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A Minister said, the girls shouldn't cross the Lakshman Rekha. If they do, they'll be kidnapped like Sita of Ramayan !
A self-proclaimed Bapu blamed the girl for the rape and prophesied that she would have saved herself if she had begged them for mercy and called them "Bhayya" or brother !
The RSS chief says a woman has to satisfy a man and keep him happy for her to receive appreciation or some nonsense like that !
As women all over the country protest and people ask for tougher punishments for the offenders, these people with verbal diarrhea keep defecating through their unholy mouths. And then our Prime Minister finally opens his mouth and says, "Theek Hai" or "It's OK" !
A couple of months ago, my 14 year old daughter was harassed and abused by some pranksters on the Facebook. She protested and I too joined issues. What was the reaction we got ?
A lady said, "You should not post photos on Facebook. You should not wear exposing dresses. You should not allow boys to be friends. There are so many security controls on Facebook. So on and on...". My daughter questioned, "What if people abuse via messages and how am I supposed to know who is good and who is not ?" She got a reply, "If you sleep with your room unlocked, people will rob you".
I joined issues saying, "Facebook is not a hotel room but an open road. If some abnormal men abuse a woman in public, isn't it our duty to stand up and question them and stop them ? Doesn't she have the right to protest ?". The reply I got was very enlightening. The lady said, "I thought you people have some sense and tried to help you. But now I know you have invited this. Serves you right !"
Another man asked, "Can a 14 year old GIRL have a Facebook account ?". Having entered modeling and cinema field, my daughter has been active on Facebook and has maintained a decent decorum and I keep strict vigil on her page to keep it clean. In spite of that, some delinquents come and create nuisance.
I stopped protesting but took the direct mode of action and called those people on the given phone numbers and gave a decent warning and cut them off. But there always is a risk, some of these people might harm my child in future. So I try to keep things simple and secret. What else can a father do ?
I had to elaborate so much only because we have a mentality where people start preaching to girls how to dress, how to behave, what to do and what not to do, where to sit and where not to go and finally how to breathe in public.
I find it to be a humongous insult to entire 'Mankind' when people say, "Women wearing sexy dresses instigate men to rape them". This actually labels as every man as an entity with a tendency to rape against instigation. A small stretch of feminine skin is enough to bring the rapist out of a man ! This is what it means. I am NOT ready to buy this. I can't be and I am NOT what these people are planning to brand me !
We do have a whole hogwash of western influence being reason for rapes and abuse of women. What an unadulterated blasphemy ! Let us just look at our 'Puranas'. Let's take the God business out of them and look at them as unchronicled 'History' or even fiction. What do we see there ?
Ram wins over Lanka and frees his wife Sita. Then he forces her to jump into fire [Agni Pareeksha] before accepting her as 'pure'. And then what does the duffer do ? He abandons her in the jungle when she is pregnant just because of a drunken idiot's nonsensical and inebriated brawl. This is how history has treated women in India !
A lecherous Indra seduces the unsuspecting Ahalya by disguising as her husband. What is the result ? The woman is cursed to end up as a stone till she is redeemed from the curse by the 'lotus feet' of a man who himself abandoned his wife later for no fault of hers. This is how history has treated women in India !
The Queen of Indraprastha with five husbands gets herself pawned in a game of dice because her idiotic husband can't quit the vice. Panchali is disrobed in the court of Hastinapur with all elders and wise-men being witness to the horrible act. An eye-wash opposition and then some vainglorious statements by her husbands is all that she gets. The woman is referred to as 'Commodity' by Duryodhan and that is not opposed by anyone in that court. This is how history has treated women in India !
Just consider the fact; this was the plight of women belonging to Royal families. Now imagine what would have been the life of common-woman ! "Yatra Naaryastu Poojante, Ramante Tatra Devata" - "The God's make an abode where women are adored" says some damn scripture and then they also say, "Na Stree Swaatantryamarhasi" - "The woman doesn't deserve freedom" !
With this kind of history, legacy, wisdom, knowledge, literature and religious righteousness, do we really need western influence ? Western societies are a lot more equal and nicer to woman today than India is. This is a fact. We boast of having had a woman Prime Minister, multiple women Chief Ministers, woman President and many women in high places since ages. But most of them were foisted upon the people thanks to legacy or by the power of money or muscle. Lalu - Rabri rule is the best example for the later.
Female infanticide, ill-treatment of girl children, a clear male child bias in a large segment of our populace are eating into the fabric of our society. Ever since she is born, a girl is chained to a million rules while her brother can go out and do any mischief. "You are a girl, remember that !" follows every single girl in this country. If her family treats her without a bias, the 'well-meaning' society is always there to show her where she belongs; the kitchen !
A lady in her late forties, once visited us and gave us a lecture on the need to have a 'Son' in front of our daughter. She went blah blah in front of the 10 year old girl cuddling in my lap, "I can see you people are unhappy because you have only a girl. You people are making a mistake by waiting. You must pray and do poojas to beget a son as soon as possible. This girl belongs to someone else. You must have a Son who is the 'Kula Deepak' [Light of Family]. What is this pampering a girl ? I will pray to God to give you people a cute boy soon".
I cut her off and said, "Auntie, THIS child sitting in my lap is the 'Kula Deepika' of my family. SHE is the one we always wanted and SHE is the only child we will ever have. If you insist on a boy, please go ahead and produce one for yourself. For all of my family, this child is our world and it is beautiful only because of her !"
The lady took it badly and has never talked to me after that. Not that I care ! But unfortunately, as long as 'women' continue to believe in this kind of nonsense and wish and pray for a boy-child, our society will continue to encourage rape !
|Dress Code : Only for Girls !
If wearing 'sexy' or bold costumes is what encourages rape, what about men ? Salman Khan hardly ever wears a shirt and there are so many studs showing off their naked bodies. How about women getting turned on by this blatant nudity ? Isn't that wrong too ?
And what about our temples insisting upon men to strip before entering the temples ? The matter of fact is most of male nudity is disgusting. As disgusting as what some women feel about Rakhi Sawant. But why no moral codes of conduct for men ?
All India needs is for the people to grow up. A boy who flirts around with many women is a 'stud' whereas a girl going out with men even as part of her job is a 'slut'. It is this mentality that has chained us. Dress code doesn't stop rapes. A code that treats man and woman as equal and prevents and forbids bias from childhood alone can prevent rapes.
I wind up this long but extremely passionate post with one of my Facebook updates, which came straight from the heart !
Capital Punishment for Rape ?
Not just right. A lot of our own Soldiers, Police personnel, Superiors in office and even Doctors will have to be hanged till death in that case.
Death by "Rope" is too small a punishment for "Rape", the most heinous crime ever; worse than murder !
We must have a law amended in such way that if proved, a Rapist must be punished with...
Dismemberment of the instrument used for rape along with castration and then he should be divested all jobs, degrees and privileges of life and left with just two options; Begging for mercy or death !
PS: This might sound a little anarchic and perhaps like a medieval law. But a sick act like rape can't be treated with kid-gloves ! Many of those dismembered beggars walking the footpath can be a very strong deterrent for future offenders !
Dr. Punned-it


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The older boys played outside all afternoon, but took a break for some pie.
Aren't they cute?
The little ones had lots to say to Grandpa.
A few games add to the fun.
See-see oh, playmate!
I love my daddy.
My Joyness :D
Across the room, but he still had his eye on me. Awe.
The younger boys played a few games of baseball.
While some of the children got wagon rides.

subset: commoncrawl


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A small batch of fantasy figures this time.First a Minotaur from Games Workshop. I like this one very much, and can't really understand what took me so long to finish it. Probably the need to green-stuff all the joints. One of those minis that has spent an awful long time in the tin montain.
Paints used:
Skin – Citadel Foundation Tallarn Flesh
Nose – drybrushed Vallejo 955 Flat Flesh
Hair – P3 Gun Corps Brown
Fangs, nails and horns – Vallejo 034 Bone White
Loincloth – Vallejo 879 Green Brown
Furs – Coat d'arms 224 Horse Tone Bay and insides Vallejo 912 Tan Yellow
Wood – Vallejo 843 Cork Brown drybrushed with 912 Tan Yellow after the wash.
Leather armbands – 984 Vallejo Flat Brown
Metal dishes – Vallejo 053 Chainmail Silver
Weapons – Vallejo 863 Gunmetal Grey
Everything washed with Citadel Devlan Mud
Next up is another Games Workshop figure, a squig. Rather amusing, if you don't have to fight one, that is.
Paints used:
Skin – Vallejo 879 Green Brown
Scales – Vallejo 924 Russian Uniform WWII
Horns and claws - Vallejo 034 Bone White
Mouth – Citadel Scab Red, Vallejo 944 Old Rose and 835 Salmon Rose
Eyes – Citadel Foundation Mechrite Red
Washed with Army Painter Strong Tone wash.
Finally a small monkey from Reaper's Familiar Pack IV. Had a mis-cast tail, so I had to fix that with green-stuff.
Paints used:Skin – Vallejo 929 Light Brown and 989 Sky Grey washed with Army Painter Strong Tone. Vallejo 883 Silvergrey washed with Soft Tone.


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I got the best valentine ever this year.
Fa wrote one in school. Then, they mailed it here.
I cried.
It says:
Dear Mom, RT, and Dad,
My mom helps me wash up and she gets my burpies too. I love going to the park with my dad and swinging in the bucket swings. I love when RT calms down but he doesn't.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Love, Fa….
Can't get any better than that. I am truly in love.
Today, I send my love throughout the blogshpere to all my Valentine's. Happy Healthy Hearts Day to you!!!
I can't go anyplace else for truth, honesty and love. I thank you.


