text:
Friday, October 19, 2012
Halloweegan Spooky Dinner Revival!
Spooky! It's a meatless meatloaf shaped like a gingerbread man, surrounded by spooky mashed potato ghosts and pumpkin-puree pumpkins. I used the same recipe for the beet burgers that I made earlier this week. Making videos isn't a natural skill for me, so I prepared myself with some quick and easy instant mashed potatoes for the ghosts. The more time I can save in the kitchen the better when it comes to making videos! Freshly made mashed potatoes look better, but if you need to save time too I am not going to judge you. You will need some special decorating tools for this (large round and star decorating tips), unless you just want to wing it with a ziploc bag or pastry bag. You can also make your own parchment paper or wax paper pastry bag following the instructions from this handy video. OK, enough chit-chat! Let's watch the video! (warning: loud music!)
15 comments:
I love everything about this! And per your rec, I made those burgers last night!ReplyDelete
Boo back atcha.
Aren't they awesome?! I love them! The do make a good meatless loaf too. At least flat little ones for sure! I could eat them every day. The world can't produce enough beets for me to make these burgers so often! :DDelete
I was hoping I'd get beets in our veg box this week but we didn't, boo! I'm going to go out and buy some just so I can finally try this recipe.ReplyDelete
And I love your videos, the ghosties look great, as does the poor dead meatloaf-man! The pumpkins are my fave though :)Replies
That's too bad! This recipe is definitely worth going out to buy some beets though. I think next time I'm going to add a wee bit of liquid smoke to the burger mix just for kicks.Delete
I'm glad you like the videos! I used a different camera for this one and it's pretty crappy. I'm going to stick to my trusty Panasonic in the future.
I just love you. There are no other words. :)ReplyDeleteReplies
You are too awesome for words! Sometimes I get frustrated with the people of the internet and I hide in my hermit cave for months without blogging. And then there are people like you who are naturally awesome and remind me that it's OK to come outside and play. You rock!!Delete
:). Always happy to see you around.Delete
HA! Well done. The scariest thing is the way the beet loaf looks when it's raw and you're pushing it into the mold. It looks so real — like the "t" could be an "f." Yikes.ReplyDeleteReplies
I know! And the beet mix I used had been in the fridge, so it was very firm - you should see it when it's freshly made and it has very visible bits of brown rice which look like fatty bits! Beet burger mix is a Halloweegan food all on its own!Delete
OOOh I was planning on making the beet burgers for dinner this week. This opens up a whole new world of ideas!!!!ReplyDeleteReplies
You can still make burgers and make them Halloweeny! Check out my Dead Man Burgers from 2010. I might make them again next week! :)Delete
ha ha. Oh River, this is the BEST. So fun and funny - and also delicious I'm sure. I love the little "x's" for eyes. The best.ReplyDeleteReplies
I'm glad you like it, because this poor beet guy will probably make another appearance next Friday - in burger form!Delete
I think I am a little bit in love. This is the most fun, most creative Hallowe'en dinner I've seen!ReplyDeleteReplies
Thanks, Joey! I will do a variation of this next friday that is my favorite Halloweegan food of all time! Watch this space! :)Delete


text:
'Sabres coach Lindy Ruff disclosed the injury at the team's morning skate, but didn't say how much time Vanek may miss. Vanek's problem stems from taking pucks to the midsection over the past week. "He hasn't been himself the last couple of games," Ruff said.'
Sabres LW Vanek out against Pittsburgh
April 22, 2010 Submitted by
Via: AP

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Transurethral resection of the prostate - dischargeTURP - discharge; Prostate resection - transurethral - discharge
You had transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) surgery to treat an enlarged prostate.
Your surgeon inserted a tube-like tool called a cystoscope (or endoscope) through your urethra (the tube that carries urine from the bladder out of the penis). Your surgeon used a special cutting tool to remove part of your prostate gland piece by piece.
What Expect at Home
You can expect to start doing most of your normal activities in 3 to 6 weeks. Problems you may notice are:
- Problems with urine control or leakage after sneezing, coughing, or lifting
- Erection problems (impotence)
- Passing the semen back up into the bladder instead of out through the urethra (retrograde ejaculation)
- Burning or pain during urination
- Passing blood clots
You should rest as often as you need to the first few weeks after surgery. But you should also do regular, short periods of movement to build up your strength. While resting, continue to do some of the bedside exercises and breathing techniques your nurse showed you.
Gradually return to your normal routine. You should not do any strenuous activity, lifting (more than 5 pounds), or driving for 3 to 6 weeks.
Try taking regular, short walks. Work up to longer walks to build up your strength. You can return to work when you are better and can tolerate most activities.
Drink plenty of water to help flush fluids through the bladder (8 to 10 glasses a day). Avoid coffee, soft drinks, and alcohol. They can irritate your bladder and urethra.
Eat a healthy diet with plenty of fiber. You may use a stool softener or fiber supplement to help prevent constipation, which can delay the healing process.
For the first few weeks after surgery, take only the medications your doctor told you to take.
- You may need to take antibiotics to help prevent infection.
- Check with your doctor before taking aspirin, ibuprofen (Aleve, Motrin), naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn), acetaminophen (Tylenol), or any other drugs like these.
You may take showers. If you have a catheter, do not take baths until it is removed.
Avoid sexual activity for 3 to 4 weeks. Many men report a lower amount of semen during orgasm after having TURP.
Urinary Catheters
You may feel spasms in your bladder while you have a urinary catheter. Your doctor can give you medicine for these spasms.
You will need to make sure your indwelling catheter works right. You will also need to know how to clean the tube and the area where it attaches to your body. This will prevent infection and skin irritation.
The urine in your drainage bag may look darker red. This is normal.
After your catheter is removed:
- You may have some urine leakage (incontinence). This should get better over time. You should have close-to-normal bladder control within 3 to 6 months.
- You will learn exercises (Kegel exercises) that strengthen the muscles in your pelvis. You can do these exercises any time you are sitting or lying down.
When to Call the Doctor
Call your doctor or nurse if:
- You have pain in your belly that is not helped with your pain medicines.
- It is hard to breathe.
- You have a cough that does not go away.
- You cannot drink or eat.
- Your temperature is above 100.5 °F.
- Your urine has a thick, yellow, green, or milky drainage.
- You have signs of infection (burning sensation when you urinate, fever, or chills).
- Your urine stream is not as strong, or you cannot pass any urine at all.
- You have pain, redness, or swelling in your legs.
While you have a urinary catheter, call your doctor if:
- You have pain near the catheter.
- You are leaking urine.
- You notice more blood in your urine.
- Your catheter seems blocked.
- You notice grit or stones in your urine.
- Your urine smells bad, or it is cloudy or a different color.
Fitzpatrick JM. Minimally invasive and endoscopic management of benign prostatic hyperplasia. In: Wein AJ, ed. Campbell-Walsh Urology. 10th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 93.
Review Date: 5/22/2013
Reviewed By: Louis S. Liou, MD, PhD, Chief of Urology, Cambridge Health Alliance, Visiting Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Bethanne Black, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.


text:
All Featured Highlights: State Workplace and Adult Education Policy
- Apr 17, 2015 | Kisha Bird, Anna Cielinski, Judy Mortrude, and David Socolow Promoting Economic and Career Success for Low-Income Youth and Adults: A Preview of the Proposed WIOA Regulations This paper summarizes several key priority topics in the proposed WIOA regulations to help state and local policymakers, advocates, and practitioners leverage opportunities. Download PDF
- Sep 29, 2014 | Kisha Bird, Marcie Foster, and Evelyn Ganzglass WIOA Creates New Opportunities to Improve Economic and Career Success for Low-Income Youth and Adults CLASP's summary of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) focuses on opportunities for improving services to low-income youth and adults under Title I and Title II. Download PDF
Mar 12, 2008
| Amy-Ellen Duke and Julie Strawn
Overcoming Obstacles,Optimizing Opportunities: State Policies to Increase Postsecondary Attainment for Low-Skilled Adults
This paper, by Amy-Ellen Duke and Julie Strawn, provides an overview of state policies that can be most successful in helping lower-skilled adults enter and succeed in college and careers. The paper introduces a series of state policy reports developed as part of Breaking Through, a national project that is helping community colleges identify and develop institutional strategies that can enable low-skilled adult students to enter into and succeed in occupational and technical degree programs at community colleges.Download PDF
Dec 20, 2007
| Amy-Ellen Duke and Evelyn Ganzglass
Strengthening State Adult Education Policies for Low-Skilled Workers
At a time when employers increasingly need better educated and skilled workers to succeed, too few states have taken significant actions to improve adult education and literacy. This brief, prepared for the Working Poor Families Project, provides an overview of state adult education policies and programs and recommends ways they can be strengthened to provide better job advancement opportunities for lower-skilled adults and older youth.Download PDF
Feb 21, 2007
| Christopher Mazzeo, Brandon Roberts, Christopher Spence, and Julie Strawn
Working Together: Aligning State Systems and Policies for Individual and Regional Prosperity
Julie Strawn of CLASP coauthored this new report, from the Workforce Strategy Center, which asserts that the current systems are not working effectively to produce the kinds of knowledge workers need for our new economy. The paper examines state policy and system improvements that would enhance the ability of workers to gain skills to advance to better jobs and the ability of employers to find skilled workers. These improvements include increasing access to postsecondary education and training; enabling current students to succeed and complete marketable credentials; increasing transitions between literacy, language, and postsecondary education and training programs; incorporating employer demand and state economic priorities in educational planning; expanding the capacity of postsecondary institutions; and measuring program results.Download PDF
Apr 06, 2006
| Amy-Ellen Duke, Karin Martinson, and Julie Strawn
Wising Up: How Government Can Partner With Business to Increase Skills and Advance Low-Wage Workers
Helping low-wage workers upgrade their skills is a critical part of public policies to advance workers and to attract and retain "good" jobs—those that pay enough to support a family and offer health care, sick leave, and other important benefits. One promising approach has states and local governments partnering with business and industry to train workers and encourage the creation and retention of good jobs. This report examines five such training partnerships underway in four states, and offers innovative practices, challenges, and lessons learned for states and localities.Download PDF
- Oct 18, 2007 | Julie Strawn Policies to Promote Adult Education and Postsecondary Alignment Download PDF


