text:
Table of Contents
WhatsApp LLC ("WhatsApp") has certified to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework with the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection and processing of personal data from our business partners in the European Union and Switzerland ("Partners") in connection with the products and services described in the Scope section below and in our certification, although WhatsApp does not rely on the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework for transfers of personal data in light of the judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU in Case C-311/18. To learn more about the Privacy Shield program please visit www.privacyshield.gov.
WhatsApp adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles for the following areas of our business (collectively the "Partner Services"):
Within the scope of our authorization to do so, and in accordance with our commitments under Privacy Shield, WhatsApp will work with its Partners to provide individuals access to personal data about them that WhatsApp holds on behalf of its Partners. WhatsApp will also take reasonable steps to enable individuals, either directly or in connection with the Partners, to correct, amend, or delete personal data that is demonstrated to be inaccurate.
WhatsApp may transfer data within the Meta Companies and to third parties, including service providers and other partners. In accordance with the Privacy Shield Principles, WhatsApp is liable for any processing of personal data by such third parties that is inconsistent with the Privacy Shield Principles unless WhatsApp was not responsible for the event giving rise to any alleged damage.
Personal data that is transferred to us by our Partners may be subject to disclosure pursuant to legal requests or other judicial and government process, such as subpoenas, warrants, or orders. For more information, review the "Law and Protection" section of the WhatsApp Privacy Policy.
WhatsApp's compliance with the Privacy Shield Principles is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
Please contact us with any questions or concerns relating to our Privacy Shield certification. You have the option to resolve any applicable disputes you have with us in connection with our certification through TRUSTe, an alternative dispute resolution provider based in the United States. You can contact TRUSTe through their website. In certain circumstances, the Privacy Shield Framework provides the right to invoke binding arbitration to resolve complaints not resolved by other means, as described in Annex I to the Privacy Shield Principles. Additionally, as part of the Privacy Shield Framework, the U.S. State Department Senior Coordinator serves as the Ombudsperson to facilitate the processing of requests relating to national security access to data transmitted from the EU or Switzerland to the U.S.
For more information about WhatsApp's privacy practices please review our Privacy Policy.


text:
OCEAN CITY – One of Ocean City's finest recently found out
he had become a nominee in a contest organized by one of the United States'
most well-known television programs.
It was a couple weeks ago when 14-year Ocean City Police
Department Lieutenant Mark Pacini, a supervisor in the Criminal Investigation
Division and 1998 Officer of the Year winner, was approached by a fellow
officer and told he had been nominated for a competition sponsored by America's
Most Wanted and Sprint Nextel that looks to reward first-responders all over
the country.
The contest runs eight weeks and each week a finalist is
chosen from among a group of firefighters, law enforcement officers, EMTs, and
other types of first responders that have been voted on by the public. At the
end of the eight weeks, the eight finalists chosen will then be voted on once
more to determine the nation's All-Star first responder for 2007.
According to OCPD's Community Services Coordinator Barry
Neeb, the nomination was an anonymous one that he believed came from a young
man Pacini had helped numerous times over the years of working on the
Boardwalk. Pacini's profile on the contest website said his nominator chose him
because, "Lt. Pacini has always treated individuals
with respect and acts as a role model to young members of the community."
A press release from the OCPD said Pacini's supervisor,
Captain Robert Bokinsky, calls Pacini, "Someone you never have to motivate. He
shows up motivated every day, and he motivates those around him. He has the
zeal of a rookie. He's great to work with."
Neeb went on to call Pacini a "modest man" and said a
nomination in a nationwide contest such as this is really special.
"It's a compliment because of the caliber of people we
have doing this job is extraordinary," he said. "If you look at what they do
and provide to the community it's impressive."
As for the competition, Neeb said he thinks it's a great
way to recognize first responders who do their jobs solely to make a
"They don't do it for the recognition, for people to jump
up and down and say, 'You're wonderful,'" he said. "The fact that somebody
thinks enough of this recognition speaks highly of their character."
A total of five finalists have already been chosen and
those who wish to vote for Pacini can do so until April 15 on the America's
Most Wanted website. As for support for a fellow officer coming from in-house,
Neeb said he has voted everyday, he added with a laugh, and most in the
department have done so as well.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Ese Oruru Cries as She Recounts Her Kidnap & Ordeal in 1st Full Interview – "I don't know how I feel, but I just look calm"
Ese Oruru has granted her first full interview after her ordeal where she was kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam, and reportedly raped resulting in a pregnancy, now 5 months along. She says she was never officially married – she did not have a ceremony.
Speaking with Daily Sun newspaper at a private residence in Abuja, the 14 year old girl, "who now has a deep Hausa accent and speaks Hausa very fluently", said she was forced to speak Hausa, as everybody around her could speak only the language.
Sun reports that during the interview, "she appeared a little unstable. She said she missed her mother's cooking, even as she expressed fear that her parents might decide to punish her for leaving home."
Here's an excerpt from their talk with the teen – she talks about her time at the Emir of Kano's palace, and refutes the claim that her captor – alleged to be a Yunusa AKA Yellow, was her boyfriend who she ran away with.
How did you meet Yinusa?
We sell food in Bayelsa; so they, Yellow and his other people, used to come and buy food from us.
People say he is your boyfriend. Is this true?
No, he is not my boyfriend. Like I told you, we sell food in Bayelsa, and so, he used to come and buy food from us. He is not the only one; they are many and I used to play with all of them like my own brothers because they buy food from us. I sell food to them just like that.
Can you remember the day he took you from Bayelsa to Kano? How did it happen?
I don't know.
Did he tell you that you were traveling to Kano?
No. We didn't go with his Keke (tricycle). His keke, is at home.
Did he come to the house to carry you?
So, how did you travel to Kano?
I just followed him. I don't know how I followed him.
People believe that you decided to run away with him because you love him and want to marry him at all cost.
I know that we used to play with all of them, our customers that come to buy food from our shop. There is nobody that is different. I sell food to all of them and I laugh with all of them.
So, you just started staying with him like that?
We travelled to Kura the next day with one man like that. He is the chief of the town. When we got there, they took me to one place and there they gave me hijab; they put it on me. And after that, they took me to one house in Kura. And from there on Monday, in the morning, we went back to the Emir's Palace in Kano; then in the afternoon, we travelled back to Kura, to stay in the house.
What did you all go to do at the Emir's Palace?
At the Emir's Palace, they were asking him questions. They did not talk to me. They did not ask me anything, but they were asking him. Then they were speaking in Hausa language and I did not understand the language very well that time; so I didn't understand what they were saying.
Was it at the Emir's Palace that you first saw your mother?
Yes. I saw her, but I was not able to talk to her. I was just looking at her and she was crying. I just looked at her. I did not know her and I did not talk to her.
Did you recognise her as your mother?
I don't know. I looked at her and she was crying.
But when you saw her on Tuesday at the Police Force Headquarters in Abuja, did you recognise her as your mother?
While you were away in Kano, they said you got married. Is this true?
Was there any marriage ceremony?
No, I did not get married to anybody.
But did they convert you to a Muslim?
How did that happen?
They took me to one place. Before they took me from the house to Kura, they put me in hijab, then we went to Kura. When we got there, they went to one place, and one old man came there and he would say something and they would say I should repeat. Then I would repeat. If the man said something again, they would say I should repeat and I would repeat just like that.
So, that was how you got converted?
There is also this rumour that it was one old man that actually married you and not Inuwa. Is this true?
I did not get married to anybody.
Did they give you any medicine?
Medicine? I don't know. But if they put it in water or food… They used to give me something, but I don't know if it is water they used to prepare it. But if I am not well, they would buy medicine for me and I would take. But it was not those types of native medicine. It was from the pharmacy.
Are you happy reuniting with your family?
Yes, I am happy to go back to my family.
How do you feel now?
I don't know how I feel, but I just look calm. I don't know what to do.
Do you regret what has happened to you?
I don't know, but I have caused my mother a lot of trouble and put her into problem.
If you see Yinusa now, what would you tell him?
I tell you I'm confused. I don't know what to do (then she started crying).
What were you doing when you were in Kano?
You mean you just stayed in the house from morning till night?
Yes. I did not do anything.
I can see that you now speak Hausa language very well.
Yes. I can speak Hausa very, very well.
Were you speaking Hausa before you left for Kano?
So, how did you come about it? Did they teach you?
No. It is because the people there speak only Hausa. They don't understand English. And when they spoke, I didn't understand; so I tried and struggled so I could understand what they were saying and communicate with them. That was how I learnt the language.
They call you Aisha. Didn't you tell them that's not your name?
I answered it like that.
What's your real name?
How would you relate with your other siblings when you get back home?
I don't even know. I have a feeling that they would do something to me for this thing that has happened.
Like what?
I don't know if my mother will beat me when we get home for what has happened because she may think that I know everything that happened to me.
I don't think she would do that, considering all the efforts she put to get you back home.
(Then the mother assured her that she would do no such thing, saying she was filled with gladness for seeing her alive).
What is your favourite subject in school?
And what do you hope to become in future?
I hope to go back to school and become a nurse in the future.
Your brother said you are a good Christian and member of the Scripture Union in your school and that you used to preach to people. Is this true?
(Smiles) Yes. Yes, I am in the SU, but they took it to the senior students and the senior students started misbehaving. So, we in the junior class took our own to a different level to sanitise the whole thing. We hold our fellowship in our class and go out for evangelism.
What is your advice to young girls like you out there, considering what you have gone through?
They should be careful.
They should be careful with the people they play with or talk with, because it's not everybody that is good.
What is your appeal to your parents since you are afraid they are going to beat you?
I don't know what to do. I am confused. I don't know what really happened to me and I don't even know where I am. But I know that she is my mother.
What did you miss most while in Kano?
I missed my mother's cooking. She used to cook sweet food for me; so I missed good food.
Does it mean you were not eating good food?
Yes, I was only eating rice and bread.
What would you want your mother to cook for you when you get home?
Banga soup and starch.
Source: Daily Sun


