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Keli Goff
As the world mourns the passing of Nelson Mandela, one of the most revered human rights activists in history, tributes have poured in from world leaders, including President Barack Obama, as well as everyday people whose lives were touched by his work and legacy. Those who knew him personally are recalling his most inspiring moments. But even for those of us who did not know him, Mandela's example imbued us with some powerful lessons. Here's a look at what he taught all of us. 1. There is nothing more empowering than forgiveness. Mandela's lack of outward bitterness about the treatment he endured could very well have played a role in the long and rewarding life he ultimately enjoyed. A study found that those who forgive others live longer. Following his release from prison in 1990, Mandela did not focus on punishing his persecutors. Instead he set his sights on uniting his long-divided country. This focus on his future as opposed to his painful past, despite the horrors he endured, is an example from which all of us who have endured far less than he, can learn. 2. A good man (or woman) is worth the wait. Twenty-seven years. That is how long Winnie Mandela had to wait for her husband to come home. But wait she did. Though the couple divorced in the years following his 1990 release from prison, the fact that Winnie supported her husband and was willing to wait for him affirmed not only her belief in her man, but in his extraordinary work and cause. By doing so she made it easy for the rest of the world to believe in him, and the idea that he would one day be free again. Many people pay lip service to the notion, "through good times and bad times," but the Mandelas lived it. Their devotion should make all of us think twice the next time any of us hit what feels like a rough patch with someone we love. 3. Second acts can be better than the first. Increasingly in media and particularly in modern American culture, there is a sense that if you are not a millionaire by 30, or a senator by 40, life is passing you by. But Mandela made some of his greatest contributions, including becoming South Africa's first black president, when he was in his 70s. Perhaps "retirement age" has a different meaning in Africa. Or perhaps Mandela just realized that when it comes to passion for social justice and social change, and a desire to make the world a better place, age is nothing but a number. 4. Good leaders can rise in good times, but only great leaders can thrive in bad. Plenty of so-called leaders can lead marches, give interviews or rile up an adoring crowd with an inspiring speech. But few can inspire crowds from behind bars – and even fewer can do so for nearly three decades. While plenty of movements have fallen apart when a charismatic leader is no longer in a position of power, Mandela's leadership capabilities were so extraordinary that the causes for which he fought thrived despite his imprisonment. 5. A movement is greater than a man. One of Mandela's greatest qualities was his willingness to ensure that his work would continue whether he was behind prison bars or was no longer with us on this Earth. He may have passed on, but his quest for equality lives on.
Keli Goff is a special correspondent for The Root, an online magazine focusing on African-American issues and distributed by The Washington Post/Bloomberg News Service.


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By Marie-Louise Gumuchian
(CNN) — A security firm has identified a teenager in Russia as the author of the malware used in the cyberattacks against Target and Neiman Marcus, and warned retailers to be prepared for more potential breaches.
Investigators have been probing the recent holiday season cyberattack where a massive breach at Target compromised credit card numbers and other personal information of 70 million customers.
In a statement published Friday, Security firm IntelCrawler said the breach was the result of malware that infected Target's system and possibly compromised the systems of other retailers. Neiman Marcus reported a similar security breach this month.
The malware, which IntelCrawler describes as an "off-the-shelf" product known as BlackPOS, was allegedly written by a 17-year-old with roots in St. Petersburg.
New breaches?
Experts say the teenager who made the malware shared it with others.
"Well, we should be worried. One of the things the hackers do is take the malware as it's called. Once it's identified, then the security community can rally around it and put controls in place. But the problem is, the hackers know that. And they manipulate or mutate this malware, and then reuse it," SecureState CEO Ken Stasiak said.
"We believe that he originated the code, or the malware everybody's calling it now. And was able to put it up on the Internet for download for other hackers to then take, and potentially use it for malicious harm. And that's what we believe happened to Target and Neiman Marcus."
The first sample of the malware was created in March and since then, more than 40 versions have been sold around the world, IntelCrawler said. It first infected retailers in Australia, Canada and the United States.
Andrew Komarov, IntelCrawler CEO, said most of the victims are department stores and said more BlackPOS infections as well as new breaches could appear soon. Retailers should be prepared.
"The numbers could be staggering, really, because what the retailers are looking at are potential class action lawsuits," CNN legal analyst Paul Callan said.
"Let's say hypothetically, a retailer has 40 million transactions by 40 million different customers. All 40 million may have been damaged in some way, and under law they can all be joined together in a class action lawsuit."
CNN's George Howell contributed to this report.
™ & © 2014 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

subset: commoncrawl


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Nutritional Cure for Gum Disease
Nutritional Cure for Gum Disease
Periodontal disease or popularly known as gum disease affects one in every three individual who are over 30 years of age in the United States. Gum disease in the inflammation of the gums by which could lead to tooth loss or even heart disease. The most common symptom of gum disease is the bleeding or pain of the gums. However some periodontal disease does not inhibit pain making the individual unaware that he or she already has gum disease. As a matter of fact, gum disease is responsible for more tooth loss to individuals who are over 30 than dental cavities.
However, nutritional cure for gum disease may be possible. Eating foods rich in vitamin C can help relieve gum disease because vitamin C is an antioxidant. Also, vitamin C can lower the risk of developing severe gingivitis. It is well known among dental professionals that vitamin C and gum disease are related. Vitamin C is needed to repair the connective fibers and it also hastens the regeneration of the damaged bone.
Another nutritional cure for gum disease is vitamin D. vitamin D has some anti-inflammatory properties that helps soothes the inflamed gums. Also, recent studies show that high vitamin D level in the blood can lessen the bleeding of the gums. Sun exposure is one of the most abundant sources of vitamin D. Experts recommend a total of 10 to 15 minutes of exposure done twice weekly can meet the recommended amount of vitamin D.
Folic acid is also a nutritional cure for gum disease. Folic acid when taken in a form of a capsule can be very effective. Rinsing the mouth with a folic acid solution can also reduce the bleeding and inflammation of the gums. On the other hand, folic acid in capsule form has no effect on pregnant women who have gum disease. Only the mouthwash solution is effective on pregnant women.
Some doctors recommend calcium as a nutritional cure for gum disease. A 500 milligram intake of calcium twice a day in a span of six months can reduce the symptoms of gum disease. Although calcium can reduce the bleeding of the gums and tooth loss, it has little effect on most cases.
Cranberry juice is a good nutritional cure for gum disease. Cranberries helps fight gum disease by preventing bacteria from sticking on the teeth. A recommended four ounces of cranberry juice a day is sufficient enough to prevent gum disease.
Experts recommend that you consult your doctor for proper nutritional cure for gum disease to prevent any complication on the gum disease. Follow the doctor's advice and visit your dentist regularly to monitor the progress of the gum problem. Remember, gum disease may and can lead to heart problems. Take good care of your gums to have a healthy heart.
Read more here: https://medium.com/@meridithreagan/regrow-gum-tissue-d26d9d7f9a62


