text:
Mental health in the US: New ideas on care emerge
Mass shootings by mentally unstable people have focused attention on the inadequacies of the US mental health care system, in which less than half of the seriously ill can get treatment.
| New York
Patti Sacher's daughter, Lisa, was 19 when she first started to show signs of mental illness.
"It was like getting hit from behind by a Mack truck," says Ms. Sacher, when Lisa, a bubbly, lighthearted college sophomore living in Madison, Wis., started to talk about hearing voices, showing signs of paranoia, and using drugs. Police, on one occasion, even had to drag her out of the middle of a busy street where she stood screaming at tormenters seen only by her.
When Lisa dropped out of school, Sacher and her husband acted on their feelings of love and responsibility for their daughter and tried to bring her home for treatment. But Lisa resisted, and they found out they had no authority to compel the school or anyone else to help: Lisa was no longer a minor. That helpless realization was just the beginning of a 17-year effort to help her.
Though they did eventually bring her home, Lisa (a pseudonym her mother uses) refused most treatment for her diagnosis of schizophrenia and would stop taking the medication prescribed for her because she didn't like the side effects and didn't think she needed it. She went to three residential treatment programs, but ran away each time. Her mother managed at least half a dozen times to get Lisa hospitalized, but the short stints did little good – she inevitably ended up endangering herself.
"I used to think it was only bad parents who had kids who ended up like that," says Sacher, who now volunteers for the New York City chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, teaching a "family-to-family" class for those struggling with the same issues she has.
Sacher remembers being struck by an article in a newspaper asking people to help look for a missing elderly man with Alzheimer's disease: Some mental illnesses arouse sympathy and others blame, she says.
Sacher's frustrations with the mental health care system in this country are typical. It's a system nearly everyone agrees is fragmented, inadequate, and offers little help until someone reaches a crisis – and often not even then.
Now, after a succession of shooting massacres – by Adam Lanza in Newtown, Conn.; Jared Loughner in Tucson, Ariz.; James Holmes in Aurora, Colo.; and John Zawahri in Santa Monica, Calif. – the mental health care system is in the limelight to a degree it hasn't been in decades. In the case of Mr. Lanza, who killed 27 people, including 20 first-graders and his mother, before killing himself, there isn't much conclusive known about his mental-health history – and what information there is doesn't explain what might have caused him to commit such violence. It is clear he was troubled, and the shooting sparked a massive outcry over the need for better treatment for the mentally ill.
President Obama called for a national conversation on mental health and sponsored a one-day conference on the issue in June, calling for more help for young people and veterans, in particular, and saying it's time to "[bring] mental illness out of the shadows."
Just a day after the Newtown shooting, blogger Liza Long published an article about her own experience with a mentally ill son that quickly went viral. Titled "I am Adam Lanza's mother," the blog was an impassioned plea for more discussion of mental illness and more options and support for those who struggle with it.
The Newtown shooting has started a national conversation about tougher mandatory commitment laws, tighter gun-control laws for people with mental illness, and the need for more funds. Some opponents of gun control seized on mental health care reform as a better way to respond to Newtown than stricter gun-control laws.
Advocates for better mental health care tend to see all the attention as a mixed blessing.
"On the one hand, they recognize the mental-health system needs all the attention they can muster," says Paul Appelbaum, director of the division of law, ethics, and psychiatry at Columbia University in New York. "On the other hand, the link to violence as a means to persuading people to provide more adequate levels of funding is misleading and likely to further stigmatize people with mental illness."
An overwhelmed system
Most agree that the current system is not adequate. A litany of statistics illustrates its shortcomings. Only 4 in 10 people with a serious mental illness have access to any treatment. The number of institutional public beds available for the mentally ill is 5 percent of what it was 50 years ago. Since 2009, about $4.35 billion in state funding has been cut from the mental health care system. Some 20 percent of people in prison have a serious mental illness. More than a quarter of adults living in homeless shelters have a serious mental illness.
No one, of course, is suggesting a return to the system of 50 years ago, when many people were involuntarily locked up in psychiatric wards for years. When such hospitals were closed in the 1960s and '70s, a community treatment system offering high-quality treatment in a less restrictive setting was supposed to take its place.
"The problem is that those resources never materialized in a way to compensate for the closure of the hospitals," says Liza Gold, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University's School of Medicine.
While it's difficult to pin down exact costs, due to fragmented funding sources and varying quality of treatment, good community-based programs cost significantly more than warehousing the mentally ill in big psychiatric hospitals, says Frank Ochberg, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Michigan State University and a former associate director of the National Institute of Mental Health.
"Living in a community ... is more expensive," Dr. Ochberg says, though he also emphasizes that the psychiatric hospitals had negative effects on patients and employees, and needed to be shut down.
These days, the system isn't up to the task of dealing with the people experiencing a major mental-health crisis, and very few public programs offer support or preventive care before someone gets to that point. Family members, like Ms. Long, the blogger, talk of feeling scared and very alone when it comes to getting help for a loved one who they believe is on a downward trajectory – especially when the person doesn't recognize his or her own illness and refuses any help.
"It's unlike any other health-care system in this country," says Ron Hornberg, national director for policy and legal affairs at the National Alliance on Mental Illness. "It's geared toward not intervening until a person goes into crisis. Early identification, intervention, and continuous care are frequently not available for people. With any other medical disorder, if you waited until somebody was in crisis until you intervened, the death rates and costs would be much higher – but that's pretty much how the mental health care system functions in many parts of the country…. We don't have any comprehensive system of care in place, and by definition many of these people need care on an ongoing basis."
For Sacher, one of her biggest frustrations was one common to many families of the very seriously ill: Her daughter was putting herself in dangerous situations. At one point Lisa believed that the heroin she was injecting would be safer if she diluted it with aloe, and while she was homeless for a while, living on the streets of New York's East Village, she was raped and beaten. But, to use the common medical term, she "lacked insight" into her disease. She didn't believe she needed to treat it and she didn't like the side effects, like weight gain, of the medications doctors prescribed. And her mother had limited ability to force her to get treatment.
Can treatment be forced?
There is perhaps no more controversial subject among advocates of better mental health than forced treatment. The current bar to pass – that the person must pose an imminent risk to himself or others – can be very hard to prove in some states. Many family members are told their best option is to lie about exactly what was said or when it was said in order to get someone admitted to a hospital, if they believe a person needs immediate help and the illness is preventing them from seeking that help.
Others point out that mandated treatment is often unsuccessful and may only alienate the patient from family and friends. The current bar for mandatory treatment is appropriately high, they say, and making it easier to force treatment could lead to an infringement of civil rights.
"The problem isn't our system of legal compulsion; it's our mental-health system," says Ira Burnim, legal director for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.
Anytime an incident like the Newtown shooting occurs, there's a push to make mandatory treatment easier, on grounds that it's needed to prevent violence. Mr. Burnim and others acknowledge that a very small number of people may be both mentally ill and dangerous. But trying to screen out those individuals and force them into hospitals, before they've done anything wrong, would be akin to going into a poor community and rounding up young men who are flunking out of school or exhibiting some other trait that puts them in a group at risk for violence, says Burnim.
"There may be people who are mentally ill and become violent, and you can't identify them [beforehand], but that's true of all people," says Burnim. "And mental illness tells you almost nothing about the likelihood they'll be violent."
Indeed, people with a mental illness are far more likely to be victims of violence than to commit violence themselves, studies show. Burnim, like many in the mental-health community, would like to see the biggest emphasis placed on getting support and treatment for people early on, before their illness hits a crisis stage. And he'd like to see money put into interventions with a proven track record – like the growing number of programs using the Assertive Community Treatment approach. ACT involves teams of professionals helping patients with wraparound services such as housing and employment, as well as treating clients' illness and getting them on board with treatment. ACTs also sometimes use supportive housing programs.
Saying the mentally ill are dangerous discounts the myriad other attributes of their individual personalities, says Jeffrey Swanson, a psychiatry professor at Duke University in Raleigh, N.C. "Mental illness is one thing people might have, but they're also varied in all the other ways that make people inclined to commit violent acts.… [In treatment], you have to think about the whole person and the whole environment, rather than just think about what to do to fix what's wrong with the paralimbic system."
One of the most prominent voices on the other side of this debate is E. Fuller Torrey, founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center and author of "The Insanity Defense: How America's Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens."
Dr. Torrey, who has compiled a database going back to 1987 of what he says are "preventable tragedies" incurred by people with a mental illness (nearly 4,000 just in the past 10 years), believes the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of civil liberties, leaving many people aware of a family member who is deteriorating quickly, doesn't have the insight into his own disease to voluntarily seek treatment, and who may be a danger to himself or others, with no recourse to get help.
"You've got to clean up the commitment laws so that you can evaluate people [without their consent] before they commit a horrendous act," says Torrey. "And you need enough beds to put them in.… No one needs to go back to where we were [before mental institutions were shut down], but we're way below the minimum number."
Sacher, for one, believes that involuntary commitment is sometimes necessary. She credits New York's Kendra's Law – named for a woman pushed to her death in a subway station in 1999 by a man diagnosed with schizophrenia and off his medication – with ultimately helping her daughter gain insight into her illness and get on a track toward recovery.
Lisa was hospitalized six or seven times over the years, mostly after an overdose or if she was in a catatonic state. Finally, in 2002, Sacher got Lisa a court order for assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) under Kendra's Law, lying a bit about the dates of her last overdose to get it.
Mandated outpatient treatment (as opposed to hospitalization) is also controversial and, in some states, means very little: A person is under court order to get treatment, but with little to no enforcement.
"As a crisis-driven knee-jerk reaction, when a state says 'let's pass outpatient commitment laws' – if they don't put a good program in place, it won't do anything," says Dr. Swanson. In New York, though, Swanson and others agree it's been implemented relatively well, with expanded ACT teams in place to help people placed in treatment.
"If you understand better the goals and preferences of the person you're treating you can do a lot better job in treating them," says Burnim of Bazelon, who would like to see more ACT teams in place but without the Kendra's Law mandate. (In New York, ACT teams serve both voluntary and AOT patients.)
That's the approach that finally worked for Lisa, says Sacher.
Outpatient focus that works
More than 17 years after she first became ill, in 2002, Lisa finally stayed with treatment long enough to begin to get insight into her disease. A big part of what helped was being in day treatment with others struggling with the same issues, and having a therapist help her focus on her dreams apart from her illness.
"It was helpful for her to be in a place where the focus of her counselor and therapist was to say, 'What do you want? Let's make a plan. What's your dream?' " says Sacher. "Not, 'What do your parents or doctors want? Let's get you there.' She always felt she was moving forward."
Lisa began teaching swimming to children, something she had done in the past and loved. She lives on her own, and she manages her relapses herself, with some awareness of when she's starting to become sick again.
Sacher is grateful for the shift, though she also regrets the many lost years, and wishes there had been the possibility both for mandated treatment and programs that targeted young people when Lisa first became ill.
"She went through 17 years of instability," says Sacher. "If we had had AOT when she first got sick, she would be functioning on a much higher level now…. Those were ... years that took away from her true potential."
But that isn't always the case. For Ann, who has also struggled for years with mental illness, hospitalization made things worse.
When Ann (whose respite care director asked the Monitor not to use her last name because of the social stigma of mental illness) went to New York's Bellevue Hospital Center to see her therapist in June, she was in the middle of a crisis episode, and her therapist immediately took her to the emergency room. The whole experience there – being shuttled back and forth between the psychiatric ward to a medical room, and feeling as if no one was listening to her – was confusing and terrifying, and she checked herself out, says Ann, a longtime New Yorker who works as a playwright. If she hadn't heard about a new option, entirely voluntary, with no forced treatment, she says she would have just gone home, even though she knew she shouldn't have been on her own.
"My whole thing is fight or flight," says Ann. "If I were faced with a situation where I had to stay, I would have left."
The place Ann went is a nondescript townhouse near Union Square in New York. One of two respite centers run by a new pilot program called Parachute NYC (a third is in the works), the eight-bed home welcomes any guests – the term "patient" is never used – who feel that they may be hitting a crisis point and need some support.
Staying in the warm, welcoming rooms is voluntary. No one is forced to take medication. Staff are peers – people who have their own experiences with mental illness, have extensive training, and often relate to someone experiencing a mental-health crisis.
Along with the respite centers, the program runs mobile teams that work with individuals experiencing a crisis in their own environments and mobilizes their social community of family and friends to support their treatment and foster long-term change in how they approach their mental illness.
The basic idea: Catch people early in the trajectory of mental illness and provide a "soft landing," whence the name "parachute."
The program's respite centers, one of which caters specifically to young adults, are an alternative to hospitalization for people approaching a crisis. "As the challenges become greater, [it gives them] some place to go that's not about an institution," says Trish Marsik, assistant commissioner for mental health at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. "It will provide an alternative to hospitalizations here in New York City that we haven't had before."
The department pays for the program with a federal innovation grant from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and by partnering with eight providers to offer services. The Manhattan respite center is run by Community Access, a nonprofit that has long been meeting the needs of New York's mentally ill, and most of the mobile teams are run by the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.
Ms. Marsik is particularly excited about the pairing of the respite centers with the mobile teams, all of which include a social worker, a psychiatrist, and a peer trained in "needs-adapted treatment" – a model that is centered on the individual and his or her family and friends, goals, and needs. The program is relatively new in the United States but has had great success in Finland, where one long-term study of a model, used with first-episode psychotic patients, found that two years later more than 80 percent of patients had no residual psychotic symptoms, 84 percent had returned to full-time work or study, and only one-third had used antipsychotic drugs.
In other words: Patients were functioning well in the real world and didn't seem to be relapsing.
Staff at Parachute NYC, which began in January, hope to find similar results, firmly believing that a more welcoming, person-centered approach at the onset of illness can prevent more serious episodes and involuntary hospitalization.
Ann says that for her, it was exactly what she needed: "Just knowing I had a room to myself, with a private closet and private bathroom, and knowing I could leave my suitcase by the door and if I decide to run out I can, no one is holding me down, no one is going to shoot me up with medication or tell me I'm crazy – I could relax on my terms."
She stayed for two weeks, and was there with six guests, all of whom bonded, she says. They cooked dinners and ate together, and attended many group classes. Ann attended art classes, creative writing groups, and sessions in which she and others worked on developing a "tool box" for themselves to help deal with their illness, sometimes writing about strategies that seemed to work, how they felt in different situations, and how to apply these insights to their lives.
"You don't have to go to groups, but over time, everyone was in the group," she says.
Having peers on staff who have dealt with their own mental illness and hospitalizations was also a huge support. "Everyone here has a diagnosis, and they're working professionals now," Ann says. "I met with a friend of mine a couple days ago, and she said 'you've found your swans.' I feel like I belong here. I'm with people I understand and they understand me, and there's no judgment."
The staff who work there say that the voluntary nature of Parachute is key.
"Self-determination is huge – to have one's dignity and be master of one's domain," says David, a peer counselor at the respite center near Union Square who says his experiences with hospitalization and the mental health care system allow him to connect with guests in a very immediate way. "Everyone tells you what you should be doing. When you come to those decisions on your own, it's lasting."
What Parachute is doing "is uncharted territory," says Jamie Neckles, the project manager from the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
A federal grant is funding the pilot program, but Ms. Neckles hopes that if evaluations are positive, it will become a reimbursable service through Medicaid, since it will probably be far more cost-effective to help people in a preventive way. The daily operating cost of respite care, for instance, is $272 per person. Costs vary across hospitals, but that's about one-third the cost of a night at a New York psychiatric hospital for someone with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
The Brooklyn respite home, which targets people between the ages of 16 and 30, within a year of the onset of their illness, fills a particularly strong need, say Neckles and Marsik.
Currently, there are few resources for young people, many of whom are turned off by treatment programs filled with much older patients far along in their illness.
"There is a real opportunity here to change the trajectory of how these people will move through the system and what they'll experience," says Marsik. "These 16-, 17-, 18-year-olds today will look back in 40 years and have a completely different history with the system."
It's not just younger people Parachute helps. If she hadn't found Parachute, Ann says, she would have gone into the same cycle she's been caught in for the past 25 years – leaving her job, cutting herself off from people, disappearing until she felt stable again.
"If a therapist was forcing me to take medication I didn't want to take, I'd be belligerent. I wasn't helping myself," she says, noting that she does take some medication but prefers finding other ways to deal with her illness. She feels the support and tools she's gained at Parachute are already helping.
In the past, she's worked with some mobile crisis teams, but they scared her. Now, she's planning to use Parachute's team because she feels she can trust them. And she also likes knowing there's a hot line she can call if she wakes up in her nightmares – something that occasionally occurs – with people at the other end whom she knows, and who will understand.
"They've already printed off a list of different places for me to go," Ann says, preparing to leave the respite center to return to her apartment. "I want to start exercising again.... It's a miracle here, it truly is."
At this point, it's impossible to know whether the Parachute model – which has served fewer than 100 people and has fielded 1,500 calls on its support line – will fulfill the hopes of supporters, but it serves a niche that most agree has too few options for voluntary preventive care that is patient-centered.
Violence focuses policymakers
Though mass shooters are the catalyst forcing the public to focus on mental health care, the reality, say psychiatrists, is that predicting the one person in thousands who will act on such violent impulses, even among those suffering from a serious mental illness, is nearly impossible. But, they say, the focus on the system is exposing how vastly inadequate it is.
"The irony is that something that could, in the short run, be bad, by increasing the stigma [of mental illness], is also an occasion to focus the minds of policymakers, and getting public support behind the mental health care system that could have long-term benefits," says Swanson.
But Swanson, Mr. Hornberg, and others hope that policymakers keep their eyes on the evidence-based practices that help people in the long term, rather than just managing a severe crisis with medication and short-term hospitalization.
For some people, whose illnesses keep them from being able to recognize their need for help, that may mean mandated treatment, says Hornberg.
But, he adds, "I believe that if you had a system that was more assertive and more inviting to people and focused more on early intervention, in many cases you would never get to that point. Situations wouldn't progress to where they're acute emergencies."
[Editor's note: In an earlier version of this story, quotes by Ira Burnim of the Bazelon Center were misattributed.]


