feel about one foot taller when you wear yours! -Whitney
- 5 skeins of Blue Sky's Worsted, 50% Royal Alpaca and 50% Merino. Each skein is 100 yards; approximately 500 yards required. We used the color "Ecru" #2003. (Please note, Blue Sky's Worsted is no longer available. We recommend using a similar worsted weight yarn! As always, be sure to check your gauge when substituting yarns.)
- A US #17, 32 inch circular needle.
- A Replaceable Jumbo Stitch Marker.
15 stitches = 4 inches in herringbone stitch
Finished Size
14 inches wide and 58 inches around
Cast on 220 stitches. To ensure that your first round isn't too difficult, cast on fairly loosely; your stitches should easily slide up and down the needle.
Join into the Round
Make sure the stitches aren't twisted around the needle, and slip the last stitch you cast on from the right needle to the left needle (so that it is next to the first stitch cast on).
Place a replaceable jumbo stitch marker on the right needle.
K2tog and slip only the first stitch off the left needle (leaving the second stitch on the needle)…
…so it looks like this.
Round 1: *K2tog and slip only the first stitch off the left needle, repeat from * until 1 stitch remains.
Remove the stitch marker and k2tog, slipping the first stitch off the left needle. Place the stitch marker to the right of the first stitch on the right needle.
The next stitch looks like this…
Remove that stitch from the needle and twist it so it looks like this…
Round 2: *K2tog through the back loop (K2tog tbl), slipping the first stitch off the left needle, repeat from * to last stitch. Remove the stitch marker and k2tog tbl, slipping the first stitch off the left needle. Place the stitch marker to the right of the first stitch on the right needle.
The next stitch looks like this…
Remove that stitch from the needle and twist it so it looks like this…
Repeat Rounds 1 and 2 until piece measures 14 inches from the cast on edge, ending with all the steps of Round 2.
Here's what the right side of Herringbone Stitch looks like:
And here's what the wrong side looks like:
Bind Off
NOTE: You will continue to work the Herringbone Stitch for the bind off.
Bind Off Round: [K2tog and slip only the first stitch off the left needle] 2 times, pass the first stitch over (just like a normal bind off), *k2tog and slip the first stitch off the left needle, pass the first stitch over, repeat from * until 2 stitches remain (1 stitch on the left needle and 1 stitch on the right needle), knit the last stitch tbl and pass the first stitch over. Cut the yarn and pull it through the remaining stitch.
Weave in the ends, gently block and then bundle up!


text:
Blog Archives
Sarah Palin Reincarnates Her Fictitious "Death Panels"
Don't you miss those halcyon days when every morning we were treated to some new breaking story detailing the insane antics of Sarah Palin and her family? We were entertained on a near daily basis as Palin claimed she could see Russia or she created her own words such as "refudiate" or when she claimed that Paul Revere was ringing bells and firing musket shots to warn the British during his famous midnight ride. It was hilarious to watch her struggle to name a single newspaper or magazine which she reads, or to name a Supreme Court decision which she disagreed with or to incorrectly explain the function of the Vice President to a 5th grader. Who will ever forget when she abruptly quit her position as Governor of Alaska after having served only half a term and then jumped right into the respectable field of reality television?
Ahhh, those were the days. Unfortunately (for us) however, Sarah Palin's entertainment value came to a screeching halt last November when she announced that she would not seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States. Not only were we denied a year's worth of belly-ache-inducing laughs, but the late night television talk shows and tabloid newspapers were denied a steady source of material.
But wait!… What's this?… We have breaking Palin news!
Thank the heavens above. It's true. Sarah Palin has awakened from her slumber and dusted off one of her favorite old chestnuts just in time for the Supreme Court's ruling on the constitutionality of the new health care law known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Remember when PolitiFact.com deemed Sarah Palin's assertion that the new law provided for "death panels" the "Biggest Lie of 2009"? Well that has not dissuaded the stubborn Palin from asserting the same thing once again.
You will recall that Palin initially uttered the phrase "death panels" when she opposed "end of life counseling sessions" in which physicians would educate patients on such useful estate planning tools as Durable Powers of Attorney, Health Care Proxies and Advance Directives (known as "Living Wills" in some jurisdictions). When she was forced to acknowledge that a member of the Republican Party (Maine Senator Olympia Snowe) was the initial proponent of "end of life counseling sessions", she began to apply the phrase differently. She began claiming that "death panels" are government bureaucrats or commissions that will decide whether to pay for a patient's health care based upon health condition or age. Despite the fact that the new law provided no such panels at all, Palin also seemed to miss the point that under our old broken health care system, insurance adjusters could unilaterally decide whether to pay for a patient's health care based upon any arbitrary reason.
As of yesterday, Sarah Palin jumped right back on the "Death Panel" Express as if the lie was never exposed in the first place. She took to Facebook and wrote,
"I stand by everything I wrote in that warning to my fellow Americans because what was true then is true now, and it will remain true as we hear what the Supreme Court has to say… Though I was called a liar for calling it like it is, many of these accusers finally saw that Obamacare did in fact create a panel of faceless bureaucrats who have the power to make life and death decisions about health care funding."
