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Map Name: Krazy Kingdoms
Submitted: 9/3/2012
Mapmaker: Dolomite13
XML: Dolomite13
Number of Territories: 58
Max Players: 8
Special Features: conditional borders, bombardments, starting positions, no standard territory bonus,auto deploy, killer neutrals.
What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: I am a big fan of board games and while I like the game that the Conquer Club engine is based on, I love the way the xml has been modified to allow designers to push the envelope and create maps that are in and of themselves their own game entirely. This is what I was attempting to do when I came up with the idea for this map and what I hope will set it apart from other maps.
Krazy Kingdoms
The promise of fame, fortune, and ultimate power have brought eight of the worlds most unique kingdoms to the mystical lands of Vesania (latin for Insanity). Who shall be victorious? And more importantly what mysteries lie hidden in the forbidden lands?
Each player is randomly assigned a kingdom that has a favored terrain type that will determine which territories make up the greatest bonus for that race. Additionally each race is randomly assigned a special feature that further determines what territories will provide additional bonuses and grant new ways of assaulting their opponents.
How Will You Play?
Escalating: the chaotic magic of the seems to feeds off of the anger and conflict. In return the energies have begun to change the denizens of the land making them more powerful and aggressive.
Flat Rate: a steady supply of troops flows from your kingdom as you continue your attempt for control of the Forbidden Lands.
Nuclear: the chaotic magics of the land seem to lash out. Entire armies simply disappear. Portals to your home kingdom cease to function. Your troops become twisted and unable to gain an advantage from your favored terrain and even the very fabric of your being seems somehow twisted and altered leaving behind an amorphous form that no longer resembles your natural form.
No Spoils: with the portal to your kingdom no longer allowing travel on a regular basis you and your troops are left to bolster your position by recruiting the indigenous population.
Current Map
Current Version 3.0.7b
XML - KKFinal307b.xml
Large v3.0.7
History of Vesania
Many years ago a powerful wizard discovered a spell that would take him to a magical land hidden from the eyes of the rest of the world. In this land he built a grand tower where he studied magic and created wonderful and powerful magical treasures.
One day an experiment went awry and the explosion of magical energy tore apart the very fabric of reality unleashing unspeakable horrors upon the land. Now Vesania bristles with a chaotic energy that warps the land, vast jungles grows next to barren deserts and the lava flows of great volcano's open upon frozen tundra. At the heart of it all lies a darkness known as the forbidden lands where his tower still stands.
The wizard constructed several magical archways in an attempt to return home but each time he activated them they simply vanished. His magical energies were distorted in this land and he could no longer control them. In one final attempt to return he cast the spell that brought him to the land and vanished.
Almost one hundred years ago a giant stone archway appeared just outside of your kingdom's largest city. In all of that time it has been a mystery but now it has begun to glow and bristle with magical energies and anyone passing through the arch is transported to another land. Although there is an identical archway in this land it does not allow travel in the opposite direction. Perhaps the answer lies hidden in the forbidden lands.
As the leader of one of the worlds most powerful nations you have sent a force through the archway to explore and conquer this land. What you did not realize was that there were other archways and other kingdoms would lay claim this land as well.
Starting Forces
You start with 3 troops on your Kingdom, and 3 troops on your Special feature. On your first turn your kingdom will gain 1 troop automatically and you will be granted a +2 deployable bonus. This will result in 6 troops on your kingdom that may assault any of your favored territories to give you a foothold.
Winning The Game
You win in Krazy Kingdoms by eliminating all of your opponents from the 32 primary land territories and destroying the portal to their kingdom by using the magics of the Forbidden Lands.
As commander of your kingdoms armies you must control a Kingdom or at least one basic land territory (D,F,J,M,P,S,T,V) on the map or you are eliminated, And you will be shamed, beaten, hung, and drowned although not necessarily in that order. Sea territories, the Forbidden Lands, and Special Features do not count.
Territory Breakdown
8 Kingdoms (kingdom portals)
11 Special Features
32 Basic Land Territories
4 Seas
3 Special Territories (horde, underworld, forbidden lands)
No Standard Territory Bonus (minimum 3)
+1 for each favored territory. (+4 bonus)
+4 bonus if you control all four of your favored territories. (+4 bonus)
+1 for every 2 land territory that is adjacent to a favored territory. Territories you control on the opposite sides of a chasm are adjacent. (13 territories +6 bonus)
+1 for every 3 basic land territories. (32 territories = +10 bonus)
If you control every territory you would have a bonus of 27 troops. Aditional bonuses would be applied based on your special feature(s).
Personal Continent
All territories that are adjacent to your favored territory also border another territory that is adjacent to one of your favored territories. This creates what I like to call a "personal continent" that overlaps the personal continents of each other player.
Forbidden Lands
This mystical land contains magical relics of great power capable of wiping creatures from existence. But the denizens of this land are even more fierce, destroying any intruders before they can gain a foothold. Those who have unlocked the secrets of entry to these lands have never return. But for now its secrets remain hidden behind a magical barrier. It is said that their are four towers in this land that may hold the key.
- Starts with 30 neutral troops.
- Resets to 30 neutral when held (Killer 30).
- Can bombard any location (land, sea, kingdoms, special features, hoard, and underworld).
- Borders impassable unless you have hold territories that border at least 2 Blood Towers.
Blood Towers
Blood flows from the crevices between the black onyx stones that make up these massive towers. It is said, those that control the towers, may pass through magical barrier that guards the borders of the forbidden lands.
Territories you control on the opposite sides of a chasm are adjacent for your favored territories. For example if you are murklords then S4 is adjacent to J1 and M1. Gnomes would be adjacent to S4 from M1 and Lizardmen would be adjacent from J1. However if you were Sphinx this would not be the case
If you hold no basic land your Kingdom may assault any of its favored territories. Otherwise kingdoms are not adjacent to anything. This allows players to select a starting favored territory and will make it a more strategic choice. In fog games it will be much harder to locate your enemy. And in non-fog based games your choice of when to take that first territory will be just as important as where you strike first.
Treefolk are sentient creatures which resemble trees both physically and biologically. They are normally quiet, and slow and lumbering, but are quick and relentless in the defense of their forests. They favor the forest terrain in Vesania.
Murklords also known as Swamp Creatures are humanoid creatures similar to fish, resembling living piles of swamp mire. They live under the waters of the swamp and occasionally come to the surface when provoked. They possess super strength and a frighteningly bad attitude. They favor the swamp terrain in Vesania.
Humans are by far the most numerous single species in the world, and quite possibly the most violent. While they spend much of their time hunting and gathering they quickly go to war to acquire more of what they claim to be theirs, namely everything. They favor the hills & plains terrain in Vesania.
Dragonkin are a race of powerful and intelligent dragon-like creatures that are believed to be the oldest race in the world. They are powerful and malevolent creatures that spread destruction wherever they go. They make their homes in the catacombs beneath the worlds volcanoes, preferring the immense heat to that of the worlds surface. They favor the volcanic terrain in Vesania.
Sphinx are humanoid but resemble a lion with the wings of a great bird. They are treacherous and merciless. They are ravenous creatures that will often begin eating their fallen enemies before the battle is over. They are however great architects and often build grand architectural structures such as royal tombs or religious temples for other races. They favor the desert terrain in Vesania.
Yeti are a white ape-like inhabit if the northern regions of the world. They are taller than an average human and stronger than a bear. They are often hunted for their fur which has made them lash out violently, destroying any settlements of other races near their own. They favor the Tundra terrain of Vesania.
Gnomes are shorter than Humans and are great metalworkers, smiths and stone workers. Fierce in battle, their main weapons are magical rune daggers. They primarily live underground and usually obtained food through trade with other races. They favor the mountain terrain in Vesania.
Lizardmen are primitive reptilian humanoids typically standing from six to seven feet tall covered in scaled. Lizardmen are omnivores, though they have a preference for meat. Lizardmen have made a home in the in the wet climate of he jungles and rainforests of the world. They favor the jungle terrain in Vesania.
Each race has a favored terrain. Each territory of your favored terrain that you control is worth +1 bonus armies. If you control all four of your favored territories you gain an additional +4. In addition each territory that borders a favored territory that you control is worth an additional +1.
- Yeti favor Tundra
- Treefolk favor Forest
- Humans favor Plains
- Lizardmen favor Jungle
- Gnomes favor Mountains
- Murklord favor Swamp
- Sphinx favor Desert
- Dragonkin favor Volcanic
Special Features
Your Special Feature cannot assault or bombard any territories and it may only be bombarded by the Forbidden Lands.
Each Special Feature grants you the ability to gain additional bonus troops based on controlling certain territories on the map. You may also gain access to territories across the map.
All special feature bonuses require conditions to be met and there are other abilities granted that make up for lower bonus count.
Aquatic - Aquatic gain bonuses from territories that border seas. This is +2 for every 2 territories. They may also conquer seas however the seas of this land are filled with massive and fierce creatures that will find you a tasty morsel and will eat any troops left behind.
Barbarians - The Horde is a special location that you may assault from your favored territories (Swamps if your are Murklords for example). The Horde also assaults your other favored territories allowing you quick travel across the map. Barbarians also gain a +1 bonus for every 3 basic land territories which in effect doubles the basic land territory bonus.
Cosmic - You are made of the stuff of the stars. Radiation increases your power and in this land it is plentiful. There are four territories with radiation and they grant you +1 bonus for every one you control and an additional +1 for ever two of them creating a unique bonus of +1,+3,+4,+6 respectively. When you have two territories with radiation you gain additional powers to teleport between all radiation territories and the ability to bypass the forbidden lands border and teleport directly to the forbidden lands from any radiation territory you control.
Demons - You have access to the underworld and may assault it from any territory they control with minions. And in turn the underworld grants demons travel to any other territory with minions. There are four territories with minions and they grant you +1 bonus for every one you control and an additional +1 for ever two of them creating a unique bonus of +1,+3,+4,+6 respectively.
Druids - Jungle and Forest territories provide a bonus for druids as they are able to gather up the denizens of these lands to assist them in their quest for glory. Every two Jungle or Forest grant a +1 bonus and combinations of Jungle & Forest grant an additional +1 bonus for a maximum bonus of +8 if all 8 territories are held.
Dwellers - There are four caverns on the map. Each one grants a +1 bonus however controlling all four of them grants an additional +2 for a grand bonus total of +6. Additionally dwellers may move through a network of connected tunnels and may assault any territories with caverns from any other territory with caverns.
Elementalists - Volcanic and Tundra territories provide a bonus for elementalists as they are able to gather up the denizens of these lands to assist them in their quest for glory. Every two Volcanic or Tundra grant a +1 bonus and combinations of Volcanic & Tundra grant an additional +1 bonus for a maximum bonus of +8 if all 8 territories are held.
Fanatics - Fanatics are granted a bonus for conquering their favored territories. For the first two they are granted a +2 bonus. At three an additional +2 is granted and at all four an additional +4 is granted. For a grand total of +8.
Miners - There are four mines on the map. When you control two of them you are granted a +2 bonus. You receive an additional +2 at three mines and +4 at four mines. For a grand total of +8.
Undead - There are four crypts on the map. When you control two of them you are granted a +2 bonus. You receive an additional +2 at three crypts and +4 at four crypts. For a grand total of +8.
Wizards - Territories that border Blood Towers grant the wizards a +2 bonus for every two. And when you control at least two of them they allow the wizards to teleport between all territories that border blood towers..
Interesting Combos
In games with 4 or less players each player will receive more than one special feature. In this case they receive benefits from all of these features. There are a few combos that can be slightly overpowered.
Barbarian Fanatics: If you run across this combo be aware that Barbarians may assault the Horde from any favored territories and may then begin to assault their favored territories from the Horde. And that once they reach two favored territories the fanatic bonus begins to kick in. Add to that double the bonus for every 3 basic lands and this can get out of hand rather quickly.
Wizard Dwellers: Wizards gain their bonus my controlling territories that border the Blood Towers in the game and their are two caverns on these territories. Giving wizards a quick way to travel between them and with two ways to get bonuses on these territories they can get out to a decent bonus rather quickly. Undead Wizards have an ability to grab a bonus from both as well but rely solely on the wizards travel bonus to get around.
Elementalist Druids: Although this combo doesn't seem all that good on the surface it really shines as you begin to expand as you are granted a bonus for over half of the territory types on the map. And if any of the territories they gain bonuses from are your favored that will make it even better. In a 2 or 3 player game pairing this combo with Aquatic could bring a very good bonus as you spread out across the map.
If you can think of any other combos that work well together please feel free to message me and I will add them to this post.
Previous Versions
Troop Deployment
8 Kingdoms (players starting areas - limited to 1 each player)
11 Special Features (random drop)
In a 2 player game
- both players would have 3 Special Features each set to 3 armies with 5 remainder set to neutral . (11/3)
In a 3 player game
- each player would have 3 Special Features each set to 3 armies with 2 remainder set to neutral. (11/3)
In a 4 player game
- each player would have 2 Special Features each set to 3 armies with 3 remainder set to neutral. (11/4)
In a 5 player game
- each player would have 2 Special Features each set to 3 armies with 1 remainder set to neutral. (11/5)
In a 6 player game
- each player would have 1 Special Feature set to 3 armies with 5 remainder set to neutral. (11/6)
In a 7 player game
- each player would have 1 Special Feature set to 3 armies with 4 remainder set to neutral. (11/7)
In a 8 player game
- each player would have 1 Special Feature set to 3 armies with 3 remainder set to neutral. (11/8)
The Copyright Agreement
The author retains copyright on their work, and gives Conquer Club permission to use the imagery free of charge, for as long as Conquer Club sees fit on the Conquer Club website. Conquer Club cannot sell, lease, or lend the right to use the images to anyone else. The author swears that their map is their own work, or a legal derivative work and by submitting it, do hereby claim all responsibility for that being true.


