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People's Republic of China
中华人民共和国 Zhōngguó Gòngchingchōng Yīdǎng Zhuānzhèng Rénmín Bùkakke Dāngjiā Zuòzhǔ Gònghéguó China | |||||
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Motto: "MADE IN CHINA" | |||||
Anthem: "Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting" and "Ching Chang Chong" | |||||
Capital | Chinatown | ||||
Official language(s) | Simplified Chinese | ||||
Government | Communist | ||||
President | Xi Jinping | ||||
National hero(es) | Jackie Chan, Chairman Mao, Xi Jinping, Kai-Lan, Mulan, the Walmart smiley face, Sagwa | ||||
Currency | Renminbi |
"Mr Deng, tear down this wall!"
The People's Republic of China or PRC (in Overly Simplified Chinese: You order? Fiteen minute) is a pivotal support mechanism for the United States retail industry. It is known as the "birth place of everything," as everything was invented in China first, including paper, television, internet, bad driving, and America's debt. You name it, they invented it.
For centuries China was ruled by a series of dynasties that supplanted each other by scheduled and formal occasion, no bloodshed necessary; that was until some incredible dickhead obsessed with kitten huffing decided to mess things up (you'll read about this douche below).
After a sudden and unexpected five-hour civil war in 1949, the Communists led by the maniacal but adorable Mao Zedong poster hanging on Tiananmen Gate took over China in a sweeping musical revolution known as "The Cool" by Lupe Fiasco. Eyewitness accounts now confirm that your Mom was there. The People's Republic of China has often been at odds with its 20th century nemesis, the American Empire, but ever since 1972 the two countries have grudgingly met together for an annual gift exchange and hand job.
China was founded by a Chinaman named the Yellow Emperor. He taught the Chinese how to plow using a hoe, to farm, to fight using kung fu, to play with fire, and to stop, drop and roll. There was also some one hundred and forty year old, transparent, dragon riding king named Shennong; who collected all the plants, kinda like Noah.
Xia Dynasty
Invented around 3000 BC, all the archaeologists were too lazy to research this dynasty, plus nobody really cares anyways.
The 'Shang' Dynasty (1600 - 1046 BC)
Soon the Chinese discovered how to write character symbols for court divination ceremonies on animal bones, strips of bamboo, and the gigantic, she-male nail clippings. The Chinese figured out how to ride in spoke-wheeled chariots in the shape of pimped out Cadillacs by the middle of the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC - 1046 BC).[1] The Shang Dynasty Chinese crafted brilliant bronzewares at discount prices, and carved jade ornaments in the form of panda bears sexually violating Japanese tourists.[2]
The 'Zhou' Dynasty (1046 - 256 BC)
The Duke of Zhou was a star-studded cowboy in the wild western frontier of China, a Tom Jones impressionist who had a fief based on the peripheral edges of the burgeoning Han Chinese civilization. It was a groovy time back then, full of psychedelic drugs and sexual experimentation at band camp; but hard times were up ahead. His tributary master, King Dixin of Shang, became a stupid ruler. Dixin once erected a gigantic pool of Smirnoff Vodka and forced 1,000 midget courtiers to swim, drink, and drown in it (true story). He forced the Duke of Zhou to pay annual tribute of 10,000 coupons to the Shang court. He also forced the Duke to give his royal ball sack an annual sniffing at court in order to humiliate him like the other vassals. In 1046 BC, the Duke of Zhou "had enough of this shit";[3] he gathered an army of Chinamans, nerds, pirates, paraplegics, African-Americans, and disgruntled ex-Disneyland employees to fight the Shang Dynasty. In that year, the Duke of Zhou destroyed the Shang Dynasty and their Japanese allies in the Battle of Midway, a decisive Zhou victory celebrated afterwards with a gigantic beer slid] and jello shots.[4] Hence the Zhou Dynasty was founded, and lasted until 256 BC when some asshole decided to ruin a good thing (you'll read about this incredible dickhead below).[5]
Also, to commemorate the victory, the groovy swingers' manual of the Tao Te Ching was written shortly afterwards. The book was awarded in China in 1999 with the "Funnier-Than-Bill-Clinton-On-Viagra-While-Guest-Appearing-On-Temptation-Island" award, but this has recently been usurped by Bobcat Goldthwait's face.[6]
Warring States of Death (403 - 221 BC)
While the Zhou Dynasty was still warm and kicking, their rulers lost much of their central authority and legitimacy in 771 BC. This happened because King You of Zhou lost his reputation when he decided that pink was his favorite color and lost a pivotal arm-wrestling match to a peasant named Yu Er Dum, who had a total of four fingers left for both hands; the others were lost during furious masturbation, an ancient Daoist exercise ritual.[7] The furious mastubating by Daoists, however, created the first great Chinese population explosion as women who squatted in the rice paddies found themselves becoming pregnant.[8] Meanwhile, regional strongmen and nobles amassed their own power and started calling themselves kings in an era known as the Warring States of Death, Destruction, Mayhem, Murder, and Infidelity (403 - 221 BC).[9]
This was an era when war was fought and fluctuating borders came about not through bloodshed and violence, but with a Dance Dance Revolution match. Eventually Shang Yang, the Chancellor of Gay Sex from the State of Qin, realized how stupid and ineffective this type of warfare was, and so actually started killing people when the Qin forces showed up to the monthly Dance Dance Revolution get-togethers.
About this time, master Sun Tzu (544 - 496), author of the Art of War, wrote the lesser known Fart of War, which is hailed as a military classic and the first book to mention the use of siphoned human farts to choke enemy troops to death while sapping under city walls.[10] Other clever tactics included "Hey your shoelace is untied, I'll kick you in the nuts just as hard as I can then you kick me, and the first one to give up loses." In 479 BC, the philosopher and educator, Confucius, a man responsible for consolidating the guidelines that would shape East Asia, died after choking on a KFC chicken bone. Though his earlier works were hailed as successes, commentators note that as he got older, the old man started to lose clarity. Phrases like: "Confucius says: Kids today don't know they're born", "Confucius says: Take your coat off or you won't feel the benefit", and "Confucius says: I remember when this was all millet fields", fail to make it into final editions of The Analects.[11] They did, however, make it into Oprah's book club listing.
The 'Qin' Dynasty (221 - 207 BC)
In 221 BC, the armies of Qin Shihuangdi "peacefully liberated" the whole of China for the first time under one Qin Dynasty (221 BC - 206 BC), and the government went around relieving citizens of burdensome relics of the old feudal system, such as life and happiness. Qin Shihuangdi also built the retro version of the Great Wall of China, encouraging the workers to labor over his construction projects with the constant threat that they would be forced to watch the dumbest movie lines of Keanu Reeves over and over until they succumbed to his labor demands. It is recorded in Chinese historical texts that 180,000 laborers died in this manner, their brains exploding within their skulls due to the incredible pressure of relentless playing of nauseating Keanu Reeves lines. The poor bastards!
The Qin Emperor was far too hard on his people (in more ways than one, wink, wink), and so they rebelled against his son once he was dead. The First Emperor died when his Prime Minister Li Si and Vice Chancellor Rick James convinced him that liquid mercury "was one hell of a drug", much more so than cocaine, crack, or laundry detergent.[12] The First Emperor snorted a liquidy line of mercury off of a hooker's back and was found dead two hours later in an imperial bathroom with a pair of panties worn around his head like an official's hat, beer goggles on, anal lube caked onto his fingers, and a tattoo on his back of Kenny Rogers holding a bottle of whiskey while vomiting into a girlscout's mouth.[13]
The 'Tang' Dynasty (618 - 907 AD)
A gossipy singing boy named Li Yuan–employed in the house of a wealthy military general–learned the tactics of war and overthrew the previous Sui Dynasty, founding the Tang Dynasty in 618.[14] However, Li Yuan (now Emperor Gaozu of Tang) was still such a gigantic pussy that his 5-year-old son Li Shimin overpowered him in a punching match. The latter became Emperor Taizong of Tang, informally known as the "Nicely-Dressed Emperor".[15] However, everyone became fooled by his sense of fashion, as Emperor Taizong was really a crazy war nut, surpassing even George W. Bush as a war-freak by invading every single foreign country within the vicinity of China's borders, including the small landlocked nation of Tajiki-no-one-knows-this-country-stan.[16]
In 755 AD, at the height of China's "Golden Age", rebels An Lushan and Shi Siming lead an armed uprising against the ruling Tang Dynasty. Disgruntled peasants complained that the government spent too much time and money having passionate affairs and stirring political intrigue in order to attract CCTV producers of television dramas from the future. The Curse of the Golden Flower fails to win a single Oscar nomination at the 2007 Academy Awards, and producers begin to leave the past as audience's demand more modern dramas. The An Lushan rebellion is quickly quelled and the Emperor blames everything on the time-travelling foreigners.
The Tang Dynasty fell in 907 after regional military governors known as jiedushi began amassing more power in their own regions. They undermined central authority and broke all taboos, such as "mooning" the emperor, telling the emperor to "fuck off" in front of his ministers, and egging and toilet-papering the walls of the emperor's palace as a hilarious prank and means to show who was the real boss.[17] Finally a man named Zhu Wen, a deoderant-factory supervisor and part-time call girl,[18] became a powerful jiedushi and overthrew the Tang Dynasty after convincing the last Tang emperor that eating hard, concentrated balls of deoderant as medicine was not lethal and had no detrimental effects in the long-run.
The 'Song' Dynasty (960 - 1279 AD)
The Song Dynasty was founded by Zhao Kuangyin, a Hong Kong actor famed for his brutal martial arts moves. These included cruel tactics such as "Tiger-Who-Claw-Off-Penis" and "Intestine-Reaching-Dragon-Fist-Anal-Stuffing-Power-Punch".[19] Since none of the would-be regional governor-generals (jiedushi) were a match for these tactics, Zhao Kuangyin scared everybody into following him. Thus the Song Dynasty was born, and everyone was forced to wear funny hats.
