text:
Yes, they are naked. Really. It's all a lesson in patience, I swear.
Have you ever noticed how you can be the most patient of people for some things but then not five seconds later, your patience has melted and you stand frustrated and impatient?
*That* would be me at the mere thought of decorating cookies.
Don't get me wrong – I LOVE them…. I'm just not patient enough with myself to make them *BEAUTIFUL*.
So tonight, as my brother-in-law finished helping us with a little carpentry, we sat down to eat these naked roll out cookies. It was actually a "test" batch that turned out perfectly (thanks to my mom's rockin' recipe). However, I think I really do need to dress these guys in something before they become part of the cookie plates we share with our neighbors every year.
Maybe I just need to get some new cookie cutters? I realized this year that my cookie cutters include: a fish, 2 Scotty dogs (why?), 2 state-shaped cookie cutters (another big WHY?), a star, some snowflakes, a hand, a VW Bug, a rocket ship, a carrot, and a humungous heart.
Good lord. I need to find some better cookie cutters. I have a preference for the metal ones – not the press/plastic cutters as I've never had much success with those. For the last few weeks whenever we've been out, I've been checking out the cookie cutters when I see them. Needless to say, a few places have had worse selections than do I (didn't think that was possible!) and I have no desire to have a bucket filled with Yule-tide cookie cutters.
Hmm. Maybe that's my problem? I prefer the general "could be used any time" cookie cutter. But seriously, my mom's roll out cookie recipe just didn't look good as a carrot. But man, those are fun cookie cutters!
I prefer general stuff so much that for our department holiday gift swap, I bought the coolest rocket ship Popsicle forms that were people pleasing! (Why do we women buy each other the most bizarre holiday wall hangings every year?) I decided to buck the system a bit (ok sisters… lay off… I know that is hardly surprising news to you). The Popsicle things are much too cool… I'm think I'll go back to the store and pick up one more for a Christmas gift for a niece/nephew….. well… ok… and if my budget allows, maybe one for me too!
In the meantime, those of you who are doing the Christmas cookie thing may enjoy this roll cookie recipe.
Hopefully you will be more patient than am I and your cookies won't remain naked while you munch and chat away. (ha ha ha – or should I say "Ho Ho Ho!"?)
Gluten Free Christmas Roll Cookies
Recipe makes 2 1/2 dozen cookies (depending on the size of the cookie cutters)
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups GF flour blend
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2-3 Tablespoons milk
- Preheat oven to 375F.
- Cream together shortening and sugar until fluffy.
- Add one egg and beat together well for 2-3 minutes.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together GF flour mix, salt and baking powder. Add to creamed ingredients and mix until well incorporated.
- Add 2 – 3 Tablespoons of milk until perfect, non-sticky cookie dough is achieved.
- Form two balls with the dough. Roll out one ball to 1/4″-1/3″ thickness. Cut with your favorite cookie cutter. (Repeat until all dough is used with both balls.)
- Bake 6 -7 minutes until the edges just begin to brown.
- Decorate/frost as desired… or not. LOL
Happy GF Cookie Eating All!


text:
Hey! City of DeBary, Florida…Don't touch J.J Hart's ducks! The "ducks" in question are actually chickens that the Hart family purchased to help supply his diet with fresh eggs. Over time, a wonderful thing happened. J.J developed a connection with the chickens and now affectionately calls them his "ducks." You see, two-year old J.J has autism spectrum disorder; a complex disorder of the brain that causes a some children and adults to have difficulty with communication, behavior, and social interaction. The chickens are therapeutic for J.J and are helping him overcome some of his autistic traits including some of his communication hurdles.
Since having the chickens, J.J has finally started to talk and even said "I love you" for the first time.
The problem is that the city claims the chickens are a "public nuisance" and not legal in a residential neighborhood. The Harts have done their homework and after looking over all the codes, they can't find a single one that says "no chickens." Despite the lack of evidence for this "no chicken code," the city Code Enforcement Board found the Harts in violation. After December 9, if they have not gotten rid of J.J's chickens ("ducks") and come into "compliance" with the City or made their plea to the City Council, the Council will begin fining the family $100 a day that the chickens remain on their property.
It should be noted that the neighbors don't mind the chickens. One neighbor stated his dog is more annoying to the neighborhood than the chickens.
Not everyone must feel that way, because two weeks ago someone beheaded four of the chickens (two hens and two babies) while the family was asleep. During the police investigation, the family kept J.J inside, who kept insisting he wanted to see his ducks. I can't imagine the horror and the pain the family must have experienced knowing that four of J.J's beloved "ducks" were gone.
The Sheriff department concluded that it was an animal and not a human that beheaded the chickens. The family strongly disagrees. At the scene of the crime, there was were two concrete blocks and a piece of wood by the coop door, that the family claims they did not put there. So, either a very sophisticated animal moved a concrete block and a piece of wood over to the door to prop it open or a human with no heart put it there when they arrived to behead the innocent poultry.
To aid them in their fight, the family has hired attorney Mark Nation. Nation argues that the family should be allowed to keep their chickens first of all because they are not in violation of any of the cited codes and there is no prohibition whatsoever from keeping chickens. However, if the city refuses to reverse its decision, then Nation is requesting a variance pursuant to section 1-9 of the Land Development Code.
If the city still refuses, then Nation is requesting that the City grant the Harts an accommodation under the "Federal Fair Housing Act and the Florida Fair Housing Act. These acts require cities to make allowances for anybody who has a disability," and since J.J has a disability, the city is required to make accommodations for him to keep the chickens.
Nation also does not believe the Sheriff department's findings that the chickens were killed by an animal and not by an angry human.
The City has granted the family a 60-day grace period from the fines. Rather than waiting until the last minute, the Harts have chosen to make their plea on November 7th, 2012 at 7 pm. If you are a resident of DeBary, Florida, you have a right to speak at the hearing and let your voice be heard. Check out J.J's Facebook page to learn how. For those of you who can't attend the hearing, you can help by emailing J.J's mother and requesting to sign her "Concerned Citizen" petition.
Now, on to the politics of this whole matter. Regulations are there to help maintain order and balance, but at what cost?
This child is benefiting from the chickens and their neighbors don't mind them being there. The Mayor of DeBary, Bob Garcia, has stepped up and said that even if the Harts are violating an ordinance (and even he isn't 100% sure they are), an exception should be made for J.J's sake.
So what's the problem?
Does the City just want to play big man on campus or do they know so little about autism that they are ignorant to the impact their decision could have on a young child?
While I understand the city needing to enforce their own code, I also understand what it's like to have a child who needs help overcoming autistic traits. If this were my son, I would fight City Hall to my fullest extent to help my son.
What do you think? If in fact the code does exist, should the city turn the other way in an effort to help J.J or should they still enforce the code and force the chickens out of the hen house and into the fryer? Let us know in the comments or better yet, contact the DeBary City Council and let them know how you feel!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Heseltine, Michael Ray Dibdin
Heseltine, Michael Ray Dibdin hĕs´əltīn˝, hĕz´– [key], 1933–, British politician. After studying law at Oxford, he built a successful career in publishing before entering the House of Commons as a Conservative in 1966. He held junior posts in the Heath government (1970–74). In Margaret Thatcher's government, he was secretary for the environment (1979–83) and then secretary for defense in 1983, resigning in protest over his treatment in the 1986 Westland helicopter affair, which involved the leak of a confidential communication. He was regarded as Thatcher's strongest rival and initiated a challenge to her leadership in 1990. She resigned, but John Major assumed the prime ministership. Heseltine again became environmental secretary and was responsible for repealing the highly unpopular poll tax. In 1992 he became president of the Board of Trade and secretary for trade and industry; from 1995 to 1997 he was deputy prime minister under Major.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: British and Irish History: Biographies


text:
White people have always been renowned for having ridiculously large music collections. So when file sharing gave white people a chance to acquire all the music they ever wanted, it felt as though it was an earned right and not a privilege.
When (not if) you see a white male with a full iPod, ask him if all of his music is legal. If he does not immediately launch into a diatribe about his right to pirate music, you might have to nudge him a bit by saying "do you think that's right?" The response will be immediate and uniform.
He will likely rattle off statistics about how most musicians don't make any money from albums, it all comes from touring and merchandise. So by attending shows, he is able to support the musicians while simultaneously striking a blow against multinational corporations. He will proceed to walk you through the process of how record labels are set up to reward the corporation and fundamentally rob the artist of their rights, royalties and creativity. Prepare to hear the name Steve Albini a lot.
Advanced white people will also talk about how their constant downloading of music makes them an expert who can properly recommend bands to friends and co-workers, thus increasing revenues and exposure. So in fact, their "illegal" activities are the new lifeblood of the industry.
When they have finished talking, you must choose your next words wisely. It is considered rude to point out the simple fact that they are still getting music for free. Instead you should say: "Wow, I never thought of it like that. You know a lot about the music industry. What bands are you listening to right now? Who is good?"
This sentence serves two functions: it helps to reassure the white person that they are your local "music expert," something they prize. Also, it lets them feel as though they have convinced you that their activities are part of a greater social cause and not simple piracy.
If you bring up this issue with white person who says "nah bro, I don't give a shit, Dave Matthews has enough money as it is." You are likely dealing with wrong kind of white person.
In the even more rare situation where someone says "it's all paid for, and it's all transferred from vinyl." You have found an expert level white person and must treat the situation carefully.
Because of the availability of music online, a very strict social hierarchy has been created within white culture whereby someone with a large MP3 collection is considered "normal," a large CD collection is considered to be "better," and a person with a large vinyl collection is recognized as "elite."
These elite white people abhor the fact that music piracy has made their B-sides, live performances, and bootlegs available to the masses. Their entire life's work has been stripped of its rarity in terms of both object and sound on the record. The best thing you can say to them is: "vinyl still sounds better."
However, it is recommended that you do not let this conversation drag much longer. If you let them continue talking to you they are likely to spend hours talking to you about bands you've never heard of and providing you with a weekly mix CD of rarities that you do not want.


text:
|PostgreSQL 7.4.7 Documentation
|Fast Backward
|Chapter 43. System Catalogs
|Fast Forward
The view pg_locks provides access to information about the locks held by open transactions within the database server. See Chapter 12 for more discussion of locking.
pg_locks contains one row per active lockable object, requested lock mode, and relevant transaction. Thus, the same lockable object may appear many times, if multiple transactions are holding or waiting for locks on it. However, an object that currently has no locks on it will not appear at all. A lockable object is either a relation (e.g., a table) or a transaction ID.
Note that this view includes only table-level locks, not row-level ones. If a transaction is waiting for a row-level lock, it will appear in the view as waiting for the transaction ID of the current holder of that row lock.
Table 43-32. pg_locks Columns
|OID of the locked relation, or NULL if the lockable object is a transaction ID
|OID of the database in which the locked relation exists, or zero if the locked relation is a globally-shared table, or NULL if the lockable object is a transaction ID
|ID of a transaction, or NULL if the lockable object is a relation
|process ID of a server process holding or awaiting this lock
|name of the lock mode held or desired by this process (see Section 12.3.1)
|true if lock is held, false if lock is awaited
granted is true in a row representing a lock held by the indicated session. False indicates that this session is currently waiting to acquire this lock, which implies that some other session is holding a conflicting lock mode on the same lockable object. The waiting session will sleep until the other lock is released (or a deadlock situation is detected). A single session can be waiting to acquire at most one lock at a time.
Every transaction holds an exclusive lock on its transaction ID for its entire duration. If one transaction finds it necessary to wait specifically for another transaction, it does so by attempting to acquire share lock on the other transaction ID. That will succeed only when the other transaction terminates and releases its locks.
When the pg_locks view is accessed, the internal lock manager data structures are momentarily locked, and a copy is made for the view to display. This ensures that the view produces a consistent set of results, while not blocking normal lock manager operations longer than necessary. Nonetheless there could be some impact on database performance if this view is read often.
pg_locks provides a global view of all locks in the database cluster, not only those relevant to the current database. Although its relation column can be joined against pg_class.oid to identify locked relations, this will only work correctly for relations in the current database (those for which the database column is either the current database's OID or zero).
If you have enabled the statistics collector, the pid column can be joined to the procpid column of the pg_stat_activity view to get more information on the session holding or waiting to hold the lock.


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Spending less time in your chair can lower your risk of heart disease, research has shown. Now, reducing your sitting time may also lessen feelings of depression, according to a new study that examined the relationship between sitting, activity level and depression.
Researchers in Australia analyzed the survey responses of 8,950 women who were between the ages of 50 and 55 in 2001. They were asked about their physical activity, sitting time and feelings. The women completed the survey a total of four times in three-year intervals, in 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010. The researchers were looking for associations among all three areas in the present and in the future.
The researchers found that women who sat the most (more than seven hours a day) had a 47% higher risk for depressive symptoms than women who sat the least (less than four hours per day).
But inactivity had a greater effect on mood. Women who did no physical activity had a 99% higher risk for developing depressive symptoms than those who met exercise guidelines, according to the study. (The Australian government recommends 30 minutes per day on most days.) And women who both sat for multiple hours and got no exercise were three times more likely to have depressive symptoms than women who sat less and exercised more.
The authors note that sitting was not associated with future signs of depression. That is, the women who spent more time sitting were more likely to feel down in the present, but the act of prolonged sitting did not necessarily mean they would experience feelings of depression years later.
More From Runner's World
Exercise, however, could reduce the future risk of depression, according to the authors.
The findings are the latest in maelstrom of research of late on the negative health effects of prolonged sitting. Spending multiple hours in a chair is now considered a risk factor for heart disease and diabetes, and no one is immune. Though running won't exempt you from sitting's ill effects, getting up from your chair every 20 minutes and walking around the office can help.
Sitting is the New Smoking, Even for Runners
Too Must Sitting Linked to Cardiovascular Disease
Marathoners Run A Lot, And Sit A Lot


text:
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text:
Six Takes on God
God According to God: A Physicist Proves We've Been Wrong About God All Along
By Gerald L. Schroeder
HarperOne, 256 pages, $25.99.
The Evolution of God
By Robert Wright
Little, Brown and Company, 567 pages, $25.99.
Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate
By Terry Eagleton
Yale University Press, 200 pages, $25.00.
Saving God: Religion After Idolatry
By Mark Johnston
Princeton University Press, 248 pages, $24.95.
The God Question: What Famous Thinkers From Plato to Dawkins Have Said About the Divine
By Andrew Pessin
Oneworld Publications, 352 pages, $14.95.
The Case for God
By Karen Armstrong
Knopf, 432 pages, $27.95.
Regular readers of the book review pages (or even of books) are no doubt familiar with the so-called New Atheists — Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, in order of increasing shrillness — and how they've been raising hackles with their screeds. After reading their books last year, I could see why people were ticked off. The New Atheists like to conflate any kind of religion with extremism, as if all believers were boneheaded fundamentalists. Similarly, they rail against a cruel, straw-man God, as if the fundamentalist projection of brutality onto the Creator is the only way to conceive of Him.
Still, I say, God bless the New Atheists. The thing to remember is that they are good for religion — at least for those of us who see faith as an ongoing inquiry. "The God Debate" is often portrayed as a screaming match between nonbelievers and fundamentalists, but there is a vast area of religious feeling in between. And the success of the New Atheists is prodding those in that broad zone to articulate their beliefs. This year has brought a number of notable responses, in particular to the oversimplified perception of God shared by both nonbeliever and Bible beater. Recently I read a half-dozen such books, and though at times I was frustrated, overall it was an enlightening experience.
Any marathon reading session needs an organizing principle, so I moved to the least religious books from the most. (Maybe that's why it began inauspiciously: The religiously observant can be remarkably unobservant about other things.) In "God According to God: A Physicist Proves We've Been Wrong About God All Along," Gerald L. Schroeder argues that skeptics have "a stunted perception" of God as "a sinister monster." When we look at scripture more carefully, however, we see that He is loving and merciful. Which is nice to point out, but really the book is a jumbled attempt to reconcile scripture and science. Instead of a considered response to the real questions raised by atheism, "God According to God" is a mishmash of Intelligent Design, junk metaphysics and passable Jewish theodicy.
Karen Armstrong's "The Case for God" is, baruch HaShem, much better, even if the title is misleading. Her book is not so much a brief on behalf of a specific divinity as it is an investigation of the "apophatic tradition" — namely, that God is beyond human comprehension, so it's better not to talk so much about Him. Instead we should look to a "spirituality of silence," a religious practice that, through "spiritual exercises and a dedicated lifestyle," reveals His transcendence. And anything that "elevates an inherently limited value to an unacceptably high level," like the contemporary obsession with creationism or the "Holy Land," is idolatrous.
In "Saving God: Religion After Idolatry," Mark Johnston also has choice things to say about the "idolatrous urge to contain God in an image or representation." Johnston, like Armstrong, is not talking about icons or statues: He's talking about applying any anthropomorphic qualities to God, like ethnocentrism or vengeance. He's also talking about the obsession with "outer ritual forms" and the afterlife, the selfish "quest for meaning," even theodicy. All are "forms of resistance to the Divine." According to Johnston, the better path is panentheism, or "God in all and all in God." But what is God? Well, "the outpouring of Existence Itself by way of its exemplification in ordinary existents for the purpose of the self-disclosure of Existence Itself."
Which is difficult to imagine on a sampler. Look, both Armstrong's and Johnston's books are brilliant. But their alternative paradigms are too intellectual, too rarefied. I had to read parts of Johnston's book twice, some even three times. Which I didn't mind — after all, that's my job. But the other day I also read that Hondurans have been praying to the Virgin of Suyapa, a statuette of Mary, in the hopes that she'll intercede in their political crisis. And I recall the Hasidim I saw in Poland who left notes at the graves of departed tzadikim. What would they make of "panentheism" or the "apophatic tradition"?
I also found it interesting that while both authors call for a radical re-imagining of monotheism, both still exhibit a kind of Christo-centrism. Armstrong is impressed by midrash, but her greater enthusiasm is for the Christian thinkers who developed a "spirituality of silence." And Johnston, whose book is a rigorously constructed philosophical argument — one against anthropomorphism and against an unquestioning reliance on scripture to reveal the true nature of God — ends by telling us that "Christ conquers death on our behalf by ideally exemplifying agape, and stimulating it in us." Of course they should write from any tradition they like, and who would argue against brotherly love? Still, this Jewish reader felt somewhat marginalized.
But when it comes to mistaking Christo-centrism for monotheism, nothing beats Terry Eagleton's "Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate." He scores some points at the expense of the New Atheists, referring to Hitchens as "petit-bourgeois" and Dawkins as an "old-fashioned, crassly reductive system builder straight out of George Eliot's 'Middlemarch.'" Eagleton's own religious views, however, are an admixture of Marxism and a fixation on the "the murdered, transfigured body of Jesus." All right, there is an ideological connection, as in liberation theology. But much of this book is muddled, a collection of almost random thoughts about Jesus, faith and civilization. And it's rife with the tiresome anti-Americanism of the British left, with the usual schadenfreude about September 11. (Note, though, that Eagleton's book is based on lectures he gave at Yale, so clearly he's not averse to American money.)
We have now reached the not-so-religious side of the list, as evidenced by a book that puts the words "God" and "evolution" in the title. But Wright has no Dawkinsian hostility. Instead, in "The Evolution of God" he provides a clear-eyed description of how animism developed into organized religion, and how the conception of God developed in monotheism. The trick is to see that gods are "products of cultural evolution," and that "the tone of scripture is set by the circumstance of its creator." In other words, when groups of humans engage in "win-win" behavior, God is tolerant and loving; when one group loses (like the Hebrews often did), God starts talking about enemy-smiting.
Wright's book is irreverent without being dismissive, and packed with interesting (if often unverifiable) ideas about how religions are created. My only criticism, really, is that I found it insanely difficult to finish. Wright is an over-explainer. He consistently provides an unnecessary level of detail, which creates a book that refuses to end. It's 567 pages long, which, to be fair, includes the index; but it also includes detailed footnotes, an afterword and an appendix. And there's an online appendix. Days after I finally got through it all, I flinched whenever I got a text message, for fear that it was Wright with further elucidation.
I had no such concerns about "The God Question: What Famous Thinkers From Plato to Dawkins Have Said About the Divine." Andrew Pessin concisely summarizes what dozens of sages have written about God, which makes his book a useful companion to those previously discussed. It's also the only one that I am likely to consult again — partly because Pessin is not out to convince anyone of anything. Every book mentioned above has the implicit message that its author has an answer, the suggestion that this is the way it is; believe what I believe. Only Pessin's is designed to inspire further reading.
Still, whatever their faults, these books will teach you much about religion, if not so much about God. (Schroeder's book teaches that Jews, too, can be dumb enough to swallow Intelligent Design.) But I'm not so concerned if I remain confused about the nature of God. Unlike fundamentalists or atheists, I can live with a certain amount of confusion. There is spiritual sustenance in food for thought. And, as I mentioned, we should be encouraged to see that smart people are articulating alternatives to atheism and fundamentalism.
One last thought. I await a book that might convince fundamentalists to respect the separation between church and state — indeed, that this separation was what allowed their ideas to flourish in the first place. And I await a book that reminds atheists of the stabilizing virtues of religious tolerance. Neither book would be about God, of course. Nor would either resolve the real problems of life, the "arbitrary suffering, the decay of corrosive aging, our profound ignorance of our condition," as Johnston puts it. But they might end a lot of wasteful bickering.
Gordon Haber is a frequent contributor to the Forward.


