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I was in 5th or 6th grade, 10 years old, when I started making my own money. I'd go with my Mom on the weekends to the restaurant where she was working at the time out at little ol' Litchfield Airport in Arizona. The place was called Barnstorm Charlies. I'd bus tables there, re-stock, clean-up, help out in the kitchen– whatever they needed. It made me feel independent, and like I had something to offer the world. I worked hard and didn't complain– I was proud to have a job, and wanted to be the best employee I could be.
With my hard-earned little fistful of cash, the first thing I remember buying was a pair of Levi's 501s. I still recall heading to the local Smitty's, going through the stacks of shrink-to-fits looking for my size, doing the shrinkage calculations printed on the Levi's tag in my head, holding that dark, rigid denim in my hands– and feeling a wonderful inner glow that's hard to explain. It was the birth of an intense Levi's ritual that is still a part of my life.
The preamble is meant only to let you know that denim, Levi's in particular, probably means more to me than it does to most people. It may sound strange, but denim represents all that I consider to be good and of value in the world. It's pure, honest, unpretentious, reliable, hard-working, American tradition that gets better with age. It doesn't get any better than that in my book. The story of denim is forever entwined with the story of America. It's part of our heritage, and a genuine American Icon.
Jack Benny, Dick Powell, Ken Murray, Bing Crosby (in head-to-toe denim) on drums, Shirley Ross. Tommy Dorsey is just out of sight on the right on the trombone. Amateur swing contest, ca. 1939.
Singer Bing Crosby, sometimes dismissed as simply a crooner, was in fact, according to jazz historian Gary Giddins, "the most influential and successful popular performer in the first half of the twentieth century." He was an artistic maestro who made everything he did look effortless, one of the founding fathers of modern pop culture, and also led the technology forefront in broadcasting and recording innovations. Bing Crosby gave us the most popular recording of all time– "White Christmas" had an astounding 396 hit records between 1927 and 1962 (Frank Sinatra had 209, Elvis 149, the Beatles), and holds the all-time record for #1 hits, with 38 in all, far outdistancing the Beatles' 24 and Elvis's 18.
"The thing you have to understand about Bing Crosby," according to jazz legend Artie Shaw, "is that he was the first hip white person born in the United States."
Above, Bing can be seen banging the skins in Levi's from head to toe– in his 506 jacket and 501 jeans. The 506 jacket was produced as seen from 1936 to 1942– during WWII restrictions the pocket lost its button-through flap to save resources for the war effort, and in 1953 the 507 model was introduced featuring double button-through pockets and side-tabs, rather than the buckle-back cinch.
Bing Crosby's love of Levi's has been well documented throughout his life. A great story that is evidence to this dates back to 1951. The story goes that Bing was on a hunting trip with a buddy, and they entered their hotel in Vancouver, Canada to check-in. Not being familiar with Bing's status as a major celebrity, the clerk simply took their appearance into account– the men were clad in denim and hunting gear, which was unacceptable attire for entry into any respectable hotel in those days. Remember, denim was utilitarian wear for dude ranches, farmers, croppers, and chores back then. It was not a mainstream fashion statement like it is today. Bing Crosby told the hotel's front desk clerk– "I'm sorry I didn't bring my blue serge suit. I haven't worn it since high school and it probably wouldn't fit anyway." Well, they did end up getting a room, once Bing Crosby was finally recognized by an observant staffer.
Cowboy at heart and Levi's-lover Bing Crosby opening the mail bag at his ranch in Elko, Nevada.
Bing Crosby's famous denim tuxedo made for him by Levi Strauss & Co. back in 1951. via
Bing Crosby sporting his famous denim tuxedo made for him by Levi Strauss & Co.– read that label!
Word of the embarrassing hotel incident made its way back to the fine folks at Levi Strauss & Co., whose designers promptly made Bing Crosby a custom denim tuxedo to prevent the problem from ever happening again. The formal jacket was made from 501 denim stock and featured an incredible handmade red bouquet on the lapel made entirely of Levi's red tabs, and held together with their standard copper rivets– very cool. Inside the jacket, a stern warning to hoteliers could be found– a large patch with that read "NOTICE: TO HOTEL MEN EVERYWHERE– THIS LABEL ENTITLES THE WEARER TO BE DULY RECEIVED AND REGISTERED WITH CORDIAL HOSPITALITY AT ANY TIME AND UNDER ANY CONDITIONS. Presented to BING CROSBY. Elko Blue-Serge Day, Silver State Stampede, June 30, 1951. Signed– American Hotel Association by D.J. O'Brien, PRES."
Bing Crosby being present with his Levi's denim tuxedo for Elko's "Blue Serge Day" on June 30, 1951.
Back in Elko, Silver State Stampede members saw a way to get some great publicity for their big rodeo, and for Elko. After all, Crosby had been Honorary Mayor of Elko since 1948. Besides, he was a local rancher up at North Fork when he wasn't busy back in Hollywood. Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco was asked by the Stampede committee to make two Levi tuxedos– one for Bing Crosby, the other for Elko Mayor Dave Dotta. Plans called for Elko to celebrate "Blue Serge Day" on June 30, 1951 during the Silver State Stampede. When Crosby shrugged into his tuxedo, buttoned it, he declared– "Hell's fire, ain't that a wizard!" Both garments are on exhibit at the Northeastern Nevada Museum in Elko. via
John Wayne in 1939's "Stagecoach", wearing iconic Levi's 501 Waist Overalls, as they were still called at the time, which feature both belt loops and suspender buttons.
The 1910s – 1930s saw the Wild West American lifestyle move largely from a way of life, to ever-increasing faded memories and mythology. Our country was getting smaller. Technology and transportation were ushering in a new era of industrialized cities and advanced accessibility. The real jean-wearin' cowboy lifestyle of days past was now kept alive largely through the Western fashions worn by the stars of silver screen and music– and we all know that cowboys & jeans are like carrots & peas. Levi Strauss turned it's advertising efforts towards the rising cowboy phenomenon that had taken hold of the country — and they found that more national brand recognition also meant more competition fiercely trying to defend their stake, or simply ride on Levi's coat-tails.
Star Roy Rogers & his dog "Phantom" talking to his agent during break in filming on the Republic Pictures movie lot. Hollywood, ca. 1939.
Many folks outside of California had never seen or even heard of Levi's jeans, and going national brought on stiff competition from the likes of Lee (who was bigger out East and in the Midwest), with their 101 Cowboy Pants, which eventually evolved into Lee Riders, and their iconic 101J jean jacket. The 101J is without a doubt Lee's best effort to date — and just like the Levi's 501 jean that Lee themselves unapologetically copied, it spawned many imitators over the years. I guess my Levi's bias is showing through. But I have to admit, I do love the Lee slim 101J and old blanket-lined, corduroy collared Storm Rider Jackets. They got something really right. First introduced in 1932, the 101J (see Paul Newman below, and Steve McQueen at bottom of post for a pic) signaled that Lee was no longer content with just knocking-off Levi Strauss, and was ready to throw their hat into the design ring. The 101J's fit was much slimmer, shorter, (and sexier) than Levi's pleated standby, the 506 jacket. Levi would later introduce the snugger-fitting 557 trucker jacket, but that wouldn't be 'til some 30 years later.
Melvyn Douglas and Paul Newman in "HUD". Newman is wearing the iconic Lee denim Storm Rider jacket — blanket-lined, with a corduroy collar. Douglas is wearing a classic chore coat. This image appears to be reversed– you can tell by the fact that the jacket plackets should be left-over-right.
Montgomery Clift in Lee Riders selvedge jeans, here with Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, his costars in The Misfits.
1952, Marilyn Monroe lifting barbells (weight training) — Photo by Philippe Halsman
Like I said, the first Lee 101 jeans from the 1920s were a blatant knock-off of Levi Strauss– "borrowing" Levi's fit, double arcuate back pocket signature stitching (Wrangler copied the arc design as well, for that matter), and similar copper rivets. Lee eventually found their own voice as their cowboy pants distinguished themselves with details like a deeper yoke, and what they called a special "U-Shaped Saddle Crotch" — for your riding pleasure. In 1925 Lee introduced a zip version, the 1010, later renamed the 101Z. Another big difference between Lee and Levi Strauss is that Lee uses a left-hand twill denim for most of their jeans, whereas Levi's and the majority of denim brands out there use right-hand twills. A Left-hand twill is widely considered to have a softer hand-feel to it after washing than a right hand twill.
James Dean and Dennis Hopper in the iconic 1955 film, "Rebel Without a Cause" directed by Nicholas Ray. This was the original teen angst film, and I must have seen it at least a hundred times and counting. Dean was a Lee jean wearer, and though I identified with Jimmy more than anyone else growing up (we share the same birthday), I'm a Levi's guy, and don't see that changin' anytime soon. I know it ain't a Western, but what the heck… it's in the context of my growin' up with denim.
People like me, who grew up before the days of designer denim — when the Big Three denim brands were Levi's, Lee, & Wrangler — would generally form a loyalty to one label and stick with it. It identified you with a certain peer group — You already know what camp I'm in. My experience was that Lee never had a real strong identity or following, and fell somewhere in the middle of the road. Wrangler fans were typically cowboy types with those cool faded rings on their back pocket from that trusty can of Skoal or Copenhagen chew wearing through. I always loved those rings.
Steve McQueen (in the iconic Lee 101J jacket) Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand and Sidney Poitier at meeting of their own movie production company, First Artists Production Company, 1972.
If you're like me and have a real passion for denim, then pick-up a copy of Denim — From Cowboys to Catwalks — it's a great historical primer that I've enjoyed for years.


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This is outstanding. Please keep me informed of this product for 3rd- 5th grade readers.
Reading Adventure Pack: The Lorax
Go on a "Lorax" reading adventure! Teachers can support reading together at home with our reading adventure packs — designed to encourage hands-on fun and learning centered around paired fiction and nonfiction books. (Level: First Grade)
Explore trees!
The featured books for the The Lorax Reading Adventure Pack are The Lorax, written by Dr. Seuss, and Tell Me, Tree, by Gail Gibbons. The Lorax, The Lorax tells the story of how the greedy Oncle-ler hacks down Truffula trees in order to make Thneeds, a rather frivolous item that he believes everyone needs. The Lorax disagrees and tries to reason with the Once-ler to get him to see the consequences of his actions on the environment. In Tell Me, Tree, we learn how to identify different kinds of trees, the parts of a tree inside and out, and the important roles trees play in our lives.
Get the books
The featured books were chosen for their quality and availability in most school and public libraries. However, if you would like to purchase the books, here are the links:
The Lorax, written by Dr. Seuss
Tell Me, Tree, by Gail Gibbons
What's in the reading adventure pack?
- Parent information sheet with an introductory note that teachers can personalize, instructions about how to use the packet, and tips for sharing fiction and nonfiction books with children
- Two books: one fiction and one nonfiction, selected by Reading Rockets for high quality and wide availability in school libraries
- Creativity Activity: a hands-on craft project
- Imagination Activity: encourages imaginative play, writing, or drawing
- Get Real Activity: focuses on real-world experiences for parent and child
- Bookmark: lists the featured titles and alternative titles
- Parent survey
While designed as a school-to-home project, reading adventure packs are also great for summer programs, after-school programs, and home-schoolers.
Interested in more reading adventures?
Browse our full library of reading adventure packs. And for additional information about reading adventure packs, you might want to read this article.

subset: commoncrawl


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Richard Burton, CBE (10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role (without ever winning), and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Burton was at one time the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. He remains closely associated in the public consciousness with his second wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor; the couple's turbulent relationship was rarely out of the news.
Richard Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in the village of Pontrhydyfen, Neath Port Talbot, Wales. He grew up in a working class, Welsh-speaking household, the twelfth of thirteen children. His father, Richard Walter Jenkins, was a short, robust coal miner, a "twelve-pints-a-day man" who sometimes went off on drinking and gambling sprees for weeks. Burton later claimed, by family telling, that "He looked very much like me...That is, he was pockmarked, devious, and smiled a great deal when he was in trouble. He was, also, a man of extraordinary eloquence, tremendous passion, great violence.":23
Burton was less than two years old in 1927 when his mother, Edith Maude (née Thomas), died at the age of 43:2 after giving birth to her 13th child. His sister Cecilia and her husband Elfed took him into their Presbyterian mining family in nearby Port Talbot (an English-speaking steel town). Burton said later that his sister became "more mother to me than any mother could have ever been... I was immensely proud of her... she felt all tragedies except her own". Burton's father would make occasional appearances at the homes of his grown daughters but was otherwise absent.:7, 10 Also important in young Burton's life was Ifor (Ivor), the brother 19 years his senior. A miner and rugby player, Ifor "ruled the household with the proverbial firm hand".:7


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Posts Tagged 'metaprogramming'
Using Metaprogramming for a RPG Battle Engine
Ever wonder what happens behind the scenes when you click on an action on your toolbar in Forumwarz?
The action might perform an attack. It might heal you. It might even do both! Some attacks are stronger when you're weaker, others spawn buffs that protect (or harm you) for multiple turns.
How does the game know what to do?
Putting Effects in the Database
When I was first prototyping Forumwarz, I stored the information for each action as rows in a database table. An Action would have multiple Effects.
An Effect would have a target, an attribute and a value.
Here's a (simplied) example of an attack:
Target: Enemy, Attribute: Pwnage, Value: 6
Target: Player, Attribute: Douchebaggery, Value: 1
This worked pretty well at first. However, I quickly found myself wanting to put in exceptions to the structure. What if you only want an effect to apply when a certain condition is met?
For example, Life After Death brings you back to life if you die in the next few turns after you've used it.
You could add a new column for that, like "only_on_death" as a boolean, but that's kind of lame. Are you going to add a new column every time an action does anything interesting?
And what if you want your attack to do some cool stuff in the future? Let's say it's stronger against certain things, weaker against others.
Scripting Attacks
Forumwarz is coded in Ruby, so I decided to make use of its scripting capabilities.
I came up with a framework where each action in the game had its own class. The class would be instantiated with a reference to the player performing it, and the enemy they were currently attacking. Then it would call an execute method which would do whatever the action was meant to do:
action = AsciiArtAttack.new(character, enemy)
The implementation for AsciiArtAttack would look something like this:
class AsciiArtAttack < Action
def execute
@enemy.update_attribute :life, @enemy.life - 6
@character.update_attribute :douchebaggery, @character.douchebaggery - 1
The beauty of this approach is you're free to use any Ruby code you want in the execute method. You can check any conditions you want, you can calculate anything you want, really, the sky is the limit!
It's also faster to execute, since it doesn't involve querying the database each time you perform an action. It just runs through the Ruby code!
One obvious disadvantage is that you can't change the balance of the game without access to its Ruby code. Another is that you cannot "query" your attacks without a parser that can read Ruby code which is a non-trivial problem. So if you wanted, say, a list of all the attacks that effect Ego, your best tool is probably a text editor's search tool.
Although the above code is how the Forumwarz battle engine works under the hood, I rarely write the code that way. As it turns out, exceptions like "Only execute this action when you're dead" are quite exceptional. Most of the attacks in the game can be written as the simple list of their effects.
To make my life easier, and to avoid repeating myself, I have used the metaprogramming capabilities of Ruby to build the classes for the actions.
Instead of implementing an execute method, I use class methods to build it for me. This is similar to how putting in Validation class methods in ActiveRecord will write the validations for you.
Here's the actual code for the Ascii Art Attack that's running on Forumwarz right now:
class EventHandlers::Abilities::Troll::Ascii < EventHandlers::ActionBase
decrease :enemy, :pwnage, :value => 7..9
decrease :player, :douchebaggery, :value => 1
inactivate_action :turns => 1
minimum :douchebaggery, :value => 1
As you can see it does a little more than the above example did. It inactivates itself on your toolbar for 1 turn. It also enforces a minimum of 1 douchebaggery before it runs.
However, I think it's quite a bit more readable. You can just look at it and understand what it's doing.
This is how most of the actions in the game are written. If I need more flexibility, I just leave those class methods out and write an execute method instead. Pretty neat eh?
A secondary advantage is that the class methods can be implemented differently depending on what you're doing with them. Those same methods are used to generate the descriptions of an action, for example. Instead of calling "execute" I can call "describe" and get back the text for the tooltips you see in battle.
I won't go into how the metaprogramming works since it's outside the scope of this article (and also, other people can explain it much better than I can), but it's really worth looking into if you're coding something similar to this.


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Have you seen Julie's new book: God, Love and Marshmallow Wars? This book contains 365 daily challenges for couples to strengthen their relationships to each other and with God. Couples will complete activities such as Scripture memory, conversation starters, relationship builders, learning about Biblical marriage, romance builders, personal reflections, and date ideas. Click here to purchase your copy. (This link will open a new widow and take you to Westbow Press' bookstore.)
Looking for a speaker for your next ministry event? Julia is now booking for 2019 and 2020. Book with us now.


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Matt Gaetz sued after dog bites student in face
TALLAHASSEE, A Florida legislator is getting sued because his dog bit someone in the face.
Christopher Kent filed a lawsuit last week in Leon County against Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach. Gaetz is the son of Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville.
Kent's lawsuit alleges that Gaetz's dog bit him while he was at a restaurant near the Capitol. The lawsuit contends the dog bite left Kent with injuries that ultimately forced him to withdraw from law school at Florida State University. The lawsuit asks for damages but does not include an amount.
Gaetz on Monday acknowledged that his dog, Scarlet, did bite someone last May. But he said he was unaware of the lawsuit until reached by a reporter. He would not discuss the extent of the dog bite.


