text: Gregory Jarrell, U.S. Geological Survey 2000 Depth to top of the Madison Limestone (Version 1.0, November 03, 2000) map Reston, Virginia U.S. Geological Survey https://water.usgs.gov/lookup/getspatial?sd_mdsn_dep This data set is a polygon coverage created in ARC/INFO that represents the depth to the top of the Madison Limestone below the land surface, Black Hills, South Dakota. This data set was created as part of the Black Hills Hydrology Study (BHHS). The BHHS is a long-term investigation that was initiated in 1990 as a cooperative effort between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), and the West Dakota Water Development District. West Dakota represents various local and county cooperators. The purpose of the study is to assess the quantity, quality, and distribution of surface and ground water in the Black Hills area of western South Dakota (Driscoll, 1992). The study area includes parts of Butte, Custer, Fall River, Lawrence, Meade, and Pennington counties in South Dakota. Reviews_Applied_to_Data: This electronic report was subjected to the same review standard that applies to all U.S. Geological Survey reports. Reviewers were asked to check the topological consistency, tolerances, attribute frequencies and statistics, projection, and geographic extent. The reviewers checked the metadata for completeness and accuracy. Related_Spatial_and Tabular_Data_Sets: Depth to the top of the Inyan Kara Group (inkr_dep), Minnekahta Limestone (mnkt_dep), Minnelusa Formation (mnls_dep), and the Deadwood Formation (ddwd_dep). Other_References_Cited: Driscoll, D.G., 1992, Plan of study for the Black Hills Hydrology Study, South Dakota: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 92-84, 10 p. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Although this Federal Geographic Data Committee-compliant metadata file is intended to document the data set in nonproprietary form, as well as in ARC/INFO format, this metadata file may include some ARC/INFO-specific terminology. 20001031 The depths were based on information on elevation, geologic outcrop, and selected wells drilled as of 1998. Complete None Planned -104.07994226 -102.95291642 44.78631611 43.11713452 USGS Thesaurus geology depth Madison Limestone inlandWaters ISO 19115 Topic Category geoscientificInformation inlandWaters environment Geographic Names Information System Black Hills South Dakota none These data should not be used at scales larger than 1:100,000. Janet Carter U.S. Geological Survey Hydrologist mailing and physical address 1608 Mt. View Rd. Rapid City South Dakota 57702 USA 1-888-275-8747 (605) 355-4523 email@example.com Compilation of this data set was funded in cooperation with the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the West Dakota Water Development District. Compilation of the associated metadata was funded by the Federal Geographic Data Committee. SunOS, 5.6, sun4u UNIX ARC/INFO version 8.0.1 Janet Carter, U.S. Geological Survey 1999 Altitude of the top of the Madison Limestone in the Black Hills area, South Dakota map USGS Hydrologic Investigations Atlas HA-744-D Reston, Virginia U.S. Geological Survey Multiple visual checks were done to verify that the attribute data was coincident with the original source map. Polygon and chain-node topology present. This data set consists of polygons with codes indicating ranges of depths from the land surface to the top of the Madison Limestone in the vicinity of the Black Hills, South Dakota. none Joyce Williamson, U.S. Geological Survey 2000 Geologic structure contours for the top of the Madison Limestone, Black Hills, South Dakota digital map Open-File Report OFR 00-471 Rapid City, South Dakota U.S. Geological Survey https://water.usgs.gov/lookup/getspatial?ofr00471_mdsnscon 100000 Digital Map 2000 Ground condition based on published data as of 1999 none The digital coverage of the structure contours were subtracted from a digital coverage of land surface elevation to obtain the depth to the top of the formation. Dan Driscoll, U.S. Geological Survey 1992 Plan of study for the Black Hills Hydrology Study, South Dakota. map Open-File Report OFR 92-84 Rapid City, South Dakota U.S. Geological Survey 100000 Digital map 1992 none none The digital coverage of the study area perimeter was used as a boundary for the depth to formation analysis. Joyce Williamson, U.S. Geological Survey 2000 Overlying surficial deposits and absent areas for the Madison Limestone, Black Hills area, South Dakota digital map Open-File Report OFR 00-471 Rapid City, South Dakota U.S. Geological Survey https://water.usgs.gov/lookup/getspatial?ofr00471_mdsnsurf 100000 Digital map 2000 Publication date none The digital coverage of the Madison Limestone was used to determine where the formation is absent and outcrops in the study area. The following terminology used to describe the creation of the data set is from ARC/INFO. A polygon coverage of the study area boundary was converted to a grid coverage using the POLYGRID command. Line coverages of the land surface topography and structural surface elevation were converted to grids using command TOPOGRID with a cellsize of 50 meters, and with the border defined by the grid of the study area. Arc: TOPOGRID base_grd 50 TOPOGRID: border bordergrd TOPOGRID: datatype contour TOPOGRID: contour basetopo elev TOPOGRID: end Using GRID, the structural surface elevation grid was subtracted from the land surface topography grid. The output grid was then reclassed into 17 general categories of depth created in the calculation using a REMAP file to assign a range of values to a single integer value for an item named GRID-CODE. GRID: setmask mdsnabfing GRID: setcell 50 GRID: setwindow bordergrd GRID: mdsndep_grd = basegrd - mdsnsurf_grd GRID: mdsn_recg = reclass(mdsndep_grd, shades.lut, nodata) Finally, the grid was converted to a polygon coverage using the GRIDPOLY command in GRID and the CLEAN command in ARC. 20000215 First draft of metadata created by jgallowa using FGDCMETA.AML ver. 1.33 07/15/99 on ARC/INFO data set /home/bhhs/gis/jmg/aquiprop/metadepth/mdsn_dep 20001103 Vector Point 571 String 966 GT-polygon composed of chains 572 Point 4 Transverse Mercator 0.999600 -105.000000 0.0000 500000.000000 0.000000 coordinate pair 1.0 1.0 Meters North American Datum of 1927 Clarke 1866 6378206.4 294.98 mdsn_dep.pat depth to the top of the Madison Limestone below the land surface, Black Hills depth FID Internal Feature number ESRI Sequential unique whole numbers that are automatically generated. SHAPE Feature Geometry ESRI Coordinates defining the features. AREA Area of feature in internal units squared. ESRI Positive real numbers that are automatically generated. PERIMETER Perimeter of feature in internal units. ESRI Positive real numbers that are automatically generated. MDSN_DEP# Internal feature number. ESRI Sequential unique whole numbers that are automatically generated. MDSN_DEP-ID User-defined feature number. ESRI User-defined feature number. GRID-CODE User-defined feature number. coding scheme User-defined feature number. > >MDSN_DEP.PAT: > >COLUMN ITEM NAME WIDTH OUTPUT TYPE N.DEC ALTERNATE NAME > 1 AREA 4 12 F 3 > 5 PERIMETER 4 12 F 3 > 9 MDSN_DEP# 4 5 B - > 13 MDSN_DEP-ID 4 5 B - > 17 GRID-CODE 4 8 B - > > AREA - Internal number for the area of the polygon in square meters PERIMETER - Internal number for the perimeter of the polygon in meters MDSN_DEP# - Internal sequence number (i.e. the record number) of the polygon in the ARC file MDSN_DEP-ID - User assigned feature ID GRID-CODE - An integer number indicating a range of depth according to the following table: GRID-CODE Range in depth (ft) 2 less than 200 4 200-400 6 400-600 8 600-800 10 800-1000 15 1000-1500 20 1500-2000 25 2000-2500 30 2500-3000 35 3000-3500 40 3500-4000 45 4000-4500 50 4500-5000 55 5000-5500 60 5500-6000 65 6000-6500 -9999 no data and areas where the formation is absent none U.S. Geological Survey Michael Ierardi IT Specialist mailing and physical 445 National Center Reston Virginia 20192 USA 1-888-275-8747 (1-888-ASK-USGS) firstname.lastname@example.com Although this data set has been used by the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior, no warranty expressed or implied is made by the U.S. Geological Survey as to the accuracy of the data and related materials. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by the U.S. Geological Survey in the use of this data, software, or related materials. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Export Full coverage zipped 1 https://water.usgs.gov/GIS/dsdl/sd_mdsn_dep.e00.gz SDTS Full coverage zipped 1 https://water.usgs.gov/GIS/dsdl/sd_mdsnsdts.tgz Shape Full coverage zipped 1 https://water.usgs.gov/GIS/dsdl/sd_mdsn_dep_shape.tgz None. This dataset is provided by USGS as a public service. 20041108 U.S. Geological Survey Michael Ierardi IT Specialist mailing and physical address 445 National Center Reston VA 20192 1-888-275-8747 (1-888-ASK-USGS) email@example.com FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata FGDC-STD-001-1998