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This site is the archived OWASP Foundation Wiki and is no longer accepting Account Requests.
To view the new OWASP Foundation website, please visit https://owasp.org
What are web applications?
Development Guide Table of Contents
In the early days of the web, web sites consisted of static pages, which severely limited interaction with the user. In the early 1990's, this limitation was removed when web servers were modified to allow communication with server-side custom scripts. No longer were applications just static brochure-ware, edited only by those who knew the arcane mysteries of HTML; with this single change, normal users could interact with the application for the first time.
This is a huge and fundamental step towards the web as we know it today. Without interactivity, there would be no e-commerce (such as Amazon), no web e-mail (Hotmail or Gmail), no Internet Banking, no blogs, no online share trading, and no web forums or communities like Orkut or Friendster. The static Internet would have been vastly different to today.
The trend towards increased interactivity has continued apace, with the advent of "Web 2.0", a term that encompasses many existing technologies, but heavily features highly interactive, user centric, web-aware applications.
Initially, it was quite difficult to write sophisticated applications. The first generation web applications were primitive, usually little more than form submissions and search applications. Even these basic applications took quite a great deal of skill to craft.
Over time, the arcane knowledge required to write applications has been reduced. Today, it is relatively easy to write sophisticated applications with modern platforms and simpler languages, like PHP or VB.NET.
However, this push to make applications as easy to write as possible has a downside – many entry-level programmers are completely unaware of the security implications of their code. This is discussed further in the "Security Principles" chapter.
Let's look at the various generations of web application technology.
First generation – CGI
Common Gateway Interface (CGI) reigned supreme from approximately 1993 through to the late 1990's when scripting languages took over in a big way.
CGI works by encapsulating user supplied data in environment variables. These are inherited by the custom-written scripts or programs, usually developed in Perl or C. The custom programs process the supplied user data, and send fully formed HTML to the "standard out" (stdout), which is captured by the web server and passed back to the user.
Examples of complex CGI include Hotmail, which was essentially Perl scripts running on top of FreeBSD boxes and Slashdot, again a large Perl script running under Linux
As few sites today write new CGI applications, the techniques to secure CGI applications are not discussed within the Development Guide. However, many of the techniques discussed can be used with few or no changes.
Filters can be used to control access to a web site, implement a different web application framework (such as Perl, PHP, or ASP), or to provide a security check. Because filters live within the execution context of the web server itself, they can be high performance. Typical examples of a filter interface include Apache web server modules, SunONE's NSAPI, and Microsoft's ISAPI. Filters can be written in C/C++ in order to integrate with the web/app server at a low-level. However, more recently, filters are being implemented in higher level languages, using interfaces like the J2EE filter API.
CGI's lack of session management and authorization controls hampered the development of commercially useful web applications.
Web developers turned to scripting languages, such as PHP and Ruby to solve these problems. Scripting languages run script code within the web server without being compiled.
Unlike low-level languages where programmers have to deal with memory allocation themselves, scripting languages deal with memory management internally. This allows them to avoid, most of the time, problems such as buffer overflows and resource leaks and thus, programmers who use them can at least avoid some security related issues common in low-level languages. However, they are not without flaws:
- Most scripting languages aren't strongly typed and do not promote good programming practices
- Scripting languages are generally optimized for particular types of data manipulation. Often programmers choose the wrong language to solve the right problem, resulting in poor application performance that is sometimes blamed on the language itself.
- It's difficult (but not impossible) to write multi-tier large scale applications in scripting languages, because often the presentation, application and data tiers reside on the same machine, thus limiting scalability and security
- Most scripting languages do not natively support remote method or web service calls, which makes it difficult to communicate with application servers and external web services.
Despite their disadvantages, many large and useful applications have been written with scripting languages, such as eGroupWare (egroupware.org), which is written in PHP. Too, many older Internet banking sites are written in ASP.
Scripting frameworks include ASP, Perl, ColdFusion, and PHP. However, many of these would be considered interpreted hybrids now, particularly later versions of PHP and ColdFusion, which pre-tokenize and optimize scripts.
Web application frameworks – J2EE and ASP.NET
As scripting languages reached the boundaries of performance and scalability, many larger vendors jumped on Sun's J2EE web development platform. There are many J2EE implementations, including Tomcat from the Apache Foundation, JBoss and Glassfish.
- Uses the Java language to produce applications which run nearly as quickly as C++ based ones, and that do not easily suffer from buffer overflows and memory leaks
- Allowed large distributed applications to run acceptably for the first time
- Possesses good session and authorization controls
- Enabled relatively transparent multi-tier applications via various remote component invocation mechanisms, and
- Is strongly typed to prevent many common security and programming issues before the program even runs
J2EE's downside is that it has a steep learning curve which makes it difficult for web designers and entry-level programmers to use it to write applications. While certain graphical development tools make it somewhat easier to program with J2EE, a scripting language like PHP is still much easier to use.
When Microsoft updated their ASP technology to ASP.NET. which mimics the J2EE framework in many ways, they offered several improvements on the development process. For example, .NET:
- Makes it easy for entry level programmers and web designers to whip up smaller applications
- Allows large distributed applications
- Offers good session and authorization controls
- Allows programmers to use their favorite language, which is compiled to native code for excellent performance (near C++ speeds), along with buffer overflow and resource garbage collection
- Permits transparent communication with remote and external components
- Is strongly typed to prevent many common security and programming issues before the program even runs
The choice of J2EE or ASP.NET frameworks is largely dependent upon platform. There is little reason to choose one over the other from a security perspective.
Applications targeting J2EE theoretically can run with few (if any) changes between any of the major vendors and on many platforms from Linux, to AIX, MacOS X, or Windows. (While in practice, some tweaking is required, complete re-writes are not required. )
- ASP.NET is primarily available for Microsoft Windows. The Mono project (http://www.go-mono.com/) can run ASP.NET applications on many platforms including Solaris, Netware, and Linux.
Small to medium scale applications
Most applications are either small or medium scale. The usual architecture is a simple linear procedural script. This is the most common form of coding for ASP, ColdFusion and PHP scripts, but rarer (but not impossible) for ASP.NET and J2EE applications.
The reason for this architecture is that it is easy to write, and few skills are required to maintain the code. For smaller applications, any perceived performance benefit from moving to a more scalable architecture will never be recovered in the development time for those applications. For example, if it takes an additional three weeks of developer time to re-factor the scripts into an MVC approach, the three weeks will never be recovered (or noticed by end users) from the improvements in scalability.
It is typical to find many security issues in such applications, including dynamic database queries constructed from insufficiently validated data input, poor error handling, and weak authorization controls.
This Development Guide provides advice throughout to help improve the security of these applications.
Large scale applications
Larger applications need a different architecture than that of a simple survey or feedback form. As applications get larger, it becomes ever more difficult to implement and maintain features and to keep scalability high. Using scalable application architectures becomes a necessity rather than a luxury when an application needs more than about three database tables or presents more than approximately 20 - 50 functions to a user.
Scalable application architecture is often divided into tiers, and if design patterns are used, often broken down into re-usable chunks using specific guidelines to enforce modularity, interface requirements, and object re-use. Breaking the application into tiers allows the application to be distributed to various servers, thus improving the scalability of the application at the expense of complexity.
One of the most common web application architectures is model-view-controller (MVC). The main concept of MVC is to keep the code that displays content (the view) completely separate from the data and business logic (the model). The controller exists to handle user input. Let's use an order form as an example to solidify these terms. The HTML of the form, its layout and anything you *see* that is not data should be generated by the view. You type your information into the form and click the "purchase" button. Behind the scenes, the controller receives this information and passes it on to the model. The model either accepts the data or rejects it (if, for example, you forgot to enter your name). If the data is accepted, the controller forwards you to the next view (perhaps a view that says you successfully ordered the product). If the data is rejected, the controller may forward you back to the order form view with error messages on the page saying you need to enter your name.
MVC is typical of most Apache Foundation Jakarta Struts applications, and the code-behind ASP.NET can be considered a partial implementation of this approach. For PHP, the WACT project (http://wact.sourceforge.net) aims to implement the MVC paradigm in a PHP friendly fashion.
The front-end rendering code, often called the presentation tier, should aim to produce the HTML output for the user with little to no application logic.
As many applications will be internationalized (i.e. contain no localized strings or culture information in the presentation layer), they must use calls into the model (application logic) to obtain the data required to render useful information to the user in their preferred language and culture, script direction, and units.
All user input is directed back to controllers in the application logic.
The controller (or application logic) takes input from the users and gates it through various workflows that call on the application's model objects to retrieve, process, or store the data.
Well written controllers centrally server-side validate input data against common security issues before passing the data to the model for processing, and ensure that output is safe or in a ready form for safe output by the view code.
As the application is likely to be internationalized and accessible, the data needs to be in the local language and culture. For example, dates cannot only be in different orders, but an entirely different calendar could be in use. Applications need to be flexible about presenting and storing data. Simply displaying "7/4/2005" is ambiguous to anyone outside a few countries.
Models encapsulate functionality, such as "Account" or "User". A good model should be transparent to the caller, and provide a method to deal with high-level business processes rather than a thin shim to the data store. For example, a good model will allow pseudo code such as this to exist in the controller:
oAccount->TransferFunds(fromAcct, ToAcct, Amount)
rather than writing it such as this:
if ( oAccount->isMyAcct(fromAcct) && amount < oAccount->getMaxTransferLimit() && oAccount->getBalance(fromAcct) > amount && oAccount->ToAccountExists(ToAcct) ) then if oAccount->withdraw(fromAcct, Amount) == OK then oAccount->deposit(ToAcct, Amount) end if end if
The idea is to encapsulate the actual dirty work into the model code, rather than exposing primitives. If the controller and model are on different machines, the performance difference will be staggering, so it is important for the model to be useful at a high level.
The model is responsible for checking data against business rules, and any residual risks unique to the data store in use. For example, if a model stores data in a flat file, the code needs to check for OS injection commands if the flat files are named by the user. If the model stores data in an interpreted language, such as SQL, then the model is responsible for preventing SQL injection. If it uses a message queue interface to a mainframe, the message queue data format (typically XML) needs to be well formed and compliant with a DTD.
The contract between the controller and the model needs to be carefully considered to ensure that data is strongly typed, with reasonable structure (syntax), and appropriate length, while allowing flexibility to allow for internationalization and future needs.
Calls by the model to the data store should be through the most secure method possible. Often the weakest possibility is dynamic queries, where a string is built up from unverified user input. This leads directly to SQL injection and is frowned upon. For more information, see the Interpreter Injections chapter.
The best performance and highest security is often obtained through parameterized stored procedures, followed by parameterized queries (also known as prepared statements) with strong typing of the parameters and schema. The major reason for using stored procedures is to minimize network traffic for a multi-stage transaction or to remove security sensitive information from traversing the network.
Stored procedures are not always a good idea – they tie you to a particular database vendor and many implementations are not fast for numeric computation. If you use the 80/20 rule for optimization and move the slow and high-risk transactions to stored procedures, the wins can be worthwhile from a security and performance perspective.
Web applications can be written in many different ways, and in many different languages. Although the Development Guide concentrates upon three common choices for its examples (PHP, J2EE and ASP.NET), the Development Guide can be used with any web application technology.


