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Cochran press call crashed
A media call with aides to Sen. Thad Cochran ended in chaos Wednesday after a participant lobbed racially charged questions, asking whether the Republican's campaign had "harvested" black votes during the June 24 primary runoff.
The identity of the questioner was unclear, though several others on the line suggested it was a supporter of Cochran's GOP opponent in Mississippi, tea party favorite Chris McDaniel. McDaniel has not conceded the race and is considering a legal challenge to Cochran's win.
The interruption came as the campaign's senior adviser, Austin Barbour, was discussing alleged vote irregularities in Jackson-area precincts where black voters came out in support of Cochran.
( Also on POLITICO: McDaniel fundraising to fight runoff)
"If black people were harvesting cotton, why is it OK to harvest their votes?" the caller asked. He repeated his question in various ways several times.
Cochran's campaign has been accused of buying the votes of black Democrats to put its candidate over the top in last week's runoff, an accusation the campaign has adamantly denied. The incumbent senator had sought the support of African-Americans after he came in second to McDaniel during the initial primary on June 3.
Barbour tried to stop the questioner, saying, as he had earlier in the call, that he would answer questions after delivering prepared remarks. When the questioner continued, Barbour advised reporters to contact him or others on the campaign individually and hung up.
( Also on POLITICO: CBC to Thad Cochran: You owe us)
Members of the media were left on the line, and many speculated about the identity of the participant.
Some pointed out that Charles C. Johnson, a blogger who has been covering the race and written stories suggesting Cochran's campaign had been buying black votes, had tweeted out the details about accessing the conference call ahead of time.
But Johnson, on Twitter, said he was not the person asking the "cotton" question.
After the call ended, Cochran campaign aide Jordan Russell tweeted: "The plus side of that episode is now the national media sees what type of people we have to deal with day to day."


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Thom Hartmann here – on the news…
You need to know this. President Obama is summoning Congressional leaders to the White House today for another round of debt-limit negotiations and he's advised Republicans to "check their ultimatums at the door." The President is trying to pitch a $4 trillion deficit reduction package over the next 10 years – that slashes away at programs mostly affecting the working class and even cuts up the social safety net in America – trimming $400 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. All of these tough cuts will be in exchange for closing a few tax loopholes for corporations, millionaires, and billionaire. Ultimately, President Obama's deal is heavy on spending cuts, light on tax hikes. But don't expect Republicans to like the deal – they'd rather crash the Americans economy than see tax rates for their millionaire and billionaire campaign donors go up a measly 3% – to where they were under Bill Clinton when we had a budget surplus and created 23 million jobs. Right now – government revenue in America is at a 60-year-low – and Republicans are refusing to acknowledge that our government is going broke because of 3 decades of Reagan's "starve the beast" economics and an army of corporate lobbyists that have blown holes in the tax code. We don't have a spending problem in America – we have a revenue problem – and a debt-limit deal needs to focus on this reality. Roll back the Reagan tax cuts – and make billionaires hedge fund managers on Wall Street – who pay less in taxes than their janitor – cough up their fair share like the rest of us. That's what shared sacrifice looks like.
Workers in Wisconsin are screwed…what else is new? Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is transforming the workforce in his state. Not only did Walker bust up public unions – but also he took away their power to declare certain jobs around the state as "union-only work" – meaning the state can now bring in private employees willing to work for less money and less benefits – creating a race-to-the-bottom in the labor force. And Walker has already hit rock bottom in that race. Since Walker's new law went into effect – Racine County in Wisconsin has called up prison inmates who work for no money and no benefits to do work that unions used to do like landscaping and maintenance around the county. I guess this is Walker's idea of deficit reduction – employing free prison slave labor. Let's hope Congressional Republicans don't get any ideas from their hero in Wisconsin.
In the best of the rest of the news…
The National Bureau of Economic Research has released a report that shows just how important Medicaid is to the well-being of our nation. The study found that individuals on Medicaid were 35% more likely to see a doctor and 15% more likely to have access to prescription drugs. Also – Medicaid recipients were 30% more likely to be admitted into a hospital – and women on Medicaid were 60% more likely to seek preventative care like mammograms. With better access to the healthcare system thanks to Medicaid – individuals were 25% more likely to say their health was in excellent conditions. Despite all that though – Republicans in Congress as well as Republican Governors around the country are trying to dismantle Medicaid. The idea that a government program is actually improving the lives of millions makes them sick.
Is wealth inequality in America hurdling our nation toward civil unrest? In a television interview this morning – former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski warned that the growing wealth imbalance in America – now reaching levels not seen since the Great Depression – could lead to civil unrest in the streets. As the middle-class in America falls deeper and deeper into desperation – Brzezisnki said, "we're going to slide into intensified social conflicts, social hostility, some forms of radicalism, there is just going to be a sense that this is not a just society." We have a society in which 400 Americans own more wealth that 150 million other Americans. We have a society in which 50% of all the children in America will depend on food stamps at some point in their life before they are 18 – and among African American children that number is 90%. We no longer live in a just society – and if Brzezinski is right – turbulent times could be ahead for America.
No more rewards for bad behavior. Federal regulators at the FDIC approved a new plan yesterday that holds Wall Street CEOs accountable if they run their banks into the ground. Under the new authority given to the FDIC – federal regulators can take back those fat paychecks to CEOs in the event that their bank collapsed and needs to be liquidated. Back in 2008 – we saw over and over again – corporate executive running from the wreckage of their failing banks with their pockets filled to the brim in bonus cash. But this new policy by the FDIC ensures that the executives who screwed their corporation and their shareholders with risky gambling – now have to go down with the ship.
Is Rupert Murdoch's media empire crumbling? As a phone-hacking scandal that British Prime Minister David Cameron described as "absolutely disgusting" threatens to take down Murdoch's News of the World tabloid in the UK – NewsCorp's shares are plummeting and British lawmakers are calling for a crackdown on Murdoch's many media holdings in the country. With the turmoil overseas – Murdoch is focusing on his detractors here in the states – namely MediaMatters – the non-profit media watchdog. Over the last ten days – Murdoch's Fox so-called News has run over 30 segments attacking MediaMatters – and is mobilizing viewers to flood the IRS with petitions to strip MediaMatters of their non-profit tax-exempt status. The British have had enough with Murdoch's perversion of the media – and sensing the United States might be turning on him too – Murdoch is going after the truth-tellers like MediaMatters. I sense desperation…
And that's the way it is today – Thursday, July 7th, 2011. I'm Thom Hartmann – on the news.
Briefly, we wanted to update you on where Truthout stands this month.
To be brutally honest, Truthout is behind on our fundraising goals for the year. There are a lot of reasons why. We're dealing with broad trends in our industry, trends that have led publications like Vice, BuzzFeed, and National Geographic to make painful cuts. Everyone is feeling the squeeze of inflation. And despite its lasting importance, news readership is declining.
To ensure we stay out of the red by the end of the year, we have a long way to go. Our future is threatened.
We've stayed online over two decades thanks to the support of our readers. Because you believe in the power of our work, share our transformative stories, and give to keep us going strong, we know we can make it through this tough moment.
Our fundraising campaign ends tonight at midnight, and we still must raise $17,000. Please consider making a donation before time runs out.


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McKinney's New York Rules of Court - State (Vol. I) provides state rules of court, including:


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SAVANNAH, GA (August 22, 2013): Recruits at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center in Garden City are rallying to the aid of dogs and cats in the Savannah-Chatham Animal Control Center.
The members of Class 269 currently in training are collecting food and essentials for the animals in the center. Eighty-one dogs and 79 cats currently are housed in the facility on Sallie Mood Drive just off Eisenhower Drive and behind the Savannah Area Humane Society building.
Cadets For Critters will be at the center from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. this Saturday to collect monitory donations or food and essentials. To help the cause, they will be selling hot dogs for $1 each.
The animal control center is allocated funds for food and supplies for the animals during the time they are required to be held before adoption or euthanizing, but many animals are not adopted during those times. The additional food and supplies enable the animal control staff to maintain the dogs and cats longer to facilitate the adoptions.
In addition to cash, cadets also hope to collect donations of meat-flavored baby food, dog treats (peanut butter, cheese, rawhides and pigs ears); dry or canned puppy or kitten food (Pedigree preferred), flea and tick shampoos, towels of any size, combs and nail clippers, dog and cat toys, new or gently used crates, puppy milk replacement, bleach, laundry or dish soap, disinfectant wipes, paper towels or gift cards to Petsmart, Kinkos, Wal-Mart or any pet superstore or print shop.


