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Adobe's Slate Is A Visual Storytelling App For The iPad
With Slate, Adobe is launching a new text- and photo-centric storytelling app for the iPad today. About a year ago, Adobe launched Voice, its first standalone storytelling app that lets users record their own stories and then illustrate them with images (the Voice app is also getting an update today, by the way). Slate takes a different (and somewhat less experimental) approach and focuses… Read More
The Next Microsoft — Updating Its Branding And Messaging In Three Days
A very smart project is underway by a 21-year-old design student in Los Angeles. The goal: update Microsoft's branding and messaging in three days. Judging by the reaction, Andrew Kim has hit a tap root of pent upfrustrated creative juice out there. So far, there are more than 188 comments on Hacker News about his speculative design project. Read More
Review: The T-Mobile G-Slate
The Honeycomb slate market is getting crowded. With new devices launching every day and current models getting incremental updates that put them on parity with just about anything else out there, manufacturers gotta have a gimmick. Like Power Rangers or Reservoir Dogs, Honeycomb tablet manufacturers must depend on one or two defining characteristics to convince a restless consumer base to pick… Read More
LG G-Slate, Roll Out! Video Shows What Honeycomb Will Do With iOS
With all the talk of Playbooks and TouchPads these days, it's sad that poor old LG hasn't had much traction with their 10-inch G-Slate aka The Optimus Pad. Well how's this for traction? This bit of fanfic shows the Optimus Pad fighting, Michael Bay-style, high over a futuristic cityscape. While we all know Honeycomb is going to be amazing, did you know it could shoot fire… Read More
HP Thinks It Can Sell Nearly 50 Million Notebooks This Year
Apple just announced its massive Q1 numbers yesterday; they sold 4.13 million Macs. Now that's only in one quarter, but HP thinks they can also pull off some massive numbers by selling 45 to 48 million notebooks in 2011. In 2010, HP did…. More after the break. Read More
Hands-On Video With the HP Slate 500
Here is our hands-on video of the HP Slate 500, HP's new business slate. For those of you still on the fence, HP has posted all of the final specs for the device as well, including the fact that it has an active digitizer as well as an Intel Z540 Atom Processor Z540 (1.86 GHz, 512 KB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB) and 2GB of memory. You can take a gander at the product page and see if this is… Read More
Hands-On With The HP Slate 500, A Windows 7 Business Tablet
It's been a long, hard road but it looks like some of the big boys are finally figuring out tablets. To wit: the new HP Slate 500, a business-only tablet designed for retail, hospitality, medicine and anything else that isn't all about having fun. Let me explain. The Slate 500 is a very nice tablet. In fact I'd say the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the 500 are close cousins in terms… Read More
Video: The HP Slate Windows 7 Tablet Gets An Early YouTube Review
The HP Slate is a real product — numerous mentions from HP VPs and various leaks state that — but it's far from "official." Somehow, though, a somewhat-thorough video review was just posted on the ol' Interweb for the whole word to see. Remember, this product is headed for the enterprise market and you can't even buy it, so don't get all… Read More
HP, Read Our Comments, Consumers Want The Windows 7 Slate, Too
HP revealed most of its tablet strategy yesterday at the Fortune's Brainstorm conference. The Windows 7 HP Slate is headed to the enterprise sector this fall while the webOS-power Palmpad will go head-to-head against the iPad later. The plan itself really isn't that surprising as I saw this coming shortly after Palmpad was trademarked. But what I didn't expect was the outcry… Read More
HP Windows 7 slates coming "this fall"
Here come the slates. Send in the slates. Todd Bradley, EVP, Personal Systems Group, for HP just announced that their Windows 7 tablets will arrive "this Fall" — something we suspected after said slates showed up on HP's website with SKU numbers and all. The rumored (and almost certainly real) webOS slates were touched on tangentially, with the non-answer that we… Read More
Will HP put the Palmpad and Windows 7 Slate head to head?
Palmpad, eh? That sounds nice and could signal a sort-of departure from the normal slate business model. HP might be prepping more than one tablet product line. Perhaps the Windows 7 Slate project isn't dead after all. We all know the story. HP bought Palm for a billion dollars, partly for the webOS mobile phone platform. Said operating system will soon be found in other HP devices… Read More
The iPad Alternatives — The 'Where Are They Now' Edition
The iPad is the king of tablets and might hold that title for years to come. However, there are a ton of alternatives that we've featured over the last few months, mostly in these two posts (1 & 2) detailing the top 14. But since I ran those posts, a lot has changed and while some managed to make it to the market, others were delayed or scrapped entirely. It's sad, really. Read More
3 lessons HP hopefully learned from the iPad
The HP webOS Slate is one-step closer to the market now that HP officially owns Palm. It has a real chance to be the iPad-alternative of choice when it launches later this year. Hopefully HP engineers and designers have been taking notes about the iPad from the beginning because even though the iPad is selling like Girl Scout cookies, it's far from perfect. The Apple branding alone is… Read More
HP's CTO makes more noises about Slate not running Windows
At a recent conference about tablets and the future of publishing, there was a Q&A with the CTO of HP's person systems group. While he used typical CTO doubletalk, there was a few nuggets of information to be gleaned from his rather cryptic words on the future of products like HP's Slate PC. Read More
HP Slate specs leak, get compared the iPad
Uh oh! Sounds like someone is going to be in trouble. The word is out on the probable spec and pricing on the HP Slate, and HP is definitely aware of the iPad. Obviously an internal document, it's very interesting to see exactly what HP considers a threat, and what they consider to be an advantage. Read More
HP Shows Off Their Slate's Social Networking Features, Wants You To Remember They Have a Slate
HP may not have shipping product but by gar they're going to show you mock-ups. The HP slate may not be shipping and there may be another slate overshadowing it this week but HP wants you to know it runs social networking apps. The slate, which has a 10-inch screen, will run Windows 7 and should cost a little under $600 when it is released this summer. Click through for video. Read More
Apple iPad? How about a little German innovation instead
While every man and his dog is waiting for their preordered iPad to arrive, some Germans went their own way and yesterday presented a Slate that appears to have, well, better features. The Neofonie WePad has similar form and function as the wet dreams of our Crunchgear editors, but facts are that the German Android device has a bigger multitouch screen and a faster CPU than the iPad. Also… Read More
How the iPad, and the slate computer, will evolve in the next two years
With the iPad hitting pre-order in two days and shipping in April, it's important to think about when and why to buy the iPad. Based on our understanding of the product lifecycle and expected moves by Apple's competitors, we foresee big changes in the ultraportable landscape with the ultraportable/netbook as we now know it mutating – or branching – into a new species… Read More
First look: Inkia MID500 5-inch slate computer
The Inkia MID500 just hit my desk and I have to show it off. Well, it's kind of my job. I'll publish a full review in a week or so, but for now, click through for a video hands-on and my initial pros and cons about the $349 5-inch tablet computer. Read More
The Other HP Slate Runs On Android
Last night, during his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off a prototype for a new HP Slate computer running on Windows 7. It was supposed to be an Apple-stealing moment and it was Microsoft's moment, which is probably why Hewlett-Packard has not yet publicly mentioned that it is working on another tablet/slate computer that… Read More


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The Al-Arian Connection
Tom Campbell is struggling to explain his association with Sami Al-Arian, a convicted terrorist from whom he accepted campaign money and who he defended when Al-Arian was canned by the University of South Florida. (Both these actions occurred before Al-Arian's conviction.) He's not the only politician who has struggled with this. In 2004 Betty Castor ran for the Senate in Florida. Her tenure as president of that same university and her handling of Al-Arian made for campaign fodder. An ad taken out by a group, the Florida Leadership Council, attacked her thusly:
With just a tweak here or there, one can imagine that Campbell's opponents will have a similar line of attack, as he took Al-Arian's money and went the extra mile to write a letter in support of him, the latter in the name of "academic freedom," you see.
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The Al-Arian Connection
Must-Reads from Magazine
Revenge of the Unduly Reprieved
Clemancy for Manning and Arpaio backfires.
Americans are about to have another "entertaining" election cycle at a time when the country desperately needs a return to boredom and predictability. In Arizona, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's decision to challenge conspiracy-theory enthusiast and former state Senator Kelli Ward ensures that the race to replace retiring Senator Jeff Flake will become a competition to see who can do their best Roy Moore impression. Democrats should hold the schadenfreude. They have their own embarrassment to contain in Maryland, where Chelsea Manning—the former U.S. Army soldier court-martialed in 2013 for violating the Espionage Act—will challenge Senator Ben Cardin. Both candidacies represent a humiliating stain on their respective parties, not just because they are reflective of their increasingly legitimized fringes, but because they are the result of the worst ideological excesses of Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
Joe Arpaio should have never received a presidential pardon. The former sheriff was found to have flagrantly racially profiled Latinos and was convicted of ignoring a court order to cease that practice. Arpaio had not even been formally sentenced before Trump's Justice Department ordered the conviction to be wiped from the books. Some have argued that Arpaio's behavior violates the spirit of the pardon because he never repented for his conduct. Indeed, he remains defiant to this day. During a recent appearance on cable news, for example, Arpaio insisted that he remained innocent of the charges on which he was convicted until he was informed that accepting a pardon is a de facto admission of guilt.
The pardoning of Joe Arpaio for engaging in racial discrimination and displaying contempt for the law tainted the Republican Party even before the sheriff decided to resume his political career. The oppressive police practices he oversaw, the "concentration camp" (as he called it) he ran, his cruel treatment of the victims of sex crimes, journalists, and even household pets are well documented. Donald Trump's decision to forgive this serial abuser of Americans' constitutional rights confirmed in a single stroke the pervasive liberal claim that Republicans aren't just blind to but supportive of institutional racism.
