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An Annual Review of Books from West Branch Contributors
By Ellen Wehle
Smack Dab in the Center:
Poems of Love and Desire
Beautiful in the Mouth, by Keetje Kuipers. BOA Editions, 91 pp., $16.
Tulips, Water, Ash, by Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet. Northeastern University Press, 88 pp., $16.95.
Door to a Noisy Room, by Peter Waldor. Alice James Books, 62 pp., $14.95.
At a recent Barnes & Noble event, a writer announced that love poems are passé. I was extremely sorry to hear it. While I do realize there's been a general turning away from poetry that deals with the biographical in favor of the intellectual/abstract, I myself read in order to hear about human experience. Considering that love lies smack dab at the center of our experience and is very hard to capture, I'm always drawn to work that tries to capture it. Apparently I still have some company. The following three books, all first collections by poets previously published in West Branch, explore a range of themes, but each pays special attention to love.
Much like the moon, love affairs move through phases. Longing, consummation, loss; each phase follows the next as relationships wax and wane. Keetje Kuipers' Beautiful in the Mouth charts this cycle of desire. Fittingly, the book opens with "The Light Behind Her Head, the Bright Honeycomb of the Sky," a poem of longing. "At night his long body works above me" the speaker says, the image highly erotic until we reach the next line and our understanding shifts: "late into the hours that make themselves / from dust, crafting the landscape out of midnight's cloth ..."
Not a lover but an artist—god is at work creating the speaker's city. She describes him spinning into existence "the cobblestone piers that part the water / at its glistening seams" in a tone that is half hunger, half rapture. By the end her hunger has swelled to encompass the entire world, a world that "hold[s] us all in semiprecious light." First poems bear a heavy weight in that they must set the tone for the rest of the collection. "The Light Behind Her Head" succeeds beautifully.
Landscape and Eros are again paired in "Driving Back into the City," a poem whose extremely long lines give the sensation of breakneck speed. The speaker and her lover drive "flying over the bridge into the maw of the city like a willing moth suddenly wrapped in fire" and we can almost feel the wind rushing past the car window. One sentence spans three stanzas and ends only when the lovers have at last reached home, their footprints "around the bed unfolding constellations, opening patiently against the floor." It's a powerful use of an end-stop, emphasizing the importance of this arrival.
In "Driving Back," as in many of Kuipers' poems, images morph and meld; a glimpse of the skyline "arching its neck on the horizon" dissolves into the lovers whose "thighs [rock] together like two moored boats in the night." In this dual exchange, the cityscape is personified, "arching its neck" like the throes of a woman in passion, and the actual woman is de-personified. As a result, the revelation in the final stanza feels utterly earned.
One of the most memorable pieces deals with love achieved. Fulfillment, it seems, poses its own dangers:
Because I have a good life,
because the scales are tipped too far
toward my own contentment, I ask my man
to put his hands around my wicker throat
and squeeze.
Reading these five lines, I did a double-take—Did she just say that?—and my eye flew back to the top to start over. Such a provocative statement could have been bad news. We've all seen erotica disguised as art, where, in the absence of content, the writer uses sex as a cheap way to hold the reader's attention. But in "Bondage Play as a Substitute for Prayer" Kuipers has something substantive to say, her truth no less valid for being uncomfortable. When all goes well in our lives it's quite common to feel dread, a sense of This can't last, as we wait for the gods to make us pay. In "Bondage Play" the speaker is so filled with that dread that she seeks out her own pain, preempting the gods' punishment.
Her argument in defense of herself is surprisingly convincing. In part this is due to the Shakespearean diction, which somehow ameliorates the violence:
When beauty and pleasure cling
to my staticed legs, when fortune's grotesque
and comely filaments cloud my hair,
I know to ask for pain.
I notice, too, that the two excerpts quoted above follow the same structure. In each sentence, two dependent clauses (because/because and when/when) lead to a bald statement of need. Syntax, like diction, serves the poem, those suspended clauses easing me gradually into ideas I might otherwise reject.
Kuipers' weakest poems tend to be about the loss of love: "Across a Great Wilderness Without You," "A Farewell (Composed in Great Advance of the End)," "After We Say Goodbye." While these poems have promising moments, they're tonally off, flat where they should sing. Pronouncements such as "The phone's disconnected. / Just as well, I've got nothing to tell you" or "I carry a gun now. I've cut down / a tree" drop with a thud, too self-conscious to stir empathy. In addition, the imagery can be excessive, with images butting up against each other in awkward combinations. For example, take these lines from "After We Say Goodbye":
I was once so happy wearing a swimsuit.
We get older, walk out of each other's lives like collarless dogs,
become fodder for the past. So lay me to rest like a well-loved
mummy, with buckets of honey and bags of rice.
The conjunction of "dog" and "mummy" is jarring, and not in a good way. Most importantly, the loss poems ring hollow, with so much left unsaid that the reader is reduced to guessing. Of course, we can guess, in a general way. Breakups hurt. Anyone who's had a relationship can probably fill in the blanks and intuit the speaker's loneliness and regret. But it's the particulars, the nuances of emotion that give a poem reason to exist. Here, the speaker remains aloof and we come away feeling underwhelmed, knowing even less than when we started.
But these missteps are few. Overall, Kuipers speaks with verve and authority. Whether it's a blackout in New York City or July Fourth fireworks, she's able to find the deep core of meaning in events.
Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet's collection Tulips, Water, Ash tracks a dual desire unique to adolescence. The thirteen-, fifteen-, or nineteen-year-olds of her poems are fiercely hungry both for sex and for a nameless more which we understand to be life itself. Although it has no single speaker, one especially strong grouping of poems reads like a time-lapse photograph as we follow a girl through her junior high and high school years. In the first poem, "1982," she is still mostly child, in thrall to "mirrors and hair gel." Couplets move us in orderly fashion through her school day, from locker to "Fourth period, the class solved for x. I studied / a boy's neck, soft down and new scent." It's the only intimation of desire. In the remaining couplets the girl's attention is focused not on boys but on the concrete details of her existence ("Mown grass, peat dust, / fields cut to scrub and burn"), all of which shimmer with potentiality. The movement feels emotionally true, the lone mention of a boy's downy neck like the opening note to a song that won't be played for years.
Initially the next poem, "More," seems unrelated. Unlike "1982" with its first-person viewpoint, stanzas one through four of "More" describe a scene from the safe distance of omniscience:
under a waterfall: little silver fish
like teaspoons, at first a few and then
a dozen, then the school, the whirlwind,
the river a whisk of tarnish ...
In the fifth stanza, reading the lines "As if / they could have carried me off, under // the falls," we plunge into the water ourselves. What an exhilarating jolt to move from omniscience to direct experience with the use of the word "me." Suddenly we realize there's been a first-person speaker down there among the fish all along, which means we, too, are swimming. In "More," fear and desire and anticipation mix. The lush image of "a million poppies" is negated in the next breath by "a million rats," the speaker going on to clarify that "Even the former is frightening." Why? Because the field of flowers is too wild, too unknowable—too much. Like the other poems in the set, "More" hints at a riotous energy in the world and in ourselves, a force of desire which could, at any moment, rise up and overwhelm us.
"Persephone at 13" takes elements of the first two poems and melds them, with schoolgirls metamorphosing to fish and vice versa. Highly energized line breaks help the poet to pull this off. The opening stanza:
She can swim in and through,
tail flicking, down into the earth
of her own flesh, becoming in her descent
a cell, an electron, small thing spinning
in a great void. We're so far from solid, more dark
than anything—
By breaking her second line on "earth," Stonestreet gives us time to process the strangeness of her image, this fish-maiden complete with tail falling through the center of the earth. Then we read through to the next line— "into the earth / of her own flesh"—and the old Greek myth leaps to the forefront of the poem; we are forcibly reminded that Persephone's story, in which she's kidnapped by the god of the Underworld, is as much about sex as death. Enjambment keeps the text moving rapidly down the page, form mimicking content. The motion continues beyond the stanza break and shifts seamlessly from earth's depths to outer space, the statement "We're ... more dark / than anything" evoking space's dark matter as the girl continues to fall.
Although "Persephone at 13" is told in third person, our speaker from "1982" and "More" shows up in the next stanza—or, at least, we suspect she's one of a class of biology students depicted in the stanza. Studying single-celled creatures, girls peer through microscopes at "little fish" whose restless, frantic movement ("jostlings in the hall") makes them sound precisely like the girls. Then the last stanza comes full circle back to the myth. Viewed under the microscope, the fish's hearts pulse ruby-red as pomegranate seeds: "those five / red jewels." That's magic of a high order, one of those leaps of association that arise naturally from a poem's sense, impossible to predict.
"Catapult," the last piece in the set, returns to a first-person voice: not first person singular, but plural. Our speaker is now a high school senior and speaks for her entire graduating class, her own experience inseparable from the group's. Escape is the thing, she says, then recounts their nights of beer-drinking and "fumbled" sex like a journalist reporting from the front lines. Just as the girls in "Persephone" hover on the brink of puberty, the teens in "Catapult" are on the brink of adulthood. They are stuck there, unable to cross over to their new lives. When the speaker describes them as each "a small thing /... spinning wildly /... here at the center of the known universe" it's not hubris we're hearing but, rather, dread. This particular center of the universe is a terrifying vacuum—you could spin there forever—an echo of the "great void" in "Persephone."
Stonestreet's fascination with science leads to some of her most accomplished work. "Left-Handed Universe: Variations" deserves at least a mention as the poem that convinced me to review the book. Flipping through my review copy, I happened to turn to this poem and read "What in our world might indicate the handedness of the universe? All / those quarks: left, right, strange. Everything leading into a spin." Straightforward, a question asked and answered, yet it snagged my eye so thoroughly that I couldn't stop reading. The speaker wildly zags from the human scale to the galactic, riffing on anything that could be considered Other as her jazzy "Variations" delivers surprise after surprise. Tulips, Water, Ash is a book that excels at such surprises, striking fresh sparks of meaning from line to line and, sometimes, word to word.
Door to a Noisy Room, by Peter Waldor, stands somewhat apart from the first two collections. Reading Kuipers and Stonestreet, I am always conscious of an event—narrative anchoring me in real time. Naturally, the writers may be conflating or otherwise altering events to suit their purposes, but in most of the poems the underlying presence of an event—an experience lived in real time—is unmistakable. Waldor's poems are lyric in that they don't seem to reflect lived events, but states of mind. They are also minimalist, with some poems comprised only of six lines and some lines comprised only of three, or even two, words. In fact, the poems' concision and mystery make them read like koans. Each provides the barest possible outline of meaning and relies on the reader to fill in the rest. How well does this technique work? It depends on the reader.
A friend of mine once studied at an ashram in upstate New York. As homework he was assigned a koan, which went something along the lines of The moon watches from the ocean waves, laughing. My friend was supposed to meditate on the line until he grasped its meaning. Several months later I asked how he was doing, and he told me he'd gone back to New York and begged his teacher for a new koan since this one stumped him. The teacher refused on the grounds that meaning lay within the individual. Similarly, Waldor's book may confound readers who are unwilling to bring quite a lot of themselves to the text. For those who are willing, however, the rewards can be high.
Consider the brevity of these first two stanzas from "Lips":
My love, our lips
are four knives
asleep in the drawer.
Last four left.
The rest out for
the usual butchery.
Twenty-one words total, and yet Waldor has managed to create an entire emotional realm. The visual of the first stanza is at once prosaic and surreal. Nearly everyone has seen those antique cutlery drawers with depressions shaped to safely nestle the various utensils. It's an interesting stretch to picture lips rather than silverware lying against the velvet, while the word "asleep" raises several possibilities. On a literal level, such silverware is used only on special occasions like Easter or Thanksgiving and is "asleep" the rest of the year. Metaphorically, sleeping lips suggest lovers who've gone a long time without kissing, which in turn suggests a relationship in jeopardy. The next line, "Last four left," again appears prosaic. All the other knives are gone because time has passed; after Grandmother's silverware is handed down a few generations, pieces do tend to go missing. But that reading is shattered by the final sentence. The knives have become anthropomorphic. Rather than being misplaced they have voluntarily gone out on the town looking for trouble, the noun "butchery" so perfect here that it falls like a blow. What a strange, sinister world we've entered.
In this type of poetry the margin for error or wastage is very narrow. However much I'm willing to engage as a reader, I can only succeed if the poet supplies a text where each word counts, alluding to a meaning which may lie beyond logic but is nonetheless discernible. Most of the time, Waldor produces. In "Lips" his choice of cutlery is deliberate— knives are so much more suggestive than, say, spoons—and in other poems such as "Sadder than Abraham," "The Guilt of Elevators," and "Night Sale" he shows the same care, laying each phrase down with precision. A particularly striking piece, "Hands," manages to compress sex to a single gesture: "Hand on hip— / open sesame."
The book fails in places where Waldor's hyper-compressed lines yield less than they promise. Here, for example is "Dancer" in its entirety:
I could never restrain myself
enough to be a dancer,
never let my fingers
snow on the back.
I could never adore the master.
When a partner was covered
with sores, I vomited.
When I have nothing to do
I do nothing.
No matter how hard I work or how much of myself I bring to this text, meaning eludes me. In the opening sentence, what does it mean to "snow" one's fingers? I picture ballet dancers and try to make the gesture into something a male dancer does as he lifts his female partner, perhaps fluttering his fingers along her back. But honestly, I don't see it.
The "master" in the fifth line could be the dance instructor or could be a spiritual mentor, like the "masters" who appear in several other poems. Either way, the line falls flat, as does the closing repetition of "nothing." "Dancer" and other poems such as "Brothel Guide," "Seriously," and "A Map" are throwaways. Individually they don't stand up, while as a group they appear self-indulgent and random, like half-finished thoughts.
Fortunately, Door to a Noisy Room is strong enough to absorb them. A year ago I taught a creative writing class focused on reader engagement, the idea that a reader actively creates meaning. For the Final my students had to read a poem cold and parse it, supporting their interpretation with quotes from the text. Since high engagement was key, Waldor made the perfect poet for the test. I assigned his "Blue Bells."
The terrible thing
about leaving paradise—
the thought I could
be entering paradise.
No tollgates, no fences.
Blue bells everywhere.
As many times as I've read these opening stanzas, they still send a chill down my spine. The expulsion from Eden is usually a tale of bitterest regret, the quintessential example of "having it all" and throwing it away, the mistake we never quite recover from. With a simple shift in perception, Waldor totally reframes the tragedy ... and that's why I shiver. Equally effective, Waldor pairs his abstract "terrible thought" with concrete nouns, swiftly fixing the poem in reality. Tollgates and fences are solid, easy to visualize, and modern, a nice contrast with the biblical "paradise." Then the clincher: "Blue bells everywhere." I sense the speaker's own shiver, his awe as he looks out over the Earth.
"Blue Bells" continues to unfold in the remaining stanzas, widening and deepening until there are a multitude of possible readings. In fact, grading my Final, I was surprised at how many different themes the students had found. Any test reveals as much about the text's skill as the reader's since it takes a truly skillful text to spark such rich responses. Door to a Noisy Room is a book well worth the effort it demands.
Love poetry may be unfashionable at the moment, but I doubt we will ever stop writing and reading it. And why should we? In the right hands, there's no reason it has to be predictable or "too small," as the writer said that night at Barnes & Noble. A love poem illuminates the heart of the lover, certainly, but can also illuminate the heart of a city, a world, a whole cosmos. These three poets demonstrate just what riches the form can yield.


