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Statement by Gilbert Fisher,
Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Programs, Policy, Evaluations and Communications,
before the Senate Judiciary Committee
May 10, 1995
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here to discuss the documentation that the Social Security Administration (SSA) uses to establish identity for Social Security program purposes. As the subcommittee has requested, I will discuss the situations that require that SSA establish a person's identity and the process we follow to ensure that people conducting business with us are whom they say they are.
Establishing Identity
The primary reason for which SSA must establish an individual's identity is to issue a new or replacement Social Security card. The Social Security card is the only document that SSA issues. Although the card is not intended to be used for the purpose of establishing an individual's identity, the law requires that an individual applying for a Social Security Number (SSN) provide evidence of age, citizenship or alien status, and identity. The SSN is the means by which we maintain separate records for millions of workers and beneficiaries.
The procedures for issuing SSNs and Social Security cards have changed significantly since the beginning of the program. At the time the Social Security card was devised in the 1930's, its only purpose was to provide a record of the number that had been issued to the individual so that the employer could accurately report earnings for the individual. That is still the primary purpose for which SSA issues the card. It was never intended to serve as a personal identifier--that is, to establish that the person presenting it is actually the person whose name and SSN appear on the card. Although we have made it counterfeit- resistant, it does not contain information that can be compared to the presenter to establish identity.
Over time, the use of the SSN and Social Security card has greatly expanded, and the card is now used for purposes other than Social Security earnings record maintenance and payment of benefits. Society's increasing use of computerized data has led to suggestions to use the SSN and the card as a personal identifier. The card itself, however, is still basically a paper record with a name and number on it although the current card has significant integrity features.
Prior to 1971, all SSNs were issued based solely on information alleged by an individual. Because of the expanding use of the card for other purposes, there was concern about the integrity of the card. Beginning in 1971, certain categories of applicants were required to provide documentary evidence of age, identity, and alien status. This made it more difficult to obtain a card on the basis of a false identity. However, the card was still simply a reminder of the number assigned to the individual named on the card.
Several years later, the integrity of the SSN process was further improved. Since May 15, 1978, all applicants have been required to provide documentary evidence of age, identity, and U.S. citizenship or alien status. Generally, to obtain an original Social Security card, an applicant must submit at least two forms of acceptable evidence, such as a birth certificate and driver's license. Aliens must submit appropriate Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) documents to establish lawful status. Replacement card applicants must submit, at a minimum, evidence of identity.
SSA has begun verifying alien registration documents with INS electronically through INS' Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlement (SAVE) project. This system, now used in about 160 Social Security field offices, allows us to verify INS documents by keying in the alien registration number. This reduces the need for the field office to make judgments as to the validity of an individual's documents. In fiscal year 1994, SSA employees made over 363,000 inquiries through the SAVE system. In about 17 percent, or almost 60,000, of those cases, INS could not verify the authenticity of the document.
Applicants for original Social Security cards who are age 18 or over are required to have a personal interview. During the interview the applicant is asked for prior names and surnames and the reasons for never before needing an SSN. For those who allege having been born in the U.S., SSA obtains additional verification prior to the issuance of an original SSN because most people born in the U.S. have been assigned an SSN by the time they reach age 18. SSA verifies the existence of a birth certificate at the State Bureau of Vital Statistics for all U. S. born applicants for original cards who are at least 18, and initiates a search for a death certificate when there is reason to believe the applicant may be assuming a false identity. We also require these applicants to submit evidence to support explanations about why they never needed an SSN previously.
Enumeration At Birth Initiative
The Enumeration at Birth (EAB) program was established in 1989 as another means of improving the SSN process. It is a valuable tool in preventing fraudulent acquisition of an SSN. This program allows parents in the 49 participating St ates to indicat e on the birth certificate information form whether they want an SSN issued to their newborn child. States provide SSA with birth record information about newborns whose parents want a Social Security card for their child, and SSA then assigns an SSN and issues a card. Approximately one-half of the original Social Security cards issued in fiscal year 1994 were processed through EAB.
This process greatly reduces the potential for someone to use another person's birth certificate to obtain a Social Security card. For example, individuals who present the birth certificate of a child enumerated under EAB would not be issued an SSN, since our records would indicate that an SSN had already been issued to the child named on the birth certificate. As EAB expands, there will be fewer children without SSNs whose birth certificates could be used to obtain SSNs for another person.
Federal income tax law requires that persons claimed as dependents for Federal tax deduction purposes have an SSN . This has created a strong incentive for individuals to obtain an SSN for their children.
Reporting Postentitlement Events
We must also verify an individual's identity when he or she contacts us in person or by telephone to report an event that may affect payment of benefits. For example, a person may need to discuss the status of a claim for benefits, report a change in circumstances that affects a benefit, or report an address change. Although authorized disclosures of information are usually in writing, we disclose information over the telephone if measures are taken to ensure that the requestor is authorized to obtain the information.
Since we encourage i ndividuals to handle their business with us by telephone whenever practicable, we have worked especially hard to strengthen our procedures for verifying a caller's identity. Before disclosing any information, we must be certain of the identity of the caller and that disclosure of the requested information is permitted if the caller is someone other than the person who is the subject of the record. We are keenly aware that the potential to disclose information, including acknowledgement that a person is a Social Security beneficiary, may exist at any time during a call that involves an individual's Social Security record.
We interview callers to determine who they are, e. g. the individual of record, parent of a minor child, authorized representative, and to obtain identifying information, which is then checked against information in SSA's online databases. If the caller's identity cannot be verified, we advise the caller that we can send the requested information to the address in our records of the subject of the information or the subject's guardian or representative, or that the caller can submit the request in writing, whichever is appropriate.
SSA's Role in SSN and Benefit Verification
It is important to keep in mind that the process of confirming a person's identity and the limitations of the Social Security card for that purpose are quite separate from the issue of SSN verification. By SSN verification, we mean the process by which SSA determines whether a name and SSN match SSA's records, that is, whether SSA issued a given SSN to a given person. This process cannot determine whether the person presenting the name and SSN is, in fact, the person to whom the SSN was issued.
SSA has always had the capability to verify SSNs, which is an important function in ensuring accurate wage reporting and, ultimately, accurate benefit payments. Employers may immediately verify SSNs for payroll purposes by calling our 800-number or local office. Relatively few employers call, however, because they tend not to question the name and SSN provided by an employee.
With the expansion of the SSN's use over the years, especially as a result of widespread dependence on computers, SSA began to experience more and more requests for SSN verification for purposes other than the Social Security program. Many of these requests were from government agencies for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy of information collected for other Federal and State benefit programs, and automated data exchange systems were developed to comply with these requests.
On the other hand, SSA does not verify SSNs for the private sector for purposes other than employer wage reporting. The law and our disclosure policy are designed to protect individual privacy--a fundamental and widespread concern--and the confidentiality of the SSN because of the potential for its use as a means of unauthorized access to personal records.
The system that was developed to verify SSNs and benefit eligibility for States is available to employers to verify SSNs. The Enumeration Verification System (EVS) verifies SSNs based on data such as name and date of birth.
Although EVS is used primarily by States, employers may also use EVS to verify SSNs for wage reporting. However, because EVS consists of a high-volume process, under which the requests are transmitted to SSA by mail on magnetic tape and the results returned to the requestors in about 4 weeks, this system does not allow for immediate SSN verification.
Cross Referencing Birth and Death Records
The effectiveness of any verification system is heavily dependent not only on the authenticity of the evidentiary documents which are submitted, but also the evidence on which the documents are based. One obvious method of fraud to which a verification system may be susceptible is the use of a deceased person's records, including his or her birth certificate, to establish a false identity.
One way of minimizing this type of fraud is to coordinate birth and death records so that a copy of a birth certificate is not issued for someone who has died. Since birth and death records are maintained by States, this would require a system whereby each State is provided with death information from all other States so that birth records could be appropriately annotated. The most efficient process for doing so would be through a centralized source of death information.
SSA currently maintains death records (referred to as the Death Master File (DMF)) based on reports of deaths from various sources. The file contains an individual's Social Security number, name, dates of birth and death, State or country of residence, and a code indicating the source of the death report. The most common sources of death reports to SSA are family members, funeral directors, postal authorities, financial institutions, and State vital statistics agencies.
Although it would be possible for SSA to function as a central source of death information, and to share that information with States so that they could annotate their birth records, it would be just as easy for States to form a consortium for that purpose. SSA would need additional resources to perform those tasks. The effectiveness of such a system would depend, of course, on the full participation of all 50 States, each of whom would have to agree to use the data provided and put in place safeguards which would control the reissuance of a dead person's birth certificate.
Although feasible, a number of issues would have to be addressed in order for SSA to function as a clearinghouse for death information:
- Funding for SSA's administrative expenses would have to come from a source other than the Social Security trust funds, since this function would not be program-related.
- SSA's authority to provide death information obtained from a State source to other States is restricted by Federal law and the contracts with the States by which SSA obtains the information.
- Although the DMF is for the most part accurate, many death reports on the DMF are not verified. SSA does not verify reports of nonbeneficiary deaths. Reports of beneficiary deaths received from family members, funeral directors, or postal authorities, which account for 95 percent of our death records, are not verified because they are considered to be both timely and accurate. General Accounting Office studies show that reports from family members and funeral homes have a less than 1 percent error rate and are usually received in SSA within 7 days of the death.
However, beneficiary death reports from SSA's matching operation, such as State vital statistics bureaus, the Health Care Financing Administration, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, are verified before we take an action which would adversely affect an individual. These reports are considered to be third party reports and are considered to be less accurate since there is a margin for error when data changes hands and is retransmitted. Matched sources account for approximately 5 percent of our death records.
- Although cross-referencing birth and death records would deter individuals from using deceased persons' birth certificates, this solution is largely prospective and longterm. Cross-referencing birth and death records retrospectively would be virtually impossible, since most birth and death certificates issued before the mid-1980s do not carry the SSN. The DMF has a death record for only about 52 million of the approximately 100 million SSNs issued to persons who are now deceased. Thus, providing SSA's death records to States would not preclude someone from fraudulently obtaining a birth certificate for one of the nearly 50 million deceased persons whose death has not been reported to SSA.
SSA's evidentiary policy represents a balancing of the need to verify allegations with the desire to minimize the burden placed on the person who must provide documentary evidence to support the allegation . Although we continually look for ways to identify and discourage fraudulent documents, we believe that our current policies strike an appropriate balance that maintains the integrity of our programs, while providing efficient public service.
I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.