text:
Accounting for Leases: Sale-Leaseback Transactions Involving Real Estate, Sales-Type Leases of Real Estate, Definition of the Lease Term, and Initial Direct Costs of Direct Financing Leases—an amendment of FASB Statements No. 13, 66, and 91 and a rescission of FASB Statement No. 26 and Technical Bulletin No.79-11 (Issued 5/88)
This Statement specifies the accounting by a seller-lessee for a sale-leaseback transaction involving real estate, including real estate with equipment. In addition, this Statement modifies the provisions of FASB Statement No. 13, Accounting for Leases,that define the lease term, the accounting by a lessor for sales-type leases of real estate that provide for the transfer of title, and the accounting for initial direct costs of direct financing leases. This Statement provides that:
A sale-leaseback transaction involving real estate, including real estate with equipment, must qualify as a sale under the provisions of FASB Statement No. 66, Accounting for Sales of Real Estate, as amended by this Statement, before it is appropriate for the seller-lessee to account for the transaction as a sale. If the transaction does not qualify as a sale under Statement 66, it should be accounted for by the deposit method or as a financing.
A sale-leaseback transaction involving real estate, including real estate with equipment, that includes any continuing involvement other than a normal leaseback in which the seller-lessee intends to actively use the property during the lease should be accounted for by the deposit method or as a financing.
The definition of lease term in paragraph 5(f) of Statement 13 is amended to include all renewal periods during which there will be a loan outstanding from the lessee to the lessor. This Statement also defines the term penalty as used in the lease term provisions of paragraph 5(f) of Statement 13 and thereby may cause lease terms to be longer than previously contemplated. Those modifications of the lease term provisions of Statement 13 apply to all leases, not just to sale- leaseback transactions involving real estate.
A lease involving real estate may not be classified as a sales-type lease unless the lease agreement provides for the transfer of title to the lessee at or shortly after the end of the lease term. Sales-type leases involving real estate should be accounted for under the provisions of Statement 66.
This Statement supersedes paragraph 40 of Statement 66 and rescinds FASB Statement No. 26, Profit Recognition on Sales-Type Leases of Real Estate, and FASB Technical Bulletin No. 79-11, Effect of a Penalty on the Term of a Lease. This Statement is effective for transactions entered into after June 30, 1988 with earlier application encouraged.
This Statement also amends paragraph 25 of FASB Statement No. 91, Accounting for Nonrefundable Fees and Costs Associated with Originating or Acquiring Loans and Initial Direct Costs of Leases, and amends Statement 13 to reflect the amendment intended by Statement 91. The effective date of that amendment is the effective date of Statement 91.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Cassini spacecraft peers down though layers of haze to glimpse the lakes of Titan's northern regions.
Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers across) has a hydrological cycle similar to Earth's, but instead of water, Titan's lakes and seas are filled with liquid methane and ethane.
Lit terrain seen here is on the leading hemisphere of Titan. North on Titan is up. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 1, 2014 using a spectral filter which preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 939 nanometers.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 114,000 miles (183,000 kilometers) from Titan. Image scale is 7 miles (11 kilometers) per pixel.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.


