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Recovery Radio Network
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The Recovery Radio Network brings you twelve step speakers and workshops designed for recovering individuals and the people who support them. The speakers share their personal experiences of recovery on the topics of alcoholism, co-dependency, and drug addiction, while our workshops are aimed at helping recovering individuals develop a better understand of twelve step programs.
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Perhaps, in no field of medicine psychological comfort is so important as in IVF. We are doing everything possible to ensure that patients come from the clinic with a smile and long-awaited happiness. We are very grateful to you for the feedback, because it is your feedback that helps us to understand whether we set the right goals and how successfully we achieve them.
I sit back and watch my little 6-month-old wonder, peacefully burbling in the cradle. I have an opportunity to look back at every memory from the beginning.
I didn't think about having children at a young age. I wanted to «live for myself» and more importantly I wanted to pursue a career. When I turned 34, my husband and I decided, «That the time was right for us ». I stopped birth control and the first half year went without any success but we were not too worried. It was after that, we started to worry. We tried a lot of different things, which included changing our diets completely, Medical examinations in various clinics and I even tried handstands after sex to improve the probability of egg getting fertilized. We could not get any proper reasoning from the Doctors, who were at complete loss. We were exhausted, disappointed and upset. We even had four IVF treatments in two different clinics over the period of six months, but only one pregnancy which ended in a miscarriage in the early stage.
I was so overwhelmed that I almost gave up. There were arguments with my husband; as he had wanted a baby much earlier and I was the one delaying. He had now started to nag me—it was my fault that we ran out of time. All in all, I have no idea how everything was going to work out and what was going to happen it happened so unexpectedly.
During the summer, I decided to go to my mother's home country. An old friend was there with her husband playing with their two toddlers in the playground. We had known each other since we were kids. Our parents were close and we were virtually neighbours both in the city as well as in our country homes. We grew up together but had lost touch since I moved away. We may not have been best friends, but we most certainly weren't strangers. On the following evening I was invited over to dinner and I obliged. Once there, over the dinner table the discussion began and before I realized, I was already telling her about my situation in detail. At this point she confided in me that her twins were actually result from IVF treatment. She revealed to me her own struggles while trying to get pregnant and she advised me to meet her doctor while I was still here.
I knew that I has nothing to loose and hence went for the first visit. My fertility specialist, as my friend as suggested, was Anna Morozova. She has an aura of comfort and ease about her and I immediately felt calm and comfortable with her. There was no typical doctor gibberish, that I had experienced in my previous consultations at other clinics. For example, a very common phrase that I kept hearing was «if you don't understand anything, just listen carefully and do what I say». I found discussing my issue with Anna was very easy and natural and we were on the same page from the beginning and discussed everything. One of her key phrases that I still remember was: «Unexplained infertility doesn't mean that there isn't a reason. Its just that we just haven't found it yet and we will look for it until we will find it». She was true to her word and the procedure included 11 cells and 8 embryos, 5 of them had very good morphology. From then on, everything was simple — we selected the embryo's sexual gender and I got pregnant after the first attempt! Now, here I am: a 39-year-old «young mommy» sitting in the kitchen, cooking dinner, and looking after my baby, Anya.
Anna Vladislavovna Morozova, there are no words that can express my gratitude how grateful I am. A word of advice to young girls: do not waste time. Time is what you may not have enough of.
My infertility story is one of the most common ones. From the age of 15 every month I had horrible pain; doctor's advice to me was «everything will be fine after pregnancy» and that I should have a baby as soon as possible.
At 23, I had a medical examination for a kidney stone and the examination revealed that I had two endometriotic cysts: the first one was 7 cm and the second 8 cm. In 2005, I had to have an abdominal surgery. I always wanted to have a couple of children and after the surgery, I was worried that it had affected my chances to have a full family. At this point my doctor ensured me that everything was ok and the surgery had in no way interfered with my ability to get pregnant and have children in future.
Believing the doctors at the time, I put this worry behind me and forgot about it. In 2007 I got married and both of us wanted a baby. I decided not to take any contraceptive and we had a regular sexual life, but at the end of every cycle I was still not pregnant. It was already 2011 when we started to worry and approached doctors for medical advice. The process was exhaustive and the reason for infertility was diagnosed only in 2013, when I came to GMS where I was suggested to have Laparoscopy. I had laparoscopy/hysteroscopy, which revealed a tubal obstruction and endometriosis diagnosis. I had to have an adhesiotomy for my fallopian tubes and a tubal cauterization for the endometriosis. After that, I decided to undergo an IVF procedure and I was very lucky that I had Anna Morozova as my doctor. She was both an amazing expert and a great source of strength during my procedure. The first two weeks were a bit fuzzy, but I took a beta-HCG test, which revealed that I was pregnant! Wow! On the first try! On the twenty-first day after IVF procedure, there was one embryo (2 were transferred) and on the twenty-eighth day we heard a heartbeat on the ultrasound... Nine months passed and I had been taking care of my bump like crazy. After a Caesarean operation, I had my little boy, Vasily. Now he's 15 months old.
I owe a big thanks to the team of doctors who helped me — especially Anna Vladislavovna Morozova! Without them, I do not know how much struggle I would have had to achieve this happiness.
Long time ago, when I was 18, I got pregnant but I didn't know about it. Those were days when I was a carefree girl who didn't really pay attention to menstrual cycles; if my periods were delayed, I didn't think much about it. Now it's hard to believe I was like that, but it's true.
I remember looking in my bathroom mirror and thinking, «I've put on weight. Maybe I should start running every morning to get back to normal». I did not even realise that I was pregnant when my breast got bigger and the only thought that occurred was that my boyfriend would be pleased. I realized that I was pregnant only when a accidental fall led me to bleed and a resulting miscarriage.
The accident was a life changer and something in me changed fundamentally. In a few years time I was looking to get pregnant but was unsuccessful. This worried me and I started seeing doctors who told me everything was ok. My second husband though was not happy and we decided to see a fertility expert. I finally was diagnosed with secondary infertility. I had pelvic adhesions, and polycystic ovary syndrome in the left ovary. I had to undergo dilation and curettage because of some bleeding, which revealed a polyp on the cervix. I had heard of IVF and even read about it before on the Internet, but I didn't have enough money to have that kind of treatment.
Through a stroke of luck, my health insurance started to cover IVF. I had a bunch of tests, went through all the necessary red tapes, and received a treatment plan. The first procedure did not reveal any results. I was exhausted after all the treatments and was mentally exhausted. I decided to take a break for 2 months and then try again. This time I has a favourable result and I for pregnant. I'm so thankful to Anna Morozova, my fertility specialist. I will be thankful to her for the rest of my life! When I saw those two lines on my pregnancy test, I went crazy with joy: I cried and laughed at the same time. After 9 months, as planned, I gave to birth a baby girl. I joked that she was a little warrior like her father: she weighed 4800 g and was 52 cm long. I had a difficult delivery, which is understandable because it was my first full-term pregnancy at the age of 37. Now our little girl is already two years old. Well, that's how I finally became a mother 20 years after my first pregnancy. A word of advice to the young, «Count your blessings: keep your pregnancy and don't get an abortion!»
Individual approach, treatment based on the principles of evidence-based medicine, the latest equipment, as well as the atmosphere of family and cozinessMore
Individual approach, treatment based on the principles of evidence-based medicine, the latest equipment, as well as the atmosphere of family and cozinessMore photos