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Smaller, smarter than tank: DARPA awards contracts to develop GXV-T ground battle vehicle
GXV-T stands for Ground X-Vehicle Technology. DARPA expects its progeny to be stripped of typical 'problems' of the existing fighting vehicles, which have been gaining in weight due to additional protecting armor and, because of that, losing mobility and speed. Overweight modern armored machines are also increasingly expensive to develop and their deployment costs have surged over the last decades.
DARPA says it has an eye on something truly revolutionary: a fast and mobile ground platform that carries no steel plates yet provides effective protection to the personnel.
"We're exploring a variety of potentially groundbreaking technologies, all of which are designed to improve vehicle mobility, vehicle survivability and crew safety and performance without piling on armor," Major Christopher Orlowski, DARPA program manager, said in a press release Tuesday.
"DARPA's performers for the GXV-T are helping defy the 'more armor equals better protection' axiom that has constrained armored ground vehicle design for the past 100 years, and are paving the way toward innovative, disruptive vehicles for the 21st century and beyond."
The basic four principles behind the GXV-T are declared to be Enhanced Mobility, Survivability through Agility, Crew Augmentation and Signature Management.
US prepares to hunt enemy submarines with giant sea drone (VIDEO)https://t.co/2RQkFKAoUUpic.twitter.com/aark8928yK— RT America (@RT_America) April 1, 2016
To combine all this in one vehicle, DARPA intends to rethink most basic elements of a fighting vehicle. The GXV-T is going to get revolutionary wheel/track and suspension technology, autonomously detect incoming threats and deal them with "active repositioning armor" doing vertical and horizontal movement or avoid them through considerably augmented agility and off-road terrain capabilities.
"It's about breaking the 'more armor' paradigm and revolutionizing protection for all armored fighting vehicles," DARPA program manager Kevin Massey said.
DARPA's new military drone could morph destroyers into aircraft carriershttps://t.co/P05D3YJWK4pic.twitter.com/QnEr5hMJFB— RT America (@RT_America) December 30, 2015
The personnel inside the GXV-T is promised to have improved situational awareness thanks to multiple onboard sensors, including 360-degree high-resolution visualization of data, so the vehicle is expected to effectively operate in "closed-cockpit" mode.
And of course, a strong point of the GXV-T is going to be its stealth capabilities. To avoid detection, the vehicle ought to have reduced basic signatures, such as decreased optical visibility to adversaries, minimal acoustic, infrared and electromagnetic detectability.
DARPA seeks to develop drones that self-destruct in sunlighthttp://t.co/MFrH4pIq59pic.twitter.com/zut3prI3WE— RT (@RT_com) October 18, 2015
DARPA claims that both the US Army and Marine Corps have already expressed interest in the GXV-T's promised capabilities.
To the moment eight companies, among them one British and seven American have joined the project, being awarded contracts to develop elements of the future GXV-T.
Robot repairs: DARPA eyes droid orbital facility for satellites http://t.co/UtmUotVjLVpic.twitter.com/UdVwGGBmN1— RT America (@RT_America) September 15, 2015
The research entities that are going to invent the vehicle are the US Carnegie Mellon University, Honeywell International Inc., Leidos, Pratt & Miller, Raytheon BBN, Southwest Research Institute and SRI International.
The only foreign contractor that would assist DARPA with the GXV-T is going to be Britain's QinetiQ Inc.
First announced in August 2014, the GXV-T program's schedule has not been publicly announced yet.


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The Nijmegen artist Antoon van Welie (1866-1956) earned the epithet "the last decadent painter" with his portraits of society figures throughout Europe. He painted, among others, the Parisian cabaret singer Yvette Guilbert, the actress Sarah Bernhardt, the Dutch poet Willem Kloos and Popes Benedict XV and Pius X.
He was also a familiar figure in the Dutch worlds of art and literature.
Van Welie, a pious Christian, suffered from the ambivalence of his reputation as a serious artist and a decadent


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Lecture with Alpha Phi Sigma at Wellesley College
Join me and the Alpha Phi Sigma Lecture Society of Wellesley College on Wednesday, April 5th from 12:30 - 1:30pm in the Pendleton Atrium. I'll be discussing scarves, denim, and how to find ways to make a living from your personal passions. Hope to see you there!


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I randomly decided to check out the U.S. Embassy in Egypt's website. It looks functional and not really different than any embassy website I've visited…but that's the problem. In a region where U.S. foreign policy is generally unfavored or misunderstood, shouldn't there be a "full court press" effort to create a really engaging, interactive site that represents the dynamic and creative society that's present in this country? This site just seems totally stale and unimaginative. How about we put the legions of graphic designers, artists, creative thinkers and marketing wizards at our disposal to create a 21st century site in every country that's a priority to American interests? But hey, at least the Egypt site is advertising the Rat Pack Tribute Show (with showgirls dancers) – hmm, perfect use of our public diplomacy budget!
Filed under: Daily Updates | Tagged: Egypt, Public Diplomacy, U.S. Foriegn Policy | Leave a comment »


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In love with this soft, romantic combo. I wish you could see the navy and flannel grey velvet in person, it's absolutely rich in color! Paired perfectly with "Mint Magic & Lavender!"
Meesh's Recipe
- Velvet Elastic
- Adhesive Felt Hearts
- Fabri-Tac Permanent Adhesive
- Assorted Sequin
- Silk & Lace Flower


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This is the meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. What I read, what I'm reading, and a peek at what I'll read next, where I check up on my reading patterns for the previous week.
This week I finished four Cybils books, a Reading My Library choice, and an audio book:
- The Friendship Doll, Kirby Larson. BOOK. Cybils Middle Grade Fiction.
- Into the Unknown, Stewart Ross. Cybils Nonfiction.
- Stupid Fast, Geoff Herbach. Cybils YA Fiction.
- Ghetto Cowboy, G. Neri. Cybils Middle Grade Fiction.
- Operation Redwood, S. Terrell French. I'll pass this RML choice onto my son.
- Enchanted Glass, Diana Wynne Jones. Audio. Actually it's still in the car, but I skipped ahead.
I'm showing fifteen books on my currently reading list, but it's not as bad as it looks. None of them occupy any of the same space in my brain. It's always interesting to see what I put on my TBR list, and the RML (reading my library) books give me choices I might not have found otherwise.
- Christmas Angel, Jo Beverly. My librarything Santa present. There is an assassin out there.
- Anya's Ghost. Vera Brosgol. Cybils GN finalist; my son says it is spooky.
- Making Our Democracy Work, Stephen Breyer. Supreme Court Justice on the supreme court, which I found on the library's Pick Me shelf before Christmas.
- The Porcupine Year, Louise Erdrich. Migration story. RML.
- Claudette Colvin, Philip M. Hoose. Stayed on the bus before Rosa Park. TBR
- Orbital Resonance, John Barnes. I think Jo Walton recommended this coming-of-age-in-space book, and it's a fun member of that genre. TBR.
- Among Others, Jo Walton. Re-reading and enjoying it even more than the first time.
- Girl of Fire and Thorns, Rae Carson. NOOK. Cybils YA finalist. I wish I didn't know the husband dies, because I quite like him.
- The Beekeeper's Apprentice. Laurie King. (reread). Audio book when kids aren't in the car. Too long for my taste, though. I also got the paperback so I can read it inside.
- Smart But Scattered, Peg Dawson & Richard Guare. How to know when you or your kid has a problem. I think I'll put books I read for parenting in the finish-a-book slot.
- The Same Stuff as Stars, Katherine Paterson. Gramma is grumpy about mom's departure.
- The First Men In the Moon, H.G. Wells. Violent escape from moon-creatures.
- Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott. Honest portrayals of complex family relationships.
- The End of Racism, Dinesh D'Souza. He's leaning towards genetic racial differences.
- Honored Enemy, Raymond Feist & William R Forstchen. Two enemies must face a greater foe.
What will I read next? I've got a shelf full of Cybils books waiting (poor library hold management), a small handful of library books left from the beginning of the year, and the (refreshed) reading my library pile. And all the books in my unread book case that I keep hoping I'll start reading. I thinking March will be the time to really concentrate on books in my home, and also leave me in a comfortable place, library shelf-wise. The TBR Dare is still on, despite horrible temptations in two libraries.
- Cybils: 29/80. I finished all the Easy Readers, should write them up.
- Global Reading Challenge: 3/21. Now complete with fancy graphics!
- What's In a Name?: 5/6. Still need a topological feature. The year is young.
- Where Am I Reading?: 10/50. February quota done.
- TBR Double Dare. 9. All library this week.
- Science Book Challenge: 1.14/3.14159. Cybils Picture books for the fractions.
- Reading My Library: Got the next batch. I should keep a list of these, maybe.


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Hi followers! I was a little under the weather yesterday, literally, aside from not feeling well. The monster storm, NEMO, paid us a visit and thankfully, was very kind to us. Our snow accumulation only amounted to 6 inches. I'm afraid our neighbors to the east were not as fortunate. Take care and stay safe!
Now, on to my project for this week...
A very different altered project to share with you today. I took a turn "around the block" instead of "out of the box". ATCs, Artist Trading Cards, are very popular in the crafting world. One of the newer trends is to create an ATC mounted on a wooden block. I just happened to have the perfect size block in a stash that my father made for our daughters many years ago. So, here goes...
I started with a wooden block and a coat of gesso to seal the wood. Gesso is not a necessity since the wooden block will be covered with patterned paper, but I personally like to seal wood before I use it for my projects. The block is a piece of 2" x 4" cut to ATC size of 2 1/2" x 3 1/2". The 2" thickness adds the dimension to the ATC.
I used one of my favorite inks and background stamps, Tsukineko Memento Desert Sand and Heartfelt Creations Pre Cut Burlap. Both are available in the CropStop Store.
I adhered patterned paper to all 4 sides along with the top and bottom of the block using Inkssentials Glue N Seal - Matte. You can see the burlap print background that I stamped using the Heartfelt Creations Pre Cut Burlap Stamp and Tsukineko Memento Desert Sand ink. I also inked the edges of my papers.
I adhered some sticker sentiments around the 4 sides of the block.
The top of my ATC block to on a life of it's own! I found a sentiment that I really liked and wanted to use as the theme. An abundance of texture and layers in addition to lots of details including a Glitz Giant Rhinestone and Vintaj by Sizzix Brass Heart. Glue N Seal is a life saver when creating altered art!
Vintaj by Sizzix Metal Heart
Close To My Heart Hinge
EK Success Stick Pin
Heidi Swapp Sticker Sentiments
Recollections Jewel Hearts
Beads, Burlap, Corrugated Cardboard, Jewels, Thread
Close To My Heart Hinge
EK Success Stick Pin
Heidi Swapp Sticker Sentiments
Recollections Jewel Hearts
Beads, Burlap, Corrugated Cardboard, Jewels, Thread
I hope I have inspired you to try something new and create one of your own ATC blocks. Thanks for dropping by my blog.
Visit the CropStop Store for your crafting needs. Use my special CropStop discount code, CTC-VR, on checkout, for 10% off your total purchase. No minimum required. Easy cause' the code never changes.


