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A grand hoax, top secret maps, and live-ammunition rehearsals set the stage for June 6, 1944, when 200,000 soldiers stormed Normandy's beaches to help free Europe.
June 6 dawns, and D-Day once more returns to Normandy. The tide is low at Utah Beach and Omaha Beach, as it was then. The sand hardens underfoot, as it did then. I touch a rusted metal stump thrusting from the sand, a remnant of the rows of barriers that lined this shore on June 6, 1944. Clouds crowd the sky this morning. It will be a gray day, as it was then.
To this shore every June come clusters of silent men who walk with their kin and their memories. One of them is Joseph Vaghi, a warm, vigorous Navy veteran who was a beachmaster on D-Day—"a kind of traffic cop," he says—at a bloody stretch of Omaha Beach code-named Easy Red sector.
I met Vaghi on the wind-scoured bluffs overlooking those gray sands, now so empty and calm. Nearby was the American cemetery with its 9,387 graves, 23 of them carrying the names of men from Joe's outfit, the Sixth Naval Beach Battalion. Its men disabled mines, marked sea-lanes for landing craft, cared for the beachhead wounded under fire, and bore them through a reddening sea to evacuation craft. The day I met him, Vaghi was helping to dedicate a belated memorial to his fallen comrades. So humble was their outfit, he laughed, that the United States armed forces—even the Navy—forgot about them for nearly 60 years.
It was to meet men like Joe Vaghi, and to hear their stories, that I came to Normandy last summer. I was searching for the untold saga of D-Day, those fascinating bits of history and heroism that have gone largely unreported in the decades since that terrible morning on the beach. Many of these stories were lost because the sea closed over them, sealing lips forever. Others were obscured by the shroud of secrecy that was draped over many aspects of the invasion, including the Allies' Operation Neptune—the top secret naval and amphibious actions, under British command, that launched and supported the invasion.
As he and I talked, the U.S. Navy was again off the beaches of Normandy, this time to scan the seafloor. Using sonar, magnetometers, and the global positioning system, Navy archaeologists were filling in the gaps of history by locating the vessels lost while delivering the U.S., British, and Canadian troops who stormed the beaches and fought their way inland. Of the 5,300 ships, boats, and amphibious craft that took part in the invasion, at least 200 were lost on D-Day or during the perilous days that followed.
To piece together the full story, historians are now sifting through evidence ranging from recently declassified documents to underwater photos of the wrecks. What has emerged are secrets that men and women once guarded with their lives, adding detail and color to the story of D-Day. One of the darkest subplots of all, I found, came from the English side of the Channel.
For Joe Vaghi and tens of thousands of other Americans stationed in England in the spring of 1944, France was the Far Shore, the place where they would finally meet the Nazis in a fight to the death. To prepare, they trained along a stretch of English coast that had been cleared of civilians. It was called Slapton Sands, a tranquil beach that was chosen for its geographic similarity to the coast of Normandy. Their most realistic training was Exercise Tiger, a live-ammunition D-Day rehearsal that involved some 300 ships and 30,000 men in April 1944, six weeks before the invasion.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of Operation Overlord (Allied code for the invasion itself), was aboard an observers' ship on April 27, when Exercise Tiger went terribly wrong—failed air cover, late landing craft, confusion on the beachhead. Amphibious tanks, heading to shore, misaimed their guns and wounded soldiers on the beach. At least one of the tanks sank in choppy seas while its frantic crew managed to escape. Furious, Eisenhower returned to his headquarters, deeply worried about what the exercise augured for D-Day.
Worse was yet to come. Around 2 a.m. on April 28, nine German Schnellboote—fast, elusive torpedo boats—pounced on a line of eight U.S. tank-landing ships, or LSTs. They were churning down the English coast toward Slapton Sands, fully loaded with vehicles and men who were to land in the next phase of Exercise Tiger. German torpedoes struck three LSTs at the end of the line. LST-531 capsized and sank within minutes, taking hundreds of men down with her. The torpedo that hit LST- 289 crumpled her stern, but she stayed afloat and made it to port. Gasoline aboard LST-507 exploded and set the ship afire.
Eugene Eckstam, a medical officer on the 507, raced for the tank deck, which was filled with men and vehicles. "I saw only fire—a huge, roaring blast furnace," he later wrote. "Trucks were burning; gasoline was burning; and small-arms ammunition was exploding. Worst of all were the agonizing screams for help from the men trapped inside. But I knew there was no way I—or anyone else—could help them. I knew also that smoke inhalation would soon end their misery, so I closed the hatches into the tank deck and dogged them tightly shut."
Senior officers ashore, quickly assessing the damage, ordered the five surviving LSTs to continue steaming toward Dartmouth, their destination. Capt. John Doyle, commanding officer of LST-515, the lead ship, disobeyed the order. He turned back to look for survivors. "We started looking for the ones who were still alive," Brent Wahlberg, 515 gunnery officer, remembers. "We found 132 survivors." Many of the dead, they noticed, were floating head down, feet up, with their life belts inflated. No one had told them that the life belts were to be worn under the armpits, not around the waist. That lesson from Exercise Tiger would be taught to invasion troops, saving countless lives.
In the meantime, Eisenhower had an intelligence nightmare on his hands. To keep the disaster a secret, he ordered extraordinary measures and kept the lid so tight that the details remained unknown for many years. He did not want Germany or Allied troops to know about the huge loss of life—749 sailors and soldiers by final count. Of even greater concern was the possibility that the Schnellboote might have picked up survivors who carried the most closely guarded secret of the war in their pockets—the location of the D-Day landing.
One simple word, BIGOT, is stamped in big letters across the Operation Neptune Initial Joint Plan of February 12, 1944, and from then until June 6, that stamp appeared on all supremely secret pieces of paper handled by D-Day planners. If any of those papers or maps had fallen into enemy hands, the invasion would have failed or been scuttled—a distinct possibility in the anxious days after Exercise Tiger.
BIGOT was a code word within a code word, a security classification beyond Top Secret. When planners adopted Neptune as the code word for the naval and amphibious aspects of the invasion, they realized that greater protection had to be given to any document or map that even hinted at the time and place of D-Day. They chose the odd code word BIGOT by reversing the letters of two words—To Gib—that had been stamped on the papers of officers going to Gibraltar for the invasion of North Africa in November 1942.
Those who were to get date-and-place information were given special security back-ground checks. If they qualified, they were described as "Bigoted." So when Eisenhower learned about the catastrophe off Slapton Sands, he wanted to know whether any of the dead or missing had been Bigoted. About ten men had. Those bodies were found and their documents collected. But had the Germans found any secrets on other bodies?
Allied code breakers, who eavesdropped on German communications, listened for days to determine whether the Germans had gained any new intelligence about D-Day. They had not. D-Day's secrets were still safe.
The BIGOT maps and documents were created in isolated cocoons of secrecy. One was hidden in Selfridges department store in London. BIGOT workers entered and left Selfridges by a back door, many of them knowing only that they were delivering scraps of information that somehow contributed to the war effort. Others with BIGOT clearances worked on Allied staffs scattered around London and southern England. So restricted was the BIGOT project that when King George visited a command ship and asked what was beyond a curtained compartment, he was politely turned away because, as a sentinel officer later said, "Nobody told me he was a Bigot."
The system occasionally broke down. In March 1944 a U.S. Army sergeant accidentally sent a package of BIGOT papers, some containing the target date and place of the invasion, to his sister. The family was of German descent, and the sister lived in a German section of Chicago. By chance the package broke open in a Chicago post office. Postal authorities saw BIGOT and Top Secret stamped on documents and called the FBI. Investigators cleared the soldier of espionage, though he was confined to his quarters until after D-Day. The FBI put everyone who had seen the papers under surveillance. Another serious breach came in May when a U.S. major general told guests at a London dinner party that D-Day would come before June 15. He was demoted and packed off to the United States, as was a Navy captain who had blabbed too much at another party.
The strangest breach of security came from the London Daily Telegraph, whose crossword puzzles alarmed BIGOT security officers. One puzzle, on May 2, included "Utah" in its answers. Two weeks later, "Omaha" appeared as an answer. The puzzle's author, a schoolmaster, was placed under surveillance. Next came "Mulberry," code name for artificial harbors that were secretly being built in England for use off invasion beaches. Then came the most alarming answer of all: "Neptune."
This time the schoolmaster was arrested. Confounded investigators finally decided that the words had been the product of an incredible series of coincidences. Not until 1984 was the mystery solved: One of the schoolmaster's pupils revealed that he had picked up the words while hanging around nearby camps and eavesdropping on soldiers' conversations. He then passed the odd words on to his unwitting schoolmaster when he asked his pupils to provide ingredients for his crosswords.
But nothing was more secret—or more vital to Operation Neptune—than the mosaic of Allied intelligence reports that cartographers and artists transformed into the multihued and multilayered BIGOT maps. On them were portrayed details of Hitler's vaunted Atlantic Wall, a network of coastal defenses designed to repel invaders.
To discover what the Allied invaders faced, American, British, and French operatives risked their lives—and sometimes gave their lives—in the process of filling in the BIGOT maps. Revelations about Normandy's undulating seafloor came from frogmen who also got sand samples on beaches patrolled by German sentries. Such BIGOT map notations as "antitank ditch around strongpoint" or "hedgehogs 30 to 35 feet [9 to 11 meters] apart" were often the gifts of French patriots. French laborers conscripted by the Nazis paced distances between obstacles or kept track of German troop movements. A housepainter, hired to redecorate German headquarters in Caen, stole a blueprint of Atlantic Wall fortifications.
French Resistance networks passed on precious bits of information, particularly the condition of bridges and canal locks. Wireless telegraph operators transmitted in bursts to evade German radio-detection teams. Other messages got to England in capsules, borne by homing pigeons that the Royal Air Force had delivered to French Resistance agents in cages parachuted into German-occupied Normandy. Germans, aware of the winged spies, used marksmen and falcons to bring them down. But thousands of messages got through.
BIGOT maps began with information gleaned from old scenic postcards of the Normandy coast and charts from the Napoleonic era. Next came the special deliveries from the French Resistance. Then in mid-May 1944, BIGOT mapmakers asked for low-level aerial photos of the coast. Pilots, trained to fly at 10,000 feet (3,050 meters), called this wave-top flying "dicing" because they felt that in their unarmed and unarmored aircraft they were rolling the dice with death.