subset: commoncrawl


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War Stories: Leaving the Past Behind
- Dr. David B. Hawkins The Relationship Doctor
- 2006 11 Oct
Susan and Jeff both had high hopes for their evening together. They met several weeks earlier at the singles program of their community church. They were immediately attracted to one another – a good first sign – and had enjoyed a few short conversations. Then Jeff stirred up his confidence and asked Susan out for coffee.
Susan and Jeff were not newcomers to the dating scene. Jeff had been divorced for several years but was fairly new to the singles group. Susan had been in the program a bit longer – her divorce from her twelve year marriage had been final for three years, and she had been actively dating for the past two.
Jeff and Susan were familiar with many of the common "rules" associated with dating. Only go for coffee on the first date. Keep expectations in check. Take time to get to know one another, go slowly and, above all, have fun.
With that in mind, they met at a local Starbucks for coffee after an evening program at their church. With youthful enthusiasm, they greeted each other and began the usual chit-chat of a first date. Everything appeared to be going well until Jeff felt the conversation slipping inexorably into a downward spiral.
"So, how long have you been divorced," Susan immediately asked.
"Oh, about three years," he answered.
"So, have you been dating long?" Susan asked. "I'll bet you've got some stories to share about dating."
Susan's question sounded innocent enough, and Jeff slipped easily into talking about some of the problems he'd had with dating, as well as his ex.
"I've got a hundred stories, if you've got the time," he shared, smiling.
Jeff and Susan's coffee date continued as they both shared "war stories" from previous relationships. Each had humorous, as well as painful stories to share with the other. Rather than getting to truly know one another, both fell into a pattern of gossiping about previous dates and former spouse.
As Susan and Jeff drove home that evening, both felt strangely empty. While their conversation had been enjoyable, and both felt a sense of relief in sharing some of their war stories, they also felt letdown. What was the problem, they both wondered.
The problem was simple. Both had drifted into telling war stories – commiserating with one another – gossiping. Both shared intimacies about their past which left the other subtly uncomfortable. What they didn't realize at the moment was that these intimacies were not only poor boundaries, but were also a "downer." Their sharing was also a form of gossiping, which is a sin.
Wait a minute, you say. How is sharing our wounds sinful behavior? Because, sharing personal stories about others, including your ex, is a putdown to them. It is casting them in the worst possible light. When you listen to gossip, you're tempted, and often do, "take up an offense" against that person. It's tempting to become indignant against that person for the wrongs they've done to your friend. It doesn't seem to matter that you're only hearing one side of the issue.
It is so easy to talk negatively about others who have hurt you, and equally easy to listen. There is such comfort in finding someone who can instantly relate to all of the challenges you have faced. And the cathartic experience – wow! How can something this innocent leave you feeling down?
The Bible says much about this "little sin." "Do not go about spreading slander among your people" (Leviticus 19:16). The Apostle Timothy says, "They get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not" (1 Timothy 5:13).
Finally, telling war stories does little to create a positive environment for dating. Who wants to hear about the bad, or the good, of previous dates or marriages? When we are truly honest, who really wants to hear all the wrongs their ex has done to the person with whom we're spending the evening? Wouldn't you rather talk about something upbeat and edifying? Consider the words of the Apostle Paul:
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent and praiseworthy – think about such things" (Philippians 4:8).
I have a suggestion for Christian singles – let's make a pact to move forward in our dating relationships. Let's keep the conversation on the here and now, not where we've been. Let's get to know one another on the merits of who they are today. We'll all feel a lot better for it.
David Hawkins, PhD., has worked with couples and families to improve the quality of their lives by resolving personal issues for the last 30 years.
He is the author of over 18 books, including "Love Lost: Living Beyond a Broken Marriage," "Saying It So He'll Listen," and "When Pleasing Others Is Hurting You." His newest book is titled "When the Man in Your Life Can't Commit." Dr. Hawkins grew up in the beautiful Pacific Northwest and lives with his wife on Puget Sound, where he enjoys sailing, biking, and skiing. He has active practices in two Washington cities.
For more information, please visit www.YourRelationshipDoctor.com.


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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jacksonville Jaguars have released safety Dawan Landry and cornerback Aaron Ross, veterans whose play failed to match their pay.
The moves are the latest in the team's youth movement under new general manager Dave Caldwell and head coach Gus Bradley. The team previously released right tackle Guy Whimper and told veteran cornerback Rashean Mathis he would not be re-signed.
Landry started 32 games the last two seasons after signing a five-year, $27.5 million contract in 2011. The deal included $10.5 million guaranteed.
Ross played in 14 games for the Jaguars in 2012. He signed a three-year contract worth up to $15.3 million last March.
Without Ross and Mathis, and with fellow cornerback Derek Cox uncertain to return, the Jaguars likely will address the position in free agency.


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DTC- Belleview EXAM PREP!
February 22, 2018 @ 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm
We Review everything you have learned so far and prepare you to take and PASS the Colorado and National Real Estate Exams on the first try! The Exam Prep is why you will be very prepared for the Tests! Please make plans to join us for this two night event from 6-10 pm!


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The Elites see the handwriting on the wall. Disaster approaches for our civilization, and they wish to shape that disaster to maximize their own wealth and power. They also wish to hide the fact that this disaster stems from their own actions.
They will accomplish this by creating the right kind of environment that will lead to the right kind of people – who will gather and do what comes naturally to them. The ensuing violence will distract the nation and compel them to accept the wholesale theft of their rights, freedoms and what little wealth that remains.
It will be a controlled demolition of our world.


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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Friday it will lose $139 million on a loan to struggling electric car maker Fisker Automotive Inc. after selling part of the loan to a private investor that immediately took the company into bankruptcy.
Hybrid Technology LLC, the California car marker's new owner, said it plans to keep Fisker operating after it emerges from bankruptcy.
The $139 million loss is the largest in the Obama administration's green energy loan program since the 2011 failure of solar panel maker Solyndra. The government lost $528 million in the Solyndra collapse, triggering sharp Republican criticism of the loan program and President Barack Obama's investments in green energy.
The Energy Department awarded Fisker a half-billion loan guarantee in 2009, but suspended it in 2011, after Fisker failed to meet a series of benchmarks. Fisker had received $192 million before the loan was frozen.
The Energy Department said it had recovered about $28 million before selling the remainder of the loan to Hybrid on Friday for $25 million. Hybrid is owned by Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li.
The department's actions, along with the sale, mean the Energy Department has protected nearly three-quarters of its original commitment to Fisker, Energy spokesman Bill Gibbons said Friday.
"While this result is not what anyone hoped, the ($139 million loss) represents less than 2 percent of our advanced vehicle loans, and less than one-half of 1 percent of our overall loan program portfolio" of more than $30 billion, Gibbons said.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., vice chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called that small solace.
"Once again, American taxpayers are losing out to foreign investors due to the Obama administration's failed green energy policies," Blackburn said. "Time after time this administration has fumbled the ball with their attempts to pick winners and losers when it comes to American energy."
In September, the Energy Department lost about $42 million on a loan to a shuttered Michigan company that made vans for the disabled. Vehicle Production Group, or VPG, suspended operations in February and laid off 100 workers. The company has said it plans to continue production of the wheelchair-accessible vans, which are powered by natural gas, at its Indiana plant.
A spokeswoman for Hybrid Technology said Fisker's new owners are committed to ensuring that the car company, which makes the $100,000 Karma plug-in sedan, continues to design and manufacture electric cars.
"We will work to realize the full potential these fantastic cars offer in helping to remake the auto industry for the 21st century," Caroline Langdale, a spokeswoman for Hybrid, said in a statement.
Langdale declined to say where the company will make its cars, but the Energy Department said Hybrid has committed to moving manufacturing of the Karma from Finland to the U.S., with engineering and design remaining in California.
Blackburn said Fisker is an example of what she called the Obama administration's misguided policies. The loan guarantee program "is quickly becoming a highly utilized stimulus program for foreign investors," she said.


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Committed to the study of infectious and immune-mediated diseases
The UAB Department of Microbiology is consistently ranked (#9 in NIH funding) amongst the best microbiology departments in the country, and faculty currently hold more than 85 grants and $19.5 million in extramural grant funding. We are a vibrant highly collaborative research community actively serving the university mission of excellence in research, service and teaching.
It is an exciting time to be a scientist at UAB and in the Department of Microbiology. The department is actively recruiting new faculty members and with our existing cadre of investigators and the new faculty who join us, we plan to capitalize on the department's strong foundation and heritage to build a scientifically rich environment that will allow us to meet our twin missions of carrying out cutting-edge, fundamental basic and translational research to improve human health and educating the next generation of scientists who will lead the fight against infectious and immune-mediated diseases.
We are improving human health by carrying out cutting-edge, fundamental basic and translational research focusing on the bacteria, viruses and parasites that cause human disease. Faculty in the Department of Microbiology have research programs in five broad yet interconnected areas; Microbial Pathogenesis, Immunology, Virology, Structural Biology and Cancer.
We are educating and training the next generation of scientists, educators and entrepreneurs who will lead the fight against infectious and immune-mediated diseases. Department of Microbiology faculty participate in teaching classes to undergraduate, graduate and medical students and serve as the organizers and course directors for a number of the graduate level classes and direct the Undergraduate Immunology Program at UAB.