text:
Please note: Flu shots are available by appointment only. Please call the phone number below to schedule an appointment.
St. Luke's Quick Care provides urgent care in Twin Falls and for the surrounding region. Our urgent care services help you receive fast, experienced care without an appointment. Some people use urgent care when they can't get in to see their regular doctor, or if they don't have a doctor.
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If you need urgent medical attention outside of our office hours, please go directly to the nearest emergency department or call 911.
St. Luke's now offers on-demand virtual care services seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., if appropriate depending on your symptoms.
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You may still have to wait a bit, as you would at an in-person urgent care clinic, but you'll be waiting wherever you choose.


text: Hi, I am in the need to install both php4 and php5 on my webserver (centos 4.4) and switch between them when required. What is the best way to do so? Php4 is installed by default and working fine. I am now want to compile php 5 and then make sure that I can switch between the two. I am not able to make use of xampp package as my apache is already duly configured and also these guys says that the package should be used for development purposes, not for production. Plz guide me. Thanks Jai ---------- ek chota mota hindustani ----------


text:
After a long, hot period of drought in eastern Australia, spanning much of the 1990s and 2000s and referred to as the worst in 1000 years (see also discussion on BNC on the drought here and the strange winter of 2009 here), the period 2010-2011 has seen record rainfall and rural flooding events in Australia. This has culminated this week with the 3rd largest city, Brisbane, being struck by severely damaging and costly urban floods, inundating the central business district and overwhelming many thousands of homes and businesses. To quote:
BRISBANE is besieged by the flood of the century, with more than 30,000 properties to be inundated tomorrow… The Queensland capital is now the scene of a natural disaster unprecedented in contemporary Australia. The Brisbane River is due to reach 5.2m on a 4am high tide, 30cm down on the predicted peak, but approaching the mark set in the devastating 1974 floods that claimed 14 lives.
This all comes on the back of an earlier 'drought breaking' flood that struck central Queensland earlier in 2010, which I described in this post:
Do the recent floods prove man-made climate change is real? In this post, I said:
Earlier this year in Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology released a Special Climate Statement on the recent exceptional rain and flooding events in central Australia and Queensland. February 28th 2010 was the wettest day on record for the Northern Territory, and March 2nd set a new record for Queensland. Over the 10-day period ending March 3rd, an estimated 403 cubic kilometres (403,000 gigalitres) of rainfall fell across the NT and QLD. Extreme, indeed.
For further background on these events, you should read the latest special climate statement, released on 7th January by the Bureau of Meteorology: An extremely wet end to 2010 leads to widespread flooding across eastern Australia. It says:
It was the wettest December on record for Queensland and for eastern Australia as a whole, the second-wettest for the Murray-Darling Basin, the sixth-wettest for Victoria and the eighth-wettest for New South Wales. For Australia as a whole it was the third-wettest December on record. This followed an extremely wet spring, the wettest on record for Queensland, New South Wales, eastern Australia and the Murray-Darling Basin. The heavy late November and December rainfall followed a very wet July to October for Australia, meaning many catchments were already wet before the flooding rain. It was Australia's wettest July to October on record and also the wettest July to December on record.
The point of this post is not to try to attribute these extreme weather events directly to climate change, although I think there is a real influence at work here. A major factor is one of the strongest La Niñas on record, as detailed in this excellent piece by climatologist Neville Nichols. Climate scientist Will Steffen from ANU also had this to say:
…there was no direct link between global warming and the tragic flash flooding in Toowoomba which has killed at least nine people in southeast Queensland.
But he told The Australian Online that climate change would lead to heavier, more frequent rain.
"As the climate warms, there is more water vapour in the atmosphere," he told The Australian Online.
"This means that there is a probability that there will more intense rainfall events around the world.
There is some evidence that we can see them now. I think the place where the best data is the US."
My point is this. The recent "Big Dry" was almost certainly the most economically damaging climate event ever to strike Australia — certainly for rural areas. Now, on the back of this extended event, which impacted many sectors of Australian business, comes the latest diluvian disaster. Aside from the direct costs of replacing damaged and destroyed goods and rebuilding infrastructure (the insurance estimate I saw on the news today was >$5 billion), there are reports that the cascading effects could wipe 1% off Australia's GDP — around $13 billion — mainly through export losses.
These are major climate-related costs to the economy, as well as to the welfare of the people caught up in this event and the natural systems that are being damaged.
Then, in Europe and the US, we've seen record snowstorms and extremely disruptive cold snaps, which can be linked to extremely unusual events in the Arctic, as described here. And, of course, in 2009 we witnessed the horrific bushfires in Victoria – the worst on record. Again, I repeat, these types of events have happened before, and are difficult to attribute individually to climate change versus random chance — but that doesn't change the fact they they really hurt, economically and socially.
Climate change, left unabated, will increase the frequency and severity of natural disasters. More and more energy is being trapped within the Earth system (see figure to the right), and it has to be expressed somewhere, sometime. The laws of physical science dictate nothing less. And it will, in turn, hit the Australian and World economy hard. Those economic rationalists among us should heed the reminder that these latest natural events have delivered. Avoided global heating is avoided cost (with the worst-case scenarios being incalculable).
For the general populace's opinion on climate change, what will the latest events do? I can't be sure of course, but I suspect that it will, in many, awaken within them a deep-seated horror — "...this could happen to me". This personal demon, fed by the graphic reporting we now get on such events, might well do more than anything else to catalyst a community consensus for real, effective and urgent action to eliminate fossil fuels.


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The BBC has partnered with Adobe to make its iPlayer on-demand software work on non-PC platforms. The "strategic partnership" will also extend to video content on the BBC's other sites, such as BBC News.
The change to the Flash (opens in new tab)-based system means the catch-up iPlayer service will be available on Mac and Linux as well as Windows by the end of the year, but it will only be available to non-Windows platforms as streaming media rather than downloads for now.
Erik Huggers, BBC future media and technology group controller, said: "I'm delighted to announce this strategic relationship with Adobe. It is important to ensure that BBC iPlayer is available on as many platforms as possible."
Windows Media criticised
It's unclear where the move will leave Microsoft, which currently powers the iPlayer with its DRM-based Windows Media (opens in new tab) technology. The BBC and Microsoft have been close in recent times, leading to criticism from organisations such as the Open Source Consortium (OSC).
It could well be the case that Microsoft couldn't provide the download methodology for the iPlayer to work on other platforms as we speculated it might, hence this latest move, but it seems likely .
According to Adobe, the BBC iPlayer will have its consumer marketing launch at Christmas when it will offer downloading and streaming services. It will also incorporate radio, though it's not clear whether this will supersede the current BBC Radio Player offering.
But the partnership reaches further than just the iPlayer. According to the details released by Adobe, "the strategic relationship will also allow the BBC to provide a single consistent user experience for the majority of streamed video and audio content on bbc.co.uk".
Rich-media content
So for the BBC it could be goodbye to RealPlayer and even Windows Media, the two formats it currently makes its clips available in. By moving web video across to Flash, the hope is surely to make download times quicker and accessibility better. Adobe says the BBC hopes to "ensure all its rich-media content is accessible to the widest audience possible".
"[The move] will offer our audiences increased flexibility as to how and when they consume our content, both live and on-demand, on bbc.co.uk," said Huggers. "Adobe's video solutions will revolutionise how we create and deliver content to audiences in the digital age."
"The move to Flash Player-compatible video will help the BBC engage audiences by delivering a seamless, instant-on web video experience," added Bruce Chizen, chief executive officer of Adobe.
However, Adobe's bulletin does make it clear that the relationship is a non-exclusive one, so the BBC may still use formats such as Windows Media for streaming, for example.


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Alissa and Warren
Alissa and Warren return to the place they met - the UNO campus. They had a great time walking around, greeting old friends and remembering the time they spent here together. You can enter comments about the photos. You can order prints that will be sent directly to you. The copyright watermark will not appear on any photos you order.Read More


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Deputy Mayor Susan Honda
City and Regional Representation Current & Past
- King County Board of Health
- South King County Area Transportation Board (SCATBD)
- Finance, Economic Development and Regional Affairs Committee (FEDRAC)
- Domestic Violence Initiative Representative on behalf of Sound Cities Association
- King County Flood Control District Advisory Committee on behalf of Sound Cities Association
Community Service
- PTA President - Silver Lake Elementary School
- PTSA President - Saghalie Junior High School
- PTSA President - Decatur High School
- PTSA President - Federal Way Public Academy
- PTSA President - Federal Way Council
- Region 9 Service Specialist and Legislative Director
- Federal Way PTSA Clothing Bank Director
- Adelaide Elementary School Leadership Team
- Decatur High School Leadership Team
- Federal Way Public Schools Truancy Board Member
- Co-Chair Federal Way Public Schools Levy Campaign
- Girl Scout Leader
- Cub Scout Leader
- Board of Director - Federal Way Boys and Girls Club
- Board of Director - Aria Dance Company
- Homeowners Association Vice-President
- Federal Way Arts Commission (3 years as Chair)
- Federal Way Diversity Commission (1 year as Chair)
- American Association of University Women Federal Way Branch
- Federal Way Historical Society
Stadium High School
Tacoma General Hospital School of Nursing
Awards and Achievements
Golden Acorn Award
Washington State PTA Honorary Lifetime Member
Federal Way School District PTA Volunteer of the Year Award
Bronze Award - Washington State Leadership Academy
Silver Award - Washington State Leadership Academy
Gold Award - Washington State Leadership Academy
Founders Award - Federal Way Public Academy
Ms. Honda is married to her husband Bruce of 33 years. They have raised three children in Federal Way and have seven grandchildren.
Ms. Honda enjoys walking her dogs, gardening, reading, and volunteering.


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Investors willing to bet on Twitter will have to overlook mounting losses and slowing user growth — and have faith that the 8-year-old Internet messaging company can transform a household name into advertising dollars.
Fund managers who were optimistic about Twitter's financial prospects shrugged off its latest $65 million quarterly loss as standard for startups chasing growth, pointing instead to revenue growth that more than doubled.
But others warned of the risks of investing in a company with a management that has yet to prove it can generate a profit.
"It's worth having exposure to a name like Twitter, although you have to take a conceptual leap of faith with regard to valuation, and say it's a unique franchise that isn't likely to go away," said Karl Mills, president and chief investment officer for private investment adviser firm Jurika, Mills & Keifer in San Francisco.
"Like Twitter, Amazon was in investment mode for a long time. They still are, so that doesn't worry me."
Twitter's latest IPO filings showed its net loss in the September quarter tripled to almost as much as it lost in all of 2012.
As Twitter races toward the year's most highly anticipated tech offering, memories of Facebook's disappointing 2012 debut threaten the online messaging service's own splashy coming-out party.
Like Facebook, Twitter enjoys strong brand recognition, which typically translates to outsized retail investor interest. That was one of the reasons Facebook was able to raise its IPO price to $38 a share, from an initial range of $24 to $35 a share. That gave the company a valuation of about $100 billion, or about 99 times its 2011 earnings.
Facebook shares promptly plummeted on their first day of trade. They didn't regain their IPO valuation until more than a year later, in August 2013.
Twitter, which is expected to go public in November, has yet to determine pricing, but investors say it might come under pressure from financial backers to go high. Analysts expect the company to seek a valuation of at least $10 billion.
Unlike Twitter, however, Facebook and professional social network LinkedIn both were profitable when they debuted. Twitter's still cloudy outlook makes some investors nervous.
"I want something to be generating income. If they can't make the transition from capturing market share to generating income, they're going to run out of money eventually," said Brian Frank, portfolio manager for Frank Capital Partners in New York. "But at the same time, if they stop investing in growth, they're going to lose users and risk people not staying engaged with the brand."
"The Twitter IPO could mean the top of the social media peak," he added.
Financial advisers are managing clients' expectations.
"I am telling clients to give it some time at the IPO and see how it does first," said Alan Haft, a financial adviser with California-based Kelly Haft Financial. "If they are gamblers and want to make a few bucks out of the gate, fine, but if they are investors they should hold off."
The potential demand from retail investors remains unclear. But several investment advisers interviewed by Reuters said they had already received calls from interested clients — though not on the level seen when Facebook became one of the first of the social media giants to go public.
Nancy Caton, managing director of Carson Wealth Management Group's San Francisco Bay office, was surprised about how little interest clients have shown in investing in Twitter, given the frenzy she saw around Facebook.
"With Facebook, it was crazy … we were flooded with calls," she said. "Maybe they learned a lesson."
But Twitter does not have the same presence among Caton's clients, who are mostly in their 60s, she said. "A lot of grandparents are on Facebook, that's how they get pictures of their grandkids," she said. "But I might have one client that uses Twitter."
Still, Twitter has no shortage of believers, including SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Robert Peck, the first to slap a "buy rating" on the stock and who on Wednesday echoed his previous optimism about the company.
Twitter's fledgling advertising model is centered around the "promoted tweet" and massive marketing campaigns built around television-viewing. The promoted-tweet tactic has since been replicated by rivals like Facebook.
Its more nascent second-screen approach has also won favor among media and entertainment executives because they encourage audience interaction on mobile devices and open a new channel for advertising as well.
"Twitter has a mobile strategy, and it seems like they're ahead of Facebook in mobile," said Dan Veru, chief investment officer at Palisade Capital Management LLC in New Jersey, with $4.5 billion of assets under management.
In fact, says one Silicon Valley investor, growing losses may just be good business.
"Increasing losses is not a problem if the unit economics are sound. With profitable unit economics, it is financially irresponsible NOT to run losses, assuming you have access to capital," said David Cowan at Bessemer Venture Partners, whose investments include LinkedIn. "Having said that, I have not examined Twitter's financials to assess the unit economics."
Reuters' Sarah McBride contributed to this report.


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Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture (DIY Science) is a new book by Robert Thompson. The premise is simple. The coolest thing in the world is a home chemistry set like this one from Gilbert, which combined both chemistry and microscopy:
Chemistry Set Combine the sciences of Chemistry and Microscopy in one big laboratory set! Microscope has a magnification of 60 power, plus unique Polaroid device that shows the brilliant colors of specimens under the lens. Set includes "Fun With Gilbert Chemistry", "Gilbert Microscope", "Glass Blowing" manuals and dissecting stand. From the Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop
But these chemistry sets are no longer available because the companies that made them (or would make them today) started paying attention to the memos from the Legal Department. True, there are chemistry sets, such as the CHEM C3000 Advanced Chemistry Experiment Kit, which attempt to replicate these wonderful vintage kits, but they are just not the same. (Thompson, the author of the book we are reviewing here, does claim that the C3000 is the best out there).
The Illustrated Guide is suitable for the serious hobbyist but it is also suitable for the Home Schooler. In fact, Thompson provides a very handy concordance indicating how one should use the lab sequence presented in the book to match various High School curricula, including AP Chemistry.
In the process of writing and developing lab manuals, I have reviewed all the major College chemistry labs (as well as life science labs) and I have to say that the layout and presentation, do-ability and clarity of the labs in this book is unsurpassed overall. I have not done any of the labs in this book, so I cannot verify any of them nor can I point out those funny glitches that happen in labs when they are actually implemented. Which sometimes are not so funny. If you do use this book, you may want to keep an eye on the Errata page. I am not suggesting that there will be a lot of mistakes in this volume, but there are a lot of labs, it is a new book, and it is Chemistry (boom!) so caution suggests that you do this.
How does Thompson deal with the issue that over the last 25 years Chemistry Sets have gone, sadly, away seemingly over safety concerns, but he has a book that tells you how to make bombs and rocket fuel?
Well, for starters, he is pretty clear that this book DOES NOT TELL YOU HOW TO MAKE BOMBS (or rocket fuel). However, the experiments as a whole are in fact dangerous. There is glass (that can cut) there is fire, and there are chemicals that you don't wan in your eyes and that you certainly should not ingest.
Thomson takes a pragmatic approach to safety. He makes clear how important it is to take responsibility for your own safety and those in your environs when you are mucking around with Chemistry. and he provides safety information.
Getting back to content, one of the important differences between this volume and at least some college chem labs is the inclusion of many optional activities as well as additional information. However, this is not a Chemistry text. If you are going to use this book as the center piece for a home schooling chemistry course, you will also need a chemistry textbook. Thomson recommends Chemistry: The Central Science, which is very expensive unless you get a used or older edition.
Just as important as the labs themselves is the discussion on how to set up your home chemistry lab, where to get the equipment, what kind of equipment to get, and so on. I do think Thomson goes a little easy on you here in a way that I would not recommend. He says it is OK to use the student grade materials in most cases, and not to worry about it. I recommend that you worry a little. Make it part of your plan to upgrade to professional grade glassware over time, even if you must use student grade in the beginning. Most importantly, determine where the difference between student grade and pro is a matter of ease of use, sturdiness of equipment, or accuracy of measurement (like the measuring lines on the side of a beaker). Figure out what is important for you and purchase your stuff that way. You can make use of household materials and student grade products in many areas, thus saving money for that really good graduated cylinder that covers the size range you use a lot, for instance.
The book is 432 pages, weighs 2.2 pounds and is made of paper. (Hey, I'm just making basic physical observations, as recommended in the book). It costs less than 20 bucks, though the list price is of course higher.


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Koch, McConnell PACs give to Enzi
Sen. Mike Enzi's fundraising efforts have gotten off to a sluggish start this year, but he's received support from Republican establishment and heavyweight political action committees ahead of his primary fight against Liz Cheney.
The Wyoming Republican received $7,500 from Koch Industries PAC, the committee affiliated with the company owned by megadonors Charles and David Koch, according to a POLITICO review of Enzi's second quarter campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Other PACs affiliated with major politically active companies and trade associations who gave to Enzi between April and June include: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Time Warner Cable, Pfizer and National Retail Federation.
( QUIZ: Do you know Liz Cheney?)
The three-term incumbent also received support from the leadership PACs of establishment Republicans such as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sens. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
In all, Enzi brought in $171,290 in the second quarter and has about $488,000 on hand. A significant portion of Enzi's second-quarter haul came from PACs, which gave a total of $80,500 to the campaign.
Although a recent poll showed him well ahead of Cheney, Enzi will need to pick up his fundraising to stay competitive in the race. Cheney is well known among Republican donors, who hold the Cheney name in high regard.


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As earth's population surges, mankind faces an increasingly limited supply of fresh water. Thankfully, Australian scientists report this week that they've found vast new fresh water supplies. Unfortunately, it's in one of earth's least accessible places: under the ocean floor.
Published in this week's Nature, the research compiles mounting evidence that fresh groundwater reserves exist off the shores of Australia, China, North America and Africa. The researchers estimate that 500,000 cubic kilometers of fresh water is trapped in aquifers under the ocean floor — more than 20 times the volume of water in all five Great Lakes.
Getting to the water without contaminating it presents an enormous challenge. But with 40% of the world's population already living in conditions of water scarcity, it may prove to be necessary. [Nature via Forbes]
Image: Shutterstock / Jovana Milanko


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Traffic deaths in 2011 fewest in six decades
Traffic deaths in the USA continued their historic decline last year, falling to the lowest level since 1949, the government announced Monday.
A total of 32,367 motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians died in 2011, a 1.9% decrease from 2010. Last year's toll represents a 26% decline from 2005, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said.
The trend may not last, however.
Preliminary data for this year shows that motor vehicle deaths and injuries are trending upward again, said Jackie Gillan, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.
"States have been informally reporting to us that the numbers are generally up throughout the year," said Jonathan Adkins, deputy executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents states on road safety issues. "We think the increase is likely because of a stronger economy and the low baseline of deaths the last few years."
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood attributed the decline in recent years to aggressive enforcement and public education campaigns and continuing improvements in technology aimed at building safer vehicles and roads.
"As we look to the future, it will be more important than ever to build on this progress by continuing to tackle head-on issues like seat belt use, drunk driving and driver distraction," LaHood said.
The decline came in a year in which Americans drove 1.2% fewer miles.
The nation last year registered the lowest traffic death rate on record — 1.1 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2011, down from 1.11 in 2010, the NHTSA reported.
Key numbers in the 2011 data:
Deaths dropped by 4.6% for occupants of passenger cars and light trucks (including SUVs, minivans and pickups) but rose 20% for occupants of large trucks.
Industry officials suspect there may be a connection between states increasing their speed limits and the increase in deaths, said Sean McNally, a spokesman for the American Trucking Associations.
Texas, for example, recently increased the speed limit to 85 mph on Highway 130 between Austin and San Antonio, the fastest in the nation, he noted.
Fatalities rose 8.7% for bicyclists, 3% for pedestrians and 2.1% for motorcycle riders.
"Our culture is beginning to move away from driving and toward healthier and greener modes of transportation," Adkins said. "We need to be able to accommodate all these forms of transportation safely."
Deaths in crashes involving drunken drivers fell 2.5% in 2011, taking 9,878 lives compared with 10,136 in 2010.


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Democratic mayors (and even liberal New York mayor Michael Bloomberg) tired of the nonsense and decided to clear the dirty encampments. After having spilled barrels of supportive ink, The Washington Post wondered on the front page if it was an "occupation or an infestation."
The Occupying Rabble needed a boost, and they got it with the story of campus police pepper spraying protesters at the University of California Davis. It was a remarkable jump-start for every left-wing journalist looking to regain his mojo for championing the protesters against "The Man" -- who in this case, is a spineless liberal female administrator and Democrat donor named Linda Katehi.
Americans awoke Monday morning to all three TV networks spreading the latest viral video by the OWS publicity team showing police pepper-spraying seated student protesters in the face. Leftist students in Davis had linked arms and refused to move despite repeated warnings from campus police to clear out. They were determined to encourage police action. Protests are designed to gain publicity. Publicity demands conflict. Publicity demands egging on the police to engage the disobedient.
They needed to be victimized by police "brutality." They wanted desperately to be pepper-sprayed. They needed to regain the narrative.
The liberal media delivered. As the coverage piled up, the campus cops with the spray and their chief were placed on administrative leave. Still, the campus erupted in demands that chancellor Katehi resign, even as she denounced the police's actions as horrible. If anyone spoke up against the protesters, you'd never know it. The media were silent on that front.
In an exclusive interview, ABCs George Stephanopoulos repeatedly pushed Katehi to step down. "You have resisted calls so far to resign. Are you going to stay?... Nearly 50,000 people have signed a petition calling for you to go. Haven't you lost the confidence of the faculty and the students?" Stephanopoulos openly advocated for the protesters, lobbying, "I'm sorry, but we're looking at the video again right now. They're sitting there peacefully. It doesn't appear to be a violent situation."
"Peaceful." That's what they called them. What if a protesting block of humanity were to appear in front of an abortion clinic? Would that be "peaceful"? You know the truth. The media would report that as a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. "Physical obstruction," even if it's "peaceful," is illegal in that location. Put it on a campus, have it organized by leftist anarchists and it's somehow a socialist Shangri-La.
What's remarkable in all this Occupy media mythology is the way these same networks have shamelessly ignored murders, rapes and mysterious dead bodies in those tents at Occupy protests around the country. They'll make a national story out of a row of protesters being pepper-sprayed on one California campus, but ignore rapes, beatings and deaths in other American cities.
This proves again that our TV news stars are not journalists. They are publicists. They don't report "news." They supply badly disguised advertising campaigns for the causes they endorse.
The networks aired a remarkable 81 stories on the Occupiers in October, and their sound bite count was overwhelmingly tilted to the positive: 190 positive sound bites, ten critical ones. Amazingly, the networks couldn't even place them on the political left. There was only one liberal label in 81 stories. Their intellectual leader, a Canadian radical named Kalle Lasn, now oozes in The New Yorker about "killing capitalism." But somehow, the protesters are just conscientious nonpartisans advocating for the lower classes.
The Sacramento Bee reported that Katehi wanted to do nothing as she prepared for renewed protests in the wake of the arrest of 53 Davis students at a 2009 sit-in against state fee increases at the college administration building. "They want to be arrested. They want to be on CNN," she said at the time. "We don't want to get there. We would like to keep it as low-key as possible, allow the students to express their concerns and then hopefully go home."
These law-shredding publicity schemes wouldn't work for the left -- except if CNN and the other networks keep them alive with endless publicity. Riding the Occupy, class-war bandwagon --complete with shameless omissions of almost everything negative that's emerged from those fever swamps -- is the campaign kick-off for Barack Obama 2012.


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ESMO and the Croatian Society of Medical Oncology (HDIO) signed a joint membership agreement in 2016. The aim of the agreement is to promote education and scientific initiatives to the Croatian oncology community.
ESMO – HDIO Agreement
Since March 2016, HDIO members benefit from a simplified membership application process to join ESMO, avoiding the need for a Sponsor (i.e. details of an ESMO member who supports your application) or the need to provide an up-to-date Curriculum Vitae in English.
Additionally, all HDIO members eligible for ESMO membership at the €175 fee, will benefit from a reduced annual ESMO membership fee of €130 – saving €45.
If you are a member of the HDIO and eligible to receive this discount, please contact ESMO Membership Services who will update your profile in order for you to benefit from the discounted fee at your next renewal.
New ESMO member?
Applicants should follow the normal ESMO membership procedure, on reaching the section asking for membership to another professional oncology society, HDIO members should indicate that they are a member of HDIO by checking the appropriate box.
Applicants eligible for ESMO membership at the €175 fee will be proposed the reciprocal membership fee of €130 per annum.
Useful information about joining ESMO
Visit the HDIO website for more details and to apply for membership.
Membership Applications must be made to each respective society satisfying membership requirements according to the society statutes. Any membership fees are paid separately to the respective secretariats of ESMO and the HDIO.


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If you are not authorized to work in Canada, do not apply. The employer will not respond to your application.
Important notice: This job posting is advertised by a recruitment agency on behalf of the employer. The agency acts as an intermediary between Job Bank and the employer. The Government of Canada has taken steps to make sure this job posting is accurate and reliable but cannot guarantee its authenticity.


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Winning Isn't Everything: Nine Presidential Losers Who Made a Difference
On this holiday reserved to honor and appreciate the accomplishments of all American presidents, it's also a moment to take stock of what the losers have given us.
On this holiday reserved to honor and appreciate the accomplishments of all American presidents, it's also a moment to take stock of what the losers have given us.
It's much more than you think.
Losing presidential candidates have fundamentally changed their parties, set down road maps for new ways to practice presidential politics, settled long-simmering political debates, launched new issues for an inattentive nation to later confront, and broken gender barriers for the presidency and vice presidency.
Romney's Anti-China Rhetoric Raises Concerns
The New Democratic Litmus Test
Cat and Mouse on the Border
We don't always consider this much in our victory-obsessed culture and presidential losers of recent vintage have been discarded by their parties like sacks of medical waste. Two quick examples: Michael Dukakis went from Democratic standard bearer in 1988 to the board of Amtrak and a professorship at Northeastern University, while 1996 GOP nominee Bob Dole went from leader of the Senate and party powerhouse to a pitchman for Viagra and Pepsi.
A happy reversal of this trend is of course Hillary Rodham Clinton, who though losing after a spirited battle for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, was tapped by President Obama to be secretary of State. We won't include her as she is so obvious a ground-breaking non-victor.
Likewise, there is the continued visibility and vibrancy of 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry, who has served ably in the Senate since losing to George W. Bush and who may become secretary of State if Obama wins a second term and Clinton steps aside as she has indicated. Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee, was an early confidant of Obama's during the presidential transition but became a prominent critic of the president's policies dealing with economic stimulus, health care, Afghanistan and Libya - positions that helped him stave off a primary challenge and win re-election in 2010.
I've become more interested in losing presidential candidates in part because of a new book, "Almost President," by Scott Farris. Among its many nuggets is the revelation that in Norton, Kan., on the wall of the First State Bank "hang the portraits of fifty-nine men who have run for president as the nominee of a major political party and lost." The first? Why Thomas Jefferson, of course. But why Norton? Because in 1872 Horace Greeley, the Liberal Republican Party and Democratic nominee, stopped there en route to Denver - the most famous politician then or since to visit Norton.
Here is a list of nine important presidential losers and why. Some were inspired by Farris' book. Of course, there are more than nine who matter and historians and political scientists could make cases for William Jennings Bryan, Thomas Dewey and Adlai Stevenson. My list is tilted more toward the modern era because we live there now and it's where the reverberations of the loser's campaigns can best be measured and felt.
1. Thomas Jefferson.
He was the first to lose and the first to have to serve as vice president to the victor, John Adams. Under the rules of the time, the candidate who came in second served as vice president. Jefferson lost to Adams by three electoral votes. Not only did he have to serve, he did so under a president whose campaign consisted of charges that Jefferson, among other things, was an atheist, an anarchist and a coward. Jefferson's Democratic-Republican supporters - who supported states rights and vehemently opposed Adams' Federalist concept of a powerful and centralized federal government - called them "cut-throats who walk in rags and sleep amidst filth and vermin." Jefferson not only served Adams for four years but did so as a likely challenger for the presidency in 1800, which he was. Jefferson became the first loser to go on to win the presidency, defeating Adams.
2. Henry Clay
The Virginian who moved to Lexington, Ky., to start his legal career is the only member of the House to serve as Speaker in his first term. Clay turned the speakership into a source of vast power, bringing to it for the first time the power to appoint committee chairmanships - which he did with fellow War Hawks who wanted battle with the British, which broke out in 1812. Clay ran for the presidency in 1824 and finished fourth but used his power as Speaker to secure victory for John Quincy Adams and the inconclusive election results left it up to the House to decide the presidency. Clay became Adams' secretary of State in what became known as the "corrupt bargain." Clay ran for the National Republicans in 1832 against Jackson and lost handily (55 percent to 37 percent). Clay ran as a Whig in 1844 and lost to Democrat James K. Polk. As Clay's career developed, he became a strong voice for compromise and repeatedly sought to mend sectional differences over slavery, trade and tariffs. Clay's compromise of 1850 held off the Civil War for another decade. Clay's creation of the Whigs led to the modern Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln considered Clay a model legislator, conciliator and orator. Upon his death, The New York Times declared Clay was "too great to be president."
3.Stephen Douglas
He ran against Lincoln and lost in 1860 but cemented the foundations of the modern Democratic Party. Douglas, according to Farris, also became one of Lincoln's "staunchest defenders" and helped him strategize to "crush the Southern rebellion." With Democrats unsure at the outset of war whether Lincoln's fight was purely a Republican issue, Douglas demanded and won Democratic backing for Lincoln to save the union. "Do not allow the mortification growing out of defeat in a partisan struggle...(to) convert you from patriots to traitors against your native land," Douglas said in Illinois after war broke out. As Farris writes, Douglas' sense was that unity behind Lincoln during the war kept the Democratic Party alive and able to compete after hostilities ended. Absent Douglas, the Democrats might have split over the war and lost all legitimacy in the war-ravaged ruins of post-war politics.
4. Al Smith
Smith grew up on the Lower East side of Manhattan and when he ran against Herbert Hoover in 1928, many voters fretted he was too much of a New Yorker. But Smith's biggest impediment, one that would cost him but transform American politics, was he was the first Roman Catholic nominated by a major party to run for president. The former New York governor had sought the Democratic nomination unsuccessfully in 1924 and secured it in 1928. Smith would have been an important figure even if he hadn't been nominated. As a member of the New York Assembly he led the investigation into the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory that killed 146 workers and fought for legislation to lessen workplace dangers. As governor, Smith hired Robert Moses as an aide and he built the nation's first state park system and transformed the urban landscape of New York City. Smith's landslide loss to Hoover (58 percent to 41 percent) nevertheless created a reservoir of respect and acceptance for Catholics and brought millions of previously non-voting Catholics into the Democratic Party. Some political scientists argue that Smith's campaign motivated large numbers of urban, blue collar voters - Catholic and non-Catholic alike - to join a newly emerging Democratic coalition that would be central to Franklin Roosevelt's campaign in 1932. Smith lost New York in the '28 campaign, but his hand-picked successor, Roosevelt, won and Smith's campaign manager, James Farley, became a key cog in FDR's presidential machinery in 1932 and 1936.
5. Barry Goldwater
The Arizona Republican lost in a 1964 landslide to President Lyndon Johnson (61 percent to 38 percent) but set in motion forces that would transform the modern Republican Party. Goldwater wrested the nomination from the long-dominant moderate wing of the party and propelled conservatives into prominent management positions of a national campaign for the first time. Goldwater's campaign also brought searing national attention to Ronald Reagan who was attempting to make the transition from acting to national politics. Reagan's speech became a favorite among grass roots GOP conservatives and led to his election as governor of California in 1966 and eventual election as president in 1980 as an unabashed conservative in the Goldwater tradition. Goldwater's campaign also marked the beginning of GOP movement into the South. Goldwater carried Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. No Republican had carried those states since Reconstruction (in fact no Republican until Goldwater had ever won Georgia). Civil rights was the issue that pulled southerners away from national Democrats and Goldwater's opposition gave the GOP inroads that have only widened and diversified across many issues ever since. Republicans consolidated their hold on the South in 1994 when they won a majority of congressional seats in the region for the first time since Reconstruction.
6. George McGovern
South Dakota Sen. George McGovern, possibly the Democratic Party's most liberal nominee of the modern era, lost in a 1972 landslide to President Nixon (520 electoral votes to 17). McGovern amplified the anti-war activism of Sen. Eugene McCarthy, whose 1968 campaign persuaded Lyndon Johnson not to run for re-election. McGovern called the Vietnam War a grotesque misadventure, one that was undermining American prestige and inflicting unconscionable bloodshed. As he began his campaign, McGovern said America in Vietnam was "raining down a terrible technology of death on helpless people below -- the most incredible and murderous bombardment in all the history of mankind." Later in the campaign, McGovern wondered aloud if his denunciations of the war would "help me or hurt me" in the election. He answered himself: "I do not really care." McGovern's dissent, though, fell flat and voters turned against what they regarded as hectoring. McGovern's far bigger accomplishment was to re-create the Democratic Party after the tumultuous 1968 convention. McGovern changed the party's nominating process and cut down organized labor's clout by opening up delegate slots to women, racial minorities, young voters and gays. The commission McGovern chaired also set precise and inflexible numerical quotas for minority representation. In 1968, according to Farris, only 13 percent of DNC delegates were women. In 1972, that percentage grew to 40 percent and 80 percent of those delegates in 1972 were attending their first convention. McGovern saw Democrats were losing the South and had to rebuild their coalition to survive. More than a few political scientists now argue Barack Obama's winning coalition in 2008 (52.9 percent of the popular vote, the highest for a Democrat since Johnson) is a reflection of McGovern's transformative work.
7. Walter Mondale
Mondale nominated the first woman as vice president and Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York set a new standard in American politics for women as visible, serious actors on the national stage. Ferraro provided a boost to Mondale's campaign, though the process of selecting her looked clumsy and, as later became obvious, Mondale's vetting of Ferraro's family finances was incomplete. Even so, Ferraro's presence on the ticket gave women a new level of prominence and her ability to fight Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush (a former ambassador to China and CIA Director) to a draw in their debate further cemented the idea that women could compete on the national stage. Mondale lost 49 states to Reagan, but his choice of Ferraro changed the political landscape for women.
8. Howard Dean
Dean didn't even win the Democratic nomination in 2004, but his use of the Internet to organize and fund-raise has transformed and reshaped American politics. If McGovern laid the foundation for a new and diverse Democratic party, Dean taught Democrats how to harness fast-emerging technologies to raise money and mobilize. Dean also was among the first Democrats in the post-9/11 era to castigate President Bush for the Iraq war and to press Democrats to rediscover their liberal philosophical roots. Dean was the first candidate to use online social networking, principally meetup.com to attract supporters, bring them together and keep them in an ever-expanding database. By September of 2003, Dean had raised more than $25 million, shattering all previous party records for fund-raising and doing so with (also unprecedented) an average donation size of about $80. Dean was also the first major party candidate to reject federal campaign matching funds. Dean flamed out in the Iowa caucuses in 2004 and his election night "Dean Scream" is now legend. Kerry went on to win the nomination, but the insurgent and Internet-based Obama campaign of 2008 owes some of its inspiration and guidance to Dean's handiwork.
9. John McCain.
Like Mondale, McCain set history in motion by for the first time nominating a woman as his Republican Party's vice presidential nominee. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin galvanized support for McCain among women voters and conservatives and, for a time, appeared to give McCain a fighting chance against Obama. Palin's brand of reformist conservatism - she took on entrenched oil interests in her bid for the Alaska governorship - and her later criticism of "crony capitalism" help set in motion tea party organizing after Obama's election. Palin's debate performance against Sen. Joe Biden was solid and her acceptance speech and its barbed criticism of Obama remain for Republicans some of the few bright spots of what became a dreary campaign. Palin, to be sure, had her rough moments in describing what she read or how her world view was shaped. But she never faced the kind of criticism Ferraro did over family finances and can be credited with helping bring genuine energy to McCain's campaign and giving voice to populist conservative ideas that helped Republicans win back the House in 2010 and remain lively in the 2012 nomination fight. Palin's decision not to run in 2012 undercut her status in the party and she remains a divisive figure in national politics. But McCain's decision to put her on ticket will stand for years as a significant moment in GOP politics and has made more credible consideration of GOP women governors like Susana Martinez of New Mexico as a possible vice presidential pick this year.


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The enemy of my enemy as the saying goes. It certainly does not appear that we have many friends in the middle east these days. The reality is that we never have. This clash of cultures goes well beyond the founding of our nation, and our nation was not founded based upon the teachings of a pedophile moon worshiper.
There's no love lost between myself and Islam. Too be sure, on at least a dozen occasions I have heard the screams of Allah Akbar accompanied by the waving of swords, AK 47's, and death. Which, believe it or not is unusual. Muslims seem to specialize in the killing of fellow Muslims.
In any case the time has come to once again become Ugly Americans. That following the lines of it being a good thing to be respected, but better to be feared.
Oh, and that stupid film? I don't give a damn.
Related articles
- George Jonas: Let's hear it for Israel, the Arab world's all-purpose enemy (fullcomment.nationalpost.com)
- Embassy protests spread to other "Arab Spring" nations (hotair.com)
- Mideast violence offers reminder of 'Arab Spring' dangers (latimes.com)


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Legal History Blog
scholarship, news and new ideas in legal history
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Morris Cohen Student Essay Contest
Photo credit
The Legal History and Rare Books Section of the American Association of Law Libraries announces the fourth annual
Morris Cohen Student Essay contest
. The competition is named in honor of Morris L. Cohen, late Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale Law School. Professor Cohen was a scholar in the fields of legal research, rare books, and historical bibliography.
Essays may be on any topic related to legal history, rare law books, or legal archives.
Full- and part-time students currently enrolled in accredited graduate programs in library science, law, history, or related fields are encouraged to enter the competition; membership in AALL is not required. The winner will receive a $500.00 prize from Cengage Learning and up to $1,000 for expenses associated with attendance at this year's AALL Annual Meeting in Boston. The runner-up will have the opportunity to publish the second-place essay in LH&RB's online scholarly journal Unbound: An Annual Review of Legal History and Rare Books.
Entries must be submitted by 11:59 p.m., April 15, 2011.
The entry form and instructions are available at the
LH&RB website
. Please direct questions to
Robert Mead
or to
Marguerite Most
Posted by
Mary L. Dudziak
Fellowships Grants Honors and Awards
Newer Post
Older Post


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From OpenSimulator
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See the conference website for more details.
What is OpenSimulator?
|Image of past Moment:
Binaries Zip (0.9.2.2)
Other downloads may be found at either the Download page, or the OpenSim Release Repository
OpenSimulator is an open source multi-platform, multi-user 3D application server. It can be used to create a virtual environment (or world) which can be accessed through a variety of clients, on multiple protocols. OpenSimulator allows virtual world developers to customize their worlds using the technologies they feel work best - we've designed the framework to be easily extensible. OpenSimulator is written in C#, running both on Windows over the .NET framework and on *ix machines over the Mono framework. The source code is released under a BSD License, a commercially friendly license to embed OpenSimulator in products.
Out of the box, OpenSimulator can be used to simulate virtual environments similar to Second Life™, given that it supports the core of SL's messaging protocol. As such, these virtual worlds can be accessed with the regular SL viewers. However, OpenSimulator is neither a clone of Second Life's server nor does it aim at becoming such a clone. On the contrary, OpenSimulator lacks support for many of the game-specific features of Second Life (on purpose), while pursuing innovative directions towards becoming the bare bones, but extensible, server of the 3D Web.
OpenSimulator is getting more stable as it approaches release 1.0, but we still consider it alpha software; so should you.
- Supports online, multi-user 3D environments as small as 1 simulator or as large as thousands of simulators.
- Supports 3D virtual spaces of variable size within one single instance.
- Supports multiple clients and protocols - access the same world at the same time via multiple protocols.
- Supports realtime Physics Simulation, with multiple engine options including ODE.
- Supports clients that create 3D content in real time.
- Supports inworld scripting using a number of different languages, including LSL/OSSL, C#, JScript and VB.NET
- Provides unlimited ability to customize virtual world applications through the use of scene plugin modules.
For a more extensive list, see the Feature Matrix.
Running an OpenSimulator-Based World
- Getting OpenSimulator
- Building OpenSimulator
- Configuring OpenSimulator
- Running OpenSimulator (Windows / Linux Scripts for Management & Operations)
- Console Commands
- Frequently Asked Questions in Running OpenSimulator
- Technical Reference Pages
Participating in the OpenSimulator Community
OpenSimulator is an open source project, and is powered by the community members that devote time and energy to the effort. There are many ways to participate and contribute to the community:
- Participate via IRC - #opensim (for users), #opensim-dev (for developers) and #opensim-scripts
- Participate via the mailing lists - opensim-users (for users) and opensim-dev (for developers).
- Contribute to this wiki, making the OpenSimulator documentation even better.
- Report bugs, submit patches or submit content contributions via our mantis bug tracker
- Create an OpenSimulator related project hosted on the Forge or elsewhere on the web. In the forge there are over a dozen registered projects, and it's a great way to further extend the OpenSimulator community.
- Participate to open content creation for OpenSimulator. More details at Artist Home.
- Blog about OpenSimulator, and let us know about that blog on #opensim so it can be added to Planet OpenSim
- Participate in one of the weekly Office Hours for OpenSimulator. We currently have weekly office hours for development, wiki work, and testing.
- Secure project infrastructure by donating to the OpenSim Project Infrastructure Fund.
Pages by Category:
Getting Started , Support , Technical Reference Pages , Help , Configuration Pages , User's Pages , Development Pages , Scripts , Recent Wiki Changes


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How My Hobby Became My Job
Buckle up everyone, this ride's about to get a bit nerdy.
Back in high school I passed the time in my math classes by programming games in BASIC for my TI-83 graphing calculator, then distributing the games to my friends so that they too could appear to be "hard at work" on their calculators during class. By the end of high school I was creating multiplayer computer games and had started up my own little online gaming community. Although my career ambitions have always been solely focused on my film/video stuff, creating online games became a fun little side hobby.
Two years ago I started work on a game that is a throwback to the days of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) called "NEStalgia". For those of you who aren't gamers I'll sum it up this way: NEStalgia is essentially what World of Warcraft would have been if that game had been made in 1989. It's a large open world that you explore alongside lots of other players, but the game's art style and gameplay are incredibly retro. Although the concept is unique and the game is well made, I never really anticipated that it would have mass appeal.
I was wrong.
After two years of development (me laying on the couch in my pajamas coding on my laptop a couple nights a week) I finally decided to announced NEStalgia's release to the world in February. Much to my surprise, half an hour after I emailed what were essentially my "warmup" press releases to a couple independent gaming sites, my servers started to get slammed with new players. Long story short, NEStalgia ended up getting featured on tons of main stream gaming sites, which led to tens of thousands of new logins in just the first few days alone. Game Informer, Kotaku, Destructoid, Joystiq, G4 TV etc. etc. etc… needless to say things got crazy. The game has also since been listed on Gamepro's 37 Best Free PC Games and 1UP's 101 Free Games of 2011.
Suddenly finding myself in the role of Lead Designer and Community Manager for a popular indie game, I dropped everything else that I was working on. The first month of managing NEStalgia was a blur of scrambling to get more servers online, responding to hundreds of emails, and posting constant bug fixes. Thankfully my 24/7 work schedule didn't go unrewarded, as NEStalgia's optional subscription system was raking in more than enough money to cover my costs and support me full time.
Almost four months later the dust has finally settled and I've laid out some pretty ambitious plans for future NEStalgia development and distribution. Exciting times, but I also have some mixed feelings over the whole thing. Although I enjoy working on NEStalgia, I also really miss writing and working on film stuff. While working on this game may have become my full time job for the short term, I really can't wait to get back to focusing on my "real" job. I suppose that there are a lot of people who struggle to find even one thing that they love doing, and I should be thankful to have two…
…Screw that though! If there were more hours in the day I'd probably have five more major hobbies. Seriously, how can so many people not know what they want to do with their lives? /rant
Anyway, that's the story of my Spring 2011. It sure is a good thing that Macho Man Randy Savage prevented the Rapture, because I have a lot to look forward to this summer. If this nerdy tale has piqued your curiosity about NEStalgia, be sure to check out the website or the Facebook page for the game. My summer plans also include no longer neglecting this blog, so check back later for less nerdiness and more of whatever it is that I usually write about.


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Serving Connecticut municipalities, businesses and homeowners since 2005
Branford, CT 06405ph: email@example.com
Since 2005, Hale Hill BioFuels has been providing biodiesel blended heating oil, on road and off road diesel fuel to Connecticut homeowners, businesses and municipalities. Collectively, we have reduced CO2 emissions by over 100,000 tons!
Thank you for supporting renewable energy that is made right here in Connecticut. YOU are making a difference.
Hale Hill's biodiesel is treated with an antimicrobial and filtered to 1 micron to ensure the highest quality biodiesel is blended with additized diesel and Ultra Low Sulfur heating oil.
We deliver premium B99 biodiesel as well as B5 and B20 blends throughout the state.
Automatic delivery service is available and recommended. Payment options include budget plans.
Copyright 2012 Hale Hill BioFuels . All rights reserved.
Web Hosting by Turbify


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Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories
Timeless tale transformed into a musical stage spectacular
Don't be late for the ball! Artpark presents "Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella" for eight enchanting performances Aug. 9-17. The perfect summer theater outing for all ages, Artpark brings the charm of this classic fairy tale and the magical music of Rodgers & Hammerstein to life on stage.
Originally created for television as a star vehicle for Julie Andrews in 1957, its broadcast was seen by 100 million viewers and has since been adapted for the stage. "Cinderella" boasts all the trademarks of wonderful songs and lavish dance numbers associated with the classic works of the award-winning duo, Rodgers & Hammerstein, who are widely acknowledged as the all-time "Kings of Broadway."
Poor Cinderella is endlessly mistreated by her wicked stepmother and stepsisters. Denied a chance to go to the Royal Ball, it is only through Cinderella's innocent faith in a miracle that allows her wish to go to the ball to come true. Musical highlights include "In My Own Little Corner," "A Lovely Night," "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?" and "Impossible." This timeless rags-to-riches story will charm its way into your heart and remind you that dreams really do come true.
Tickets for this Mainstage Theater event will go on sale March 16 at 10 a.m. Visit www.artpark.net for showtimes and ticket information.


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CFP: [Religion] EGE UNIVERSITY 12TH INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL STUDIES SYMPOSIUM Redefining Modernism & Postmodernism
This symposium invites reconsideration of modernity, modernism and
postmodernism from literary, cultural and a wide range of
interdisciplinary aspects, aiming to broaden the current debates.
Panel proposals chaired by colleagues from different universities are
especially welcome, along with individual papers, roundtables, workshops
and performances either in English or Turkish. Please note that there
will be no translations during the symposium.
Topics might include but are not limited to:
Modernities / Postmodernities
>From tradition to innovation / modernism, avant-garde, decadence, kitsch,
Ethics of (post)modernity
Dialectics of enlightenment
Eradication, redemption or reconstruction of myths
Mechanism of (dis)belief
Aspects and limits of certainty
Primitivity and (post)modernity
"Biophilia" and biopolitics
(Post)modernity and (meta)narratives
(Post)modernity and time
Modernity and secularism
Aesthetics of modernity
Historical relativism
Modernity and the Body
Crisis in representation
The deadline for proposals: 19 December 2008
Notification for accepted papers: 15 January 2009
Please send a 250 word abstract for a 20 minute paper and a short bio (a
paragraph of around 50 words) in the form of an email "word" attachment
to the coordinator at:
For more information please visit our website at:
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Åžebnem Toplu
Dept. English Language & Literature
Faculty of Letters
Ege University,
35100-Bornova, Izmir
Tel: +90 232 3884000/ext.1976
Fax:+90 232 3881102
From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
more information at
Received on Sat Nov 08 2008 - 11:14:59 EST


text: Help young adventurer Laura Jones and her grandmother discover Nikola Tesla's greatest invention! After receiving a mysterious package full of clues from the late Tesla, the hunt is on! Solve puzzles, collect the parts needed to start Tesla's invention, and pass the extraordinary trials. Laura Jones and the Legacy of Nikola Tesla will test your Hidden Object skills as you race against time and the other people chasing down the invention!


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Love is in the air!
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Have You Considered . . .
8 comments:
Nice post. I am curious as to what book you were reading.ReplyDelete
I couldnt agree with you more; An Affair to Remember is probably in my top five all time favorite romances; you cant compare Cary Grant and Debora Kerr to anyone, especially the mopey, haggy Meg Ryan (ick) ~ I saw Sleepless in Seattle once and it was a painful experience; yeah, like Im going to allow my child near a woman who reminds me of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction ~ I would have not finished the book either~ Good rant, Liberty ~ We need to figure out what is attraction and what is stalking. Stalking is NOT romance in any way, shape or form, and it certainly is NOT romantic...just my 2 cents.ReplyDelete
I went all kinds of places with this as I read your post, most of them centering around trying to defend the author and at the same time point out your closed mindedness. This is certainly something I do not engage in, so please respect my honesty without judging too harshly, as this is a fault that I work at continually overcoming. It stems from an unhealthy need to always defend the underdog (even when they don't deserve it) and my own awakening to open-mindedness. So, as I said, I won't enter those dark areas.ReplyDelete
Which helps me to simply read what you wrote without dragging along my baggage. I didn't see "Sleepless in Seattle," but I couldn't help but draw a parallel to Stephen King's "Misery" which, if you don't know, is about a psychotic nurse who keeps a writer hostage while professing to be his number one fan. Ironically, her name is Annie, also.
I also want to comment on your being a "skipper." I am one, also, and like you, feel bad about it. I have proven over and over to myself that almost always I miss something necessary. What this has taught me, though, is that as a writer, I better keep things "hopping" because if I don't, my readers will skip parts that hold information necessary to the story, and they will give my book (if they finish it) a bad rating- one I deserve.Replies
R.A., I enjoyed reading your comments and appreciate anyone who defends the underdog. I'm the Devil's Advocate and can usually argue both sides of an issue.Delete
Perhaps I feel so strongly about the stalking aspect of the movie because I was stalked, as was one of my daughters.
When it comes to skipping, I try really hard not to. In a book I am enjoying, if I skip, it is because I am looking for some piece of information that is bugging me. I an iffy book, I skip to see if it is worth my while to finish the book. (Long gone are the days when I had to finish every book.) If I decide to finish the book, I will usually go back to the page I was on before the skipping.
As Elmore Leonard said, "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."
P.S. I never give a writer a bad rating. They worked too damn hard and my opinion may not match anyone else's. (That's why I didn't name the book or the author. It's just my opinion and the rest of the book was good.)
Thank you for reading my rant. I appreciate your friendship.
Hi Liberty. Great blog. How's the writing going?ReplyDelete
Loovely blog you have hereReplyDelete


text: Style notes: Golden or Blonde ales are straw to golden blonde in color. They have a crisp, dry palate, light to medium body, and light malt sweetness. Low to medium hop aroma may be present but does not dominate. Bitterness is low to medium. Fruity esters may be perceived but do not predominate. Diacetyl should not be perceived. Chill haze should be absent.


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Subtotal: $0.00
These pegs are 7.6cm long and the grade 201 stainless steel wire that they are made of is 2mm in diameter. These 39 pegs come with a nice double drawstring hemp bag. They don't break or fall apart, because the whole peg is made up out of just one single piece of wire. Be assured that they will still be there when all the wooden and plastic ones are gone.