That will be how Democrats leverage the cacophony of migraine-inducing soundbites that are sure to bubble up into the national news cycle during the primary race in Arizona. Arpaio, they will say, is not an aberration but the apotheosis of conservatism, indicative of the racial anxiety that was always a feature of the movement. That's not entirely unfair, but political movements are a reflection of their leadership. Donald Trump's paranoia and racial hostility have provided his supporters with a template. This White House is well aware of the base sentiments their principal channels and, as such, they don't dare tamp those sentiments down when they are summoned by aspiring Trump imitators. To do so would invite accusations of hypocrisy.
It wasn't that long ago that the Republican Party's kooks were considered anti-establishment insurgents. They had to fight against the party's gatekeepers to get a hearing from voters. Donald Trump's comportment helped legitimize people like Joe Arpaio. This candidacy and the damage it may yet do to the Republican Party's brand (already a wounded animal) is a creation of this president.
Similarly, the baggage Chelsea Manning brings to the table in Maryland was packed by Barack Obama. Her candidacy is only likely to confirm voters' worst suspicions about the Democratic Party's activist base, but it was Obama who demonstrated that those fears area not unsupported.
Obama's decision to offer Manning clemency was one of the final acts of his presidency, a period usually typified by actions the outgoing executive doesn't want to have to defend publicly. Manning betrayed the United States while serving in uniform by providing the Russian-linked information clearinghouse WikiLeaks with a variety of sensitive documents about the American mission in Iraq and Afghanistan. Manning was stripped of his rank and imprisoned—rightly so—for putting the lives of U.S. servicemen and women and those who worked with them at risk. And then, Manning transitioned from a man into a woman, thus imposing a paralyzing moral conundrum on the Democratic Party. In the age of identity, Manning's transgenderism transformed this convicted criminal into a victim overnight.
Obama's defenders justified the commutation of Manning's sentence by noting that she struggled with frequent attacks on her identity as a transgender woman in a male prison and twice tried to commit suicide. The demands she made regarding the treatment of gender dysphoria, including sexual-reassignment surgery, complicated her incarceration. What's more, having served seven years of a 35-year sentence—the longest punishment imposed on someone convicted of leaking sensitive documents—it's not a stretch to suggest that Manning served the debt owed to society.
As a private citizen, Manning has been treated to glowing profiles in outlets ranging from Yahoo Beauty to Vogue and has been embraced by the American Civil Liberties Union. As James Kirchick demonstrated, these labored displays of sycophancy aren't about Manning, per se. She's merely a totem in service to the idea that the stigmas associated with transgenderism must be abjured. In the process of abjuring them, though, the American left has rehabilitated a person who calls the United States a "police state," who thinks Law Enforcement Appreciation Day is a good opportunity to write "f*** the police" on her Twitter account, and who is barred from entering Canada for committing a crime outside the country that "would equate to an indictable offence, namely treason."
People and institutions welcoming Manning's Senate candidacy with a notorious hostility toward American force projection abroad and its law enforcement techniques at home. Perhaps worst of all, Manning is seemingly incapable of communicating like an adult—appealing to the most insipid displays of mediocrity overburdened with puerile sentimentality and emojis. And anyone who dares make mention of any of this is bludgeoned into silence by liberal activists who cynically equate criticisms of Manning's behavior with displays of bigotry toward the transgender community.
Neither Joe Arpaio nor Chelsea Manning deserved their reprieves. The legitimacy these two blights on the American political ethos enjoy today is a product of the most reckless, self-indulgent impulses of the presidents who gave them clemancy. They are funhouse mirror reflections of their respective party's base voters. These candidacies are not aberrations; they are the wages of a partisan political culture that values provoking adversaries over substantive engagement. It's up to responsible voices within both parties' political establishments to ensure that these candidacies aren't harbingers of things to come.
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Republicans Are About to Lose an Election About Values
The coming Republican depression.
Congressional Republicans passed tax-code reform into law on December 19, and the near-term effects exceeded even the most wide-eyed optimist's imaginings. Almost every day since, some large employer has announced its intention to reinvest in capital and workers what they will save as a result of the reduction in the corporate tax rate. This means more employment opportunities and things like raises, bonuses, and 401(k) hikes. Manufacturing is repatriating into the U.S. as a result of the tax bill, and even the minimum wage is on the rise for several major employers. Events have humbled Democrats who predicted that the GOP's tax reform initiative would only benefit the wealthiest. Republicans should enjoy this modest vindication because it's all they're going to get. A reckoning is coming for the GOP, and it has nothing to do with the party's policies. Voters seem prepared to deliver a negative verdict on Donald Trump.
As of this writing, the United States is embroiled in two concurrent international incidents that have almost nothing to do with American policy or U.S. interests. On Friday morning, President Trump canceled a scheduled trip to the United Kingdom, America's closest and most pivotal ally, because he simply wasn't welcome. Trump offered a variety of unconvincing explanations for his scrapped visit, but the truth is that his reckless tweeting promoted some of the U.K.'s most racist elements, sparking a feud with Prime Minister Teresa May. His presence simply couldn't be tolerated. Likewise, the president apparently (according to the non-denials of his communications staff) used an ugly expletive to describe half of the world. Many of the slighted countries are now issuing bristling protests and requesting formal clarification as to whether the leader of the free world views them as "shitholes."
At home, the controversy over Trump's latest verbal evacuation is once again sucking up all the available oxygen. Cable news is consumed with the debate over whether or not Trump was right to declare some 54 nations fetid cavities on the global landscape. More crippling for the president, the national-media landscape is equally enlivened by the debate over whether Trump's comments—in which he apparently contended that "skilled" migrants could only come from European nations and not the developing world—represent rank bigotry. Whatever the GOP agenda was yesterday is once again derailed by Trump's big mouth.
Trump-friendly Republicans will convince themselves that these are distractions that are of interest only to a hopelessly biased political press, but they're not. Not to voters. According to polling over the course of the last month, registered voters would prefer to see Democrats retake Congress by anywhere from a 7- to 18-point margin. The number of House Republicans looking for the exits in 2018 outpaces events in both 2010 and 1994, two wave years when the party in power suffered a drubbing.
What's driving this kind of anti-Republican sentiment? It's not foreign affairs. Despite Trump-instigated diplomatic furors, the world is at relative peace. The ISIS threat has receded dramatically, and U.S.-led sorties are being reduced accordingly. It's not the economy. Unemployment is at a 17-year low. The labor market is tightening, and wages in sectors like manufacturing are up. The economy is growing at a sustainable 3 percent, and near daily new stock market highs ensure that retirement investments are seeing a substantial return. Republicans who think voters are going to fall on their knees in gratitude to the GOP when they see a tax code reform-related 2 percent withholding reduction in their paycheck come February are kidding themselves.
The driving force behind the coming backlash is Trump, the man, more so than Trump, the president. He is ubiquitous, and not in a good way. He consumes the news cycle and preoccupies the minds of Americans. His erratic behavior encourages anxiety, not reassurance. His self-indulgent tweets, his tactless turns of phrase, his all-consuming narcissism, and his habit of "telling it like it is"—a conceit that amounts to an excuse for bigotry and intolerance—have repulsed many more Americans than it has enthused. Those Americans are prepared to render a negative verdict on the GOP not because of their record in office but in spite of it. 2018 will see a values election, and it will be the left's values that the nation will affirm as their own.
It used to be conservatives who could claim to represent America's unspoken moral foundations. Theirs was the ideology of probity and prudence, frugality and modesty, piety and chivalry, equanimity and egalitarianism; the underpinnings of the American ethos. Whether he believes in the conservative ethic or not, these are not values typified by Donald Trump's daily conduct. Americans have noticed, and they don't approve.
Even if Democrats just retake the House in November, it would spell the official end of the legislative phase of the Trump presidency. I say "official" because the window for legislative achievements is nearly closed already. The president's complete lack of discipline and disinterest in any policy particulars ensures that when he's not negotiating against himself, he's insulting the people he needs in order to achieve further legislative successes. Despite the promise of the new Republican dawn, the GOP is on track to vastly underperform expectations. And for these modest gains, the GOP will sacrifice not just the power it accrued in the Obama years but the values upon which it has stood for more than a generation. It's enough to make anyone depressed.
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Letter From a Shitholer
A moment for moral clarity.
Dear President Trump:
COMMENTARY is a 73-year-old monthly magazine of serious conservative thought and opinion. So my colleagues and I are loath to publish obscenities, including on our website. But such is the degraded condition to which you have reduced the United States, that reporting on your sayings and doings requires us to wade into the linguistic gutter, where you regularly dwell. The toxic discharge flows daily from your office and Twitter account into the stream of national affairs–and the homes of Americans struggling to raise children amid an already-vulgar culture.
Thank you for that, Mr. President, and thanks also to your moral-majoritarian sycophants. (This is what moral renewal looks and sounds like, eh, Rev. Falwell?)
Which brings me, Mr. President, to your latest contribution to the American conversation: "Why would we want all these people from shithole countries?" The people whom you had in mind were immigrants from Haiti as well as African countries. That's according to multiple outlets reporting independently on the same incident Thursday, reports which your White House has not denied. Why these shitholers, you pressed the lawmakers assembled in the Cabinet Room, there to discuss an immigration compromise, and not more migrants from places like Norway?
Why the brown and black people, let us be honest, and not the ones from nice, Nordic stock?
In the coming days, your right-wing media allies will scramble to justify your statement. "Mr. Trump's rhetoric is often coarse," the more highbrow apologists will say, "but that doesn't mean Americans shouldn't have a debate about merit-based immigration policy." Your thuggish, lowbrow apologists take you more literally; they are already flooding the Internet with images of misery in Africa and Haiti, to prove that your "shithole" characterization was right on the money.