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Dot's Entertainment
My Inbox Problem is starting to resemble my Laundry Problem, and I'm not sure which is worse.
In any case, I dip in there — I'm not talking about laundry — after a sweet walk in today's ridiculous Globally Warm day (up around 70° here in the City, and there hasn't been a nip of snow yet since winter, or rather "winter," started). The mission is to send some pearls to the trash. Along the way, I find this Pearl:
The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him … a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.
- Pearl S. Buck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1892-1973)
I'm tickled to learn that Pearl S. Buck was born Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker, daughter of Absalom and Caroline. That's some serious nomination there, that is.

subset: commoncrawl


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Fashion Victim
I've always loved clothes. When I was very small, and for a very long time after, when I was no longer quite so small, I would spend hours in an attic room in my grandparents' house, a room that used to be my mother's, but which came to serve as a repository of all my grandmother's more glittery treasures: endless boxes of costume jewellry and hats and old dresses and robes and the occasional stray piece of hard candy, invariably scooped up by my little sister for exploratory sucking. My grandmother herself was, to my mind, dazzlingly fashionable, in her red lipstick and her turbans and her wide-cut trousers. She looked like every heroine on every old black-and-white movie that we watched on her ancient television on Sunday afternoons, right down to the scotch-on-the-rocks rattling in the glass in her hand. She loved glamour, my grandmother, and I loved it with her.
When I became to old to play around in her attic of treasures - when, indeed, she died and my grandfather sold the house and got rid of her things, to my eternal dismay - I began assembling my own collection. Goodwill, Salvation Army, Value Village - these became my attics, to be rummaged through for treasure, and rummage I did. By the time I was in my early twenties I had a vast collection of vintage clothing and accessories - snakeskin stilettos from the fifties, an Yves Saint Laurent pea coat from the sixties, ultrasuede Halston from the seventies, polka-dotted Versace from the eighties, and all variety of treasures from across the decades (the perfect faded Flintstones pajama top featuring Pebbles and Bam-Bam: timeless) - that I delighted in and which I dedicated, in secret, to my grandmother.
Treasures from that collection have come and gone, but I still have most of those clothes, tucked away in storage, preserved for...? What? My daughter, perhaps, if such things become of interest to her. Or perhaps just for the sake of collection. I'm a magpie when it comes to clothes - I collect and keep - both because I love clothes for their beauty and because I fear (a hangover from the loss of my grandmother's treasures, no doubt) missing out on or losing something that should be treasured. I collect and I keep and I never, ever regret. Not for me, in other words, the ministrations of the What Not To Wear fairies - I would love somebody to provide me with a new wardrobe, but not at the cost of the old. Unless by 'old wardrobe' we are not referring to my literally old clothes - the ancient Dior, the faded von Furstenberg - but to my new old wardrobe. My mommy wardrobe. And not even the tatty yoga pants and tank tops that are its mainstay - I love my yoga pants. No - what I would happily get rid of is the shoes.
I say that I never regret clothing and footwear choices - not even the Azzedine Alaia knock-offs that I wore in Europe in the early nineties, scandalous bits of fabric that they were, nor the purple Minnie Mouse-style stacked heels that I wore at the same time - but that is not, strictly speaking, true. I sort of regret this:
That, my friends, is a Birkenstock. Just one, because the other has been spirited away by a cat, or by the angry ghost of my grandmother, who would have recoiled at such hideousness. But it is, still, my Birkenstock. A Papillon Birkenstock (oh, the irony, such a cloddish shoe named for a butterfly!), and one with a sort of Pucci-esque print, but still. A Birkenstock.
It was, in my defense, purchased in the later stages of my pregnancy, when my back was aching and my knees buckling and my feet swelling beyond recognition. It was hot, I was heavy, and ballerina flats were no longer keeping me aloft. I needed serious orthopedic mojo, and the Birkenstock sandal came highly recommended. And it certainly lived up to its reputation: once my feet were comfortably established in the smooth curves of its sole, the Birk carried me gently, firmly, through the hours and hours of walking that were keeping me sane in the last, interminable, months of pregnancy.
But: they were nevertheless Birkenstocks, and they were ugly, and I knew to be grateful for not being able to see past the vast expanse of my belly to my feet below, which I knew were splayed out beneath me like great flat hippie pancakes garnished with a slash of raspberry jam.
I don't know that I would do it differently, if I had it to do over again. Those hideous foot-swaddlers saved my back. But for a wannabe-Holly-Golightly girl who had grown up - on the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by fleece and hemp-shirts and Birks, Birks, as far as the eye could see - swearing to never, ever let so much as her manicured pinky-toe touch the edge of such a monstrosity, the fact of having succumbed to the siren-call of comfort and crashed upon the rocks of orthopedic footwear is difficult to bear. I have worn Birkenstocks. I have worn Birkenstocks more than once. I may well - if another pregnancy is in the offing - wear Birkenstocks again.
God - or Nina Garcia - help me. And, Grandma? Forgive me.
(This is part of PBN's 'Little Black Book Of Style' Blog Blast. You have until midnight tonight to join in, too.)
(Also, for those of you following the Soovy discussion - to Binky or not to Binky? - there's been a vote for 'only bad mothers give non-infants binkies' in the comments here. Maybe Wonderbaby is going to fulfill the promise of her BillyBob Binky...)


