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Daniel Hyde use to be an avid mountain biker, but he now prefers road biking. He logs between 1,500 and 2,000 miles a year and hits the pavement throughout the Denver metro, he said. His biggest annual venture is a 250-mile, three-day ride that he …
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Daniel Hyde use to be an avid mountain biker, but he now prefers road biking. He logs between 1,500 and 2,000 miles a year and hits the pavement throughout the Denver metro, he said. His biggest annual venture is a 250-mile, three-day ride that he travels to the East Coast to participate in.
"The big thing is, it's a low-impact way to stay in good shape," the 43-year-old Golden man said.
For him, cycling is a way to exercise that presents a low risk of injury. Still, he said, road biking has its drawbacks.
"The first word that comes to mind is scary," Hyde said.
When on the road, Hyde said he often competes for space with vehicles, and not all drivers are pleased to share the lane with cyclists.
"When I have every right to the roadway as the vehicles does but the driver of the vehicle isn't aware of that," he said, "generally speaking, they can become very, very aggressive."
There may be good news for Hyde, who also works as a bike patrol officer on Golden's police force, as many Denver metro communities are looking to provide a clear path for cyclists. For some municipalities, the work began several years ago, and for others, it's just getting started.
Regardless, officials say adding bike lanes doesn't just support more modes of transportation. From a public safety perspective, they enhance the ability for motorists and cyclists to share the road safely and more comfortably.
In Castle Rock, on-road bike lanes have become the new standard. When a new road goes in, excluding smaller neighborhood streets, so does a bike lane. The town has also reviewed its existing roadways and added bike lanes where appropriate, transportation planner Tom Reiff said.
The town has more than 33 miles of bike lanes, and with the construction of new roads, that number is expected to rise.
"Every year it goes up," Reiff said. "It's been a trend throughout the country for quite a while now and we just wanted to make sure that we account for all user groups."
Reiff said providing a distinguishable space for cyclists can increase safety on the road.
"It alerts motorists to be on the lookout for cyclists, that they might be on the road, so it heightens their awareness," he said.
Bryce Matthews, planning manager for the Town of Parker, said the town adopted a new bike lane plan in 2004 to accomplish many of the same goals Castle Rock is working toward.
Mainly, Parker sought to support bike lanes throughout town, he said, and use them to connect key areas. Often, that meant getting people safely from the trail to the grocery store or to school without forcing cyclists and pedestrians to share the sidewalk.
"We have sidewalks, obviously," he said, "but the questions was, is there a safe place where bikes can have some space within the road right-of-way where they're not conflicting with pedestrians."
In the north metro area, Northglenn began a bike lane pilot project in July, adding the city's first bike lanes as it builds a new bicycle and pedestrian master plan.
The goal of the bike lane project was to give residents the experience of road biking, senior planner Ashley Kaade said. It tested both separate bike lanes along the community's Grant Street, and "sharrow" lanes, which encourage drivers to share the road with cyclists. Community feedback will help Northglenn decide how to add bike lanes in the future as well.
The new bike and pedestrian plan comes in light of the town's changing demographics, Kaade said.
"We do have a good percentage of older adults, like many communities in the Denver metro region," Kaade said, "but we're also seeing a lot of young families and turnover in the housing stock as well."
Bike lanes are one way to improve mobility for every demographic, she said.
Golden's Public Works Director Dan Hartman said officials found some people still aren't comfortable riding on the street. Providing a bike lane separates cyclists from motorists and offers a degree of comfort to the biker, he said. Although, he cautioned users still need to be responsible on the road.
"They aren't perfect," Hartman said of bike lanes. "Drivers and riders still have to be aware of what's going on around them."
Hyde agreed, saying bike lanes can offer a false sense of security to cyclists, who "still have to be extremely safe and vigilant."
But overall, he thinks more bike lanes are a good thing for public safety.
"I think they're helping quite a bit. What it does more than anything is it makes it more black and white to the motorists as to where the cyclist is going to be," he said. "With bike lanes, it's much more enjoyable."
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British Lawmakers Propose Altering Consummation Laws to Allow Same-Sex Marriage
Lawmakers in England have proposed changing the language of the country's consummation laws, a part of Great Britain's Marriage Act, in order to allow homosexual couples to legally marry.
Currently, a man and a woman are not officially married in Great Britain until they have "ordinary and complete" intercourse, rather than "partial and imperfect" intercourse, according to the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1973.
Such intimacy requires penal-vaginal intercourse, according to the law, and therefore excludes same-sex couples.
Edward Leigh, a Roman Catholic and member of Britain's conservative Tory Party, recently said that amending the country's Marriage Act would result in reducing the current legal definition of marriage to a civil partnership, which same-sex partners already have access to.
Leigh has also argued that the absence of consummation laws would usher in a slew of legal issues.
"It will have profound effects on the ability of individuals to have a marriage annulled," Leigh told The Sun.
"This is important to Catholics for whom annulment is permitted by the church, but divorce is not," he added.
As U.K.-based Pink News reports, the government's official consultation regarding same-sex marriage, which will remain open to the public until June 14, suggests that the legalization of same-sex marriage will require an amendment of the consummation laws.
"With the removal of the ban on same-sex couples having a civil marriage, these concepts [of non-consummation and adultery] will apply equally to same-sex and opposite-sex couples and case law may need to develop, over time, a definition as to what constitutes same-sex consummation and same-sex adultery," the consultation states.
The issue of same-sex marriage has been a long-debated in Great Britain, with several religious leaders arguing for the protection of traditional marriage, while several prominent politicians have voiced their support for the redefinition of marriage.
Prime Minister David Cameron, for example, has expressed his support of same-sex marriage, saying in a speech at last year's Conservative Party Conference: "Society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other [...] So I don't support gay marriage despite being a Conservative, I support gay marriage because I'm a Conservative."
Additionally, prominent politician Ed Balls, Shadow Chancellor of the Labor Party, recently spoke out in favor of same-sex marriage in a video for the Out4Marriage campaign group, saying that his late gay uncle would have wanted the right to marry his long-term partner.
Balls went on to say that he believes gay couples should have the right to marry in a church: "I think people should be able to get married in church too…I really hope the government will look at that proposal as well. This is something whose time has come."
In response to the government's decision to have an official consultation over the redefinition of marriage, the Church of England said on its official website:
"The issue of whether marriage should be redefined to include those of the same-sex is a more complicated picture than has been painted. Arguments that suggest 'religious marriage' is separate and different from 'civil marriage,' and will not be affected by the proposed redefinition, misunderstand the legal nature of marriage in this country."
"They mistake the form of the ceremony for the institution itself," the church added.
The Most Rev. John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, said earlier this year, "We must not torture the English language. Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman and that's marriage.
"We supported Civil Partnerships [the bishops in the House of Lords], because we believe that friendships are good for everybody. But then to turn Civil Partnerships into marriage, that's not the role of government to create institutions that are not of its gifting."

subset: commoncrawl


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Bon Secours Health System Inc. is a Catholic faith-based Healthcare system with facilities in five (5) Mid Atlantic states, including numerous hospitals, medical offices, nursing homes and accessory medical facilities. The Sisters of Bon Secours was founded on January 24, 1824, amidst the devastation following the French Revolution, 12 women came together to form the congregation of the […]Continue reading
Freedom Commerce Center is Renamed Prominence
Freedom Commerce Center, a mostly vacant office complex off Baymeadows Road in Jacksonville, Florida was sold to Crocker Partners, a private capital company based in Boca Raton, Florida, for $27.8 million and was renamed Prominence. The acquisition included seven (7) buildings totaling 752,154 square feet on 54 acres and it is announced that the complex […]Continue reading
New Developments at Marq*E Entertainment Center
The Marq*E Entertainment Center is Houston's premier dining and entertainment venue located on I-10 and Silber Road, just west of Loop 610. The approximately 350,000 square foot entertainment center features a 22-screen state-of-the-art Edwards Cinema and IMAX screen, a variety of quality restaurants and retail shops, a comedy club, and Houston's most popular multi-venue setting […]Continue reading
New Residential Tower in the Channelside District of Tampa, Florida
Channel Club is a new residential community located in the Channelside district of Tampa, Florida just minutes away from the Florida Aquarium. It is another unique development from ECI Group offering luxury apartment homes with an eclectic Tampa flair. Channel Club will sit on a two-acre site at the corner of Twiggs Street and Meridian Avenue with additional frontage on Madison […]Continue reading
Northside at University of Texas Opening Fall 2016!
Northside in Richardson, Texas, is a 13.3 acre planned development next to the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) Comet Town. It offers brand new 1, 2 and 3 bedroom luxury apartments to students, faculty and UTD staff members along with other North Dallas professionals; pairing unbeatable amenities like free cable TV and high-speed wireless internet with […]Continue reading
Education Commons open on the Georgia Regents University Campus
"J. Harold Harrison, M.D. Education Commons Opens at Georgia Regents University At Georgia Regents University (GRU), the design for this medical education commons is based on educational synergies, program requirements and sustainability. This campus addition provides new classrooms and teaching labs for dentistry, medical and nursing students. The dramatic form communicates the innovative, collaborative and […]Continue reading
FMG working on a new Florida Hospital
Florida Hospital is pleased to announce that after 40 years serving the healthcare needs of the Apopka community, Florida Hospital Apopka is planning an expansion and relocation to a brand new facility. Florida Hospital is purchasing property within the city limits of Apopka to build a new full-service community hospital. The property is located on […]Continue reading
Golden Nugget Lake Charles
Golden Nugget Lake Charles – For almost seven decades, the Golden Nugget name has been synonymous with extraordinary gaming and unmatched entertainment. Nearly 70 years and four new locations later, the Golden Nugget ranks among the world's most respected and awarded casino concepts. Each location offers something unique, but all Golden Nugget locations are home […]Continue reading
McAllen Performing Arts Center Environmental Graphics
McALLEN – ERO Architects has been selected by the McAllen City Commission to design the city's new performing arts center. The project may cost upwards of $40 million and will be built southeast of the existing McAllen Convention Center. "This is an honor to be selected and design an iconic facility. ERO and my family […]Continue reading


text: With the help of some software tools, you can detect memory settings from Windows XP. These may include the CPU-Z, SiSoft Sandra and EVEREST. In addition, SiSoft Sandra and EVEREST are equipped with the efficiency verification solution to further validate whether or not the performance based on the SPD settings is achieved.


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Hi, I am 44 years old, and was diagnosed with HIV at the age of 19 way back in 1989. I grew up on the east coast and life was not easy or simple for me as a child.
I am a survivor of several kinds of abuse, for which none of us deserve no matter the excuse given. Most of my childhood and adolescence I lived on the run, or in detention centers, foster care, or state care. Finally when I became an adult, I thought I was free!! No more chains to bind me, no more adults to lock me up because they couldn't understand my running and anger.
To read this blog in its entirety, click here.


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16 Jan 2003 Jesse Jackson Oversimplifies History
Conservative African-Americans affiliated with the Project 21 leadership network are appalled by comments made by the Reverend Jesse Jackson on January 15 claiming that early non-black Americans came to this country solely to exploit minorities. Some Project 21 members fear this may be another attempt by Jackson to use class warfare to pressure businesses to contribute to his organizations.
In a speech at a fundraising event for his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition's "Wall Street Project" in New York City, Jackson said the shipping industry created the Wall Street financial district and the shipping industry prospered in early America because of slave trading.
During his remarks, Jackson said, "People didn't come here looking for religious freedom; people came here looking for 100 free acres, the right to kill an Indian and free labor."
Jackson's comments insult early Americans and oversimplify history. While most non-black Americans were not in bondage at the time, Jackson characterizes the intent of non-black immigrants to America as coming specifically to exploit and/or kill black people and Native Americans. This is simply not true. Indentured servitude, long workdays and six-day workweeks in poor working environments were common for people of all races in early America.
Jackson's biography on the website of Rainbow Coalition/PUSH website modestly begins: "The Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., Founder and President of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, is one of America's foremost civil rights, religious and political figures." As such, Jackson should be aware that, in fact, very many immigrants have come to the United States in search of religious freedom.
"If this is what Reverend Jackson truly believes about the early settlers, the he is without a doubt the most pathetic student of American history I've ever known," said Project 21 member Jerry Brooks, a columnist for Washingtondispatch.com.
It was recently reported in The Washington Times that Jackson's Citizenship Education Fund (CEF) suffered a $3 million drop in contributions between 2000 and 2001. Companies contributing to Jackson's organizations were AT&T, Apple Computer, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Burger King, NASCAR, SBC Communications, Ameritech, Texaco and United Parcel Service – companies that had been threatened with boycotts or other coercive actions by Jackson. This latest Jackson assault on American business may be fueled by a desire to replenish his diminished coffers.
Brooks adds: "Reverend Jackson's comments highlight three crucial things. One, Jackson doesn't understand why America is a great nation. Two, promoting victimhood has never elevated the status of minorities. And, three, he's a really lousy student of American history."
Project 21 has been a leading voice in the African-American community since 1992. For more information, contact Chris Burger or David Almasi at (202) 507-6398 or [email protected], or visit Project 21's web site at http://www.project21.org/P21Index.html.


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Coronary Calcium Scan
Calcification in the coronary arteries is the earliest indicator of coronary artery disease. Our 128-slice, dual-source CT scanner performs a 10-minute test that produces a calcium score indicating a patient's level of calcium deposits. After taking into account a patient's age, gender and cardiac risk factors, a calcium score is a strong measure of the risk for coronary artery disease.
Please see our SHAPE For Physicians page for research relating to Coronary Calcium Scanning.
Women over the age of 55 and men over the age of 45 should consider the coronary calcium scan, particularly if they have the following coronary artery disease risk factors:
- Family history of heart disease
- High cholesterol level (hypercholesteremia)
- High blood pressure
- Smoking
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- High-stress lifestyle
- No regular excercise program
If the patient has scheduled a consultation following the scan, the initial results will be explained to the patient by a member of our world-renowned team of imaging cardiologists. A final report will be sent to the designated doctor within 72 hours. These results will determine the patient's potential of having early coronary artery disease or significant coronary artery disease, as well as risk for cardiac events.


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Intel's Reader for the visually impaired isn't a concept; it goes on sale today. Using an Atom processor, 5-megapixel camera, and Intel's Linux-based Moblin OS, it turns book pages into digital text and MP3s…then reads aloud in a synthesized voice.
Ben Foss, Director of Access Technology at Intel's Digital Health group said the device is also intended to assist those with severe Dyslexia, an impairment he himself grew up with. "We want people to experience the independence of being able to read on their own in a public place or anywhere they want to."
Prototypes of the paper-back sized device were tested with more than 400 visually-impaired users, including some who were completely blind. The reader can adjust the speed of reading, and it's 2GB of storage can hold about 500,000 pages of text; roughly 600 pages of scanned books.
At $1500, it's not cheap. But compared to even more expensive Braille readers, it has a shot as a specialty device. [Intel via VentureBeat]


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Access is the death-knell to Ancestral Puebloan ruins. The closer they are to roads, the more likely they are to be destroyed by pothunters and vandals (both of whom are the lowest of human beings). To see these wonderful ruins, we had to walk a total of eight miles, and that doesn't count the required climbing to approach the ruins themselves. There was only a trail of use to follow.
The trail began in a shallow canyon with an ephemeral stream. After a mile or so, the canyon deepened, and the first of the ruins appeared (above). It just goes to show how I can miss significant sights sometimes, by realizing that the ruin above is famous, and is found in posters and art exhibits. It's called the House on Fire Ruin (or some variant), and I totally missed the effect of the crossbedded Cedar Mesa Sandstone that flares out above the dwelling. Check out this page (or this one) for an example of a shot taken with a photographer's eye
The next portion of our journey would take us into a different landscape, one that was largely ignored by the Ancestral Pueblo people, a place where it was too dry to grow crops and subsist off the land. We were headed into the Canyonlands.
Meanwhile, in the present day, I will be on the road for a few days, taking our students on a field studies excursion into the eastern Sierra Nevada and Owens Valley. See ya'll in a few days!


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Rising chemicals output a hazard, clean-up needed by 2020 -UN
Alister Doyle
Sep 5 , 2012
* Rising share of chemicals produced in emerging economies
* Poisonings among leading causes of death -UNEP
By Alister Doyle
OSLO, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Increasing misuse of chemicals is causing health and environmental damage especially in emerging economies and governments must do more to carry out a promised clean-up by 2020, a United Nations report said on Wednesday.
Production and use of chemicals - from plastics to pesticides - is shifting to developing nations where safeguards are often weaker, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) said. Unsafe disposal and recycling adds to risks, it said.
Poisonings from industrial and agricultural chemicals are among the top five leading causes of death worldwide, contributing to more than a million deaths every year, UNEP said in a statement of its Global Chemicals Outlook.
"The gains that chemicals can provide must not come at the expense of human health and the environment," Achim Steiner, head of UNEP, said of its first assessment of chemicals.
The report said chemicals are ubiquitous in modern products, from food to mobile phones, and meant millions of people live "richer, more productive and more comfortable lives".
Scientists have only assessed the risks of using a fraction of an estimated 140,000 chemicals marketed worldwide, in everything from plastics to pesticides, UNEP said.
Governments promised in 2002, and reaffirmed the promise at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June, to produce and use chemicals by 2020 "in ways that minimise significant adverse effects on the environment and human health."
Progress in improving safeguards and finding better production methods so far have been "slow" and results "are too often insufficient", UNEP said. It listed firms such as Bayer, Boots or BASF as having ways to avoid damaging chemicals.
"The world is not on target" for the 2020 goal, Mounkaila Goumandakoye, a director of the UNEP regional office for Africa, told a news conference in Nairobi. Stockpiles of dangerous, obsolete pesticides in Africa totalled 50,000 tonnes, he said.
Chemicals including ammonia, hydrogen sulphide, styrene and formaldehyde are among frequent air pollutants. Chemicals flowing into waters include nitric acid, manganese, methanol, and formaldehyde.
The report said that the value of global chemicals output surged from $171 billion in 1970 to $4.12 trillion by 2010, but often without adequate environmental protection.
And the share produced by rich nations in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) fell from 77 percent to 63 percent from 2000 to 2009, while big developing nations such as China and India took on a rising share.
Risks "are compounded by the steady shift in the production, use and disposal of chemical products from developed countries to emerging and developing economies, where safeguards and regulations are often weaker," UNEP said.
Better management of chemicals could help a shift to greener economy that would safeguard the environment and help growth.
"Sound chemicals management is as valid an area as education, transport, infrastructure, direct health care services and other essential public services," said Maria Neira, director for public health and the environment at the World Health Organization.
The phase-out of lead in gasoline in recent decades, for instance, provided global benefits worth an estimated $2.45 trillion a year, or 4 percent of world gross domestic product, UNEP said. Lead has been shown to cause brain damage.
And the "the accumulated cost of illness and injury linked to pesticides in small-scale farming in sub-Saharan Africa could reach $90 billion" from 2005 to 2020, it said.
The study also said rich nations are failing to recycle electronic waste, such as from old computers or television sets.
"Estimates suggest that up to 75 per cent of the e-waste generated in Europe and approximately 80 per cent of the e-waste generated in the United States goes unaccounted for," it said.
(Editing by Mark Heinrich)


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Parallax Visions : Making Sense of American-East Asian Relations at the End of the Century Hardback
by Bruce Cumings
Part of the Asia-Pacific: Culture, Politics, and Society series
- Description
- Information
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In a work that synthesizes crucial developments in international relations at the close of the twentieth century, Bruce Cumings-a leading historian of contemporary East Asia-provides a nuanced understanding of how the United States has loomed over the modern history and culture of East Asia.
By offering correctives to widely held yet largely inaccurate assessments of the affairs of this region, Parallax Visions shows how relations between the United States, Japan, Vietnam, North and South Korea, China, and Taiwan have been structured by their perceptions and misperceptions of each other.Using information based on thirty years of research, Cumings offers a new perspective on a wide range of issues that originated with the cold war-with particular focus on the possibly inappropriate collaboration between universities, foundations, and intelligence agencies.
Seeking to explode the presuppositions that Americans usually bring to the understanding of our relations with East Asia, the study ranges over much of the history of the twentieth century in East Asian-American relations-Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Korean War, and more recent difficulties in U.S. relations with China and Japan. Cumings also rebuts U.S. media coverage of North Korea's nuclear diplomacy in the 1990s and examines how experiences of colonialism and postcolonialism have had varying effects on economic development in each of these countries.
Positing that the central defining experience of twentieth-century East Asia has been its entanglement first with British and Japanese imperialism, and then with the United States, Cumings ends with a discussion of how the situation could change over the next century as the economic and political global clout of the United States declines. Illuminating the sometimes self-deluded ideology of cold war America, Parallax Visions will engage historians, political scientists, and students and scholars of comparative politics and social theory, as well as readers interested in questions of modernity and the role of the United States in shaping the destinies of modernizing societies in Asia.
Out of StockMore expected soonContact us for further information
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:288 pages, David Whitehouse, International Socialist Review
- Publisher:Duke University Press
- Publication Date:04/05/1999
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- Format:Hardback
- Pages:288 pages, David Whitehouse, International Socialist Review
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- Publication Date:04/05/1999
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Forever Flowing
Forever Flowing
Forever Flowing
Miyajima, JP
Industrial Dinosaurs
Vancouver, BC, CA
Come On And Play
I Dare You To Not See Spots
I Dare You To Not See Spots
Yolo County, CA, US
This Land is my Land
This Land is My Land
Yolo Basin, CA, US
It Falls Mainly... On My House
The Rain Falls Mainly On My House
It Goes On. And On.
It Goes On. And On.
Ingredients For Growth
And She Moved Away
Trees Provide For You
The Angels Come Out At Night
I Bring Forth Your Liquids
Pondering Light
Blocks and Blocks and Blocks
Water Crossing
To Walk A Crooked Path
The Water VS The Stones
Lost At Sea
Going Out
Torn Assunder


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Enjoy Sunday!
Relevant Links:
In A Spin - A Finished Quilt
Of Stripes and Bunting - A Finished Quilt
More Stripes - Two Patchwork Pillows
Seashells by The Sea Shore - A Finished Quilt
Oh wow! Gorgeous stash of striped fabrics. Can't wait to see what you'll do with these.ReplyDelete
Wow these are delicious, now have quite a thrifted collection, they probably need an iron first to look as good as yours! thanks for sharing!ReplyDelete
Ohhhhh stripes, I love stripes.ReplyDelete
Wow!! Stash envy strikes again.ReplyDelete
Oooh, this is going to be fantastic! Can't wait to see what you make.ReplyDelete
Thanks so much for the shout out :)ReplyDelete
Thanks for the link up, Rita! =)ReplyDelete
gorgeous! I've been collecting vintage stripes for a couple years with plans for a quilt, but it's probably never gonna happen, because I always have too many other projects to work on. I can't wait to see what you do with them!ReplyDelete
Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment! I really appreciate it.
Comments are published after review.
Feel free to ask questions and I will answer either here or by email, as is appropriate.


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Fifa's match reporters seem surprised that Nigeria made it to the U20 Women's World Cup finals. They write:
Few...would have predicted that Nigeria, representatives of an African continent which had never before sampled life beyond the quarter-finals of any FIFA Women's World Cup or Olympic Games, would be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them. Sunday's final in Bielefeld is therefore full of intrigue and fascination.I must be one of the few. If you watched the women's games in the last Olympics, you might remember that Nigeria drew the toughest group - playing Germany, Brazil, and North Korea in the first round. The Super Falcons gave all three teams a tough time - they played some of the most entertaining attacking football in the tournament. Watching Nigeria play Brazil, you couldn't help but think you were watching the future of the women's game - neither squad enjoys the institutional support they deserve from their football federations, and they compete well against teams lionized for not only the talent on the field, but for the organizational commitment behind the players. Brazil and Nigeria's senior squads would be contenders for next year's World Cup championship were they supported at even a quarter of the level awarded to their male counterparts. (Boy am I tired of writing sentences like that one.) Both have fans in their home countries, and both play in styles that reflect the ethos associated with South American and African teams, but which seems lost in the men's game these days.
The Nigerians have not scored the outrageous number of goals that other squads have managed in some of the tournament's ill-matched confrontations. But the Germans, who have 18 goals in their column, played the woeful French and Costa Rican squads in round one and rolled over the S. Korean squad, with 5 goals to their 1. And the Nigerians have kept the number of goals scored against them low - at 4, they have given up one fewer than Germany. Furthermore, the Nigerians beat the US youth squad - symbolically, I can't think of a better result for the international game.
In the wonderfully titled article "Our Women Rule the World," Nigerian journalist Ikeddy Isiguzo writes,
USA is the most dominant country in global female football and its U-20 team has never failed to reach the semi-final since the competition started in 2002.
It was the defending champion, and had garnered two wins, a third and fourth place in the four previous competitions no other country has a record close to this.Another article, on Nigeria's semifinal win over Columbia is headlined "What Our Men Couldn't Do." Ghana getting past Uruguay would have been historic. But Nigeria's women beating USA? Or Germany? That would be a ground-breaking victory for not just Nigeria and indeed for Africa's women's teams, but for all women's teams that aren't USA or Germany. When so few teams play in finals so often, it makes victory for the rest feel impossible - it makes the whole system feel rigged. It furthermore feeds the defeatist attitude that defines the approach of the vast majority of national FAs (which think: women's football sucks, women don't play well, nobody cares about it, and they will lose anyway).
So, yes, Germany should be favored in this match. But I think anyone who sees the Falconets as unlikely finalists or accidental contenders has not been following the women's game very closely. And I guess that includes FIFA itself.


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With famous Hutong Culture Street neighboring to the hotel's east and the bar-street of Houhai to the west, there are a number of fully facilitated and very comfortable rooms to choose from, each designed with the valued guest foremost in mind
The professional, courteous and friendly hotel staff will be on hand to ensure your stay is as comfortable as possible.
Just 1 minute to the most bustling Hutong 'Nanluogu Lane' which is 800-year-old Hutong that was once home to elites, celebrities, government officials, artists and well-off families.
A short 8 min walk to Houhai Lake, which during the day is a beautiful walking spot and by night is full of bars where you can have a romantic meal or enjoy live music amid the surrounding ancient architecture.
Just 15 minutes walking to the most famous historic places, like Forbidden City , Houhai lake, Drum Tower, North Lake and Jingshan park.


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Look at that. It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.
I'm sorry for that, but there are some jokes that demand to be made. That was one of them.
In all seriousness, this is Vantablack, a material made by the British company Surrey NanoSystems that sets a world record by absorbing all but 0.035% of visual light. It's made of carbon nanohair that is 1,000 times thinner than the average human hair. The tubes are small enough to prevent light from entering them and packed so tightly that the light which makes it between the tubes bounces between them until it's absorbed.
It's got applications in astronomical cameras, telescopes, and infrared scanning systems, since it has "virtually undetectable levels of outgassing and particle fallout" which can contaminate sensitive imagers. And, ominously, it has "military uses that the material's maker is not allowed to discuss."
The picture actually reveals just how black it is: the aluminum foil that the Vantablack is "grown" on is clearly crumpled. But the thin Vantablack layer doesn't echo those shapes, instead just creating a void. Said Ben Jensen, the firm's chief technical officer:
You expect to see the hills and all you can see … it's like black, like a hole, like there's nothing there. It just looks so strange.
Not that any of us normal people could get some of this stuff to make the world's most accurate black hole costume: It's so expensive that Jensen can't even give the price.


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Before you post your question in the Technical section, have a look in here first.
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- Outsourcing News
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Polish team Need for C has won the world's first computer coding championship held in the Finnish capital, Helsinki.
Creating and driving virtual Formula-1 racing cars on a track projected onto a large screen in a converted cable factory, the winning team edged Brazil's Itarama for the title of best coders and a cash prize of 5,000 euros ($6,770).
Finland's Resocar came in third in the field of eight finalists. The top three were also presented with medals that were produced by 3D-printers.
More than 4,000 computer coders from over 90 countries took part in the on-line qualifying rounds which began in March.
The event was sponsored by Finnish game developer Supercell, creator of "Clash of Clans" and "Hay Day," and technology company Reaktor.


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Christmas, corporate, motivational and emotional background music pack includes clean piano, bells, orchestral strings, acoustic guitar, rhythmical beat, sleigh bells. Best for commercial presentations with Christmas style theme, corporate videos, commercials, advertisement, cinema, movie trailer or as web page music. Here are the christmas tracks that are included in Christmas Music Pack:
Christmas Background: 2:40
Christmas Success Background: 2:01
Christmas Acoustic: 2:40
Christmas Fairy Tale: 2:40
We Wish You A Merry Christmas: 1:01
If you want to re-adapt music or you need some special effects for your project, please, contact me by email: email@example.com not hesitate to contact me if you have any question. I will reply your question/request within 24hrs.


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NEW YORK -- The NFL says about 2,000 fans forced to sit in temporary seats at the Super Bowl will receive a face-value ticket refund or a free ticket to a future Super Bowl.
This is the latest plan to appease fans significantly delayed in gaining pregame access to their seats because of unsafe conditions for temporary seats at Cowboys Stadium.
The plan, released Thursday, is separate from the one announced Tuesday by Commissioner Roger Goodell for the 400 fans who were denied seats. Those fans were taken to standing-room-only areas or spots without a view of the field.
The 400 displaced fans have been offered a choice of a $2,400 payment and free ticket to next year's Super Bowl, or a free ticket to any Super Bowl, plus round-trip airfare and hotel accommodations.
Goodell has initiated a complete review of the matter, including all seating and stadium entrance issues. There were 13,000 temporary seats installed at Cowboys Stadium. The Arlington Fire Marshall inspected and cleared for use 11,740 of those seats.
Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press


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naga, (Sanskrit: "serpent") in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, a member of a class of mythical semidivine beings, half human and half cobra. They are a strong, handsome species who can assume either wholly human or wholly serpentine form and are potentially dangerous but often beneficial to humans. They live in an underground kingdom called Naga-loka, or Patala-loka, which is filled with resplendent palaces, beautifully ornamented with precious gems. The creator deity Brahma relegated the nagas to the nether regions when they became too populous on earth and commanded them to bite only the truly evil or those destined to die prematurely. They are also associated with waters—rivers, lakes, seas, and wells—and are guardians of treasure.
Three notable nagas are Shesha (or Ananta), who in the Hindu myth of creation supports Narayana (Vishnu) as he lies on the cosmic ocean and on whom the created world rests; Vasuki, who was used as a churning rope to churn the cosmic ocean of milk; and Takshaka, the tribal chief of the snakes. In modern Hinduism the birth of the serpents is celebrated on Naga-panchami in the month of Shravana (July–August).
The female nagas (naginis or nagis) are serpent princesses of striking beauty. The dynasties of Manipur in northeastern India, the Pallavas in southern India, and the ruling family of Funan (ancient Indochina) each claimed an origin in the union of a human being and a nagi.
In Buddhism, nagas are often represented as door guardians or, as in Tibet, as minor deities. The naga king Muchalinda, who sheltered the Buddha from rain for seven days while he was deep in meditation, is beautifully depicted in the 9th–13th century Mon-Khmer Buddhas of what are now Thailand and Cambodia. In Jainism the Tirthankara (saviour) Parshvanatha is always shown with a canopy of naga hoods above his head.
In art, nagas are represented in a fully zoomorphic form, as hooded cobras having one to seven or more heads; as human beings with a many-hooded snake canopy over their heads; or as half human, with the lower part of the body below the navel coiled like a snake and a canopy of hoods over the heads. Often they are shown in postures of adoration, as one of the major gods or heroes is shown accomplishing some miraculous feat before their eyes.


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College Looks South for StudentsMay 11, 2014
This post contains external links. Please review our external linking policy.
Moshtayeen Ahmad recently completed an internship in the International Trade Administration's Office for Export Policy, Promotion, and Strategy.
Like many other American higher education institutions, Michigan-based College for Creative Studies (CCS) has an important corps of foreign students contributing to the school's cultural and educational experience.
Those international students are also making an important contribution to the American economy.
When a student comes to the United States from overseas to study, it is a service export. Foreign students accounted for $24.7 billion of U.S. exports in 2013.
At CCS, international students represent 6 percent of the student body and come from 17 different countries.
In an effort to recruit more qualified students from overseas, the International Trade Administration's Michigan Export Assistant Center helped the College sign an agreement with Universidad de Monterrey in Mexico to foster both student and faculty exchanges between the schools.
This exchange supports more than just increased exports; it also supports cultural exchange between students of the United States and Mexico. These exchanges help further develop our overall relationship with other nations.
Thanks to their positive experience with this initial agreement, CCS has scheduled two additional Gold Key matchmaking services to find new potential partners in Mexico, and intends to recruit students from additional international markets.
Helping American exporters find new partners in Latin America is what the Department of Commerce's Look South campaign is all about!
We want to help U.S. businesses, as well as colleges and universities, that are already exporting to Mexico to use their experience as a springboard to pursue other markets in the Latin American region. The markets featured in the Look South campaign all have growing middle classes which increasingly desire high-quality American goods, including an American education.
Universities or educational institutions interested in developing partnerships or recruiting students from the region can find support from the International Trade Administration and our partner institutions. Start by visiting www.export.gov/looksouth to learn more about the available resources and consider the many opportunities ahead.


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One brilliant thing about video games is that they can react to what players do and have multiple endings. Books can't do that. Movies can't, not even Clue. Many in gaming argue for branching storylines. Here's an argument against:
"What we found is that if you over-branch the storylines [is that] if there was one route you went down and got one reaction — and a completely different route got another reaction — we found that people would get really disappointed. They always felt they were on the wrong path. They always felt, ah, I wanted to see the dragon!"
That's Peter Molyneux, renowned head of Lionhead Studios, speaking, in an interview with Kotaku at Game Developers Conference last week, riffing on some talk about his team's next big role-playing game, Fable III.
We had been discussing the propensity for gamers to abandon the games they are playing, a potential problem for Molyneux, whose Fable III is supposed to reveal its true scope only in its second half. The first half of the game is a hero's journey, the player-character's fight to stop a villain in the fantasy world of Albion and Aurora. The latter half of the game sees the player as king, now required to rule the people he saved and either enjoy or suffer the reactions of the people to whom he promised favors on his rise to power. That concept of playing through kingly responsibility was inspired, Molyneux had told Kotaku, by a curiosity he had about super-hero comics that never showed the aftermath of big super-hero fights. How did the people react to the damage caused by the heroic battle? How did they live in the aftermath? That is the back half of Fable III.
But many people don't finish games, Molyneux conceded. He mentioned that he was already fading on Bioshock 2, because it felt too similar to the first Bioshock. He said he was playing through Heavy Rain, but doing it in small bits because he found the game "harrowing," something he could handle only in 20-minute doses.
To compel people to play, Molyneux believes, players should want to know what's coming next and must sense that that next thing will be something cool, something their friends will urge them to accomplish or see without spoiling it.
But the buzz-kill, he said, can be when the player believes they can't experience that next cool thing at all, because of a choice they made.
It's surprising to hear Molyneux dismiss the over-branching of game stories, in part because the technique has been used a lot by role-playing game makers like BioWare or even by the creators of Heavy Rain. The allure of multiple endings and varied experiences can backfire. The first Fable, Molyneux recalled, was going to have a dragon in it, but a dragon that only some players would find, if they played the game a certain way. That frustrated the people who tested the game and was dropped.
Molyneux has, of course, championed the malleability of Fable's content. Players are expected to see their character and, in Fable III, his or her weapons morph. They are expected to shape the community by marrying and divorcing, having kids and buying shops. That range of options clearly appeals to him. But it seems that big storyline forks don't.
Should a game's story branch? Should it be a choose-your-own adventure? For once, the argument is in the negative. The argument has been made: Sometimes forking your gaming story is just too much, too frustrating and too annoying.
Branching tree pic via Flickr


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Just because you're working hard on those social media resolutions doesn't mean you're not still doing cool things off the Web. You still have your meet ups, your local events, your community gatherings, your sponsorships and, of course, you're still the resident browner baker for your school district. So why not get the best of both worlds by using the Web to help you promote not only what you're doing online, but what you're doing offline, as well?
Have a local event, training or meet up you want to spread the word about? Here are six ways to use the Internet to your advantage.
1. Talk Early To Generate Buzz
One of the most effective ways to promote an offline event on the Web is to start early and build that first touch of buzz. Maybe it's a blog post announcing a conference you'll be speaking at or it's some early photos as you prepare for your company birthday party or photos of a product you currently have in development. By using social media outlets like your blog, Facebook, Tumblr, etc, to tease people about what's coming down the pipeline you build awareness for what's happening offline and create that initial excitement. It's that first spark of interest that's going to make someone want to tune in or show up in person to see what the commotion is all about.
2. Make It A Facebook Event
If it's an offline event, why not make it a Facebook event? Small business owners can create Facebook events around product releases, community events, things happening in-store, and anything else. By doing so you give people a place to gather and talk about what's going on. You're able to share information with your audience, take advantage of targeted Facebook advertising, and it can be used to incent others to promote your event in their own networks. After the event, you can also send a call-to-action encouraging users to upload media (photos, videos) from the event that you can host on your Facebook page.
3. Blog About It
In the weeks leading up to your event make sure you dedicate some time to blogging about it. Announce the event, talk about what you're doing to prepare, host some giveaways or special offers that will be taking place at the event, etc. Blogging about what you're doing can help get the word out and it also gives people in your community something they can share to encourage their friends to come out, as well.
4. Turn it Into a #hashtag
A hashtag is a symbol used to group or mark related information on Twitter. Hashtags are often created by topic (#business) or by event (#blogworld) to help people find the information they're after or to associate themselves with something that's happening on a larger scale. For example, Affiliate Summit is an affiliate marketing conference that just took place in Las Vegas earlier this week. Attendees of the conference used the hashtag #asw12 to talk about what they learned, get information from sessions they weren't at, or just to meet up at the networking events. Trying to get people talking about an event you're creating or are part of? Assign it a hashtag and encourage people to use it when talking about the event. Twitter is a great way to connect with people online about your offline event, both before, after and during!
5. Allow People To Register Online
Just because the event is taking place offline doesn't mean you can't let people sign up and tell everyone they're coming via online channels. Use a site like Eventbrite to create an online registration page that you can share, promote, and drive traffic to. Creating this page will also allow others to see who ELSE is attending and give you some social proof to drum up registrations.
6. Use Video
Video is another great way to spark buzz about your event. You can create a video of yourself talking about what's coming up, film the preparations or even encourage attendees to upload videos talking about why they're so excited about your event. This gives people something to share and produces a different type of content you can put on your site and show off to visitors.
There's no shortage of ways small business owners can use the Web to promote offline events. And the earlier you start, the more time you'll have to


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CRS: "EFT'99": ELECTRONIC FEDERAL PAYMENTS; WAIVER POLICY, January 5, 2001
From WikiLeaks
About this CRS report
This document was obtained by Wikileaks from the United States Congressional Research Service.
The CRS is a Congressional "think tank" with a staff of around 700. Reports are commissioned by members of Congress on topics relevant to current political events. Despite CRS costs to the tax payer of over $100M a year, its electronic archives are, as a matter of policy, not made available to the public.
Individual members of Congress will release specific CRS reports if they believe it to assist them politically, but CRS archives as a whole are firewalled from public access.
This report was obtained by Wikileaks staff from CRS computers accessible only from Congressional offices.
For other CRS information see: Congressional Research Service.
For press enquiries, consult our media kit.
If you have other confidential material let us know!.
For previous editions of this report, try OpenCRS.
Wikileaks release: February 2, 2009
Publisher: United States Congressional Research Service
Title: "EFT'99": ELECTRONIC FEDERAL PAYMENTS; WAIVER POLICY
CRS report number: RS20047
Author(s): Pauline Smale, Economics Division
Date: January 5, 2001
- Abstract
- The Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-134) requires all federal payments (other then IRS tax refunds) to be made by electronic funds transfer (EFT) beginning January 1999. The law provides the Treasury with broad authority to define exception categories and grant waivers. On September 25, 1998, the Treasury issued a final rule which included an amended waiver policy.
- Download


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The top nine online genre stories from 2011 that you should read:
"Six Months, Three Days" by Charlie Jane Anders – Two psychics, one who believes in free will and one who believes in determinism, finally meet for their preordained relationship which lasts the titular six months and three days. Sharp characterization and detail work; the science fictional element and the writing of the characters weave together to create a narrative that is both emotionally and intellectually intriguing.
"Her Husband's Hands" by Adam-Troy Castro – A woman receives notice that her husband is coming home from war injured–actually, just as a pair of hands. An evocative way of physicalizing some of the conflicts, ambiguities and turmoil surrounding PTSD and returning soldiers.
"Three Damnations: A Fugue" by James Alan Gardner – Three characters circle each other, locked in loops that their follies prevent them from escaping. Smart and funny.
"The Axiom of Choice" by David W. Goldman – Goldman uses the choose your own adventure format to explore issues of philosophy and mathematics. There have been a number of choose your own adventure-type stories in the past few years; this is my favorite. It evokes character and detail–and futility and hope–in a way that most of the stories fail to. The story incorporates its metafictional element rather than relying on it to do the characterization and storytelling by rote.
"Valley of the Girls" by Kelly Link – In a far future, dilettante girls play at being Egyptian pharaohs. Kelly Link always creates strange, surreal worlds, and this is one: clever, bizarre, intriguing.
"The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary" by Ken Liu — The script of a false documentary tells the story of a Chinese-American man who invents a limited method for time travel and uses it to illuminate atrocities that the Japanese committed against the Chinese in World War II, and delves into the political and emotional fallout of that technology. This story was incredibly moving to me; it affected me on a visceral level, propelling me through reading the very dark material. Despite the unconventional format of the story, characters are delicately portrayed through interviews.
"Houses" by Mark Pantoja – When all the people die, what do the integrated AIs running their houses do? The story is funny, but not only funny; it's also a genuinely interesting read.
"The Migratory Patterns of Dancers" by Katherine Sparrow – After the extinction of birds, men ride motorcycles from town to town, doing dances to imitate birdflight. An interesting world. Poignant and beautifully written.
"Work, with Occasional Molemen" by Jeremiah Tolbert – A man who is embroiled in his family's strange politics yearns to escape. This story is very dark, but also very unique; it's got some of the bitterness of Dorothy Allison, but with a detached, dry cynicism that renders the world it portrays ludicrous even as it remains bleak.
"The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" by E. Lily Yu – Sometimes someone writes a story about the elaborate civilizations created by cartographer wasps, whose hives are miniature maps, and how they oppress the anarchist bees, and how their cultures clash, and what grows out of that conflict, and sometimes that story is absolutely brilliant.


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What an interesting batch of movies we have on offer this week. Firstly, we have the absolutely dire A Million Ways to Die in the West from talking dog cartoon man Seth MacFarlane. To follow that we have the really rather good Maleficent from visual effects artist turned first time director Robert Stromberg. For dessert, we have Chef, from huge blockbuster director Jon Favreau.
EXPECTATIONS: At this point, it's become pretty clear that Seth MacFarlane is not so much a storyteller, but rather a canny producer constantly searching for a premise that will make bank. Even more so than his debut feature, Ted, A Million Ways to Die in the West looks like a sitcom pilot with $40 million shoved up its ass. Which is perfectly fine so long as the film is funny, but this one looks about as funny as that time I watched American Dad last week...
REALITY: It's been a while since I cheated on my Comedy 101 final, but I'm pretty sure the fifth or sixth rule of comedy is "For God's sake, don't make your film longer than ninety minutes." Granted, some comedies can get away with it, but only with good reason. Hot Fuzz gets by on being a parody of overblown cop movies. The Big Lebowski gets by on being a hard-boiled detective yarn in which the detective is a complete imbecile. To that end, A Million Ways to Die in the West is a sluggish, terminally unfunny comedy that never manages to reach that fever pitch it so desperately wants. It's a parody of westerns for people who have never seen a western.
This is already a joke from an actual Western movie.
The year is 1882, and in the nondescript Arizona town of Old Stump, sheep farmer Albert Stark (Seth MacFarlane) gets dumped by his girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried), who calls him a meek, nice-guy nobody. Enter the stunning and deadly Anna (Charlize Theron), who arrives in town under dubious circumstances. When Albert rescues Anna from a barfight, the two strike up an odd friendship. Albert accidentally challenges Louise's new boyfriend Foy (a mustachioed Neil Patrick Harris) to a gunfight, and Anna agrees to train Albert how to shoot. They fall in love, and then famed outlaw Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson) shows up to wreck everybody's good time. It turns out Anna is Clinch's wife, but the movie tells us this way in advance, which generates all sorts of phony tension between her and Albert.
If you're wondering why I'm playing so coy with the plot of a comedy, it's because there's not much of a plot to speak of here. Then again, there doesn't really need to be. Million Ways is the story of people who hate living in The West explaining to each other all of the terrible things that can happen in The West. Presumably everyone living there already knows this stuff, but since this is a comedy for people living in Future World, MacFarlane constantly explains the identity and context of everything going on around him. He'll crack a lame joke, walk off screen, and then saunter back into the frame long enough to announce that what he just said was a joke. It's hi-larious.
Is it funny yet?It's tempting to compare Million Ways to Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, since that's the only funny western anyone has ever made, but they're not really even playing the same game. While Blazing Saddles pokes a thousand holes in the racism inherent to the genre, Million Ways' premise is that anything and everything in the Wild West is liable to kill you. This is the thinnest concept imaginable, as the film's idea of The West is a desert wonderland of sweeping vistas and picture perfect landscapes where literally nobody lives. One gets the impression that if MacFarlane weren't beholden to the studio to deliver a comedy, he might have just filled these two hours with helicopter shots of Monument Valley. It would've made for a better film, honestly.
Million Ways finds Seth MacFarlane revealing his final magic trick. For all his arguable talent in the fields of animation, comedy writing, voice acting, film directing and lounge singing, Seth MacFarlane is a painfully uncharismatic leading man. His beady-eyed, thousand yard stare at everyone he talks to is distracting enough, but when the film asks him to emote in front of so many award-winning performers, the whole thing becomes laughable. And not in the good way.
Then again, that may be why MacFarlane cast himself as the film's own Grim Reaper. Anytime he points out someone doing anything vaguely interesting, that person keels over dead. People eating spicy foods die from their own farts. People using technology die from explosions. Every single gun owner eventually winds up getting shot. But not too often, of course. No, we wouldn't want to run one of the film's only two jokes into the ground. That would be ridiculous.
Liam, come on! It's just getting silly now.
For a film titled A Million Ways to Die in the West, we only ever seen fifteen people die, and half of them get shot. MacFarlane lays out his premise that The West kills people, and then promptly forgets about it so he can play out the "nice guy gets the dream girl" fantasy that's become so publicly toxic as of late. And when Albert isn't busy denigrating himself in front of Anna, we follow his friend Edward (Giovanni Ribisi), an equally meek Christian man constantly trying to convince his prostitute girlfriend (Sarah Silverman) that they should stop saving themselves for marriage and get it on already. That's kind of funny once, but the film keeps trying to mine that situation for gold and always comes up empty. Get it? Because people mined for gold in the West. And a lot of them never found any. It's a joke. (See, Seth? That doesn't work.)
It really bears repeating: Million Ways is essentially a pilot for a CBS sitcom. The humor is just a step or two removed from the same crap you'll find on any Chuck Lorre show, and it's just about as broadly cute-but-racist. The only difference is that we actually see the bodily fluids and sheep dicks instead of characters ad-libbing G-rated euphemisms for them. If it somehow took you two hours to read this review, then congratulations, you have now seen A Million Ways to Die in the West.
|Seth MacFarlane, Actor
|Seth MacFarlane, Director
|Seth MacFarlane, Joke Writer
|Seth MacFarlane, Purveyor of Sheep Dicks
|Michael Barrett: Cinematographer
MINORITY REPORT: MacFarlane's comedic and cinematic style seems to be transplanted from another time. It's incredibly old-fashioned vaudeville silliness full of mugging to the camera and wacky exits. He wants to be Bob Hope in a time when nobody cares about Bob Hope. - Ian "Professor Clumsy" Maddison
Something Awful is in the process of changing hands to a new owner. In the meantime we're pausing all updates and halting production on our propaganda comic partnership with Northrop Grumman.
Dear god this was an embarrassment to not only this site, but to all mankind
Landmarks and statues around the world: old, boring and could use an update.
Join the SA Forum photoshop goons in their quest to make horror wholesome!
Yes, there are finally enough games for a new round of One Sentence Reviews
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Copyright ©2023 Jeffrey "of" YOSPOS & Something Awful


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Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate intelligence committee has subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr., calling him in to answer questions about his 2017 testimony to the panel as part of its probe into Russian election interference.
That's according to two people familiar with the subpoena who discussed it on condition of anonymity. It's the first known subpoena of a member of President Donald Trump's immediate family, and a new sign that the Senate panel is continuing with its own Russia investigation even after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the same subject.
It's unclear if Trump Jr. will comply with the subpoena. A person close to the president's eldest son, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter, said Wednesday that he has continued to cooperate by producing documents and answering written questions.
The person called the new request a public relations stunt and criticized the chairman of the panel, North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr, for calling Trump Jr. in.
The committee had renewed interest in talking to Trump Jr. after Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified earlier this year. Cohen told a House committee in February that he had briefed Trump Jr. approximately 10 times about a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow before the presidential election. Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 he was only "peripherally aware" of the proposal.
The panel has also investigated a meeting between Trump Jr., other campaign staff and a Russian lawyer. Emails leading up to the meeting promised dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Mueller's report, released last month, says Cohen recalled being in Trump's office "when Trump Jr. told his father that a meeting to obtain adverse information about Clinton was going forward." The report notes that Trump Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee, however, that he did not inform his father about the emails or the upcoming meeting.
Cohen reported to federal prison this week to start a three-year sentence for crimes including tax evasion and campaign finance violations related to hush-money payments made to protect his former boss.
A spokeswoman for the committee would not confirm the subpoena. But Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican member of the panel, hinted after Cohen spoke behind closed doors to the Senate intelligence panel that the committee would want to talk to Trump Jr. again. She said senators "clearly need to re-interview some witnesses whose accounts (Cohen) contradicts."
The Senate intelligence committee has been investigating Russian election interference and Trump's ties to Russia for the last two years. The panel is expected to try to call in several witnesses as it winds up its investigation over the next several months.
Burr told The Associated Press last week that he doesn't expect to have any more public hearings and that he hopes to be finished with the investigation by the end of the year.
The subpoena puts Burr at odds with some of his Republican colleagues who want to move on after the release of Mueller's findings. The Mueller report said he could not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but he did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a floor speech Tuesday in which he declared "case closed" on the probe.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul took a shot at Burr after the subpoena was reported, tweeting that "apparently the Republican chair of the Senate Intel Committee didn't get the memo from the Majority Leader that this case was closed."
Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for Trump Jr., declined to comment on the subpoena.
The subpoena was first reported by Axios.
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Brooke Littman, Housing Program Manager, gave a presentation on an award from the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) for the City's Housing Rehabilitation Program, which has helped almost 150 individuals improve their homes. San Ramon was one of only five cities in the bay area to receive an award. Littman showed a video featuring Mayor Wilson and 91 year old Catherine Kahler, whose roof was replaced on her home in the Sunny Glen senior neighborhood. To read more about the award and view the video go to the ABAG website at http://www.abag.ca.gov/smarter.html.
A couple of items in the Consent Calendar deserve some attention. One authorized a loan modification agreement between Sunset Building Company LLC and the City of San Ramon for a promissory note for $7,285,000 secured by the 7 acre property on the South side of Bollinger Canyon Road reserved for City Offices and three office towers in the planned City Center. The maturity date of the note was extended from June 30, 2009 to December 31, 2012.
Another item in the Consent Calendar established an appropriations limit in the 2009-2010 budget for dealing with the recessionary economy. The plan would defer $1.5M for the pavement management program until the middle of the 2009-2010 Fiscal Year, and eliminate funding for 11 frozen vacant positions bringing the total frozen positions to 28 and continuing the hiring freeze. Two million dollars of reserves set aside during the 2008-2009 mid-year review will be used to cover potential revenue shortfalls from the State "borrowing" from City property taxes.
The Council held a Public Hearing on the Landscape and Lighting District assessments. Annual assessments citywide will increase $1.64 per unit for landscaping and lighting. The assessment for West Branch will increase by $30 per unit and Old Ranch Summit by $600 per unit. There were no speakers in the hearing and the Council approved all assessments.
The Council also held a Public Hearing to update San Ramon's Local Environmental Review procedures for the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The procedures have not been updated since 1993. There were no speakers and the Council approved the update.


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Few people know that the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress is the nation's oldest and most comprehensive presidential library. While the recently built presidential libraries each hold the papers of a single chief executive, the Manuscript Division has in its custody the papers of twenty-three presidents, including the men who founded the nation, wrote its fundamental documents, and led it through the greatest crisis of its existence.
The Manuscript Division began acquiring presidential papers soon after the Library occupied the Thomas Jefferson Building in 1897. So imposing was the new structure that it seemed to be designed especially for the papers of a president. The new building was "the natural and fitting depository" for presidential papers, declared the descendants of Francis P. Blair, who in 1903 gave the division its first presidential collection, the papers of Andrew Jackson.
Shortly after the Jackson Papers arrived, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order transferring to the Manuscript Division the State Department's historical archives, which included the papers of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. In the years after Roosevelt's order, the division acquired other presidential papers, obtaining some by purchase--the papers of James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson, for example--and many more by gift--including those of Martin Van Buren, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, and Calvin Coolidge.
The total number of items in the division's presidential collections exceeds two million. Collection size varies from a handful of documents, 631, in the Zachary Taylor Papers to the voluminous William Howard Taft Papers, 675,000 items. For those early presidential collections that the Manuscript Division does not have--the papers of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Warren G. Harding--the division has obtained microfilm copies, with the result that scholars can consult in our reading room in one format or another a virtually unbroken line of papers from the administration of George Washington to that of Calvin Coolidge. Supplementing these presidential collections are innumerable presidential documents located in other collections in the Manuscript Division, including items written by those modern presidents (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush) whose papers are housed elsewhere in their own libraries.
So important to the nation are the division's presidential papers that Congress passed and President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed on 25 April 1958 an act to microfilm them and sell positive copies at cost to libraries around the nation. In 1996, in an effort to share our nation's presidential collections with an even greater audience worldwide, the Manuscript Division embarked on a program to digitize the presidential collections, beginning with the papers of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Other collections will follow.
Selected items relating to:
|George Washington
|James K. Polk
|John Adams
|Abraham Lincoln
|Thomas Jefferson
|Ulysses S. Grant
|James Madison
|James A. Garfield
|James Monroe
|Theodore Roosevelt
|John Quincy Adams
|Woodrow Wilson
|Andrew Jackson
|Franklin Delano Roosevelt
|Martin Van Buren
|John F. Kennedy
am Sep-8-97


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The 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe roared away with officers in pursuit, but shortly after the suspect made a right turn, operators at General Motors Co.'s OnStar service sent a command that electronically disabled the gas pedal and the SUV gradually came to a halt.
The flustered thief got out and ran, but was quickly nabbed after he climbed several fences and fell into a backyard swimming pool, police said.
It was the first time since OnStar began offering the service in the 2009 model year that it was used to end a chase that could otherwise have had dire consequences.
"He wouldn't have pulled over if OnStar hadn't have shut the vehicle down," said Visalia Police Sgt. Steve Phillips.
"Generally pursuits end in a collision."
The whole thing began when Jose Ruiz, 33, of nearby Lindsay, Calif., was sitting in his Tahoe in a lighted parking lot about 3 a.m. Sunday while his cousin was talking on a cell phone in the passenger seat. Out of the corner of his eye, Ruiz saw a man walking toward him.
"He already had a gun out," Ruiz said Monday.
The man pointed a sawed-off shotgun at Ruiz and ordered both men to get out of the Tahoe and empty their pockets. Ruiz's cousin at first refused, but Ruiz told him to obey, knowing that OnStar could find the stolen truck with a global positioning system.
"I was afraid he was going to shoot my cousin. My cousin was arguing with him," Ruiz recalled.
The cousin relented and the man sped off in the truck. Ruiz then sprinted for a nearby pay telephone to call police, but ran into a sheriff's deputy on her break who notified Visalia police.
Officers quickly contacted OnStar and got Ruiz's permission to find the vehicle. Police spotted it a few miles away, but as officers made a U-turn to pursue it, the Tahoe sped off at a high speed, Phillips said.
The suspect made a turn, and police dispatchers told the pursuing officers that OnStar was about to disable the Tahoe. It then rolled to a halt, and the robber was quickly captured.
The 21-year-old suspect was jailed and faces preliminary charges of robbery, carjacking, possession of stolen property and resisting arrest.
OnStar President Walt Dorfstatter said it took only 16 minutes from the time OnStar was notified for the vehicle to be stopped.
Visalia Police Chief Colleen Mestas said the new technology kept officers, other motorists and even the suspect out of a dangerous chase.
"Considering the violent crime that this suspect was wanted for, I was just amazed," she said.
Police chases often end in death, many times for the people in the pursued vehicles, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Last year, 334 people were killed nationwide in crashes that stemmed from police pursuits, including five police officers, 235 people in the chased vehicles and 77 who were in cars or trucks not involved in the chases.
Ruiz said police returned his Tahoe, cell phone and wallet to him that night. The only thing they didn't get back was some cash taken from his cousin.
The stolen vehicle slowdown feature isn't offered on all GM vehicles yet, but the company hopes to expand it to the entire lineup as models are updated. For 2010, the feature is on 18 of the 30 models equipped with OnStar, a communication service that also can give directions or call for help if a car is in a crash. Dorfstatter said it will take several years for all GM models to get the feature.
Mestas, whose city is about 50 miles southeast of Fresno, hopes that both technology like OnStar and more police aircraft can minimize the dangers of chases.
"It would be nice to have a day in law enforcement that you didn't have to actively pursue suspects at high speeds," she said.
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text:
You may download .psd* file of "Honey leaking effect on the delicious pancake" below.
Used images:
Thin Pancake(or Blintz, Blin) and honey drops) [link]
Plate [link]
Download psd file [link]
- Create a new document in Photoshop, Width around 900px.
- Insert pancake image, move it to the center of the composition.
- Apply following layer style effects to the background layer.
- Type a text with any handwriting style font. I used Brush Script std.
- Play with Warp transformation to create more natural handwriting and leaking effect. In other way, you may draw the "Sweet" sign without any font just using Brush tool.
- Round letters contours with round Brush Tool.
- You may add new elements - heart symbol for example. Create path with Pen Tool and Convert Point Tool.
- Adjust Brush Tool settings, check box on Shape Dynamics parameter in Brushes Palette, then right click path and choose Stroke Path and Simulate Pressure.
- Create leaking drops with small round Brush Tool.
- Create wave effect by using Liquify filter - Forward Warp Tool and Turbulence Tool.


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In some ways, I am envious of Mike D'Antoni's ability to keep getting the better and better gigs based on a three-year run of excitement and wonder with the mid-market Phoenix Suns.
And in other ways, I feel sorry for him.
First it happened in Phoenix. Then it happened on a bigger stage in New York with the rebuilding, then suddenly contending, Knicks.
Now, as if history won't repeat itself in the very land that glorifies and bases its entire economy on this concept, Mike D'Antoni is getting another chance to prove that his style can win a championship on the biggest stage of all.
Like the surprisingly popular book-turned-movie "The Hunger Games", Mike has been pulled out of the gutter, buffed, plucked and waxed by a host of
media stylists, and trotted onto the stage to be introduced as the next great hope.
"Introducing... from District 12... the boy on fire... Mike D'Annnntoooonnniiiiii...!"
D'Antoni is being paraded around the city of lights, touted for his great skills, earning bandwagon fans from every corner of the globe, all while in the background skeptics are scheming and betting against him.
D'Antoni first came to Phoenix with the promise of a great offense that would overcome any defensive deficiencies simply by outscoring the opponent.
"If you've got the best team," he said when prompted this week. "Why wouldn't you play the most possessions that you can play defensively and offensively? Any time the possessions are cut down, then a bad call, a missed shot, you've got a chance to lose.
"But if we keep the possessions up here, to me we've got a lot better chance to win when we're playing a lot of reps."
Ask San Antonio and Dallas how that strategy works in the playoffs. Heck, ask Kobe even. Ultimately, the Suns lost in the playoffs each year to a team that could force the Suns to prove that theory. They slowed down the pace, or kept it fast and loose, but still knew that as long as the Suns didn't get more possessions than they did (which is mathematically impossible), games really DID come down to a bad call, a missed shot and a chance to lose 4 out of 7.
Asked if that was his problem, to be outcoached in those last few possessions of a tight game no matter how many total possessions there were, D'Antoni said:
"You're not going to outcoach other coaches. Everybody's too prepared. Everybody works too hard to think that I'm going to sit there and figure out something that they haven't figured out. You just don't do that.
"Players have to eventually be accountable and they have to be the ones to go win the game for you."
Suns fans recognize those comments by Mike D'Antoni. We lived and breathed them for several years, and lamented losses each year in the playoffs to "inferior" teams who got lucky or cheated their way to a series win. We said that defense doesn't matter as long you score better than the other team.
We believed in Mike, until eventually enough playoff losses caused us to question the methodology. At some point, we came around to the notion that, gee, it sure would be nice to focus at least a little bit on getting stops rather than the next scoring opportunity.
Mike's teams were always okay on defense, ranking between 13th and 21st in efficiency, while boasting the leagues most efficient offense. That wins a lot of regular season games, but doesn't help you beat great teams that are prepared for you and ready to outwork you.
Phoenix figured that out as they gave D'Antoni a long, long leash. Eventually, he left on his own in a huff within 24 hours of another heartbreaking playoff loss to the Spurs. He didn't want his GM telling him to tweak his philosophy - to add a defensive assistant to the staff.
So Mike left for a new, bigger stage - New York. Sure enough, the media there built him up for a couple of years while downplaying his lack of defensive mindset, only to tear him down when he was finally given the players to succeed but failed to do so.
"I left Steve once, and it didn't work out too well for me," he said this week with a light-hearted chuckle.
Again, D'Antoni left New York in a huff, resigning his position mid-season because it just so frustrating for him.
Two teams, two resignations when his teams came up short of expectations.
So where better to go than LA, owners of the highest expectations in the league and 18 NBA championships? Things couldn't possibly go wrong. Right?
"We're built to win this year," D'Antoni said Thursday. "This is not a project. We have a window and we're going to try and get through it."
Get through it he will, with four Hall of Famers in his starting lineup but arguably the league's most fragile contender and worst bench.
But that's not stopping national and LA media from blowing this up with expectations. As Ken Berger of cbssports.com puts it in a column yesterday after D'Antoni's press conference:
The more he explained what he believes in and how the talent-rich Lakers can thrive under his free-wheeling, player-driven style like no other team he's coached, the more his critics presumably slumped in their chairs.
If D'Antoni's debut on the court is anything close to as entertaining and informative as his debut in front of a microphone, then behold the return of the Showtime era in L.A.
Berger goes on to poo-poo "those who've bought the silly notion that D'Antoni can't win in the playoffs with a style built strictly around bringing out his players' talent."
Suddenly, D'Antoni is the golden child once again. He's ready to prove all of his critics wrong. Everyone loves him and loves his style. His reputation and coaching resume have been buffed, waxed and primped.
All I can say is this, Mike:
May the odds be ever in your favor.


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There are many ways to search for things at http://books.google.com in an attempt to locate genealogical information.
One approach is to try the names of an ancestral couple, either complete names or first and last names, using the maiden name for the wife.
For example:
Ufkes Grass
Johann Ufkes Noentje Grass
Tinsley Dunaway
Enoch Tinsley Nancy Dunaway
Might be worth a shot.
09 November 2009
08 November 2009
View all those matches at Google Books
When viewing matches at http://books.google.com make certain to scroll down the hits and few a few pages as well. I found two different scans of a 1907 county book of biographies. One only had snippet views and the other had the complete book. Remember that it is always possible that Google has multiple scans of the same thing.
07 November 2009
Searches at Google Books
Try a search for the name of your ancestor and their spouse on Google Books http://books.google.com. You might be surprised at what you find.
06 November 2009
Search on the Land Warrants Name Fields at BLM
Don't forget when at the Bureau of Land Management site http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/PatentSearch/ to search for land warrants issued in your ancestor's name as well. Keep in mind that these warrants may have been issued as patents in state where you ancestor never lived, if he assigned them to someone else.
Don't search for warrants in the state where your ancestor lived. I just located two "new" War of 1812 ancestors who had warrants issued in states where they never lived.
And if you don't know what warrants and patents are, read the FAQ section of the BLM site.
Don't search for warrants in the state where your ancestor lived. I just located two "new" War of 1812 ancestors who had warrants issued in states where they never lived.
And if you don't know what warrants and patents are, read the FAQ section of the BLM site.
05 November 2009
A Life Estate
At the risk of oversimplifying, a "life estate" in property (generally a widow) is the right to use the property and receive income from the property during the person's lifetime. They do not have the right to bequeath the property to someone or to sell it. Oftentimes a widow is given a "life estate" in a piece of property from her husband and in so doing, he specifies to whom it is to pass after her death.
04 November 2009
From Whom was the First Purchase Made?
If your ancestor was a landowning farmer and migrated from Point A to Point B, see from whom he purchased that first piece of property when he arrived in Point B. It might have been a relative or former associate, neighbor, etc. The owner of that property in Point B might have been looking to sell it and heard that his relative or former neighbor was thinking of moving. Worth a shot when you are stuck.
03 November 2009
Change Jurisdictions
If records at the county level have not brought about success, consider town/village level records or township or federal records.
02 November 2009
Cite As You Go
As you make copies of records, either on paper or in digital form, track the source. If you don't do it as you go, the chance you do it goes down......
01 November 2009
All Names Spelled the Same?
Are all the records you have for your ancestor showing him with his name spelled the exact same way? I have very few ancestors where their name is spelled the same way on each document or source. Chances are if your ancestor's names are spelled the same way on everything you have that you have not researched as many documents as you should have.
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Bug Heroes破解版下載:無限鑽石仙玉+滿V
- 遊戲類型:冒險遊戲
Bug Heroes破解版遊戲介紹
From the creators of N.Y.Zombies comes an all new blend of action, adventure, castle defense, and role playing elements! Master up to nine legendary Bug Heroes, including a sword wielding Spider assassin, an armored Beetle warrior, a machine gun toting Ant engineer, and more! Shoot, slice, dice, and bash your enemies with a variety of skills, abilities and equipment. Stockpile food, fortify your base, and defend it from hordes of hungry bugs. Explore a variety of familiar landscapes from an all new miniature perspective, collecting food, coins and other items. Enter Bug Heroes, an epic fantasy world you never knew existed!
Ranked one of the top iOS games of 2011 (metacritic.com)!!
"...it's going to be really hard to ever find a way to enjoy a typical dual-stick shooter again."
-- toucharcade.com
"One part castle defense, two parts dual stick shooter, and a dash of RPG; Bug Heroes is the most interesting blend of iPhone gaming I've see since Infinity Blade."
-- 148apps.com
"Bug Heroes has slick presentation, charm, and lasting appeal... In my opinion this is one of those games that defines the iOS platform for gamers."
-- appadvice.com
"Without a doubt, Bug Heroes is the year's first must-have release."
-- ifanzine.com
- A seamless blend of action, adventure, castle defense, and role playing elements!
- 10 unique Bug Heroes to play as, each with different strengths, weaknesses, equipment, and personalities. Choose any 3 heroes to take into battle!
- Level-up your Bug Heroes, increase their skills, and customize them with a huge variety of equipment and abilities!
- Melee and ranged combat. Slice your enemies with swords, swat bugs off of ledges or into walls, and blast them from long range with rifles and machine guns!
- Scour the lands for food, then defend your food stash from hordes of hungry bugs. Build turrets and fortify your base!
- Optional, randomized side quests for even more depth and re-playability!
- Over 50 unique enemy types, ranging from tiny fleas to giant snails. Detailed "Insectopedia" for background info and strategies on every single enemy!
- Multiple profiles and game saves, tons of achievements, and online leaderboards!
- Supports all devices, old and new. Enjoy crisp retina graphics on the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4g!
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, and for all news on upcoming updates, like us on or follow us on Twitter @FoursakenMedia!
Bug Heroes破解版玩家評論
很耐玩 不錯!!---------------------
If the first hero you choose isn't ant, The auto-aim will still pop out.


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Queen Rania of Jordan: a beautiful paradox
Source: CNN
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Beautiful and intelligent, and balancing a modern outlook with a deep concern for her people, Jordan's Queen Rania seems in many ways to represent the optimistic face of the Middle East's future.
Since she entered the spotlight after she married then Prince Abdullah in 1993, she has become known for her philanthropic work, pushing for better educational facilities for Jordan's school children and supporting efforts to empower women.
Feted by the West (she has been interviewed countless times, including a half-hour appearance on Oprah), she was named the third most beautiful woman in the world by Harpers and Queen magazine in 2005.
She has used her considerable status -- Forbes magazine ranks her 81 in the world's 100 most powerful women -- to correct what she sees as misconceptions in the west about the Arab world.
A beacon of hope then in a troubled region? Not exactly. The reality behind the picture perfect image is more complex.
To a large extent Queen Rania remains a paradox -- a symbol of the contradictions that still blight the region as it tries to come to terms with modernity.
She is the business graduate who left her job at a multinational to marry into a monarchy that has ruled Jordan for the last 60 years, at times with an iron rod.
She may talk passionately about freedom of speech and equal rights. Yet Jordan's own human rights record under the stewardship of her husband King Abdullah II has hardly been exemplary, and has included accusations of terrorist suspects being tortured, harsh laws to clamp down on public dissent and the arrest without trial of critics of the government.
Jordan also has one of the highest incidences in the Middle East of honor killings -- the practice of women being killed by male family members if they engage in pre-martial sex. To her credit, Rania is not burying her head in the sand over the problems of Jordan.
She acknowledges, for example, that unemployment rates among young people stand at 25 percent, double the global average, and that "creating jobs is one of the most important priorities for us."
The daughter of Palestinian parents, she is also acutely aware of the severe social problems that conflict has created in the wider region.
She talks about a "hope-gap" in trouble spots such as Iraq and Palestinian areas, where young people can be sucked into a vortex of violence and where there are few, if any opportunities to rescue them.
"It's all about providing that opportunity, a sense of hope for the future generation because I believe that if that future generation is growing without that sense of hope, then we are looking at a very dangerous situation."
Faced with so many complexities in the current political and social climate in the Middle East, it's perhaps not that surprising that Rania is focusing so much of her energy on young people. As well as efforts to improve education, she has initiated an online debate on the video sharing site YouTube.
The queen is asking viewers to send in comments about their ideas of Islam and the Arab world. She then appears and discusses her reaction to the comments. The conversation is due to run until International Youth Day on August 12.
"When I'm in the west I'm asked why do the Arabs hate us? When I'm in the Arab world I hear very negative comments about the west," she told CNN. "The rising tensions between both sides is a fact of life, I don't think that anyone can deny it."
She wanted to take the debate online and ask young people to participate in order to "bring them into the conversation because they are the ones that can change the discourse."
She said the Internet is a force for free speech, and that greater communications are making it harder for authoritarian regimes to stifle dialogue. "If you don't like the comments that are out there the best way to tackle it is to respond to them and to put your side of the story."
A mother-of-four, she believes that young people should be allowed to be involved in the political process, not only because she is concerned they're being denied a voice but also because she says she thinks they have a huge amount to offer.
She said young people need to be seen as "active agents as opposed to just persons in the making and to do that we really need to educate them, engage them and empower them in the decision-making process."
That her idealistic pronouncements can seem at odds with the reality on the ground is not surprising, given just how difficult that reality is. That she cares enough to try and make difference is only to her credit, however.
Queen Rania's official website
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