The rest of us must insist, however, that this is not the time for policy discussions. Your remarks are not an occasion to debate merit-based immigration, aid to the developing world, or social cohesion and upward mobility among different sets of immigrants to the U.S. No, this is a moral moment. Or rather: It is a new moral low point for the American presidency. Any attempt to make this about policy would be a grave offense to the many millions of immigrants who have helped build up this nation since its founding.
I say this as an immigrant from Iran, a place which you likely consider to be another "shithole," and as a proud conservative. I did not support you in the 2016 election, precisely because I worried about your temperament. Since then, I have strived to be fair and intellectually honest. I have given your administration credit whenever I felt it was due. But your latest outbursts are a reminder that no policy achievement can wash away moral disgrace. Here's hoping your saner, more upright advisers can put a stop to the flow of discharge from your office. But I'm not holding my breath.
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Two Dossiers, Zero Standards
Hypocrisy and self-righteousness.
BuzzFeed News editor in chief Ben Smith would like you to know that he's proud of his organization's decision to publish the raw, unverified intelligence product that has come to be known as the Steele Dossier. He shouldn't be.
A year after the infamous document was thrust into the public's hands, Smith published an op-ed in the New York Times defending his decision to publish the dossier and excoriating his critics. Specifically, he singled out one particular category of scold: "Journalistic traditionalists didn't like the idea of sharing an unfiltered, unverified document with the public, whatever the caveats and context."
Smith dismissed journalists who scoffed at unconfirmed intelligence products—which are unsuited for consumption even by lawmakers, much less the general public—as "fake news." Today, Smith claims, it is "clear that the dossier is unquestionably real news." This irresponsible claim is the mirror image of the assertions made by Trump supporters, who are quick to declare without evidence that the entire document has been discredited.
Even if we take Smith's premise at face value, it wasn't BuzzFeed's estimation at the time of the dossier's publication that this was a credible document. "The allegations are unverified," read a caveat at the top of the website's dispatch, "and the report contains errors."
Smith contends that presenting the public with an un-redacted PDF of the dossier was the only responsible way to inform us about the nature of the allegations involving Trump's conduct on a trip to Moscow in 2013. CNN, hardly an organization composed exclusively of buttoned-down "journalistic traditionalists," begged to differ. In its reporting on the Steele Dossier, which preceded BuzzFeed's reckless dispatch, CNN summarized the allegations as best it could with proper caveats while declining to be more explicit about details it could not independently confirm. That's not failing to think outside the box in the Trump era; that was being responsible.
In truth, Smith's assertion that his organization was merely deferring to the obvious news value of the Steele Dossier is a tacked-on rationalization—especially when you consider how the organization has treated another unverified set of allegations, the existence of which has also had a series of dramatic cultural and political ramifications: The "Sh**** Media Men" list.
On Wednesday night, the author of the open document that identified over 70 men in publishing who had allegedly engaged in abusive behavior toward women identified herself. Moira Donegan's list, which implicated both anonymous private citizens and public figures, has served as the basis for investigations and defenestrations. Donegan describes the list as a written version of a "whisper network," through which words of caution and advice are transmitted to select audiences. The document was "meant to be private," she said. "It was intended specifically not to inflict consequences, not to be a weapon," but to be a "tool" in the hands of those who could use it effectively.
In the midst of a culture-wide purge of lecherous men in positions of authority, BuzzFeed's Doree Shafrir was the first reporter to reveal the existence of this list, but she did so with admirable caution. She confessed that her instinct was to welcome its publication, but she noted that these unsubstantiated allegations can ruin lives and change the course of public events. It was therefore incumbent on reporters to be careful about publicizing these claims, no matter how many preconceptions about these men (individually or as a gender) this list confirmed.
Donegan's decision to reveal her identity was a preemptive strike; she believed that she was about to be exposed by Harper's Magazine, although it's far from clear that was in the cards. Even the mere idea that the critic Katie Rophie was about to publish a piece on the Media Men list and its creator prompted a flurry of online apoplexy, resulting in threats and defamation directed at Rophie and her publication. Their concerns were valid; they feared that the exposure of the list and the accusations therein, even absent the names of accusers, would expose the women involved in its creation to harassment or worse. The detailed accusations in the list could be used by the accused to identify their accusers. The same could be said of the dossier; in fact, it has been said. According to the attorney representing the firm that commissioned the Steele Dossier, "somebody's already been killed as a result of the publication of this dossier."
Some will say I am committing a category error; the President of the United States cannot be compared to editors and reporters. Indeed, that's true. If anything, a story with implications for the security of the nation and the political process should inspire reporters to be more circumspect and prudent, not less. Journalists who consider the explosive and unsubstantiated allegations in the Media Men list to be unworthy of publication are correct. The allegations in the list are explosive and have the potential to ruin lives—as would the publication of Donegan's name without her consent. So, too, was the Steele Dossier unworthy of publication. Its exposure to the public is not justified by any of the events that followed its release, no matter how favorably anti-Trump partisans view those events.
It's one thing to adopt a transparently arbitrary journalistic standard that applies only to Donald Trump; it's quite another to be self-righteous about it.
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The Fiction that Destabilizes the Middle East
Liberating Lebanon.
If I were compiling a foreign policy wish list for 2018, high on the list would be ending the fiction that Lebanon is an independent country rather than an Iranian satrapy governed by Iran's foreign legion, Hezbollah. The Western foreign policy establishment maintains this fiction out of good intentions; it wants to protect innocent Lebanese from suffering the consequences of Hezbollah's military provocations against its neighbors. But this policy has enabled Hezbollah to devastate several neighboring countries with impunity, and it's paving the way to a war that will devastate Lebanon itself.
Sheltering Lebanon from the consequences of Hezbollah's behavior is both a bipartisan and a transatlantic consensus. This was evident from the West's wall-to-wall outrage in November, when Saudi Arabia abortively tried to end the pretense that Hezbollah doesn't rule Lebanon by pressuring the organization's fig leaf, Prime Minister Saad Hariri, to resign. The International Support Group for Lebanon, which includes the U.S., UN, European Union, Arab League, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, China, and Russia, issued a statement demanding that Lebanon be "shielded from tensions in the region." The State Department's acting assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, David Satterfield, demanded that Saudi Arabia "explain why Riyadh was destabilizing Lebanon." French President Emmanuel Macron proclaimed it vital that Lebanon remains "disassociated" from regional crises. And the list goes on.
Yet the West has shown no similar concern for shielding the many Mideast countries which Lebanon's de facto ruling party has destabilized for years. Thousands of Hezbollah troops have fought in Syria's civil war, helping the Assad regime to slaughter hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. Hezbollah also has troops in Yemen to support the Houthi rebels in that country's civil war, and it may have been involved in firing missiles from Yemen at Saudi Arabia. It has trained Shi'ite militias in Iraq and fought alongside them. And, of course, it has built an arsenal of some 150,000 missiles–bigger than that of most conventional armies–for eventual use against Israel.
Granted, Hezbollah isn't Lebanon's official ruling party; it's part of a coalition government led by Hariri, who actually belongs to a rival party. But not only does Hezbollah have official veto power over all government decisions, it's also the country's dominant military force. Hariri has no power to stop Hezbollah from sending its troops all over the region; he can't even stop it from doing as it pleases within Lebanon itself.
One small example perfectly illustrates his impotence. In early December, Qais al-Khazali, the head of an Iraqi Shi'ite militia, was videotaped accompanying Hezbollah operatives to the Lebanese-Israeli border and proclaiming his militia's willingness to help Hezbollah fight Israel. Hariri termed the visit a "flagrant violation" of Lebanese law and ordered the Lebanese army to make sure no such incident recurred. A few weeks later, as if to underscore Hariri's powerlessness, Hezbollah took another senior commander from a Syrian Shi'ite militia to the border for a similar videotaped pledge.
Yet despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the West has insisted on maintaining the fiction that Lebanon is somehow independent of Hezbollah rather than ruled by it. And in so doing, Western countries have actually enabled Hezbollah's aggression.
Thanks to this fiction, the West gives hundreds of millions of dollars in both civilian and military aid to Lebanon. Civilian aid, of which the EU has provided over $1 billion in recent years, frees Hezbollah of the need to pay for the consequences of its actions, like caring for the 1.1 million Syrian refugees its own aggression helped drive from Syria into Lebanon. American military aid, of which Lebanon is the world's sixth-largest recipient, has given Hezbollah access to training, intelligence, equipment and other military capabilities, since the Lebanese army shares everything it receives with the organization, whether willingly or under compulsion from Hezbollah's greater strength.
Moreover, thanks to this fiction, the West has repeatedly watered down sanctions on Hezbollah to avoid harming Lebanon and has also repeatedly pressured other countries not to penalize Lebanon for Hezbollah's aggression. This has allowed Hezbollah to wage its foreign wars without its own Lebanese constituency paying any price. If Hezbollah knew its own citizens would suffer for its actions, it might think twice about foreign adventurism.
But aside from destabilizing other Mideast countries, this Western policy is liable to boomerang on Lebanon itself. Serious observers currently rate another Hezbollah-Israel war as somewhere between likely and inevitable. And because Hezbollah has 150,000 rockets pointed at Israel's civilian population, Israel would have no choice but to employ maximum force to end such a war as quickly as possible. Against a threat of that magnitude, protecting its own people would trump any international pressure for "restraint."
The result would be massive civilian casualties, given Hezbollah's habit of embedding troops and weapons in urban areas, as well as the destruction of Lebanese infrastructure, which Hezbollah uses to move and resupply its troops. In short, Lebanon would be devastated.