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Bogus Apps Litter Android With Malware
Oct 22, 2012 5:00 AM PT
Android is one of the most popular mobile operating systems in the world. As a result, it's also one of the most popular mobile operating systems to be targeted by malware writers.
Malware aimed at Google's Android platform increased sixfold during the quarter that ended in September, according to a report released Monday by Trend Micro.
"What had been around 30,000 malicious and potentially dangerous or high-risk Android apps in June increased to almost 175,000 between July and September," Trend Micro reported in its third-quarter Security Roundup.
By far, the most prevalent way to deliver malware to Android handsets is through fake versions of legitimate apps. "What's happening is the bad guys are downloading good applications, like Angry Birds, and republishing them under similar names with trojans and malware in them," Trend Micro CTO Raimund Genes told TechNewsWorld.
Adware Rising
Researchers also found an increase in aggressive Android adware that pushes the boundaries of advertising.
"Most mobile adware are simply a business model used to pay for an app offered for free or at low costs to users. But we also identified several adware that pose serious privacy-related threats," according to the report
"Apps that access your call history without informing you via an end-user license agreement (EULA) or their user interface (UI) constitute malicious behavior from a security perspective," the report adds.
The report also identifies the top spam-sending countries in the world. Saudi Arabia (21 percent) is at the top of the list, followed by India (18 percent), Turkey and the United States (7 percent), Peru (4 percent) and Brazil (3 percent).
In the future, Africa will become a leading source of spam, Genes predicted. "In certain parts of Africa, you now have reliable bandwidth and high throughput without any laws against spam," he explained.
Door Opened for Breach Lawsuits
Victims of data breaches may find it easier to pursue lawsuits against companies holding their data under a recent decision handed down by a federal court of appeals in Florida.
In the case, Resnick v. AvMed, the court made it harder to summarily dismiss lawsuits seeking damages for consumers victimized by data breaches by lowering the bar for showing a causal link between a data breach and identity theft.
"That's very important because if a data breach class-action lawsuit survives the dismissal stage, it generally means the defendant has to defend the case through at least the class certification stage," Bradley Arant Boult Cummings attorney Michael Pennington told TechNewsWorld.
That increases the pressure on a defendant to settle the case, he maintained. "A class certification hearing in federal court is a very risky proposition for a defendant," he said. "The publicity that attends these types of class actions is not very desirable."
In the Resnick case, two laptops containing confidential information were stolen from AvMed. Fourteen months later, two victims of the theft discovered their identities had been stolen. In the past, courts wouldn't have considered the connection between theft of the laptops and the theft of the identities strong enough to warrant a lawsuit, according to Pennington.
"Simply because AvMed had a data breach really proves nothing about whether the identity thieves got the data they used from AvMed," he argued. "That type of information is available from any number of sources."
However, in its decision, the court found that Resnick had "pled sufficient facts to allow for a plausible inference that AvMed's failures in securing their data resulted in their identities being stolen."
"They have shown a sufficient nexus between the data breach and the identity theft beyond allegations of time and sequence," it added.
Survey Roundup
Some 84 percent of Americans say they obey the rules for creating strong passwords, according to a survey released last week by Eset.
The study also showed that a greater percentage (89 percent) of adults over 55 years old said they used a combination of numbers, letters and symbols when they created their passwords than younger adults (77 percent), those in the 18- to 34-year-old group.
The fact that young adults aren't as security conscious as their older peers is important, according to Eset Security Evangelist Stephen Cobb. "It's significant because these are people in the workforce using computers at work at home exposing themselves unnecessarily to risk," he told TechNewsWorld.
He maintained that one reason workers create poor passwords is they lack security training. A recent Eset survey showed that only 10 percent of the respondents had received such training. "If you've got a workforce where only one out of 10 people is getting any up-to-date security training, then that should raise a red flag," he said.
In other surveys news, eleven, a German e-mail security firm, found that in September alone e-mails containing malware increased 119 percent. It also reported that email containing links to drive-by malware websites increased by a factor of 80 in September and that 9.5 percent of all spam contains such links. Overall, spam volumes dropped in the September quarter, 72 percent to 82.9 percent.
A survey of British consumers released last week by security firm Sophos revealed that 42 percent of devices lost or left in non-secure places had no active security measures on them to protect them. It also found that 20 percent of lost devices contained work mail that could potentially expose confidential corporate information.
Breach Diary
- Oct. 12: University of Georgia begins notifying more than 8,500 current and former employees that their personnel records were accessed in a "criminal act of computer trespass." Information in the records included names and Social Security numbers. The university said that the intrusion appears to have been planned by someone who knew where sensitive information was stored on the system.
- Oct. 13: U.S. Army announces it will provide one year of credit-monitoring services to 31 holders of the Medal of Honor or Distinguished Service Cross or their families after their Social Security numbers were accidentally posted to the Internet last month.
- Oct. 16: New Hampshire attorney general reports that a breach at TD Bank could affect 43,750 residents of the Granite State. The bank has been notifying some 260,000 of its customers from Maine to Florida about the breach that occurred in March when some encrypted backup data tapes were misplaced in transit.
- Oct. 16: Several Minnesota municipalities announce settlement of $665,000 with former police officer, Anne Rasmusson, who filed a lawsuit against the cities and towns in which she alleged that more than 140 police officers accessed her driver's license file without any official purpose.
- Oct. 17: UK Information Commissioner's Office fines Greater Manchester police department $192,024 for failing to adequately protect the data on a USB stick stolen from the home of one of its officers. The stick contained personal details of 1,075 people helping the police in serious crime investigations.
- Oct. 18: A UK housing Association, the Network Housing Group, discloses it has launched an internal investigation into the accidental e-mailing to some 300 staff of a spreadsheet containing information on its employees' sexuality, ethnicity and disability status.
Upcoming Security Events
- Oct. 21-24: FS-ISAC Summit. Lansdowne Resort, Leesburg, Va. Limited to actual financial services practitioners. registration ranges from US$165-$1750.
- Oct. 22-23: Cybersecurity Conference. Grand Hyatt, Washington, D.C. Managed by 1105 Media. Expo Admission: Free. Conference Registation: US$295 for government employees; US$495 for others.
- Oct. 22-24: McAfee Focus 2012 Security Conference. The Venetian and the Palazzo Congress Center, Las Vegas, NV. Keynote speaker is former president George W. Bush. Standard Registration: $995.
- Oct. 22-25: eCrime 2012. El Conquistador Resort & Conference Center, Las Croabas, Puerto Rico. Sponsored by the Anti-Phishing Work Group (APWG). Registration US$575.
- Oct. 23: Exposing the Money Behind Malware. 2 p.m. ET. Webcast sponsored by Sophos. Free with registration.
- Oct. 25-31: Hacker Halted Conference 2012. Miami, Fla. Sponsored by EC-Council. Registration: $2,799-$3,599.
- Oct. 30-31: 2012 Trustworthy Cyber Infrastructure for the Power Grid (TCIPG) Industry Workshop. iHotel and Conference Center, 1900 S. 1st St., Champaign, IL. Attendance by invitation only.
- Nov. 3-6: Information Security Forum Annual World Congress. Chicago.
- Nov. 14: How to choose the right authenticator to meet the CJIS requirement for advanced authentication. 1-2 p.m. ET. Free webinar. Sponsored by Entrust.
- Dec. 3-7: Annual Computer Security Applications Conference. Orlando, Fla. Registration is now open.
- Jan. 7-9: Redmond Identity, Access & Directory Knowledge Summit 2013. Microsoft Conference Center, Redmond, Wash. sponsored by Oxford Computer Group. Early registration: $450. Registration after Nov. 21: $650.

