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In 1977, 20th Century Fox spent a lot of money making and promoting Damnation Alley, a post-apocalyptic car-chase thriller that took bits of what was already popular at the drive-in—namely badass motor vehicles and killer animals—and dressed it up with major-studio production values. Fox slated Damnation Alley's release for the fourth quarter of the year, planning to roll it out across the country through the holiday season. Meanwhile, the studio dropped its other 1977 science-fiction film into a pre-Memorial Day release slot, hoping to make a little money before the bigger summer movies steamrolled over it.
That other movie was Star Wars.
The rest, as they say, is history. Star Wars was so successful that it was still playing in some theaters by the time Damnation Alley came out, and it was such a leap ahead in epic fantasy filmmaking that it made Fox's preferred project look dinky. But why did it shake out this way? The studio's executives were smart enough to give Star Wars creator George Lucas the resources and freedom to make his movie the way he wanted, but how did they not understand right away that they'd hit the jackpot?
The answer lies in the random mishmash of fantasy films that came out in the United States between May 1976 and May 1977. It's not like there were no movies that looked like Star Wars in the mid-1970s, or even that that there were no fantasy movies with Lucas's kind of narrative ambition. But nobody had put the pieces together quite like he and his collaborators did. While the "New Hollywood" wave of savvy young filmmakers were reimagining the Western, gangster, action, and horror genres, science-fiction remained largely premise-based, with even the highbrow efforts selling one sharp hook—and one only.
Because distribution models were different then, it's hard to get an exact listing of every movie relevant to this discussion, but generally speaking, they broke down into the following subcategories:
Big ideas
The two most enduring science-fiction films of 1976 arrived stateside almost exactly one year before Star Wars. Director Nicolas Roeg's arty take on Walter Tevis's literary sci-fi novel The Man Who Fell to Earth opened in the U.K. in March, but in New York City on May 28. A month later, MGM's large-scale adaptation of William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson's dystopian novel, Logan's Run, became a sizable hit, ultimately inspiring a spinoff TV series (which debuted in the fall of 1977, after Star Wars had Hollywood scrambling for any sci-fi projects they could rush to market). The Man Who Fell to Earth and Logan's Run are both quasi-allegorical, commenting on contemporary life—the former via the story of an alien, played by David Bowie, who becomes weaker and pettier the longer he interacts with humanity, and the latter by depicting a future world where the younger generation ritually executes anyone who reaches the age of 30.
Visually, Logan's Run has more in common with Star Wars, with its elaborate sets and costumes. The Man Who Fell to Earth is more akin to the trippy, intellectual science-fiction films of Andrei Tarkovsky (whose Solaris, released in 1972, had its first extended run in New York in October 1976). Really, the closest contemporary analogue to Star Wars came from an unlikely source: animator Ralph Bakshi, whose Wizards was set on a future Earth where good and evil magicians are locked in a fierce battle waged both on the ground and in the realm of ideas. From the rich mythology to the family ties, Wizards aspired to Lucas-level world-building. (It even has Mark Hamill, aka Luke Skywalker, voicing a fairy king.)
Big creatures
One of the most expensive movies of 1976—and one of the biggest money-makers—falls into the general order of science-fiction/fantasy. Producer Dino De Laurentiis's remake of King Kong opened just before Christmas and was treated as a major event, central in a mini-wave of movies about oversized beasties wreaking havoc. South Korean producers capitalized on the King Kong hype by quickly making and releasing a competing film called Ape, while 1977 saw limited runs for Tentacles, a quasi-disaster picture about a giant octopus battling with likes of John Huston, Shelley Winters, and Henry Fonda; The Last Dinosaur, in which polar explorers find a preserved, volcano-heated prehistoric world under the ice; Planet of Dinosaurs, where astronauts crash on a primitive Earth-like world; and even the original Japanese Godzilla, colorized and rereleased with an enhanced soundtrack by an Italian entrepreneur.
The dino-strewn "lost world" premise was commonplace in the mid-1970s, as seen in the Sid and Marty Krofft TV series Land of the Lost—which aired between 1974 and 1977—and in the British fantasy-adventure At the Earth's Core, which opened in the U.S. in July 1976. The real inspiration for the "giant killer animal" trend, though, was most likely the 1975 surprise blockbuster Jaws, directed by Lucas's friend Steven Spielberg. Jaws transcended the then-burgeoning eco-horror trend while also offering a kind of "proof of concept," showing that audiences would flock to films where ordinary folks were gobbled up and beaten down by natural forces. Two more such pictures came out in the summer of 1976: a cruddy American International Pictures adaptation of H.G. Wells's The Food of the Gods, written and directed by oversized-monster expert Bert I. Gordon, who played up the big rats and wasps in Wells's story, and Squirm, another AIP production, starring enormous flesh-eating worms.
Robots! Robots! Robots!
Inspired in part by the Japanese subgenre of giant robot movies, the 1976 Korean animated feature Robot Taekwon V is a charmingly chintzy-looking cartoon about a heroic scientist who counters his evil counterpart by pitting his lone super-android against the villain's mechanical army. When the Star Wars robots debuted a year later, they were so charming that they altered the way these kinds of characters were deployed in the years that followed. Pre-1977, robots in 1970s science-fiction movies tended to be personality-free tools of justice or weapons of war. Sometimes they were malicious in another way entirely, as in the 1973 thriller Westworld and its 1976 sequel Futureworld, where advanced animatronic amusement park attractions develop sentience and begin to kill the guests. In that same sinister vein, the big-screen adaptation of Dean Koontz's novel Demon Seed, released in April 1977, stars Julie Christie as a woman who gets impregnated by her estranged husband's supercomputer.
Evil aliens
During the first big science-fiction cinema boom of the 1950s, the movies expressed a common theme: We have enemies, hovering just beyond our atmosphere. That remained a motif well into the mid-1970s, though with new variations. In the 1976 East German space-opera In the Dust of the Stars, human intergalactic travelers get lured to a planet where their deceptively gracious host enslaves his guests. In Track of the Moon Beast, a hunk of lunar rock turns a scientist into some kind of a were-reptile. And in Larry Cohen's bizarre God Told Me To, a cop investigating an inexplicable shooting spree traces its origin back to an alien deity—and discovers he has an unexpected personal connection to whatever the thing may be.
Mythological adventure
Really, only one movie released between May 1976 and May 1977 fits this description: Gulliver's Travels, a partially animated musical version of the Jonathan Swift novel, with Richard Harris in the lead role. But throughout the first half of the '70s, there was a mini-revival of classic fantasy swashbucklers featuring stop-motion animation effects by Ray Harryhausen—a man whose oeuvre had charmed Lucas's generation of filmmakers and inspired a lot of the creative effects work on Star Wars. For those who think of Star Wars as being as much a descendant of mythology and sword-and-sandal movies as it is a scion of the science-fiction lineage, that credit largely goes to Harryhausen projects like 1973's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.
By no means do the above films represent a complete list of every fantasy-skewing genre project released in the year leading up to Star Wars. There were a number of horror movies that danced along the edge of being considered science-fiction, as well as indescribable period artifacts like the softcore porn musical Cinderella 2000 and the whimsical hourlong children's picture The Glitterball (which has a plot much like a proto-E.T., with kids helping an alien get back home). It's also worth remembering what was on TV at the time. Star Trek had been canceled years earlier but was more popular than ever in syndication. The syndicated British series Space: 1999 carried on the Star Trek tradition of brainy space-hopping adventure between 1975 and 1977. The Six Million Dollar Man was hugely popular, especially with younger audiences. And in rock 'n' roll, bands like Yes were marrying complicated song structures to elaborate fantasy imagery.
The point is that the appetite for something like Star Wars was clearly there. But Lucas didn't feed it in any kind of cynical or calculating way. Like his New Hollywood cohorts Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Brian De Palma, Lucas was a film geek who'd internalized the classics of world cinema, developing an innate sense of which artifacts from the past could still impress in the 1970s. Lucas was also a geek-geek who was into pulps and boyish genre pieces. With Star Wars, he made a movie that children loved and that made adults feel like children—without feeling like they were being pandered to or having their intelligence insulted.
The problem for Old Hollywood was that there was no way to create someone like Lucas out of whole cloth. Pre-1977, the industry largely approached science fiction either as brainy art-pieces or as cheap kicks for kids. Star Wars' individual components weren't entirely original, but the assembly was so inspired that once the movie arrived, it was hard to believe that it hadn't already been done. But it took George Lucas to actually do it.
Illustration by J. Longo


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Happy Sunday! I hope you all are raring and ready for the week ahead. I am hoping that we'll start to see the weather warm up a little!
Here are some of my favorite posts this week:
Business credit, a Necessary evil at Wide Open Wallet. Ashley contemplates the use of business credit.
Kacie at Sense to Save asks Should we buy a 'starter house' or just 'one-and-done'? I have mixed feelings on this. I think I'd be happy living in an RV, so I think a small house could suffice. At the same time, I know what it's like to want a newer, nicer house!
Miss M at M is for Money wraps up her series on buying a home. You should definitely check out the whole series!
Glass straws are where it's at over at Green and Crunchy. I am totally wanting some of my own now!
Mrs. Micah has a heart wrenching post up on why she's glad she didn't kill herself.
J Money at Budgets are Sexy has opened up a ROTH IRA! Congrats!
Have a great week, everyone!

