text:
O happy living things! no tongue / Their beauty might declare: / A spring of love gushed from my heart, / And I blessed them unaware.—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
"Wow! A gannet on the causeway? That's a great bird!" The comment was from one who leads birding expeditions the world over. I had just recounted my tale at a cocktail party, and now I basked in his enthusiasm.
Gannets are not a rarity in Maine. You can see them from the rocks of Two Lights State Park at the entrance to Casco Bay, generally something big and very white against the horizon over the Gulf of Maine. Or at sea in a fog, the black wingtips appearing disembodied before their owner emerges, a whiter shade of pale.
What had made my gannet "a great bird" was that I had seen it not in the open sea but so close to shore. To be precise, it was sitting on the side of the road that runs from suburban Falmouth a short distance out to a circle of mixed woods surrounded, when the tide is out, by mudflats.
I was jogging back after my morning turn around the island when I spotted it. Not white and splendid at all but forlorn and browny-gray: a juvenile, crouched under the guardrail, awkward and incongruous. With a middling tide, 10-plus feet of steep riprap separated the bird from the water, and it was a mystery how it had waddled up such a gradient.
The gannet hunkered down at my approach, waving a beak like a dagger, prepared to defend itself to the last. Although the bird was exhausted, I was not about to tangle with so formidable a weapon. Besides, with only my running togs, I was hardly equipped to apprehend a bird with a nearly six-foot wingspan. But that gray-blue stare: its command was the equal of the Ancient Mariner's, whose "glittering eye" famously held the Wedding-Guest in thrall. As soon as I had showered, I returned in the car, armed with a towel and a cardboard box.
This time I saw the length of monofilament line emerging from the neck feathers, and when it opened its beak again the line twined around and around the lower mandible. Gently putting the towel over those considerable wings and wrapping them like a straitjacket, I installed the gannet in the box.
But not before I had squatted down beside it just to wonder at the potential for magnificence in that still-speckled head. It returned my gaze with baleful resignation. Whatever it was making of me, I could scarcely believe my luck in this unexpected chance to be so intimate with a bird I had seen only in the air, and generally from afar. Since I have yet to visit those watery worlds where the albatross is at home, a gannet is the closest I have come to the great ocean wanderer. For me this one had all the archetypal mystery of Coleridge's "pious bird of good omen."
In our Cartesian world, natural history of all the sciences is the most tolerant of metaphysics. And because its nature is to encourage unsought encounters, natural history most readily opens the door to that innate love of wild things that E.O. Wilson calls biophilia. It gracefully admits the poetic and the fellow feeling we find returned in the eyes of the species with which we share the land and air and water that surround us.
At least that is my excuse for tempering objective interest—the elegant niche in the food chain that gannets occupy, for instance—with a need to see in the bird and the whole happenstance of our meeting something personal. It's the least I can do by way of appreciation when the unusual falls in my lap. And the unusual—which rewards openness to surprise above dogged pursuit—seems to return my appreciation with serendipity galore, until the really unusual day is the one that can be said to be routine.
When I got back to the house, the bird had keeled over. For a moment I thought it had expired, but it took another feeble swipe at me as I freed it from the towel and set it on its feet. Before embarking on my mission of mercy, I had called a local wildlife rehabilitator, but without success. Now I tried again, and a man's voice answered.
"You want Dave Sparks." I knew him. He had on more than one occasion helped me with wildlife problems about the house, but these had been exclusively mammalian. Thinking of him in connection with a gannet took some adjusting.
"Dave'll take anything," said the man.
Sure enough, when I called David, he said to come right on over. Back in the car, the radio had just begun Brahms' Ssymphony No. 4 in E minor. Two giants beating each other was what one music critic heard when the composer played it for him on the piano. A century-plus later the tectonic flexing into which the full score plunges suggested a nobler struggle. Under the present circumstances, I was quite happy to equate it with the urge to live.
The symphony had got as far as the beginning of the scherzo when I turned onto a small road that wandered past several ranch houses before entering a wood. Up a small hill, around a bend, and down in a little dell lay a profusion of flowers and shrubs and trees, a perfect paradise of an English cottage garden. The ark-shaped mailbox read: Sparks Ark.
By the time I had taken the cardboard box and its precious contents (I was already dangerously possessive about "my" gannet) out of the car, David had joined me. He took one glance and went into the shed for some clippers. A rugged man of few words, he looks like an ex-cop and was, in fact, the town's former animal control officer in between stints as a full-time a wildlife rehabilitator. An assortment of animals—wild deer, domestic chickens, and turkeys of uncertain provenance—appeared to be thriving in various pens that ascended the woody hillside.
I held the bird's head as firmly and as gently as I could while David began to untangle the monofilament. Large, chafed hands were suddenly purposeful, and surprisingly delicate as he operated. "He swallowed a hook," he said through teeth that were trying to keep the line taut enough to follow into the tangle without causing undue discomfort to the patient. I gulped; I've always had a dread of catching a bird on a fish-hook. "The hook's not the problem; he'll digest that eventually," he reassured me. "But the line. He couldn't feed with it wrapped around his beak like that, and he's managed to get it tied around his wing, too. But I can't see anything else the matter with him."
At this point, David's cell phone rang. Someone with a skunk in their crawl space or a raccoon in their eaves, I thought. He answered it, crooked the phone into his shoulder to make the arrangements, and kept on working on the gannet. "Now," he said, closing the cell, "I need you to cut the line as close to his gullet as you can."
He opened the beak, and I was confronted by a pink orifice in the lower bill that I can only describe as vaginal. "Is that the opening for the crop?" I asked, scrambling to remember my avian anatomy. "Nope, that's how he breathes," said David. "Now cut that line . . . there." And with that he picked up the dazed gannet and headed out across the field toward a broad river running along his property.
"Right around here, the current's very slow and there's lots of fish. He'll start eating in an hour or so. Just needs to settle down. If he doesn't," he added, "I'll catch him again and feed him myself."
David walked to the end of his dock and gently lowered the bird into the water. It swam weakly in a circle looking apprehensive or just past caring. Then it shat, a white plume in the limpid water. "So he must have been eating something," David said.
As I drove off, Brahms was about two-thirds through the last movement. The eight-bar theme—borrowed from a Bach chorale—returned on heroic brasses, as if to say that all would be well. I hadn't been at Sparks Ark more than 15 minutes.
I waited until the next day to call for a progress report. Meanwhile, I wondered, scientific inquiry battling my tendency to anthropomorphize. How did a gannet find its way inshore to Mackworth Island? How did it come to swallow a hook? Had some fish taken it and escaped, only to find itself the target of one of those terrifying gannet dives that kick up spray as white and visible from afar as the bird itself?
When I asked Blue Ocean Institutes's Carl Safina, he recalled a fisherman telling him he'd seen as many as 10 gannets a day dragged under after diving for the baitfish on a longline. "It bothered him a lot," Safina said, although he wasn't sure whether longlines pose as serious a threat to gannets as they do to some endangered albatrosses.
On the plus side, the northern gannet's circumstances have been much improved by the legal protection of those standing-room-only seabird islands, where every species has its own shelf—based on height, width for the nest, and who knows what other considerations—that keeps each colony more or less together and separate. Nevertheless, North America has only six gannet breeding sites: three in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and three on Newfoundland's Atlantic coast.
Which meant my gannet had traveled at least a thousand miles from the island where it was born, a long way, surely, for a one-year-old.
When I called next morning, David said he'd had to recapture the bird. "It was weaker than I thought," he said, as if this were his fault. "Too weak to dive for fish. So it couldn't feed itself." He sounded confident, though, that a week or 10 days of hand-fed mackerel would have it back in tip-top form.
But I wasn't so sure. A spectral procession of the wounded wildlife I have tried to revive—the owl my wife hit with the car one night, the baby rabbit my daughter rescued from our cat, a host of fledglings that preferred death to my gifts of bread and milk—passed before my mind looking reproachful. My family has the veterinarian equivalent of a gardener's black thumb.
I wondered what David's success ratio was, undoing the work of some animal's close encounter of the human kind. Intervening in the wild, even to make amends, starts off with the cards stacked against it. We had taken the owl, at—only in England—half-past ten in the evening, to the local raptor home, but despite an optimistic prognosis, the bird never flew again. We reassured ourselves that its fate—full bed and board in a spacious aviary—would be happier than dying alone at the roadside. And rationalized the loss to the woods it could no longer inhabit, with the countless visiting children it would charm into their own feelings of biophilia. But was this not anthropocentric relativism?
The profit/loss equation seemed clearer with the baby rabbit. It would certainly have died; as a parent, I had hoped it wouldn't last the night, sparing us the anguish that in the same situation John Cheever exactly captured as "that noise that he lived in dread of above all others—his innocent and gentle children screaming in pain." But in the morning it was still alive, and so we took the poor thing to the Audubon Society, where a young woman explained to my daughter about the quality of mercy. And asked her permission to put the rabbit to sleep. If that baby rabbit had to die (and nature intends that most do lest they overrun their habitat), in doing so it taught my 11-year-old a lasting lesson, not only about ecology but also compassion.
But with both owl and bunny, the profit was all on the human side. Once out of how many times does a wildlife rehabilitator get to see the patient fly or run off into the wild, whole again?
So I put off calling David again, lest he have unhappy news. Then, in the turmoil that is summer in Vacationland, I plain forgot. It was two weeks before I finally reached him.
"Yep, he was fine," David said. "I force-fed him for a couple days, and he got his strength back. So I put him back in the river, and pretty soon he was catching all the fish he wanted. Then I took him down to Two Lights."
My immediate reaction was disappointment that I had not been there, even irritation that David hadn't called and given me the opportunity to join him. I imagined the compact body stretching out as he held the gannet high above his head, its feet trapped by a stocky thumb.
In my mind, I was looking from below the edge of the rocks, up at a man in a battered work shirt. His step, as he moves forward, bounces on the springy turf causing the bird to struggle for its balance. It stretches its wings, making an isosceles triangle of the pair of them. The hand rises, is pulled higher by the hesitant wings, lifted by aerodynamics until they freeze in a heroic tableau, the man poised like some athlete from classical times.
I have to rewind the mental tape, correct the image, because suddenly the bird in my head has turned the cream color of an adult gannet. Then there is a gust of wind off the sea. The wings beat, and David—as if coming to the end of a countdown—removes his thumb. The gannet takes to the air.
"I held him up, and he took right off. Just kept going. I never saw him land," David finished his story. And suddenly I wondered if actually being there could have been any more rewarding than listening to this straightforward tale over the phone. Being there would have imposed a mutual obligation to share the experience aloud, a conversation about the Wonders of Nature—maybe over-, maybe understated, but likely wanting in either case—all the way back to the parking lot. So much easier to think in terms of the birder's "good bird" than to try to explain the majesty behind that "glittering eye."
Besides, it was David's skill and perseverance that had taken care of the bird. The thought of communion between bird and man floated in my brain until it was gradually replaced by the tremendous satisfaction that my luck in finding the gannet had been matched on the gannet's side by its luck in finding me.
A few weeks later, when I was sailing somewhat further Down East, a first-year bird, species Morus bassanus, flew across the bow. No logic or reason could quash my certainty as I recognized it as my gannet, now recovered, sweeping the seas. Nor, as it disappeared in the haze, that it had left me a valediction: Farewell, farewell! but this I tell / To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! / He prayeth well, who loveth well / Both man and bird and beast.


