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UUs and the Democratic Process
By Warren R. Ross
July/August 1999
World home page
|A man is struggling to hang onto a guy line, desperate to keep a hot-air
balloon from floating off with his child in the basket.
Five bystanders race up to help. As each one grabs another line, they manage to steady the balloon, but a sudden gust of wind lifts them allballoon, father, rescuers, and childoff the ground. Suddenly one man lets go, and the balloon rises even higher. In a panic, the others, including the father, also drop off, all except one, who the balloon drags off to his death.
Thus starts Ian McEwans novel Enduring Love.
The author, speaking through the voice of his viewpoint character, one of the would-be rescuers, agonizes: Can we accept that it was right, every man for himself? We never had that comfort, for there was a deeper covenant, ancient and automatic, written in our nature.
In the midst of our four-year effort to examine our covenants, by means of Fulfilling the Promise program, that word has special resonance for this Unitarian Universalist reader. The cooperation required by covenant, McEwan goes on, is the glue of our social cohesion. But, he adds, Letting go was in our nature too. Selfishness is also written in our hearts.
Now isnt that a familiar conflict?
My freedom vs. a covenantthe promise to cooperate with fellow congregation members to promote a common cause, a promise that of necessity limits my freedomthe freedom, for instance, to withhold my pledge because I dont like the minister.
Our autonomy vs. a covenantthe congregations promise to join in an association that provides us with trained ministers, hymnals, religious education materials, and common strength but, again of necessity, limits our autonomy.
We UUs cite commitment to the democratic process as one of our seven basic principles, a commitment thats based on a covenant extending back four centuries, to when the Puritans landed in New England and set up their first congregation. But if democratic process means that everyones in charge of him or herself and bows to no higher authority, and if a covenant is a commitment not to let go of the rope, then were living, if not with a contradiction, at least with a tension worth examining.
Snakes and butterflies
Scholars have come to call the Puritans church self-government congregational polity. And when most Puritan congregations emerged from their chrysalis as Unitarian, and eventually Unitarian Universalist, societies, they and newer congregations that modeled themselves after them maintained this basic principle of self-government. When they joined with the Universalist Church of America (which did not have such a strong congregational tradition) to form the Unitarian Universalist Association, they wrote into their bylaws that the UUA would be a voluntary association of autonomous, self-governing local churches and fellowships, as opposed to a higher authority. In so doing, the UU congregations were reaffirming a decision of their Puritan progenitors, who in their Cambridge Platform spelled out how theyd resolve issues of conflict and discipline. Jealous of their independence, they did not establish a supervisory authority but instead agreed to meet in conferences where decisions would be arrived at by persuasion and reasoned discussion.
New England Puritan government was hardly tolerant and democratic, as
Baptist Anne Hutchinson and other dissenters such as the Quakers of Dartmouth
found out, but by relying on discussion and persuasion to govern their
relationships, they planted the seed. Fast forward to our denominational
and Purposes, which say: We, the member Congregations of the Unitarian
Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote seven basic principles,
of which the fifth is the right of conscience and the use of the democratic
The status quo
The ultimate authority in each of our member societies is the congregational meeting, where everyone who has met the criteria for membershipusually no more than signing a book and being old enoughhas one vote. Like the New England town meeting, thats the ideal of direct democracy. But what happens if nobody shows up? Well, nobody is an exaggeration. Sometimes only a handful come, barely a quorum. Whats more, before the meeting is over, some of the attendees may drift away.
Thats all right, say the optimists. Those who care enough to come get a chance to vote; the others have forfeited their right to have a say. But suppose (and this is not a purely hypothetical case) a new minister who is not sincere about being a Unitarian Universalist makes a deliberate effort to attract new members who share his evangelical Christian beliefs and, at a meeting attended by few longtime members, they vote to take over the board, the building, and the assets. That, after all, is their democratic right.
This raises the question of how to protect a congregation against misuse of democratic procedure. Probably the most important safeguard is spelling out procedures for dealing with conflict in the bylaws and then following them. Helen Bishop, the Central Midwest district executive, has some advice. What we used to mean by democratic process was the use of Roberts Rules of Order as the mechanism for running meetings. But when feminism began to take off, women expressed a concern that these rules can be a potent tool to silence minorities. So we switched to what some call Robertas Rules, which rely more on consensus than up-or-down votes. But one thing we rarely discuss in our congregations is the costs and benefits of any decision-making model, and the cost of the consensus model is that it is extraordinarily time-consuming and permits the most long-winded speaker to carry the day. In fact, Bishop says, she knows of situations where controversial issues have been debated until, literally, the opponents died.
The pendulum, she says, swings back and forth, and many congregations
dont strictly follow either Roberts Rules or the consensus processoften
in violation of their own bylaws. Such vagueness may cause trouble in really
contentious situations, in that any aggrieved person can come along later
and legally challenge a decision. Thus Bishop warns that although really
ugly situations are fortunately rare, we still shouldnt depend on luck.
Instead, we should carefully consider what procedures we want to use and
make sure theyre reflected in our bylaws. That way, we can best assure
that we reach the ideal, which she defines as a situation where minority
voices can be heard but where the good of the institution supersedes the
needs of any one individual.
Minority rule by default
Clearly, democratic process can work only if the leadership, while giving everyone a chance to be heard, also sees to it that respect for minorities doesnt lead to deadlock. The experience of two congregations illustrates the importance of leadership.
In Summit, NJ, a proposal to change the name of the church from Unitarian to Unitarian Universalist had been thoroughly discussed but was stopped dead at the congregational meeting when a few members spoke against it, and no one insisted on majority rule, recalls Metro New York district executive Howell Lind. The Rev. Gretchen Woods had a similar experience in Reston, VA, where she is minister of the UU church. A board proposal to switch to two Sunday services had been given ample notice in both pulpit and newsletter announcements, but at the congregational meeting a single senior member said he hadnt heard about it and he opposed it. In deference to a single voice, no vote was taken.
We claim to be democratic, Woods comments, but we tend to give our power away. Its a sad commentary on our fear of power.
Yet both congregations later made other major decisions: in Summit to undertake a building program that had been stalled for 26 years and in Reston to adopt a mission statement that included such highly charged words as grace. The difference in both cases was leadership and good communication, including a concerted effort to involve the members before they were asked to vote. There was maximum congregational participation, Woods explains. The entire process took three months, and there was considerable controversy, so there was no problem getting a quorum. And because everyone was engaged, everyone was ready to vote.
Insisting on a vote undoubtedly gets you from debate to action, but it can also trigger crises. Thats why the Rev. Patricia Carol, Joseph Priestley District consultant, stresses that sometimes its preferable to avoid voting. Sometimes democratic procedure should be a last resort, she says. For example, she says, ministers almost always get mixed reviews from their congregations, and if forced to vote, a disaffected minority that has been content to disagree in silence may feel compelled to go on record, leading to a nasty split.
In other words, in our congregations, unlike the secular political world,
the objective of democracy is not to win elections but to build a strong
religious community. As the Rev. Alice Blair Wesley, a retired minister
who has published on this subject, puts it, The democratic process in
our congregations has to be seen in the context of our covenantthat is,
our pledge to walk together.
The other covenant
Recently, for instance, my home congregation needed an interim minister. Turning to the UUA for help, we got the names of three potential candidates and picked one who became so popular that some members wanted to keep him on permanently. But under rules we had agreed to when we accepted him as an interim, he couldnt be a candidate for the permanent position, even though that made some of our members angry. So is the congregation totally self-governing? As in so many things in life, the answer is yes, but. Covenants set limits and impose obligations.
Yes, but is the answer to another question, too: Is our present district structure truly democratic? The question has great importance for the functioning of the UUA as a whole because districts elect 20 out of 25 members of the UUA Board of Trustees.
As Virginia Courter says, this system has a few drawbacks. First, while it strengthens ties between congregations and the UUA, it means we have chosen to be geographically diverse rather than diverse in other wayssuch as race, culture, and age, she says. Take age. Since it takes time to become known in a district by working ones way up to district leadership and then to get elected UUA trustee, the average age of board members is far older than the people we hope to attract as new members.
Courter also questions the size of the UUA board called for by district representation, which some have called unwieldy. What to me defines democracy, she says, is not whether I elect one of 20 district trustees or one of seven. What matters is that I can elect good people who are committed to hearing what our congregations have to say.
The boards presiding officer, UUA Moderator Denise Davidoff, recalls that when the question of a smaller board was raised in 1991, the board wouldnt even discuss the issue. Everyone was outraged, she recalls. Now she reports that several board members think the board is too large by at least half. Twenty-six people cant do anything, says Davidoff. Thats a legislature, not a board. In this connection she points out that at this years General Assembly a full day has been set aside for a summit meeting of district officers, UUA trustees, representatives of the UU Ministers Association, the Liberal Religious Educators Association, and chairs of major UUA committees to discuss whetherand if so howto change district structure and representation.
One member, one vote?
District representation on the UUA board is not equitable, says June
Gillespie, the board member representing the Metropolitan New York district
and a member of the task force planning the Salt Lake City conference.
This means not only that districts dont get equal representation but
they also dont get equal treatment in the delivery of services. Both
matters will be taken up at the summit meeting. Gillespie, one of those
who thinks the UUA board is too large, adds, Doing away with district
representation on the UUA board wouldnt upset me terribly, so long as
there is still a structuremaybe a district councilto make sure that local
concerns and initiatives are heard.
How democratic is GA?
On the surface, this is a thoroughly democratic process since each member society gets to elect a delegation proportioned to its size in accordance with its own bylaws and procedures. But only about half of member societies manage to send delegates to most GAs, and not all those societies fill their allotted quota.
Another frequently voiced objection is that the delegates who do show up arent truly representative. To be able to attend a long and often distant meeting, you need time (which may rule out parents of young children) and money (unless your congregation helps pay the not inconsiderable expenses). Davidoff, who presides over the General Assembly as well as the board, says she senses a disconnect between the people purportedly representing our congregations and those who complain about the lack of democratic representation at GA. There is nothing wrong with the process. The system isnt broken, but people arent using it right. The fault lies with the congregations that covenant to abide by the UUA bylaws but do not exercise the rights and obligations which they have covenanted to observe. In other words, if GAs arent democratic its because some congregationsoften the very ones that complainarent paying attention. So when people say: Why dont the people in charge fix the General Assembly, my answer is: You are the people in charge. Why dont you introduce a bylaw amendment? I would be thrilled if proposals to improve the system were brought to the floor. And I never get an answer.
It may not even take that; it may simply be a matter of requiring that congregations elect their delegates rather than ask for volunteers. When congregations in her districts complain about GA to Virginia Courter, she asks them: What have you done to make it more representative? You could offer to pay the expenses of your delegates and then tell the people whove been going right along, We know you want to go and can afford to go, but we want to be able to vote for people whether they can afford it or notespecially people who havent gone before.
At Junes GA, delegates voted on a UUA board-proposed bylaw change that would increase the number of delegates congregations may send, so that even the smallest societies can send two, instead of one as at present. The board reasons that people feel more comfortable going to GA with someone they know rather than alone. To keep things in balance, larger congregations would also be entitled to more delegates. A reform proposed by the Commission on Appraisal in its 1997 report Interdependence: Renewing Congregational Polity is to make amending the UUA bylaws a two-year process, leaving a year for local discussion. The commission also wants GAs to allow absentee voting on resolutions (as they now do for election of officers), so that no one is disenfranchised by not being represented by live bodies.
Biennials: back to the future
But suddenly, according to Davidoff, the issue has come alive again. Much of the impetus, she says, came from the 1993 presidential election. Both candidatesthe Rev. Carolyn Owen-Towle and the Rev. John Buehrensfelt the campaign system was awful, Davidoff says. Following precedent, both tried to attend a meeting in every district at least oncea punishing schedule for the candidates and so time-consuming that the only people who can run are parish ministers from congregations large enough to afford coministries and a sizable staff.
If we went to biennial GAs, however, and in alternate years held six or so multi-district regional meetings, we could tremendously broaden participation in the workings of the association, Davidoff says. Lots of people who find it difficult to get to a GA far from home might be able to attend a regional meeting, and candidates could attend them all with only six trips.
It will only happen, she continues, if there is enough local interest
and energy to put it on the GA agenda and work for its adoption. Sure,
she says, the board could put it on the agenda, but then everyone would
scream top-down, and it would die.
The view from the old boxes
David Herndon argues that democracy works differently depending on the size of the decision-making body. In committee work or even in relatively small congregations, he says, decisions can be made by consensus, though even there, not everyone needs to decide what brand of paper towels to use. As congregations grow, they often feel uncomfortable with the need to delegate, to trust boards, committees, and staff to make appropriate decisions, he says. And when you get to an even larger scalethe governance of the UUA, for instancetrust becomes an even more critical factor and is best built by networks of personal relationships, so that trust can be built with people you have met, he says. Thats one of the benefits of General Assembliesa benefit that would be multiplied by the proposed regional conferences.
Oddly, technologyin the form of UU Internet chat rooms and websitesmay also come to our aid. Never since the days of the historic neighborhood of Boston has it been so easy to trade ideas (or criticisms) with fellow ministers or lay leaders; never have there been so many spontaneous networks not beholden to any organizational structure; so readily accessible even to people tied down by small kids, jobs, tight budgets, or restricted mobility. It may be naive to think that computer technology will build trust, but it will surely help keep the pot bubbling.
As for our ongoing debates over democracy in our congregations, districts, and association the only safe prediction about the outcome is that the more cooks stir the stew, the more likely it is to be nourishing.
Warren R. Ross is contributing editor of the World.
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The terrifying yet comical art of "face swapping" has taken social media by storm since being introduced as a filter on Snapchat.
There are so many face swapping apps available now that it's hard to avoid seeing at least a few of the video clips on your newsfeeds.
Recommended: Orphaned Korean Sisters Accidentally Reunite After 40 Years At Work
Many people have even created short skits using their swapped identities to create new characters and mock celebrities by swapping faces with photographs and posters.
Some of the most hilarious clips involve parents swapping faces with their babies and narrating what they would say if they could talk.
LiveLeak - Tax Consultant Does Baby Face-Swap https://t.co/wEeCaaeVUj via @YouTube— Gwendolyn Chapman (@paulgwen) April 12, 2016
One video highlights a small "glitch" in one of the apps: apparently, it wasn't able to recognize and swap the faces of identical twins!
The viral clip shows twin brothers placing their faces in front of the camera and hysterically laughing when there appears to be no change whatsoever.
One of the twins steps in and out of the frame multiple times to try to get the app to calibrate their faces and recognize that they are two different people, but it didn't seem to work.
Recommended: Snapchatter Captures Moment Of Akron Plane Crash While Filming Herself
Perhaps it isn't a glitch at all; maybe the app creators didn't account for identical twins because they never thought that two people with the same face would feel the need to switch.
Watch the brothers' hilarious face swap fail below:
Banner Photo Credit: YouTube Screengrab