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Once your application for insurance is received by the insurance company, they decide if the applicant or the property is eligible for coverage. All insurance companies use guidelines to determine eligibility. When the underwriting process is complete the company determines the final premium.
The company may review some or all of the following items, depending on the type of policy:
Auto Insurance
The company reviews the type of vehicle, the age of the vehicle, the age of the drivers, the experience of the drivers, the violations received by all drivers, the number of accidents for all drivers, where the vehicle is kept, how the vehicle is used, and how many miles are driven each year.
Homeowner's Insurance
The company reviews the construction of the home (frame, brick, etc.), the year the home was built, the age, type, and construction of the roof, where the home is located, how the home is used, the square footage, whether the home has items that qualify for hurricane mitigation credits, prior claims history, and the existence of prior insurance.
Life Insurance
The company may review your health history, your age, and your occupation to determine eligibility. The company may elect to cover you but exclude benefits if you die from certain illnesses (called riders or exclusions).
Health Insurance
There are instances where an insurance company must issue a health insurance policy regardless of the factors listed here. However, there are also instances where the company will base their decision to cover you on the following: Your age, your health history, and your occupation. They will normally ask for proof of any previous health insurance as well which may satisfy any pre-existing condition exclusion in the policy. The company may elect to cover you but exclude benefits for certain illnesses (called riders or exclusions).

subset: commoncrawl


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NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass. -- The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth men's lacrosse team used a stifling defensive attack, limiting the visiting Mustangs of Mount Ida College to just two goals en route to an 11-2 victory this afternoon at Cressy Field. The Corsairs remain unbeaten on the season at 3-0, while the Mustangs evened their record at 2-2.
UMass Dartmouth held Mount Ida to 22 shots--four total in the first half--this afternoon, compared to unleashing 47 attempts on the Mustangs' cage. The hosts enjoyed a 41-21 advantage in ground balls, while forcing 27 turnovers. The Corsairs featured a strong ride, limiting their visitors to 15-of-26 clearing attempts. Sophomore Dan Brown (Beverly, Mass.) led the UMass Dartmouth defense with five ground balls and three caused turnovers. He was also 6-for-10 at the X. Senior captain Steven Tarpey (Shrewsbury, Mass.) also made an impact on the defensive end, scooping up four ground balls.
Senior Nick Thayer (Chelmsford, Mass.) made seven saves in 45 minutes of action to earn his third win of the campaign. Freshman Matt LaFond (Bridgewater, Mass.) and classmate Scott Spangenberg (Dover, Mass.) made their collegiate debuts in the final frame. LaFond stopped two attempts in 10 minutes, 55 seconds, while Spangenberg recorded one save over the final four minutes, five seconds.
Sophomore Tyler Chasnov (Plymouth, Mass.) was the offensive catalyst for the Corsairs with a season-high six points, including four assists. Classmate Bo Prozinski (Ashland, Mass.) accounted for four markers, while senior Adam Niden (Walpole, Mass.) tallied a goal and a helper. Senior Jordan MacPherson (Westwood, Mass.), junior Riley Baxter (Groton, Mass.), classmate Dennis Healy (Hanover, Mass.), and sophomore Steve Merrick (Methuen, Mass.) each cracked the scoring column for the hosts.
UMass Dartmouth registered all the offensive production it would need in the first quarter, as the Corsairs raced out to a 4-0 advantage. Baxter put the hosts on the board just one minute, 16 seconds into the contest, while Healy netted an extra-man goal 15 seconds later. Prozinski completed the scoring in the first frame with two markers from Chasnov in the span of 39 seconds to give UMass Dartmouth a lead it would not relinquish.
The Corsairs dictated the pace in the second stanza, but were only able to extend their advantage to 6-0. MacPherson recorded his only marker of the contest at the eight-minute, 28-second mark, while Chasnov followed suit 45 seconds later. UMass Dartmouth held a decisive 29-4 advantage in shots at the halftime intermission.
UMass Dartmouth sealed the non-conference win with four unanswered goals in the third period to stretch its lead to 10-0. Prozinski produced a pair of markers, while Chasnov and Niden found the back of the net. Mount Ida was finally able to solve Thayer with one minute, 39 seconds left in the period, when senior JJ Hoyt (Westfield, Mass.) registered a man-up goal.
The Mustangs also capitalized on an extra-man situation early in the fourth as senior Zach Rosen (East Greenwich, R.I.) converted off a feed from junior Sean Royce (South Windsor, Conn.). Merrick completed the UMass Dartmouth scoring with his first goal of the season, finishing a pass from Chasnov.
In between the pipes, senior Kyle Cordaro (Worcester, Mass.) was credited with 20 saves, including 10 stops in the first quarter.
UMass Dartmouth will return to action at 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 15, when the Corsairs travel to Nichols College.