text:
|Llewellyn's 2019 Daily Planetary Guide
|Yoga for the Creative Soul
|The Pure Heart of Yoga
According to what we think is the most reliable scholarly perspective, Tantra emerged as a distinct tradition in South Asia approximately 1,700 years ago, although its symbolism and philosophy partake of traditional beliefs that are far older and that are similar to a cosmology that existed in many other societies. In The Kiss of the Yogini, David Gordon White makes a compelling case that the earliest Tantric practitioners were focused on acquiring power through ritual, and specifically sexual ritual, and that this sets Tantra apart from other traditions. In White's account, as Tantra evolved over the next several hundred years, it became more "spiritual" in focus, absorbing and being absorbed by the dominant cultural-religious models of the region (specifically Hinduism and Buddhism). This evolution meant that "enlightenment" or "liberation," rather than the acquisition of personal power, became the focus.
The quest for power did not disappear completely. Later Tantric practitioners sought both bhukti (enjoyment) and mukti (liberation), and the prevailing belief in Tantra and other related traditions was that powers (siddhis) were a sign of spiritual accomplishment. At the same time, seeking power for its own sake was generally condemned and seen as a pathway to ruin. The powers that are described in some of the texts—omniscience, astral projection, and the ability to make oneself extremely large or small, among others—have a magical quality but are sometimes understood as relating to the entirely subjective experiences that can happen in the context of meditation.
Starting in the late nineteenth century, Tantric texts and ideas began to gain greater exposure in the West. Alice Bunker Stockham's book Karezza: The Ethics of Marriage, which advocated a kind of meditative, non-thrusting, non-orgasmic sex, was quite likely influenced by Tantric and Taoist ideas. Aleister Crowley and even more explicitly Pierre A. Bernard (known as Oom the Omnipotent) gained notoriety in part because they espoused a Tantric approach that encompassed sexuality. Unlike Crowley, who reveled in his bad reputation, Bernard eventually backed away from the sexual element and became both a very wealthy man and one of the most influential popularizers of Hatha Yoga in the United States.
It is well documented that Hatha Yoga as practiced in the modern world is a hybrid that merges ancient traditions, practices, and beliefs with British military calisthenics. Similarly, modern Tantra in both India and the West is hardly a pure reflection of what it was in the medieval era or earlier. In the early part of the twentieth century, Sir John Woodroffe (an English judge and Tantric initiate) and a group of Indian advocates of independence fought, in the face of intense bigotry, to valorize and reclaim Indian philosophy in general and Tantra in particular. Woodroffe wrote several books on Tantric thought and, with the help of his collaborators, translated a number of texts. Woodroffe and his circle sought to downplay the sexual aspects of Tantra, which is not surprising. In the early twentieth century, scandalous accounts of ritual sex had been in circulation for a hundred years, something that Woodroffe and his collaborators were trying to counteract.
This negative attitude about sex was not new and was not solely the result of British colonization and Victorian morality; later but still pre-colonial Indian commentary on Tantric texts often treats references to sex as metaphorical. For example, a passage from the Vijnanabhairava Tantra reads: "At the time of sexual intercourse with a woman, absorption into her is brought about by excitement, and the delight that ensues at orgasm betokens the delight of Brahman. This delight is in reality that of one's own self." An eighteenth century Indian commentator suggested, with what strikes us as somewhat tortured reasoning, that this statement is intended symbolically and that the delight of orgasm is but a poor substitute for the "delight of Brahman."1 (Brahman is not an easy word to define; it refers to the supreme godhead in Hinduism, but the concept of Brahman should not be confused with the anthropomorphic gods of monotheism or polytheism. It is far more esoteric, encompassing a kind of cosmic, blissful consciousness.)
In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, western interest in Tantra skyrocketed, inspired in part by lectures our teacher Dr. Jonn Mumford (Swami Anandakapila Saraswati) gave at Llewellyn's Gnosticon conferences in the mid-1970s. Our first book, The Essence of Tantric Sexuality, was based on these lectures. Dr. Mumford was initiated by Paramahamsa Satyananda Saraswati, founder of the Bihar School of Yoga and a noted traditional Tantric practitioner, so the Gnosticon teachings are rooted in the tradition, even as they are informed by a knowledge of both western occultism and modern science. The leading popularizer of Tantra in the West, however, was Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh or Osho, an Indian academic with no traditional background or training but a deep knowledge of Tantric literature, other spiritual traditions, and a familiarity with the human potential movement psychotherapeutic modalities that became popular in the 1960s.
Thus, like Hatha Yoga, modern Tantra is a hybrid. While this is true in the West, it is also the case in India, even though the traces of the ancient tradition are still visible there, and Tantra inspires fear and is associated with village magic in the minds of many. Others in twenty-first century India associate Tantra with Osho and sex, just as many westerners do.
Modern westerners (and most modern Indians, for that matter) cannot possibly inhabit the mental world of a contemporary Tantric Saddhu (holy man), let alone that of the eleventh or sixth century practitioner. We certainly do not claim to be capable of doing so, even though we have been initiated into a traditional and ancient lineage. This fact presents multiple challenges, ones that we strive to meet in all of our work: how can we draw on the wisdom of the tradition and connect with its power in a way that is true to its essence but is also relevant to contemporary western readers and students? How can we write about Tantric sexuality while making it clear that sex is only one aspect of the Tantric tradition, arguably a small one, without lapsing into sex negativity, an attitude that is prevalent in both modern America and modern India? How can we share this knowledge in a way that is at once accessible, cognizant of modern scientific data, and respectful of the tradition and the culture in which it evolved?
We were drawn to Tantra because of its sexual aspects, and in this regard, we suspect we are typical of most twenty-first century people of whatever cultural or national background. As we see it, the passage from the Vijnanabhairava suggests that sex is one realm in which people can have access to states that, at a minimum, approximate divine delight. These states also afford the opportunity to know oneself more fully, to be more fully oneself, and simultaneously to lose oneself completely. Great Sex Made Simple is based on this understanding.
Books on sex, including books on "Tantric Sex," often focus on developing skill sets, essentially working from the outside in. Although Great Sex Made Simple is a tip book, and it includes some great tricks and techniques, the heart of the book and the heart of our teaching can be found in the first eight chapters. We believe that working from the inside out, developing a Tantric attitude toward sex, is the key. From this perspective, it doesn't matter what you or how you do it. How you think and how you approach whatever you're doing are of far more consequence.
We discuss eight basic principles that are central to our approach:
These principles are simple, although applying them can be considerably more complex. We've provided specific, practical techniques for incorporating them into your lovemaking. We are not dogmatic, and we are not suggesting that you should eliminate anything that you already enjoy for the sake of some "Tantric" ideal. Taking your time, for example, doesn't mean that every lovemaking session has to be prolonged, just that you should develop the capacity to slow down when you choose to.
Our objective in writing Great Sex Made Simple was to provide readers with an array of tools for expanding their sexuality, sense of connection, and capacity for pleasure (it's no coincidence that Dr. Mumford translates the word Tantra as "tool for expansion.") We hope you can use these tools skillfully. With a little practice, you may well have an experience that betokens the delight of Brahman.
1Jaideva Singh, trans., The Yoga of Delight, Wonder, and Astonishment: A Translation of the Vijnana-bhairava. (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. 66-67.
Mark A. Michaels and Patricia Johnson, a devoted married couple, have been teaching Tantra together since 1999. Their approach combines traditional lineage-based Tantra with the best contemporary methods so that students can ...

