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January, 2010
The year 2009 may be remembered as the beginning of a new era for deep brain stimulation, the neurosurgical therapy that uses implanted electrodes to alter brain activity. Backed by a promising track record in treating Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders when all else fails, deep brain stimulation (DBS) has stepped solidly into the realm of psychiatry and is being investigated as a treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression, along with a growing list of other experimental uses. These new experimental treatments underscore both the potential for using "neuromodulation" to treat a wide range of brain-based conditions and the pitfalls of the past that must be avoided.
Even as the field surges forward, many experts have urged caution in making the transition from research to clinical use of DBS in psychiatry. Editorialists writing about the expansion of DBS have frequently invoked the failed "psychosurgeries" of the mid-twentieth century, when Walter Freeman and his followers performed some 18,000 frontal lobotomies on patients with all manner of psychiatric and behavioral problems. "Given this checkered history of psychiatric neurosurgery," wrote National Institute of Mental Health director Tom Insel and Wayne Goodman, now chairman of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical School, in a commentary in February, the scientific and medical communities "owe the public a promise that clinical applications of DBS in neuropsychiatry will not overstep the bounds of empirical evidence."1
Wayne Goodman, chairman of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical School and a pioneer in the research of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), urges caution in the use of DBS for neuropsychiatric disorders. (Courtesy of Wayne Goodman / Mount Sinai Medical School)
To be sure, DBS is no "ice-pick lobotomy," the technique Freeman championed. Modern neurosurgical techniques and brain imaging have made precise placement of minuscule electrodes into the brain a relatively safe procedure. But DBS is still neurosurgery, with all the inherent risks that surgery on the brain entails. Proponents of DBS often point out that, unlike ablative surgery, in which neurosurgeons lesion a discrete piece of the brain for therapeutic purposes, brain stimulation devices can be removed or regulated if necessary. Nevertheless, manipulating brain circuits with DBS can have unexpected side effects—good or bad—that may not be reversible even when stimulation is stopped.
While scientists continue to evaluate the dangers and ethical considerations, clinical use and research on brain stimulation as a therapy are exploding. "It has spread like wildfire," said Mahlon DeLong, a pioneer of DBS for movement disorders at Emory University. A search for "deep brain stimulation" on PubMed, the public database of peer-reviewed journals, brings up nearly 4,000 articles—more than 250 in the last year alone, a substantial increase over the number five years ago.2 Clinically, an estimated 60,000 patients worldwide, the vast majority of them with treatment-resistant Parkinson's disease, have been treated with DBS.
Brain stimulation techniques have been used for more than fifty years as a treatment for chronic pain syndromes, and they are still used for this purpose in Europe (the FDA has not approved such procedures for pain in the United States). French neurosurgeron Alim-Louis Benabid pioneered the use of DBS in movement disorders in the 1980s, targeting a brain area called the thalamus on the basis of prior evidence that ablative surgery on the thalamus eliminated tremors. The brain target was subsequently refined after animal studies showed that lesions in the subthalamic nucleus dramatically reversed Parkinson's-associated tremors. In addition to its use in Parkinson's disease, DBS is currently FDA-approved for use in dystonia and essential tremor.
Only a small portion of DBS procedures—fewer than 150, as recorded in published reports—have been performed on patients with psychiatric conditions, but these disorders are the fastest-growing area of clinical research, judging by the number of clinical trials under way and the proliferation of published reports. In February 2009 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first use of DBS for a psychiatric condition, issuing a "humanitarian exemption" to one device maker to allow treatment of severe, treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Meanwhile, researchers are conducting clinical trials to investigate DBS as a treatment for OCD, depression and Tourette's syndrome, where promising preliminary results have encouraged further study. Clinical trials are also ongoing for the treatment of epilepsy.
An array of other experimental applications is just beginning to be explored, including obesity, brain injury, minimally conscious states, chronic pain, headache, Alzheimer's disease, anorexia, tinnitus and addiction. And intriguing early research in animals has shown that brain stimulation can generate new nerve cell growth and improve cognitive skills, opening whole new avenues of potential clinical applications down the road.
In addition, research is also on the rise for neuromodulatory methods that do not require brain surgery, including transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).
The premise for these techniques is the same as that for DBS: stimulating neural activity to modulate specific pathways. In tDCS, one or two sponge-tipped electrodes are placed on the surface of the scalp; in TMS, a magnetic coil of wire is placed over the head to generate magnetic fields within the brain that in turn cause neurons to fire. Both devices are non-invasive and can be applied in a physician's office without requiring surgery. Neither technique is as precise as DBS, nor can the stimulatory effects reach more than a couple of centimeters into the brain, although an emerging technique known as "deep TMS" uses a novel coil design to modulate tissue deeper in the brain.
TMS is currently FDA-approved for treatment-resistant depression and is being investigated for a number of other neurologic and psychiatric disorders, including anxiety, schizophrenia and sleep disorders. An NIH-sponsored clinical trial in Parkinson's disease is under way, with early results indicating that the technique is safe.3 An Israeli company, Brainsway, is investigating deep TMS for severe depression and several other conditions, including acute ischemic stroke. On its Web site, the company says the treatment may improve motor recovery after stroke by stimulating nerve growth factors that strengthen synaptic connections and may help generate new neurons.4 Transcranial DCS is in early stages of exploration for therapeutic use, with various research groups studying its potential for treating depression, schizophrenia, migraine, memory impairment and chronic pelvic pain, according to listings in the government's Clinical Trials database.
In transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) a magnetic coil of wire is placed over the head to generate magnetic fields within the brain that in turn cause neurons to fire. (Neuronetics, Inc)
The broadening use of DBS and its non-invasive neuromodulatory cousins reflects not only technological advances but also a growing recognition that the symptoms of many brain disorders arise from disrupted circuitry—some aberration in the normal rhythm of brain signals—along the neural pathways that underlie the disordered behavior. (The term "circuit disorder," also known as "dysrhythmia," is increasingly being used to describe these conditions.)
In Parkinson's disease, for example, a brain circuit linking the basal ganglia to the thalamus and cortex is disrupted, which causes tremors and other problems with movement (see chapter 3, "Parkinson's Disease"). Well-targeted stimulation within the circuit modifies the rhythm and has proven effective at quelling the motor symptoms of Parkinson's in patients for whom no other therapy works. Current studies in OCD and depression are based on recent discoveries about the neuroanatomy of these disorders that implicate a circuit disruption as well.
"If one looks carefully across a range of neurologic and psychiatric conditions, one finds that a very similar neural mechanism—an abnormal brain rhythm—can generate many different types of symptoms depending on where in the brain that activity is," said Rodolfo Llinas, a neuroscientist at NYU Medical Center. "This is absolutely why we are seeing such success with deep brain stimulation."
The mechanism of action of DBS is often said to be unknown, but Llinas scoffs at this notion: "People think you just stick electrodes in the brain and look for a sweet spot. They think we really don't know how it works. That's not true. We do know how it works. The only thing that electrical stimulation can do, especially acutely, is modify the rhythm." Which rhythm is modified, and which neurons are stimulated, depends upon where the electrodes are implanted.
Beyond the general action of circuit modification, though, the precise way in which DBS works to mitigate debilitating symptoms that no other treatment can touch is "hotly debated," according to Mount Sinai's Goodman. More likely than not, it differs depending on the condition treated, the brain area targeted, the types of neurons activated and even the frequency or pulse rate of the electrical signal generated. In some cases, stimulation may return a disease-disrupted rhythm to a more normal pattern by activating or inhibiting select groups of neurons. In other cases, it may increase the firing rates of neurons in a given circuit or neutralize an aberrant pattern of nerve firing before it develops into, say, an epileptic seizure.
In addition, increasing evidence suggests that electrical stimulation acts to turn on certain genes that can cause downstream effects on cells, synapses and circuits. Some genes are activated immediately, while others are turned on after long-term stimulation. Researchers are only beginning to sort out how these gene expression dynamics relate to therapeutic responses. The array of genes affected depends on whether the stimulation is applied continuously or only in the short term, suggesting that long-term DBS may trigger secondary changes as the ever-plastic brain adapts to new firing patterns. These effects—and their behavioral consequences over time—are being investigated in dozens of laboratories around the world.
Brain stimulation for OCD, a chronic and debilitating illness that affects 2 to 4 percent of people in the United States, has been studied for more than a decade, and the FDA's recent approval of its use in severe cases marks the first psychiatric indication for DBS. Up to 4,000 people per year can be treated under the "humanitarian device exemption" granted to Medtronic, the maker of the only DBS system currently approved in the United States, though the company said in a statement that it anticipated that the therapy would be appropriate for only "a small subset" of the OCD patient population—those who suffer the most severe debilitation and for whom no other treatment provides relief.
The special regulatory status reflects both the high rates of treatment failure in OCD—40 to 60 percent of patients don't respond fully, or at all, to current therapies—coupled with promising results in preliminary studies. In one pilot clinical trial involving eight patients that was funded by the NIMH and published in 2006, researchers reported "promising long-term effects" in the group of highly treatment-resistant patients, including a 35 percent decrease in obsessive-compulsive symptoms and improvements in depression, anxiety and quality-of-life measures.5 A second NIMH-sponsored trial for patients with severe treatment-resistant OCD, led by Benjamin Greenberg of Brown University/Butler Hospital, started in March 2008.6 Unlike the pilot trial, the study includes a control group of people who receive the implants but whose stimulators are not turned on until three months into the study, an attempt to better distinguish any placebo effect from true stimulationinduced effects.
Benjamin D. Greenberg of Brown University and Butler Hospital led an NIMHsponsored trial testing the efficacy of DBS on patients with severe treatment resistant OCD. (Courtesy of Benjamin D. Greenberg / Brown University/Butler Hospital)
The brain target of stimulation in both studies is an area called the ventral capsule/ventral striatum, which has long been implicated in OCD, in part because surgical lesions in this area are known to improve symptoms of the disorder. Goodman describes the area asa "giant fan-like bundle of white-matter fibers that acts as a superhighway for nerve signals on their way to other brain regions."
A separate study of DBS in severe treatment-resistant OCD, by the Paris-based STOC Study Group, stimulated nerve cells in the subthalamic nucleus, a brain region that integrates motor, cognitive and emotional components of behavior and that has long been a target of DBS for Parkinson's. The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in late 2008,7 suggested some benefits in symptom reduction but also a substantial risk of serious adverse events among the sixteen people enrolled, raising concerns about the risk-benefit ratio of the treatment that experts say need to be explored further in well-designed trials.
The application of DBS to severe depression has attracted considerable attention, in part because it is helping researchers delineate a "depression circuit" in the brain—or perhaps more precisely, a depression-relief circuit. Two large clinical trials and one smaller trial are ongoing with people who have severe treatment-refractory depression (TRD), for which virtually every antidepressant therapy has failed. Each study targets different brain areas. Medtronic is funding a Phase II safety and efficacy trial in 200 patients, following a pilot study led by Donald Malone of the Cleveland Clinic that demonstrated the safety of the approach in fifteen patients. The brain target is the same as the ongoing trial in OCD—the ventral capsule/ventral striatum—and was selected in part because some patients in the OCD trial experienced improved mood after stimulation was applied to the area.
Meanwhile, St. Jude Medical, a would-be challenger to Medtronic's domination of the U.S. DBS market, is supporting a clinical trial in one-hundred patients with TRD. The trial, led by Andres Lozano, a neurosurgeon at the University of Toronto, is based on previous clinical research by Lozano and Emory University's Helen Mayberg that showed a response to treatment (defined as a 50 percent or greater decrease on a depression symptom scale) in about half of the twenty patients who received continuous stimulation for one year, including six who experienced complete remission of their depressive symptoms.8 The researchers have targeted the so-called "area 25" in the subgenual cingulate cortex, an area identified in a series of functional brain-imaging studies as being important to the resolution of depressive symptoms by various therapies.
Helen Mayberg of Emory University and Andres Lozano of the University of Toronto pioneered the use of deep brain stimulation to treat depression. (Courtesy of Helen Mayberg / Emory University, Courtesy of Dr. Lozano / University of Toronto)
Lastly, Thomas Schlaepfer of the University of Bonn is running a Medtronic-supported pilot study in twelve patients in which the nucleus accumbens is the brain region of interest, stemming from the accidental discovery during a trial for OCD that stimulating this area improved depression symptoms in study subjects.9 So far, researchers have not discovered which of these competing targets may prove more useful in bringing relief in the most severe cases of depression. "The world experience is not that large yet," said Dennis Charney, dean of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "The results so far are interesting because they do seem to implicate particular brain regions as important in the circuits of depression. There just needs to be a lot more work done to determine who it works in, what percentage sees improvement, and whether the response is maintained over time."
Medtronic is also funding a randomized controlled trial in 110 patients with epilepsy at seventeen U.S. study sites, with the goal of obtaining "premarket approval" from the FDA for an epilepsy indication. Results have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but preliminary data presented at a scientific conference in December 2008 indicate that seizure activity was reduced by a median of 38 percent in patients—a significantly higher figure than the 15 percent in a control group whose stimulators were activated after a delay (all patients remained on their anti-epileptic medications). The brain target in this case is the anterior nucleus of the thalamus, a central "switching station" of the brain where neuronal messages are integrated and relayed on to other brain regions.
Smaller-scale studies are under way in severe intractable Tourette's syndrome at several sites. Published reports have encompassed about thirty-five patients in total, with the largest study to date enrolling eighteen people and targeting a discrete region of the thalamus.10 Other studies are aiming at different brain targets. A Paris-based team is recruiting fourteen patients for a study in which stimulation is directed at the internal globus pallidus.11 Overall, the treatments have shown some encouraging success in controlling the debilitating tics that characterize the disorder, but no clear consensus has emerged on the best approach or which patients are more likely to benefit from DBS treatment.
Reports of completely novel applications of brain stimulation—many with only one or two subjects—are now trickling in from around the globe. At the University of Toronto, Lozano and colleagues have used DBS to treat obesity in a 420-pound man and observed, unexpectedly, that the stimulation evoked detailed autobiographical memories.
While long-term weight loss was unsuccessful, the incidental finding of memory recovery prompted the researchers to undertake a pilot study of DBS in six patients with early Alzheimer's disease. A media report in June quoted Lozano as saying the treatment appeared to be "safe and promising."12 Donald Whiting and Michael Oh at Allegheny General Hospital in Pennsylvania are pursuing the weightloss application and have begun a three-patient FDA-approved trial to test whether tamping down neural activity in the lateral hypothalamus, the brain's "feeding" center, can help obese subjects lose weight. Researchers from Milan, Italy, have reported some success in treating severe cluster headache, having followed about 18 patients for up to eight years.13
In what has been called one of the most remarkable findings yet to emerge from DBS research, Nicholas Schiff and colleagues at Weill Cornell Medical have reported on a thirty-eight-year-old man who had been in a coma for six years and regained some cognitive and motor abilities following stimulation of the central thalamus, a brain area crucial to arousal and wakefulness.14 The man, who had suffered a severe brain injury, was described as being at the "higher end" of a minimally conscious state before the treatment, meaning that some level of awareness and environmental responsiveness had been preserved. While the work has attracted widespread media attention and raised hopes that comatose patients might be revived, Schiff has said that thalamic DBS does not appear to be useful for people who are in deeper comas. Weill Cornell, the Cleveland Clinic and JFK-Johnson Rehabilitation Institute in New Jersey are now collaborating to develop a strategy and uniform protocol to guide further investigations of DBS as a treatment for those in minimally conscious states.
As these and other clinical investigations for DBS therapy proceed— many of them unpublished and under the radar—numerous questions remain unanswered about how best to move forward with neuromodulatory therapies for brain disorders. It is not at all clear yet which brain regions are the best targets for treating a given disorder, what the most effective parameters for stimulatory frequencies and rates are, which patients are most likely to benefit or what the long-term consequences of brain stimulation are. Ethical quandaries also loom large, as researchers feel their way forward in a complex, technically challenging field. Leading experts have consistently advocated for clear guidelines and "an abundance of caution," as Goodman puts it, to try to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated, particularly with regard to treatment of psychiatric disorders.
Nevertheless, with the right road map, attention to ethical standards and long-term follow-up of patients, neuromodulation in all its forms—including novel non-invasive methods that are just beginning to be explored—has the potential to change the way we think about and treat the worst of the worst in neurologic and psychiatric conditions.
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The 54th music app to run within the Spotify desktop client launched today, and it's a big one: Soundtracking, Apple's pick for "the best iPhone app of 2011."
The Soundtracking Spotify app is free to use, with either the free or paid version of Spotify on the desktop. As with the Android and iOS versions, the basic idea here is to share whatever song you're listening to, along with a picture or photo from Instagram or Google image search.
The Instagram integration means SoundTracking users will be able to pull their own filter-effected pics into the app and attach them to songs, while the Spotify integration means you can listen to full versions of what your Soundtracking friends are sharing within Spotify, save everything your friends are listening to on a particular day as a Spotify playlist, and follow and manage your Soundtracking feed within Spotify on the desktop — the first time SoundTracking has been available outside of the smartphone.
SoundTracking founder and CEO Steve Jang told Evolver.fm via phone from Ireland that his app integrated with Spotify and Instagram to give SoundTracking its first desktop-accessible version with the ability to listen to friends and post songs to SoundTracking, Facebook, and Twitter with a photo; to take advantage of Spotify's label and publisher deals and its over 20 million users worldwide; and because SoundTracking users were already hacking Instagram photos into their shared songs.
"What they were doing was either taking a photo in Instagram and then saving it [to their phone], and then they were uploading that into their SoundTracking post," said Jang. "That's kind of an onerous process… and another thing they were doing was screen-capturing their Instagram photos after they had filtered them, and then they would use that as SoundTracking, because we don't have photo filters in SoundTracking."
The Instagram integration is a nice addition, but the Spotify integration clearly does more to make the app more powerful from a music listening and sharing perspective, because Spotify makes it so easy to hear and save what your friends are sharing — and if you use Spotify to listen to music anyway, now you have an easier way to share that music on SoundTracking (bonus: the Instagram feature is also in SoundTracking's Spotify app).
Yes, you can share a song to Twitter and Facebook directly, using Spotify's own sharing feature. But if you use SoundTracking to do the same, you can add a photo from Google image search or your own Instagram account, for a more artistic or personalized effect, whether you're on your desktop, iOS, or Android. (Interestingly, if you share something from Spotify using SoundTracking, your SoundTracking friends on Android can play it back on Rdio if they subscribe to that.)
Soundtracking is the 54th app to appear in the Spotify App Finder, but Jang says he's not worried about it getting lost in that growing list.
"First of all, 54 is not a lot of apps," said Jang. "A lot of them do one of three things: create great curated playlists… lyric synchronization… and collaborative listening apps. There's a pretty good distribution of different types of apps, and 54 not being that many, I think it's better right now for the entire app platform — that means Spotify, its users, the app stores, and developers — to have more and more apps… I definitely want to see more apps in the [Spotify] App Finder."
To try SoundTracking (free), you can install it for Android, iOS, and/or Spotify and log in via Facebook or Twitter.

subset: commoncrawl


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Each year, I am amazed at the amount of money people waste on Christmas cards. Most people wander into Clintons, or if they are trying to look posh, M&S, buy a gazillion cards and send them to all and sundry. They send them to the person they sit next to at the office, they send them to their aunt/uncle who they haven't spoken to all year, they send them to their Mum, dad, brother, sister…anyone. Millions of pounds are wasted as Mr Clinton Cards gets a bit richer and a bit fatter.
I don't 'do' Christmas cards. Not because I am an old miserable git (although some people would probably agree with that). But I refuse to give my money to some greedy suit without getting any tangible benefit back from them. Call me old fashioned, but If there is someone I want to say Merry Christmas to, I call them. The person I sit next to in the office..guess what…I turn around and say, 'hope you have a great Xmas'. Why do I need to send them a card? My Mum and Dad? I call them, actually, they come over to see us, so I tell them to their face.
So, the money I would normally spend on Christmas Cards goes to charity. Normally the British Legion, or Help for Heroes. In my humble opinion, the soldiers who are going to be away from their families this Christmas, so we can spend a safe Christmas at home with our own families, deserve the money more than Mr Clinton Cards.


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Chapter: I-2-0: Initial Processing of a Request for Hearing
Subject: Assigning and Processing Requests for Hearing Filed by Claimants Who Do Not Reside in the United States
This transmittal updates the instructions contained in HALLEX I-2-0-72, Assigning and Processing Requests for Hearing Filed by Claimants Who Do Not Reside in the United States, to reflect changes to the hearing office business process and to clarify that the Office of International Operations does not hold hearings for foreign claimants who request a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge.
I-2-0-72 A. We inserted relevant regulations and added language to clarify that hearings are not conducted outside of the United States or by video teleconferencing from outside of the United States.
I-2-0-72 E. We revised the subsection title to reflect that it pertains to paper claim folders. We also revised the subsection to reflect changes in the hearing office business process for foreign claims and to emphasize that hearings are not held by the Office of International Operations. We included information about the jurisdiction of title XVI claims and concurrent title II and title XVI claims and how the Chief ALJ or designee sends an acknowledgement letter to the foreign claimant. We also provided instructions regarding aged cases.
I-2-0-72 F. We inserted a new subsection pertaining to processing fully electronic foreign claims. We relocated the information that previously appeared there to I-2-0-72 G.
I-2-0-72 G. This subsection now provides information that previously appeared in I-2-0-72 F. We changed "point of entry" to the "port of entry" closest to the designated hearing office as the designated geographical location for evaluating the claimant's request for reimbursement of travel expenses to agree with 8 CFR 1235 which requires people entering the country to enter at a port of entry.
I-2-0-72 H. We noted that the HO sends an acknowledgment letter after receiving the request for hearing and the claim file.
Date: November 22, 2011


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The Great Mormon Bailout
Mormons Leaving the Mormon Church in large numbers
By David Lister
February 9, 2012
Several articles and TV reports in Utah are confirming that Mormons are leaving the LDS religion in large numbers. Below are some of the links to these stories.
This is very good news and according to full time Mormon missionary Rob Sivulka he has personally received a confirmation from LDS General Authority Marlin Jensen, who is also the Church Historian and Recorder, confirming that Mormons are "leaving in droves."
Rob writes "There are several things to take away from this story: first, this should once and for all put to rest this silly faith-promoting mantra LDS give that their church is the fastest growing church.
Second, this significant news also ought to mobilize the Christian Church to reap the harvest of these disaffected Mormons!
Unfortunately, most of the people who leave Mormonism go into agnosticism or atheism.
The tendency with these people is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
So, Christians"¦are you ready to give a positive case for your faith as 1 Peter 3:15 commands you to do? We really have a great opportunity here!"
Also, Rob further states "whether you are for or against Romney for president, his run continues to put his faith under the microscope."
Many of us in full time Mormon evangelism have known this for years.
The Internet is a big problem for them.
The hundreds of websites that factually show the many problems with Mormonism, with their history and even with the character of their founders being false teachers and false prophets are and have been making a negative impact on the Mormon religion and causing many to come out of this false religion.
Here at Moriel we support some full time missionaries in Utah.
They report their churches are growing with ex-Mormons.
In addition, while this is good news the bad news is that Mormonism is growing in places like Malaysia and Africa.
Moriel is supporting a missionary that is moving to Malaysia soon and was very influential in teaching me how to reach Mormons.
May the Lord help Tim Oliver and his wife as they transition to Malaysia.
Also, let us continue our support for the full time missionaries in Utah, as they will now be dealing with more and more people turning to the Truth.
Mormons have always had "˜a zeal' for God, but not according to The Truth. Let us keep pushing forward, and be ready for an answer for the Mormons who are searching.
In Peace,
Mormons tackling tough questions in their history - Salt Lake Tribune
Number of faithful Mormons rapidly declining - KTVX-TV ABC Salt Lake City, Utah
Special report -Mormonism besieged by the modern age - REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters]
Did Jesus Go to Hell?
Moriel received the following question:
I was watching a video podcast by Jacob titled the Devils Algebra. I really enjoyed the podcast however I have one question that has arisen from this podcast. I have tried to search the internet and to search the scriptures as much as possible to come to a conclusion. However I am struggling with this one. Can you explain to me please why Jesus did not go down into hell after he died on the cross. I have read so many differing versions as to what actually happened. This question came to me after Jacob , and rightly so, warned people from the teachings of people like Joyce Meyer and the like. As she says that Jesus went down into Hell in our place so we don't have to. This doesn't sit right for me.
Moriel answers:
Lets look at 1 Peter3:18-22, which is a difficult passage and specifically Jesus going to "hell". One of the first things that we do at Moriel with difficult passages is we look at the original languages and see what it says and if it can bring some clarity to the translation.  Also, we look to other supporting verses in the Bible to see if there is help there. So, according to Peter, sometime between His death and His resurrection Jesus made a special proclamation or preached to "the spirits in prison." This raises some questions:ÂÂ
On Eating Certain Foods
Since Noah knew about clean and unclean animals (Gen. 7:1-10), this distinction was part of an ancient tradition that antedated the Mosaic Law. Whether a creature was "clean" or "unclean had nothing to do with the animal being "good" or "bad", "strong" or "weak"; it all depended on what God said about the animal that mattered. When He gave us these laws, He probably had the health of His people in mind (Ex. 15:26; Deut. 7:15), yet the main purpose of Kashrut (or the dietary laws) was to instruct the Israelites that they belonged to God and were obligated to keep themselves separated from everything that would defile them. "Be holy, for I am holy" He tells them 8 times in Leviticus.
Nevertheless, the spiritual principle of separation from defilement is applicable for God's people today. We know God must make a difference in every area of our lives.
Timothy Williams of Sound Doctrine and His Article 'God's True Grace'
By David E Lister
Simple and plain meanings of Grace: Hebrew the word is Chesed meaning covenant mercy, in Greek Charism - gift and in English, underserved favor.
In his article from his website Mr. Timothy Williams perverts God's Word and His grace. Mr. Williams also attacks the church and every Christian indiscriminately with a broad sword and lots of smoke and mirrors. He tells his readers that one can tell who has the "grace of God" by their obedience to the commandments.
Pat Robertson, False Prophet, Again
by David E. Lister
Pat Robertson of The 700 Club fame has once again prophesied wrongly! This time in an interview on CNN, Mr. Robertson reversed himself on a prophecy given in January of 2004. In that prophecy Mr. Robertson declared the Mr. Bush would win re-election "in a walk" and added, " I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord its going to be a blowout." But yesterday he admitted that this prophecy was not the Lord speaking but his own thoughts. Mr. Robertson stated in the interview, "I thought it was gong to be a blowout, but I think its razor thin."
Hank Hanegraaff Supports The 'Local Church'
by David E Lister
Editors Note: The words of Daniel 11 ring in my ears concerning those that join the covenant people in hypocrisy and then turn on them. It makes me wonder if this in not a preview of the future of the Church.
Below is a compilation of several items that have appeared recently throughout the Internet due to Hank Hanegraaff filing a legal brief on behalf of The Local Church and in opposition to John Weldon and John Ankerberg. The Local Church has long been regarded as a cult by the Christian Research Institute (see our posting of their position paper on The Local Church http://www.moriel.org/articles/discernment/
church_issues/teachings_of_witness_lee.htm ) along with most every apologist that this ministry knows. But now Hank Hanegraaff has actually turned to financially (by paying fees for filing the brief) supporting and legally (filing a friend of the court brief) supporting what most in the Christian apologetic field believe to be a cult (The Local Church) through the American court system. This is indeed a sad day as the legacy of Dr. Walter Martin continues to be dismantled.
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati Pleads No Contest for Failure to Report Sexual Abusive Priests
By David E. Lister
With the Grand jurors taking their seats to hear testimony against the Archdiocese of Cincinnati relating to their failure to report the misdeeds of priests, the archdiocese quickly sought an to end their legal problems. On November 20, 2003 the Archbishop Daniel E. Pilaczyk appeared before Common Plea Judge Richard Niehaus. Judge Niehaus asked the Archbishop if he understood what he was pleading no contest to. Looking pale, the archbishop stood before the judge and answered, "Right." With that one word answer the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and its Archbishop have brought the Roman Catholic Church to a status of guilty of breaking the law of Ohio and the United States.
A Closer Look at Transubstantiation
By David E. Lister
Transubstantiation is derived from the Latin term tansubsubstaniato, meaning ''change of substance''. This term was incorporated into the creed of the Forth Latern Council in A.D. 1215.
Transubstantiation is defined by the Roman Catholic Church's Council of Trent as follows: "By the consecration of the bread and wine, a conversion (or change) is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood; which conversion is, by the holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called Transubstantiation."
The Catechism of the Council of Trent expands this belief by stating: "In this sacrament are contained not only the true body of Christ, and all the constituents of a true body, such as bones and sinews, but also Christ whole and entire". It also explains, "Christ whole and entire, is contained, not only under either species, but also in each particle of the same species." (Species = bread and wine)
Moriel Missions Report: Manti, Utah 2003 - Mission to the Mormons
The Watach Mountains were fast disappearing out of the corner of my eye as the plane climbed out of the Salt Lake Valley. The sun was brilliant, blazing and in front of us as we headed east and home. The end of another Moriel Mission Trip to Mormons in Utah was quickly approaching. But the memories are still fresh, wonderful, exciting and at the same time, sad.
Moriel Utah Mission - 2002
Dear Friends of Moriel:
Grace and Peace from our Lord Jesus Christ.
I can't believe I have just returned from Utah and the yearly Moriel mission trip to the Mormons. Everything just went so quick and is over way to soon. I want to thank everyone who prayed for us while we were on this trip your prayers were answered in that some Mormons came to a relationship with the True and Living God. The God who sent His Son to die upon the cross and who laid out the heavens all by Himself, the God who knows no other God and is not man and does not change.


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Staff writer
A concern that trainer Karen Williams hears often from potential clients is that they have bodily limitations — creaky knees, a shaky shoulder, a bad back — and they cannot do the strenuous workout she would put them through.
"There's this nasty rumor that I'm this torturer," Williams said. "I tailor it for my groups. If I have a beginning group, we do beginning things."
Williams is scheduled to teach a class with the lighter side of her exercise regimen at Marion Senior Center today. She said she was planning to use most of the time for exercises including activities like passing a ball between hands above the head, standing calf raises, arm circles, simple stretching, and lifting with light weights like soup cans or water bottles.
She is planning to have specific activities for balance, a feature seniors are looking to improve.
Williams advises seniors to move every day and that exercise is cumulative — 10 minutes in the morning, afternoon, and at night is effective as 30 minutes at once. She added exercise is necessary for maintaining health.
"It might be 20 minutes every week," she said. "Making that decision that this is important is what matters."


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A Chapter from my Book, HE LIVES A Living Testimony, "Our God Is A Jealous God," and my study of the week, "What Was The Real Sin In The Bible," No Apples -Part 2... Fill free to select/copy/and print any of the articles for discussion, from my website – http://www.jesusandweTalk.org. Also Music, other Biblical Topics, Inspirational quotes and more...
Leave your salvation up to No Man; all should study to show themselves approved, 2Timothy 2:15 KJV. Follow me and be inspired and I hope I will shine some light on your world as was shown into mine.
"If the discussion gets a bit too much for you, just put it on the shelf"
I am not a Jehovah Witness, but I do witness for Jehovah!
"Promoting a Message, Not just Selling a BooK"


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WEST CHESTER – West Chester University has confirmed that a student has been diagnosed with bacterial (meningococcal) meningitis.
According to the university, it is working closely with the Chester County Department of Health to determine who had contact with the student and treat them accordingly. As the contacts are identified, they will be notified by the Health Center or the Department of Health and given the accepted treatment.
The Centers for Disease Control states that bacterial meningitis is usually severe and can lead to serious complications, though most people who contract the disease recover.
The university said the meningococcal infection is not highly contagious, though it is transferable from person-to-person through direct saliva contact such as kissing, sharing eating utensils, food or the same beverage container. An individual who has had close contact with the diagnosed student may be considered to have been exposed, and it is recommended that they be treated with antibiotics.
According to the university, only those in close contact with the diagnosed student will be treated. Routine classroom and school contacts are usually not at risk.
The Centers for Disease Control lists symptoms of the condition as sudden onset of fever, headache and stiff neck. Other symptoms include nausea, vomiting, increased sensitivity to light and altered mental status. Symptoms can appear quickly, typically developing three to seven days after exposure.
The center stated in the United States about 4,100 cases of bacterial meningitis, including 500 deaths, occurred each year between 2003–2007.
Anyone developing symptoms is encouraged to see a physician immediately. The university urges those students who experience the symptoms to contact the Student Health Center, a family doctor, or go to the nearest emergency room, informing them of any exposure to meningitis.
The Chester County Department of Health will continue to investigate the situation. Anyone with questions should contact the Student Health Center at 610-436-2509 or the Chester County Department of Health at 610-344-6452.
For more information on meningitis, visit the Chester County Health Department website at http://chesco.org/index.aspx?NID=852
Follow Jeremy Gerrard on Twitter @JeremyGerrard.


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A column a few months ago about trees generated suggestions that the newspaper invite readers to submit brief comments about their favorites trees. I suspect many of us have them. Trees being so much larger – and sometimes more lasting – than ourselves, generate strong feelings.
We gather under trees for shade, partake in the fruit and nuts they produce and even sacrifice them to give us everything from winter warmth to furniture. We rejoice in their majesty and prominence.
This is the first of what might become an occasional feature, though not always in this space, about readers and their trees.
Louise Hagedorn Mattingly, a Perry County native now living in Zionsville, writes today about a sycamore tree that symbolized, in many ways, her childhood on the farm. My favorite tree is near my farm home, a towering hackberry that has been there longer than the home. How old it is I don't know, but I imagine it sometimes as a holdover from a time when the farm and others around it, now fertile rolling fields, were a mass canopy of trees.
My hackberry is not beautiful. It's prone to little warts on its pale skin and its wood is not worth much. But its thick U-shaped trunk rises gracefully. Since I've known the tree – I admired it as a kid when I lived on the farm across the road, I've never known it to lose a branch. But age takes its toll on all of creation. A windstorm last year bent one branch, but the rest of the hackberry is strong and vital. It sits not too far from the family chapel and some day I might be buried within a stone's throw. Though I don't know where I'll be, I'll be at peace as the tree, perhaps in return for the love I've given it, shades my earthly remains and come fall will sprinkle small yellow leaves over the ground.
If you have a story to share about a favorite tree, past or present, you'd like to share, consider sharing it with readers. We'll run them on occasion. We'd also welcome a photo of the tree.
We hope these arbor reflections might prompt you to plant a tree or two. Invite a young person to take part. Then some day long in the future, they'll remember not just the tree, then grown tall and strong, but you and your time together.
Information on how to contact us can be found by clicking the "Contact" button at the top of this page.
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Firefox Plugin To Analyze Web Page Speed And Page Speed Activity
Earlier today I was looking around Google's Webmaster Tools site which allows you to add various web sites and analyze data obtained via the Googlebot search engine spider. If you are not familiar with the Google Webmaster Tool site then click here to explore all of the data that is available to you for each of your web sites. Anyhow in the process of looking around the Webmaster Tools site I noticed a Firefox plugin called Page Speed in the Labs portion of the Webmaster Tools site. This plugin provides similar functionality to Safari's Web Inspector when combined with the required Firebug Firefox plugin. Below is information on installing the Google Page Speed Firefox plugin as well as basic usage information including some screenshots of the plugin in action.


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text: Home»Bedroom»Bedroom Wood Furniture Bedroom Wood Furniture By admin In Bedroom | No Comments Find the best 18 Images of the Bedroom Wood Furniture in our site. You can access from here! This image is provided only for personal use. If you found any images copyrighted to yours, please contact us and we will remove it. We don't intend to display any copyright protected images. Share This: tweet You may also like Traditional Bedroom Furniture White Bedroom Furniture Full Size Grey Bedroom With Black Furniture Pink High Gloss Bedroom Furniture Bedroom Furniture Cream Chest Of Drawers Bedroom Modern Furniture Mirrored Glass Bedroom Furniture « PREVIOUS Previous post link Boys Bedroom Furniture Sets NEXT »Log Bedroom Furniture Next post link


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2590 Eglinton Avenue E. Scarborough, ONM1K 2R5
Open today
Your Subaru vehicle is built to last and engineered for the long haul.
But, it still needs regular scheduled maintenance from expert technicians to perform to its full potential.
Our service personnel at Scarboro Subaru are committed to making your experience a positive one and our team of factory-trained technicians know your Subaru vehicle like no one else. Whether you need an oil change, tire change or rotation, brake replacement or diagnosis, we're ready to help.
It's now even easier to schedule your service appointment with us; simply choose one of the booking options below to start the process. If you prefer to speak to someone in our Service Department, please give us a call at (416) 265-4411.


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Feds: Taxpayers on hook for layoffs
Taxpayers would be on the hook for the costs of laying off defense industry workers if automatic, across-the-board budget cuts were to take effect Jan. 2.
Defense giant Lockheed Martin, which backed off Monday from an earlier threat to issue thousands of layoff warnings later this month just as voters were preparing to go to the polls, said it welcomed a notice from the Office of Management and Budget that affirmed vendors could bill Uncle Sam if "contract actions" next year meant they were forced to close plants and lay off employees.
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The notice also made clear that layoff notices under a labor law called the "WARN Act" would be in order in the run-up to potential cancellations, although those cancellations would likely take place months after the Jan. 2 budget restrictions, rather than on the same day.
"The additional guidance … ensures that, if contract actions due to sequestration were to occur, our employees would be provided the protection of the WARN Act and that the costs of this protection would be allowable and recoverable," said company spokeswoman Jennifer Allen.
Lockheed CEO Robert Stevens warned earlier this year that he might issue layoff warnings in late October because the Jan. 2 onset of $55 billion in automatic cuts for fiscal 2013 — called sequestration — might mean cancellations, plant closures and lost jobs, and as such he owed his employees a warning under the law. But OMB guidance issued Friday said that although the Defense Department would probably have to abrogate or renegotiate contracts under sequestration, that wouldn't happen all at once.
"The additional guidance offered important new information about the potential timing of DoD actions under sequestration, indicating that DoD anticipates no contract actions on or about Jan. 2, 2013, and that any action to adjust funding levels on contracts as a result of sequestration would likely not occur for several months after Jan. 2," Allen said.
Another major defense vendor, BAE Systems, also said Monday that OMB's notice obviated the need for layoff advisories around the end of this month.
"As it remains less than clear how and when sequestration might be implemented for individual programs, BAE Systems has determined it will not issue conditional WARN notifications to all of its employees following the guidance issued by OMB and DoD last week," said the company's top spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse. Still, like Lockheed, he made clear BAE still believes that option remains open.
"If specific information becomes available that certain company facilities may suffer mass layoffs due to sequestration, we will issue WARN notices at that time as required by law," Roehrkasse told POLITICO. "Unless sequestration is avoided, we eventually may have no choice but to issue WARN notices to potentially impacted employees. When that might happen will depend on the circumstances as they develop."


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† Billed Annually. Your Instant Reseller account includes one (1) domain registration for 1 year. If eNom cannot verify your Instant Reseller application within 14 days of your application date, we will issue you a refund of the Instant Reseller subscription fee. This refund will issue in an amount equal to the subscription fee, minus the domain registration fee.


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Cisco UCS Customers Discuss Desktop Virtualization in IPTV Broadcast Today
The move to liberate workers from the constraints of traditional desktop computing, while embracing the proliferation of end-user device choices, is a rapidly increasing trend in IT. IT managers are looking at desktop virtualization to improve application access and data security, cut costs and improve services for today's mobile, distributed workforce. The hosted virtual desktop market is forecast by analysts to accelerate through the next two years to an estimated 70 million units by 2014, approximately 15% of all enterprise desktops/laptops worldwide.
Two leading-edge Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) customers, Diebold and Seattle Children's Hospital, will be featured in a webcast session today at Noon PST/3 p.m. EST to discuss their virtual desktop deployments, why they made the decision to switch to this new model, and how UCS is delivering an optimized, secure, scalable platform for hosting virtual desktop workloads. Registration is not required; to join us, visit www.ustream.tv/ciscotv. Seattle Children's is a premier child healthcare center, and if you've used a card reader at a leading bank or retail outlet, you've likely used a Diebold device, since the company is a leading global provider of integrated self-service delivery and security systems. Both Diebold and Seattle Children's Hospital have employed this technology in innovative and highly impactful ways, so this is a great conversation to listen in on if you're evaluating or already on the road to virtual desktops.
Customers worldwide have been telling us why they're selecting Cisco UCS as the preferred platform to host virtual desktop workloads:
• An expansive memory footprint, critical to desktop workloads, coupled with the latest generation Intel processors
• A simplified, high-speed, low-latency data center fabric that reduces the complexity and results in one-third the cost of traditional networking infrastructure
• A streamlined operational model leveraging service profile templates to provision virtual desktop infrastructure in a fraction of the time typically consumed.
Cisco UCS is the central foundation of the Virtualization Experience Infrastructure (VXI) – a fully integrated, open, and validated end-to-end architecture for delivering virtual desktops, voice and video in a next-generation virtual workspace, with an uncompromised experience for end-users. Visit www.cisco.com/go/vdifor more information and stay tuned for important announcements coming in the months ahead.
In an effort to keep conversations fresh, Cisco Blogs closes comments after 60 days. Please visit the Cisco Blogs hub page for the latest content.


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A stop-gap spending plan to keep the government running through Nov. 18 failed in the House Wednesday by a 230-to-195 margin, as Democratic support that the GOP leadership had counted on vanished in a dispute over disaster funding.
The failure, which threatens a government shutdown if no continuing resolution (CR) is approved by Oct. 1, sent GOP leaders scrambling for a fix that can muster a majority, but a way forward is not clear.
At the core of the Democrats' opposition to the funding plan was anger at House majority leader Eric Cantor's demand that the disaster funding be offset by cuts elsewhere.
But dismay over the disaster funding was not limited to the Democrats. While most GOP naysayers voted against the plan because they said it spent too much, others – especially those in districts recovering from natural disasters – said it spent too little.
"As we speak, people are back home in my district with hip boots throwing out their life's possessions," says freshman Rep. Lou Barletta (R) of Pennsylvania, who voted against the bill. "I want to get the most I can for people back home."
More than 50 GOP conservatives sent Speaker John Boehner of Ohio a letter last week threatening to vote down any measure that exceeded a rate of spending specified by the House's 2012 fiscal year budget passed in April. Most kept that pledge in Wednesday's vote.
House leaders typically don't bring bills to the floor and then lose. But Mr. Boehner has defined his speakership around the principle of allowing votes to "let the House work its will" – a stance that has helped manage the aspirations of a robust freshmen class, many elected with strong tea party support.
"No leader wants to go into a vote knowing he's going to lose, unless he wants to make a point, which in fact may be what's happening," says Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
GOP leaders had counted on support from Democrats to pass the CR. Rep. Norm Dicks of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, had pledged support as recently as Tuesday.
"I said at the Rules Committee meeting that I was prepared to go along, but that was before there was a real uprising in our caucus," Congressman Dicks said after the vote.
With a new fiscal year set to begin on Oct. 1, the failed vote sets up yet another scramble to avoid a government shutdown. Congress's agenda has been driven by fiscal crises ever since Republicans took back control of the House in January 2011. Lawmakers took a tough vote in April to fund government for the balance of the 2011 fiscal year, then, in August, a tougher vote to raise the national debt limit to nearly $17 trillion.
With Congress yet to pass any of its 12 spending bills for FY 2012, an omnibus spending measure now must pass both the House and Senate and be signed by the president. Until this week, leaders on both sides of the aisle had predicted that such a measure would be managed without a shutdown.
But the call last week by Representative Cantor of Virginia for offsets for all disaster spending set up firefights with Senate Democrats in the runup to this vote. In the end, House Republicans proposed $3.5 billion in disaster funding, offsetting the first $1 billion by cuts to a program to boost energy efficient cars. Senate Democrats propose $6.9 billion in relief, with no offsets.
House Democratic opposition to the GOP plan broke out at a caucus meeting Wednesday morning. The Democrats opposed both the demand for offsets and the target – $1.5 billion cut in funding for a Department of Energy loan program for the production of fuel-efficient cars.
"It's so frustrating this idea that we require offsets for disaster aid to help people in this country who have been adversely impacted by flooding, hurricanes and tornadoes while at the same time we don't require offsetting for nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D) of Massachusetts.
In a floor speech before the vote, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi blasted Republicans for failing to honor a "commitment to the American people that at a time of natural disaster we'll be there."
In a floor speech on Wednesday, Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada said that he won't back down. "As of this morning, FEMA's disaster fund had almost nothing left," he said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "It will be broke on Monday."
If the House passes a measure with offsets for disaster funding, Reid says that he will strip it out on the Senate floor and substitute a $6.9 billion alternative with no offsets, which the Senate passed last week with the support of 10 Senate Republicans.
"There was such a reaction in the country when [Cantor] said that all disaster aid had to be paid for that he had to back off," Sen. Charles Schumer (D) of New York told reporters after the vote.


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I'm still reeling from the Bears' stunning loss in Super Bowl 41; I should have known that Sexy Rexy would let me down when I needed him most. On that note, here's some links that we thought were interesting but didn't merit full coverage last week:
- Think Secret is reporting that Apple has seeded another build of OS X 10.4.9 to developers.
- In their February 2, 2007 edition of BusinessWeek, Bill Gates was asked whether or not he'd buy an iPhone. He tries to be quippy but ends up just sounding like an angry nerd who's trying to explain why people shouldn't buy full screen DVDs: "[I] like to dial numbers with one hand, and maybe I'm the only one. The phone space is where we think software will be the critical element. If there's anything good about the iPhone, it's software... So the key trend to look at is the importance of software and then say who really has shown the ability to do strong software? In some ways, just we have."
- TextMate—arguably the best text editor ever—has been nominated as an award finalist in the Dr. Dobb's Jolt Product Excellence Awards.
- Notae 2 is out: "Supports multiple note types, including rich text, PDF (read-only), and Web Archive (read-only), exports to iPod as textual notes, even to multiple iPods at once, full-screen editing mode, tags browser makes it much easier to find notes without searching, note header makes editing tags and renaming much easier, system-wide shortcuts to activate Notae and optionally prepare a new note for entry, Quick Entry window (with an SWS) to add one-off notes or have a little scratch pad."
- Rogue Amoeba has released a free update to AirFoil: "We've updated Airfoil to version 2.0.6 today, with several bug fixes. Airfoil now has full support for IPv6, along with other networking code updates. We've also fixed a bug that caused the equalizer to use excessive CPU on some machines, and updated the version of Smart Crash Reports bundled with Airfoil."
- Apple has posted a free demo of the iPod game Vortex with two playable levels.
- Freeverse has announced that it is now shipping its "Big Bang Brain Games" pack. The pack contains the following six games: Reaction (sounds like a PopIt clone), Sudoku, NovaSweeper (MineSweeper), Remembrance (memory), Echo (a spatial and aural version of memory), and Fallacy (a logical reasoning game).
- Do you use Flickr a lot or know someone who does? Here's a cool MacOSXHint that explains how you can rotate the photos in a Flickr feed as your desktop background.
- Are you still on the fence even though Adium has hit 1.0? TheAppleBlog has a pretty in-depth review of the application that shows off many of its coolest features.
- Finally, it looks like Apple has launched an e-mail campaign encouraging members of their e-mail lists to "Go beyond Vista."
Image Credit: Kissing Suzy Kolber via Funkatron.com


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NOAA Predicts Mixed Bag of Drought, Flooding and Warm Weather for Spring
Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued the three-month U.S. Spring Outlook, stating that odds favor above-average temperatures across much of the continental United States, including drought-stricken areas of Texas, the Southwest and the Great Plains. Spring promises little drought relief for most of these areas, as well as Florida, with below- average spring precipitation favored there. Meanwhile, river flooding is likely to be worse than last year across the country, with the most significant flood potential in North Dakota.
"This outlook reminds us of the climate diversity and weather extremes we experience in North America, where one state prepares for flooding while neighboring states are parched, with no drought relief in sight," said Laura Furgione, deputy director of NOAA's National Weather Service. "We produce this outlook to help communities prepare for what's likely to come in the next few months and minimize weather's impacts on lives and livelihoods. A Weather-Ready Nation hopes for the best, but prepares for the worst."
The U.S. Spring Outlook identifies the likelihood of spring flood risk and expectations for temperature, precipitation and drought. The outlook is based on a number of factors, including current conditions of snowpack, drought, soil moisture, streamflow, precipitation, Pacific Ocean temperatures and consensus among climate forecast models. Full release


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The Latest GOP Lie About Obamacare
There's a saying that "nothing is more admirable in politics than a short memory." But we are amazed by the audacity of the latest attack by Republican leaders on the Affordable Care Act.
The target of Republicans' new criticism is a sensible mechanism to ensure an even distribution of risks across insurance companies. According to Republican leaders like House Budget Chairman Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, these risk corridor provisions are "massive insurance company bailouts." Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has even introduced a bill to strip them from the ACA. Some conservative groups are calling them "nothing more than a built-in, blank check bailout for insurance companies."
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What's most remarkable about their comments on risk corridors is that Republican leaders are denouncing a model they created to smooth out rate increases in prescription drug coverage under Medicare. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted in 2003 to create Medicare Part D, he called the law "the most important social legislation … in my memory" and said it provided "a genuine opportunity for the private sector to actually compete in offering this new drug benefit." House Republican Leader John Boehner made similar comments, noting in 2007, "By almost every measure, this drug benefit has exceeded expectations, and it continues to score high marks among seniors for providing big savings on their prescription costs."
An innovative part of the law McConnell and Boehner voted for was its "risk corridors" program, a new idea back in 2003. The corridors are a mechanism to distribute or balance risks across insurance companies, so that those that sign up healthier enrollees help those that attract sicker enrollees. Under the program, if insurers' actual costs for medical claims are more than 3 percent below their expected costs, they will transmit a portion of their profits into the federal Treasury. Those funds will then be redistributed to insurers whose actual costs exceed their expected costs by more than 3 percent. The provisions were included in Medicare Part D to give the insurers confidence to enter a new market. And they worked.
At the time, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) described the Part D risk corridors as one of the "incentives that the secretary can use" to get the new plans started "in a strong way" and said that "on risk adjustment … these plans are enabling many beneficiaries to lower their out-of-pocket costs substantially, and that's particularly true for beneficiaries with chronic illnesses." The Bush administration highlighted the risk corridors as a strategy to "insure against higher than expected drug costs." Notably, the Part D risk corridors are a permanent feature of the program.


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Welcome to USAJOBS, the portal through which you may apply to all USDA's Marketing & Regulatory Programs (MRP) available vacancies. This system is designed to provide you with a quicker, easier way of applying, instant access to your application status 24 hours a day, the ability to edit or update your application until midnight eastern time on the day the announcement closes, and much more.
The following question and answer sections address many questions you as a prospective employee may have about how USAJOBS works and how to complete your on-line application.


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Church websites. Some of the first ones were fairly amateur. Hobbyists with HTML skills, making a site that could hold basic information about their local faith community.
Today, the quality of church websites in Northern Ireland is very wide. Some are still showing their amateur roots. Others have been produced by particularly talented ministers and hackers – with an eye for style, together with a head full of technical knowledge about making a website that works.
Finally, there are those churches which have paid someone to build them a site. They stand out a mile. In my opinion, they're not always better than the ones produced by talented insiders. The people who make paid-for sites fall into two broad categories. Late teens, early twenties who earn a bit of money on the side producing websites. And small web companies who do it full time.
I spent last night surveying a list of fifteen or so sites entered into web section of the Presbyterian Achievement in Communications Awards. I'll link to the winner after it's been announced at General Assembly on Thursday morning. And to protect the innocent, I'll not link to the other entrants!
Update - Maynooth Community Church won the Internet category, though May Street won the Print category and was commended for its quality across the full range of media. (Personally - and against my criteria - I'd highly rate May Street's website too - but I wasn't the only judge ...)
I'm not someone that you'd give money to in order to generate a website. The unadventurous template that AiB uses on Blogger told you that already. But I've a fair idea of some of the things that make websites usable and attractive, and I've spent a while figuring out the kind of information that people using a church website are looking for.
Call them user stories, use cases, or scenarios. But there are a few simple reasons why different groups of people go to a church website.
- New people to an area wanting to find out about churches in their area. They're looking for a quick way to assess the type of church it is. Are they open to visitors? Are they engaged in their community? Is there evidence that the church is alive?
- Make sure that your church website can be found using a simple Google search – eg, "Church Name Presbyterian".
- Visitors and new people in an area wanting to find the address – including a postcode (for the nefarious GPS) – and directions/map to the church. You'd be surprised the number of churches who have the address on one webpage, and a map on another. So you need to waste two pieces of paper printing out the details you need. And they want to quickly find the time of the Sunday services ... and don't forget to mention if the time changes in the summer (and define what "summer" is).
- New families would expect to be able to find out what time and day of the week various youth organisations meet on (Girls Brigade, BB, Girl Guides, Scouts, Youth Clubs, Youth Fellowships etc). One site had a menu of pages based around day of week and then subsequent hierarchy for the organisations meeting on those days. So to find the BB details, I had to go through Monday, Tuesday, … until finding it on Friday's page, and then click on the BB link. Very neat, but not at all intuitive.
- People will also want to find out who the minister is. Name, sympathetic photo and a bit about them. How can they get in touch with them. Just an email address isn't going to be enough. If they don't give out their home numbers, then put the church office number beside the minister's blurb and say that you can leave a message for them on that number.
- If you have a church website – keep it up to date. Refresh its content regularly. It's really disheartening to find information promoting the flower festival that finished two months ago being highlighted on the front page. Or announcements from three weeks ago, but not last week.
- So consider putting your weekly announcements bulletin online – if you can commit to keeping it up-to-date, and can edit out people's personal details (addresses and possibly phone numbers too). Some churches hide these in a members area with a simple password that they print on the paper bulletins handed out to people in church. Others store them as images or Adobe FlashPaper.
Keep an eye on broken links. Half the sites I looked at had broken links. Some of which I found within five clicks of surfing, others that the slightly weird but free Xenu link checker picked up in the background while I visually checked out the site's content.
And style is important - though not an end in itself. Consistency gives a website a certain feel of quality, a class if you like. Inconsistent style quickly makes the world's best content look like a dog's breakfast. So stick to the same ways of laying out pages - whether that's achieved through style sheets (CSS) or templates in your online or offline web editing tool.
Think about accessibility (and mobility).
- Your images must have ALT tags. Does your site work with images switched off? Two thirds of the sites I looked at – including some professionally produced and paid for – had no ALT tags, or they all defaulted to "IMAGE". Made it hard to navigate past some home pages.
- You should make sure you can navigate the site using a keyboard (TABbing around) and not just with a mouse.
- Can the legibility be enhanced by using common browser's menu support for increasing text size? Again, I was surprised that the style sheets some professional sites used demanded absolute text sizes. Or when menu button text got larger, but the main content stayed the same size.
- Browser support = IE7 > Mozilla > Safari > Opera
- Keep the size of your home page small. Last night's competitors ranged from 14K up to 7MB. About a third came in around 150-200K. Another third were between 500K and 1MB. Ouch.
- Update - Make sure there's some way to subscribe to changes and updates on your site - eg, an RSS feed. People won't necessarily keep coming back to check your site, but they may subscribe and then see changes that way.
A proportion of your site's visitors may be using a screen reader or a non-standard browser. They may have images switched off – maybe to decrease bandwidth if they're on the move. I've been frustrated more than once trying to find the address for a church using a Blackberry and finding that the page sizes exceeded the handheld device's buffer or required several minutes of frantic GPRS traffic to download the page.
PCI also has Guidelines for Internet Usage which it encourages congregations to adopt. The principles around use of photos - individuals, young people, permissions - copyright, external links etc.
That's not a definitive list – but it covers some of the important bases. I'd be interested to
hear read your suggestions, so please do leave comments below.
To close, some random observations:
- Playing music on your homepage is a neat trick, but think twice, thrice and then pray about it for a month before actually doing it.
- Animated icons are tiresome. As are links to pages that just say "Under Construction". Nearly better to have no link that a fruitless one.
- While no church based their entire site around Wordpress (expect to see that next year), some did use it niftily embedded within their sites for news items and blogs.
- About a third of the sites offered downloads of services/sermons. One even offered live streaming as an extension of the more traditional "tape ministry" (that now features CDs rather than worn out C90s cassettes). Offering downloads which include hymns and songs may be in breach of copyright if the correct licences are not arranged.


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NEW YORK (AP) - Summer's not over just yet, and some designers at New York Fashion Week were clearly focused on the beach Friday, the second of eight days of spring previews for editors, stylists and retailers.
NEW YORK (AP) � Summer's not over just yet, and some designers at New York Fashion Week were clearly focused on the beach Friday, the second of eight days of spring previews for editors, stylists and retailers.
Peter Som said he was all about the "surfer girl," while Carmen Marc Valvo took sportswear uptown, using athletic mesh and scuba stripes for fitted cocktail dresses.
"I'm a beach bum at heart," Som said in an interview. "I cannot surf, though. I'm too accident prone."
If Som has his way, his customers will be comfortable but sophisticated � and treated to luxury. His collection was bathed in ocean blues against white, with a touch of neoprene in bikini tops paired with skirts, along with some actual bathing suits.
Valvo, known for red carpet and eveningwear, also availed himself of neoprene on a runway dominated by black and white at the Mercedes-Benz tents at Lincoln Center. Black dresses inspired by wetsuits fit snugly, with skin exposed through strategic slashes.
Desigual, the Spanish-based retailer that debuted on the New York catwalks Thursday, went with loose palazzo pants and breezy dresses in bold prints worthy of fun in the sand. Some looks were topped with floppy sun hats.
Other shows Friday included Jason Wu, Rebecca Minkoff, Nicole Miller and Helmut Lang. The fashion world then moves on to previews in London, Milan and Paris.
Wu crafted spring styles that emphasized ease. A bias-cut, gold-beaded dress Karen Elson wore to open the show was a sign of his delicate touch, followed up with feather-light and sometimes sheer slip dresses, some covered in tiny beads. They impressed tennis star Maria Sharapova, who sat in the front row. Other celebrity guests included Alicia Keys and Jessica Pare of "Mad Men" fame. "Jason has a remarkable talent of creating a feminine and romantic look through the use of drapery and unique tailoring," Sharapova said.
Som paired the sportswear pieces with sateen tuxedo jackets, snakeskin coatS and eyelet cocktail dresses. A blue wave pattern in a neoprene sweatshirt dress was worn with a crisp, white button-down tux shirt, showing how to cross that bridge in style. Floral prints were graphic, almost jarring, and tailored Bermuda shorts had unfinished edges. The juxtaposition of seemingly opposite themes � a slouchy shirt with a feminine eyelet back worn with a tweed skirt � is what makes fashion interesting. "That tension is sexy," he said. "I'm never not interested then."
There was a glamorous whiff of scandal � make that "Scandal" � with Emmy-nominated actress Kerry Washington as guest judge for the "Project Runway" season finale. Washington, who plays a wily political strategist in her red-hot series, is a fast-growing fashion luminary � a development she described as an "occupational hazard," though a happy one. She joined regular judges Heidi Klum, Nina Garcia and Zac Posen at the Lincoln Center tents to watch eight final contestants display their wares. But actually, there remain only three finalists. Their names will remain a secret to the rest of us until the "Runway" finale airs Oct. 17.
Fashionistas gushed not only over the creative casual clothes and the striking patterned gladiator heels, but also the entertainment: live music from singer Janelle Monae. Minkoff, a designer especially popular with younger women, has long used live music at her runway shows. This time, she partnered with American Express as part of their American Express Unstaged program, which pairs artists and makes their collaborations available through digital media. The runway show with Monae was live streamed, as was another mini-concert afterward in a private room nearby in the Lincoln Center tents, where Monae performed songs from her new album, "The Electric Lady," to be released next week.
Valvo dove into fashion week with sequins and scuba influences. The opening look was a bright pink scuba stripe and leather cocktail dress with a black hemline. Bathing suits were more like loungewear. Whatever you want to call it, sign up Vanessa Williams, who was picking outfits from the front row.
Loose boyfriend trousers and slouchy, sleeveless tops came � surprise! � mostly in black and white. Design duo Nicole and Michael Colovos called the spring collection "an exercise in modern minimalism," which is familiar ground for the label. This time around, the clothes were both sharply tailored and deconstructed, inspired by the works of contemporary artist Wade Guyton, according to the designers' notes. Sheer overlays in modernist block patterns with a touch more color lent energy to some dresses and other looks. Bright fuchsia was the pop of color in chintzed silk organza dresses and skimpy shorts with tops in the same fabric.
Sleek and slim is nothing new for Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs, but throw in all the cutouts, harnesses and bra tops and their latest collection might cause a craze for crunches. The clothes were fresh, chic and cool � in a ladylike way. But all that skin would make them hard to wear for the masses. The Cushnie et Ochs label is really for starlet types, anyway.
This show was largely a media � and social media � frenzy. The collection wasn't couture craftsmanship, and it wasn't visionary. It was commercial, and there were plenty of bloggers taking selfies in the front row. But the clothes were cute, wearable and affordable in a price range similar to Top Shop or Zara. Dresses on its website, for example, are priced from $100 to $200.
Jocelyn Noveck and Nicole Evatt in New York contributed to this report.
Follow Samantha Critchell at http://www.twitter.com/ap_fashion and http://www.twitter.com/sam_critchell


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The Large Rucksack in Technical Nylon and Leather
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- A lightweight, showerproof rucksack made from durable nylon woven in a compact gabardine construction – inspired by the fabric of the Burberry trench coat. The bag's easy, soft structure is influenced by military archive styles from the early 20th century, and is reworked with multiple zip pockets for added functionality.
- 28 x 15 x 42cm/11 x 5.9 x 16.5in
- Outer: 85% polyamide, 15% acrylic
- Trim: 100% calf leather
- Back panel: 100% polyamide
- Lining: 71% cotton, 29% polyamide
- Three exterior zip pockets, one interior slip pocket, one interior zip pocket
- Adjustable canvas and chain shoulder straps
- Rolled leather top handle
- Press-stud and drawcord closures
- Quilted back panel
- Polished metal hardware
- Raised Burberry lettering at front pocket
- Made in Italy
Item 40148781


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Tonight, Amar'e Stoudemire makes his return as the Knicks come into Toronto riding Linsanity on a five game winning streak. The Raptors defeated the Knicks 90-85 earlier this season at Madison Square Garden but that was a far different Knick team. The Knicks lost that game with no Amar'e Stoudemire and with Toney Douglas as the starting point guard. Tonight, Stoudemire returns and Douglas likely will play 0 minutes. The Knicks will be without Carmelo Anthony but they should be able to extend their winning streak to six games tonight.
Here's what to watch for:
- How do STAT and Lin mesh? In Lin's first impact game, last Saturday in New Jersey, Stoudemire recorded an efficient 17 points. Obviously Lin has had a phenomenal week and now defenses have to game plan for him on the pick and roll. I want to see how well Lin, who runs the pick and roll extremely well, and Stoudemire, the best pick and roll big man in the NBA, mesh together. In theory it should be a match made in heaven but we will see. Personally I think Stoudemire will start to play at an elite level along side Lin. The new Knicks point guard has far more skill and understanding of the pick and roll then ex-Knick point guard Raymond Felton. Alongside Felton for the first half of last season, Stoudemire was posting MVP type numbers and the Knicks were winning games. This year alongside Toney Douglas, who has no concept of how to play point guard, Stoudemire has been a shell of himself and has struggled all season. I think we will see the real Amar'e Stoudemire now that the Knicks have a legitimate point guard. As horrible and tragic as his brothers death was, Stoudemire did get a week off and I imagine he will have very fresh legs. Fresh legs and a legit point guard should cause STAT to return to the MVP candidate he was last season.
- Andrea Bargnani will be out tonight. Bargnani is Toronto's best player and is averaging 23.5 points per game this season. He presents the Knicks difficulties defensively because of his ability to pull Chandler out of the paint due to his strong outside shooting game. With Bargnani out tonight, the Knicks defense still cannot go to sleep on Toronto. Mediocre players are infamous for killing the Knicks, i.e. Shannon Brown, Boris Diaw, Brandon Rush, etc. Without their best player, Toronto will play more team oriented offensive basketball and the Knicks must do a good job of stopping the Raptors. With a solid defensive effort, the Knicks should give up no more than 85 points and should win the game easily.
- The offensive game plan tonight. Against the Raptors earlier this season, the Knicks took 35 three pointers and made only 10. I am interested to see with Lin as the point guard, how the Knicks will attack Toronto. The Raptors are a very mediocre team (17th in defensive PER) defensively and the Knicks should be able to attack them in the pick and roll. Aaron Gray, Ed Davis and Amir Johnson do not make up an elite interior defense and the Knicks should be able to attack them inside. This isn't like playing the Heat where D'Antoni had to have the team jack up 3's just to have a chance to stay in the game. The new Lin powered offense should be able to dominate Toronto tonight.
- Can somebody please stop Jose Calderon? Over his past three games, Calderon has averaged 18.6 points per game and 11.7 assists per game. Against the Knicks earlier this year, Calderon carved up the Knicks with 12 assists. Unless he plays the Lakers, Calderon won't score 30 points but his uncanny ability to get others involved and rack up assists could give the Knicks some problems tonight. In that first Toronto game, the Knicks allowed the Raptors to shoot 7/17 from outside the arc and that was the difference in the game. Linsanity is in full effect but that doesn't mean Toronto is going to lay down tonight. They will give 100% effort and if the Knicks cannot stop Calderon from distributing all over the floor, they may be in trouble. I do not think the Knicks will let Calderon kill them tonight but he definitely must be stopped tonight.
- Here's a picture of Landry Fields in a snuggie:


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Mammography screening guidelines
Content Contributor: The Abramson Cancer Center of the Univers
Last Reviewed: June 18, 2009
Dear OncoLink "Ask the Experts,"
Do you have suggested references for mammography screening guidelines?
Carolyn Vachani RN, MSN, AOCN, OncoLink's Nurse Educator, responds:
The American Cancer Society provides guidelines for screening mammography, which were updated in 2007 to include information about women at higher risk. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force also provides recommendations for breast cancer screening. These were last updated in 2002.


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New York Resource Neutral
Associated Press – October 17th, 2050 – New York, NY
Yesterday afternoon, New York City's administrators reported that the city has reached its goal of resource neutrality. This is a culmination of a multi-decade effort marred by numerous setbacks, including the Hurricane Katie in 2017 and Superstorm Heather in 2032. With less than two months before the end of the year deadline New York joins several international urban centers in completing the challenge set forth during the 2016 Sochi Accord. The Accord countered the once widely accepted practice of structuring cities as dense sinks of resources, requiring outlying rural and suburban land to survive.
The Big Apple was not the first city to achieve its dynamic equilibrium with the biosphere, but it is the largest in the United States. Contrary to early 21st century beliefs, post-industrial cities provided the flexibility necessary to become resource neutral. Several cities have already surpassed the goals of the Sochi Accord and achieved the coveted "Net Positive" rating from the USGBC's LEED "Mid-Millennium" rating system.
New York's Mayor, Sasha Rodriguez, commented on the city's long road. "The beginnings of success came from acknowledging the city as a system of systems. There was no silver bullet, but the exponential leaps in efficiency came from helping multiple systems evolve together and letting them benefit from each other's progress."
Several technological advances also spurned advancement. The city migrated from exporting food waste to using it to produce energy that now powers hundreds of thousands of homes in the five boroughs. Additionally, the growth of 3D printing now allows massive amounts of "resources" to never leave the island, with old products and packaging easily broken down and printed into new ones.
The Mayor was quick to point out, "Hanging our hat on technology alone would never have gotten us here." From the beginning of the century, the city has returned 35% of its vehicular street grid (which once comprised 25% of the city's acreage) back to its citizens in the form of pedestrian plazas, alternative transit and green space. "[That] alone helped reduce heat island temperatures, deplete stormwater runoff and reduce emissions–all of which had positive energy repercussions."
City Council Speaker Richard Kennedy was quick to admit that regulation played a subdued role. "We never wanted regulation to act as a ceiling, but rather as a foundation supporting innovation. Whether it was LED lighting, next-gen appliances, recycling, or standards of building envelopes, I think the times we used the regulatory path were more empowering than restrictive."
So when asked whether laws or technology was the most important to the city's progress, Mayor Rodriguez smiled and shook her head. "Neither actually. The biggest challenge was a cultural understanding of what we were trying to achieve and deciding to do it. Recycling laws don't make people recycle. Bike lanes don't make people ride. This administration, and previous administrations, merely facilitated options for urban evolution and the citizens of New York responded. Realizing that "sustainability" was not a technological fix for a wasteful lifestyle was a conscious cultural choice. The results, well, they speak for themselves."
Leaving with some encouraging words towards the prospects of future progress, the Deputy Mayor Wesley Chang said, "Oh we're not at the end. The smaller cities started with a leg up, but there is still a lot out there to accomplish." According to the administration, future efforts include more space for urban farming, completing the "Street CONNECT" renovation of the subway system and adding to the city's coastline resiliency storm measures.
UPDATE: This post was chosen as the winning entry to the Masdar Engage Blogging Contest.


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When May 1 rolls around, the proposed general strike will probably not strictly resemble famed general strikes of history. But the tactic is no less significant now than it used to be. In fact, a lot rides on this upcoming May Day. This video, featuring archival footage and the words of Marina Sitrin, Francis Fox Piven and John Nichols, explains why the general strike matters so much, not just for Occupy and labor but for the legitimacy of democracy itself.
For more, watch all of the videos in VideoNation's series on the general strike.
Music courtesy The Unsacred Hearts, Creative Commons
—Elizabeth Whitman


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25 Things You Say During Sex, And What You Really Mean
Does that feel good? :: I have no idea what I'm doing right now. Yeah, right there. :: Yeah, just right there. Stop moving to the other places you seem to think matter. Do you have a condom? :: I would like to have sex now. I might have a condom. I'm not sure. :: I would like to have sex without a condom, but I'm not sure if you will. I just need a second. :: I just need 38 second to fumble with this condom without you looking at me. Wait. :: Ow. Slower. :: Ow. Is your roommate home? :: You're being much louder than you think. Should we put on some music? :: Should we attempt to drown out the sounds of our stomachs hitting each other? Talk dirty to me. :: Stop making that noise. Fuck me! :: The number of fictional sex scenes I've watched far exceeds the number of times I've actually had sex. Redundantly saying, "Fuck me!" is what I'm supposed to do, right? You like that? :: Should I bother continuing with this move? It's doing nothing for me, but I thought you might like it. Oooh. :: Consider that sound a sign that things are going well, though, honestly, I don't have to make that noise. You're so pretty. :: You're so self-conscious. You're so yes yeah :: Am I talking right now? Kiss me. :: Shut up. Oh God. :: Oh God, my wrists hurt so much. Don't stop. :: You can stop soon. I'm about to-- :: Don't ruin this. Hwoooogluh :: Please forget this noise instantly. How was that? :: Validate me. Did you...finish? :: Am I finished here? Can I get you some water? :: Can you pretend not to see me shuffling off to the bathroom with this gross condom? I love you. :: I love having sex with you. Now, let's finish watching Game of Thrones. :: I love you.