The only way to prevent such a war is to reverse the Western policies that have enabled Hezbollah to grow to its current monstrous proportions. This means exerting massive pressure on Hezbollah, even if it also hurts Lebanon. Such pressure should include targeting Hezbollah's drug trade and sanctioning Lebanese banks that handle its finances. This might keep the organization so preoccupied with its own survival that it has no energy to spare for taking on Israel. In addition, the West must be clear that it can't and won't protect Lebanon if war does break out. If Hezbollah believes the West will once again intervene to shield Lebanon, it's liable to make the mistake of thinking it can fight Israel without intolerable consequences to its own people.
Several decades of "protecting" Lebanon have only strengthened Hezbollah, and it's folly to think more of the same will produce different results. Thus, it's long past time to acknowledge that Lebanon is a fully-owned Iranian subsidiary and to treat it accordingly–not only for the sake of Lebanon's neighbors but for the sake of Lebanon itself.
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subset: commoncrawl


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College basketball
Gonzaga the 57th school to top AP Top 25 poll
SPOKANE, Wash. The to-do list for the Gonzaga basketball team got shorter Monday: For the first time, the Zags were ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 poll.
Sweet, but it may get bumpier from there.
Next: Avoiding the potholes that have stopped every other No. 1 this season, then finding a way to the Final Four.
Gonzaga, a small Jesuit school in Spokane, is where crooner Bing Crosby went and where John Stockton threaded pinpoint passes. It has the best record in Division I at 29-2 following weekend wins against BYU and Portland. The Hoosiers, beaten by Minnesota last week, dropped to No. 2.
The Zags are the 57th school to be ranked No. 1 since the AP poll began in January 1949. The school is considered a mid-major and reached No. 2 for the first time last week. Now it will play for the first time at No. 1 on Saturday night in the West Coast Conference semifinals.
Flacco becomes highest-paid player in league history
OWINGS MILLS, Md. Joe Flacco knows his stature as the highest-paid player in NFL history may not last for long, and hes OK with it.
What matters most to the Super Bowl MVP is that the Baltimore Ravens were willing to pay him that kind of money in the first place.
Flacco signed his new contract Monday worth $120.6 million over six years. He will receive a $29 million signing bonus, $52 million in guaranteed money and $51 million over the first two years of the deal.
The former first-round draft pick out of Delaware is the first starting quarterback in NFL history to make the playoffs in each of his first five seasons. Hes led the Ravens to nine wins over that span, tying Tom Brady for most among quarterbacks in the first five years of a career.
Flacco threw 11 touchdown passes and no interceptions during the recent postseason and led Baltimore to a 34-31 Super Bowl win over San Francisco.
And it all made the Ravens willing to pay him more money than Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees or any other of the great quarterbacks in the game today.
By signing Monday, Flacco avoided receiving the franchise tag, which would have hindered the Ravens salary cap in 2013.
Flacco turned down a contract before the 2012 season that would have paid him roughly $15 million a year. His decision turned out to be an incredibly wise one.
Gabel steps down after being accused of misconduct
Andy Gabel stepped down from major committees at the International Skating Union and U.S. Speedskating after being accused of a sexual relationship with an underage skater in the 1990s.
ISU President Ottavio Cinquanta said Monday that Gabel quit as chairman of the short track committee, which governs the frenzied sport best known in the United States for the achievements of Apolo Anton Ohno, the most decorated Winter Olympian in the countrys history.
(Gabel) has communicated that he resigned, Cinquanta told The Associated Press. I cannot say anything else. It would be inappropriate if I would make some further comment as he is no longer with us.
U.S. speedskating spokeswoman Tamara Castellano said Gabel resigned from the national Hall of Fame committee, which oversees the selection process for inductees.
Gabel is also a member of the Hall of Fame, but it wasnt immediately clear if there was a provision to remove someone who has received the honor. Meanwhile, the U.S. Speedskating board was holding its regular monthly meeting Monday and was expected to discuss the allegations against its former member.
Associated Press


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Christmas Trees Absorb Greenhouse Gasses
Your Christmas tree and its brethren are absorbing methane, a super greenhouse gas that they were previously suspected of emitting. In fact, previous studies put the global methane output by plants at between 62 and 236 teragrams each year. That's not small potatoes (if you will pardon the vegetable pun), but 10 to 30 percent of all methane entering the atmosphere.
I refer to methane as a "super" greenhouse gas because it does what carbon dioxide does, but packs about 25 times the punch, which is bad. However, methane does not last very as long in Earth's atmosphere, which is good. Then again, one of the things methane degrades into is carbon dioxide. Bad again.
The discovery that some trees are absorbing methane comes from Elin Sundqvist and colleagues at Lund University and Stockholm University in Sweden. They did some very number-heavy forest and laboratory measurements and analysis of the gases being exchanged by tree branches of pine, spruce and birch trees under a variety of conditions.
"In contrast to earlier studies of CH4 (methane) exchange by plants, we find a net consumption by all plants studied both in situ and in the laboratory," they conclude in the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters.
The discovery could offer a new explanation to an observed leveling off of methane concentrations in Earth's atmosphere, the researchers say. Earlier work they cite suggested that the methane levels were slowing as a result of less fossil fuel burning (huh?). Another bit of research suggested that maybe there were fewer microbes making methane in the Northern hemisphere.
Christmas Tree image via Shutterstock.
Read more at Discovery News.


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Pacem Noelarr. Larry Clark & Rae Moses - Carl Fischer LLC
This is absolutely superb! The famous Mozart canon Dona Nobis Pacem is paired with The First Noel for choir with keyboard and optional flute, or for choir with concert band. The way the two melodies fit together is quite remarkable! The perfect choice for a combined choral and instrumental concert during the holiday season, Pacem Noel may be sung and played by middle-school through high-school ensembles. Highly recommended!
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Originally published March 8, 2013 at 5:09 PM | Page modified March 9, 2013 at 4:19 PM
Hansen says basketball not to blame for hedge fund's poor results
Chris Hansen, who's leading the bid to bring the Sacramento Kings to Seattle, told investors his hedge fund had the worst quarterly performance in its history.
Seattle Times business reporter
Recent stories
Editorial & Opinion
Chris Hansen may be close to buying the Sacramento Kings and moving the National Basketball Association team to Seattle, but his hedge fund put up an air ball in the fourth quarter.
In his year-end letter to investors, Hansen said his fund, Valiant Capital Partners, had a net loss of 7.44 percent in the final three months of 2012. The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index, by comparison, fell just 1 percent in that period.
The San Francisco investment manager called it Valiant's worst quarterly performance since he started the company in 2008, according to the letter, which was obtained by Institutional Investor's hedge-fund blog Alpha.
Though he trailed the stock-market averages for the quarter and the year, Hansen tried to reassure investors that he hasn't taken his eye off the ball.
"Investing, not basketball, is and has always been" his passion, Hansen wrote, according to Alpha. "Investing is what I think about when I wake up, on the drive to work, and just before I drift off to sleep."
Hansen's main fund managed a full-year net return of 10.32 percent, according to the letter.
Including "side pocket" investments such as Facebook stock and real estate that are managed separately from the main fund, Valiant last year had a total net return of 5.64 percent.
That's not much, given that the plain-vanilla S&P 500 index gained 13.4 percent last year.
Hansen could not immediately be reached for comment on the letter.
In January, a group led by Hansen, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and two members of the Nordstrom department-store family agreed to pay just over $340 million for 65 percent of the Kings.
The group plans to move the team to Seattle, perhaps as soon as this fall, and build a $490 million arena in the Sodo neighborhood.
However, a rival group also has bid to buy the Kings, with the goal of keeping them in Sacramento.
NBA owners will decide next month whether to approve the Hansen deal.
In his letter, Hansen wrote that "unlike at Valiant, where I am intimately involved in almost every element of our operations on a daily and weekly basis, my role in Seattle will be to provide a stable, patient, civic and community minded ownership group — and not to become intimately involved in player/personnel decisions."
The letter, as cited by Alpha, said Valiant managed $2.8 billion of assets as of year-end.
It also provided a few glimpses into Valiant's investment strategies, which Hansen, like most hedge-fund managers, has kept close to his vest.
"Given our patient style on the long side and focus on shorting the worst businesses we can find (particularly frauds), volatility is an undeniable reality of our business," he wrote. "While this volatility can result in periods of outperformance like it did in Q3, it will also inevitably lead to periods of significant underperformance like it did in Q4."
It's not known how Valiant's fourth-quarter results affect Hansen's own income or net worth, which he is not obligated to disclose.
Hedge-fund managers receive a management fee, typically 2 percent of assets under management, regardless of how the fund performs.
They also receive a share of any profits, usually 20 percent.
Drew DeSilver: 206-464-3145 or email@example.com


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I am just wondering if anyone on the list is attending the 25th ESRI User Conference in San Diego, July 25th-29th?
I'll be there all five days and was wondering if anyone from the list is going? Perhaps we could meet in the Map Gallery at some time.
25th ESRI User Conference in San Diego
Started by Matthew Hampton , Jul 19 2005 07:36 PM
1 reply to this topic
Posted 19 July 2005 - 07:36 PM
co-cartographic creator of boringmaps.com
Posted 20 July 2005 - 02:21 AM
not this time... I wish i would be on the way there though -- it is raining here (I will be in Germany for step-brother-in-law's wedding)
Hugo Ahlenius
Nordpil - custom maps and GIS
Nordpil - custom maps and GIS
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Additions aimed at helping Denton compete in field of shopping destinations
Retail in Denton continues to expand as two major developments open new stores, offering more options to local and regional residents.
At Golden Triangle Mall, the first phase of a major renovation already shows plenty of new stores, eateries and a new look and feel in the longtime retail development.
On University Drive, Rayzor Ranch Marketplace continues to add more businesses to its shopping center.