text:
WASHINGTON (The Blaze/AP) -- House Democrats said Wednesday that President Barack Obama should invoke a little-known constitutional provision to prevent the nation from going into default if Congress fails to come up with a plan to raise the debt ceiling.
Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, a member of the Democratic leadership, said he told fellow Democrats that Obama should both veto any House GOP plan for a short-term extension of the debt ceiling and invoke the 14th amendment, which says that the validity of the nation's public debt "shall not be questioned."
The White House has rejected resorting to this tactic to keep the nation from defaulting, questioning its legality.
Just yesterday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that 14th Amendment option was "not available:"
Still, Rep. John Larson of Connecticut, who chairs the Democratic caucus, said "we're getting down to decision time" and "we have to have a failsafe mechanism and we believe that failsafe mechanism is the 14th Amendment and the president of the United States."
Larson said Clyburn's proposal on the 14th Amendment was met with applause by other Democrats at their meeting.
On Monday, The Blaze posted a video of Sen. Bernie Sanders calling on Obama to do the same thing:
Senator Barbara Boxer echoed that sentiment to MSNBC:
The Democratic leaders said the vast majority in their party still support a plan for raising the debt ceiling and cutting spending put forth by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. But they said the inability of the government to pay its debts could drive up interest rates and affect millions of Americans forced to pay higher mortgages and higher interest on student loans.
Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, the assistant caucus chair, said Democrats are telling Obama, "Mr. President, Republicans through their failure have given you license to do whatever it takes to not let the American family go down into that abyss with House Republicans."
The post-Civil War 14th Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States contains a provision that "the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."
Some legal scholars have said the president can invoke that clause to keep the nation from defaulting on the debt, although there is no legal precedent for such an action.


text:
Gov. Newsom to campaign in Iowa for Kamala Harris
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - California Gov. Gavin Newsom will travel to Iowa to campaign for Sen. Kamala Harris as she tries to rebound amid a critical stretch in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Newsom will visit the first voting state Dec. 14-15 on behalf of Harris, his home-state senator and longtime friend and political ally. His visit will come as Harris tries to claw back from single digits in the polls and defy the narrative that her campaign is collapsing ahead of the Feb. 3 caucuses.
"The governor of California is a big deal, and he'll get a lot of attention," said Bill Carrick, a California political strategist who led Richard Gephardt's unsuccessful Democratic presidential campaign in 1988. "As we get moving into the end of the year here, every campaign needs people out there, multiple people out there that can attract some attention and some crowds."
Harris has staked her campaign on a strong showing in Iowa and recently spent six days over the Thanksgiving holiday campaigning in the state. But she's still stuck in single digits in most polls, far from the top of the pack that includes former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
In recent weeks her campaign has been beset by a series of negative stories in the media. The New York Times obtained a scathing resignation letter from a staff member who left in November and now works for Michael Bloomberg's presidential campaign.
Newsom's visit is an example of the public support that Harris still commands from allies in her home state, where her term as senator continues through 2022.
Both Newsom and Harris started their political careers in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was elected mayor of the famously liberal city in 2003, the year she won the race for district attorney.
Both were considered ambitious politicians with statewide appeal, but they avoided an electoral collision when Harris opted to run for U.S. Senate in 2016 rather than challenge Newsom two years later for the governorship.
"They're political siblings, and they understand each other far better than most because of the similarities of their trajectories," said Dan Newman, a political adviser to Newsom and former adviser to Harris. "He's also seen her counted out time and again."
Newsom, who was not made available for an interview Monday, will campaign in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Coralville on Dec. 14 and 15. He'll speak to volunteers before door knocking, attend a house party and hold conversations on climate change and LGBTQ rights.
Harris often touts her support for LGBTQ rights on the trail by talking about how she married gay couples in San Francisco in 2004. Newsom famously chose to defy federal law that year by allowing gay couples in the city to marry. It was a move that vaulted him into the national spotlight and the list of someday presidential contenders.
Neither Carrick nor Newman said he thinks Newsom's trip to Iowa is about furthering his own political ambitions.
But his visit will offer a test of how a governor of one of the nation's most liberal states plays in the Midwest. Newsom, for his part, has said he's focused on his job as governor.
But he's rapidly elevated his national profile during his first year in office as he's sparred repeatedly with Republican President Donald Trump on topics including climate change and immigration policy.
In an October interview with The Associated Press, Newsom said Harris entered the race at a disadvantage to candidates such as Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, who were better known on the national stage.
"The fact she's still a top-tier candidate is in and of itself pretty extraordinary," he said at the time. "I think we set really high expectations ... but I think she's now about where if she started this campaign without that expectation of those first few weeks, she'd be probably pretty satisfied because she's in the mix."


text:
Anlässlich des 50. Jubiläums von 007 herausgegebene offizielle Duft James Bond 007 für den Herren wurde vom GQ Magazin bereits als "der gefährlichste und eleganteste Duft der Welt" beschrieben. Der Duft ist eine handerlesene Auswahl aus traditionellen, authentischen und unverwechselbar britischen Inhaltsstoffen, die diesen stylischen Bond-Duft hervorbringen.
007 SIGNATURE EAU DE TOILETTE 75ML is rated out of 5 by 17.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Dario from Suave, sofisticado e secreto Identificamos o aroma agradável e nos perguntamos, que perfume é esse? Na tentativa de descobrir o segredo, sentimos o aroma novamente , porém, é tarde de mais: fomos conquistados. Caímos na armadilha sem mesmo saber exatamente o que era, só sabíamos que era bom.
Date published: 2017-10-15
Rated 5 out of 5 by Sherry from The perfume smell is amazing and shower gel too. My cousin give me this product as a gift but after using it i'm totally mad about this product. I bought it again and again because its smell is too much beautiful
Date published: 2016-08-16
Rated 5 out of 5 by Okob from Tökéletes ár érték arány! Tökéletes ár érték arány! Tökéletes ár érték arány!
Date published: 2016-04-27
Rated 5 out of 5 by Fletch from Makes me feel like saving the world I love the smell and look of the fragrance and as a fan of 007 this is something I can appreciate.
Date published: 2016-04-26
Rated 5 out of 5 by Trinity from Truly outstanding!!! I was recently looking for a good fragrance to buy and after a lot of searching a promoter in a shop introduced me to this. An amazing fragrance for men with a unique and fresh touch. I highly recommend.
Date published: 2016-04-06
Rated 5 out of 5 by Anonymous from Just great I love the smell and the size makes it easy to fit into a pocket comfortably a great gift and a great aftershave
Date published: 2015-12-21
Rated 5 out of 5 by Anonymous from This perfume is a must-have in every man's lifestyle I love buying perfume for my dad and close male friends, since I can never get their shirt size right, or their favourite neck-tie to go with it. So, perfumes are the best gifts. Recently, I was shopping for Christmas gift for a friend and the promoter introduced me to James Bond perfume. Although all of them smell great, but 'Signature' was the scent that truly got me hooked. I love the fresh scent 'Signature' has, in fact, when I bought it for my friend, I kept one of the free vials the promoter gave me. I think it's a must-have in every man's life. I mean, who wouldn't want to be James Bond 007?
Date published: 2014-12-21
Rated 5 out of 5 by jacaballero from The name is Bond, James Bond This fragance smells really good, The scense does not last long but it is very discrete after hours. Really good value for all the Bond fans.
Date published: 2014-12-15
Kopfnote: Apfel, Bergamotte, Geranie
Herznote: Lavendel, Kardamom, Dornrosen
Basisnote: Vetiver, Patschuli, Sandelholz
Online kaufen


text:
Responding to an Incident
First Line of Defense
When a release or spill occurs, the first line of defense is provided by:
- the company responsible for the release,
- its response contractors,
- local fire and police departments, and
- local emergency response personnel.
If needed, a variety of state agencies stand ready to support, assist, or take over response operations if an incident is beyond local capabilities.
In some cases, local governments or Indian tribes conduct temporary emergency measures, but do not have emergency response funds budgeted to cover response costs. The Local Governments Reimbursement Program, operated by EPA, will reimburse local governments up to $25,000 per incident.
Federal Involvement
If the amount of a hazardous substance release or oil spill exceeds the established reporting trigger, the organization responsible for the release or spill is required by law to notify the federal government's National Response Center (NRC). Once a report is made, the NRC immediately notifies a pre-designated EPA or U.S. Coast Guard On-Scene Coordinator (OSC), based on the location of the spill. The OSC determines the status of the local response and monitors the situation to determine whether, or how much, federal involvement is necessary. It is the OSC's job to ensure that the cleanup, whether accomplished by industry, local, state, or federal officials, is appropriate, timely, and minimizes human and environmental damage.
The federal OSC will take command of the response in the following situations:
- If the party responsible for the chemical release or oil spill is unknown or not cooperative;
- If the OSC determines that the spill or release is beyond the capacity of the company, local, or state responders to manage; or
- For oil spills, if the incident is determined to present a substantial threat to public health or welfare due to the size or character of the spill.
The OSC may request additional support to respond to a release or spill, such as additional contractors, technical support from EPA's Special Teams, or Scientific Support Coordinators from EPA or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The OSC also may seek support from the Regional Response Team to access special expertise or to provide additional logistical support. In addition, the National Response Team stands ready to provide backup policy and logistical support to the OSC and the RRT during an incident. The National Response System (NRS) Flowchart provides a quick reference for how additional resources are brought into the response.
The federal government will remain involved at the site following response actions to undertake a number of activities, including assessing damages, supporting restoration efforts, recovering response costs from the parties responsible for the spill, and, if necessary, enforcing the liability and penalty provisions of the Clean Water Act, as amended by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.


