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Ask some slacker from San Francisco what the Phoenix music scene means, and he'd probably say the Meat Puppets or the Gin Blossoms.
Call up Rolling Stone with the same question, and they'd rattle off names like Alice Cooper and Stevie Nicks.
But chat with a deejay at a London rave or an A&R rep from major label A&M Records, and what do you get? Snickers? A shrug? Would you believe a nod as a burgeoning black-music spot?
In the past two years, a trio of acts from the Valley's tiny hip-hop/dance/R&B community has signed deals with A&M.
Harlem-gone-Glendale rapper the Overweight Pooch was the first to get A&M looking to the funky side of Phoenix, and she set off a chain reaction that hasn't stopped reverberating. Her album Female Preacher, released last summer, pretty much flopped, but the Pooch's label couldn't have been more pleased with the disc. Pooch producer Felipe Delgado invited homegirl Ce Ce Peniston to sing on a trio of tracks, and soon A&M was more interested in Peniston than the Pooch.
A&M representative Manny Lehman, his ears pricked by former Miss Black Arizona Peniston's booming vocals, made her the label's second Phoenix discovery. The singer responded by turning out an album that's made her arguably the Valley's most famous musical celeb since Alice Cooper. Her first two singles have topped both of Billboard's dance charts, and her third just went to No. 1 in club play.
And A&M's Phoenix gold rush isn't over yet. The label's betting it's struck another vein with its find on the Peniston track "You Win, I Win, We Lose." Glendale resident Malaika Sallard, who threw in a few back-up vocals on the song, impressed A&M talent scout Lehman enough to get a single and probable album deal with the label.
So what's behind the Phoenix renaissance in contemporary black music? After all, it's the first time since local Sixties act Dyke and the Blazers that anything urban has put the Valley on the musical map. For starters, attribute it to a whole bunch of the kind of dumb luck that makes the record industry such an unscientific business. Without the Pooch, there might be no Ce Ce. Without Ce Ce, no Malaika.
Curiously, only one label seems to be combing Phoenix for new black voices. Although Malaika claims that London and Profile have expressed minor interest in her recently, A&M is the only company dishing out money and deals left and right.
And why is A&M being so generous all of a sudden? Lehman wouldn't return telephone calls and the label wouldn't speak for him--all in character for an A&R rep. Secrecy and anonymity are the cornerstones of their profession.
Malaika's theory revolves around Janet Jackson's recent ditching of the label for Virgin Records.
"She was the breadwinner," Malaika says. "And I think they had a lot more money left over to invest in people."
That it's taken this long for the local black-music scene to show up on Hollywood's radar is pretty understandable. In Phoenix, where the black population hovers around 3 percent, it's a scramble to get yourself heard as a new-school R&B singer or rapper. Where heavy metal, alternative and country up-and-comers have established launching pads on the club scenes of Tempe, Scottsdale and the West Valley, aspiring black acts do gigs like weddings, an occasional night spot and the odd talent contest. The Pooch, for instance, played gigs at a rented dance hall with a fuzzy PA and at Celebrity Theatre in the Arizona Battle of the Rappers before inking with A&M.
"I mean, this is not Atlanta," Malaika smirks. "The black population is very limited here. You want to please everyone, but you always tend to please the majority."
The story of Phoenix's black-music invasion starts in Harlem in the mid-Eighties. It was there that Shtonya Davis, who calls herself the Overweight Pooch after a childhood nickname, rapped with friends, reworking songs by old-school blast masters like Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew and Dana Dane.
Five years ago, the Pooch followed her newly remarried mother from Harlem to Phoenix.
But moving from the birthplace of hip-hop to the home of Glen Campbell didn't daunt the Pooch. Perfecting the style she'd developed on the stoop and in the park in Harlem, she eventually won the Arizona Battle of the Rappers in 1990 and attracted A&M's attention, becoming the state's first emcee to sign with a major.
The rapper's song "Hip House Party" showed up on the 1990 A&M compilation dance tape Jam Harder along with DNA's club-hit remix of Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner." The Female Preacher album followed last year.
The Pooch, now 21, did some release dates for the album primarily in California. Billboard gave the album hype for its artistic merit, but figured the rapper wasn't likely to put a dent in Hammer's market share. A variety of factors killed sales. Call it regionalism or blame it on the good ol' B-boy network, but with very few exceptions--among them Sir Mix-A-Lot and Geto Boys--radio and video playlists just don't make room for a lot of rappers who aren't from hip-hop epicenters like New York, Oakland, L.A. and Miami. It's possible, too, that the world wasn't ready for a woman rapper who sizes up closer to Heavy D than Salt or Pepa.
For her part, the Pooch suggests A&M could have promoted the album better. But the rapper also blames herself for not taking the wheel on the project. The ruthless rules of hip-hop say you live or die by your own rhymes, but the Pooch showed up in the writing credits on only five of Female Preacher's 11 songs.
Part of the problem was that the Pooch's family was cramping her style. Now a mother of two, the Pooch had to juggle studio time and her kids. "Everything happened so fast," she remembers during an interview from her home in Glendale. "I was pregnant with my daughter, and I was taking my son in the studio with me."
Realizing she couldn't have it all, the Pooch shopped out writing assignments. "It was like I was trying to give a lot of people chances," she says. But the rapper adds that the various writers didn't always come up with songs the way she would have done them.
The Pooch is a keen judge of what went wrong. Female Preacher is the sound of a rookie artist being pushed and pulled a thousand different ways. Where top contemporaries like Monie Love and Yo-Yo immediately establish their presence on record with brilliant rapping and engaging, outrageous personalities, the Pooch's identity dissipates in the role of interpreter. Producer Felipe Delgado's beats would sound fresh on either coast, but his overall musical concept for the album, eclecticism minus the vision of a De La Soul, makes it even tougher for the Pooch to find a groove. The tracks march through hard-core, swing, blues and house with the rapper in the passenger's seat more often than not.
On the mic, the Pooch is no Monie Love, but she's headed in that direction. Granted, there are clichs and predictable rhymes aplenty, but the rapper can also throw in the rhythm changes, the tongue-twisting word plays and the lyrical originality to let you know she has pro potential.
The Pooch, perhaps sensing her second album has a make-it-or-break-it warning label attached, promises she'll be the one barking the orders this time. "I'm going to write everything," she says. "This time I have to prove it to myself, prove I can do it."
For now, the Pooch's most important contribution remains the discovery of Ce Ce Peniston, an unexpected find if there ever was one.
While recording Female Preacher, the Pooch was searching for a singer to add vocals to the title track. She remembered meeting a woman named Malaika Sallard at a talent show, but when it came time to get Malaika into the studio, the rapper found she'd lost her future label mate's number.
Producer Felipe Delgado remembered Peniston from hearing her on a demo tape and brought the singer in to do background vocals on the song. The response from everyone who heard Peniston moved the Pooch to invite her back for more vocals on "Kickin' da Blues" and "I Like It."
A&M's Lehman wasted little time making Peniston his second Phoenix signee, and the singer quickly made the loss of Janet Jackson easier for the label to swallow. "Finally," the eventual title track off Peniston's debut album, was released late last year, and topped club playlists in London and in Billboard. It also went Top 5 on the pop singles chart. "Love Thang," her second single, duplicated the chart-topping performance of "Finally." Now "Keep on Walkin'" is poised to complete the hat trick. This past June found Peniston kicking her newest club anthem on the Arsenio Hall Show, her A&R rep's answering machine and at a KKFR-FM Power House show at the Valley's Desert Sky Pavilion.
Sitting in the front row at Desert Sky while warm-up acts go through sound check, Peniston talks in matter-of-fact tones about her accomplishments. You get the feeling she'd be surprised if kids from San Francisco to Berlin weren't dancing to her tunes. While an opening hip-hop group is waxing foul in preparation for the show, the next goddaughter of soul rattles off a series of positive-self-esteem quotes that range from quietly confident to brashly egotistical. It's as if she's jumped straight from the pages of some how-to-make-your-first-million-in-show-biz-before-you're-25 best seller. Even though she's got her black X cap pulled on backward and a stud in her nose, she'd probably be equally comfortable in a business dress. Financial world terms like "lower-accountant" are now part of her vocabulary.
Peniston, also 21, has been on one kind of a stage or another since she played Buttercup in a grade-school production of H.M.S. Pinafore. In between a variety of talent contests and the odd wedding gig, she managed to squeeze in the Miss Black Arizona crown in 1989.
Even without the Pooch's leg-up, Peniston thinks she may have risen to the top anyway. "I feel like anything's possible," she says. "I know one thing: If I wasn't at this spot, I still would be achieving to get to this spot."
Actually, it's hard to argue with Peniston's ego. She's not just up there putting the face of a beauty queen on some producer genius's house tracks. At 21, Peniston, who's often tagged as the next Chaka Khan, sings with the richness and depth of a Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey, but at house speed. Her voice moves fluidly from the rumbling bottoms of the blues through brassy conversation, expertly caressing the breezy melodies of her songs and punctuating them with a falsetto if that's what the song calls for. At Desert Sky, Peniston buries lip-synching contemporaries like Jackson. One minute she's dancing with such reckless abandon it shakes one of her overall buttons loose. The next, her voice is booming all over the grounds a cappella.
It's fair to say Peniston is better than her material at this stage. The singer came up with the words and melody to "Finally," and her producers have mixed together an extremely radio-friendly bunch of pulsing dance tracks, but a writing- and knob-spinning team that could slug it out with Peniston note-for-note, say, a Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis or a Cole and Clivelles, could push Peniston's career to a place even she never dreamed of.
As it became clear that the singer was leaping from the Pooch's album to the top of the charts, rumor had it the Pooch was stewing over Peniston's using Female Preacher as a springboard. But the Pooch swears she harbors no Peniston envy.
"There's no jealousy, because she has a voice," the Pooch insists. "I gave her the chance, but I didn't give her a voice."
Under the heading of "near future," Peniston's Filofax lists film, but she's positively hush-hush about the follow-up to Finally. The obvious question is whether she'd be up for taking on more intimate stuff in the vein of Oleta Adams or Anita Baker. "I don't like to let the cat out of the bag" might be her way of saying she's not ready to give up a steady diet of No. 1 club songs just yet. Peniston did grow up on balladeers like Patti LaBelle and Shirley Murdock, though.
Still, her best songs now all have throbbing beats in common. Peniston's voice genuinely turbocharges the house tracks on Finally, but she sounds flaccid, if technically impressive, on the ballad "Inside That I Cried."
On the strength of her up-tempo performances, critics have mentioned the word "diva" so often to sum up the singer, it might as well be a professional degree. No argument from Peniston here: "I think people consider 'diva' as someone with a lot of soul, and I consider myself a person with a lot of soul, so I think the description would fit right."
Just like "diva" and Chaka Khan naturally pop into your mind when you hear Ce Ce Peniston, there's someone people think about all the time when they're talking about Malaika Sallard.
"To be truthful," Malaika says with an embarrassed laugh during an interview at her Glendale apartment, "people say me and Ce Ce sound alike. Ce Ce has a full voice. She doesn't have this baby squeak. I feel I fall into the same category."
Malaika, in fact, is already shaping up as a Mariah Carey to Peniston's Whitney Houston. "Why do I have to sound like her?" she asks in mock exasperation. "Why can't she sound like me?"
The singer, 20, swears she sounded like her friend before they met, but it's a fair bet Malaika's voice is more Penistonian today than before Ce Ce.
The singers met a couple of years ago in the cafeteria at Phoenix College, where Peniston was on her way to a liberal arts degree and Malaika was studying nursing. You could say Malaika took a minor in Peniston.
Soon after they met, the singers had students listening in amazement to their duets. But it wasn't their voices that had jaws dropping. It was their choice of venue--the cafeteria. While students munched and studied, Peniston and Malaika took requests, conversed in song and generally made a scene.
"We would grab an audience," Malaika recalls. "People would gather around and ask, 'Are you gonna sing today?'"
Not everyone was similarly moved by their harmonies. "There would be people who would say, 'Oh, those girls are always singing.' And we would just say, 'Look, it's for the benefit of our voices, we like to do it, and if you don't like it, then I'm sorry. There's other places on campus that you can hang out.'"
School wasn't the only place Malaika and Peniston carried on.
"We could be in the middle of the mall, and if I'm on one end and she's on the other end, we will sing, 'Hey, how ya doin? So how was your weekend, gir-r-r-l?' And sometimes we just go on and on and on. So it's kinda cute, but then again, it embarrasses other people."
Beyond wowing shoppers and bugging students, Malaika's workouts with Peniston did something more constructive.
"With us singing back and forth," Malaika says, "I would assume that we do have some characteristics alike."
Peniston brought out the beast in Malaika. "When I first started, I sang more through my nose than through my diaphragm. She told me, 'You've gotta use your stomach.' Now my voice has more clarity. It's louder, it's fuller, you can hear the words better. If you would've heard me a few months ago, you would've said, 'Oh my God!'"
Peniston, along with her mother, also gave Malaika a mental makeover.
"I think confidence was my main problem," she admits. "They said that I had talent, that it doesn't come a dime a dozen, and that someone is gonna pick me up."
Besides serving as Malaika's voice coach and guru, Peniston even played agent. "We pretty much promised one another, 'Hey, if you get a record deal, think about me," Malaika says.
Had the Overweight Pooch held on to Malaika's telephone number, Peniston's career and hers could easily have been flip-flopped. If her own A&M deal hadn't gone down, Malaika says, "I would've been, 'God, that could've been me, and I didn't even know it. How could this girl lose my number?' It would've been a definite loss to me had I not known Ce Ce."
When Peniston landed the A&M deal, she did more than think about her friend. The way Malaika tells it, Peniston must have regarded her vow as a blood oath. "I would be at work when the calls would come in, but I always had my machine on," Malaika says. "Her mother worked diligently trying to get in touch with me. They kept calling and calling."
Peniston kept her word, but Malaika's part wasn't meaty enough to attract A&M. During the session, though, Peniston and Malaika again fell into their unique brand of musical conversation, and her voice did make an impression on local producer R.K. Jackson, who was in on the recording. Jackson put together a Malaika demo and networked it to Lehman at A&M. The label apparently was more impressed with the voice than the song. "It was a jazzy type tune, and A&M said, 'Well, we like it, but could she do something fast?'" recalls the singer.
At that point, Jackson hauled Malaika back into the studio for a song called "So Much Love." This time A&M bit for a single deal with a possible album to follow.
A rough four-track preview, as heard on the singer's stereo, reveals it to be a knockoff of Peniston's dance hits. It's an insistent house track with a synth hook custom-built for heavy club rotation. Malaika's voice, a shade deeper and punchier than Peniston's, fairly roars over the beats.
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The singer has reason to be hopeful about an album deal following up the single. Malaika reports that she's shipped some more demos to A&M and heard no complaints.
But can she build on what the Pooch and Peniston have done and become Phoenix's next big league R&B singer or rapper? Having won the record industry's lottery, Malaika seems to know she'll be meeting lots of friends she never knew she had.
"People hear about you doing an album, they just start coming outta the woodwork."
For the record, at least, the singer's in a generous mood, even if she won't reveal who Phoenix's next Pooch, Peniston or Malaika might be.
"I've been looking at some people," she says vaguely. "It wouldn't be fair to name em off and then not use em. Whoever's around at the time that can get the job done, then I'm gonna go with that person. If I can bring somebody along for the ride, I don't have any problem with that.