subset: commoncrawl


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Totally with you on this, I've been playing with 486sx PC towers and windows 3.1 since 1990s and have always been pro windows and anti apple.
I think I just got bored with destroying towers to put better hardware and software into them every few months to keep them top notch, and to be fair, as many of you will admit, it can become a very expensive hobby.
I love music and photography, and found the likes of garageband and aperture absolutely brilliant (although I do have photoshop elements on my hard drive too), I feel that the likes of ilife really work, ntuitive and sometimes you don't want to be into the guts of software(and sometimes hardware) to do a specific job.
The fact is that some of the software that apple brings to the table is brilliant, however I hope that osx does not eventualy turn into iOS.
You just stated right there your own failure: you kept upgrading the thing every few months. Some people seem to have the mentality that if it is possible to keep upgrading the thing constantly then you're required to do so.
I built my PC something around 1.5 years ago and the only upgrades I've bought so far have been a new display, a USB 3.0 card and an SSD, and I haven't yet even placed that USB 3.0 card in there because I'm waiting for my SSD to ship. Haven't had any need to constantly open the thing up or fiddle with the hardware, the only thing I do is open it up about once a year to clean up all the dust inside -- something that wouldn't even be possible with iMacs.
Correct, and I admit that was my failure.
I learnt the hard way
and to the moron who's screaming sheepie, There is not another program that can deal with musical publishing and recording on a household level on a budget that is as easy to use and intuitive as well as garageband or logic pro.
I would know, I've bought them all, and in my opinion(not fact) these two programs are the best at what they do.
If these programs were available for pc format then I would not have looked at a mac.
on a different note, I do not agree with the way apple is suing everyone just now, but if I was going for principle then I wouldn't have touched windows neither. Who cares about principles when all you want is equipment or software that will do a job for you?


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Determining the weight of an automobile
The four tires of an automobile are inflated to a gauge pressure of 2.17e+5 Pa. Each tire has an area of 0.0271 m^2 in contact with the ground. Determine the weight of the automobile.
Solution Summary
This solution provides a brief calculation for determining weight.


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Result: Explorer terminals regain a more prominent stature in the Ranger and Scout community.
Result: AreaTrack gains a more concrete value in game.
Result: Rangers have a bonus for finding better creatures to give higher yields built into the game system (rather than directly into the class). It is my feeling that the ranger bonus to harvesting really shines through on higher level creatures. A +50% of 15 units is negligable compared to a +50% of 150 units.
note: These terminals should remain creature oriented and should give rangers and scouts a slight bonus from their current rating to allow them to target spawns which had higher resource yields. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a terminal and getting a mission for dwarf gronda's when you know you can kill those using your weakest weapon and writing a post on the forum.
Hope you all like it.
(Editted in some results)
Message Edited by WildBil2Me on 07-27-2004 10:58 PM
Message Edited by WildBil2Me on 07-27-2004 10:58 PM
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Message Edited by Phenix1050 on 07-27-2004 11:51 PM
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Kinnison75 wrote:I like the idea, But it might be better to make it a "Big game" terminal. some "boss" type creature you need to hunt track, and take down.
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Lythender NirouCrazy Bothan
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Nemo0 wrote:I like it (even if I personally think that this functionality should be given by /track, not by the terminal). I'm not too big a fan of a big game version of this terminal. I would say that /track should fill that role. The big game should be the reward for itself, not any reward a terminal might give. Even if I think it would be a ton of fun to have missions like that (although turning /track into something like that might be fun, with multi planet stuff coming in just by knowing where the creature should be).
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To make reservations by phone, dial freephone 0800 221 222 in the UK, 1 800 409 929 in Ireland, or view our regional telephone reservation numbers.
Fairfield Inn & Suites Charleston North/Ashley Phosphate
2540 North Forest Drive
North Charleston, South Carolina 29420 USA
2540 North Forest Drive
North Charleston, South Carolina 29420
Check-in and Check-out
Free Breakfast
High-Speed Internet Access
Property Details
Smoke-free Policy
Pet Policy
General Room Amenities
Bathroom Amenities
Room Entertainment
Kitchen Amenities
Business Amenities
Driving Directions from Airport
Charleston International Airport - CHS
Airport Phone: +1 843 767 7010
Hotel direction: 7.9 miles N
This hotel does not provide shuttle service.
Travel west toward Air Park Road. Make a slight left onto Terminal Boulevard. Travel 0.3 miles. Keep right at the fork in the road and continue onto International Boulevard. Travel 1.3 miles and turn left onto the Interstate 526 East ramp toward Mount Pleasant. Merge onto Interstate 526 East. Travel 0.4 miles to exit 17 for Interstate 26 West/Columbia. Merge onto Interstate 26 West. Travel 3.3 miles to exit 209B for Ashley Phosphate Road. Turn left onto Ashley Phosphate Road and travel 0.3 miles to Northside Drive. Turn right then take the first left onto North Forest Drive. The hotel will be on the right.
For more information call the general manager of the hotel


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Women's Pay Disparity A Growing Campaign Issue
Aiming for women voters, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has made equal pay for equal work a growing issue in his campaign. He's pushing for a Senate bill that would nullify a Supreme Court ruling that gives women a 180-day limit to file complaints about unequal pay.
This year, the issue of equal pay for equal work has come up primarily because of Lilly Ledbetter, who shared her story at the Democratic National Convention last month.
"Late in my career, someone left a note in my box at work showing my pay versus three males," she says. "We four were doing the exact same job, and their pay was drastically higher than mine."
In fact, it was nearly double. That happened in 1998, the same year Ledbetter retired after two decades at the Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Ala. Her complaint eventually made its way to the Supreme Court. Last year, the court ruled that she needed to have filed her complaint within 180 days of when the discrimination occurred — and she had missed that deadline. The court's decision transformed Ledbetter from plaintiff to political cause.
Now the Obama campaign is rallying around her case. But critics, including John McCain, say if the legislation passes, businesses will face frivolous lawsuits.


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HOME > Topics > The World Around Us > Places > Habitats > Jungle
The Jungle Display Banner (SB3869)
A colour banner for your jungle display.
Jungle Topic Word Cards (SB102)
A set of word and picture cards linked to a topic on 'The Jungle'.
Jungle Photo Set (SB1275)
A set of photos showing various jungle animals and insects.
Jungle Word Mat (SB1404)
A simple A4-sized printable mat featuring jungle words and pictures.
The Jungle Editable Topic Book Covers (SB7851)
Printable book covers for your jungle topic. Includes colour and black and white versions with space for pupil name, class and term.
Jungle Playdough Mats (SB4246)
A set of printable playdough mats linked to the jungle. Children can make playdough leaves for the ants, patterns on butterflies, teeth for the crocodile and more.
Jungle Explorers Role-Play Pack (SB1824)
A set of resources for your classroom 'Jungle Explorers' role-play area. It includes a banner, labels with pictures, explorer badges, animal observation form and sketch pad template.
Editable Jungle-Themed Banner Template (SB9533)
An editable banner with a colourful jungle/rainforest background. Microsoft Publisher 2007 or higher required to view and edit.
Jungle Animals 15cm x 15cm Cards (SB4847)
Multi-use printable cards featuring a selection of jungle/rainforest animals. Each card is 15cm by 15cm and can be printed for use in classroom displays or word banks and all sorts of card-based activities.
Jungle Animals Bingo (SB4512)
Printable jingle animal bingo word and picture boards with picture cards.
Tiger Print Display Lettering (SB4391)
A PDF document with 26 alphabet letters (upper and lowercase) textured with a tiger fur pattern. These are great for printing and cutting out for use on displays.
Tiger Print Display Numbering (SB5486)
A PDF document with numerals 0-9 and mathematical symbols with a tiger print pattern. These are great for printing out as display numbering or for classroom number lines.
Tiger-Themed A4 Page Borders (SB4957)
Portrait and landscape A4 page borders with a tiger theme. Includes editable Microsoft Word templates as well as resizable JPG images.
Tiger Print Display Border (SB8530)
Print your own tiger print display border. Cut out the strips and assemble around your display board.
Jungle Animals Topic Resources
Jungle-Themed A4 Page Borders (SB11558)
Editable portrait and landscape A4 page borders for Microsoft Word with a fun jungle animals theme.
Explorers A4 Page Borders (SB1912)
Two editable A4 page borders (for Microsoft Word) featuring an 'explorer' theme. Great for inspire children with writing in their role-play.
Jungle-Themed Display Border (SB11559)
Cut-out border strips to place around your classroom display board.
Tiger Print Display Lettering - Cursive (SB11636)
A PDF document with 26 alphabet letters (upper and lowercase) in cursive script textured with a tiger fur pattern. These are great for printing and cutting out for use on displays.
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News & Trends>K-12 Schools Bench Strength: Lone Star Stunner Jul 01, 2008 Register to view the full article Please register to access this content. Become a member for free Member Log In TAGS: Archive 0 comments Hide comments Comment * More information about text formats Text format CommentsPlain text CommentsAllowed HTML tags:

Plain textNo HTML tags allowed.Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.Lines and paragraphs break automatically. PublishLog in or register to comment Home page Save RelatedBehind the scenes of Albuquerque School DistrictMar 19, 2018How to get taste test success for K12Mar 19, 2018Foodservice company cooks from scratch for New York kidsMar 09, 2018New USDA rules on FSD qualifications and subsidized meal applications announcedMar 06, 2018 Load More


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Integrated vascular surgery residency
Vascular surgery rotations at UC Davis Medical Center
Vascular Surgery Service
The vision of the program is to provide residents with a comprehensive educational experience, "Total Vascular Care." The concept of Total Vascular Care includes three axes. First, there is clinical competence, provision of the sound medical care and appropriate procedures, from the simple to the most complex. Second, it considers the need to provide care in a collaborative, multispecialty and inter-professional environment. And third, it considers the continuum of care, with recognition of patients' individual circumstances, their psychosocial needs, and the need for ongoing care over time.
Rotations on the vascular surgery services provide opportunities to work directly with the primary faculty and to focus on topics that are specifically relevant to the practice of vascular surgery. It will be during these rotations that additional learning activities will be preferentially scheduled, including hands-on vascular ultrasound training, skills training in the UC Davis Center for Virtual Care, procedural training in the animal laboratories, etc.
Goals and competencies at each level of training serve as the foundation for subsequent levels of training. Residents at more senior level of training will have the same goals and objective as those at a junior level, but the senior residents are expected to demonstrate a greater sophistication in their understanding and more refined techniques. Those procedures and tasks, for which the resident has demonstrated competency, may be delegated to others, with the resident taking on a teaching role.
Cardiac Surgery
UC Davis Cardiothoracic Surgery Division provides clinical training for residents in the management of cardiac diseases.
Vascular Surgery residents will learn inpatient and outpatient care of cardiac surgery patients, experience intraoperative roles, commensurate with their level of training, and they will receive instruction in the scientific physiologic mechanisms. Residents function as members of a critical care team that involves high-level intensive care unit patient management, step-down unit patient care management, and intraoperative decision making and basic surgical technical skills development. It is intended that at the completion of their rotations, the residents will have a working knowledge of the fundamentals of cardiac surgery patient care management and be familiar with typical forms of cardiac surgery techniques, including cannulation for cardiopulmonary bypass or extracorporeal membrane oxygenator support.
UC Davis Interventional Radiology
UC Davis Department of Radiology is a full partner in the UC Davis Vascular Center. Interventional radiologists see outpatients in the Vascular Center clinic. Interventional radiologists participate actively in joint quality improvement activities involving vascular surgery and other disciplines.
Vascular Surgery residents will have the opportunity to learn additional imaging and interventional skills on the interventional radiology rotation.
UC Davis Interventional Cardiology
UC Davis Division of Cardiovascular Medicine is a full partner in the UC Davis Vascular Center, with the participation of interventional cardiologists and a vascular medicine specialist, who see outpatients in the Vascular Center clinic. They participate actively in teaching joint quality improvement activities involving vascular surgery and other disciplines.
Vascular Surgery residents will have the opportunity to learn additional imaging and interventional skills on the interventional cardiology rotation.


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I Own You, and I Can Legally Rent a Car!
After hemorrhaging about $2 million per year and failing to sell itself to Robert De Niro, the Observer has found itself a baby daddy: Jared Kushner, a 25-year-old NYU law student and son of formerly incarcerated Jersey developer Charles Kushner, has purchased the paper for under $10 million. Today most of the staff should be meeting their boy wonder for the first time; Kushner sent the following email to his new toys last night:
From: Jared Kushner
Date: July 30, 2006 7:39:38 PM EDT
To: Observer Staff
Subject: Welcome
To the staff of the NY Observer:
I am writing to introduce myself as the new owner of this newspaper. For as long as have known of the NY Observer, I have held the paper in high regard both for its journalistic integrity and irreverent wit. I am not here to dictate the editorial content of this paper. I am here to provide backup to Peter Kaplan to help publish the best paper that we are capable of publishing.
I take on this responsibility with open eyes and an open heart. I am eager to learn from you all. I am excited to join this team and help this newspaper reach its full potential.
Before picking up the phone to call Arthur Carter to inquire about purchasing this newspaper, I spent a considerable amount of time assessing the responsibilities that owning this paper would require. I am equal to these challenges, and I look forward to earning your confidence.
We find ourselves at a crossroads in the newspaper business. The balance of printed and online content is undergoing an unprecedented adjustment and the way we deliver our product — first-rate journalism — continues to evolve. Together we will navigate this challenge with perseverance and innovation. The only promise I will make on the business front is to keep a completely open mind. At 25 and with only non-publishing related business experience, I am now equipped with two of the finest tools that a publisher could ever have; this fine staff, and the inquisitive energy needed to tackle
I look forward together to watching the media revolution from a shared front seat. I look forward to working together to continue publishing a paper that we can be proud of week after week. I look forward to turning this local business into a national forum. Together. And I look forward to developing an open and effective work environment where every person's energy, enthusiasm and commitment helps contribute to achieving our common goal.


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November 21, 2012
The Immorality of Mideast Media Coverage
A single sentence in a front-page article in the Nov. 21 edition of the Washington Post encapsulates the complete lack of a moral compass in media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The sentence appears in a piece by reporter Anne Gearan about President Obama's involvement in attempts to reach a cease-fire. It reads as follows: "Diplomatic pressure is building for a cease-fire that would end Israeli airstrikes and Hamas rocket attacks, both of which are killing civilians." There, in a few words, is displayed the media's equivalence game -- putting Israel and a terrorist organization committed to the destruction of the Jewish state on the same moral, or if you prefer, immoral scales -- ''both are killing civilians." Never mind that Hamas intentionally fires rockets against civilian populations, while the Israeli military goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, even as Hamas rocket launchers use Palestinian civilians as "human shields" The distinction of one...(Read Full Post)


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Lake Washington Waterfront Homes
Excerpt from Lake Washington 130 Homes, by David Dykstra, all rights reserved.
Mercer Island
This is Roanoke Landing, and the western side of the point is where early 1900s mail and passenger ferries to and from Seattle docked. The landmark Roanoke Inn and Tavern, built in 1914, is one block inland. It was a popular spot as a watering hole for ferry travelers and an inn for island visitors. It looks today much like it did in the 1920s and is the oldest business on Mercer Island. It is no longer an inn but a very popular meeting place for the Islanders (moniker for people who live on the island). Many out-of-towners come to see it and have a meal and drinks.
The City of Mercer Island was incorporated in 1960. MI is the largest and only residential island in Lake Washington. It is six miles long and averages about one mile wide for 6.4 square miles of land with about fifteen miles of waterfront. It has 22,000 residents. It is the U.S.'s most populated island in a lake. Its school system has been ranked in the top five best in the state for many years and is often ranked number one.
Stanley Ann Dunham, mother of President Barack Obama, graduated from Mercer Island High School. Other notable graduates are: Joel McHale, comedian and host of television show, The Soup; David Kirtman, running back for the NFL's New Orleans Saints and former fullback for USC; Quinn Snyder, NBA Development League coach and former basketball star in high school and for Duke.
Sam DeBord is a Realtor® and Managing Broker with SeattleHome.com and Coldwell Banker Danforth. His research and writing focus on Seattle Waterfront homes, as well as the Seattle luxury real estate market.
Source: All information courtesy David Dykstra, Lake Washington 130 Homes.
Read the full Seattle Waterfront Homes blog.


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Fracking moratorium vote urged
Senate Democrats, foes ask for drilling ban to run until 2015
Published 9:36 pm, Wednesday, May 22, 2013
State Senate Democrats and opponents of the controversial natural gas drilling technique known as hydrofracking called on the chamber's Majority Coalition to take up a bill that would ban its use through May 15, 2015.
"New Yorkers deserve a vote on this issue, because it is an issue that will impact each and every one of us," said Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins at a Wednesday news conference.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Tony Avella, passed the Assembly in early March and is currently before the Senate's Environmental Conservation Committee.
Its prospects are unclear due to the unprecedented power-sharing arrangement in which Republicans wield power in the chamber with the four-member Independent Democratic Conference. Their compact gives both Dean Skelos and Jeff Klein, respectively the leaders of the GOP and IDC conferences, a veto over what legislation makes it to the floor of the Senate for a vote.
With a few exceptions, Senate Republicans are eager to see fracking, which involves the use of a large amount of water and a small brew of chemicals to break up gas-bearing rock, move ahead in the massive Marcellus Shale region along the state's Southern Tier. Environmentalists and industrial groups have spent years arguing about the technique's potential economic and natural impacts.
At Wednesday's news conference, Katherine Nadeau of Environmental Advocates said Skelos and Klein "have their foot on the throat of the fracking moratorium."
The IDC's David Carlucci has introduced a bill that would block the technique for two years, or until the state Health Commissioner has determined that sufficient research on its potential health impacts existed to make a recommendation to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which is finalizing its regulatory blueprint on hydrofracking.
Carlucci's bill has yet to make it to the floor.
"All four members of the IDC stand behind Sen. Carlucci's bill," said IDC spokesman Eric Soufer. "In the meantime, we have not received any indication that the governor has imminent plans to move ahead with hydrofracking."
In August 2010, near the end of an often chaotic period of Democratic control of the chamber, the Senate voted overwhelmingly for a moratorium on the technique through May 15, 2011. A dozen current Republican members voted aye on that bill, including Skelos.
Scott Reif, the Republican leader's spokesman, said in an email that Skelos was content to leave the current process in place. "We continue to believe that the science should trump the politics and that the Cuomo administration should wrap up their thorough decision-making process as expeditiously as possible."
The 2010 measure was approved by the Assembly but vetoed by then-Gov. David Paterson, who simultaneously threw anti-fracking advocates a bone by issuing an executive order that banned the process through June 2011. That action was taken just three weeks before Gov. Andrew Cuomo took office.
email@example.com • 518-454-5619 • @CaseySeiler


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5 Ideas For Free or Low Cost Family Weekend Events – May 30-31, 2015
Need some ideas to jump-start the weekend? The forecast calls for lots of free and low-cost family activities around the Metro! As always, check our Family Fun Calendar for more.
Flint Hills International Children's Festival – FREE!
@ The Ordway/surrounding parks (map it)
345 Washington Street, St. Paul, MN
Time: Saturday, May 30 & Sunday, May 31 • 10am-5pm
Ages: All ages
Details: More than I can list here! The festival is jam-packed with live performances (indoor shows at The Ordway are $5/pp, outdoor acts are all free), an outdoor ARTwalk, a Story Garden, and a bordering-on-overwhelming amount of children's art activities. Download a family festival guide here or check out Gianna's tips for visiting Flint Hills with kids.
Plant-Maker Studio: Sunflowers (Weekend Family Fun) – FREE for kids
@ Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
3675 Arboretum Drive, Chaska MN 55318
Time: Saturday, May 30 & Sunday, May 31 • Noon-3pm
Cost: $12/adults, children under 13 are free
Ages: All ages
Details: Formerly "Weekend Family Fun", the Plant-Maker Studio connects kids with gardening and teaches about various plants. Also special this weekend is a LEGO Community Brick Build on Saturday, May 30, from 10am-2pm at the visitor center.
Waterfest 2015 – "A Water Wonderland" – FREE!
@ Phalen Regional Park (Lake Phalen)
1600 Phalen Dr, St Paul, MN 55106
Time: Saturday, May 30 • 11am-4pm
Ages: Activities for all ages
Details: The hands-on fun to be had learning about the local watershed will keep your kids busy for hours – watercraft rides, fishing lessons, a climbing wall and many interactive exhibits.
Fantastic Saturdays at The Blast
@ Eagan Community Center
1501 Central Pkwy, Eagan, MN 55121
Time: Ongoing Saturdays • 5 – 8pm
Cost: $4/child
Ages: Activities for all ages; The Blast Indoor Playground is appropriate for kids up to 12 years.
Details: Included in the $4 per child admission is access to The Blast, gym games, a movie and crafts.
Free Family Fun Days: Storywalking – "The Raft" – FREE!
@ Carl Kroening Interpretive Center
4900 N Mississippi Dr, Minneapolis, 55430
Time: Sunday, May 31 • 1-3pm
Ages: All ages welcome, children must be accompanied by an adult.
Details: Free Family Fun Days are hosted every Sunday; drop in any time from 1-3pm for activities. Joy has the entire summer calendar for the Carl Kroening Interpretive Center here plus other family events at Three Rivers Parks.


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The global economic troubles worsened today as major markets around the world have fallen 6-10%. The situation has deteriorated to the point that the world's financial ministers and central bankers will meet in Washington this weekend in an attempt to coordinate a global response.
Unfortunately, no one really knows what will calm global markets. On the heels of the United States' $700 billion bailout package, countries from Japan to Britain to China to Iceland have made serious steps to shore up their nation's banking system by infusing money into the system and/or cutting rates to encourage lending. So far, stock markets have shrugged off such maneuvers and continue to fall.
I keep hearing references to the Great Depression. And while I am nervous about the current situation, I also know our nation and most other nations are taking steps never even considered in 1929 and the early 1930's. We have likely already reached or will soon reach the natural bottom of this market correction – any greater declines will be panic based. So, the key is to stop the panic before it snowballs.
Hopefully, this weekend's meeting in Washington will come up with ways to do just that.


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To those who have arrived at this web page after reading a certain book wherein (to my surprise and puzzlement) I am described as getting mad, this characterization and the account in that book of my sampling for claimed missing Concord species are incorrect, and key facts are omitted. For a view on species disappearance differing from what is in that book, please read my 2014 Phytoneuron article and the introduction to my online Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts. An illustrated version of my preliminary article on this subject is here.
See my biographical sketch of Minot Pratt and the related story of Minot's new grave marker and discovery of unknown photos of Anna Alcott and her husband, Minot's son, John Bridge Pratt posted here. I have transcribed and annotated Anna Alcott Pratt's charming and moving diary at Houghton Library which is posted here.
In my retirement I am a Harvard University Herbaria Associate continuing to pursue botanical research on New England floristics (see atlas) and
my online Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts.
-- Revised: March 9, 2018


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M83J01P97 wrote:Lots of Bug reports in this so far it seems and already noticed a few cards not doing what they should be doing from my brief play through.
Lots of people suggesting this might have been rushed through ahead of Hearthstone which is due out in a few weeks.
iPad game/app review thread • Page 53
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M83J01P97 7,549 posts
Seen 21 hours ago
Registered 11 years ago
Just finished Home.
... what an unsettling game that was.
I urge you folks to play it. The mechanics of the game are very simple, but turn the sound up, play in the dark and keep going until you reach 'home'.
Quite incredible that a 16-bit style visuals can spook the bejesus out of you!
Edited by CharlieStCloud at 14:00:05 03-07-2013
Well worth getting LIMBO if you not played it already as its now out on iOS!
Edited by HoriZon at 08:52:22 03-07-2013
Cubasis got its 1.5 update this week, adds a decent synth into the mix. Helps alleviate things until inter-app communication gets an overhaul in iOS7.
As it stands, possibly the best DAW on the platform, and the constant work put in from the devs to bring it up to the standards of full on Cubase is applaudable.
Bought into this on the promise of it getting better over time, glad that is panning out to be true.
Traktor is free on ipad and iPhone. Grab it now! That is �20 of software there!
Any sms app on iPhone that's not possible about sending messages to other clients?
Like kik is to kik, WhatsApp is to WhatsApp etc...
Any for general sms? ITunes seems a bit what'sit to navigate on my laptop.
Widge wrote:Thanks for the tip, Widge
Traktor is free on ipad and iPhone. Grab it now! That is �20 of software there!
More free stuff right now:
Dead Space, $6.99 → Free
Dead Space for iPad, $9.99 → Free
Flight Control, 99� → Free
Flight Control HD, $4.99 → Free
Mirror's Edge, 99� → Free
Mirror's Edge for iPad, $9.99 → Free
Peggle, 99� → Free
Peggle HD, 99� → Free
The Sims Medieval,$2.99 → Free
The Sims Medieval for iPad, $4.99 → Free
Chopper, $2.99 → Free
Chopper 2, $2.99 → 99�
Mini Motor Racing, 99� → Free
Mini Motor Racing HD, $1.99 → Free
ZenForms: Protectors, $1.99 → Free
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Free (Universal)
Where's My Water?, Free (Universal)
BADLAND, Free (Universal)
Infinity Blade II, Free (Universal)
Tiny Wings, Free
Tiny Wings HD, Free (iPad Only)
Yowser! Everyone pick up Sword & Sworcery, totally amazing game.
StixxUK 7,885 posts
Seen 14 hours ago
Registered 16 years ago
Thanks for the tip, picked up most of those. Is Dead Space any good?
Deus Ex Phone is out today
THFourteen wrote:... which unfortunately has been receiving universally average reviews.
Deus Ex Phone is out today
Apart from Touch Arcade where they give every single game a five star rating!
elephantjuice 1,051 posts
Seen 3 weeks ago
Registered 8 years ago
repairmanjack 6,133 posts
Seen 9 months ago
Registered 12 years ago
elephantjuice wrote:Yep, ok. That's my curiosity price. Thanks for the heads up.
KOTOR is currently �2.99!
yegon 6,173 posts
Seen 42 minutes ago
Registered 15 years ago
This made me laugh. In Deus Ex: The Fall you can't fire your weapon on jailbroken devices! Haha, bizarre.
There's already a fix on Cydia to re-enable it. Not that I care - I love Deus Ex, but I'll be staying well clear of this anyway, just the sort of iOS game I detest due to control limitations.
Edit: D'oh, front page a hour or two ago
Edited by yegon at 23:57:11 11-07-2013
Joe Danger 66% off at the moment. Must be worth �0.69?
Moot_Point wrote:I had forgotten I have it, but yes, definitely
Joe Danger 66% off at the moment. Must be worth �0.69?
Cool. Couldn't resist at that price. : )
My dreams have come true!
Good to know Sawyer is alive.
TarickStonefire wrote:Pretty much this. And I even haven't got that far.
mrpon wrote:I got as far as the big black floating knight thing that follows you around and kills you, got that far several times, couldn't see what everyone had got so excited about and deleted.
Yowser! Everyone pick up Sword & Sworcery, totally amazing game.
Load of fuss over nothing terribly special, in my opinion. I think people were just intrigued by the presentation, but... meh.
On a similar subject, why is/was BADLAND lined-up for all these awards? Think it received Apple Developer Award too!
... all you do is navigate this black fuzzy blob by holding the screen to go up and letting go to go down.
Unless there is a gameplay mechanic that turns the game upside down at some point, I cannot see why the game is receiving all this praise. Looks pretty yes, but the game is as shallow as a puddle.
*doesn't get it*
On the other hand, whilst I unfortunately got majorly stuck on Superbrothers EP, I did enjoy the experience for what it was up until then. Music is soothingly lovely in places and those 8-bit style visuals are superb.
I agree with Badland, pretty but not much game. I didn't figure out that was the control method, I thought I was tapping to make the wings flap, that might explain a lot
Free newspaper recommend: [link url=
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/london-evening-standard-digital/id542140360?mt=8]London Evening Standard[/link] Delivered daily, good quality and linked into Newsstand. Has one of those built in digtal crossword puzzle thingies.
Edited by mrpon at 23:56:16 16-07-2013
Breach & Clear and Leisure Suit Larry are the ones to watch today IMO
Nth 3,138 posts
Seen 5 days ago
Registered 9 years ago
I'm enjoying Badland, it's the praise and awards for Ridiculous Fishing that baffles me.
I prefer Ridiculous Fishing, it's a bit different.
DaM wrote:Yup.
I prefer Ridiculous Fishing, it's a bit different.
I love that game!
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San Francisco-based sweetshop The Cravory recently posted an insanely tasty-looking sweet treat — a doughnut stuffed with an entire cookie. Just in case that doughnut alone wasn't enough of an indulgence for you.
Doughnuts are the perfect pastry to experiment with — they can be stuffed or topped with all manner of ingredients. If you can think of a way to doctor up a doughnut, then it's probably already been done. Don't believe us? Then check out the wild doughnut dishes below.
This ingenious culinary confusion combines two of my favorite breakfast treats: waffles and doughnuts. Just don't make them on a weekday. A carb-a-licious sweet treat like these is sure to inspire a midmorning nap.
Baked savory cream cheese and herb doughnuts
Say goodbye to boring bagels; the savory doughnut is here to save your humdrum breakfast! And since they're not loaded with sugar, you can have an extra one, right?
Pizza doughnuts
If you can imagine a more delectable-sounding food than pizza on top of and inside a deep-fried ball of dough, then you're a more creative soul than I. In my case, these savory morsels look like heaven.
Loaded glazed doughnut breakfast sandwich
Can't decide if you want a savory or sweet breakfast? Why choose when you could just slap a fried egg and some bacon onto your favorite doughnut? It might sound crazy, but sometimes crazy is just the morning pick-me-up you need.
The Boss Hog
This doughnut from Gourdoughs in Austin, Texas, takes the savory pastry to extreme levels, with pulled pork and potato salad on a fresh doughnut, drizzled with honey barbecue sauce. So worth the inevitable heartburn.
Fish doughnut
Fish DOES NOT belong in donut form @kfc_colonel #yuck pic.twitter.com/pEYzzxRK— Dan Friess (@danfriess) August 23, 2012
Learning about the existence of this doughnut, from KFC in Singapore, has ruined my day. "What could make a doughnut even tastier? How about some fish?" How about not! It's things like this that give doughnut mashups a bad name.
Buffalo Crunch doughnut
Buffalo Crunch doughnut from @TimHortons at the #NYSFair. This should be featured on @BizarreFoods ASAP. pic.twitter.com/ngcJCTe0j7— As Eaten On TV (@AsEatenOnTV) August 24, 2014
You can technically share this pull-apart doughnut, but good luck finding anyone willing to give it a go with you. Drenched in mysterious "crunch," the Buffalo Crunch doughnut from Tim Hortons has a pool of hot sauce in the middle, and also comes in a ranch version for those wary of the unbridled Buffalo heat of the original. Luckily for humanity, the doughnut is being offered for a limited time only at the New York State Fair. So, I guess, get one while you can?
Chocolate-stuffed deep-fried doughnut holes
Copycat Dunkin' Donuts jelly doughnuts
Homemade baked cronuts
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Niittymaki will get the start tonight against Southeast Division rivalby Lightning Insider / Tampa Bay Lightning
The Lightning held practice at the Kettler IcePlex in Arlington, Virginia yesterday after Sunday's game against the Capitals. Defensemen Mattias Ohlund and Victor Hedman did not practice for some preventative body maintenance. Neither is expected to miss any time, however. Sunday's game was a tough one for the Bolts after coming from behind in the third period to tie the Eastern Conference's top team only to fall, 3-2, on a late goal by Alex Ovechkin. Once again though, being able to come back on a team of that caliber should help the team's confidence heading into tonight's game against the Atlanta Thrashers at Philips Arena.
It is a familiar story for the Lightning entering tonight's match-up. Once again the Bolts find themselves in a playoff-type game that they need to win. With seven games remaining before the Olympic break, Tampa Bay will play five of those against teams they are battling for playoff positioning with. The Thrashers are currently in the ninth position, one point ahead of the Lightning. It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out the importance of tonight's game.
Antero Niittymaki will get the start in goal after getting a breather on Sunday against Washington. He brings a 15-0-0 career record against Atlanta into the game and has been extremely hot of late, posting a 4-1-1 record with a .934 save percentage in his previous six games. With Paul Szczechura being assigned to Norfolk for conditioning on Sunday, Brandon Bochenski is the only extra player with the team and he will be a game-time decision tonight.
Steven Stamkos, riding a six-game point streak into tonight's game, continues to impress. He has shown pin-point accuracy on the power play and has displayed what Rick Tocchet called Ovechkin-like ability from the circle with the one-time. Entering tonight's game Stamkos is tied for the league lead in power play goals with 12 and power play points with 26. Another interesting note, two of the three active players who recorded 100 points before turning 20-years-old will be on display tonight at Philips Arena. Stamkos and Atlanta's Ilya Kovalchuk are two while Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby is the other.
The Lightning will travel home tonight after the game and begin preparations for Thursday's game against the New York Islanders, another team battling for one of the three playoff positions up for grabs.


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Photo: Paul Buckowski
We asked readers of the Recipe Box blog to identify the kitchen item pictured. Here are some of the guesses:
Measuring cups with easy-pour spouts
Silicone-freezer herb-saver
Jell-O shot cups
It is the Lekue MinuteCake (makes desserts fast), which sells for $14.95 at Different Drummer's Kitchen. This week's randomly selected winner is Deedee.
Check out the Recipe Box (http:/blog.timesunion.com/recipebox) on Friday for another item. Take a guess at its purpose, and you could win the item. You do not have to guess correctly to win.


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Did offshore oil exploration play a role in the recent deaths of nearly 900 dolphins off the northern Peruvian coast? Peru's fisheries minister said last week that government scientists had ruled that out as a possibility and that the dolphins probably died of natural causes. But a marine veterinarian and conservationist who examined many of the corpses contends they were probably harmed by sound waves from seismic tests used to locate oil deposits.
As we reported earlier this month, the dolphin deaths, which overlapped with a large die-off of seabirds, have been the focus of intense speculation in Peru and around the world.
The marine veterinarian, Carlos Yaipen-Llanos, who is president of the conservation group Orca Peru, said in an interview that necropsies that he and his colleagues performed on three separate expeditions indicated that the dolphins examined were bleeding in their middle ears and had suffered fractures there. They also had gas in their solid internal organs and severe acute pulmonary emphysema, symptoms consistent with death from decompression sickness — that is, the bends, he said.
"The animals died from decompression sickness caused by acoustic trauma," he said.
That directly contradicts the results of the official investigation, carried out by the Peruvian Ocean Institute, known as Imarpe. The government says the institute had ruled out starvation, poisoning and seismic testing, and that an unknown disease might be the culprit.
As we have noted here on the Green blog, experts on strandings say it is not always possible to determine what causes a die-off of dolphins or whales.
Read more…


text: [/IMG] [/IMG][/IMG] My 8 month old Orpington hen has a strange thing in her eye. I just noticed it yesterday and I think that was the first day it was there. Does anybody know what this is, how to treat it or if it is contagious to the rest of my flock? Anything helps! Thank you!


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The Warriors didn't practice on Monday, instead taking the day off so the staff and players could attend a Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco. Mayor Ed Lee was there. So were some of the city's other influential decision-makers.
The franchise still resides in Oakland. But their future in San Francisco is inching closer. After a failed attempt to get a waterfront location and some legislative delays on the purchased Mission Bay site, there's growing expectation that the construction of the Chase Center will begin early next year.
"January," owner Joe Lacob said hopefully.
Lacob spoke first at Monday's luncheon. He walked up to the stage to applause and drew an even louder ovation when he proclaimed that the Chase Center would be "the greatest arena you've ever seen." The construction time frame has been estimated around 26-28 months. If it begins when expected, it should open for the 2019 season.
"I promise you, it's gonna be unbelievable how good it is," Lacob said. "Our new sales center is opening up very soon, and when you see the model there, it will blow your mind. It's so good. It's very exciting. It's very hard to wait for that, quite frankly…We will break ground very, very soon on what will truly be one of the great, I think, one of the great icons of this city."
But potential roadblocks, however unlikely, remain. The Mission Bay Alliance, made up of UCSF donors, stakeholders and faculty, has opposed the construction at this site. Their main complaint is that the arena will disrupt the flow of traffic for emergency vehicles around the hospital in that area.
The Warriors, through the city, were required to complete a California Environment Quality Act report. In it, the city's plan to build a new central subway — also scheduled to open in 2019 — helped alleviate traffic concerns. It would have a stop at the arena's location. The CEQA was approved by San Francisco's Board of Supervisors. The Mission Bay Alliance lawsuit challenged elements within the CEQA.
In July, a judge ruled 100 percent in favor of the Warriors that the report could stand. But the Mission Bay Alliance has appealed the ruling. Now Lacob and the Warriors wait.
"I can't control what the courts do," he said. "We won the court case, as you know, rather unanimously. Now it's before the court of appeals, and my understanding is that they're going to hear it this month, and they should soon after that render a decision."
Lacob maintains confidence that once this issue is sorted out, things will run smoothly.
"The city has been great. We're ready to go," he said. "Completely. It's been a long process. The architects, all that work is done. The design, all that work is done. The money is in place. Has been for a long time. We're ready to go. The city unanimously approved. We just need the appellate court to cooperate and do the right thing, and then we're gonna go get this thing done. And it's gonna be one of the greatest arenas you've ever seen."
But court cases can be known to drag, even beyond the appellate court. Could there be another step, beyond this next decision, that would stall construction?
"There is the possibility that they, the opposition, if they lose, could ask – ask – for an appeal to the Supreme Court of the state of California," he said. "Then the supreme court, as I understand it — I'm not a lawyer — can decide to hear a case like that. That's very rare that they'd hear a case like that, that at two levels of the courts has been decided strongly. There's a very, very small probability, possibility that the Supreme Court could (hear it). But to be honest with you, our goal is to break ground regardless."
The proposed site for the arena was initially on the waterfront. That changed. The initial opening target date was the 2017 season. That's been pushed back a few times. But construction sounds like it may finally be nearing. And Lacob sounds relieved.
"Probably the hardest thing I've ever done," Lacob said. "I used to say buying the Warriors was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Then winning a championship, what you have to go through as a team, in 103 games, 105 games, it's so monumentally difficult. But getting this arena done, that may top it all. It's a lot of work on so many different levels."
Bay Area News Group columnist Marcus Thompson contributed to this report.


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symptoms of thyroid trouble
Thyroiditis is actually a wide phrase that explains inflammation in the thyroid. Thyroiditis symptoms include an array of distinctive circumstances which all bring about thyroidal inflammation and, as a result, leads to a variety of medical demonstrations. For instance, Hashimoto's thyroiditis is regarded as the most typical reason for hypothyroidism in North America. Postpartum thyroiditis, that triggers temporary thyrotoxicosis (excessive thyroid hormone concentrations within the blood stream) accompanied by temporary hypothyroidism, is a type of bring about of thyroid circumstances following a birth of a child. Subwoofer severe thyroiditis is definitely the principal reason behind pain and discomfort within the thyroid. It could also be noticed in people while using medications interferon and amiodarone. The various clinical signs or symptoms There isn't any signs and symptoms that are symptoms of thyroid trouble completely. In the event the thyroiditis brings about gradual and long-term thyroid cellular deterioration and devastation, bringing about a stop by thyroid gland hormonal levels in the blood stream, the particular indicators will be the ones from thyroid problems. Common hypothyroid symptoms include tiredness, an increase in weight, irregular bowel movements, dried-out pores and skin, depressive disorders in addition to below average physical exercise endurance. This is frequently the scenario for patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Once the situation leads to faster thyroid gland mobile degeneration and destruction, the particular thyroid hormonal that is locked in the specific human gland runs away, raising thyroid alteration in hormones in the blood stream, after which leads to indications of thyrotoxicosis, which may be just like hyperthyroidism. These kinds of signs or symptoms frequently contain nervousness, sleeping disorders, heart palpitations (rapid heart beat) tiredness, weight reduction, and also being easily annoyed. It's noticed in people with the toxic stage of subacute, pain-free and post-partum thyroiditis. The signs and symptoms of thyrotoxicosis and hyperthyroidism are the identical because raised amount of thyroid gland hormones in the blood stream produce both of individuals health problems. Thyrotoxicosis is the saying used with thyroiditis because the gland isn't over active. In subacute, painless and post-partum thyroiditis, a thyroid problem gland often winds up being worn out of thyroid gland hormonal while the duration of inflammation continues, producing a drop in thyroid gland alteration in hormones in the bloodstream and indications of hypothyroidism. Discomfort within the thyroid gland might be observed in people suffering with subacute thyroiditis. What can cause the condition? Thyroiditis is actually due to an attack symptoms of thyroid trouble on the thyroid, resulting in inflammation and devastation of the thyroid gland microscopic cells. Antibodies which attack the thyroid gland produce almost all sorts of thyroiditis. Consequently, thyroiditis is usually an autoimmune situation, comparable to teen diabetes and also rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. Nobody understands precisely why specific individuals produce thyroid antibodies, however, this tends to run in households. It may also be brought on by infection, say for example a virus or perhaps symptoms of thyroid trouble microorganisms, which frequently be employed in exactly the same because the antibodies to lead to irritation inside the human gland. Eventually, medicines that include interferon and amiodarone, may also damage thyroid gland cellular material and bring about symptoms.
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op shops
Merry Christmas1:50 PM
Savers trip with N. We found these lame Supre singlets and thought we'd get into the xmas sprirt hehe.
More photos from the day will be posted up soon.
Wish you all a Merry Christmas xoxox
X-mas Wishlist4:42 AM
1. Tiffany and Co - Return to Tiffany Heart Tag Pendant
2. Marc Jacobs - Lola
3. Sass & Bide - "All or Nothing" Dress
4. Tony Bianco - Fad wedges in black suede
5. Mimco - Curb Chain bracelet
6. Mimco - Gaudi wallet
that is all santa baby :)
Up & Comers Market8:00 PM
When - 18/12/2010 (The market runs on the 2nd Saturday of every month)
Time - 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Where - Ormond Hall ,557 St Kilda Road ,Melbourne 3004
For more info visit their website : www.upandcomersmarket.com.au
[image via thatsMelbourne]
Dottis 10 Days of Xmas4:33 AM
With Christmas around the corner. Dotti has come up with a fun way to to make your shopping a little bit easier. There is a voucher with a different promotion for each day leading up to Christmas and all you have to do is print or show the promo on your phone. enjoy !
Salvos on Smith Street, Fitzroy
Pink maxi dress $7 - thinking of altering it shorter n tighting the sides
Brown slouchy jumper $5
Stereosonic2:55 AM
LOLA & Bailey2:49 AM
for more check out their websitee lolaandbailey
Trending : The Maxi Skirt5:43 AM
For more on these fashionistas check out their lookbook pages :
my style
My 21st Birthday5:29 AM
1920s Costuming5:24 AM
My 21st Birthday outfit :)
Dress - Portmans $130 (got it for $104 on sale last one in melb thank you Milz )
Jewelery - Diva and Alex Perry for Diva ranging from $12- $17
Accessories - Black head piece from Diva $10, Feather Cape from SportsGirl $79.95 (for it for 49.95 on sale)
Shoes - Wayne by Wayne Cooper Black satin heels - 149.95 (got it for$119 thank you Myer discount & my best friend)
celeb style
Young Money Cash Money1:15 AM
[images via Just jarred]
my style
To find the perfect dress4:17 AM
My 21st just past (photos will be up soon) but i thought id share my impossible mission that was to find the perfect dress. Wasn't sure what i was looking for all i knew is that i wanted to look similar to what Miss Wardolf wore in an Gossip Girl episode which was cream flapper dress with black pearls and gloves.What made my shopping endeavor worse was that is was exam period so i didn't have a lot of time to shop.But i managed to go to Chapel Street,Chadstone, Southland, Brunswick St, Glenferrie Road, DFO Moorabbin and Bourke Street Mall.
Portmans cream dress & a Pink Dress from a store in Chadstone (near Toys R US)
Cream dress from Myer (think its Cooper st) & cream and black dress from Alannah Hill factory Outlet (brunswick street)
Cream and Black dress from Myer (from Seduce?) & white dress from Reveiw
Katy Perry on the Cover of the latest Haper's Bazaar covered in 150 ruby-colored Swarovski rhinestones.
[images via CocoPerez]
Flinders Streets finest3:13 AM
A couple of months ago when i went for my interview for fashion week i came across this amazing store. i didnt get to catch the name of the store but it is located underneath Flinders St station on the way to the Degraves St exit and has a large collection of unique jewelery from necklaces and ear rings to cuffs.
street style
Spotted:2:37 AM
op shops
SAVERS buys6:01 PM
Most items are from the Brunswick store. The blue blazer & white top are from Dandenong store.
Top picture : 1. Ellen| Tracey Blue military blazer with gold buttons $8 (came with a skirt too )
2 David Jones Grey blazer $8
3 Indra Souvenir multicolored blazer $10
4 Jacqueline EVE cape jacket $ 10
Bottom picture: 1. After Eight gold net dress $8
2. Coral half top $5
3. Pelaco cream buttoned top $6


text: transcriptJAISAL NOOR: PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS AND STUDENTS FROM 18 CITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY GATHERED IN WASHINGTON, DC THIS WEEK TO DEMAND A NATIONWIDE MORATORIUM ON SCHOOL CLOSINGS.FEDERAL PROGRAMS LIKE RACE TO THE TOP OFFERED FINANCIAL INCENTIVES TO CITIES AND STATES FOR RADICALLY CHANGING THEIR SCHOOLS, INCLUDING FIRING STAFF AND SHUTTING SCHOOLS DOWN. WHILE THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TOUTED THE COMPETITIVE MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR PROGRAM AS A WAY TO IMPROVE EDUCATION AND BETTER PREPARE STUDENTS FOR COLLEGE AND THE WORKFORCE, MANY PARENTS, STUDENTS AND TEACHERS SAY THE CHANGES ARE DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECTING LOW-INCOME COMMUNITIES OF COLOR.(CLIP HELEN MOORE) "I came here to demand, I am demanding an education for our children. We pay the money, we have a right to have our kids educated"THATâS HELEN MOORE, A DETROIT EDUCATION ACTIVIST. SHE WAS ONE OF HUNDREDS WHO ATTENDED A HEARING TUESDAY IN WASHINGTON DC CALLING FOR A NATIONAL MORATORIUM ON SCHOOL CLOSINGS. BROWN WAS PART OF A GROUP THAT FILED A TITLE VI CIVIL RIGHTS COMPLAINT LAST SUMMER CHALLENGING THE POLICIES. SHE SAYS SCHOOL CLOSINGS IN DETROIT, A CITY ALREADY MARKED BY HIGH RATES OF UNEMPLOYMENT, VACANT HOUSES AND FORECLOSURES, ARE DESTABILIZING THE COMMUNITY.(CLIP HELEN MOORE) "The neighborhood start going down as the families start moving out. They don;t want to be told what school to go to because there is no other school.WHEN A SCHOOL IS CLOSED, THE STUDENT POPULATION OFTEN HAS TO TRAVEL TO A DIFFERENT SCHOOL BUILDING OR RE-APPLY TO GO BACK TO THEIR SCHOOL. ADDITIONALLY, THE STAFF IS OFTEN REPLACED AND RESOURCES ARE REGULARLY CUT, SOMETIMES IN FAVOR OF A CHARTER SCHOOL THAT IS OPENED IN THE SAME BUILDING.SETH GALANTER IS WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONâS OFFICE OF CIVIL RIGHTS. HE SAID THEY ARE INVESTIGATING PEOPLEâS CONCERNS AND THE 6 TITLE VI COMPLAINTS THAT WERE FILED:(CLIP SETH GALANTER)" When we look at these things, i need to emphasize, we cannot deal with every harmful decision that happens. sometimes people are negatively affected, but that doesn't mean civil rights violation. THe question we are asking is if there's an intent to discriminate or decision to make an illegal closing. Not only investigate weather to close schools, which schools to close, and how these decision impacted and affect on students. "AFTER THE HEARING, HUNDREDS OF PARENTS AND STUDENTS MARCHED TO THE MARTIN LUTHER KING MEMORIAL FOR A RALLY, CONTINUING THEIR CALL FOR JUSTICE. JOEL VELASQUEZ , A PARENT FROM OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA SAYS HE FOUGHT PLANS TO SHUT HIS SONâS SCHOOL BY LEADING A 3-WEEK LONG SIT-IN AT LAKEVIEW ELEMENTARY.(CLIP JOEL VELASQUEZ) "After a year of trying to meet with officials, superintendent, we were left with no options, we took our school back. "HE WAS JOINED AT THE RALLY BY OAKLAND EDUCATOR AND ACTIVIST MIKE HUTCHINSON WHO SAYS SCHOOL CLOSINGS AND INCREASED CHARTER SCHOOLS ONLY TARGET THE CITYâS LOW INCOME COMMUNITIES(CLIP HUTCHINSON) "If you look at a map of Oakland, we have the flatlands and the hills. In the flatlands, which are less affluent, that's where all the school closures have happened, thats where all the charters are. There are no school closures and charters in the hills. If charter schools and school closures are the best option I would expect them to be applied across the board, but I haven't seen that happen"A DELEGATION FROM NEW ORLEANS, THE CITY WITH THE HIGHEST PROPORTION OF CHARTER SCHOOLS IN THE COUNTRY, ALSO TRAVELED TO DC. STUDENT TERREL MAJOR SAYS HIS PUBLIC SCHOOL GETS LESS RESOURCES THAN THE CHARTER SCHOOL THAT SHARES THE SAME BUILDING.(CLIP TERREL MAJOR)"Like when the storm Issac came, after we came back from the storm, - their side of the cafeteria- we sit on different sides, their side of the cafeteria and our side was damaged for weeks. It made me feel lesser than, that I didn't really matter in our own school."MAJOR CALLS THAT DISCRIMINATION. DESPITE THE CHALLENGES, SOME ARE ENCOURAGED BY THE GROWING GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT AGAINST SCHOOL CLOSINGS, INCLUDING NEW ORLEANS PARENT AND ACTIVIST KARRAN HARPER ROYAL.(CLIP KARRAN HARPER ROYAL) I think we are at a turning point because there are people organizing around the country. In Seattle its testing, we are organizing around school closures, there are teachers organizing around evaluation systems. We are at a critical point because we are not getting the desired outcomes. "IN ADDITION TO A NATIONWIDE MORATORIUM ON SCHOOL CLOSINGS, ACTIVISTS ARE CALLING FOR SUSTAINABLE SCHOOL TRANSFORMATION, INCREASED RESOURCES AND A COMMUNITY-BASED INPUT PROCESS . ORGANIZERS HAVE VOWED TO RETURN TO WASHINGTON IF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION DOES NOT TAKE ACTION. REPORTING FOR THE REAL NEWS AND FSRN, THIS IS JAISAL NOOR IN WASHINGTON.


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Professor Richard Ottinger, Climate Change specialist for IUCN's Commission on Environmental Law, writes about the insiders' jokes and anecdotes that tell the story best in the climate talks.
The big difference between the Bonn conference and that in Copenhagen is that the vocal animosities exhibited in Copenhagen and later have been abandoned and all parties are seriously addressing the complex issues that need resolution. Even some humour has been introduced. One country observed that the chances of success here could be compared to the chances of South Africa winning the World Cup soccer title.
The EU, responding to an assertion by Bolivia that targets for land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) could be implemented before determining the rules that will be applied for their measurement because the average impact was already known, presented a chart that showed very large differences between the results for individual countries depending on which of four proposed rules was adopted. Its delegate observed that using average figures was like saying of a man with his feet in a freezer and his head in an oven that on average his temperature was satisfactory.
Perhaps the funniest was an assertion by Saudi Arabia, with a straight face, that it should be eligible to receive adaptation funds to compensate it for oil production lost due to actions by the conference to reduce oil consumption.
While there were plenty of adamant assertions of differences on virtually all issues, and none of the stickiest issues was resolved, the mood of the delegates at the conference has been upbeat and the leadership of the sessions is good and much more in control than in Copenhagen. However, the same positions that were taken in Copenhagen are repeated over and over by the same countries on each issue, making progress very slow. Indeed, if these countries just made recordings of their positions and posted them on the web, it would save lots of time and energy.
It has been said that a conference is a gathering of people that don't know what to do to decide that nothing can be done. So far, that seems like all too apt a description here.


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Original URL: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/15/amazon_ec2_gpu_slices/
Amazon adds GPUs to EC2 HPC clouds
Where's InfiniBand networking?
Posted in Cloud, 15th November 2010 11:18 GMT
SC10 VMware's ESX Server virtualization and Amazon's EC2 cloud got their starts among developers frustrated with the time and money it took to get physical infrastructure approved and set up so they could monkey around with their code. And it is a safe bet to guess that hybrid CPU-GPU clusters are going to get some serious action now that Amazon has plugged in Nvidia's GPU co-processors into its Cluster Compute instances.
Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing subsidiary of the online retailing giant, rolled up and rolled out its virtual HPC clusters back in July. These HPC instances are similar to regular extra large virtual server slices on the EC2 cloud, except Amazon guarantees that the slices are built using a two-socket x64 server with Intel's Xeon X5570s running at 2.93 GHz and 8 MB of on-chip cache memory. Those processors are a year and a half old, which is not a big deal because the GPUs are going to be doing a lot of the math anyway.
This Cluster Compute instance is rated at an aggregate of 33.5 EC2 compute units in the Amazon virtual server relative performance scheme and presents 23 GB of virtual memory and 1.69 TB of disk capacity to the HPC application running atop it. This is four times the extra large EC2 slice in terms of compute units, according to Amazon.
The virtual HPC slices run in 64-bit mode, which is necessary to address more than 2 GB of memory in a node. The HPC slices are unique in that programmers know the exact iron underneath the slice (not so for other slices on EC2) and that they are also linked together with 10 Gigabit Ethernet links.
Peter De Santis, who spoke to El Reg about the addition of GPUs to the HPC slices, said that there was "a lot of excitement about experimenting with GPUs," and that is why Amazon has very quickly added this feature to the Cluster Compute instances. Customers are concerned with the power and thermal issues of putting GPUs in their own systems as well as the high cost of buying them, and are interested in giving the idea a whirl on EC2 first before making any commitments to actually invest in GPU iron.
In most cases, adding GPUs to clusters will require new servers, which were never designed to have multiple hot components in them. Because of the hassle, it may turn out that a lot of Amazon's virtual ceepie-geepie users start out on virtual HPC clusters with GPUs and just stay there, never investing in the iron at all and preferring to rent time on Amazon's cloud.
The Cluster Compute instances run a Linux operating system atop Amazon's homegrown variant of the Xen hypervisor for x64 servers; but other than that, according to De Santis, Amazon is not adding any special software to the stack. Amazon is also not managing the cluster images or the cluster job scheduling on behalf of customers. The idea is to provide the raw nodes and let customers deply x64-based cluster provisioning, management, and job scheduling tools as they would internally.
De Santis would not divulge how large the virtual HPC cluster is that the company has set up in its data center in Northern Virginia, but says to date customers are running virtual clusters with dozens to hundreds of nodes. (These are without GPUs.) NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is experimenting with the Cluster Compute instances to do image processing for the images it collects from its exploration robots, just to name one customer.
On the ceepie-geepie front, Amazon is starting out with the obvious choice, plunking two of Nvidia's M2050 single-wide fanless GPU co-processors into each virtual server node (which is a complete physical node, as it turns out). The M2050s are rated at 1.03 teraflops each doing single-precision floating point calculations and 515 gigaflops doing double-precision math. So the CPU Cluster instance gives you 1.03 of raw teraflops DP oomph.
An early tester of the GPU Cluster instance is a company called Mental Images, which creates software to do rendering and 3D Web services, has tested the scalability of the Amazon virtual ceepie-geepie up to 128 nodes and has run tests that show at that scalability, a virtual cluster offers about 90 percent of the scalability of an in-house cluster. (That's a pretty small virtualization overhead, all things considered.)
De Santis would not say when Amazon might make the FireStream fanless GPU co-processors available in its GPU cluster clouds, but AMD's FireStream single-wide 9350 is a relatively inexpensive device at $799 for a GPU that does 2 teraflops SP and 400 gigaflops, so some customers might ask for it. Then again, with the FireStream GPU co-processors not supporting ECC scrubbing on their integrated GDDR5 memory, maybe no one will ask for them until there is ECC on them.
De Santis said that Amazon will "listen to customers" when making its technology choices, and that includes field prorgammable gate arrays (FPGAs), which are just getting interesting and somewhat affordable in the HPC space. If customers find they need more bandwidth between the nodes in the clusters, you can bet Amazon will upgrade to InfiniBand - probably long before FireStream or FPGA accelerators make it into the virtual HPC server slices.
Here's the funny bit. In an on-demand scheme, a regular generic quadruple extra large instance with fat memory that most closely resembles the raw Cluster Compute slice costs $2.10 per hour, while the Cluster Compute instance costs only $1.60 per hour. (HPC customers are going to lock up lots of nodes to run their jobs, and hence the volume discount is sort of built in.) To add two Nvidia M2050 GPUs to the Cluster Compute instance boosts the price up to $2.40 per hour. So basically, if you are an HPC customer, Amazon is guaranteeing the iron configuration and tossing in a teraflops of GPU power for 30 cents an hour.
That is a deal that lots and lots of people won't be able to resist - which is the whole point. ®


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The Cheapest (& Most Expensive) Places Around the World to Buy IKEA Furniture
As the largest retailer in the world, IKEA has stores in 38 countries around the globe. In an interesting new study, Idealo UK performed a cost comparison to determine the cheapest and most expensive places to buy from the big blue box. Check out some of their findings after the jump…
To create their price comparison, Idealo UK looked at 40 IKEA products which can be found in 33 different countries. They also compared prices both with and without VAT, since that additional charge isn't included in US products purchased in US stores (a point that actually makes a big difference).
Cheapest IKEA prices: Poland
Mos expensive Ikea prices: Australia
The United States is the third cheapest country for buying IKEA's products. But, as the study points out, this is a bit misleading. "Taxes for the USA aren't included in the IKEA pricing, as there is no federal sales tax in the United States. So unless you're shopping IKEA in Portland, Oregon (no state or local sales tax), this ranking is too high ... Based on the average sales tax (state and local) rate for 15 U.S. IKEA locations (7.02%), the U.S. IKEA price in our comparison would rank 14th, between France & Hungary." In fact, shoppers in Portland, Oregon — with their 0% sales tax — are paying the lowest price in the US for their Pax wardrobes and Billy bookcases. And they're third cheapest in the whole world.
Check out more of the Worldwide IKEA Price Comparison at Idealo UK.
(Image: Shutterstock)


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Blackburn Rovers boss Sam Allardyce is planning a double-raid on Sunderland.
Sunderland manager Ricky Sbragia has already declared he won't stand in El Hadji Diouf's way should he want to join Rovers.
And Big Sam is also eyeing Diouf's teammate Pascal Chimbonda, who played his best football in the Northwest while with Wigan Athletic.


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NCAAB Basketball - Preview
The Eastern Washington Eagles and the St. Mary's Gaels will both be gunning for a victory on Sunday when they meet at McKeon Pavilion.
Eastern Washington was an 82-75 winner in its last match at home against Seattle.
St. Mary's was an 89-64 winner in its last match at home against Murray State. They covered the 18-point spread as favorites.
Eastern Washington:
Team record: 5-2 SU, 2-2 ATS
The total has gone OVER in 5 of last 7 games on the road
is 3-18 SU in its last 21 games on the road
When playing on Sunday are 7-3
Before playing UC Irvine are 2-4
After playing Seattle are 0-7
After a win are 4-6
St. Mary's:
Team record: 6-0 SU, 4-1 ATS
Current streak: won 6 straight games.
is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games
is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games at home
is 4-1 SU in its last 5 games when playing Eastern Washington
When playing on Sunday are 10-0
Before playing Boise State are 1-0
After playing Murray State are 3-0
After a win are 8-2
Next up:
Eastern Washington home to UC Irvine, Sunday, December 15
St. Mary's at Boise State, Saturday, December 14


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Jan 21 will mark the first day of a new era in the United States and a day of a massive protests in Washington, D.C. and all over the world. With this in mind Dolly Varden will aim to fill SPACE with the spirit of loving kindness, music, community and an intention to always keep fighting for the things that truly make America great: people from all cultures, religions, backgrounds and political views working together to make a better life for all. Both Dolly Varden and SPACE will donate a portion of the ticket money to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Dolly Varden has been making music for almost two decades but its latest release explores how quickly that time has passed. The band is built around the heartfelt singing and songwriting of husband and wife Steve Dawson and Diane Christiansen, the melodic and soulful guitar and lap steel playing of Mark Balletto, and the solid rhythm section of Matt Thobe on drums and Mike Bradburn on bass. Remarkably the line-up has stayed the same through 18 years, six critically-acclaimed albums, and well-received shows all over the USA and Europe.
"For A While" finds the group taking stock of its experiences and travels with a dozen songs crafted and recorded in Chicago. From the opening cinematic snapshot of "Del Mar, 1976", the rocking "Done (Done)", the dream-inspired "Mayfly", and the wistful title track the listener is taken on a complete journey of sonic adventure and haunting lyrical reminisces.


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Blu-Ray/ VHS combo ???
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: Oklahoma (Go Sooners!!)
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Blu-Ray/ VHS combo ???
Panasonic VHS/Blu-ray player
From Engadget
Panasonic intros DMR-BR360V Blu-ray / VHS combo player
Blu-ray and VHS together at last -- so crazy it just might work? Probably not, but if you're still clinging to a library of tapes and haven't been able to bring yourself to upgrade or transfer them to a more 21st century-friendly format, you'll no doubt be happy to know that Panasonic has now introduced the combo player of your dreams -- in Japan, at least. For maximum combo-ness, the DMR-BR30V also boasts a 320GB hard drive to boost your recording options, along with both digital and analog TV tuners, a USB port, and an SD card slot. For those ready to make a clean break with their past, Panasonic also has three VHS-less models with hard drives of various sizes, each of which are also apparently exclusive to Japan for now. Just don't expect any of them to come cheap, as the DMR-BR360V leads the way with a price tag of ¥160,000, or just about $1,500.
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text: Newly opened in the year 2004, this city and conference hotel comprises a total of 186 rooms of which 4 are Junior Suites, 20 Premium, 3 Fitness and 6 are Family rooms, spread over 6 floors. The modern lobby area of the hotel offers its guests a reception area with 24-hour service, two lifts, a safe, a currency exchange desk and a cloakroom. There is also a bar, a café, a variety of conference and meeting rooms and an air-conditioned à la carte restaurant (with highchairs for children and a non-smoking area) available for use. Further facilities include Internet access as well as room service and laundry services. The hotel additionally offers car parking and garage facilities. The hotel is ideal for banqueting and celebrations. It offers guests the option of creating their own menu.


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A very special tea party is taking place in June, to support the St John's Hospice Development Appeal in Doncaster.
The Mount Pleasant Hotel on the Great North Road is the venue for an afternoon of tea, coffee, cakes, sandwiches and live music.
The Midsummer Tea Party on Midsummer's Day – 24th June – takes place from 2 – 4pm in the William James Suite at the premier hotel.
Mel Hewitt, community fundraiser for the hospice, said: "This promises to be a delightful afternoon in a beautiful setting. We are very grateful for the support of The Mount Pleasant Hotel who have made this event possible. Thanks also to everyone who has generously donated our lovely raffle prizes and the musicians who are playing for us."
Tickets priced at £7.50 are available from the St John's Information and Support Centre, Weston Road, Balby and from Mel Hewitt by calling (01302) 798391.


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Research In Motion has confirmed an e-mail outage for some BlackBerry users in North America following a flood of reports by consumers Tuesday night about disrupted BlackBerry service.
"Some BlackBerry customers in the Americas are currently experiencing delays in message delivery," said RIM in a statement. "Our technical teams are actively working to resolve this issue for those impacted. We apologize for any inconvenience."
The outage is the second black-eye for RIM and BlackBerry in as many weeks. RIM said last Thursday that it had fixed the issue behind an outage that caused e-mail delays for BlackBerry users earlier that day.
But several consumers and solution providers pointed out that customers aren't used to service outages from RIM's network operations center (NOC) and that RIM may want to rethink how its consumer-oriented BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) and enterprise-oriented BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) work for BlackBerry e-mail.
BlackBerry users again took to social networking platforms like Twitter to voice their complaints about the service outage which, based on those complaints, appeared to affect BlackBerrys on multiple carriers.
Before last week's outage and this week's disruption, RIM hadn't had a reported wide-scale service outage since February 2008, and that happened during a BlackBerry software upgrade.


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Engine Mechanical problem
1987 Toyota Cressida 6 cyl Two Wheel Drive Automatic 110000 miles
rasmataz, you helped me with my 1987 Cressida a while back before I troubleshot the items you told me to do an found out it was the fuel pump. Well I replaced the fuel pump(inside tank)and also the fuel filter which was clogged real bad. The fuel tank was extremely bad, full of rust, as were the fuel level sending unit, and also the bracket that holds the pump.I got the tank cleaned and sealed at a local shop in Orlando Fl and re-installed it along with the new pump and cleaned the other parts.I then went and put 2.5 gallons of gas in the tank and it finally started but is running very rough, stalls if you don't keep pumping the gas and after performing all the other things thie new problem has me baffled?I tried to think back to make sure I attached all the fuel lines correctly and I am sure or it wouldn't even have started?A friend of mine asked if i've changed the plugs since i've had the car and have run almost you can say varnish for fuel.I Have Not changed the plugs!All I did today was install the tank and put a few gallons of new fuel in it. Ras, I've gotten this far on my own (with the help of 2carpros)and intend to finish that way!For this reason I ask you for new advice on what it may be since the new fuel and fuel pump?Thanks
all stalld out
have the same problem?
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 AT 10:18 PM


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When multiple stores are selected, items shown may not be located at all stores. Select an item to view individual store availability.
Mishka is streetwear that crosses all lifestyles and street cultures. Take a good look at the Mishka clothing brand and you'll find influences from '80's underground punk, indie rock, heavy metal, the skate community, comics, b-movies, horror flicks, and pop culture. (And bears, of course.)
From its humble beginnings as a Brooklyn t-shirt shop in 2003, Mishka has become a powerhouse brand with a cult following - and designs for t-shirts, jackets, outerwear, hats, and bags that are always relevant and hip.