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Welcome back to our Friday feature! It's time to announce the winner of the Build a Bundle challenge from the previous Build a Bundle contest. Jocelyn Ueng has selected the following bundle:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/89569130@N07/8151515560/sizes/l/in/pool-2066832@N21/ |
Cuzco Fuchsia Orchid SKU# 27131-12
Heaven & Helsinki Orange City Block SKU# DC5597-ORAN-D
Garden Party Orange Zig Zag SKU# STELLA-137-ORANGE
Please welcome Kimberly Jolly as our FQS staffer of the week. She chose…Happy Ever After Pink Dresses SKU# C3112-PINK


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Updated 2016
Why you should add China to your Indie/RTW trip
Here are some ideas on why you should add China to your trip.
- accept a new culture. The personal boundaries (i.e. personal space) are not as we know them in the West. Embrace the differences.
- The contrast between the new China and the traditional China has never been more obvious. It makes for a fascinating travel experience.
- China has embraced tourism in recent years and with the 2008 Olympic in Beijing the country is throwing open the doors to travelers from around the world.
- Travel in China can offer both pleasures and pains. The country's cities – especially those away from the beaten down tourist path – are fascinating to explore.
- Do yourself a favor by taking some time to explore the countryside and the villages. Life is tranquil in China; you just need to look hard to find the tranquility.
- The Forbidden City is one of Beijing's landmarks. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it was the imperial seat for Ming and Qing dynasty emperors from 1420 until 1912.
- Visit the Great Wall. The most popular (and touristy) part of the wall is the Badaling Section, easy to reach from Beijing.
- See The Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an. The warriors have individually unique faces and they are dressed according to the rank.
Read: China for the Independent Traveler.
Indie travel tips for China
- Skip the overcrowded Badaling Section of the Great Wall and travel further to The Mutianyu Section. It can be easily accessed from Beijing and you can also visit the Ming Tombs during the same day trip.
- Go to Yangshuo, a small town near Guilin and see the Karst Mountains. They are beautiful and are also featured on the 20 Renminbi note.
- Explore Lijiang on a bicycle
- Enjoy nature in Jiuzhaigou Valley , famous for the lakes and multi-level waterfalls.
- Visit Pingyao, Shanxi, a quaint Ming Dynasty era city. The City Wall is unrestored, yet incredible.
- Visit the Labrang Monastery (the largest Tibetan Monastery outside of Lhasa) in Xiahe, Gansu.
- See Luoyang, Henan, with its oldest Buddhist temple in the country.
- Drink green tea in Hangzhou . Explore the green city and its historical sights.
- Visit the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet.
- See the Giant Pandas in Chengdu.
- See the architecture on The Bund, Shanghai.
- See modern China in Hong Kong.
- Try the traditional food from as many provinces as you can.
Read: 7 Reasons to Visit China Now (Even on a Short Trip).
The majority of travelers arrive in China by flying to Beijing, Shanghai or to Hong Kong.
Read: Travel China by Train.
Once you are in the country you'd probably like to have a roof over your head at night. You can compare, contrast and book hostels in China on BootsnAll.
Finally, if you would like to travel with others or experience an adventure tour in China, check out our adventure trips in China.
Read: 14 Fabulous Things to do in Beijing.
Photo credits: Fortherock


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Limited edition print, hand-signed and numbered. Very good quality synthetic canvas, stretched on a wooden loom. The print is protected with a UV lacquer. The side surface is also printed. Ready to hang on the wall. Very similar to the original painting!
Read more about my limited edition prints.
See how it looks the original painting: Krzysztof Iwin – Winner


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This summer, whether you're headed across state lines on a family road trip, flying off to Europe, grabbing a quick weekend getaway, or taking a vacation in your own backyard, don't forget to protect your eyes! Check out our top 4 tips for ensuring healthy eyes this summer, and remember, your eye doctor is here to help make the most out of your vision. Dr. Bourjolly sees patients from all over the Sunrise, Florida area. Let us give you the top-quality eye care you and your family deserve, not only during the summer, but all year long.
Many eye diseases can be quickly and easily diagnosed during a comprehensive eye exam. If you were diagnosed with an eye disease, such as Cataracts, Glaucoma, Macular degeneration, Diabetic retinopathy, or Dry eye, you may be overwhelmed by the diagnosis and confused about what happens next. Will you need medications or surgery – now or in the future? Our Sunrise eye doctor has prepared the following answers to your questions about eye disease.
Don't Leave Home Without It
If you have a chronic illness and need to head out of town for a few days, you would never leave home without your medications, right? That's because you know that if something happens and your meds aren't with you, you could suffer discomfort or complications to your health. The same is true for your vision. If you suffer from dry eyes, make sure to take artificial tears or medicated eye drops with you when you travel. Preservative-free eye drops are a traveler's friend. They're also available as individual strips, which are recommended since there's less risk of contamination. Running low on disposable contact lenses? Include an extra pair in your carry-on suitcase and stock up on new lenses ahead of time. If you wear eyeglasses, bring a spare set and a copy of your prescription along with you, just in case they get lost or broken. We recommend speaking to Dr. Bourjolly before you leave for vacation to make sure your vision needs are all set.
It's Getting Hot Outside
Usually, most people think of protecting their skin from sunburns when they're at the beach, by the pool, or just spending time outdoors.
Did you know that your eyes can get sunburned, too? This happens when the cornea is exposed to excessive UV rays. When the sclera (the white part of your eye) looks red, that's a sign that you've got sunburned eyes. You might also notice symptoms like a sudden sensitivity to light, or your eyes may feel like something is stuck in them, or they could feel sore.
The best way to prevent sunburned eyes? Always wear sunglasses with 100% of UVA and UVB light blocking protection. "
Local Eye Care, Summer in Sunrise, Florida
Read what our patients have to say on Google Reviews
- Sunrise Eye Doctor
- Local Eye Clinic near you in Sunrise
- Sunrise Local Eye Doctor
- Optometrist in Sunrise
- Eye Exam in Sunrise
Watch Out for the Pool
Swimming is one of summer's greatest pastimes. There's nothing quite like a dip in a pool or ocean to cool off from the sweltering summer heat. While you're slicing through the water, remember to protect your eyes.
Remove contacts before going swimming, wear goggles while underwater, and rinse your eyes with cold water when you get out of the pool (it helps get the chlorine or salt out). If your eyes feel dry or scratchy after a swim, use some moisturizing eye drops to lubricate your eyes.
Back to School is Sooner Than You Think
Your kids will be back in school before you know it. Help them prepare for the upcoming school year by scheduling an eye exam now. If they need new glasses because their prescription has changed or your teen simply wants a new look for the new school year, come in to Sunrise Specialty Lens & Dry Eye Institute for a consultation and take a look at the newest selection of frames and contact lenses.
Have you had a sudden eye injury or emergency while on vacation? Don't wait until you're back home to handle it — seek immediate care today. Certain eye injuries can damage your vision or lead to ulcers, so if you notice symptoms like redness, eye pain, changes to your vision, or flashing light, contact your eye doctor right away.
Call Sunrise Specialty Lens & Dry Eye Institute on (954) 845-0665 to schedule an eye exam with our Sunrise optometrist.
Alternatively book an appointment online here CLICK FOR AN APPOINTMENT


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Every New Year inspires a wave of self-improvement, which for many people includes improving their overall health.
Unfortunately, a recent study from the University of Scranton's Journal of Clinical Phycology says only 8 percent of those who make a New Year's resolution see their goals come to fruition.
Regardless of the specific goal, people establishing resolutions to improve their health need to start with a foundation. A nutritional foundation is required for anyone who is setting out to improve his or her 'health'," says Dr. John Young, M.D., a physician specializing in the treatment of chronic illnesses through biochemical, physiological and nutraceutical technologies, and the author of "Beyond Treatment: Discover how to build a cellular foundation to achieve optimal health."
"Many of us want to lose weight, gain muscle and improve our cardiovascular endurance, but those goals cannot be accomplished without addressing the body's fundamental needs. A healthy body begins with a healthy cellular foundation, and a healthy cellular foundation begins with what we're putting in our bodies."
A protein shake is a common way some people like to supplement their health plans, but Dr. Young says those health drinks are usually missing one or more essential components. He lists them and explains why they're so important.
Whey protein
Whey can be a great option for protein supplementation assuming it's of the highest possible quality. Look for protein powder that is cold processed (non-denatured), meaning it's never heated to temperatures above 130 degrees. Also makes sure it's made with milk from cows that haven't been pumped full of hormones and that have been grazed on pesticide-free, chemical-free, natural grass pastures. Make sure the protein is completely free of chemicals, artificial flavors, and artificial sweeteners.
Omega oils
Because of their molecular makeup, flax seed oil and cod liver oil are two of the most important oils you can consume. They supply a number of important nutrients for nearly all systems of the body, including the heart and immune system as well as the brain. In order for these oils to be effectively incorporated by the body, they need to be hidden or emulsified into a protein so they aren't destroyed during the digestive processes. This is a huge key that most people completely miss.
pH stabilization
pH is a measurement of the acidity or alkalinity in your body and ranges from zero on the acidity end to 14 on the alkaline end. Evidence suggests that a healthy balance in pH increases strength in muscle and bone, improves brain function, and decreases the risk of chronic disease. Because our diets are so acidic these days, I use a pH balancing formula in my practice to help keep my patients in the stable pH range.
Along with the three pillars of Dr. Young's approach to healthy protein shakes, he recommends appropriate amounts of fruits and vegetables and an overall balanced diet.
About Dr. John Young, M.D.
Dr. John Young is a medical doctor with more than 15 years' experience working in emergency rooms and pediatric burn units. He's the Medical Director of Young Foundational Health Center, specializing in treating patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes by addressing the physiological issues. He's also the medical director of Young Health Products, a company that produces nutritional products developed by incorporating the latest biochemical, physiological and Nobel Prize-winning protocols. Dr. Young is the author of "Beyond Treatment." He answers questions via a call-in conference call every Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time by calling 760-569-7676 and using access code 772967.