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Jism, Murder, Zeher, Rog, Gangster, Anwar, Life In A Metro, Jannat, Bas Ek Pal, Wo Lamhe, De Dana Dan, Lamhaa, Billu, Raaz The Mistery Continues, Murder 2, Bhool Bhulaiya, Tum Mile, Murder 3, Kismat Konnection, Jannat 2, Barfi, Dil to Bachcha hai Ji, Shivaay, Ki & Ka, Aksar 2, Baaghi 2, Mercury
Prem Pujari, Guddi, Reshma Aur Shera, Gambler, Carvaan, Bombay To Goa, Namak Haraam , Saudagar, Joshila, Abhimaan, Victoria No. 203, Seeta Aur Geeta, Parichay, Immaan Dharam, Kabhie Kabhie, Dharam Karam, Ek Mahal Ho Sapno Ka, Mili, Khushboo, Chupke Chupke, Deewaar, Roti, Sagina, Phir Kab Milogi, Zamaane Ko Dikhana Hai, Kudrat, Insaf Ka Tarazu, The Burning Train,Do Aur Do Paanch, Suhaag, Don, Ganga Ki Saugand, Parvarish, Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai, Hu Tu Tu, Zakhm, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Ghulam, Tamanna, Mrityudand: The Death Sentence, Border, Ziddi, Bhairavi, Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro, Kamla, Sunny, Jhankar Beats
Anwar, Aggar, The Train, Dus Kahaaniyaan, Dev D, One Two Three, Lamhaa, Murder 2, Will You Marry Me, Ragini MMS 2, John Day, Iraada Pakka, Manya The Wonder Boy, Shivaay, Ae Dosheeza, Iltejaa, Sobat, Monsoon Football, Man's World, Its Not That Simple, Frozen 2
Via Darjeeling, Tumaku Paruni Ta Bhuli, Kebe Tume Nahan Kebe Mu Nahin, Dwityo Paksha, Kanchan Baboo, Rihaee, Siddhant, Crime Patrol. Bojha, Harano Budhha, Mandala, Apekkha, Room No-13, Moonview Hotel, Karamchand
All the winners will be awarded with trophy and certificate. All the shortlisted entries will receive Certificate of Official Selection.
Last date of Submission
30th November 2020
Congratulations for wonderful success of Chambal International Film Festival. Extremely happy to be here. Thanks for nice hospitality. Wonderful and excellent to be here. May God bless this Film Festival. See you next year with love.- Prabal Ghosh
Excellent experience of watching beautifully conceptual films some were mesmerizing and eye opener. Thank you Kapil . God Bless.- Dr. Mona Dandwate
Very Nice. Required in kota. Hope to see more in future.- Mrs. Garima Modi
Great efforts, something new very nice.- Mrs. Alka Agrawal
Love CIFF, It has screened beautiful films. new filmmakers will sure get exposure through such stage.- Mr. Rohan Joshi
The Movie selections are pretty good, We hope this happens every year.- Mr. Manish Ojha
Nice Programme first ever time in kota city. Excellent Events.- Dr. V.N. Bhave
It's really amazing. I want to congratulate Kapil & Kshitij for their efforts. Good Luck.- Mrs. Rashmi Goyal
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Congratulations for the grand programme. It was a wonderful experience. The Programme was very well arranged and executed. Kapil you are great. God bless you.- Mrs. Mridula Khandekar
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Amy posted a double page yesterday that she made from CZ's DYL class. Below is a layout I've done using the same template in the following years DYL class (I hope I haven't shared it here before)
As you can see, it still has the same bones, but with a strip of plain here and a splash of pattern there, the layout is very much different.
I've printed these pages, at home, and mounted them on white cardstock. Love how they turned out (sorry I can't find a pic of the finished product, I'll have to find the real layout in daylight hours and take another photo).
Thanks for popping by.