subset: commoncrawl


text:
NYU School of Medicine
Internal Medicine, 1979 - 1982
Gastroenterology, 1982 - 1985
At NYU Langone's Tisch Hospital, our doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals use a team approach to provide the highest level of care to people from New York City and around the world. We want our patients and their families to feel comfortable during their stay.
At Tisch Hospital, we have more than 300 beds for people who need inpatient care. We also have 66 state-of-the-art operating rooms, an advanced critical care unit, a labor and delivery unit in which more than 6,500 babies are born each year, and a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for our tiniest patients. We are also home to the Comprehensive Stroke Center and Ronald O. Perelman Center for Emergency Services, where our emergency medicine specialists provide advanced care for adults and children.
Opened in 1963 as University Hospital, our facility was renamed Tisch Hospital in 1989 in recognition of two prominent and generous benefactors—brothers Laurence A. and Preston Robert Tisch.


text:
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- The No. 1 overall pick is still looking for basket No. 1.
Anthony Bennett, the first player taken in this year's NBA draft, hasn't scored a field goal for the Cavaliers.
Through four games, Cleveland's burly forward has missed each of his 15 shots from the field, including eight 3-pointers. He appears lost with the ball in his hands, causing some to wonder if the Cavs made a mistake with their choice.
According to ESPN Stats & Information, his two points on free throws are the fewest for a No. 1 pick through four games in the common draft era (since 1966). He's the fifth rookie since 1985 to begin his career by not scoring a basket in the first four games. However, none of the previous four was picked No. 1 overall.
Cavs coach Mike Brown said there are several reasons for Bennett's drought.
"He's probably pressing to a certain degree," Brown said after practice Tuesday. "So it's probably a little of that and a little bit of being on a big stage now in the regular season with it counting. There's probably some of where his opponents are looking at him and saying that they're going to come at him. They may not care that he's the No. 1 pick."
For comparison's sake, Philadelphia 76ers rookie Michael Carter-Williams has 26 field goals already, and eight other rookies who have attempted at least 15 shots have put one shot through the rim.
Bennett's alarming field-goal deficiency extended to four games Monday night, when he went 0-for-3 in 10 minutes in a 93-92 win over Minnesota.
He was not available to speak to reporters following practice, as he quickly dressed and went home to take care of personal business before the Cavs flew to Milwaukee.
The 20-year-old showed flashes of offensive firepower during the exhibition season, but the regular season has been nothing but a series of missed shots. He is 2 for 4 at the free throw line, all in his NBA debut against Brooklyn.
The Cavs insist it's too early for them to be overly concerned about Bennett's scoring woes. Brown dismissed any thought of sitting the first-year player to clear his head.
However, Bennett's inability to score -- he's averaging 12.8 minutes per game -- could show that he's going to need some extra time before he can be counted on as a major contributor.
"I look at it as he's a guy that can grow slowly into his role with us and that's the exciting part of it," Brown said. "I just want him to keep going out there and playing, and if you can take advantage of your opponent on either end of the floor, go ahead and do it."
And while Bennett hasn't delivered on the offensive end, the 6-foot-8, 240-pounder has provided some solid defense and rebounding. At Indiana Saturday night, when he tried to flip in a layup and had it roll around the rim and out, Bennett grabbed six rebounds.
"Defensively, he's been better than what I thought," Brown said. "I actually thought he was going to struggle defensively, bad. But he's picked up on the concepts and he's been tougher and stronger than what I expected.
"At the end of the day, and I've seen it with my own eyes, he can score. He can score from all three levels and once he figures out how hard he has to play offensively in order for it to happen on a possession by possession occurrence, he'll be good."
Until then, Bennett is getting support from his teammates. They're urging him to keep his chin up and the shots will eventually go down.
"We just keep encouraging him," point guard Jarrett Jack said. "We want him to understand, `You made it this far because you are a special player and don't ever forget that.' The one thing you do have to have in this league to be successful is confidence, and once that starts to waver, it's going to have a snowball effect.
"There was going to be a time this season when he was going to have a tough three-game stretch. It's just that it started in the first couple of games. There are 78 more to go. Once we're in January or February and he's being his old self, I'll go over to him and say, 'You did all that worrying for nothing.' "
First, though, Bennett needs to make a shot.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.