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Welcome to the fourth edition of The Pulse -- The State of the Art -- a survey in words and pictures of the online artist community. Nearly 150 artists have answered a list of questions which make up The Pulse. Their responses will be presented as a series of online and print projects. Links to the first two projects, Secret Sunday and The Book Guild, can be found on the sidebar of my blog.
StudioScapes is the third project and Chapter 5 starts right now! All artists participating in The Pulse were asked to submit a photograph of a favorite art-related vignette from their home or studio.


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This months Daring Bakers challenge was a savoury potato bread. I liked the sound of making a bread with potatoes. Potato bread sounded like it would be a bit heavier than normal bread and really moist. Of course I left it to the last minute… (I really need to start the next challenge sooner.) I cut the recipe into half of its original size and made sure that I had enough ingredients to make two batches in case the first one didn't work out too well. The challenge was to make the potato bread and it was left to us to decide what to do with the bread. You could use the potato bread dough to make a loaf, buns, etc. I decided to go with the suggested focaccia bread. A focaccia is a flat bread with optional toppings baked on. I decided to go with a cheese topping. You really can't go wrong with golden brown cheese baked on bread.
Making your own bread from scratch is surprisingly easy. It takes a bit of effort and it requires a bit of time but over all it is not too difficult. Everything went well and the focaccia turned out great the first time. I really enjoyed the aroma of the bread baking in my apartment. I started to eat the bread as soon as it was cool enough to do so. It was really good! It is hard to beat fresh, still warm from the oven bread! It was nice and moist; soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. I finished the entire focaccia over the course of the day!
Potato Bread Focaccia with Cheese
- 2 potatoes (peeled and cubed)
- 4 cups water
- 1/2 tablespoon salt
- 1 teaspoon yeast
- 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1/2 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 cup cheddar cheese (grated)
- Boil the potatoes in the water and salt until tender.
- Drain the potatoes, reserving the water.
- Mash the potatoes in a large bowl.
- Mix in 1 1/2 cups of the potato water and let cool until luke warm.
- Mix in the yeast and let sit for 5 minutes.
- Mix in 2 cups of flour and let sit for 5 minutes.
- Mix in the whole wheat flour, butter and salt.
- Dump onto a well floured surface and knead for 10 minutes adding flour as needed. When the dough is soft and not too sticky it is ready.
- Place the dough in a large bowl, cover with plastic and let sit for 2 hours. The dough should rise to double its size.
- Knock the dough down.
- Knead the dough for a few minutes.
- Form the dough into a flattened circle on a baking sheet and cover with plastic.
- Let it rise for 20 minutes.
- Remove the plastic.
- Spread the olive oil over the top of the dough and sprinkle on the cheese.
- Bake in a preheated 350F/180C oven until golden brown on top, about 10-20 minutes.


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NFL Suspends Four Players, One For Full Season, Over Saints' Bounties
Four NFL players tied to the so-called bountygate have now been hit with suspensions by the league. They were part of a scheme in which a New Orleans Saints coach created a bounty system for hits that knocked opponents out of games.
Linebacker Jonathan Vilma will miss the entire 2012 season, NFL.com reports. As MSNBC reminds us, "Vilma reportedly put $10,000 cash on the table in the team's meeting room and said the cash would go to anyone who could knock Brett Favre out of the NFC Championship Game in January of 2010."
Defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove has been suspended eight games. Defensive lineman Will Smith will sit out four games. Linebacker Scott Fujita, who is now with the Cleveland Browns, will miss three games.
All four are suspended without pay. The bounty program, led by then-Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, stretched over three seasons from 2009 through 2011.
Williams, who left the Saints after last season to join the coaching staff of the St. Louis Rams, has been banned from the league indefinitely. Head coach Sean Payton has been suspended for the 2012 season.


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Special Feature
Who will win Saturday night's rematch between Georges St-Pierre and Josh Koscheck? Michael DiSanto breaks it down...
On Saturday night, the greatest welterweight on the planet defends his title against the clear number one contender.
Reigning champion and pound-for-pound great Georges St-Pierre hopes he experiences déjà vu when the action gets underway. Just over three years ago, he summarily defeated Josh Koscheck in an entertaining, though clear-cut, three round battle that helped erase the putrid taste of defeat that lingered from a shocking technical knockout loss to Matt Serra half a year earlier. The outcome unquestionably gives GSP a tremendous foundation of confidence heading into the rematch.
Kos hopes that Saturday is a sequel with a completely different storyline, rather than a remake of the original. While the first fight can't possibly leave him feeling good about the rematch, Kos is the type of athlete who is never lacking in unyielding self-belief. He has no doubts about his chances at UFC 124.
All that is great, but what makes anyone believe that the rematch will turn out any differently than their first matchup? Simply put, Kos has the perfect style to defeat GSP, and the champion did such a good job of showing him the flaws in his preparation and game plan that the path to victory is clearly illuminated this time around. And it begins and ends with Kos' wrestling.
It is no secret that there are two ways to beat GSP: catch him on the chin or put him on his back. Serra went the former route in his stunning 2007 upset, and Matt Hughes went the latter route when he handed the then challenger the first loss of his professional career.
Kos is one of very few welterweights who combine tremendous knockout power in his fists with a world-class wrestling base. He has repeatedly demonstrated both attributes during his five-plus years fighting inside the Octagon. In fact, he has the edge over GSP in both categories. They key to victory, however, will be Kos' ability to seamlessly blend together his striking and wrestling so that he can capitalize on those advantages.
In the first fight, Kos was overconfident about his ability to touch GSP's chin. He thought that all he had to do was come out throwing haymakers, and he would eventually catch the then former champion and deliver him his second consecutive loss. The assumption wasn't totally baseless, either. After all, Matt Serra had defeated GSP in precisely that fashion just a few months earlier, removing the air of invincibility that had begun to form around the Canadian superstar.
What Kos failed to realize heading into that fight was that Serra's knockout would make GSP much more cautious on the feet, thereby greatly reducing the number of openings to land a fight-ending blow. GSP has been much more conservative about engaging on the feet since that loss. He instead uses his strikes almost exclusively as a means to create openings for takedowns.
Kos never dreamed that a guys like GSP, who had no competitive amateur wrestling experience, would be able to take him down. He was, after all, a four time NCAA Division I All-American wrestler out of Edinboro University, not to mention the fact that he was a perfect 42-0 en route to winning the collegiate national championship in 2001. No matter, GSP took him down on multiple occasions because Kos continually left himself off balance and out of position to effectively defend GSP's takedown attempts due to the extra heaping of mustard he kept putting on his punches.
Kos knows better this time around. He will probably come out swinging again because that is just his personality. He would love nothing more than to score an emphatic knockout in the opening minute of the fight. If the knockout doesn't quickly materialize, however, it would shock me if Kos didn't begin striking solely to create openings for his own thunderous takedowns.
He can do that by fighting in a much more controlled fashion on the feet. Rather than winging crazy overhand rights and long roundhouse high kicks, which are easy to see coming and thus easy to avoid, he needs to keep his hands up and throw short, crisp, snapping punches, preferably starting with the jab and working combinations from there.
If Kos remains tight and technical with his kickboxing, he will land shots. Those shots won't result in a quick knockout, but they will force GSP to pull straight back (a flaw that only Serra has been able to exploit) or raise his guard in defense. Either way, he will be more susceptible for a takedown.
Of equal importance, throwing short, crisp shots within foundation of his fighting stance will leave Kos in great position to sprawl if GSP changes levels in an attempt to take the fight to the ground. Anyone who watched the first fight knows that Kos lost because GSP was able to take him down multiple times. Take away those takedowns, and the result might have been different.
Once the fight hits the ground, Kos must quickly move to control the position. The champion is very good at quickly working back to his feet, so Kos must make sure he is flat on his back. As GSP posts up on an arm or turns to his side, Kos will want to work to pass, or even try to snake around to his back. But that is what GSP wants because it is easier for many guys to scramble back to the feet when a guy moves to side control than it is from the guard. GSP is one of those guys.
Unless there is a clear opening to take his back, Kos should not take the bait. He should take a page from vintage Hughes or Tito Ortiz, pull GSP back to a flat position and pound away from inside his guard with fists and short elbows. The key is to put GSP on the ground and keep him there. That is the best way to beat him, absent touching his chin with a bomb.
Speaking of touching his chin, GSP will also become more susceptible to strikes once Kos puts the fear of a takedown into his mind. As the champion focuses on anticipating double-leg attempts, he won't be nearly as effective at slipping strikes and changing levels for his own takedown attempts. But again, Kos should refrain from going all out early if he experiences a little success on the feet because that will open him up to being taken down, just like it did in their first matchup.
The American Kickboxing Academy star knows that it is very unlikely that he will be able to pull out a startling submission or land truly concussive blows from his back. GSP's top game is too good. Thus, he should do whatever it takes to avoid being taken down. If that means he fights a bit more technically early in the fight, then so be it. Two or three rounds of mixing good technical striking with takedowns will leave GSP frustrated and battered. That is when Kos can begin swinging for the fences, if he wants a spectacular knockout. To do so any earlier is akin to giving GSP a get out of jail free card, because this is a winnable fight for Kos, regardless of what his critics are saying.
On the other side of the fence, GSP also knows exactly what he needs to do in order to win the fight. He merely needs to put Kos on his back early and often, just like he did in the first fight. Kos has a great defensive guard, but like GSP, he isn't going to confuse anyone for Demian Maia any time soon. He doesn't want to spend a lot of time playing the guard game because minutes spent defending on the ground are minutes spent losing the fight under the current standard for judging mixed martial arts fights.
GPS knows that, which is why he always remains completely committed to taking down opponents early and often. Since the loss to Serra, GSP has approached every fight with a highly technical game plan designed to put himself in a dominant position while taking as few risks as possible. Until someone can stop his takedowns, GSP will continue to fight that way because he has become virtually unbeatable with that style.
That may seem counterintuitive against a guy like Kos who is a far superior wrestler. In fact, I'll go so far as to label Kos the single best pure wrestler in the UFC. But, alas, MMA bouts typically aren't decided solely by wrestling, not when guys are fighting at the truly elite level. More often, they are decided by how well a fighter blends the various disciplines of MMA, including wrestling. And nobody blends striking and wrestling better than GSP, which makes him one of the very best functional wrestlers in the sport.
As a result, GSP, who has no competitive amateur wrestling experience, beats even the best wrestlers by taking them down inside the Octagon. He did it to Hughes. He did it to Jon Fitch. Sean Sherk. Frank Trigg. And he will do it to Kos for a second time, if the AKA star isn't careful.
What intrigues me most about this matchup is seeing what happens if GSP is unable to take Kos down. I really believe that GSP has lost confidence in his standup from the Serra fight, which is a shame because he is such a good standup fighter. This is a guy who can pick apart opponents with beautiful combinations and crowd-pleasing kicks, if he commits to doing so. The question, of course, is whether he will have the confidence to commit to his standup if Kos removes takedowns from the equation.
I don't know the answer to that question. I'm not sure if GSP's renowned training team knows the answer, either. What I do know is that I like the challenger's chances if the fight unfolds that way. Nobody in the UFC has improved his standup more dramatically over the last four years than Kos. He has rapidly become one of the better strikers in the division, on par, in my opinion, with GSP. I also believe he carries more destructive one-punch power.
None of that will matter, though, if he throws crazy haymaker after crazy haymaker. Those are too easy to defend and counter.
I've been writing for years that Kos is a champion in waiting. This guy has all the tools to be champion, and his otherworldly wrestling is the great equalizer in our sport. He just needs to put it all together at the right time.
GSP is rightfully regarded as the very best in the sport, along with middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva, on a pound-for-pound basis. Conventional wisdom suggests that he will win on Saturday night. Guys who score clear decision victories repeat the feat more often than not when it comes time for a rematch.
But I'm not a conventional type of guy, so I smell an upset brewing.
Georges St-Pierre
• 29 yrs old
• 5-10, 170 lbs
• 20-2 overall (14-2 UFC)
• 2x UFC Welterweight Champion
• 40% of wins by KO/TKO (8 out of 20)
• 35% of wins by judges' decision (7 out of 20)
• 25% of wins by submission (5 out of 20)
• 8-2 in title fights*
• 5-0 in his last 5
• 9-1 in last 10
• Has never lost a judges' decision (7-0)
• Stopped in both professional losses (submitted once; TKO'd once)
• 9 wins in UFC championship bouts ties for 3rd all time**
• Current streak of 4 consecutive successful UFC championship defenses ties for 4th all time**
• 9 UFC championship bouts ties for 4th all time**
• 14 UFC wins ties for 4th all time
• Submission of the Night at UFC 79 (SUB2 by armbar over Matt Hughes on December 29, 2007)
• Fight of the Night at UFC 87 (UD5 over Jon Fitch on August 9, 2008)
• Current 7-fight UFC winning streak ties for 6th all time
• 16 UFC bouts ties for 12th all time
• Current layoff of 259 days (UD5 over Dan Hardy on March 27, 2010) matches his career long (2-0 in fights after 259-day layoff)
Josh Koscheck
• 33 years old
• 5'10, 170 lbs
• 17-4 overall (13-4 UFC)
• 26.7% of wins by KO/TKO (4 out of 13)
• 33.3% of wins by submission (5 out of 13)
• 40% of wins by judges' decision (6 out of 13)
• First title fight
• 4-1 in last 5
• 7-3 in last 10
• 6-2 in bouts that last the distance
• Submitted once; TKO'd once
• 13 UFC wins ties for 6th all time
• 17 UFC bouts ties for 8th all time
• Fight of the Night / Submission of the Night (SUB2 by rear naked choke over Anthony Johnson on November 21, 2009)
• Knockout of the Night (KO1 over Yoshiyuki Yoshida on December 10, 2008)
• Current layoff 217 days is the longest of his career (UD3 over Paul Daley on May 8, 2010)
*Includes interim title bouts
**Excludes interim title bouts
Free Prelims on UFC.com/Live
For the first time ever, two preliminary bouts will be aired live and free online at http://www.ufc.com/live.
The Dustin Hazelett vs Mark Bocek and Dan Miller vs Joe Doerksen fights
will be available to everyone worldwide at no charge starting at 9pm
ET/ 6pm PT/ 2am GMT.
Power Slap