subset: commoncrawl


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Destructive StrokesDecember 22, 2005
This is kind of a minor thing, but something that's been a growing irritation for a while. Photoshop's Stroke layer effect actually eats into the layer it's applied to, resulting in an undesired destructive effect if you start doing things like adjusting the layer blending mode or opacity of the stroke.
So, in this image the left window has a black square sitting on its own layer, in the middle I've applied a 3px red stroke on the inside of the layer, and on the right I've reduced the opacity to 20%. Instead of the red stroke blending into the black square — since it's sitting on the inside, remember — the white background behind the square pokes through, which means the stroke is effectively knocking out any pixels of the original square.
Not a permanent loss since you can always discard the layer effect, but it seems counter-intuitive to me. I suppose there are situations where this might be the desired and expected behaviour, but more often than not I'd prefer it if the stroke were simply to fade into the layer.
The simple work-around: Cmd + click (or Ctrl + click on the PC) the object's layer in the layer palette, create a new layer immediately above it, and then use Edit -> Stroke to apply a stroke to this layer. This selects the object's contour, and applies the stroke pretty much the same way as the stroke effect, just on its own layer.
I suppose this would be less of a pain if Photoshop's layer management weren't such a hassle already.


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Internet Design, Development, and Hosting
You can find good companies in Florida who can help you build your website. Creating and running a website involves the following: design, development, and hosting.
Web design companies in Florida offer a range of services ranging such as Flash or e-commerce website design services. There are many designers to choose from, some offering custom professional quality results while other offering basic web page design options.
Web development companies take care of building a complete website, including the programs that are needed to make the website run smoothly such as feedback forms, data entry pages, shopping carts, credit card processing, etc. Developers can use a range of tools or languages such as PHP, Java, Javascript, ASP.NET, SQL, and many more. There are many Florida-based web page development services you can choose from.
Web hosting companies are plentiful, especially in Florida. You can find hosting at cheap rates. However, you have to keep in mind that cheaper is not better. You get what you pay for. To provide lower rates, web hosts usually make you sign up for a whole year, and they squeeze many websites onto the same server to lower costs. This can result in lower performance and slow web access. For business web hosting, you really need a reliable and fast web host otherwise you will be risking the success of your Internet venture.
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The most reliable way to supplement your diet with Lactobacilli is to make your own yogurt or sauerkraut, or to buy nutritional supplements which have been tested by an independent outside laboratory and which list the concentration of viable bacteria found on culture. Lactobacilli are killed by heat, moisture and sunlight. The making of tablets generates heat which lowers the number of viable organisms. Lactobacilli should be freeze-dried, in powder or capsules, in opaque moisture-proof containers, stored in the refrigerator. They should be consumed with meals. The strains which have been most extensively tested for their viability in the human intestine are L.acidophilus strain NCFM-2 and L.plantarum. L. acidophilus is well-suited to growing in the small intestine, where it is normally one of the dominant bacterial species. L. plantarum has growth characteristics which lead it to grow especially well in the large intestine. The daily dose should be between one billion and ten billion viable bacteria. More may cause gastrointestinal irritation.
Lactobacilli not only colonize the intestinal tract but grow well in the vagina and the urethra, where they prevent growth of pathogenic bacteria. The application of vaginal spermicides like nonoxynol-9, found in many contraceptive creams, may kill Lactobacilli and give pathogens more ready access to the urinary tract. Taking Lactobacilli by mouth or inserting Lactobacillus capsules into the vagina, may restore genital tract symbiosis and prevent infection.
The beneficial bacteria which normally predominate in the large intestine are called Bifidobacteria. Declining levels of Bifidobacteria in the elderly allow accumulation of toxin-producing Clostridium species, which have been implicated in the development of cancer in the large bowel. Taking Bifidobacteria in a dose of three billion organisms per day, lowers the level of Clostridia in the bowel and also reduces the concentration of chemicals which are thought to promote cancer.
The growth of Bifidobacteria in the large bowel is strongly affected by diet. Bifidobacteria thrive on vegetable fiber and on the complex sugars that occur in certain vegetables. These complex sugars, known as fructooligosaccharides (FOS), are especially concentrated in garlic, onion, artichoke, asparagus and chicory root. A synthetic form of FOS is available as a food supplement in the United States. Extensive research conducted in Japan, the U.S. and Europe demonstrates that supplementing the diet with FOS encourages the growth of Bifidobacteria and discourages the growth of most undesirable bacterial species in the intestine. One teaspoon a day of FOS lowers the concentration of toxic bacterial enzymes in the large intestine. These enzymes, called beta-glucuronidase and glycholate hydrolase, are able to convert normal constituents of the stool, derived either from food or from bile, into carcinogens (chemicals which cause cancer). Regular consumption of foods rich in FOS may decrease the risk of colon cancer. A complete guide to maintaining a healthy intestinal milieu and avoiding the problems associated with its disruption are the foci for Chapter Eight, "Poisons from Within."
Yeast against Yeast
"Nutritional yeast" has been used as a dietary supplement for generations, as a source of vitamins and minerals and for treatment of digestive complaints. After treating hundreds of yeast-allergic patients, I was very reluctant to prescribe yeast for anyone, until I discovered a preparation which the French call "Yeast Against Yeast". The yeasts which invade human tissues, causing yeast infection, are mostly members of the genus Candida. The yeast used in baking bread or brewing beer belong to the genus Saccharomyces. Yeast Against Yeast is Saccharomyces boulardii, a microbe which inhabits the surface of many different plants and which was first isolated from lichee nuts in Southeast Asia by French scientists during the 1920's. Saccharomyces boulardii has been used in Europe for decades to treat acute diarrhea and controlled trials have shown it effective in preventing or treating diarrhea brought on by antibiotics. S. boulardii appears to exert its beneficial affects by inactivating bacterial toxins and by stimulating intestinal immune responses. S. boulardii has been available in natural food stores in the United States since 1991. People who are allergic to baker's yeast may also be allergic to S. boulardii, but for most people, including women with chronic Candida infection, Yeast Against Yeast lives up to its name.