subset: commoncrawl


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Randy Thoreson
Randy Thoreson is an Outdoor Recreation Planner with the Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance (RTCA) program of the National Park Service. He is located in St. Paul, Minnesota and works for the Midwest Region of NPS, where he is involved in a number of local, regional and national projects and programs. He is also the National NPS creator and lead on the "Getting Seniors Outdoors" initiative and giving local, regional and national presentations on the subject.
Randy's background is in planning, the environment, and outdoor recreation. In the past, he worked in the Mountain West and Midwest as a Director, Administrator, and Project Manager on a wide variety of projects and programs for local, state and federal government agencies. During his ongoing extensive career, he also owned and operated his own consulting firm and served as a Lead Planner and Project Manager for a large midwest and national Engineering, Architecture and Planning firm,
Immediately prior to joining the RTCA program, Randy was the Coordinator of the Cooperative Management Plan for the NPS, Lower St. Croix National Scenic Riverway. He also was the Basin/Watershed Coordinator of the 7,000+ square mile area of the St. Croix.
Randy has extensive collaborative and partnership experiences in working with communities, interest groups, and citizens engaging worthwhile and innovative public involvement methods and planning processes.
Randy is a 2012 honors graduate of Managing by Network and a Guest Instructor for the Academy. His interests and hobbies include wood carving and whittling, camping in the outdoors (close to rivers and trails, of course) barbershop singing, and classic cars.
Listen to Randy's Spotlight Series Presentation:
Randy Thoreson
Outdoor Recreation Planner
Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program


text: Glen Davis' future with the Boston Celtics is currently in the air. Davis will be an unrestricted free agent when (if) the lockout concludes, and will weigh his options for sure. Yesterday, Big Baby cleared some smoke, stating his goal is to remain a Celtic. Via the Boston Globe: "Davis left soon thereafter, but his appearance could have been a sign that the strong sentiments about leaving Boston that he expressed in May have softened. 'Most definitely, that's my No. 1 priority – see if I can come back here and play,' he said. 'And if I can't, go somewhere else.' His words were tamer than they were in May, when it appeared Davis had grown tired of coach Doc Rivers's treatment. 'I think in a lot of situations you have to air things out,'' said Davis, who because of the NBA lockout cannot have contact with the Celtics front office. 'Especially with a player that's growing. You've got to talk and clear things up, and I think that time will come whenever the opportunity comes. I'm just trying to focus on working out.' As an unrestricted free agent, Davis would have no restrictions if he decided to play overseas during the lockout. FIBA, the governing body of international basketball, has ruled that players who sign with overseas clubs while under NBA contracts must return to their teams once the lockout ends. That doesn't apply to Davis, who said he is intrigued by the possibility of playing in Europe or Asia. 'I would definitely be interested, to get the experience and also to keep that edge,' he said. 'I just really think a lot of guys over there love to play the game. It's not about the money. It's about playing the game that we love.'


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- 1 8.8-oz. package bean thread noodles
- 2 Asian Eggplants, about 1 pound, stem ends removed
- 3 Tbs. vegetable oil
- 1 Tbs. minced garlic
- 4 Shallots, thinly sliced
- 1 5-oz. package tofu nuggets
- 1/4 cup vinegar
- 1/3 cup Sugar
- 1/3 cup tamarind concentrate
- 1 cup fresh coriander, roughly chopped for garnish
1. Soak bean thread noodles in water for 10 minutes. Bring 4 cups water to a boil and place Eggplants in water to poach. Reduce heat to medium and cook, turning often, for about 8 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat large skillet over medium heat and add 2 tablespoons oil. Stir-fry garlic and, when golden, remove from pan. Add 2 sliced Shallots and stir-fry until golden. Add remaining oil and heat tofu cubes through, browning slightly. Remove from heat.
3. When Eggplants are tender, remove from heat, drain and set aside to cool slightly. When cool enough to handle, slice into 2-inch-long pieces.
4. To create sauce, combine vinegar, Sugar and tamarind concentrate in small saucepan and heat over medium heat until Sugar dissolves.
5. Trim noodle bundle in half and add to skillet with half dressing mixture and garlic. Let noodles heat through and absorb liquid, cooking and stirring over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Remove noodles from skillet and place in serving dish. Top with tofu and Eggplant.
6. Garnish with coriander leaves and remaining sliced Shallots and pass with remaining sauce.