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Brad Williams
Tour '24
- Details
Brad Williams – Tour '24
Brad Williams possesses something that everyone can agree is funny: a disability. Brad is a dwarf. He has appeared on numerous TV shows including Mind Of Mencia, Live at Gotham, the Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Pitboss. Brad has also performed for the troops all over the world because soldiers think dwarfs are funny too.
Brad was born and raised in Orange County, CA. He dropped out of college and started doing comedy at the age of 19. He toured as Carlos Mencia's opening act for 5 years. Brad's big break came when he would appear in numerous sketches on Comedy Central's Mind Of Mencia TV show. Brad's memorable roles on the show include playing a whore dwarf ("whorf"), the leader of an all dwarf basketball team, joining Mencia at a Renaissance faire, and giving a speech about his hatred of podiums.
Brad's show is high energy. Robin Williams called him "Prozac with a head." Brad's ability to make humorous observations on disability, relationships, sex, and race are winning over audiences and proving that anyone can overcome their shortcomings.
This Performance is Limited to Patrons 16 Years Of Age and Older!


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BAMAKO, Mali: French fighter jets bombed rebel targets in a major city in Mali's north Sunday, pounding the airport as well as training camps, warehouses and buildings used by the al-Qaida-linked Islamists controlling the area, officials and residents said.
The three-day-old French-led effort to take back Mali's north from the extremists began with airstrikes by combat helicopters in the small town of Konna. It has grown to a coordinated attack by state-of-the-art fighter jets which have bombarded at least five towns, of which Gao, which was attacked Sunday afternoon, is the largest.More than 400 French troops have been deployed to the country in the all-out effort to win back the territory from the well-armed rebels, who seized control of an area larger than France nine months ago. What began as a French offensive has now grown to include seven other countries, including logistical support from the U.S. and Europe. The United States is providing communications and transport help, while Britain is sending C17 aircrafts to help Mali's allies transport troops to the frontlines.
French President Francois Hollande authorized the intervention after it became clear the swiftly advancing rebels could break Mali's military defenses in Mopti, the first town on the government-controlled side, located in the center of this African country. The move catapulted the world into a fight that diplomats had earlier said would not take place until at least September."French fighter jets have identified and destroyed this Sunday, Jan. 13, numerous targets in northern Mali near Gao, in particular training camps, infrastructure and logistical depots which served as bases for terrorist groups," the French defense ministry said in a statement.
French officials have acknowledged that the rebels are better armed than they expected, and one of the first fatalities was a 41-year-old French pilot, whose helicopter was downed by rebel fire near the town of Konna.The Islamists, including three separate rebel groups, all of which have either direct or indirect ties to al-Qaida, are armed with weapons stolen from the abandoned arsenal of ex-Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. They are also in possession of the weapons left behind by Mali's army, which abandoned the north in the face of the rebel advance last April. The fighters managed to seize the territory in the north after a military coup led to political turmoil in the once-stable nation of 15.8 million last March.
A French presidential aide who was not authorized to be publicly named said that the insurgents are "well-equipped, well-armed and well-trained," and are using high-end equipment. "They obtained from Libya modern, sophisticated equipment, much stronger and more efficient than we had imagined," he said.One of the commanders controlling Gao confirmed that the French had flattened a building at the northern entrance to the town used by his fighters as a checkpoint and that three of his men died, crushed under the structure's falling roof. Oumar Ould Hamaha further confirmed that fighter jets had hit training camps and depots.
He egged on the French, calling them cowards and saying that their attack has only heightened the rebels' desire for jihad. "Our jihadists are not a bunch of sheep waiting to be slaughtered inside a closed pen," said Hamaha. "Listen closely to me. Our elements are constantly on the move. What they hit is a bunch of cement. France is going to reap the worst consequences possible from this. Now no French person can feel safe anywhere in the world. Every French national is a target."Hamaha said he and his fighters drove to a spot around 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) outside the city to try to lure the jets away from the population center and into a direct confrontation. He claims the jets flying at an altitude of 13,000 meters made a U-turn after seeing the anti-aircraft missiles and weaponry mounted on the rebel trucks.
In Gao, Abderahmane Dicko, a public school teacher, said he and his neighbors heard the triangle-shaped jets screaming across the sky between noon and 1 p.m. local time. "We saw the war planes circling. They were targeting the camps used by the Islamists. They only hit their bases. They didn't shoot at the population," he said.But the intervention has come with a cost to civilians. In the city of Konna, the first to be bombed, 11 Malians were killed, Mali presidential spokesman Ousmane Sy said. The town's mayor, Sory Diakite, said the dead included three children who threw themselves into a river and drowned while trying to avoid the falling bombs.
In addition to Gao and Konna, other targets have included Douentza, Lere and, late Sunday, the small locality of Agharous Kayoune, as well as Alatona, a rice growing region on the strategic route to the military camp of Diabaly, residents and officials said.Residents are streaming out of the towns that have been hit. In Lere, people were heading across the nearby border to Mauritania, adding to the hundreds of thousands of refugees already displaced by the crisis in Mali.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius confirmed Sunday that the United States is providing communications and transport assistance. Over the weekend, a U.S. official confirmed that America will be sending drones. Britain has dispatched two, C17 aircrafts to France to help Mali's allies transport troops. Four nations in West Africa have pledged to send hundreds of soldiers, including 500 each from Niger, Burkina Faso and Senegal, as well as from Nigeria.
Additionally, Fabius said Denmark and other European countries are also helping, according to an interview with RTL radio. On Monday, the United Nations Security Council will meet to discuss the crisis in Mali, said Brieuc Pont, a spokesman for the French U.N. Mission said.French and Malian officials say the lightning offensive has halted the rebels' advance. "The Islamist offensive has been stopped," Fabius said. "Blocking the terrorists … we've done it."However, the rebels still control the northern half of Mali, representing the largest area under the grip of al-Qaida and its allies in the world.The region is larger than Afghanistan, and throughout it, the bearded and turbaned fighters have imposed their unyielding form of Islam. Music is banned, as are cigarettes, tobacco and alcohol. Women are regularly flogged in public for offenses ranging from not covering their ankles to wearing perfume or make-up. – YahooNews