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Identity Theft
Identity theft is a serious issue impacting more than nine million Americans each year.
Identity theft happens when someone steals your personal information and uses it without your permission. Identity theft is a serious crime that can wreak havoc with your finances, credit history, reputation and can take time, money, and patience to resolve.
The Federal Trade Commission estimates that as many as nine million Americans have their identities stolen each year. Identity theft crime takes many forms. Identity thieves may rent an apartment, obtain a credit card, or establish a telephone account in your name. You may not find out about the theft until you review your credit report or a credit card statement and notice charges you didn't make.
If you are a victim of identity theft, the following resources may be of assistance:


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This will be the last post of my actual garden for another season, since next week I plan on sharing what my cold room and freezers look like now. So soak up the nice end of season feel of my dying garden and appreciate with me how well it did over the past few months.
It's not completely dead yet but I'm getting less and less from it as the days go by. I still need to pick my last few beets and cook them up for a meal in the coming week. I had a sad crop of them this year, considering what you see here is half my crop.
My pepper plants are still loaded down with peppers but I have a bad feeling that they won't all ripen. This cold snap isn't doing them any favours and they need heat in order to change colours. These ones are supposed to be orange, but I think we'll just have to eat them green.
My one and only zucchini from this years crop is just about ready to pick. I have to think of some fabulous way to eat it, since it's my only one. Any suggestions?
Out of our six tomato plants, only two are left. They still have a few tomatoes on them but I'm not sure if they will actually ripen before they rot. I figured I'd give them a chance though, so I'm leaving the plants in for now.
So there you have it, another year of gardening just about done with. Thanks for joining me along the way and I will see you next week for one last post in this year's series.
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
What's Growing Wednesday
2 comments:
I'm so impressed at all your garden bounty!!!ReplyDelete
My mom used to make cucumbers - I guess, "vinegarized?"
She would slice them thin, and then let them soak in iced water, sugar and vinegar for days... pickled cucumbers? lol
but they were soooooo yummy, I could eat an entire cucumber in one sitting...
Wow, how this summer has flown by! You grow a nice garden. :) I would eat your zucchini in a stir fry or a cake.ReplyDelete
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Blind Side Waterproofing – Blind side waterproofing is waterproofing membrane systems for lagging walls (front and rear), caisson walls, and soil walls.
Positive Side Waterproofing – These are your typical freestanding walls, usually made of CMU, brick, poured-in-place concrete and the occasional shotcrete. The waterproofing membrane system is applied after the walls are formed, stripped and cured.
Negative Side Waterproofing – These are waterproofing membrane systems that are applied topically to the interior of the wall to prevent moisture intrusion. This type of waterproofing can be used as a double membrane system by utilizing it in conjunction with positive or blindside applications. It can be used for leak remediation as well.
Subterranean Drainage – Products and applications used to remove water from around the footing perimeter.
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French Drain (Burrito Wrap) – Four-inch perforated pipe laid in and surrounded by gravel that is wrapped like a burrito with drainage fabric.
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The most common brands we use for below grade applications are Tremco, Vulkem Coatings, Tremproof Membranes, Paraseal Sheet Membranes, Tremdrain Drainage Systems, Cetco, WR Grace Bituthene and Procor, Polyguard, Aquafin, Xypex, DeNeef, Sika, Carlisle, TegraSeal, TurboSeal, and Jiffy Seal, along with many more. These waterproofing solutions are commonly used in elevator pits, basements, subterranean parking structures, site retaining walls and other structure foundations. Learn more about your options and get an initial estimate on your project by contacting us now!


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Happy New Year!
Another year has come to an end. And what a difference from a mere year ago! It's hard to capture the rage and despair of 2008, the craziness of the elections, the culmination of eight years of suffering through the policies of the demented cabal of the Naked Emperor in Washington, with its know-nothing appointees, its grand pooh-bahs with degrees in various ludicrous offshoots of fundamentalist theology from various ludicrous fundamentalist "shcoolz."
Thanks to the endless drumbeats of the Republican media machine, we could be forgiven for thinking that the masses are bitterly dissatisfied with President Obama's first year in office, but in fact it seems the masses are too busy dealing with daily life and bad teevee to cast more than an occasional glance at the goings-on in Washington.
Which is really not very good at all, but after years of being wound up to fever pitch and suffering the horrors of unbridled Republican greed (which seems to be getting worse, or exposed more often, or something), I can understand people wanting to take a break. And there is no denying that the President has worked wonders in foreign affairs. There is a new response that Americans traveling abroad excite, a new comity. While Republicans at home continue to froth and fume, growing increasingly rabid, turning over more and more of their power to shrill idiots like (ins)Hannity, Blech, and Limpballs, the whole world seems to be willing to relax a little and offer the new guy a much friendlier and more accepting demeanor than we've seen in nearly a decade.
Russia joining the US in sanctions for Iran? Who'd'a thunk?
This year has been rife in challenges. The collapse of Wall St., the taxpayer bailout, the stalling of the closure of Gitmo, the fight after fight after fight for healthcare, the destruction of Main street mortgage values ... no one can say it wasn't arduous and, at times, wretched. But — we made it. There's a spirit of caring and sharing in the air which has not been diffused by the hit our incomes took. Yahoo is offering its employees a chance to do good as a year-end bonus; Hairdressers are offering free haircuts to job seekers; and organizations of volunteers have teamed with restaurants and chefs in some cities to donate and deliver food to those who need it.
Enjoy your friends and families, this New Year's Eve. If you're going out, stay safe and wrap up warm. Make sure your designated driver carts your drunken asses safely home. Or better yet, snuggle up with your sweetie in front of a blazing fire, or a warm heater, and play a friendly game of, I dunno, Scrabble? Monopoly? Something fun.
La Casa de Los Gatos is dining on Mongolian beef with lots of dried red chillies in it; sauteed Chinese greens in Xiaohsing rice wine, soy sauce, cornstarch, chicken stock, with a couple drops of sesame oil; and plain rice.
Tomorrow we break out the Merlot with dear friend and fellow blogger Ms. Manitoba, and grill/broil filet steaks with different seasonings. It's our steak taste testing New Year's celebration.
Details to be posted later.
Thanks for your visits, your comments, your friendship. May the New Year be much kinder to you and yours than the old has been. And a very Happy New Year to all.
Labels: 2008 elections, announcements, celebrate, changes, economy, new year, politics, President Obama, republicansStumble It!


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2015 Jaguar XF-Series 3.0 SPORT
Dealership Information
Auto Innovation
239 Hwy 51
Ridgeland, MS 39157
2015 Jaguar XF 3.0 Sport Supercharged
Leather, Navigation, Sunroof
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Black Factory wheels w/Brand new tires!
Super clean local car!
Only 20k miles!
Super clean local car!
Only 20k miles!
All eligible vehicle have been inspected by a certified master tech mechanic and come with a limited power train warranty. Don't forget we have an indoor showroom! Visit Auto Innovation online at autoinnovation.net to see more pictures of this vehicle and to pull the CARFAX for free! Call us at 601-941-9184 or text or call at 601-941-8180 today to schedule your test drive. All financing arranged through local banks and credit unions. LET US CHANGE YOUR CAR BUYING EXPERIENCE!
- Air Conditioning
- Power Windows
- Power Locks
- Power Steering
- Tilt Wheel
- Satellite
- Sentry Key
- Keyless Entry
- Alarm
- Daytime Running Lights
- Dual Front Airbags
- Side Airbags
- Head Airbags
- Rear Head Airbags
- Active Seatbelts
- All Wheel ABS
- Power Sun/Moon Roof
All prices are plus tax and fees. all eligible vehicles include a free limited power train warranty and have been inspected by a master tech mechanic. Financing options are available. DON'T FORGET ABOUT OUR INDOOR SHOWROOM! LET US CHANGE YOUR CAR BUYING EXPERIENCE!


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Australian Genome Research Facility Ltd
Australian Genome Research Facility Ltd (AGRF), a not-for-profit organisation, is Australia's largest provider of genomics services and solutions. AGRF has laboratories in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, each providing a gateway to a national network of state-of-the-art facilities, technology and expertise. From microbes to plants, animals, and humans, AGRF provides a full range of services across the entire biological spectrum.
AGRF facilitates are available to academic, clinical and industrial clients. AGRF promote genomic innovation and development in bioscience across, environmental, biomedical and agricultural sectors. Specific services and platforms are constantly evolving and currently include:
Transcriptomic Services:
- RNA library preparation and sequencing
- Single cell RNA sequencing
- Bioinformatics for gene expression analysis, including single cell analysis, and small RNA analysis
Genomic Services:
- Whole genome sequencing
- Illumina array genotyping
- Targeted & amplicon sequencing
- Bisulphite conversion and sequencing
- Sanger sequencing
- Custom and array SNP genotyping
- Copy number variation
Genetic identification:
- Cell Line Identification
- Cultivar Identification
- Human sample assurance (ExomeID)
- Cell Line Identification
- Human Sample matching
- Microbial identification (via 16S sequencing)
- Mouse and Rat verification
- Pharmacogenomic profiling
Nucleic Acid Extraction:
- A wide range of starting materials, QC options and archive preparation for DNA recovery
- Stand-alone or in conjunction with downstream services
- RNA recovery from PaxGene tubes
Technology Platforms:
- Short read sequencing: Illumina NovaSeq6000, HiSeq2500, NextSeq500, MiSeq, MiniSeq
- Long read sequencing: Pacific Biosciences "Sequel", Oxford Nanopore "PromethION" and "MinION"
- Array genotyping: Illumina iScan, Agena MassArray, Qiagen PyroSeq, 10X Genomics Chromium GemCode
Bioplatforms Australia
+61 0410 538 648


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- Beer
- Wine
- Fruit Juice
- Fruit Wine
- Fine Chemicals
- Pharmaceuticals
Eaton's BECODISC B30C, B30W stacked disc cartridge has a high adsorption capacity, achieved through a high content of particularity highly active activated carbon. These adsorptive characteristics enable, for example, the de-coloration of fruit juices and liquid sugar.
Eaton's BECODISC B30C, B30W activated carbon stacked disc cartridges are used for the demanding liquid filtration applications of the chemical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food industries as well as in bioengineering.