text:
Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert and advice columnist. She'll be here every other week helping to answer your filthiest questions. Are you dirty? Email her.
I have a comforter question. I've had this wonderful set for probably five or so years. For a long time I was a heathen and allowed all manner of cats, dogs, and teenage brothers use the bed as a hangout spot, and as a result it's become rather dingy. It is pretty enough and was expensive enough to make me super duper reluctant to throw it out and just get another.
It IS washable, however, and from your column I've gathered that OxiClean will be a stalwart companion in my battle for color brightening. My question is this: is it even worth it to take it to the cleaners, based on the picture? Does my comforter have hope, or should I burn it in the yard and cry in the corner?
Mercy, no! No crying in the corner, lady! Not on my watch, at least. There is for sure hope. But you won't find hope at the cleaners. You'll actually find the hope right in your own bathtub.
Before I give you these instructions, I do want to say that this is going to involve a bit of work on your end. Most of it will be hands off, but when the part of it that's hands on will be a slog. This is doubly true if you don't have a washing machine in your home, and quadruply true if you rely on a laundromat. Oh right: if you live in a home that has a utility sink in the laundry room this actually won't be a slog at all. Also, I hate you, but we can talk about that another time.
Because the comforter is heavily soiled and has been so for quite some time, you're going to need to give it a thorough soaking in a product that will coax out all those years of grime. You're right that OxiClean is an option! So is Borax, both of which we've talked about before. A quick reminder: products like Oxi and Borax are laundry boosters, which means that they're used in conjunction with detergent to help "boost" washing results.
For this purpose, I want you to use a half-to-full cup of one or the other as a soaking agent along with a small amount of detergent—let's say a tablespoon or two worth? Sure. This is a little negotiable, mostly I'm trying to give you a sense of things. And I also want you to use hot hot hot water. That will help to fully dissolve the products and also is another weapon against all that built up dirt. Quick aside: the LW's comforter is light colored, but if you're performing a similar operation on a darker colored item use warm or cold water to help preserve the color. Checking the care tag is also recommended. If you're concerned that a powdered product won't dissolve fully in cooler water, go ahead and mix it into a cup of hot water, stir it until dissolved, and then add that to the warm or cold water.
So go ahead and fill your bathtub (or utility sink, you big jerk) about halfway up with the hot hot hot water and your booster and your detergent, then add in the comforter. Because you've used such hot water, you probably will want to put on a pair of rubber gloves for this next part—also sometimes those boosters can be a little irritating to the old skinsuit. You're going to need to force the comforter to submit to your will and do a goodly amount of smooshing it (technical term) into the water to get it thoroughly saturated with the water and the booster and the detergent. Plus, the agitation will help to release some of the dirt.
After you've worked the comforter over a bit, you can walk away. For a while, actually. Leave it to soak for at least an hour, maybe more. But do check it after an hour and here's why: after some time has passed the water is going to turn a tremendously frightening color. Depending on how frightening it is, you may decide to drain the tub and refill it with fresh water, booster and detergent. You may even do this once or twice more! You can and should totally use your judgment on this—bear in mind that we are going to put that comforter in the washing machine, so it's not perfection you're looking for, but the good, long soak in a nice bubblebath is going to be the real key to getting the bedding looking like new again.
Once you're happy with the amount of soaking the comforter has been subjected to, it's time to get it into the washing machine. As you might imagine, this is the sloggy part I warned you about. To make things a little less miserable, try to press out as much water as you can from the comforter while it's still in the tub, which by now you should have drained. It's still going to be heavy and wet when you remove it from its bath though; an oversized trashbag isn't a bad thing to have on hand in this scenario, so you have a way to carry that heavy and wet thing to the washing machine. The good news here is that once that part is over, the rest is more or less a cakewalk.
When it comes time to wash this thing in the machine, remember that it's already full up on detergent and booster—you won't need to add more. Just run it through the machine on a hot or warm water cycle and then put it in the dryer with some dryer balls (tennis balls work fine for this too), which will help to fluff the thing back up. If you feel it could still be brighter after all of this, the next time you machine launder it, add some blueing to the wash. Your blueing instructions are here.
There's one more product I want to mention to you before I take off: Engleside All American Quilt Wash. I mention it for two reasons: 1) if you've got an older bedding set that is fragile, or an heirloom quilt in need of washing, you may want to get this product and 2) if you're not satisfied with the effect that a booster provided.
It's also used as a soaking agent, so you'll mostly follow the same instructions. The timing, however, is a little different: you'll do two soaks, the first of which will be for just 20 minutes, and the second of which should be for 6-8 hours. Then launder as usual, or in the case of something fragile, rinse well and air dry.
I have delightful baby pink countertop in my kitchen, the kind with the little flakes of gold. Unfortunately, they have accumulated a few unsightly stains over the last fifty years—particularly coffee and wine stains. I've tried bleach, but it was not effective. In defense of bleach, I may not have been rigorous enough because I am afraid of ruining them. Can they be saved? I feel like the stains are just one more reason my friends and family will use to try to convince me to "modernize" and replace them. Psh!
Oooooh those countertops sound marvelous—don't let anyone talk you into changing them! Plus, I've got a really easy answer for you: a Magic Eraser is going to be the ticket.
Since I generally try to tell you more than a sentence worth of information, here's a bit more about Magic Erasers; they're made of melamine foam, which works in a way that's similar to very fine sandpaper. That comparison is a good one in that it will hopefully serve as a reminder that the Erasers can cause damage to certain surfaces, which means you'll always want to test them out in an inconspicuous place before going to town.
The Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are the Kleenex of the melamine foam eraser world, in that it's the branded shorthand we tend to use to describe a product that can also be found under other brand names, as well as in generic form. Duane Reade here in New York has a house brand called 'Nice' that offers melamine foam sponges; they're a bit less, cost-wise, than the Mr. Clean ones and work just as well. That will likely be true of the large chain drug stores in your neck of the woods, whether it be CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, etc. You can also Google 'melamine foam' and buy it, unbranded, in bulk.
Before I leave you until we next meet, I'm so excited to share with you guys the trailer for my book, on sale February 25. I hope you enjoy it! And, um, I hope you buy the book! (Please buy my book.)
The Squalor Archive: Armpit Stain Eradication | Blood Stain Removal | Booze Stench Elimination | Brightening White Towels & Sheets | Buildup on Wood Tables |Car Odor Elimination | Cleaning Car Consoles | Caring for Athletic Clothing | Cat Pee | Coffee & Spice Grinders | Dirty Ball Caps | Dog Mess on Carpet | Filthy Couches |Football Glove Care | Gasoline on Clothing | Grain Moth Infestations | Grease/Rubber Stain Treatments |Gross Computers | Guests & Bedbugs | Gym Bags | Hairbleweeds |Halloween Cleanup |Humidifiers | Jeans |Karategi Cleaning | Ketchup Stains | Ladies Underpants | Laundering Bathmats | Lube Stains |Makeup Debris in Bathrooms | Makeup Stains On Upholstery |Marijuana Stench | Mayo Stains| Melted Microfiber on Enameled Cast Iron | Menstrual Cup Care | Mildewed Towels | Moldy Trousers | Mustard Stains | Mystery Stains | Nail Polish Stains| Odor Removal for Non-Launderable Items | Oven Cleaning | Pine Needles & Sap | Pee-Smelling Bathrooms | Rank Roller Derby Pads | Ring Around The Collar |Rust Stains on Clothing | Salt-Stained Winter Shoes | Scorched Pots | Scummy Glass Shower Doors | Semen Stains | Sheet Changing Cycles |Sheet Changing Etiquette & Tricks | Skidmarks| Stained Tennis Whites | Stinking Sinks |Stinky Feet | Stinky Slippers | Suede Care | Sunscreen Stains | Tea Kettles |Thanksgiving Stain Primer | That Orange Stuff In The Shower | The Great Bra Washing Extravaganza | Toilet Mold | Towel Laundering Cycles | Treating Testicular Odor | Washing & De-Pilling Sweaters | Wax Removal Techniques | WD-40 Stain Removal | When Butter Attacks| Yellowed Fingernails | Yellowed Sheets | Yellowed Swimsuits | Yoga Mats | A Bookmark-able Squalor Archive
Jolie Kerr is the author of the upcoming book My Boyfriend Barfed In My Handbag … And Other Things You Can't Ask Martha (Plume, February 25, 2014); more cleaning-obsessed natterings can be found on Twitter, Kinja, and Tumblr. Squalor appears on Jezebel and Deadspin on alternating weeks.
Image by Jim Cooke.