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July 28, 2008
Pei Wei Spicy Chicken Salad
So last week, I decided that we would compromise- Chinese on Thursday and Italian on Friday. The flavors of this salad are wonderful- spicy, sweet, crunchy. I love how the dressing mixes with the sauce from the chicken to make such a delicious dressing. This salad comes together in a flash thanks to the store bought chicken. I know, half of the people who read this blog roll their eyes at the chicken from the freezer case, and the other half says, "Finally something simple I will make!" I don't normally reach for premade foods but I don't have a deep fryer and the whole idea is to have the Pei Wei salad in less time than it takes to go to Pei Wei! So, stop by the freezer case next time you are at Costco and pick up some Orange Chicken. When your Chinese-Loving Husband comes home STARVING from work, you'll be glad you did (even if it's not Italian)! Add if he's really starving, cook up some brown rice to go on the side. Yum.
Pei Wei Spicy Chicken Salad
adapted from Pimp my Dinner
1 Head of Romaine Lettuce, washed and sliced
1 Tomato, chopped
1 Red Bell Pepper, chopped
1 Cucumber, sliced
1 Cup Snap Peas, sliced in half
1/2 Cup Bean Sprouts
4 Green Onions, chopped
3 Carrots (or 12 baby carrots), sliced thinly
1 Package of Orange Chicken (from the freezer section at Costco if you can get it)
Line a baking sheet with a Silpat or foil and bake the chicken until the internal temperature reads 165, rotating half way through.
Meanwhile, in a large microwave safe bowl, pour in the Orange sauce and warm through in the microwave. After the chicken is cooked, toss in the dressing bowl and set aside.
Assemble the vegetables in a large bowl and toss. Prepare dressing. Serve salad topped with dressing and spicy chicken. For more heat, add a little Sriracha Chili Sauce to the chicken.
Simple Lime Vinaigrette
by Anne Strawberry
Juice of one lime
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon of Sugar
Salt and Pepper to taste
Pour the lime juice into a small, screw-top jar. Add triple the amount of extra virgin olive oil. Add the Sugar, Salt and pepper to taste, and shake to combine. I use a little tiny jar and it turns out to be about 1 Tablespoon of juice and 3 Tablespoons of oil. Just be sure to get a good ratio, so the dressing isn't too tart. Pour over salad, toss to combine.
5 comments:
I really like the sounds of this! I love both Chinese AND Italian (and so does my husband...). I like the dressing you made for this too!ReplyDelete
My husband LOVES Pei Wei and the closest one to us is an hour away. I have membership to Sam's Club, wonder if they have the orange chicken. Will have to check. He would love this dish.ReplyDelete
My husband loves Chinese and love Italian too. But you're nicer than me...I don't make Chinese too much, he'll usually just order out. He would so love this..I think you've guilted me into Chinese cooking.ReplyDelete
hi, this looks fab! i'm going to include it in my Copycat Club recipe round up for Mar/11. to be posted on Mar 7, 2011. thanks!!!ReplyDelete
Thanks Anne for posting this recipe.ReplyDelete
PeiWei's "Spicy Chicken Salad" is one of my favorite things to eat. Unfortunately, I live in South Africa and there is no Costco here. Would you have any idea what is in the Orange Sauce on the packaged chicken? I'll be glad to make it from scratch! :)


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Google cancels Monday's Android event over hurricane
The company works to reschedule a big launch for Nexus phones and tablets after the event site falls inside the evacuation zone.
Android fans eager to get a look at the latest Nexus smartphones and tablets will have to wait a little longer. Google e-mailed reporters today saying that it was canceling the event because of concerns surrounding Hurricane Sandy.
As the storm gathered strength, Google faced mounting questions over whether it would continue with the event as planned. The waterfront pier where the event had been scheduled is now in an evacuation zone. Yesterday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency.
Google said it would let reporters know as soon as the event was rescheduled.
On Monday, the company was expected to show off new Nexus tablets -- in both 7- and new 10-inch varieties -- and a Nexus 4 smartphone. It was also expected to show off Android 4.2.
While the official announcements have been pushed back, there's still plenty of reading material available online. Images purporting to show the Nexus 10 tablet leaked online yesterday; Google's Vic Gundotra posted pictures taken with a Nexus 10 on Google+; various manuals popped up on the Internet, and an alleged final rendering of the Nexus 4 showed up on Twitter.
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text:
Forty-two years after President Nixon signed the National Cancer Act and declared the "war on cancer," it's virtually impossible to separate cancer from money—walks, bike rides and pink ribbons entice people to donate more and more. To question the need for more funding to help cancer patients seems almost sacrilege.
But that is what Clifton Leaf, a cancer survivor (diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in high school) and an editor at Fortune, asks in his book The Truth In Small Doses: Why We're Losing The War on Cancer— and How to Win It: What if a lack of research funding isn't really the problem? One reason we aren't making faster progress against cancer, according to Leaf, is because the federal grant process often chases the brightest minds from academic labs, and for those who do stay, favors low-risk "little questions" over swinging for the fences.
"More money by itself is not going to solve anything," Leaf said. "Let's say we doubled the [National Institutes of Health] budget, that isn't going to make the lives of researchers better."
The problem, as Leaf sees it, is with the business of cancer research. Over the last decade or so, "doing science" has reached a crisis stage—a claim many in the cancer community agree with, even if they don't quite see eye-to-eye with Leaf on all of his conclusions.
For starters, because the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) funding process has become so protracted and tedious, academic scientists spend too much time worrying about money— thinking about grants, reviewing grants, and finally, managing and administering their active grants in the lab. And all of that is time not spent actually doing cancer research. There's also, according to Leaf, a mental cost for scientists, in the "hovering uncertainty" that follows even the most seasoned investigators "with stellar resumes and long histories of grant success" when it comes to the future of their work and their laboratories. For example, while the NIH's budget doubled during the Clinton years, grant applications also doubled, rising from 24,000 in 1998 to nearly 50,000 in 2007, meaning the field was just as competitive from the researcher's point of view.
"If you are a midcareer investigator," explained Dr. Otis Brawley, the chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society, "you spend up to half of your time trying to get funding. And that's a real problem."
It makes sense for businesses and non-profits to invest significant amounts of time in funding. But academic cancer research is about fighting a disease, not turning a profit or sustaining a charitable mission. We would never, for instance, expect a fire or police department to spend half its time pitching the government for funding—while still fighting fires and saving lives— just to keep its doors open.
To make matter worse, according to Brawley, chances are, the scientists who think outside of the established paradigm aren't going to get money. As he puts it, the NIH and National Cancer Institute (NCI) are currently "in the business of risk avoidance."
"The pipeline, or percentage of projects funded, is [less than] 9% by the end of this fiscal year for the NIH and NCI, meaning researchers have less than a 1 out of 10 shot at getting their grant proposal through," Brawley said. And nobody wants to be accused of taking a big risk and losing. So they end up funding the 9 or 10% [of projects] that they know are going to end up being successful."
And those lucky 9 or 10% of scientists usually can't establish independence until sometime in their forties— a problem, Leaf says, "because once you have the freedom and the money to take big risks, you're likely past your creative prime." Drawing on the idea that scientists in their twenties and thirties may be the most innovative Leaf argues that too many promising scientists spend their best years in "post-doc purgatory," trying to get tenure track positions.
"My counterparts in law are already partners and my peers from business school are already CEO's," said Dr. E. Ray Dorsey, a 41-year old professor of neurology at the University of Rochester, who also has an MBA in health care management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and spent two years at consulting firm McKinsey & Company before his medical residency. Current research funding, he believes, is a terrible economic model. "The best and brightest people either choose not to enter the field of academic research or they can't stay because of funding issues, so you have more and more scientists leaving for industry, Wall Street, or consulting."
As he points out, an English professor doesn't have to fund his own salary. His paycheck comes from students' tuition and university coffers. Faculty scientists on the other hand, pay themselves a salary from grant money— adding yet more pressure and incentive to exit academic research altogether. "If people had a percentage or base of their salary covered, and didn't have to fund 100% [of it] on their own, you would see less of the top talent moving into finance or venture capital where the financial rewards are greater," Dorsey said. "And they would eventually be the chairs of the department."
Ruth Halaban is a senior research scientist at Yale's School of Medicine and the director of The Yale SPORE in Skin Cancer, a lab that studies melanoma. She would go so far as to discourage young people from cancer research— including one of her two sons, who, she said, showed an early interest in science—if there's anything else they might be interested in pursing. The irony is that Halaban is the poster child for success in the current grant system. Last August, the NCI renewed her funding for an additional five years, and $11.5 million, for a specialized center of excellence in melanoma research.
"As a cancer researcher, the future is constantly out of your hands," Halaban said. "Each grant reviewer wants to see something new, something surprising and fresh, and you can't do that yourself. You need to get more talent and collaborate with other scientists."
But collaboration isn't always easy in a competitive grant structure. Researchers often protect their own turf, pushing for greater funding in their specific area. Brawley, for example, cites lobbies on individual types of cancer, that often advocate for a larger slice of the federal pie for themselves, though that may not be beneficial to cancer science overall— and this beggar-thy-neighbor mentality misses the bigger picture.
"It's important to remember," Brawley explained, "that there's no hard line between research in cancer prevention and cancer treatment, between different types of cancer research, or between industry and academic science." For instance, Pfizer's drug Crizotinib was originally intended to treat thyroid cancer. However, academic researchers studying lymphoma identified a defect in a gene that drives a subset of lung cancers and happens to be inhibited by Crizotinib. The result? A new weapon against lung cancer and a prime example of the fluidity of cancer research.
"In the final analysis," said Susan Higginbotham, the director of research at the American Institute For Cancer Research, which focuses primarily on prevention research, as opposed to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, "I think we're just losing a lot of talent because it's too hard for young scientists to get established." And if we keep them from asking the right questions, there's no way we'll find answers.
Jacoba Urist is a regular contributor to NBCNews and Forbes, where she covers health, lifestyle, and business news.
This originally appeared at The Atlantic. More from our sister site:
Measles outbreak traced to church critical of vaccines
Exchanging a blanket for a code blue


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Metals and Mineral Drugs of Ayurveda
Metals like gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, and iron, sand (balu from river banks), lime and
minerals like red arsenic (manassila), gems (manayah), salts (lavana), and red chalk (gairika)
are indicated as drugs pertaining to earth (bhauma). In Indian metallurgy, the term loha is
often used for metals like gold and silver and minerals containing metals (ores) are called
dhatus. There are seven dhatus: suvarna (gold), rajata (silver), tamra (copper), trapa (tin),
tiksna or ayas (iron), sisa or naga (lead), and vaikrintaka.11 Salts or lavanas are mentioned
under the parthive substances. According to Charaka, there are five salts: sauvarcala,
saindhava, vida, audbhida, and samudra. Mani and ratna, being synonyms for each other,
stand for the modern term "jewel" or "gem."
Mercury is considered eighth metal in rasa shastra. It earned the supreme position among
the minerals and metals. The learned Acharyas also studied the relation and effects
between these metals and planets over the human body and called them grahanga
navaloha. Metals are grouped as shuddha, sishra, and pooti loha.
The calcined forms of metals that are termed bhasmas in Ayurveda are referred to as
parpams and kushta in Siddha and Unani-tibb, respectively. Kushta literally means to kill;
in medical terms it is detoxifying the toxic properties of a toxic metal.12
Although bhasmas are regarded as chief metal-containing pharmaceuticals of Ayurveda,
there are several other preparations prepared from metals. Some of these pharmaceuticals
are described below.
Animal derivatives such as horns, shells, feathers, and metallic and nonmetallic minerals
are normally administered as bhasmas. A bhasma means an ash obtained though incineration.
The starter material undergoes an elaborate process of purification (shodhana). This
process is followed by the reaction phase, which involves incorporation of some other
mineral and herbal extracts. Then the material in pellet form is incinerated in a furnace.
The end product is expected to be a nontoxic material. Examples include swarn bhasma,
shankha bhasma, and tamra bhasma.
These are specialized mercury preparations. The name is derived from the method by
which flakes of the compound are obtained. A black sulfide of mercury is obtained by
mixing purified mercury and sulfur. Other drugs as per the formula are added to this and
mixed well by triturating them in mortar and pestle. A shallow pit is made in fresh cow
dung and a banana leaf is placed. The melted compound is poured onto the leaf and is
covered with another leaf. Fresh dung is spread on it evenly. When it is cooled the flakes
are removed and powdered.
Rasayogas are compound formulations containing mercury and sulfur (in the form of kajjali)
with other metals or minerals. Most of the ingredients contained in a rasayoga are added
in the form of bhasmas. The final form may be either a pill or powder.
Sindoora are prepared by the elaborate process of sublimation. This procedure is termed
kupipakwa vidhi and the sublimed mineral available on the neck of the sublimation glass
flask is called sindoora. Sindoora preparations are considered to be more potent than bhasma
Types of Bhasma
Attempts have been made to classify various bhasmas. They have been classified on the
basis of color and appearance. A more scientific way of classification is on the basis of
dominant metal and mineral group. According to this classification, bhasmas have been
grouped as rajata group (silver), tamra group (copper), loha group (iron), pravala group
(shells), etc. Often two metals and a metal with mineral are the ingredients of bhasmas.
For example, Trivanga Bhasma contains lead, tin, and zinc. The metals yield three different
types of bhasma corresponding to the nature of the ingredient used. They appear as best,
medium, and inferior quality. Mercury is always used as a basic substance in the process
of marana.
Preparation of Bhasma: General Procedures
The name bhasma is generally applied to all metallic and nonmetallic substances that are
subjected to the process of incineration and reduction to ash. Here it is applied to the
metals, minerals, and animal products that are, by special processes, calcinated in closed
crucibles in pits with cow dung cakes (puttam). Bhasmas are generally white, pale, or red.
The color of the preparation primarily depends on the parent material. The following
pharmaceutical steps are used to prepare bhasmas.
In Ayurveda, purification is called shodhana. Shodhana is the process through which the
external and internal impurities of metals and minerals are removed. Chemical purification
is different from medicinal purification. In chemical purification it is only elimination of
foreign matters, whereas in medicinal purification the objects are involved in the
1. Elimination of harmful matter from the drug
2. Modification of undesirable physical properties of the drug
3. Conversion of some of the characteristics of the drug to different stages
4. Enhancement of the therapeutic action
There are two kinds of shodhana. The first type, samanya shodhana (general purification),
is applicable to the large number of metals or minerals as heating the thin sheets of metals
and immersing them in oil (taila), extract (takra), cow urine (gomutra), and other materials.
The second type, Vishesha shodhana (special purification), is applicable only to specific
metals, minerals, and in certain preparations. Vishesha shodhana includes bhavana, svedana,
nirvapana, and mardana.
After shodhana bhasmas become soft and malleable for further processing and their
metallic property is improved. The main apparatus required includes dola yantra, khalva
yantra, and musha yantra. Various procedures employed for shodhana are described below.
When mineral drugs are heated in a furnace in the presence of dravaka, substances
(liqueficants) like alkali and acid release their satva. This is the purest form of any herbal
or mineral drug. All the metals except mercury are found in nature in solid state, and
they all fuse under high temperature to attain a liquid state. When the temperature lowers
they again return to their natural physical form (i.e., in the solid state). But these fused
metals in the presence of some liqueficants do not return into their natural solid state even
when the temperature lowers (i.e., the metals remain in liquid form). This method of
obtaining metals in liquid form is called dravana and the obtained liquid metal is called
druti. Druti holds superior character with respect to efficacy, toxicity, and increased shelf
life than its native metals and retains its fluidity for a longer time with proper preservation.
Shuddhavarta is a particular stage of heating when the fire becomes strong enough to
yield the pure substance (metal, satva). At this time the flame becomes golden yellow.
Marana is essentially the burning process or calcination. The purified metal is placed into
a mortar and, with a pestle, ground with the juice of specified plants or kashayas, mercury
(in metallic state), or a compound of mercury such as mercury perchloride (sauviram),
mercuric subchloride (ras karpur), cinnabar (ingalekam), or an amalgam of sulfur and
mercury (kajjali) for a specified period of time. The metal that is intended for marana is
known as a primary metal (pradhan dhatu); the other metal, which is taken in small
proportions for the marana of the primary metal, is known as secondary metal (sahaya
dhatu).14 Small cakes (chakrikas) are made with the ground paste of the minerals and dried
under the sun. The size and thickness of the cakes depend on the heaviness of the drug
and size. The heavier the drug, the thinner the cakes. These cakes are dried well under
the shade and placed in one single layer in a mud tray (sharava) and closed with another
such tray; the clay-smeared cloth keeps both the lid and the container in apposition. The
clay-smeared cloth is applied seven times and dried to seal the crucibles properly. A pit
is dug in an open space and half the pit is filled with dried cow dung cakes. The crucibles
are placed in the half-filled pit and are covered with cow dung cakes up to the brim of
the pit. Fire is then ignited on all four sides and in the middle of the pit. When the burning
is over, the contents are allowed to cool completely on their own.
Marana differs with the nature of the substance to be calcinated. For example, organic
substances such as herbs are burnt in open air, whereas inorganic substances such as
metals like rajata (silver) are burnt in closed containers. In either case the end product is
a bhasma of substance taken for marana. For example, the end product in the case of silver
(rajata) is called as rajata bhasma. Marana of inorganic substances is called puta and the
process of marana of herbs in closed freshly made containers is known as puta paka.13
Bhasmas obtained by marana from primary metals together with herbs (mulika) are called
mulika marita bhasma; the ones where the second metal is taken for the marana of primary
metal are called parada (mercury) marita, or talaka (arsenic trisulphide) marita bhasma,
depending upon the second metal used for the purpose. During the process the second
metal would finally volatilize itself at the temperature of marana, leaving behind the bhasma
of primary metal.
Very few metals like copper or iron still bear some impurities after the marana. In such
cases the whole process is repeated until a purified and therapeutically safer product for
internal use is obtained. In addition, a process called amritikarana is done to make these
metals safer. The process consists of heating the product from the marana procedure in
the presence of some herbal materials to improve safety and therapeutic effect. In this
process the required amounts of triphala decoction, cow's ghritika, and dhatu bhasma are
placed in an iron pot. Mild heat is applied until the medicinal fluids are completely
evaporated. Bhasma that remains at the end of this process is safer and possesses higher
therapeutic efficacy.
All the above articles / blog posts are not the original contribution from author, please consider a opinion of qualified doctor, if you considering this. If you need a advice please contact Dr. Anil Joy email: [email protected]
Thank You,


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Black holes, the high-gravity phenomena of galaxies from which no light can escape, will be better measured thanks to a $862,769 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to a Georgia State University astronomer.
Misty Bentz, assistant professor of astronomy at Georgia State, received the five-year grant to help untangle the uncertainties that exist when trying to measure black holes.
Black holes, which have a force of gravity from which not even light can escape, exist throughout galaxies. They form when stars reach the end of their life, explode and the center collapses in on itself.
A supermassive black hole – which has a mass of one million to one billion times the mass of our Sun — exists at the centers of galaxies, including our own Milky Way Galaxy.
"Astronomers rely on scaling relationships to determine the masses of most supermassive black holes — scaling the black holes to other parameters that are easier to measure," Bentz said. "What we want to look at is whether we can predict the black hole masses in other galaxies. We want a shortcut to predict the black hole mass, and what it should be in any given galaxy in a few simple, cheap observations."
With the NSF grant, Bentz will work on measuring distances to galaxies where astronomers already have masses of the galaxies' black holes.
"That's a big issue because distances are some of the hardest things to measure in astronomy," she said.
The grant will also allow Bentz to obtain near-infrared images of galaxies that will provide clear, smoother images that lessen problems of dust getting in the way of observations, and to measure the brightness of different parts of the galaxies, a parameter that can potentially predict the black hole mass.
Bentz will also explore measuring the total masses of galaxies as another parameter that could potentially predict the masses of black holes.
As a part of educational outreach that is a component of grants issued by the NSF, Bentz is also working in partnership with the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta on astronomy education to encourage their interest in science and observations of the natural world.
Original release: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/gsu-agg031813.php
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense


text: Curatorial insightRover Thomas (Joolama) spent most of his life working as a stockman in the eastern Kimberley in the north of Western Australia. He began painting on a regular basis in 1981, and within a decade his vigorous and prolific creativity led to his selection as one of the first two Indigenous artists to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale, in 1990. In the mid-1980s the Aboriginal community of Warmun, adjacent to Turkey Creek, was the first in the East Kimberley to be recognised as a distinctive artistic region, widening non-Indigenous perspectives of Indigenous art, which had been preoccupied with the Arnhem Land and the Western Desert art traditions. (Croft, Indigenous Art: Art Gallery of Western Australia, 2001)


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A relative recently handed me her collection of stamps, and as I went through them, these screamed out to be posted first. I must add this disclaimer: This is not a political blog, however, as I search for the lowest pun some bruising of Parties or public figures may occur during handling - for that, I apologize.
Leader Board Ad
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Stamps personally canceled by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker
Frankly, this pun was too good to pass up.
Posted by Greg VA at 11:44 PM 1 comment:
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Ad Quiz #2 "I glove you, mother"
This ad challenge is a bit different. We know what the ad is for...almost. The trick is...Can you guess the product?
Not only does daughter throw down the gauntlet, she asks mom to pick it up and put it on to cover her terrible hands. Oh, if only kids knew what they do to their parents. SOLUTION IF YOU CLICK THE "READ MORE" LINK BELOW (I know, I'm shouting again)
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Can't tell her how you feel?...Sing a campy song!
If you read any of my other posts, and I hope you have, you know that there is no limit to the things I will pick up. Sheet music has never appealed to me. The artwork might, the age might, the other things that are sometimes tucked in amongst the sheets of music might....otherwise, no. This one caught my eye, and although I have looked around the internet I can find no back-story, no good liner notes...nuthin'. I hope you've enjoyed today's interlude, and now here's a tune I think you'll really dig.
1921 by Cliff Friend. Clearly Cliff has unsatisfied desires and has come to the end of his celibate rope and now must sing out his frustration. Hope it worked for you Cliff. Here's a coupla sheets to prove the camp. I think the funny part is how they got the name wrong from the cover to the first sheet.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Ad Quiz #1: Guess the product SOLUTION
Thought I'd offer up a small challenge: Here is a piece of a magazine ad from 1918. Look it over and see if you can guess the product. I will post the solution tomorrow.
Hint: it's from The Country Gentleman - Kinda like MAXIM for the early 20th century man - but not really. Sorry for yelling, but CLICK ON "READ MORE" FOR THE ANSWER!!!
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Movie Ad: Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
I was looking though a Pictorial Review from 1935 and saw the ad for this MGM classic. I wondered about the appeal to movie-going audiences. This film has been re-made a couple of times (at least) and I've never been able to watch any version in its entirety. I don't have anything against it, but it seems the audience is put through the same experience as the men on the ship - a raucous party in Tahiti with a bevy of topless natives only to be dragged back to sea and then into a navel trail (Yup, I misspelled it, but it makes me laugh, so I can't change it, though the navel battle was really back on Tahiti). Well, 45 minutes in and I wanna go back to Tahiti! I also started looking at this movie, and my last post "Apocalypse Now!" and thought about the similarities. Then realizing that both starred Brando (1962 version) and it all made sense....I've been staring at this ad for too long.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Apocalypse Now! Well, Not now, 32 years ago.
Having worked as a projectionist, I have a penchant (what's a penchant?) for movie memorabilia. So when I saw this at a sale a few weeks ago...you know the rest.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
A Day Late and a Valentine short....
I wanted to do a themed post for Valentine's Day but of all the paper I have, there's not one good corny ancient Valentine's card. We'll there probably is, but I can't seem to locate it. With as many posts as I've done, I am starting to forget what I have put up on this blog. Somewhere there's a great Disney card where Mickey professes love for Minnie...it's here somewhere. I did manage to find this vaguely related theatre program which I would say - fit's the bill.
There's a date somewhere in here, but if you take a look, like I did, you'll decide that it doesn't really matter. The program information is buried nee surrounded by ad after ad that promotes a much gentler time. I will talk less so you can gawk more (click on images for a larger view) Can you guess the year?
Uh oh! Next attraction: Minstrel Show! Not quite PC, but look above at the stove ad "6 holes" fully guaranteed - "Honey, that one is nice, but this has 6!"
Ice cream, Beer, Fish, Whiskey, and Boxing gloves, that sound like the perfect combination.If your gonna chew gum...make it White's Yucatan gum.
I begin to notice that there are a few businesses listed here that are owned by a "Richter" and then I notice that there is a "Richter" on the executive staff of the theater...I'm just sayin.
The ads just keep getting better...Almost near the end, but I couldn't resist scanning them all...
Did you determine it's age?
Monday, February 14, 2011
Gadgetology: A 35mm Slide Home.
Born in the 60's, I naively think that everyone had the same childhood as I, but maybe that's not quite true. Let's look at one experience I think everyone must have had: random afternoons with parents or other relatives and stacks of Kodak slide carousels and a slide projector humming in anticipation for the next slide to be dropped. I can almost remember the roasted ozone and burning dust odor of the lamp and the click! clack! click! of the slide exchanger. Endlessly rotating through slide after slide of unfamiliar cars, previous addresses, hobbies and occupations of my pre-kinder parents, with a few random relatives, friends, pets, and strangers thrown in . I don't think those marathon sessions affected me adversely except that maybe it's why I've had to purchase almost every folding mini-slide viewer I see (well, not every one). I can't seem to locate any presently, but I did hang on to this one I purchased years ago.
Complete with case, pristine Bake-light construction, and working bulb (tho dim), it has been living in my attic for several years. I just liked the design, and I have a collection of non family slides (more on that later). I'd always heard that Bake-light was very collectible, but I don't know why. I enjoyed seeing 3 samples of this viewer on Ebay averaging $250 (no bids on any of them). It wasn't until a good "dig" 2 weeks ago that caused me to make this re-appear and assemble my slide transfer exhibit "Then and Now" display.
I was lucky enough to find an Estate Sale in the middle of the worst New England Winter (O come on! It is!) that was located in Ridgefield, CT. The drive there was precarious, not because it was snowing, but more because every local road has been reduced to 1.5 lanes making any journey on hilly or winding roads unnecessarily thrilling. The house was rundown, but not by poverty, this was owned by an eccentric. A chemical engineer/inventor who had worked for Timex and received a few patents through his work with liquid crystal watch displays. Or, that is the best I could determine from the mess left behind. I could have really spent all day here, but with AVA in tow, I felt it best to get in and get out before she and I fell victim to driving and parking conditions. There were other treasures here that will have to wait for another post, but the gadget, which is the subjst of this post was the little red unit called "The Wolverine."
Knowing that I had some 35mm slides, I thought this would be a neat purchase. It was new in the box with all the accessories minus a cleaning brush and a manual, and for about $5, I thought it might be worth it to try it out. Many many years ago, I worked as a projectionist and was able to save much of the promotional publicity items we couldn't use from being tossed. I managed to collect over 250 slides from various movies, many of them dogs, but kept them over the years.
I've since found the manual and specs for the "Wolverine," It holds a 5 megapixel image sensor and can be found for anywhere between $80 and $150. The quality is passable but different slides gave me different results, some were disappointing. But, since I am not planning on keeping the movie images, I will just have to be satisfied with the family pictures, which also transfer good and bad.
|"Well, I guess it's time to write another blog post."
Behind every blogger, there is a woman, dissatisfied with how he is spending his time. My apologies to my childhood friend, Tracy Squires, who has no idea this picture still exists, nor has she given permission for its use...have to ask her one of these days.
Monday, February 7, 2011
A Token Find
Estate sales are as random as walks on the beach; you never know what you might find. In the end it doesn't really matter, you can find nothing and still come away with a nice walk on the beach. If you want to find something unique, all you have to do is ask. I took a chance at a trailer park one Saturday (sounds like this story could go anywhere), truthfully, trailer park sales are no different than any other. While it may seem that trailer park residents lack the space to accumulate like the rest of us pack-rat suburbanites, it isn't the quantity that makes a sale, it's the variety. AVA (my 7-year-old partner) and I, were happy to take a look, after all, a dig is a dig.
We had only four rooms to explore and the 2 largest collections were of music boxes and costume jewelry. Among the jewelry were boxes of small items, and when I glanced in an old watch box, I knew I found something for the blog.
I closed it and thought it would be fun to research the different items. The best approach to the negotiation, I felt, was to hand the box to the person in charge and let them name a price. I had in my mind that whatever was in here was worth $5 to me, and fortunately the seller and I were on the same wavelength. The one Item I had glanced at was this coin:
I thought, "This might make a good story." As I hear from time to time, the talk of returning I-95 in CT to a toll road. At their inception in 1983 these tokens could be purchased for 17.5 cents. The interesting part of the story is that these were made by the same company that made the New York City subway tokens. At exactly the same size and weight as the 75cent subway fare, the MTA lost a lot of revenue as 2 million of these showed up in the coin boxes of NYC subway turnstiles. After a lot of yelling and screaming CT promised to redesign their tokens, but never did. At the end of 1985, the toll booths were dismantled anyway, solving the problem.
That wasn't the only token find in the box:
As you can see from the box above, there were more than just tokens.
These casino tokens (and one chip) were among a few other different arcade tokens. This would be the depth of the treasure. Nothing a pirate would get excited over, but enough for me to call this another successful dig.
I thought, "This might make a good story." As I hear from time to time, the talk of returning I-95 in CT to a toll road. At their inception in 1983 these tokens could be purchased for 17.5 cents. The interesting part of the story is that these were made by the same company that made the New York City subway tokens. At exactly the same size and weight as the 75cent subway fare, the MTA lost a lot of revenue as 2 million of these showed up in the coin boxes of NYC subway turnstiles. After a lot of yelling and screaming CT promised to redesign their tokens, but never did. At the end of 1985, the toll booths were dismantled anyway, solving the problem.
That wasn't the only token find in the box:
As you can see from the box above, there were more than just tokens.
These casino tokens (and one chip) were among a few other different arcade tokens. This would be the depth of the treasure. Nothing a pirate would get excited over, but enough for me to call this another successful dig.
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(a) The Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, respectively, shall make and publish such rules and regulations, not inconsistent with this chapter, as may be necessary to the efficient administration of the functions with which each is charged under this chapter.
(1) Whenever the Secretary publishes a general notice of proposed rulemaking for any rule or regulation proposed under subchapter XVIII, subchapter XIX, or part B of this subchapter that may have a significant impact on the operations of a substantial number of small rural hospitals, the Secretary shall prepare and make available for public comment an initial regulatory impact analysis. Such analysis shall describe the impact of the proposed rule or regulation on such hospitals and shall set forth, with respect to small rural hospitals, the matters required under section 603 of title 5 to be set forth with respect to small entities. The initial regulatory impact analysis (or a summary) shall be published in the Federal Register at the time of the publication of general notice of proposed rulemaking for the rule or regulation.
(2) Whenever the Secretary promulgates a final version of a rule or regulation with respect to which an initial regulatory impact analysis is required by paragraph (1), the Secretary shall prepare a final regulatory impact analysis with respect to the final version of such rule or regulation. Such analysis shall set forth, with respect to small rural hospitals, the matters required under section 604 of title 5 to be set forth with respect to small entities. The Secretary shall make copies of the final regulatory impact analysis available to the public and shall publish, in the Federal Register at the time of publication of the final version of the rule or regulation, a statement describing how a member of the public may obtain a copy of such analysis.
(3) If a regulatory flexibility analysis is required by chapter 6 of title 5 for a rule or regulation to which this subsection applies, such analysis shall specifically address the impact of the rule or regulation on small rural hospitals.
1987—Pub. L. 100–203 designated existing provision as subsec. (a) and added subsec. (b).
1984—Pub. L. 98–369, §2663(l)(2), substituted "Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare" for "Federal Security Administrator" immediately prior to the substitution of "Health and Human Services" for "Health, Education, and Welfare" by Pub. L. 98–369, §2663(j)(2)(D)(i).
1950—Act Aug. 28, 1950, substituted "Federal Security Administrator" for "Social Security Board".
Effective Date of 1987 Amendment
Pub. L. 100–203, title IV, §4402(b), Dec. 22, 1987, 101 Stat. 1330–226, provided that: "The amendments made by paragraph (1) [probably means subsec. (a), amending this section] shall apply to regulations proposed more than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act [Dec. 22, 1987]."
Effective Date of 1984 Amendment
Amendment by Pub. L. 98–369 effective July 18, 1984, but not to be construed as changing or affecting any right, liability, status, or interpretation which existed (under the provisions of law involved) before that date, see section 2664(b) of Pub. L. 98–369, set out as a note under section 401 of this title.
The provisions of this section were incorporated into sections 1429 and 1609 of former Title 26, Internal Revenue Code of 1939, by act Feb. 10, 1939, ch. 2, 53 Stat. 1. Section 4 of the act of Feb. 10, 1939, which enacted Title 26, I.R.C. 1939, provided that all laws and parts of laws codified into the I.R.C. 1939, to the extent that they related exclusively to internal revenue, were repealed. Provisions of I.R.C. 1939 were generally repealed by section 7851 of Title 26, Internal Revenue Code of 1954. See also, section 7807 of said Title 26, I.R.C. 1954, respecting rules in effect upon enactment of I.R.C. 1954. The I.R.C. 1954 was redesignated I.R.C. 1986 by Pub. L. 99–514, §2, Oct. 22, 1986, 100 Stat. 2095. The repealed sections are covered by section 7805(a), (c) of Title 26.
Abortion Services; Prohibition on Certain Policy Changes
Pub. L. 100–517, §9, Oct. 24, 1988, 102 Stat. 2583, provided that: "With respect to abortion services, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall not promulgate or issue any regulations, policy statements, or interpretations or develop any practices concerning the performance of medically necessary procedures if such regulations, policy statements, interpretations, or practices would be inconsistent with regulations, policy statements, interpretations, or practices in effect on the date of the enactment of this Act [Oct. 24, 1988]."
Notice on Social Security Checks
Pub. L. 98–473, title II, §1212, Oct. 12, 1984, 98 Stat. 2165, provided that:
"(a) The Secretary of the Treasury shall take such steps as may be necessary to provide that all checks issued for payment of benefits under title II of the Social Security Act [42 U.S.C. 401 et seq.], and the envelopes in which such checks are mailed, contain a printed notice that the commission of forgery in conjunction with the cashing or attempted cashing of such checks constitutes a violation of Federal law. Such notice shall also state the maximum penalties for forgery under the applicable provisions of title 18 of the United States Code.
"(b) Subsection (a) shall apply with respect to checks issued for months after the ninth month after the date of the enactment of this Act [Oct. 12, 1984]."


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Enter for a Chance to Win Chic Shelf Paper for Your Kitchen
If you're looking for an easy, quick way to add subtle elegance or a splash of color to your kitchen, look no further than Chic Shelf Paper. This high-quality shelf paper comes in more than 300 patterns and can be cut to fit the measurements for any project, so you can be sure to find the perfect style and size for your kitchen.
You can buy your own Chic Shelf Paper for 15% off with the exclusive Food Network coupon code: FNWFIFTEENOFF, or enter in the comment field below for a chance to win a roll personalized to your style and size specifications. To enter: Tell us one of your best kitchen decorating tips in the comments. We're giving away one gift certificate valued at $74, good for one large 24'' roll and two gift certificates valued at $41 each, good for one small 12'' roll to three lucky, randomly selected commenters.
You may only comment once to be considered and you don't have to purchase anything to win; a purchase will not increase your chances of winning. Odds depend on total number of entries. Void where prohibited. Only open to legal residents of 50 U.S. states, D.C. or Puerto Rico, and you must be at least 18 to win. For the first day of the giveaway, all entries (answers) must be entered between 12:00 p.m. EST on October 4 and 5 p.m. EST on October 8, 2012. Subject to full official rules. By leaving a comment on the blog, you acknowledge your acceptance to the Official Rules. ARV of each prize: approx. $73.95 for large roll and $41.45 for small roll. Sponsor: Scripps Networks, LLC, d/b/a Food Network, 9721 Sherrill Blvd, Knoxville, TN 37932.
So tell us, what is your best kitchen decorating tip?


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Mesh Payments Ltd
Level 1 Service Provider
Validation Date: 20.06.2022
Status: Certification
• Payment Gateway • Issuer Processing
Kyte Consultants Ltd is accredited by the major card brands, through the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), as a Qualified Security Assessor Company. Kyte Consultants Ltd is therefore approved to assess, validate and certify companies for compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
Based on the information provided regarding the policies, procedures and technical systems in place that process, transmit or store credit card data, the company as of the date on this certificate, has satisfactorily validated its compliance with the requirements of PCI DSS v3.2.1.
- This certificate is valid for one year.
- This certificate is subject to compliance conditions of the card brands compliance programs.
- This certificate offers no guarantee or warranty that the company's systems are secure from every form of attack and Kyte Consultants Ltd accepts no liability to any third party in the event of loss or damage caused by failure or breach of security.
- In order to maintain compliance status, the company has to successfully pass quarterly vulnerability scans and has to ensure there are no material changes to the procedures, systems and controls on which the assessment has been based. Any changes need to be communicated to Kyte Consultants Ltd to determine if revalidation is required.
- This certificate is for the sole purpose of validating PCI compliance and cannot be used for any other purpose without the consent of Kyte Consultants Ltd.


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Squirrels have fuzzy tails.
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Will the offset be constant? Say if you do a reading an the GPS tells you that where you are, but in reality you are 1.3 meters longer to the right. If you move and do a new reading, will you still be 1.3 meters from the new position? Or does it change all the time?
From what I've been studying it the average position changes slowly over time...So a reading you took yesterday at one spot might be 5m off the next day.
So using a GPS for navigation on a small indoor robot would not work very well then I guess. 1-5 meter would be the make you wonder if its even in the right room
I've been studying (among other things ) way of improving gps and combining it with IMU/Odometry,and it seems workable but heavy on the maths (for me), but where is the fun if there is no challenge right?


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If you feel like you met a lot of pets named Khaleesi this year, you might be on to something.
According to Rover, an international pet sitting and dog walking network, the Game of Thrones-inspired name surged in popularity in 2019 – becoming 300 per cent more popular than the year prior.
And Khaleesi wasn't the only pop culture inspired pet name trend. Released Tuesday, Rover's seventh annual Canada's Most Popular Pet Names report shows that large portion of the country was inspired by TV shows, athletes and musicians when naming their furry friends this year – Dolly Purrton anyone?
While Rover has been tracking name trends for seven years, the 2019 report comes with a new addition – a summary of the most popular feline names of the year.
"The names we give our pets provide a peek into our passions, aspirations, happy places, and guilty pleasures, reinforcing what we at Rover know to be true – our pets are as unique as the names we lovingly bestow upon them," says Kate Jaffe, Rover trend expert.
Rover says the name 'Finn' spiked 76.3 per cent in dogs – an increase it connects to actor Finn Wolfhard, the Canadian actor famous for his role as Mike in the Netflix hit Stranger Things. The name Seth increased in popularity for dogs and cats following Vancouverite Seth Rogen's 2018 Translink campaign and cannabis brand launch. In central and eastern Canada, Drake has remained a top pet name, while Kawhi and Leonard both made appearances on the list following the Toronto Raptors' win.
According to Rover, Canadian cannabis legalization coincided with a 33 per cent spike in dogs named Mary Jane and the introduction of the name 'Stoney.'
Even with the Canadian influence strong among pet owners – Rover found only three dogs named Poutine amongst pets surveyed in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. All three Poutines were Canadian.
RuPaul inspired a number of Canadian cat names, with increases reported in the names Brooklyn, Pearl, Trixie, Jinx, Trinity, Vixen and Alaska. Cat parents also got creative with names such as Meowly Cyrus, Dolly Purrton and Ziggy Pawdust.
Rover's survey found that the top three cat names are Luna, Bella and Oliver. Top dog names stayed the same with Charlie, Max, Cooper, Milo, Buddy and Tucker holding rank for male dogs and Bella and Luna leading amongst females.
Rover's Top Pet Names 2019 report is created based on millions of online user-submitted pet names.
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♥ coupon links ♥
- $4 off $20 beauty purchase, exp 082309
please let me know if you received any other cvs email coupons this week!
my standard disclaimer:
the coupons for specific items have been working for anyone in the past. the $/$$ coupons ($5 off $30, etc.) will beep "not for card" if they were not emailed to you. see the cvs coupon guide for more details.
my sources:


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During a visit by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday to Chiayi County, a group of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) politicians and their supporters protested the transfer of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to Taichung Prison's Pei Teh Hospital, accusing the Ma administration of treating the former president inhumanely.
Ma, who doubles as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, presided over a KMT meeting in Chiayi yesterday afternoon. Outside the KMT's Chiayi County branch, about 100 protesters led by DPP Chiayi County branch director Huang Li-chen (黃麗貞) clashed with police while protesting against the government's failure to grant Chen medical parole.
"Come out and explain [your actions] to us, Ma Ying-jeou!" they shouted as a number of protesters clashed with police as they tried to enter the meeting venue.
Photo: CNA
The police blocked the protesters from entering the office and forced them to leave without an opportunity to meet with the president.
Ma defended the Ministry of Justice's transfer of Chen to the prison hospital as a respectful and reasonable arrangement, dismissing criticisms that the transfer represented cruel treatment.
"Transferring former president Chen to the prison hospital sets a precedent in the history of prison administration. It is reasonable for the ministry to exercise its authority and provide Chen with respectful treatment," he said.
The Ministry of Justice moved Chen from the Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taipei to the Taichung prison hospital on Friday at 5:30am, while debate continued over whether Chen, serving a 20-year jail sentence for corruption, and who has been diagnosed with severe depression, sleep apnea, non-typical Parkinson's disease, a speech disorder and mild cerebral atrophy, should be granted medical parole.
Chen's son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), politicians from the pan-green camp and supporters of the former president have all condemned the abrupt transfer and accused the government of placing political considerations above Chen's medical wellbeing.
DPP Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) even kicked the office door of Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) on Friday before rushing in and demanding an explanation for the transfer.
The first KMT politician to publicly voice support for Chen Shui-bian's medical parole, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), yesterday said the transfer to the prison hospital was "not the best solution."
"We hope the medical staff at Pei Teh Hospital pay close attention to former president Chen's condition. [The ministry] should still consider granting Chen medical parole if his condition worsens," he said.
Hau also expressed concern about Chiu's door-kicking and said such behavior was not helpful to calls for medical parole for the former president.
The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) yesterday said it has asked prosecutors to investigate the group of DPP lawmakers who on Friday damaged the door to the minister of justice's office and interrupted a press conference.
The MOJ said in a statement yesterday that while Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Ming-tang (陳明堂) was holding a press conference on Chen Shui-bian's transfer, the DPP lawmakers barged into the event, interrupted Chen Ming-tang and yelled remarks such as "the ministry is politically prejudiced" and "shame on the ministry."
The statement went on to say the group of DPP lawmakers then went to Tseng's office, where they proceeded to kick the door before entering the office shouting: "Chicken (孬種) come out."
The justice ministry said the lawmakers' actions might have violated laws against employing threats or violence against public officials, interfering with public functions, destroying public property and insulting public officials.
The MOJ plans to send the case to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office for investigation, it added.
CALL FOR PEACE: Czech President Petr Pavel raised concerns about China's military maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait and its 'unfriendly action' in the South China Sea The leaders of three diplomatic allies — Guatemala, Paraguay and Palau — on Tuesday voiced support for Taiwan's inclusion in the UN on the first day of the UN General Debate in New York. In his address during the 78th UN General Assembly, Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr urged the UN and all parties involved in cross-strait issues to exercise restraint and seek a peaceful resolution. "The well-being and prosperity of nations and their economies are intrinsically linked to global peace and stability," he said. He also thanked partner nations such as Taiwan, Australia, Japan and the US for providing assistance
CROSS-STRAIT CONCERNS: At the same US Congress hearing, Mira Resnick said a US government shutdown could affect weapons sales and licenses to allies such as Taiwan A Chinese blockade of Taiwan would be a "monster risk" for Beijing and likely to fail, while a military invasion would be extremely difficult, senior Pentagon officials told the US Congress on Tuesday. Growing worries of a conflict come as China has ramped up military pressure on Taiwan, holding large-scale war games simulating a blockade on the nation, while conducting near-daily warplane incursions and sending Chinese vessels around its waters. US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner said a blockade would be "a monster risk for the PRC [People's Republic of China]." "It would likely not succeed, and it
AMPHIBIOUS EXERCISES: The defense ministry said that it had detected 24 Chinese PLA Air Force planes entering Taiwan's air defense zone over the previous 24 hours Chinese movements around Taiwan were "abnormal," Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said yesterday, flagging recent amphibious exercises in addition to drills Taipei has observed in China's Fujian Province. Taiwan has reported a rise in Chinese military activity over the past week as dozens of fighters, drones, bombers and other aircraft, as well as warships, have operated around the nation. "Our initial analysis is that they are doing joint drills in September, including land, sea, air and amphibious," Chiu told reporters at the legislature in Taipei. The "recent enemy situation is quite abnormal," he said. The comments followed a statement from the
IN MOURNING: Tsai visited the site and spoke with family members of those killed, while all the major presidential candidates said they would temporarily halt campaigning A fire and subsequent explosions at a golf ball factory at Pingtung Technology Industrial Park (屏東科技產業園區) killed at least seven people, including four firefighters, and injured 98, while three were still missing, authorities said yesterday. The blaze at Launch Technologies Co's (明揚國際) plant on Jingjian Road raged for more than 12 hours after it started at about 5pm on Friday, officials said. The Pingtung County Fire Bureau early yesterday used large excavators to search for missing people, while family members waited at the scene. Pingtung County Fire Bureau Director Hsu Mei-hsueh (許美雪) said the bureau received a call about the fire at 5:31pm


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Make a gift to the Parks Conservancy and help ensure that over 80,000 acres of our treasured Golden Gate National Parks will be enjoyed for generations to come!
To make an even bigger difference in the parks, become a monthly donor, the greenest and most cost-effective way to give.
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LONDON – President Barack Obama says Chrysler's repayment of the government loans that helped it emerge from bankruptcy is a "significant milestone" for the auto industry.
Chrysler took $10.5 billion from the U.S. government to survive two years ago. On Tuesday, it will retire a $5.9 billion balance on the U.S. loans and $1.6 billion to the governments of Canada and Ontario.
Obama said the announcement comes six years ahead of schedule. Obama, in London as part of a week-long European tour, made his comments in a statement delivered by White House press secretary Jay Carney.
Obama was criticized by Republicans for making the loans. In his statement Obama said he was not willing to walk away from Chrysler workers or the communities that rely on the auto company's wellbeing.


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Three Germans detained related to attack on EU office in Kosovo
The detainment of the men may distract from Kosovars who do not want a UN peacekeeping mission replaced, a security expert says.
The detention of three Germans in connection with a recent bomb attack on a European Union office in Pristina, Kosovo, has highlighted tensions over a plan to replace a nine-year UN presence with an EU mission.
On Saturday, a judge ordered the three suspects held for one month while prosecutors gather evidence for terrorism charges. The three are accused of carrying out a Nov. 14 dynamite attack that shattered glass windows at the EU office, but harmed no one.
The plot thickened in recent days, with some reports claiming that the three men are German spies and one observer saying the men were investigating organized crime ties to local officials, who may have wanted them out of the picture. .
Citing court documents, the Associated Press reported that the Kosovo prosecutors believe the Germans "intended to disrupt the bloc's efforts to deploy its new police mission."
Prosecutor Feti Tunuzliu alleged that the three suspects wanted to "hamper and hinder" the mission, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Tunuzliu wrote that one of the suspects threw 300 grams (0.6 pounds) of dynamite at the EU offices from a building across the street Nov. 14 as the two others kept watch.
But the BBC reported that the three detained men insist they were themselves investigating the blast site.
German and Kosovo media report that the men are German intelligence agents but officials in Berlin refuse to comment.
Lawyers for the detainees say the prosecution is seeking terrorism charges that carry a maximum 20-year sentence....
The German weekly Der Spiegel said the men worked for the German intelligence agency BND, and that they told investigators they had been examining the scene of the explosion, but had not been involved in it.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February, and has been recognized by more than 50 countries, including the US and Germany. But Serbia refuses to recognize the breakaway nation.
The blast and subsequent arrests come amid a dispute over a plan to deploy an EU police and justice mission to replace UN peacekeepers.
The EU agreed to send a mission in February, but plans were delayed due to Serbia's objections. The UN signaled in June that it was ready to end its mission in Kosovo, The Christian Science Monitor reported, and later brokered a deal with Serbia over the deployment of a replacement EU mission. But now some in Kosovo reject the deal as an affront to the nation's fledgling sovereignty.
A Reuters report noted that the Nov. 14 attack came four days after Kosovo leaders rejected the UN deal.
The AP reported that Kosovo can't accept Serbia's terms for the EU mission's deployment.
Serbia has demanded strict conditions to the EU deployment, demanding that the mission remain neutral in regard to Kosovo's status.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders, in turn, reject any conditions on the mission's work.
The 2,000-strong mission is known by its acronym, EULEX. It will include 88 American police officers, judges and prosecutors.
Last Friday, The Washington Post reported that EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he hoped the EU mission could be deployed by early next month.
The paper noted that under the UN-backed deal, police, judges, and customs officials in minority Serb-run areas would work under UN authority, while those in majority Albanian areas would work with the EU mission.
Kosovo said that would violate its constitution and amounted to a de facto partition of the fledgling state....
Kosovo's population is 90 percent Albanian. The remaining 120,000 Serbs refuse to cooperate with Albanian-run institutions.
The English-language website of German broadcaster Deustche Welle quoted one security expert as saying the public details of the case don't add up.
German terrorism and security expert Elmar Thevessen told DW-RADIO that problems within Kosovo's government might be responsible for the detention. While some within the government support an EU mission that's due to take assume oversight of law-enforcement in Kosovo after more than eight years as a United Nations protectorate, others reject it.
"It looks to me that it is a matter of political intrigue within Kosovo," he said. "It doesn't make any sense at all for the German intelligence service to get involved in a bomb going off in an office of the European Union. As a matter of fact the German government has been known to be one of the biggest supporters of that mission."
Thevessen added that BND agents were also investigating organized crime ties to the Kosovo government and that this might be yet another reason why local officials were trying to get rid of them.
The Deutsche Welle report quoted the German tabloid newspaper Bild as saying that "the bomb attack had been the work of an anti-EU faction of Kosovars."


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Redeeming the Time
St Nicholas Orthodox Church, McKinney, TX
Rector: Priest Seraphim Holland 972-529-2754 cell:972 658-5433 email@example.com
St Nicholas Web Site: http://www.orthodox.net
See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. (Ephes.5:16)
This document is also at the link: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d926dxr_62fphz5bf4. This version includes a Russian version of the article "ON THE EUCHARIST", by Archpriest Vsevolod Shpiller. We cannot publish in Russian on our blog at this time due to technical issues. Is their anyone who publishes in Russian succesfully on a WordPress blog, which is hosted on their own site (not a WordPress site), and wants to help us? Please contact Priest Seraphim at firstname.lastname@example.com.
What is the purpose of our life?
The blessed Moses says that God created man in His own image and likeness, and the apostle Paul says that "we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Eph 2:10). The purpose of our life is to be like God, to love as He loves and to do good works in His name. But instead, we spend most of our time doing selfish and even wicked works, in rebellion against our Maker. As a result, we make life painful and sorrowful for ourselves and others, and grieve our loving God. This has been true since the most ancient times: "Then the LORD[a] saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart" (Gen 6:5-6). But Christ has redeemed us! Incarnate as a man, Christ has chosen to humble Himself, participating in our nature so that we might once again participate in His blessedness through communion with Him. What an amazing gift! What an awesome sacrifice! How can we receive this gift? How can we attain to this blessedness that is offered?
Christ, through the Holy Church, gives us a number of means of coming closer to Him, of bringing peace to our lives and reconciling ourselves to Him. Among these are:
- Prayer
- Reading of the Bible
- font size="3">Repentance and Confession
Holy Communion
Let us take more frequent advantage of these saving remedies, brothers and sisters! Let us flee to hospital more often, and receive the medicine of immortality, the Holy Eucharist! Let us pour out our hearts in prayer more frequently, repent of the sins by which we grieve our loving God, and feed our minds and hearts with His Holy Word by reading the Bible daily!
Reader Nicholas Park
(The Mystery of Holy Communion)
The most important place in the body of church services is occupied by the service we call the Liturgy. Liturgy is a Greek word that means communal service. Sometimes it signifies service to our neighbor, charity, and sometimes service in the Altar. Divine Services have as their goal to bring us closer to God, to bring us closer to Him in prayer. However, the greatest manifestation of closeness, the Lord's presence among the faithful, "Theosis" of man and nature is accomplished in the Mystery of the Eucharist, which is at the center of the life of the Church.
The Eucharist was established by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself during the Mystical Supper He hosted. Jesus Christ assembled His disciples on the night when he was to be betrayed and given over to suffering, torment, crucifixion and death. He assembled His disciples as their head, as the eldest, although in terms of age He was not their elder. He performed the ritual of the meal according to the pattern accepted by the people in the Old Testament Church, but with one unusual difference: when He broke the Bread, and when he elevated the Cup after having read the special prayers of thanksgiving to God for everything, He said to his disciples: Do this in remembrance of Me. The Bread is My Body, and this Wine is my Blood. When you remember Me in this manner, you will be eating of My Body and drinking of My Blood. And whosoever will do that, will abide in Me, and I will abide in him, forever.
During the Eucharist, we remember everything that happened to Christ: His Incarnation, His entire life, Golgotha, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. However, when we remember all of this in the symbolism of the Divine Liturgy, it all happens anew! "My Father works hitherto, and I work" (John 5: 17), and this activity never ends. The Mystery, the Sacrament, of the Holy Eucharist rests in the fact that is does not consist only of our not our commemorations.
The Liturgy imparts a real, actual communion with God, illumining each participant, so that in a profound mystery, during each Liturgy the bread and wine that had been brought into the Altar is transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Also, at the moment each of the faithful communing of the Very Body and Very Blood of Christ, is really, actually, not merely intellectually or seemingly, and united with God Himself. During the Liturgy, God's fulfillment of His promise to be among men accomplishes man's fullest enlightenment.
Here God's unique action transpires, bringing Divine power into this world, and each of us partakes of that power. It enters into our hearts and acts through us in everything we do. That power of God imparts to everything you do, however seemingly insignificant, enormous importance, profundity; in this lies the spiritual meaning of Orthodoxy. Through everything that a Christian does in this world, participating worthily in the Eucharist, God's power enters the world, the power that transforms the world that blesses the world, remakes the world. It does so despite the fact that the world does not understand it. The world does not even know about it. That is what the Eucharist is! That is why from the earliest days the Eucharist – the sacrifice of thanksgiving, the breaking of bread – has been the central fact of Christian life. The Eucharist is the greatest expression of Christian unity, of life in a single Body, the Single Holy Church of Christ. The Mystery is the source of that unity. We are a single Body – His Body. We all – living and dead – are one. In the Altar, the priest reads the words, "And all of us who partake of the one Bread and the one Cup do Thou unite one to another…" Everyone standing here, the living and the dead, the Church on earth and the glorified Church "which hath One Head."
Out of the need, the poverty, the darkness of my ego, I approach the Divine Mystery and come into the light. "Thine light hath entered and illumined my darkness." In those moments, we, still living here on earth, already enter into His grace-filled life, for He comes to us and "make[s] our abode with Him." (John 14: 23).
During the Eucharist, the central, most important event takes place: Christ appears in our midst. Where two or three are gathered together in My Name (and it was just so that Christians gather together during the Eucharist), there I am in their midst. There Christ is in our midst with all the power of His compassionate love, able to decisively grant each of us everything that we need, and so that the seed of God's word that enters into our soul when we hear the Gospel, the Good News, might not be wasted and perish, but might grow in every heart. Amid the reign of anarchy and chaos in this world, the Mystery of the Eucharist, the Divine Liturgy, is the anticipation of a different world, a different Kingdom, "where is the light of God." The Eucharist is the link connecting the present and the future, our current state with the glorious Transfiguration to come.
In the Eucharist, time disappears, time enters into eternity. And we belong to and experience/take part in eternity. Because everything we remember as having been – Jesus Christ's embarking on his mission to preach, the Mystical Supper – this in our intellect WAS, but in God IS. Everything that was, is. That is something impossible for the mind to comprehend.
Jesus Christ's death is a sacrifice. There is His death, Resurrection, and Ascension. It all was and is. For us, it is yet to come, but for the Lord, it already is. And what is yet to come? Our own death, our own resurrection, our own ascension. But it already … is. During the Liturgy, we are in the past, the present and the future, and that is something that is not a concept, not a fantasy, not ideas, but actual reality. Such is the Mystery of the Eucharist.
Gleanings from the Fathers
And as in His providence He became man, so He deified us by grace, in this way teaching us not only to cleave to one another naturally and to love others spiritually as ourselves, but also, like God, to be more concerned for others than for ourselves, and as proof of our love for each other readily to choose, as virtue enjoins, to die for others. For as Scripture tells us, there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for a friend" (cf. John 15: 13).
Philokalia, Vol. 2, "Fifth Century on Various Texts," No. 12
Grace has been given mystically to those who have been baptized into Christ; and it becomes active within them to the extent that they actively observe the commandments. Grace never ceases to help us secretly; but to do good – as far as lies in our power – depends on us.
St. Mark the Ascetic, Philokalia, Vol. 1
"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up" (John 3:14). And just exactly as all who were bitten by the serpents looked upon the bronze serpent which was suspended and were healed, thus also every Christian who believes in our Christ and has recourse to His life-bearing wounds, who eats His Flesh and drinks His all-holy Blood, is cured of the bits of the spiritual serpent of sin and by this most holy nourishment is made to live unto the renewal of a new creation, that is, new life in harmony with His life-giving commandments.
Elder Ephraim of Philotheou Mount Athos, "Counsels from the Holy Mountain
Regular Service Schedule
This is also at http://www.orthodox.net/aboutus/regular-service-schedule.html
Time Varies
Divine Liturgy
After Vigil
Vigil (Vespers, Matins, the First Hour)
Earlier confessions or confessions on other days by appt.
12 Noon
Confession (please call before the night before if possible)
Divine Liturgy
Trapeza (public meal for EVERYONE)
Church School following on most Sundays.


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The Volvo XC60 and V60 are capable vehicles in both their segments, but having driven both of them back to back and comparing their specs, I can't imagine why one would spend more on the crossover than the wagon. Here lies, in my opinion, a strong business case to consider wagons over crossovers.
To be clear about one thing, loving wagons doesn't mean you have to hate crossovers, and vice versa. If I were to find one defense for the crossover, it's the step-in height for older drivers and passengers. I'm fortunate enough to have two living great-grandmothers in their 90s, one of whom drives an Escape and the other who rides in my aunt's Escape. Neither of them are physically able to constantly get in and out of a lower-sitting car, pickups aren't functional for their needs and true SUVs are too expensive.
That said, I fully understand the enthusiast disdain for crossovers. Most buyers (I'd agree) buy them for the perceived safety, they dilute the heritage of popular brands and, in some circumstances, take away the R&D dollars from fun projects.
But, as TTAC's Derek Kriendler tweeted, few wagon defenders put their money where their mouth is when it comes to advocating the product. Cries from the wagon faithful are drowned out by consumers who want the crossover. But strangely — intentionally? — Volvo is able to split the difference with the V60, maybe at the expense of the XC60.
The V60 came with a 2.0-liter, inline-four that makes 240 horsepower and 258 lb.-ft. of torque. The XC60, has the same twin-turbo, four-cylinder 2.0L that makes 302 horsepower. On the surface, those numbers look capable. But I don't know what happened and where all that power is going, but it didn't do much for the XC60 here. It has some low-end torque, but chokes around 3,000-4,000 RPM. Getting it to, say, 70 mph was more of a struggle than it should have been.
Steering on the XC60 was unusually stiff. You know those sit-'n-spins you used to play with? Not the one your kids play with now. The one you played with. The really heavy ones. Yeah. You were not a super-strong kid growing up. You had to put in a little muscle to get that damn thing to turn. That's how it was getting the XC60 around some of Las Vegas' curves. Not only that, XC60 had trouble snapping back in line coming off most curves. I'm going to chalk that up to the XC60 being heavier and harder to push around.
The XC60 has all of the same safety features as the V60 (blind-spot assist, backup camera, a low-speed collision-avoidance system and audible alerts for parking) plus adaptive cruise control, lane-departure warning, forward collision warning with auto-braking, pedestrian and cyclist detection. It's typical safety-in-a-box for Volvo, but not necessary if you prefer the less-optioned V60.
A few of you asked in the V60 review about the cabin space, especially in the rear. Well, the XC60 has the V60 by that because it's taller. But it's roughly the same space between the liftback and the backseat, and the seats in both vehicles easily fold down the same way.
Trunk space aside, I had the same amount of legroom in the XC60. One would think that the crossover would provide more room, but I had the same headroom and legroom all around both models. It's here, I wonder, if it's worth spending the extra money on a crossover if you absolutely don't need one.
The V60 has an MSRP of $35,300 while the XC60 starts at $35,750. To get a bigger vehicle for $450 might seem like a steal. But let's start adding things and factoring in some other numbers. The price of the XC60 is with the T5 engine. If you want the T6 — the one Volvo had us test — then you're looking at a starting MSRP of $40,050.
All of those prices are without all-wheel-drive. An AWD V60 starts at $36,800. An AWD XC60 isn't available with the 2.5, but is available with Volvo's 3.2L for $37,250. With the T6 we tested, an AWD XC60 jumps to $41,550.
If you want to compare just the two models we tested — toys and all — it's $35,300 for the V60 and $40,050 for the XC60. So what are you paying $5,000 extra more? Basically some extra trunk space and woodgrain in the center console.
The value in the V60 can also be found in the fuel economy: While the V60 gets 25 city/37 highway with FWD (20/29 with AWD), the fatter XC60 doesn't measure up regardless of which engine you have. The XC60 gets 24/31 with a FWD T5, 18/25 with the 3.2L and, in the T6 I tested, 22/30.
The XC60 is not a terrible vehicle. It is attractive, it is full of things to keep you safe, it's a relatively affordable premium crossover that offers more perks than other kid-haulers on the lower end. It just doesn't compare to the V60, which offers all the same perks without the "perceived safety" of being a crossover. But in this case, you don't even need the perception of safety, since Volvo is bundling actual safety into the vehicle.
Photos courtesy Volvo


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Sunday, August 7, 2011
A Convergence of Wonders, Day 15: We Head Underground in the Great Basin
People may be forgiven for thinking that "lonely" equates to "uninteresting". I know differently, having gone to college in Reno, and doing some extensive geo-touring across the region. Silver Fox, over at Looking For Detachment, understands this as well, and is a great resource for understanding some of the incredible geology to be found in this unique landscape. Unfortunately, it had been two weeks of hard traveling, and it was getting harder to rouse the troops! But two stops caught everyone's attention.
that we found in Utah the previous day. The federal Bureau of Land Management set aside the site from mineral claims to keep it accessible to casual collectors like ourselves. It's at the end of a three mile dirt road which is usually passable for passenger cars.
There were different strategies for finding deep red garnet crystals...one could pound rocks open with a rock hammer, and use a lot of calories and sweat, or one could let the car traffic do the work for us. There are enough crystals that car tires break the gems out and they can be discovered by simply walking along the road watching for dark spots.
It wasn't our accident, but some motorcyclists lost control in the heavy winds that were buffeting the highway and crashed, and we had to wait for ambulances to come and clear the scene. Apparently no one was dead, but the traffic was blocked in both directions for well over an hour, so we were suddenly grievously behind schedule
5 comments:
- Chas in Albuquerque said...
Loved this post! Sorry the trip's coming to an end. Thank you for sharing.
- August 7, 2011 at 6:11 AM
- Silver Fox said...
Good photos inside Lehman. I haven't been on a tour when they allowed flash, and have not been as successful as you at bracing the camera.
Looking forward to Berlin-Ichthyosaur.
- August 7, 2011 at 6:20 AM
- Gaelyn said...
Haven't yet made it to Lehman Cave. Caves are difficult to photograph without a tripod.
Great garnet finds. And awesome sunset shots Mrs. Geotripper.
I'm sure everyone was glad to be heading home. Yet this was an Awesome trip!
- August 7, 2011 at 6:28 AM
Did you go by Notch Peak in Ut? Of course going West it is not as spectacular as going east but its still the second highest cliff in the US after El Capitan. Going East you see it a long way away and it really stands out.
- August 7, 2011 at 8:25 AM
- Garry Hayes said...
Notch Peak is a spectacular cliff! We could see it from the highway, but I couldn't get a good shot of it. We camped in the canyon at the base of the cliff when I was working at the UNR field camp 25 years ago.
- August 7, 2011 at 10:55 AM


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It's that time of the year… winter is here and it's time to head to the mountains!
Perfectly located at the base of the Dou du Midi slope, La Sivolière, Courchevel 1850 is the place to stay when visiting Courchevel. This well-known skiing destination attracts hundreds of tourists every winter and La Sivolière, Courchevel 1850 is situated only five minutes away from downtown.
Featuring gorgeous mountain views, their own ski shop and their own team of professionals, La Sivolière, Courchevel 1850 will take care of every guests needs from head to toe, making sure every guest has an unforgettable experience.
la Sivolière Courchevel 1850 is a combination of both alpine tradition and contemporary design. The moment you walk in, their very cheerful staff will welcome you with a big smile in a way that will make you feel right at home! One thing they pride themselves on is service and warmth they offer their guest… that defines la Sivolière!
Classic Travel Rate Includes:
• Upgrade on arrival subject to availability
• Complimentary breakfast
• A free day of ski and boot rental
• An offered drink and a Gourmet Tasting Dinner for two at the "1850" restaurant
Elevate your winter experience this year with Classic Travel's Preferred Rates at ClassicTravel.com.