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▲ Our History
Luohe Tianheng Machinery Co., Ltd is established in 2014 and located in Luohe City, Henan Province. We are specialized in original equipment machine manufacturing and sale service.
▲ Our Factory
Company is located in Luohe City, with more than 30,000 square meter for workshop and more than 200 qualified labour worker. The sale dept is more than 10 staff with high quality.
▲ Our Product
We are specialized in powder mixer machine series and automatic packing bagging equipment series, our advantage is offer consumer various & custo... [Details]


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Since its establishment in 1980, Rape Crisis Midwest has provided professional counseling and services for survivors of sexual abuse and violence.
Counseling and confidentiality are the key services that the charity provides and it is available for both men and women over the age of 16. Minors are also welcome but parental consent is needed.
On average, Rape Crisis Midwest sees about 85 clients per week.
*Miriam Duffy, Director of Rape Crisis Midwest, explained that the centre supports their clients through professional counseling and by having a team of on-call volunteers accompany survivors through a forensic examination or if they need to make a statement at the Gardaí station or in court.
Counseling is offered on both a short term and long-term basis depending on what is best for the client.
"Each individual that comes to us gets a service tailored to their needs as much as possible," said Ms Duffy.
Individuals seeking counseling services usually call the hotline and are then scheduled for an hour assessment after which the they are paired up with a counselor.
Crisis counseling is also available for those who have experienced recent trauma.
Ms Duffy explained that the current issue of victim blaming undermines the healing process of clients who are already in pain.
Instead of firmly placing blame on the perpetrator, society frequently makes victims question themselves.
"It does not matter if you were stark naked walking blind drunk down the streets of Limerick, no one, no one has a right to touch you," Ms Duffy added.
According to Rape Crisis Midwest website: rape is not a well reported crime because victims tend to blame themselves; worry about not being believed; or are concerned more about protecting loved ones, especially if the rapist is a family member.
85 percent of perpetrators are known to the victims.
Society tends to hide or minimize sexual abuse, but at the crisis centre they reinforce that the victim is not to blame for their trauma.
Tulsa, the child and family agency, funds 75 percent of the crisis centre's €400,000 budget.
However, each year the organization experiences a shortfall of about €120,000. As a result, fundraising is essential to providing services to those who rely on them.
Mark Ryan is a third-year psychology student at the University of Limerick who is interning at Rape Crisis Midwest and helps with the charity's social media and event planning.
Rape Crisis Midwest hosts several entertaining fundraisers throughout the year such as, the highly successful Quiz Night fundraiser which sold out and raised more than €12,000 on October 6.
"It was one of the biggest events of the year," said Mr Ryan.
On Friday, October 20 Rape Crisis Midwest will be hosting a "Dainty Daisies" event at the Woodstock Hotel in Ennis.
This event is a creative twist on a beauty pageant as men dress up and take the stage to raise funds for the charity.
Additionally, in the Spring, the annual kayaking fundraiser will take place as kayakers make their way from the UL boathouse to Saint Michael's boathouse in the city.
Mr Ryan gives credit to the volunteers who help set up events or even do bucket collections, "We have loads of volunteers who are a great help."
Ms Duffy gave some advice to friends and family of victims. She said that if someone confides to you that they have been sexually abused, encourage them to call the hotline at (1) 800 311 511.
Every trauma and situation is different so therefore no one has all the answers.
She encourages supporters, who are trying to help a loved one, not to be afraid of messing up.
"Hold them by the hand and say let's ring the rape crisis centre. You won't have all the answers but go to a crisis centre who will have some answers."
More information about Rape Crisis Midwest can be found at: https://www.rapecrisis.ie/home.html


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Universal Automotive Wiring Harnesses From Hot Rod Wires®
Why Buy From Hot Rod Wires®?
We have the wiring harness for your Street Rod, Hot Rod, Classic Car, Custom Car, Muscle Car, Truck, Jeep and Kit Car or for any 12 volt application.
Made in the USA!
Compare the Quality Features of Our Wiring Harness to Others:
- Manufacturer direct Pricing on each wire harness saves you about $100.
- Every Hot Rod Wires® wiring harness is 100% soldered to insure reliability.
- We use a heavy 8 gauge alternator charge wire to accommodate 100 AMP plus alternators in each wiring harness.
- Each wiring harness has a heavy 12 gauge wire for the starter circuit. (This means no hot start problems.)
- All our wiring harnesses have a heavy 12 gauge wire for the ignition circuit that is compatible with any ignition system and any fuel delivery system from a carburetor to fuel injection.
- The wire in each harness is GM gauge and color coded with GM terminals and connectors. This does not mean its use is limited to GM; it can be used for any 12 volt application.
- Every wiring harness is made with 100% cross-linked copper OEM wire not a blend wire.
- All our wiring harnesses have a battery lamp indicator for charging system monitoring.
- Each wiring harness has a theft deterrent system.
- Not only do we provide expert Technical Support during regular business hours, we go one step further, we provide this same service in the evenings and on the weekend when you are working on your project.
Each wiring harness is designed for easy installation and dependability. By buying direct from the manufacturer you keep the cost as low as possible and still get the best quality wiring harness with the best Technical Support.
If you have a 6 volt system and want to change it to a 12 volt system, we can tell you just what you need and provide easy instructions to make the change as painless as possible.
We offer a full line of electrical switches and components for all your automotive wiring needs.
Please come again soon!


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Microsoft launches Windows Phone Preview for Developers, offers prerelease builds of OS updates to help test apps
Along with Windows Phone 8 Update 3, Microsoft today also launched a new program called Windows Phone Preview for Developers. As its name implies, the move will give Windows Phone developers access to prerelease builds of Windows Phone updates on their developer phones before operating system updates become generally available to consumers. You can download the app now directly from the Windows Phone Store.
This means developers can use the extra time to exercise their code on the update and verify that their app works as expected. If they find issues, they can fix their app and get an update into the Windows Phone Store before customers get the latest OS update.
In short, Microsoft is responding to requests from Windows Phone developers who want better ways to test their apps. With Windows Phone 8 Update 2 (8.0.10322), Microsoft started making optional emulator packages available, and with Windows Phone 8 Update 3 (8.0.10512), it is also making the build available to developer phones via an Over-the-Air (OTA) update.
There are a few important notes to keep in mind about the program:
- The update only includes the Microsoft portion of the update, meaning the firmware and drivers specific to developer devices will come down with the official update.
- Build 8.0.10322.71 with the corresponding device drivers is required to install this update.
- When you opt in and apply a prerelease update, you can only move forward with updates. When the update is publicly released for your device, you will once again be in a 'released state.' There is no path back to a prior release/update.
- After you install a preview update, you may void any warranty from your MO and OEM.
- In the unlikely event you run into an issue after you apply the prerelease update, you can visit the preview program's support forum.
Unfortunately, Microsoft says it doesn't yet have the Windows Phone 8 Update 3 emulator images available for download. The company expects to have them available for download in the next three weeks; we'll let you know when they're available.
Top Image Credit: Peteri/Shutterstock
Read next: Microsoft reveals new Xbox One Friends app with follower system and real-time activity feed


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Are you looking for the best WordPress themes for animals and pets related websites? Many WordPress themes are designed to be multipurpose with a business or blog like design, which makes it harder to find a theme for pets and animals related services. In this… Read More »
24 Best WordPress Themes for Animals and Pets
Posted on by Editorial Staff


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Torch Art is a line of butane torches brought to you by ErrlyBird, featuring limited-edition high-quality prints of original artwork created specifically for the torches. Not just a gorgeous piece of art, but also a high-performance butane torch! Featuring a Quik-Fire ignition system, it's easy to use with one hand. You can lock the flame in place, and adjust the flame size, reaching temperatures up to 2700 degrees Fahrenheit. When you purchase Torch Art, you're not only supporting an artist, you're also buying a torch for life!
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** Coupon codes not valid with Storz & Bickel, Firefly, LEVO Oil Infuser, Pax Products or Puffco Peak Dab Rig, Herblizer, AMG Glass and on any products already discounted or currently on sale.


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This One Is Special! Exceptional Quality W/high...
$1,495,000 Active
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908 Carriage Path Se, Smyrna, GA
Nickajack Elementary
This One Is Special! Exceptional Quality W/highest Attention To Detail On 1 Acre Homesite Overlooking Private Lake In Cash Farms! Beautiful Millwork, Beamed Ceilings, & Details Throughout; Luxurious Master On Main Includes Sitting Area W/ Fireplace; Add'l M...
Atlanta Communities


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I am new to Unity. Whenever I am importing the default 3rd person controller (construction worker) in my scene and clicking the play button, the model seems to be in the running pose.
The control keys are working properly, and I am also being able to make the character stand, walk, run and jump properly. Only problem is that it is always in the running pose - which looks very odd. I did not make any change to anything. I just imported the controller as is.
Can someone please tell me how to correct this issue?
P.S. I hope my question was clear.