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John Dines, an undercover police sergeant, as he appeared in the early 1990s when he posed as John Barker, a protester against capitalism
From daily The Guardian in Britain:
Police spies stole identities of dead children
Exclusive: Undercover officers created aliases based on details found in birth and death records, Guardian investigation reveals
- Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
- The Guardian, Sunday 3 February 2013 19.13 GMT
Britain's largest police force stole the identities of an estimated 80 dead children and issued fake passports in their names for use by undercover police officers.
The Metropolitan police secretly authorised the practice for covert officers infiltrating protest groups without consulting or informing the children's parents.
The details are revealed in an investigation by the Guardian, which has established how over three decades generations of police officers trawled through national birth and death records in search of suitable matches.
Undercover officers created aliases based on the details of the dead children and were issued with accompanying identity records such as driving licences and national insurance numbers. Some of the police officers spent up to 10 years pretending to be people who had died.
The Met said the practice was not "currently" authorised, but announced an investigation into "past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS [Special Demonstration Squad] officers".
Keith Vaz, the chairman of parliament's home affairs select committee, said he was shocked at the "gruesome" practice. "It will only cause enormous distress to families who will discover what has happened concerning the identities of their dead children," he said. "This is absolutely shocking."
The technique of using dead children as aliases has remained classified intelligence for several decades, although it was fictionalised in Frederick Forsyth's novel The Day of the Jackal. As a result, police have internally nicknamed the process of searching for suitable identities as the "jackal run". One former undercover agent compared an operation on which he was deployed to the methods used by the Stasi.
Two undercover officers have provided a detailed account of how they and others used the identities of dead children. One, who adopted the fake persona of Pete Black while undercover in anti-racist groups, said he felt he was "stomping on the grave" of the four-year-old boy whose identity he used.
"A part of me was thinking about how I would feel if someone was taking the names and details of my dead son for something like this," he said. The Guardian has chosen not to identify Black by his real name.
The other officer, who adopted the identity of a child who died in a car crash, said he was conscious the parents would "still be grief-stricken". He spoke on the condition of anonymity and argued his actions could be justified because they were for the "greater good".
Both officers worked for a secretive unit called the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), which was disbanded in 2008.
A third undercover police officer in the SDS who adopted the identity of a dead child can be named as John Dines, a sergeant. He adopted the identity of an eight-year-old boy named John Barker, who died in 1968 from leukaemia. The Met said in a statement: "We are not prepared to confirm nor deny the deployment of individuals on specific operations."
The force added: "A formal complaint has been received which is being investigated by the DPS [Directorate for Professional Standards] and we appreciate the concerns that have been raised. The DPS inquiry is taking place in conjunction with Operation Herne's investigation into the wider issue of past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS officers. We can confirm that the practice referred to in the complaint is not something that would currently be authorised in the [Met police]."
There is a suggestion that the practice of using dead infant identities may have been stopped in the mid-1990s, when death records were digitised. However, the case being investigated by the Met relates to a suspected undercover police officer who may have used a dead child's identity in 2003.
The practice was introduced 40 years ago by police to lend credibility to the backstory of covert operatives spying on protesters, and to guard against the possibility that campaigners would discover their true identities.
Since then dozens of SDS officers, including those who posed as anti-capitalists, animal rights activists … have used the identities of dead children.
One document seen by the Guardian indicates that around 80 police officers used such identities between 1968 and 1994. The total number could be higher.
Black said he always felt guilty when celebrating the birthday of the four-year-old whose identity he took. He was particularly aware that somewhere the parents of the boy would be "thinking about their son and missing him". "I used to get this really odd feeling," he said.
To fully immerse himself in the adopted identity and appear convincing when speaking about his upbringing, Black visited the child's home town to familiarise himself with the surroundings.
Black, who was undercover in the 1990s, said his operation was "almost Stasi-like". He said SDS officers visited the house they were supposed to have been born in so they would have a memory of the building.
"It's those little details that really matter – the weird smell coming out of the drain that's been broken for years, the location of the corner Post Office, the number of the bus you get to go from one place to another," he said.
The second SDS officer said he believed the use of the harvested identities was for the "greater good". But he was also aware that the parents had not been consulted. "There were dilemmas that went through my head," he said.
The case of the third officer, John Dines, reveals the risks posed to families who were unaware that their children's identities were being used by undercover police.
During his covert deployment, Dines had a two-year relationship with a female activist before disappearing from her life. In an attempt to track down her disappeared boyfriend, the woman discovered the birth certificate of John Barker and tried to track down his family, unaware that she was actually searching for a dead child.
She said she was relieved that she never managed to find the parents of the dead boy. "It would have been horrendous," she said. "It would have completely freaked them out to have someone asking after a child who died 24 years earlier."
The disclosure about the use of the identities of dead children is likely to reignite the controversy over undercover police infiltration of protest groups. Fifteen separate inquiries have already been launched since 2011, when Mark Kennedy was unmasked as a police spy who had slept with several women, including one who was his girlfriend for six years.
On Tuesday the select committee will hear evidence from lawyers representing the 11 women who are suing the Met after forming "deeply personal" relationships with the spies. Kennedy, who worked for a sister unit to the SDS, is not believed to have used the identity of a dead child.
Vaz said MPs were now likely to demand answers from the Met police about the use of children's identities. "My disbelief at some of the tactics used [by undercover police] has become shock as a result of these latest revelations. It is clear that inappropriate action has been taken by undercover police in the past. But this has now taken it to a new level," he said.
"The committee will need to seek answers from the Metropolitan police, to find out why they allowed these gruesome practices to happen."
Related articles
- Undercover police officers 'stole identities of dead children' (metro.co.uk)
- Police 'used dead children's ID' (express.co.uk)
- Police 'used dead children's ID' (standard.co.uk)
- Police 'used IDs of dead children' (bbc.co.uk)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Ferrari Challenge is what's known as a "gentlemen's racing series," meaning it's not for pros but for any amateur with the cash to buy in. However, as we've seen many times over with Ferraris on the road, a big wallet doesn't automatically equal a ton of driving skill.
On Sunday a Ferrari Challenge event was held at Austin's Circuit of the Americas as a support race for the U.S. Grand Prix. Perhaps to appease American audiences convinced that all motorsports should be full of crashes like NASCAR, but more likely due to poor driving, the race devolved into a total clusterfuck almost immediately after it started.
The first lap was filled with carnage as two cars nearly collided in Turn 11, with one of them spinning out into the road as the rest of the pack came up behind him and causing just a big ol' mess. It even left a tire right in the middle of the road. More mayhem would follow later.
On the plus side, the 458 run by our pals at Axis of Oversteer won the race after the first-place Ferrari was penalized for spinning another car.
If you have more videos of Texas Ferrari Crash Madness 2013, feel free to share them below. Ferrari Challenge — it's like real-life Mario Kart for rich people!
Hat tip to OneFastPuertoRican!


