text:
This is the most important book written by man. Until this edition only one copy of the book was in existence. For two hundred years the author's copy was kept at the place where he taught and during that time, regularly, every Thursday night, a small group of the intellectual elite of the city of Fez in Morocco would make their way down to the dyer's quarter to the small zawiyya of the great teacher, gather in a circle and read, examine and apply the method delineated in the hand-written manuscript before them. As of today, that circle still gathers. It is hoped that by publication of this extraordinary work, incomparable in its profundity and clarity, the circle of Fez scholars will be extended and that knowledge may be disseminated through it in this age of intellectual bankruptcy.
It is regrettable that in the present climate of academic 'learning' if one released the text of this masterwork without comment it would simply disappear without a trace, partly because of the vast amount of published literature of utter worthlessness and we refer here to the works published within the academic nexus, not the mountain of popular opiate writings put out in the modern state and partly because that very system of 'learning' is in its structure and method geared to anaesthetise any incoming organism that might threaten its supremacy. All literature published today is obliged, whether the authors know it or not, to be absorbed into a total culture module whose tentacles stretch round the whole world. The Peking Academy, the Russian university system and the Western academic community basically share the same world-view and accept the same central thesis that exalts the continuing tyranny of speculation, (defined as a 'freedom') the myth of research, the cult of system, and the priesthood of the doctorate.
Most important in our approach to this text is an understanding that access to its meanings and therefore its applications are impossible unless the reader is able to understand that he has to circumvent the quite imperialist block that stands in the way of approaching the book's subject matter. This may seem confusing until the reader considers that it is precisely the mystical claim of a methodology that proposes objectivity' as a basis of analysis that stands in the way of permitting this seminal text of a deep knowledge process to transform the reader. The author again and again in the book makes clear that the foundations of knowledge are only accessible to the one who is prepared to undergo a profound existential transformation. The idea of knowledge being an ideational process is not even considered. Men's words are not to be mistaken for men's deeds.
In the present social stasis which precedes the imminent total collapse of modern culture what we have called the imperialist doctrines of scholastic method use quite crude techniques to prevent any breaking out of the so-called scientific ethos. If this book is categorised as religion it would automatically forego its chance to land on the desk of the man who is intellectually seeking to acquire knowledge within the present rigid system. Worse if it is labelled mysticism it would also come under automatic fire as being either irrelevant or decadent. This book is not a religious work, nor is it a mystical work, for the author's evaluation of these, and indeed, of this his own book makes it quite clear that the approach to knowledge involves an operational zone taking in the whole life-pattern of the student. The partitive and divisive thinking of the academics is geared to keep their own quite mystical search for the pure knowledge that they claim they will arrive at in the future as elusive as the moral and just society that they promise the helpless slaves of the industrial prison. Production is the god of these barbarians, and nowhere is it allowed to suggest that the chains of the worker are forged in the factory, that the chains of the society are the linked units of the production process, which the whole so called intellectual community labours to defend.
Let us say it another way. If the creational and knowledge principle outlined so clearly and scientifically in this masterwork were applied it would overthrow the whole monstrous statist system of tyranny that modern man has encased himself in, for in it the freedoms he has been so cunningly taught to desire are chimeric and worthless. Real freedom, as a project, is politically forbidden.
We are saying openly that these men of the Darqawi way of learning are men of freedom. They have mastered themselves, so everyone is free around them. The present society has leaders who are inwardly in chaos so everywhere around them is oppression. The great fear of modern society is not that of the police – it is merely an outward manifestation of the inner fear of the power group who lead society. The leaders of modern society are walking demonstrations of terror – their own fears, that so fix them in bodily and mental rigidity, crush the other, not only physically but in a restrictive mental atmosphere that has no outcome but violence and death.
The dream-like, trance-like move towards complete stasis in this society, with its compulsive polarisations of desire for security and vulnerability to attack, both on the domestic and the military level, this sickness and its cure are clearly outlined in this book. The means to the dismantling of the suicide pact in which this age seems trapped can be found in these pages. Here is a method, the application of which brings liberation – not, as is clear from the book's central theme, an a-political freedom but a total transformative restoration of man as a human animal who is benign to his own inwardness and to the outwardness of his brothers. He is no danger to society and society cannot endanger him. It is significant that despite the persecution the men of knowledge have been submitted to, the teaching survives, and the teachers survive – they fight, they take to the mountains, they hide in the cities. This is not a poetic statement, it is a historical one.
The author, the Master, Sidi 'Ali al-Jamal, who taught in his small centre in Fez, although he had many people studying under him, in the end passed on the whole of his teaching to only one man. That man was Moulay al-Arabi ad-Darqawi. From him were to come forty great teachers who spread across North Africa and penetrated as far as Malaysia and the islands off East Africa. Now the descendants of that knowledge lineage are to be found in England and America.
The Darqawi men were slaughtered and tortured by the colonial french occupation forces under the fanatical catholic leadership of the governor of Morocco, General Leauty. When the French departed, the modernist and statist elite who took over in the name of national freedom continued the persecution.
These men were a threat because you could not build a consumer-state if there existed men who pointed out that if you were a consumer you would only be consumed. You could not forge a modern production-religion if there were men roaming about free to tell people not only that the happy and just society would not be built after all the misery, murder, and destruction as promised, but in fact that the free society already did exist, had never not existed.
The men of knowledge who have basically followed this way have been all but eliminated in the Communist world, both Russia and China, their works as well as their lives having been wiped out. On the Indian sub-continent these men are almost gone, thanks to the superbly sophisticated ruthlessness of the British and by their slaves, the 'modernists' who followed in their wake and now are the power elite in India and Pakistan. Persia went under at the same time that the Arab states were broken up, the Khalifate of Istanbul was smashed, and the squalid Western-authored rule of Ataturk saw these men hanged in every town and village across Turkey. North Africa and West Africa experienced the same brilliant strategy of military initiative backed by Jesuit research and business interest. In the end the whole Darqawi way and its equivalent lines of knowledge had been annihilated by assassination, denunciation, and a most far-reaching propaganda to devalue the practices and even the epistemology of the different lines of learning.
The learning grid presented in this work seems very far from the violent and barbaric attack that the men of learning had to withstand. It is a cool and ravishingly beautiful method of understanding the self/universe and the therefore the Universal. It is a clear statement of how existence works. Nothing less and nothing more. Once the central grid has been understood, and once the learner has set himself the de-programming course without which none of the book's contents can make sense, then that grid can be applied to any science, for what is valid for the science of knowledge is therefore a paradigm for any knowledge system or science. It is applicable both to molecular biology and economic theory. Already from its nature it is clear that the gross and exclusive divisions of scientism are not possible in real knowledge. For example, it will emerge that there is no such thing as psychology-in-itself nor is there such a thing as astronomy-in-itself. If you wish to understand these areas you must set out the limits of a new science in a dual mirror-construct that is only possible to describe in the current manner of this society as psychology/astronomy. Only we would see and define no difference. The uses to which this METHOD'MANUAL may be put probably will not emerge for some time. It will first have to reach those intellects that have not been totally drugged by the ghastly superficialities that pass for learned dissertation in our society. There is intellectually nothing more depressing than to read or try to read the trivial texts of the linguistic science and the existentially barren texts of the social theorists.
Ibn al-'Arabi has said that if you make a model of the universe you can only make a model of yourself. Though a social theory is veiled in complexity and priestly hermeneutics, yet it can never bring a new society, however alluring, if the theorist himself is a tyrant. I do not mean just a political tyrant, I mean a human tyrant.
Let us try some clear statements arising out of this book. According to the present barbarian culture social reality begins with the group. The private project is denied any reality. If you have a private project, the highest project of course would be knowledge, then you are anti-social and anti-productive. Your quest does not serve the people (i.e. production). Therefore you are not 'the people.' In linguistic terms let us say it again. If the statement has meaning it will be because the sentence structure is meaningful and successfully delineates, by its verbal method and not just by its noun indicators, what is intended in practice. This meaning structure is primary and everything is secunded to it. So vital is the 'content' that the words are its slaves but more important the letters from which the words and the structures are built are considered devoid of meaning. The phonemes are meaningless but the sentence has meaning.
Meaning only emerges with the complexity of the structure- but before the sentence is said does it not already have to be 'lined up' in consciousness? Let us look at it in the biological realm. The creature is simple in structure and capacities within a given environment – semiotically it is a term serving a movable function within a sentence-environment. If the sentence is complexified the term must change by the addition of a prefix or suffix, for example. But its meaning is dependent on that sentence arrangement. It will 'change' as the sentence changes. But the phoneme in this picture cannot understand the sentence – which has not yet been said – or indeed while it is being said. How then can the DNA molecules order a new printout and a new NRA response that will trigger a new protein arrangement? Obversely, the organism does not command the molecules nor the sentence line up the phonemes. If meaning is not already in the phoneme the sequence is incomprehensible. This is true of the sentence, the man, and the organism. It is meaning we are dealing with at every level. The meaning is prior to the phoneme, is in the phoneme, is in the process, is in the new sentence.
We live in an age where the meaning of man itself is in danger, therefore man is in danger, therefore his environment, this Earth is in danger. We live in a society that is determined to destroy man and make him the servant of the lowest aspects of himself, instead of the master of the highest aspects of himself. In the recognition that this nadir point of human worth is taking us to the time when man will be restored in his splendour as a locus of knowledge we have published this magisterial work. Of its nature it cannot be studied in a university or classroom. It can only be applied in the circle of men who follow this method of the transformation of the self that is the ancient knowledge way that the anthropologists had been employed to cover over.
In this time, if men want to know, they must set out in search of men who live to know, and who have freed themselves from the crushing a-culturisation process that makes the products of our universities such zombie-like historical products. Such men are not part of the problem nor are they part of the solution.
For it is the current dialectic that is the tyranny of modern society. It is the method itself of this culture that is its madness. Here is another way, and in it man is not endangered – he is liberated and that means life for all those around him. Just as knowledge is not to be found in either social upheaval or in stasis, just as it is not to be found either in esotericism and experimental groups or in power structures, so the seeker must break out of his cultural mould and recognise that knowledge is the property of the poor. If poverty were eliminated, knowledge would be eliminated. It is the only clue we can leave in writing. The way of poverty is the way of knowledge. We write it on the cave wall. We write it on your heart.
From the poor slave,
the helpless, the needy,
'Abd al-Qadir as-Sufi.


