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Five Stars
Lovely dress very flattering
fashionable and stretchy
I do really like this dress because it is comfortable and stretchy. The color is the same as the picture. It is quite short on me (I'm 68 inches in height), but that's the style of this dress. The cowl neckline can be a fuss to get it to sit right, because there are "inside out" seams on the neckline/shoulder which the cowl is meant to cover. You can't be too mobile with the neckline pulled to off-the-shoulder, as it will pop up and sit like a cowl.One thing I don't love about this dress is the fact that the fabric is so thin - underwear lines will show through. But, with a pair of leggings, this dress is fabulous, especially for the price!
Five Stars
True to size
Love it - just need matching shoes and a fascinator to die for!!
Love it! Same color as the Duchess wore, great fabric, nice cling to all the right places. Wore it with a spanx bra/ship combo and I got a ton of complements. Great quality on this dress from Janecrafts. I will be happy to look at other dresses and clothing that they manufacture.
Five Stars
I love this dress and would definitely buy another!!
Five Stars
is perfect
This dress is beautiful! Great fit
This dress is beautiful! Great fit. Order size xxl if you're a large. Nice fabric easy to care for and take on vacations.
This is very comfortable and easy to style with a belt if you'd
I love this
I LOVE AMAZON!! What a find!
So, soooooo cute guys!!!! Purchased this for my little princess and the function was a family wedding. It's well made its color is as advertised and she's a size 3/4, so I got this in small...it fit her perfectly! The price was shut the front door cheap...thanks to all party's that made this lil dress possible lol!!!
Love it!!
Very pretty dress. I am 5'4 and the length is perfect. I love the colors.
I was very pleased with the fit and the price
receive this dress yesterday 2-23-16 and tried it on. I was very pleased with the fit and the price.


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"Becoming Jane", education, facebook, George Takei, hating, humanity, ifuckinglovescience, Jane Austen, learning, loving, negative and positive, Neil deGrasse Tyson, politics, social media, word porn
I work hard and I get everything done in a day that needs to be, but I do spend snippets of time in between checking invoices and posting bills scrolling through facebook. Now don't give me that scoff. Although it can be a terrifying sociological and psychological experiment, facebook has value too. Mostly in those who ride that invincible hydra to defend good rather than evil. Folks and projects like these:
Tysonism – All things Neil deGrasse Tyson, and stuff Tyson fans might enjoy.
George Takei – Just all manner of fuel for a good mood and an optimistic outlook. LGBT haters especially need to study this one.
I f'kin' love science – Science, new science, old science, blinding science.
Word Porn – Poems, quotes, words, and all the marvelous and beautiful things you can do with them.
I could go on, but it would take a while and a lot of space. I'll likely include more eventually because my list of fun stuff to research, think about and write about expands due to my facebook glances. I'm including these links because I want you to follow them if you don't already. Why? Because there are a million things between them that will make you think, get you curious, and entertain and educate you for hours. Tysonism alone could be published as an anthology of fascinating information that teaches this former educator at least a dozen new things a week.
All the corners of facebook have been riding that mean ole' hydra for all its** worth lately. My friends list is comprised of people from all walks of life, all religious beliefs, all political bents, and a multitudinous measure of experience. And many of my friends go "share" crazy like I do. Political views, memes sneering barbs concerning some frivolous outcry, some strong belief that blots all others from importance in certain minds, lists of fantastic puns, adorable critters from around the world, cats that can't spell and dogs that can't bark, the list goes on. Some are entertaining and funny, informative and hopeful. Others surprise or disturb, and still others confuse and perplex. A lot of them leave me unmoved. I don't always agree with what I read or see, but these people are still my friends and family. I'm not going to debate with them until neither side makes a lick of sense. Because in the long run, neither side does. What is, is. What we perceive is flawed, skewed, and manipulated. My perception certainly isn't any more immune than yours. But good luck convincing either of us.
So I take pleasure in simpler things. In life as in facebook. New information, interesting studies, really incredible photos and beautiful videos. That's my usual fare in between trading witticisms with high school classmates I wish I'd talked to more, watching my beautiful nieces and sweetheart of a nephew grow up at alarming rates in real-time pictures, and having the opportunity to wish somebody a happy birthday every day. It's much more fun and less stressful to cruise the wall in this manner than getting pissed off and insulting everyone you don't agree with.
But I've fallen victim to the negativity that is required to keep the milli-capitated beast running. And it's true. The nature of everything is the balance between negative and positive, and facebook is part of everything, so you can't separate the two poles even if they never come together. It's so easy to be sucked in when words flow free and unfettered from a keyboard. They're good and necessary things, these negative facebook experiences. Even in the throes of an enraged diatribe, that "wrong" post may teach you to see something in a different light or from a more empathetic point of view.
That's the key word, there, y'all. Empathy. I don't see much of it lately. Even if it's impossible to fully appreciate the condition of others, surely every human being has enough imagination to consider the comfort and quality of anyone's shoes. Wouldn't that dreadfully offensive (oh dear!) opinion you read on your wall seem somewhat fair and understandable considering this person's background, situation, or experience? You know. Those things you sometimes can't help. Like how stubborn you are; just like your grandmother.
As is true of every foolish idealist, I'm not anywhere near as perfect as my imagination. So I verbally balk, I verbally protest, and I sometimes share a meme that might offend (oh dear!) any number of my friends or family. But I think we all need to be offended sometimes. A species that doesn't know how to take a thrashing can't survive long enough to see who was right. The way things are going we won't survive, and we won't quit bickering over bullshit long enough to inspect the evidence and make a decision.
But there are some who are willing to stand up on a chair and say, "Hold up!" I think we ought to quiet down and pay attention to them.
Meanwhile, these are for you:
A post from the blog "social media rabbit" about witnessing a Neil deGrasse Tyson lecture.
*My title quote is from a scene in "Becoming Jane," a movie based loosely on a novel based kind of on Jane Austen's life. I haven't read it yet (it's on the list), but as I understand it's mostly speculation, but that makes it no less entertaining or relevant. It involves this characterized Jane Austen (played beautifully by Anne Hathaway) and her brazen beau, LeFroy (played brilliantly by James McAvoy) telling LeFroy's conservative, old fashioned, and extremely dickish Uncle about meeting Ann Radcliffe, a Victorian Gothic novelist who influenced countless greats. This pompous, old-fashioned Tory is amazed that a woman has been allowed to make money off of anything literary and managed to avoid his courtroom (or so I glean). This quote is his reaction to learning about how much money she makes. It's a voice I hear in nightmares.
**Yes, that is supposed to be possessive. I like the possessive better than the contraction here.

subset: commoncrawl


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Tech Investor Wants To Create Six Californias, Turn Silicon Valley Into Its Own State.
Californian Independence/Secession
California would be far better breaking off from the rest of the US and becoming their own sovereign state. California's incredible potential is being completely stymied by the backward policies and red tape of the US. It's way easier for smaller states to more effectively cater to their people.
China and India definitely need to take this into account. There's a reason why mammals eventually outlasted the giant, lumbering dinosaurs. Guangdong is also a region that would be better off doing its own thing rather than being held back by the dictates of a city far, far away.
Thus, I'd say a better idea than splitting California into six states is having California become its own country with 6 provinces/territories.


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AJ's Walla Walla - Sweet Onion Mustard with Red Bells - 125mL
Red Bell Peppers, also known as "sweet peppers", are high in vitamin A and a large red bell contains 209 mg of vitamin C, which is 3 times the 70mg of an average orange. AJ's Sweet Onion Mustard with Red Bells is a taste treat.
Availability: In Stock
Price: $4.49


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THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Latin Quarter
6904 Wooster Pike (Madisonville Rd.) Send to Phone
513-271-5400 | Make Restaurant Reservations
OpenDinner nightly
- Parking lot
- Dress code: Casual dressy
- Entertainment: Entertainment
- Full bar
- Kid-friendly
- Outdoor dining
- Reservations suggested
* Click here for rating key
THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED Latin Quarter Restaurant Review: Elliott Jablonsky is one of the most creative restaurateurs in Cincinnati, and he scored another major success when he opened the delightful eatery Latin Quarter in the heart of the historic Mariemont section. It is a bistro, but with a Spanish and Latin American twist. The room is decorated with sophisticated art nouveau touches and has the real warmth of a modern cantina. The menu features grilled meats and seafood, as well as pasta, pizza and sandwiches. Each item is graced with special nuances that distinguish the dish, such as the Spanish jamón served with melon, and the maple-chile-glazed pork medallions. Tender rings of calamari are delicious, accented with zingy chorizo sausage to make an altogether great dish. The Key lime pie, actually done as an individual tart, is tops, and heads a short list of sweet endings.
GAYOT's Annual Restaurant Awards honor America's best chefs, as well as promising newcomers and a top restaurateur.


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"If you don't play, you lose. There was a Ukrainian woman at the market selling big red apples. 'Come get your apples! Chernobyl apples!' Someone told her not to advertise that, no one will buy them. 'Don't worry!' she says. 'They buy them anyway. Some need them for their mother-in-law, some for their boss.'"— from Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, by Svetlana Alexievich.
I'll take two, please.


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Click Image To Visit Site
This is Perfect if you are a college student, want flexible income or you have a job and need extra income.
A total of $25.00 in Starting Bonuses are currently available (bonuses are included on your first paycheck).
You qualify and will be accepted if you are 18+ years old. There is a one time registration fee to set up your work listing site access and to issue your p word. Then simply log in whenever you want, pick the opportunities that interest you and start working. You will need to fill in basic information once with each opportunity, so you can get paid and receive work that is best suited for you. Easy registration takes less than a minute. (Register Now while this is Available). Read more…


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One of my friends said I needed more baby cards in my stash...which is true! So I decided to make a couple this week. And already I have a brand new baby boy I can give this to! He came 6 weeks early but he's doing well. This sweet little Sock Monkey from The Cat's Pajamas - Hang in There Baby is sure to put a smile on your face :)
I did a little copic colouring and out of the box cutting to give the balloons a lift for the little guy, pairing him with some cute Carta Bella Rough and Tumble DP. My sewing machine seems not to want to cooperate with me as it slipped a couple of stitches on the corner at the top. But once those holes are made you're sort of committed!
Accents include some pretty Embosslit hearts, enamel dots, and some seam binding. Though this is not actually a baby set, one of the sentiments has the word baby in it so I just inked up that part of the stamp and voila! A baby card!


