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Love Worth Finding - Sept. 4, 2010
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- 2010 Sep 04
September 4
The Secret of Life
"And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on Me." John 16:8-9
What would you think of someone who gave you the secret of life? Do you think you might instantly call him your best friend? You bet! That's what the Holy Spirit did for you.
The Holy Spirit gave you the secret to, not only life, but eternal life! He convicted you of your sin. He drew you to Christ (John 6:44).
Don't get the idea that anybody can simply come of his own will and his own volition to Jesus Christ. No one could come; no one would come except by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit has given you the secret of life. And He has drawn you there Himself! That's some best friend, wouldn't you say?
Don't keep quiet about your Best Friend today. He wants to be known and He's given you the privilege to be His messenger. Share Him with those you care about today.
For more from Love Worth Finding and Pastor Adrian Rogers, please visit www.lwf.org.
You can also listen to Adrian Rogers at OnePlace.com.
Watch Adrian Rogers and Love Worth Finding Video Online.
Daybreak: Practicing the Presence of God
This devotional journal with daily applications was designed several years ago by Adrian Rogers. This leather-bound keepsake will be a treasured addition to start your day out right!
Each day you will begin with a nugget from one of his messages, a reading from God's Word, and a place to write your "Spiritual concerns and prayer requests." Order your copy today.
For more Adrian Rogers resources you may visit the Love Worth Finding bookstore at www.lwf.org.


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Dualit Single Panini Grill
Contact grills play an essential part in the kitchen, useful throughout the day be it breakfast, lunch or dinner. The Dualit range includes three sizes: single for individual portions, panini grill – perfect for paninis, and a double contact grill for versatility.
Each model features robust cast iron plates with a sprung top plate for flexibility, a thermostatically controlled temperature range of 50-300°C and a removable drip tray for easy cleaning

subset: commoncrawl


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Florida's gamble pays off with national softball title
OKLAHOMA CITY — Coach Tim Walton gambled, and the Florida Gators cashed in with a national championship.
Everyone, including the Alabama Crimson Tide, expected Walton to throw his senior ace, Hannah Rogers, in Tuesday night's national championship series game at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium.
Walton, instead, went with junior Lauren Haeger and then replaced her with freshman left-hander Delanie Gourley, neither of whom had thrown a pitch in the Women's College World Series. The duo combined to keep Alabama in check until Rogers entered to get the last six outs, and the Gator bats did the rest in a 6-3 victory to bring Florida its first softball national title.
Florida (55-12) closed out the best-of-three championship series with its second victory over the Crimson Tide (53-13) to win the all-Southeastern Conference final.
Florida players jumped up and down on the dirt surface after the final out, then dog-piled onto the ground in celebration.
"We just stayed together and played together all the way through the season," Rogers said in an ESPN interview. "I'm just so proud of all the girls. I'm just so excited I don't know what to think."
Alabama, which struggled at the plate in losing to Rogers by shutout the night before, pounced on Haeger in the first inning. Haylie McCleney led off with a single and Kallie Case slapped a single to left. The runners moved to second and third on a fly out and Jadyn Spencer singled up the middle to drive McCleney home for a 1-0 lead.
Florida didn't trail for long. The Gators answered in the bottom of the inning with Stephanie Tofft's two-out solo home run to left field to tie the game, and there was more to come.
In the second inning, Florida knocked Alabama's ace, SEC Pitcher of the Year Jaclyn Traina, out of the game, as it did late in the opening contest the night before.
This time, however, it was in much more dramatic fashion.
Florida turned its third double play of the series to get out of the top of the inning, then Florida passed the hot bat from player to player. Aubree Munro and Taylor Schwarz, UF's eight and nine hitters in the lineup, both singled with one out to bring up second baseman Kelsey Stewart, who singled to right field to drive in a run for a 2-1 Florida lead.
But the Gators weren't done. Center fielder Kirsti Merritt hammered a three-run home run to left field to put Florida up by a commanding 5-1 margin and send Traina to the dugout.
Freshman Sydney Littlejohn entered in relief to get Alabama out of the inning, but the damage was done.
Alabama, however, wasn't done fighting. Kaila Hunt hit a solo home run to left in the top of the third to cut the Gators' lead to 5-2.
Walton decided to make a change after Traina hit a leadoff single to start the fourth, bringing in Gourley. UF's fourth error of the game loaded the bases for Alabama with two outs, but Gourley got a groundout to put out the fire.
The two rookie pitchers, Gourley (15-1) and Littlejohn, settled in to keep the score in check for the next couple of innings before Florida finally turned to Rogers with a three-run lead in the sixth.
She showed the same dominant form that she had displayed in powering Florida through the postseason, getting three outs on eight pitches in the sixth and gave up a run in the seventh on a McCleney triple and a Hunt RBI single before getting a grounder to end the game and set off the celebration.


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As promised, we've finally turned my $10 chair find into a comfy, rocking, swiveling chair to rival all chairs (okay, so maybe it would lose in the Chair Olympics to some newer models, but in the low-cost events, it would totally clean up). If you recall, this is what Big Bird looked like when I brought her home . . .
And although she looks essentially the same now, trust me–there's a lot more going on under that skirt . . .
Before I give you a somewhat not-so-detailed explanation of how we converted Big Bird into a rocking swivel chair (I was, after all, on baby duty during much of the process), I first have to give credit where credit is due . . . so here's the tutorial from Honey & Fitz that inspired me and informed our decisions along the way:
Step 1: Buy a rocking, swiveling base. I got mine at Swivel-Chair-Parts.com for ~$85.
Step 2: Flip your chair over and remove the netting from the bottom of your chair by removing the staples attached to the wooden base.
Step 3: Remove the chairs legs. Now, a lot of chairs just have legs that unscrew from the base–oh, to be so lucky, right? Of course it wasn't going to be that easy. Nope, these legs were solid wood and extended all the way into the chair base.
So we had to saw them off. And by we, I mean Mr. Bunches and our very own Bachelor-in-Residence, MO (they moved the whole operation out to the front patio at this point–the garage door was broken at the time, so they went full white-trash style and did the work where all could see). . .
Two down, two to go . . .
Step 5: Attach a wooden base for the rocker/swivel base. Mr. Bunches and MO picked out some wood at Home Depot to use–the original plan was to have one solid piece of 3/4″ plywood cut to size, but after they found out that the cutters at both Lowe's and Home Depot were broken, they switched to plan B: two pieces of 3/4″ thick lumber that they could cut to size themselves.
Step 6: Mark and pre-drill holes to attach wood slats to base. We did two-three holes on each board.
Step 7: Attach slats to base with wood screws.
Step 8: Position rocking base–the base should not be positioned in the center of the chair, but more towards the back of the chair. Once positioned, mark holes to drill in order to attach the base with bolts and nuts. The base identifies which part is the front, so make sure you position it correctly. I don't have pictures really of this step, but trust me–it happened.
Step 9: Attach rocking base with nuts and bolts. Tighten.
Step 10: Turn chair over and enjoy. And by enjoy, apparently that means asking your wife who just birthed your baby to get you and your friend a couple of beers so you can complete the white trash picture on the front lawn. Classic, eh?
So there you have it–how to convert an upholstered chair into a swivel rocker! Now that we've had it a couple weeks, I have to say that we love it. It hasn't migrated to the nursery yet since I tend to nurse Mini Bunches in front of the boob tube (haha–get it–boob tube?), but I'm sure someday it will end up there. Of course, Mr. Bunches and MO thought it should stay on the front lawn. Clearly, they were vetoed.
Once it was back inside, of course we had to see how Mini Bunches liked it. Her first impression? Loved it.
Of course, 2 seconds later was a different story. Not sure if it was MO or the chair she was reacting to . . . 🙂
Thanks to our Bachelor-in-Residence for all his help!! We've been rocking almost non-stop these days (mainly to avoid that sad face above).