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Canaries Pound Saltdogs, Tie Team Records In Series Opener
SIOUX FALLS, SD -- The Sioux Falls Canaries matched a team record with three home runs and 10 runs in one inning on Saturday night, cruising to an 11-5 victory over the Lincoln Saltdogs at Sioux Falls Stadium.
The Canaries won the opener of the four-game series before 3,325 fans, and they have won five of their last six games.
Trailing 3-0, the Canaries (18-30) sent 15 men to the plate, cracked 11 hits -- including three home runs – and plated 10 runs. Every man in the lineup scored a run. J.P. Ramirez' two-run home run gave the Birds a lead for good, and it was the front end of back-to-back long balls with Jared Clark. Nate Baumann later homered for his second round-tripper in as many games. Sioux Falls last scored 10 runs in one inning on May 26, 2007 at St. Paul.
Every Canaries starter had at least one hit. Nick Van Stratten was 3-for-5 with two runs and two RBI, while Kevin Dultz, Cory Morales and Marcos Rodriguez each had two-hit performances. Van Stratten tripled in the eighth inning and scored on a groundout, matching a single-season team record with nine triples.
Mitchell Clegg (3-2) posted his second consecutive quality start and earned his second straight win as the Canaries turned to a four-man starting rotation. He held Lincoln to three runs on six hits in six innings, walking two and striking out three.
The long third inning made it a short outing for former big-leaguer Mike Burns (2-3). Burns yielded all 10 runs in the frame, lasting just 2 1/3 innings in the loss.
Lincoln (26-22) scored two inconsequential runs in the ninth inning before Kyle Vazquez recorded the final out. Reliever Chris Allen made his Sioux Falls debut and struck out the side in the seventh, and Jordan Whatcott tossed a perfect eighth.
Game two of the series will be at 1:05 p.m. on Sunday at Sioux Falls Stadium.
Courtesy: Sioux Falls Canaries


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Phone: 01782 422 300 / 422 321


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Yes, for the Easter dinner the White Room went colourful. Complete with Egg Tree and little chicks and bunnies all over the place. And what a success - after a few glasses of wine the guests emerged in playing with all the little buggers - they were even named. But besides that the food went down well as well. Also here lots of detail - bunny shaped bread rolls and creme cheese canapes. Not to forget the amazing white chocolate Easter Egg for dessert. So now the wait begins for the Fish and Seafood Dinner on April 17. Will have to come up with a new theme to keep the guests entertained.
Monday, 5 April 2010
Easter Dinner - Chicks and Bunnies stars of the night
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[Jinasfut, West Bank; June 8. Image via Getty]
JINSAFUT, WEST BANK - JUNE 08: A Palestinian woman harvests her family's wheat on June 8, 2009 in their village of Jinsafut in the West Bank. US President Barack Obama�s Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell, began his latest round of talks in the region echoing Washington's demand for 'immediate' peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel. (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images)


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County Council candidate Dan Duryea broke his silence after last week's Election Day defeat on Tuesday, declaring his intention to challenge opponent Cynthia Bensch's voter registration in District 7.
"I have retained legal counsel and we are moving forward with a protest of the Beaufort County Council District 7 election results of Nov. 6, 2012," he wrote in a statement. "More specifically, we are filing a 'challenge' that the residency requirements, as required by state law, of my opponent Cynthia Bensch, have not been met and, therefore, she should be disqualified from being elected to County Council for the purposes of representing District 7."
Bensch's residency in District 7, which mostly includes Bluffton west of Buck Island Road to S.C. 170 between S.C. 46 and U.S. 278, first came into question publicly at an open forum the week before the Nov. 6 election, when an audience member implied she was living full-time in Eagle's Point, which falls just outside in Councilman Jerry Stewart's turf.
The 29 Martingale West home where Bensch is registered is under her son and daughter-in-law, according to county records. Bensch has said her now-deceased father built a house on the lot owned by her son with her own money, and since his death she and her husband, Gary, have split time between the Eagle's Point home and the property at 29 Martingale West, which lacks the garage Gary uses at the rental in Eagle's Point to store equipment for his contracting business.
Bensch also says the couple is planning another move to Hampton Hall, which falls within District 7.
Asked Tuesday about why the home isn't in her name, Bensch said, "My legal address is 29 Martingale West. There's nothing more to say."
Bensch, the official Republican candidate, won the election with 73 percent of the vote, though about 38 percent of her support came from residents electing a straight Republican ticket. She ran a campaign on opposition to the just-approved $25 million land preservation bond referendum and a more pro-development tone.
Duryea, a petition candidate, was bounced from the Republican primary in an election paperwork debacle that ousted more than 200 other candidates statewide. In his campaign, Duryea emphasized support for the land preservation referendum as an historical legacy, his opposition to prioritizing the Bluffton Parkway phase 5B realignment and the need to find solutions to the county's looming solid waste problem.
Scott Marshall, executive director of the Beaufort County Board of Elections, has said protesting election results is typically reserved for irregularities, not candidate qualifications. The deadline to do so is noon on the Wednesday following certification, which was Friday.
But a challenge of Bensch's voter qualifications on the basis of residency would prompt a hearing within 10 days, with no set deadline for filing. If the board sided with the challenger, who carries the burden of proof, the office would become vacant and a special election would be held.
Duryea said he'll officially file his challenge with Marshall's office and the county sheriff Wednesday.