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It's official. Anyone else not care?
By the time they get to ANH, Greedo probably won't even be packing.
A couple of articles said there wouldn't be any tweaking to the movies. Just a conversion to 3D. I hope that isn't true. Since so much of the prequels was filmed with the actors in front of a green screen, couldn't ILM completely redo a lot of the CGI. Perhaps even film it in true 3D and HD like Avatar? I think AOTC lends itself the most to this treatment. The arena scene, in my opinion only, is probably the weakest looking "set" in all 6 movies.
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Separatism: conflict amongst the ranks
We recently celebrated Pride here in San Diego, PrideFest, aka HomoFest. I went to the parade and stood with 150,000 others, cheering for our freedoms (and demanding even more), our hard-won self-esteem and for the sheer joy of hanging out with friends. When I marched with the kids in 1990, the parade was all of forty-five minutes long. This one went on for a couple of hours.
Sarah and I had broken up for awhile in 1988. I was a crazed mess, so went into therapy and immersed myself into the lesbian community here in San Diego. I went to several lesbian support groups, but the one on Thursday nights turned out to be the most interesting of them all.
Those weekly meetings at the (then) Gay & Lesbian Center, took me from the myopic, white, heterosexual, middle class mindset and introduced me to… nay, challenged me… to see from various vantage points and acknowledge that I was really just a self-centered, ego-driven, hypnotized woman who thought she knew what was going on in the world. I sat, spellbound, listening to women talk about oppressions I never knew existed. I grew up in the Deep South, so had an inkling of racial oppression, but sitting face to face with women of color was stunning. I endured finger pointing, enumerating the ways I, too, was oppressing women of color… saying things like "I don't see color; I see people," and not knowing the PC (politically correct) terms for the nuanced cultures of the women right around me.
I learned about other marginalized cultures ("marginalized" was a word I heard many times in those days)… the bdsm (bondage/discipline/sadism/masochism) folks, the butch (more "masculine" energied) dykes, teens coming out, lesbian mothers (my people! …who were few and far between back then), migrant lesbians, etc. and the subcultures of each of the marginalized people. Those nights at Group opened my eyes to worlds I'd never imagined. It was there I realized that every topic, every person had their own subtext within them. And those subtexts were never-ending. None of that even begins to examine the "isms" of the day, including classism and sizeism (another group I embodied).
It's like this in birth, too, isn't it? Under the umbrella of human procreation, there exist an infinite number of choices women can make (or are forced to endure). Depending on where you live and even the political atmosphere of the day, the choices are rounded up like a huge net grabbing fish in the ocean. Whoever does the throwing can alter the birth's path and outcome. Birth in the hospital? At home? With a midwife? Alone? Or, if we live in a Third World Country, does the mother feel safer with her family or the local Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA)? Do we risk losing our safe hiding place to transfer to the hospital because of a hemorrhage? (And, please know, this is an area I do not have much information about… the different choices women have in other, less mechanized, cultures. I welcome the education.)
And then we move down the flow chart, each choice above having an infinite number of options, or, if not options, an outcome that is different for every single woman… maybe not in the live baby/live mother, live baby/dead mother, dead baby/live mother or dead baby/dead mother, but each woman carries her own experience, some in the body, others in the heart and some even deep in their souls.
At the Festival, I ran into a couple of women from those long-ago rap groups and the flood of memories prompted me to write this. The analogy was so striking, the things that are going on in birth; I just couldn't ignore the beckoning sirens. I hope I don't crash amongst the rocks.
When Sarah (who was in the Army) and I were in Germany, we'd found an underground group of gay men and women (Friends of Dorothy) and one of those women called herself a Separatist. Not having the Internet, I learned through context what that meant.
Kathy Belge describes Separatism like this:
"Lesbian separatism is the feminist political act of choosing to be around only lesbians or only women. In the early years of the Feminist Movement, some lesbians chose to avoid interacting with men as a way to remove themselves from male-dominated society. Their belief was that even well-meaning men were sexist and influenced by the patriarchy. They chose to be around only women in order to understand what womanhood and sisterhood is really all about. Some women moved to the country, bought land and created women-only societies. Avoiding all men was impossible, but they chose to have all of their significant relationships with women. The idea was that women could never truly understand themselves as powerful beings if they were immersed in the dominant, sexist culture. From lesbian separatism the idea of women-only space came into being at concerts, conferences and festivals."
This particular woman we met in Germany was so much of a Separatist, she gave her son to his father because she couldn't abide by having a penis in the house.
Historically, it's important to note the connection between the Black Separatist movements of the sixties, acting as models for the women who came after in the seventies. Other societies have also chosen to remove themselves from the mainstream, too; the Amish and the Shakers, for instance.
Any of us who've been in the birth world for any length of time have watched the same happen. Doctor? Obstetrician? Doctor of Osteopathy? Family Practice MD? Registered Nurse? RN with or without a BSN? Certified Nurse Midwife? Certified Midwife? Licensed Midwife? Certified Professional Midwife? Unlicensed/Direct-Entry Midwife? Religious Midwife? Overseeing organizations are created, a board elected, rules written (and continuously debated); exclusivity is a hallmark of any patriarchally-oriented organization.
Again, under each of the above monikers, factions develop, pulling together and, at the same time, pulling apart, oftentimes creating a whole new category.
In the late 1970's, the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival was born. Note the spelling of "womyn" (alternately spelled "wimmin") – any derivative of the word "men" in it was changed to a different, "womon"-centered word. (We find this same mindset in birth with the renaming of the vagina to yoni or contractions to surges.) While I didn't come out until late 1986, the Music Festival, and many others like it were still going strong, this one in particular continuing today.
If you poke around, Googling MWMF, you'll see an on-going discussion, years long, about whether to allow transgender folks to attend. Lisa Vogel, one of the founders of the yearly event says:
"Since 1976, the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival has been created by and for womyn-born womyn, that is, womyn who were born as and have lived their entire life experience as womyn. Despite claims to the contrary by Camp Trans organizers, the Festival remains a rare and precious space intended for womyn-born womyn."
Interestingly, this wasn't a concern back in the mid-late 80's. Instead, then, it was the battle between allowing male children to attend or not. Some didn't want any males there… no penises at all. Others were okay with nurslings and there were women who said kids under five. They picked five years old because they were still heavily influenced by their mothers, but after that they were in school and being influenced by the patriarchy. I see now, they've got two delineations: five and ten. They are segregated, but still permitted to attend. Why the five to ten-year olds? They were in school, but before puberty hit, when they would be considered real men.
To some of us, this might sound absurd. People are people! How are men supposed to change without women around to show them the way? My eleven-year/fourteen-year/seventeen-year old son is not a man yet. But, I promise, to these women, Separatism was a grave and intensely crucial topic that required an opinion, one way or the other; black or white – choose or you were dismissed (physically and emotionally). Gray simply did not exist. Whole groups (and clubs) revolved around defining the word "Separatism" and who "qualified" as a real Separatist. In a fantastic article in the New Yorker, Ariel Levy says:
"Different groups had different definitions of separatism, ranging from a refusal to associate with men to a refusal to associate with straight women to a refusal to associate with gay women who weren't separatists."
The most idealistic/dogmatic womyn transformed their lives into a world where they rarely, if ever, had any contact with men. Some moved to womyn-owned land, allowing only womyn to live or visit there, excluding even male-born children; meaning mothers were required to divorce themselves from their sons.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Looking around, can we see parallels in the birth community? Groups form and morph depending on the cause célèbre. Should fathers be present at births? (Interestingly, while this was a big issue in the seventies and eighties, it's come around again with Dr. Michel Odent's belief that men should not be at births after all.) Which childbirth classes should women take? Bradley? Lamaze? None? Of course, the gulf widens as we add in Natural Birth, Normal Birth, Cesarean Birth and Unassisted Births.
We also see this in the politics of birth even as I speak. Whether it is women who schedule a cesarean, get an early epidural or have an Unassisted (child)Birth (UC), proponents and detractors tend to be rabid about their choices. It's very hard to find some gray. Sometimes I wonder if it even exists.
John MacAdams of the Marquette Warrior, says "It's a chronic problem in the rarefied world of political correctness -- and that world has spread out of academia into the mainstream media. Members of designated victim groups are allowed to be offended at the barest slight, but feel perfectly free to express rank bigotry toward those who disagree with them, or even merely adopt a different lifestyle."
We see any discussion deteriorate, almost as they begin, into accusations, hurt feelings and an absolute insistence on the rightness of the speaker. Isn't there something, anything, we have in common? How do we find it amongst the sludge we all seem to be slogging in?
Occasionally, the thought rises to the top, "What is this doing to benefit women?" On-lookers turn their heads back and forth as if they were at a tennis match; but where's the ball? Is all this in-fighting hurting our causes (if you will)? Or is this the normal push and pull of a larger entity, clamoring to break off and live on its own.
The latter stages of (the larger) Separatism movement found the lesbians raging against the heterosexual women, each "side" having ghastly epithets to heave at each other. "Breeder" came from that time.
Jill Johnston says, in "Lesbian Nation,": (emphasis mine)
"Women wanted to remove their support from men, the 'enemy' in a movement for reform, power, and self-determination. A revolutionary prototype existed in their midst. But the prejudice against women within the ranks of women, much less loving women at the intimate level, was so great (still is, of course) that feminists could only act against their own best interests and trash the women who modeled their beliefs. The split between straight feminists and lesbian feminists was extremely damaging, and will no doubt continue to be in any future wave, to the cause of women's liberation. The internal damage within the lesbian feminist ranks was also lethal."
I worry the same thing will happen in birth. Will the in-fighting be so intense we will only appeal to the most radical of those interested? Will women who are simply curious be so disgusted with our polarized beliefs, they couldn't care less if we had the answer to the riddles of the Universe because it's impossible to hear over the roar of anger?
In those rap group days, I worked on the San Diego Lesbian Press, the local magazine/newspaper, obviously geared towards dykes who live here in San Diego. Working on SDLP was my first experience 1. working with only women and 2. using consensus to problem solve. Working with women is a whole blog post on its own. (Sarah should write it; she has extremely strong feelings about it.) But, can I tell you now how much I HATE consensus?! I mean, seriously. Could there be anything more time-consuming and more manipulative than trying to come to a consensus? Blech. I will no longer participate in groups that use consensus as their method for problem solving. (And I know others love consensus, think it's the only way to come to "fair" answers, but that is not the way I see it. At. All.)
I was ignorant then, a joiner and a newly self-discovered writer, so I became a part of the SDLP Collective.
The defining moment came when there was a discussion about accepting an ad from a company owned by a man. There wouldn't be any man in the ad, no penis would subliminally peek through, but this discussion turned into a humongous, weeks-long "discussion" (and I use the term loosely). You see, SDLP needed money something fierce; could they/we afford to turn away money… even though it did come from a man? The separatist side vociferously refused to even consider accepting money from The Enemy; the ad was absolutely not to be in the paper. Just as emphatically, less rigid, though still feminist, women could see the benefit of taking the money. Wouldn't it be using a man's money for a good cause? Wouldn't we be bettering our women's lives by being able to put out a paper? (Something we very likely would not be able to do otherwise.) When using consensus, everyone has to agree, no dissenters at all. I remember occasionally making a comment, but it was obvious I was a neophyte and no one cared what I said. I was probably asking basic questions like, "What are we fighting about again? I can't even remember anymore!"
I ended up leaving the SDLP to fight themselves to death; and they did, too. SDLP died shortly thereafter. I snarkily say dogma killed them.
Is this our fate as well? Are the two extremes going to kill themselves off, leaving nothing but the center?
Thinking about myself personally, I participate in this Us vs. Them as much as the next gal… maybe more sometimes. I've been implored to keep my mouth shut about certain issues, to try and make peace with all the birth sisters around me, no matter how much I disagree. But, you see, I wasn't mature enough to ask the right questions back in early 1990. However, today, with many years of birth work under my belt, I feel qualified to defend my position and to speak, if not somewhat eloquently, at least pretty darn clearly about what I see and why. I'm an old crone of a midwife now (even though my midwife years are nothing compared to many of my peers), sharing the stories of those around me. Most are gloriously beautiful, wondrous births. But, too many of the stories aren't fabulously perfect births; they have ended in tragedy and pain. I tell those stories, too. If it angers some women, then so be it. Their stories piss me off, too, so I guess, in some alternate-universe way, we're even.
When I stand back and see the parallels between the two Separatist movements, I know they are but two of a billion other arguments/discussions/opinions going on simultaneously. From husband vs. wife, Catholic vs. Protestant and the United States vs. everyone else to Wall Street vs. stockholders, Unions vs. employers and organic vs. commercially grown food… thinking there are just two sides is absurd. The same way couples go to therapy, employers go to mediation and we get to choose our food by which ones we buy, there have to be other ways of bridging the gaps we have in birth besides blowing each other up with bombs.
I think about the song "From a Distance" that Bette Midler sings.
"From a distance you look like my friend,
even though we are at war.
From a distance I just cannot comprehend
what all this fighting is for.
From a distance there is harmony,
and it echoes through the land.
And it's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves,
it's the heart of every man."
I promise to remind myself, in the heat of those moments when I am standing toe to toe with another woman, that even as I speak my mind and tell my stories, I will remember she is a sister, she does have valuable things to say and I will keep an open heart and mind to what she is saying. I would only wish the same from her.
Me (and my big butt) marching in the LGBT Parade in the early 90's. Look! Polarized views even about marching with kids!