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SoundCloud Voices
SoundCloud Voices is a weekly Community feature focusing on new spoken word creators found on SoundCloud. It might be a podcast, radio show, audio book, interview, audio messages, a poem, anything! Keep an eye out every Thursday for a new post.
SoundCloud Voices this week introduces you to a whole world of comedians to listen to. Every weeks there are hours and hours and hours of comedy created and upload to the cloud, so here's a little overview of some of these comedians and comedy podcasts. You should read our blog from a month back to find out about the All Things Comedy Podcast Network too!
First up Mr Russell Brand has been uploading all kinds of archive content from his days as a radio host. Before it all went a little crazy for him due to some 'dangerous' comments on the air, Russell had a regular radio show. Here are some brilliant excerpts from the show with the likes of Karl Pilkington and Richard Dawkins.
Part of the All Things Comedy Network is the brilliant Laugh Spin. Laugh Spin is a one stop platform for all comedy news, reviews, videos, audio and more. If you want to know whats going on in the comedy industry, this is the place. And their podcast is just that, a review of all that's going on in comedy land. Take a listen.
Next up is comedian Jo Koy, a regular guest on Chelsea Lately and with a special on Comedy Central under his belt, he's a comedian going places. One of which is a podcast which he lives streams and then uses SoundCloud. Take a listen to his latest show.
And finally Mr Scott Capurro, who has been using the SoundCloud app for over a year now. Scott's recordings are fascinating, and sometimes explicit, insight into the working comedian. It's great to hear the other side of the comedy world and the ups and downs. Follow him and listen to what essentially is his audio diary!
If you are interested in trying out SoundCloud as a spoken word podcast platform, you can sign up for via this form. Successful candidates will be emailed with further details.


text: This is a new mid-range X79 motherboard from ASRock. This board is currently priced at about 215 dollars and this puts it near the bottom of the pricing scale for this chipset. ASRock has become very good at cramming in as many features as possible and providing outstanding performance at a reasonable price. We will see if this board lives up to this standard.


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At first I tried to push the nail through with my fingers - but I bent the pop can - which looked horrible.
So then, I set the shapes on a cardboard box, and used a hammer to puncture the top of each shape with the nail - and no crease. Much better!
Then, I applied the first coat of dimensional magic, and let it dry the allotted time. (Best to have a needle or pin handy, in case there are air bubbles in the dimensional magic when you apply it. You will want to pop those so they don't dry onto the surface that way).
Looked good, but I wanted it to be thicker - more bubbly. I applied 3 coats - and it looked SO GREAT! But, my hole had filled in, so I needed to punch it again. Good and Bad. Some worked, but one cracked the dimensional magic and it all popped right off the pop can (see below).
I hammered in a hole, did just 1 coat of dimensional magic before hammering the hole again if needed, adding my jump ring, and then applied the additional 2 coats of dimensional magic.
On one I added the jump ring before applying any coats of dimensional magic, and this worked as well.
I also did one coat on the back side of the shape for aesthetics and continuity.
UPDATE: One of you clever readers suggested that, while applying the Dimensional Magic and letting it dry, you should lay in on a cookie cooling rack, so that the jump rings can go through the slats and the pop can can still lay flat. Brilliant - thank you!


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Take advantage of Sonosite's educational workshops, designed to introduce you to point-of-care ultrasound best practices. Our workshops enable you to work on scanning techniques while "test driving" the latest in ultrasound technology.
Through hands-on practice sessions and question-and-answer opportunities with on-site experts, you'll learn how the integration of point-of-care ultrasound into your practice an benefit you and your patients.
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Message Board
Jilliane Hoffman Message Board
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Hoffman has written!
Author Hoffman's Book Reviews
Last Witness
Putnam, May 2005, 24.95, 368 pp. ISBN 0399152458 It has been almost three years since a serial killer terrorized the citizens of Miami and it was largely due the brilliant prosecution of assistant state attorney C.J. Townsend that William Rupert Bantling was found guilty and sentenced to the death penalty. An anonymous telephone call had a police officer stop his car and open Bantling's trunk where the cop found the body inside. They had enough...
Chloe Larsen is a law studentin New York who is viciously raped by a man in a clown mask. She flees to Florida where she becomes a lawyer for the State. One day she is given the case of prosecuting an accused serial killer, who might turn out to be the man who raped her....


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Internet companies in the U.S. are demanding that the surveillance practices of the U.S. should be reformed to enhance privacy protections and provide "appropriate oversight and accountability mechanisms."
In a letter on Thursday to the chairman and members of the Committee on the Judiciary, a copy of which was provided by an industry source, Facebook, AOL, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo said they welcomed a debate about how to protect both national security and privacy interests and applauded the sponsors of the USA Freedom Act, a legislation aimed to end bulk data collection by the National Security Agency, for their contribution to the discussion.
[ Also on InfoWorld: NSA breaks into Yahoo, Google data center links. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. | Read Bill Snyder's Tech's Bottom Line blog for what the key business trends mean to you. ]
The companies had until now focused on asking the government for permission to reveal information on users' data requests by the NSA, which are covered under "gag orders" that prohibit recipients of orders from discussing them in public.
Google and Microsoft, for example, filed motions before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to be allowed to provide aggregate statistics on orders and directives that were received under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and related regulations, which the government has so far refused.
Yahoo asked the court to allow it to make public documents from a 2008 dispute over a data request that would show that the company had resisted the order. The Internet companies are attempting to counter disclosures by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, that the government had real-time access to content on the servers of the Internet companies under a surveillance program called Prism, which these companies deny.
The stakes for the companies were raised this week after The Washington Post reported that NSA has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, giving it the ability to collect metadata and actual content from hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans.
In the letter, the Internet companies wrote that transparency will help to counter "erroneous reports that we permit intelligence agencies 'direct access' to our companies' servers or that we are participants in a bulk Internet records collection program." The companies said that they have consistently stated that they only respond to legal demands for customer and user information that are targeted and specific.
"Allowing companies to be transparent about the number and nature of requests will help the public better understand the facts about the government's authority to compel technology companies to disclose user data and how technology companies respond to the targeted legal demands we receive," according to the letter.
But transparency is only a first step for the Internet companies, who are now also asking for reform of government surveillance practices. "We urge the Administration to work with Congress in addressing these critical reforms that would provide much needed transparency and help rebuild the trust of Internet users around the world," according to the letter, which was addressed, among others to Patrick J. Leahy, chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, who is one of the sponsors of the USA Freedom Act.
John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is firstname.lastname@example.com.


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21 November 2013
Message from D.J. Grothe on Sylvia Browne's death
The JREF sends our condolences to Sylvia's family and loved ones. No one celebrates her death, but skeptics do criticize how she lived.
Her dismal track record at predictions she confidently predicted she would die at 88, not 77, for instance would merely be laughable if they did not hurt so many people. Remember Sean Hornbeck. Or Amanda Berry.
The number of people she hurt with her pretend supernatural abilities is nearly as high as the number of her failed predictions. It is sad that it took death to stop Sylvia Browne.
D.J. Grothe is president of the James Randi Educational Foundation www.randi.org
Posted by JD at 21:59


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|Here's a place where NewsChannel 21 wants to help you find the places in Central Oregon's online community you need the most, from government or schools to civic groups. If you have an update for us, or one you'd like us to add, please e-mail Digital Content Director Barney Lerten at firstname.lastname@example.com.
|Business | City Government | Civic Organizations | County Government | Courts | Education | Entertainment | Federal Government | Fire | Government - Other | Health Organizations | Nonprofit Organizations | Parks & Recreation | Police | Sports | State Government | Weather/Climate