From 1125 to 1126, the Jurchens from Manchuria started a war by the command of the Japanese mercenary Tom Cruise–"the last Samurai"–against the Chinese Song Dynasty. The Jurchens were temporarily stopped from invading China by Mulan, but she retired from the army after getting a role in a Disney movie. After Mulan retired, the Chinese armies were helpless and died on site once Tom Cruise began spouting his earth-shattering one-liners. That was until the Song Dynasty enlisted the aid of the shaolin monks, who used the powers of the ancient Buddhist sect Bjork to chop off Tom Cruise's balls, thus emasculating the enemy Japanese commander. This is the reason that he is now a scientologist today (believing that this cult holds the cure for his lack of balls and diseased brain uncurable by modern psychiatry). However, the Jurchens conquered the cold, bitter, northern part of China, forcing the Song court to flee south, rubbing their defeat in their face with annual New Year's gift cards reading "Happy New Year, Pussies! I bet you miss the north, don't you bitches?"[20]
The Jurchens' Jin Dynasty was destroyed by the Mongols in 1234 by Genghis Khan when he finally realized that Tom Cruise was too boyishly-good-looking for him. Kublai Khan won over a lot of the southern Chinese in a propaganda campaign with slogans such as "Mongols and Chinese go together like milk and cereal!", clearly an effort to win over the poor people of China by appealing to them through their daily diet.[21] To win over the rich and affluent members of society, the Mongols promised wine, women, silk, and free tickets to see Crouching Walrus, Shitting Dragon, a popular play staged at the time. To force the Song imperial family into submission, Kublai Khan arm wrestled with the Song emperor, betting that if the Song emperor lost he would hand over southern China to Kublai. The Song emperor lost, and was forced to give up southern China, but Kublai promised the emperor that he would grant him the title, Lord of Southern China. (Doesn't the title lord sound so badass?)
The 'Yuan' Dynasty (1279 - 1368 AD)
After Kublai Khan conquered all of China in 1279 and created the Yuan Dynasty, Marco Polo arrives in Beijing and brings with him the inventions of spaghetti, ice cream, and gunpowder. Five years later, after investing in the Joint Venture "Sino-Polo Happy Food and Fireworks Factory", a bankrupt Marco leaves China with all his ideas pirated and distributed freely around China. The Mongol government responds to Venetian protests by saying it was all a "misunderstanding", and Marco "didn't understand the Chinese way".[22]
The Mongol rulers were cruel to the Chinese, forcing them to eat milk and cheese (a no-no in the Chinese diet), celebrate Christmas, greet only by bowing backwards, and forced them to accept Japanese people as their friends and neighbors, an evil sin in Chinese culture. The latter requirement was only stalled once Kublai realized he could not successfully invade Japan by sea, since the Japanese had littered the Sea of Japan with land mines disguised as Hello Kitty lunchboxes, which were just too cute and irresistible not to take. Once the Chinese became tired of Mongol oppression, the iron workers, hydraulic dam workers, and prostitutes' unions began staging protests in demand of higher wages and better working conditions. These led to revolts that the Mongols couldn't quell, since they were too preoccupied with hunting, tent-building, pillaging, and worshipping their chief deity, Chow Yun-Fat.[23]
The 'Ming' Dynasty (1368 - 1644 AD)
The Ming Dynasty was founded by a carriage driver and comic book guru named Zhu Yuanzhang, who joined a Buddhist monastery because all of his neighbors refused to take him in (he rarely washed his asshole).[24] Zhu Yuanzhang joined the Red Turban and Pink Armband Rebellion against the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty in 1352, happy at last that he was able to kill him some Mongols, yee-haw! In the year 1363, Zhu defeated his arch nemesis and fellow rebel leader Chen Youliang in the Battle of Lake Poyang, but only after Chen had made the fatal decision to equip his navy with "Made in China" swords, which turned out to have lead in them, and everyone was poisoned due to the Chinese tradition of licking the sword before battle. Some 600,000 idiots died in this battle because of it.[25] In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang managed to kick out the last remaining Mongols and renamed himself the Hongwu Emperor, or the "Vastly-Obese Emperor".
In 1405, Admiral Zheng He and his men arrive on the east coast of Africa: a feat accomplished 87 years before Columbus discovered America. Zheng He then proceeded to write a letter to the later Portuguese explorers saying "Got here first bitches!"[26] In reality, the Chinese had been sailing to Africa for centuries, but Zheng really wanted to drive the point home, you know?
The Ming Dynasty ended when a border general named Wu Sangui let the Manchu prince Dorgon through at the Shanhai Pass in a treacherous plot that was aided by the future CIA after being bribed. The Manchus stormed Beijing during an internal rebellion and proclaimed the Shunzhi Emperor the new ruler of China; the people who were still loyal to the Ming Dynasty–such as Adam Sandler–decided it was best to commit suicide rather than submit, and so drove their carriages off of a cliff near Beijing while singing "O'Doyle Rules! O'Doyle Rules!"[27]
The 'Qing' Dynasty (1644 - 1912)
After Dorgon helped the Shunzhi Emperor snatch the throne in Beijing, the Qing began a long process of conquering Ming remnants, which ended in 1662 when the Qing army lured to last remaining Ming prince to a Metallica concert which was really a Phil Collins show (as anyone knows, the piercing shrill of Phil Collins' voice kills men, women, children, goats, fish, grass, and bacteria within a twelve mile radius).[28] The Manchus enforced universal dress codes and hairstyles upon the Chinese that were native to the Manchu, such as the Mexican zoot suit and mohawks, which became Chinese stereotypes well into the 1980s.[29] The Qing Dynasty reached its height under the Kangxi (r. 1661–1772), Yongzheng (r. 1722–1735), and Qianlong (r. 1735–1796) emperors, all of whom efficiently ran the empire under a shadow organization of state spies known as the Power Rangers, who could conveniently morph into a Manchu, Chinese, or inconspicuous trashcan at will (those evil bastards!).[30] Evil indeed. Since a lot of Chinese were pissed with the Manchus, the Manchu emperor allowed Han Chinese territories to be govern by Han Chinese governors., but the same emperor also was never potty-trained.
In 1793, Lord MaCartney–a well-known porn celebrity and Austin Powers lookalike in Great Britain–sailed to China and pleaded with the Emperor Qianlong to accept British exports of microwaved vegetarian meals, opium, and kitten huffing products in return for more Chinese tea, which–along with the Sex Pistols–was all the rave back in England. MaCartney's demands weren't met and he returned disheartened to the United Kingdom. However, the British never forgot this slight, and so returned to China in 1840 with a navy led by Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy's navy crushed Chinese resistance once the Chinese realized that their army of bats was no match for Ozzy, who simply bit their heads off and mumbled so low and incoherently due to rabies that Chinese spies listening in could not comprehend his orders. By 1842, faced against powerful slogans like "Keep China British" and "It's time to euthanise the Sick Man of Asia", feeble catchphrases like "Get high on Confucianism!" fails to win the War on Drugs for the Qing government in their efforts to stamp out opium and kitten huffing.[31] In the aftermath, Hong Kong was ceded to the British, and the Chinese vow to seek revenge by bricking the windows of the British Embassy 125 years later.
Modern era (1912 - present)
In 1911, Sun Yat-sen's new Republic ends nearly 5000 years of imaginary imperial rule. The new Chinese Congress promised to eradicate bad and repetitive jokes within the next five years. "China is a developing country" they remind critics.
In 1949, after years of civil war, Japanese invasion, and national humiliation, a giant portrait painting of Chairman Mao gained control of China. The giant poster wielded power through an army of smaller, photocopied, versions of itself, and promises to rid all China of stamps featuring Queen Victoria and placards of Chiang Kai-Shek. The giant poster of Mao is head of the Chinese Communist Party, which at the time was the biggest, and probably the best, Communist Party in the whole world.[32] The drunken, inept, overweight administration of Mao's ping pong tournament enemy Chiang Kai-shek was forced to flee to the island of Taiwan, where he established the Wal-Mart's Republic of China.
In 1950, while a regiment of the People's Liberation Army was really drunk after attending a Mao-Look-Alike celebration, they decided to stumble into Tibet to find some bars to drink at and some Tibetan girls, and woke up the next morning to find they had killed half the population and slept with the other half (including the men). Well, since they were there and had already struck fear into the hearts of the people with their drunken rage, why not occupy the place and build some giant Mao statues there? Mao was told of the events soon after they unfolded on the ground, and he nodded in approval while yawning, scratching his crotch, and flipping the channel from CCP News to The Andy Griffith Show.
In 1958, Chairman Mao began the Great Leap Forward, which quickly leaps to the top of the BBC's All-Time Best Misnamed Political Campaigns, pushing aside old favorites like Hitler's "Great Hanukah Promotion Drive" and Gandhi's "Let's Kick Their Fucking Heads Open".[33]
In 1966, Mao followed his success with "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution". The Chinese foresaw a great travesty to mankind, so they then set out on a campaign to destroy The Four Olds: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Ron Wood. Unfortunately, the hippie movement overtook the Cultural Revolution, and with the death of Mao in 1976 the Chinese were forced to concede that Mozart and Elvis weren't such evil bourgeoisie capitalist pig-dogs afterall.
In 1969, the dreams of Man were realised as Neil Armstrong took his first step on the moon. China responded by stating it too will place a man selling lamb kebabs, t-shirts, and musical lighters. However, US-China relations improved when President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972; warm relations had been spurred between the United States and China since Zhou Enlai and Henry "Kiss Me" Kissinger developed a secret love affair, tickling each other and nibbling on each others' ears, holding each other at night in a long embrace while watching Bruce Lee flicks. Their hideous love affair became the basis for Ang Lee's movie Brokeback Mountain.[34]
On June 4th, 1989, according to the official records of the CCBP (Chinese Communist Block Party), on this day the sun was shining, so Deng Xiaoping decided to have a nice picnic with his friends out in the countryside. On the way home, he saw a cute kid selling homemade lemonade by the roadside, so he bought six glasses for only one yuan each, and then gave the kid a shiny button to take home. Oh, and some student in Tiananmen Square made some graffiti that was cleaned up by authorities soon after. Nothing to see here, nothing to see at all! Move along folks.
In 1997, the comet Hale-Bopp graced the heavens in one of the most beautiful sights ever to appear upon the celestial basin in recent years. Angry that the arrival of the comet was diverting media attention from the upcoming handover of Hong Kong, Deng Xiaoping passed away in a pathetic face-saving attempt to bring global attention back to China.[35] The trick was a success, and none less that Dame Edna Everage himself arrived in Hong Kong to preside over the handover ceremony.
In 2000, Beijing authorities greeted the arrival of the Olympic committee by painting the grass green and removing all the tramps off the streets. Six weeks later, Beijing authorities greeted the arrival of the Eurovision Song Contest committee by painting the grass brown again, bringing the tramps back in, and letting them run wild on crack cocaine.[36]
It's a well known fact that the Chinese invented everything. The Chinese people are proudest however of four great inventions, which they call, "The Four Great Inventions of China." These are 1) gunpowder (which the Chinese mix into their New Year's fireworks to frighten evil human rights activists and Tibetans) 2) the printing press (which they used in turn to invent bureaucracy) 3) Senkousha, and, last but not least, 4) McDonalds. In fact, the real name of McDonalds is not McDonalds at all but, as every Chinese will tell you, "麦当劳" (or Mai Dang Lao in Pinyin), roughly translated as "Eat Here Or We Will Crush Your Souls", which has been always misinterpreted as Microsoft, and legal debates over which company really has the most soul crushing power continued until the year 2078, when Microsoft finally bought out McDonald's in the year that Microsoft finally took over the world.