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Hi Guys!
So my super close friends banded together to form a channel called Burandoholics.
Basically this channel is our outlet to rant and discuss releases and brands we love.
This is our first video! I hope you enjoy it.
The video is on the embed above, otherwise watch it on the link here
In this video we unbox Angelic Pretty's Mercator's Antique Shop Special Set that came out last month. It has been my dream print for a little while and I thought it would never re-release. What was worrying at first was the fact that the special set was a Tokyo shop release only, and that means my mum (in Kobe) would not be able to go in store for me to get it. However, in an amazing stroke of luck, Odi happened to be in Tokyo at the time to get it for us! We couldn't have been more grateful. You can check us talking more about the release and our first co-ord for it in the video!
Monday, April 18, 2016
Wednesday, April 06, 2016
Lolita Community Meet: Welcome New Lolitas 2016.
Hey guys! Some of you may have noticed that I have changed my URL now to missmaiko.blogspot.com. This is to keep continuity with my other social media and because I was not happy with my old username. Now that that's out of the way, onwards to the post...
A little while ago we had a Welcome meet for all the Lolitas that have recently joined our local comm. It was great to catch up and have everyone join together and chat over picnic food. I wore my Btssb Florence's medicine chest Louisa JSK I bought in Kobe earlier this year. I am still getting used to wearing lighter colours as I am used to wearing dark colours mostly.
We had a great turnout! I am glad it was a sunny day as we were having a our meet outdoors.
Selfies with some of my favorite people!
We had several speakers (including myself) speak about the basics of Lolita fashion to introduce beginner Lolitas. We each had different topics to talk about including tips on shopping, makeup tip and generally how to handle the attention when wearing frills. We brought about plenty of discussion which was great to see! I wrote a blog post about what I spoke about (How to buy Lolita!) here.
Credit to Window Warmth for the some of the images above in the post the rest are mine.
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Virtual Tour
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What Book Genre Do I Read?Young Adult ♥ Paranormal Romance ♥ Urban Fantasy ♥ Dystopian ♥ Historical Romance ♥ Contemporary ♥ Erotica
I was really excited to start this book because the cover is beautiful. Young Adult book covers are really looking amazing these days. Nightshade is more about shifters, werewolves that are guardians. I loved the character, Calla. She is a bit of a tomb boy and is very strong and determined alpha leader. I admired her. Her two love interests Ren and Shay are quite lovable as well. Ren is Call's future husband that she is suppose to be marrying on october 31, blood moon and he is very likable. I think he is a very strong alpha male and quite charming once you spend some time with this guy, I think he is very protective of Calla as any alpha would be of his mate. He is a jerk sometimes but I think that is his insecurities about Calla. He is not very confident about him and Calla and by the end of the book you know that he cares about Calla more than anything. I would like a lot more of Ren in the next book if that is at all possible. I got more than a little crush on this strong alpha male.
Next in line is Shay. Calla saved Shay at the beginning of the book and he knows that she is a werewolve **Calla turns and gives me a death glare**, excuse me, I mean guardian. Since the beginning Calla and Shay have had a strong connection with each other. I find Shay and Calla more of just friends than a potential love interest but sometimes you can really see that she cares for both Shay and Ren. I just don't feel the strong connection between Shay and Calla but he makes for a wonderful love rivial.
I always have a problem with werewolves, I mean the shifters books I have read because all o the werewolves/shifters are very territorial, I mean the pack, where the woman does not have a say in anything. At in this book it is like that again, but it is turned into something quite different. Where there is two packs and the alpha's are not in charge the guardians are, but the guardians are very unfair and they use their power cruelly against some of the pack. The pack do not get a say in who they marry. Woman in the Nightshade pack(Calla's Pack) are not allowed to be touched or that may just be the woman alpha's (Calla included) where the Bane Pack(Ren's Pack) can touch and play around with all the woman they want. It is forbidden to touch Calla but Ren has been around with a lot of girls in the school and I find that very unfair in my opnion. It is like love can never exsist for Calla, but that is the way it works. The searcher are the enemy for the Packs and I just wonder who are the searchers and are they as bad as the guardians make them out to be?
The ending has a cliffhanger making you wonder what will happen with Calla and what is in store for the sequel. I found Nightshade an enjoyable read. I do think that Shay and Calla's attraction for each other needs some work because I like Shay yes, but I just don't see him as a love interest for Calla, I see Ren, but maybe that is just because Andrea Cremer made Ren so yummy and I can't resist him. haha. I am really looking forward to the sequel, Wolfbane and hope that is as good as Nightshade.


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What I Got on My Birthday9:57:00 PM
Originally i planned to post our Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign Special Project with Clinique Event Report (whew, isn't it a mouthful?) but since #Undecided is every bit as OCD (and a control freak) as i am, she needs to take a look at the full post (which i finished literally minutes ago when she's no longer online) before letting me publish it, i decided to tend to my pile of pressing drafts needed attending to.
Since my actual birthday was last month and the last of the celebration was more than two weeks ago, i suppose everything regarding my birthday is in the "need to be posted ASAP" category *LOL*.
First let's rewind and see them uncovered hahaha...
|There's just something about seeing multiples plastic bags that makes every shopaholic hearts goes thump thump thump :D!
|These 2 pairs of uber kawaii booties ^^
10 comments
Awwww foto terakhir keliatan beda banget loh,suka selfienyaaa..hihihi beda dari biasanyaaaReplyDeleteReplies
Wakakakaka apanya yg bedaaa :pDelete
wuii asiknya dapet kado banyak!!! :DReplyDelete
wiihh, banyaknya..*.*ReplyDelete
gak bisa ngasih kado, ngasih ucapan aja deh.. SELAMAT ULANG TAHUN.
sukses selalu.. makin cantik :*Replies
Awwww, makasih yaaaa ^^Delete
Wow! So many gifts! I realize now that I'm getting less gifts than I did when I was really younger. Presents now don't make me as happy as when I see my family happy and when everyone is healthy. Those are wonderful stuff! I particularly like the pink booties! I know you can style them well with pastel clothes.ReplyDeleteReplies
You're right! Of course i love gifts and all, but i see it more like a symbol of people's love and care for me ^^. Nothing else matters but my loved ones' health and happiness!Delete
Loh didalam box ada sexy Lingerie.. Birthday present for ur hubby.. Sexy uReplyDeleteReplies


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I have been so busy lately, trying to finish our book about our fairy furniture. It will be out May of 2015; we're so excited!! It is an instructional book about how to make our nature art. We have been working on it for almost a year. It's taking longer than it normally would because my husband and I have been working full time teaching art to adults with disabilities but finally cut our hours down to three days a week, so our lives are quite a lot more stress free and calm. We are grateful for that. We also have been having so much fun buying and selling antiques as well and have just become so busy with that. We call our new antique business "Lost in the Attic". We have found some wonderful things and love looking for the most beautiful antiques we can find. You can see our beautiful china, antique hats and purses, dolls and many other lovely things on our Ebay store "natureartgirl". We hope to have some of our antiques and vintage things on my Etsy shop in the very near future. It's called "sunflowerhouse". We also some day would love to have a real brick and mortar shop. We had a wonderful gallery several years ago and loved it. We had so much room to work on our art and were so excited when people came in to see our art.
So, we hope you will visit our sites and let us know what you think.
The beautiful photos above are from Tumblr.


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Reference Number: CSLRNIH11012017
Category: Clinical Healthcare and Research
Grade: 4.01
Location: Mtwapa
JOB PURPOSE: The position holder will work on the NIH-supported Tambua Mapema Plus trial evaluating the impact of a novel screening programme to detect prevalent and acute HIV infection in adult patients and their partners seeking urgent care at 6 health facilities in Mtwapa and Shanzu. HIV-infected participants and their infected partners will be enrolled in an immediate treatment cohort at KEMRI-Mtwapa. Any identified HIV-negative partner will be enrolled in a PrEP cohort at KEMRI-Mtwapa. Field data collections will run for 2-years. The candidate will join a dynamic team that conducts different clinical epidemiology studies with key populations at the KEMRI clinic in Mtwapa.
The post reports to the Project Manager.
The position holder will spend 100% of their time at one of the six health facilities, and will make home visits to HIV-infected study participants.
- To conduct data collections, including observation of standard of care, and provision of the screening intervention.
- To screen for study eligibility, enrol willing eligible adult study participants, and document reasons for refusal
- To conduct assisted-partner notification of HIV-infected participants
- To make home visits.
- To observe standard operating procedures.
- Diploma in Counselling or equivalent.
- At least two years' experience in counselling with documented experience in research
- Experienced in HIV testing and counselling
- Good listening skills, sensitivity and empathy
- Able to work independently, to prioritise work, and to give attention to detail
- Confidentiality, integrity, patience and calm disposition
- Good record keeping and basic report writing skills
- Good interpersonal skills
- Team working and ability to work in a multi-cultural environment


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Its 4 days to go till the end of the month and I am delighted to be able to report that I have completed or made substantial progress on ALL my goals. Way to go me!
- work on baby quilt for Megan DONE. Its been dropped off to the grandma who is going to Mackay to visit the new baby this week.
- Do 15 minutes quilt related work each day DONE I managed this every day so far.
- Complete Dash the Cat DONE Got it quilted bound and even labelled.
- Work on Diamond Dash Quilt 2 - DONE - I completed the back as well. Hope to get it basted this week at Patchwork.
- work on hexie quilt -Top DONE. I've worked out a design to use up the left over into the backing.
- Pin and quilt hashtag quilt- PINNED. I might get a chance to quilt it this week. Hope so.
- empty scrap basket - DONE. I did this Sunday afternoon. I wanted it done before I started another project. I have a cute one planned, not too complex that I want to knock out this week. We'll see how that goes. Meanwhile Eevee made sure the basket didn't stay empty for long