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A POLISH mum-of-three who moved to England four years ago has set up her own beauty salon in Bedminster. Jolanta Jablonska, aged 44, ran a beauty salon in Poland and trained in New York before moving to the UK in 2010.
After a job as a waitress in a hotel in Newquay, Cornwall, Jolanta moved to Bristol in 2012 and worked as a beautician before finally opening up her own salon in Cannon Street in January.
Now after establishing her business and with a mixture of both Polish and English clients on her books, Jolanta is already thinking about plans for future growth. She hopes to take on an extra therapist and open another salon in the city later this year.
Jolanta's business, JJ Slimming & Beauty Eco Salon, was supported with a start-up loan from the South West Investment Group.
Although she had her own capital for starting up the business, Jolanta needed support to provide funds for a deposit on the property.
The low-interest loan from Swig offers free business support to applicants and on-going advice from a mentor. Needing help finalising her business planning and financial forecasts, Jolanta received advice from Business West adviser Jon Nicholls before taking the loan application to Swig Start Ups for appraisal.
Swig Start Ups programme manager Lisa Moore reviewed Jolanta's application and was impressed with the strength of her business plan. She said: "Jolanta has extensive experience of the sector and she has a very exciting business. We wish her every success for the business and the future."
The salon offers treatments ranging from facials and exfoliations through to body care and slimming treatments with flexible appointments, after work, during lunch breaks or at the weekend.
The treatments available include those provided by specialist equipment for slimming and body contouring therapies such as LPG endermologie, presotherapy and electrostimulation.
Jolanta said: "There are only three other places in Bristol that have the equipment and we have really good prices and offers on our treatments.
"It's important to me that everyone is welcomed into a warm and friendly environment and everybody can feel totally relaxed during their visit and leave the salon feeling good about themselves."
The original article appeared in the Bristol Post
If you have a business idea and need support and funding, apply for a Start Up loan with SWIG Start Ups today


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Tvm: In a bid to enhance the standard of policing, Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan today launched a scheme to provide mobile phone connections to all police personnel in the state.
Under the 'Hello Kerala Police' scheme, police personnel would be able to communicate among themselves free of cost. BSNL is providing the connections to 15,200 police personnel in the state.
Kerala IT News


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CT Service Plazas – Ready to Serve You as You Travel Connecticut
The new CT Service Plazas are located along CT I-95, CT RT-15 – Merritt Pkwy – and CT I-395, Northbound and Southbound. 23 state-of-the-art Service Plazas open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with each offering a variety of leading hospitality and retail brands – including McDonald's, Dunkin, Subway and a touch of what makes Connecticut so unique. Each Service Plaza also features a convenience store and a Mobil gas station. All plazas feature clean restrooms, free WiFi and backup power generators for use during power outages. You can also find TESLA charging stations at CT Service Plazas.
Where Are You Traveling?


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Today began with our pre-operative clinic, where we met 43 patients awaiting total joint replacements. We then operated on 6 of these patients, replacing 8 joints. All 6 are currently doing well as they start their recovery and therapy.
The physical therapists had a busy day as well. Their activities included a 2-hour educational session for the Dominican therapists.
Tomorrow is our first full operative day, with 12 patients on the operating room schedule.


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Picture Of The Day for July 7, 2011
Glamorous Duo
We were very happy to find the following email message and photos from April Hunter in G.L.O.R.Y. Wrestling's inbox yesterday...
I haven't sent in anything in ages for the G.L.O.R.Y. Picture Of The Day, so I thought I'd send you a few pix Kristin Astara and I got back from a recent shoot. Even though it was all glam at University of Tampa, we still couldn't help breaking out "The Standoff Pose". You can take the girl out of the ring...but it looks like you can't take the ring out of the girl! ; )
Bonus POD! Picture #2 Bonus POD!
Bonus POD! Picture #3 Bonus POD!
Visitors to this page.
"Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you."
-- Aldous Huxley
Quick Links


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The patient-centric, regionally-focused cancer research center in Oregon brings a healing, spa-like environment to a clinical setting. ZGF Architects LLP designed the facility as a true place of healing that allows patients to receive treatment in an outdoor infusion garden. The project, named St. Charles Bend Cancer Center, won this year's WAN Award in the healthcare category.
The architects set out to create a design that humanizes healthcare facilities by bringing relaxation and serenity to patients. Open, bright spaces and sweeping views are combined with a meticulously programmed interior. When it's sunny, patients can go outside and receive treatment in an outdoor infusion garden dominated by sunshine, fresh air and views of the distant mountains.
Related: Behnisch Architekten Wins Competition for New Green-Roofed Agora Cancer Research Centre in Switzerland
The jury lauded the design's replicability. "This brilliantly answers the brief and the requirements for treating cancer patients and has the ability of being replicated in other situations that you could almost pick it up and use it for a cancer patient in the UK, in the USA, anywhere. This has architectural merit and functional merit in answering the brief and I think in terms of saying to the world of architecture and clients, here is innovation to a huge problem we all have in the world of how to treat cancer," said jury member Mike Rawlinson, Building Projects Manager at Spire Healthcare.
What an inspired design. We hope to see more like it – all over the world.
Photos by Peter Eckert


text: Happy New Year AHF, here is a 2013 deal for you!!! One of our Outfitters in Alberta is now offering a combo hunt for moose and elk at a great price for Archery Aug25- Sept23, or Rifle September 17 November 30 details: a. 6 day hunt b. Meals and accommodations c. Guide d. Airport pick up and drop off (Calgary, AB) or outfitter will try to accommodate if you have another nearby pickup location.... HUNT: $5500.00 Moose lic: $650.00 Elk Lic: $650.00 Tax $275.00 Total $7075.00 50% deposit required Outfitter has had nearly 100% shot opportunity for 9 years. they have a unique situation where they have NATURAL mineral licks that boil out of the ground. they have tree stands on these and you will see moose everyday. the outfitter has about 50% shot opportunity for the elk, i will upload pics of last years soon. Contact me if interested or for more info


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Name: Sasan Asorri
Classification: Missing-nin, S-Class
Birthdate: Unknown
Age: Unknown
Height: 5'9''
Weight: Unknown
Gender: Male
Blood type: Unknown
- Amegakure
- Previously Kirigakure
- Shoku
Appearance: A faint smile usually graces Sasan's face, and he has straight black hair that hangs to his shoulders in a simple ponytail. The only disconcerting feature of his face is his eyes, which are a blue so light they seem almost to be made of mist. His teeth are pointed. On his brow, he has a slashed-through Kirigakure forehead protector. Sasan dresses in a long black cloak, and wears a simple sakkat. At his side hangs a sheathed sword, with a ornately wrought hilt carved to look like it is made of ice.
Personality: Sasan has a somewhat eclectic personality; sometimes he can wander the countryside for months without conflict, others, he will carve a swathe of devastation across his path, only to vanish when he begins to attract serious attention. Most of the time, he acts very calm and inquisitive, but also very strange, making inane comments and becoming strangely absorbed in random parts of the environment. When his killing blood is up, though, he begins to act much more wild and openly insane. He has a wide reputation as a vicious killer, although his description is not known by many people.
Bloodline: Unknown.
Notable Jutsu:
Unknown, although he has demonstrated the ability to create and control mist.
Special Abilities:
Sword: Sasan carries an ornate sword at his waist. The hilt is delicately wrought from a glass-like, diamond hard substance and made to look like ice. No one has ever seen him draw the sword, but he claims proficiency with it.
Sneaky: Sasan is almost supernaturally sneaky.


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Back-up Power Generators
Trusted solution for emergency power! When power goes out, your home comfort is on the line. The Carrier home comfort system is tailored to meet your needs for a totally automatic backup power source to your home. Standby generators can run on natural or LP gas and have automatic startup and shutdown controls. Benefits You ... Read more


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Erica and Tim were married this past January in a spiritual ceremony captured by Ars Magna Studio. Both the ceremony and reception were held at Longwood Events Veronique Venue in the Longwood towers in Brookline. The wedding palette consisted of yellow, white and black. Simple modern touches, such as Boston skyline invitations and menus and a white geometric cake, contrasted with the relatively traditional room.
Photographer: Ars Magna Studio
Hair Stylist: Cuttin' Loose Salon
Floral Designer: Roache Bros.
Ceremony and Reception Venue: Longwood Events
Dress Designer: Liv Harris
All images by Ars Magna Studio
Submitted via Two Bright Lights


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Milwaukee, WI (PRWEB) May 07, 2013
Increasing a garden's productivity even when space, time and energy are limited is easier than you think says gardening expert Melinda Myers. Myers recommends the following planting, maintenance and harvesting techniques for effectively creating a more bountiful harvest this season.
Maximize planting space with wider rows. Leave just enough room for plants to reach their maximum size. Make wide rows, 4 to 5 feet wide, so it's easy to reach all plants for maintenance and harvest. Minimizing walkways means more planting space.
Try interplanting crops. Grow short season crops like lettuce and radishes between long season crops like cabbage, tomatoes and peppers. The short season crops will be ready to harvest when the long season crops are reaching mature size. Gardeners will double their harvest and grow more vegetables, not weeds between longer season plants.
Grow more plants per row with succession planting. Start the season with cool season vegetables like lettuce and spinach. Once these are harvested and temperatures warm, replace with beans and onions. Harvest these and plant a fall crop of radishes or lettuce.
When using these intensive planting techniques, be sure to incorporate a low nitrogen slow release fertilizer, like Milorganite, at the start of the season. Then add a mid-season nutrient boost if needed. The slow release nitrogen won't burn plants even during the hot dry weather of summer. Plus, it won't interfere with flowering or fruiting.
Go vertical. Train vine crops up decorative or functional trellises and supports. Not only will this save space, but it will also reduce disease problems and increase the harvest. Growing cucumbers and melons increase light penetration and air flow, reducing the risk of fungal diseases. Pole beans are much easier to harvest and produce an additional picking. Secure large fruited vegetables like melons to a trellis with a cloth sling.
Be sure to plant vegetables in containers if in-ground space is limited. A 5-gallon bucket or comparable size container is perfect for a tomato. Peppers and eggplants will thrive in a bit smaller pot. Grow vine crops in containers and allow them to crawl over the deck or patio instead of valuable gardening space. Mix flowers and herbs in with vegetables. This will increase the beauty while adding additional fragrance to the pot.
Harvest often and at the proper time. Zucchini and other summer squash should be picked when 6 to 8 inches long or in the case of patty pan squash when it reaches 3 inches in diameter. The flavor is better than those baseball bat size zucchini and there will still be plenty to eat and share. Harvest cabbage when the head is firm and full size. Leave the bottom leaves and roots intact. Soon there will be 4 or 5 smaller heads to harvest and enjoy.
With a bit of planning and creativity there are plenty of ways to increase the enjoyment and harvest in any size garden.
Gardening expert, TV/radio host, author & columnist Melinda Myers has more than 30 years of horticulture experience and has written over 20 gardening books, including Can't Miss Small Space Gardening. She hosts the nationally syndicated Melinda's Garden Moment TV and radio segments and is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine. Myers web site is http://www.melindamyers.com


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Appraisal: Whale Eardrums, ca. 1935
Clip: Season 22 Episode 12 | 59s
Check out Ken Farmer's appraisal of whale eardrums from around 1935 from Portland, Hour 3.
Aired: 04/16/18Video has closed captioning.
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Funding for ANTIQUES ROADSHOW is provided by Liberty Mutual Insurance, Ancestry, and Consumer Cellular. Additional funding is provided by public television viewers.