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You know that shortage of nurses people have been warning about for about the last decade or two? Fuhgeddaboudit!
That's the upshot of a study in the latest issue the policy journal Health Affairs. The authors, economists from RAND Health and Dartmouth College and a nursing professor from Vanderbilt University, found a surprising upswing in the number of young women (aged 23-26) choosing nursing as a career between 2002 and 2009.
So many young women entered the nursing workforce that "if these young nurses follow the same life-cycle employment patterns as those who preceded them... then they will be the largest cohort of registered nurses ever observed," the authors wrote. In fact, the 62 percent increase means that the ranks of registered nurses are expected to grow at roughly the same rate as the population between now and 2030.
Now clearly it is still too early to say that the problem is solved. These young nurses could still move on to other fields as they age, or leave the workforce entirely. But still, the study raises an intriguing question: How did the nation go from a shortage to, if not a surplus, then at least an apparently adequate supply of nurses?
One innovation cited by the researchers are accelerated degree programs designed to appeal to people who already have degrees in other fields. These programs can get nurses trained and ready to practice in as little as a year in some cases.
Another boost, they write, came from "information about the opportunities in nursing," such as a major recruitment campaign launched by health products giant Johnson & Johnson in 2002.
The federal government also did its part. Funding for nurse training programs tripled between 2001 and 2010, from $80 million per year to $240 million.
But there are still some significant warning signs on the horizon. One is the continuing bottleneck in nursing education, with more people wanting to become nurses than there are people to train them. In 2010, according to the study, 55,000 qualified applicants were turned away — up from 16,000 in 2003.
Another potential problem is whether the nurses now being turned out will have the right training for the nation's rapidly aging baby boomers. Last year's Affordable Care Act will require fewer hospital-based nurses and more nurses prepared to work with older patients in an outpatient setting, according to the Institute of Medicine.
Finally, a second paper in Health Affairs points out that nurses are among those people least likely to relocate to find jobs once they are trained. As a result, many parts of the country can end up with a shortage even if the overall supply appears adequate.
Researchers from New York University and the State University of New York at Buffalo suggest, in response, increasing financial aid and other educational opportunities in underserved areas.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Wednesday 13 February 2013
And Then There Were Three
The news about Opera switching to Webkit is disappointing. It's a sad day for the Web, since I thought highly of their Presto engine and their Web standards work. Their impact on Web standards will be dramatically reduced, especially where they want to do something differently to Apple and Google. The big loss for the Web is a further decrease in the diversity of browser engines, especially on mobile devices. This means that our work at Mozilla simultaneously becomes more important --- we now have one of the three viable browser engines, instead of one of the four, and engine diversity is already critically endangered --- and more difficult, because this will strengthen the Webkit mobile monoculture and make it even harder for us to promote Web standards over "coding to Webkit".
Some people are wondering whether engine diversity really matters. "Webkit is open source so if everyone worked together on it and shipped it, would that be so bad?" Yes. Web standards would lose all significance and standards processes would be superceded by Webkit project decisions and politics. Webkit bugs would become the standard: there would be no way for developers to test on multiple engines to determine whether an unexpected behavior is a bug or intended. It wouldn't be the worst possible outcome --- victory of a closed-source engine would be worse --- but it would be a far cry from the open Web goals we've been striving for.
So, back to work!


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Introducing Our Brand-New Commenting System
Today, we're excited to introduce our new commenting system, powered by Facebook. Starting right now, you can comment on and "like" our posts right on the site using your Facebook login, and share them instantly with your friends on Facebook, too. You'll also be able to post when logged into a Yahoo account (and even more ways to comment coming soon).
More useful info on the update below


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The funeral for North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is set for Wednesday in Pyongyang, and it's something of a cliche to say — as basically every story today does — that details about what will happen are largely a mystery.
But informed observers are hazarding educated guesses. Jean H. Lee, the Associated Press' bureau chief for Korea, reports there will almost surely be similarities to the 1994 funeral for Kim Il Sung (Kim Jong Il's father) when "wailing and sobbing mourners beat their chests and dropped to their knees as [the] hearse, draped with a red flag and bedecked with white magnolias, crawled through the streets of Pyongyang."
Wednesday's funeral though, says Lee, "is also likely to bear the hallmarks of Kim Jong Il's rule, including more of a military presence for the man who elevated the armed forces as part of his 'songun,' or 'military first,' policy."
Ahn Chan-il of the World Institute for North Korea Studies in South Korea tells the AP that "there may even be a small-scale military parade involving airplanes."
CNN says that "thousands of people likely will file past a glass case housing the body of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during his funeral," and that it is "expected to spotlight Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Il's son and the man designated the 'great successor' by the nation's Worker's Party."
The Great Successor was seen apparently shedding some tears earlier today — a rare public display of emotion from the young man, who is thought to be in his late 20s — as he visited the palace where his father is laying in state, as this EuroNews video report shows.
The Guardian has been sifting through what little information there is about the guest list for the funeral and writes that:
"The few non-Koreans attending the funeral could include a Japanese celebrity magician. Tenko Hikita performed in Pyongyang at Kim Jong-il's invitation in 1998 and 2000, and is said to have had several private dinners with him. ... One notable absence from the guest list is Kim Jong-nam, the deceased leader's eldest son who, according to Confucian tradition, could at one time have expected to take over from his father. But the 40-year-old ruled himself out of succession plans when he was caught attempting to enter Japan on a fake passport in 2001, saying he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland."
More important to intelligence agencies around the world as they try to figure out what comes next in North Korea will be "watching how people are aligned around Kim Jong Un" for clues to the country's future power structure, Paik Hak Soon, a director of inter- Korean relations at the Seongnam, South Korea-based Sejong Institute research group, tells Bloomberg News.
Meanwhile, South Korea's Yonhap News reports there has been more "myth-making" in the North about Kim Jong Il's death — including:
"Rodong Shinmun, a major newspaper published by the North's ruling Workers' Party, also claimed Monday that owls had been weeping at the Dec. 5 Youth Mine each day since Kim's death."
Eyder reported last week about some of the other "peculiar natural wonders" being associated with the "Dear Leader."
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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You will receive both table runners when you purchase this listing. Both measuring 66 X 28 cm (26 X 11") approximately. In great vintage (used) condition.
You can buy with confidence from our large eclectic collection of genuine vintage and antique items.
Our customers in every corner of the world know that buying vintage is good for the planet, while we also get something that was made with quality and endurance in mind.
Most of the products in our store were handmade with love by artists and craftspeople of the past who laboured over countless hours to create something unique to show the world their best skills.
Please remember that signs of wear and flaws in vintage items actually add to their charm and tell us a story, that's why we love them!
Over the years we have collected a treasury of beautiful vintage household linen and lace that we restore, store and present to our buyers in the best possible condition, ready to be used and enjoyed again.


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Sweetest Day
Need gift ideas for Sweetest Day? Look to Old Greenwich Flower Shop for inspiration! We have a wide variety of "sweet" flowers and plants to choose from. From roses to plants, we have various bouquets to make someone smile. Old Greenwich Flower Shop delivers locally to Norwalk, CT and we offer same day and next day flower delivery!


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In the translucent LA dusk we discover four women living very different lives. The camera follows each as they wind down their working days, their four stories weaving together as each prepares for their evening. Shot by Iranian-American screenwriter and director, Massy Tadjedin, with a stellar international cast, Aubrey Plaza, Gemma Arterton, Patricia Clarkson and Rinko Kikuchi, culminating in a gripping cameo performance by rising songstress, Zola Jesus. "We make our faces, our suits, our selves just a little more ready for wherever it is we're going. Fashion is never just the clothes. It's our mood, our excitement for something, our expectations, our attitudes, our outlooks.
Managing those is often what getting ready is all about and that's what our short tries to capture." Massy Tadjedin The four women quietly take part in their private acts of preparation, but the transformation is also psychological, as they take stock of the day and mentally prepare for the evening ahead. It's Getting Late is the fourth film in Miu Miu's series of short films, the Women's Tales, by leading female directors, Zoe Cassavetes, Lucrecia Martel and Giada Colagrande. Each film explores the feminine love affair with Miu Miu through the lens of their diverse sensibilities.
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Top Alexandria City Public Schools officials have met with residents to discuss their plans for a re-imagined Jefferson Houston Pre-K-8 school as work on the project is poised to get under way.
ACPS staff, including Superintendent Morton Sherman, discussed educational and physical specifications for the proposed new building during a meeting with community stakeholders earlier this month. Officials included the project in the district's capital improvement plan after the mention of a possible public-private partnership raised the ire of neighbors in the summer and fall of 2010.
While the project is not yet at the design stage, officials hope to reach a deal with an architect by January. A new, roughly 120,000 square foot building is slated to be built on the school's existing grounds and open by the start of the 2014-15 school year.
Plans are also in the works to rebuild two other city elementary schools, Cora Kelly and Patrick Henry.


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When you need to sell your Chattanooga house fast, Victory Home Buyers can help. We buy houses in Chattanooga, TN in any condition. When we buy houses, we pay cash and we can close quickly in as little as 7-14 days with a no obligation cash offer. You don't have to worry about getting a loan or dealing with agents. We'll take care of everything for you. Just call us and tell us what you need, and we'll help you sell your house fast!
We understand that trying to "sell my house fast" can be a stressful experience. That's why we'll handle all of the paperwork and closing costs, so you don't have to worry about a thing. And we'll give you a fair offer price for your home in Chattanooga.
If you need to "sell your house fast Chattanooga," Victory Home Buyers can help. We buy houses in Chattanooga, TN in any condition, we pay cash, and we can close quickly in as little as 7-14 days. You don't have to worry about getting a loan or dealing with agents. We'll take care of everything for you. Just call us and tell us what you need, and we'll make it happen!
By working with us, you won't need to worry about:
We've helped many families sell their burdensome houses fast. No matter what your situation is, we can help you "sell your house fast!"
We guarantee to give a fair cash offer on your home. We'll offer you a fair cash price and pay all the costs and fees associated with selling your home.
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After evaluating your local market and property info, we will send you a competitive cash offer.
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We've been in business for over 30 years, and we have helped numerous homeowners sell their houses for cash.
We want to offer you cash for your house today. We buy houses!
We are a local investor who seeks to simplify the process of selling your house. We use our own funds to make our offers.
Agents take way too long to list and sell your house and they charge you 6% commission in the process. We are an investment firm and we buy houses for cash, which will save you time, money and effort.
We also allow you to close on a day that's convenient for you to give you full control of how you sell your home.
Tell us about your home and answer a few questions. It takes less than 5 minutes. (See how easy?)
Within 24 hours, we'll send you a guaranteed offer on your home and other options to choose from.
Whether you take our cash offer or decide to list with us – you're in control with no obligation whatsoever!
There is no need to worry about dealing with real estate agents, open houses, realtor fees, or paying for major repairs or hidden fees. We'll take the burdensome house off your hands and handle the whole process from start to finish. We buy houses in Chattanooga and have been doing so for a long time. We want to help you get through this tough time, and we will work hard to get you the best deal possible so you leave with more cash in your pocket.
If you are interested in selling your house fast in Chattanooga, TN we offer many real estate solutions whether you need a flexible closing date or a fast closing. Contact Victory Home Buyers today and get a fair cash offer within 24 hours!
No commissions, fees, listings, or showings
Our main goal is to help you sell your house fast. We'll buy your house as-is, no matter what condition it's in. We're ready to buy and we can close quickly, usually within 7 business days.
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Don't waste time waiting for a bank to approve your financing!
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We don't ask you to sign a long or complicated contract.
We have funds available and are buying houses in your area right now. It's FREE to get a cash offer from us, you have nothing to lose.
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Austin, TX
Excellent company to deal with. Offer on my home was the closest to the market pricing in my area.
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San Antonio, TX
The whole experience was very simple. Victory Home Buyers made an offer on my house and we accepted. Picked a closing date and we closed on the date without any hiccups. It was just that simple. I couldn't ask for an easier way and without the headaches to sell a house. Very satisfying. Thank you!
Evelyn Ward
Dallas, TX
We are real estate investors that enjoy helping homeowners get out of their unwanted property quickly. If you need to "sell my house fast" then we offer the best solution since we purchase with cash. This means you avoid all the delays and closing costs involved via a traditional home sale. By working with cash home buyers, we can close on your house fast in Phoenix.
We make a reasonable offer when we buy houses because it will cost us money in rehab, closing fees, and other transaction fees in order to get the property ready for another buyer or to prepare the home for a potential renter. While sellers might not be looking for a large "windfall" from the sale of their property, many appreciate that we can provide a fair offer for the value of their property, close quickly (in as little as 7 days), and do not require them to make repairs or pay agent fees. If you want to sell your house fast in Chattanooga, TN and you value a "fair win-win price"… then let's see if we can work out a reasonable price for both of us.
Realtors work to list your property to get them sold. The agent lists the property for sale with a specified list price and then shows it to prospective buyers. If anybody is interested, on average, it takes 6-12 months to sell a house in many markets so it is not the ideal solution if you were searching for a way to "sell my house fast." Agents often charge a commission that is 3-6% of the sale price of your house (so if it's a $100,000 house, you'll pay between $3,000 – $6,000).
We buy houses in Chattanooga as-is with cash, zero fees, and with a quick closing, unlike the traditional way. Our goal is not to list your Chattanooga house but to help you sell your house quickly by writing you a check in as little as 7 days . We pay all closing costs up-front so there's no waiting around for your money. Selling to a cash buyer is a much faster process than going through a real estate agent. We can close in as little as seven days. We assume all of the risk of renovating, marketing, dealing with tenants, and re-selling to a retail buyer.
Yes, in many cases. When you sell your home, it may help save your credit because it stops foreclosure.
For Sale By Owner (FSBO) refers to a home that is being sold by the owner directly to the buyer, with no real estate agent. Without representation from a realtor you have greater control of your sale and can sell at any price without limitations.
One of the most common ways to sell your house fast in Chattanooga, TN without a realtor is to sell it to private investors. Investors typically purchase burdensome houses in "as is" condition at fair market value. The reason they buy houses this way is because they want to invest in flipping or fixing up properties for rental income.
A real estate attorney can help you sell your home. The benefit of hiring an attorney is that you will receive representation during the transaction and may sell for a better price since buyers are more confident in the process due to an attorney's involvement.
We understand that different people have different situations and timelines and we can work with you to help you sell your house fast in Chattanooga, TN. When we buy a home we make sure to take care of all the details so you don't have to. We will handle all the paperwork and the closing costs.
We're actively buying houses and will offer you a fair price for your home. Contact us today and fill out our short form to get started!


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Before I write even one more sentence, let me dispel any doubts about this being the traditional recipe for real Kashundi or Kasundi.
It is not.
I don't know how to make the traditional Kasundi. My mother never made it. I don't think my grandmothers did it either.
But my father's grandmother and grandaunt did. They were the designated Kashundi makers of the family. In the days when Kashundi was not bottled and sold, they were the ones who kept up a steady supply of that pungent, sharp Bengali mustard sauce in our home.
My father's grandmother "Baro Ma", a highly esteemed foodie and a lady famous for her culinary skills, passed away when I was a mere year-old child.Sadly, I wasn't intelligent enough to absorb her kashundi making process in that early year of my life. My Ma as a relatively new mother at that time probably thought the task to be too daunting and never learned it either.
Mustard seeds, mango, garlic, green chilli |
My father's grandaunt then continued the tradition in her own home, and other than receiving couple of bottles of that mustardy goodness every year and discussing how grandaunt with her frail health still kept up at her kashundi making, no one in my immediate family ventured in that direction. "Khub shokto", "Very Difficult" is all that I heard. "The kashundi can be made only on certain days with utmost cleanliness and respect. You can not talk or touch anybody while making it. A little carelessness, and all that hard work will have gone to waste as the kashundi will get spoilt".
By the time grandaunt stopped making Kashundi, small cottage industries and then brands like Radhuni etc. were selling bottled Kasundi like hot cake. We bought Kashundi from the stores and a need to make it at home never arrived.
Those days, in absence of food processors and spice blenders, the brown and yellow seeds of mustard were to be ground on the sheel, the pockmarked slab of stone which is a major landmark in a Bengali kitchen. That must have been the "hard work" part. Now, when I pause and look back, I understand the "cleanliness" part, it was the same thing with achhar(pickles) and bori. In absence of any preservatives or refrigeration, it was necessary to maintain these standards for the finished condiment to have a long shelf life.
Though my grandmother did not make Kashundi, she made bori in the dry sunny days of winter. It was an elaborate affair with the dal being soaked overnight and then ground next day in batches. Early next morning the bori making would ensue at the terrace where washed and starched spun cotton saris and dhotis would be stretched out, their corners secured by rectangular red bricks. My grandmother would take a quick bath, change her clothes and then arrive at the scene. Small dollops of the lentil pastes would be dropped on the those stretched cloth and left to dry in the winter sun.
Younger children or the house help would be assigned the job to keep away birds from those raw boris, waiting to bake in the sun. However we were not allowed to go near, touch or poke those small mounds of lentil pastes. Those mornings we were not allowed to run around on the terrace either. The whole affair was shrouded in an environment of sanctity and we looked at "bori making" with lot of respect.
Now here in the US, I get my yearly supply of Kasundi from India. This means I use it with much care, using it sparingly and trying to get most for the tablespoon of kasundi I use. I cannot be as generous with kasundi as I can be with soy sauce. The niggling doubt of what-if-my-stash-of-kasundi-does-not-last-until-Ma-visits consumes me on my worst days.
So a few years ago when my blogger friend Sharmila @ KichuKhon vouched for another blogger Delhibelle's Aam Kasundi, I thought what do I have to lose. It also helped (a lot) that her recipe was super simple and involved nothing of the word "shokto" aka difficult. It used raw mangoes with mustard seeds to produce the tangy spicy taste. Maybe it does not exactly taste like the real Kasundi but so what, it comes close, very very close and believe me it tastes awesome.
I have made this couple of times in the last year and recently made another batch. I refrigerate the bottles as I am not sure if they will stay good outside. Refrigerated they stay well for weeks. I mostly use it in dishes like shorshe salmon or bhapa ilish or in a shorshe murgi which I will share soon. It is also very good as a dip and with a bottle of it in your collection you will not miss the real Kasundi all that much.
Delhibelle's Original Recipe
Here is how I made it
Soak in water
4 tbsp Mustard seeds ( a mix of brown and yellow gives the best color but I had only brown this time). Ideally soaking for 30mins to an hour is best as it softens the mustard seeds for grinding.
Grate a small mango to yield
3/4th-1 cup of grated raw Mango
(I put peeled and cubed raw mango in the mixie to get roughly grated mangoes.)
In a blender jar add
strained mustard seeds
grated mango
5 fat clove of garlic chopped
8-10 hot green chilli chopped
Add a splash of vinegar (approx. 2tbsp) and 1/3rd Cup of Mustard Oil to the blender jar. Make a smooth paste. Try to make the paste in one go instead of pulsing.
When the paste is almost done
drizzle 4 tbsp mustard oil (more is better but I went low)
a pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
sugar (about 1 tbsp but more depending on the tartness of the mango)
Give a final whizz and your Aam Kasundi is ready
Pour out in a glass jar with lid. Top off with Mustard oil and leave it on the window ledge for a couple of days.