text:
Apple Store Refuses To Sell To American Citizens Speaking Farsi In Case They Might Send iPhone To Iran
from the policy-is-policy dept
Jafarzadeh, who is from Virginia, said no one asked him where the phone was going. The employee only questioned his ethnicity.It certainly sounds like Apple might want to train some of its employees a bit better in understanding what "export" means. And maybe Apple employees should also be made aware of the fact that American citizens can speak Farsi.
"I feel like this is a bit of racial profiling against Iranians and I'm appalled," Jafarzadeh said.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
People at Savannah: Maxin B. John Resume & Skills
Follows Resume & Skills of Maxin B. John <maxinbjohn>.
Maxin B. John
Nearly 2 years of academic experience in Linux Device Driver development, Real Time Linux (RTAI) programming and System Interfacing.
Nearly 3 year experience in Linux System side Programming and Enterprise level Application programming .
Diploma in Computer Applications
LBS Center for Science and Technologies, Kollam, 2000
Bachelor of Science (Physics)
Kerala University, Thiruvanathapuram, 2001
Master of Computer Applications
Calicut University, Kozhikode, 2005
C, J2EE, Python, ARM Assembly
Scripting Languages
Shell Programming(Bash)
Web Design Technologies
HTML, CGI, JSP, JavaScript, Ajax, EJB, Struts, Servlets
PostgreSQL, Oracle 10g
Operating Systems
Linux, Free BSD , Open Solaris
IBM Websphere MQ
Work Experience
Description : The Odyssey project deals with the BSP and embedded client software development of the dual ARM Processor based Toshiba G2. The Development board contains Cirrus Logic's EP9301 (ARM 920T) based Baseband Side for Basic Mobile functioning and Toshiba's G2 (ARM1176JZF-S) based G2 side for execution of games.
Responsibility: BSP Development,Cross Tool chain development. Console device driver development
Technology Used:C, Arm Assembly, Bash , GDB, Subversion
Operating system: Linux
Duration: 6 Months
Description : The HCL NAS project will allow the administration of a storage server through a web interface and allow the users to manage their quotas and shares. It will be distributed as an installable Linux distribution .The anaconda program was customized to suit the special requirements of HCL NAS.
Responsibility: Development
Technology Used: Python , PHP, Bash
Operating system: Linux
Duration: 3 months
HCL Multi Terminal PC
Description : The HCL Multi Terminal PC will allow multiple independent local X users in a system. Using this, a single PC can be used as multiple independent PCs and different users can perform different tasks in different consoles.
Responsibility : Development
Technology Used : C, Bash, GDB, Subversion
Operating System : Linux
Duration : 6 Months
Limp Linux booting from USB
Description : The Limp Linux is a Multimedia rich Linux distribution. The Limp Linux distribution has been modified to boot from a USB stick using syslinux. Also published a guide at the Limp Linux website (http://limp-vkk-ver1.sourceforge.net/files-readme/Linux%20Install%20guide.html).
Responsibility : Implementation
Technology Used: Bash , syslinux
Operating System : Linux
Duration : 1 Month
Description : Physics With Home Made Equipments and Innovative experiments is a project by Nuclear Science Centre, New Delhi, to computerize the experiments in Physics Lab for both College and School level. The Live CD Linux Distribution will enable the students to run the experiments with Phoenix hardware without the hassle of installing Linux into the computers.
Responsibility : Development of Live Linux Distribution
Technology Used : Python , Bash
Operating system: Linux
Duration: 2 month
Academic Projects:
Linux Device driver for Parallel port Speaker
Description : The objective of the project was to create a device driver which can simulate the /dev/dsp using the parallel port of the PC. This device driver can be used to play music even if the PC does not have Sound card. The System speaker will simulate the /dev/dsp using the 8253 timer chip present in the computer.
Responsibility: Design and Development
Software used: C, Bash
Operating System : Linux
Duration: 6 months
Diploma in Computer Applications
Procurement Management System
Descripion : An academic project aimed for helping shop keepers to effieciently manage their Procurements . The GUI was created using PyGTK and the backend was in Postgre SQL
Responsibility: Design & Implementation
Technology Used: PyGTK, Postgre SQL
Operating system: Linux
Duration: 4 months
Bachelor of Science (Physics)
Controlling XMMS using Remote Control
Description : This objective of the project was to control the popular Media Player Application in Linux (XMMS) using an ordinary TV Remote Control. Linux Infrared Remote Control package was configured to work with a TSOP1738 based receiver which was connected to the serial port of the PC.
Responsibility: Design & Implementation
Technology Used: Lirc, C
Operating system: Linux
Duration: 2 months
Language Capability
English, Malayalam, Hindi
Personal Details
Date of Birth: 01-11-1980
Sex: Male
Marital Status : Unmarried
|Base Knowledge
|< 6 Months
|Good Knowledge
|6 Mo - 2 yr
|6 Mo - 2 yr
|Good Knowledge
|6 Mo - 2 yr
|Base Knowledge
|6 Mo - 2 yr
|Good Knowledge
|6 Mo - 2 yr
|2 yr - 5 yr
|2 yr - 5 yr
|2 yr - 5 yr


text:
March 22, 2009
Box Score (vs. Potsdam)
Box Score (vs. Colby)
FORT MYERS, Fla. – The MIT softball team opened up its spring break trip with an impressive 7-2 win over Potsdam State in the opening game at the Gene Cusic Classic in Fort Myers, Fla. Jenny Li's grand slam in the second gave starter Jessica Oleinik all the run support she needed, as Oleinik had a solid day both at the plate and on the mound, going 1-3 with a walk, run and an RBI while tossing four shutout innings. Tech (2-1) also dropped a 7-0 decision to Colby later in the day for its first loss of the season.
Oleinik's sacrifice fly in the first put the Engineers on the board. The sophomore would pitch around a pair of Potsdam hits in the bottom half to preserve the one-run lead. The Cardinal and Grey then exploded for four in the second as a pair of walks and a single set the stage for Li's first career home run.
The Bears had a number of opportunities to score, loading the bases against Oleinik in three straight innings without scoring. In the fourth, Oleinik worked around a passed ball on strike three and another error before getting Heidi Grebinger to strike out looking to end the threat.
Freshman Abby Van Hook finished the game, allowing two runs on four hits over the final three innings to earn her first career save.
In the second game of the day, the MIT offense was stymied by Colby starter Alyssa Crowell, who allowed just six hits and one walk while striking out 10 Engineers for the complete game shutout. Jessica Iacobucci picked up her first collegiate loss just five days after shutting out Simmons in Tech's season opener. Iacobucci allowed seven runs, only four of which were earned, and struck out 11 Mules. The freshman now has 22 strikeouts in the first 14 innings of her young collegiate career.
MIT will play in eight more games while at the Gene Cusic Classic. The Engineers face Potsdam and Oberlin three more times each and take on Colby twice.