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Indicative Rate * AU$30 to AU$38
The Noosa North Shore Beach Campground is a great destination for families, retirees and fishermen, being close to Noosa but with a wilderness feel.
Revel in the abundance of natural flora and fauna in an untouched natural bushland setting at the sprawling Noosa North Shore Beachfront Campground situated on the picturesque Teewah Beach. The kids will love the short vehicle ferry trip over the Noosa River before you get to the Campground adding to the holiday adventure.
The site is a popular location for travellers with a love of camping, fishing, surfing, bushwalking, beach walking or four wheel driving which is accessible from the "third cutting" beach access a few hundred metres north of the Campground, providing a spectacular drive up the beach which stretches from Noosa up to Double Island Point, and across to Fraser Island.
Whilst the park offers a wilderness feel, it is close enough to jump back onto the vehicle ferry to the vibrant town of Noosa, home to fabulous shops, restaurants, cafes and Noosa's famous main beach.
Note: They are not on Town Water, so please make arrangements for your own drinking water supply, the bore-water supply is only used for the toilets.
There is eight powered sites at the campground, four in a location with trees and the other four in an open area. None of these powered site are far from the amenities building.
Unpowered sites are located throughout open space areas within the campground and guests are welcome to choose their site on arrival. Sites are located within easy walking distance to the amenities and office/kiosk. Bookings are not site specific.
Note: Information on listed products and services are provided by the operator and were correct at the time of publishing. Rates are indicative based on the minimum and maximum available prices of products and services. Please visit the operator's website for further information. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars (AUD).


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it's hard to dance with the devil on your back
Working with windfall apples requires a particular kind of attention. At the risk of sounding like a Christopher Kimball essay, you never quite know what you're going to get from looking at the outside of the fruit. I mean, you can spot the rotten ones pretty easily--but then sometimes you can have one that looks completely miserable, but once you peel it and cut out a couple of bruises, it's all sound fruit. And then there's another one that looks rosy and perfect--not even a bruise--and even seems fine once you peel it, but as soon as you cut more than skin deep, you realize it's riddled with wormholes.
Anyway, as you've probably guessed, there's a hundred-something-year-old Macintosh tree on the property line between us and the neighbors, and its been dropping apples slightly smaller than tennis balls all over the back yard. I properly earned my thrifty Yankee card today, because after my morning run not only did I go out and clean up a bunch of apples, but I picked out the decent ones, took them inside, and turned them into an apple crisp that is now cooling on the kitchen counter.
I also pulled all the picked-over chicken carcases out of the deep freezer and boiled up a batch of stock, part of which will be chicken soup for dinner tonight and the rest of which will go back into the freezer in quart containers for future soup, gravy, and the like.
(Dogs think chicken soup day is the BEST DAY. Especially since he gets all the kind of squidgy bits when I pick the bones over.)
I feel like I earned my apple crisp tonight.
I've got a new running route--or actually, two new routes with a common root, as it were. A fellow runner tipped me off to a pedestrian-friendly back way to the neighboring town, which is not the terrifying corrida de toros the state highway entails for foot traffic. It's gorgeous! Tree lines lanes through farms and orchards, and on the way out the hill is gentle and easy. (On the way back, you do it all at once, so it's brutal--but then it's over with, and you have that long gentle hill to run back down for dessert.) So I can run out, loop around the neighboring town's common, run back, loop our common, and get 10K. Or I can run over, run around their lake, run back, and get 11 miles.
And it's pretty and I like it a lot. Ahem.
Anyway, when I got home, I happened to notice that the dill from our farm share had a hitchhiker:
Isn't it lovely? It's a black swallowtail caterpillar (Papilio polyxenes) (my favorite local butterfly), and though you can't see the osmeterium in these photos, it poked it out at me when I harassed it to make sure it was alive.
Well, reader, I am kind of a sucker. Because it turns out that these caterpillars feed on plants in the carrot family (thus its home on the dill: they also like fennel, carrots, parsley, Queen Anne's lace, and such like).
None of which we currently have in the yard.
So I carted the little dude down to the local park and found it some Queen Anne's lace to hang out on:
My good deed for the day.


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An effective and easy-to-use driver updater
PmWiki is a wiki-based system for collaborative creation and maintenance of websites. PmWiki pages look and act like normal web pages, except they have an "Edit" link that makes it easy to modify existing pages and add new pages into the website, using b
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Bookregator is a C# application written to aggregate data using Amazon's Advertising API, WorldCat, and GoodReads.
While surfing the Internet web sites your browser saves bits of information about your experience on the site (known as HTTP cookies, internet cookies, web cookies or simply cookies). They are your search history, some preferences, logins, passwords. Info


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Finally, a book for parents of the deployed…We Also Serve: A Family Goes To War chronicles the impact of the two most controversial wars of our time on a mother, her marriage, and her family. In 2004, Nanette Sagastume's son is sent to Fallujah, Iraq with the same battalion, company and platoon that his father served with in Vietnam. To a degree not possible in previous global conflicts, advanced technology virtually plunges Nanette and her family into real time war, where the double-edged sword of instant information can bring both agony and relief. When a suicide bomber attacks the platoon, the family suffers through the experience with painful memories, faith and, courage.
Nanette SagastumeNanette Sagastume is the wife of a Vietnam War U.S. Marine and the mother of an Iraqi Freedom Marine. In 2001, she founded a local support group for military families. Since retiring as a nurse practitioner, Nanette has maintained a practice as a Healing Touch Certified Practitioner. She lives in Chico, CA with her husband, Mario. They have four grown children and an expanding number of grandchildren.


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BETHLEHEM, Pa.—Senior Keri Wilson (Columbia, Md./Long Reach) and sophomore Brandan McGee (Hiram, Ohio/Crestwood) led the UMBC cross country teams at the 38th annual Paul Short Run Friday morning. The Retriever women finished 23rd (of 44 teams) with a score of 619, while the men finished 40th (of 45) with a score of 1,085.
Wilson led the Retriever women across the line, placing 27th overall in 22:53, while freshman Mary Katherine Kulp (Vestal, N.Y.) again followed Wilson with a time of 24:06. Freshman Julie Gessler (Ellicott City, Md./Institute of Notre Dame) and sophomores Cody Mezebish (Westminster, Md./South Carroll) and Kristen McGovern (Sykesville, Md./Century) rounded out the scoring five.
The top five Retriever men were separated by a total of just 21 seconds, led by McGee, who placed 197th in a time of 26:17, while senior Sam Boimov (Montgomery Village, Md./Gaithersburg/Salisbury) followed in 26:24. Sophomore Nic Escobar (Derwood, Md./Magruder), junior TJ Cowing (Severna Park, Md./Severna Park) and freshman Eric Schuler (Columbia, Md.) rounded out the scoring five.
The Retrievers return to action at the Princeton Invitational on Oct. 15.


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Notetaker OrientationPage address: http://www.mnsu.edu/access/notetaker/
Accessibility Resources Notetaker Orientation
Thank you for agreeing to be a notetaker for a student registered with Accessibility Resources. Your service is greatly appreciated by both the student receiving the notes as well as Accessibility Resources.
Accessibility Resources coordinates a notetaker program for qualified students who have requested and been approved for this support service (i.e. students with hearing loss, learning disabilities, attention disorders, physical limitations, etc.) The notetaking program is designed to ensure that students have equal access and are not at an academic disadvantage. Notetaking services also meet the requirements of both federal law and the Minnesota State University Mankato policy for qualified students.
Serving as a notetaker for a student can be a great opportunity for you to gain volunteer experience for an academic program or major and to add to your resume. As a notetaker you may choose to receive a letter of Recognition for Volunteer Service, a one-time payment of $50, or both the letter and the payment.
To be a notetaker you must be enrolled in the class for which the request for a notetaker was placed. You also must have received the Class Announcement from the Professor and complete the necessary notetaker paperwork and training at Accessibility Resources.
This is a three step process:
- Read the training material
- Take the online quiz
- Upon successful completion of the quiz, print out the Certificate of Completion and bring it to Accessibility Resources in the lower level of the Memorial Library room 132.


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On the brook side behind the Bankfield Hotel and Bankfield Terrace, there stood, for about a hundred years, a Bone Mill. This mill was erected about the end of the 18th century, by Mr. Randal Hibbert; it had a picturesque appearance, which was enhanced by the lake-like reservoir behind it; and at one time it was a very busy place. It was demolished circa 1903.
Randal Hibbert built Boston Mills, and it was at these mills that the Ashton's first began cotton spinning.
Modern map showing the location of the Bone Mill.