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MONDAY, Aug. 11, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Digoxin, a drug that's been used to treat heart problems for about 200 years, might increase the risk of dying in certain patients.
New research suggests that for people who have a particular type of irregular heart rhythm, called atrial fibrillation, taking the drug digoxin may increase the risk of dying by more than 20 percent.
"We found in 122,000 patients with atrial fibrillation, those treated with digoxin were more likely to die [during the study period] than patients prescribed other medications," said lead researcher Dr. Mintu Turakhia, an assistant professor of cardiology at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif.
Although the current research found an association between the drug digoxin and a higher risk of death for people with atrial fibrillation or flutter, the study does not show that the drug caused the higher risk of death.
However, Turakhia thinks the risk may be the result of digoxin causing other dangerous abnormal heart rhythms.
"Even though you are being given a drug to slow down your heart rate in atrial fibrillation, it may be causing other problems with your heart that may increase the risk of death," he said.
Digoxin is made from extracts of the foxglove plant, also called digitalis. It has long been a standard treatment for atrial fibrillation, according to background information in the study.
Given that there are other treatments for atrial fibrillation, Turakhia wonders why digoxin should be the treatment of choice for these patients. "There are other safer drugs out there," he said.
Safer alternatives may include drugs known as beta-blockers or calcium channel blockers, Turakhia said. "These have never been tied to an increased risk of death or major concerns with safety," he said.
Turakhia thinks patients taking digoxin for atrial fibrillation should talk with their doctor about possibly switching to another medication.
"There may be a role for digoxin, but is it the right drug when there are other alternatives -- that's a discussion that may be worth having," he said.
Turakhia said that digoxin might benefit some patients. "Recent studies have shown that digoxin might keep people with heart failure out of the hospital," he said. "But most patients with atrial fibrillation don't have heart failure," he added.
The report was published online Aug. 11 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, said, "Although digoxin has been used for decades to treat patients with atrial fibrillation, there has been very limited clinical trial data, and its safety and effectiveness for atrial fibrillation remains controversial."
Although a number of studies have suggested that digoxin may be associated with an increased risk of dying, the findings of these studies may be biased because digoxin is more likely used to treat patients with severe heart failure and for patients who cannot take beta-blockers or calcium channel blockers, he said.
The findings from this current study are also not definitive and raise more questions than they answer, Fonarow said. He thinks that clinical trials pitting digoxin against other treatments for atrial fibrillation are needed to settle the question.
In the meantime, Fonarow said, "patients with atrial fibrillation should not alter their medications without speaking to their cardiologist and carefully weighing the risks and benefits of the different treatment options."
For the study, Turakhia and colleagues used medical records from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs health care system between 2003 and 2008. They collected data on more than 120,000 people with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation. Nearly all of them were men.
Nearly one-quarter of them were taking digoxin. Seventy percent of those taking the drug were still taking it after a year, the researchers noted.
Turakhia's team found that those taking digoxin were more than 20 percent more likely to die, compared with patients taking other drugs to control their atrial fibrillation.
The researcher took into account other factors, such as taking other drugs including beta-blockers, the heart rhythm drug amiodarone and the blood thinner warfarin. They also considered age and other medical conditions, such as kidney disease, heart attack or heart failure. However, the risk of death linked to digoxin remained the same, according to the study.
More information
For more about atrial fibrillation, visit the American Heart Association.
This article: Copyright © 2014 HealthDay. All rights reserved.


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MANILA » A suspected Chinese fishing vessel with 12 crewmen has run aground in a protected coral reef in the southwestern Philippines, where a U.S. Navy minesweeper got stuck and had to be dismantled recently, officials said Tuesday (Monday in Hawaii).
The steel-hulled vessel strayed into the Tubbataha National Marine Park in the Sulu Sea and struck an atoll, where it was stranded. It was unclear why the vessel strayed into the no-sail area, regional coast guard commander Commodore Enrico Efren Evangelista said.
It is not the same area where the Philippines and China were in a standoff last year over competing sea claims. Tubbataha lies east off southwestern Palawan province and is far from South China Sea islands and offshore areas long contested by China, the Philippines and four other governments.
The 12 crewmen were taken into custody but investigators have not been able to communicate with them because they do speak Chinese and no English. They may face charges of illegal entry and poaching, and have already violated a regulation banning commercial ships from venturing into a three-mile no-sail area around Tubbataha, park superintendent Angelique Songco said.
No fish were found in the vessel but it was equipped with fishing nets, she said.
Authorities will wait for a high tide this morning to see if they can refloat the ship.
Tubbataha is a 239,700-acre marine sanctuary and popular diving destination 400 miles southwest of Manila. It has been designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO, the United Nations' cultural arm, for its rich bio-diversity.
"It's clear in the charts that the Tubbataha sanctuary is off-limits to navigation but there seems to be a line of ships just waiting to violate that regulation," Songco said.
The USS Guardian ran aground in another Tubbataha atoll on Jan. 17 and was removed March 30 after being dismantled and lifted piece by piece by a crane to prevent more damage to the coral reefs.
The U.S. Pacific Fleet said last week it has relieved the commanding officer, the executive officer and navigator, the assistant navigator and the officer of the deck of the Guardian after initial findings indicated all had failed to adhere to standard navigation procedures at the time of the minesweeper's grounding.
Washington has been asked to pay $1.5 million for the 2,800 square yards of coral reef damaged by the Guardian in Tubbataha, Songco said, adding the U.S. Embassy was notified of the fine Monday.
U.S. Embassy officials have expressed regret and promised to compensate for the damage.
At least eight other vessels have run aground in Tubbataha in past years, including a Greenpeace ship which accidentally got stuck in the corals in 2005 while studying the impact of global warming on coral reefs. Greenpeace officials expressed regrets and paid a fine, Songco said.


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While answering a question about styling SVG with CSS in the Freenode #svg IRC channel (yes, people still use IRC), I threw together a simple example to illustrate. I like to do this, since in keeps me in practice, and gives me a chance to check the state of current implementations in the fast-changing world of SVG browser support.
The question was how to use CSS stylesheets, both internal and external, with SVG in Inkscape. While I know that Inkscape makes heavy use of CSS inline style declarations on elements (more than is to my personal taste, to be honest), I didn't (and don't) know if it has any UI features for adding internal stylesheet blocks, or links to external stylesheets. So I made a little test…
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="svgstyle.css" ?> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" width="100%" height="100%" viewBox="40 0 145 70"> <style type="text/css"><![CDATA[ ellipse { fill: lime; stroke: green; stroke-width: 10px; } ]]></style> <rect id="inline" x="50" y="10" width="30" height="50" rx="5" ry="5" style="fill:lime; stroke:green; stroke-width:3px;"/> <ellipse id="internal" cx="103" cy="35" rx="15" ry="25" style="stroke-width:3px;"/> <circle id="external" cx="150" cy="35" r="25" style="stroke-width:3px;"/> </svg>
circle { fill: lime; stroke: green; stroke-width: 10px; }
Which looks like this (at least, in Firefox, Opera, Safari, and presumably Chrome):
Both internal styles worked fine in Inkscape, but the external reference did not, showing just a black circle. I'm not really surprised. Note the clunky way that you have to link to external stylesheets in SVG:
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="svgstyle.css" ?>
That's really XSLT-licious. I have to confess, I don't really care for PIs (insert dated Magnum PI joke here), or XML prologs in general… they seem somehow clumsy and un-XMLy, like a throwback to SGML. And as far as I know, they can't be created or changed dynamically via clientside script. Compare that to the relatively easy and straightforward X/HTML way of linking to external stylesheets:
<link href="svgstyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
In the SVG WG, we intend to allow authors to reference external stylesheets in a manner a little more modern and consistent with what authors are already used to using, in some upcoming spec. We could do that a couple of different ways. We could allow them to use an
xlink:href attribute on the
<style> element, in the same way we currently treat the
<script> element (that is, if there's a resolvable external link, we use that, otherwise we use the child content of the element), or we could add a
<link> element like X/HTML, or both. I kinda like the idea of allowing either.
To that end, I made a couple of tests, just playing around, to see if any browsers accidentally supported either of those options, by merit of having some shared codebase with X/HTML in their implementations. Unsurprisingly, neither worked.
But then I had another idea… use the an
<xhtml:link> element in the XHTML namespace…
<xhtml:link href="svgstyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
With this rather happy result, which works in at least Firefox, Opera, and Safari.
I don't know if this is by design, or if it just fell out of the model, but I have to say I'm pleased as punch that it works. If nothing else, it's a great proof of concept for adding more ways of linking to CSS in the SVG spec. This one goes in my toolkit, and I'm going to try to ensure that it gets standardized, if it's not already there in some corner of some other spec. Probably somebody already knows about this (hell, probably everybody does, and I'm late to the party), but for me it was a w00ty discovery.
Update: heycam speculated that you might also be able to use
@import rules, and indeed you can:
<style type="text/css">@import url(svgstyle.css);</style>


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For more than a century, law enforcement squads in most states in the union have counted prostitution among the vices they are tasked with eradicating. Usually the women –- and, some times men — selling themselves for sex are the ones arrested for solicitation.
Their customers or "johns" often go free as do the pimps who profit from prostitutes they ensnare, often by making them drug addicts.
Rarely are the prostitutes seen as victims, only perpetrators of crime.
Recently, the U.S. Justice Department made a major move in changing the country's perception of prostitution by lending a different name to it: human-trafficking.
It is a dehumanizing practice one would associate with developing nations, not something that would exist in the United States, the richest country in the world.
But according to the United Nations, $9.5 billion is made from human-trafficking annually in the United States. The profiteers are pimps who usually pick up teen-aged runaways, make the teens financially dependent on them, addict them to drugs and force them to work the streets, often through violence.
"They tell the girls that they are beautiful or that they can be a model and then they are often subjected to violence and introduced to drugs like crack cocaine. But any of the areas they can be approached is anywhere they are not being supervised," said Assistant U.S. District Attorney Michelle Morgan.
She made her remarks at a likely place for pimps to prowl – Southern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority's 69th Street terminal in Upper Darby. It is a major artery to and from the city of Philadelphia which the U.S. Department of Justice has identified as one of the top 20 human-trafficking cities in the country. Public transit hubs along with shopping malls, the exterior of schools and the street are common sites for human-traffickers to swoop down on their young prey. Prosecutors' aim now is to change the focus from prostitute to predator, said SEPTA Police Chief Thomas Nestel.
The press conference was held a few days before Super Bowl weekend because major sporting events are notorious for attracting human-sex-traffickers. Pimps profiting from prostitution are difficult to prosecute because the people they have enslaved for sex are often afraid to testify against them. These victims also often lack proper credentials to be eligible for rehabilitation centers that would help free them from the addiction that has put them at the mercy of pimps, said Sister Dominica LoBianco.
She helps run the Delaware County, Pa., Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition, striving to raise awareness of this ruthless practice and advocating for passage of state Senate Bill 75, which would help human-trafficking victims become eligible for rehabilitative services. One of the few locations in the country to provide safe haven for human-trafficking victims is the 9-bed Dawn's Place in Philadelphia, headed by Sister Terry Shields of Delaware County and who is seeking to expand it. Opened about five years ago and existing solely on donations, Dawn's Place has provided sanctuary for hundreds of women caught in the vicious cycle of addiction and prostitution. One former resident of Dawn's Place who was 32 when she prostituted herself to support her drug habit said she was actually relieved when she was arrested.
She noted, "When I was arrested, I said to the officer, 'Thank you. You're not arresting me, you are rescuing me.'"
That sentiment has resonated with federal law enforcement officials. In the two weeks before the Super Bowl, which was staged just outside of New York City at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, FBI agents did not say they "arrested" prostitutes. They said they "rescued" them. Not only did they rescue 16 girls ranging in age from 13 to 17, they rescued 50 adult women forced to work as prostitutes, some who were from foreign countries.
There were arrests made, however. The suspects were 45 alleged pimps, some of whom had firearms that were seized. Hopefully it is just the beginning of the end for these shameless predators who destroy lives.
For help or to report a tip of suspected trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888 or text "HELP" or "INFO" to 2337332 (BeFree). Run by the Polaris Project, it is not a government agency nor an immigration authority.


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Mailing list blues
When I look at the list folder in my Evolution these days it's just a depressing sight. So manny mailinglists I've accumulated membership to that go unread now.
I think the model of mailing lists is just fundamentally broken. I just subscribed to the cdparanoia mailing list because I had a bug filed against morituri related to the sample-offset option. And you have to subscribe just to be able to post.
So the process to get some question answered is:
- ask to be subscribed
- wait for the request mail to arrive, which arrives somewhere in my admin/list folder which I keep forgetting about because of server-side .procmailrc rules
- wait some more, because the greylisting on our mailserver probably delayed the arrival
- reply to it
- wait some more, you're now subscribed
- send your question
- wait some more
- update my Evolution folder subscription selection, because another .procmailrc rule (that I probably stole from jdub) automatically filters the mail into an unfiltered subdirectory which is a catch-all for all mailing lists; but it only shows up in the list when the mail actually arrived of course
- check the mail in the list, which is usually only mine
- remember to check that folder over the next few days for possible answers
- end up accumulating years of cdparanoia list mails that I won't ever read because the friction of this process is just too much and it's just easier to waste bytes across the net
Of course, I can just change my account settings on a particular list to not receive mails, until I have my next question, but that's still painful.
My garden is in dire need of weeding here, but I don't even know what direction to take it in. Anyone who feels they have a good handle on the mailing list problem want to share their approach with me ?
In particular, I've been googling for a solution to a very particular problem: the not noticing mails on mailing lists that are directly for me - either as a reply to one of my questions, or because I'm being CC'd somehow. My filters file all mails to mailing list in their respective folders, and I tend to miss the mails addressed to me a lot. Surely there is an easy procmail recipe that, when I'm in CC in some other way than just through the mailing list, also leaves a copy of the mail in my INBOX ?
Surely there must


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House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said this week that Republicans will demand something in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling early next year.
The White House, meanwhile, said it won't negotiate on the issue.
The country now has had extensive experience with debt ceiling brinksmanship over the past three years -- as recently as October.
While no two standoffs are exactly alike, budget analysts and political observers expect this next round of see-who-blinks-first to be tamer than hot rhetoric may suggest in the weeks ahead.
For starters, 2014 is a mid-term election year and Republicans realize it was a political mistake this fall to shut down the government and risk default.
"It is hard to imagine they would risk [being] blamed for a default scare in an election year," said Sean West, US policy director at the Eurasia Group, in a research note.
Second, lawmakers have twice in the past year opted for an easy out -- a debt ceiling suspension -- when they failed to hammer out a real agreement over an increase in the borrowing limit.
A suspension doesn't technically raise the debt ceiling, but lets the Treasury Department keep borrowing as needed to pay the country's bills, thereby averting default on U.S. obligations. And it doesn't force lawmakers to go on the record as voting for an increase.
"The odds favor a clean repeat of what we did last time," said Pete Davis, a former Capitol Hill staffer and founder of Davis Capital Investment Ideas.
The last two debt suspensions were only a few months long. If Congress opts for a third, it is likely to last much longer since neither Republicans nor Democrats will want to revisit the debt ceiling issue too close to the November elections, Davis said.
Another reason this time may be different -- yes, famous last words -- is because Republicans haven't really organized a strategy around the issue yet.
"Several clients have asked us what the Republicans will demand for raising the debt ceiling. Our answer: we have no idea and neither do they," said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist of the Potomac Research Group, in a morning note Wednesday morning.
In the past, House Speaker John Boehner and other key Republicans have signaled months in advance of the debt ceiling boiling point their exact demands in exchange for a debt ceiling agreement.
This time around, the first real mention of demands came this past weekend, when Ryan said Republicans would gather after the Christmas break "and discuss exactly what it is we're going to try and get."
That's not a lot of lead time.
The current debt ceiling suspension ends February 7. After that, Treasury will be able to keep paying bills in full by using special accounting maneuvers known as "extraordinary measures."
It's hard to predict exactly when those measures would run dry. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Thursday alerted lawmakers that he currently estimates the measures wouldn't last past late February or early March 2014.
"[W]e do not foresee any reasonable scenario in which the extraordinary measures would last for an extended period of time -- principally because the government experiences large net cash outflows in February and March due to tax refunds," Lew wrote in a letter to Congress.
An earlier analysis from the Congressional Budget Office estimated the measures would be exhausted as early as March or as late as June.


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Marking the one year anniversary of the NSA leaks saga, Microsoft today called for broad change in how the United States Government and its intelligence agencies operate, and what they collect.
Microsoft is not alone among technology companies in calling for reform. Its blog post today, however, is interesting given its breadth and specificity.
The company wants the government to end bulk collection of phone records in the United States, and states the USA FREEDOM Act should be "strengthened to prohibit" the "bulk collection of Internet data." Also, the FISA Court needs to be reformed, in its view, to increase transparency and also to "introduce the adversarial process that is the hallmark of a fair judicial system."
Microsoft goes on to demand that the United States Government stop abusing warrants to force data out of companies when that data is stored overseas. The company is challenging that on legal grounds, planning an appeal of its case after an expected first loss.
Finally, the company demands that the government stop hacking data centers. Its own language is worth repeating here:
Commit not to hack data centers or cables: We believe our efforts to expand encryption across our services make it much harder for any government to successfully hack data in transit or at rest. Yet more than seven months after the Washington Post first reported that the National Security Agency hacked systems outside the U.S. to access data held by Yahoo! and Google, the Executive Branch remains silent about its views of this practice. Shouldn't a government that prosecutes foreigners who hack into U.S. companies stop its own employees from hacking into such businesses? Why must we continue to wait for an assurance on this issue?
Google and Yahoo were less than pleased when the program tapping the cables between their data centers in Europe was disclosed. Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and other technology companies have taken action to encrypt more of their data to prevent the NSA from easily collecting and sifting through it. (Of course, the NSA has worked to weaken encryption.)
It's good of Microsoft to publicly call down the government on its failure to reform and rein in the NSA thus far. And its comments undercutting the USA FREEDOM Act as too weak could help Congress reform the reform.


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Angel food cake is as light as air, sweetly satisfying
It's light, pairs perfectly with fresh berries and ice cream, and even is low-fat. It's summer's perfect dessert - angel food cake.
It's light, pairs perfectly with fresh berries and ice cream, and even is low-fat. It's summer's perfect dessert - angel food cake.
It's also wonderfully easy to make. So to help you sweeten up your summer table, we've given you a master recipe for this egg white-based confection, plus three recipes for different ways to serve it - a tiramisu trifle, grilled and topped with fresh berries, and layered with sorbet for a cool and refreshing torte.
Angel Food Cake
Start to finish: 45 minutes
Makes 1 tube cake (12 servings) or 2 loaf pans
11/2 cups superfine sugar, divided
1 cup cake flour, sifted
12 egg whites, room temperature
1/4 teaspoon salt
11/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium bowl, sift together 1/2 cup of the sugar and the cake flour. Set aside.
In a large bowl use an electric mixer to whisk together the egg whites, salt, cream of tartar, and vanilla and almond extracts. Beat on medium-high until very foamy. With the mixer running, slowly add the remaining cup of sugar. Beat until stiff, glossy peaks form.
Sift half of the flour-sugar mixture over the egg whites and use a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to gently fold into the egg mixture. Repeat with the remaining flour-sugar mixture. Transfer to an ungreased 10-inch tube pan or divide between 2 ungreased loaf pans. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes for a tube pan or 30 to 35 minutes for the loaf pans, or until a wooden skewer inserted at the center comes out dry.
Overturn the tube pan onto the neck of a wine or similar bottle and cool. Loaf pans can be turned on their sides or overturned onto cooling racks. To remove the cakes from the pan, slide a paring knife around the edge.
Nutrition information per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 120 calories; 0 calories from fat (0 percent of total calories); 0 g fat (0 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 0 mg cholesterol; 27 g carbohydrate; 5 g protein; 0 g fiber; 95 mg sodium.
Frozen Angel Food Torte
Start to finish: 2 1/2 hours (30 minutes active)
Servings: 10
1 loaf angel food cake
1 pint raspberry sorbet
1 pint coconut sorbet
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 ounces semisweet chocolate bits
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1 pint fresh raspberries
1/4 cup coconut flakes, toasted
Spray the loaf pan that the angel food cake was cooked in with cooking spray, then line it with plastic wrap.
Use a serrated knife to slice the angel food cake horizontally into 3 long layers.
Soften the raspberry and coconut sorbets in the microwave, heating them on high in 10-second intervals until just soft enough to spread. Do not melt.
Place the bottom third of the angel food cake back in the prepared pan. Spread the raspberry sorbet over the cake, then top with the middle slice of the cake. Spread the coconut sorbet over the cake and top with the final layer of angel food cake. Freeze until firm.
When ready to serve, in a small saucepan over medium, heat the cream until simmering. Remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate and corn syrup until smooth and glossy. Allow to cool to lukewarm.
To serve, using the plastic wrap to lift it, remove the torte from the loaf pan. Peel off the plastic wrap and place the torte on a serving platter. Pour the chocolate sauce over the top of the torte and arrange the raspberries and coconut on and around the torte. Cut into slices to serve.
Nutrition information per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 300 calories; 110 calories from fat (29 percent of total calories); 11 g fat (7 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 20 mg cholesterol; 54 g carbohydrate; 4 g protein; 2 g fiber; 70 mg sodium.
Angel Food Tiramisu Trifle
This recipe calls for assembling the trifle in glasses for individual servings. It also can be assembled in one large trifle dish.
Start to finish: 30 minutes
Servings: 4
1/2 cup brewed espresso
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons Kahlua liqueur
2 tablespoons amaretto liqueur
8 ounces mascarpone
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons heavy cream
2 cups cubed angel food cake
1/4 cup finely chopped dark chocolate
In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the espresso and sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely. Stir in the Kahlua and amaretto.
In a small bowl, gently stir together the mascarpone, honey and heavy cream. Be careful not to overmix.
Divide half the angel food cubes between 4 parfait glasses or flutes. Drizzle with half of the espresso syrup. Spoon half the mascarpone over the cake. Sprinkle with half the chopped chocolate. Repeat the layering with the remaining cake cubes, syrup, mascarpone and chocolate.
Nutrition information per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 550 calories; 300 calories from fat (51 percent of total calories); 33 g fat (18 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 80 mg cholesterol; 56 g carbohydrate; 8 g protein; 1 g fiber; 110 mg sodium.
Grilled Angel Food Shortcakes
Start to finish: 20 minutes
Servings: 4
Eight1/2-inch slices angel food cut from a loaf or round cake
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 cups mixed fresh berries
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar
Whipped cream, to serve
Heat a grill to medium-high. Lightly brush both sides of each slice of angel food cake with the oil.
In a medium bowl, toss the berries with the lemon juice and sugar.
Grill the angel food slices for 2 minutes per side, or until golden and toasty. To serve, top 4 of the slices with half of the berries. Top with the remaining slices of angel food cake, then the remaining berries. Serve with whipped cream.
Nutrition information per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 280 calories; 100 calories from fat (34 percent of total calories); 12 g fat (4 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 15 mg cholesterol; 46 g carbohydrate; 5 g protein; 0 g fiber; 100 mg sodium.


text:
NEW YORK (AP) — Kris and Bruce Jenner have confirmed they separated a year ago, after 22 years together.
In an interview with US magazine hitting newsstands Friday, Kris Jenner says there's no animosity between them. She says they're committed to their family.
Her former Olympic champion husband says they'll always love and respect each other.
News of the split was first reported by E! News.
The couple has two teenage daughters, Kendall and Kylie. Kris Jenner is the mother of Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian Odom as well as Robert and Kourtney Kardashian.
They say no divorce papers have been filed and that Bruce will continue to appear on "Keeping up with the Kardashians."


text:
The following information is important only for individuals having a Key Survey account used to create, distribute, and work with surveys and response data.
Please be aware that the WorldAPP team (our Key Survey host) will be performing needed hardware maintenance on this coming Saturday, January 17, 2015, between the hours of:
EST: 2 am to 7 am (GMT: 7 am to 12 pm)
During these hours Key Survey will be temporary unavailable. Once the hardware maintenance has been completed, all applications, survey and forms links, and reports will be available as usual.
WorldAPP apologizes for the short notice and will be happy to answer any questions you may have about this maintenance. Feel free to contact their Support Team via email (email@example.com), phone (781.849.8118), or live chat from www.keysurvey.com.


text:
I keep getting distracted when I try to listen to podcasts. My mind wanders, I check my email, before I know it I'm doing something entirely different and have forgotten that there's someone talking in my ears. The podcast becomes background noise. I stop listening.
You could say it's my fault. That I don't have good concentration, or discipline. That I don't care enough. But it's not me, it's them.
Podcasts are boring.
(At least, the ones that I've been listening to that are produced by people who are supposedly interested in design and user experience…. I know there are some that are really cool and interesting… but that would make a boring title).
Yes, yes, so you're really smart and probably pretty well known… that's why I'm listening to you. But you still have to make an effort to reach through the microphone and grab me by the earlobes. Lots of people are trying to get in my ear these days, but too few are putting any effort into making it a great experience for me.
I'm no expert in podcasting, but I know what I like ;) Having spent the last few days listening to a whole bunch of podcasts, this is what I've learned:
- Don't over prepare and don't read from a script. Definitely don't try to 'fake' an interview. It sounds artificial and lifeless and dull.
- Have a plan. Once you get started with your podcast it's pretty easy to ramble on and on. This is not a good idea. Know what point you want to make or what information you want to share, have a strong structure and stick to it.
- Talk about something interesting. Just like my wishlist for conference presentations, I'd also like your podcast to be full of meaty information not just a top level review, I want you to take a position and argue it (bonus points if it's a controversial position and you can back it up!), and I love hearing about real life examples and stories.
- If you must edit, try to keep it subtle. Personally, I'd be aiming to keep the podcast authentic sounding and to edit as little as possible. I'd rather do a few takes and minimal editing than try to hack together something coherent from rambling single take.
Why shouldn't you rehearse your podcast? You'll do a better job the third time through than the first.
- Don't be cool, be passionate. If you care about your subject matter (and you should if you think you're worth listening to), then put a bit of enthusiasm into your delivery. It was always the voice that held my attention – speakers who had LIFE in their voice, and HUMOUR and HUMANITY. People who were passionate about the topic of the podcast. And don't cut out the bits that make you seem human. This is the joy of the podcast… you make yourself more human.
- It's a performance, not an internal monologue. Think about how you'd prepare for a conference presentation. Take away the slides and all the same 'how to's' pretty much apply. You can't just get three of your mates on the phone (no matter how A-list they maybe), shoot the breeze and call it a podcast because you've got some big names chatting. Have you seen all those posts about how panel sessions at conferences often suck? These kinds of podcasts are worse.
- Keep it snappy. Set yourself a time limit and stick to it. For me, I'd prefer a podcast around say 15 minutes long. Any longer than that and I'll probably lose concentration or get called away to do something else. I'd LOVE a really satifisfying 15 minute podcast to listen to every day.
- Be creative. What can you do to make your podcast a better experience for your users? I don't know the answer to this, but I have some ideas that I reckon might be kind of cool… podcasts use music a bit these days but I'd quite like to see a bit more. What about sound effects?
I'm thinking of radio plays – sound effects, characters, storytelling, suspense. Lists? Vox pops? Talk show? There are lots of different genres from which we could be drawing inspiration.
Now that anyone who wants to can easily grab a microphone and start pumping out the podcasts, I think it's time to raise the bar. So, if you've to something to say, and you want to say it in a podcast… take a little time before you hit record and think about how you can give your audience a great listening experience.
What are our tips for making podcasts not boring? And what podcasts do you recommend?


text: Lyla Peebles realized a lifelong dream when she renovated Aunt Mandy's cottage and opened Lyla's Little House in the summer of 2011. A lover of homemade candy and vintage finds, Lyla has filled her little house with the right combination of her favorite things. Satisfy your sweet tooth with her pecan pralines or melt-in-your-mouth divinity candy. Or sip away the hot summer strolling the streets of Mooresville with a german chocolate milkshake made with homemade ice cream. And for those of you salt-lovers devoted to crunch, no need to worry, Lyla also prides herself on her rendition of that southern classic: the cheese straw. Consider yourself warned: cheese straws are highly addictive. Lyla will be the first to tell you that the treats are the main attraction, but she's also stocked her little store with a unique assortment of vintage housewares. Come by High Street and see her latest finds!


text:
I am really getting into this summer thing. I don't remember it happening before, but MelT says this is my fourth summer. The other three must not have been as fun.
I am really getting into this summer thing. I don't remember it happening before, but MelT says this is my fourth summer. The other three must not have been as fun.
A weird thing happened this week. I can't hardly explain it. Let's just say that the air in the freezer was somehow transported and expanded to fill the whole world. I know this because the water in my outside toilet bowl turned into ice. Ice, as even a capybara knows, belongs in the freezer. I know because that is where my popsicles come from. If not for popsicles, ice has no reason to exist in this world.
The photo above shows how much ice my owner pulled off the bowl before she filled it with fresh, slightly warmer, water for me. Let me tell you, I wasn't happy about stepping into that water with my sensitive little feet!
It was so cold that even the plants froze, as you can see from the photo above. And I've been noticing something weird happening to the leaves on the trees. Well, first off, lots of them are just falling off their branches leaving the trees all bare and naked-looking. But also some of them are turning funny colors.
It does look pretty but I think I like the solid green color better.
That is not the weirdest part of it, though, not even by half! The weird thing is that one day it didn't rain. I don't mean "it didn't rain" as in it was a nice sunny day, I mean it did something else besides rain. My owner said it was snow and that snow is ice and that–you are not going to believe this–that ice can fall from the sky! Sometimes she talks crazy but how do you explain the photo below?
That white stuff in the air is the snow. The poor horses had to stand out in it. Their fur is a lot thicker than mine though and they didn't even seem cold.
Of course Phoenix just thinks the whole cold thing is fun. What is wrong with that horse?
I, on the other hand, know just how to handle cold weather.
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text:
by Brian Selznick
Scholastic Press, 2011
639 pages
When I was growing up, book fairs were one of my favorite things about school.
Every year, I waited with baited breath for those little catalogs to show up on our desks. And though I never got to buy all the books I wanted (which was only every single one in the entire catalog), book-delivery day was as big as Christmas for me.
So you can imagine how excited I was when my daughter, who is in kindergarten, brought home a little note announcing family book fair night.
I didn't really ask her if she wanted to go–and we got there early, like Black Friday shoppers (though I controlled myself enough to enter the school library in an orderly fashion).
I was halfway down the wall of displays when I saw it: Wonderstruck, Brian Selznick's followup to his stunning hybrid graphic/text novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
If I hadn't been conditioned into silence by a lifetime of library visits, I would have squealed out loud. As it was, I grabbed for the book so, um, vigorously that it's a good thing no one was standing between me and the shelf.
I didn't buy Wonderstruck that night (I let my daughter spend all the money), but a quick skim was enough to send me straight to the public library's "I want this book" list as soon as I got home.
And, once again, Selznick did not disappoint. Wonderstruck is not a sequel to Hugo Cabret, but it is a worthy successor–and ideal fodder for this blog.
The book consists of two tales, initially told separately but later intertwined in a somewhat predictable but entirely elegant way.
For me, the inspiration is in the story of Rose, a 12-year-old living in 1920s New Jersey.
Born into a wealthy family, Rose is a deaf-mute whose parents confine her to the house and subject her to private lessons in speech and lip-reading.
Fed up with the isolation and shame, Rose runs away to New York City, where she moves in with her older brother. She begins to make a new life for herself and, much later, helps another young runaway do the same.
Almost from her first appearance in the book, Rose inspired me with her uncompromising spirit.
She knows who she is and believes she has the right to be that person. She won't settle for anything different, or anything less, even through bewilderment, deep fear, and heartbreak.
And the story validates her difficult decisions. Fifty years after her journey to New York, Rose is a confident, fulfilled woman. She's had a satisfying life, with no regrets.
When she meets runaway Ben, also deaf, she seizes the opportunity to pour that confidence and fulfillment into his life.
She opens her life to Ben so he can have a living, breathing example of the validity of pursing dreams and living to his full potential.
By sharing her story with him, she helps him find peace–with himself, with his history, and with the missing pieces of his life.
What a great message for girls: Define your identity from within, not from without–and be courageous yet vulnerable enough to show others your true self.
The reward? Not just fulfillment for your own life, but (even better) a connection to and legacy of inspiration for the next generation.


text:
California is parched, with 100 percent of the Golden State entrenched in drought conditions for the first time in 15 years, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM).
"With the expansion of D1 [moderate drought] across southeast California and southwest Arizona, this week marks the first time in the 15-year history of the USDM that 100 percent of California was in moderate to exceptional drought," according to a statement by the Monitor, which is a joint effort by the National Drought Mitigation Center, NOAA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. drought observers.
Since March 25, the state has been under "abnormally dry" conditions, and just this week the Drought Monitor listed the entire state as experiencing a moderate drought. [Photos: The 10 Driest Places on Earth]
Various parts of the state are feeling the California drought more than others. For instance, the city of Montague may run out of drinking water by the end of the summer, according to the Monitor; the city has asked residents to curtail outside watering at this time.
"This is the first time in over 80 years of water deliveries from the Montague Water Conservation District that this situation has occurred," a statement from the Monitor reads.
Many growers in Shasta Valley and Big Springs — both part of Siskiyou County, in the northernmost part of California in the Shasta region — are struggling to water their fields.
The Monitor quotes an observer in Siskiyou County to illustrate the frustration felt by farmers: "Our snow pack is pathetic, rainfall is way below normal, (low) stream flows are running at 2-3 months ahead of normal depending on the area, well levels have dropped severely and many wells are dry in spring or have levels typical of late fall, surface water irrigation supplies are non-existent to extremely limited in many areas, and the situation is only getting worse daily (especially after 3 consecutive years of drought)."
In fact, California's snowpack, or the snow that accumulates on mountaintops during the winter, is at less than one-third of its historical average, according to measurements from NASA's Airborne Snow Observatory reported this month.
Winter is usually California's wettest time of the year, but a high-pressure ridge offshore created a jet-stream pattern that sent Pacific storms heading for California north into the Pacific Northwest and Canada instead. The high-pressure system first appeared in December 2012 and lasted so long that meteorologists gave it a nickname: the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge.
Last year (2013) was California's driest on record, according to the National Weather Service.
Follow Jeanna Bryner on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.


text:
Find thousands of books, manuscripts, visual materials and unpublished archives from our collections, many of them with free online access.
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Joseph Raulin. Line engraving.
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text:
Six more books on Lincoln
Of the 60-plus Lincoln books released this season, several stand out.
In addition to being president, Abraham Lincoln was also a writer, commander of troops, assassination target, family man, and peer of other great men. The 16th president can be examined from many angles and, as we celebrate the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth, biographers have overlooked few of them.
Among the stacks, some titles stand out.
In Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer, English professor emeritus Fred Kaplan seeks the roots of the president's truly timeless prose. "Since Lincoln, no president has written his own words and addressed his contemporary audience or posterity with equal and enduring effectiveness," Kaplan writes.
Consider a November morning in 1863, as an esteemed orator gave a speech at the dedication of a military cemetery in Pennsylvania. He finished two hours and 13,607 words later. The main attraction now complete, the audience waited for another speaker to make a few remarks. And few they were. In just 10 sentences, the president of the United States paid tribute to those lost in war and spoke of a young nation that must not "perish from the earth." The words, simple and unadorned, turned Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address into a national touchstone.
How did Lincoln write so beautifully and effectively, not just once or twice but again and again? From famous speeches to personal letters to conversations, Lincoln created sentences that crackled with imagery, intelligence, and emotion.
This academic-minded book isn't for everyone. Its language is dense, and Civil War buffs may be disappointed to find that Kaplan spends little time examining the speeches of Lincoln's presidency. But there's still plenty here to reveal how Lincoln learned to inspire.
Kaplan follows Lincoln's life through the prism of language, examining the books he read and the words he wrote and spoke aloud. "His was a personality and a career formed in the crucible of language," Kaplan writes.
The future president's love letters, speeches, essays, poems and even his dirty jokes all get their due. Kaplan also looks for connections between Lincoln's reading material and his words, finding influences of Shakespeare and the Bible among other sources.
And what of the Gettysburg Address? In it, Kaplan finds poetry of loss, of renewal, of life and death. And, of course, the speech invokes the past and future of America, which Kaplan calls "a text constantly being rewritten." So many years later, though, the words from one presidential pen need no revision.
It seems Lincoln's sword was as mighty as that pen. In his perceptive new book, acclaimed Civil War historian James M. McPherson reveals the struggles and triumphs of an inexperienced president whose youthful military career consisted of fighting off mosquitoes. Three decades later, he managed to run a war and outshine his own generals.
In the end, he beat back foes from Richmond to Capitol Hill, persisting "through a terrible ordeal of defeats and disappointments to final triumph – and tragedy – at the end," McPherson writes in Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief.
McPherson's account isn't a page turner, but the author carefully avoids military jargon and skillfully shows Lincoln as man, not myth. The president made mistakes and miscalculations. His frustration spilled out in depressed moods, sarcastic gibes, and red-hot anger. And he repeatedly failed to convince inept generals to act. But Lincoln still managed to succeed brilliantly, holding the North together and strategizing his way to victory.
Through the eyes of McPherson, readers learn how Lincoln got so smart: He read voraciously, carefully considered advice, charmed would-be enemies, and overlooked insults.
McPherson does stumble at the end of the book when he excuses Lincoln's stunning decisions to curb free speech and other civil liberties. McPherson writes that the president's actions were mild considering the Civil War was a bigger threat to the US than the 20th century's world wars or today's terrorism.
That's a stretch. But McPherson's link from the past to present does raise a fascinating question: What if a modern Lincoln had faced a modern war? Would his actions be acceptable today? One thing seems clear: He'd be a formidable foe.
One of Lincoln's intellectual opponents (turned friend) was the remarkable Frederick Douglass. Born a slave, Douglass had a seemingly unquenchable intellect and spirit. As a young fieldworker, he chose to be severely beaten by a tyrannical white overseer rather than submit. At the age of 20 he escaped and went on to become a mighty warrior in the fight against slavery. His skills as a writer and orator, arguably, rivaled those of Lincoln.
Together, asserts prize-winning author and historian John Stauffer in Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln and Douglass were "the pre-eminent self-made men in American history."
In his biography Stauffer spins a fascinating story by intertwining the lives of Lincoln and Douglass. They met only three times, yet each profoundly touched the other. Before their introduction, Douglass often fulminated against Lincoln's gradualist, pragmatic approach toward ending slavery and his doubts that freed blacks and whites could comfortably live together.
However, on their first encounter, Douglass was greatly moved by Lincoln's humanity. "He treated me as man," he recounted. "He did not let me feel for a moment that there any difference in the color of our skins!"
When Lincoln saw Douglass at his second inauguration (after two policemen tried to prevent Douglass from entering), Lincoln took him by the hand and said, "Here comes my friend," adding that, "There is no man in the country whose opinion I value more."
Douglass ever remained a feisty spirit. Had Lincoln lived, the two men would doubtless have disagreed many more times. But Douglass was devastated by Lincoln's death and mourned for him as "the greatest statesman that ever presided over the destinies of this Republic." Lincoln's widow gave Douglass her husband's favorite walking stick as a memento of their friendship, and he treasured it as "a token of sacred interest."
After countless books, movies, and documentaries, the death of Lincoln still holds the power to shock. Anthony S. Pitch, author of "They Have Killed Papa Dead!": The Road to Ford's Theatre, Abraham Lincoln's Murder, and the Rage for Vengeance, calls the assassination "the saddest story in American history."
It had its roots years before. On March 4, 1861, Lincoln's first Inauguration Day, sharpshooters lined the roofs of buildings in the capital. Soldiers protectively surrounded the new president as he traveled in a carriage along Pennsylvania Avenue.
The passage of time has cast shadows over the full extent of the desperate efforts to protect the president, not to mention the devastating grief and cruel injustice that came after Lincoln's untimely demise.
Now, Pitch looks through a wide-angle lens at the assassination in his emotionally wrenching new account. While the tangled title could have used an editor's eye, the book is readable and expertly researched.
Pitch worked on the book for nine years, and his dedication shows in its pitch-perfect level of detail. Quotes from diaries of the time, some of them apparently never published before, portray the nation's post-assassination grief in high relief. And Pitch has made some notable finds, including details about the lives of two of the assassination conspirators.
In perhaps the most revealing parts of the book, Pitch explores the deplorable treatment of the alleged conspirators, their circus trial, and the remarkable escape of conspirator John Surratt, who hid at the Vatican.
Other recent books have covered some of the same ground. But "They Have Killed Papa Dead!" provides an excellent overview, bringing thoughtful analysis to one of the most sensational events in American history.
Chief among the victims of Lincoln's assassination should be counted his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. She lived another 17 years after his death but never recovered from her grief and shock.
Mary Lincoln has been called "First Lady of Controversy" and is generally remembered in a less-than-flattering light. In Mrs. Lincoln: A Life, academic and author Catherine Clinton argues – more convincingly in some places than in others – that history has been unfair to this complex, "brilliant," yet "flawed" woman.
Like her husband, Mary Todd was born in Kentucky, but reared in the luxurious mansion of her socially prominent family. When Abraham Lincoln met her in Springfield, Ill., she was the belle of the ball. The exact circumstances of their courtship have been lost but it would seem that Mary deserves some credit for seeing potential in the awkward, unpedigreed Abraham.
As a wife, Mary was often demanding and always emotional. But her husband expressed great respect for her intellect and she was said to possess a special ability to soothe and bolster his spirits.
Both the Lincolns doted on their children and suffered grievously at the deaths of two of them.
But when her husband was slain in 1865 Mary tumbled into a seemingly endless sea of troubles. It was five years before the US government would grant her a pension. One year after she finally became financially secure, her son Tad died. Four years after that, her one remaining child had her committed to a mental institution.
She was eventually released and lived abroad for some years but there was little joy in the days of her widowhood.
Where Mary Lincoln's unhappy story leaves off, Charles Lachman picks up with his book The Last Lincolns: The Rise & Fall of a Great American Family. Lachman, executive producer of the TV show "Inside Edition," tracks the epic history of the Lincoln family from the 1860s to 1985, when the president's alleged last descendant, a great-grandson, passed away.
At first glance, this is a very grim tale. As Lachman tells it, the Lincoln descendents dissolved into "scandal and a sense of entitlement," becoming a "symbol for dishonor and decadence in the upper class" and an inverse image of the beloved president.
The trouble began with the unhinged Mary Lincoln, and Lachman tells her sad story in both gripping and suspenseful terms, including a careful account of the injustices she faced as she battled insanity charges.
Lachman paints Robert Todd Lincoln, the Lincoln's only surviving son as a grump who somehow managed to be on the scene at two more presidential assassinations. The next two generations – including an eccentric spinster, a playboy, and a wild-child divorcée – became mired in scandal.
Throughout the book, Lachman expertly explores the times in which the Lincoln descendents lived and the choices they made regarding religion (several turned to Christian Science), marriage, and wealth.
Today, a Florida prosecuting attorney in his 40s may – or may not – be the last Lincoln. Only a blood test will tell for sure and he hasn't offered to take one. Greatness, it seems, runs in some families while running from others.
The good news is that greatness, in the form of one Abraham Lincoln, struck at the right time and in the right place.
Randy Dotinga is a freelance writer in San Diego. Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor's book editor.


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Here you can see the XP tool for partitionning (french version). The partition is the dashed c: rectangle. You can see the contextual menu (right clic) with no resizing - the resizing option can be seen only in the Vista similar menu.
If the computer used Windows for a while, you will have to verify and defragment the disk. This is found in the disk context menu, tab "tools". Defragmenting is re-organising the files in the disk. On the picture below, you see a badly fragmented disk. Vertical lines are files. To be able to shrink the partition with the Linux tools, you must have a large blank on the right of the rectangle on the defrag window. Even only one file on the right prevents resizing.
If you can't resize, you can only backup all your data, make the partitionning (with Parted magic, for example), deleting all the disk, reinstall XP then install Linux. Given you will probably have to reinstall Windows from time to time, you can use this moment to make room for Linux.
Parted Magic is a CD or USB key utility extremely usefull if you have to deal with partitions (find it with web search Probably http://partedmagic.com/). It allows repartitonning, resizing of partitions (if possible), and even search for lost partitions if you happen to have trashed your partition table (experts only). Do not confuse Parted Magic (free and open source) with the proprietary program Partition Magic (expensive).
This tool is by far the more friendly. If you read this HOWTO you are probably not as Dummy as you may think, at least you are curious. So you may have benefits to use Parted magic at least to make one free partition the Linux installer will easily find and use (and certainly repartition again, that's normal).
Here is the booting screen, you should be able to boot any computer with this CD.
You start a graphical screen, as usual. You have icons at the bottom of the screen, clic to use. The partitionning tool is gparted, a very friendly tool. Notice gparted gives you immediately the free space in the Windows partition (the images here is that of a very small disk - only 8Gb).
Right clic on the desired partition gives you the needed options.
In the resizing window, you can resize with the mouse (moving the partition limit with the mouse), or give a numerical value.
Here is a view of a much bigger disk.
On the same Parted Magic CD, you have also other tools, like "Testdisk". This one is much less friendly, but also very powerfull (and being so allow easily to destroy your disk). You will be able to use it sometime in the future, not now.
openSUSE is a friendly Linux Distribution, trying to reduce as much as possible the risk of removing accidentally files on the disk while installing.
If you insert the openSUSE DVD in your drive when Windows is running, the DVD starts and propose to install Linux. It creates a special Windows starting menu and reboot to the install without any work to do for the user.
On this first image, openSUSE warns that it's not possible to resize the XP disk, you have to remove it entirely if you want to install Linux.
After I did quite a long cleaning work (including removing of unusefull files) on the XP disk, from inside XP, the diagnostic is better:
Mandriva is even simpler, the options are to remove Windows or to use part of the drive.
If you choose this solution, you have a windows to select what part of the disk is for XP, what part for Linux, as usual.
Red Hat was the first really handy Linux Distribution, but for many years now, it's no more aimed to John Doe but to professionals (with the associated support and price). It's average user conterpart is Fedoraproject.
Fedora can be dowloaded as a live CD, you start it (no boot options) and then clic on an icon to begin the installation.
On the partitionning screen, Fedora give a drop down list of the choices possible, one is resizing (here the french screen)
The following screen is for the size, as usual.
Ubuntu also have a friendly screen to resize partitions, but one have to go to "manual" to find it, what can be a little scary.
It's the "edit" button that allows resizing. Do not format the XP main partition! This would erase all the content.
Debian is now as pretty as most distributions. The boot menu (first CD) gives more options than many - this is not a live CD.
The partitionner. Choices are the same as Ubuntu does (Ubuntu is built upon Debian).
"Manual" have the resize option.
You have to give a number - no slide, no view of the free space.
Many Linux distributions are availalble, for example from ibiblio. If any of these distributions uses gparted, it's possible very easily to partition a drive with them, as we could see with Parted magic. Here the example of Puppy Linux.
This distributions may be a bit more difficult to understand, but it installs is extremely low end hardware (256Mb ram for live cd, 2GB Hard drive).