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Imagine you're faced with the task of predicting the financial security of two people. First, an individual earning minimum wage, with 3 dependents, and living in an expensive city. In comparison, the other is a millionaire living in a mansion in the hills. Equipped with a lifetime of funds they don't seem to have a financial worry in sight.
If you had to guess who has a better credit score, would you have any idea? Low or high, depending on their personal circumstances?
The truth is, a higher wage does not indicate a higher credit score.
An article recently posted to MoneyTalksNews examined the relationship between high earnings and high credit scores and the verdict was definite: more money does not automatically mean better scores.
Though it can feel like those with a larger paycheck have it all figured out, having more money doesn't necessarily translate into financial savvy. Everyone is susceptible to the ups and downs of financial turbulence regardless of wealth. Ultimately, it's the choices you make with your money – as opposed to your net worth – that impacts your progress towards financial security.
When compared side by side, someone who makes minimum wage, pays their credit card on time every time, and takes measures to track that they're not spending beyond their means could very well have a higher credit score than someone with a higher income who isn't taking the same calculated steps. A late payment on a Corvette or Tesla is still a late payment.
Get offers for lower-interest rate debt consolidation loans here on ReadyForZero!Check your rate using ReadyForZero's free debt consolidation tool. People have saved thousands by consolidating higher-interest debts using a single, personal loan, this will not negatively impact your credit. Check Your Rate Now
More wealth does not a higher credit score make…
Even those with enough money to pay off all monthly bills aren't exempt from forgetting to make a payment or making financial choices that negatively impacts their credit. And because credit depends on so many different factors, income is only a small part of the equation. Regardless of income, you can benefit from taking measures to protect your credit and build a solid financial foundation. Tracking your score, understanding the impact of opening and closing credit card accounts, and keeping a healthy debt/credit ratio are all important ways to maintain your score.
… but (and isn't there always a but) it can help
There are some instances where a higher income can be beneficial to your credit. If you earn more, you're more likely to be approved for a higher line of credit. The benefit? Lenders sometimes see a higher credit line as proof of greater financial security. This can be a double edged sword, however, if a higher line of credit ultimately prompts a higher line of debt. At the end of the day, good financial choices and habits are more valuable than wealth alone.
Waiting for a higher salary to make financial changes?
If you've held back from cultivating good financial habits due to your financial circumstances, there's no reason to feel limited. You have the power to make a positive change and you can start utilizing that power as soon as now. If you're looking to increase your credit score, you can start out by getting your free credit report and using tools and resources to help you out from there. Forming good financial habits is the real "wealth" in this situation.
It's important to remember that everyone's financial experience is unique. Good financial habits such as regularly checking in with your statements and progress, understanding the impact of interest, or researching what happens if you suddenly close a credit card, will help you to establish a secure relationship with your money. As a result, you'll have a better read on your finances and a perspective that will empower you as you to work towards a stable financial future.
Image Credit: Tracy O