On May 6, Lt. Albert Lanker of the 31st Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron made the first dicing flight. Flying 30 feet (9 meters) above the Channel to slip under German radar, he turned sharply over a large dune on the Normandy coast and, at 360 mph (580 km/h), buzzed German soldiers working on defenses. Photo interpreters examined his photos and discovered that the dune was a gun emplacement, which was added to the maps.
Lt. Allen Keith, while zooming along at about 360 mph(580 km/h), hit a gull. The bird smashed through the windscreen but was stopped by newly installed bulletproof glass on brackets in front of the pilot. Spattered by blood and feathers, Keith could not see for a few seconds but wiped off his goggles and never lost control. Photos from another of the dicing missions, this one flown by Lt. Garland A. York, revealed log posts jammed in the sand, angled seaward and topped by mines. Other photos showed that the tidal flats of the beaches were studded with "hedgehogs"—steel rails welded together and resembling giant versions of children's jacks. The obstacles were designed to impale or rip open the hulls of landing craft approaching the beach at high tide.
Some air reconnaissance photographs were processed so fast that fingerprints still appear on the negatives, showing that they were snatched from the developer for circulation. "Recent wave-top aerial photo reconnaissance," says a May 29 intelligence bulletin, "reveals that practically all types of underwater obstacles may be armed with . . . mines." The dicing photos convinced planners that landing craft had to come in at low tide and discharge troops before hitting the obstacles. So mapmakers had to figure ways to display tides and beach slopes.
Head-on aerial photos of the Normandy shoreline made by the dicing flights produced eye-level views for Allied coxswains to use as they aimed their landing craft toward D-Day beaches. BIGOT artists turned the photos into paintings that showed landmarks, such as church steeples and seaside houses. One of these artists was Navy Lt. Frederick S. Wight, who later would be renowned in civilian life as a curator and historian of modern art in the U.S.
Another BIGOT artist was Navy Lt. William A. Bostick, who worked in a commandeered London apartment. He and other artists used the pilots' panoramic photos "to make watercolors of the beaches as landing craft skippers would see them as they approached." Bostick's watercolors, emphasizing terrain features and landmarks, formed a narrow band under the maps. On the back of the maps was an invasion almanac with information about sun, moon, tide, and currents from May 25 to June 21. (The precise date of the invasion was not set until after the maps were finished.)
Bostick was especially proud of an ingenious transparent overlay that showed profiles of large and small landing craft. By adjusting the sheet over a graph of the beach slope, navigators could see where their craft would run aground and what the water depth would be. "The Army called them maps and the Navy called them charts," Bostick said. "So we called them chart/maps—pieces of paper that showed the Navy where to land the Army."
While the maps were evolving, a group of intelligence officers was busy crafting the greatest hoax of the war—a spy-running operation that was not fully revealed until the 1980s. Earlier in the war, British counterintelligence officers gave captured German spies a simple choice: Be hanged or work for us. Most chose to live. Directed by their handlers, the turncoats used seemingly clandestine radios to transmit to German spymasters a mix of real and counterfeit information. The operation, run by the wryly named XX (double cross) Committee, was meant to convince the German high command that the invasion would strike at either Nazi-held Norway or at Calais, across the English Channel from Dover.
Adding to the deception were two huge but imaginary military units. One, supposedly preparing to invade Norway, provided German radio interceptors with the busy radio traffic of a simulated 350,000-man army whose needs included "ski training" and "handbooks on engine functioning in low temperatures." A second phantom army appeared poised to strike at Calais under the command of Lt. Gen. George S. Patton. Spies tipped the Germans that Patton had arrived in England to lead the Calais invasion. Luftwaffe reconnaissance flights photographed the evidence of Patton's army: rows of tanks and barracks, fleets of landing craft in nearby ports, even an oil dock. All were illusions, made of wood, rubber, and papier-mache by fakers who included movie stagehands.
An XX committee operative added her contribution by reporting to the Germans that she was dating a staff officer of the nonexistent U.S. Fourteenth Army, which had moved its headquarters to the Dover area, opposite Calais, to prepare the invasion. (So complete was the deception that Fourteenth Army shoulder patches appeared alongside real ones in a 1944 National Geographic booklet on U.S. armed forces insignia.)
But what about reports the Nazis were receiving of a Normandy invasion? That, said the Germans' most trusted spy (and XX's star performer) would only be a diversion. A message sent on June 9—and read by Hitler himself—warned that D-Day was a trap designed to draw off German reserves so that the Allies could launch a decisive attack, "probably . . . in the Pas de Calais area." The ruse would keep German forces in Calais for weeks after D-Day, awaiting the "real" invasion.
While the Germans built up their forces around Calais, Field Marshal Rommel placed the underwater obstacles at Normandy that the dicers had spotted. Rommel had asked in vain for more cement and mines for Normandy. Denied, he made do with obstacles of timber and steel. "Our only possible chance will be at the beaches," he said. If the invaders came to Normandy, he would stop them there. He expected them to come in on a high tide and impale their craft on his barriers.
By late May, Rommel's men were in their bunkers overlooking the Normandy beaches, wondering if the invaders would land there—or hundreds of miles (kilometers) away. At Widerstandsnest (strongpoint) 62, overlooking what would be Omaha Beach, German troops were listening to popular music on a windup gramophone and reading letters by candlelight.
Sgt. Valentin Lehrmann learned that he had just become a father for the third time. The baby, Elfriede, was born May 26. Nearby, Pfc. Hein Severloh, the son of a farmer and at 21 a veteran of the Russian Front, brooded about his fate: "I knew if I did not kill them, they would kill me. All I wanted was to get out of this hell. All I wanted was to survive."
Around the same time, invasion troops were pouring into sealed-off camouflaged camps on the English coast. At a camp in Weymouth the King and Queen of England paid a surprise visit that took them among men of the Sixth Naval Beach Battalion, Joe Vaghi's outfit. Someone in the queen's party handed 17-year-old sailor Clyde Whirty an American flag, which he attached to the bulldozer he was to use to clear paths on the Easy Red beachhead. When a buddy warned that the flag would draw German fire, Whirty, a thin, quiet-spoken man, shrugged and said, "If they kill me, they won't kill someone else."
On June 1 armed officer-messengers boarded the Allied vessels at the departure ports. Each commanding officer was handed a sealed envelope marked Top Secret. Inside was another sealed envelope. The Operation Neptune message inside revealed the date of D-Day: June 5, with a possible change to June 6 or 7. The message ended: "Destroy this by burning when you have read and understood."
The weather was stormy on June 5. The next day the sea was choppy but the storm had passed.
Soon after dawn on June 6, a fleet of Allied warships appeared in the steel gray fog off Normandy Beach and prepared to bombard the German fortifications detailed in the BIGOT map. Behind Utah Beach, German shore batteries fired first, some guns zeroing in on the U.S. destroyers Fitch and Corry. The ships were turning to starboard to line up parallel to the beach. They would then anchor to become steady gun platforms for the shore bombardment. At 6:10 a.m., exactly on schedule, Allied planes began laying smoke screens to hide the destroyers. But one of the planes was shot down before it could hide the Corry.
German guns immediately targeted the ship, which, while still firing, began twisting past plumes of near misses. Then, a little after 6:30, she struck a mine. Eight minutes later, with the main deck underwater and the Corry breaking in half, the captain, Lt. Comdr. George Dewey Hoffman, ordered his 18 officers and 265 men to abandon ship. When all the living were in the 54-degree water, Hoffman joined them. The shelling continued, and more men died while struggling in the cold sea. By the time rescuing destroyers appeared two hours later, firing at Germans from one side of the ship while saving men on the other, the Corry's 260 survivors were near death. All told, the Corry, which had fired off 400 rounds during her few minutes of D-Day, lost 24 men. Her flag, snatched from the sinking ship by Lt. Paul Garray, still survives.
At about 7:30, the Sixth Naval Beach Battalion began to land on Omaha Beach, at a site their BIGOT maps designated as Easy Red sector. Clyde Whirty's bulldozer, the American flag flying, rolled off a landing craft and hit a mine. Clyde grabbed the flag, jumped off the wreck, and headed for another bulldozer, whose driver had been shot in the head. Clyde removed the body and headed up the beach. Then an artillery shell smashed that bulldozer. Still clutching his flag, Clyde sprinted toward an abandoned bulldozer, got in, and drove off. By the end of the day, Clyde was on his fourth bulldozer and still doing his job—clearing the way for the infantry.
When landing craft 88 beached, Joe Vaghi was the second man down the ramp. The first was a Coast Guardsman in bathing trunks and a helmet. He jumped into the sea to string a line for men to hold onto as they waded in. A German artillery shell hit him, and according to a witness he "disintegrated." Men of the Sixth Naval Beach Battalion—they called themselves "fighting sons of beaches"—began to charge down ramps lowered from both sides of the bow. Another German shell smashed into the starboard ramp, killing two more Coast Guardsmen.
German Pfc. Hein Severloh was crouching behind a machine gun at Widerstandsnest 62 and watching rows of men on the ramps of a landing craft. "My order," he recalls, "was to get them when they were still in one line, one after the other, before they started spreading. So I did not have to swing my gun sideways." Severloh later wrote that he saw "how the water sprayed up where my machine gun bursts landed, and when the small fountains came closer to the GIs, they threw themselves down. . . . Very soon the first bodies were drifting in the waves of the rising tide. . . . In a short time, all GIs down there were shot."
Severloh estimates that he fired 12,000 rounds from his machine gun and 400 from his carbine. But the Americans kept coming, and at the end of the day, Severloh surrendered, hoping the Americans would not know he was the German who had fired what was probably the deadliest machine gun on Omaha Beach. Sometime that day, Sgt. Valentin Lehrmann died gazing at a picture of his wife. By late afternoon Widerstandsnest 62 was empty, all its men dead, wounded, captured, or running for their lives.
In the sea, men also died. As another landing craft, 85, beached at Easy Red and struck a mine, German machine guns and artillery zeroed in. "The shells tore into the troop compartments. They smashed through massed men trying to get down the ramp," the captain later reported. Ablaze and riddled, she backed off the beach, carrying a cargo of dead and wounded. Her crew transferred all able-bodied survivors to other landing craft heading for Omaha. Her doctor helped with casualties, then boarded a boat for the beach to tend to those dying in the surf and on the sand.
What scenes we know on Bloody Omaha live on in the memories of men like Joe Vaghi—the brave but unsung troops who soldiered on and won the war, along with the forgotten sons of beaches who were both sailors and soldiers.
There is also the scene recorded by one of the BIGOT artists, Lt. William Bostick. On June 7, the day after, he walked the shore he'd seen for months in his imagination and watched soldiers digging temporary graves for bodies carried up from the sands. Then he drew one more sketch, a study in pen and ink that rendered the high price of human liberty. He titled it, "Burying the Dead on Omaha Beach."