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Mocha Lip Gloss Lacquer
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iOS release history tells us that as a product in development moves even closer to release, it is assigned a proper codename. Not only an identifier like "3,1" but a codename such as N94 (iPhone 4S) or K48 (original iPad). The next-generation Apple TV has reached that stage. Thanks to today's beta release of iOS 5.1, we have on our hands the codename for this new Apple TV (3,1).
As you can see above, the new Apple TV is rocking a the J33 codename, the second JXX product we've seen from Apple. The first was the J2 – a new iPad – that we discovered just last week. Apple's iPad 2 almost reached the peak of Apple's KXX options with the CDMA version dubbed as K95, so Apple's move to JXX nomenclature is something that would have to happen sooner or later. With Apple recently beefing up their flagship tablets and phones with dual-core A5 chips, we think this new Apple TV represents an A5 dual-core model that packs in 1080P playback abilities. As to whether this thing has a display on it, it is too early for us to tell.
Thanks, as always, iH8Sn0w!
Related articles
- Apple outs new iPad (iPad 2,4) in iOS 5.1 firmware (9to5mac.com)
- Hulu Plus app is ready for Apple TV, decision to update is "political not technical" (9to5mac.com)
- Apple TV $89 + Free Shipping (9to5toys.com)
- iPad 3 to be 3D? Probably not (9to5mac.com)
- aTV Flash (black) hack from FireCore goes 1.0, on sale (9to5mac.com)
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What Yoga teaches you about money and investing
Publish date: 21st June, 2018
It's International Yoga Day. And while you may be out there stretching and breathing deeply for a healthier lifestyle, let's bring your attention to something else that needs to be fit too—your finances.
Surprisingly, there are many similarities between Yoga and stock investing. There are four basic principles of Yoga:
• Yama & Niyama
• Asana
• Pranayama
• Pratyahara
Each of these teach us something about money. Let's have a look.
Yama & Niyama: Yama (or controls) and Niyama (or positive duties) form the ethical basis of yoga. Yamas include Ahimsa (non-violence), Asteya (non-stealing), and Aparigraha (non-possessiveness), and Niyamas include Santosa (contentment), Tapas (self-discipline) and Svadhyaya (self-reflection).
What it teaches about money: The first step to investment planning is self-reflection. You have to figure out what your needs are and, accordingly, what your investment goals should be. (Related: Calculators that can help you plan your goals)
Once you have decided on your goals and developed an investment plan, you have to show a strong self-discipline to stick to the plan. You'll have to be content in the short-term if you are working towards a long-term goal.
Of course, non-violence and non-stealing applies to how you make money as much as it applies to other aspects of your life. But one esoteric lesson is also to be non-possessive towards the companies you choose to invest in. Be ready to cut your losses if the company is not performing the way you expected. Equally, when your decision turns out to be right, do not get greedy. Book profit once your target is reached. (Related: How Stop Loss can help you minimize losses)
Success can make you cocky. Do not let your perception overrule research insights that you derive from data. Do not invest in a fundamentally weak company just because your gut says so. Even when you are sure about a stock, diversify and invest in stocks of different types.
Asana: These are postures that you can hold for a long time. A firm but relaxed posture takes time to perfect. So, new yoga practitioners start with simple asanas and gradually move to more complex ones with regular practice.
What it teaches about money: As an investor you should start by investing in stocks that you understand. If there is a product that you regularly use, figure out if others around you love that product as well. The company that markets or produces it may be a good place to start. Or if there is an industry that you understand well—say, you are a software engineer and understand the IT business very well—then look at the companies in this industry for investment opportunities.
Once you develop a familiarity with how the stock markets work and how to analyze a stock, it is time to move on to more complex investment decisions. Do you want to automate trading decisions? Do you want to trade in futures? So on and so forth.
Pranayama: The yama of prana, or "breath control" is about controlling your breath to ensure a regular rhythm.
What it teaches about money: The markets have a rhythm of their own as well - the cycles of bear and bull. No investor can predict when the markets will rise or fall, but you have to control your reaction to the movements in the market. Do not panic and have a knee-jerk reaction; it can hurt your interests in the long run. (Related: The bears are ruling midcaps in May 2018. What should an investor do?)
Equally important is to have a regularity to your investment plan. Even if you do not have a large surplus to invest in one go, it is important to invest regularly, even if each investment is as small as Rs. 1,000. As any yoga teacher will tell you, regular practice of even the simplest of breathing exercise is much more effective than doing challenging asanas once in a month or so. (Related: You can now do SIP in stocks with Auto Invest. Know more)
Pratyahara: The control of ahara—the external influences—is the hallmark of a yogi. It simply means that your mind can be pulled into a shell—like a turtle pulls in his limbs—to protect it from distractions and noise.
What it teaches about money: As an investor, once you have decided your strategy, you have to trust your analysis and not be affected by rumors or short-term movements. Do not be caught up either with those who keep promoting a stock or with the doomsayers predicting stock crashes. Remember that in the long run, the market usually values companies correctly, and that strong fundamentals allow a company to sail through tough times. (Related: Learn what is the intrinsic value of stocks)
While yoga will ensure your body and mind are performing at their best, the yoga of investment will ensure that your financial health is as good. Only this can help you beat inflation in the long run. ( See how inflation affects your savings.)
To improve your financial health, you may want to:
Start learning about stocks Understand financial planning Open an account and start investing


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So remember that the New York Times visualizations are awesome? And that the dynamic web has made election-watching, particularly crazy-obsessive election-watching, a very different thing than it was a while ago?
You might think that I am going to be one of many to say the NYT election map is great. It is, but I'm not.
Check this out – for those of us forced to endure the slow rollout of the returns here on the west coast all alone because someone is busy running the French Film Festival at Western Oregon University? This is the kind of thing you can't look away from. Look at all the people who are feeling like I am? Or just feeling! It's very comforting and interesting too.
What one word describes your current state of mind?
(thanks to Beth via Rachel)


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Dear Editor:
In 2009, Hoboken held five elections in eight months, and our citizens had to endure a seemingly endless barrage of campaigning. Few people voted in all five elections. Political consultants, printers and paid campaign workers profited from holding those five separate elections, but Hoboken's citizens surely did not.
On Nov. 6th, in addition to voting for president, Senate, Congress and school board, Hoboken voters will have the opportunity to vote on Hoboken Ballot Questions 1 and 3, important election reform proposals that would move our nonpartisan local elections from May to November. The candidate with the most votes on that day would be elected to serve, without the need for a runoff election, just like we elect our president, our governor, and virtually every other elected official on Election Day.
This is important, since holding a low turnout runoff election in December would undermine the objective of having our leaders chosen on Election Day in an election in which the largest possible number of voters participate.
Our local elections are currently held in a separate, often low-turnout election in May, with an additional runoff election, if necessary, a month later. Consolidating the elections as proposed would increase voter participation, reduce voter fatigue and save taxpayers money – as much as $125,000 per unnecessary election.
The school board has already voted to move its elections to November, so this proposal would reduce the number of elections we hold to two – the June primary and November general election. I will be voting YES on Hoboken Ballot Questions 1 and 3 and I urge you join with me in supporting these important reforms.
Hoboken Ballot Question 2 is a proposal to move our rent control system toward vacancy decontrol. While the details are too complicated to explain in a short letter, I do not feel that the proposal contains sufficient protections to ensure that existing tenants are treated properly. While the proposal does contain some penalties for the harassment of tenants, the penalties are, in my opinion, relatively toothless and an insufficient deterrent in light of the substantial financial incentives in the proposal to create apartment vacancies. I will therefore be voting NO on Hoboken Ballot Question 2.
I urge all Hoboken voters to learn as much as they can about these important ballot questions and to remember to cast their votes on Nov. 6.
Mayor Dawn Zimmer


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The Mom Stop: No more lazy days of summer
When I think back to the summers of my childhood, I'm reminded of long days at the neighborhood pool, playing "Marco Polo" with other kids or diving for objects in the deep end while the lifeguard's stereo blasted early '90s rock.
The tenderness of sunburn comes to mind — because I never could tan — and the exhaustion that came after swimming all day, almost every day. At lunchtime, we'd eventually make our way up the hill about a quarter-mile walk to our house, where we'd have pizza or sandwiches. I'd watch reruns of "Little House on the Prairie" or later, in my teenage years, "Days of Our Lives" just long enough for my food to settle and my swimsuit to dry. Then, it was back down the hill to the pool.
There are some days when I long for the carefree, lackadaisical summer days of my youth.
Summer is different now, for a lot of kids — or at least for mine. As a working mom of three, this time of year means nailing down summer child care. It means browsing through brochures trying to find summer camps that will entertain my kids all day. It means trying to find something fun for my kids to do, but something educational, too. It means trying to find quality child care while school is out for the summer, but not spending an arm and a leg for it.
And then there's the mom guilt: Of not being home with summers off; for my kids not being able to sleep in everyday, for not being able to give them the flexibility and freedom to be at home with few plans. I realized that recently, when I was out with a group of "mom" friends. It dawned on me, during a discussion about summer programs, that I was the only mom who worked full time.
My kids don't know what it's like to sleep in everyday of summer or not have things planned, because it's never happened before. I'm guilty of overscheduling my kids during the school year, and that doesn't really stop in the summer. There are swim lessons and tennis camp, vacation Bible school and a summer enrichment course. There is speech therapy sessions and summer tutoring and Lego time at the library.
Last summer, we hired a babysitter to orchestrate transportation and to get the kids where they needed to go. And while it was a logistical headache, it also cost a small fortune. More than anything, the kids just wanted to be at home, playing on the iPad.
This summer, we're still doing VBS and swim lessons, and there still won't be sleeping in — we are skipping the sitter this summer and plan on doing a kids "day camp" program instead.
No, my kids will not have the summer I had when growing up. It won't be lackadaisical or carefree. But it will be fun — at least I hope.
Here are some tips on finding the right summer programs for your child:
1. What do you want your children to gain? Question what your goals and expectations are for the summer, and ask your kids, too. Look into camps that meet their interests and will be something they'll enjoy.
2. Select which type of camp fits your needs. Do you need full-day care all summer long? Or something more short term, like mornings only or afternoons only for a week or two? Is your child interested in overnight camp or a camp that fits a particular interest?
3. Determine your budget. Child care costs a lot, no matter the time of year. And while it's often less for school-age children, the cost of various camps can add up. Decide early how much you want to spend, as that can play a part in deciding what activities your children should do.
4. Do your research. A good start is to ask other parents for recommendations, or ask them what camps or day programs their children have done. Ask them questions, the good and the bad, and get information from the camps themselves, and don't be afraid to ask questions. And lastly, get your kids in on the process. It's their summer, too.
— Lydia Seabol Avant writes The Mom Stop for The Tuscaloosa News in Alabama. Reach her at email@example.com.


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Store Your Teeth in a Stem Cell Bank
Every year four million baby teeth fall out, and 1.4 million wisdom teeth are pulled out of our collective mouth. Until recently, the only entity really interested in all those teeth was the tooth fairy. But all that changed in the year 2000, with the discovery that dental pulp contains adult stem cells. In the not-too-distant future, those stem cells might be used for growing new islet cells to cure diabetes. The problem is, how to keep the teeth nice and fresh until that hoped-for day. That's where Provia Laboratories comes in, with their Store-A-Tooth service.
Peter Verlander, PhD, the chief scientific officer of Provia, says, "Essentially, any healthy tooth is a candidate for banking. Researchers have been able to recover stem cells from teeth in people up to their forties, but evidence suggests that cells from baby teeth or from wisdom teeth that come out in early age are better. We collect baby teeth that are coming out naturally, baby and adult teeth that are extracted for orthodontic reasons, and healthy wisdom teeth."
"Some people believe that one tooth will give you enough stem cells for many clinical applications, but it's very difficult to predict how many is enough. These are highly proliferative cells, more proliferative in culture than bone marrow cells. The people who are working with them think that you could get many, many 'doses' of cells from a single tooth."
"We think that these stem cells are going to be useful for autologous (self-donor) regenerative medicine therapies. One of the advantages of having your own cells banked, or those of your children, is that you don't have to worry about the possibility of immune suppression."
For treating diabetes, there are potentially two approaches that could use stem cells from teeth: the creation of beta cells and the use of stem cells' immunosuppressive capacity. Dental stem cells, like mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow, suppress the T-cell response. Researchers are looking into using that capacity to combat the autoimmune response in type 1 diabetes.
But the approach that people are most interested in is the differentiation of these stem cells into insulin-producing beta cells. Recently, researchers in Malaysia accomplished this by using dental pulp stem cells from baby molars that had been extracted from children for orthodontic reasons. They grew the stem cells in a series of three culture media that directed the stem cells to differentiate into islet cells, and they ended up with what they described as "islet cell-like aggregates."
Once they had confirmed the presence of genes that are markers for beta cells, they tested insulin production and C-peptide production in response to glucose. They were able to verify that the cells produced insulin in a glucose-responsive manner; that is, when they increased the amount of glucose, they got an increased amount of insulin.
Dr. Verlander says, "What everybody's hoping for is another source of beta cells that are glucose-responsive and could be used for transplant, and that's exactly the path that these researchers are suggesting. It's very hard to predict when a practical application for dental stem cells will actually come into being. But given that it has been less than ten years since their discovery, we think the research is progressing extremely well. Dental stem cells have caught up very rapidly in terms of what we have been able to get them to do."
"There is reason to believe," says Dr. Verlander, "that the stem cells from teeth are much better suited for solid tissue applications than cord blood, and so there are a lot of potential regenerative medicine applications. We believe that down the road, dental stem cells will actually be sought out and used with much greater frequency than cord blood because there will be many more things that we'll be able to use them for."
"Because of their relatively recent discovery, however, very few people know that stem cells are in teeth. For example, I talked to some parents of children who developed type 1, and they really regretted not having banked cord blood because they wanted to have the stem cells there as a potential therapy. They were very happy to find that there was a second chance to capture stem cells from their child's teeth. As a parent myself, I banked cord blood for my children, and I will also bank the cells from their teeth when they are old enough."
"As you know, baby teeth are resorbed gradually before they fall out, so the longer you wait, the less tissue is there. Ideally, when a tooth begins to become loose, the parent would take the child to the dentist and have that tooth pulled and sent to us. But we will accept teeth that come out at home, as long as the tooth bleeds when it comes out. There has to be a blood supply."
Store-A-Tooth provides the parents or the dentist with a kit that has a sterile buffer to stabilize the tooth and keep it cold in transport. The tooth is shipped overnight to their lab in Indianapolis, where it is inspected, cleaned, cracked open, and then processed.
Store-A-Tooth offers two different services. With the whole tissue service, all of the soft tissue is collected, processed, and equilibrated for cryo-preservation, and then frozen down at a controlled rate and stored long-term in liquid nitrogen. The company also offers a cultured cell service. In that case, after the soft tissue is isolated, it is put in culture, and the stem cells grown out and then frozen down. The whole tissue service is $649 for processing and then $120 a year for storage. There is a $425 surcharge for the cultured cell service.
Dr. Verlander says, "We offer discounted programs as well, including a 20-year prepay and a multiple tooth plan that reduces the processing charge for second and third teeth. Banking teeth is relatively inexpensive, costing only a half to a third of the cost of cord blood banking. The teeth are easily accessible, and rather than throwing them away, we're just giving parents an option to set them aside for that future day when they can be useful."
"We do include a tooth fairy certificate with the kits, so that the dentist can sign off that the tooth fairy knows what happened to the tooth. It's kind of an IOU that the child can put under the pillow."


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The FBI and the U.S. Army investigated complaints from four women that Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Knight groped them or touched them inappropriately during a visit to a U.S. spy agency in 2015, an investigation that concluded a year later without charges, The Washington Post reported Friday.
One of the women, whose name The Post did not disclose, told the newspaper that Knight groped her on the buttocks shortly before he gave a speech to staffers at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency at its headquarters in Springfield, Virginia. The woman also filed a discrimination complaint against the NGA and the Defense Department in which she claimed she was pressured to drop the matter, The Post reported.
An attorney representing Knight, James Voyles, acknowledged to The Post that FBI agents interviewed Knight at his home in Montana last year and said the investigation was dropped shortly thereafter.
"There is absolutely no credible evidence to support this in our opinion, these allegations," Voyles said, adding that the FBI agents "reported to their superiors that there was no basis for any further action, period."
Knight, 76, did not comment to The Post, but his wife, Karen Knight, told the newspaper in a text message: "Bob did nothing wrong and there is NO evidence to prove that he did. Case closed."
Another female NGA employee told The Post that Knight touched her on the shoulder and commented on the attractiveness of her legs as she drove him from Washington to the agency's headquarters. She said the encounter made her uncomfortable but did not believe Knight's actions to be "malicious."
Another NGA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Post that when Knight arrived, he greeted a female employee by putting his hands on the sides of her chest and lifting her off the ground. The woman declined to speak to the newspaper.
U.S. & World
A fourth woman told The Post that Knight smacked her on the buttocks after his speech. She said she was interviewed by the FBI and other investigators but did not file a formal complaint.
The NGA and the office of the national intelligence director, who oversees the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press Friday.
Knight was invited to speak at the little-known NGA, which analyzes imagery of the Earth's surface and employs about 14,500 people, by its director, Robert Cardillo, a longtime friend. Cardillo later apologized to anyone at the agency who was offended by Knight's visit.
In an interview, Cardillo told The Post he was "shocked" and "stunned" by the allegations.
Army investigators initially handled the probe but later handed it over to the FBI because Knight was a civilian, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed law enforcement officials. After consulting with federal prosecutors in Virginia, FBI agents concluded the evidence against Knight was not likely to result in a successful prosecution, The Post reported, citing a federal law enforcement official familiar with the case.
Knight is best known for his three-decade run as head coach of Indiana University's men's basketball team, during which the Hoosiers won three NCAA championships. He was fired in 2000 following a series of abuse allegations, including a videotape that appeared to show Knight choking a player during practice.