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The Republican-manufactured budget crisis of this past summer — remember? — resulted in a "solution" that's hijacking what little representative democratic process we have left. Equally sad is that the so-called supercommittee — charged with creating an outline for reducing the deficit by $1.2 trillion over 10 years — may preclude full discussion of the farm bill.
It's the farm bill that largely shapes food and agriculture policy, and — though much of it finances good programs — ultimately supports the cynical, profit-at-any-cost food system that drives obesity, astronomical health care costs, ethanol-driven agriculture and more, creating further deficits while punishing the environment.
The farm bill is written every five years. Although the current one doesn't expire until September, the next one may be all but wrapped up by your first bite of turkey, because the leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees — a group of four, representing Oklahoma, Michigan, Minnesota and Kansas (do you see a pattern here?) — are working feverishly to draw up a proposal in time to submit it to the supercommittee before the Nov. 23 deadline.
Read the rest of this column here.


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Suzuki Baleno Specs
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text:
Feb. 28, 2005
After three days of competition, the Yale men's swiming and diving team finished in 10th place out of 20 teams at the ECAC Championships which were held at the University of Pittsburgh. Yale finished third out of the four Ivy teams that competed in the meet; Harvard was 3rd overall, Columbia 8th overall and Penn finished 13th overall.
The Bulldogs finished 11th after the first day of competition, but followed with two strong days of swimming to move up a spot and finish 10th in the final standings after Saturday and Sunday's events.
Yale was led by a number of top ten individual finishes on Sunday that kept the Bulldogs in the top ten overall. Jack Hutchinson finished 6th in the day's first event, the 1650 Freestyle. Chris Dufek took 5th in the next event, the 200 Backstroke. Colin Stalnecker was Yale's remaining top ten finisher, as he took 4th in the 200 Breaststroke.
Yale's next post-season meet is next weekend at the EISL Championships, to be held Friday through Sunday at Harvard.


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There are no identifying notations on this beautiful wedding portrait. I can tell you, however, that it was found in a collection of photographs belonging to Julia Lotten of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Julia Lotten, according to A centennial history of the Manitowoc County school districts and its public school system, 1848-1948 by Joseph J. Rappell, was a teacher at Quarry School in Rockland Jt. 4, Manitowoc County sometime prior to 1907.
This photograph was taken at the Glander Studio in Manitowoc. Judging by the type of wedding dress, I'd date this sometime in the late-1910s or 1920s.
Glander Studios was operated by John A. Glander (1887-1953). Glander began his career as a photographer in 1902 when he began to apprentice with A.J. Packard in Manitowoc. He worked there for six years and then in 1908 opened his own studio at 904 Washington Street. A year later he moved down the block to 918 Washington Street. In 1925 a son, Henry J. Glander, began to work at the studio and took over the business after his father died.
Wouldn't it be great if someone recognized the bride & groom?
February 23, 2012 Update: I am happy to report that this photograph, though still unidentified, has been claimed by a descendant of Julia Lotten, along with 13 other photographs from the Lotten collection.


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DAYTONA, Fla. - The Georgia College & State University cheerleading team was not one of the five teams to make it past the preliminary round of the Division II National Championships today (April 10). This brings a close to another successful cheer season, one that saw the Bobcats take runner-up honors at the Peach Belt Conference Championships.
The GCSU Department of Athletics sponsors 10 NCAA Division II athletic programs over three seasons. As a Division II program, GCSU prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete, evidenced by the Bobcats' multiple appearances in post-season competition as well as documented academic success and community-service involvement. Follow the Bobcats and their positive impact on the Milledgeville community at www.gcsu.edu/bobcats.


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text:
evryone was emailed by post:
our group-
Daddy Nose Best crippled me
heavy on place/show
fighting the crowd at HollyPark is grusome no more
what a slum
Thanks for doing this and sending the e-mail before the race. I am in if you decide to do this again.
thx-I have to recover-Daddy stuck it to Daddy
Gomez is through-horrible ride
talk in morn-Gonna soak my sorrows
1st time in history 19th post-and green jock to boot-goodnite
Was one of my picks. Pissed I missed the tri. but at least had the ex. Posted in DJ,s thread.
1st. Bode $42nd. Went the day well $23rd. I'll have another $24th. Alpha $2
Big A hit it and that makes two years strait. Tri would have paid huge if Went the day gets up.


text:
Columbia Law School has been "internationalizing" American legal education since its founding prior to the Civil War. Long before global markets and instant worldwide communications required practicing attorneys to address laws outside the United Sates, Columbia faculty and students were developing the precepts and principles of public international law, international economic law, and comparative law.
Columbia's initial forays into international law were launched in the mid-1800s through such luminaries as Francis Lieber, and continued into the 20th century with the efforts of Philip C. Jessup, Wolfgang Friedman, Telford Taylor, and Oscar Schachter, among others. Over the past 10 years, Columbia's already rich programs in international and comparative law have expanded dramatically, ensuring that the Law School remains at the forefront of these significant areas of study.
Today, Columbia is home to a new generation of international law professors conducting cutting-edge research, and infusing the curriculum with new and innovative scholarship and teaching.
As part of the School's international focus, we have developed innovative double-degree and semester study-abroad programs with partner institutions around the globe. At the same time, the number of international internships has increased significantly while new technologies help bring the world around us into the classroom with innovative video-based courses, conferences, and symposia.
Columbia has focused on developing an institution that is both broad and deep by approaching globalization on multiple fronts; these include academics, exchange programs, journals, research, and prominent international visitors, as well as an international faculty and student body. Together, these elements comprise a program that is solid, distinct, and diverse in scope.
The activities of our students, faculty, and centers extend far beyond Jerome Greene Hall, and continue to significantly impact the international community. On an institutional level, the Law School is also reaching out and collaborating with foreign academic institutions, governments and NGOs throughout the world. Law School students, faculty, centers, and programs have created a global network of alliances that touch every region, ensuring Columbia's preeminent and expanding role in promoting international law both domestically and around the world.


text:
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Independent living means all the freedom and flexibility of living on your own with no day-to-day responsibilities, like grocery shopping, cooking, housecleaning, shoveling snow, maintaining a yard, home upkeep maintenance and laundry unless you wish to. Here, you'll be able to keep up an active social life with family and friends, pursue your hobbies, explore new interests and friendships, and engage in a wide range of activities if you wish to. How you spend your time is completely up to you.
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text: Hi guys, just a small question. How you deal with expert ping's users, let me explain briefly my case. I was troubleshooting an issue with a computer that doesn't connect to internet last day, we take some packet captures and after analyze them we can figure out the proxy server was refusing the cache access on that computer. So we contact the administrator from that proxy and explain him the cache access issue so what we get as an answer was.. " .. I dont know why is not working, i can ping at that computer from the server very well .. " should I explain him what ".. cache access denied .. " mean or just accept that I have to deal with another " Expert hiigh leven ping user " Best Regards! and thanks for read my desperation


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Naperville, Il 60563
Thank you for your interest in our manufacturing process and utilities products and services.
Thank you for your inquiry about our Manufacturing marketplace offerings. Some one from our team will get back with you shortly.
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text:
Saturday, April 2, 2011
2011 Pin Cushion Exchange
14 comments:
- Amy said...
looks like some fun. very pretty pincushions.
- April 2, 2011 at 6:19 PM
- Material Mary said...
Exchanges are a really fun thing to do with hotpads, dishtowels, pincushions, etc. We do this every year with the guild and it is so fun to see the creativity come out of people...
- April 2, 2011 at 7:21 PM
- a little bit biased said...
So cute. Looks like fun!
- April 2, 2011 at 7:55 PM
- Calamity Jane's Cottage, Bonnie said...
I don't think you can ever have enough pincushions and these are extremely cute.
- April 2, 2011 at 9:19 PM
- Val said...
All the pincushions look great. Seems like there are endless possibilities.
- April 3, 2011 at 12:48 AM
- Karen said...
Oh how fun. I can tell that the ladies put a lot of thought into what they are making for the exchange. I like the toadstool and the cup cake. I think it is the presentation on the cupcake. It looks like the current style popular cupcakes with a big, tall mound of icing.
- April 3, 2011 at 7:27 AM
- Julie said...
Wow! Creative!
- April 3, 2011 at 11:47 AM
- Sherri said...
Thanks so much for sharing these wonderful pincushions!
- April 3, 2011 at 4:30 PM
- Thimbleanna said...
Looks like a super fun swap! I'm sorry you missed it, but thanks for getting some pictures for us!
- April 3, 2011 at 7:07 PM
- Little Green Doll said...
Wonderful works!! It seems to be very funny :)
- April 4, 2011 at 1:23 PM
- Nanette Merrill and daughters said...
Oh I love that toadstool.
- April 5, 2011 at 1:35 PM
- The Garlic Rose said...
I love the toadstool the best also! So dang cute:)
- April 6, 2011 at 8:04 AM
- Kathie said...
well how cute are these pincushions.
the snowman just got me!
love him
thanks for sharing
- April 19, 2011 at 12:44 PM
- Nanna said...
cute pinchushions & what a cute idea for a party! pincushions are one of the many things on my "just for me" list lol!
- August 9, 2012 at 5:12 AM


