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By Vicki Brown, Word&Way News Writer
Jefferson City — A second lawsuit involving the Missouri Baptist Convention and five affiliated institutions has been deferred pending the outcome of an appeal.
At a hearing on April 5, Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Callahan decided to defer action on a lawsuit the MBC filed against Word&Way, Windermere Baptist Conference Center, the Missouri Baptist Foundation, Missouri Baptist University and The Baptist Home on Oct. 25, 2004.
However, Judge Callahan agreed to proceed with the defendants' joint motion to consider who has standing, or the legal right, to bring legal action on behalf of the convention.
The MBC and five individuals filed the lawsuit, even though the Executive Board and six affiliated churches have appealed a ruling by Cole County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Brown on March 11, 2004, in a similar action they filed on Aug. 13, 2002. The Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District will hear oral arguments in that case on April 20 in Kansas City.
The five convention representatives include Robert Curtis, pastor of Ballwin Baptist Church and MBC president in 2001; Lyn Heying, a messenger from New Oakland Baptist Church, Ralls County; Mitchell Jackson, pastor of Miner Baptist Church, Sikeston, and current MBC president; James Moore, messenger from Concord Baptist Church, Festus; and James Plymale, messenger from First Baptist Church, Villa Ridge.
On March 11, 2004, Judge Brown ruled that the Executive Board and the churches – Concord Baptist Church, Jefferson City; Oakwood Baptist Church, Kansas City; Springhill Baptist Church, Springfield; and First Baptist churches of Arnold, Bethany and Branson, did not have standing to file the original suit. But his ruling did not clarify who has the legal capacity to bring legal action against the five corporations and to represent the MBC.
Judge Callahan set a hearing on the standing issue for June 1 at the Cole County Courthouse.
The judge also agreed to allow both sides to request a limited amount of discovery — take depositions and gather other information — to be used in their cases. Discovery will be restricted to issues surrounding the entities' adoption of new charters, possible discussion among the agencies about changing their articles of incorporation and the motivation for making changes.
The Baptist Home changed its charter in 2000 to allow it trustees, rather than the MBC to self-elect its board. In the past, The Home's board submitted a slate that messengers approved at the MBC annual meeting. The other four entities changed their charters in 2001.
MBC attorney Michael Whitehead told the judge that the second lawsuit "raises a number of new issues not raised in the prior case," including allegations of conspiracy among the five entities.
Whitehead called former MBC executive director Jim Hill a "key factor" in the five agencies' decisions to choose self-electing boards. The attorney said the MBC needs to be able to take depositions from Hill and others who convention leaders say participated in the alleged conspiracy.
If the convention would be allowed to pursue conspiracy claims through discovery, MBU lawyer Clyde Farris noted, the institutions should "have the right to examine the conduct of the Missouri Baptist Convention that led to the trustees' action." (04-08-05)


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Daytona Beach Golf Club
Our mission at Daytona Beach Golf Club is to provide quality service and great value. The Staff at Daytona Beach Golf Club is dedicated to this mission, and we make every effort to ensure the enjoyment of the game by our customers. When you play golf at Daytona Beach Golf Club, you will experience the best of Florida golf.
If you are looking for golf course for your next golf tournament or group outing, look no further than Daytona Beach Golf Club. Our 36-holes of tropical golf can easily accommodate tournaments of virtually any size. With the experience of our professional staff to help with the planning and execution of your event, your success is assured.
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Google Map/Directions

subset: commoncrawl


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No one asked (well at least not publicly), but I wanted to share my opinions on what EMR vendors should be doing in regards to EHR certification. I guess you could say this is a small sample of the advice I'd offer as an EMR vendor advisor albeit not EMR vendor specific and with less detail. Take it for what it's worth.
If I'm an EMR vendor today, I'd definitely avoid going out and getting either the CCHIT Certified 2011 or the Preliminary ARRA 2011 EHR certifications. One reader of this site emailed me an estimate of $100,000 up front and $9,000 renewal fee per year for the CCHIT certifications they were considering. Certainly it could be less if you just go with the Preliminary ARRA certification, but regardless the cost is quite large.
Instead, I'd take a more reasoned approach. There are 2 important things for an EMR vendor to consider when it comes to EHR certification.
1. EMR vendors need to be able to sell product and allay customers concerns about your EMR not being certified. Many people will be asking for EHR certification and even more people will be asking for the EHR stimulus money.
2. EMR vendors want to make sure that they're well positioned to become HHS certified (at least most of them) once HHS pulls back the curtain and shows us what that will be. However, they don't want to waste development dollars on features that don't improve their product.
With these two considerations in mind, my suggestion is for EHR vendors to take a look at the Preliminary ARRA Certification (in particular the Meaningful Use Matrix Tagged for CCHIT Reference document (pdf) is a good start). Take the list of criteria that CCHIT has created and matched up with the meaningful use matrix. Then, evaluate the criteria to see which ones you don't have and would be of value to your customers. Next, prioritize that list and add those criteria that add value to your EHR development plans.
The concept is simple. Despite my ripping on CCHIT, there are certain aspects of their criteria that are incredibly valuable to a doctor's office. Take those criteria that will provide value to your EHR end users and spend your development time adding value to your product. Then, once HHS/ONC/CMS publishes the final criteria for achieving EHR certification you will have hopefully already developed a number of the criteria while not wasting time developing CCHIT criteria which won't be required by HHS/ONC/CMS. Once we know what the real EHR certification criteria is going to be, you can decide which "certified EHR" option is best going forward.
There is one caveat to this suggestion. You're going to have to be able to tell a compelling story to some clinics about why you aren't doing CCHIT certification. However, from what I've heard from other EHR vendors and my experience talking to people, it's not a huge hurdle to explain how you're going to get them access to the EHR stimulus money and how CCHIT certification would have increased the cost of your EHR product while not improving the life of the doctor. Let them know that you evaluated the CCHIT criteria list and implemented those of value. Then, list one CCHIT criteria that doesn't add value and they should see pretty clearly why you made a good choice.
What do people think of this advice? Does it make sense? Is there something else I'm missing?


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Events for March 2023
Portugal Motorcycle Tours Calendar
We continuously seek to provide you with the best riding experience! This is why all Portugal Motorcycle Tours trips occur on fixed dates and have limited availability. It is our way of assuring that your riding experience through Portugal remains special and that your holidays are just as personal as you expect them to be.
Please, choose the desired tour from the table below in order to consult the available dates:
- There are no upcoming events.
- There are no upcoming events.
Latest Past Events
The Calendar for Portugal Motorcycle Tours trips is planned according to the theme of the journey, the time of the year, the locations within the route, special events and local festivities. This is why we only organize a Coastal Journey in summer, or a Douro Valley Ride experience in autumn, as we feel that each itinerary is best enjoyed at its peak of beauty. Nothing else matters for us!
As with all Portugal Motorcycle Tours trips, you can expect to be cared for with the same personal attention and care as if you were a close friend, to whom we are delighted to show the best that Portugal has to offer.
Please email us to receive a more detailed itinerary, or to book your trip.


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Humane Animal Removal Tarrytown NY
Humane Animal Removal:
Identification of animal. Inspection of harborage sight(s). Natural repellants, trap setting, daily trap checking. Repair or exclusion to any entrance sights with all written guarantees to removal & exclusion work.
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- Aavon Pest Control, Inc. Established 1946
- Family owned and operated
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Fully insured
- Members of the National Wildlife Control Operators Association
- Members of the National & NY Pest Control Association
- NWCO (Nuisance Wildlife Control Organization)
- Commercial and residential pest control and exterminator services
- Members of the National Pest Management Association


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The number of homes in negative equity has fallen as the housing market has recovered in recent years, but new data shows they're still holding back the housing rebound in some areas.
In large pockets of the country, the percentage of underwater homes — where the value of the home is less than the remaining mortgage — remains high, according to a new analysis of nationwide data from real-estate data firm RealtyTrac. Although they don't bring down property values in the same way as foreclosures, they're still "hobbling" the housing recovery by keeping potential buyers stuck in the mud, the report says.
After surveying more than 1,130 counties, RealtyTrac found 241 where over 20% of properties with a mortgage are seriously underwater — and 136 counties where over 25% of properties with a mortgage are seriously underwater (defined as a property with a loan to value ratio of 125% or more). These 377 counties had a combined population of nearly 130 million people. The average unemployment rate was 7.5% in December 2013 in the first group of counties and 7.8% in the latter, compared with 6.7% nationwide.
Here are the 5 counties with the highest percentage of homes seriously underwater:
- Beaufort County, N.C.: 81%
- Clayton County, Ga.: 57%
- Payne County, Okla.: 55%
- Modoc County, Calif.: 50%
- Le Flore County, Okla.: 49%
And here are the 5 counties with a population over 1 million people with the highest rates:
- Wayne County, Mich.: 48%
- Cuyahoga County, Ohio: 41%
- Clark County, Nevada: 37%
- Cook County, Ill.: 35%
- Orange County, Fla.: 33%
"Underwater mortgages are still a problem in Florida and parts of California and Nevada where the housing bubble was most extreme," says Susan Wachter, professor of real estate and finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In these areas, it's particularly likely that first-time homeowners, who would normally trade up after an average of six years, remain in their homes, reducing the number of homes available for first-time buyers. "But underwater mortgages are no longer a national problem and they no longer threaten to reverse the national recovery," Wachter says.
In fact, rising house prices have lifted millions of people out of negative equity. Nationwide, only 10% of borrowers have homes that are underwater as of March 2014, a significant drop from 34% four years ago, according to the latest data from Black Knight Financial Services — formerly Lender Processing Services — in Jacksonville, Fla., a company that tracks mortgage performance. Nearly half of all active mortgages are held by borrowers who are both in positive equity positions and have credit scores of 700 or above, compared with just one-third of active mortgages four years ago, the company estimates.
Other articles by Quentin Fottrell:
5 states with the highest foreclosure rates
What to do when your mortgage gets resold
Is it better to remodel or buy a bigger home?


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"I've been wearing these jeans for two weeks!" says Brandi Cyrus as she and bandmate Codi Caraco, a.k.a. Frank + Derol, swing by Cosmo at the tail of a whirlwind tour they claim has left them sans laundry and exhausted. But the pair, who met while Brandi was touring with little sister Miley, don't look it—or sound it—and soon, they're sharing backstage videos from their iPhones, snapping photos of the New York City skyline from the windows of Cosmo headquarters, and opening up about the real life romances that inspire their songs.
Cosmo: You guys are young, cute, female musicians. Do people try to put you in a box?
Codi Caraco: Definitely, and that's part of our name. We could have gotten "Codi + Brandi," but "Frank + Derol" was weirder and cooler. It takes away from that whole "two girls doing pop music" thing, because that is definitely not us.
More From Cosmopolitan
Cosmo: Codi, your man is also in a band [Foster the People]. How do you deal with the distance when you're touring?
Codi: Honestly, for me, it works well. When he's home, I just want to be with him all the time, but when he's gone, I'm like, "Okay, now I need to do my own thing and focus on myself." But if we don't talk for a couple of days, I'm not like "wahhh" [makes a crying noise]. I know that he's busy and we trust each other.
Brandi Cyrus: I've only ever been in a long-distance relationship, like every single one, so it's all I know. I don't hate it, either. I like a bit of space, and when we do see each other, it's super-exciting. You get butterflies.
Codi: I always have butterflies! And we've been together for two years.
[Everyone in the room "awwwws," because we are total saps.]
Cosmo: Are you two going to get married?
Codi: I have no idea! I am obsessed with marriage. Like with true love and romance. I would love to get married, but just not right now. I am not ready.
Cosmo: Though it seems like everyone in Hollywood gets married young.
Brandi: I feel like the reason why celebrities do it is because they crave a little bit of normalcy. Getting married feels normal.
Cosmo: Would you ever tour with your boyfriends?
Codi: When you're a girl on the road, you get in strong, independent mode. And it would be weird to have your boyfriend standing there in, like, kissy mode.
Brandi: It sounds like it would be great. But it would actually be a disaster.
Cosmo: We're obsessed with your track, "Barely Love You Too." How would you describe it as a cocktail?
Codi: I would describe it as a hot toddy. A toddy is nice and warm—but it has a kick to it.
Want more from Elisa? Follow her on Twitter @elisabenson.
Photo: Cosmopolitan


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Saturday, November 21, 2009
When Crocs Ate Dinosaurs
While I'm not entirely sure that the names will go down in historical infamy, Paul Sereno will introduce you such marvellous creatures as Dog Croc, Boar Croc (pictured) and even Pancake Croc. That's right, Pancake Croc. While I doubt Paul is suggesting that it dined with the assistance of maple syrup, it certainly had a very bizarre skull. We hosted Paul here in Darwin, and introduced him to some remarkable things that modern crocs can do. Watch the show and be awed by what has gone before, and what we still have.
5 comments:
- reptilist said...
Thanks for the heads up on this program!
- November 22, 2009 at 5:24 AM
- dlal said...
Happy New Year to everyone! I finally managed to catch the program on Nat Geo Wild. Great show Adam. It's great to see Paul continues to study and discover the crocs from the past. The stand out of the jurassic crocs for me was Boar Croc! It so looks like our Saltwater friends today! Only more agile on land and looks deadlier! Amazing. Can I ask though, is the new laws concerning saltwater crocs in the Northern Territory enforced now? Even though it was sad to see the Saltwater croc euhanised for being captured in Darwin harbour. When you guys did the autopsy, did you guys do any toxicity tests on the blood samples etc? It would be interesting to see how the river pollutants are affecting our crocs up there.
- January 7, 2010 at 11:51 AM
- Adam Britton said...
Glad you enjoyed it dlal, although I still haven't seen it myself yet. Trying to get NatGeo to send contributors a copy of the show is a real challenge!
You're talking about the new management plan for crocodiles here? Yes, that's now in effect although it's really no different to previous management plans. They have all the same power to manage crocs that they've always had. Crocs have been removed from the harbour for nearly 30 years, generally around 200 a year. While it's not good for the individual crocodile, it really is a non-detrimental strategy overall because these crocs are effectively "on the run" anyway, they're "outcasts". If it helps for the public to see that something positive is being done for their safety, it buys a huge amount of tolerance towards crocodiles. It's a necessary bit of give and take.
We didn't do any blood tests, no. That research has been done elsewhere, so it wasn't really a question we needed the answer to (the result: very low toxicity up here, as pollution is extremely low).
- January 7, 2010 at 12:21 PM
- dlal said...
Ah, that's great news about the low pollution. Hopefully it stays that way for a long time. Cheers.
P.S I can send you a copy of the show. I recorded it onto DVD from foxtel. Let me know.
- January 7, 2010 at 6:54 PM
- Adam Britton said...
Thanks for sending the DVD dlal, now all we need is a bit of time in our crazy schedule to watch it! I'll let you know what we think of it.
- February 8, 2010 at 3:35 PM


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Plate Processing
Automated plate processing is used in microplate technologies for high-throughput, speed and efficiency. Plate processing systems include microplate handlers for moving plates, heat sealers, stackers and carousels for storage, retrieval and delivery, microplate washers and piercers. Useful features of plate processors include walk-away automation, compatibility and easy integration with microplate systems.


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Geoffrey C. WardGeoffrey C. Ward is the author of seventeen books, including three focused on FDR: Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882–1905; A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt (which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize); and Closest Companion: The Unknown Story of the Intimate Friendship Between Franklin Roosevelt and Margaret Suckley. A longtime collaborator with Ken Burns, he has also won seven Emmys and written twenty-seven historical documentaries for PBS, either on his own or in collaboration with others, including The Roosevelts: An Intimate History.
Ken Burns, director and producer of The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, has been making documentary films for more than thirty-five years. Since the Academy Award–nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Burns has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The War, and The National Parks: America's Best Idea. Burns's films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including thirteen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and two Oscar nominations; and in September 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Burns was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award.


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Heartland Landmark 365 Fifth Wheels For Sale
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Contact our team at Explore USA to learn more about the Landmark 365, for help finding the floorplan that works best for you, and for answers to any questions you might have. Our selection includes the Key Largo, Newport, Rushmore, and Ashland.
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'Our Curious World' (from Quebec newspaper La Presse, 5 September 1942).
William Ferguson was an American book illustrator and comic artist. From 1928 to 1931 he made the non-fiction newspaper feature 'Mother Nature's Curio Shop'. Other early educational features by Ferguson were 'Feathered Facts and Fancies', 'Who's Who in Dogdom' and 'Our Great Outdoor Zoo'. His longest running feature was 'This Curious World' that ran from 1931 to 1952. It returned as a weekly strip in 1956 and 1957.


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Have you been waiting to purchase that new backpack, or that winter car rack for your upcoming ski/snowboard adventures? Gear up for fall with the MPGear Flash Sale that starts today! Get 20% OFF everything in our shop (excluding clearance items) with coupon code: GIMME20.
Hurry though, the sale ends this Sunday, 10/14!


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I bought 27,000 Twitter followers
I'm a selfish Twitter user. I love scrolling through, letting it alert me to vital news, opinion and baby mammal GIFs. But, like some 40 percent of all people on Twitter, I prefer consuming tweets to contributing them.
Cultivating a horde of Twitter followers would be a great move for me professionally. It would extend my influence as a journalist and bolster my -- yes, ick -- personal brand. I've long envied the hefty follower counts of Slate colleagues like Farhad Manjoo (25,000), Dave Weigel (77,000), and John Dickerson (a teeming mob of 1.38 million).
How to augment my small, proud band of 1,100 tweeps? I could have won new acolytes by offering links to timely content. By engaging in sharp intellectual battles. By crafting 140-character bon mots. But, much as I wish I could get jazzed about doing all that stuff, I don't find it spiritually rewarding. To the freelance writer in me, this feels more like unpaid work.
So instead, I bought 27,000 followers from some sketchy Internet sites. Total cost: $202.
I'm not trying to fool anyone. I've laid bare my trickery here for the world to see. I just wondered what all the fuss was about. In July, when the Romney campaign denied accusations that it had bought followers, it was the first time I even realized that buying followers was possible, let alone a thing anybody would wish to do. By August, the New York Times was revealing that in fact everybody does it, including "celebrities, politicians, start-ups, aspiring rock stars, reality show hopefuls -- anyone who might benefit from having a larger social media footprint."
To figure out where my newly purchased followers were coming from, I called up Al Delgado, sole proprietor of the Brooklyn-based FanMeNow.com. Delgado explained that there are two different types of Twitter followers you can buy. "Targeted followers" are actual people who seem likely to be interested in the topics you tweet about. Marketing companies charge hefty fees to identify these compatible tweeps and then persuade them to follow you (by tweeting at them and through other means). Makes sense. But that's not what I bought. Instead, I acquired fake "created accounts" -- mass-produced zombies that do nothing but pad the numbers of your follower count.
Delgado told me he buys these fake accounts in bulk from suppliers in India. Techies on the subcontinent cook up all these nonexistent personas, making sure the accounts look just real enough to pass as nonrobots. In a typical day, Delgado says he fields 30-35 orders, most requesting between 1,000 and 5,000 zombie followers. "Sometimes someone will buy a million," he says, "which costs $1,300. Some of these are people you've heard of. I mostly sell to musicians but also lots of models, comedians and porn stars."
To be clear, the zombie tweeps just sit there, inert. I tweeted at several of them to see if I could stir them awake and was met with total silence. Buying these fake followers doesn't get you more retweets, more responses to your witticisms, or more traffic for the articles you link to. It just gets you a bigger number next to your name.
So why do people do this? I assume it's in part to create an illusion of success that people hope will be self-perpetuating. It's like showing up to a date in a rented Mercedes drop-top when in real life you drive a dinged-up Kia. To the casual observer, your numerous fake Twitter followers suggest you're a social media powerhouse -- a person of influence not be ignored.
It also seems like fake followers might beget more real followers. I noticed that after I'd bought my zombie followers, the rate at which new, nonzombie people followed me seemed to rapidly accelerate. I had a hunch that, because I seemed more popular, I was showing up more in the box to the left of your feed where Twitter suggests people for you to follow. When I asked a Twitter spokeswoman if this was the case, she told me, "The answer to this is still, 'It's complicated.' The number of followers by itself is not an automatic signal for boosting an account to be suggested. It's a factor, but along with a number of others." Still, it's a factor. And, as best I can tell, Twitter is not fantastic at sniffing out whether a huge percentage of your followers are fake -- they seem more likely to assume that all those inert accounts are real but "inactive." Your Klout score might also get a small boost due to your larger number of followers, though Klout says your score is based much more on ability to get replies and retweets than your sheer follower counts.
There are also downsides to buying fake followers. For instance, you might be embarrassingly busted. A site called StatusPeople.com offers a Fakers App that purports to suss out how many of a given Twitter handle's followers are shams. But it's not perfect. It thought only 4 percent of my followers were fake while it labeled 89 percent inactive (which could apply to real people who passively read but don't tweet or retweet). And when I ran the app for other handles, the results were confusing. The Fakers App called fully 15 percent of Dickerson's followers fake and 46 percent inactive, even though he's never bought zombies. Likewise, Slate has never bought followers for its @Slate feed, yet the app accuses us of having 12 percent fake fans and 38 percent inactives.
Still, unless people harbor some sort of resentment or suspicion about you, it's pretty unlikely they'll bother to investigate like this. They'll just assume you're a Twitter star. And here's where it gets uncomfortable for me. Confession: In the month or so since I bought all those followers, up until outing myself in this story, I've sometimes felt a small ego jolt at the thought of people noticing that impressive number next to my name. Which is creepy and absurd. Unlike my talented Twitter colleagues, I did absolutely nothing to deserve this feeling of pride and accomplishment. I very much did not build that.
My giant, gormless lump of fake followers will never go away. To ditch them, I'd need to sort through my 29,000 one by one, taking care not to jettison any flesh-and-blood tweeps. Not gonna happen. So the zombies will trail me around until the end of days, sort of like (to paraphrase Eddie Murphy) herpes, or luggage. They'll sit there silently, serving as a constant reminder that I've taken a lazy shortcut. I'll feel guilty about this from time to time. But I'll also enjoy some of the benefits of Twitterati status -- without making myself into a links clearinghouse, straining to be clever, or living my life in public. I guess Mitt Romney (and his 1.2 million followers) would call me a taker, not a maker.
• Seth Stevenson is a frequent contributor to Slate. He is the author of "Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World."


text: Dearfoams casual slippers are the perfect lounge footwear, and are available in a wide range of open toe and closed slippers and clogs styles. Uppers offer added cozy warmth in soft jersey knits, quilted velours, terry and more in solid colors and fashion patterns. All make heart (and foot) warming gifts that are sure to please any woman.


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Goodbye Blogspot
My sincerest apologies to all of my subscribers for having no updates for the past few days. But now, I'm back! in a brand new, powerful, robust, and free blogging platform called WordPress! I wasn't able to edit, publish my updates, and post new articles since February 29, 2008, because my blogspot blog was locked due to some characteristics of being a spam blog. Google's robot mistakenly identified my blog as a spam blog and others as well.
Here's the rest of the message from the Blogger Team:
Your blog is locked
Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.
We received your unlock request on February 29, 2008. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.
Find out more about how Blogger is fighting spam blogs.
I have waited long enough and still there is no action regarding my unlock request to "Blogger Team". I guess, it's time to be independent and be free from Google's blogging platform.
Google's spam detector was not that dumb, but was not that smart also. If you have repeated links, like this, the so-called blogspot robots will tell big G's disciples (The Blogger Team Members), that they found a SPAMMING BOT! The Blogger Team will then report to their High Council that they found a SPAMMING BOT within their kingdom! So they will look for it and lock it without verifying that it's really a robot or an innocent human being. The suspect will then be thrown in jail, and will hope for nothing. The authorities will just tell the suspect to wait for 4 days, and if they have finally verified that you are HUMAN, and not a SPAMMING BOT, they will free you from prison! But, there's only 0.0001% chance of getting emancipated! In short, there's no justice under Big G's world dominance!
I'm just lucky because I'm using my own domain and have imported my posts and comments successfully to WordPress, before it will suffer havoc under Big G's hands.
But still, I love Google and all it's services I'm just a bit annoyed with Blogspot. But Google itself is really great and it really changed the world just like what the founders wants it to be. All praises to Google and I really do hope that Blogspot will be more better, witty and reliable soon.


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A piece of property at the base of Foothills Park's beautiful Las Trampas Valley, once the subject of closed-door discussions about selling it to developer John Arrillaga, has now resurfaced with the opposite intent.
The 7.7-acre site, located beyond the group picnic area parking lot at the very end of the road in Foothills Park, was given to the city in 1981 by the Russel V. Lee Trust. For unknown reasons it was never formally added to the park or dedicated as parkland. In fact, for some seven years, between 1996 and 2003, it was leased to Arrillaga for use as a storage and staging area for construction of his estate.
The parcel has never been accessible to the public and has amounted to a buffer between the park and a large privately owned compound that includes Arrillaga's residence, a private lake and arboretum.
The city has allowed Acterra, the environmental organization that oversees native-plant management and restoration in the nearby Arastradero Preserve, to operate a small nursery on it.
In addition to the parcel, the Lee Trust also gifted the city an easement over a dirt road that provides access from Los Trancos Woods Road in Portola Valley.
In what would otherwise have been an unremarkable and minor proposal to their City Council colleagues, a memo from Councilmembers Pat Burt, Greg Schmid and Karen Holman reveals that the 1981 gift came with a deed restriction requiring the city to use the property for "conservation, including park and recreation purposes."
The revelation that the land came with those requirements raises even more questions about the propriety of the city's discussions with Arrillaga in the fall of 2012.
In September 2012, unknown to the public at the time, the Council discussed in closed session an offer by Arrillaga to purchase the land for $175,000. Council members secretly visited the property in small groups to avoid the Brown Act's notice requirements, which might have drawn public attention to the possible land sale.
While the closed-door discussions were disclosed on council agendas as a "discussion on price and terms of payment" of a parcel identified only by parcel number, a Public Records Act request by the Weekly resulted in the release of a draft sale and purchase agreement for the land prepared by Arrillaga and emails between staff and council members making arrangements for visits to the property.
At the time, the council was also in the midst of discussing Arrillaga's massive proposal to develop office towers at 27 University Ave., and the secrecy of the foothills property negotiations raised questions about why the city was negotiating to sell a piece of public land to a developer with whom it was also negotiating a major development project.
At the time, neither council members nor city staff would publicly discuss the issue since it had been considered in closed session. Although City Attorney Molly Stump said the item would be placed on a regular council agenda so the public could learn what was under consideration and why, no such discussion ever occurred and the matter apparently simply died without further action. The public was never informed about the reasons or circumstances for any of the city's actions, including why it would enter into negotiations without having first discussed the policy issue, in public, of selling a piece of city-owned land.
With the revelation that the land was a gift to the city and came with a deed restriction limiting its use, we now wonder why the sale of this property was even brought to the City Council for consideration.
Why all the secrecy about this parcel, and why are we only now learning the background?
Councilmembers Burt, Schmid and Holman are right in bringing this item forward in a way that shines a light on the history of this parcel and how it was handled by the council two years ago.
Their recommendations that the parcel be dedicated as parkland, evaluated for alternative public uses and be permanently opened for public access is more than 20 years overdue, and we presume the full council will endorse those actions.
Now would also be an appropriate time for the city staff to explain to the public why, given what is now known about the history of the property and its deed restrictions, it ever entertained selling the property and failed to disclose these details or hold a single public discussion about them.


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Blue Moon Rises Bringing Important Wishing Occasion
Once in a blue moon…
As with most, if not all old sayings, this one too has ancient supernatural roots that have thankfully come to light just in time for the blue moon on July 31.
As you know, the saying once in blue moon, means things that very seldom happen.
In other words, things that you wish would happen more often but don't happen in the general business of ongoing life. The blue moon, itself a change in the usual order of business, can bring about a rare exception, just as the saying suggests.
It's a fact that was recently brought to light here on the site by a survivor named Ravenwillow. And further research into the matter validates her experience and reveals long tradition of wishing on the blue moon. (Just one of many tips and contributions made by survivors here on the site that keep me keeping on as a supernatural survivalist.)
Don't let the moon set on this excellent wishing opportunity! Read on and get ready to make your own blue moon wish.
How To Wish On a Blue Moon 3 Easy Steps
1. Select Your Blue Moon Wish Wisely
Whether it's a genie in a lamp or a leprechaun-owned wishing well this is always good advice. However in the case of a blue moon, it's not a matter of be careful what you wish for! life-or-death.
No, in this case it's just a matter of maximizing the blue moon potential by understanding the nature of the blue moon. As the second full moon in a single month, blue moons are rare but regular and predictable occurrences – but not in and of themselves supernatural events despite their ability to temporarily suspend the usual order of business in the world.
Your wish should reflect this. It's not an occasion to wish for something that has never happened before. It's an occasion to wish for something you wish would happen again.
2. Write Your Wish In Stone
Your cave wall would be an ideal place. At least that's what the ancients did. Granted this used to be easier. If you no longer live in a cave, find a smooth rock or stone and write on it with a decent marker instead.
Just make sure your rock is big enough – or your wish small enough – to fit on the stone you select or you could end up with only half a wish, in other words a wish that almost-but-not-quite comes true. And research shows the only thing worse than not hitting that home run in the ninth inning of a tie game with loaded bases is almost-but-not-quite making that epic catch in the ninth inning of a tie game with loaded bases.
3. Bury Your Blue Moon Wish Rock
Two key words here, timing and location.
First, the rock must be buried at the height of the blue moon. Normally this means when the moon reaches its fullest height and certainly if you suspect that you are a Blue or Silver Werewolf you need to be aware of this. But for blue moon wishing, the key timing here is precisely midnight on the last day of the month.
What if you bury it well before midnight? While reportedly not optimal, research reveals that a before-midnight wish-rock burial is not wholly ineffective like an after-midnight wish burial. So erring on the side of caution here is not out of the question. If you can't make a midnight date with the blue moon, better to make it before than after.
Anywhere the moonlight falls will work. Now this gets tricky if it's a cloudy night. Tricky but not not devastating. Not if you pick your location with careful observation and weather research well in advance of the blue moon.
Now I'm not saying there aren't other valid ways to wish on the blue moon but the research suggests if you follow these three steps your wish has historically corroborated odds of coming true. We can quibble about numbers all day, whether that means 99.98 or 99.00 percent – and I freely admit to not testing my research yet – but hey, wouldn't this time be better spend in preparing for the blue moon instead? Nothing here involves burying a dead animal or risking your eternal soul or inviting a maliciously playful fey being into your life forever. And you don't need a whole wishing team. So where's the risk?
I know I'll have my wish ready.by Seth Greening - Visit SethOnSurvival.com


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IRVINE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Due to recent expansion in the global economy, both the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and OPEC have increased their forecasts for global oil demand in 2013.
Prices for crude oil and natural gas remained largely subdued in 2012, but that dynamic is expected to change in 2013. The EIA raised this year's oil growth forecasts by 110,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 1.05 million bpd. In China, the world's second-largest economy, oil demand is expected to rise by 5% this year. As well, in the U.S., energy production continues to expand, which is helping to fuel a new dawn in American manufacturing.
As the world's largest publicly traded international oil and gas company (and one of the world's largest chemical companies), ExxonMobil
First, ExxonMobil's fundamentals look attractive: the company sports a low PE ratio of 9.20 and pays an annual dividend of 2.55%. Plus, despite flagging energy prices, ExxonMobil's earnings grew in its latest results declared on Feb. 1. Net earnings for the 2012 fourth quarter came in at $9.95 billion, an increase of $550-million, or 6%, from the same quarter in 2011. A rising improvement in refining margins and volume gains in refined products boosted the energy behemoth's positive results.
Now we'll consider the technicals. Price charts offer investors an important "price picture" of how successful a stock's price has been over a given time period.
Figure 1 shows a monthly chart of ExxonMobil over the past eight years. Since July 2010, the Dow component has risen in an uptrend, from a low of $55.94 (July low) to its October 2012 high of $93.67.
Note that the rising trendline and the 24-month moving average intersect at the $84-$85 price zone, offering potential support by buyers.
Figure 2 displays ExxonMobil's weekly price chart, with more detailed price action. While the multi-year uptrend is still apparent, we can see the energy icon pulling back in recent weeks, after a strong start in 2013.
While March may well be a volatile month in the market, investors may do well to keep an eye on ExxonMobil. Although the energy behemoth may pull back in the short-term on a potentially falling euro and sequestration headlines, if it can stay above its rising trendline and above $84-$85 — and then rally to close above $89, a potential buying point — it may become an attractive holding.
If the market's rally resumes in March, the energy icon may rise to October highs at 93.67, and eventually to its all-time high established in May 2008 at $96. Above $96 is "blue sky." With no prior price history to contend with, a rise into that zone could send ExxonMobil into another multi-year uptrend.
The Risk: If global growth does not continue to expand, energy-related commodities will encounter decreased demand. That could cause ExxonMobil to fall below its uptrend line ($84-$85). Investors who purchase shares of Exxon can consider using a weekly (Friday) close below that line as a protective stop.
Energy is to a healthy global economy what water is to human life: a necessity. If the world's economy expands as predicted, and continues on its upward path in 2013, a sizeable portion of that move will surely be fueled by ExxonMobil.
Toni Turner is the President of TrendStar Trading Group, Inc. She is the best-selling author of A Beginner's Guide to Day Trading Online, 2nd Edition, A Beginner's Guide to Short-Term Trading, 2nd Edition, Short-Term Trading in the New Stock Market, and (co-authored with Gordon Scott CMT) Invest to Win: Earn and Keep Profits in Bull & Bear Markets with the GainsMaster Approach. For more information about Toni, go to: http://www.ToniTurner.com


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How To Maximize Drum Brakes
Make Those Roundy-Rounds Safer And More Effective
Classic Mustang drum brakes have never been big performers. Even when these cars were new, their drum brakes were problematic, noisy, and often pulled badly. Fade was terrible under hard braking, which is typical of most drum brakes, only it seemed worse on Mustangs.
Fade can happen when brake drums and shoes get extremely hot, causing several unpleasant issues that reduce stopping ability. Any way you look at braking systems, front drum brakes will never be as effective as discs due to the dynamics of each type of brake. Disc brakes tolerate heat better than drum brakes during hard braking. And because front brakes do most of the work when stopping, automakers ultimately switched to power front disc brakes.
OK, so we agree drum brakes aren't the most effective type of brakes. However, what if you're restoring a Mustang to the window sticker or Marti Report, or perhaps you're doing a six-cylinder hardtop with four-wheel drum brakes and have little choice? How can you get optimum stopping performance from old-fashioned drum brakes?
The best advice we can offer is to pay close attention to detail before getting started. Replace everything-drums, hardware, riveted linings, and hydraulics. Be prepared to sweat the details to ensure your Mustang's drum brakes are in proper working order to deliver the best possible performance.
Because most replacement parts these days are of unknown integrity from origins as vast as the planet, be sure to use genuine Ford Motorcraft parts because no other company has committed more time and money to research and development than the company that designed, engineered, and built your Mustang to begin with. Though Motorcraft parts are usually more expensive, they're worth the difference based on our experiences in nearly 40 years of working with classic Mustangs.
Motorcraft parts are manufactured and tested to the highest standards in the industry. When you do your brakes on the cheap, that's exactly what you're going to get when it's time to test them in a panic stop.
When it comes to parking brake effectiveness, nothing does the job better than a drum brake because they are self-applying by design. As shoes contact the drum, they tend to bind into the drum for better holding power. Disc brakes are not as effective as parking brakes, especially on older Mustangs with T-handle parking brakes.
New Mustang Drum Brakes & Parts
Currie Enterprises, known mostly for rear axles and parts, is also a source for complete drum brake assemblies and parts. We're talking drums, shoes, hardware, hydraulic parts, backing plates, and more. Buy it all piece meal or order complete assemblies ready for installation. For approximately $350 per pair including drums, you can replace your classic Mustang's drum brakes with all-new brake assemblies.
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Tronixpro Eva Rig Winders Yellow
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- Prevents rigs from tangling
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- 10 per pack
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Founded in 2007 by experienced fisherman – George Cunningham, TronixFishing started life under the Company's sea fishing brand – Tronixpro. Spotting a gap in the market for reasonably priced, useable sea fishing terminal tackle, the Company has grown from one man in his garage, to distributing products throughout the UK, Ireland and parts of Europe.
Tronixpro's sea fishing rig winders are the perfect solution to rig storage. Rigs can be individually wound onto winders and stored in any of our suitable solutions.


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Learn about improving application and network performance and end-user experience.
Looking for DevOps information?
We're no longer in the code-level APM business here at AppNeta. We now focus on application and network performance monitoring for IT operations teams.
See what we're up to nowAppNeta monitors performance for SaaS apps, cloud apps, remote locatons and everything in between.
Improving application performance is a big job
Good application performance is essential for IT teams, businesses and end users. Measuring and improving that performance using just code-level APM isn't enough anymore. Now that apps have moved to the cloud, there's distance between users and apps that adds a lot of complexity. Code-based APM just isn't possible for commercial and SaaS apps (unless you own them). AppNeta Performance Manager offers end-to-end visibility by understanding the entire network path, wherever the apps and users are located.


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Crestview senior overcame deaths, abandonment
CRESTVIEW — Inri Fales' past has shaped her, but the high school senior has made up her mind that it won't define her.
In the years since her older brother took his own life and her father passed away, day-to-day living has gotten easier. It's taken a lot to reach that point, and not all days are good.
"I stayed in my room for a long, long time," Inri said. "I guess maybe as a defense mechanism I would kind of ignore things around me."
Inri was just shy of 10th grade when her world started to crumble.
Her father's cancer, a constant worry in her life since he was diagnosed when Inri was in the third grade, was back. And the 18-months that separated her and her brother had turned into a lifetime.
He was involved with people and activities she didn't approve of, and he knew it. A chasm grew between them.
To this day, she doesn't know exactly why her brother decided to take his own life, but she does know the death took a rapid toll on her parents.
Grief and illness stole her father from her one month later. In the dark days ahead, all she had left was her mother, who she's always struggled to understand.
About a month before Inri's 18th birthday, her mother left for what Inri thought was a trip to visit her boyfriend.
"Whenever she left, she didn't even tell me she was leaving for good," Inri said.
Her mother took very few possessions with her. She left Inri alone in a house that wasn't paid for and offered little to no help with household bills.
Inri was able to drive her mom's car for a while, but soon it was repossessed. Inri has been left to rely on the kindness of friends who have become like family.
"It's so weird because I'm 18 and I've got to deal with all these emotions by myself," Inri said. "So it's like I'm 40, but at the same time it's like I'm 12 because I still need to depend on other people for all these things."
Right now, a few people who love her are trying to get her a car so she can have a sense of independence and get a job to help cover expenses after her father's Social Security checks end when Inri graduates Friday.
"What impresses me about her is through all of this … she has persevered. She hasn't given up," said Kelly Hayes, who taught Inri in Advanced Placement English at Crestview High School last year. "She's still got goals. She's still got dreams."
Inri applied to two universities, but wasn't accepted to either one because her GPA wasn't high enough.
Initially she thought that was it.
She learned later that she could appeal the decisions.
So far, explaining to school officials the circumstances that led her grades to drop has provided admission to the University of Central Florida.
She's also appealing her rejection at Florida State University. Two women she's known for years are helping guide her through that process and take on any battles they can for her.
Both declined to be interviewed, but Inri said they want her to get into the college so she can pursue a zoology degree.
Inri said she'd be content to go to UCF for a while just to take a step forward in her life, but it wasn't clear which school she'd choose if the second acceptance comes through.
While she waits, she hopes nothing else bad comes her way, but said the circumstances of her life have taught her she'll be OK no matter what.
"I'm ready for whatever happens," she said. "I know I can handle it."
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or email@example.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.


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What Will Dominate The Future of BI?
Self-Service BI & Data Discovery
The current range of products and services on the business intelligence (BI) market is extremely broad and makes the technology accessible to everyone. Whether an enterprise-wide information management system for day-to-day reports is needed, or if users are to be given the option to analyze their own data based on impressive visual analytics; getting started in business intelligence has never been this easy. We give an update on the "new" business intelligence.
The world of BI is changing. In recent years, the gap between business and IT has grown smaller. Specialist departments can now apply new solutions to obtain reports without having to first consult their colleagues in IT. And that's a good thing. It is increasingly vital to respond quickly to the needs of the market. There simply isn't enough time to wait weeks or months for reports, which in the end may even focus on little more than a few data sets. Organizations want and need to become more intelligent. Analytics solutions allow companies to improve their data analysis and hence to predict customer behavior, risks, resources, attempted fraud and other relevant factors.
Self-service BI and data discovery will dominate the future of the field. Both these factors allow users to operate intuitive interfaces to conduct their own in-depth analyses quickly and simply. Creative data analysis is now accessible to everyone. And it's fun, too.
This year again, Gartner has also placed its focus on self-service BI and data discovery. The Magic Quadrant for BI & Analytics released by the market research company reflects market movements: Tableau, Qlik and Power-BI populate the leader's quadrant on their own, replacing traditional vendors like Oracle, IBM and SAP. This has been a dramatic game-changer, and companies would be well advised to check whether they have room to optimize their own BI portfolio.
Almost every organization uses information management systems. Although a fair number of companies continue to trust in Excel, the trend is moving clearly towards business intelligence solutions. This is primarily driven by the necessity to measure developments within the enterprise.
IT managed BI means business intelligence that is controlled by IT within a traditional setting. It involves complex technical solutions requiring specific expertise. Therefore, the IT department is responsible for providing all reports, which makes users dependent on IT and introduces a matching level of inflexibility. It can indeed take a while until users receive the information they need, and modifications quite frequently need months until they are complete. The reports must also be altered if there are any changes in the kind of information the users require.
IT managed BI does have advantages, though. It is easily scalable, as all of the enquiries run via the IT department. Also data quality is guaranteed and the risk of information silos limited.
Each organization – irrespective of its size or industry – will need functional and ready-for-use financial reports and dashboards. IT managed BI will tick the boxes in some cases.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for organizations to set themselves apart from the competition. To do so, they need to introduce more efficient and effective management systems in addition to keeping their fingers firmly on the pulse of the market.
The availability and evaluability of large data sets – externally and internally ¬– allow companies to obtain valuable insight, to identify trends, to discover new patterns and quickly to infer definite calls for action based on the information they obtain. This will require a completely different, non-central approach than IT managed business intelligence. The self-service BI and data discovery tools quickly and easily allow each area of the company to produce their own reports without having to consult the IT department.
Self-service BI and data discovery tools represent high-performance visual analytics solutions that enable their users to review, analyze and visualize their own data. And because these users are more familiar with the data than anyone else, the solutions described above will help them achieve the maximum benefits.
Although self-service BI and data discovery tools are extremely flexible, user friendly, intuitive to operate and interactive, it is nevertheless important to ensure that they are not used in an excessively independent setting. There may be contradictory or incorrect conclusions and decisions if a disproportionately large number of people work on data analysis within one organization. Collaborating with IT in respect to data governance and management remains an essential element within BI.
New terms and solutions have emerged – among them business analytics and advanced analytics – besides business intelligence itself. Although they are mentioned as independent solutions, they are all sub-disciplines within BI. Business intelligence refers to meaningful information about a company in regard to management, the market or the customer. No matter whether the data refers to the past, the present or the future, the purpose is still to collect information and communicate knowledge. Hence, it is reasonable to perceive BI as an umbrella term comprising a variety of functions that reflect specific wishes and needs.
The different sub-terms depend on the various functions and purposes that the company associates with business intelligence. At a glance, the most important differences are:
Will self-service BI and data discovery tools prevail? Opinions are divided here. IT managed BI and self-service BI do not necessarily get in each other's way, so there is no reason why they cannot work in tandem. But it is not possible to compare the technologies, as they represent two very different methods. In most cases it will be beneficial to introduce some kind of combined approach.
The market for BI & analytics is growing at a helter-skelter pace, quite aside from the technology issue. Companies have recognized the value and necessity of meaningful BI data. Gartner states that by 2017, most technical and analyst within companies will have access to self-service tools. It is no surprise therefore that there is increasing demand for relevant solutions from vendors like SAS, Microsoft IBM, Tableau and SAP.
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Tilghman issues statement on Supreme Court affirmative action decisions
Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman issued the following statement on the Supreme Court's June 23 decisions on lawsuits challenging the University of Michigan's affirmative action policies:
"We are very pleased that the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of a 'narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.' In doing so, the court has endorsed the position enunciated 25 years ago by Justice Powell in the Bakke case, as Princeton asked the court to do in the amicus brief that we filed earlier this spring with a number of other universities. The court's action allows us to continue our current practice of taking race into account as a plus factor in an admission process that evaluates each applicant individually and weighs the capacity of each to contribute to the class, the institution and society."
Contact: Lauren Robinson-Brown (609) 258-3601


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The seductive allure of the "nice" therapist
I've gotten emails from several people over the last few weeks about finding a therapist, knowing if s/he is for you, and so on. Others have commented on progress (or lack thereof) with their therapist and whether to leave or stay.
One of the arguments in favor of staying--or for what people are looking for in a therapist--is that the person is "nice."
Believe me, I understand this argument. I've been there. I wanted someone nice, someone I could pour my heart out to. I wanted someone to whom I could confess my deepest thoughts and secret desires. I thought this person should be a therapist. In all honesty? I should have just adopted a puppy.
Here's the thing: talking only gets you so far. As someone said at this year's NEDA conference, "Insight doesn't lead to behavior change. Behavior change leads to behavior change." We want to feel loved and accepted and that's not a bad thing. I'm not dissing nice people or feeling heard and validated. But just having someone listen to you isn't going to treat your eating disorder. "Nice" is often code word for "They don't push me into actually making any significant changes."
Being a complete jackass does not make for a good therapist any more than being nice does. I'm not advocating seeing a meanie. I am advocating thinking long and hard about why you are seeing a therapist in the first place. Presumably, you have a problem. If you're reading this blog, chances are that problem involves an eating disorder. So before you go looking for a nice therapist, it might help to think what you want to get out of therapy.
Maybe it's "I want to feel better." Not a bad goal. Now try and think about how, in reality, that might happen. Recovery from an eating disorder usually involves feeling worse before you start feeling better. Feeling better involves doing things like normalizing eating, learning how to socialize and make friends, working on perfectionism. This, not infrequently, sucks. I've had therapists be too nice and not push me to do this because they knew, on some level, how hard it was going to be.
Take my cat. When I first adopted her and she finally stopped hiding under the couch, she liked to jump up on the top of the fridge. Although Her Royal Fuzziness could get up, she didn't quite master getting down. The first few times she got stuck, I hauled out the step stool, climbed up, and rescued her. After a while, however, it got to be really annoying. She kept getting stuck on the damn fridge. Finally, I left her up there for about 10-15 minutes. She was not happy. But I also didn't want her getting stuck up there when I wasn't home, and I also didn't want to be getting her down every day. So I let her stew on the fridge for a bit, tried to drive home the point that, you're welcome to climb on things, but you also have to get yourself down. After her time was up, I got the stool and grabbed her down.
I never had to do it again. I'm not sure whether she stopped going up there or (more likely) she finally figured out how to get herself down. Letting her up there was not a nice thing to do, but it worked.
It's sort of like that with a nice therapist. We tell them about our problems. We talk about how awful the ED is making our lives, is making us feel. And they listen and nod and hand out tissues and seem to get it. Then we leave their offices and go back to the awfulness and nothing changes. It seems to be a good deal because we get to feel like we're "working on recovery" because we dutifully see a therapist for our 50-minute hour, and our therapist gets to be nice and caring and build a relationship with his/her client.
Recovery, though, remains stagnant.
It reminds me of one of the human behavior truisms I've discovered over the years. People don't change when they see the light, they change when they feel the heat. Feeling the heat is uncomfortable. It can seem cruel to insist that a person gain weight when they say that gaining a pound will make them feel suicidal, or that they would rather die than eat that ice cream.
That isn't to say that being an asshole makes you a good therapist, because it's not true. A good therapist listens well, helps you problem solve, is non-judgmental, knows what they are talking about, provides you with an outline of what therapy is going to look like, what the goals are, etc. Nice isn't a bad thing, but it doesn't mean you're a good therapist.
I didn't start getting better until I started seeing a therapist who wouldn't put up with my bullshit. She made it very clear what the ground rules were, and she pushed my forward almost ruthlessly. She did it out of ultimate kindness, but, believe me, she wasn't always nice about it. At the same time, I really respected that. I respected someone who didn't play into the "sick identity" of being anorexic and treat me like I couldn't handle life because I was ill. No, it was "You need to eat, you need to gain weight, and I will help you. You won't like it, you probably won't like me at times, and I'm okay with that."
I had to stop looking for nice therapists and start looking for those who would help get me well. Many of these therapists were nice, but that wasn't how they got me well.


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The Salvation Army is grateful to the public for their continued support of The Salvation Army's Emergency Disaster Services during time of disaster.
Monetary Donations
Financial contributions are the best way to assist The Salvation Army with helping those affected by disasters. Monetary donations allow the Salvation Army to purchase product to meet the most urgent needs. When feasible, purchases are made near the disaster site to help stimulate the local economy and ensure quicker delivery to those in need. If you wish to designate your gift to a specific disaster, you may do so at the time of your donation. Monetary donations can be made by calling 1-800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769) or online at https://secure2.salvationarmy.org/. You may also send your contribution to your local Salvation Army.
When needed, The Salvation Army will request and accept both corporate and private in-kind donations in support of the disaster relief operation. Specific items needed will be identified based on the type of disaster. Bulk donations of a single product such as bottled water, personal hygiene items, cleaning supplies, and building materials may be accepted. All donations must be properly packaged, shrink-wrapped, on pallets, and labeled. Donors are asked to cover the cost of shipping in-kind donations to the receiving location. If you have a donation of bulk product you would like to contribute please contact your local Salvation Army or send information to firstname.lastname@example.com
Confirm Need Before Collection
In-Kind donations require time, space, money and personnel. These are all valuable resources at a disaster site. All in-kind donations must be pre-planned and accepted by The Salvation Army prior to delivery. Donors are asked to be responsible for the shipping to the receiving location.
Transportation Should Be Planned In Advance
Transportation during a major disaster is often a challenge. Never assume unsolicited relief supplies can be accepted at the disaster site. Planning for delivery will allow the Salvation Army to have appropriate staff and volunteers in place to accept donations.
Used Clothing Is Rarely A Useful Item To Collect For Disaster Relief
Used clothing is rarely needed at the disaster site. You may contact your local Salvation Army to donate used items. This helps support local Salvation Army programs.


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Blackhawks' Crawford overcomes rough start in 5-3 win
Corey Crawford had a tough act to follow Tuesday night.
With Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville going back to Crawford, his No. 1 goaltender, despite Ray Emery's 45-save effort at Calgary on Saturday, it was Crawford entrusted with beating the San Jose Sharks at HP Pavilion.
Crawford had a rough start, giving up 3 goals in the first period, but he got better as the game went on as the Hawks overcame an early hole to beat the Sharks 5-3.
Fortunately for Crawford and the Hawks, Antti Niemi was struggling at the other end as well and also gave up 3 in the first 20 minutes
Patrick Kane's goal at 11:52 of the second period put the Hawks ahead 4-3. It was set up beautifully by Jonathan Toews, who stole the puck from defenseman Douglas Murray and found Kane alone in front.
Kane added an empty-net goal with 1:12 to play after Niemi had been pulled for a sixth attacker.
The win kept the Hawks without a loss in regulation at 8-0-2 while San Jose dropped to 7-2-1.
Dave Bolland returned to the lineup and took his place at center on the second line between Kane and Patrick Sharp.
The Hawks entered the game first in the league in penalty killing at 94.4 percent and were expected to be challenged by the Sharks, who had the fifth-best power play led by Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski.
"Positioning is going to be important," Quenneville told reporters before the game. "Clearing the front of the net and making sure there's nothing loose hanging around. They have quick sticks and put a lot of pucks in that area. Whether it's their entries, blocking shots, they do put a lot of pucks at the net and anticipate each other well."
In this condensed 48-game season when practice time is so scarce, special teams are the focal point for the Hawks.
"We're really trying to manage these guys away from the rink as best we can," Quenneville said. "Special teams, when we get on the ice, we'll try to work on that as best we can."
Special teams were not a factor in the 6-goal first period.
The Sharks got 2 goals in the first five-plus minutes from Joe Pavelski and Evanston native Tommy Wingles, but Brandon Saad scored his first NHL goal at 10:08 to bring the Hawks back into the game.
Michal Handzus quickly made it 3-1 at 10:47, beating Crawford on the short side, but Andrew Shaw answered just eight seconds later on a pass from Bryan Bickell.
The Hawks tied it 3-3 on a goal by Marcus Kruger at 11:37 off a scramble in front.
The Hawks might have caught a break at 8:48 of the second period when Andrew Desjardins drew a match penalty for a check to Jamal Mayers' head. Replays showed it to be a borderline call.
Duncan Keith jumped to Mayers' aid and got a fighting major and two minor penalties and a 10-minute misconduct while Desjardins got a fighting major in addition to the match penalty.


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So I'm looking at a painting called "The Scream," which just sold for $119.9 million, when it occurs to me: I could have done that.
I mean, all we're talking about here is a central figure with a head shaped like a light bulb. How hard would that be to draw?
This got me to thinking that there are other pricey works of art I could have done.
Take Jackson Pollock.
This guy Pollock didn't even use a brush. He just laid a canvas on the floor and dripped paint on it. And a lot of the time he was probably hammered when he did it.
In 2006, David Geffen, who may or may not have been the inspiration for Carly Simon's song "You're So Vain," sold one of Pollock's paintings for a reported $140 million.
I'll tell you, if I had been more familiar with Pollock's stuff when I painted the upstairs, I never would have thrown away the drop cloth.
Whoa, you know what just occurred to me? I could be an abstract expressionist and not even know it. Maybe I should look into getting a beret.
One artist I could never emulate is Picasso. Old Pablo was one seriously warped dude. I've been to a couple of his exhibits, and both times I came away with the same thought:
This is a person who didn't hear the warning about the brown acid at Woodstock.
Anyway, this may come as a shock, but I don't know a lot about art. This technicality doesn't stop me from going to exhibits, where I have become adept at faking it.
Sometimes I will stare at a painting for a long time while rubbing my chin. I'm probably thinking about the Red Sox starting rotation, or how my shorts are riding up, but to the casual observer I look deep.
On those occasions where someone will ask me what I think, I'll mumble something about the painter's interesting use of negative space.
I'm not exactly sure what negative space is, but then neither, I have found, do most people. That said, there have been times when after I have used this line I can tell the other person is thinking the only negative space is between my ears.
Of course, if that person were really insightful he'd be thinking, "I'll bet his undershorts are riding up."
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The UK government has been giving secret support at the very highest levels to Canada's campaign against European penalties on its highly polluting tar sands fuel, the Guardian can reveal.
At the same time, the UK government was being lobbied by Shell and BP, which both have major tar sands projects in Alberta, and opened a new consulate in the province to "support British commercial interests".
At least 15 high-level meetings and frequent communications have taken place since September, with David Cameron discussing the issue with his counterpart Stephen Harper during his visit to Canada, and stating privately that the UK wanted "to work with Canada on finding a way forward", according to documents released under freedom of information laws.
Charles Hendry, the energy minister, later told the Canadian high commissioner: "We would value continued discussion with you on how we can progress discussions in Brussels," with Hendry's official asking the Canadians if they had "any suggestions as to what we might do, given the politics in Brussels".
Canada's vast tar sands – also known as oil sands – are the second largest reserve of carbon in the world after Saudi Arabia, although the energy needed to extract oil from the ground means the process results in far more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil drilling, as well as causing the destruction of forests and air and water pollution.
Nasa scientist James Hansen says if the oil sands were exploited as projected it would be "game over for the climate".
The European proposal is to designate transport fuel from tar sands as resulting in 22% more greenhouse gas emissions than that from conventional fuels. This would make suppliers, who have to reduce the emissions from their fuels by 10% by 2020, very reluctant to include it in their fuel mix. It would also set an unwelcome precedent for Canada by officially labelling fuel from tar sands as dirtier.
The UK and Canada's shared opposition to the European plan puts the UK in a minority among EU countries and will be deeply embarrassing as a new round of global negotiations on tackling climate change begins in Durban, South Africa on Monday. Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, claimed on Thursday that the UK was showing "leadership" in the UN negotiations, while Canada's prime minister has blocked climate laws. The revelations are also the latest blow to Cameron's claim to be the "greenest government ever".
The vote to approve the European fuel quality regulations takes place on Friday. In advance of that, William Hague, the foreign secretary, has also given support to Canada, sending an "immediate action" cable in September to the UK's embassies there asking "to communicate our position and seek Canadian views on what might be acceptable".
However, the Department for Transport, in which the Liberal Democrat minister Norman Baker has responsibility for tar sands issues, has released only two presentations made to it by Shell, both heavily redacted. The DfT rejected requests to release at least six other relevant documents on the grounds of commercial confidentiality and adverse effect on international relations, as did the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), where Shell also met ministers.
BP has lobbied ministers, too. Its vice president in Europe, Peter Mather, has been, in his own words, "bending the ear" of Baker. Mather also sent a letter in which he wrote: "The regulatory burden would be considerable at a time when the industry is already creaking under the weight of a heavy regulatory regime."
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "The scale of oil industry lobbying exposed in these documents is quite extraordinary. It's especially worrying that Baker held a secret meeting with Shell about this key European vote on tar sands. But worse still, he's now covering up what was discussed."
Colin Baines, toxic fuels campaign manager at the Co-operative, the UK mutual business group which targets tar sands as part of its climate change campaigning, said: "It is very disappointing that the UK government is supporting Canada's efforts and we hope it has a rethink and puts tackling climate change ahead of Canada's trade interests when it comes to vote on the European commission's commonsense proposal."
The documents were obtained by the Co-operative under environmental information regulations, a type of freedom of information law. They include letters to and from ministers, diplomatic correspondence and notes of meetings.
Baker said: "The government is staying true to its aspiration to be the greenest ever by seeking to secure the best deal it can for the environment from the discussions ongoing in the EU about the fuel quality directive.
"We believe that means tackling all highly polluting crudes equally, not simply oil sands from one particular country. These certainly represent a problem, but so do other crudes, and it makes no environmental sense to ignore these.
"This is not about protecting one particular country – we want to deal with all crudes, not just one type, and in a way that is based on robust and objective data, related to their carbon emissions."
Like Baker, Canada also argues in the newly revealed documents that it is unfair to single out one nation and that other types of oil can be as dirty as tar sands.
But Baines says these arguments are "myths", as the European proposal does not name any nation and on average fuel from tar sands is a greater source of carbon by a clear margin, according to a Stanford University study for the European commission.
Furthermore, the European commission proposal allows for changes in the emissions designated for fuel types.
Canadian ministers and diplomats state they support an "overarching ambition" to reduce carbon emissions. But Canada has admitted it will fail to meet its Kyoto protocol target of a 6% cut compared with 1990 levels: in 2009 its emissions were 34% higher.
In September, Lord Sassoon, the UK Treasury minister for commerce, spent two days in Calgary, a few hundred miles from the vast oil sand pits excavated by 1,500-tonne diggers. The International Energy Agency expects production to treble in the next 20 years. Sassoon met politicians and oil executives to discuss boosting trade with the UK and told reporters that Alberta is "one of the main focuses of British business". Alberta's energy minister, Ron Liepert, told Sassoon privately he "was grateful for UK efforts" on the tar sands issue in Europe.
The new British consulate-general in Calgary was announced by Hague on 18 October, the same day as Canadian energy minister Joe Oliver said: "[The British] have been very, very helpful and we're pleased about that. Many European companies are heavily invested in the oil sands and they also would be concerned." The new documents and diplomatic sources suggest the Netherlands, Spain and Poland are among those backing the British-Canadian position.
In London, a senior Canadian diplomat, Sushma Gera, told BIS: "Canada will not hesitate to defend her interests," perhaps via a World Trade Organisation dispute, a possibility also raised by Shell in its presentation to DfT.
Bill McKibben, a leading US environmentalist, who was arrested in August protesting against a major oil sands pipeline called Keystone XL said: "The UK seems to have emerged as Canada's partner in crime, leaning on Brussels to let this crud across the borders. This will be among the biggest single environmental decisions the Cameron government makes."
Greenpeace's Sauven, along with the head of Friends of the Earth, Andy Atkins, and David Nussbaum, leader of WWF-UK, have written to Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister and Lib Dem leader.
The letter says: "We ask you to intervene personally on this, to ensure that your party's green ambitions are more effectively upheld across Whitehall."


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The Park City School District Board of Education voted Nov. 21 to close all its schools to open enrollment for the 2018-19 school year. No new out-of-district students will be accepted next year. The board made the decision to maintain program offerings while holding class sizes to manageable levels.
Out-of-district students who are currently attending PCSD schools will be allowed to remain within the school system, but if they are moving from one school to another in 2018-19, they will need to submit an open enrollment application. Their siblings will receive consideration but are not guaranteed enrollment.
PCSD employees will continue to be allowed to register their children in PCSD schools.
The district currently has 168out-of-district students attending its schools, 33 of which are children of employees.


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This video is called Flashing Star Spied By Hubble | Time-Lapse Video.
By Clara Moskowitz in the USA:
Rare 'strobe light star' may actually be twins
This infrared image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows an image of protostellar object LRLL 54361. The image was released Feb. 7.
An odd flashing star may actually be a pair of cosmic twins: two newly formed baby stars that circle each other closely and flash like a strobe light, scientists say.
Astronomers discovered the nascent star system, called LRLL 54361, with the infrared Spitzer observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope, and say the rare cosmic find could offer a chance to study star formation and early evolution. It is only the third such "strobe light" object ever seen, researchers said.
The celestial oddity is located about 950 light-years from Earth and lets out a bright pulse of light every 25.34 days. Hubble telescope scientists said the baby star object (or protostar) is the most powerful such stellar strobe found to date. But understanding what's causing the flashing light is difficult, because the system is hidden behind opaque dust and a dense disk of material.
"This protostar has such large brightness variations with a precise period that it is very difficult to explain," astronomer James Muzerolle of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., said in a statement. Muzerolle is the lead author of a paper detailing the finding published recently in the journal Nature.
However, Spitzer's infrared eyes were able to peer through the dust enough to discern signs of a protostar, or a pair of protostars, no more than a few hundred thousand years old.
Related articles
- Rare Strobe-like Starsystem Contains Baby Binary Protostars (scienceworldreport.com)
- Astronomers discover strobe-like flashes in a suspected binary protostar (nanowerk.com)
- Strobe-Like Flashes in Young Stars Discovered by NASA Telescope (scienceworldreport.com)


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"By Spirit Alone"
Judaism shuns the celebration of military victory. The conquest of Canaan by Joshua was never transmuted into a holy day. Passover commemorates our redemption from Egypt; Shavuot, the giving of the Torah at Sinai; Tisha B'Av, the destruction of the Temples; but the demolition of Jericho by Joshua or the final achievement of sovereignty with the erection of the national shrine at Shiloh (Joshua 18:1) find no place in the religious calendar of Judaism.
Nor is Hanukkah, a post-biblical festival, an exception to this pattern. It is not the military prowess of Judah Maccabee and his brothers or the territorial expansion under the Hasmonean dynasty which our liturgical texts perpetuate, but rather the memory of Mattathias, the priestly father of the family and instigator of the rebellion, and the ensuing religious persecution and eventual cleansing of the Temple. For the Talmud (B.T. Shabbat 21b), the miracle is not the expulsion of the Syrians from Jerusalem, but a tiny flask of pure olive oil which unaccountably burned for eight days at the rededication of the Temple.
As I said last week, the Rabbis, who gave Hanukkah its final religious imprint, had come to doubt the benefit of taking up arms against the Roman Empire, especially after three catastrophic failures. They did not preserve the text of the First Book of Maccabees, which was written originally in Hebrew rather than the Greek in which the text has survived, and is a full and straightforward account, without theological embellishment, of the ingenious Maccabean campaign against a vastly superior military force. And they expunged both the feats and the despotism of the Hasmonean kings that followed Simon, the last of Judah's brothers, from Jewish collective memory. The historic irony was probably not lost on the Rabbis: the Maccabees had risen to defend Judaism against foreign contamination yet ended up being a major force for its Hellenization.
Against this backdrop, we must also understand the haftora selected by the Rabbis for Shabbat Hanukkah. Taken from the prophet Zechariah, who lived in the late sixth century B.C.E., it urges the exiles who had but shortly returned to Jerusalem from Babylonia to resume the construction of a new Temple. Zechariah uses the menorah as an image of divine favor, hence the link to Hanukkah. Deep faith will prevail over material weakness. Resoundingly, the haftara culminates with the famous line: "Not by might, nor by power but by My spirit, says the God of heaven's hosts (4:6)."
However, I wish to argue that in the mind of the Rabbis there is more to this prophetic reading for Hanukkah than merely a message of political quiescence. Surely that is the overt meaning behind their choice, given their accommodation to hard reality. But the Maccabean uprising also introduced the value of religious martyrdom (as opposed to sovereignty or religious freedom) which the Rabbis did make normative. The Second Book of Maccabees, an abridgement of a larger work written in Greek in the Diaspora, records two chilling instances in which Jews caught by the Syrians prefer brutal execution to violating the commandments of their God. The long history of religious martyrdom as the supreme act of faith has its origins in this ancient book and the persecution that lies behind it. The aged Eleazar and the unnamed sons of a single mother became the prototype for both Jews and Christians. The Church eventually canonized the seven brothers, calling them Maccabees, and designated August 1 as the commemoration of their martyrdom. Preserving and embellishing such acts of martyrdom prepared others to respond with resolve when put to the test. Sounding this note, II Maccabees has Eleazar declare after rejecting all Syrian advances: "By departing this life courageously now, I shall show myself worthy of my old age, and to young men I shall have left a noble example of how to die happily and nobly in behalf of our revered and holy laws (6:27-28)."
While the Rabbis erased the memory of military victories associated with the Maccabees, they often retold the martyrdom of the mother and her seven sons, though shifting it to a Roman setting. In one version, the narrative closes bitterly as the mother says to her sons: "Go and tell your father Abraham: you put up one altar to sacrifice your son, but I have put up seven (B.T. Gittin 57b)." As Jewish life deteriorated, the Rabbis disseminated many similar tales of martyrdom to steel the faith of their beleaguered flock.
Within this context, the haftara bears yet a second message more relevant for Jews condemned to insecurity and degradation in a hostile body politic. Deep faith has the power to transcend daily hostility, to turn the Torah into a portable homeland and to render the pen mightier than the sword. The words of Zechariah put a premium on mind over matter, on will over fear, on transcendence over self.
And it is with this second message that Hanukkah can touch contemporary American Jews who live in an unprecedented moment of collective security and individual freedom. The call to spiritual nobility is a plea for fidelity to an ancient legacy far greater than the self. It is an affirmation of being over becoming, of ascribed status to achieved status. It is a repudiation of our endless quest for novelty, of our ceaseless efforts to redefine who we are, of our frenetic worship of the self.
Nothing could be more alien to our current mindset than martyrdom. And yet without a spiritual center of gravity, a core of ultimate values, an attachment to something eternal, our lives flutter without purpose or satisfaction.
It is no accident that the Rabbis speak of the study of Torah in the imagery of martyrdom. "R. Simon the son of Lakish claimed that the words of Torah spring to life only when one is prepared to kill oneself over them, as it is said: 'This is the procedure [Torah]: When a person dies in a tent [i.e. the tent of Torah]' (Numbers 19:14; B.T. Gittin 57b)."
The paradox is that unless we command an ideal for which we would be willing to die, life is not worth living.
The publication and distribution of Dr. Schorsch's commentary on Parashat Miketz are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (z"l) Hassenfeld.


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It is always important to look for the right Willoughby animal hospital for the pets. This will help the owners to provide best care and treatments for their pets in case of an emergency. However, choosing the right animal hospital may not be simple. There are numerous aspects that a person should keep in mind when looking for a pet clinic. For instance, it is very important to make sure that the animal hospital has a specialized team of doctors as well as staffs that can understand the problem of the pets and provide them with the best care. Apart from the normal services and care, the animal hospital should also capable of offering surgical and non surgical treatments during an emergency situation. Although choosing a veterinary hospital might seem to be a simple task, finding the right one should be done with proper care. e.
Additional Factors to Consider:
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Author Bio:
Ethan Hunt writes informative and unique articles about willoughby pet vet . You're probably thinking, everyone says that, so, what's different here. It's the commitment of quality, genuineness, and a guarantee that values your time and interest.


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Last weekend, UCSB women's volleyball head coach Kathy Gregory celebrated her 800th career victory. On Thursday, another coach — Santa Clara's Jon Wallace — celebrated a milestone: his 200th career win. Unfortunately, that win came at UCSB's expense as the Gauchos dropped a four-set match to the Broncos in its opening contest at the Stanford Invitational at Maples Pavilion.
Santa Clara took the match with set scores of 25-19, 21-25, 25-22, 25-19.
With the loss, the Gauchos fall to an even 3-3 record on the season, and Santa Clara improves to 5-1.
UCSB was once again led by sophomore outside hitter Charlene DeHoog, who chipped in 15 kills, one ace, six digs and one block in the loss. Senior outside hitter Lauren McLaughlin posted her first double-double performance of the season with 14 kills and 12 digs. She also supplied a pair of assists and a pair of aces.
Sophomore middle blocker Kasey Kipp had eight kills and two blocks in the match. Junior outside hitter Rebecca Saraceno had a mixed performance as she tallied four service aces, but also tallied three service errors. She did, however, lead the team with four block assists and collected seven digs.
Senior libero Leigh Stephenson tallied a team-best 16 digs, and sophomore setter Dana Vargas had 38 assists.
As a team, the Gauchos hit just .175 on the match with 50 kills on 137 attempts with 26 errors. They also struggled with their serves, tallying eight aces, but almost erasing that advantage with six errors.
Santa Clara's Brittany Lowe led all players with 17 kills and also tallied six digs and an ace. Anna Cmaylo tallied 14 kills with a .545 clip (2e, 22 att) while also posting two aces, nine digs and eight blocks. As a team, the Broncos posted a .278 hitting percentage (56k, 19e, 133att) and also out-blocked the Gauchos 12.5 to 5.5. Santa Clara also struggled behind the line with eight aces and six service errors.
After splitting the first two sets, UCSB held the advantage through most of the third set. The Broncos remained on the Gauchos' heels and were able to come back and tie the set at 21- 21. An ace from Lowe gave Santa Clara their first lead of the set, and a pair of kills and a Gaucho error led the Broncos' 25-22 victory.
After breaking free of two early ties, Santa Clara controlled the fourth set and captured the match victory with a 25-19 win. The Gauchos hit .000 in the final frame, negating their nine kills with nine errors.
UCSB will continue action at the Stanford Invitational on Friday with a 7 p.m. matchup with host No. 7 Stanford.
Lisa Skvarla is UCSB's assistant media relations director.


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Rockford New Play Festival to take place Aug. 14
Staff Writer
Rockford Register Star
ROCKFORD — The Rockford Area Arts Council and West Side Showroom will host the first-ever Rockford New Play Festival at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 14 at Mendelssohn Starr Center, 415 N. Church St.
The lineup of short plays includes "Roundabout Rumble," by David Ross; "The Paperboy Comes Before Dawn," by Aaron Adair; "Dam, Sweet Dam," by Steve Coogan; "Late Bloomer," by Caleigh Derreberry; "Earth from the Moon," by Derick Edgren; "Not Peace but a Sword," by Mildred Lewis; and "Epiphany," by Charlyne Blatcher Martin.
Admission: free.
For information: artsforeveryone.com.


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Former Clippers forward Lamar Odom was arrested early Friday morning on suspicion of drunken driving, after California Highway Patrol officers saw him moving erratically on the 101 Freeway in Sherman Oaks.
According to CHP spokesman Officer Leland Tang, Odom, 33, was driving well under the speed limit at just 50 mph in a 65 mph zone before he was pulled over at 3:25 a.m.
He allegedly failed to stop his white Mercedes SUV when officers tried to stop him near the Sepulveda Boulevard exit and didn't stop until a few exits later, finally exiting the freeway at Coldwater Canyon Avenue in Studio City.
"He was driving in a serpentine fashion, so he was kind of all over the road," Tang said. "Officers had red lights on, sirens on, and he drove a couple of exits."
Odom failed several field sobriety tests and was arrested. He was booked at the Van Nuys jail just after 5 a.m., where he refused to take a blood test or breathalyzer.
"When you refuse a chemical test, that's an automatic one-year suspension of your license," Tang said. "So his license will be suspended."
The NBA player and reality TV star has had a difficult week, with reports surfacing that he is struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine and that his marriage to Khloe Kardashian Odom, 29, is on the rocks as a result of his addiction.
In recent days, the Clippers reportedly lost interest in re-signing the free agent in light of his reported drug abuse, and other previously interested teams also backed away.
Odom was held on $15,000 bail and was released at 8:33 a.m., according to Sheriff's department records.
He is scheduled to appear in court Sept. 27.