text:
Candice Miller voted Yea (Conference Report Vote) on this Legislation.
Read statements Candice Miller made in this general time period.
Title: Appropriations for the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development
Vote to pass a bill that appropriates $110.25 billion for the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies for the 2008 fiscal year.
Title: Appropriations for the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development


text:
The so-called Partnership for a Drug-Free [sic] America (PDFA) has been a prolific, yet impotent, anti-marijuana propaganda machine since its inception in the mid 1980's under President Ronald 'Just Say No' Reagan. No other quasi governmental or private entity spent more money or had greater access to mainstream media to try to perpetuate the federal government's failed cannabis prohibition. Only the now unpopular and underfunded DARE program rivaled PDFA in it's high visibility efforts to maintain support among the American populace for cannabis prohibition–but was equally feckless–wasting billions in taxpayer dollars and not impacting youth drug use rates.
Both DARE and PDFA were largely ignored and underfunded by the George W. Bush Administration from 2000-2008, with the current administration continuing to follow suit by diminishing the size and scope of both's finances and public reach.
After the PDFA released a new survey today, with media outlets starting to contact NORML for commentary, only then did it become clear to me that the beginning of the end is die in the cast for PDFA when they chose to put out a survey that in effect says 'marijuana legalization is coming, but only for adults'.
Really?! PDFA needed to waste even more funding and bandwidth informing the public that support for cannabis legalization for adults is at an all time high, but that parents surveyed don't think the herbal drug should be legalized for youth or marketed to children.
Gee. Was there anybody in America advocating that children should be able to legally buy and use cannabis products?
While the PFDA's most recent survey seeks to create a political red herring about children and cannabis, the survey affirms the now obvious in American life: public support for continuing cannabis prohibition is at an all time low and tax-n-regulating cannabis is an alternative public policy that now enjoys majority support.
After watching and archiving hundreds of anti-cannabis propaganda commercials from the PDFA going back to the late 1980s, reading this new survey acknowledging 1) Legalization is quickly picking up public and political support in America, 2) Americans want a sensible cannabis policy, where, like with alcohol products, only adults have legal and controlled access and 3) Parents have concerns about potential cannabis advertisements in mass media demonstrates to me that another major socio-political 'tea leaf" has revealed itself with the PDFA now left to propagandize about if and how legal cannabis will marketed, not whether cannabis is an inherently 'evil' drug that will forever be prohibited.
With even the hardcore anti-cannabis folks at PDFA now recognizing the changing attitudes about cannabis in favor of legalization, when will Congress and the White House finally embrace this political reality too?


text:
Stefan Viehböck, an independent security researcher, published a paper on Boxing Day titled "Brute forcing Wi-Fi Protected Setup" to his WordPress blog disclosing a weakness in the configuration of most consumer/SoHo Wi-Fi routers.
As we all know the state of security for most home Wi-Fi networks was nearly non-existent only a few years ago.
This prompted the Wi-Fi Alliance to establish a new simple method for consumers to enable and configure WPA2 on their routers without knowledge of encryption, keys or how it all works.
The standard is called Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) and is enabled by default on nearly all consumer Wi-Fi access points, including those sold by Cisco/Linksys, Netgear, Belkin, Buffalo, D-Link and Netgear.
It has three methods of simplifying the connection of wireless devices to WPA2 protected access points:
- Push Button Connect (PBC) requires the user to push a button on the router which allows it to communicate with a client needing configuration. The client attempts to connect and the router simply sends it the security configuration required to communicate.
- Client PIN mode is where the client device supports WPS and has a PIN assigned by the manufacturer. You then login to the router's management interface and enter the PIN to authorize that client to obtain the encryption configuration.
- Router PIN mode allows a client to connect by entering a secret PIN from a label on the router, or from its management interface which authorizes the client to obtain the security configuration details.
The first method requires physical access, while the second requires administrative access, both of these pass muster. The third however, can be accomplished only through the use of the Wi-Fi radio.
The PIN used for authentication is only eight digits which would give the appearance of 108 (100,000,000) possibilities. It turns out the last digit is just a checksum, which takes us down to 107 (10,000,000) combinations.
Worse yet the protocol is designed so that the first half and second half are sent separately and the protocol will confirm if only one half is correct.
So you have now reduced the difficulty of brute forcing the PIN down to 104 (10,000) plus 103 (1,000) or 11,000 possibilities.
Some of the routers Viehböck tested did seem to implement a mechanism to slow down the brute forcing, but the worst case scenario allowed him to acquire the keys within 44 hours.
Compared with attempting to attack WPA2-PSK directly, this is a cheap and effective attack.
As the sub-title of Viehböck's paper states "When poor design meets poor implementation" security is the loser.
If you own a reasonably modern Wi-Fi router you are at risk (unless you have installed some sort of alternative firmware like OpenWRT or Tomato Router).
If possible disable the WPS support on your router and contact your manufacturer for updated firmware which may provide a fix or mitigation against this attack.
Another researcher independently discovered the same issue and has published a tool called Reaver that implements this attack.
Similar to the Firesheep tool, this will likely light a fire under the butts of the Wi-Fi Alliance and manufacturers to quickly resolve these issues.


text:
Re: Down on the Farm
No announcement yet.
Down on the Farm
new posts
Registered User
- Apr 2009
- 15795
2013, 2014 WAR is stupid Champ!!!!
Re: Down on the Farm
It was a great outing. But ... keep in perspective. He's an oft-injured 25-year-old pitching in the Cal League.
Re: Down on the Farm
Baez pumping 97 with a great slider. Not pinpoint yet, but the stuff from 2017 is there.
Re: Down on the Farm
Minor League Report
System 5-0 ... 3-0 vs. Dodger system ... Lamet rehab ... Ashbeck dazzles ... Sod Poodles and Tincaps walk off
El Paso 10, Oklahoma City 7: Dinelson Lamet rehab goes OK despite 2 home runs (but remember, it's the PCL). Luis Urias breaks out of a week-long slump ... and Ty France doesn't homer. Lamet: 5IP 4H 4R 4ER 1BB 4Ks ... Urias 2-for-4 HR#15 3 RBIs ... Jose Pirela 2-for-4 2B HR#12 3 RBIs ... Ty France 1-for-2 BB RBI 2 HBP ... Francisco Mejia DNP.
Amarillo 2, Tulsa 1: Taylor Kohlwey's RBI single scores Owen Miller for the walk-off game winner before a sellout crowd at Hodgetown. Miller singled, took second on a foul out to the catcher (you heard it right) and came home on Kohlwey's hit. Jessie Scholtens with a gutty start: 6IP 6H 1R 1ER 1BB 6Ks ... Michel Baez (W) 2IP 1H 0R 1BB 3Ks (velo 95-97) ... Miller 2-for-3 BB ... Ivan Castillo 2-for-4 2B.
Lake Elsinore 11, Rancho Cucamonga 5: Elliot Ashbeck with a stunning start: 7IP 3H 1R 1ER 0BB 15Ks (on 86 pitches). The Storm took a 7-0 lead in the 2nd and were never threatened. Estuery Ruiz putting up great numbers in the last month, including last night: 3-for-6 2B 3B RBI and SB#26 ... Gabriel Arias 2-for-3 2B SF 4 RBIs.
Ft. Wayne 4, Lake County 3: Tucupita Marcano with a walk-off single with the bases loaded to win it. Tincaps cruised into the 9th with a 3-0 lead, but Austin Smith blew the save by surrendering 3 in the T9 (hurt by error). Gabe Mosser dominates: 4IP 1H 0R 1BB 6Ks .. Agustin Ruiz 2-for-4 HR#3 3 RBIs ... Marcano 2-for-5 RBI ... Xavier Edwards 1-for-4 BB.
Tri City 6, Everett 2: Jordy Barley's 7th inning 3-run HR put the Dust Devils ahead for good as they won their first game. Barley 1-for-4 HR#1 3 RBIs. Felix Minjarez 5IP 5H 2R 2ER 1BB 6Ks ... Matthew Acosta 2-for-4 2B.
Monday Pitchers: Logan Allen (EP), Lake Bachar (Ama), Omar Cruz (TC). Lake Elsinore and Ft. Wayne off for All-Star break.Last edited by Carl Spackler; 06-17-2019, 04:43 AM.
Registered User
- Feb 2003
- 52025
Re: Down on the Farm
Is there any movement on Richards?
Re: Down on the Farm
If you have the chance, check out the walk-off run scored by Owen Miller in the Amarillo-Tulsa game.
Miller is on second base when Taylor Kohlwey lines a single that glances off the glove of the Tulsa second baseman (who made a great diving play). Miller doesn't stop, and the play at home is incredibly close. The umpire signals "safe" and the scene turns into the home plate play in "Bull Durham." Tulsa's catcher, Keibert Ruiz, becomes Crash Davis.
He must have called the HP umpire a ****sucker.
Re: Down on the Farm
General: The system went 5-0 yesterday, the first undefeated day of the season. Three of those wins came against Dodger farm teams: Oklahoma City (El Paso), Tulsa (Amarillo) and Rancho Cucamonga (Lake Elsinore).
El Paso: Luis Urias' 2-for-4 day broke a 3-for-29 slump ... Dinelson Lamet's velocity wasn't at its peak (92-94), but he was driving down in the zone and had good control ... Jose Pirela has 7 home runs in his last 10 games ... Ty France has led the minor leagues in HBP the last two years. He was plunked twice yesterday, bringing his season total to 12 ... El Paso homered twice yesterday, bringing the season total to 150 with exactly half the season played.
Amarillo: Owen Miller has four straight multi-hit games (11-for-16), raising his season average to .317 (3rd in the Texas League) ... OF Rodrigo Orozco has sat out the last few games after tweaking his knee on a slide. However, he remains on the active roster ... Still no word on the recovery of four key players, Jorge Ona, Hudson Potts, Reggie Lawson and Pedro Avila.
Lake Elsinore: Elliot Ashbeck's 15-strikeout game is the highest in all of the minor leagues this year ... MacKenzie Gore will attend the Cal League All-Star Game but not participate. He is tentatively scheduled to pitch next Friday at Inland Empire. His 1.21 ERA is almost two full runs ahead of the 2nd lowest pitcher in the league ... A week ago, Gabriel Arias had his best game as a pro with 2 HRs. He followed that with an 0-for-17 run with 10Ks ... Estuery Ruiz continues to put up numbers. He followed a .214 April with a .295 May and his hitting .306 in June. Baseball America's Kyle Glaser said he is certain Ruiz will switch to corner outfield.
Ft. Wayne: In his last six games Gabe Mosser has 2 walks and 42Ks in 32 innings ... Reliever Carlos Belen was converted from first base to pitcher last year. He's been in the system since 2013. In his first six weeks, Belen was awful. But he is unscored upon in his last 10 games ... The Midwest League All-Star Game features top prospects such as Wander Franco (Tampa), Nolan Gorman (St. Louis) and the Padres own Xavier Edwards and Ryan Weathers.
Tri City: The Dust Devils roster lists 34 players (35 max), with 19 pitchers and four catchers. One of the pitchers is Dominic DiSabatino (20th round, 2016) who has not pitched since 2016 ... Mexican LHP Omar Cruz (J2 2017) starts tonight. Cruz was impressive in his pro debut last year: 1-1 1.91 ERA in 10 starts between Arizona and Tri City.
Re: Down on the Farm
Domino effect of all the moves today ... Travis Radke to El Paso from Amarillo, and Evan Miller from Lake Elsinore to Amarillo. Also, Steven Wilson from Lake Elsinore to El Paso. Taking advantage of the Cal League All-Star break.Last edited by Carl Spackler; 06-17-2019, 06:11 PM.
Re: Down on the Farm
Originally posted by Stergios View PostWhat do you guts see happening with Owen Miller? Gets traded? Moves to 2nd?