text:
Review Janome Sewist 500 Sewing Machine with Exclusive Bonus Bundle
The Janome Sewist 500 makes it easy to sew – and the great price makes it easy to afford! This versatile Janome sewing machine offers 25 stretch and utility stitches, an automatic 1-step buttonhole, and convertible free arm. Practical features like accessory storage and a top loading bobbin with see-thru window will make creating with the Sewist 500 practically effortless.
- Bonus Bundle Includes: Janome Muffling Mat, 10 Plastic Janome Bobbins, 1 Pack Size 14 Needles
- The Janome Sewist 500 makes it easy to sew – and the great price makes it easy to afford!
- This versatile Janome sewing machine offers 25 stretch and utility stitches, an automatic 1-step buttonhole, and convertible free arm.
- Practical features like accessory storage and a top loading bobbin with see-thru window will make creating with the Sewist 500 practically effortless.
Share this
Best Sewing Machines
SaleBestseller No. 1
Brother LS14 Metal Chassis Sewing Machine
- 14 stitch metal chassis sewing machine
- Drop In Bobbin
- LED Day Time Lighting
- 4 Step Button Hole
- 3 Year Warranty
SaleBestseller No. 2
Singer Model 1507 Sewing Machine
- Singer entry level model
- 7 bulit-in stitches with 4 step buttonhole
- Adjustable stitch length & width
- Heavy duty metal frame with built-in accessory storage
- Carry handle and soft dust cover
Bestseller No. 3
Brother L14 Sewing Machine
- 14 Stitches
- LED Sewing light
- Top load Bobbin
- Instructional DVD included
- 3 year warranty
SaleBestseller No. 4
Sew Lite Compact Sewing Machine With 16 Coloured Thread Spools 16 Coloured Bobbins 5 Needles 1 Needle Threader Measuring Tape Thimble and Foot Pedal - Purple / White.
- Easy to use; Simple setup and operation makes it perfect for beginners and advanced users
- Space saving; Compact, lightweight 2.2KG and easily portable it also comes with a carry case
- Multi function; Simple to use functions, work light with an on / off switch, reverse sewing and eight stitch patterns, bobbin winder, finger guard
- Extra accessories; Packed with all the extra tools you need to get sewing
- Foot pedal; Bespoke speed control for different sewing needs
SaleBestseller No. 5
Singer 4411 Heavy Duty Sewing Machine, Grey
- Heavy duty metal frame with stainless steel bed-plate, high speed sewing 1100 stitches per minute
- 11 stitch patterns with 4-step buttonhole and 3 needle positions
- Easy to use drop in bobbin, drop feed for free hand embroidery and darning
- Adjustable stitch lenth and width, adjustable preser foot pressure and extra high lift
- Built in accessory storage, 4 presser feet, guide, needles, bobbins, seam ripper and dust cover included
Bestseller No. 6
Anself Mini Electric Sewing Machine 2 Speed Adjustment with Light Foot Pedal
- Mini desktop used sewing machine offers double thread sewing, neat and straight stitch.
- Automatic winding of bobbin thread and upper thread, easy to replace.
- The speed can be switchable: low or high speed. With a light, convenient to thread the needle.
- Come with a pedal, you can choose hand switch or foot pedal to control. Lightweight, compact and portable, can save more space and man power.
- Can be powered by power adapter or batteries(not included). Perfect for craftspeople or DIY enthusiasts to use at home.
SaleBestseller No. 7
12 Stitches Household Sewing Machine, Mini Size Handheld with Foot Pedal 2 Speed Double Threads
- ☆ Mini size, portable for you. Easy to use, design the pattern you like in your clothes.
- ☆ Double thread, double speed (Low / High). Foot pedal support. Video Reference in the description.
- ☆ Featuring 12 built-in stitch patterns, meet your different needs of DIY sewing.
- ☆ Forwards and reverse sewing. Use hand switch or foot pedal to start.
- ☆ Automatic thread rewind. Low noise, stable operation.
SaleBestseller No. 8
Janome 2200XT Sewing Machine
- 22 stiches plus a 4-step button hole
- Maximum stitch width 4mm, maximum stitch length 5mm
- Foot control
- Snap-on feet
- Soft cover
Bestseller No. 9
Brother AE1700 Sewing Machine with Instructional DVD, 17 Stitch
- 17 Stitch Sewing Machine
- Drop in bobbin
- LED Lighting - never replace a bulb
- Quick and easy stitch selection
- 4 step button hole
SaleBestseller No. 10
Brother HF27 Sewing Machine, Metal, Multi-Colour
- 27 Stitches
- Strong metal chassis
- Metal Needle Plate for increased stability
- J Foot with levelling button for thicker fabrics
- Non Stick foot for leathers and pvc.
SaleBestseller No. 11
Toyota 15B Super Jeans Sewing Machine, Black
- unique gliding foot for sewing over many layers of fabric
- lightweight only 4.9kgs 15 stitches four step buttonhole
- op loading bobbin with see through cover built in auto needle threader quick advisor
- sewing light,thread cutter, converts from free arm to flat bed
- three year guarantee with access to web site and help line numer is 08705 133106 quick start guide
Bestseller No. 12
Brother LX25 Sewing Machine
- 25 built-in stitches
- LED Light
- Free arm conversion
- Top Load drop in bobbin
- Instructional DVD included
Bestseller No. 13
Brother Innovis NV15 Electronic Sewing Machine
- Electronic easy to use sewing and quilting machine
- Best sewing machine for amateur sewists and universities
- Handles All types of fabric (delicate to about 2-3 layers of denim)
- Adjustable stitch width and length
- 3 year warranty
SaleBestseller No. 14
Janome J3-24 Sewing Machine
- 24 Built-in stitch choices
- Quick foot conversion
- Freearm for circular sewing / Built-in needle threader
- Variable stitch width & length / Auto 1-step buttonhole
- Drop feed for freehand embroidery / Convenient thread cutter
Bestseller No. 15
AMOS Mini Stitch Handheld Cordless Portable Travel Clothes Fabric Curtains Lightweight Craft Sewing Machine Battery or Mains with Extra Bobbin & Needle & Threader
- Handheld sewing machine, Single stitch, Battery or power adaptor operated
- Compact and lightweight, Portable and easy to carry around, Great for on spot repairs and alterations
- Precise stitching control, Thread tension control, Easy to use
- Ideal for beginners and novice, Pre-threaded and ready to use, Can be used at home, in the office, car etc
- Requires 4 x AA batteries or DC 6V 600mA power adaptor (not included), 20cm (L) x 7.5cm (H) x 5cm (W)
SaleBestseller No. 16
Sew Lite Easy to use Compact Portable Sewing Machine with Foot Pedal - White / Purple
- EASY TO USE - Simple setup and operation makes it perfect for beginners and advanced users.
- SPACE SAVING - Compact, lightweight and easily portable.
- MULTI-FUNCTION - Simple to use functions, work light, reverse sewing, rotating hook and 19 stitch patterns.
- FOOT PEDAL - Bespoke speed control for different sewing needs.
- Guarantee; 12-month guarantee
SaleBestseller No. 17
RayLineDo® Mini Handheld Portable And Cordless Electric Stitch Home Travel Clothes Fabric Curtains Lightweight Craft Single Thread Sewing Machine Battery or Mains with Extra Bobbin & Needle & Threader
- Material: Plastic, Metal.Package Content: 1 x Sewing Machine; 1 x Sewing Pack (3 x Bobbins, 1 x Thread spool, 1 x Needle & Threader); 1 x User Manual. Product dimension: 21cm (L) x 6.5cm (H) x 3.5cm (W).
- Lightweight, portable and cordless. Convenient to carry around, Great for on spot repairs and alterations.
- Precise stitching control, thread tension control, easy to use.
- Ideal for beginners and novice, pre-threaded and ready to use, can be used at home, in the office, travel etc.
- Requires 4 x AA batteries or DC 6V 600mA power adaptor (not included). Attention please: since the sewing machine is single thread to operate, you must make a knot at the end of the last stitch in the back side of the cloth. Otherwise, the stitch will be skipped. Please be careful to guide the point 9 of the instruction.
Bestseller No. 18
Sewing Machine Double thread, double speed (Low / High) 8 built-in stitch pattern - NEW version with Purple Buttons
- Double thread, double speed (Low / High)
- Featuring 8 built-in stitch patterns
- Forwards and reverse sewing
- Automatic thread rewind
- Sews sleeves
SaleBestseller No. 19
Brother FS100WT Free Motion Embroidery/Sewing and Quilting Machine, White
- 100 Stitch Electronic Sewing Machine with Needle Threader and 1 lettering style
- Quick Set Drop in Bobbin and Drop Feed Mechanism
- Start/ Stop button and speed control which also enables speed limiting
- Quick touch stitch selection and length & width adjustment
- Comes packaged with an extra wide table, and a free motion embroidery foot. Perfect for all your free motion embroidery!
SaleBestseller No. 20
Candora® Wholesale Sewing Thread Coil 30 Color 250 Yards Each Polyester All Purpose for Hand and Machine Sewing
- Material:Polyester
- Thread can be used by hand or machine.
- High-quality.You can see in the Picture.
- Each Spool Contains Approximately 228.6 Metres(9000In) of material.
- Package Content:1 set of 30pcs sewing thread spools.
carryonluggages.com is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.co.uk.Last update on 2017-06-07 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API


text:
Model trains will wind their way through a miniature village set
in a field of poinsettias. The village is made entirely of natural
materials and features a variety of Chicago-style homes and famous
buildings such as the neighborhood bungalow, Chicago Theatre and
Chicago Water Tower Place. Nov. 26-Jan. 8.
Includes Gingerbread Story-time, Tree Lighting Ceremony,
Gingerbread Man Hunt, Gingerbread House Contest, visits with Santa
in his Gingerbread House, Small Business Saturday, Gingerbread Boy
and Girl perusing town, and Complimentary Carriage Rides. For more
information, visit www.downtowndg.org or call (630) 725-0991.
Geared toward children with special needs, especially kids
who may have a hard time sitting still or focusing in big groups.
Sensory Storytime is followed by a new playgroup with sensory
activity stations for kids and caregivers to explore together.
These free storytimes, best for ages 2 to 6, are offered on
Tuesdays at 4 p.m. at the Main Library, 834 Lake St. No advanced
registration is required. Sensory Storytimes include stories
and songs as well as large and small movement activities. A picture
schedule is used in the front of the room, and individual
schedules, fidget toys, and bean bag lap weights are available.
Caregivers are required to be in attendance. Sensory Storytimes are
20 to 30 minutes long, and the sensory activities will be open for
30 minutes after the storytime ends. For more information, email
[email protected]


