text: Bass Pro Shops to host annual Flocktoberfest Memphis Pryamid waterfowling celebration features duck calling contests, celebrities, seminars and more MEMPHIS, Tennessee – Oct. 4, 2017 - Bass Pro Shops at the Memphis Pyramid will host Flocktoberfest, an annual hunting expo and sale, starting Friday, Oct. 6, and featuring duck calling contests scheduled for Oct. 14. "The annual Flocktoberfest is just one of the ways Bass Pro Shops Founder Johnny Morris and his associates continue to spread the word about Ducks Unlimited and support our conservation mission," said DU CEO Dale Hall. "Come to Flocktoberfest at the Bass Pro Shops at the Memphis Pyramid, celebrate conservation and check out the Ducks Unlimited Waterfowling Heritage Center and the duck calling contests on Oct. 14." The third annual Big Cypress National Calling Championship, the Ducks Unlimited Regional Qualifier Contest, junior and intermediate calling contests and an open duck calling contest will be held Saturday, Oct. 14. Justin Martin and John Godwin from Duck Commander will appear Saturday, Oct. 7, from 2 to 4 p.m. The annual extravaganza includes free hunting seminars from industry pros including Buck Gardner, world champion duck caller and founder of Buck Gardner Calls, Brian "Pigman" Quaca, John Gordon from Banded and Avery Outdoors, DU TV Host Ashley Ward and others. Other Flocktoberfest events include The Off-Road Championship (TORC) truck jumping and UTV dirt track demonstrations, a tailgate zone, the Super Retriever Series dog jumping competition, the World Moon Pie Eating Championship, kids activities and more. During the month of October, Bass Pro Shops' retail stores in the United States will offer the "Round-up for Conservation" program at the register when making purchases. Those donations will be used to support DU's conservation efforts across North America, and DU will receive 100 percent of the money customers donate at the cash register. In addition, Bass Pro Shops will make a contribution to Ducks Unlimited at the end of the month matching 50 percent of the donated total. For more information about Flocktoberfest visit http://www.basspro.com/shop/en/worlds-waterfowl-expo. Ducks Unlimited Inc. is the world's largest nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving North America's continually disappearing waterfowl habitats. Established in 1937, Ducks Unlimited has conserved more than 14 million acres thanks to contributions from more than a million supporters across the continent. Guided by science and dedicated to program efficiency, DU works toward the vision of wetlands sufficient to fill the skies with waterfowl today, tomorrow and forever. For more information on our work, visit www.ducks.org. Media Contact: Gregg Powers 901-758-3774 email@example.com


text:
Grade Level: 2
Subject area: History
Time Required:
Preparation: 6-12 hours - research on Wrights and gathering materials for the activity
Activity: 1 class period
Ohio Standards Correlation:
Look at how individual actions have changed daily life in the United States.
Discuss the backgrounds of the Wright Brothers and their achievements. Conduct an activity on the Wright Brothers and how their achievements changed daily life.
Students will:
- Learn about the Wright Brothers and their achievements
- Learn how the Wright Brothers' inventions changed daily life
White paper, construction paper, markers, scissors, glue, crayons.
After a discussion of how the achievements of the Wright Brothers changed daily life in regards to transportation, ask the students to create pictures that illustrate how the Wright Brothers changed transportation. Have them briefly discuss their picture and what it represents.
Students should be evaluated based upon their participation in the exercise.
This subject can be carried over into art projects, such as creating paper airplanes or hot air balloons.
Special Collections and Archives, Wright State University, Wright Brothers Collection.
Grade Level: 3, 8, 9, 12
Subject area: Science
Time Required:
Preparation: 3-4 hours
Activity: 2 class periods if reviewing, more if learning more than one motion principle for the first time
Ohio Standards Correlation:
Force and Motion:
Grade Three:
Describe an object's motion by tracing and measuring its position over time.
- Identify contact/noncontact forces that affect motion of an object (e.g., gravity, magnetism and collision).
Predict the changes when an object experiences a force (e.g., a push or pull, weight and friction).
Read and interpret simple tables and graphs produced by self/others.
Identify and apply science safety procedures.
Record and organize observations (e.g., journals, charts and tables).
Communicate scientific findings to others through a variety of methods (e.g., pictures, written, oral and recorded observations).
Grade Eight:
- Explain how an unbalanced force acting on an object changes the object's speed and/or direction.
- Read, construct and interpret data in various forms produced by self and others in both written and oral form (e.g., tables, charts, maps, graphs, diagrams and symbols).
- Apply appropriate math skills to interpret quantitative data (e.g., mean, median and mode).
Grade Nine:
- Demonstrate how an object does not accelerate (remains at rest or maintains a constant speed and direction of motion) unless an unbalanced (net) force acts on it.
- Demonstrate how when one object exerts a force on another, an equal amount of force is exerted back on the first object.
- Demonstrate the ways in which frictional forces constrain the motion of objects (e.g., a car traveling around a curve, a block on an inclined plane, a person running, an airplane in flight).
- Develop oral and written presentations using clear language, accurate data, appropriate graphs, tables, maps and available technology.
Grade Twelve:
- Use and apply the laws of motion to mathematically analyze, describe and predict the effects of forces on the motions of objects.
- Create and clarify the method, procedures, controls and variables in complex scientific investigations.
- Use appropriate summary statistics to analyze and describe data.
Discuss the forces of motion pertinent to the grade level and use the Wright Brothers development of the airplane as an example. Build paper airplanes, fly the planes, chart the flights, and if pertinent to the grade level, write a report on the data.
Students will:
1. Learn about the Wright Brothers and their achievements
2. Learn the basic principles of motion that are behind flight
3. Chart the data of the flights into simple or complex graphs, dependent upon the grade level.
4. Learn to interpret scientific data.
Typing paper (any color), pencils and paper for charts if necessary.
In the first class period, discuss the principles of flight pertinent to the grade level. Have the students construct paper airplanes. In the next class period, have the students fly the planes. If flown outside, students who have reached a higher level of mathematics may wish to calculate the correlation between the wind and the performance of their plane's flight by charting the data. Younger students can simply chart the data or find the mean and median of the flights and present their findings to the class or submit their charts to the teacher. Older students can chart the flights and write reports interpreting their data (ex. duration of flight, wind speed, length traveled, etc.).
Students should be evaluated based upon the charts that they create and their written reports, if applicable.
Special Collections and Archives, Wright State University, Wright Brothers Collection.
Grade Level: 12
Subject area: History
Time Required:
Preparation: 30 minutes to 1 hour
Activity:1 class period
Ohio Standards Correlation:
Analyze primary source material
First discuss what primary sources are, then analyze one with the students. Divide the students into small groups and give each group a primary document to analyze. Give the groups a specific question that can be answered by their document and let them discuss it for 10-15 minutes. Have each group present to the class how their document answers the question.
Students will:
1. Learn public speaking and group work skills
2. Interpret the information given to them and present it to the class
3. Gain experience working with and interpreting primary documents
Documents from the Wright Brothers that have a commonality.
Present primary sources to the class. Discuss what they are and why they are important. State a hypothesis that can be answered by the documents and analyze one with the class before dividing the students into smaller groups. Give each group a different primary source document. Give them 10-15 minutes to analyze the document based upon the question asked in class. Once their time is up, have them present their findings to the class. Have them take notes on what the other groups say.
Discussion/wrap up
Ask the students to analyze the information from all the groups as a whole. What do the documents have in common and what light do they shed on the Wright Brothers' lives and/or activities?
Students should be evaluated based upon their participation in the exercise and how well they interpret the evidence given to them.
Special Collections and Archives, Wright State University, Wright Brothers Collection.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Your working environment has a big impact on your productivity, creativity and happiness. And good user experiences follow the same rules.
The interruptions caused by email and other digital communications reduce your IQ by up to 10 points, and cost large corporations UD$1m in revenue per annum. They also make people unhappy. Among many corporations, Intel has been running a "quiet time" initiative, where every Tuesday morning is set aside for quiet thinking only. No email, no IM, no phone calls, even.
On the flip side, I found interesting research about how corporate environments that provide clear goals, facilitate progress and praise success make people happier, more creative and more productive.
It struck me that most of this is linked to the concept of Flow, proposed by Mihály CsÃkszentmihályi. Flow is a state of optimal experience (very closely linked to happiness). If you've ever looked up at the clock and realised that an hour or two has rushed past unexpectedly, chances are you were in a state of Flow.
Flow is frequently caused by having clear and worthwhile goals, making visible progress towards those goals, and being appropriately challenged as you go. Almost exactly like that description of the happy and productive working environment.
But how many times have you sat down at your desk expecting to make rewarding progress, only to realise that you have a pile of unread email? Suddenly you're wading through unexpected issues and problems, and your original goal for the day is pushed further away. That's a recipe for no flow, and a feeling of frustration. No wonder the Intel pilot group look forward to Tuesday mornings.
Happy interaction
So, if you're a manager, you need to be shaping your team or organisation to work in a Flow-inducing way.
If you're an interaction designer, you need to design interfaces to help your users experience Flow. Three fairly plain lessons:
- Don't interrupt your users. People using computers are goal directed – they're online to get a task done. Excessive confirmation dialogs cause frustration. Interstitial and pop-up ads are worse. Flash intros are, mercifully, a thing of the past. And perhaps the cardinal sin is emailing your customers too much. Why any brand would want to be associated with these negative, frustration-causing events is a mystery to me. "Are users stupid?" some unenlightened designers have been heard to ask. Well, if you keep interrupting them, you're reducing their IQ.
- Help your users to accept new ideas. Innovation is a hot topic for corporations looking for an edge. Helping your customers to innovate makes them happy too. Blogger.com helps new users understand blogging and create a blog in astoundingly simple steps. Google Adwords suggests new products and services that are specifically selected to be relevant to the user's goal. Amazon does the same, and also keeps many of it recommendations for after you've made some productive steps towards your goal – it recommends most stuff when you add to basket and when you complete a purchase.
- Help your users to think creatively. A lot of Web2.0, and the latest thinking in UCD, is about helping people to express themselves by building or creating something. Myspace and Facebook pages and relationships are a labour of love for some. Family trees are loving crafted in Geni. Photobox lets you craft beautiful paper photo albums using custom software. All Flow activities, where users make clear progress towards desirable goals, and learn something on the way.
To be effective interaction designers, we need to be happiness experts. And because the organisation behind the interface will always show through, we need to be happy and work in happy places. Now that's a goal worth working towards.