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Hey NaNoWRIMo, do the right thing here, ok?
If you're doing the National Novel Writing month thing, read it.
If you know someone who is, print it out, give it to them, make them read it.
If you're involved in running NaNoWRIMo, how about you read it too.
And then do it.
30 comments:
- Elektra said...
To be fair (and I say this with undying gratitude for all Writer Beware is and does), if I were the head of this organization, and opened up an unsolicited E-mail that began, "Every year when you run your event, I cringe", I would delete it without reading further.
- 11/17/2006
- Steve said...
I'm not into NaNoMo, but respect those that partake. Do what your have to do, is my motto.
- 11/17/2006
- Kimber An said...
Will pass on the word. I never do Nano-whatever, because I already write like crazy anyway.
- 11/17/2006
- McKoala said...
What amazes me is the thought that a novel written in a month might be ready for submission a month or two later. I'm not doing it, but if I were, then I can assure you that there is no way my novel would be! For a start, it would only be 50,000 words. Secondly, it would be madly scrawled speedwriting with more than a little editing required. I would think that the only person that would take it on would be a scammer.
- 11/17/2006
Most people participating in NaNoWriMo do it for the fun (!) not intending to publish the result. I'd forward the link to my municipal liason, but I can honestly say that it would be pointless, as I'm the only one interested in publishing and I'm aware of it.
- 11/17/2006
- katiesandwich said...
Whenever I read the abbreviation NaNoWriMo, I want to add a "to" to the end and make it say NaNoWriMoTo, because for some reason, I think it sounds like Mr. "Roboto." You know. Like the song. Yes, I realize that I'm nuts!
I think this is a good idea. No one who's done their research and is serious about getting published would ever submit in December a book they only wrote in November, but a lot of people who do NaNoWriMo are just getting started and don't know the things we do. It'd be nice for NaNoWriMo to encourage people to not only write, but to protect themselves from the scammers that prey on writers, too.
- 11/17/2006
- Susan Helene Gottfried said...
Geez. I finally pulled out my 2003 winner to revise it and ...
Deleted all but the first 40 pages, and even then, almost everything but the first scene got a major workover.
To think you'd be ready to submit right after the month's over? Given that the NaNo tips include such good NaNo advice as "feel free to use filler words," I can't imagine such a thing.
- 11/17/2006
It looks like Ann sent her e-mail to the admin address (which is usually the address for troubles with the website) instead of looking at the contact list that gives very specific addresses to e-mail for various issues.
There is plenty of information in the NaNoWriMo forums every year about publishing scams--of course, that requires writers to read.
- 11/17/2006
Four time participant with two nano books ('03 and '05) being querried as I write this. While I think it's a nice proactive approach that I hope Chris Baty takes seriously (alerting participants about scammers), I think it's much ado about nothing, and her cringing is a bit of an over-reaction.
As already stated, most people do it for a lark. Only 17% of all the people reach the required output (50,000 x .17 is 8,500 winners). Those who are serious already know that they need to edit, get critiqued, and find legitimate representation.
Those that get sucked into dubious offers are probably the same people who would fall for them regardless of any barrier erected. (I see the Sobol Award is still chugging on.)
-the other rick
- 11/17/2006
- PerpetualBeginner said...
Another four time participant, just beginning to shop NaNo '03. Every year I've poked through the forums extensively I have found information on scammers and what to beware of. The information is there, just not necessarily front and center. Since the majority of NaNo participants are not interested in professional publishing, this doesn't seem too far off.
On the other hand, some people are so eager to get their deathless prose published that they need the information delivered on a brick-bat (or Miss Snark's infamous clue-gun).
- 11/17/2006
- magz said...
Thank you, Miss Snark for posting this. I'm spreading the word blogwise and privately to my 1st yr NanNutBuddies, though I'm pretty sure my best successes at educating anyone writing anything..
Is to direct them here. And there, and there and there but always Here first! AND tell them read many many Snarkives before posing questions, or risk the deadeye aim of the weilder of the cluegun.
I love NaNo! I'm on my 4th year and 5th book as I raised my own bar last year and wrote 2 at once, totally different from each other and anything else I'd done. It was fun, and totally schizoid.
I'm a lazy sloppy fast writer, but I pay VERY close attention to all the wisdom I've gained from being a Snarkling. I'm not querying anything yet; just learning how to.
May the Chronicles of Snarkania live on forever! I remain yer devotee, Maggie
- 11/17/2006
- Richard Lewis said...
Back in August I posted a tongue in cheek blog post titled "NaNoWriMo? Agents groan and say "OhNoNaNo".
Because I bet a small percentage of participants do send on their work to agents. I didn't think of the scamming angle, though. And I don't think Ann is overly cringeing, because even just ONE scam is one scam too many. This isn't a statistical game, you know, where we say "we can live with 3 percent of participants being scammed, that's an acceptable fall-out.".
- 11/17/2006
- Writerious said...
I'm NaNo-ing for the third year in a row, and I've educated a LOT of people on the NaNo forums about how one goes about getting published. Ann is right -- a lot of newbie writers complete their 50,000 words, finish the novel, and think "Hey, now that I've written this, I could get published!" I've fielded questions about PublishAmerica, AuthorHouse, fee-charging agents, the "Congratulations! You won honorable mention in our poetry contest" flim-flam artists, and more.
What makes it harder is that NaNo cut a deal with Lulu, where Lulu will print and bind one copy of any winner's NaNo novel for free. Newbies mistake this for "publishing," and often decide to go with Lulu to publish their novel. I'm still undecided as to whether Lulu is a printing service or a vanity -- they kind of straddle the line -- but there are lots of new writers all-agog about "Ooh, I can publish my novel, and it's so EASY!" Of course, if they're just doing it for fun and don't expect any sales except to their doting relatives, they'll get pretty much what they expect. But if they are dreaming of becoming the Next Great Thing, they're off to a disappointing start.
The point of NaNo is to get people writing instead of just dreaming, and to write within a community of like-minded lunatics. Publishing is not the point, but it certainly feels like the next step for a lot of participants.
- 11/17/2006
- LadyBronco said...
I don't do the NaNo thing, but I know a couple of folks that do, and I had already sent them links to several blogs and websites. (Yours included, Miss Snark!)
It's always nice to see folks looking out for others.
- 11/17/2006
Anyone who thinks that the first draft they may write as participants in the Nano challenge will be snapped up by a legit publisher or agent is delusional. Nano founder Chris Baty makes it pretty clear that your goal in writing the 50,000 word draft is to produce prose that "won't make you vomit" when you read it back. He's all about lowering expectations in order to get the thing written.
- 11/17/2006
Second-year NaNoer here. I agree with writerious about Lulu. So many returning NaNoers go around saying "Oh yes, I'm published, it's on Lulu." It's no wonder people there are confused...and many of them are indeed completely clueless, very young, or both. In my travels on the forums there, I've been posting links to your blog, Writer Beware, P&E, and Absolute Write as often as I can, as many places as I can, and anytime I see anyone mention publishing. It's an uphill battle, but we'll keep trying!
(In defense of NaNoWriMo, there are published authors who do the challenge, and others who have had their NaNo novels published - including by Tor - after extensive revisions, of course. And before you get to that point, it's really great for the whole "butt in chair" thing.)
- 11/17/2006
- Seanachie said...
Dammit. Here I'm trying to get some work done and now I have to Google NaNoMo. Thanks.
- 11/17/2006
Thanks for the link, Miss Snark! I hadn't ever thought about NaNo as a ripe opportunity for scammers, but I'm sure some scammers have thought of it.... *shudder* I'll pass this on to my NaNoing friends.
- 11/17/2006
Writerious, I've been wandering around the NaNo website since late September and this is the first I've heard of the LuLu deal. May I ask for a link? I'm not intending on LuLu-ing, but I'd like to read it. I already know how agents and houses feel about vanity publishing, but I'm curious about it.
I'm a five-timer winner, and I have found an agent. My 2002 and 2004 MS have been extensively edited and re-worked and are now being shopped around by an agent. So no LuLu for me.
- 11/17/2006
- Simon Haynes said...
This is my second year doing Nano. Last year I got it done just before my editor and I set to work on novel #3.
This year I'm using it to write a healthy chunk of my next book. What can I say? I'm a procrastinator.
I finished my first novel in 3 months to meet a deadline for a novel contest - and that after I'd faffed around with it for five years. I finished book #2 in time for a convention because I'd promised it to a number of people and I'd have looked like an idiot turning up without it. Book 3 I promised for the same convention one year later, and delivered.
Now, having just completed a three book contract, I don't have the same motivation to get the next book ready. For example, there's the upcoming launch for book 3, and there's also a UK agent shopping the series over there. It's far easier to daydream about worldwide bestsellers than it is to write. (I can see why they say it's harder to stay published than it is to get published in the first place.)
So, Nano gives me a good escuse to put aside the distractions, sit down and do it.
- 11/17/2006
Okay, I sent the link to everyone I know that is NaNoing. I've done my small part.
CJ Parker
- 11/17/2006
- Ken Boy said...
If you take this attitude towards NaNoMo, what about everything else that encourages people to write? Should I include a warning against scammers with every critique I write at Elektra's Spawn of Crap?
This seems a bit caveat-crazy to me. At some point people have to learn to look before they leap without someone else shouting "Look!"
I guess I'm just a curmudgeon.
- 11/17/2006
Anonymous, just search the author pages for "Lulugirl", you'll find her posts.
You can get the book, no ISBN, not available for sale to the public, and be as 'published' as you would be at Kinko's.
Just make sure you don't allow it to be available to the public. There's a special box to check for that. All of the instructions will be onsite, but to get the offer, you have to go through the link on NaNo.
- 11/17/2006
I also posted the link in my regional affiliation and on my "fun" group. I'm doing NaNo as a challenge to increase my writing output. I'm coming from short stories and working my way up through novellas. Someday, I might even get up to that 80K mark.
This is just practice for extending plotlines, building subplots, and developing secondary characters.
I have no idea if what I've written is any good because I've not read it yet!
- 11/18/2006
- Georgiana said...
My son the art student just IMed me to say, "Hey, Miss Snark and her friend are worried about you being scammed. I think you'll be ok but it is nice of them."
It is nice of you, thanks!
This is my fourth NaNoWriMo also. Last year I wrote a column about it and stressed that the best thing you'll get from NaNoWriMo is the ability to tell total strangers in bars they should buy you a drink because you wrote a book in thirty days. Now I feel vaguely guilty that I never thought anyone would try to get their project published or that they would need protection.
- 11/18/2006
- Cybele May said...
I'm cross posting this response that I made on A.C. Crispin's post here in case folks don't click over and read the latest comments:
Ms. Crispin, I was forwarded your email by one of the volunteers that you sent it to and she was kind enough to include a link to this page. My name and contact info is available on the Contact Us page at NaNoWriMo.org and I am the moderator of the forums (a full staff member). If you sent it to the admin address, it may be mired in with all the other webmaster emails.
I would love to have some input on how to help us educate and empower our writers. Not all are new to writing (in fact we have quite a few published authors in our midst). Many gain an incredible sense of 'possibility' during the challenge and once they've written a book and found that they do have a voice, they want to share it.
I am not aware of a 'significant percentage' of our writers falling prey to scams, but that doesn't mean that it isn't happening. If you have some specifics on what's been happening (PublishAmerica, Noble House Press or some other questionable scheme), I'd like to know.
We currently have the following in place:
* When any writer signs up for the site or clicks through to renew their participation we mention quite clearly about Literary Predators in our Terms for the site.
* Within the forums there are numerous threads already available regarding resources (including at least eighteen pre-existing links to your Writer Beware alone before this blast) in multiple forums, including one that I requested be drafted at the beginning of the season and stickied to the "Marketing & Self Promotion" forum.
* The forums are available all year round, so conversations and resources are available for continued support and reference.
* At the end of NaNoWriMo we launch a page called "Now What" which will include resources, advice and of course cautions about scams.
* Currently on our Young Writer's Project (ywp.nanowrimo.org) site we have a large resource page (Amber's Virtual Library) that includes some frank and easily understandable information about scams and cautions about contracts/publishing for our younger writers.
* Additional text and resources adapted from Amber's page have been made available to our regional volunteers to share with their groups either through the forums and/or via email.
* Each year LuLu.com has extended an offer for a free book to all winners, my hope is the POD/Self-Publishing route such as this mitigates writers paying to see their work in print. The LuLu.com forums have additional support and advice about writing scams and their community appears to operate with similar vigilance to warn their peers.
* We scrub the forum to keep predators of all kinds away from writers – they are not allowed to solicit writers on the site nor post in the forums.
* And of course since your emails and postings the forum conversation on the topic has amped up.
Our writers hold you and your organization in great esteem, as you are consistently mentioned along with Preditors and Editors each year as the best resources for writers ready to begin their submission process. Now that you've seen what steps we currently employ, can you tell us how else we can help writers empower themselves (without scaring them off of writing, off course)?
- 11/18/2006
- Bethany said...
I was a little bit put off by the tone of the letter, too, but I think Ms. Crispin is absolutely right.
I'm a municipal liason for Gainesville, Florida, and I also keep in contact with a lot of NaNo participants from other areas online.
Most of them are young, unpublished, and clueless. (Note I did not say stupid. They're nitwits, but not incurable nitwits.) But in order to look for scams, you have to be aware that there ARE scams out there, and many of these people aren't. Many have absolutely no idea how publishing works. They've never finished a novel before, so they've never had a reason to find out. Now, they suddenly have a "finished" novel and some of them think that's all they need -- they can just send it out to the first editor whose address they come across and, voila, the check will be in the mail. Others will be referred to Publish America by even more clueless participants who've just "published" their first NaNo novel through them.
I'll be warning my group.
- 11/19/2006
- Naf said...
Two-time participant, one-time winner.
I think the idea of being worried about getting scammed is a little ridiculous.
Yes, it's nice to look out for each other, but aren't we grown-ups? I agree that this is far too much ado about nothing. Chris Baty tells you right off that it's just for fun. If you get stars in your eyes because you massed 50,000 words on a page in a month, that's not Baty's fault.
After winning last November, I completely deleted my novel, starting over from scratch. My point? Some of us do it for fun, some to get those writing juices flowing, some because their November is wide open. It's like President Bush says: Fool me once, shame on uh, a heh heh, shame on ... me.
- 11/20/2006
- siobhann grey said...
I'm a NaNoWriMo ML for the Orlando area & I have to say this has never been an issue for us. At the very beginning of the month I stress that NaNo is not about being a writer, but about writing. Editing is a no no. That's what December's for (and January, too). Everyone who is a NaNo participant knows this. Well, they would if they read the site, the forums, or attended the meetings. Unfortunately, and I'm sure Miss Snark knows this all too well, there are nitwits out there who don't follow instructions. To blame NaNo for this or to imply the people at NaNo aren't doing their part to prevent the influx of garbage that agents get or the increasing number of newbies who get scammed in December is ridiculous. We all do what we can to pass on good advice, but people are going to do what they want, even if it contradicts logic.
- 11/20/2006
Naf: It's worth noting that, when it comes to NaNoWriMo, we aren't all grown-ups. My first NaNo was when I was 16; I've seen on the forums or met at local events quite a few participants around 13 or 14, and they now even have a separate Young Writers' Program for those 12 and under (and incidentally, to any actual 8-year-olds out there writing 50,000-word novels: YOU ARE CLEARLY ALIEN BEINGS), as well as certain areas on the forums where swearing and such isn't welcome because they want those areas to be "All-Ages Friendly". NaNoWriMo as an organization has adopted an attitude of "all ages very welcome", as it says in the FAQ, and you really can't then turn around and say "forget it, we're all grown-ups here".
I do think, though, that some of this ARGH SCAMS reaction is an overreaction, and that the letter (and its tone) are over the top a little. Yes, there are some people involved who are very young and/or naive... but, as other people have said, there are the forums and local events where you meet other people who can say "WAIT NO DON'T DO THAT", there are several "stickied" threads in the forums about publishing scams, and so on. Last year, under 10,000 people reached 50,000 words; the number will probably go up this year, as it has every year, perhaps to 11 or 12 thousand. Of those, some smallish percentage will decide to seek publication; some smallish percentage of those are relatively naive writers more vulnerable to falling for scams; some smallish percentage of those won't see the forum threads or be advised by a friend or something to prevent them from falling for a scam; and some further smallish percentage of those will actually end up finding and being taken in by a scam. No matter how small that final number is, it's unfortunate that it's greater than zero -- but it will never be zero, and there's not much more we can ask of NaNoWriMo in terms of trying to reduce it.
- 11/20/2006


text:
Landscape of the Housing Market for Buyers
Tuesday, May 23rd, 6:30pm-8pm
It's time for another buyers class! Whether you plan to buy this summer or in 2018, it's so important to be a prepared and informed buyer. Join us at LivingRoom Realty from 6:30-8:00 pm on May 23rd as Real Estate Broker Sarah Frier, Mortgage Broker Christina Ewing, and Home Inspector Mike Lamb guide you through the current landscape of home purchasing.
Topics to be covered will be:
– The pre-approval process and preparing your finances
– Step by step overview of home buying process
– Loan products available in today's market
– What are closing costs and detailed breakdown
– How to decide on what type of property to buy
– What to expect from a home inspection
– What to look for in a building
– Tips for saving for home improvements
Food and drinks will be provided. Please RSVP at firstname.lastname@example.com, so we can plan appropriately. We look forward to seeing you!
Sarah Frier, LivingRoom Realty
Christina Ewing, Molitor Financial
Mike Lamb, Inspection Connection Inc.