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Saturday, December 21, 2013
A Secret PAW
31 comments:
I am sure that's the Secret Santa Paws.ReplyDelete
How cool to get those goodies, but when you open them the goodies won't be a secret at least! Have fun today since the monsoon is coming back tomorrow.ReplyDelete
Oh how NICE! Such a sweet Secret Paws!ReplyDelete
Oh WOW! A truly Secret Paws!ReplyDelete
Oh I know who it was....it was Santa's Elf!!! yay for you allReplyDelete
hugs madi your bfff
That is a very secret Secret Paws! We hope you have a great Caturday!ReplyDelete
What a nice thing to do indeed. Very nice.ReplyDelete
Have a purrfect day. My best to your wonderful person. ♥♥♥
What a great Secret Paws and a Secret Santa too. That is pawsome!!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousDecember 21, 2013 at 9:24 AM
Oooo, a super Secret Santa Paws! Sending curious purrs...ReplyDelete
That is a Super Secret PawsReplyDelete
Wow, that really IS a SECRET Paw! We know you'll enjoy those goodies, for sure! :)ReplyDelete
Sometimes secret is nice. Enjoy!ReplyDelete
How exciting to have a secret paw!ReplyDelete
Dip Bridge and Elliot x
Cool Secret Paws gifts! I wonder who sent them. It wasn't us!ReplyDelete
Wow, it's a double-secret Santa! We're happy that you got some extra goodies.ReplyDelete
That is wonderful!ReplyDelete
That's wonderful! Enjoy your treats and new toys!ReplyDelete
How very cool is that!! We have never signed up for that and probably should.ReplyDelete
That's so nice! Enjoy your Secret Paws.ReplyDelete
Oh, wasn't that nice of that Secret Paws...we sure hope you enjoy it all! XXReplyDelete
That was very nice of your secret Secret Paw to send you those goodies.ReplyDelete
Whoa! Maybe Paula knows? What a nice surprise.ReplyDelete
Wow how nice! Enjoy your treats guys!ReplyDelete
What a great thing...yes Maggie, there IS a Sandy Claws!ReplyDelete
well it is that time of year, I bet it was Santa Paws. Your secret Paw sure was good to youReplyDelete
Wow! How fun. Enjoy your goodies!!!ReplyDelete
I jumped over from Caren & Cody's blog.
~Cool Mom
Assistant to the Stanley & Katrina Gang
A Holiday gift! Enjoy the fun!ReplyDelete
Such a very nice surprise - but we also know you deserve to receive something nice:)ReplyDelete
Woos - Phantom, Ciara, and Lightning
We think it's wonderful you received a Secret Secret Santa Paw gift.ReplyDelete
whoever did that sure is special!ReplyDelete


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Y'all, I am such a huge fan of wine and cheese! I love trying new wines and pairing them with unique cheeses while socializing with friends.. And one of my favorite things to do is entertain my friends with wine and cheese!
I was on my main etsy feed, and a make your own cheese kit popped up.. What?! Why haven't I thought of this brilliant idea before?! I searched the varieties, read the reviews and decided on the farmers cheese.. From the description, it seemed like it might be the most forgiving if I messed up and needed to add extra ingredients to make it into a spread..
I highly recommend this seller, Urban Cheesecraft.. My package came quickly, and the instructions were easy to follow.. I will be making more in my future!
Here is the cute little box and the things that came in it minus the instruction pamphlet.
This is what the curds and whey look like while they are cooking.
After cooking the curds, I drained them in the provided cheesecloth.
After draining, I added the provided cheese salt, and it was delicious! The seller gave a few ideas of variations and things to add so I picked up some store bought pesto and added that. Oh my goodness!!! It was delicious!!! I think she recommended 2 tablespoons, and I used closer to 4.. After mixing it in, I put the cheese back into the cloth to 'ball it up' for serving..
And here it is ready to serve! The kit makes several batches so I will get to make more soon! And I can't wait to try to mozzarella one!
Cheers, y'all!


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Blogger's been acting funny this summer
And not ha-ha funny. Couldn't access any sites yesterday, and last time I tried to post on this site it was taking an hour before I gave up.
Astute observers might've have noticed my Librarything.com blog widget on the bottom of this page with books from my library. I'll add some sports books onto my catalog, which I'm keeping pretty topic-specific for the time being due a presentation I'm doing at my institution. But it is a pretty cool social networking site for people who like books.
Back to Sports! Specifically, IU basketball.
There's been a lot brouhaha over the (un)ethics of recruiting of Eric Gordon, and I frankly just don't care. I think Sampson knows he's not going to get the kid, but wants to show the state he's willing to push the envelope to get Indiana kids. What concerns me more than this is the Phil Jones saga. Phil Jones is a 2006 top 100 recruit who stands 6'-10", 260, and is not known for his outside game. He verbally committed and then de-committed to Indiana, evidently having not gotten enough romancing by all the coaches. It'd be nice to have another big body off the bench, but I'm not sold on this kid right now. I think IU should rescind the offer at this point, as the very last thing we need is another George, Bracey, or Marco who'll think it's all about them and pout when they don't get every play called for them.
I am excited about next year's squad. While they won't challenge Ohio State or Wisconsin for the title, and probably won't be all that impressive in road conference games, Kelvin Sampson did exactly what the program needed in getting DJ White & AJ Ratliff to return, getting freshmen 6-2 Armon Bassett & 6-6 Xavier Keeling to honor their committments, and then getting top Juco forwards 6-6 Mike "King Kong" White and 6-8 Lance Stemler to shore up the frontcourt.
There's now talent in Assembly Hall, and while maybe not as much overall as last year, it shouldn't be too far of a drop. And while I think Mike Davis isn't a terrible coach, he's not a coach on the level of Kelvin Sampson. For that matter, Sampson isn't on the level of a Pitino or Roy Williams, but he is a good coach.
I don't think it's unreasonable for IU to contend with Illinois for top three in the Big Ten, and to be a lock for the NCAA (barring injuries).
Starting line-up
Forward: Lance Stemler
Mike White is the higher-ranked, but I could see Stemler starting to open up the offense with his shooting. If he or DJ get in foul trouble, or Stemler's throwing bricks, look for MW to on the floor in a hurry. In fact, I would look for Mike to get more minutes than Stemler.
Forward: Rod Wilmont
Rod's been working hard since he arrived with Bracey & Marshall five years ago. It finally started to pay off last season when he showed some defensive skills, rebounding, and streak 3-pt. shooting. A little more consistency and better decision-making will see him getting major minutes all season long.
Center: DJ White
What, you were expecting Ben Allen? As long as DJ's foot problems are over, he should be one of the premier Big 10 big men. In fact, only frosh phenom Greg Oden could be expected to perform any better.
Guard: AJ Ratliff
AJ destroyed Kentucky in the second half of last year's game, but pretty much never reappeared. Part of the problem is that when his outside shot wasn't falling, he wouldn't take it to the rack, and on defense he just made a lot of silly fouls. Let's hope Sampson can bring out the best in AJ, because there's a LOT of potential there. Jay Edwards-type potential. But if AJ continues downhill, IU might have to turn to freshmen Armon Bassett or Joey Shaw to start.
Point Guard: Earl Calloway
EC was clearly the point guard of the future for Indiana last season, and even in the loss to Gonzaga, he put up 13 points, 10 assists, and 9 rebounds. As long as Sampson can keep Calloway dangerous but still in control, there's few guards in the country that will be able to stay with him. One of the big problems with Earl was the surprising blow-by ability of players that he was guarding. No one should've gotten past him with his speed, and hopefully Coach Sampson can take care of that deficiency.
The Bench:
As discussed, Mike White (or Lance Stemler) should be a 6th starter, and Sampson will look to 6-10 Ben Allen to play some serious minutes inside as well. Frosh Bassett and especially Joey Shaw (a 2005 top 100 recruit) should get some decent playing time, and former-walk-on Erreck Suhr will still play spot minutes at least. The question is whether Sampson feels that the athletic recruit Xavier Keeling will be needed this year or not, as Keeling could probably use a year to hone his shooting and BBall IQ.


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hot dang, i am going to a BRAVES BASEBALL GAME tomorrow! i used to go all the time when i was a little girl, and i loved me some night games. my braves baseball knowledge from the early 90s is unstoppable. after that... not so much. but i hear we got a young stunner named jason heyward; bobby cox is retiring this year; and currently we are number one in our division. we're going with friends and i hope to drink some blue moon and eat some peanuts. maybe do the tomahawk chop and catch a foul ball. and hopefully not sweat to death. fingers crossed.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Posted by "hi, i'm ginnybranch stelling and i love love." at 6:54 PM
Labels: georgia, playing dress up
7 comments:
- RMLangley said...
So sad we can't be there! Stupid ER rotation
- July 16, 2010 at 5:12 AM
- Lightning Heart said...
i've always wanted to go to a baseball game, looks like so much fun!
- July 16, 2010 at 5:57 AM
- Frankie said...
I love the shoes! I absolutely adore your beautiful blog, it is one of the loveliest I have come across recently!
- July 16, 2010 at 12:07 PM
- hayliebird said...
so cute...
have fun and take a handkerchief to sop up the sweat, hankies are my must have accessory this year, i don't leave the house without one!
- July 16, 2010 at 5:29 PM
- John G said...
I am a freak for that bag.
- July 16, 2010 at 6:59 PM
- "hi, i'm ginnybranch stelling and i love love." said...
haylie, i nearly sweated to death!!! i am beyond hope of hankies and have to bring ikea dishtowels. seriously. all my friends were dying laughing when they saw me pull it out of my bag o tricks.
- July 17, 2010 at 7:51 AM
- Christine said...
I'm not much for baseball games but I would go if I could wear that outfit and have that bag--love it.
- July 19, 2010 at 6:07 AM
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copyrights. credits. recognition...
hey y'all, if i have not given proper or accurate credit to a photo on this blog, please let me know. everything i post is meant to be shared in the most positive, complimentary fashion. if you see a photo of yours and you would like me to remove it, please do not hesitate to ask and i will do so immediately.