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Internet Explorer, the old, fat, mad king of the online kingdom still reigns uncontested. But beneath him, a power struggle between Chrome and Firefox, the latter of which has clung to the number two spot. But that's about to change.
According to internet stats firm StatCounter, Chrome's grown in use by 50%—and is on track to take the silver medal by December. StatCounter is just one company among many that do the exact same thing, so these figures aren't ironclad. But the trend definitely is—IE languishes, and Firefox hasn't done much to excite us in a while. Chrome, on the other hand, at least has Google beating its drum; a luxury afforded by, you know, being owned by megarich Google. The long term trend here—emphasis on long—is the gradual decline of IE. Eventually, I'd expect Firefox and Chrome to take the number one and two spots. It's just a matter of when, and who'll be the new king. [ComputerWorld]


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Inquiry into Multiculturalism in Australia
The Joint Standing Committee on Migration shall inquire into the economic, social and cultural impacts of migration in Australia and make recommendations to maximise the positive effects of migration. The inquiry shall examine and report on:
The role of multiculturalism in the Federal Government's social inclusion agenda; and
The contribution of diaspora communities to Australia's relationships with Europe, the UK, Middle East and the immediate Asia-Pacific Region.
Innovative ideas for settlement programs for new migrants, including refugees, that support their full participation and integration into the broader Australian society; and
Incentives to promote long term settlement patterns that achieve greater social and economic benefits for Australian society as a whole.
The role migration has played and contributes to building Australia's long term productive capacity;
The profile of skilled migration to Australia and the extent to which Australia is fully utilising the skills of all migrants; and
Potential government initiatives to better assist migrant communities establish business enterprises.
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Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Booking Through Thursday: Where Does the Time Go?
Booking Through Thursday
Have you ever missed an important appointment because you have become so engrossed in a book you forgot the time or were up so late reading that you didn't wake up in time? Been late to work because you couldn't resist the temptation and left the house too late?
I feel like I should answer yes to the first part of the question to prove myself as a true reading addict, however, that would be a lie. To my knowledge, I have never missed an important appointment because I am so consumed by the book I am reading that I forget my commitments altogether. I have been known to lose track of time while reading on occasions when I am free to read for as long and as much as I would like.
There are times when I get so lost in the pages of a book that I lose any sense of my surroundings. Any background noise fades away until it disappears. On occasion, someone can be talking to me, and I will not hear them. (Off topic: During my younger years, I could read with all sorts of sounds and volume around me, however, the older I get, the more I find I prefer silence or minimal sound).
While I cannot recall ever having read so late that I cannot wake up in time (my alarm makes sure of that) for work, I have stayed up into the wee hours of the morning reading, sometimes even going to bed to sleep but then getting up having decided I would rather continue reading. I rarely pull all-nighters with the books I read anymore (is it age?). Sleep has a way of overtaking me these days even when I try to keep it at bay. My little trick of keeping one eye open at a time only prolongs my reading time for a short while longer, unfortunately. Ho hum.
I absolutely hate when I am close to finishing a book and it is time to leave for work. When I worked the second shift, this proved to be a problem all too often. I was running into the office barely in the nick of time because I decided I had to finish the book or read just one more page or chapter. Now that I work the early shift, I tend to wake up as close to my leaving time as possible and do not always have time to read before I have to be at the office. I'm not much of an early bird. At least not that early.
These days it seems my problem is more in finding the time to read. I do my best to fit it in when and wherever I can. I suppose compared to some, the amount of time I spend reading could be considered substantial, however, that does not really change my own perception of wishing I could fit in just a little more time here or there.
It's your turn! Do you lose track of time when you read?
17 comments:
I enjoyed reading your post! (I wish I can write that much, LOL!!!)ReplyDelete
Like you, I prefer to read with minimal sound around me and I too had no problem with sounds around me when I was younger, ahh...time is catching on us. :P
So many books, so little time!!!
A couple of years ago, I was so engrossed in Wuthering Heights that I forgot to call a woman and arrange to meet her the following day. This was before I got my cell phone. The day of the meeting, I got an email saying in effect, I kept today open, where are you? I sent an apologetic email back, but was a little too honest -- I told her that I was reading Wuthering Heights and forgot to call. She must not be a reader, because I never heard from her again. I really thought she might understand...her first name's Emma!ReplyDelete
I've lost track of time when I'm reading WHEN I have the time to lose... I'm a pretty practical person. Sounds like you are, too... to a point :-)ReplyDelete
Mine's up.
Mine's a whole lot shorter than yours. I couldn't think of much to say. Excellent answer!ReplyDelete
Oh yes, I lose track of time - most recently, I lost track of time reading The Woman in White.ReplyDelete
I've been trying that one eyed thing too lately. Maybe two extra minutes, but you can't remember the last minute of what you read?ReplyDelete
I can read with sound around me, in fact if there no sound I'm going to get sleepy. But I can not concentrate on my reading if someone talking to me and won't stop bothering until I pay attention to them *sigh*ReplyDelete
Love your answer to this post. Thanks for stopping by my blog. Happy BTT!
I tend to read only at bedtime and while waiting for my son in line at school, so my problem is staying up too late because I can't stop myself. Loved reading your answer!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousThursday, April 12, 2007 4:25:00 PM
There is never enough time, is there? The more I get, the more I want. LOL.ReplyDelete
I too loved you answer the BTT question. You sound a lot like me (probably like many of us actually!)ReplyDelete
Melody - Thank you. I'm not sure what got into me, but I just kept writing and writing. I'm glad it came out well enough to make sense! So many books, so little time is definitely right!ReplyDelete
Bybee - Oooo! That's funny! Although I'm sure not so at the time. :-) I was talking to a coworker today and he made several statements that let me know he's not someone I'll ever talk books with--definitely not a reader. I'm not sure what that has to do with the topic at hand, but there you go. Haha
Marianne - Yes, I find it easier to lose track of time when I have the time to do so. I admit I'm a bit of a clock watcher, especially when I have something scheduled. I hate being late or missing appointments.
Chris - Thanks! I thought your answer was plenty fine! I just got a little wordy this round.
Teabird - There's something magical about being so engrossed in a book you lose track of time.
Raidergirl - LOL That is true! At that point the memory isn't quite as good as when you use two eyes to read.
Julia - You should get a bookmark like I have that says, "Shh! I'm reading. Don't bother me!" Not that it does any good. LOL
Bookfool - Thank you! I do most of my reading before bedtime too unless it's a weekend and then I can devote more time to my books. :-)
Kristy - No, there never is enough time!
Suey - Thank you very much! Yes, we all seem to have a lot in common when it comes to this topic!
I need to come back when I have more time. I like your take on books. I'm going to link you to remind myself to come by again. I've been slacking off on my book reviews lately but I'm still reading.ReplyDelete
Been there! Most definitely!ReplyDelete
I don't know that I've ever let reading make me late for stuff, but since I have a tendency to always be late, I probably have. Right now my issue is that I read during lunch at work, and will sometimes keep my book on my desk after lunch for quick "peeks" so I can finish whatever chapter I was reading at lunch! lolReplyDelete
By the way, I love the pictures of the book/clocks with this post, too cool!
Sarala - Why, thank you! I really enjoy reading your blog and your reviews too. :-)ReplyDelete
Carl V. - LOL Yes, It's easy to get pulled into the pages, isn't it?
Karina - Now that I'm only taking half hour lunches (so I can leave half an hour earlier), I really have noticed a decline in my reading. :-( It's the one downful to a shorter lunch. I barely have time to read.
I tend to be disgustingly punctual. So, I don't even open a book unless I know I'm not expected anyplace for over an hour. I do, however, read a lot while I'm sitting in my car waiting to pick up various members of my family. That's the burden of 'Mom's Taxi Service'. ;)ReplyDelete
Kookie - You are probably wise to not open a book unless you have over an hour before your appointments! I do a lot of reading while waiting too. I really don't like being late if I can help it.ReplyDelete
Thank you for taking the time to visit Musings of a Bookish Kitty. Don't be shy! I would love to hear from you. Due to a recent increase in spam, I will be moderating all comments for the foreseeable future. Please be patient with me as it may take a few hours before I am able to approve your comment.