text:
Picturised on Akshay Kumar and Huma Qureshi, and sung by rap sensation Raftaar of recent 'Dhaakad'fame in Dangal, this high energy song is touted to be the biggest song for this Holi season.
Set against the backdrop of the erstwhile city of the Royals – Lucknow – Jolly LL.B 2 is inspired by true events and tells the story of Jagdishwar Mishra, aka Jolly, a hustler by nature, who survives by fighting petty cases and using every tactic under the sun to make a quick buck and earn a decent living. Having spent years in the chaotic and dingy court corridors, Jolly is looking out for an opportunity that could turn the tide in his favour and help him achieve his dream of becoming a full-fledged Lawyer with a chamber.
When faced with the glimpse of such an opportunity, Jolly jumps at the chance and in the bargain commits an innocent mistake with irreversible consequences that makes him ready for a big fight with the ruthless advocate Mathur.
Jolly LLB 2 is a satire about an underdog attempting to catapult himself to the top of the legal food chain. Anarchy, mayhem and underhandedness, all expressed through wit and a vein of humour, form the cornerstones of this courtroom tale.


text:
Friday, June 23, 2006
Question of the day
How do I politely respond to a reviewer comment that says "No, ...[your interpretation is wrong]." when the answer is "No, you're wrong"? I have some reasons, but basically they are just wrong on this one.
Posted by ScienceWoman at 3:37 PM
2 comments:
- yami mcmoots said...
One polite response begins with your reasons, some revisions for clarity where you think the reviewer went wrong, and then "I have clarified..." - unless the reviewer is blatantly unqualified or grinding an axe, in which case, ugh, who knows, depends on the editor.
- June 23, 2006 5:25 PM
- Nuthatch said...
When I've submitted revisions to the editor, I explained in my cover letter that I clarified/corrected points a, b, and c, but that point d remained the same because (my explanation why the dufus was wrong).
Will be interested in how your situation turns out. Both times this happened to me the editor went my way.
- June 23, 2006 5:35 PM
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text:
I'm fascinated with the concept of scones. Maybe it's my ancestry from the British Isles. Mom's mother was mostly Scotch-Irish, my mother's dad was of Welsh origin. My dad is of English origin.
I have watched a boatload of you-tube videos and read at least a cookbook's worth of recipes. I have read that making good scones can be difficult. Hubby says his ex-bride made ones that would break teeth and the ones he has had elsewhere weren't much better. As I was watching the you-tube videos, scone making looks to me to be about the same process as biscuit making. And we all know that with biscuits if you aren't careful you can end up with hardtack!
I watched a you-tube video of a unique process that really intrigued me put out by the American Test Kitchen. Then I searched for the recipe and direction; finding it here about half-way down on the page. Here's what I did to their recipe.
ATK Blueberry Scones
8 TBSP unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda (Ha! I used too much! Didn't affect the taste though.)
I forgot the salt! It calls for a 1/2 tsp.
1/2 tsp. of lemon extract. (The recipe calls for lemon zest, I didn't have any lemons.)
2 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of whole milk (I used 2% cause that's what I have.)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups of frozen blueberries
I set the oven to preheat at 425 degrees. I thought I would be slick, pull a stick of butter out of the fridge and use my food processor to grate the butter. LOL, what a mess! Freeze the butter!
Time to punt! I decided to cream the butter and sugar together in the food processor.
Okay, that doesn't look too bad! Then, I added the baking powder, baking soda and lemon extract giving it a whiz. Scraped everything down; added the flour and gave it another whiz until I had bread crumb consistency.
Hey, I may be able to salvage this! Next, I added the milk and sour cream and whizzed it until it just barely came together. I then scarped a very sticky dough onto a heavily floured piece of parchment paper.
At this point, I should have stuck the whole sticky mess into the freezer and firmed up the dough but I didn't. I tried to work the dough like she did in the video. I finally put the dough in the freezer. I went to switch the laundry over and came back.
I retrieved the dough from the freezer and proceeded to press the dough out to a 12-inch square. I sprinkled the frozen blueberries on, while lightly pressing the blueberries into the dough. Then I scraped and folded the dough in thirds. I patted the dough out to about 4 maybe 5 inches wide. I cut the dough into quarters and then again into triangles to make 8 servings. I moved the wedges to my parchment lined baking pan and baked them for 18 minutes in the 425-degree oven.
A few things I didn't do! I didn't brush the tops with melted butter and sprinkle sugar across the tops. They would have looked nicer if I had at least brushed the excess flour off the tops. Next time I will add the salt to see if it is really needed. I thought they tasted pretty darn good without it.
The scones had a light lemon under-tone with a great blueberry taste. The scones also rose/raised??? very well and were very light. They were not crumbly at all. And best of all, Hubby and Sister Suzy liked them! We even discussed what different fruits we thought would taste good in this recipe. I'm thinking frozen cherries next!
I think next time when I get to the bread crumb stage I will turn the flour mixture into a bowl and incorporate the liquids in the bowl to cut down on the mess in the food processor. It would make chilling the dough easier before working it into its final shape. The other thing I think I'm going to do is add an extra 1/4 cup of flour instead of trying to handle such a sticky mess on a floured surface. Something else I would do is divide the dough into 10 maybe 12 servings instead of the 8 as I thought they were almost to big; if you can believe that!
Stay tuned! I want to try a French Apple Walnut Scone recipe and look at some recipes that have the traditional oats in them.
Have a good day!


text:
Pelco's AH1000 Manually Adjustable Pan/Tilt Head for EH4700 Series Enclosures is a flexible joint that lets you point your security camera just where you want it. With 360° rotation and ±90° tilt, you can monitor any essential part of the room. If you need to adjust the angle, just move the camera with your hand.
The AH1000 is designed for use with Pelco's EH4700 Series camera enclosures and compatible ceiling, pedestal, and wall mounts. In certain applications, the AH1000 can also be used alone.
|8.31 x 5.0 x 5.87" (21.11 x 12.7 x 14.91 cm)
|0.88 lb (0.40 kg)
|Packaging Info
|Package Weight
|1.1 lb
|Box Dimensions (LxWxH)
|6.3 x 5.0 x 4.4"


text:
Thanks to all of youI just wanted to say a quick thank you to all of you that left me those great comments for my Rona Lace and for all the other things. Unfortunately, with blogger, I get the notice on my email, but the name shows as a non-reply message, so I can't leave you a personal reply to the comment you left for me. Sorry. I can check your blog, but some of you don't have and email link on there. Has anybody advice for me, how to get those addresses to show? I know it's a common curtesy to answer to comments in blogland, but I could only leave comments on your blog then, instead of an email. Plus I finally got to see 11 of my very first comments left for me back in august. Thanks again for those. It was like looking at old pictures, even though it was only a couple of months ago. I guess I'll never stop learning.
I'm working on another hat right now, but somehow I can't get my tension even this time. Maybe I need to relax before I knit with two strands.


text:
So. We're way past the summer midpoint. The calendar, reminders, counselors, and parents are all saying, "write your essays!" What's the high school senior to do?
At the risk of providing another route to procrastination, here's help:
1. Check out Essay Hell. As an example, read How Will They Dub You? Your essay can make you memorable, or you can be one more kid who tore her ACL playing soccer. (Hat tip: College Solution)
One student wrote about how he loved tying knots, but got stuck in a tree when one of his knots tightened on him. "How about that kid who got stuck in the tree?"
2. Read Alan Gelb's book, Conquering the College Admissions Essay in 10 Steps. Here's why.
3. After spending years writing essays according to the five paragraph standard–thesis, three paragraphs of support, conclusion–many students find it tough to switch to writing about themselves. Ask yourself some of these questions, via College Admission's The Real Topic of Your Essay is You:
- What would I say about myself if I had to omit any mention of my extracurricular activities?
- If I, like Tom Sawyer, had a chance to eavesdrop at my own funeral, what would people say about me?
4. I'm sure you've already taken a look at the new Common App prompts, right?
5. And you've looked at the supplementary essay questions from colleges on your short list? Here are this year's prompts from UVa (our local public university). Find others via each college's admissions site.
6. See tips from Allen Grove for the new Common App questions.
Note the key word here: evaluate. You aren't just describing something; the best essays will explore the complexity of the issue.
7. Or, read Irena Smith's post for College Admission, Writing the Essay: Pushing the Right Brick for Diagon Alley, for help on how to "Stand out by being you."
Do some data gathering: see if your friends can finish the sentence "I have this friend who…" I guarantee you they will not say things like "has strong leadership skills." They may, however, come up with stuff like "talks nonstop," "drives like a maniac," "tells the most annoying jokes during cross country practice," "is freakishly good at Words with Friends," or "eats like a defensive lineman." Those are all fantastic jumping off points. Use them.
8. Step back into Essay Hell for How to Find Your Defining Qualities. "I know it always helps to have a list to get you started."
Able, Accepting, Accurate, Achieving, Adaptable, Adorable, Adventurous, Affectionate, Alert, Alive, Altruistic, Amazing, Ambitious, Analytical, Appreciative, Appealing, Artistic, Assertive, Astonishing, Attentive, Attractive, Authentic, Aware, Awesome, Balanced, Beautiful, Blissful, Blooming, Bold, Bountiful, Brave, Breath-Taking, Bright, Calm, Capable, Careful, Carefree, Caring, Cautious, Centered, Certain, Charitable, Charming, Cheeky, Cheerful, Chirpy, Civic-Minded, Clean, Colorful, Competetive, Clear-Thinking, Communicative, Compassionate, Compatible, Competitive, Complete, Confident, Conscientious, Considerate, Conservative, Consistent, Content, Co-operative, Courageous, Conscientious, Courteous, Creative, Cuddly, Curious, Cultural, Cute…
Yes. It goes on from there.
9. Here's an important point from Collegewise in, Is this experience your best story?" Topics discussed in your college essays should always share new information that a college can't learn from the application alone."
10. College advisor Alice Kleeman offers specific help in Advice for Students on Topics for the New Common App Essays, writing for College Admission, with academic, extracurricular, and personal questions related to each prompt.
Are you resisting the pressure in your community to do it all—and do it all perfectly—and instead are seeking balance in your life?
Were you ever told by a coach or activity director that you would not be successful in a particular activity, yet you chose to pursue it?
Has your ethnic background led you to participate deeply and fully in the dance, spiritual, or culinary traditions of your culture?
Enough of this already. Go write.


