text:
Editor's Note: Ruben Navarrette is a CNN contributor and a nationally syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. Follow him on Twitter: @rubennavarrette.
Story highlights
8 Dreamers reentered U.S. and got caught, but U.S. doesn't know what to do with them
Rep. Steve King once proposed an electric fence on border, said "we do this with livestock"
He also said for each valedictorian Dreamer, 100 Dreamers are drug smugglers
Ruben Navarrette: Deported Dreamers a lot better for our society than Rep. King
"Dreamers" always seem to find themselves in the eye of the storm, and that's where they are at the moment.
The term refers to those undocumented young people who – if they attend college or join the military – might have been eligible for legal status under the DREAM Act, which died an ugly death in the Senate in December 2010.
Dreamers were brought to the United States as children, and they are Americans in every way – both good and bad. On the positive side, many of them recognize and cherish America's greatness. On the negative side, many of them are just as self-centered and entitled as many of our homegrown young people are.
This week, that dynamic played out again on the U.S.-Mexico border. A group of Dreamers who were born in Mexico and brought to the United States as children only to be deported back to Mexico tried to reenter the United States. It was as if they were saying to their adopted country, "You're not getting rid of us that easily."
You just don't see this kind of thing every day.
It made for high drama on the border. Eight Dreamers who have been deported mustered up the chutzpah to march back into the United States across the Arizona-Mexico border only to be apprehended. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is trying to figure out what to do with these young people.
Meanwhile, at least one member of Congress seems intent on carrying on the American tradition of labeling immigrants as deficient, defective, defiant, and dangerous. Now, to that list, add drug-smuggling.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is known for his exaggerations and wild nativist outbursts. In July 2006, King suggested that the U.S. government electrify the fence on the U.S.-Mexico border because, back in Iowa, "we do this with livestock all the time."
Now King has really outdone himself. With Republicans poised to introduce their own version of the DREAM Act, he recently suggested that – contrary to the popular image of undocumented students brought here by their parents who become class valedictorian – young illegal immigrants are just as likely to enter the country as drug mules.
Specifically, King said this in an interview last week with conservative media outlet Newsmax about what he considers the appropriate ratio of valedictorian to smuggler:
"For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."
This week, instead of apologizing, the acid-tongued lawmaker doubled down on those comments.
"It's not something that I'm making up," King told the host of an Iowa-based radio show. "This is real. We have people that are mules, that are drug mules, that are hauling drugs across the border and you can tell by their physical characteristics what they've been doing for months, going through the desert with 75 pounds of drugs on their back.
"And if those who advocate for the DREAM Act, if they choose to characterize this about valedictorians, I gave them a different image that we need to be thinking about because we just simply can't be passing legislation looking only at one component of what would be millions of people."
King's remarks are causing heartburn for GOP leaders who are trying to fix the party's unpopularity among Hispanic voters. This obviously doesn't help. They criticized his remarks, but they didn't take any action to punish him.
"There can be honest disagreements about policy without using hateful language," House Speaker John Boehner said in his statement. "Everyone needs to remember that."
Meanwhile, remember those eight Dreamers locked up in Arizona? Immigration officials seem unsure of what to do with them. They could send them back to Mexico, but the young people are almost certain to keep trying to reenter the United States. This is their home, and they want to go home. They're Americans all right – stubborn, confident, determined, and not likely to give up when they think they're right.
I have a solution and a way to reconcile these two stories. It's all about usefulness, and who is likely to do the most good and make the greater contribution to this country.
Let's keep the kids – and deport the congressman.
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.
Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ruben Navarrette.


text:
007 GoldenEye Reloaded – PlayStation 3 Game
Includes Sony PS3 original game disc in case and may come with the original instruction manual and cover art when available. All PlayStation 3 games are made for and will play on any PS3 system. All DK's games are in good used condition, cleaned, tested, guaranteed to work, and backed by our 120 day warranty.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The conspiracy theories about Huma Abedin's marriage to former congressman Anthony Weiner keep getting weirder. Walid Shoebat, who according to the Center for American Progress [pdf] is a "former purported Islamic terrorist turned apocalyptic Christian," recently told David Horowitz's FrontPageMag that Abedin's marriage to Weiner, who is Jewish, is either part of her Muslim Brotherhood espionage or shows that Weiner converted to Islam, or both:
It is extremely rare to have Muslim women marry non-Muslims, much less to have conservative Muslims look the other way, unless Huma has a "higher calling" and a unique exception was made for her, since she is an ear into top U.S. sensitive information, or Anthony Weiner has converted to Islam or even both.
On Monday, Shoebat told the American Family Association's Sandy Rios that the rise of Muslim Brotherhood is all part of biblical prophecy and we are witnessing the birth pangs of the End Times:
He also claimed that Obama is assisting the Muslim Brotherhood and is "in bed with terrorists," and that Michele Bachmann and Louie Gohmert, two of the five Republican congressmen who have accused Abedin of cooperating with the Muslim Brotherhood, are acting like modern day John the Baptist fighting today's Herod:
Rios: Did you have any idea, even ten years ago or right after 9/11 that things would come to this dangerous state where we do have, and we're going to talk about this, this incredible infiltration at the highest levels and no one would listen? Did you ever foresee this?
Shoebat: Yes, yes, of course I expected this. Americans had a test when the elections happened and the results were Obama. We've seen anybody, you know, who looks at Obama's record, he was in bed with terrorists. People need to confront this issue once and for all, President Obama doesn't have a clean record.
Rios: Should we be worried about Michele Bachmann and Louie Gohmert and all these letters? Should we defend them, what's the point?
Shoebat: Well, I mean, if you look at the story of John the Baptist, John the Baptist was doing what? He was a symbol of the church. He was fighting against Herod, Herod was a symbol of the Antichrist, a symbol of the evil one. So what happened? He exposed Herod and he got his head chopped off. So there is a danger in fighting this but the church's position is to expose and to fight for what is right.


text:
Today, automobile electric powered improvements are becoming a growing number of challenging and they are already pressuring the boundaries of contemporary technological innovation. However, they are fundamentally the identical making use of their design and style three decades back. An useful basic thought of your automobiles electric powered structure will be an outstanding kick away. The most important device of the automobiles electrical system, battery as well as the alternator are described beneath, in conjunction with some troubleshooting tips.
Your Autos Battery power
Car's battery pack is a safe-keeping piece of equipment and is also used to begin the motor. Battery assists initialize and manage the power extras put in place and set up on your car or truck. The battery consists of six tissue of heaped positive and negative guide dishes, split by insulators and covered up in electrolyte, which is actually a mix of sulfuric acidity and drinking water. The six tissues generate 2.1 volts making an entirety of 12.6 volts. This sort of electricity is kept electricity rather than created energy.
On every occasion that a auto present signs and symptoms of your charging or starting up program malfunction, one of the most crucial analysis and look that needs to be performed first is actually a voltage and aesthetic analyze in the battery pack. Acknowledging and learning the precise scenario of your battery is easily the most outstanding means to be knowledgeable about whether or not to imagine other process parts can postpone the unnecessary establishing of any beginner or alternator, which cannot fix the car up until the electric battery is up to lump away from.
It is very recommended that you seek the assistance of vehicle electricians in order to fully be familiar with the auto electric powered improvements which should be accomplished. Automobile electric fixes on battery packs might be tricky that is why it is best to hold the back-up in the professionals just for this make a difference.
Your Automobiles Alternator
The automobiles alternator generates electrical power which happens to be employed to maintain battery pack storing fee and also to offer a hand in functioning the complete the electric powered accessories, which includes the ignition and the engine management methods. The automobiles alternator is buckle-powered through the generator and produces an alternating current which is changed to twelve volts immediate current by way of the rectifiers or diode connection.
In contradiction to well-liked thought, an alternator is not going to continuously create electrical energy. It sequences on and off as well as require will go all around. The battery bumpers it in the electric requirements from the automobile, plus it merely operates sufficiently to maintain system voltage. Through the aspect of your highest reason for efficiency and competency as well as for its sturdiness, the alternator is ought to be asking not surpassing fifty percent of times.
By looking into all basic circuits first can towards the greatest level lessen your troubleshooting some time and unnecessary replacing of your alternator or vehicle electric powered maintenance. You can question the assistance of the auto electricians to ensure you to definitely understand fully the various concerns with regards to alternators and its maintenance.
Overall, your cars electric structure ought to be entirely taken care of and maintained every a couple of years or at whatever time auto electric powered maintenance for any sort of travel capacity breakdowns occur.
Inspired by: ezinearticles


text:
Fiona Green's photograph Trapped (above) and Amber Czesnolowicz's colored pencil Up, Up and Away (right) are among the works by Red Bank Regional students on display at Shrewsbury's Guild of Creative Art, beginning April 22.
Press release from Red Bank Regional High School
The talented senior Studio Art and Photography Majors at Red Bank Regional High School have collaborated to present a joint show entitled "Exposure and Brush Strokes" at the Guild of Creative Art (The Guild) this spring. The show will debut on Tuesday, April 22, and last through Wednesday, May 7.
Presenting their work, which includes pencil drawings, mixed media, oil and acrylic paintings to film and digital photography, are studio art majors Amber Czesnolowicz (Middletown), Nicole Farello, (Red Bank), Victoria Garcia, (Red Bank), Anja Merz, (Red Bank) and Alaena Punzi, (Little Silver), in addition to commercial photography majors Kelsey Capestro (Bradley Beach), Maria Montgomery (Little Silver), Fiona Greene (Union Beach), and Erin Sacharanski (Union Beach).
The public is invited to meet the young artists at their Gala reception on Friday, April 25, from 6 to 8 pm. The Guild is located at 620 Broad Street (Route 35) in Shrewsbury.


text:
CAN WE BURY THE CARBON PROBLEM?Thursday, May 24th, 2007
In this post, I want to focus a bit more on one particular aspect of the carbon and climate problem: Coal. While it's true that dealing with coal will not, by itself, solve the carbon problem, it is equally true that not dealing with coal will severely limit the opportunities to effectively safeguard the climate.
What exactly is the problem with coal? Well, for starters, coal accounts for about 25% of today's global energy demand. And because coal contains significantly more carbon per unit energy than either oil or natural gas, it accounts for nearly 40% of all carbon emissions to the atmosphere. In addition, coal is cheap, and both the


text:
Feb 16, 2013
Luxury brand Bottega Veneta says Europe shop window for China
Feb 16, 2013
PARIS (Reuters) - Italy's Bottega Veneta plans to invest as much in new shops in Western Europe as in emerging countries in the coming years even though sales are growing quicker in new markets, its chief executive said. Bottega Veneta, known for its woven leather totes starting at around 5,000 euros ($6,700), is PPR's second-largest luxury brand behind Gucci in terms of sales and its most profitable. The retailer opened 26 shops in 2012 and runs 196 boutiques worldwide.
It plans to increase the size of its retail network by 10-15 percent annually, Chief Executive Marco Bizzarri said. "I am convinced that consumers from emerging markets will buy there (in emerging markets) if they see that the brand is well positioned in Europe," Bizzarri said in an interview at the brand's shop in Paris' luxury enclave, Avenue Montaigne.
"We invest as much in Europe as in emerging markets," he added, saying tourists usually make up half if not more of all luxury goods buyers in the region.
Watch and jewellery brands owned by luxury groups Richemont , Swatch and LVMH have all recently opened shops in European capitals, particularly in cities Chinese tourists, the biggest buyers of luxury goods, like to visit, such as London, Milan and Paris.
Bottega Veneta's sales, more than 85 percent of which come from leather goods, rose 52 percent at constant currencies in China last year, 37 percent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 27 percent in the United States.
PPR published annual results on Friday that showed Bottega Veneta's recurring operating profit rose 47 percent on comparable revenue 30.4 percent higher at 945 million euros, giving the brand a margin of 31.8 percent.
When PPR acquired Bottega Veneta in 2001, it was on the verge of bankruptcy, making around 35 million euros in sales. Later, designer Thomas Maier revamped the brand, ditched its logo and moved it upmarket in terms of quality and price.
CEO Bizzarri, 50, headed PPR's sister brand Stella McCartney between 2005 and 2009.
The brand will open its largest boutique this year in Milan. At 1,000 square meters it will dwarf most of its boutiques, which average 140 square meters.
It aims to open three or four more such flagship stores in fashion capitals elsewhere but other new shops will remain small to preserve intimacy for buyers, the CEO said.
At the end of last year, the leather goods maker had 76 shops in emerging markets, many in the Asia-Pacific region, 39 in Western Europe and 26 in North America.
Analysts said its strategy makes sense.
"Chinese consumers find it reassuring if the brands they like are also strong in Europe," Exane BNP Paribas analyst Luca Solca said. "Success in Europe also means to the Chinese they are buying 'the real thing'."
Last month, luxury retail magnate Bernard Arnault said at the results' presentation for his group, LVMH (LVMH.PA), that he believed the front window of a Louis Vuitton shop had more impact on brand awareness than any Internet or television ad.
($1 = 0.7495 euros)
(Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
By Astrid Wendlandt and Pascale Denis
© Thomson Reuters 2023 All rights reserved.


text:
Monday-Friday 7:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Can't find what you need on our site? Click or tap below to contact us via message or phone. We are happy to help you.
Contact Us >
Call 811before you dig – it's the law! Click or tap below for further information on utility pipeline markouts and pipeline safety.
Learn More >
Click or tap below to access our regulatory filings and tariff information.


text:
Day 12 - Friday, June 22 - Florence.
In Florence today, we will follow our local guide to the magnificent Cathedral, Giotto's Bell Tower, the Baptistry's heavy bronze "Gate of Paradise" and the sculpture-studded Signoria Square. To top the day off, we will admire Michelangelo's celebrated David in the Academy of Fine Arts. We will also visit the famous Uffizi Gallery and the Pitti Palace. Dinner at the hotel. Overnight Florence.
Today we travel back to Firenze to view some of the famous works of art. We had a very restful night at our hotel so we were refreshed and ready to continue our tour today. When we arrived in Florence is was very hot. Our first stop was to see the statue David. I never realized how large it was. There were not pictures allowed inside the museums so you'll have to hope someone sent you a postcard. Security was quite tight as you had to go through metal detectors and have your handbags x-rayed. We continued on a walking tour through Florence before taking a small break. We headed off to the Uffizi Gallery. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable of all the art pieces. They told us we would have to climb four flights of stairs to reach the galleries. They failed to tell us that each flight was at least twice the size of a flight of stairs at home. We took time for a short lunch and then headed off to the Pitti Palace. We crossed the Arno on a bridge that was entirely lined with stores, mostly gold and jewelry. You almost needed sunglasses to cross. After arriving at the Pitti Palace we discovered that there were at least three more European staircases to climb. We should all be in great shape when we get home. The art collection was mind boggling. I have never seen such a large private collection. After the tour we made our way back across the bridge to meet our bus. It was approximately a two mile walk. God bless Gino who met us with the bus on the street where it is illegal to load passengers. Many of us may not have made it back without passing out. We did get a bit of a break in the weather because it clouded up a bit and almost rained. We all boarded very quickly and were whisked off to our lovely hotel in the mountains.


text:
A blood red stain marks the dressmaker's dummy that guards the door to Michael Jubie's office. Beyond that silent sentry and up an old staircase, Jubie commands 250 two-way radios and a split-screen array of the security cameras that watch over Headless Horseman Hayrides & Haunted Houses in Ulster Park, N.Y., the autumnal attraction he co-owns. Its 45 acres are home to six haunted houses. Inside, Jack the Ripper's gutted victims share space with portraits that come alive as you pass and twitching baby dolls with eyes that seem to follow you. It is, in a word, scary.
But these days scary isn't so easy to define. Anecdotally, many independent haunts are going gangbusters, despite gloomy signs. The obstacle that does come up over and over in conversations with haunters is not about getting customers interested it's about how people are getting harder to frighten.
"I firmly believe that the pop-out scare, the quick startle, still is the best scare," says Jubie. "But our guests are looking for Hollywood-quality sets and scares."


text:
Book Review: Douglas Lain's 'Billy Moon'
When you think of the Occupy movement, you probably don't think of Paris in the '60s, and you almost certainly do not think of Winnie-the-Pooh. But Portland writer Douglas Lain makes you do just that. His debut novel, Billy Moon, is an enchanting labyrinth of a tale that twists through surrealist reinventions of history, philosophy, nostalgia, and a search for personal liberation.
At the start of Lain's fictitious tale, Christopher Robin Milne, the son of Winnie-the-Pooh creator A. A. Milne, is a 38-year-old World War II veteran struggling to escape the oppressive, imaginary forest that his father wrote him into. But he quickly finds his middle-aged tedium blown apart as two radical Parisians, Gerrard and Natalie, pull him into the student uprising of 1968 in Paris. Summoning Christopher from his Dartmouth, England, home, Gerrard wants him to write a new story—his own story—by disrupting Paris. "Chris was a fake person and this was how he could help," writes Lain. "Gerrard tried to explain it to him, to tell him how the Hundred Acre Wood was waiting for him, to tell him about dreaming and how the past was inside the present."
The nonexistent line between dreams and reality has odd effects on the narrative, as a stray cat turns into Christopher's stuffed toy, the floor repeatedly becomes an unstable pool of mud, and Natalie stumbles upon the courtyard of the Palais-Royal transformed into a giant chessboard. Metaphor seems to saturate the endless string of impossible events, and Christopher's slips between dream and reality reflect his attempts to escape the world of Pooh.
The history that Lain has reinvented on the page requires patience and a suspension of disbelief (about halfway through I abandoned the question "what?" altogether). But, as Christopher's wife, Abby, remarks, "Sometimes in order to be realistic you have to accept the impossible." Indeed, the book resonates with contemporary social movements by reviving a time where poets and philosophers raged in the streets in a revolution that critics claimed accomplished nothing.
Despite its occasional opaqueness and philosophy of the impossible, Billy Moon reaches a poignant emotional peak in Christopher's relationship with his socially challenged young son, Daniel—a relationship that helps him cope with his estrangement from his own father. Ultimately, with its nostalgic nods to Winnie-the-Pooh and its meandering magical-realist prose, Lain's novel offers a refreshing dose of whimsy and hope in a dull concrete world.


text:
Top Items:
Jeremy Kirk / InfoWorld:
Copying HD DVD and Blu-ray discs may become legal — San Francisco (IDGNS) - Under a licensing agreement in its final stages, consumers may get the right to make several legal copies of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc movies they've purchased, a concession by the movie industry that may quell criticism that DRM …
Discussion: Engadget, BetaNews, CyberNet Technology News, Gadget Lab, CrunchGear and Slashdot
Charlie Sorrel / Gadget Lab: The Cracks Start to Appear: HD DVD and Blu-ray Copying May Be Legalized
Vince Veneziani / CrunchGear: Next-Gen Format Copying May Become Legal
Ken Fisher / Ars Technica:
HD DVD, Blu-ray "Managed Copy" coming later this year — The managed copy spec that will allow users to make copies of HD DVD and Blu-ray movies is finally nearing completion. MPAA head honcho Dan Glickman recently said that the AACS support behind managed copy would be ready before the end of the year …
Discussion: Gizmodo
Dell Offers Three Consumer Systems With Ubuntu 7.04 — It's finally here. Later today, Dell will offer U.S customers three different systems with Ubuntu 7.04 installed: the XPS 410n and Dimension E520n desktops and the Inspiron E1505n notebook. These systems will be available at www.dell.com/open by 4pm CST today.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / eWEEK.com: Dell Rolls Out Ubuntu-Powered Computers
Brad Linder / Download Squad: Dell ready to ship PCs loaded with Ubuntu 7.04
Scott Gilbertson / Compiler: Ubuntu On A Dell: Dude You're Getting Ripped Off
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0: Ubuntu - Direct from Dell
Luigi Lugmayr / I4U News: Dell Ubuntu PCs and Notebook start shipping Today
Marius Nestor / Softpedia News: First Three Ubuntu 7.04 PCs from Dell Will Ship Today
Matthew Broersma / Linux news from LinuxWorld.com: Dell gives Ubuntu details
Rob Beschizza / Gadget Lab: Dell's Linux PCs On Sale Today
Peter Ha / CrunchGear: Dell Officially Announces Ubuntu Line-up
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Dell's Ubuntu Linux machines launching today
Dell's Ubuntu Linux machines launching today
Scott Gilbertson / Compiler: Update: Dell Reponds To Charges Of Overpriced Ubuntu Machines
Stephen Shankland / CNET News.com:
Dell Linux PCs go on sale Thursday
Dell Linux PCs go on sale Thursday
Discussion: InfoWorld, O'Reilly ONLamp Blog and Lifehacker
Dan Nystedt / InfoWorld: Dell launches three Ubuntu Linux PCs
James Turner / O'Reilly ONLamp Blog: Another Linux Milestone
Mike Yamamoto / CNET News.com:
Sony debuts flexible TV screen — Like many other TV makers, Sony has been working on screens made with organic light-emitting diodes for some time to produce paper-thin displays as well as save energy. But ratcheting up the competition even further, it just unveiled what it calls the world's first flexible version.
Discussion: Macsimum News
Dennis Sellers / Macsimum News: Sony shows prototype of flexible TV screen
Edo / Pink Tentacle:
Flexible, full-color OLED — On May 24, Sony unveiled what it is calling the world's first flexible, full-color organic electroluminescent display (OLED) built on organic thin-film transistor (TFT) technology. OLEDs typically use a glass substrate, but Sony developed new technology …
Discussion: CrunchGear and I4U News
Vince Veneziani / CrunchGear: Sony's Flexible, Full-Color OLED Display
Luigi Lugmayr / I4U News: Sony flexible OLED Display
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
Adsense For Video, Google Still Lagging — Google has announced a closed beta test of Adsense for Video. — According to the post on Inside Adsense, Adsense for Video consists of "in-stream" advertisements. Publishers define at what point the advertisements will appear for each video.
Discussion: Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and 901am
Minic Rivera / 901am: Adsense for video now under testing
Abbey Klaassen / AdAge:
Google AdSense Launches In-Stream Video Ad Test
Google AdSense Launches In-Stream Video Ad Test
Discussion: Media 3.0 with Shelly Palmer
Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Novell and EFF Team Up to Reform Software Patents — Organizations Will Jointly Lobby Governments and International Organizations — Novell to Support EFF 'Patent Busting' Initiative — San Francisco (Open Source Business Conference) - Novell and the Electronic Frontier Foundation …
Discussion: Linux.com, Ed Burnette's Dev Connection and p2pnet
Gavin Clarke / The Register:
Microsoft too busy to name Linux patents
Microsoft too busy to name Linux patents
Discussion: TechSpot News
Justin Mann / TechSpot News: Microsoft too busy to list OSS patent infringement
Sarah McBride / Wall Street Journal:
Make-It-Yourself 'Star Wars' — Lucasfilm Will Post Clips — From Film Saga on the Web, — Inviting Fans to Edit at Will — George Lucas, creator of "Star Wars," has never hesitated to protect his intellectual property, which is why some call him "Lucas the Litigator."
Discussion: The Daily Feed, NewTeeVee, TechFold and Digital Alchemy dot TV
David Hirschman / The Daily Feed: LUCASFILM TO PUT 'STAR WARS' CLIPS ONLINE FOR MASH-UPS
Paul Kapustka / NewTeeVee: The Force is with Eyespot in 'Star Wars' Clips Deal
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Closing the book on Apple's Mac mini — Even while at the top of its game, Apple Inc. can seemingly find faults with just about anything, including a bit of itself. The Mac maker is constantly evaluating the market segments in which it wishes to participate and those which it does not.
Discussion: Gadget Lab, Gizmodo and MacUser
Rob Beschizza / Gadget Lab: Claim: Apple To Kill Mac Mini
Dan Moren / MacUser: Has the Mac mini breathed its last?
Steven Musil / CNET News.com:
Wal-Mart to begin selling Dell PCs — Dell plans to begin selling desktop PCs in Wal-Mart Stores in the next few weeks, the first move in a major departure from its decades-long sales strategy. — Wal-Mart plans to sell the Dimension E521 in more than 3,000 retail locations in the United States …
Discussion: Forbes, Gadget Lab, Gizmodo, Between the Lines, MacDailyNews, BloggingStocks and Direct2Dell
Brian Caulfield / Forbes: Dell's New Model — Hewlett-Packard's newly thriving personal …
Rob Beschizza / Gadget Lab: Wal-Mart To Sell Low-End Dell Desktops
Brian White / BloggingStocks: Dell's coming effect on retail computer sales
Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:
Apple and music labels accused of shortchanging artists — A fresh class action lawsuit charges Apple's iTunes, major online music shops, and top record labels with performing an end-run around a musician's permission and his royalty payments. — Dawg Music, a relatively small label run …
Discussion: Ars Technica, Macsimum News and CrunchGear
Dennis Sellers / Macsimum News: New class action lawsuit filed against iTunes, record labels, others
Vince Veneziani / CrunchGear: Apple, Labels Giving Artists The Shaft
Victor Keegan / Guardian:
No such thing as a free download — It is difficult to grasp how successful the mobile phone industry has become. People think of it as a sideshow compared to the internet, yet in terms of revenues generated from content, it is already far bigger. Revenues from the web are about $25bn …
Discussion: mocoNews.net, MediaVidea and textually.org
Peggy Anne Salz / mocoNews.net: Disparate Payment Regimes & Lack Of Transparent Pricing Create Need For New Models
Pramit Singh / MediaVidea: Back to the future: when Mobile Operators turned into ISPs
Karen / Official Google Blog:
Search without boundaries — Posted by Franz Och, Research Scientist; Maureen Heymans, Software Engineer; and Jeff Chin, International Product Manager — One of our goals at Google is to provide access to all the world's information. A big obstacle for that is the language barrier.
Kevin Newcomb / Search Engine Watch Blog: Google's Cross-Language Search Launches
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped: Google Releases Cross-Language Search
Bogdan Popa / Softpedia News: Major Update for Google's Translate Feature!
Arnold Zafra / Search Engine Journal: Google Search Goes Truly Universal
Haochi / Googlified: Search Results without Borders
Ionut Alex Chitu / Google Operating System: Google Cross-Language Search
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Google Launches 'Cross-Language Information Retrieval (CLIR)'
Google Launches 'Cross-Language Information Retrieval (CLIR)'
Discussion: Profy.Com
Svetlana Gladkova / Profy.Com: Google Search Translation Service Tested
Kate Kaye / ClickZ:
2006 Online Ad Spending Hits Nearly $17 Billion — Online ad revenues continue their upward surge, hitting $16.9 billion in 2006, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau's annual revenue report, released today. Search ads and dollars from consumer-aimed advertisers still dominate …
Discussion: Lost Remote, Search Engine Watch Blog, HipMojo.com and Interactive Advertising Bureau
Cory Bergman / Lost Remote: Online ad revenue and future of local TV
Kevin Newcomb / Search Engine Watch Blog: Search Still Leads Online Ad Spending
David Lenehan / Read/WriteWeb:
The OpenCoffee Club Movement — The OpenCoffee Club is "a place for people who love startups to hang out and meet" according to their recently launched social site on Ning.com. From Cork to Capetown, Seattle to Sydney, and Paris to Palo Alto, people are getting together on a weekly basis …
Discussion: Argolon
Russell Shaw / IP Telephony, VoIP, Broadband:
Google patent app shows extensive Google plans for mobile search — A Google Patent application newly published on the United States Patent & Trademark Office website this morning appears to furnish extensive details on Google's plans for enhanced local searches via mobile devices.
Discussion: Screenwerk
Greg Sterling / Screenwerk: Local Mobile Search Ready to Roll?
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
DOG (Distrust/Disdain of Google) moves in — Fear Of Google. FOG. It's all over the blogs today. I just got done reading my feeds and here's the posts that have FOG all over them: — Mary Jo Foley: Google is failing the Microsoft litmus test. — James Robertson: Is Google Big and Stupid Already?
Discussion: rexduffdixon.com, Publishing 2.0 and Incremental Blogger


text:
Item #: SCP-1370
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-1370 is locked in a fire-proof glass display case, stored in Gallery 27. If the case becomes damaged by external circumstance, any container with dimensions of at least 1.25 x 0.75 x 0.50 meters will suffice as a replacement until a new display case is available. The Ethics Committee recommends that any long-term storage case contain enough space for SCP-1370 to move freely. Level 2 personnel and higher may remove SCP-1370 from its case at their discretion, but will face disciplinary action for failing to secure it properly afterward.
Description: SCP-1370 is a self-aware artificial being constructed from various electrical devices and tools. It stands approximately one meter in height and is capable of moving its articulated joints despite the lack of any power source or motors. SCP-1370 communicates in a monotone voice via a speaker mounted in its chest.
Its head is a voltmeter soldered upside down to a neck joint, giving the appearance of a friendly smile, but containing no active sensory devices. However, SCP-1370 will react to visual and audible stimuli, and its ability to do so is hampered when the head is covered or otherwise restrained. Its design appears to give more importance to aesthetic concern rather than function, as evidenced by a poor center of gravity that hampers its ability to balance and walk. It is therefore believed that SCP-1370 was created as an art object and later imbued with anomalous properties, rather than designed with those in mind.
It can currently speak fluent American English, French, and Latin, and is capable of learning new languages. Other facets of its intellectual capacity have not been clearly outlined as SCP-1370 is invariably hostile in all interactions with any being or object it interprets to be sapient; this includes but is not limited to animals, Foundation personnel, civilians, audio-visual equipment and security cameras.
If SCP-1370 encounters an object it believes to be sapient, it will attempt to engage the object in combat while introducing itself with a variety of elaborate titles which appear to be selected at random. Examples include DoomBot 2000, RoboLord the Destructor, Prime Minister Sinister and Darth Claw Killflex. SCP-1370 will often include variations to these titles based on responses it receives from personnel; Foundation staff have successfully introduced Patheticon the Garglemost and PesterBot to its lexicon.
Addendum: Many tests on SCP-1370's combat prowess have been run, each confirming that SCP-1370 lacks the physical aptitude to cause damage to any living being. Test 1370-8239 exposed SCP-1370 to a common houseplant with a speaker hidden in the plant's pot. After SCP-1370 was provoked verbally, it attempted to fold and twist the leaves of the plant within its grasp before incapacitating itself. See log that follows:
Researchers L. Allans and T. Bausoom carry SCP-1370's case into the testing chamber. The case is set down one meter from a potted philodendron fitted with a small speaker.
SCP-1370: Release me, insects. I am Doom-Master Thirteen Seventy Master Of All Doom. I shall be the herald of your destruction.
Researchers leave the testing chamber and the case is opened remotely. Although no security risk is determined, the test requires SCP-1370 to focus on the plant rather than nearby personnel. Observations are made via an opaque glass window to prevent SCP-1370 from attacking its own reflection.
SCP-1370: At last I am unleashed upon this earth so deserving of destruction. All shall be rent within my pinchers. All shall be trampled beneath my feet. I am ShivaTron, Despoiler of Mirth.
Researcher P. Davies: (through the speaker mounted in the plant) Hello! Can you hear me?
SCP-1370: (approaching the plant) Who dares. All souls will burn. You will feel the sharp sting of my wrath. Identify yourself so that I may sing damnation upon you as you die.
P. Davies: I am a split-leaf philodendron, a semi-woody shrub with large glossy leaves. (restrained laughter) These leaves can grow up to three feet long.
SCP-1370: (attempts to wrestle with the leaves) Your mockery spells your doom. I have arrived. You will be crushed betwixt my digits.
SCP-1370 falls over and is unable to right itself. After approximately six minutes it knocks the pot over, which rolls into a position that pins SCP-1370's body to the floor of the chamber. Researchers enter to return SCP-1370 to its case.


text:
Mozilla plans to more strictly enforce industry best practices for SSL certificates in future versions of Firefox with a new certificate verification system.
The new system will be implemented as a library called "mozilla::pkix" and will start being used by Firefox 31, which is expected to be released in July.
[ Learn how to secure your browser with InfoWorld's Web Browser Deep Dive PDF special report and our Security Central newsletter. ]
Many of the certificate verification changes in the new library are subtle and are related to technical requirements specified in the "Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly-Trusted Certificates" issued by the Certification Authority/Browser (CAB) Forum. However, some of the behavior modifications also stem from changes Mozilla made to its own policy for trusting CA certificates.
For example, a document describing mozilla::pkix requirements notes that "end certificates used by servers are not allowed to have basic constraints asserting isCA=TRUE" and "certificates used as trust anchors or intermediates are now required to have the basic constraints extension and assert the isCA bit."
These two requirements are intended to prevent the misuse of subordinate CA (sub-CA) or intermediate certificates, which can be used to issue SSL certificates for any domain on the Internet.
In February 2012, Trustwave, one of the CAs trusted by browsers, publicly admitted that it had issued a sub-CA certificate for use by a third-party company to inspect SSL traffic passing through its corporate network. Mozilla said at the time that the use of sub-CA certificates for man-in-the-middle SSL traffic monitoring, even if performed on closed corporate networks, is unacceptable.
Another incident happened in January 2013, when a certificate with sub-CA status issued by Turktrust, a Turkish certificate authority trusted by browsers, was installed in a firewall appliance with SSL traffic monitoring capabilities by the Municipality of Ankara. Turktrust said the certificate in question was one of two that had been issued with sub-CA status by mistake in August 2011 and were actually supposed to be regular end-user certificates.
A month later Mozilla changed its CA policy to require all sub-CA certificates to be technically constrained to particular domain names using certificate extensions or to be publicly disclosed and audited as regular root CA certificates. The mozilla::pkix certificate verification library will begin enforcing that policy change inside the browser.
While the majority of Firefox users are unlikely to notice anything out of the ordinary as a result of the new certificate verification system, some HTTPS websites might encounter problems.
"While we have performed extensive compatibility testing, it is possible that your website certificate will no longer validate with Firefox 31," the Mozilla Security Engineering Team said Thursday in a blog post. "This should not be a problem if you use a certificate issued by one of the CAs in Mozilla's CA Program, because they should already be issuing certificates according to Mozilla's CA Certificate Policy and the BRs [the CAB Baseline Requirements]."
Mozilla also created a special bug bounty program that will pay out $10,000 for any critical security flaw found and reported in the new library's code until the end of June.
"As we've all been painfully reminded recently (Heartbleed, #gotofail) correct code in TLS libraries is crucial in today's Internet and we want to make sure this code is rock solid before it ships to millions of Firefox users," Mozilla's security lead Daniel Veditz said Thursday in a blog post.
"We are primarily interested in bugs that allow the construction of certificate chains that are accepted as valid when they should be rejected, and bugs in the new code that lead to exploitable memory corruption," Veditz said. "Compatibility issues that cause Firefox to be unable to verify otherwise valid certificates will generally not be considered a security bug, but a bug that caused Firefox to accept forged signed OCSP [Online Certificate Status Protocol] responses would be."


text:
LIGHT LUNCH: Mom beat up daughter's rival, attacked car with ax, police say
Police: Florida mom beats up daughter's rival at school
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — A mother faces multiple charges after police said she went to a South Florida high school during dismissal and knocked the cellphone out of the hand of her daughter's rival, while hitting the girl several times.
But the Monday afternoon confrontation didn't end there, police said in an arrest report for Ernstlatta LaFrance, 30. When the Carol City High School student went to LaFrance's nearby townhome to get her phone, the woman broke the teen's middle finger and destroyed her car with an ax.
LaFrance's partner, Erlisa Evans, 28, stepped outside the home and fired a gun into the air three times, according to an arrest report. She's now facing charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and firing a gun into the air.
The Miami Herald reports the incident was sparked by an earlier fight between LaFrance's daughter and a group of girls at the Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition.
LaFrance also posted a video of the fight on Facebook, warning "those messing with her daughter to be aware," the report said.
"The defendant also bragged on Facebook telling the victim that suffering two black eyes was not the end and she would use a gun," the officer wrote in the arrest report.
LaFrance now faces a number of charges including strong-armed robbery, child abuse and aggravated battery and is being held on a $38,000 bond. Jail records don't list an attorney for LaFrance or Evans.


text:
Burghers bûr´gərz [key], in the 18th cent., a party of the Secession Church of Scotland, resulting from one of the
breachesin the history of Presbyterianism. To qualify as a burgess in certain burghs one was required to take an oath accepting the
true religion presently professed within this realm.Opinion differed as to whether this referred to the Protestant religion in general or to the Established Church. Those in the Secession Church who understood the oath in the former sense were the
Burghers,or the Associate Synod. Opposed to them were the Anti-Burghers, or the General Associate Synod, who refused to take the oath. The two bodies mutually excluded each other in 1747. By the end of the century both divisions were further split apart into
Old Light Anti-Burghersand
Old Light Burghersand
New Lightsin each division, over questions of civil magistracy. In 1820 Old Lights and New Lights were brought together again in the United Secession Church.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Protestant Denominations


text:
India reported an unexpected contraction Friday in industrial output and a slowdown in exports, the latest signs Asia's third largest economy has yet to pull out of a painful slowdown.
Industrial production fell 2.1% from a year earlier in November, the second successive month of contraction and much worse than the 0.7% increase economists had expected.
Export growth also slowed for the second month running, up just 3.5% in December, down from the more than 10% growth recorded between July and October.
While improving conditions in the U.S. and Europe had given some hope demand for Indian exports would rise and give the economy a much-needed boost, the latest data suggest exports won't be strong enough to save India from its slowdown.
"The November industrial production figures continue to show that the Indian industrial sector remains in recession, with clear evidence that domestic consumption remains weak, particularly for large-ticket consumer durable goods such as autos and electrical goods," said Rajiv Biswas, Chief Economist for Asia-Pacific at IHS.
High inflation forced the Reserve Bank of India to maintain a tight monetary policy, which is choking consumption and investment, Biswas said.
The manufacturing sector, which makes up about 75% of India's industrial output, contracted 3.5% during the month. Output of consumer durables slumped 21.5%, while that of consumer goods fell 8.7% — clear signs that Indian consumers aren't spending.


text:
Advanced Search
Decision Maker
System Center has morphed into a true private cloud platform. Here's a quick overview of what this means and how your IT infrastructure can take advantage of it.
If you take the new Microsoft MCSE: Private Cloud certification exams you'll see more than a little System Center. In fact, it'll cover nearly the whole System Center family, along with Windows Server. So what does System Center have to do with the private cloud?
Microsoft is pretty up front in its definition of a "private cloud." It's not revolutionary, but simply your old datacenter, managed in a way that includes many behaviors and capabilities associated with public cloud providers. In other words, Microsoft takes the best of how services providers let you outsource your datacenter.
The Pros of Private Clouds
Private clouds offer several benefits. First is self-service. I don't mean every end user in your organization should spin up his own VMs -- although certain authorized individuals can do so, within limits and quotas that you set. That means certain users can request software without necessarily involving IT. That still allows you to granularly report on resource utilization and create chargeback reports that, even if not used for actual chargebacks, will at least help management see how the company is producing demand for IT resources and how those resources are being consumed.
System Center Configuration Manager, for example, now gives users a self-service, Web-ish portal that lets them request software applications. You can configure applications to require approval, and that approval process can occur in System Center Service Manager. The workflow needn't necessarily involve IT -- perhaps the application requires approval from purchasing, which must buy a license, or from a manager who has to approve the expenditure. Once approved, the application is pushed out via the Configuration Manager client. IT sets it up and manages the infrastructure, but IT doesn't get involved in the nitty-gritty details.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) lets IT create templates for VMs and include a quota "cost" for each. Authorized users can submit requests -- again, Service Manager can become involved here -- for VMs, and provided they have enough quota left in their "account," the VM is created automatically. IT sets it up, defines the parameters and manages the infrastructure -- but IT doesn't have to play in the political game and other management loops. IT runs IT; the business runs the business.
Working Together
Not every company will want every single one of the "cloud-ish" System Center features, because not every one of them fits every company's management style. But for the first time we're being given the option to implement these techniques. The business gets what the business wants, and IT focuses more on making it happen automatically and less on being part of the approvals loop.
Yeah, I know IT has always been the gateway, charged with implementing corporate policies and preventing unlimited expense and growth. That can still be the case, but some things can be pushed off to other decision makers in the company -- while IT still retains management controls, oversight and monitoring.
The trick to all this is that you pretty much need all of the System Center family: Configuration Manager, Operations Manager, Orchestrator, VMM and Service Manager. And Data Protection Manager if you want to back it up. Fortunately, the pricing on all that has gotten a lot easier: One license pack covers all the "managed node" stuff, meaning every machine where you install the Configuration Manager client, which will likely include server computers as well as client computers and quite possibly mobile devices. Another license pack covers managed servers, including monitoring and backups. A third provides endpoint protection, should you choose it, for about the same per-seat cost as most anti-malware offerings.
The biggest hurdle with private clouds isn't the technology. While the System Center suite isn't 100 percent there yet, it's close, and the first service pack brings it substantially closer. Right now, the hurdle is in companies being willing to rethink, just a bit, how they manage IT.
Forcing the business to think about IT costs is a change, but it's a good change that lets the business view IT more as an asset and not just as pure overhead.
About the Author
Don Jones is a multiple-year recipient of Microsoft's MVP Award, and is an Author Evangelist for video training company Pluralsight. He's the President of PowerShell.org, and specializes in the Microsoft business technology platform. Follow Don on Twitter at @ConcentratedDon.
Let's walk through what to do and what you should avoid when group policy structures get a bit complicated.
Microsoft on Wednesday confirmed that it has addressed a so-called "BingBang" security issue that affected "small number of our internal applications" due to Azure Active Directory authorization misconfigurations.
Microsoft acknowledged that its emerging AI-based Bing search could affect content publisher revenue models, but also suggested that it is willing to talk terms.
Microsoft gave notice to organizations using perpetual-license Office versions about a coming 2023 milestone that could result in iffy Microsoft 365 services connections in this Wednesday announcement.
Microsoft's ongoing layoffs are hitting its home turf, with new notices affecting 1,248 people in the Redmond, Bellevue and Issaquah, Wash. areas in May.
More Tech Library
More Webcasts


text:
If the newly gay-friendly Boy Scouts were paying attention last week, they may have caught a glimpse of their future.
According to USAToday, Girl Scouts marched in San Francisco's infamous gay Pride Parade "for the first time." Celebrating the "boost" that the DOMA and Prop 8 rulings gave to the Pride Parade, the article quoted Girl Scout parent Del Gregor, who brought her 11-year-old daughter to march in the parade, as saying that she wants her kids "to be able to tell their children they were a part of this."
"By the time they're grown up, their kids won't believe there was a time when gay people couldn't get married," Gregor continued.
Another Girl Scout mom, Sandy Holmes, who accompanied her 11-year-old daughter Ariana, rejoiced at participating in "such a historic occasion."
USAToday touted the Parade as being "the largest ever" at 1.5 million attendees, a celebration which including "loud music, dancing and varying degrees of risqué dress." A Youtube video confirms that Girl Scouts did, in fact, march in the parade, which was led this year by Edie Windsor, the woman who fought to have DOMA struck down by the Supreme Court.
But really, it's sort of surprising this didn't happen earlier. Unlike the Boy Scouts, who endured years of media bullying before they caved to the gay agenda, the Girl Scouts happily welcomed transgenders in 2011 when they opened their ranks to boys who "identify" as girls. Not to mention that the Girl Scouts have had longstanding ties to abortion-giant Planned Parenthood that even some of the Girl Scouts' gals have had problems with. So marching in a Gay Pride Parade isn't too big of a shocker after other such blatant support for the liberal – and specifically LGBT – agenda.
Maybe they can get a pin added to their sashes for that.


text:
Coil Master Coil Master DIY Kit Mini V2
Il kit definitivo per la rigenerazione, in comoda valigetta ABS antiurto. No ruggine no prodotti scarsi. Qualità Coil Master.
Coil Master Coil Master DIY Kit Mini V2
Coil Master DIY Kit Mini V2 è la versione più semplice del DIY Kit.
La custodia DIY Kit Mini V2 è realizzata in materiale ABS che presenta i vantaggi di resistenza alla corrosione e resistenza alle alte temperature.
Tutti gli strumenti sono realizzati con metalli di alta qualità e materiali plastici resistenti alle alte temperature e ben organizzati in una solida custodia per il trasporto.
Il nuovo kit di cacciaviti multifunzionali può essere utilizzato anche come avvolgitore.
Contenuto confezione
1 x Ceramic Tweezers
1 x Diagonal Stainless Tweezers
1 x Mini Diagonal Pliers
1 x Stainless steel Folding Scissors
1 x Multifunction screwdriver body
4 x Screwdriver winding rods (2.0/2.5/3.0/3.5)
Data sheet
- Typology
- Kit utensili rigenerazione
- Original product
- Si
- Livello utente
- Facile
- Origin
- Cina
Orders are shipped the same working day if the purchase is made before 14:00 and only if the payment is confirmed by our bank.
Due to problems or above-average number of orders, shipping may differ to the next day.
Shipping costs include handling and packaging costs, insurance costs, sending courier emails, courier sms and calling the courier in case of absence.
Order canceled by Svaposervizi.net
Svaposervizi.net reserves the right to cancel any order at any time if a technical or administrative error is found.
The buyer will be notified with the reasons and the refund on the payment method used.
Shipping costs are free for purchases over € 60, only for Italy.
Times and Costs Italy
Shipping costs € 5,90 with a cost of less than € 60. With a cost of more than € 60, shipping is free.
There is no free shipping in this area. The cost of shipping will be calculated in the cart after entering the shipping data.
The cost of shipping in Europe varies from € 16 to € 25 depending on the country and there are courier costs.
The cost will be calculated in the cart during checkout, after entering the shipping data.
All shipping costs indicated refer to non-disadvantaged locations, particular islands and / or difficult-to-service countries. Therefore the shipping cost may vary depending on the destination.
Countries served
The following countries are served by our services.
Czech Republic
Delivery time
ITALY = C24 / 48 / 72h.
EUROPE - 48 / 96h.
Orders are processed daily but are shipped Monday to Friday as express couriers do not work on weekends.
Orders placed on Saturday and Sunday will be entrusted to the courier on the following Monday.
All orders received by 2:30 pm each day will be processed on the same day.
Delayed shipments on holidays or strikes
Attention, an international shipment can be delayed due to national holidays or strikes. Situations we do not know.
Always indicate your phone number, to avoid problems.
The courier will carry out the proof of delivery twice for two days, and is obliged to call in case of absence of the customer.
In case of non-collection / presence, the package will be available at the nearest depot for 14 days.
In the event of a request for redelivery, the courier will charge the customer € 11.00 for the following additional costs:
€ 6.00 return
€ 15.00 beginning and closing of the practice.
In case of non-collection it is advisable to contact the local office (GLS Italia), to arrange the collection and any costs to be borne by you.
In the event that the goods return to our company due to absence, non-collection extended beyond the deadline, and / or without reason, the amount due to the courier will be withheld from your payment. If the credit is insufficient, a refund will be requested in our favor. Initially by debit and in the negative case through the offices in charge.
The import tax, duty and VAT are to be paid by the customer.
Payment methods accepted
- Credit, debit, PostePay, prepaid, rechargeable cards
All payments are made securely through Nexi circuits.
- Bank Transfer
The goods are processed only after being credited to the current account (2/3 days).
- Cash on delivery
Payment method is not accepted.
For more information see: Secure payments
You might also like
4 other products in the same category:
- On sale!
Svaposervizi is an Italian site and a physical store dedicated to the electronic cigarette and the world of vape.
All the proposed products are first tested by us (hardware, liquids and aromas), and then if deemed valid recommended to our customers. Atomizers, complete kits, Box mods, flavors, decomposed bases and liquids from the best brands.
Svaposervizi has become a point of reference in Liguria, thanks to the vast catalog, the offers and the passion that we all put into it. If you want to know more and want advice or even just information, you can contact us or consult our blog, and our guides.
Every week we offer new products, offers and promotions. In some months of the year, however, you will find absolute goodies, coming from the most important international vaping fairs.
In October we will be in Rome and Paris, to discover all the latest news on the market!
Service Countries
Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain.


text:
Hospital Pharmacists: Protecting Patients From Electronic Medical Record Errors May Be Their Most Important New Role
Most hospitalized patients and families don't realize that life-threatening medication errors are regularly thwarted by pharmacists. They are truly the unsung heroes of patient care. I just finished a locum tenens assignment at a hospital that uses EPIC as their electronic medical records system, and I was stunned by the impossibly complex medication reconciliation process. Each time a patient is admitted to the hospital, or transferred to another part of the hospital, a physician must review, approve, and re-order their medications. While this may seem like a good way to insure that medication errors are avoided, it actually has the exact opposite effect.
Because EPIC keeps lists of home meds, discontinued meds, and current meds available for review and reactivation, it takes little more than one misplaced check box to order the wrong dose or type of medication. Physicians who transfer a patient to another service can indicate their intended medication list and keep it "on hold" for the receiving physician to review and approve. Unfortunately, the software's tab system is so complex that it's extremely difficult to find that list and activate it. Lost in a sea of admissions tasks and order boxes in different fonts, colors, and drop down menus, one often accidentally reviews and approves discontinued types and doses of medicines. The only protection against such errors is the hospital pharmacist.
With each new admission to the inpatient rehabilitation unit, I had to resort to calling a pharmacist for help. I was terrified that I would accidentally insert medication errors into the patient's order set by carrying forward discontinued meds. The long-suffering pharmacists explained to me that "most physicians make medication order errors in EPIC with each admission." They said that they regularly had to talk physicians out of throwing their computer out the window in a state of extreme frustration. They also said that their EPIC user environment looked very different (and less confusing) than what the physicians used, so that they couldn't even provide real-time phone guidance regarding order entry process.
The scary thing is that EPIC has the largest market share of any EMR in the United States. It is also (in my experience) the most prone to medical errors due to its overly complex medication reconciliation process. I have used other EMRs that have far simpler and more intelligent medication order entry processes. Soarian (Sieman's EMR, just sold to Cerner) has, for example, an outstanding order entry system. So my complaint is not that "all EMRs are bad" – it's that some have particularly flawed designs that are causing real harm to untold millions of patients. We just haven't documented the harm yet. I tremble at the thought of what we'd find.
Until electronic medication reconciliation is made safer, pharmacists will be working overtime to correct records and protect patients from carry over errors. I thank my lucky stars that I have had vigilant, determined pharmacists by my side as I cared for very complex, sick patients who were exceptionally vulnerable to dosing errors. There has never been a more important time to exercise caution when entering hospital medication orders, or to express your appreciation for pharmacists. Without their help we might all be experiencing medication errors of EPIC proportions.


text:
Dear Hip Hop - LL Cool J
"You better stop foolin if you want to get along with me"
"We grew up on the block, and we know about poverty"
Do you?
Dear hip-hop, I apologize for how you've been treated
I should've fought for my culture, instead I retreated
The game is wounded, I stood and watched while they beat it
My culture starved, I refused to feed it
They sold you for a dollar like slaves in iron collars
A*R's chase you with bloodhounds and rottweilers
You went to the highest bidder, you was pissed on like kitty litter
But far from a quitter, but there's somethin to consider
Nah, after much deliberation
I decided I'm the hottest cat to ever receive rotation
I'm the foundation, one of the chief architects
Of this dream we're all chasin, I had to speak up
Too much time was wastin WHOA! So here we go
I'm tired of the money talk and the, b_tches and hoes
Everybody's always, soundin the same
I have to walk on water I can't, drown in the game
[Chorus x2: scratched samples]
"Hip-Hop, was set out in the dark" [3X]
"They used to do it out in the park"
I remember your bar mitzvah, that burgundy label
Me and Jam Master had the battle of the big cables
Before the Serratos, real vinyls, real tables
Skills was the motto, no hype, no fables
You seemed so happy, you loved me so much
You popped off and went platinum, at my slightest touch
Oversized hoodies, Yukon trucks
20 years later, it's like lightning struck
They're worshipin the money, they're prayin to the bank
They danced on slaveship, slept as it sank
The devil made 'em do it, but only God do I thank
Because we aren't done yet, there's still gas in the tank
You look in a man's eyes, that's how you really tell his rank
Not the size of his account, check him, he might bounce
It's all on the line, this time it really counts
I'll bleed for this one, on down to the last ounce
They rent a crib they're frontin, they rent a car they're stuntin
They rent a chain they're bluffin, that's why the culture's sufferin
And even if you're a millionaire that don't mean nothin
Unless you build your community and encourage some unity
Too much ego... too much posin
If he's so hot then, why's the culture frozen?
It's time for a change, the order needs to be rearranged
And this song was pre-ordained
After 2 long decades, LL still remains
And you can blame it on my spirit, not on my brains
Time to put on my armor, go to war for the game
Cause it's on it's last leg, and that's more than a shame
This is a lifestyle homey, it's more than champagne
But I will make a toast to Flash reachin the Hall of Fame
I end it with a line, from the book of King James
Let there be light when I write graffiti on the train
Let us proclaim the mystery and fame
I pray the Lord my culture be saved
If hip-hop dies before I awake
May Jam Master Jay cut a LL break


text:
10 top Letterman political moments
TV host David Letterman sent shock waves through the entertainment community Thursday when he gave notice that he'll retire from CBS's "The Late Show" next year. In the spirit of his quintessential style that he developed over the past 22 years, here are 10 political moments from Letterman's recent history.
10. Letterman gets serious on guns: In the wake of the deadly Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Letterman had a serious moment on his show, which aired three days after the incident. Letterman credited Obama's remarks for giving the country hope in a dark time. Letterman remarked about how the event had shaken him as a parent: "Since 1994, there have been 70 — and these are just school shootings — there have been 70, 70 episodes of school shootings in the United States since 1994 … Should there be that many? … I would have thought, hopefully, one a year would be too many, wouldn't it?"
9. Inhofe vs. Letterman: One of Letterman's most recent political feuds came from calling out Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) for his stance on gun control. For Inhofe's commentsreferencing the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims, Letterman named Inhofe "Stooge of the Night." Inhofe respondedby telling WABC Radio, "That's kind of a badge of honor. Any time you get Rachel Maddow or Letterman or those people to call you names that means you are winning."
( PHOTOS: Politicians on Letterman)
8. Romney's Top 10: A few month before he formally declared that he was running for office, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney swung by the set promoting the paperback release of his book "No Apologies". A tielessRomney showed off his humorous side with a top 10 list of things the audience might not know about him including "Oprah is my half-sister" and "I can't begin my day until I've read the Washington Post and Kim Kardashian's Tweets."
7. 'I don't hate Mitt': Letterman had a small part in Romney's infamous "47 percent" video, when Romney accuses Letterman of jealousy for Romney making more appearance on NBC's "Tonight Show". "And now Letterman hates me because I've been on Leno more than him. They're very jealous of one another, as you know," Romney is heard saying on the video. Letterman responded in September 2012, by saying, "I don't hate Mitt. … I'm telling you, if you think you're going to get to the White House, you've got to spend time in this chair," referencing the seat in front of him.
6. Perry laughs at himself: Throughout the lengthy 2011 and 2012 presidential primary campaign season, Letterman's show allowed Republican candidates to connect with the American people in a way they couldn't on a conventional news program. One example: Texas Gov. Rick Perry used the show's top 10 list to explain his infamous "Oops"line at a debate when he forgot mid-speech the name of a government department he wanted to eliminate. Perry's reasons for the gaffe included "I just learned Justin Bieber is my father" and "You try concentrating with Mitt Romney smiling at you. That is one handsome dude."
5. Cain takes on his accusers: Former Godfather's Pizza CEO and brief Republican presidential primary front-runner Herman Cain also stopped by Letterman's show to defend himself against sexual misconduct accusationsby women he'd encountered while he was CEO of the National Restaurant Association. Cain called the women "liars," and Letterman also chimed in that he was "no stranger to sexual scandal." Letterman in 2009 had admitted to sleeping with female employees.
4. Obama sits down for the show: President Barack Obama became the first sitting president to appear on Letterman's show on Sept. 21, 2009. Obama spoke about whether race had been a factor for the amount of opposition Obama had run into in his first year on the job, which led the president to deadpan this classic answer: "It's important to realize that I was actually black before the election. This is true. So the American people, I think, gave me this extraordinary honor. That tells you a lot, I think, about where the country is at."
3. Obama returns with ratings: Obama returnedto Letterman's show during the fall of the 2012 presidential campaign, taking the time to talk about Romney's "47 percent" comment. The president's appearance gave Letterman his highest ratings in two and a half years. First Lady Michelle Obama has also appearedon the show earlier in the year, giving her own top 10.
2. Letterman offends Palin family: In June 2009, David Letterman told several pointed jokes aimed at then Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her family, including a reference to one of her daughters getting "knocked up" by baseball player Alex Rodriquez — as well as referring to Palin's appearance as a "slutty flight attendant look." After a week of widespread backlash from the right, Letterman apologized on air twice.
1. Christie delivers with a doughnut: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made light of criticism surrounding his weight, when he chowed down on a powdery doughnut on Letterman's couch last year. Letterman brought up the teasing early in the interview, which prompted Christie to pull the pastry from his pocket. "All kidding aside, is it an issue or is it not an issue?" Letterman asked him about his weight. Christie responded: "Well, I only care if you're funny."


text:
Valencia Valley Microfiber Duvet Cover Southwestern Comforter Cover Bedding
Leave the bedroom doors open when guests come - everyone will want to see and admire this high quality super soft duvet cover in our Valencia Valley print. Not to mention the pleasure of sleeping in a personalized environment!
.: 100% Polyester lightweight woven microfiber - Crisp imagery with a cozy and soft lightweight finish with a brushed texture. Just right for the bedroom!
.: Two sizes available - Twin & Queen
.: Invisible zipper closure - Invisible durable plastic zipper closure at the side of the duvet cover.
.: Pillow cases not included, Insert not included. We are sorry for any inconvenience!
.: Care instructions.: Machine wash: cold (max 30C or 90F); Do not bleach; Tumble dry, gentle cycle: no heat; Do not iron; Do not dry clean.
Share this Product
Customer Reviews
Just like the picture. Love it
Customer Reviews
Just like the picture. Love it


text:
This 9 January 2014 video is called US Diggers identify tomb of Pharoah Sobekhotep I.
From AFP news agency:
Ancient tomb of unknown Egyptian pharaoh 'Senebkay' found in Abydos
Wednesday, January 15, 2014 13:04 EST
US archaeologists have uncovered the tomb in southern Egypt of a previously unknown pharaoh who ruled 3,700 years ago, antiquities officials said on Wednesday.
The discovery by a team from the University of Pennsylvania provides new evidence that at least part of Egypt may have escaped the rule of the Hyksos, invaders from what is now Syria who dominated the Nile Delta between the 18th and 15th centuries BC, the officials said.
A royal cartouche bearing the full name of pharaoh Senebkay was found on the sarcophagus and on a wall of the tomb unearthed in the ancient city of Abydos, the head of the antiquities ministry's pharaonic department, Ali El-Asfar, said.
The team also recovered the skeleton of the pharaoh, which suggested he stood 185 centimetres (just over six foot) tall.
They found canopic vases, traditionally used to preserve body organs, but no grave goods, suggesting the tomb was robbed in ancient times.
Asfar said the discovery suggested that the rule of the Hyksos did not extend to all of Egypt and that a native dynasty managed to preserve its independence in the south.
"The royal family in Abydos, which may have been founded by Senebkay, is of Egyptian origin and did not submit to the Hyksos's rule," he said.
The same US team announced last week that it had identified the pharaoh whose tomb they unearthed at Abydos last year.
Pharaoh Sobekhotep I is believed to have been the founder of the 13th dynasty 3,800 years ago. His identity was established after the team found fragments of a slab inscribed with his name.
See also here.


text:
StageWest relocates to Social Club's theater
After at least seven months of behind-the-scenes shuffling, StageWest is ready for its next act. The local theater company announced Friday that it will leave its longtime home at the Des Moines Civic Center's Stoner Theater for new digs at the Des Moines Social Club, starting with the 2014-15 season.
The company also announced the hire of a new producing artistic director, Todd Buchacker, who will start the full-time job at the end of next month. He was already filling in for founding director Ron Lambert, who stepped down after a bout of health troubles last August.
Buchacker (pronounced BYOO-acker) beat out 59 applicants in a nationwide search, which included two other finalists who flew in earlier this month from both coasts. He has worked for the last dozen years as a Des Moines-based consultant for Planned Parenthood, helping the national organization improve its affiliated clinics across the country.
"I don't have many letters behind my name, and those that do exist don't have anything to do with theater," said the 47-year-old graduate of the Iowa Methodist School of Nursing. "But I've learned a great deal about the nonprofit world and how nonprofit organizations work."
He's also learned a lot about theater. Since his first role in the 1979 run of "Oliver" at the Des Moines Community Playhouse, Buchacker has had a hand in scores of shows around town. He's directed productions at the Playhouse, StageWest and the long-gone Drama Workshop.
The president of StageWest's board, Keith Snow, said the board was excited about Buchacker's vision for "StageWest 2.0," which would help the 18-year-old company draw audiences from as far as Omaha, Kansas City and Minneapolis. StageWest hopes to team up with companies in those cities to co-produce shows, organize playwright workshops, and commission new works for "rolling" world premieres that would move from one regional theater to the next.
In the meantime, StageWest leaders hope the move to the Kum & Go Theater at the Social Club will attract new audiences here in town. Buchacker's new office will bump up next to the Social Club's other nonprofit tenants, and StageWest will share the theater with Repertory Theater of Iowa, Des Moines Onstage, 3X Wrestling and the in-house Des Moines Social Club Theater Co.
"The arts community in Des Moines has always been a little bit segregated," Buchacker said, "but the Social Club has helped break down some of those barriers, which I think is fantastic. I'd like to continue to break down some of those walls."
StageWest plans to announce its 2014-15 season at the company's annual Fools' Ball, slated for April 4 at West End Architectural Salvage. And it's the programming, after all, that drew Buchacker to StageWest in the first place. He helped line up the shows for next season.
"I'm attracted to plays that are new and slightly edgy," he said, "but I'm not somebody who wants to assault the audience all the time. Not every play needs to raise us to some higher level of being or thinking. It's OK to just be entertained.
"However, even those times when we're just entertained, it's nice when you get a little nugget out of it," he added. "StageWest has always been conscious of the broader issues in the community."
Buchacker also praised his predecessor. "What Ron Lambert did for the state of theater in central Iowa is remarkable and should never go unheralded or forgotten," he said. "He raised the bar for local theaters, he really did."
Lambert has a lifetime pass to company shows and looks forward to its future.
"Todd's a perfect fit," he said. "He knows the Des Moines theater community, and the theater community knows him and appreciates all he does. I couldn't be happier."


text:
(CNN) -- Since 1980, one disease has been erased from the face of the Earth: smallpox. Health officials believe Guinea worm disease will soon be next.
Public health officials hope the rare disease, which remains only in sub-Saharan Africa, will be eradicated by 2015. About 85 percent of the 3,000 world cases are in southern Sudan; the remaining 15 percent are reported in Ghana, Ethiopia and Mali.
Thirty years ago, the World Health Organization declared that smallpox had been eradicated after an intense global vaccination campaign and development of surveillance programs to identify and contain cases.
For more on Guinea worm disease: Vanquishing the 'fiery serpent'
An effective vaccine was key in eradicating the scourge, said Dr. D.A. Henderson, who directed the WHO global smallpox eradication campaign from 1966 to 1977.
"One hundred percent of the people were protected with a single vaccination, and it protected for 10 years," said Henderson, now a professor of medicine and public health at the University of Pittsburgh. "Smallpox was the worst disease, so there was motivation for a lot of people and governments to be rid of the disease."
In comparison, Guinea worm disease is an obscure condition and has no vaccine. Eradicating the painful worm depends on getting access to clean water and changing people's behavior.
"I am persuaded that the Guinea worm effort is entirely possible," Henderson said. "It's going to be difficult because most of the problem is in southern Sudan where there is lot of hostility and fighting."
Guinea worm disease is usually non-fatal, but causes crippling pain and can immobilize its victims from being able to work, farm and function.
Map: Guinea worm trouble spots
WHO has identified polio as the next disease for eradication, although that decision remains controversial.
Polio, a viral disease, affects nerves and can lead to partial or full paralysis. A vaccine exists, but its protection is "nowhere near as effective as smallpox vaccine," Henderson said.
One medical ethicist says trying to wipe polio out may not be the best goal. Simply controlling cases of polio would be more effective than "trying to chase down last marginal cases, which gets enormously expensive," said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
In comparison, Caplan said, stopping Guinea worm is effective relative to the expenditure.
The Guinea worm eradication campaign by the Carter Center is expected to cost $300 million by 2012.
The next goal with Guinea worm is to stop transmission of the parasitic disease in southern Sudan, which reported 2,690 cases in 2009.
For more on how Guinea worm infects a person, see this life cycle
A country that reports zero cases of the disease enters a three-year certification phase where the activity is monitored by a special World Health Organization committee. That committee, known as the International Commission for the Certification of Dracunculiasis Eradication, makes independent evaluations and recommends to the WHO's director general whether to declare eradication.
"We're expecting by 2012, there is a fairly good chance of Sudan having broken transmission, which means we have another three years to put Sudan [as] the last country in the decree certification phase," said Dr. Gautam Biswas, who oversees the WHO's Guinea worm eradication campaign.
Video: Eradicating Guinea worm in southern Sudan
Over two decades, Sudan has been battered by civil war and ethnic cleansing in the western Darfur region. Despite the rift between its mostly Arabic northern region and African south, Guinea worm has been an issue that brought the sides together.
Former President Jimmy Carter negotiated a cease-fire in 1995 to allow health workers to conduct national Guinea worm disease surveillance, treating patients and tracking cases.
"The cease-fire enabled us to conduct disease surveillance with the freedom of movement, not fearing land mines and getting shot," said Dr. Nabil Azziz, who coordinated Sudan's national Guinea worm eradication program until 2007. "It was the beginning of developing coordination between north and south Sudan." Azziz now works for the Carter Center as a resident technical adviser.
Every year, health officials from both sides convened to discuss Guinea worm. After northern Sudan had reported no new cases in 2003, southern Sudan began its own program under the direction of Makoy Samuel Yibi Logora in 2005.
The two groups in midst of civil war were "able to sit down about Guinea worm and agree on what each side has to take place," Logora said.
Although the programs are no longer joined, Azziz and Logora remain friendly, bonded by the mutual goal of eradication. When they ran into each other during a recent meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, they embraced.
"My friend, Makoy," Azziz exclaimed.
"Oh, godfather," Logora responded as they exchanged pleasantries in Arabic.
In Sudan, Logora said, "People can fight and forget and eat at the same table."


text:
I know, I know… I've been MIA, continuously. And I'm still clinging to the fact that I will be back to blogging on a more regular basis! Last weekend (yes, just shy of two weeks from when hubbyman fixed my laptop) hubbyman accidentally knelt on top of my laptop's screen. Don't ask how it happened, I'm still not sure. I saw it coming, and even though it seemed to happen in slow motion, I was not able to react in time. Sadness. But at least he had practice in fixing it. I
teased joked half-joked seriously told him to buy two screens, just so we were prepared. As a good hubbyman, he immediately ordered a new screen the next morning. And yesterday, it arrived! He tried to tell me he wasn't sure if he had the tools to fix it at home, but I caught him trying to fix it a short time later. And he did! Yay! So now he's not allowed to use it. I may have to hide it from him.
That fun stuff said… I couldn't help but include you lovely in something I witnessed in our crazy household this morning; I heard some yelling and went to investigate and this is what I witnessed:
MissE is standing at the top of the stairs and delivers what those who know her best is the lowest of all blows, yells down to her brother:
FINE! You are NOT handsome anymore!
When there's no response, she continues yelling it again.
Finally, her smart brother responded by yelling back up to her,
FINE! You ARE the prettiest girl!
Oh, I am so thankful for those funny, fleeting moments that get me through the day! And the kids who spurt them! And I'm also thankful that I get to go and babysit my nephew tonight! A few days ago- he smiled at me! I need to keep up with that trend and since I won't see him for a month! (He's only just a month old, so the idea of not seeing him for a whole month is a little devastating!) Anyhow, so I'm thankful for the opportunity to get a few more smiles, solidify my role as Queen of all Aunties, and maybe give his parents a bit of a break. I'm also thankful for the Kings of the Uncles who will have my kiddos on Saturday while we go have a day/afternoon/evening of fun and outdoor games with friends (and cocktails)! And I'm thankful for a hubbyman who is able to fix most of the things that he breaks.


text:
Drew Como credits his enterprise backup and recovery technology of choice – Veeam Availability Suite -- with helping his company to recover from a disastrous third-party software upgrade.
"Once, we had a software vendor who assured us that an upgrade would be quick and easy, so we went ahead with it. In fact, it destroyed a key database," says Como, who is senior manager of global datacenter platform services at Take-Two Interactive Software. "Everyone panicked, but I said, 'Hey, I think Veeam's got this.' I crossed my fingers, did a restore, and in 15 minutes the entire database was back online."
Take-Two is a developer, publisher and marketer of interactive entertainment for consumers – and in the gaming world, availability is paramount. "If at any time the system is down, game development teams get behind, and in this industry, time is the biggest issue," Como says. "I've used a lot of solutions in 20 years for backup and recovery, and nothing has been as fast or efficient as Veeam Availability Suite."
Como is one of 29 IT pros who wrote in to share their favorite products. Among the entries, a number of submitters singled out technologies that help their companies tackle data storage and protection, file access, and disaster recovery.
Carlton Whitmore, IT manager at Disability Rights Texas, raved about DataCore's SANsymphony-V. "It's a feature-rich, hardware-agnostic SAN running on Windows. I can use any backend hardware that works for me. I can also attach the storage directly to my Hyper-V hosts," Whitmore says. "We've saved thousands of dollars using SANsymphony-V. We wouldn't have been able to virtualize our environment without it."
Colby-Sawyer College also relies on DataCore's storage virtualization software. "[It] meets our replication needs -- replicates all critical data between two data centers. Also provides rich SAN capability. Allows us to endure the failure of one data center with no loss of storage availability," says David Blaisdell, assistant IT director at the New London, NH, college.
Peloton used to rely on multiple services for backup, file sync and file sharing, but today the professional services firm relies on one affordable tool for accessing, managing and protecting user files: Intermedia SecuriSync backup and secure file sharing.
"Data is at the core of what we do, and we are constantly recording and analyzing data to improve our performance and streamline collaborative projects," says Charles Hausmann, vice president of specialized services at Peloton. "We rely on SecuriSync as a two-in-one tool for consolidated file management and continuous backup of our documents, including secure access and protection of our corporate data."
As a collaboration tool, "SecuriSync gives us instant access to relevant project documents in a shared folder, securely," Hausmann says.
"SecuriSync also goes beyond read-only access – our workers can easily review and edit documents from their mobile devices without having to be concerned with version control. Having this ability greatly expedites the development of the extensive documentation we produce for our clients, especially with real-time backups to manage version control and restore files should they become corrupted," he says. "Now we can work with changing teams and increase productivity, all while keeping our files and projects secure."
Shawn Umansky, network engineer at St. Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont, depends on Nasuni cloud storage to handle the school's extreme data growth. "Our file data has grown exponentially over the past few years, and managing data growth is not our primary job. Our real job is to support employees, faculty and students with the services they need," Umansky says.
"Before Nasuni, planning for our storage needs was really difficult. We had trouble supporting highly data-intensive projects that required additional storage capacity, because it was so expensive to scale up. Now, it just takes minutes to add capacity, and that's the way the whole platform works," Umansky says. "It's so easy to manage, and we can back up all of our file data during the day as often as we like, with the ability to instantly recover everything."
"I can't tell you how awesome it is not to have to worry about storage so I can focus on serving faculty, staff and students," Umansky says.
CloudBerry Managed Backup made an impression on Steve Putnam, senior cloud services architect and engineer at The PC Wizard. The Torrington, Conn.-based MSP resells CloudBerry Lab's managed backup service to its customers. "Our clients are primarily small- to mid-sized businesses, and with this service, the benefits of cloud-based backup – including scalability, reliability and security – are within their reach," Putnam says.
Putman cites a number of benefits of CloudBerry's service, including: the option to choose storage providers; remote management capabilities; and client-side encryption controls. "The result is a flexible, cost-effective solution that makes end-customers feel confident that their data is safe," Putnam says. "Since offering CloudBerry Lab Managed Backup, we have reduced the cost of backing up our customers by 40% and significantly improved the success rate of backups."
This story, "Time is money when disaster strikes" was originally published by Network World.


text:
Everyone is reading and quoting Nora Ephron now. On the subway, on Twitter, in every living room on the Upper East Side. For those who loved her, this is both wonderful and a nightmare. New York has never sounded more like her New York, which is the best New York. But it's a trick. Her voice is everywhere, and she is gone.
Fortunately, and oh so Nora-ly, she planned her own memorial service before she went. On Monday, Nora's New York gathered in Alice Tully Hall for this service, which she detailed, they told us, in a file marked "Exit." She chose who would speak, in what order and for how long. The entire thing was to take 47 minutes.
It was the express wish of her family that anything written for or about Nora's Exit be "as funny as possible." So we will glance over the part where everyone spent two hours going in and out of sobbing fits over this monstrous and seemingly unbearable loss.
Nora also hated adjectives. And complaining.
Martin Short began the service, but his speech is mostly unquotable in a humor piece. I know this because I cannot read the quotes in my notebook, because I have cried all over that page. He told a story of his last night with Nora and her husband, Nicholas Pileggi. It was April 25, "a night of celebration, a night of bliss." He expressed his joy at "having them all to myself, not having any of you around." He told another story, of how Nora came over every night with piles of food after his wife's death in 2010. He attributed a quote to her—"Hazelnuts are what's wrong with Europe"—that her sister Delia, when speaking later in the service, said had actually been her (Delia's) observation.
"Nora didn't have opinions, she had decrees," said Richard Cohen, The Washington Post columnist, who spoke next. "Was there anyone in the world with more opinions?" Delia said later. "The planet is practically opinionless now." There was some disagreement about how right she was. "Nora was never wrong," Cohen said. Nora was wrong about 10 percent of the time, maybe 12, Delia said later.
One of Nora's opinions was that this life is all we get. Her son Max recounted a conversation with family friend Diana Sokolow, which occurred after her death from leukemia late last month. "I hope when I die I go to heaven," Sokolow told Max, "so I can go right up to Nora and say: 'Ha! I was right about something.'"
This is a typical Nora fantasy, and everyone at the service had one, of marching up to Nora and saying something. Of having Nora to march up to.
"There's something so consoling about her certainty that every one of us was a complete mess," said the director Mike Nichols, who recounted his first grilling from Nora in her journalism days. Rosie O'Donnell, doing a monologue about purses from the play "Love, Loss, and What I Wore," perfectly captured Nora's glee in the absurd.
"The things that were wonderful were truly marvelous, and the things that were terrible were mostly hilarious," said her son Jacob, who is so like his mother—so clever and quick and cutting and kind, in such a deeply familiar way—that when he took the stage on Monday, and for the duration of his speech, it was difficult to breathe. If you were a friend of Nora's, or if you are a fan, it was possible in the last two weeks to come to some sort of rational place about her passing. And then Jacob goes up on stage and says something like, "If she believed any less in the idea of victimhood she would have been a Republican," and that's it. Forget about the rest of the day. Just go home, take Heartburn off the nightstand, and get to it.
"She was what invisibly warmed us, like central heating," Nichols said.
"She was a breathtaking original," said Meryl Streep.
"No one was wiser than Nora," said Short.
"Nora knew everybody," said Cohen. She was the first to everything. "If I had a book, she had a galley. If I had a galley, she had a manuscript. If I had a manuscript, she knew the author."
She reached out to countless writers over the years, especially women, including me. No one was bigger than Nora to me, and her kindness was an unfathomable thrill, and I was just one of hundreds of people at this service, tucked into a far-back row. Nora did this sort of thing by the thousands, Delia recalled. She was a professional and effortless encourager of writers.
Also, she could really cook. Cohen recalled their travels together and a time she cursed the waitstaff of an Italian restaurant that served them "pizza a là dreck." Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson did a bit about Nick and Nora's relationship, "as perfect as a marriage could get," which focused on their obsession with feeding their friends. Delia told of making Nora pineapple shakes with canned pineapple, not fresh, when she was in the hospital. Max told of baking pies with his mother before Thanksgiving dinner, which by her decree they ate not at 2 p.m. but at "7, like civilized people."
The programs for the memorial service came with recipes in them.
Max told of the week he had chicken pox at age 7, which Nora would later reference as the period "when you loved me." And there was the time when Richard Pryor died. Pryor had once propositioned Nora, and when Max called to tell her of his death in 2005, she said, "And to think, he almost was your father."
"Everybody said everything I was going to say and better," Meryl Streep said when it was her turn. Under any other circumstance, if she were signed up to give a speech at a memorial service, Streep said she would have called Nora and coaxed her into writing the speech for her. Because Nora said "everything you wished you could say." She never sat down when she was directing a movie. She hated surprises.
"She only really liked something if she had invented or discovered it herself," said Delia. Happily, she invented or discovered most good things.
At the end of the memorial, J.J. Sacha, her assistant of 14 years and recipient of everyone's calls, introduced a highlight reel Nora edited herself, a small annotated explanation of our affection for her.
"I believe when people pass, they zoom into the souls of the people who love them most," said Short. Now "all of us have a piece of Nora."
Out of respect for her family, I will say only this: In addition to everything else we all have gotten from Nora, I now, after her memorial service, also have her recipe for goose. It calls for one goose liver, one heart, one gizzard and a substantial portion of butter, pureed and stuffed inside the goose, which is cooked and basted in its own "hot fat." It sounds heart-cloggingly rich and borderline inedible, but I'm going to cook it as soon as I can.
Because Nora was always right.


text:
Is there a sequence of topological spaces $X_n$ (manifolds ideally), where the sum of the Betti numbers of $X_n$ remains bounded but the Lusternik–Schnirelmann category is unbounded, as $n \to \infty$? What about vice versa?
One might think of both of these numbers as very rough measures of the "complexity" of a space, and it is well known in particular that both quantities are lower bounds on the number of critical points of a Morse function. But it would be nice to hear about any facts governing the relations between them.


text:
Museum Collections
Luce Center
1 from set of 9 Side chairs
Object Number:
Poplar, paint
Overall: 32 1/2 x 18 1/4 x 17 1/8 in. ( 82.6 x 46.4 x 43.5 cm )
Poplar Windsor side chair with traces of paint; open back with tablet and a single slat supported by four turned spindles; plank seat with rounded edge; ring-turned legs braced by ring-turned front stretcher and plain, round side and back stretchers.
Gallery Label:
According to the accession records, this chair was part of a set used in the country home of the Reverend Samuel Jones (1737-1811), great-great-grandfather of the donor. However, the set was clearly manufactured after 1811. The donor's father, Robert Jones Henderson (1835-1884), inherited the furniture and brought it to New York.
Credit Line:
Gift of Mrs. Irving McKesson
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.


text:
Institutional Review Board, Hospital for Special Surgery
November 13, 2009
The safety of study participants is our top priority. The trial is approved and periodically reviewed by an Institutional Review Board (IRB), which includes doctors, administrators, ethicists, and members of the general public. The safety of clinical trials is reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Before enrolling in a clinical trial, the investigator will explain the purpose of the trial, its expected benefits, any possible risks or side effects, and what your role will be. This is the time to ask questions! If you want to join the trial, you must sign the informed consent documents. You can leave a clinical trial at any time without penalty.
For further information, see Understanding Clinical Trials.
As subject population will be determined via retrospective chart review, we are not actively recruiting subjects.
Data will be collected by the co-investigators through a retrospective chart review
of all patients with elbow flexion deformities secondary to cerebral palsy, who
have undergone corrective elbow surgery performed by the primary investigator.
Specifically, outcomes of fractional lengthening and full elbow release procedures
will be investigated. Pre and post-operative elbow range of motion, angle during
ambulation will be compared.
N/A – we are not actively recruiting subjects.
Krystle Hearns MA,
Co-Director of Research, CHArm Center