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HANG TIME NEW JERSEY — With training camps set to open in less than two weeks, most NBA players are getting back to their places of business and working out with their teammates.
Several guys, however, are in Slovenia, representing their countries at EuroBasket. Sixteen teams have gone home and eight remain, playing for national pride and seven spots in next year's World Cup of Basketball. EuroBasket has been the best basketball of the summer and the single-elimination action starts Wednesday.
Here's the quarterfinal schedule:
Serbia (E1) vs. Spain (F4), Wednesday, 11:30 a.m. ET (NBA TV)
Slovenia (F2) vs. France (E3), Wednesday, 3 p.m. ET (NBA TV)
Croatia (F1) vs. Ukraine (E4), Thursday, 11:45 a.m. ET
Lithuania (E2) vs. Italy (F3), Thursday, 3 p.m. ET
And here are the 16 NBA players still playing, with some notes on how they've done so far…
Nicolas Batum (Blazers) – France
His stats: 28.1 MPG, 11.7 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 2.6 APG, .463 FG%, 7-for-31 3PT
The buzz: Batum has been filling the box score (as he's known to do). He had 19 points, 10 boards, six assists, a steal and a block in last Friday's win over Latvia. But he's had some rough shooting nights from beyond the arc.
Marco Belinelli (Spurs) – Italy
His stats: 31.6 MPG, 14.1 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 2.4 APG, .369 FG%, 11-for-34 3PT
The buzz: Belinelli is Italy's primary ball-handler, a different role than he's played in the NBA. He's had some big games, but will be facing one of the tournament's toughest defenses in the quarterfinals on Thursday.
Jose Calderon (Mavs) – Spain
His stats: 23.4 MPG, 9.4 PPG, 1.5 RPG, 3.0 APG, .458 FG%, 18-for-37 3PT
The buzz: Sharing the backcourt with Ricky Rubio, Calderon has been playing a lot of two guard for Spain. But that's OK, because every team needs a secondary ball-handler and he's also a great shooter. He has a 24/8 assist/turnover ratio and has hit three or more 3-pointers in four of Spain's eight games.
Victor Claver (Blazers) – Spain
His stats: 17.9 MPG, 4.9 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 0.9 APG, .412 FG%, 5-for-15 3PT
The buzz: Claver is a terrific rebounder starting at power forward and doing the dirty work for Spain. He's averaging almost 11 boards per 36 minutes at Eurobasket and had 11 in just 24 minutes before fouling out against Greece. He has drained a few threes, but probably spends a little too much time hanging out on the perimeter.
Luigi Datome (Pistons) – Italy
His stats: 29.9 MPG, 14.0 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 1.3 APG, .488 FG%, 15-for-36 3PT
The buzz: The Pistons' rookie has had a couple of big games and sent Monday's thriller against Spain to overtime with a driving layup at the buzzer. He can shoot and will be a decent role player in the league, but will need to play off Detroit's playmakers. He's not very mobile or skilled off the dribble.
Nando De Colo (Spurs) – France
His stats: 20.3 MPG, 8.8 PPG, 1.9 RPG, 0.9 APG, .413 FG%, 11-for-26 3PT
The buzz: Coming off the bench for France, De Colo shot well early in the tournament, but has cooled off of late.
Boris Diaw (Spurs) – France
His stats: 28.1 MPG, 10.1 PPG, 3.9 RPG, 3.4 APG, .508 FG%, 3-for-12 3PT
The buzz: Tony Parker is the star in France, but it's Diaw's passing from the high post that can really make the French offense click. Though Parker has the ball in his hands more, Diaw has almost as many dimes.
Goran Dragic (Suns) – Slovenia
His stats: 23.3 MPG, 15.3 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 4.4 APG, .392 FG%, 8-for-32 3PT
The buzz: Dragic is a terror on the break and has had some big games for the tournament's hosts, including 28 points in a win over Greece on Saturday. The shooting numbers look ugly, because he missed his first 11 threes of the tournament. His matchup against Parker could be the best of the quarterfinals.
Marc Gasol (Grizzlies) – Spain
His stats: 29.5 MPG, 13.8 PPG, 8.0 RPG, 1.8 APG, .521 FG%, 3-for-6 3PT
The buzz: Though Gasol had 32 points and 10 boards in Monday's overtime loss to Italy, his offensive numbers don't make it clear that he's one of the two best players in the tournament. But he's anchored Eurobasket's No. 1 defense, which has allowed 16.5 fewer points per 100 possessions than the tourney average.
Mickael Gelabale (Wolves) – France
His stats: 25.5 MPG, 7.9 PPG, 2.5 RPG, 1.6 APG, .449 FG%, 8-for-23 3PT
The buzz: Like De Colo, Gelable shot well early on (7-for-15 from 3-point range in the first round), but has since cooled off (1-for-8) in Round 2. He's in France's starting lineup for his defense, but can provide some scoring off the ball.
Viacheslav Kravtsov (Suns) – Ukraine
His stats: 17.9 MPG, 6.6 PPG, 4.4 RPG, 0.8 APG, 1.4 BPG, .436 FG%
The buzz: Ukraine's only NBA player is its fifth leading scorer. Kravtsov is a big body who needs more polish in the post.
Donatas Motiejunas (Rockets) – Lithuania
His stats: 11.6 MPG, 5.8 PPG, 2.3 RPG, 0.3 APG, .486 FG%, 4-for-12 3PT
The buzz: Lithuania is deep up front and Motiejunas was barely playing earlier in the tournament (he picked up three fouls in eight minutes against Bosnia). But he totaled 23 points in 39 minutes in Lithuania's last two games, helping them secure a spot in the quarters.
Nemanja Nedovic (Warriors) – Serbia
His stats: 26.0 MPG, 9.0 PPG, 2.9 RPG, 2.5 APG, .368 FG%, 11-for-38 3PT
The buzz: With the absence of Hang Time favorite Milos Teodosic, Nedovic – the No. 30 pick in the 2013 Draft – has been starting at point guard for Serbia. He's solid and can shoot off the dribble, but he doesn't have the quickness to be much of a threat on the pick-and-roll. But he doesn't need to be a real floor general with a team like Serbia, that moves the ball pretty well.
Tony Parker (Spurs) – France
His stats: 27.9 MPG, 17.3 PPG, 1.5 RPG, 3.9 APG, .532 FG%, 7-for-26 3PT
The buzz: The best offensive player in the tournament is leading the No. 1 offense. Parker has been a terror on the pick-and-roll (no surprise there), but his pull-up jumper has been a little shaky. France has a lot of work to get through Slovenia on Wednesday, but a semifinal matchup against Spain could be the game of the tournament.
Ricky Rubio (Wolves) – Spain
His stats: 21.4 MPG, 8.3 PPG, 2.6 RPG, 3.0 APG, .446 FG%, 3-for-7 3PT
The buzz: Against defenses that are packing the paint (there's no defensive three-second rule in FIBA), Rubio isn't as dynamic a playmaker as he is in the league. He's done a decent job of making opponents pay for going under the screen, stepping up and knocking down the mid-range jumper. But shooting is probably why Calderon has played more minutes.
Jonas Valanciunas (Raptors) – Lithuania
His stats: 17.4 MPG, 7.9 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 0.0 APG, 1.0 BPG, .697 FG%
The buzz: Continuing his excellent play from Summer League, Valanciunas has made 23 of his 33 shots and is averaging 16.3 points and 12.4 rebounds per 36 minutes. But Lithuania is deep up front, so his playing time has been somewhat limited. He had a double-double in just 13 minutes against Belgium on last Friday. We'll see if he gets more minutes in the elimination rounds.


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Sequel coming a month later than expected, no reason for delay provided.
Digital movie to launch this summer in eight episodes.
In-game issues of the magazine can be found, grant upgrades.
Capcom invites you to bring a friend along in its zombie survival sequel.
With a packed early 2010, Capcom pushes major releases back.
Capcom's zombie-filled sequel offers up bizarre yet awesome weaponry.
The new trailer for Dead Rising 2 is proof positive that you can never have enough implements of destruction lying around.
Capcom's Dead Rising 2 gets a slew of new media made up from fleshy bits.
A small slip-up may have accidentally revealed a major feature for the sequel.
We think of clever ways to bruise, bludgeon, and dismember the dead.
Capcom lets the other shoe drop following last week's "leaked" teaser.