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Provisions for the Soul …
You can find my latest ponderings and posts at Provisions for the Soul.
a new YOU
Beware of harking back to what you were once
when God wants you to be something you have never been.
Oswald Chamber. My Utmost for His Highest, June 8
That pretty well describes where Peter was – he was "harking" back and God was stretching him into a new shape. God was expanding Peter's view of what to expect as he followed hard after the Master.
Previous to Acts 10, Peter had just finished another stretching exercise. He been to Samaria where he and John had joined Philip to care for new believers. (See that story in Acts chapter 8) To get the impact of that situation, we need to remember that the Samaritans were ethnically mixed – part Jewish and part Gentile. Traditionally the "real" Jews didn't have much to do with the Samaritans. They were not part of the purest elite in the culture – not people you would hang out with or help if you wanted to keep your place with the cool people.
But the Lord Jesus had broken down that Samaritan barrier while He was still here. Remember the woman who gave Him water at the well? (See the disciples' reaction – including Peter – to His conversation with this woman in John 4.) So, when Peter saw God at work in Samaria, he stretched out of his ordinary pattern and followed where Jesus had already gone – followed Jesus' example – and welcomed the believers from Samaria into the family of God. He had submitted to God's stretching in order to be in harmony with Jesus. He was okay with THAT new normal.
But the Lord wasn't ready to let Peter settle into a new normal yet.
He gave Peter some unusual accommodations for his work in Joppa. (see Acts:10 6) He was staying with Simon the tanner and not everyone would have been okay with that. But this was a stretching season for Peter.
Simon the tanner lived by the sea. That is not an insignificant detail. Simon the tanner's occupation made that location necessary. The tanning business meant being surrounded by odors most unpleasant.*** The neighbors would have complained if he set up business next to them. Property values would definitely go down. So it was better to live a bit apart from other folks – down by the sea where the breezes would take the smell away. And the sea would have given him access to lots of salty water, which was helpful to the tanning process.
Not everyone would be willing to associate with that tanning process just because of the smell, but there was another reason too. In order to tan the hides of animals, a tanner had to touch the dead animals, something the most strict Jew would not do because of the long "cleansing" process that followed any contact with something dead. So a tanner, continually touchy the dead, would be perpetually unclean in that culture. He would be obviously, undeniably and continually in need of washing. In his usual state he would be unacceptable in the inner circle of the religious elite. (See Leviticus 2, Numbers 6)
So that is where the still stretching Peter, who considered himself to have a very fine ceremonial record, (see Acts 10:14) was staying. He had stretched his code of conduct so that he had at some point accepted the hospitality of a man who might previously have been on his "not a buddy of mine" list. He still had a code, though. He still had his limits. He still had his standards. He hadn't thrown everything out the window.
But God still wanted to stretch Peter some more in order to reorient him to Heaven's perspective – to the Gospel of grace. Peter, like all of us, was a work in process. And God was using him on kingdom assignments even though he wasn't a finished product. Even with his abiding rough edges of inflexibility, God moved Peter intentionally for very specific work, stretched him very intentionally. God put him in unexpected places to accomplish unexpected goals. And all the while, the stretching continued – more than Peter expected.
Heavenly agendas are often beyond our human comprehension. Far above our pay grade, you might say. Heavenly stretching requires walking confidently forward when we don't quite know where we are going but we are confident that our God knows what He is doing.
Peter left a place where he had friends who were caring for him: helping him, feeding him, letting him rest and work. And he went with unknown people who sought after God, but differently than he did. He had to lay down his fond assessment of his own stellar religious track record in order to accept God's unique work in them.
He went into new territory knowing that some of his present companions would misunderstand and perhaps come to erroneous conclusions about him and maybe cast aspersions on his character and work. He went without knowing whether the cost/benefit factors would even out. As a result of yielding to the stretching, Peter found himself doing things he might never have thought to do, shedding old skin he hadn't realized was unnecessary.
All the reasons for going were not clear to Peter. All the repercussions weren't evident to him. He didn't know how well it would work out. He didn't really comprehend the end game.
That is what makes this obedience so beautiful. That is what makes his response an example of faith. He measured his instructions against what he knew to be true of Jesus, rather than what he understood. He followed Jesus' example rather than what he was used to doing. He used the life of Jesus as his guide rather than what he thought was traditionally, normally true or what was true according to popular trends or marketing strategies or corporate policy or ….
Peter got out of his comfort zone because his commitment wasn't to a comfort zone, his commitment was to live in harmony with Jesus. His commitment was to live to invite others to know that same sweet place of acceptance and rest.
Peter stretched under God's formative hand and ate new food and went new places and befriended new people – because that is what is necessary to live next to Jesus.
The trade-off is a no-brainer. Leave the "ordinary" and "usual" and "familiar" in order to have "extraordinary" and "unusual "and "faith. " We can choose one side with "I can handle this on my own" or have the other option which is "faith without borders" and desperate dependence and the knowledge that if God doesn't show up, we are in a big pickle!
Reassuring truth sings forth from Isaiah 43:19
And the verse right before that:
Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past
Pause a minute and let it soak it, preparing you to stretch:
Are we ready for the stretching? A new thing is coming.
Beware of harking back to what you were once when God wants you to be something you have never been.
Oswald Chamber. My Utmost-June 8
***Regarding the odor of a tanner's occupation: to remove the hair fibers from the skin, the tanner would either soak the skin in urine, or paint it with an alkaline lime mixture, or simply allow the skin to putrefy for several months and then dip it in a salt solution. Once the hair was removed, the tanners would bate the material by pounding dung into the skin or soaking the skin in a solution of animal brains. (See http://www.leathernet.com)
I am Thine, O Lord – Time to GO!
When I had coffee with the Lord this morning, He made it very clear that it's time to get on with it. The "it" being living fully, abundantly, in the zone.
Now, to some of you this will be a "no duh" revelation. But, I've been stuck in "fly below the radar," "stay inside out of the rain," "leave no wake," "be as neutral as possible," and "turn the dial down to safe" mode. It's really understandable, given some circumstances, but even with some soft wooing by the Spirit of God, I've been slow to emerge.
So this morning when I read My Utmost for His Highest (June 8), the message came through pretty clearly from John 13:17, "If you know these things happy you are if you DO them."
Oswald Chambers wrote this piece with a nautical theme: Launch all on God; go out on the great swelling tide of His purpose … If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the smooth waters just inside the harbor bar, full of delight, but always moored; you have to get out through the harbor bar into the great depths of God and begin to know for yourself………. It is a great deal better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than to perform great acts of self-sacrifice.
Then I remembered the words to the old, old song that played as I made the aforementioned coffee: I am thine I Lord, I have heard They voice and it told Thy love to me.
I am His. I am confident of that.
And the fact that He wants me to be His is most incredible! But I know it to be true because that is what His revelation to us in the Scriptures has said from the beginning. Over and over He communicates His loving desire to befriend us, to commune with us, to lead us, to adopt us, to possess us, to guide us, to be glorified through us, to bring us near – into His presence.
Then, just in case I missed it, He gave me Psalm 100:3-5 this morning too.
Know that the LORD, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!
For the LORD is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
I found that passage as I read sweet truth from "Jesus Calling": I want you to be all mine… Hold back nothing from me. . . Anything you bring to me I transform.
So I go into the rest of the day singing that old, timeless, comforting, exciting truth…
I am Thine, O Lord … And I long to rise in the arms of faiths and be closer drawn to Thee.
Where will this "rising" in the arms of faith take me ?
I have no idea. But I know regardless of the physical circumstances, He will be there and He will draw me close to Himself.
And I know that, though the launching "out on the great swelling tide of His purpose"
may be will be hard, it will be good! And I know that His purposes will be accomplished and His work will be finished!
I am Thine, O Lord.
I am Thine – all the way Home!
Here is a beautiful, fresh version of that old song. I Am Thine, O Lord. (If an ad comes up first, I apologize, I have no control over that.)
He's got your back
One of my most favorite things about the Scriptures is that every single word is placed there intentionally by God. Every single detail is in place so that we can know Him better. So, when we read a part of the inspired narrative and we see that some things are obviously missing or are unusually included, it will be worth our time to stop and pay attention.
Such is the case in the story of the giant killers found in II Samuel 21. The absence of battle details and strategic minutia regarding these military engagements tell us that there are other things to focus on. The details that are there tell us what is important.
God's people are at war with a long time enemy.
Their usual "go to guy" no longer has the staying power he once did. Their familiar hero, David, is "exhausted" and needs to stay out of the thick of the battle.
New giant killers are brought into the picture.
One of the giants they face has a 7 pound spear and a new sword.
One is the brother of Goliath and carries a spear like a weaver's beam.
One has six fingers on each hand and six on each foot and, most distasteful, a tongue that defames God.
They are all descendants of the Rapha, extraordinary in size and prized warrior specimens.
And, incredibly, they all end up permanently horizontal.
The details of this part of His Story tell us that it's not about the battle and it's not about the military prowess. It's about the size and fierceness of the foe and the totality of the victory. It's about warriors facing impossible odds and God's faithfulness to have their backs.
That's the point of the story.
That's the promise of the tale.
We are called to resist and do battle – God will have our backs and take care of the final defeat.
No matter which old enemy you are resisting, no matter the manner of weapons brought against you, no matter where you are engaging the giants that threaten and taunt you, you have the same God that the ancient giant killers had. And in the middle of the chaos and the dirt and the struggle and the impossible odds, you will find His voice right in your ear, "I'm FOR you!" "I'm on your side. I've got this covered!" "I've got your back."
Read II Samuel 21:15-22. Also read Psalm 18.
My deep appreciation to our pastor, Clif Wilcox, who faithfully shares the Word with us every week. You can listen to the message which gave these insights at http://www.circlepca.org/sermons/
PS – This little clip of a bear cub helps us remember the need of having someone significant at our back. (3:15 is amazing!)
For more on the reality of Biblical giants see http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/biblical-giants-unearthed-in-golan-heights/
Reclaim Grace: Pure not Polluted
The wonder of grace is that it allows us to live with our eyes wide open.
Grace means we can look our sin (our brokenness, our weaknesses, our regrets) full in the face with unflinching confidence that sin can't condemn us or identify us. We can look at the weight of our mess without being overwhelmed by it. It is real. It is ugly. It is despicable. BUT we can face it from behind the immeasurable grace of God. Grace pardons. Grace cleanses. Grace restores.
Pure grace. True grace. Biblical grace, that is.
Living in grace is not about diluting or denying reality. Grace doesn't allow us to rewrite history or spin the facts to our advantage.
Inherent to the concept of grace is guilt.
We can't enjoy "unmerited favor" until we take hold of the slime of our human condition and hand it to the Savior, asking for an exchange. Pure grace wraps us in the cushion of humility so that we can take the hard hit of reality without being destroyed by it.
"He gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." James 4:6
Grace and pride cannot coexist.
Confidence in grace protects us so that the thorough, full-color truth of our condition doesn't become the weight that drags us to the bottom of the Dark Hole of Despair. From the time we meet Jesus and begin to really know Him until the time we will see Him, we will keep on needing grace. We can't deny that fact and still live in grace.
The amount of clarity we have about our depravity becomes the measure of our capacity to receive His grace.
If self – and sin – is continually taking up less and less room where we live, then there is more and more room for grace. Making more and more room for grace is a continuing process.
When I got up about midnight, though there was just the two of us in the house, I could hear my dad talking – too softly for him to be using the telephone. He was ending his day in a conversation with his Friend of many decades. Words of thanks, words of supplication for others, and words of request for himself: Enable me, Lord, to *"take off the old man and put on the new man" every day.
He was 92 years old and still acknowledging his need of grace, still humbling asking for the gift of grace, still aware of the preciousness of grace. Without a human audience, just him and the Savior, a prayer for pure grace.
Pure grace lived out simply is a rare prize more to be treasured than a tainted gospel lived out with panache.
Casually flashing Grace Recipient like a rewards card should horrify us. Being a Grace Recipient isn't about being cool, it's about being humble. Entitlement perverts a gift with an eternally costly price tag.
Polluted grace, distorted grace, manipulated grace is as toxic as the sin that propels us toward the necessity of grace in the first place.
Living pure grace and staring down our track record does not mean discounting our sin as if the sin isn't dangerous and disgusting and disruptive. The only way we get to live in grace is because our dangerous, disgusting and disruptive sin is paid for, leaving our legal debt with holy Heaven at a zero balance. We can stare down our sin because our Advocate, Jesus, not only represented us and pled our case before the Righteous Judge, but He took our place and received our deserved punishment.
The wonder of grace is that it allows me to live with my eyes wide open – seeing my sin and seeing His sacrifice at the same time. And even as I look at both only the Pure Grace of His sacrifice overwhelms me.
Lord Jesus, I sin.
Grant that I may never cease grieving because of it,
never be content with myself,
never think I can reach a point of perfection.
Kill my envy, command my tongue, trample down self.
Give me grace to be holy, kind, gentle, pure, peaceable,
to live for Thee and not for self,
to copy Thy words, acts, spirit,
to be transformed into Thy likeness,
to be consecrated wholly to Thee,
to live entirely to Thy glory.
Valley of Vision
* Col 3:8 – 11 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.
Pinterest and the Parable of the Blueberries
They were dead. Very dead. That's all there was to it. We might as well admit it and move on. And it wasn't really anybody's fault. Life got too busy to give them the attention they needed initially and then we were gone to see grandchildren celebrate birthdays and there was the business trip and …
The blueberry bushes. We left them in the pots too long. See what I mean?
They were in great shape when we got them and I had every reason to believe Lot, my new greenhouse friend, when she promised that we would pick blueberries off them this year! I could see the little baby blueberries on the branches just waiting to get plump enough to garnish
my ice cream, I mean my organic granola. (Just in case my health coach/daughter reads this.)
I was very sad, more than just disappointed. It was part of my anticipation about nurturing the wildish open spots behind our house. You know the dream … resting in the hammock. Gentle breeze. Sound of the creek. Eating freshly picked blueberries.
Truth be told, I often have dead dreams about plant life. Like the lavender. 1 out of 3 is barely making it.
I am just not that great at horticulture. (I had to use spell check on the word even.) I can visualize grand, beautiful things but it doesn't take long before I'm in over my pay grade. Which is why I thought the blueberries that already had some baby fruit would succeed where the roses had failed.
And the roses should have worked because I got extra advice from Pinterest.
I needed to prune the rose-bush by the back deck (on Valentine's Day, according to my Garden Club friend) and whatever I pruned off that bush I would take around to the front flower bed so that the scrawny bush there would be full and lush and lovely.
(I imagined a result kind of like these beauties that my friend, Norma, gave me for Mother's Day.)
The Pinterest steps were clear: place pruned rose shoots in a potato. Bury the potato. Watch the potato nourish the rose-bush. I was very confident of success in spite of the silent raised eyebrows from The Dietz. This would not be a dead plant dream.
A couple of weeks after the rose transplant, it was obvious that the pruned shoots from the back deck were not going to flourish in the front bed. So, I pulled them out and tossed them in the garbage to avoid the neighbor's questions: Why is Becky filling that front flower bed with sticks?
A couple of weeks later when The Dietz got home from work, I greeted him with "Ta Da! Look in the front flower bed! It grew after all!"
"Babe," (He calls me that when he's preparing me to hear hard news.) "THAT is a potato plant." And a glorious potato plant it is indeed! But, it didn't go in the Great Gardner win column.
Now you understand how that whole potato/rose saga made me a little skeptical when we finally got around to planting the blueberries. Trust me, they looked D.E.A.D. I was ready to admit defeat and go see Lot again to get a fresh start.
However, The Dietz stepped up as a man of faith – and action. He believed the bushes could be rescued. He decided to move them from the greenhouse buckets and put them in actual earth. And actually water them.
Lots of gentle water. And often. And water them again. He said a past rose-bush – potato calamity did not mean that all of our future horticulture efforts would end badly. And then he watered them again.
I admit, my skepticism continued until he took me out to the bushes today to show me … SPOUTS of new leaves! All over the bushes! Beautiful little buds!
We won't have blueberries this year. But, they will come.
With nurturing that is ridiculously tenacious,
radically faithful,
redeemingly tender … the fruit WILL come.
And I'm thinking there is a lesson to be learned from this blueberry parable.
About people and relationships and calamity of all kinds.
About not giving up too soon.
About not letting hard history dilute hope.
About ridiculous tenacity, radical faithfulness, and redeeming nurture.
Do you have any "blueberry bushes" in your life?
"I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage. Wait, I say, on the Lord." Psalm 27:13,14
His Story – Our Story
"The Scriptures are the revelation of God written and we, God's people, are to be the revelation of God lived out." (from The Dietz's message on Mother's Day, May 10, 2015)
God's plan has always been to reveal Himself to the world that He created, to the people He loves. He does that through the written Word and through our lives. Our stories are meant to show others in our world something of God's character: His kindness, His protection, His love for justice, His forgiveness, His faithfulness…
As we read the Scriptures we learn the purest Truth of who God is. God has preserved His Word for thousands of years so that we might know Him, understand His ways and enjoy His companionship. In addition, He orchestrates our life stories to echo who He is so that we remind each other of Him and call each other to live out His redemptive purposes. (Hebrews 10:24 calls that "inciting one another to love and good deeds.")
As we read His Word and saturate our minds with His thoughts, His purposes, and His desires, we are filled with Him so that His life, His story overflows in the way we live out our story. His story infiltrates our story and our story echoes His story. That's the plan that God initiated in eternity past and fulfilled when He sent His Son, Jesus. He invites us to participate with Him as He reveals Himself to His world.
A *hymn written in 1866 gives voice to this joyful practice:
I love to tell the story of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love;
I love to tell the story, because I know 'tis true,
It satisfies my longings as nothing else would do.
Refrain: I love to tell the story,
'Twill be my theme in glory,
To tell the old, old story
Of Jesus and His love.
God invites us to tell His story as we live out our story.
There is great value in looking at our life story through the lens of His story. To remember the times when kindness was a vibrant reflection of His kindness,
when self-sacrifice was a resounding echo of His sacrifice,
when full-colored forgiveness demonstrated His forgiveness.
Even chapters of failure to live out His loving ways can be used to point to His perfect love – when our imperfection is acknowledged and forgiven.
There is great value in hearing the stories of others and listening for reminders of who our God is.
Maybe you'll make it your spring project to hear a story – or tell a story – that will "incite" someone to live out a more clear reflection of our loving, powerful God. If you want to pursue that ministry of listening/story telling, here are some questions that can jumpstart a story telling session:
What is the most clear demonstration of grace that you have ever encountered?
What is the best example of unconditional love that you have ever experienced?
Can you tell me a time when you had the chance to show fierce protection?
What can I learn from your life story about forgiveness?
Tell your story. Hear His story.
Find His story in someone else's story.
You'll meet some strange and wonderful people along the way.
*I Love to Tell the Story – Arabella K. Hankey (1866)
- I love to tell the story of unseen things above, Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love; I love to tell the story, because I know 'tis true, It satisfies my longings as nothing else would do.
- Refrain: I love to tell the story, 'Twill be my theme in glory, To tell the old, old story Of Jesus and His love.
- I love to tell the story, more wonderful it seems Than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams; I love to tell the story, it did so much for me, And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee.
- I love to tell the story, 'tis pleasant to repeat, What seems each time I tell it more wonderfully sweet; I love to tell the story, for some have never heard The message of salvation from God's own holy Word.
- I love to tell the story, for those who know it best Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest; And when in scenes of glory I sing the new, new song, 'Twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long.