The Los Angeles Times however, points out that "Such a system also, according to most health experts, exists only in the imagination of Palin and others who took up the phrase as a cudgel against the legislation, which ultimately passed with no Republican support and was signed into law by President Obama in March 2010."
CNN reports that presently, Palin is "specifically referring to the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a proposed group that would recommend how to achieve Medicare savings though would not sit in judgment of individual patients' treatment courses."
Truth be damned! Sarah Palin has proved once again that she is either stupid or has a very short memory.
Let's take a quick look at some of Palin's greatest hits, shall we?
Please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with today's song parody.
The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald song link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U219P_zs7w
THE WRECK OF THE SARAH L. PALIN (Version Two)
(sung to the Gordon Lightfoot song "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald ")
The legend lives on from the North Slope on down
To the town they call Sandpoint, Idaho
The Heath's one would say, had a daughter that day
Why they kept her, I must say, "I don't know"
They loaded up the truck and they tested their luck
When they moved to Wasilla, Alaska
Sarah enrolled in school and was nobody's fool
On the court they called her "Barracuda".
In 1982 she left for Honolulu
Off to Hawaii Pacific College
She did not last long there nor at anywhere
In her quest for some meaningful knowledge.
She finally did see a journalism degree
After stints at 5 or 6 safety schools
Sometime in between she was a pageant queen
Then she worked in TV for KTUU.
She met up with her fate sometime in '88
When her TV career was a failin'
And everyone knew, as her parents did too
She would soon be the Bride of Todd Palin.
Long before she did wed, she conceived in his bed
That was the end of her abstinency
While laid out on her back, she gave birth to Lil' Track
The result of an unwed pregnancy.
She was now in a lurch cuz of her right wing church
But she carried on without a care
She had a beehive hairdo, but had nothing to do
That all changed when she became the Mayor.
She appointed some crooks then she banned some good books
No one lasted if they weren't on her team
Wasilla's deficit grew, kids fired-up on homebrew
Not to mention the methamphetamine.
She became the next Guv and to show the state love
She proposed to unite remote shore banks
But once in a bind she politely declined
To the bridge she said,"Thanks but no thanks".
John McCain now you see had to choose a VP
His campaign was certainly failin'
He wanted a she that was trés "mavericky"
So he chose Alaska's Sarah Palin.
But poor press reviews of her live interviews
With Couric and Gibson oft replayed
Showed she could not spar with the nightly news stars
Let alone outperform Tina Fey
The election was lost and poor Sarah was tossed
From her seat on "The Straight Talk Express"
She went home and did pose in her new store-bought clothes
But Alaskans were not now impressed
She's no longer a saint due to ethics complaints
She has nobody left now to wink at
Her opinions ignored and her actions abhorred
"Hockey mom" once again is a rink rat
Her career was a blip, it was a sinking ship
Her supporters are jumpin' and bailin'
Her character flaws became the final straw
For the wreck known as Sarah L. Palin


text:
Voting ended. The proposal is approved.
Votes (Voting ends October 19, 2009 at 23:00 UTC)Edit
To vote, please insert your username and timestamp at the bottom of the appropriate list. Unsigned or anonymous votes will be reverted.
- Yea. --DanielDraco 23:10, October 5, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. --Andrew Arnott (talk, email) 23:28, October 5, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. Surgo 00:03, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. --Jota 00:11, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. --Ganteka Future 00:16, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. - TarkisFlux 00:25, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. --MisterSinister 05:50, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. --Sulacu 17:30, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. → Rith (talk) 20:02, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. --Deranged. 20:37, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. --Eiji Hyrule 17:45, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. Summerscythe 20:52, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. --ThirdEmperor 05:50, October 9, 2009 (UTC)
- Yea. -- Sam Kay talk contribs email 14:05, October 11, 2009 (UTC)
- No. --Jay Freedman 19:21, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
Proposal: Daniel Draco modelEdit
I propose that the system by which an article's level of favor (no distinction, bronze star, silver star, gold star, or featured article) is determined be defined as follows:
- Each Rating Committee member (hereafter referred to as a "Rater") gives an article a rating of "good" or "excellent" based on his/her own subjective opinion.
- A "good" article is loosely defined as being of noteworthy quality (by whatever criteria the Rater sees fit, e.g. formatting, power, and clarity), but not fitting the criteria of an "excellent" rating.
- An "excellent" article is loosely defined as being of outstanding quality (by whatever criteria the Rater sees fit), and being in the highest tier of the Rater's personal standards (which will likely vary in breadth from Rater to Rater).
- Counting a "good" rating as 1 and an "excellent" rating as 2, the overall favor of the article is determined by the sum of the ratings; 0 to 2 grants no favor, 3 to 6 grants a bronze star, 7 to 10 grants a silver star, 11 to 14 grants a gold star, and 15 or higher grants the status of being a featured article.
- Raters are strongly discouraged from allowing the ratings of others to impact their own ratings. For example, suppose an article has a total rating of 10 (silver star). A Rater who has not yet rated the article thinks the article is "good", but does not think it is worthy of a gold star. This Rater should still grant their favor of "good", and therefore increase the overall favor of the article to a gold star. This is because an individual rater should only be concerned with whether an article is worthy of "good", "excellent", or no favor at all; the possibility of bronze, silver, gold, or featured status should not factor into any Rater's rating.
- A Rater is allowed to change his/her rating at any time, e.g. after further thought or after a change to the article. For the same reason as Point 5 (above), Raters are discouraged from changing their ratings due to the ratings of others.
- If a rated article is changed, it is the responsibility of the one who made the change to inform the Ratings Committee of the change via this forum so that the ratings can be reviewed and, if deemed necessary, revised.
Ganteka Future's interpretation of Surgo's system appears at first to be an effective way to handle RC ratings. However, after further thought, I realized that it brings us back to one of the same issues that we had with the rating system on the paleowiki. Under the Surgo-Ganteka model, a Rater only gives his/her favor if he/she wants the article to move on to the next level; this requires him/her to judge the value of no-distinction vs. bronze vs. silver vs. gold vs. favored, and give or not give a favor based on that distinction. Essentially, he/she must decide a rating from 0 to 4, which is not much better than the 0 to 5 system of the paleowiki. My system seeks to resolve the issue of the original Surgo model (wherein a good, but not great article can become featured with seven mild favors), while avoiding the issues of the Surgo-Ganteka model. I chose the numbers for the following reasons:
- No single person can give an article a star.
- An article cannot be gold without at least one "excellent" rating.
- Any level can be achieved with only 8 of 10 committee members involved, which is especially important when the article in question is that of a Rater and there are therefore only 9 Raters who can rate it.
Comments, questions, etc. go here. --DanielDraco 23:10, October 5, 2009 (UTC)
- I have my doubts that this will resolve the issues you're concerned about DD (or that the issues will actually come up for that matter), but I don't generally turn down greater control and granularity. - TarkisFlux 00:25, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- Oh, I'll also be passing on rating anything in the list until this vote is settled. I don't really want to go back and track down all of my old ratings and convert them. - TarkisFlux 05:39, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- This is a nicely devised system and will serve the purposes of the wiki well, as long as every rater can be sufficiently objective to the material being rated (i.e. give honest ratings that are not predicated on who made the material in question, or by the established balance point chosen). --Sulacu 17:30, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- I vote No until a score of "0" or "playable" is included. I believe a rater can take the time to rate an article and come to the conclusion that it is "not good" however still technically usable. I also believe a recorded rating of "0" is not the same as a "needs improvement template". --Jay Freedman 19:21, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- Not rating at all is analogous to a rating of 0. Note that, even though this is a passive way of expressing disapproval, it is designed so that this tacit disapproval limits the favor that the article can achieve. For example, let's say three Raters think Article X is crap, and so they don't give it any favor. Because the article is missing out on these ratings, it can never achieve the status of Featured Article, and is very unlikely to reach Gold status. However, there's no reason we can't have a template for an official No Favor (a.k.a. "0") decision by a Rater, for sake of completeness. --DanielDraco 19:44, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- Edit conflict, so this may be superfluous. Anyway, if something is nominated, reviewed, and decided not to worthy of any favors (RC members are supposed to at least mention that they have viewed something so people know it hasn't been neglected) but not in need of assistance either, it is my understanding that would constitute a 'zero' in technicality, if not in fact under the rules of the proposed system. Whether or not the system actually needs to stipulate what a 'zero' is in said case is a matter for debate, but I think this limbo you speak of already does exist, just not in any official capacity. -- Jota 19:45, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- The balance system with Monks and Fighters and such is a bit unclear to me, but as this seems to be unconnected to the rating committee I am pro. I do think it's necessary to include a 0 category, just so the author knows that his/her article has been rated and deemed unworthy (as opposed to unrated). Deranged. 20:36, October 6, 2009 (UTC)
- Looked it over, looks good man. This plan makes FA out of the more globally liked stuff and doesn't afraid of anything. Gentlemong, I approve. -- Eiji Hyrule 17:45, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
- I saw that it says that a rater should ignore what star their rating will push the article to, but I don't think that'd work very well; let's say an article needs at least 11 to get a gold star and it currently has 10 points. If I believe that the article is well worth a silver star but doesn't reach the level of gold, I'm probably not going to post anything despite the fact that I think it's a good article. Perhaps another suggestion might be averaging the rating of the raters, and needing a certain number to reach different levels?
- For example, we could have three ratings; "fair", "good", "excellent", and "outstanding". An article could reach a bronze star once at least one person has marked it "good", a silver star once the average of ratings is good and at least 3 people have rated it to this average, a gold star once the average of ratings is excellent and at least 5 people have rated it to this average, a platinum star once at the rating average is outstanding and at least 7 people have voted, and the status of favored article if the average is still at outstanding and 8 or 9 people have voted on it.
- What do you guys think? --Ghostwheel 17:47, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
- If I believe that the article is well worth a silver star but doesn't reach the level of gold, I'm probably not going to post anything despite the fact that I think it's a good article.
- If this was something for the general population, I'd agree with you -- but it's not, it's for a small, carefully-picked committee. Put simply, if you can't be trusted to act in accordance with the RC guidelines (which say ignore the rest of the rates when rating yourself), then you shouldn't be on the committee. Surgo 17:54, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
- Instead of going straight for my throat, why don't you think about my proposal for a moment? In the above proposal, if lots of people like an article and there are a few who don't, it can easily be pushed to gold star status quite easily. On the other hand, if an article is of excellent quality but not many people come around to rating it, it can languish at a low status and looks bad just because few people posted on it.
- On the other hand, with the above suggestion you can have the average that people have rated so far and note that the reason an article doesn't have a higher star status is because not enough people have rated it. Furthermore, the minority have a little more pull and can rate things at "fair" rather than being denied any rating whatsoever, as well as being able to skew the average slightly, though obviously the majority will have the largest say.
- If you don't like the suggestion, say why. But making comments that can easily be construed as threats is something that's best left on the sucky wiki. Let's not have another round of that? >_> --Ghostwheel 17:59, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
→Reverted indentation to one colon
- That's getting to be a bit much Ghost, even for me, and it still doesn't resolve the issue you've raised. If you look on the star as a direct measure of it's quality instead of as an indirect measure of it's average rating (which it is under any proposed system) you leave yourself open to raters intentionally sabotaging their rating because it's not 'worth' the next star. If I didn't think an article was 'worth' a gold in your setup, I'd just give it a fair or good rating instead of what I actually thought it was worth. My vote could be overridden by others, but that already happens in all of the other proposed systems.
- You're going out of your way to do what all of the other systems already did (though perhaps not as explicitly) in that you want to make Silver mean both 'this article has had some really good ratings, but hasn't been rated by a majority of the RC yet' and 'this article was rated good by the majority of the RC'... but that's what already happens in DD's system. It happened in GF's too, though it was more vulnerable to sabotage.
- We need to stop looking on the actual stars as a measure of quality, and we need to babble about the actual quality of the article in it's talk page when we rate it and then let the star be the indirect measure of quality that it winds up being. Anything more direct than that and we may as well just vote things stars directly and stick the average on article. - TarkisFlux 18:09, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
- That's two edit conflicts now...so here's what I said in reply to ghost:
- I don't see why you took it as a threat, especially when I wasn't even talking about, specifically, you -- it's a pretty simple fact that if a guy who is selected to be on a committee can't even abide by the rules of said committee, they shouldn't be on the committee. How is that controversial? It's not a matter of not liking your suggestion (though I don't like it, and I will explain why in the next paragraph), it's a matter of the committee is picked because A) they have complete and somewhat different viewpoints on articles and B) they're able to be objective in their following of the rules.
- Averaging doesn't work all that well. With 4 ratings, you have to translate them into numbers -- so let's say the obvious: 1, 2, 3, 4. If something wants excellent status and 5 people have to have rated it, 4 could rate it excellent and 1 could rate it fair and then it'd be only "good" -- and it would never actually reach "excellent" status, no matter how many people actually rated it excellent just because one guy rated it as fair. Same thing happens with one guy rating it as "good" and everybody else rating it excellent. Surgo 18:11, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
- @Tarkis: If one doesn't take the rating to mean of what quality the article is, then that might make sense--however, the average user isn't going to look at the talk page. All they're going to see is the star on the article, and will assume everything from just that. Furthermore, the currently proposed method of rating gives a lot of emphasis to some raters, and very little to others. A person who's raising an article from 5 to 7 (silver star) isn't going to have nearly as much of an effect as someone who raises it from 10 points to 12 points (silver to gold star). That said, if we don't take an article's star rating to mean its quality, then it doesn't matter too much.