With the growth of these two shopping attractions, more people are opting to stay closer to home for dinner, entertainment and shopping — making Denton the center for additional development, officials say.
In the first phase of an initial $9.5 million renovation, visual signs greet customers walking into the now-33-year-old Golden Triangle Mall on the northwest corner of Loop 288 and Interstate 35E.
From newly installed landscaping, trees and directional signs to the vivid colors of renovated entrances, passers-by can easily see change is afoot.
A walk inside reveals even more changes. A new food court now offers a sitting area, and several new restaurants add Asian, Italian and healthy flavors to the existing mix of dining options.
Open so far are Italia Express and Smoothies Paradise. Tobu Teriyaki is expected to open Tuesday.
And, according to mall manager Matt Ludemann, it is just the beginning.
"We expect to add more restaurants in the near future," he said during a recent tour of the mall.
The food court also features large flat-screen televisions for diners to catch up on three networks.
Bernadette Clancy said she's seen food vendors come and go during the 25 years she's worked at J.C. Penney in the mall, but she thinks having a food court will give the new businesses more staying power.
"I think it's going to be really good once it opens because it's more convenient to have one location," she said recently.
Having more seating options — including leather chairs throughout the mall where people can rest or even charge their phones — will help business, Clancy said.
Her co-worker Brandy Silva said the food court adds an incentive for shoppers to spend more time at the mall.
"It might bring more business because now people can sit down and eat and relax, then continue shopping," Silva said.
The food court also has more appeal, said Betty Alexander, a Sears employee.
"I think it looks really nice compared to what we had before," she said. "I'll be eating inside the mall more now."
Some shoppers say they hope the new food court will offer more variety in the future.
"It's nice that I can sit down and eat now, but we still don't have that many options," said Richi Maksud, who was sitting in the food court Thursday.
She said there is "nowhere to get a sandwich," and wished the mall could add a Subway or similar eatery.
The mall's new leather chairs, some with ottomans, provide a place to sit and relax, while the center court, complete with an elevated center and surrounding seating areas, serves as a stage for everything from a grand piano to, soon, the holiday-themed spot for Santa's annual visit.
Boldly colored geometric designs in the ceiling showcase a lighter, brighter interior for shoppers. A total of 12 charging stations offer opportunities for shoppers to recharge their mobile devices. Updated WiFi is also available.
Boards surround a soon-to-be-completed play area for children ages 5 and younger.
New shops — Buckle and Body Central — recently opened, with more expected by the end of the year and early 2014. Charlotte Russe, a national women's and juniors clothing retailer, is expected to open in late November, Ludemann said.
Construction crews continue to work on a water feature to be installed at the mall's main entrance next year, Ludemann said.
"They've really invested a lot into rejuvenating the mall, which is fantastic for us," said Aimee Bissett, economic development director for the city of Denton.
"You can see the transformation — it's a wow factor, and the parking lot is full. We're seeing people officially giving the mall a new chance," she said. "We need to see Dentonites say, 'We see the investment you've made, and we're willing to give it another chance.'"
Further north on the interstate, Rayzor Ranch Marketplace has continued its expansion this year, having added seven businesses with four more scheduled to open by the end of 2013, said Linda Hinton, general manager of the center for RED Development LLC.
"The development is just booming," she said. "And we've still got quite a few additional stores that are going to make quite a big impact to the area that are coming to the marketplace."
This year, Petco, Kohl's, Sugar Queen Cupcakes, Jo-Ann Fabric, Panera Bread, Five Below and Famous Footwear have opened in the development. Rayzor Ranch Marketplace now has 34 businesses open, according to its online directory.
Coming up, DK Foot & Casual, Styles for Less, Colorful Hearing and Salons by JC are expected to open by the end of the year. A fifth store is also under construction right now — Boot Barn — and is expected to open in early 2014, Hinton said.
The marketplace is outperforming anticipated tax revenue this year, and is not taking away revenue from existing businesses, Bissett said.
"It's a sign that we're capturing shoppers who were otherwise going outside of Denton, and that's what we want to do more and more of," she said.
Consumers can expect the growth of the center to continue into 2014, Hinton said, as businesses are still signing new leases at a steady rate.
DAWN COBB can be reached at 940-566-6879 and via Twitter at @DawnCobbDRC.
JENNA DUNCAN can be reached at 940-566-6889 and via Twitter@JennaFDuncan.


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Dashlets Overview
There are 19 different Dashlets available in Opsview Monitor (not including the seven extra Dashlets available to Users with Network Analyzer, which are covered within the Network Analyzer section).
These Dashlets are:
- Process Map
- Hashtag Tree Map
- Hashtag List
- Hashtag Cells
- Performance Gauge
- Performance Graph
- BSM Service Covered in Business Service Monitoring
- BSM Summary Covered in Business Service Monitoring
- BSM Component Covered in Business Service Monitoring
- Network Map
- Metric Pie Chart
- Host Group List
- Host Group Tree Map
- Event Table
- Event Graph
- Top Service Issues
- Top Services by Metric
- Note Pad
- System Status
In the following sections, each Dashlet will be outlined and discussed, along with an example of a configured Dashlet and explanation of each of the configuration options.
Process Map
A Process Map is a Dashlet that allows you to upload an image to Opsview Monitor and overlay the monitored data onto the image. This data includes:
- Hashtags
- Host Groups
- Host
- Service
- Performance Metric
You could upload an image of a rack, for example, and create a 'live status' map of the rack using the health of the monitored Hosts that are within the rack, as below:
In the above example, we have a real-life image of a rack that has been photographed (or generated via an IP camera) and uploaded to the process map. Atop of this image, various metrics have been added to reflect the health and performance of the objects within the rack, i.e. the two shelves of hard drives are in a problem state, and the performance of one of the servers is in a warning status, i.e. it may be overloaded. This allows you to not only see 'datashelf1 is down', but where that is within a given rack ' thus reducing the time-to-resolution, should it need physical intervention.
Another example is using a Hashtag per data center/office, and using a map of the country to show the health of each location based on objects within the given Hashtags:
Using a Process Map showing the map of the U.S., we can see immediately that there are problems within our Washington data center, again reducing the time-to-resolution and giving our Sysadmins a head start.
Adding and configuring a Process Map
To add a process map to your Dashboard, simply drag the Dashlet 'Process Map' onto the Dashboard as outlined in Creating a new Dashboard:
Once you have added the Process Map to the Dashboard, you will be presented with a view similar to the one below (this may be different depending on which Dashboard layout you chose):
To upload your own image, click on the Settings icon in the Dashlet header (the 'gear cog'), which will load a configuration modal window similar to the one below:
There are two methods of adding an image to a Process Map:
- Upload Image: The simplest way, you simply select a saved .jpg or .png via the 'Browse' button and click on 'Upload' which will upload and display a preview within the 'Image Preview' window, as shown below:
- URL Image: The 'URL Image' option allows you to enter the full path of a web-based URL, i.e. http://mysite.com/myimage.png. This image will then be downloaded on a regular User-defined interval, meaning if the image is constantly changing, then the Process Map image will reflect the changes. Once you have entered your URL, click on 'Preview' which will download the image and display it within the 'Image Preview' box, as shown below:
- If you enter an invalid URL, or one that cannot be accessed, then you will see the error message 'Image cannot be previewed'.
Once you have uploaded an image via one of the outlined methods, you will have a process map similar to below:
You can now begin to overlay metrics onto the image. To do this, simply right-click on the image and you will be presented with a menu as below:
To add a Hashtag onto the Process Map, click on the 'Hashtag' row ' similarly click on 'Service' to add a Service Check, Host to add a Host, and so forth.
If adding a Hashtag, you will be presented with a configuration modal window similar to the one shown below:
Click on the 'Hashtag' text box and a drop-down list will appear, allowing you to select one Hashtag. After selecting the image size from Small, Medium and Large (the size of the icon), click 'Save' and the new Hashtag status icon will appear:
You can then drag and drop this icon anywhere within the process map, i.e. place it on the relevant item with the image. The addition of 'Host', 'Service' and 'Host Group' is very similar (select your object, select size of the image (icon) and click save).
The addition of 'Performance metric' indicators is slightly different. After clicking on 'Create > Performance Metric', a new modal window will appear similar to the one shown below:
This modal window allows you to choose a specific Service Check on a specific Host, and determine a custom label along with other options including arrow direction, arrow size ('Image Size') and more. The modal window also allows for the configuration of thresholds for the numbers specified, i.e. if you are displaying network throughput with this Performance Metric, you can say 'If traffic goes about X, change the arrow to yellow/ WARNING, if it goes about Z, change the arrow to red/CRITICAL'. This provides a visual indicator as to the performance metrics status.
In the window above, we are configuring the performance metric to display the time it takes to get a response in milliseconds (ms) from the Opsview server via HTTP. We want to set the threshold so that anything bigger than an 55ms response will set the performance metric to the WARNING status (yellow), and anything bigger than an 85ms response will set it to CRITICAL (red):
Clicking 'Save' will now add our new performance metric to the Process Map:
As with the other visual indicators, this performance metric can be dragged and dropped, and also hovered-over with the mouse to display the Service Check itself, as shown below:
Visual indicators can also be edited and removed from the Process Map. To do this, simply right-click on the 'performance metric', for example, and click on Edit/Delete as below:
On press of the 'Delete' option, a modal window will appear asking you to confirm the action:
Click on 'Yes' and the visual indicator will be removed from the Process Map.
Hashtag Tree Map
The Hashtag Tree Map displays a visual representation of the health of the Service Checks within one or more Hashtags within the Opsview Monitor systems:
The size of the cell is directly proportional to the number of Service Checks within the given Hashtag in a certain state, i.e. a large block of red indicates a large number of Service Checks in a CRITICAL state, as with the 'business-systems' Hashtag above.