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JACK ZIMBA, Lusaka
AS ZAMBIA turns a new chapter in its developmental agenda with the launch of the 7th National Development Plan (7NDP), there
have emerged both voices of optimism, as well as those expressing pessimism about how attainable the plan is.
Truth is, the success of any plan can only be judged beyond its implementation, a process this newly-hatched plan will now be subjected to. Critical in this process, though, is the commitment of those charged with the duty and responsibility to execute the plan.
Government ministers, for instance, will have to match the cliché "Government is committed" with real effort in order to attain the vision reflected in the 7NDP.
By following this developmental path, Zambia is taking a road never travelled before, with unforeseen challenges ahead. And those in the forefront must be resolute in their quest to move the nation towards the set vision: A prosperous middle-income country by 2030.
As for the naysayers, to simply dismiss the plan based on the failures of previous national development plans, as some are now doing, is perhaps being a little too pessimistic and unambitious.
Notwithstanding, previous national development plans did not fully deliver what they promised.
Zambia has had three development plans since the early 2000s, namely the Fifth National Development Plan, 2006-2010, Sixth National Development Plan, 2011-2015 and the Revised Sixth National Development Plan, 2013-2016. All three development plans were designed to build on the Vision 2030.
The previous national development plans failed mainly on account of delay in funding for projects from the treasury, as well as insufficient allocation of funds towards projects aimed at human development.
The document states: "A detailed analysis of expenditure revealed that programmes were not funded as provided for in these previous development plans. This was partly due to funds not being availed on time to ministries, provinces and other spending agencies.
In addition, there was a noticeable mismatch between the programmes contained in the annual budgets and plans to an extent that even when resources were released for programmes, there were variations that led to resources being expended on non-core activities of the plans.
Further, despite the plans having increased allocations to sectors targeting human development, the allocations in the budgets were not sufficient to implement most development programmes."
The main objective of the 7NDP is to transform the country from a primary product-dependent economy to a strong, dynamic middle-income industrialised country by 2030.
Planners have put in place the following measures to ensure the plan succeeds:
• Implement interventions to diversify the economy away from mining. The plan will also enhance programmes for social protection.
• Implement employment creating interventions that reduce informality and improve decent work conditions, with a special focus on rural areas.
• Re-emphasise the importance of the agriculture, mining and tourism sectors towards poverty reduction and employment creation by improving the incentives structure and removing the binding constraints to growth.
The 7NDP has five expected outcomes, as follows:
• Reducing developmental inequalities.
• Enhancing human development.
• Economic diversification and job creation.
• Poverty and vulnerability reduction.
• Creating a conducive governance environment for a diversified economy.
The 7NDP should also not be viewed as a Patriotic Front (PF) document, as it draws from a spectrum of wisdom across the nation. The 7NDP has an inclusive approach to development that must give all citizens a sense of ownership.
As stated in the 7NDP: "It is the aim of the government to promote citizens' participation in issues that are pertinent to their well-being. Inadequate citizens' participation is a hindrance to the progress of the nation at all fronts, namely political, economic, social and environmental. To successfully achieve the long-term vision of being a prosperous middle-income country, Zambia has to be inclusive in its development trajectory by harnessing people's voices in augmenting the nation's development agenda."
Whenever Government creates a platform for citizens to participate in national governance, they must always utilise it, for that is one of the hallmarks of democracy.
The document is also devoid of partisan politics, with no direct mention of any political party on all the 139 pages. We must as a country depoliticise our development.
As in the old wisdom, surely there must be a time for everything, a time for war and a time to embrace.
There must be unity of purpose in our quest for development. And for the 7NDP to succeed, every citizen will have to act as a small cog pulling in the same direction.
The failure of the 7NDP will be a failure for all citizens, not only the implementers or formulators. We all as a nation stand to gain or lose.
As for the PF, the 7NDP will act as a benchmark on which its performance for the next five years will be judged.
It is, therefore, imperative for the PF government to fully implement the plan, especially that the implementation period ends when the country goes to the polls in 2021.
The hopes and dreams of the 15 million Zambians as captured in the 7NDP must not be dashed.