text:
Credit Card
Hot Sports Handicapping
& Online Betting Information
Football Live Odds & Lines
Here you will find live NFL Football lines for all
of this weeks matchups!
MVPCapper: Your Source
For Sports Handicapping, Free Sports
Picks, Sports Selections, Gambling Service,
& Sports Handicappers. A Sports Betting Tips, Advice,
& Guide Site. Handicapping Sports Picks In MLB, NBA,
NCAA, NFL, NHL, College & Pro Sports. Free Football
Picks, Free Basketball Picks, & Free Baseball Picks.
Also featuring ATS Info, Trends, Matchup Stats, Statistics,
Live Offshore Sportsbook Betting Lines, Odds & Reviews.
Sports Betting Free Picks and a Sports Link Exchange. Also
have a Sports Affiliate Program and Online Betting Bonuses.
Site Design & Graphics Copyright© 2003. MVPCapper Sports Handicapping Sitemap


text:
Report Includes
An overview of the global Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail market, and related technologies and developments. Analyses of global market trends, with historical data from 2016, 2017, and 2018 estimates and projections of CAGRs through 2027. It also includes breakdowns of the overall Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail market along with various segments, and by geographic region. Analysis of the stakeholder value chain in the Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail market and comprehensive profiles of leading companies in the industry
Report Scope
The report forecasts the size of the Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail market for components from 2020 through 2027
The Executive Summary provides a snapshot of key findings of the report. The introduction chapter includes research scope, market segmentation, research methodology, and definitions and assumptions. It involves extreme rigorous scientific methods, tools and techniques to estimate the market size. Exhaustive secondary research is being carried out to collect information related to the market, the parent market, and the peer market. Primary research is undertaken to validate the assumptions, findings, and sizing with the industry experts professionals across the value chain of the market. Both top-down and bottom-up approaches are employed to estimate the complete market size.
The chapter on market dynamics includes market drivers, restraints, and opportunities which helps familiarise with market potential and upcoming opportunities. The chapter on key insights includes emerging trends from major countries, latest technological advancement, regulatory landscape, SWOT analysis, and porters five forces analysis. This chapter provides a detailed insights of market which derives the market trends, changing phase of investments, scope of profit potential, and helps to take appropriate business decisions. The chapter on competitive analysis includes profiling of leading companies in the global market to map the leading companies and their focus of interest in the market.
After deriving the market size from the market size estimation process, the total market has been split into several segments and sub-segments. To complete the overall market engineering process and arrive at the exact statistics for all segments and sub-segments, the data triangulation and market breakdown procedures is being used. The data triangulation is carried out by studying various factors and trends from demand and supply perspectives.
Segmentation Analysis: The global Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail market was segmented on the type of product, end user, and region. To clearly understand whether customer satisfaction had any impact on the demand and sales of Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail market, the end user was further segmented into age, gender, and such. The study also targeted on understanding who made the purchase decision in a family so that marketing strategies can be targeted on the decision maker. The in-dept study helped to understand the factors that affected the purchase decision of any given family or individual.
Global Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail market Competitive Analysis:
Key players in the Global Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail market are
Capacity LLC
HRS Hospitality & Retail Systems
Co-Operations, Inc.
Sort and Pack.
*All our reports are customizable as per customer requirements
Global Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail market, By Region:
North America
Rest of Europe
South Korea
Rest of Asia-Pacific
South America
Rest of South America
Middle East and Africa
South Africa
Rest of Middle East and Africa
Get latest Market Research Reports on Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail. Industry analysis & Market Report on Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail is a syndicated market report, published as Global Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail Market Research Report 2020-2027. It is complete Research Study and Industry Analysis of Value-Added Services (VAS) in Retail market, to understand, Market Demand, Growth, trends analysis and Factor Influencing market.


text:
Privacy Policy
Conover Futures Group LLC ("COMPANY") is committed to safeguarding the personal information that you provide us. This Privacy Policy describes how we handle and protect personal information we collect about individuals, such as you, who apply for or receive our products and services. The provisions of this notice apply to former customers as well as our current customers.
Why and How We Collect Personal Information
When you apply for or maintain an account with the COMPANY, we collect personal information about you for business purposes, such as evaluating your financial needs, processing your requests and transactions, informing you about products and services that may be of interest to you and providing customer service. The personal information we collect about you includes:
- Information you provide to us on applications and other forms, such as your name, address, date of birth, social security number, occupation, assets, and income;
- Information about your transactions with us and our affiliates;
- Information we receive from consumer reporting agencies, such as your credit history and creditworthiness, and other entities not affiliated with the COMPANY; and
- Information you provide to us to verify your identity, such as passport, or received from other entities not affiliated with the COMPANY.
How We Protect Personal Information
We limit access to your personal information to those employees who need to know in order to conduct our business, service your account, and help you accomplish your financial objectives, such as providing you with a broad range of products and services. Our employees are required to maintain and protect the confidentiality of your personal information and must follow established procedures to do so. We maintain physical electronic and procedural safeguards to protect your personal information. We do not rent or sell your name or any personal information to anyone.
Sharing Information with Our Affiliates
We may share personal information described above with our affiliates for business purposes, such as servicing customer accounts and informing customers about new products and services, and permitted by applicable law.
The information we share with affiliates for marketing purposes may include the information described above, such as name, address, and account information, but will not include other credit information, such as credit history, appearing on a consumer credit report or net worth and income information appearing on application for our products and services.
Disclosure to Non-Affiliated Third Parties
In order to support the financial products and services we provide to you, we may share the personal information described above with third party providers and joint marketers not affiliated with us, including:
- Financial service institutions (e.g., advisers, dealers, brokers, trust companies and banks) with whom we have joint marketing agreements such as agreements to market financial services or products that we jointly offer, endorse, sponsor, and
- Companies under contract to perform services for us or on behalf, such as vendors that prepare and mail statements and transaction confirmations or provide data processing, computer software maintenance and development, transaction processing and marketing services;
These companies acting on our behalf are required to keep your personal information confidential.
Also, we may disclose personal information with non-affiliated companies and regulatory authorities as permitted or required by applicable law. For example, we may disclose personal information to cooperate with regulatory authorities and law enforcement agencies to comply with subpoenas or other official requests, and as necessary to protect our rights or property. Except as described in this privacy policy, we will not use your personal information for any other purpose unless we describe how such information will be used at the time of disclose it to us or we obtain your permission to do so.
Accessing and Revising Your Personal Information
We endeavor to keep our customers files complete and accurate. We will give you reasonable access to the information we have about you. Most of this information is contained in account statements that you receive from us and applications that you submit to obtain our products and services. We encourage you to review this information and notify us if you believe any information should be corrected or updated. If you have a question or concern about your personal information or this privacy notice, please contact Conover Futures Group LLC.
Upon opening a new account with Conover Futures Group LLC a copy of the Privacy Policy will be provided to each client. Thereafter a copy will be sent to each client on an annual basis.


text:
LAPD/D.A. Feud Derails Dr. Murray Arraignment
The scheduled arraignment Friday for Dr. Conrad Murray in the death of Michael Jackson will not take place as scheduled because of the feud between the L.A. County D.A. and the LAPD over Dr. Murray's surrender.
As we first reported, the LAPD was bent out of shape -- and that is an understatement -- because the D.A. had kept cops in the dark and had been working with Dr. Murray's lawyers to arrange a voluntary surrender in court at the time of the arraignment.
The plan as of Thursday afternoon: Dr. Murray's lawyers would drive him to the L.A. County Sheriff's Office at the Airport Courthouse in L.A. at 5:30 AM Friday, along with a bail bondsman. Dr. Murray would be booked, post bail and then walk into court without handcuffs or chains.
We're told the LAPD so vehemently objected to the plan ... the D.A. finally backed off. The LAPD wants to arrest Dr. Murray, book him and bring him into court in handcuffs and/or chains -- something that is fairly standard in homicide cases.
The plan has fallen apart and we're told ... as of now ... there will be no arraignment tomorrow.
It's starting out shaky, folks.