text: ATTN: All Please take a moment to (1) read this important message (if you haven't already done so) about Ko Mya Wai, a democracy activist Japan is about to repatriate, and (2) write to the Japanese authorities urging them NOT to deport him. Japan is very conscious about its international image, so pressure from abroad can make a big difference not only for Ko Mya Wai but also the rest of us who have applied for refugee status here. Thank you for your support in this critical hour. On behalf of (Joint Action Committee-Japan.) Metta, Tin Kyi ( General Secretary ) Burma Youth Volunteer Association-Japan 1. Introduction This is a report on an pro-democracy activist in Japan, Mya Wai, who was denied refugee status by the Ministry of Justice of Japan on 13 August 1997 on the ground that the application was not filed within sixty days of his entry into Japan. (There is a provision in the Japanese law concerning immigration, so-called "Sixty Days Rule", which provides that an asylum seeker must apply for refugee status within sixty days of his entry in Japan, or within sixty days of the occurrence of fear of persecution. Japan applies this rule very strictly, and denies refugee status to the vast majority of the applications on the ground that the applications were not filed within sixty days of the applicant's entry in Japan, regardless of the applicant's fear of persecution.) Mya Wai was also denied a special permit (a special residence permit issued by the Minister of Justice to those who lack any legal status in Japan), and is currently detained by the Immigration authorities. Until very recently, Burmese applicants for refugee status were granted provisional release on the ground that they were applicants for refugee status. However, although Mya Wai filed a new application for refugee status on 21 August, his request for a provisional release was denied on 17 September. This is the first such case where a refugeeapplicant was not granted provisional release. We fear that the immigration authorities are changing its policy towards asylum seekers to an even more restrictive one than before. 2. Mya Wai's activities Before Mya Wai arrived in Japan, he was arrested and detained four times for participating in demonstrations and distributing fliers. The first time was in 1974 when he was taking part in a demonstration at the time of former UN Secretary General U Thant's memorial service. He was detained for six months. Here he was submitted to a form of torture where they bound him to a chair, and made drops of water fall on his head from a hole in a jug placed about two meters above his head. Mya Wai was not able to move his head as he was bound to a chair, and the water fell on the same spot. As time passed the pain became unbearable, and he could not stand even the sound of the water dropping. This went on for a whole day from morning to the next morning, and Mya Wai fainted. The second time was in 1976 when he participated in the student rally and demonstration commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Thakin Kodawmaing. This time he was detained for four to five months, and he was asked questions such as 'Who is the leader of this movement? What does the leader instruct you to do? Are you in contact with the underground communists?' He was also hit on the head and kicked by shoes. According to Mya Wai, his hearing was damaged from having his head ground against the wall. Mya Wai was again arrested on May Day, 1977, for distributing fliers that criticized the government's labor policy. They said 'Oh, it is your third time,' and he was put in a punishment cell. He was not allowed to talk to anyone, and was not even given food for the first two or three days. This cell was less than one square meter big, so he could not sit down and had to keep standing. He did not have access to toilet facilities. He was detained for three months. On 7 July 1978, the anniversary of the students movement, Mya Wai was arrested again during a demonstration. When he gave his name as Mya Wai, he was put in a dog cell because it was his fourth time. He was detained for four months. 3. Mya Wai's first visit to Japan Mya Wai came to Japan in December 1987. When in September 1988 the coup occurred in Burma that suppressed the nation's voice crying for democracy, Mya Wai became active as a founding member of the Burmese Association in Japan (BAIJ). 4. Mya Wai's return to Burma Mya Wai returned to Burma in December 1989 because his mother was seriously ill. Two weeks after his return, his mother passed away. In January or February 1990, an M.I. came in the middle of the night saying 'I have some things to ask you,' and took Mya Wai away. Mya Wai was interrogated about the BAIJ. The reason the military knew that Mya Wai was a member of BAIJ was because the staff of the Myanmar Embassy in Japan take photographs of the people participating in demonstrations in Japan, and Mya Wai was in one of the photographs. Mya Wai was actually shown that photograph. He was asked about the BAIJ in general, and especially about what country the BAIJ was related closely to, and what country the BAIJ received financial aid from. Mya Wai was detained for about six months. He was made to shout 'Restore democracy!' until he was exhausted. He was made to pretend that he was riding on a motorcycle, imitating the sound of the engine with his voice, or to pretend to be an airplane. Mya Wai was released finally after pledging that he would no longer take part in any pro-democracy activities. 5. Mya Wai's second visit to Japan Mya Wai came again to Japan. After his arrival, he lived with Thein Ngwe, who had obtained refugee status in 1993 and was a member of BAIJ. Mya Wai resumed working with the BAIJ as soon as he returned to Japan. He became an executive committee member in 1994, and has been since then. Mya Wai participated as an individual in the hunger strike that took place in Tokyo on 8 August 1996. An account of this strike including a photograph showing Mya Wai, was carried in 'Myet Khin Thit', a semi-governmental publication in Burma. Mya Wai was able to communicate with his family until June 1997. The last time he telephoned them, he spoke to his wife. However, after the press conference on 27 June 1997 regarding the parcel bomb explosion in which the SLORC named Thein Ngwe (mentioned above) and Thomas Gon Aung (a refugee applicant) as the senders of the parcel bomb, and accused many more members of BAIJ as having conspired in the incident, Mya Wai could no longer communicate with his family by telephone. In early July he called the neighbor of his home in Burma who promised to bring Mya Wai's family to the phone at a certain time on the next day so that he might speak to them. However, when Mya Wai called the neighbor the next day at the promised time, that phone line did not work. 6. Conclusion and request It is clear that Mya Wai cannot go back to Burma under such circumstances, as it is certain that the SLORC would set him up as having been involved in the parcel bomb plot.It is difficult to understand why the Japanese government would not grant refugee status to such a person merely because he did not apply within sixty days of his landing in Japan. We can only say that the Japanese standard of granting refugee status is far from the standard set in the 1951 Convention. For Mya Wai to return to Burma is extremely dangerous. However, Japan would even deport a person such as Mya Wai. As stated above, Mya Wai is still in detention. Since he was detained, Mya Wai's blood pressure has gone up, and his physical condition is by no means good. The lawyers' group assisting Burmese asylum seekers is preparing for a lawsuit demanding the cancellation of the denial to Mya Wai's application for refugee status. Please send a letter or FAX to the Japanese immigration asking it to reconsider Mya Wai's request for provisional release. Sample letter (English) Dear Sir, I am writing in regard to Mr Mya Wai, a Burmese (Myanmarese) living in Japan, whose request for a provisional release was denied on 17 September 1997. Mr Mya Wai has been arrested and tortured several times by the military junta in his home country Burma (Myanmar), solely because he was taking part in pro-democracy activities. It would be extremely dangerous for Mr Mya Wai if he should be deported to Burma (Myanmar). Please reconsider Mr Mya Wai's request for provisional release. Yours Sincerely, Please mail this to: Tokyo Immigration Bureau, Ministry of Justice 3-2-21 Nishigaoka, Kita-ku Tokyo 115 JAPAN FAX should be sent to 81-3-3263-3882 (The People's Forum on Burma). PFB will forward the faxes to the immigration office. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +!!MYA WAI TRANSFERRED TO USHIKU!! + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Mya Wai, the activist who has been detained by immigration authorities in Japan because of lack of legal status in Japan, was transferred to the detention center at Ushiku on 1 October. Transfer to the Ushiku center is generally taken as the last step before finally deporting the 'overstayer'. (Please see previous posting for Mya Wai's background information.) Since he was detained on 13 August Mya Wai had been at the detention center at Jujo which is in Tokyo. On 1 October the immigration authorities transferred him to the center at Ushiku (about 1.5 hours by car from downtown Tokyo). None of Mya Wai's lawyers were informed. On 9 October the lawyers filed two lawsuits on Mya Wai's case against the Minister of Justice, one demanding the cancellation of the denial of his application for refugee status, and the other demanding the cancellation of the issue of the order to repatriate). Soon after the suits were filed, the Ministry of Justice informed the lawyers that Mya Wai will not be repatriated for two weeks, as it would take two weeks for the Ministry of Justice to submit a statement in response to the suits. Mya Wai has a record of arrests and torture by the SLORC when he was in Burma because of his participation in pro-democracy activities. He is also known to the SLORC as an activist in Japan and his photos have appeared in government newspapers in which the SLORC accuses him as having been involved in the parcel bomb incident in April. It is extremely dangerous for him to be repatriated, although the immigration authorities do not seem to realize this in spite of efforts by lawyers and concerned citizens. As stated above, transfer to Ushiku is generally done shortly before repatriation. Although the Ministry of Justice has promised not to repatriate him for two weeks, Mya Wai remains in a very unstable condition. We are of the opinion that he should be released, especially as the recent lawsuits are likely to take at least six months to reach any conclusion. Please write to the Japanese immigration authorities! Please ask them not to repatriate Mya Wai and to reconsider his application for provisional release. Please mail to: Tokyo Immigration Bureau, Ministry of Justice Keibi-ka (Security Division) 3-2-21 Nishigaoka, Kita-ku Tokyo 115 JAPAN FAX should be sent to 81-3-3263-3882 (The People's Forum on Burma). PFB will forward the faxes to the immigration office. ( The People's Forum on Burma/Lawyers group assisting Burmese applicants for refugee status )


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Additional costs during your studies
On top of your tuition fees there are other additional costs to be taken into consideration. The amount of money you need depends very much on your lifestyle and spending habits.
Monthly costs
When studying at Leiden University you have to pay an annual tuition fee. On top of this there are other costs that need to be taken into consideration. These will amount to roughly between 890 and 1420 euro per month. Of course this is only an estimate. How much money you actually need depends very much on your lifestyle and spending habits.
Average monthly expenses
Below is a rough estimate of the costs of living for students in Leiden and The Hague. This is only a general indication as expenses can vary from one person to another.
Rent (including water, gas and electricity): 350 – 650 euro
General living expenses (food, clothing, telephone etc.): 300 – 350 euro
Transport costs (depending on whether you have a bike): 40 – 100 euro
Health insurance: 80 – 120 euro
Books and study materials (depending on your study programme): 50 – 100 euro
Social activities: 70 – 100 euro
Total: 890 – 1420 euro
Further info on housing costs
- There is limited availability of accommodation in the €360 to €500 price range. Be aware that you may have to pay at least €550 per month for a room in Leiden or the Hague.
- The University Housing Office has accommodation in both Leiden and the Hague. If you will commute between Leiden and the Hague this will add approx. €100 to your monthly living expenses.
- Students may be entitled to claim rent benefit. For more information and to apply please visit the website of the Dutch tax authority. Applications for rent benefit are the responsibility of the student but you can request assistance from De Leidse Rechtwinkel (free legal aid centre). If you encounter any problems with rent benefit please contact the International Student Adviser.


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Economists Nouriel Roubini and Ian Bremmer appeared on Bloomberg TV today to discuss all the major issues in the global economy right now.
The biggest focus? China.
While they butted heads about the immediacy of the threat, both pointed out that political tensions between the U.S. and China are going to significantly influence the global economy.
A few more notable tidbits via Bloomberg TV. Watch the whole video below:
Roubini on Greece:
"Even if they reach an agreement there are going to be so many holdouts that then they'll have a problem. They'll either pay the holdouts and that becomes expensive, or if they don't pay them you'll have a series of defaults, because they're going to stop paying them. Or the way to avoid the holdouts from being holdouts is then to change domestic legislation, to cram down the terms of the majority on the holdouts. But if that happens then the CDS will trigger and that becomes a credit event. So either way you're going to get a credit event."
"The credit event can be two forms, either a form of default…another one is if there are holdouts and you don't pay them and technically that's a default on the bonds on which you don't pay so there's a series of defaults on which you don't pay. Or three, if you change the terms of the bonds through legislation then that's considered a credit event by ISDA by the event triggering the CDS. And one way or another you get a credit event. One extreme is a default, another one is CDS triggering."
Roubini on the chances of recession in the U.S.:
"I would say latest numbers out of the US have been better for the fourth quarter. I even expect a slowdown so I think the probability of a recession in the United States is lower than 60 percent right now….A lot depends on the eurozone, if the eurozone situation becomes disorderly."
Bremmer on geopolitics:
"The economics are driving the geopolitics and that's after decades when security issues drove the geopolitics, the U.S. talking about geopolitics. U.S. talking about economic statecraft right now about, they've done this not in a proactive way, they've done this because American allies in Asia have been begging for the US to show commitment, whether it's Singapore or Vietnam, whether it's Japan or all the rest."
Bremmer on China's Obama concern:
"The Chinese are very concerned about what the Obama administration defense policy will be in the region, and saying that the Chinese are opaque. This will lead to more confrontation over the South China Sea, over the East China Sea, because the Chinese clearly want to ensure that they're not on the back foot in a part of the world that's utterly critical for their own security sensibilities."
Roubini, Bremmer on China:
Roubini: "I do expect there's going to be a significant slowdown of growth in China this year. We're going to see it already in the Q1 numbers…the Chinese will react by reducing the reserve requirement ratio and interest rates to try and jumpstart the economy…I think it's going to happen in the first half of the year."
Bremmer: "When it comes to the United States and China let's be clear. Structurally these countries are moving towards more conflict. These are the world's two largest economies and that clearly is problematic in terms of economics volatility over the longer term. But as of this year the American economy is dominating, not foreign policy. And there can be a little bit of noise on Iran, a little bit of noise on China. When it comes to currency, the Chinese have been moving at their pace, very slowly, very incrementally, and American politicians have to show they don't like it. But to be clear, American multinational corporations are perfectly happy with it, they manufacture in China. They are on the other side of it. It's American Labor that has the problem with it. And they don't have a lot of influence with the Republicans right now."
Roubini on whether the slowdown in Europe and the United States will spread:
"In the case of the eurozone it's clearly the periphery is not just in a recession but a deepening recession. So the eurozone is in a recession, the UK looks like it's going towards a recession. The data from the United States has been somehow more mixed, positive lately but in my view the process of deleveraging the public and private sector is going to continue that implies slow domestic growth demand and the exports of the United States are not going to improve."
Bremmer on Iran oil sanctions:
"The main implication behind the oil sanctions against Iran is that China will get cheaper oil from Iran, let's be clear about that. But leaving that aside, the Obama administration has actually recently said that purpose of those sanctions is regime change in Iran and they're doing that for domestic reasons because the Republicans have outflanked them a little bit. They said well we might have to engage in military actions. Obama doesn't want to look soft but wants to change his policy. So here's a way of saying same policy, tougher line. Great for domestic policy, not so great for dealing with Iran."