text:
Very strong Polycarbonate clear Container 265mm x 162mm x 65mm deep. Suitable for use in temperatures between -40C to +99C. Ideal for freezing food items such as soups, vegetables, ice, etc. Also great for storing and serving salads, cold meats and fish as well as serving hot dishes (not suitable for oven use or direct heat).
There are currently no product reviews.
Classic WHITE stainless ste...More
Classic RED stainless steel...More
Classic BLUE stainless ste...More
© Copyright 2018-19 Catering Equipment Ltd
Back to Top


text:
Bespoke Binny IS NOW CLOSED AND NO LONGER TAKING ORDERS
African print aprons by Bespoke Binny will make the the most stylish African chef ever! Our African fabric aprons make great kitchen wear for you, and are also great presents for friends and family.All aprons are fully lined with thick cotton twill to make them not just beautiful but sturdy and hard wearing for years to come. Each apron also has a matching cotton twill handy pocket for your kitchen utensils or phone.Regular size: length 100cm x width 65cm, adjustable apron strings at the back and neck. Fits up to a dress size UK 16/ USA 12. Plus size: length 110cm x width 80cm, adjustable apron strings at the back and neck. Fits up to a dress size UK 24/ USA 20.Each apron is professionally overlocked to prevent fraying.Due to the unique nature of African print pattern placement may vary slightly from that shown in the picture. This is part of their natural and unique beauty.Listing is for one apron.CARE INSTRUCTIONSWhen washing your Bespoke Binny apron please was with similar colours in the washing machine or by hand. Maximum temperature 40c.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------WHAT OTHER CUSTOMERS HAVE SAID ABOUT OUR APRONS:"Bought this apron for my boyfriend's mom as a late Xmas gift and she loved it! Shipped fast too! Very happy overall, will def buy again!""Really well made and nicely wrapped when delivered""I enjoy this apron. Thank you."-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------POSTAGE:All aprons are sent by first class recorded/tracked delivery and will require a signature upon reciept.Please see shop policies for all other FAQ's


text:
You've put on some pounds. It happens. And it's okay. So often we're bombarded with things we must start to do to lose weight stat. But what about all the things you're already doing that may be adding to the problem? As much as I hate to come from a place of "don'ts", here's a list of things it's a good idea not to do when you've gained weight.
1. Don't Start Skipping Meals
Skipping meals won't help you lose weight in the long run. Studies show that eating every few hours helps stabilize your blood sugar and keeps you from making bad choices at the next meal (since you'd be famished otherwise). Plan ahead, and make sure to eat every few hours. Pre-planned portioned snacks and meals will do the body good and stop you from gorging later on.
2. Don't Mentally Punish Yourself
Punishing yourself by staring in the mirror with fury or calling yourself "fatty" or showing your friend your muffin top isn't going to magically melt the fat around your waist—and it's going to work against you. Research shows that people who practice self-compassion are more effective at changing their behaviors. Being unkind to yourself will make you more upset and likely lead to emotional eating. Accept your weight gain (for the moment), and focus on all of the amazing positive choices you are making.
3. Don't Spend a Ton on New Clothes
Weight loss takes time, so it may be a while until you fit into your skinny jeans. In the meantime, get busy doing some bargain shopping. No need to splurge since your weight gain is only temporary, but stocking up on a few pieces will help you feel better about your appearance is a good idea. (There's nothing more emotionally draining than not being able to breathe in your jeans.) Remember, feeling better will help you make better food choices.
4. Don't Obsessively Weigh Yourself
The key to healthy weight loss is to stay consistent and be patient with your diet and exercise, getting adequate sleep and controlling your stress levels. Typically, a person should not lose more than one to two pounds per week, but it could be more or less depending on you and your body. And, remember your weight will fluctuate depending on how much water you are retaining, what time of day it is, and what your hormone levels are. Try weighing yourself once a week in the morning. This way you can focus on the process and not the number.
5. Don't Over-Exercise
Start slow and steady, and be consistent. If you are overly ambitious, the whole plan may go by the wayside. Instead, be realistic. Also, over-exercising can lead to overeating—which can actually cause you to gain more weight.
6. But Don't Stop Exercising, Either
Think your weight gain may be due to too much muscle bulk? Before you throw your free weights out, you may want to reconsider. Some women are afraid that lifting weights may make them bulk up, but this is very unlikely to happen. Muscle is more metabolically active than other tissue and will ultimately help you lose weight. You'll also look leaner and improve bone health.
7. Don't Try a Fad Diet
The problem with "diets" is that they're not meant to be followed for a long period of time. You're not just looking for the easiest and fastest way out of your new jean size. You want to lose weight and sustain that for a healthier you for the long-haul. Diets usually promote some type of miracle recipe for weight loss, such as cutting out a particular food group. Problem is, once you deviate from the diet, you gain the weight back…and many times this comes on faster and more furiously. The key to sustained weight loss is to eat real (not processed) foods that incorporate a balance of healthy fats, nutrient-dense carbs, and lean protein.
8. Don't Ignore Your Hunger Cues
By learning to pay attention to your hunger cues and listening to your body, you will stop yourself from overeating and teach yourself to properly satisfy your hunger without stuffing yourself silly. This doesn't happen overnight, but you can learn to do it. You should eat when you are slightly hungry and stop eating when you are slightly satisfied. If you listen to your body, you will never over-consume too dramatically, even if the food you are eating in is decadent.
9. Don't Focus On What You Can't Eat
Why waste your energy on what you can't eat when you can focus your attention on all of the amazing and super-powerful foods you can eat? You'll be so much happier if you make an effort to shift your thinking in this way.
10. Don't Call It Quits and Accept Your Weight Gain
Stay empowered by setting small, attainable goals. Once you see you are able to achieve these goals, you'll feel even more motivated to practice healthy habits. Stay focused. Stay positive.
Image credit: romlom1.blogspot.com


text:
Manual hardware configuration is the scourge of the modern data center. Server virtualization and pooled storage have gone a long way toward making infrastructure configurable on the fly via software, but the third leg of the stool, networking, has lagged behind with fragmented technology and standards.
The OpenDaylight Project -- a new open source project hosted by the Linux Foundation featuring every major networking player -- promises to move the ball forward for SDN (software-defined networking). Rather than hammer out new standards, the project aims to produce an extensible, open source, virtual networking platform atop such existing standards as OpenFlow, which provides a universal interface through which either virtual or physical switches can be controlled via software.
[ Also on InfoWorld: What the software-defined data center really means | The conflicted rise of software-defined networking | Cut straight to the key news for technology development and IT management with the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. ]
The approach of OpenDaylight is similar to that of Hadoop or OpenStack, where industry players come together to develop core open source bits collaboratively, around which participants can add unique value. That roughly describes the Linux model as well, which may help explain why the Linux Foundation is hosting OpenDaylight.
"The Linux Foundation was contacted based on our experience and understanding of how to structure and set up an open community that can foster innovation," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, in an embargoed conference call last week. He added that OpenDaylight, which will be written in Java, will be available under the Eclipse Public License.
Collaboration or controversy?
It must be said that the politics of the OpenDaylight Project are mind-boggling. Cisco is on board despite the fact that SDN is widely seen as a threat to the company's dominant position -- because, when the network is virtualized, switch hardware becomes more commoditized. A cynic might be forgiven for wondering whether Cisco is there to rein things in rather than accelerate development.
Along with Cisco, the cavalcade of coopetition includes Arista Networks, Big Switch Networks, Brocade, Citrix, Dell, Ericsson, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, Juniper Networks, Microsoft, NEC, Nuage Networks, PLUMgrid, Red Hat, and VMware. BigSwitch, perhaps the highest-profile SDN upstart, is planning to donate a big chunk of its Open SDN Suite, including controller code and distributed virtual routing service applications. Although VMware has signed on, it's unclear how the proprietary technology developed by Nicira, the SDN startup acquired for $1.2 billion by VMware last summer, will fit in.
Another question is how OpenDaylight will affect other projects. Some have voiced frustration over the Open Network Foundation's stewardship of the OpenFlow, so OpenDaylight could be a way to work around that organization. Also, OSI president and InfoWorld contributor Simon Phipps wonders why Project Crossbow, an open source network virtualization technology built into Solaris, appears to have no role in OpenDaylight. You can be sure many more questions will emerge in the coming days and weeks.