- @Surgo: Just the switch from the singular "you" to the plural "you" wasn't very explicit so it appeared to be more personal than you intended it to be. Also, let's say from the above fair = 0, good = 1, excellent = 2, and outstanding is 3. If 4 people rate outstanding, 2 rate excellent, and 2 rate fair then an article is going to end up excellent--so even if some people sabotage their vote it wouldn't matter all that much as long as a few extra people post too. However, on the IRC channel you mentioned instead of averages doing a mode of the ratings--I think that's a good idea. Perhaps with the ratings, Fair, Bronze, Silver, and Gold? --Ghostwheel 18:29, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
- Well, the average user isn't going to know what the star means at all unless they go and look at the RC page where we can define it as whatever we want and show cases where an article would have achieved that rating... so the fact that they probably won't look at the talk page to see specific criticism isn't really meaningful. Your second objection that the current system gives extra weight to particular votes also falls flat, given that you're using an averaging system that does the same thing in a different way. If you want to avoid that sort of vote weighting, you need to replace 'average of' with plain old 'at least'. So it's bronze if at least two people rate it good or above, silver if at least 4 people rate it good or at least 3 people rate it excellent or above, etc. No more vote averaging, just plain old tallying so no one can bring down the average and thus the article. I'm not particularly in favor of a system like that, but if you wanted to avoid the issues you think we have you need to do something like it. - TarkisFlux 18:52, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
- I like the tally idea. Not the average idea. (Sorry Ghostwheel.) But I still want a rating of "0". So (like Ghostwheel commented), if an article has "10 points" and you rate "0", then you have neither hurt nor helped. And you can be honest about. If you really thought the article was "good" and it already has "10 points", maybe it does deserve a brighter star? For consistency. Tts not a big deal anyway. DM's will always check any new stuff regardless of "star power?".--Jay Freedman 19:49, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
- Wow, a lot of things were discussed since I last checked. Alright, refuting a couple things. "If I believe that the article is well worth a silver star but doesn't reach the level of gold, I'm probably not going to post anything despite the fact that I think it's a good article." As Surgo said, that's the responsibility of a Rater. If a Rater cannot express their opinions as they are supposed to (with no rating, 1, or 2) instead of aiming for a specific star level, then they should not be a Rater. "On the other hand, if an article is of excellent quality but not many people come around to rating it, it can languish at a low status and looks bad just because few people posted on it." This is also the responsibility of the Rater. If a Rater cannot or will not keep up a reasonably high level of rating-activity, then they should not be a Rater. Lastly, I'd like to point out that we should be very careful to limit the number of possible ratings a Rater can give. I tried to keep it as low as possible while avoiding the issues of the 1-or-0 system. --DanielDraco 20:45, October 7, 2009 (UTC)
- "A person who's raising an article from 5 to 7 (silver star) isn't going to have nearly as much of an effect as someone who raises it from 10 points to 12 points (silver to gold star)" Uh, yes he is, the guy raising it from silver to gold is only doing so because the first person gave it two points. I also think a rating of 0 is unnecessary, why not just have each of the raters stick their names in a box or something to show they looked at the article? By the way could somebody recalculate the percentages? I have no idea how to do so.--ThirdEmperor 08:40, October 9, 2009 (UTC)
- Exactly right, ThirdEmporer. Sequence has nothing to do with it; no matter what order they rate in, every Rater plays an equal role. --DanielDraco 14:16, October 9, 2009 (UTC)
- I arbitrarily set voting to end after two weeks, on the 19th. At this rate, though, I don't see it failing. --DanielDraco 00:55, October 15, 2009 (UTC)
→Reverted indentation to one colon
- If I remember correctly from the RC meeting, we decided that all Raters will use the same templates. So it may be rather fruitless to edit your personal templates, when we're just going to switch to standardized one anyway. --DanielDraco 14:49, October 15, 2009 (UTC)
- Missed that part of the meeting I guess... Still, that's fantastic, less work to do. - TarkisFlux 16:24, October 15, 2009 (UTC)
- Since the vote has passed, I have updated the author template to account or the new favor levels. - TarkisFlux 19:25, October 20, 2009 (UTC)


text:
Discontent swirls around the columns and arches of the old ramparts like a serpent intent on wreaking havoc upon all it surveys. A clock strikes the witching hour somewhere in the middle distance of a corridor lit badly by flickering torches. The sound of knives being sharpened on an industrial lathe can clearly be heard. Somebody might already be screaming.
The night talks to us in cold, discomforting epithets. Robert the Dread and shallow-water-City. Dead Men Walking and Motionless Shakeless Kolarov. Disaster is close at hand. Or, at least, something that smells very like disaster. It might, on the other hand, just be badly cooked brodino. Flee if you can, if you wish and, if you stay, avert your gaze, for terrible hobgoblins are about to enter the realms of humankind and blow out those torches of hope. All we will be left with will be the clothes we stand in, a clinging darkness and -possibly- the Europa League.
Then, without as much as the briefest of warnings, the glorious Manchester City of recent times reappears and smites four goals past the hapless men-children of Leeds. They tinker with them like a cat fiddles with a ball of wool. Then, when the plaything is bedraggled and out of shape, they bat it casually into the bushes. Are we to laugh again and straighten our backs, or to remain hunched in the corner, awaiting the next fearsome blow? Is this the way to salvation, an army of marching luminaries, bare-chested and brave, chanting about the best team in the and and all the world? Or are we to start daubing sheets with welcome phrases in Portuguese?
Modern football has taught us to treat victory and defeat in the same exaggerated manner. Second place in the table? Woe is me. Look at the millions of petrodollars fluttering in the Lancashire gale. A defeat at Southampton? God bring down a cloud of locusts on anybody, who does not equate such a thing to the very gates of doom rattling on their ill-gotten hinges, the very end of civilization as we know it. Horsemeat bound in sheets of cheap pasta awaits us all.
|Scott Sinclair, Champions League
City's midfield, strident and well turned out, ran tiny intricate rings around its opponents, leaving Michael Brown with his shirt on back-to-front and his team-mates chasing what appeared to be the dust marks left by shadows. The goal tally could and maybe should have been seven or eight, but the happy crowd went home with four to slot into their memory banks...
|Missing Cavani's music
Instead talk is cheap and our air is char-grilled. In place of lying in the sun awaiting another tidal wave of smiles and belly laughs, we find ourselves huddled in an uncomfortable ball, avoiding the stares and muttering about "wholesale clear-outs". Between the knee-jerk reactions to life's tiny ups and downs and the lack of any reaction at all to last summer's needs, it is charming to see that we are still capable of cutting a funny old figure sometimes.


text:
Krasner, Lee
Krasner, Lee krăs´nər, krăz´– [key], 1911–84, American artist, b. Brooklyn. She studied with Hans Hofmann and became a leading figure in abstract expressionism along with her husband, Jackson Pollock . Her compositions are intellectually controlled and characterized by broad gestural brushstrokes. She often utilized collage, usually cut-up sections from her own earlier work, in her paintings. Notable examples of her work include The Bull (1958) and Polar Stampede (1960).
See biographies by R. Hobbs (1999) and G. Levin (2011); study by B. Rose (1983); E. G. Landau, Lee Krasner: A Catalogue Raisonné (1995).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: American and Canadian Art: Biographies


text:
This post is an account of a lesson I did in my split classes a couple of weeks ago but, due to the Global Education Conference and a holiday here in Turkey last week, I'm only getting round to writing it up now. It was the first time I did a dictogloss activity with the kids and I thought it would be of interest to describe how I approach this lesson with young learners.
For those of you wondering what dictogloss is exactly (I myself only heard about it and tired it for the first time about a year ago), here's a brief summary. Basically, you present the students with a text (usually by reading it to them) and they reconstruct it. However, unlike a classic dictation exercise, the students do not write while you talk. They only take notes and, after hearing the text a few times, they collaborate in small groups and try to write it out. There are two main reasons I love doing this activity:
- It forces the students to engage with the language on a much deeper level than pure dictation. They need to focus on how the sentences and the text are structured, which is perfect for focus on form and promoting noticing of language features.
- It's a great activity for getting students to work together. If attempted alone, it's very difficult but when done in pairs or small groups, the students really support each other a lot.
Phase 1 - Pre-task
Anyway, onto my lesson. They had recently covered family in their main lessons so I decided to read them a short passage about my own family. As they had never done dictogloss before, I needed to offer them plenty of support so I utilised the pre-task phase to recap family words and get them thinking. I did this by displaying a word cloud made from my text, which you can see below:
I first asked them what family words and names they could see and then asked them to speculate in pairs about who these people might be. We then compared predictions, discussed which ones were more likely and put them on the board. The first task when listening to the text was to check which predictions were right. I supported the first reading with photos of my family so they could make a visual connection with the people I mentioned and I encouraged them to ask any questions they had (they were especially interested in my son and the cat!)
Here's the text as I read it:
"I've got two sisters, Louise and Claire but I haven't got any brothers. Louise lives in England but Claire lives in Pairs! I'm married. My wife's name is Çiğdem and we've got a son. His name is Jason Demir and he's four and a half years old. We've got a pet cat too. He's called Sean."
Phase 2 - Take note(s)
For the next phase, they needed to listen and take notes. As this was the first time they had tried dictogloss, I gave them a table to structure their note-taking (they were also unfamiliar with the concept of notes so it was useful for framing it), like this one:
Yes/no? How many?
Extra information?
Phase 3 - Reconstructing & comparing
A good challenge
Of course, the lesson was not without its problems. Some students were disappointed when I revealed the original text and they saw they hadn't got it 100% the same. I had to explain that there were several ways to say the same thing and the point was to make a good paragraph with the information I gave them, not something word-for-word the same.
On the whole, it went well (although one girl did, quite rightly, scold me for failing to include I love my family at the end of the text!) and I will be doing it again with slightly longer texts in the near future. In one class, we finished the lesson with a new word as I asked them what they thought of the lesson and whether they had found it easy or difficult. They wanted to say it wasn't easy but wasn't so difficult that they didn't enjoy it. Challenging was the word they were looking for.


text:
By selecting one product in the list of desktop computers below, you will be able to get prices for desktop computers from our trusted suppliers, distributors, resellers, wholesalers and dealers who have new, used or refurbished desktop computers in stock. If you are a qualified reseller, dealer or Industry professional, you are invited to join Powersource Online's Network to sell your desktop computers.