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(Religion as an opinion or an intellectual vision as we knew it is changing, taking new forms of power, politics and material. We are upset about changes. But do we fear that breaking our silence on changes will dent on our decency and good nature. For those who think that a discussion on change is eminent to forge a healthy religious unity among the Kerala people, here is an opportunity)
The National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) on Wednesday granted minority status to five educational institutions under the Pushpagiri Medical Society; ending an eight-year-old wait that began in February 1999. With this, the number of professional colleges having minority status in Kerala has gone up to 11. reference
Currently the number of minority institutions that got 'minority status' stands at 27 and the upward trend continues.
The Commission's verdict, apparently kept under wraps by Kerala's Media from reaching its majority, is riddled with controversy, lack of common sense and is another example for India's judicial bungling.
That an Indian constitutional clause (article 30) intended to guarantee a minority, rights to run own educational institutions to attain equal development with the majority is used to enhance the minority's domination over the majority, is the controversy.
The verdict is a cover for the rich owners of Kerals's Professional Colleges to renege on their social responsibility. For the socially and economically backward, still reeling under India's old apartheid and the poor it deflects professional education into an unreachable trajectory.
No doubt, it hacks through the socialist model of development that Kerala has been envisaging for decades. I wonder how many current flag bearers of the 'minority status' would have been there if Kerala had not embarked on that model.
Currently the two minorities in Kerala, the Christians and the Muslims, are far more advanced than the rest of its population.
One cannot forget how these minorities have turned Kerala's old apartheid situations to their favour: a Kerala that reeled under the lordship of a lazy, unskilled feudal land-lords, and an equally inefficient royal princes.
Colonialism with its missionary outfit and the oil in Arabian lands rushed more opportunities into the minorities' hands.
When feudalism crumbled, its bankrupt managers had no choice but to pawn away Kerala's land properties to the rich minorities.
In the rush of the foreign money even when the minority wholesaled the landed property of Kerala, the poor patiently retreated to the outskirts blaming their own destiny, appreciating and respecting the achievement of the minorities.
They never interfered with the minority's rights to language and religion and never discriminated against them.
Yet, why are my minority friends cutting out a sorry state of them invoking article 30? To gain development at par with the majority, or to renege on their social responsibility towards the disadvantaged and the poor
Who is a Kerala Minority?
Amidst all these perhaps the most interesting questions are (i) Who is a Minority in Kerala (ii) In the context of Article 30 of the I.C, are the rights for minority educational institutions the same as 'minority status'?
Even the UN that stands to protect the rights of the minorities the world over does not give a definition on, 'Who is a Minority?'
In some context, minority is taken to be people that are undergoing serious discrimination and ill treatment from the rest of the population, which has never been the case in India.
Likewise, the Indian constitution never defined who is a minority in its national or state contexts. The following article highlights that even article 30 of the Indian constitution are silent on "Who is a minority?" reference
John Dayal, President of All India Catholic Union Secretary general, All India Christian Council defines in his article, "The Indian Government, the Supreme Court and the Religious Minorities of India", that article 30 as one that gives " Minorities, both religious and linguistic, the right to administer their own institutions as the means to preserving, encouraging and propagating that distinctive culture which makes them what they are, members of India's rich tapestry of a plural culture". reference
Do Christians in Kerala have a 'distinctive culture' different from that of the rest? If so, is it European, Roman or American? The same question applies to the Muslims?
According to a 2004 statistics in Kerala, there were 258 professional colleges run by minorities against 89 Hindu-owned. Were they for 'preserving, encouraging and propagating minorities' distinctive cultures? (Somebody please help me)
In the same article Dayal talks about Soli Sorabjee, India's esteemed former Attorney General that he recently presented before the Supreme Court of India that "the right of the minority communities to establish and administer an educational institution was absolute and this right should not be "tinkered" with."
But see what is reported as written by the very honourable attorney general under "What is a minority?" on April 11, 2007.
In the Kerala context, he observes that "In its advisory opinion in 1958 on the Kerala Education Bill, the Court opined that as the legislation in question applied to the whole of the State of Kerala, the existence of a minority "must be determined by reference to the entire population of that State" and that by "this test, Christians, Muslims and Anglo-Indians will certainly be minorities in the State of Kerala" "(this opinion was based on numbers).
In the next page he expresses his own view that the practice of deciding a minority based on mere numbers is 'not conclusive'. Instead he says, " The criterion should be empowerment. The relevant questions to ask are, what is the strength of the community in decision-making, formulating policies and their execution" reference
Based on these criterions, who is a minority in Kerela?
If anybody is having any doubt read the following article. reference
A little bit of history
The current 'minority status' has a history starting with the Self Financing Institutions established in Kerala in 2000 during the time of A.K. Antony (UDF) as the Chief minister. Initiated apparently to attract rich learners who threw huge capitation fees in colleges outside the state, it evolved into a private-public partnership in higher education with the slogan 'one aided college equals two government colleges' that contained a reservation programme for the backward (socially, economically and physically).
That the disadvantaged Hindu communities and the poor were unable to take advantage of this government partnership offer is a crucial point here.
Instead, the economically, politically and educationally dominant minorities lapped it up.
This resulted in an enormous rise in the number of seats created in the private colleges. According to the Education Minister E.T. Mohamed (2005), the number of seats in engineering, medical, agriculture and B.Pharm courses rose to 29,511 in 2005-06 from 9,369 in 2000-2001. During the same period, the number of candidates admitted under the reservation quota for Scheduled castes, Tribes and Socially and Educationally Backward Classes also shot up to 7,004 from 2,666. reference
However the management of the unaided institutions was never in favour of a reservation intended to help the poor.
Without mentioning a few 'important' Supreme Court verdicts made in the case of unaided institutions in the era of the Capital, the story of Self-Financing Institutions will not be complete.
The first was the Unnikrishnan case (1993), in the verdict of which Justice Jeevan Reddy evolved a scheme to help the poor, which was apparently the base for Antony's education plan.
The second was Justice B.N. Kirpal's majority judgement in the 11-judge TMA Pai case (2002). In the zeal to remedy the pitfalls in the Unnikrishan case, TMA Pai ruling went in favour of the managements. It gave autonomy to un-aided institutions in certain aspects and State control in other aspects which created more confusion than clearing some. It let the aided colleges to interpret autonomy as it pleased to charge tuitions fee and capitation collection at their whims and fancy.
It also made some slip-ups here and there which prescribed reservation 'locally'.
After the TMA Pai case verdict, the fees both in the aided and government colleges soared beyond the reach of ordinary people about which the Supreme Court could do nothing. reference
Then there came a Supreme Court Verdict in 2005, which abolished the government quotas in unaided professional colleges in the case of Kerala.
The Kerala Professional College Bill passed in the legislative Assembly (2006) was apparently the state's way of dealing with the issue that too is nullified by the Supreme Court.
As MA.Baby, the current minister of Education (LDF) explains the Bill was dealing with Minority Educational Institution and not about Minority Status. And according to him hardly any of the Kerala minority institutions had opted for minority status because they never fulfilled the conditions it entailed. That means minority institutions and 'minority status' are two different things. reference
Amidst all these constitutional and legal confusions, then all of a sudden we see the tinkering up of the Commission for Minority Educational Institution with extra judicial powers and the appointment of three members from the minority communities as its commissioners and it conferring 'minority status' on Kerala's minority institutions.
This legally redeems them from the social responsibility of reservation.
Some Suggestions as Way forward
(1) The government of Kerala instead of wasting time on discussing the matter with private management who had already lost their credential on trustworthiness should embark on making new laws to assist the disadvantaged and the poor
(2) In case it fails, it should withdraw with immediate effect, the aid it provides to the minority educational institutions and assists the disadvantaged communities and the poor to establish their own institutions until a proportional balance is reached in development between them and the so-called minorities.
(3) This issue having the self-financing managements and its supporters on one side and the government, the disadvantaged, the poor and their supporters on the other, many think, has the potential to divide the Kerala people along religious-social and personal lines. What can be done to avert this impending crisis seems to me an important question.


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Just curious. If the reports/rumors are true that Asus may be launching a Google Chrome Netbook somewhere between $200 and $250 does that interest you? The fad that was Netbooks has certainly died down quite a bit as the industry tries to deal with its love affair with Tablets (or is that an affliction?). Oh, there are still Netbooks out there, but that's not where the focus is at the moment. Quite honestly, I don't see that ever being the focus again.
But, then let me spin this another way. The tech/publishing/media/music/social world thinks that advertising will save them all. In part that's fueling the Tablet frenzy we are currently in as much as it has led to the disruption we've been living through for the last several years. If Asus and other makers can come out with a low cost alternative fueled by the advertising behemoth Google, price point will certainly play a factor in some consumers' minds. There's that age old debate that many price sensitive consumers don't care about advertising subsidizing content, and I'm guessing those that are in that camp won't blink twice on a notebook powered by an OS that is essentially a platform for ads. The question in my mind becomes not will Asus and others be able to create the hardware at low price points (I'm guessing subsidies from advertising from Google will help here, note I said guessing), but will consumers really care enough to consider these machines in the volume that it will take to make such a strategy work. Remember Google wins regardless. Asus and the other potential makers are the ones with their necks on the line.


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"Did dinosaurs walk through Prettygate?" and other important questions were answered at "Fred Slattern's Celebration of the Suburbs" Jane's Walk on Friday 4 May 2012.
So, who wants to come for a walk through a pancake flat 1950s housing estate, at the end of a windswept and rainy week, after work on a Friday, to talk about urbanism? Have I gone deaf? Or is it "no one"! Fred's walk was one of a series of Jane's Walk events in Colchester, set up by "Walk Colchester", the UK leaders in the international movement celebrating the life of Jane Jacobs, encouraging local people to enjoy their own patch.
Eager to pull in the punters, Fred enticed them in with a rich mix of cod-history, faux-planning, psycho-geography and poetry. Yes, a couple of readings from his never-in-print book "Love, Hate and Prettygate".
Starting from The Prettygate pub, an audience of eighteen quickly got through the "Why is it called Prettygate?" question. (Answer: the estate is named after Prettygate Farm, which had a pretty gate incorporating various farm implements.) The leader and audience had a grumble about the highway authority's ugly and people-unfriendly solution to the speeding-car problem at the local shops: fence-in the people on foot, rather than slow down the cars. Maybe next time round a more enlightened solution will be applied, as "20's Plenty" takes hold?
Stopping at the site of Prettygate Farm, and moving on to Baden Powell open space the audience heard Fred's piece "Fear and Loathing in Prettygate", a story recording how people's attitudes to their homes and community have changed in the 50 years since the houses were built. Fred then got into full swing history-buff mode, compressing over two thousand years of local history into a few five-minute vignettes in muddy glades on the fringes of the estate.
The planned three-mile ninety minute walk was going slowly as the individuals on the walk got to know each other, in true Jane's Walk style. Meanwhile Fred was telling tales of the armies that had passed through our suburb, from the 30,000 strong Roman invasion, through the 6,000 Royalists taking Colchester in the Civil war, and the regiments of the New Model Army's Siege of Colchester.
And the final answer was to the dinosaur question. The gravels six inches below the surface of Prettygate were laid down about 500,000 years ago, by an earlier version of the River Thames. So no dinosaurs passed over our fair estate, as they disappeared 65,000,000 years ago. The odd mammoth has probably walked our way though. As a final thought Fred proposed that we honour our heritage by renaming Prettygate as "Prettygate-on-Thames", but by then the Jane's Walkers had other forms of liquid on their mind, as they sloped into the pub.
And so, what on paper looked "worthy, but unpromising", turned out to be a celebration of localism (in a non-political sense), with everyone saying "more next year". Thanks to everyone who supported this Jane's Walk, see you again.


