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Andrew Harnik — The Associated Press file
Evan Vucci — The Associated Press file
WASHINGTON >> Over the past week, President Donald Trump told a made-up story about his predecessor and revived a distorted claim about NATO that's been gathering dust for some months.
On those occasions and more, his purpose was to illustrate "tremendous success" on his Asia trip, an extended journey that actually produced little visible or immediate change. He also reached back to earlier travels to make his case.
A sampling of his statements toward that goal:
TRUMP, recapping a trip in May: "In Brussels, I urged our NATO allies to do more to strengthen our crucial alliance and set the stage for significant increases in member contributions. Billions and billions of dollars are pouring in because of that initiative. NATO, believe me, is very happy with Donald Trump and what I did."
THE FACTS: No, billions are not pouring into the organization because of Trump. It's not even an issue of financing NATO as an organization. The issue is how much countries in the alliance spend on their own military budgets. That appears to be creeping up, but even so it is hard to find Trump's fingerprints on what is happening.
A campaign to increase military spending began in 2014, before Trump was president, when NATO members agreed to stop cutting their military budgets and set a goal of moving "toward" spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their own defense by 2024. It was not a commitment and Trump had nothing to do with it. Only five of the 29 members – the U.S., Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland – meet or exceed 2 percent. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he expects Romania to reach the target this year, with Lithuania and Latvia likely to reach it next year.
Trump has put pressure on members with lagging spending to do more. It's not clear that pressure has made them "very happy with Donald Trump." He frequently made such claims about NATO in his first months in office.
* * *
TRUMP, claiming a turnaround in relations with the Philippines because of his visit: "The relationship with the past administration was horrible, to use a nice word. I would say horrible is putting it mildly. You know what happened. Many of you were there, and you never got to land. The plane came close but it didn't land." – before getting on Air Force One on Tuesday to come home.
THE FACTS: This didn't happen. Air Force One was not denied landing rights when President Barack Obama flew there.
Obama last visited November 2015, arriving in Manila after an overnight flight from Turkey. He used the visit to announce the U.S. was transferring two ships to the Philippine Navy.
Trump might have been referring to Obama's aborted meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte in Laos in September 2016. If so, he's also wrong.
Obama abruptly canceled a meeting with the new Philippines leader in Laos after Duterte called him an obscene name. Duterte was warning Obama not to speak with him about the brutality of his crackdown on the illegal drug trade. Obama went ahead with his Laos trip, meeting other leaders.
* * *
TRUMP, claiming common ground with China's leader, Xi Jinping, on North Korea: "President Xi recognizes that a nuclear North Korea is a grave threat to China, and we agreed that we would not accept a so-called freeze for freeze agreement, like those that have consistently failed in the past." – comments to reporters Wednesday.
THE FACTS: The two sides did not agree on that point, China said.
Beijing said it has not changed its position that North Korea should gain concessions under an agreement that would see two things happen: North Korea would freeze its nuclear weapons program and the U.S. and South Korea would freeze their major joint military exercises.
"We believe that the freeze-for-freeze initiative is the most viable and reasonable plan against the current backdrop," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang Geng said after Trump's remark. The U.S. has long dismissed the proposal, saying North Korea must unilaterally cease its program before negotiations can begin.
* * *
TRUMP: "In China, we also announced $250 billion worth in trade, investment deals that will create jobs in the United States." – statement Wednesday.
THE FACTS: The announcement, also heralded a week earlier by Chinese and U.S. officials, represents previously struck deals, tentative investments, statements of intent and extensions of business with existing Chinese customers, with some new orders. They do not point to a turnaround in deep-seated trade tensions between China and the U.S. For example, the initiative provides for the Chinese purchase of 300 Boeing jetliners that have a list price totaling $37 billion. That deal is known to be a mix of old and new orders and appears to fit in the normal order of business. As well, airlines get deep discounts from the list price.
Associated Press writers Josh Lederman and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
Find AP Fact Checks at https://apnews.com/tag/APFactCheck
EDITOR'S NOTE A look at the veracity of claims by political figures


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Story highlights
Microsoft previewed the latest changes to its Windows 8.1 operating system
The company is updating its Xbox Music app to add Pandora-type features
Support for 3-D printers is now built into the operating system
A free preview version of WIndows 8.1 is available to everyone now
The newest version of Windows is getting some changes. Among them? A little dose of old Windows.
Microsoft is making adjustments to its Windows 8 operating system, beginning with the resurrection of the Start button.
The changes, announced today at the Microsoft Build developer conference in San Francisco, address some of the complaints leveled at the hybrid tablet and PC operating system that surfaced when it was released late last year.
The company also unveiled improvements to its Bing search engine, built-in support for 3-D printers, an updated Xbox Music app, and new tools for developers making WIndows 8 applications.
"The PC, the Windows device of today, doesn't look a lot like the PC of 10 years ago or of 15 years ago," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at a keynote address kicking off the conference.
Ballmer outlined some of the new changes to Windows 8.1, which he described as a "refined blend."
When the radically different, touchscreen-optimized system came out eight months ago, many Windows users were upset about radical departure from the typical Windows interface, especially the lack of a Start button. The button is back, and now it leads to a list of all your applications.
The company announced a few new applications for Windows 8, including an official Facebook app, Flipboard and NFL Fantasy football. Though there was a brief preview of a new version of PowerPoint for WIndows 8, the next version of the Microsoft Office suite won't be released until 2014.
The speedy Windows 8 update is part of Microsoft's new approach to releasing fixes and adding features to products.
The software and hardware company is now focused on a "rapid release" cycle, which will let it roll out changes to software in a matter of months instead of years. It has already released a number of changes to Windows 8, but this version is the biggest overhaul so far.
A free preview version of the Windows 8.1 update for developers is available to anyone interested in installing it. The version for regular consumers will come out later this year.
Other changes include the ability to boot directly into the desktop, more flexibility with the tiles on the Start screen, support for high-resolution displays, and greater Bing integration.
"Search is not just a list of links, it's things you can do," said Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president of Windows, who demonstrated some new Bing features.
Developers can now tap into Bing, which has opened up access to its 3-D maps, entities and knowledge database, and natural user interfaces.
The big Xbox Music update is a radio feature that builds a station for listeners based on a song, much like Pandora.
As part of a feature coming later this year, people will be able to automatically create Xbox Music playlists based on Web pages, like a Pitchfork list of top songs of the year.
Microsoft also highlighted a few of the of the 3,000 Windows 8 certified tablets, PCs and hybrids, including an 18-inch Dell tablet. It highlighted more touchscreen devices, "workhorse" 2-in-1 tablets and smaller tablets.
"We're going to see a proliferation of Windows 8 small tablet devices over the next few months," said Ballmer.
Microsoft's own entry in to the hardware world wasn't forgotten. After some scripted banter about how much they loved their own Surface tablets, presenters announced that developers attending the conference would all receive free Surface Pros. Attendees will also get Acer Iconia W3 tablets.

subset: commoncrawl


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This case style will NOT fit an iPhone 11Pro Max, XR, X/Xs or Xs Max phone. Please ensure the size of your case before ordering.


text:
(CNN) -- One of his first fan letters came from someone who declared:
"If Hell were not already created, it should be invented just for you."
Other critics have called him "demonic," "blasphemous" and a "schmuck."
When John Dominic Crossan was a teenager in Ireland, he dreamed of becoming a missionary priest. But the message he's spreading about Jesus today isn't the kind that would endear him to many church leaders.
Crossan says Jesus was an exploited "peasant with an attitude" who didn't perform many miracles, physically rise from the dead or die as punishment for humanity's sins.
Jesus was extraordinary because of how he lived, not died, says Crossan, one of the world's top scholars on the "historical Jesus," a field in which academics use historical evidence to reconstruct Jesus in his first-century setting.
"I cannot imagine a more miraculous life than nonviolent resistance to violence," Crossan says. "I cannot imagine a bigger miracle than a man standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square."
Read more stories about faith and religion on the CNN Belief Blog
In another time, Crossan's views would have been confined to scholarly journals. But he and his best-selling books, including the recent "Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography," have changed how biblical scholars operate.
Crossan believes the public should be exposed to even the most divisive debates that scholars have had about Jesus and the Bible. He co-founded the Jesus Seminar, a controversial group of scholars who hold public forums that cast doubt on the authenticity of many sayings and deeds attributed to Jesus.
The 77-year-old Crossan has built on the seminar's mission by writing a series of best-selling books on Jesus and the Apostle Paul. With his silver Prince Valiant haircut and his pronounced Irish accent, he's also appeared on documentaries such as PBS's "From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians" and A&E's "Mysteries of the Bible."
Crossan's overarching message is that you don't have to accept the Jesus of dogma. There's another Jesus hidden in Scripture and history who has been ignored.
"He's changed the way we look and think about Jesus," says Byron McCane, an archaeologist and professor of religion at Wofford College in South Carolina. "He's important in a way that few scholars are."
A reluctant scholar
Crossan is also reviled in a way that few scholars are.
Some critics say he's trying to debunk Christianity. Some question his personal faith. At a college lecture, Crossan says an audience member stood up and asked him if he had "received the Lord Jesus" as his savior.
Crossan said he had, but refused to repeat his questioner's evangelical language to describe his conversion.
"I wasn't going to give him the language; it's not my language," Crossan says. "I wasn't trying to denigrate him, but don't think you have the monopoly on the language of Christianity."
When asked if he is a Christian, Crossan doesn't hesitate.
Crossan says he never planned to be a Jesus scholar but was drafted to play that role -- by the Roman Catholic Church.
He had other plans. He grew up in a small town in Ireland reading adventure stories like "20,000 Leagues under The Sea" and reciting poetry with his father on long walks.
He wanted adventure and travel. The missionary priests who visited his boyhood school with stories of mission trips to Africa seemed to offer both.
Crossan says his father, a banker, and his mother, a housewife, didn't push religion on him. He was raised in a traditional Irish Catholic church where faith was "undiscussed, uninvestigated and uncriticized."
"I didn't grow up in an atmosphere where the Bible was stuffed down my throat."
Yet Crossan immersed himself in the world of the Bible for the rest of his adult life. When he entered a monastery at 16, church leaders told him they wanted him to be a scholar because he had already taken five years of Latin and Greek.
He became a priestly prodigy: ordained by 23; a doctorate at 25. He studied in Rome and Jerusalem, and eventually became a New Testament scholar who became known as an authority on the parables of Jesus. (Crossan saw them as subversive literary gems.)
His days as a priest would end, though, because of the same forces that shaped the rest of his career: the clash between church dogma and scholarly truth.
Crossan says it was "bliss" being a priest and scholar in the mid-1960s because the Roman Catholic Church had instituted a series of modernizing reforms.
But conservative church leaders fought those reforms, and Crossan says they pressured him to steer his research toward conclusions that reinforced church doctrine.
"It's like you're a scientist in research and development, and you say that this drug is lethal, and they say, 'Find something good in it,' '' Crossan says.
He left the priesthood in 1969 after he angered church leaders by publicly questioning the church's ban on birth control. He married, and settled into a career of teaching and writing books that were read primarily by other scholars.
Later, however, Crossan would anger church leaders again.
Crossan takes on a public role
In 1985, Robert Funk, a New Testament scholar, asked Crossan to join him on a risky mission: Expose the public to academic debates about the historical Jesus.
The seminar was Crossan's first wide exposure to the public. The media gravitated to him because he was a scholar who didn't talk like a scholar.
He became known for his sound bites -- inspired, he says, by Jesus' use of parables to distill complex truths in pithy but provocative sayings.
Explaining why America's reliance on military might was similar to Rome's, he told Time magazine:
"There's good news and bad news from the historical Jesus. The good news: God says Caesar sucks. The bad news: God says Caesar is us."
Crossan's public profile rose another notch in 1991 when The New York Times ran a front-page story two days before Christmas on his book, "The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant."
The book became a bestseller, and Crossan followed up with more. He says people were anxious to embrace a faith with "brains and heart," and learn the history behind the text, not just its wording.
"When we started out, people thought we were out on the left wing," he says. "Now, I'm talking in about 30 churches a year. ... A lot of this is becoming mainstream."
Crossan's revolutionary Jesus
It's still controversial, though.
A casual search of Crossan's name online turns up plenty of insults and warnings not to read his books.
Crossan says, however, that he's "trying to understand the stories of Jesus, not refute them."
Still, his findings often end up challenging some of Christianity's most cherished beliefs.
Consider his understanding of the resurrection. Jesus didn't bodily rise from the dead, he says. The first Christians told Jesus' resurrection story as a parable, not as a fact.
"Crucifixion meant that imperial power had won," Crossan says. "Resurrection meant that divine justice had won. God is on the side of the crucified one. Rome's' values are a dead issue to me."
How about the stories of Jesus' miracles, like raising the dead or stilling the storm?
Most were parables, too, Crossan says. But there were some exceptions.
"I'm completely convinced that Jesus was a major healer," he says. "I don't think anybody would talk about Jesus if all he did was talk."
People like to talk about Scripture, but Christians should also know history to understand Jesus, Crossan says.
In Jesus' time, Rome was forcing many Jewish families into destitution, with high taxes and land seizures. Some Jews advocated violent rebellion, but others opted for non-violent resistance.
Jesus called for nonviolent resistance to Rome and just distribution of land and food. He was crucified because he threatened Roman stability -- not as a sacrifice to God for humanity's sins, Crossan says.
If you believe in a God that uses violence to "save" humanity, you'll start believing that violence is permissible in certain circumstances, such as suicide bombing or invading other countries to spread democracy, Crossan says.
The human addiction to violence, though, is so ingrained that even the authors of the New Testament had trouble accepting Jesus' nonviolence, Crossan says.
So they did a little editing.
Crossan's proof: Jesus preaches nonviolence at the beginning of the New Testament. By the book of Revelation, he's leading armies through heaven to kill evildoers.
"Christianity both admits and subverts the historical Jesus," Crossan says.
Does Crossan subvert Christianity?
Is Crossan doing the same -- admitting and subverting Jesus, some wonder?
The words "brilliant," "keen mind" and someone who "loves the Bible" are often used by fellow scholars to describe Crossan. They say he is generous with his time, funny and personally warm.
"He has real depth of the soul," says McCane, the biblical scholar and archaeologist. "He's spiritual in the best sense of the word. He sees the world as a place where values matter."
Yet some also wonder if he unwittingly gives people an excuse to diminish Jesus' importance.
Ben Witherington, a New Testament scholar who has written several books about the early Christian community, says Crossan's work allows people to sidestep questions like: Did he come to save the world? Is he the son of God?
"It's a user-friendly Jesus that doesn't make demands on someone," he says.
Witherington says Crossan is trying to find a nonsupernatural way to explain Jesus and Scripture, and "the shoe doesn't fit."
"The stories are inherently theological," he says. "They all suggest that God intervenes in history. If you have a problem with the supernatural, you have a problem with the Bible. It's on every page."
One of the most persistent criticisms of Crossan's work is that he's turned Jesus into a peasant insurrectionist because his Irish ancestors battled the British Empire.
Crossan says growing up Irish "makes you skeptical about empire." But he says he came of age in the first generation after Irish independence when hatred of the British was not pervasive.
Crossan once wrote in his memoir that he learned two things from Irish history: "One, the British did terrible things to the Irish. Two, the Irish, had they the power, would have done equally terrible things to the British (they did it to one another with the British gone)."
Supporters of Crossan's work say he's encouraged ordinary Bible readers to ask tough questions.
"He opened up space in popular culture for people to think about the history behind the biblical texts," says Timothy Beal, author of "The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book."
"He invited people back into the texts to question those authoritative sources that have been telling them, 'This is what the Bible says, and you don't need to read it to yourself,' " Beal says.
Crossan's life today
His Irish accent remains, but Crossan is now an American citizen. He lives near Orlando, Florida, and spends much of his time traveling to lectures and appearing in religious documentaries.
After spending much of his life in the Roman Catholic Church, Crossan is now an outsider.
He hasn't joined a church because he says a priest might deny him the sacraments because of his run-ins with church leaders.
"If I attend a local Roman Catholic Church, I would get sucked back into all the debates," he says. "I don't want to spend my life fighting Roman Catholicism."
Crossan has also broken with church tradition by marrying. He married Margaret Dagenais, a university art professor, soon after leaving the priesthood in 1969. She died of a heart attack in 1983.
Today, his current wife, Sarah, is a yoga teacher and photographer. She's also his partner in travel. Crossan wanted to see the world as a boy. Now he sees it as a man. The two often travel to holy sites, where she takes photos that Crossan later uses in church presentations.
Crossan's reputation among traditional Christians was so touchy that it initially affected his relationship with her parents, Sarah said.
"We didn't talk about his work with them," she says. "They couldn't handle it. They thought he was so wrong. They loved him as a person, but not his work."
Crossan is not worried that his work will shatter people's faith in Jesus. The closer one gets to the historical Jesus, Crossan says, the more extraordinary Jesus becomes.
"A lot of people in the first century thought Jesus was saying something so important that they were willing to die for it. If people finish with my books and now see why Pilate executed him and why people died for him, then I've done my job."


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Vs.6-14: Are not troubled. Suffering is a part of life; it will happen; we have to learn to cope, seek Him, and prepare for it so we can help others and ourselves through it.
· Sorrows literally means, "the spasms from giving birth;" troubles are like being pregnant, with the possibility that the birth will give us both opportunity and pain.
· We are called not to be discouraged when bad things, troubles, disasters, and tribulations happen in the world (2 Chron. 15:6; Isa. 13:8; 19:2; Jer. 51:46; Hos. 13:13). We live in a fallen world where sin has corrupted everything and everyone, so disasters will come. We are called to prepare, plan ahead, and look to Christ as the Deliverer. He is in control!
· They will deliver you was a forewarning that knowing and making Christ known is dangerous; we will face persecution both overtly and/or covertly.
· Persecution was what distinguished the early church from other groups, even many zealous ones who were not persecuted.
· Tribulation means "The Day of the Lord" which will come about in the last days. (This term has been wrought with controversy in the last 100 years. I, for time sake, will not explore all the theories; however we will when we get further in the book of Revelation).
· He who endures. This is also a call, a call to keep you from being spiritually or emotionally defeated when tough times come. We are to always see our Lord and not our situation (John 10:28-29; Rom. 8:31-39). This is an aspect of the character of faithfulness, as it will help you persevere under stress and chaos. Christ keeps us secure, not our environment!
· Offended, betray. Under cultural, family, and physical pressure, many early Christians gave up on the faith; some betrayed others, and some reverted to paganism or Judaism.
· Deceive. This leads to and comes from Apostasy—a blatant disregard for God and His truth as well as the forsaking of His love and acceptance! Love cannot function where God is not honored, sought, and glorified! We cannot be deceived when our eyes are on Christ and His Word!


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Posted in Streaming on Jan 13, 2014
StreamGuys' unique player design gives "free stream" listeners a richer broadcast experiencePress Release
Posted in Streaming on Nov 21, 2013
Unique player design solves metadata challenges, simplifies multiscreen advertising for broadcasters, audio publishers across multiple devicesPress Release
Posted in Streaming on Oct 16, 2013
Cloud-based streaming architecture supports custom music services with dynamic ad insertions for businessesPress Release
Posted in Reports on Sep 18, 2013
With more devices accessing content in a variety of formats, CDNs have the tools, knowledge and, more importantly, relationships to help broadcasters evolve their platformsBroadcastPro-Middle East |
Posted in Reports on Aug 01, 2013
Most of us in broadcast radio feel a connection to the medium that is beyond simple explanation. I'd argue that this is emphatically true for those of us serving in the public media space, where the diversity of programming and community-minded radio creates a special bond with our audiences.Radio Magazine Online |
Posted in Reports on Jul 02, 2013
In 2000, StreamGuys came onto the planet as a couple of guys with a laptop and an understanding that broadcasters needed help sorting through internet related issues. A conversation with StreamGuys' Eduardo MartinezTV Technology |
Posted in Streaming on Jun 10, 2013
StreamGuys to support radio broadcasters with interest in delivering live streams for emerging formatPress Release
Posted in Reports on Apr 17, 2013
Distributing content to a desktop grows more complex by the year. BroadcastEngineering, April 2013TV Technology |
Posted in Partners, Streaming on Mar 26, 2013
StreamGuys integrates Ensemble Video's content management capability into its cloud-based streaming architecture to enhance end user flexibility with media assetsPress Release
Posted in Partners on Mar 19, 2013
All Classical Portland, an independent, non-profit radio station with an FM presence in several Oregon markets, this year celebrates its 30th anniversary on the air. However, the pure-format Classical station – one of the few of its kind remaining – is not resting on its over-the-air laurels.Press Release
Posted in Conferences on Feb 25, 2013
The public media, interactive and music industries are preparing to converge on the city of Austin, Texas for the Integrated Media Association (iMA) and SXSW Interactive conferences beginning next week. Perennial iMA gold sponsor StreamGuys returns this year in support of the public media space, with new content delivery models to help public broadcasters grow audiences and generate revenue in the digital media landscape.Press Release
Posted in Streaming on Dec 03, 2012
SAN FRANCISCO —by Matt Martin, General Manager -- KALW(FM) is the oldest noncommercial FM station west of the Mississippi — and was the first FM station to hit the San Francisco airwaves in 1941Radio World- Latin America |


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Ever since the National Security Agency's secret surveillance program came to light three weeks ago, implicated companies have issued carefully worded statements denying that government snoops have direct or wholesale access to e-mail and other sensitive customer data. The most strenuous denial came 10 days ago, when Apple said it took pains to protect personal information stored on its servers, in many cases by not collecting it in the first place.
"For example, conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them," company officials wrote. "Apple cannot decrypt that data. Similarly, we do not store data related to customers' location, Map searches or Siri requests in any identifiable form."
Some cryptographers and civil liberties advocates have chafed at the claim that even Apple is unable to bypass the end-to-end encryption protecting them. After all, Apple controls the password-based authentication system that locks and unlocks customer data. More subtly, but no less important, cryptographic protections are highly nuanced things that involve huge numbers of moving parts. Choices about the types of keys that are used, the ways they're distributed, and the specific data that is and isn't encrypted have a huge effect on precisely what data is and isn't protected and under what circumstances.
Even when everything is done right, there are frequently limitations—and more often than not, huge trade-offs—on how easy the service will be to navigate by average users. And yet, none of this complexity is reflected in Apple's blanket statement. No wonder some security experts are skeptical.
I spent the past week weighing the evidence and believe it's an overstatement for Apple to say that only the sender and receiver of iMessage and FaceTime conversations can see and read their contents. There are several scenarios in which Apple employees, either at the direction of an NSA order or otherwise, could read customers' iMessage or FaceTime conversations, and I'll get to those in a moment. But first, I want to make it clear that my conclusion is based on so-called black-box testing, which examines the functionality of an application or service with no knowledge of their internal workings. No doubt, Apple engineers have a vastly more complete understanding, but company representatives declined my request for more information.
Passing the mud puddle test
The first important exception to the claim that Apple can't read iMessages is that it doesn't apply if those conversations are stored as a backup in a user's iCloud account. How do cryptographers know this to be true? Because iCloud encryption doesn't pass what Johns Hopkins University research professor Matt Green calls the mud puddle experiment, a litmus test for assessing the security of cloud encryption protections. At its core, it involves the user losing the iPhone containing his data, changing his iCloud password, and then attempting to restore the data onto a new device. If the user can retrieve the data, so too can the cloud provider, either by a rogue employee with the authority and know-how or at the behest of the government.
At my request, independent privacy and security researcher Ashkan Soltani performed the mud puddle test earlier this week and confirmed that it's possible for Apple to decrypt iMessages stored in the Apple cloud in just seconds or minutes. After answering several security questions to reset his iCloud password, he tried to restore his backup to a completely different iPhone that had been reset to a factory-clean state. The backup data—including iMessages, e-mail, and photos—were restored in full to the new device.
"A preliminary black-box test seems to indicate old iMessages, text messages, and e-mails are stored in iCloud and can be restored using the iForgot mud puddle recovery test," Soltani said. "It definitely appears that iMessages are restored from iCloud backup, not the iMessage service."
Green, the Johns Hopkins cryptographer, was able to reproduce those results in his own test. He said it's technically possible Apple uses security questions to encrypt the iCloud backups, and if this were true, it would strengthen the claim that it's not possible for people other than the sender and receiver to read messages. But Green went on to say it's not likely that security questions are being used to derive an encryption key, since the answers don't contain enough entropy to securely encrypt the data.
The take-away: true end-to-end encryption doesn't apply to iMessages backed up in iCloud. If you want to ensure your iMessage conversations aren't susceptible to government surveillance, don't store them there. Ever. Some people may already have been aware of this important limitation, but since I can't find any place where Apple has explicitly spelled it out, it's worth including the caveat in this article.
Keys to the Kingdom
But even if you don't store iMessages in iCloud, there are almost certainly other ways Apple could decrypt them if it wanted to. That's because Apple acts as a directory look-up service that iMessage apps can use to find the public key belonging to the person receiving a message. The integrity of the entire system rests on Apple distributing the right public key for the right person. The ease in resetting passwords already suggests Apple has little trouble generating new user credentials. And there doesn't appear to be any warnings or dialogs displayed when the public key of a receiver has changed.
The upshot is that Apple employees—or maybe even an attacker who hacks Apple's directory server—might be able to alter the key distribution mechanism, swapping out a receiver's public key with whatever key the employees or attackers choose. Whoever has the corresponding private key could then read the messages.
There's also the ability to display sent and received iMessages on multiple devices, so that a user can easily view conversations whether she's using her Mac, iPhone, or iPad. No doubt, this makes life more convenient, but it also could diminish the encryption protection. Right now, iMessage appears to notify users when a new device is configured to receive messages, but there's no indication these warnings are hard-wired into the system. If they're not, then Apple can turn them off at will. And with the notifications suppressed, it would be possible for a new device belonging to someone other than the account holder to secretly receive iMessage communications. While this technique would most likely work only for messages sent and received after the new device was silently added—and not messages sent or received months or years earlier—it still seems to highlight a significant loophole to the claim that even Apple can't decrypt iMessage conversations.
And as Green makes clear in his blog post, Apple's statement says nothing about how company officials handle metadata showing, for example, the times messages were sent and who received them.
Keeping them honest
None of this discussion is intended to single out Apple. Judging from the difficulty some federal agents have monitoring suspects' iMessages, the instant messaging service is probably one of the harder ones to tap. But hard to decrypt, and impossible to decrypt are two entirely different things. Ultimately, I decided to publish this article because Apple is the only company to step forward following revelations of the NSA's PRISM surveillance program and suggest it's technically infeasible for third-parties to read or decrypt its encrypted data.
There's also some historical reason for viewing the Apple denial with skepticism. In 2008, officials with the Skype VoIP service told CNET they're unable to comply with wiretap orders. Last week, Microsoft officials—who have since acquired the VoIP service—declined to affirm that such claims are still true. The Apple denial, some critics say, may be following a similar strategy.
"In the case of iMessage intercept capabilities, Apple is taking a page from Skype's playbook—make very carefully worded statements about the existence of encryption, and then let people read far more into their claims than they have actually made," Chris Soghoian, who is principal technologist and senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union, told Ars. "When reading Apple's carefully worded PRISM denial, remember it was written by a hybrid team of lawyers and PR folks. Every word matters. At best, they are being cagey, at worst, outright deceptive."
As Soghoian and other critics admit, the end-to-end encryption included with iMessage may make it impossible for Apple to decrypt conversations, at least in some circumstances. But in the absence of key details that Apple has steadfastly declined to provide, customers who are especially concerned about their privacy would do well to assume otherwise.


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Minn. students tell Franken of financial woes as he looks to promote cost-cutting bill
MINNEAPOLIS -- Paul Strain says his family supports his college career, emotionally at least. But when it comes to money, he needs to look for federally supported programs. In his third year at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, the ...
MINNEAPOLIS -- Paul Strain says his family supports his college career, emotionally at least. But when it comes to money, he needs to look for federally supported programs. In his third year at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, the future medical school student said, he already has $30,000 of debt. Strain, a former International Falls resident whose parents live in Duluth, relayed his story Monday to U.S. Sen. Al Franken.
He said that if he becomes a doctor, he may not have trouble paying off his student loans, but someone who becomes a teacher would struggle.
That is just what Franken, a Democrat, wanted to hear as he began a statewide tour of college campuses to pick up ammunition to promote the Student Aid and Financial Responsibility Act. The bill, which the House passed last month, would kick banks out of the student loan business and force higher education institutions to provide the federally funded loans directly to students beginning next year.
Franken said the measure would save $87 billion in the next 10 years by eliminating bank profits from the transactions. Most of the savings would be plowed back into higher education, Franken said, with nearly half being used to increase the popular low-interest Pell grant program.
The bill would not change how the University of Minnesota handles loans, U of M President Robert Bruininks said, because its campuses have provided loans directly to students for more than a decade.
Franken said he will visit several college campus in the next two weeks, including University of Minnesota schools in Duluth and Rochester.
He said allowing banks to make loans amounts to "corporate welfare." He said few bank workers would lose jobs if the bill passes, as he expects to happen later this year, but bank profits would shrink.
Most Republicans oppose the proposal, saying it amounts to federal government takeover of a private business function.
"Who should benefit" from federal money set aside for student loans? Franken asked. "I think it should be the students."
A hand-picked group of students met with Franken on the Minneapolis campus, telling him stories about huge loan payments students will see.
Christina Brakken-Thal, from the western Twin Cities suburbs, said some fellow medical students may face $200,000 loans, which will force them to take more lucrative jobs as specialists instead of becoming family doctors.
Bemidji native Ryan Kennedy said he avoided loans as an undergraduate, but now as a graduate student he expects to need them. And he does not expect to earn big checks because he plans to go into the low-paying public service field.
Kennedy suggested that Congress look into more programs that allow students in some fields to avoid paying back loans.
Sociology major Paul Buchel of Milwaukee, who told about working 55 hours a week at two jobs during college, said that too many people cannot afford to go into public service until they make a lot of money. Then, he said, "the fire is gone."
After the meeting, Kennedy said he was satisfied that Franken understood students' needs. "Students, especially at the University of Minnesota, deserve to have input."
"He seems like a very sincere guy," Kennedy added.


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Rollerama II Inc: 24 Hour Hotline
1 wedding, 0 ratings, 0 reviews
6995 Grand River Avenue
Brighton, MI,
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If you own this business you can claim this listing:Claim Listing
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(it works great on mobile phones as well)


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Ages 21+. Short- and long-term paid positions leading youth or young adults in SCA conservation crews and projects.
Help lead the way to a sustainable future by leading young people in a conservation service project. You won't just supervise but will mentor, motivate, and inspire. Along the way, you'll gain experience and expertise in areas as diverse as trail building, habitat restoration, fire management, and visitor outreach.
Do you have what it takes to be an SCA Field Leader?
Basic Qualification
- Outdoor experience
- Conservation service experience, specific or general
- Experience working with youth and/or young adults
- Demonstrated leadership experience
- Medical certification – Wilderness First Aid, Wilderness First Responder, or Basic First Aid, dependent upon position
- Valid driver's license (required for most positions)
- Ability to pass SCA's criminal background check
Desired Qualification
In addition to the basic qualifications, competitive applicants also have experience working with agency partners, have a great work ethic, are good role models and teachers, and are excited for new experiences and adaptable to change. SCA Field Leaders are outdoor professionals who make important decisions daily regarding the safety and well-being of their members.
Don't have these skills yet? Acquire them through our other internships or our Conservation Corps positions.
How Do I Apply?
Learn more about our Current Openings.
Contact Us
- Call us: (603) 543-1700 x3329
- Have questions? Ask us. [email protected]
- Connect with other leaders via our Facebook group.


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Foote, Henry Stuart
Foote, Henry Stuart, 1804–80, U.S. senator (1847–52) and governor of Mississippi (1852–54), b. Fauquier co., Va. An able criminal lawyer, he practiced in several different states. In the U.S. Senate, Foote's aversion to states' rights doctrines emphasized his antagonism to his Mississippi colleague, Jefferson Davis, with whom he traded blows (Foote also fought several duels in his day). He defeated Davis for the governorship in 1851, the last Union Whig victory in antebellum Mississippi. Rejected for the Senate, he resigned the governorship just before the end of his term and moved to California, where he was narrowly defeated (1856) for the Senate. Foote moved eastward again in 1858, and he settled in Tennessee. In the Confederate congress his consistent opposition both to Davis and to the continuation of the Civil War caused him to participate in peace schemes. His War of the Rebellion (1866) tells his story. After the war Foote supported the national Republican administrations, and in 1878 he was appointed superintendent of the U.S. mint at New Orleans. His Casket of Reminiscences (1874) and The Bench and Bar of the South and Southwest (1876) contain contemporary and personal history of the time.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. History: Biographies


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When you're beating your head against a wall, it may just be time to quit. After all, repetitive head-wall collisions are not very productive, nor comfortable.
This is true with anything in life. Whether you are struggling with a design you're creating, a stitch technique, figuring out a pattern or raising your children. In order to think and see clearly, sometimes removing ourselves from a stressful situation is the proper course of action.
In order to come back afresh after a break.
It might seem counter-productive when the pressure is on, but this technique can help resolve all sorts of situations where things aren't going the way we want or need them to. Even when we're doing everything right. Temporarily walking away can help us return with a different view and sometimes even go so far as to help us reboot.
As a pianist, I have often used the technique of "walk-away" for a couple of days when I had trouble with a piece of music I was working on. Sometimes you practice and practice and yet there's still a part that just isn't coming out right. And that's when it's really important to switch gears and work smarter, not just harder.
When increased practice and working harder don't produce the desired results, the answer more often than not is to step completely away from the music for a day or two. And miraculously, when you come back – voilà – everything falls into place and you can suddenly play the music. It's an interesting phenomenon, but it works.
There are some important reasons to use this technique in music. When working harder isn't making it better, you risk planting seeds that you don't want. Your practice begins to ingrain the habits of the wrong notes, and then mistakes start becoming part of your muscle memory and performance. "Practice makes perfect." But practice can also make mistakes permanent. Additionally, frustration can "poison" the music and the end performance and result.
The same is true for our hobbies and art, when I'm struggling with a crochet design or even the times when we're dealing with difficult people or situations.


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Why Public Information Services?
Public Information Services was founded with the mission of making it safe and easy for people to find and learn the truth about each other. By providing our members fast, easy and affordable access to public records, members can quickly make informed decisions about individuals they interact with. Historically, access to public records was difficult to obtain – that's where Public Information Services comes in. Public Information Services levels the playing field by utilizing cutting edge technology to provide its members with the most complete background information available.
Here are some of the differences between Public Information Services and our competition:
Premium Information included in the Trial
We offer our members a 7-day, no hassle trial membership. This membership provides premium background information. We don't sign you up for limited information and then try to sell you more services. Everything is included upfront.
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Public Information Services strives to provide you with accurate and up-to-date information that you can rely on. Our data not only includes a comprehensive criminal check but also current address and phone number, address history, professional licenses and much more.
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Forget Me Knot (Crawley Creek Book 1)
One look was all it took, and all Lacy's good intentions went out the window…
She is a good girl, a smart girl, a logical girl. Vacation romances were never on the agenda. But from the moment Lacy Denvers' locked eyes with the sexy ranch owner, Drannon Russo all of her good intentions flew out the window.
Drannon has one focus, making Crawley Creek Ranch a success. People depend on him, lives are a stake. He'd buried his dreams of a family of his own, knowing he had to keep his head in the game. Then Lacy arrives at his ranch.
Lacy and Drannon are soon caught up in a whirlwind of passion that leave them both thunderstruck. But what amazes them even more is emotional connection that they find in one another's arms.
Snowbound, these two find their dance is the beginning of something magical, but as the snow melts will reality rear its ugly head or will this city girl find her heart's desire on North Dakota cattle Ranch?
BUY HERE -> http://amzn.to/2opmcsg
Meet the Author
Best-selling author, Lori King, is also a full-time wife and mother of three boys. Although she rarely has time to just enjoy feminine pursuits; at heart she is a hopeless romantic. She spends her days dreaming up Alpha men, and her nights telling their stories. An admitted TV and book junkie, she can be found relaxing with a steamy story, or binging in an entire season of some show online. She gives her parents all the credit for her unique sense of humor and acceptance of all forms of love. There are no two loves alike, but you can love more than one with your whole heart.
With the motto: Live, Laugh, and Love like today is your only chance, she will continue to write as long as you continue to read. Thank you for taking the time to indulge in a good Happily Ever After with her. Find out more about her current projects at http://lorikingbooks.com, or look her up on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LoriKingBooks or Twitter: https://twitter.com/LoriKingBooks.


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Osweiler leads Arizona State over UCLA 55-34
GameTrax: Stats and More
By JOHN MARSHALL
AP College Football Writer
TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) -- Backup Brock Osweiler threw for 380 yards and hit Aaron Pflugrad on two of his four touchdown passes, helping Arizona State keep its slim bowl hopes alive with a 55-34 victory over UCLA on Friday.
Arizona State (5-6, 3-5 Pac-10) lost starting quarterback Steven Threet to a head injury early and trailed 17-0 late in the first quarter. Osweiler rallied the Sun Devils with three TD passes in the first half, and Arizona State pulled away in the second on a 71-yard touchdown run by Cameron Marshall and Jamal Miles' 99-yard kickoff return.
Marshall ran for 147 yards and Arizona State had big goal-line stand in the third quarter.
UCLA (4-7, 2-6) rolled up 148 yards in the first quarter, but saw its bowl hopes fizzle as the Sun Devils piled up most of its 595 total yards after the game's first 12 minutes.
Bruins quarterback Richard Brehaut, back from last week's concussion, threw for 311 yards and three touchdowns and ran for another score.
This was essentially a playoff game between two losing teams; both needed to win their final two games to become bowl eligible.
Well, UCLA did.
Arizona State needed to beat UCLA, must beat Arizona in next week's rivalry game, then get some help.
Because the Sun Devils have two wins over FCS schools, they needed to reach seven wins -- already off the table -- or get to six, hope not enough teams are bowl eligible and get a waiver from the NCAA.
Early on, it looked like they had no chance.
UCLA raced 79 yards on its first drive, capped by Brehaut's 12-yard TD scamper on an option right. Dalton Hilliard's blocked punt set up a 40-yard field goal by Kai Forbath, and Brehaut made it 17-0 with a 46-yard touchdown pass to Randall Carroll.
The few fans who showed up booed, but Arizona State finally snapped to life behind Osweiler.
The junior, who got some first-team reps in practice the past two weeks, came in when Threet wobbled off with a head injury on a sack by Sean Westgate on the Sun Devils' ninth play.
Osweiler got Arizona State's stagnant offense going quickly, hitting Pflugrad on a 5-yard toe-tapper TD in the corner of the end zone late in the first quarter. Mike Willie then turned a slant into a 32-yard touchdown by breaking two initial tackles, and Osweiler connected on his third TD pass of the half -- he had two in his career before Friday -- on another sideline route, this one a 7-yard hookup with Gerell Robinson that put the Sun Devils up 21-17.
Forbath tied John Lee's school record with his 85th career field goal, a second-chance 37-yarder at the halftime horn after Arizona State was called for a penalty on his missed 52-yard attempt.
That was it for the Bruins, though.
Thomas Weber hit a field goal after Osweiler hit T. J. Simpson on a 76-yard pass to open the second half, and Marshall made it 31-20 on his TD run, two plays after Arizona State stuffed Johnathan Franklin on fouth-and-goal at the 1.
UCLA tried to fight back, marching for a 21-yard TD pass from Brehaut to Nelson Rosario, but Miles took the ensuing kickoff in for a touchdown to put the Sun Devils up 38-27.
Osweiler sealed it early in the fourth quarter, hitting Pflugrad on a 15-yard touchdown in the back of the end zone and added a late, 15-yard touchdown run.
Updated November 26, 2010


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Buddhism began with the life of Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 563-483 B.C.), a prince from the small Shakya Kingdom located in the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal.
Brought up in luxury, the prince abandoned his home and wandered forth as a religious beggar, searching for the meaning of existence. The stories of his search presuppose the Jain tradition, as Gautama was for a time a practitioner of intense austerity, at one point almost starving himself to death. He decided, however, that self-torture weakened his mind while failing to advance him to enlightenment and therefore turned to a milder style of renunciation and concentrated on advanced meditation techniques.
Eventually, under a tree in the forests of Gaya (in modern Bihar), he resolved to stir no farther until he had solved the mystery of existence. Breaking through the final barriers, he achieved the knowledge that he later expressed as the Four Noble Truths: all of life is suffering; the cause of suffering is desire; the end of desire leads to the end of suffering; and the means to end desire is a path of discipline and meditation.
Gautama was now the Buddha, or the awakened one, and he spent the remainder of his life traveling about northeast India converting large numbers of disciples. At the age of eighty, the Buddha achieved his final passing away (parinirvana ) and died, leaving a thriving monastic order and a dedicated lay community to continue his work.
The Buddha accepted or reinterpreted the basic concepts of Hinduism, such as karma, samsara, dharma, and moksha, but he generally refused to commit himself to specific metaphysical theories. He said they were essentially irrelevant to his teachings and could only distract attention from them. He was interested in restoring a concern with morality to religious life, which he believed had become stifled in details of ritual, external observances, and legalisms.
The Four Noble Truths summarize the Buddha's analysis of the human situation and the solution he found for the problems of life.
The first truth is that life, in a world of unceasing change, is inherently imperfect and sorrowful, and that misery is not merely a result of occasional frustration of desire or misfortune, but is a quality permeating all experience.
The second truth is that the cause of sorrow is desire, the emotional involvement with existence that led from rebirth to rebirth through the operation of karma.
The third truth is that the sorrow can be ended by eliminating desire.
The fourth truth sets forth the Eightfold Path leading to elimination of desire, rebirth, and sorrow, and to the attainment of nirvana or nibbana (see Glossary), a state of bliss and selfless enlightment. It rejoins right or perfect understanding, aspiration, speech, action, livelihood, effort, thought, and contemplation.
By the third century B.C., the still-young religion based on the Buddha's teachings was being spread throughout South Asia through the agency of the Mauryan Empire. By the seventh century A.D., having spread throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia, Buddhism probably had the largest religious following in the world.
For centuries Indian royalty and merchants patronized Buddhist monasteries and raised beautiful, hemispherical stone structures called stupas over the relics of the Buddha in reverence to his memory.
Since the 1840s, archaeology has revealed the huge impact of Buddhist art, iconography, and architecture in India. The monastery complex at Nalanda in Bihar, in ruins in 1993, was a world center for Buddhist philosophy and religion until the thirteenth century.
But by the thirteenth century, when Turkic invaders destroyed the remaining monasteries on the plains, Buddhism as an organized religion had practically disappeared from India. It survived only in Bhutan and Sikkim, both of which were then independent Himalayan kingdoms; among tribal groups in the mountains of northeast India; and in Sri Lanka.
The reasons for this disappearance are unclear, and they are many: shifts in royal patronage from Buddhist to Hindu religious institutions; a constant intellectual struggle with dynamic Hindu intellectual schools, which eventually triumphed; and slow adoption of popular religious forms by Buddhists while Hindu monastic communities grew up with the same style of discipline as the Buddhists, leading to the slow but steady amalgamation of ideas and trends in the two religions.
Buddhism began a steady and dramatic comeback in India during the early twentieth century, spurred on originally by a combination of European antiquarian and philosophical interest and the dedicated activities of a few Indian devotees. The foundation of the Mahabodhi Society (Society of Great Enlightenment) in 1891, originally as a force to wrest control of the Buddhist shrine at Gaya from the hands of Hindu managers, gave a large stimulus to the popularization of Buddhist philosophy and the importance of the religion in India's past.
A major breakthrough occurred in 1956 after some thirty years of Untouchable, or Dalit (see Glossary), agitation when Bhimrao Ramji (B.R.) Ambedkar, leader of the Untouchable wing within the Congress (see Glossary), announced that he was converting to Buddhism as a way to escape from the impediments of the Hindu caste system. He brought with him masses of Untouchables--also known as Harijans (see Glossary) or Dalits--and members of Scheduled Castes (see Glossary), who mostly came from Maharashtra and border areas of neighboring states and from the Agra area in Uttar Pradesh.
By the early 1990s, there were more than 5 million Buddhists in Maharashtra, or 79 percent of the entire Buddhist community in India, almost all recent converts from low castes. When added to longtime Buddhist populations in hill areas of northeast India (West Bengal, Assam, Sikkim, Mizoram, and Tripura) and high Himalayan valleys (Ladakh District in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and northern Uttar Pradesh), and to the influx of Tibetan Buddhist refugees who fled from Tibet with the Dalai Lama in 1959 and thereafter, the recent converts raised the number of Buddhists in India to 6.4 million by 1991. This was a 35.9 percent increase since 1981 and made Buddhism the fifth largest religious group in the country.
The forms of Buddhism practiced by Himalayan communities and Tibetan refugees are part of the Vajrayana, or "Way of the Lightning Bolt," that developed after the seventh century A.D. as part of Mahayana (Great Path) Buddhism. Although retaining the fundamental importance of individual spiritual advancement, the Vajrayana stresses the intercession of bodhisattvas, or enlightened beings, who remain in this world to aid others on the path. Until the twentieth century, the Himalayan kingdoms supported a hierarchy in which Buddhist monks, some identified from birth as bodhisattvas, occupied the highest positions in society.
Most other Buddhists in India follow Theravada Buddhism, the "Doctrine of the Elders," which traces its origin through Sri Lankan and Burmese traditions to scriptures in the Pali language, a Sanskritic dialect in eastern India. Although replete with miraculous events and legends, these scriptures stress a more human Buddha and a democratic path toward enlightenment for everyone. Ambedkar's plan for the expanding Buddhist congregation in India visualized Buddhist monks and nuns developing themselves through service to others. Convert communities, by embracing Buddhism, have embarked on social transformations, including a decline in alcoholism, a simplification of marriage ceremonies and abolition of ruinous marriage expenses, a greater emphasis on education, and a heightened sense of identity and self-worth.
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- An ASP.NET web application project
- Application Insights SDK for .NET Web Applications installed in the project (this is the SDK you get if you use Visual Studio to add Application Insights to your project)
InstallationThe dependency call stack package is hosted in the new SDK Labs NuGet gallery. If you're using Visual Studio to manage NuGet package in your project, here's what to do:
- Add the Application Insights SDK Labs package source to NuGet. Source: https://www.myget.org/F/applicationinsights-sdk-labs/
- Add the prerelease package Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.DependencyCallstacks to your project. Remember to include prerelease packages.
- That's it! Re-build and run your app.
> Install-Package "Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.DependencyCallstacks" -Source "https://www.myget.org/F/applicationinsights-sdk-labs/" -Pre
Viewing Call StacksUsing this experiment will change your experience in the Azure Portal to support this new data. When you view requests in Application Insights that have related dependencies you will now get a view showing the relationship between your dependencies. Click on any dependency in this new view to bring up the dependency details blade. It now contains a call stack section complete with class and function names as well as filenames and line numbers, when available. To stop getting this experimental experience, remove the package from your project. After you remove the package from your project all new requests will be displayed in the default UI on the Azure Portal. Old requests made when the package was installed will continue to be displayed in the view above.
Current Limitations
- Some asynchronously called dependencies may not have call stack information collected.
- Only the "Just My Code" version of the call stack is collected.
About SDK LabsWith this project we are introducing the concept of Application Insights SDK Labs. The project is open source on GitHub and released on the MyGet gallery.
Our strategy:
- Every experimental project is a standalone NuGet package.
- Publish projects to the dedicated MyGet feed.
- Monitor number of downloads and engaged customers using the experimental feature.
- Decide if the experiment is successful. If it doesn't prove beneficial, we will discontinue this project and remove it from the repository.
- Promote successful projects to their own repository or into Application Insights SDK.


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Become a Member
The California Protea Association (CPA) is a non-profit corporation that works to improve and develop cultivars and promotes the marketing of Protea. It was formed to assist its members to learn more about how to successfully make Protea flowers a more important part of California floriculture.
The California Protea Association is not a retailer or shipper of Protea, but works to assist those who cultivate, sell and purchase California Protea flowers.


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Our 45-Day Money Back Guarantee makes ordering risk free!
1960-P Lincoln Head Cent, Proof
1960 Philadelphia Mint, Proof
Grade:Choice Proof (SKU: 303.71)
Now is the time to get this Lincoln cent from Philadelphia! Displaying Frank Gasparro`s Lincoln Memorial reverse design, this coin is needed by anyone hoping to build a complete date and mint mark collection of Lincoln cents. Order today!
- Mint: Philadelphia
- Product Type: Single Products
- Year: 1960
- Lincoln Cent Series: Memorial (1959-2008)


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11'8″ x 18′
- Description
- Additional information
Antique Persian area rug handwoven from the finest sheep's wool. It's colored with all-natural vegetable dyes that are safe for humans and pets. It's a traditional Tabriz design handwoven by expert artisans.
Tabriz is the capital city of East Azerbaijan Province, Iran which is close to the border of Turkey. It has earned the reputation of producing some of the finest rugs in the world, particularly those commissioned by the great Shah Abbas during the 15th and 16th centuries. Tabriz even gained more prominence in the 19th century when famous carpet makers Haji Jalili, Kurban Dai, and Sheik Safi produced exceptional designs that graced royal courts as well as the homes of the rich and famous.
Tabriz rug designs are often characterized by intricate floral patterns woven in a grand scale; a style obviously tailor-made for palaces and mansions. The color palette often used by weavers are rich and deep such as red, navy blue and black mixed with gray and ivory – hues denoting class and elegance.


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Want to learn more about Big Data? MIT is taking on the buzzy topic in an online course designed for tech pros. Tackling the Challenges of Big Data runs from March 4 to April 1 and costs $495.
Want to learn more about Big Data? MIT is taking on the buzzy topic in an online course designed for tech professionals. The course, titled Tackling the Challenges of Big Data, runs from March 4 to April 1 and costs $495.
MIT Professional Education is behind the training. The Big Data course marks the first offering in the school's new lineup of Online X professional programs, which will be delivered via the Open edX platform (an open-source online learning initiative backed by Harvard, MIT, Stanford and others).
Topics covered will include data collection (from smartphones, sensors, the Web); data storage and processing (including scalable relational databases, Hadoop, Spark); analytics (machine learning, data compression, efficient algorithms); visualization; and a range of applications, MIT says.
+ALSO ON NETWORKWORLD: Big data's biggest challenges | Inside CIO paychecks | 12 jobs getting the biggest raises in 2014 +
Five modules will address 18 topic areas with 20 hours of video. Learning assessments, case studies, discussion forums, and a community Wiki will be part of the course experience.
Tackling the Challenges of Big Data is geared for people who have an undergraduate-level education in computer science. Specifically, MIT says it's a fit for engineers who need to understand and apply Big Data technologies in their work; technical managers who want to familiarize themselves with emerging Big Data technologies; and entrepreneurs who want to gain perspective on Big Data trends and future capabilities.
MIT tapped 12 faculty members from its Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the School of Engineering to teach the online course. CSAIL is the largest research laboratory at MIT, housed in a 2004 building designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry. The combined faculty brings expertise in data, programming, finance, multicore technology, database systems, robotics, transportation, hardware, and operating systems.
Participants who successfully finish the four-week course will receive an MIT Professional Education certificate of completion and access to the group's professional alumni network.
Ann Bednarz covers IT careers, outsourcing and Internet culture for Network World. Follow Ann on Twitter at @annbednarz and reach her via email at email@example.com.


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.Guests visit Bearskin Lodge for widely divergent reasons. Some come in hopes of catching trophy fish, some come to ski our trails, and others come with a goal of spending quality time with their family. The one common denominator among all Bearskin guests is this: almost everyone hopes to see a moose.
A good moose encounter story is worth a lot. Years ago when Bob, my dad and I were canoeing the Kawishiwi, we rounded a bend and came upon a moose cow and her calf standing at the mouth of a small stream. We stealthily (and foolishly) paddled forward to get a closer look. As we edged nearer, the cow took a step towards us, lowered her head and gave us her best mother moose glare. We quickly paddled away. That is the total extent of what occurred that afternoon, yet over the years my dad has probably retold that story 7,000 times. The moose has grown larger, fiercer and noisier. Our situation has become increasingly treacherous — now it sounds like we were lucky to escape with our lives. He's gotten a lot of mileage out of our little moose tale.
For everyone who failed to find a moose this year, here's the story that will make you grateful that you were "skunked" in your moose search. It was about 8:30 PM when Andy McDonnell, Bearskin employee extraordinaire, was leaving the lodge in his pickup truck. His pickup truck that he likes very much. His pickup truck that he spent a bundle repairing after an accidental meeting with a deer. As he turned onto East Bearskin Road, he spotted a female moose.
As moose are apt to do, she loped out into the center of the road in front of Andy's truck and headed up Bearskin Road towards the Gunflint, with Andy slowly following behind. Apparently she had a hot date waiting for her. As Andy came over the ridge of the hill, there stood a big bull moose—and he was not at all pleased to see a 4-wheeled competitor pursuing his girlfriend. The moose pawed the ground, lowered his head and started to charge towards Andy. Andy quickly shoved his truck into reverse. The moose kept coming. He repeatedly flashed his lights. The moose didn't care. He wildly honked his horn. Didn't slow the moose down in the least. Faster and faster he backed down the road, with the moose in hot pursuit. When he got to the Bearskin driveway, he rapidly backed around the corner hoping the moose wouldn't follow.
No such luck. Adde, another outstanding Bearskin employee, was walking back to staff housing when she started to hear crazy loud honking noises. This is the Gunflint Trail, not New York City—horn honking is just not a typical sound at Bearskin. More proof that life is quite different on the Gunflint: Adde only wondered about the honking for a second before assuming that somebody somewhere was having big moose trouble.
In the end, the moose gave up before Andy did. He saved his truck from another unanticipated trip to the body shop. To me the most amazing part of this story is that he did it all going backwards. In many places on East Bearskin Road there is a steep drop-off to the surrounding lowlands. When a vehicle goes over the edge on Bearskin, it's not just, "Oh dear, my wheel is in the ditch"—the car or truck frequently rolls over on its side. If I had run into this mad bull moose, I would have had to say, "Go ahead, gore me." No way could I have sped back in reverse down that twisty, steep sided road without going over the edge. Andy's backwards driving/honking/flashing lights skills are impressive.
If the only moose you saw this year at Bearskin was the stuffed moose head in the Lodge, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. If you need a good moose story, go ahead and use Andy's. Moose encounter stories don't come much better than that one.


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The Seven Deadly Sins of Senryu: Envy*
*A collaboration with Rosema from A Reading Writer
Rosema writes short fiction, poems and posts about the books she's reading.
Hop on over to check out her site and pick up a recommendation or two for your next read.
The Seven Deadly Sins of Senryu:
~ ~ ~
He own things I lack.
She wore sequined heels, I want.
Why I lack a lot?
~ ~ ~
He's not more lucky.
I don't need those leather boots.
I don't covet things.
~ ~ ~
To be continued tomorrow with another deadly sin and another senryu…
~ ~ ~


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February 3–May 6, 2012 in the Lockhart Gallery
In the early 1900s, as American technological and manufacturing prowess transformed modern life, some spoke of industry as a new religion and the machine as an object of worship. Technologies like the steam engine, light bulb and telephone seemed supernatural and all-powerful. This exhibition explores how American artists from the last 100 years have responded with both awe and ambiguity to technological changes and innovations. Included are 25 objects, mostly works on paper, by such masters as Charles Sheeler, Louis Lozowick, John Marin and Charles Burchfield.
Sponsored by Eastman Kodak Company.
Sunday, March 11, 1 pm / included in Gallery admission
Enjoy an informal talk on works in Modern Icon by the show's curator, MAG assistant curator Jessica Marten.
Pictured: Charles Sheeler, Ballet Mechanique (1931).


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It's all fun and games for the NSA! Especially when they're writing the rules. 😉
'Team Sport' Is The NSA's Buzzword For Getting Companies To Violate Your Privacy
from the that's-not-very-sporting dept
I noticed something interesting in two of our recent stories about NSA surveillance. In yesterday's revelation in the Guardian about how Microsoft had made it easy for the NSA to record Skype audio and video, an internal NSA bulletin referred to the situation this way:
The document continues: "The FBI and CIA then can request a copy of Prism collection of any selector…" As a result, the author notes: "these two activities underscore the point that Prism is a team sport!"
That was apparently written on August 3, 2012. But the "team sport" phrase caught my attention, because while Tim Cushing was writing up that story, I had been working on the story about the NSA's talking points for the groundbreaking of its massive datacenter in Bluffdale Utah. Those talking points were for January 6, 2011, but they too, reference "team sports" as a way to describe the collaboration with tech companies:
Cyber must be a team sport — it is too big for one agency, or even one nation to be able to "control."
Seeing that exact phrase show up in two separate documents, which were both revealed on the same day, through different means (one via a leak, one via a FOIA request), were written at different times, and were revealed through very different sources, has me wondering. It seems likely that this is a key talking point that the NSA has been working on for quite some time, should information on PRISM and other programs ever get out. As long as they call these efforts a "team sport" perhaps people won't be as freaked out about them, or something.
But it's kind of a funny thing to call them. Who is the "opposing" team here? The public? And it's a funny sort of "sport" when the rules are all secret, and the referees and umpires get to reinterpret the rules in secret with the NSA/companies' team, without ever informing the public of the rule changes. There's definitely a team here, but it doesn't seem very sporting. It seems more like a bunch of people with way too much power screwing over the public. Perhaps that's what they should actually call it.
Filed Under: buzzwords, nsa surveillance, prism, privacy, surveillance, team sport


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Eagles beat Cowboys 24-22 to take NFC East title
ARLINGTON, Texas – Nick Foles and the Philadelphia Eagles completed a worst-to-first turnaround under rookie coach Chip Kelly.
The Dallas Cowboys are stuck in second place and going home early again, and nobody can blame Tony Romo for the final crushing loss Sunday night.
Foles threw two touchdown passes, NFL rushing champion LeSean McCoy had 131 yards and a receiving score and the Eagles beat the Cowboys 24-22 in a win-or-go-home game for the NFC East title.
The Cowboys (8-8), with Kyle Orton filling in two days after Romo had back surgery, lost to a division rival with a playoff berth on the line for the third straight year.
The Eagles (10-6) will host New Orleans in a wild-card game Saturday night.
Dallas trailed 24-16 when Orton threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to Dez Bryant. Orton went back to Bryant for the 2-point conversion, but Cary Williams dove to punch the ball away.
The Cowboys got another chance with a stop from the league's worst defense, but Orton's pass was intercepted by Brandon Boykin on the first play to seal the win.
"We kept fighting. We believed in each other," said Foles, who was 17 of 26 for 263 yards after throwing for only 80 in a 17-3 loss to Dallas at home. "When the offense was struggling, the defense picked us up."
McCoy finished with 1,607 yards and became the first Philadelphia running back to win the rushing title since Hall of Famer Steve Van Buren in 1949.
"For all the accolades and the stats, if we didn't win today, none of that means nothing," McCoy said.
Romo was the quarterback for losses the past two seasons to the Giants and Washington — and against the Eagles in the same scenario in 2008.
The Cowboys were down 10-0 early in the second quarter and never led, but still found a way to make it interesting without Romo and defensive leader Sean Lee, who was out with a sprained neck against the league's No. 2 offense.
Regardless, Dallas has finished 8-8 in all three of coach Jason Garrett's full seasons, and is 136-136 since the start of 1997. The Cowboys are only the third team in NFL history to have three straight 8-8 records.
"You feel a tremendous sense of pride about how the team played, how they fought, how they scratched, how they clawed, how they battled," Garrett said. "But having said that, we didn't get the job done."
Orton, who was 30 of 46 for 358 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions in his first start in two years, was the first Dallas starter not named Romo in an elimination game since a playoff loss to Carolina with Quincy Carter under center during the 2003 season.
The Cowboys weren't shy about throwing without Romo.
Trailing by one, Dallas tried to pass on fourth-and-1 from the Philadelphia 40 early in the fourth quarter, and Connor Barwin knocked down Orton's throw to DeMarco Murray, who was open in the flat.
That decision came after Garrett called a timeout moments before the Eagles would have been called for a false start on fourth down from the Dallas 1. The defense bailed him out by stuffing Foles on a sneak.
After the Cowboys' failed fourth-down try, Foles led a steady march to Bryce Brown's 6-yard run for an eight-point lead with 6:09 remaining.
The Eagles won the division for the first time since 2010 a year after going 4-12, which led to Andy Reid's departure and the hiring of Kelly and his fast-paced offense from Oregon.
But the defense came up with the biggest play when the Eagles couldn't run out the clock. Foles tried to throw on third down and had to slide when nobody was open.
The Cowboys were about 40 yards from field goal range and trailing by two with 1:49 remaining, but Orton threw behind Miles Austin, just as he did on his other interception that led to Brent Celek's 14-yard scoring catch for a 17-7 lead late in the first half.
Notes: Cowboys kicker Dan Bailey had three field goals and made his last 21 of the season. He was 28 of 30. … McCoy had 134 yards from scrimmage and finished with 2,146 to break Brian Westbrook's team record of 2,104 from 2007. … Murray had 51 yards rushing and finished with 1,124, the most for Dallas since Emmitt Smith had 1,203 in 2000. … Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson had 28 yards for No. 2 on the franchise's single-season receiving-yardage list with 1,332. Mike Quick had 1,409 in 1983.


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Cost of LASIK
Here at TLC, we want to help you learn about the cost of LASIK and how we can help make paying for LASIK affordable.
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Schedule a FREE LASIK Consultation Todaybook now
What Is the Real Cost of LASIK?
The cost of LASIK can vary widely depending on where you live and which surgeons and technologies you choose. But the lowest price isn't always your best option, and, in many cases, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
With all of the laser eye surgery options available nowadays, it's important to consider the overall quality of service when comparing the cost of LASIK. You should always ask what is included in the LASIK fees. Some other things to consider when choosing a LASIK provider include:
- Some doctors who charge less may not be as experienced or may not have access to the latest technology.
- The initial low cost also may not include a comprehensive eye evaluation, follow-up appointments and other tests necessary for a successful LASIK surgery.
- Some doctors quote a low initial cost for a LASIK procedure that quickly becomes more expensive if you choose additional services like bladeless LASIK and the Wavefront Technology.
At TLC, we're always up-front about the total cost of LASIK and stand behind our work with our TLC Lifetime Commitment® program.


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February isAmerican Heart Month
, designed to make you aware of the risks of heart disease and how you can prevent it. The three tips below can help you stay fit and your heart healthy.
- Pedometer Walking is one of the
easiest things you can do to shed extra pounds and get your heart rate up.
And research shows that tracking the number of steps you take can help you
reach your fitness goals. The Accusplit
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tracks the distance you walk.
- Blood Pressure Monitor: If you're
prone to high blood pressure then keeping abreast of your numbers can be a
life-saving act. Blood pressure readings are a vital indicator of how
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- Online Diet and Fitness Sites: Not
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use of relatively inexpensive online resources. Good Housekeeping tested several online fitness and diet sites
and Myexerciseplan.com ($5.83/month) and Southbeachdiet.com ($20/month) bested
the rest. Both are easy to navigate even for a first timer.
For heart-healthy recipes, check out the Cook Your Heart Out Competition we had in the Good Housekeeping Test Kitchens.
Interested in seeing how we test products? Sign up for one of our public tours.


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Editor's Note: Anthony Pereira is a professor and director of the Brazil Institute at King's College London.
Story highlights
Many are asking if Brazil deserves to be seen as an economic powerhouse given its weak growth
Over the last ten years Brazil has benefited from a commodity boom, but that boom is slowing
The political system seems incapable of responding to these challenges
But it may be too early to count Brazil out of the BRIC club, Anthony Pereira argues
When former Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill first went to Brazil after coining the acronym BRIC, someone asked him whether he had included the "B" just to make the name sound good.
Such skepticism is becoming common again, as investors compare the projected rate of growth in Brazil this year – just 3% – to that in China and India, around 8% and 6% respectively.
So does Brazil still deserve to be seen as an economic powerhouse?
Many would say no. Brazil grew by less than 1% in 2012, the lowest of the BRIC countries, and only 2.7% in 2011. Its problems are well known. It saves less than it invests, and 70% of its growth comes from consumption.
Credit has risen dramatically over the last few years, but many families are now heavily indebted, which slows growth.
Read more: Rising Brazil tackles immigration question
Over the last ten years Brazil has benefited from a commodity boom, but that boom is slowing. Brazil has become an expensive country, with a strong currency, and that has eroded the competitiveness of its industry.
Ten years ago around 50% of exports were manufactured goods; today the proportion is closer to 35%. The tax burden is heavy, at around 35% of GDP, especially in comparison to the quality of services the state provides, and government spending is rising faster than GDP.
Brazil's productivity grew by only 1.3% between 1990 and 2010, while China led the way at 8.3%, followed by India at 4.7% over the same period.
Read more: WTO: Emerging markets get the nod
There are other causes of concern. Inflation is pushing right up against the Central Bank's ceiling of 6.5% per year. The balance of payments deficit is rising. Infrastructure such as ports, roads, and airports is poor, and attempts to bring in the private sector to modernize some of it, such as with airports, have not been entirely successful.
Expensive electricity, an inadequately funded public sector pension system, and high interest rates round out this negative picture.
Read more: Building on 'BRICS': The next emerging economies
According to some analysts, the fundamental pillars of the Brazilian economy are being eroded.
The political system seems incapable of responding to these challenges. The state's bureaucratic machinery is cumbersome and antiquated; corruption is rife among politicians, and effective opposition to and debate about current policies almost non-existent.
The current government is planning for president Dilma Rousseff's re-election in 2014 and there is a danger that it will postpone necessary adjustments, making a bad situation worse.
So should we be talking about the RIC rather than BRIC countries?
Not really.
There are three main sets of reasons why it is too early to count Brazil out as a global economic player.
The first has to do with fundamentals of its economy that are often ignored by short-term investors. Brazil's economy has a higher per capita GDP than both China and India, and as a more mature economy, it is not surprising that its growth rate is slower.
Read more: Mixing sushi and samba - meet the Japanese Brazilians
More importantly, the country is much less vulnerable to external shocks than it used to be. Public debt as a percentage of GDP declined from about 60% to 35% of GDP between 2002 and 2012.
International reserves are now $377 billion. Brazil attracted around $62 billion in foreign direct investment in 2012, making it the largest recipient of FDI in the world after China and the United States.
All of these factors are reasons to be confident in the capacity of the Brazilian economy to continue to advance in an unspectacular but steady fashion.
Second, Brazil has a number of enviable attributes. It has few threats to its security, meaning that it can afford to spend relatively little on national defence. Brazil is alone among the BRIC countries in not possessing nuclear weapons.
Read more: Brazil competes with China, India to invest in Africa
Brazil also has a generous land to people ratio, with a large basket of natural resources, including petroleum, for a population that is relatively small (200 million) compared to China and India. It boasts a world-class agricultural sector that has not yet reached its potential.
Already the largest producer in the world of soy and beef, it has the capacity to adapt more crops to its tropical soils and develop its vast land frontier.
In addition, Brazil is becoming an environmental leader. Its management of the Amazon rainforest is crucial to the health of the planet, which is why the recent large reduction in the rate of deforestation has been so encouraging. It has some of the largest reserves of fresh water in the world.
Almost half of all energy coming from renewable sources, mainly hydroelectric but also biofuels.
There is a third and final set of factors that make Brazil stand out.
Together with Russia, and unlike China and India, Brazil has reduced economic inequality in recent years. Its Gini index, a measure of income inequality, dropped from 0.63 to 0.52 from 1989 to 2009.
Between 2003 and 2011, about 30 million Brazilians joined the so-called "new middle class," earning between GBP100 and GBP400 per capita per month, and gaining access to formal sector employment, credit, and the country's large consumer market.
This reduction in inequality has a racial component, because 75% of the new middle class is non-white. It also has a gender component – formal sector employment for females has increased 136% in the last twenty years.
It is true that Brazil's rate of economic growth is slow compared to China and India.
But so are the growth rates of most countries. Brazil tends to be the focus of exaggerated analyses of its economy.
If one looks past the superficial concern about growth at Brazil's economic fundamentals, its resources, and the extraordinary social progress that the country has made in recent decades, it seems premature to remove the "B" from BRIC.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Anthony Pereira.