text:
Internet Security and Freedom in Sweden
VyprVPN secures your Internet connection and encrypts all data you send and receive online. Use VyprVPN to protect your personal information from hackers or prevent Swedish ISPs from using deep packet inspection. Experience the Internet without geographic restrictions by connecting to one of our VPN server locations in the United States, Europe or Asia.
Secure Your Internet Connection in Sweden
The majority of the Swedish population uses the Internet on a daily basis. Unfortunately, heavy Internet usage makes Sweden attractive to hackers who steal information from users on Internet hotspots. VyprVPN offers 256-bit AES encryption to provide enhanced online security and protect your personal data.
Defeat Data Retention
VyprVPN encrypts your Internet connection and prevents your government from viewing your online activity, communications, location, IP address and traffic. Without a VPN, your network activities are subject to government surveillance and data collection performed by your ISP and other service providers.
Get Online Freedom Without Sacrificing Speed
VyprVPN provides security and freedom without slowing down Swedish Internet speeds. Switch between servers in the United States, Europe or Asia without limitations and benefit from over 200,000 IP addresses that ensure connections are always available.


text:
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – A judge has signed off on the charges against a man accused of killing a sheriff's deputy and wounding another while escaping from an Iowa jail.
The Pottawattamie County District judge on Friday also scheduled 24-year-old Wesley Correa-Carmenaty's arraignment hearing for June 19.
Authorities say Correa-Carmenaty had just been sentenced on May 1 to 45 years in prison in an unrelated murder case when he managed to grab one of the deputies' guns while being transferred to a Council Bluffs jail. He shot them both and used the jail van to escape.
He was recaptured after authorities say he carjacked a woman at gunpoint and forced her to drive to Omaha, Nebraska.
Correa-Carmenaty is charged with murder, attempted murder, escape, kidnapping and other counts.


text:
Contractor Makes Addition
SALISBURY – Gillis Gilkerson, Inc., General Contractors, Construction Management, in Salisbury, has announced the addition of Barbara J. Stack of Berlin to the firm for Business Development.
Stack's diverse 25 years of architectural and construction experience began as an architectural design apprentice for many years under G. Donald Bowen of Salisbury. 15 years of design experience, Stack decided to venture "over the line" and worked with residential builders and general contractors to gain the experience of construction project management.
"I am happy to return to downtown Salisbury. It feels like I have come home. My architectural design background has taught me to see new opportunities and my construction background has given me the appreciation of good scheduling, management and business practices," she said. "I am thrilled to work at Gillis Gilkerson because I am very familiar with the company, and the kind of people they are – they had built many of my projects while I was working in architectural design. It's great to see that so many people in this company have worked here for over 15 years. I am proud to be associated with this established and well respected commercial contractor."
Company Helps Cause
OCEAN CITY – On Friday, Oct. 10, the Coldwell Banker Retrievers hosted the 3rd Annual Wine Tasting Benefit to raise funds for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society.
The event generated approximately $750 and an additional $1,080 from the K-Coast surfboard raffle. Along with other fundraisers held throughout the year, The Retrievers have raised close to $4,000 with one final event to go. On Saturday, Oct. 25, they will take part in the 2-mile Light the Night Walk on the Boardwalk. Participants meet at the Inlet at 6pm and begin walking shortly after. The walk is followed by a dinner provided by Outback Steakhouse.
Agent Earns Designation
BERLIN – Ocean Pines sales agent Gail Dieman was recently awarded the Accredited Buyer Representation (ABR) designation. The ABR designation is the benchmark of excellence in buyer representation. This coveted designation is awarded to real estate practitioners by the Real Estate Buyer's Agent Council of the National Association of Realtors who meet the specified educational and practical experience criteria.
Dieman, a licensed agent in Maryland and Delaware with over 20 years of professional experience, also holds the designation of Certified e-PRO Internet Professional.
"Gail is one of those agents that doesn't wait for business to happen. She gets out there, works hard and gets things done," said Branch Vice President Pete Copenhaver. "I'm very pleased to have her on our team."
Annual Award Announced
BERLIN – Marlene Ott, a a Re/Max Premier Properties Realtor® and Associate Broker, has been awarded the 2008 Businesswoman of the Year Award by the Coastal Delmarva Chapter of the Women's Council of RealtorsÒ (WCR). This annual award recognizes a Realtor® member who fully exercises their potential as an entrepreneur and real estate industry leader and who shares their time, talent and expertise with others in the profession and in the community.
Ott has been a member of WCR for 27 years and was the founding president of the Coastal Delmarva chapter. She has been a Realtor® for 30 years and demonstrates her commitment to the real estate industry by continuing her education. She has obtained the designations of GRI, CRS, LTG, SRES and Broker.
"Marlene has been one of my mentors over the years. I will never forget her words of wisdom as I stepped into my leadership role and began speaking publicly. 'Stand tall, stand confident and never apologize for the way you are speaking. They will love you in spite of it all,'" said Terri Bradford, Immediate Past-President of the Chapter.
Company Featured In Magazine
OCEAN CITY – Fractured Prune the donut shoppe was selected to be featured as one of the top doughnut shops in America, as chosen by Saveur magazine, an upscale gourmet food magazine sold only in bookstores, Whole Food Grocers and specialty food stores. They will be featured in the October 2008 issue.
Event Earns High Marks
OCEAN CITY – The American Bus Association (ABA) has announced that Ocean City's Winterfest of Lights, set this year for Nov. 20- Jan. 1, has been designated one of the Top 100 Events in North America for 2009 by an elite tourism industry selection committee.
Winterfest has made the Top 100 ABA list in previous years, as well. Inclusion in the Top 100 list, published as a supplement to the September/October issue of Destinations magazine, indicates that Winterfest of Lights offers excellent entertainment value to both tour groups and individual travelers from around the world, said ABA.
"The attractiveness of Winterfest of Lights as a don't-miss entertainment value is only part of why its selection this year is such a distinction for Ocean City," said Peter J. Pantuso, ABA's president and CEO. "The real news here is that Winterfest has been recognized as a potential magnet for tourism dollars, at a time when reenergizing domestic tourism is so important to our spirit and our economy. The honor gives Ocean City an important boost in visibility among professional tour planners."
According to studies completed by researchers at the George Washington University and Dunham and Associates, one overnight visit by a motorcoach group can leave from $5,000 to more that $13,000 in a local destination's economy. Those dollars are spent on lodging, meals, admissions, fees, shopping, souvenirs, services and local taxes.
"Simply put," said Pantuso, "motorcoach groups spend more and stay longer. That's why Winterfest is truly a local economic asset. There is no better way to jump-start tourism than to attract motorcoach groups to a great event and convince them to extend their stay."
ABA's 2009 Top 100 Events Selection Committee selected Ocean City's Winterfest of Lights from among hundreds of U.S. and Canadian events nominated by state and provincial tourism offices and convention and visitors bureaus. Judges considered the event's broad appeal, its accessibility to motorcoaches and skill at handling large groups, and a variety of other relevant criteria.
Franchise Honored
BERLIN – Curves, the world's largest franchisor of fitness clubs, has announced that the Ocean City/Fenwick Island Curves club has earned the prestigious Franchisee of the Year award as a Shining Star club. This recognition is given to clubs that meet rigorous standards in their business practices, service quality, and adherence to the Curves methods.
"At the heart of the Shining Star program lies a desire to provide a consistent experience at every Curves location," said Corporate Communications Manager Becky Frusher. "Members expect to receive the same great quality and service no matter where they go, and the Shining Star program will enable us to provide that. To be recognized as a Franchisee of the Year is an honor of highest distinction for a franchise."
Ocean City/Fenwick Island Curves franchise owner Alana Stream said, "Becoming a Shining Star Club wasn't easy but it taught us the principles of an elite club and we implemented those standards which furthered our distinction and led to our franchise being honored with Franchisee of the Year. We were presented with a beautiful trophy at the annual Curves convention in Orlando, Fla. We are proud to share that recognition with our Ocean City/Fenwick Island members. Our members jumped through our doors Monday morning to hear the news. To say they were excited is an understatement especially when they saw our trophy and professional photograph taken with Diane and Gary Heavin, founders of Curves International."