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Borders in Cyberspace
In a recent column at SecurityFocus, cyber intelligence expert Jeffrey Carr discusses the diffuculties that researchers face when trying to determine the origin of attacks conducted over the internet. The problem is simple: there are lots of reports claiming attacks on important infrastructure that are "supposedly" coming from Chinese or Russian hackers. But because they might as well be coming from hacked systems in China that are being used from within a completely different country, there is no way to prove this.
Jeffrey proposes what, at first glance, seems to be a reasonable way to solve this:
One way to improve our ability to attribute attacks is to require that ISPs and nations exercise greater control. A recent breakfast conversation with a colleague on this topic resulted in what I think is a great way to assign attribution: Structure cyberspace like airspace or territorial waters with designated areas of state responsibility. In other words, each nation controls and is responsible for its own cyberspace.
In the case of airspace and territorial waters, enforcement is by international treaty. Perhaps one solution is to add cyberspace to this body of law as a fourth environment after air, land, and sea. There are penalties for violating a nation's airspace. It seems logical to apply those penalties to cyberspace as well.
The problem with this proposal is that securing all internet traffic originating in your country is in no way comparable to supervising sea or land traffic. The volume of traffic is incredible that the only way to really solve this would be to push the responsibility all the way down to individual computers; but there have been campaigns dedicated to improving security awareness for years with no visible results whatsoever.
The other extreme, filtering all traffic as it crosses borders, is already being tried. The ironic thing is that this is being done in the country that most hacks are attributed to: China! I'm sure that if there were real, government-sponsored hackers, the government would arrange for them to work from machines outside the country, so it appears as though even with the enormous resources China has, it is impossible to filter all traffic nationwide.
While I agree that the problem of attribution of attacks is a real one that needs to be solved, I doubt simply designating Internet security as a national issue will do anything to fix this. As can be seen in China, even the best firewalls and harshest penalties will not deter hackers or secure a single PC.
Fortunately, the most pressing problem today are not individual hackers, but the large botnets that have the capability to DDos any system off the internet, and are responsible for massive amounts of spam. These typically rely on a (relatively) centralized command-and-control network; international cooperation to help track the people that operate these down will go a long way towards improving online safety. And even if it's not possible to track down the operators directly, there is always the money trail they're leaving behind. Ultimately, any botnet operator wants to make money, either by extortion or by selling spamvertized products. It shouldn't be too hard to follow the money that is transferred, given some minimal international cooperation.


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Maori Hand Games
On Thursday I went to Maori hand games and I learnt how to play Koruru (knuckle bones). I also learnt how to play E hipitoitoi and Hei tama tu tama. I found E hipitoitoi and Hei tama tu tama challenging because those two games are new to me. The game Whai (string) is a game that you use string with to make different kinds of things with. That was my favourite game to play. I learnt a lot from the Maori hand games.


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This week's SNPpets offered a lot of good stuff, everybody must be out of their summer vacation mode and back to the lab. There's a BLASTX alternative, a helpful tip in workshop teaching, quack DTC tests, handy errors (really), new variant database DIVAS, exome sequencing patients and outcomes, imputation, 24M novel rare variants, variant caller comparison, the long term evolution experiment hits a milestone, new citrus resources, eQTLs, and more. The best item this week, though, was a story of a family with a rare disease situation that found genomics researchers via Reddit, and that gave them answers and hope.
Welcome to our Friday feature link collection: SNPpets. During the week we come across a lot of links and reads that we think are interesting, but don't make it to a blog post. Here they are for your enjoyment…
DIAMOND an alt to BLASTX – http://t.co/PzrDcinFEz #acmbcb
— Iddo Friedberg (@iddux) September 11, 2015
The sticky note checkin system is really great for workshops like this. Green=good to go, pink=issue/question. pic.twitter.com/5Uzsi6qAek
— biochem belle (@biochembelle) September 11, 2015
Quack DTC genetic tests. "Fascinating shift from science to bunk" http://t.co/ktLnecnhg0 Nice piece by @Carolynyjohnson
— Timothy Caulfield (@CaulfieldTim) September 11, 2015
What an interesting collection of bizarre errors! A great resource for writing tests for file parsers https://t.co/OoHtctfX1M
— Sam Minot (@sminot) September 9, 2015
Thanks to everyone who came to see us at the EDRC! Our "What's New" talk & poster can now be found here http://t.co/Rl99sNIfbH
— FlyBase (@FlyBaseDotOrg) September 14, 2015
Win a signed copy of Bioinformatics Data Skills by Vince Buffalo (@vsbuffalo) http://t.co/pnLypsClwg
— Keith Bradnam (@ACGT_blog) September 14, 2015
DIVAS: a centralized genetic variant repository representing 150,000 individuals from multiple disease cohorts. http://t.co/ERPH8VP9vU
— pristanna (@pristanna) September 14, 2015
How well do whole exome sequencing results correlate w. medical findings? A study of 89 Mayo Clinic Biobank samples. http://t.co/04DF5yAsvg
— Pierre Lindenbaum (@yokofakun) September 14, 2015
Imputation may not be "cool" and "rad" anymore, but I don't care; check out my new imputation paper in @NatureComms! http://t.co/BazG6m5KQ4
— Bryan Howie (@bryan_howie) September 14, 2015
This is huge! #genetics Discovery of 24M novel rare variant by Whole genome sequencing @nature http://t.co/b1JVg5IzTO pic.twitter.com/nXRgJA3NPC
— Gaetan Burgio (@GaetanBurgio) September 14, 2015
Window dressing for the lab now reflects #LTEE passed 63,000 generations. Both window & photo courtesy Zack Blount. pic.twitter.com/W4Wf8lkFiI
— Richard E. Lenski (@RELenski) September 15, 2015
Review: In 'Photograph 51,' Nicole Kidman Is a Steely DNA Scientist http://t.co/C28nQr8bx0
— mem_somerville (@mem_somerville) September 15, 2015
Visualize concordance between variant callers https://t.co/Hse4lUV8Cf pic.twitter.com/3CJK94YbrD
— Stephen Turner (@genetics_blog) September 15, 2015
Check out the revamped and updated @CitrusGreening website http://t.co/GsEXXdEaje #citrusgreening #HLB #genomics pic.twitter.com/umTZEALB0I
— Citrus Greening (@CitrusGreening) September 16, 2015
"Bipartite Community Structure of eQTLs" http://t.co/awi4AUBSVd " from @johnquackenbush new network-centric take on gwas analysis
— Benjamin Good (@bgood) September 15, 2015
"I believe I have some answers for you and Tess." – finding a genetic match for our child's #raredisease http://t.co/KpZXMWGuSy
— Bo Bigelow (@bobigelow) September 14, 2015


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Diet? What diet... It's ok to indulge once in a while (by that I mean every single day bwaahahaha). In all honesty, I know they are famous for their Belgian chocolate and all... but MAN the CREME BRULEE icecream is SO aromatic and tasty... I would visit again just for the icecream. Scroll down to see the selection they have!
My boyfriend and I saw a young man buying 6 SCOOPS OF BUBBLEGUM ICECREAM (top left in the second last image). All for himself (no joke!). We were eyeing him as he walked back to his table and to our surprise, it wasn't a group of friends sharing the 6 scoops of icecream.. it was just bubblegum icecream and him. Aww.


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The now famous facebook app exercise at Stanford is in stark contrast to what is being taught at engineering and business schools in India. Courses based on concepts drawn from the industry and research dominate the class work in the top schools of USA. Coursework in Indian Universities is still based on textbooks designed some decades ago.
In a recent conversation with a Carnegie Mellon graduate turned entrepreneur, I listened to him express his frustration with the fact that the basic metullurgy taught in some of the best engineering undergraduate programs in India is still the same as it was about 30 years ago! How come? What good is it? Even a not so "sexy" subject as metullurgy has gone through a sea change in the last 10-15 years. But our students are ill equipped to handle the latest given that they are learning some old technology concepts - even considering that they may be learning it better than anyone else in the world, it is pretty useless.
As long as our professional education remains in the clutches of lethargic Universities and beaurecratic AICTE's regulated environment, we cannot expect such innovation in our schools. Thank fully, there are a few who are challenging the system and trying to create students that can "think". International School of Engineering, Hyderabad is one such. Wish them good luck and would like to see more of them.