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The nearly two-thirds victory of Measure E supporters in early November won't change that dynamic.
Take a deep breath: The debate will continue for years to come, not "months" as surmised in one news article about the vote.
A key element of the debate right now is what the "voter mandate" means.
Was it an approval of a significant composting and energy-generation operation in a low-profile facility that would be partially below grade (with trucks and heavy equipment and their back-up beeps)?
Or is it a mandate only to allow "more study" of whether the 10 acres at issue, directly adjacent to the city's wastewater-treatment plant on the southeast side, could be used for a combination composting and anaerobic digestion facility that would generate electricity.
The digesters would convert yard waste and plant materials mixed with sludge from the adjacent Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant, at the end of Embarcadero Road, into methane-gas-generated electricity. The plant, built in 1970, deals with sewage from Palo Alto, Stanford, Los Altos Hills, Los Altos, Mountain View and East Palo Alto.
The sewage sludge presently is incinerated and reduced to ash, which concentrates the components, including some heavy metals, to a degree that the ash becomes classified as hazardous waste, requiring transportation to a hazardous-waste-treatment facility north of Las Vegas. In the late 1970s, it was discovered that the ash pile had in it more gold and silver than the average small gold mine, and the city leased rights to "mine" it (using a complex chemical-extraction process).
It seemed ironic that well-to-do Palo Alto had a gold/silver-laden pile of sewage-ash. But the mini-gold/silver rush is now over. The silver was mainly from the Kodak film-processing operation in Palo Alto's Stanford Research Park, and the gold was mainly from the coating of computer components. Kodak shut down its plant, much of the computer-component manufacturing left town (or the country) and methods improved to recapture the gold before it hit the sewers.
As for the new "mandate," the "more study" interpretation should be a cinch. Palo Alto has a tradition of "more study." It goes back at least as far as the decades-long debate over the baylands. It's one thing that the community and city government -- and school district, too, for that matter -- truly excel at doing.
What's missing in this vote (as is usual in any this-or-that election) is a base of accurate, complete information on which the struggling voter or city official (or journalist) can rely. It is the nature of campaigns to generate oversimplified slogans, and cast aspersions on the opposing side. "Aspersions" is a fancy term for slinging mud and calling names, using guilt by innuendo or guilt by association with campaign contributors.
But hey, as a voter being asked to make a judgment on a complex matter, don't BOTH SIDES owe me some measure of truth-telling? Or must we continue the tradition of being fed deceptive, misleading half-truths engineered to evoke a gut-level emotional response rather than a cool intellectual judgment? The local campaign was a pale reflection of the crisis at the national and state levels, a polarization that poisons trust and undermines the political process.
No wonder our democracy is in trouble. The voter turnout was below 30 percent of Palo Alto registered voters, much less if one counted those eligible to vote who aren't registered.
It wasn't as if efforts weren't made to find a collaborative solution, a different site for a composting/power generation operation that wouldn't require taking even 10 acres of dedicated parkland away from the hundreds of acres of baylands park and preserves. But a special panel of citizens -- including Measure E opponent Emily Renzel -- failed to find an acceptable alternative site.
Renzel and longtime friend and mentor Enid Pearson, both former City Council members, opposed any undedication with the same dedication they have each shown for decades in preserving the baylands and slowing growth. Part of their concern was that undedicating the 10 acres would set a precedent for some other project deemed worthy enough to sacrifice dedicated land elsewhere.
Some history may help explain their tenacity.
Dedicating parklands was a hard-fought battle in the early 1960s, when City Council members showed a receptiveness to ideas to use city parks and open spaces for building projects. Pearson and others pleaded with the council to dedicate parks. After being rebuffed, somewhat rudely, Pearson and other "residentialists" mounted an initiative-petition effort that resulted in the city's park-dedication ordinance of 1965 -- still in effect as a powerful deterrent.
The election swept Pearson onto the City Council, along with former state Senator Byron Sher, creating a deeply split council comprised of six "residentialists" vs. seven "establishment" candidates that severely crippled local government. The situation led to a bitter all-council election in 1967, scars of which still linger.
Today both Pearson and Renzel have preserves named for them, Pearson in the lower foothills and Renzel in the baylands. But they haven't forgotten those hard and angry days of yore. And they seem convinced that any compromise will weaken the dedication policy by creating a "camel's nose" exception. The concern seems to be that giving a inch will lead to losing a mile someday.
But in this case, other issues came into play. In addition to having to truck hazardous waste to Nevada at a cost of about $300,000 a year, there is the cost of natural gas used to incinerate the sludge, and its "greenhouse gas" emissions, reported as more than $200,000. If anaerobic digestion could produce methane gas to power generators, it could supply the power needs of the entire treatment plant plus some homes and businesses, perhaps.
A proposed private school, the Girls Middle School, was relocated recently from a site near the treatment plant to west of Highway 101 due to concerns about potential health risks to the students and about several hundred parents calling the city to report every smell from the plant.
No one is sure yet about precisely how much savings or electricity could result. Thus the need for "more study."
And during the study time opponents to Measure E will also be at work studying potential rear-guard actions to prevent anything from happening, so the land would go back to parkland in 10 years.
Note: Former Weekly Editor Jay Thorwaldson can be e-mailed at email@example.com and email@example.com.


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Conservation calculus
Are trade-offs in Wyoming's Jonah natural gas field a boon for wildlife?
When Otis Carney's truck first rounded the bend of Black Butte in 1963, the Bar E Bar Ranch unfolded below him, nestled between western Wyoming's Gros Ventre and Wind River Mountains, with the Green River cutting lazy S-turns through rolling sage. "It was pretty much love at first sight," says his son, John Carney, who now owns the ranch with 40 family members.
Though it's still a cattle outfit, Otis, a novelist, originally bought the property as a getaway from Los Angeles, where he wrote for TV and film. Before his death in 2006, he worried about the ranch's fate, given that nearby ranches were turning into subdivisions. "It was always my father's dream to be able to protect the Upper Green," John says.
That dream was also shared by conservation groups. The 5,500-acre ranch is home to grouse, elk, moose and mule deer and straddles the southern end of a bottleneck in the "Path of the Pronghorn" -- a 6,000-year-old, nearly 200-mile-long migratory route from summer range in Grand Teton National Park to winter range in the Green River Valley.
Until December 2009, this pinch point -- one of three -- was the only one on the route not formally protected from migration-blocking development. That's when the Carney family put 2,400 acres under a conservation easement, using funding from another world-class resource: the Jonah Field, estimated to hold 14 trillion cubic feet of natural gas -- enough to heat 8.4 million homes for 20 years.
Back in 2006, Encana Corp. and BP America Production Co. paid $21.5 million and $3 million respectively into a fund to make up for the environmental impacts of drilling an unusually dense concentration of wells on 30,000 acres in the field. That money has been used outside the field to help put nearly 35,000 private acres under conservation easement. It's also paid for grazing improvement plans on 78,500 acres of private and public lands, plant surveys to monitor rangeland health, and wildlife projects like enhancing sage grouse habitat and altering fences to ease the passage of migrating animals. Those involved laud it as a model for extractive industries.
The original goal was to make improvements on 90,000 acres outside the field. But "we feel that we have directly impacted 600,000 acres, so in my book that's very successful," says Jim Lucas, who until May was the Bureau of Land Management coordinator of the Jonah Interagency Office in Pinedale. That's where the BLM, Wyoming Game and Fish, Wyoming Department of Agriculture and Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality dole out the mitigation money for both Jonah and the nearby Pinedale Anticline gas field, which established its own $36 million fund in 2008.
But with unclear protocols for monitoring the Jonah program's effects on wildlife and a comprehensive baseline assessment of the quality of habitat in the Jonah Field three years overdue, it's difficult to gauge the fund's success beyond raw acreages. Without that information, and with only $2.4 million in uncommitted funds remaining, some conservationists wonder whether the amount of money set aside was ever enough.
When Encana, BP and other operators first proposed drilling 3,100 new wells in the Jonah Field in 2002 -- allowing one well-pad every 10 acres rather than every 80 acres to tap the gas trapped in sandstone pockets below -- development was already under way. Five hundred wells had been approved and roads, pipelines and drill rigs crisscrossed the sage, increasing pressure to approve infill. The BLM decided it would be impossible to alleviate the environmental damage within the field itself. So, with support from Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, D, Encana proposed to pay for habitat improvements and other projects in places around Pinedale where there wasn't drilling. In addition, BLM capped how much land in the field could be disturbed at once, requiring companies to replant and demonstrate regrowth before carving up new areas. "We thought," says Encana spokesman Randy Teeuwen, "that it was a responsible thing to do."
At the time, some conservationists warned that the model could enable industries to buy their way out of regulations. Critics also stressed that it shouldn't replace best management practices for drilling. But everyone saw that wildlife habitat was already compromised in the gas fields: Full development in Jonah and the Pinedale Anticline has displaced or led to declines in sage grouse, mule deer, ground-nesting songbirds and other species, studies show. A well-stocked fund could help preserve key habitat by preventing development in other threatened areas, especially pronghorn and mule deer migration corridors. And off-site protected areas could serve as refuges for wildlife that might return to a future, reclaimed Jonah Field.


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The Google Play Store features several scrollable tabs - categories, featured, top paid, top free, top grossing, top new paid, top new free and trending. Apps usually have several screenshots (some even offer a demo video) so you can get an idea of what the app looks like before installing it. You can also check out comments and ratings, as well as the number of downloads and so on, to help you decide if the app is worth it.
There are all kinds of apps in the Android market and the most important ones are covered (file managers, navigation apps, document readers etc.).
Not quite an app store, the HTC Hub is a good source of wallpapers and sound customizations - ringtones, alarms and notification sounds and entire sound sets (a set is a whole package that brings together the other three categories).
There is also a handful of apps, as well as customizations for skins and entire scenes as well.
The HTC Hub is your source for customizations
The HTC Desire X has a built-in GPS receiver, which managed to get a lock in under a minute (with A-GPS switched off). If all you need is a rough idea of where you are (within 150 meters) you can use the Cell-ID and Wi-Fi network lock, which is very fast.
At this point, Google Maps is a standard part of the Android package and we've covered it many times before. It offers voice-guided navigation in certain countries and falls back to a list of instructions elsewhere. You can plan routes, search for nearby POI and go into the always cool Street View.