Global Marketplace for IT, Telecom & Medical Buyers and Sellers
New, Used, Refurbished, Hard to Find Parts, Equipment & Services


text:
- Prayer and Worship
- Beliefs and Teachings
- Issues and Action
- Media
- Bible
- Catholic Giving
- About USCCB
October 22, 2012
Four members of the USCCB delegation arrived in Antakya, Turkey, October 19th to look at the situation of Syrians and Iraqis from Syria on the Turkish-Syrian border. (Other members went to Yalova, a satellite city near Istanbul, to speak with Iraqi families.) There has been much publicity regarding this border, including the shelling of a Turkish village and the death of 5 Turkish citizens. There are 14 border camps along the Turkish-Syrian border, ranging from southern Hatay province to the city of Ganziantep about three hours northeast. Two more are scheduled to open soon. According to Turkish authorities, more than 100,000 Syrian refugees reside in the camps and another 40-50,000 reside in local communities, some with family and/or friends. The Turkish government has received deserved praise for the conditions of the camps, which include kitchens, air conditioning, and other amenities usually not found in a refugee camp.—FULL REPORT
October 16, 2012
The delegation visited Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan, where about 35,000 Syrian refugees reside. Jordan opened the camp in June due to the rising tide of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria. Refugees are crossing Jordan's northern border, many fleeing gunfire from Syrian government forces. The Jordanian army intercepts them, provides them with food and water, and then transports them to the camp, about 30 Kms from Syria. Jordanian officials have generally received high marks for receiving the refugees, which have totaled as many as 2000 a day, but have confiscated their documents, leaving them vulnerable if they return to Syria. Many of the men bring their families to the camp and then return to Syria to fight with the resistance. Stories from the refugees detail the horror of the conflict: families being ambushed at the border and women describing the death of their husbands. One woman with children had been shot in the jaw; others spoke of the deaths of their husbands and brothers. One male refugee told the delegation he knew he had to leave with his family when he witnessed the murder and mutilation of his friend, a journalist attempting to chronicle the conflict.
October 2012
The delegation has just concluded its visit to Cairo, Egypt and learned more details about the trafficking and torture of Eritrean refugees in the Sinai Peninsula.
Last year, USCCB conducted an assessment mission to East Africa. At that point we traveled to Ethiopia and met with Eritrean refugees escaping poverty and forced military service in their home country. We found that because of limited opportunities in Ethiopia, many young people would continue on to Sudan, Egypt, and Israel. They search for more viable livelihoods. However, during our time in Cairo, we have learned the grave reality of these treacherous journeys.
By accepting this message, you will be leaving the website of the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This link is provided
solely for the user's convenience. By providing this link, the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops assumes no responsibility for,
nor does it necessarily endorse, the website, its content, or
sponsoring organizations.


text:
Creative and Clever Bus Advertisements.
Creativity is not bound by limits & that's what these advertisements show. Here are some advertisements which have utilized the best of the structure of the buses to convey their message in a beautiful & creative way.
Don't miss to check out "Creative and Clever Bus Advertisements – Part: 1| 2| 3| 4".
Other Posts:
Telephone Advertisements From The Past.
Thoughtful Advertisements
Amazing Pictures Of Beautiful Earth
Related Posts:
Creative Advertisements: Life Is Too Short For Wrong Jobs


text:
Look at our Other services include Walkthrough, Flythrough Animation , 360 Panoramic Virtual Tour, Floor Plan, Virtual Reality , Augmented Reality Apps Development, GIS Image Processing, 3D Product Modeling and Animation and Video Promotion.
Whether it is about commercial, residential or industrial building, Yantram Studio provides you the perfect deal to your expectations. Our team of experts always works with commitment to serve quality solutions to our clients.
Visit us :
http://www.yantramstudio.com/3d-archite ... ation.html


text:
We don't know what cancer killed Jack Layton, but we do know he had prostate cancer and that it is common for men with prostate cancer to develop secondary cancers -- often more aggressive cancers which could be the ones that defeat them. For men, this is sobering news since prostate cancer is the most common form of the disease among men.
About 25,000 new cases of the disease surface in Canada each year. In BC, physicians diagnose approximately 3,000 new cases each year.
While most men survive the slow progressing disease, about 500 BC men die from it every year.
Others are aggressively treated for a cancer that will never bother them, raising questions about the value of regular PSA tests.
The good news is that research has been going on at a furious pace in world labs and in Vancouver's own internationally renowned Prostate Centre and it is starting to make its way into the clinic.
Dr. Kim Chi, an oncologist specializing in prostate cancer, says after years in the wilderness, four new agents targeting prostate cancer are in the final stages of approval.
"All of a sudden we have four new ways of attacking the cancer," says Chi, adding that before that, there was only one chemotherapy drug for late stage prostate cancer. Before that came on the scene 10 years ago, hormone therapy and castration surgery were the only treatments available.
"It's really exciting times and it's a testament to how much research has evolved," says Chi. "All these things you have been hearing about from scientific and lab studies are all coming to fruition in the clinic."
Dr. Martin Gleave, executive director of the Vancouver Prostate Centre, calls the current rate of discovery and development of new treatments "simply dazzling." He compares it to the '70s and early '80s when computer technology took off.