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In this article, we have CHC Confessors writing about what they've seen and learnt of their experience with Kong Hee, Sun Ho and the City Harvest Church scandal. In our first CHC Cofessors article, it is exposed that "$1,000,000 was distributed to Sun's "Singaporean supporting crew" in USA as "hardship allowance"." A CHC Confessor states in our second article,
"I was there in USA with her for some months. I saw the kind of extravagance and lifestyle that would put the prodigal son to shame. By saying this, I'm sure PK and Sun can guess my identity but it doesn't matter now. If you are going to keep buying into his lies and the false promise of a Suntec "Home", you are going to be very disappointed. And poorer too. Just use a simple litmus test – did this whole saga bring praise to Jesus… or shame?"
The reason why we are publishing these comments from CHC Confessions on C3 Church Watch is because these articles are very informative.
First CHC Confessor writes,
Kong Hee, Tan Ye Peng, and John Lam – Let's look at how amateurish, audacious, opportunistic and crafty they are through the sagas of Galaxy Capital loan and Glory Capital loan.
I will not go into the details of the plundering of the $138,000,000 (approximate) Arise and Build Funds that led to the need to borrow $50,000,000 Galaxy Capital loan to purchase the additional 19.2% stake in Suntec in August 2012.
A brief background:
In March 2010, City Harvest Church announced a $310,000,000 "deal" to be a co-owner of Suntec Convention Center and to use part of the space (around 44%) for its religious services on weekends for 10 years.
City Harvest Church officials were tight-lipped on the details of the "deal", citing a Non-Disclosure-Agreement (NDA) with the vendor, an Indonesian consortium who had just bought 80% of the Suntec Convention Center from ARA Asset Management, owner of the Suntec REIT.
Why is the deal shrouded in secrecy?
Unknown to the congregation, the "deal" only involved the purchase of a mere 20% stake of Suntec Convention Center for $43,800,000, valuing the property at $219,000,000.
The balance $266,200,000, which is more than the entire value of Suntec Convention Center, was for:
a) A 4 + 6 years deal to rent 44% of the space, of which the rental cost is around $15,000,000 each year.
(The projected return from the 20% stake was around $2,000,000+, giving a yield of 4+% each year.)
b) A hefty shifting budget.
During the first year in Suntec Convention Center, the shifting cost was around $15,000,000, cleverly broken into four parts to make it less conspicuous.
c) A one-off Audio-Visual equipment cost that was reported to be around $13,000,000.
d) A $5,500,000 rental deposit, minor renovations, and services for Audio Visual Installation.
At that time, the Arise and Build Fund had raised around $100,000,000 (approximate) but it was so depleted that a bridging loan (paying 9% interest rate) was even needed to pay for part of the $43,8000,000 purchase.
In August 2011, the Indonesian consortium decided to cash out with a hefty Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 64.8% or Equity Multiple of 2.2 times. To the Indonesian consortium, City Harvest Church was a Santa Claus as City Harvest Church is paying top dollars for rental and keeping the facilities 98% leased.
Suntec REIT, who already owns a 20% stake, was given the First Right of Refusal for the 60% stake put up for sale by the Indonesian consortium.
Suntec REIT shrewdly offered 19.2% of the stake to City Harvest Church at $54,000,000, just to give City Harvest Church a 49% minority stake in the vehicle that owned 80% of Suntec Convention Centre.
The Arise and Build Fund had raised around $123,000,000 (approximate) by 2011. But it was so depleted that City Harvest Church needed to borrow $50,000,000 to pay for the additional 19.2% stake at $54,000,000.
Why buy an additional 19.2% when there is no more fund while tithes and offerings were falling?
After the CAD's raid in May 2010, Kong Hee and gang knew that they could not hide behind the NDA anymore.
There would be an uproar if the congregation knew that the "deal" dubbed "Our Promised Land" had only a 20% ownership costing only $43,800,000.
City Harvest Church is willing to pay $310,000,000 just to own a 20% stake in Suntec Convetion Center, and use 44% of the space for weekends only for10 years. The valuation of the property at the purchase price was only $219,000,000!
To make this deal that made no financial sense more palatable to the congregation, Kong Hee and gang gladly committed to buy the additional 19.2% stake at $54,000,000 when there was no fund left in the Arise and Build Fund.
Galaxy Capital Loan:
To raise the fund, Tan Ye Peng and John Lam went around to borrow from the banks but were unsuccessful.
It was not just the ongoing investigations that turned the bank off.
There were four tranches of outstanding "super-low-interest unsecured loans" given to AMAC Capital in the form of Special Opportunity Funds, amounting to $17,935,000, that spooked the banks.
These four tranches (Tranche 13, 14, 16, and 18) of unsecured "loans" were lent to AMAC Capital from November 2009 to May 2010, just prior to the CAD's raid on 30 May 2010. These unsecured "loans" had been rolled over since August 2011.
In other words, these loans were already in default.
However, during the rounds with the banks, Tan Ye Peng and John Lam learnt something.
1) Front-end fee. This is a one-off and negotiable fee usually used by the banks to charge an additional 0.5-1.0% fee just to improve the margin.
2) Private Equity Fund will lend to a high-risk client like City Harvest Church for a hefty interest rate of 15% per annum, if the loan is fully secured by collateral.
When Tan Ye Peng managed to convince an ultra-high net worth church member, who is related to the Indonesian consortium, to help set up and arrange for Galaxy Capital to lend $50,000,000 to City Harvest Church at 10% per annum over three years, Kong Hee and gang saw an opportunity.
Knowing that the market rate is 15% as City Harvest Church was having such a bad publicity, Kong Hee and gang did the following:
1) Incorporate 3%, 4%, and 5% front-end fees for the amount of outstanding loan in the beginning of year 1, 2, and 3 of the Galaxy Loan. That is $1,500,000, $1,600,000, and $1,500,000 respectively. A total of $4,600,000 to be paid as front-end fees to an unknown party.
2) They told this ultra-high net worth member that the mark-up was needed to help pay for the $20,000,000 + "loans" secretly borrowed from other churches and individuals to redeem the Xtron and FIRNA bonds after the CAD raid in May 2010.
The continuous plundering weighed on the finances of City Harvest Church. It was so bad that the progress payment for Galaxy Loan could not be repaid in Year 2.
John Lam, despite his suspension by COC, worked on and put up a refinancing proposal.
The new Investment Committee recommended against the refinancing proposal as hefty multi-year front-end fees were again incorporated for the 5-year deal.
In the financial markets, a 3-5% and multi-year front-end fee is highly suspicious and inappropriate, especially when it is not clear on who is actually receiving the fees.
Glory Capital Loan:
After the failed attempt at refinancing, Kong Hee and gang then bypassed the new Investment Committee and put Bobby Chaw as the front person to do the Glory Capital Loan.
Kong Hee and gang craftily structured the Glory Capital Loan to achieve the following:
1) "Legitimize" the questionable multi-year front-end fee as if it is a normal practice in the financial industry.
2a) Artificially boosted the value of Suntec Convention Center to $500,000,000 by giving it a conversion price of $46,000,000 for the 9.2% stake to be forfeited by Glory Capital; should City Harvest Church default on the loan.
2b) The actual conversion price is only $33,000,000 as there is an irrevocable front-end fee of $13,000,000 to be paid to Glory Capital even if the forfeiture takes place. This will give Suntec Convention Centre a valuation of $358,700,000.
2c) City Harvest Church acquired the 39.2% stake at $97,8000,000, valuing Suntec Convention Centre at $249,500,000.
However, Suntec REIT carried out a $180,000,000 Asset Enhancement Initiative to give Suntec Convention Center a facelift, the liability of City Harvest Church's 39.2% stake in Suntec Convention Center is $70,560,000.
3) In essence, City Harvest Church will most likely retire the outstanding $42,000,000 of the non-performing $50,000,000 Galaxy Loan by forgoing a 9.2% stake in Suntec Convention Center.
This is after paying at least $30,000,000+ in fees and interest to both Galaxy Capital and Glory Capital.
4) Eventually, City Harvest Church will retain a 30% stake in Suntec Convention Centre, projected to yield a dividend income of $3,000,000 – $5,000,000 a year.
City Harvest Church also assumed a liability of $54,000,000 for the $180,000,000 renovation loan taken up by Suntec REIT.
In summary:
1) It is unlikely that the initial NDA in 2010 was the initiative of the vendor (Indonesian consortium) as the cost of shifting, equipment, and minor renovation did not concern the vendor at all.
Kong Hee and gang used the NDA to "mask" the true composition of the $310,000,000 "deal".
It is absurb that City Harvest Church asked the congregation to progressively pay up $310,000,000 just to own a 20% stake in Suntec Convention Center and rent 44% of the space on weekends only for 10 years; when the property was valued at only $219,000,000 at the time of purchase!
2) The Arise and Build Fund was cleverly mandated to pay for the rental of premises also. This is a financially imprudent practice of matching a recurring long-term rental expense with an extraordinary ad-hoc income of Arise of Build Campaigns.
It is clear that the stated goal for the investment in Suntec Convention Center to self-sustain cannot be achieved. ($3,000,000 to $5,000,000 dividend income versus $15,000,000 – $30,000,000 in rental/shifting/service fees)
This frees up more than $10,000,000 from the general operating budget of City Harvest Church. Kong Hee and gang can then freely allocate these funds in the general operating budget to "Mission Donations" with little transparency and accountability.
A case in point, City Harvest Church donated $3,000,000 to City Harvest Church KL.
We understand that the City Harvest Church KL only got to keep $300,000. The balance $2,700,000 was promptly distributed as follows:
a) $1,700,000 was distributed to Mark Kwan and Henry Chee.
b) $1,000,000 was distributed to Sun's "Singaporean supporting crew" in USA as "hardship allowance".
3) The non-permanent nature of the premises at Expo Changi and Suntec Convention Center entailed constant shifting each year.
Hefty mark-up in shifting costs when hundreds of volunteers helped out with the moves. Some people are getting very rich. Just ask Henry Chee.
4) There is so much "fat" built into the $310,000,000 "deal". After the acquisition of an additional 19.2% stake at $54,000,000, the "deal" still stands at $310,000,000.
Aries shamelessly thanked that people who are doing the shifting for their hard work to make the "savings" possible.
This will give Kong Hee and gang the means to fleece the church while making the yearly Arise and Build Campaign a necessity for a long time to come.
To my dear brothers and sisters in City Harvest Church:
You might have been told that the leadership had "Right Motives, Wrong Methods."
You might have been told that God had given Kong Hee a vision to reach out to the lost souls through cultural mandate.
You might have been told all the siphoning and unlawful acts are to fulfill God's vision given to a man of God.
I will leave it to you to decide what you want to do.
The funds that are being round-tripped and debated in Singapore court recently; at least now we know where these monies ended up – funding the lavish lifestyle and personal ambitions of Kong Hee and Sun.
But there is at least another $10,000,000 to $20,000,000 of God's money that was/is being siphoned off each year through mark-up in procurements and services provided to City Harvest Church, and dubious "Mission Donations" with little transparency and accountability.
Whose pockets did these monies end up in?
What is Kong Hee's net worth?
No one really knows but some in the know guess it is in the region of $40,000,000 to 70,000,000.
Recently, many OMs and MMs watched Reverend Bobby Chaw on stage trying in vain to convince them that the borrowing of $50,000,000 (12.5-15% interest rate + a total of $17,600,000 in irrevocable front-end fees) to buy an additional 19.2% stake of Suntec Convention Center was such a shrewd investment (3-4 +% dividend yield).
Reverend Bobby did not even bother to explain why the Arise and Build Funds were so depleted in the first place.
Many of these members must be thinking:
Is this the guy that I want to lead myself and my family in our spiritual walk?
Kong Hee and gang are going to kick start another round of Arise and Build in October 2013, with 6, 7, or 8 more to come.
If you think Kong Hee and gang should be exposed, please forward this article to any member of City Harvest Church that you know, or anyone you think that may know a member of City Harvest Church.
God bless.
From: CHC Confessions, Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/CHCConfessions/posts/676453235707390, 30/09/2013. (Accessed 16/11/2013.)
CHC Confessions also had another fascinating post. If you would like to know more about where Kong Hee got the false "Seven Pillars of the Cultural Mandate" teaching, tune into this episode of Fighting for the Faith. Listen to the second hour where Chris Rosebrough reviews C. Peter Wagner, (who is the founder of the 'New Apostolic Reformation').
Tinfoil Pyramid Hat Episode
• Only You Can Save Ed Young, Jr's Private Jet and Mansion
• 3rd Eagle Explains How the Chilean Mine Rescue Proves We're in the Tribulation
• Dr. Cindy Trimm Explains Our Dominion Over the Galactic Dimensions
• C. Peter Wagner Gives a Primer on Dominionism
(Source:Tinfoil Pyramid Hat Episode, http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2010/11/tinfoil-pyramid-hat-episode.html, 02/11/2010.)
It's worth noting that Phil Pringle is influenced by the teachings of Peter Wagner. There is no way that Kong Hee was suddenly ordained by God to fulfill a "Cultural Mandate". It is more likely he was influenced by men like Pringle or Wagner and decided to call it something else to stand out in the community of Asian churches.
The confessor writes,
In principle, you can't fault PK's sermon last weekend. He spoke about the seven pillars of the Cultural Mandate: Religion, Family, Business, Education, Government, Arts & Entertainment and Media
What he said in his 70-minute long sermon, I can summarise in one minute – Be the salt and light wherever God has planted you, You can be a Daniel and a Joseph if you rise to the top of your profession where you can be in a position of influence whether for society, your company, your nation and ultimately to propagate the gospel. Nothing wrong with this.
The problem is that PK was using this sermon to justify Sun's crossover into the pillar of Arts & Entertainment. Why is it a problem? Because in the first place, Sun is not a pop star and never will be. And after getting caught with his hands in a cookie jar he is now using the Cultural Mandate as an excuse. After years of denying any use of CHC funds for Sun's career, suddenly it's now – yes we did use millions of (the-sky-is-the-limit) dollars belonging to the church to TRY to make her a pop star but it was all part of the Cultural Mandate.
Daniel and Joseph did not have to "pretend" to be somebody they were not. They didn't have to compromise or manipulate to get into their position of influence. The got there through simple obedience to God and non-compromise to the world. What Sun did in Hollywood was a TOTAL opposite from these men of God. Before she even got near to any genuine position of fame, success and influence, she was already compromising big time. I don't have to remind anyone of China Wine, Mr Bill, photos with porn stars, tongue hanging out and fingers in a vulgar sign. Boobs half hanging out in tasteless photos. Was all that suppose to win people to Christ?
If this Sun Ho/Crossover/Cultural Mandate excuse holds water, does that mean it's alright for PK to use the building fund to enter into politics to assimilate himself into the pillar of Government?
Members of CHC, I was there in USA with her for some months. I saw the kind of extravagance and lifestyle that would put the prodigal son to shame. By saying this, I'm sure PK and Sun can guess my identity but it doesn't matter now. If you are going to keep buying into his lies and the false promise of a Suntec "Home", you are going to be very disappointed. And poorer too. Just use a simple litmus test – did this whole saga bring praise to Jesus… or shame?
When this whole thing started with COC, PK said there will be no problem. When CAD arrested them, he said there will be no charges. Now after two tranches of court trials, he tells you this whole episode will end in 2014 and then God will bring about a revival because of his sacrifice in going through this difficult time. He may finally be right after all cos there is definitely a good chance of a real revival after he goes to jail.
Source: CHC Confessions, Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/CHCConfessions/posts/680871881932192, 9/10/2013, Accessed 12/10/2013.
Categories: City Harvest Church