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Two of NASA's Great Observatories, the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes, have teamed up to "weigh" the stars in several distant galaxies. One of these galaxies, among the most distant ever seen, appears to be unusually massive and mature for its place in the young universe.
This came as a surprise to astronomers. The earliest galaxies in the universe are commonly thought to have been much smaller associations of stars that gradually merged to build large galaxies like our Milky Way.
"This galaxy, named HUDF-JD2, appears to have 'bulked up' amazingly quickly, within the first few hundred million years after the big bang. It made about eight times more mass in stars than are found in our own Milky Way today, and then, just as suddenly, it stopped forming new stars," said Dr. Bahram Mobasher of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, and the European Space Agency, Paris.
The galaxy was pinpointed among approximately 10,000 others in a small patch of sky called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The galaxy is believed to be about as far away as the most distant known galaxies. It represents an era when the universe was only 800 million years old. That is about five percent of the universe's age of 14 billion years.
Scientists studying the Ultra Deep Field found this galaxy in Hubble's infrared images. They expected it to be young and small, like other known galaxies at similar distances. Instead, they found evidence the galaxy is remarkably mature and much more massive. Its stars appear to have been in place for a long time.
Hubble's optical-light Ultra Deep Field image is the deepest image ever taken, yet this galaxy was not evident. This indicates much of the galaxy's optical light has been absorbed by traveling billions of light-years through intervening hydrogen gas. The galaxy was detected using Hubble's near-infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer. It was also detected by an infrared camera on the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory. At those longer infrared wavelengths, it is very faint and red.
The big surprise is how much brighter the galaxy is in longer-wavelength infrared images from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Spitzer is sensitive to the light from older, redder stars, which should make up most of the mass in a galaxy. The infrared brightness of the galaxy suggests it is massive. "This would be quite a big galaxy even today," said Dr. Mark Dickinson of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson, Ariz. "At a time when the universe was only 800 million years old, it's positively gigantic."
Spitzer observations were also independently reported by Dr. Laurence Eyles from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom and Dr. Haojing Yan of the Spitzer Science Center, Pasadena, Calif. They also revealed evidence for mature stars in more ordinary, less massive galaxies at similar distances, when the universe was less than one billion years old.
The new observations reported by Mobasher extend this notion of surprisingly mature "baby galaxies" to an object which is perhaps 10 times more massive, and which seemed to form its stars even earlier in the history of the universe.
Mobasher's team estimated the distance to this galaxy by combining information provided by the Hubble, Spitzer, and Very Large Telescope observations. The relative brightness of the galaxy at different wavelengths is influenced by the expanding universe and allows astronomers to estimate its distance. They can also get an idea of the make-up of the galaxy in terms of the mass and age of its stars.
While astronomers generally believe most galaxies were built piecewise by mergers of smaller galaxies, the discovery of this object suggests at least a few galaxies formed quickly long ago. For such a large galaxy, this would have been a tremendously explosive event of star birth.
JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Very Large Telescope is a project of the European Southern Observatory at the Paranal Observatory in Atacama, Chile.
For more information and additional images visit: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media and http://hubblesite.org/news/2005/28
From NASA


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St. Louis, MO – Tyler Colvin crushed a three-run homer in the third inning to lift the Colorado Rockies to a 3-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in the second installment of a four-game set at Busch Stadium.
Jeff Francis (2-1) earned the victory after giving up two runs on five hits and one walk over five frames. Rafael Betancourt stranded the tying run on third in the ninth to nail down his 13th save of the season.
The Rockies snapped a three-game losing streak despite registering just five hits as a team.
Joe Kelly (1-1) was charged with three runs -- two earned -- on five hits and four walks over six innings to absorb the loss. Matt Holliday, who spent his first five seasons in Colorado, provided the offense with a two-run homer, but the Cardinals lost for the fourth time in their last six games.
Jon Jay stroked a one-out single in the first to set the table for Holliday, who ripped a fastball over the wall in left.
"I made a pitch to Matt that he hit over the fence," admitted Francis, who was teammates with Holliday from 2004-08 in Colorado. "I was running out of pitches to throw him by the end of the game."
Colorado got its first base runner of the game in the third as Jonathan Herrera worked a one-out walk before Francis reached first when Yadier Molina was unable to get Herrera at second on Francis' sacrifice bunt attempt.
Colvin then made the Cardinals pay, launching a three-run blast into the St. Louis bullpen in right field to put the visitors in front.
"I just threw it bad," said Kelly of his 0-2 pitch to Colvin. "It's something you gotta either bounce in the dirt or get it more off and I didn't do both of those and it ended up as a three-run homer."
Francis worked around a bases loaded jam in the third and gave up just one hit over the next two frames before being lifted to start the home sixth.
Colorado's bullpen took over from there, not allowing a Cardinals base runner to reach past second base until Betancourt ran into trouble in the ninth.
David Freese singled to start the frame and was replaced by pinch-runner Shane Robinson, who moved to second on a fielder's choice groundout. Daniel Descalso then walked before Robinson moved to third on another fielder's choice.
Betancourt settled in though, fanning Jay on three pitches to leave the tying run stranded 90 feet away.
Game Notes
Francis is now one win away from matching Jason Jennings for second on Colorado's all-time wins list with 58...Carlos Gonzalez extended his hit streak to 11 games with a single in the third...The Rockies acquired Gonzalez and reliever Huston Street in the 2009 trade that sent Holliday to Oakland...Carlos Beltran was held without an RBI, snapping a streak of nine straight games with an RBI.


