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The New York Times is running one of its Room for Debate series on the future of libraries. The four debaters (so far) are Luis Herrera, director of the San Francisco Public Library (and a board member of the Digital Public Library of America); Susan Crawford, visiting professor at Harvard Law School; Buffy J. Hamilton, a school librarian at Creekview High School in Canton, Georgia; and Berkman fellow Matthew Battles. All four of their essays are excellent. And each of them answers the "debate" question in the affirmative: yes, we do still need libraries. Of course, they are right.
It is worth backing up and asking why this question even applies. What would lead us to question the library as an institution? After all, as the authors point out, they are more popular than ever by many metrics, including how many people still walk through their doors. Why is this even a "debate"?
It's a debate because too many people think that we don't need libraries when we have the Internet. That logic couldn't be more faulty. We actually need libraries more (as Luis Herrera points out) now that we have the Internet, not less. But we have to craft a clear and affirmative argument to make that case to those who don't work in libraries or focus deeply on their operations. Librarians have to make a political and public case, which is too rarely being made effectively today.
These days, in most towns in America, the same debate recurs each year when budget time rolls around: what's the purpose of a library in a digital age? Put more harshly: why should we spend tax dollars, in tough economic times, on a library when our readers can get much of what they need and want from the Internet? In the era of Google and Amazon, the pressure is on libraries. Every year, as more and more library users become e-book readers, the debate rages a bit more fiercely.
The annual conversation about libraries and money is hard in the context of academic institutions, too. Libraries have long stood at the core of great schools and universities. In many fields, the library is in fact the laboratory for the scholars, whether in the humanities or in law. The texts, images, and recordings in these libraries are the raw materials out of which scholars and their students make new knowledge. But increasingly, scholars are turning to digital sources – databases, commercial online journals, Google Scholar – to do their work. Does every university and every school need to invest millions of dollars each in buying the same texts and bringing them to their campus?
The future of libraries is in peril. Librarians and those of us who love libraries need to make an affirmative argument for investments in the services, materials, and physical spaces that libraries comprise. This argument must be grounded in the needs of library users, today and in the future. The argument needs to move past nostalgia and toward a bright and compelling future for libraries as institutions, for librarians as professionals, and for the role that libraries play in vibrant democracies.
Many libraries are making this argument, implicitly, through their good and promising works. You need go no further than a visit to Luis's San Francisco Public Library to see how exciting libraries can be today. The Chicago Public Library, under new director Brian Bannon, is doing many promising things, including the MacArthur Foundation-funded YouMedia. The public libraries in New York — I'm most familiar with NYPL and the Queens Borough libraries — have extraordinary things underway. So does Amy Ryan at the Boston Public Library. There are cool things happening in Chattanooga, by all accounts. And these are just big public libraries. Many academic libraries and small public, county, school, and special libraries are busily charting a new and positive future. We need to get the stories of these leaders to be the narrative about libraries today.
We can establish a bright future for libraries. I think it can be done by working together to take ten steps:
- We must redefine libraries for a digital-plus era. By digital-plus, I mean that materials are born digital and then rendered in a variety of formats, some print (traditional books and hard-copies of images) and some digital (e-books, interactive games, image files, audio and visual works in digital format).
- The basis of this redefinition must be demand-driven, firmly grounded in what people need from libraries today and in the future.
- In this process of redefinition, we must account for both the physical and the analog. Both have a place in libraries of the future.
- Libraries must become networked institutions. There's much to be learned from how networked organizations function that will help libraries (and librarians as professionals) to thrive. Library schools and i-schools have a big role to play, as do funders and organizations that focus on professional development for librarians.
- Librarians should only seek to do those things that need doing and where libraries have comparative advantage in serving the public interest.
- Librarians should seek common cause with authors, agents, editors, and publishers, but if that fails, libraries may need to take on new functions.
- Librarians should seek common cause with technologists, inside and outside of libraries, in the public and private sectors — and develop strong technical (coding, information architecture, design, etc.) skills across the board within the library profession.
- Library spaces should function more like labs, where people interact with information and make new knowledge.
- Librarians should work together, along with private- and public-sector technologists, to create a common digital infrastructure and build from there. We should draw upon hacker culture and the lessons of the creation of the Internet in order to do so. (I have in mind the DPLA as a big part of the way forward on this front.)
- Libraries should maintain physical spaces but use them for lots of things other than the storage of physical materials, as the Room for Debate essayists make plain.
The argument that libraries are obsolete in a digital era is faulty. But those of us who love libraries need to make the case for why that's so. This case has everything to do with libraries finding compelling ways to support education, helping people to learn, thrive, and be the best civic actors we can be. We have to recreate the sense of wonder and importance of libraries, as public spaces, as research labs, as maker-spaces, and as core democratic institutions for the digital age.


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Hospitals face whole new world under health law
- Hospital administrators%2C employees face uncertainty
- Hospitals could get paid for charity care they now provide free to uninsured patients
- ACA could flood hospitals with new patients that might overburden doctors%2C staff
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A grisly headshot of Walter White, the anti-hero of "Breaking Bad," glares from two computer monitors on the desk of Mike Schatzlein, the CEO of Saint Thomas Health, one of Nashville's major health care systems. The TV character's meth-cooking ways don't exactly line up with Saint Thomas' mission of faith-based care, Schatzlein joked, but he still loves a good show.
Schatzlein took the helm at Saint Thomas three years ago, just in time to pilot the system through some drama of its own — namely, the Affordable Care Act and federal health reform.
Today, hospitals across the country must transform to survive.
It may seem obvious, but hospitals remain major hubs of American health care. More than 35.1 million people were discharged from inpatient care at non-federal hospitals in 2010, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were more than 100 million outpatient department visits and almost 130 million visits to emergency departments in this country.
No one can say exactly how the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare," will affect hospitals.
Should the act help more people access insurance, hospitals could get paid for charity care that they now provide for free to uninsured patients.
However, the ACA also could flood hospitals with new, high-use patients, which could tax already overburdened physicians and hospital staff. In addition, hospitals also could receive less money for the same services in the short term: The government has outlined plans to cut reimbursement rates for patients on Medicare.
Hospital administrators and employees are worried, with good reason.
Amid the uncertainty in the industry, one thread remains clear: Hospitals will, in the future, exist in a world where they are rewarded more for the quality of care than for the volume of patients they treat. As this transition occurs, hospitals must live in two worlds — one where they still earn money per procedure and another that views the treatment of patients in a more holistic way, with successful outcomes the most important measure of a hospital's performance.
"We have to understand that today, we are still paid for volume," said Kevin Locke, managing partner of CPA firm Dixon Hughes Goodman, who helps clients navigate ACA-related reimbursement issues. "As we migrate from that system to one that pays for value, we have to stay financially solvent. It's figuring out that puzzle in the middle."
Saint Thomas Health, Vanderbilt University and TriStar Centennial are among the Nashville providers navigating this sea change now. Each has its own structure and strength. Each has unique challenges to face.
Saint Thomas Health includes five facilities. It's the Tennessee branch of a larger nonprofit, nationwide Catholic health system called Ascension, which spans 23 states. TriStar Centennial is the Nashville-based flagship hospital of TriStar Health, a Southern branch of HCA, the largest for-profit hospital company in the country. Vanderbilt University Medical Center is a nonprofit teaching hospital. It's part of Vanderbilt University, Nashville's largest private employer.
Rewards, penalties
Administrators at all three facilities talked about how they are tackling quality. None were too keen to link their quality initiatives to the Affordable Care Act. Part of that is because the term "Affordable Care Act" sparks an emotional reaction.
In fact, in terms of quality, the ACA doesn't carry many rules. It allows hospitals to create entities called accountable care organizations, third-party groups that oversee the quality of care at hospitals.
The ACA says the government will offer financial incentives to hospitals that perform well. The government determines good performance through a combination of clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction surveys.
The ACA also will penalize hospitals that appear to perform poorly. As of last October, the government started cutting Medicare reimbursement for hospitals with readmission rates considered excessive. In 2015, hospitals that still have high rates of hospital-acquired infections will see a further reimbursement rate cut.
The ripple effect of the ACA, however, is larger than the sum of its parts, according to Gerald Hickson, Vanderbilt's vice president for quality safety and risk prevention. "The one thing health reform has done is it has changed the way we're thinking," he said. "That's where change begins, and it has begun."
Vanderbilt does not have shareholders monitoring its spending, but it must keep a close eye on costs. In September, Vanderbilt notified state and federal government officials that the medical center will cut more than 1,000 jobs by the end of the year to prepare for economic uncertainties, some of which are due to health care reform.
Vanderbilt also is, primarily, a research hospital. This means it plays a unique role in the volume-to-quality shift, Hickson said, in that it can study best practices going forward.
Though it can contribute significant brainpower, Vanderbilt faces certain challenges shifting to a quality-based payment system. For one, academic medical centers are sometimes complex and slow to change. Also, the government might have difficulties accurately monitoring the quality of care and readmission rates at a place like Vanderbilt, which has the only Level I trauma unit in the region and treats a higher proportion of serious injuries.
Still, Hickson said, that's no reason to delay discussions about quality. "I'm tired of wasting time arguing that somehow my burden is bigger than your burden," he said. "At the end of the day, the focus has to be that patients are our highest priority."
TriStar Health is a different animal. It's made of 14 hospitals in Middle Tennessee and Kentucky, including TriStar Centennial, the network's flagship hospital. TriStar Health sits under the HCA umbrella. HCA is a major for-profit corporation.
HCA's hospitals are well situated in that they can implement systemwide changes quickly. "When a patient is less than satisfied with their experience — say there's a complaint about too much noise in the hallway — we process that, and (it's) read by a CEO," said Jeffrey Guy, the chief medical officer at TriStar Health. "And that's how organizations get better."
HCA also has shareholders watching its stock, which can be a mixed blessing. Internally, HCA hospitals and hospital systems are each pursuing quality in their own ways, then can share best practices across the network. But externally, shareholders aren't pestering the CEO about reduced infection rates. In fact, said Michael Waterhouse, a health care equity analyst for Morningstar, quality doesn't quite make it into the earnings calls.
"I think if you distilled HCA's strategy to just a few brief points," Waterhouse said, "it would be guaranteeing as much volume as possible, offering good services, having as much market share as possible, and, if you are signing people up through exchanges, making sure you're getting that guaranteed exchange volume."
At Saint Thomas
And then there is Saint Thomas. CEO Mike Schatzlein believes he is in the sweet spot: running a nonprofit with the institutional support of the Ascension network, but without shareholders or a cumbersome academic institution on his back.
"There are some provisions in the ACA that permit us to collaborate with doctors in ways that we couldn't before," he said. For example, Saint Thomas has set up MissionPoint, which works like an ACO. At first, MissionPoint included only Saint Thomas employees and their dependents, but now it monitors care for 80,000 people. It is run by a board of physicians and enables doctors to follow up on patients who have visited the ER, for example, and check that they take their medicine or properly dress their bandages. Simply calling, Schatzlein said, goes a long way toward reducing expensive re-admissions.
Those calls touch on a major confounding variable in terms of hospitals' shifting from volume to quality — that is, of course, the patients, many of whom believe that more care is better care.
Take heart surgery. Schatzlein used to do a certain operation for patients at risk of stroke. When he explained to people that, statistically, the evidence suggested the risk was the same whether the patient had an intrusive operation or took an aspirin every day for the next 20 years, people overwhelmingly chose the procedure.
Of note, the Affordable Care Act does not really take patient behavior into account. It does not outline the path forward for hospitals. But it is happening now.
"What's cool about this is that all of a sudden the country needs what faith-based Catholic health care was designed to provide, which is holistic reverent care across the spectrum of time and space," Schatzlein said.