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Pedal. Hop. Pedal.
Bring your bike on the bus! Include rabbittransit in your bike trip—you'll do more, see more, explore more, and get there faster—and bikes ride FREE! For your convenience, rabbittransit has placed bike racks on the front of our fixed route buses. Bring your bike on the bus as an alternative to pedaling your entire route, to avoid inclement weather, or to overcome other obstacles like hills and crowded city streets.
When getting off the bus, inform your driver that you will be unloading your bike. To unload your bike, simply reverse steps #2 and #3. Remember to put the bike rack in its upright and locked position if you are the last to use it.

subset: commoncrawl


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Not just another blog
Not yet convinced after 1 month on the new years resolution you can find here? Check this convincing video on what you can find and enjoy on Curaçao:
Expect…. uhmm what to expect? Not sexy tight muscular guys wearing tight clothing but gymnast. Indian gymnasts performing an Indian sport called Mallakhamb.
What the video:


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That was the title of the article wriitten by Marwa Rakha in this month's edition of the egyptian "Identity" magazine.
By Marwa Rakha
Yes! You read the headline correctly! I – Marwa Rakha – am against Islam! I am against a religion that is used to allow the abuse of the human being in the name of God!
Marrying off girls at the age of 9 or 12 or 14 or 16 is abuse! This is pedophilia in its clearest form!
Marrying off young virgins to rich old men is abuse! Selling a human being is the textbook definition of slavery!
Cutting off parts of the sacred intact human body is abuse! Circumcision is mutilation! Circumcision is assault!
The representatives of Islam on earth promote the following insults as orders from God: Objectifying women! Defacing women! Insulting women! Beating up women! Sexually harassing women!
Islam is translated into a religion that prohibits freedom of speech, freedom of belief, and freedom of expression! People are standing before the court of law and are being tried for blasphemy! Is that the 21st century or the dark Middle Ages?
The God of Islam is portrayed as a God that needs mediators, translators, and a ruthless army of defenders!
The spokesmen of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, and hypnotised masses of blind followers are the true anti-Islam movie that is being aired live for the whole world to watch and judge! With their frowning faces and aggressive pitches, those preachers blatantly make enemies of women, children, other religions, and minorities.
Am I making this up?! No!
What do you call punishing people who chose not to fast in Ramadan?
What do you call limiting the construction of different worship places – other than mosques?
What do you call trying Kareem Amer in 2006 and trying Albert Saber in 2012 for denouncing Islam? What did Bishoy Kamel do to deserve being sentenced to 6 years in jail? What do you call evacuating people out of their homes by force? What do you call burning their houses and robbing them of their properties?
What do you call burning the Bible in front of the American Embassy and enticing against Christians on television?
What do you call attacking foreign embassies and their employees?
What do you call blaming sexual harassment on the victim? It is always about what a woman is or is not wearing!
What do you call hate speech against Jews and Christians?
What do you call actual mockery of Hindus and their beliefs?
What do you call hostility against Bahaais?
What do you call endless futile debates regarding female genital mutilation?
What do you call relentless efforts to convince women that they are sinful; that they are properties of their fathers and husbands?
What do you call clear instructions of beating up children and wives?
Who would be proud of belonging to such a group of perverts?!
How would a true Muslim react to the offensive movie?
He would simply continue living his day to day life representing his religion! This is the best defense!
YOU are Islam! YOUR ACTIONS are Islam! YOUR WORDS are Islam!
If you lack manners, then people will portray Muslims as a savage crowd!
If you lack common sense, Islam will be portrayed as the religion of an emotional neurotic bunch!
If you defend the abuse of women and children, Islam will be portrayed as a violent, abusive, perverted religion!
If you call Jews and Christians monkeys and pigs, do not expect respect in return!
If you appoint yourself as the sole self-righteous guardian of religions, expect opposition and rebellion in return!
Before accusing anyone of being anti Islam think again! Who is truly anti Islam?
Forcing your beliefs on anyone will not do God any favours!
Dear angry Muslims, please take a moment to examine your own actions and see how you have contributed to the script of "The Innocence of Muslims" movie.
Views: 622
Speaking us a former muslim (but my family still think i'm a muslim) I had a lot of struggles with my religion. It is true that all of Islam practices seems non-sense to me. Full of Irrational. They value practices more than people. I'm glad i'm not living in middle east where Islam is being practice extremely but still i got those bullshits from my family. So many to mentions all of my self-struggle against this religion. I like this rant! makes me feel ashamed to belong with this group of muslims.
living with a family of theists is the worst thing that could happen to any one ... with all the questions and discussions even sometimes quarrels .. it's a conflict that no one should ever experience .. i salut u
WOW! That is a powerful piece, and it certainly took courage to write it. What could happen to him for writing it?
Exactly what I was thinking/wondering.
up till now nothing happened .. seems like Islamists don't read English very well .. lucky for her of course :))
The author was FEMALE?!! Isn't that likely to make it even worse for her?
Has anyone read this?
Taliban shoot 14-year-old Pakistani peace campaigner
I just thought everyone might like to be kept up to date:
Doctors Say Shot Pakistani Girl Improving
By ROBERT BARR Associated Press
LONDON October 19, 2012 (AP)
Doctors treating 15-year-old Pakistani shooting victim Malala Yousufzai said Friday that she is able to stand with help and to write, though she still shows signs of infection.
Malala is "well enough that she's agreed that she's happy, in fact keen, for us to share more clinical detail," said Dr. Dave Rosser, medical director at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham,
"She is also keen that I thank people for their support and their interest because she is obviously aware of the amount of interest and support this has generated around the world."
The infection is probably related to the track of a bullet that grazed her head when she was attacked by Taliban gunmen, he said.
"She is not out of the woods yet," Rosser said. "Having said that, she's doing very well. In fact, she was standing with some help for the first time this morning when I went in to see her."
She is in Britain alone. Hospital officials have been in touch with her family in Pakistan.
Rosser said the girl "is communicating very freely, she is writing" but not speaking because she has a tracheotomy tube in her throat.
"We have no reason to believe that she would not be able to talk once this tube is out, maybe in the next few days," Rosser said.
Scans have revealed some physical damage to her brain, but "at this stage we're not seeing any deficit in terms of function," Rosser said. "She seems able to understand. She's got motor control, she's able to write.
"Whether there's any subtle intellectual or memory deficits down the line is too early to say," he added. "It is possible she will make a smooth recovery, but it is impossible to tell I'm afraid."
Officials in the Swat Valley originally said Malala was 14 years old but officials at her school confirmed that her birthday was July 12, 1997, making her 15.
How can even the Taliban say, "This is not the will of Allah"?
they are now going after the "filthy godless" journalists who covered the story .. this will go on and on.
Tell me if it's just me and my inability to understand because I've never been Muslim, but doesn't it make sense - assuming you are Muslim and a devout believer in Allah - that if you shoot someone in the head, and they not only don't die, they get better very quickly, that it was the will of Allah?
And if you believe it was the will of Allah that protected her, wouldn't that give you reason to believe that this is Allah's way of telling you you had done wrong, and to stop what you're doing? Or am I making too much sense?
BTW - the URL you sent us for the prison, http://www.moiegypt.gov.eg/English/Departments%20Sites/Prisons/publ.../ won't pull anything up - do we have it wrong?
you know what makes more sense .. "she didn't die because she was forgiven for the sins she made and she was given another chance for she is still young, however if she repeated the same actions again, Allah won't forgive her this time"
Taliban Logic .. :)))
the link works fine btw


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Radioactive Boy Scout
David was a high school kid who thought that he could change the world by pioneering the development of nuclear energy. But he didn't want to wait until graduation -- David figured he'd start his nuclear reactor at the age of 15.
Ken Silverstein is an investigative journalist based in D.C. He wrote the book, The Radioactive Boy Scout, upon which this story is based. Thanks also to Harper's Magazine and Emile Klein for this story.
Producer: Stephanie Foo


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For all the bluster this year about Major League Soccer's rebirth thanks to David Beckham, Cuauhtemoc Blanco, a new TV deal and Superliga we have recieved in the past several weeks probably the best news yet for the league in perhaps its twelve year history. Attendance this season has held steady even when American Football season began.
Historically Major League Soccer's attendance tailed off substantially when the Calender turned to September and America's real sporting pastimes: College Football and the NFL began play. (Baseball is considered America's Pastime by the sporting media much of which is based in the Northeast, but in the majority of MLS markets such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Columbus, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Houston and Denver are much more profoundly affected by the beginning of NFL and NCAA Football season then by the presence of multiple baseball teams) MLS has typically used heavy attendance between May 1st thru July 4th to buffer its overall season average numbers against a huge drop off late in the season. It has been very telling that in the past, as the playoff races heated up in the league people have paid less and less attention and fewer and fewer people have attended matches in person.That seems to have changed this season, even without David Beckham. MLS' average attendance has actually slightly climbed since the beginning of American Football season, and it seems that MLS has won a core of fans in each market who will continue to attend matches regardless of what other sporting options are available in person or on TV. This is probably the best news yet for a league struggling to find its feet in America's sporting landscape and on the international football scene.


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The first night of preliminary competition is history for the Miss Connecticut and Miss Connecticut's Outstanding Teen scholarship pageants.
Thursday night, the contestants hit the stage of the Garde Arts Center in New London for on-stage interview, talent, evening gown, and health and fitness competitions.
None of the locals from Bristol, Southington, and Plainville won the preliminary awards for talent and health and fitness. In the Miss category, Amaryllis Rodriguez, Miss New Haven County, won the health and fitness. Kaitlyn Bogue, Miss Capitol Region, won talent. In the Teens, Eliza Kanner, Miss University of New Haven's Outstanding Teen won talent. And in health and fitness, Miss Wolcott's Outstanding Teen Victoria Maringola.
The competition continues tonight with a second set of preliminaries. On Saturday, the top 10 will be announced and they will go on to compete to see who is the next Miss Connecticut of Miss Connecticut's Outstanding Teen.


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Tuesday, June 10, 2014
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Psalm 121
Assurance of God's Protection
I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
My help comes from the HOLY ONE,
who made heaven and earth.
God will not let your foot be moved;
God who keeps you will not slumber.
God who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The HOLY ONE is your keeper;
the HOLY ONE is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The HOLY ONE will keep you from all evil;
God will keep your life.
The HOLY ONE will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and for evermore.
There is a big difference between having and
keeping. For instance, I have a favorite hooded
sweatshirt—the Chicago Cubs one that you probably
see me wearing all the time. This is my possession.
However, unlike my sweatshirt, I keep my dog,
Silas. He is not a mere possession; he is my pup, my
companion, my beloved dog. He is dear to me: I watch
over him, not just for my own sake and with my own
interests in mind, but for his sake, too. I love
Silas, and protect him from harm, because if he
suffers, it hurts me too.
Likewise, God, the Creator, does not merely possess
us. God, instead, keeps us. God engages with
us. God woos us and dances with us through this gift
we call life. We are God's beloved, and immeasurably
dear to God. We are not propertied possessions in
the eyes of God, nor pawns in the game of life. We
are, most importantly, not instruments in and
through which God purposefully inflicts pain or
suffering to "teach us a lesson" or to "make God's
plan known."
In fact, quite the opposite is true. We are the
children, the companions, of a God who understands
suffering, who knows distinctly the experience of
pain. Psalm 121 reminds us that God does not merely
have or own us: God keeps us and relates to
us as God's own.
the repetitiousness forms of "keep?" As often as we feel
ourselves "lose our grip" on God, it is nice to know that God does
not lose God's grip on us. We may find peace knowing that we need
not base our identities, both individual and communal, on the
assumption that we need to have a firm hold on all things, and get
everything "right." Rather, we need to remember that even after we
were beautifully made, God proclaimed we are also good. Thus, we can
release ourselves into rejuvenating rest because we know God's
watchful eye and creative hand never let us go.
Friends, while there may be pain—and yes, even death— in this
journey, we do not go alone. There will be hardship, trouble, and
there will be danger, but God is with us, will never forget us, and
will always, yes always, love us on this journey we call
So, take a breath knowing that as you do, God is keeping you. There
is much good waiting to be found along the way.
Something my pal Silas reminds me of every time we go for a walk.
[Adam Quinn, First Presbyterian Church in Lincoln]
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STOCKTON - Conquest Imaging is a thriving business today.
STOCKTON - Conquest Imaging is a thriving business today.
Its 40,000-square-foot plant in south Stockton employs 40 full-time workers in the business of reconditioning and reselling parts for medical ultrasound equipment, servicing that equipment and sharing their technical expertise and skills through classroom study and hands-on experience.
But it was just over a dozen years ago that business was housed in the two-car garage of co-founder Mark Conrad's Manteca home.
At the time a representative of a major ultrasound manufacturer, he knew that commonly replaced parts on the machines, such as transducer probes, sell for thousands of dollars apiece.
"When I was working for the manufacturer, I felt the opportunity existed to help drive down the cost of health care because of just the sheer dollar value that we were charging our customers," Conrad said. "My wife and I put everything into this 13 years ago, ... and it surely has turned out to be a great endeavor. And it's really providing a great cost savings for the health care community."
"We're sort of a Cinderella story," said Matt Tomory, vice president of sales and marketing.
Because it is not affiliated with any one manufacturer, Conquest handles parts and repairs for all the major brands, including GE, Philips and Siemens.
Tomory said Conquest was much like an independent auto repair shop compared to a major automaker dealership. "What we are is we are an alternative to the dealer, essentially," he said.
About 65 percent of the company's business is in reconditioned parts, which it sells throughout the United States, as well as overseas. "We are the largest (independent) parts distribution organization in the country," Tomory said.
It also provides repair and maintenance service in the western United States and in the business of sharing its expertise. "We have trainers that take students from around the world and teach them how to repair their own equipment," he said.
Another thing Conquest shares is its success with community and charitable groups, Tomory said.
Those include Give Every Child a Chance and Manteca Children's Foundation, both in Manteca, as well as more widespread groups such as Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Pregnancy Crisis Centers in California.
"That helps me get up in the morning," Conrad said. "It's real moving for me."
Contact reporter Reed Fujii at (209) 546-8253 or email@example.com.


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text: Worcester Prep's Student Government Association raised $3,200 last week to help cover the costs of providing a temporary facility for the Developmental Center in Snow Hill. A check was presented to June Walker, Executive Director, WCDC. Pictured, from left, are Frank Love, SGA advisor; Walker; Woody Harrington, SGA President; Madison Dyer, SGA Secretary; Alex Fisher, SGA Treasurer; and Dr. Barry Tull, Headmaster.


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April 9, 2013, 6:00 am
Oscar Mayer Wienermobile rolls into Denver Thursday through Saturday
Let's be frank, you know it would make a great profile photo. The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile cruises into town this week for photo ops with fans. The hot dog on wheels is celebrating its 25th anniversary with appearances at Wal-Mart Supercenters across the country. "Hotdoggers" will hand out "collectible wiener whistles" at these local times and places:
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As with any large software upgrade, we've encountered some small glitches in the Pennsic Independent transition. Coincidentally, an unrelated problem with the web hosting provider hit at the same time. ...
Believe it or not, the migration to the new software that now runs the PI Web Edition was a very smooth process. There is still a problem accessing the PDF version of the Pennsic Independent (paid subscribers only), but we expect to have that fixed later tonight (Wednesday, August 4).
On the exact same evening when we had just finished installing the new software, a denial-of-service (DoS) attack was launched by spammers against the hosting company that manages the PI's physical server hardware. This sort of attack usually relies on Windows computers that are infected with a special kind of virus program, which can be triggered remotely by the attacker to launch millions of bogus connection requests against the target. PI wasn't specifically the targeted web site; we just happened to get caught in the crossfire.
Robin Gallowglass, one of the hardware administrators, acted quickly to deal with the problem, but it still took most of the night and part of the next day to recover. (Incidentally, the PI server wasn't security-compromised, just temporarily overloaded with workload.) During the time when the DoS attack was in progress, we could not work on finishing the site upgrade.
All of this is, hopefully, behind us, and we are taking care of the last couple of minor problems. Everything should be working fine before Pennsic. In the meantime, we apologize for the inconvenience.
PI Web Technical Staff
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Non-Messy Kids' Snacks
I have 3 kids with completely different personalities, but one thing is for sure—they're all messy eaters. Like most moms, cleaning up after their mess becomes never-ending and frustrating. There are several things I do to make snacking less messy, especially when I'm on the go. Hopefully these tips can clean a little mess out of your life.
Those yogurt tubes are a mess waiting to happen. I've banned them from my car after a terrible experience with my 6-year old. Here are a few cleaner ideas:
- Whole fruit like apples, pears, bananas
- Baby carrots, snap peas and cucumber slices
- Frozen grapes
- Drinkable yogurt with a straw. Instead of peeling the aluminum cover off, poke a hole in the top with a straw.
- Applesauce-on-the-go pouches; they're less messy than tubes or cups.
- Hummus bowls: With bite-sized crackers, they are fewer crumbs to clean up after.
- These carrot dippers won't spill when you tote them around;
- Whole grain waffle for your kids to eat like a cookie.
- Cubes of cheese or string cheese
- Granola or breakfast bars
It's the little things that can really make mom happy. Try these less messy containers for the younger ones.
- Boon Snack Ball: I found this snack container at a recent nutrition conference I attended. It's a great non-messy cup you don't have to be afraid to put in your purse. It can also double as a toy.
- Munchkin Snack Catcher: Less messy for cereal, raisins, or small crackers.
- Gyro Bowl: My friends swear by this bowl that doesn't tip!
You Might Also Like:
Toby Amidor, MS, RD, CDN, is a registered dietitian and consultant who specializes in food safety and culinary nutrition. See Toby's full bio »


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In Swords, players travel through time and space to challenge eight skilled adversaries-- including the flirtatious yet dangerous beauty Keiko Anamura, the vicious Viking chieftain Armin, the famed Sir Lancelot of the Round Table and many more. Each victory grants players an upgraded, unique sword, providing them the type of blade they need to successfully defeat the next in line of opponents. Once they've cut their way through the list of history's top masters, they must defeat the mysterious final combatant in order to earn the title of Greatest Swordsman of All Time.
Beginning humbly in the dojo, players train and prepare with their sensei before setting off to battle. Players gain the skills and combos necessary during these rigorous training sessions by tackling a series of drills including carving, sparring, blocking and even battling a horde of zombies! In addition, players can train together with a friend or go head to head in the arena to determine the ultimate master of the blade.


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Poodle Skirtscomments (1) October 22nd, 2008 in gallery
Well, she isn't a poodle, but she is an adorable bridesmaid. My hairdresser was getting married and wanted a "bridesmaid" dress for her pooch. She asked me if I could make one and I told her "Sure!" So here it is with a bow and ringset to adorn it.
Pattern or design used: My own design - The Poodle Skirt
Comments (1)
Posted: 12:15 pm on October 24th
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Challenge Description
For each project loaded CraftStylish will donate $1 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure (total donation up to $1,000).
In addition, for every pink prayer shawl uploaded to the Make it Pink gallery in October, Taunton Books will donate $10 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, up to $1,000!
All Make It Pink projects must be something that you have made (not something you have bought).
A specific project can be uploaded only once.
One person may upload up to five different projects (five project per person limit).
Click here for more information about this challenge.
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To order images and/or obtain permission to use them commercially, please contact the KSHS Reference Desk at firstname.lastname@example.com or 785-272-8681, ext. 117.
For more information see the Copyright and Permission FAQ.
William Graves compiled this series of correspondence on the teaching of evolution in public schools from letters he received in 1999 while governor of Kansas. The letters are responding to an April 1999 decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to remove evolution from Kansas teaching standards. Out of the hundreds of letters Graves' office received on this topic, he destroyed all but thirty. Copies of related articles and editorials from The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, U.S. News and World Report, and the Oregonian sent with the correspondence have not been included here due to copyright restrictions.
Creator: Kansas. Governor (1995-2003 : Graves)
Date: 1999
Item Number: 221202
Call Number: Governor's records, Graves, Constituent Services, Box No. 6, Folder Evolution
KSHS Identifier: DaRT ID: 221202
Collections - State Archives - Governor's Records - Graves, Bill
Community Life - Religion - Christianity
Date - 1990s - 1999
Education - Higher education - Curriculum
Education - Primary - Curriculum
Government and Politics - Reform and Protest - Evolution
Government and Politics - State Government - Governors - Graves, Bill
Government and Politics - State Government - State agencies and programs - Agencies - Education, State Board of
Objects and Artifacts - Communication Artifacts - Documentary Artifact - Correspondence
Objects and Artifacts - Communication Artifacts - Documentary Artifact - Letter
People - Notable Kansans - Graves, Bill, 1953-
Thematic Time Period - The Recent Past, 1975 - present
Type of Material - Unpublished documents - Government records - Correspondence
Type of Material - Unpublished documents - Letters


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'House of Cards' paints a dark D.C.
Kevin Spacey said that last year, while filming Netflix' new series "House of Cards," a political thriller premiering Friday, he'd return to his hotel room to catch up on the presidential election news.
"I'd think, 'What the hell is going on?'" Spacey told POLITICO with a laugh. "And I realized that our stories [on the show] aren't that f—-ing crazy."
Story Continued Below
Spacey stars as the fictional House Majority Whip Francis Underwood (D-S.C.), who is passed over for becoming secretary of state, which he was ensured he was a shoo-in for. The premise is set: Underwood wants revenge.
On Friday, Netflix is releasing all 13 episodes of the series, which is based on a British miniseries of the same name available to subscribers. The new series is directed by David Fincher, who directed "Fight Club" and "The Social Network," and written by Beau Willimon, who wrote "The Ides of March."
Spacey, who starred in HBO's "Recount," which is about the 2000 election, said that his foray into politics is only acting.
"People are constantly asking me when am I going to run for office. I'm not," Spacey said, adding later, "I like to set out a goal and then accomplish it. I think I would find it walking into spending the rest of your life being frustrated."
The series is getting buzz for being Netflix' attempt to deliver original programming that competes against HBO and other subscriber channels.
But this isn't like Aaron Sorkin's "The West Wing." It's the anti-West Wing. If the latter presented an idealized look at how politics ought to work, "House of Cards" offers a grittier, darker look at how Washington power is brokered — and it ain't pretty. Spacey's character kills a dog. He ogles a female reporter. And, oh yeah, he wants to publicly ruin the president.
Spacey said he spent "off the record" research time with House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
"This was in the last Congress, which was the least productive Congress in the history of the United States," Spacey said. "They were both very helpful and answered all of my somewhat pedantic questions and helped me understand just from a practical perspective what it would be like to corral 218 votes."


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Athanasius Parios
The holy Hieromonk St. Athanasius Parios, known as a Master of the Greek Nation, was a great and eminent Theologian, philosopher, educator and Hymnographer of his time; he was also author of the lives of various Saints. Athanasius, was born around in Kostos, a small village of Paros, in the year 1721/22 and died in Chios 1813 AD. He is commemorated by the church June 24.
- 1752 - Went to Mount Athos and enrolled in the Athonite School. He later studied at Corfu under Nicephorus Theotokis.
- 1767-1770 - He taught at Thessaloniki.
- He is known as one of the great "Collybades".
- 1788-1811 - Principle of the School in Chios.
- On the island of Paros he received instruction in the "common letters." Desiring higher education, he left his parents and his native place and went to Smyrna, to study at the splendid Greek school of that city. The school was founded in 1717, and was later named the Evangeliki School, and became famous. He resided in Smyrna during a period of six years, diligently applying himself to all the subjects that were taught there.
- At the age of 90, he withdrew to the cell of St. George the Refston and died there June 24, 1813.
Written Works of St. Athanasius Parios
- 1785 - Antipapas, analyses the work of Mark the Eugenic
- 1798 - Christian Apologetics
- 1798 - Patristical Teachings - Anthimos of Jerusalem.
- 1787 - Rhetoric Pragmatics and Metaphysics
- Athanasius the student and monk from Koliakia, Thessaloniki (d. September 8, 1774). Athanasius was from the village of Koliakia, near Thessaloniki, and was provided for with a good education, where he studied under Athanasius Parios in Thessaloniki. He later went to Mount Athos to the Monastery of Vatopedi where he became a monk. Athanasius later martyred for Christ, not willing to convert to the Islamic faith. He was hanged and buried near the Church of St. Paraskeve.
- Minas Minoidis (d. France). A student of Athanasios Parios. He taught rhetoric and philosophy in Serres and Thessaloniki. He also taught Ancient Greek language and literature in Paris. Interpreter at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Militantly opposed to Korais' ideas on the Language Question, he was his most severe and unfair critic. A fervent supporter of the fight for independence. He discovered the verse Myths of Vavrios in a Mount Athos manuscript.
See also
- Ierotheos Dendrinos and Christodoulos, Doctor of Philosophy.
- St. Nicephorus of Chios (May 1), was sent to the city of Chios to be educated in its schools by the Gabriel Astrakaris. Nicephorus remained close to this priest throughout the period of his education, where he developed a love for learning, and a respect for those who taught others. He also met St. Athanasius Parios, who was the Director of the school in the city of Chios
Suggested Reading
- SAINT ATHANASIOS PARIOS (MODERN ORTHODOX SAINTS, VOL. 15) by Constantine Cavarnos. St. Athanasios of Paros, together with St. Macarios of Corinth and St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite were the three great spiritual leaders of the 18th century in Greece and leaders of the "Kollyvades Movement." The is the first English-language life of St. Athanasios, theologian, hymnographer, writer of lives of saints and philosopher. Also contains reviews and selected passages from his writings, and a brief account of the life of St. Macarios of Corinth. 170pp
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Why do RIAs outsource their back-office operations?
It is not only because they want to focus on their client relationships and engage in the financial planning details that drove them to become advisors.
Sure, that is the main reason. Advisors want to get paid, and are legally obligated to report on client portfolio performance. These are essential and time-consuming but not the highest added value tasks an advisor must do.
Or as Julien Mordecai, CEO of AllBackoffice Consulting puts it in an interview with ThinkAdvisor:
"Processing data is a lot like taking out the trash — it's something most advisors feel comfortable letting go of."
But while advisors are typically referred to the Edenton, N.C.-based firm for billing and performance reporting, the relationship tends to expand to broader-based technology consulting for the same reason the relationship started: advisors need and want to focus on the bigger picture, but the gears and shafts within an advisory practice have a way of needing expert attention now and then.
As an example, an East Coast RIA client of Mordecai's made a strategic decision to acquire other practices.
While there's much potential glory in scaling up to a national presence, this RIA has struggled for eight months to integrate the back office of a California practice the East Coast advisor bought.
"There have been problems normalizing the data in the portfolio reporting system — to reconcile that to the way this this advisor's been doing his performance reporting," Mordecai relates.
The acquiring advisor is a "Type A," really neat; the acquired: not so much.
Having a third-party consulting firm involved in the integration does more than just take out the trash; it injects needed diplomacy in to the process.
"Instead of perception [on the part of the acquired firm] of 'Hey, why do we have to do it this way? Our system has always worked for us in the past,' we're coming back to them saying, 'This is the best practice; eight or nine out of 10 advisors do it this way and this is why.'"
Having a tech partner also keeps the workflow going on nettlesome issues. Performance reporting does not mean all clients get the same pie chart. In the acquisition case, the acquiring advisor classified stocks specifically — large-cap growth or large-cap value, for example — for a stock that the acquired practice characterized simply as large-cap.
For that reason all assets in the California office need to be reclassified — a process that could take considerable time without third-party involvement.
AllBackoffice currently works with about 70 RIA firms with assets under management typically ranging from $20-$30 million to $500-$600 million, Mordecai says.
That level of business is usually a 2- to 3-advisor partnership that does not always have an operations manager but is "growing enough that the challenge to their team is that they don't have the time to think about what technology they'll use and how to integrate it," Mordecai says. (For sole practitioners, working with an outsourced back office is a "no brainer," he adds.)
"The advisors might have come out of a large institution … where they had full support and now they have to do it themselves or their business falls apart," he says. "Our account managers consider themselves to be personal technology and operations consultants."
But Mordecai stress that does not mean AllBackoffice will shake up the advisor's technology, moving them to products they're unfamiliar and uncomfortable with.
Rather, the firm tries to get a big-picture view of what resources the advisor is already making use of and determine what systems work best together.
"He may have access to document storage that he does not know about; we'll help him with his due diligence and manage migration," he says, adding that "technology tends to work in suites."
While there is a lot of superb technology available, Mordecai says most advisors don't know how to leverage it. He compares it to the thousands of apps on an iPhone. While nobody is going to use all of them, the challenge is making optimal use of what is available.
Just as the iPhone user needs to be able to make phone calls, send text messages and view email, an advisor minimally will need portfolio accounting software and some sort of administrative infrastructure set up so that when he creates a client proposal, he has some place to put that — preferably, these days, in the cloud.
Those are the basics that keep an advisor's business alive, but other options — such as a CRM that is perhaps more robust than Microsoft Outlook — could be used to help the business thrive.
Advisors, of course, have different definitions of what success means. On the other end of the spectrum from the enterprise-building RIAs he works with, Mordecai also works with boutique RIAs more interested in spending time with their families or on their yachts.
Such advisors, he says, need to simplify.
"They're looking for as much leverage as possible" to acquire not books of business but time.
"One very good way of reducing meetings is encourage clients to meet over the phone (using software like GoToMeeting) and going paperless," Mordecai says. "An awful lot of advisors write their own newsletters — that causes a lot of stress; it drags through two or three weekends of their time. In that case, we'd recommend a content partner."
Check out these related stories on ThinkAdvisor:


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Come and help the OM team in La Coruña through the social centre as a tool to reach out to Spaniards. Through the second hand shop in the morning and the workshops in the afternoons, the OM teams reach out to a local community in the city of A Coruña. Teaching English, Conversation clubs, Youth group, Sports and many other activities will create bridges to share the gospel. Come and use your gifts with us
OM works with a church in Casteldefells that is actively involved in youth evangelism, reaching young people through an English club, friendship evangelism, music, sports, power evangelism, etc. Participants will receive training and will help the youth group in their evangelistic efforts. They will also receive teaching about missions and learn about the needs of other countries and/or ethnic groups in Europe. A one year study program is also included.
Come and pioneer a sports ministry! This is an exciting opportunity to develop a new program based on methods used around the world. If you love sports and would like to use that platform to introduce people to Jesus, then this is an opportunity for you! We need someone who would be willing to join in organizing regular sporting activities with the aim of building relationships through social sport.


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Windows 8 'Shatters Perceptions of What a PC Really Is'
While there were not a lot of surprises, this morning's official launch of Windows 8 really does mark the beginning of a new era of personal computers.
Watching the Microsoft employees introduce the new products, I was again struck by how audacious it all is. Microsoft is moving away from the interface and toward the business model that built the company over the past two decades. This seems necessary in an era increasingly defined by mobile devices and cloud services instead of the desktops or laptops and Windows applications.
Of the actual news, the big changes were the numbers. Windows Division President Steve Sinofsky said that Windows 7 has sold more than 670 million licenses and there are more than 1,000 certified Windows 8 devices. Those are both good signs for Microsoft, but on the other hand, when Sinofsky announced the opening of the Windows Store for apps, he pointedly refused to give a specific number of available apps and pretty much asked people not to count them. That's a bad sign.
Above: Windows Division President Steve Sinofsky
Still, the operating system and the new machines have many features that users will want: thinner, lighter machines; much faster boot times; near-instant resume; reconnection to Wi-Fi networks; and a variety of new touch and hybrid designs that look quite good. The size of the Windows audience, as well as Microsoft's own resources, mean that the number of applications is likely to grow significantly over the next few months.
Sinofsky opened the keynote by calling Windows 8 "a major milestone in the evolution and revolution of computing." There are now more than one billion Windows users and Windows 8 sets the stage for the next billion users, Sinofsky said. Windows 7 has sold more than 670 million licenses to businesses and consumers and has been the fastest adoption of Windows ever. More than half of all businesses have started to move to Windows 7.
While Microsoft's online services don't really get much attention, Sinofsky said the SkyDrive storage service now hosts more than 550 million documents and a total 14 petabytes of data, growing at 2 petabytes per month.
Perhaps trying to preempt some of the complaints about the new Start menu, Sinofsky spent a lot of time talking about how things have changed since it first appeared in Windows 95. Back then, he exaggerated, we had no Internet, no email, no smartphones, no text messaging, and no digital cameras. "We lived in caves," he said.
Now, people are connected all the time and work and play are intertwined. People have multiple PCs and store information in the cloud.
He then formally announced that Windows 8 will be available tomorrow morning, the immediate availability of the upgrade (starting at $39.95), and the availability of new PCs powered by Windows RT. (Microsoft officially introduced its Surface RT tablet about an hour after the keynote ended, probably to put some space between it and the other Windows hardware makers.)
Sinofsky said Windows has been re-imagined from the chipset to the experience. He said there have been 16 million installations of pre-release versions of Windows, with a total of 1.24 billion hours of testing—beyond anything any other platform has ever done. New features include better battery life, faster boot time, 22 percent less memory consumption, and the new "touch interface" (no one called it "Metro" or "Modern") that is designed to work with existing PCs with only a keyboard and mouse. He clearly pushed the new touch screen models, however.
There are more than 1,000 certified Windows 8 PCs, Sinofsky said, starting at less than $300. He particularly called out Intel-based Ultrabooks; thin, light designs with touch; Clover Trail (Atom-based) tablets and convertibles; and all-in-one PCs with touch.
Announcing the official launch of the Windows Store, he acknowledged that some will count apps. Today was just the start, though, he said, and the Windows Store has more apps than any other store did when it opened. It potentially addresses the largest market of customers, so it should attract lots of developers. Developers are adding hundreds of apps per day, and the rate of growth is also accelerating.
Moving on to Windows RT, the operating system uses ARM to provide the "thinnest, lightest" experience, Sinofsky said. He noted it brings new applications, and touch-enabled versions of Office. It does not run applications written for Windows 7, but only works with the preinstalled applications and apps downloaded from the Windows Store. That makes for a better experience since the applications will always be up to date. (He didn't push this too hard, as the existing desktop apps are the heart of the Windows experience.) It works with existing hardware, and Sinofsky noted that 50 out of the top 53 printers (including all the top ones in the U.S.) work with Windows RT out of the box. Windows RT was developed in conjunction with chipmakers Nvidia and Qualcomm, Asus, Lenovo, and Samsung.
Microsoft's Mike Angiulo and Julie Larson-Green did a number of demos, starting with a Samsung Windows 7 tablet that was upgraded to Windows 8, showing changing the background picture, They noted how it comes with mail, calendar, photos, and a browser pre-installed, plus the new Xbox music service that allows free music streaming to the device.
Above: Microsoft's Mike Angiulo and Julie Larson-Green
Next up was a ThinkPad X1 Carbon, which Angiulo said boots 33 percent faster and IE 10 launches 45 percent faster after the update. This does not have a touch screen, but all the features work. All the Windows 7 applications work in the desktop mode, and you can get to the start screen by clicking in the lower left-hand corner.
They then highlighted Windows 8 hardware designs, including a Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2, based on a Clover Trail Atom processor with a stylus for inking; the Acer Aspire S7-191, a Core i7-based Ultrabook (which they showed reconnecting to a Wi-Fi network in under a second); the Dell XPS One 27 all-in-one with a 27-inch, 2560-by-1440 display; a Dell Inspiron Duo with the flip around screen; and the Sony Tab all-in-one.
Software demos included Hulu Plus, Wikipedia, Urbanspoon, Bing Travel, and Games (which Larson-Green said is the largest single category). Charms work for searching and sharing and all of the apps from the store also work on Windows RT.
Then they showed five Windows RT designs including, the Lenovo Yoga convertible, Dell XPS 10, Samsung Ativ Tab, the Asus Vivo Tab (tablets with plug-in keyboards), and finally the Microsoft Surface with the Touch Cover.
An admittedly excited Ballmer closed the keynote, saying Windows 8 "shatters perceptions of what a PC really is." He emphasized how the new systems will be personal and "alive with activity." Live Tiles change and connect to your contacts on services like Facebook and Twitter and with a your documents from SkyDrive.
Above: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
"Everybody should be able to find their perfect PC," Ballmer said. (That brought back memories of the many PC Magazine "Perfect PC" issues.) These are the thinnest, lightest, and fastest PCs ever created, he said, with a "diverse and stunning" array of choices that will change the PC experience. These will range from great affordable devices to spectacular high-end devices. "Some of them flip, some of them dock, some of them attach," he said.
Ballmer talked about how Microsoft created Office 2013 for the new platform, as well as the Bing search engine and simple application such as Bing News, Finance, Travel, Maps, Weather, and Sports. It includes IE 10 optimized for touch and the ability to pin websites to your start screen. MSN's website was redesigned for Windows 8 to take advantage of the touch capabilities of Internet Explorer 10. He also highlighted Outlook.com, SkyDrive, the new version of Skype, and Xbox Music, Videos and Games, which features the new SmartGlass application to pair the PC with an Xbox to create a "second screen experience."
The company's enterprise customers will also love the new Windows 8 devices because Windows uniquely has the tools for the management and security they want, while still giving individual users choice. He said we can expect to see more about Windows 8 with Dynamics, Yammer, Visual Studio, Windows Server, and Azure in the future.
Finally, Ballmer talked about Windows Phone 8, which will be introduced on Monday and uses the same tiled interface, Windows Store, and Microsoft account.
"We've grown very fond of this term 'Windows reimagined,'" Ballmer said, adding that the new Windows 8 PCs are the best PCs ever. "They bring together the best of both worlds: PC and tablet, work and play." He urged customers to check out the new models in stores; "Seeing, touching, clicking, and swiping is really believing."


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Haylie Duff Is Engaged — See Her Gorgeous Ring! [PHOTOS]by Michelle McGahan | PopCrush
Haylie Duff is engaged! The actress' boyfriend Matt Rosenberg popped the question on April Fool's Day — but that ain't no joke.
"Matt just took me by total surprise and proposed…on April Fool's Day of all days! The moment was genuine and sweet (like him!) and I couldn't wait to say yes!" Duff gushed on her Real Girl's Kitchen blog. "We are so excited and happy to share our wonderful news with everyone! We both feel so blessed to have the love and support of our family and and friends and can't wait to start this new adventure!"
The happy couple took to Instagram to share some beyond adorable shots, including the above photo which Rosenberg captioned, "She said Yes!" With a picture like that, we can totally see just how in love the two are, with Rosenberg grinning into the camera and Duff smiling into her new fiancé's cheek. But that's not all the snapshot shows: we also get a clear look at Duff's unbelievable round sparkler, which is almost the entire width of her finger. That's a rock, right there!
Of course, Hilary Duff had to publicly congratulate her big sis and re-grammed her soon-to-be brother-in-law's photo, writing: "Love you guys so much!!!!" While this might be a difficult moment for the former 'Lizzie McGuire' star (who is going through her own separation from her husband Mike Comrie), we love how genuinely happy she is for her sister.
And of course Haylie had to share a snap herself (see below), which she captioned, "The future Mrs. Rosenberg! #Love." Congratulations to the happy couple!


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Review: Apple's new 11.6-inch and 13.3-inch MacBook Air (Late 2010)At its "Back to the Mac" event, Apple launched a revamped 13-inch MacBook Air and an entirely new 11-inch MacBook Air as products combining the company's MacBook line with lessons learned in iPad development.
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The original MacBook Air, launched at the beginning of 2008, drew praise over its unique combination of a high mobility, super-thin design that managed to retain a full sized keyboard and 13-inch display. However, it was also criticized over its limited performance and expandability and its relatively high price.
At the end of 2008 and again midway through 2009, Apple twice addressed the Air's critics with design refreshes that upgraded the machine's processor options and graphics, replacing its lethargic Intel GMA X3100 (driving a Micro-DVI port) with a more advanced Nvidia GeForce 9400M (standardizing on Mini DisplayPort output), while also dropping the entry level price from $1,799 to $1,499.
This year, Apple completely redesigned the 13-inch MacBook Air, adding an additional USB port, upgrading the graphics to use Nvidia's GeForce 320M, expanding the battery capacity, increasing the screen resolution (from a "13-inch" resolution of 1280x800 to a "15-inch" resolution of 1440x900), and moving exclusively to a speedy, "instant-on" solid state flash drive for storage.
Apple also shaved off a tenth of a pound of weight and two millimeters of thickness from the 13-inch model, while also introducing a new 11-inch model with a 1366x768 screen that drops an inch of width, nearly an inch and a half of depth, two millimeters of thickness, and 0.7 lbs from the original design.
The deepest design cut, however, slashed the Air's entry level price by a third, matching the company's lowest priced White MacBook model at $999 on the 11-inch model, while knocking $200 off the base price of the 13-inch version, which now starts at $1,299.
Position in the MacBook family
The introduction of the new Air models makes for some tough choices for MacBook buyers, posing the question: what's most important in your needs for a notebook: size, weight and mobility, or performance, expandability and features?
The entry level White MacBook is the same price as the 11-inch Air, but offers a faster CPU and more storage capacity via its conventional hard drive. It can also be upgraded to 4GB at any time; the new Air can only move past 2GB if you choose that option at purchase; there's no way to add more RAM afterward. The low end MacBook also has a larger display, although its resolution is about the same: slightly taller but not quite as many pixels wide: 1280x800 rather than the 11-inch Air's 1366x768.
The entry level MacBook also has an optical drive for playing DVDs, installing software, and burning discs, and sports Gigabit Ethernet for fast wired networking. However, it has a larger, thicker, cheaper looking plastic body that weighs 4.7 pounds. What was once an easy decision (a hearty $999 general purpose notebook vs. the ultra thin $1,499 subnotebook) is now a chin scratcher (general purpose notebook vs a micro-luxury, sexy device with some limitations but far fewer drawbacks than before, both at the same $999 price).
The introduction of the new Air models also presents a more difficult decision when compared against the 13-inch MacBook Pro. While you get more RAM (4GB vs 2GB, plus more room for growth up to 8GB), more disk storage (albeit via a conventional, slower hard drive), an optical disc, a backlit keyboard, FireWire 800 and Gigabit Ethernet, you also get an extra pound and a half of weight, a significantly lower resolution (but higher quality) display, and a machine that's nearly twice as thick, but only $100 less than the 13-inch Air.
Or, alternatively, you can compare the smallest MacBook Pro against the 11-inch Air, which offers a much more compact outline, half the weight, and essentially the same resolution screen for $200 less. It all comes down to whether you want to work hard on a mobile notebook or have a super light and thin device that does almost everything nearly as well (at least until you start busting out the heavy lifting apps).
The 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros deliver far bigger screens and much faster performance, making them easier to choose between for users who need full sized performance more than featherweight mobility. However, if you already have a desktop system, the new Air models might tempt you to trade in your big notebook for a more portable device that's more go and less do.
In general, Apple's MacBook Air offerings reestablish the notebook as a less powerful but far more mobile form factor contrasted with the full sized desktop, which is what notebook computers used to be in the '90s. Over the last decade, notebooks generally became powerful enough to serve as both a desktop workhorse and mobile enough to last as a battery-powered portable system.
On page 2 of 4: Comparing the Air to iPads and netbooks


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The timing of pricing and terms of the Notes are subject to market
conditions and other factors. Westlake intends to use the proceeds from
the proposed offering, together with the proceeds from other financing
transactions and cash on hand, to finance the previously announced
proposed acquisition of
The Notes and related guarantees have not been and will not be
registered under the Securities Act or the securities laws of any other
jurisdiction and may not be offered or sold in
This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy the Notes or any other security and shall not constitute an offer, solicitation or sale in any state or jurisdiction in which, or to any persons to whom, such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Any offers of the Notes will be made only by means of a private offering memorandum.
About Westlake
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the
meaning of the federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements
include, but are not limited to, statements regarding Westlake Chemical
Corporation's ("Westlake") proposed transaction to acquire
Such forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain, and
stockholders and other potential investors must recognize that actual
results may differ materially from Westlake's and/or Axiall's
expectations as a result of a variety of factors, including, without
limitation, those discussed below. Such forward-looking statements are
based upon management's current expectations and include known and
unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which Westlake
Risks and uncertainties related to the proposed business combination
transaction include, but are not limited to: (i) the ultimate outcome of
the proposed transaction between Westlake and
In addition to the factors set forth above, other factors that may affect Westlake's and/or Axiall's plans, results or stock price are set forth in Westlake's and Axiall's respective Annual Reports on Form 10-K and reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K.
Many of these factors are beyond Westlake's and/or Axiall's control.
Westlake and
Important Information for Investors and Stockholders
This communication does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160803005935/en/
Westlake Chemical Corp.
Steve Bender, 713-960-9111


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Intel's X25-M SSD series continues to run into major trouble on minor flaws. The new 34nm X25-M G2 SSDs, which have all kinds of amazing juicyness baked in, are now known to be plagued by a firmware bug which has retailers halting shipments, Intel halting manufacturing and vowing a firmware upgrade within two weeks, and an unknown number of users permanently deprived of precious data.
The problem is this: when users attempt to modify or remove a previously-set BIOS password for the drive, the drive locks up and the data is lost. Worse, Intel has told users there is no way in heaven or on earth to retrieve the data. The "data on those drives data is not recoverable," Intel has announced.�
Intel has promised a firmware fix within two weeks for existing drives, and in the meantime has stopped shipping new drives. Major retailers like Newegg have also stopped shipping the drive. Though "the firmware fix will prevent the drive from becoming inoperable when using and modifying the BIOS password," users with data lost will still be out of luck. Users with existing drives are advised not to set BIOS passwords, and if they have, not to change or remove them.� If the password isn't changed or removed, Intel says, everything should be OK.�
This episode is particularly disappointing because Intel's new SSD is so impressive. Performance of the new drive is handily above that of the old one, and the price, enabled by IMFT's new 34nm process, is among the lowest in the industry, a mere $225 for 80GB. Sector remap fragmentation problems are largely absent, an in-depth�review�from PCPerspective shows.�
Flash SSDs, beautiful and superior in theory, have been plagued in practice with a continuing stream of problems, suffering in quality and performance at the same time that a proliferation of vendors and models at ever-lower prices, along with rising capacities, have gotten the devices closer and closer to hitting the magic price/performance points that will drive adoption.


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Zaragoza thärägō´thä [key] or Saragossa sâr˝əgō´sə [key], city (1990 pop. 592,686), capital of Zaragoza prov. and leading city of Aragón, NE Spain, on the Ebro River. An important commercial and communications center, it is situated in a fertile, irrigated agricultural region. Among its manufactures are vehicles, wood products, machinery, foodstuffs, and paper. It is an archiepiscopal see and has a university (founded 1474). Of ancient origin, it was named Caesarea Augusta by Emperor Augustus. It fell to the Goths (5th cent.) and to the Moors (8th cent.), under whom it became (1017) the capital of an independent emirate. Charlemagne tried to take it but was defeated by the Moors (778). The Cid fought for a time in the service of the Moorish ruler of Zaragoza. The city was conquered (1118) by Alfonso I of Aragón, who made it the capital of his kingdom. The most notable event in the later history of Zaragoza was its heroic resistance, under the leadership of Palafox, against the French in the Peninsular War. The city resisted the first siege (1808), surrendering only after some 50,000 defenders had died in the second siege (1808–9). Zaragoza is a cultural center and is rich in works of art, many of which show Moorish influence. There are two cathedrals—La Seo (12th–16th cent.), formerly a mosque, and El Pilar (17th cent.), named after the sacred pillar near which the Virgin is said to have appeared in the vision of St. James the Greater. El Pilar contains frescoes by Velázquez and Goya. Also noteworthy are the Church of San Pablo, the Moorish castle of Aljafería (residence of the emirs and later the kings of Aragón), the lonja (exchange building), and a 15th-century stone bridge across the Ebro. The modern church of San Antonio de Padua contains the remains of Italian soldiers killed in the civil war (1936–39). The 2008 World Exposition was held at Zaragoza.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Spanish and Portuguese Political Geography


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