text:
Cries of alarm ring out from Italy, Qatar, Great Britain, and France that the NATO allies aren't doing enough to help the Libyan rebels stave off Muammar Qaddafi's troops and mercenaries.
Two thoughts come to mind: First, that's three more countries than usual complaining about NATO's lackluster response to an allied call to arms. Usually, it's the United States yelling at Europeans for not pulling their share of some burden. Second, whichever side of the Atlantic is wagging the finger or mumbling excuses, the question that everyone's tried to brush off the table for the past 20 years remains stubbornly in place: What is NATO for, anyway? Why does it still exist?
Libya marks only the third time in NATO's 62-year history that the alliance members have joined forces in battle. The first two were in Kosovo and Afghanistan. None of the three wars has had anything to do with the reasons for the alliance's creation. Nor has any of the three wars been waged as a unified alliance. In this sense, the strategic incoherence of the Libyan operation, and the frustrations it's unleashed, are nothing new.
All through the Cold War, NATO's purpose was clear: to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down—in other words, to deter a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, to lock the United States into leading the defense against an invasion should it occur, and (through the large U.S. military presence) to pre-empt the resurgence of a mighty Germany in the meantime.
In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended, an existential shiver ran down the collective spine of the trans-Atlantic military establishments. What was the mission of the alliance, of the Western nations' armed forces? Who was the enemy, what was the threat? At the end of that decade, an answer emerged. In the absence of a United Nations resolution (which Russia would surely have vetoed), the member-nations of NATO joined forces to mount an air campaign to defend Kosovo from Serbia's brutal suppression—and ultimately to oust from power the Serbian dictator, Slobodan Milosevic. Neither Kosovo nor Serbia was a member of NATO, whose charter mandated collective defense against an external attack. Still, the crisis was erupting in the heart of Europe, the alliance's "area of operation," and so military action could be justified.
Then, in 2006, NATO took over the command from U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Had NATO led the initial invasion, in 2001-02, it could have invoked Article 5 of the charter, declaring that an attack on one member—in this case, al-Qaida's attack on the United States—was an attack on all. But four-and-a-half years into the war, such a rationale would have seemed lame. No, this was—explicitly—a dramatic expansion in the mission. NATO was now an allied expeditionary force in the global war on terrorism.
In fact, though, this force wasn't exactly a unified alliance. Even in Kosovo, which truly was Europe's war, all of the NATO members had a hand in selecting targets and approving strategy (the campaign was denounced at the time as "war by committee"), but U.S. combat planes did the vast bulk of the fighting. Of the 28,018 bombs and munitions dropped in that 78-day air campaign, 23,315—or 83 percent of them—were American.
Afghanistan, too, has been a predominantly U.S. war. During the last two years of George W. Bush's presidency, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates harangued the Europeans several times to do their part and send more troops. He worried in congressional testimony that NATO was "evolving into a two-tiered alliance, in which you have some allies willing to fight and die to protect people's security and others who are not."
But NATO had always been an unequal alliance, even during the Cold War days, when—by necessity and interest—the United States spent the most money and deployed the majority of troops.
As for the mission in Afghanistan, NATO took command in the summer of 2006 under the assumption that it was mainly a peacekeeping mission. Then, as the troops went into the southern districts, the Taliban came out to fight—it turned out they'd never gone away. Once the member-nations realized this was a war, they declared "caveats" to their commitments: Some would let their troops be stationed in the north but not the south; others would let them fight in the air but not on the ground; others would let them go anywhere but only return fire, not initiate it. Dozens of caveats were declared (some have since been dropped, but the vast majority remain), and the commanders assented because, by this time, the war was seen as a test of NATO's relevance in the post-Cold War world—so it was better to keep all the members happy, in the name of "alliance cohesion," even if it meant a severe compromise to "unity of command."
When Gates took the helm at the Pentagon in 2006, he was properly outraged at the disunity. But, as he soon realized, he had little basis for yelling at the European ministers; they'd never signed up for the obligations that he accused them of shirking.
And now, in a neat twist, the British and French are yelling at us (and others) for doing the same in Libya. The British and French (and others) made clear what they would and would not do while supporting our goals in Afghanistan. Similarly, President Obama made clear what he would and would not do while supporting their goals in Libya.
Obama said he supported the idea that Qaddafi must go. But the U.N. Security Council resolution authorized the use of military force to protect Libyan civilians, and Obama said that, in pursuit of that objective, the U.S. military would provide its "unique capabilities." This meant, in the first few days, slamming Qaddafi's air-defense network with a barrage of cruise missiles—and, since then, falling back in to a support role: providing intelligence, refueling allied airplanes, jamming Qaddafi's communications, and, a few more times, destroying more of his air-defense systems but not so much of his tanks and artillery.
As one senior U.S. military officer put it in a phone conversation today: "Almost every nation in a coalition comes into a conflict with caveats. This is our caveat."
There is admittedly something strange about this. The U.N. resolution is sufficiently broad to allow the United States to do much more. It could even be legitimately invoked to allow the killing of Qaddafi himself—under the guise of destroying a "command-control" target. But Obama has decided that, at least for now, what he's doing—in terms of spending money, diverting already-busy military assets, and risking lives (American and Libyan)—is all he's willing to do, given the political interests at stake and given that other countries, like France and Great Britain, have greater interests and adequate resources to fulfill them.
Again, welcome to coalition warfare.
Can countries like Great Britain, France, and Qatar take the lead in this campaign? Yes. They have the planes, the weapons, and crews trained in the art of using them. Can they take the lead with the same aggressiveness and concentration of force that the United States could? No. They don't have as many of the planes and weapons or the crews with the same degree of experience.
If the allies just can't hack it, they could ask the United States to resume the sort of massive air strikes we mounted in the conflict's first few days. (The planes that would carry out these strikes are standing by on alert.) But, according to Pentagon officials, no such request has been formally made.
Ultimately, the Europeans are sleeping in the beds they made. They've been talking about an independent defense force for a couple decades; the French have been doing so since the mid-1960s, when, under President Charles de Gaulle, they dropped out of NATO's military command and built their own nuclear deterrent, rejecting America's protection. (One of de Gaulle's top generals, Pierre Gallois, famously trained his dog to bark fiercely whenever anyone mentioned "les États-Unis.") Yet they haven't invested the money needed to support their strategic ambitions, knowing they can always fall back on the Americans in a pinch. I don't think this is why Obama is limiting the U.S. mission in Libya, but one effect is that it sends a message: No, you can't, not anymore, not for everything.
Will the European air forces (and the Arabs' too) take up the slack? That may be decided this week at the ministers' meetings in Qatar.
A bigger question is the one we started out with: What is NATO for, anyway? Why does it still exist? Is it a mere symbol, a fig leaf of multinational legitimacy that members can don when they take military action for their own interests? (Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that.) Or is it—might it, at some point, actually become—a genuine alliance of near-equals? That answer will be much longer in coming—though the current twists and turns may hasten its maturation or its rupture.


text:
P.O. Drawer 140, 100 Central Circle
Low Moor, VA 24457
Public Notice
Alleghany School Board to Conduct Regular Meeting
The Alleghany County School Board shall conduct its regular meeting at 6:00 p.m. August 21 at its Central Office complex in Low Moor. A copy of the meeting agenda is attached to this notice.
Questions regarding the meeting may be directed to Lorie Bess, Clerk of the Board, at 863-1811.


text:
The Passion of Car Lovers: Atomic Tom rocks the dealership as Dodge rolls into the future
When I first received the schedule of events to give me an idea of what I'd be doing while down in Daytona Beach for the Coke Zero 400, I noticed that the very first item on the agenda was a concert by Atomic Tom. As a music buff, my first reaction was always going to be excitement, but my second reaction was concern over why the name "Atomic Tom" didn't mean anything to me. I thought, "Geez, I know I'm a full-time TV critic these days, but am I really that far out of touch with the current music scene?" I absolutely am, of course, but in this case, I felt slightly less out of the loop to learn that Atomic Tom are currently still sitting on the precipice of major success, as their debut album for Universal / Republic won't be out 'til later this year. When that happens, however, I'd say the odds are pretty decent that they could find themselves as big as The Killers or The Bravery…and if that should come to pass, no one would be more thrilled about it than Dodge, who have teamed up with Atomic Tom as part of a new promotion aligning people's passion for cars with their passion for music.
When I arrived at the Dodge dealership in Daytona for Atomic Tom's performance, it was suggested that I might want to sit down with the guys in the band for a chat, and since even with my current TV vs. music handicap, I still know wayyyyyyy more about music than I do about cars, I didn't hesitate for a moment to break out my recorder. The only problem…? I was just off my flight and hadn't had much of a chance to do my usual pre-interview research. As such, I tried to break the ice by casually acknowledging my lack of knowledge on the group's back story.
Bullz-Eye: So, first, if you don't mind, you could really save me a bit of time if you'd just go ahead and run through the complete history of the band… (Laughs)
Tobias Smith: Well, wait, who are you? (Laughs)
BE: Oh, I'm just this guy, you know?
TS: (Laughs) You're a live blogger, is that right?
BE: Oh, God, no. I'm not that fast. (Laughs) I'm a writer and editor for a web magazine called Bullz-Eye.com.
TS: Where are you based?
BE: Norfolk, VA. Virginia Beach, that whole area.
Luke White: I'm from Virginia. A little north of you, though. Manassas.
Eric Espiritus: I'm from Fairfax, actually.
BE: Nice. Well, I was born at Norfolk General, and I never really left.
TS: Well, you're here now! (Laughs) So what's the site like? Do you talk a lot about music?
BE: It's pop culture, across the board. It's a guy's site, really. It started mostly as an excuse to put up bikini girls and sports scores, but it's evolved quite a bit. Don't worry, though: there's still a lot of bikini girls. No nudity, though.
TS: Well, that's good, because we're a family… (Hesitates) We're not really a family band, are we? But we don't have any swearing in our music, though.
Philip Galitzine: No, we haven't gotten there yet.
LW: Maybe on the second or third record we'll get around the putting the parental advisory sticker on there.
BE: Maybe during your rebellious period.
TS: Exactly! We'll also put out a Christian album to come back from that.
LW: Then the folk/acoustic record.
TS: Sure, but not until long after the greatest-hits album…which, by the way, will be our second album. (Laughs)
LW: You do know he's recording all of this, right?
TS: (Spots the recorder on the table) Oh, God, you're already recording? Well, then, look, let me just say this right now: we are a very serious band, and we do not joke around.
(Predictably, the entire band bursts into laughter at this comment.)
You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook for content updates. Also, sign up for our email list for weekly updates and check us out on Google+ as well.


text:
Rumors about Google Drive have been circulating for a long, long time. But now Reuters is reporting that Drive will launch today, and also offer users up to 100 GB of online storage—for a fee.
Their report, tapping a "source familiar with the matter", suggests that while 5 GB of storage will be free, users will be able to pay for up to 100 GB worth of Google-based storage. As well as hosting the data, we can expect some advanced search tools to complement the storage.
As for a release today, it seems likely. Engadget reports—and I can confirm—that the Google Docs storage quota has been bumped up to 5 GB, which suggests a Drive launch is imminent. [Reuters and Engadget]


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Eliza Dushku Guest Stars on "The Big Bang Theory" Tonight
Yet another reasons for lesbians to tune into the geektastic series. Plus a gallery of our favorite lesbolicous "Big Bang" guest spots.
Someone over in production for The Big Bang Theory sure knows how to make lezzies tune in. First it was Sara Gilbert as dreamy geekster Leslie Winkle, then Katee Sackhoff as reprising her oh so dreamy role of Starbuck and now Eliza Dushku makes her guest appearance on The Big Bang Theory tonight as an F.B.I. agent. Eliza Dushku with handcuffs? Sign us up! Plus, cutie pie Kaley Cuoco returns tonight after having to take a break from taping following a heinous leg injury (watch her tell the story on Ellen here).
But these aren't the only lovely ladies we love that have made thier way onto the show so we decided with Dushku's appearance tonight its a perfect excuse to check out all the lesbolicious guest stars who've appeared on the series—along with a sneak peek at Dushku's appearance tonight.


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< Features
- 1 Allow "Windows-style" copy & paste that just works! (By default.)
- 1.1 Summary
- 1.2 Owner
- 1.3 Current status
- 1.4 Detailed Description
- 1.5 Benefit to Fedora
- 1.6 Scope
- 1.7 Test Plan
- 1.8 User Experience
- 1.9 Dependencies
- 1.10 Contingency Plan
- 1.11 Documentation
- 1.12 Release Notes
Allow "Windows-style" copy & paste that just works! (By default.)
Add Parcellite to the default installation and session for Fedora, using the new daemon mode option ( 'parcellite --daemon' ).
- Name: Nate Martin
- email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 13
- Last updated: 2009-11-22
- Percentage of completion: 0%
Detailed Description
Taken from Parcellite About page
Parcellite is a lightweight GTK+ clipboard manager. This is a stripped down, basic-features-only clipboard manager with a small memory footprint for those who like simplicity.
- Keeps a clipboard history.
- Various view options to display items the way you like it.
- Daemon mode; guard your clipboard contents when you close applications.
- Global hotkeys to display your items quickly.
- Perform custom commands using clipboard contents.
The Daemon Mode
Runs completely in the background and is transparent to the end-user. When an application is closed (in a current default installation of Fedora), the contents of the clipboard (if copied from the just-closed window) are generally lost. This is a source of frustration for many users – especially those who are in transition from Windows to Linux. The daemon mode option of Parcellite allows the user to paste previously-copied text into another application after the first application (the one from which the text originated) is closed. This is the behavior that many Windows users have come to expect. The result can be achieved without adding unnecessarily to user-visible configuration or interface clutter commonly associated with full-featured clipboards. There is no need for added complexity, point-and-click interaction, or clipboard-specific key combinations – the user need only press the familiar 'Ctrl-V' sequence.
Benefit to Fedora
- Reduces chance for losing work or information.
- Lessons barrier to Linux adoption.
- Scores user-friendliness points.
- Makes Fedora more attractive compared with other distributions.
- Requires including Parcellite in the default installation (non-upgrade).
- Requires adding Parcellite to the default (non-upgrade) session ( 'parcellite --daemon' ).
Test Plan
- Quality Assurance – make sure it works for "everyone."
User Experience
- Open Application-A
- Select text
- Press 'Ctrl-C'
- Close Application-A
- Open Application-B
- Press 'Ctrl-V'
- "Hey! It works!"
- Parcellite is already available in the Fedora repositories.
Contingency Plan
- Hold off implementation – do not add to default (non-upgrade) installation and session.


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Glory to art?
An underwhelming performance of Scriabin's First Symphony leaves Nick Shave pondering some unanswerable questions
As attempts to propel human consciousness towards divinity go, Scriabin's First Symphony surely has to be one of his most extravagant.
Completed in 1900, its six sprawling movements require large orchestra, tenor and mezzo-soprano soloists, as well as a huge choir of around 175 singers called upon to sing only five words – 'Glory to art, forever glory' – towards the end.
While Scriabin's finale (paying homage to Bach, but could he not have mustered a more engaging fugal subject for his transcendental lift-off?) left me feeling more indifferent than uplifted, I found little to criticise in the LSO's playing under Valery Gergiev.
The strings produced that satisfying blend of weight and transparency, but perhaps we could have heard more vibrancy in Scriabin's colours from time to time: his yearning melodies ebbed and flowed pleasantly, but rarely stirringly, under Gergiev's fluttering fingers.
Soloists Nadezhda Serdiuk and Sergei Skorokhodov merited attention momentarily, but not long enough to rescue me from a Scriabin-induced reverie which had my mind drifting towards unanswerable questions… If the ticket tout outside is selling £26-seats for £20 each, how does he make his money? Will promming always be such a white middle-class pastime? Is that smell TCP or a cough drop? It was akin, I imagine, to watching Gone with the Wind on an iPod – epic but just a little bit inconsequential.
After the interval, Stravinsky's showpiece – The Firebird (not the suite, but the ballet version in two scenes) – brought a real lift to the proceedings, its sparkling colours and sense of play reminding us of just what brilliance Gergiev and the LSO are capable of.
Prom 41: Scriabin: Symphony No. 1; Stravinsky: The Firebird
London Symphony Orchestra/Valery Gergiev
Nick Shave is a freelance music writer, critic, and contributing editor to BBC Music Magazine. He has spent many happy summers reviewing the Proms, but is still prone to a loss of bearings when choosing the quickest way round the Royal Albert Hall.
Related links:
Proms Diary: The joy of Bach
Proms Diary: Unsettling soundscapes
- Article Type: | Blog |


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Bhubaneswar: Flash floods triggered by heavy rain over the past four days have killed two people in Odisha, and left about 1,000 people displaced, an official said on Thursday.
The northern parts of the state received heavy rainfall, and the major rivers in the region, including the Budhabalanga, Subarnarekha and Baitarani, were in flood, the official said.
Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Keonjhar, Bhadrak and Jajpur districts received incessant rain but Mayurbhanj and Balasore took the brunt of the floods, a senior official in the office of the states` special relief commissioner told a news agency.
More than 150 villages in the two worst-hit districts were affected, the official said.
Two people died in Mayurbhanj district on Wednesday, in separate incidents, after they tried to cross local rivers.
Nearly 1,000 people, evacuated from their homes after flood waters entered their villages, were being sheltered in nearby schools, the official said.
The state government has alerted the local administration of all the affected five districts, as more rain is expected in the next two days.
District collectors have been directed to take suitable measures. "They have been asked to evacuate people from low-lying areas, if necessary," the official said.


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Bishop-designate William Crean, appointed on Nov. 24 to Ireland's Diocese of Cloyne, vowed he would make a priority of healing the pain caused by the sexual abuse scandal. Speaking at St. Colman's Cathedral in Cobh, County Cork, he said he had mixed feelings about his appointment. "I am apprehensive because I am deeply conscious of the trauma of these years past—so much suffering endured by young people at the hands of a few—sufferings compounded by the failure of those who didn't believe them and those who didn't hear their cry for help," he said. "I commit myself to do all that I can with others in the diocese to continue to bring healing and new hope to the lives of all victims of abuse and their families," he said. Cloyne has been without a bishop since Bishop John Magee, a former secretary to three popes, resigned in 2010. A government inquiry had reported that Bishop Magee covered up allegations of abuse against priests in his diocese.
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.


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Coming October 10-12th 2008, Central CA Paranormal Investigators (CCPI) is sponsoring the very first Paranormal Seminar for the San Joaquin Valley. In what promises to be an informative and exciting weekend, CCPI wishes to invite you to the historic Sierra Sky Ranch in Oakhurst, CA to meet and listen to the experts who research and investigate paranormal phenomena.
Our main focus for this seminar is continuing education for those who are interested in learning more and/or now pursue investigating paranormal phenomena as it relates to ghosts and hauntings. With that goal we hope our speakers will enlighten and motivate all our attendees.
In addition to the great speakers lined up for the Saturday seminar, there will be a Séance on Friday & Saturday nights; Q&A session with the Speakers on Sunday morning; two investigation sites to choose from on Friday and Saturday nights; the Speakers Lounge; Vendors arena and an opportunity to meet and network with other local ghost hunters and paranormal meet-up groups.
We are confirming additional events for the weekend so check back often at www.ccpifresno.org and click on the 2008 Paranormal Seminar to see what and/or who has been added to the itinerary.
2008 Valley Paranormal Seminar, 10 - 12-Oct
Started by carlotta , Aug 18 2008 03:57 AM
No replies to this topic
Posted 18 August 2008 - 03:57 AM
Who owns the land? Only the land knows. We mortals are passersby, and our lives are but a brief moment in the great span of time and space. We are born, we live out our lives, and most of us do the best we can with it, but the wind is forever, and the rivers flow forever to the sea, and all the seasons of the weathers will come and go after we are gone. But the Earth endures, the Earth is eternal" - Earl Hamner
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by Barbara Sherf
Springfield Township resident Devinder Singh Taheem, who owned and operated Palace of Asia in Fort Washington from 1999 to 2006 before selling the eatery, is back in the area with the BYOB, Aman's Authentic Indian Cuisine, in East Norriton, about 10 minutes from Chestnut Hill.
Located in the North Towne Plaza at DeKalb and Germantown Pikes (2680 DeKalb Pike), the 80-seat restaurant opened in March and has expanded this month into space next door, offering a full-service banquet facility to host private parties of up to 100 diners.
While my husband and I enjoyed a meal in a comfortable booth, owner Devinder, 65, was joined by his son, Amandeep Singh Taheem, 31, who serves as general manager, waiter, phone attendant and marketing guru for the family-run establishment. Devinder's wife, Usha Rani Taheem, and son-in-law, Satwant Singh, round out the core team. While the couple also have three daughters, none is involved in the day-to-day operations. (Interestingly, all Indian men in the Sikh religion take the last name Singh, which means "lion." Sikhism is a religion founded about 1500 in the Punjab region of India which is characterized by its worship of one deity and its allegiance to sacred scriptures, among other beliefs.)
While the father and son team had been looking at opening a restaurant in Chestnut Hill, they could not find a location that worked. When an Indian restaurant named Aman's became available in Montgomery County, they jumped at the opportunity.
"It is ironic that the name is a shortened version of my name, so perhaps it was meant to be," said Aman, as he delivered a fried eggplant appetizer with zesty tamarind sauce, chicken tikka masala, tandoori chicken, basmati rice, garlic Naan and Indian-style ice cream on a recent visit.
Aman, who studied filmmaking at Montgomery County Community College, plans to have Bollywood movie nights in the new facility next door. Devinder (or Dev) is looking more toward small weddings and special occasions to sustain the catering arm of the business.
Dev served as an Italian foods chef in Toronto after migrating from Punjab in 1992. After selling Palace of Asia, he continued catering with his family until 2008, when he opened Sultan Indian Cuisine in North Wales, which he sold in 2011.
Aman's executive chef, Nirmal Toora, a former chef at Palace of Asia, also hails from Punjab, a province in northwestern India noted for its fertile land and spices.
"Some Americans are fearful of the spiciness of some Indian food," said Satwant, "but my experience has been that once Americans try it, they love it and can't wait to have it again. And, of course, we can adjust the spiciness in any dish according to a customer's taste."
The restaurant hosts a lunch buffet of more than three dozen items for $12 and a Sunday brunch from noon to 3. There is no dinner buffet, but there is a vast array of items to choose from off the menu. "This is the food that we ourselves eat and that we are proud to serve our guests," Aman said while noting that there are plenty of vegetarian selections.
Since every region of India brings its own distinctive dishes and subtle variations of popular dishes, fragrant, pungent spices must be delicately blended in specific proportions to create the dishes. The blending and preparation of spices is a centuries-old craft that is indispensable to fine Indian cuisine.
And there are not many finer things under heaven than fresh Indian breads baked in a clay oven. They are as velvety and flavorful as the law allows, and they are not merely a palate cleanser but also canvases on which to paint a palette of condiments such as the sweet tamarind sauce or the mint sauce. This is like hosting a party in your mouth.
Diner Peter Clark traveled from Bala Cynwyd upon a recommendation from a former student of his at St. Joseph's University. "It was excellent," he said. "Very tasty, and the waiter (Aman) was able to recommend dishes with just the right spice." His dining companion, Ken Thomas, of Blue Bell, spoke of the "lovely colors and light touch to the dishes."
The restaurant received a favorable Zagat's review for 2013 that sums up the experience succinctly: "Addictive naan and a bargain buffet that never disappoints make this suburban Indian in Norristown popular among locals; welcoming staffers keep things friendly without being overbearing … P.S. no alcohol served."
If you go on yelp.com, the most frequently used restaurant rating website, you will find 73 reviews of Aman as of last Friday. The average of all 73 is four stars out of five. A typical recent review — from Sunkite S., of Norristown — said: "Amazing food and super tasty. I went there to have lunch not expecting anything out of the norm. However, I was impressed with their service (Happy was our server) and dish selection. For a buffet I must say that it is top notch. Price is decent, and the atmosphere is very casual."
To get to Aman, go up Germantown Pike to Route 202. Make a left, and then at the second traffic light make another left. The restaurant is in a strip of shops between a Sears outlet and Big Lots (closer to Sears). For more information, call 610-277-5565 or go to www.amansauthentic.com.


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|East Central Judicial District,
Judgeship No. 1
Cass County Courthouse
P.O. Box 2806
Fargo, ND 58108-2806
Cases reviewed
Lawyer record
Born in 1948. B.A., M.A., University of North Dakota. J.D., University of North Dakota School of Law, 1975. Juvenile Supervisor 1975; Fargo Police Department Legal Advisor 1976; Cass County State's Attorney's Office 1976-81; Magistrate Cass County Court 1982; Cass County Court Judge 1983-88. Appointed District Judge 1988 by Governor George A. Sinner, she was the first woman to become a district judge in North Dakota. Elected District Judge in 1988, 1990, 1996, and 2002. Retired Dec. 31, 2008. Married: Husband, Mark Seeger. Two children.
Biographical Sketches of the North Dakota District Court Judges


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Last year, a buddy of mine (guy named Opey) inherited a large sum of money when his father passed away after a long battle with cancer. Being that he and his dad always used to go fishing when he was younger, and that his dad's old fishing boat had seen better days, he decided to go out and buy himself a boat. Not just some old bass boat, a big pontoon thing, one of those party barges.
He went down to the marina and picked out the perfect boat, paid the guy, and drove it back across the lake to his place.
At this point, Independence Day was coming up in about two weeks. Opey has always been a patriotic guy, supporting the US military and loving his country, decided to name his boat "The Fourth".
Cheesy, yes.
It's been a tradition for years now that our group goes out to the lake to celebrate the 4th of July, fireworks and grilling and bbq and such, and Opey invited us all to come out and enjoy his new boat with him, and spend the day on the water.
He called me, his cousin Opey (yes, there are two of them, #1 the original and #2 his cousin), and my brother Luke, to come out early and help him get everything set up.
Now, my brother enjoys his liquor, and by the time we have half the supplies on the boat, he's already a few beers in.
About the time Luke goes to step off the boat, the boat shifts in the water from the wake from another passing boat, making him lose his balance. As he started to fall face first onto the dock, Opey's cousin reaches out and grabs him by the back of his shirt, and pulls him back onto the boat, saving him from a terribly hilarious fall.
The moral of the story?
Opey 1's kin Opey saved Luke from falling to the dock side of The Fourth.


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Democratic and Republican leaders in the Maine House made an interesting dual appearance on television station WCSH (Channel 6) on Friday, and each took some heat from the other side afterward.
Foreshadowing potential divides in upcoming negotiations, House Minority Leader Kenneth Fredette, R-Newport, said, "There's going to be a real battle on this biennial budget and, quite frankly, a government shutdown is something that's a possibility."
Maine had its last government shutdown in 1991, when lawmakers couldn't pass a budget and state workers were shut out.
To Fredette's point, House Majority Leader Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, said the remark was "really an attempt to pull Augusta towards Washington, D.C." in tone.
Earlier in the appearance, Speaker of the House Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, didn't say whether he'd want to keep information on gun permits confidential or not. The issue arose after an uproar by gun-rights advocates on Valentine's Day, responding to the news that the Bangor Daily News had requested then-publicly available names, addresses and dates of birth on Maine gun permits.
Days later, the Legislature passed a bill making the list temporarily confidential while a permanent bill is considered. Fredette said the information shouldn't be public.
Afterward on Twitter, Jason Savage, executive director of the Maine Republican Party, wrote that Eves "refuses to say that personal info of concealed carry permit holders should be kept private permanently."
A new blog, "The Cutler Flies," posted its first entry Friday.
"Flies" isn't a typo: it's a reference to "The Cutler Files," an anonymous blog that started in 2010 featuring opposition research on Eliot Cutler, then an independent candidate for governor. He's filed paperwork to raise money for a 2014 run.
Dennis Bailey, a Portland-based media relations consultant, was found to be behind that blog, and the Maine Ethics Commission later fined him $200 for not identifying himself.
The new, anonymous blog's first posting is hard on Bailey, saying the first site "was a bit of opposition research gone horribly, horribly wrong."
"This time, it gets done RIGHT," the post concludes.
Bailey said Friday that he's not behind the site, but he saw it for the first time that day and he's not surprised that someone may examine Cutler's past again.
"It never really got the attention it deserved. It all became a cat-and-mouse game," Bailey said. "We still don't know who Eliot Cutler is."
Meanwhile, Ted O'Meara, a spokesman for Cutler, said he saw it Friday as well and didn't know what to make of it.
"I'm sure there are people ready to start in again with the negativity and distortion," O'Meara said. "I guess it comes with the territory these days."
And while we're talking 2014, Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and a national election expert, dubbed Gov. Paul LePage one of four current governors who are a "red alert" for re-election, and called the race a "toss-up."
As he foreshadowed on his blog, Sabato's Crystal Ball, the central question of the race (until the answer is known) will be what Democrats decide to do.
"Should one of their top contenders, such as Reps. Chellie Pingree or Mike Michaud or ex-Gov. John Baldacci, jump in the race?" he wrote. "Or should they essentially just step aside for Cutler and nominate a token challenger, much like they did in the 2012 Senate race, when independent, now-Sen. Angus King was the de facto Democratic nominee?"
Lance Dutson, the former insurgent-style blogger who became one of the state's top Republican operatives, has launched a new political consulting firm in Portland.
Dutson, along with Mike Leavitt, the former chief of staff for the Republican National Committee, now head up Red Hill Strategies and Cyber Policy, a partner organization focusing on the digital delivery of policy briefs from advocacy groups to state lawmakers.
Dutson most recently worked as the campaign manager for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Charlie Summers, who finished second to King. Before that he was chief executive officer for the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a conservative advocacy group. He also served as communications director for former House Speaker Rep. Robert Nutting, R-Oakland, and was a spokesman for the Maine Republican Party.
Leavitt began his political career with former U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. He later became the deputy national political director for the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
Leavitt is a graduate of the University of Maine. He earned his MBA at Husson College in Bangor.
There's lots of speculation about which Democrat will run for governor in 2014. Michaud is often discussed and a recent poll indicated that he's the Democrats' best chance to beat LePage.
Michaud has indicated only that he's thinking about running.
If Michaud runs for governor, state Sen. Emily Cain, D-Orono, said Wednesday that she'd consider entering the race for 2nd Congressional District. If that happens, it would be the second time that Cain runs for the seat.
Cain ran for the job for about 72 hours in 2012 during the mad scramble that followed Snowe's decision not to seek re-election.
Steve Mistler can be reached at 620-7016 or at:
On Twitter: @stevemistler
Michael Shepherd can be reached at 370-7652 or at:
Local & State
Sea level rise hurting Maine real estate values, study finds
Maine home sales, prices hit record highs in 2018
Local & State
Gov. Mills pledges to be 'backstop' against federal efforts to restrict abortion
Nation & World
Rep. Jared Golden vows fight to accept transgender military personnel
Lithgow library to host an Open Mic Night Feb. 4


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Amanda Bynes Poses in Bra, Wants to Lose 35 Pounds
Amanda Bynes shows off her flat tummy while posing in a bra for a picture she posted on Twitter!
"About to put on makeup! I weigh 135, I've gained weight! I need to be 100 lbs!" the 27-year-old actress tweeted. We think you look great, Amanda!
PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Amanda Bynes
Amanda added another pic and wrote, "One more pre make up!"
In case you missed it, check out more pictures and a video of Amanda flaunting her new buzz hair cut.
WHAT DO YOU THINK of Amanda Bynes' goal to lose 35 pounds?


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Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has waged a long, misguided effort to withhold information about his department's cooperation with immigration officials and the demographics of his jails. His justification for refusing to release the material in response to a request under the California Public Records Act comes down to this: A federal contract preempts any state law requiring disclosure.
He's wrong. The sheriff should hand over the data.
Baca entered into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to check on the immigration status of jail inmates. But that's a contract, not a free pass that allows him to ignore state laws. Baca knows this because a state judge said as much last year when he rebuffed the department's request to toss out a lawsuit brought by immigration advocates, noting that Baca failed to identify any reason or exemption that shields him from his obligations under the law.
The National Immigration Law Center and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which filed the lawsuit to obtain the information, are trying to determine how many illegal immigrants were held in the county jails between 2004 and 2011, for what reason and for what length of time. Releasing that information would pose no threat to public safety and intrude on no legitimate privacy interests.


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TSA Freaks Out, Gets Longtime Critic Bruce Schneier Kicked Off Of Oversight Hearing
from the congressional-security-theater dept
On Friday, at the request of the TSA, I was removed from the witness list. The excuse was that I am involved in a lawsuit against the TSA, trying to get them to suspend their full-body scanner program. But it's pretty clear that the TSA is afraid of public testimony on the topic, and especially of being challenged in front of Congress. They want to control the story, and it's easier for them to do that if I'm not sitting next to them pointing out all the holes in their position. Unfortunately, the committee went along with them.As Tim Lee notes in reporting on this story, the TSA has done similar things in the past, and even been rebuked by Rep. Jason Chaffetz -- and yet it had no problem doing it again. The fact that Schneier is a part of that lawsuit is meaningless and shouldn't stop him from testifying at all. Schneier is a clear thorn in the side of the TSA, and if it's so afraid of having him speak to Congress, that really says a lot about the (lack of) confidence it has in its own arguments. If you can't stand to let a critic speak, it suggests that perhaps your own argument isn't very strong.


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Cambridge, Mass. – The fifth ranked MIT men's swimming team coasted to a victory on Saturday in their last home meet of the season. The Tufts University Jumbos were no match for the Engineers, who celebrated Senior Day with a 200-98 victory.
MIT's A-relay team of Brett Boval, Colby Dunn, Michael Liao and Wyatt Ubellacker had no difficulty picking up the victory in the opening event, the 200 yard medley, winning in a time of 1:34.71 over Tufts' top foursome.
Max Pruner and Carlo Biedenharn went 1-2 in the 1650 yard freestyle, with Pruner's winning time at 16:47.10. Tech also took the top three spots in the 200 yard butterfly, led by Toomas Sepp, who made the most of his senior day by winning in 1:56.64. Pruner also won the 500 yard freestyle, in 4:48.48.
Liao won both breaststroke events for the Engineers, taking the 100 yard in 59.05 and the 200 yard event in a time of 2:13.49. Andrew Pierson needed 1:44.72 to win the 200 yard free. Brendan Liu took the 200 yard IM (1:59.95) and 200 yard backstroke (1:55.58) events.
Ubellacker and Dunn battled to the finish in the 50 yard freestyle sprint, with Ubellacker's 21.24 finish one one hundredth of a second quicker than his teammate's. Dunn came back and won the 100 yard free in 46.64, the best of four MIT swimmers to finish before a member of the Jumbos.
Not to be outdone, Ubellacker won the 100 yard fly in 50.5 seconds flat. The two came together again in the final event of the day. Ubellacker and Dunn, joined by Brett Boval and Craig Cheney, won the 200 yard freestyle relay in 1:25.13.
The Engineers will travel to Amherst College for a meet next Saturday with the Lord Jeffs. Tech will take to the pool at 1:00 PM. The Jumbos, after dropping a Sunday dual meet to Boston College, will head into their own Senior Day meet next Saturday against Wheaton.


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I would like to hear about the battle of the light wind performers. The Fly and the Infinity both have great reviews and loyal users, and it looks like they cost about the same.
Has anyone flow both, and how do they compare?