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Swollen Cervix
OP (Sunny Side Up), Cervical Swelling and Slow Dilation
OP (Sunny Side Up), Cervical Swelling and Slow Dilation…These are a few of the issues my last client had. With her permission, I want to talk about her birth. It's actually a pretty amazing story. In addition to what I mentioned, she also had a 9lb baby with a very large head and managed to get out with only a 2nd degree tear.
So this client had been complaining of back pain for a couple of weeks. She works at a desk so I was worried that her posturing may have aided in her baby positioning himself OP (occiput posterior) or what some people call sunny side up or face up. When a baby is OP, the back of the head, which is the largest and hardest part of the head, digs into the moms back in utero. This sometimes causes chronic back pain. Some moms never feel any back pain at all when their baby is OP. I had talked with her about this and suggested that she do pelvic rocks daily and spend as much time as possible in the open knee chest position. Open knee chest is when mom puts her head and breasts on the floor and sticks her butt up in the air with her knees about hip width apart. Sounds easy but when you are very pregnant it is quite difficult. I also suggested that she sit on a birth ball that was inflated enough so that her thighs where parallel to the floor in the hopes of relaxing her pelvic floor and encouraging baby to turn. She is quite tall and I don't think she found the ball very comfortable. I also told her no reclining on the couch. I feel as if I should have done more to encourage her to encourage the baby to turn but her back pain came and went and she didn't feel fluttering indicating hands in the pelvic area and I couldn't see her tummy (She was two hours away from me) to see if she had the dip in the stomach that OP babies often make. I guess I didn't want to freak her out with all the optimal fetal positioning techniques when in reality babies that are OP before labor almost always turn before labor or in labor.
This is a baby that is occiput anterior, the optimal fetal position for easier birth…
This is a picture of an occiput posterior baby. Notice how the back of the head is in the mother's back…
This woman, who we will call Alyssa, began her labor at 4am the morning that she was 41 weeks and 3 days pregnant. At around 5am or so she began to have leaking that she believed was her water. I joined her at 9:30am. The time line for her birth m my arrival goes as follows…
9:30am: I arrive
Contractions about five minutes apart, less than one minute long
You were breathing through them very well
10:00-10:30am: We walked, contractions started getting longer and more intense
10:30-11:30am: Complaining of back pain, we do pelvic tilts and open knee chest, I worry baby is OP
Breathing well through contractions but growing more intense with each one
You rest in bed for a few contractions
11:30am: Contractions are very intense. Still around 4-5 minutes apart, a minute long.
You are ready to go to the hospital
12:00pm: We arrive at hospital. Staff is busy. We walk for half an hour and take it one contraction at a time. Back pain is intensifying and you are feeling a lot of pelvic pressure
1:00pm: You are admitted. You are 4cm and 100 effaced and your water is leaking. Baby is at a +1 station. You are monitored for half an hour and the baby looks great. You continue working through each contraction one at a time.
1:45pm: You are taken off the monitor and get into your labor room. Labor is very intense and you labor standing while leaning on the bed for an hour.
3:00pm: Labor is so intense and contractions are coming every three minutes for about a minute and a half. You have a lot of pelvic and rectal pressure. You are a bit shaky and very hot. We put ice cold towels on you.
Because labor is so intense, the nurse figures you must be very progressed and asks if you want to be checked.
You are 8cm dilated. You are having urges to push.
4:30pm: Contractions continue at 3 minutes apart and about 2 minutes long. Your back pain is much worse as is the rectal pressure. We try many positions to help complete your cervix. A check shows that you are stlil 8cm. Midwife breaks your water and your cervix closes to a 5 or 6 and the baby retreats back to a zero station. We talk about the baby possibly being OP but she cannot confirm with exam. We spend the next hour trying to get the baby to turn.
5:30pm: The nurse checks and says you are 9cm with a lip. We spend half an hour getting you in positions to aid dilation.
6:00pm: Labor has become unbearable and you are having urges to push, your back pain is very intense. Midwife checks you and you are 6cm and your cervix is swollen. She again is almost certain the baby is OP. She offers and epidural and you accept. You also have a shot of Nubain to hold you over until the epidural is placed.
7:00pm: Epidural is in place. You feel pain on one side for an hour or so.
8:30ishpm: You are 10cm
9:30ishpm: You begin pushing. The baby is at a +2/3 station when you being. After an hour is becomes clear that the baby is OP. It is also clear that he has a very large head. You push for another hour holding the squat bar and/or sheet tied to it while his head molds.
11:30pm: Baby is coming down but getting hung up on the pelvic bone. You push flat on your back with your knees pulled far back and apart. He is able to descend past the pubic bone and begins to crown. The doctor uses baby shampoo as lube and supports your perineum as you push the final few pushes before he is born.
just before
12:00am. Baby is born!!!! He comes out crying and looking around and after being checked out for a
few minutes is brought to you for skin to skin contact. You try to nurse immediately but he was interested just yet.
12:20am: Less than half an hour after being born, your baby is successfully nursing!!!
12:30am: The doctor is finished tending to you and leaves. You and dad bond with your baby.
1:30am: I leave
So the time line is a synopsis and not the birth story with all the details. What I'd like to include in that is that as her back pain intensified and the midwife agreed with me that the baby was probably OP, we began to get Alyssa into every position we could to get the baby to turn. The bed was broken down with the squat bar attached because when she was 8cm we tried to get her to sit on the bed with her legs on the lower portion with her upper body on the bar in a semi squat position in order to put pressure on the cervix to complete it. She didn't like it because she had so much rectal pressure, so we took the bar off but left the bed broken down. Once the OP presentation because very obvious, we had her lower body on the bottom part of the bed with her upper body on the middle so that she was basically on her hands and knees. We tried to apply counter pressure but Alyssa didn't like it. She had not wanted very much massage or touch so we didn't not try to relieve her back pain that way. She mostly responded to cold on her lower back.
Another point I'd like to talk about is that she was at 8cm for more than two hours before the midwife broke her water. She had been in active labor for about 13 hours at that point and was ready for things to move along. By this point her labor had become all but unbearable. I believe that the baby's OP presentation was making labor much much more painful. She was already beginning to lose control during and even between contractions and I think that even though AROM (artificial rupture of membranes) was not part of her birth plan, it really did sound like the best idea at the time. Of course, once it was done and the midwife felt her cervix close and the baby retract, she had this "OH SH!T" look on her face. And also of course, once it was done the contractions became even more intense.
I am not sure if the midwife breaking the water at 8cm is what caused the chain of events that followed. If it would have broken on it's own, the same thing could have happen. I had it happen with another OP baby client. Her bag ruptured spontaneously at 8cm and her cervix went back down to 7cm and the baby retracted from +1 to -1/0 station. I also think that after having been at 8cm for two hours with transition strength contractions after having labored all day, that Alyssa was running out of both steam and motivation, understandably.
The former OP client I mentioned who went from 8cm to 7cm took SIX FULL HOURS to get from 8cm to complete. She had no option for an epidural as she was in a Korean hospital that did not offer them outside of business hours. The doctor was also performing c section so she didn't have anyone offering to end the labor for her and her cervix wasn't swelling either. She managed and made it through it but it was incredibly difficult. I have no doubt that in that scenario that Alyssa could have continued her labor without an epidural.
What made Alyssa's labor even more difficult was to spend two hours at 8cm with pushing urges, eventually get told she was 9cm and still have pushing urges and then learn that she was 6cm with a swollen cervix. I think that hearing this was incredibly difficult for her. Maybe there were too many vaginal exams, maybe she didn't have to know all of that was going on with her cervix but the fact is, she was pushing involuntarily even at only 6cm.
I have read that premature pushing does not always make a cervix swell and that her swelling was probably more the result of fetal positioning. It could also be a combination of the two, it's hard to say. At any rate, with the intensity of pain she was feeling the midwife thought it best that Alyssa get an epidural to relax enough to be able to dilate. I was incredibly worried about this because it would be hard to get the baby to rotate with the epidural but I really do believe that at this point it was necessary. Her cervix wasn't going to get a break and she was in too much pain to be able to invert her with open knee chest to pack the baby out of the pelvis some.
The midwife was right, the epidural helped and she dilated quickly. As the time line mentions, she pushed for nearly two and a half hours. The head was large and had a lot of molding at birth. He did get hung up under the pubic bone but the McRoberts maneuver, flat on back, knees far apart and up as possible dislodged him and within a few pushes he was out.
The most amazing part of this birth is that mom had only a second degree tear. OP babies are often associated with a higher incident of third and forth degree perineal tears and considering the size of this baby as well, I think this mom was incredibly lucky. I think that the fact that Alyssa had a successful vaginal delivery is a little bit of a miracle. We had THE BEST nurse on staff that day who helped me encourage Alyssa to move through her labor before she got the epidural. We had her doing a lot of things she didn't want to do but she trusted us and we helped her and she did it. All of these things helped, I really believe this. They helped her baby move down so that when she did get the epidural, labor continued to progress. The support continued after the epidural in that we continued to help her move to help the baby move down. The woman used a squat bar to push with an epidural, THAT is a feat in and of itself. It took three of us (nurse, dad, me) to support her through it but she totally did it.
Here are some facts that I found regarding OP babies…
- The incidence of persistent occiput posterior babies at delivery is about 5.5% overall
- With a persistent posterior, both first and second stages are prolonged (Ponkey et al). However, longer second stages do not in themselves cause worse maternal or neonatal outcomes; in one study, as long as the fetus was stable, the second stage could continue without harm to mother or baby (Kuo et al).
- The likelihood of cesarean section or instrumental delivery (forceps or vacuum extractor) is greater when there is a persistent posterior position; in fact, the 5.5% of persistent posteriors account for 12% of all cesarean deliveries performed for dystocia (Fitzpatrick et al).
- Persistent posterior positions are associated with an increased incidence of premature rupture of the membranes, oxytocin induction and augmentation, epidural analgesia, chorioamnionitis, , episiotomies, severe perineal lacerations, vaginal lacerations, excessive blood loss, and postpartum infection (Pearl et al, Ponkey et al).
- Worse, there is a sevenfold increase in the incidence of anal sphincter injury, that is, third- or fourth-degree perineal lacerations (Fitzpatrick et al). Babies delivered from the posterior position were more likely to have Erb's Palsy and facial nerve palsy than those delivered from the anterior position (Pearl et al)
- Occiput posterior babies often times cause a premature urge to push (pushing before 10 cm dilated)
- Occiput posterior babies can cause cervical swelling due to the hardest part of the head bearing down unevenly on the cervix. Cervical swelling can cause a stall in dilation or not allow the baby to descend enough to be pushed out despite the mother's best efforts.
This study also explains the implications of epidurals with OP babies…
Epidural Analgesia Linked to Increased Risk of Occiput- Posterior Babies
Lieberman, E., Davidson, K., Lee-Parritz, A., & Shearer, E. (2005). Changes in fetal position during labor and their association with epidural analgesia. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 105 (5, Part 1), 974-982. [Abstract]
Summary: This prospective cohort study used periodic ultrasound examinations during labor to evaluate changes in fetal position and their relationship with epidural analgesia. The researchers sought to determine whether epidural analgesia is responsible for higher rates of fetal malposition (occiput-posterior (OP) or occiput transverse (OT)) or whether women experiencing labor with a malpositioned baby have more painful labors and are therefore more likely to request epidural pain relief. A total of 1562 nulliparous, low-risk pregnant women were enrolled in the study.The researchers found that the position of the baby (occiput anterior (OA), OP or OT) at the time of enrollment (in the early part of active labor) predicted position at birth poorly. For instance, of the women with an OP baby at birth, only 31% had a baby in the OP position at the initial ultrasound scan. Similarly, sonograms done later in labor were also poor predictors of position at birth. The data demonstrated that changes in fetal position were common during labor, with 36% of participants having an OP baby at the time of at least one scan. More than one-half of the women who gave birth to a baby in the OP position never had an OP baby at any ultrasound assessment in labor. Overall, 79.8% of babies were born in the OA position, 8.1% were OT, and 12.2% were OP at birth.
Epidural analgesia was strongly associated with delivery from the OP position: 12.9% of women with epidurals gave birth to babies in the OP position versus 3.3% of women without epidurals (relative risk 4.0, 95% CI 1.5-10.5). Transverse position was not related to epidural use. In a statistical model that controlled for various medical and obstetric factors that could affect outcomes, epidural use was still associated with a 4-fold increase in the risk of OP birth.
The data suggest that the association between epidurals and OP babies is not because women in labor with an OP baby are more likely to request an epidural. Women who received epidurals were no more likely to have OP babies at prior to or at the time that the epidural was administered. Furthermore, women with OP babies in labor or at birth reported the same degree of pain as those with OA or OT babies and were no more likely to report "back labor," which is commonly thought to be related to the OP position. Finally, women with OP or OT babies at birth were much more likely that those with babies in the OA position to give birth by cesarean section, with 6.3% of OA babies born by c-section versus 64.7% of OP and 73.8% of OT babies (p<.001).
Significance for Normal Birth: Epidural use increases the risk of instrumental (forceps or vacuum) delivery in first-time mothers. Experts have proposed various reasons for this association, including diminished urge to push and changes in the tone of the pelvic floor muscles that inhibit proper rotation of the fetal head. Letting the epidural "wear off" has been thought to increase the likelihood of unassisted vaginal birth, however, this systematic review calls into question that common practice.
In normal birth, there are complex hormonal shifts that help labor progress and facilitate delivery. The laboring woman produces natural endorphins that help her manage the pain of labor. Her ability to move freely and assume a variety of positions while pushing work in concert with these hormonal changes. Epidural analgesia numbs the sensations of birth, and the production of natural endorphins ceases as a result of the disruption of the hormonal feedback system. When the epidural is discontinued, the woman's pain returns but her natural endorphins may remain diminished and therefore her pain may be greater than if the epidural had not been given in the first place. Furthermore, when an epidural is administered, the woman is usually confined to bed and attached to fetal monitors and an intravenous line. The woman and provider may become accustomed to laboring in the bed attached to machines. When the epidural is discontinued the restrictions! on her movement may persist. Under these conditions, it is likely that the impact of an epidural on normal birth may outlast the epidural itself.
Ann Tumblin also sent me this regarding OP (face up) babies. It was done by Penny Simkin who is basically the mother of all doulas. It is very informative so if you have ever had an OP baby and are nervous about it a second time, I highly recommend you taking a look at it.
I believe that Alyssa's birth outcome was the combination of her determination and trust that we were supporting her in every way we could and we were. I was sore the next morning which isn't saying much compared to how she felt but more of a testament to the work I was doing. We were incredibly lucky to have the staff that we had and I also believe that if any piece of the puzzle had of been missing that her birth story would be very different. I think the point that I want to make about her birth is that if a mother is supported completely and if epidurals are not done too early that even very difficult births can have a great outcome. Mom is satisfied with her experience which is, other than healthy baby and mom, the best thing.
If you had an OP baby, please share your experience with us.Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 39 so far )


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A Home Health Care service worth their salt can have a good reputation from the community that they serve. Home Care providers is there to educate and advise, with all the patient making their own decision on financial matters and signing his or her own checks and financial or legal documents. Looking for more info in connection with Bent Philipson. Many patients and also the family are opting to work with the services of Home Care professionals instead of long- term residential facilities.
Senior Home Care services could also include a advanced of Care such as medical Care or medication management. Since each Care plan is depending on the specific needs of the baby, you need to have a complete copy of your loved ones health background to include their current and past medications, test results they've had done along with their doctors information. If you're a an affiliate a particular church, as an example, some of one's members may voluntarily offer their time for you to provide some quantity of Care to your Senior parents. You can also explore other sources like internet, local agencies or Senior centers. Also find what all is going to be covered by insurance.
Receiving Care at Home could cost less than it will in a Nursing Home due to equipment costs which might be factored into Nursing homes. The Home Care agency is expected to provide the patients as well as their family with the care, support, and education to ensure successful treatment. Are they feeding your ex right? Are they spending time with your cherished one? Is your loved one's needs being met?. When seeking someone to offer Home Care services, it is vital that the person be qualified especially a caring, compassionate person.
When you firstly retire, specifically if you retire early, Health Care might be one of the last things on your mind. A person who receives Senior Home Care services can have more private attention than someone that lives in a very Nursing home. There are a variety of insurance options including provisions for Home care, as well as other long-term Care options including Nursing Home stays. The primary aim if Home Health Care is usually to make it possible for the person to remain in his Home setting rather than using institutional-based, long-term or residential Nursing care.
Are you missing valuable time at work while trying to supply your Elderly loved one care? . A qualified Home Health aide might also provide personal Care to Seniors during a limited stretch of time, given that he follows a certain Care plan anf the husband works underneath the direct supervision of your skilled professional including a Nurse. When Health Care services are implemented, teams of skilled and certified professionals' work together to deliver the best, quality care. By talking to someone using a positive exposure to Senior Home Care services, your beloved might be relieved from any kind of fear.


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Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Du fehlst mir sehr
5 comments
Oh du arme! Heimweh ist so schwer :-( ich hoffe das es dir besser geht!!ReplyDelete
LIEBE GRÜßE x
WOW I love your blog so much, I am so happy to of come across it today via BeingLittle blog. You take such awesome photos. I can't wait for your next blog post.ReplyDelete
Gorgeous photos, that strawberry cake looks amazingReplyDelete
beautiful photos! yum, strawberries! xReplyDelete
This blog is fantastic! New follower!ReplyDelete
Ps. Those strawberries made my mouth water. Oh gosh. I need some.
UNIque - a college/uni lifestyle & fashion blog
All your comments are very much appreciated! If you have any questions either leave them with your comments or get in touch with me here: firstname.lastname@example.com @the_littlenomad
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All organisations must comply with numerous local (and sometimes global) regulatory requirements. Implementing compliance processes to meet these requirements across various departments and multiple locations is a major challenge for compliance managers. GuardianERM.net has an easy to use compliance function that allows users to manage a wide range of important compliance activities.
- Establish your own regulatory compliance programs to demonstrate compliance with Trade Practices Act, APRA and PHIAC prudential standards, ASX listing rules, ASIC requirements, Anti-money Laundering Act, Privacy Act,Sarbanes-Oxley Act, FSA (UK) Rules & Standards and Basel..
- Conduct compliance surveys.
- Flexibility to support various compliance approaches.
- Schedule email reminders at preferred intervals – daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually etc.
- Confirm when a compliance task is completed.
- Maintain a permanent log of compliance dates.
- On-line and fully automated.
- Automatic reminder emails.
- Track the status of compliance activities.
Would you like to know more about GuardianERM.net's Compliance Management capabilities? Contact us or arrange a demo today.


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If you haven't already, check out this story about Levi's "Jumpin' In" online viral campaign.
Now, I'm sure a lot of your out there at the apparel companies are salivating over the whole online thing, but you're probably pretty uncertain how to go about doing it. After all, you're already beset with fickle consumers whose whims seem to change with the season and who are constantly pounding on the castle door with cries of "More! More! More!" so why move into the web where EVERYONE is fickle and decisions are made in less than a nanosecond?
Well, consider this example.
That "Jumpin' In" campaign—which features online videos of teens, well, jumping into their jeans through a mélange of backflips, roof dives, etc., and launched May 5 to build buzz for the "Live Unbuttoned" global campaign for the brand's flagship 501 collection—snatched some 3.5 million hits in 10 days. And if that doesn't factor into your media membranes, here's some more traditional fodder: The spots got play on "Good Morning America" and coverage from the Grey Lady's new style challenger Wall Street Journal.
Here's our comic-strip style flip book of a scene from one of the viral videos, which by the way, we think are totally stunning in an "I can't believe he freakin' did that" kind of way.
"[Jumpin' In] was supposed to be a small seeding activity," Robert Cameron, vp-marketing at Levi Strauss, San Francisco, told journo Gregory Solman at our sister-pub Adweek. "We didn't know it was going to blow up. So we're meeting with BBH on how to chase this. What do we do to adjust the strategy and ride the wave?"
Listen, you've heard this from us and our friends a million times already. The online space, and viral videos in particular, don't necessarily guarantee the kind of success that you can see here with Levi's version. But they do allow you to experiment, without the expense of a real test market, with some creative that just might pique consumer interest in a similar way. And you know who can explain this better than we can? Kevin Kells, the CPG sales head over at Google. Kells might be more in the niche of beauty and, well, packaged goods marketing, but what he has to say about the online thought process for ad creatives is, in our humble estimation, universally applicable.
Here's an exerpt from our convo with him a while back:
Brandweek: What do you tell CPG marketers who still rely on traditional print and TV buys? Kevin Kells: I tell them that online advertising is more efficient, but that they have to look at sponsored links as doorways that take your consumer where they want to go, where you can add
value to their life. The problem is that traditional media is ingrained for many of those CMOs and
marketers. They have 30 years of data on TV and magazines. So even though it's easier to get ROI
figures from online ads, you're up against 30 years of market data.
BW: Would you revolutionize those departments to have them doing it all online?
KK: No. It's not to say that they should stop doing that stuff, but there's a way to go a little deeper online around consumer insights. Instead of focusing on a small amount of creative, they should be making more. They should be making 1,000 digital assets a year as opposed to three television assets.
BW: Does what you're suggesting require multiple times the amount of creative?
KK: Yes. That's an obstacle and that's paralyzing to them. Conceptually now we're beginning to get them to know that they need to be online with different stories and they have the infrastructure. But in order to put all of those assets in the right place, someone does have to make them. That can be solved by more efficiency. There's a clunky system right now between the client and their multiple agencies. That's why you see the emergence of agency networks like WPP.
OK, class dismissed for now. Next time, we'll take a look at those other web items that are probably giving you both a surge of excitement and perhaps some sweaty palms: widgets, the online applications that you've no doubt seen on your kids (or hey, maybe even your own) Facebook and MySpace profiles, or, if you're chic tech nerds like us, those wonderful things that pop up when you hit F12 on your Apple computer.


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Dragon Ball Online
- New Planet Namek is destroyed by Mira and his army using a Spirit Bomb. Great Elder Moori and several hundred other Namekians migrate to Earth.
- Following this, Namekians take up residence on Earth, and Dende warns the Earth's King about Mira's army. However, this information is kept secret from the average citizen, as it is feared it would cause a panic. At first the Namekians live in West City. Later most of them move to Porunga Rocks in Yunzabit Heights, but some of them remain in West City and develop their own culture.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 The Manga
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.


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Games are fast becoming the major entertainment product for many people. This is attested by the continuous growth in the game industry. While games readily benefit from and sometimes drive the developments in computer graphics, an equally important aspect of games, which is game audio does not benefit from developments in audio processing area in a direct way. Most of the technologies being developed by the members of signal processing community can be applied directly or indirectly to games. This summer school targets postgraduate students from game technology and audio signal processing areas, as well as practitioners in the game development domain. The summer school aims to present a wide view of game audio including artificial reverberation, sound synthesis, spatial audio, speech synthesis, audio coding, interactive audio APIs, and parallel processing all with a game technology perspective. The event will cover a wide range of topics relevant to audio processing for computer games with lectures given by high-profile lecturers. The following topics are proposed for the lectures in the summer school:
- Spatial hearing
- Room acoustics
- Artificial reverberation
- 3D audio systems
- Audio coding
- Game audio programming
- GPU programming
- Sound synthesis
- Expressive speech synthesis
Participants will be awarded with a certificate upon successful attendance and completion of the summer school.
METU is the top research university in Turkey and also one of the top 100 universities by reputation as reported in Times Higher Education 2012 University Rankings.
IEEE Seasonal Summer Schools in Signal Processing (S3P) is a highly prestigious educational programme sponsored by the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS). More information about the programme can be obtained from here.
The summer school intends to provide funding for travel and accommodation for students and researchers from Turkish universities via TÜBİTAK 2217 programme. Yaz okulu Türkiye'deki üniversitelerden başvuran öğrenciler ve araştırmacılar için TÜBİTAK 2217 programı aracılığı ile seyahat ve konaklama desteği sağlamayı planlamaktadır.Key Organizers
- Assoc. Prof. Dr. Veysi Isler, Informatics Institute, METU, Ankara
- Assist. Prof. Dr. Huseyin Hacihabiboglu, Informatics Institute, METU, Ankara
- Assist. Prof. Dr. Banu Gunel, Informatics Institute, METU, Ankara
- Assist. Prof. Dr. Alptekin Temizel, Informatics Institute, METU, Ankara


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"Unless co-operatives resist and fight for appropriate recognition and treatment they risk losing their distinctiveness and commercial advantages" (The Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade, p. 26)
Co-operatives are operating in a world designed for profit-oriented, shareholder-owned businesses. They are often viewed as a marginal form of enterprise and few understand precisely how they work or the benefits they can deliver. This lack of understanding has led to most countries having a legislative framework which, far from facilitating co-operative development, actually acts as a barrier to growth. Against this backdrop, it is important for co-operatives to resist the tendency to mimic investor-owned enterprises, which can often be the easier option when operating within current financial, legal and regulatory infrastructures.
There has been some recent support from international institutions such as the United Nations which, in 2001, adopted a Resolution (56/114) urging governments (among other bodies) to encourage and facilitate the establishment of co-operatives, and to take appropriate measures to create a supportive and enabling environment for their development. Indeed, even more recently, the European Parliament voted to include an amendment to the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan, so that measures to promote entrepreneurship would also apply to co-operatives. Although progress might seem piecemeal, it is slowly gathering pace.
Co-operatives often face a very poor enabling environment. This can be either due to restrictive laws or sometimes even the complete absence of a co-operative legal framework. To function well, co-operatives need prudential regulation which protects democratic member control and ownership, autonomy, as well as voluntary and open membership.
Furthermore, co-operatives require access to specific funding programmes which respect the fact that the share capital is owned and democratically controlled by their members.


text: KIRF can canceled, nonexistent handsets be cloned and released in quantities of 100 for just $240 a pop, and by all accounts, that's what has happened -- already -- to poor Ruslan Kogan and his doomed Agora. The Aussie with an admirable desire to get one of the first Android devices on the market recently had to delay his pet project indefinitely over compatibility concerns, but knockoffs running knockoff OSes have no such concerns, which is where the lovely Shining phone comes into play. After seeing the all-too-familiar render, Kogan contacted iTWire to say that "I am not aware of this manufacturer and I have doubts that it runs Android OS. It is certainly not what the Agora was going to be or in anyway related to it." 'Course, all it'd take is a couple chats over dinner between Chinese ODMs for Kogan's design to get recycled running something less than Android -- and granted, the Shining isn't identical to the Agora, but the similarities are striking, are they not?