text:
My final book in this batch is Android Forensics by Andrew Hoog. Due to the nature of Android and the author's experience with it, this book has a lot of great content. (In contrast, on page xiii, the author thanks iPhone and iOS Forensics co-author Katie Strzempka "for generally taking care of that other book." Hmm, maybe I should have known that before trying to assess that "other book?")
My only real concern with this book is that it might lack the focus required by a normal investigator. I'm sure many investigators simply want to know where to find key data (email, Web history, etc.) and then retrieve and analyze it in a forensically sound manner. It's the "so what" question that hangs over many forensics books. I would have liked a case study focusing on that sort of material to show how an investigator would make sense of the data and structures unearthed by the author throughout the book.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Impressions: Android Forensics
Posted by Richard Bejtlich at 18:20
Labels: impressions
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text:
Where does Window's
Product Id get stored Tip:There are two
places at least where ProductId gets stored.
To see the first place, open
Registry by going to START-RUN and entering REGEDIT and Navigate to
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion].
In right pane, look for key by the name "ProductId". This is your Windows
Product Id.
Alternatively you can navigate to
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion] and still
find same field with the name ProductId.


text:
Chinese Women
Film in China
War on Poverty
Learning Chinese
Learn to Cook Chinese Dishes
Exchange Rates
Hotel Service
China Calendar
Telephone and
Postal Codes
Hot Links
Xinhua News
People's Daily
China Daily
China Radio
Beijing Review
China Today
China Pictorial
People's China
El Popola Cinio
Chinese Literature
Beijing Portal
PLA Daily
Other web sites
China Development Gateway
Chinese Embassies
China Post
China Air Express
Hospitals in China
Chinese Embassies
Foreign Embassies
Construction Bank
Bank of China
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
Travel Agencies
China Travel Service
China International Travel Service
Beijing Youth Travel Service
Beijing Xinhua Tours
China Tibet Tour
China Tours
China National Tourism Administration
Find Suppliers
Alibaba Directory
Trade Leads
Product Directory
China Products
Gold Suppliers
Hot Products
Hot Buys
New Products
Country Search
Trade Shows
(1) Principal Mountain Ranges
China's mountain ranges run in different directions across the length and breadth of the country, giving shape to the general topography of China. Most mountains run west-east and northeast-southwest. A few run northwest-southeast and north-south. They are interspersed and divides the land surface into many irregular chequers.
The west-east ranges consist mainly of three groups: The northern group includes the Tianshan range which crosses central Xinjiang, and the Yinshan range which extends across the middle section of the Inner Mongolia Plateau; the middle group includes the Kunlun range straddling the Xinjiang-Tibet border, and the Qinling range, cutting across the central part of the country; and the southern group consists of the Nanling Mountains on the Hunan-Jiangxi-Guangdong-Guangxi border.
The Himalayas generally run in a west-east direction.
The west-east ranges are important geographical boundaries in China. The Tianshan Mountains divide xinjiang into southern and northern parts; the Yinshan Mountains are part of the boundary line between the interior and exterior drainage basins; the Kunlun Mountains are part of the boundary line between the first and second steps of the staircase in China's topographical outline; the Qinling Mountains are the watershed of the Yangtze River and Huanghe river systems and the geographical dividing line between northern and southern China; and the Nanling Mountains are the watershed of the Yangtze River and the Zhujiang river and a natural geographical divide in southern China.
The northeast-southwest ranges consist also of three groups, mostly in the low-lying east:
In the western group, the Greater Hinggan Mountains lie between the Inner Mongolia Plateau and the Northeast Plain; the Taihang Mountains between the Loess Plateau and the North China Plain; the Wushan Mountains on the Sichuan-Hubei border; and the Xuefeng Mountains in western Hunan Province.
In the middle group, the Changbai Mountains are east of the Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces and the Wuyi Mountains are on the Fujian-Jiangxi border.
The eastern group consists of the Taiwan Mountains
The northeast-southwest ranges, the Greater Hinggan and Taihang chains in particular, stand as barriers in the way of the moist air currents from the sea, affecting the distribution of precipitation in China.
The northwest-southeast ranges, mainly in the west, include two groups: the Qilian Mountains between Gansu and Qinghai provinces and the Altay on the border between China and Mongolia and Russia.
The north-south ranges are the Helan and Liupan mountains in Ningxia and other provinces and the Hengduan Mountains straddling Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet. The Himalayas join with the Hengduan and other ranges to form a huge arc-shaped mountain chain.
(2)Famous Mountains and Peaks
Of the world's 14 mountains exceeding 8,000 meters, 9 are in China or on its borders. Many of China's world-renowned mountains are geographically important, some providing headwaters for major rivers and some forming climatic or river basin divides. Some of them, though not prominent on the map, are popular scenic spots or summer resorts; while some are known far and wide for their historical monuments or religious relics. Still others attract alpinists with their awesome height. Over a hundred mountains in China exceed 7,000 meters and more than a thousand exceed 6,000 meters.
The Himalayas, the most majestic and highest mountain range in the world, lie principally in China. Also the longest mountain range in China, they stretch fro 2,400 kilometers from west to east and 200-300 kilometers from north to south in China's Tibet, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. The main chain of Himalayas has an average elevation of more than 6,000 meters, far exceeding the average height of any other mountain range in the world. Forty Himalayan peaks exceed 7,000 meters all 11 pass the 8,000 m. mark. Mount Qomolangma, towering 8,844.43 m. on the China-Nepal border, is the highest in the world. The Himalayan peaks are covered with ice and snow all year round (Himalaya means "abode of snow" in Tibetan), their glaciers cover some 10,000 square kilometers. The northwestern slopes of the Himalayas are dry and cold, with sparse plant growth, while the southern slopes receive plentiful precipitation. A sub-tropical scene is not unusual in the Zayu and Medong areas in southeastern Tibet.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences through several extensive surveys of the Himalayas has collected a wealth of scientific data. Discoveries of numerous fossils of marine animals and plants, including those of a huge ichthyosaur 160 million years old found at an altitude of 4,800 meters, reveal that the Himalayas were once a vast expanse of sea. The mountain range has continued to rise in elevation at a yearly speed of 0.33-1.27 cm---which indicates that it is one of the world's youngest ranges.
Mount Qomolangma, the main peak of the Himalayas and the highest peak in the world, lies on the border of China's Tibet and Nepal with its northern slop in China. A 2005 survey by Chinese alpinists put its precise height as 8,844.43 meters. Shaped like a pyramid, the snow-covered peak is crisscrossed by several huge glaciers the longest 26 kilometers. Mount Qomolangma, which means " Goddess the Third" in Tibetan, is called Sagarmatha by the Nepalese and is known in the West as Mount Everest after the Indian general survey office in 1855 under the direction of the British arbitrarily named the mountain after its surveyor-general, Sir George Everest. In 1952, the Chinese government renamed it Mount Qomolangma. Long an attraction to outstanding world alpinists, the mountain has been open to foreign mountaineers on the Chinese side since 1980. Chinese mountaineers have three times scaled its summit from the northern slope: on May 25, 1960, May 27, 1975 and May 22, 2005 .
The Kunlun Mountains, known as the "Spine of Asia", tower north of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau 6,000 meters above sea level, starting from the Pamirs Plateau in the west and extending 2,500 kilometers eastward along the boundary of Xinjiang and Tibet. Viewed from a distance, the snow-covered peaks of the Kunlun Mountains crisscrossed by glaciers look like a huge silvery dragon wreathed in clouds. In spring, when the ice and snow begin to melt on such imposing peaks as Muztag (7,723 meters), Muztagata (7,546 meters) and Kongur (7,719 meters) streams of melt-water flow over the dry land of northwest China and into the Yangtze River and Huanghe river.
The Kunlun range as it runs east splits into three branches: the Altun range, which becomes the Qilian Mountains; the Qiangtag range; and the Hohxil range, which becomes the Bayanhar range. The Xinjiang-Tibet Highway crosses the Western part of the Kunlun Mountain Area.
The Tianshan Mountains, one of the largest mountain ranges in Asia, has rich deposits of coat, rock salt and metals and provides China with one of its major pasture lands The Tianshan range runs across the middle of xinjiang to divide it into the Junggar and Tarim basins. The range has a total length of 2,500 kilometers, of which 1,500 kilometers are on Chinese wide from north to south, it includes several mountain chains running parallel west to east at an elevation of 3,000 to 5,000 meters. Higher in the west than in the east, it has two famous passes in its eastern section linking the northern and southern parts of Xinjiang. One is Dabancheng, which leads the Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway to the city of Urumqi in the northwest; and the other is Qijiaojing northwest of Hami. The Tianshan range has many high, snow-covered peaks, notably Hantengri (6,995 meters) and Tomur (7,435 meters) , and its numerous glaciers provide headstreams for many rivers. There are many intermontane basins, the best-known being, from west to east, the Ili, Yanqi, Turpan and Hami basins. Air currents from the Arctic Ocean make the northern slopes of the Tainshan range more moist than the southern ones. The northern slopes have dense spruce forests, while mountain grasslands dominate the southern slopes.
The Greater Hinggan Mountains, also called West Hinggan Mountains, are the country's leading natural forest area. Situated in northeast Inner Mongolia, the Greater Hinggan range is an important natural geographical dividing line between the eastern coast and the northwestern inland regions. A watershed of the Inner Mongolia Plateau and the Songliao Plain, the Greater Hinggan range---200-300 kilometers wide---starts from the banks of the Heilong River in the north to upper reaches of the Xilamulun River in the south, running 1,200 kilometers in a northeastsouthwest direction. The Greater Hinggan range is not high1,500 meters above sea levelwith its main peak, Mount Huanggangliang, reaching an elevation of 2,029 meters. The mountain tops are round and the eastern slopes steeper than the western ones. Though not so much a windbreak as the Qinling range in central China, it still influences the climate in the area since the summer monsoons blown over long distances from the southeastern coast are blocked by the mountains here from penetrating farther into the northwest. The western section of the range, therefore, is dry, while its eastern section is humid and covered with dense woods.
The Yinshan Mountains run west-east in the middle of Inner Mongolia composed of the Langshan and Ula mountains in the west; the Daqing and Huitengliang mountains in the middle; the Liangcheng and Huashan mountain sin the south; and the Damaqun Mountains in the east. It is 1,200 kilometers long from west to east, 50-100 kilometers wide from north to south and 1,000-2,000 meters above sea level. Its main peak rises in the north of Salaqi 2,850 meters above sea level. The Yinshan Mountain Area is an important dividing line in topography, climate, farming and stockbreeding. It is a watershed between interior and exterior drainage basins. North of it is the Inner Mongolia Plateau, a pastoral area, and to its south is the fertile Hetao Plain, an agricultural region. Part of the Great Wall is built along the Yinshan Mountains.
The Qinling Mountains, extending about 1,500 kilometers across central China from the Gansu-Qinghai border in the west through Shaanxi to central Henan in the east, form a natural dividing line between China's sub-tropical and warm-temperate zones. The mountain range embraces a series of mountains, including the Xiqing , Minshan, Dieshan, Zhongnan, Xiaoshan, Songshan and Funiu. The western slopes are steep while the eastern slopes rise more gently. A geographical divide between north and south, it is the watershed of the Weihe-Huaihe and the Hanjiang-Jialing drainage systems. In its narrow sense, the Qinling range covers the section rising 2,000-3,000 meters above sea level in Shaanxi, whose main peak is the majestic, 3,767-meter-high Mount Taibai.
The Qinling range has vital bearing on the country's climate. While making it difficult for moist ocean air currents to penetrate deep into the northwest in summer, it also keeps the cold northern air from descending father south in winter. The rivers south of it have a much bigger flow than the rivers to its north.
The Nanling Mountains, a general term for all the mountains on the Guangxi-Guangdong and Huna-Jianxi borders, extend from west to east for more than 1,000 kilometers. Consisting of the Yuechengling, Dupangling, Mengzhuling, Qitianling and Dayuling mountains, the Nanling range is also called the Five Mountains. As a matter of fact, the Nanlin grange also includes the Jiulian Mountains on the Jiangxi-Guangdong border. Each of the ridges is separate from the other. Most of them are short and small and run in a northeast-southwest direction, but as they range one beside the other from west to east they are a west-east range when viewed as a whole. Among the mountains are many low valleys and passed that have been vital passages for north-south communications since ancient times. Though not high (about 1,000 meters above sea level), the Nanling range is a natural dividing line in southern China, separating the Yangtze River from the Zhujiang. Its southern and northern slopes present entirely different scenes. Crops grow lush and green in all four seasons in the southern slopes, where it is warm from one end of the year to the other; while in the north it is cold and often snows in winter.
The Hengduan Mountains are a series of parallel north-south ranges running from western Sichuan and Yunnan provinces to eastern Tibet. Among these are, from west to east, the Gaoligong, Nushan, Daxue and Qionglai mountains. It is said that the range derived its name, which means "barrier mountains" in Chinese, from the fact that it blocks communication between west and east. The Hengduan range is 3,000-4,000 meters above sea level, 5,000-6,000 meters at some points, and it highest peak, Mount Gongga, is 7,556 meters. The Jinsha, Lancang, Nujiang and other turbulent rivers flow parallel south through the deep intermontane valleys. Generally, the difference in altitude between ridges and valleys is about 2,000 meters, making it a spectacular scene to behold. There are clearly defined vertical zones of soil and plant life--tropical, temperate and frigid. Mount Gongga, for instance, is covered with snow on the top, but it is warm halfway down its slopes where there are dense forests. It is hot in the valleys 1,000 meters above sea level, where subtropical crops flourish.
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text:
Junction of Grove Road/Burdett Road and Mile End Road isn't going Dutch
- By London Cycling Campaign on at 4:26pm 25 January 2013
- Posted in: News and blogs
- Tagged with: Cycle Superhighway 2, Mile End Road
Transport for London's Better Junctions programme has published its decision on an important junction on Cycle Superhighway 2, choosing a proposal that falls short of being truly safe and inviting for cycling or walking.
The junction of Mile End Road and Grove Road and Burdett Road is part of phase one of Cycle Superhighway 2, which opened in 2011 from Aldgate to Bow Roundabout.
The new design proposed at this junctions provides welcome improvements by removing outdated motorway-style left-turn slip-roads on Grove Road and Burdett Road.
These slip-roads are very dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians as they encourage motor traffic to turn corners at speeds totally unsuitable for urban areas.
The mandatory cycle lanes and advanced stop lines to be added to the junction are also an improvement on the previous design.
However, cyclists wanting to turn right from anywhere on the junction will have to filter across multiple lanes of motor traffic to get from the left-hand lane to the right-hand.
Dutch junctions never put cyclists in this amount of danger, using cycling-specific traffic lights to remove conflict between cycling traffic and motorists.
People on foot will have to negotiate indirect staggered crossings, despite the very high footfall from nearby public transport.
We're disappointed that not even the minor suggestions for improvements made in our detailed consultation response were been taken on board (read our response).
We've argued for a consistent strategy for junction design along the whole of Mile End Road, but this isn't taking place and we're frustrated at the piecemeal solutions on offer
So, while a step in the right direction, the measures proposed for Mile End Road junction fall short of being safe and inviting for cycling or walking.