Lesser-known inventions attributable to the Chinese:
- Formaldehyde or as what we, the normal people, call today as food from China. For over 2000 years, the the People's Republic of China has been exporting ready-to-cook foods to all over the world — which was the real cause of Ireland's Potato Famine and 9/11. Trade with other nations was fair and steady, until an UBER huge plague wreaked havoc on the Chinese food industry and lead to an immense scarcity. The incident made the population to compulsory carve out pig skins, body excrements, and a little egg rolls to produce formaldehyde which is the 10000000000% composition of everything you eat today. Yum!
- The Shanghai Metro opened in 2007 just in time for the Rugby World Cup in South Africa. China's over-60s ladies' team, which trains daily on the Shanghai Metro by forming scrums at train doors shortly before they open, has gone undefeated for 388 games, including one memorable 111-0 victory over the Japanese men's team.
- Astronaut Neil Armstrong, famous for being the first man on the moon, was actually cobbled together with bits of old pinball machines in 643 B.C. by the father of quantum physics, Rui Jing Lu Ni. Following France's lead in presenting The Eiffel Tower (coincidentally, towers were also invented in China) to the USA, Neil was given by China to the USA as a symbol of peace in 1963. Six years later, America put their first man on the moon (which the Chinese had put into orbit 900 years earlier after constructing it from leftover bricks originally meant for the Great Wall).
- Famous Chinese basketballer, Yao Ming, killed two stones with one bird when he went to play basketball in the USA. Not only did his arrival spark the creation of the NBA (National Basketball Association) and the invention of the television, but also led to the creation of the much-vaunted spacetime continuuum.
- Science Fiction was invented in China. The first science fiction hero 'Dr. Hu' appears in ancient Chinese writings from 1650 B.C. some thirty years before the first clock was invented (also in China). Some disbelievers think this actually signifies that China will be the first country to invent a means of time travel and exploit it to reverse engineer inventions before they were invented. Dr. Hu is currently in a secret underground jail cell that is smaller on the inside than it is on the outside; his next regeneration has already been decided by the party.
- Optical Illusions were also invented by the Chinese. The best example of this is the great wall of China which makes China appear to be bigger than it really is. In the 1960's when the US president ordered the invasion of the moon, the first troops there commented on how big China looked with its great wall surrounding all the sweat shops. If only they had looked in the opposite direction they might have noticed the first "Mr Wong's" chinese take-away on the moon (as the Chinese got there 12 years earlier but returned due to a lack of passing trade).
- Anthrax. China seems to have also invented anthrax. However, they say it's powdered milk.
- Glass. China invented glass in 190 B.C., despite evidence to the contrary.
- Guns, when bats were discovered to have explosive diarrhea.
- Block printing, paper currency and also paper; they made a mint off those three.
As of the census of 2007, there were 51,478,229,653,775,206 people, 614,609,874,589,226 households, and 21 families residing in China. The population density was 8,573,389/km² (22,204,975/mi²). The racial makeup of China was 138.72% Chinese (If they aren't Han Chinese, let's make them!), 890% undead monsters, 1337% nunchucks, 94.04% Communist, 1.23% Hong Kongese, 0.1% Minnesotan, 0.0000002% Uighurs (Turks who think they black, but they ain't), 0.00068% Falun Gong and -22.1% Capitalist, 666% Rise Against fans, and 0.00006% from five or more races. 61.32% of the population were Bon Jovi fans of any race. There were so many people so most of the damn lot decided to imigrate to BC, Canada, and be the majority of the population.
There were 14,609,874,589,226 households out of which 14,609,874,589,210 had children under the age of 18 living with them, 14,609,874,589,212 were married couples living together, 2 had a female householder with no husband present, and 14 were non-families. 0.00000005% of all households were made up of individuals and 0.00% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 334,259,880,542,667.89 and the average family size was 335,117.23 despite the "one child per family" rule.
In China the population was spread out with 33.33% under the age of 18, 25.33% from 18 to 24, 4.34% from 25 to 44, 1.25% from 45 to 64, and 35.75% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 117 years. For every 100 females there were 489.53 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 26.23 males.
The median income for a household in the country was $64, and the median income for a family was $51. Males had a median income of $15 versus $0.04 for females. The per capita income for the country was $2.99. 102.85% of the population and 389.56% of families were below the poverty line. 491.25% of those under the age of 18 and 0.13% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line. Special food rations were given out to the Republic of China after the great hippo brother Extethior fed the world with pancake juices with runs the line along Samuel L Jacksons plot to conquer China, but DEUS EX MACHINA occurred.
If every person in China jumped at the same time, all homosexuals would become straight like Cubans, and Hulk Hogan would be able to travel back to when closed timelike curves were allowed in T.V., films and science class. Synchronized jumping has also been known to cause global earthquakes and scientists speculate that early China people may have had something to do with the dragon dinosaur extinction. The people of China to western eyes all appear to be the same (which is why the Chinese know each other as "The Thousand Thousand Same-Look People of Wise Virtue Who no Rikee").
Because all Chinese people look exactly the same, when they encounter someone who is not Chinese they tend to laugh hysterically, point and stare. Since the government forced all Chinese to learn English they will also shout "HARRO", or "Gook maoing" at foreigners. This phenomenon is known as the "HARRO factor" and can lead foreigners to suffer temporary insanity after some time in China.
Foreign opinion on the Chinese population is generally good, though Chinese hate everybody, especially ghosts, people who live in the Republic of China (Taiwanese), and farmers near big cities. But the Russians feel that they are still stuck in the Stalinist Stage (comes right after the Anal Stage), so they feel superior. The Americans may now like them because they learned to love SUV's and pollution, but this is undetermined as no-one has deciphered the meaningless drivel yet, despite the discovery of the Roosevelt Stone in Southern Arkansas. The Japanese are never asked, and rightly so, because no-one speaking English would understand the answer.
Genetic differences to the rest of the world
Recent scientific studies at CERN, under the supervision of noted scientific genius Oscar Wilde, discovered that the Chinese had many genetic differences from other humans. Instead of evolving from regular monkeys, the Chinese evolved from Sun Wukong, thus the reason why the Chinese look so different from other people, and why they are so damn smart! This may also be why they always squint like baboons.
After the economic disaster of the Cultural Revolution, China began to tentative embrace capitalism much like an awkward teen clumsily feels up his first girlfriend. Reformist Deng Xiaoping was misquoted as stating "It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice." In actuality he had said "Do whatever the hell you want, just try not to kill another 50 million people in the span of a few decades!"
Deng's advice worked. China opened its doors, and foreign investment poured into the country. China's economy took off and more people were lifted out of poverty than ever before in human history since the UN clerical error that caused Mexico to briefly dissolve in the summer of 1985.
Due to the robust Chinese economy, the gap between the super poor and the dirt poor is expanding. According to uncited sources at Wikipedia, 80 percent of the Chinese will be only dirt poor, while 10 percent will remain super poor and 10 remain percent hella rich.
The Chinese is economy is much more than low-cost products. Most of the worlds fine and authentic cat and dog furs are manufactured in China. China is also a major producer of bear bile from happy, live black bears for sophisticated medical use as well as the popular Apple iPod. You can also visit the Potala Palace theme park in Tibet Land, the zaniest place that was always and will always be China.
China's neighbors are a varied lot.
- Mongolia, Japan, Nintendo, North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, etc., were all once part of China, (evident because they all look the same and they all say "yokóhuā njèn chǎnghuǎnn zuòdǎng", or something sounding like it). They broke off during the 70s, when the gap between the super poor and ultra poor had grown too wide to reconcile peacefully. The wage difference was almost 3 dollars (Zimbabwean; the currency's projected value in 2164) per-capita per year.
- India is China's only cool neighbor. India attracts a lot of Chinese, with its Hippie-like free-sex have-twenty-children attitude. Most Chinese immigrants get away by calling themselves Assamese.
- Russia has a population-decline problem, and would love Chinese sex-addicts to repopulate it. However, its cold weather and disappointing lack of yellow fever make it uninhabitable for most Chinese. Those who survive typically migrate to Mongolia for reasons that confound modern scientists.
- Afghanistan would like China, its neighbor to the east, to drop nuclear bombs on the United States in retaliation for stealing its oil. Lots of Chinese Afghanistanis are against this idea, but many more Chinese are moving to Afghanistan for this reason.
See also
- ↑ That's right bitch, the Chinese even had Cadillac first, so deal with it. And refer to Joseph Needham's Science and Civilization 4, Part 112, How the Chinese Invented Everything Before the West Did So You Might As Well Get Used To it, Bitch. Printed in 1966 by Cambridge University Press: The Damn Right, You Better Believe That Shit Division.
- ↑ It's well known that Chinese people love to have dirty, foul sex with Japanese tourists; it's a new fetish from Fujian province, try it out! What are you? Some scared little sissy-nanny? I bet you never stuck your mouse in a jar of cheese whiz. If you answer no, that explains everything.
- ↑ Enough of your mom, that is.
- ↑ Incidentally, your mom was there.
- ↑ Trust me, he's the ultimate douchebag.
- ↑ No official comment from Bobcat Goldthwaite, but his lawyer told us to fuck off. Go figure? He seemed pretty cool in all those Police Academy movies; I think he's gone soft, people.
- ↑ Clinton, Bill. (2007). The Art of Daoist Masturbation: How Hillary Won't Pleasure Me Anymore So I Have to Resort To This Shit and Write a Scholarly Journal About It To Pick Up On Some College Girls. Boston: Butt Plug Press. ISBN: Does-Anyone-Even-Check-This-Number?-666-420-Your-Mom-Sucks-Gargoyle-Statue-Cock-For-Coke-449-01-X.
- ↑ I hate to be redundant here, but this includes your Mom; someone had to break it to you, I hope you were sitting down for that one.
- ↑ Otherwise known as "Your A Gay Fag And You'll Never Be As Cool as This" Period. Let's face it, you're a fucking dork, cunt.
- ↑ Does this even need a citation? Where have you been for the last century? Living in a fucking cave, you ignorant pee-brained wastebucket in the bathroom at an Arbys restaurant (that's how low you are, I should know, you've made an ass of yourself on several occasions)? Even the Beatles sing about this in one of their famous songs, The Yellow Submarine Full of Chinese Fart Technology; It's Quite Randy, Baby!
- ↑ Buddha. (504 BC). Confucius was a Snob: How Buddhism Totally Owns His Senile, Erudite Philosophy. New Delhi: The Hindu Nationalist Extremist Press. Page 12.
- ↑ Page 894,549, Footnote B of the ancient Shiji.
- ↑ Sun, Yat-sen. (1922). Legalism and State Terror: Why Qin Shihuangdi is My Sexy Dream-Boat Man Hero. Guangzhou: Poo Poo Platter Press. ISBN 420-666-911-99-Problems-But-A-Bitch-Aint-One-204-X. Page 7.