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Air Canada is in the doghouse over a spokesman's remarks following the disappearance of a dog who escaped airline staff at a California airport.
The company says handlers at San Francisco International Airport took the dog out of his crate on Monday after his flight was delayed and the pet either slipped out of his collar or broke it.
Air Canada says the dog — an Italian greyhound named Larry — bolted, and was last spotted about five files from the airport.
The local CBS TV station took interest in Larry's disappearance and says it asked the airline about its procedures after obtaining a statement about the incident.
Instead, the station says it accidentally received an email from spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick urging his colleagues to ignore the inquiry — and what sounded like a jab at the U.S. government shutdown.
"I think I would just ignore, it is local news doing a story on a lost dog. Their entire government is shut down and about to default and this is how the US media spends its time," the station said the email read.
Word quickly spread online, with many voicing their outrage over the company's response.
"If you ever fly with your pet, you might not want to choose Air Canada," one wrote on Twitter.
The airline addressed the controversy in a statement Friday.


text: Insights The latest thinking about higher education trends, innovations, and challenges. Advancement Analytics and Data Integration Cloud for Higher Ed (-) Data Security Enrolment and Retention Financial Management and HR IT Standards and Architecture Modernising the Campus Operational Efficiency Our Approach Student Experience Supporting new operating models Workforce Development Facet Topic University 4-year Private Institution Community College 2-year Private Institution University Consortium Institute of Technology (-) Professional Body Alternative Provider Facet Institution Type (-) Article Infographic Spotlight Video White Paper Facet Resource Type Reset Filters Featured eBook Preparing for guided pathways Are you ready? Take this questionnaire. Dive Deeper White Paper Turning prospects into donors: Do you have the right moves Create and deepen relationships with your top donors and prospects. Dive Deeper White Paper The psychology of student attention Getting personal: Engage prospective students the right way. Dive Deeper × Watch Video 02:06 Video Creating a data-driven university Dive Deeper Recommended Reading Article Pioneering smart learning Dive Deeper On-Demand Webinar Enhancing standards of data management and governance Dive Deeper eBook Reduce costs without reducing impact It's time to take control of your institution's travel and entertainment expenses. Dive Deeper Latest Insights Article Assessing your business continuity plan: 4 essential elements Learn the fundamentals of conducting a business continuity plan review. Dive Deeper Article Transforming into a virtual campus: Is it time to reassess your institution's priorities? Mehmet Batmaz, head of IT infrastructure at the University of Greenwich, discusses the guiding principles and benefits of his institution's digital strategy. Dive Deeper Article The power of collaboration and regional partnerships Learn how key higher education institutions in the Middle East are harnessing the power of the digital community to drive cross-campus innovation and collaboration. Dive Deeper Article Security, privacy, and compliance in the cloud Lehigh University's chief information security officer discusses cloud security, compliance, and vendor partnerships. Dive Deeper Article The cloud's vital role in business continuity Waukesha County Technical College's Chief Security Officer and CIO Rodney Nobles explains why his institution moved to the cloud, and how the move has paid off. Dive Deeper Article How Schools Can Protect Themselves From the Most Dangerous Cybersecurity Threats Josh Sosnin, Chief Information Security Officer for higher education technology provider Ellucian, shares his on-the-ground perspective about the top cybersecurity threats facing schools today. Dive Deeper Article Digital Transformation: Where do you start? Digital transformation is our new blockchain. However, digital transformation can feel somewhat less tangible than other technology 'hot topics' but we must start somewhere. Dive Deeper Article Standardising change in higher education with the 'three Es' In Ian's latest blog, he shares some key considerations about standardising change and how institutions can maximise the benefits with the "three Es" approach. Dive Deeper Article Hubs, spokes, and point-to-point: a quick guide to common integration terminology No matter what integration solutions you're using or exploring, there are some key terms that are important to understand. Dive Deeper Pagination Page of 3 › ›› Total Insights: 24


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News has hit that Hamdan was just found guilty of the lesser charge of material support for terrorism by the military tribunal in Gitmo. Hamdan was acquitted on the more serious charge of conspiracy by the same jury, which is a blow to the Bush Administration's hopes for a full vindication of its methods. That they could not secure a conviction from a hand-picked military jury on a terrorism charge they dearly wanted a guilty on will be picked over for days to come, I'm certain. Via NYTimes:
The military commission conviction of the former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was part of a select group of drivers and bodyguards for Mr. bin Laden until 2001, was a long-sought, if some what qualified, victory for the Bush administration, which has been working to begin military commission trials at the isolated naval base here for nearly seven years.
The commission acquitted Mr. Hamdan of a conspiracy charge, arguably the more serious of two charges he faced, but convicted him of a separate charge of providing material support for terrorism.
Sentencing will take place in a separate hearing to begin this afternoon. I keep thinking back to Ben Wizner's post from over the weekend from "Camp Justice:"
The word "Guantánamo" has become so synonymous with indefinite detention and coercive interrogation that many Americans are unaware of the culturally diverse community that supports — some might even say "materially supports" — the military mission here. This weekend, I was immensely grateful for their presence and their generosity.
On Monday, the trial will conclude with closing statements from the prosecution and defense, after which the military officers who comprise the "commission" will withdraw to deliberate. There will be little suspense — not only because Hamdan will likely not be acquitted, but because, in the twisted world of Guantánamo detention, even acquittal would not lead to release. It is not the jury that will determine Hamdan's fate, but the nation. Perhaps, when all is said and done, Hamdan's embarrassing trial will accelerate Guantánamo's inevitable endgame.
After sentencing, there will most certainly be more appeals filed on Hamdan's behalf. The charge for which conviction was secured can carry a 2 year sentence, which Hamdan has already more than fulfilled at this point — but will likely not result in any freedom while the Bush Administration is still in office in any event. It's certainly not been another Nuremberg in terms of openness, that's for sure.
More from the WaPo. I have queries out to several folks, and will get more details to you as I hear back.
UPDATE: This just in from the Center for Constitutional Rights:
"In response to the hand-picked military jury's decision in the Military Commission against Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Shayana Kadidal, Senior Managing Attorney of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative, issued the following statement:
"Hamdan's trial violated two of the most fundamental criminal justice principles accepted by all civilized nations: the prohibition on the use of coerced evidence and the prohibition on retroactive criminal laws.
The decision to keep these cases out of the ordinary criminal courts will produce years of appeals over novel legal issues raised by the untested military commissions system. Even after those appeals are finished, the process will never be seen as legitimate by the world. This case was the first trial run of the commissions system, and the decision proves nothing except that the system itself should be scrapped. Terrorism-related crimes should be tried in the time-tested domestic criminal justice system, a system whose rules have been designed over the centuries with two goals: to seek out the truth and secure justice."
CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last six years – sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the first attorney to meet with a former CIA "ghost detainee" there. CCR has been responsible for organizing and coordinating more than 500 pro bono lawyers across the country in order to represent the men at Guantanamo, ensuring that nearly all have the option of legal representation. CCR represented the detainees with co-counsel in the most recent argument before the Supreme Court. For more information or to read the amicus brief filed by CCR in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, click here."
UPDATE #2: ACLU's statement on the verdict is up. And I want to remind everyone of the fantastic discussion we had on Monday regarding Gitmo, these trials and the rule of law.


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Passwords in Your Business
In today's world, there's not much you can do to avoid using passwords. Within your small business, passwords are used to protect your sensitive documents, employee, vendor and customer information, as well as trade secrets, business funds and more.
Criminals will often target your business – a hub of highly sensitive information – over individuals simply because businesses hold larger pools of valuable data. Even if you follow sufficient security standards, change your passwords regularly and incorporate strict password policies, sometimes bad password habits can still slip through the cracks.
Last year, 63 percent of data breaches were caused by weak or stolen passwords. Thus, password managers have become one of the most valuable tools that businesses can use to secure their sensitive login credentials and business files.
Use these tips to improve your business' security by protecting your passwords and valuable business information:
Take advantage of a password manager. As a business owner, it's imperative that you keep your corporate login credentials in a safe, secure place. With EZShield's Password Manager, you can secure all your sensitive business passwords with ease.
Implement multi-factor authentication. It requires two or more forms of authentication when logging into any corporate account (i.e. text message, email, phone call, third-party alert, etc.) to give your accounts an extra layer of protection.
Educate your employees and emphasize good password habits in the office. Your employees hold the keys to your business' sensitive data. Hackers only need to crack one password to gain access to your corporate network and files.
Hackers vs. Human Nature
Although your employees are hardworking and dedicated members of your company, they're still human. Unfortunately, research has repetitively shown that our human flaws can be the prime culprits of our negligent password habits.
In general, passwords can be problematic for two specific reasons. First, passwords are used virtually everywhere on the Internet, making it inevitable that users will experience "password overload" — or feel overwhelmed trying to manage numerous passwords. One study found that a single email address is attached to an average of 130 online accounts.
Second, it's difficult to keep track of passwords when there are so many to remember. Internet users will hit the "forgot password" link at least 37 times a year. Even more embarrassing are the two most common passwords of 2016: "12345" and "password."
Not only are we falling behind when it comes to creating and remembering strong passwords, we also have a hard time keeping them secure. Last year, 52 percent of employees admitted that they did not understand the risks of sharing work credentials. In addition, 95 percent of Internet users share up to six passwords with others, and 59 percent are reusing the same passwords for multiple accounts. Bringing these habits into the workplace can be disastrous for your business' security.
RELATED: Password reuse puts your business security at risk
"If employees use passwords [in the office] that are easy to crack, a small business' data is at risk. If that data contains private customer information, now [the business'] customer information is at risk too."
– EZShield Security Expert
Challenges to Improve Password Security
Many digital platforms have begun implementing sets of rules that essentially "force" users to create strong passwords. These rules, often referred to as "password policies," are meant to ensure passwords meet certain criteria when users are creating them for accounts or applications.
For example, these policies can require that your passwords be a specific length or include various characters, numbers and letters. More sophisticated password policies can also restrict the use of personal information markers like your name, birth date or address when creating your passwords.
While the thinking behind these policies is beneficial in encouraging users to create hard-to-crack passwords, experts have noted that strict password policies are not always effective. Instead of learning how to create strong passwords, users are more focused on satisfying the minimum policy constraints.
Another common password tip is to change your passwords regularly. Typically, the rule of thumb is to change passwords every 90 days. Ideally, passwords that are updated regularly would be harder for criminals to crack. However, users are also more likely to create weak, easy-to-remember passwords if they are constantly changing.
Password managers – a must for any business
Password managers are the best tools to effectively secure your sensitive business data. They can be especially valuable to your business because they typically serve two purposes – store passwords securely and generate strong passwords for you. Some password managers also offer team-sharing capabilities so that your employees can access shared accounts without copying and pasting passwords through emails or instant messages.
Paired with multi-factor authentication – a security feature that requires at least two or more forms of authentication to access an account – password managers can ensure protected accounts are accessed securely and only by the right users. EZShield's Password Manager not only helps to keep your corporate credentials safe, but it also helps you and your employees generate strong passwords to thwart the criminals attempting to steal them.
Not an EZShield small business customer? No problem!
No matter what service you use, find a password manager that best fits your business' needs. By storing your passwords securely, you'll keep your sensitive information safe from identity thieves and cybercriminals.
For more information about EZShield's services, feel free to inquire about us at your financial institution or through your employee benefits, payroll or insurance programs.
Keep following Fighting Identity Crimes to stay up-to-date on the latest breach and scam news, as well as tips from our industry experts on protecting your identity and personal information.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of EZShield Inc. alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any other person or entity, including specifically any person or entity affiliated with the distribution or display of this content.


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|Legal status
|Legal status
|CAS Number
|CompTox Dashboard (EPA)
|ECHA InfoCard
|Chemical and physical data
|Molar mass
|358.441 g·mol−1
|3D model (JSmol)
PB-22 (QUPIC or 1-pentyl-1H-indole-3-carboxylic acid 8-quinolinyl ester) is a designer drug offered by online vendors as a cannabimimetic agent, and detected being sold in synthetic cannabis products in Japan in 2013.[1] The structure of PB-22 appears to use an understanding of structure-activity relationships within the indole class of cannabimimetics,[original research?] although its design origins are unclear. PB-22 represents a structurally unique synthetic cannabinoid chemotype, since it contains an ester linker at the indole 3-position, rather than the precedented ketone of JWH-018 and its analogs, or the amide of APICA and its analogs.
PB-22 has an EC50 of 5.1 nM for human CB1 receptors, and 37 nM for human CB2 receptors.[2] PB-22 produces bradycardia and hypothermia in rats at doses of 0.3–3 mg/kg, suggesting potent cannabinoid-like activity.[2] The magnitude and duration of hypothermia induced in rats by PB-22 was notably greater than JWH-018, AM-2201, UR-144, XLR-11, APICA, or STS-135, with a reduction of body temperature still observable six hours after dosing.[2] One clinical toxicology study found PB-22 to be the cause of seizures in a human and his dog.[3]
A forensic standard of PB-22 is available, and the compound has been posted on the Forendex website of potential drugs of abuse.[4]
Legal status[edit]
As of 9 May 2014, PB-22 is no longer legal in New Zealand.[citation needed]
In January 2014, PB-22 was designated as a Schedule I controlled substance in the United States.[5][6]
Florida also has banned PB-22.[8]
Since 13 December 2014 it is also illegal in Germany because of adding the substance to the BtMG Anlage II.
As of October 2015 PB-22 is a controlled substance in China.[9]
See also[edit]
- ^ Uchiyama N, Matsuda S, Kawamura M, Kikura-Hanajiri R, Goda Y (2013). "Two new-type cannabimimetic quinolinyl carboxylates, QUPIC and QUCHIC, two new cannabimimetic carboxamide derivatives, ADB-FUBINACA and ADBICA, and five synthetic cannabinoids detected with a thiophene derivative α-PVT and an opioid receptor agonist AH-7921 identified in illegal products". Forensic Toxicology. 31 (2): 223–240. doi:10.1007/s11419-013-0182-9.
- ^ a b c Banister SD, Stuart J, Kevin RC, Edington A, Longworth M, Wilkinson SM, et al. (August 2015). "Effects of bioisosteric fluorine in synthetic cannabinoid designer drugs JWH-018, AM-2201, UR-144, XLR-11, PB-22, 5F-PB-22, APICA, and STS-135". ACS Chemical Neuroscience. 6 (8): 1445–58. doi:10.1021/acschemneuro.5b00107. PMID 25921407.
- ^ Gugelmann H, Gerona R, Li C, Tsutaoka B, Olson KR, Lung D (July 2014). "'Crazy Monkey' poisons man and dog: Human and canine seizures due to PB-22, a novel synthetic cannabinoid". Clinical Toxicology. 52 (6): 635–8. doi:10.3109/15563650.2014.925562. PMID 24905571.
- ^ Forendex entry, Southern Association of Forensic Scientists
- ^ Behonick G, Shanks KG, Firchau DJ, Mathur G, Lynch CF, Nashelsky M, et al. (October 2014). "Four postmortem case reports with quantitative detection of the synthetic cannabinoid, 5F-PB-22". Journal of Analytical Toxicology. 38 (8): 559–62. doi:10.1093/jat/bku048. PMC 4334789. PMID 24876364.
- ^ "PB-22 and 5F-PB-22" (PDF). Drug Enforcement Administration, Office of Diversion Control.
- ^ Jeremy Pelzer (April 17, 2014). "Ohio bans two synthetic marijuana drugs sold as "herbal incense"". cleveland.com.
- ^ "Statutes & Constitution :View Statutes : Online Sunshine". Leg.state.fl.us. 1997-05-06. Retrieved 2014-07-12.
- ^ "关于印发《非药用类麻醉药品和精神药品列管办法》的通知" (in Chinese). China Food and Drug Administration. 27 September 2015. Archived from the original on 1 October 2015. Retrieved 1 October 2015.


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MAD – International Summer School of Design – Latvia
Themed Bio-revolution
"MAD 2017 focuses on traditional and urban farming. During MAD 2017 the 19th century Sigulda castle will be turned into an indoor farming workshop, where six work groups will seek practical solutions for world's overpopulation and nutritional problems."
"In this work MAD brings together designers, artists, craftsmen and scientists – people who are unlikely to meet under different circumstances. Theories and hypotheses are tested in practice, creating new things and experiences, friendships and interactions that will continue well after the summer school. Physical work is essential for a wholesome human existence and physical and mental development. Only creative activity forms new values. MAD embraces soft definitions of design and art, creating useful and aesthetic objects during irresistible authentic work process."
Extracts from the official MAD programme. For full details please click here.
At the end of July I had the great pleasure of being invited to supervise the design process of 30 international students, mentored by 12 established designers and artists and lecture on plant communication and permaculture as a design tool to address food security. To support the lecture, I ran an intro to permaculture workshop and created a living installation consisting of a mini medicinal and food forest inserted in a metre squared box. I managed to squeeze in 17 different species of trees, shrubs, bushes, ground cover plants, herbs and bulbs. It is displayed at the Sigulda Castle old bus station and temporary cultural centre.
"The smart edible forest installation by permaculturist and artist Claudiu Oprea invites us to explore ideas around ensuring food security for future generations.
Apple tree, sea buckthorn, red and black currant, thyme, spearmint, peppermint, echinacea, calendula, wild and traditional strawberries, paprika, chilly, celery, garlic chives of two types and the local favourite cidonijas, a wild cousin of the quince."
Due to my unique role I had the pleasure of observing and interacting with all the teams. I assisted the students, artists and designers in defining the concepts, with the design process, choosing materials, introducing living elements (plants, algae and compost) into the finished product and with some individual projects, build and implementation.
My intention was to create a safe space to enable the flow of ideas, energy, information and skills to manifest into a profound self and practical learning experience for all participants.
It was a true collaborative effort with impressive outcomes. Everyone got stuck in, from students to established designers, artists, permaculturists, scientists, local craftsmen and craftswomen. Together we formed a pool of knowledge and experience which benefited us all.
Yet another testament to support the paradigm of collaboration versus competition. By enabling the formation of a strong web of connections woven together with a common goal for manifesting creative solutions to the problems we face as a species, we became more resilient and empowered to act, play, create, birth new ideas and concepts that may play a big part in feeding and healing this new emergent culture we are creating.
Below you will find a video shot by the talented filmmaker Ivars Burtnieks, documenting events as they unfolded.
This was a true highlight of my summer. Enjoy!
With gratitude to the MAD team: Rihards, Liene, Elina, Toms, Marcis, Gundega, Ivars; the designers: Amy, Tim, Oskar, Sophie, Xiamyra, Marc, Katharina & Co; the artists, Adam and Daria and Sabina, as well as all the super talented students: Alexander Rondeau, Alicija Konkol, Alix Cohen, Ance Janevica, Andrea Brisfjäll, Andrejs Strokins, Anete Sabule, Anna Reingard, Anthea Oestreicher, Barbara Drozdek, Clara Roussel, Girts Reiniks, Isha Suhag, Joao Azevedo, Kaitlin Kobs, Kamila Kantek, Kitty Brandon-James, Laila Snevele, Laura Pazo, Liisa Kivimäe, Maximilian Mauracher, Mies Loogman, Min Young Choi, Niek van Sleeuwen, Olga Zelenska, Roza Rutkowska, Sarah Caraman and Yara Valente.


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This semi-awkward shot seems to be the favored press photo accompanying coverage of the return of new episodes of USA's Burn Notice. Yes, it looks like a paparazzi shot of some unknown-in-America European power couple enjoying champers in spandex. Which is enticing in its own way, I suppose, but really does nothing to get the point across that the show is a sometimes funny, sometimes thrilling rebel spy caper. Eh, to be fair, those shots of Daniel Craig in blue hot pants made Casino Royale look like Baywatch: Liverpool, which didn't seem to hurt its box office.
The series, which is shot in and around Coconut Grove and Hollywood, FL, returns tonight for the second half of its second season. Tune in to USA at 10 p.m. to catch it.
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A third season has already been announced, and there were murmurs that the city was going to kick production out of the expo center where the show shoots. Last we heard, though, that's all been smoothed over.


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(CNN) - Save the date: Iran has pledged to start eliminating some of its uranium stockpile on January 20, the White House said Sunday.
That gives an official start time for the six-month interim deal with Iran, which was first announced in November.FULL STORY
Does this mean the republicans will have to wait a few months to start their war against Iran?
what a bad deal the west gets everything and the iranians and iran gets nothing what iran should do is finish the arak reactor.
Wouldn't it something if the republicans were wrong again, and that this can be done without war?
Gosh, if the Iranians stand behind everything they agreed too.......Well that will be just horrible for the GOTP.
Iran may be saving their souls from H/ll as "The LORD is...not willing that any shoud perish, but that all should come to repentance" and uranium should only be used to help not hurt mankind.
Very good move. Grab this opportunity to stabilize middle-east. Enough. To what extent they need us to the same extent we need them. Just know this. Enough wars.
its a good thing that Iran is getting rid of their bomb ingredient. right now the whole middle east area is unstable, and for extremist to get their hands on such weapons will be devastating for Israel and the whole region. Iran needs to quit trying to pursue a weapon of mass destruction, because it will trigger a arms race that will wipe the whole middle east off the map, because of unstable government.
After Obammys don't cross this line back down with Syria he has no credibility left, these people just laugh when Oblunder talks>>
I'll believe that when it can be independently verified by trustworthy people. Frankly, the Iranians aren't very trustworthy at this point. Their leadership is suspect and vilifies the Israelis when they are far from saintly since they sponsor terrorist groups.
Tampa Tim
Does this mean the republicans will have to wait a few months to start their war against Iran?
Obama is the only one saber rattling and capable of starting a war. You are obviously clueless about how the government works.
And the GOP? Naturally, they say the deal is bad, and war is better. Fools!
I'm confident that Republicans will continue to try to undermine this short term agreement. Republicans either don't seem to understand the purpose of sanctions, or they just simply want to undermine Pres. Obama at any cost. I think the existing sanctions have been hgihly effective in bringing Iran to the negotiating table. Isn't that supposed to be the goal of sanctions?
Amazing. You put the right people in the WH and all over sudden we're making peace everywhere, and no new wars. Syria was a close call but they resisted sending missiles or troupes. That turned out to be the right move despite all the warmongering crybabies. As the famous lyrics said, give peace a chance.
There is a difference between saying your will do something and doing it, just because cnn (the obama propaganda arm), says something, doesn't mean it is true, and it doesn't mean what they claim someone else said they will do- will happen.
All that aside, doing one thing doesn't mean behind the scenes (that we don't see), they aren't doing 100 things to counteract the one thing that we are able to see.
I hope our government is wise, enough not to get duped- but when you look at obama kerry and biden, i don't see alot of character that anyone can trust to do anything that's in the best interest of the US. at all.


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Hello friends, and welcome to the new and (hopefully!) improved website of College View Baptist Church! I know it looks very much like the old site, and even more like the temporary site we've had for the last few weeks. But take it from me, it's completely different! One of my duties here as Associate Pastor is taking care of our media, including this site. We started having some problems with the site several months ago, and things only got worse until it finally became clear that the site would have to be totally scrapped and started anew.
That may be how you are feeling personally as we enter into this brand new year of 2018. We often take January as a time to make improvements to our lives. It is not uncommon at the start of a new year to try to get healthier, stronger, more organized, or caught up on that backlog of tasks (like website building!). But sometimes, that's just not enough. Sometimes the pressures of life, along with the consequences of our own wrong choices leave us wishing there were a reset button on life. The good news of the Gospel is that through Jesus Christ, there is indeed a 'reset'. In II Corinthians 5:17 we learn, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." (ESV).
I'd like to encourage you during this time of New Year's resolutions and new beginnings, as you get to all the things you've been putting off until a better time, to take the time to consider if you are 'in Christ'. Through Him we are given a new nature and a new relationship with God the Father. Do you know Him? Do you trust Him? If not, I'd love to have the opportunity to share Him with you.
-Aaron Middleton


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About Dr. Kylie
Kylie Dennis, PhD, LCSW
In 1980, I decided to pursue a career in clinical social work with a special focus on the treatment of eating disorders. This was inspired by my own recovery from binge eating disorder.
In 1986, I earned a Masters in Social Work degree from Washington University's Brown School and in 2005, a Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Social Work degree from the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago. I pursued advanced training in family and group psychotherapy. My credentials include: Missouri Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Group Psychotherapist, and a Charter Member of the Academy for Eating Disorders. My licensing and training provide a solid professional foundation for using scientific and therapeutic skills based on time-tested theory and modern research.
Stop the Overeating Battle was a short-term therapy group for women who have binge eating disorder. I led ninety-five of these groups beginning in 1985, with follow-up therapy groups that began shortly afterward and continue today.
At this advanced stage in my career, I have a special interest in helping people who have eating disorders that are chronic and severe, including binge eating, anorexia, and bulimia. However, I welcome people with any kind of difficulty related to eating and weight.
I work with men and boys as well as women and girls, and understand the different needs of each of these groups.
I am available to advise concerned family members, school personnel, and other caregivers helping people with eating disorders.
A focused commitment to providing the best professional care led me, in collaboration with other psychotherapists, to found Psychotherapy Saint Louis and the St. Louis Eating Disorders Network.
I bring the same focus to the community education and graduate level courses I teach at local and national professional conferences. I enjoy speaking to community groups and providing supervision, consultation, and training for therapists, health care professionals, and educators. My expertise covers eating disorders, group psychotherapy, private practice development, and ethics.
I am committed to the Health at Every Size® philosophy, and to promoting the equality of all human beings. I believe that my own progress in controlling my eating and improving my body image is valuable to the people I help.
A full overview of my background is available in my Curriculum Vitae.
You can recover from an eating disorder.
Email me now for a Free Phone Consultation.
We will talk about your signs of an eating disorder and how I can help.
I am accepting adults only for individual psychotherapy by videoconferencing.


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3 tomatoes seeded and chopped
1 small whiten onion chopped
3/4 cup packed cilantro, divided
2 limes
2-3 jalapeños
1/2 tsp sea salt
Pepper to taste
2 ripe avocados
6 oz reduced fat cheddar cheese
1 and 1/2 cup low day greek yogurt
Rinse dried beans, put into medium sauce pan, cover with water, bring to a boil and cook on high for two minutes. Take off stove and let beans sit for one hour.
Rinse beans, return to pan, cover with 2 inches of water above beans, bring to a boil, reduce to a low heat, cover and let cook for 1.5-2 hours (until beans are tender). Once done, set aside around 2/3 cup of the bean liquid.
In a medium bowl, combine tomatoes, onions, jalapeño, 2/3 of the cilantro, squeeze 1 lime over mixture, and salt and pepper to taste.
In a food processor add avocados, juice of one lime, the rest of the cilantro, purée until chunky, add salt and pepper to taste.
In a food processor, add beans and 1/3 cup of cooking liquid, purée, add extra liquid until desired consistency, add 1/2 tsp salt and pepper to taste, pulse to combine .
(I used individual cups but, you can use whatever)
Bean on bottom, sprinkle cheese on beans, layer avocado mixture on top of cheese, add Greek yogurt on top of avocado mixture, with a fork (to drain liquid) add tomato mixture on top of yogurt, serve or chill for up to 4 hours (if you layer correctly/keep air out/ do individual cups they last much longer), I garnished with organic blue and white corn chips (which I also had a bowl of for extras for dipping)
For the original recipe check out: http://dailydishrecipes.com/clean-eating-mexican-layer-dip/


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Noelle L. Cutter
Academic Interests
- Cancer Biology
- Genetics
- Scientific Research
- Experiential Learning Coordinator, Biology
What I am working on
Question: How does the epithelial to mesenchymal transition affect the chemosensitivity of epithelial ovarian cancer cells?
Hypothesis: The conversion of an epithelial cell to a mesenchymal cell plays a key role cancer invasion and metastasis. We hypothesize that this metastatic transformation will also be correlated with an increased resistance to standard chemotherapy reagents.
Educational Background
- Doctor of Philosophy, Molecular Genetics, Stony Brook University, May 2011.
Dissertation: Genomic alterations affecting therapy response in ovarian cancer.
- Bachelor of Science, Biology/Chemistry, Molloy College, January 2004. Summa Cum Laude
- Doctor of Philosophy, Molecular Genetics, Stony Brook University, May 2011.
Additional Information
- Vice President and Research Director, Little Louie Foundation, Richmond, VA
- Post- Doctoral Volunteer, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY
- Women in Cancer Research, mentor, American Association of Cancer Research
- Integrated genetic analysis of epithelial ovarian cancer. , Banerjee N, Vigliotti M, Janevski A, Levine D, Dimitrova N, Cutter N, Lucito R. Nature 2012 (manuscript in preparation).
- A role for the chromatin remodeling protein CHD3 in ovarian cancer therapy response.Cutter N, Banerjee N, Vigliotti M, Janevski A, Levine D , Dimitrova N, Lucito R. Cancer Research 2012 (manuscript submitted).
- Das B, Bennett PV, Cutter NC, Sutherland JC, and Sutherland BM. Melatonin Protects Human Cells from Clustered DNA Damages, Killing and Acquisition of Soft Agar Growth Induced by X-rays or 970 MeV/n Fe ions. International Journal of Radiation Biology. 2010
- Bennett PV, Cutter NC, Sutherland BM. Split-dose exposures versus dual ion exposure in human cell neoplastic transformation. Radiat Environ Biophys. 2007 Jun;46(2):119-23. PubMed PMID: 17256176.
- Zhou G, Bennett PV, Cutter NC, and Sutherland BM. Proton-HZE particle sequential dualbeam exposures increase anchorage independent growth frequencies in primary human fibroblasts. Radiat Res. 2006 Sep;166(3):488-94. PubMed PMID: 16953667


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Eternal Rising of the Sun
When we meet Gina Devine she tells us that dance is an escape into fantasy and self-delusion. As a child, she watched her mother's furtive sways to Bruce Springsteen over the kitchen sink and dreamt of happiness and fame. Now that she is a mother and surrounded by abusive males and bitchy females, she wants more than late night dance-floor fantasies fuelled by lager, vodka and acid-dipped ecstasy tablets. It's what lures her to Anton's contemporary dance classes under the fluorescent glare of the community centre. Amy Conroy's excellent script follows on last year's success, with a stuttering emotional rhythm that slowly coalesces and mirrors Gina's growing self-confidence. Her riveting portrayal shows Gina choosing individuality over conformity and breaking self-destructive habits passed down generations. The monologue takes a swipe at many things along the way, but ultimately shows us how to our transform our own private dances into public dances.


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Ready is a national public service advertising (PSA) campaign designed to educate and empower Americans to prepare for and respond to emergencies including natural and man-made disasters. The goal of the campaign is to get the public involved and ultimately to increase the level of basic preparedness across the nation. http://www.ready.gov
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health protects health, prevents disease, and promotes the health and well-being for all persons in Los Angeles County. http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/
CDC′s Mission is to collaborate to create the expertise, information, and tools that people and communities need to protect their health – through health promotion, prevention of disease, injury and disability, and preparedness for new health threats. https://emergency.cdc.gov/
The Santa Monica Fire Department is dedicated to preventing the loss of life, property, and the environment from fire, medical, and other natural or man-made disasters through aggressive prevention, training, public education, and emergency response. http://www.santamonicafire.org
The Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce advocates and represents business' interests and issues facing the community. http://smchamber.com/
A forum for information exchange to enhance emergency preparedness and contingency planning within the business community.http://www.bicepp.org
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world's largest business organization representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions. http://www.uschamber.com/
Cal EMA is responsible for the coordination of overall state agency response to major disasters in support of local government. The Agency is responsible for assuring the state's readiness to respond to and recover from all hazards – natural, manmade, war-caused emergencies and disasters – and for assisting local governments in their emergency preparedness, response, recovery, and hazard mitigation efforts.http://www.calema.gov
The American Red Cross prevents and alleviates human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors.http://redcrossla.org/
The U.S. Small Business Administration has delivered millions of loans, loan guarantees, contracts, counseling sessions and other forms of assistance to small businesses.http://www.sba.gov/
Federal, State, and local emergency management experts and other official preparedness organizations all agree that "Drop, Cover, and Hold On" is the appropriate action to reduce injury and death during earthquakes. http://www.dropcoverholdon.org
ECA is a statewide public-private partnership of people, organizations, and regional alliances that work together to improve preparedness, mitigation and resiliency. http://earthquakecountry.info
NOAA is an agency that enriches life through science to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts. To share that knowledge and information with others, and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources. http://www.noaa.gov/index.html
The Emergency Survival Program (ESP) is a large-scale community education outreach program. http://www.espfocus.org


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It's Time To Stop Calling Our Waters 'Shark-Infested'
The story of an Australian man who leapt aboard a dead whale has floated through most corners of the internet since Saturday. And few media reports have left out two key facts: That his mother describes the 26-year-old cetacean surfer as an "idiot," and that the carcass of a dead humpback off the coast of Australia attracts sharks. So many sharks, in fact, that shark-infested-whale-carcass-for-laughs">several outlets have opted to call the surrounding water "shark-infested."
Like any good cliché, it's possible the phrase "shark-infested" started off as an evocative metaphor, setting a scene of water churning with triangular fins and gnashing teeth. But, just as sharks are much more than fins and jaws, we can do better than deeming a group of sharks as an "infestation."
To pick nits: Calling a patch of the ocean "shark-infested" is a bit like calling New York City "human-infested." Infestation, while describing a swelling mass or swarm, also lends an air of pestilence, distress or harassment. It's an unpleasant and unusual scenario - an infestation of nits, for instance.
But unlike a louse on a scalp or a roach in a pantry, animals who have entered a human environment with the potential to cause damage, the average shark in the ocean is not a pest. By eating whale carcasses, sharks instead play critical roles in recycling nutrients in the ocean ecosystem. A 2013 report in the journal PLOS ONE noted how normally solitary great white sharks gather to feast on the blubber of deceased whales. "Scavenging is a really important component of the foraging ecology of predators," University of Miami marine scientist and study author Neil Hammerschlag told Livescience.
When sharks are removed from their habitats en masse, as a group of marine biologists argued in a 2007 paper in Science, the negative effects can be wide-ranging. The overfishing of sharks led to increased populations of rays and skates, the ecologists said. And without predatory sharks to keep them in check, large numbers of hungry rays and skates may have contributed the devastation of shellfish in the Atlantic.
Too many of any species anywhere can cause problems, of course. But that's infrequently the case with shark-infested waters - more often, the sharks are simply living in their natural habitats. (Meadows are rarely butterfly-infested, and dolphins seem incapable of infestation.)
Beyond doing a disservice to the feeding behaviors of these fish, shark-infested is yet another mark against a species with more than their fair share of public relations problems. Let sharks teem, abound, bustle or brim. Ban infest.


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About the Book
An almost endless list of achievements took place in Chicago in 1893. Chicago's most important skyscraper was completed in 1893, and Frank Lloyd Wright opened his office in the same year. African American physician and Chicagoan Daniel Hale Williams performed one of the first known open-heart surgeries in 1893. Sears and Roebuck was incorporated, and William Wrigley invented Juicy Fruit gum that year. The Field Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Science and Industry all started in 1893. The Cubs' new ballpark opened in this year, and an Austro-Hungarian immigrant began selling hot dogs outside the World's Fair grounds. His wares became the famous "Chicago hot dog."
"Cities are not buildings; cities are people," writes author Joseph Gustaitis. Throughout the book, he brings forgotten pioneers back to the forefront of Chicago's history, connecting these important people of 1893 with their effects on the city and its institutions today. The facts in this history of a year range from funny to astounding, showcasing innovators, civic leaders, VIPs, and power brokers who made 1893 Chicago about so much more than the fair.


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Most business owners know that accounting is important, but it's often the last thing on the to-do list. Accounting is confusing and time-consuming for most people. But you need clean, consistent financial information to help you run your business.
That's why you need a partner like Kostecke CPA who can your accounting and analysis done so you can go back to what you do best.
Here are some common accounting services we offer. All services can be tailored to your needs:
We work with you and your bookkeeper to reconcile accounts, make journal entries, and prepare payroll and property tax filings. If you need help with day-to-day activities such as payroll, billing, or accounts payable, we work with several bookkeepers who can provide those services. We can also help you find and hire a full-time bookkeeper.
We compile financial statements for bank financing and investors in accordance with all applicable standards. Compiled financial statements can only be done by a CPA, but not all CPAs provide this service. We do, because small businesses often need compiled financial statements to get a bank loan.
We set up QuickBooks™ by selecting the version you need, setting up the right accounts and processes, training you on the software, and helping you maintain it. We recommend QuickBooks™ for ease of use, reporting capabilities and low cost.
We prepare financial analyses to help you make informed decisions about your business. Examples of analyses we can provide include buying v. leasing equipment, optimizing inventory levels, reducing cost, identifying waste, making changes to staffing, setting prices, etc. We will help you determine the best course of action by reviewing the financial impact of your options.
As an important part of all our accounting services, we spend time with you explaining your financial information and identifying areas for improvement. We welcome your questions and the opportunity to partner with you to make your business successful.
Comments or questions are welcome.


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Quote:JHAWX75 Quote:"Dont get too comfortable on the 4th place position. Remember, we're STILL The Yankees and their STILL the red sox." Did you play for the Yankees since you always refer to them as we or we're JHAWX75? Just curious?How soon will you change "Ready for number 27 in '07"?
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