text:
Home » PressOK Entertainment
Feed Al: A Finger Physics Odyssey Review
While I may love puzzle titles, one problem that seems to plague them is that they end. It may sound trite, but when you're really absorbed in a puzzle it can be a disappointment to know that you have nothing left to do. Feed Al: A Finger Physics Odyssey by PressOK Entertainment attempts to pair their popular Finger Physics franchise with an 'endless' puzzle system that evolves to not only challenge your lateral-thinking skills, but to give you a near unique challenge on every playthro…Watch The Video Review
Flipstones Review
PressOK Entertainment have gone mad with power and have dared to try and combine line drawing and three match games in to a hideous Frankenstein-like monstrosity in Flipstones! Or I WOULD call them insane, if it didn't work so well. Over the course of 18 stages you'll learn how to master the Flipstone's, harvesting their powers to create combos and complete over 80 different challenges. Your goal is to match groups of 4 or 6 Flipstone gems of the same color to form large triangles and…Watch The Video Review
Finger Physics: Thumb Wars Review
PressOK Entertainment have made a big commitment with the latest release in the Finger Physics franchise, 'Thumb Wars'. Players can compete for their countries by completing various physics based puzzles, scoring points and bumping them further up the world-wide ladder. This isn't about personal glory, this is WAR. In the first of two currently available modes, players will need to break, shift and manipulate the screen in order to get their ball to the exit while picking up stars. Ob…Watch The Video Review
Spinzizzle Review
The name 'Spinzizzle' almost says it all for this latest release by PressOK Entertainment. With 21 levels of difficulty to play through, this addictive and fun three-match puzzler will have you spinning various boards back and forth to create the best combinations possible. Each level of the game uses a variety of small patterned boards that you can spin in order to shift the position of each orb on the field. Matching three or more similar orbs will lock them in to place and will wai…Watch The Video Review
Finger Physics: Finger Fun Review
Finger Physics is a physics based, puzzle game compiling of a number of different mini-games. Players must play through a series of levels each with different physics based goals. Some require you to build a tower with the blocks given to you, other require you to remove blocks so that an egg can drop into a basket. Each level varies and progressively gets harder and harder. The controls differ for each game but all require using the iPhones touch screen interface. Before each new lev…Watch The Video Review
Bumper Stars - Addiction Alert! Review
Bumper Stars is a puzzle game where you take control of a morbidly obese beaver and must bounce around different levels collecting fruit. The aim of the game is to collect all fruit in under three shots, while hitting different bumpers to increase your highscore and keep moving. You control your beaver by dragging a line across your iPhone screen, and then releasing your finger to let him fly. He will bounce off any objects in his path and get more of a boost if he hits a bumper. Bonu…Watch The Video Review


text:
Luca Cordero di Montezemolo (born August 31, 1947) is an Italian businessman with an estimated net worth of 400 million dollars, president of Ferrari and chairman of FIAT; he was also president of Italian Confindustria from 2004 to 2008 and of FIEG. He comes from an old aristocratic family of Piedmont.
Born in Bologna, Montezemolo studied at the University of Rome La Sapienza, earning a law degree in 1971, and he also went on to Columbia University in New York where he attended courses in international trade law in 1973 as a visiting student for a semester. Despite many erroneous reports on the web, Montezemolo was not enrolled in the Master of Laws program and does not hold a Masters degree from Columbia Law School. In 1971, before completing his studies, he drove briefly for the famous and privately owned Lancia rally team known as HF Squadra Corse. Upon completing his academic career he joined the auto manufacturing giant and conglomerate FIAT S.p.A. which is head quartered in Torino, Italy. However in 1973 FIAT moved him to Ferrari, where he promptly became Enzo Ferrari's assistant and, in 1974, manager of the Scuderia. In 1975, di Montezemolo was promoted out of Ferrari to be head of all FIAT racing activities, and in 1977 he advanced to become a senior manager of FIAT.
Throughout the 1980s, di Montezemolo occupied a number of positions in the huge FIAT empire, including managing director of the Cinzano drinks company and director of the Itedi publishing company. In 1982 he managed the entry of the Azzurra yacht in the America's Cup, the first Italian yacht to enter the event. In 1985, he became manager of the committee which planned and put on the 1990 World Cup Italia.
In November 1991, FIAT chairman Gianni Agnelli made di Montezemolo president of Ferrari, which had been struggling since Enzo Ferrari's death; di Montezemolo made it his personal goal to win the Formula One World Constructors' Championship once again. Montezemolo quickly made changes at the Italian team, signing up Niki Lauda as consultant and promoting Claudio Lombardi to team manager role. During the 1990s he resurrected the Ferrari road car business from heavy debts into solid profit. He also took on the presidency of Maserati when Ferrari acquired it in 1997, until 2005.
Under Luca di Montezemolo, the Ferrari Formula One team won the World Drivers Championship in 2000, for the first time since 1979. The previous year, 1999, they had won the constructors championship for the first time since 1983.
On May 27, 2004, Montezemolo became president of Italian business lobby Confindustria; days later, following the death of Umberto Agnelli on May 28, he was elected chairman of FIAT, Ferrari's mother company. Since 20 December 2004, he has also been president of the LUISS ("Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli", Italian for "Guido Carli Free International University for Social Studies"). He is vice-president of Bologna Football Club.
Di Montezemolo became involved in the controversy surrounding the 2005 United States Grand Prix when, on June 2, 2005, he condemned the FIA's requirement that a single set of tyres must last the full length of a race, blaming the circumstances which caused the disastrous race on the new rule rather than on Michelin, with whom Ferrari had formerly done business.
Di Montezemolo has often been linked to a career in Italian politics, most recently the office of Prime Minister, but has always denied the rumours