text:
The actress told the Security Council that "hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of women, children and men have been raped in conflicts in our lifetimes."
Related stories:
- UN envoy: Babies are victims of rape in war
- War crimes court acquits Congolese warlord
- India: Man arrested for rape of 5-year-old
Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the UN high commissioner for refugees, said the Security Council has witnessed 67 years of wars and conflict since it was established "but the world has yet to take up warzone rape as a serious priority."
Angelina Jolie at UN Security Council (Photo: Reuters)
"You set the bar," she told the council. "If the ... council sets rape and sexual violence in conflict as a priority it will become one and progress will be made. If you do not, this horror will continue."
British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who presided over the meeting, stressed that "in conflicts in nearly every corner of the globe, rape is used systematically and ruthlessly, in the almost certain knowledge that there will be no consequences for the perpetrators."
Photo: AFP
Soon after Jolie spoke, the council adopted a legally-binding resolution demanding the complete and immediate cessation of all acts of sexual violence by all parties to armed conflict. It noted that sexual violence can constitute a crime against humanity and a contributing act to genocide, called for improved monitoring of sexual violence in conflict, and urged the UN and donors to assist survivors.
It was the broadest resolution adopted by the council on the sexual violence in conflict. Hague said Britain plans to follow-up by convening a global gathering during the annual General Assembly meeting of world leaders in September to keep up the pressure for action.
Hague said at a discussion later at the Ford Foundation that his prime motivation for pressing for global action against sexual violence was the 1990s war in Bosnia, partly because of an adviser but also because of Jolie's 2011 film, "In the Land of Blood and Honey," about former lovers who end up on the opposite sides of the conflict. He said he arranged the film's British premiere at the Foreign Office and has been campaigning with Jolie since then, including a visit to Congo in March, "to move the stigma and the shame from the victim to the perpetrator."
"The time has come for the world to take a strong and determined stand to make clear that the systematic use of rape as a weapon is not acceptable in the modern world and our objective is to change the entire global attitude to these issues," Hague said.
Getting the whole world talking about sexual violence in conflict and the need to punish perpetrators not victims "will shift attitudes maybe over a period of years, but we have begun," he said.
Jolie, who has traveled extensively in her role as goodwill ambassador, recalled several of the survivors she had met the mother of a five-year-old girl raped outside a police station in Goma in eastern Congo, and a Syrian woman she spoke to in Jordan last week who asked to hide her name and face "because she knew that if she spoke out about the crimes against her she would be attacked again, and possibly killed."
"Let us be clear what we are speaking of: Young girls raped and impregnated before their bodies are able to carry a child, causing fistula," Jolie said, referring to an injury caused by violent rapes that tear apart the flesh separating the bladder and rectum from the vagina, leaving the girls unable to control their bowels or bladder.
She continued: "Boys held at gunpoint and forced to sexually assault their mothers and sisters. Women raped with bottles, wood branches and knives to cause as much damage as possible. Toddlers and even babies dragged from their homes, and violated."
Zainab Hawa Bangura, the UN special envoy on sexual violence in conflict, told the council that two weeks ago she visited Bosnia where an estimated 50,000 women were victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence during the war, but only a handful of perpetrators have been prosecuted.
Later, at the Ford Foundation, she said that on an African trip with Hague, she visited the village of Mambasa in eastern Congo's Ituri district where 11 babies aged 6 to 12 months had been raped, 59 children aged 1 to 3 years old had been raped and 182 girls aged 5 to 15 years old had been raped.
"Who will rape a baby?," Bangura asked. "It means you want to wipe the community away. That's the only explanation you can have."
Jolie pleaded with the Security Council — and all countries — to implement the resolution and not let the issue drop.
"Meet your commitments, debate this issue in your parliaments, mobilize people in your countries, and build it into all your foreign policy efforts," she urged. "Together, you can turn the tide of global opinion, shatter impunity and finally put an end to this abhorrence."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon paid tribute to Jolie for being the voice of millions forced to flee their homes "and now for the many survivors of wartime rape whose bodies have been used as battlegrounds."
He called on all leaders to apprehend and prosecute perpetrators "and be part of a global coalition of champions determined to break this evil."
- Receive Ynetnews updates
directly to your desktop


text:
- Digi will be the first wireless gateway and router manufacturer to integrate Deutsche Telekom industrial-grade (MFF) SIM chips
- Intelligent M2M solutions and SIM cards for applications under extreme conditions
- Integration of Deutsche Telekom M2M SIM Management functionalities into iDigi® Device Cloud™
Digi International and Deutsche Telekom today announced a collaboration to enable easy access and control of remote devices used in machine-to-machine (M2M) applications throughout Europe. Digi will integrate Deutsche Telekom's industrial-grade SIM cards into its wireless gateways and routers and M2M SIM management functionalities into the iDigi Device Cloud. Digi International is a global M2M solutions provider headquartered in Minnesota, USA. The company provides wireless products, services and the iDigi Device Cloud to help organizations use device data to improve business efficiencies and increase revenue. Digi M2M solutions are used in numerous applications, such as connecting and monitoring remote assets like storage tanks, vehicle fleets, solar power arrays and other remote devices. Therefore, Digi's M2M solutions are often used in places where rough weather, movement, vibrations and extreme temperatures can interfere with the optimal functionality of integrated SIM cards. Deutsche Telekom offers special M2M Form Factor (MFF) SIM chips, designed for the purpose of reliable usage under extreme weather and temperature conditions. Digi will be the first gateway and router manufacturer to integrate Deutsche Telekom's M2M Form Factor SIM chips. Since the chips are soldered into place, the possibility of a plastic SIM becoming loose from vibration in transit or while deployed is eliminated. Extreme heat or cold temperatures will not damage the chip, and chips are safely protected against moisture. To further their collaboration, Deutsche Telekom M2M and Digi are integrating the SIM management functionalities of Deutsche Telekom's M2M Service Portal into the iDigi Device Cloud, allowing customers to manage their devices and SIM cards in one central location. "We believe that with Digi's unique wireless gateways and Deutsche Telekom's MFF SIMs specifically designed for industrial usage, customers get the most reliable service on the market," said Jürgen Hase, head of Deutsche Telekom's M2M Competence Center. "With the implementation of our M2M Service Portal into the iDigi Cloud there is also full access to all necessary registration and maintenance in one place, ensuring a convenient user experience." "Deutsche Telekom has an established presence in the M2M market in Europe, and we are pleased to collaborate to make it easier for customers to connect to and manage their remote assets," said Frederic Luu, vice president of Asia and EMEA sales and marketing, Digi International. "Integrating the Deutsche Telekom M2M Service portal into the iDigi Device Cloud is a foundational step that will open new opportunities throughout Europe." Solution architects are available from both organizations to help customers design end-to-end M2M solutions using Digi products and iDigi Device Cloud over the Deutsche Telekom carrier network. Digi gateways with Deutsche Telekom MFF SIM chips are available now. To learn more about Deutsche Telekom's M2M services, visit www.telekom.com/m2m. For more information about Digi International, visit www.digi.com. For more information about the iDigi Device Cloud, visit www.idigi.com.
About Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom is one of the world's leading integrated telecommunications companies with almost 130 million mobile customers, 33 million fixed-network lines and more than 17 million broadband lines (as of June 30, 2012). The Group provides fixed-network, mobile communications, Internet and IPTV products and services for consumers, and ICT solutions for business and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in around 50 countries and has over 233,000 employees worldwide. The Group generated revenue of EUR 58.7 billion in the 2011 financial year - over half of it outside Germany (as of December 31, 2011). About Digi International Digi International is the M2M solutions expert, combining products and services as end-to-end solutions to drive business efficiencies. Digi provides the industry's broadest range of wireless products, a cloud computing platform tailored for devices and development services to help customers get to market fast with wireless devices and applications. Digi's entire solution set is tailored to allow any device to communicate with any application, anywhere in the world. For more information visit Digi's website at www.digi.com.


text:
Chances are your animal's doctor might never tell you, but you'd want to know: your veterinarian is one of a very small group of specialists, known as Diplomates, who earned the Diplomate title from the ABVP. In fact, your veterinarian is one of 900 ABVP Diplomates in the United States and abroad.
What does that mean? It means your veterinarian made a choice to undergo a long and difficult process of additional studies and examination to become a board certified specialist recognized by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). This process takes a minimum of three years to complete and the motivation behind it is, very simply, excellence.
ABVP Diplomates have proven knowledge and expertise above and beyond what is required to practice veterinary medicine. Beyond that, they have earned the privilege to specialize in the treatment of one or more categories of animals.
How does this affect you? You can rest easy knowing your animals are receiving expert treatment because your veterinarian feels a strong commitment to providing the best possible care.


text:
Keyword "cosmos"
43 sites have this keyword listed in their metadata, here's one you may hate:
The bowling katamari was a tad too small to pick up the pins, so the wise King of all Cosmos takes El Duderino for a roll. Throwin' rocks tonight! Walter was going to make an appearance, but you know, size limits...woah. Did I just use a fad for once?
Other sites with this keyword...