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Center for Studying Health System Change
Providing Insights that Contribute to Better Health Policy
Insurance Coverage & Costs Access to Care Uninsured and Low-Income Racial/Ethnic Disparities Safety Net Providers Community Health Centers Hospitals Physicians Insured People Quality & Care Delivery Health Care Markets Issue Briefs Data Bulletins Research Briefs Policy Analyses Community Reports Journal Articles Other Publications Surveys Site Visits Design and Methods Data Files
Health Care Access For Low-Income People: Significant Safety Net Gaps Remain
Issue Brief No. 84
Despite signs that low-income and uninsured peoples access to primary health care services has improved, serious gaps in care exist, especially for specialty physician, mental health and dental care, according to the Center for Studying Health System Changes (HSC) 2002-03 site visits to 12 nationally representative communities. Key factors contributing to these gaps in the safety net include declining private physician and dentist involvement, changes in funding and facilities, and more people in need. Community leaders have developed a variety of innovative strategies to add specialty, mental health and dental services but could benefit from more support from state and federal policy makers.
Rx for More Specialty, Mental Health and Dental Services
hile many communities have expanded primary health care services for low-income and uninsured people in recent years,1 widespread access problems exist for specialty physician, mental health and dental services, according to findings from HSCs 2002-03 site visits to 12 nationally representative communities (see Data Source).
Community health centers (CHCs) and other local clinics mainly provide preventive and primary care, and hospitals often have limited capacity for mental health, outpatient specialty and dental services. Many low-income and uninsured people turn to private physicians and dentists, but access to these providers has declined in recent years. As a result, many of the uninsured and people covered by Medicaid or the State Childrens Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) have significant problems obtaining specialty, mental health and dental services.
Specialty medical care. Health leaders in 10 of the 12 HSC communities reported that low-income people have great difficulty obtaining specialty care, and observers in six communities indicated that access has declined over the last two years. As a New Jersey CHC respondent lamented, "While access to primary care and acute care is good, specialty care is the missing piece in the middle. It is the worst part of the health care system." Five specialties were cited commonly across communities as being particularly difficult to gain referrals: gastroenterology, orthopedics, cardiology, endocrinology and dermatology.
Primary care providers said they spend considerable time trying to find specialty practitioners to see their patients. Capacity at safety net hospitals and community clinics for these services is limited and waits for appointments often are long. For example, in Miami, patients reportedly wait months for specialty care at the county hospital, the communitys major safety net provider. Additionally, hospitals in several communities reported that specialists are reluctant to provide on-call coverage in local hospital emergency departments, a major source of care for uninsured people.
Mental health care. Access to mental health services surfaced as a significant problem in eight of the 12 communities. Comments such as "the mental health delivery system is in shambles," expressed the extent of these problems. For example, a Greenville community clinic director reported that clinic doctors are overwhelmed trying to care for physical ailments of patients with mental health conditions that are undertreated.
Dental services. In eight of the 12 communities, observers cited considerable problems with dental services, and access had worsened over the last few years in some communities. One community dental program representative noted that patients face a two-year wait for services, and a community health association reported that it takes CHCs two years to recruit new dentists. In some communities, patients often end up losing teeth because emergency extractions are the only service available. Even in communities that have expanded primary dental services, access to specialty dental services, such as periodontics and endodontics, is difficult.
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Why Gaps Persist
A number of factors contribute to the long-standingand in some cases worseninglack of specialty, mental health and dental services, including declining private physician and dentist involvement in the safety net, changes in funding and facilities, and more people in need.
Limited private provider participation. Many local health care leaders said private hospital, physician and dentist participation in the safety net "only scratches the surface of the problem," and some communities report that many providers are less willing to treat the uninsured. These findings are consistent with Community Tracking Study Physician Survey findings that show the percentage of physicians nationally providing charity care decreased from about 76 percent in 1997 to 72 percent in 2001.
Provider willingness to treat people covered by Medicaid and SCHIP also was a challenge in most communities. In many cases, physicians technically participate in Medicaid and SCHIP but reportedly restrict caseloads to existing patients or agree to see a limited number of publicly insured patients each month.
Provider involvement in care for low-income people is largely linked to their ability to finance the care through other means. Although some states and communities have charity care poolsfunds set aside to reimburse providers for caring for the low-income uninsuredthey often are designed to reimburse hospitals rather than private physicians and dentists. Across the communities, low Medicaid and SCHIP payment ratesespecially relative to commercial paymentswere cited as major obstacles to provider participation. Administrative and regulatory burdens also were mentioned but as a secondary issue. The overall cost of practicing medicine reportedly affects participation as well. In a few communities, rising malpractice premiums were identified as a factor.
Respondents in eight of the 12 HSC communities believed shortages of specialty physicians contributed to access problems for low-income people. Some of these perceived shortages were longstanding, while others were more recent. In Syracuse, observers said an inadequate supply of specialists, particularly dermatologists and psychiatrists, was likely an issue behind gaps in access. A Phoenix respondent pointed to study findings that showed low compensation levels and large numbers of uninsured hurt Arizonas ability to recruit physicians. Respondents in that community reported insufficient numbers of dermatologists, gastroenterologists and rheumatologists.
In addition, a number of communities appear to have shortages of dentists and hygienists. Arizona and Arkansas lack dental schools, which some say contributes to the problem. Additionally, a few communities, especially Syracuse, encountered difficulties because of dentists retiring.
Funding cutbacks. Funding cuts for key mental health facilities have added to access problems in some communities. Because many mental health services for low-income people are financed by the states, directly or indirectly through Medicaid, they have been vulnerable to state budget deficits in recent years. A 2002 survey by the National Mental Health Association found that 29 states had reduced funding for mental health agencies or Medicaid mental health services. In Greenville, for instance, downsizing of the state-funded inpatient facility and other cutbacks reportedly have hindered a major mental health clinics ability to monitor patients appropriately. And state budget cuts in Ohio led to elimination of mobile mental health outreach and assessment activities throughout Cleveland.
Since dental services for adults are an optional benefit under Medicaid, many states have cut these services in the face of budget constraints. For example, Massachusetts eliminated adult dental coverage in 2003. In the same year, five other states in which HSC communities are located reduced dental services, often limiting care to emergencies.2
Change in organization focus. In a few cases, organizations that traditionally provided specialty services have reduced that commitment, creating a noticeable gap. In Seattle, for example, safety net respondents described recent difficulties referring low-income patients to a quasi-public, multi-specialty provider group. Reportedly, financial difficulties led the provider to focus more on higher paying populations and to convert to a private organization. And a safety net hospital in Greenville reduced clinic sessions in the downtown area to reportedly focus on its teaching mission by concentrating on patients with particular conditions.
Increasing demand. Increased patient demand has contributed to more access problems in several communities, especially those with rapidly growing numbers of immigrants and newly unemployed workers. Indeed, the number of uninsured people nationally rose by 2.4 million between 2001 and 2002.3 The number of people covered by Medicaid and SCHIP increased as well. Furthermore, some suggested that primary care expansions generated need for more follow-up care, leading to increased pressure on safety net providers and growing waits for follow-up appointments.
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Communities Address Problems
State and local policy makers are aware of the access problems for specialty, mental health and dental services, but communities have been more active in addressing the issue. Respondents cited few state level efforts aimed at narrowing the gaps, and budget constraints have hampered states ability to allocate funds over the last few years. Although some states have increased Medicaid payment rates, in many cases, Medicaid rates are still much lower than private insurer rates.
Meanwhile, many HSC communities systematically have tried to improve access to services, often with the help of federal or state funds. Strategies include expansions to community clinics and initiatives to promote provider volunteerism or pay providers for treating the uninsured.
Community clinic expansions. Health centers in most of the HSC communities have added mental health and dental services over the last few years. Seattle, Miami, Boston and Orange County have expanded mental health and substance abuse services through existing facilities and, in some cases, school-based clinics. And at least two CHCs in Phoenix have built dental centers, one of which is expected to add 5,000 dental visits a year. Federally qualified CHCs have largely financed growth through federal expansion grants,4 while other centers used a mix of funding, including tobacco settlement and state funds. Most of the clinic expansion funding has been for primary care, however, and many clinics continue to struggle to provide other services.
In addition, some free clinics have added specialty services for the uninsured by recruiting more volunteer physicians and dentists. In some cases, doctors who volunteer in safety net facilities receive malpractice protection through federal or state programs. Volunteer physicians allow large clinics in Greenville and Cleveland to provide specialty sessions, as well as limited dental services. Clinic capacity is limited, however, and some specialty sessions are infrequentone or two days a month.
Volunteer networks. To reduce safety net providers reliance on personal relationships with private practitioners for referrals, a few communities have created more formal networks of practitioners willing to serve low-income people on a volunteer basis. Medical societies in Little Rock and Greenville, for instance, have initiatives in which physicians and dentists agree to see a set number of uninsured patients in a given period. The idea is that, if practitioners are allowed to limit their contribution, care will be more equally distributed and no one will be overburdened, leading to more practitioners participating. However, the Greenville program has not generated much patient enrollment because of stringent eligibility requirements. The Little Rock program has recruited about 1,000 physicians and more than 100 dentists throughout the state, but respondents indicated that many uninsured people are unaware of the program.
Managed care programs. In a few communities, initiatives to manage care have helped link uninsured people to established networks of providers who are paid for their services. For example, Indianapolis and Lansing operate programs through a public-private entity or hospital system, financed by a mix of federal, state and local funds. Leaders in Indianapolis found that their program has improved access to specialty care. In Lansing, private specialists were not participating at the level expected and access was still considered a problem. Both programs have had difficulties recruiting dentists.
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Lessons Learned
Across communities, low-income and uninsured people face long-standing, and sometimes worsening, difficulties obtaining specialty, dental and mental health services. Increased access to primary care services over the last few years has both illuminated the gaps in other services and likely identified needs for follow-up consultation and treatment. Safety net providers are not equipped to meet the wide range of health care needs of all low-income people, and access to private practitioners remains limited. As a result, many low-income people likely face delayed care, untreated conditions and poor outcomes.
As policy makers seek to improve access to health care services through the safety net, lessons can be learned from local experiences. Because low payment rates appear to be a major barrier, attempts to create or increase rates to private providers for treating low-income and uninsured people may have potential. But continued budget shortfalls likely will hinder state and local governments ability to do this. In addition, policy makers could look for ways to cultivate and promote communities creative approaches to expand sources of care for low-income and uninsured people.
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Data Source
Every two years, HSC researchers visit 12 nationally representa-tive metropolitan communities to track changes in local health care markets. The 12 communities are Boston; Cleveland; Greenville, S.C.; Indianapolis; Lansing, Mich.; Little Rock, Ark.; Miami; northern New Jersey; Orange County, Calif.; Phoenix; Seattle; and Syracuse, N.Y. HSC researchers interviewed individuals in each community who are involved directly or indirectly in providing safety net services to low-income people, including representatives of safety net hospitals, provider groups, community health centers, local health departments and government officials, academics and advocates. This Issue Brief is based on an analysis of these individuals assessments of availability of various types of services for low-income people.
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ISSUE BRIEFS are published by the
Center for Studying Health System Change.
President: Paul B. Ginsburg


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Coyotes sign new arena naming-rights deal
GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) The Arizona Coyotes and Gila River Casinos have agreed on a nine-year partnership that will include the first naming-rights deal by a federally recognized tribe with a venue for one of the four major professional sports leagues.
The agreement must be approved by the Glendale City Council during its meeting on Sept. 9. The venue, which had been called Jobing.com Arena, will be known as Gila River Arena if the deal is approved.
The Gila River Indian Community and Gila River Casinos have had a long-time sponsorship relationship with the Coyotes and will add a variety of additional advertising, marketing and merchandising opportunities at the arena.
The Coyotes were purchased from the NHL by IceArizona prior to the 2013-14 season and were renamed the Arizona Coyotes this year.