text:
Posted by Andreas from dtm2-t8-2.mcbone.net (220.127.116.11) on Friday, April 11, 2003 at 2:26PM :
In Reply to: Statue pull-down was staged event. posted by Andreas from dtm2-t8-2.mcbone.net (126.96.36.199) on Friday, April 11, 2003 at 2:14AM :
Journalists Reveal Their True Colors
On April 9, a US tank recovery vehicle tightened a metal rope and a statue of Saddam Hussein came crashing down in central Baghdad. The event was celebrated by "dozens" of Iraqi people at the scene, according to BBC online, but by hundreds of mainstream journalists in Britain and America. A rare, long shot photograph of the event shows a small crowd of people around the statue surrounded by empty space, then tanks, and then more empty space.
The BBC's News At Six described this propaganda coup outside the journalists' hotel as a "momentous event", with the media "a witness to history", with US forces watching "amazed" on a "day of extraordinary drama and historic images", with Bush declaring "a historic moment" in reference to what were "extraordinary events" (April 9). This was all in the first 90 seconds of the programme.
Compare and contrast the above with the BBC's response to the march, not of dozens, but of 2 million British people in London on February 15:
"The people have spoken, or have they? What about the millions who didn't march? Was going to the DIY store or watching the football on Saturday a demonstration of support for the government?" (David Grossman, Newsnight, February 17, 2003)
As the "momentous events" of April 9 were described, the war raged on. US soldiers and many Iraqi civilians were killed in fighting that same night. The next day a suicide bomber killed several US marines and wounded four more close to where the statue had been toppled. Civilians were shot and killed: Channel 4 filmed as a six-year-old girl was shot in the head by US troops, and as a civilian man was shot dead on his balcony as he came out to see what was happening. Two children were shot dead at a checkpoint, with 9 family members injured. A Shia Muslim cleric favoured by Downing Street was assassinated in Najaf.
The Red Cross suspended its operations in the capital after a Canadian employee was killed: "It's not possible to distribute medical and surgical supplies or drinking water to the hospitals as we had wanted to. The situation is chaotic and very insecure", said one Red Cross spokeswoman (The Guardian, April 11). The 650-bed Medical City hospital complex in Baghdad was reported to have neither water nor power, with only 6 out of 27 operating theatres still in use. The looting of government buildings, embassies, hospitals and private businesses was described as "wild" and "completely out of control" in the capital and elsewhere - the UN and aid officials warned that "violent anarchy" would rapidly trigger "a humanitarian disaster".
But the media had already decided that the war had come to a happy conclusion. The BBC's Nicholas Witchell declared of the US drive into central Baghdad:
"It is absolutely, without a doubt, a vindication of the strategy." (BBC News at Six, April 9)
The BBC's breakfast news presenter, Natasha Kaplinsky, beamed as she described how Blair "has become, again, Teflon Tony". The BBC's Mark Mardell agreed: "It +has+ been a vindication for him." (BBC1, Breakfast News, April 10) "This war has been a major success", ITN's Tom Bradby said (ITN, Evening News, April 10). ITN's John Irvine also saw vindication in the arrival of the marines:
"A war of three weeks has brought an end to decades of Iraqi misery." (ITN Evening News, April 9)
At time of writing, the war is not yet over and Iraqi misery is entering a new phase.
On Channel 4, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, told Jon Snow that he had met with the French foreign minister that day: "Did he look chastened?" asked Snow, wryly. (Channel 4, April 9) On the same programme, Channel 4's David Smith pointedly ended his report with a quote from "a leading Republican senator":
"I'm just glad we had a commander-in-chief who didn't listen to Hollywood, or the New York Times, or the French."
Rageh Omaar, understandably relieved after three weeks in fear of his life, all but swooned at the feet of the invading army:
"In my mind's eye, I often asked myself: what would it be like when I saw the first British or American soldiers, after six years of reporting Iraq? And nothing, nothing, came close to the actual, staggering reaction to seeing American soldiers - young men from Nevada and California - just rolling down in tanks. And they're here with us now in the hotel, in the lifts and the lobbies. It was a moment I'd never, ever prepared myself for." (BBC News At Six, April 9)
Goodness knows what we were supposed to read into this statement, but it was not within a million miles of the dispassionate, careful reporting the public has a right to expect from the media - this was the US army presented as adored, conquering heroes. Does the BBC not recognise that millions of viewers never wanted the young men of Nevada and California to roll their tanks into a Third World country that had never threatened them, or us?
On the BBC's News At Ten (April 9), Matt Frei pushed the accepted media interpretation of events: "For some, these images have legitimised the war", he suggested.
The Incredible Expanding Prime Minister - Marr Loses It
And then, as if finally released from the bonds of public doubt and scepticism, the BBC's political editor, Andrew Marr, rose up to deliver his speech to the nation from outside Downing Street:
"Frankly, the main mood [in Downing Street] is of unbridled relief. I've been watching ministers wander around with smiles like split watermelons." (BBC News At Ten, April 9)
The fact that Marr delivered this with his own happy smile suggested not merely that he felt the same, but that we should all feel the same. But if we should indeed rejoice at this wondrous triumph, what does the triumph signify? Marr continued, revealing everything about his true feelings:
"Well, I think this does one thing - it draws a line under what, before the war, had been a period of... well, a faint air of pointlessness, almost, was hanging over Downing Street. There were all these slightly tawdry arguments and scandals. That is now history. Mr Blair is well aware that all his critics out there in the party and beyond aren't going to thank him - because they're only human - for being right when they've been wrong. And he knows that there might be trouble ahead, as I said. But I think this is very, very important for him. It gives him a new freedom and a new self-confidence. He confronted many critics.
"I don't think anybody after this is going to be able to say of Tony Blair that he's somebody who is driven by the drift of public opinion, or focus groups, or opinion polls. He took all of those on. He said that they would be able to take Baghdad without a bloodbath, and that in the end the Iraqis would be celebrating. And on both of those points he has been proved conclusively right. And it would be entirely ungracious, even for his critics, not to acknowledge that tonight he stands as a larger man and a stronger prime minister as a result." (Marr, BBC 1, News At Ten, April 9, 2003)
A "larger man and a stronger prime minister"! Is this objective reporting? Even Labour ministers would shy away from uttering such extraordinarily overblown hyperbole in praise of their leader.
Marr tells us: "There were all these slightly tawdry arguments and scandals. That is now history."
We all know what he is referring to. Blair told us that Iraq had never cooperated with arms inspectors and had to be threatened with war - inspectors tell us they achieved "fundamental disarmament" without the threat of war by December 1998. Blair told us that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were "a threat and a danger that we have to confront" - UNSCOM inspectors and many others insisted that any retained Iraqi WMD was likely to have long since become harmless "sludge"; UNMOVIC inspectors under Hans Blix found nothing, the US army has so far found nothing. Blair said that his first WMD arms dossier presented concrete proof of hidden Iraqi WMD - UNMOVIC investigators searched and found nothing at all. Blair claimed that the Iraqis had responded to his dossier by moving the WMD before inspectors arrived - Hans Blix said there was no evidence of the Iraqis moving WMD.
Blair claimed his last WMD dossier showed that Iraq was in cahoots with international terrorists - the dossier was found to be based on a student thesis written ten years ago. Blair claimed that the Iraqis had bought special aluminium tubes as part of its attempt to build a nuclear bomb - inspectors said they were not intended for any such purpose. Blair said documents showed that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from the Niger to build a nuclear bomb - inspectors exposed the documents as blatant forgeries. Blair told us the Iraqi regime was responsible for the abject poverty in Iraq, including the deaths of 500,000 children under five - high-level United Nations officials and aid agencies have blamed US/UK sanctions for these deaths. Blair declared endless terrorist threats, all of them bogus; he ringed Heathrow with tanks - the alleged missile threat suddenly vanished from sight without explanation.
The government arrested dozens of individuals on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities - most were quietly released without charge weeks later. On and on, the government has lied and distorted and deceived until it got the war Bush wanted. It is this totalitarian-style abuse of our democracy, that the BBC's Andrew Marr describes as "slightly tawdry arguments and scandals", that are now "history".
Marr continued:
"Mr Blair is well aware that all his critics out there in the party and beyond aren't going to thank him - because they're only human - for being right when they've been wrong."
A statue has fallen in front of the media's hotel in central Baghdad, and suddenly Blair is proved simply "right". No weapons of mass destruction have been found, none have been used. Basra and Baghdad have descended into chaos, looting and killing amid lethal water and food shortages. In the city and around the country the war is still being conducted as a criminal act outside international law. The Arab world is seething with rage. But, for Marr, Blair is likely to go unthanked for "being right" because his critics are only human. As one of our readers wrote to Marr:
"From many of your previous reports I suspect you have been looking forward to this unrestrained public adulation of the mighty Caesar Blair for some time but had to keep it in check until what you perceived was an opportune moment. Tonight I feel you finally had your wish come true." (Media Lens, message board, April 10)
Marr continued of Blair:
"He said that they would be able to take Baghdad without a bloodbath, and that in the end the Iraqis would be celebrating. And on both of those points he has been proved conclusively right." (Marr, BBC 1, News At Ten, April 9, 2003)
What would constitute a bloodbath for Marr? We know what the word means for Dr. Faruq Salaam of Baghdad National Hospital:
"You have seen the bombs landing in market places and residences where there is no military. I see daily, dozens of men, women and children, horribly wounded, maimed, mutilated and scarred for life. So many people have lost their senses from constant bombing. The electricity is gone, and food and water are running out. We are short of medicine and bandages for treating the wounded.
"Why has this war been imposed on us? We did not harm anyone. There were no Iraqi terrorists in those who attacked the World Trade Centre. Was it not America itself who built up Saddam Hussein?" (Human Rights Foundation, April 9)
As the US prepared to attack Baghdad, Pentagon spokesmen reported that the six divisions of the 80,000-strong Iraqi Republican Guard outside the city had been "degraded" or rendered "ineffective" by aerial and ground bombardment. Dan Goure, an analyst for the Lexington Institute, told the Associated Press on April 8:
"It may never be known how many Iraqis were killed.... It would have to be over 10,000 uniformed Iraqis and more if you include irregulars."
Did the 3,000 casualties on September 11 constitute a bloodbath? If so, we must surely conclude that the thousands of dead and many more thousands of wounded in the taking of Baghdad also constitute a bloodbath.
And as for the celebrating - some have celebrated while some have fought, while others have actually returned to the country to die fighting, against impossible odds, a super high-tech army. Of course Blair was right that people would cheer, but cheering crowds were never a serious justification for attacking Iraq. How many people would cheer if the additional �3 billion to be spent on this war were sent to the hundreds of millions of people subsisting on a pittance earned from Western corporations in the Third World?
The New Crisis Of Democracy
Make no mistake, the establishment, including the media, has been deeply shaken by the Iraqi crisis and war. They have surely felt under siege by the turn of events: the 2 million people who marched, the truly vast global dissent, the refusal of the French, German and Russian governments to toe the line, the endless exposures of government lying. And, finally, a far bloodier and more difficult war than most had predicted. The aftermath is already hideous to behold. The establishment has seen Blair and his government rocked - Blair, himself, seems on the verge of collapse and has been described as having "gone round the bend" by Matthew Parris in the Times, hinting at insider information.
It seems clear to us that the establishment media were waiting for their chance to repair some of this damage by legitimising the war. They needed a 'Berlin wall moment' that could enter the public's imagination as a simple, powerful, vindication of everything that has happened. A US news team joked that if the Iraqi information minister were still around he would probably try to deny that the felling of the statue ever took place. But in a sense the Iraqi minister would have had a point: the event did +not+ happen in the sense that it is said to have happened - it did not have the significance or meaning ascribed to it, and it certainly did not justify the war.
When Marr said of government lying: "That is now history", this was mere establishment wishful thinking. The powerful want us to forget the exposed government lies, the endless manipulation. Above all they want the public to forget its new-found interest in politics and foreign policy: teenagers should forget their street protests and get back to buying hamburgers and trainers, and being 'cool' by wearing corporate logos. The 2 million people who marched should get off the streets and back to their Do It Yourself programmes, their gardening, their soap operas, their interior decorating. Sex or shopping - which makes you happier?
During the Vietnam War a similar explosion of public involvement in politics was described, without irony, as a "crisis of democracy" by shaken US politicians. The Trilateral Commission, a liberal think tank, described how "previously passive or unorganised groups in the population", such as "blacks, Chicanos, white ethnic groups, students and women... became mobilised and organised" in new forms of political protest in the 1960s. The Trilateralists argued that "a greater degree of moderation in democracy" was required to overcome this "excess of democracy". (Quoted, Milan Rai, Chomsky's Politics, Verso, 1995, p.152)
Democracy, you see, in the West is intended to be a system were the powerful make the decisions and the powerless meekly accept them. Possible symbols for this version of 'liberty' are doubtless many and varied, but one might be a giant, metal statue of an authoritarian figure with its arm raised outstretched defiantly, arrogantly, over the milling mass of people beneath.
The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. In writing letters to journalists, we strongly urge readers to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Write to the media expressing your views:
Nicholas Witchell:
Email: email@example.com
Andrew Marr:
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Rageh Omaar
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Matt Frei:
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Natasha Kaplinsky:
Email: email@example.com
Mark Mardell:
Email: email@example.com
John Irvine:
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Tom Bradby:
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Richard Sambrook, BBC director of news.
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Roger Mosey, Head of BBC Television News:
Jonathan Munro, Head of ITN news gathering:
Email: email@example.com
Feel free to respond to Media Lens alerts: email@example.com
Visit the Media Lens website: http://www.medialens.org
-- Andreas
-- signature .
Follow Ups:
Post a Followup