text: On Superbowl Sunday, HBGary CTO Greg Hoglund found himself locked out of his own e-mail account. As has since beenwidely reported in the media, the hacking group Anonymous leaked thousands of e-mail messages from the accounts of Hoglund and HBGary Federal's CEO Aaron Barr, chastising the company in a public statement. In this excerpt of an interview with CSO correspondent Robert Lemos, Hoglund admits that the company made many mistakes in defending its data, but refutes some of the details of the hack and highlights lessons that other companies should take to heart.Also see: Teenage rampage: What Anonymous can teach us about the youthYou've said that much of the information in the media about the hack is wrong. What happened?some access to HBGary Federal's, a related company, hosted Web site and Barr's Twitter account.)Hoglund: They didn't get anywhere close to our network. As far as I could tell, they were not even aware of its existence. They may have become aware of it by reading the e-mails later but that was well after the fact. They only got access to our e-mail spool, which was hosted at Google, and its cloud based e-mail service. And they got access via a stolen password, so they were able to log in. There was really no "hack" involved; it was a stolen credential. (Editor's note: They also had You were on the phone with Google as Anonymous was stealing your data?Yes, I was trying to get Google to shut the site down. Google was trying to get me to put a file on my Web site (to authenticate my identity). You see the chicken-and-egg problem there. (HBGary had pulled its site down.)Anyone with a cloud-based service needs to have an SLA (software license agreement) in the contract that says there is a priority, security hotline so that when there is a security event you have priority support, rather than what happened to me, which is that I got round-robinned to what appeared to be a call center in India. And I'm waiting on the phone and I can't do the technical magic tricks, jumping through the hoops that Google wanted me to jump through, to get them to listen to me. It took me forever to get technical staff on the phone on Sunday afternoon, so they could make the necessary changes so that Google would even start talking to me. And meanwhile, they are downloading my e-mail spool.I would warn any CISO who is considering cloud in their future to make sure that never happens to them, and that is a contractual thing in the service level agreement.What other suggestions do you have for companies?Set an e-mail retention policy and don't store your entire e-mail archive in the cloud. You can store it locally somewhere in the corporate environment, so you can still access it for doing your daily work, looking up data as well as for e-discovery purposes, but it shouldn't be stored in an accessible location out in the cloud.Second, enable two-factor authentication. Anything that requires a log-in should be enabled for two-factor authentication. If I had enabled two-factor authentication for Google apps that I had HBGary subscribed to, then these hackers from Anonymous would not have been able to log in.It was a newly available option, but we hadn't enabled it. The cost of two-factor authentication is significantly lower today than it has been in the past. It doesn't cost much, so anybody using the cloud should enable two factor, it it's an option. If they have any services on the road, such as sales people or technical people, they should have two-factor authentication.Another thing they should do is configure IP restriction on any administration of the site. So, you should only have one administrator account and it should be IP restricted to a single location. And then if you have a compromise, you don't have to worry about someone getting access to the administrative parts of the cloud services.


text:
I'm calling this the Emergency Room, but I was never actually in a room. It was more like the Emergency Hall. My gurney was parked next to an office where the Emergency Doctor and several other people went in and out.
I was in a lot of pain and was told I would be given some pain medication, but I didn't get any pain medication for a couple of hours. My recollection of this whole part is fading, so my timeline might not be accurate.
I was very cold. A man came over and asked some questions, and put some blankets over me and gave me some water to sip. He came around a couple of times and took some tests, like blood pressure and temperature.
Fortunately I had my cell phone with me. I hardly use a cell phone, but I keep a prepaid Go Phone with me for emergencies. I had just charged it, so it had plenty of juice. I needed to let my neighbors know what happened in case I needed a ride home. I phoned my neighbor and she said she would give me a ride home when I needed it, but she said I should stay overnight in the hospital. I thought I should stay overnight too because I didn't feel up to going home.
My neighbor contacted another neighbor who has my house key. She was home early from work that afternoon and took care of my cats for me. That neighbor has been the most helpful person in this whole situation so far. More about her later.
I remember being wheeled into the x-ray room after about ½ an hour. They needed to remove my bra and have me stand in front of the x-ray plate. I'm sure I still had not been given any pain medication and this was tough. But they took two x-rays of my back and spine and wheeled me back into my spot in the hall.
I think the emergency doctor came over and told me I had four fractured ribs. I told him I still didn't get any pain medication, so he said he'd get some for me.
I also said my neck and shoulder were hurting, so he had the x-ray people take me back to x-ray my neck. Fortunately there were no injuries to my neck or spine; so only ribs on my left side were broken. I kept being told that's the worst possible pain. Thanks I needed that!
A young man came over and seemed very nervous. I don't know why he was so nervous, but he said he was from Hospital Admitting. I was glad because I wanted to stay overnight at least. He asked me a bunch of questions, most of which I already answered when I was brought into the Emergency room. He said the computers were not linked, so he needed all of the information again
I was teaching two Management of Information Systems (MIS) classes for University of Phoenix that week. I just finished grading assignments on improving internal communication through database analysis. Seems like the Hospital systems needs a better database system too.
An intravenous insertion (not sure what this is called) was put into my right arm and I was given some pain medication. That was probably about two hours after I got there. At 5 pm I was taken up to a room on the second floor and put into a hospital bed which was much more comfortable than the gurney I had been on all afternoon.
The room was a double room but I was the only patient in it. They brought me some liquid dinner, beef broth, tea, and juice. I had not eaten much that day, so I was hungry. The beef broth was very good.
I used my cell phone to make more calls. I called my scheduler at University of Phoenix and left a message that I would not be able to continue with my Management of Information Systems classes or the two workshops I was teaching. I called my Sister in San Francisco and told her what happened and asked her to call my brother in Maine. I told her to let him tell my mother I was OK or she would get too worried over it.
I needed help getting in and out of bed and going to the bathroom. But the bed was comfortable. As long as I lay in one place without moving, my back didn't hurt much. I was also given some intravenous morphine for the pain. I slept a lot and only got up to go to the bathroom a couple of times.
On Friday I had a breakfast with bland oatmeal, bland pancakes (but with syrup), and bland eggs. No salt or pepper! The Dietician gave me a menu to select my meals, but I used it to write down phone numbers.
Mayor Bill Clarkson came to visit, which surprised me a little but that's like Bill. I've known him for years and it was nice to have a visitor. I don't remember if I was sitting in a chair when he came. The physical therapist got me out of bed and walked around with me and fixed up the chair, which was more comfortable and better to eat from than the bed.
My sister Alice and her husband David came later that afternoon. They live in SF, so we see each other from time to time. David had gone through almost the same situation two years ago. He was hit by a car while in a cross-walk in San Francisco.
He broke his wrist in the fall and damaged his hands. His injuries didn't seem that serious, but they got worse. He was wearing a neck brace from recent surgery, which made his beard stick out. He looked very uncomfortable, but he's never one to complain.
I didn't want to wear one of those hospital gowns that are open in the back, and at least the nurses didn't make me, so I was still in the clothes I was wearing on Thursday. I needed a change of clothes and underwear. I called my neighbor with the key to bring over a change of clothes, my flannel nightgown, and my hearing aids. Two other neighbors came to visit.
Gary Sloan, CEO of the hospital came in to see how I was doing. I'm sure Bill Clarkson told him to take good care of me. I've met Gary Sloan several times at Chamber of Commerce functions but I doubt he remembered me.
Council member Scott Perkins also stopped by. I didn't expect him, but I appreciated the visit. He was on the way to the Historic Foundation Crab Feed. I was supposed to attend that with a friend and her family, but I left her a message I wouldn't be there. Scott was at their table and reported on my condition.
Later that night I was moved to a private room because they were bringing another patient into the other room. This caused some confusion over the phone numbers because I had given my brother the phone number for that room and he gave it to my mother and she couldn't reach me there and left messages on my cell phone which I wasn't answering at that point.
I wanted to go home on Saturday. It was too hard getting in and out of the hospital bed and I wanted to be in my own bed. I didn't like having to call the nurse every time I had to get out of bed. I'll write more on leaving the hospital and returning home in Part 3.