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End the Fed?
Reprinted from Yes! Magazine (November 18, 2011)
There's lots of anger against the Federal Reserve from the left and the right. David Korten argues that what it needs is some major restructuring.
By David Korten
Wednesday, November 9, was Occupy Wall Street Federal Reserve Awareness Day. The day's events included an interview with David Korten for occupywallst.org and occupiedwallstjournal.com by Harrison Schultz, an occupy organizer. This blog provides a context for the interview.
I don't normally agree with Congressman Ron Paul, but his claim on MSNBC in December 2009 that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is more powerful than President Obama has substantial merit. As Paul went on to explain "He [Bernanke] can create a trillion dollars in secret without any monitoring of the Congress."
We now know that Paul understated Bernanke's power by $15 trillion.
The Dodd-Frank financial reform bill signed into law by President Obama on July 21, 2010 included a mandate for a one-time Government Accountability Office audit of the emergency lending facility the U.S. Federal Reserve established in response to the 2008 Wall Street financial crash. The audit revealed that the Fed had secretly made $16 trillion in financial commitments to a long list of the world's largest financial institutions and corporations, many based in other countries. It was all done entirely in secret, at the Fed's own discretion, and based on nothing more than computer key strokes.
No Congressional authorization was required. Nor was the Fed required even to inform Congress, the administration, or the public.
Now that is real power, beyond the wildest dreams of any U.S. president—and totally contrary to the basic principles of democracy or a market economy.
To put $16 trillion in perspective, we can compare it to the U.S. GDP ($14 trillion), the total U.S. debt accumulated over our 200+ year history ($14.5 trillion), the federal budget ($3.5 trillion), or the amount the Congressional Supercommittee is charged with eliminating from the federal deficit ($1.5 trillion).
The U.S. Federal Reserve System [the Fed's primary functions are carried out by a system of 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks] is a study in obfuscation. It appears in the organization chart of the U.S. governmentand presents itself to the world as an independent government body, but its highly complex governance structure assures its operations are in fact controlled by the big banks whose interests it faithfully serves. It piously reports that its accounts are subject to extensive internal and external audit, but only the special one-time audit ordered by the U.S. Congress in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill signed into law by President Obama on July 21, 2010 under vigorous Fed protest revealed the amount and the beneficiaries of its $16 trillion post-crash handouts.
There are angry calls from both left and right to shut down the Fed. The anger is justified. The call to shut it down, however, ignores the reality that a national money/banking system requires oversight and management by a central bank or its institutional equivalent. The choices center on that institution's degree of transparency, to whom it will be accountable, and what its priorities will be.
The Federal Reserve System under Allan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke has used its power to maximize Wall Street profits by suppressing wages, inflating financial bubbles, facilitating predatory financial games that should be illegal, and bailing out the losers—all behind a veil of strict secrecy. It can and should be restructured to be transparent and publicly accountable for using its power to support full employment and maintain stable asset valuations.
The Fed needs to be entirely restructured as one element of a needed restructuring of our entire system of money/banking/finance to create a system of community rooted and accountable financial institutions that function as well-regulated public utilities to fund productive investment and home ownership.
David Korten is board chair of YES! Magazine and the author of Agenda for a New Economy, TheGreat Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, and the international bestseller When Corporations Rule the World. He is co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, and a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies.
- Click here for YES! Magazine's ongoing coverage of Occupy Wall Street.
- How You Can Get Started Building a New Economy
Change the story; create a new reality; change the rules. David Korten's threefold strategy for change.
- How to Liberate America
How is it that our nation is awash in money, but too broke to provide jobs and services? David Korten introduces a landmark new report, "How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule."


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And since I love looking at pics of fabrics on all of your blogs, I thought I'd post one of my recent acquisitions. I have specific plans for a couple of these and some I just ordered small cuts of to stockpile for an I Spy Quilt.
Please check out my Links page to see where I like to link my posts.


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Trailfinders - a made-to-order travel company with 26 travel centers located throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia - upgraded to state-of-the art Jabra PRO ™ 9460 DUO headsets to maximize call quality, and agent mobility and productivity.
- John Williams, Sales Manager, Trailfinders Ltd
Specialists in offering quality tailor made travel itineraries, Trailfinders focuses on helping travelers maximize both their budgets and their time abroad by delivering unbeatable value and exceptional customer service.
The Trailfinders Travel Center in Birmingham acts as a hub for customer service for the travel company, with a team of 38 agents who take calls regarding bookings, destination requests and support. The agents also regularly service the public who come into the center for travel advice.
The Birmingham Trailfinders team had been using the Jabra GN9350 headsets successfully since 2003, but wanted to upgrade to state-of-the art headsets to maximize call quality, and agent mobility and productivity.
John Williams, Sales Manager at Trailfinders Ltd, explains: "The Jabra corded headsets worked very well in our Birmingham office, but the growing number of agents in our open plan environment had increased background noise significantly. We also wanted to explore how the headsets could improve productivity for our staff, in particular by using wireless solutions to increase their freedom to move around the office while on calls."
Due to the success of the Jabra corded headsets, Trailfinders was eager to continue with the brand and take advantage of its latest technology.
Trailfinders chose to deploy the Jabra PRO™ 9460 DUO, a wireless, dual-ear headset incorporating noise cancelling with 2 microphones for a richer and more natural audio experience. The headset can be easily controlled via its accompanying touch screen, which can be used to start or end calls, adjust the volume, or switch between desk and soft phones.
John Williams, Sales Manager, Trailfinders Ltd
John Williams comments: "We were keen to continue using Jabra as the corded headsets were reliable, durable and high quality. The headsets were very, very easy to set up, which was vital as 90% of our business is conducted by telephone and we didn't want to miss any customer calls. Jabra was our first choice for headsets - we didn't see any brand offering better."
The 38 agents in the Birmingham Travel Center received the Jabra PRO™ 9460 DUO headsets in July 2010. The installation took just 5 hours, with the Jabra team working around the agents so their work was not disrupted.
The benefits of the new Jabra headsets were immediate. A key objective in upgrading the Jabra headsets was to give agents more freedom to move when on calls. Using the wireless Jabra PRO™ 9460 DUOs, agents can easily walk around the office and access literature and travel brochures while they are speaking to customers, so they don't have to place them on hold or call them back.
Williams comments: "The new wireless Jabra headsets have significantly increased our team's ability to multi-task and improve productivity. My team can now take more calls and solve customer queries quickly and effectively, the first time." As the Travel Center is a public-facing office, the new wireless headsets now allow agents to welcome members of the public and leave their desks without the risk of missing customer calls.
The Jabra PRO™ 9460 DUO headsets ensure high sound quality for every call, combating the challenging open plan office environment, with high levels of background noise.
The dual-ear headset ensures the Trailfinders team can fully focus on calls, providing clear, crisp sound for both the caller and the agent. With noise cancelling technology and advanced Digital Signal Processing, background noise is practically eliminated so that agents can clearly communicate with customers.
Williams explains: "Our open plan office has high ceilings and lots of glass and metal furnishings, so background noise and echoes were a problem for agents when on calls. Using the Jabra PRO™ 9460 DUO headsets, agents can clearly hear their customers and the noise cancelling is exceptional.
"The Jabra PRO™ 9460 DUO headsets have significantly improved the call experience for both agents and customers. Agent productivity has increased and customers are benefitting from clear, high quality calls."


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Blue Meanies
"I've got a Blue Meanie fetish. I think. What is a fetish?"
The Blue Meanies, also known as The Blue Man Group and suspected as all taking turns as mysterious guitar virtuoso Buckethead are allegedly fictional creatures developed by the Walt Disney Studios in the early 1960's. The Meanies only appeared in one Disney film, Yellow Submarine, which featured mildly popular Christian Folk-Pop group The Beatles. Due to various sundry reasons, the Meanies were shelved after their ill-received debut in favor of more marketable characters such as Pluto and Count Chocula.
There are current plans at Disney to revive the Meanies as stars of a rollicking three-dimensional adventure for the whole family entitled We Never Should Have Let Pixar Go: What in the Fuck Were We Thinking featuring the vocal talents of Sean Connery, Carlton, and remixed vocal samples of Judy Garland. But sources at Disney insist that this is merely a rumor, and in fact the Meanies are not associated with The Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney International, Walt Disney Studios, American Broadcasting Company, Buena Vista Distribution, Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group, Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, or the Blue Man Group.
An Unforgettable Debut[edit]
In June of 1968, an eerie quiet descended on America. What was a-stir? Was there a problem at the old well? Was grandma out of old lady rub? Was there a dog needing its belly scratched?
The muted answer was yes, though not all at the same time. But beyond that, the eerie silence was to be shattered by the surprise release of Yellow Submarine, a four-and-a-half hour animated Disney epic about an animated land full of animated men doing animated things in the company of an animated band.
Selected audiences across the country at selected theatres in selected cities like Butte, San Diego and Cleveland were treated to the film; allegedly, in order to help the audiences through the nearly five-hour marathon of sloppy, garish visuals, incoherent storyline and shocking appearance of moderately popular Christian folk-pop supergroup The Beatles, a variety of psychoactive substances were distributed before and during the screenings.
Movie-goer Edward Hopper recalls, "There was like, man. Maaaaan. There was...all I knew, man, these pills they had. These pillllllllllls, man. Oh, wow. Never forget it. Never. I forget what film we watched, but wowwww. Yeah, those were good times, man."
The film was panned despite the drugs and the tepid popularity of the Beatles, who were quite popular in Connectthedots at the time, and lasted only three weeks in general release. Disney, discouraged that no one seemed to want a four-and-a-half hour animated film that made less sense than most Hunter S. Thompson narratives, put the Meanies on permanent hiatus. They also tried to do the same to the Beatles, but had to be reminded that although they certainly appeared like cartoons, Walt Disney Sutidos had not in fact developed them.
Hiatus and Beyond[edit]
Being put on permanent hiatus gave the Meanies plenty of time to reflect about what and who they were. They came up with a manifesto, Making Things Grey and Freezing Your Ass While We Party Like Drag Queens on PCP, which was subsequently pored over by Cambodian despot Pol Pot, though both Cambodian scholars point out that Pot clearly missed the message.
After the manifesto, they were out of ideas and fell into a deep blue malaise. Eventually, the tall fez-wearing guys with mouths in their stomachs ate the apples the tall top-hat guys had, and the hand-shaped guy was diagnosed with clinical depression. At the behest of their concerned leader, the Meanies pressed Disney to allow them the freedom to moonlight at other jobs, and subsequently most started working at Arby's. However, a small number of the Meanies, most notably Max and the Butterfly Stomper, continued there quest to rid the world of music and happiness and now work at Fox News under the names of Bill O'Reily and Neil Cavuto, respectively.


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July 18, 2006
G91: Red Sox 5, Royals 4
Tim Wakefield had exited after four innings with a "strained upper back", the lowly Royals had gotten every conceivable break on batted balls, using bloops, squibs and bleeders (along with some walks and two HBP) to take a 4-0 lead.
On the other side of the scoresheet, the Red Sox either looked like Little Leaguers at the plate (Lowell's strikeout in the second and myriad other swings by just about everyone else) or hit anything hard right at an opposing fielder (Nixon's hard grounder to first in the 2nd, his line drive at Hudson to end the 4th, and his long drive to deep center in the 7th; Ortiz's line drive to second which ended the 6th when Loretta was doubled off first).
Elsewhere, Toronto had scored nine times in the 4th inning against Texas and the Yankees led Seattle 4-2 and were poised to move into first place in the East.
So ...
In the Red Sox 7th, Manny Ramirez led off with a hard single off the Wall. Nixon's drive was caught against the wall in center, but Lowell and Coco Crisp each singled and Boston had scored a run. Luke Hudson was relieved by Joel Peralta.
Doug Mirabelli took a 3-1 pitch outside, which should have loaded the bases for the Sox. But home plate umpire Jim Joyce called it a strike and Mirabelli, who had taken about three steps towards first base, had to come back. Peralta's 3-2 pitch was a fastball and the SWHB drilled it into the Monster Seats in left-center for a game-tying home run. Thanks, ump!
Belli: "I was starting to walk to first base thinking it was ball four. I took a second to regroup and in that situation you're trying to get a pitch, get a strike. Coming from 3-1 and now I'm 3-2, I had no idea what he's going to throw there at that time. I just sold out on the fastball and was fortunate."
Two singles from Loretta and David Ortiz to start the 8th inning put runners at first and third and Ramirez's sacrifice fly to left scored pinch-runner Willie Harris with the go-ahead run. (Also: Ortiz stole second when Nixon struck out. On the replay we saw that Flo had nearly stopped halfway to the bag, then turned it on again and still beat the high throw. Manny and Kevin Youkilis were going nuts in the dugout, pointing, waving and laughing. Standing at second base, Ortiz tried to hide his giggles.)
The bullpen had to work overtime tonight and the combined line of Delcarmen, Hansen, Timlin and the Papelbot was solid: 5-3-1-0-2.
Perfect example of the worthless strike zone judgment of MLB umpires: Delcarmen's 0-2 pitch to Matt Stairs in the 5th: at the belt, right over the heart of the plate. Ball 1. (Too high, I guess.) Next pitch, again at the belt, but a little bit outside, could have caught the corner. Ball 2. ... So while Bud Selig blathers about the sanctity of the All-Star Game, his umpires can't be bothered to (a) know what the fucking rule book strike zone is and (b) enforce it.
late rally > no rally
Luke Hudson (5.79) / Tim Wakefield (4.05), 7 PM
In Hudson's first start of the year, on July 7 against Toronto, he pitched five innings, allowing one run and two hits.
14 comments:
- Peter N said...
Add that to the 6 runs he allows in his first 3 innings tonight, and what does that make his ERA? Just curious.
- July 17, 2006 at 10:04 AM
- brian said...
Style points do not count in baseball. A win is a win. Mirabelli comes through at the most desperate point of the season.
The good news before the bad. Boomer sounds close to a return. This is big because it looks like Wake might be taking his spot on the DL. We can't go through another game where Jason Johnson pitches, so hopefully Wake can tough it out for his next turn and then be replaced by Wells. (All speculation and opinion at this point.)
Let's get the ship rolling again.
- July 17, 2006 at 7:30 PM
- thatdietcokegirl said...
yep. belli is the hero 2nite.
i cannot tell you the ammount of steam beginning to form on top of my head upon glancing at my gameday window as it refreshed and refreshed showing mirabelli at the plate each time, when i thought for sure that tek would be in to replace him, down 3 runs with 2 on in the bottom of the 7th.
but of course, it was the right decision to keep him in ;)
- July 17, 2006 at 7:38 PM
- Jack Marshall said...
Mirabelli's homer has to be one of the biggest hits of the season so far, no? A loss to KC, even thought the team is much better than it was in May, after the infuriating A's series would have been very damaging.
Keep your fingers crossed on Wake.
- July 18, 2006 at 2:26 AM
- Jack Marshall said...
BY the Way: if Wake goes down, the Sox MUST move Papelbon into the rotation. The chances of getting a few saves by using Timlin, Hansen et al are one hell of a lot better than the chances of getting through 5 innings with the likes of Snyder, Johnson and Pauley. Spare me all the ESPN rationalizations about Paplebon not being able to adjust, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," etc. The pitching STAFF is broke, and Papelbon can fix it. You don't need a closer if you'r 5 runs down.
I really think it will be dumb beyond belief to have two slots in the rotation in tatters while a likely strong starter sits in the pen for one inning stints every couple of days. This will be a gut-check, not to mention IQ test for the Sox management.
Personally, I'd like to see the Sox go out and get Flash from the Phillies to close, and put Papelbon in the rotation from there on, whether Tim is disabled list bound or not.
- July 18, 2006 at 2:41 AM
- Kyle said...
Yeah, I had a similar thought on getting Flash too from the Phillies. They clearly not contenders and we could use him.
It does seem counter-intuitive to have Paps out in the pen when we have great needs in the rotation.
believe it or not...Joe Morgan (who i typically don't like) has always said STARTING pitching is crucial because it saves the bullpen for when it truly is needed.
- July 18, 2006 at 7:20 AM
- Jere said...
How about let's leave Flash Gordon and Jon Papelbon right where they are. Just my opinion.
- July 18, 2006 at 7:22 AM
- Zenslinger said...
"The pitching STAFF is broke, and Papelbon can fix it."
If you truly think this, you are panicking.
No panicking while still in first place, says I.
- July 18, 2006 at 8:16 AM
- Jack Marshall said...
Not panicking at all, just making rational conclusions from available data. You can win a championship with 4 out of 5 slots in the rotation solid, but not 3 of 5. If Wake is out, even for the minimum, that's an inviatation to a long losing stretch.
I really don't comprehend the logic of leaving a potentially terrific starter in the bullpen under such conditions, no matter how effective he is in the 9th.
- July 18, 2006 at 9:57 AM
- brian said...
I've got a different opinion on how to handle this mess.
If Wake goes to the DL I wouldn't panic and deal for another retread. This can be solved internally. Until Wells is ready I would call up Van Buren and let Tavarez start until Boomer is ready to take the ball. (At the most it looks like Tavarez would make 2 starts) As much crap as Tavarez gets here, the guy is a way better option than Johnson, Pauley or Alvarez.
Clement looks like a total lost cause for this season, so it's all up to Boomer. He threw the ball well against TB before getting hurt. I believe we can survive with a Schilling, beckett, Lester, Wells, Snyder rotation and then eventually Wake taking Snyder's spot.
As for switching Papelbon back to a starter, I'm against the move, but if it were to go down I would love to see Delcarmen get a shot to close.
- July 18, 2006 at 11:01 AM
- Jere said...
- This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
- July 18, 2006 at 11:04 AM
- Jere said...
If Pap wasn't as lights-out as he is, I might agree (with him becoming a starter). But, as it is, I'd rather have him locking up nearly every game where we have a late lead than have him try to give us a win (without himself as the closer) once every five days.
- July 18, 2006 at 11:06 AM
- Kyle said...
It is a tough call but I'm leaning more towards leaving Flash in Philly. It was a good thought but he is older and could breakdown.
I'm intrigued with the idea of allowing Tavarez to start a few games. Why not? He has pitched decent in spots. Maybe he needs something new. Might not happen if we trade him to the Rockies though.
- July 18, 2006 at 11:34 AM
- Zenslinger said...
Who would we get from the Rockies for him?
Agree that as maddening as he's been, he has chewed up some innings for us this year. Which can't be said of Rudy; that stat Redsock posted about his first hitter reaching base was downright shocking.
- July 18, 2006 at 2:28 PM


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Ward 4 Council member Muriel Bowser prevailed over embattled Mayor Vincent Gray to take the Democratic nomination for mayor in the April 1 D.C. primary. She faces a general election in November against at least one contender, At-Large Council member David Catania (I).
With 89 percent of the precincts reporting about midnight, Bowser, 41, a fifth generation Washingtonian, was leading Gray 44 percent to 32 percent. Council member Tommy Wells came in third with 12.6 percent.
The primary, which took place for the first time in April, drew smaller-than-usual numbers of voters. Statistics from the D.C. Board of Elections show that 83,000 voters cast ballots in the primary, including 72,500 who voted on April 1.
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In other primary victories, D.C. Council chairman Phil Mendelson was reelected; longtime Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham was defeated by community activist Brianne Nadeau; incumbent Anita D. Bonds was reelected to her At-Large seat; Ward 3 incumbent Mary Cheh went unchallenged; and in Ward 5, incumbent Kenyan McDuffie claimed victory. The Ward 6 seat vacated by Tommy Wells when he threw his hat in mayor's race was won by Charles Allen, Wells' former chief of staff.
Voters and candidates alike were forced to wait longer than anticipated when the Board of Elections failed to release the results until almost midnight even though the polls closed at 8 p.m. BOE officials said the delay was caused by some problems with the way some poll workers operated voting machines and concerns that results in some precincts needed to be verified.
Bowser held her post-primary event at the Imagine Southeast Public Charter School in Southeast Washington. She said she held it there to fulfill a promise she made to Ward 8 residents. There has been some concern among some of the city's Black residents, especially those who live east of the river, that a Bowser administration might not focus as much on their needs as Gray did.
Bowser pledged that if she wins in November, she would be responsive to all the city's residents.
She also took the opportunity to thank her family and parents, whom she credited with her success.
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Gray, at his post-campaign event at the Hyatt Regency in Northwest, thanked his supporters and some members of his administration and noted some of the successes of his term. He pledged to keep working for the nine months he has left in his administration. The next mayor won't take office until January 2015.
Black voters on April 1 highlighted a wide range of concerns that drove them to the polls, including the effect of the changing demographic on issues and services that affect them, affordable housing, improvement of schools in economically challenged communities, jobs for Black men and teens and even-handedness in development.
Reginald Hogart, of Southeast, was still undecided as he headed to vote. "I'm looking for someone who has some moral restraint about them and a person who won't cave in to political enticements," he said.
Constance Green, who voted at Francis Stevens Education Center in Northwest, said she voted for Bowser, though she liked what Gray had done for education and other programs.
"I hope we can have a government we can trust," she said. "Housing is a major issue. There are a lot of people being displaced in D.C. Without good housing you can't raise your kids properly. The city needs to be improved for all residents. It really bothers me that people don't feel like they have a place here."
Sharmán Perkins, a student at the University of the District of Columbia said that she voted for Bowser. "I am interested in education for kids and parental guidance," she said. "Some of these kids don't have a foundation, that's why they're bouncing off the walls."
While several voters said they were sticking with Gray because they thought he would be more responsive to Blacks, some said race played no decision in their choice.
At the Dorothy I. Height Public Library in Northeast Washington, Roscoe L. Jackson said he cast his ballot for fourth-place finisher Council member Jack Evans because he thought the long-time city lawmaker had the best record with low-income residents.
"Skin don't mean nothing," Jackson said, referring to Gray and Bowser being Black like him. "I'm voting experience."
Roy White, 76, who stood outside the Dorothy I. Height-Benning Library just after noon on April 1, said he was disturbed at the low turnout. He said he moved to the District from Georgia in 1961 for better opportunity—including the right to choose his elected leaders.
"There was a time when Black people couldn't vote in Georgia," he said. "In Atlanta, they would throw out a ballot if it was from a Black person—throw it out. I always vote. Many people were dying and marching to give me the vote."
White said his major concerns with the city are on issues of over development; housing for senior citizens; and affordable housing. He said he was concerned that Blacks were being locked out of the city's boom.
"When the contractors come in, you see all these buildings…You see every color on the scaffolds except Black."
Several older Black residents said they wish D.C. Council member Marion Barry had run again, like the Rev. Aubrey R. Wilkins, 65, pastor of Allen House Ministries at the Allen House Apartments in Northeast.
"Despite everything that has happened to him, Marion Barry was the best male mayor we have ever had," she said. "He had a heart for God, which made him have a heart for others."
Zachary Lester, Enitan Aigbomian, Taryn Findley, Ariel Medley and Courtney Jacobs contributed to this report.


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A Letter to My Readers
I never thought I would be saying this, as cliche as it sounds, it truly is an honor to have just been nominated. What does it mean? …….. it means you are reading my posts and more importantly finding value in them.
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MELBOURNE, Australia -- Stan Wawrinka added a win over Rafael Nadal to his list of firsts in a stunning run to his maiden Grand Slam title, extending his rival's injury-cursed run at the Australian Open with a 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 upset in Sunday's final.
The 28-year-old Wawrinka had never taken a set off Nadal in 12 previous meetings, but attacked from the start against the 13-time major winner and regained his nerve after dropping the third set against the injured Spaniard.
Nadal appeared to be on the verge of retiring in the second set, when he hurt his back and needed a medical timeout, but he refused to quit.
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Nadal has had a terrible stretch with injuries at the Australian Open, and has described it as his unluckiest Grand Slam. He won the title in 2009, and lost an epic five-set final to Djokovic in 2012. But he missed the 2013 edition during a seven-month layoff with knee injuries and illness, and his quarterfinal losses in 2010 and 2011 were affected by injuries.
"It has been a very emotional two weeks -- I'm sorry to finish this way," he told the Rod Laver Arena crowd. "I tried very, very hard -- this year was one of the more emotional tournaments in my career."
A possible retirement was looming when Nadal was serving at 0-2 in the second set. He bent over at the waist to stretch his back and then grabbed his lower back with his hand and grimaced in pain. His serve immediately dipped to 141 kph (87 mph).
When Nadal took a medical timeout after falling behind a set and a break, and returned to a chorus of boos without a shirt after 7 minutes, it seemed that an early finish was on the cards.
Wawrinka was aggravated during the timeout, demanding that officials tell him why Nadal needed the break. And he came out aggressively to finish off the second set.
Nadal's serve speed dipped even further to 125 kph (77 mph) and then 114 kph (70 mph). The support in the stadium gradually shifted as the crowd saw the Spaniard battling to stay on the court.
His service speed improved in the beginning of the third set, prompting a fan to yell advice to Wawrinka: "C'mon Stan, no sympathy!"
By the end of the set, Nadal's serve was back up to 174 kph (108 mph) and Wawrinka's error count was escalating.
Wawrinka composed himself after an exchange of breaks in the fourth set to serve it out in 2 hours, 21 minutes. After a muted celebration, he consoled Nadal in the courtside chairs before getting a chance to hold up and kiss his first big trophy.


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Some politicians are sure that even average Americans are working more grueling hours than ever. On average we have more leisure time than ever now, and working hours are down over the past 20 years.
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For over 150 years, legions of scholars, literary people, journalists and general Poe devotees have tried to capture Edgar Allan Poe's complex personality and enshrine it forever in paper and ink. They have exhaustively chased every conceivable source to fill in the details of his life. Every person who met Poe (or was willing to claim so), and was still alive after 1875, was coerced to recall any scrap of fact or insight, no matter how trivial or vague. After these people had passed on, their children and even grandchildren were asked to repeat anything they had heard about Poe. From this mass of disjointed and often contradictory information, Poe's biography has been crafted, each generation relying heavily on the work of prior biographers, themselves often happy to steal from their competitors without so much as a footnote. Every letter he wrote, every note he jotted on a piece of paper, every photograph, every newspaper or magazine article, every building, stick of wood or piece of bric-a-brac with a Poe association was duly collected, catalogued and interpreted — but Poe himself has fooled us all and remains to this day an elusive quarry.
The peculiar curiosity of the reader in the life and character of the writer has long been recognized. Nearly 100 years before Poe was even born, Joseph Addison commented in the opening lines of the first issue of The Spectator: "I have observed, that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure, till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author" (Joseph Addison, The Spectator, No. I, March 1, 1711).
In Poe's case, there is a great deal of information, but very few verifiable facts. Everything about him is controversial, literally from the place and date of his birth to the exact location and date of his burial. There is no birth certificate, and although Poe seems to have known that he was born in Boston in 1809, most biographies claimed until 1880 that he was born in Baltimore in 1811. Poe himself once even gave 1813 as the date, two years after his mother's death. As for Poe's burial, both October 8 and 9 have been recorded. Since no headstone was placed over Poe's grave when he was buried, some sources have claimed it as to the right of his grandfather, others to the left. Poe himself began this confusion of fact and fancy in his own brief autobiographical note, provided to R. W. Griswold for The Poets and Poetry of America (1842). Among the numerous inaccuracies is the fable that Poe joined the Greeks in their fight for liberty in 1828. (While at West Point, the jokester Poe merrily spread rumors that he was the grandson of Benedict Arnold.)
Reducing the life and personality of any person to a static sequence of words is not an easy task. In one way or another, all such attempts fail to achieve this lofty goal. Any historical figure is particularly difficult to understand, and Poe has further muddied the waters himself by carefully manipulating his own public image to help sell his writings, or for personal reasons that are no longer always clear to us. It is hard enough to record with any certainty where Poe was and what he was doing at any given time, let alone what he was thinking or how he felt. The reasonableness inherent in this warning does not, however, give pause to the biographer, who will glance at a person's shadow and confidently describe the color of the pen stuffed in the caster's inside coat pocket. An offhand comment, for example, made once in idle conversation, but still remembered (accurately or not) fifty years later, is presented by biographers as the subject's definitive and lifelong position on the matter.
Understandably, biographers are reluctant to admit the dark secrets of their craft. Many are unaware of the extent that the final product is shaped by their own personal biases and the unspoken but still very real mandate of the reader to find the presentation cohesive and, above all, interesting. To achieve these goals, biographers frequently supplement the available historical information with interpretations of Poe's personality gleaned from his writings, an act of desperation that ignores the fact that Poe's writings are more the result of his imagination than his personality. It is a common error for readers to confuse Poe's narrators with Poe himself, but trained scholars should know better.
Was Poe drunk when he was found on the street in Baltimore on October 3, 1849? Dr. J. Evans Snodgrass, the man who sent Poe to the hospital in a carriage, said in 1856 and 1867 that Poe was indeed intoxicated. Dr. John J. Moran, however, Poe's attending physician for the final few days of his life, insisted in 1875 and 1885 that Poe had no trace of alcohol in his system and had probably been beaten by thugs. Both of these men, having endured whatever passed as medical training in those days, are equally credible witnesses. Moran has the advantage of having spent more time examining Poe, but he has partially discredited himself by leaving us at least three romanticized and somewhat contradictory accounts. (Moran also apparently told the Rev. W. T. D. Clemm in 1849 that Poe had indeed been intoxicated, although this account is related third hand many years later and has few supporting details.) Snodgrass, having left a more coherent account, has generally been accepted by biographers, but he was a radical temperance man and saw in Poe's death a means of persuading others to abandon alcohol entirely. He may have exaggerated his claims to bolster his own moral position. (Indeed, his first article was written for the Woman's Temperance Paper of New York City.) He may also simply have been wrong. Curiously, Snodgrass misquoted Walker's important note describing Poe's condition, changing "a gentleman, rather the worse for wear" first to "deep intoxication" and later to "beastly intoxication." With only such imperfect information at hand, whichever account one accepts necessarily depends more on bias and whim than reason.
As another example of this problem, Poe left Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in June of 1840. Poe claimed privately that he left over a point of honor, Burton having advertised an open literary contest with the winner already secretly selected. Burton, however, quickly spread vague rumors that Poe was fired for irresponsible behavior, but offered no proof. Since there is no absolute evidence to substantiate either position, which you choose depends on which you believe. The real question is whether a biographer should choose at all. Instead, is he or she not obligated to report both stories as an impartial observer?
The wide variance among interpretations of Poe's life can be seen clearly in the three most prominent "camps," each here named for its originator: The "Griswold Camp" (which vilifies Poe as a devil), the "Ingram Camp" (which glorifies Poe as an angel) and the "Baudelaire Camp" (which glorifies Poe as a devil). To some extent, nearly all biographies of Poe follow or react to this triangle of approaches.
The following items are some of the many biographical books and articles written about Poe. Items listed have been included because they are important, influential or representative examples. Their presence here should not be considered an endorsement of their contents.
Early Biographies of Poe (listed chronologically):
Modern Biographies of Poe (listed chronologically):
Other Biographies of Poe (listed by author):
Other Biographical Material (listed by author):
[S:1 - JAS] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - General Topics - Edgar Allan Poe's Problematic Biography