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|The Hamas regime has its own distinct ways of imposing
its will on Gazan Arab society [Image Source]
Israeli surveillance of Gaza is done by one of the world's most advanced combinations of purpose-specific technology including unmanned camera-bearing aircraft (drones or UAVs) and fixed-location long distance vision systems, all operated from a distance on a 24x7 basis by service personnel, very often young women.
Tonight's timely intervention [see "IDF strikes rocket launchers in southern Gaza, thwarting attack" in the online Times of Israel] in two men on a motorcycle being hit. Palestinian sources say they are injured and being treated in a Rafah hospital. Since it's always something of a lottery when these fanatics fire into the air with their exploding tubes, it's hard to know who was saved and what possible damage was prevented. But one thing needs to be abundantly clear: the terrorists of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and the other ambitiously-named Gazan street gangs that are equipped like small and not-so-small armies by their sponsors outside Gaza, have one thing on their mind: dead Israelis. Thankfully, tonight (so far at least) they failed. Note that the difference between a tragically-successful outcome for the jihadists and frustration like tonight is in no sense a function of restraint or cool-headedness on the Gazan side. It's entirely due to Israeli vigilance.
This past Tuesday night, an armored unit of the IDF killed another aspiring Gazan terrorist. As the Times of Israel reported then, he was detected crawling towards the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip. Alert forces fired a shell at him, achieving a direct hit. A previous attempt by a terrorist crossing into Israel from Gaza took place a week ago - he was killed. And a cluster of explosives found near the border fence were found by an IDF patrol and neutralized in a controlled explosion.
The deaths in Gaza - as indeed throughout the turbulent Arab world - are not always a function of cross-border hostilities. Three Gazan Arabs were put to death at dawn today in a regime-sanctioned hanging. AP points out that the Islamists of Hamas have "executed at least 18 men since seizing power in 2007". The BBC's Middle East correspondent notes that
"it is impossible to assess the quality of the evidence presented against the three men who have been executed. Court proceedings in the Gaza Strip are not held in public, and defendants are identified only by their initials, so it can be difficult event to match announcements of executions even with previous news of arrests or convictions, our correspondent says. It is not even possible to know what specific charges the executed men faced".Meanwhile to our north, in the blood-soaked killing fields of Syria, the al-Assad regime's armed-to-the-teeth soldiers today are reported to have killed 121 people, all of them Syrian citizens, evidently trying to "stamp out as much of the year-old uprising against him as he can before next week's ceasefire [source]" proposed by a UN mediator. CNN quotes sources that say the deaths include "eight women and five children... 59 in Hama, 28 in Homs, 13 in the Aleppo suburbs, 19 Idlib, one in Daraa, and one in Douma in the Damascus suburbs".
|Syrian protesters express their feelings about Syria's
President Bashar Al-Assad in Kafranbel, near Idlib, Syria,
March 30, 2012. REUTERS/Raad Al Fares [Image Source]
Barely fifteen months ago, serious newspapers (the Sydney Morning Herald, for instance) were reporting that the Obama administration believed a comprehensive Israeli-Syrian peace treaty was possible and close, and that there was ''unprecedented Syrian co-operation'' to reach a peace agreement. Notorious Al-Assad crony Walid al-Muallem, the Syrian regime's leading foreign policy voice for the past quarter century, was quoted then saying ''the Syrians are ready to re-engage in dialogue with the Israelis to reach peace'', which evidently was the basis for the US appointing an ambassador, Robert Ford, as Washington's ambassador to Damascus, the first since 2005. The White House was said to be asserting that this any-moment-now Israeli-Syrian peace agreement would be ''a breakthrough in the peace process as a whole to achieve peace in the Palestinian territories''.
Imagine if anyone serious on the Israeli side had decided to act on that.


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| Articles in this category should be moved to subcategories when appropriate.
This category may require frequent maintenance to avoid becoming too large.
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"Sharknado 2" won't air for our Twitter hashtagging pleasure until July, but production on the SyFy TV movie is set to begin in New York City. And to stoke the anticipation of cheese, the channel has revealed the cast.
Besides returning "Sharknado" alums Ian Ziering and Tara Reid, the sequel will boast Vivica A. Fox and Mark McGrath in major roles and cameos from Kelly Osbourne, Judd Hirsch, Andy Dick and Judah Friedlander.
The sequel, reteaming the original director Anthony C. Ferrante with original screenwriter Thunder Levin, will move the shark-infested tornado action from Los Angeles to New York City.
Fox is expected to play an old classmate of Ziering's character, Fin, and McGrath will play his brother-in-law.
Meanwhile, Osbourne, Hirsch, Dick and Friedlander will crop up as assorted New York City-type characters, including Hirsch playing off the popularity of his character from "Taxi" by playing a cab driver.
For those who spent last summer outdoors, the original "Sharknado" aired on SyFy in July and became an overnight media sensation. Though actual ratings for its premiere were a bit lower than the usual SyFy original movie fare, it was the subject of thousands of tweets, many of them from celebrities.
Based on the surprising reaction to an otherwise run-of-the-mill creature feature, SyFy re-aired "Sharknado" to an even larger audience of 1.89 million viewers. The film was also released in 200 theaters for a one-night-only midnight screening.
It remains to be seen if the original "Sharknado" was lightning in a bottle or the beginning of America's unquenchable thirst for sharks flying through the air in tornado-like formations, but the truth will discovered this July.


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Mirror Drawing
after Martin Gardner
If you want to feel like a child and maybe get
closer to his/her problems when he/she tries to make his/her hand and
eyes work together then just take this little "drawing test".
Print out the path from the
Print 'n' Play PDF version, or draw a
similar path, place it on the table and put a mirror in front of it as
shown in the illustration.
Take a pencil in your hand and put it at the upper spot. Raise the
other hand and hold it over the path in such a way that you cannot see
it - you can only see its reflection in the mirror. Look only in the
mirror and try to draw a line from the upper spot to the lower spot,
but you must not cross the borders.
Do you think it will be easy?
Step Through:


text:
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Fate's Twisted Charm
Fate's twisted charm is always what lures you in. From the beginning of her life she's been intertwined with myths and creatures. Now it's your time to hear her story and what she thinks about everything that has happened in the series we all know and love. This is Emily Young's life story. Twenty-One Preview: "Oh, Paul, you're not alone. I'm here and I love you. I know for a fact that Sam would not be the leader he is if not for you. Jared loves being with you and being your friend. And, so what if Leah doesn't talk to us anymore? It's mostly my fault anyway. She shouldn't take it out on you. I just get so worried about you sometimes."
Disclaimer: This story does not match up with the actual series and the timeline, some ages, and other details have been changed. I also own nothing besides Maria and Scott Young. It's all Stephenie Meyer.
1. Prologue
Rating 5/5 Word Count 1294 Review this Chapter
January 1st, 1986.
On the outskirts of the Makah reservation, there sits a small brick house for sale. No one has lived there for years, and so it sits, waiting for its newest tenants. The wind howls around it, the snow buries it deep, and the hail hits the roof making soft thump noises in the night. This small, brick, captivating house has seen so many things, and yet, it's most interesting story hasn't even begun yet.
Alongside the withered mailbox, sits a For Sale sign that swings back and forth from rhythm of the wind. If you looked down that old twisty drive that the old house sits on, you would see a car. A '79 Chevrolet Impala, to be exact. The headlights shine brightly, and send the forest animals scurrying farther and farther into the woods, desperate to get back to their families in such a horrible storm.
The Impala stops in front of the house, and if you looked closely you would be able to see through the rain, the snow, the hail, a young couple. Probably not a day older than 21. Yes, they are the Young's.
This stormy, blistering night was the night that Scott and Maria Young decided to look for a house. Just recently married, and in need for a home, for no couple should have to live with the parents for more then a few months. Before they had left the house, Maria had complained and complained, saying that it was simply too cold, too windy, that the car could break down, and then they'd be stuck. See, Maria could be persuasive. The most persuasive anyone could be. With her long sleek almost black hair, and her beautiful amber almond-shaped eyes, what man could refuse such pleas? But see, Scott was as stubborn as Maria was convincing, and as soon as Scott had made up his mind, there was no going back. But no one will be out looking tonight, hon, he had told her. She had to admit, it was a good night to look for real estate, except for the maturing storm heading for town's way.
As the Young's stepped out of the car, the snow seemed to cease. The wind stopped howling, and now it was nothing but a slight breeze that would ruffle your hair. The snow had turned to slight flakes, and if the weather hadn't just been chaotic, some would think it romantic. Maria raised her beautiful face up to the sky and let her eyes rest on the house that sat in front of her. Enchanting.The only words exchanged that lonely, raging night between the Young's were simply this: Perfect.
January 27th, 1986
Since we last left off, that small house has become occupied. Yes, you guessed right, the Young's bought it. They felt it was perfect for their small, and soon to be growing family. Instead of the icy storms the Olympian Peninsula area had been experiencing, today was a lovely day. Still under 40 degrees, but the sun was out and shining brightly, there was not a cloud to be seen in the sky, and a slight breeze was stirring the still forest.
As a large truck came down the road and stopped in front of the house, the same Impala as before parked in the driveway. The rest of the day was busy unpacking boxes and furniture, and moving the various supplies into the house.
The night came to a close, and Maria and Scott Young were the happiest couple alive. As they sat in front of their new fireplace with an open box of pizza, they talked of their dreams, of what they planned to do now, of getting jobs, and having children. And in that night, there was a strong, yet simple, promise of life created between the two.
February 14th, 1986
Ah, Valentine's Day. A day for lovers young and old. This day though, was a special day for the Young's. They had finally managed to unpack every single piece of their things, in record time, too. Not only were they celebrating this great accomplishment, but they were celebrating their first Valentine's Day as a married couple.
After blowing out all of their candles that aligned their windowsill, they almost glided up the stairs. To the fill with their own contentment, love, and lust. As the clock stroke midnight, a child created of undying love was conceived.
October 19th, 1986
Maria Young sits at her kitchen table flipping through a magazine, while husband Scott is out for a brief moment. The doctors tell her she is to be due at any moment. Good grief, she thinks. She can't wait for this blessing of a child to be born. Her hormones are just too way out of whack for her to enjoy the idea of a baby. In that one second, during that one thought, her water breaks.
October 20th, 1986
A girl. A girl. That's what the doctors said. Maria still laid in her hospital bed, too worn out and tired to be with her baby. But just because Maria wasn't with her child, didn't mean Scott wasn't either. Scott, the proud new parent, sits in the nursery, holding his baby girl. She'll always be my baby, he thinks. Always.
As Maria opened her eyes, she saw Scott holding a squirming pink bundle of joy. Scott looked up and noticed her opened eyes.
"Oh, Maria." He sighs contentedly. This baby was perfect. It was just what they needed. What would they name her? Such a glorious baby deserved a glorious name. Even the nurses were squealing with fondness at the sight of such a young and exquisite face in the hospital. As if she were reading his mind, Maria opens her mouth and whispers in a gentle and loving voice, "Emily."
December 25th, 1986
Their second Christmas together, but their first with young Emily. Such a beautiful baby, in her small red dress with lace. Maria and Scott had volunteered to host the family dinner this year. They had a beautiful house, and a beautiful baby, and they wouldn't have minded showing off just a tad for the family. As the joyous family crowded around the dinner table, little Leah crawled over to the small crib.
You see, Leah was not even a year old herself, but she was growing quickly. Already crawling, and starting to form words, she was the golden child of her family. Her mother was related to the Young's in some way that little Leah did not yet understand. As she crawled over to the pink crib, she saw with her bright hazel eyes movement coming from inside the crib. She slowly, but surely, made her way up to the crib and looked down.
There lay Emily, not even 12 weeks old. Her eyes seemed to be alight with excitement, but her body was winding down. A newborn could only take so much without a nap. As she raised her amber eyes towards the ceiling, she saw an unfamiliar face. These days, everywhere she looked there was a new face, it seemed. Except Mommy and Daddy, of course. Those were the two faces she could never ever forget. But this face was different, younger, and if she hadn't known better, she would had said that this young being had been badly mutilated.
When those two pairs of young eyes met and connected with each other, it seemed as if the world shifted. It seemed destined that these two young girls would grow up together, live together, learn together, and love together. It just seemed destined.
- Prologue
- The Meeting
- Legends
- Notice
- New Group on the Block Part One
- New Group on the Block Part Two
- A Friend In Need
- Window To Your Soul Part One
- Window To Your Soul Part Two
- Window To Your Soul Part Three
- Betrayed Kisses
- Water Runs Deep
- Full Circle
- Three's The Magic Number Part One
- Three's The Magic Number Part Two
- Three's The Magic Number Part Three
- Wild Eyes
- Fights We Never End
- Forever Goodbye
- Calm Before The Storm
- After All This Time
- Author
- chadley
- Rating
1 2 3 4 5
- Reviews
- 115
- Words
- 70249
- Views
- 1
- Published
- 17 Nov 07
- Updated
- 25 Jun 08
- Status
- In Progress


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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) Nick Watney missed a chance for a 59 on Sunday in his CIMB Classic victory, closing with a course-record 10-under 61 at The Mines despite a bogey at the 18th.
Needing a birdie on the par-4 18th for a 59, Watney drove into the left rough, failed to reach the green with his approach and left his long birdie pitch just short of the putting surface.
``I really wanted to finish strong ... but winning the tournament was more important than a 59 for me,'' Watney said.
The American finished at 22-under 262 and earned $1.3 million in the unofficial PGA Tour event, finishing a stroke ahead of 2011 champion Bo Van Pelt and Robert Garrigus and three ahead of Tiger Woods. The tournament will become a full-fledged PGA Tour event next year when the tour begins its new season in October after the FedEx Cup.
``I saw Tiger got off to a good start, so I wasn't really thinking about winning when I teed off,'' he said. ``But the round sort of built momentum and things just kept getting better and better. I'm thrilled to have come away with the win.''
Van Pelt and Garrigus tied for second, each carding 66 after starting the round tied for the lead.
Needing a birdie on 18 to force a playoff, Van Pelt saved par after hitting into a greenside bunker. On Saturday, needing a closing birdie for a 59, he made a double bogey for a 62.
After five birdies on the first seven holes, Woods finished with a 63 to tie for fourth at 19 under with Chris Kirk and Zimbabwe's Brendon de Jonge. Kirk shot 67, and de Jonge had a 66.
The players were allowed to lift, clean and place their golf balls in the fairways for the last three rounds because the course was soaked by tropical overnight storms.
Watney won the FedEx Cup opener at Bethpage Black in August for his fifth official PGA Tour victory.
The heat, humidity and rain on the par-71 course combined to make it a unique win for Watney.
He needed his wife, Amber, to carry his bag for the last hole of the first round when caddie Chad Reynolds needed treatment for heat-stroke Thursday. Watney used a local caddie Friday and Reynolds came back for the weekend.
The 31-year-old American started Sunday tied for seventh and said he didn't even think about winning until he walked to the 13th tee with a share of the lead.
He opened with two birdies, adding more at the sixth, eighth and ninth to turn in 30. He birdied three straight from the 11th to take the outright lead at 20 under from Van Pelt.
Watney stretched the margin with another three consecutive birdies from the 15th, including a 25-foot putt from the edge of the green at the 16th. He settled for a birdie on the par-5 17th after missing an eagle putt, then ran into trouble on 18 when he found the rough off the tee and appeared to mis-hit his second shot.
``So the 59 went out the window right there,'' he said. ``I was more concerned with just winning the tournament. ``
Five players have shot 59 in official PGA Tour events. Al Geiberger did it in the 1977 Memphis Classic, Chip Beck in the 1991 Las Vegas Invitational, David Duval in the 1999 Bob Hope Invitational, Paul Goydos in the 2010 John Deere Classic and Stuart Appleby in the 2010 Greenbrier Classic.
Japan's Ryo Ishikawa has the lowest round on a major tour, shooting a 12-under 58 to win the 2010 Crowns on the Japan Tour.
Woods knew he'd need something in the low 60s to have any chance of winning in his first trip back to The Mines since he won the individual and team titles at the 1999 World Cup.
``I needed to get to 20-plus,'' Woods said. ``That was the goal score at the end of the day. Looks like Nick went ahead and put it to us.''
Wood lamented some wasted opportunities in his third round that put him just about out of contention.
``I had to shoot 9-under today to have any kind of chance - yesterday's last nine holes, that's what put me in a spot where I couldn't win the championship.''
Sweden's Carl Petterson had 10 birdies - narrowly missing an eagle putt on the 17th - and a bogey in a round of 62 to move from a share of 19th into outright seventh at 18 under. Scott Piercy also made a charge, going out in 30 and having four more birdies on the back nine for a 62 to tie for 10th.
Woods will face top-ranked Rory McIlroy, second Sunday in the BMW Masters in Shanghai, in a one-on-one match in China on Monday.
``We'll both probably be a little bit tired,'' Woods said. ``But we're going to try and put on a good show, shoot a low round and have a little bit of fun.''


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Air is Peaceful - Throw Pillow
"Air is Peaceful" from Adho1982
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Our Throw Pillows are hand sewn from 100% spun polyester poplin fabric in the USA. Covers feature a concealed zipped and artwork on both sides. Inserts are an available option but are not included in the cover only option.
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For specific product specs and sizing, check our Product Info & Sizing guide.