text:
Mauritius, Morocco, Costa Rica and Peru have become members of the Development Centre. Their engagement confirms the Centre's role as a unique forum where OECD and emerging economies come together to share their experience of economic and social development. The Development Centre's Governing Board consists of 38 countries, of which 23 are OECD members, plus the European Commission.
Costa Rica
President Oscar Arias, in his letter to the OECD SG accepting the invitation, said that "For a small open economy like Costa Rica, becoming a full participant in the OECD Development Centre is an extraordinary honour. It is also a tremendous opportunity to complement national policies aimed at strengthening our growth capacity and reaching significant levels of social and economic development. Costa Rica looks forward to sharing its own experiences and information with other participants, and leaning from these exchanges as well."
Mauritius' Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Dr. Rama Sithanen, thanked the SG "for setting the stage for Mauritius to partner with the OECD Development Centre and its membership". He reiterated Mauritius' commitment "to play our role as an international citizen and to contribute to the extent we can to make the work of the Centre useful to the international community".
Peru's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. José Antonio García Belaúnde, told the SG that "Peru looks forward to sharing experience and information with other participants and to benefiting from such exchanges, which I am sure will provide the opportunity to find innovative solutions to the global challenges of development and poverty alleviation in my country."
Present at the 30 March meeting of the Centre's Governing Board, during which he led a discussion of Morocco's response to the global economic crisis, Mr. Nizar Baraka (Minister for Economic and General Affairs in the Office of the Prime Minister), expressed on behalf of the Government of Morocco his particular pleasure at the Morocco's membership. This membership will, he said, provide Morocco with a valuable opportunity to learn from the experiences of the other members and to participate in discussions on how to advance global development. The work of the Moroccan government to advance reforms would be substantially strengthened as result.
Please contact John Simpson for further information.
Related Documents


text:
Feedback: What did you think of this show?:
Guest: Open Lines with Dr. David Livingston. Topics: NewSpace 2012 & Business Plan Competition, Title 9 & STEM, & lots more. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. Transcripts of Space Show programs are not permitted without prior written consent from The Space Show (even if for personal use) & are a violation of the Space Show copyright. During our first 70 minute segment of this two hour discussion, we started out with a call to Paul Graham who is the Project Manager for OpenLuna.org ( www.openluna.org). Paul explained their program for putting a person on the Moon. If this interests you, Paul can be contacted through their website. I then undertook a review of the recently concluded NewSpace 2012 Conference and Business Plan Competition. It was an excellent conference and competition and I urge you to see the streaming video archives of the conference sessions & the business plan competition/presentations. You can also find reviews of the sessions on most of the popular space blogs as many of the well known bloggers were at the conference. Again, make sure you see the business plan presentations as I will be bringing several of these presenters on the show in the coming weeks. Also, see the early Saturday morning presentations with Rick Tumlinson and Bob Werb, along with many of the panels with superstars as panel members. Visit www.spacevidcast.com/category/video/conferences-video/newspace-conferenc... to see all of the conference sessions & programs. Tim was next up with a call from Huntsville to talk about the government applying Title 9 to STEM education. We talked about what gender quotas might mean for various STEM programs at schools and universities. For more information, do a Google search for Title 9 & STEM education. Our friend Charles Pooley called in regarding the NASA Nanosat Challenge program. He continued to wonder why there seemed to be so little activity and support for the program. In our second segment, Jerry from Florida was our first caller. He did watch many of the live streaming sessions and thought this year's NewSpace Conference 2012 turned a corner for quality. Elliott in Michigan called in to talk about our Mars program, its future, and the ideas put forth by recent guest Brent Sherwood from last week who suggested that the Mars HSF program was a damaging distraction for our space program. If you have not yet listened to this discussion or read his paper which is on The Space Show blog, please do so. As the program was ending, we talked about the upcoming MSL Curiosity landing for Sunday, August 5 at 10:30 PM PDT. I noted our guest for my segment this coming Wednesday evening, August 1 on the John Batchelor Show as she is part of the JPL EDL team for MSL Curiosity. Our discussion airs live at 6:30 PM PDT, 9:30 PM EDT. You can hear it streamed live at www.wabcradio.com/article.asp?id=531472. If you have comments/questions, please post them on The Space Show blog. If you want to send a note to any of the callers, do so through me and I will forward it on your behalf.


text:
Originally published Monday, 27 February 2012.
When I rewind my life and remember all the milestones that have rooted me in my faith, there is one experience that stands out as a linchpin in my journey. It was during this experience that God brought to life for me, firsthand, one of the Bible's greatest lessons: that of his gentle and unwavering loyalty.
I had been chaperoning a youth group trip to Tennessee and the band had just taken the stage. The music was loud and I sang along wholeheartedly. Until the lyrics of the song, which I knew by heart, reached this point: "Where you lead me, I will follow.... Even if I walk alone, Lord, this I choose to do." Suddenly, I stopped tapping my foot to the beat as the weight of those words, "Even if I walk alone," hit me full force for the first time. They make for a great song, but when it comes to real life, those are hard words to swallow.
I started praying vehemently, God, I love you, but please don't make me go anywhere by myself. Please don't make me have to do it alone. Please don't...
Six months later, I found myself in the very spot I'd prayed against: Making a decision whether to move to a new city where I knew virtually no one and leave behind the city where I felt I had finally come into my own and had forged a rich fabric of kindred friendships. I stood at the cusp, cardboard boxes on one side, comfort and predictability on the other. Which would it be?
Retracing the circumstances that led up to this decision over that span of six months, there was no doubt that God was at work, opening doors in my life and future. But in spite of that awareness, questions still loomed: What if I don't like my job? Who will I hang out with? What if I don't make any friends? Where will I go to church? How is this all going to work? What if this is a mistake? Sure, God had opened a bunch of doors already, but what about the next string of doors?
The decision, then, of whether or not to move, rested on one simple notion: Could I trust God and where He was calling me? Did I truly believe in His loyalty?
A couple months ago, I was reading back through Genesis 1 and noted verse 29 with new eyes. As God introduced Adam to the Garden of Eden, "God said, 'Look, I have given you all the plants that have grain for seeds and all the trees whose fruits have seeds in them. They will be food for you" (Genesis 1:29). As I read that, I realized the significance of the fact that, even before He created the first man (and later, woman), God had already prepared a ripe environment for His beloved creations. They didn't have to ask for food or even know a world without provision—it was ready for them as soon as they stepped onto the scene. That was how God worked out of love then, and God was ever so ready to prove to me that that's how He continues to work today, in spite of my misgivings and dragging heels.
Through much wrestling, godly counsel, and prayer, I decided to move. I recognized that by not moving, I would be turning my back on where God was calling me to go, and I couldn't bear that. Even though I had no idea how this would all work out, I decided I had to take that chance and trust Him. With my car packed full of cardboard boxes, I made the 8-hour drive to my new home.
I remember those first days in that new town, when my boxes were only freshly unpacked and I was just learning my way around. I came across Ecclesiastes 11:4, "Those who wait for perfect weather will never plant seeds; those who look at every cloud will never harvest crops." In a moment of clarity, I saw that this had threatened to be me and my life. I had almost let imperfect circumstances and fears about the future keep me from acting, keep me from sowing, keep me from having to depend on God for the harvest when I couldn't see how this could possibly be fruitful. For those first few weeks, I clung to this verse, whispering to myself over and over again, "Keep sowing. Keep trusting. Persevere."
And as He did for those first humans, God did for me. As He went before them and so many others throughout the biblical narrative, He did for me. As with them, before I even knew what was happening or what to expect, He was at work, bringing the Word to life for me like never before.
He quickly began showing me the frivolity of most of my fears. I found an inspiring church to call home, outlets for volunteering and meeting new people, and things to do on the weekend. Before I knew it, friendships blossomed all around me—a lovely-hearted roommate, friends at work and weekly runs to Starbucks, inspiring girlfriends through church, and a vibrant Bible study. It was obvious that my greatest fears and arguments against going had been for nothing.
Even now, two years after I first wrestled though this decision, God continues to teach me the depths of His loyalty. I carry the reminders and the fruits of that experience with me today, for the times when those pesky questions persist: Can I really trust Him to deliver me this time? How is this going to work? In those inevitable moments, I look back on this milestone and remember to trust that God is at work, prepping the landscape of my future and waiting for me to step forward in faith and sow. I remember the unwavering loyalty He has shown me, firsthand.
Carmen writes the blog, Life Blessons, which provides an intimate look into her life as a twentysomething woman as she details her experiences learning how to live out her faith, enjoy the simple things in life and be the woman God created to her to be. Along the way, she shares the blessings and lessons that are a part of this journey, the things she likes to call her "blessons."
Feel free to read more at her blog, Life Blessons.
Related Posts from Life Blessons
Decision-Making: Out of Fear or Faith?
Are your prayers big enough?: The 'whys' and 'hows' of Praying Big
{ photo source }


text:
Graham: 'No confirmation without information'
Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Sunday he'll block President Barack Obama's nominees for Defense secretary and CIA director if the White House isn't more forthcoming about its response to the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
"No confirmation without information," the South Carolina Republican said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
Graham said he wants to know if Obama himself phoned his Libyan counterparts during the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi and what the results of such a call might have been. Without cooperation, Graham said he'll try to put a hold on Chuck Hagel, the Defense nominee, and John Brennan for CIA.
"I don't think we should allow Brennan to go forward to the CIA directorship, Hagel to be confirmed for secretary of Defense, until the White House gives us an accounting," Graham said. "Did the president ever pick up the phone and call anyone in the Libyan government to help these folks?"
On the same program, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said he expects Hagel and Brennan to receive up-or-down votes in the Senate.
Graham said Obama could have saved the lives of some of the four Americans who died during the Benghazi attacks had he personally intervened during the crisis.
"Did the president at any time during this eight-hour attack, pick up the phone and call anybody in Libya to get help for these folks?" Graham asked. "Secretary [Hillary] Clinton said she was screaming on the phone at Libyan officials. There's no voice in the world like that of the president of the United States. And I do believe if he had picked up the phone and called the Libyan government, these folks could have gotten out of the airport, to the annex and the last two guys may very well be alive. And if he did call the Libyan officials and they sort of blew him off, that would effect whether or not I would give foreign aid in the future to Libya. But if he failed to call on behalf of those people under siege, then I think that's a massive failure of leadership by our commander in chief."


