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This post originally appeared at The Rogue Adventurer.
On October 2nd the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (حركة الجهاد الإسلامي في فلسطين), the al-Quds Brigades, took to the streets of Fatah in Southern Gaza to mark the 17th anniversary of the assassination of Fathi al-Shaqaqi. Shaqaqi was assassinated in Malta by the Mossad in 1995. Each year, the al-Quds Brigades take to the streets for a military parade to mark the event, brandishing a variety of arms and carrying all manner of banners and flags. This year's parade, however, was a little different, and held some interesting items for those of us following the spread of various small arms. Amongst the usual assortment of Russian AKMs & Eastern Bloc copies, Chinese Type 56 variants, PKMs, and RPG-7 variants and copies were two far less common weapons: the F2000 and AK-103 assault rifles.
The F2000 Standard, as seen here, is manufactured only by FN Herstal of Belgium, whilst the AK-103 is predominantly manufactured by the Russian state-owned Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant (IZHMASH). Neither of these rifles would ordinarily be expected to turn up in Palestine, and certainly not in the hands of a designated terrorist organisation such as PIJ. Where then, might such weapons have come from? The F2000 is in very limited service in Pakistan, and 55,000 rifles were sold to the Saudi Arabian National Guard in 2005. Neither avenue of supply appears likely. The AK-103 is in use in limited numbers in Morocco, and is thought to be in limited service with Iranian Takavaran naval commandos. Whilst PIJ has some pretty strong links to Iran, sending a handful of foreign-purchase weapons in place of locally-produced or previously stockpiled (cheaper) weapons would seem an unusual choice for them to make.
The AK-103 and the F2000 do not typically turn up in the hands of the same fighting force (an exception to this rule may, occasionally, occur in India). There has been one recent conflict however, where precisely this has happened – Libya. These two weapons were used concurrently by both parties to the conflict, in fact. AK-103-2 rifles were found in the hands of pro-Qaddafi (and later rebel) fighters; these were manufactured in Russia and possibly served as precursors to a deal to produce such weapons locally. 367 F2000 Standard assault rifles, meanwhile, were known to have been exported by FN Herstal to Libya in 2009. They were intended for use by the elite 32nd 'Khamis' Brigade, and were later captured by rebel fighters and put to use against regime forces. The F2000 rifles seen in Libya were sold and equipped with FN Herstal underbarrel 40x46mm grenade launchers, known as the LG1. The F2000s pictured in Gaza also sport LG1s.
Much has been written about the threat of arms proliferation in the wake of the collapse of the Qaddafi regime. The UN Security Council has heard from the United Nations Inter-agency Assessment Mission to Sub-Saharan Region that "Governments in the region are faced with… the smuggling of weapons from Libyan stockpiles". IPS news quoted a former rebel as saying ""All of the militias are involved in selling weapons. There is no law in Libya, still no functioning government, and the country's security forces are too weak to control the situation, so selling weapons is regarded as legal by many of the rebels". Whilst much of the international community's attention has been focused on the threat of Libya's MAN Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS), small arms such as these assault rifles are responsible for 60-90% of worldwide conflict fatalities each year.
So, have assault rifles from the Libyan conflict ended up in Gaza? The PIJ only appear to possess a few of each rifle, in keeping with a limited proliferation profile expected of weapons deemed prestigious by Libyan rebels. Whilst 7.62×39 and 5.56×45 calibre cartridges (for the AK-103 and F2000 rifles, respectively) are both reasonably common in Gaza, it is worth noting that no 40×46 grenades can be seen accompanying the LG1 grenade launchers in these photos. Both rifles would certainly be of use to PIJ, however tactically they would hold little advantage over any other serviceable assault rifle in the hands of guerrilla fighters. With the comparatively low level of marksmanship training that such militias have, these rifles won't give them much of an edge. The exception may be the LG1 modules, if ammunition for these is readily available in Gaza. Whilst this is definitely more of a symbolic victory for them – modern assault rifles perhaps giving the appearance of a more effective force – the question of where such arms came from merits further investigation. Of course, without inspecting the weapons in question it is impossible to determine their true origin. We cannot even tell, from these photos, whether these AK-103 rifles are AK-103-2 models or not. Regardless, it is certainly strange that both would appear in images from Gaza at the same time.
Damien Spleeters, Belgian freelance journalist and arms researcher, has an excellent piece (focusing on the F2000) available here. This piece was front-page news in Belgium, and explores how such weapons may have ended up in Gaza, and what the Belgian government can do to assist in tracing such misappropriation of weapons produced in their country. There is further commentary on his blog.
The Group for Research and Information on Peace and security (GRIP) first commented on the F2000's presence in Gaza.
Thanks to Will McCants for his assistance in adding a little context to the photos.
The photo was taken from the PIJ al-Quds Brigades website.


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". . . Lawrence distilled six fundamental principles of insurgency that even today have remarkable relevance. First, a successful guerrilla movement must have an unassailable base - a base secure not only from direct physical assault, but from attack in other forms as well, including psychological attack. Second, the guerrilla must have a technologically sophisticated enemy. The greater this sophistication, the greater this alien force would rely on forms of communications and logistics that must necessarily present vulnerabilities to the irregular. Third, the enemy must be sufficiently weak in numbers so as to be unable to occupy the disputed territory in depth with a system of interlocking fortified posts. Fourth, the guerrilla must have at least the passive support of the populace, if not its full involvement. By Lawrence's calculation, 'Rebellions can be made by 2 percent active in striking force and 98 percent passively sympathetic.' Fifth, the irregular force must have the fundamental qualities of speed, endurance, presence and logistical independence. Sixth, the irregular must be sufficiently advanced in weaponry to strike at the enemy's logistics and signals vulnerabilities."
Schneider goes on to explain how an insurgency can be defeated. What is remarkable is how closely Lawrence's principles apply to the Americans in Iraq. Most notable is the technologically sophisticated - and dependent - army that, thanks to Rumsfeld's faulty calculations, is of insufficient strength in numbers to secure the territory it must cover.

subset: commoncrawl


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Inspiring women to put family first
The following essay is part of a series in which dozens of women will reveal what women they most admire. The series is part of "Women Rule," a unique effort this fall by POLITICO, Google and The Tory Burch Foundation exploring how women are leading change in politics, policy and their communities. See more essays here.
When I first met Jane Otai, she was my guide in Kenya. I was visiting a slum outside of Nairobi, where she is a senior program adviser for Jhpiego, one of our partner organizations that bring quality health care to women and their families.
Since then, Jane has become my friend. When POLITICO asked me to write about a woman who inspires me, I realized she's also one of my heroes. Over the years, she has taught me that the most powerful resource in poor communities around the world is the women who live there.
Jane runs a mothers' group in which women who have every excuse to give up give one another reasons to keep fighting. They talk about how hard it is to make ends meet. They talk about their dreams for their children. During my first visit to Jane's group, I asked them (through Jane, who was interpreting between Swahili and English) about family planning. Did they want to use contraceptives? If so, why did they want to space their pregnancies? One woman said something I'll never forget: "I want to give every good thing to one child before I have another."
( WOMEN RULE VIDEO: A look at some of women stepping up and taking charge)
Afterward, Jane told me her own story — that she does this work because she sees herself in the young mothers that she helps every day.
Jane grew up in a slum. By the time she was in her early teens, her friends were starting to get pregnant and leave school. What Jane says saved her, however, was the support she got from her church community. The man she calls Pastor Arthur fed her when she didn't have enough to eat. He made sure she completed her education, attending Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda and receiving a masters degree from United States International University in Nairobi.
Pastor Arthur also gave her comfort when her sister died of AIDS. More than anything, he gave her hope, which is what her peers lacked. Now, Jane is making sure that dozens of women who grew up just like her have a community they can go to for support. They have the mothers' group and they have each other.
Almost two years ago, our foundation co-hosted the London Summit on Family Planning, a big gathering at which we hoped to raise women's voices and enough money so that more countries could help more women get the information and the contraceptives they need to plan their families. I invited Jane to join me on the opening panel, and she completely stole the show from the government leaders who were there. She is passionate and strong, she speaks from painful experience, and she is a symbol of what the family planning movement is all about: the potential that lies in all women and girls to achieve great things.
She, in fact, believes access to family planning helped her succeed. "Because somebody told me about family planning very early I was able to take it up and be able to space my children and delay my first pregnancy. And that is the reason I am here," Otai told the audience that day.
Family planning is my top priority and my passion. I spend my time learning about it. I travel to meet women who tell me they want contraceptives but don't have access. I analyze our foundation's investments to maximize their impact. I love the work I do, and I mark the beginning of my journey as a family planning advocate as the day I met Jane.
My friendship with Jane constantly reminds me that, while I can do a lot to help, the solutions come from the bravery and resilience and talent of millions of women in communities around the world.
Melinda Gates is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest private foundation in the world.


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MACON, Ga. (Feb. 7, 2007) - The Atlantic Sun office named co-Athletes of the Week as ETSU's Anna Marie Ricciardi (Canfield, Ohio) and Belmont's Lauren Williams received the honors, which was announced by league officials on Wednesday. Ricciardi received the award for her career-setting performance at the Carolina Invitational on Saturday.
Ricciardi put together a record setting day with her third-place finish in the high jump. The senior jumper posted a NCAA Provisional qualifying mark with a personal-best leap of 5-10 (1.78m), and it also broke Kim Harrell's 27-year-old school record of 5-9. Her previous indoor best came last season at the 2006 Niswonger Invitational when she cleared 5-9.75 (1.75m).
It marked the second time the public relations/marketing major has won the award as she took home the honor last season (1/25/06).
The Atlantic Sun Athlete of the Week is announced every Wednesday during the 2007 indoor track season.
The 12-member league headquartered in Macon, Ga., consists of Belmont, Campbell, ETSU, Gardner-Webb, Jacksonville, Kennesaw State, Lipscomb, Mercer, UNF and Stetson with Florida Gulf Coast and USC Upstate beginning competition in 2007-08.


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Minimal sedation dentistry with Warwick area dentist Dr. Edward Kaiser means you can have dental treatments with little or no discomfort. They'll be done quickly while you're lightly sedated.
You can let go of feeling uncomfortable, hiding your smile, or putting off dental work due to a busy schedule. You'll feel relaxed and stress-free during your dental appointment, and reassured that you've taken care of your oral health.
If you want a gorgeous smile that turns heads, you may want to learn about the range of dental services offered at Oaklawn Family Dental Association. Warwick area cosmetic dentist Dr. Edward Kaiser is dedicated to producing quality results and beautiful smiles.
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Safe, anxiety-free dentistry with Warwick area dentist Dr. Edward Kaiser means you can have dental treatments done quickly while you're lightly sedated, with little or no discomfort.
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There are a range of TMJ treatment available for people suffering from jaw pain caused by TMJ disorder. TMJ dentists recommend starting with the simplest treatment options first.
TMJ pain can often be relieved with some simple TMJ exercises to stretch and loosen the jaw muscles. Other things that can help include anti-inflammatory medicines (like Tylenol or Advil), moist heat packs, avoiding hard or chewy foods, or physical therapy.
Treatment for TMJ disorders may include a TMJ mouth guard (also known as a night guard or bite plate) or a TMJ splint. These dental appliances fit into your mouth like an orthodontic retainer or athletic mouth guard, and they hold your teeth apart while you sleep to relieve stress and tension.
A bad bite can cause TMJ pain. If you have crooked teeth, your dentist may recommend orthodontic braces to straighten your teeth and improve your bite. Worn-down teeth or dental work may require some reconstructive dentistry.
TMJ surgery is the jaw treatment of last resort. Your TMJ dentist or TMJ physician can refer you to a TMJ specialist, like an oral surgeon experienced in jaw surgery. There are different TMJ surgeries available; a TMJ surgeon can help you decide if one might be right for you. However, it's essential that you try less invasive, reversible treatments for TMJ first!
TM disorder describes a variety of conditions affecting the temporomandibular joint - TMJ (the point where the jaw opens and closes) and nerves related to chronic facial pain. These problems are now more easily diagnosed and treated than in the past. Women are twice as likely to be affected than men.
The exact cause of the disorder is unknown. Some factors are related to an improper bite or malocclusion, injury, arthritis, severe stress, or a combination of factors. Clenching or grinding teeth, a condition called bruxism, may develop from stress or as part of a sleep disorder. This can tire muscles and create painful spasms, causing even more pain. Repeated muscle problems may affect the joints, resulting in tissue damage, muscle tenderness, and more spasms, perpetuating a cycle of pain.
Proper diagnosis is critical to make sure you receive treatment for your particular condition. Your dentist will recommend treatment after conducting a thorough health history, clinical exam, taking appropriate X-rays, and perhaps confirming the condition through other diagnostic tests.
Your dentist may prescribe a multiple-phase treatment plan. Only minor corrective treatment may be needed. Treatment may be simple or require more steps for alleviating the condition, depending on the degree of severity. Some of these treatments include:
In most cases, the symptoms related to TM disorders can be successfully treated to reduce or eliminate your discomfort. Postponement of treatment usually results in more damage to the joint, muscles, or teeth. Be sure to discuss any questions you may have about TM symptoms and treatment plans with your dentist.
By Brian J. Gray, DDS, MAGD, FICO


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Gift Wrapped
Gift Wrapped is a simple holiday game from Nitrome, the creators of Scribble, Tanked Up and a number of other flash games. Christmas day has arrived and you're itching to open presents. But first you need to know which ones are yours. Look at the toy shown in the box at the top of the screen then try and find it in the pile of wrapped gifts below. As the levels progress the number of presents increase and they can be rotated or stacked on top of each other, making your toy hunting much more difficult.
Gift Wrapped has a nice cheery pace and keeps you hopping along with remixed Christmas music. A timer also ticks down at the bottom of the screen during each round. Finding the right present faster nets you a few extra seconds you carry with you as you progress. The more gifts you correctly identify, the higher your score. An online scoreboard tracks who's the best present sleuth of them all.
Free from complicated rules or gameplay, Gift Wrapped is both a fun distraction and a good way to get in the holiday mood.


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Susan O'Leary
In and Out
Writers, artists, musicians, seekers, journey East when they are called, creating their own map along the way.
For every seeker, a singular journey.
Intuition. Awareness. Perception.
Not a religion, no one to worship. Only to live, deeply.
Nothing is everything.
There are many pathways. Find your own.
For some, to begin: just breathe…knowingly.
This is the journey celebrated in BREATH TAKING.
This is the fragile awareness of Susan O'Leary's map within, of being and non being, of breathing words that can't be said. Norbert Blei
Let it go
Let it go,
the weathered teaching,
let it go.
Fear, love, anger, desire,
Release them all.
Stay here.
What Have You Learned About the Breath Today?
There is this story of the teacher who gave his students this practice: come fresh each day with something new they have learned about the breath. Each day, a new recognition. Or dawning. Or delicate understanding of the feel, touch, awareness, heartbeat of the breath. For years. This same, one, practice for years. It is in and out. It is not simply in and out. It is. In and out.
Being home
Ours is an old house in the heart of a Midwestern American city. This is where we daily breathe (not always in mindfulness), where we daily walk, where we daily sit. This is where our practice starts in the morning and ends at night. We do not always practice well, we don't always remember we're practicing. But this is the space where our mindfulness over years has grown. And as we quiet and settle, our house quiets and settles with us.
The kitchen reminds us we are home, and I love to stand in its silence. There are two windows in the kitchen – one above the sink looking over the back yard, one on the stairs that come down into the kitchen from the second floor. In the seasons when windows are open, you feel the breeze move with bare attention through the room. When I open the door for the back hall leading to the basement, and open the window on the landing, the breeze then moves differently. It comes together with fullness, entering from three directions. Inside and outside. In and out. Silence. Air.
Right now there are tomatoes on the windowsill from our younger son Tom's garden. There has been little rain this year, and they have ripened unusually small, a lovely coral red. In the morning, when I'm making coffee, I watch our collie in the back yard through this window. He goes to the border of the garden and stands. Still. Then, after this pause, he walks around the edge of the garden fence (we put it up to keep him out), and makes his way in. Each day since they have ripened he goes to the tomato plants, slowly pulls a tomato off, then comes back out of the garden, sets the tomato on the ground, and begins to eat. He is a timid dog, and it is a surprise to see him be so bold.
And the dailiness of life here is just this: we stop more now, we see more slowly. My husband Jim notices a need, and answers it before anyone asks. Tom stops at the bell in passing, and invites it. I see the pleasure of a dog trespassing in a garden. The transformation is small and present. And it has changed our life.
No one has accused us yet of enlightenment. We still argue. We still have days that start wrong and stay wrong, old hurts that get remembered and then nurtured. But this is the difference: we know more easily our way back now. Somewhere in old patterns of distance, we will be kind. Or stop and listen. We will decide out of love to understand, to open our heart just a little more, though instinct and pattern say to close it.
A presence, a sense, cannot help but change what surrounds it; I have seen that as a teacher. Being with children you learn how families nurture kinship, responsibility and happiness. And also how repeated disappointment and want in a family can turn to anger and despair. Each year some few children bring that anger to school, and you see how their anger affects other children, how it can change a room. It took me years of practice to understand this simple thing: mindfulness transforms not just the practitioner, but the place. If we all know that anger can suddenly change a room, change a space – doesn't, too, love? Doesn't, too, mindfulness?
The practice entered our house twelve years ago with the breath. With that simple, surprising awareness of now. Now our practice has become home. There is emptiness to sense in the house, to quiet in. The awareness of our two older children, Nate and Nora, both grown, both gone to lives beyond this house, and yet always returning. Difficulty, sorrow, illness; celebration, joy, all have passed here, all have found their way, some staying, some surely to come again. But moments of peace, of mindfulness, have grown over years, and settled in the rooms, too. The breath sent out and brought in. Presence becoming. This is our home, where we are.
We are here, a family. The walking of daily life takes us from room to room, from cupboard to table, from book to bed. The sitting of daily life brings the family together at meals, gets bills paid, offers the refuge of a favorite chair. The breath of daily life, often unnoticed, is life itself. Walk. Sit. Breathe. This is where we know our path. Footsteps repeat. The movement of the house becomes known parts of our life. The practice settles in our hearts here.
from BREATH TAKING, Cross+Roads Press, 2005, 71 pp. illustrated by Emmett Johns, $12


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Sebelum menutup tahun 2019, berikut adalah Top 100 Films of the Decade, dari kurun waktu 2010-2019. Curated by Bavner Donaldo.
Top 100 Films of The Decade (2010-2019) was last modified: Mei 27th, 2021 by
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LAFAYETTE -- "No regrets."
That's how Jax Mercantile President Jim Quinlan feels three weeks after making a controversial decision to stop selling assault rifles and high-capacity magazines throughout his outdoor gear retail chain, including the store in Lafayette.
He doesn't deny that a fair number of customers were angry enough that they pledged never to shop Jax again, but Quinlan said the bulk of the reaction he has received has been from those applauding the stand he took in the wake of the tragedy in Newtown, Conn. The killer in the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting that left 26 people dead -- 20 of them students -- used a Bushmaster .223-caliber AR-15 rifle, classified by the federal government as an assault weapon.
Until mid-December, Jax sold the popular AR-15 model rifle. The chain also no longer sells magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds.
"The feedback that I've directly received has been overwhelmingly positive," said Quinlan, who estimates that of the 500 to 1,000 emails, letters and phone calls he's personally gotten since the policy was announced, 80 percent have been supportive of his decision. "The common theme has been one of thanking us for having the courage to take a stand."
A quick look at Jax Mercantile's Facebook page reveals a long list of visitor comments -- many impassioned -- from both sides of the issue. One supporter of the company's decision wrote that she would "patronize Jax whenever possible" while an opponent pledged to "never walk through your door again."
"Another worthless company giving in and giving up our 2nd Amendment rights. Might as well close your doors now," Trent Neutgens of Waconia, Minn., posted last week.
Chris Nugent in a late December post thanked the company, which has five locations in Colorado and one in Iowa, for its decision.
"It's refreshing to see a business owner act on their principles rather than on what's best for the bottom line," he wrote. "Firearm owner and 30-year supporter of Jax here, and will continue to be."
The gun counter at the Lafayette Jax did a steady business Thursday, with several men looking over the wide array handguns, hunting rifles and shotguns the store still sells.
Bob Towery, a hunter from Erie, walked out of Jax with several boxes of ammunition. He disagreed with the store's decision to discontinue the sale of certain firearms and magazines because he said it perpetuates the notion that guns are to blame instead of the person pulling the trigger.
"The problem with the Aurora shooting and the Connecticut shooting is not the firearm or the availability of firearms -- it's the problem of mental health," he said. "All the signs were there (with Aurora theater shooter James Holmes). We've become a complacent society in that regard."
But Towery said the store's policy wouldn't be enough to keep him out of Jax, which sells a wide selection of other outdoor gear, such as fishing rods, snowshoes and sleeping bags.
Travis Ness, a former Marine from Thornton who was looking for firearms accessories at the Lafayette store Thursday, criticized Jax for overreacting to the Connecticut shooting and feeding into the "misguided concept that firearms are the problem and not the people who use them."
Ness said he knows at least 10 people who will no longer shop at Jax because of Quinlan's decision. He said he hasn't entirely given up on Jax himself, but he won't make the store a priority stop for outdoor-related products going forward.
"It wouldn't be the first place I'd get something anymore," he said.
Quinlan understands the passion his decision has ignited. Aside from lost customers, he said an employee at the Lafayette store resigned after the policy against assault rifles went into effect.
But the father of three said the Newtown shooting, which he told the Camera in December left him feeling "sick," was a pivotal moment for him.
"This isn't the type of thing that I want my company selling," Quinlan said of assault-style weaponry.
He takes heart at a recent proposal he received from a Lafayette resident, who offered to buy Jax's remaining inventory of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and destroy them. While appreciating the gesture, Quinlan was unable to take him up on it.
He had long ago sold out.
Contact Camera Staff Writer John Aguilar at 303-473-1389 or email@example.com. ___
(c)2013 the Daily Camera (Boulder, Colo.)
Visit the Daily Camera (Boulder, Colo.) at www.dailycamera.com
Distributed by MCT Information Services


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Madhyamika mädyŭ´mĭkə [key] [Skt.,=of the middle], philosophical school of Mahayana Buddhism, based on the teaching of
emptiness(see sunyata) and named for its adherence to the
middle pathbetween the views of existence or eternalism and nonexistence or nihilism. The school was founded by Nagarjuna (2d cent. AD) who came from S India to the Buddhist university of Nalanda and entered into debate with other schools including the Hindu logic school, or Nyaya, and the Buddhist Abhidharma. About 25 works are attributed to Nagarjuna, the most important being the Middle Stanzas (Madhyamika Karika). Nagarjuna took key ideas from early Mahayana scriptures and expounded them using a rigorous dialectic. He attacked the concept of essence or
self-nature(svabhava) as self-contradictory, holding that nothing self-existent can be subject to change. He then refuted all possible answers to philosophical problems such as causality, identity, and change by showing their logical inconsistency, with the aim of freeing the mind from all speculative views, which are the source of attachment that prevents enlightenment. He claimed to have no view of his own and to be attempting only to refute the views of his opponents. Nagarjuna's ultimate principle of emptiness was equated by him with
dependent co-arising,the causally conditioned, relative nature of all phenomena. He declared that there is no distinction between nirvana and samsara (bondage in birth-and-death) when the latter is seen without delusory concepts. He recognized two levels of truth, the absolute and the conventional. Thus his system does not deny the validity of empirical experience in its own sphere, although it does not accept the possibility of statements about absolute reality, which is beyond conceptualization. Nagarjuna's immediate disciple Aryadeva carried on his teaching. About AD 500 Bhavaviveka, heading the Svatantrika school of the Madhyamika, held that the Buddhist position can be put forward by positive argument. The Prasanga school, championed by Candrakirti, opposed him and reaffirmed the simple refutation of opponents by reductio ad absurdum as the true Madhyamika position. Santideva (691–743) wrote the philosophical and inspirational classic Bodhicaryavatara (tr. by M. L. Matics, Entering the Path of Enlightenment, 1970). Santaraksita and Kamalasila were the chief representatives of the Madhyamika's last phase, a syncretism with the Yogacara school that was transmitted to Tibet. Madhyamika was also transmitted to China as the San-lun, or Three Treatises, school, introduced by Kumarajiva.
See T. R. V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (2d ed. 1960, repr. 1970); D. T. Suzuki, Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism (1963); R. H. Robinson, Early Madhyamika in India and China (1967); F. Streng, Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning (1967).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Buddhism


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Hi my beautiful and lovely friends, this is your girl Tashnee.V.Mavee. Welcome back to my blog, I hope you like today's post.
Have you ever took time to be grateful to your body?, or just give gratitude to your body?
Most of the times we spend time hating ourselves the way we look. I am one of the people who do the same. But I came to realize that actually our body does lots of beautiful things for us.
Why should I compare myself with other people or how my friends look. Why should I stress myself trying to look like beyonce. While God blessed me with everything.
Instead of me complaining about my shape and the way I look in the mirror. What I do every time when I wake up. I give thanks to God for creating me the way I am and so much things he has blessed me with. Then I go to my mirror and talk to it.
I always tell my reflection that my body is perfect, my stretch marks are part of my body. Their beautiful and natural tatto. I remind myself every day that the girl I used to be 15yrs ago has come and gone with that tiny body without stretch marks, flat tummy or even pimples
This is the knew me and I am grateful and thankful for the way I look now. Being grateful to your body is a good thing. You need to understand the importance of having more gratitude in your life.
What about you my dear friend are you grateful for your body?Yes, that body. The one that you're in right now. I know we all miss that body you used to have when were a teenager,or the body you had before you got married.
You need to appreciate and be thankful to God for keeping you alive till this moment, the beautiful family he has blessed you with and many more other things.
Here are things you must be grateful for and give gratitude too.👇👇👇👇
Our body:
Our hands we use them to cook and hug our loved ones. etc
Our feet helps us to take a walk in a garden and so many more thing's you can do with your legs.
Our eyes help us to see light and beautiful things around us.
Our breast help us to breastfeed our kids.
Our body help us to give birth to our children.
There are so many things you can be grateful and thankful for. Instead of spending more time hating your body, put yourself in one of those people's shoes,who can't use their:
And much more other things their body cant do for them. We spend our time complaining about stretch marks, you hate your figure, you hate your belly. At least be grateful and thankful to what you have. Show Gratitude to everything in life
Thank you for stopping by have a blessed day


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Barack Obama is not George W Bush," the liberal French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy told me in a recent interview for al-Jazeera. "Everybody knows that."
Until a few years ago, "everybody" included Edward Snowden. The 29-year-old former CIA technical assistant, responsible for one of the biggest intelligence leaks in US history, first considered "exposing government secrets" back in 2008, according to the Guardian, and then chose not to because "the election of Barack Obama . . . gave him hope that there would be real reforms, rendering disclosures unnecessary".
But then the intelligence analyst, like the rest of us, "watched as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined in" and as a result he "got hardened".
After the NSA surveillance scandal, which comes hot on the heels of allegations that the Obama administration spied extensively on the Fox News reporter James Rosen and secretly wiretapped the offices of the Associated Press, it isn't just Snowden who has been "hardened".
In the US, the Huffington Post splashed on an image of Obama morphing into George W Bush, an image first used on the cover of the New Statesman in 2009. The president "finds himself in Bush territory", said the Obama-supporting Washington Post. Here in the UK, the Guardian's Americanophile-in-chief, Jonathan Freedland, labelled the president "George W Obama".
How times change. "In the field of counterterrorism and on the issue of executive power as a whole, Obama has distressingly begun to resemble George W Bush," I wrote in this magazine in October 2009 under the headline "Barack W Bush". Ten months in to the president's first term, Obamania was still in full flow and my piece was received in liberal circles with a mix of ridicule, scorn and outrage.
Claiming that Obama was "nothing like his predecessor", Ken Gude, vice-president of the pro-Obama Centre for American Progress, mocked me for having "unrealistic expectations" of the US president. That has been the standard defence from Obama apologists in the past five years. It's not Barack's fault that his "fucking retarded" critics on the left (to quote the former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel), who "ought to be drugtested" (to quote the president's former press spokesman Robert Gibbs), hold him to unfairly high standards.
I guess we shouldn't have taken it seriously when Senator Obama claimed in 2005 that President Bush's Patriot Act "seriously jeopardises the rights of all Americans and the ideals America stands for". We shouldn't have listened when he pledged to end the "illegal wiretapping of American citizens" in August 2007. We should have put our hands over our ears in November that year when we heard Candidate Obama, on the campaign trail, outlining his plan to "lead by example" on human rights and civil liberties. "That's easy," he said. "Close down Guantanamo. Restore habeas corpus. Say no to renditions. Say no to wireless wiretaps."
Nor should we have expected a professor of constitutional law to respect a constitutional right to privacy (or, for that matter, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize to opt for diplomacy over drones).
These were unrealistic expectations. We should have assumed the worst. We should have predicted that Obama would not just continue where Bush left off but – astonishingly and shamelessly – go far beyond Dubbya in several respects.
Consider the row over mass surveillance. "Any analyst at any time can target anyone," Snowden told the Guardianon 9 June. "I, sitting at my desk, had the authority to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email." On Fox News on the same day, Bush's former NSA director Michael Hayden confirmed that the agency's surveillance programme had indeed "expanded" under Obama, adding that "there is incredible continuity between the two presidents".
Second, Obama authorised six times as many drone strikes in his first term in office as Bush did over two terms. Dubbya had terror suspects detained and even tortured; Barack just has them bumped off.
Third, Obama has sanctioned the extrajudicial killing – again, by drone strike – of four US citizens since 2009. Where is the liberal outcry? The Bush administration killed the Buffalo-born Kamal Derwish in 2002 – but claimed he was collateral damage and, to be fair, never claimed the legal right to assassinate Americans in the way that the Obama administration has done, with its Orwellian "kill lists" and "secret panels".
Fourth, on war powers. Senator Obama told the Boston Globe in December 2007 that "the president does not have power under the constitution to unilaterally authorise a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation". Yet President Obama took the United States into war with Libya in 2011 even though Colonel Gaddafi posed zero threat to the security of the US. Despite his imperial pretensions, Bush allowed Congress to vote on the invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan; on Libya, Obama didn't bother to ask.
The US president is cool, calm and mediasavvy. But presidents must be judged by their policies, not their personalities. And, seen from a liberal perspective, US national security policies aren't pretty. Don't take my word for it. Just think about the verdict of the former Bush press spokesman Ari Fleischer, who gleefully wrote on Twitter after Snowden's NSA revelations: "Drone strikes. Wiretaps. Gitmo. [Obama] is carrying out Bush's 4th term."
Mehdi Hasan is a contributing writer for the New Statesman and the political director of the Huffington Post UK, where this article is crossposted. His new interview series on Al Jazeera English, "Head To Head", airs on Fridays at 9pm.


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Morrison joined by Robinson, Ramone on new album
NEW YORK (AP) — Matthew Morrison has a guy crush, and it's someone more than twice his age: Smokey Robinson.
"I love women, but just looking into his green eyes, he can melt you," the 34-year-old "Glee" star said with a laugh. "He's just an amazing, beautiful man. I love him so much."
Robinson, 73, appears on a duet with Morrison on "The Wiz" classic "Ease on Down the Road." It's from Morrison's sophomore album, "Where It All Began," due out June 4 on Adam Levine's 222 Records.
Morrison said he recorded before Robinson, but wanted to redo his vocals after hearing the Motown legend's magic.
"I was so inspired by his performance on the song that I wanted to kind of match his energy," he said in an interview Monday from London.
Morrison's album, which includes songs made famous on Broadway, was produced by Phil Ramone, who died of complications stemming from heart surgery last month.
"When he said yes, it was a game changer," Morrison said of getting his "dream producer."
Morrison said an ill Ramone surprised him by coming to the November taping of his PBS special, "Matthew Morrison: Where It All Began — Live From the Bushnell," to air June 1.
"Just listening to him (talk about) working with Billy Joel and Barbra Streisand and just hearing these great stories; some were heartfelt and some were vulgar, stuff I can never repeat, but that was a great part of the journey," he said.
Morrison has appeared on Broadway in shows such as "Hairspray," ''Footloose" and "The Light in the Piazza," which earned him a Tony nomination.
He released his self-titled debut in 2011 on Mercury Records, and his upcoming album is the first release on Levine's new label. He said the multiplatinum singer was an easygoing boss.
"He's such a fan of these songs, of this genre ... we can talk about Frank and Sammy and Dean Martin for days," he said. "He really treated me as he wanted to be treated as an artist. ... He came a couple times in the studio just to kind of hear where we were and he just absolutely loved it. I never felt so free in a recording process."
Morrison recorded the album in between his schedule for "Glee," where he stars as Spanish teacher and glee club coach Will Schuester. Fox recently signed the show for two more years, and Morrison plans to stick around.
"As an actor it's rare to find a steady gig, so I'll definitely stay on for a while," he said.
Follow Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MusicMesfin


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Pacha Dubai has announced that next 4th and 5th of July, in Ibiza, from 10 am till 2 pm and from 4 pm till 7 pm at El Hotel Pacha will be celebrated the recruiting day for Pacha Dubai!
Here you have the official poster with all the most important details and infos about these interesting job opportunities in Dubai!
So… the community of Ibiza by night wishes you good luck and don't forget to read our disclaimer!


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Show ended
Surprise! Peppa Pig, George and their friends are back in a brand new live stage show, Peppa Pig's Surprise. It's a lovely day and Peppa is playing outside with her friends. Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig have got a surprise for her and George - they can't guess what it is, can you? Enjoy fun, games and of course, surprises in this charming, colourful new show with new songs and new life size puppets, Peppa Pig's Surprise promises to be the perfect theatre show for all pre-schoolers!


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C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, 266 times on two key prisoners from Al Qaeda, far more than had been previously reported.
The C.I.A. officers used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum. Abu Zubaydah has been described as a Qaeda operative.
A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.
The 2005 memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The New York Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged more than 100 times with harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and to halt his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method was not previously known.
The release of the numbers is likely to become part of the debate about the morality and efficacy of interrogation methods that the Justice Department under the Bush administration declared legal even though the United States had historically treated them as torture.
President Obama plans to visit C.I.A. headquarters Monday and make public remarks to employees, as well as meet privately with officials, an agency spokesman said Sunday night. It will be his first visit to the agency, whose use of harsh interrogation methods he often condemned during the presidential campaign and whose secret prisons he ordered closed on the second full day of his presidency.
C.I.A. officials had opposed the release of the interrogation memo, dated May 30, 2005, which was one of four secret legal memos on interrogation that Mr. Obama ordered to be released last Thursday.
Mr. Obama said C.I.A. officers who had used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods with the approval of the Justice Department would not be prosecuted. He has repeatedly suggested that he opposes Congressional proposals for a "truth commission" to examine Bush administration counterterrorism programs, including interrogation and warrantless eavesdropping.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has begun a yearlong, closed-door investigation of the C.I.A. interrogation program, in part to assess claims of Bush administration officials that brutal treatment, including slamming prisoners into walls, shackling them in standing positions for days and confining them in small boxes, was necessary to get information.
The fact that waterboarding was repeated so many times may raise questions about its effectiveness, as well as about assertions by Bush administration officials that their methods were used under strict guidelines.
A footnote to another 2005 Justice Department memo released Thursday said waterboarding was used both more frequently and with a greater volume of water than the C.I.A. rules permitted.
The new information on the number of waterboarding episodes came out over the weekend when a number of bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the blog emptywheel, discovered it in the May 30, 2005, memo.
The sentences in the memo containing that information appear to have been redacted from some copies but are visible in others. Initial news reports about the memos in The New York Times and other publications did not include the numbers.
Michael V. Hayden, director of the C.I.A. for the last two years of the Bush administration, would not comment when asked on the program "Fox News Sunday" if Mr. Mohammed had been waterboarded 183 times. He said he believed that that information was still classified.
A C.I.A. spokesman, reached Sunday night, also would not comment on the new information.
Mr. Hayden said he had opposed the release of the memos, even though President Obama has said the techniques will never be used again, because they would tell Al Qaeda "the outer limits that any American would ever go in terms of interrogating an Al Qaeda terrorist."
He also disputed an article in The New York Times on Saturday that said Abu Zubaydah had revealed nothing new after being waterboarded, saying that he believed that after unspecified "techniques" were used, Abu Zubaydah revealed information that led to the capture of another terrorist suspect, Ramzi Binalshibh.
The Times article, based on information from former intelligence officers who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Abu Zubaydah had revealed a great deal of information before harsh methods were used and after his captors stripped him of clothes, kept him in a cold cell and kept him awake at night. The article said interrogators at the secret prison in Thailand believed he had given up all the information he had, but officials at headquarters ordered them to use waterboarding.
He revealed no new information after being waterboarded, the article said, a conclusion that appears to be supported by a footnote to a 2005 Justice Department memo saying the use of the harshest methods appeared to have been "unnecessary" in his case.


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#computers #mandala
Technological Mandalas Made from Soldered Computer and Radio Components
Technological Mandala No. 2 is the latest work from Italian-born, London-based artist Leonardo Ulian who carefully solders a myriad of computer components, circuitry and microchips to create these precisely symmetrical mandalas. Of his work Ulian says:
With the Technological Mandala series I combined the suggestive and spiritual meaning of the Indian Mandalas with something that has been perceived as far from that sphere of influence, technology. The search of perfection as necessity within the electronics industry has stimulated my curiosity to produce this series of pieces in order to evocate that specific need. I wanted to show what has been hidden from the eyes of the consumer, representing electronic circuits as extraordinary objects where the perfection of the design can becomes almost something ethereal. The shapes and colors of the single components intrigued me for pure aesthetic reasons with the consequent loss of the actual functionality of the component itself. My circuits/ Mandalas do not activate lights or do other complicated function, but they simply function as stimulus to produce simple questions like: what will happen if a real electric current flows through the Circuit/Mandala?
While this is certainly the largest and most complex of his mandala works he has many more smaller pieces you can see in his online gallery. Photography courtesy Gigi Giannella. (via lustik)
#computers #mandala
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. You'll connect with a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about contemporary art, read articles and newsletters ad-free, sustain our interview series, get discounts and early access to our limited-edition print releases, and much more. Join now!


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DCF Anti-Drug and Trafficking, Ink 501(c)3 & Michigan Rescue and Restore Coalition Educating, Engaging and Empowering Advocates Against Human Trafficking, Substance Abuse and Homelessness. Website Under Construction - Please Review!
MIRRC/DCFADT Home
Events, News & Update Blog
Right the Wrong!
MIRRC Leadership
Coalition Contacts
kNOw Monroe County Anti Human Trafficking Coalition
Downriver Coalition of Families Anti-Drug and Trafficking, Ink.
A Picture: Worth More Than A Thousand Words and More Like 27-Million Lives…
Michigan State Senator Emmons is Michigan's leading voice on Human Trafficking
Streamed live on Jan 10, 2014 Human Trafficking Conference & 124 Questions for your Review and Consideration
PPT Presentation "Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) by DNWCD/RaSands
Richard A. Sands, regrettably unable to attend…
VA Project Home - Supportive Services for Veteran Families
"Human trafficking creates a new subset of people living in homelessness."
MI Legislative Solutions to Human Trafficking – Prayer Vigil
Petition U.S. Department of Education: Help teach kids about historical and modern slavery…
Look Beneath the Surface Training
Community Intervention Project Update
Community Intervention Project - Breaking the Chains of Abuse...
IJM Gather. Act. End Slavery: The 4 C's of Advocacy
The issue of human trafficking is complex and often overwhelming
Joel Osteen, Lakewood Church Support US Bill to End Sex Trafficking
Heise Addresses FBI Human Trafficking Busts in Michigan, Nationwide
John Walsh discusses sex trafficking, and how American is the number one offender in the world.
Pay-it-forward and play-it-through...
Michigan Senator Judy Emmons meets with members of the Human Trafficking Advisory Board
MIRRC RaSands - Social Justice 2013 MA Practicum Project
MIRRC & FAN-DC 3-day Community Intervention Project Training Program
Petition - Detroit City Council, Wayne County Commissioners, Michigan and Federal Legislators
Hard Corps: Porn and Sex Trafficking | A documentary film
Running Drugs Out of Town – FAN Downriver Chapter & MiRRC
Anti-Trafficking Poster Child: A Faith-based Coloring Book
Eve asking Adam to: Look Beneath the Surface
Look Beneath The Surface – In Plain English
Events for Christians - Serving the Detroit Metropolitan Area
Michigan Senator Judy Emmons: Stronger Human Trafficking laws badly needed…
If You Don't Think Human Trafficking Happens In Your Zip Code, Think Again?
Narcotics, Human Trafficking and Guns - Delta 3Point Triad
TSA Hard Corps: Porn and Sex Trafficking - A documentary film
Surge in heroin addiction shifts to Metro Detroit teens
Support Michigan Anti-ATM Bridge Card Abuse Laws
SE Michigan Round Table – Abolitionist Practitioners and Advocates
Forced underage prostitution on rise in Metro Detroit and beyond, Troy panel says
2012 - Inventory and Evaluation of the Current Shelter and Services Response to Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking
Community Group: Voices for Justice Awareness Event – Human Trafficking Awareness & Advocacy
Community Awareness: involving the sexual exploitation of children and/or child prostitution…
Toledo Human Trafficking Conference
Senior Town Hall meeting on Senior Bullying and Abuse
Awareness is Key to Setting them Free! Christian Events 4 Detroit…
Michigan – Drugs, Guns and Human Trafficking "Redlight Redemption: A Reality Film About Sexual Slavery"
NOT TODAY is the first feature-length, faith-based film to tackle human trafficking, a global disease…
Michigan Abolitionists Looking Beneath the Surface
U.S. Learning More About Human Trafficking
Awareness is key to setting them free!
"Hands Holding Stephanie" Story – Underage Labor, Sex & Drug Trafficking Death
Prevention, Protection, Prosecution & Partnerships
Human Trafficking and Intersections with Code Compliance Training
April 19th 2013 Program: "Human Trafficking in Our Midst"
MIRRC Human Trafficking Conference Comes to Lansing
Michigan Rescue and Restore Coaliton offer Hands That Heal Training
MIRRC Human Trafficking
Happy Valentine Day. Is It Fair for All?
The Downriver Coalition of Families Anti-Drug and Trafficking, Ink a 501(c)3 and Michigan Rescue and Restore Coalition is about "Building Bridges" with other organizations committed to combating Human Trafficking in all its ugly forms.
We are available and willing to work alongside other agencies, non-profits, governmental and civic groups, churches, para-churches, social services and health departments.
To raise awareness of this atrocity with an expectation that will foster ideas, programs, services to individuals within the city, region and state with knowledge on the journey toward eradicating Human Trafficking!
Within our Coalition we promote a brotherhood among all who are Abolitionist Against Human Trafficking. Building healthy relationships for the greater cause!
MIRRC welcomes participation from Northern MIchigan with the establishing of Michigan Rescue and Restore Coaliton-North. We welcome the leadership of Dora Gage who is a dynamic and energetic voice for hope and help in that region. For those of you in Northern Michigan give a hand to helping develop this coalition to be a fiery and passionate source to women and children as it relates to trafficking.
A healthy community making a harmonious sound of unity and strength.
The Downriver Coalition of Families Anti-Drug and Trafficking, Ink 501(c)3 and
Michigan Rescue and Restore Coalition is all about "Building Community." We acknowledge our commitment to work within our state to engage the broader community to help us help you gain access and information to what is going on in our region. Armed with data, together we can boldly and confidently tell the story, provide the help and promote healing to our community and the people who are most vulnerable. We value the people of our State for their love for humanity to become incensed about the violation of the human rights of women and children. Because of this human bond together we can make a difference and build a stronger community so more people can be educated, and equipped to serve the hurting, deliver them and set them free from the bondage of Human Trafficking.
"Building Hope for Survivors of Human Trafficking." Let restore the value of life and humanity. What is a life worth to you? Help us to fight this social injustice with passion.
We take damaged lives and restore to wholeness. Help, hope and healing is possible. Gain insight to change a life.
We offer to take the shackles from the heart and mind of survivors of human trafficking. We bring freedom to those bound with care and compassion.
Every woman and girl is looking for hope. Michigan Rescue and Restore Coalition is that beacon of light and renewed hope!
Share your comments, suggestions and questions with us. We look forward to helping you understand and get involved. This website is currently under reorganization and we apologize for the inconvenience!
/s/ Richard A. Sands, MA Executive Director and Chief Compliance Officer
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In early December, Wired's editor David Rowan spent three days with the WhatsApp founders and was given unprecedented access to them and their business. His full feature appears in the next edition of Wired's UK edition, published on March 6 (and with subscribers a few days earlier). Here are extracts from the feature.
When he was living on welfare, Jan Koum's family collected food stamps a couple of blocks from the unmarked Mountain View office that now houses his messaging company, WhatsApp.
An émigré at 16 from Communist Ukraine—where phones were routinely tapped and classmates questioned for mocking politicians—Koum and his mother could rarely afford to call family back home.
So when, at 31, he left a job at Yahoo! with enough cash to launch his own business, it made absolute sense that he would work on democratizing phone-based communications. He had just three rules as he experimented with the early iterations: his service would defiantly not carry advertising, an experience satisfyingly absent from his Soviet upbringing; it would not store messages and thus imperil individual citizens' privacy; and it would maintain a relentless focus on delivering a gimmickless, reliable, friction-free user experience.
Five years after launch, WhatsApp is among the world's most popular and profitable phone apps—and one which Facebook has just acquired for $16 billion, plus $3 billion for its founders and small staff. On a typical day in January, more than 18 billion messages were sent through its network, two billion more than in early December—and a whisper away from the 19.5 billion sent daily via SMS. Because some messages went to multiple recipients, that amounted to 36 billion daily messages received. Some 450 million people are active monthly users (including a quarter of the UK population), up from 400 million in December, 300 million last July, and 200 million last January. That "active" sets WhatsApp apart from many big-number competitors: as Koum huffed on Twitter last May, "Comparing total registered users and active users is like comparing Ferrari 250 GTO with a skateboard." And most of them are paying a pound, a euro, or a dollar as an annual fee.
How did an avowedly nontechnical founder build a product that, at current growth, is on track to cross a billion users early next year? How, in a market saturated with mobile-messaging apps, has it stayed ahead of Apple's iMessage, Tencent's WeChat, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, LINE, Kik Messenger, Kakao-Talk, and more—and all with a staff of just 50?
Pinned to Koum's desk in his open-plan office is a handwritten note signed by his cofounder and early investor, Brian Acton: "No ads! No games! No gimmicks!" Alongside the note is a pair of walkie-talkies that Koum is using to understand better how to simplify the voice-messaging function.People need to differentiate us from companies like Yahoo! and Facebook that collect your data and have it sitting on their servers.
"We're the most atypical Silicon Valley company you'll come across," says Acton, a clean-cut, red-faced 42-year-old from Michigan, whose appearance contrasts markedly with Koum's 188cm-tall, dark, unshaven look. "We were founded by thirtysomethings; we focused on business sustainability and revenue rather than getting big fast; we've been incognito almost all the time; we're mobile first; and we're global first." He and Koum, he adds, are "the yin and yang—I'm the naïve optimist, he's more paranoid. I pay attention to bills and taxes, he pays attention to our product. He's CEO. I just make sure stuff gets done."
Acton was employee number 44 at Yahoo!, working on display advertising, shopping and travel, then keyword advertising. A computer-science graduate from Stanford, he'd grown up in suburban Florida playing golf: his adoptive father had attempted a professional golf career, while his mother had built an air-freight business. In 1997 he interviewed Koum for a job in systems security. They both left Yahoo! on the same day, October 31, 2007. They kept in touch as they slowly considered their next moves, often playing ultimate frisbee together. It was Koum's birthday, February 24, 2009, when he ran excitedly on to the frisbee field and told Acton that he'd just registered a company to make a phone "status" app. It would be called WhatsApp—"Zap" was another contender—and would simply indicate whether it was convenient to receive a call.
The first release, in May 2009, went nowhere. But a month later, Apple introduced push notifications in iOS 3.0. That led Koum to rethink WhatsApp as a full, cross-platform messenger app that would use the phone's contacts folder as "a prebuilt social network," and the phone number in place of a login. He had gone through three Skype accounts the previous summer because he couldn't remember his passwords and user names, and he was determined to make his app "just work." By September, when it went live, Acton had decided to join Koum, to lead an investment round, and to experiment with business models that would bring in revenue but also ensure controlled growth that their infrastructure could support.
"We'd grow superfast when we were free—10,000 downloads a day," recalls Acton. "And when we'd kick over to paid, we'd start declining, down to 1,000 a day." At the end of the year, after adding picture messaging, they settled on charging a one-time download fee, later modified to an annual payment.
From the start, they refused to carry advertising—which, according to Koum's first tweet, on August 28, 2011, channelling Fight Club's Tyler Durden, "has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need."
"There's nothing more personal to you than communicating with friends and family, and interrupting that with advertising is not the right solution," he says now. "And we don't have to know a lot about our users. To target advertisements well, companies need to know where you are, what you might be doing, who you might be with, what you might like or not like. That's an insane amount of data. Besides, I grew up in a world with no advertising. There was none in the Communist Soviet Union."
Koum, 38, grew up Jewish and "a rebellious little kid" in a tough village outside Kiev. "It was so run-down that our school didn't even have an inside bathroom," he says. "Imagine the Ukrainian winter, -20°C, where little kids have to stroll across the parking lot to use the bathroom. Society was extremely closed off: you can read 1984, but living there was experiencing it. I didn't have a computer until I was 19—but I did have an abacus."
Other sample extracts from the Wired magazine feature:
The founders' insistence on focus
"The F-word here is focus," Koum says. "All software bloats to the point when it sends and receives e-mail. Jamie Zawinski said that. The difficult part for us is adding features without making the product more complicated." Acton adds: "People ask for a desktop version, for user names—but we focus on the utility of the app, its simplicity, the quality of the service. Ads, games, gimmicks—that stuff gets in the way. We don't want to build a hookup app so you can find someone weird to talk to. It's not what we're about. We're about your intimate relationships." When they add new features, it is only after intense discussion and experimentation and a conviction that execution will simplify rather than bloat the service. For the recently rolled-out push-to-talk voice messaging, it takes a single tap to record and send a voice message; to play it, a phone will automatically switch from speaker-mode to soft volume when its proximity sensor detects that it's being held near an ear.
The founders' view of Snapchat
"It's not 100 percent clear to me what's working about Snapchat," Brian Acton says. "Great, teenagers can use it to get laid all day long. I don't care. I'm 42, essentially married with a kid. I don't give a shit about this. I'm not sexting with random strangers. I send the 'I love you's in text. She's sending me photos of our baby. These are memories. It's not clear to me that being goofy with Snapchat necessarily creates that level of intimacy. Clearly [Snapchat cofounder] Evan Spiegel only has his pulse on one part of the world. We have a whole wall of stories about people who got to know each other long distance and eventually got married. You're not going to do this over Snapchat. And people want chat histories. They're a permanent testimony of a relationship."
On whether governments have demanded access to WhatsApp servers
"There really is no key to give," Koum says. The US National Security Agency, he insists, has no access to users' messages. "People need to differentiate us from companies like Yahoo! and Facebook that collect your data and have it sitting on their servers. We want to know as little about our users as possible. We don't know your name, your gender… We designed our system to be as anonymous as possible. We're not advertisement-driven so we don't need personal databases." This is more than a business position for Koum. "I grew up in a society where everything you did was eavesdropped on, recorded, snitched on," he says. "I had friends when we were kids getting into trouble for telling anecdotes about Communist leaders. I remember hearing stories from my parents of dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, sentenced to exile because of his political views, like Solzhenitsyn, even local dissidents who got fed up with the constant bullshit. Nobody should have the right to eavesdrop, or you become a totalitarian state—the kind of state I escaped as a kid to come to this country where you have democracy and freedom of speech. Our goal is to protect it. We have encryption between our client and our server. We don't save any messages on our servers, we don't store your chat history. They're all on your phone."
On being acquired by a large company
(quoted before the Facebook acquisition) Jan Koum says: "We worked in a large company, and we weren't that happy. Facebook Google, Apple, Yahoo—there's a common theme. None of these companies ever sold. By staying independent they were able to build a great company. That's how we think about it." Brian Acton adds: "I worry about what [an acquiring] company would do with our population: we've made such an important promise to our users—no ads, no gimmicks, no games—that to have someone come along and buy us seems awfully unethical. It goes against my personal integrity."


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She calls herself "a tinkerer at heart."
And ever since Catherine Mohr walked into a Boston-area bike shop looking for a high school job repairing drive trains and spokes, the New Zealand-born surgeon and inventor has taken tinkering to a mind-boggling high art here in Silicon Valley.
As director of research at Sunnyvale-based Intuitive Surgical, makers of a surgical robot called da Vinci, Mohr bridges the fields of medicine and technology as she tries to build upon the already amazing advances in robotic surgery. Like other new and disruptive technologies, the practice of surgeons remotely using robotic "surrogate" hands instead of their own to perform operations has generated controversy in some parts of the medical community. A spate of litigation and questions about cost-effectiveness have partially deflated Intuitive's stock price in the past year, but the company recently introduced its newest version of the da Vinci and plans to expand into new surgical areas.
We spoke with the MIT- and Stanford-trained Mohr. Her comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Tell us a little about your background and how your experiences growing up set you on this path.
A: I was born in New Zealand, but came to the United States so my dad could do his postdoc and we ended up staying. While my mom's a biostatistician and my dad's a biochemist, I never thought growing up that I'd do anything terribly medical in my life. We were a scientific family and I always loved taking things apart for school experiments, but I only started to realize that I was a tinkerer at heart when I got a job as a bike mechanic. I loved bicycles and I loved machines.
Q: You've sort of made a career out of tinkering. What was it that you loved so much about the process?
A: I think it was that ability to learn about something by taking it apart that got me. You can really figure things out that way, and that's been a paradigm for almost everything I've worked on as the years went by.
Q: Tell us about the road that led you to the world of robotic surgery. It was not a straight path, it seems.
A: I was going to be a chemistry major at first and then become a professor, but I realized I was really a tinkerer at heart, so the chem major was abandoned for engineering. I spent time in college building and racing electric cars. But I decided to leave before getting my Ph.D. and instead worked with electric cars in Southern California, where I became program manager for (legendary racer and vehicle designer) Rod Millen.
But what happened to me is what happens to a lot of people in tech: You go from being an individual contributor to project manager to finally VP of engineering and you find yourself managing people who are managing people who are doing the things that got you into engineering in the first place. For a lot of people, that's a natural progression, but it wasn't making me happy.
Q: Why the decision to go to Stanford for a medical degree? That's quite the pivot.
A: I went to observe an experimental surgery with a surgeon friend of mine. They were testing a new device and it failed and the surgeons and tech people were talking past each other, trying to figure out what had happened. It was geek-speak on one side and medical jargon on the other. Thinking about that afterward made me realize that I was really interested in working with technologies to help fix the human body, which is really the ultimate machine. Just designing medical devices wasn't enough for me, but I loved being in the OR and that hands-on aspect of surgery, so I decided to go to medical school.
Q: Yet when you finished, you didn't go into practice.
A: My husband was working at Intuitive back in 2001 and they were working on the da Vinci robot, so I watched its continuing development while I was still in school. I suggested to a surgeon I was working with doing minimal-invasive bariatric surgeries that we try the da Vinci. Intuitive later invited me to do consulting for them. I graduated and then started doing tech evaluation and product development for Intuitive, which I've been doing ever since.
Q: How is robotic surgery, using something like da Vinci, better than the old-fashioned way with human hands?
A: Think of the robot as an expansion of the surgeon. I think of it as giving the surgeon superpowers, things like better vision and finer dexterity. The robot is what we call a telemanipulator, where the surgeon is at the controls moving knobs. And all the things the surgeon looking into the monitor sees and does is done through this intermediary. When the surgeon makes a motion with their hands, this tiny instrument becomes a surrogate hand inside the body, doing exactly the same motion as the surgeon is doing.
Q: What do you see as the future of robotic surgery?
A: I'm looking for new technologies that'll give surgeons even more superpowers. We'll do things like use special fluorescent dyes that will mark out structures inside the body, like lymph nodes or blood vessels, so the machine helps us move beyond the capabilities of the naked eye. I see huge advances in using these markers to tag cancer so that when the surgeon sees no more glowing tissue, they can be sure all the cancer has been taken out.
This is all about using technology like a GPS for surgeons inside the body. I see the hardware getting smaller and smaller, with tools to do microsurgery that will become less and less invasive.
Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689 or follow him at Twitter.com/patmaymerc.
Birth date: Nov. 23, 1968
Birthplace: Dunedin, New Zealand
Position: Senior director of medical research, Intuitive Surgical
Previous jobs: Bicycle mechanic in high school; consultant engineer in college and graduate school; mechanical engineer at AeroVironment building hybrid cars. In medical school, she founded Veresure, a medical device startup that was sold to Aragon Surgical in 2006, and built a chocolate coin stamping machine that was never sold to anybody.
Education: Bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering, MIT; M.D. from Stanford School of Medicine in 2006
Family: Her husband is Paul Mohr; they have an 11-year-old daughter
Residence: Mountain View
Five Facts About Catherine Mohr
1. She took up playing the cello three years ago because she believes one should always be a beginner at something.
2. Although you can't tell from her accent, she is a Kiwi, and was recently honored as a "World Class New Zealander" by her fellow expatriates.
3. She loves to cook, from the basics to molecular gastronomy, and makes her own yogurt.
4. When building the family home (the subject of her second TED talk), she put in a gray-water system that feeds her native garden.
5. She was 24 years old before she had driven more miles in a car than she had on motorcycles.


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Initially, director Phillip Noyce considered removing the scene, he said when I met him last week. He fretted that perhaps it would be misinterpreted in "our current context," by which he means he was worried that audiences would think he was trying to compare the radicalizing of South Africans brutalized by apartheid with suicide bombers martyring themselves in the cause of religious fundamentalism. As the director reminded, the South Africans did not want to die they didn't strap bombs to themselves and walk into crowded marketplaces but were prepared to. And so the scene was left in.
Yet no matter its intention or meaning, Catch a Fire can't help but be viewed as a metaphor. A true story about the wrongful imprisonment and prolonged beatings that led to the radicalization of Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke, bearing the grin that morphs into a growl) in South Africa, it also feels at home in the company of The War Within and Paradise Now, two films from last year that asked the audience not to empathize with terrorists but to understand a little of what drives them to suicide. At the Toronto International Film Festival last month, Catch a Fire debuted alongside another film that illuminates modern-day headlines with long-ago and faraway incidents; Mon Colonel, written by Costa-Gavras, is as much about the degradation at Abu Ghraib and the war in Iraq as the French-Algerian conflict at its center.
When first we see him, Patrick Chamusso is a nobody in the middle of nowhere: a foreman at the Secunda oil refinery that was, in the early 1980s, a symbol of South Africa's prosperity and independence. He has a wife, Precious (Bonnie Henna), and two kids and, a few miles away, a mistress with whom he has another kid. He's nothing more than a hard worker and kids' soccer coach, and he has lived his whole life keeping his mouth shut and his head down. He forces his mother-in-law to turn down ANC radio broadcasts lest someone rat him out to the Security Branch; he defers to white police officers, referring to them as "boss"; he reprimands his own people for using whites-only facilities, if only to keep the authorities off his own back.
But when the Secunda plant is partially destroyed, Patrick is arrested, detained, and severely beaten by thugs who work for Security Branch Col. Nic Vos (Tim Robbins), a fictional representation of two officers who nearly killed Chamusso during his nine months in prison. Vos is more monster than man, though Noyce and screenwriter Shawn Slovo (whose parents were two of South Africa's most beloved anti-apartheid activists) try to keep him from slipping into gross caricature. We're meant to see him as a man merely doing his duty and protecting his family, to whom he introduces Patrick during a particularly tense sequence drenched in a thousand coats of subtext. In time, the audience comes to view Vos as a stand-in for soldiers who engage in torture at their commanders' demand; he's reprehensible and responsible, but, like Patrick, also a man just carrying out orders and doing his job to care for the family.
In the end, Catch a Fire plays like some weird hybrid on the crazy-quilt filmography of Phillip Noyce, which includes small films made in his native Australia and the Sharon Stone sexcapade Sliver (for which the director's been repenting for years). It crams together the boom-boom political machinations of his Tom Clancy adaptations (Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games) with the intimate intricacies of his recent return to small-scale stuff (Rabbit-Proof Fence, The Quiet American); the studio's selling it as a firebombing thriller when it's much, much more. As metaphor for the making of martyrs or true-life tale, it's gripping stuff a big-scale thriller and small-scale heartbreaker about a man pushed too far.
What it's definitely not is the standard-issue movie about apartheid; there's no white protagonist, no pale-faced hero riding in on his high horse to save the oppressed black man in need of his wisdom and strength. It's the story of Patrick Chamusso, who intended no harm till harm was done to him. Fact is, he could be just about anyone anywhere South Africa, the Middle East, right next door.


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In praise of the Sonoma County Wine Library
I had a number of hours of downtime yesterday in Sonoma County between my noon lunch in Graton (which lasted about 2 hours) and my 8 p.m. dinner at John Ash & Co., in Santa Rosa, so, at the suggestion (via Facebook) of my old friend Rusty Eddy, I drove up to Healdsburg to hang out at the Sonoma County Wine Library.
I know the Library and its director, Bo Simons, fairly well, having given some author's talks and done some signings for A Wine Journey along the Russian River and New Classic Winemakers of California: Conversations with Steve Heimoff. I had done a ton of research there as well, especially for Wine Journey. When I arrived, Bo was as the counter, working. The first thing he asked was if I'm working on a new book.
"No," I said, and in answer to his puzzled expression, I explained, "Too much work, not enough money. Besides," I added, "most of my extra creative writing (beyond my day job, I meant) is online, on my blog."
Now, Bo is a print person. I suppose you have to be if you work in a library. He mentioned certain 18th century Englishmen as his ideal writers to read (thereby in his own, discrete fashion letting me know what he thinks of blogging), and then he said, with a sheepish smile, "I'm a book guy." And here, he held up a hand and rubbed his thumb against his index finger, and he didn't have to explain the symbolism. Bo likes the feel of good paper, of a properly bound cloth cover, and, unless I miss my guess, he also likes the smell of new printer's ink and the sharp look of Caslon on a page.
At lunch that day I'd run into Laurence Sterling, from Iron Horse, who told me one of his daughters (or nieces? the fragility of memory) has a degree in magazine journalism and is living in New York putting a career together — a little print, a little online. I told Laurence I'd love to meet the young lady, to find out how she views the future of print versus, or vis-a-vis, online. Where you stand, as they say, depends on where you sit, and a young Millennial living in the heart of the world's media capital must have some interesting thoughts.
Anyway, back in the Wine Library, I saw shelves of back issues of every print periodical you can name: Decanter, California Farmer, Le Bulletin de L'OIV, Charlie Olken's Connoisseur's Guide, Wine Enthusiast and dozens, maybe scores of others. Behind locked glass cabinets are rarities: "Grape Culture" (1867), "Mead's American Grape Culture & Wine Making" (also 1867), "Wines of the Ancients" (1775), "The Vine and its Fruit in Relation to Wine" (1875), "Clarets and Sauternes" (1846). Who wouldn't want to tear into those? (Maybe "tear" isn't the most appropriate verb to use concerning those fragile antiquities.)
Not behind glass are thousands of volumes on wine, on every conceivable subject. The business of wine, the art of drinking, the world's wine regions, viticulture and enology, wine poetry, even wine-inspired mystery novels ("Death by the Glass," "No Murder Before its Time"), and, yes, my own books. The Library contains drawersful of maps, of charts and statistics and oral histories. It is a cornucopia of wine information and knowledge.
And yet, like libraries across our country, it's hurting financially. "Funding could be better," Bo sighed. Grower and producer underwriting, upon which the Library largely depends, is stagnant. (Memo to growers and producers: go here for a subscription form or call the Library at 707-433-3772. And you don't have to be a Sonoma winery to help.) The public also can assist, by joining as a Wine Library Associate ($20 a year). As Bo says, "Every little bit in these bleak times helps."
Why should anyone care about the Sonoma County Wine Library? Because there are few libraries like it in California, or in this country. Because it's important to keep knowledge alive, and handed down over the generations. Because "There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration." (Andrew Carnegie). And from The Tempest:
Knowing that I loved my books, he furnished me,
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
Nice post, Steve. The wine library is a little jewel…
"Too much work, not enough money." How true.
Thanks Steve. It was a pleasure to see you yesterday, but (almost) just as great a pleasure to read this blog. The Wine Library is a great asset that I should take advantage of more often.
Adam Lee
Siduri Wines
Very nice post on a wonderful place. Thanks for adding to public awareness of this great resource.
Steve, you should check out the Napa Valley Wine Library in St Helena. Established 47 years ago, with a solid reference and research collection, a quarterly report to members and its summer tasting of 100 Napa wines for members as well as Books on Wine festival. Working with the growers and vintners to build a history of Napa Wine. A great place. Come visit. The industry has been supportive from the beginning but we all need more support and involvement.
Barbara Insel
Stonebridge Research Group LLC
Steve – thanks for giving a shout out to The Wine Library. Bo is truly a cornucopia of knowledge. More good public relations professionals ought to consider Bo and the library as one of their key sources of information when doing research.
Mr. Heimoff,
Ironically the first wine book I read was yours, A Wine Journey along the Russian River, while passing idle time at The Gary Farrell tasting room. I never knew a wine book could be so exciting. Now some years later and many trips later to the Healdsburg wine library I still have the same fervorfor reading about wine. Just yesterday I pick up four new books from the Rohnert Park library. To anyone else interested in the subject check out the oral history books at the wine library, they are the books with a light blue cover. Thank you Mr. Heimoff for piquing my interest in something which has become my true love.
My best memories as a student were from my access to the Dept. of Vit. and Enology Library at Davis. It is probably modern and sterile now, but then it was a little dark, dusty, and loaded with century old books on grapes and wine. I particularly liked gently leafing through the old hand painted appelographies that were both educational and beautiful. As a student it was a nice way to pass the afternoon, more fun even than the anti war demonstrations. The place was usually empty, but sometimes old Prof. (Emeritis) Winkler was there , white haired and bent over, and still learning. Years later I found out from Pierre Galet that perusing old ampelographies is exactly what he did when hiding out from the Nazi's at Montpellier, and it was what inspired him to learn to identify grape varieties.
I have no idea why so many libraries are in trouble around the country and yet big book stores and Amazon seem to flourish. Yet some libraries flourish and are treasures to their community. Our local in St, Helena is amazing. Not just the wine related collections, but the periodicals, magazines, journals, music CDs, DVD's, internet access, nightly speakers, weekly movie night at the library, and book signings. If that weren't enough access the combined 18 library Solano-Napa partners catalog make ordering any book as easy as Netflicks. And it is all free to the public.
I think success of a library has a lot to do with keeping it relevant to the needs of the community.
Bo's Passion breathes life into the Wine Library yet without funding it's a lost source. That reminds me that I haven't paid my $75 the last couple years – I need to catch up on that!
What a lovely day….
Thanks, Steve for a thoughtful rallying cry. Napa Valley Wine Library is indeed a gem. The newish St. Helena Public Library Director, Jennifer Baker, is breath-takingly competent and dialed-in librarian. Morton above wonders why Amazon and bookstores are doing so well, and libraries are on the ropes. Here we are talking about public libraries. We libraries are doing more business than ever. In tough times people come to libraries and buy less books and get their DVDs and audiobooks from the library, but we don't get a tranaction-based revenue. Public Libraries' money comes largely from property taxes. Guess what has been going down, along with a lot of other things: property taxes. The Sonoma County Wine Library and the Napa Valley Wine Library are special libraries within public libraries. Napa's funding comes through its support group, and ours comes partly from our support group, and partly from the industry directly in the form of dues (we call them subscriptions).
Steve, As a former board member of the Wine Library Associates, I enjoyed reading your comments about visiting the Wine Library. As a wine industry member, I especially have enjoyed researching the oral histories in years past (which reminds me I need to get in there and see new additions) and learning what it was like for our wine pioneers as they blazed their particular paths in Sonoma County. Thanks for the memory jolt.
I'm so lucky to live in Healdsburg and do stop by frequently to get info from the stacks or insight from Bo.
Thanks Steve for bringing the winery subscription to my attention. Check's in the mail – actually my back pocket for a swing through tomorrow.
Here's to hoping others will join or re-up.
Alan B.


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When Two is Better than One
While we may pride ourselves on how we pamper our animals with the best of everything, we may be denying them what they need most, the companionship of one of their own species. Most feline behaviorists agree that cats generally lead healthier, happier lives if there is another feline in the household. Even if the cats never become bosom buddies, just sharing the house with another living creature while you are away helps to break the monotony and loneliness. Of course, if they become playmates, there is the added benefit of exercise and entertainment that is especially needed by kittens and young adult cats. Many cases of playful aggression directed toward the guardian as well as various forms of household destruction can be prevented if the cat's energies are focused on a playmate. Young males (3-24 months) have an especially strong need for a "buddy". While guardians of rambunctious young males often hesitate to take on another cat, those who take that "leap of faith" and get another young male are generally delighted to see how much the "boys" enjoy each other.
Choose the Companion for Your Companion Carefully
When selecting a feline companion for your resident cat, keep your cat's personality and activity level in mind. If you are too casual about this important decision, your house may become a war zone. Consider the following guidelines when choosing your next family member. Remember that they are only guidelines and that there may be exceptions to the rules.
- If you have an adult female who has been an "only" cat for some time, it is best to get a younger female. Males, even friendly ones, can over-power and frighten females. Male kittens, while more easily dominated by the female, still grow up to be rambunctious teenagers and engage in a style of play that involves pounce and wrestle (not a female's idea of fun).
- If a young, active male is your family companion animal, he would really enjoy having a male buddy who shares his enthusiasm for vigorous play.
- A laid-back, older (neutered) male cat may enjoy "mothering" a kitten - male or female. They usually make better mothering substitutes than spayed females. Females, in general, are less accepting of newcomers.
Males tend to bond with each other, unless both have dominant personalities. A dominant cat engages in a lot of rubbing - scent marking - behavior, likes to rest in high places (for surveillance purposes) and in doorways (to control the entrance to certain rooms) and shows little or no fear.