The configuration of the Hashtag Tree Map Dashlet is very easy; simply click on the Settings icon in the Dashlet header which will load a configuration window. You can then choose which Hashtags you wish to display in this particular Dashlet, as shown below:
Once you have saved the settings, your Hashtag Tree Map will re-load with only the selected Hashtags:
Finally, you can hover the mouse over each Hashtag section to view how many Service Checks are in the given state, within the specific Hashtag, as shown below:
Hashtag List
The Hashtag List Dashlet provides a cut-down version of the summary view found within the Hashtags section of 'Monitoring':
The Dashlet will display the 'Description' field of the Hashtag, along with the status of the Hashtag, in a tabular format that can be sorted A-Z or Z-A. Sorting on the status column will sort the table based on severity, i.e. CRITICAL, WARNING, UNKNOWN or OK (or vice versa).
The configuration of the Hashtag Tree Map Dashlet is very easy; simply click on the Settings icon in the Dashlet header which will load a configuration window. You can then choose which Hashtags you wish to display in this particular Dashlet, as shown below:
Once saved, the Dashlet will update to display only the selected Hashtags:
Hashtag Cells
The Hashtag Cells Dashlet provides a cut-down version of the Grid View found within the Hashtags section of 'Monitoring':
The Dashlet will display the 'Description' field of the Hashtag in individual cells. The cell's color will indicate the status of the Hashtag, i.e. OK is green, CRITICAL is red and so forth.
The configuration of the Hashtag Tree Map Dashlet is very easy; simply click on the Settings icon in the Dashlet header which will load a configuration window. You can then choose which Hashtags you wish to display in this particular Dashlet, as shown below:
Once saved, the Dashlet will update to display only the selected Hashtags:
Performance Gauge
This Dashlet is used to display one or more Service Checks in a 'gauge' style, with the ability to show the WARNING and CRITICAL levels. Below is an example of a performance gauge used to measure available file system storage:
The configuration for this Dashlet is as follows:
In the Dashlet we only have one series, 'Opsview::disk: /::root' (Host::Service Check::Metric), however more than one series can be added. For example, we could add seven file systems and the number returned will be total of the seven metrics.
The minimum and maximum value are User set, i.e. the left and right of the performance gauge, as is the WARNING and CRITICAL threshold fields. You can choose to have thresholds defined when the value is greater than WARNING/CRITICAL, or conversely you can have thresholds defined when the value returned is lesser than WARNING/CRITICAL (i.e. space remaining, etc). If 'treat threshold as percentages' is ticked, the warning and critical values must be within 0 to 100%, otherwise they must be between the minimum and maximum values. If '>=' is chosen, then the critical value must be higher than the warning value. If '<=' is chosen, the warning value must be higher than the critical value. The 'Humanise Values' check box tells Opsview Monitor to try and 'humanise' the returned value, i.e. if the performance data for the Service Check's metric is '6001' with a UOM (unit of measurement) of 'Mb', then without 'humanize..' checked, the performance gauge will display:
With 'Humanise..' checked, Opsview Monitor will convert '6001Mb' to '6.0G', as below:
'Humanise values' also converts the minimum and maximum values, meaning '10000000000' becomes '10G' (Gigabytes). Unfortunately, even with 'Humanise..' checked, the values need to be entered in a byte format, i.e. 10000000000 for 10.0GB, 10000000 for 10MB, and so forth.
Performance Graph
This Dashlet allows Users to add a graph to their Dashlet, in a similar view and format to that within the Graph Center and within the 'Investigate Mode' in 'Host Groups, Hosts and Services':
The performance graph dashlet allows you to determine which series to display on the graph, where a series is a metric returned from a Host's Service Check, i.e. 'Opsview::disk: /::root' (Host::Service Check::Metric. The Dashlet also allows you to choose the type of graph (line/area), the thickness of the lines, and also the duration ' i.e. show the last 1 hour, 3 hours, 3 days, etc.
The configuration window for the performance graph Dashlet above is:
The series were added using the 'multi-add/bulk add' functionality. To use this functionality, simply select a field, such as 'Service' and choose your Service Check, i.e. 'Unix Load Average'. Then, choose your metric, i.e. 'load1'. After you have done this, the 'Host:' field will list only Hosts who have this Service Check/Metric combo.
You can then simply multi-select the Hosts, click 'Add' and the combination will be added, as below:
As can be seen below, there are three metrics, which when combined with one Service Check and ten Hosts results in 30 series that are added via the 'Add 30' button:
The options drawer contains three settings:
- Duration: The range of data the graph will show: 1 hour, 3 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, 1 day, 7 days, 14 days, 28 days, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years.
- Chart style: The display style, either Line, Area or Stack.
- Line thickness: The thickness of the per-series lines, used for all three styles.
Below are some examples of graphs with different display styles:
Duration: 1 day, Chart style: Area, Line thickness: Thinnest
Duration: 1 day, Chart style: Line, Line thickness: Medium
The data on the Performance Graph can be viewed by clicking on the 'up' arrow, located at the bottom of the Performance Graph Dashlet:
When this arrow is clicked, the drawer will load. This drawer contains the series data including hostname and Service Check, as shown below:
The performance graph can also be 'focused'/minimized. To do this, simply drag your mouse across the area of the performance graph you wish to focus on/zoom into:
Once released, the Performance Graph will redraw to focus on the selected area:
To reset the Performance Graph, simply click on the 'Show All' icon, located in the top right-hand corner of the Dashlet.
Network Map
The Network Map Dashlet takes the dependencies between Hosts (as defined by you, the administrator), and draws a spider diagram outlining the relationship between Hosts, along with a status indicator for each Host, as shown below:
In the example above, we have focused the network map on the Host 'firewall1'. This Host is connected to a router, 'Cisco2611', which subsequently connects to a 'switch3' which has four Hosts connected to it. The Network Map allows you to see the dynamic, 'true' hierarchy of the Hosts within your environment.
The configuration window can be seen below:
The first drawer, 'Filter from Host', allows you to select a Host of which you wish to see the expanded network map (as shown above).
The second drawer, 'Filter by Host group', allows you to filter the list of Hosts available within the 'Filter from Host' by a given Host Group, and also limits the network map Dashlet to only show Hosts that are within the specified Host Group.
The final drawer, 'Advanced filtering', contains two options:
The first option, 'Only display Hosts that possess one or more children' essentially removes the 'status' from Hosts who have no further children, i.e. 'buttermere' has no children. With this option checked, the status (green/red/yellow) is hidden:
However, with this option unchecked, it displays the Host status:
The second option, 'Delete Saved positions', will reset the network map on each load if you have dragged them into different positions (by using their status icon, i.e. click and drag the green check, etc).
Metric Pie Chart
The metric pie chart allows you to create a pie chart view of the perfdata gathered within Opsview Monitor for Service Checks metrics:
Pie charts are great for comparing Hosts that are using the same Service Check and metric, i.e. comparing which Hosts are using the most network bandwidth, which Hosts are using the most disk space, etc.
The pie chart segments can be clicked on, which will load a contextual menu displaying the Host, Service Check, metric and value fields ' along with the percentage of the pie chart each slice has, and a small sparkline graph displaying historical performance:
There is a 'legend' icon in the top right-hand side, that allows you to view what each color is, i.e. 'Blue is 'warninghost'', etc.
There is also a data drop-down in the bottom left-hand side, which allows you to say 'What did this pie chart look like a week ago?'.
The data in the top right hand side will list the number of slices, and also the total data ' i.e. if each slice is 'Number of connections', then the number will be total number of connections across all slices.
Metric Pie Chart configuration allows you to choose whether you wish to have slices based on Host, Service Checks or Metrics:
In the example above, we selected 'Slices based on: Host', chosen the service as 'Unix Memory' and the metric as 'utilisation'. We can see there are 14 slices, i.e. 14 Hosts have that Service Check/Metric. As such, we have set 'Show top: 15' which will show all of the slices. If I only wanted to see the top five Hosts, in the context of memory utilization, I could choose 'Show top: 5' instead.
Host Group List
The Host Group List Dashlet provides a cut-down version of the view available within 'Monitoring > Host Groups, Hosts and Services':
This Dashlet provides the ability to view the 'Downtime, Host Handled, Host Unhandled, Service Handled and Service Handled, Total Hosts, Total Services' columns on a per Host Group basis.
By default, only three status columns are displayed ' Downtime, Host Unhandled and Service Unhandled, and all Host groups are shown. To add or remove columns, hold the mouse cursor over the column header row, click on the contextual menu icon that appears and then select or deselect column names within the 'Edit Columns' menu, as shown below:
In the example, we have added only the 'Services' columns:
The Host Group List can be sorted on the 'Host Group' and'Total Services' columns, as above, by clicking on the column name.
The configuration for the Host Group List Dashlet comprises of two sections:
Filter by Host group: Filter the Dashlet to only display selected Host groups.
Filter by State: Filter the Dashlet to display only Hosts or Service Checks in a certain state, i.e. only show 'non-OK/non-UP' items.
Once you have selected your desired filters, click 'Save' and the Dashlet will repopulate with the relevant Host groups and data.
Host Group Tree Map
The Host Group Tree Map is very similar in behavior to the Hashtag Tree Map, in that it displays a visual representation of the health of the Service Checks within one or more Host Groups within the Opsview Monitor systems:
The size of the cell is directly proportional to the number of Service Checks within the given Host Group in a certain state, i.e. a large block of red indicates a large number of Service Checks in a CRITICAL state, as with the 'Linux servers' Host Group above.