- ↑ Hu, Jintao. (2004). Li Yuan the Singing Boy: How I Plan To Train My Son To Sing Just Like Li Yuan! Beijing: Heart-of-the-Commie-Beast Press. Page 111.
- ↑ Sima, Guang. (1085). Zizhi Tongjian. Kaifeng: The Kosher Kaifeng Jewish Press. Page 485.
- ↑ He also invaded your Mom's underpants. Oh! Snap son!
- ↑ At this point, even your Mom was a contender for imperial power; she became too busy telling you to get your damn laundry done, though.
- ↑ Jiang, Zemin. (1998). A History of Zhu Wen, the Male Prostitute Who Became an Emperor and Shortly Afterwards the Janitor for the Imperial Palace. Beijing: The People's Cultural Prostitution Revolution Press. Page 234.
- ↑ Zhao, Ziyang. (1995). Zhao Kuangyin: The One Mother Fucker You Should Definitely Stay Away From In a Fist Fight. Taipei: The Mainland-Haters Press. Page 232.
- ↑ Li, Peng. (1996). Enemy Pen Pals: The Juvenile Insults Made by the Song and Jin Courts. Nanjing: We're-Better-Than-Shanghai Press. Page 117.
- ↑ Which also included Big Macs, fried chicken, and caviar, when the latter was still known as a poor man's food.
- ↑ Zhu, Rongji. (2002). Marco Polo is Not Welcome Back to China Until He Realizes That We Will Not Cower Down Before His Capitalist Pig-Dog Demands for Copyrights. Beijing: The People's Liberation from Liberation Press. Page 339.
- ↑ Incidentally, your Mom also worships him, but only his penis.
- ↑ Wen, Jiabao. (2003). Zhu Yuanzhang and His Smelly Asshole. Beijing: The Committee to Investigate the History of Smelly Anuses. Page 445.
- ↑ Like the Japanese guy in the Weird Al movie UHF would say in such a case, "So Stupid!"
- ↑ Hu, Yaobang. (1985). Zheng He and His Non-Stop, Frat-Boy Foreign Slumber Parties of Sex With Exotic Natives In Foreign Devil Places Outside of China. Chongqing: The Mariner's Peg-Leg Press. Page 647.
- ↑ The Chinese movie called Billy Madison (1995) covers this event thoroughly.
- ↑ Collins, Phil. (2008). The Phil Collins Travel Diaries in China: The Chinese Are Just Dying To See Me!. Baghdad: Hang the Infidel By His Ball Sack Press. ISBN 666-The-Devil-X-X-X-9.
- ↑ This style of dress and haircut faded away in China with the arrival of Emo, now the most common form of dress and hairstyle.
- ↑ Be careful, they could morph into your computer at any moment!
- ↑ Chen, Yun. (1994). British Foreign Devils, Evil Manchus, Capitalist Pig-Dogs, and the Opium Temptress. Beijing: The Glorious State Department of Propaganda and Rubber Toys. Page 2.
- ↑ If you don't believe me, go ask your Mom, she had sex with virtually every member of the party in those days.
- ↑ Attenborough, David. (1992). The Boring, Yawning, Terribly-Miserable BBC Documentaries of World Affairs in the 20th Century. London: Goddamn This is Boring Press. Page 11,245.
- ↑ Takeshi, Kaneshiro. (2005). Gay Butt-Sex Love Affairs and Their Effect on Contemporary Chinese Gay Man Culture. Hangzhou: The Fabulous and Well-Dressed Chinese Boy Press. Page 222.
- ↑ Christ, Jesus. (1994). Deng Xiaoping: The Reformer Who Unselfishly Gave His Life and Should Be Revered More Than Me, Jesus, Even to the Extent That He Replace Me On the Image of the Cross. Fuzhou: The People's Hatred for All-Things-Japanese Press. Page 178.
- ↑ Stern, Howard. (2007). Bums, Crack-Whores, Porn-Peddlers, and Midgets: My Visit to China as the Premier Radio Host of American Values. Chicago: The Low-Life Scumbag Good-For-Nothing Press. Page 211.


text: Indian Parties conjure up images of bright colours, dancing and music! Throw a Bollywood inspired party, or have a traditional Indian wedding! Whatever you decide, you can be sure that we have Indian caterers and vendors to provide you with the perfect location, decorations, Henna artists, costumes, dancers, singers and more to create a memorable event! Search here for Indian Parties in your local area.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
After a good long month of too many baked goods, party food and large meals, I wanted to start the new year off with something a little on the lighter side. When I think of light meals I often start thinking of fish and this time I went straight for this roast halibut in a tomato curry sauce inspired by a recipe in a recent edition of Food & Drink magazine. In this dish the fish, I chose halibut, is coated in a simple "curry powder" consisting of garam masala and turmeric and roasted in the oven. The roasted halibut is then served on a very simple and yet tasty tomato curry sauce.
The garam masala gave the halibut a really nice spicy warmth and a great aroma. With each bite, I combined a piece of the halibut along with the curried tomato sauce and the combination worked really well! I served the halibut and tomato curry with a curried cauliflower rice that was perfect for finishing off any extra tomato curry!
Garam Masala Roasted Halibut in a Tomato Curry Sauce
Moist and tender halibut seasoned with garam masala served in a tasty tomato curry sauce.
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 tablespoon garam masala
- 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
- 4 (6 ounce) halibut pieces
- 1 batch tomato curry sauce (see below)
- Mix the oil, garam masala and turmeric.
- Brush the garam masala mixture over the fish and place it in a baking dish and let sit for 20 minutes.
- Roast the halibut in a preheated 450F/230C oven until cooked, about 10-15 minutes. (White juices will appear on the fish when it is cooked.)
- Divide the tomato curry sauce between four plates and place a piece of halibut on top.
Tomato Curry Sauce
A tasty tomato curry sauce that goes great in a lot of dishes.
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 small onion, finely diced
- 1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
- 1 tablespoon ginger, grated
- 2 small green chilies, finely diced
- 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
- 1/2 cup coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted and ground
- 1 teaspoon coriander seeds, toasted and ground
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon garam masala
- 1 handful cilantro, chopped
- Heat the oil in a pan.
- Add the onion and saute until tender, about 5-7 minutes.
- Add the garlic, ginger and green chilies and saute until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Add the tomatoes, coconut milk, cumin, coriander, turmeric, salt and pepper and simmer until the sauce starts to thicken, about 15 minutes.
- Add the garam masala and cilantro and remove from heat.


text:
Josh Beckett (6-14, 4.76) vs Jorge De La Rosa (0-1, 9.45).
Beckett hasn't received enough run support in his tenure as a Dodger, but things should be different today as the NewLook™ Dodger Offense looks to do some damage against De La Rosa, newly recovered from Tommy John surgery. The Cards play the Nats starting at 11:15 PT, so there'll be some scoreboard watching prior to this game. Playoffs? PLAYOFFS!


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When you want to conduct a listening exercise, you need the right listening center. With a listen center, you can provide each student with a personal set of headphones, as everyone listens to the same recording. This arrangement is ideal because it eliminates distractions and promotes focus.
Where can you find quality listening centers? At Hertz Furniture, we know that earphones aren't the only thing you need to create the optimal school listening center. We have excellent wireless boom boxes so you can play CD's or cassettes easily and audio carriers for safe transport as well.
What is a listening center?
Listening centers are useful to have for a number of school applications. They are most commonly used in preschool and kindergarten classes where children listen to books on tape. Classroom listening centers can be an important tool for early childhood literacy, when arranged correctly. Some fun seating and well constructed worksheets combined with the right boombox and headphones can really get kids excited about listening to books on tape and following along with them.
What tools do I need to help my students learn a second language?
Listening centers for classrooms aren't exclusively helpful for young students. If your school tries to bring technology into the classroom as much as possible or teach students a second language, appropriate listening tools will really come in handy. When you have cinematography,music recording seminars or language lab sessions, our comfortable headphones will enable students to focus on the audio input more easily and really get a feel for high-quality sound. Additionally, if a whole group of students is listening to one recording at the same time, a listen center enables you to use just one device, saving you money and hassle.
Why does my school need headphones?
There are many reasons why a school needs headphones. When the choir or orchestra is recording, individual headsets enable each musician to hear the other parts of the harmony more clearly, so their parts can be accurately timed. This tool is also convenient to have in a language lab where students need to practice having conversations through simulated scenarios. When the whole class listens to something as it is played on speakers, they are more likely to become distracted and the sound might be distorted. However, when each student has their own set of earphones, everyone is more likely to pay attention.
Should I get a listening center for the office?
There are many professional settings in which a listening center can be quite useful. When you are running training seminars that have an audio component, they give every participant optimal sound quality while not requiring you to provide individual devices. This can be especially helpful when conducting initial qualifying tests or seminars in fields such as transcription and customer service. Any time a group of people needs to listen to a recording together, a listen center can come in handy.
What kind of headphones are good for school?
Not all head phones are ideal for use in an educational or professional environment. When multiple people are using the same headset, especially when those people are children, there is a risk that lice and germs will be spread. Hamilton Buhl headphones are the ideal choice for shared audio equipment because they come with individual storage bags that kill lice and prevent it from spreading. As an additional precaution, the bags can be individually-labeled with students' names for hygiene purposes.
There are many additions to the basic earphone design that can greatly enhance a listener's experience. Luxurious leather ear pads reduce pressure on the ears and provide soft cushioning which facilitates comfortable listening. Some headphones include individual built-in volume adjustments so each listener can set the volume at the tone that is most pleasant to them.
Headsets aren't the only thing you need for listening exercises. When you want to play a song or recording out loud, a CD and cassette player can be quite helpful. We carry a high-quality battery-operated boom box from OSC. This convenient tool makes it easy to use music in the educational environment, whether you are conducting class listening exercises or you just want some background music to help students concentrate as they work.
Where can I store listening center materials?
When you have multiple sets of headphones, you need a good place to keep them. The audio-carrier from Wood Designs can store headsets and CDs all in one eco-friendly all-natural caddy. Unlike a regular box or crate where wires and devices can easily get tangled up, this convenient solution keeps everything lined up in an organized fashion.
At Hertz Furniture we know how much the right equipment can contribute to the experience of your students and employees. Our earphones, listening centers and boom boxes are designed to facilitate the ideal audio experience in a classroom or seminar. Show students, employees and clients just how modern your institution is with great audio equipment from Hertz Furniture.


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This is historical material "frozen in time". The website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work.
The White House
Office of the First Lady
For Immediate Release
February 11, 2014
Expected Attendees at Tonight's State Dinner
Below is a list of expected attendees at tonight's State Dinner. Additional details about the State Dinner are available HERE.