"Significant progress is being made now and we will look back in 20 years time and recognize this time as a magical coming of age period," he said.
The conundrum researchers are starting to wrestle to the ground is how to block the ability of cancer cells to evolve and survive the death blows medicine inflicts on them, says Gleave.
"Testosterone in the main driver of progression of prostate cancer," he explains, adding that treatment has always been to suppress the production of the male hormone. But when they do that, the cancer cells start producing testosterone themselves. " It shows you what little buggers they are," he says.
So research focuses on developing a cocktail of death blows that will keep medicine ahead of the cancer's survival tricks.
Comparing the research approach to a game of baseball, Gleave says researchers are advancing the runners with a series of base hits.
"It is unlikely we will hit home runs," he says. "We may, but right now we are moving the field along with a series of base hits and that is still the most predictable way to win the game."
Recently up to bat was a new drug just approved in Canada a few weeks ago called Abiraterone, which showed excellent results. Abiraterone is a pill that blocks the cancer cell's ability to produce testosterone and it has very few side effects.
"We were testing it for several years on people with no other treatment options," said Chi, adding the average survival for the subjects was less than one year.
"Guys in wheelchairs were getting up and walking after one to two weeks of treatment," he said adding that it improved survival by about 35 per cent. People also had less pain and less progression of cancer," says Chi.
The drug was tested on men at the end stages of the disease, but Chi expects it may eventually become first line treatment, even before surgery and radiation.
Another new player is a drug called Denosumab, which is now on the market. It prevents the cancer cells from harming the bones. When prostate cancer metastasizes, it usually goes to the bone. Denosumab is an anti-body that shuts down the cancer-activated cells that can destroy the bone. Patients can easily self-administer it and while it doesn't prolong life, it does a lot to improve quality of life, says Chi.
Then there is a new chemotherapy drug for patients who have become resistant to current chemotherapy regimes, and a new vaccine-type treatment that has been approved in the U.S., but not in Canada. The vaccine prolongs survival for about four months, but it doesn't relieve symptoms and it's expensive. It is questionable if patients will want to prolong their suffering while depleting their bank accounts, said Chi.
These four agents have all shown promise to varying degrees, but five more treatments are on the horizon, says Gleave.
One that is highly anticipated is a drug called OGX 011, which was developed by a team led by Gleave. In phase two trials it was found to restore the efficacy of chemotherapy in patients who had become resistant to the drugs and prolonged the lives of end-stage patients for an average of seven months. It is now in randomized phase three trials. Gleave says the data are very promising and will be out within two years.
The Prostate Centre researchers are also trying to figure out how to tell the difference between a prostate cancer that will kill and one that stays quiet in the body, not bothering it, says Chi.
By isolating and analyzing what they call circulating tumour cells, which are found in the blood stream and can be removed with a simple blood sample, researchers hope to figure out what drives a particular cancer. Once they know that, they can develop treatments that specifically target those drivers. It may also help them determine which cancers are less harmful than the treatment.
"This is in baby steps right now, but it is part of the future," he says.
Layton's demise was unfortunate and even tragic, but as he said himself, it's not a reason for those with the disease to lose hope. Instead, men can take comfort knowing that an explosion of discoveries in the field is greatly enhancing chances of survival.
"Fifteen years ago if you had end stage hormone resistant prostate cancer your overall survival rate was 12-14 months," says Gleave. "Now with the addition of these new medications, survival is exceeding 25 months and will continue to grow over the next five years."


text:
Anyone looking to discard unwanted prescription drugs will be able to drop them off at various local locations on Saturday during a nationwide drug "take-back" effort.
Sheriff's offices and local police departments will be collecting expired, unused and unwanted prescription drugs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The service, which is free with no questions asked, is through a partnership with the Drug Enforcement Administration and local law enforcement agencies to prevent increased pill abuse and theft.
"Prescription drug abuse is a serious public health and safety issue," stated Butte Count Sheriff Jerry Smith in a press release.
Collection sites will be:
• Chico: Enloe Medical Center, 560 Cohasset Road
• Paradise: Immediate Care Medical Center, 5875 Clark Road
• Oroville: Oroville Hospital Comp Care Clinic, 900 Oro Dam Blvd.
• Gridley: Annex at 284 Spruce St., two doors down from Orchard Hospital
• Hamilton City: Hamilton City Fire Department, 420 First St.
• Orland: Glenn County Sheriff's Office substation, 821 E, South St.
• Willows: Glenn County Sheriff's Office, 543 W. Oak St.
• Corning: Corning Police Department, 774 Third St.
Collection sites can also be found at www.dea.gov.
Any medicine in capsule and tablet form will be accepted. Intravenous solutions, injectables, and needles will not be accepted. Illicit substances such as marijuana or methamphetamine are not a part of this initiative, but can be collected by local law enforcement for disposal.
For information on proper disposal of pharmaceuticals, go to www.recyclebutte.net.