The configuration of the Host Group Tree Map Dashlet is very easy; simply click on the Settings icon in the Dashlet header which will load a configuration window. You can then choose which Host Groups you wish to display in this particular Dashlet, as shown below:
You can also choose to 'Filter by State', which allows you to tell the Host Group Tree Map to only display Hosts or Service Checks that are in a certain state, i.e. OK, CRITICAL, UP, etc:
Finally, you can choose to 'Only show unhandled Hosts and services', which will only display Hosts or Service Checks that are in an unhandled state, i.e. CRITICAL/WARNING/UNKNOWN or DOWN/UNREACHABLE and not acknowledged by an administrator.
In the example below, I have filtered the Dashlet to only show non-OK states (I.e. hide 'UP' and 'OK'), and also checked the 'Only show unhandled Hosts and services' box:
Event Table
The Event Table Dashlet allows you to view the events (changes of state) generated within Opsview Monitor in a Dashlet format. This table is a smaller version of the table within the 'Events Viewer' section of 'Monitoring':
The Dashlet will display, in a time sorted order (most recent at the top), the events that have been generated within Opsview Monitor. These events can be filtered in a range of different ways, as per the settings modal window for the Dashlet:
You can choose to filter the Events Table to show events that have occurred within specific Business Services, Components, Host Groups, Hashtags, Hosts, Host Templates or Service Checks ' and also filter the events based on their state, i.e. only show CRITICAL events, or only show 'HARD' events, etc. These filters are applied using an 'AND' logic, i.e. 'Only show events within 'Host Group A', on Hosts 'B' and 'C', only within the Host Template 'Unix Base', and only show CRITICAL events, that are in a HARD state'.
Finally, you can also choose to restrict the number of events shown in the table via the 'Filter by Limit' drawer, which allows you to choose between showing 25, 50, 100 or 200 most recent events.
Event Graph
The Event Graph Dashlet allows you to view the events (changes of state) generated within Opsview Monitor in a Dashlet format. This table is a smaller version of the bar chart within the 'Events Viewer' section of 'Monitoring':
The Dashlet will display, by default, data from the last six hours, for all events generated within the Opsview Monitor system. To see what the events are, simply click on a section, i.e. the 'Red bar' above with the '9' value in it, will load a new modal window, as shown below, displaying those 9 CRITICAL events:
Unlike in the main 'Event Viewer' section within 'Monitoring', only one bar can be selected at a time.
The Event Graph Dashlet has a range of filters, exactly the same as the Event Table Dashlet, which allows you to filter the events displayed on the Event Graph by a range of different ways, as per the settings modal window for the Dashlet:
You can choose to filter the Events Graph to show events that have occurred within specific Business Services, Components, Host Groups, Hashtags, Hosts, Host Templates or Service Checks ' and also filter the events based on their state, i.e. only show CRITICAL events, or only show 'HARD' events, etc. These filters are applied using an 'AND' logic, i.e. 'Only show events within 'Host Group A', on Hosts 'B' and 'C', only within the Host Template 'Unix Base', and only show CRITICAL events, that are in a HARD state'.
Finally, you can also choose to define a different timeframe from the default '6 hours', with options for '3 hours', '6 hours', '1 day', '2 days'.
Top Service Issues
The Top Service Issues Dashlet allows you to choose a Service Check, i.e. 'Unix Load Average', and view all of the Hosts who have that Service Check in a non-OK state (WARNING/CRITICAL), as shown below:
In the example above, the Top Service Issues Dashlet is displaying all Hosts who have the 'Unix Load Average' Service Check in a CRITICAL/WARNING state. The configuration for this Dashlet is:
In the above configuration window, you can choose the service, i.e. 'Unix Load Average' (just click in the field and a drop down window with all available Service Checks will appear). You can also choose to determine a WARNING/CRITICAL threshold, which will change the color of the row, and also choose between showing the 'Top 10' or 'Top 25' Service Checks in a non-OK state.
There are also options to further filter the list, i.e. only show Hosts that have 'Unix Load Average' in a non-OK state, within a certain Host Group ('Filter by Host group'), or only show Hosts that have 'Unix Load Average' in a non-OK state if that state is CRITICAL and HARD ('Filter by State'):
Top Services by Metric
The 'Top Services by Metric' Dashlet is different to the 'Top Service Issues' Dashlet, in that it allows you to choose not only a Service Check but also a metric of the Service Check, i.e. the metric 'load1' of the Service Check 'Unix Load Average', as shown below:
The other difference is that it lists all Hosts who have the specified Service Check & metric, instead of only ones who have the given Service Check in a non-OK state.
In the example screenshot above, we are displaying the top ten Hosts with 'Unix Load Average' and 'load1' applied, using the value of 'load1' as the sorting. The configuration for this Dashlet can be seen below:
In the example above, you can choose to define WARNING/CRITICAL threshold values ' i.e. of the 'load1' metric is above '3', change the row to yellow/WARNING, and if it is above 6, change the row to red/CRITICAL. You can also choose to define the number of issues to display, i.e. 'Top 10' or Top 25'.
There is also the option to further filter the list, i.e. only Hosts that have the 'Unix Load Average' / load1 metric, within a certain Host Group ('Filter by Host group'),
Note Pad
The 'Note Pad' Dashlet allows you to add text via a WYSIWYG editor, allowing you to add text, notes, hyperlinks, contact phone numbers and more to a Dashboard:
The configuration is very simple for the Note Pad, simply click on the 'Settings' icon with the header tab of the Dashlet and enter your desired text via the WYSIWYG editor, as shown below:
Simply click on 'Save' and the newly-entered text will be saved and displayed within the Dashlet.


text:
I think this is appropriate to post here in the new fora.
Norrick says:
You are incorrect. Please see the Welcome thread for the Boardroom guidelines. This post fails the test posed in Item #1.
[This message was edited by Norrick on February 24, 2004 at 20:30.]
Ugh, ditch the black. I know that's not the kind of feedback you were looking for so I apologize, but it's awful.
Other than that, it looks like a good resource for people in your area.
I'm not sure if you've seen any other PHPNuke themes, but they're oftentimes generic and bland. I found the one I liked best (which was black) and made some significant modifications to make it work.
The site is still in beta, so I'm sure there will be some facelifts of sorts during the site's next several iterations.
This is purely a call to register on what appears to be a regional site not too different from ArsTechnica.
If you need help with a business issue related to your site, that's one thing. But spamming the Boardroom to add to your membership is another.


text: So, I've been working my way through the extensive and enlightening bonus features on the new Enterprise Season One blu rays, and I thought this passage from the "In Conversation" featurette with Brannon Braga and Rick Berman was particularly amusing. BRANNON BRAGA: Do you remember the book...the novelization of the Enterprise pilot, in hardcover, that came out around the time the show did, by Diane Carey that...It was very obvious in reading many passages that she hated the pilot script and was making her own metacommentary on the show? Do you remember this? RICK BERMAN: I vaguely do. BB: It's filled with passages commenting on how shitty the script is. You know, like—I can't remember exactly, but you know: "So Trip and Reed found themselves in front of two stripper girls eating butterflies. A ridiculous concept, even on an alien world." I mean, just like… RB: This is in a novel? BB: (laughing) This was in the novelization. And just, like, commenting on how stupid characters were: "No good Starfleet captain would have done this, but Captain Archer was no ordinary Star Trek captain." But, it was filled—and I don't know if it was you or me called just to say "Hey, we think this is funny, but you should know that this author has…" RB: "…that you've licensed…" BB: Obviously, an editor missed the fact that she hates the show and it's reeking with hatred from beginning to end. I don't know or remember exactly what happened. I think maybe she was reprimanded. That's absolutely true. Me, again: This tendency of Carey's is something I've noticed before in DS9 novelizations. Often, Sisko's internal thoughts are very unkind towards his officers if they are supposedly speaking out of turn, or explaining the obvious, or just plain making a comment he finds dumb. I really truly thought she was less than impressed with some of the scripts. I guess I was not the only one who noticed this liberty that she was taking. By the way, Carey had written over 30 Trek books before Broken Bow in 2001, and none since. Coincidence?


text:
ABBYY FineReader Express Edition for Mac is an easy-to-use yet powerful OCR application designed specifically for Macintosh computers. With just one click, it converts scanned papers, PDF files, and digital photos of documents into editable and searchable formats, keeping original formatting and layout. Based on ABBYY`s intelligent OCR technologies, it enables Mac users to avoid manual retyping of text and increase every-day productivity when working with documents.
A mixed-signal, mixed-language multi-level simulator.
An easy to use, but still quite capable firewall for Netfilter/iptables.


text:
Frequently Asked Questions About Celiac Disease 09/30/2015This Celiac.com FAQ on celiac disease will guide you to all of the basic information you will need to know about the disease, its diagnosis, testing methods, a gluten-free diet, etc. Subscribe to Celiac.com's FREE weekly eNewsletter What are the major symptoms of celiac disease? Celiac Disease Symptoms What testing is available for celiac disease? Celiac Disease Screening Interpretation of Celiac Disease Blood Test Results Can I be tested even though I am eating gluten free? How long must gluten be taken for the serological tests to be meaningful? The Gluten-Free Diet 101 - A Beginner's Guide to Going Gluten-Free Is celiac inherited? Should my children be tested? Ten Facts About Celiac Disease Genetic Testing Is there a link between celiac and other autoimmune diseases? Celiac Disease Research: Associated Diseases and Disorders Is there a list of gluten foods to avoid? Unsafe Gluten-Free Food List (Unsafe Ingredients) Is there a list of gluten free foods? Safe Gluten-Free Food List (Safe Ingredients) Gluten-Free Alcoholic Beverages Distilled Spirits (Grain Alcohols) and Vinegar: Are they Gluten-Free? Where does gluten hide? Additional Things to Beware of to Maintain a 100% Gluten-Free Diet What if my doctor won't listen to me? An Open Letter to Skeptical Health Care Practitioners Gluten-Free recipes: Gluten-Free Recipes
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Igg Intolerance Testing?
strkngfang replied to lockerbear's topic in Other Food Intolerance and Leaky Gut IssuesThe hair test is a good one, so I've heard, I didn't have it. I had the ELISA 96 food panel done and it showed quite a bit. I've been able to add some of it back in slowly, but also had to avoid some things that were previously okay. The research shows that the reliability of these tests isn't very good and the only true way to know is an elimination diet. Eat only whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and meats for a few weeks and then add one other food item at a time and keep track of your reactions. The things I've learned about intolerance tests are they are always changing. If you tested every month, you would get different results, depending on what you've eaten. I have a celiac friend who has been gluten free for over a year, retested and gluten showed up as okay, but only because there had been none in her system for so long. I'm not knocking the testing, I've had some done as well, but really the only true way is to test each food yourself and see what happens. Best of luck to you.