THE PRESIDENT and MRS. OBAMA
Mr. J.J. Abrams, Pacific Palisades, CA
Ms. Katie McGrath
The Honorable Stacey Abrams, House Minority Leader (Georgia)
Mr. Ben Jealous
Ms. Jill Abramson, The New York Times, New York, NY
Mr. William Woodson
Mr. Charles Adams, Jr., Washington, DC
General Keith Alexander, Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, Director of the National Security Agency, and Chief of the Central Security Service
Mrs. Debbie Alexander
Mr. Peter G. Angelos, Baltimore, MD
Mrs. Georgia Angelos
Mr. Kader Arif, Minister Delegate for Veterans Affairs, French Republic
The Honorable Caroline Atkinson, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs
Mr. Geoffrey Boyd Lamb
Ms. Jennifer Bado-Aleman, Gaithersburg, MD
Mr. Frank Skinner
Mr. Caleb Ballew, Huntsville, AL
Mrs. Kourtney Ballew, Huntsville, AL
Mr. Dan Barber, New York, NY
Mr. David Barber
The Honorable Karen Bass, United States Representative (California)
Ms. Barbara Jordan
Mr. Terrence Bean, Portland, OR
Mr. Robert Iwasaki
The Honorable Katie Beirne Fallon, Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Legislative Affairs
Mr. Brian Fallon
Mr. Joel Benenson, New York, NY
Mrs. Lisa Benenson, New York, NY
The Honorable Michael Bennet, United States Senator (Colorado)
Ms. Susan Daggett
Mrs. Andrea Bernstein, New York, NY
Mr. Tom Bernstein
Mr. Peter Beshar, Rye, NY
Mrs. Sarah Beshar
The Honorable Steven Beshear, Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky
Mrs. Jane Beshear
The Honorable Joseph Biden, Jr., Vice President of the United States
Dr. Jill Biden
Mr. Robert Hunter Biden, Washington, DC
Mrs. Kathleen Biden
Ms. Mary J Blige, Saddle River, NJ
Mr. Kendu Isaacs
The Honorable Tony Blinken, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor
The Honorable Evan Ryan, Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Mr. Joseph Blount, Miami Beach, FL
Ms. Katherine Blount
Mrs. Nicole Bricq, Minister for Foreign Trade, French Republic
The Honorable William Burns, Deputy Secretary of State
Ms. Lisa Ann Carty
The Honorable Sylvia Burwell, Director of the Office of Management and Budget
Mr. Steve Burwell
The Honorable Eric Cantor, House Majority Leader (United States House of Representatives)
The Honorable Jay Carney, Assistant to the President and Press Secretary
Ms. Claire Shipman
Mr. Jim Chanos, New York, NY
Ms. Crystal A Connors
Mr. Brian Cladoosby, LaConner, WA
Mrs. Nina Cladoosby
The Honorable James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence
Mrs. Susan Clapper
The Honorable Max Cleland, Secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission
Mrs. Linda Dean
Mr. Steve Clemons, The Atlantic, Washington, DC
Mr. Andrew Oros
The Honorable David L. Cohen, Philadelphia, PA
Mrs. Rhonda Cohen
The Honorable David Cohen, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, U.S. Department of the Treasury
Mrs. Suzy Cohen
Mr. Stephen Colbert, New York, NY
Mrs. Evie Colbert
Ms. Joanna Coles, Cosmopolitan Magazine, New York, NY
Mr. Peter Godwin
Mr. Jason Collins, Los Angeles, CA
Mr. Brunson Green
Mr. Jean-Marie Colombani, JMC Media, French Republic
Mr. Marcello Conviti, Carmat, French Republic
Mr. Bradley Cooper, New York, NY
Ms. Suki Waterhouse
Mr. James Crane, Houston, TX
The Honorable Danielle Crutchfield, Assistant to the President and Director of Scheduling and Advance
The Honorable Elijah Cummings, United States Representative (Maryland)
Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings
Mr. Philippe Dauman, New York, NY
Mrs. Deborah Dauman
His Excellency François Delattre, Ambassador of the Republic of France to the U.S.
Mrs. Sophie L'Hélias Delattre
General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Mrs. Diane Dempsey
Mr. Stéphane Distinguin, Cap Digital, French Republic
Dr. Karen Donfried, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs
Mr. Alan Untereiner
The Honorable Mike Donilon, Alexandria, VA
Mrs. Trish Donilon
Mr. Roland Du Luart, Senator from Sarthe, President of the Franco-American Friendship Committee, French Republic
Mrs. Shefali Duggal, San Francisco, CA
Mr. Rajat Duggal
Mr. Ken Ehrlich, Westlake Village, CA
Mrs. Harriet Ehrlich
His Excellency Laurent Fabius, Minister for Foreign Affairs, French Republic
Mr. Matthias Fekl, Representative of the National Assembly, French Republic
Mrs. Genevière Fioraso, Minister for Higher Education and Research, French Republic
Mr. Ken Fisher, Rockville, MD
Mrs. Tammy Fisher
The Honorable Anthony Foxx, Secretary of Transportation
Mrs. Samara Foxx
Mr. Ken Frazier, Whitehouse Station, NJ
Mrs. Andrea Frazier
The Honorable Michael Froman, U.S. Trade Representative
Ms. Nancy Goodman
The Honorable Jason Furman, Chairman, Council of Economic Advisors
Ms. Eve A. Gerber, Washington, DC
Mr. Mark Gallogly, New York, NY
Ms. Elizabeth Strickler
Mr. Pierre Gattaz, President of MEDEF, French Republic
Ms. Thelma Golden, New York, NY
Mr. Duro Olowu
Mr. John Goldman, Atherton, CA
Mrs. Marcia Goldman
Ms. Julianna Goldman, Bloomberg News, New York, NY
Mr. Michael Gottlieb
The Honorable Philip H Gordon, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region
Mrs. Rachel Gordon
The Honorable Danielle Gray, Assistant to the President and Cabinet Secretary
Ms. Jaunique Sealey
The Honorable Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Defense
Ms. Allyn Hagel
Ms. Laura G Haim, Canal Plus and I-Tele French TV, Washington, DC
Mr. Ara Aprikian
The Honorable William Haslam, Governor of the State of Tennessee
Mrs. Crissy Haslam
Mr. Samuel Heins, Wayzata, MN
Ms. Stacey Mills
Mr. Jean-Paul Herteman, Safran, French Republic
The Honorable Heather Higginbottom, Deputy Secretary of State
Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy
The Honorable Eric Holder, Jr., United States Attorney General
Dr. Sharon Malone
The Honorable John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology
Dr. Patricia Falcone, Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs
Mrs. Laura Holgate, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for WMD Terrorism and Threat Reduction
Dr. Rick Holgate
Mr. Steve Holland, Reuters, Alexandria, VA
Mrs. Lucie Holland
Mr. Jean-Paul Huchon, Paris Region President, French Republic
Mr. Irwin Jacobs, La Jolla, CA
Mrs. Joan Jacobs
Mr. Jean-Marc Janaillac, Transdev, French Republic
The Honorable Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement
Mr. Paul Jean-Ortiz, Diplomatic Advisor to the President, French Republic
The Honorable Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Interior
The Honorable Mike Connor, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner
The Honorable Jeh Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security
Dr. Susan DiMarco
The Honorable Kevin Johnson, Mayor of the City of Sacramento
Ms. Michelle Rhee
Mr. Hubert Joly, Richfield, MN
Ms. Natalie Jones, Acting Chief of Protocol, U.S. Department of State
Justice Elena Kagan, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Ms. Mindy Kaling, Universal City, CA
Ms. Jocelyn Leavitt
Ms. Roberta Kaplan, New York, NY
Ms. Rachel Lavine
The Honorable Cody Keenan, Assistant to the President and Director of Speechwriting
Ms. Kristen Bartoloni
The Honorable Patrick F. Kennedy, Under Secretary for Management, U.S. Department of State
Ms. M. Elizabeth Swope
The Honorable John Kerry, Secretary of State
The Honorable Leslie Kiernan, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President
Mr. Paul Kiernan
The Honorable Ronald Klain, Chevy Chase, MD
Ms. Monica Medina
Ms. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund
Mrs. Anne Lauvergeon, Chairwoman of "Innovation 2030" Committee, French Republic
Mr. Jonathan Lavine, Weston, MA
Ms. Emily Lavine
Mr. Jean-Yves Le Gall, CNES, French Republic
The Honorable Patrick Leahy, President Pro Tempore (United States Senate)
Mrs. Marcelle Leahy
Mr. Frédéric Lefebvre, Representative of the National Assembly, French Republic
Ms. Corine Lesnes, Le Monde, Paris, France
Mr. John Ruddy
The Honorable Jack Lew, Secretary of the Treasury
Dr. Ruth Schwartz
Dr. Tara Leweling, Director for NATO and European Affairs, National Security Council Staff
Mr. Harun Dogo
Ms. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Mt. Kisco, NY
Mr. William Louis-Dreyfus
Mr. Emmanuel Macron, Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, French Republic
Ms. Kathy Manning, Greensboro, NC
Mr. Randall Kaplan
The Honorable Alyssa Mastromonaco, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations
The Honorable Denis McDonough, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff
Mrs. Kari McDonough
Mr. Cappy McGarr, Dallas, TX
Mrs. Janie McGarr
Mr. Raymond McGuire, New York, NY
Ms. Crystal McCrary
The Honorable Brian McKeon, Deputy Assistant to the President, and Executive Secretary and Chief of Staff for the National Security Council Staff
Ms. Lizabeth Tankersley
Mr. Eliseo Medina, La Canada-Flintridge, CA
Ms. Arcelia Rocio Saenz
Ms. Constance Milstein, Washington, DC
Mr. Jehan Christophe de la Haye St. Hilaire
Ms. Nicola Miner, San Francisco, CA
Mr. Robert Mailer Anderson
The Honorable Lisa Monaco, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Deputy National Security Advisor
Mr. Mark Monaco
The Honorable Ernest Moniz, Secretary of Energy
Mrs. Naomi Moniz
Mr. Bobby Monks, Portland, ME
Mr. Arnaud Montebourg, Minister for Industrial Renewal, French Republic
Mr. Aquilino Morelle, Political Advisor to the President, French Republic
Mr. Pierre Moscovici, Minister for Economy and Finance, French Republic
Mr. Bruce Mosler, New York, NY
Mr. Willard Freeman
The Honorable Cecilia Muñoz, Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council
Mr. Amit A. Pandya
Mr. Elon Musk, Los Angeles, CA
Mrs. Talulah Musk
Mr. Pierre Nanterme, Accenture, French Republic
Ms. Karen Narasaki, Washington, DC
Mr. Vivek Malhotra
The Honorable Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Mr. Robert Kagan
The Honorable Michael Nutter, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia
Mrs. Lisa Nutter
Mr. Kevin F. O'Malley, St. Louis, MO
Mrs. Dena O'Malley
Ms. Julie Pace, Associated Press, Washington, DC
Mr. Michael Ferenczy
The Honorable Jennifer Palmieri, Assistant to the President and Communications Director
Mr. James Lyons
Mrs. Fleur Pellerin, Minister Delegate for SMEs, Innovation and the Digital Economy, French Republic
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Leader (United States House of Representatives)
Mrs. Jacqueline Kenneally
Mr. Fabien Penone, Deputy Diplomatic Advisor to the President, French Republic
Mr. Guillaume Pepy, SNCF, French Republic
The Honorable Tom Perez, Secretary of Labor
Ms. Ann Marie Staudenmaier
The Honorable Dan Pfeiffer, Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor
Mr. Richard Plepler, New York, NY
Mrs. Lisa Plepler
The Honorable John Podesta, Counselor to the President
Mrs. Mary Podesta
The Honorable Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative the United Nations
Mr. Cass Sunstein
The Honorable Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Commerce
Mr. Nicholas Pritzker
General Benoît Puga, Military Advisor to the President, French Republic
Mr. Tangi Quéméner, Agence France-Presse, Bethesda, MD
Ms. Anne Porquet
Ms. Azita Raji, Tiburon, CA
Mr. Gary Syman
The Honorable Stephanie C Rawlings-Blake, Mayor of the City of Baltimore
Mr. Kent Blake
The Honorable Ben Rhodes, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting
Ms. Ann Norris
The Honorable Steven Ricchetti, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the Vice President
Mrs. Amy Ricchetti
The Honorable Susan Rice, Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor
Mr. Ian Cameron
Mrs. Claudine Ripert-Landler, Press Advisor, French Republic
Mr. Charles H Rivkin, Washington, DC
Ms. Susan Tolson
Mrs. Rachel Robinson, New York, NY
Mr. Norman Siegel
The Honorable Harold Rogers, United States Representative (Kentucky)
Mrs. Cynthia Rogers
Mr. James Roosevelt, Jr., Cambridge, MA
Mrs. Ann Roosevelt
Mrs. Laura Ross, New York, NY
Mr. James Ross
Mr. Alain Rousset, Aquitaine Region President, French Republic
The Honorable Edward Randall Royce, United States Representative (California)
Mrs. Marie Royce, Washington, DC
The Honorable Kathy Ruemmler, Assistant to the President and Counsel to the President, Washington, DC
Ms. Margaret-Angèle Russell, New York, NY
Mr. Robert Kaplan
The Honorable Paul Ryan, United States Representative (Wisconsin)
Mrs. Janna Ryan
Mr. Lee Saunders, Washington, DC
Mrs. Lynne Saunders
Mrs. Barbara Schmidt, Boca Raton, FL
Mr. Richard Schmidt
The Honorable Charles Schumer, United States Senator (New York)
Ms. Iris Weinshall
Mr. Pete Selleck, Greenville, SC
Mrs. Nancy Selleck
The Honorable Thomas A. Shannon, Jr., Counselor to the Secretary of State
Mrs. Maria Shannon
Reverend Alfred Sharpton, New York, NY
Ms. Aisha I. McShaw
Mrs. Beth Shaw, New York, NY
Ms. Rebecca Shaw
The Honorable Wendy Sherman, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Mr. Bruce Stokes
The Honorable Liz Sherwood-Randall, Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for Defense Policy, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Arms Control
Dr. Jeffrey Randall
The Honorable Peter Shumlin, Governor of the State of Vermont
Ms. Sarah Schmidt
The Honorable David Simas, Assistant to the President and Deputy Senior Advisor for Communications and Strategy
Ms. Shauna McCarty
Ms. Liz Simons, Atherton, CA
Mr. Mark Heising
Mrs. Sarah Smiley, Bangor, ME
Commander Dustin Smiley
Mr. Chuck Smith, Jr., Winnetka, IL
Mrs. Melissa Smith
Mr. Keith Smith, Ashland, VA
Mr. Burton Smith
Mr. Michael Smith, Los Angeles, CA
Ms. Natalie Massenet
Ms. Kim Snow, Thorton, PA
Mr. James Snow
Mr. Kenneth Solomon, Pacific Palisades, CA
Mrs. Melissa Solomon
Mr. Arne Sorenson, Bethesda, MD
Mrs. Ruth Sorenson
The Honorable Gene Sperling, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council
Mr. Rick Sperling
Ms. Alexandra Stanton, New York, NY
Ms. Domna Stanton
Mr. Laurent Stefanini, Chief of Protocol, French Republic
Mr. Randall Stephenson, Dallas, TX
Mrs. Lenise Stephenson
Mr. David Stern, New York, NY
Mrs. Dianne Stern
The Honorable Todd Stern, United States Special Envoy for Climate Change
Ms. Jennifer Klein
Mrs. Jane Stetson, Norwich, VT
Mr. Bill Stetson III
Mr. Mark Taplin, Charge d'Affaires ad interim at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, France
Ms. Kathy Kavalec
The Honorable Tina Tchen, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the First Lady
Mr. Benoit Thieulin, Digital National Committee President, French Republic
Mr. Andrew Tobias, New York, NY
Ms. Marie Brenner
Ms. Cicely Tyson, New York, NY
Mr. Reginald Austin Henry
The Honorable David Wade, Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State
Ms. Elizabeth Alexander
The Honorable Debbie Wasserman Schultz, United States Representative (Florida)
Mr. Steven Schultz
Mr. Frank White, Jr., Washington, DC
Mr. William Kirk
Ms. Edith Windsor, New York, NY
Ms. Julie Milligan
Mr. Richard Winter, Auriga USA
Mrs. Alexandra Winter
Mr. Jeff Zucker, CNN, New York, NY
Mrs. Caryn Zucker


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From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...There are few desserts as easy to make as this one. It really is child's play and it's a perfect recipe for budding cooks to try. Several weeks ago, I promised I'd share the better of the recipes I was collecting for my grandsons with you. This simple pie is one of them. Lots of folks claim credit for it, but I suspect the recipe originally came from the Jello (Kraft) test kitchens. Whatever its origins, the recipe is nearly foolproof and it's perfect for the kids to work with. It makes a nice summer dessert that I thought you might also enjoy while fresh raspberries are in season. The trick to this, of course, is the berries. They should be fully ripe, yet firm enough to hold their shape. Anything less than that and you'll be wasting your time and probably speaking ill of my ancestors. I've also found that the gelatin mixture must be at room temperature before it is poured over the berries. If you are making the pie with children it's best to follow the recipe exactly as it's written. If you are making it by yourself, remove 1 to 2 teaspoons of the gelatin before you stir it into the cornstarch mixture. I'm not a fan of rubbery desserts and the trick here is discovering how much gelatin you actually need to set the pie. While I remove 2 teaspoons, it's probably best to start with just one. The only thing worse than a rubbery pie is one that won't set. Be careful. Children aren't mindful of this and they'll be really pleased with their results. The pie is a beautiful garnet color and it's quite tasty. Bill Cosby would approve. Here's the recipe.
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 cup water
1 package (3 ounces) raspberry gelatin
4 cups fresh raspberries
1 graham cracker crust (9 inches)
1) Combine sugar, cornstarch and water in a small saucepan, stirring until smooth. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook and stir for about 2 minutes, or until thickened. Remove from heat. Add gelatin and stir until dissolved. Cool for at least 15 minutes.
2) Place raspberries in crust; slowly pour gelatin mixture over berries. Chill until set, about 3 hours. Yield: 6-8 servings.
One Year Ago Today: Lavender Sugar Butter and Salad Dressing
Two Years Ago Today: Mellow Yellow
You might also enjoy these recipes:
Raspberry Cream Cheese Muffins - Food and Whine
Raspberry Parfait- Almond Corner
Raspberry Brownies - Peanut Butter Boy
Raspberry Roulade - Jaana's Kitchen
Frozen Raspberry Pie - Back to the Cutting Board


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Sen. Marco Rubio has a problem. He has transformed from conservative hero to suspect in the eyes of many on the political right because he now supports "a path to citizenship" for people unlawfully in the U.S. after forcefully opposing it in 2010 when he was running for U.S. Senate.
The senator from Florida, who's considered to be a potential Republican presidential candidate, has tried to gloss over the shift. Unfortunately, he's getting called on it. By Factcheck.org. And by many conservatives, like those who booed his name when it was mentioned at a Tea Party rally this week on Capitol Hill. Or Ann Coulter, who said Friday the Senate shouldn't take up immigration until it becomes a Rubio-free body. Former Republican Rep. Allen West is even saying he might give Rubio a primary challenge over his immigration shift.
If Rubio does decide to make the run for president, he will certainly be attacked not only as a flip-flopper but for supporting a policy that's anathema to many conservatives. So, what's a senator to do?
Rubio has a few options, though they all have risks. Here are some possible approaches:
The people made me do it: Rubio could always say he decided to change his position to more accurately reflect the desires of his Florida constituency.
A Quinnipiac University poll released this week indicated that 58 percent of those surveyed agreed with the "path to citizenship" approach while 12 percent said people in the U.S. unlawfully should be allowed to stay, but not given citizenship. Only 24 percent were of the deport or self-deport persuasion.
Even among Florida Republicans, nearly half, 47 percent, supported a citizenship path with 15 percent being willing to let those here unlawfully stay but without allowing them to become citizens.
So Rubio could say he's merely trying to more faithfully reflect the views of Floridians. Isn't that what a lawmaker is supposed to do in a representative democracy?
The downside: This approach could open Rubio up to criticism that he's led by the polls. And few politicians are willing to openly admit that polling impacts their policy positions.
I've seen the light: This is where Rubio could borrow a page from Abraham Lincoln. In his response to journalist Horace Greeley, who harassed the 16th president for not being all-in on abolition, Lincoln famously said: "I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views."
Rubio could do a Lincoln and say his 2010 position on providing a path to citizenship was one such error. As a Republican, he could even cite Lincoln, the first Republican president, with some justification.
The downside: By conceding he was wrong before, Rubio would also be saying that many conservatives who hold his former position are wrong now.
He's already angered many in the party, so why add even more? Telling the voters who make up your party's base that they've got the policy exactly backward is a sure way to invite a Senate primary challenge, not to mention damage your fortunes in Iowa and some other early presidential election states where the base is very conservative.
Stand put: Rubio could go with the status quo, whistling past the reality that he has dramatically changed his position on the path-to-citizenship concept. In other words, he could tough it out.
Mitt Romney proved you can get the GOP nomination even though you take a position during your presidential run (i.e., anti-individual mandates in health care) you once supported.
The downside: While Romney captured the nomination, even then many conservatives never truly trusted him. Rubio could face something similar. Tweets with "Rubio" and "traitor" and "RINO" are already popping up with regularity.