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By Alexei Oreskovic
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Marissa Mayer's plan to resuscitate Yahoo seems a simple one: get back the eyeballs, sell more ads and charge higher prices. But the chief executive's plan seems to have run into a major snag.
The price the company charges per ad slid 12 percent in the April to June period, six times the decline just a quarter ago - a fall that some say highlights how Yahoo has been caught unprepared for the industry shift to automated, programmatic ad buying.
Marketers increasingly prefer to buy online advertising space through automated exchanges, where prices are significantly lower, rather than paying top-dollar for premium ads sold by a Web publisher's salesforce. Ads offered by exchanges also allow marketers to aim ads in real time at specific audiences, such as by gender or age.
Yahoo's ad focus has, however, centered on "on developing media units that were much better for premium buys," said Shar VanBoskirk, an analyst with industry research firm Forrester Research.
Yahoo has its own programmatic ad technology with its Right Media exchange. But analysts say the exchange is not as popular as rival offerings, such as Google's DoubleClick exchange, which is considered the industry standard.
Google, the world's No.1 Web search engine, will report its second-quarter earnings on Thursday.
For many on Wall Street, the industry shift is one more reason means Yahoo's turnaround remains "an open question", especially given that Mayer has said the company remains first and foremost an advertising company.
During Tuesday's post-earnings conference call with analysts, Mayer said Yahoo was bullish on its advertising technology and that it planned to focus on improving various aspects of it in the coming quarters.
But even if Yahoo's ad exchange becomes more competitive, the broader trend of programmatic advertising will continue to pressure its business.
"Programmatic advertising technology continues to have a downward bias to pricing in display advertising and I don't expect that to improve anytime soon," said UBS analyst Eric Sheridan.
Mayer took the reins at Yahoo in July 2012 after a tumultuous period in which the company churned through several CEOs and many of its top executives and engineers jumped ship.
She has revamped key products such as mail and the Yahoo home page and jumpstarted acquisitions. Last month, Yahoo closed its $1.1 billion acquisition of popular blogging service Tumblr.
Yahoo's stock has surged roughly 70 percent since Mayer took the helm but much of the gain has come from stock buybacks and from Yahoo's Asian assets, including a 24 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce giant and potential IPO debutante Alibaba Group.
Ad numbers, however, remain dismal. Apart from pricing, display ad volumes and paid-clicks for search ads - an important measure of viewers and readers' responsiveness to marketing - continue to shrink.
Yahoo's share of the $17 billion U.S. display ad market is expected to decline to 7.9 percent in 2013, down from a 9.2 percent share last year, while Google's share is expected to grow to 17.6 percent. Facebook is likely to expand its market share to 16.5 percent, research house eMarketer estimates.
"This core business is going to be ugly for quite some time before it gets better," BGC analyst Colin Gillis said of Yahoo.
"This is just the beginning of the trend, of the drop in the price per ad. You still have a pretty big gap between what you can get direct and what you can get selling on an exchange."
(Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/plunging-ad-prices-underscore-doubts-over-yahoo-turnaround-032602673.html
walmart black friday Target Black Friday PacSun apple store bestbuy bestbuy gamestop


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Microsoft has announced new details about how developers can build and sell applications for Windows phones through its Windows Marketplace for Mobile, the recently announced application marketplace available with the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. Microsoft will provide developers with 70 percent of the sales revenue of their applications from Windows Marketplace for Mobile, transparency throughout the certification process, and guidance and support from the stage of development to the final sale to the consumer. Registration will begin this spring and developers will be able to start submitting their applications later this summer.
Developers who sell applications through Windows Marketplace for Mobile will receive 70 percent of the revenue from the sales of each application. In addition, they will be able to set the price for their applications in each market, maximizing their revenues based on targeted pricing strategies. Developers can also choose to distribute their applications at no cost. Up to five application submissions to Windows Marketplace for Mobile is included in the introductory annual registration fee of $99 (U.S.). Each additional submission within the annual period will cost $99 (U.S.). The registration fee is waived for student developers who want to reach Windows phones customers, through enrollment in the Microsoft DreamSpark program.
Windows Marketplace for Mobile is available in 29 countries. Developers will be able to see detailed feedback during and after the certification process of their application on the developer portal, and can utilize familiar tools and technologies to build for the Windows Mobile platform, including the Windows Mobile 6 SDK and .NET Compact Framework 3.5.


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As usual, the ACI National Home Performance Conference contained too many highlights to mention in one blog post. So I will share just a few.
Got up early on Tuesday and went with Tom White, Home Energy Publisher, to a rehab house in a neighborhood of Detroit where we met Matt Grocoff, principal of the Thrive Collaborative and a leading advocate for net zero energy buildings and Tim Dingman, engineer and cofounder of Rebirth Realty in Detroit.
(Jim Gunshinan, Matt Grocoff, and Tim Dingman on the porch at 760 Virginia Park in Detroit. (Photo by Tom White))
The Virginia Park neighborhood overall, like many residential neighborhoods in and around Detroit, looks like New Orleans after Katrina! Big beautiful houses built 100 years ago, boarded up, roofs falling in, windows boarded up or broken… But in the midst of that are young people like Tim and his colleagues working with the city historic housing community and nonprofits rehabbing houses and renting them. Because of the housing degradation there is a lack of rental properties in the area so it is easy to get people to live in these rehabbed, beautiful old buildings. Once inside a house and seeing what is being done, I feel a lot better about the situation; like seeing that the patient is in the ICU and is doing well! Still, the city wants to demolish 60,000 or more houses in the Detroit area! Not deconstruct and save what is savable, but demolish and dump in a landfill. Hopefully the push-back from the rehabbers and environmentalists will keep that from happening.
On Wednesday morning Steve Cowell of Conservation Service Group was awarded the BPI Tony Woods Award for Excellence in Advancing the Home Performance Industry; Jackie Berger, PhD, president and co-founder of APPRISE, was named ACI Women of the Year; and Linda Wigington, ACI founder and a Founding Mother of Home Performance, was recognized for her continuing contributions. Steve announced a new coalition among the National Home Performance Council (NHPC), BPI, ACI, Efficiency First (EF), and Home Energy Magazine (HEM). ACI has already merged with NHPC to become the Home Performance Coalition (HPC), and that is to be the name of the new organization that is forming. (I count five acronyms with a total of fifteen letters being combined into an acronym of three letters—a good thing all by itself.) Van Jones was the keynote speaker at the Wednesday morning plenary session. He said that the new coalition could be a national economic game changer. He said a lot more but Tom and I will be writing an article on Van's presence, vision, and words of challenge and encouragement in an article/blog post soon to be published. Hint: Learn to RAP and fill the gaps!
Michael Blasnik cast aspersions on modeling and NREL's Dave Roberts defended them; Kara Saul Rinaldi and Robin LeBaron of NHPC went deep into the meaning of the term "cost effective" and offered the Resource Value Framework to help energy efficiency program managers define the energy and non-energy benefits of energy efficiency programs; and Debra Little inaugurated the very first Home Energy Upgrade Film Festival, with both hilarious and serious short films by Anthony Cox, Peter Troast, Faith Morgan, and Debra herself.
Good jazz was heard in clubs (like Cliff Bell's), good food was eaten, and Detroit was explored. Many of us found that Detroit is not what we expected. Yes, it does look like a city in ruins. But among the ruins there is a lot of new life springing up. I experienced Detroit while living there in the summers of 1979 and 1980, while working as an intern for General Motors. The new Renaissance Center, where the conference attendees stayed this week, was then still a prime tourist destination. One summer I smashed, burned, and ripped apart things in the GM physical testing labs in Warren, Michigan, and the second summer I sliced, etched, polished, and looked at car parts under a microscope. One of the many friends I made was a student at Wayne State who was just starting a fraternity chapter in a beautiful old home near the university that needed a lot of work. I'm pretty sure that fraternity house is being rehabbed in the Virginia Park neighborhood where I visited this week. There is something about Detroit that does not want to die. In fact, it wants to thrive. Could this be a lesson for the rest of the country?
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Thanks Mike for filling in many of the pieces of the conference I missed. Next year in New Orleans I will make it a priority to break into the beer bash. Some of my favorites are Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (though they are hard to call a local microbew now) and Lagunitas IPA from northern California. I wonder how they would stack up to Heady Topper?
Thanks for the recap, Jim. Here's my take on the same: http://omstout.com/101-things-i-learned-at-aci-2104/
Thanks for mentioning ACI's Film Festival Jim! They said it was the most popular event that evening and have agreed to have another next year. There's an open invitation to all to submit short videos in 2 categories: 1- home energy upgrade stories or 2- training. I'll try to post more through the year about the power of story, particularly visual stories in the form of short 2-3 minute videos. I think it's one of the best tools we have to resonate with our market, our home owners.
Thanks again to our terrific contributors this year! Peter Troast, Amanda Hatherly, Allen Scherry & Anthony Cox of Community Housing Ptrs, Matt Grocoff, Faith Morgan and SeeAHomeLikeYours.org.
© 2019 Created by Building Performance Association Powered by


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Water-SCRUM-fall is a concept I have discussed at length in my earlier blog post on the same topic. DevOps is a movement that addresses some of the key challenges brought about by water-SCRUM-fall. I wrote a post for IBM's Invisible Thread blog on DeveloperWorks on how DevOps can be leveraged and its principles applied to address these [...]
Read more at Sanjeev's personal blog
Leveraging DevOps in a 'water-SCRUM-fall' world – my Post on IBM's Invisible Thread Blog
Sanjeev Sharma 120000N7B7 1 Comment 3,496 Views


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19 Year-old Man Killed in Bitterroot Rollover Crash [AUDIO]
19 year-old Bitterroot Valley resident Christopher Lee Barrett was killed in a one vehicle accident early Tuesday morning on West Fork Road south of Darby.
Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Tamra Winchell said she responded to the call at about 3:20 A. M. of a one-vehicle crash on the West Fork Road. An investigation found that the driver, the 19 year-old victim, lost control of the vehicle after which it went into a ditch and rolled several times.
Trooper Winchell said Barrett and his 15 year-old male passenger were both wearing seat belts, but that Barrett was pronounced dead at the scene.
The passenger was able to climb out of the vehicle, and was found on the ground nearby. He was Life Flighted to St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula. His condition is unknown.
Winchell says it is not yet known if alcohol played a part in the crash, but the investigation is ongoing.
Montana Highway Patrol trooper Tamra Winchell