Functional Medicine Physician
strkngfang posted a topic in Celiac Disease - DoctorsI've been receiving treatments and advice from a functional medicine doctor for just about a year now. I had never heard of them before I attended a 6 wk program on digestive issues, put on by my wife's county employer. Everything he said and his knowledge on the subject was remarkable so I made an appointment to see him. He is very picky on who he accepts, because he wants only the determined, so he doesn't waste his time, I liked that. Of course insurance doesn't cover anything that he has done so it became costly, but I figured being healed was worth any price I had to pay. I've had several tests, GI effects stool, Adrenal Stress Index & NutrEval etc and they all brought up "red flags" that he dealt with by giving me certain supplements. The problem has been that I'm not really much better and it is starting to feel like he is running out of answers. My program with him runs out in June and that will be it for me, win or lose, because of the high cost to maintain everything he has asked of me. My question is, who do I try and find next? I know the GI doctors are useless with these problems. I've had 3 colonoscopies, upper and lower GI, small bowel etc and everything was negative. Even blood tests for celiac was negative, even though my recent tests with my functional medicine doctor all showed very elevated gluten intolerances. Any advice, if June rolls around and I'm feeling the same? I keep praying that I'll have a breakthrough in the next 6 months but I just don't know??
Supporting Others Even When We Don't Agree With Their Treatment
strkngfang replied to 1desperateladysaved's topic in Celiac Disease - Coping WithI believe in using whatever works and sadly traditional medicine is falling way down the list for me. Doctors only seem interested in getting you in and out and with a prescription for something? Can you believe I've seen two different GI doctors in the past for long periods and neither one ever held any interest in what I eat or what might be causing the problem, just about taking something to mask over the symptoms. Sorry about the little rant. I appreciate advice from everyone and there is nothing I wouldn't try. I've done acupuncture, hyponosis, meditations and various "miracle" drugs on the internet that end up being a "rip off". I went for a check up with my primary doctor a few months back and he had no clue what a "functional medicine" physician even was? I took him some of my lab test results and I had to show him how to read them and even then he dismissed them as unreliable, like they do for any non AMA test or supplement. We would be so much better if doctors cared about healing you instead of just making money and furthering the millions in the phamaseutical industry.
Supplements To Help Heal A Damaged Leaky Gut?
strkngfang replied to LFitts's topic in Celiac Disease - Coping WithI agree, that the dairy has to go. There is also Almond milk, that is lactose free and tastes good. If you decide to try the glutamine, be careful, because it will cause nausea in some people. I've tried two different products containing it for healing and I couldn't stomach either one. Apparently this happens to more people than you would think. Best of luck to you.
I had quite an extensive list on my food intolerance panel taken in Dec 2011 so I can tell you the only things I can eat or can tolerate, either taste wise or non reaction wise? Meats- Turkey, roast beef, Fish, Pork Fruits- apples, peaches, grapes, blueberries, cranberries Vegetables- lima beans, peas, carrots, spinach, lettuce, green beans Misc- Sunbutter, lara bars, walnuts, cashews I have tried in the past two weeks with ill results- broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, bell peppers. I am totally grain free and have been for 5 days. Before that I was eating gluten free foods such as breads, cereal, granola bars etc. I've still had two "attacks" in the past 5 days, so no real difference in the change? My functional medicine doctor thought that I was having cross reactions so I was put on a whole foods diet only on the 11th. I still believe there has to be something definitively wrong with me to not be getting any better. The handful of supplements I've been on should have offered some long term relief by their self. I've been on gut repairing, anti spasmodics, probiotics, digestive enzymes, magnesium citrate, vitamin D & a fiber???
Thanks, it is so frustrating. I am only slightly better in the past year than I was eating full out gluten products and even then I was avoiding greasy, processed, fast foods, chocolate, caffeine etc, due to my IBS-D symptoms. If my main problem was gluten, which I was told and tests showed, shouldn't I be feeling a lot better? I've been gluten-free for 10 months, I still get gut wretching cramps, pain, diah, constipation etc that comes on when it feels like it, with no provocation. Between what my intolerance panel says I can't eat and the food I just plain don't like, there is only a few things left. Trying to rotate this small circle to not eat the same things days in a row is an almost impossible battle. I'm down to only 2 meals a day and I'm always hungry. Sadly, I was happier being "unhealthy", I'm down 15 lbs since starting treatments and changed diets. I was only 157, so I didn't have any to lose? My biggest fear is that the over 3,000 dollars I have invested will prove to be futile The GI doctors could care less, they just push worthless meds and worthless tests. Been there, done that for many years.
Celiac's Not Sticking To The gluten-free Diet
strkngfang replied to tennisman's topic in Celiac Disease - Coping WithI can honestly say that I've never been tested positive for celiac disease, just IBS-D for over 20 years. However, when I began early last year receiving treatments and testing from a functional medicine provider, all signs pointed to celiac. I had some blood & stool tests done that tested off the charts for gluten intolerance. I was eating tons of gluten, all of the "good stuff", pizza, bread, cereal, cookies, pasta etc. I still ate better than most because I had avoided all processed, fast, greasy, spicy, chocolate and dairy foods for more than 10 yrs. I would get severe cramping pains and diahrrea, sometimes needing ER relief. He believed I had celiac for a long time and it did consider damage to my intestinal lining, that just took a while to really affect me. Like a previous post stated, just because you have no symptoms currently, eventually when enough damage is done, you will and it will be bad. I'm having a terrible time still, due to cross reactions now to non gluten foods, I've been gluten free for 10 months with no cheating. We are still trying to heal my bad injured leaky gut. If you are diagnosed celiac and you continue to cheat or ignore it, trust me, you will pay later.
Thanks for the good insights and for offering advice. I do have total faith in my functional medicine provider who is very knowledgable with digestive issues. He has literally healed hundreds of people, my case just isn't as "cut and dry" as most of his patients. All of my supplements have been advised by him and he is very picky on what he suggests. He only uses certain labs for the supplementation. All the ingredients are natural and fully allergen free. I am also taking Vitamin D, Magnesium Citrate and a GNC vegetable based gluten free multi vitamin. I just started with the whole foods diet a few days a go after several extremely painful cramping sessions lasting hours. I was eating gluten free bread, Chex cereal, scrambled eggs and gluten free snacks like vanilla chip granola bars as well as fruits and veggies. I haven't had gluten foods since Feb 2012. When I started treatments in May, I was initially on a ton of supplements. My testing originally showed parasites, overgrowth of yeast, overgrowth of bad bacteria etc. When I re tested again in July, I was rid of everything just mentioned and was feeling pretty good. I made it through July and August with no symptoms and then September I grew worse again and had terrible Oct and November. December, I had about 50% good days and so far this month I average 2 out of 7 days with no issues. I've had two good days in a row, eating only the whole foods. I have been hungry and low on energy but pain free. My doctor wants me to stay this way until the gut heals properly and then I can try and add some different foods back in. I took a food intolerance panel test a year a go that showed a lot of "red Flags" so I have to avoid them as well. My main goal is to just stay pain free, because I got crippling pain and couldn't function. I keep a record of everything and am always comparing and contrasting. Thanks again.
Newbie From Ohio
strkngfang posted a topic in Celiac Disease - Coping WithHello everyone. I'm Dan, a 48 yr old gluten sufferer that has been gluten free for 10 months, but still struggles with leaky gut syndrome. I've been working with a functional medicine doctor for treatments, supplements etc, after years of getting nowhere with GI doctors. They are only interested in slapping the IBS tag on you and prescribing as much worthless harmful drugs as they can. Who knows how long I've been gluten intolerant, it took two trips to the ER with severe cramping and diahrrea to finally convince me that this was more than just IBS. I'm still only having limited success because now it turns out that I am eating cross reactive foods that my body is mistaking for gluten. I've had to shorten my already slim list of things I can eat and it is frustrating. I've never been scoped for celiac, but I've had the GI effects stool test, the ELISA food panel & various blood tests, all which showed high intolerance to gluten, so I was told for the most part consider myself a celiac. I don't trust the "gluten free" foods out there either. The FDA only has to meet certain markers to label food, so the ingredients are still there, just in a smaller amount. I'm currently on a whole foods only diet, eating nothing that has any ingredients in it at all. Fruits, vegetables, meats, nuts and that is it. No rice, soy, dairy, potato, egg, which worked for awhile as a gluten substitute, but no more. I'm on different all natural supplements to aid in healing my leaky gut but it seems like one step forward and two steps back. I'm lucky to have 2 "good" days out of 7. I was a steady 155 in early 2012, I stay consistently at 140 now. Anyone else as frustrated as I am with any advice? The good ole insurance companies won't touch any tests that I've had done and I've sunk over 3,000 dollars in treatments, tests, supplements, consultations etc with a functional medicine doctor. My current treatment plan with him runs out in June and then I'm on my own because I can't afford to keep going.