Also, Romney was able to finesse the issue by saying he was against big, bad federal mandates, not state ones. It's difficult to see how Rubio could do a Romney on this one. He can't resort to the federal-state differences when it comes to providing a path to citizenship.
Whichever path he takes, Rubio can be certain that he will continue to be hammered by conservatives who actually took his 2010 words at face value when he said he always had and always would oppose what they call "amnesty."
Partly based on that position, conservatives and the Tea Party helped put him in the Senate. The ones who feel burned seem determined to make sure they're not the only ones who get singed in the deal.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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I had so much fun making the stuffed grape leaves that I wanted to do another stuffed dish. Stuffed cabbage leaves had been on my "to try" list for a while and I had a few recipes bookmarked. The one that stood out the most was Peter's cabbage rolls with avgolemono sauce. These stuffed cabbage rolls were pretty similar to the stuffed grape leaves but that was alright because they were so good. I really enjoy the combination of flavours in this dish. Dill, feta and lemon go so well together and the mint brightens everything up a bit. It was fun trying to peel the leaves off of the hot cabbage but otherwise the recipe was pretty easy. The lahanodolmades turned out to be really tasty! The cabbage leaves were juicy and tender. The rolls held together well though they were easy to cut or bit into.
What I liked most about making this dish was that I really nailed the avgolemono sauce this time. Although my previous avgolemono sauces have tasted good, they did not thicken up as much as I was hoping for. This time I whisked the avgolemono sauce in a double boiler and it thickened up really nicely. The avgolemono sauce was light and frothy and lemony good.
Lahanodolmades (Stuffed Cabbage)
- 1 cabbage (cored)
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1 onion (chopped)
- 4 cloves garlic (chopped)
- 1 pound lean ground beef (or lamb)
- 1/2 cup Arborio rice
- 1/4 cup tomato puree
- 1/2 cup feta (crumbled)
- 1 lemon (zest)
- 1 bunch of green onions (sliced)
- 1/4 cup dill (chopped)
- 1/4 cup mint (chopped)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- * chicken stock
- 2 eggs
- 1 lemon (juice)
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil with some salt.
- Carefully place the head of cabbage into the water and boil for 10-15 minutes. The leaves should be a little see through and they should come off easily without ripping.
- Drain the water and carefully peel the leaves off one by one removing the thick part of the rib of each leaf.
- Heat the oil in a pan.
- Add the onion and saute until tender, about 5-7 minutes.
- Add the garlic and saute until fragrant, about 1 minute and remove from heat.
- Mix the onions, garlic, ground beef, rice, tomato puree, feta, lemon zest, green onions, dill, mint salt and pepper in a large bowl.
- Place a cabbage leaf on a flat surface with the vein side up.
- Place a tablespoon of filling in the middle of the leaf and fold the sides over the filling and roll the leaf up. Repeat until all of the filling is used up.
- Place stuffed leaves into a baking dish in layers and just cover with chicken stock.
- Bake in a 375F/190C oven for about 1 hour.
- Whisk the eggs in bowl over a small pan of simmering water until frothy, about 3 minutes.
- Slowly pour in the lemon juice while whisking.
- Add some of the liquid from the baking dish and continue whisking until it thickens.
- Mix most of the avgolemono sauce into the dish with the wraps reserving some for garnish.
- Serve garnished with the reserved avgolemono sauce and some chopped dill and or mint.


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Bits of lore Crossword Clue Answers .
This clue first appeared on September 7, 2023 at USATODAY Crossword Puzzle, it can appear in the future with a new answer. Depending on where you visit this clue site, you should check the entire list of answers and try them one by one to solve your UsaToday clue.
BITS OF LORE Crossword Answer
USATODAY Crosswords are very entertaining to play and their daily puzzle is solved by us accurately. To get USATODAY Crossword Answers Today, May 22 2024 open the link.


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Mr. Speaker, `Dogs have more freedom than us; at least they are not afraid to go outside.' Mr. Speaker, this is the conclusion of a young Romani father in Slovakia who recounted his experience with growing skinhead violence in his country. His story is, regrettably, just one of the many documented in a January 1997 report prepared by the European Roma Rights Center [ERRC] entitled `Time of the Skinheads: Denial and Exclusion of Roma in Slovakia.' This study describes a grim pattern of violent assaults against Roma perpetrated by skinhead extremists; it also suggests that local police forces have been, at best, unwilling to fulfill their obligation to protect their citizens and, at worst, have themselves actually engaged in violence against Roma.
Descriptions of a 1995 organized attack on the entire Romani community in the town of Jarovnice–something that reads like a pogrom from a bygone era–were especially chilling. Since Slovakia became an independent state in 1993, a great deal of international attention has, rightly, focused on the status of the Hungarian minority in that country, a community that makes up approximately 10 percent of the population. Slovakia also has another large minority population which is less well known abroad. While the exact number of Roma in Slovakia is contested, it is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. These people, the survivors of Nazi efforts to eradicate the Roma altogether, now face increasing violent attacks against their homes, their villages, and their lives.
The problems of Roma in post-Communist European countries are many, and often defy easy answers. But at least three of the problems described in `Time of the Skinheads' do have obvious solutions. First, the Slovak Government has failed to demonstrate any serious effort to acknowledge and address the widespread problem of violent skinhead attacks on Roma. On the contrary, some public officials, members of the ruling coalition, have repeatedly made crude racist remarks about the Roma. As long as such remarks stand uncontested or unchallenged by Prime Minister Meciar, skinheads will believe that they can attack Roma with impunity. Clearly, local police officials take their cues from the top. Accordingly, any improvement in the situation of Roma in Slovakia must begin with the leadership of that country stating that racism and bigotry will not be tolerated.
Second, the ERRC report described a pattern of excessive use of force by the police against Roma. When the victims seek to bring a complaint against the police, the charges are, in effect, reversed and the Rom is charged with assaulting the police. Significantly, the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture released a report on April 3, which also documented a problem of police brutality in Slovakia. That report, like the report of the ERRC, noted that the failure to ensure that those charged with a criminal offense have adequate legal representation has significantly contributed to this miscarriage of justice. One of the purposes of providing such representation is to guarantee a fair trial, consistent with the due process of law, and to ensure that those accused of crimes do not have confessions extracted from them by force. The failure to provide the accused with defense counsel violates one of the most important provisions of the international human rights system: the right to an attorney, a right articulated in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as paragraph 5.16 of the OSCE Copenhagen Document. I hope the Slovak Government will take immediate measures to redress this problem.
Finally, the ERRC report on Slovakia indicates that Slovak localities continue to use a system of tightly controlled residency permits to restrict the freedom of movement of Roma. Not only does this practice offend the nondiscrimination provisions of the Helsinki process, this system also harkens back to the rigid controls of the Communist days. If people are not permitted to move where jobs are, how can a free market system flourish?
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this pattern of violence against Roma is not unique to Slovakia. The ERRC, which was founded to defend the human rights of Roma, has also issued major reports on Austria and Romania. In addition, its most recent newsletter reported on problems Roma face in several other European countries. Clearly, there is much more that many governments in Central Europe can and should do to address these problems. I realize that Slovakia is in the midst of grappling with a very broad range of fundamental questions regarding its development and future. The basic human rights of Roma should be a part of that agenda. I see no better time. Will Slovakia enter the 21st century as a country which seeks to unite its citizens in achieving common goals, or will it lag behind with those countries which have permitted nationalism and racism to divide their people and weaken the very state they worked so hard to create?


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Sozo Chiropractic believes in the value of wellness care for you and your family and have maintained a pricing structure that allows affordable care for all. We accept all major credit cards, (including HSA/FSA cards), cash, and checks. To learn more about our payment options for chiropractic and wellness care, you can call our office directly.
Time of Service Pricing
Sozo Chiropractic is not in network with any insurance, but we trust that our affordable time-of-service pricing structure will fit your family's needs! Our patients pay directly for care, as they discover chiropractic to be extremely cost-effective and affordable.
Family Plans
Our focus at Sozo Chiropractic is to actively help you and your family in taking responsibility for your health, wellness, and disease management. We assist and guide you to take the time to care for the important people in your world: you and your family. In an effort to make living the wellness lifestyle as easy and affordable as possible, we offer family plan discounts.
Health on a Budget
At Sozo Chiropractic, we're convinced that a small amount of your time and money to care for your most important asset--your health--will be far less time consuming and expensive than trying to recover it. If you feel you do not have enough time or money to take care of yourself, please contact us--we can help! The last thing we want is for you to come to our wellness center in crisis. So please, we would like to encourage you to take your health very seriously. As the old saying goes, if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. Unfortunately, too many people don't discover how true that statement is until it is too late.


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So will Pabrick.
And wait'll he hears about his promotion!
I'm not sure if I should salute or cross myself.
Now, there's a stereotype floating around that we Irish like to drink.
I don't know where this comes from.
And frankly, if I were able to see straight or type this without developing motion sickness, I'd be extremely offended. [hic]
Hey, look! A green golf bag! How appropriate!
[head tilt]
Wait, no. That's Scotland. Sorry. I always get Craig Ferguson and Colin Farrell mixed up.
That's Scotland again, isn't it?
Don't believe me? Well, consider this: all of these guys are Irish:
"Aye, yore a pritty one, ar'ntcha?"
"Heh aheh hehehe."
"Forget those lucky charms, lass, I've got yore pot o' gold right here!"
Yep, we Irish can be a bit creepy. It's part of our charm.
Rock on, Colin. Rock. On.


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"A bitter night for young Clayton Kershaw, but it's all part of the growing process." --Vin Scully
Clayton Kershaw has a disastrous second inning, getting only one out while giving up seven runs across eight batters, upon which our remaining Ortiz (Ramon) promptly tacks two more runs to make it a 12-batter, nine-run frame. The Dodgers eke out a couple of meager runs in the fifth and one in the sixth, all off of sacrifices. And James Loney made it a little more interesting with a two-out, three-run homer in the eighth. But the fact remains, we are behind the eight-ball if we want to keep our streak of home-series wins alive.
But watching those first seven innings tonight, with the Dodgers going down with whimpers, it was almost like yesterday's off-day put the entire team to sleep. Especially Reed Johnson and his .271 average at leadoff doesn't exactly provide a spark (Johnson went 0-for-4; to be fair, Xavier Paul came in to PH and promptly struck out). Also sleeping in the two-hole is Russell Martin, who started the year quickly but hasn't had a multi-hit game in his last 10 outings (watching his average plummet from .333 to .244; now with five hits in his last 38 at-bats).
Watching the Dodgers play so lethargically tonight almost made it seem like watching an underwater fight scene...
Earlier: 'Straightening Things Up', 'There Is A Loft Upstairs. You Can Use That Firepole.', 'I Know A Little German', 'He's Just A Little Horse'


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What is labor?