text:
.tj Domain Names
Origin: Republic of Tajikistan
Description: .TJ is the official extension of the Republic of Tajikistan
Whois: http://www.nic.tj/whois.html
Important note: This extension is only available for customers that have subscribed to a Gandi Corporate contract. For more information please contact our Corporate team.
- Rules
- Dates
.tj periods
Period (more info) Action Registration period 1 year maximum Register a .tj Renewal period 1 year maximum Renew a .tj Late renewal period (domain suspended) none Restoration period none Renew a .tj Period before liberation (Pending Delete) none Minimum period before a transfer 60 days Transfer a .tj
- Prices
- News


text:
UST Catholic Studies announces new program
Article written for the University of Saint Thomas by Sister Paula Jean Miller, FSE, Director of Catholic Studies
The University of St. Thomas students will have the unique opportunity to earn a minor in Catholic Studies in one semester while studying abroad in the Holy Land and Italy. UST will offer this rare pilgrimage, integrated learning, and immersion in faith and culture, for the first time in spring 2011.
"Catholic Studies is one of UST's premier programs designed specifically to integrate the Catholic intellectual tradition with a range of academic majors," said Dr. Dominic Aquila, Vice President for Academic Affairs. "The Catholic Studies semester abroad in the Holy Land and in Rome is a new and exciting way to achieve this integration. Students in this program will experience directly the places and cultures that form the foundations of the Catholic tradition."
Sister Paula Jean Miller, FSE, director of the Catholic Studies Program, designed the new study abroad program to highlight the University's Catholic identity as it strives to integrate multiple disciplines included in the core curriculum.
"This is an opportunity for students to complete a minor in Catholic studies and earn 15 credits toward the core while learning the history of the Church in the lands in which our faith was born and nurtured. The experience will culminate with a papal audience in Rome," Sr. Paula Jean said.
While other Catholic universities study abroad in Italy, Sr. Paula Jean said there are very few universities that take students to Israel – much less both countries in one semester.
The program will accept 15 to 20 students who will devote a complete semester to earn 18 hours of course credit in history, fine arts, psychology, theology and Catholic Studies. Students will take courses on campus until mid-March, and then depart for approximately 60 days of study abroad in Jerusalem (and throughout the Holy Land), Assisi, Florence, and Rome. The group will return to Houston in early May.
"You can only begin to grasp the richness of the church's heritage by going to that land and experiencing both the universality and the particularity of the Church. The Church is embodied in the uniqueness of each culture, even as it is universal to all cultures," she said. "You can't get it by just reading it on a page; the only way is to be there long enough to begin to experience the land, the people, and the multifaceted nature of that people.
Courses will include Israel: Ancient and Modern, a history course taught by Dr. Irving Kelter; Holy Land Archeology and Architecture, a fine arts course taught by Dr. Charles Stewart; Mapping the Holy Land and Exploring Catholic Tradition, Catholic Studies courses taught by Sr. Paula Jean; Psychology of Stress and Coping: Israel and Palestine, a psychology course taught by Dr. Elizabeth Maynard and Church History II: Assisi, Florence and Rome, a theology course taught by Sr. Paula Jean.
"In Israel, the students will learn more about the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians," Sr. Paula Jean said, "and why that postage stamp size land has such intense religious meaning to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It's a unique situation that will broaden the understanding of our faith as well as the religious-political situation that is there. We have the same basic problem going on in virtually every corner of the globe. If students can begin to understand the religious-political conflicts in the Holy Land, they will have a greater insight into those conflicts in other parts of the world."
After living in the Holy Land and taking numerous groups on tours of both Israel and Italy, Sr. Paula Jean is an experienced guide. To quell concerns about safety, Sr. Paula Jean pointed out that violence in Israel is targeted against particular groups (Jews or Muslims), and not against Christians, who suffer more from economic forces. Because the violence experienced in the United States is random, she often feels safer there than she does in the U.S. Sr. Paula Jean believes that traveling to Israel will be safe for the students, but the program will be canceled and students will receive a full refund should the trip be deemed unsafe near the time of departure.
Since UST is currently working on securing funding and scholarships, the cost of the trip is yet to be determined. Students of all faiths are welcome, but they must have taken Teachings of the Church and Introduction to Sacred Scripture before applying for the new Catholic Studies program, since these are pre-requisites for upper division theology courses. Alongside the concentrated study abroad minor, dual or joint majors, the minor, and the Master in Liberal Arts concentration in Catholic Studies will still be offered in the traditional format.


text:
Belle Vie Gala: Celebrating 20 Years of Service at Belle Reve
Belle Reve New Orleans
Saturday, August 17, 2013 from 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM
Who's Going
San Francisco, California
London, United Kingdom
Florence, Italy
Event Details
Opening our doors in 1993, Belle Reve New Orleans has been providing housing for homeless adults and families living with HIV and AIDS related illnesses for twenty years. We hope that you will be able to join us for a night of fun, food and dancing as we celebrate twenty years of service to the New Orleans community!
We will gather in the beautiful ballroom of the New Orleans Athletic Center,
overlooking the historic North Rampart Street.
When & Where
New Orleans Athletic Club
222 N. Rampart St
New Orleans,
Saturday, August 17, 2013 from 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM
Add to my calendar
Belle Reve New Orleans
Opening its doors in 1993, the mission of Belle Reve New Orleans is to provide permanent and transitional housing along with full support services to adults and families living with AIDS or HIV related infections. Concern for quality of life and equal availability of services are the founding principles of the agency. Therefore, service delivery will not be influenced by race, gender, religion, age, or sexual orientation.


text:
What lifestyle changes can I make to help improve my cholesterol levels?
Exercise regularly.
Exercise can raise HDL cholesterol levels and reduce levels of LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. If you haven't been exercising, try to work up to 30 minutes, 4 to 6 times a week. Make sure you talk to your doctor before starting an exercise plan.
Lose weight if you are overweight.
Being overweight can raise your cholesterol levels. Losing weight, even just 5 or 10 pounds, can lower your total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
If you smoke, quit.
Smoking lowers your HDL cholesterol. Even exposure to second-hand smoke can affect your HDL level. Talk to your doctor about developing a plan to help you stop smoking.
Eat a heart-healthy diet.
- Eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are naturally low in fat. Not only do they add flavor and variety to your diet, but they are also the best source of fiber, vitamins and minerals for your body. Aim for 5 cups of fruits and vegetables every day, not counting potatoes, corn and rice. Potatoes, corn and rice count as carbohydrates.
- Pick "good" fats over "bad" fats. Fat is part of a healthy diet, but you need to know the difference between "bad" fats and "good" fats. "Bad" fats, such as saturated and trans fats, are found in foods such as butter; coconut and palm oil; saturated or partially hydrogenated vegetable fats such as shortening and margarine; animal fats in meats; and fats in whole milk dairy products. Limit the amount of saturated fat in your diet, and avoid trans fat completely. Unsaturated fat is the "good" fat. Most fats in fish, vegetables, grains and tree nuts are unsaturated. Try to eat unsaturated fat in place of saturated fat. For example, you can use olive oil or canola oil in cooking instead of butter.
- Use healthier cooking methods. Baking, broiling and roasting are the healthiest ways to prepare meat, poultry and other foods. Trim any outside fat or skin before cooking. Lean cuts can be pan-broiled or stir-fried. Use either a nonstick pan or nonstick cooking spray instead of adding fats such as butter or margarine. When eating out, ask how food is prepared. You can request that your food be baked, broiled or roasted, rather than fried.
- Look for other sources of protein. Fish, dry beans, tree nuts, peas and lentils offer protein, nutrients and fiber without the cholesterol and saturated fats that meats have. Consider eating one "meatless" meal each week. Try substituting beans for meat in a favorite recipe, such as lasagna or chili. Snack on a handful of almonds or pecans. Soy is also an excellent source of protein. Good examples of soy include soy milk, edamame (green soy beans), tofu and soy protein shakes.
- Get more fiber in your diet. Add good sources of fiber to your meals. Examples include fruits, vegetables, whole grains (such as oat bran, whole and rolled oats and barley), legumes (such as beans and peas) and nuts and seeds (such as ground flax seed). In addition to fiber, whole grains supply B-vitamins and important nutrients not found in foods made with white flour.
- Eat more fish. Fish are an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids. Wild-caught oily fish, such as salmon, tuna, mackerel and sardines, are the best sources of omega-3s, but all fish contain some amount of this beneficial fatty acid. Aim for 2 6-oz servings each week.
- Limit how much cholesterol you get in your diet. You should limit your overall cholesterol intake to less than 300 milligrams per day, or less than 200 milligrams if you have heart disease.
Add supplements to your diet.
Certain supplements may help improve your cholesterol levels if changing your diet isn't enough. Some examples include:
- Plant sterols and stanols. Plant sterols and stanols can help keep your body from absorbing cholesterol. Sterols have been added to some foods, including margarines and spreads, orange juice and yogurt. You can also find sterols and stanols in some dietary supplements.
- Omega-3 fatty acids. If you have heart disease or high triglycerides, consider taking an omega-3 or fish oil supplement. Make sure the supplement has at least 1,000 mg of EPA and DHA (these are the specific omega-3 fatty acids found in fish).
- Red yeast rice. A common seasoning in Asian countries, red yeast rice may help reduce the amount of cholesterol your body makes. It is available as a dietary supplement. Talk to your doctor before taking red yeast rice, especially if you take another cholesterol-lowering medicine called a statin. The recommended dose of red yeast rice is 1,200 milligrams twice a day.
Copyright © American Academy of Family Physicians
This information provides a general overview and may not apply to everyone. Talk to your family doctor to find out if this information applies to you and to get more information on this subject.