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I have heard this among groups that emphasize God's forgiveness:
The law condemns us. At best, it humbles us and leads us to repentance. But if we do not repent -- if we do not receive grace -- we should recall that the law is set to condemn us entirely for even the smallest of sins. In the law, we see the opposite of God's grace: we see his righteousness insurmountably above us and his wrath turned firmly against us.This next I have heard among groups that emphasize man's obedience:
The law shows God's legitimate expectations of us; our faithfulness is not optional. We are to live up to God's standards, pursue our sanctification, reach towards our own perfection, and remain free from sin. A Christian may remain free not only of outward sins, but even of sins of the heart. By works done in God's grace, the faithful may fully satisfy the divine law. God's grace is something with which we cooperate in working out our salvation.In both of those cases, the general outline may not be anybody's idea of a complete view of the law, but instead the part that seems most useful to the speaker's purpose at the time. The church I attend generally acknowledges three uses of the law:
- To restrain our sin and our evil impulses;
- To show us our sin, bring us to humility, and lead us to repentance;
- To instruct us in righteousness and give us a rule by which to live our lives.
When we look at the law and how it restrains our sin, we do not see the love of God there. "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" does not sound like the love of God to us, so we think of it separately from the love of God. We think of it as a merit or a duty or a call to holiness.
"You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" does not sound like the love of God to us -- but it is towards our neighbor. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" is again not so gracious towards us -- but our neighbor should be smiling by now. Imagine if you were certain that everyone you knew would not steal, or try to deceive you or your loved ones, or murder, or scheme after your spouse (or your family members' spouses), or even badmouth you behind your back. Is there anyone who has not endured heartache on those accounts, either for themselves or for a loved one?
We look at the law and don't see the love of God because we are so self-centered. If God's grace towards the world is supposed to be about us and what we receive, then the law has nothing to do with it. But what if the law is about something else? What if it not meant to ensure that God is gracious towards us, but that we are gracious towards others? What if it's not about us, but about our family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors? What if the law is about not lying to our neighbor, and not telling tales about our coworker, and not taking his stuff, or sneaking around with her husband or his wife? What if it's about not holding it against them that they have the newer car or clothes? What if the law is the next expansion of God's love -- not about God being gracious to us, but about us passing it on to our neighbors? What if it isn't about us earning or achieving or meriting anything, but about how God was gracious to us first? What if the law was never to make us better than our neighbors, but better for our neighbors? Just as our righteousness is "from faith to faith" (from God's faithfulness to our faith/faithfulness), it is also from grace to grace: from God's graciousness to our own. And the law calls us to be just as steadfastly gracious as God himself.
When we call on the the law to lead us to repent, or to restrain us from the wrong path, we may be diligent, or grudging. When the law instructs us in righteousness, we may be dutiful. But when the law instructs us how to spread the grace of God and show it to those around us, we may take up the task more willingly. Our love to each other is the point of the law; that is the reason that love fulfills it.


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Last Fall, Dionna at Code Name: Mama and Lauren at Hobo Mama had a vision. Together, and with the help of others, they began the Natural Parents Network (NPN). With a focus on reaching out to parents and helping them with natural and attachmnet parenting topics, NPN offers articles, research, a forum, an ask a mentor program, and give-aways from companies who have parets in mind. Whether you want to learn more about attachment parenting or natural living, it's a good place to start.
You can find me volunteering at NPN as both a contriubutor and parenting mentor. Check out these previous posts by volunteers at the Natural Parents Network:
- Joella at Fine and Fair discusses her unique perspective of a controversial toy in An Unusual Gripe with Bebe Gloton.
- Amy at Innate Wholeness offers simple tips to be present with family whether you're having fun and want to soak it up like a sponge or would rather run and hide in a cave.
- Charise at I Thought I Knew Mama shares sound bites from her miscarriage journey of forgiveness and gratitude.
- Shannon from Pineapples and Artichokes writes about how she is trying to raise her daughter to be accepting of everyone.
- Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama discusses the overuse of the word "no" and offers some aid in finding creative ways to avoid "no."
- Melissa from The New Mommy Files: Memories, Milestones and Missteps makes a compelling case for instinctual mothering.
- Amanda at Let's Take the Metro shares a comprehensive list of all the food she keeps on hand.
- Suchada at Mama Eve writes a heartfelt letter chronicling her journey with a difficult transition in Sleep, Crying, and Balancing Closeness with Boundaries.
- Shannon of The ArtsyMama shares her top ten list of things she wishes she had known more about before the birth of her son, Little Man.
- Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings has some helpful insights, tips, and tricks to share for babywearing with twins.
- Julia at A Little Bit of All of It tells the story of how motherhood came to her and how a miscarriage shaped her feelings and perceptions surrounding the birth of her first daughter.
- Emily from Embrita Blogging shares a collection of photos depicting things that make her happy.
- Lauren at Hobo Mama openly discusses an often-sensitive topic: Postpartum sex vs. sex before kids.
- As part of an ongoing series about balance, Amy at Anktangle writes about a daily ritual she has adopted to help her maintain balance in her life.
- Cynthia at The Hippie Housewife is reminded that while the days may sometimes be long, the years are short, and after a rough day the best thing to do is give thanks for the best parts and try again tomorrow.
- Dionna at Code Name: Mama offers 7 Alternatives to Good Job: "Good job'ing" kids can be a mindless habit to fall into. Instead of using a generic "good job," try one of these ideas to really connect with and nurture your child.
- Darcel at The Mahogany Way has the ultimate boredom busting activity for children of all ages.
- Alicia at Lactation Narration discusses the long journey of child-led weaning, during which she thought several times that her child was weaned before she really was.
- Mandy at Living Peacefully With Children: Letting go of the illusion of control opens up a an entirely new world.
- Luschka at Diary of a First Child talks about the battle between breastfeeding and formula feeding mothers and the industry that stokes the flames of a war on mothers.
- Mary Michael at The Accidental Natural Mama recounts her journey to Mama-hood.
- Sheryl at Little Snowflakes talks about the benefits of nursing a child to sleep.
- Rachael at The Variegated Life meditates on the moment when she first saw herself fully embodying her life as a mother.
- Momma Jorje shares some good news and important information about Lindane and Lice.


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PAYDAR, GROWING UP in poverty in the poor northwest, was possessed by the idea of revolution From an early age, he was tormented by what he saw every day and every night of the suffering of his widowed mother. She stitched clothes and made socks and stockings for a living. and often sat at her machine until two in the morning.SOURCE: Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples (Vintage, 1998), pp. 179-180
In time Paydar joined the Tudeh communist party. The Tudeh hoped to ride to power on the back of the religious movement, and in the early days of the revolution it was the policy of the party to adopt an Islamic camouflage. That was easy enough: the themes of justice and punishment and the wickedness of rulers were common to both ideologies. But the Tudeh party destroyed itself. It gave a Soviet-style apparatus to the Islamic revolution. and then it was destroyed by that apparatus.
Ali, in his provincial factory-shed jail in 1980 and 1981, had seen the beginning of the roundup of the left. Though the enraged communists in the political section of Ali's jail were still threatening to hang Ali outside his house when they came to power, their day in Iran was really over. Two years later, in 1983, the Tudeh party was formally outlawed by the government. And two years after that. Paydar, who was in hiding, like the surviving members of the party, was hunted down and taken away to a jail outside Tehran.
Paydar didn't know then in what part of the country the jail was; he didn't know now. For two months, as he calculated, he was kept in something like a hole, without a window, "without a speck of light," and questioned. And it was in that darkness and intense solitude, that disconnectedness from things--at first in the hole, and then in a cell with fourteen others, where he spent a further year--that he began to think dispassionately about the idea of revolution that had driven him for so much of his adult life. And he arrived at an understanding--especially painful in the circumstances--of why he had been wrong, and "why revolutions are doomed to fail."
"I thought that people are much too complicated in their nature to be led in a simple fashion, with a few slogans. Inside ourselves we are full of greed, love, fear, hatred. We all carry our own history and past. So when we come to make a revolution we bring with ourselves all these factors in different proportions. Revolutions have always disregarded all these individual differences."
So, in the jail, he had rejected the idea of revolution. It had been his great support, the equivalent of religion; and no other idea quite so vital had come to him afterwards. He was like a man in whom something had been extinguished. He was a big man from the northwest. It was possible to imagine him full of fire. Now he was strangely pacific; his suffering, old and new, was always there to make him watch his moods, consider his words, and make him take the edge off passion or complaint. He was trying now--exposed as he was, and liable to be picked up again at any time--to make a cause out of his privacy, his family life; though day-to-day life was hard, and in the economic mess of revolutionary Iran, and with the decline of the currency, the value of his earnings as a teacher went down and down.
02 July 2004
Naipaul on Revolutionary Disillusionment
Posted by Joel at 7/02/2004 09:22:00 PM
Labels: Iran
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PA Preservation Board Protects Additional 1,788 Acres of Prime Farmland
Oct 14, 2011, 10:26 ET
HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Pennsylvania Agricultural Lands Preservation Board has preserved an additional 1,788 acres on 19 farms in 12 counties for future generations through the state's nationally recognized farmland preservation program.
The preserved farms are located in Berks, Blair, Cambria, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Monroe, Somerset, Sullivan, Union, Washington, Westmoreland and York counties.
During the program's 23-year history, 455,208 acres on 4,208 farms have been safeguarded for future agricultural production.
"To ensure the future success of the agriculture industry in Pennsylvania, the first step is to preserve our farmland," said Agriculture Secretary George Greig. "Agriculture isn't just our number-one industry – the cornerstone of our economy – it's a way of life for our farm families.
"I thank these producers who set their land aside for agricultural production. They're enabling a new generation of agriculturalists to keep Pennsylvania growing far into the future."
The state's farmland preservation efforts work through the Pennsylvania Agricultural Conservation Easement Purchase Program, which was developed in 1988 to help slow the loss of prime farmland to non-agricultural uses. The program enables state, county and local governments to purchase conservation easements, also called development rights, from owners of quality farmland.
Since the program began, state, county and local governments have invested more than $1 billion to preserve farms across Pennsylvania.
Following the board's Oct. 13 meeting, representatives from the Attorney General's office led a roundtable discussion about Act 38 of 2005, known as ACRE (Agriculture, Communities and Rural Environment). The law allows farmers to operate with fewer limitations from local ordinances.
For more information about Pennsylvania's nation-leading farmland preservation program, visit www.agriculture.state.pa.us and search "farmland preservation."
Media contact: Will Nichols, 717-787-5085
Editor's Note: A list of farms preserved at the Oct. 13 meeting follows:
The Robert French farm #1, a 135-acre crop and livestock operation
The Norman Martin farm #1, a 27-acre crop farm
The Paul and Anne Mae Martin farm #4, a 47-acre crop farm
The Levi and Doris Zimmerman farm #1, a 75-acre crop farm
The K. Wayne and Bonnie Burket farm, a 93-acre crop and livestock operation
The James and Mary Karlheim farm, an 80-acre crop farm
The John Sarnoski Jr. farm, a 17-acre crop and beef operation
The David Smucker farm, a 79-acre crop farm
The Union School Road LP, a 53-acre crop farm
The Raymond Gumm Jr. farm #1, a 70-acre crop and pasture operation
The Robert and Janet Miller farm #2, a 57-acre dairy farm
The William and Tammy Bahl farm, a 124-acre crop and livestock operation
The Curtus and Jerrel Brubaker farm #5, a 114-acre crop farm
The Nancy Miller Boyer farm #1, a 96-acre crop farm
The Ivan and Jane Nolt farm #1, a 147-acre crop and livestock operation
The Robert and Florence Lowry farm, a 200-acre crop farm
The Virgil Walters farm #1, a 135-acre crop and livestock operation
The Edna Amspacker farm, an 85-acre crop farm
The Harold Jr. and Nancy Miller farm #3, a 153-acre crop farm
SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture


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Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Anxious for Spring
18 comments:
I'm ready for spring, too! Today,it actually felt that it may be arriving soon.ReplyDelete
That tea set is really adorable and in GREAT condition and candy buttons make me smile :)
It is actually feeling like spring here in Myrtle Beach! Usually by this time of the year it generally feels like early summer!!ReplyDelete
Oh I loved that. The colors are so bright. Thanks for sharing.ReplyDelete
So cute! I remember those candy buttons stuck on the paper. I used to love them. Thanks for sharing.ReplyDelete
Love the candy buttons - brings back childhood memories and your teaset is cuteReplyDelete
Thank you for trying to put a touch of spring in the air. It has not gotten here, but this wek as been nicer. I love that little tea set.ReplyDelete
I love the tea set. I have never heard of that before. It is adorable. ~~Sherry~~ReplyDelete
Oh yes they are super sweet!!!! I want some now ;O)TYFS!!! Hugs and have a wonderful Thursday! TammyReplyDelete
I just looked at your cake in a jar. I am going to try them next. I'm following the Thrifty Thursday blog hop. I just followed you, come by and follow back too. Check out my cake balls I made.ReplyDelete
What a sweet tea set..I love it! thanks for linking in today. Happy VTT!ReplyDelete
oh your girls are absolutley adorable! thanks for sharing I have never seen them before!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFebruary 17, 2011 at 9:49 AM
I have not had a chance to get out thrifting for weeks and am beyond withdrawal pangs. Your pretty colors and smiling faces give me hope of spring. And the memories of button candy!ReplyDelete
I think we are all ready for Spring. Love your little tea set. Very cute.ReplyDelete
Your tea set is adorable!ReplyDelete
¸.*´¸.**´¨) ¸.**´¨)
(¸.*´ (¸.*´* Lori Lynn *
There are absolutely the sweetest thing EVER!ReplyDelete
too cute and i love the button candy on paper in the glass containers (brings back memories,I used to love those candies)ReplyDelete
Enjoyed your post today. I have one of your "girls" but she's a salt shaker. Mine is just marked JAPAN so it was nice to read that she's made by Lefton. I covet your set! LOL! Visiting from Thrifty Thursday and hoping you'll stop by Cottage and Creek and say 'hi'.ReplyDelete
I think we are all about ready for Spring...you have gotten us off to a good start! Thanks for sharing! Luv-LorettaReplyDelete


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Are you ready to absorb the fat of the land? Well get ready because every day is a fresh hell. -Chi-Lan Lieu
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Iron Man review
That's right. I saw the new IRON MAN movie, before it's release. And no, I didn't invite anyone. I am sorry. But me seeing it first allows me to tell you all that it was an awesome movie, so good that I want to see it again this weekend when it comes out! hells yeah! i thought it was a good 'check your brain at the door' movie with humor, a good story line, smarter than action movie dialogue, and great special effects. And i finally learned why Robert Downey Jr's a star. Now let me just say i saw this film with a real fan of the IRON MAN comic books and he gave the movie a modest B-, but well, if you're not expecting much (and honestly, who can with the magic babies trailer editors create from scraps of diarrhea nowadays), then you will be more than surprised. Not only did they get the suit right, the most important point to my comic book loving friend, but the script was really funny. And stuff exploded. And i don't have to clean up any mess afterwards. Hoo--ahhhh! Can I just say, there was so much testosterone in this movie, i was man hungry when i went in, and i came out sated. Pretty good for a single gal who is pretty sure the pants stayed on for 2 hours! And yes, I could go on and on about what made this movie good, but you're not looking for me to replace your Tivoed Ebert and Roper, so I'll just say this, repeating what i said earleir, I want to see it again this weekend. That's how good it is, seeing it twice in a weekend? wha???? and you all know how hard it is to rip a $10 out of my crazy tight grips.
Posted by Chi-Lan Lieu at 1:28 AM 3 comments: Links to this post
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Also, I'd forgotten my camera several times when I went to the Sr. Ctr. so I had to take the photos on my cell phone and I just finally figured out how to get them from it to my computer. So now I have something to share. The Valentine's ones we did in January. Sets used in May and June were from the Ocassions Mini.
These cards were done in May. I love the way they turned out. Unfortunately the Lavendar Lace cardstock is retired. I use it sparingly, but it was perfect for these cards. They surprised me this time when they requested to do Sympathy cards as they normally want to do birthdays. Only 2 ladies came this time and one came late and made one card.


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The flowers were made from scratch (no dies) using this tutorial from
Such a Pretty Mess.
I'm linking up with Julia over at What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday today.
Happy WOYWW. I just melted when your images came onto my screen. So beautiful ! Lovely colours. What a great way of using vintage buttons. Ali x #12ReplyDelete
Gosh, this is beautiful - not in my colour range and, as a CAS girl, sooooo very far from my comfort zone too but beautiful and even more so since you made the flowers from scratch too.
Happy WOYWW
Wow, you should really include that peachy pink in your colour range! It looks divine with that greyish blue. Stunning! Love the ribbon! Wishing you a lovely week! zsuzsa #21ReplyDelete
Diana,that tag is GORGEOUS!!!! Oh so, so sweet! I just love the color combos and the composition! Just lovely! :) Blessings for your Wednesday and week! :) Felicia #32ReplyDelete
That is so pretty.... the colours work brilliantly together.
Karen x
You have an eye for colors...this is stunning!
Chris #26
Hi Diana, beautiful, as always. I too generally prefer a ruler and scalpel, but the guillotine makes a big difference when doing a lot of the same thing.. Met the surgeon, really nice guy. Told us pretty much what we already knew, so no surprises, which is good! Intends to do the surgery end of September, beginning of October, so have to wait and see for the crop. Have a great week, Hugs, Shaz #3xxxReplyDelete
Oh Diana, you always manage to surprise us with something gorgeous and this is no exception. Have a great woyww and happy crafting, Angela x 16ReplyDelete
This is just stunning Diana - the colors really are beautiful, and the flowers are so detailed someone should be carrying them down the aisle in a wedding dress! I love that a single (gorgeous) button inspired it, and sent you down a path color-wise that you wouldn't normally go on. Sometimes we need that push out of our comfort zone!ReplyDelete
Great tag - love those flowers; they are stunning. The buttons look fab too, what a find. Helen #1ReplyDelete
Hi Diana
Such beautiful work, the colours are stunning. I have a few buttons like yours in cream. It was a lovely find you must be so pleased
Lynn xx
Stunning Diana and I actually love that colour combo, it works really well for a shabby look, - that button is fabulous! Absolutely adore the flowers too, I remember making them some years back, - a great reminder.... Yours look amazing!ReplyDelete
Every week your gorgeous tags take my breath away..... stunning.ReplyDelete
What an uplifting splash of colour - the peachy pinks are lovely against the soft teal and aqua - and that button really does deserve a beautiful showcase like this.
Alison x
Super flowers and the more so without dies! Adore the colour combo too.
Thanks for visiting me BJ#24
This is really pretty, just lovely!
Whereabouts on the edge of the New Forest are you - I am too!
Morti #42
So beautiful but it did make me chuckle - I have found some lovely vintage buttons over the years at car boot sales but just can't bring myself to use them!ReplyDelete
As I follow you, I know this is a very different color range for you - but one would never guess looking at your gorgeous tag!! Fabulous button - and equally as an inspiration!! I'm in the midst of packing, so not producing anything (except possibly a mess in my home, lol!) but storing ideas, and this surely is one! xxx LynnReplyDelete
Ooooh quite gorgeous, Diana - almost good enough to eat! Cakes would look good iced like this. I love the new colour scheme - very fresh and summery and light. I love the distressed flowers. I've watched the video and saved it for future reference. I love how you choose something (in this case the vintage buttons) as a springboard for a design - you always pull it off and achieve a masterpiece!
Thank you for your lovely comment - I have been very busy lately and got pretty tired so apart from a dental appointment yesterday, was able to rest a bit. We had a lovely tea for two and enjoyed pigging out on home made cakes! My friend loved my studio and all my work. Unfortunately she is unable to do creative things with her hands any longer because of severe arthritis, but having done things in the past, was able to appreciate fully the amount of work that goes into what we do.
My studio won't stay tidy for long, you can depend on that! I know exactly that awful feeling of shutting the door on the mess and trying not to think about it, but eventually it chases you through your dreams and you just know you have to tackle it! You feel so much better once you have.
The little pincushion was made by Lunch Lady Jan for the WOYWW ATC swap I took part in a few years ago - it has pride of place on my desk with useful pins for clearing out glue bottle nozzles etc. Sheba is enjoying being used again. The butterfly project will be revealed shortly (prob. mid-Sept.) and I am so enjoying working on the new album. Lots going on and I hope to spend some quality studio time this week although so many activities are clamouring for my attention!
Have a great week, and happy belated WOYWW,
Shoshi #27
I love the combination of colours and those flowers are beautifull.ReplyDelete
This is totally delightful Diana. I followed the link to the flower making, thanks. Still need to camp out in your studio! xxReplyDelete
Your background is out of this world and the flowers are FANTASTIC! What amazing work! The button is really lucky to be a part of this exquisite tag. ;0 How cool is it!ReplyDelete
I'm just across the forest from you - Alderholt, just the other side of Fordingbridge to the Forest..... small world indeed.....ReplyDelete
Gorgeous tag, love all the texture and detail. I just found your blog by the link at Elaine's blog. I've followed as I don't want to miss your beautiful art! Cheers, Shirley xReplyDelete