Labor is a series of continuous, progressive contractions of the uterus which help the cervix to open (dilate) and to thin (efface), allowing the fetus to move through the birth canal. Labor usually starts two weeks before or after the estimated date of delivery. However, no one knows exactly what triggers the onset of labor.
What are the signs of labor?
Signs of labor vary from woman to woman, as each woman experiences labor differently. Some common signs of labor may include:
Bloody show. A small amount of mucus, slightly mixed with blood, may be expelled from the vagina indicating a woman is in labor.
Contractions. Contractions (uterine muscle spasms) occurring at intervals of less than ten minutes are usually an indication that labor has begun. Contractions may become more frequent and severe as labor progresses.
Rupture of amniotic sac (bag of waters). Labor sometimes begins with amniotic fluid gushing or leaking from the vagina. Women who experience a rupture of the amniotic sac should go to the hospital immediately and contact their physician or midwife. The majority of women go into labor within hours after the amniotic sac breaks. If labor still has not begun after 24 hours, a woman may be hospitalized for labor to be induced. This step is often taken to prevent infections and delivery complications.
If a woman feels unsure if labor is beginning, she should always call her physician or midwife.
What are the different stages of labor?
Each labor is different. However, labor typically is divided into three stages:
First Stage. This is the onset of labor to complete dilation and is divided into the latent phase, when contractions are becoming more frequent (usually 5 to 20 minutes apart) and somewhat stronger, and the active phase. Women can have very strong, painful contractions during the latent phase. The cervix dilates (opens approximately three or four centimeters) and effaces (thins out). Some women may not recognize that they are in labor if their contractions are mild and irregular.
The latent phase is usually the longest and least intense phase of labor. The mother-to-be may be admitted to the hospital during this phase. Pelvic exams are performed to determine the dilatation of the cervix.
The active phase is signaled by the dilatation of the cervix from 4 to 6 centimeters. Contractions become longer, more severe, and more frequent (usually 3 to 4 minutes apart).
The third phase is called transition and is the last phase. During transition, the cervix dilates an additional 3 to 5 centimeters until the cervix has dilated fully to a total of 10 centimeters. Contractions are usually very strong, lasting 60 to 90 seconds and occurring every few minutes. Most women feel the urge to push during this phase.
In most cases, the active and transition phases are shorter than the latent phase.
Second Stage. The second stage of labor begins when the cervix is completely opened and ends with the delivery of the baby. The second stage is often referred to as the "pushing" stage. During the second stage, the woman becomes actively involved by pushing the baby through the birth canal to the outside world. When the baby's head is visible at the opening of the vagina, it is called "crowning." The second stage is shorter than the first stage, and may take between 30 minutes to three hours for a woman's first pregnancy.
Third Stage. After the baby is delivered, the new mother enters the third and final stage of labor--delivery of the placenta (the organ that has nourished the baby inside of the uterus). This stage usually lasts just a few minutes up to a half-hour. This stage involves the passage of the placenta out of the uterus and through the vagina.
Each labor experience is different and the amount of time in each stage will vary. However, most women will deliver their baby within 10 hours after being admitted into the hospital, if the labor is not induced. Labor is generally shorter for subsequent pregnancies.
Induction of labor
In some cases, labor has to be "induced," which is a process of stimulating labor to begin. The reasons for induction vary. Labor induction is not done before 39 weeks of pregnancy unless there is a problem. Some common reasons for induction include the following:
The mother and/or fetus are at risk
The pregnancy has continued too far past the due date
The mother has preeclampsia, eclampsia, or chronic high blood pressure
Diagnosis of poor growth of the fetus
Some common techniques of induction include the following:
Inserting vaginal suppositories that contain prostaglandin to stimulate contractions.
Administering an intravenous infusion of oxytocin (a hormone produced by the pituitary gland that stimulates contractions) or similar drug.
Rupturing (artificially) the amniotic sac (bag of waters).
Care at the hospital during labor
When a woman arrives at the hospital in labor, the nursing staff may perform a physical exam of the abdomen to determine the size and position of the fetus, and an exam of the cervix. In addition, the nursing staff may check the following:
Blood pressure
Frequency and intensity of contractions
Fetal heart rate
Urine and blood samples
Intravenous fluids are sometimes given during labor. The intravenous line, a thin plastic tube inserted into a vein (usually in the woman's forearm), can also be used to give medications. Intravenous fluids are usually given once active labor has begun, and also are needed when a woman has epidural anesthesia.
The fetus, too, is carefully monitored during labor. A monitor may be placed over the mother's abdomen to keep track of the fetal heart rate.
What are pain management options during labor?
A woman has many options for managing the discomforts that occur during labor and the birth of her baby. Generally, mothers and their physicians or midwives want to use the safest and most effective method of pain relief for both mother and baby.
The choice will be determined by:
The woman's preference
The woman's health
The health of the fetus
The physician's or midwife's recommendation
There are three main types of pain management for labor and birth:
Nonmedicated measures. These measures provide comfort and relieve stress, sometimes called natural childbirth. Many women learn special techniques to help them feel more comfortable and in control during labor and birth. Some of these techniques include:
Relaxation. These techniques such as progressive relaxation, in which various muscle groups are relaxed in series, can help a woman detect tension and be better able to release that tension.
Touch. This may include massage or light stroking to relieve tension. A jetted bath or a shower during labor may also be effective ways to relieve pain or tension. Ask your physician or midwife before taking a tub bath in labor.
Heat or cold therapy. This is used to help relax tensed or painful areas, such as a warmed towel or a cold pack
Imagery. These technique of using the mind to form mental pictures that help create relaxed feelings.
Meditation or focused thinking. Meditation focuses on an object or task, such as breathing helps direct the mind away from the discomforts.
Breathing. These techniques use different patterns and types of breathing to help direct the mind away from the discomforts.
Positioning and movement. Many women find changing positions and moving around during labor helps relieve discomfort and may even speed labor along. Rocking in a rocking chair, sitting in the "Tailor sit" position, sitting on a special "birthing ball," walking, and swaying may be helpful to relieve discomfort. Your labor nurse, physician, or midwife can help you find comfortable positions that are also safe for you and your baby.
Analgesics. These are medications to relieve pain such as meperidine. Small amounts are generally safe during labor and are commonly used with very few complications. However, if given in large amounts or in repeated doses, analgesics can cause respiratory depression respiratory depression (slowing of the breathing center in the brain) in mothers and babies.
Anesthesia. These are medications that cause loss of sensation include pudendal block, epidural anesthesia and analgesia, spinal anesthesia and analgesia, and general anesthesia.
Local block. Anesthesia injected in the perineal area--the area between the vagina and rectum-- numbs the area for repair of a tear or episiotomy after delivery
Pudendal block. A type of local anesthesia that is injected into the vaginal area (affecting the pudendal nerve) causing complete numbness in the vaginal area without affecting the contractions of the uterus. The woman can remain active in pushing the baby through the birth canal. It is used for vaginal deliveries.
Epidural anesthesia (also called an epidural block). This anesthesia involves infusing numbing medications through a thin catheter that has been inserted into the space that surrounds the spinal cord in the lower back, causing loss of sensation of the lower body. Infusions of medications may be increased or stopped as needed. This type of anesthesia is used during labor and for vaginal and cesarean deliveries. The most common complication of epidural anesthesia is low blood pressure in the mother. Because of this, most woman need to have an intravenous infusion of fluids before epidural anesthesia is given. A risk of epidural anesthesia is a postpartum headache. It may develop if the epidural needle enters the spinal canal, rather than staying in the space around the canal. The anesthesiologist will discuss the risks, benefits, and alternatives to the various methods of pain relief with the patient.
Epidural analgesia. This is sometimes called a "walking" epidural because the medication infused through the epidural is an analgesic, which relieves pain but does not numb the body and allows movement. Combinations of medications may be used in the epidural--part analgesic, part anesthetic. The most common complication of epidural analgesia is low blood pressure in the mother. This type of anesthesia is used during labor and for vaginal deliveries. A risk of epidural analgesia is a postpartum headache. It may develop if the epidural needle enters the spinal canal, rather than staying in the space around the canal. Epidural analgesia may be used for pain relief in labor and for vaginal deliveries.
Spinal anesthesia. This type of anesthesia involves injecting a single dose of the anesthetic agent directly into the spinal fluid. Spinal anesthesia acts very quickly and causes complete loss of sensation and loss of movement of the lower body. This type of anesthesia is often used for cesarean deliveries.
Spinal analgesia. This involves injecting an analgesic medication into the spinal fluid to provide pain relief without numbing. Spinal analgesia may be used in combination with epidural anesthesia or analgesia. This may be used during labor for pain relief or for postpartum pain relief.
General anesthesia. This type of pain relief involves giving an anesthetic agent that causes the woman to go to sleep. This type of anesthesia may be used in emergency cesarean deliveries.


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American Scene on Paper
Experience America through the eyes of Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, Martin Lewis, Edward Hopper and others in the American Scene on Paper in the Lewis Gallery September 10 through January 1. The exhibition features recent acquisitions and important works on paper from the Figge collection portraying rural and urban America during the first half of the 20th century.
Ranging in subject from nostalgic country life to satiric city scenes, the American Scene movement encouraged nationalism and addressed social issues during the Depression-era. Although vast in scope, an appreciation for humanity pervaded the genre. By emphasizing individual character, mood, and narrative, the artists formed a compelling vision of the American experience in the 20s, 30s and 40s.
Affordable and suited to mass production, the print medium was considered a perfect vehicle for the democratic ideals associated with the American Scene. The general public had unprecedented access to this form of fine art, profoundly impacting American identity.
Explore the intriguing history of the printmaking medium in concurrent exhibitions Rembrandt and the Jews and Mauricio Lasansky: The Kaddish Series.
This exhibition will be on view September 10 through December 31, 2016.
Companion Events
Thursday, March 23
Social hour & Curatiorial Talk
Exhibition Tours: September 17, 18, 24 & 25
(above) Grant Wood, Fertility, 1937, lithograph, Museum purchase, 1965.31
(left) Martin Lewis, Arch Midnight, 1930, drypoint, Museum purchase, 2013.7


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A collection of six exciting talks on Prayer from today's top Catholic speakers.
Dr. Edward Sri - The Sacrament of Love: Five Pillars of the Theology of the Body
Fr. Phil Hurley, S.J. - Choices, Choices… Discerning God's Will In Our Lives
Fr. Phil Hurley, S.J. - On the Streets of Daily Life: The Apostleship of Prayer's Practical Practice of "Three Moments of the Day"
Fr. Bart Geger, S.J. - Three Stages in Prayer and Self-Knowledge
Fr. Bart Geger, S.J. - Meditation and Contemplation
Paul Wilburn - Fighting the Spiritual Battle of Our Soul: The Discernment of Good and Evil Spirits, and How They Affect Our Daily Lives