text:
West Virginia second letter – Amendment to Accountability Plan – NCLB Policy Letters to States
March 4, 2004
Honorable David Stewart
State Superintendent of Schools
West Virginia Department of Education
Building 6, 1900 Kanawha Blvd. E
Charleston, WV 25305-0330
Dear Superintendent Stewart:
I am writing to follow up on your letter of January 22nd in which you submitted several amendments to the West Virginia accountability plan.
Based on previous correspondence, West Virginia indicated in this letter that it would identify schools for improvement on the basis of not making AYP in the same subject for two consecutive years. Please update your accountability plan with this amendment and submit it to your state contact (Grace Ross) so that the most up-to-date plan is available and on the Department's website.
West Virginia also requested two additional amendments. First, West Virginia has indicated that it wishes to offer supplemental educational services to "non-proficient disadvantaged students" in those schools first identified for improvement instead of offering choice to all students in the school. We cannot approve this change. The statute clearly indicates that choice must be offered to all students in schools when first identified for improvement.
The recently updated Public School Choice non-regulatory guidance provides information about how a local educational agency (LEA) could offer both choice and supplemental educational services to students enrolled schools in its first year of school improvement (http://www.ed.govhttps://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/schoolchoiceguid.doc). An LEA may give students enrolled in schools in their first year of improvement the opportunity to obtain supplemental educational services, so long as they also offer those students the opportunity to change schools. However, because the law requires the provision of choice (but not supplemental educational services) to these students, all students who want to change schools must be able to do so, and their transportation needs must be met (subject to the 20 percent limit) before any of these students are given supplemental educational services. LEAs that offer parents of those students the option of having their child change schools or receive supplemental educational services must make it clear to the parents that, depending on the demand for choice (and the cost of transporting students to their new schools), supplemental services might or might not be provided.
In addition, if an LEA has both schools in their first year of improvement and schools in their second year of improvement or undergoing corrective action or restructuring, it must give priority for supplemental educational services to students enrolled in the schools in their second year of improvement or in corrective action or restructuring (the students who, under the statute, are entitled to be given the opportunity to receive those services).
Second, West Virginia has indicated it plans to develop an equivalent form of the WESTEST that is aligned to grade level standards for students with cognitive impairments. My staff initiated further conversations with your staff on this matter as there are several issues to consider with such an approach. This approach would be in alignment with the statute and regulations if the "equivalent" assessment is aligned to grade level achievement standards and content standards. In such an instance, there would be no limit on the number of proficient scores that could be included in AYP assessments. We want to work with West Virginia on this approach to ensure that these efforts are successful.
Thank you for your continuing efforts at improving student achievement. I look forward to working with you to implement these accountability provisions and support you in your efforts to ensure that all students reach the grade level standards you have set for them.
Raymond Simon
Assistant Secretary
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education


text:
I'm tasked with keeping a postgres table in sync with a non-postgres table. The non-postgres table has more than 1600 columns. When I try to create the table in postgres, I get:
ERROR: tables can have at most 1600 columns
I want to know if it is possible to raise the maximum number of columns. Is there a configuration variable I can change? Do I have to compile postgres with special options? Is there a good reason why the maximum number of columns is 1600 instead of 1700?
I have searched for this answer on Google and all answers are essentially: "you should never have a table with 1600 columns".


text:
Quick Links
Foreclosure/Mediation Program
The Foreclosure Mediation Program has changed as a result of P.A. 09-209,
passed by the Connecticut legislature during its 2009 session.
In order to qualify for this program, the borrower/homeowner must be an
owner-occupant of a
one, two, three or four family residential property. The property
must be the homeowner's primary residence and located in Connecticut. The
lender must serve a
Notice to Homeowner, JD-CV-94,
Foreclosure Mediation Certificate, JD-CV-108
and Appearance,
JD-CL-12 form to the homeowner when it commences the foreclosure action.
If the
homeowner qualifies and files an Appearance, the homeowner and lender will
meet with a mediator employed by the Judicial Branch to try to reach an
The mediation process will address all issues of
foreclosure, including, but not limited to, reinstatement of the mortgage,
assignment of law days, assignment of sale date, restructuring of the
mortgage debt and foreclosure by decree of sale. The mediators will be
trained in all relevant aspects of the law, have knowledge of
community-based resources and mortgage assistance programs and refer
homeowners to these programs when appropriate.
For additional information on the foreclosure mediation program, please
contact Nancy McGann, Superior Court Operations, Court Operations Unit at
(860) 263-2734 ext. 3067 or email her at email@example.com.
here to obtain the
Notice to Homeowner, JD-CV-94,
Foreclosure Mediation Certificate, JD-CV-108 and
JD-CL-12 form that will be required to be served with foreclosure actions to
which the act applies.
Foreclosure/Mediation Program FAQs
Attorneys |
Case Look-up |
Courts |
Directories |
Educational Resources |
E-Services |
Español |
FAQ's |
Juror Information |
Media |
Opinions |
Opportunities |
Self-Help |
Common Legal Words | Contact Us |
Site Map | Website
Polices and Disclaimers
Copyright © 2016,
State of Connecticut Judicial Branch


text:
Meeting Notes 2009 06 23
Jump to navigation Jump to search
- Moderator: Matt
Agenda Items[edit]
- What Noisebridge is about.
- Treasurer's report
- New Director needed
Project Updates[edit]
What's Going On at Noisebridge[edit]
One short sentence about each of the following:
- PyClass (Monday 6:30PM, 83c)
- Circuit Hacking Mondays (8PM, 83c) postponed for 2 weeks
- Haschool (Tuesday 6:00PM, 83c)
- Machine Learning Wednesdays (8PM, 83c)
- Science/Engineering Huddle (8PM Fridays, 83c) come early for one-on-one
- Shop Class - Most Fridays @ 8pm, check out the wiki page for details.
- Natural Language Corners
- German Thursdays 7PM 83c, beginners earlier, advanced come later.
- French Wednesday
- Sensebridge Cyborg Group (Sundays)
- OpenEEG Sunday 3pm - 5pm
- DC3 Digital Forensics Challenge currently organized through web
- Go on Sunday 3pm
- Locks Sunday 3pm
- Adobe Lightroom Class Thursday 8pm
- ToorCamp is next week, July 2nd though the 5th - rural Washington; many NB'ers and friends attending, plz to be joining!
Consensus Items[edit]
Membership Binder[edit]
- Reading Names
- New member approvals
Discussion topics[edit]
- Shall we host an Arse Elektronika workshop? See Johannes's request here (I, Rachel, may not be able to be there tonight but please discuss this to see if we can consense on it next week)
- New space - When should we grow, does the wiki list all of our requirements/wishes, should we collect money prior to signing a lease, etc
- Add links to every agenda item up.
- Volunteers to lead the next meeting?


text:
Hardware hackers building their own gadgets may want to take a look at a new offering from Microsoft that promises to save time in prototyping new devices: a software development platform for home-built gadgets, called .Net Gadgeteer.
".Net Gadgeteer utilizes the .Net Micro Framework to make writing code for your device as easy as writing a desktop, Web or Windows Phone application," Microsoft's newly launched Web site for the software explained.
Microsoft envisions the initial audience for .Net Gadgeteer to be educators, hobbyists and inventors. Hardware designers could also use the tool to rapidly build prototypes as well.
Gadgeteer provides a platform for writing software to control simple home-built electronic devices, made from Gadgeteer-compatible components.
Starting with a mainboard with an embedded processor, developers can assemble a device by adding sensors, displays, cameras, lights, switches, motor controllers and other components. Gadgeteer components will all have the same type of connector, eliminating the need for the soldering.
Developers can then write their code to run their creations in Visual Studio, using C# and the Gadgeteer plug-in software. Through Visual Studio's Intellisense feature, Gadgeteer adds a set of prompts that can help developers complete their code. The resulting control program can then be downloaded to the device by way of a USB connection to the mainboard.
CodePlex hosts the Gadgeteer source and binary code, as well as documentation specifying the hardware interfaces between the mainboard and the components.
Microsoft Research's Sensors and Devices Group developed Gadgeteer. Thus far Microsoft researchers have already built several components using the platform, such as a digital camera and a digital flipbook.
GHI Electronics offers a starter kit of electronic components that is compatible with Gadgeteer, which costs about US$250. Microsoft expects other electronic manufacturers to start vending Gadgeteer compatible components as well.
Microsoft has been a big proponent of low cost networked embedded devices, especially for the enterprise. ""The real value around the devices is their ability to capture the data, analyze that information and drive business efficiencies," said Microsoft Windows Embedded General Manager Kevin Dallas earlier this year.
Microsoft faces some competition in providing software for the home build-it-yourself gadget market however. Arduino has long offered an open source electronics prototyping platform.
Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is email@example.com


text:
4 Wheels and 4 Center Caps. This Listing is for FOUR (4) Brand New wheels only. Images used are for reference only and they may be generic. Actual product may vary from those pictured below.
So we can contact you about any concerns or fitment questions. Our wheel specialists are willing to help you. The order is dispatched within 48 hours of ordering. After this, enter your location in the given field. Given below is a map showing the approximate time it takes to deliver the package from the warehouse to your doorstep using UPS Ground.
Items must be in new condition and in original packing. Wheels that have been mounted. If you wish to return your order, we will need to be notified ASAP , return within 30 days of receiving your order. Its just one of those days, you've been waiting for a few days, you finally get your package and what do you see, a bend, a scuff.
This item is in the category "eBay Motors\Parts & Accessories\Car & Truck Parts & Accessories\Wheels, Tires & Parts\Wheels". The seller is "aspecwheel" and is located in this country: US. This item can be shipped worldwide.