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An engine light signaled trouble, so the pilot touched down in an open field in Framingham just as Jerome Anderson was driving past. Anderson, a doctor, threw his yellow Volkswagen in reverse, backed up and called out, making sure none of the four passengers aboard the chopper was hurt.
Kerry profile — An article Sunday in Section A misstated the type of ship on which Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) served during one of his two tours of duty in the Vietnam War. He served as skipper of a patrol boat for one tour, rather than two. He previously served as an officer on a guided-missile frigate. In addition, the article gave Kerry's age incorrectly. He is 59, not 60.
The candidate, unshaken, strode across the grassy meadow, thrust out his hand and seized the opportunity. "John Kerry," he said, as if the two had just met on the midway of a county fair. "I'm running for U.S. Senate."
Kerry is known for his coolness under fire — along with his ambition. An oft-decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, he has thrived for more than 25 years in the close-quarters combat of Massachusetts politics, winning that first Senate contest and three more that followed, including a titanic 1996 struggle with the state's popular Republican governor, William Weld.
The bigger questions as Kerry seeks the White House are whether his military heroism can shield him from criticism that he is too liberal and whether his personality is too standoffish to connect with voters. Not that either is necessarily true.
Kerry, 60, has deviated enough from Democratic orthodoxy — supporting free trade, welfare reform and teacher accountability — to assert that the liberal label is not a perfect fit. And his easy banter with firefighters in small-town Iowa and his gusto in joining a patriotic singalong at a Des Moines VFW post suggest that the stodgy stereotype is also a bit dated.
"The aloof stuff came from his initial forays" in state politics, said Lou DiNatale, a longtime Kerry watcher and political science professor at the University of Massachusetts who has seen him loosen up considerably over time.
Still, the step up to a national campaign hasn't always gone well. Surgery in February for prostate cancer slowed Kerry for weeks, and his complicated position on Iraq — pro-war, anti-Bush — has fed a reputation for vacillation. Only now, after falling back into the pack despite his early anointment as the front-runner, does Kerry sense he has hit his stride.
"You have to feel it to understand it," he said of the "pace and intensity" of running for president. "The country kind of gets bigger not smaller as the days go by."
For a man with blue blood in his veins, homes in ritzy Georgetown and Beacon Hill, and a wife worth hundreds of millions of dollars — she is the widow of Sen. John Heinz, heir to the food fortune — Kerry comes across as a pretty regular guy. He windsurfs, roller-blades, uses four-letter words, loves cold beer and ice cream, rides a Harley and plays ice hockey — details his staff is eager to highlight, save for the swearing, to take a bit of starch out of Kerry's collar.
His long face and deep-set eyes lend a certain gravity to Kerry's remarks, whatever the subject. He talks too long, aides fret, and too often favors the windy speaking style that passes for great oratory on the Senate floor. But a sly, goofy side peeks through when the 6-foot-4 candidate clambers aboard playground equipment to amuse his staffers between campaign stops or hunts down a reporter who gets lost on the way to a news conference, posing on a cellphone as a detective from the missing persons bureau.
Kerry himself cedes nothing to Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (the son of a milkman) or North Carolina Sen. John Edwards (the son of a millworker) in the man-of-the-people department. If a patrician background were a disqualifier for the White House, "we would have lost some of our great presidents," Kerry says, citing Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy during a lengthy interview this month. "There is no cookie-cutter formula that says just because you were born here or there you ought to be president. It's not important where you come from, it's what you fight for and where you stand on the issues that people are looking at."
That said, Kerry may be the one Democratic presidential hopeful with the most riding on his biography. A product of the Boston Brahmin Forbes family and exclusive prep schools, Kerry volunteered for the Navy and requested service in Vietnam after graduating from Yale University in 1966. It was a sense of duty that motivated him, Kerry later said, along with the idealism of the times. He served two combat tours as a patrol boat skipper, earning a Bronze Star, Silver Star and three Purple Hearts.
Kerry returned from the war disillusioned and became a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, making him a national figure before he was 30.
His first try for political office, however, hardly boded well.
After shopping for a place to run, Kerry moved to Lowell, Mass., and launched a disastrous 1972 bid for Congress, losing to a Republican in a district carried by George McGovern. Even more damaging, he established a reputation for opportunism that persists to this day. "Just a bunch of ambition running around looking for an office" was how DiNatale described it. "Brash" is the word Kerry uses.
Humbled, he went to law school and became a Middlesex County prosecutor, specializing in drug and domestic-abuse cases. In 1982, Kerry renewed his political pursuit, challenging the state's Democratic establishment by running for lieutenant governor and elbowing his way onto the ticket alongside gubernatorial hopeful Michael S. Dukakis. Both won, and two years later Kerry again defied party bosses by running for the U.S. Senate. He beat the establishment favorite in the primary and went on to win the seat he has held ever since.
In Congress, Kerry brought a district attorney's zeal, and an appetite for headlines, to scandals involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the drug-dealing of Panamanian President Manuel A. Noriega and the issue of American soldiers missing in Southeast Asia. Along with Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Kerry played a crucial role in 1995 in pushing for normalized U.S. relations with Vietnam.
There is much more to Kerry's life and political career than Vietnam, of course. He has a strong record in support of gay civil rights, small business, environmental causes and campaign-finance reform. In the presidential race he has outlined programs to promote public service, boost alternative energy and expand medical coverage while seeking to contain health-care costs. He calls for repealing Bush's upper-income tax cuts in favor of a payroll tax "holiday" that would give more money to low- and middle-income earners and, Kerry says, put more than 1 million people back to work overnight.
But Vietnam is what sets Kerry apart, much as it did McCain, another war hero who ran for president chiefly on his resume.
Kerry weaves it into casual conversation — "I haven't seen things this screwed up since I got back from Vietnam," he says, kicking it around with the boys at the firehouse in Ottumwa, Iowa — and trumpets it from the stage at town hall meetings. "I can bring a voice to our party that is different from any other candidate," he tells a Friday night crowd of 200 in nearby Burlington, "because I know what it means to fight in a war."
The implicit message is that only a Democrat with unquestioned military credentials can hope to beat the nation's terrorist-fighting commander in chief. Or as Kerry puts it, less subtly, "It takes more than landing on an aircraft carrier with a Navy pilot to make up for a failed economic policy." He knows a few things about such landings, Kerry says to partisan whoops, "having worked with aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin." (His quip in April calling for "regime change" in Washington struck many as less amusing.)
Kerry is no hawk, although he has been less shy than many Democrats about promoting a muscular foreign policy. He voted to support the war against Iraq, but he says it should have been a last resort after a more intensive diplomatic effort. To critics, that is having it both ways, another of the charges that has dogged Kerry throughout his political career.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Kerry's chief tormentor on the campaign trail, asks how the senator can carry the banner against Bush in 2004 when he has voted to back the president on Iraq and supported the USA Patriot Act and Bush's education program.
Before an appearance in Chicago, feet on a hotel coffee table, Kerry ticks off his responses: Bush bungled the diplomacy leading to the war. He reneged on the education funding he promised Democrats. The parts of the anti-terrorist Patriot Act that most offend civil libertarians will expire in a year.
Kerry's irritation with Dean is barely suppressed. He speaks of the compromises forced by the legislative process and how nuance gets lost in the "blam, blam simplicity of American politics."
"One of the reasons I am running for president is precisely to hold this president accountable" on issues like education, Kerry says.
If he reaches the White House, he will have to do so without the help of his rescuer back in Framingham, Mass.
After spotting Kerry and his fellow helicopter passengers, Jerome Anderson recalled in a recent interview, he drove them to his home and served drinks while they waited for a cab back to Boston. Kerry sent "a lovely note" of gratitude, said the doctor's wife, Susan, who saved it, thinking someday he might be president. She's a Democrat. Her husband is a Republican. He's backing Bush.
John Forbes Kerry
Born: Dec. 11, 1943, in Denver.
Parents: Richard J. Kerry, Army Air Corps pilot and Foreign Service officer, and Rosemary F. Kerry, volunteer and homemaker.
Education: Yale, B.A., 1966; Boston College, J.D., 1976.
Spouse: Teresa Heinz Kerry.
Children: Two daughters, Alexandra, 29, and Vanessa, 26; three stepsons, John, 37, Andre, 34, and Christopher, 30.
Residences: Boston and Washington, D.C.
Current job: U.S. senator.
Previous jobs: Lieutenant governor of Massachusetts; prosecutor, Middlesex County, Mass.; lawyer.
Military service: Skipper of Navy patrol boat; two tours of duty in Vietnam; received Silver Star, Bronze Star, three Purple Hearts.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times


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For about $US20, this tiny HoverDrone will hover and flash its little lights. And then the dog will eat it.
Sorry, it's inevitable, as proven in the ThinkGeek demo video below.
ThinkGeek is billing this as the smallest hovering device they've ever sold, so there's that too. Requires a handful of AA's and the controller has the ability to control two drones at once. [ThinkGeek via DVICE]