text:
It's been a busy week for crypto flaws. So busy in fact, that I'm totally overwhelmed and paralyzed trying to write about them. It's made blogging almost impossible.
So let's just blast through it, then we can get to the subject I actually want to talk about.
First, at the start of the week we received news that many Android applications and a few (critical!) Java libraries simply don't validate certificates on TLS/SSL connections. This is disastrous, embarrassing and stupid, since lack of certificate verification makes TLS trivially vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. I was going to say something shrill and over-the-top about all of this, but turns out that Threatpost has already totally beaten me there with this synopsis:
The death knell for SSL is getting louder.
Yes indeed, Threatpost. Thank you for making me feel better.
In other news, we learned that major email providers — who should remain nameless, but are actually Microsoft, Google, Apple, Yahoo and everyone else — have been competing to see who can deploy the shortest RSA key for DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). I'm told that Yahoo was ahead with 384 bits, but Microsoft had a research team working on a 22-bit key and Apple had abandoned keys altogether, opting for a simple note from Tim Cook asserting that any invalid email messages were probably the recipient's fault. (Ba-dum-tschch.)
So that's the headline news, and I don't want to write about any of it.
What I do want to write about is a result that's gotten a lot less attention — mostly because it's subtle, falls into the category of 'things we thought of knew about, but didn't explore' and because it involves Hidden Markov models — which are to tech reporters as raw garlic and silver are to vampires.
This new result is by Zhang, Juels, Reiter and Ristenpart, and it appeared in the ACM CCS conference just a few weeks ago, and it deals with something very relevant to the way we build modern systems. Specifically, if we're going to go and stick all of cryptographic services in cloud-based VMs, how secure can we possibly expect them to be?
The answer is: unfortunately, not very. To get into the details I'm going to use the standard 'fun' question/answer format I usually save for these kinds of attacks.
Why would I put my cryptography in a VM anyway?
In case you missed it, the cloud is our future. The days of running our own cranky hardware and dealing with problems like power-supply faults are long gone. If you're deploying a new service, there's a good chance it'll be at least partly cloud-based. There's a decent chance it will be entirely cloud-based.
Take Instagram, for instance. Their entire $1bn service runs on a few hundred cleverly-managed EC2 instances. While Instagram itself isn't exactly a security product, they do use TLS and SSH (presumably on the instances themselves), and this implies public key crypto and the use of secret keys.
Now this shouldn't be a problem, but VM instances often share physical hardware with other instances, and since EC2 is a public service, those co-resident VMs may not be entirely friendly. The major threat here is, of course, software vulnerabilities — things that can let an attacker break out of one VM and into another. But even if you perfect the software, there's another more insidious threat: namely, that the attacker VM instance could be able to run a side-channel attack on the co-resident VM.
This threat has long been discussed, and security people generally agree that it's a concern. But actually implementing such an attack has proven surprisingly difficult. This is because real hypervisors put a lot of fluff between the attacking process and the bare metal of the server. Different VMs often run on different cores. Moreover, since each VM has an entire OS running inside of it, there's tons of noise.
In fact, there's been plenty of reason to wonder if these attacks are simply the product of security researchers' fevered imaginations, or if something we need to worry about. What Zhang, Juels, Reiter and Ristenpart tell us is: yes, we should worry. And oh boy, do they do it in a nifty way.
So what is it and how does it work?
The new result focuses specifically on the Xen Hypervisor, which is the one actually used by services like Amazon EC2. Although the attack was not implemented in EC2 itself, it focuses on similar hardware: multi-core servers with SMT turned off. The threat model assumes that the attacker and victim VM are co-resident on the machine, and that the victim is decrypting an Elgamal ciphertext using libgcrypt v.1.5.0.
Now, Elgamal encryption is a great example for side-channel attacks, since it's implemented by taking a portion of the ciphertext, which we'll call x, and computing x^e mod N, where e is the secret key and N is (typically) a prime number. This exponentiation is implemented via the 'square and multiply' algorithm, shown in the figure below:
|Square and multiply algorithm (source: Zhang et al.)
The first thing you notice about square-and-multiply is that its operation depends fundamentally on the bits of the secret key. If the ith bit of e is 1, the steps labeled (M) and (R) are conducted. If that bit is 0, they aren't. The bits of the key results in a distinctive set of computations that can be detected if the attacking VM is able to precisely monitor the hardware state.
Now, side-channel attacks on square-and-multiply are not new. They date back at least to Paul Kocher's observations in the mid-to-late 90s using power and operating time as a channel, and they've been repeatedly optimized as technology advances. More recent attacks have exploited cache misses in a shared processor cache (typical in hyper-threading environments) as a means by which a single process can monitor the execution of another one.
However, while these attacks have worked from one process to another, they've never been applied to the full Xen VM setting. This is a pretty challenging problem for a variety of reasons, including::
- The difficulty of getting the attacking process to run frequently enough to take precise measurements.
- The problem that VCPUs can be assigned to different cores, or irrelevant VCPUs can be assigned to the same core.
- Noisy measurements that give only probabilistic answers about which operations occurred on the target process.
So what's the basic idea?
At a fundamental level, the attack in this paper is quite similar to previous attacks that worked only across processes. The attacking VM first 'primes' the L1 instruction cache by allocating continuous memory pages, then executing a series of instructions designed to load the cache with cache-line-sized blocks it controls.
The attacker then gives up execution and hopes that the target VM will run next on the same core — and moreover, that the target is in the process of running the square-and-multiply operation. If it is, the target will cause a few cache-line-sized blocks of the attacker's instructions to be evicted from the cache. Which blocks are evicted is highly dependent on the operations that the attacker conducts.
To see what happened, the attacking VM must recover control as quickly as possible. It then 'probes' to see which blocks have been evicted from the cache set. (This is done by executing the same instructions and timing the results. If a given block has been evicted from the cache, execution will result in a cache miss and a measurable delay.) By compiling a list of which blocks were missing, the attacker gains insight into which instructions may have been executed while the target VM was running.
A big challenge for the attacker is the need to regain control quickly. Wait too long and all kinds of things will happen — the state of the cache won't give any useful information.
Normally Xen doesn't allow VCPUs to rapidly regain control, but there are a few exceptions: Xen gives high priority to Virtual CPUs (VCPUs) that receive an interrupt. The authors were able to exploit this by running a 2-VCPU VM, where the second VCPU's only job is to issue Inter-Processor Interrupts (IPIs) in an effort to get the first VCPU back in control as quickly as possible. Using this approach they were able to get back in the saddle within about 16 microseconds — an eternity in processing time, but enough to give useful information.
But isn't that data noisy as hell? And fragmented?
Yes. The challenge here is that the attacking VM has no control over where in the computation it will jump in. It could get just a small fragment of the square-and-multiply operation (which is hundreds or thousands operations long), it could jump into the OS kernel, it could even get the wrong VM, thanks to the fact that they can run on any core. Plus the data could be pretty noisy.
The solution to these problems is what's so nifty about this paper. First, they don't just monitor one execution — they assume that the device is constantly decrypting different ciphertexts, all with the same key. This is a pretty reasonable assumption for something like an SSL web server.
Next, they use machine learning techniques to identify which of the many possible instruction sequences are associated with particular cache measurements. This requires the researchers to train the algorithm beforehand on the target hardware, having the target VCPU conduct of square, multiply and modular reduce calls in order build a training model. During the attack, the data was further processed using a Hidden Markov Model to eliminate errors and bogus measurements from non-cryptographic processes.
Even after all this work, the attacker winds up with thousands of fragments, some of which contain errors or low-confidence results. These can be compared against each other to reduce errors, then stitched together to recover the key itself. Fortunately this is a problem that's been solved in many other domains (most famously: DNA sequencing), and the techniques used here are quite similar.
A good way to illustrate the process is to present a totally made-up example, in which six fragments are reconstructed to form a single spanning sequence:
This is obviously a huge simplification of a very neat (and complex) process that's very well described in the paper. And if all this technical stuff is too much for you: it's basically like the scene in Argo where the little kids reconstructed the shredded photos of the embassy workers. Just without the kids. Or the photos.
So does it actually work?
It would be a hell of a bad paper if it didn't.
With everything in place, the researchers applied their attack against a 4096-bit Elgamal public key, which (due to an optimization in libgcrypt) actually has a 457-bit private key e. After several hours of data collection, they were able to obtain about 1000 key-related fragments, of which 330 turned out to be long enough to be useful for key reconstruction. These allowed the attackers to reconstruct the full key with only a few missing bits, and those they were able to guess using brute force.
And that, as they say, is the ballgame.
|Left: Fragment size vs. number of fragments recovered, Right: sequence accuracy as a function of fragments in a batch. (source: Zhang et al.)
Oh my god, we're all going to die.
I would note that this isn't actually a question. But before you start freaking out and pulling down your cloud VMs, a few points of order.
First: there's a reason these researchers did this with libgcrypt and Elgamal, and not, say OpenSSL and RSA (which would be a whole lot more useful). That's because libgcrypt's Elgamal implementation is the cryptographic equivalent of a 1984 Stanley lawnmower engine — it uses textbook square-and-multiply with no ugly optimizations to get in the way. OpenSSL RSA decryption, on the other hand, is more like a 2012 Audi turbo-diesel: it uses windowing and CRT and blinding and two different types of multiplication, all of which make it a real pain in the butt to deal with.
Secondly, this attack requires a perfect set of conditions. As proposed it works only works with two VMs, and requires specific training on the target hardware. This doesn't mean that the attack isn't viable (especially since cloud services probably do use lots of identical hardware), but it does mean that messiness — the kind you get in real cloud deployments — is going to be more of an obstacle than it seems.
One last thing worth mentioning is that before you can attack a VM, you have to get your attack VM onto the same physical hardware with your target. This seems like a pretty big challenge. Unfortunately, some slightly older research indicates that this is actually very feasible in existing cloud deployments. In fact, for only a few dollars, researchers were able to co-locate themselves with a given target VM with about 40% probability.
In the short term, you certainly shouldn't panic about this, especially given how elaborate the attack is. But it does indicate that we should be thinking very hard about side-channel attacks, and considering how we can harden our systems and VMMs to be sure they aren't going to happen to us.


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Fox
The Modern English "fox" is derived from Old English with the same spelling, the Old English word itself comes from the Proto-Germanic word "*fukh", compare German "Fuchs", Gothic "fauho", Old Norse "foa" and Dutch "vos", which corresponds to the Proto-Indo-European word "*puk" meaning "tail" (compare Sanskrit "puccha" meaning "tail" as well). The bushy tail is also the source of words for "fox" in Welsh ("llwynog", from "llwyn" meaning "bush").
Most foxes live 2 to 3 years but can survive for up to 10 years, or even longer, in captivity. Foxes are generally smaller than other members of the family Canidae such as wolves, jackals, and domestic dogs. Fox-like features typically include an acute muzzle (a "fox face") and bushy tail. Other physical characteristics vary according to their habitat. For example, the Desert Fox has large ears and short fur, whereas the Arctic Fox has small ears and thick, insulating fur. Another example is the Red Fox which has a typical auburn pelt ending normally with white marking.
Unlike many canids, foxes are usually not pack animals. Typically, they are solitary, opportunistic feeders that hunt live prey (especially rodents). Using a pouncing technique practiced from an early age, they are usually able to kill their prey quickly. Foxes also gather a wide variety of other foods ranging from grasshoppers to fruit and berries.
Foxes are normally extremely wary of humans and are not kept as pets (with the exception of the Fennec); however, the Silver Fox was successfully domesticated in Russia after a 45 year selective breeding program. This selective breeding also resulted in physical traits appearing that are frequently seen in domestic cats, dogs, and other animals: pigmentation changes, floppy ears, and curly tails.
Foxes do not come together in chorus like wolves or coyotes. Fox families, however, keep in contact with a wide array of different sounds. These sounds grade into one another and span five octaves; each fox has its own characteristically individual voice. Fox noises can be divided, with a few exceptions, into two different groups: contact sounds and interaction sounds. The former is used by foxes communicating over long distances, the latter in close quarters.
The best-known vulpine noise is a sort of barking that spans three to five syllables. "Conversations" made up of these noises often occur between widely spaced foxes. As their distance decreases, the sound becomes quieter. A cub is greeted with the quietest version of this sound.
This monosyllabic sound is made by an adult to warn kits of danger. From far away it sounds like a sharp bark, but at closer range it resembles a muffled cough, like a football rattle or a stick along a picket fence.
This is a stuttering, throaty noise made at aggressive encounters. It is most frequently heard in the courting season, or when kits are at play.
This is a long, drawn-out, monosyllabic, and rather eerie wail most commonly made during the breeding season; it is widely thought that it is made by a vixen in heat summoning dog-foxes. Contrary to common belief, however, it is also made by the males, evidently serving some other purpose as well. This noise fits into neither the contact nor the interaction group.
Foxes are readily found in cities and cultivated areas and (depending upon species) seem to adapt reasonably well to human presence.
Red foxes have been introduced into Australia and some other countries for hunting. Australia lacks similar carnivores, and introduced foxes prey on native wildlife, some to the point of extinction. A similar introduction occurred in the 16-1700's in America, where European Reds (Vulpes vulpes) were brought to the colonies for fox hunting, where they decimated the American red fox (Vulpes veloxi) population through more aggressive hunting and breeding. Interbreeding with American Reds, European Red's traits eventually pervaded the genepool, leaving European and American foxes now virtually identical.
Other fox species do not adapt as well as the European red fox, and are endangered in their native environments. Key among these are the Crab-Eating fox and the African Bat-Eared fox. Other foxes such as fennecs, are not endangered, but will be if humans encroach further into their habitat.
Foxes can also be helpful for agricultural purposes. They have been successfully employed to control pests on fruit farms, where they leave the fruit intact.
Historians believe foxes have been imported into non-native environments long before the colonial era. The first example of the introduction of the fox into a new habitat by humans seems to be Neolithic Cyprus. Stone carvings representing foxes have been found in the early settlement of Göbekli Tepe in eastern Turkey.


text:
Kent Bush: Perspective is a tough teacher
It's sad how quickly tunnel vision can affect us when stress levels increase.
It seems like this week has been full of opportunities for me to learn. I really hate being introspective because I usually just end up disappointed in the person I am.
Seriously, I'm 40 years old. I should know a lot more by now.
Last weekend, I learned a lesson when I was supposed to be teaching a lesson.
When our regular Sunday school teachers aren't available, we have a great substitute. When he isn't available, sometimes they ask me. I don't know why, but I love to do it.
It is a long way from my comfort zone. Typically, I don't like drawing attention to myself. I really like the challenge of studying a topic well enough to be able to present it and feel competent enough to ask and answer questions.
Sunday was promotion day –– when children celebrate the start of a new year in a new class. Parents like to go to the promotion ceremony.
Our class has a lot of promoting children, so we suspended regular classes and they asked me to teach those who were able to come to class.
I thought I was ready. We only had three people show up. Rather than offer private lessons, we decided to pursue other adventures. I went in to the promotion ceremony where I found my son sitting by himself in the front row while the other children had at least one parent with them.
The lack of a class let me sit with my son and keep him from feeling like he was on an island. After the ceremony, I got to help put up chairs and tables. When we headed back toward the sanctuary for church, we ran into others setting up a room for a reception after church.
I got to help set up chairs and tables for that reception. I caught myself thinking I was supposed to teach today but ended up setting up and taking down chairs all morning. I wondered to myself if I hadn't been more use folding chairs than teaching? The answer is pretty clear. I don't know that anyone is overly enlightened when I teach, but I'm pretty good on the business end of a folding chair.
I couldn't help but recall a Bible verse that I had come cross while preparing to teach that day. Matthew retold a story about Jesus talking to two of the apostles' mother. She wanted Jesus to let her sons have authority in his new movement. He told her they didn't want to have the same fate that was awaiting him. Then he told the woman how the two men could become great.
In Matthew 20: 25-26, he told the brothers, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant."
After church, I started getting ready for another stressful week of work. Things have been less than ideal lately. Change is always tough. Some changes are tougher than others. Lately, we've been pushing the limits of how tough things can be. We've been incredibly busy, and it seems like we have been facing a lot of problems that were not our fault but had to be faced head-on nonetheless.
Finding solutions has required a lot of extra hours in the office, and it has kept me awake at night trying to think of solutions. When I am feeling stress, my family sees it. So my wife sent me a Bible verse, as she is prone to do.
It was so perfect for what I was going through that I posted it on Facebook. In Psalms 94:18-19, David wrote, "When I said, 'My foot is slipping,' your unfailing love, LORD, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy."
A few friends commented. One friend said the verse helped bring her peace. You see, her brother was in surgery having a tumor removed from his pancreas. My heart sank. I don't have problems. I am having to work hard and things aren't perfect. While I wear out my crying towel with my little problems, other people are hoping to come through surgery in good health. Perspective is a tough teacher.
And then I read a post by one of my favorite writers. Jon Acuff wrote the book –– and blog –– called "Stuff Christians Like." He is funny and has a knack for bringing another type of perspective.
He had been spending some time with Zig Ziglar, and it had an impact. Acuff said he finally figured out what it meant to be a leader. He was going to have a meeting with someone, and instead of thinking of what he could get out of the meeting, he found himself thinking about what he could give to his fellow public speaker.
Acuff called that the one sentence that proves you're a leader. I couldn't agree more. Many who commented on his post noted the influence from Ziglar. Few thought back to that verse in Matthew when Jesus taught that real leaders were those who serve others.
The problem with gaining wisdom from experience is you learn how much you have overestimated your intelligence previously. If I live long enough, someday I may know almost as much as I thought I did when I was 25. It will take a while, but at least I have a chance.


text:
This site is the archived OWASP Foundation Wiki and is no longer accepting Account Requests.
To view the new OWASP Foundation website, please visit https://owasp.org
CSRFGuard 3 Installation
The purpose of this article is to provide guidance around the installation of OWASP CSRFGuard within a JavaEE web application. Installation of OWASP CSRFGuard 3 is very straight forward requiring three simple steps. First, you must copy the Owasp.CsrfGuard.jar file to your application's classpath. After copying over the OWASP CSRFGuard library, declare and map the CsrfGuardFilter in your application's web.xml deployment descriptor. This instructs the application server to initialize the OWASP CSRFGuard Filter protecting those resources that match the Filter mapping. Finally, customize the Owasp.CsrfGuard.properties file as you see fit. You'll need to make sure you tell CsrfGuardFilter the location of your CSRFGuard properties file via a JavaEE Filter init-param directive. Please refer to the following sub-sections for more detailed information on each of the aforementioned installation steps.
Copy Owasp.CsrfGuard.jar to Classpath
The first thing you need to do is copy the Owasp.CsrfGuard.jar library into your classpath. The most common classpath location to place Owasp.CsrfGuard.jar is within the lib directory of the web application's WEB-INF folder. OWASP CSRFGuard 3 has no additional dependencies outside of the traditional JavaEE runtime environment.
Declare and Map CsrfGuardFilter in web.xml
After placing Owasp.CsrfGuard.jar in your application's classpath, you'll need to declare and map the CsrfGuardFilter in web.xml. All CSRF token verification logic is encompassed within the stand-alone filter. The following web.xml snippet was extracted from the Owasp.CsrfGuard.Test web application:
<filter> <filter-name>CSRFGuard</filter-name> <filter-class>org.owasp.csrfguard.CsrfGuardFilter</filter-class> <init-param> <param-name>config</param-name> <param-value>WEB-INF/Owasp.CsrfGuard.properties</param-value> </init-param> <init-param> <param-name>print-config</param-name> <param-value>true</param-value> </init-param> </filter>
We create a filter with the name of CSRFGuard and specify a classname of org.owasp.csrfguard.CsrfGuardFilter. The filter accepts two initialization parameters: config and print-config. The config parameter is required and specifies the location of the CSRFGuard properties file. CSRFGuard will search for the properties file specified by searching the following locations in order of appearance: the application's classpath, a directory accessible by the container, or an arbitrary absolute path. The print-config parameter is optional and simply instructs CSRFGuard to display the parsed properties to the application server log file.
Configure Owasp.CsrfGuard.properties
The Owasp.CsrfGuard.properties file controls how OWASP CSRFGuard behaves at runtime. CSRFGuard looks for the file in the following locations in order: application's classpath, servlet context directory, and current directory. You are encouraged to make use of the sample Owasp.CsrfGuard.properties file bundled with CSRFGuard to help kick-start your deployment efforts. There are various properties supported by CSRFGuard. At a minimum, you'll want to configure the new token landing page and the action properties. FIXME for more information regarding the capabilities and configurations of Owasp.CsrfGuard.properties.


text:
Last Supper by Caroline Ierodiaconou (used with permission)
I am taking a break over Easter and will be back shortly. Thank you so much for reading; as any blogger will tell you, the payment is in the comments, emails and other feedback you give me and I appreciate every time you drop me a line.
Keep your eyes out around Footscray and West Footscray (and the city!) for beautifully haunting street art by local artist Caroline Ierodiaconou, whose piece is featured above. I love her work - it adds another dimension to the suburb I love, beyond the $2 shops and the hairdressers. My last count is five - can you find them?
Melbourne revolutionary craft circle action (used with permission)
In other arts news, local artist Rayna Fahey has just started a three-month residency at the EcoLiving Centre in Wyndham Vale. Rayna's work involves "traditional" embroidery with a subversive spin or larger-scale outdoor installations. She will be running workshops and other goodies so keep track via her blog to get involved.
The official From Cup to Crop campaign ended on April 14 but Plan International's work with vulnerable communities is far from done. My own personal challenge for the month has been to donate $3 for every meal I have out. $3 can feed one child for a staggering 10 days with Plan International's partnerships with various humanitarian agencies - the agencies source the food while Plan is responsible for storing and distributing that food to communities they work with in countries such as Southern Sudan, Ethiopian and Zimbabwe.
Lastly, I had wanted to do a hot cross bun roundup but tummy says yes, jeans say no! The cakey beauties above are from the Pie and Pastry House at 166 Churchill Ave, Braybrook. Also try Sourdough Kitchen (sourdough hot cross buns!) at 172 Victoria St, Seddon and Hausfrau, 32a Ballarat St, Yarraville. If you want a Easter egg tip, Cheaper Buy Miles in Nicholson Street Mall have bargain gourmet eggs, especially getting this close to Easter.
Have a very happy Melbourne Easter and see you soon.
-- Lauren aka Ms Baklover


text: Razor Freestyle Scooter is the opportunity to take your scooter into the funbox! Control urban thrashers who cut through massive, radical environments. Perform tight tricks, like heel-flips, candybars, can-cans and supermen. Add to the time bar by pulling off phat air on insane ramps and half-pipes. Grind ledges, high-flying wires, barrels and benches. Collect wheels scattered throughout each level to unlock the coolest parks and characters!


text:
The main point of the event was for English dissident Tommy Robinson to read a speech that should have been delivered by Austrian identitarian Martin Sellner.
Sellner, with his American girlfriend Brittany Pettibone, had arrived in Britain March 9th, but British immigration authorities detained, then deported them, on the grounds that their "presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good."
As noted by several commentators (including Radio Derb, at 25m48s on the podcast here), the Brits happily admit for settlement persons known to have trained with ISIS in the Middle East.
On Sunday afternoon Tommy Robinson duly read Martin Sellner's speech. Several outlets (Breitbart, Refugee Resettlement Watch, and no doubt others) reproduced the speech.
I think it's rather good. In the interest of having it known as widely as possible, we shall also reproduce it. Here it is.
Dear Friends, dear Britons, dear lovers of free speech.
I assume you all are lovers of free speech because you have come to Speakers' Corner.
You might not understand all the fuss happening today around this speech. Honestly, I don't understand it either.
My name is Martin Sellner. I am an Austrian patriot, and at the moment, I'm sitting in a detention cell in Colnbrook Bypass near Heathrow. My smartphone was taken and my girlfriend Brittany was separated from me. I currently don't know where she is. We will be deported on Sunday.
Five minutes ago, they unlocked our cells and my fellow inmates are gathering in the prison wing. They are mostly illegals and eastern European criminals.
What brought me into this situation? What was my crime?
My crime was that I wanted to be here with you, to speak at Speakers' Corner.
But let's start with the beginning. I was invited by UKIP to present my movement at an event last Autumn. I represent Generation Identity — a patriotic European youth movement that is raising awareness about mass immigration and Islamisation.
Far-left people call us right-wing, people who want to shut free speech down call us "fascist," and folks who hate their own culture call us "racist."
In reality, we are just a group of young patriots fed up with the system, the mainstream press and lying politicians. We use peaceful activism to make our voices heard, and contrary to our friends on the radical left, who are probably swarming you right now, we never wear masks.
From Paris to Rome, from Vienna to London, we fight peacefully but without compromise for our freedom, our homelands, and our identity!
This is what I wanted to speak about in Autumn. But the conference was cancelled due to threats from the radical left. The venue would not take the risk. So they rescheduled it for March, this time keeping the venue secret — but again the terror of the left prevailed, and the venue dropped out.
But this time I did not want to let them win! It was about principles! (Also, our flights were already booked.)
My last refuge was Speakers' Corner. I remembered my mother telling me about that special place when I was a child. It seemed almost magical to me. A place where everyone, without exception, could just stand on a box and start to speak to those who wanted to listen. I have always loved this tradition of Speakers' Corner, which seemed very British to me.
But I came only to see that this tradition — the tradition of freedom of speech in the United Kingdom — is dead.
Your Country is blocking you from challenging ideas from the outside. This is a disgrace to our democracy!
I should be speaking in a neat, warm conference room right now, and you should be sitting in comfortable chairs. Instead, I'm in my cell and you are on the street in a standoff with the enemies of freedom of speech.
And this is very telling! Today there is a war going on for our freedom of speech. This war is being fought on the streets, by you!
Every man and woman showing her face today, standing shoulder to shoulder, is standing up against a new totalitarianism that has been growing for far too long. You can be proud of yourself. You might not even agree with me on every point — you are simply giving a statement that I should have the right to speak my mind freely.
I would love to be among you now. They prevented me from it. They locked up the speaker, but I know that the speech will find a way through the iron bars. It will find a way to you and you are going to hear what you government so desperately wants to protect you from.
Those words which they consider more harmful to you than rape gangs or terrorists who are let into your country again and again.
I'm going to tell you something nobody has told you before. It's the biggest, most obvious secret of our media our politicians and our powerholders: People of Britain, you are being replaced.
There has always been immigration in your history. People coming in, assimilating.
But what's happening today is different: You are being replaced by massive Muslim immigration.
You see it everywhere: in London, in Manchester, but also already in the little countryside towns. A big replacement is going on.
And let me tell you: your politicians have no plan, no vision and no idea how to deal with the problems that come along. Problems like you have seen in Telford, Rotherham, and on Westminster Bridge.
All across Europe, there is a shadow hanging over our heads. The French are whispering about in the Metro, the Germans murmuring about it when they feel unwatched, Italians look left and right, and if nobody is listening they tell you: "I don't feel at home anymore in my street. We are becoming foreigners in our own country."
And again and again I hear: "We are not allowed to talk about it."
And that's the bizarre drama of the "Strange death of Europe." We are being replaced, conquered by radical Islam, and we are not allowed to talk about it!
Dear Britons, defenders of free speech. Out of my cell in Colnbrook, I want to ask you something. Be honest and raise your hands.
Who among of you has ever been in the following situation: You grab a beer after work, or you are visiting your girlfriend's parents for the first time, or you meet other children's parents at school — and suddenly the conversation moves to politics: radical Islam, immigration.
Who of you in this very moment was faced with the decision between speaking his mind and facing problems, or complying and staying silent?
Raise your hands and be honest.
I will not be able to see the results, but every single hand is too much. This amount of fear should not exist in a society. Speech that has social costs and severe consequences is no longer free. It has a price — and our Government and the Antifa are working everyday to raise that price.
No freedom of speech means no democracy. In front of our very eyes this country is becoming a tyranny, shutting all debates about immigration down, until demographics solves the issue by replacement. People of the UK. I might be in a cell right now, but you all are in a cell. It's the prison of fear and silence your government and the PC tyranny has locked you in since the days of your childhood.
I ask you, I command you, break free!
Patriots of the UK: come out of the closet. Make your dissent visible by visible acts of resistance that inspire others. I know for certain that millions in the UK think like me. Those millions should be on the street now.
We need a coming out of the silent majority, or Britain is lost. We need a free, open and honest debate about immigration, Islam and demographics, so we can sort these problems out together.
And I know that the force is still in you. With your Brexit vote you stunned the world! The will and the life of the British nation is not broken.
Initially, I asked if freedom of speech is dead in the UK. You, every one of you who came today, is a living sign that the tradition of the UK is not dead! You are the livley tradition of your nation, saving its face before history.
People of the UK — remember who you are! Remember your glorious past, you are sons and daughters of knights, kings, explorers, philosophers and artists. Who is the sovereign in this country?
Is it big money?
The mainstream media?
The politicians?
It's you — the people. You, the silent and invisible majority who said NO during Brexit. You can say NO again — no to Islamisation, no to mass immigration, and no to the great replacement.
And YES to your identity — yes to your security, yes to your heritage and the future for your children.
And all this is impossible without to freedom of speech.
I know, if these words will find their way to the UK and even to Speakers' Corner, it will be victory for our cause.
If they did, and if you are hearing them now, I tell you: go further on that winning street. Don't be afraid because we have an ally that is unbeatable: Truth.
The battle, our battle for freedom of speech, has just begun, and Speakers' Corner will become a symbolic place in that struggle.
When you go home know I want you to bring the spirit of Speakers' Corner with you.
Every single person who raised his hand because he could relate to this moment of fear, when he did not dare to speak his mind.
Promise me: Next time I will overcome my inner fear. Next time I will speak up!


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Island Safety
A few Block Island rules to keep you safe.DIAL 911 FOR EMERGENCY
IMPORTANT: THE DIALING OF 911 IS FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY! An emergency is when immediate police, fire or rescue assistance is necessary. 911 should not be dialed for nonemergency calls that do not involve or require immediate assistance.Do exactly what the 911 operator tells you to do. Give the operator all necessary information, including the fire number on the house. Remember, your assistance could make the difference between serious injury, life or death.
If in doubt, use 911
911 is for emergency use only! However, if you feel that there is an emergency occurring but don't know for certain, presume it is an emergency and use 911.
• Drinking alcoholic beverages in streets, on docks, etc.
• Camping, except by special permission.
• Sleeping overnight in vehicles or on beaches.
• Operating motorcycles between midnight and 6 a.m.
• Beach fires and/or driving on the beach without a permit.
• Dumping refuse on roads or in harbors.
• Shellfishing without a license.
• Charcoal fires on boats tied up at docks.
• Disturbing the peace.
• Unleashed dogs.
• Littering.
Important Island Phone Numbers
BI Medical Center 466-2974
Police (nonemergency) 466-3220
Fire Department / Rescue Squad 466-3220
Coast Guard (Block Island) 466-2086
Coast Guard (Galilee) 24 hours 789-0444
RI Poison Control (800) 222-1222
BI Airport 466-5511
Harbormaster 466-3204
Town Clerk 466-3200
Recreation Department 466-3223
Interstate Navigation (Block Island) 466-2261
Block Island Express 466-2212
Block Island Hi-Speed Ferry 466-2261
Transfer Station 466-3234
Vehicles are permitted to drive on Crescent Beach only from 6 p.m. until 9 a.m. No motor vehicle shall be allowed on the beach without a valid, updated permit from the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC). Permits are available at the police department for $100/residents, $200/non-residents (June 20- Sept. 7) Sunday, 6-7 p.m., Monday, 2-3 p.m. and Friday, 3-4 p.m. All motor vehicles of any description are prohibited on dunes except on trails marked expressly for vehicular use. Vehicles are also not allowed on any lands designated "Open Space" and maintained by the town for the benefit of the general public.
The dunes offer a home to countless species of plants and animals that, like the beach itself, need our protection if they are to survive. To help save the life of our dunes and beaches, we urge you to:
• Use designated access paths and parking lots only.
• Keep off dunes and beach vegetation.
• Keep all vehicles off the beach, as they destroy vegetation and cause beach erosion.
• Do not sleep on the beach overnight.
Beach fires are prohibited without a permit. Permits are available at the police department, and are valid for one day, expiring at midnight. Fires must be at least 25 feet from dunes. Please clean up and dispose of all trash properly and extinguish fires completely before leaving beach.
Gas motors banned
All forms of gasoline or diesel fuel-powered motors on boats are not allowed on BI's freshwater ponds.
Pollutants and contaminants banned
No discharging of any sew--age, petroleum products, detergents, pesticides, or any other form of pollutants or con-tam-i-nants is permitted.
Penalty for violation
Any person violating this ordinance shall, upon con-vic-tion, be subject to a fine of not more than $100, or confinement for not more than 10 days, or both such fine and confinement. Any person convicted of a second violation shall be subject to a fine of not more than $200, or forfeiture of motor and equipment, or both.
Wildlife refuge areas on Block Island include Sachem Pond, Payne's Farm, the Southeast Lighthouse, Rodman's Hollow, Lewis-Dickens Farm, Beane Point and Cormorant Cove. No one may hunt, shoot, trap, or annoy wildlife, or destroy or disturb the eggs, nest or nesting area of any wildlife within designated areas.
Penalty for violation
Any person violating any of the provisions of this ordinance shall be punished by a fine of not more than $100, or be imprisoned not more than 10 days, or by both such fine and imprisonment, together with costs of prosecution.
A license is required for shellfishing. Beds are currently closed to the harvesting of scallops and oysters. The harvesting of clams is restricted. For more info, call the Harbors Department at 466-3204 or stop by the Harbormaster's shack in New Harbor (adjacent to the Boat Basin), where shellfishing licenses are sold.
Dogs must be licensed and wear tags on a collar. Unless in a vehicle or on property of its owner, dogs must be leashed with a cord not exceeding 6 feet in length. For problems contact the Police Department at 466-3220. Horses: the New Shoreham Town Council requests that all persons refrain from riding horses in the downtown area.
Lyme disease: Don't get ticked off.
Lyme disease is a serious health threat on Block Island. Visitors should make a daily "tick check." Look for attached ticks, no bigger than a pinhead, red areas and itchiness. Symptoms include rashes, head-aches, joint stiff-ness, chills, fever, and nausea. Not all ticks carry the disease; not all people bitten catch it. Infection is uncommon if the tick is removed within 24 hours. Consult your physician if you suspect you may have be-come infected. Treatment after early diagnosis is generally effective, but be-comes more difficult if symptoms are left untreated. Long pants and sleeves are suggested for forays into wooded areas, brush and meadows.
Pedestrians. Pay special attention to traffic while in the downtown area. According to Rhode Island law, pedestrians must walk against traffic (on the left side) on roads without sidewalks.
Bicyclists. please take care when cycling the unique roads of Block Island. Ride with the traffic, obey traffic signs and adhere to all rules of the road. Hand signals are very helpful to other traffic and can prevent accidents. Keep on the right side of the road and ride single-file whenever possible. For nighttime riding, a light is required for the front of the bicycle and a reflector should be attached to the rear. Bicycles are not permitted on Greenway trails. Helmets are required for bicyclists age 16 and under, and strongly encouraged for adults.
Automobile drivers. Please exercise extreme caution when traversing Block Island roads. The speed limit is 25 mph island-wide. Pass bicyclists and mopeds only when you are certain it's safe.
Rollerblades, Scooters, Skateboards. Due to heavy congestion and safety concerns, rollerblading, skateboarding and scootering are not permitted in the downtown area or on Ocean Avenue. Skating and scootering is allowed north of Town Beach, south of the Spring House and on the west side of the island. Please travel with the traffic and adhere to all rules of the road. Scooters with helper motors (electric or gas) are not allowed on roads by RI state law.
Accidents. Do not hesitate to seek help from the Rescue Squad if you have or witness an accident. First aid and ambulance service is rendered at no cost to you. A portion of the Rescue Squad budget is met by town funds, but the Rescue Squad relies heavily on donations to cover the full costs of training, equipment, supplies and maintenance. Any contribution made to support this work will be welcomed and acknowledged. Donations are tax-deductible. Mail donations to: Block Island Volunteer Rescue Squad, P.O. Box 214, Block Island, RI 02807.
Recycling. All trash must be separated for recycling. Deposit your sidewalk trash in the recycling containers marked for bottles, cans or trash only. These special containers are not for household or boat trash. Those renting houses should use the Transfer Station, located on West Beach Road. Recyclables (news-pa-per, glass, cardboard, plastics, aluminum and tin cans) are free. Glass, cans, plastics and aluminum should be clean. Other trash is deposited at a charge of 10 cents per pound, paid in cash, by local check or credit card at the Transfer Station (466-3234).
Rabies notice. State law and town ordinances require that all pets (cats, dogs or ferrets) brought to the island be vaccinated against rabies. In addition to vaccinating pets, people should stay away from all wild and stray animals. Rabies is always fatal unless treated before symptoms develop. Rhode Island rabies hotline: 1-800-482-7878, ext. 3.
Please Conserve Water. While the island's municipal water company has been producing a lot of good water this summer, water conservation is still encouraged, and the water is very expensive. On properties with septic systems, be sure not to overload the system with showers and dishwashing and clothes-washing all at once. And please don't shock such systems with paper products, fats, oils and greases.
Bicycles and Mopeds. Bicycles are the preferred rental vehicles. You can explore dirt roads with them. If you do rent a moped, please note —
• Mopeds are not allowed on dirt roads.
• By law, a helmet and eye protection must be worn.
• Do not leave the training area until you feel that you know how to operate the moped. Be sure you are familiar with the controls.
• Once you are on the road, proceed slowly enough to examine oncoming road conditions. Do not drive on the shoulder of the road. Driver inexperience, heavy traffic flow, sandy shoulders, sharp curves, and uneven pavement are common causes of accidents on Block Island.
• Mopeds may be operated from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. only.
• Passengers must ride behind the operator.


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Carlisle Events, the car show producers, said today they likely will raze most of the buildings on the former IAC factory property in Carlisle to build a mixed commercial development with a hotel, restaurants, shops and apartments.
The company doesn't have specific plans just yet but likely will release additional details by the end of the summer, said Michael Garland, a Carlisle Events spokesman. The company will continue to work with Hampden Township-based Delta Development Group for definitive blueprints to build new commercial properties at the former automotive parts factory, he said.
"With what happened with the fire last week, we're comfortable with sharing our vision with the public," Garland said.
IAC's former office building on Carlisle Spring Road, which was home to its predecessor Lear and Masland companies, likely will be spared for reuse because of its historic ties to the community, he said. Some of the property's parking areas could be built on, he said.
Last week, a late-night fire destroyed two buildings at the 48-acre property and damaged others. State fire inspectors said the cause was accidental. A contractor, Battlestone Steel, was recovering scrap from the old factory, Garland said.
The IAC property is one of two large-scale redevelopment projects in Carlisle. Carlisle Events hadn't shared its plans until now.


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By Caitlin Kelly
Have you lived in poverty?
A recent 150+ comment thread at, of all places, Apartment Therapy — a design blog usually devoted to featuring people's fun, cool homes worldwide — offered a painful, insightful, timely conversation on how some of its readers survive(d) on low or minimum wage jobs.
Charities can only do so much for people, and frankly, when I was living below the poverty line, I chose not to take advantage of a lot of those programs, even though I likely could have, because there were other people who needed it more than I did, and I was getting by, if only just. I was lucky to have no car payment, and a car that was in good condition so the maintenance costs were relatively low. I did, however, end up with pneumonia, because although I had health insurance (I was paying out of pocket for it) I couldn't afford the copay to go to the doctor and get my Prevacid (not OTC at the time) and as a result I got sick, because untreated acid reflux can do that to you.
Even though I pared down to the absolute bare minimum and had a roommate, I was constantly worrying about my car (but couldn't manage without it), and paying for food, heat, and health care. Any time I got a few dollars ahead, I had some money-sucking but necessary expense. Living on the edge of poverty wore me out. The kicker was that making minimum wage, I made too much to get food stamps and other "help for the poor". (Adults with children could get help, and adults with disabilities, but the thinking was that if you could work, you didn't need "hand-outs".)
For many years, I made more than enough money so I could comfortably afford a house, buy food & necessities, invest and have some fun, too. Approximately two years ago, my position was eliminated from a very reputable company in the area where I live. I can say that I have never fully "recovered", financially and emotionally speaking. I've run the gamut from tearing through my 401k, applying for assistance, working my share of odd jobs and asking family for help. I've been forced to learn a new way of living and the bottom line is that living on minimum wage is DIFFICULT…period. Navigating assistance applications can be daunting and because of my assets (owning a home-by some miracle-still) it just wasn't happening. I can tell you that I have learned to live simpler, though, w/less trips to the clothing store, no more manicures/pedicures every two weeks, etc. Is it such a bad thing? Not really, but "living simpler" ends up going hand in hand with "what do I do now" in reference to the next utility bill, grocery bill, financial emergency, etc. I do believe the sad thing is that individuals that "do the right thing" such as going to school, working hard, etc can still find themselves in this situation. It constantly makes me think "what did I do wrong" and "what do I do now?"
Having lived in five countries — my native Canada, Mexico, France, England and the U.S. (since 1988) — I'm never clear why Americans, some of whom protest that they have "played by the rules," are so stunned to find their laissez-faire capitalist system has turned against them.
The rules are not made for their benefit!
People who sneer at the idea of accepting (or asking for) government assistance may never have struggled in utter desperation, saddled by illness, disability, injury and/or the collapse of their industry. And many people can never hope for a penny from their friends or relatives.
You can't bootstrap without bootstraps.
Nor why some of them feel ashamed even asking for help when they have done everything possible to help themselves.
According to this National Geographic story, (August 2014), a staggering six percent of Americans are now "food insecure" and the number of those needing help paying for this food in the suburbs has doubled; here is a radio interview with the author, Tracie McMillan.
While some people can move in with a friend or relative, many don't have that option and have to figure it out on their own. New York pays a maximum of $410/week in in unemployment benefits, taxable income. Yet in New York City, very few people of any age can find housing for less than $1,000/month. Do the math!
If you're young, highly-educated, willing to move anywhere a job requires it, in excellent health and flexible — you'll probably survive. But every one of those categories can shift, as does the labor market and the larger economy.
I struggled financially for all four years of university, even though my annual tuition was only $600/year. I was living on $350/month and the rent on my studio apartment was $160. I still had to pay for food, phone, books, public transportation, dental work, clothing, etc. My family had too much money for me to get student aid, yet were uninterested in helping me.
So I started selling my photos and writing freelance at the end of my sophomore year — and missed a lot of classes and other cute/fun college activities — in order to bring in additional income. My GPA is a bad joke, one reason I've never even considered graduate education. I had to survive!
Luckily, I was able to feed, house, clothe and educate myself. I can still tell you exactly what was in my wardrobe during those years as there was so little of it. I lived in a rough neighborhood until I was attacked in my apartment and moved.
I never, ever want to feel that anxious about money again.
Low-wage or minimum-wage work offers wages so low and hours so few that some workers have to go on food stamps.
Walmart, reports Forbes, cost us $6.2 billion in public assistance to its struggling staff. They "can't afford" to pay better, so it's up to us to bail out a for-profit corporation. Don't you love the irony of corporate welfare?
Have you struggled to survive financially? Are you now? How are you managing?


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Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization (SEO)' started by vimlesh, Feb 24, 2011.
What is Page Rank ?
PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.
The PageRank algorithm is the fundamental algorithm underlying the Google search engine. PageRank is a numeric value that represents website based on google's links analysis calculation with quality and quantity backlinks.
A proprietary measurement of Google's proprietary ordering of pages in its Web index. PageRank is the most intense point of focus, speculation, observation, and desire in the Webmaster and optimization communities.
PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself is. Google calculates a page's importance from the votes cast for it. How important each vote is is taken into account when a page's PageRank is calculated.*PageRank is Google's way of deciding a page's importance. It matters because it is one of the factors that determines a page's ranking in the search results. It isn't the only factor that Google uses to rank pages, but it is an important one.
PR given by Google depends upon the quality backlinks and quality content in the website.
Build higher PR free dofollow backlinks will increase your PR.
Separate names with a comma.


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I wanted to make a dessert last weekend for the blog (and for our enjoyment on Friday night!). I needed to narrow down my options – it's a little tough just to say "I want to make a dessert" – so I decided to focus on tarts. I bought a tart pan at Williams-Sonoma a few moths ago and hadn't used it. I sent Brandon and a few friends an email with tart options and the overwhelming response was that I should either make a peanut butter tart or a chocolate tart. Brandon had the genius suggestion to combine the two. So off I went in search of a chocolate peanut butter tart. I found this recipe online on the cooking blog Alpineberry. It's originally from Fine Cooking magazine.
This tart did not disappoint for my first foray into tart making. The chocolate and peanut butter flavors went together so well. If you love chocolate and peanut butter as much as I do, I highly suggest you give this one a try!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Tart
(Recipe source Alpineberry, originally from Fine Cooking Magazine)
1 sleeve of Oreos (with cream filling scraped out) or chocolate graham crackers
2 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/4 tsp salt
3 large egg yolks
1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
4 tsp all-purpose flour
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces
1 tbsp light corn syrup
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Have an ungreased 9 1/2 inch fluted tart pan with removable bottom ready.
Place cookies in a food processor and process until finely ground. If you don't have a food processor, you can place the cookies in a gallon bag and use a rolling pin to crush. In a medium bowl, mix the cookie crumbs and sugar until well blended. Drizzle the melted butter over the crumbs and mix until the crumbs are evenly moistened. Put the crumbs in the tart pan and use your hands to spread the crumbs so that they coat the bottom of the pan and start to climb the sides. Use your fingers to pinch and press some of the crumbs around the inside edge of the pan to cover the sides evenly and create a wall a scant 1/4 inch thick. Redistribute the remaining crumbs evenly over the bottom of the pan and press firmly to make a compact layer.
Bake the crust in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Cool to room temperature on a wire rack.
In a medium saucepan, bring the milk and salt to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk the egg yolks, brown sugar, and flour until well blended. Slowly add the hot milk to the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until it thickens and comes to a full boil, about 3 min. Continue to cook, whisking constantly, for 1 min. Remove the pan from the heat and add the peanut butter and vanilla; whisk until well blended.
Pour the hot peanut butter mixture into the crust and spread evenly. Gently press a piece of plastic wrap directly on the filling's surface to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate the tart until cold, about 2 hours, before adding the chocolate glaze.
Melt the chocolate in a small bowl in a microwave or in a double boiler over medium heat. (If you don't have a double broiler, place a small metal bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.) Add the butter and corn syrup and whisk until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth, about 1 minute.
Carefully remove the plastic wrap from the top of the chilled filling. Drizzle the glaze over the filling and spread it evenly to cover the tart completely. Refrigerate the tart in the pan until the glaze sets, about 30 minutes or up to 12 hours.


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Aberdeen, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th earl of
Aberdeen, George Hamilton-Gordon,
4th earl of ăb˝ədēn´ [key], 1784–1860, British statesman. He served (1813) as ambassador extraordinary at Vienna and helped arrange (1814) the peace terms at Paris after Napoleon I's initial defeat. He was foreign secretary (1828–30) in the duke of Wellington's cabinet and secretary for war and the colonies (1834–35) under Sir Robert Peel. As foreign secretary (1841–46) in Peel's second government, he settled two boundary disputes with the United States, the Northeast Boundary Dispute by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), and the Oregon controversy by the treaty of 1846. He also improved relations with France. He supported Peel in repealing the corn laws (1846) and resigned with him. As prime minister (1852–55), Aberdeen headed a brilliant coalition ministry and was quite successful in home affairs. He was, however, unable to prevent Viscount Palmerston and others in his cabinet from involving England on the side of the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War. Bad management of the campaigns and unpopularity of the war forced his resignation in 1855.
See biography by Muriel Chamberlain (1983); study by W. D. Jones (1958).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: British and Irish History: Biographies


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I was accosted while walking home from Flat Bread Pizza last night. The culprit was a three-pound herring gull intent on seeing what was in the left-over box. Slyly, I tore off a piece of crust and knelt down. I extended my arm, crust offered. The bird approached. I studied the beast as it cautiously waddled toward me. It's breast was white, and broad, and the color of fresh dry snow, beautiful and reflective. I noticed for the first time how the nostrils of a gull are etched into its yellow-ivory beak, how delicate its knees, and the fine webbing of its feet.
The approaching bird turned its head side to side, back and forth, keeping one eye on me the other over the shoulder, scanning for danger. Each pausing step was accompanied by half a dozen head rotations. The eye was marble-like, reflective, and I noticed for the first time how the lid was rimmed in red, etched crimson against pristine feathers. Penetrating and unblinking. Beautiful. Then it tilted forward and looked at me, square, eye to level eye. The bird was perhaps two feet from my extended hand. Look at me, the gull demanded. Look into my eye. Do you see me now? You see me everyday, but you do not really see me. Look at me. Look!
She was a good teacher and I gave her amble crust offerings.


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What would you like to do if money was no object? It's not a silly question, nor is it a falsified "what if" scenario. This question is posed for those wanting to leave behind the old notion of a "job" to do what they want to do. It's a question for everyone really.
Now, if you've listened to the video and got the idea that the theme is "money is bad", have another listen. In fact, remove money from the equation altogether. This idea is more than that. Allow the idea that you can do what you want to do, into your thinking and your mindset will change. Act upon this idea and you will better yourself.
It's better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way. – Alan Watts
Think past where you would be or what you would own. Focus on what would make you happiest. Do the things that make you antsy to wake up in the morning so you can do them. Do the things that you haven't tried yet or are afraid to. Put aside the idea of money being your end point and focus on what fulfills you. If what you want to do is a risk, take the chance. More often than not it is the things we think we can't do, that we actually can.


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A look at beers from Boulevard, Mystic, Stone, Magic Hat and more
This is one of those times of years where a bunch of new beers are available and I'm going to take a look at a few of them.
First up is the Boulevard Brewing Company's 80-Acre Wheat, a 5.5 percent ABV wheat beer.
This beer is new to Massachusetts, but was previously released in other markets.
The 80-Acre Wheat is not your typical wheat beer. This is hoppy, similar to an IPA, or a hoppy pale ale. The smell of citrusy hops is fantastic.
The 80 Acre-Wheat has the body of a wheat beer, but the hops add a nice touch that you don't get from your normal wheat beer. I think this will become one of my summer go to beers next year as an alternative to the boatload of flavorless American pale wheat ales that dot the shelves during the warmer months.
Next up is the Magic Hat Wooly, a 4.5 percent ESB brewed with spruce.
You can only pick up a little of the spruce in the aroma. Tastewise, you may not be tasting a Christmas tree, but I get some add flavor that kind of reminds me of ashes. I had trouble getting past that flavor.
The Wooly is part of Magic Hat's winter mixed pack, which is still worth picking it up. The mixed pack features Magic Hat's best beer, the Heart of Darkness, a wonderful stout.
I have not hid the fact that I'm a huge fan of the Mystic Brewery. One of their newest beers is the Three Cranes, a 7 percent ABV saison brewed with cranberries.
I actually enjoyed this with my Thanksgiving dinner, and just like the rest of Mystic's beers, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The cranberry flavor does not overwhelm the rest of the beer. Rather it is a compliment to the rest of the flavors. The beer is extremely well-done, exactly what I expect from Mystic.
One of Samuel Adams' latest beers is the Merry Mischief, a 9.5 percent ABV gingerbread stout.
The Merry Mischief smells phenomenal, like freshly baked gingerbread cookies. The one negative is the body. It's not as full-bodied as you'd expect such a big beer to be, but the flavor is definitely there.
The Merry Mischief had the potential to be too sweet, but Samuel Adams did a good job of keeping it from crossing into the cloying category. It is definitely a dessert type of beer, but all of the flavors blend nicely. It tastes like a gingerbread cookie.
This next beer may be hard to find. I keep hearing of more and more stores selling out. The Stone Brewing Company Enjoy By IPA (Massachusetts' version is Enjoy by 12.21.12) is a beer meant to be imbibed fresh. If there are any more left on the shelf after Dec. 21, it'll be pulled.
No matter if you buy into the hype of the beer having to be drunk that quickly or not, the Enjoy By IPA is a fabulous double IPA.
It comes in at 9.4 percent ABV, and smells of pine and some pineapple. Those aromas become flavor when you take a first sip, and there is a little spiciness to the beer.
Although this is a beer for hopheads, there is more than enough of a malt backbone to keep this beer balanced. If you're into hoppy beers, this is one to seek out. Look for it, and if it's gone, just hope it comes back in the future.
Finally, the Wormtown Brewery's newest double IPA, Buddha Juice is the brewery's best double IPA to date.
The 9.6 percent beer is draft only, and is brewed with Buddha's Hand, a crazy looking citrus fruit.
The beer is aromatic as heck. The citrusy smell is dominant. The beer is extremely hoppy, but the extra citrus flavors really play well on the tastebuds. It is a unique flavor I'd never tasted in a beer before and really enjoyed it.
The Buddha Juice has a little alcohol heat, but it does not detract from the beer.
Here are some beers for you to seek out. Feel free to leave some recommendations.


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WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney completed another crucial defense in an important state last night. Once again, a combination of heavy spending, negative campaigning, and establishment backing staved off what could have been a crisis in his campaign.
But the narrow nature of the win in Michigan, where he was born and won handily in 2008, demonstrates continued weakness in his candidacy. And now he heads into a phase of the campaign where it will be difficult to land any knockout blows and clinch the nomination: Super Tuesday.
The March 6 vote by 10 states, including Massachusetts, will preface a potentially agonizing spring for the Republicans. It is the proverbial "long slog'' Romney's campaign says it has been preparing for since last year.
"This is when things change a little bit. It's not about winning, it's about delegates,'' acknowledged a key Romney supporter who requested anonymity so he could speak freely about campaign strategy.
Even though 437 delegates are up for grabs next Tuesday, by far the biggest haul of the season, it is probable no clear-cut winner will emerge. That is because Republicans this year are allocating delegates proportional to each state's vote - in most states, if a candidate wins, for example, a quarter of the vote, he gets a quarter of the delegates, even though he is not the overall winner.
Splitting the pot that way is designed to prevent a candidate from locking up the nomination early by capturing a bunch of winner-take-all states, as John McCain did in 2008.
The quest for the 1,144 delegates needed to clinch the nomination now depends on strong finishes, not necessarily wins, in as many states as possible.
Although Romney leads in the delegate count for now, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are positioned to accumulate large numbers. Three conservative Super Tuesday states - Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Gingrich's home state of Georgia - are especially unfriendly territory for the former Massachusetts governor.
Ohio, similar to Michigan in economic and political complexion, appears to be the biggest battleground state and will probably be the scene of the most intense struggle in coming days to define the Republican agenda. Romney wants to keep the focus on the economy and President Obama. His opponents keep pulling him into arguments about social issues and his own qualifications as a conservative.
Millionaires contributing unlimited sums to super PACs are helping both Santorum and Gingrich compete.
Gingrich's chief sponsor, casino executive Sheldon Adelson, infused Gingrich's cause with more millions this week. Gingrich forces assert they are poised for a Super Tuesday resurgence after losing in Florida and giving Santorum an opportunity to gain the mantle of top anti-Romney candidate. The super PAC supporting Gingrich said yesterday that it will air ads in four Super Tuesday states and three others, highlighting comments from voters who say Romney does not connect with them.
In addition to these problems, Romney has continued to commit gaffes that highlight his extraordinary wealth and make him appear insensitive to the concerns of regular people. Whether it be boasting of his wife's Cadillacs or dismissing $375,000 in his speaking fees as "not very much,'' he keeps generating negative sound bites.
At a prerace appearance at the Daytona 500 last weekend, he could have admitted he is not a huge fan of stock-car racing but is still excited by the speed and noise. Instead, he chose to relate to this red-state sport by saying he has wealthy pals who own NASCAR teams.
Such stumbles have begun to eclipse the economic proposals Romney wants to highlight.
Last Wednesday, he rolled out an aggressive plan for personal income tax cuts. He followed that up with a strong debate performance on Thursday. But then he spoke of Ann Romney's Cadillacs in a near-empty Detroit football stadium on Friday. News coverage questioned his ability to connect with voters.
"The candidate sometimes makes some mistakes and so I'm trying to do better and work harder and make sure that we get our message across,'' Romney said at a press conference in Michigan yesterday.
It all adds up to this: Romney fans hoping he can mimic McCain's Super Tuesday feats in 2008 are almost certainly going to be disappointed. Four years ago, McCain mortally wounded or eliminated the competition on that day, which landed in February. Romney dropped out first, then Mike Huckabee. But that was with an abundance of winner-take-all states.
Given the new delegate rules, the geography of Super Tuesday, and the depth of Romney's unpopularity among conservatives, the most likely scenario next week is a divided outcome.
"It will be less definitive'' than 2008, said Barbara Norrander, a University of Arizona political science professor and specialist on primaries. The eventual outcome of the process, she said, "will depend on whether Santorum and Gingrich will behave like candidates in the past and drop out once they start to lag behind in delegate totals.''
The alternative is they do well enough to stay close to Romney and never quit, taking their fight to the Republican convention.
Romney should perform well in the moderate Northeast bastions of Massachusetts and Vermont next week. Santorum's appeals to Christian conservatives will not play as well there. Romney also has a big edge in Virginia because only he and Ron Paul will appear on the ballot (Gingrich and Santorum failed to submit the necessary signatures) If Romney breaks the 50 percent mark, the state's rules call for him to win all 49 delegates.
"If he's able to win all the delegates there, that pretty much neutralizes all of his other losses across the South,'' said Josh Putnam, a political scientist at North Carolina's Davidson College who closely monitors the Byzantine rules of the GOP primary contest.
Romney will be focused on building an insurmountable lead in delegates, much as Barack Obama did against Hillary Clinton in 2008. The Democrats' reliance on proportional distribution was a leading reason for that prolonged primary season.
"It's an incremental process that slowly inches toward 1,144,'' said Putnam. "We're going to be into April and probably May until we can say that [Romney's] lead is healthy enough to put enough pressure points on the other candidates to drop out.''
Specialists believe Ohio will be the premier battleground.
"Ohio really is a place that Romney needs to win, not only from the perspective of delegate counting, but Ohio, much like Michigan and other Midwestern states, really is a place that a candidate like Mitt Romney should be a natural fit with,'' said David B. Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Akron, in Ohio.
Santorum has been leading in the Buckeye State polls. A quirk of the rules gives Romney supporters hope for a strong showing in the delegate count, nonetheless. The state, like Michigan, awards a large percentage of delegates on a winner-take-all basis in individual congressional districts. That means Romney can pick up three delegates at a time around the state by winning liberal and moderate counties, such as Cuyahoga, which is home to Democrat-rich Cleveland.
Gerald Snyder, a financial planner in Brecksville and a member of the Cuyahoga Valley Republicans, is supporting Romney. To get back into strong front-runner status, said Snyder, Romney should stick to the nation's financial picture.
"I think he got maybe trapped into the social-issue type situation, and started talking more along that line,'' Snyder said. "He has come out of that, and he's talking more about the economy and jobs and employment, and getting back to work.''
Christopher Rowland can be reached at email@example.com.


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Dempster did it yet again tonight. Crushed the Sox pushing his record to 9-2, a perfect 9-0 at home. Lou gave him the chance to go the full nine innings but after a couple got on, including a weak infield single off the third base bag, Howry came in in relief (perhaps a bit of Marmol-aid might be called for after all…what is wrong with Carlos lately? Even with a great Cubs win and sweep of the weekend series I can't help but continue to wonder) and put the final few outs away in front of the greatest fans in Chicago, in the greatest ballpark in Chicago, for what is clearly the better team in Chicago.
Old Reliable Comes Through Again in Front of Old FaithfulDailies
Every time a Cub came to the plate you expected something exciting to happen after Friday night's walk-off result. And of course, it was Ramirez who authored that piece of drama and excitement who was center stage throughout Saturday's and tonight's wins against the Sox. Ramirez went yard yet again this evening wrapping up a killer series this weekend against the crosstown rival Sox giving him a BA of .500 for the weekend series. One of the best third basemen in the game came through again this evening and it must-see TV every time I knew he'd be up in the next inning.
Patterson had a great weekend as well and capped off his emergence into the Cubbie Collection of Contributors for this season in meaningful games and situations where key talent has gone down with injuries by stepping up and filling in for Soriano tonight in left and hitting his first major league home run. The seven runs the Cubs put on the board along with a dominant Dempster made this game especially fun to watch.
When Dempster was left in by Lou to try and get the complete game, I knew he'd be on a short leash and he was. But I gain more and more respect for Lou as a manager as the season goes on for moments like this. The guy simply knows how to manage and get the most out of what he's given. As a result, the Cubs sit atop the Central by 4.5 games (Cards lost to the RED Sox earlier this afternoon) and own the best home start at Wrigley that any of us have every seen, including a fourteen game streak of hanging the W flag! And as if that wasn't enough…Dempster…14 in a row at home…32-8 to start the season at Wrigley…as if that weren't enough…next up: the Orioles. Can't wait to see what Derosa does against the O's considering he was rumored to be headed there all winter. I'd love to see Brian Roberts lay a giant Oriole egg in this upcoming series while Derosa buckles down and tears it up. Marshall up first Tuesday night looking to fill some giant Zambrano sized cleats.
Do I hear 15 in a row?
Way to go Cubs! SWEEP! SWEEP! SWEEP!!!
Go Cubs Go!


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I've been looking for a while for the perfect solution to store my fabric. It had to have
open-front shelving so I could see my fabric. The shelves had to be short, because fabric doesn't stack very high and any extra space would just be wasted. And finally, it had to be CUTE. I wasn't going to spend $ on something that wasn't cute. Then I found it (see photo). It was the right color, right height, right size and exactly the right level of cuteness. It was a splurge, but I will splurge for cuteness & perfection.
When the shelves finally came, I opened the box and the first thing I noticed was how cute they were. The second thing I noticed was how smelly they were! But not to worry – I opened the windows and aired them out for a couple of days. Then when I thought it was safe, I started getting my fabric folded into perfect little piles to fit in those perfect little cubbies. That's when it hit me. Not only did the smell seem stronger, I was getting a headache from it. I can't sew with a headache. 😦 A little online research told me exactly what I needed to know – the MDF used in this furniture releases formaldehyde, polluting the air in my house not for a few days but continuing to release it for several years. I think the paint is also partially to blame. The sad thing is that this furniture is marketed for use by children. *sigh* Needless to say, I called, complained and got it all returned.
It was around that time that we got a new handyman. He does it all, including building furniture from scratch (so jealous). So after going over the dimensions, paint color, and wood, he brought me the finished product: my early Christmas present.
The only adaptation I made was cutting one set of shelves into 2 shorter shelves. These shelves hold WAY more fabric than the shelves I had before. And the old shelves took up more space. So happy with these. They cost $100 more than the ones I returned – definitely worth the cost of no headaches! Wishing I knew about cabinet makers before – am now a huge fan of custom furniture.


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Welcome to LostBoardGame.com we are finnely redesigning our game website.
We will have all the best online gaming reviews from the best lost online casino games.
Golden Dragon Game
If it wasn't for the 3 reels in this Microgaming title, you'd swear blind that Golden Dragon online casino game wasn't a classic slot machine, and more akin to something like a video slot. The way it has been designed gives it a very scenic look, with the background filled with a cavern and a dragon sitting on a loot of gold. It's very The Hobbit, but since when was that ever a problem. Golden Dragon is a classy classic slot and features a few perks and privileges not normally attributed to the genre.
How to play Golden Dragon slots online
Golden Dragon offers players 3 reels but a total of 5 paylines to play with. These paylines run not just across the screen, but the fourth and fifth lines also run diagonally across the reels too. Coin values range from $0.25 up to $5, and with a total of only 1 coin per line being permitted, it makes the min and max wagers in this slot extend from $0.25 up to $25.
There are a number of icons in this slot. Three of them are as simple as single, double and triple bar symbols, whilst two of them are more thematic in nature. The two icons which are designed specifically for this slot are the shield logo and the dragon itself, with the latter being a very important icon indeed.
Golden Dragon Bonus Features
The special feature in this slot is actually a wild symbol. That symbol is represented by the aforementioned dragon icon. When it is found on any active payline, it will substitute itself for any symbol that the player requires to complete a winning combination on a payline.
Golden Dragon slot Payouts
Golden Dragon offers fair payouts. For any 3 bar icons, the player can win 4 coins; whilst if they manage to line up 3 single bars on any active payline they will win an instant 10 coins for their troubles. Players can also pick up 40 coins for 3 double bar icons, and a total of 60 coins for 3 triple bar icons on a payline. Should they go one better and manage to line up 3 shield icons, they will win a total of 80 coins.
The Golden Dragon jackpot
Because of the five paylines, there are theoretically five jackpots to be won in this slot. As well as being a wild, the dragon icon is also the jackpot symbol. Just how much of a jackpot you win depends greatly on which payline the symbols are found.
For example, if you were to find all 3 of the symbols on the first payline, you'd receive a payout of 1,000 coins. This would be worth 1,500 coins on the second payline, and a total of 2,000 coins on the third payline. Finally, on the fourth and fifth paylines, players will receive the second highest and highest jackpots in the game. The fourth payline pays out 2,500 coins, and the fifth payline coughs up 5,000 coins for 3 of the dragon wild combinations on their lines.
Other notes on Golden Dragon
A lot of gamers will like this slot. It is very decorative and given that it is utilising a genre that has often been produced, as its theme, this one is actually quite a stand out title. The best part of this slot is that players won't be charged extra rates for maximum wagers, due to their being wilds or extra paylines. The maximum wager is the same as in other classic slots that feature only one payline and no wilds. The total jackpot to be won if you have the maximum wager staked, is worth roughly $25,000 in real money.
Here is another old great slot machine called Froot Loot, that we hope will still be around in 10 years time, we all need to help support saving these fun old games..


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Can you be too old to "get" social media? (Or too young to "get" wine?)
Cathryn Sloane has written a strong, passionate and incisive column on her belief "Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25."
Published in nextgen journal, an online pub that describes itself as "the website for the 'next generation'- our generation," Sloane's argument is as controversial as it is compelling. In my comment on it, I want to emphasize, first and foremost, that I accept much of what Cathryn says. She points out, for instance, that her generation (she seems to be in her early or mid-twenties) "spent our adolescence growing up with social media" in such a way as "to make the best/correct use of it [come] most naturally to us." Because of this, she concludes, "The mere fact that my generation has been up close and personal with all these developments over the years should make clear enough that we are the ones who can best predict, execute, and utilize the finest developments to come."
What partiquely piques Sloane, she writes, is when she sees "a job posting for a Social Media Manager/Associate/etc. and find the employer is looking for five to ten years of direct experience…". Which makes her wonder, she adds, "why they don't realize the candidates who are in fact best suited for the position actually aren't old enough to have that much experience."
She has a point. In mathematics it's a truism that if you haven't done your best work by age 30, you probably never will. The history of Silicon Valley is one of extraordinary invention by teenagers and twenty-something geniuses. Kids can pick up second and third languages almost overnight; the older you get, the harder it is. In many fields of creative thinking, youth is, indeed, a factor. The aging human brain may increase its powers of subtlety, power and talent in particular fields [visual artists, for example, frequently do their best work in later age], but in doing so, it often loses that brilliant burst of creative insight that may characterize the young mind.
Sloan's essay reminds me of the trepidation I often feel regarding my own use of social media. I still find it intimidating and confusing, even though I blog, tweet and Facebook everyday. I don't necessarily wish I were 23 again, but when it comes to social media, if I were, I would understand its intricacies a lot better than I do now. But then, I never claimed to have the qualifications to be a social media manager, or to want to be one, for that matter.
Still, I wonder why facility in the use of social media isn't something that can't be learned. It doesn't seem to me to be equatable with, say, learning a foreign language. On a scale of one to ten, learning how to boil water is a 1; learning Mandarin is a 10; learning social media adequately enough to be a winery social media director is probably a 6. To put it another way, one doesn't have to grow up in China speaking Mandarin to learn it well enough to go to work for an investment bank in Hong Kong, as an acquaintance of mine did. He mastered it enough (and Japanese, before that, when he was stationed in Tokyo) to now run his bank's Asia division.
If social media directors should only be under 25, then why isn't it fair to say that professional wine critics should only be over 35 or 40? After all, to do this job really well demands extensive knowledge, not only of the wines you review but the history of the regions, terroir, and winemakers (not to mention the development of a sound writing style). A 22-year old can set up a blog and start "reviewing" wine, but why would it be wrong for me to use Sloane's argument, in reverse, and say that person simply is too young to tackle a job that requires so much experience if it is to be done right?
Just wondering…
someone who hasn't followed our give-and-take would think I'm patronizing you, but this is a beautiful piece of reasoning; content and frequency of posting make this (in my opinion) the most challenging wine blog out there.
Adding my two cents: I have two sons, both deeply into social media, but my concern parallels our nation's history, including its forms of communication, and this generation's tendency to scorn the past by cutting-out its context; depth and wisdom don't come by surfing shallow technological waves, but by stitching together insights and applications that gave rise to our current technologies, even as a great old vine's roots dig into the dirt, sometimes hundreds of years and many feet into the ground. Working together is not new, but sage.
Interesting piece. I have to agree more with you than the 20-something woman you are writing about. Social media can easily be learned (unless you need to know code… that's a whole other issue). What can't be easily learned is expertise in a specific subject (like wine, finance, politics) as well as the ability to connect with an audience. On the other hand, even if you are an expert in something, if you have poor communication skills it doesn't matter how much you know, you won't find an audience.
And the audience isn't dumb. They will be able to weed out the 20-something wine "reviewers" from the actual experts like yourself.
I second Lara. It's nice that young folks understand the technology so well having grown up with it but in the end you have to write something interesting on your Facebook-Twitter-blog pages to keep them coming back. If I may generalize about young folks, they don't always have enough experience to write compelling bits that they then publish via social media. As a writer myself, I know my whole life experience helps me write well for my own social media outlets. Facility with technology does not equal having something interesting to say, which I believe is also the job of the social media expert. Content is king, baby.
A resounding "Yes" to both titular questions.
Addendum: you can also be too stupid, too stubborn, and too rooted in a worldview that prevents understanding of both.
I don't think you can be too old to understand social media, though the learning curve make be more challenging for someone who doesn't spend a lot of time on social media (which is probably correlated with age). We recently had a woman who oversaw social media and she was over 25 (I won't reveal her real age). She clearly understood how to interact with people on social media. Whereas we also have a 22-year old intern who is not as social media savvy because he hasn't spent a lot of time on there, but he has learned very quickly.
At the end of the day, like most marketing, it is about understanding your customer. If you are a social media manager for Flipflop wines that is trying to build up a following of 25-30 year olds, I think it might be great to hire a 25-year old with less wine knowledge. But if you are an Argentine importer who is looking to engage with bloggers and other wine trade via social media, I might look for the more wine-savvy person who is excited to learn the social media skills.
Sorry I don't buy her thesis it's the "don't trust anyone over 30" thesis all over again, well we all know what happened when we hit 31, we were 31. I had a Macintosh Computer that the data and OS was on the same disc, but that doesn't make me an Apple fanboy it was a tool no more no less than the MacBook Pro I'm using today, I watched and understood twitter, facebook, etc day one with older eyes that may be more discerning.
On the other note, I know some very good 22-25 year old palates that in 20 years will make RPj and others look silly, this partially because they have great bloggers (like you) and new media to consult and move forward at a rate I never dreamed possible. I never believed you can't teach and old dog new tricks or a young dog knows it all.
After they 'age out' as Social Media Managers at 25, what is the career path? Barrista? Just kidding. Age shouldn't be an obstacle to being successful.(Look at Craig Camp of Cornerstone, holding down the #1 spot on Vintank's Social Connect Index). I don't know Craig's age but I reckon he is over 40, but I do know he is passionate about connecting with social media. In the same vein, I support the idea of younger, more diverse voices in wine criticism and have mentored a 27 year old writer since 2009. Her writing style is totally different than mine but is on the right track. I don't hold Sloane's remarks against her as some have done in other forum discussions. I know some of the things I said when I was 25 were not the most 'enlightened' but then again I didn't have the immediacy of the internet to memorialize my words for eternity.
The perfect social media person is the one who fits in with your product and your customer. There is a wide range of products and customers, from rock stars to pharmaceuticals, from teens to retirement communities. Social Media is not brain science, in fact, it is more designed for the computer illiterati, than tech wizards. The more complicated things in social media are much easier than website design and functionality. Anyone who knows a product and the customer and enjoys social media can do it.
In case you missed last weeks New Yorker cover…"capturing the memories"…
Cracked me up!
The writer of the "Under 25" article you cite buried the lead when she wrote this in the fifth paragraph:
"The truth is, regardless of age, some people have a better handle on social media than others."
Maybe it's best to start with the "the truth", rather than burying it.
Mr. Wark
Seeing she has a BA in "nonfiction" creative writing made me realize, ahh, that's a nice way to say she has a "social media " degree. Wasn't "nonfiction creative writing" called advertizing once upon a time?
Steve – thanks for the RT on Twitter, and your thoughtful blog above. As a strategist and marketing by the numbers dork (not a Social Media guru), what I found most naive about Sloan's posting was her assumption that Social Media was "social", like, you know, for fun. Social Media is media written by Society and has just as much place in a business plan as email, direct mail or broadcast TV. It is a vehicle. And a generation can't own it.
Loved your analogy about Chinese and Wine…mine was cars. http://vinalytic.com/2012/07/24/why-your-social-media-manager-should-be-over-25/
Best post in a while Steve and love the comments, Tom understands truth, you understand it is a 6 in scale, and Rachel and Lara understand that content is #1 whether the queen or the king …keep swimming!
PS – and at the end of the day you still have to deplete the cases regardless of the brand.
I've read a lot of articles regarding Cathryn Sloane's post, most extremely harsh towards her. I enjoyed yours the most because you highlighted, what I believe, was her intention in her original post. It's too bad she didn't have you edit her piece before she hit publish. Her writing came across to me a bit bratty, which I don't believe is what she was going for.
Nice Job and I'll definitely be back to visit your blog.
The focus of this whole debate is in the wrong place. It's not about the social media tools (because they'll continuall change), it's about the experience. To be a 'Manager' of anything requires seasoning, good judgement, diplomacy and management skills.
A Social Media Manager needs those skills, and may people under 25 don't have it yet.
Social Media tools are tools in the toolbox along with telephone tools, software tools, travel tools, presentation tools, etc..
The article suffers from link bait (like many of Steve's articles about social media). I wonder if Ms. Sloane thinks the President of the United States should be under 25 if they took debate class in high school.


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You are currently browsing the daily archive for May 3, 2010.
I read about this place almost 20 years ago in this NYTimes piece and clipped it, saved it, still have it somewhere. The Witte family, Norman Brouwer, and Arthur Kill–all mentioned in the article–were just names then. Yesterday, thanks to fellow-waterblogger frogma (See her "graveyard posts here and here) and the generosity of Sebago Canoe Club kayak Captain Minh to lend me a kayak, I got there. Remember, double-click enlarges fotos.
To learn the specifics on 1944-launched Bloxom below, click here. Anyone know of fotos of Bloxom and Hila in their heyday?
More of Bloxom's context.
The wooden hull steel deckhouse World War 2-era tug ATR-89 Hila. An anonymous commenter last summer wrote: "WW2 built ATR….this one ATR-89. Became HILA out of Jacksonville in 1949 and passed into Liberian registry by 1954.broke down in late 50′s on a voyage from Miami and eventually ended up at Wittes." Anyone know of fotos of Bloxom and Hila in their heyday?
1926-built ferry Seawell's Point (right) and unidentified vessel (See Graveyard 2 for identification) left seen frontal and from
from the opposite side. The lifeboat still waits a declared emergency.
Wooden wheelhouse offering as template for craftsmanship of another time. Notice Bonnie beyond the H-bitt on lower right side of foto.
A different view. Is this what remains of the Meseck twins? Great fotos of Carrie T. Meseck (later Susan A. Moran) at steamshipphotos.com
According to a December 2006 comment by "the dude" on the fabulous Opacity site, the tug below is "Ned Moran sailed for Moran Tugs 1954-1963, the tug with a brt of 206 tons had 1040 ipk, she was 20.48 x 8.28 x 4.27 mtr and build during 1930 at A.C.Brown & Sons in Tottenville, she sailed first under the name Federick (sic) E Meseck in New York and was purchased by Moran during 1954 where she served until 1963 when she was sold to Witte's Staten Island yard." To be noted, Moran purchased Meseck Towing Company in 1954. I'd love to see fotos of Ned at her zenith.
More trip fotos soon. Here's a foto of Courier aka Bayou Plaquemine from two years ago.
All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.
Tip of the hat to Miru Kim, O'Boyle, and Opacity.
And a propos of nothing, see surfing the dunes of Peru here.


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These large, multifunction, remote-controlled Moravian Stars are among the most sophisticated lighted decor items available today. LED strip light placed along the inside of the aluminum frame illuminates translucent panels in the spires, providing an even light dispersion for a beautiful glow. These RGB lights can be controlled via remote for thousands of shadings of solid colors, as well as animated functions. Use the included weight-rated guy wire for hanging display, or remove the wire and place stars at an angle on the ground.
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