text:
Missouri Emergency Human Services
Because every major disaster has a dramatic impact on people and their communities, Emergency Human Services (EHS) is an integral part of Missouri's emergency management system.
When not responding to an emergency, like other key system components, EHS works to maintain a high state of operational readiness by actively participating in ongoing planning and preparedness activities at the local, state and federal levels.
When disaster strikes, the primary mission of EHS responders is to first understand what services are needed, then to ensure these services are provided quickly and efficiently to the people who need them most. During a disaster response and recovery effort, EHS coordinates essential services for disaster survivors.
However, EHS does not function alone. A number of different but related components of the coordinated response, known as emergency support functions, help comprise the collective EHS effort. These include mass care; health and medical; agriculture; long-term community recovery; pets and companion animals. Although these are key elements, the EHS mission encompasses a wide range of other vital roles and tasks.
EHS partners with non-governmental, community-based, faith-based, and other types of organizations, as well as with other state agencies, to collaboratively prepare for the needs of disaster survivors. EHS staff maintain relationships with these organizations through partnerships fostered through The Governor's Faith-Based and Community Service Partnership for Disaster Recovery (The Partnership), Missouri Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (MO VOAD), and the Missouri Interfaith Disaster Response Organization (MIDRO).
While these support functions are sustained by different agencies and entities, they integrate and collaborate within the response structure's EHS branch to provide a seamless response to emergencies affecting Missourians. This allows people who are impacted by the disaster to recover more quickly and, in turn, helps their entire communities to become whole again.
Governor's Faith-Based and Community Service Partnership for Disaster Recovery (The Partnership)
The mission of the Governor's Faith-Based and Community Service Partnership for Disaster Recovery (The Partnership) is to aid Missourians' recovery plans by developing and implementing a holistic approach to disaster recovery, maximizing public and private resources to facilitate an efficient and effective integrated system addressing human services, housing, infrastructure, community and economic development issues.
Missouri Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (Missouri VOAD)
Purpose and Objective
The Purpose and objective of Missouri VOAD (MOVOAD) is to coordinate planning efforts of the many voluntary organizations responding to, preparing for, recovering from and mitigating against disaster. Member organizations provide more effective and less duplicative services by organizing efforts before disaster strikes. MOVOAD has proven to be the most effective method for the wide variety of volunteers and organizations that wish to serve towards disaster needs to come together and work through a crisis.
A. Cooperation: To create a climate of openness for the sharing of information.
B. Coordination: To foster understanding, develop advocacy, and deliver services in an integrated manner.
C. Communication: To disseminate information, including a directory of member organizations and resources.
D. Education: To increase mutual awareness and understanding of each organization.
E. Leadership Development: To share resources and support activities to build better leadership within member organizations.
F. Mitigation: To embark upon activities that will lessen the impacts of disasters on communities throughout Missouri.
G. Outreach: Conduct efforts to bring new members to the organization and encourage representation throughout Missouri.
H. Legislations: Encourage effective disaster relief legislation and policy.
Missouri Interfaith Disaster Response Organization (MIDRO)
The Missouri Interfaith Disaster Response Organization sets forth these By-Laws in accordance with the laws of the state of Missouri as an act of incorporating a not-for-profit organization to provide inter-faith coordination for disaster response in Missouri. Specifically, it is the mission of MIDRO:
- To provide a communication link for people, churches, and communities following a disaster event.
- To match identified needs with available financial and personnel resources.
- To be a partner of the secular disaster relief networks in Missouri.
- To provide assistance to people and communities regardless of race, religion, sex, or legal status, particularly the needs which will be unmet by other relief programs.
- To provide and enhance the unique gifts of pastoral care and ministry to the emotional and spiritual trauma experienced by disaster victims.
- To provide pastoral care and support for care-givers.
- To be available to continue with recovery efforts for at least 24 months.
- To engage in disaster related education, preparation and mitigation efforts between disaster events.


text:
View source for Athena Progress Report
You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reason:
The action you have requested is limited to users in one of the groups: Users, Administrators.
You can view and copy the source of this page.
Return to Athena Progress Report.


text:
Wedding Planner Orange County – Maria Lindsay Blog
Wedding Coordination
Wedding Coordination
Tag Archives: Los Angeles Wedding Designer
Our remarkable team of talented professionals created this beautiful wedding at the Hummingbird Nest Ranch Estate and we were featured on Mod Wedding!!! A special thank you to Goddard Studios for their exceptional photography. Gilded Al Fresco California Wedding 1 DAY AGO by ELLE CHOI If you're looking for a little golden glamour to inspire […]