text:
It's been a busy few days. First a post on ZDNet by Eric Lai invented a few problems for Cloud, or rather SaaS, and especially multi-tenancy: inflexible, less secure, less powerfull and maybe more costly - is what Eric claims multi-tenancy SaaS to be.
Thomas Wailgum neatly nailed that via a counterpost, as did Frank Scavo, to whose post Eric commented, and back again
The circle of Inspiration? Yes, it evolves hardest and finest on Twitter. And here are my thoughts: we need to grow up
First, now I've got your attention anyway, a minor disappointment maybe: ERP in this title and post doesn't stand for SAP, but for the epitome of enterprise IT as we know it
Good and bad arguments were made in all posts and their comments, but there was a lot of comfortzone involved - and I'm challenging that very comfortzone: enterprise IT is a multi-billion dollar industry where customers get very, very little value for money
Surely it employs many people and that huge discrepancy between investment and return gave a great boost to India and other low-labour-cost countries, but let's face it: this industry needs to mature
1. The foundation of IT
In the beginning, there was a bit.
Then, it was assembled into bytes.
And bytes formed a double-word - and then the story really started
A poetic attempt at sketching the genesis of computers, but I really want to stress the fact that IT all started with hand-crafting something out of nothing.
Over the past decades, however, standardisation and tooling slowly took away the burden of doing everything yourself. Compared to writing, you could buy ink and goose feathers in stead of making your own. You could go out and buy paper, in stead of making your own parchment
In IT, various "straight jackets" saw the light: hardware first, then software, and in between the wiring: network protocols. Choices became economically limited to a few dozen, and those became half a dozen. Standardisation always starts at the infrastructural level, at the very bottom of the IT foodchain. Compared to housing, the foundation is standardised exceptionally well across the globe as the choices are simply very limited when you have a cost-efficient solution in mind
Right now, in Enterpise IT, we have a few choices in hardware. Half a dozen choices in operating systems. Over a dozen choices in programming languages. A few dozen choices in program language interfaces, and over a dozen dozen (sic) choices in applications: the closer you get to humans, the more diverse the choices you have
2. The IT exception and rules
The odd one out there is ERP. There's SAP and there's SAP. And then there's Oracle. Wait a minute - we're 1-on-1 customer-facing and we only have 1.5 choices? That can't be right...
It isn't, in my point of view. The diversity fans out bottom-up.
One more time, with feeling:
- We're settling into the infrastructural machine layer all the things that we take for granted: the simple, static stuff that doesn't change, is highly structured, rigid even. The data, the smallest building blocks, bits and bytes. Order reigns here, where everything is subjected to business rules, and automation can thrive. It's boring and it should be: it's the foundation to our "homes"
- Facing the very end, humans, the opposite takes place: we encounter complex, dynamic stuff that changes all the time, unstructured, flexible itself and requiring the greatest flexibility at the same time. It's where knowledge and information flows freely, uncapturable. Chaos thrives here, exceptions are the rule, and automation usually is impossible. It's where Social sees the light
So how come ERP is where it's at? Well, only because it's customised to death. I've been told that you can buy ERP for amount X, and will need to spend an additional amount of 7 X's to make it work for you. That is caused by three phenomena:
- An enterprise-wide system is high up in the IT stack, yet if you want to ship & sell it off the shelf it needs to be as "flat" as possible: offer as little rules as it can (and that's rather easy to achieve, and achieved). There are no global rules, nor exceptions
- All kinds of industry-specific, national, regional, local, partner-specific, customer-specific and department-specific rules and exceptions, as well as regulatory compliance issues, are impossible to keep up with by one global system. Technically, as well as economically.
Here's where Push is replaced by Pull (John Hagel and John Seely Brown can enlighten you on this one). There are many local rules, and exceptions
- Vendors, but particularly System Integrators, love to provide you with people on a Time & Material basis to achieve your goals, meaning: building in all the business rules and exceptions that you need. This might take many months, even years. The long payback time on ERP investment usually means any cost here gets sanctioned
Invest a few million in getting ERP, then being confronted with having to invest yet another few times that in actually getting what you want, slam onto that the annual "support" fee of 22%, and you'll be glad to pay off that initial investment before you die - it's an obscene lock-in. That initial 3-year horizon and payback time will slowly turn into a 20-year one, and keep you from further growth even.
A proper ERP implementation will lock you in for 15-20 years
4. The blame game and the solution
Is it the fault of ERP? Of SAP? Of Oracle? No. We still adhere to our Genesis: hand-craft from scratch.
ERP mainly is a, albeit rather huge, manifestation of our desire for one-size-fits-all customisation - which is an oxymoron by default
Look at housing: the fundament is standardised, as are the bricks, but everything else is up for grabs
Look at transportation: the roads are standardised, but you can pick a variety of vehicles to travel upon them
Look at the sky: the airports are fixed, but the variety of carriers is offering you all the choices you'd like
And then, look at IT: one choice of ERP is all it offers. Well, 1.5 maybe...
The message is clear: standardisation at the bottom allows for customisation on top of that. Customising the standardised parts itself? Ridiculous
Software as a Service comes to the rescue here: it will offer standardised solutions. Multi-tenancy, of course. They will offer you vanilla out-of-the-box and not much else. It'll be old-fashioned ERP as it came on the CD, yet pay-per-use
Where will the required standardisation come from? The need to comply with regulatory laws?
5. Turn the tide
From another SaaS, of course - or you can build it yourself, or maybe someone will offer it on-premise - or all of that combined. Do you need a business case for that? You could shop together your desired functionality online, just like a regular consumer. I hope Marc Benioff is paying attention...
SaaS will make this industry mature. It will straight-jacket enterprise IT buyers, and finally put an end to the ridiculous customisation on top of multi-million dollar ERP packages. Much like the car industry, it will force you to choose a brand, make and type, and allow you a few accesories - and that's it. If you need anything else, go get it and plug it into your Enterprise Integration Hub
SaaS your tertiairy business processes, or get them off-the-shelf.
SaaS your secondary business processes, or find a local shelf to pull them off from.
SaaS the boring core of your primary business processes, and create the specials yourself just like currently ERP makes you do so. But now, you can choose to buy local, Private SaaS them, or make - or any combination of that
That will leave you with a few disparate solutions to integrate - but SAP nor Oracle have solved that problem for you, now have they? At best, ERP's lack of strategy and consistency regarding Integration has cost you dearly.
And you know my answer and solution to that last question, of course
IT needs to mature, and become an adult industry. Pun intended. That's a multi-billion dollar business as well, yet I hear a lot less customer complaints from them


text:
Pulmonaria opal is a Lungwort cultivar with spotted leaves and pale red and blue flowers.
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonaria
The lungworts are the genus Pulmonaria of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae, native to Europe and western Asia, with one species (P. mollissima) east to central Asia. According to various estimates there may be between 10 and 18 Pulmonaria species found in the wild, but the taxonomy of this genus is very confusing.
The scientific name Pulmonaria is derived from Latin pulmo (the lung). In the times of sympathetic magic, the spotted oval leaves of P. officinalis were thought to symbolize diseased, ulcerated lungs, and so were used to treat pulmonary infections. The common name in many languages also refers to lungs, as in English "lungwort" and German "Lungenkraut". In some East European languages, the common name is derived from a word for honey, e.g. Russian "medunitza" and Polish "miodunka".
English colloquial names include Lungwort, Soldiers and Sailors, Spotted dog, Joseph and Mary, Jerusalem Cowslip, Bethlehem Sage.
Lungworts are perennial herbs that form clumps or rosettes. They are covered in hairs of varied length and stiffness, and sometimes also bear glands. The underground parts consist of a slowly creeping rhizome with adventitious roots. Flowering stems are unbranched, rough, covered with bristly hairs, usually not exceeding 25–30cm, with a few exceptions (P. mollis, P. vallarsae). The stems are usually upright, or slightly spreading.
The leaves are arranged in rosettes. The blades are usually large, from narrowly lanceolate to oval, with the base ranging from heart shaped to very gradually narrowing, and can have a sharply pointed or blunt tip. Leaf margin is always entire, but in some species and forms can be rather wavy. Basal leaves are carried on stalks that can be short or longer than the leave blade in various species. Stem leaves are smaller and often narrower, and are unstalked or clasping the stem. All leaves are covered with hairs that are usually bristly, or occasionally soft. The leaves are often prominently spotted in black and blue, or sometimes in pale green, or unspotted.
The inflorescence is a terminal scorpioid cyme, with bracts. Lungwort flowers are heterostylous, with two distinct forms of flower within each species; those with short stamens and long styles ("pin" flowers) and those with long stamens and short styles ("thrum" flowers), with the former usually being larger and more showy. The calyx is hairy, 5-lobed, tubular or funnel-shaped, enlarging as the fruit ripens. The corolla is funnel-shaped and consists of a long, cylindrical tube and a limb with five shallow lobes. Within the corolla throat, five tufts of hairs alternate with the stamens to form a ring. The colour of corolla varies from purple, violet or blue to shades of pink and red, or sometimes white. The colour of the flower in bud is often pink, which then changes as the flower matures. The stamens and style are included within the corolla and not protruding.
The nutlets are smooth, egg-shaped, brownish, up to 4.5 mm long and 3 mm wide, each containing a single seed. Up to four nutlets per flower are produced, ripening mostly in summer.
40 recovery in ACR


text:
Great Pyramid of Giza
The Great Pyramid of Giza (2650 BC) is the largest of the Egyptian pyramids, and was built by the Pharaoh Khufu. It is believed to have been his final resting place, although his remains were never located. It is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and is the only member of that list that remains mostly intact.
The structure originally stood 481 feet high and was the tallest and overall largest structure on Earth until the nineteenth century. With the exception of certain dams, the Great Pyramid remains one of the largest manmade structures on the planet in terms of mass. It consists of approximately 2 million blocks of stone, each weighing more than two tons. Each side of the pyramid measures 751 feet across, and the lengths of the sides vary less than 0.1%. Each corner of the pyramid is precisely lined up with cardinal directions of the compass.[1]
As a single project, the Great Pyramid was the most ambitious attempted by the Egyptians during the Old Kingdom, and was undoubtedly a triumph of engineering, mathematics, organisation and planning. It is considered by many to be a testament to the power, stability, beliefs and skills of the Old Kingdom state, and its ability to harness and deploy resources on a massive scale in a highly integrated operation spanning a huge area.
The exact means of construction remain extremely contentious, but it is now accepted within the academic community that construction took around 20 years, meaning that it was both begun and completed within Khufu's reign. The workforce is estimated to have been around 20,000 strong, consisting of a mixture of full-time professionals, administrative staff and temporary labourers who worked for approximately three months per year during the inundation (See: Labour in Ancient Egypt). Khufu set up local limestone quarries on-site to obtain the internal limestone blocks, though the fine, white limestone used for the outer casing stones (now missing) had to be shipped across the Nile from Tura.Various other stones were also used in the paving, causeway, valley and pyramid temples, including granite and travertine, shipped in from as far afield as Aswan and Hatnub.
See also
- Hanging Gardens of Babylon
- Lighthouse of Alexandria
- Statue of Zeus at Olympia
- Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
- Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
- Colossus of Rhodes