text:
4-Day MoMA special edition t-shirt sale at Uniqlo:
- Lawrence Weiner t-shirts in clay, grape or charcoal
- Ryan McGinness in Lilac
- A variety of Andy Warhol favourites
"Gambling has also had an unexpected impact on Japanese ethnic politics and foreign policy. Pachinko has become a backbone for Japan's Korean community. Estimates are sketchy, but Prof. Toshio Miyatsuka, the leading authority on Korean-Japanese, believes that three-quarters of the 17,000 pachinko parlors are run by ethnic Koreans. Koreans also control many of the pachinko manufacturing companies. Koreans entered the pachinko business soon after World War II because it was one of the few industries where they could compete fairly with Japanese. Japanese shunned the business—it had such an air of seediness about it. As a result, pachinko and Korean BBQ restaurants built a prosperous entrepreneurial Korean business community.
But the Korean pachinko connection fomented a disturbing foreign policy crisis for Japan. Many parlor owners come from North Korea, have families in North Korea, or sympathize with the North Korean regime. In the 1980s, as pachinko grew, parlor owners increasingly funneled pachinko profits to North Korea. No one has any idea of the exact amount—estimates range from tens of millions of dollars per year to more than $1 billion per year. Some of this cash probably went to North Korean relatives, but much of it fed North Korea's awful communist dictatorship. Pachinko, in fact, became a critical source of hard currency for North Korea, probably subsidizing arms purchases and military research. This was awfully embarrassing for Japan. It got so bad that the CIA, according to the Wall Street Journal, pressured the Japanese government to stop the flow of yen. The Korea-laundering led the National Police Agency to impose "card-readers" on the pachinko industry. The card readers served to measure the amount of money flowing into parlors, which enabled tax authorities to make sure owners weren't siphoning off cash for illicit transactions. By most accounts, the Korea cash stream has dried up in recent years to a trickle. Card readers cut the flow, as did the pachinko industry's own quest for respectability (The industry has been trying to polish its image. It wasn't good PR, to say the least, to be propping up a nuclear weasel like North Korea). Other Korean businesses may have picked up the slack. Some of the Korean credit unions that recently collapsed seem to have sent cash to Pyongyang."


text:
An ARC of REVOLUTION by Jennifer Donnelly! (US only)
A hardcover copy of RADIANT SHADOWS by Melissa Marr!(US only)
Our next winner is...
L.S. Taylor!!!
Congratulations to you! You will have approximately 24 hours to pick a favorite prize from above and email me the choice at d (at) denisejaden (dot) com , along with a mailing address (if applicable).
I'll see the rest of you back here tomorrow!
I'll see the rest of you back here tomorrow!


text:
Telephone pranksters posing as security or sprinkler company employees have been causing serious damage to many hotels across the country with several reports from Los Angeles properties, as well as New York and across the southeast.
The prank goes like this:
A caller very convincingly has an employee set off the hotel's fire alarm, shut down electricity, and even smash windows, with the most serious damage reported as fire sprinklers that have flooded several hotel lobbies. To-date, it seems this prank is targeting limited service properties during the night and audit shift.
Now...Go Break The Windows
Crank caller wreaks havoc on Arkansas hotel,
duping employees, guests
JUNE 9--A telephone prankster posing as a sprinkler company employee caused havoc Saturday morning at an Arkansas Holiday Inn when he convinced an employee to set off the hotel's fire alarm, smash windows, shut down electricity, and break a sprinkler head that flooded the building lobby. The bizarre incident is documented by the Conway Police Department, which, as seen below, photographed the aftermath of the June 6 incident. According to police, Holiday Inn employee Christina Bergmann was at the front desk early Saturday when a male caller "identified himself as an employee of Grennel Fire Sprinkler service." The man told Bergmann that there was a problem with the hotel's fire sprinklers and that she "needed to pull the fire alarm to reset them," cops reported. "Bergmann proceeded to pull the fire alarm at this point, causing the audible alarm." Bergmann, aided by a hotel guest, would subsequently follow a series of directions from the caller that would result in about $50,000 in damages to the hotel's windows, carpets and electrical system. Hotel guests, who were evacuated during the incident, were allowed back into the Holiday Inn after police and fire officials determined that the caller was an imposter. Since a similar prank call was made to a Holiday Inn in Little Rock, Conway cops alerted fellow Arkansas law enforcement officials that "more of these calls could be coming in," according to the police report. Rusty Brown, the Holiday Inn guest who helped Bergmann follow the prankster's instructions, told TSG he was "an innocent bystander and got involved in domestic terrorism." Bown, 36,remarked that there was "absolute panic in that hotel," adding that, "all I did was make it worse. I'm not proud of breaking windows. It is very disheartening."
Pranksters convince hotel guest to heave TV, fridge out window Last Updated: Monday, March 23, 2009 6:09 PM CT Comments85Recommend110
CBC News
The defenestrated mini-fridge sits outside the Edgewater Hotel in Whitehorse following the phone prank Sunday night. (Allison Devereaux/CBC)
A sleepy guest at a Whitehorse hotel fell victim to a late-night hoax Sunday when
pranksters pretending to be hotel staff instructed him to hurl two appliances
out of his second-storey window as an emergency measure. Staff at the Edgewater Hotel in downtown Whitehorse said the Victoria man was sleeping in his room when callers woke him up shortly after 11 p.m. to say there was a gas leak in the building. The callers, who said they were from the front desk, told the guest he had to increase air flow into the building by throwing the room's television and mini-refrigerator through his window. The man was also instructed to pull the fire alarm, waking the Edgewater's other guests. "The poor guy in the room is, of course, feeling pretty bashful and somewhat stupid, but he's not going to be held liable or anything," David Goold, the hotel's night attendant, told CBC News early Monday morning. "He can't really be blamed for what you're doing, half-awake, under the front desk's supposed instructions, which is who the people on the phone said they were. "Goold said he later received two separate tips from callers in Ontario, who said the people responsible for the hoax were bragging about their conquest in an online chat room. Goold passed on the tips to Whitehorse RCMP, who say the incident is under investigation.


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Finally got the saber tiger done and completed! So off to the IPMS show in Seattle! But before all that i had to slap together a base for the Saber Tiger to stand on. In truth it was all just to hide the wiring for the LEDs i had installed. So on Friday the 11th i took the day off and spent it painting up and fabricating up the rest of the base. It is by far not the best display base. But it was the first one i had ever attempted.
So after completing the base and the Saber it was off to the show. So before all this began i had planned to meet up with some of the guys from the Mecha Lounge forum. Derick from Mono Eye Press was to be in attendance at the show. Along with his buds from VANPLA Vancouver British Colombia. So not all the boys could make it out to the show but i was able to meet a few of them plus Chris from Plunder Run.
So the show was down right amazing!! all types of models and skill levels were present! The sci fi section was my main concern as my kit falls into that category. IPMS recently started having Gundam as an official section in the contest. And we had a great turn out from the guys in the Gundam Section for Sci Fi.
I dont really know how i managed to take first place in the Sci Fi vehicle section, but i did. Boy what an honor. And not only that the judges seemed to think my entry was good enough to be the Best of Show for Sci Fi!!! I really did not think i was going to walk away with that honor at all. There were some damn good entries there. I for one was eyeing a Slave 1 Bobba Fett ship that was done with some extreme detail and amazing LED work. I for one thought that it would take the cake........
All in all there were some amazing entries in all categories. Armor, Aircraft etc. Just had a damn good time there in general!


text:
Israel approves 13,000 settlement units:
"Rana Kamal, Press TV, al-Quds
Three months after Israel's 10-month partial freeze on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank came to an end, settlements have been expanding at a rapid pace.
According to a report from the Peace Now organization, Israel has approved the construction of over 13,000 settlement units in the West Bank since late September.
Peace Now has revealed that work has begun on more than 1,712 new settlement units since the freeze ended. .
Rapid growth of settlement construction has also hit occupied East Jerusalem, al-Quds. In the last year and a half, hundreds of settlements units have been approved and thousands more planned.
Bulldozers have been working overtime since direct talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis broke down after Israel decided not to extend the partial settlement freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
While in recent years most of the expansion has been in large settlements near the pre-1967 borders, the intense recent growth has been more in private building, mostly in smaller and more remote settlements.
The settlements are considered illegal under the international law due to their construction on the occupied land.
There are more than 300,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and 200,000 others in East Jerusalem-al-Quds.
Palestinian Authority leaders have said they will not return to direct talks unless Israel stops all settlement construction. They have also planned to submit to the United Nations Security Council a resolution condemning what they have called gradual land grabs.
Israel approves 13,000 new settlement units - PressTV 101223:
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Palestine Video - A Palestine Vlog
Friday, December 24, 2010
Israel approves 13,000 new settlement units
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Selected Videos
- ***Alnakba [The Catastrophe] - [P1] The Threads of the Conspiracy [P2] Crushing the Revolution
- ***Alnakba [The Catastrophe] - [P3] Ethnic Cleansing [P4] Nakba Continued
- **Al Nakba [La Catástrofe] - [P1] Los Hilos de la Conspiración [P2] Aplastar la Revoución
- **AlNakba [La Catásrofe] - [P3] Limpieza Étnica
- *A Palestinian Woman
- *Azmi Bishara - Interview:
- *Azmi Bishara on Israeli Apartheid
- *Azmi Bishara: The Last Colonial Question
- *Blood & Religion, Unmasking the Israeli State
- *De Facto State of Lawlessness
- *Drying up Palestine
- *Edward Said - On Orientalism
- *Edward Said: Lecture The Myth of 'The Clash of Civilzations'
- *Edward Said: Memory, Inequality and Power: Palestine and the Universality of Human Rights
- *Edward Said: Palestine, Iraq and U.S. Policy
- *Francis Boyle - Palestinians and International law
- *From Occupation to Enclosure: Fragmenting the Palestinian State 1 - Diana Buttu"
- *From Occupation to Enclosure: Fragmenting the Palestinian State 2 - Amira Hass"
- *George Bisharat - Ending the Palestinian Nakba
- *Ghada Karmi at Yale
- *Ghada Karmi: Why Israel is a Failed State
- *Ilan Pappe - Interview
- *Ilan Pappe - Israel's 1967 Plan for the West Bank and Gaza Strip
- *Ilan Pappe on the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
- *In the Spider's Web
- *Interview: Ghassan Andoni
- *Israel's Secret Weapon (Israel's WMD)
- *Jeff Halper - Israeli Apartheid and the Paths to a Just Peace
- *Jeff Halper- The United States, Israel and the American Jewish Community
- *Jenin Jenin
- *John Pilger - Palestine is still the issue
- *John Pilger - The War on Democracy
- *Landscapes of Occupation in Palestine
- *Muhammad Jaradat & Eitan Bronstein: 1948 and the Right of Return
- *Noam Chomsky - Middle East Crisis
- *Noam Chomsky on Gaza - MIT
- *Norman Fikelstein - The Israel-Palestine conflict: what we can learn from Gandhi
- *Norman Finkelstein speech at Columbia University (3 parts video)
- *Occupation 101
- *Off The Charts - If Americans Knew
- *Palestine Street -1- The Lost Bride
- *Palestine Street -2- The Bride in exile
- *Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict
- *People and The Land: The Story of a People Under Occupation
- *Phyllis Bennis - "Dual Occupations: Iraq and Palestine in Bush's Empire"
- *Rachel: An American Conscience
- *Rashid Khalidi - Palestine: 40 Years of Occupation, 60 Years of Dispossession
- *Rep. Paul Findley Dares to Speak Out -- Again! AIPAC exposed
- *Salman Abu Sitta: Atlas Palestine
- *Salman Abu Sitta: The Geography of Occupation
- *Secret WMD in Israel
- *Technical Error at Beit Hanoun
- *Tegenlicht ('Backlight') A Documentary on the Israel Lobby -
- *The Bases Are Loaded: US Permanent Military Presence in Iraq
- *The Easiest Targets: The Israeli Policy of Strip Searching Women and Children
- *The influence of the Israel Lobby on American foreign policy
- *The Iron Wall
- *The Israeli Wall in Palestinian Lands
- *The Killing Zone
- *The Unrecognized
- *This is Not Your War
- *Wall of Shame
- Watch "If Americans Knew" Videos
- Watch Alternate Focus Videos
- Watch B'Tselem Videos
- watch ISM Videos
- Watch pdxjustice Videos