text:
I love to travel. Not so much the flying part of it (if there is flying involved) but all the memories and adventures that come out of a great trip. One of my very favorite things about traveling is the food I encounter and many of my favorite travel memories are linked to a specific culinary experience.
Below is a compilation of my culinary travels and adventures. Enjoy!


text:
Vittorio Amuso, the reputed boss of the Lucchese crime family and a fugitive since his indictment more than a year ago on charges of rigging bids and making labor payoffs to control New York City's window-installation industry, has been arrested at a shopping mall near Scranton, Pa., Federal officials said yesterday.
The 47-year-old fugitive was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt when he was seized by F.B.I. agents. He had just hung up a pay telephone at the Fairview Mall in Dickson City, a suburb of Scranton, when the agents moved in, said Linda Vizi, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Federal law enforcement officers made the arrest after receiving information from an anonymous telephone call to the F.B.I. office in New York City, Ms. Vizi said.
Mr. Amuso offered no resistance as he was seized at the mall at 2:30 P.M. on Sunday. A man believed to be his bodyguard, identified as Fred Johnson, 27, of Brooklyn, was also arrested and charged with harboring a fugitive, Ms. Vizi said. Story Featured on TV
Federal authorities noted that the story of Mr. Amuso's disappearance was featured on the national television show "America's Most Wanted" on March 15, and said the show played a role in his arrest. The authorities declined to elaborate.Continue reading the main story
Mr. Amuso and Mr. Johnson appeared yesterday afternoon in Federal District Court in Scranton, where they declined to comment without a lawyer present to represent them.
Federal Judge William J. Nealon scheduled a hearing for Thursday morning and told both defendants to appear then with a lawyer. United States Attorney James West said the Government would ask that Mr. Amuso be held without bail.
His arrest comes as the trial of nine of the original 14 defendants in the window bid-rigging trial enters its third month in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.
The authorities say that Mr. Amuso and his fellow mobsters began the bid-rigging scheme 13 years ago, skimming millions of dollars from contracts to install windows for New York City's Housing Authority.
Among the nine defendants on trial is Peter Gotti, identified as a captain in the Gambino family. His brother, John, is scheduled to go on trial on Sept. 23 in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on separate charges citing him as the boss of the Gambino crime family. The most prominent defendant in the window bid-rigging case, Vincent Gigante, who prosecutors say runs the Genovese crime family, was deemed mentally unfit for trial.
Mr. Amuso's arrest is not expected to have any impact on the bid-rigging trial. He is expected to stand trail separately upon his return to New York.
Yesterday's session of the bid-rigging trial was postponed for the day while Judge Raymond J. Dearie held confidential discussions with the lawyers in the case amid unconfirmed reports that someone has improperly contacted a juror.
The chief witness for the prosecution, Peter Savino, has mentioned Mr. Amuso in his testimony, alleging that the Lucchese family controlled one of the unions that allegedly enforced the bid-rigging scheme.
Mr. Amuso had been a fugitive since May 29, 1990, when he was indicted on Federal charges of racketeering, conspiracy and running an ongoing criminal enterprise.Continue reading the main story


text:
I HATE acne scars
By: Nell S.
When i was younger, i didn't have acne so i never thought that it would become a problem in my adult life. But like most stories, acne struck me during puberty and has stuck around ever since. I first thought that it was because i wasn't clean. I was always active as a kid.
So i started washing my hands lots and showering every other day but that didn't help.
I started getting more pimples every day. Then i blamed the products i showered with. I changed my shampoo and conditioner but there were still no positive results. Many years passed, many products were bought but there is still nothing that has worked and ultimately it affected my way of being and how i felt.
Since that awful period of puberty, i have consistently run into problems. I don't leave the house without makeup to cover my scarring and pimples. I dont go to the beach or have sleep overs because i'm afraid that someone might judge if they see my bare face. I'm not even comfortable with relatives and cousins.
I used to have a lot of pimples but it has reduced, leaving me with scars. I still have pimples but my most worries concern my scarring and that they might never fade away.
Even if it is a small issue compared to other problems that i've seen my friends and others have to deal with at this age, it still is a huge blow to my confidence.
With my experience with acne for many, i still don't understand the cause. It might be the hormonal imbalance in the body but i try to stay healthy whenever i can. I eat fruit, vegetables, drink lots of water and also stay active. But that hasn't helped at all.
I also try to wash my face and cleans everyday. I've used a lot of different products and i'm still trying out new stuff but i don't have any high expectations whatsoever.
I'm tired and i don't have the time or money to waste anymore.
My acne limit my life somehow. I'm almost 18 and i've been suffering with acne and fighting acne scars since the age of 13. I've been using makeup every since. These pimples and scars are the source to my insecurities and unhappiness. I'm afraid that it also might be the reason why i never had a boyfriend. This messes with my self esteem a lot and i'm ready to find a solution.


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This series seems to never end. I was planning to paint a red sunset over the lake. I've been doing a lot of blue water paintings and thought it would be nice to go to the red side of the color wheel.
After I got the yellow, red and gold on the panel one stroke led to another and all I could do was paint this painting. It took me about a minute to see the sunset wasn't in the plans for the daily painting. If your new to this series it's about customs and how we celebrate life's events and the passing of time with rituals.
can you find the koi?


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Technology and Information Management (TIM) is the application of information technology to support the major functions and activities of either a private sector business or public sector institution. In the past, organizations recognized the importance of managing resources such as labor, capital, and raw materials. Today, it is widely accepted that managing the information resource is very often equally important. TIM supports the process of collection, manipulation, storage, distribution and utilization of an organization's information resources.
The TIM undergraduate major is a multi-disciplinary major that focuses on the fusion of information systems, technology, and business management for two purposes: the use of information systems to solve business problems and the management of technology, which includes new product development and enterprise management. The TIM undergraduate major was previously named Information Systems Management (ISM).
The vast majority of information systems are developed for and used by people in functional areas (e.g., manufacturing, human resources, accounting, finance and marketing). To develop information systems that address the needs of the organization, TIM professionals must possess a solid mix of business and technical knowledge. They must understand organizational structures, objectives, operations (including processes and the flows of data between processes) and the financial implications related to these factors. Only by understanding these factors can a TIM professional communicate effectively with users and then design systems that support their needs.
TIM managers and professionals must stay up-to-date with evolving information technologies and have a solid foundation of technical skills to select appropriate technologies and to implement computer-based information systems. Thus, TIM people must be well versed in topics such as systems development tools and techniques, information architecture, network configurations, databases, and systems integration.
The TIM program combines the fundamental intellectual content of both Computer Science and Business Management Economics. It will be a rigorous, challenging major for those students that want to pursue a career of solving business problems through the use of information technology. The TIM program is structured to enable students to accomplish this. To do so, they must gain the math and science fundamentals of computer science and an understanding of the environment in which information technology (IT) solutions will be applied through economics and business courses.
It is the integration of the two disciplines of Computer Science and Business Management Economics that is the essence of the TIM program. This also adds to the challenge of successfully completing the requirements of the major. TIM is a timely topic and the current demand for students is strong. The long term demand for students with these skills will continue to grow. An increasingly larger number of companies and institutions have concluded that their daily operations have an indispensable reliance on computer-based systems.


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Although I've always worked at a school with a basal reading program (either Houghton-Mifflin or Open Court) I have never been a fan in the "one-size-fits-all" approach of the reading materials provided. Students who are not right in the middle or either bored or overwhelmed by the texts, depending on their ability level.
This is why I love guided reading. Once students are leveled, I can give students books that are just challenging enough for their level and keep all students engaged. Unfortunately, I've found that plentiful guided reading libraries are rare in the low-income, inner city schools I've worked in.
Luckily, there is a website for guided reading books that I've been using for the last few years. Reading A-Z is a website that allows (paying) members to download leveled books for printing and copying. The website has a correlation chart for both DRA and Fountas and Pinnel leveling systems and print the correlation on each book.
|The website
You do have to make the books yourself by folding and stapling which takes time, but its a much lower up-front cost for schools. (About 70 dollars a year). One could argue that with the cost of ink and paper it might even out with the cost of a traditional guided reading library, but I haven't found that argument to work with cash-strapped schools. I think it's a great resource for those who don't have access to a full guided reading library. Anyone else have tips on acquiring a guided reading library?


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- The LDN Target Setting Programme
As of today, 120 countries have committed to set LDN targets
The LDN Target Setting Programme
The Secretariat and the Global Mechanism of the UNCCD are supporting interested countries in the national land degradation neutrality (LDN) target setting process, including the definition of national baselines, targets and associated measures to achieve LDN by 2030 through the LDN Target Setting Programme (TSP).
Why are countries setting LDN Targets?
The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 15.3 states: "By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world".
Target 15.3 has therefore become a strong vehicle for driving UNCCD implementation, while at the same time contributing to other SDGs, including those relating to climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem restoration, food and water security, disaster risk reduction, and poverty.
At the 12th session of the Conference of Parties of the UNCCD held in October 2015 in Ankara, Turkey, country Parties reached a breakthrough agreement to endorse this vision and link the implementation of the Convention to the SDGs in general, and target 15.3 in particular.
The LDN Target Setting Programme (LDN TSP)
Today is a new day for the land
Antonis Samaras
To date, 120 countries have participated in the LDN TSP (see list). This global programme is implemented in cooperation with numerous partners, including the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the European Space Agency, International Soil Reference and Information Centre, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, World Resources Institute (WRI), Soil Leadership Academy (SLA), and the Government of the Republic of Turkey (though the Ankara Initiative), Germany, France, Luxembourg, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Republic of Korea (through the Changwon Initiative).


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With increased regulatory and market scrutiny on executive compensation, you need to not only structure effective compensation plans, but provide independent checks and balances.
Through well-designed benefits packages, we attract and motivate business leaders who drive financial and strategic growth.
Whether structuring a compensation program for a newly formed entity, initial public offering, merger, acquisition or bankruptcy, we will get the most out of your compensation dollars.
Our clients call us to:
- Align compensation programs with company and shareholder objectives.
- Structure retirement programs.
- Create solutions leveraging data mining and business intelligence.
- Ensure programs are competitive and meet objectives.
A&M's core services include:
- Compensation and Benefits Consulting
- Retirement Program Consulting
- Data Science and Analytics
- Peer Group Selection and Benchmarking
- Design, Implementation and Communication of Annual and Long-Term Incentive Plans
Winning the War for Physicial Talent
The A&M Executive Compensation and Benefits team has authored a new article outlining the benefits strategy that every healthcare delivery organization can put into practice to attract and retain the right talent.
Compensation Overview
A&M brings operating and management expertise combined with top-tier consulting and specialized industry experience to meet the changing needs of companies and investors.
Enhancing Profitability Using Workforce Analytics
We utilize proprietary analytical systems to help professional services firms structure compensation and benefits programs that appropriately reward superior performance.
Executive Compensation & Benefits: Alternative Funding Approaches
We help companies to make more efficient and cost-effective funding choices for benefits programs.
Addressing Law Firm Liabilities
Designing and administering effective compensation and benefit plans is increasingly complex and critically vital to your long-range plans.
Compensation Analytics
Our Compensation Analytics gives leaders the tools needed to effectively oversee benefit programs and evaluate the adequacy and appropriateness of the benefits.
Healthcare: A&M PRIME™
Our flexible program is designed to help hospitals attract and retain top physicians, enhance the participant's financial well-being, and minimize the hospital's and participant's costs.
The Partnership Retirement Plan Time Bomb
A three-part series dealing with law firm retirement plan obligations. This material was originally published on Legal Business Insider.


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Tokyo royaltyfri stock-videoer
52.353 tokyo royaltyfri stock-videoerSe tokyo stock-billeder
4k00.15Aerial : Drone shooting of the landscape in Tokyo city Japan backward view Tokyo sky tree and the river and the bridge and roadway
4k00.21Aerial view of Tokyo skyline with morning light, Japan. Cityscape with downtown buildings. Light effect applied.
hd00.14Aerial overhead Metropolis view Hakozaki Interchange Tokyo city elevated vehicle Expressway large Urban area Japan
4k00.24People walking on the crosswalk (Slow Motion Video) Shibuya in Summer It's a slow motion video that people took on crosswalk in Shibuya Tokyo. On the day of summer cloudy.
hd00.20International Airport Departure Flip-Style Board. 20 Cities Timetable. Seamlessly Loopable Background
4k00.16Medium shot on 4k RED camera. Beautiful, cheerful Japanese woman walking down a quiet alleyway past different shops and restaurants in downtown Tokyo at night with bright outdoor lighting.
4k00.13TOKYO, JAPAN - CIRCA MARCH, 2017: Shibuya crossing at night. Shibuya is known as one of the fashion centers of Japan, particularly for young people, and as a major nightlife area. Time lapse.
4k00.114K aerial time lapse of Tokyo - urban panorama with beautiful clouds / City view from the Sky Tree tower - urban landscape
4k00.46Point of view time-lapse through Tokyo via the automated guideway transit system (AGT) called the Yurikamome. Full ride at night. Shot in 5.7K and down-scaled to 4K for extra sharp resolution.
hd00.40TOKYO, JAPAN - OCTOBER 10, 2014: A chef prepares sushi as other dishes go around on the conveyor belt in a busy open kitchen Japanese restaurant on October 10, 2014 in Tokyo, Japan
hd00.15Time lapse from the Yurikamome, an automated guideway transit service operating along Tokyo Bay in Tokyo, Japan.
hd00.50Driver's point of view across the bridge towards the climbing sunshine over the city horizon. Part 2. Tokyo Rainbow Bridge eastbound towards Odaiba.
4k00.43Busy crosswalk intersection. Crowds of both tourists and other city people cross diagonally through a bustling part of town. Shot in Hollywood, Los Angeles
4k00.14Point of view time-lapse through Tokyo tunnels via the automated monorail guideway transit system (AGT) called the Yurikamome at night. No unwanted window reflections.
4k00.27JAPAN-TOKYO, JUNE. 30, 2012: Shoppers on a Cross Street Crossing in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Slow Motion
4k00.164k time lapse of night to day sunrise scene at Tokyo city skyline with Tokyo Tower. Tilt down
hd00.29People walking in city night background. Pedestrians walking in city night with lights. Out of focus background from busy big city with people crossing street. Tokyo, Japan.
4k00.30Driver POV entry to the Tokyo Bay Underpath on the Bayshore Freeway. Yellow and white lane stripes and random illumination through the tunnel.
hd00.31Time Lapse People Crowd Shopping Street Aerial View Pedestrians Crossing Shibuya Crosswalk Car Traffic Tokyo City Tokio Japan Japanese Anonymous Sidewalk Busy Asian Famous Tourist Attraction Rush Hour
4k00.10Multi-hour aerial view time-lapse of a massive highway intersection at night in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.
hd00.20Driver's POV driving through the illuminating Tokyo Gate Bridge during twilight. 4K variation available at Clip ID 9127304, night version Clip ID 6171539. Sun setting over the airport and Tokyo Bay.
4k00.20man sleeping in a underground Metro subway train. Tired worker student sleep after work, hard day, illness, fatigue, tiredness,
4k00.20Japan Tokyo Aerial v20 Vertical birdseye view flying low over famous Shibuya intersection crossing night 2/17
hd00.12TOKYO 2013 - Panning nighttime time lapse of people walking through the Kabukicho area of Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan (Camera slowly panning out)
4k00.27Tokyo Japan - Circa September 2014 Busy Pedestrian Street Crossing From Above - Shibuya, Tokyo Japan - Circa September 2014
4k00.13Point of view time-lapse through Tokyo tunnels via the automated guideway transit system (AGT) called the Yurikamome at night. No reflections.
4k00.29Tokyo, Japan - September 19, 2017 :Omoide-Yokocho in Shinjuku Tokyo at night.Both sides of alley are lined with izakaya bars and restaurants.
hd00.12TOKYO - DECEMBER 23: Shibuya Crossing December 23, 2012 in Tokyo, JP. The crossing is one of the world's most famous examples of a Scramble Crosswalk.
hd00.20Aerial view Tokyo city Skyscrapers Cocoon Tower Metropolitan Government Building Business district Shinjuku Japan East Asia
4k00.14Tokyo - Aerial view of junction with traffic and people on crosswalk. 4K resolution time lapse spinning zoom in. Ginza. May 2016
4k00.10TOKYO, JAPAN - MARCH 14, 2014: Traffic in Kabuki-cho district of Shinjuku Ward. The area is a renown nightlife and red-light district.
hd00.17Aerial Metropolis environmental view city air pollution weather from mainland China over central Tokyo Japan Asia
4k00.134K.Time lapse automatic train fast speed at Tokyo city of Japan asia is a famous place in Japan Asia Odaiba line
hd00.21Aerial Metropolis night illuminated entertainment area offices skyscrapers Tokyo Tower city blocks structure Business District Japan
4k00.25TOKYO - APRIL, 2017 : Aerial elevated shot of Tokyo tower and city skyline with downtown buildings, Japan. Tower is inspired by an Eiffel Tower and is second tallest structure in Japan.
hd00.18(DRIVER POV) Twilight drive through the futuristic Tokyo Gate Bridge. 4K version available at Clip ID 9424025, Sunset 7947190, Rain 9597071, Rear POV 14652595, and Sunshine 13626011.
4k00.09People Walking Crosswalk in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Tilt Shift of crowd crossing. Night view of the most famous shopping district in Japan.
4k00.11TOKYO, JAPAN - CIRCA MARCH, 2017: POV Walking in Kabuki-cho district of Shinjuku Ward. The area is a renown nightlife and red-light district.
hd00.13Lanterns in Sakura Festival at walkway Ooyokogawa river , Tokyo, Japan. Text mean blessing in sakura festival.
hd00.13TOKYO - JUNE 1 2015: People wait to board trains at the subway station in Ochanomizu, Tokyo, Japan.
hd00.16TOKYO - JAPAN, MAY 25, 2014: People crossing the street outside the famously crowded Shibuya station from point of view (POV) perspective, Tokyo, Japan.
hd00.23Aerial Metropolis night illuminated offices skyscrapers Tokyo Station city blocks transport Central Business District Japan Asia
hd00.44Conveyor belt sushi or rotating sushi in a Japanese restaurant inside a food court restaurant in Tokyo, Japan
4k00.17a group of Japanese Taiko drummers girls , start playing with the jump dark background, slow motion
4k00.13International girls enjoy street food in Kyoto Temple Japan while sightseeing. International and Japanese friends together in Kyoto Trip
4k00.27Cherry Blossom Falling with alpha. Concept is Petals Cherry Blossom falling start to end. You can use easy. You can place on top background.
hd01.00Slow motion silhouette of pedestrians walking on rainy pavement reflecting city illumination. Ginza, Tokyo.
4k00.09Tokyo, Japan - November 4 , 2017 : 4K Video of Famous steet Piss Alley delicious street food in Tokyo Japan at Omoide Yokocho, Shinjuku
4k00.16Tokyo - Aerial view of city with Skytree and clouds on blue sky. 4K resolution time lapse. 2016


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The pattern is by Eileen B Sullivan and I used Kona solids to piece it, with blue Color Weave for the border.
I think she'll like it. Considering she thinks her present from me this year is just this boomerang pillow cover:
And she is getting that. It's to match the XOXO quilt I made for her birthday last year. I managed to try the case on the pillow while she was playing with the kidlets. Thank goodness it fits! Those things are such an awkward shape! But it was a rather quick project, so the daffodils are her big present.
I had planned to find a pattern with yellow roses (Mum's favourite) but roses don't seem to translate to paper piecing quite so well. So when I saw the daffodils… well. It's a long story. But here we are.
I wasn't sure what to use for the border, but I couldn't go past Color Weave in blue. It just set the daffodils off beautifully.
The binding very nearly didn't happen. I had it all made up ready to finish the quilt. Then discovered that while I was cooking dinner, my
Oh and the mucked up piecing I did?
I managed to fix that. I didn't bother unpicking all that section. I flipped it over and traced the paper templates onto some thin paper and just redid them. It worked. Thank goodness.
I added a little label to the back because I know Mum will be looking for one! Excuse the terrible embroidery – I really need to work on that. It gets the message across and that's what counts. And more importantly, everything's spelt right
Here are the two paper pieced wallhangings together. The irises are mine and hang in my sewing room, and as of tomorrow the daffodils will belong to my Mum. Just have to find somewhere to hang it!
So I'm a happy gal. And I think my mum will be too.
Wishing you and yours a very merry Christmas! Hope you find some fabric-y goodness under the tree!!


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|Coralville Lake, COE Park, Iowa City, Iowa
Boondocking: www.boondockingguide.com - Besides dispersed camping sites, get useful related info.
Bureau of Land Management: http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en.html - Learn about camping available.
Casinos: www.casinocamper.com - Find a casino where you can park, eat and/or enjoy the games.
Corps of Engineers Parks: http://corpslakes.usace.army.mil/visitors - These parks are among our top
choices for a home. We also consult the printed camping directory for the Corps of Engineers.
County Parks: www.mycountyparks.com - Iowa's county parks are very nice stopovers.
National Parks: www.recreation.gov - Locate camping and other info on COE, NPS, NFS.
National Forests: www.forestcamping.com - Thanks to our friends, Jerry and Dee, for this contribution.
Membership-discounted parks:
Elks - This membership allows us to park at lodges around the U.S., but not all of them.
There is a yahoo group that provides information on parking available to members.
Escapees - www.escapees.com - We are SKPs and enjoy the parks and other benefits.
Days End - A directory of a wide variety of camping spots. Available online for purchase
by Escapee RV Club members.
Passport America - www.passport-america.com - We find this membership worthwhile.
Overnight Parking:
www.overnightrvparking.com - This site has an annual fee of $18. We use this directory often when
traveling from point-to-point, needing a convenient overnight stop.
General Information and Advice:
Help on All Topics - Escapees Discussion Forum - www.rvnetwork.com - No membership required.
Campground reviews - www.rvparkreviews.com - User reviews can help make a choice.
Dumps - www.rvdumps.com - Self-explanatory - :)
National Forest Info - www.fs.fed.us - Provides guide to national forests; maps, etc.
National Park Passes - www.nps.gov/fees_passes.htm - These passes can mean a nice savings.
RV-maker groups - Many RVers share information within a group of owners of a particular make of RV.
We find many good hints on the Foretravel owners website.
Highways and Byways:
Atlas - We find it comfortable to have each state's map to glance at as we travel or plan.
GPS - We love "Tillie," our Garmin GPS. She tells us so much about every place we go.
DeLorme Streets and Atlas - This software has been our good friend over these seven years.
Mountain Directory - East and West - Assists with planning for steep grades and mountain passes. Available at bookstores or Amazon.com
Volunteering - http://www.volunteer.gov/gov/ - Lists opportunities to volunteer. We enjoyed
our experiences with Fish & Wildlife Service and National Forest Service.
Weather - Here are a couple of sites we use to be aware of what's down the road:


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An Online Store For Low Carb Dieters
Just thought some of you might want to buy some ready made low carb products online. This is a store that I use. I have not been disappointed with it yet. You'll find a variety of tasty low carbohydrate products to help you enjoy your low carb, high protein, sugar free diet. Some of the things they have includes protein bars & shakes, low carb snacks & crackers, pasta, sugar-free candies, low carb baked goods, and low carb sauces & toppings. You'll also find tips & resources for reduced-carbohydrate dieting & weight control. Hope yall enjoy the site. Here is the link.
6 replies
Another such site is called Netrition.com. My wife and I have bought from them and we like their service and products. Check it out! http://www.netrition.com.
The prices are about what you would expect. Anytime one buys at a speciality store the price is higher. The reason is that they offer some products that are not sold anywhere else like the low carb bread. Shipping is the same as anyplace else. It is done by weight.
I ordered a few things. Will let you know.
Next Discussion: Fingers or Legs Cramping Hours after taking Insulin »


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Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Team Austin
It still looks like it needs something to me. I think if I were to start over again, I would have added paint to the background. But sometimes you just need to proclaim that you are finished and put it away. This was one of those layouts. It happens to us all.
Here are some close up's of my layout:
Well thanks so much for stopping by today!
Have a fantastic day!!
10 comments:
- Johanna said...
Beautiful page! I have a hard time with xmas papers... dunno why!! You are not aloooone :-)
- August 29, 2012 at 7:52 AM
- Julie Tucker-Wolek said...
I think it looks great!!! LOVING the pennant and loveeeeeeeeee all the stars!!! Fab lo!!!!
- August 29, 2012 at 8:18 AM
- Mary Jo Rhoda said...
It is a great page!
And those stars are really cute.
I too, have trouble with sports theme product.
But like you said, you can make it work.
And you did here :)
- August 29, 2012 at 9:11 AM
- Lisa Dorsey said...
I get what you mean about the sports themed papers but I think you did a great job. You obviously used the papers but the results doesn't look theme-y.
- August 29, 2012 at 9:49 AM
- Beth Hallgren said...
Well you rocked it! That little frame is perfect and I love the way you cut the background papers :)
- August 29, 2012 at 10:07 AM
- angie gutshall said...
This is a great sports layout!
- August 29, 2012 at 10:52 AM
- Ashley Horton said...
Great use of the Fancy Pants papers, Pamela! And I love the journaling around your page!!
- August 29, 2012 at 11:10 AM
- Gina Lideros said...
this is adorable Pam, love this collection!
- August 29, 2012 at 11:54 AM
- Sarah Webb said...
Great design! I would have a hard time too but I think this turned out well!
- August 29, 2012 at 5:16 PM
- laura said...
I think it looks wonderful. Love the stitching you added and banners.
- August 29, 2012 at 5:20 PM


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avg/nightCheck Rates
Call to Book: 800-775-6132
3575 North Us Highway 31 S, Traverse City, MichiganMap
Recent User Reviews
Chase, Michigan
- Visited: 2013-01-01
- Submitted: 2013-04-09 01:51:39.0
- Traveled with:
Tots (0-2), Little Kids (3-5) and Big Kids (6-8)
Free Christman giftFlag review
Took all the grandkids by giving gifts to Toys for Tots. Best money spent to give all the kids a great day. The there were things to do for all the kids. Nice selection of food at the concession stand and the smells coming out of their bakery were heavenly. Next year we hope to do the treasure hunt with the wand, 2 of the kids will be old enough. The game room has a lot of games and the gift shop has a nice selection of things. The workers were all very helpful.
Tips for Families
Plan on taking a camera as you can get some terrific pics.
My detailed rating
|Customer Service
|On-site/nearby restaurants
|Other kids' amenities
Suggestions for nearby family-friendly accommodations
The carosel at the Grand Traverse Mall is a favorite with the kids.
Suggestions for nearby family-friendly restaurants
Olive Garden, Applebees, Chilis
My Kid's Review
Clarksville, Michigan
- Visited: 2012-11-01
- Submitted: 2013-03-19 14:12:48.0
- Traveled with:
Big Kids (6-8), Tweens (9-12) and Teens (13+)
Family FunFlag review
Always a great time at Great Wolf Lodge Traverse City. Fun for the whole family. Very Clean rooms, extremely attentavie staff, lifeguards are alert and there are lots of them. We just love visiting Great Wolf Lodge. The resturants and snack shops are reasonalbly priced and great as well. We often visit in the winter and spring it usually seems busy but not overly crowded or annoying. The waterpark and arcade wear the kids right out.
Tips for Families
Great for all ages.
Suggestions for nearby family-friendly accommodations
Suggestions for nearby family-friendly restaurants
My Kid's Review
Richland, Michigan
- Visited: 2012-08-01
- Submitted: 2013-03-19 10:15:18.0
- Traveled with:
Little Kids (3-5)
Moldy roomFlag review
Very busy plan and we were upgraded to the suite. The room was moldy and I had a headache the entire time we were there. Don't know if I would go again...
Tips for Families
Ask for a hypo allergenic room if they have one.
Suggestions for nearby family-friendly accommodations
Suggestions for nearby family-friendly restaurants
My Kid's Review
Williamston, Michigan
- Visited: 2012-03-01
- Submitted: 2013-01-13 04:36:24.0
- Traveled with:
Little Kids (3-5), Big Kids (6-8) and Tweens (9-12)
Great place for familiesFlag review
We loved our experience here. The staff was wonderful and there is so much to do both as a family or individually. The cost is definitely worth it!
Tips for Families
If you want to save money you can go on a friday. They let you check in early to at least get your waterpark passes that you can use and then on the next day you can stay until 4pm so you can save a lot only staying one night but can use the resort for so much more time.
Suggestions for nearby family-friendly accommodations
Suggestions for nearby family-friendly restaurants
My Kid's Review


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As a good friend of mine read part two, she wrote back anxiously, I guess, to know if something strange/profound had happened. Quite surprised, I read the whole of it and found I had been a bit angry with people, quite irritated/disappointed with society, and overambitious about myself. In effect, I had felt emotions I should not have, about most people who don't matter anymore, at least as much as they used to. I re-read the post slowly and deliberately, so that I would see through the vehemence of it, and never write like that again, emotions glaring!
But that was not the only finding. I found I also violated some of the underlying principles of the philosophy I'm an adherent of now. It also struck home the point of examining the source of my thought processes of 'beyond from being', the ways of controlling passions and emotions; understanding the meaning within the apparent meaninglessness of life; and many more aspects, that would ultimately deliver wisdom from, and to, that way of life. Maybe this post could serve as a primer of the outcomes of that initial examination, which is still an ongoing journey.
About seven years ago, for the first time, I faced the reality of 'what is the meaning of life?' The years thence led me through the search for a philosophy, that would serve as the basis for a meaningful life, and one that would serve ultimately as the meaning itself. After a worthwhile pursuit of a few pearls of wisdom from the philosophers of my birth-religion (some of which reflected in my earliest writings but do not appear here now), and then of my brief encounters with a few philosophical dimensions from the West, I finally rested myself on the most sensible of them all - stoicism. (Considering where I found the source of this pearl of wisdom, it would befit to agree with what is said proverbially: that we find inspirations for life in the most unusual of circumstances and trivialities!)
Everything about the premise of stoicism - the wisdom of the self-possessed person immune to overmastering emotions and life's setbacks* - struck a chord in me. I hardly ever knew what hardships were, if you mean hardship as it is generally meant. I have been made steady by the sacrifices of many a human, starting with my mother, whose victorious struggles with unfair lives yielded me a fair one! (To me, they are the first beyonds!). But there are always hardships, of various kinds, for all of us. Some setbacks (as I saw them) early in life and the resulting emotional turf wars for extended lengths of time did make things difficult - the eternal struggles of the beings. But this essence - that there is wisdom possible for a self-possessed** person - sowed the first seeds of contemplation and critical introversion, with a curiosity to understand the roots of being human, precisely because I had long been under overmastering emotions and I always saw setbacks of different kinds. Once the seeds grew to be trees over the years and I began discovering the fruits of that wisdom, there has been no stopping. And then, an even higher sense of wisdom: the consummation of the individual with nature and a life in harmony with oneself and nature, no matter what fate sends in one's way, all the while living contentedly with what are just necessities and not be left wanting for anything.
Again, initially they did prove to be difficult, the sensibility and reasons of austerity and idealism in this. They still do so, at times. But no answers are impossible when the questions are reasonable. The questions of the nature of self, the oneness of that self with Nature, being human, beyond human etc. And thus goes on the process of critical introspection that has led me to where I am now. In light of all that fate or fortune has brought me, the stability of the reasoning arising from this introspection of the self-possessed does yield wisdom. There is no greater sense of contentment than realizing that oneself is steady in the path he chose for himself, in accordance with nature, and is prepared to be unfazed by what fate or fortune sends one's way.
This has been the best part of the journey so far, one that brings happiness and contentment from the understanding and realization that the subordination of pleasures, passions and emotions to the supremacy of the mind and the soul delivers wisdom, rooted in reason, for a harmonious life. And that is still just the beginning. I have a long way to go yet! I err, I stumble, I fall. But I pick myself up, and move on.
And so it was that the previous part about expendability turned out to be a shaky bit in the journey; a rocking boat caught in a storm. There may be bigger, more powerful storms coming. I brace myself! I know I have the courage to carry on to the beyond, and the strength to bear to stop being the being, even if it means expending some of the beings. As I know, it may end up as a solitary journey, but the path is clear, and I thank the stoic ideals which serve as the light at the horizon.
* - Preface of 'Seneca: Letters from a Stoic', Penguin Classics, 2004
** - Did you immediately sense selfish here, ignoramus?! Selfish is wanting for oneself, whereas self-possessed is holding oneself ground in reasons of the self; kind of a prerequisite for introspection, if I may say so.


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Politics and the Modern Language Association
The recent passage by the American Studies Association (ASA) of a resolution declaring an academic boycott of Israeli universities alerted many members of the American Jewish community to the troubling views held by numerous activist faculty members on campuses throughout North America. Even though only some 800 ASA members voted for that resolution, in taking into account the motives of those behind the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement which has called for such steps and which in truth constitutes an assault on Israel's legitimacy, concerns about this development are understandable. Equally understandable in their own way are the concerns of many communal organizations about what might happen when the Modern Language Association—a group some six times the size of the ASA—holds its annual convention in Chicago on January 9-12.
But as important as the upcoming meeting and the resolution that will be introduced there are, it is equally important to keep in perspective what actually is on tap to happen at the MLA meeting, and to understand what it all means. For though what will be happening indeed matters to the Jewish community, what is going on most centrally is an internal battle regarding the meaning and purpose of the MLA itself, and it is that body which is about to face its moment of truth.
My own familiarity with this organization goes back over five decades, to a time when I was a graduate student in English at the University of Minnesota. The annual MLA convention is, among other things, a major job-hunting venue, and I lined up my first academic position at the 1967 meeting, also held in Chicago, where I was offered a position at Tel Aviv University. That led to my teaching there for eleven years, after which I returned to the States and began a very different kind of career in Jewish communal service. If no longer as central to my professional pursuits, my interest in literature continued.
So it made sense when, two years ago, as I cut back my hours at the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, I used some of the time made available to return to the classroom as a Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois for a semester and to begin to publish in scholarly journals once more. And when the program for this year's MLA convention was announced in early November, I renewed my membership and registered for the conference.
I continue to feel attachments to the historic purposes of the association. And I share the views of its members that the Humanities, which today suffer from decreasing support on the American educational scene, are of great value in general and in a democratic society in particular. Additionally, I have an ongoing interest in several of the fields the conference covers, and among this year's over 800 sessions, a number have topics that sound attractive to me. But at the same time, I have been troubled by the way that Israel has been treated at other academic conventions, and what I saw in this year's program led me and a number of longstanding members of the MLA with whom I have been in contact to have deep concerns about what was about to happen here.
While this year's MLA program does not include consideration of a resolution calling for an academic boycott of Israel like the one passed by the ASA, it does include a roundtable discussion session on the topic of academic boycotts whose panelists have all have gone on record in support of such boycotts or have otherwise demonstrated an animus for Israel.
The line-up includes Omar Barghouti, identified in the conference program as an "independent scholar" but far better known for having founded the Palestinians' BDS movement. Another of the panelists is David Lloyd, a professor of English at the University of California's Riverside campus who wrote a column for the Electronic Intifada supporting the ASA vote and attacking what he called "the nightmare hidden within liberal Zionism." His primary target in that piece was the commentator Peter Beinart, whom he condemned for writing a column for the Daily Beast which, while criticizing Israel's settlements policy, also strongly affirmed the need for a two state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. For Lloyd, who describes Israel as an "exclusively racist state," the "two state solution threatens Palestinians," and he decidedly rejects that solution himself.
In addition to that panel discussion, this year's MLA program also includes a resolution on Israel which, though not on the subject of academic boycotts, is troubling in its way. It calls for the association to urge the U.S. State Department "to contest Israel's arbitrary denials of entry to Gaza and the West bank by U.S. academicians who have been invited to teach, confer, or do research at Palestinian universities." While on its face such language may sound reasonable to members of the MLA's Delegate Assembly who will vote at the end of this week, if examined carefully the resolution proves to be based on flimsy, limited evidence presented in a one-sided background report, and the resolution's charges are made without any suitable context. The resolution's insistence that measures taken by Israel in determining the implementation of its policies regarding foreign visitors are merely "arbitrary" is blind to the realities Israel faces, and the resolution's bias is evidenced in its unfairness in singling out Israel alone for engaging in a widespread global practice and in the assumptions it implies about Israel's motivation.
My early years as a member of the MLA took place in the '60s, a politically volatile time in America when I myself, outside of the classroom, was involved in the anti-Vietnam war movement. Despite whatever may have gone on in MLA conventions at that time, and although through the years various political causes may have been supported by the association, the MLA has continued to have the core identity of an academic and scholarly enterprise. What is happening now has the potential of changing that utterly. Accordingly, the central issue that is currently in play is not about a conflict of some sort between the Jewish community and the MLA, as some have suggested. Instead, the conflict which is unfolding is within the MLA itself.
Yes, the attempt to delegitimize Israel might get a bump if the supporters for implementing an academic boycott against Israel in the Roundtable discussion gain adherents. But that activity has never caught on in America as it has in England and Europe, and it remains unlikely to. Though Omar Barghouti may have called what happened at the ASA conference a "tipping point," the rejection of a boycott and strong criticism of the ASA for endorsing that position from one university president after another, and many faculty members as well, proves the contrary. Indeed, what the ASA did may have actually made the BDS movement weaker and less credible in America than it had been.
And yes, if the proposed MLA resolution passes despite its inherent flaws and despite the well-substantiated opposition of key MLA members, that probably would be portrayed by the resolution's supporters as a major victory, and some damage would indeed be done. In that regard, some members of the MLA opposed to this resolution suspect that it is a "stalking horse" which, if passed, could lay the groundwork for the introduction of a boycott resolution next year, and the anti-boycott momentum created recently by the sharp negative response to the ASA's action throughout the country could be blunted somewhat. But the resolution still is significantly weaker than what the ASA passed.
So as much as supporters of Israel are right to take seriously what is happening at the MLA convention, that concern should be kept in perspective. At this point it is not the MLA as an organization but some of its members who are creating a problem, and what is really at stake in these meetings is the future of the MLA itself. The key question at hand thus is whether the MLA will continue to be a body defined by its proclaimed mission of serving as an organization with the purpose of "promoting the teaching and study of language and literature" which embraces academic ideals and the advancement of scholarly pursuits. The stark alternative, which would follow if the MLA chooses to enter on the path which the ASA has taken, is that it can come to be regarded the way the ASA is today—as a fringe organization more concerned with the advancement of a one-sided, unfair, ideology-driven foreign policy agenda—rather than as a credible scholarly association. What is at stake in these meetings is the very soul of the MLA.


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I have added a custom SAS programming search button to the top of this blog. It is done through Google Co-op and should offer better SAS programming search results than just searching the web.
You can use it directly from this blog, or you can add it to your Google homepage. To add it to your Google homepage click on the button "Add To Google".
I have not added/filtered many sites in it yet, but already I can see the results are more specific for SAS programming than just searching the web.
If you see sites that don't belong in the search result or if you know of a site that should have appeared in a search result but for some reason didn't, please comment here. The more I am able to refine the results, the better the SAS programming search will be. Soon, I would also like to start taging the sites in the search results. If you have suggestions for tags, that would be useful too.
Happy Searching!
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
SAS Programming Google Search
I have added a custom SAS programming search button to the top of this blog. It is done through Google Co-op and should offer better SAS programming search results than just searching the web.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Not Equal
A long long time ago (or what seems like a long time ago!), before I could could call myself a professional SAS programmer I made lots of little mistakes in my programs. Now that I have been programming for a long time and have lots of good habits, I generally tend to avoid the little mistakes. Now when I make a mistake it is generally one of the bigger varieties. :)
One of the little mistakes I remember making was using the wrong "not equal" operator. It was terribly embarrassing for me at the time, and for some reason it stuck in my memory more than the other myriad mistakes I made.
When I first got hired as a SAS programmer, I did not have a whole lot of SAS experience. I had coded quite a bit growing up, but had only used SAS in a limited function at Texas A&M Univ on Windows. In my interview I explained my SAS skills honestly, and lo-and-behold they hired me! I was hired as an "intern" and had a few months to prove myself. I was told they needed people with PC experience because most of the programmers came from a mainframe MVS TSO background (which meant nothing to me at the time) and there were going to be more PC SAS contracts coming. Well, the PC SAS contracts never appeared and I suddenly found myself knee-deep in MVS TSO and mainframe SAS. JCL, ISPF, pf8 forward, pf7 back, pf3 end-- all new to me. It was all terribly daunting and every day I came to work, I thought someone was going to ask me to leave. So I did my best to keep my head above water and learn everything as quickly as I could. I thought I was doing a pretty good job masquerading as a true-blue mainframe developer until I wrote one of my first full programs and had another programmer look at it (the first week or two was spent making small changes to other people's programs and going through logs, etc). The reviewer wanted to know what this line meant:
if x <> y then delete;
I answered "if x not equal y then delete the row." The mainframer shrugged and gave me the benefit of the doubt that I knew what I was talking about. That was until someone else (one of the programmers employed by our client-- GULP!) looked at it and pointed out in a friendly email to everyone that <> is "not equal" in BASIC, but means something entirely different in SAS. I could feel everyone looking at me differently and hear their whispers.
"Basic? Basic? Is this kid a joke?" I had been exposed as a commodore 64 hack!
Well, luckily I wasn't fired and ended up learning a tremendous amount from those mainframe SAS programmers at my first real consulting job. I truly owe them my career.
So, what does <> mean in SAS? It is the MAX operator and returns the maximum of the two values on either side of it. Conversely >< is the MIN operator and returns the smaller of the two values.
Oh wait! We're talking about SAS here, right? Then I should say <> is _usually_ the max operator, but in one situation, it can stand in as the "not equals" operator I was intending it to be.
Proc SQL of course!
Friday, March 09, 2007
The =: Operator
Most people who are familiar with programming SAS are familiar with the equal colon operator ( =: ). There are a couple different colon operators in SAS, but in this post I am only talking about the comparison operator. The equal colon operator works much like the substr() function. It is used to compare substrings for equality.
Here is a quick little example:
data _null_;
x = 'abcdefg';
if x =: 'abc'
then put 'The substrings match.';
As you can see if you run the little data step above the substring 'abc' matches in 'abcdefg'. A better way to think of it is that it "starts with" the substring. The same could also be accomplished by this statement:
if substr(x,1,3) = 'abc'
then put 'The substrings match.';
There is one big difference between the =: operator and using substr(). With the substr() function you tell it exactly how many characters to look for the substring. In the example above it was three. For the =: operator it has to figure out how many characters to search. It does this by (somewhat counter-intuitively) looking at _both_ sides of the operator to find the shortest length. Here is an example:
data _null_;
x = 'abcdefg';
if x =: 'abc'
then put 'The substrings match.';
If you run the above data step you will see that they match. It looks a little funny because most of us assume that SAS is looking for 'abcdefg' within 'abc', but that's not really what's happening. SAS uses the shortest string to decide what to look for, no matter which side of the equals sign it is on.
Oh yeah, the =: operator also works in list context such as:
if x in: ('abc', 'xyz', 'def');
That's it for today's post. Happy coding!


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We at World Affairs congratulate President Obama for his reelection, wish him well, and pass along some bracing insight of best-selling author P. J. O'Rourke, who argues that the president's zero-sum philosophy and the wealth redistribution it invites is doomed to stifle initiative and stagnate the economy. While not denying its inherent and universal appeal, P. J. argues that zero-sum redistributionism has been tried and has failed and that the president does a disservice to America, and the world, when he proposes to "wipe the smile off the faces of people with prosperous businesses and successful careers . . . [to] make the rest of us grin."
As the administration begins its second term, and the 113th Congress convenes this month, its members would do well to read Joel Brinkley's grim account of America's international (re)distribution efforts, this time in the form of foreign aid to Afghanistan, during the past decade. Brinkley, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a former New York Times foreign correspondent, reports on the unique ways in which some $100 billion-plus in US aid has been squandered there. It will surprise no one that the road to foreign aid hell was paved by exorbitant waste, corruption, neglect, and gross incompetence with nary a trace of accountability. Brinkley's story gives new meaning to America's capacity to inspire shock and awe in a war zone. Perhaps Congress should consider tightening the purse strings until we find a better way to offer a helping hand.
NPR's Tom Gjelten offers readers a more reassuring assessment of American efficiency in his update on the cyber warfare front, reporting that the US security establishment has abandoned its previous dependence on defensive cyber strategies and has shifted into high gear with the aim of developing superior, first-strike, offensive capacities. DARPA—the agency that brought us the Internet, stealth aircraft, GPS, and, now, cyber war planning's "Plan X"—and a host of other agencies have dramatically ramped up America's efforts to understand and dominate the cyber battlefield because, as one expert put it, "There's no way that we are going to win the cybersecurity effort on defense." As Gjelten reports, the preemptive Stuxnet attack—widely reported to have administered a significant setback to Iran's nuclear ambitions—has helped to open a window into cyber warfare's brave new world, complete with its cadre of anti-social hackers, Defcon conferences in Vegas, and a race to develop "back door exploits," as the strategies are called that identify a potential enemy's "zero day" vulnerabilities. These developments are accompanied by a complex array of security, legal, order of battle, tech transfer, and civil liberties challenges, and Tom has done his usual terrific job of decoding them.
Columbia University's Lincoln Mitchell reviews the recent "upset" election in Georgia that revealed Emperor Saakashvili was not as well dressed as had been represented by his adroit public relations apparatus and his fan club of Western policy and opinion makers. But, besides exposing Saakashvili's unpopularity, the victory by Bidzina Ivanishvili—a billionaire political novice of inclinations as yet unknown—gives some hope, Mitchell argues, that new life has been breathed into the aspirations of the previously given-up-for-dead Rose Revolution. We'll keep you posted.
Moving further west, Gordon Bardos takes us into the heart of a largely ignored but troubling story that has simmered in Bosnia since the Balkan wars—how Iran has woven itself into the country's military, intelligence, and social fabric. Today, Iran's largest diplomatic contingent in all of Europe resides in tiny Sarajevo. One of the men serving in Bosnia's three-man presidency is Bakir Izetbegovic, the leader of the pro-Iranian faction in Bosnia and the son of the late president, Alija Izetbegovic, who began the integration of Iran's radical regime into Bosnia's political and security apparatus. Meanwhile, the Sarajevo newspaper Dnevni Avaz warns that pro-Iranian factions are "reactivating para-intelligence cells" throughout the country. And now Western governments have become increasingly vocal about Bosnia's Iran ties, past terror activities and links, and the future threat they represent. If you already thought the Balkans had too much history, read this article.
Turning back to post-election America, in the coming weeks, the Senate will lose Joe Lieberman, perhaps the last vestige of the Democratic Party's liberal hawks in the style of John Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, and Scoop Jackson. In his excellent essay about this throwback to a better time, Jamie Kirchick chronicles and dissects the last decade or so of Lieberman's four heterodox and turbulent, but notable and worthy, Senate terms. Lieberman's career encapsulates the twists and turns of recent domestic politics. In 2000, of course, he was the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee. In 2004, the New Republic endorsed the popular Democrat for president. Then, barely two years later, the senior Connecticut senator was defeated in his party's state primary by an antiwar political no-name. Lieberman then ran as an Independent—and won handily. In 2008, he expressed his newly found independence by endorsing Republican Senator John McCain for president because he was wary, at the time, of candidate Obama's dovish tendencies on defense.
Despite the abrupt (and politically driven) rises and falls of Lieberman's saga, one thing was always constant in the senator's career: his appreciation for America's indispensable role in the world and his policy prescriptions that never subordinated tough choices to political expediency. As Kirchick makes clear, Joe Lieberman has been a steady hand and generous spirit in the country's ever more polarized and less civil political dialogue. His good nature and intellectual gravitas will be missed.
There's more in this Christmas stocking of an issue—Michael Totten writes on the global assault on free speech, lead by Islamists and fronted by Muslim diplomats and heads of state who propose to criminalize blasphemy and "insults" against the Prophet Muhammad. Alan Johnson explains why Israel is justified to draw a red line on Iran's bomb development, and why Israel's threats to destroy the bomb-in-waiting should be taken seriously. Finally, Vladimir Tismaneanu reports that a recent coup attempt in Romania shows that democratic gains remain fragile and reversible in parts of Eastern Europe.
Best of the holiday season to you. As always, let us know what you think.
— James S. Denton