text:
ALL ACCESS PASSIf purchased by May 14, 2018
- Wednesday, May 16 – Thursday, May 17
- Access to Keynotes
- Access to all educational & networking sessions
- Half-Day Workshop – May 15
- Daily Food and Beverage Refreshment
- Networking Reception
TWO DAY PASSIf purchased by May 14, 2018
- Wednesday, May 16 – Thursday, May 17
- Access to Keynotes
- Access to all educational & networking sessions
- Daily Food and Beverage Refreshment
- Networking Reception
COMBO PASSIf purchased by May 14, 2018
- Wednesday, May 16 – Thursday, May 17
- 2 Day AM Days / 2 Day Digital Growth Unleashed pass* OR
- 2 Day AM Days / 2 Day Email Innovations Summit pass*
- Access to Keynotes
- Access to All Educational & Networking Sessions
- Daily Food and Beverage Refreshment
- Networking Reception
WORKSHOP ONLYIf purchased by May 14, 2018
- Half Day Workshop – Tuesday, May 15, 2018, 1PM – 5PM
Bring the Team Offer
Each additional attendee from the same company registered at the same time receives an extra $200 off the Two Day and Combo Passes.
[Discounts may not be combined.]
Cancellation Policy
Payment in full for Super Early Bird and Early Bird registrations is due within two weeks of the cut-off date for that price point. Payment in full for all other registrations must be received at least one week prior to the Conference. If you intend to pay by purchase order, it must be authorized by Rising Media in advance. Attendee substitutions are permitted without charge. Cancellations made on or prior to Friday, March 30, 2018 will incur a cancellation fee of $150. No refunds will be made for cancellations made after Friday, March 30, 2018.
If for reasons of Force Majeure the Event cannot take place as scheduled the Organizer reserves the right to reschedule the Event to a date and place of its choosing.
In accordance with our cancellation conditions, cancellations are not possible after six weeks prior to an event. We appreciate there may sometimes be travel difficulties due to circumstances beyond either the organizers or the attendees control, such as weather or industrial action, and in such circumstances we are happy to extend a credit for a future event. If an attendee is unable / does not wish to take advantage of this offer then it is the attendee's responsibility to raise the matter with his or her insurance company.
Terms and Conditions
This event is open to business professionals 18 years and over only. Rising Media, Inc. may request a business card and photo ID prior to admission and reserves the right to refuse entry or remove anyone from the event.
While we endeavor to deliver the conference program as published Rising Media, Inc. reserves the right to make any changes it deems fit to the conference program. Occasionally speakers may cancel and/or topics may change and no guarantee is given that any given speaker or topic in the program will take place.
By registering for a Rising Media event, you agree to receive e-mail notifications about future Rising Media events and other Rising Media products and services. You may "unsubscribe" using the link in any e-mail received. Note: Your e-mail address will never be sold or rented to others.
Rising Media, Inc. reserves the right to use photographs of any event attendee in promotional materials.
Rising Media, Inc. assumes no liability for the acts of its suppliers nor for the safety of any event participant while traveling to or from this event. The total liability during the hours of the event will be limited to a refund of the delegate fee.
Video and Live-Streaming Policy
Sessions may be audio recorded without special permission but only for personal use. They cannot be placed online or transmitted to others without permission. Sessions may be videoed only with special permission for personal use and also cannot be placed online or transmitted to others. Short audio and video clips may be used for blogging and press coverage of session. As a general guide, non-contiguous clips of one minute or less should be used. Contact us if you need guidance about longer clips. Live-streaming is strictly prohibited.
Still have Questions? Contact Us Directly
Roxanne Glavina
Registration Support
E: firstname.lastname@example.com
Paul Gillis
Chief Revenue Officer
E: firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Serious questions remain about the national security implications of the proposed deal to raise the federal debt ceiling. With members of Congress essentially being asked to vote immediately to avoid defaulting on the national debt, they are also entitled to immediate and compelling answers to the defense-related questions.
For fiscal year 2012 and 2013, cuts in defense spending remain uncertain, with reductions as much as three percent below last year's level still possible. Depending on the outcome of further negotiations over the size and allocation of those reductions, these cuts alone may well be quite harmful. The best that can be said is that, for these fiscal years, the issue is still unresolved.
Over the longer term, the outlook is almost certainly much more disturbing. In the deal's second stage, the yet-to-be-named Congressional Joint Commission will have wide discretion on what to agree on, but if no agreement or only partial agreement is reached, the deal's sequestration mechanism will be triggered. Broadly speaking, if that happens, defense spending will bear fifty percent of the total cuts, with non-defense spending bearing the remaining fifty percent, up to the amount necessary to raise the debt ceiling by the minimum $ 2.4 trillion required by the deal. This approach risks grave damage to our national security.
There is no strategic rationale whatsoever for cuts of this magnitude. There is, in fact, every strategic rationale to the contrary. While the appropriations process may still be able to decide which specific programs will be cut, this is no consolation. Cuts of this size are effectively indiscriminate.
Defense spending is not just another wasteful government program. Subjecting it to potentially massive, debilitating cuts is rolling the dice in perilous times internationally. Adam Smith himself wrote in "The Wealth of Nations": "the first duty of the sovereign" [is] "protecting the society from the violence and invasion" of others.
Advocates of the deal place their reliance on the Joint Committee established by the agreement to prevent massive defense cuts. This means that the Republicans selected for membership on this Committee have the future security of this country resting on their shoulders. We can only hope that the leadership chooses representatives who understand the enormity of that responsibility.
Deal supporters argue in the alternative that the trigger mechanism, which would come into play if the Joint Committee could not reach agreement on the second tranche of spending cuts (or tax increases), need not be feared. They rest this assertion on three points.
First, they say, "Even if the committee failed to produce a single dollar in savings, the Department of Defense would be on the hook for less than $500 billion over nine years, beginning in 2013." Unquestionably, however, cuts at this level would be catastrophic. They may not be at the $900 billion level of the Reid Plan, but they are debilitating nonetheless. If that is the best argument the deal's advocates have, we are in deep trouble.
Second, proponents of the deal argue that out-year defense cuts can be reversed by subsequent Congresses. Of course, the Democrats will argue precisely the same point in favoring their domestic programs, suggesting that the entire second-stage exercise is a sham. Perhaps that is the best we can hope for, but it will mean a debt-ceiling increase in the second-stage without certainty about offsetting spending cuts.
Third, deal advocates say that "the point of the 'backstop' is that it never, ever happens." Unfortunately, every prospect is that the Joint Committee will allocate cuts 50 percent to defense, 50 percent to non-defense. Why should Democrats agree to their favored domestic spending bearing more than 50 percent of the cuts when they know the sequestration mechanism will give them a better deal? Conversely, why should Republicans agree to more than 50 percent of the cuts being taken in defense, when they know precisely the same thing on their side?
Thus, the logic of the negotiating dynamic will mean that both sides of the Joint Committee will not concede more than they would otherwise get under the sequestration formula. That, in turn, brings us back to $500 billion in defense cuts.
This deal may be the best we can get, and in many respects it is far better than we feared. But to have accomplished so much, and fended off so many harmful proposals, to stumble at the last hurdle is a great tragedy. Make no mistake, this deal, by risking massive defense cutbacks, potentially points a dagger at the heart of our national security.
Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, is a Fox News contributor and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).


text:
(visited by Jorn Eide)
01-May-2006 -- Confluence point reached 12:10 local time on 01 May 2006. This day is still a public holiday in Russia, and the shipyard we are working at in Astrakhan was shut down for the day, offering a great opportunity for a trip out of town.
We equipped ourselves with a Garmin II and some Soviet military maps downloaded from the internet, and took a Lada taxi from downtown Astrakhan. The trip was approximately 34 kms, and we drove straight to the exact spot, which turned out to be located in the middle of a field, only about 300 meters from a major road. Thanks to dry conditions we were able to drive all the way to the spot and actually put the Garmin on the bonnet of the car! The journey took 3 hours round trip, as we spend a bit longer going back, taking some local ferries across a couple of arms of the Volga river and heading back to Astrakhan along a different road.
This was my first confluence point, after an unsuccessful attempt on one in Azerbaijan a couple of years ago. It was almost disappointingly simple, but the Astrakhan region offers more challenging confluences also... The hunt will continue! :-)


text:
Frank Edelman, fixer of cars and proud small business owner, figures his son has a unique engine.
"He is possessed,'' the senior Edelman said the other day, speaking on the phone amid the clatter of his auto repair shop in northern California. "Possessed . . . always has been. If Jules wants it, he wants it, and there's no stopping him — he's gonna get it.''
For proof, said the father of the Patriots' No. 1 pass catcher and fearless punt returner, there was Julian Edelman's first year with New England. By his dad's count, the then-23-year-old Patriot rookie stayed on the field that 2009 season with a medical mishmash that included four hernias and a blown adductor muscle.
"He would call me at night and say, 'Oh, dad, I can't even move.' Just groaning,'' mused the senior Edelman. "And I'd say, 'Son, you are my hero, I don't even care. . . . You have done enough.' ''
Not that any of it was a surprise to Frank Edelman. He watched his possessed little boy excel in every sport he tried as a preteen, football and baseball and basketball. He then saw him "go through hell'' in his early years of high school football, his underdeveloped body yet to catch up with his abundant athletic gifts. Later, he watched his son struggle mightily to gain notice as a college prospect and then again as a potential pro who wasn't offered an invite to the NFL Combine after lighting it up as Kent State's quarterback.
"He went through complete hell as an individual,'' recalled Frank Edelman, noting especially Julian's early high school days in Woodside, Calif., before puberty finally worked its wonders. "He was four-foot-nothing, just getting killed out there. And all I would say is, we kept our focus going year to year — let's just be a better player, let's keep our grades up, and let's just focus on our task at hand. And then finally, at end of his junior year of high school, he added something like 50-60 pounds, he grew like eight inches . . . and everything began to turn.''
Now 27 years old and New England's not-so-secret-yet-undersized weapon heading into Sunday's AFC title matchup with the Broncos, Edelman this season has experienced the ultimate career growth spurt. It has been a blend of his own talent and a litany of personnel changes, including injuries to receivers higher on the depth chart (Rob Gronkowski, Danny Amendola), as well as the arrest and incarceration of prized tight end Aaron Hernandez on murder charges.
Through all the shuffle and strife of the season, the 5-foot-10 Edelman emerged as just the latest New England slot receiver to catch more than 100 of Tom Brady's passes. He has cashed in six of those for touchdowns, and further solidified his standing as one of the game's most efficient punt returners.
Heretofore an unheralded piece in the large Patriots mosaic, with his headlines ranging largely from humble to questionable — including an arrest for an alleged groping incident at a Boston nightclub that was quickly dismissed — Edelman has gone from fringe player to core contributor. He's likely to be a vital component in Sunday's AFC title game. And on the verge of being a free agent, after earning an NFL pittance of slightly more than $1 million in 2013, he is poised to be rewarded this off-season with a long-term contract worth $5 million a year or more.
Not bad for a kid who less than five years ago awoke each morning around 3:30 a.m. and hopped in his beat-up pickup truck to chase his dream down the highway.
The route, recalled Edelman's father, was the 50 or so miles from the Kent State campus to Cleveland. Absent the invite to the NFL Combine, Julian's best chance of catching the eye of pro scouts was a spring 2009 Pro Day on the Kent campus. To prepare, Cleveland was the place to be, the place where Edelman trained daily with the best players from surrounding colleges. For five or six days a week, Edelman awoke at 3:30, made the hour's drive northwest, worked out through the morning, then raced the hour back for afternoon classes at Kent.
"It was an old S-10 Chevy pickup and the heater didn't work,'' recalled Frank Edelman. "The weather would get down to below zero, and he'd wrap himself in blankets, get behind the wheel and drive.''
Ultimately, it's very likely Edelman's Pro Day convinced the Patriots he was worth a seventh-round pick, No. 232 overall, in the draft later that spring. With a New England scout among only a handful present at Kent's Pro Day, recalled Frank Edelman, his son posted an eye-popping number in the short shuttle, a drill central to success of slot receivers. The number was so impressive, in fact, that the scouts didn't believe it, so they requested he run it a second time. The retrial was even better, at 3.91 seconds, exactly 0.05 seconds faster than anyone posted at the Combine.
To this day, Edelman himself isn't sure why he wasn't at the Combine.
"I mean, I rushed for 1,300 yards,'' he said, recalling his senior season at Kent State. "I threw for 1,900 yards. I had 36 total touchdowns.''
Good numbers for college, but not the NFL.
"I've always gone the back road, let's just say . . . that's just part of it.''
High school triumphs
Edelman's No. 1 Wildcat jersey has been retired and is displayed in a trophy case at Woodside High School south of San Francisco. Pictures of him in Patriots colors dot the school's halls and offices.
"Of course this is 49ers territory,'' said Woodside physical education teacher Steve Nicolopulos, Edelman's coach his senior season, reached earlier this week by phone. "But everyone's very aware of Julian, and what he's done. He's been back here a few times to talk to the kids, inspire them.''
Edelman quarterbacked Woodside's heralded 13-0 team in 2004 and also much of 2003, a season cut short due to disciplinary issues. According to Nicolopulos, who was also the school's athletic director at the time, the final two games of the '03 season were forfeited because a number of players on that squad made disparaging comments about the then-coach. The remainder of the season was called off, Nicolopulos returned as coach, and in 2004 Edelman was part of a returning group that reported to duty in the fall with a chip on their shoulders.
"They came back wanting to prove that they weren't bad kids, that they were good kids with something to prove,'' recalled Nicolopulos. "And they did it.''
Edelman finished his high school career with a total 2,237 yards passing and threw for 29 touchdowns. He also rushed for 964 yards and 13 more TDs.
"He was the guy who made things happen on offense,'' said Nicolopulos. "He wanted to play defense, too, because that was his nature; he wanted to be on the field all the time.''
By graduation, Edelman was approaching his 5-10 height of today, but he still weighed under 170. Big-time colleges weren't interested. But the nearby junior college, the College of San Mateo, had a keen interest.
"And we're like, 'Wow, that's way cool,''' recalled Frank Edelman. "We were like little naive people, thinking, 'Oh, we're good enough to play in college?' We weren't even thinking the next level. All we were thinking was, hey, someone wants us and this is cool.''
Bret Pollack, today's head coach at San Mateo, was the Bulldogs' offensive coordinator when Edelman arrived.
"Other junior colleges had interest, but he committed here,'' said Pollack. "And one thing about Julian, once he makes up his mind, you are never going to change it — so don't even try. And I'd say that's served him well. I tell him that all the time.''
By Game 2 of his year at San Mateo, Edelman was the starting quarterback. He was gaining weight, gaining confidence, gaining traction.
"When you get a freak athlete like that at our level,'' said Pollack, "the more he gets the ball in his hands, the better.''
By late in his one season at San Mateo, Edelman was drawing interest from major college programs. Washington State had interest. Oregon. Other Pac 10 schools. But Kent State was the first to offer, and by then, said Frank Edelman, the family mindset was to go where the interest was the greatest.
"Kent called,'' recalled the senior Edelman, "and said, 'We want you and we want you now!' So we figured, let's get up there and learn now to play football in the cold.''
Setting sights high
Coming out of Kent State, prior to the draft, Edelman drew interest from the Canadian Football League. The BC Lions, once home to Doug Flutie, had visions of him as their undersized option quarterback.
"It was a big incentive-based contract,'' Edelman recalled. "But I didn't grow up wanting to play in the Canadian Football League — I wanted to try to make the jump.''
Initially, it was Edelman's return skills that provided the platform. He's in New England today, he figures, because of his ability to field punts and dart up field, an art form he never worked on until his first Patriot training camp. The same skill set, dotted with quick fakes and sharp cuts, is woven into his role as slot receiver.
Edelman starts most days now with a couple of hundred warm-up tosses, reporting to work early to catch the throws of John Jastremski, a 34-year-old equipment assistant.
"It's just repetition, trying to get a little bit more experience every day,'' said Edelman. "The more you do something, the better you get.''
NFL analyst Fred Smerlas figures it is Edelman's exceptional skill set and his nonexistent fear factor that set him apart from the field, especially as a punt returner.
"He has everything you want in terms of an on-board computer,'' said Smerlas. "You know, the brain, the ability to read and react instantly. When you watch him, he has the ability to make a move two or three steps down and act on them instantaneously with someone coming at him at 30 miles an hour. That's a gift that 99.999 percent of the guys in the league don't have. There is greatness in all of us. But fear is the barometer. He has no fear.''
"It's vision,'' added fellow analyst and ex-NFLer Steve DeOssie. "He is able to look and discern a pattern.''
It has always been that way, said Frank Edelman. Whatever the athletic task, his son has charged ahead full throttle. The Edelmans have a lake home, he said, and his son made dives into the water, big twisting dives, without any tutoring.
"He gets that from his mother (Angela), I think,'' said the senior Edelman. "Matt, her father, was a bricklayer, a tough, meaner-than-a-snake old-school bricklayer. Strong as an ox. And fearless. His mom is the same way . . . loving, a sweetheart, but she'll tell you the way it is. Me? I mean, I'll tell you what's going on, but I get scared . . . but not Jules.''
Without exception. Nearly.
"Put a rat or a snake in front of Jules,'' mused Edelman's dad, "and he'll run like a little baby.''
On Sunday, the animal in front of Julian Edelman will be the Broncos. From everything we've seen, he'll be running.
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeKPD