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Former Super Eagles coach Samson Siasia on Saturday appealed for calm over the news of his life ban from the game by world football governing body FIFA on Friday.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Siasia was banned for life from the game following a match-fixing probe by FIFA.
Siasia, who spoke to newsmen in Abuja through an associate, Prince Opukiri Jones-Ere at the main bowl of the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, said the matter was currently being looked into by his lawyer.
The former Super Eagles forward said he was hopeful of a positive conclusion of the matter.
"We want to please plead with everyone to be calm as the issue has been handed over to a lawyer and he is looking at the case.
"So, at this moment, Siasia will be unavailable to speak to the press.
"I want to also appeal to you all to be patient with us, considering the fact that he is already going through so much stress with regards to his mother's kidnap which we are dealing with at the moment.
"We appreciate you all for your concerns and solidarity messages which have been received from the onset of this situation.
"So, my kind appeal is that you all give us some time for the lawyer to look into the case and as soon as possible, hopefully by next week, we will come up with our position and further action to be taken on the issue.
"On behalf of the family of Siasia, we want to once again thank you for your concerns and we pray that this will end well," he said.
FIFA had said in a statement on Friday that the adjudicatory chamber of their independent Ethics Committee found the 51-year-old Siasia guilty.
He was "guilty of having accepted that he will receive bribes in relation to manipulation of matches in violation of FIFA Code of Ethics."
Siasia played 51 times as a striker for the Nigerian national team and later coached various national youth sides before his first spell as senior coach in 2010.
His case is the latest to emerge from FIFA's long-running investigation into the activities of Singaporean Wilson Raj Perumal, whom FIFA has called a "known match fixer".
He has admitted such activity in several interviews.
FIFA said Siasia was banned for life "from all football-related activities (administrative, sports or any other) at both national and international levels."
Siasia was also fined CHF 50,000 (41,997.1 pounds).
The former Nigerian international was appointed Super Eagles head coach from 2010 to Oct. 2011 and he was reappointed in 2016.
NAN reports that FIFA had in 1989 banned Nigeria for two years from age-grade football competitions over discrepancies discovered in the ages provided by the duo of Siasia and Dahiru Sadi.
The ages were provided while registering both players for the 1985 FIFA Under-20 World Cup in the then Soviet Union and the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea.


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Entrepreneurs, by nature, are do-it-yourself people. Not a bad thing. While that trait may serve you in many areas there's one where it actually works against you: Marketing. Here's five reasons why.
1) You Don't Know What You Don't Know.
While you might feel savvy after reading a couple marketing books or listening to a savvy marketing guru, it doesn't compare to working with a qualified team or consultant with great experience and a great record. You simply don't know what you don't know, and if you do it yourself, what you don't know will hurt you. Like having a tag-line that makes no sense, or sends a wrong message. Like pouring money into SEO or your website when the better focus is Content Marketing and improved organic search. Like not realizing you need video. Or having a self-produced video that's so unprofessional it works against you. The list goes on.
2) A Business Owner Can't Be Objective.
Passionate business owners tend to be absorbed by their business—an advantage when it comes to DIY marketing, right? Not really. Effective marketing starts with an unbiased perspective. To be successful at marketing, business blemishes must be seen clearly. As a business owner you just don't have that objectivity. If you read Ken Segall's book Insanely Simple, about his working with Apple, you'll read how Steve Jobs was proven wrong time and time again by his more objective and talented outside team who created some of the most iconic and successful marketing ever done.
3) The Best Marketing Isn't About A System or Formula.
As more small business owners attempt to save money by trying to do their own thing, more self-proclaimed marketing gurus are popping up on the Internet with their "Amazing Profit-Making Marketing" systems. They all sound amazing and they all claim amazing results. They even have amazing testimonials. But every business is different, and a cookie-cutter, systematic approach is not the most effective way to market a business or product. While an "Amazing Profit-Making Marketing System" sounds amazing, the ones making the most money from them are usually the ones getting you to spend money on them.
4) Great Marketing Requires Talent.
Great marketing is part science, part art. Yet, the creative part often gets lost or diminished in this ever-advancing tech world. Focused, creative talent is the ingredient that helps communicate your message and persuade your prospects to buy. It's not easy to find, but if you do it'll make a huge difference.
5) DIY Doesn't Really Save Money.
Because you're not spending money on outside resources you might think you're saving tons of money with a DIY approach. Just remember this…it's not just what you spend, it's what you spend and get back on what you spend.
Great marketing will get you back more, and sometimes significantly more, than what you spend. So, how do you get great marketing? You find and hire great marketing people, like Steve Jobs did, like Nike's Phil Knight did, and like every successful business owner does. And, they didn't just do it when they were big successful companies with huge marketing budgets. They did it from the very beginning of their companies, only months after they incorporated.
You also have to factor in what your time is worth. It's not cheap. If you kept track of every minute you spent trying to do it yourself and applied a dollar value to that, you'd be surprised at the expense. Also realize that every expensive minute you spend fumbling with something you don't do great is taking away valuable time and talent from something you do do great. That's another expense.
To sum up I'll end with a simple quote from someone who's interviewed hundreds of small business owners and knows what it takes to be successful:
"Business success is all about finding the right outside service providers and using them wisely. You can't do it all yourself." — Anita Campbell, Founder of Small Business Trends
DIY Photo via Shutterstock

subset: commoncrawl


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Once known as the Detroit of India because of its automobile industry, Chennai is getting much of its current economic growth from the information technology sector. Chennai has a highly literate population and the availability of skilled technical talent at a reasonable price-point, over time, has attracted many multinational companies to set up their operations in the city.
The more interesting story, however, is the rise of entrepreneurship in Chennai, a relatively new phenomenon. Below are three that have done particularly well.
I visited Chennai in March 2011 as part of a speaking tour. During that visit, TiE Chennai hosted a 1M/1M roundtable. Freshdesk, a local company, was part of the group that presented. So was Innovation Labs. Let me first talk about these two companies.
Today Freshdesk has become a kind of Salesforce.Com for the customer service industry. It is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that provides small and medium businesses with on-demand customer support software that offers multi-channel social support. Small- and medium-business owners can set up online customer support platforms that combine the backend help desk system used by agents with an online customer portal on the front end.
Freshdesk was founded in 2010 by CEO, Girish Mathrubootham and CTO, Shan Krishnasamy. Before starting Freshdesk, Mathrubootham worked as a vice-president of product management and Krishnasamy as a technical architect for the Manage Engine Division of Zoho Corporation. Zoho, by the way, is a major success story from India that today does over $100 million in revenue, and has most of its product development operation in Chennai.
Mathrubootham got the idea for Freshdesk from a post in Y Combinator's Hacker News, which talked about how a major player in the space had become too expensive for smaller companies. That's when he decided to take advantage of the opportunity to provide small businesses with credible customer support software. Mathrubootham funded the company with money from his own savings. In addition, the founders raised $25,000 each from two friends as a convertible note with another $25,000 commitment on the way in July 2011.
In the two years since its inception, Freshdesk has raised two substantial rounds of funding. In October 2011, the company raised $1 million in a Series A round from Accel Partners. In April, Accel Partners stepped up again, teaming with Tiger Global Management to offer Freshdesk $5 million in Series B funding.
While Freshdesk does compete in a mature worldwide market, the advent of cloud computing has created a wealth of opportunity. What sets Freshdesk apart from its primary competitors, ZenDesk and Assistly, is that Freshdesk has built a well-rounded solution with multiple incoming and outgoing support emails, multiple support portals, a different support group for each brand, support for separate forums, solutions for each brand, and a separate knowledge base and community platform.
Invention Labs
Another company from Chennai that has lit up the high tech space is Invention Labs. They make an app for tablets (iPads and Androids) that helps autistic children learn language and communication through pictures.
Local entrepreneur Ajit Narayanan was approached by Vidya Sagar, a large NGO in India that works with children with special needs. The NGO had been following the development of assistive technologies for non-verbal children and they were noticing that there were devices that were being used in the US on a regular basis. These devices cost more than $5000, which was unaffordable for most Indian children. They wanted to know if he could invent something that would do the same thing at a much lower cost.
In 2009, Invention Labs introduced their own tablet, called Avaz. While it received a good deal of commercial and critical success, bringing out a niche product in low volumes at a low cost was a challenge. Once iPad and Android hit the market, Ajit knew immediately that he must create an app version of Avaz.
Avaz is now available as an app for the iPad and Android platforms, priced at $99. A typical use for Avaz would be a therapist evaluating a child with autism and determining that Avaz would help in speech and language therapy. Then the child's parents purchase Avaz (or, in some cases, the school district pays for it). The app is used in therapy sessions and gradually becomes a part of the child's life.
The child uses Avaz to communicate outside class, in academic environments, and eventually everywhere. Using Avaz also helps a child with autism develop language skills (i.e. they are able to understand new words and use them in novel contexts), and the ability to communicate removes a lot of frustration and the behavior issues associated with it.
Avaz is now the number one speech assistive device/app in India, and is quickly becoming a favorite app of speech therapists in the USA, Australia and Europe as well. Nearly all therapists who have seen Avaz go on to recommend it to their clients, and thereafter, they see real, tangible progress in the speech and language capabilities of the children they work with. Avaz has received very positive reviews from a number of experts in apps for children with disabilities, and is also the only app in its segment to have a 5-star rating on the iTunes App Store.
While Chennai is behind Bangalore in entrepreneurship, it is at the forefront of special education in India, and has institutions that work with children with special needs that are renowned internationally:
"This is a huge advantage for us, because it helps us try out our product's working very closely with our target market, before we take it to a broader field through the app store. The incredible community around disability in Chennai helps us validate our assumptions and flag potential problems."
Ajit Narayanan was named on MIT's TR35 list of transformative young inventors. Avaz also received the National Award for Empowerment of People with Disabilities from the President of India in 2010. This is India's highest award in this space.
A platform-as-a-service company, OrangeScape was founded in 2003 with the intention of simplifying business application development. The company gained traction with the help of a Chennai manufacturing company for which OrangeScape built an HR application. Slowly but surely, the company grew, and in 2009 earned its first $1 million in revenue.
What caught my attention was OrangeScape's proven ability to plug a distinct gap in Google's enterprise solution. As you know, the Google productivity apps portfolio is getting very good traction within enterprise, and we've heard from various CIOs who are moving from Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange to Google's Office suite. One of the primary drivers of the switch is cost. A second is collaboration.
Currently, when enterprises switch to Google's productivity suite, they still need to make provisions to move the large portfolio of homegrown long tail productivity apps that have been developed around the previous system, such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange. And in comes the Google App Engine as Google's offering in this context.
Well, it turns out that porting long tail productivity apps to Google's App Engine is a somewhat cumbersome job, and requires a lot of custom development. Building new apps is also not as simple.
Enter OrangeScape. The long tail apps can easily be ported to or developed on Google App Engine in a third of the time and cost using OrangeScape as an application platform. Voila, the entire productivity suite of an enterprise can become cloud-ready, quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively!
Orangescape has raised funding from the Indian Angel Network, and has since launched additional SaaS products.
Lastly, I want to discuss a company that is substantially larger. CaratLane is a local jewelry business that has leveraged the ubiquity of ecommerce to grow its business.
Mithun Sacheti is the founder of CaratLane, an online jeweler in India and one of the country's leading ecommerce companies. He grew up in the jewelry industry and prior to founding CaratLane, he opened new stores for his family business throughout the southern regions of the country. He moved to Chennai and built a store that became a well known local business.
But the stores had limited inventory and could only sell so much. They started to sell people diamonds based soley on the gem's specifications:
"I realized that people were willing to put some time into understanding diamonds so they could make better choices. With that in mind, I went to my friend and co-founder and told him that I felt there was a business opportunity here."
(If this reminds you of the US-based BlueNile, a $300 million+ company, it should.) Fast forward a few years, and we have a Chennai e-commerce startup doing over $15 million a year.
These four companies are just the tip of the iceberg in Chennai's growth in the technology entrepreneurship sector. Things are developing well, and even amidst the relatively conservative culture of the city, people are taking risks and succeeding. It's an encouraging trend.
Kapaleeswarar Temple, Chennai Photo via Shutterstock


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Beats audio has become a pretty familiar brand around these parts: in addition to the ubiquitous headphones, the company has licensed its brand to HP and is majority owned by HTC — both of which manufacture an increasing number of Beats-branded products. Regardless, it's the headphones that built the brand, and the future of who will be manufacturing them is a little more cloudy today as Beats and Monster will not be renewing their contract. Sources told Business Week that the split happened because of a disagreement over (what else?) money and credit, with each company believing it deserved more of both.
Monster, for its part, is going to move ahead and attempt to (re)build a headphone empire based on the Monster brand. That's the short term plan. The long term plan isn't clear but one fairly obvious move would be to merge with or buy out SOL Republic, a headphone company founded by Kevin Lee who happens to be son of Monster founder Noel Lee. Lee the younger, despite running his competing headphone brand, has said that he would be "honored' to take over the leading role of Monster someday, adding "Cut me open, I'm a monster and will always be a monster." Given Monster's mixed brand image (especially amongst anybody who know about cables), a partnership with SOL Republic would make a lot of sense.
Beats also has a murky future. The company will surely continue to license its brand out, but who will make headphones is unclear. It just so happens to be majority owned by HTC and HTC just so happens to be a manufacturer of consumer electronics. Even if HTC and Beats don't decide to go down that road, you can be sure that given the amount of money and marketshare that Beats has managed to snatch up, they'll find a way to ensure that there are many many more Beats-branded headphones to come.


text: Back Hepatitis A Antibody Does this test have other names? IgM, IgM anti-HAV What is this test? This test looks for antibodies in your blood called IgM. The test can find out whether you are infected with the hepatitis A virus (HAV). Hepatitis is an inflammation of your liver, often caused by an infection. About 95 percent of hepatitis infections are caused by one of five viruses: hepatitis A, B, C, D, or E. Because the symptoms of all of these infections are similar, this blood test can tell your doctor which type of virus you may have. Your immune system makes IgM antibodies when you are first infected with HAV. It can take 14 to 50 days to develop symptoms of hepatitis A after you become infected. IgM antibodies usually begin to appear in your blood five to 10 days before you start having symptoms and can stay in your blood for about six months after the infection. You can acquire HAV by eating or drinking a food or beverage contaminated with the virus. The virus is also in the bowel movements of infected people, so you could get infected by coming in contact with someone who has the infection. In rare cases, you can get the virus from a contaminated needle. HAV infection usually clears up on its own within a few weeks or months. Once you have had HAV, you will probably never have it again. This is called having immunity to the infection. Why do I need this test? You may need this test if your doctor suspects you may have a liver infection caused by HAV. Your doctor may order this test if you have symptoms of HAV and you have a history that puts you at risk for being in contact with the virus. Risk factors for HAV include: Traveling to a country with high rates of HAV infection Having contact with or eating contaminated food Being in close contact with a person who has HAV Working at a health care or daycare center Sharing needles for intravenous drug use Symptoms of HAV usually start suddenly and may include: Fatigue Nausea Vomiting Stomachache Fever Light-colored stools Jaundice, or yellow color of skin, eyes, and urine Some people, especially children, may have HAV without symptoms. What other tests might I have along with this test? Your doctor may also check for antibodies to other types of hepatitis viruses. You may need other blood tests to check how your liver is working. What do my test results mean? Many things may affect your lab test results. These include the method each lab uses to do the test. Even if your test results are different from the normal value, you may not have a problem. To learn what the results mean for you, talk with your health care provider. Normal results are negative, meaning that you don't have the hepatitis A IgM in your blood. If your test is positive or reactive, it may mean: You have an active HAV infection You have had an HAV infection within the last six months How is this test done? The test requires a blood sample, which is drawn through a needle from a vein in your arm. Does this test pose any risks? Taking a blood sample with a needle carries risks that include bleeding, infection, bruising, or feeling dizzy. When the needle pricks your arm, you may feel a slight stinging sensation or pain. Afterward, the site may be slightly sore. What might affect my test results? No other factors can affect your results. How do I get ready for this test? You don't need to prepare for this test.


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Fifteen-year-old Tess Rodrigues is a typical teenager: She spends her free time at the mall, hangs out with friends and stays connected on Facebook.
But unlike most 10th-graders, Tess is home-schooled by her mother, and supplements her studies in marine biology, Spanish and world history with help from a weekly home-school co-op group.
"My mom and I laugh a lot and have fun," Tess said. "And with the work, I get to go at my own pace, unlike a regular classroom. I can speed through lessons that are easy, and take time to go over things if I don't get them."
Her mother, Lisa Landis Rodrigues, started home-schooling her three children when they were in second, fourth and fifth grade.
"I'm not anti-school at all — I think teachers are awesome and I think most schools are great," said the Rhode Island mom. "But morally, I think they go way too fast. I wanted my 10-year-old to be a 10-year-old, not get caught up in how other kids dress and act, so I decided to home-school them."
Though such students represent an estimated 3 percent of the population, evidence suggests that home-schooling is a growing trend in America. While most say faith is their primary motivation, others choose this path for a variety of reasons that include dissatisfaction with the local school system, caring for special-needs kids, safety concerns, flexibility to travel and the chance to spend more time with their children.
And, proponents say, the home-schoolers of yesteryear, stereotyped as socially awkward, religiously dogmatic and ill-prepared for the real world, aren't representative of current home-schoolers who more closely mirror the mainstream.
"Whenever I meet new people or join a new group, I don't usually tell them that I was home-schooled — it's like a wild card in my back pocket," said Brooks Nelson, a confident, outgoing 25-year-old from Iowa who was home-schooled for his entire pre-college education. "Once I get to know them and tell them, they are blown away, they are surprised that I'm articulate — a lot of people have a stereotype about home-schooled students because they haven't interacted with us."
Nelson graduated from Iowa State University and said that he had no trouble getting acclimated to college, taking leadership positions in many extracurricular activities. Today, he works in Washington, D.C., as a coordinator at the Business Civic Leadership Center.
"While home-schooling I learned to be independent, and having the flexibility allowed me to take advantage of a variety of opportunities," he said. "And I traveled around the country and met all kinds of people — it was a springboard to my future."
Like Nelson, many home-schooled students fare well in college, counselors say.
"We don't typically see them having any problems beyond what traditional students face," said Kedra Ishop, vice provost and director of admissions at University of Texas–Austin. "For them, the challenge is navigating the admissions process because their experiences are so individualized. The socialization factor isn't as much of an issue — otherwise a campus of 50,000 students wouldn't be for them."
Ishop says that in the past seven years, she has seen a steady increase in the number of home-schooled applicants, though the percentage is still minuscule. And those are only the home-schoolers who identify themselves as such. Overall, it's hard to tell exactly how many apply, she explains.
"Home-schoolers can identify themselves as home-schoolers when they apply, or they can be affiliated with one of the many schools and consortia that have programs they are a part of. If they select the latter, we can't identify them as home-schooled."
Numbers? Not so simple
The blur over numbers doesn't stop at the college level — nationally, there are various estimates as to how many home-schoolers there are.
The latest national numbers on home-schooling, extrapolated by government surveys conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, are from 2006-2007 and estimate that 1.5 million students are home-schooled. Because it's based on survey information, many say that the report vastly undercounts the number of home-schoolers. However, the same surveys were conducted in 2003 and 1999, and that data shows there's been an increase of 74 percent in the past 10 years.
But why is an exact number so hard to pin down?
Two reasons, says Milton Gaither, author of "Homeschool: An American History" and a professor of education at Messiah College, a private Christian university in Pennsylvania.
One is home-schoolers' desire to avoid government involvement — a sentiment echoed by several researchers and home-schoolers who spoke to TODAYshow.com.
"Historically, many home-schoolers were suspicious of the government in the first place; they are not the type to like to be studied and many want to remain as private as possible."
Another challenge, Gaither adds, is that regulations vary widely from state to state.
"There are 50 different laws in 50 different states, and because of this diversity, it's impossible to have a national blanket statement about the status of home-schoolers," said Gaither. "For some states, even if they have good policies, there's so little money in the budgets that home-schoolers are not a priority."
In states like Florida, school districts require parents to register their children as home-schoolers and, in turn, districts must report those numbers to the state's department of education. But in other states, like Texas, the number of home-schoolers is not compiled. In addition, Gaither explained, the accuracy of numbers can vary from year to year.
"Sometimes it depends on who is in the state's department of education and their funding issues — they might be thorough one year and have nothing the next."
The actual number of home-schoolers in America is between 1.9 and 2.5 million students, says Brian D. Ray, head of the nonprofit National Home Education Research Institute. Ray culled data from private home-school organizations and co-ops to supplement statistics from state departments of education, finding that "a notable number of home-schoolers might not show up on government records."
While there is a lack of up-to-date national statistics, states that thoroughly keep track of home-schooled students offer some recent evidence of growth. In Florida, for example, the number of home-schooled students is up 7.5 percent since 2008, and in both Ohio and Minnesota, it's up 5 percent.
Mirroring the mainstream
As home-schooling becomes more common, the demographics and ideologies of the population are slowly broadening.
Ray's research found that people of color currently make up about 15 percent of home-schoolers, up from less than 10 percent a decade ago.
Angela Jenkins, 39, started home-schooling her 14-year-old son two years ago because he was having speech problems and she wanted him to get more individual attention with schoolwork. When she started, Jenkins, who is black, wanted to connect with other people of color who are home-schooling.
"I really wondered if any other minorities were out there home-schooling," said the Texas mom. "I was surprised by just how many there were!"
Jenkins started DFWhomeschoolcafe, a website originally created to connect people of color to home-schooling resources and provide a place for them to share ideas with each other. Her site is one of various sites and support groups for people of color; among them are Black Homeschoolers Club; National Black Home Educators; Mommy Maestra, a Latina home-schooling blog; various Yahoo! and Google groups for Chinese-American, Latino and Native American home-schoolers; and Homeschooling Muslimah Mommy's — a Facebook group that offers support for Muslim parents.
The majority of home-schoolers, about 83 percent, cite religion as one of their reasons for home-schooling, and most are conservative Christians. But others are also getting in the mix.
Brennan Dean is a home-school parent and co-founder of the Midwest Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, one of several conventions held annually in cities around the country. He says that he's seen that change firsthand.
In 2007, about 1,000 families attended the convention; in 2010, that number increased to more than 4,500 families and a total of 15,000 people. Dean asserts that his organization is "unabashedly Christian," but says that this year, attendees were ideologically diverse.
"We wanted to make the nuts and bolts of home-schooling the primary focus, so we had home-schoolers who were Jewish, Catholic, secular, conservative, liberal — it ran the gamut."
Not for everyone
Despite its success stories, home education doesn't always work. Liz Barker, 32, was home-schooled for four years and says not only did it leave her ill-prepared educationally, but it affected her social skills and even created a rift within her family.
"The majority of my day was spent just me and my mom, and I really didn't learn much," said Barker, who grew up in Texas, where there are few regulations around home-schooling. "When I went back to school my junior year, I was completely overwhelmed and I wasn't normal socially."
Barker, now an accounting administrator, was home-schooled with a conservative Christian curriculum. She ended up graduating a year late and says that she didn't speak to her mom for two years, adding that it also took her several years to have a healthy adult relationship because she was so sheltered while being home-schooled.
The bottom line, say educators, is that this path to education isn't for everybody — but it can be a great option for some.
"There are home-school parents who are knuckleheads just like there are public school parents who are knuckleheads," Dean said. "It's all about parental involvement and their desire to give their kids a good education."
So will home-schooling continue to see growth? Signs point to yes, says Robert Kunzman, associate professor at Indiana University's School of Education.
"I'm reluctant to say it's going to level off … I think there's still plenty of room to grow," said Kunzman, who has been studying home-schooling for seven years. "It's hard to know what the root of it all is, but technology now gives parents the opportunity to encourage one another and get resources, making home-schooling more accessible than in the past."
And if the experience of Tess Rodrigues — the 15-year-old from Rhode Island — is any indication, the stigma around home-schooling is slowly fading.
"Kids my age think it's cool and don't think it's weird at all," said Tess, who says she wants to be a veterinarian. "It's just adults who try to put down what I'm doing and say I can't be what I want to be — but I know that they're wrong."
Kyle Miller contributed to this report.


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We make a fair amount of our monthly income from this strategy. It's really powerful. Once you realize there are investments out there you don't have to wait to be 80 to enjoy, it really motivates you to save and start receiving dividends and interest payments early. Sure beats any toy you could buy to have the ability to "row your own boat" so to speak.
I'll have to check this title out.


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112 Photos That Will Annoy The Perfectionist In You
There's no doubt that our brains like order - symmetry, self-repeating patterns, perfect alignments, and intuitive placement. Seeing such satisfying pictures pleases our mind and makes it easy to understand our surroundings. On the other hand, imperfections of flawed things cause us to pause and do a double-take, annoying the hell out of the perfectionist inside us. Now, if you are an OCD-prone person, scroll down carefully unless you wish to have a masochistic session looking at these pictures.
These photos of broken patterns, imperfect symmetry, counter-intuitive placement, and construction fails are guaranteed to drive you bonkers. Undoubtedly, it is highly likely to start seeing everything crooked after looking at these not-so-funny pictures, so consider yourself warned again.
Do you have any OCD pictures that disturb the heck out of you? Share them below so that we can annoy people together!
This post may include affiliate links.
Just Noticed This In The Living Room
Perfectionist's Nightmare
Stick Your Conformist Pattern Where The Sun Doesn't Shine
All Of These Lights Are Off
Well I would not be annoyed by the light switches but the screw lines not being the same :P
You Had One Job
My Wife Is A Monster
Just Burn Down The Whole Damn Park
The flipped seat looks like it's easier to get into and gives better space for people who are picky about how far they sit from a table.
Toughest Ocd Decision Of My Life
That Feeling When You See Something Like This
No One Is Perfect :) :)
A Perfectionist? You're Welcome
Do you really need OCD to tell this job is not worth a penny?
You Had One Job
My Perfectionist Gland Is Going Haywire
This Will Set You Off
The Most Annoying Thing Ever
I Don't Think I Am A Perfectionist But This Is Very Annoying
The CORRECT spelling you mean. British English... Where the language originated ;P
Plastic Packaging... Every Single Time
How To Mess With A Perfectionist
Unlucky :'( :'(
You Had One Job
We Have 3 Sinks... We Need 5 Paper Towel Holders
My Perfectionist Gland Exploded
That is actually normal. Usually tiles artists flip one of the tiles. The one which they signed their names ;)
At My Friend's Apartment. I Think It Bothers Me More That This Doesn't Bother Her
Bike Trail Romania
Paved Street Im Romania
Maybe No One Will Notice...
This Tile
This Toilet Is Not Aligned With The Walls
Bothered Me Way More Than It Should Have. Not Safe For Perfectionists
I would stop remove the box about it and flip that box replace the one that was on top and then go back to my shopping
That Annoying Cross....
Everything About This Upsets Me
I'm A Perfectionist. This Is How My Wife Screws With Me
Quite smart: the tiny pieces at the bottom can be eaten first.
These Pencils
When A Binder Does This
God Dams It
I Guess I Won't Be Using The Dishwasher In My New Apartment
What amazes me is how they even managed to install it. That's a work of art.
When The Toilet Seat Does This While You're On It And It Gives You A Mini Heart Attack
Broken Rainbow
The Game Has Changed
When Erasers Do This
My Hallway Has Annoyed The Crap Out If Me All My Life.
You Had One Job
People Who Do This Should Die A Slow Death
You Had One Job (budapest)
This Light
The Finnish Milk Cartons Changed The Way They Are Opened
Perfectionist's Nightmare
Nightmare would be the 43rd one in the 7th row falling, not the one on the end.


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SSR 72-34: SECTION 218(s) (42 U.S.C. 418(s)). -- STATE AND LOCAL COVERAGE -- COMMISSIONER'S RULING ON STATE'S REQUEST FOR REVIEW -- PENNSYLVANIA -- SERVICES PERFORMED BY TRADESMAN
20 CFR 404.1004(a)(2), 404.1004(c), and 404.1026(a)(4)
- Where Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Waters engaged the services of an individual tradesman, owner and operator of welding and machine shop, for various projects (from July 1960 through March 1964) normally open to competitive bidding, and, where the tradesman received an hourly rate plus reimbursement for materials and supplies, obtained most of the materials and supplies used, furnished his own tools and equipment, planned and devised methods for completing work projects, personally performed the work required [assisted when necessary by employees of the Department of Forests and Waters], filed no reports, followed no schedule, labored under no structured work quota, afforded his work for the State no more priority than that given to an individual customer, and, further, where such work relationship was terminable by either party, the Commissioner affirmed an allowance of credit based on a determination that services by the tradesman were not performed in an employment relationship, hence not covered under State's section 218 agreement under Social Security Act.
The State of Pennsylvania timely requested a review under Section 218(s) of the Social Security Act, as amended, of the Administration's allowance of credit based on a determination that the services performed as a tradesman by an individual for the Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Waters were not performed in an employment relationship and were not covered under the Federal-State Section 218 agreement. The State is of the view that the individual was an employee of the State and that the services performed were covered under the Pennsylvania agreement for coverage of State and local employees.
The facts in this matter establish that the individual was engaged by the Pennsylvania Nursery, a division of the Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Waters, an integral part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to design and build a large metal tank equipped for the pressurized treatment of timbers with a chemical preservative. The individual was the owner and operator of a welding and machine shop at the time his services were engaged and continued the operation of this business throughout the period July 1960 through March 1964, during which he worked irregularly on various projects for the Pennsylvania Nursery.
The evidence, on which the parties are in substantial agreement, contains the following pertinent information:
1. The projects on which the wage earner worked would normally be open to competitive bidding with a contract for the work being awarded to an independent contractor. However, this procedure involved considerable paperwork and required the approval of various officials at the State capital. To avoid this time-consuming process, an oral agreement was made between the individual and the nursery to the effect that the individual would be carried on the records as a part-time employee and paid from the regular salary account. The superintendent of the Pennsylvania Nursery stated the individual "was reimbursed for materials and supplies, and paid at the effective rate of $3.00 an hour, as he was actually considered to be an independent contractor by Penn Nurseries, but time prohibited us from carrying him except on the regular payroll as an employee."
2. The highest hourly wage rate the individual could be paid under his State job classification was $1.80. Therefore, it was necessary to adjust the payroll records to show more hours than he actually worked in order that the agreed wage of $3 per hour was actually paid. Also, reimbursement for the materials and supplies furnished by him (at the rate of $1.80 per number of hours necessary to cover the amount of reimbursement) was made as wage payments and carried on the regular payroll account.
3. The individual was paid a total of $1,213.20 in wages for 1960 which included reimbursed expenses of $751.30. In 1963, he had total wage payments of $1,255.32 which included $321.48 he billed the Pennsylvania Nursery for supplies. Also in 1964, he had total wage payments of $134.49 which included $64.14 for supplies. The amount of billing for supplies included in his wage payments for 1961 and 1962 was unknown.
4. The individual was "hired" at various times from July 1960 through March 1964 when the need for his services arose. However, the nursery did not have first call on his services since he was continuing to operate his welding shop and he worked on the nursery projects when he had time available.
5. The individual did the planning and devised the methods for completing the work projects and furnished the tools and equipment with which he worked as well as obtaining most of the materials and supplies used. While most of the work was done at the nursery, there is indication that some of the small jobs were done at his shop with the State receiving no more priority than an individual customer.
6. The individual did not employ anyone to assist him. If he required assistance on a project, employees of the nursery provided whatever help he needed.
7. He was not required to regularly produce any certain amount of work or to follow any routines or schedules established by the nursery. He was not required to make any reports to the nursery.
8. It is indicated that either party could have terminated the work relationship at any time without incurring any liability.
Section 210 of the Social Security Act, as amended, reads in pertinent part as follows:
- For the purpose of this title --
* * * * * * *
(j) The term "employee" means --
* * * * * * *
- (2) any individual who, under the usual common law rules, applicable in determining the employer-employee relationship, has the status of an employee . . .
Subpart K of Social Security Regulations No. 4, in pertinent part, provides as follows:
404.1004 Who Are Employees. --
* * * * * * *
- (c) Common-Law Employees. -- (1) Every individual is an employee if under the usual common-law rules the relationship between him and the person for whom he performs services is the legal relationship of employer and employee.
- (2) Generally, such relationship exists when the person for whom services are performed has the right to control and direct the individual who performs the services, not only as to the result to be accomplished by the work but also as to the details and means by which that result is accomplished; that is, an employee is subject to the will and control of the employer not only as to what shall be done but how it shall be done. In this connection, it is not necessary that the employer actually direct or control the manner in which the services are performed; it is sufficient if he has the right to do so. The right to discharge is also an important factor indicating that the person possessing the right is an employer. Other factors characteristic of an employer, but not necessarily present in every case, are the furnishing of tools and the furnishing of a place to work to the individual who performs the services. In general, if an individual is subject to the control or direction of another merely as to the result to be accomplished by the work and not as to the means and methods for accomplishing the result, he is an independent contractor. An individual performing services as an independent contractor is not as to such services an employee under the usual common-law rules . . .
The State is of the view that an employment relationship existed between the individual and the Pennsylvania Nursery. The State contends that all the necessary procedures involved in the hiring of an employee by the State were met in this case. It is further contended that the individual was subject to the degree of direction and control to be considered an employee of the nursery. In this regard the following points were made:
1. While the individual was a highly skilled employee and did not need or receive instructions in doing his work, the nursery had the right to give such instruction.
2. The individual's personal services were necessary to the continuing operation of the nursery and all the assistants he required were Commonwealth employees.
3. His services were required on a continuing basis thereby giving permanence to the relationship.
4. Most of the work was performed at the nursery with payment made by the State.
5. It was customary for a welder to furnish his own equipment.
6. The individual had no investment in the facilities used at the nursery and he was not in a position to realize a profit or suffer a loss as the result of his services.
7. The nursery could have discharged him at any time or he could have quit without incurring any liability.
The State indicates that it was clearly the intent of the State to establish an employment relationship in the case. Otherwise, it could be inferred that the State had acted illegally in order to circumvent the requirements for purchasing constructual services on a bid basis.
It is the position of the Social Security Administration that no employer-employee relationship existed between the individual and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Forests and Waters, with respect to the services he performed for the Pennsylvania Nursery during the years 1960 through 1964. The arrangement between the individual and the Pennsylvania Nursery appears to have been made primarily to avoid the Commonwealth's requirements and procedures relating to the awarding of contracts requiring competitive bidding and approval.
The superintendent of Pennsylvania Nursery had admitted that the individual was actually considered to be an independent contractor and that the "employment" arrangement was made in order to expedite the work projects. The wage earner continued to operate his business throughout the period he worked for the nursery and has stated that he considered himself to be self-employed when working for the nursery. His services were obtained by the nursery only whenever the need for his skills arise and there is evidence that the nursery received no priority over other patrons of his business. He was given a free rein in his work, with the nursery being interested only in the product and not the manner or means by which the resulting product was accomplished. The superintendent of the nursery neither controlled nor had the right to direct or control his activities to the degree required to establish an employment relationship under common law. The control that was exercised was of the type usually evident in an arrangement for the services of an independent contractor.
The Commissioner found, on review pursuant to the State's request, that an employment relationship did not exist between the individual and the Pennsylvania Nursery for the period in question. On the basis of this finding, the Commissioner affirmed the allowance of credit.


text: Magento basic setup instructions Changing the theme To change the default visual theme, please visit http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/themes.html You can select only free themes by clicking the filter in the upper right corner of the screen. You need to register to be able to download themes. Choose a theme, click Install Now, and copy the key. Then login to your Magento admin and... Read more February 9, 2015 ncosic Permalink Uncategorized No tags No comments 4833 0 0


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Someone asked me recently was I not pissed off that, after ten years of working on my memoirs, another former Irish prostitute who had just begun blogging had secured a book deal for her own book, which was to be launched before mine. That was a fair question and I could see why it would be asked, but it was not a question that could be answered with a yes or a no. It strongly necessitated a 'no and here's why' answer, so I decided to blog about the 'why' part.
The book my friend was referring to is due out in the autumn of this year, about four months or so before my own and will be titled 'Secret Diary of a Dublin Call Girl'. It is currently being written by a young Irish woman known on the internet as DCG (Dublin Call Girl)
I first came across Dublin Call Girl's blog in January of this year. I came across it because, in the aftermath of completing the book, I didn't know how to disengage from the subject. Also, in a climate where prostitution was heating up as a political issue, I didn't want to.
I was directed to a group-blog called Survivors Connect Network, and what I found there were blog-links to the writings of prostitution survivors from all over the world. DCG's blog was among them.
The first thing that struck me about her writing was that she used soft and evocative language; heartbreaking language, that moved me to tears more than once. As a survivor of prostitution, that says a lot. It says that she captured the prostitution experience in a very profound way. The small things; they are often the things that set us survivors apart from the rest of society. The things we think of, the things we remember, the things we struggle to forget; the things we can't get through a single day without being assaulted by. They were all there.
I was so glad. My heart sung with joy to find this evidence of another Irish woman exploring her prostitution past, in the face of this psychological tsunami so few of us can push past to tell our truths. I was so thankful that this young woman had chosen to defy the pain that assails us, and to call attention to it, and to put it before the public, at the cost of a pain that is beyond the comprehension of so many to fully understand. I felt a deep and sincere affection for her. I still do.
I started an email communication with Stella Marr, who is an American domestic sex-trafficking survivor and the founding member of Survivors Connect Network. I told her that my book was completed and trying to find a home, but that I didn't know how long that would take and because the issue of prostitution was now politically current in Ireland I felt I wanted to join the debate in the meantime. I told her also that I intended to go public with my identity when the book came out, but that until then I'd like to keep my identity to myself. She encouraged me to begin an anonymous blog of my own, and I thought that was a good idea, so I did.
As I did, I continued to follow the blogs of other women, paying particular attention to DCG's, as she is a fellow Irish woman. As her blog unfolded and her story was laid out, I came to understand something I'd like to put before the readers of this blog now. It is that my story and hers are different in every way two women's stories can be different, except for the most important way, which is the conclusion we both draw from them.
To being with, we are from different social classes. She identifies as middle class whereas I am from a working class background, raised in council housing. My family was severely impoverished and I came to prostitution through homelessness and destitution. I can only assume, from what she writes, that DCG's early upbringing was the opposite, and unlike me, she came to prostitution though the grooming of sexual abuse. Many women mirror my entry point and many women mirror hers. A lot of women, tragically, mirror both.
Our stories are also different in other ways. I was prostituted from the age of fifteen to twenty-two, throughout most of the nineties. She was prostituted from twenty-one to twenty-six, through the latter half of the noughties (I hate that term, but we have no other).
I worked in all areas of prostitution; the streets, brothels, massage parlours and escort agencies. She worked privately, in escort agencies, advertising online, which was an area of prostitution only taking off the same year I left it. I consider myself lucky to have missed that, especially for the sake of the creepy punters online 'reviews', where punters review every aspect of the women they have bought – pouring verbal contempt and scorn all over them. This contempt repulses me beyond measure, and I have the deepest sort of sympathy for the innumerable women who've endured it.
Our prostitution histories are different also in the sense that, unlike DCG, I didn't come to understand prostitution as something that was damaging retrospectively. I lived every moment of it as sexually abusive right there, as it was happening. This would obviously have made the experience of it more painful, but I strongly suspect it makes the memory of it less so.
On the subject of survivor memoirs: not in spite of how different, but rather because of how different, the memoirs of prostitution survivors compliment each other and are mutually strengthening, in a profoundly significant sense. This is because they cause people to understand that a woman or girl can come to prostitution through a myriad of circumstances, at any time, at any age, for many reasons, or for a mish-mash of reasons. Our different stories assert this. They emphasise and state and declare it. These are our truths. They are different truths, but they all end up in the same place – that mind-shattering reality of having your heart broken and your legs open on a brothels bed.
The fact is that the blogs and books of every survivor who honestly lays down her story do not detract, but rather affirm the writings of other women. For all these reasons and other reasons besides, it is essentially important that the stories of survivor women stand alongside each other; just as us women must do and should do. We are all living the survival of the same pain and those of us who choose to speak out live all the same fears, are subject to all the same threats, suffer all the same traumas and are targeted at all the same points of our obvious vulnerabilities.
Our sincerest warm wishes for each other are a healing balm that should be poured liberally and continually, with love and without restraint. So to answer the question I was asked the other day: stupid jealousies and resentments should never get a look-in here, because, besides anything else, you can't be in competition when you're on the same team.


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Monaco brown corner sectional seven piece set with cushions. Sectional set includes one corner, one left arm, one right arm, two middle units, a lounge table and a club chair. Wickerlook patio furniture is made with open weave design that resembles traditional woven wicker furniture. Unlike any other woven furniture in the market this weave will never unravel. Made for commercial durability. UV treated. Hose down for cleaning. Made for outdoors. Withstands outdoor temperatures summer and winter. Certified for strict European standards by CATAS Italian research institute and test laboratory. Two person assembly required.
The latest addition to Siesta Wickerlook furniture is the Monaco collection. Easy assembly furniture offers luxury deep seating without the disadvantages of woven furniture. No unraveling, no broken weaves. All furniture items are manufactured for years of heavy use.


text:
- Store
- >
- Dodge Cummins
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- 89-93 Cummins 5.9L
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- Parts/Accessories
- >
- Exhaust Tips
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- Silverline 5" Angle Cut Stainless Diesel Stack Tip
Silverline 5" Angle Cut Stainless Diesel Stack Tip
per item
Silverline universal stainless stack kits are designed for light diesel trucks. Silverline's stack kits undergo a nickel plating process to give them a smoke-like appearance, offering a unique look and polished finish that is brand new to the truck accessory market.
Sold Out
Silverline's finish also resists smudging and hides diesel exhaust soot often visible with regular stainless products. Their internal design features a unique splitter plate that ensures equal exhaust flow from both stacks, resulting in a better-quality sound and improved performance. Silverline stack kits come complete with all hardware and attach to any 4 in. diesel exhaust system. 5"ID 5"OD


text:
Associations or groups of at least 20 people often enjoy nice discounts for shows in be•at venues (Sportpaleis Antwerpen, Lotto Arena, Trixxo Arena, Forest National, Stadsschouwburg Antwerpen, Capitole Gent, Proximus Pop-Up Arena and Trixxo Theater Hasselt).
Sometimes, we also offer interesting deals for events that do not take place in be•at venues.
Five reasons to place a group booking
You take an option for the best places available at that moment
Some shows sell out very quickly. By taking an option for your group, you are assured the best available places. Please note: it is not possible to take an option for some events.
You only pay for the tickets that you need in the end
Taking an option gives you enough time to promote the show amongst the members of your association or group. When finalising the option, you only pay for the definitively reserved tickets.
You often enjoy nice group discounts
This advantage differs from show to show. Some shows offer a group discount from 20 people; others require a minimum of 50 people. Please note: some events do not offer a group discount.
You sit together in the venue if the availability allows for this
By making a group booking, you ensure that your group is not spread around the venue.
One contact who answers your questions and organises your outing
A fixed contact takes care of your booking and provides a personalised group service. It's easy, and you won't have to worry about anything!
What about groups of fewer than 20 people? Groups of fewer than 20 people can order tickets via the Customer Experience Center.
Groups of up to 10 people can also order tickets online via the ticket link on the event page.


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Americans opposed to war are a distinct minority. If the Iraq War were going well, most Americans would support it. Yet the Iraq venture has been such a disaster for America that peace groups have a chance to expose the pro-war interests in the nation and advance an alternative foreign policy based on law and international cooperation. Incredible war costs, a growing police state at home, loss of allies, and tremendous anti-Americanism abroad have given most Americans pause about our foreign policies.
Even so, Washington is on the verge of extending the war with an attack on Iran. To change American policy, we need to understand the differences between the antiwar movements on the Left and the Right before identifying how they might cooperate.
The War Party
The leadership of both parties supports war and empire. The Republican establishment's war promoters include the big conservative foundations, congressional leadership, old-line media such as National Review and the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, and the Religious Right's Armageddonites. The recent Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) meeting suppressed any antiwar debate, while speaker after speaker denounced foreigners, immigrants, and Arabs. Cheers resonated for PATRIOT Act author John Yoo, and John Bolton was a banquet speaker. The current Republican presidential front-runners all favor continuing the wars in the Middle East.
Against the above some lonely libertarians and a very few constitutional conservatives opposed attacking Iraq, both in 2003 and before the first Gulf War in 1990. Although many Republicans opposed the Kosovo war, they did so mainly because a Democrat, Bill Clinton, started it. The rationale for that U.S. intervention, like with Iraq, was also based on falsifications.
Most Democratic congressional leaders also voted for the Iraq war. Outsider Howard Dean, a vocal opponent of the war, was blown away by the Democratic establishment in 2004. In a recent Washington Post analysis, political scientist Tony Smith explains why the Democrats can't put together a successful vote against the Iraq war. Many of the Democrats, according to Smith, are influenced by an ideology of using American military power for Wilsonian ends. They take their cues from "special interests…that want an aggressive policy– globalizing corporations, the military-industrial complex, the pro-Israel lobbies, those who covet Middle Eastern oil." The policies of these powerful "neo-liberals," Smith writes, coincide with those of the "neo-conservatives."
War is Washington's big business. The military industrial complex has never been more profitable. Last year, 15,300 earmarks for defense spending went to projects carefully designed to gain adherents in every state. The F-22 fighter plane, for instance, has 1,000 subcontractors in 43 states. Electronic chips and secret superweapons are so complicated that profits can be hidden all along the production line well beyond the scrutiny of outsiders. Even newly planned missiles for Poland to "defend Europe" from Iran may be less about a grand strategic design than simply about selling more arms. Russia's resultant concerns and European dismay are considered inconsequential.
Over and over, Washington's War Party trumps the views of most business interests as well as the foreign policy and academic establishment. The consequences of Washington having made enemies of nearly a quarter of the human race, the Muslims, are only now unfolding. Yet the War Party continues to look for new conflicts, next with China, to justify the vast budget for weaponry mostly irrelevant to the War on Terror. The recent CPAC meeting and much of the conservative media are, for instance, full of dire warnings of a great Chinese military threat to America.
Beyond Left and Right
To change Washington from its cowboy, shoot-first approach to a more cooperative stance with other nations is not just a matter of defeating George Bush. Opposing new wars, whether in Iran or elsewhere, requires cooperation of the Left together with libertarians and constitutional conservatives. There is now a convergence of interests. The Left today is a minority and can't expect to win power alone. The Republicans, because of the war, are splitting apart. Concern for deficits and constitutional freedoms have driven out libertarians, while immigration issues split business interests from the cultural conservatives.
To work together, the Left and Right must first confront their differences. There are past animosities and fundamental divergences in worldviews. Arguments that move one side have little effect on the other. In general the Left is more focused on America's shortcomings and emotional issues, while the Right fears the outside world and looks to simplistic military solutions for most problems.
More specifically, the Left tends to make moral arguments about foreign policy. For instance, the Left's concern over the death of innocent civilians in war — collateral damage — has little resonance with the Right. But the Right, at least some of it, has a pragmatic concern that such killing makes America even more hated and perhaps less safe. Most on the Right, however, argue that America is hated anyway, so more killing makes little difference. After all, our president has told us that we are hated because we are so good.
Many on the Left also think that it is immoral to make foreign policies based solely on U.S. national interest, a term that for them means business interests. Most conservatives know little and care little about the outside world. Leftists are generally more knowledgeable, but they know and care little about business or economic growth if such conditions cause economic injustice. Then there are the disagreements over how to use resources. Arguing that warfare is intrinsic to capitalism, much of the Left wants to use the war disaster to profoundly change America. The anti-war Right attributes the war to a takeover of foreign policy by former leftists, the neoconservatives, and to an unleashed military industrial complex.
But the categories also are losing their meaning. The Left no longer means confiscatory taxes and welfare state socialism. The Right no longer means balanced budgets, small government, and constitutional freedoms. Today other political divisions are more meaningful, such as between empire and republic, free traders and protectionists, pro- and anti-immigration interests, constitutionalists vs. Big Government. These all transcend Left and Right.
Also, there are common issues that can unite the moderate anti-war movements on both sides of the political spectrum. The common threat of trillions of dollars for unending wars already threatens both tax cuts and social welfare.
The growing police state at home and consequent erosion of civil liberties can also unify the two camps. Police State Republicans now run the party. There is little complaint at the dominant conservative think tanks and foundations, for example, over PATRIOT Act excesses and expanding police powers. But many old-line conservatives have objected, including the American Conservative Union (which sponsors CPAC), the new American Conservative magazine, tax fighter Grover Norquist, Paul Weyrich, former congressman Bob Barr, and a few others. The libertarian institutes have sponsored many speakers and publications, and the Cato Institute has already cooperated with the American Civil Liberties Union on these issues. But the conservative war establishment has overwhelmed these voices. Equally, most of the Religious Right shows little concern for police state measures. After all, millions of them believe the world will end soon, so what does the constitution matter? Notably also, almost all their top leaders (except Chuck Colson and Pat Nolan of Prison Fellowship and author Rick Warren) supported the torture of prisoners of war. Only now, with new leadership, has the National Association of Evangelicals dared to condemn torture.
The Left, being on the outs, now has much more concern for the constitutional rule of law and international law. However the Left also has a long history, when it was in power, of caring little for constitutional niceties, especially on economic matters. Even today, the Left would go to war for Darfur regardless of consequences, as it once decimated Haiti's economy with an economic blockade under Clinton. In attacking Serbia, the Left did not demand any UN resolutions but used NATO for legitimacy, which severely undermined the pro-Western democratic forces in Russia.
Anti-Imperial Coalition
In many ways America has become like Rome, moving inexorably toward empire and a police state. A majority of Americans will always trade away their freedoms for supposed security. A few more terrorist attacks will weaken our constitutional protections even further. Democracies cannot run empires. So, empire will mean losing our democracy. Empire will also mean the constant risk of "mistakes" that can trigger nuclear or biological warfare.
Those of us with similar concerns on both Right and Left need more communication with each other. We need to study how we can work together. Brink Lindsay of the Cato Institute gives us one example with his manifesto on how to bring together libertarians with liberals.
We must also be mindful of the challenges. Christian reconstructionist Gary North argues that Left-Right alliances have rarely worked: witness how the Left, except for figures like Randolph Bourne and Eugene Debs, abandoned its internationalism and went nationalistic in support of U.S. entry into World War I. He argues that "each side should do its best to convince its own followers. We know our own side's accents and hot buttons."
Here, however, are some ways of transcending Left-Right concerns and forging an anti-imperial coalition.
- Explain to Americans how other nations also seek security, that negotiation is not "un-American," that Reagan too negotiated.
- Work against a U.S. attack on Iran and the spread of war, which could end up wrecking world trade. Work to bring in Japan and South Korea, which depend upon Arabian Gulf oil, to publicly pressure Bush not to attack.
- Bring in the business community. Much of it fears blowback from growing anti-Americanism abroad. The hi-tech industries in particular want peace to protect their intellectual property rights. Remember: Andrew Carnegie was a founding member of the Anti-Imperialist League.
- The improvements to our civil defense are woefully inadequate and incompetently behind schedule. We all know the prime targets: our big coastal cities, tunnels, reservoirs, and industrial ports such as the Houston Ship Canal. We need biological defense, hospital resources, and fallout shelters much more than we need new submarines. More consciousness about these risks might make more Americans aware of the connection between our bombing of foreigners and their acts of terrorism against us.
- Conservatives should join Leftist anti-war demonstrations, but with their own placards and banners. I have seen such at anti-war marches in Washington, and they are effective and draw attention. I wrote about this during the Kosovo war, because only Leftists make big anti-war events.
- Each side needs to publicize the other's anti-war resources. On the Right the conservative establishment has been very successful in suppressing anti-war views.
- Attend each other's meetings (though this can be counterproductive if the meetings are dominated by the extremist yahoos on the Right or America-haters on the Left).
- Promote travel, international conferences, and foreign views, especially for the young.
- Secure divided government so that each branch will investigate the other and help restrain its abuses of power.
- Work for term limits, still the best way to limit Leviathan, and bring in younger, less compromised congressmen and women.
- Remind Republicans that when they provide the president with ever more nearly dictatorial powers, it may well be a Hillary Clinton who enforces them.
There remains much that divides Left and Right. But, particularly as these designations lose their meaning, there is much that unites us as well. Opposition to American empire can serve as the banner that welcomes us into the one big tent of people opposed to war, an Anti-Imperialist League for the 21st century.


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Holy doughnut hole, folks. Doughnuts: Simple and Delicious Recipes to Make at Home is now available and shipping on Amazon, Powell's Books, and Barnes & Noble. I am kind of speechless… for so long I've been saying it's not out until fall. But suddenly, it's here and it's real. I hope that you all have as much fun making doughnuts as I did making the book!
Before anything else, I want to say a huge thank you to a few folks. My publisher, for turning my idea into something so beautiful. My friends and family for encouraging me along the way. My testers for working with me to really make the recipes shine (testers: expect email from me soon… I thought a had a couple more weeks before the book was ready!) You simply cannot make a book all on your own, and I know I certainly couldn't have done it without all of you.
So, with that, I am celebrating with some doughnuts and I thought it would be fun to share a recipe. How about some Baked Chocolate Cake Doughnuts!
This recipe isn't in the book, but it is just a slight variation of the baked cake doughnut recipe that is. The beauty of the baked cake doughnuts is that they come together in a very short time… it's only about 30 minutes from start to finish, and there's no oil to deal with at the end.
You do need a doughnut pan to get a good doughnut shape. I prefer the mini doughnuts to the larger ones when baking… the smaller size bakes a bit more evenly and stay a bit more tender. If you don't have a doughnut pan though, don't fret. You can still make the batter and cook it up in a muffin tin (again, mini muffin tins work best) for doughnut flavored muffins.
This recipe only makes about 15 mini doughnuts, so chance are you may not have many left at the end of breakfast… but if you do end up with leftovers, come back tomorrow for a fun recipe for using doughnuts that have become a bit stale. It is almost worth making a double batch, just to have the leftovers!
Baked Chocolate Cake Doughnuts
It may seem strange to add nutmeg to a chocolate recipe, but nutmeg is the key to a recognizable doughnut flavor. It's fine to leave it out, but your doughnuts may taste a bit more like chocolate cupcakes.
130 grams (~1 cup) all purpose flour
2 tablespoons natural cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
75 grams sugar
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon fine grain salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter or coconut oil
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
Lightly grease a doughnut (or muffin) tin and preheat the oven to 350F.
Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda, and then whisk in the sugar, nutmeg and salt.
Add the butter, and using your fingers, rub it into the dry ingredients until it becomes coarse crumbs.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, yogurt, vanilla and egg. Add to the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Do not overmix, or your doughnuts may be a bit rubbery.
Fill each cup 1/2 to 3/4 full. You can do this with a spoon, but I prefer using a piping bag to fill each cup more evenly and cleanly. It's important not to overfill, or as the doughnuts rise, you'll lose the hole.
Bake for 6 to 10 minutes (depending on the size of your doughnut pan), until the doughnuts spring back when touched. Let cool slightly on a wire rack before glazing. If coating in powdered sugar, let them cool even a bit more.
Makes about 15 mini doughnuts.
Buttermilk Glaze
Doughnut glaze is very simple to make… basically just mixing powdered sugar with some sort of liquid. For these doughnuts, I used a splash of buttermilk, but you can use milk, water, or any liquid. Start with about 1 cup of powdered sugar in a bowl, and add about 1 teaspoon of buttermilk. Start blending with a spoon until you get a thick paste. Add more buttermilk in very small amounts, at about 1/4 teaspoon at a time, and stir it in, using the back of the spoon to break down any clumps. You are aiming for a consistency that is about like a thick cake icing. If you add too much liquid at once, you won't be able to get out the clumps. Once you get a smooth mixture, continue adding liquid at 1/4 teaspoon at a time until you get a slightly thinner glaze that slowly drips from the spoon.


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BBQ icons - Dutch Icon we make icons stock icons custom icons BBQ icons Collection: Raw style Image number: File formats: EPS vector, PNG License type: Royalty-free Copyright: © Dutch Icon add to cart already in cart! Included in this icon set Barbecue, Corn, Bag of Charcoal, Sausage on a Fork, Matchstick, Grilled Steak, Glass of Beer, Barbecue on Fire, Hot Sauce, Fish and Lemon, Salad Bowl, Kebab, Oven Mitt, BBQ Tools, Apron. These icons taste good Who doesn't love a barbecue? One of the all-time favorite family activities is represented in a set of fifteen vector icons. Along with the mouthwatering elements including steaks, fish and sausages, the images also depict cooking and safety equipment. The icons are simple to comprehend and can be used on any BBQ related websites and apps. Related icons Raw style Raw style Food icons and Drinks icons Raw style Food icons and Drinks icons Raw style Raw style Raw style Gardening icons Raw style Gardening icons Raw style Raw style Raw style Custom icon design Thank you forusing our icons! Top 5 icons Car Service icons Coffee icons Communication icons Archive icons Keep me informed Something Cookies, freshly baked — homemade web surfing. Read more about our wholesome cookie recipe here. accept cookie madness no cookies for me
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As Earth orbits the sun, the planet constantly sweeps up interplanetary debris. This debris often heats the Earth's upper atmosphere until it glows, leaving brief trails across the night sky that people once called "shooting stars" or "falling stars."
This weekend, stargazers in North America could get a glimpse of many of these objects, which are now known as meteors.
Mostly, the Earth hits these meteors at random, so you can never be sure when or where you will see a meteor. But sometimes the Earth passes through denser clouds of particles, and the meteors are brighter and more frequent, producing what are called "meteor showers." [New Meteor Shower from Comet 209P/LINEAR (Gallery)]
Most of these debris fields are leftovers from periodic comets. As these comets make repeated visits to the inner solar system, they gradually shed material, which gets spread along their orbits. When Earth passes through one of these cometary ghosts, the planet gets an increased number of meteors.
Just such a comet has set up the upcoming meteor shower. A rather unimpressive comet with the unromantic name of 209P/LINEAR will make a close approach to Earth on May 29, passing a mere 5 million miles (8 million kilometers) away. Five days before the comet's closest approach, Earth will pass through the object's orbit, and some astronomers predict a major new meteor shower for that night.
Comet orbits are very precisely known, and astronomers predict Earth will pass through 209P's debris field between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. EDT (0700 and 0800 GMT) on Saturday morning, May 24. Further west, the time will be earlier, between midnight and 1 a.m. PDT on the West Coast.
Many people get confused about astronomical events that happen after midnight, forgetting that the date changes at midnight. So this meteor shower will occur after midnight on Friday night, May 23, which is Saturday morning, May 24. So don't wait until Saturday night to look for it, or you will be 24 hours late.
Meteors are not rare events. The only reason most people rarely see them is that most individuals don't look at the sky long enough or often enough, or they look at a sky full of light pollution, which hides the faint meteors. On an average night at any time in the year, anyone who stares at the sky after midnight for an hour should see about half a dozen meteors.
During a meteor shower, the number of meteors seen in an hour might increase by two to three times. But again, unless you make an effort to watch, you won't see many.
Often, when people read about a meteor shower, they actually expect what astronomers call a meteor storm. During one of these events, hundreds of meteors appear, filling the sky with celestial fireworks. However, such meteor storms are exceedingly rare, perhaps three or four per century.
There is a chance, a very small chance, that a meteor storm might occur this weekend, and this has astronomers very excited.
One of the most frequent questions about meteor showers is, "Where should I look?" The answer is that it really doesn't matter, because meteors can appear anywhere in the sky. Although all the meteors in a shower appear to radiate from a particular point in the sky, called the radiant, this is not the best direction to look, as the meteors close to the radiant tend to be quite short in length. I prefer to look about 90 degrees away from the radiant, where the meteors will tend to be longest.
The radiant for this shower will be in the dim and little-known constellation of Camelopardalis, the Giraffe. This is about halfway between Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) and Cassiopeia, right under Polaris, the Pole Star.
Having said all that, let me be honest with you: Comets and meteor showers are notoriously unpredictable. There is a very good chance that absolutely nothing will be visible on Saturday morning. But you can bet that every serious astronomer in North America will be out looking, just in case.
This article was provided to Space.com bySimulation Curriculum, the leader in space science curriculum solutions and the makers of Starry Night and SkySafari. Follow Starry Night on Twitter @StarryNightEdu. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.


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For the past couple of days I have been baking a lot of muffins and quick breads that my son started asking me to bake some cookies for a change. I feel that muffins are the easiest to bake because there is no waiting for the butter to soften, no creaming of butter and sugar; simply mix, pour and bake. With the hectic schedule I'm on these days, I prefer baking more and more of quick breads than anything else.
I couldn't postpone baking cookies anymore, so started looking for some easy cookie recipes and found this simple oatmeal cookies recipe here. I can very well name these "everything-but-the-kitchen-sink-oatmeal-cookies". The ingredients list sure seems to be pretty big but you shouldn't have any problem finding any of it. If you are like me you must be having most of it in your pantry already. Moreover the original recipe is very flexible I would say because I too have substituted quite a bit with the ingredients I had in hand. More about it in the My Notes.
As for the taste, we all loved it. These gluten free oatmeal cookies were nice and crunchy. I think that brown rice flour gives extra crispiness to the cookies. I have noticed this already in these oat flour and brown rice flour cookies and as well as in these cornmeal and brown rice flour cookies. The cookies had an amazing melt in your mouth texture. Of course the oatmeal cookies don't have that texture but it was definitely quite crispy (See My Notes #2) and I think it wouldn't have been like that had I used any other flour other than the brown rice flour.
Also note that this recipe for oatmeal cookies is gluten free if you use gluten free certified oats and other ingredients.
Gluten Free Oatmeal Cookies Recipe
|Prep Time
|Cook Time
|15 Mins
|24 Mins
|48 cookies.
- 2 and 1/4 cups Quick Cooking Oats
- 2 cups Brown Rice Flour
- 1 and 3/4 cups Slivered Almonds
- 1/2 cup Unsweetened Shredded Coconut
- 1/4 cup Flax Seed
- 3/4 cup Sugar
- 1/2 tablespoon Ground Cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons Salt
- 3/4 cup Mini M&Ms
- 3/4 cup Golden Raisins
- 1/2 cup Dried Cranberries
- 3/4 cup Oil (I used Canola)
- 1/4 cup Molasses
- 1 and 1/4 cups Rice Milk
- Preheat oven to 350F/180C for 15 Mins. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. I also sprayed the parchment paper with some non stick cooking spray.
- Stir together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
- Mix together the wet ingredients in another small bowl.
- Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. I felt that the cookie batter was a bit watery so I covered the bowl of dough with plastic wrap and refrigerated for 15 minutes.
- Scoop about a tablespoonful of dough and place it on the prepared cookie sheets. Flatten it gently either with a fork or back of a spoon.
- Bake it until lightly browned or for 24 minutes. I took out mine after 22 minutes.
- Leave the cookies on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes and then transfer it to a cooling rack to cool completely before storing them in an air tight container. I baked mine in 3 batches.
- The changes I have made are using brown rice flour instead of spelt flour, slivered almonds instead of sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, golden raisins and cranberries instead of raisins, mini M&Ms instead of chocolate chips and rice milk instead of soy milk and water. I kept the measurements of all the ingredients same except for the chocolate chips and sugar, so the oatmeal cookies turned out good without any problem.
- To cut back on sugar I used just 3/4th cup of mini M&Ms instead of 1 and 3/4th cup of dark chocolate chips and 3/4th cup of white sugar instead of the 1 cup mentioned in the original recipe. Also I used just half the quantity of ground cinnamon because we are not spice fans.
- The gluten free oatmeal cookies were very crispy on the day I baked it but it lost its crispness in the following days. It became very chewy. I had stored half the batch in a ziploc bag in the refrigerator and the other half in an airtight container and left it on the counter. The cookies stored in the fridge retained some of its crunch but the ones at room temperature became chewy.
- I see in some of the baking websites that honey or maple syrup can be substituted for molasses measure to measure. So you can try it if you don't have molasses in hand. Similarly any flour should work too I guess.


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Cleaver backs Medicare means test
The chair of the Congressional Black Caucus on Friday said he would accept means-testing of Medicare as part of a deficit reduction deal.
"I think we've got to do Medicare," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "It's going to pull this economy down. We've got to deal with it. And I think most rational people, including Democrats, realize that we've got to make some cuts or deal with Medicare. But, you know, let's have some means testing."
Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat whose term as caucus chair is ending at the end of this congressional session, said means-testing Medicare for wealthy retirees would be a more palatable option than across-the-board cuts.
"I don't think that cutting benefits at this time is going to go over well," Cleaver said. "We can do means testing and reduce the payments."
Republicans have pushed cutting and means-testing entitlementsas one possible bargaining tool as part of a broader fiscal cliff deal.


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UD Launches 'The Quest: The Way of Beauty,' Season Two of the EWTN Show
"The Quest: The Way of Beauty" is a collaborative effort of UD faculty in several disciplines, including art, theology, modern languages and literature.+ Read More
All - Level Certification Program (Grades EC-12): Art, Theater Arts (Drama), and LOTE (Languages Other than English, French, German, Latin, and Spanish)
To be recommended by the University of Dallas for Texas EC-12 Certification, candidates must show evidence of the following:
1) Bachelor's Degree with at least 24 hours of teaching field courses, 18 upper division,
with an overall grade point average of 2.75 (on a 4.0 scale) and a 2.75 in pedagogical
and teaching field courses.
2) General education courses-6 hours in English required-12 recommended; 3 hours in math, college algebra or above; 3-4 in laboratory science; 6 hours in history, 3 of which must be American; 3 hours in American Government.
3) Complete: Edu 3102, 3111, 3305, 3322, 3327, 3328, 3335, 4149, 4849, 5351, 5352, and at least one semester of Reflective Teaching (Edu 3147 or 3148), plus Edu 4346.
4) Pass the comprehensive examinations in Education.
5) Pass appropriate TExES.
6) Complete placement file and teaching portfolio.
N. B. The Department of Education complies with the Texas state certification requirements as set by the State Board of Educator Certification. At the time of this publication, the requirements are accurate; however, requirements may change to reflect new state regulations.
"The Quest: The Way of Beauty" is a collaborative effort of UD faculty in several disciplines, including art, theology, modern languages and literature.+ Read More
The relics of St. Pio of Pietrelcina will visit the University of Dallas on Sept. 20.+ Read More
The University of Dallas welcomes new faculty members in various disciplines and congratulates others on their promotions.+ Read More


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As more baby boomers retire and the over-65 population rises from 12 percent of Americans in 2010 to 25 percent in 2030, paying for their care will become increasingly difficult, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warns in a new report.
The budget office notes one estimate that two-thirds of people over 65 will at some point in their lives need assistance, such as nursing home or in-house care, due to cognitive or physical limitations. About half of those who receive such care rely on "informal caregivers" such as family and friends.
Some experts expect a 70 percent increase in the total number of people requiring care by 2050.
This assistance, known as "long-term services and supports," currently accounts for 1.3 percent of GDP but is projected to increase by at least 46 percent and perhaps as much as 150 percent by 2050.
This means difficulties for Medicare and Medicaid programs, which pay for much of the spending on these services.
On Thursday a special commission, created as part of the fiscal-cliff legislation passed in January, met for the first time to start considering some of these challenges. The Commission on Long-Term Care plans to discuss Medicare, Medicaid, private long-term care insurance and ways to deal with long-term care costs.
These costs are one of the key challenges facing the country as its population ages and millions of older Americans leave the work force each year. This challenge deserves careful consideration by members of the new panel — and the rest of Congress.
External links:
Rising Demand for Long-Term Services and Supports for Elderly People (CBO)
Facing a Tight Deadline, Long-Term Care Panel Holds First Meeting (Kaiser Health News)


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CHICAGO – Jurors deliberating in the case of the man charged with murdering Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew asked Friday to re-watch video footage shown during the trial.
They made the request in a note to the presiding judge on their third day of deliberations. They offered no explanation about why they wanted the evidence.
Judge Charles Burns sent a note back to jurors saying they would receive the videos — one of the post-arrest interrogation of Hudson's former brother-in-law, William Balfour, and surveillance footage of Balfour's car.
Balfour was estranged from Hudson's sister, Julia Hudson, at the time of the Oct. 24, 2008, slayings and prosecutors say he killed the three family members because she refused to take him back. Defense attorneys argued that the evidence tying Balfour to the killings is circumstantial.
Friday's note was the second from jurors. A note Wednesday requested transcripts and asked if Balfour had had a key to the Hudson home, where the actress and singer's mother and brother were slain. Burns told jurors then they had all the evidence and to keep deliberating.
The jurors' notes haven't said whether they might be at an impasse. As they walked down a fifth-floor hall into a jury room to resume deliberations Friday, many of the jurors looked tired.
The jurors are being sequestered to ensure they don't see news reports of the case, but officials won't say where. The jurors have no access to TVs, radios, computers or cellphones.
One of the videos jurors asked to see shows Balfour's interrogation the day of the killings. In it, he denies involvement in the slayings and offered an alibi, saying he took a subway and then a bus to see a girlfriend around the time of the killings. A detective later tells Balfour that police checked his transit card and found that it hadn't been used that day.
The other video is from a surveillance camera at a high school showing Balfour's green Chrysler. By referring to that video, jurors may won't to check the timeline prosecutors laid out about Balfour's movements that day.
Balfour pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder. He would face a mandatory life prison term if convicted.
Follow Michael Tarm at www.twitter.com/mtarm


text: The DevExtreme JavaScript Pyramid Chart is often used to visualize an organizational structure. In this demo, the pyramid displays a team's composition, reflecting both subordination and strength. In code, the pyramid is created using the Funnel component with the algorithm property set to «dynamicHeight» and inverted property set to true.