text:
It's not just that we're getting Europe's hot hatch wonders like the Fiat 500 Abarth, but now the sex-sells ads of Europe are coming over, too. TV advertising may be melting our brains into mush, but so long as Fiat's new spokeslady is the one doing it, we don't really mind.
I hope this trend continues and we get to see Mercedes' new campaign featuring a sturdy Wagnerian Helga pitching the CLS63.
And did you notice her scorpion tattoo?


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We were recommended to use RMK when we started up our new company in 2012 and we have not looked back since. The main thing for me is that it takes all the work out of it for us and Kevin is always on hand for any insurance queries. We have always received honest friendly advice. With their expert knowledge of the insurance market, they have managed to obtain the best possible rates for us and have dealt with any claims efficiently and expediently. I would have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone, either an individual or a business.
Property and Personal Insurance

subset: commoncrawl


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Amgen Tour of California
Stage 1: Mark Caven was the first rider to cross the finish line in Sacramento on Sunday.
Stage 2: Today it was Brett Lancaster's day on the wet streets of Santa Rosa.
Stage 3: Starts on Ocean Beach in San Francisco on Tuesday. The ride will conclude at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
Day: Tue. May 18
Start: San Francisco @ Sloat Blvd
Finish: Santa Cruz
Start Time: 11:15 AM
Miles: 113.3
End ETA: 3:22 – 4:03 PM
TV: Versus CH 81 on Comcast @ 2:00 PM
Amgen Tour Site
Stage 3 Log: Times & Course Directions
On twitter
San Francisco Bike to Work Day – Did you know that bicyclists made up 75 % of the Market Street traffic that morning… Street Films


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Steve Ruiz recalls it clearly, shopping in a sporting goods store with his son, Jett, and another 13-year-old who played on Jett's baseball team.
Jett rushed down the aisles, handling the bats and gloves. But his friend hung back.
Ruiz approached the youngster.
"Get whatever you need, Adam," Ruiz said.
Adam Jones' eyes grew wide. His choices that day were practical ones — a jockstrap and cup.
Clutching his purchases, Jones turned to his benefactor.
"I'm gonna pay you back, Mr. Ruiz," he said. "I'm gonna be in the major leagues someday."
Thirteen years later, Steve Ruiz can still hear the conviction in Jones' voice.
"He was so insistent, so sure of himself," he said. "I remember saying, 'Good for you, Adam.' I remember thinking, 'Gosh, I believe him.' "
On Tuesday, Jones — who leads the Orioles in hitting, home runs and RBIs – will suit up for his second All-Star Game. At 26, and entering his prime, he's a cornerstone of the club's rebuilding plans. In May, he signed a six-year, $85.5 million contract extension, making Jones, who grew up poor in San Diego, the second highest-paid center fielder in the big leagues and the richest Oriole ever.
The one who used to wear baggy hand-me-downs, and borrowed clothes, now models menswear for a national designer. The one who could never afford one car now owns three. And while those who know him say that, from the start, Jones was mischievous, fanatically competitive and freewheeling, he has grown into a celebrated athlete who remembers those who helped him reach the top.
There was the English teacher who mentored him in high school; the families who took him in as their own; and even the inner-city street gangs, who gave Jones wide berth once his prospects to break out of the hood became obvious.
"No one gets anywhere by themselves," Jones said this week. "I count my blessings. I know where I want to go, but I'll never forget where I came from.
"Would I have made it without help? I don't know. But I'm glad that my story is the way it is — and it's a good story to tell."
Bouncing around
Jones was raised in southeast San Diego, in a dreary neighborhood beset by violence and drugs. The youngest of five children, he spoke briefly about his relationship with his mom, Andrea Bradley, whom he shields from the media.
"Moms is moms," Jones said cryptically. "She cared about my grades, but didn't come to many games."
Efforts to reach Bradley, who suffers from arthritis and diabetes and who lives in Phoenix, where Jones bought her a home, were unsuccessful.
Nor does Jones mention his biological father, or even his name, except to say that he lives in Los Angeles and spent 22 years in the Navy.
"I didn't grow up with him on a day-to-day basis, but he has been more than a shadow in my life," he said. "I know that he's proud of me."
His was a transient youth.
"Mostly, Adam looked out for himself," said his cousin, Adrian Limbrick. "As a kid, he sold candy, door to door, to make money to buy lunch at school."
Growing up, Jones sometimes stayed with Limbrick, or his grandmother, his brother or his best friend, Quintin Berry, now an outfielder for the Detroit Tigers. High school teammates, Jones and Berry shared a bedroom, where they played video games and talked long into the night of baseball, girls, baseball, life and, well, baseball.
Those times gave Jones a familial stability that he cherished, said Rhonda Berry, Quintin's mother.
"Even now, when he comes for a visit, Adam will bring people by, show them around our modest house, then point with pride and say, 'This is my room.' You can tell he feels at home here," she said.
Jones was 12 before he gave baseball his all. Little League wasn't his thing.
"The game is still boring as hell," he said. "But I found it intriguing. There's a mental toughness to the sport that goes beyond all others."
His family saw signs of Jones' promise, said his step-brother, Tommie Wright.
"We were walking to the local Boys' Club one day when Adam, maybe 11, picked up a rock and chucked it as far as he could," Wright said. "That rock sailed over quite a few row houses before it went through someone's window. He threw it so far that we never heard the window crash."
The owner of the broken glass eventually chased the boys down, and Jones had to tell his family what he'd done.
"Adam got quite the spanking for it," Wright said, "but that was an early sign of what was to come."
Soon after, Jones tried out for a San Diego travel team, the Redwings, who announced they'd found their right-handed pitcher.
"He was the definition of raw talent," said Jett Ruiz, the team's catcher. "Adam had a fastball," which would hit 96 mph in high school "a slider and breaking balls that sank all over the place. Then he started switch-hitting. What a tremendous freak of an athlete. He didn't really know what he was doing. He was just out there having fun."
The boys hit it off — and Jones found himself being adopted again. For four years, he spent weekends during travel team season with the Ruiz family in well-heeled suburban Lakeside. He slept in Jett's room, helped with household chores and even wore Jett's clothes.
"Adam was a good kid who didn't have much," said Debbie Ruiz, Jett's mother. "Doing his laundry used to break my heart. He was appreciative of you buying him a soda."
The Ruiz family did that, and more. They bought Jones' gear — including a $300 Mizuno glove, which he still has — and helped him financially through high school. Come prom time, they paid for his tuxedo, corsage and senior picture.
Jones was grateful. In 2003, when the Seattle Mariners made him their No. 1 draft pick, he chose to sign his contract at the Ruiz's dining room table. Now, with his mega-salary and endorsements, he no longer borrows his friend's clothes. The shoe is on the other foot.
"Every year, before he goes to spring training, Adam lets me take a shopping spree in his closet," said Jett Ruiz, a mortgage broker. "Then he gives me the keys to his Mercedes and says, 'Go ahead and drive it while I'm gone.'
"If he'd just attach me to his credit card account, I'd be all set."
The payback goes on.
"I'm trying to think of a cool gift for Mr. and Mrs. Ruiz," Jones said. "Maybe a week's vacation somewhere."
Baseball as a way out
Yet family and friends say that Jones could try the patience of those around him.
"He was quite a prankster, as a kid," Wright said. "He'd put smelly things — I won't say what — under your nose, while you slept. And he'd roll his finger over a deodorant bar and then, when you weren't looking, smear it around the rim of your soda can."
Jones has "always been goofy, always tried to have fun," Quintin Berry said. "In high school, we'd fill a kid's backpack with dirt, or egg each others' cars. Adam didn't have a car, so we'd egg him, instead."
Another time, Jones and Jett Ruiz drove to Mission Beach, where they crept close to the boardwalk and hurled eggs at passersby.
"It wasn't my idea," Ruiz confessed.
Jones called it "all part of the growing process," but added, "It's a good thing I was under 18 when I did all of those things."
Most of the high-jinks were wholesome fun. The Berrys lived beside Webster Elementary where, even as teens, Jones and his friends played hide-and-seek at night. Later, they'd go to Quintin's room, douse the lights, strip to the waist and pummel each other with licorice whips. Exhausted, they'd collapse, but try not to doze off because the first to do so got tattooed with a Sharpie and had whipped cream stuck up his nose.
It was better than wearing gang colors.
"Our lives were not easy," Berry said. "Our neighborhood was a high gang-oriented place. We've seen seven of our friends buried in our lifetime because of violence. For a while, every off-season we'd come home to a funeral.
"But I had a couple of really close friends, high up in gangs, and they made sure nobody came to recruit me and Adam. They left us alone because they knew what we wanted to accomplish with our lives — and it was good for them to see somebody trying to make it."
Jones still goes back to his old neighborhood, still sees the same faces.
"That wasn't our niche," he said. "Now, when I see those guys, they say, 'It's awesome that you made it. You're living everybody's dream.'"
From the moment he found baseball, Jones embraced it.
"When he stayed with me, I'd find him in my room, watching reruns of old [San Diego] Padresgames on TV," said Limbrick, his cousin. "He'd seen them so many times, he knew what pitches were coming and what the announcer would say. Adam would sit on my bed, in his game mode, dissecting each play, pounding a ball into his glove, eating sunflower seeds and spitting out the shells, just like in the dugout."
Self-confidence? Jones had it to spare.
"I was walking the halls, between classes, when this skinny sophomore came over and said, 'I'm gonna be your No. 1 pitcher, coach — and your best player,'" said Matt Cleek, then baseball coach at Samuel Morse High. "Adam was cocky, and I liked that."
Jones' schoolboy feats, as pitcher and shortstop, are the stuff of legend. In a game at Chula Vista, he hit a tape-measure home run for Morse before a bevy of scouts.
"It was a monster shot to left field that hit the top of a three-story factory building," teammate Eric Billings said. "At Crawford High, Adam chose to bat left-handed one day and hit the first pitch for a homer. We're sitting on the bench, thinking, 'Really? Did that just happen?'"
As a senior, Jones hit .406, split six decisions and pitched to a 2.71 ERA, while leading Morse (20-10), a school with patchwork facilities, to the 2003 California state semifinals.
He played on a diamond where the backstop was squished up behind home plate, rattlesnakes slithered out of the tall grass, and a fence circled only one-third of the outfield.
"A base hit that rolled under a car in the parking lot, past center field, was still in play," Berry said. "We learned to climb over trunks and hoods."
During practice, Jones — ever the jokester — took advantage of the hard, lumpy infield to vex his teammates.
"He'd field a ball at shortstop and then whip it as hard as he could to me at first base, submarine-style, short-hopping his 95 miles-per-hour throws," said Bruce Billings, Eric's brother, and a pitcher in theOakland A'sorganization. "He was just goofing around, but I got really good at picking the ball up."
Come game time, the mischief ceased. Jones was "the ultimate competitor," Bruce Billings said. "Off the field, he was a clown, but on it, he had to be the best player in the game, every day. He made us all mentally tougher because he expected everyone to perform at his level. He really raised the bar."
Once, his coach said, Jones carried the revelry too far.
"His senior year, Adam made a smart-aleck comment to a teacher, it got back to me, and we left him behind for an away game at San Diego High," Cleek said. "We won the game and, the next day, there was Adam, messing around again in practice.
"Two players turned to him and said, 'You know, we can win without you.' Well, Adam kind of put his head down, and I could see the wheels turning. He got this look, like, 'I'm going to show how good I can be.' Instead of being silly, he got serious — and he pretty much carried us the rest of the year."
After his junior year, Jones could have transferred to Mission Bay, a magnet school in San Diego whose star player, shortstop Matt Bush, would be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2004 draft.
"Adam told the coach there that if he went to Mission Bay, of course he'd play shortstop and Bush would shift to second base," Cleek said. "The coach said, 'No, it's the other way around.' So Adam stayed at Morse."
Brash as he seemed, Jones always deferred to his mother. Once, during a contest at Kearny High, Andrea Bradley arrived in mid-game and pulled her son off the field. In the fifth inning.
"She was upset and screaming for him, 'It's time to go,'" Cleek said. "So Adam went. I never asked why."
Jones' teammates "couldn't believe it was really happening," Bruce Billings said. "It was embarrassing for me, let alone for Adam. But he loved his mom, so he wasn't going to deny her, in front of a crowd."
'He'll be driving the bus'
On June 3, 2003, the Mariners called Jones, then 17, during fourth-period government class, to say he was their No.1 draft pick.
"When his phone rang, Adam raised his hand and asked, 'Can I answer it?'" his teacher, Paul Abrahamson, recalled. "I'd been sitting at my desk, watching the draft online, so I nodded. He left the room, took the call and came back in with the news — and everyone cheered."
Twice before, Morse had sent players to the majors — Sam Horn and Mark McLemore, both of whom played for the Orioles. Jones' favorite teacher, Patricia Oyeshiku, had also taught and stayed in contact with McLemore who, in 2003, played for Seattle. It was too much for Jones to bear. He rushed into world literature class and cried, "Mrs. O! Mrs. O! You've got to call Mark McLemore right now!"
She did.
"I told Mark that this wonderful young man had been drafted by the Mariners, and that Mark should take care of him, because Adam was worth it," Oyeshiku said.
How could McLemore refuse?
"I told Adam he had an open line to me, for advice, and he asked me question after question about the mentality of the game and how he should handle situations on and off the field," said McLemore, now a TV analyst for the Texas Rangers. "So many guys come into this game, thinking they know it all. Adam was refreshing."
Said Jones: "That's just my nature. If I knew it all, I'd be an astrophysicist."
When the Orioles traded for Jones in 2008, he called McLemore to ask about the ballpark, the people and the team's plans for him. They still chat every week. And while Jones' off-the-field persona still sometimes overshadows his emergence as a premier player — Orioles fans know him for his penchant to blow bubbles with his chewing gum, his relentless use of Twitter and as the guy with the shaving-cream pie whenever a post-game television interview is interrupted — those who've watched him since his high school days see his star rising.
"Adam isn't a household name yet, because the Orioles haven't won," McLemore said. "But they're coming, and he'll be driving the bus."
And what of Mrs. O, who'd introduced the pair? Routinely, when he returns to San Diego, Jones treats his former teacher and her husband to dinner. He takes her autographed bats and balls for fundraisers and charity events. Last year, he presented her with a replica of his Orioles jersey on which he'd written, Mrs. O – I listened more in class than you thought.
Two months ago, when Jones signed his record contract, he received a text message from Oyeshiku.
I'm so proud of you, she wrote.
Jones' response:
Yeah, but I still have a lot of work to do.
Adam Jones
Born Aug. 1, 1985 in San Diego
Drafted in the 1st round, 37th overall, by the Seattle Mariners in 2003
Traded by the Mariners with Tony Butler, Kameron Mickolio, George Sherrill and Chris Tillman to the Orioles for Erik Bedard on Feb. 8, 2008.
6 foot, 3 inches; 225 pounds
Bats: Right handed Throws: Right handed
All-Star selection, 2009 and 2012
Gold Glove, 2009
Career stats (7 seasons)


text:
Flat Rectangular Muntin Bar
3/16" x 3/4"
Flat Rectangular Muntin Bar
Airspacer: 0.188"
Width: 0.770"
Product Notes
- Choice of standard colors
- Standard Length: 13'
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Please refer to color chart for color and gauge options.


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We're living in a golden age of machines. Everything, from bicycles to pickup trucks, is bigger, better and faster than ever before. This includes ATVs. Just when you thought Kawasaki had aced the field with its award-winning Prairie 650 V-twin, here comes the 2003 V-Force 700--bigger, better and faster.
The heart of the racy V-Force is a 697cc version of the SOHC 4-valve-per-cylinder 90° liquid-cooled V-twin that powers the Prairie. The V-Force has dual 32mm carburetors, digital ignition, electric start and Kawasaki's flawless automatic transmission. Like the Prairie, the V-Force uses Kawasaki's innovative sealed, multidisc rear brake to supplement its dual front discs. The hot V-Force is meant for only one thing: speed. Minimal bodywork, rear-wheel drive, and strong but lightweight components throughout make this among the fastest of all production ATVs.
More From Popular Mechanics
For 2003, Suzuki equips its Vinson 500 4x4 with a 5-speed manual gearbox. You'll be amazed at what a difference that makes. Suzuki's automatic transmissions are good, but in two days of trail riding near Flowery Branch, Ga., the manual gearbox allowed us to wring the most out of Suzuki's liquid-cooled 493cc SOHC Single. At $6399, the Vinson is something of a bargain.
Honda's new 4-wheel-drive FourTrax Rincon 650 is built around a liquid-cooled Single with a dry sump and overhead valves instead of the overhead cams you'd expect. Honda engineers claim this seemingly retrograde design allowed them to create a shorter, lighter engine with a lower center of gravity.
The new powerplant drives through an electronically shifted, 3-speed automatic with a torque converter, not unlike the transmission in your car. A thumb switch on the left grip lets you manually override the auto mode. The $7599 Rincon also is the first Honda ATV to have an independent rear suspension.
Arctic Cat
Arctic Cat's 500 4x4 already had pretty much every state-of-the-art feature, from automatic transmission to independent suspension. New for 2003 is a much more powerful version of the liquid-cooled 493cc SOHC Single. With a higher compression ratio, larger carburetor and a performance camshaft, the 500 4x4 is no bigger, but is definitely better and faster. It's priced at $6999.
Bombardier's Traxter Max is the first 2-passenger ATV capable of carrying up to 640 pounds. The upscale Max XT adds a dress-up kit, brush bars and a Warn winch, for a ready-to-rock price of $8299. The 2-seater is powered by a liquid-cooled 498cc Rotax Single with an electrohydraulic-shift 5-speed. At 795 pounds dry, the MX XT is no lightweight, but it's sure to start a trend as other manufacturers add 2-passenger seating. Indeed, Arctic Cat is already testing its own 2-seater, the TBX-based TRV.
Cannondale offers five sporty ATV models this year, all similar in appearance and built around a liquid-cooled 432cc DOHC Single with dry sump and electronic fuel injection. This high-tech powerplant drives through a 5-speed manual gearbox. The Moto 440, aimed at ATV racers, features 11 in. of travel in the front suspension and 10 in. in the rear. Thanks to a dry weight of only 375 pounds, this is one of the highest-performance ATVs of any size that you can buy. A redline of 11,600 rpm doesn't hurt. At $10,496, we wouldn't call the Moto 440 a bargain.
The hot sport/competition machine in the Polaris line is the Predator 500. Powered by a liquid-cooled 499cc DOHC Single, the Predator can hit 75 mph. Like its performance-oriented competitors, the Predator uses a 5-speed manual gearbox and lots of lightweight bits that keep the dry weight down to 415 pounds. The Predator prices in at $5999.
For 2003, Yamaha's midsize Kodiak utility machine has a large, liquid-cooled 421cc SOHC Single, Ultramatic automatic transmission, On-Command pushbutton shifting from 2-wheel drive to 4-wheel drive, and a pushbutton locking differential. At $6199, it's not only bigger, better and faster than the model it replaces, but a bargain, too.


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TRENTON, N.J. (The Blaze/AP) -- Seven gay and lesbian New Jersey couples, along with many of their children, are going to court to try to force the state to recognize gay marriage.
The families say in their legal complaint that the state's civil union law designed to give gay couples the same legal protections as married couples has not fulfilled that promise.
One man says he was denied being able to make urgent medical decisions for his partner. Another saw his partner and children's health insurance canceled by a skeptical auditor. One woman had to jump through legal hoops to adopt the baby of her civil union.
Along with the gay advocacy groups Garden State Equality and Lambda Legal, the couples planned to announce details of the lawsuit on Wednesday. The advocacy groups provided a copy to The Associated Press on the condition that no details be published before Wednesday morning.
The lawsuit, to be filed in state court, comes less than a week after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law allowing gay marriage in that neighboring state. But it's the latest step in a nine-year legal battle in New Jersey.
States afford gay couples a hodgepodge of rights. New Jersey is one of seven states that offer the same legal protections of marriage, but call it either civil unions or domestic partnerships. Once New York's new law takes effect next month, six states and Washington D.C. will make full marriage available to gays. Another state recognizes gay marriages entered into elsewhere and three offer some legal protections for gay couples. But 41 have laws or constitutional amendments barring gay marriage.
New Jersey's civil union law is cast as the villain in the suit.
"The separate and inherently unequal statutory scheme singles out lesbians and gay men for inferior treatment on the basis of their sexual orientation and sex and also has a profoundly stigmatizing effect on them, their children and other lesbian and gay New Jerseyans," the claim says.
The legal filing tells the stories of seven couples - two of whom previously sued for the right to marry - and the problems they say they've faced since the state began offering civil unions in 2007.
Their lawyer, Lambda Legal's Hayley Gorenberg, said most people in places like medical offices don't want to discriminate against them, but don't understand the rights conferred through civil unions.
"People are not badly inclined toward them," she said in an interview Tuesday. "They are just flummoxed" by the civil union requirements.
Tom Davidson and Keith Heimann, of Shrewsbury, have been a couple for 24 years and have two adopted daughters. Heimann has health insurance for the family through his teaching job at Brookdale Communuity College, but says it was canceled for Davidson and the girls for months when a state-hired auditor questioned whether their civil union was legal.
Elena Quinones says she and her partner, Liz, spent about $10,000 for Liz to adopt their son Ian when Elena gave birth to him two years ago. And the Phillipsburg couple always travels with a binder that includes his birth certificate, their civil union certificate and other documents so that they can prove their relationship in places like doctors' offices. "We're still forced to justify ourselves," she said in an interview.
If they were married, she said, those problems would be gone. "When you say you're married, it's universal," she said. "You say `civil union,' it's like you're speaking another language."
Last year, John Grant of Asbury Park was nearly killed when he was hit by a car. His partner, Danny Weiss, said hospital staff did not understand what a civil union meant and summoned Grant's sister from Delaware to make care decisions that Weiss should have been able to make.
Speaking on the radio station New Jersey 101.5 Tuesday, Gov. Chris Christie said the state would defend the civil union law. He also said he is willing to improve it if it needs more protections.
"I don't want same-sex couples to be deprived of legal rights," he said, adding, "Marriage is an institution that has centuries-old implications in both religious and cultural institutions. I believe it should remain between one man and one woman."
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/v/rvTkX65dtUQ?version=3&hl=en_US expand=1]
The IBTimes also quotes Christie as saying that New Jersey will not follow New York's lead:
"In our state, we're going to continue to pursue civil unions," Christie said. "I am not a fan of same-sex marriage. It's not something I support. I wouldn't sign a bill like the one that was in New York."
Len Deo, president of the New Jersey Family Policy Council, said he does not believe that judges will agree that gay couples face discrimination. He says only 12 of formal civil rights complaints have been filed by the more than 5,400 couples who have been joined in civil unions.
"Every person in the state of New Jersey has a right to marry a person of the opposite sex," he said. "The Legislature has decided that if you reject that and want to have a relationship with a person of the same sex - we are going to call two men or two women civil unions."
The civil unions law was enacted a few months after New Jersey's top court in late 2006 ordered the state to extend to gay couples the legal rights and protections that married couples receive. Lawmakers stopped short of recognizing same-sex marriages, which at that point were legal only in Massachusetts.
Gay rights groups pledged to push for full marriage rights and constantly pointed out the shortcomings of the law and the way it was carried out.
They mounted a major push to get a same-sex marriage law passed by the beginning of 2010, before Christie, a Republican who opposes gay marriage, replaced Democrat Jon Corzine as governor. But the advocates, opposed by social conservative groups and the state's Roman Catholic bishops, could not quite muster the votes to pass it.
Gay rights groups tried to get the state Supreme Court to take up the original case again last year, but the court said no, setting up the latest new lawsuit.
This month, Democratic state Senate President Stephen Sweeney apologized for abstaining on the gay-marriage vote. He said he was doing what was politically expedient rather than what was right.


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Telling Lies about Ahmadinejad
Buried in the Week in Review section of the New York Times is an admission that Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never said Israel should be "wiped off the map," a reference to a mistranslated phrase bandied about the corporate media over the last several weeks as an example of Iran's intention to attack Israel, especially after it develops nukes, either next week or a decade out, depending on the level of fanaticism of the neocon making the claim.
In predictable, pro-Israel fashion, Ethan Bronner writes: "When combined with Iran's longstanding support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah of Lebanon, two groups that have killed numerous Israelis, and Mr. Ahmadinejad's refusal to acknowledge the Holocaust, it is hard to argue that, from Israel's point of view, Mr. Ahmadinejad poses no threat. Still, it is true that he has never specifically threatened war against Israel."
In other words, for Ethan Bronner and the New York Times, it doesn't matter what Ahmadinejad actually said because everybody (here in the land of the brainwashed) knows Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map, an updated version of Arabs pushing Jews into the sea.
In fact, Ahmadinejad never used the phrase "wiped off the map" in his speech. Instead, he said Israel should be "eliminated from the page of history," which is different than saying Israel should be wiped off the map.
"Does this quibbling over phrases matter? Yes, of course. Within days of the Ahmadinejad speech the then Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was calling for Iran to be expelled from the United Nations. Other foreign leaders have quoted the map phrase. The United States is piling pressure on its allies to be tough with Iran," writes Jonathan Steele for the Guardian. "The fact that [Ahmadinejad] compared his desired option—the elimination of 'the regime occupying Jerusalem'—with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel…. The Iranian president is undeniably an opponent of Zionism or, if you prefer the phrase, the Zionist regime. But so are substantial numbers of Israeli citizens, Jews as well as Arabs. The anti-Zionist and non-Zionist traditions in Israel are not insignificant. So we should not demonise Ahmadinejad on those grounds alone."
Point is, the corporate media, onboard with the neocon plan to demonize all things Muslim, will not correct the record, or will not give it the same amount of air play as the original misquotation, in fact a MEMRI-spun lie.
In 2002, the neocons worked overtime to demonize Saddam Hussein—not a difficult task, as he was an unsavory character, but an unsavory character supported and armed to the teeth for decades by the United States nonetheless—and the corporate media dutifully spread neocon lies about Iraq (millions of people, to this day, believe Saddam had something to do with nine eleven, thus demonstrating facts have nothing to do with reporting the news, or rather propaganda).
It does not matter what Ahmadinejad actually said, or that he was democratically elected by the people of Iran. As a Muslim, Ahmadinejad is concerned about Israel's occupation of al-Quds (Jerusalem), where the Dome of the Rock is situated (Muslims believe the center of the dome is the spot from which Muhammad ascended through the heavens to God). If the Israelis annexed the Vatican and did not allow Christians to pilgrimage there, imagine the response of Catholics.
Fake Muslim terrorists in Ontario and London, inflammatory cartoons of Muhammad, misquoting and demonizing Ahmadinejad—all of these things are propaganda artifices designed to be used to build a case for further attacks against Islam, specifically the coming shock and awe campaign to be unleashed against the people of Iran.
In the weeks ahead, we can expect the freshly cobbled together Iranian Directorate, a refurbished Office of Special Plans, to issue all manner of absurd propaganda against Iran in preparation for an attack.
Question is, will the American people buy into the lies and disinformation?
But of course.


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I received an invite on my Facebook this afternoon to join a "Global Prayer Rally Event" which a faithful Latter-day Saint has created. I think it is very admirable, and a great reminder for us all to follow the request of a prophet of God! Here is the description which accompanied the Global Event invitation:
At the beginning of our last General Conference, President Thomas S. Monson stated:
"It has been my privilege during the past six months to meet with leaders of countries and with representatives of governments. Those with whom I've met feel kindly toward the Church and our members, and they have been cooperative and accommodating. There remain, however, areas of the world where our influence is limited and where we are not allowed to share the gospel freely. As did President Spencer W. Kimball over 32 years ago, I urge you to pray for the opening of those areas, that we might share with them the joy of the gospel. As we prayed then in response to President Kimball's pleadings, we saw miracles unfold as country after country, formerly closed to the Church, was opened. Such will transpire again as we pray with faith." – (emphasis added)
This will make a lovely addition to our New Year list, and a great Family Night discussion. What a blessing it is to have a living prophet on the earth today. Let us follow the prophet, and all join our faith and prayers together. May our missionaries be blessed, may the countries of the world open their doors, and may each of us find new ways to spread the JOY of the gospel message near and far!


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So I've found myself in a social media slump as of late, though I'm not exactly sure that's a bad thing? I had given up Twitter a long time ago because it was just too addicting. I had it linked to my Facebook and basically I was just sharing and posting too much. I actually still have a Twitter account, I just use it to read famous people and get news rather than put a million tweets out there about what I'm doing at every waking moment. But even now I find myself not checking it as much as I used to. Damn I thought I was bad, but famous people Tweet a lot! When I do finally check on it, I can't keep up. Maybe I need to unfollow some people who like to constantly retweet their fans every single praises about them . . . and their crappy attempts at music . . .
As of late I've really found myself not having much fun on Facebook either. I'm beginning to think it needs to be renamed Politicsbook. Now I will admit, I have gotten on my politic high horse on Facebook numerous times. But as the election rolled around in the fall, I vowed not to do it unless I felt I had to speak about something. I figured that people would quickly get sick of politics, I knew I was at that time. Every time I saw things that pissed me off in my feed I posted silly photos of unicorns farting rainbows or something equally as silly. However since the election it's just been non-stop politics on there, or at least in my feed. The shooting in Newtown, as tragic as it was, also has just spurned a million and one gun posts as well. I mean some people do nothing but post nasty political posts all day long . . . It must take a lot of energy to hate Obama that much! I was no fan of George W., but lord I didn't sit around all day posting about him and sharing slanderous and hateful stories and photos. I know I should unfriend people who push my buttons like this, but that makes me feel bad. I do my best to just hide their feeds, but some post so much it still gets through! This weekend with the Oscars was another great example. My newsfeed got flooded because Michelle Obama appeared at the very end. Nobody had anything nice to say about her either mind you. I have thus for the past few weeks just stopped posting on Facebook. I actually deleted all my photos, even all my personal info, and all my wall posts from this year and even several past years. It was my plan to delete every wall post I made to give me a fresh start, but that got tiring! I only had 1 1/2 years left to delete believe it or not. Facebook doesn't make it easy, you have to go through one by one by one to do it. The only thing I've done on Facebook as of late is change my cover photos to silly things. I haven't gone as far as deleting it all together as I do have friends I have no other way to keep in touch with outside of Facebook, and I do like to still interact with others on their walls. But I've taken a break from posting updates of my own. Mainly because I want to post very not-nice things like "Jesus Christ I'm glad I don't own a gun, because after having to read all these fucking posts about people thinking Obama's coming for their guns, I'd probably shoot myself in the head with it!"
The one social media I do still love is Instagram. I think what I like about it best is that it's just photos!
Where am I going with all this? Well I have been trying to find some ways to revitalize my blog. I seem to often be at a loss of words when it comes to writing actual blog posts. Clearly that's not the case with this one! I do have some fun things coming up the next few weekends that I think will make fun posts. A Broadway play, Monstermania and a party with my paranormal friends 🙂 But once again I've been wondering about incorporating apps on my phone into the blog somehow. I opened the Tumblr Blog in part because it easily incorporated a lot of the apps. I can pull the Tumblr posts into here, but I'd prefer to keep the two blogs separate: it for funny photos and this for actual text posts (and the occasional photo blog post). Hence I've been wondering if I should start using Twitter again, sparingly mind you, to give some short quick updates on things since I have trouble writing long posts nowadays.
One thing I did manage to work into the side bar tonight was Instagram. I replaced the old Webcam block that I no longer used with an Instagram plug-in with whatever the latest image I've taken on my Instagram is. Yay! Photo sharing is fun!


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About the Library
Here you'll find my other (non-academic) writings and also a few radio and video interviews I've done. Then, you'll find two libraries that relate to my work – both academic and non-academic (which I continue to call 'activist').
Once again, the distinction here between academic and activist is sometimes rather artificial or blurred. Some entries could be placed in either or both categories. But I still find it a useful distinction most of the time so my hope is that it's helpful for you too.
These libraries do not attempt to be exhaustive. Rather, I try to play a curator role as a guide to the most interesting, important or otherwise relevant references and sources for the key themes of my work (as outlined in the Activism section). Mostly, these are from fellow dissenting voices or other psychiatric survivors. But I do include some references to sources of the status quo thinking, especially in regard to Suicidology. We must, after all, be familiar with the ideas that we criticise.
Each library has two sub-sections – first comes authors, followed by websites, which has links to organisations, journals and other online resources. Entries are listed alphabetically, but I will try to indicate those I recommend most highly (somehow).
Expect these libraries to grow and change over time, which will be announced in the blog as this occurs.
Happy reading … there's some truly great ideas, authors and inspiration to be found here …


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Bucs currently 24th, Shaw battling for individual spot in final round
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (May 30, 2008) - The ETSU men's golf team was prepared to do all it could to play Saturday during the NCAA Championships. However, this probably wasn't what the Bucs had in mind.
With lightning, high winds and heavy rains threatening the West Lafayette area during Friday's play in the third round of the NCAA Championships at the Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex's Kampen Course, officials were forced to postpone action until Saturday morning. Therefore, the Buccaneers will be on the course for an 8 a.m. shotgun start with several holes left to play in the third round.
The Bucs are facing slim odds to make the cut for the fourth round. With only a handful of holes left to play, ETSU is currently tied for 24th and 11 strokes away from making the cut with a finish in the Top 15. On the bright side, senior Gareth Shaw (Lisburn, Northern Ireland) is tied for 17th and has a chance to earn one of six spots in the finals reserved to the top six individual performers who are not members of one of the Top 15 teams.
"We're not mathematically out of it yet, but we're obviously not in a good position," said ETSU head coach Fred Warren. "I really thought we were playing well after the first nine holes today, but we didn't do what we needed to on the back. The weather was not good at all and it was really tough with the windy conditions. Our lack of depth really caught up with us here, but we're really hoping Gareth can get one of those six spots in the finals. We'll see how it goes tomorrow."
Shaw, who is currently at 7-over for the event and was 4-over for the day when play was called, began the round tied for 13th and has dropped four spots. Meanwhile, sophomore Seamus Power (Waterford, Ireland) was also 4-over for the day at the time play was stopped, while freshman Rhys Enoch (Cornwall, England) and Cian McNamara (Limerick, Ireland) were 5-over and 6-over, respectively.
As for the rest of the field, UCLA leads by three strokes over USC, while the Bruins' Kevin Chappell is 6-under for the championships and holds a four-stroke advantage on the individual leaderboard.
Third round play will be completed early Saturday morning. Fans wishing to watch live scoring can do so at Golfstat.com or visit ETSUBucs.com for a complete wrap up following the day's action.


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澳洲幸运5是哪个国家的(www.a55555.net)_MySJ traveller\u2019s pass requirement removed for locals from Monday
时间:2个月前 阅读:22 评论:1
,Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin says the MySejahtera traveller's pass will be abolished in stages for different categories of travellers, starting with Malaysians returning to the country. – The Malaysian Insight file pic, July 1, 2022.澳洲幸运5是哪个国家的(www.a55555.net)?澳洲幸运5是澳洲幸运5彩票官方网站,开放澳洲幸运5彩票会员开户、澳洲幸运5彩票代理开户、澳洲幸运5彩票线上投注、澳洲幸运5实时开奖等服务的平台。
Malaysians returning to the country would no longer need to fill up the traveller's pass feature in MySejahtera application starting Monday, Khairy Jamaluddin said today.
The Health Minister said the relaxation will make it easier for returning citizens to return to Malaysia, claiming that the condition of the country's health system is now at a satisfactory level.


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Study: Jokes Can Indeed Be 'Too Soon'
Hurricane humor was least funny 15 days after the event, and funniest 36 days after.
Problem: Humor is a real and helpful coping strategy. From the darkest depths of despair, a joke may rise. The risk there, of course, is that everyone may not find it funny, that a joke, even one intended to release a little tension in the aftermath of something traumatic, might come across as inappropriate. You may be met with a narrowing of the eyes and a contemptuous "Too soon."
But when, exactly, is a joke too soon? Can it be too late? They say comedy is tragedy plus time, but how much time? What is the exact best moment to deploy your joke for maximum laughs? Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and Texas A&M University mapped this out for the benefit of nervous jokesters everywhere.
Methodology: A total of 1,064 participants took an online survey at various times before, during, and after Hurricane Sandy made landfall on October 29, 2012. "Although most tragedies are unanticipated, hurricanes permit a full exploration of the humor derived from tragedy because they are tracked and publicized before they inflict harm," the researchers reasoned.
I'm actually just going to quote the study's own description of its methodology here, because it's adorably academic: "Participants responded to three tweets (i.e., short messages) posted on the website twitter.com, by an account titled @AHurricaneSandy about the approaching storm (e.g., ''JUS BLEW DA ROOF OFF A OLIVE GARDEN FREE BREADSTICKS 4 EVERYONE''; Figure 1)."
Participants then rated how funny they thought the tweets were, as well as how offensive, upsetting, boring, irrelevant and confusing.
Results: The researchers divided the surveys into "during crisis" and "after crisis." The day before the storm made landfall, people thought the tweets were pretty funny—they didn't yet know it would be a tragedy. Over the next nine days, as people learned the extent of the damage, perceived humor declined. Participants found the tweets least funny 15 days after Sandy's landfall.
Then, it slowly started to be "okay" to find humor in the situation again, leading to a high point of humor 36 days after landfall. Humor fell again after that, and researchers saw another low point 99 days after the disaster. The study also showed that during the first dip in perceived humor, participants found the tweets more offensive.
Implications: "Most humor theories have difficulty accounting for evidence that distance sometimes helps and sometimes hurts humor," the researchers write. "We find that temporal distance creates a comedic sweet spot. A tragic event is difficult to joke about at first, but the passage of time initially increases humor as the event becomes less threatening. Eventually, however, distance decreases humor by making the event seem completely benign."
They also posit that when a joke seems offensive, it's because there is a perceived threat, and that "threat reduction" enhances humor. That explains why the jokes were funniest about a month after the disaster, when the danger had passed. But jokes about something less traumatic than a hurricane could be funny sooner: "More tragic events, such as a devastating hurricane, should take longer to become sources of humor than less tragic events, such as a drenching downpour." So if the thing you want to joke about is less tragic than a hurricane, you probably don't have to wait a whole month.
The study, "The Rise and Fall of Humor: Psychological Distance Modulates Humorous Responses to Tragedy," appeared in Social Psychological and Personality Science.


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READ about Piers Morgan's long career in journalism here.
As the mystery surrounding missing Flight 370 passes the one week mark, information and data continues to trickle in. As such, theories and hypotheticals continue to mount up.
On Friday evening Piers Morgan welcomed David Soucie and, as the host was heading to the first commercial break, his guest presented a unique possibility, one that for the first time thus far takes the emphasis off of the cockpit, and re-positions it onto the aircraft's cabin.
As "Piers Morgan Live" returned for its second block, Morgan asked Soucie to further elaborate.
"There's a hatch that goes down into the equipment area which is the Avionics Bay, or E & E, is what it's referred to as. With a special screwdriver – what it takes – you can open the hatch, you can crawl down into this area, and from inside of there is where all the circuit breakers are for all of the equipment that we've been talking about that's turned off, and even more could be turned off from down there. So that's the access," explained the author of "Why Planes Crash." "Finally I have an answer in my head as to why and how this could have occurred. Now, why it occurred I don't know, but I can tell you how."
Meanwhile, former American Airlines pilot Mark Weiss also joined the primetime program for a live interview, in the process agreeing with Soucie's idea, while noting that such an undertaking could not be the work of solely one person:
"From there [the E & E Bay] you can disable all the instrumentation that we've been talking about before," said the man who now works as a security consultant for The Spectrum Group. "But at the same time, you'd still have somebody, a cohort, to be able to be up in the cockpit, to be able to fly the airplane. At least in theory, you're dealing with more than one person."
Click the above link for more of Morgan's conversations with the two aviation experts, and for the latest information on missing Flight 370, watch CNN on television and visit cnn.com online.
» Follow "Piers Morgan Live" on Twitter
» Follow "Piers Morgan Live" on Instagram
They changed direction once, why couldn't they do it again. Could the plane have made it to Somalia?
This is exactly my thought! Why is nobody considering that they landed in Somalia or even better Yemen???!!!!
I was looking for where the plane could have landed now that they say it was traveling for another 7 hours. Checkout Chah Bahar, small airport there with an isolated airstrip at bottom of Iran near Chabahar Bay, close to Pakistan border. They could have flown in over Chabahar Bay right to the airstrip, its more like desert, no houses, they could have landed there without anyone noticing. Plus there are the two Iranian passengers that had stolen passports on the plane. I wonder if they are looking there, I am sure they must be.
March 28
good riddance piers. Maybe cnn can win there audience back 6 o'clock slot. I know there people went to
Fox news 6 o'clock
I would say a more as a more accurate theory is :
China shot it down after finding out, it was being held hostage by the same people in That Knife Train station attacker group.Having a political nightmare on there hands & with this group in charge of the headlines it was easier to shoot down than for this to be the spark that started china's uprising . This is why its all HUSH HUSH !!
China airspace must has said to pilot to switch off and head over India sea , we will send the stealth jets to help ... BANG ! problem solved no one will ever know ! Im sure its allowed if its a threat to air space to shoot it out. Only know one here is claiming responsibility
Jim, sounds plausible. Maybe the pictures that China mistakenly released earlier were really pictures of the wreakage but they gave out the wrong coordinates. They, China, had pictures to verify it was indeed in the ocean. I think when the pilot said" All right, goodnight", I believe this is when he took the plane to 45,000 ft to asphixiate tge passengers.
Khairul Amri Selamatan aircraft engineer, had been on the flight en route to China to work on Malaysia Airlines planes was identified on the passenger manifest as a 29-year-old Malaysian, he "hijacked/hacked the plane's computer system" pre-programmed new flight plans "way points" ,flew to 45,000 ft. to incapacitate all except him, only his seat's oxygen mask dropped for his used. Automobile's "OnStar" can be hacked the same way, the hacker sitting at the backseat, can drive the car using a laptop.
What are the chances of it being the same thing as flight 800 off the East coast several years ago.fuel tanks and electriacl spark. That as I recall wiped out everything all at once also as I recall madd vocal transmissions before it happened.
Why is none of your experts asking about the possibility that the plane was controlled via remote from the ground?
That would be easy, using present technology.
None of the experts interviewed on CNN have talked about the possibility of the Malysia Air Boeing 777 being taken to a pre-determined location and hidden, in order to be used later for an ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE ATTACK against the
U.S. This would require a very sophisticated plot, however 911 was a very sophisticated plot. The airplane climbing to 45,000 feet could have been done to kill everyone but the pilot on the plane, by hypoxia. The plane could have landed and been hidden for later use. I am very suprised that none of the CNN anchors asked any of the experts about this most worrisom possibility reagarding why a terrorist group would want to commandeer a plane like the missing Malaysia air
Boeing 777. I hope CNN will include this subject in discussions as I would like to hear the experts opinion on this.
I believe they have kept the hostages alive to re-load the plane with them at a later date.
This will be done to facilitate a suicide mission with a highly populated target in mind, loaded with these passengers making a fighter jet intervention of any kind a very difficult choice.
Perfect terror scenario...
Shoot down a fully loaded (mostly Chinese) jetliner, or let it crash into its unknown target...
"all right, goodnight"
Is this a normal greeting by an airline captain or would it be unusual?
Assuming the captain was subdued by hijackers and wanted to send a coded message, wouldn't be possible that salute to be his intention?
The plane has been landed, the passengers (most of them) are alive and being fed and cared for.
After waiting for US carriers and warships to pull back or reduce presence, that plane will be re-loaded with the kidnapped passengers and an attempt to attack by flying into another countries airspace with a suicide target in mind.
This will require some country to shoot down a fully loaded jetliner to stop it from reaching a highly populated area.
This is endgame, motive, reason, and only explanation that truly fits.
What a shame – hopefully something concrete will show up as I am heartbroken for the Families. In this day when all our movements are known, that we cannot find this plane, is so hard to understand.
Also a shame CNN, that Piers Morgan has been removed from this time slot. Craziness. When I read the comments, it is almost scary. Good Luck on finding a replacement..Bill Weir does not seem to be the person. Hoping that Piers will still be there in a different role.
There should be a thorough forensic check of the take off runway for animal remains such as a wild boar ect! This could have been sucked into the right engine on take off which later on in flight caused a disintegration of the right engine causing a compleat short circuit of the electrical system and causing incapacitating smoke inhalation?
Have you ever heard of second life (sl for short). It is essentially a video game where you can do anything you want. sl is literally my second life (pun intended lol). If you want to see more you can see these Second Life articles and blogs
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Have you ever heard of second life (sl for short). It is essentially a game where you can do anything you want. sl is literally my second life (pun intended lol). If you want to see more you can see these sl authors and blogs
I don't know about you guys but I love airplanes. I had a friend in highschool that loves airplanes, so here are some airplane related stuff I don't know about you guys but I love airplanes. I had a friend in highschool that loved airplanes, so here are some airplane related stuff https://www.airlinereporter.com/2010/12/airline-liveries-of-the-week-happy-holidays/
I don't know about you all but I am obsessed with airplanes. I have a friend in highschool that loved airplanes, so here are some airplane related stuff I don't know about you guys but I love airplanes. I had a friend in highschool that loved airplanes, so here are some airplane related stuff https://www.airlinereporter.com/2009/09/week-in-review-airlinereporter-com-is-back/
Have you ever heard of second life (sl for short). It is essentially a game where you can do anything you want. Second life is literally my second life (pun intended lol). If you would like to see more you can see these second life websites and blogs


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Editor's note: Jothy Rosenberg is the author of the memoir "Who Says I Can't?" He is a serial entrepreneur in the high-tech industry, has written three technical books, is an extreme athlete in skiing, biking and open water swimming and is about to do his 20th Alcatraz swim across San Francisco Bay. Watch his "Who Says I Can't?" series on YouTube, and follow him on Twitter
By Jothy Rosenberg, Special to CNN
(CNN) - Waking up to realize you suddenly have no leg or legs is as horrible an experience as one can have, and one that will, sadly, be faced by a number of people injured in the bombing of the Boston Marathon. It happened to me when I was 16 after a bone cancer diagnosis and amputation (the cancer later spread to my lung and caused a lung to be removed as well). As I looked down in the recovery room to where my right leg used to be, all I saw was a short stump.
This is frightening for sure, and only one of the things you're dealing with after an amputation. Luckily perhaps, your entire being is consumed just with healing; the bigger issues come later. First thing to deal with is massive physical pain from the surgery, and it will be worse because of the shrapnel packed bombs. The explosive force traumatizes the tissues and the fragments injected into the body cause collateral damage. Modern medicine does well with pain management, so this phase will, luckily, pass quickly.
For the new amputee, challenges come fast and furious, but so does the natural "fight" that is in all humans. My very first challenge was trying to stand on one leg. The body and the mind do not adjust immediately to major changes like the loss of a 25 pound leg, so balance while standing up is elusive. But it will come and that is a first little victory. It's the first of many little accomplishments that begin to build up one's zeroed-out self-confidence. Our bodies heal and adapt well–the mind is a bigger challenge.FULL STORY


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Whaleback Systems, headquartered in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is a managed voice provider that claims to be the pioneering developer of the first business phone solution built from the ground up for broadband.
The fifty-person company is venture capital-funded, with investment coming from such heavyweights as Ascent Venture Partners, Castile Ventures, and Egan-Managed Capital.
Whaleback targets the small and medium businesses that need between 5 and 500 end stations. Their service is available nationally through business relationships with channel partners and VARs, serving a wide variety of vertical markets, and customers that include law firms, real estate agencies, financial services firms, homebuilders, restaurants, resorts, advertising, and public relations agencies.
Whaleback Systems has taken a somewhat unusual approach to providing voice services, in that the Whaleback CrystalBlue Voice Service is software-driven using on-premise hardware, unlike the many other providers that house the hardware on a remote server farm. The on-premise equipment, however, is remotely managed and maintained by Whaleback, relieving customers of the need to do any but the normal, day-to-day, adds-moves-and-changes types of administrative tasks.
To quickly review, a premises-based solution is normally one in which the customer purchases an IP PBX, often as a replacement for an existing TDM (analog)-based PBX or key system. The implementation of this type of system involves the installation of a gateway to connect to the PSTN, the provision of trunks (typically SIP-based) to connect remote company locations, and the installation and on-going administration of end user stations (phones). Firms that opt for a premises-based voice solution may also require the services of an on-site network engineer to manage the system and provide for periodic technology updates, thus increasing labor overhead and related expenses, plus an average deployment cost that it typically quoted in the range of $600.00 to $1,000.00 per station.
An alternative is the hosted VoIP solution, in which the service provider supplies the system hardware (typically at a shared server farm), and develops user and management interfaces (typically web-based) that facilitate most administrative tasks. The service provider takes responsibility for system maintenance and upgrades, is available to solve configuration and user challenges, and typically bills the customer on a per-seat basis. However, since the hosted solutions may be Internet-based (instead of a more reliable VPN or managed IP network), the quality of service may be somewhat unpredictable.
Whaleback's CrystalBlue Voice Service was designed to combine the call quality and advanced calling features of an enterprise-class PBX, with the simplicity and cost-savings of a hosted service. Like an in-house IP-PBX, this service is premises-based, with a PBX server, called the OrcaServer IP PBX installed at the customer's office, and transporting the voice signals over broadband cable or DSL circuits. The dedicated broadband connection is also provisioned and managed by Whaleback, with the cost of the connection included in the service and backed by a service level agreement.
Whaleback provisions multiple broadband links that are sourced from multiple broadband service providers, and combines them into a high-availability network connection, called the Redundant Array of Independent Links, or RAIL. This concept utilizes standard broadband links to expand the network bandwidth, while optimizing the costs, availability, and performance. The CrystalBlue Voice Service also includes the phones, with choices that include Polycom executive stations, UTStarcom wireless phones, and softphone software.
The network management side of the system is called OrcaVision Voice Quality Management, which allows the Whaleback support engineers to visualize the network and use some sophisticated network mapping tools to trace any VoIP call through any IP network. Many hosted providers do not have these capabilities once their calls enter the infrastructure of the public Internet.
In addition to the standard IP PBX features, Whaleback offers several complementary services. OrcaFax is a secure, high-performance desktop fax service that allows subscribers to send and receive fax messages from Microsoft Outlook or any other POP3 e-mail client. OrcaMeeting is an integrated audio and Web conferencing service that features a unique flat-fee pricing plan for unlimited monthly multi-party conference calls. For remote workers, the Road Warrior feature allows businesses to seamlessly extend their office communications to employees that are on the road or working from home irrespective of their location, underlying access network, or endpoint device. Network security is handled by OrcaSentry, an innovative voice application firewall and SIP Session Border Controller built into the managed premises-based IP PBX appliance that locks down the voice network from security threats such as Spam over Internet Telephony (SPIT) and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.
Service pricing, based upon flexible tiered-minute national and international calling packages, is billed monthly on a per station/user basis. Further information on the Whaleback Systems solutions can be found at www.whalebacksystems.com. Our next tutorial will continue our review of various service providers hosted voice solutions.
Copyright Acknowledgement: © 2009 DigiNet Corporation®, All Rights Reserved
Author's Biography
Mark A. Miller, P.E. is President of DigiNet Corporation®, a Denver-based consulting engineering firm. He is the author of many books on networking technologies, including Voice over IP Technologies, and Internet Technologies Handbook, both published by John Wiley & Sons.


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It's hard for any journalist who's ever worked there, or visited its offices, to imagine The New York Times' former building, at 229 West 43d Street, becoming just one more Manhattan midtown property under development by a foreign investor. Long-time employees remember the daily tremors as the presses started rolling, and the truck bays are still there, ready to deliver papers now printed elsewhere. The lobby, entered by a small revolving door, was surprisingly small, even cramped, with a house phone you used — as in the new building — to call whomever you were there to see.
The new building, which is gorgeous if comparatively soul-less, even with its turmeric and cayenne-colored walls and its spectacular cafeteria, just feels like one more tower.
Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, who paid $525 million for the premises in 2007, plans to turn the old 15-story building into condos, shops, seven restaurants and a high-end hotel, the paper reports:
"The strongest thing going for the property is its location and the continued vibrancy of Times Square as a tourist center and a magnet for visitors," said Richard A. Marin, chief executive of Africa-Israel USA, Mr. Leviev's American real estate company. The new plan, he said, "will allow us to create the most value and make the greatest contribution to the Times Square neighborhood."
It is anyone's guess whether this plan will work any better than the last one, given the soft condo market, competing bowling alleys in the Times Square area and falling hotel rates. But there is no better place for a radical reinvention than Times Square, where peep shows, T-shirt shops and prostitutes have given way to Bubba Gump, the Hard Rock Cafe, theaters, French cosmetics shops, bankers and millions of tourists.
"Times Square has a special kind of alchemy that'll make your head spin," said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, a business group. "Sleazy becomes sexy, a bank becomes a theater, decaying landmarks become multiplexes or luxury condos, and a gritty newsroom and printing plant become a boutique hotel. The only thing you know is that you don't know what's next."
Mr. Leviev, a diamond magnate who travels with a coterie of bodyguards, had been having trouble paying the $711 million in loans he had piled onto the former Times building, which the newspaper occupied for nearly a century before selling it to move to a new tower on Eighth Avenue in 2007. Mr. Leviev was so intrigued with New York real estate, brokers said, that he did not even tour the building before he bought it.
Reader's Digest, whose palatial 700,000 square foot building in Pleasantville, a suburban town about 30 miles north of New York City, will be leaving its iconic building next summer, after 71 years there. In the current, lousy economy, the owner of the 116-acre property, SG Chappaqua, is having a tough time finding tenants thanks to restrictive zoning laws demanding each one take huge spaces, one at least 200,000 square feet.
It, too, was a place of history and presence, the walls hung with Impressionist paintings, a hushed 1950s elegance evident the minute you stepped in the door.
The county office market has been hit hard once again by an economic downturn. The volume of commercial transactions in Westchester is down, to about 900,000 square feet at the end of the third quarter of this year, from 1.6 million square feet for the same period a year ago, according to numbers tallied by CB Richard Ellis.
The vacancy rate countywide increased to 17 percent in the third quarter, from 16 percent at the end of the period a year ago.
Separately, when SG Chappaqua acquired the property, it also proposed building about 220 luxury condominiums and town houses and 56 middle-income housing units on the Reader's Digest campus. That application is wending its way through the approval process and a decision is expected sometime in the next year.


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With the much-anticipated release of the new iWork, Apple has introduced the first major update to its office suite in nearly four years, with a focus on bringing feature parity between the desktop, mobile, and Web-based versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.
In order to do so, however, the company ended up removing a large number of features from the OS X edition of the suite, with both Pages and Numbers boasting fewer capabilities and a general lack of support for automation and scripting.
Dazed and confused
As was to be expected, the reaction from across the Web has been generally negative—and not just from power users who put a premium on being able to integrate iWork in complex workflows.
For example, an ongoing thread on Apple's support forums lists nearly two dozen features that have gone missing in Pages—everything from advanced search-and-replace to the ability to customize Pages's toolbar are listed, with one user going as far as claiming that a simple performance update to the old version would have been a better choice.
Ultimately, users seem to be as puzzled as they are angry: the absence of functionality that had been part of iWork for many years is made worse by the fact that there doesn't seem to be a good reason why Apple decided to remove it—other than to make the apps compatible across multiple operating systems. "Having a minimal interface makes sense in iOS, where space is limited," reads a typical comment, "but in OS X I don't see the need to strip away toolbars, sidebars, etc."
Power to the user
Among power users, the biggest concerns seem to be centered around a significant loss of scripting functionality in the new iWork apps. Michael Tsai, developer of the popular SpamSieve spam filter, notes on his blog that Numbers no longer even has an AppleScript dictionary, while most of the automation features of Pages are gone.
Betalogue's Pierre Igot offers a typical overview of what's wrong with the word processor: "My solution for customizing Pages with a combination of AppleScript scripts and Keyboard Maestro has […] become useless." He then adds that, even if AppleScript support in Pages '09 wasn't perfect, "it was working to some extent. And bugs and limitations could be worked around."
Macworld contributor David Sparks, writing on his blog MacSparky, offers a curt assessment of the situation: "It's concerning to see that this new version of iWork has not only not moved forward on automation but instead backwards." He then points out that there is some irony in the fact that Microsoft Office actually offers better support for AppleScript than Apple's own products: "In this regard, Microsoft is heads and shoulders above Apple."
Modus operandi
Not everybody's assessment of the new iWork is completely negative, however. User experience consultant Nigel Warren notes on his blog that the changes are necessary for Apple to push iWork forward on both mobile and desktop: "The fact that iWork on the Mac has lost functionality isn't because Apple is blind to power users. It's because they're willing to make a short-term sacrifice in functionality so that they can create a foundation that is equal across the Mac, iOS, and web versions." He adds that "without all versions of iWork using the same data format, true interoperability is impossible. In the previous versions of iWork, you would lose some formatting [and] data when moving from Mac to iOS."
Writing for TechCrunch, Matthew Panzarino offers a similar opinion, drawing parallels with Apple's recent reboot of Final Cut Pro: "If we can ascribe anything to Apple's recent efforts to bring iOS sensibilities to its Mac software, it's that it likes to start extremely tight and zoom out as it adds features back into the mix."
Ultimately, the folks from Cupertino may well have anticipated that their choices would have met resistance from existing users. As Daring Fireball's John Gruber puts it, "[t]he most telling thing about Apple's expectations for this version of iWork: when you upgrade, it leaves your existing copies of the iWork 09 apps in place."


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It is again time for open access week. Like last year there will be one blog post a day during the week. The blog post cover different aspects of open access and now there is even a post about OER, Open Educational Resources. While waiting for the new posts you could read all, in this blog, previously published post about open access.
This blog post from Duke University on what open access is not also worth reading. To summarize it in short open access is not 1) more prone to absue than traditional subscribtion based journals, 2) open access is not just one thing, and 3) open access is not a business model.
First published in Biblioteksbloggen 2012-10-18
By: Pieta Eklund


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Foreign investors may have been pumping funds into the Indian debt and equity markets since the beginning of 2014, but aviation stocks appear to be clear exceptions.
Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), who have pumped in Rs 57,728 crore (Rs 22,196 crore into the equity and the rest into the country?s debt market) during the quarter ended March 2014, they have pulled funds out of the country?s two listed airlines.
While FII stake in Jet Airways has come down to 4.27 per cent in the fourth quarter from 5.85 per cent in the third quarter, the drop in FII stake in case of SpiceJet was even steeper from 2.01 per cent to 0.82 per cent, according to Bombay Stock Exchange data.
The two listed Indian airline companies have been reporting losses since FY11. Jet Airways, which made a profit of Rs 9.69 crore in FY11, has accumulated losses of Rs 1,513 crore since then. SpiceJet?s financial situation is no better and the airline has accumulated losses of Rs 1,477 crore after making a profit of Rs 101 crore in FY11. Both the airlines will announce their fourth quarter results by the end of the current month.
Market analysts say that the investors are keeping off the sector as the airlines are fiercely competing against each other by offering cheap fares, badly impacting their bottomline. ?The foreign investors are staying away, as fierce competition between the airlines does not make the return on stocks lucrative in the short-term. These investors are investing in banking stocks of private Indian banks,? said Alex Mathews, head of research at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services Ltd. He, however, added that these stocks may spin back into favour with foreign investors in the long-term.


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Tampa streets not filled with GOP protesters
TAMPA, Fla. – You can't see them. You can barely hear them over the din of the wind and rain swirling in the skies above from Tropical Storm Isaac. Protesters are here but it's highly unlikely they'll come close to crossing paths with Republicans for the presidential nominating convention.
Protesters are being kept blocks away and, so far, they've gathered in groups several dozen to a few hundred. But the worries of massive protests that might bring violence and a cacophony of chanting have been elusive.
With Isaac making its way northward toward the Gulf Coast, brushing Tampa Bay, the Republican National Convention has been pushed off to a later start. Protesters might also be staying away because of the storm, whose path and intensity has been difficult to predict. Isaac's outer bands were already bringing intermittent rain and gusts of wind but no downpours, and the usual August heat and humidity was being kept relatively at bay.
Sunday's protests ran the gamut from unionized labor and Occupy Wall Street to a hearty band of 30 who criticized presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney for putting his dog Seamus in a crate atop his station wagon on a long-ago family vacation.
"If somebody is going to treat their animal inhumanely, how are they going to treat our country?" said Kim Swygert, 37, a law student from Tampa, who came with her Great Dane.
Several carried anti-Romney signs including one that read, "Don't roof rack me, bro."
Those who turned out said they were hoping for more demonstrators, but the lousy weather kept people away.
"A lot of people were afraid to come out because of the approaching rain and thunder," said Sarah Kilker, who was accompanied by a long-haired Chihuahua and a mixed chow and terrier.
The streets of Tampa didn't resemble St. Paul, Minn., in 2008, when thousands of protesters packed the city for the last Republican convention. Some smashed cars, punctured tires and threw bottles in a confrontation with pepper-spray wielding police. Hundreds were arrested over a few days, including dozens of journalists. Authorities in Tampa say they learned from that convention and Congress allocated $50 million for security.
A few hundred protesters braved the intermittent rain and wind at a park about a half-mile from the convention site of the Tampa Bay Times Forum. They were watching large blocks of ice that spelled out the words "middle class" melt, saying it represented the erosion of the middle class in America. The art installation was planned for Monday but moved up because of the weather.
Fifty-two-year-old Donald Butner says he's been sleeping at the Occupy-Tampa camp for a few months and that "we're here, baby, rain or shine. The weather is going to do what it is going to do."
Marchers chanted "we are the 99 percent" and carried homemade signs. The 99 percent refers to the group's message that most don't share in the wealth of America.
That message rang true for 52-year-old Tom Gaurapp and 54-year-old Cheryl Landecker from Freeport, Ill. Both worked for Sensata Technologies, owned by Bain Capital, in the city of some 25,000 people. They say 170 jobs there, including their own, were outsourced to China.
Gaurapp and Landecker said that just a few years ago, they never would have considered joining such a protest.
"But then again, we wouldn't have dreamed our jobs would have gone to China," Gaurapp said.
For months, protesters were gearing up for scores of people to converge on Tampa the day before the convention began to showcase their laundry list of beefs and key messages.
Neither protesters nor the GOP, however, could foresee Tropical Storm Isaac, which is expected to become a dangerous Category 2 hurricane by the time it makes land over the northern Gulf Coast sometime late Tuesday or early Wednesday. Tampa won't bear the brunt, but winds, heavy rain and perhaps flooding are expected Monday.
Though jobs and uneven distribution of wealth were strong messages, those who did show up didn't seem to have a universal theme.
Some came to oppose just Mitt Romney as a candidate. Others didn't seem to care for Romney or President Barack Obama.
A more spirited but still tame protest of 500 to 1,000 people was held for about an hour in St. Petersburg, about 15 miles away, at the Republican kickoff party at Tropicana Field. The relations between protesters and police — who were on foot, bikes and horses — was amicable. One protester was spotted chatting with an officer under a palm tree about the track of Isaac.
Though protesters vow to stay put, if the weather threatens their safety or that of visitors on the streets, police officers will use public address systems and go person-to-person to warn them to leave, said Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor.
Castor said if "it becomes an issue of public safety, we will order people into shelters."
At least one arrest was made. A man that police said had a machete strapped to his leg was subdued after he resisted officers, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
Associated Press writers Brendan Farrington, Michael Schneider and Peter Prengaman contributed to this report.


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Curvy "Mad Men" star Christina Hendricks lived through her own Golden Globes drama when she lost an $850,000 diamond bracelet on the red carpet.
The voluptuous redhead was horrified to find out that after making it up the carpet Sunday at the Beverly Hilton, one of the two bracelets loaned by Chopard had slipped off. Inside the ballroom moments before the show started, the panicked actress asked us, "Have you seen a diamond bracelet? I've lost one that looks like this," pointing at the one glittering bracelet left on her wrist.
As the stars were being urged to take their seats, Hendricks — wearing a figure-hugging red gown — then hurried out of the auditorium back onto the red carpet to look for the bauble.
Outside, an event worker had found it and handed it back to a relieved Hendricks. But once back at her table, she found she couldn't get it back on due to a tricky clasp. So she decided to turn it over to her publicist, who was outside, for safekeeping.
But security blocked her as she tried to leave the auditorium, as no one is allowed in or out once the show starts. She begged, "Please let me out, I have to give my diamond bracelet to my publicist!" The guard watched wide-eyed as Hendricks pulled the bracelet out from her ample cleavage. He opened the door a crack and she passed the jewels through to her publicist outside.
A rep for Chopard confirmed Hendricks was wearing 200 carats of their diamonds at the show and a security guard was on hand to make sure nothing went missing. The jewels included a 49-carat emerald and Marquise-cut diamond bracelet set in platinum, and a 124-carat, pear-cut and fancy-shape diamond bracelet set in platinum.
The Chopard rep said the bracelet that fell off was the 124-carat one worth $850,000, and it was returned by her publicist. The rep added, "Whoever put it on her wrist may have not closed the safety clasp correctly. But both bracelets and her earrings were returned in perfect condition today."
Hendricks' rep didn't get back to us.


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As with the other App Previews, the version of the Mail app we see in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview is not complete. But it's in far better shape than some App Previews and provides a pleasant, full-screen experience for managing multiple email accounts.
If you're familiar with the Windows Phone Mail app, you'll grok Windows 8's Mail app immediately, as it's essentially a single screen version of that app that, sadly, is missing one critical feature: The ability to link inboxes into a single view. But the Mail app comes through on the most-needed functionality, including the ability to access multiple email accounts using an interface that's optimized for bigger, touch-enabled screens. It supports common email features like urgent messages, attachments, CC and BCC support, and the reading of textual and graphical emails.
Depending on the situation, Mail provides a two- or three pane view. In the more expansive three pane view, you can see the major elements of the Mail user interface. In the two pane view, the leftmost pane is hidden. To see more options, right-click in any empty area of the app.
These include:
Accounts pane. This leftmost pane provides access to each configured account. The number of unread messages for each account will appear next to the account name.
Mailbox folder pane. Displays the current folder in the currently selected email account. (The default is Inbox.)
Reading pane. Displays the currently selected email message.
New. Click to create a new email message.
Respond. Click to reply, reply to all, or forward the currently selected email message.
Delete. Click to delete the currently selected email message.
If you display Mail's app bar, you will reveal several other commands, including:
Accounts. This button toggles the display of the Accounts pane.
Folders. This button toggles the Folders view for the currently-selected account, switching it with the accounts list in the Account pane.
Move. Click this button to move the selected message to a new folder. When clicked, the Folders view will temporarily appear—with the rest of the app grayed out—so you can pick a new location for the message.
Mark as Read/Mark as Unread. This button toggles the "read" state of the selected message. By default, a selected message is marked as read.
Sync. Click this button to manually check for new email messages at each configured account.
As with the People app, the Mail app lets you add accounts to the system, but in this case you're limited solely to Exchange Active Sync (EAS)-compatible mail sources like Exchange, Hotmail, and Google. (It's unclear if other mail service types, like Yahoo!, IMAP, or POP3, will eventually be added.) The first time you use Mail, you'll see an Add email accounts box in the bottom of the Accounts pane, providing quick links for adding a Hotmail, Google, or Exchange email account. That Add email accounts box is cute for first-time users, but the grown up interface for adding email accounts can be found in Mail settings. As with other Metro-style apps, this interface can be found via the Settings pane. So display that (WINKEY + I or via the Charms bar), and then click Accounts.
As you add accounts, you'll notice that each is accessed separately: There's no linked inbox view, as with Windows Phone. Email management works pretty much as expected--you can right-click multiple emails to select them and then choose an action, like Move, via the app bar. But you can't drag and drop messages, which also seems like an odd limitation.
Email searching occurs as per any Metro-style app, using the system-wide Search charm. The easiest way to invoke it is with the WINKEY + Q keyboard shortcut, or via the Charms bar.
Overall, the Mail app looks pretty solid, though linked inboxes would put it over the top.


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As of today – Sunday, March 26, 2017 – we are less than 100 days into President Donald Trump's term in office, and his approval ratings – so far, a low of 37% – are practically subterranean. According to Gallup, his highest approval rating thus far has been 46%, which was a three-day average shortly after he was inaugurated, from January 23-25, 2017. An average of all presidents from 1938-2017 at this point in their presidency (first year, first term) is 53%. Two-term Republican Dwight David Eisenhower (previously former Supreme Allied Commander during WWII) was the highest with a 74% approval rating in March 1953. Oft-maligned Democrat President Jimmy Carter had a 72% approval rating March 1977, and JFK had 73% in March 1961. A reminder that JFK was later assassinated November 22, 1963. More recently however, Barack Obama had a 62% approval rating March 2009.
A reminder also that the 2018 Election (aka "Midterm") is arriving quickly, and for many, it will be one of THE MOST SIGNIFICANT elections in a lifetime, because ALL 435 seats in the House of Representatives and Read the rest of this entry »


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|DENG, C - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
|BAI, L - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
|FU, S - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
|YIN, W - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
|ZHANG, Y - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
|CHEN, Y - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
|Wang, Richard
|ZHANG, X - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
|HAN, F - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
|HU, Z - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
Submitted to: PLOS ONE
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/11/2013
Publication Date: 8/14/2013
Citation: Deng, C.L., Bai, L.L., Fu, S.L., Yin, W.B., Zhang, Y.X., Chen, Y.H., Wang, R., Zhang, X.Q., Han, F.P., Hu, Z.M. 2013. Microdissection and chromosome painting of the alien chromosome in an addition line of wheat-Thinopyrum intermedium. PLoS One. 8(8):e72564. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0072564.
Interpretive Summary: Intermedium wheatgrass is an important forage grass as well as a valuable gene reservoir for wheat improvement. The genetic makeup of intermediate wheatgrass is so complicated that different interpretations and conclusions have been put forth in scientific literature. It is generally accepted that intermediate wheatgrass is an autoallohexaploid species. A lot of hybrid derivatives of wheat crossed with intermediate wheatgrass are available, some of which offer an opportunity to investigate the grass chromosomes individually as to their genomic origin and genetic markers for important agronomic traits that they are carrying. We studied the alien chromosomes in an addition line Tai-27 by microdissection and determined them to be two pairs of chromosomes belonging to St genome by genomic in situ hybridization. The genome constitution of intermediate wheatgrass was also elucidated and revealed by multi-color chromosome painting. A repetitive sequence specific to H- and V-genome can be used to distinguish the Js genome from J and St. These techniques are useful in research aiming to characterize and map individual chromosomes in intermediate wheatgrass or other polyploid species.
Technical Abstract: The chromosome painting is an efficient tool for chromosome research. However, plant chromosome painting is relatively underdeveloped. In this study, chromosome painting was developed and used to identify alien chromosomes in TAi-27, a wheat-Thinopyrum intermedium addition line, and chromosomes of the three different genomes of Th. intermedium. The smallest alien chromosome was microdissected from root-tip metaphase chromosomes of TAi-27 with a fine glass needle. DNA was amplified by DOP-PCR (Degenerate oligonucleotide primed - polymerase chain reaction) from the isolated chromosome. The amplification products were used as the probe to hybridize with metaphase chromosomes of TAi-27 and Th. intermedium. Results showed that hybridization signals were observed in all regions of a pair of smallest alien chromosomes and pericentromeric area of another pair of alien chromosomes in TAi-27, indicating that the probe from microdissected chromosome is species specific. In Th. intermedium, wide and strong hybridization signals were distributed mainly on pericentromeric area of 14 chromosomes, narrowly on centromeric region of another 9 chromosomes, and none or very weak on the remaining chromosomes. The sequential FISH/GISH on Th. intermedium chromosomes using amplified DNA from the microdissected alien chromosome and the genomic DNA of Pseudoroegneria spicata (St genome) indicated that the microdisseted chromosome belonged to St genome. Sequential FISH on Th. intermedium chromosomes using amplified DNA from the microdissected alien chromosome and pDbH12 (Js genome specific probe) showed that three genomes (Js, J and St) in Th. intermedium could be distinguished. Our results indicated that the two pairs of alien chromosomes in Tai-27 should be from St genome, of which the smallest alien chromosomes should be trucated ones. Our results suggested that chromosome painting could be feasible in some plants, such as some progenies from wide crosses and polyploid plants and can be used to detect alien chromosome variation. The repetitive sequences distribution may be similar in different chromosomes within St genome, but different within Js genome, different between non-homologous chromosomes, and different among different genomes in Th. intermedium. This information promotes the usage of chromosome painting technique in plant research area and helpful for understanding the evolution of different genomes in polyploid plants, such as Th. intermedium.