text: I believe that, if you're reading this, you already have what it takes to become successful beyond your wildest dreams. You are seeking out the answers, and by seeking, you've proven that you're head and shoulders above 97% of other people. Today, I wanted to share a short lesson about discovering what truly drives you, because this will guide ... Continue Reading


text:
Buddhism is a method for achieving our unchangeable, innate happiness. When we practice Buddhism, we practice wisdom and method combined, inseparably.
On the Tantrayana path—the foundation of Tulku Lobsang's teachings—the body is the vehicle for the development and transformation of the self.
Bön is the indigenous spiritual tradition of Tibet. It teaches us about deepening our connection with the five elements, which are the fundamental energetic qualities of all phenomena.
The principle of Tibetan Medicine is that whatever is beneficial is medicine and whatever causes suffering is disease. Ultimately, all disease is ignorance, and the ultimate medicine is wisdom.
Astrology is a fundamental part of Tibetan culture. It functions on the principle of interdependence, particularly of the five elements and time. Astrology and medicine support each other as wisdom and method, respectively.
Tulku Lobsang is a man that bridges worlds. Deeply rooted in Buddhist Tantrayana, Bön and Tibetan Medicine, he travels the world sharing ancient wisdom and methods to improve our modern lives.
Nangten Menlang is dedicated to preserving the Tibetan culture and its healing wisdom by offering lectures, retreats and educations worldwide.
Together we pray that Tulku Lobsang Rinpoche may live a long, full and vibrant life so that we may continue to benefit from his deep wisdom. We pray that he may be successful on his path of reducing the suffering of all sentient beings.
Words are concepts, but the right words can take us beyond concept. May reflection upon these words expand your understanding of yourself, your relationships, and the world we live in together.
It is not enough to simply hear a teaching. For a teaching to have true, lasting benefit it needs to be given in the right way and taken in the right way. We need the right teacher, the right teaching, and the right way to receive.
Lu Jong is an ancient practice rooted in Tibetan Medicine that releases blockages on the physical, mental and energetic levels. Doing this movement practice makes us healthier, and also more calm and balanced.
With Tsa Lung we work with the breath. This is the way to touch deep within the body and open more subtle channels. Change the breath; change the mind.
This Inner Fire practice is a method for deep transformation. It opens us on the subtlest level, melts our karmic blockages and completely changes us. Our body is the diamond key. Through it, we are able to achieve diamond wisdom.
This practice utilizes the vehicle of the body to enable us to go beyond the conceptual mind. In this way we achieve higher realizations about the nature of ourselves and reality and develop deep compassion.
Rigpa is how we come to know the true nature of the mind, which is emptiness. Because of emptiness, everything arises. When we know the mind, we know all.
Guru Yoga is the spine of Tantrayana. Without this feeling, there is no strength, no power. By cultivating devotion, we reduce our obstacles and receive blessings in our practice.
Problems are our best teachers. They give us the opportunity to transform ourselves. Lo Jong shows us to use problems to train our mind to be calm and peaceful in any situation.
Kum Nye is Tibetan massage. It helps spread our essence throughout the body and makes everything flow. This restoration is especially important for Tantrayana practitioners, since we work so intensively with the body and channels.
Tulku Lobsang founded this Wisdom Sword Practice—a moving meditation with a sword. This powerful technique harnesses our inner power, bringing us swiftly into the present moment, slaying our fears and expectations.
If we can cut through the illusion of temporary existence, if we can recognize that nothing exists the way we believe it to and that it is just a projection of our thought, then we can exist infinitely.
Every time we fall asleep we naturally reach the clear light state of mind, the most pure, subtle consciousness. This happens automatically, but to catch it and achieve realizations, we need to practice.
Even when we are asleep we can continue our Buddhist practices. With Dream Yoga we try to realize the dream as a dream, and then we can understand illusion.
With exercises and meditations we can prepare ourselves now to navigate the different phases of death. In this way, we will recognize when we enter Bardo, the intermediate state, and thereby have a profound affect on our next life.
This is a yogic running technique. Using visualizations and special breath techniques, one can learn to harness great power and boundless energy.
Learn to enter the present moment through mindfulness, and find the key to change your whole life.
We don't realize how powerful our minds are! When we use its power, we can totally change our lives and make them like heaven. Tulku Lobsang introduces us to our own power.
Tulku Lobsang has appeared on several national TV shows. Watch videos of Tulku Lobsang's interviews as well as demonstrations of some of the practices.
Please note: The above indicated starting and end times are local time in Vienna, Berlin and Madrid.
If you wish to be notified when registration for this event opens, please click the button below.
Dying is an essential part of our life. We all will face death no matter how fearful many of us may be. Preparing oneself for death is one of the most powerful, liberating and worthy things we can do. It reduces our fear of dying, increases our appreciation of life and helps us see death as an incredibly powerful opportunity for liberation for it is at the moment of death that we experience our true nature, the clear light state of mind.
Providing detailed descriptions of the process of dying and what comes after, combined with in-depth instructions for what to do in this most powerful moment of our lives in order to seize this amazing opportunity to find liberation from the cyclical existence of Samsara, is one of the most precious jewels of Tibetan wisdom.
Death is an indescribably strong natural force that – combined with the power of meditation – can be used as a vehicle to realize our true nature, which is the union of bliss and emptiness. In order for us to be able to use death for our liberation, we need to familiarize ourselves with what happens during the process of death and we need to practice the meditation that helps us navigate this process.
In this Online Live Retreat, Tulku Lobsang Rinpoche will teach us about the cycle of 'death – intermediate state – birth', talk us through the death process, and teach as well as practice with us a meditation for the moment of death so that we can practice it during our lifetime.
Learning about death makes us understand the true meaning of life, teaches us how to live our lives well and helps us overcome our fear of dying. We develop more appreciation for life's preciousness, it becomes easier for us to distinguish between what is more and what is less important in life, and it helps us enjoy life in all its beauty.


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As of yesterday, we've officially fallen back to mark the end of Daylight Savings, resetting the clocks (or watches) for winter — and losing a full hour of afternoon sunlight in the process. Which pretty much guarantees that it'll be dark by the time you leave work for the next few months. Not exactly heartening, we know, but there is a silver lining in all this: You can now bust out the evening wear even earlier in the day. And considering this season offers an abundance of pieces — from dinner jackets to velvet sport coats — that are as modern and stylish as they are nighttime-appropriate, that's something worth getting excited about. Since we know you already know how to wear a tux, here's a quick primer on how to build a post-sunset look from scratch.
Dressed Up
You've already seen how effective a great evening jacket can be in action; this is your chance to try out the look for yourself. Just remember that changing one element of standard "black tuxedo" uniform is enough. Or, put another way: There's no need to go overboard on the rest of the outfit when you're wearing a maroon jacket, so keep it classic on the pants, shoes, and accessories. Oh, and even though it's not in the picture, remember that you can never go wrong with a crisp white dress shirt.
Evening jacket ($300) by Plectrum by Ben Sherman, farfetch.com; Tuxedo pants ($890) by Thom Browne, parkandbond.com; Cuff links ($285) by Alfred Dunill, dunhill.com; Beanson lace-up shoes ($595) by Bally, bally.com
Dressed Down
While there's certainly an argument to be made for wearing velvet while it's sunny outside, it really shines at night (both figuratively, and, when the light hits it, literally). And while a sport coat cut from it is no doubt luxe, it's a much better match to a more casual outfit than the formalwear-flavored evening jacket. Pair it with slim, textured trousers and rich brown shoes for a look that gives a slight nod to velvet's 1970s heyday, but feels firmly rooted in 2012.
Unstructured slim-fit velvet sport coat ($1040) by Canali, mrporter.com; Washed twill dress pants ($495) by Isaia, parkandbond.com; Ramsey monk strap shoes ($740) by Alfred Sargent, dunhill.com


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BERLIN (Reuters) - German Social Democratic (SPD) leaders appealed to party members on Friday to swallow their doubts and endorse an overnight deal to renew a "grand coalition" with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives for another four years.
The deal eased months of uncertainty that has undermined Germany's role as the European Union's pivotal power as the bloc confronts major challenges including Brexit, euro zone reform and immigration, and raised questions about Merkel's future.
"The world will not wait for us," a weary-looking Merkel said on Friday morning after 25 hours of talks, which yielded a deal opening the way to formal negotiations on the details.
But some in the wary SPD rank-and-file said the deal lacked sufficient concessions to the center-left party, which after four years of sometimes awkward coalition with Merkel suffered its worst election result last September since 1933.
Christian Democratic lawmakers greeted their leader with a round of applause when she outlined the deal, which pledged closer cooperation with France to strengthen the euro zone and a crackdown on arms sales to countries in conflict zones.
But SPD leaders will have a harder time convincing members to approve the deal at a Jan. 21 party congress and again in a postal vote at the conclusion of formal coalition negotiations.
"The SPD got its way in many areas," senior SPD parliamentarian Hubertus Heil told public broadcaster RBB in what is likely to be the first of many such entreaties to rank-and-file over the coming week.
SPD chairman Martin Schulz was addressing them when, standing alongside Merkel, he told reporters that the outline deal would preserve and strengthen Germany's welfare state for future generations.
"From the kindergarten to the school, to the university and the workplace and then on into old age and care homes, we want to strengthen respect, opportunity and solidarity, and bring these systems up to date," he said.
The parties agreed to spend more on the EU - a long way short of Schulz's ambition to create a "United States of Europe" by 2025, and the SPD's plan to create parity between private and public healthcare was also missing from the deal.
Pledges to spend more in poorer regions and allow up to 1,000 family members each month to join refugees already living in Germany also seemed designed to placate SPD members skeptical of the benefits of governing with Merkel anew.
But ominously, a senior member of the SPD's own negotiating team abstained in the vote to endorse the deal, and the party's Berlin branch also said promises on social housing and home ownership were inadequate.
"The real hurdle ... (is) when the SPD rank and file will have to vote on approval," said Josef Joffe, publisher of German weekly Die Zeit. "The mood of the party faithful is heavily skewed against another grand coalition."
Merkel, in power for 12 years, appeared to acknowledge that the document fell short of SPD expectations in some areas, telling reporters: "The coalition negotiations probably won't be easier than the exploratory talks."
She said she hoped to wind up formal talks by mid-February to give time to consult the SPD membership on the final deal.
Germany is unfamiliar with the long negotiations that mark coalition building in many neighboring countries. The dominance of the SPD and the conservatives long ensured smooth government transition. But elections last September saw the rise of the right-wing Alternative for Germany, which upset the arithmetic.
A weakened Merkel turned to the SPD after the collapse in November of talks on a three-way coalition of the conservatives, environmentalist Greens and pro-business Free Democrats.
As Europe's largest economy and pre-eminent mover and shaker, Germany is crucial to the region's fortunes. Berlin's partners eagerly await a new government to help drive forward Brexit talks, euro zone reform and EU diplomatic initiatives.
France, which is pressing for a common euro zone budget to deflect external economic shocks, described the agreement as "important for the stability and future of Franco-German relations, but especially Europe".
On the domestic front, the proposals reflected the strength of the economy. They foresaw tax relief for citizens of 10 billion euros over the three years to 2021 as well as extra spending on home-building, education and research.
The Finance Ministry said Germany had posted a budget surplus of 5.3 billion euros last year, adding the next government would have 45 billion euros' worth of financial "wiggle room" in the legislative period to 2021.
Officials said the surplus would be fed into a refugee reserve fund. Over a million migrants, many fleeing conflict in the Middle East, have come to Germany since mid-2015.
On foreign policy, the document proposed limits on arms exports and an immediate end to arms sales to countries involved in the Yemen conflict - a move apparently targeted at Saudi Arabia, a major buyer of German weaponry.
They would also pause EU accession talks with Turkey, which has come under strong criticism in western Europe over President Tayyip Erdogan's security crackdown including widespread arrests since an attempted military coup in 2016.
The euro climbed to a three-year high after Friday's news of the breakthrough in the talks. In early London trading, the euro rallied 0.7 percent against the dollar to hit its highest levels since January 2015 at $1.212.
Reporting by Holger Hansen and Andreas Rinke; Writing by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Mark Heinrich
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.


text:
Thanks to Disney Junior for sponsoring this post. They planned a whole Jake and the Never Land Pirates party, so I did my take on the invitations. I also talked like a pirate the whole time I was putting them together. I think you can really tell in the finished product. Have a look in the video below for more ideas. Matey.
Ugh. You guys, I haven't had nearly enough time with my glue gun lately. There's so much stuff to encrust, and I'm just sitting here, not covering a single thing with sea glass.
Anyway, I made these mod pixie dust invitations for a grown-up party, but I think they'd be even sweeter for a kid's birthday.
Fancy invitations make your party so much more difficult to pass up. And making them in front of the TV counts as multitasking.
Man. You could not be more efficient right now.
Here's what I did:
– Hand-wrote "pixie dust" on some rectangular Avery labels and affixed to the glitter bottles, which come prepackaged like that in adorable corked bottles. Hooray for not having to search for tiny bottles into which you can decant glitter, which you will then find on the cat and between your toes for years to come!
– Folded tissue to fit the boxes and lid interiors of 8″x2 7/8″ matte white necklace boxes, and secured the tissue with double sided tape. (Fit the paper first, apply tape to the box and then secure the paper carefully. If you try to tape the paper, which anyone would, it will wrinkle and tear.)
– Secured the pixie dust in the box with a couple glue dots on the back.
– Punched the decorative hole in a plain bookmark, saved the confetti bitlet for later use.
– Wrote out the party info on the back of the bookmark, and then hot-glued a little ribbon tag at the bottom so the mark would lift out easily.
– Lightly secured just the top of the bookmark to the box with a glue dot.
– Secured the confetti bitlet on the opposite side. (Glue dots are magic!)
So pretty, right? Right.
As you can see, the glitter comes in lots of colors, so you can choose your palette. It think the colorful glitter is better for a kid shindig.
If you want, you can affix a label to the outside and tie with a little ribbon. You can hand-deliver, but the box is sturdy enough to mail in a regular manilla envelope, or you can do a padded one if you're feeling cautious.
Boom! Best party invites ever.
Here's where you can get everything:
Martha Stewart Glitter in colors and metallics (search around, you can get almost any color combo you want), Martha Stewart Craft punch (mine is old, but she has a whole line of stuff like what I linked to), Glue dots, plain bookmarks and bookmarks with holes so you don't have to bust out the glue gun to affix the ribbon, Jewelry boxes. You know where to get ribbons and Avery labels right? I trust your judgement.
And if you just so happen to be planning a whole Jake and the Never Land Pirates theme party (I'm on to you search engine traffic), there are a ton more ideas in this video, so have a look:


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Spring Break Escapes
Some like it hot. Some like it cold. And some like it salty. We're talking, of course, about vacation destinations. (What did you think we were getting at?)
Whether you're a toes in the sand, sun-soaking kind of of Spring Breaker, or a powder hound seeking out the last spring stashes, we've got the inside scoop on 25 places full of the one thing we're all after: relaxation.
Near (and nearish)
Hood River: Fruit farmers, vintners, and brewmasters are turning this outdoors hub into a gourmet destination.
Bend: Every year, the PGA picks only about 30 places to play its Champions Tour. There are reasons Central Oregon always makes the list: 300 days of sunshine, rugged desertscapes, and an audience of snowy giants watching over every drive.
Southern Oregon Wine Country: Less famous than Willamette Valley wines, the Umpqua and Rogue valleys' vintages have been earning points with warmer-climate grapes such as tempranillo, malbec, and even gewürztraminer.
The Steens Wild mustangs, secret hot springs, and a mountain that rises from the desert floor: Welcome to Harney County, USA.
Wenatchee Planted smack in Washington's geographic center, the Wenatchee Valley, with its prodigious orchards, verdant farms, and 300 days of sunshine, also sits at the heart of the state's culinary scene.
San Diego: An idyllic coastal city
Santa Monica: LA's hottest beach town
Las Vegas: A desert oasis in more ways than one
Maui: Hawaii's isle of romance
Santa Rosa: Gateway to wine country
Santa Cruz: Surfing mecca with small-town charm
Catalina Island: Conservation meets luxury off the coast of LA
Palm Springs: Desert decadence with a splash of Hollywood glamour
Oahu: A classic Hawaiian escape
Big Island: Find adventure aplenty on Hawaii's biggest island
Near (and nearish)
70 Ways to Discover the Oregon Coast: Five surefire itineraries for foodies, families, outdoor adventurers, naturalist and history buffs
Long Beach: Beauty abounds (but crowds do not) on Washington's Long Beach Peninsula.
Pacific City: The beachfront town of Pacific City isn't all that cute. Yet. And that is precisely its appeal.
Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara promises a two-pronged cure for any lingering winter blues: beaches and vino.
Kauai: Paradise Found: The Hawaiian island of Kauai offers an escape that's equal parts adventure and peace
Sayulita: Sayulita is Mexico's hush-hush resort town. Get there before the word gets out.
Close Range: 12 Northwest mountain escapes where you'll find plenty of powder—and none of the crowds, including: Willamette Pass, Mount Bailey, Tumalo Mountain, Leavenworth, North Cascade Heli-skiing, Meany Lodge, Wallowa Alpine Huts, Ski Anthony Lakes, Ferguson Ridge, Red Mountain, Baldface Lodge, and Whitewater Winter Resort.
Methow Valley, Washington: Cross country skiing and nature's quiet symphony
Tamarack, Idaho: Ever wonder what Vail looked like before it became Vail? Head to Tamarack.
Park City, Utah: We love Mount Hood as much as the next powder hound. And Bachelor. And Rainier. But every now and again, we yearn to stretch our skis beyond the Northwest's familiar terrain. With three ski resorts—Deer Valley, Park City Mountain, and the recently overhauled Canyons—plus six nonstop flights from PDX to Salt Lake City per day, Park City promises an easy way to scratch that itch.


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Connecticut white bison turns 1, still attracts visitors
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – Its coat has turned from light to brown, but the rare white bison that caused a stir among Native Americans is still attracting visitors a year after its birth.
People eager for a glimpse of the animal often call on the Mohawk Bison Farm in Goshen, where it was born a year ago on June 16, and tribal members from South Dakota are planning a second trip to Connecticut to celebrate the bison they see as a symbol of hope and unity. Experts say the white bison is as rare as one in 10 million.
The farm's owner, Peter Fay, said the bull stands out among his other bison more for its personality since turning brown with its winter coat.
"He's out with almost 30 of them, all the same age," Fay said. "He's the only one of the 30 who actually charges me."
The bison was named Yellow Medicine Dancing Boy in a ceremony last July at Fay's farm, where dozens of Native Americans wearing the garb of their ancestors were among the hundreds who turned out for the celebration.
Marian White Mouse, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe in South Dakota, said some members are planning another visit to the farm below Mohawk Mountain in mid-July to celebrate the bison's birthday.
"We all honor sacred white animals wherever they might be," she said. "All honor goes to Mr. Fay and his farm because he has probably been overwhelmed by people because they know the significance of how sacred it is."
The oral traditions of many tribes honor white bison. White Mouse said the birth of the Connecticut bison was a sign from a prophet, the White Buffalo Calf Woman, who helped her tribe endure times of strife and famine. She said it was ordained by prophesy keepers that the sacred bison would change colors to white, yellow, brown and black.
Fay, who still receives calls nearly every day from people who want to see the bison, said it is generally treated the same as his other animals, and he plans to begin using it for breeding in about a year.
Tens of millions of bison once roamed America's plains, but the overhunted population shrank to about 1,000 toward the end of the 1800s. Their numbers have rebounded to several hundred thousand.


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Postpartum Misconceptions
I can't believe I've been a mom for 6 weeks! It's amazing how much Deirdre changes from week to week. Still the cutest girl on the block, though, no doubt about it!
Now that we're knee-deep into parenthood, I've realized I had some misconceptions about life with a little one, all of which caused me unnecessary stress and anxiety during my pregnancy. I was actually pretty calm (and fairly realistic) about what would happen postpartum (hence the reason I hired a babysitter 5 days a week), but other people (and things I read) had me scared that life with a newborn would be so hard (especially with Lupus) that I would really struggle. While I have made some major adjustments in how I spend my time now that litte Dee is around, I'm pretty darn happy about the way things are turning out. If you had this adorable face to wake up to each morning, wouldn't you be pretty content, too?
So here are three things I assumed would happen, but haven't:
1) My first misconception was that I would be SO sleep deprived, I wouldn't be able to handle it. Pre-Dee, I was getting 10 hours of sleep at night, plus an hour and a half during the day. Even though she's a great sleeper, I'm still averaging only about 5-6 straight hours at night. I also get a couple of hours in the morning (thanks to Johnny who does everything he can to help out, given the constraint that I'm the keeper of the food supply), and then another 2 hours in the afternoon (thanks to our fabulous babysitter, Leticia.) I know cumulatively, I'm getting about the same amount of sleep, but I assumed my body wouldn't adjust well to getting my rest in chunks. Goes to show what I'm capable of when I'm working from a good, healthy base.
Note to all parents following along: I KNOW I have a great sleeper on my hands, and that I'm getting more sleep than you probably did during an entire week of your newborn's life, but I've learned that fatigue can be a real killer for me and my Lupus. My health depends on the fact that I avoid it at all costs. Don't hate me because I'm well-rested!
2) My second misconception was that the learning curve on parenthood would be an insurmountable one. I'm certainly not insinuating that we've got the whole parenting thing figured out, or that it hasn't been trying. What I didn't expect was that our instincts would kick in from day 1, and that feeding, changing, rocking and loving a baby doesn't take brain power...just a little patience. Deirdre has been particularly patient with her parents and big brothers - all of whom had to adjust to her arrival, some more than others. ---->>>>
3) My third misconception was that a flare was inevitable, and that I wouldn't be able to do anything to avoid it. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but if you read Monday's post, you know how quick I've been to alert my doctors to any and all changes in my health. I think that's been a key ingredient to my well-being. I've stayed super-attuned to my body, asked for help when I needed it, and utilized the heck out of my doctors. A prescription for success, I'd say...who knew taking care of yourself could be so simple?


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Scores 25 Highway MPG and 19 City MPG! This Honda Pilot boasts a Regular Unleaded V-6 3.5 L/212 engine powering this Automatic transmission.
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Employment Opportunities
Thomas Edison Electric prides itself on being a customer service leader within the industry to create a predictable positive experience for each of our clients.
We are looking for customer friendly qualified master electricians to be a part of our team. Only exceptional electricians need to apply for this highly competitive position.
In order to qualify, you will need these minimal credentials:
- 5 years of field experience in residential & commercial work
- PA Home Improvement Registration
- Willing to work nights & some weekends
- Willing to work emergency hours
- Willing to learn a new approach to consumers and business we serve
- Valid Driver's License
- Professional Appearance
- Excellent written & oral communications skills
- Detail-oriented
- Pass a background check
You will be rewarded with:
- Industry-leading compensation
- Uniforms
- Flexible hours
- Ongoing training
- Vacation time
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Please use the form below to send your resume to:


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More suspicious voices on the right warned that the Left would use a collapsing Obama Care as an excuse for a single payer medical care system. The "train wreck" of the Obama Care roll-out has underscored its incredible complexity, contradictions, and peccadilloes, and we are just beginning to scratch the surface. Who knows what horrors lie buried in the thousands of pages of regulations that no one has read?
The warning that the Republicans will be blamed for the crash of Obama Care is already coming true. As ueber-Liberal Robert Reich writes from his Ivory Tower of Berkeley (Don't Blame Dems. We Wanted Single Payer):
"Had Democrats stuck to the original Democratic vision and built comprehensive health insurance on Social Security and Medicare, it would have been cheaper, simpler, and more widely accepted by the public."
The Left is champing at the bit to go single payer, even before Obama Care has begun. The employer mandate has been delayed and thousands of exemptions have been granted. Of the major provisions, only the individual mandate and fines remain, and even they may be delayed. But the liberals say: Let's change the venue and the rules before the game even starts.
The oracle of the Left, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (The Big Kludge) explains that Obama Care, as constituted, is too complicated a mix of the private and public sectors. (Why did he not say that when the bill was before Congress?) Krugman explains that Obama Care was given to us by the Republicans in cahoots with Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and Big Hospital. Poor Obama and the Democrats had to take what was possible not what was best because of the rascally Republicans.
Krugman then issues his siren song for the single payer system:
"Imagine, now, a much simpler system in which the government just pays your major medical expenses. In this hypothetical system you wouldn't have to shop for insurance, nor would you have to provide lots of personal details. The government would be your insurer, and you'd be covered automatically by virtue of being an American. Of course, we don't have to imagine such a system, because it already exists. It's called Medicare, it covers all Americans 65 and older, and it's enormously popular. So why didn't we just extend that system to cover everyone?"
Sounds good does it not? We have no more worries. We can all go to the doctor or hospital, pick up our drugs at the pharmacy and initial a receipt that says: "Paid for by Uncle Sam." All these providers are sitting there waiting for us to arrive so they can serve us with efficiency, sympathy, and good will.
Before falling for these myths, consider what Reich and Krugman are not telling us.
First, they do not admit that their beloved single payer system is being grafted into a Medicare which already cannot keep its promises. Medicare's unfunded liabilities eclipse those of Social Security. Any actuary will tell you that, when the next generation retires, Medicare will be trillions of dollars short in paying its bills. In fact, Obama Care largely gets its own funding by robbing an already underfunded Medicare to pay for the Obama exchanges and Medicaid expansion.
Second, single payer systems elsewhere are paid for primarily by payroll taxes. The U.S. payroll tax rate is currently 15.3 percent with an additional 2.3 percent for higher income earners thanks to Obama Care. In the single payer systems of Europe, the payroll tax averages 37 percent. (Economists have long taught that the wage earners ultimately pay the payroll tax whether it is formally paid by the employer or employee). To pay for a single payer system like Europe's, America's middle class would face a doubling of payroll taxes and a fifty percent increase in their total taxes on income. Americans would pay about 45 percent of their earnings for federal taxes on income alone. After that they have to worry about state taxes and local property taxes.
Third, the Obama Care website is only about directing families to buy health insurance that meet Obama Care requirements, while informing them what the policy will cost after subsidies. It does not address real medical-care issues like which treatments will be covered, which doctors you can see and with what wait times, what reimbursement fees will doctors receive, what R&D costs pharmaceutical companies can recoup, or what kind of end-of-life care can seniors count on. If the Obama Care administration cannot even get you enrolled, how can you expect it to make these hundreds or thousands of decisions for millions of families. If Obama Care alone requires 12 million words of regulations, Obama's "SocialSecurity USA" will need 100 million words of regulations, which no one understands, much less has read. What 800 help line will be able to guide you through this mess?
Fourth, what talented young person will train for a decade to get an MD degree or a Ph.D. in science to qualify for work that is directed every step of the way by a Canadian IT company? Instead of patients and lab research, that person's time will be devoted to paper work and arguing with the 800-SOCIALSECRUITYUSA helpline. Under these conditions, why would Big Pharma risk billions to develop a cancer cure or the new equipment for brain or heart surgery. Instead, America's great pharmaceutical companies will become public utilities earning a fixed rate of return guaranteed by SOCIALSECURITYUSA. Why bother when Switzerland and Israel are still the land of the free? Let's get out of here before even they disappear.
Liberals will accuse me of crying wolf. After all, we have the best central planners in our MIT's, Harvards, and CalTechs. This Gregory guy says the problem is too complex, but what does he know.
My response: Let these true believers study the Soviet economy or read Hayek's The Fatal Conceit. I doubt either would help change their mind.


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Romney's evangelical problem on display in South
Mitt Romney's weak appeal so far with white evangelicals will be in the forefront as the GOP presidential primaries move into Southern states where most Republicans are born-again Christians.
While polls show the former Massachusetts governor and Mormon comfortably ahead among Republicans nationally, he will spend the coming week in heavily conservative territory that could underscore his vulnerability with a key segment of his party.
In the five states so far where evangelicals were a majority of GOP primary voters, Romney has trailed either Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich among born-again Christians by an average of 20 points, according to exit polls. About 4 in 10 evangelical voters who were asked said it was deeply important that a candidate share their religious beliefs.
Still, exit polls also show an opening for Romney to draw a bit more of the evangelical vote. In Ohio and Tennessee, evangelicals who said shared religious beliefs are less important when choosing a candidate were significantly less likely than other evangelicals to see Romney as too moderate.
The key question for Romney is whether enough of these evangelicals are present in the contests ahead.
Nationally, Gallup's daily tracking poll finds Romney with a double-digit lead among Republican registered voters, and running even with boldly conservative Rick Santorum among those who attend religious services weekly or more. The latest delegate tally by The Associated Press shows Romney on pace to secure the nomination in June, unless he stumbles and his rivals can force an unlikely fight at the Republican National Convention in August.
But in Mississippi, he faces an electorate that was about three-quarters evangelical in the 2008 presidential primary. In Alabama, about two-thirds of GOP primary voters identified themselves as born again. Both states vote Tuesday, with Louisiana to follow on March 24.
John Green, a University of Akron political scientist who analyzes religion and voting, said he noticed that Romney generally does better, although not well, among evangelicals in larger metropolitan areas. These urban born-again voters are found in greater numbers in states where Democrats and Republicans are more competitive, such as the Midwest. Kansas is scheduled to hold its caucuses Saturday, and Missouri and Illinois contests are scheduled near the end of the month.
However, pragmatism may win out among some Bible Belt Christian voters, since large groups of Republicans have said repeatedly in exit polls that they are seeking a candidate who can beat President Barack Obama in the general election.
"What these numbers suggest is that he has a chance to expand his support among evangelicals," Green said. "I don't know exactly what it is that Romney would have to say to persuade them, but it doesn't seem like his religion or the things he's been saying are necessarily a barrier."
It's impossible to know how much Romney's Mormonism has been a factor.
On politics alone, many Republicans are wary. Romney once supported legalized abortion, which he now condemns, and enacted a health care coverage program as governor that many conservatives consider government overreach. In Ohio on Super Tuesday, nearly half of evangelicals said Romney's positions on the issues were not conservative enough.
Romney also is lacking in the kind of charisma that has buoyed other candidates, especially in the South, said Jim Guth, a political scientist at Furman University in South Carolina. "Evangelicals like their leaders with a little zing - and that Romney doesn't have," Guth said. "And, of course, his social milieu and cultural expression just doesn't match theirs very well." Many Christians do not consider Mormons part of historical Christianity, although Mormons do. Republicans who say Mormonism is not Christian are less likely to support Romney for the GOP nomination, according to a November 2011 survey by the Pew Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Conservatives who consider religion when choosing a candidate have had several other options in the large field of candidates for the Republican nomination. Santorum and Gingrich are Roman Catholics who heavily emphasize religion and moral issues on the campaign trail, although Gingrich's personal history, including three marriages, has cost him some conservative support. The same Pew survey, however, found GOP voters would overwhelmingly back Romney in a general election against Obama.
In Romney's 2008 bid for the presidential nomination, he openly courted evangelical leaders and directly confronted concerns about his Mormonism, including a major speech in which he promised "no authorities of my church" will influence his policies. This election year, Romney barely mentions his religion unless an issue arises while campaigning.
Instead, he has tried to appeal to religious conservatives by stressing his shared values with them on concerns such as traditional marriage, especially as social issues took prominence in the campaign due in part to the ascendance of Santorum. Campaigning Thursday in Huntsville, Ala., Santorum called the state the "heart of conservatism."
If Romney too heavily emphasizes social policies, he would also draw attention to his former stand in favor of legalized abortion.
Mark DeMoss, a public relations veteran and evangelical adviser to the Romney campaign, said there is no plan to change that strategy on religion. He said the former governor will keep his focus on "the state of the economy and uncertainty about jobs."
"I think those issues cross all segments of voters," DeMoss said.
This means missed opportunities for connecting with religious voters.
DeMoss said Romney doesn't visit church services as part of his campaign. The weekend before Super Tuesday, Santorum and his family attended Sunday worship at a Southern Baptist megachurch in Tennessee, where the pastor invited them to stand before the congregation and receive a blessing, according to Associated Baptist Press. Romney finished second to Santorum in Tennessee.
"Churches are largely the social and cultural centers in these communities and the minister usually has the largest microphone, so building real and authentic relationships with people of faith is pretty essential," said Burns Strider, a Mississippi native and adviser on faith outreach to Democrats, including Hillary Rodham Clinton when she sought the party's 2008 presidential nomination. "It doesn't mean it requires Sunday worship services, but there are plenty of other opportunities."
AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll reported from New York. AP Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta reported from Washington.


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Parents of teens know that cell phones can be a great way to keep in touch when their kids are out and about. That is, unless they get distracted and "forget" to respond, which leaves you in a state of panic. Luckily, one dad is here to help.
Nick Herbert created the app ReplyASAP after getting fed up with his son Ben ignoring his texts. The app takes over the phone's screen and sounds an alarm, essentially forcing teens to respond to their worrisome parents if they want to regain access to their phone. The app also notifies parents when their adolescent has seen their message.
"My son has an iPhone, but I still can't get hold of him very easily as it's always on silent because he is planning games or has been at school and forgotten to turn the sound back on," he explained to GoodHousekeeping.com. "There didn't seem to be a solution out there that allowed me to send a message to him, that would override the silent function, appear over whatever he was doing and tell me when he had seen it."
More From Good Housekeeping
To solve his problem, Herbert took to creating the app and his son was surprisingly accepting of his dad's invention.
"It gives him the freedom to keep his phone on silent, but with the knowledge that I can get a message to him if necessary," Herbert said. "He knows when to use it and when I send him a message on it, it will be important."
While most settings and apps can't freeze a phone like ReplyASAP does, our experts in the Good Housekeeping Institute pointed out that Ignore No More is an iOS app that allows you to remotely lock your child's device if they are not responding to you. In addition, iPhone's Emergency Bypass setting will trigger your phone to make a sound any time a specific person try to get in touch with you, and if your child toggles on their "read receipts" setting, you can receive a timestamp underneath the text when they opened your message.
There are also external apps that you can download for both iPhone and Android that will override silent mode. Just be sure to read the fine print. Some of these programs require you to "jailbreak" your phone, which can void any warranties or insurance you may have.
Whether you're on board with these apps' concepts or not, every parents can recognize that raising kids in the digital age we live in can get tricky. What's most important is that parents establish a relationship with their children based on independence and trust — a concept that most moms and dads can get around.
ReplyASAP is currently available for Android in the United States and Herbert has plans to release the app on iOS shortly. His son is currently using a test version of the app on his iPhone.
[h/t Scary Mommy]
Lindsey works with the Good Housekeeping Institute to test and review products including appliances, bedding, baby items, pet products and more.


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It turns out notorious government contractor CGI is no stranger to glitch-filled rollouts. HealthCare.gov isn't the first time the Canadian company has received millions of taxpayer funds to create a dysfunctional product.
According to The Washington Times' Emily Miller, CGI has a record of failure dating back to the 1990s, when it was tasked with building a gun registry for the Canadian government.
More than 10 years later, the gun registry still wasn't functioning properly, despite having received more than $80 million in funding. The contract was terminated in 2007, having cost the Canadian government more than $90 million.
Despite its rocky history, the Obama administration selected CGI to build HealthCare.gov. The White House has not commented on whether federal officials were aware of CGI's past before awarding a contract worth as much as $292 million.
According to The Washington Times, the Canadian gun registry has been hacked more than 320 times since its implementation. These security breaches put the personal information of law-abiding citizens into the hands of criminals.
The Foundry has reported on similar security breaches with HealthCare.gov. Last month, a North Carolina man registered an account and was given access to eligibility letters that included personal information of two people from South Carolina.
Cheryl Campbell, CGI's vice president, testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee last month in an attempt to provide further details about the flawed implementation. Campbell effectively blamed the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services for the troubles.
But problems with CGI don't stop with simply the website. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, expressed concerns about the security of HealthCare.gov, the Obamacare navigators, and the Federal Data Services Hub.
CGI's tarnished past and rocky track record comes at a time when Americans' trust of the federal government to manage health care reached an all-time low.


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Search Buddhist Channel
Gateway to Buddha
by David Tenenbaum, The Isthmus Daily Page, Nov 7, 2008
Cambodian religious center in Oregon is a concrete achievement, in more ways than one
Oregon, WI (USA) -- It's early summer, 2008. I am perched on a scaffold 25 feet above a driveway just outside the village of Oregon, south of Madison, looking down at a white house that was built - I'm guessing - in the 1920s.
<< From left: Soy Seng, David Tenenbaum, Ed Janus, and Sakoeurn Korn
The windows were busted out long ago, and I notice that the house has progressed from ramshackle through dilapidated to true hoveldom. Then I return to the task at hand: struggling to place a handmade casting on an enormous ornamental gateway.
I am helping two Cambodian Buddhist monks - Soy Seng and Sakoeurn Korn, as they are known on their American citizenship papers - and I am frustrated. We are working overhead, the blood is draining from our arms, and to me falls the sorry job of eyeballing the level that will establish the correct position.
That means I must announce, over and over, that the current try is good, but not perfect.
Calmly, persistently and cheerfully, Soy, the chief monk, has us relocate the casting, striving for an accuracy far beyond what I think the situation demands. His assistant, Sakoeurn, unflinchingly repositions the casting.
I join in, and eventually we get it right.
Mention "Buddhist temple" in Madison, and most people assume you mean Deer Park, the well-known temple for Tibetan Buddhists, which the Dalai Lama visited this summer. Few people know about the Cambodians. Although only about a mile separates the two temples, the forms of Buddhism they practice are worlds apart in theology and culture, and the groups have little contact.
As we wait for the blood to return to our arms, I remind Soy what happened 12 years ago in the ruins beneath us. It was the place where we began our friendship.
In 1996 I was asked by a friend, Roger Garms, if I'd like to teach English to a monk for whom the local Cambodians had, amazingly, managed to garner immigration papers. Roger, a psychologist, said the temple and its new monk were supposed to help hundreds of impoverished Cambodians integrate into Dane County by sustaining their native culture.
I gave the matter a full 10 seconds of consideration, and soon found myself walking into a cold, cheerless living room decorated with a cheap rug celebrating a north woods elk. I turned for instruction to the only other person in the room who spoke English, Sarith Ou, a leader of the local Cambodian community. With his trademark half-smile, Sarith provided me with detailed instructions: "Okay, start."
Trying to conceal my growing bewilderment, I exchanged nervous smiles with a shaven-headed monk clad only in an orange robe. I immediately realized that my new student didn't know a word of English: not "you" and "me," not "yes" or "no." We had not been introduced. I knew his name was Seng Soy, but I had no idea whether I should I call him "Soy," or "Seng," or "your holiness." Sarith had already ducked out.
The moment obviously demanded improvisation, so I emptied my pockets and started working on pronunciation: "key," "penny," "one," "two," "all."
I had done absolutely no research on the Cambodian language, properly called Khmer, but I soon realized that it lacks many English sounds, including "r," "th" and "y." This monk could not pronounce or even hear, these sounds. "Yes," for example, came out as Russian-sounding "Zhess."
I also figured out that this guy in the orange robe, whatever his exact name was, was unlike anybody I'd ever met. He never frowned, always maintained eye contact, did whatever I asked, and would not quit trying to pronounce a word until I signaled it was time to move on. Unlike certain American students (like, say, all of them), he did not pretend to master something he hadn't.
And so we struggled with "Zhess" for a good 20 minutes. After he uttered a rudimentary "y" sound, we moved on to "you," and we struggled to shape "zhou" into "you" for another 15 minutes. I noticed he was extremely intelligent, and a perfectionist — a trait I would again see, years later, up on that scaffold.
We lived in the present tense for a few years, dealing only with the issues of the moment. But as Soy (that's his given name) progressed, I gradually learned scraps about his background. Like other Cambodians of his age (he's now 49) and older, Soy came from a shattered people. Hundreds of Cambodians live in Madison, Stoughton and Janesville, and almost all of the older ones left Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge turned the country into a killing field between 1975 and 1979.
Twenty years ago, I'd reported on the despair, trauma and poverty faced by many Southeast Asian refugees in Dane County. I had visited their poverty-stricken homes and seen the traditional reverence for age gone topsy-turvy: As children learned English, they gained power over their parents that they never would have had in Cambodia.
As months stretched into years, I began to view my weekly visits with Soy as a quick trip to Cambodia. The Cambodian community built him a much warmer house, then a temple, and imported two more monks. For a couple of years, I was tutoring three men, at very different levels, more or less at once. We worked on words, sentences, even body language — the meaning of a shrug or the two-hand, open-palmed gesture that means "I don't know." We worked on idioms: I cannot forget Soy's laughter when I explained "Can you give me a hand?"
After one of the monks returned home, I became better friends with Sakoeurn (pronounced, more or less, sa-KOON) Korn, a cheerful monk who had grown up near Soy. Stubborn Sakoeurn, who is now 48, knew exactly how he wanted to study English — even if his approach made no sense to me or to Ed Janus, a friend I recruited as co-tutor.
As Soy's English improved, I learned that he had grown up one of nine children in a farming family. I have long tried to avoid asking about "Pol Pot time" (the Khmer Rouge reign of terror is usually referenced by the name of its leader), but I did learn that he had slaved in the rice paddies, digging canals and building dikes. As soon as the Vietnamese Army expelled the Khmer Rouge in 1979, Soy and Sakoeurn were ordained as monks in the same ceremony.
This year, on Oct. 9, Ed Janus and I watched Sakoeurn become an American citizen at the Robert Kastenmeier courthouse on Henry Street, a milestone that Soy had passed more than a year earlier. As we left, I mentioned in passing that Kastenmeier had been a steadfast opponent of the American war on Vietnam.
Although I have never gotten the definitive word on why they chose to become monks, following the compassionate example of the Buddha was — and is — the core of being Cambodian, both in Cambodia and, at least among the elders, here in Dane County. The monk is the center of that existence, performing ceremonies, guarding the temple and, as I was about to learn, building it.
I was introduced to the big building project in typical Cambodian fashion — obliquely. In the temple during English classes, I noticed a drawing of a gateway that echoed Angkor Wat, the massive complex of temples built during the apex of the Angkor Empire, almost 1,000 years ago.
Cambodians don't shower you with information, and I paid little attention to the drawing until Soy mentioned that gateway had been designed in Cambodia, would be built of reinforced concrete, and would be linked to a concrete fence several hundred yards in length.
The more I learned, the more improbable this project seemed. The gateway would be 35 feet tall and, like the fence, ornamented with thousands of handmade castings formed in 15 or 20 different molds. Soy would be the architect, and would, together with his fellow Cambodians, build the whole thing. I knew Soy had done some building with concrete in Cambodia, but I stressed that in Wisconsin, the ground freezes every winter, and there are these building codes.
Immediately, our English lessons shifted from discussions of past imperfect and the confusion over synonyms to more concrete subjects, like rebar, cement, gravel and the many meanings of "square." We talked about welding, frost heaving, and why a column has a "head" and a "foot." These discussions recalled my days as a mason in Waterloo, east of Madison, and my worst-selling book, the Masonry Toolbox Manual, published in 1990.
I began to realize that Soy and I both were interested in ideas and words — and in the art of building.
When a backhoe dug footings for the project in spring 2007, I began photographing Dane County's most improbable construction project. I watched as Soy and Sakoeurn bent and welded a stack of re-rod into sturdy reinforcements, with help from several other local Cambodians. I watched the crew build elaborate forms and photographed a dozen Cambodian men casting two giant columns for the gateway– all under the calm direction of a sandal-wearing monk in an orange robe.
I discussed with Soy the proper mix of cement and sand, and even pitched in to help build those castings, one by one. When I invited an architect friend to check out the construction techniques, he remarked, "I don't have anything to teach them."
Still determined to know why the project was so important, I asked Sarith, who simply said, "This is a traditional temple, and they usually build a gate and a fence."
And why was the temple so important?
"When Cambodians serve the temple and the monks, we build merits that are helpful during reincarnation," Sarith explained. "If someone died and went to hell, we try to bring food, money to the monks, to help get them released from hell."
Sarith Ou has been one of the driving forces at the temple since it was born in an apartment at Allied Drive in 1991, but he's had help. In 1992, the Madison Community Foundation contributed $10,000 for a down payment to buy five acres of land for the temple. The Mental Health Center of Dane County had long supported treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is rampant among survivors of the Cambodian holocaust.
Roger Garms, who served in Vietnam, and then became a psychologist specializing in the psychic wounds of war, had begun to wonder "if PTSD crossed over cultural boundaries" after he moved to Madison in 1990, so he volunteered at United Refugee Service. "We started a group of Cambodian army veterans," he says, "and these guys had exactly the same symptoms as the Americans GIs," even though their exposure was more severe.
"They were slaves for four years, and many of them also saw four years of bloody combat. The kind of things they witnessed — the murder of children, deliberate attempts to undercut people's sense of goodness, turning people against one another — was so cruel, so vicious, it was difficult to treat."
PTSD can be seen as a failure to relax from the hyper-vigilant state that is necessary during battle, Roger says. "Their whole personality was so tied up with these arousal symptoms that they had become different people. I remember one guy telling me, 'You see me sitting here, but this is not really me. The person sitting here is the ghost of me. I died in Cambodia.' These the same exact words I used to hear from GIs."
Although psychotherapy helped Americans with PTSD, Roger and his partner and fellow therapist Ann Garden found it less successful with Cambodians, and they stumbled on a different approach. "What proved to be most helpful was social work, to get citizenship, help the disabled get benefits, housing, attorneys, medications," Roger says. "We have a really good psychiatrist, Fred Coleman, who has been with us since the beginning."
The problem is not just PTSD, Roger emphasizes. "They have lost their culture, the ability to make a living.... They are in danger of anomie, rootlessness, a loss of place and purpose in life." And it is here that the temple may be most important.
"It gives meaning and purpose to people's lives," he says. "The temple in a village in Cambodia is really the only social institution. It helps the poor, the mentally ill. People trying to recover from drugs or alcohol can shave their heads, stay in the temple, and help the monks while they try to get their lives together."
Roger was gratified to watch "these soldiers get a temple started. It was really great to see them be able to do what they did, and see how much better they felt. It's an odd way to do psychotherapy, but you do what you can."
As time passed, I realized somebody was going to write about this massive building project and that I was in the ideal position to do it. This September, I drew Soy away from a group that was mixing and pouring concrete on the fence. We sat down on the ground and I asked how he had responded when the chief monk of Cambodia asked him to fly halfway around the world to lead a temple in a state he'd never heard of.
"I told him that would be okay, but I would have to ask my parents," Soy responded. With parental consent, he boarded an airplane for the first time and flew to Wisconsin and moved into the ramshackle house near the road — which was demolished this summer.
His arrival, I learned, quelled the internal tensions that the project had stirred. "It says something about Soy's character," says Roger. "He is a real monk, and everybody knows it, and that transcended those disputes, because you could not stay away when Soy was there."
Wisconsin was a cold place for a tropical man who had not yet begun to wear socks, but Soy maintained his monastic habits — never being alone with a woman, eating two meals a day, and refraining from such diversions as singing, dancing or attending baseball games (much to the dismay of Ed Janus, founder of the Madison Muskies).
Once situated in Oregon, Soy took up the religious duties he'd been trained for: chanting, meditating, consoling grieving families, and leading rituals. He directed the New Year's and ancestors' ceremonies, which attract hundreds of Cambodians from all over the Midwest for chanting, dancing, prayer, traditional reenactments and, of course, plenty of schmoozing and eating.
At the ancestor ceremony in late September, Vanna Pol, who has lived in Wisconsin since 1983, and is secretary of the Cambodian Buddhist Society, told me that the temple helps preserve the Cambodian Buddhist traditions: "Respect for old people, nonviolence, not having anger."
The monks at the ceremony were the center of attention. The food was plentiful, the English was scarce, and, as the monks chanted in the temple, I was reminded of the snap decision I'd made 12 years ago.
In a culture that reveres teachers and reveres monks, I was the monk's teacher.
But, in our own odd ways, Soy and I are also construction workers. When he came outside after the chanting was done, I teased him about his gate: "I thought you'd be done by now." We both laughed.
Madison group helps build Cambodian schools
As the political situation in Cambodia has stabilized, Cambodian Americans have begun visiting their homeland, and this transcontinental travel has spawned the Khmer School Project (khmerschool.com), a Madison-based nonprofit. In 1999, the group began buying school uniforms for poor village kids in rural Cambodia as a way to encourage school attendance, and in 2003, construction of the first school began. Now, the fourth school is nearing completion, and ancillary projects, such as teacher training, vegetable gardens and fish ponds, are under way.


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When Apple came out with a page about battery care, most people assumed that Apple had issued the guidelines in order to deflect battery capacity complaints. One warning concerning iPod battery heat while charging may not have been made out of self-interest, though. According to Agence France-Presse, an iPod in Japan overheated while being charged in its case.
Actually, the iPod nano in question overheated so much that it began giving off sparks, which isn't something you ever want to see your iPod doing. The incident has gotten the Japanese government's attention, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) has said that it will investigate the case. There's no word on whether the device was inside a case while it was being charged (which Apple warns against), but either way, you might want to take your iPod out of its case in the future. That is, unless spontaneous combustion is your thing.