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The 2008 presidential election gives CIOs and other IT executives a choice of two major-party candidates who are interested in technology-related issues. While the US economy and the war in Iraq have dominated the debate between Republican nominee Senator John McCain and Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama, they have also hit on such IT hot buttons as telecommunications and tech jobs.
Both senators bring tech experience to the race, although the experience is significantly different. Obama has had relatively little legislative experience related to technology, but he's a self-described text-messaging addict who released a lengthy tech policy paper last November. McCain admits he doesn't spend much time with computing devices, saying he relies on his wife's help with computers. But he's also a long-time member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the panel that debates and votes on much of the tech-related legislation that goes through the Senate.
Here's a look at the candidates' stances on five issues of interest to the nation's IT leaders: telecommunications, national security, privacy, IT jobs and innovation.
Net neutrality: Obama has long supported the passage of Net neutrality laws or rules. "A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history," his tech paper says.
McCain opposes a Net neutrality law, saying broadband carriers need to recoup their investments. However, his tech policy paper says he would focus on allowing broadband customers access to the Web content and applications of their choice. Instead of a law, the best way to guard against unfair practices is "an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices."
Rural broadband deployment: Obama calls for policies to encourage next-generation broadband deployment, including to rural areas and inner cities. He supports government programs to bring broadband to schools, libraries and hospitals, and called for public/private partnerships to help roll it out in areas without service.
McCain would encourage private investment in broadband service. In 2005, he split from many other Republicans by authoring legislation that would prohibit states from outlawing municipal broadband projects.


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I know not where is that Promethean heat"
Here in the bottom of Tennessee, where the next county south is in Alabama, we have been watching the summers grow steadily hotter. When we arrived here, a band of ragtag hippies in 1971, the climate wasn't as bad as rumors would have it. We were up on the rim of the Nashville Basin, and the reason the place is called Summertown is because it was where top-hatted and corseted city folk would come in the summers to cool off. There was once a resort hotel down by the rail track, and particularly when the Swamp Fever was bad in the lowlands, the little highland town could expect to see a goodly number of wealthy tourists, people who would buy homemade corn 'shine, quilts and wood furniture.
The climate we had in 1971 is now up near Lexington, Kentucky. The local summer heat of '09 was what folks down in Nashoba County, Mississippi, had regularly in 1971.
At my house we swore off air conditioning in 1993 when we went to solar electric, choosing window fans and living roofs to keep us cool, especially at night. We have some picture windows that are replaced with large screens every year in May only to go back every October. We have some vents to the cellar, with a fan, to draw up the chill of the earth.
It's still cool enough to work, or bike, or run around in the mornings, and when there is a breeze, usually before or after a rain, but days like we're having this week are rough. Now it's over 95°F every day, and humidity is well above 90 percent. There is no breeze, so you just learn to live with a layer of sweat. Clothing is minimal. Even taking a cold shower only lasts a couple of minutes, then you are all soaked in hot sweat again. At night it is still above 80°F at midnight, dropping only to the mid-70s by morning. By 8 am it is back above 80 in the sun. The sheets are stained with sweat and have to be washed more often.
We have taken to rising at sun-up, breaking for food at 8 am, working until noon, then taking off in the heat of the day, going for a swim, or just hanging out in the shade somewhere, trying not to work up a sweat. Even simple chores like weeding the garden or cleaning the house begin to bring on flushed foreheads and heavier breathing as the body's air conditioning struggles to hold to 98.6. Our Amish neighbors are tougher than we are, but they vanish from the fields most afternoons now. It is too hot for the horses.
Reading the new federal report on "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" we are particularly struck by the descriptions of what the temperature change will likely be by the time our grandchildren, just recently beginning to walk and talk, are middle aged. The report says:
The number of very hot days is projected to rise at a greater rate than the average temperature. Average temperatures in the [Southeast] region are projected to rise by about 4.5°F by the 2080s, while a higher emissions scenario yields about 9°F of average warming (with about a 10.5°F increase in summer, and a much higher heat index).It is not easy to grasp those numbers, because we assume that global averages and daily or hourly temperature changes are equivalent, and they aren't. Since 1970 our average temperature in this region has risen 2 degrees, which is roughly the same change for the Southeast as occurred between now and the last time glaciers extended below the Great Lakes. So, just to begin with, 2 degrees is huge. It is the difference between southern Mississippi and Nashville, Tennessee. Trying to grasp what "about 4.5°F by the 2080s" will mean, never mind 9°F… fuggeddaboudit.
One thing we can surmise is that farming will be harder. The report says:
Because higher temperatures lead to more evaporation of moisture from soils and water loss from plants, the frequency, duration, and intensity of droughts are likely to continue to increase.That really only shows half the picture. If summer rains and the groundwater or rivers dry up, it will be hard to sustain field crops. If it is consistently above 95°F, corn will not generate ears, or the kernels will wilt on them. Above 102°F, soybeans will not set bean pods, or the seed will shrivel and die. Even our shiitake logs will lose the mycelium that makes the mushrooms grow.
Some crops are particularly sensitive to high nighttime temperatures, which have been rising even faster than daytime temperatures. Nighttime temperatures are expected to continue to rise in the future. These changes in temperature are especially critical to the reproductive phase of growth because warm nights increase the respiration rate and reduce the amount of carbon that is captured during the day by photosynthesis to be retained in the fruit or grain.Snap beans will fail if nighttime temperatures are consistently above 80°F.
Lower soil moisture and higher temperatures leading to intense wildfires or pest outbreaks (such as the southern pine beetle) in southeastern forests; intense droughts leading to the drying of lakes, ponds, and wetlands; and the local or global extinction of riparian and aquatic species.
We are already watching our hardwood forests fall of their own accord. Last year it was the oaks. This year it's the hickories. Loblolly pine, a species that favors the sandy soils of Mississippi, was planted abundantly back in the late 1970s, when we worked as tree-planters and had lots of leftover stock, and also the forest service and ag-extension agents gave them away for free. Those are now thriving, happy to have the climate they most favor come their way. Loblolly will now move up into Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and New York, even as the sugar maples, spruce, beech, and wild plum go extinct.
What will it be like for our grandchildren, we wonder, when we have 120-135 days per year above 90°F and perhaps a third of those topping 100°F? By mid-century, extreme heat events that used to occur every 20 years on average will have become annual affairs, like the drought in Atlanta. It is by no means certain that there will be energy to run air conditioners by then, but perhaps there will if the radioactive sediments are dredged from behind TVA's dams and the plants that make nuclear fuel and weapons — and consume so much of TVA's power in the process — are closed.
Migration is an option. Our granddaughter has an aunt in Alaska who might take her in, not that Alaska will be exactly paradisical. Already droughts are becoming more common, forest fires spreading, lakes shrinking, and coastal storms increasing. Still, they may still be able to make a bean crop there by mid-century.
Right now it is approaching midnight on a Saturday night in June. The summer solstice is about an hour away, and after that our nights will start getting longer. The temperature is 89°F. Solar-powered fans keep the air moving but our MacBook is way too hot to rest wrists on. I'm feeling the need for another shower.
This post originally appeared in Energy Bulletin on June 21, 2009.