text:
(The Majalla) - The issuing of fatwas, or religious rulings, by sometimes badly trained Islamic scholars is proliferating all across the Muslim world. The purposes of some of these fatwas, which are supposed to be based in the knowledge and wisdom of those who issue them, are quite disturbing and are tarnishing the image of Islam. For Muslim governments, this expansion of fatwa-issuing is becoming a growing concern.
RIYADH–A well-known Saudi religious scholar recently advised that a woman could become kin to a man—and thus be alone with him without violating the Islamic ban on gender mixing—by giving him five sips of her breast milk. This religious ruling, or fatwa, followed one in Somalia prohibiting Muslims from watching the soccer World Cup; one in Malaysia saying Muslims should not do yoga; two in Egypt, one saying married couples should not disrobe when having sex and the other one labeling Facebook users sinners; and one in Pakistan forbidding polio vaccination because it's a Western plot to harm Muslims.
These rulings on trivial matters are not the most disturbing fatwas these days. Far more worrisome are takfir rulings, which declare someone an apostate from Islam, usually to justify killing him. Takfir rulings, favored by extremist groups like Al-Qaeda, first came to prominence in the West in 1989 when Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa sanctioning the murder of British author Salman Rushdie for his controversial novel Satanic Verses. The writer spent many years in hiding as a result.
Questionable religious rulings, sometimes by badly trained Islamic scholars, are proliferating in Islam, tarnishing the image of this global faith. This fatwa chaos, as some Muslims call it, stems from Islam's lack of a central authority comparable to, for example, the Roman Catholic Church's Vatican. For centuries, this wasn't a problem because most people could not read and write. They were content to follow the religious advice of scholars respected within their communities.
But the explosion of literacy and global communications created conditions in which more Muslims could aspire to be fatwa-issuing scholars, and transmit those rulings to a wide audience—sometimes with political agendas. In remarks to a January 2009 international conference of Muslim scholars in Mecca, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz lamented that "the Islamic world has been plagued by an extremely negative phenomenon, which is the tendency to deliver fatwas by unqualified persons, especially on satellite television channels, the Internet and other modern channels of communication … Issuing ill-considered fatwas without following any criterion offers biased, ignorant, extremist or careless individuals the opportunity to pose as religious experts qualified to issue fatwas," added the king. The modern proliferation of fatwas raises a key question: When is a fatwa a fatwa, and when is it just the personal opinion of someone who calls himself a sheikh?
Traditionally, fatwas addressed major life issues and were presented by a scholar after careful consideration of Islamic scriptures, prior relevant rulings, and the current conditions in which Muslims lived. But today, many "rulings" are issued on the spur of the moment by scholars in response to questions called in by television viewers. For Muslim governments, this expansion of fatwa-issuing is a growing concern because it challenges the state's authority and control. And "battling" contradictory fatwas confuse their citizens.
Saudi Arabia, once a bastion of carefully controlled fatwa-giving, has sought for more than a year now to resolve this predicament. Its most far-reaching move came in the first week of Ramadan when King Abdullah issued a royal order that only clerics on the Council of Senior 'Ulema, a body of religious scholars appointed by the king, are permitted to issue fatwas on matters of public concern. The decree does not apply to personal fatwas that address specific issues for individuals. "All those who violate this order subject themselves to accountability and punishment, whoever they are, because the interests of the religion and the nation are above anything else," the decree warned.
A few weeks prior to the king's order, the Council of Senior 'Ulema had announced that it is setting up regional panels to issue fatwas in each of the kingdom's 14 provinces. The idea is that residents of the provinces should go to these official panels for religious guidance. The measure comes just months after the Ministry of Islamic Affairs banned the issuing of fatwas by anyone not on the Council of Senior 'Ulema—a ban widely ignored.
Earlier, in January 2009, the Saudi-led Muslim World League sponsored an international gathering of scholars in Mecca to establish guidelines for issuing fatwas. "The occupation of issuing religious edicts," stated its final communiqué, "should not be looked upon as a mere office for expressing personal opinion." Addressing takfir fatwas, it also cautioned Muslims "to take every possible precaution not to call an individual Muslim infidel as it is not permissible at all...unless he commits an act that clearly violates Islam."
Another major effort by the Saudi government will occur in September when Al-Imam Muhammad bin Saud University stages an international conference on takfir aimed at limiting fatwas on this topic to scholars allied with Muslim governments. Saud Al-Sarhan, a Saudi doctoral student specializing in the kingdom's Islamist community, said he doubts these efforts to control fatwa-giving will be successful, partly "because it's a big business" now as "every TV channel" has fatwa-issuing programs with their own scholars.
The breast milk fatwa, which came from Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obeikan, an advisor to the royal court, was an entirely novel interpretation of an ancient story in Islamic tradition and of an old custom in which Muslim women breastfeed an infant so the child becomes the equivalent of her own. The fatwa was met with outrage from all quarters in the kingdom and sparked ridicule of Islam by non-Muslim commentators. But weird fatwas like these are not the only ones causing controversy in the kingdom. Rulings that please progressive Muslims often draw fire from conservatives. That was the case, for example, with Sheikh Ahmed Al- Ghamdi's ruling in December that Islam allows men and women to mingle in public places like universities. And more recently, conservatives were upset by Riyadh scholar Adel Al-Kalbani's finding that singing is permissible as long as lyrics are decent. Al-Kalbani later reversed himself, telling Al-Hayat newspaper he had been wrong.
Official scholars denounced such rulings and the Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Aal Al-Sheikh, told a religious television station that "those who offer abnormal fatwas which have no support from the Quran should be halted." Other conservative sheikhs resorted to personal attacks, calling authors of such fatwas "ignorant" scholars who risk going to hell.
Observing this fatwa chaos, Abdullah Bajad Al-Otaibi suggested that ordinary Muslims do their part to stop it. "The permissible and the non-permissible are quite often self-evident and may be resolved through the application of commonsense," Al-Otaibi, who writes about Islamic affairs, said in an essay in the Saudi Gazette. "People do not need to solicit a fatwa for each and everything they do," he added. "It is rather strange and unfortunate that people have become so reliant on fatwas that they do not try to think for themselves."


text:
I did not work with a poem for the erasure challenge, opting to take a prose passage from an author whose prose is poetry to my eyes and ears: Neil Gaiman. I chose a random passage from his book "Stardust". (pp 122-123)
Here are the altered pages:
Here is the poem I extracted:
Grass can speak but it shall not profit you,
even if another wide with fright, cut to form, silver flashes.
The lady in the scarlet kirtle shall vex and irritate you,
with more grace and respect in the future.
The long grass exclaimed aloud "I'm getting old. Getting old.
And there's no doing anything about that."
-Jenn Mossholder, 31 and 3 Productions


text:
sometimes i wonder if people that write them put in jokes to see if anyone will notice. the latest story is about a guy that got the 'best job in the world' which is a caretaker on a desert island.
(details here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8035168.stm)
there were many applicants and "The finalists also had to demonstrate their blogging abilities"
apart from using a computer, being literate and being able to construct sentences what else is required? maybe i've been missing something all these years.
no pokers tonight yet. might play live tomorrow. £77 tournament, first one since i lost HU to the worst player in the history of the game.
As Much Time
1 week ago