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Today, more than half of all people living with HIV in the United States are 50 years or older. This is mostly because people are living much longer with HIV thanks to effective antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, and that's good news.
The bad news is research increasingly shows that diseases that typically strike HIV-negative people in their 60s and 70s are occurring in people with HIV in their 40s and 50s. These concerns have brought the issue of aging with HIV to center stage. One of the biggest unanswered questions is why this is occurring. Whether it's heart attacks, bone fractures, kidney disease or certain cancers, the rates of these conditions in HIV-positive people are alarming. It's unclear how much HIV contributes to these conditions and how much is explainable by other factors (such as smoking, HIV drugs and coinfection with other viruses, and the longterm side effects of the allegedly efffective pharmaceutial intervention).
One of the shortcoming of our healthcare system is we don't have a formalized way or reporting adverse events or interactions related to pharmaceuticals. The process is voluntary and the uptake is poor. Hence, many individuals may be experiencing short-term or long-term side effects from medication but these incidents are often contained in the dialogue between the patient and the Doctor and these events are perceived as isolated whereas if the data was aggregated we may have better insight (both good and bad) to the impacts of longterm pharmacological therapy.
But most HIV-positive people can do quite a lot to slow the aging process and guard against the onset of age-related illness. Before first, it's important to understand how aging works.
What is aging?
When we think of someone as "old," we tend to think of that person as having lived a certain number of years: 70, 80, 100. For the National Institute on Aging, however, the focus is not on how long someone has been alive, but on the inevitable decline in physical ability and health that occurs once a person reaches later life.
At one time, researchers looked for a central cause of aging, but they've since realized that a variety of factors—including our genes, our environment and infections with harmful viruses and bacteria—contribute to the phenomenon of aging in overlapping ways.
Some people win the genetic lottery. They inherit genes that allow them to remain healthy and vital well into their 80s and 90s, whereas others have genes that place them at higher risk for developing cancer or cardiovascular disease by the time they reach their 40s.
Some people are able to minimize environmental and behavioral factors known to hasten the aging process. They eat well, exercise and remain socially and intellectually engaged in life. The effects of such environmental and behavioral factors on a person's health are profound.
Likewise, some people are able to avoid infection with the most harmful viruses and bacteria throughout their lives, or they have immune systems capable of keeping infections in check. Others may have to contend with harmful infections, such as hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), human papillomavirus (HPV), cytomegalovirus (CMV)—and HIV—all of which can significantly increase the risk of health problems later in life.
These factors—genetic, environmental and biological—can overlap and cause us to begin the aging process, called "senescence," which goes all the way down to the cellular level.
The cells in our bodies depend on a short snips of DNA, called telomeres, to reproduce. When we are young, the cells in our body also tend to be young, in that they look and act similarly to the first generation of cells we start out with when we were first developing in the womb. As we get older, however, the cells in our body are many hundreds or thousands of generations removed from the original cells, and the strands of code on the end of the DNA—the telomeres—get shorter. If the telomeres are in good shape, as they are in young people, each new generation of cells functions well. When the telomeres get too short, however, each new generation of cell functions and reproduces more poorly, to the point where the cells sometimes can't reproduce at all.
Defective cells can lead to real problems. If our muscle and bone cells can't make new cells that function well—because the telomeres have become too short—this makes it more likely that our muscles and bones will be weak. Weak muscles and bones mean a greater risk of falling and a greater risk that we'll break a major bone. Defective brain cells can lead to coordination and memory problems. Defective immune cells aren't as able to keep infections and cancers at bay.
It is this last category of senescence, called immunosenescence, which has particular relevance for people with HIV.
How does HIV affect the aging process?
Educators often explain what happens in the bodies of people with HIV as a battle: a war between the virus and immune cells. HIV isn't unique in this regard, however. The immune system is constantly "at war" with a host of harmful organisms—viruses and bacteria that get into our bodies—and also with our own cells that become defective and start reproducing too quickly—what we call cancer.
Where HIV differs from many other diseases is that in 99 percent of HIV-positive people, the immune system doesn't control the virus very well. This constant state of battle, where the virus reproduces and the body fights against it, keeps the immune system chronically in high alert, a syndrome called inflammation.
Inflammation isn't inherently bad—we need it to fight off infections like the flu, to repair damage to body tissues and to ward off the growth of certain cancers—but unchecked inflammation can wreak utter havoc on the body: causing the buildup of heart attack- and stroke-causing plaques in our arteries, feeding the growth of some types of cancer, and burning out our immune systems.
We've known since the early years of the epidemic that the immune systems of people with HIV were chronically inflamed, but before the introduction of potent combination antiretroviral (ARV) therapy in the late 1990s, most people with HIV died too young and too quickly for the long-term consequences of this inflammation to be known. Once potent ARVs became available, and people began living much longer, scientists were finally able to study the long-term effects of inflammation in people living with HIV.
In the past decade, numerous studies have yielded some important findings. We know that inflammation is greatly reduced in people who are able to get and keep their viral loads undetectable using ARVs. This is one of the reasons that the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) treatment guidelines recommend that people start HIV treatment earlier. Unfortunately, we've also learned that an undetectable viral load doesn't mean that inflammation is blocked completely—it can still be detected, and potentially cause problems, in people who are otherwise responding well to ARVs.
While researchers are concerned with how inflammation directly affects major organs such as the heart, liver and kidneys, they're also interested in how chronic inflammation affects the immune system itself. The longer a person's immune system continues to battle HIV—even if ARV therapy is being used—the more likely that person is to experience immunosenescence, also sometimes called "immune exhaustion." This condition means that immune cells can't react appropriately when confronted with a new challenge. They also don't reproduce easily or efficiently. In fact, when scientists look at the immune cells of people with HIV, they find that those cells often have the same degree of immune exhaustion as HIV-negative people who are many decades older.
Are people with HIV aging more rapidly?
As mentioned above, any number of factors can make people more likely to have age-related diseases and conditions at higher rates and younger ages. People with HIV are more likely to have some of these risk factors than HIV-negative people thus leading them to have poorer health as they get older. Researchers have also wondered how or whether HIV—all by itself—is a risk factor for age-related diseases and conditions.
There is no dispute that many of the diseases associated with aging occur at much higher rates in people with HIV and at much younger ages than in people not living with the virus. Here are just a few of those conditions:
- Weakened bones
- Loss of muscle mass and redistribution of fat
- Cardiovascular disease
- Liver disease
- Kidney disease
Some experts believe that a number of factors besides HIV can significantly contribute to these problems. Consider the following:
- People with HIV take ARVs, some of which can contribute to bone loss, kidney damage, fat redistribution and elevated cholesterol and triglycerides.
- People with HIV are far more likely than the general population to be coinfected with either hep B or hep C—or sometimes all three—and these increase the risk of liver cancer, liver failure, kidney disease and diabetes.
- People with HIV are many times more likely to be chronically infected with human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes cervical and anal cancer as well as cancers of the head, neck and throat.
- People with HIV are up to three times as likely to smoke tobacco, which is one of the leading causes of heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and emphysema.
- People with HIV have rates of mental illness and substance abuse that are many times higher than in people who don't have HIV, and these illnesses increase the risk of numerous other diseases.
- HIV can directly infect key tissues in the bone, brain, circulatory system and elsewhere, and it can cause inflammation-related damage to the heart, nervous system, liver and kidneys.
These factors likely play major roles in the increased rates of aging-related diseases and conditions seen in people with HIV. What experts haven't yet agreed upon is how much HIV infection itself might exacerbate underlying risk factors—via inflammation and immunosenescence—known to contribute to aging-related problems.
Researchers are working to try to understand how quickly inflammation and immunosenescence occur in people with HIV after they become infected. There is evidence that it begins to happen very soon after a person contracts HIV, but that good control of the virus (either because a person naturally controls HIV well or because he or she takes ARV therapy) may slow this process down somewhat.
Experts haven't yet agreed on the best way to measure inflammation and immunosenescence, and we don't yet know how much they independently contribute to the aging-related diseases either in HIV-negative people or in people with HIV. Research is ongoing, however, to try and answer these questions. In the meantime, there is much that the average person living with HIV can do to reduce the risk of many age-related diseases and conditions.
Is it possible to slow down the aging process?
We're a long way from discovering a fountain of youth, but a number of factors are consistently associated with reducing the risk for developing age-related diseases and conditions
Don't smoke tobacco. Smoking tobacco is one of the most harmful things that people can do to their bodies—and to their chances of living a long and healthy life. Most people know it can cause lung cancer and other lung diseases. Some even know that it can increase the risk for heart attacks and strokes. But it is also associated with numerous other age-related ailments—including bone mineral loss, muscle wasting, problems with memory and concentration—and age-related cancers, such as anal, breast, cervical and prostate cancer. Click here for some tips on quitting smoking.
Minimize alcohol and drug use. Consistent data suggest that moderate alcohol consumption might actually protect the heart and lower blood pressure. However, the American Heart Association recommends that men who drink alcohol should consume no more than two drinks per day and that women should consume no more than one. Studies have found that people who regularly drink more than that are at increased risk of strokes, diabetes, obesity and serious accidents. People with HIV who have liver problems have to take particular care with alcohol.
Data are less clear about how various recreational drugs affect the aging process, though chronic amphetamine ("crystal") and cocaine use have been implicated in thinking and memory problems, bone mineral loss and heart disease. In addition, excessive use of most drugs is associated with shorter life spans, increased risk of depression and suicide, and other serious health consequences.
Exercise. On average, people who exercise regularly are far healthier in numerous respects than people who don't exercise. Exercise is good for just about every part of the body. Benefits of regular exercise include reductions in the risk of:
- Cardiovascular disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome
- Age-related cognitive decline
- Bone-mineral and muscle loss
Exercise also reduces inflammation throughout the body, improves symptoms of depression and anxiety, and hastens recovery when illness strikes. Not everyone is equally able to exercise, and a doctor should sign off on any exercise plan, but there are a number of ways to get moving. Click here for some suggestions.
Eat well. Aside from exercise, diet also helps determine who will live a long and healthy life. Experts are divided on the ideal diet. Some argue against the consumption of almost any fat. Others say that fats (at least healthy fats from nuts and fish) aren't the problem, but that sugar is. Some argue for a vegetarian way of life, while others say meats are just fine. Fad diets that come and go just confuse matters further. All of this can make it quite difficult to decide on the best diet.
What most reputable diets have in common is watching caloric intake, along with an emphasis on including lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans, and then enjoying everything else in moderation. Most also stress the importance of eating the healthiest types of fish and limiting meat consumption to the leanest meats, such as from chicken and turkey, whenever possible. When it comes to fats, there is growing consensus that "healthy" fats—for example, from olive oil, nuts and avocados—are actually good for you.
What the most reputable diets also agree on is that too much sugar and too many processed and fried foods are a primary driver of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and a host of health problems in the United States. Switching from an unhealthy to a healthy way of eating is hard for many people—that's why diets so often fail. For more on nutrition and HIV, click here.
Treat HIV. Current HIV treatment guidelines recommend starting ARV therapy at least as soon as your CD4 count drops below 500. The primary rationale for this advice comes from data showing that untreated HIV, and the resulting high level of inflammation, can greatly increase the risk for cardiovascular disease, liver disease and other conditions. Some experts now recommend treating at even higher CD4 counts for the same reason, especially in those with a high underlying risk for cardiovascular disease, liver disease or other health problems.
Not everyone has the same underlying risks for the kinds of diseases that the panel was most concerned with, however. For instance, people with no family history of heart disease, who have never smoked and who don't have hepatitis C or B have a low baseline risk for becoming ill with cardiovascular, liver or kidney disease. For such a person, the decision about when to start treatment might be different from that of a person who does have a family history of heart disease, or who smokes or has HCV. In that regard, the guidelines offer some flexibility.
What is clear, however, is that the longer people wait after their CD4s drop below 500, the greater their risk for developing age-related illnesses will likely be. In fact, one of the most potent predictors of a higher risk for the majority of age-related diseases is a CD4 count under 200.
Treat other infections. Current HBV and HIV guidelines recommend that people with both infections should begin HIV therapy (with a backbone of treatments that also fight HBV) as soon as possible. This is because treating HBV early significantly reduces the risk of liver cancer and other liver problems, without significantly increasing the risk of side effects from the medication.
There are a number of highly effective treatments currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat hepatitis C. Many others are being studied in clinical trials or are awaiting FDA approval. For details on these medications, click here. To check out the AASLD-recommended regimens for those who are coinfected with HIV, click here. (The treatment recommendations are based on your hep C genotype and how well your liver is functioning. If you don't know your virus genotype or how well your liver is functioning, these are good things to discuss with your doctor.)
Follow disease prevention and screening guidelines Researchers have begun to question whether certain age-related screening guidelines might need to start at a younger age in people with HIV. For instance, some have questioned whether the most popular screening tool to assess heart attack risk, based on data from the long-running Framingham study, should be modified for people with HIV.
Experts also question whether others tools, such as the FRAX score for assessing bone mineral loss, might need to be adjusted for HIV-positive people. In fact, some now recommend that HIV infection alone counts enough as a risk factor that bone screening ought to begin at a younger age, particularly for HIV-positive men, than is typically recommended.
Studies are being conducted to help identify whether current disease screening guidelines for people older than 50 are sufficient for people with HIV. While we wait for the results of those studies, however, it is important to ask your doctor what types of disease prevention and screening guidelines are in place for a person of your age and medical background and to insist on following those guidelines in your own care. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force produces disease screening and management guidelines may be found here.
Stay socially and mentally connected. Numerous studies have found that people who maintain social connections with their family, friends and colleagues and who engage in activities that they feel add meaning to their lives not only live longer, but also remain healthier than people who are socially isolated and who do not engage in meaningful activities. There are a variety of ways to get connected socially if you aren't close to family and don't have many friends. Many local AIDS service organizations (ASOs) have support groups for people with HIV to connect with one another.
Volunteering with a charity that works on causes you believe in, or with a political campaign, can also help you connect socially. Finding local groups of people to exercise with would accomplish two goals: social connection and fitness.
If you are unable to get out of your house easily, or if you live in a rural area without many opportunities meet like-minded folks, it is possible to connect with others online in forums. Check the POZ Forums for topics that interest you, and begin connecting with others today.
Are there experimental treatments to slow aging in people with HIV?
Many research teams are looking at ways to slow the aging process, both in HIV-positive and HIV-negative individuals. So far there are no proven methods for actually reversing aging. Here's a sample of some of the more promising examples of research to slow aging, and a few examples of those that are more risky and require caution.
Reducing inflammation. As already explained, a chronically over-active immune system is harmful in many ways. Not only can it directly damage our blood vessels and vital organs, but it can also hasten the turnover of our immune cells, leading to immunosenescence.
A variety of compounds—some currently available for other conditions, and others experimental—are being tried in people with HIV to calm the immune system. Available drugs under study include aspirin, HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (commonly called "statins" and used to lower cholesterol), the entry inhibitor Selzentry (maraviroc) and drugs that are typically used to treat malaria. Experimental drugs include those that have been designed to treat arthritis and other inflammatory diseases.
Lengthening and repairing telomeres. If damaged or shortened telomeres lead to immune exhaustion, then we should be striving to repair or lengthen them, right? The best answer to that question is yes, but only if we can do it safely. There's a good reason that we've evolved in such a way that our telomeres break down if a cell reproduces too much: cells that can't stop replicating turn cancerous. Drugs that stimulate the enzyme telomerase, which helps maintain telomeres, could hypothetically increase the risk for certain types of cancers. There are some promising drugs in early animal studies, but a lot of research will be required before they are ready for humans.
Riskier alternatives. One of the most written-about methods for lengthening the life spans of animals and (hopefully) people is extreme calorie restriction. Studies have progressed from insects to small mammals, and thus far it does seem that a diet containing about half of the "ideal" amount of calories for an individual animal can significantly lengthen that animal's life span and increase its health and vitality during those extra years of life. We're a long way from being able to study this method in humans, however, and most researchers and health care providers would not recommend that people with HIV initiate a super-low calorie diet.
Another treatment common in "longevity" clinics around the United States is the use of hormones, such as testosterone, human growth hormone and anabolic steroids. While each of these has been approved to treat the loss of fat and muscle common in people with advanced HIV disease (wasting), none is approved to slow or reverse the aging process and all come with side effects that can actually increase some age-related conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, liver problems and diabetes.
Potent combination ARV therapy is not perfect—all of the available treatments can cause some side effects; the drugs must currently be taken with almost perfect regularity and for the rest of one's life; and all can stop working. That said, many experts now agree that a person who starts ARVs early has a great shot at living a nearly normal life span.
Though rates of age-related diseases are much higher in people with HIV, this doesn't mean that everyone who is HIV positive will have multiple illnesses by the time they reach their 50s. In fact, the actual rates of some age-related diseases remain well under 10 percent in people with HIV. What isn't yet clear is who will be most at risk of which diseases, how vigilant we need to be in screening for various diseases and whether treatment for any diseases will need to be different in people with HIV.
Researchers are actively working on these issues. In the meantime, the best available methods for preventing age-related physical and mental decline are the old standbys: dieting, exercising, maintaining social connections and abstaining from harmful behaviors.
Resource: HIV and Aging - POZ https://www.poz.com/basics/hiv-basics/hiv-aging via @pozmagazine


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DOE secretary says carbon capture and storage is 'ready' at world meeting
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said yesterday that his department "perhaps could do more" to boost carbon capture and storage (CCS) development but emphasized that the "technology is ready" to meet U.S. EPA's proposed greenhouse gas standard.
Moniz made his remarks at the annual Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum in Washington, D.C., where energy ministers from around the world pledged via a new communiqué to continue pushing for carbon capture development via research, new incentives and multinational cooperation.
"Our common goal is to ensure that the conditions are right for all CCS projects currently under construction or in advanced stages of planning to be completed, and we must increase the number of new large CCS demonstrations by 2020," the communiqué states.
The forum's 23 members include the world's largest emitters, like China and the United States, as well as developing countries.
Moniz and Tord Lien, Norway's minister of petroleum and energy, also announced that they were establishing a joint "network" of test centers for carbon capture technology, although they were still working out the details. Simultaneously, the Department of Energy also announced that it would invest $84 million in 18 carbon capture projects aimed at testing various solvents and technologies that could dramatically lower costs.
"We must pursue all of our energy options for a low-carbon world. Carbon capture utilization and sequestration has to be part of the portfolio," said Moniz. Because projections show that the world will continue to burn fossil fuels for a long time, particularly in developing countries, it is critical that research efforts move forward, he said.
Economics remain daunting
The challenge for CCS is that there currently are no coal-fired power plants using the technology, although there are operating projects on natural gas processing plants and a few industrial facilities. One of the two coal power plant projects under construction, Southern Co.'s Kemper Energy Facility in Mississippi, currently is approaching $5 billion, after a $150 million increase in costs announced this month (ClimateWire, Oct. 30).
To date, the Obama administration has invested $6 billion in clean coal technologies, in addition to offering an $8 billion loan guarantee program announced earlier this year. But considering the cost of projects like Kemper, there are questions about whether the department is spending enough to get the technology going beyond a few test projects.
At a Capitol Hill hearing last week, Charles McConnell, executive director of Rice University's Energy and Environment Initiative and a former assistant secretary of Energy, expressed concern that budget cuts to research and development dollars for carbon capture have been more severe than those to other Department of Energy programs.
Asked whether the department needed to spend more, considering the $1-billion-and-up costs of "clean" coal proposals, Moniz said the department is funding eight large demonstration projects in addition to capture research.
"So we could do more, perhaps, but we have multiple geologies. We have saline aquifers, we have EOR," said Moniz. The eight planned department demonstrations include capture projects on ethanol and hydrogen plants, as well as big coal electricity projects like FutureGen 2.0, a $1.65 billion planned project in Illinois.
Southern Co.'s project is 'replicable
The secretary is planning a visit today to the Kemper facility, which would capture 65 percent of the carbon dioxide of a 582-megawatt coal plant when constructed.
"We believe this technology is replicable around the world," said Southern Co. CEO Tom Fanning yesterday.
This is especially so in overseas markets, where gas prices are not blocking coal projects in the same way they are in the United States, he said in a brief interview. He also said that an upcoming review of Kemper's financing before the Mississippi Public Service Commission next year would not add delays to the project, despite speculation.
"Reviews are common for any regulatory issue. It's not unusual," Fanning said.
Meanwhile, Moniz noted that there are currently about 300,000 barrels of oil produced daily via enhanced oil recovery using CO2. Typically, the greenhouse gas comes from natural sources. Considering that the potential for CO2 enhanced oil recovery could be around 3 million daily barrels, the main way to reach that potential is with captured CO2, he said.
"The cost of climate change will be dramatic and overwhelm any of the investment costs we have here," added U.K. Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Edward Davey at a joint press conference with Moniz. "We have to have a well-thought-out strategy," he said, as opposed to just throwing more money at projects.
In that regard, ministers and attendees of the forum said that there are various possibilities to boost the technology beyond the often out-of-reach option of a carbon price, as well as significant lessons to be learned from the construction process of projects like Kemper and SaskPower's Boundary Dam, the only other CCS project under construction in the world on a coal-fired power plant.
Brad Page, CEO of the Global CCS Institute, said that it is important for countries with renewable portfolio standards, like Australia, to include CCS along with wind and solar incentives. "We just want to be on equal footing," he said.


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With only two weeks to go until Election Day, CNN's taking a serious investigative look into our country's undecided voters: hormonal women. I.e., all women. "New research suggest that hormones may influence female voting choices differently, depending on whether a woman is single or in a committed relationship," CNN reports, along with the title, "Do hormones drive women's votes?"
If you're still reading along and not prancing around in the other room, playing "He loves me! He loves me not!" as you pick petals off daisies that represent the presidential candidates you can't choose between because your uncontrollable hormones make it hard for you to make decisions, here's how the study worked:
In the new study's first experiment, Kristina Durante of the University of Texas, San Antonio and colleagues conducted an internet survey of 275 women who were not taking hormonal contraception and had regular menstrual cycles. About 55% were in committed relationships, including marriage.
They found that women at their most fertile times of the month were less likely to be religious if they were single, and more likely to be religious if they were in committed relationships.
I mean, sometimes I feel particularly like an atheist when I'm on my period, but maybe that's just because I'm single! Who knows, really, because I'm a woman so I'm CRAZY.
The researchers found that during the fertile time of the month, when levels of the hormone estrogen are high, single women appeared more likely to vote for Obama and committed women appeared more likely to vote for Romney, by a margin of at least 20%, Durante said. This seems to be the driver behind the researchers' overall observation that single women were inclined toward Obama and committed women leaned toward Romney.
Here's how Durante explains this: When women are ovulating, they "feel sexier," and therefore lean more toward liberal attitudes on abortion and marriage equality. Married women have the same hormones firing, but tend to take the opposite viewpoint on these issues, she says.
"I think they're overcompensating for the increase of the hormones motivating them to have sex with other men," she said. It's a way of convincing themselves that they're not the type to give in to such sexual urges, she said.
So "overcompensating" for slutty hormones = voting for Romney? Huh? We're making a whole lot of assumptions here based on an impressive amount of causation without correlation, aren't we?
Paul Kellstedt, an associate professor of political science at Texas A&M University, said that the paper fails to address that men also have biochemical changes and that "the reader may be left with the impression that women are unstable and moody in ways that extend to their political preferences, but that men are comparative Rocks of Gibraltar." And Susan Carroll, professor of political science and women's and gender studies at Rutgers University, probably had a hard time controlling her rage when she wrote, "There is absolutely no reason to expect that women's hormones affect how they vote any more than there is a reason to suggest that variations in testosterone levels are responsible for variations in the debate performances of Obama and Romney," adding that the research is part of a long and troubling history of using women's hormones as an excuse to exclude them from politics and other societal opportunities."
Despite these points of view, the question CNN posits is still: "Do hormones drive women's votes?" Maybe next time they should ask if most women play "Fuck, Marry, Kill" when they're in the election booth. It's equally plausible!
Image via Zurijeta/Shutterstock.


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Blessingsonthenet.com features 6000 hotel located in all major tourist and commercial destinations of India with online hotel booking option. Blessingsonthenet provides traveller to find and choose from hotel by category , hotel by interest ,budget hotel, hotel near popular temple, hotel by brand or group hotel , Boutique hotel, heritage hotel, luxury hotel, houseboats, Business hotel, weekend getawy hotel, hill station hotel, honeymoon hotel,premium hotel, conference hotel and more.
Neemrana Fort Palace
122nd Milestone,
Delhi-Jaipur Highway
Village Neemrana
District Alwar,
Rajasthan 301705
Neemrana Fort Palace Hotel is the Crown Jewel of the Neemrana Group Enterprise. Built since 1464 AD, and restored in 1980s, Neemrana Fort-Palace is India's oldest heritage resort. It is also Rajasthan's closest palace from New Delhi, situated at 122 kms. on the Delhi-Jaipur highway (Rajasthan, India) - only 100 kms from Delhi's international airport.
Village Kesroli, Near M.I.A Post Office-Bahala
District Alwar, Rajasthan 301 030
The Hill fort, Kesroli is a Neemrana Group Enterprise. Kesroli is located near Alwar (Rajasthan, India).
Verandah in The Forest Barr house, Near Charlotte Lake Matheran, India
Dune Barr House - Verandah In The Forest, Matheranat 100 kms from Mumbai and 1 km from Matheran railway station situated near the lake.Matheran is a British-era hill station accessible by mini-train from Neral (Central Railway). Matheran is characterised by British Colonial era bungalows still maintained with zeal and enthusiasm by some Parsi owners.
Wallwood Garden Blair Athol, Kotagiri Road, Coonoor - 643101,The Nilgiris, Tamilnadu.India
Wallwood Garden, earlier known Blair Athol is a Neemrana Group Enterprise located at Two hours from Coimbatore at Coonoor (Tamilnadu, India). It is built 100 years ago by a Scottish Major General.
Bungalow on the Beach 24, King Street, Tharangambadi - 609313,Dist. Nagapattinam. Tamilnadu - INDIA.
Bungalow on the Beach is a Neemrana group enterprise located 15 km north of Karikal (Union Territory of Pondicherry) at Tranquebar (Tamilnadu, India).
The Gate House is a Neemrana group enterprise located at the entrance of Tranquebar (Tamilnadu, India) located near to the beach.
The Piramal Haveli
Village Bagar
Jhunjhunu District 333 023
Shekhavati, Rajasthan
Piramal Haveli, a Neemrana Group Enterprise is located at Bagar in Shekhavati, a region near Jaipur (Rajasthan, India) known for their Havelis.
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text:
avast 5.1.889 + License
Operating Systems Supported
* Windows 7
* Windows Vista (any Edition excl. Starter Edition)
* Windows XP Service Pack 2 or higher
* Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4
Minimum Hardware Requirements
* Processor Pentium 3
* 250 MB of free hard disk space
Please note that avast! Pro Antivirus 5.0 runs only on PCs with Windows 2000 and newer. Older Windows operating systems (Windows 95/98/ME/NT) are not supported.
Please also note that avast! will not run properly if you have other antivirus software on your PC.
Core and detection
Improved Antivirus and anti-spyware engine
State of the art scanning engine provides reliable protection against viruses, spyware and other forms of malicious software.
Real time anti-rootkit protection
Unique "on access" technology checks all kernel-mode drivers that the operating system is loading for signs of rootkit behavior. This enables even unknown rootkits to be detected and stopped before they can do any damage.
New avast! Sandbox*
Enables potentially exploitable programs (such as web browsers) and/or suspicious executables to be run in a safe, virtual environment. The avast! Sandbox is unique as it runs on both 32 and 64bit platforms.
avast! Community IQ
Most samples we process come from sensors deployed throughout the avast! community in the Behavior shield and anti-rootkit modules. This is a unique source of data made possible only thanks to our huge user base. Most of the collected samples are analysed by a number of automated processes and only a small fraction of the samples need to be processed manually by our virus analysts.
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When a suspicious executable is encountered (during both on-demand and on-access scanning), avast! is able to emulate the program's code in an isolated environment. The code emulator is used for two purposes. First, it is used for generic unpacking. Secondly, it is used in the heuristics engine. Technically, this is done using dynamic translation, a method much faster than traditional emulation techniques.
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Scans all visited web pages and checks all files, pages and java scripts downloaded from the internet. Thanks to the Intelligent Stream Scan feature, the Web shield doesn't slow down your web browsing.
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Checks files downloaded using P2P programs. - ABC, Ares, Azureus, BearShare, Bit Torrent, BitComet, BitLord, BitPump, CZDC++, Direct Connect, eDonkey, eMule, iDC++, iMesh, Kazaa, Kceasy, LimeWire, Morpheus, Opera's DC++, Overnet, Qtrax, Shareaza, SoulSeek, StrongDC++, uTorrent, Vuze, WinMX, Winny2, Zultrax.
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Checks files downloaded while using instant messaging or "chat" programs. - AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), Gadu-Gadu, gaim/Pidgin, Google Talk, ICQ, IM2 Messenger, Infium, Miranda, mIRC, MSN/Windows Messenger, Odigo, PalTalk Messenger, Psi Jabber Client, QIP, QQ, SIM, Skype, Tlen, Trillian, WengoPhone, XFire, Yahoo! Messenger.
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Provides protection against network-based viruses. The module has two main components: a URL blocker, designed to block malicious URLs (as defined by the Virus Lab), and a lightweight intrusion-detection system.
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Detects malicious scripts hidden in internet web pages and prevents them from running and hijacking or potentially causing damage to your computer (Internet Explorer only, 32-bit only).
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Incremental updating system minimizes the size of regular update files.
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New format for the virus definition file speeds up application of updates into avast! 5.0 and reduces demand on CPU/memory, resulting in uninterrupted computer use.
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Optimized for latest Intel Core i7 CPUs
Critical sections of the avast! scanning engine code have been optimized to deliver unrivaled performance on the latest Intel chips.
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avast! runs faster on new multi-core CPUs. A new avast! feature allows the splitting of large individual files between cores, accelerating the scanning process.
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Brand new Graphical user interface
Easy to navigate graphical interface.
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Silent Firewall
The firewall enables you to control incoming and outgoing traffic from your computer. Protection is based on heuristic and behavioral analysis, and a white list of known safe applications. There are three network settings which can be changed depending on the type of connection.
New comprehensive SPAM and fraudulent message filter. It works as a plug-in to MS Outlook and a generic POP3/IMAP4 proxy for other email clients.
For complete on-line protection, we recommend avast! Internet Security. Comprehensive features include firewall and antispam. Click here for avast! Internet Security.
* Note for avast! Sandbox technology:
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not supported:
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* Windows Server 2003 64-bit


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Today, government announced the October result of its monthly Crown Petroleum and Natural Gas Rights Public Tender. Another blah result from a sale that used to bring in hundreds of millions. October produced $2 million.
Tender proceeds in the preceding three months amounted to $1 million.
Gas royalties are no longer material. Through the province's royalty reduction programs, natural gas producers have been taking and accruing more credits than royalties.
Partly because rights on gas-producing properties are being administratively renewed without competitive tenders, this source of revenue has almost evaporated.
Here is a look at the first seven months (April to October) of the last dozen years, shown in 3 year blocks.
British Columbia sees itself in competition with Alberta to attract gas exploration and production companies. As a result, both provinces have been in a race to the bottom. By giving away its natural gas resource, BC has reached bottom and through its plan to provide below cost electricity, the Horgan Government policy is to pay producers to remove this natural resource.
Quite a change from the NDP's promises before the 2017 election.
Real downward shift in collections from natural gas rights and royalties came after Encana founder and Fraser Institue director Gwyn Morgan served as Christy Clark's Liberal transition advisor. Coincidence? I think not. #bcpoli https://t.co/ZXAaZDyD7y
— Norm Farrell, SD44 Board Candidate (@Norm_Farrell) October 12, 2018
Categories: Natural Gas


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Proverbs 11:4 (ESV), "Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death."
Yesterday at church, my pastor taught on the parable of the rich fool, found in Luke chapter 12. During the sermon, he also showed a short clip of several famous, wealthy celebrities expressing what brings them happiness. As they spoke, they were all very adamant about the fact that money and fame did not bring them happiness.
One of the celebrities really stuck with me (she is a very famous singer), because she said she felt happiest when she was able to be herself, and express her creativity. She said being made to do things just for the sake of earning more money, made her sad.
Most of us don't possess wealth and fame, but the world we live in encourages us to look everywhere for satisfaction except God. There are many so called "solutions" to the problems we face, but only One True Answer. Jesus Christ is that Answer. He has told us that He is the Way, the truth and the life. No one can get to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). That means wealth can not save us. Popularity can not save us. Even the good works we do can not save us. Our good works only point people to the One who can save them.
I love it when God speaks…
Luke 12:20-21 NLT, "20 But God said to him, 'You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for? 21 Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God."
Our relationship with God through Jesus Christ is what is most important. Wealth is good when used wisely, but it will one day pass away. We must avoid the temptation to let earthly things that will pass away, replace the solid foundation that we have in Christ.
My pastor summed up His message with this point, "when we have an abundance, we are to be generous and give to others." Instead of giving, the rich fool decided to build bigger barns to store more stuff. It's easy to look to money and "stuff" in search of happiness and security, but these things are not reliable.
We must look to Christ to fill our voids. He will satisfy our desires.
Psalm 145:16 NIV, "You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing."


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Do You Still Love Lucy?
Celebrate the funny lady's 100th birthday
En español | When we redesigned AARP's old Modern Maturity magazine 10 years ago we experimented for a few issues with changing the cover logo to a simple "MM." Of course, it only confused people.
For readers tired of our experimentation, the last straw came when we celebrated Lucille Ball's 90th birthday—and the 50th anniversary of I Love Lucy—with a 1943 glamour shot of Lucy in a strapless bathing suit.
See also: Dolly Parton and her extraordinary career
"Why," more than one flummoxed reader demanded to know, "did you run a picture of Marilyn Monroe on the cover, with no article about her inside?" The combination of blonde, pout-lipped Lucy and the looming "MM" above her head conspired to baffle everyone. Two issues later we were AARP the Magazine, and henceforth we resolved to only run cover photos of celebrities taken sometime within the past half-century.
The whole incident did confirm one thing, however: As talented and beautiful as she was, for us Lucille Ball could never be the 1940s glamour girl who mixed humor, smarts, and beauty with the best of them, and that included Claudette Colbert and Katharine Hepburn. So indelible was the impression she made as the scatterbrained redhead of her sitcom, I Love Lucy, that anything she did before that was irrelevant.
There's nothing wrong with that, and in fact Lucy herself seemed more than happy to live out her days dyeing her hair ever more red and accommodating her fans with a tearful "BWAAAAAAA!"
But as I point out in this episode of my Movies for Grownups radio show to celebrate the 100th anniversary of her birth, Lucy left a legacy that extends far beyond the small screen. From her supporting actress days in the 1930s to her final big-screen curtain call in 1974's Mame, she played women who knew what they wanted, and who had a plan for how to get it. It was a quality never even lost to Lucy Ricardo, forever trying to break into show biz, or buy a new dress, or go to the Copa despite the disapproval of her old-school (if ever-adoring) husband, Ricky.
"Lucy may surrender in the final clinch," film commentator Molly Haskell wrote for us in that ill-fated issue of MM magazine, "but she is no 'surrendered' wife. In the final analysis, Lucy is a fireball who treads a fine line between independence and submission, the stay-at-home wife who wouldn't."
And that has a lot to do with why we still love Lucy.


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High Court To Weigh In On Legislative Prayers
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking a new case on the intersection of religion and government in a dispute over prayers used to open meetings in an upstate New York town.
The justices said Monday they will review an appeals court ruling that held that he town of Greece in suburban Rochester violated the Constitution by opening nearly every meeting over an 11-year span with prayers that stressed Christianity.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the town should have made a greater effort to invite people from other faiths to open its monthly board meetings.
The town says the high court already has upheld prayers at the start of legislative meetings and that private citizens offered invocations of their own choosing.


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Belt and Road: Development of China's Overseas Economic and Trade Co-operation Zones (3)
26 June 2017
Special Economic Zone in Sihanoukville, Cambodia
Cambodia, an important country along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, is on friendly terms with China. With low-level development, it is the second-smallest economy among the 10 ASEAN countries. Since Prime Minister Hun Sen came to power, however, the political situation has been generally stable, enabling vigorous development of the economy. Along with efforts in encouraging foreign investment and relatively low labour and production costs, Cambodia liberalised most of the industries to the outside world after joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2004, enticing many foreign manufacturers to transfer labour-intensive production processes to the country. Taking into account the minimum standard wage of US$153 per month and other expenses, the actual labour cost ranges from about US$160 to US$180 a month.
Meanwhile, many products from Cambodia are offered special trade privileges and additional tariff concessions by the developed countries of Europe and the US. For example, except for some textiles, clothing, shoes and watches, the US currently provides special import treatment under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) to about 5,000 products from Cambodia and other Least Developed Beneficiary Developing Countries (LDBDCs), expanding to include travel goods from July 2016. Cambodia continues to be listed as a recipient of "Everything But Arms" arrangement under the European Union's (EU) Generalised System of Preferences, which came into effect on 1 January 2014, in which, except for arms supply, all Cambodian products are exempt from import duties by the EU. Furthermore, Japan offers a variety of tax privileges for Cambodian imports.
Foreign direct investment has continued to flow into Cambodia in recent years, amounting to about US$1.7 billion of funds in 2015, including about US$400 million from China for investment in local manufacturing, real-estate development, agriculture and various types of services. The continued strong performance of, in particular, the local garment industry and other light manufacturing/processing industries, as well as the construction industry, directly stimulates Cambodia's economic development.
At present, the service industry is Cambodia's largest economic sector, accounting for about 40% of GDP, followed by agriculture, making up about a third. Together, these two sectors employ about half of the country's working population. The industrial and construction sectors make up the rest.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected economic growth in Cambodia to be about 7% in 2016 and 2017. Indeed, the country's current development goal is to drag millions of people out of poverty through sustained economic growth programmes.
Cambodia has utilised special economic zones since 2005, setting up about 30 industrial parks to attract overseas investment in manufacturing. These zones or industrial parks are authorized by the Cambodia Special Economic Zone Board, while mainly planned, constructed and managed by private enterprises or investors. The government only plays an investment promotion role and provides qualified enterprises with tax concessions. By the end of 2016, 11 of the zones had been put into operation, including the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone (SSEZ), a joint development between enterprises from China and Cambodia.
Located in Sihanoukville, Cambodia's only international port city, the SSEZ is a leading state-level foreign economic and trade co-operation zone lead-managed by Hodo Group, a key enterprise of Jiangsu Province, and co-managed by four Chinese and Cambodian enterprises. It is the only Cambodian-Chinese state-level economic zone recognised by the governments of the two countries, and the first co-operation zone signed under bilateral government agreements to establish mutual government co-ordination mechanisms.
Sihanoukville is located in the south of Cambodia, about 210km from the capital Phnom Penh. The SSEZ is ideally positioned with road access to major transport routes such as National Highway No. 4, as well as Sihanoukville Airport and Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, the country's only deep-sea port, which handled more than 70% of Cambodia's total container throughput in 2016.
The overall development area of the SSEZ is 11.13 square kilometres, with an initial development area of 5.28 square kilometres. The basic infrastructure construction has been completed, including a road transport network, a water/electricity supply system, a sewage and sewage treatment system, and a communications system. There are also some standard plants and a multi-functional integrated service centre housing office, residential, dining and entertainment facilities.
The SSEZ, with Hodo Group as the primary investor, is looking to develop industrial clusters of companies in the fields of textiles and garments, hardware machinery and light-industry appliances. After the completion of all the facilities in 2020, the zone is expected to house 300 enterprises generating 100,000 jobs. At the end of 2016, about 100 enterprises from mainland China, Europe, the US and Japan had been established in the SSEZ, mainly in the sectors of textiles, light-industrial products, accessories and other production operations, with some having come on stream.
Tax and Management Advantages
Enterprises that set up in the SSEZ can enjoy a series of tax incentives, including:
- Imported equipment, building materials, spare parts and raw materials used for production are exempt from import duties.
- According to the type of product, enterprises in the SSEZ can enjoy a profit tax holiday of six to nine years. (Cambodia's current general corporate income-tax rate is 20%, while the income-tax rate of relevant resource extraction is 30%.)
- Exports are exempted from export tax.
- Production equipment, building materials, and raw materials of export market service industries are exempt from value-added tax.
Notwithstanding that Cambodia is a low-growth country with poor infrastructure development, the SSEZ's self-built water plant, power plant, and municipal water and electricity network can ensure 24-hour water and electricity supply for enterprises in the zone. At the same time, it collaborates with the relevant government authorities to provide a "one-stop" service window to help enterprises deal with registration, customs declaration, commodity inspection, and certification of country of origin. It also assists in ensuring logistics support including import and export transport, customs clearance and warehousing by introducing logistics service companies into the zone.
Industry Chain and Enterprise Development Strategy
A growing number of Chinese enterprises engaged in light industries, including textile products and clothing, are interested in setting up factories in the SSEZ and elsewhere in Cambodia to take advantage of the low labour costs and GSP tariffs concessions granted by developed countries to Cambodian products. Mostly medium to large enterprises, these investors not only actively map out production activities in mainland China, Southeast Asia and other regions, but many are also adopting transformation and upgrading strategies to develop original design products for sale by mainland and international customers, with some even hoping to carry out their own brand business in mainland China and Southeast Asian markets.
The Cambodian government also rolled out the Industrial Development Policy 2015-2025 in 2015 to develop a roadmap to promote investment and expand the foundations of domestic manufacturing. The vision is to promote industrial upgrading from labour-intensive to skill-driven industry development in Cambodia by connecting regional and global value chains by 2025 to enhance the level of modernisation and productivity.
As a result, Chinese mainland investors setting up factories in Cambodia do not limit themselves to producing low-end products, but also turn out high value or fashion items and accessories. Taking advantage of local production capacity to enrich their product portfolios, which align with the development of brand image and product lines, they can meet Chinese mainland and Asian market needs, supplying mainland and international brand customers with products of higher grades or original designs. Hong Kong's brand design planners and marketing service providers are well-positioned to provide these investors with a comprehensive corporate and brand development strategy, formulating long-term business and investment development plans rather than narrow or piecemeal strategies.
Rich Experience in International Brand Promotion
Philip Tse, Account Director of Paco Communications Ltd (Paco), told HKTDC Research: "In the past few decades, Hong Kong's practitioners in marketing and branding have been planning and executing all sorts of branding and promotional activities for many well-known international brands in the Asia-Pacific region, the mainland included. This is one of the reasons why multinationals are choosing to have their Asia-Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong. Paco specialises in spatial design and promotion for brands. Its creative and project-management teams have served a large number of international clients, including renowned luxury labels, famous fashion brands and international consumer chains. Over the years, it has completed more than 3,000 design-and-production projects of all sizes and has helped clients expand into Hong Kong, the mainland, Southeast Asia (including such Belt and Road countries as Vietnam and Myanmar) and other Asia-Pacific markets. Paco is particularly strong at providing its clients with services in creative designs as well as in the planning and construction of commercial space, including visual merchandising projects such as image counter, brand boutique, exhibition, events & HPP [High Profile Promotion] designs and marketing services. It produces quality furniture and has set up retail image counters in order to provide its clients with all-round one-stop services."
Remarks: For further details, please see HKTDC research article (September 2016):
"Going Out" to Capture Belt and Road Opportunities (Expert Opinion 8): Marketing Global Brands
Labour Management
In order to implement commitments to US trade agreements, Cambodia launched the Better Factories Cambodia Programme in 2001, administered by the International Labour Organization (ILO), to improve the working conditions of employees engaged in the textile and garment industry and enact laws to make the relevant factory assessment a legal requirement for garment export factories. Nonetheless, Cambodia's garment industry is still plagued by strikes and protests. According to the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training of Cambodia, 220 strikes took place at 211 enterprises in 2016, mostly over labour welfare and employees' demands for better working environments.
Labour disputes not only affect the production activities of investors, but may also have a negative impact on the image of investing companies. As such, investors must carefully assess the risks in the early stages of investment and consider the practical issues of employment. Apart from legal requirements and costs, investors are advised to keep abreast of local labour issues, culture and other employment conditions, make proper business arrangements and, if necessary, use third-party factories and related audit services in order to enhance labour and other production conditions to internationally recognised standards. They should develop appropriate contingency plans in advance to avoid individual events that may affect the overall image of the enterprise and brand, relations with the international brand customers, and the long-term development strategy.
Transportation and Logistics Support
Most of the production and export enterprises investing in the SSEZ, as well as other parts of Cambodia, rely heavily on imported materials and equipment. As investors accelerate towards producing higher grades of products, they need to import better value materials of a wider variety to support their production activities in the SSEZ. Efficient transport and logistics services are therefore essential.
China and Cambodia maintain close bilateral trade relations. With the continued flow of foreign capital into Cambodia to invest in local processing and export businesses, many Chinese and foreign transport companies are following in the footsteps of customers to step up the provision of international cargo transport services, including maritime transport and logistics services between China and Cambodia. Among them are Maersk, RCL, SITC, Samudera, COSCO, CMA and Hyundai, which are adding regular liner service to Sihanoukville Autonomous Port to capture the growing demand for international transportation.
Apart from transport services, enterprises investing in the SSEZ should also pay heed to the overall supply chain situation and use appropriate logistics services to ensure the smooth development of relevant production activities. In particular, the supply chain of light-industrial products is becoming more complicated. Accessories such as cloth, plastic and metal hardware for the manufacture of garments and other textiles can be produced in mainland China or other production bases including ASEAN countries. Automated or semi-automated production-line equipment, however, can be produced on the mainland, or in Germany or other developed countries. Overall, the supply chain is becoming increasingly complex.
Furthermore, the international market is changing. For example, mainland and international brand customers have to take into consideration the ever shortening product development cycles of higher-grade fashion products, increasingly requiring their suppliers to equip with "quick response" capabilities. As such, it is advisable for SSEZ companies to use appropriate management systems, information technology, or enlist Hong Kong and other overseas partners to enhance supply chain management services and provide efficient third-party logistics services to facilitate the enterprises' long-term development.
Please click here to purchase the full research report.
Belt and Road: Development of China's Overseas Economic and Trade Co-operation Zones (1)
Belt and Road: Development of China's Overseas Economic and Trade Co-operation Zones (2)
Belt and Road: Development of China's Overseas Economic and Trade Co-operation Zones (4)
Belt and Road: Development of China's Overseas Economic and Trade Co-operation Zones (5)
- Finance & Investment
- Advertising Services
- Logistics & Supply Chain
- Mainland China
- Hong Kong
- Cambodia
- Mainland China
- Hong Kong
- Southeast Asia


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CNN iReporter Chris Morrow interviewed legendary chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall.
Goodall says we are closer to chimpanzees biologically and behaviorally than any other animal, so learning more about them gives us insights into our evolutionary past.
"We also learn to be a little humble, and realize we are part of, and not separated from, the rest of the animal kingdom," Goodall said.
Maybe we can figure what went wrong in our genetic code, causing some to morph into gop, before their policies have us go extinct.
Go tell it to the Christian Conservatives!
I'd like to hear her have a chat with this moron
humans are closer, genetically, to chimpanzees, than horses are to donkeys....
scary thing is, if you breed a horse with a donkey, you get a Mule...
Don't you people love Chimpanzees?
greart woman ! big heart!
Yes she does. She funded the magnate schools JGEMS (Jane Goodall Environmental Magnate Schools) for middle graders to learn and experience first hand our eco system. An excellent oppurtunity for the children to use what they learn in the class room and then actually put that knowledge to use in an out of classroom environment by collecting Data on our local stream systems and protected lands which in turn that information is also actually used. Our child, I feel, received a better education because of her. His ethusiasm for learning under Janes program earned him Presidential Honor Rolls 2 of the 3 years he attended. Janes love for all Gods creatures runs deep. Thank you Jane.
As a kid, I wanted to be just like her.
Nice piece. Love the story about hiding in the barn to watch the chicken laying eggs.
She is my hero. God bless her for all the hard work she has done for our beautiful creatures.
I've read TMZ articles with more content.
I wouldn't brag about reading TMZ articles....who's the real cretin? Seems it's you.
Eeek eeek


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Oysters! One would be hard put to find a produce from the sea more internationally recognized as a gourmet's choice! Moreover, it is the only shellfish you coul survive on if you get marrooned on a desert island! It is a complete food in irself if consumed raw.
For a long time (that is before coming to Japan), I had thought that my country, France, was the place to eat them. Well, I must admit it was a little pretentious from me, especially in the light that more than half of the oysters consumed back at home originated from Japan!
Now the Japanese has come with many ways of appreciating them:
-As in the picture above they would eat them as sashimi with a dash of wasabi and soy sauce.
-Or just a little lemon juice as in Euope, Americas or Oceania.
-Or in another japanese fashion, with ponzu and momijioroshi (succulent!)
-Or, and here Japanese and foreigners are simply crazy about them, as "kakifrai", deep-fried oysters in batter and breadcrumbs with a nice tartare sauce!
-Or finally, and I would recommend the experience to all foreigners, as "kaki-gohan", either with oysters steamed together with the rice, or cooked apart in light broth poured over a bowl of freshly steamed rice!
Of course, any good sushi restaurants will serve oysters as nigiri or gunkan!
In Japan, oysters come from various areas, mainly Hiroshima, Iwate and so on.
As for Shizuoka Prefecture, oysters mainly come from Hamanako inland sallted lake near Hamamatsu City.


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An expected opening to Tour de France
Mike Teunissen avoids crash and chaos to take the first stage
BRUSSELS — Apart from the celebrations of Eddy Merckx's first victory at the Tour de France half a century ago, nothing went according to plans on the race's opening day.
In cycling-mad Belgium, defending champion Geraint Thomas was caught in a crash Saturday and toppled over his handlebars in the finale of the first stage. The race leader's yellow jersey ended on the shoulders of a relatively unknown rider who switched from zealous teammate to ace sprinter.
After the pile-up tore the peloton apart and played havoc with sprinters' teams, Mike Teunissen posted the biggest win of his career with an unexpected, yet remarkable, stage win at the expense of former world champion Peter Sagan, the king of sprints in recent years at the Tour.
Caleb Ewan, an up-and-coming sprinter, took third place on the finish line in Brussels.
The first days of the Tour are always tense and marred by race incidents, and this year's race is not going to be any different.
"The finale was not dangerous," Teunissen said after an impressive burst of power in the final meters that allowed him to pip Sagan. "It's only because the riders were nervous that it was dangerous."
The opening day stage could have turned into another nightmare for Thomas' Ineos team, which is already without four-time champion Chris Froome. The British rider was ruled out of the Tour last month after suffering multiple career-threatening injuries at a warmup race.
But Thomas escaped unscathed. The former track specialist was riding at the front of the race when the spill occurred and he bumped into barriers.
"I'm fine. It was pretty slow by the time I hit them," he said. "I gave myself enough space and avoided the actual crash but with the barriers there was nowhere to go. The main thing is that it didn't do any damage. This first week is all about just getting through."
Thomas's teammate Egan Bernal, another top contender, did not fall but was also held up by the crash. The pair did not lose time as per race regulations because the accident occurred within the final 1½ miles.
Jakob Fuglsang, another favorite, also hit the tarmac about 12 miles from the finish in a separate crash. The Astana team leader remounted his bike with blood on his face and right knee, and tears on his jersey. He needed stitches for a cut above his right eye.
"I think he'll be OK," Astana team director Alexandre Vinokourov said. "First week in the Tour de France is always the most dangerous for the guys."
Teunissen, the first Dutch rider to wear the yellow jersey since Erik Breukink 30 years ago, showed solid nerves after the second spill took out of contention his Jumbo-Visma teammate Dylan Groenewegen, the team's best sprinter.
Teunissen was initially set to be part of Groenewegen's leadout train but quickly turned his focus to personal goals once his leader went down. In the slightly uphill section leading to the finish line on the leafy Avenue du Parc Royal, Teunissen perfectly timed his effort to deny Sagan a 12th stage win at the Tour.
"I thought all the work we had done for quite a long time was suddenly gone," he said. "But I felt good and thought I could maybe achieve a top 5. I was relaxed, with nothing to lose. I opened up and I had a lot of power. It got me to second position and I saw Sagan was going slower than me. I threw myself at the line. Mission accomplished."
Teunissen did not get carried away with his win, though, and promised to keep working for Groenewegen if he recovers well.
"It's only unfortunate for Dylan, hopefully he is OK and can sprint again in a few days," he said. "Still, we have the yellow jersey in our room, it's really strange but also very nice."
The 120.8-mile stage had started in a joyful mood in the heart of Brussels, with Merckx greeted by Belgian fans filling the streets as he stood alongside race director Christian Prudhomme in a red open-top car riding in front of the peloton. Leaving Brussels, the 176 Tour competitors started their loop south of the city at a fast tempo as a group of four riders led by Greg Van Avermaet, a one-day classics specialist from Belgium, immediately formed at the front.
The quartet reached the first difficulty of the day — the Muur van Geraardsbergen, a 1.2-kilometer cobbled climb — with a 3-minute lead. Van Avermaet made a point of honor to be first at the top to the delight of home fans cheering him along on the side of the road. Belgian rider Xandro Meurisse, a member of the initial breakaway, was first at the Bosberg, another climb featuring at the Ronde van Vlaanderen classic race.
Guaranteed the first best climber's polka dot jersey, Van Avermaet stopped his effort soon after and was reined in by the peloton as the lead group was reduced to three men: Meurisse, Natnael Berhane and Mads Wurtz, who were caught with about 45 miles left.
Tour debutant Stephane Rossetto of France then tried a solo escape and was first at the Lion's Mound monument that overlooks the battlefield where Napoleon's troops were defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. But the Frenchman's efforts on open stretches of road exposed to wind were left unrewarded and he was ultimately swallowed up as the final sprint took shape.


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In late June while I was away travelling, Julie from Anglers Rest nominated my blog for the Illuminating Blogger Award, initiated by the FoodStories blog. One of the most amazing things about blogging is learning about and from others, making virtual friends and sharing comments over our posts. Thank you Julie for including me in your list of selected blogs.
The rules of the award are straightforward:
- The nominee should visit the award site (http://foodstoriesblog.com/illuminating-blogger-award/) and leave a comment indicating that they have been nominated and by whom. (This step is so important because it's the only way that we can create a blogroll of award winners).
- The Nominee should thank the person that nominated them by posting & including a link to their blog.
- The Nominee should include a courtesy link back to the official award site (http://foodstoriesblog.com/illuminating-blogger-award/) in their blog post.
- Share one random thing about yourself in your blog post.
- Select at least five other bloggers that you enjoy reading their illuminating, informative posts and nominate them for the award. Many people indicate that they wish they could nominate more so please feel free to nominate all your favorites.
- Notify your nominees by leaving a comment on their blog, including a link to the award site (http://foodstoriesblog.com/illuminating-blogger-award/).
One small fact about me: while family history is now my passion, I once wanted to be a marine biologist.
My selection of the six other blogs I've chosen for their illuminating, informative, and frequently evocative posts are:
- As They Were for bringing Irish researchers together and keeping everyone in the loop with what's happening in the Irish research world.
- Becoming Prue for her interesting stories on some unusual and talented ancestors.
- Family History Fun for personal stories and informative posts on Scottish research possibilities.
- Finding Eliza for teaching me so much about African American heritage and family history research as well as personal life stories.
- Roots'n'Leaves for teasing out the local history stories as well as the family stories from her ancestor's diaries.
- Seeking Susan ~ Meeting Marie ~Finding Family for descriptive posts which tug at the heart strings.
As always I could nominate so many more, but as hazardous as this task is, I'll stick with this half dozen. You can see my list of blogs I love to follow here, some of whom I've nominated in past awards.
Also if you've never heard of Genealogists for Families please do have a look at the blog and the link on Kiva. This group has grown enormously in less than 12 months and is doing a world of good to help less advantaged families help themselves. Our small loans are repaid progressively releasing funds to make further loans.
Why not join us? Your small loan can make a big difference!