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Dealing With a Broken Bone
posted: Mar. 20, 2019.
The harder your children play, the harder they might fall. During childhood, fractures and broken bones are common for children playing or participating in sports. While falls are a common part of childhood,
your pediatrician in shares important information to help you understand if your child has a broken bone.
If your child breaks a bone, the classic signs might include swelling and deformity. However, if a break isn't displaced, it may be harder to tell if the bone is broken or fractured. Some telltale signs that a bone is broken are:
- You or your child hears a snap or grinding noise as the injury occurs
- Your child experiences swelling, bruising or tenderness to the injured area
- It is painful for your child to move it, touch it or press on it
- The injured part looks deformed
What Happens Next?
If you suspect that your child has a broken bone, it is important that you seek medical care immediately. All breaks, whether mild or severe, require medical assistance. Keep in mind these quick first aid tips:
- Call 911 - If your child has an 'open break' where the bone has punctured the skin, if they are unresponsive, if there is bleeding or if there have been any injuries to the spine, neck or head, call 911. Remember, better safe than sorry! If you do call 911, do not let the child eat or drink anything, as surgery may be required.
- Stop the Bleeding - Use a sterile bandage or cloth and compression to stop or slow any bleeding.
- Apply Ice - Particularly if the broken bone has remained under the skin, treat the swelling and pain with ice wrapped in a towel. As usual, remember to never place ice directly on the skin.
- Don't Move the Bone - It may be tempting to try to set the bone yourself to put your child out of pain, particularly if the bone has broken through the skin, do not do this! You risk injuring your child further. Leave the bone in the position it is in.
Contact your pediatrician to learn more about broken bones, and how you can better understand the signs and symptoms so your child can receive the care they need right away.


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SIP Witch Domain Telephony
This feature enables an entirely free software alternative to Skype using standard IETF protocols along with support for direct peer-to-peer secure communications such as possible with ZRTP capable softphones and without need for a mitigating "service provider". Instead, DNS will be used for directly resolving SIP uri's and each user or organization will construct the network directly from the bottom-up running a sipwitch service daemon to answer and route calls for their users or on individual workstations, and do so while using existing standard compliant VoIP clients such as Empathy, Twinkle, SIP Communicator, local SIP devices, etc, as they prefer. SIP Witch will shortly be announced as having a key role in the FSF effort to promote replacing Skype with free software, and this spec is consistent with that plan.
- Name: David Sugar
- email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 13
- Last updated: 2010-02-07
- Percentage of completion: 100%
- Upstream project status: Introduction of interum core NAT functionality completed (0.7.0)
We are essentially "feature complete" from the perspective of delivering Domain Telephony functionality for Fedora 13. Immediate work on comps, on drafting an updated howto based on the new 0.7.x release, and especially on finding and resolving bugs with user deployment, can now begin.
Deferred features: gui setup. New cli commands, siprealm and sippasswd, were introduced instead. gui, and even a dbus applet, may be defined for F14. NAT through ipfw was deferred to get NAT functionality immediately testable. We are only offering generic RTP proxy for F13.
Detailed Description
GNU SIP Witch is to SIP much like what Jabber is for xmpp. This feature is to setup, deploy, and manage sipwitch (or general VoIP) services in a manner consistent with other core Fedora services as well as to create a free public communication network anyone can participate in directly and securely to replace Skype. Long term goals to further VoIP integration in Fedora can include integrating phone service management with user account creation, use of auto-activating SIP user agents for SIP uri's (as a selectable preferred GNOME application much like email and web browser), address book integration to VoIP, and many other areas that touch widely upon Fedora and the overall desktop user experience. This particular spec however focuses on a more limited feature for the F13 release timeframe that is also a FSF priority initiative.
This feature essentially requires a user to be able to easily setup and deploy a GNU sipwitch server and connect it to manage one or more local SIP user agents, devices, or existing services. This can be be done directly on individual workstations, on a public facing server acting as a SIP agent for an entire domain and organization, or some combination of both. SIP Witch also will mitigate NAT issues on behalf of local SIP clients using the service to call remote users, thereby simplifying the deployment of such services. The goal is to be able to setup and deploy sipwitch and softphones to use it with much the same simplicity that one does for Skype, as well as to offer more extensive features when using sipwitch as a local SIP phone system for SIP devices.
Since SIP Witch only mitigates SIP and will soon offer media packet forward RTP for SIP devices behind a NAT, while still establishing direct peer-to-peer communication between endpoints, it has very little overhead and no issues with patent encumbered codecs. Because peer to peer media connections are used between endpoints, sipwitch can operate directly with, manage, and scale "Social Key Verification" systems such as ZRTP. This offers the ability to use verifiable high-grade end-to-end media encryption to easily establish and maintain "secure" VoIP calls with remote users, something not possible with solutions like Asterisk which do not offer media peering at connection and require central decryption. This means trustworthy intercept-free calling can become possible for larger organizations in a very simple way.
Part of the focus in F13 is on completing sipwitch NAT and then enabling a simple means for users to minimally configure and use the service. This goal will be served by a simple system "admin" application (in GNOME menus under system->administration) which will offer a form with basic questions such as the "calling domain", information about publicly appearing address for NAT, and the basic dialing plan for local SIP user agents or devices. It will include a simple tool to transform a local user account into a SIP user. A patch may also be added to the Twinkle SIP softphone to add a local SIP service such as sipwitch as a wizard "profile".
Since SIP Witch tethers SIP clients and intercommunications entirely through standard SIP protocols, SIP Witch can also be used in conjunction with and to enhance existing IP-PBX solutions such as Asterisk. There is also a sipwitch plugin that allows one to use SIP Witch to manage calls peer-to-peer to "secure" destinations using secure extension numbers while cross-registering sipwitch managed extensions to an insecure IP-PBX such as asterisk so that people can place calls to and receive calls from insecure destinations as well. This use case is outside of this initial spec, but will likely be elaborated on post F13.
Benefit to Fedora
Further enabling Fedora users to more easily communicate and collaborate realtime in voice and video worldwide in both freedom and as desired privately, and without the need of mitigating service providers. Enabling any organization and enterprise to deploy secure scalable realtime VoIP networks using Fedora whether for public or private use. Finally, as a back-end infrastructure, this feature is very naturally complimentary to Empathy as a means for users to communicate by empowering the community to create it's own messaging and communication infrastructure directly rather than depending on specific back-end providers like Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.
What was already done (prior to F13 development):
- sipwitch packaged for fedora
- plugable architecture
- server interfaces for statistics and running state
- xml based configuration files
What was completed for F13 "SIPWitch Domain Calling" feature:
- rework to standardize user behavior and make all account types profilable
- inbound anonymous calling, internodal anonymous through new P_SIPWITCH_NODE header
- missing man pages added to help with improving documentation
- new and simpler packaging layout to support going forward
- new management utilities, sippasswd and siprealm
- basic integrated NAT proxy with sdp rewrite and RTP packet forward
- auto-configuration with user accounts added to @sipusers group or default 1000 uid
What is no longer required:
- swig interfaces to server for perl and python.
What has been deferred to F14:
- password sync to digest through pam stack.
- gui admin page to set realm, passwd's, etc
- ipfw based NAT functionality
What is desired (maybe after F14):
- mysql or sqlite plugin to read local extension info from a database
- call detail collection saved into said database
- A more complete front-end which utilizes said database
- A python tray application that can get server stats via xmlrpc or dbus
- group calling and ACD functionality
- feature group calling
- user setable speed dial tables
How To Test
install sipwitch service
$ yum install sipwitch*
start the daemon (as root)
# /etc/init.d/sipwitch start
test registration
Configure test SIP client such as Twinkle...to be added....
test local calling
Dial extension number of test client. You should receive busy.
Dial an unknown extension number like 777. You should receive not found.
test domain configuration
Some instructions on domain setup...
Dial your email address as a uri. If reverse config is correct, you should get your call appearing as a new inbound call on the second line in Twinkle.
User Experience
If the sipwitch daemon crashes, all active calls still remain active. Since packet filtering is used to form proxy forward, even calls behind NAT will continue (NOTE: NAT through ipfwadm has been deferred to F14, hence calls through NAT will die if the server dies in F13).
There is also a user experience associated with an admin application. This user experience is offered through siprealm and sippasswd utilities in F13.
ucommon swig
Contingency Plan
Revert to current package, at minimum we should have sipwitch 0.6 by fedora13 which will have media proxy for NAT. It can also be bumped to Fedora14 ;).
Existing documentation:
- There is a basic howto at http://www.gnutelephony.org/index.php/Howto_Deploy_SIP_Witch_On_Ubuntu
Release Notes
The initial release of SIP Witch Domain Telephony will allow you to create and deploy scalable secure VoIP solutions both for managing a local SIP based telephone system and to call remote users over the public Internet without the need of a service provider or central directory service. This offers the freedom to organize and communicate freely and securely, and also free as in cost, too!