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Troubleshooting & help
You can download Dreamweaver from the Creative Cloud apps catalog. You'll need to sign in with your Adobe ID and password to complete the download. For more information, including how to install older versions or check for updates, see Download your creative cloud apps.
For solutions to a "failed to install" error, see Error: "Failed to install" Creative Cloud desktop app. To resolve other download, installation, and update issues, see this download and install troubleshooting guide.
Yes! You can download trial versions of any Creative Cloud app from the Creative Cloud apps catalog. You'll need to sign in with an Adobe ID and password to download a trial. For detailed instructions, see Download and install a Creative Cloud trial.
You can install Dreamweaver and other Creative Cloud apps on up to two computers. If you want to install it on a third computer, you'll need to deactivate it on one of your previous machines. Learn more about activating and deactivating Creative Cloud apps.
Sign in to your Adobe account. Under the Password section, select Change for Current Password, and then follow the onscreen instructions.
Forgot your password? Learn how to reset it.
Switching Creative Cloud plans is easy. Follow these step-by-step instructions to upgrade or change your plan.
Converting your trial to a paid membership is easy. Follow these step-by-step instructions to upgrade and start your membership.
If you stop your membership, you still have access to Creative Cloud member free benefits and any files you saved to your device. You won't have access to apps or most services and your cloud storage will be reduced to 2 GB. Learn how to Cancel your Creative Cloud membership and understand the Adobe subscription terms.
Learn how to import and export all site settings, including FTP connection settings, from one machine or installation of Dreamweaver to another.
Watch this video tutorial to learn how to use Bootstrap templates to quickly build a responsive website. You can get more details about creating Bootstrap documents in this article.
Yes! This video tutorial teaches you how to use the Device Preview feature. This article provides more details, including prerequisites and supported devices.
Use Real-Time Preview to get the most accurate depiction of what your page will look like in a web browser. Learn more in this article on previewing pages.
Click here to learn how to unblock Dreamweaver's access to other apps in macOS 10.14 Mojave release.
Restoring the preferences files can often resolve unexpected behavior and errors. Also, try the solutions in this troubleshooting guide for Dreamweaver, which can help resolve various issues.
You could have an issue with the SSH passphrase not being supported while cloning a repository or maybe you're facing an Xcode popup issue if you're using a Mac.
Learn how to resolve the SSH passphrase repository cloning issue or work around the Xcode popup.
You can install extensions and add-ons for all Creative Cloud apps through the Creative Cloud destop app.
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Western Texas College offers four two-year college degrees—the Associate of Arts (A.A.) Degree, the Associate of Science (A.S.) Degree, the Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) Degree, and the Associate of Arts in Teaching (A.A.T.) Degree to students who complete graduation requirements. Hour requirements for Associate of Applied Science Degree will vary with the program.
Associate of Arts/Associates of Science
An Associate of Arts degree or Associate of Science degree is awarded to students who successfully complete an approved curriculum of a minimum of 60 hours of specific academic coursework intended to transfer to four-year universities. The courses consist primarily of an essential 42-hour core curriculum that provides the basic skills and broad-based education needed by most students. The core curriculum can be found in the catalog. The remainder of the 60-hour program is adapted for each student to provide the best transfer possible to the student's intended university. Students should have a degree plan prepared by the Counseling Office or major advisor in the first semester of enrollment or at any time the intended major or intended university changes.
Associate of Arts in Teaching
An Associate of Arts in Teaching Degree is awarded to students who successfully complete an approved curriculum of a minimum of 61 hours of specific academic coursework intended to transfer to four-year university programs in education. The courses include the basic 45-hour core curriculum with additional courses in education, math, science, and/or the intended teaching content area. The curriculum can be found in the catalog. Students should request a degree plan prepared for them in the Counseling Office or by their major advisor during the first semester at WTC or at any other point that the student makes a decision to enter the field of education. The degree plan will be adapted according to the student's intention to teach either early childhood through grade 4, Grades 4-8, Grades 8-12, or in an all-level area such as Physical Education, Music, Art, or Special Education.
Associate of Applied Science
The Associate of Applied Science Degree is awarded to students who successfully complete an approved curriculum for career and technical programs. Visit the catalog to see more. Each A.A.S. degree must have a minimum of 15 semester hours in general education. The 15 hours of general education must include at least one course in each of the following three areas: humanities/fine arts, social/behavioral sciences, and mathematics/natural sciences. By the time a student completes 15 semester hours, the student will have a degree plan on file in the Counseling Center.


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An 18-month congressional investigation into AARP reveals that the organization stands to make more than $1 billion over the next 10 years from Obamacare, a law the seniors lobby supported despite opposition among its core constituency.
AARP, which operates as a tax-exempt organization in Washington, would profit from an increase in its insurance business, specifically from the sale of Medicare products to older Americans. The lucrative business has already transformed AARP into an insurance powerhouse. If it were a for-profit business, AARP would rank as the sixth-largest insurance company in America with profits of $427 million in 2009.
AARP's revenues exploded following passage of the Medicare Part D law during the Bush administration and will continue to grow as a result of Obamacare, according the House Ways and Means Committee report. That's because an estimated 7 million seniors will lose Medicare Advantage plans — a consequence of Obamacare — and shift to Medigap plans instead. Every new Medigap plan sold by AARP, already the largest provider of those plans, results in more royalty revenue.
As seniors begin to make the shift in 2014, AARP stands to make between $55 million and $166 million that year alone. Over 10 years, royalties would total more than $1 billion just in new customers.
The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing Friday to seek answers about AARP's business practices. Reps. Wally Herger (R-CA), Dave Reichert (R-WA) and Charles Boustany (R-LA) are leading the examination.
AARP, which collected $97 million in federal grants in 2009, denied any wrongdoing in a statement Wednesday.
"AARP is most disturbed by the accusation that our support of any legislation would be done with revenue in mind," AARP President Lee Hammond said. "AARP has long-maintained that we would gladly forgo revenue in exchange for lifetime health and financial security for all older Americans."
This isn't the first time AARP has come under scrutiny. IRS investigations in the 1980s and 1990s produced multi-million dollar settlements. But those settlements came long before AARP began reaping millions from health insurance.
The stakes today are much higher. With more than 40 million members, AARP has the market corned on seniors. The revenue from AARP-endorsed plans for Medicare Advantage, Medigap and Medicare Part D provide royalties that give the organization incredible clout for a non-profit.
Meanwhile, there's growing evidence that the policies supported by AARP — namely Obamacare — aren't nearly as popular among its target democraphic. According to the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll this month, a majority of seniors have an unfavorable view of the law. Just 19 percent think the Medicare program will be better off under Obamacare.


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Whitehorse educator is SJSD Teacher of the Year
Robert Sanders, an industrial arts teacher at Whitehorse High School, is the 2012 Teacher of the Year for the San Juan School District.
Sanders was honored for his 32 years of teaching at Whitehorse. He now moves on to the Utah Teacher of the Year competition.
Each year, a teacher and an employee is recognized from each school in the district.
Honored employees from Tse'bii'nidzisgai Elementary School are Camille Rowley and Clarke Holliday. Marla Atkinson, who is currently serving as principal at TES, was honored for her work at the district office.
Monument Valley High workers who were honord include Devon Gosney and Charlene Valentine Atine.
Employees who were honored from the Blanding schools include Patricia Helquist and Susan Lee at Blanding Elementary, Richard Monson and Anne Winder from ARL Middle School, and Kari Pugh and Ted Palmer from San Juan High.
Honored from the northern schools are Wayne Erickson and Rhonda Clark from Monticello High, Regan McDaniel and Becky Bird from Monticello Elementary, and Chris Allen and Amber Beshoner from La Sal.
Employees from the Bluff School who were honored are Tanya Nees and Shawnmarie Powell.
School employees from the Montezuma Creek include Sanders and Gail Lee from Whitehorse High, and Anna Mae Jim and Juanita Becenti from Montezuma Creek Elementary.
Gary Rock and Elsie Jones were honored for their work at Navajo Mountain High School
Robert Sanders was born Los Angeles, CA and graduated from Garden Grove High School in 1973. He attended Southern Utah University, where he graduated in 1977 with a degree in Industrial Technology.
Mr. Sanders received a Masters degree in Technology Education from Northern Arizona University in 1988. He started teaching at Whitehorse High School in 1980 and lived in Montezuma Creek from 1980 to 1986.
He and is wife, the former Miss Leslie Malzhan, live in Blanding. They have three children: Jennifer, Robert and Paul.
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(1) Third king of Judah; the history of his reign is told in 1 Kgs. 15–16 and 2 Chr. 14–16. We are told his "heart was perfect all his days." He raised the army to a state of efficiency, threw off the Egyptian yoke, and rebuilt the fortresses destroyed by Sheshonk. After this time there was no invasion from Egypt for more than 250 years. He made an alliance with Benhadad of Syria for the purpose of checking Baasha, king of Israel. By the advice of Azariah the prophet, he removed the high places, the Asherim, and sun-images; deposed the queen-mother Maachah and destroyed the idol she had made; and at a national assembly invited the people to make a covenant to seek Jehovah.
(2) 1 Chr. 9:16.