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March 14, 2013 New York, NY
Mark Alban, playing as black, scores his third victory in four matches as Uncastled plays to a draw against Stuyvestant Town in Round 6 of Bankers' Athletic League – Chess Division action Thursday night. Facing higher-rated opponents on all four boards, Uncastled held off a tough Stuytown team, drawing the match 2-2.
Match results below are provided in the order in which the games finished. My annotation of my game follows, and finally the moves list of my game concludes the blog. The moves are in standard .pgn format, and can be copied/pasted into any .pgn or .txt formatted file.
MATCH RESULTS (from Uncastled team captain Ajay Vachhani's report):
Tom Amato, playing black on board 3, gave up a pawn against Tyrone Sylvester, leading to Amato's eventual downfall. Uncastled 0, Stuytown 1.
Ajay Vachhani, playing white on board 4 against Leroy Gordon, moved too quickly trying to get his rook into action. Instead of moving the rook where it could have been supported by a bishop, he moved it to an unprotected square. As a result, Vachhani lost a knight in order to save the rook, and then the rest of his position fell apart, leading to the dreaded queen/rook fork and a winning advantage for Gordon. Uncastled 0, Stuytown 2
Mark Alban, playing black on board 1 against Peter Brizard, was battling out another wild, wide-open Sicilian position. Alban gained an extra pawn on move 27, and another pawn a few moves later before finally sealing the victory with 2 minutes left. Although Alban was down in time by more than 20 minutes, Brizard rushed his moves, trying to pressure Alban into a mistake. But when his clock fell below 5 minutes, Alban took his game to the next level, capitalizing on a Brizard blunder, forking Brizard's king and rook for the winning advantage. Despite time pressure, Mark won and had a "happy ending." Uncastled 1, Stuytown 2.
Finally, Carl Haynes, playing White against Mariano Perrero, managed to gain a pawn advantage as well as a time advantage. Those small advantages proved significant in the end, allowing Haynes to clear all his opponent's pieces off the board, forcing Perrero's resignation and saving a match draw for Uncastled. Final score: Uncastled 2, Stuytown 2.
Kudos to both teams for playing to a hard-fought draw.
I lost my score sheet from 2 weeks ago, but I'll provide that whenever I can find it. Below is my game from 3/14/13. On move 5, I figured my opponent must be preparing to castle Queenside. He already fianchettoed his kingside bishop, and when he pushed his f-pawn on move 5, I thought his king would be too exposed if he castled kingside. So I began preparing my troops to storm the queenside. Also, at that point, I figured I needed a tempo, so I had to develop, and I'd wait as long as possible before castling…as it turned out I really did wait as long as possible: I never castled at all!!!! I thought 6. d3 was a mistake. It allowed me to harass his knight, and keep the game closed (allowing me, as black, to gain back the tempo by not castling, developing my attack instead while Brizard castled). 8. h3 may have been unnecessary. It only prevented me from moving Ng4, but it gave me an opportunity to sac my knight in order to open up a line to his king if I chose to do so. I felt that my 8…Qb6 was critical in order to keep his Bishop passive for the time being. 13. Nf5 was a great way to force my hand. 17. Nf4 also gave him a strongly placed knight, one which had some sacrificing possibilities. But he never took advantage of those possibilities. 23. Qe5 was also a mistake. I was able to chase the queen away with my pawn play, so it was a wasted move for him. He should have just moved 23. Qe4 to begin with, because that's the exact square he moved his queen to 2 moves later. I thought 27. c4 was also a mistake, but only because I had a threat to take his rook by move 30. That also gave me the connected pawns on the queenside in addition to giving me an extra pawn. Then of course, 46. Kg2 was the clearly losing move. At that point, I had about 2 minutes left, missed a few subsequent checkmates and had stopped recording my moves.
[Event "BAL"]
[Site "Stuytown"]
[Date "2013.03.14"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Peter Brizard"]
[Black "Mark Alban"]
[Result "0-1"]
[PlyCount "96"]
[TimeControl "G75"]
1. e4 c5
2. Nc3 Nc6
3. g3 e6
4. Bg2 Nf6
5. f4 d5
6. d3 d4
7. Nce2 Be7
8. h3 Qb6
9. Nf3 Bd7
10. O-O Rc8
11. Kh2 h5
12. Nh4 e5
13. Nf5 Bxf5
14. exf5 Bd6
15. Bxc6+ Rxc6
16. fxe5 Bxe5
17. Nf4 Kf8
18. Qf3 h4
19. g4 Qd8
20. Kg1 Rb6
21. g5 Bxf4
22. Qxf4 Nd5
23. Qe5 f6
24. gxf6 gxf6
25. Qe4 Qd6
26. Rf3 Kf7
27. c4 dxc3
28. bxc3 Nxc3
29. Qc4+ Qd5
30. Qxd5+ Nxd5
31. Bd2 Rg8+
32. Kh1 Rb2
33. Be1 Rh8
34. Rc1 b6
35. d4 cxd4
36. Rd3 Rh5
37. Rxd4 Rxf5
38. Bxh4 Rf3
39. Ra4 Rxh3+
40. Kg1 a5
41. Bf2 Rf3
42. Rf1 Rf4
43. Ra3 a4
44. Rd3 Rf5
45. Rh3 b5
46. Kg2 Nf4+
47. Kh2 Nxh3
48. Kxh3 Rfxf2


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Yesterday, I got a little caught up in getting ready for an exhibit I mounted today, a collection of works I call Pieced Reflections. After I got all the quilts trussed and panels safely cradled, I turned to my blog. In my fear and eagerness, I pushed the publish button while I was still editing.
This morning, on the road somewhere between Davis and Santa Cruz, I found out when my friend, Stacey, announced that she'd already received my latest post. "What?!!"
You guessed it; raw, unedited words. So if you ever wondered what a blog post looks like before it's done, you've seen one now. You'll find the edited version + image below.


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ROSA Enterprise Desktop (RED) is an enterprise operating system for small and medium-sized businesses who have no need for strict security features.
RED is technically compatible with any certified ROSA distribution so you can easily build your infrastructure based on different security levels.
The distribution is build on ABF and includes software for all common working tasks: office suite, Internet browser, E-mail and IM clients, audio and video viewers and editors and so on.
Like any Linux distribution RED is provided with software update mechanism and purchasable support services, for more details please contact: email@example.com.
The distro is Linux Standard Base (LSB) compliant which makes possible running all LSB compatible software including proprietary and non-free corporate programs.
ROSA Enterprise Desktop supports Russian, Ukrainian, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian languages.
Base software:
- LTS kernel
- Firefox and Chromium web browsers
- Thunderbird mail client plus Lightning calendar
- LibreOffice
- The latest versions of free and proprietary graphic drivers for Intel, NVIDIA and AMD cards and Hybrid Graphics support (it is recommended to manage your graphics through the XFdrake utility)
- digiKam image organizer, Gwenview image viewer
- GIMP, a GNU Image Manipulation Program
- ROSA Freeze, a tool to protect the core system from any modifications
- Java Runtime Environment (OpenJDK)
- Integrated support for Windows and Active Directory shares and authentication environment
- Stardict dictionaries
ROSA native applications:
It is a login manager with a horizontal display of system users. KDM (KDE Display Manager) has undergone significant revision. It became more clear and easy to use. Thanks to adding a keyboard layout indicator and the CapsLock key indicator, user can minimize number of errors when typing a password. Besides, it is possible to use the new KDM with only a keyboard: just press the Tab key to change the user account, and you'll find the keyboard focus in the password entry field. Especially for the ROSA Desktop Fresh release, ROSA Laboratory experts prepared several fine high-resolution (225 x 225 pixels) avatars – try them, and you'll certainly like them.
RocketBar is a swift and suitable way to launch and switch between applications. We took care of user's comfort, and divided RocketBar in 3 zones: in the left zone we put frequently used applications, in the main (central) zone your running applications would take place, and in the right zone we placed service applications. SimpleWelcome kickoff button is permanently on the left, and Trash Can – is on the rignt side. Moreover, the panel has been redesigned so that you could use bigger icons – this function was previously unavailable for the KDE panel.
Enjoy your single launch point for applications. With SimpleWelcome they are suitably grouped according to their functionality, e. g. Internet, office, graphics, etc. You can always get quick access to all graphic applications in your system, to your recently launched applications, to the entry points organized in the Dolphin file manager, to your recently used documents, to search function and many other things.
TimeFrame is a completely new content visualization tool. It allows you to easily monitor your activity at specified dates. For this TimeFrame uses the powerful metadata management technology, Nepomuk, that allows to work both with local and remote data. And TimeFrame itself is the additional tab in the full-function single entry point for a user – SimpleWelcome. In TimeFrame you can: work with photo and video files; work with .odt, .doc, .docx documents; sort data by definite group of files; set certain or uncertain date (day, month); preview thumbnails, etc.
A new applet for KDE developed by ROSA Laboratory. It allows to organize fast access to frequently used folders and files. This applet is quite easy to use. To start, just drag and drop a folder from the Dolphin file manager to your desktop or panel (RocketBar or the standard KDE panel), and select "Stack Folder" option from the drop-down menu. With StackFolder you can: create a stack folder by dragging and dropping from the Dolphin file manager to the RocketBar right zone; limit a viewing area with a specified folder; quickly browse the sub-directories; preview thumbnails of photo and video files, etc.
The Dolphin file manager has been considerably modified by ROSA Laboratory experts, so it became more easy to use. Changes from the "standard" Dolphin: the main toolbar was substantially simplified, and infrequently used elements were deleted; the latest menu (the "button" on the main toolbar) is used by default, thus significantly decreasing information noise when using Dolphin, as well as saving screen space and simplifying search of necessary functions; the structure of right-click menu was changed so it became more simple and logical; the structure of information message in the status bar was changed – now it's more simple and clear.
RED minimal system requirements:
- Intel Pentium 4 2.0 processor or its analogue
- 1,5 GB RAM for 32-bit version or 2 GB RAM for 64-bit version
- VGA monitor with 1024×768 24 bit support
- DVD-driver or USB port for installation
- 20 GB free disk space
- keyboard&mouse
Download ROSA Enterprise Desktop installation images:


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Police Officer Involved Domestic Violence. Lighting a candle of remembrance for those who've lost their lives to domestic violence behind the blue wall, for strength and wisdom to those still there, and a non-ending prayer for those who thought they had escaped but can't stop being afraid.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
[AZ] El Mirage Officer Gallant and her domestic partner arrested for suspected domestic assault
The Arizona Republic
by D.S. Woodfill
Oct. 12, 2011
[Excerpts] An El Mirage police officer was arrested early Saturday morning in Surprise in a suspected domestic-violence incident... Officer Susan Gallant, 44, was arrested on suspicion of assault and disorderly conduct at 3:30 a.m. Saturday. El Mirage Lt. Ronald Hergert said the arrest stems from two incidents between Gallant and her domestic partner. The partner, whose name was not provided by Surprise police, was also arrested, Hergert said. Hergert said Gallant will be assigned desk duty when she returns to work Friday at the El Mirage Police Department for the duration of the criminal case... Gallant, who has worked as an El Mirage officer for at least four years, also faces an internal investigation in Saturday's incident... [Full article here]
[police officer involved domestic violence oidv intimate partner violence ipv abuse law enforcement public safety female perp perpertrator arizona gay state politics]
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