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The Amateur
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Joined: 07 Jul 2007
Posts: 5136
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2012 9:09 am
Post subject: The Amateur
like Bob Seager said " shit I have know that for ten years"
Obomba a failure like Jimmy Carter. - Yesterday, 06:35 PM
What do historians really think of Obama?
By Edward Klein, Edward Klein
Published June 08, 2012
On the evening of Tuesday, June 30, 2009just five months into his administrationBarack Obama invited a small group of presidential historians to dine with him in the Family Quarters of the White House. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, personally delivered the invitations with a word of caution: the meeting was to remain private and off the record. As a result, the media missed the chance to report on an important event, for the evening with the historians provided a remarkable sneak preview of why the Obama presidency would shortly go off the rails.
Today, with Mr. Obama in full campaign mode, that eventas well as two more unreported White House dinners with the historiansis worth examining. Together, they shed light on the reason this president is likely to find it much harder than he expects to connect with the public and win reelection to the White House.
At the time of the first dinner, the new president was still enjoying a honeymoon period with the American people; according to Gallup, 63 percent of Americans approved of the job he was doing. Brimming with self-confidence, Mr. Obama had earlier confided to David Axelrod, his chief political strategist: The weird thing is, I know I can do this job. I like dealing with complicated issues. Im happy to make decisions. I think its going to be an easier adjustment for me than the campaign. Much easier.
That the adjustment from campaigner to chief executive would prove hardermuch harderthan anticipated had still not dawned on Mr. Obama when he sat down to dine with the historians. He was in an expansive mood as he tucked into his lamb chops and went around the table addressing each historian by nameDoris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss, Robert Caro, Robert Dallek, Douglas Brinkley, H. W. Billam Brands, David Kennedy, Kenneth Mack, and Garry Wills.
During the presidential campaign, most of the evenings dinner guests, like their liberal counterparts in the media, had dropped any pretense at objectivity. For instance, Michael Beschloss ('Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989') described Obama as probably the smartest guy ever to become president, which appeared to put Thomas Jefferson in his place.
Judging from Mr. Obamas questions, one subject was uppermost in his mind: how could he become a transformational president and bend the historic trajectory of Americas domestic and foreign policy?
When one of the historians brought up the difficulties that Lyndon Johnson, another wartime president, faced trying to wage a foreign military venture while implementing an ambitious domestic agenda, Mr. Obama grew testy. He implied that he was different, because he could prevail by the force of his personality. He could solve the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, put millions of people back to work, redistribute wealth, withdraw from Iraq, and reconcile the United States to a less dominant role in the world.
It was, by any measure, a breathtaking display of grandiosity by a man whose entire political curriculum vitae consisted of seven undistinguished years in the Illinois senate and two mostly absent years in the United States Senate. That evening Mr. Obama revealed the characteristicsarrogance, conceit, egotism, vanity, hubris and, above all, rank amateurismthat would mark his presidency and doom it to frustration and failure.
These characteristics had already set the pattern of his administration. Mr. Obama personally conducted his own foreign policy more than any president since Richard Nixon. He made all the decisions, because he believed that only he truly understood the issues. He spent his evenings writing decision papers on foreign affairs when, instead, he should have delegated that chore to experts and devoted his time to schmoozing members of Congress and convincing them to support his programs. He still loved making speeches to large, adoring crowds, but he complained to foreign leaders on the QT that he had to waste precious hours talking with Congressmen from Palookaville.
Since the beginning of his administration, Obama hasnt been able to capture the public's imagination and inspire people to follow him. Vision isn't enough in a president.
- Anonymous Historian
The senior people in his administration proved to be just as inexperienced and inept as Mr. Obama when it came to the business of running the government. Members of his inner circleDavid Axelrod, campaign manager David Plouffe, press secretary Robert Gibbs, and éminence grise Valerie Jarretthad proven their mettle in the dark arts of political campaigning, but they had no serious experience in dealing with public-policy issues. If they could be said to have any policy exposure at all it was their ideological enthusiasms for the left.
Over the two-hour dinner, Mr. Obama and the historians discussed several past presidents. It wasnt clear from Mr. Obamas responses which of those presidents he identified with. At one point, he seemed to channel the charismatic John F. Kennedy. At another moment, he extolled the virtues of the transformative Ronald Reagan. Then again, it was the saintly Lincoln or the New Deals Happy Warrior, Franklin Roosevelt .
Mr. Obama told the historians that he had come up with a slogan for his administration. Im thinking of calling it A New Foundation, he said.
Doris Kearns Goodwin suggested that A New Foundation might not be the wisest choice for a motto.
Why not? the president asked.
It sounds, said Goodwin, like a womans girdle.
In the wake of the shellacking the Democrats took in the midterm elections in 2010, Mr. Obama held a second dinner with the historians, which was devoted to the question of how he could reconnect with the public.
A third dinner took place in July 2011, shortly after Mr. Obama and his team botched the budget-deficit negotiations with Congress, and the United States government lost its Triple-A credit rating for the first time in history. It revolved around the theme the challenge of reelection.
That fall, I spoke to one of the historians who attended all three of the dinners. We met in a restaurant where we were unlikely to be seen, and our conversation, which lasted for nearly two hours, was conducted under the condition of anonymity.
I wanted to know how this liberal historian, who had once drunk the Obama Kool-Aid, matched the presidents promise with his performance. By this time, most of Mr. Obamas supporters were puzzled by the sense of disconnect between the sharply focused presidential candidate of 2008 and the dazed and confused president of the past three years. The satirical TV show "The Onion News Network" had broadcast a faux story that the real Barack Obama had been kidnapped just hours after the election and replaced by an imposter.
Theres no doubt that Obama has turned out to be a major enigma and disappointment, the historian told me. He waged such a brilliant campaign, first against Hillary Clinton in the primaries, and then against John McCain in the general election. For a long time, I found it hard to understand why he couldnt translate his political savvy into effective governance.
But I think I know the answer now, he continued. Since the beginning of his administration, Obama hasn't been able to capture the public's imagination and inspire people to follow him. Vision isn't enough in a president. Great presidents not only have to enunciate their vision; they must lead by example and inspiration. Franklin Roosevelt spoke to the individual. He and Ronald Reagan had the ability to make each American feel that the president cared deeply and personally about them.
That quality has been lacking in Obama. People dont feel that hes on their side. Obama doesn't connect. He doesn't have the answers. The irony is that he was supposed to be such a brilliant orator. But, in fact, hes turned out to be a failure as a communicator."
If the verdict of this historian is correct, and Barack Obamas fundamental failure as president is his inability to connect with people, he is in far more serious trouble than most people realize as he seeks a mandate for a second term in office. Or, as this historian put it: I wouldnt bet the ranch on his getting reelected.
"More than that, Obama might not have the place in history he so eagerly covets. Instead of ranking with FDR and Reagan and other giants, it seems more likely that he will be a case-study in presidential failure like Jimmy Carter."
Edward Klein is the former editor in chief of The New York Times Magazine. His latest book is "The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House." (Regnery 2012)
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Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2012 9:40 am
Post subject: Re: The Amateur
mat-ty wrote:
like Bob Seager said " shit I have know that for ten years"
Read more:
Like Bob Seager said, "Shit I have know that for ten years":
'Nuff said.
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Joined: 24 Jun 2002
Posts: 6768
Location: at a computer
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2012 12:00 pm
Post subject:
Thanks for wasting 100 seconds of my life.
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Joined: 07 Jul 2007
Posts: 5136
Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 7:12 am
Post subject:
Edward Klein is the former editor in chief of The New York Times Magazine. His latest book is "The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House." (Regnery 2012) Edward Klein is a seven-time New York Times bestselling non-fiction author. He is also the former foreign editor of Newsweek and former editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine. Klein frequently contributes to Vanity Fair and Parade, and currently lives in New York, New York.
Mr Klein is more than credible.
Maybe someday you can swallow your pride , and acknowledge the obvious. I would be pretty embarrassed if I voted for the most incompetent fool in presidential history, so I understand your defiance.
But I do feel better today, because barry said the economy is doing fine.
What a f@@king moron!!!!!!!!
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Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807
Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 8:14 am
Post subject:
mat-ty wrote:
I would be pretty embarrassed if I voted for the most incompetent fool in presidential history, so I understand your defiance.
You're right. If I had voted for "the most incompetent fool in presidential history," George W. Bush, like you did, then I would be embarrassed.
But I didn't so I'm not.
Very sorry that you have to live with that embarrassment for the rest of your life.
You guys are amazingly entertaining!
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Joined: 15 Jun 1997
Posts: 128
Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 2:30 pm
Post subject:
Excellent, Pueno
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Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598
Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 3:00 pm
Post subject:
I voted for the worst president in American history.
My bad.
I voted against him the second time when it became evident that the damage being done to our country wasnt his direct intent. He was asleep at the wheel and the country was being run directly by the lobbyists army led by Cheney.
Obama is having a slow upward struggle fixing the mess, but at least he keeps out a big part of the lobbyists, a first in American politics, and a few of them went to jail.
The topic is the effect of electing amateurs-The Teas are blocking much of the legislation that could help us,while steadily being bought by the lobbyists like the rest of Congress.
The idea was for them to straighten out the tax code and end earmarks, not cement all the big money tax ripoffs in stone. They chose the easier path.
At one time Teas who inserted earmarks were news but that is now so usual it is not worth reporting.
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Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 11525
Location: Berkeley, California
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:31 pm
Post subject:
How funny that the crowd who favors amateurs from the Tea Party would insist on competence. Not, apparently, in foreign policy in their presidential candidate:
Now that Mitt Romney is certain to be the Republican nominee for president, it's time to examine his foreign-affairs policies and background.
In short, he has no significant foreign policy experience. None at all. And his policy pronouncements have been disturbing.
He called President Barack Obama "naive" for announcing plans to pull troops out of Afghanistan. Well, Romney is the one who is naive, and that's the problem. Given all the dilemmas the U.S. faces worldwide, we don't need another president who figures out what to do through trial and error.
When Obama took office in 2009, he too was quite naive, though he had served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But almost as soon as he took office, Obama made a naive and damaging foreign policy mistake.
He waded into the moribund Middle East peace process and pushed Israel to stop building West Bank settlements. Well, every president since Jimmy Carter has urged Israel to stop building settlements. Every president has failed. Why on earth did Obama believe his demand would be any more effective than others had been at any other time in the past 35 years?
In fact, this time it did even more damage. Right away Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, remarked: "When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped. If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?"
Still, to this very day, Abbas refuses to participate in peace talks as long as Israel continues building and expanding settlements. And just a few days ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened another large expansion of settlements. All of that certainly educated Obama. You may not agree with his foreign policies, but he hasn't made a similarly naive error since.
Enter Mitt Romney, who declared a few weeks ago that "Russia is America's No. 1 geopolitical foe." What nonsense. The U.S.-Russia relationship is a bit strained, but what about Iran, North Korea, Pakistan? Every one of those states poses a strategic threat that Russia does not.
"Immediately, speculations surfaced that the former governor of Massachusetts continues to live in a Cold War world and has few, if any, insights about American foreign policy," Klaus Larres, a German-American academic, wrote for the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies. And outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Romney to use his head and "check the time. It's now 2012, not the mid-1970s."
His advice on Afghanistan has been no better. Repeatedly he has called the plan to gradually withdraw forces "misguided" and "an extraordinary admission of failure."
In the past Romney has asserted that the U.S. and NATO need to defeat the Taliban before leaving. That's been the goal for nearly 11 years, and NATO is no closer today. The most recent National Intelligence Estimate asserts that the war is unwinnable as long as the Taliban maintains a safe haven in Pakistan, and the Afghan government continues its corrupt, malevolent and counterproductive ways.
I wonder if Romney knows that one-third of the Western forces killed in Afghanistan so far this year died at the hands of Afghan soldiers they were training or leading.
In still another display of naiveté, he has repeatedly said he would largely allow military commanders to determine policy toward Afghanistan. Doesn't he know that every military officer is taught from the first day in the service to believe that his mission is achievable, no matter what? Can you imagine a theater commander telling the president: "Sir, I can't achieve my mission. The war cannot be won. It's time to pull out."
Today, Romney is relatively quiet on the subject of Afghanistan, probably realizing that the vast majority of Americans, even most Republicans, want to bring the troops home -- now.
Through the Republican primaries, foreign affairs has not been a significant subject of debate. That's a shame. We face so many dilemmas. Syria, China, Venezuela -- even Israel, where Romney has promised to allow his friend Netanyahu, the most destructive leader Israel has ever had, to make some decisions for him.
Pandering for Jewish and evangelical-Christian votes, Romney said he wouldn't announce Middle East policy before asking Netanyahu: "What would you like me to do?"
Doug Bandow, a former Reagan administration official writing in The American Conservative magazine last month, quoted other conservatives saying President Obama is "strikingly vulnerable" in the foreign-affairs arena. But Bandow added: "So far, Romney is convincing only as a blowhard with a know-nothing foreign policy."
Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former foreign correspondent for the New York Times.
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Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 18765
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 3:53 pm
Post subject:
mat-ty wrote:
Edward Klein is the former editor in chief of The New York Times Magazine. His latest book is "The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House." (Regnery 2012) Edward Klein is a seven-time New York Times bestselling non-fiction author. He is also the former foreign editor of Newsweek and former editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine. Klein frequently contributes to Vanity Fair and Parade, and currently lives in New York, New York. ... more than credible.
Yet in the minds of these brilliant logicians, nothing he states is true simply because it was mentioned on Fox News. If Fox reported that "2 + 2 = 4", they would rewire their calculators to match MSNBC's position that "2 + 2 = Obama".
I never swallow election predictions, especially from anyone with a horse in the race. I am encouraged lately, however, by the number of highly qualified professional pundits from both sides who are trending from "It's too close to call" to "Romney's chances are looking good", to "This is beginning to look like a Romney landslide even if the economy doesn't crash before November".
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Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 5:26 pm
Post subject:
isobars wrote:
If Fox reported that "2 + 2 = 4"........
Except Fox would report that "2 + 2 = 22. Romney prepared a brilliant LBO and Bush set the groundwork for it. But Obama can't guarantee government loans for this, so it's his fault."
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Alison, Liz & Nicole's Shared Space
Like this entry? Favorite it below!
- Name:
- Alison, Liz & Nicole
- Location:
- Chicago, IL
- Square Feet:
- 655
- Division:
- Little
- What I Love About My Small Home:
- Alison: I love that it's cat-friendly. I own one orange tabby and foster two other cats (for Feline Friends Chicago), so they need to be able to exercise their natural instincts. I have a hollow ottoman that they sleep in while I can put my feet up, an awesome floor to ceiling solid wood cat tree, and special shelving in the kitchen that allows them to climb on top of the cabinets. Liz: My favorite space is the kitchen. It has a huge window and gets great light, especially in the morning. I like sitting at our high table and drinking coffee while looking out onto the courtyard below! I also love our chalkboard door in the kitchen. Its fun to change it up and to write messages to each other. I also love our collection of artwork in the apartment. Alison and I are both artists, so we have plenty of our own art and have a small collection from our artist friends. Nicole: My vintage Harry Potter blanket.
- Three of My Best Tips and Tricks for Creating a Successful Small Space::
- 1. The most important thing I've learned from living with two other people in a small apartment is how crucial well placed storage is. LOTS of storage. If we leave stuff out the space immediately feels small and cramped.
2. Trial and error. I re-arranged my bedroom about five times before I was happy with it. I can't even count how many times I've moved artwork around. I painted our kitchen bright aqua ("Mermaid's Tail") when we moved in. Experiment, live in it, and then change things accordingly. I am definitely a slow decorator.
3. Take advantage of vertical space. Chicago apartments tend to have high ceilings, so I fill them up with large scale artwork and shelves for MORE storage!


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