text:
Advertising content
February 8, 2013
From $499,900
888-99-MARIN or liveatmarin.com
BLAINE -- Marin's first phase of condominiums on Semiahmoo Bay is nearly sold out, and the sales staff is gearing up to sell the next selection of units.
Although each residence at Marin includes more than $1 million in builder costs, the homes are being sold at prices starting at $499,900. Buyers who purchase a home during Marin's sales event on Feb. 16 will also receive a free boat slip at Semiahmoo Marina.
The two-bedroom, 2.5-bath homes range in size from 1,200 to 2,200 square feet. Interiors include hot-water radiant-heated floors, custom-milled wood trim, oversize EuroLine windows that offer unobstructed beachfront views, and gas fireplaces with concrete surrounds.
The kitchens at Marin feature custom-crafted cabinets with glass inserts; slab granite countertops; Kohler sink fixtures in a polished-chrome finish; Wolf ovens, gas ranges, ventilation hoods and microwaves; and Sub-Zero stainless steel refrigerators and freezers.
The concrete-and-steel building's exterior features cedar and natural stone. Also included are patios, walkways and decks, as well as 500 feet of private beach frontage.
Marin is located on the Semiahmoo Peninsula. It is less than an hour from Vancouver, B.C., and about 90 minutes from Seattle. The peninsula offers residents 8.7 miles of coastline to explore, as well as miles of nature, hiking and cycling trails.
Next to Marin is the Semiahmoo Marina, which includes nearly 300 boat slips. The marina provides members with easy access to Drayton Harbor, which is considered the gateway to the San Juan and Gulf islands. Marina amenities include a fuel dock, an electric supply, guest slips, a bathroom with free showers, and a gift shop.
Semiahmoo Golf & Country Club and Loomis Trail Golf Club, two of the state's top courses, are minutes from Marin.
For local shopping options, Blaine includes several unique stores and boutiques. Bellis Fair Mall in Bellingham is 20 minutes from Marin and features a range of shopping, dining and entertainment options. Seattle Premium Outlets in Tulalip is a one-hour drive away.
For live entertainment, the Mount Baker Theatre in downtown Bellingham's arts district is the largest performing-arts facility of its kind north of Seattle. The restored 1927 building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is dedicated to presenting performing artists on both the professional and community levels.
Content provided by Marin


text: Cutting our only healthy, experienced safety is simply not an option at this time, IMO. We had two scrubs who are no longer under contract, McCray, who most would place in the Ball category of people we hope to never take the field as a Cowboys' safety again, and two coming off of major injuries, one who has never played and one who went down after a few games with a bad achilles. Cut Sensabaugh and we could be looking at the possibility of entering training camp with our only healthy safety being whoever we drafted, or none if we don't take one in the draft. If we sign Goldson, though, Sensabaugh's status would change immediately.


text:
i m going to create a dating web site. it's online game. there are will at first registration, chat and the game, where people can ask question and random users (3 boys to 3 girls) answer on each other at real time.
like on screen (russian flash app). ask question: http://cossa.ru/upload/medialibrary/2f0/Clearasil-2.jpg
answering: http://vkdiz.ru/uploads/posts/2011-08/1314303812_25.0823.png
at the end, people, if they want, they can choose a man: http://onlain-love.ru/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/prilozhenie-v-kontakte-sprosil-uvidel-polyubil.png
so, i know very good html, php, mysql. A little js, ajax, jQuery. what engine and how should i start to make this project?
for example, i read about Ajax Push Engine. Should i use it or search something else, another technology? Or maybe just write site on clear jQuery and mysql?
thank you!
I've recently hacked together a few things (including a [basic chatroom) that use a NodeJS server to act as a [URL="http://www.websocket.org/"]WebSocket server with [URL="http://socket.io/"]Socket.IO](http://afterlight-chat.jit.su/)
With the Socket.IO approach you could either run your site on Node or have a separate Node server that runs Socket.IO to act as a server to communicate to.
You can of course get a WebSocket endpoint in PHP as well, then use a plugin/script that provides you with some graceful degradation in case the browser doesn't support WebSockets.
Thank you for answer.
Yes, some people recommended me use NodeJS. I read that I have to create my server to make chat, for example. I don't understand, how will it work in Internet, not my local machine? Do i have always turn on my computer in order to stay turned on server? Where users info and messages will be situated? in mysql?
In jQuery it's easy: no server and js+php scripts to go with mysql.Why should create server if i can just easy use jQuery+php+mysql?
By the way, I don't want to be depended on someone to have a separate Node server that runs Socket.IO to act as a server to communicate to.
NodeJS is great for real-time applications like chat/social network type things/interaction etc. At the moment the thing to do seems to get your Node applications hosted in the cloud by places like NodeJitsu or Heroku. Message can be stored in whatever database you want to connect to that you can find a driver for in Node (MongoDB and other NoSQL databases might be a good way to go for things like that)
You don't necessarily need to create a server, just a PHP script that acts as what effectively is a message relay. A place to send/receive communications from. The "Socket Server" is merely a way to implement what you want to do, the "Socket Server" itself would actually just be a PHP script on your website that you utilize.
In that case, the only way to do it would be to either run your own Node server or to write it in PHP. From the sounds of it, PHP might be the way to go for you as you indicated that you have experience in it
AussieJohn, thanks a lot, you wrote very well!
Frankly speaking, I don't want to be depended on someone. If so, do i have to turn my computer always on to make server/site work every minute?
Again, dependency. Where can i also store messages?
IMPORTANT question: in this case i have to set timer (for example, every 3 seconds) in jQuery to check whether someone wrote a message to chat, right? But if i have 10000+ users at one moment, will it work fine? no crashes?
thank you
You're welcome
Normally, unless you are running a fast connection at home and are willing to set up a machine to be a dedicated server at home, the thing to do is to get your site hosted. There are many excellent places where you can get your site hosted externally who would be able to offer a fast connection, high uptime and depending on your need, the ability to scale.
You can run a local MySQL server, or if you get your site hosted, many hosts will have things like MySQL, PostgreSQL etc.
Well, that depends on the methodology that you are using. There are several libraries out there that will help you use the most advanced technology (WebSockets) to the older technologies (Comet, Long-Polling with AJAX) by detecting what the browser can support.
If you had 10,000 concurrent users, hopefully by that point you have a very robust framework and a good server in place. 10,000 concurrent users is a pretty high amount, and unless you are realistically expecting this, it's not worth trying to optimize for this straight away. (But worth keeping in mind for the future if you're expecting to grow to this!)
If the online chatting is a very important part of your site, one of the other solutions is to use a 3rd party chat client like [ChatSpace or an [URL="https://www.google.com.au/search?q=irc+server+software"]IRC server - you can host those server components yourself (or have them hosted) and connect a client to them, there are a bunch of [URL="http://www.vedetta.com/ajax-irc-clients-list"]web-based IRC clients](http://www.akiva.com/default.asp?l=1&id=9) that you could use for that.
Thank you again
Is there chance that Mongodb server/site/hosting will be crashed and all users that use this database will stop running their sites? Can i backup Mongodb database to my computer (.txt file for instance) and then transfer it to Nosql or my local Mysql server in this case?
By the way, i m going to create large project/site, popular.Will Mongodb developers able to get my database and use it in thier aims? for example, database with logins and pass.
That depends on where you host your MongoDB - if you host it on your own server, or on a hosted shared/dedicated server you shouldn't have to worry about that any more than if you were running any other kind of database. If you're opting for a cloud hosted MongoDB then there are different risks, but cloud hosted solutions to tend to have relatively good failovers. Again, you probably have the same level of risk as you would with any other cloud database provider.
MongoDB is a BSON (Binary JSON) based database, so while you probably can't directly import data from backups, it would be pretty easy to quickly write a script that does so.
You can put pretty much whatever data you want in to MongoDB - the only thing you need to keep in mind is that MongoDB is excellent at storing stuff and finding stuff relatively quickly, but it is not a relational database. So if you need highly relational data, it would be better to use MySQL for example.
Again, I would still recommend that you don't reinvent the wheel when it comes to writing a chatserver, there are 3rd party solution out there, both commercial and open source, that you can host on your own server and will do a great job of providing that part of the service.
AussieJohn, i have some short questions again :/
1) why are there hostings for Mongodb (MongoHQ, MongoLab, ...), if it is easier and free to install Mongodb on my local machine? or is it for people, who create nodejs server not on his computer, but on NodeJitsu or Heroku, for example?
2) Can i create my nodejs server not on NodeJitsu or Heroku, but on my hosting? I have account on bluehost.com
3) I have read that not many hostings user Mongodb. So, can i install Mongodb by myself on hosting (bluehost) and connect my future site to it? or i should install Mongodb on my computer to get faster speed?
I just don't know who to operate my site. I think i should create nodejs server and install Mongodb on my computer both.
4) If i create popular site, is it true that i will have buy another computer to make fast connection, site?
1) You can choose where you want to host your database, I would recommend a cloud based service over your own computer. By all means install and develop locally, but deploy and use a cloud based one for production services
2) You'll have to check with bluehost, but I doubt they will offer support.
3) It's more likely that bluehost also won't support MongoDB, see answer (1)
4) Only if you host from home, again this isn't something I recommend. It is far easier to use a hosted solution. Some of the main reasons for this include: Stability, speed, security and scalability, hosting companies spend a lot of time and money to make sure that you have all 4 of those things, something that is far harder to set up and manage on a home computer. Having said that, you can host from home, but if you do that, you should probably do some research on how best to set up a home webserver.
Finally, keep in mind that NodeJS might not be the right solution for you, you might be better of using a PHP based site seeing as you have more experience with that.
AussieJohn, do you know something about Meteor? a new platform for apps. Does this platform suite better for my aims? (Register users, online game, mongodb...)http://meteor.com/
or SocketStream http://www.socketstream.org/ or Derby http://derbyjs.com/
I haven't heard much about or used any of these frameworks, my suggestion to you would be:


text:
Weekly Fighter/Forum Member Take Over - this week is Baked Bean
Use this control to limit the display of threads to those newer than the specified time frame.
Allows you to choose the data by which the thread list will be sorted.
Order threads in...
Note: when sorting by date, 'descending order' will show the newest results first.
Forum Rules


text:
In a move more reminiscent of a badly regulated nursery than of a foreign power, Iranian officials have now denied that Yousef Nadarkhani is to be executed on charges of apostasy.
Instead, the young Iranian Christian will be executed on charges of rape, treason, and Zionism. Maybe.
Or maybe not; a statement on the Iranian Embassy site in the U.K. contradicts numerous reports—including official Iranian court documents—when it claims that no verdict has been issued:
The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in London renounces the published news regarding the death penalty for Mr. Yousof Nadarkhani and announces that the Court of Appeal in the Islamic Republic of Iran has not issued any verdict on his case. Accordingly, the allegations to the issue of the death penalty for the above mentioned, are unsubstantiated.
Iran's wish to do away with Pastor Nadarkhani while maintaining an increasingly absurd semblance of legality has not received nearly the attention it deserves, especially when compared with some of the better known court cases that have crowded our news feeds. Mark Tapscott writes,
Unlike Troy Davis, for whom the evidence of his innocence was at best questionable, Nadarkhani is unequivocally innocent of wrongdoing. So why the seeming celebrity indifference to his situation and to the worldwide Muslim persecution of Christians?
Unfortunately, celebrity outrage reflects the multiculturalist mindset of our era, which places all minorities on a pedestal – unless that minority is a devout Christian. Celebrities flocked to support American Muslims' right to religious freedom in the Ground Zero mosque controversy (a right which the mosque protesters were not even contesting). They decried the "state-sanctioned murder" of the black Troy Davis. But they can't be bothered to take even a stand on Twitter for Pastor Nadarkhani, whose murder at the hands of an oppressive state is imminent.
Fortunately, as the expected execution is continually delayed, more and more people are beginning to take notice. Condemnations from the White House, numerous members of Congress, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, advocacy groups like Amnesty International, and a few mainstream news outlets have made Iranian officials nervous enough to deny the findings of their own court system. Unfortunately, that may not be enough to save Nadarkhani's life.
Yousef Nadarkhani's case is particularly important because he is just one of the many Iranians suffering under increased religious persecution. No one has been executed for apostasy for Iran since 1990, but if Nadarkhani dies, many others will no doubt follow. Let's hope that future martyrs will be enabled to keep the faith, as Nadarkhani has—and let's hope the world will start to pay more attention.


text:
Quality CareFind out why Mayo Clinic is the right place for your health care. Make an appointment.
Meet the StaffFind a directory of doctors and departments at all Mayo Clinic campuses. Visit now.
Research and Clinical TrialsSee how Mayo Clinic research and clinical trials advance the science of medicine and improve patient care. Explore now.
Visit Our SchoolsEducators at Mayo Clinic train tomorrow's leaders to deliver compassionate, high-value, safe patient care. Choose a degree.
Professional ServicesExplore Mayo Clinic's many resources and see jobs available for medical professionals. Get updates.
Give to Mayo ClinicHelp set a new world standard in care for people everywhere. Give now.
Mayo Clinic offers appointments in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota and at Mayo Clinic Health System locations.
Subscribe to Housecall
Our general interest e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics.
At Mayo Clinic, we take the time to listen, to find answers and to provide you the best care.
Treatment of aortic valve regurgitation depends on how severe your regurgitation is, your signs and symptoms, and whether the regurgitation is affecting your heart function.
Some people, especially those with mild regurgitation, may not need treatment. However, the condition may require monitoring by your doctor. You may need regular evaluations, with the frequency depending on how severe your condition is.
Your aortic valve may need surgical repair or replacement, even if it's not causing symptoms. While the heart is generally good at counteracting problems caused by a leaky aortic valve, if the valve isn't fixed or replaced in time, your heart may weaken permanently.
Heart valve surgery should be done at a high-volume heart valve surgery center with a reputation of excellence, and cardiologists, imaging specialists and cardiac surgeons with experience in treating heart valve conditions.
Discuss the risks and benefits of surgery with your doctor. Your surgery options include:
Valve replacement. In many cases, the aortic valve has to be replaced with a mechanical valve or a tissue valve. Mechanical valves, made from metal, are durable, but carry the risk of blood clots forming. If you receive a mechanical aortic valve, you'll need to take an anticoagulant medication, such as warfarin (Coumadin), for life to prevent blood clots.
Tissue valves — which may come from a pig, cow or human cadaver donor — often eventually need replacement. Another type of tissue valve replacement that uses your own pulmonary valve (autograft) is sometimes possible.
Aortic valve replacement generally requires open-heart surgery under general anesthesia and with the use of a heart-lung bypass machine. Less invasive surgical techniques, such as using a small, lighted tube through a small incision to see the surgical area (laparoscopy), are being explored for aortic valve surgery.
Minimally invasive cardiac surgery is associated with less pain, a shorter hospital stay and fewer complications. However, the surgery is more complex than open-heart surgery, partly because the surgeon can't see the valve as well. Talk to your surgeon to see if this type of surgery might be right for you.
Mayo Clinic does not endorse companies or products. Advertising revenue supports our not-for-profit mission.
Check out these best-sellers and special offers on books and newsletters from Mayo Clinic.
Any use of this site constitutes your agreement to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy linked below.
A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only. "Mayo," "Mayo Clinic," "MayoClinic.org," "Mayo Clinic Healthy Living," and the triple-shield Mayo Clinic logo are trademarks of Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research.
We comply with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information: verify here.


text:
Best Of :: Shopping & Services
Everyone has musical skeletons in their closet: an embarrassing Euro-trash obsession, a long-outgrown affinity for death metal, an Alanis Morissette disc purchased during a particularly weak moment. Don't fret. The curiously friendly counter crew at Cheapo Discs has seen it all, and they pass bills instead of judgment. Here, old, unwanted CDs turn into money -- which one can pocket or spend on the store's impressive and inexpensive inventory of used discs. It all works off the magical and dynamic wheel of musical tastes. After all, the Cheapo people know that we all make mistakes -- and that at any given moment, someone else is ready to make that same mistake again.
Now you can get one leg tattooed while the other one is being waxed! No, seriously: The Blue Door does offer tattooing services, along with related applications of permanent cosmetics and henna body painting. But you can also indulge in every bit of new-age massage media, from Reiki to aromatherapy, all provided by experienced women practitioners. Kick back. Take the ring out of your nose. Relax.
One day earlier this year, a young woman arrived in Capitol Hill to get her hair done. Since her regular hairdresser was still snipping the locks of another customer, the woman wandered two doors down, walked into Twisted Sol and got her genitalia pierced. There are many ways to kill time while waiting to get a haircut -- reading a magazine, for instance -- but there's nothing as creative as getting a new piercing or tattoo, and finer tattoo aficionados can spot a Twisted Sol epidermis a mile away. Whether it's Jeff Kopp's pinpoint portraits or Jeramiah Clark's spray-paint style, this place has the finest den of young ink artists in Denver. "We'll work as many hours as there are in the day," says co-owner Alicia Cardenas. Currently, there's a three-month waiting period for any of the five featured tattooists, but that will change soon. This month, Twisted Sol will expand into an adjacent space (the former Majordomos coffee shop) and add two new tattooists and another piercer. Cardenas says the store will also sell tribal art and jewelry. Whatever you decide on, it's sure to go perfectly with your trendy new trim.
Imagine Baco-Bits made of yesterday's Firestones, and you're on your way to envisioning Crown Three, a nifty lawn-care product from a company called Jaitire. Sprinkle it on heavily trafficked areas of turf grass -- dog runs, the mailman's shortcut, the path your kids beat to the swingset -- and this tiny rubber carpet will protect the crown of the grass root while conserving water, extending the growing season and insulating your lawn from the winter blues. Keep your car off the lawn, though. Non-recycled tires tend to leave a mark.
Taking its design inspiration from the board game Candy Land, the folks at Can Land Recycling do their damnedest to put the fun back into recycling. Nestled among the modular-home dealerships of north Federal, the entrance to Can Land is marked by candy-cane-striped poles and a huge, festive sculpture of suspended wooden barrels with massive grins and outstretched arms. That welcome alone is worth all the drudgery of rinsing and sorting a truckload of garbage. The grounds are decorated with a profusion of brightly colored paintings of happy homes and grateful cans caught frozen for all eternity in mid-hug. Maybe hope and happiness can live on beyond the confines of a children's game.
These good people know all about lifting life's little burdens. Aside from being a thrift store, the nonprofit Family Tree Foundation is dedicated to improving the self-esteem of people needing to overcome family crises, violence and homelessness. The funding comes from donations by the materially overwhelmed, and the folks here run their store with the same care that they run their services. Most notably, unlike some other thrift stores, no item gets thrown away. Even if it's slow to sell, a donation may finally find its value in one of the signature mix-'n'-match packs that make shopping here interesting and affordable. The people at the Family Tree Foundation are experts at getting rid of -- and helping others get rid of or deal with -- unneeded stuff.


text:
The Silo collection makes artful use of thin-profile rectangular tubing with a mirror-like polished chrome finish for a clean, contemporary look. A subtle frost on the underside of the six cylindrical glass shades adds softness to the sleek lines, while the bright Xenon lamps are cleverly concealed in the metal ring, casting ample light upwards and downwards without glare.
Founded in 1970 in a California garage, Maxim Lighting has grown into a lighting leader known for its high standards in quality and design innovation. Offering a wide selection of elegant fixtures as well as specialty items such as under cabinet and party lights, the company imparts the family-run values of hard work and earned loyalty into every lasting design it creates.
Our team has over 100 years combined experience with contemporary lighting.
Every EuroStyleLighting.com order is backed by our 100% Satisfaction Pledge.
Shipping and Delivery Information - For item EUT0828 if ordered by 1 pm Pacific Time


text:
Richard Littlemore | December 7, 2007
By Richard Littlemore • Friday, December 7, 2007 - 07:59
In the wake my post yesterday, lauding an anti-corn-ethanol report posted on a website generally associated with any lobbyist willing to pony up support funding, the thoughtful and articulate John Mashey threw this counterpunch. Lots of interesting issues here in a subject very worthy of more debate. Thank you, John:
I'm no lover of big agribusiness (I grew up on a small farm) and of the
various screwball farm subsidies [although this is nowhere as dumb as the
waste of time on premature hydrogen].
I think you have been taken for a ride on this one, as have some
usually-reasonable folks, via very careful cherry-picking by people who
absolutely want to minimize competition for petroleum sales. I'll dive
down, then up with the obvious no-brainer issue, which is that if we don't
do ethanol/biodiesel, it's hard to understand how North American farming
survives in anything like its current shape: you can grow big fields of
corn, but if you can't ship it medium/long-distance, what do ytou do with
it? [Norman Borlaug notes that one of the serious impediments to efficient
African farming is exactly this: lack of transport, although they of coruse
not only lack fuel and vehicles, but sometiems even roads.]
1) Does it not strike you as odd that places like NCPPR, funded by the
usuals, including ExxonMobil, and friendly with the cigarette folks,
suddenly have great concern for all the poor people of the world?
It's terrible to divert cropland for fuel! [But it's perfectly OK to grow
tobacco, which causes serious deforestration in many countries, not just for
land to plant tobacco, but for wood to burn to dry it. Sure, Amy! Sure
Dana [who's worked for CEI & Heritage.]] Tobacco cropland (which is
normally great farmland) in US is going UP. Never once I have I seen these
folks complain about tobacco versus food. I wonder why.
2) There are a whole lot of reasons food prices are up, including fertilizer
prices and transport prices, not just corn.
3) There are a lot of smart people who think (and I agree):
a) I think Corn ethanol is better than David Pimentel & co say in its energy
balance. *Most other studies say it has a positive energy balance.* I
strongly recommend acquisition of "Energy and American Society - Thirteen
Myths", ed by Benjamin K. Sovacool and Marilyn A. Brown. [See Amazon, I put
a review up.]
See especially: "Energy Myth Three - High Land Requirements and and
Unfavorable Energy Balance Preclude Biomass Ethanol from Playing a Large
Role in Providing Energy Services." by Dartmouth Professor Lee Lynd & co. Of
course, he is involved in a new biofuels startup (funded by Vinod Khosla,
Kleiner Perkins, etc), so he might be biased, but he has a long academic
track record in this turf, and I'd listen to what he says about 100% more
than anything Amy says.
In particular, Pimentel & co (and especially the 2005 Pimentel/Patzek study
mentioned in Amy's thing) always seem to make the most negative assumptions
possible. Maybe he's right, but there are lots of other studies from
different places that say otherwise. The deniers *always* cite
Pimentel/Patzek, either directly or indirectly, but a lot of other people
think there are flaws:
Google: pimentel patzek
Of recent studies:
Positive Energy Balance
Lorenz & Morris (1995)
Wang et al. (1999)
Agri Canada (1999)
Shapouri et al (1995,2002, 2004)
Kim & Dale (2002, 2004)
Graboski (2002)
Delucchi (2003)
NR Canada (2005)
Negative Energy Balance
Pimentel & Patzek (2005)
Somewhere I saw a timeline graph with a lot more studies; anything with
Pimentel is below the line, the others I'll see if I can find it.
b) Corn ethanol is nowhere near as good as cellulosic ethanol (likely from
wood chips, switchgrass, or miscanthus (elephant grass). Miscanthus uses a
lot less water and fertilizer, and grows 13 feet high in a season. We grew
corn on our farm, and it was NEVER designed as a fuel plant. Miscanthus and
switchgrass (or even better hemp :-)) are already good, and with the
inevitable tweaking, will get better. After all, we've been working on corn
for centuries.
This stuff even sequesters carbon in the soil.
Water and fertilizer are going to be more expensive [see my long comment
today on Emily's "You might die" about fertilizer, of which much comes from
natural gas…]
Farmers grow whatever makes them more money. When there is a reasonable
market for ethanol, and a few other things get in place, farmers will
switch, but of course, until then, it's safer to plant corn, which you can
at least sell for food as a fallback. [Of course, certain people we know
well do NOT WANT there to be a competitive market for ethanol… which means
making it hard to buy and keeping flex-fuel vehicles away from the market.
What a surprise.]
In the US, there are a *lot* of weird farm subsidies that I'd be happy to
see go away, but this is one of the less bad ones, since it's actually
helping head ina useful direction, even if it's only a transitional step.
c) There are three reasons we're doing corn ethanol now, one bad, one OK,
one really, really good.
The bad one is lobbying.
The OK one is that we already have infrastructure, etc optimized for corn,
and we need to do some work (not too much) for things like miscanthus.
The really, really good one is to get over the chicken-and-egg problem of
creating ethanol distribution and getting the auto fleet switched over to
flex-fuel [which costs ~$100 apiece if designed in, less with volume], so
that those things will be *there* as cellulosic starts to scale up. Here's
an example:
d) The quote from Crutzen (on Nitrous Oxide) is a cherry-pick. His abstract
says: "Crops with less N demand, such as grasses and woody coppice species
have more favorurable climate impacts. CA's ARB hosted this symposium, last
There's a whole section on mitigation of nitrous oxide, with two on
Dana would have you believe that growing corn for biofuels emits N2O (and it
does! Biofuel must be evil!).
BUT, so does growing corn to eat, or anything that uses a lot of
nitrogen-based fertilizer. OK, so lets grow nothing that needs fertilizer.
Oops [although we can do better, as described above; *agriculture* is a big
N2O emitter, period.]
4) BUT, this crocodile-tears thing from Amy (& other deniers) doesn't make
any sense anyway, at least not to an old farmboy.
It does NO good to grow crops if you can't get them to market, and the
markets are far away, like they are in North America.
In a sustainable future [oil and natural gas effectively gone], we may well
be able to run farm machinery on electricity, as in:
http://www.renewables.com/Permaculture/ElectricTractor.htm , although I
haven't seen the equivalents of the big 200-500HP John Deeres or combines.
In some cases, it will be better to burn the biomass to generate electricity
to supply local needs via more efficient local generation, although
hopefully, windpower/PV in the Great Plains will suffice. … BUT:
KANSAS TO TORONTO AND NEW YORK CITY, much less get shipped abroad to the
poor of the world. Remember, oil and gas are GONE! Does every farm have a
train track to it? Are all trains electrified, or do they go back to coal?
[Oh, really good, just what we want.] If the poor of the world want to buy
{corn, soybeans, wheat} from N. America, exactly what is fueling the ships
to get it there?
Nuclear? (maybe, at least there's precedent).
Sails? Kites (I actually know people trying that, to help reduce fuel
(Actually, I think it makes little sense to ship high-volume bulk food
around a world that has no cheap petroleum. I'd much rather have farmers
growing ethanol than having corn subsidies that cause us to ship corn to
poor palces whose own agricultural development gets stifled as a result.)
In that sustainable future, I hope, if we're still going to keep productive
big US&Canada farms, (rather than splitting up the big ones, moving many
residents of Vancouver and Toronto and especially New York onto small-family
farms, sort of like Old Order AMish, but maybe with electricity :-), this is
what we'd better hope works:
a) Some farmers will grow fuelcrops, using electric tractors when possible,
and ethanol/biodiesel when necessary for machinery.
b) They will use ethanol/methanol/biodiesel trucks, and haul the biomass to
modular conversion plants (like Range), but maybe with some also burning the
biomass for electricity, and some producing biofuels to run the trucks. [Of
course, until vehicles get to be flex-fuel, some are still using petroleum,
but it's hard to count that against them.]
c) All of the numbers I see says we should get to a process that needs *no*
petroleum input and generates excess electricity and/or biofuels beyond that
needed to run the farms. At worst, it recycles CO2, at best, it actually
sequesters some carbon.
This is an important topic, and there has been some silly subsidy lobbying,
but being mad at that is little different from being against recognition of
AGW because of getting peeved at some early doom-and-gloomster. A lot of
real scientists and engineers are working very hard on pathways to having
sustainable transport fuel when oil is gone. We'll need it badly, and the
pathway goes *through* corn ethanol right now, for better or worse (but
actually, even corn is less bad than Amy tries to make it look.)
cyb3r_ph4ntom replied on Permalink
Which one.
Which is a more productive use of resources and time?
Getting the automakers to produce vehicles that can use alternative fuels.
Getting the automakers to produce vehicles that have vastly improved fuel economy.
Of course we would all like to see them do both but, that ain't gonna happen. Given that both technology innovations will cost the automakers lots of money and take a few years to develop, I would back the second option.
Once we have better fuel economy then we can consider alternative fuels.
From a cost and effect point of view I believe this would be a better approach. cyb3r_ph4ntom
John Mashey replied on Permalink
Which one: both
Your heart seems in the right place, but if you really care about this turf, you need to increase your fact base … Perhaps you haven't spent a lot of time talking to auto design engineers.
Read "Flexible-fuel vehicles in Brazil".
"As of 2005, popular manufacturers that build flexible fuel vehicles are Chevrolet, Fiat, Ford, Peugeot, Renault ,Volkswagen, Honda, Mitsubishi, Toyota and Citröen. Flexible fuel cars were 22% of the car sales in 2004, 73% in 2005 [5], and 75% and 90% rates are estimated for 2006 and 2007."
I.e., somehow these vendors have *already* figured out how to be build FFVs,and some are sold in the US as well.
Google: flex-fuel conversion kit
Among many is one that has EPA certification:
You can see that it is a minimal, almost trivial device, the prices are coming down, and if the built-in equivalent adds even $100 to manufacturing cost I'd be astonished.
FFV is *already* DONE, it's already been deployed widely, it's been done as near-trivial addon kits whose cost curves are *electronics*-driven, and have minimal cost when done as part of the base design.
On the other hand, increasing fuel economy, which is indeed more important, requires serious hard continuing engineering work that affects entire vehicle design.
If you want to see hopeful design concepts, see PHEV/FF concept cars like:
Chevy Volt
Toyota 1/X, especially, very cool
http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/ http://www.autoblog.com/2007/10/10/tokyo-2007-preview-toyota-1-x-pronounced-1-xth/
Toby Reid replied on Permalink
The pathway doesn't stop at corn based ehtanol
Research exists that shows that 25% of the US corn crop is being estimated for ethanol use in 2008. In order to produce enough ethanol to displace some of our fossil fuel use, 40-50% of the total US corn crop will need to be used. In order to fully displace fossil fuels to 100% ethanol we'll need to increase corn production by over 300%. This is a huge growth opportunity in one view, and a huge dilemma in the other.
If we displace this much corn from current supply, we will have to use less corn for traditional uses and we'll have to clear more agricultural space to grow more corn. Both of these activites have serious long-term implications. The implications with the former are the food scarcity issue, and in the latter, clearing land for agricultural use most often comes at the expense of our forests - currently the best tools we have for sequestering CO2.
So, corn based ethanol seems to be on the pathway to a better fuel and energy future, but it's definitely not the final destination. The next stop is indeed cellulosic ethanol, which can be made from most any kind of biomass, not requring starch heavy corn as the feedstock.
But even cellulosic ethanol isn't the final destination. It still has greenhouse gas emissions that we will have to wrestle with minimizing, though they are less than the emissions from fossil fuel use. The world isn't getting any smaller, so even with cellulosic ehtanol emissions will still be an issue to manage.
Go back a few years to the creation of the combustion engine, which was developed at the turn of the last century. It currently rules our roads and tracks, and the auto, truck and train industries are very content with this. This 100+ years old technology provides them with great profits off of a combustion system because of all the necessary replacement parts and maintenance associated with their use. But as we know, profits aren't a viable argument for maintaining the status quo in place of implementing more sustainable systems. The cost of not acting is just too high to be that short sighted and greedy.
One day, our pathway will have to come to electric transportation. There are no emissions on the transportation end in this scenario, and renewable energy sources can be used on the generation side - solar, wind, clean hydro, tidal, etc… technolgies that are available today. This will require a huge collaboration between government, electricity generators, auto and transportation companies, but at the end of the day, it is the most sustainable scenario for our transportation needs. While profits might be less, planetary health will be much better. It's probably not what auto, fuel and train makers want to hear, or farmers for that matter, but the nobel prize winning IPCC's findings were not what the oil industry wanted to hear either. The truth can often be frightening, but this is not a new idea.
The ethanol discussion is indeed an important step, as we need to transition our way from fossil fuels. Whilte it's a stop along the way, it's not our final destination and the discussion will need to be kept going as to what stops, and what steps, the pathway needs to make after ethanol and cellulosic ethanol.
Note to readers: the author has no colleagues or investments in electric transportation or renewable energy.
Carl Szczerski replied on Permalink
I agree entirely with your
I agree entirely with your statements about steping stones. I think investment in biotech its ability to increase fuel production will also be done the road; the next logical step in the process. Like anything new and different the initial challenges are always large in comparrison to the established system.
John Mashey replied on Permalink
Not stop at corn ethnaol, for sure
1) We certainly agree that fuel doesn't stop at corn ethanol.
2) As discussed elsewhere (in Amy's "You Might Die" thread from a couple days ago), in in other blogs, I'm a big fan of making:
- small/medium tractors and shot-haul vehicles all-electric
- most cars PHEV/FF if they need more range.
3) I live in Silicon Valley, have driven electric cars, talk to those people, etc, etc. I talk to people investing in battery technologies, solar, etc, etc.
4) The issue *still* is: what do you do for medium-longer distance transport? I know of people trying to create an infrastructure of stations providing quick-switch batteries, but that still seems chancy.
Give me more than than wishful thinking and I'd be really happy, but do recall: the best mechanisms we have for actually taking CO2 out of the atmosphere (in the low concentrations there) are called plants… :-)
Bob from ALAMN replied on Permalink
Biofuels and cleaner air
We at the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest are strong supporters of E85 and biodiesel. Perfect? Final Answer? No, but available NOW, along with many other good solutions and paths. See CleanAirChoice.org for more.
Bob Moffitt
Communications Director
Clean Fuels & Vehicle Technologies
Toby Reid replied on Permalink
The long distance question
John, good question about long range transportation. A key to the electric transportation infrastructure shift.
As with any new system some changes in behaviour are required. Recycling called for people to sort their garbage - an idea that seemed crazy at the time recycling was being considered. 'Nobody will sort their garbage' was the argument. Turns out, people were motivated enough to do so, and they did.
For longer range transportation, the solution is to use electric trains for the long distance piece, as is the norm in many parts of Europe and Japan. Once a user arrives at their destination of choice, they get off the train, and either through rental programs or car sharing programs, once again use an electric car for their short distance needs. Or better yet, people walk or use bikes. The trains connect our cities over long distances, and the cars, bikes or the good old 'two feet and a heartbeat' take the users into the hubs for their short distance needs.
Plus, with the advances in battery technologies we've seen even over the past 5 years, those long distance gaps could get even shorter and shorter.
Electric transportation is possible, and with the right investment and impetus from all the key players, it can be done. The only thing lacking right now is the motivation to do so, and the will to act.
John Mashey replied on Permalink
Another try
Toby: I must not be communicating well enough, but the message isn't getting through, so I'll try again. But please, when I'm at least a foot into a problem that's 10 feet deep, to help me, you've got to tell me things more than an inch deep.
I'll be happy to listen, if you can offer a useful *pure-electric* solution for a Class 8 trailer truck, for example.
[Yes, I know about hybrid approaches for Class 8s, but that doesn't help the long-distance part, it's for the heavy-traffic and idling part.] You have something like that that really works, VCs would be interested. If you had a working design for a greatly-improved battery, VCs would really beat a path to your door.
So please, cite the huge battery improvements.
BUT, passengers are the *easy* part.
Here's a recent EERE set of presentations:
But skip that for now, see:
Oil Use in Transportation Plotted Against Domestic Production
Some cars can easily become pure-electric, the rest should be PHEV/FF, and likewise for light trucks, although of the latter will have to be PHEV/FF.
Heavy trucks can be PHEV/FF, but the reason is more to cut down on idling lossage, than any hope you're going to get heavy long-distance. If you want more on trucks:
http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/TA/373.pdf is useful.
But assuming air travel goes away, and ignoring military, eyeballing that chart says:
Auto+light trucks+heavy trucks+off-road+shipping ~11M barrels/day in 2000, of which at least 3M (heavy + off-road + shipping) looks hard to make all-electric, and maybe another 1M-2M of the light truck, or maybe 4M-6M barrels/day.
I'm all for using as much electrified rail as we can, but the spread-out geography of most of the US is just not as suitable as in Japan or Europe, and even there, they still use trucks. There are certainly places in the US where it is really hard to figure out how to cost-effectively:
a) Handle agricultural transport with *no* fuel.
b) Get railroads to go in the right places in heavily builtup areas for *freight*.
Anyway, I'm happy to hear of solutions, but I just don't know how one can avoid fuel for much shipping and a lot of trucking, and when I talk to researchers and government policy types, they don't
I live in an intensely-environmentally-aware town, am active in the local climate protection task force, whose website, http://www.coolpv.com/ is done by by wife. We have money in SPWR and PBW (http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?showtopic=40).
I've helped people get funding for low-power wireless sensor networks used to reduce energy expenses for buildings and industry. I help organize chip conferences that usually include power-reduction issues. I've helped organize alternate-energy and battery-technology sessions for venture capital events. I've attended such. I've heard Alexander Karsner of EERE talk about this stuff.
I work with VCs who invest in this area which means they see plans that most people don't well ahead of time. I've sold many supercomputers to vehicle companies and worked with their engineers, and the auto companies have advanced R&D centers in Silicon Valley and I bump into them. I've attended electric vehicle presentations. I've ridden bullet trains in Japan and trains in many places in Europe.
So I am an engineer/(scientist), and I'm used to considering long-term R&D issues, but I need more citations, not handwaving, and I like things that obey laws of physics.
Class 8 trucks
On dedicated inter-city truck routes, why not use "trolley trucks"?
The trucks could still have a diesel engine, but have an electric drive much like a railroad locomotive.
On a electrified highway the driver would turn off the diesel and pull power from an overhead power cable.
It would be very expensive to install, but I tend to believe the payback period would be very short…
John Mashey replied on Permalink
Trolley trucks
So, sounds interesting.
1) Hybrid trucks are definitely coming, in many classes, as noted earlier, for idling & start/stop parts of their trips.
2) There is a t least one entrepreneur trying to do easily-switchable battery-packs, but those ideas are very early.
3) But look, engineering problems don't get solved by wishful thinking and happy ideas. How about presenting some *research* and a design proposal that's more than a vague idea with a claim that the payback would be short? Those are cheap, but they don't help, and are unfortunately no better than saying "Don't worry, hydrogen will solve everything."
SO, here's some research you could do:
a) Can you find research in EERE or equivalents in Europe or Japan that have studied this? If so, what do they say? If you can't find any, is it because the idea never occurred to them, or because it has, and got dismissed? [Google: electric truck overhead wire and summarize why, although big trucks powered partially by overhead wires were tried as long ago as 1960, they haven't taken off].
b) Can you find data on electrification costs for:
- city trolley / light-rail systems? I.e., cost/mile?
c) Can you find a pantograph design that works safely for trucks [not railed-vehicles] traveling 60MPH? The usual urban electrified busses don't do that.
d) Can you find research about truck travel patterns?
How many miles of road have to be electrified? How many lanes? How well does this work, say on major routes like I80, or I70, which among other things go through mountains subject to severe snowstorms?
e) Can you propose how to handle the usual chicken&egg effect?
I.e., it only makes sense to build trucks with the extra cost if there are enough routes where they can do this, and it only makes sense to electrify highways if there are enough trucks…
Which highways would you do first?
If there are only a few highways, how is this different from trains?
f) What are the cost tradeoffs of, for example, of electrifying most of the US Interstate Highway system versus extending railroads and electrifying more of them?
Anyway, those are just a few of the questions that come up if one is *serious* about *engineering* such things.
But back to the ethanol (or biofuels in general) issue.
A fundamental reason that a lot of seriously environmentally-oriented engineers and policy people desperately want to make biofuels workable is:
- they believe that even with efficiency improvements, electrification of anything that makes any sense, reduction of irrational wasteage, there will still be a substantial (if much reduced) need for *fuel*, AFTER oil is essentially gone.
- and that fuel be:
a) some mix of biofuels OR
b) CTL (Coal-to-liquid synfuel), done out of desperation.
Presumably, in this blog, I assume I don't have to explain why massive use of choice b) is a Really Bad Thing?
Toby Reid replied on Permalink
Good food for thought John
Good comments above John. You sure seem to have a very good grasp of these areas, from an engineering standpoint. It's people like you that we need involved in coming up with the right questions to perform the proper analysis on how to make the necessary steps towards sustainability.
I don't purport to have all of the answers, all the way down to the nitty gritty details of pantograph designs and time and motion studies for truck use. If I were working in this area directly, I would dive into all of these details. And if I dove into these details, I'd probably look at starting a business in this area, because of the large opportunity that lies herein.
My background is in business, specifically finance and marketing. I also have a background in human-computer interface design and a decent knowledge of global environmental systems and sustainable design. I'm certainly no engineer, nor do I have any formal training therein. However, I do understand the difference between cradle to grave systems versus cradle-to-cradle systems, and have spent much time researching this.
Your analogy about a 10 ft issue requiring more than 1 inch of direction is true. While I don't have your scientific background, certainly you can give some credit to the sustainable system that electric offers, and that biofuels don't.
To draw a comparison, killer whales exist in nature in pods of 5-25, give or take a few. The reason they don't exist in pods of 300 or 400 is because the resource requirements of such a pod are more than nature can provide, and thus nature doesn't allow it. The same can be said for biofuels. In the amounts we need the biomass to make biofuels happen, it's just not sustainable.
So, logic concludes that if biofuels aren't sustainable, then what is. The electric transportation system is. The advances in battery technologies that we've seen over the past five years have allowed for the ranges of electric cars to extend and be more effective (see http://tinyurl.com/2kysl5). Continued development in this area will be critical, and co-ordination on infrastructure and legislation will need to take care of the rest.
The transportation of goods is the same as for people. Use a long distance mode of transportation to cover the large distances (trains) and local modes for short distance transportation (trucks, delivery wagons and cars). This is a model that we use for the transportation of grains, so we are already familiar with is. If we use a hub system to our industrial and urban planning, there is no reason why we can't establish stations along a long distance track that can centralize the goods transportation, and eliminate less efficient, more polluting individual transport that is currently occurring with the trucks on our roads. The comparison is akin to getting people to use public trains, instead of everyone driving around, one person to a car. Once the goods reach their local hub, we can use short distance transport solutions to get the goods to their final destinations. For ocean going container ships, the issue is different as there is no solid infrastructure that can be put in place, so these transportation vehicles will require onboard generation systems. For this, I have no technical solution to offer, only a needs assessment and a goal for where it needs to be.
I'm not looking to challenge your background, your experience or the community that you live in. I also live in a very sustainable community, rub elbows with thought leaders and have been around the world and have seen a good chunk. My response to your challenge around sustainable electric transportation is that it will require co-ordination on a large scale: between urban planners, engineers, auto, truck and train makers, governments, electricity companies and consumers. While the scenario I'm illustrating may seem idealistic, it is an idea that is possible. To go forward without considering the possibilities is to walk the world blind. I have no timescale for these developments, and perhaps someone in a more involved position could estimate this, however, the only things missing are the desire to explore and the will to act.
Again, biofuels are a good direction for us to go in, but not the final destination.
Thanks for your insight and the interesting points you've raised, John. This discussion helps us all consider these solutions more thoroughly, so that we can be clearer with our ideas. Nobody has ALL of the answers, but by working together, we can surely get closer to working them out. Cheers.
John Mashey replied on Permalink
I think we agree that:
a) Negawatts and negagallons are the best.
b) We want everything to be renewable, non-fossil electric that can be.
Where we disagree is about the last piece, which is:
a) Airplanes, if those still exist.
b) Shipping
c) The part of trucking & off-road that doesn't work so well with trains. I'm happy to use trains for all that we can.
From what I've seen, I just haven't seen anything that convinces me that we can cost-effectively eliminate 100% of fuel in favor of electricity, because that last few percent is really, really, difficult. Really: even Amory Lovins includes (cellulosic) ethanol as part of the solution.
I've asked several times for citations and pointers, and I keep not getting any, so we can just agree to disagree on this one (fairly small) piece of it.
Toby Reid replied on Permalink
The last few %
You've definitely made me reconsider my position on those last few % there John. It could very well be that we will require fuels for a small percentage of our transportation needs. Getting every last single portion of our transportation infrastructure over to electric might just be too expensive and too time consuming. Not that I don't want to strive for doing as much as we can, but when I think of it in terms of the cost and time for the last few %, being absolute about it can be problematic.
Agree with your conclusions and look forward to thinking more about the shipping, air transport and train/truck interface issues.
Peace indeed. If only it was this easy for our elected representatives!!


text:
Message Board
Laurien Berenson Message Board
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Berenson has written!
Author Berenson's Book Reviews
Best In Show
Kensington, Sept 2003, 22.00, 288 pp. ISBN 1575667835 Melanie is leaving her son behind in Connecticut with his father while she and her Aunt Peg travel to Maryland to attend the annual Poodle Club of America event. Melanie is going to show her puppy Eve while her aunt is going to make sure everyone knows their job. Melanie's lover Sam Driver is also going to be at the dog show and Melanie hopes to have some quality time alone with him. Aunt...
Hot Dog
Kensington, Sept 2002, 22.00, 288 pp. ISBN 1575667819 Melanie Travis lives a fulfilling life working, as a special needs tutor in Greenwich, Connecticut. She also gets immense pleasure out of showing her standard French Poodle puppy Eve at the dog shows. Her ex-fianc� wants to get back together with her but she's holding back, not sure if she can forgive him for walking out on her when she needed him most. Her life turns complicated when she...
Jingle Bell Bark
Kensington, Sep 2004, 22.00, 304 pp. ISBN: 1575667584 In Greenwich, Connecticut, Melanie Travis is a special needs tutor at the posh private Howard Academy. She enjoys her work there, but her passion is showing and breeding French Poodles. Her son Davy enthusiastically helps her with the canines when he can. When she takes her son to the school bus, Melanie is surprised that Henry the long time driver has been replaced by Annie. She visits He...
Once Bitten
Kensington, Sept 2001, 22.00, 288 pp. ISBN: 1575666774 Life is finally come together for dog show owner Melanie Travis. Even though she was supposed to be getting married during Christmas, she has come to grips that this is not going to happen. Her fianc� left for an unspecified time to find himself. She is delighted that her brother is getting married to Bertie, another person involved dog shows, in six weeks but she is horrified that her...
Berenson booklist
Raining Cats and Dogs
In this specific book, Melanie decides to do something on her own without her pushy Aunt Peg by her side. Despite her Aunt's pushing to join an agility class like herself, Melanie is determined to step out from under Peg's dominating shadow and instead joins an obedience class. But as soon as Melanie enters into the group, it turns out to not be as fun as she had thought it would be. While visiting a nursing home with her obedience class, an elderly w...
After receiving a new Standard Poodle puppy from her Aunt Peg, Melanie finds herself taking the puppy to obedience classes, as demanded by her pushing relative. After hearing from a new friend, Jenny, that her own Miniature Poodle had died, Melanie invites Jenny over to her house for dinner and to help cheer her up. But the new found friendship doesn't last as Melanie soon gets a call-Jenny collapsed and died suddenly while with her husband in her home....


text: Good to know, thanks. I'm hoping for the blue version too, as well as the white one. Anyone have any ideas on what pants would be best to pair with the light blue waistcoat? That one would be a challenge I think, but I'm leaning towards light colored chinos like off-white and khaki. I'm not sure if I'll get it though.


text:
LONG BEACH — With a construction and design team now in place, work can begin next year on a new $1 billion span to replace the Gerald Desmond Bridge.
The Port of Long Beach Harbor Commission on Monday unanimously approved a $649.5 million contract to the joint venture team that includes Shimmick Construction Co. Inc., FCC Construction S.A., Impregilo S.p.A., Arup North America Ltd. and Biggs Cardosa Associates Inc.
The group will design and build the new 1.5-mile span that is expected to be about 50 feet taller than the existing bridge and allow for larger and newer ships to pass. It will feature six lanes and bicycle and pedestrian pathways.
"When the new bridge is finished, it will improve traffic flow and safety for the thousands of people who commute in and out of downtown Long Beach," said Christopher Lytle, executive director for the Port of Long Beach. "That will also benefit the truck drivers who move 15 percent of this nation's imports across the bridge. ... The bridge is vital for international trade and commuters."
Monday's vote has been 12 years in the making, port officials said. Built in 1968, the Gerald Desmond Bridge is a major corridor connecting Terminal Island and the Long Beach (710) Freeway for the nation's trade system. Over time, however, the bridge has been slowly deteriorating as traffic volumes have increased.
Netting, often called "diapers," had to be attached to the bridge to catch falling debris.
"While the existing bridge is still considered safe, it is clearly obsolete, and based on a state rating system of sufficiency, it's clearly time to replace the bridge," said Gary Cardamone, director of construction management for the port.
Work on the project, done under a project labor agreement, is expected to be finished in 2016 and will create about 3,000 jobs annually during the four years of construction.
"It is really essential to the connection of our two ports, of two communities and the future livelihood of so many of our customers," said Commissioner Doug Drummond.
Harbor Commission President Susan E. Anderson Wise said she is proud to be part of this project.
"This is just really one milestone in what has been going on for a long time," Wise said. "By this bridge, we are going to be serving the people of this community, the people of the region, the people of the nation and the people of the world. There's lots of opportunity that's going to be created."
Go to www.newgdbridge.com for more information.
Keep office downtown?
In other business at Monday's meeting, business and community leaders voiced support for keeping the Port of Long Beach headquarters downtown.
Built in 1959, the current building on Harbor Plaza is too old and too expensive to fix, so Port officials have been searching for new office space for its 300 or so employees.
The ideal location would be in downtown Long Beach, Port officials say, but they are entertaining opportunities anywhere within Long Beach, including space near the Long Beach Airport.
Randy Gordon, president and CEO of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, and Kraig Kojian, president and CEO of the Downtown Long Beach Associates, were among those rallying port officials Monday to keep the port administration building based in downtown.
"It is important to the future of the downtown community to keep the port's headquarters in the downtown Long Beach area," Kojian said.
firstname.lastname@example.com, 562-714-2088, http://twitter.com/KarenMeeksPT