text:
My musings, reflections on life here in Shiloh, Israel. Original, personal, spiritual and political. Peace, security and Israeli sovereignty. While not a "group blog," Shiloh Musings includes the voices of other Jews in The Land of Israel. **Copyright(C)BatyaMedad ** For permission to use these in publications of any sort, please contact me directly. Private accredited distribution encouraged. Thank you.
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Will it be Trump versus Clinton?
They also take for granted that the Clinton Machine will get Hillary in without any real problems. IMHO a lot will ride on their VP choices.
Does anyone have an idea who they will be?
Will Trump go for a wily politician to counter his outsider status, sort of like JFK did in his choice of Johnson who after the Kennedy assassination was the one who managed the impossible of passing the Kennedy-credited legislation?
And will Clinton go for someone younger, ok everyone is younger, to counteract her over the hill image?
Will this be the first election in decades in which the "Jewish vote" is irrelevant? That was why I wrote Israel Suddenly Unpopular with Presidential Wannabes.
What do you think?
4 comments:
- Netivotgirl said...
I dislike Trump only slightly less than I abhor Hillary. I do so hope that somehow Ted Cruz can catch up at the last minute. **sigh**. However, I believe you are right: It WILL be Trump vs. Clinton and SHE will be the next hyena in the White House. May Hashem have mercy on us all!
- 5/1/16 14:03
- Marcel Cousineau said...
The first thought that comes to mind on the 2016 elections are the busy hands rearranging the deck chairs as the Titanic is sinking, going down to the bottom of the ocean.
The Donald and Hillary are the orchestra playing sweet and sour melodies, out of key to the extremely distracted and soon to go down with the ship voters.
- 5/1/16 15:32
- Mr. Cohen said...
Perhaps ironically, Donald Trump has Jewish grandchildren and Hillary Clinton has half-Jewish grandchildren. The difference is that Donald Trump's Jewish grandchildren are really Jewish, but Hillary's are not.
Please help SUE the terrorists in court:
Thank you!
PS: www.camera.org * www.HonestReporting.com * www.memri.org * www.ActForAmerica.org * www.aish.com
- 5/1/16 22:15
- Batya Medad said...
The perils of democracy Honestly I don't care who wins. Even when we think the best one he's awful, so what difference does it make?
- 6/1/16 05:16


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Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has been re-elected by a landslide. But most of the country's opposition parties are angrily rejecting the election results.
The announcement of the election results was delayed for hours while officials from the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, met with angry representatives of 15 to 20 political parties.
In the end, many of the opposition parties refused to sign off on the results, and they stormed into the INEC media center to tell reporters they believed the poll was rigged by Mr. Obasanjo's party, the People's Democratic Party.
"Each member of the parties refused to sign the result sheets on the grounds that the results and the numbers spewed out by INEC were obviously very frivolous," says Don Etiebet, the secretary general of the largest opposition party, the All Nigeria Peoples' Party. "They did not reflect the wishes of the people, that there were no elections in many states of this country, and where there were some semblances of elections, the results were manipulated, falsified, changed, upturned to the desire of the PDP."
Mr. Etiebet was surrounded by at least 10 other opposition leaders as he spoke, including several presidential candidates. The candidate from his own party, Muhammadu Buhari, finished second in the poll with about 32 percent of the vote.
It is not clear how many parties have rejected the poll results. The chairman of the electoral commission, Abel Guobadia, later said at least two parties have accepted them.
Mr. Guobadia made the formal announcement that Mr. Obasanjo won re-election with about 62-percent of the vote. He defended the integrity of the poll against allegations of rigging. "The commission believes that the presidential election result about to be declared is the true reflection of the will of the Nigerian electorate," he said. "Contestants who are aggrieved are free to challenge the results in the electoral tribunals."
In a televised speech to the nation, Mr. Obasanjo thanked the voters for supporting him and made little reference to the controversy surrounding the poll. He urged his rivals to be, in his words, "good sportsmen." He said politicians should be magnanimous and humble in victory, and gallant and good natured in defeat.
This is the first time in 20 years that a civilian government has held elections in Nigeria. The country has spent most of its independent history under military rule.
International and domestic observer groups say there were serious irregularities and fraud in some parts of the country, especially in the southeast Niger Delta region. Most of the observers say the voting was relatively peaceful and credible in the rest of the country.


text:
The reason I asked about Luke Vibert's Breakbeat Metal Music in the shoutbox is because I love the song, but only have the mixed Bugged Out Mix version, and have heard it on youtube. But it seems to be pretty rare. Anyway, in the meantime, I did a grunge rock edit of it using pieces of the one from the Bugged Out Mix.
Luke Vibert - Breakbeat Metal Music (Boba's Grunge Remix)
[Right Click To Download]
Name those samples!
Boba Out.


text:
Strange love affair between Nokia Maps and Google Maps
In the latest version of Google Maps, support is added for geographic favourites from builtin Nokia Maps and Landmarks applications. I haven't figured out yet how to add landmarks from within gmaps interface, but they are going in the right direction at least. Now, Google, please add routing, voice guidance and map caching management and we are speaking business. Somehow, with huge emphasis on navigation in Google's own Android, I think the wait for other platforms is getting shorter too.
UPDATE: Google released a new build yesterday (June 4th, 2008) where you can add favourites by pressing central joystick button. Here they follow Nokia maps too. Route calculation from Favourite to Favourite is working too.


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Eid Al Mawlid, commemorating the birth of Prophet Mohammad, will be celebrated in Morocco this year on January 24th
The celebration will also be held on the same date in France. This was confirmed by an announcement made this week by the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM). "The CFCM announced that the festival which occurs on the 12th day of Rabi 'Al Awal hegira year 1434, will be celebrated this year 24 January," said its president Mohammed Moussaoui.
Note that in the Muslim calendar, a holiday begins on the sunset of the previous day, so observing Muslims will celebrate Mawlid al-Nabi from the sunset of Wednesday, the 23rd of January.
Although Mawlid al-Nabi is always on the same day of the Islamic calendar, the date on the Gregorian calendar varies from year to year, since the Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar and the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar. This difference means Mawlid al-Nabi moves in the Gregorian calendar approximately 11 days every year (as does Ramadan). The date of Mawlid al-Nabi may also vary from country to country depending on whether the moon has been sighted or not.
Celebrations vary from country to country. In Australia, for example, many Muslims fast during daylight hours on Eid Milad ul-Nabi. They may also attend special prayer meetings or lectures on Muhammad's life or on Islam's spiritual aspects. Some Muslim groups also hold classes for children on Muhammad's life or a communal meal or celebration. The rooms used during the Prophet Muhammad's birthday celebrations are often modestly decorated with banners, flowers or balloons. Other groups hold lectures to inform people about Islam, Mohammed's life and current events in the Muslim world. Stalls selling Islamic books are seen at many events.
|Mawalid in Mogador 1912
The basic earliest accounts for the observance of Mawlid can be found in 8th century Mecca, when the house in which Prophet Muhammad was born was transformed into a place of prayer by Al-Khayzuran (mother of Harun al-Rashid, the fifth and most famous Abbasid caliph).
Though public celebrations of the birth of Muhammad did not occur until four centuries after his passing away. The oldest Mawlid-text is claimed to be from the 12th century and most likely being of Persian origin.
The early celebrations included elements of Sufi influence, with animal sacrifices and torchlight processions along with public sermons and a feast.
Fundamentalist Muslims, such as the Wahhabi sect, do not celebrate the holiday.


text:
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text:
Hardware Roundup: Thursday Edition
Posted: 03:59AM
Author: Nemo
Storage has never been considered as 'sexy', that is until solid state drives appeared and began causing a bit of excitement due to their potential for increased I/O when compared to standard mechanical drives. Solid states drives are also expensive, and while prices are dropping, the cost per GB remains way above that of standard drives. Still, SSDs have spiced up the storage segment and we have a review on the Corsair Nova V128 solid state drive. Western Digital has upped the capacity of its 10K RPM VelociRaptor drive to 600GB and priced it at $329 which is about what some 128GB SSDs cost these days, so which one would you choose?
Thermaltake Wing RS 301 Case @ Motherboards.org
Metro 2033 (PC) @ GamingHeaven
Booq Mamba Sling Laptop bag and Python Skin M Sleeve @ OverclockersHQ
GIGABYTE 890GPA-UD3H Motherboard @ [H]ardOCP
ViewSonic VNB108 Pinetrail Atom N450 10.1-inch LED-backlit Netbook @ TweakTown
Power Supplies
Cougar S550W PSU @ Rbmods
Storage/Hard Drives
Western Digital VelociRaptor 600GB SATA 6G Hard Drive @ TweakTown
Corsair Nova V128 Solid State Drive Test @ Benchmark Reviews
Corsair Flash Voyager GTR 32GB USB Flash Drive @ ThinkComputers
NVIDIA Solves Multi-Monitor Temp Issue on GeForce GTX 480 GPUs @ Legit Reviews
Watching The 2010 Masters Tournament in 3D with NVIDIA 3D Vision @ Legit Reviews


text:
- securing URLs using
authorizeRequests()in XML/Java config (also called web security or URL security)
- securing individual method invocations using
- securing domain objects using ACL
The second works (with a default configuration) for service layer components, but not for controllers. This is because you usually add Spring Security in root application context and, since controllers live in web application context, Spring Security cannot access them. Still, very often developers try to apply global method security to controller methods. Spring Security FAQ has even an answer to such question. Usually the solution is to move
<global-method-security> to web application context.
I think that many of those developers actually don't need global method security on controller methods. For example see these four threads: [1], [2], [3] and [4] - they all require a simple "hasRole(XXX)" check. So I think that what they really need is to configure some authorization mechanism using annotations directly on controller methods (because it is more convenient than configuring it using URL patterns). It doesn't matter, if it's web security or global method security. However, they choose global method security, because it supports annotations.
In this post I would like to show an alternative approach - something that is between web security and global method security. It will use web security expressions, but will be configured by annotations applied to controller methods. Let's see how this can be implemented.


text:
Happy Memorial Day to All!....My friend Rodger MacGowan - who did the cover for Rebel Raiders on the High Seas and many other games of mine not only followed my lead in honoring Civil War historian James McPherson - but also did me one better (as any artist of Rodger's caliber should) by putting up this tribute. For more from Rodger on Memorial Day, games and his magazine, please visit his C3i magazine ops site: http://www.c3iopscenter.com/currentops/
NEW YORK — One the country's greatest Civil War historians has won a lifetime achievement award.
James M. McPherson is best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Battle Cry of Freedom." He received the seventh annual Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Award for distinguished writing in American history. The award is named for the late Pulitzer-winning historian and was announced Monday by the Society of American Historians.