subset: commoncrawl


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Today's Observer has a remarkably vicious article about post-natal depression in fathers that is quite breathtaking in both its ignorance and its venom:
"One notices more talk of postnatal depression in fathers. I use the word "talk" advisedly, scientific proof still being in short supply. Were hormonal levels tested? Was postpartum bruising measured? How about the emergence of a human head in what – in deference to what might be your leisurely Sunday breakfast – I will refer to as the front-bottom area? In fact, was there anything at all to suggest that the subject had, at any point, given birth, thus making sense of adding the term "postnatal" to depression?"
Firstly, journalist Barbara Ellen clearly doesn't know the difference between postnatal (after a child has been born) and postpartum (after giving birth). It is equally as possible to describe postnatal depression in fathers as it is to describe men, or indeed, women, having a postnatal breakfast.
The statement about "scientific proof still being in short supply" is just odd considering she then goes on to cite a study of 8,431 fathers published in the Lancet on postnatal depresison.
However, this is by no means the only study, as there are plenty more where that came from.
Ellen is also convinced that postnatal depression is "directly related to the physical act of pregnancy and childbirth".
It is surely the case that the act of being pregnant and giving birth does increase the risk of postpartum depression owing to hormonal changes, but we also know, for example, that disruption to sleep patterns is also a risk factor – something that could equally affect both partners.
This part, though, is just amazingly and needlessly cruel:
I would have been more concerned that the mothers in question were having to put up with such exhausting narcissists as partners – men incapable of hiding their sulky self-absorption, even while being watched by researchers for a period of, wait for it, three minutes. Even serial killer Ted Bundy managed to look "normal" for longer than that.
Sadly, that's not the only insult thrown in to the mix and just to top it off, the piece finishes on a logical fallacy / insult combo – enter the false dichotomy applied to human suffering:
It was a long, hard road for womankind, getting postnatal depression recognised as a condition, and also to receive medical attention or even routine sympathy. It seems to me that saying men can also get it is just cheapening this achievement.
Mental health is important for all and we don't cheapen anyone else's suffering by recognising the pain of others.


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For the 25 million U.S. adults with urinary incontinence, a little leakage can carry a lot of shame. But many people don't do anything about it.
"Urinary incontinence is a very insidious process," said Dr. David Glazier, co-director of the pelvic floor center at Virginia Urology in Richmond, Va. "It occurs very slowly; (people) think it's a normal part of aging."
Women — 75 to 80 percent of sufferers, thanks largely to the wonders of childbirth — endure leakage for an average of eight years before seeking help, Glazier said, even though it's highly treatable.
Increasingly, women are taking action. They are "more physically active, fit, and they're not going to tolerate wearing pads all the time," said Dr. Vivian Aguilar, a urogynecologist at Cleveland Clinic Florida who sees many incontinence patients in their 30s, 40s and 50s.
The most common types of incontinence among women are stress and urge incontinence. Pelvic organ prolapse can be a cause. Most women see improvement or cure through behavioral modification (losing weight, limiting caffeine, alcohol and artificial sweeteners) and Kegel exercises to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles, considered the frontline treatment for both types, said Dr. Margaret Roberts, attending physiatrist with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. But a third of women don't do Kegels correctly, she said, and those frontline treatments don't work for everyone.
Here are other solutions, which depend on what type of incontinence a woman has, drawing from the expertise of Glazier, Aguilar and Roberts:
Stress incontinence
What it is: Leaking urine as a result of abdominal pressure, such as laughing, coughing, sneezing, running, jumping or having sex. It happens as the valve muscle around the urethra weakens and wears down with time, and commonly starts after childbirth, which stretches out the tissues that support the urethra and bladder. It is the most prevalent type of incontinence among women, affecting one-fourth of women over 17, and it becomes increasingly common with age.
Medication: There are no FDA-approved medications for stress incontinence. Duloxetine (Cymbalta), an antidepressant, is approved in the European Union for stress incontinence and is sometimes used off-label in the U.S., but it carries an FDA-issued black-box warning of suicide risks.
Bulking agents: Injecting collagen or carbon spheres into the tissue around the bladder neck and urethra helps close the bladder opening to reduce leakage. Over time, the body might eliminate the agents so you have to repeat injections.
Slings: A small ribbon of mesh, usually inserted through the vagina, is placed around the urethra to support it. This common outpatient surgical procedure, usually done under general anesthesia, has a 90 percent success rate, but it carries risks. The FDA in 2008 warned of serious complications with mesh used for stress incontinence and prolapse procedures, including infection and migration or erosion of the mesh into the vagina, potentially causing pain during intercourse. The procedure also can be performed using tissue from your own body.
Burch procedure: Through an incision in the abdomen, a surgeon pulls up the bladder and sutures it to ligaments behind the pubic bone, giving support to the urethra. It has a slightly lower success rate than a sling, but it has fewer side effects, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Urge incontinence
What it is: Having the sudden urge to urinate and not always making it to the toilet. While the causes aren't well understood, it happens when abnormal nerve signals cause bladder contractions when you're not ready and can be brought on by infection or nerve injuries, such as multiple sclerosis or stroke. It is associated with overactive bladder, which also includes urinary frequency (needing to urinate more than seven to 10 times per day), and nocturia (waking up at least twice a night to pee). Urge incontinence and overactive bladder affect one-fifth of adults older than 40 and are twice as frequent in women as in men.
Medication: Medications such as VESIcare, Ditropan and Toviaz help with overactive bladder symptoms by relaxing the bladder muscles.
Neuromodulation: Interstim is the brand name for a pacemaker-like device that is implanted under your skin, just above the buttocks, to deliver electric pulses that calm the bladder. You do a two-week trial before implantation to confirm it works before committing. Possible complications include discomfort and infection. Because it's metal, you can't have an MRI.
A less invasive option is peripheral nerve stimulation, wherein a doctor places a small needle in one of the nerves in the foot, next to the ankle bone, and sends an electric signal to the bladder nerves to calm down. You must do half-hour sessions once a week for 12 weeks, and then once a month after that. Unlike Interstim, it's not covered by most insurance.
Botox: The FDA in August approved Botox bladder injections to treat urinary incontinence in people with neurologic conditions such as spinal cord injury or multiple scerlosis. The effect lasts for up to 10 months, so you'll need repeat visits. Some people have trouble emptying their bladder afterward and must use a catheter.
Augmentation cystoplasty: The end-of-the-road treatment for overactive bladder, this involves cutting into the bladder to increase the capacity and decrease contractility. Afterward patients may have to catheterize themselves.
When childbirth, hysterectomy or other surgery weaken the muscles and tissues supporting the pelvic organs, a woman's bladder, uterus, bowel or rectum can shift from their normal positions and drop into the vagina. Stress incontinence can result, or the drooping organs can kink the urethra, causing urinary retention. POP affects as many as half of women who have given birth, but only 10 to 20 percent experience symptoms.
Pessary: A diaphragm-like device that you insert into the vagina to help keep the organs in place. You must remove and reinsert the pessary regularly for cleaning.
Surgical repair: Surgeons can fix prolapse as they would a hernia, pulling up and securing collapsed organs. When prolapse is accompanied by incontinence, they would install a sling during the same procedure. For women who have had several unsuccessful repairs, some doctors insert mesh through the vagina to hold up the sagging organs, but mesh has risks. In July, the FDA updated its warning on using mesh to correct prolapse, citing serious complications including mesh protruding through the vaginal wall and organ perforation during insertion. The greater risk does not come with greater clinical benefit, the FDA said, and removing the mesh may not be possible and may not resolve complications.
Learn more: National Association for Continence, nafc.org.


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This week was a fairly small week of new release comics for me…small enough that I "padded it out" a bit.
The new issue of Action Comics–#1001–was a given, for me. It's been 3 months coming, since the huge #1000 issue.
After looking forward to The Flash War for so long and even letting the title go for several months, I got back in for the (finally) actual story itself…which seemed too short. This #51 "epilogue" issue is a pleasant surprise-extension of the story.
And Mr. and Mrs. X is Marvel actually getting me with a concept I'm interested in–fially having Rogue and Gambit get to this point (one of my earliest X-Men comics was #24–the "date" issue with the two.
I quite enjoyed the X-Men: Grand Design issues from the turn of the year, and was rather disappointed at the long delay between those and the next ones. Time healed that particular "wound" and it was a pleasant surprise to find this one out this week. Unlike other $5.99 issues, these actually feel heavy and "special" and worth the price.
I hadn't realized The Hellblazer was ending…but as with the end of the 300+ issue Vertigo run, I opted to snag this final issue "immediately" with the intent to fill in the gaps I have in the story via collected volumes, eventually/someday.
Because I was "curious" after stupidly "buying into" some hype over the Teen Titans Special several weeks ago, figured I might as well give this issue a shot and see if it actually goes anywhere interesting, or if IT is all-hype/etc.
And finally, because it actually reprints an issue I did not yet own and had never even read before, the True Believers issue reprinting What If..? #1 was a handy addition for only $1. (3 Marvel comics for $11…pretty darned cheap considering their usual prices!)
Still, it's rather dismaying that even the DC titles were all $3.99. I'll occasionally be ok with occasional higher-price-point issues–Grand Design being an excellent example–but certainly not as a routine, regular thing. And for me, Marvel has far too often "abused" the higher prices in my eyes, such that I was honestly somewhat surprised that Mr. and Mrs. X was "only" $3.99 for a #1 issue. (Which was another reason to support the title–NOT EVERY #1 NEEDS TO BE a $4.99+ giant-sized issue! And yet, I could argue that this one would be more deserving of a giant-size status. Reprint X-Men #24, and maybe some other key issue from the characters' pasts. Reprint the Avengers Annual Rogue first appeared in, and Uncanny X-Men #266 with Gambit's first appearance–juxtapose their first appearances with how far they've come. After all, this title is not MERELY "the next month's issue" of a title with a #1 slapped on the cover…it's truly a new status quo for the characters, it's a new title we have not seen before, and so on. (As opposed to the fifth(?) Amazing Spider-Man #1 or the seventh(?) Captain America #1 in the last 20 years)
Filed under: 2018 Non-Review Posts, 2018 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: Action Comics, bendis, Brian Bendis, Clark Kent, Constantine, Flash, Flash War, Gambit, Grand Design, Hellblazer, Mr & Mrs X, Mr and Mrs X, Second Genesis, Superman, Teen Titans, True Believers, Wally West. Rogue, What If?, x-men | Leave a comment »


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Check out all the new aerial shots of the new airport
Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport Aerials
Check out all the new aerial shots of the new airport
Check out all the new aerial shots of the new airport
Is that an airport or the home of the 2010 Bass Masters Classic Fishing Tournament? Sure looks like a lot of water down there. Do the Southwest planes have skids?
Go away, people like you dont fly anyway cowboy.
I love the new Airport!!
It looks great and no question if Panama City Beach is to move into the twenty first century, it is needed as a foundation for residents and businesses to build on; but the Airport still has a rain water problem they needs address.
Expanding the last picture on the far right, which looks across the runway to the terminal and beyond; you can clearly see the rain water track running from the terminal, across the runway, to the holding pond at the bottom. I'm sure the FAA with not allow this condition to exist if the Airport is to open.
CORRECTION – After blowing the picture up it becomes quite clear it's not a low spot in the runway that rainwater cuts across, but truck tracks – they are still moving dirt around the airport boundaries.
Right now they have plenty of room in the holding ponds for additional rainwater runoff.
SORRY for doubting the Airport Planners
I wonder with all the holding ponds if we are going to have a bird problem? I don't see how they can keep birds away from the runway with all that water so close to it. Other Airports have a big problem with that.
We'll have to wait and see how this all pans out. If the airfare prices are no better than the old airports (high), and I hear they are not, I don't see much changing.
I cought a huge bass just north of the tower last week. Sweet!
1st I will say rates have not come down, they actually doubled for my sister in laws flight here . Exact same dates in May of 2009, price was less than $400 round trip on Delta, this year 2010 flying into and out of new airport fare is more than $800, so much for the lower fare hype.
Yesterday it rained really hard and reports are the carpet in the main terminal are soaked! This is absurd, if it floods everytime it rains 4-6″s there will be water in the terminal several times a year.
I guess I can live will getting my feet wet in the terminal, but the double on fares is a kick in the a$$.
you can thank Delta….
Where is it located? Live in AL and have reservations with SWA the end of May.


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Netanyahu: Hitler Didn't Want to Exterminate the Jews – Credit: GPO
Published on Oct 21, 2015
Netanyahu: Hitler Didn't Want to Exterminate the Jews – Credit: GPO
Omar Husseini
So give the Germans their money back
Ahmad Abu-Kabar
Omar Husseini hahahahahaha
Aaron Bartuccio
Hahahahha.. that has got to be the funniest thing I have ever read
Anton Panton
How can you say such a thing you antisemite
Ihsahn Åkerfeldt
Ahmad Abu-Kabar Why is this funny? This money was guilt tripped out of Germans for decades based on nothing but lies and myths.
Ihsahn Åkerfeldt
Anton Panton Oh shut the fuck up. "Antisemite." People think they're actually making a point when they use blurt out these terms. It's like saying "omg that's offensive."
Anton Panton
Dont talk shit about muh 6 billion goy, you are Racist sexist anti-semite Homophobe Islamophobe faggot… Oy Vey..
Ihsahn Åkerfeldt
Anton Panton SHUT IT DOWN
kata Plata
but they pay for that version of history
Netanyahu speaking before the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, October 21, 2015.AFP
Gaius Baltar
Holocaust denial is now mainstream and legit! Czytaj dalej


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"That segues in nicely to this question: Cross-server gameplay. It's convenient, but do you think that it runs the risk of destroying server communities?"
As for the community question, I used to ... I think that 5 years ago, I would have answered this question differently than I would today. I was all about preserving the small realm communities, but already... Well, look at Battlegrounds, it's a good case in point, because it doesn't diminish social relationships that matter on a realm. Sure, everyone can bring up "that one guy" that they know, the ninja looter who stole his stuff. But I think your real community isn't the whole realm, but it's your guild and the friends you group with, and the cross-server LFG won't undermine that at all.
I'll start with a small bit of opinion: I don't mourn the death of small towns IRL. I am annoyed by politicians' pandering to 'small town America' as if it is some unrepresented demographic made up of honest, hard-working, moral people while everyone else is a big-city banker or homosexual artist, both of whom hate God and freedom. Why do I bring this up? Because then you can play "find the contradiction," since odds are at some point I'll get sad and nostalgic for the 'small towns' of WoW. Oh. I already did that!
"But I think your real community isn't the whole realm, but it's your guild and the friends you group with, and the cross-server LFG won't undermine that at all."
This is where I see risk: redefining community. As we join larger communities we tend sometimes define our community in reverse: making it smaller. While we always had our guilds and our friends and those were special, they were not the entire definition of community. We did have servers and guilds were influential on those servers.
As the community expands outward to include the entire battlegroup, our perception of community cannot keep up. We cannot know the entire battlegroup, we cannot even recognize the guilds. Our server is diluted. In reaction we invert our community and restrict it to friends and guilds.
The result is that if we don't have a guild, we're lost. We must find a new one or risk being outside the community. This risks isolating people. Isolated people are dangerous because they have no social institutions to follow and will tend to act out of short-term self-interest, with harmful effects on those around them. In real life this is theft and all manner of crimes while in WoW it is ninjaing and flame wars.
Sorry, this is getting too slippery slope. We're not on the edge of chaos. This mean that small towns keep us moral while cities encourage lawlessness. It does mean that we need to keep an eye on social institutions and be aware of the possible trouble from transitions between them.
The cities of WoW, battlegroups, can have the same benefits as in real life. These benefits overcome any losses. Sure the social structure gets rearranged, but I believe that this actually encourages involvement in stabilizing structures. In real life this takes the form of what would otherwise be unsustainable minority populations being able to concentrate enough to form a self-sufficient community and from these build themselves up and approach the outside world as equals. For a good example, look at Jewish enclaves in the US where they built themselves up into a powerful group whereas when they were out in the European countryside people tended to kill them as the most convenient cure for a poor harvest.
Cities allow small activities to gain the population they need. Can you imagine a grand art museum in a town of 10,000? It's possible when that's 5 million instead. Cities allow residents to poll common interests to do what they could not otherwise and in that process they create a more varied and valuable culture than the pockets of homogeneity of small towns. In WoW terms this means a handful of scattered lowbies can run an instance together. This means the smaller faction can pool together across servers to fill a BG. This means getting groups for something other than the latest raid and daily heroic.
Overall I'm glad to see the benefits of the larger community, but we must be aware of the costs of this community in order to minimize the downsides and get the most possible benefit. I'm not going to stop missing the faction feel of old AV and knowing the names of people on my server for something other than trolling trade chat, but I can accept that this are smaller losses than the gains of more frequent instance groups. And perhaps we'll even see the full benefits of diverse populations and options as more people find that the perfect guild was waiting on the other side of LFG all this time.


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This swim team season has been the best yet! Having both kids on the team, happy and working hard was amazing.
And this guy.
Youngest on the team by almost a full year and he crushed it! In his first meet, he got splashed big time during the back stroke warm up and got a serious case of butterflies. After a snack, observing other swimmers, pep talks from us, several other parents, his teammates and coaches, he reluctantly lined up to swim his heat. Swimming in the 6 and Under category, he was 1 of 5 kids in the heat, two of which were 6 years old. When they handed him his 3rd place ribbon, his mind was blown. He did it! He walked around swinging the ribbon saying "oh this? It's just my ribbon. It's a 3rd place. No big". It. Was. Amazing.
He went on to swim the rest of the season in both individual and relay races and worked his little butt off to do it. He was crushed when he didn't make the cut in the finals, but showed up in his uniform any way "just in case". I love his hustle and can't wait to see what he does when he's the big kid in his group.
Big scoops, buddy. Biiiiigggg scoops!!
Also, it appears that while he sometimes has some hesitations about swimming races, his confidence with the ladies has no issues…
This girl. This girls pushes past the limitations that asthma puts on her and works hard to swim fast. If there were style points, she'd win every time. Her strokes are gorgeous. This season, she worked on trading some of her skill for speed and she crushed it. She made the cut for breaststroke in the finals and took home an 8th place medal. She was supremely disappointed. While I felt bad that she was mad, I was also a little excited to see her get some competitive fire. Once she figures it out, she's going to be unstoppable!
Now, what the heck do we do with all these ribbons?!
Two years ago I assembled B's ribbons into a shadow box for her. It makes a great back drop on her shelves. We added in her medal this year too.
*one note – if you have multiple kids, save your sanity by marking the ribbons as they get them. The fights that broke out over sorting ribbons at the end of the season were legendary.
(as you can see, I got this gem on sale at Hobby Lobby)
I use a cool iron and press them from the backside to get all the wrinkles out without damaging the print. In addition to pinning them in, I also put in a little hot glue to make sure they don't swing around.
Voila! Start to finish, this is a 15 minute project. And a great display piece for all that hard work.


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We are excited to announce that Phoenix Audio Duet PCS (MT202-PCS) and Phoenix Audio Duet EXE (MT202-EXE) will now be shipping out with HD Audio (16Khz bandwidth audio) and a free carrying case.
Please feel free to contact one of our helpful consultants or leave a comment below. We love to hear from you!


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I found this unusual scarlet bloom erupting off the smallest and totally indistinct little weed like plant.
I am still waiting for my bloom to erupt, and to surprise even myself!
Peaceout ††† en theos ††† jlawrence
where words and watercolor soar together
Freelance Writer • Columnist• Blogger at Unwanting
Photographers living with or affected by mental health challenges; supporting each other one photograph at a time.
The closet exhibitionist comes out into the light...
Modern Therapy for the Modern Woman
An Occasional Diary of Everyday Life and Travel in the U.K. and sometimes elsewhere
Jane's Lens
Beats Stumbling Around in Silence
Tips, slips, stumbles, and leaps on the creative journey
One Poet's Writing Practice
A FellowTraveler in God's Kingdom
Tips for photography (and kayaks) ©Galen Leeds Photography


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LOWELL- A33-year-old Lowell man, allegedly captured on a Whipple Road resident's video-surveillance system, was arrested as one of three suspects involved in a break-in at a Tewksbury home Dec. 3.
In Lowell District Court Friday, Joseph Gagnon, of 381 Hildreth St., Apt. 307, pleaded not guilty to charges of breaking and entering into a building in the daytime for a felony, conspiracy and larceny over $250.
Judge Michael Uhlarik ordered Gagnon, who has a a lengthy criminal record, held without bail on a probation violation for a similar type of case and set bail at $5,000 in the Tewksbury case.
A pretrial hearing and violation of probation hearing are scheduled for Jan. 3.
Defense attorney Thomas Mixon said Gagnon denies the charges and may have an alibi defense.
Co-defendants Shawn Keefe, 32, of Lowell, and Erica Ruane, 25, of 15 Cannongate Road, Tyngsboro, have already been arraigned on charges in the case.
Prosecutor Jennifer O'Neil said Tewksbury police were notified Monday about a housebreak at 666 Whipple Road due to an alert from a residential alarm.
Police learned there was forced entry into the house and several witnesses reported seeing a suspicious black car parked at a driveway of a home close to the address.
The homeowner reported his wife's jewelry box was missing.
Ruane was charged with daytime breaking-and-entering with the intent to commit a felony, larceny of property valued at more than $250 and conspiracy.
Police said more evidence led them to Keefe, who faces the same charges as Ruane.
Lowell police officers who arrived at Keefe's address said they also discovered between seven and 10 grams of heroin in his possession along with several pills of the anti-anxiety drug Klonopin, for which he did not have a prescription.
Follow Lisa Redmond at www.twitter.com/ lredmond13.


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Posts Tagged 'Satan'
Recent Creations
The videos from the recent Black Metal Theory event P.E.S.T. are available here. Here is the video of my talk as I could not attend in person. The pdf is available here. Zachary Price's video "Destroy Your Life for Satan" from the same event is available here. A discussion of (and the audiofiles of) the […]
Filed under: Deleuze, Kant, Lovecraft, music, nature, ontology, Speculative Realism, transcendental materialism | Leave a Comment
Tags: black metal, Eileen Joy, Flesh, jj cohen, pest, Satan, speculative medievalism


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April 23, 2013— -- The mother of accused Boston Marathon bombers has continued to defend her two sons from her home in Dagestan, Russia, but if she attempts to return to the United States to bury her older son, or care for the boy that remains hospitalized, she could face arrest on an outstanding warrant for shoplifting.
The clerk of the Natick District Court confirmed to ABC News that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, failed to appear at a court hearing on October 25, 2012 to resolve charges that she stole $1,600 worth of garments from a nearby Lord & Taylor department store.
The family saga for the Tsarnaevs began when the two brothers, Tamerlan, 26, and Dzhokhar, 19, allegedly strolled through the crowd watching the finish of the Boston Marathon last week, dropped backpacks packed with explosives and used their cell phones to detonate the bombs, killing three and injuring more than 250. On Tuesday, the drama played out on opposite sides of the globe.
In Russia, the boys' mother professed their innocence, saying "What happened is a terrible thing. But I know that my kids have nothing to do with this. I know it. I am mother. You know, I know my kids. I know my kids. Really my kids would never get involved into anything like that." In phone conversations with ABC News, the mother has expressed her desire to travel to the United States. While she has left open that possibility, she has recently suggested only her husband might go.
In New Jersey, a lawyer for the two Tsarnaev sisters released a statement from the two women, saying, "we are absolutely devastated by the sense of loss and sorrowthis has caused. We don't have any answers but we look forward to a thorough investigation and hope to learn more."
Meanwhile in Boston, the medical examiner reported that Tamerlan – who died in a shootout with police – had his autopsy completed, but no one had come to claim the body. Tamerlan's wife, Katherine Russell, released a statement through an attorney, saying "the reports of involvement by her husband and brother-in-law came as a n absolute shock."
Tamerlan's younger brother, who arrived at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center with wounds in his head, neck, legs and a hand, had his condition upgraded to "fair," the hospital said Tuesday – a sign he is headed for a recovery.
Some of Dzhokhar's friends sought to upgrade his image, posting an undated video on You Tube showing the accused bomber doing the robot dance with buddies on the wrestling team. They said his carefree attitude had convinced them the bombing plot was the brainchild of his older brother, whom he followed in lock step on the day of the marathon.
Boston Police Superintendent William Evans offered a more detailed picture of the manhunt for the bombing suspects, saying the hunt for the accused Marathon bombers was "personal."
"We never, never let up our desire to catch who was responsible," Evans said.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said over the weekend that authorities "hope he survives, because we have a million questions." Authorities told ABC News the University of Massachusetts college student has begun to answer some of those questions. He is reportedly telling investigators that the plot was, as some are suggesting, his brother's idea.
"The older brother appeared to be the more radicalized of the two and was the one that drove the need to conduct the attack," said Seth Jones, a counter-terrorism expert at the Rand Corporation. Authorities said the younger brother told the FBI that he and his brother were inspired by the anti-US internet preaching of the radical cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki.
*Even though the American-born al Qaeda figure was killed in a US drone strike more than a year and a half ago, his words apparently still have great power, condemning the US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, which the brother said became their motive," Jones said.
Tamerlan posted a video on his own YouTube channel, of a Chechen rebel leader threatening death to anyone who helps the infidels. That leader was killed by the Russians last year.
And it was on the Internet, Dzhokhar told FBI agents, that they learned how to make a bomb with a pressure cooker--all found in an Al Qaeda online magazine called Inspire. He told the FBI they never even tested the bombs before detonating them last week.
" What's disturbing about that is people are getting smarter about building easily manufactured bombs and then targeting sights in the US," Jones said.
Federal agents continue to search the Boston area for more bombs, but none has been found so far. One question that remains unanswered: What were the brothers planning to do next?
The man whose SUV was stolen by the two brothers as they allegedly fled the fatal shooting of an MIT police officer told authorities that he may have heard one of the suspects say "Manhattan" as they spoke in a foreign language.
The comment prompted a string of searches the next day, taking investigators to Connecticut as they looked for a Honda and searched trains. However, the search came up empty and it is not even clear the word was spoken by the suspects.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the victim "heard them speaking in a foreign language and may have picked up the word Manhattan, but that is not at all clear at this time."
Today, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said "No evidence they were headed our way. These stories were conflated with bits of information badly misinterpreted."


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Woman, 75, convicted for killing husband in 1970s
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Jurors convicted a 75-year-old woman who shot her husband in the mid-1970s of second-degree murder, despite her defense that she acted in a desperate bid to defend her 2-year-old daughter from attack by an abusive man.
Alice Uden of Missouri faces 20 years to life in prison following Thursday's decision. The panel found her not guilty of first-degree murder, which would have carried a life sentence, but passed on the least-serious option of finding her guilty of manslaughter.
Uden wore a grim expression as she was wheeled out of the courtroom. She wore a white shirt and wire glasses and looked just as frail as she has throughout the trial that began April 29.
"It's just been a long time coming. I don't think it's fully sunk in yet," her attorney, Donald Miller, said of Uden's reaction to the verdict.
Miller said he planned to appeal.
Laramie County District Attorney Scott Homar indicated he was satisfied.
"The jury made it clear that they believe she at least purposely and maliciously killed the victim," Homar said.
None of Uden's five children or other relatives was present for the verdict, Miller said.
Investigators last summer recovered Ronald Holtz's remains from an abandoned mine on a ranch between Cheyenne and Laramie. The discovery led to Uden's arrest in September. Also arrested then was her current husband, Gerald Uden, 71, who was charged separately with killing his wife and two children in 1980.
Police haven't linked the two cold cases that brought the couple quietly living out their senior years in the rural Ozarks in Missouri to Wyoming to face charges.
Prosecutors could not mention Gerald Uden or his case at Alice Uden's trial, but Alice Uden testified she remarried two years after Holtz's death.
Juror Samantha Wallace, 33, said the jury was unfamiliar with Gerald Uden's case.
"I don't think that would have persuaded us. But we kind of thought, 'Where is her (current) husband? Who is her husband?'" Wallace said.
Alice Uden testified she shot Holtz sometime in late 1974 or early 1975, just as he was about to attack her toddler daughter. Prosecutors said Uden, of Chadwick, Missouri, killed Holtz while he slept.
At one point, as many as 11 jurors favored a first-degree murder conviction, but a holdout insisted Alice Uden was guilty of no more than manslaughter, Wallace said.
They compromised on second-degree murder to avoid becoming deadlocked and risking a mistrial, she said.
"It was hard to be in there. Emotions. People crying," Wallace said of the scene in the jury room as they deliberated for about 13 hours over two days.
Alice Uden testified that after she shot Holtz, she emptied Christmas decorations from a 55-gallon cardboard barrel and stuffed his 175-pound body inside. She rolled the barrel from her porch into her car trunk and drove to a ranch where she and her second husband were caretakers before he died in 1973.
Her trial featured emotional testimony from one of her sons, who said Alice Uden told him in the 1970s she killed Holtz as he slept. While on the witness stand, Todd Scott also turned to his frail mother and said: "I hate you."
Uden was married to Holtz, her third husband, for only a month or two. A nurse, she met the 24-year-old Vietnam veteran while working as a nurse in the psychiatric unit of a Veterans Administration hospital in Sheridan.
Hospital records cited at trial showed Holtz had a history of violent outbursts and drug use.
"He was extremely violent, unpredictable and impulsive," Miller said in his closing argument Tuesday.
Alice Uden said Holtz became abusive soon after they married in September 1974. She said Holtz had a job driving a taxi at night and, one morning, he flew into a rage when her 2-year-old daughter began crying while he was trying to sleep.
Uden testified Holtz knocked her down while storming toward the girl's bedroom. Uden said she grabbed her .22-caliber rifle from a broom closet and shot Holtz in the back of the head as he stood above the child's crib.
Prosecutors argued Holtz was asleep when Uden shot him.
"The fling she had started was no longer a good time for her. And Mr. Holtz maybe wasn't the man she thought he was," Homar said in his closing argument.
He said Uden kept changing her story when investigators interviewed her. At one point she said she got the gun from a bedroom closet much farther from the crib — and much less readily available in the urgent situation.
Wallace said she believed the shooting was premeditated.
"She thought about it," Wallace said. "She knew that she was going to kill him. Whatever closet it was didn't matter."
In the other case, Gerald Uden, 71, has pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder for shooting his ex-wife, Virginia Uden, and her two sons in central Wyoming in 1980.
When Alice and Gerald Uden met is unclear, but they married in November 1976, five months after Gerald and Virginia Uden separated.
While entering his plea in November, Gerald Uden was vague about his motive but said Virginia Uden, 32, had become "intolerable."


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(NaturalHealth365) As you probably know, it's not cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes or auto accidents that make ups the conditions most likely to threaten the lives of American adults – it's cardiovascular disease. In fact, according to statistics published by the CDC, heart disease currently kills nearly 650,000 people – every year – in the United States. And a primary factor in heart disease is arterial plaque – artery-clogging deposits of fat and calcium that can lead to angina, heart attack and stroke.
Read more via How to diminish, dissolve and reverse arterial plaque — NaturalHealth365


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Microsoft kicked off its annual TechEd conference Monday much the way it did last year's, heavily touting cloud computing as a more efficient way for businesses to run IT operations. This year, however, company executives provided more details about how organizations can actually use cloud computing day-to-day.
Using the cloud "is about having more people able to focus on higher level parts of the stack, managing the app [service level agreements], rolling out new applications, and not having to worry about the underlying infrastructure," said Microsoft corporate Vice President Robert Wahbe, during the opening keynote of the conference in Atlanta.
The next release of Microsoft System Center will be key to a unified cloud strategy, which will allow line-of-business owners and administrators to control both their public and private cloud workloads from a single view, he said.
Microsoft System Center 2012, due to be released by the end of the year, will feature a single console that will allow virtualized workloads to be managed, whether they reside in-house or on the public cloud.
Microsoft technical evangelist Joey Snow demonstrated how the console would work. A user could put together the basic components, such as a database server and the application, from within System Center. The software checks to see what resources are available and if the person has the proper credentials to create such a workload. Once finished, the application could then be deployed to a local private cloud, or on a Microsoft Azure-based public cloud offering.
The console would also provide status updates of applications running in the cloud, and allow users to add in more copies of an application should the workload increase.
For this set up to work, all the software components should be run from within Microsoft Hyper-V-based virtual machine, which could be moved around easily between internal and external clouds, Wahbe explained. Last year was the first in which the industry created more virtual servers than purchased actual physical servers, he said.
"This move to virtualization is setting us all up for a much bigger inflection point, the inflection point to the cloud," Wahbe said. Virtualization will allow organizations to take "all those virtualized resources, [pull] them together to dynamically provision and scale your application, and only pay for what you are using."
Wahbe promised that many of the sessions at this week's conference would further explain how Microsoft software could be configured for cloud interaction and that Microsoft will provide reference architectures for easing the setup of a cloud-based infrastructure.
Wahbe predicted that public cloud use will be most prevalent for a number of use cases. Organizations may use the cloud for extending existing applications, especially those used by their customers and partners. Business intelligence will be an early use, because the digestion and analysis of data can be intensive and vary over time. One-time uses such as for marketing and presenting events would be another natural candidate for cloud computing, because hardware and software won't have to be allocated for them.
In addition to cloud computing, Wahbe also offered a few other tidbits about other Microsoft products, aspects of which will also be addressed at the conference this week. One topic will be the upcoming release of Mango, the update for Windows Phone 7 mobile handset OS. This update to the OS, due at the end of the year, will feature integration with Microsoft's unified communications offering Lync Server. Mango users will be able to call up their Lync contacts directly from within the phone itself. The service will also allow users to send instant messages to members of their contact lists as well. Support for accessing SharePoint repositories will also be included in Mango.
On the VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) front, Wahbe announced that banking giant HSBC is in the process of rolling out 100,000 VDI desktops across its organizations, making it "one of the largest VDI deployments" existing, he said. System Center 2012 will manage a wide variety of non-Microsoft devices, such as iPhone, iPad and Android devices. "System center will be the end-to-end management console," he said.
Wahbe also took the opportunity to show how the Microsoft Kinect gesture-based motion controller could be used for non-gaming purposes. One medical facility, the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, uses it to allow surgeons in the operating room to move around CAT scan images using arm and hand motions rather than moving the images by hand, which would require washing up afterward. The technology also is being used as the interface for the Microsoft Worldwide Telescope project, so that users can quickly navigate around an immersive collection of images of the universe.
Although Wahbe did not specify any plans for non-gaming support of Kinect, he did say these uses were examples of "future possible device interactions."
"Kinect would have the possibility of changing the way we work," he said.
Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is email@example.com


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Time just keeps "March"ing on, doesn't it? Hard to believe we are moving into the end of the first quarter of 2015 – and creeping up on the 6 month anniversary of my wedding/birthday!
So far #marriedlife2015 is just grand. We both work crazy hours at our job, which means we have random days off during the week and every other weekend off together. We try to make the most of our time off. In January, we had a daytrip to LaCrosse, WI where we met Chris's friend from high school who is moving from Madison to Rhode Island in a few months. We visited the Dahl Automotive Museum and Pearl Street Brewery, Buzzard Billy's and the Starllte Lounge and then drove to the Ponderosa for movie time by the fireplace.
Two weeks later we drove to Madison to see them before Tien moved mid-February. We weren't able to make the going away party, so had our own time with them, which was very fun. Chris and I got there early and enjoyed a Restaurant Week restaurant, a Mustard Museum, and then we enjoyed a pub meal before retreating to their bar for darts and drinks. Saturday we walked on State Street, went to the Madison Modern Museum of Art and then visited my old "haunts" – Ella's Deli and Few Street! Was quite a blast from the past. My old stomping grounds revolved around a 4 year old, so they weren't too exciting, but it was a great reminiscence. We also had a delicious Vietnamese meal before we travelled back to Rochester. It was a great weekend. Next time we go there it will be to drop Chris off for his road trip to Rhode Island / New Hampshire with Tony! Less than a month away!
Mom, Marissa, Gracie and I had a little daytrip to the Cities for Mom's birthday in early February. We went to Marissa's apartment and said hello to the kitties, and then went to an art open house at Pam Weisdorf's home Afterwards we had a delicious hibachi meal and avoided all malls. It was a nice little road trip!
In January, Chris's new little granddaughter was born – Emilee Ashlyn. What fun to hold a baby! And what fun to witness Chris's discomfort at the same. He says he's afraid he'll drop her. She is a little peanut, but growing every day, as babies are supposed to do. We took her big sister, Kaydee, to Soccer World one bitterly cold morning and played during their open gym time. That was a hoot. Fun to be inside, warm, and running around on fake grass.
January and February means there is basketball almost every day of the week if you want. It was fun to watch Rees, Gracie and Trajan play basketball. And fun to witness Gunnar sign with SDSU for his collegiate football career. And I made it to section wrestling to see Trevor wrestle a few! Phew, there is an abundance of sports in the winter!
February also means SocialICE – a yearly festival of the cold! They moved it back a few weeks, so it coincided with Marissa's birthday weekend. They were hoping that it would be warmer, but it just wasn't to be. Chris and I went for about 45 minutes on Thursday night and it was sooo cold (-5). Hot drinks were not hot, cold drinks were freezing – literally. Chris had a beersicle. We eventually moved inside for a cocktail at the Doggery. Saturday we went back during the daylight with the kids, because the ice sculptures are really fun to see, but it got cold and windy and crowded fast, so we didn't last long. We celebrated Marissa's birthday with the family tradition of pizza and ice cream cake! Delicious…
And the Oscars 2015 happened, as well! I haven't seen all the movies up for Best Picture, including the winner, but I did see a few. I already loved The Grand Budapest Hotel and Boyhood. I thought The Imitation Game was ok and American Sniper was very hard to watch. I haven't seen Birdman (the winner), Whiplash (looks painful), Selma or the Theory of Everything. I have seen a few movies in the theatre in 2015 – Into the Woods (Rees's "worst movie ever," but I loved it!), The Imitation Game (just OK, not super-great), Paddington (sooooooo fun… used to LOVE Paddington!), and Still Alice (the book is SO much better – this is a watered down version, but with a great performance).
At home we've watched The Long Way Round series (documentary about a motorcycle trip around the world! Love it! Ewan McGregor, so fun), The One I Love, The Wolf of Wall Street, They Came Together, The Hundred Foot Journey (nice little movie – I read the book!), The Edge of Tomorrow, and 84 Charing Cross Road (such a sweet story about this eccentric woman – so fun! Very true to the book!).
And speaking of books, we had book club last week. We read The Perfume Collector and had great fun planning our French food theme! Lots of fromage, French Onion dip, potatoes au gratin, quiche and croissants. Topped off by French silk pie! What was the book about? Hmmm… It happened in France in the 50s and was about gifts and independence and the role of our senses. I read it in December, so had trouble with the details but we had a good discussion anyway!
Other books I've read in 2015 include: The Beautiful Daughters (see review here – it is released soon!), Yes Please (audiobook read by the author, Amy Poehler! Loved it!), The Supreme Macaroni Company (Adriana's book continuing with Valentine's life in NYC), and Apple of My Eye (sooooo good! Helene Hanff is quite the character and brings NYC in the 70s to life! Loved it!)
I can't decide what to read next… so I'm catching up on magazines. Looking forward to diving into that next good book, though!
Would love to hear what you're reading, what you're watching, what you're doing, while waiting for spring weather to arrive! Comment below!
No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. ~Hal Borland


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EC Cuts Fishing Quotas
The ten Member States of the European Union that declared having exceeded their fishing quotas in 2013 will face reduced fishing quotas for those stocks in 2014. The European Commission announces these deductions on a yearly basis to immediately address the damage done to the stocks overfished in the previous year and ensure sustainable use by Member States of common fishery resources. Compared to last year, the number of deductions made went down by 22%.
Maria Damanaki, Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, said: "If we want to be serious in our fight against overfishing, we need to apply our rules by the book – and this includes the respect of quotas. I am glad to see that we did a better job in 2013 than in previous years when it came to staying within quotas. That said, to achieve healthy fish stocks across Europe we also need efficient controls to enforce the rules in place."
Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and United Kingdom and 45 fish stocks are affected by this year's quota deduction. Any quota deductions apply to the same stocks that were overfished in the previous year, with extra deductions made for consecutive overfishing, overfishing above 5%, or if the stock concerned is subject to a multi annual plan.
However, should a Member State have no fishing quota available to "pay back" their overfishing, the quantities will be deducted from an alternative stock in the same geographical area, taking into account the need to avoid discards in mixed fisheries.
Deductions on alternative stocks are decided in consultation with the Member States concerned and will be published in a separate Regulation later this year. On the other hand, if the quota available is not sufficient to fully operate the said deductions, the remaining quantities are carried over to the following year.
The legal basis for deductions is Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009. It mandates the Commission to operate deductions from future quotas of the Member States that have overfished. Certain multiplying factors apply as set out in Article 105(2) and (3) of the Regulation with a view to ensure the sustainability of the stocks.


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Like most good urban liberals, I've been engaged in a lifelong near-boycott of Walmart. Not so much out of any deeply felt, principled objections to the store, but because they don't really build Walmarts in big liberal cities. When the company tries to set up shop in a liberal town, it's frequently stymied by union groups and their allies. The myriad zoning and permitting rules surrounding urban land create many avenues for groups with political clout to block disfavored stores, and such moves have, for example, kept Walmart out of New York City for years.
But on Wednesday, after running a gantlet of political obstacles, two new Walmarts opened in Washington, D.C. And the one I visited, at least, is pretty great. Walmart simply crushes the brick-and-mortar competition available in the city, and its competitors were quite right to try to rig the game against it. The only real question is whether these kinds of big-box stores have any real future at all in the age of Amazon.
The store, at H Street and First Street NW, is designed in an appealing way to fit into the urban landscape. Parking is below ground, the shopping is on a single level, and apartments are above. Eventually, the exterior of the building will be ringed by several smaller shops—build-out is nearly complete on a Starbucks and a branch of Capital One Bank.
Inside, the store has been squeezed into a smaller-than-usual footprint without doing much to sacrifice what's appealing about traditional suburban Walmarts. There's a bit less stuff for sale (no guns, for example) than I've seen in visits to Walmarts in Maine and North Carolina. But to see the store's true power, you need to wander over to the grocery section. The United Food and Commercial Workers are at the center of the labor alliance against Walmart, and it's no coincidence. UFCW represents workers at the region's Safeway and Giant supermarkets, and the Walmart grocery shopping experience is like what they offer—only much, much better.
It's a decidedly downscale shopping experience. A range of Hamburger Helper (and Chicken Helper spinoff) was on sale for a dollar a box, you can snag a jar of Ragu meat-flavored pasta sauce for $1.98, and the dairy aisle dedicates more shelf space to conventional yogurt than to strained Greek-style brands. The only real selling point for foodies is the availability of beef tongue, prominently labeled as lengua de vaca and clearly marketed more at Latin American immigrants than gentrifying taco lovers. But compared with the union stores, the aisles are pleasantly wide, the shopping carts all have functioning wheels, and the shelves have every kind of boxed macaroni and cheese a person could want. It even offers some financial services, like a check-cashing operation where you can get up to $1,000 for a $3 fee. Because a good deal on check cashing is a way to get customers in the door and ready to shop, Walmart can offer a much better rate than a stand-alone storefront check-cashing operation that needs to rely on fees as a profit center.
Most damningly, the store is well-staffed with friendly and helpful people who make the Safeway experience seem like shopping in a Russian customs line. The (I assume) lower pay lets Walmart hire more people. And however meager the wages may be, they were high enough that 23,000 people applied for 600 positions at the stores, meaning the people who got picked are probably pretty good at their jobs.
Still, while wandering around, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that the urban-format Walmart may be an idea whose time has already passed. The store was actually surprisingly busy for a midmorning Wednesday, with seemingly half the off-duty shift workers and scooter-bound disabled residents of the city plying the aisles. But there was nothing I wanted to buy.
I wasn't in the market for any fresh meat or produce, and the vast majority of the store is dedicated to dry goods. But why would I buy some socks or a no-stick frying pan or a coffee maker at Walmart when Amazon Prime would ship almost anything to my door in 36 hours? In fact, this past November, just as the finishing touches were being put on the new Walmart, I was getting serious about putting Amazon's Subscribe & Save feature to use. Paper towels, toilet paper, dish soap, hand soap, laundry detergent, whatever you call the stuff that goes in a dishwasher, dried pasta, canned beans, and basically anything else that won't rot are now scheduled for drop-off on the 22nd of every month. For now, less-wired demographic groups are still eager for the brick-and-mortar shopping experience. But delivery—no parking, no schlepping—is the future of urban commerce, not reengineered big-box stores.
Walmart knows this, of course, and is trying to get into the e-commerce game in a big way. But even if it succeeds (which will be very hard), urban stores seem unlikely to play a large role in a strategy that calls for goods to be distributed from very large suburban warehouses. In the meantime, cities that have been fending off Walmart have been shooting themselves in the foot. The multibrand physical retail store is a fading concept, but Walmart does it very well—and its downtown D.C. shop shows the company certainly can make it work in urban centers that deign to grant them permission to try.


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Mannington Vinyl Flooring Photos
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Checkout the fifth part of my XML support and SQL Server article series here.
In this article, I discussed the basic XML query methods for XML data manipulation. I also gave an brief introduction to the XQuery language, and demonstrated how to use the query(), value(), exist(), nodes(), and modify() methods.
This article is published on SSWUG.org.


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Fabpersona uses the service of the reputed courier service provider to provide shipping ain almost all parts of India (depending on the courier vendor confirmation). We strive to ensure the on-time delivery of Domestic orders.
Estimated Time of Delivery
Fabpersona tries their best to deliver the product to you as soon as possible. On average, it takes about 7-10 days to deliver your product to your doorstep. Banarasi, chikankari and other handmade items can take longer time due to on order manufacturing.
There might be a delay in the deliveries sometimes due to:
- Flight Delays
- Bad Weather
- Political Disruption
- Any other Unforeseen Situations
In such cases, our customer support team will get in touch with you and inform you via email. We will not be able to compensate for any mental agony caused by the delay in the delivery.
Items are only delivered on business days. Apart from Sundays, there are certain holidays throughout the year that are not considered business days. Deliveries will not happen on these days.
Free Delivery & Cash on Delivery
An order that are above Rs. 699 then only you would be eligible for free shipping. Else, Rs.99 will be levied as Shipping charges.
Cash on Delivery or COD is also available for orders that are above Rs, 699 and Below Rs. 10999/-
We also ship products internationally.
For any kind of assistance and support you can reach us on this email id firstname.lastname@example.com. to resolve your queries and requirements.
Please take notice of the fact that since most of our products are handcrafted, we usually have only a couple of pieces in stock. And because every product is crafted with care by our skilled artisans, it is not possible for us to offer cancellations, returns and exchanges unless there is a fault from our end like a major issue in the quality or wrong product shipment.
Note- Return, exchange and Refund policy is not available for our Utsav Collection.
- Cancellation of purchase is not applicable on Prepaid products for Domestic and International orders.
- You have the complete liberty to cancel a Postpaid order until it is shipped from our end. After shipping, the order is not subjected to cancellation.
- Contact us at email@example.com or +91 6378791333 to request a cancellation for your Postpaid orders.
- The customer must understand the cancellation policy of Fab Persona and it must be accepted by them before making their purchase.
Returns will only be accepted in the case of a manufacturing defect or dispatch of an incorrect item.
- If you got a damaged product or a wrong product, you can exchange your order for a fresh one. Exchanges are applicable for up to 10 days.
Apparel/ garments cannot be returned.
Your return request should be sent by email to email@example.com within 48 hours of receiving your shipment. Requests sent after 48 hours of delivery of parcel will not be eligible for returns.
If you receive your order in a parcel and packaging that appears to have been tampered with, damaged, or is in an unsealed condition, you are advised not to accept such a parcel and do not open the package. Kindly immediately get in touch with us at email@example.com or call at +91 +91 6378791333. In the unlikely event that your merchandise arrived is damaged, you need to email us a photo of the damaged packaging along with the return request as per step 3.
Upon receipt of your request, we shall examine the same and send you an authorization of return/exchange within 5 working days. Upon receipt of the authorization, the product must be couriered back in original packing to Fabpersona's address within 5 days, which will be provided to you by email.
The product being returned/exchanged must be in its original unused condition and sent along with the original bill and tags intact.
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You could choose to get a full refund in the form of store credits or get a refund on your original credit or debit card used for payment in which case return shipping charges and a stocking fee might be applicable. fabpersona will initiate the process for a refund on your original debit or credit card within 7 working days but we cannot guarantee the time taken by the bank authorities.
You may exchange your order only if no tassels and/or fall pico have been added to your request or confirmation.
- Only one time exchange is applicable on each purchase.
You will be responsible for any applicable customs and duties for both the returned shipment and the items we ship in exchange. (Please note that incoming shipments into India from overseas can attract very high custom duty charges. Those will need to be borne by the customer in case of an exchange.)
To and from shipping charges will be applicable in case of overseas shipments.
All our apparel is made on order and cannot be exchanged.
Any product that has been opened, unfolded, or tried on will not be exchanged.


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The Evening Standard, usually a reliable cheerleader of the Battersea Power Station redevelopment, reports that the already limited affordable housing commitment is being slashed in half.
The argument appears to be that as the bottom is falling out of the luxury homes market because of entirely predictable problems of over supply, the developers can no longer afford to build the sort of homes that people actually need. The commitment had originally stood at more than 600. By the time I wrote Up In Smoke, my book about the history of Battersea Power Station, this had been reduced to 565 units – around 15 per cent of the total number of new flats. Some of these have since been moved to another location – ie, nowhere near the posh flats going up round the power station itself.
The Standard says the developers now want to build only 386 affordable homes – around 9 per cent of the final residential offering. That's because following escalating costs caused by Brexit, they need to focus their finance on renovating the power station itself and building the new Northern Line extension. It's the sort of trick used by developers all around the country as they attempt to weasel their way out of already meagre commitments, and at Battersea they can do this without making a new planning application or holding a public consultation by using a "deed of variation". Conservative Wandsworth Council, whose commitment to a developer-led solution to the power station has been steadfast despite three decades of excruciating and occasional hilarious disappointment, are unlikely to object.
Ah, the irony. When I interviewed the amiable Rob Tincknell, the development's chief executive, in 2014, he boasted it was only the developer's commitment to the Northern Line extension (NLE) that was allowing the already limited amount of affordable housing to be built in the first place. Without the NLE, he insisted, they would never be able to build this number of affordable units.
Now the argument is reversed. Because they have to build the NLE, they can't afford to build as much affordable housing. It's a classic piece of power station sophistry to match that of the recent decision to transform some planned residential units into commercial, despite earlier assurances that they having developed the perfect ingredients for a mixed use scheme they'd be fools to change their minds.
Tincknell told me in 2014 via email: "BPS makes its section 106 planning contributions in two ways. The first is a £200m plus contribution to the Northern Line extension (NLE), the second is 15% affordable housing or 565 units – the largest amount ever built in Central London.
The important point to note is that the NLE project allows the development density in the district of Nine Elms to nearly double. Therefore, without the NLE the density at BPS would be about half (like the previous planning consent) and therefore even if there was a higher level of affordable, say 30%, it would be a percentage of a lower figure and therefore the city wouldn't get any more affordable than they do now."
Suddenly, all that has changed.
The developers claim they hope to restore the missing 250 units at the end of the build.
I wouldn't hold your breath.


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When his father leaves Thái Nguyên City for the northernmost reaches of French Indochina, Bùi Vân Minh must shoulder new responsibilities to help keep the family afloat. His mother's blindness and his uncle's caustic personality add to the young man's challenges.
A chance meeting with a captivating youth, Ngô Công Thao, throws Minh's life off-kilter in a most exciting and confounding way.
The young men soon discover their feelings for one another transcend mere friendship. But the struggles under French colonial rule and the effects of the Great War alter their lives to a degree they never could have imagined.
This novella expands and significantly develops a story that first appeared in the highly acclaimed anthology A PRIDE OF POPPIES. The author's screenplay adaptation of the story received an honourable mention and was a finalist in the 15th annual American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest, judged by Francis Ford Coppola, and also won the Best LGBT Feature Screenplay category at the New Renaissance Film Festival, Amsterdam 2018.
Gold Medal, 2012 Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Awards
Finalist, 25th Annual Lambda Literary Awards
Finalist, Regional Fiction Category, 2013 Next Generation Indie Book Awards
Finalist, 2012 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest
Hardened beyond his nineteen years, Todd Webster Morgan is determined to find gold high in the Sierra Nevadas. But his dream is violently upended. Complicating matters even more, he meets a young Chinese immigrant named Lâo Jian, whose own dreams of finding gold have been quashed by violence.
But life back in Sacramento isn't any easier. Todd's mother struggles to make ends meet. His invalid uncle becomes increasingly angry. Todd seeks employment with little success. Meanwhile his friendship with Lâo Jian turns to love. But their relationship is strained as anti-Chinese sentiment grows.
Todd vows not to lose Lâo Jian. The couple must risk everything to make a life for themselves. A life that requires facing fear and prejudice head on.
Finalist, 2013 Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Awards
Finalist, 2013 Pacific Northwest Writers' Association Literary Contest ("Ezra")
2013 Book of the Year, On Top Down Under Book Reviews
Adrian Stockwell and Ezra Cherevin both battle the fallout from their broken families. Yet each one's strategy is as different as each one's past. Adrian's childhood was left void by apathy; Ezra's upended by violence. The written word soon becomes their therapy, their escape. This shared passion for literature is the vehicle that brings them together.
But their journey is filled with personal and familial potholes.
Can these two young men carve out a life together by learning to navigate a sea of challenges? And can the people in their lives do the same?
Finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction in the 27th annual Triangle Awards
2015 Co-Book of the Year, On Top Down Under Book Reviews
Finalist and Runner-Up, 2015 Rainbow Awards
Finalist for the 2014 IndieFab Book of the Year Awards at Foreword Reviews
In the land of snow monsters and steam baths, complex characters as diverse as the Japanese terrain experience lust, loss, and love.
A young boy performs a daring rescue. A woman loses her old life to face an uncertain new one. A teenager suffers through a cataclysmic event. Unusual bonds form at the Tokyo Olympics. A rent boy's hardened heart melts when he meets a sexy, buoyant stranger.
Much like the Japanese islands themselves, there is commonality to be found among myriad differences. The poet, the musician, the artist, the tortured mother, the bankrupt father, the protective brother—they all know that there's a new day awaiting them after the moon slips sideways down the sky.
Finalist for the 2014 IndieFab Book of the Year Awards at Foreword Reviews
Aiden Royce's journey to an isolated New England hillside raises specters from his past. But a chance encounter alters the course of his future. A future he never dreamt possible.
In the span between the Great War and the Great Depression, Aiden Royce loses both family and fortune. He has nothing left but memories and regrets until a series of letters arrive; ramblings written by a familiar hand that nevertheless offer Aiden some important clues. Months later he's roaming the grounds of the crumbling Cebren Spa, a once posh destination, but now an empty shell of mystery and menace.
One saving grace in this perplexity is the handsome Sebastian Desmond, a descendant of the spa's founders. He rescues Aiden from a storm, but in doing so opens up a different sort of tempest when secrets unravel and both men's lives are torn asunder.
Can decades-old questions be answered, onerous mysteries solved, and a burgeoning and venturesome romance prosper in the shadows of a once restorative wellspring?
Finalist, 2013 USA Book News Book of the Year Awards
Finalist, 2013 National Indie Excellence Book Awards
Finalist, 2012 Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Awards
A small French city. A park near Tokyo. The Czech countryside. London at night. Lost loves and found loves. Fear and courage. Reflections. Rejections. Reconciliations. Romance.
These interconnected stories follow the adventures of Brian, Ondrej, Yuji, Jason, and others as they navigate the tumultuous path of life and love.
Shin-Kiba Park (Pushcart Prize nominee; from Gival Press's ArLiJo)
Nagasaki (Dana Award finalist; from Polari Journal)
Unfinished (from SNReview)
Ficelle (from SNReview)
Finalist, 24th Annual Lambda Literary Awards
Finalist, 2013 National Indie Excellence Book Awards
Honorable Mention, 2011 Rainbow Awards
3rd Place, 2010 PNWA Literary Contest
Best Surprise of 2013, Boys in Our Books
Micah Malone is just an average college student with an ordinary life and big dreams. And an intense passion for film and TV. And a Greek Chorus in his head.
His friends create more drama than a soap opera. His love life needs a laughtrack.
Can Micah ultimately find the direction he needs?
Let the cameras roll. Micah's quirky story has begun filming.
Finalist, 2013 Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Awards
Revenge is a dish best served with a little bit of spice,
three dashes of magic, and a whole lot of flair.
Your eyes are squeezed tight. Your hand is over your racing heart. Your mouth is agape. And your tongue is planted firmly in your cheek. After you've read these six mystical, magical tales of torment and revenge, you'll be looking over your shoulder, pausing at corners, and keeping that porch light burning bright all through the night. Oh, and you might chuckle once or twice, too. After all, what's fright without a little delight? Hexes, curses, old family recipes, old family secrets, stolen cars and stolen lives. It's all just another day in the lives (and deaths) of a special kind of folk.
Food & Spirits
Kill Them With Kindness
A Special Kind of Folk
All the Souls on Earth
Commedia dell'Arte
For Jeremy Saura, a song by Kate Bush holds all the answers. Pushes him onward. Sends him running up that road. Up that hill. Up that building.
Jeremy gets chills as he listens to the lyrics. The song, a beautiful powerhouse of determination over despair, only gains in impact as he replays it. Seven times. "I adore you Kate Bush," he whispers to her photograph. For Jeremy, "Running Up That Hill" gives him the momentum he needs to navigate the trials and tribulations of a new job, a complex friendship, and a budding workplace romance.
A compendium of varied tales with timeless themes. Featuring: 1909, The Celestial, Wellspring, Running Up That Hill, Reunion, Sideways Down the Sky, and Tinseltown.
Available here!