text:
Mathew Klickstein | Daily Camera | January 9, 2011
Quaint and homey, Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Cafe sits atop the crest of University Hill across the Sink and Buchanan's Coffee Pub. Center stage of Innisfree's cozy interior is a wooden table that acts as a potential community nexus, surrounded by walls of poetry books, from foreign to children's, with everything in between.
Brian Buckley has just opened up the new store with his wife and co-proprietor Kate Hunter. He claims his new bookstore is the third poetry bookstore in the country. This may come to a surprise to those who would guess there would be at least three (or more) in San Francisco or perhaps New York City.
But it's true.
According to Publisher's Weekly, there are indeed only two other bookstores throughout the entire United States that devote their entire stock to poetry. Although there are other stores that have a great variety of poetry material, notably Beat haven City Lights in San Francisco, these stores also offer other selections. Barnes and Noble, for example, does sell poetry books, but their stock of the genre makes up only one percent of their overall offerings.
The two other stores in the country are Seattle's Open Books and Grolier's in Cambridge, Mass. In addition to working at a Waldenbooks in the past, Buckley also worked at Grolier's. It was when his wife and he decided to move to Boulder for the sense of community and fine school system they were looking for, that the duo were finally able to live their dream of opening their own store.
Together they want Innisfree to be more than merely a poetry bookstore and café, but also a meeting place for local poets and writers, people who are interested in discussing poetry and literature, or possibly simply finding a calm reprieve from the storm of daily life outside of Innisfree's 460 square feet.
Hunter and Buckley took the name for their store from a poem written by William Butler Yeats. "Lake Isle of Innisfree" was a response to Henry David Thoreau's immortal "Walden." In Yeats' poem, Innisfree was his own special place to "get away from it all," his own Walden. The Innisfree co-owners hope their store can be such a place for Boulderites and tourists alike.
"Kate and I felt strongly about creating a daily living place," said Buckley, a Boston native who met his wife serendipitously enough in a poetry grad school class at the University of Massachusetts. "Kate's a poet, and I'm a poet. You don't always want to just go out to a reading to meet other poets and discuss poetry with them. We've seen people come here often and converse over a cup of tea. It's not just a once in a while thing here."
Hunter hails from Toronto and has dabbled in other fields aside from poetry, including her own massage business that she might continue in some regard while in Boulder. "For now, I'm focused on [the store]," she said.
For Buckley, "poetry is really democratic." Hence why his wife and he feel Boulder is a perfect place to house such a progressive concept. "Poetry has called people from every race, sexual orientation, and so forth. We still see certain impediments in other places, but it's nice to be in a place that represents all people."
Although the store had its soft opening on December 10th, Innisfree won't be officially open for business until January 15th, when Buckley and Hunter will be having a grand opening gala. The free event will include hourly readings on the street corner by local poets such as Colorado laureate David Mason. There will also be giveaways and samples of Innisfree's house coffee, Boulder mainstay Conscious Coffee, which won Roast Magazine's coveted Micro Roaster of the Year Award for 2011.
Thereafter, Innisfree will hold weekly readings every Thursday night at 7 p.m., and will hold occasional open mics that will include spoken word in addition to poetry and musical performances.
"Like a poem, this shop is still editing itself," said Hunter. "City codes and all the stuff you never hear about. The ultimate poem will be our opening."


text:
Multitasking! On phones! Everybody does it now. But each smartphone platform does it differently. Here are the various tricky ways that the major platforms try to juggle multiple apps.
The constraints
A smartphone is a computer that fits in your pocket, but it has some constraints that a desktop doesn't, which make multitasking far trickier (hence the reason we're even explaining it). Namely, these four resources are constricted, and they're what mostly shape the way multitasking works on phones:
• Screen real-estate: There's only so much you can do with a 3-to-4 inch screen at one time
• Battery life: You want your phone to actually last all day, or come close to it, right?
• CPU: It's slower than anything in a laptop, because of size and battery life
• Memory: There's not that much of it, also partly because of battery life
This fourth item, a lack of memory, means you can do far fewer things at once; there's also no disk swap in any of the major OSes, so you can't use the phone's actual storage as virtual memory, either. Lack of plentiful RAM is perhaps the most pernicious constraint after battery life, actually.
From a user perspective, multitasking doesn't work so differently if you move from Windows to Linux to Mac on a desktop. But on a phone, everybody has their own ideas about how to make it work, ranging from leaving things nearly wide open for third-party apps to run willy-nilly (old-school Windows Mobile and BlackBerry) to making things pretty restrictive (iPhone pre-4.0 and Windows Phone 7). Even the common smartphone elements — notifications and fast app switching — can differ wildly from platform to platform. So here's the gist of how multitasking works on each major smartphone.
The Android model is perhaps the most interesting, a hybrid system that's fairly open about allowing stuff running in the background, but at the same time aims to be completely invisible to you, the end user, so that you don't have to actively manage whether an app is open or closed. It's a little complicated so we talked to an Android engineer about what's going on inside.
What happens when I switch to another app?: The app you switched from doesn't stop —the process stays open. At least, as long as it can. When Android detects it's running low on memory, then it kills processes to free up resources. It asks apps to save their state when you switch, so that any can be killed at any point, then reopen like it was never killed when you return to it.
What can apps do in the background?: Android has two basic facilities for third-party multitasking—broadcast receivers and services. With a broadcast receiver, an app that goes into the background is basically asking to be told about an event, like if you move 500 meters, or your battery level hits a certain percentage. (That's how Google's apps that use push, like Gmail work—instead of pinging the server for mail constantly, it waits to receive a notification that mail has arrived.) That way the app can go away, and not use resources, but restart when something happens that it needs to act on.
Services are what you'd consider more traditional background processes, with apps running to play music, or do turn-by-turn navigation—they're essentially a request from the app to say it needs to run for X amount of time.
What can't apps do in the background?: Remember Android's garbage battery life when it first came out? That's because there really were no restrictions on what kind of resources an app could consume in the background. Since Android 1.5, apps running in the background are capped at using 5-10 percent of the CPU altogether—which is the only major restriction placed on apps in the background. The other is that it's not easy for app to push itself to the foreground—they're supposed to the window shade notifications system.
iPhone 4.0
iPhone has always been a multitasking OS, but only for first-party apps. That changes with iPhone 4.0, which delivers multitasking and background processes for third-party apps, but in a characteristically tight-gripped way. Like Android, the idea is that users won't actually manage applications themselves, but that the system will take care of it for them. Unfortunately, a lot of the technical details are still wrapped up by non-disclosure agreements, but we have a basic idea of how stuff works.
What happens when I switch to another app?: Of the seven new multitasking services, two can come into play when you switch to another app: With fast-app switching, an app is frozen instead of killed, allowing users to immediately pick up where they left off, without having to reload the app. Since the user isn't actively managing whether applications completely quit or not, the system presumably kills apps when it has too many hanging around. (This is a lot like Android, in some respects.) The other is task finishing, where, if you leave an app when it's mid-task, the app can tell the OS it needs to keep running in the background to finish whatever it was doing.
What can apps do in the background?: Besides finishing a task, a third-party app is able to perform a limited set of functions in the background via Apple's new multitasking services. The difference between iPhone and Android is that with iPhone, the app isn't full-blown running, but just operating via these services. For users, that mainly comes down to VoIP (making and receiving calls via Skype or whatever), background audio (being able to listen to Pandora, Rhapsody and Slacker in the background), and background location, which comes in two flavors, cell tower location checking, to save battery life, and full GPS tracking, for navigation apps.
What can't apps do in the background?: Basically anything not set forth in the seven services. So if it's not VoIP, or background audio or location, it probably ain't running in the background. (It can stay frozen in memory for a speedy return, though. In situations where you don't need it to do anything while you're away, this is just as good.)
Palm — newly acquired by HP mainly for its WebOS smart platform — has perhaps the most elegantly transparent approach to task-based multitasking—users do in fact manage apps, but it's so transparent, the open-apps-as-floating-cards metaphor so straightforward, it simply works. But there's actually a few different things going on with Palm's approach, which is slightly more complex than you might realize. So I talked to Palm's CTO Mitch Allen about it.
What happens when I switch to another app?: Well, it depends on what you mean by switch to another app. If you have a card open and flick it up to get rid of the card, the app is killed entirely. If you simply switch to another card without closing it, however, the app is considered "minimized," so it goes into a semi-dormant state, with restrictions on the services it can access, like the accelerometer. Or if you've run out of memory by opening too many cards, you get a warning from the OS.
What can apps do in the background?: There's a couple different ways that apps can run in the background. As a minimized card, an app can "mostly do what it wants to do in terms of data and network access" says Allan, because "our desire was a fairly open architecture." A "pure background app" can schedule itself to be woken up and run for up to 30 seconds to generate data requests, or to schedule another wake up. If you do close an app entirely, it can open what Palm calls a dashboard, which is "like a traffic monitor," which basically means it can listen for notifications.
What can't apps do in the background?: It actually varies from app to app. The standard web language apps — basically everything pre-January — have mostly open access when they're minimized, as Allan says, but Palm throttles services that are "battery expensive," like constant data requests and accelerometer access. Palm's actually making things slightly less restrictive — the 30-second window background apps have for wakeup data requests used to be 15 seconds. Apps that run using the PDK — like the intense games Palm showed off at CES, with deeper access to the underlying hardware—have a slightly different set of restrictions, so memory use is constricted, and graphics are suspended when they're in the background.
Windows Phone 7
Oh, irony — Microsoft goes from having one of the most open multitasking smartphone OSes with Windows Mobile to one of the most restrictive. Their goal in designing the way multitasking works with Windows Phone 7 is to stick to delivering the "core experiences" people want out of multitasking, without going full bore on it. Sounds like it's … hmmmm ... so we talked to Microsoft's Aaron Woodman, director of the mobile communications business, about it.
(Msnbc.com is a joint-venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)
What happens when I switch to another app?: Apps don't die when you leave them in Windows Phone 7. So when you switch from an app, it saves its state in memory and is frozen, for fast-app switching — like Android and iPhone 4.0. Woodman says "as you get further away from an app, and resources are needed, it frees them, but you can go right back." When it needs to free up resources, an app is "dehydrated," which is "one level above being killed" and then when you open it back up, with that saved state, it's "rehydrated."
What can apps do in the background?: Um, not a lot — it's very much back to the olden iPhone days, where notifications are an app's primary way of getting anything done when it's not running. The fancy demos of Pandora running in the background? That's for an elite group of third-party partners only, and Woodman says access like that, it's "hard to know if that'll scale in the broad term." In terms of notifications, Microsoft has an impressively wide variety though: A tile notification, which pushes new info to a Live Tile on the home screen; a toast notification, which is a pop-up, like an incoming call; or a raw notification, which is raw data sent to the application.
What can't apps do in the background?: Basically? Anything. They can receive notifications and send notifications to the top. That's about it, unless they is special. The bright side? Woodman says "at the end of the day, we will change the platform based on third party and user input."
And that's about it, or at least, what you actually need to know. We left off old-school Windows Mobile because it's effectively obsolete, along with BlackBerry OS because it's in flux with OS 6, as well as Symbian, which is undergoing its own contortions with S^3 — not to mention their models aren't complicated as the ones here.


