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June, July, and January are the busiest months for the capital's tourism and the flights to Helsinki can book up fast. Travelling during the off-season can help to score lower accommodation rates and cheaper plane tickets to Helsinki.
Weather in Helsinki
Weather-wise, Helsinki caters well for all tastes and preferences as there are four distinctly beautiful seasons during which to explore the city's changing ambience.
The moderate temperatures of spring and fall are great for comfortably exploring the outdoors and sightseeing in peace.
The hotter summer climate is perfect for relaxing beach days as well as endlessly bright nights in the lively city. It's good to know that the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, occurs between 20–22 June. In Helsinki that means nearly 19 hours of daylight and the sun barely setting during Midsummer celebrations!
In winter, the pace of life winds down and the cold gives way to beautiful snowy days you can spend ice skating, cross-country skiing or exploring the charming Christmas markets.
Helsinki's event calendar
It's good to know some of the most popular local celebrations and festivals to time your trip to Helsinki.
March kicks off with Helsinki Sauna Day and April follows with the biggest coffee festival in Northern Europe, Helsinki Coffee Festival. The nationwide Vappu, Finnish day for the springtime festival and May Day, is held on the 1 May.
In June, Helsinki Day (Helsinki's birthday) is celebrated with a wide range of free events across the town. June also sees the Taste of Helsinki gourmet restaurant festival and the biggest cultural and human rights event in Finland – Helsinki Pride.
At the end of June, Finns, like many Northern European cultures, celebrate Midsummer (Juhannus) as one of the main traditional festivities. Helsinki usually goes quiet at that time of the year because locals leave to summer cottages away from the city.
August is packed with cultural events, to name a few: Flow Festival as the leading urban music and arts festival in Europe, Helsinki Festival as the largest arts festival in Finland with theatrical performances, music, dance, and visual art displays.
September is a real treat for design lovers as the largest design festival in the region, Helsinki Design Week is held. Also, the Helsinki Film Festival takes over the local cinemas in September. November attracts with an international Baltic Circle festival for contemporary theatre as well as the world's leading start-up and tech event Slush.
Christmas season starts with the opening of the Christmas Street (occasionally in the end of November). Helsinki downtown charms with mesmerising Christmas lights and the Helsinki Christmas Market that's one of the city's oldest events and has been repeatedly picked among the European Christmas Markets to visit. Finland's Independence Day is also celebrated in December (6th).
In January, a five-day Lux Helsinki light festival turns the city into a living light art piece as buildings and facades light up in mesmerizing installations.


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You may recall that we had kind of a big problem with Google+'s policy of not allowing pseudonyms. Well, Google just announced they're finally going to open the doors for them, as well as Google Apps and brand names.
All Things D is reporting that Google's Sergey Brin and Vic Gundotra announced at the All Things D conference in Hong Kong that the reason they held off for so long was that they were trying to tackle some of their other major security policies first, like how they deal with underaged folks. Now that they feel more secure on that front, they're working on an implementation for pseudonyms and anonymous users. There are a lot of people online who don't use their real names and have very legitimate reasons. For some it's a serious security threat (keeping away from psychotic exes, etc.), and for some, they simply never go by their real name. I hate to break it to you, but Lady Gaga's real first name isn't Lady, and her last name isn't Gaga.
Also in the works is integration with Google Apps. For those who use Google Apps for business and have been annoyed that they can't use Google+ with their account, 'tis a happy day indeed. If someone uses a Google Apps account as their primary email address there's no reason why they should have to set up another Gmail account just so they can use Plus. Presumedly around the same time that rolls out, Google+ will be opening up for brands to have their own pages. When Google+ was in early days they famously booted Nike and Coke, which I thought was pretty awesome.
While I'm psyched about the first two announcements, I can't lie, I'm kind of disappointed about the brands thing. People are people, brands are companies. I don't like it when we treat companies like people, but I guess this was inevitable. Google is, after all, a brand/company itself, and it likes dollar-dollar bills y'all.
Side note: In case you were wondering if any of the 40 million+ people who have signed up are actually using it, according to Vic Gondotra 3.4 billion photos have been uploaded to Google+ since it launched. That's billion, with a B. [All Things D via Techland]
You can keep up with Brent Rose, the author of this post, on Google+ or Twitter.

subset: commoncrawl


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Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Roscoea purpurea 'Cinnamon Stick'
7 comments:
Well since it's being marketed by Terra Nova maybe it will be fairly ubiquitous in a few years. Great plant.ReplyDelete
I had a Roscoea beesiana that was quite a bit less interesting than that one, but the flowers were white and orchid-y. I guess it has been swallowed up by aggressive neighbors...will have to go look, I had quite forgotten about it.ReplyDelete
I need to go get one before I leave Seattle. Nice seeing you at the Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling!ReplyDelete
I've got some Roscoea but they don't look a tenth as good as those. You broke the rule of 3 (or 5 or 7!). My wife groans when I bring home plants, but she groans more when I bring home just one.ReplyDelete
Roscoea are one of those plants I haven't paid much attention to before but planted out a few as we were given some a few years ago, to find that they reliably come back :)Now I'm starting to buy a few more. I like that Cinnamon Stick, a new one to me and the colour is lovely. Will keep an eye out for one here.ReplyDelete
Nice! Beautiful contrast between the ridged red stems and the bright foliage. Reminds me a little of purple Tradescantia. And I'm wondering what you did with your plants during the fling...did they hang out in your hotel room and watch HBO?ReplyDelete
Grace, I stopped at Jungle Fever in Tacoma on my way home yesterday...guess what I saw there!? Already on it's way it looks like.ReplyDelete
ricki, I wish these flowers were white. Then they might get to stay.
compost, nice to see you too! Hope to see the group photo (with you photoshopped in) soon.
Ryan, I figure I brought home 2 since there are a couple of stems in the container (which is probably even worse). Hopefully it will make like the gingers I know and multiply...
Mark and Gaz, the red is why I noticed it...if the stem was green I probably would have walked on by.
MulchMaid, would you believe that not once during my 4 days at the hotel was the TV turned on? I am not a very good American. They were giving us plants right and left during the fling! Mine were all lined up on the table by the window soaking up the sun. Many of them (things not dangerous enough) found a loving home at a friends house in Seattle.
Thank you for taking the time to comment. Comment moderation is on (because you know: spam), I will approve and post your comment as soon as possible!


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Carmella left the end of the night last night looking a bit strange. MOstly relaxed, but thoughtful, distant. Too quiet. That has been the theme of the entire day on the barge, where he might have seen her but she truly ducked away from him before he could ever get near. Now, however, camp is set up. The woods are dangerous alone, so there are few places she can go. She's standing near one of the first, instead, a folded piece of paper in her hand. A letter, most like. She looks utterly lovely but… sad too. Lost in her own thoughts.
Galan spots her, putting one of his predatory smiles. He barely notices her introspection and walks up to her. Once again walking quietly towards her, hoping to surprise her. "We meet again, milady." He says, standing closer then he had the day before.
Carmella almost half jumps, turning, almost ready to pull away, but it's too late. He's seen her. She breathes out slowly and flickers a gaze up to his handsome face, a tempered smile tightly crossing her lovely features. "Ser Galan… aye, that we do." She steps back, drawing away to a more respectful distance, a formality in her dark eyes that wasn't there before.
The Green Lion's big green eyes skitter across her face in confusion, but he continues, "I was hoping we'd be able to spend some more time together tonight. I've begun making inquiries to my family and I'm beginning to suspect that they might be a my family might be a bit more receptive then I orignally anticipated."
Carmella breathes out slightly, her fingertips slightly crumpling the piece of paper in her hand, wrinkling it with just how tightly she might be holding those pages. She presses her mouth, "Ser… I have not been… entirely honest with you… or with myself, truth be told. I…" Her voice catches in her throat, breath crackling a moment there. She then forces herself to straighten, shoulders out, head shaking a touch. "I… cannot do this. I should not…"
Galan shakes his head, "Cannot do what?" He asks, reaching his hands to take hers, "I doubt there's anything you could lie to me that would make me find you any less beguiling, milady. Unless perhaps…" He smiles again, "Are you a spy from Dorne, sent to seduce the greatest knights of Westeros to your cause?"
Carmella stares up to him, going stiff as he takes her fingertips. Her hand almost jerks back away, the paper in her fingertips slightly ripping as she pulls free. She draws in a ragged sort of breath, especially as he speaks of Dorne, and she shakes her head almost violently to him. "No… no. It's… it's not like that, not really. I am from Westeros, very much so… but my heart is not. And you are not him. I tried to… pretend you were, tried to… move on, Tried to pretend nothing had ever happened in the past. That I could play this courtly love game as well as the next. But I cannot! I… I cannot." She hisses. And then it's quiet for a long few heartbeats before she finally whispers, "Last night… by the fire… I almost called you his name."
"Who's name?" Galan says, eyeing her sharply. "Sweetling, tell me plainly. Do I not make you happy?" He hunches slightly and brings her hands up a small bit, "Sweetling, tell me true. What is this about?"
Carmella studies his eyes quietly, though she shakes her head as he requests the name, "No… no. It is no one you need… need know. It is my matter and my heart. But you are -not- him. And as much as I tried to make you him, to pretend you were, to… change the way I feel… it is not fair for me to string you along when I'm not being honest. I am in love with someone else, Galan… not with you, no matter how hard I tried to be." She smiles bitterly as she admits that, flat and honest.
Galan drops her hands slowly to the rest before letting go of them. "I see… you do not wish to string me along." His voice loses a bit of his warmth, though it's hard to tell who he's directing it towards, "You love another man more then you loved me, appearantly." He gives a bitter snort.
Carmella swallows back quietly, forcing a bit more strength into her shoulders and her eyes. She shakes her head a touch to him, "I don't think I… ever… Loved you. Hells, Galan, I hardly KNOW you! We have spent a few lovely weeks in Highgarden. The tourney, the heat, the wine… I thought it'd make me forget. But now we return to King's Landing and… " That bittersweet smile returns, "I realize I've been… a fool. Something I do not enjoy being. YOu have another lady whom has your eye. POssibly your heart. It is not fair to you or her that I continue in this charade, no matter how much I enjoy your company. And I -do- enjoy it. It is not love."
Galan growls, "Do I not have a say in what is fair for me? I was not lying before. Doryssa is…" He grasps at an explanation, "But you had my heart. I wished to make you my Dornish princess." He says, more bitterly and less sweet, "Would you pine for this man until you die?"
Carmella winces, just a touch, a moment of shock and uncertainty in her dark, Dornish eyes. She's speechless at those words, disbelief on her tanned face. Her fingertips crinkle the letter just a touch more, but she does not quite let it go. "...I do not know… I have hopes death would be very far off. But I have pined for him every day since he left… and I cannot imagine it disappearing. I tried… I tried to forget. Tried to pine for you, but it was his name on my lips." She finally breathes out, too earnest, as always.
"He is gone…" Galan says stubbornly, "You know how I can tell he's gone, because if he truely loved you, he would be /right here/ defending the claim he's made on your heart. What has he done to deserve such devotion from this most fair of women?"
The half Dornish woman shakes her head, almost violently hard, pulling further back from him as he says those things. "NO! No. Don't say that. You do not know him or the situation. He had to go back, he had no choice, or he would be here. We ALL know what it is to be restricted by family, by station… By our LIVES. He is no more free than you or I!" She hisses at him, turning away now, her pain turning to anger and denial.
"I know enough of him to know that he's not here." Galan says, his voice growing a good deal more desperate, "Are you going to remain a maid with stars in your eyes forever?"
Carmella presses her wine dark mouth tightly, the bittersweet smile growing there, beneath that tension. She blinks away a touch of moisture from her dark gaze. She seems about to say something, but she lets the words catch in her throat. A cool, sickly amused laugh. She just shakes her head, "I do not know… I will remain with Dorne in my eyes, though, and books… and swords in my mind. Not court. Not this love game."
"Then I will no longer make you suffer through it, Milady." Galan says, his pride having taken a grievous wound. His voice is small and parched. He turns, his Green cloak and blonde hair being the only thing facing her as he makes off in the night.
Carmella watches him go, her lips parting to protest once again, but she cannot find the words. For a heartbeat, her eyes press as tight as her lips, trying to shove away the sting behind her lids as she sinks down to her knees and fully crumples the parchment in her fingertips.


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It's Not Just Camping - 4xForward
Related Video
One things wheelers like is the travel aspect of our sport. Of course it's great if you live in the woods or on top of a mountain and can wheel every day, but most of us don't have that luxury. For us, it's hitting the road for a destination that promises to get our 4x4 juices flowing, to places like Moab, Badlands, Rubicon, and Rausch Creek, or just your favorite private place in the dirt. But along the way the new sport of overlanding has crept into our recreational wheeling side—and we think that's a good thing.
What is overlanding? Some people think that if you drive a Lexus or Land Rover you go overlanding, while those of us with a beat-up Chevy, Jeep, or Ford go truck camping. But more than rooftop tents and expensive gear instead of a pile of wood and a Coleman sleeping bag separates and defines the two. It's the thought that we wheel for the obstacles, while overlanders wheel to get somewhere; the destination as opposed to the trip. I tend to disagree on both those counts, as I believe it's one and the same in the end, just a matter of how you do it.
That's one reason we decided to make this issue about overlanding, as we have been doing it for way longer than the term has been around, and in many far-flung places around the globe. In this issue alone we show you what's available and a few great overlanding/camping adventures.
My latest overland trip happened the other day when I decided to drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on dirt, by myself. While we never suggest you go alone, I often do, as I never have time to plan—I just go. Along the way I found myself on the old Mojave Road, still in use and somewhat protected by 4-wheelers and adventurers even though it legally goes through wilderness and desert preserves. All I had was my Moab edition Jeep Wrangler, a box of water and drinks, enough jerky for a week, and my bedroll. A few survival and fix-it tools were previously packed, and I had a bag of dirty clothes from a week at the SEMA show in Las Vegas. I was stylin' in high cotton.
About the second day of my sojourn I noticed some dustrails (as opposed to contrails) off in the distance, and decided that if it was a group or club sprouting them from the dusty desert floor I'd head out before them to beat the Sunday rush towards home. I'd already explored numerous mines, abandoned town sites, and relics and had even found historical artifacts like Beatles cassette tapes and common coffee cups strewn among the detritus of desert civilization, so I figured it was time to start heading back. But somehow the group leapfrogged me while I was exploring a side road, and I suddenly encountered six wheeling rigs, all on an overland journey on the same road, and some were sporting rooftop tents! It turns out they were readers of this magazine and, like me, were just camping and wheeling for a few days with friends for fun and on a backcountry trip, never thinking about the term overlanding or the reason for doing it. So thanks, Bryce, Dave, Dennis, F-250 Dave, Todd, and Steven. It's great to see real people out wheeling for fun, regardless of what it's called.


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Saturday, April 30, 2011
Pencil Flower Bouquet
6 comments:
I love all of your awesome teacher gift ideas! I am your newest follower!ReplyDelete
found you from the blackberry vine, link up and wanted to visit other links and found yours just soooooooo cute! You have some great ideas here! I am a new follower. All the best! TrishReplyDelete
I am starting my own linky party this ToDaY!
It's the first one. I would love it if you would participate! It's called $10 Tuesdays and it's for things that cost less than $10 and take 20-30 mins (ish) to complete. I love inexpensive and quick projects and I'm guessing others will too ;) Thanks so much for considering.
Tina Watschke
This is really sweet. The pic is great and caught my attention!ReplyDelete
What a sweet idea, I just love it. I found you at the CSI project. I think any teacher would just love this!ReplyDelete
I love your ideas! I am on the PTA Board in charge on Teacher Appreciation Week for the School and I make all gifts- pinterest made it easier this year and much cheaper too! Its hard to come up with 5 days of gifts for 70 staff members that can be hand made, that are cute as well as useful, and fit in our budget. I am also a stay at home mom (for the most part- I sometimes sub) and my Husband is a Soldier- I believe in doing Teacher Appreciation for my kids past and current Teachers as well as the Office Staff and all Support Staff every day- this can get very expensive. So I LOVE ideas like yours! Do you offer free downloads for your flower pencils? I didn't see them. I know as former Special Ed Teacher that the Teacher's LOVE being appreciated!ReplyDelete


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Native Plants
Search for native plants by scientific name, common name or family. If you are not sure what you are looking for, try the Combination Search or our Recommended Species lists.
Mertensia virginica
Mertensia virginica (L.) Pers. ex Link
Virginia Bluebells
Boraginaceae (Borage Family)
USDA Symbol: MEVI3
USDA Native Status: L48 (N), CAN (N)
Erect plant with smooth gray-green foliage and nodding clusters of pink buds that open into light blue trumpet-shaped flowers. The 1-2 ft., branched and arching stems of Virginia bluebells bear pendulous, terminal clusters of lavender-blue, bell-shaped flowers. Large, gray-green, oval leaves line the stems of this perennial.
When it grows in masses, this species makes a spectacular show, especially in the Midwest. A smaller, trailing, rosy-pink-flowered species, Sea Lungwort (M. maritima), occurs on beaches from Newfoundland to Massachusetts. Tall Lungwort (M. paniculata), a western species with a hairy stem, extends eastward into Wisconsin, northeastern Iowa, and Minnesota. The genus is named for the German botanist Franz Karl Mertens (1764-1831).
From the Image Gallery
Plant CharacteristicsDuration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Fruit Type: Schizocarp
Size Notes: Up to about 2 feet tall.
Leaf: Green.
Fruit: Nutlets.
Bloom InformationBloom Color: Pink , Blue , Purple
Bloom Time: Mar , Apr , May , Jun
DistributionUSA: AL , AR , DC , DE , GA , IA , IL , IN , KS , KY , MA , MD , ME , MI , MN , MO , MS , NC , NJ , NY , OH , PA , TN , VA , WI , WV
Canada: ON , QC
Native Distribution: NY & s. Ont. to e. MN, s. to NC, AR & e. KS; naturalized northeastward
Native Habitat: Moist woods & clearings; river bottoms. Species at risk in Ontario.
Growing ConditionsWater Use: High
Light Requirement: Part Shade , Shade
Soil Moisture: Moist
Soil pH: Circumneutral (pH 6.8-7.2)
CaCO3 Tolerance: Medium
Soil Description: Rich, moist, sometimes rocky, soils.
BenefitConspicuous Flowers: yes
PropagationDescription: For best results, seeds should be sown immediately after collection or stored and planted six weeks prior to the last frost date. If stored over winter and planted in the spring, the seeds must be cold-moist stratified for six weeks. Rhizomes may be divided while the plant is dormant.
Seed Collection: Approximate collection date in northern U.S.: Late May to early Jun. Seeds will ripen in the yellowish-brown fruit approximately 3-4 weeks after flowering. Stem will probably have collapsed by then. Dry and store in a sealed, refrigerated container.
Seed Treatment: Cold moist stratification for six weeks may be necessary.
Commercially Avail: yes
Find Seed or Plants
View propagation protocol from Native Plants Network.
National Wetland Indicator Status
From the National Organizations DirectoryAccording to the species list provided by Affiliate Organizations, this plant is on display at the following locations:
Delaware Nature Society - Hockessin, DE
Mt. Cuba Center - Hockessin, DE
BibliographyBibref 928 - 100 easy-to-grow native plants for Canadian gardens (2005) Johnson, L.; A. Leyerle
Bibref 1294 - The Midwestern Native Garden: Native Alternatives to Nonnative Flowers and Plants An Illustrated Guide (2011) Adelman, Charlotte and Schwartz, Bernard L.
Search More Titles in Bibliography
Web ReferenceWebref 23 - Southwest Environmental Information Network (2009) SEINet - Arizona Chapter
Additional resourcesUSDA: Find Mertensia virginica in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Mertensia virginica in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Mertensia virginica
MetadataRecord Modified: 2023-02-20
Research By: TWC Staff


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World's largest TV goes on sale in Japan
110 inches of televisual greatness
The world's largest rear-projection television has gone on sale in Japan. At 110-inches, JVC 's HD-110MH80 is two inches bigger than Sharp's record-breaking 108-inch LCD TV.
It uses JVC's proprietary 'D-ILA' (Digital Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier) liquid crystal panel to produce a full-HD 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. It draws a hefty 220 watts of electricity to power what is effectively the biggest production television on the planet.
Size-wise it's three feet deep and reportedly weighs 728 pounds - the same as four grown men.
It has a contrast ratio at 5000:1 and will set you back around £28,000 if it becomes available in the UK.
JVC launches world-beater
And if you're thinking of splashing out £28k on one of these babies, you might want to think about how you're going to get it home first. Unusually sized displays like this can cost as much to ship as they are to buy. This is because of the specialised equipment, transport and packaging required to move them.
Panasonic's 103-inch plasma, once the king of TVs, is now looking distinctly small.
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With their new web site Evolution Air is building their online presence
to allow the potential customers looking for their services online to find them instead of their competitors... Read more »
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Creative Commercial Interiors provides new and used office furniture, but they do more than
that—They try harder to give the best service... Read more »
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There is no business networking group quite like BCN. The members that make up the
BCN business networking group provide... Read more »
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Carson does beautiful, large scale, quality landscaping. Their web site allowed us to
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TurfPro allowed us the opportunity to create an information section that provides
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Opinion: Thanks To Clint And Clinton, We Almost Stayed Awake
Any political science student who was given the assignment of watching the two political conventions in the past two weeks and reporting on them ought to get an A+ if they just managed to stay awake for them. Other than a few moments delivered by Clint Eastwood, former President Bill Clinton, First Lady Michelle Obama, and the aspiring First Lady Ann Romney, the two political conventions of 2012 – yawn-per-yawn – have to be the most uninspiring political conventions in recent history.
Anyone who managed to sit through the two weeks of the two political affairs probably started tallying how many times they heard the worn-out phrase "fact check" just to stay awake. I lost track during the second week when the tally of the term reached epic proportions.
Not that there weren't moments, of course. Week one started off with a bang when Ann Romney appeared more likeable than most had imagined and even managed to make her unlikable husband – according to polls – palatable to the public. Not to be outdone by any stretch of the imagination, Michelle Obama did extremely well in reintroducing the president to the masses. Lucky for both women, they have more interesting topics than their politician-husbands. Mrs. Romney and Mrs. Obama both spoke about people we want to know more about, even if it is a biased view from a loving spouse.
The two candidates – Barack Obama and Mitt Romney – talked unfavorably about one another when it was their turns to speak. Exciting? Not really. They've been doing that all summer and hearing more of the same at the culmination of both weeks' conventions was predictably monotonous.
Saving the day – as opposed to "making the day" – for the first week's Republican National Convention, Clint Eastwood livened things up with his out-of-"right"-field speech. Fast forward a couple of decades. When anyone speaks about the political conventions of 2012 in the future, it will undoubtedly be said: "You remember 2012. The year Clint Eastwood gave that empty chair speech." Other than that, nothing will likely be remembered about the past two weeks by the average American.
The excitement of the second week was minimal, at best. Though it caused controversy when it was learned that former President Bill Clinton would speak – depending on whether the DNC met his terms or not – having Clinton speak was obviously a good move. Once again, Bill Clinton proved to be to the Democrats what former President Ronald Reagan was to the Republicans – a dynamic speaker. When it comes to a politician captivating a crowd, they just don't make 'em like those two anymore.
Regardless of what Clinton had to say, he still knows how to steal a show – even when he's not supposed to do so. Whether one agrees with what the man says or not, admittedly, he puts on a great show.
So, there we have them – the two political Conventions of 2012. The stars were outshined by the likes of Clint Eastwood, Bill Clinton, and the alleged stars' wives.
Oh, and of course, many will also remember the Democratic National Convention of 2012 as the time when the Democrats unbelievably and disgustingly "booed" for God.
About Scott Paulson
Scott Paulson writes political commentary for Examiner.com and teaches English at a community college in the Chicago area. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CBS Local.
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liveFire threat eases across southern Australia
Cooler weather across New South Wales and Victoria has given fire crews a chance to get on top of about a dozen fires still burning across the south-east of the country.
All bushfire alerts for the two states were reduced to advice status overnight with fire crews concentrating efforts on taking advantage of cooler weather to build on containment lines.
Late yesterday residents who had fled the townships of Glenmaggie and Seaton, ahead of the large bushfire in the area, were able to go back to assess damage to their properties. Twenty-one homes were destroyed in the area.
The NSW Rural Fire Service says of the 84 fires burning across the state, the blaze causing the most concern is near Coonabarabran in the north-west, which covers 53,000 hectares and has destroyed over 50 homes.
Follow our live coverage for updates throughout the day. (All times AEDT.)
5.27pm: NSW Police are appealing for information about a suspicious bushfire that started at Willans Hill in Wagga Wagga on Thursday night.
Detectives say the fire was deliberately lit and are looking to speak to anyone who was in the area when the fire started around 11.00pm.
4:37pm: An update on the situation in New South Wales:
The New South Wales Rural Fire Service says 800 firefighters who are currently working on 84 bush and grass fires. Eight of these fires remain uncontained but no properties are under threat.
4:31pm: Firefighters in Victoria hope today's backburning operation will help them contain the blaze which started near Aberfeldy in Gippsland on Thursday.
Fire crews spent today backburning a 180-hectare area of bushland near Glenmaggie and Heyfield.
Firefighter Brian Barwick says the process is necessary for reducing the amount of dry fuel near communities.
The reason why we need to burn these areas out is that if we can't get a mineral earth edge on, then the fire's just going to tickle along on days like today, and then when it gets a bad day it'll just take off. So obviously the whole aim is to get black edge up to a road or a mineral earth break, where we can be pretty assured it's not going to jump on a bad day.
3:22pm: Firefighters in north-west New South Wales spent the morning strengthening containment lines at a major blaze burning in and around the Warrumbungles.
Rain helped to ease the threat throughout the morning, but farmers are concerned it could be weeks before good feed returns for their livestock.
About 200 firefighters and 12 aircraft have been taking advantage of the weather to control the fire.
1:00pm: A short time ago the NSW Rural Fire Service shared this photo of the Yallambee homestead, near Young, on their Facebook page.
12:15pm: CFA's Lee Miezis says a 180-hectare backburning operation is underway near Glenmaggie and Heyfield, and crews have set up defences at Licola. He says crews will be trying to take advantage of today's milder conditions, before the warmer weather returns on Thursday.
It's spread has certainly slowed and that has enabled crews to really focus on back burning and other operations to consolidate containment lines.
ABC cameraman Patrick Rocca took this photo of the fires near Seaton a short time ago.
11:05am: Victorian authorities say backburning operations are underway to limit the available fuel for the 56,000 hectare fire north-west of Sale, which is burning in difficult terrain. Crews have also been sent to reinforce defences at Licola, about 15 kilometres away from the fire. The CFA's Lee Miezis says smoke from the fire may even be visible in Melbourne. He says crews are trying to get on top of the fire before the warmer weather returns at the end of this week.
We've had backburning operations throughout the night and we'll be undertaking a fairly critical 180 hectare backburn to reduce the fuel load in some unburnt areas around Glenmaggie and Heyfield. That will cause a lot of smoke in that area.
10:16am: Peta Carlyon reports on the easing threat in Victoria's Gippsland region.Loading...
9:40am: The NSW Rural Fire Service says 142 fires are now burning across the state, and 29 of them are uncontained. However, Brydie O'Connor from the RFS says conditions are a lot milder across the state today, but more lightning is expected.
We're seeing temperatures generally in the mid-20s, into the 30s. In some areas such as in the Coonabarabran area we're seeing in the mid-30s, however the key difference with yesterday is that we're not seeing those strong winds, so there is a bit of reprieve, however the bureau have advised that we are likely to see some more lightning today.
Lucy Carter reports from the small village of Tooraweenah in New South Wales on the latest on the destructive bushfire near Coonabarabran.Loading...
9:24am: Victorian authorities say fire crews are starting backburning operations near Glenmaggie and Heyfield. The fire is expected to double in size before it is brought under control. Incident controller at Heyfield, Michael Masters, says while the blaze is not threatening any communities, it is critical for people in the area to be aware of the changing conditions.
The fire is still behaving erratically. Fire behaviour even overnight when it normally dies down is quite vigorous and so during daylight hours, temperatures heat up and relative humidity drops down, we're seeing increases significantly in fire behaviour.
8:40am: ABC cameraman Patrick Rocca took this photo this morning of CFA crews gathering in Heyfield to prepare to battle the nearby blaze.
8:25am: Here's more from Alex Lee on what fire crews can expect in New South Wales and Victoria today:Loading...
8:16am: Reporter Peta Carlyon joined ABC News 24 from Heyfield a short time ago. She said residents of the nearby Seaton were hoping to return to their properties for the first time today to see what sort of condition they are in.
There's no immediate threat today to these communities. CFA volunteers... heading out to the fire, they're more containing the fire that's burning around in private properties. They say they'll be able to do solid work today. The threat still looms because the fire is burning in forest in hard to access areas and the threat might come back to some communities later in the week when it heats up. As for now, and today, the immediate threat has passed for now.
It is burning in quite remote areas and residents are up in the town of Licola, a hamlet in a valley right up in the alps, say they expect that fire potentially to reach them in four days time. They also say if it gets more into the forest it is could burn all the way to NSW because of the high fuel loads. That's more uncertain at this time.
7:45am: Deputy incident controller in Coonabarabran, Eric Claussen, says about 200 firefighters, heavy machinery and 12 aircraft will be out battling the blaze today. He says the fire has been persistent in the south-western corner. Milder conditioners are expected over the next few days.
We've still got a lot of work to do but the conditions now really allow us to take hold of it.
7:00am: In New South Wales it has rained in the area near the Warrumbungles National Park at Coonabarabran, where a major fire continues to burn.
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A fire in the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park, north of Sydney, was contained late last night, but is still creating a lot of smoke. The Rural Fire Service (RFS) says all of the 120 fires burning across the state are at advice alert level or lower.
The RFS's Brydie O'Connor says crews will work today to consolidate containment lines before hot weather returns later in the week.
The focus for us is certainly going to be up at that very large 53,000 hectare fire in the Coonabarabran area. There were 400 firefighters on that fire yesterday... we've had a number of firefighters still working on that one overnight. Certainly it will take more than a few days to fully bring that one under control.
We have got a window of opportunity here. We saw the easing of conditions yesterday, it is likely to extend for another few days, and we are putting as many resources on these fires to take advantage of that before the return of that hot weather later in the week.
Victorian fire crews will take advantage of forecast cooler conditions today to work on building containment lines around a major bushfire burning in Gippsland in the state's east. The fire, which broke out in forest on Thursday, has moved through 55,000 hectares and is expected to keep burning for several days. CFA incident controller Michael Masters says the perimeter of the fire is about 200 kilometres, and stretches through mountainous terrain.
Our focus is trying to build containment lines to keep the fire on the west side of the Macalister River. Our crews are working very hard to do that with large bulldozers and other pieces of earthmoving equipment backed up with our firefighting crews.


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글로벌 화학기업 BASF 온라인 채용박람회 안내(BASF's Virtual career fair "OneDayWith BASF")
BASF, the world's leading chemical company, will host the virtual career fair "OneDayWith BASF" for talents who are doing a Master's, PhD or Post-Doc program in Chemistry or Chemical (Process) Engineering. Postgraduates who are motivated to learn more about our largest research site in Asia, the Innovation Campus in Shanghai, are invited to join us on December 3rd, 2014.
The participants will have the unique opportunity to get insights into the multifaceted work of our scientists and engineers and how they solve everyday challenges. During interactive live sessions we will offer the chance to chat with our experts and young professionals. Our HR representatives will also join the chat and are glad to answer questions regarding career opportunities at BASF.
Postgraduates are encouraged to sign up with their CV at: http://www.online.careersinternational.com/basf.html


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I work with multiple computers for various reasons. I want to keep those computers in sync configuration wise. I already have a VCS based setup that allows me to manually update configurations on multiple hosts. But i'm looking for a way to do this automatically.
What I'm looking for is:
- A way to sync configuration (vim, ssh, evolution)
- keeping certain directories in sync (like ~/Documents)
This is all user configuration and not system configuration. At times the workstation can be offline or behind a slow link, so being able to detect that and act accordingly is a plus.


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Hornets owner Tom Benson has said since buying the NBA club last spring that he wanted a new name representing New Orleans and Louisiana.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The New Orleans Hornets are moving ahead with plans to change their name to the Pelicans next season, people familiar with the decision said.
The people spoke to The Associated Press Wednesday on condition of anonymity because the Hornets have not announced the name change. The people say that is expected to come Thursday, when club also will unveil the proposed new color scheme of blue, gold and red.
Hornets owner Tom Benson has said since buying the NBA club last spring that he wanted a new name representing New Orleans and Louisiana.
The brown pelican is the state bird and has become symbolic of efforts to restore Louisiana's fragile coast, which has been hit hard by the 2010 BP oil spill and erosion from major storms including Hurricane Katrina, which displaced the Hornets to Oklahoma City for two seasons from 2005-07.
Benson owns the rights to the name Pelicans, which was used for decades by a former minor league baseball team in New Orleans.
The NBA would have to approve any name change, but Commissioner David Stern already said during a visit to New Orleans earlier this season that he won't object to whatever new name Benson might choose because he knows it will be "sensible," and that the league could expedite the process.
The Hornets are New Orleans' second NBA team. The first was the Jazz, which played in the Big Easy from 1974-79 before moving to Utah, and current owners of the club have indicated on multiple occasions they had no intention of giving up that name so New Orleans could have it back.
The Hornets were founded in Charlotte in 1988 by then-owner George Shinn, who kept that name when he moved the team to New Orleans in 2002.
Shinn sold the Hornets to the NBA in December 2010, and the league spent more than a year looking for a buyer who would keep the team in New Orleans long term.
Last April, Benson, who also has owned the NFL's New Orleans Saints since 1985, agreed to purchase the club for $338 million. As part of the purchase, he agreed to a lease of the state-owned New Orleans Arena through 2024, ending several years of speculation that the club would be moved again to another city seeking an NBA franchise.
The Hornets were in San Antonio on Wednesday night to play the Spurs, heading into the game with a promising stint of seven victories in their past nine games, but still near the bottom of the Western Conference standings. The recent increase in winning has coincided with the return of high-scoring guard Eric Gordon from a knee injury that sidelined him for most of the first two months of the season.
Since Benson took over the club, the contracts of general manager Dell Demps and head coach Monty Williams have been extended, and the team has seen an influx of new, young talent including first overall draft choice Anthony Davis and 10th overall pick Austin Rivers.
Now the hope is that the club's young nucleus will turn New Orleans into an NBA contender in the years to come, and do so with a new look and new name which speak to the regions fans.


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Well today was the last day for a while I would be greeted by this sign:
It was a pretty exciting week. Taking over a 500 level program and pulling it together from existing materials in a short time is a daunting task. I was SO lucky and glad to have such a talented partner in Stacia Misner (@StaciaMisner). Many of you have taken training (Free and otherwise) from Stacia and know what I mean. She really excels at taking those complicated concepts and making them real for the students.
So we jumped in and started slicing the decks, finding demos and looking for ways to improve the course in our limited ramp up time for this iteration. Well – it paid off. The class come off well since we were able to work through some great advanced material and lead discussions of some of the sharpest folks I know as they debate, argue, poke fun and other wise heckle us and each other. I poseted some interim posts during the week but I thought I would recap the week here in one post for those of you interested in how the week works etc..
Day 1
Day 1 was an optional Lab day for folks to come in and begin working through the class labs to get more familiar with the concepts and processes we would be discussing. This was a great day of meeting folks and seeing their background and strengths.
Day 2
Day 2 was the first day of Lecture and Stacia kicked us off talking about advanced dimension design. I took over and covered partitioning, data internals, and processing for large cube environments. Then Stacia finished up talking about Aggregation design and internals and I rounded out the day with ROLAP and how it can be a great asset in a large scale Tier 1 environment. This included some query internals around what you can do to make ROLAP a better option in your environment.
Day 3
Day 3 was a long day. We had so much great information to cover but the major topics for today were Threading and threading architecture, memory usage and architecture, I/O Subsystems for SSAS (Bow did I miss Wes Brown (@WesBrownSQL) for this section but Denny Lee filled in some awesome specifics around some special situations with certain storage vendors and we had some great discussion here. I never knew we could take for 30 minutes about the difference between 32K and 64K block sizes and how that relates to the Striping and block size on the SAN vs. windows cluster size, SAN driver compatibility etc.. Stacia then took us through the Part I of the underlying command execution and query architecture engine. That is some deep stuff! the coolest part of the day was when the SSAS dev team came in and did "Stump the Chump" around the command and query architecture, threading and memory. There were some Myths the got BUSTED. Some Egos deflated, and lots of smiles and pride when students were told their understanding was correct!
Day 4
Day 4 started with Stacia and part deaux of Command and query execution architecture and internals, then she went right into Tuning MDX. Some poor guy's head exploded in the back (we're not getting our deposit back on the room) but everyone else was eating out of her hand. Then (as happened plenty during the week) someone asked a question we didn't know the answer to and someone in the middle of the room stood up and it was a gentleman who is in charge of development for the formula engine in SSAS! I thought "You have got to be kidding me" We have this guy in here?" AWESOME! So he spoke extemporaneously for about 45 minutes about the undercarriage of the formula engine and taking the hundred questions from the students. It was like watching a development superhero casually answer some of the most complicated questions I have ever heard including specifics about cell by cell vs. lock calculations, which for those of you who work with MDX a lot know this is a huge topic! I had a tough act to follow but since they were all worn out I was good to go. We finished the day with my sessions on scale out deployment strategies and best practices and near real time cube and infrastructure techniques. That night we all had a nice dinner out as part of the course and got to know some of the great students in the course. Everyone was nice and relaxed since this was our last day of lecture.
Day 5
Well as I write this sitting in the Delta Sky club in SeaTac airport waiting on my red-eye flight home, today was a pretty calm day mostly spent helping the students with the labs and answering final questions. Most of the students staying through today to get the head start on the labs. It was an afternoon of goodbyes and thanks for a great week.
So What's Next?
Next We get to take all the feedback and continue to improve the course and figure out the next schedule. While we're thinking about that, Marco Russo and Chris Webb will be teaching the Euro-Trip version of the course in Madrid in July. Those of you taking that get ready for the ride. Those guys are SHARP! That will be another tremendous week. The students from Redmond have more work to do , exams, and the rest of the evaluation process to complete so they can be graded! I have heard from so many of you interested in the course. Please hit up Stacia or I if you have questions and keep your eyes peeled for the next round of schedules to be published.
Final Thoughts
I wonder if the bartender in here is staring at me for my laptop on the bar or because I'm singing along with the counting crows in my headphones ?
See you all out there! – @Adam_Jorgensen


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Team Effort
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35 S.Ct. 304
59 L.Ed. 661
SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,
No. 107.
Argued December 9, 1914.
Decided February 23, 1915.
Messrs. John D. Welman, Alexander P. Humphrey, and Edward P. Humphrey for plaintiff in error.
Messrs. Frank H. Hatifield, John R. Brill, John W. Brady, and T. P. Littlepage for defendant in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 440-444 intentionally omitted]
Mr. Justice Lamar delivered the opinion of the court:
The Indiana statute requires railway companies to place secure grab irons and hand holds on the sides or ends of every railroad car, under a penalty of $100 fine, to be recovered in a civil action.
In March, 1910, the railroad commission of the state brought such a suit against the Southern Railway Company, alleging that the company on February 24, 1910, had transported from Boonsville, Indiana, to Milltown, Indiana, a car which did not have the required equipment. The defendant filed an answer in which it denied liability under the state law inasmuch as on February 24, 1910, the Federal safety appliance act imposed penalties for failing to equip cars with hand holds, and also designated the court in which they might be recovered. The commission's demurrer to the answer was sustained. The defendant refusing to plead further, judgment was entered against the company. That judgment was affirmed by the state court, and the case was brought here by writ of error.
The car alleged to have been without the required equipment, though transporting freight between points wholly within the state of Indiana, was moving on a railroad engaged in interstate commerce, and the company was, therefore, subject to the provisions and penalties of the safety appliance act. 27 Stat. at L. 531, § 4, chap. 196, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 8608. Southern R. Co. v. United States, 222 U. S. 20, 56 L. ed. 72, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 2.
The defendant in error insists, however, that the railroad company was also liable for the penalty imposed by the Indiana statute. In support of this position numerous cases are cited which, like Cross v. North Carolina, 132 U. S. 131, 33 L. ed. 287, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 47, hold that the same act may constitute a criminal offense against two sovereignties, and that punishment by one does not prevent punishment by the other. That doctrine is thoroughly established. But, upon an analysis of the principle on which it is founded, it will be found to relate only to cases where the act sought to be punished is one over which both sovereignties have jurisdiction. This concurrent jurisdiction may be either because the nature of the act is such that at the same time it produces effects respectively within the sphere of state and Federal regulation, and thus violates the laws of both; or where there is this double effect in a matter of which one can exercise control, but an authoritative declaration that the paramount jurisdiction of one shall not
Act March 2, 1903, c. 976, 32 Stat. 943 (Comp. St. 1913, §§ 8613-8615). exclude that of the other. Compare, Rev. Stat. § 711, 37 Stat. at L. 670, chap. 50, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 8603.
But the principle that the offender may, for one act, be prosecuted in two jurisdictions, has no application where one of the governments has exclusive jurisdiction of the subject-matter, and therefore the exclusive power to punish. Such is the case here where Congress, in the exercise of its power to regulate interstate commerce, has legislated as to the appliances with which certain instrumentalities of that commerce must be furnished in order to secure the safety of employees. Until Congress entered that field, the states could legislate as to equipment in such manner as to incidentally affect, without burdening, interstate commerce. But Congress could pass the safety appliance act only because of the fact that the equipment of cars moving on interstate roads was a regulation of interstate commerce. Under the Constitution the nature of that power is such that, when exercised, it is exclusive, and ipso facto supersedes existing state legislation on the same subject. Congress, of course, could have 'circumscribed its regulations' so as to occupy a limited field. Savage v. Jones, 225 U. S. 502, 533, 56 L. ed. 1182, 1194, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 715; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Georgia, 234 U. S. 280, 293, 58 L. ed. 1312, 1318, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 829. But so far as it did legislate, the exclusive effect of the safety appliance act did not relate merely to details of the statute and the penalties it imposed, but extended to the whole subject of equipping cars with appliances intended for the protection of employees. The states thereafter could not legislate so as to require greater or less or different equipment; nor could they punish by imposing greater or less or different penalties. For, as said in Prigg v. Com. 16 Pet. 618, 10 L. ed. 1090: 'If Congress have a constitutional power to regulate a particular subject, and they do actually regulate it in a given manner, and in a certain form, it cannot be that the state legislatures have a right to interfere; and, as it were, by way of complement to the legislation of Congress, to prescribe additional regulations, and what they may deem auxiliary provisions for the same purpose. In such a case, the legislation of Congress, in what it does prescribe, manifestly indicates that it does not intend that there shall be any farther legislation to act upon the subject-matter. Its silence as to what it does not do is as expressive of what its intention is as the direct provisions made by it. . . . the will of Congress upon the whole subject is as clearly established by what it had not declared, as by what it has expressed.'
Without, therefore, discussing the many cases sustaining the right of the states to legislate on subjects which, while not burdening, may yet incidentally affect interstate commerce, it is sufficient here to say that Congress has so far occupied the field of legislation relating to the equipment of freight cars with safety appliances as to supersede existing and prevent further legislation on that subject. The principle is too well established to require argument. Its application may be seen in rulings in the closely analogous cases relating to state penalties for failing to furnish cars, and to state penalties for retaining employees at work on cars beyond the time allowed by the hours-of-service law.
In St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Edwards, 227 U. S. 267, 57 L. ed. 506, 33 Sup. Ct. Rep. 262, it was held that the Arkansas statute imposing a penalty for failing to deliver cars had been superseded by the provisions of the Hepburn act, although the provisions of the two statutes were not identical. In Northern P. R. Co. v. Washington, 222 U. S. 371, 56 L. ed. 237, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 160, it was held that congressional legislation as to hours of service so completely occupied the field as to prevent state legislation on that subject. In Erie R. Co. v. New York, 233 U. S. 671, 58 L. ed. 1149, 51 L.R.A.(N.S.) 1097, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 756, a like ruling was made in a case where the New York law punished a railroad company for allowing an employee to work more than eight hours when the Federal statute punished the company for employing him for more than nine hours even though it was argued that the state legislation was not in conflict with the Federal act, but rather in aid of it. The same contention is made here, inasmuch as the Indiana law requires hand holds on sides or ends of cars, while the Federal statute requires hand holds to be placed both on the sides and ends of cars.
The test, however, is not whether the state legislation is in conflict with the details of the Federal law or supplements it, but whether the state had any jurisdiction of a subject over which Congress had exerted its exclusive control. The safety appliance act having superseded the Indiana statute, the judgment imposing the penalty must be reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.


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Iwami ginzan is an ancient silver mine in Shimane prefecture, Japan. Its existance was significant in the Japanese history (as well as the world history back then). What you are looking at is one of the tunnels used to dig the silver in the Edo period. Iwami Ginzan has been designated as UNESCO world heritage since 2007. I hope you enjoy the panorama, let me know if you have any questions regarding this place.
more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iwami_Ginzan_Silver_Mine
The eight islands of Japan sprang into existence through Divine Intervention.The first two gods who came into existence were Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto, the Exalted Male and Exalted Female. It was their job to make the land for people to live on.They went to the bridge between heaven and earth and, using a jewel-encrusted halberd, Izanagi and Izanami churned up the sea into a frothy foam. As salty drips of water fell from the tip of the halberd the first island was formed. Its name was Onogoro.So far, so good. But when Izanagi and Izanami first met on their island, Izanami spoke to Isanagi without being spoken to first. Since she was the female, and this was improper, their first union created badly-formed offspring who were sent off into the sea in boats.The next time they met, Izanagi was sure to speak first, ensuring the proper rules were followed, and this time they produced eight children, which became the islands of Japan.I'm sure you did not fail to miss the significance of this myth for the establishment of Japanese formal society.At present, Japan is the financial capital of Asia. It has the second largest economy in the world and the largest metropolitan area (Tokyo.)Technically there are three thousand islands making up the Japanese archipelago. Izanagi and Izanami must have been busy little devils with their jewelled halberd...Japan's culture is highly technical and organized. Everything sparkles and swooshes on silent, miniaturized mechanisms.They're a world leader in robotics, and the Japanese have the longest life-expectancy on earth.Text by Steve Smith.


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Per country, there are significant differences between the number of active participants planned and the number of participants actually reached. The Lebanon programme reached 33 percent more active participants than planned and almost 67,000 more children than in 2012, as operations were continuously scaled-up to support the growing number of Syrian refugee children. In Sudan, we reached 53 percent fewer active participants than planned and 34,000 fewer children than in 2012. This is largely due to the fact that most of our operations in Sudan could only start in November 2013, as our partners struggled to obtain the necessary permission from authorities to begin implementation.
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Encouraging young people to buy a home may be storing up trouble for the future in the shape of higher unemployment, according to recent research.
Researchers from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and the U.K.'s University of Warwick say that when countries see an increase in home ownership, unemployment begins to rise a few years later, partly because people become more reluctant to move to find a job.
As well as reducing labor market mobility, the researchers said home ownership leads to longer commutes, which are a waste of time and money.
Homeowners are also more likely to be opposed to new businesses opening in their neighborhoods, stifling entrepreneurship.
Related: Homeowners are ditching brokers
The study was based on recent and historical data from the U.S. and other developed nations. It acknowledges that other factors contribute to the level of unemployment in an economy but argues that the link with home ownership is clear.
"The effects are strikingly large," stated the researchers in their report. "In the long run, doubling home ownership in a state can lead to more than a doubling of the unemployment rate."
The researchers said the trend had been particularly marked since the 1980s.
"We need to break the obsession with home ownership," Professor Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick told CNNMoney. "You erode the flexibility of the labor market and it causes jobs to slowly disintegrate."
Oswald compared Switzerland and Spain to illustrate his point, noting that Spanish home ownership and unemployment are high while Swiss levels are surprisingly low.
Related: Banks offering mortgages with only 5% down payments
But does this mean no one should ever own a home? No, not quite, said Oswald.
Older workers often want to own their homes as they prepare for retirement, and that has little impact on employment rates.
"If we look at extremely successful countries like Germany and Switzerland, we see that people aspire to home ownership near the end of their lives," said Oswald. "That is rational and efficient. But when people are young, you want them to be mobile."
The study -- co-authored by former Bank of England monetary policy committee member David Blanchflower -- reached the same conclusions as Finnish research published earlier this year.


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It seems home based business opportunities are a bit more common in the US than in Europe. However the European marketplace is quickly catching on to the phenomenon of home based business and network marketing. The advantages of a home based business are evident: low cost, flexible working hours and tax benefits, to name but a few. But these advantages have pretty much been there for many years, so why the sudden growth? Why do so many people start their own home based business right now, and why would network marketing be a good thing to consider for so many others? First of all there was worldwide economic uncertainty and many economies were either facing a recession or in the middle of one. You could turn open any newspaper and you not miss articles on companies downsizing and laying off employees by the thousands. Network marketing offers people the chance to create a part time auxiliary income, right beside their day job.
This kind of extra income has proven a great help to many families across the world. Of course many network marketers have made a full time living out of there business. Some of them have made fortunes. But this level of success, although available to anyone who is willing to do the work, will not be for most people.
Most network marketers run a part time business for a small number of hours a week earning them a couple hundred bucks a month. Then there is the phenomenon of cocooning, where the consumer tries to shield itself from all sorts of marketing messages. Do-no-call lists are in place, making it harder and harder for companies to get their messages across to the consumer. Network marketing, which is based on moving a service or product to the end consumer based on personal relationships, delivers a strong answer to these challenges.
More and more traditional companies have discovered that network marketing is a very cost effective way to reach consumers. Of course we can't forget about the internet. This technology has greatly helped making the world smaller, making it easier to find and disperse information. Network marketing companies have pioneered the internet to inform, train and motivate their independent distributors.
The cost of home office equipment has decreased considerably. These days you can set up a home office for just a couple hundred bucks. Some may argue that you don't even need that much. Any computer with an internet connection and a phone would be enough for most network marketers to operate their business. This makes it affordable for everyone to start a home based business.
Compare this to the cost of running a normal business and it becomes clear why more and more people are being attracted to a home based opportunity. And then there is the growing lack of trust in the corporate world. Not too long ago, people where quite used to having a job for life. Or at least until they decided to quit. Nowadays many people have come to realize that job security is a joke. Too many people have lost their jobs more than once only to find out that they were nothing but a number to their corporate employer.
It's not just the fact that you have to go out to find another job to feed your family. It's also the fact that you've been listening to your employer bloating about the importance of their human assets when in the end in turns the employees where just considered human asses. Network marketing not only offers people a chance to create some extra income, it also provides them with the opportunity to get some of their dignity back.
Helping them realize that they don't necessarily have to depend on their employers pay check. The support structures that many good network marketing companies offer are a great help to individuals joining this type of business. Not only will they receive the proper training on their company's products and services. They will also be educated on personal development The advantages of a home based business are evident and in the near future we will certainly see more of it. Looking at today's trends in the economy it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the era of monolithic companies offering jobs for life has ended. It's time to have the courage to bet on yourself again and home based business is a good way to do so.
And for those people that decide to take this step, taking a serious look at network marketing is just common sense. Even in a time where common sense isn't that common anymore.
Discover Kevin Sinclair's system for making profits regardless of whether anyone joins your network marketing business.


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There will be the assholes who bitched and moaned about their inclusion like it was undeserved, or whatever, because their music isn't considered as... I dunno... timeless, I guess, as some others. On recognisability though, please, for a while there in the 90s, they were pure British representation. And besides, if you're a regular visitor of this blog, I shouldn't have to recap for you why this was exciting and ended up being...
One of the most amazing memories of the year.
If for no other reason than this: the Spice Girls performing at the Olympics yielded the most awesome GIF, one that certainly deserves to be included on every top 10 of 2012.


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Bethlehem's Nativity Church Gets 'World Heritage' Status
The ancient Church of the Nativity in the Palestinian town of Bethlehem has been placed on the list of World Heritage sites by the United Nation's cultural arm. The move was opposed by the United States and Israel.
U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted to grant the world heritage status to the church, traditionally seen as the birthplace of Jesus, and pilgrimage route at the meeting of the World Heritage 21-nation committee in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday.
The Associated Press quoted Sue Williams, UNESCO spokeswoman, as saying the committee voted 13-6 to put the Christian site, which needed urgent repairs, on the list. The United States and Israel opposed it, and two nations abstained.
Palestinians, who were granted membership in UNESCO last October, had pressed to have the church and pilgrimage route inscribed as an emergency candidate.
The Palestinian Authority had long been making efforts to get recognition for the church as a world heritage site, which many saw an attempt to mix politics and culture.
The United States is against Palestinians getting full membership in international organizations until they reach a peace deal with Israel.
Israel accused the UN body of playing politics. "This is proof that UNESCO is motivated by political considerations and not cultural ones," said a statement by the Israeli prime minister's office. "Instead of taking steps to advance peace, the Palestinians are acting unilaterally in ways that only distance it."
However, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Malki said in a statement that "the victory of Palestine in international organizations" was "the beginning of the end of the Israeli occupation."
"Now we are responsible for our cultural and historical sites as part of human civilization as a whole," Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee who heads the group's Department of Culture and Information, told CNN. "Politically it is important, because it is the beginning of the loosening of the control of the Israeli occupation on our land, on our lives, on our culture and at all attempts of confiscation and distortion of our cultural heritage and reality."
The Church of the Nativity on Manger Square is only about five miles from Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority gained control over the city of Bethlehem in 1995. The church is the main tourist attraction in Palestine, which gets about 2 million tourists each year.


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He steadies himself with a cane these days, and his hands tremble from the effects of Parkinson's disease. But Tom Richards' maladies were minor inconveniences as he stood on the sidewalk Saturday night outside a popular bar in the heart of Houston's gay community. Minutes earlier, Annise Parker had just been elected as the first openly gay mayor of a major American city.
"This is history," said Richards, a 66-year-old Vietnam War veteran. "This ol' man thought he was gonna die before he ever saw something like this."
Houston's gay community, an estimated 60,000 people, shared Richards' pride and sense of history. They also took pride in the fact that throughout Parker's nearly year-long quest, they provided the campaign elbow grease for one of their own.
Media ranging from the New York Times to the Tulsa World, from The Guardian in London to The Age in Melbourne, Australia, spotlighted Parker's sexual orientation. Commentators seemed astounded that Texans would elect a gay mayor, despite the fact that at least 20 public officials in the Lone Star State are acknowledged gays or lesbians, including the sheriff of Dallas County.
Parker's victory was due, in large part, to the local perception that she was not "the gay candidate" — in the same way that Barack Obama, although black, was not the black candidate and Hillary Clinton, although female, was not the female candidate. She was the experienced public official who happened to be gay.
Although voters initially got to know Parker in the 1980s as an activist on behalf of gay rights, they soon grew familiar with her as an elected official. She was elected six times, first to City Council and then as city controller. She never tried to hide her sexual orientation, but neither did she make it the key "data point" of her public identity.
"In the early days, it was important that she define herself," said Grant Martin, who has run Parker's campaigns since 1997. "Her strategy was as much proactive as reactive. We didn't want her sexual orientation to be essentially announced to voters as a bad thing late in the game. So, in appropriate ways, we would announce it — listing in her campaign literature that she was president of the GLBT Political Caucus, things like that."
Skeptical establishment
Still, the putative king-makers remained skeptical that she had a more ambitious political future. In the early days and weeks of her campaign, trooping around town seeking endorsements and money to run a credible campaign, she was told by denizens of the downtown towers, those with the power to flick open the money spigots, that Houston simply wouldn't elect a gay mayor.
With the business establishment skeptical that a gay candidate could be elected, money was a problem until she came in first in the Nov. 3 general election, Parker said. So she turned to her most reliable constituency, the gay community, the same people who had posted the signs, walked the blocks and made the election-day phone calls throughout her political career.
She also found support from national gay and lesbian organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, Stonewall Democrats and the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.
"We endorse candidates with an eye toward giving them a platform, not necessarily to advance an agenda, but to show the larger community that we're really no different than they are, that we're interested in potholes and taxes and public schools," said Dennis Dison, a vice president of the Victory Fund.
Nationwide support
The organization's endorsement, which Parker has received for each of her races, makes a candidate eligible for money from the group's political action committee and provides access to a nationwide network of donors. Parker received more than $400,000 from the group.
The Victory Fund also offers advice on how a gay candidate should run a campaign, although Parker's experience made that unnecessary.
Parker learned early in her career how to balance the political basics with the basic fact of her sexual orientation.
"I expect there were a lot of people who suspected that Annise Parker would be the best person to watch over their tax dollars, even if they were a little uncomfortable with her sexual orientation," Martin said.
Sexual politics was secondary. Asked, for example, about a proposed referendum on providing benefits to same-sex partners of city workers, Parker said she had no plans along those lines.
"There really are no gay issues to fight out in Houston," Martin said. "Domestic partners is in the charter; a mayor can't do anything about that. It's the budget, potholes, police cadet classes, things like that."
Her pragmatic political awareness did not diminish the pride of accomplishment Houston gays felt Saturday.
"Annise's election shows that a gay or lesbian Texan has as much of an opportunity to serve their city as any other Texan," said Daniel Williams, 30, a campaign volunteer who was celebrating Saturday night in Montrose.
Special moment
Parker's victory was particularly gratifying for older activists like Richards and 69-year-old Ray Hill.
Hill, tall and gray-bearded, was a co-founder of the organization that became the GLBT Political Caucus in Houston. The outspoken dean of gay activists in Harris County, he came out of the closet in 1958 and was an instigator of a historic 1976 gay rights march in downtown Houston and has been an activist ever since.
"I have literally waited 40 years for this election. I'm not exaggerating," he said.
Hill said he didn't expect the new mayor to use her office to champion gay rights.
"Annise is a policy wonk and a process wonk," he said. "Now, that she is there, I have someone we know will listen to our issues and complaints, but it's the activists' job to bring about the impetus for change. It's not the mayor's job."
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Ukraine: East/west divide sharpens as chaos rules
There they will stand in the car park for a while, drinking little bottles of the vodka called "Truthful".
They know what is happening in Kiev, the capital city that can seem so far away from Donetsk.
They have seen pictures of the democracy protesters shot dead in Kiev's streets, and the TV reports on the mansions of ousted president Viktor Yanukovich, the one-time thug and pro-Russia politician who grew up in this far-eastern city.
They watched from afar this week as protesters, many from western Ukraine, helped form a new government.
They do not like it at all.
"I have always felt that we are so different," said a miner who gave his name as Nikolai, a 35-year-old who went from school directly into the mines. People speak Russian across most of Ukraine's east, and worship in onion-domed Russian Orthodox churches.
They were shaped by 70 years of Soviet rule and its celebration of socialist industrialisation, and by the Russian empire before that. To them, the government is now being run by outsiders who care little for this side of Ukraine. "If they try to pressure us, our region will revolt."
His words are echoed – except for a few key words – in a conversation 800 miles to the west, in the medieval cobblestoned city of Lviv, where residents speak Ukrainian and houses display the European Union's flag.
"We are simply different people from those living in the east," said Ludmila Petrova, a student in Lviv, a hotbed of support for Ukraine's pro-democracy forces and opposition to Yanukovich. "They don't know what the west is. We have a different history. Maybe it is better that we separate once and for all."
If Ukraine looks neatly delineated on maps, its often-bloody history is a tangle of invasions and occupations, peoples and beliefs. It is a place that has been struggling for centuries to define itself.
Now it finds itself so sharply divided – between support for Russia on one side of the country and loyalty to the West on the other – that it often seems more like two separate nations. On opposite sides of Ukraine, two cities, each of about a million people, illustrate that divide.
Donetsk can seem like a cliché of post-Soviet grimness, a place of Stalinist-era flats, tin-roofed shacks and loyalty to Russia. Lviv has emerged as a centre for Ukrainian artists and writers, a draw for European tourists and a city desperate for closer ties to the West.
To the fiercest pessimists, as well as to extremists on both sides, the cities are already in different nations.
"The country is already separated," said Ivan Reyko, 30, a factory worker from Donetsk who joined a recent demonstration of about 100 people in the city's main plaza, Lenin Square, where a 30ft statue of the Soviet hero gazes toward the horizon. "There is no way back to a united Ukraine."
A series of ominous signs has diplomats warning the region could easily stumble into widespread violence. Among them: military drills just across the border by 150,000 Russian soldiers, and the seizure of the parliament building in Russian-speaking Crimea by unidentified gunmen, who flew the Russian flag and chanted "Crimea is Russia".
Russian president Vladimir Putin has been long dreaming of pulling Ukraine, a sprawling country of 46 million, closer to Moscow. In Lviv, however, a bookish, softly-spoken mayor is dreaming of something else.
Andriy Sadovyi has been a powerful symbol of resistance to Yanukovich, as well as regional powerbroker who cut ties to the central government even before the president was forced from power.
Sadovyi, who insists he only wants regional autonomy in Ukraine, has called repeatedly for unity. "Ukraine is strong only if it is united," he said a couple days after Yanukovich fled the presidential compound. "Any division would destroy Ukraine."
Modern Lviv sees itself at the core of Ukrainian hopes for a more open, democratic government. But the area, once part of neighbouring Poland and long a wealthy agricultural region, also saw the rise of a series of nationalist movements in the 1930s.
When Germany invaded Ukraine during the Second World War, some residents cooperated with the Nazi occupiers, who were seen as liberators from the hated Soviets. Tens of thousands of the region's Jews disappeared into Nazi camps or were gunned down by death squads.
When the war ended, Moscow exacted its revenge: nationalists who fought Red Army soldiers were purged and sent to gulags, along with Roman Catholic and nationalist leaders who could challenge Russian authority.
The city was transformed from a cosmopolitan centre into a decaying backwater. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, political groups from Lviv were key in fighting for Ukraine's independence.
For two decades, anti-Russian feelings quietly burned across the region, along with anger at Yanukovich.
Even today, thousands of people in western Ukraine, a handful even wearing Nazi-themed uniforms, hold rallies every year honouring men who fought Stalin's forces during the Second World War.
Fierce historical loyalties helped drive the support that has poured from Lviv into Kiev and the capital's Independence Square, epicentre of the anti-Yanukovich protests, which began late last year.
For months, Lviv residents have donated food, medicine and clothing for the protesters, and many have joined them. The city's churches serve as warehouses for aid for the demonstrators, who continue to occupy the square, fearing the return of the former president or his supporters.
Over the months, western Ukraine became virtually independent as Yanukovich focused his attention on the Kiev uprising. Then, a few days ahead of Yanukovich's disappearance, central rule all but disappeared in Lviv, when masked youths stormed the city's police headquarters, looted weapons and setting fire to municipal buildings.
With policemen nowhere to be seen, order in the city fell to unarmed "voluntary citizen patrols" in bright yellow vests.
A handful of regional leaders also began talking about changing the country's laws, so that Russian is no longer recognised as an official language. This terrifies some in Donetsk, which is in the heart of a region where Russian has been the main language for generations.
Alexander Kravtsov, a top official in Donetsk and member of Yanukovich's political party, says he believes most people in the region still believe in a united Ukraine, but warned that the number who identify with Russia will grow significantly if they feel threatened.
"People are scared of what has happened in Kiev," he said.
Talk to the pro-Russia protesters in Donetsk and the list of those blamed for the changes in Kiev ranges from Ukrainian fascists to Jews to Freemasons to the US government.
Out by the mines' entrance, though, few have the energy to protest.
Donetsk was built directly over a maze of mines, and the city's working-class neighbourhoods sit beside mountains of reddish slag that can rise ten storeys high. They are places where stray dogs are blackened by the dust that fills the air and where you can never escape the oily smell of coal.
The little houses, with their leaning plaster walls and central chimneys, look like something out of the 19th century. They are filled with people who say they can barely feed their families between pay cheques, and who are far too frightened to give their names to a reporter.
They may not like what is going on in Kiev, but most are simply focused on keeping their jobs.
"I don't go to political meetings, I don't go to protests," said a sombre, 50-something miner with exhausted eyes and bad teeth. The idea of war, or of a divided country, frightens him more than anything else.
"All of us are Ukrainian. All of us," he said. "We are one people."


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Straight Georgia Boy Auditions For Gay Porn & Gets Barebacked In The Ass
We have got a really hot new video to share with you from Raw Castings. Meet Jake Riley — a Georgia boy who describes himself as a normal guy but he also admits to being curious about man-on-man action. In his casting interview, Jake also mentions that he hasn't done much with other guys, but that he is eager to try more. Like a lot of curious straight guys, it seems that Jake is using porn as a way to experience some new things, in addition to making some desperately needed cash. As he takes his clothes off for the cameraman, he seems a little nervous, but once he is fully nude, he doesn't have much of a problem getting his big uncut cock fully hard. Jake jerks off his big uncut cock as the casting manager takes some photos of him. Before long, the director has a boner too. As Jake strokes his big uncut dick the the camera guy gets a feel. Before long, our newbie has his mouth stuffed with a thick cock and seems to be loving it. Jake explores every inch of the casting director's cock with his tongue before bending over to let the director explore his virgin pink hole with his fingers. His asshole must be really tight, because the casting director takes his time loosening his ass up with a finger or two. After Jake is loosened up he lays back on the couch with his legs in the air. The camera man's raw cock seems to slide in with ease after a few minutes, and once Jake is ready, the hard bareback fucking begins. As Jake gets pounded he gets a little noisy – moaning with pleasure as he is obviously loving this new experience! When his hole is gaping from the rough bareback fucking, the casting director pulls out and ends up fitting four fingers up Jake's raw hole! Wanting some more ass, though, he bends Jake over onto his stomach and takes another turn. Jake ends up getting a huge wad of hot cum all over his blown out asshole to end a hot bareback casting! You guys don't want to miss this one! Fucking hot!


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On The Front Lines
Victory: San Antonio Public School Officials End RFID Tracking Program, Citing Civil Liberties Lawsuit, Negative Publicity, Low Participation Rates
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — After a drawn-out battle waged in court and within the community, school officials with the Northside Independent School District have announced their decision to stop using a student tracking program that relied on RFID tracking badges containing tiny chips that produce a radio signal, enabling school officials to track students' location on school property. According to school officials, the decision to cease the "Student Locator Project" was due in part to low participation rates, negative publicity, and a lawsuit by The Rutherford Institute. Rutherford Institute attorneys had filed suit against school officials in November 2012 on behalf of Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore at John Jay High School's Science and Engineering Academy, who was expelled from the magnet school in January 2013 after objecting to the badges based on religious freedom and privacy concerns. The question of whether Hernandez will be permitted to return to John Jay has yet to be resolved.
"This decision by Texas school officials to end the student locator program is proof that change is possible if Americans care enough to take a stand and make their discontent heard," said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State. "As Andrea Hernandez and her family showed, the best way to ensure that your government officials hear you is by never giving up, never backing down, and never remaining silent—even when things seem hopeless."
In 2012, the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, launched a program, the "Student Locator Project," aimed ostensibly at increasing public funding for the district by increasing student attendance rates. As part of the pilot program, roughly 4,200 students at Jay High School and Jones Middle School were required to wear "SmartID" card badges embedded with an RFID tracking chip which made it possible for school officials to track students' whereabouts on campus at all times. School officials hoped to expand the program to the district's 112 schools. For 15-year-old Andrea Hernandez, a Christian, the badges pose a significant religious freedom concern in addition to the obvious privacy issues. In response to her requests to opt out of the program and use chipless badges, Hernandez was informed that "there will be consequences for refusal to wear an ID card." For example, students who refused to take part in the ID program were not able to access essential services like the cafeteria and library, nor would they be able to purchase tickets to extracurricular activities. According to Hernandez, teachers were even requiring students to wear the IDs to use the bathroom.
In coming to Andrea's defense, Rutherford Institute attorneys alleged that the school's attempts to penalize, discriminate and retaliate against Andrea violated her rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Although a district court judge for Bexar County, Texas, granted The Rutherford Institute's request for a temporary restraining order to prevent NISD from expelling Hernandez based on her objections to the tracking badge, both the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Western District of Texas denied her accommodation, with the Western District judge ruling against the sophomore on the grounds that her objections were "not grounded in her religious beliefs" and were a "secular choice rather than a religious concern." As constitutional attorney Whitehead pointed out, the ruling not only was "a sad statement on our nation's growing intolerance for dissent and for those whose religious beliefs may differ from the mainstream" but it sent a clear message that it's more important for the schools to make money than for individual freedoms to be respected.
Affiliate attorneys Jerri Lynn Ward, a private practitioner, and Anand Agneshwar and Anna Thompson of Arnold & Porter assisted The Rutherford Institute with Andrea's defense.
Case History
Click here to read more about Andrea Hernandez