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The New York Times cites an article from The Mercury -
January 9, 2010All right, I call shenanigans. I'll check this out on Monday, looking first, obviously, at whether the proportion of Tasmanians in employment is at or under 25%.
Plan to fight chronic disease
December 07, 2009 09:13am
THREE out of every four Tasmanians suffer from a chronic health condition.
This renders them unable to hold down a job and sees them struggle with simple daily tasks.
The startling figure comes with the launch of a new strategy to help the overwhelming proportion of the Tasmanian population living with a chronic disease.
Conditions range from cancer, cardiovascular disease and asthma to depression, diabetes and arthritis.


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We'd love it if you found time to chat about Greenbelt, too. Maybe hatch plans to join us at Boughton House for August Bank Holiday weekend.
If you do, we'd encourage you to book your tickets this Easter, while they are most discounted. Here are some of the deals on offer ('til March 31):
An Easter-time thought
Greenbelt trustee Martin Wroe gave a Holy Week Thought for the Day last Saturday on an alternative way of living in time. Listen again here.
Trust Greenbelt
Thanks to your generosity, we are pleased to announce that Trust Greenbelt has awarded £80,000 of grants to projects embodying Greenbelt's three-stranded DNA – arts, faith and justice – this Easter.
Our Kate on the telly
See Greenbelt Trustee Kate Bottley exploring the story of Judas and asking if he can ever be forgiven. In the Footsteps of Judas airs at 9am, Good Friday on BBC1.
Dig deeper into our lineup
When our new website goes live (this Easter!), you'll be able browse this year's emerging lineup in detail. With info on each artist, activist and thinker, you'll also be able to filter by genre. With much more still to announce, we're excited about the way the bill is shaping up!
Check out our new website
We're launching our brand new website this Easter and we'd love you to have a browse. Let us know what you think. We'll be developing it over the coming months.


text: Most hotels give guests access to their rooms through electronic keycards. Guests can simply slide their keycards to enter their rooms, as opposed to using a traditional key and doorknob. Recently, electronic keycards have become more popular and useful for other places as well. For example, some college dormitory buildings have started giving their students electronic keycards to gain access rather than traditional keys. Certain keycard lock systems are even programmed to have the electronic keycard control other aspects of the room, such as the lights or air conditioning. In other words, the lights and air conditioning can only be turned on if the electronic keycard is inserted into the lock system. Systems like this also help to promote environmental sustainability, since they help to cut down on wasteful and unnecessary electricity usage. This is just one example of how advancements in technology influence daily life, even the most seemingly mundane and trivial activities. It is astonishing to think about how our society continues to advance everyday with respect to technology.


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v13 The next (sixth) *angel made a sound with his *trumpet. And I heard someone speak to him from the 4 corners of the special, gold table. (This was the table where they burned *incense in front of God.) v14 'There are 4 *angels at the great Euphrates river', the voice said. 'They cannot move. But now you must cause them to be free.' v15 God had kept those *angels ready for that special time in that day, in that month and in that year. And the 4 *angels became free to kill a third of (one out of every three) people everywhere. v16 I heard how many soldiers on horses there were in the army. They said that there were 200 million of them.
v17 It was like a dream when I saw those soldiers and horses. They had something like big metal plates over the front of their bodies. These plates were bright red like fire, bright blue, and bright yellow like *sulphur. The horses' heads were like *lions' heads. And fire, smoke and *sulphur came out of their mouths. v18 The fire, smoke and *sulphur that came out of the horses' mouths killed people. These three bad things killed a third of (one out of every three) people everywhere. v19 The horses could kill people with their mouths and with their tails. Their tails were like snakes, with heads, and mouths that could bite people.
v20 All the people that the fire, smoke and *sulphur did not kill were still not sorry. They were not sorry for what they had done wrong. They had made false gods with their own hands. And they did not stop *worshipping bad *spirits or their false gods. They had made false gods out of gold, out of silver (a white metal) and out of bronze (a yellow metal). They had also made false gods out of stone and out of wood. Their false gods could neither see nor hear. Nor could their false gods walk. v21 The people were not sorry that they had done murders. They were not sorry that they used *magic. They continued to have sex with people who were not their husbands or wives. They were not sorry about it at all. And they were not sorry that they robbed other people.
Chapter 9 This chapter tells us that a lot of pain will come to the people on the earth. Many people will die in pain and without God because they are not sorry.
God has heard what his people have said to him. He is *punishing people who do not obey him. They enjoy doing what is bad. They do not want to be God's servants.