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"I have a real hard time believing that J.T. Ready could actually shoot and kill a child."
—Harry Hughes, region director of the National Socialist Movement
onservatives don't much like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which does the country a favor by keeping track of America's haters.
One hater the group was tracking was a man named Jason Todd Ready, who specialized "in bashing immigrants." Here is just a snippet of his profile on SPLC's site:
After being court-martialed twice, Ready was discharged from the Marines for bad conduct in 1996. Ready, who has run for various Arizona offices usually without success, advocates for the placement of landmines on the border and rails against Jews and nonwhites. In June 2010, Ready led a group of armed extremists into the Arizona desert to apprehend immigrants and drug smugglers.
His criminal history apparently began in 1992 when he was arrested for "damage to property and aggravated assault with a weapon," and his two courts-martial involved "failing to follow an order or regulation, and larceny and wrongful appropriation," as well as "conspiracy, assault, and wrongful solicitation and advice." All of that plus this:
In 2007, Ready was pulled over for driving a vehicle with a fake license plate. He was carrying a 9mm Beretta handgun at the time. Ready was arrested and charged for possessing a traffic preemption emitter, which is an illegal device that can change traffic lights from red to green.
So, you can see Ready was not exactly a model citizen. And by now you probably have heard this news:
On Wednesday, police said, Ready, a burly 39-year-old who went by "JT," shot and killed four people, including a 16-month-old girl, in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert where he lived. He then turned the gun on himself.
But there is a little more to the story than just another bewildering and heartbreaking case where a man with an affection for guns and little affection for mankind went off and killed innocents.
With Ready's background, it is at first glance very difficult to understand why Arizona's former state Senate President Russell Pearce at one time had a relationship, if not outright fellowship, with him. But when one thinks about it, the attraction becomes obvious.
Russell Pearce is a Republican whose time as Chief Deputy Sheriff under Maricopa County's infamous Joe Arpaio made him the perfect guy to help bring shame upon Arizona for, among other things, the state's adoption of SB1070, an intrusion into the fed's immigration jurisdiction, at least according to a lawsuit filed by the Obama administration.
And to give you an idea of why Pearce and J.T. Ready may have hit it off, here is what Pearce said, as he described the Administration's legal action over SB1070:
When you talk about jihad, that is exactly what Obama has against America, specifically the state of Arizona. Think about it. This is the first time in the history of the United States that a sitting President has sided with a foreign government to sue the citizens of its country. For defending our laws? For defending and protecting the citizens of the state of Arizona? It's outrageous and it's impeachable.
Jihad. Obama has a jihad against Arizona and America. Impeachment.
A disagreement over immigration law is, in the mind of Pearce, signs of an anti-American holy war perpetrated by our own president. That insight into Pearce's thinking, coupled with the bold, extremist politics generally practiced by the right-wing today, makes it fairly easy to connect the dots and explain why a man as sick as J.T. Ready was at one time welcomed into the Arizona GOP.
As the SPLC notes, Ready's attempt at a career in politics began in 2004, as he ran for a state House seat. He lost, hopefully because of statements he made like this one:
He told a reporter that the state could improve its education system if it would "deal with this mass illegal influx of foreign students who do not even embrace the same language and culture as Americans and who spread tuberculosis, whooping cough, lice, and other third-world biological diseases to other children."
John Rudolf at HuffPo wrote:
Ready served for several years as a Republican precinct committeeman in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb, and Russell Pearce, a Mesa Republican and former Arizona Senate majority leader, endorsed Ready's run for Mesa City Council in 2006, which he lost. The two were linked over their shared opposition to illegal immigration.
And even though Pearce denies it now, there is plenty of evidence to show that he was more than just a duped acquaintance who is being victimized by a hostile press determined to connect him to a sociopath.
Stephen Lemons of The Phoenix New Times, objected to Pearce's claim he didn't know Ready all that well. Lemons wrote:
Indeed, the pair once were so close that Pearce attended Ready's baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and in 2004, Pearce ordained Ready an elder in the church's Melchizedek priesthood, an office held by adult men of the Mormon faith.
I don't know much about the Mormon's Melchizedek priesthood, but I do know that they don't take such activities lightly and it would be a big deal to ordain someone in the LDS church in any capacity. Mormons mean business with those kinds of things.
In fact, as Lemons reported,
According to LDS spokeswoman Kim Farah, the person being ordained gets to choose who will ordain him. She explained that often a young man will choose his father to do the ordination.
So, Ready's choice of Pearce meant something. And that ordination was in 2004, around the time that Ready's political adventures—with his dramatic expressions of white cultural angst— began, so it's not like Pearce didn't have a clue about Ready's admittedly evolving hatefulness.
And we have this from the Anti-Defamation League:
In April 2007, a local newspaper exposed Ready as a neo-Nazi after his profile on NewSaxon, a white supremacist social networking site, was revealed. Even after being "outed" as a neo-Nazi, Ready continued to make public appearances, including sharing the podium with State Senator Russell Pearce during an anti-immigration protest at the Arizona State Capitol in June 2007. The protest attracted a crowd of approximately 350 people, many of whom cheered for Ready.
The SPLC quoted something Ready said at a neo-Nazi gathering in Phoenix in December of 2007:
The truth is that negroids screw monkeys and rape babies in afreaka [sic]. Then stupid white man who licks kosher jew rear lets negroids in. … Stop Negroid immigration and integration now!!! Nature will take care of the rest
So, if all this is true, it is clear that Pearce was not so quick to judge Ready as "darkness took his life over."
Now, it is important to say that Russell Pearce is not responsible for what J.T. Ready did. Neither is the Republican Party in Arizona. And it is only fair to note that Ready's pathology apparently worsened over time. Indeed, some important conservative leaders in the party did eventually object to Ready's status as a Republican precinct committeeman in 2008, albeit a long seven months after, as the ADL pointed out, "Ready handed out racist and anti-Semitic literature at a Republican Committee meeting."
But here is the point, beyond the mere sadness of Ready's latest crime: This disturbed individual—and the signs of his derangement were everywhere—found at least a temporary home on the ground floor of a political party that too frequently has offered itself as a refuge for people who love lots of guns and ammo and who believe some variation of what J.T. Ready said in 2009:
This is a white, European homeland. That's how it should be preserved if we want to keep it clean, safe, and pure.
If the Republican Party wants to right itself, if it wants to demonstrate to Americans that it will not tolerate even the faint smell of someone like J.T. Ready, then it should use this tragedy as a way of reevaluating some of its most extreme cultural rhetoric—expelling Pat Buchanan from its ranks would be a good start—and reconsidering some of its most outrageous positions on gun rights.


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- Page 1 BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9105 Review
- Page 2 Features and Verdict Review
- Page 3 Sample Photos Review
- More pocket-friendly than other BlackBerrys
- Good build quality
- BlackBerry OS 5 on-board
- Lacks iOS/Android smartphone chops
- High pixel-density screen
- Keypad can't beat a Qwerty
Key Specifications
- Review Price: £299.99
- BlackBerry OS 5
- 3.2-megapixel camera
- T9 keypad
- 2.5-inch, 360x400 pixel display
- 3G, Wi-Fi connectivity
The UK version of the Pearl 3G represents a quiet revolution for BlackBerry because it's the first phone the company has produced with a standard numerical keypad rather than a QWERTY keyboard. However, the firm seems to be hedging its bets somewhat as in the US the handset will have a hybrid keyboard similar to those found on the pervious Pearl models like the 8220.
One of the advantages of losing the QWERTY layout is that the UK version looks much more like a normal mobile phone than any of the company's previous handsets, even the other models in the Pearl range. The main reason for this is that at just 50mm the Pearl 3G is narrower than many of the other BlackBerry models (although still the same width of the 2G Pearl). The design is quite attractive, too, especially the wave shape used on the keypad, and ergonomically the handset feels very comfortable to hold. Build quality is also good, although the battery cover on our review sample didn't sit flush with the battery behind it and so moved and squeaked a little when you pressed down on it.
As this device is aimed as much at consumers as corporate users it has a row of music buttons across the top plus a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on the right-hand side next to the micro-USB port. The latter is used for both charging the phone and synchronising it with a PC. It would have been better if the headphone jack had been positioned at the top of the phone as in its currently location it tends to snag a bit when you're taking it in and out of your pocket.
Like the Curve 8520, the various side-mounted buttons are now covered with a rubberised membrane to make them more weatherproof and the handset also uses an optical trackpad rather than the older style mini trackball from which the original Pearl models drew their name. Optical trackpads can be a bit hit and miss, but the one used here is superb as it's fantastically accurate and reliable at tracking your finger or thumb as you swipe it across the surface of the pad. This makes it very quick and easy to move through the menus or scroll around web pages. Finer movements can be a little trickier but not enough to annoy.
Of course, the keypad is the biggest difference over previous models and perhaps the most interesting aspect of the phone. As we've already noted, it has a distinctive wavy design that looks quite stylish and helps two-handed typing. The top three rows have the keys positioned on a single strip of plastic, while the fourth row at the bottom is split in three with the '0' button in the centre separated from the Symbol button on the left and the Shift/Return key on the right.
Used in combination with BlackBerry's SureType predictive text engine (which feels a lot like the T9 system used on most other mobiles) the keypad is reasonably fast for tapping out emails and text messages as the keys respond with a satisfying click as your press them and the layout feels natural under your fingers and thumbs. However, it's nowhere near as speedy to use as the keyboard found on the likes of the BlackBerry Bold 9700, so we wouldn't like to use it longer term if we frequently had to bash out longer emails.
Unlike other sites, we thoroughly test each product we review. We use industry standard tests in order to compare things properly. We'll always tell you what we find. We never, ever accept money to review a product. Tell us what you think - send your emails to the Editor.


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Service DAWGS Day coming up Aug. 16
Mississippi State's Service DAWGS organization is designating Aug. 16 as a day to contribute to the Starkville community through various volunteer projects.
Service DAWGS hosts a campus-wide day of service that provides incoming freshmen, returning students, and university faculty and staff the opportunity to make new friends and help the community through a morning of projects. Volunteers get a free Service DAWGS t-shirt.
Breakfast in the Junction will kick off the day at 8:30 a.m., and participants are invited back to campus at the conclusion of their service for a celebratory barbecue lunch. Last year, more than 250 volunteers participated.
Volunteers may pre-register at www.mvc.msstate.edu/events. Individuals or other organizations may also suggest community sites for potential service projects by contacting Elizabeth Du Bois at email@example.com.
Anyone interested may follow the group on Twitter at @ServiceDAWGS11.
Allison Matthews | University Relations


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- Add a Reply All Button to PM window so that with one click you can reply to all people you received a PM from.
- Code can be found at the phpbb forums, received help from the community to get it for my forum and think it would be more useful here. Info at bottom of page 2
- http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=929805&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=15
This will improve the following aspects of the site:
- PM's between multiple players, clan members or tournament players can be handled with one button click instead of looking up individual names.


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Ultramyosyn® WheyChocolate - 5 lb.
When Will I Receive My Order?
100% Ultramyosyn Whey protein powder makes an easy to mix post-workout protein drink that gives your body what it needs to recover.* This great-tasting premium whey protein powder delivers a powerful blend of high quality protein packed with the perfect combination of Branched Chain Amino Acids athletes demand.
Product Highlights:
- Contains all the amino acids required for supporting lean muscle*
- High quality ultra-filtered Whey Protein Concentrate
- Quick absorbing Whey Protein Blend to speed amino acid delivery*
- Instantized Whey Protein for easy mixing
- Perfect pre- or post-workout nutrition