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Are you ready to create a gorgeous interior and have a fabulous time doing it? Grab your friends and sign up for the brand new "Style University" "Designer Secrets 101" today! This two day class is January 25th & 26th. Space is limited.
- Learn how to blend fabrics & patterns
- Learn how to select color with confidence
- Learn how to define your style with accessories
- Learn how to put WOW factors into your décor
- Learn how to polish your rooms to look more professional
As an award winning designer, I am renowned for creating elegant, comfortable living spaces in any design style. Whether it's utterly traditional or ultra-modern, good design is good design. I've always been able to run the gamut and give my clients living spaces that fit the way they live – with an element of surprise that makes them say WOW!
This two day class will take you through my unique "Kimplistic" approach to designing fabulous rooms. I will lead you through my special steps in a fun workshop environment. You will be an active part of this design workshop creating color schemes, working with hands-on floor plan exercises, creating inspiration boards and learning countless designer secrets and more! No worries if you have little design experience, our team will guide you through the process in a fun and stress free way. When complete you will be on your way to becoming a Design Scholar and well educated to creating a professionally decorated room. Great class for professional designers as well.
Make one of your New Year's resolutions to go back to school in a fun way!!
This course begins on January 25th & 26th, 6:30 – 9:30. Space is limited to 15 per course.
Registration is $395* for registrations received by December 24, 2011
$495* up until January 6, 2012. *meal included
To sign up for this 2 day course either mail or email your name, address, telephone number, email, along with your registration fee to:
Knotting Hill Interiors
7753 N. Kings Hwy.
Myrtle Beach, SC 29572
We will confirm your registration via email. I look forward to seeing you in my workshop!!


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Symantec set to hop on Hadoop, tackle 'big data'
Symantec will jump into the "big data" market this year with an application designed to make Hadoop MapReduce more enterprise-ready.
Don Angspatt, VP of product management for Symantec's storage and availability management group, said the vendor has a prototype of the application working and he expects the product to ship in 2012. He won't provide many details yet, but said the concept is similar to what EMC is doing with its integration of Isilon scale-out NAS and Greenplum analytics file system. The difference is that the Symantec app will work across heterogeneous storage.
Last month, EMC gave its Isilon OneFS operating system native support for the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and released the EMC Greenplum HD on Isilon.
The idea is to remove limitations such as a single point of failure and lack of shared storage capabilities that prevent Hadoop from working well in enterprises.
Angspatt said the Hadoop product will be sold separately from Symantec's Storage Foundation storage management suite, although it will work in a storage environment. He said the application will compete with Cloudera – which has a partnership with NetApp – and MapR Technologies software that EMC uses as part of its Greenplum HD.
"We want to make sure Hadoop and MapReduce work well in an enterprise environment," Angspatt said. "We're not going to do business intelligence. We'll be involved in the infrastructure behind it to make sure it's enterprise-ready. Our application will talk directly to Hadoop, similar to the EMC Greenplum-Isilon integration. But with us you don't get locked into a specific hardware."

subset: commoncrawl


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Here we are again, friends. Observing another "blogaversary" for this little modeling/drawing/painting/sculpture/music/animals/museums/NYC online journal called Museworthy. We reached the ten year mark last year, and that was extra special of course. But it's all special to me. Meaningful in a way that is both a comfort and an enrichment. It's an opportunity for me to connect with you, my wonderful readers, and share various incarnations of art, life, and beauty, both visual and verbal. I'll repeat what I always write on this annual post, and that is a heartfelt thank you for your visits here, whether they be regular or sporadic, and for your emails, comments, contributions, and friendships. It all means a great deal to me. And to you 'quiet' visitors who subscribe and read, I know you're out there. I see you and I thank you. Blessings to all …
So Fred Hatt and I did it again with our yearly photoshoot, this time at my house instead of Fred's studio. He loved the natural north light of the bay window and felt strongly that we should take some shots there. We agreed on using this one for the blog. I like it because it's a little strange, with the eye, the hair and the hands on the wall.
Perhaps because I turned 50 years old this year I've been plunging heavily into nostalgia these past few months, recalling the music, the trends, and the cultural and historical watersheds that I and my fellow Gen Xers lived through as children of the 80s. We had no Internet, no smart phones, no Netflix, no 24 hour cable news, no social media, and definitely no blogs! But as the 'bridge' between the postwar era and the digital age, my generation learned how to adapt and fend for ourselves; the latchkey kids weaned on MTV and afterschool specials, having the shit scared out of us by the AIDS crisis and Three Mile Island and the 'War on Drugs'. We managed to come out on the other side as free thinkers, improvisors, and entrepreneurs, with a dose of slackerdom mixed in. Winging it into adulthood. Cynical but not nihilistic. Finding our way to rewarding, productive lives if we could. Art modeling came to my rescue after years of Gen X-style wandering. Better late than never! Where we go – where we ALL go – from here is anybody's guess.
Which brings me to our music selection for today. In addition to the blogaversary, today is also a Music Monday, and the song I chose very much reflects both my personal mindset these days and the indelible song memories of my youth. In my junior year of high school one of the coolest bands ever, Talking Heads, released their album Little Creatures. I bought it and played it as soon as I could and had a blast. This is the video for the song "And She Was" and I hope you listen and enjoy its catchy, cheerful, imaginative vibe. The video is great fun, kind of like a surrealism mixed media artwork. Many days lately I feel like the girl in the song, 'floating above it'. Other days I pray for the strength to float above it. Here's David Byrne and Talking Heads.
With love and gratitude, Claudia 🙂


text: Our soaps are made completely from plant based oils and contain no parabens, artificial fragrances or dyes. Our soaps are palm oil free and are made with fair trade Shea butter that supports women and families in Ghana. The soaps are all hand poured, cut and stamped in small batches in our studio.


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AAZCT & Wildwater have a long history of understanding and serving the needs of groups. We offer a range of trips that are perfect for any group, be it a church group, sports team, corporate group or family reunion. Our zipline canopy tours are centrally located to all of Wildwater's Adventure Centers and the range of trips offered by Wildwater include: a fun class I float on the Lower Pigeon, beginner class II/III run on the Nantahala, Intermediate Class III – IV trips on the Chattooga, Pigeon and Ocoee and Class IV+ on the Chattooga Section IV. Additionally Wildwater offers Raft & Rail© trips on the Nantahala and Jeep® tours at the Nantahala and Pigeon Adventure Centers, Overnight camping trips and a Ropes Course at the Chattooga.
Wildwater has group lodging at the Nantahala and Chattooga Locations. We work with lodging partners to meet all groups lodging needs!
Let our experienced Group Coordinator, Miranda Alexander, tailor the perfect trip or package to suit your needs. We can do much more than just recommend the perfect canopy tour for you. We can make planning your event a breeze by including lodging, rafting and meals in your package. Wildwater is able to provide transport from certain locations to our Adventure Centers. We can also suggest and help arrange other activities in the area, such as mountain biking, horseback riding, hiking, sea kayaking, gem mining and much more, to compliment your zipline canopy tour experience.
We have group rates for families, church groups, clubs and other groups. With 10 or more you can get our groups rates for all our Canopy Tours & other adventures. Ask for our Group Coordinator, Miranda Alexander, if you have a group of 40 or more for our special super group rates.View Group Pricing


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Down To One is Greenlit!
Thanks for all your votes, comments, and questions over the last month - we're now Greenlit! It's been great to see the Down To One community grow, and see all of the feedback that everyone's left so far. Now that we've been Greenlit, we're right on track to release on Early Access in late December.
We've taken on board lots of great feedback from you guys, so please, keep it coming! Since shooting the trailer, we've already made some nice improvements to the general character animation & model quality, for example. For more updates & info, check out our social media platforms below:
For quick updates & info, check out the Down To One Twitter,
And our Subreddit over at /r/DownToOne


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With all of the talk in the news about the new mortgage rules its easy to get confused. Kerri Becker with The Royal Bank of Canada has provided us with the information below to help simplify and make sense of the new rules.
The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) announced the following new regulations effective January 1, 2018.
- When qualifying clients, federally-regulated financial institutions (FRFIs) will be required to approve conventional or uninsured residential mortgages at the greater of the contract rate plus 2% or the 5-year benchmark rate published by the Bank of Canada. This change applies to conventional / uninsured mortgages only, as the buyers with less than 5% down have been having to qualify at a higher rate 4.99% as of today already.
All potential home buyers will need to prove they could still afford their mortgage payments if interest rates were increased.
Main points:
- Regardless of down payment, all purchasers will need to qualify at the benchmark rate or their contract rate + 2.00%, whichever is greater, when applying for a mortgage
- The majority of buyers are currently stress-tested at the posted rate (e.g. anyone putting down less than 20% or anyone choosing to go with a mortgage that is less than a 5yr fixed term) so the change only applies to a relatively small subset of the market
- The reason for the change is to further ensure all borrowers would be able to pay their mortgages if interest rates become higher than they are today
Questions? Contact us and we can help!


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Picking the right printer can be tough, given that there are so many variations in features, and individual printers with almost any possible combination of those variations available. Here are some questions to help you home in on both the right type of printer for your needs, and the correct printer model within that type.
What type of printer do you need?
The three most useful ways to categorise printers are by purpose (general or special), intended use (home or office), and technology. Define your needs by all three categories, and you're well on your way to finding the right printer.
Most printers – including most inkjets that manufacturers market as photo printers – are general purpose printers, meant for printing text, graphics, and photos. Special purpose printers include portable printers, dedicated (and near-dedicated) photo printers, and label printers. If you're looking for a printer to print, say, photos, consider whether you want to print only photos, or if you want a printer that can also print other kinds of output.
General purpose printers tend to focus on photos if they're intended for home use, or on text if they're intended for the office. An increasing number of multifunction printers (MFPs) are meant for the dual role of home and office printer (particularly for home offices), but generally favour one role over the other. Consider how you plan to use the printer, and pick a printer designed for that role.
The two most common technologies – laser and inkjet – increasingly overlap in capabilities, but there are still differences. The most important are that all lasers (and laser-class printers such as solid ink and LED-based printers) print higher quality text than any inkjet, and almost any inkjet prints higher quality photos than the overwhelming majority of lasers. Ask yourself whether text or photos are more important, and pick a technology accordingly.
Do you need a single-function printer or an MFP?
Consider whether you simply need to print, or whether you might need other features as well. For a photo printer, for example, an additional capability could be enough memory to store hundreds of photos, so you can bring the printer with you, show off your photos, and print them there and then.
For a general purpose printer, additional capability means choosing an MFP, also known as an all-in-one or AIO. Additional functions include some combination of scanning, copying, faxing from your PC, standalone faxing, and scanning to email. Office printers also typically add an automatic document feeder (ADF) to scan, copy, and/or fax multi-page documents.
Some MFPs offer additional printing options as well. Web-enabled printers, both home and office models, can connect directly to the Internet via Wi-Fi to access and print out selected content without needing to work through a computer. Many Wi-Fi models let you print documents and images from handheld devices. Some models let you email documents to the printer, which will then print them out.
Do you really need colour?
For a home printer, you probably need colour, but for an office printer, if you never print anything but letters and monochrome documents, there's no reason to spend money on colour. Bear in mind, however, that many colour lasers can print at a high enough quality to print your own advertising hand-outs and trifold brochures, which could save you money compared with paying a third party to print these out for you.
What size printer do you want?
Be sure to look into the printer's size. Even some home printers can be uncomfortably large to share a desk with, and even a printer with a small footprint can be tall enough to feel like it's towering over you.
How are you going to connect?
In addition to a USB port, most office printers and an increasing number of home printers include Ethernet ports, so you can share the printer easily. Many also include Wi-Fi capability. Even if they don't, bear in mind that if you have a wireless access point on your network, you can print wirelessly to any printer on that network, whether the printer itself offers a wireless connection or not. Also, if your printer supports Wi-Fi Direct, it can connect directly to most Wi-Fi-enabled devices.
What level of output quality do you require?
Printers vary significantly in terms of output quality. Check out text, graphics, and photos separately, since high quality for one kind of output doesn't necessarily mean high quality for the others. If you can't see the printer working in person before you buy, then you can always look at reviews online (we regularly review printers at ITProPortal, with a full breakdown of output quality – in fact, here's one we reviewed earlier today).
Do you need a fast printer?
If almost everything you print is one or two pages, you probably don't need a fast printer. If you print a lot of longer documents, speed is more important, which means you probably want a laser printer. As a rule, laser printers will be close to their claimed speeds for text documents, which don't need much processing time. Inkjets often claim faster speeds than more expensive lasers, but usually don't live up to those claims. Inkjet printers have been getting faster, however, and a few recent high-end models can hold their own speed-wise against comparably priced lasers.
How much do you print?
If you only print a few pages a day, you don't have to worry about how much a printer is designed to print – as defined by its recommended (not maximum) monthly duty cycle. If you print enough for the duty cycle to matter, however, don't buy a printer that doesn't include that information in its specifications. You can figure out how much you print by how often you buy paper and in what amounts. Then pick a printer designed to print at least that much, obviously enough.
Also consider minimum and maximum paper size, and whether you need a duplexer to print on both sides of the page. For input (paper tray) capacity, a useful rule of thumb is to get enough capacity so you shouldn't need to add paper more than once a week.
How much does it cost?
Finally, be sure to consider the total cost of ownership, not just the retail price. Most manufacturers will tell you the cost per page of their printer, and many give a cost per photo.
To work out the total cost of ownership, calculate the cost per year for each kind of output (monochrome, colour document, photo) by multiplying the respective cost per page of each output type by the approximate number of those pages you print per year. Add the three amounts together to get the total cost per year. Then multiply that by the number of years you expect to own the printer, and add the retail price of the printer. Compare the total cost of ownership figures between printers to find out which model will be cheapest in the long run.


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Thibodeaux (pronounced TIB-uh-doe) returns to OU after serving the last five seasons as an assistant coach at Kansas (2015; defensive line), Tulsa (2012-14; defensive tackles) and Dartmouth (2011; defensive line). He was also the defensive line coach at Navarro Junior College in 2010 and served as a defensive graduate assistant at Houston during the 2008 and '09 seasons.
Thibodeaux played at OU from the 2002 through 2006 seasons, helping the Sooners win three Big 12 championships and make appearances in the Rose, Sugar (BCS Championship), Orange (BCS Championship), Holiday and Fiesta Bowls, respectively. He was limited to five games due to injury in 2004 and received a medical hardship. He finished his OU career with 90 tackles, 28.5 tackles for loss and 13.0 sacks. He was a second-team All-Big 12 pick in 2005, logging 44 tackles, 17.0 tackles for loss and a league-high 10.0 sacks, sixth most in school history.
Report: Former Sooner Calvin Thibodeaux Named OU Defensive Line Coach
"We're excited to have Calvin back in our program," said head coach Bob Stoops, who has won nine Big 12 titles in his 17 seasons at OU. "He's a longtime Sooner and was an excellent player for us. He's gained great defensive line experience coming up through the coaching ranks and was being sought after by other programs. He'll provide great leadership and direction to our players and will make big contributions to our defensive scheme."
Last year at Kansas, Thibodeaux tutored defensive end Ben Goodman to honorable mention All-Big 12 honors. Goodman started all 12 games at defensive end and totaled 51 tackles and team highs of 9.5 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks.
At Tulsa, Thibodeaux coached a pair of players to 2012 All-Conference USA honors in Daeshon Bufford and Derrick Jackson. The duo combined for 17.5 tackles for loss and 8.5 sacks as the Golden Hurricane finished with an 11-3 mark, including a win in the Liberty Bowl. Thibodeaux was credited with improving the TU pass rush from 27 sacks in 2011 (the season prior to his arrival) to 53 sacks in 2012.
In his lone season at Dartmouth, Thibodeaux helped the Big Green post its first winning season in Ivy League play in seven years. He coached first-team All-Ivy League and first-team All-New England defensive tackle Eddie Smith.
"It's a dream come true," said Thibodeaux of returning to OU. "To have this opportunity is special. It's home, I know the culture, I know what the expectations are. It's truly a blessing.
"When I got into coaching back in 2008, it was always one of my goals to come back home. For it to happen is just remarkable."
Thibodeaux helped Navarro College post an 11-1 record and win the 2010 National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) national championship. The Bulldogs registered 41 sacks while ranking 11th nationally in rushing defense and 12 nationally in total defense. Thibodeaux tutored NJCAA All-American and Championship Game Defensive MVP Toby Jackson.
Prior to his stint at Navarro, Thibodeaux served as a graduate assistant coach at the University of Houston for two seasons, working specifically with the defensive line and the outside linebackers. During his first year with the Cougars, defensive end Phillip Hunt, who amassed 14.0 sacks, was named the Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year.
A native of Houston, Texas, Thibodeaux signed with the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League in 2007, playing in two preseason games.
Thibodeaux, who replaces former Sooners defensive line coach Diron Reynolds, earned his bachelor's degree from OU in public affairs and administration in December 2006.
He and his wife, Terrika, have a son, Camar, and a daughter, Kamiah.
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Jupiter ignites to become our second sun
Jupiter ignites?
Highlights from Earthbridge Newsletter
* Jupiter is now our new sun. It ignited behind the Sun in late January and early February. Christ Michael is grinning from ear to ear, if you could see him!
* The expected trajectory of Jupiter was not accurate, being later going behind the Sun than was expected. Satellite cameras are showing developments but there is some manipulation of evidence.
* There are already 200, 000 people on the new planet (Earth) for people not yet going through the ascension process. During stasis this number will grow to two or three million.
* Ascension for mankind is not one event but an infinitely long process of returning to his full connection with the Creator.
At last, Jupiter is a sun and still growing! It took a special team from Paradise to accomplish this after what we now know was a failed attempt over a year ago. Because it was a slow nova, flares and satellite blackouts did not eventuate. However, earthquakes will follow. The strong winds in America and elsewhere recently and the Victorian bushfires are a result of extreme weather caused by Jupiter's ignition.
Jupiter will emerge from behind the Sun in late March as a morning star/sun and further weather problems will be encountered. So we will probably be placed into stasis before then. There are Internet references to the SOHO satellite photos, and others, of the Sun in this issue, and "stereo" satellites references at www.abundanthope.net. These give some "proof" as to what is happening.
At http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/browse/2009/01/13/behind_20090113 means starting 13th January to 22nd January - a giant unknown object appears. Then on 23rd and 24th January a CME passes in front of the object which means it is not an optical reflection and it is behind the Sun. Then from 25th to 31st January Jupiter grows in size and ignites into a sun. Blasts from Jupiter arrive at far side of the Sun a few days later. See http://soi.stanford.edu/data/full_farside/crots/2079.html (and /2080.html) .
I have included a long speech from Putin at a recent economic forum. It shows that he does indeed have a finger on the pulse of international politics. This pulse will undoubtedly increase greatly in coming days and weeks.
As I have said before, basically forget about the Obama tinsel. His cabinet consists of 70 percent Zionist agents. An article at Rense, "Ship of Fools" sums up policies quite well, see http://www.rense.com/general85/dhdd.htm .
The main thing Christ Michael is concerned about now is what needs to be done to show the world the "end times" are upon us before starting stasis. Sleep better anyway!
Tony Wicks February 15, 2009
( February 12, 2009) CHRIST MICHAEL THROUGH CANDACE FRIEZE: (edited)
We have a most bodacious glorious new sun! It has been quite a challenge for the team from Paradise (Central Universe) who does these things. This was a very difficult situation, but one needed to ascend the planet and the solar system into Eternal Life.
We could not have done this last year, but because the involution process went terribly bad and we had great risk of creating a black hole, or a ball of matter so tightly compressed that the planet would have exploded into bits and pieces instead of flaring into a sun.
It is beautiful, you shall see it soon enough, but mostly likely after stasis, which will still seem soon enough. We are not sure of its ultimate size, the growth process will continue for a bit of time.
It's a brilliant beautiful white high-energy sun! It of course is not a large sun, but enough to stimulate the necessary changes for a solar system to enter Light and Life.
This little sun will re-energize your larger Sun. And the larger sun re-energizes the little sun, a back and forth process. Your entire solar system is being towed gradually to a new location closer to Alcyone and also into an energy river at some point which will also sustain this solar system.
Right now the photon belt adds a great deal of energy and will add so to this new system over the time you are in it. This new little sun is gobbling up energy like a new baby does, and it is a new baby! As it gobbles up the food it needs it grows bigger, as all babies do, until it reaches its adult size.
We initiated this sun on Thursday January 29th [30th in Australia]. It took about six days for the process to bloom. A bit late, like all premature babies who are not fully developed in some way. I say premature, simply because this little sun was made of really compacted matter typical of this dark solar system, and thus was not a fully mature baby as are normal gas planets being made into suns. This was not a full term baby, and actually would never have been.
This has been a long and arduous process for all. I chose to not reveal that we were having problems delivering our baby last year. And so I chose that for purposes of working with the dark ones, that we had announced early to allow more preparation. There is a reason for my "madness" in this and I ask your forgiveness simply because you do not sit where I sit.
If we had never attempted to make Jupiter a sun, this solar system would have continued to deteriorate and become eventually a type of black hole of compressed matter that would eventually simply explode into a new creation. There are reasons this was not the desired outcome. (Divine Plan).
Now the folks that build solar systems are a special group of Descending Sons from Paradise, (Central Universe) which are more or less spoken of in the Urantia Book. This is not in the domain of the Creator Sons and their sons. This level of creation is beyond almost anyone that lives in the Central Universe, except for this group.
Now, because of the difficulties encountered, very little of creation is as dark as it is here. There were three possibilities in this covered above, but repeated here. We could have an explosion of Jupiter into bits and pieces, an involution that would have produced a black hole that would have sucked the solar system into it over time, or a sun. WE HAVE OUR SUN. BE IN JOY.
You have avoided some difficulty, such as having your satellites go out and the like. But the pressures will continue to build and disturb the Earth and her people. There is already plenty of effects now in growing winds and bad weather. Earthquakes will come forth, and there is a continuous measure of "static electricity" that has increased and will increase, making people miserable. And shortly the sun will become obvious, in the later part of March in your morning skies.
The Dark Side can't cover it forever and many are headed to their underground shelters built for purposes such as this. Apparently as near as we can make out, your new president (Obama) does not know yet. He will likely be taken to shelter too, or left to the mess; we are not sure.
We are reconfiguring dates on this a bit, because I still desire for Earth's residents to realise something of the end times is coming.
As always, the dark don't create, they just mess up everything they do.
I do think we will go into stasis before Jupiter emerges as a new morning star apparent to all, because there are going to be lots of weather problems. You have this already in the fires in Australia (Victoria) and the winds in America and other places.
We still do not expect to be able to make any public statements,
We are definitely on the Red Road to ascension of the solar system. Namaste, Christ Michael, Aton, the Big Cheese of Nebadon, with a big happy smile on his face!
Newly born sun, Jupiter, starts to move out from behind the Sun.
(NASA satellite)
A special team from the Paradise Isle, Central Universe, helped Jupiter ignite.


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The 1st image summarizes one of the reasons why the presidency of Barack Obama and the powerful presence of Michell… twitter.com/i/web/status/9…—
Be A King (@BerniceKing) March 03, 2018
Posts Tagged 'ruby
They Matter. Always
Tags: Amy, Barack Obama, Black History, bridges, Gallery, Kehinde, Michelle, Michelle Obama, National Portrait Gallery, norman, Obama, Political And Funny Tweets, portrait, portraits, President, rockwell, ruby, Ruby Bridges, Sherald, Smithsonian, tweets, Wiley
Living History
Tags: Barack Obama, bridges, norman, Obama, Political And Funny Tweets, President, racism, rockwell, ruby, tweets, white house, White Supremacy
Instead of a trash DeVos cartoon, I'm sharing this: my fave photo of President Obama, with the REAL painting and it… twitter.com/i/web/status/8…—
Shelly (@ShellySometimes) February 14, 2017
Rise and Shine
Tags: aca, Affordable Care Act, afghanistan, Articles About Benghazi, Auto Industry, Automobile, Barack Obama, Benghazi, border, Border Crisis, bridges, cartoons, economy, gun control, immigration, Immigration Reform, Income Inequality, israel, Israeli, jobs, John Kerry, kerry, Medal Of Honor, Michelle, Michelle Obama, Obama, Obama Doctrine, obamacare, obamacares, palestine, Palestinian, palestinians, Political And Funny Tweets, President, ruby, Ruby Bridges, tweets, war
On This Day – Pete Souza: "One of the most poignant days of the year was when Ruby Bridges visited the White House. Ruby is the girl portrayed in Norman Rockwell's famous painting, "The Problem We All Live With," which depicts Ruby as she is escorted to school on the court-ordered first day of integrated schools in New Orleans in 1960. When the Norman Rockwell Museum loaned the painting to the White House for a short period of time, the President invited Ruby to view the painting while it was on display outside the Oval Office." July 15, 2011
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Today (All Times Eastern)
11:10: The President tours the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center, McLean, Virginia
11:35: Delivers remarks
12:30: Josh Earnest briefs the press
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The Week Ahead
Wednesday: The President will attend meetings at the White House.
Thursday: The President will travel to New York City area to attend a DNC roundtable. Further details on the President's travel to New York will be made available in the coming days.
Friday: The President will attend meetings at the White House.
• • •
President Obama holds up three fingers while talking with three-year-old Holden Fossum and his sisters Ayla, 8, and Alexandria, 4, during a greet with wounded warriors and their families in the East Room of the White House, July 14, 2014. Holden, Ayla, and Alexandria are the children of Staff Sergeant Brendan Fossum and wife Dana of Woodbine, Md (Photo by Pete Souza)
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Paul Krugman: Obamacare Fails To Fail
How many Americans know how health reform is going? For that matter, how many people in the news media are following the positive developments? I suspect that the answer to the first question is "Not many," while the answer to the second is "Possibly even fewer," for reasons I'll get to later. And if I'm right, it's a remarkable thing — an immense policy success is improving the lives of millions of Americans, but it's largely slipping under the radar.
How is that possible? Think relentless negativity without accountability. The Affordable Care Act has faced nonstop attacks from partisans and right-wing media, with mainstream news also tending to harp on the act's troubles. Many of the attacks have involved predictions of disaster, none of which have come true. But absence of disaster doesn't make a compelling headline, and the people who falsely predicted doom just keep coming back with dire new warnings.
More here
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Pissing off Republicans!
@cspanwj http://t.co/6adFEce34E—
George Monroe (@Nupe117) June 28, 2014
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NYT: Anxious Moments For An Afghanistan on the Brink
It was the Germans who uttered the first alarm that a potentially deadly power struggle might be brewing, after weeks of Western officials' staying on the sidelines as the Afghan election crisis deepened. Just over a week ago, they threatened to withdraw funding and training troops from Afghanistan if a powerful regional governor declared a breakaway government led by the presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah. What followed was as tumultuous a six-day stretch for Afghanistan as any since the American invasion in 2001. Interviews with Western officials, the two presidential campaigns and other Afghan officials detailed a week that went beyond any
previous political crisis in carrying the risk of a factional conflict that would tear open the wounds of the devastating civil war. According to Mr. Manawi and others, it was a call from President Obama to Mr. Abdullah just after dawn last Tuesday that helped stop a headlong rush into a disastrous power struggle. Mr. Obama warned Mr. Abdullah not to even consider seizing power and to keep calm over the three days until Secretary of State John Kerry could get to Kabul. "Really here the U.S. government did a great favor to the Afghan people," Mr. Manawi said. "If it was not for the telephone call to Dr. Abdullah, this would not have stopped."
More here
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"oops".....Rick Perry Signed Budget That Reduced Texas Border Security; bit.ly/1nom27D—
Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) July 14, 2014
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On a wall at the proposed shelter for immigrant children in Maryland: "No illeagles here." bsun.md/1zELIXt http://t.co/QE3eWHmfQI—
The Baltimore Sun (@baltimoresun) July 15, 2014
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Danny Vinik: The Border Crisis Has Nothing To Do With Border Security
By linking them, a GOP congressman could kill Obama's emergency request On "Fox News Sunday," House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul floated the idea of tying his border security bill to President Barack Obama's request for $3.7 billion to help ease the humanitarian crisis unfolding at the Southwest border. That crisis is real and requires immediate action from Congress, but it has nothing to do with border security. McCaul's attempt to combine the issues only puts the funding request in jeopardy.
Those funds are needed to house and feed the 50,000-plus unaccompanied minors who have entered the U.S. so far this year; find sponsors for them while they await their court proceedings; hire more immigration judges to reduce the case backlog; and, for those who aren't allowed to stay, transport them home. Obama's request also includes money for increased border security. This is a reasonable response to the border crisis — one that focuses on treating the kids in a humane way while upholding U.S. law.
More here
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Brian Beutler: Republicans' Failure To Pass Immigration Reform Has Cost Us $900 Billion
Republicans have raised several objections to the White House's plan to address the child-migrant crisis, but none so self-discrediting as their objection to the nearly $4 billion cost of the bill.
That objection is self-discrediting for two reasons: First, because Republicans are on record in support of substantially more spending to shore up the border. Second, because with respect to immigration (and everything else) their claims to fiscal probity are a shell game they return to anytime they need a plausible-sounding reason to object to something they oppose for other reasons.
To demonstrate both, one need only look back to the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill, which Republicans helped design and pass just over a year ago.
More here
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Steve Benen: An Abundance Of Rhetoric, A Dearth Of Solutions
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security committee, argued yesterday that "some" of the unattended minors from Central America he saw "looked more like a threat to coming into the United States." How could he tell? McCaul didn't say.
Soon after, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) argued in support of sending the National Guard to the border. Asked what good Guard troops could under the circumstances, Perry couldn't say. (In fact, he seemed confused by the question.)
A variety of congressional Republicans have now balked at President Obama's appeal for emergency resource, insisting the package costs "too much." What's the GOP's alternative response? What's the proper amount of spending? They wouldn't say.
More here
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WH.gov: President Obama To Award The Medal Of Honor
In the afternoon of July 21, 2014, President Barack Obama will award Ryan M. Pitts, a former active duty Army Staff Sergeant, the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry. Staff Sergeant Pitts will receive the Medal of Honor for his courageous actions while serving as a Forward Observer with 2nd Platoon, Chosen Company, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, during combat operations at Vehicle Patrol Base Kahler, in the vicinity of Wanat Village in Kunar Province, Afghanistan on July 13, 2008.
Staff Sergeant Pitts will be the ninth living recipient to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. He and his family will join the President at the White House to commemorate his example of selfless service.
More here
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Michael Tomasky: Hey, Benghazi-Heads, You Stand Down!
Central to the Benghazi conspiracy: the alleged stand-down order that kept help from arriving from Tripoli. It never happened—and now we learn that Republicans have known for months.
Let's redirect our attention back to Benghazi. When is that special Benghazi committee in the House of Representatives going to get cracking, you may have wondered? Good question. It hasn't been announced yet. But here's a better question. What, now, is it going to investigate?
While we've all been focused during the past week on the border, there was a pretty major news development on Benghazi that got buried and is in need of a little sunshine. Last week, the Associated Press reported on transcripts of hours of closed-door interviews with nine U.S. military leaders that had been conducted by two House committees, Armed Services and Oversight (the latter is Darrell Issa's committee). Those military leaders agreed on a, or maybe the, central point as far as this continuing "investigation" is concerned: There was no stand-down order.
More here
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Max Fisher: This Chart Shows Every Person Killed In The Israel-Palestine Conflict Since 2000
It's no secret that the death tolls in the Israel-Palestine conflict are lopsided, with Palestinians far more likely to be killed than Israelis. But just how lopsided is driven home by looking at the month-to-month fatality statistics, which the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has been tracking since September 2000. Those numbers also tell some important stories about the conflict, how it's changed, and maybe where it's going. Here are the monthly, conflict-related deaths of Israelis and Palestinians since September 2000: You'll notice right away that the overwhelming majority of the deaths are Palestinian, and have been for the almost 14 years since B'Tselem began tracking.
Overall, the group has recorded 8,166 conflict-related deaths, of which 7,065 are Palestinian and 1,101 Israeli. That means 87 percent of deaths have been Palestinian and only 13 percent Israeli. Put another way, for every 15 people killed in the conflict, 13 are Palestinian and two are Israeli. (Statistics for the past two months are from United Nations Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs.) That number is even more staggering when you consider that there are about twice as many Israelis as there are Palestinians. This means, very roughly, that a Palestinian person has been 15 times more likely to be killed by the conflict than an Israeli person
More here
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G. Chambers Williams III: Volkswagen Expansion Continues Win Streak For Tennessee
The South's auto industry continues its phenomenal growth, as evidenced by recent expansions expected to bring thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars in new investment — including a deal announced Monday that will bring production of a new SUV to the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga. With the Volkswagen win, Tennessee is now at the forefront of the industry's growth. Recent gains include a new Infiniti engine plant that opened this month in Decherd; a pending expansion that will add two new vehicles to the General Motors plant in Spring Hill; and projects over the past year that have brought new vehicles and significantly bumped up employment at Nissan's Smyrna plant. The Volkswagen announcement of an expansion that will add 2,000 jobs in auto assembly and 200 in research and development was "pretty impressive,"
said Sujit CanagaRetna, fiscal policy manager for the Atlanta office of the Council of State Governments and a leading expert on the South's auto industry. "I believe it reinforces that this region has become a real magnet, not only for new plants, but also for expansions," he said. "BMW in South Carolina is another great example. They've been there 20 years and have gone through five or six expansions, with the latest announced in March for $1 billion. "All of the ancillary industries related to the auto companies, such as tire manufacturers, are flourishing in the South as well," CanagaRetna said. "(Clarksville) Tennessee is getting Hankook Tire, there are four major tire makers in South Carolina, including one recently announced from Singapore, and several in Georgia."
More here
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Cashier: "Equal rights for gay people!"
POTUS: "Are you gay?"
Cashier: "Only when I have sex."
POTUS: "bump me" http://t.co/lhXaapWrUs
meta (@metaquest) July 14, 2014
Cashier: "Equal rights for gay people!" POTUS: "Are you gay?" Cashier: "Only when I have sex." POTUS: "bump me" http://t.co/lhXaapWrUs—
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On This Day
Sen. Barack Obama smiles as he is introduced prior to his address on Iraq policy and U.S. national security at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center July 15, 2008 in Washington, DC
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President Obama greets the family of newly appointed FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in the Oval Office prior to his swearing in on July 15, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
President Obama greets the Gramajo family, participants with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, in the Oval Office on July 15, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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President Obama is interviewed by Chuck Todd, of NBC News, at Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Mich., July 15, 2010 (Photo by Pete Souza)
President Obama sits in an electric Ford Focus alongside Mayor Kurt Dykstra following a groundbreaking ceremony for Compact Power's new advanced battery factory in Holland, Michigan, July 15, 2010
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First Lady Michelle Obama and kids double-dutch jump rope during a taping for the Presidential Active Lifestyle Award (PALA) challenge and Nickelodeon's Worldwide Day of Play, on the South Lawn of the White House, July 15, 2011 (Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
President Obama, Ruby Bridges, and representatives of the Norman Rockwell Museum view Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With," hanging in a West Wing hallway near the Oval Office, July 15, 2011. Bridges is the girl portrayed in the painting (Photo by Pete Souza)
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Former President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush present President Obama with a pair of socks in the Map Room of the White House, July 15, 2013 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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Rise and Shine
Tags: abortion, Articles About DOJ's Accomplishments, Barack Obama, doj, Epinephrine, Eric Holder, holder, Malcolm X, Native Americans, Obama, obamacare, obamacares, Political And Funny Tweets, President, ruby, Ruby Bridges, Tribal Nations, Tribal Nations Conference, tweets
Pete Souza: "We were on Air Force One heading to the Summit of the Americas in Singapore. Since the 1990's, the host country for this Summit chooses a shirt that all heads of state wear to the formal ceremony. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was showing the President pictures of past leaders wearing – shall we say – not the most dignified of shirts." Nov. 14, 2009
Today (All Times Eastern):
11:35: President Obama to make announcement on a fix for health plans canceled under ACA
12:0: First Lady Michelle Obama delivers keynote address at Disney's first-ever Veterans Institute workshop at Walt Disney World Resort
1:0: President Obama departs the White House
2:25: Arrives in Cleveland
2:30: VP Biden delivers remarks in Atlanta
2:55: President Obama tours ArcelorMittal, Cleveland
3:40: Delivers remarks on the economy
4:35: Departs Cleveland
5:30: VP Biden attends DNC event in Atlanta
5:45: President Obama arrives in Philadelphia
7:45: Delivers remarks at a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
9:10: Departs Philadelphia
10:05: Arrives at the White House
Igor Volsky: The Official Obamacare Numbers And What They Mean For The Future Of Health Care Reform
The Obama administration released October's enrollment numbers for HealthCare.gov on Wednesday afternoon, providing the first official glimpse into the administration's progress towards implementing the Affordable Care Act. Here is the breakdown: 106,185: filled out the application and have selected a plan through a federally run or state run exchange. 79,391: filled out the application and have selected a plan through a state-run exchange.
26,794: filled out the application and have selected a plan through a federal exchange. 846,184: filled out the application but have not yet selected a plan 1,509,883: individuals applying for coverage with completed applications 1,081,592: total individuals eligible to enroll in an exchange plan 396,261: eligible for Medicaid or CHIP. Enrollees by state: California 35,364; Federal exchange 26,794; New York 16,404; Washington 7,091; Kentucky 5,586.
More here
It's telling that the shorthand enrollment #s exclude Medicaid. In American politics, the very poor are non-persons.—
Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) November 13, 2013
Media Matters: The Obamacare Fact-Check CBS Should Have Done (But Didn't)
CBS News, already in trouble for not bothering to fact-check sensational claims about the Benghazi attacks, has stepped in it again with an exclusive story on the Affordable Care Act that has quickly fallen apart.
On November 11, CBS News reported that the "project manager in charge of building the federal health care website was apparently kept in the dark about serious failures in the website's security."
CBS investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson's report was based on an exclusive "first look at a partial transcript" of closed-door testimony by project manager Henry Chao that was likely leaked to the network by Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. Other media outlets picked up CBS's scoop and ran with it.
…. Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA) questioned Chao at a November 13 Oversight Committee hearing and revealed how misleading CBS News' report was….
More here
Charles Pierce: If It's Not One Thing, It's CBS
…. Gee, CBS gets scammed by a con-man like Darrell Issa. Hoocoodanode?
Perhaps a CBS reporter who has proven to be a reliable mark in the past.
Sharyl Atkisson? The Sharyl Atkisson? The one who proved so valuable to Issa in his attempt to promote the Fast And Furious fakery? …. She was also a dependable mouthpiece in the early days of Benghazi, Benghazi!, BENGHAZI! …. the Sharyl Atkisson who did so much to mainstream anti-vaccine propaganda and give Julia Ioffe whooping cough? That Sharyl Atkisson?
The Tiffany Network is having a tough week.
Full post here
Greg Sargent: What The Obamacare Enrollment Numbers Really Tell Us
To Larry Levitt, a vice president at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, another very telling number is this one: over 975,000 have been determined eligible for a marketplace but haven't yet chosen a plan.
"That's one of the most telling numbers — a million people have been determined eligible," Levitt tells me. "That means if the website had been working well, and a million people had gotten to the end of the process, we'd be looking at a very different trajectory now. We heard about the surge in traffic when HealthCare.gov went live. This suggests there is in fact a lot of interest."
Meanwhile, the 100,000 number is getting a lot of attention, but the report also finds nearly 400,000 were determined eligible for Medicaid. "In total that's over 500,000 people who signed up for insurance in the midst of a tumultuous launch," Levitt says. "People make a distinction between the marketplace and Medicaid, but those are both elements of the Affordable Care Act — both are mechanisms to get people insured."
More here
#ObamaCare Works: 106,185 signed up on exchanges, 396,261 covered through Medicaid, 846,184 completed applications. http://t.co/iAfLRVoc7b—
Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) November 13, 2013
Mother Jones: If GOP Repeals Obamacare, 137 Million Americans Could Get Cancellation Notices
how many Americans' health plans would receive some form of cancellation notice if GOP hardliners got their wish and repealed Obamacare? Probably at least 137 million. Let's do the math. Most of the 49 million Americans who were uninsured before the Affordable Care Act will now be eligible to obtain health coverage—either through the expansion of Medicaid or through federal subsidies they can use to purchase insurance on the cheap through the exchanges.
From that number, subtract the 30 million or so low-income people who will not sign up for coverage, either because they can't afford it, or they live in one of the 24 states where Republican governors decided not to expand Medicaid. That takes us down to 19 million uninsured Americans whose coverage would disappear if Republicans repeal Obamacare. Now add to that number the 267 million Americans who have insurance, but will now receive better coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
More here
Thanks to #ObamaCare, 500,000 people now have health insurance through a combination of the exchanges and Medicaid. http://t.co/cgkR17yBFC—
Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) November 13, 2013
Bob Cesca: The Truth About The Obamacare Enrollment Numbers
You've probably heard the number 106,000 bouncing around the tubes today. It represents the supposed number of Americans who have signed up for health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Of course it's not the most accurate indication of what October really looked like.
According to Jonathan Cohn, the total number of Americans who have submitted applications for coverage via Healthcare.gov and state exchanges? Try 1.5 million people, if you factor in households with multiple people receiving coverage — dependents and so forth, who, by the way, are included among the 30 million Americans without insurance prior to the ACA.
More here
So, first @CBSNews is caught lying about Benghazi, now it's caught lying about HealthCare.gov? Librul media!
TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) November 14, 2013
ABC6: Obama Says He Will Visit Indian Country Next Year
President Barack Obama told Native American leaders Wednesday that he will make his first trip as president to Indian Country next year, expanding on his vow to enhance the bond between the federal and tribal governments. Obama told the tribal leaders at the fifth annual White House Tribal Nations Conference that the federal government still has work to do to sustain a strong relationship with tribal governments.
He says the United States can do more to give tribes more control over their communities and says that high rates of poverty among Native Americans are "a moral call to action." In addition, he says the federal government needs to ensure that Native Americans have access to affordable health care and must help tribes be good stewards of their native homelands.
More here
Tim Dickinson: How Republicans Rig The Game
As the nation recovers from the Republican shutdown of government, the question Americans should be asking is not "Why did the GOP do that to us?" but "Why were they even relevant in the first place?" So dramatically have the demographic and electoral tides in this country turned against the Republican Party that, in a representative democracy worthy of the designation, the Grand Old Party should be watching from the sidelines and licking its wounds. Not only did Barack Obama win a second term in an electoral landslide in 2012, but he is also just the fourth president in a century to have won two elections with more than 50 percent of the popular vote.
What's more, the party controls 55 seats in the Senate, and Democratic candidates for the House received well over a million more votes than their Republican counterparts in the election last year. And yet, John Boehner still wields the gavel in the House and Republican resistance remains a defining force in the Senate, frustrating Obama's ambitious agenda. Through a combination of hyperpartisan redistricting of the House, unprecedented obstructionism in the Senate and racist voter suppression in the states, today's GOP has locked in political power that it could never have secured on a level playing field.
More here
Steve Benen: HHS Releases Obamacare Enrollment Data
Over the first month of open-enrollment, 106,185 consumers signed up for health insurance through an exchange – about a quarter of that total signed up by way of the federal marketplace. In addition, another 396,261 Americans have gained coverage through Medicaid expansion. By this reasoning, about 500,000 consumers gained health insurance in October thanks to the Affordable Care Act
nearly 1 million consumers – on top of those who gained coverage – began the process "by applying and receiving an eligibility determination" but have "not yet selected a plan." For many of these folks, this is the result of the broken website – the totals are not a reflection of demand, but rather, capacity.
And therein lies the point: the administration assumed that that demand for coverage would be there, and those assumptions were correct. The problem, of course, is the dysfunctional website – people haven't been able to purchase the product they want to buy. Fix the site and the pieces of the system fall nicely into place.
More here
BREAKING: U.S. worker productivity grew 1.9 percent rate over the summer as output rose; labor costs fell.—
The Associated Press (@AP) November 14, 2013
MORE: 5th straight decline in unemployment benefit applications shows businesses don't see need to cut jobs: apne.ws/1cXQmqU -MM—
The Associated Press (@AP) November 14, 2013
Digital Journal: President Obama Signs School Access To Emergency Epinephrine Act
President Obama today signed into law the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act during a ceremony attended by Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) CEO John L. Lehr, members of FARE's board of directors and key congressional sponsors. This historic and potentially lifesaving legislation is the first federal law encouraging schools to stock epinephrine for use in allergic emergencies, and has been championed by FARE for more than two years.
The law, passed by the Senate on Oct. 31 and by the U.S. House of Representatives on July 30, encourages states to require schools to keep lifesaving epinephrine on hand and ensure school personnel are trained to use it. The bill received strong bipartisan support and was passed by unanimous consent in both chambers. "We are thrilled to see this legislation signed by President Obama and thank him for bringing national attention to the need to protect students with food allergies," said John L. Lehr, CEO of FARE
More here
WaPo: CBS Ran Misleading Story On HealthCare.gov Security Issues talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cbs-n…—
Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 14, 2013
@60Minutes runs a fake Benghazi story and now @CBSNews runs a fake anti-#ObamaCare story. talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cbs-n…
Journalism is dead at CBS.—
Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) November 14, 2013
Department Of Justice: Court Authorizes IRS To Issue Summonses For Records Relating To U.S. Taxpayers With Offshore Bank Accounts
U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood of the Southern District of New York entered an order on Nov. 7, 2013, authorizing the IRS to issue summonses requiring Bank of New York Mellon (Mellon) and Citibank NA (Citibank) to produce information about U.S. taxpayers who may be evading or have evaded federal taxes by holding interests in undisclosed accounts at Zurcher Kantonalbank and its affiliates (collectively, ZKB) in Switzerland; and U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman of the Southern District of New York entered an order today authorizing the IRS to issue summonses requiring Mellon, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA (JPMorgan),
HSBC Bank USA NA (HSBC), and Bank of America NA (Bank of America) to produce similar information in connection with undisclosed accounts at The Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Limited and its affiliates (collectively, Butterfield) in the Bahamas, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Malta, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. These cases once again demonstrate the department's resolve to uncover and identify taxpayers who tried to hide money overseas as a way to avoid federal taxes," said Assistant Attorney General Keneally.
More here
Think Progress: Senate Democrats Unveil Pro-Choice Bill To Prevent States From Chipping Away At Abortion Rights
Last week, Senate Republicans introduced a national abortion ban that would chisel away at the constitutional rights guaranteed under Roe v. Wade. Now, their Democratic colleagues are striking back with some abortion-related legislation of their own. a group of pro-choice senators plan to introduce the Women's Health Protection Act of 2013, a measure intended to stem the barrage of state-level restrictions on reproductive rights.
the new bill would preempt state's efforts to indirectly restrict abortion by requiring new laws to be medically necessary. The measure emphasizes that new abortion regulations shouldn't decrease access to abortion services or require doctors to go against their best judgment.
More here
Michael Tomasky: The Democrats Need To Stop Freaking Out About Obamacare And Take Charge
Bill Clinton conceded those rhetorical inches to the right on Obamacare, which Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) seized on immediately. At least two blue-state senators, Dianne Feinstein (CA) and Jeff Merkley (OR), have jumped on the "fix Obamacare" bandwagon. At the same time, there's no need for panic. Even with the continued existence and success of Fox, reality is still reality, and in the end, reality usually trumps cable and hyperventilating reports about who won the morning in Politico. And reality says the enrollment period doesn't end until next spring, and it's really not possible to tell how things are going until enrollment has ended and we see both the number of people who've enrolled and what percentage healthy vs. sick, because insurers made their guesstimates and pegged their rates to those guesstimates.
I remember a lot of other times when it was supposedly curtains for Obama, too, because inside the Beltway, the more disciplined Republicans, who after all are in the luxurious position of just sitting back and firing away, have an easier time winning news cycles. But out beyond the Beltway, the party that shut down the government for three weeks and killed immigration reform and wants to decimate food stamps and can't even pass its own spending bills doesn't look very appealing to most people. The fate of Obamacare can be changed. The DNA of the GOP cannot.
More here
53 years ago today. http://t.co/UJ3CHFaa5y—
James Perry (@JamesHPerry) November 14, 2013
On This Day:
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and President Obama laugh as they brush their hair during a group photo during the APEC summit
First Lady Michelle Obama hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' spouses luncheon at Kualoa Ranch in Ka'a'awa on the island of Oahu in Hawaii on November 13, 2011 (Okay, a day late)
President Obama chats with Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, right, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, at the APEC leaders dinner in Singapore, Nov. 14, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
President Obama shares a laugh with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the APEC leaders dinner in Singapore, Nov. 14, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
President Obama eats a green tea ice cream bar during his visit to the Great Buddha of Kamakura at the Kotoku-in Temple in Kamakura, Japan, Nov. 14, 2010 (Photo by Pete Souza)
President Barack Obama, Ruby Bridges, and representatives of the Norman Rockwell Museum view Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With," hanging in a West Wing hallway near the Oval Office, July 15, 2011. Bridges is the girl portrayed in the painting. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
AOL (2010): When Ruby Bridges arrived for her first day at William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans 50 years ago, she thought it was Mardi Gras. People lined the streets, shouting and throwing things – just like a Carnival parade. But these people weren't celebrating.
At 6 years old, Bridges had been unwittingly thrust onto the grand stage of American history. Her parents had volunteered her to be the first black child to attend an all-white school in the South. Local law enforcement refused to protect her from the unruly mobs that surrounded her school, so every day she was escorted by four federal marshals – the scene immortalized by Norman Rockwell's painting "The Problem We All Live With."
That first day, all the parents had rushed into the building and taken their kids out — effectively boycotting the school. The school didn't quite know what to do; Ruby was told to just sit in the principal's office until it was time to go home.
"I remember thinking, 'This school is easy,'" Bridges told AOL News.
Since then, Bridges grew up, raised four sons and worked as a travel agent before returning to a career as an educational activist that she had started at such a young age. But while her educational career eventually subsided into a normal New Orleans childhood – albeit one charged by forced integration – those exceptional first days in school had shaped her for life.
Full article here


text:
Chris Veteto
|Clinic Director, Jackson Office
|work: 731-664-8443
|Email: email@example.com
Chris Veteto has served as the Jackson Clinic Director since 2002, though she has been involved in the Birth Choice ministry since it opened in March of 1989. From 1989 until 1995, Chris volunteered as a client advocate. From 1995 to 2002, she served in the position of office manager.
Chris is from Memphis, Tennessee. In 1978, she graduated cum laude from Memphis State University with a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art and Communication. Before she and her family moved to Jackson in 1987, she worked sixteen years in a chiropractic clinic. Ten of those years she was office manager and assisted the doctor with examinations and x-ray.
Chris has been married to Dirk Veteto since 1974. They have three children: Jimmy Veteto, who is married to Lisa; Glenna Marshall, who is married to William; and Lauren Wood, who is married to Josh. They have four grandchildren: Avery, Isaiah & Ian, and Gavin. Chris and Dirk attend Cornerstone Community Church.
"I came to Birth Choice in 1989 hoping that God could use me in some small way to be a blessing to others. I have found, though, that the greatest blessing has been mine. You just can't out give God."


text:
The United States' eight-year military operation of Iraq is coming to an end. Military commanders in Iraq say the withdrawal of troops and equipment from the country is nearly complete. Fewer than 4,000 remain in the country and officials say they will likely be out in the next few days, in keeping with President Obama's orders for a pullout by the Christmas holiday.
Another convoy reaches Kuwait. For the U.S. Air Force and Army combat truckers who have been on the road for days, the trip is exhausting and dangerous. On the way out, the trucks face gunfire and rock-throwing.
For soldiers like 21-year-old Johan Robinson, the departure is part of history. ?We accomplished safety for our own people over here during our operations, and safety for others from terrorism," he said.
A Look at Key Events in US-Iraq Invasion
The drawdown has been under way for months, but in recent days movement has accelerated at U.S. bases in Kuwait that serve as transit points. The goal - to fulfill President Obama's promise to have the troops home by the Christmas holiday.
What took eight years to put into place is being dismantled in weeks.
One of the generals overseeing the drawdown, Army Brigadier General Jonathan Ives, calls it the biggest trucking operation since the World War II mission that supplied U.S. troops invading Europe.
?We?ve moved a million tons with 4,000 vehicles in the same amount of time [as the World War II operation]. They did it over 90 days, a three-month period. We?ve done it really from October 16 to today," he said.
Most camps in Iraq have been emptied or handed over to Iraqi authorities, a process that began in the north, making its way south.
U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Curt Stewart has deployed several times since the war started in 2003. ?I almost feel like I've spent more time here than I have in the States over the last six or seven years. So, it's definitely historic in terms of finally bringing things to a close and closing bases that I've traveled to and from numerous times over the last several years. Seeing them close and bringing things home feels pretty good," he said.
Specialist Robinson says his deployments have caused his family suffering and he hopes the sacrifices that U.S. soldiers have made will mean a safer world. He also hopes that no others will have to fight in Iraq again.
?A lot of blood has been shed in this country. Now that we're going to be gone, I know that neither me nor my family nor my friends are going to [have] to come back here to this country and do more damage. It's actually a relief," he said.
For the troops returning home and the families of the more than 4,000 Americans who perished in this war, this journey out of Iraq is the end of a chapter.


text:
Many writers have a longstanding embargo against adverbs. Too often this is analogous to the U.S./Cuba embargo: originally made for some worthwhile purpose, but as the years pass, that purpose seems less and less meaningful and more and more antiquated.
Mark Twain called the overabundance of adverbs an "adverb plague": "I am dead to adverbs; they cannot excite me … There are subtleties which I cannot master at all — they confuse me, they mean absolutely nothing to me — and this adverb plague is one of them." Strunk and White prioritizes nouns and verbs over adjectives and adverbs. Stephen King in On Writing is less diplomatic: "the road to hell is paved with adverbs."
But in reading Deborah Eisenberg's "Twilight of the Superheroes," I was struck by the plenitude of adverbs in her prose. They cropped up on the street corners of enough sentences that I was forced to start writing them down, the better to examine them. Here's a list of my favorites.
- "She turned back to Harry, but her perfume continued to loiter thuggishly around Kate."
I love the adaptation of thuggish into an adverb. And its pairing with perfume is positively oxymoronic. By adding that modifier to perfume, the perfume becomes the metonym for its owner — we know that the true thug must be the "she" in this sentence.
- "They had put her in what they called the Rose Room, though except for the faint pinkish tone of the walls and the splendid four-poster, it was deliciously austere."
Here we have another example of a contradictory pairing — things that are austere are never, as a rule, delicious. This pairing of contradictory elements is consistent with Eisenberg's other language usage — in another part of the book she describes a moon as "cold, sizzling," the contradictory adjectives mashed up right against each other to provide maximum friction.
- "Outside, the wind is still hurtling clumsily by, thrashing through the branches and low, twiggy growth, groaning and pleading in the language of another world."
For starters, acknowledge this is a beautiful sentence. Next, the adverb is an unusual one: hurtling clumsily? But it's a brilliant phrase because the wind rarely sounds neat, and like any great description, it modifies how I perceive the world.
- "She peered at Nana scientifically and waggled her fingers in a little wave."
Think of alternative adverbs. She peered inquisitively. She peered questioningly. She peered admiringly. So many possibilities have the dull ring of cliche. But scientifically conveys both a dispassionate, clinical approach and also a genuine interest and focus upon the person.
So Eisenberg avoids the typical charges leveled at adverb users by choosing highly unusual adverbs, ones that surprise the reader. Unlike so many other adverbs, they are not words that could be inferred by the surrounding dialogue (she spoke "lightly," etc.), but they carry their own weight and add to the sentence.
Just in case you think I'm making up the frequency with which these appear, here are a few more examples:
- "the cake bulged resiliently around the knife."
- "Peggy was gazing droopily at the screen."
- "she remembered encyclopedically"
- "arrestingly bony Margaret"
- [Bill was] so compensatorily dutiful."
Okay, but Einsenberg goes one step beyond this adverb playfulness. She also practices the double barrel approach, where she will use two adverbs connected by a conjunction or close together in a sentence. Once again, I find this type of frequency of adverbs in literary writers extremely rare, especially in the minimalist era post Raymond Carver.
- "Driving back to the city, through the assaultively scenic and demographically uniform little towns, they were silent."
Assaultively scenic! Such a description could only come from the consciousness of the narrator, a curmudgeonly old gay man who is a bit of a misanthrope. Only he would consider the aesthetic quality of being "scenic" a type of assault on him. And demographically uniform perfectly describes the homogeneous nature of little towns.
Three more:
- "No one at the reception desk looked at us knowingly or scornfully."
- "That William was idiotically accepting, idiotically pliant."
- "Liz was holding one of the dish towels, creasing it absently and fiercely."
In each one of these, the second adverb isn't piled onto the first, doing the same or similar work, but adds a layer of complexity. Knowingly is very different from scornfully. Absently AND fiercely is quite a strange combination, and shows the depth and complexity of the character's emotions.
Lastly, Eisenberg uses the placement of her adverb to affect the meaning.
- "Often when he came by to drop them off he'd sit in the kitchen with her, chatting over a leisurely beer."
Most people would use "leisurely" to modify chatting. It's wonderful to make the beer itself leisurely, as if the beer has become the substitute for the people.
- "Nana examined my face — dispassionately, I think would be the exact right word."
With the adverb coming later, almost as an afterthought, Eisenberg allows us to realize the character of the examination as the protagonist does, letting us first see the examination before figuring out the character. And because the protagonist has a hard time coming up with the right word — the exact right word — it shows that both that this is a difficult examination to characterize and also that she has finally succeeded in pinning down its true nature.
Also, the structure of the sentence's punctuation, with the adverb coming right after the long break of the em dash and before the comma, means that the adverb is placed at a seat of prominence — it is the most important term in the whole stretch, a kind of one-word watershed cleaving the two halves of the sentence.
If this post has convinced you of the viability of loads of adverbs in literary fiction, wonderful. If not, that's fine — but you should still read "Twilight of the Superheroes." Not only is Eisenberg a master prose stylist, she also is one of the best short story authors currently at work.
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Every story has an element of real-life, while mixing in a dose of fiction and/or fantasy. Many fear to embrace their "wild(e)" side, but the beauty of writing is that people like Ms. Wilde can explore the deepest part of their imagination and aspire to bring pleasure to others, while still maintaining their every day reality.
Ms. Wilde hopes that her books help others to dig deep and bring out their own 'wild side' and that her readers enjoy the ride.
See all of her books HERE: http://www.amazon.com/Jayn-Wilde/
Tweet her HERE: http://twitter.com/JaynWilde
Like her HERE: http://facebook.com/JaynWilde
Pin her HERE: http://www.pinterest.com/jaynwilde/ (Um, Follow her pins, that is *wink*)
Email her HERE: firstname.lastname@example.com
Plus her on Google+ while you are there! =)


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Former Participants – Former participants of Belarus, Litesound, who represented their country in 2012 in Azerbaijan, are to play a concert in the Netherlands. The concert will take place at CC Muziekcafe on 2nd October 2015 from 21.00h(CET). Entrance fee is only €5.
Litesound are a Belarusian rock group founded in 2005 by brothers Dmitry (Dima) and Vladimir (Vova) Karyakin. They represented Belarus in the 2012 semi-finals with 'We are the Heroes'.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JWbOKNaIAo]
Since Eurovision their song "Brothers" became the official anthem of the World Cup Ice-Hockey 2014. In 2015, Litesound recorded the soundtrack to the show UFO.
More information at the Facebook event.


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Cosmo Announces 2017 Women Of The Year Awards Winners
The Cosmopolitan Women of the Year Awards celebrated nine incredible Aussie women who have inspired the nation with their talent, determination and leadership yesterday.
Hosted by Sylvia Jeffreys, the event honoured trailblazers including Paralympian Jessica Smith, who received the prestigious Game Changer Award, and The Bachelorette's Sophie Monk, who was awarded TV and Radio Personality of the Year.
"Today we recognise the achievements of women across Australia, who have dedicated themselves to inspiring and empowering all women to break down barriers and follow their passion," Cosmopolitan editor Keshnee Kemp said.
"We are privileged to have the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of all of our winners and finalists in doing what they love with the utmost integrity and success.
"Cosmopolitan sends a big thank you to Avon, our principal sponsor, as well as Rip Curl, Pantene and Rest Industry Super, who were the supporting hands behind the event."
Aussie TV icon Kerri-Anne Kennerley was honoured with a Hall of Fame Award for her longevity and leadership in the entertainment industry.
Fiorella Di Santo, director of sales at Bauer Media, said: "Cosmo has long been a passionate advocate of the Australian woman. As a publisher, we're proud to provide a platform to celebrate the brave and the bold and demonstrate women supporting women.
"It's obvious our readers are too, evidenced by the record-breaking number of votes we received for this year's nominees."
Other winners this year included 13 Reasons Why star Katherine Langford, Frank Body founders Bree Johnson and Jess Hatzis, and social media influencers Lauren Curtis, Elle Ferguson and Tammy Hembrow, who were named Social Media Stars in their respective fields.
See the full list of winners and finalists below:
Winners: Bree Johnson and Jess Hatzis (Frank Body)
Fellow finalists: Kate Morris, Alanna Bastin-Byrne and Jade Collins, Matty Samaei, Sarah Schoeller and Marissa Bowden
Fashion Designer
Winners: Yiota and Thessy Kouzoukas (Sabo Skirt)
Fellow finalists: Nyree Corby, Isabella Pennefather and Elizabeth Abegg, Tamara Ingham and Jasmine Yarbrough, Tash Oakley and Devin Brugman
Game Changer
Winner: Jessica Smith (Paralympian, author and motivational speaker)
Fellow finalists: Gladys Berejiklian, Angela Jay, Khadija Gbla, Melissa Abu-Gazaleh
Winners: Katherine Langford (actress, 13 Reasons Why)
Fellow finalists: Nicole da Silva, Pia Miller, Samantha Jade, Tanya Hennessy
Social Media Star (Beauty)
Winner: Lauren Curtis
Fellow finalists: Danielle Mansutti, Tina Yong, Jenny Do, Wendy Ayche
Social Media Star (Fashion)
Winner: Elle Ferguson
Fellow finalists: Margaret Zhang, Nadia Fairfax, Nadia Bartel, Sarah Ellen
Social Media Star (Fitness & Travel)
Winner: Tammy Hembrow
Fellow finalists: Felicia Oreb and Diana Johnson, Pia Muehlenbeck, Ashy Bines, Lauren Bullen
TV & Radio Personality
Winner: Sophie Monk
Fellow finalists: Julie Snook, Jan Fran, Bella Frizza, Tara Rushton
Winner: Joany Badenhorst
Fellow finalists: Rhiannan Iffland, Charlotte Caslick, Tyler Wright, Emily Duggan


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By Allen Bernard
Everyone knows that relying on technology to solve a business problem is only a partial solution at best. Without the ever-critical support from top (and bottom) management all of your best laid plans will certainly be sidetracked at best and, at worst, fail outright; leaving you and anyone else that can be, holding the bag.
Obviously, this is not what most business folks want or expect when the set out on such an ambitious project as ERP. And, yet this is exactly where they will find themselves at some point in the process. Generally, failure happens along the way, not at the end, when everything is suddenly live and just as suddenly "it" isn't working.
But this is more than the much-vaunted executive "buy-in." ERP is a top-down project so buy-in is a given. What isn't, however, is ongoing participation, the sponsorship of the project. If your executives are always too busy for status meetings or to allocate the resources and money needed to deal with unanticipated events because they are "dealing the real problems of the business" or some other excuse then you are in for a steep climb.
How to get and keep executives' attention is hard to say but retired Marriott CIO Carl Wilson's solution was to "move the cheese" to get his team on board. He made sure that he recognized, rewarded and compensated where he wanted them to go not where they were. The more exciting work would start to go to the people that got on board early and then the rest of the group would eventually follow along.
"The company is going in this new direction and using this new technology," says Wilson, who continues to coach executives today, of his pep talks. "If you want to get and stay on board, then this is how you can do it. If you are good leader, you are going to provide the steps along the path that will get them there: training, coaching or whatever it takes to get there. This is basic change management."
Educating the executive team on the scale and risk of an ERP install is a good idea. Many executives are so busy with the day-to-day things they may not have the bandwidth to absorb what ERP really means to the organization. They may view it as just another IT project or a way to automate existing processes.
If this is your situation, impress on the C-suite that along with big-time rewards come big-time risks and to minimize that risk requires their ongoing attention and participation. Cite the acrimonious court case of Marin County vs. Deloitte, which recently settled, if you have to. This is what happened there.
"It is about the business and not the technology," says Eric Kimberling, founder of ERP consultancy Panorama Consulting. "That's were the successful companies that out-perform the troubled implementations, that's were they separate themselves, is on business process design and reengineering. They focus on the organizational change aspects of the implementation rather than myopically focusing on just configuring the software, testing it and slamming it in for the implementation."
Kimberling should know. When not running Panorama or signing off his firm's annual state of ERP report, he serves as a forensic analysts and expert witness on ERP deals gone bad.
But its not just the C-suite you have to worry about. Other stakeholders include line managers at all levels of the organization. They know where the business process bodies are buried so work with them closely and seek their input and advice on how to best improve the business processes they know so well. This will make feel like a valued part of the process, not just an order taker.
"The LOB involvement is critical," says Paul Bautel, national vice president for SAP's North American Delivery Execution Office.
Don't wait for the go-live date to start communicating with these guys. The more you can get them involved early on, the more they will take ownership of the initiative and the better your outcomes will be.
To help keep everyone on the same page, Kimberling advises companies set up a steering committee that will ensure ERP is priority No.1 while the implementation is actually going on. Have them meet at least once a month and then more frequently as project milestones near completion and go-live dates approach.
"Chances are there's a lot of activities that are not included in the vendor or systems integrator [plan] that you need to ensure the project is successful," he says, "like organizational change management, or spending the time to truly reengineer your process verses slamming in the new system based on how you do things today."
Now a freelance writer, in a former, not-to-distant life, Allen Bernard was the managing editor of CIOUpdate.com and numerous other technology websites. Since 2000, Allen has written, assigned and edited thousands of articles that focus on intersection of technology and business. As well as content marketing and PR, he now writes for Ziff Davis B2B, CIO.com, and other high-quality publications. Originally from the Boston area Allen now calls Columbus, Ohio home. He can be reached at 614-475-4562 or abernie182 @ gmail.com. Please follow him on Twitter at @allen_bernard1, on Google+ or on Linked In.


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Valentines Day Gift Ideas
If so then look no further, as you'll find the mother lode of Ideas for Valentine Day Gifts right here!
Ideas like roses, flowers, gift baskets, jewelry, music and many other gift ideas.
Yu can even build a FREE Valentines Day Website Page for your swetheart.
Valentine Day Roses - Listen up men! Whether they own up to it or not women love roses...period!And although they may pretend that not receiving roses on Valentines Day doesn't matter to them you better know that it does. So, if you like being in the doghouse do nothing and you're sure to end up in it. On the other hand, you can be the Romeo that melts your special someone's heart. Don't procrastinate...order today!
Valentines Day Gifts For Men. Ladies! Need some ideas for your man?Well, finding a Valentines Day Gifts doesn't have to be hard, especially since you can find a ton of ideas for men right here on By The Letter.com. And if you don't find what you're looking for right away please use the search box at the top of the page.
What does he like? Sports, jewelry, electronic, or maybe watches. Don't fret , as you'll be sure to find him that perfect gift without necessarily spending a lot of money. Follow this link and find out what men want...as told by men!
Valentine Day Graphics - Over 48,000 V Day Graphics,pictures and images ready to use on fan page social network sites lime MySpace< Facebook, Tumblr, Diggsm etc.Easy stall application is point and click to "save as."
Happy Valentine Day - Come Create a Special Website page for your sweetheart and then share the link with them. Now how special is that? And did I mention that it's FREE! But hurry, free may not last too long!
Exit Valentines Day Gift Ideas and Visit By The Letter's Home Page.
Landlord Reference Letter
Love Letter Central
Love Letters To Copy


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Click on a course title to view more info or book a course. If there are no courses showing switch to the next month by using the filters at the top of the calendar.
First Aid – Provide First Aid – Refresher
April 4 @ 8:30 am - 4:30 pm$140
First Aid - Provide First Aid - Refresher
Nationally accredited course with the following units of competency
HLTAID003 Provide First Aid (Valid for 3 Years)
HLTAID001 Provide CPR (Valid for 12 Months)
(Delivered as licensed trainer for SLSNSW RTO code 90394)
This course provides participants with the knowledge and skills needed to manage emergency first aid situations and deliver competent emergency care until the arrival of professional medical support. Once completed, participants will obtain a first aid certificate that is valid for three years. The Provide First Aid course is nationally recognised WorkCover approved training.
Quick Summary
Duration: 8 hours
Delivery options: Face to face only
Assessment: Combination of multiple choice, verbal and practical assessment
Location: In our classroom or on site as required
Accessibilty: Please contact Excite Safety if you have any difficulties accessing the information prior to you course
Cost: $140. Please see fee schedule for terms and conditions
Precourse work required: no
USI: Required
RPL available: Yes
Targeted Audience
Suitable for any person who has previously completed a first aid course, but needs to update the validity of the certificate. If the previous first aid certificate has expired the participant must attend the Provide first Aid full course.
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this program, participants will be able to:
- Upon successful completion of the course, participants will receive a nationally recognised WorkCover approved statement of attainment for the following unit of competence:
- HLTAID003 Provide First Aid (Valid for 3 Years)
- HLTAID001 Provide CPR (Valid for 12 Months)
Program Benefits
- Nationally recognised certificate
- Life saving skills & knowledge
- Experienced and engaging trainers
- Abbreviated course format
- Legal Issues and infection control
- DRSABCD action plan
- The principles of first aid and its applications
- Recognition and management of emergency situations
- Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Defibrillation
- Treatment of shock, infection, fractures, bleeding and burns
- Emergencies due to lack of oxygen, excess heat or cold
- Recognition and management of medical conditions that may need emergency care, including heart attack, stroke, asthma, diabetes and epilepsy
- Management of common medical emergencies
- Treatment of poisoning including venomous bites and stings
Learning Methods
This course is assessed through demonstration, presentation and application of all elements of competency in the workplace. Participants will be required to complete activities that may include role-plays, oral and written questioning, practical demonstrations and performing scenarios.
Additional Information
All students are requested to note the following:
- Please ensure you bring evidence of your previous, but not yet expired first aid certificate. (must be still valid as of the course commencement date) Wear comfortable clothing as you will be required to participate various first aid scenarios.
- It is a requirement of this course that practical demonstration of CPR must be performed on the floor.
|First Aid - Provide First Aid - Refresher
|4 April 2020
|08:30 am - 04:30 pm
|BEC Kirrawee


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Smart living
By reusing items around the house or by buying second hand you can do your bit to reduce the amount of waste thrown away into landfill.
There are loads of simple changes you can make around the house to reduce the amount of waste you produce.
These might include:
- Why not hire the items you need? - if it's the kind of equipment you only use occasionally e.g. high pressure cleaner, wall paper stripper, carpet cleaner - why clutter up the house? Look up hire companies in the telephone directory or internet – you'll be amazed at the range of things you can hire;
- Buy 'pre-loved' - instead of buying brand new why not see if you can pick up a bargain by buying 'pre-loved' items? There are plenty of waste exchange websites like ebay, gumtree, freecycle and freegle and free ads papers where you can pick up unwanted items such as furniture, books, tools etc for a fraction of the cost of buying new;
- Sell unwanted items - before you bin those completed computer games, old hamster cage or that dress you haven't fitted into for years why not make a bit of money from them? Your unwanted items may be just the thing for someone else, try selling them on an exchange website or at a local car boot sale?
- Make your own lunch - instead of buying an expensive prepackaged sandwich or salad for lunch why not make your own at home. Use reusable containers such as tupperware to keep your food fresh. This will reduce the amount of packaging waste you dispose of and save you money;
- Ditch cling film and foil and store food in re-sealable containers, such as Tupperware, instead;
- Borrow – why not join a book or toy library so you can borrow them instead of buying. Better still why not borrow and swap items with family and friends;
- DVDs, computer games and CDs – hire them instead of buying them new, great services are available online and can be cheaper than hiring them from the high street. Your local library may have a good stock too;
- Repair - before you throw away broken items, ask yourself can they be repaired? Broken or faulty items such as bicycles, furniture, computers, electrical appliances shoes and clothes could be repaired at a fraction of the cost of buying new.
- Reuse - Reusing items is a good thing to do because it:
- extends the life of materials saving the Earths natural resources
- saves energy which helps to reduce the risk of climate change
- reduces the amount of waste you send to landfill
- saves you money
- Some items are specifically designed to be reused e.g. rechargeable batteries or 'real' cloth nappies.
- Even if you have unwanted items in your home it is very likely they can be reused by someone else once you have finished with them e.g. clothes, books and furniture.
Live smarter at home, create less waste and save money. We've got loads of hints and tips. Watch this video to find out more:


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http://youtube.com/symphony The world's first collaborative online orchestra performed at Carnegie Hall on April 15, 2009. Selected by the YouTube community and several members of the world's most renowned orchestras, the YouTube Symphony Orchestra is made up of over 96 professional and amateur musicians from 30+ countries and territories on six continents and represents 26 different instruments.
Program:3:00 Sergei Rachmaninoff - Vase from Two Pieces for Pian, Six Hands (performed by Derek Wang, Charlie Liu, Anna Larsen)07:45 Tan Dun - Internet Symphony Eroica16:00 Sergei Prokofiev - Scherzo from Concerto No. 2 in G minor for Piano, Op. 16 (featuring Yuja Wang)23:00 Claude Debussy - Nuages from Nocturnes32:15 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Finale from Concerto No. 5 for violin in A major, K. 219 (featuring Gil Shaham)48:00 John Cage - Aria with Renga (featuring Measha Brueggergosman)57:15 Mason Bates - Preview of Warehouse Medicine from B-Sides 1:05:30 Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Finale from Symphony No. 4Special thanks to the following guest artists:- Derek Wang, Charlie Liu, Anna Larsen- Tan Dun- Gil Shaham- Yuja Wang and Measha Brueggergosman, appear courtesy Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft- Mason Bates: Preview of Warehouse Medicine from B-Sides (2008, United States. Commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony. World premiere May 20, 2009)
Pick and Click one of the menu tabs above for more artist info.
Or click the artist name tag above to go to the artist page.
All artist info on these pages is
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He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt.
He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.(Albert Einstein)


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Making the unseen visible
Checking in on the Boothbay Register timelapse webcam of the 2014 Fishermen's Festival in Boothbay last weekend, we were captivated by a webcam that caught the 2013 blizzard. (Yes, we know, it's nearly May – but the Atlantic Coast is holding onto winter, as if it's saving the best weather for your summer stay!). In the span of the 48-hour storm, the webcam captures hardy souls venturing in and out of Brown's Wharf, the pickup trucks, the evidence of plows and a sidewalk snow-shoveler as regular as a metronome. But what's more fascinating is the way the 'invisible' sweep of the wind is made visible. While everything else covers up after the plow has passed, one intersection stays gray and as a line of white is pushed out of the way by the wind.
Here at Spruce Point, a 48-hour webcam would capture pre-dawn lights as the office and kitchen prepare for the day (especially now, in the weeks before opening, as the new kitchen and culinary team get organized for the season.) Looking east, we see the steady path of a lobster boat, chugging to meet the rising sun. Trucks and vans come up our drive with mysterious loads headed for garden beds and housekeeping closets. And slowly green tinges the tips of the hardwoods and edges of lawn as spring moves heaven and earth to greet the day.
Like that snow-sweeping wind in dock square, what this imagined vision reveals is the unseen progress of the tide at our feet. The current ripples on Linekin Bay. A thin edge of bright water rims the shore. And hidden surfaces uncover, shiny with the expectations that come of emerging from the depths.
Soon, a timelapse of our dock would capture the migrations of a colorful flock, alighting and departing from Brightline, whose own progress across the harbor would seem earnest and devoted to her task. Clouds and sails would reflect on the water. Burnt Island light would be a sundial, marking "the hours that shine;" and the silent tide, like memory, flows on.


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Just as you can have different types of PowerPoint (fieldwork briefing, photo slide show, talk etc. etc.) you can have different types of Atlas Tour. Esri Story Maps (ESM) have identified a number of different types which emphacise text narrative, I believe most Atlas Tours should be narrated using audio, so I'm not going to discuss those. My sorting works on two axes:
- 3D or 2D: ATs can be used to discuss both landscape (3D) or map views (2D).
- Realistic base map vs Symbolized: showing realistic imagery works well when illustrating landscape but symbolising is endlessly useful in paring down a map to simlyfy it to the elements needed (e.g. temperature and wind but nothing else bottom right below)
which produces 4 groups. These are illustrated in an image grid below (2):
I give examples of the four groups in this videod section of my Google Education talk recently.
Within an Atlas Tour, you can have different types of animation that are highly suited to the format, I've identified 3 which I think are particularly useful and to illustrate them I've prepared a story board of an Atlas tour discussing the famous Snow cholera map:
1] Map Sequence: using annotations or revealing layers (build animation) of a map one by one in order to explain a complex map. The sequence above illustrates the build animation with street names added and then the pump. It becomes much more important on complex maps.
|Click to expand. The audio narrative script is found under each image.
2] Time Animation: Showing a sequence of maps to show change due to time. This is well discussed in the cartographic literature. Note that I've invented data, the spread was actually not recorded.
|Click to expand
Avatar animation: flying down from a symbolised map view into a 'human' view. This is an original idea of mine and IMHO is very powerful, you can illustrate spatial relationships and then follow up with showing what they look like in real life. In this case, on the street.
|Click to expand
1] at the time I called them Google Earth Tours but to include people interested in using Esri Story Maps I now use Atlas tours as an encompassing term.


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The Holy Father has called an Extra-Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (5-19 October, 2014) with the theme "Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization". Following a normal synod procedure, a set of questions (lineamenta) has been issued to get views of Catholics, ordained and lay, on the sub-themes in order to formulate a working document (instrumentum laboris) for the synod. These need to reach the Synod Council before their February meeting.
The urgency of the matter requires that each arch/diocese conduct a survey (using these questions) in the most practical, urgent and expedient manner suitable to it. The results will be submitted to the Conference by the end of January for collation of a common report to the Synod Council.
Here is the questionnaire – Download PDF
For further enquiries and your own arch/diocesan process, please contact your parish priest.
Parish priests and people to please consult this document and send findings to the Archbishop by January, 6, 2014.
Individual reports can also be sent.