text:
Since the debut of the smartphone, countless brands have popped up offering every kind of imaginable accessory, from the indispensable waterproof iPhone case to the, well, the toilet paper dispenser iPod dock. One of the brands of iPhone accessories that we really love is Mophie. Their Juice Pack and Juice Pack Air battery cases protect your smartphone and give you up to an extra 80-100% of battery power. So not only is your precious iPhone or Galaxy S4 protected from dents and dings that daily life delivers, you can go nearly twice as long as normal between recharges. We like Mophie products so much, in fact, that every one of the smartphones that our over 200 delivery and service teams use is outfitted with a Juice Pack. Which is why we are extra excited to get a look at the new Mophie Space Pack at CES.
The Mophie Space Pack builds on the genius of the Juice Pack by adding additional storage space—either 16GB or 32GB—to create a product unlike anything currently available. However, due to iOS restraints, adding storage is not a simple plug-and-play affair. To use the additional storage, users will need to download Mophie's Space app, which includes an integrated file manager, camera app, and media player. Users will have to access the app anytime they want to access or share any media stored in the Space Pack. So, not a totally seamless system, but it's the only one of its kind and it's a clever workaround to a problem that plagues many smartphone users. And for potential iPhone 5s buyers, it can be cheaper than the price difference between new iPhone models.
Like the Juice Pack Air, the Space Pack is slim and ergonomic. It adds some length and depth to the iPhone body, but still slides in and out of pockets with ease and is comfortable to hold. You'll also find the same 1,700 mAh battery pack, giving you double the power of the iPhone 5's built-in power pack. Doubling both storage and run-time means a lot less recharges and memory dumps, which is great when you're away from a power outlet or access to The Cloud. For road warriors and other prolific iPhone users, and especially for the Instagrammers and other voracious consumers and producers of media, the Mophie Space Pack looks to be the best single accessory available.
According to Mophie, the Space Pack will start shipping in March, but pre-ordering is open now. For more info, call us at 888-228-5800 and ask for one of our Apple sales specialists.


text:
What do you get when you have a $19 billion budget deficit, a lame duck Republican governor firmly rooted in fiscal conservatism, and a Democrat majority Legislature? A state that's drowning in red ink while it's elected officials try to come to an agreement on how to fix a situation that grows more serious by the day.
With his back against the wall, not having to face voters again the governor unveiled his latest ideas to stop the hemorrhaging. The cuts he proposes would clearly affect the Californians who need it the most.
His plan includes eliminating the state's main welfare program and state subsidized day care. Even more cuts to school funding, Medi-Cal and county mental health programs. He's even proposing to transfer some state prisoners back to local jails.
Cuts must be made, but these seem aimed at the most needy of our citizens. Just looking at the numbers it's overwhelming to think of how many people who rely on these programs may find themselves in desperate situations. Especially children and the elderly.
It's not hard to believe Schwarzenegger, a fiscal conservative, refuses to raise taxes on businesses. True, they are the ones who keep people employed and help keep the money machine oiled. But isn't it time for the governor and lawmakers to bite the bullet on both sides of the aisle?
The time to work together is now and compromises must be made. It's time to stop the bickering and find a way to get things done. Then again, these are politicians we're talking about.


text:
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted overwhelmingly on Thursday for Hillary Rodham Clinton to become the next secretary of state, with Democrats predicting her leadership would mark a turn from warfare toward diplomacy.
The 16-1 approval by the committee paves the way for a full Senate vote after President-elect Barack Obama takes office on Jan. 20. Clinton is not expected to hit any major roadblocks, with Republicans and Democrats alike praising her acumen on the issues.
But concerns about her husband's charitable fundraising overseas remain. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, who was among several Republicans who raised the issue at her confirmation hearing earlier this week, cast the lone opposing vote.
In a statement, Vitter called former President Bill Clinton's foundation a "multimillion dollar minefield of conflicts of interest."
"This could produce explosions at any minute, particularly concerning the Middle East where we least need them," Vitter said.
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said he too remains wary that contributions to the Clinton charity could pose a problem. But, he added, he wouldn't stand in the way of her appointment and noted that Clinton could become one of the nation's best secretaries of state to date.
Her departure from the Senate has been closely watched because it would give New York Gov. David Paterson, a fellow Democrat, the power to appoint her successor. Caroline Kennedy, the scion of a political dynasty, wants the job.
Clinton told the panel earlier this week that the U.S. must elevate the role of foreign policy and diplomacy in handling tough problems.
"America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world cannot solve them without America," she said. "The best way to advance America's interest in reducing global threats and seizing global opportunities is to design and implement global solutions. This isn't a philosophical point. This is our reality."
On Iraq, Clinton said ending the war is a priority. The first step will be moving troops out of cities by June, in line with an agreement already established between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government. The agreement calls for all U.S. troops to be gone by the end of 2011. Obama has said he believes the withdrawal can be accomplished more quickly.
Her testimony invigorated lawmakers, who said they agree that old-fashioned diplomacy must make a comeback in a U.S. agenda dominated by war.
"Our nation needs to put proactively more sandals and sneakers on the ground, in order to prevent having to put boots and bayonets on the ground in the future," said Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo.
Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the Foreign Relations Committee's top Republican, has proposed that Bill Clinton's foundation reject any overseas contributions and take other steps to improve transparency.
Clinton rejected Lugar's ideas, contending that her agreement to publish an annual list of the foundation's donors and alert ethics officials to potential conflicts of interest already goes above and beyond any ethics regulations.
Bill Clinton's charity, which financed his presidential library in Little Rock, Ark., and efforts in dozens of countries to reduce poverty and treat AIDS, has relied on sizable donations from foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia.
After voting on Clinton's nomination, the Foreign Relations Committee heard testimony from Susan Rice, whom Obama has picked as U.N. ambassador. Rice is considered a shoo-in as well.


text:
Week Ahead: Will or Won't the Fed Taper?
Will they or won't they, that's the question investors will be asking next week as the Federal Reserve once again mulls whether to begin scaling back its easy-money policies.
The Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee meets Tuesday and Wednesday and will release a statement at the end of its two-day meeting. Fed Chair Ben Bernanke will hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Also expected next week is a vote by the full Senate on the nomination of Janet Yellen to replace Bernanke at the helm of the Fed. Bernanke is stepping down in January.
Similar to the run-up to recent Fed meetings, it's a toss up whether the Fed will announce a reduction to its $85-billion-a-month bond purchase program known as quantitative easing.
On Friday, former Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn, who was a candidate to replace Bernanke, told clients of the Potomac Research Group that the chances are better than even the Fed will begin reducing bond purchases this month.
Kohn said there's a 60%-40% chance the Fed will announce a slight tapering on Wednesday.
The deciding factor may have been a strong retail sales report on Thursday, according to Kohn, an indication that recent strong monthly labor reports are boosting consumer spending. Both the November and October jobs reports revealed more than 200,000 jobs were created in those months.
Conventional wisdom across most of Wall Street, however, is that the Fed will delay tapering into 2014 until after Yellen takes the top spot. Her approval is expected to be a slamdunk in the Senate with its Democratic majority.
Meanwhile, the White House next week could nominate Stanley Fischer as Yellen's replacement as number two at the Fed. The widely-respected Fischer is a former governor of Israel's central bank and former chief economist at the World Bank.
A report on the nation's gross domestic product is out Friday, too late to impact the Fed's December decision.
Two key housing reports are out next week, as well: housing starts data are due on Wednesday and existing home sales data on Thursday. The former also impacts construction jobs and the latter is an indication of the strength of the mortgage-lending industry.
Important manufacturing reports out next week include the Empire State Manufacturing Survey and the Purchasing Managers Manufacturing Index on Monday; the Philadelphia Fed Survey on Thursday; and the Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Index on Friday.
On the earnings calendar are FedEx (NYSE:FDX), General Mills (NYSE:GIS) and Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) on Wednesday; ConAgra (NYSE:CAG), Darden Restaurants (NYSE:DRI), Nike (NYSE:NKE) and Rite Aid (NYSE:RAD) on Thursday; and Walgreen (NYSE:WAG) on Friday.


text: Ah, we've all been there: you're quickly texting on your iPhone to your Mom that you want tacos for dinner and before you realize it, you've typed out your secret desire for the 1988 Oakland Raiders to run the train on your dog. How could such a costly mistake happen? It's the damn auto-correct feature! And so we present you with the 12 funniest iPhone auto-correct fails: