text:
United Therapeutics Announces Additional $420 Million Share Repurchase Program
SILVER SPRING, Md., Feb. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- United Therapeutics Corporation today announced that its Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of up to an additional $420 million of the company's common stock. This program will become effec
SILVER SPRING, Md., Feb. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- United Therapeutics Corporation today announced that its Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of up to an additional $420 million of the company's common stock. This program will become effective on March 4, 2013, and will remain open for up to one year. Purchases may be made in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions from time to time as determined by United Therapeutics' management and in accordance with the requirements of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company also announced that it had recently completed its previously-announced $100 million repurchase program by purchasing approximately 1,186,000 shares of common stock for a total of $57.1 million during the fourth quarter of 2012.
"I am pleased that our board has authorized an additional $420 million in share repurchases," remarked Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D., United Therapeutics' Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "We believe these are an appropriate opportunity to return value to our shareholders."
About United Therapeutics
United Therapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on the development and commercialization of unique products to address the unmet medical needs of patients with chronic and life-threatening conditions. [uthr-g]
Forward-looking Statements
Statements included in this press release that are not historical in nature are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include, among others, statements regarding future repurchases of shares of our common stock. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, such as those described in our periodic and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, that could cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results. These risks and uncertainties include, among others, our ability to successfully execute repurchases on favorable terms, and such forward-looking statements are qualified by the cautionary statements, cautionary language and risk factors set forth in our periodic reports and documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8?K. We claim the protection of the safe harbor contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 for forward-looking statements. We are providing this information as of February 4, 2013, and assume no obligation to update or revise the information contained in this press release whether as a result of new information, future events or any other reason.


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Insurers are now required to use a new form that describes in plain English deductibles, co-pays, and other costs. Consumer Reports' just-released analysis of almost 1,000 health care plans can also help you make better choices.
When Kate Evans was freelancing, she says trying to sort through health insurance choices was a nightmare.
"The options weren't really straightforward, and it was very confusing as to what you really got. Pages of information that just didn't make sense," said Evans.
Consumer Reports analyzed 984 private, Medicare, and Medicaid health insurance plans ranked by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, or NCQA, a nonprofit accreditation organization.
"The rankings take a number of factors into consideration, including customer satisfaction and how good a job the plan does on treatment and prevention," said Consumer Reports' Nancy Metcalf.
On the plus side, the quality of care has improved. But Consumer Reports says there are troubling trends, as well.
"There are treatments and tests that have been shown not to be helpful, yet research shows many are still being overused. That's not only a waste of money, but you could end up getting treatments that are unnecessary, and sometimes even dangerous," Metcalf said.
Turns out the providers of the top 10 private plans are all nonprofits.
"That means they don't have to worry about turning a profit for investors, they only about pleasing their customers."
In the rankings, big name for-profit companies UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, and Humana had more private plans at the bottom than at the top.
When it comes to shopping for insurance, a new form will make the process much easier.
"For the first time, every plan will have a form that looks exactly the same, which will make it much easier to compare them side by side," said Metcalf.
So, people will have a much easier time comparing different policies.
Additional information on choosing health insurance and how the new Affordable Care Act will effect you is available at: www.consumerreports.org/health/insurance/health-insurance.htm.
A note about the rankings Consumer Reports used in its analysis: insurance company plans that are accredited by the NCQA are allotted a certain number of points. Not all insurance plans are accredited, and some are accredited by another organization. There is a fee involved for any accreditation. Consumer Reports says getting accredited is an important step because it shows insurers are willing to report on their plans performance and that has led to improved performance.
All Consumer Reports Material Copyright 2008. Consumers Union of U.S. Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Consumer Reports is a not for profit organization which accepts no advertising. It has no commercial relationship with any advertiser or sponsor on this site. For more information visit consumerreports.org.

subset: commoncrawl


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13 marzo 2013
Salone Internazionale del Mobile
9th–14th April 2013
Milan, Italy
Milan Fairgrounds, Rho
Pavilion 16
Stand A29 B22
Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 09.30 am – 6.30 pm. Trade only.
Open to the general public only on Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th April.
Arper Showroom
Via Pantano 30
20122 Milan
Opening time:
9th to 14th April 2013
10 am – 9 pm
Edition: Bardi's Bowl Chair
A Dialogue Between Arper and Lina
Arper presents an edition of Bardi's Bowl chair, designed in 1951 by Italian-Brasilian architect Lina Bo Bardi.
Special event
10th April
18.30h to 22.00h
We noticed you are browsing Arper worldwide website, please click below to access Arper North America website and explore dedicated content and services.Click Here


text:
I drove the new Golf GTD from Wolfsburg to Berlin on the Autobahn and some mountain roads. What I've learned is that, although the U.S. isn't getting it for a while, it's a car worth waiting for.
(Full Disclosure: Volkswagen wanted me to drive the GTD so badly they flew me business class to Wolfsburg, put me up in a very nice hotel and paid for all my Hendrick's Gin & Tonics and let me try out their new toys, just not in that order.)
It's the new generation of the Golf, so you know half the story even before getting a glimpse of it. But when you do, you probably approve as this seventh Golf looks pretty sharp. And when it comes to the GTD version, from the outside, only the missing red stripe from the grill tells you that it's not a GTI. Just like on the inside, where the grey tartan seats remind you of the TDI up front.
That's because the GTD is essentially a GTI with lots of torque instead of rev-happy horsepower and much better fuel economy. Volkswagen's hinted it could get better than 40 MPG highway with the DSG gearbox in a car that reaches 62 mph in 7.5 seconds and keeps going until 143 mph effortlessly. Sounds like your ideal hot hatch?
Dewalt 20V Max Cordless Drill & Driver Kit
#1 Best-seller
Comes equipped with an LED which goes on when the trigger is pulled. You'll a clear view of whatever you are drilling or screwing with minimal shadows.
The top speed is actually quite interesting even if it only effects the Germans and the residents of the Isle of Man. You floor the GTD and it will reach 143 mph in no time. It remains pretty quiet too.
You also feel that it could do more, and when looking at the tachometer, there's at least another 1,500 revs to go until redline. I believe the only reason for it to stop there is the GTI's top speed of 152 mph. The diesel is not allowed to match the star of the lineup. Still, if you choose the manual gearbox, the GTD rewards you with an extra mile per hour.
Slowing down from Autobahn speeds, the brakes were good and very progressive, the ride is nice and since the GTD uses the GTI's chassis, it's rigid and you can throw it around the corners very accurately. The steering also gives enough feedback despite being electric rather than hydraulic, so if you push it hard, the GTD delivers.
Having said that, I was using the car mostly in normal mode out of the five settings offered by the touchscreen. The sport mode certainly sharpens things up a bit, but it also keeps the TDI revving higher which is still not something you want to listen to but will thanks to the (optional) sound actuator system. It's also pointless since the maximum torque of 280 lb.ft. is available from 1,750 to 3,250 rpm, meaning that if you want to overtake somebody, you can, no matter what the actual settings are.
It's really all about the torque with this two-litre engine. There are 184 horses under the hood, but the torque dominates the scene. And in the corners, you better be careful with that since the GTD is not getting the clever electronic front axle transverse differential lock that comes with the GTI's performance package option. Bad point for VW there.
It's difficult to criticize modern cars because they ride well, have good brakes and give you plenty of power for not that much fuel. The sporty diesel version of the seventh Golf is no exception, and when it comes to the cabin, we're talking about Audi quality. It's a nice place to be in, and thanks to the new MQB construction, much more spacious too.
There are two SD slots in the glove box for your entertainment, a sporty steering wheel in front of you and an informative touchscreen in the middle. The only thing that didn't work well was the satellite navigation, which looks great and does its job brilliantly if you pre-program it, but is impossible to zoom in or out of in case your plans have changed. This fool couldn't figure out how to make it work properly, which means it's not foolproof enough. A surprising error.
I'm not really a Golf person, but at the end of the drive, I had to admit that the GTD is a very clever allrounder. I loved the tartan seats, the fact that the trip computer's numbers are animated to remind you of flipping clocks (little details like this sell cars), the build quality and the whole concept of going fast while using a lot less fuel.
It's certainly not as exciting as a GTI, but just as quick in real life while making much more sense as a daily driver. Is it a good compromise? See for yourself America in 2015.
Photo credit: Volkswagen AG


text:
National Geographic
Robert Kunzig
January 2011
Nobody then really had any idea; there were few censuses. Leeuwenhoek started with an estimate that around a million people lived in Holland. Using maps and a little spherical geometry, he calculated that the inhabited land area of the planet was 13,385 times as large as Holland. It was hard to imagine the whole planet being as densely peopled as Holland, which seemed crowded even then. Thus, Leeuwenhoek concluded triumphantly, there couldn't be more than 13.385 billion people on Earth—a small number indeed compared with the 150 billion sperm cells of a single codfish! This cheerful little calculation, writes population biologist Joel Cohen in his book How Many People Can the Earth Support? , may have been the first attempt to give a quantitative answer to a question that has become far more pressing now than it was in the 17th century. Most answers these days are far from cheerful.
Historians now estimate that in Leeuwenhoek's day there were only half a billion or so humans on Earth. After rising very slowly for millennia, the number was just starting to take off. A century and a half later, when another scientist reported the discovery of human egg cells, the world's population had doubled to more than a billion. A century after that, around 1930, it had doubled again to two billion. The acceleration since then has been astounding. Before the 20th century, no human had lived through a doubling of the human population, but there are people alive today who have seen it triple. Sometime in late 2011, according to the UN Population Division, there will be seven billion of us.
And the explosion, though it is slowing, is far from over. Not only are people living longer, but so many women across the world are now in their childbearing years—1.8 billion—that the global population will keep growing for another few decades at least, even though each woman is having fewer children than she would have had a generation ago. By 2050 the total number could reach 10.5 billion, or it could stop at eight billion—the difference is about one child per woman. UN demographers consider the middle road their best estimate: They now project that the population may reach nine billion before 2050—in 2045. The eventual tally will depend on the choices individual couples make when they engage in that most intimate of human acts, the one Leeuwenhoek interrupted so carelessly for the sake of science.
With the population still growing by about 80 million each year, it's hard not to be alarmed. Right now on Earth, water tables are falling, soil is eroding, glaciers are melting, and fish stocks are vanishing. Close to a billion people go hungry each day. Decades from now, there will likely be two billion more mouths to feed, mostly in poor countries. There will be billions more people wanting and deserving to boost themselves out of poverty. If they follow the path blazed by wealthy countries—clearing forests, burning coal and oil, freely scattering fertilizers and pesticides—they too will be stepping hard on the planet's natural resources. How exactly is this going to work?
THERE MAY BE SOME COMFORT in knowing that people have long been alarmed about population. From the beginning, says French demographer Hervé Le Bras, demography has been steeped in talk of the apocalypse. Some of the field's founding papers were written just a few years after Leeuwenhoek's discovery by Sir William Petty, a founder of the Royal Society. He estimated that world population would double six times by the Last Judgment, which was expected in about 2,000 years. At that point it would exceed 20 billion people—more, Petty thought, than the planet could feed. "And then, according to the prediction of the Scriptures, there must be wars, and great slaughter, &c.," he wrote.
As religious forecasts of the world's end receded, Le Bras argues, population growth itself provided an ersatz mechanism of apocalypse. "It crystallized the ancient fear, and perhaps the ancient hope, of the end of days," he writes. In 1798 Thomas Malthus, an English priest and economist, enunciated his general law of population: that it necessarily grows faster than the food supply, until war, disease, and famine arrive to reduce the number of people. As it turned out, the last plagues great enough to put a dent in global population had already happened when Malthus wrote. World population hasn't fallen, historians think, since the Black Death of the 14th century.
In the two centuries after Malthus declared that population couldn't continue to soar, that's exactly what it did. The process started in what we now call the developed countries, which were then still developing. The spread of New World crops like corn and the potato, along with the discovery of chemical fertilizers, helped banish starvation in Europe. Growing cities remained cesspools of disease at first, but from the mid-19th century on, sewers began to channel human waste away from drinking water, which was then filtered and chlorinated; that dramatically reduced the spread of cholera and typhus.
Moreover in 1798, the same year that Malthus published his dyspeptic tract, his compatriot Edward Jenner described a vaccine for smallpox—the first and most important in a series of vaccines and antibiotics that, along with better nutrition and sanitation, would double life expectancy in the industrializing countries, from 35 years to 77 today. It would take a cranky person to see that trend as gloomy: "The development of medical science was the straw that broke the camel's back," wrote Stanford population biologist Paul Ehrlich in 1968.
Ehrlich's book, The Population Bomb , made him the most famous of modern Malthusians. In the 1970s, Ehrlich predicted, "hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death," and it was too late to do anything about it. "The cancer of population growth … must be cut out," Ehrlich wrote, "by compulsion if voluntary methods fail." The very future of the United States was at risk.
In spite or perhaps because of such language, the book was a best seller, as Malthus's had been.
And this time too the bomb proved a dud. The green revolution—a combination of high-yield seeds, irrigation, pesticides, and fertilizers that enabled grain production to double—was already under way. Today many people are undernourished, but mass starvation is rare.
Ehrlich was right, though, that population would surge as medical science spared many lives. After World War II the developing countries got a sudden transfusion of preventive care, with the help of institutions like the World Health Organization and UNICEF. Penicillin, the smallpox vaccine, DDT (which, though later controversial, saved millions from dying of malaria)—all arrived at once. In India life expectancy went from 38 years in 1952 to 64 today; in China, from 41 to 73. Millions of people in developing countries who would have died in childhood survived to have children themselves. That's why the population explosion spread around the planet: because a great many people were saved from dying.
And because, for a time, women kept giving birth at a high rate. In 18th-century Europe or early 20th-century Asia, when the average woman had six children, she was doing what it took to replace herself and her mate, because most of those children never reached adulthood. When child mortality declines, couples eventually have fewer children—but that transition usually takes a generation at the very least. Today in developed countries, an average of 2.1 births per woman would maintain a steady population; in the developing world, "replacement fertility" is somewhat higher. In the time it takes for the birthrate to settle into that new balance with the death rate, population explodes.
Demographers call this evolution the demographic transition. All countries go through it in their own time. It's a hallmark of human progress: In a country that has completed the transition, people have wrested from nature at least some control over death and birth. The global population explosion is an inevitable side effect, a huge one that some people are not sure our civilization can survive. But the growth rate was actually at its peak just as Ehrlich was sounding his alarm. By the early 1970s, fertility rates around the world had begun dropping faster than anyone had anticipated. Since then, the population growth rate has fallen by more than 40 percent.
THE FERTILITY DECLINE that is now sweeping the planet started at different times in different countries. France was one of the first. By the early 18th century, noblewomen at the French court were knowing carnal pleasures without bearing more than two children. They often relied on the same method Leeuwenhoek used for his studies: withdrawal, or coitus interruptus. Village parish records show the trend had spread to the peasantry by the late 18th century; by the end of the 19th, fertility in France had fallen to three children per woman—without the help of modern contraceptives. The key innovation was conceptual, not contraceptive, says Gilles Pison of the National Institute for Demographic Studies in Paris. Until the Enlightenment, "the number of children you had, it was God who decided. People couldn't fathom that it might be up to them."
Other countries in the West eventually followed France's lead. By the onset of World War II, fertility had fallen close to the replacement level in parts of Europe and the U.S. Then, after the surprising blip known as the baby boom, came the bust, again catching demographers off guard.
They assumed some instinct would lead women to keep having enough children to ensure the survival of the species. Instead, in country after developed country, the fertility rate fell below replacement level. In the late 1990s in Europe it fell to 1.4. "The evidence I'm familiar with, which is anecdotal, is that women couldn't care less about replacing the species," Joel Cohen says.
The end of a baby boom can have two big economic effects on a country. The first is the "demographic dividend"—a blissful few decades when the boomers swell the labor force and the number of young and old dependents is relatively small, and there is thus a lot of money for other things. Then the second effect kicks in: The boomers start to retire. What had been considered the enduring demographic order is revealed to be a party that has to end. The sharpening American debate over Social Security and last year's strikes in France over increasing the retirement age are responses to a problem that exists throughout the developed world: how to support an aging population. "In 2050 will there be enough people working to pay for pensions?" asks Frans Willekens, director of the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute in The Hague. "The answer is no."
In industrialized countries it took generations for fertility to fall to the replacement level or below. As that same transition takes place in the rest of the world, what has astonished demographers is how much faster it is happening there. Though its population continues to grow, China, home to a fifth of the world's people, is already below replacement fertility and has been for nearly 20 years, thanks in part to the coercive one-child policy implemented in 1979; Chinese women, who were bearing an average of six children each as recently as 1965, are now having around 1.5. In Iran, with the support of the Islamic regime, fertility has fallen more than 70 percent since the early '80s. In Catholic and democratic Brazil, women have reduced their fertility rate by half over the same quarter century. "We still don't understand why fertility has gone down so fast in so many societies, so many cultures and religions. It's just mind-boggling," says Hania Zlotnik, director of the UN Population Division.
"At this moment, much as I want to say there's still a problem of high fertility rates, it's only about 16 percent of the world population, mostly in Africa," says Zlotnik. South of the Sahara, fertility is still five children per woman; in Niger it is seven. But then, 17 of the countries in the region still have life expectancies of 50 or less; they have just begun the demographic transition. In most of the world, however, family size has shrunk dramatically. The UN projects that the world will reach replacement fertility by 2030. "The population as a whole is on a path toward nonexplosion—which is good news," Zlotnik says.
The bad news is that 2030 is two decades away and that the largest generation of adolescents in history will then be entering their childbearing years. Even if each of those women has only two children, population will coast upward under its own momentum for another quarter century. Is a train wreck in the offing, or will people then be able to live humanely and in a way that doesn't destroy their environment? One thing is certain: Close to one in six of them will live in India.
At Lok Nayak Hospital, on the edge of the chaotic and densely peopled nest of lanes that is Old Delhi, a human tide flows through the entrance gate every morning and crowds inside on the lobby floor. "Who could see this and not be worried about the population of India?" a surgeon named Chandan Bortamuly asked one afternoon as he made his way toward his vasectomy clinic. "Population is our biggest problem." Removing the padlock from the clinic door, Bortamuly stepped into a small operating room. Inside, two men lay stretched out on examination tables, their testicles poking up through holes in the green sheets. A ceiling fan pushed cool air from two window units around the room.
Bortamuly is on the front lines of a battle that has been going on in India for nearly 60 years. In 1952, just five years after it gained independence from Britain, India became the first country to establish a policy for population control. Since then the government has repeatedly set ambitious goals—and repeatedly missed them by a mile. A national policy adopted in 2000 called for the country to reach the replacement fertility of 2.1 by 2010. That won't happen for at least another decade. In the UN's medium projection, India's population will rise to just over 1.6 billion people by 2050. "What's inevitable is that India is going to exceed the population of China by 2030," says A. R. Nanda, former head of the Population Foundation of India, an advocacy group. "Nothing less than a huge catastrophe, nuclear or otherwise, can change that."
Sterilization is the dominant form of birth control in India today, and the vast majority of the procedures are performed on women. The government is trying to change that; a no-scalpel vasectomy costs far less and is easier on a man than a tubal ligation is on a woman. In the operating theater Bortamuly worked quickly. "They say the needle pricks like an ant bite," he explained, when the first patient flinched at the local anesthetic. "After that it's basically painless, bloodless surgery." Using the pointed tip of a forceps, Bortamuly made a tiny hole in the skin of the scrotum and pulled out an oxbow of white, stringy vas deferens—the sperm conduit from the patient's right testicle. He tied off both ends of the oxbow with fine black thread, snipped them, and pushed them back under the skin. In less than seven minutes—a nurse timed him—the patient was walking out without so much as a Band-Aid. The government will pay him an incentive fee of 1,100 rupees (around $25), a week's wages for a laborer.


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Organizers pleased with ArtiGras turnout
Don McWorter's art named 'Best in Show'
It's the 28th annual event -- and 12th straight year in Abacoa -- that welcomes nearly 300 fine artists from all over the country to Jupiter. ArtiGras is regarded as one of the 50 biggest art shows in the country, and WPBF 25 News is the official sponsor.
Don McWhorter and his pottery won "best in show," and he is very proud of the honor.
"I won a few of the other awards, but to be named best in show is just phenomenal," said McWhorter.
Jason Pavolinis traveled from California to be in the show. He said he travels all over the country to display his landscape photography.
"The uniqueness of my photography is the gel coating that I put into it," said Pavolinis. "It allows you to see into the work even more."
This year, ArtiGras was ranked 58 in Sunshine Artist Magazine's list of top 100 Fine Art Festivals in the country.
The three-day outdoor show is open Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Central Boulevard is closed between Main Street and Frederick Small Road. University Drive also is closed between Central and Main. Those roads will be closed until Tuesday evening.
More than 300 artists from throughout the country are exhibiting their work.


text:
It's an old story: A man and a woman meet at work and they hit it off. They're both married, although not to each other. One lunch turns into two, two into three, and eventually they've got a pattern. For years, they get together two or three times a week as regularly as clockwork, share daily emails, and call each other frequently. Each makes the other happy because, in many ways, they are kindred spirits. During their get togethers, they do not worry about their respective spouses. Pretty sordid, huh?
Except it's not. I've described my decade-long friendship with my fellow blogger, Don Quixote. Because we are each deeply committed to our own marriages, our relationship never veers from the enjoyably and respectably platonic. Indeed, one of my favorite lunch companions is Mrs. Don Quixote, who joins us whenever she's not at work. She is a most delightful person, and I'm as pleased to count her among my friends as I am Don Quixote himself. Don Quixote and I are just best friends, in much the same way two women or two men share a purely non-sexual friendship. I know I feel blessed to have this friendship, and I'm pretty sure he does too.
Fortunately, our family and friends know us well, which means that they know our values well, so I don't believe there's ever been the breath of suspicion hovering about our friendship. But were either he or I to enter the public world and face the scrutiny of those who don't know us, the evidence would be damning: regular assignations, phone calls, emails. It's all there. Our honest, righteous protestations of innocence would certainly fall on innumerable deaf ears.
As I write these words, I'm aware of very limited solid evidence to support Ginger White's claim that she had a 13 year long affair with Herman Cain. She's pointed to phone calls. He's admitted them, but claims that they are innocent. I also know that Ginger White doesn't strike me as an exceptionally savory person. One could take her spotted history to mean that she'd have no compunction about having an affair with a married man, or one could take it to mean that she has a somewhat strained relationship with the truth. I don't know.
And that's the point: the only two who know based upon the slender evidence available are Ginger White and Herman Cain. One of them is lying. I, however, am loath to convict a person based upon what could be, as Cain says, evidence only of friendship. I happen to know a couple of older men, men in Cain's age group and socio-economic stratum, who have gone out of their way for younger women, helping them financially or with work. Both these men adore their wives and there never was evidence (or accusation) of any impropriety. Both of them, however, clearly enjoyed the role of avuncular helper to an attractive, slightly younger, woman. It was good for their egos, although it didn't involve anything sordid.
I haven't been impressed with the way in which Cain has handled these sexually based allegations — although, if one assumes these attacks are indeed smears (and, absent better evidence, I do), it's virtually impossible to rebut them in an impressive way. In the "he said/she said" battle that plays out over the liberal media, the conservative black man is always wrong.
Incidentally, I don't have a dog in this fight. Although I briefly considered Cain as a candidate, he simply doesn't float my boat. I like some of his ideas, I like his charm, I like his commitment to America, but he's not the candidate for me. The one thing I'm not going to do, though, is turn my back on the man because of unsubstantiated allegations that I know, for a fact, can be subject to other, entirely innocent, interpretations.
(Photo of Herman Cain by Gage Skidmore)
Cross-posted Bookworm Room


text:
Elegant Valentine Love Cake with Mug
- Description
- Additional information
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This product contains 100% Veg Ingredients.
Excellent gifting option on occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, weddings or for any Special Day!
Gift a sweet moment to someone you love by gifting a yummy Chocholik Gift Hampers which include Cake with Love Mugs. Order this Gift Hamper from Chocholik, and cherish the moment together.
Please note :Hampers design n looks may vary.
All deliveries take place between 11:00 Am to 7:00 Pm from Monday to Saturday.
We do not deliver on Sundays or Public Holidays.
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500gm, 1kg
Chocolate, Pineapple, Cafe Mocha, Blueberry, BlackForest, Butterscotch, Red Velvet, Chocolate Mousse
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text:
|McKeon, Thomas
|Morris, John - Brad
Submitted to: Handbook of Plant Breeding
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/18/2009
Publication Date: 9/18/2009
Citation: Auld, D.L., Zanotto, M.D., Mckeon, T.A., Morris, J.B. 2009. Castor. Handbook of Plant Breeding. 4:317-332
Interpretive Summary: Castor bean is currently used as a laxative and a lubricant oil. Recently, castor bean oil has been proposed to be a premier candidate crop for biodiesel production in the United States as well as countries worldwide. Castor bean originated from eastern Africa and spread throughout the world for use as a cash oil crop. Several varieties have been developed from castorbean including those with ornamental characteristics. Approximately 6,588 castorbean accessions are conserved in Brazil, China, Africa, Europe and United States. Breeding efforts have focused on eliminating some toxic seed components, reducing allergens, disease resistence, and agronomic characteristics. Soon, castorbean will most likely be a crop used for biodiesel production in Brazil and the United States.
Technical Abstract: Castor (Ricinus communis L.) has the potential to become the premier oil crop for industrial oil production across the glove and is an ideal candidate for production of high value, industrial oil because of the very high oil content (48-60%) of the seed, the extremely high levels of potential oil production (500-1,000 liters of oil/acre), and this plants unique ability to produce oils with extremely high levels (80-90%) of ricinoleic acid as well as high value polymers. Because castor is not used for food and can be grown productively on marginal lands this crop represents a unique opportunity to expand industrial oil production on a global basis. Development of improved production and genetic technologies will help ensure rural regions across the world can participate in the economic potential of this crop.


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There have been plenty of live-action video game movies pumped out by Hollywood, with the aggressively bizarre Street Fighter and Super Mario Bros. adaptations being the house favorites here at io9. And one iconic gaming character to completely eschew the film treatment is Mega Man, that plucky blue cyborg who can fire saw blades, ninja stars, icicles, and whatnot out of his arm cannon.
But what if there actually was a Mega Man movie? For a mere $700, director Olan Rogers created this nifty concept piece for a Mega Man X movie. There isn't a robotic dog who can turn into a submarine, but that's our only quibble here.
I'm guessing nobody's tackled a Mega Man movie after everyone was scarred by the North American box art upon the first game's 1987 release. Here's a synopsis of this short from Rogers, who used actual dialogue from the video games and set the film between the Mega Man and Mega Man X franchises:
The beginning part of the video is a message Dr. Light records over 100 years ago, his lab is now abandoned. As the camera moves into the capsule you see a still running testing parameter where Mega Man X fights a hologram or drone in the form of Protoman.
BONUS: The recent Mega Man X remix album project from the folks at Overclocked Remix.
Hat tip to Hatman!


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From our regular Correspondent.
Letter from the 27th.
Camp Anderson,
Washington, D. C.
August 5, 1861.
Friend Black: – I had intended soon after the memorable "battle before Manassas," to write as full an account as possible concerning the advance of the 27th, the engagement following, and the final repulse and retreat to Washington, but as two weeks have since quickly elapsed, ,and letters have been daily received concerning the battle, and your readers were also favored with your letter from "Camp Anderson," dated July 24, it will be almost unnecessary to have still another statement. Our retreat, no – we don't call it a retreat – simply a retrograde movement together with the fatiguing march following, left the men, as you know, quite disheartened, but quiet and freedom from drill since our return have restored the usual good feeling, and we again hear issuing from the door of this and that "mess" the notes of patriotic songs which evince an increase of patriotic feeling and exuberant spirits. As not much has been written concerning it, I will write more particularly concerning
My last I think closed with a brief notice of orders to cross the Potomac, which was done within three hours of the command, the regiment singing, as we passed through the streets and over the Long Bridge, national airs, and hurrahing as we touched the "sacred soil," with a right good will. Upon arriving on the Virginia side we found thousands in advance of us, and were followed by regiments from Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut and New York. In the rear hundreds of ponderous baggage wagons jolted over the stony road, regiments of cavalry clattered over the uneven ground, and the rumbling of artillery here and there along the [?] combined to make up one of the grandest scenes ever witnessed, viz: an advance movement of the American Army.
That night, fatigued by a forced march of sixteen miles, we halted at eleven o'clock six miles from Fairfax Court House, and encamped in a large field, with ripe sheaves of wheat as pillows and mattresses, a blanket for covering, and the sky as one grand tent. The rumble of baggage wagons, which filed by in one continuous train, lulled us to sleep, and in the morning roused us. A savory breakfast was cooked from [?] found in a cellar near by, and at eight o'clock we were again on the march, over a road obstructed by fallen trees and rail fences, which the advance removed, and at half past ten the order was given to form into platoons, and we ascended a hill in full view of the enemy's earthworks, which had been deserted but two hours previous.
Smoking camp fires and an untouched breakfast told of their hasty departure. But a short distance farther on, and we were at the notorious village, Fairfax Court House, and from and old rusty dome or steeple of insignificant proportions, floated a small faded "pelican flag," which was quickly removed, and in its stead out to the breeze went "[?] Red, White and Blue." Our patriotic adjutant struck up the Star Spangled Banner, and the regiment joined in the chorus, the full and hearty sound floated with the dust surrounding into the face and eyes of the few rebel occupants of the town, one or the other of which had the effect to make them look very severe. Everything in town had a deserted appearance, and in the entire march a large proportion of the dwelling past were vacated.
The division halted a short distance beyond, and in the rebel camps surrounded by earthworks on either side for the protection of rebels, with marks every where around us of their presence, we spent the second night out of Washington, several members of our company sleeping even in a tent occupied the night before by a rebel Major.
Independent foraging parties went around shortly after the halt, and collected and bro't in from different parts of the camping ground a good supply of coffee and honey, a beef that had been killed the morning previous, several tents and various cooking utensils.
Acting on the principle that "stolen fruit is the sweeter," chickens were served up in all manner of ways, ,and the supply of beef being scanty a fine bullock was found near by and added to the rations, being cooked for the following day. Yes with all this there were many acts of destruction to be regretted. Looking up from pilot bread and blackberries, I saw the flames encircle a large barn but a short distance off, and in a few moments it was in ashes. Smoke was seen in other directions, and it was reported that owners were destroying their property that it might not come into our possession. How true this was I do not know. That night for the first time we heard the cry ring out on the night air, "turn out! turn out!" and crawling from under boughs and blankets used as covering, every man jumped for his musket, and was quickly in his place. We knew we were in an enemy's country, completely surrounded by rebels who, but the night before, slept where we were sleeping, and all expected something, but were disappointed when told that the alarm was caused by an accidental discharge of a sentry's gun, followed by the order to "stack arms." Next morning we proceeded on and halted in the afternoon at the last camping ground, Camp Hunter, three miles from Centreville.
Here came the first realization of genuine camp life. Luxurious land to be simply [?] as in the far distant future or remembered past. To be sure those who had money could purchase of accommodating pedlars who followed us, as long as their supply lasted, two inches of bologna for two shillings, a pie, very thin and nearly transparent, for twenty shillings, or a pint of very common "tangle-leg" for one dollar, but as the 27th hadn't been paid off, they had as I say to look at these articles, and stand by while the regulars in the brigade, who clinked in their pockets and on the card table gold for four months pay, did the "shopping."
During our stay a sentence was executed upon two deserters from the 3d Infantry, which was fifty lashes upon the bare back well laid on, branding with the letter D, one and a half inches long and one inch wide, forfeiture of pay due and coming due, and at the expiration of ten days they were to be drummed out of camp. It was a sorry sight and one which no one wants to witness more than once,
At one o'clock Sunday morning, July 21st, the bugle sounded, and at two we started for Manassas Junction, with minds fully made up for a complete victory. Going four miles we left the direct road and marched through a road cut through the woods, with but an occasional and very brief halt, fourteen miles which placed the division in a position to make the attach from the rear of the enemy. During the entire distance all the water we drank was of the muddiest kind, and breakfast had to be eaten while marching. At half past ten, after a halt of fifteen minutes, the 27th was ordered onward, and away we went, on double quick, into the battle field, saluted upon coming into view by a round from the enemy's batteries, which directed fire upon us, and soon changed the occasional booming to a continuous roar. – Right here I might as well stop. I shall not, nor can I give a description of that battle; an account I might give, but that you have had entire. Pen and ink cannot describe the roar of the cannon, the rattle of musketry, the charge of cavalry, the groans and implorations of the wounded, and dying, nor the horrors of war. The 27th fought bravely and nobly, and compelled to retreat, tired and worn, we slowly moved back toward Centreville, leaving our dead and wounded to the mercy of the enemy. Our retreat was hastened by an alarm, and arriving at the stone bridge another alarm was given which was too real. The rebels had planted a battery near the bridge, and were pouring in shell and grape furiously. I was near the Rhode Island battery when we arrived at the bridge, and such a scene of confusion I scarce ever witnessed. The gunners unhitched their horses and mounting them dashed away through the crowd leaving the battery – four heavy brass pieces – in the reach of the rebels. The wagoners, who followed next, joined in the panic, and cutting the fastenings to the wagons left them standing and upturned along the road. Infantry crowded on and hurried across, and as far as the eye could reach was one dense mass of soldiers fleeing for very life, and strewing the road as they went with muskets, blankets and haversacks, some even throwing away shoes to free themselves from everything which prevented a rapid flight. Near Centreville, confidence was restored by meeting fresh troops, and with a more steady tread the march was continued, with but a short halt at Camp Hunter, till on Monday morning at nine o'clock, wet with drenching rain, we came into Fort Runyon, (just across the river), weary, footsore and exhausted, having marched according to statistics at the War Department, sixty-four miles, and been six hours in the battle field, without rest during the entire thirty-one hours.
Why a defeat, "and whose fault is it?" are questions which every one first asks, It was not because bravery and courage were wanting, and General Scott compliments his Generals in the strongest terms. One thing is certain, reinforcements were lacking, and while the enemy, after each volley, relived the exhausted with fresh troops, we were compelled to repeat the charge. Co. "K" did gloriously! The timid and weak (what Co. did not have them!) dropped out one by one, and placed themselves in positions of safety, leaving the field free to the true soldiers, who, amid the hottest fire, did their work manfully and nobly, and richly deserved the proudest victory ever achieved.
Our Col. is fast improving, and although he has received the appointment of Brigadier General, we hope to see him with us again temporarily, if not permanently. I picked up a Rochester Democrat of Aug. 3d, [?], and was astonished to find in it an article headed, "Information (!) for friends and relatives of Co. K, [?]," which contained such a [?] of misstatements that it must not pass [?] [?]. With but one or two exceptions the entire communication is false from the beginning to end, and the various expressions of those who read it were certainly amusing. The writer's attempts to make us notorious are refreshing, [?] doubt whether any would be able to endure it but those who (the writer says) "charged and took unsupported a battery eight times." (!) The fact is we have become disgusted with the lies in circulation, tales of heroic deeds, and narrow escapes, &c. &c., and prefer simply plain and truthful statements concerning us, knowing that the former are an injury, while the latter is our due, and all that we desire. I am sorry to add as a finale, that two deserters from Co. K, named J. Carlos Humphrey and William Murdock, are at large having donned citizen's clothes, and been absent from camp for over one week. Whoever will cause their arrest will receive the usual reward.
The bugle is sounding for roll call, and hoping to be more prompt,
I am &c.,
Orleans Republican, 8/14/1861
Contributed by John Hennessy


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In the mid-90's, I recall a conversation with German Space Agency liaison, Gerhart Brauer — both a colleague and good friend to me. I struggled with a painful chapter in my life, and Gerhart offered this one simple phrase that made all the difference at the time. And even today.
Every ending is a new beginning.
Sometimes, though, this concept can be hard to accept. Personally and professionally. Take the end of our beloved Space Shuttle program, for example. Only three flights left. EVER!
My sister Aimee recently reminded me how she and Daddy watched Columbia lift off on April 12, 1981. She remembers him marveling that we could actually launch a rocket from Earth and fly it back to the planet like an airplane. The concept was so unbelievable at the time.
We take it for granted today.
I don't recall the launch at all. But, I remember the STS-1 landing two days later. I worked at the University of Texas Ex-Students' Association in Austin. We gathered around the conference table to watch Columbia land. I remember how cool it was to meet STS-1 John Young and Bob Crippin for the first time a few years later. They were the first humans to put their lives on the line and strap themselves onto the Shuttle stack for launch.
But then again, every astronaut who has ever flown on a rocket ship takes a leap of faith — each time we ignite the engines.
Yes, the fleet of amazing reusable winged vehicles served us well over the last two decades (with the exception of our tragic loss of the Challenger and Columbia crew and vehicles on two missions: STS-51-L and STS-107). We don't relish mothballing the remaining three vehicles: Atlantis, DiscoveryandEndeavour. But think about the exorbitant cost of upgrades. Cost alone makes the close-out decision for NASA managers so much easier than for those on the outside looking in.
Let's face it, many of us are mourning the end of the program. And that's ok. Grief is a reasonable human response. We love to watch our winged vehicles soar into the air, breaking gravity's grasp on humanity. Those of us fortunate enough to witness a Shuttle launch live, love to feel the ground-shaking rumble and the roar of the engines. Some have even seen the night-sky turn to day as the vehicle propels to the heavens above.
It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a Space Shuttle!!!
(Sorry Superman. We've got the real thing. You're only fiction.)
So what happens next? What follows the Space Shuttle program? Many ask. Many are angry and confused. I don't have the answers. Just know that NASA folks are furiously working to fill in the blanks. (We'll fly on Soyuz spacecraft to Station in the meantime.) Beyond that, stay tuned. No comfort for thousands of workers who made house payments, put food on the table, and paid school expenses off Shuttle-related paychecks. I get it. This post-Shuttle "new beginning" must feel like a black hole, where everything they know is disappearing into a powerful vortex outside their control. NASA has been planning this for years, but it doesn't make the end of the program any easier.
We humans don't like change, do we?
It's uncomfortable. Messy, at times. We often prefer the certainty of misery over the misery of uncertainty. That's why we stay in dead-end jobs or in joyless relationships. We're funny like that. When change comes, we fight it, dig in our heels, complain to anyone who will listen. Does that sound at all familiar?
But with every new beginning, comes new hope for a better tomorrow.
If we can only let go of those things we cling tightly to, we might have two arms free to embrace this scary, unknown new thing — sometimes called a fresh start.
Here are a few ways to face change head on. Our Goal: Influence Change!
- Think creatively.
- Use the same tools in new ways.
- Find new tools to make old ways new.
- Look at a problem upside down and right side up.
- Deconstruct to reconstruct.
- Make change your own.
- Sculpt your world into something better than ever existed before.
Who knows, you might like tomorrow better than today! Really, it could happen.
BTW: The next launch, STS-132, is scheduled for May 14. We'll be having our second Shuttle Launch tweetup at the Kennedy Space Center and a mission tweetup at the Johnson Space Center. Stay-tuned for stories about the launch, mission, and space tweeps.
If you have stories to share about where you were and how you felt with the first Space Shuttle left Earth (IF you were born), feel free to post them as comments.
Crosspost on Bethbeck's blog and OpenNASA.com.


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The TIWAY Host Adapter driver works in conjunction with KEPServerEX to exchange data between OPC clients and Siemens TIWAY compatible PLCs. KEPServerEX automatically optimizes data acquisition based on client demand and ensures data integrity through extensive error handling.
Pay a one-time product list price. Mandatory year-one Support & Maintenance Agreement is included.
Pay an annual fee to use the software. Support & Maintenance is included.


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SEOUL, South Korea — Pentagon and administration lawyers are looking for ways to expand the number of Defense Department civilians who are exempt from furloughs, amid worries that the government shutdown is damaging US credibility among its international allies, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday.
Hagel, who is on a weeklong trip to South Korea and Japan for meetings with defense and diplomatic officials, said he is being asked about the budget battle during his visit.
"It does have an effect on our relationships around the world and it cuts straight to the obvious question: Can you rely on the United States as a reliable partner to fulfill its commitments to its allies?" Hagel told reporters traveling with him. "It does cast a very significant pall over America's credibility to our allies when this kind of thing happens."
The US is putting a greater focus on the Asia-Pacific region, where nervous allies like Japan and South Korea worry about threats from North Korea and rely on America to provide them with broader missile defense capabilities and military aid.
Congress triggered the partial government shutdown Monday when the House and Senate failed to reach an agreement on a budget bill, largely because of a long-running dispute over President Barack Obama's health care law. About 800,000 federal workers will report to their jobs for half a day Tuesday before being sent home, and most non-essential federal programs and services will be shut down.
Hagel acknowledged that the shutdown will affect the Pentagon's missions around the world, including military planning. But he said the US will continue to fulfill its responsibilities to its allies, and the military will continue to keep America safe.
The budget crisis has consumed chunks of Hagel's time on the trip. He left a dinner with senior South Korean leaders Monday night to talk with his top budget advisers, and was planning another call Tuesday night.
Half of the department's 800,000 civilian workers are slated for furloughs beginning Tuesday. But Hagel said Pentagon lawyers are talking with the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget to determine if they might be able to allow more of those 400,000 furloughed civilians to continue working. He said he has gotten no answer yet.
Some of the fewer than two dozen civilians traveling with Hagel could face furloughs once they are back in the US While on the trip, they are considered exempt because they are directly supporting Hagel, so they don't have to cut short their travels and return home.
Active-duty military, who are exempt from the furloughs and will continue to work, will still be paid on time as a result of legislation passed by Congress and signed by Obama. Hagel said the civilians who are exempt from the furloughs will also continue to be paid on time.
A former US senator from Nebraska, Hagel was asked about Congress' recent inability to reach a budget agreement.
"I do worry though about the essence of governing in a democracy. We've seemed to lose that — and that is consensus and compromise," he said. "No democracy can govern itself without consensus and compromise."


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The best library collections don't do much good if people who may be interested in the content don't find it. That's why it's so important to provide good discovery tools for your collection. But even if you do that, lots of folks are going to find your content not through your own discovery interfaces, but through links from the outside. A large proportion of the visits to our institutional repository don't come through the front door, but from Google and other search engines indexing papers in the repository.
There's a whole industry set up around search engine optimization, by means both fair and foul. The basics are pretty simple, though: make it easy for search engines to find content that you want indexed, and make it easy for interested people to link to your content. (Not only will people follow those links, but search engines will typically favor content with more links to it.)
A new article in D-Lib, "Site Design Impact on Robots: An Examination of Search Engine Crawler Behavior at Deep and Wide Websites", gives some empirical support to some of the common-sense tips for getting sites indexed. Not surprisingly, they find that "wide" websites (those that make their content reachable through a relatively small number of clicks) are more readily indexed than "deep" websites (those that require a large number of clicks to get to some of their content). They also report that Google crawled their sites much more thoroughly than MSN and Yahoo (one reason, I'm sure, why folks doing obscure searches tend to prefer it). I was a bit surprised, though, to find that their .com sites were crawled more quickly than the same sites in a .edu domain. (The authors speculate that advertising revenue considerations may have something to do with this.)
One kind of useful page that the authors don't mention is a "new content" page, which I've found helps get my Online Books Page indexed very quickly. Based on cache dates I've seen in search results, Google seems to check my new books page every day or two, and crawls the new links it finds there. Since every book I list appears there at one time or another, this provides very thorough indexing for virtually the entire site.
I suspect that Google and other crawlers pay special attention to pages like these, particularly if they're updated frequently. This might also explain why blogs tend to get particularly highly ranked in Google and other engines compared to other sites, since they also are frequently updated, and show all their new content prominently, in reverse-chronological order.
You can find many other useful tips for getting indexed and linked in Cory Doctorow's article "17 Tips for Getting Bloggers to Write About You". The title may sound off-topic, but the article is mostly about making your content easy to link to. Most of the tips also work for making your content easy to index.
The more links there are to your content from other interesting places, and the more your content gets indexed by search engines, the more interested readers will find and use your content when you put it online. Making your content link-friendly and crawler-friendly, then, can help your library serve lots of new readers.


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Old Time Radio RSS Channel
Get the daily OTRFan features right on your web portal!
What is RSS?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an XML format designed for sharing web content like news headlines, atricles, blog entries and other time-sensitive information. An RSS feed (or channel) consists of a list of items. Each items contains a title (headline), description (maybe a summary), and a hypertext link to a web page.
How do I use RSS?
To use RSS, you need a special RSS news reader or "aggregator" that allows you to collect and display RSS feeds. RSS news readers allow you to view the channels you select all together in the same place and, by automatically retrieving updates, stay current with new content soon after it is published.
There are many different news readers available, many for free. Some news readers are applications that you download and install. Some others (like My Yahoo!tm) are web-based services that you sign-up for. These news readers work inside most browsers.
After setting up your news reader, you will be ready to use the OTRFan Daily Features RSS feed. To subscribe, go to the Today's Features page. Right-click on the orange "XML button" and select "Copy Shortcut" or "Copy Link Location" to copy the location (URL) of the feed. Then follow the instructions for your particular news reader, and then paste this location wherever it asks for the location of the channel you wish to subscribe to.
If you wish to use the My Yahoo!tm news reader/portal/aggregator, there is an easy-to-use button just for that purpose. Just left-click on the "Add to My Yahoo!" button and follow the resulting instructions.
Which options do you suggest?
If you have a choice, choose to display up to 3 headlines and include the descriptions. This will allow you to see most OTRFan Daily Features, including series, episode title, and original air date.
What does the feed look like?
Every news reader presents a different format. As an example, here is a sample picture taken from a portion of a My Yahoo!tm page:
How often is the feed updated?
The Old Time Radio Fan daily features are switched every night at midnight, Eastern (USA) time. The feed is updated a few minutes after midnight.
What are the terms of use?
The OTRFan.com offers the RSS feed as a free service to any individual user or non-profit organization that would like to access it for non-commercial use. By accessing our RSS service you are indicating your understanding and agreement that you will not use the OTRFan RSS feed for commercial purposes. OTRFan.com reserves the right to discontinue this service at any time without notice and further reserves the right to request the immediate cessation of any specific use of our RSS service.


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Stepan hopes his save starts Rangers' comeback
LOS ANGELES — Although Derek Stepan's goal-line save happened in a frantic blur, the Rangers center had a few chances to marvel at the replay in the ensuing 24 hours.
"And I was looking right into the camera when they took it," he said Thursday, laughing about the inside-the-net camera that captured him knocking the puck underneath Henrik Lundqvist. "So it was good timing."
Everything about Stepan's heady play was perfectly timed, but he politely declined credit for saving the Rangers' season in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals. He's just glad he helped to prevent a possible sweep by the Los Angeles Kings, who could have tied the game and likely forced overtime with the goal.
The Rangers survived for another trip to Staples Center and Game 5 on Friday night with major help from two fantastic plays by Stepan and defenseman Anton Stralman, who knocked another puck off the line in the first period of Game 4.
Stepan came through with 1:11 left while the Kings pressed desperately for an equalizer. After the puck trickled underneath Lundqvist and came to rest on the goal line, Stepan dived to his knees, knocking it away and then underneath his goalie.
"Most of it is just reaction," Stepan said. "You don't have much time to think in a situation like that. It's just instinct and reaction."
Stepan even had the wherewithal to use the side of his glove so he wouldn't close his hand on the puck in the crease, which would have resulted in a penalty shot.
Although he recognized the importance of the play, Stepan didn't let it go to his head.
"It was a fortunate bounce for us," Stepan said. "I got very lucky pushing it under the goaltender. A lot of times, you push it into the back of your goalie, or you push it to one of their guys."
Dan Girardi also deserved credit for knocking Anze Kopitar out of the play and preventing the Kings' leading scorer from getting a rebound opportunity. The Kings actually weren't near the motionless puck until Jeff Carter took a belated hack at it, but Stepan took care of it.
Stralman made an equally astonishing play in the first period, sweeping a stopped puck off the goal line with his stick while simultaneously preventing Carter from jabbing it home.
Lundqvist made 40 saves in Game 4, but relied on his teammates for two more. After three games of bad bounces and late-game struggles, the Rangers got most of the breaks.
"A couple of times last night, we had that luck that you need in a tight game," Lundqvist said. "Sometimes you say it (and) maybe not mean it 100 percent, but that factor of luck in a series against a good team, you're going to need it to win games. You can't rely on it all the time, but there are moments in games where the difference is so small, that little extra push might help you to get the win."
A few optimistic Rangers fans jumped onto Twitter after Game 4 and compared Stepan's play to Dave Roberts' steal of third base for the Boston Red Sox in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, catalyzing their comeback from an 0-3 series deficit to the New York Yankees.
Stepan knows such optimism is a week premature. The Rangers would have to win four straight games to become the fourth team in NHL history to rally from an 0-3 deficit — just the second in the finals.
But thanks to Stepan's play, the Rangers have a shot to make it to Game 7 — which just happens to be scheduled for Stepan's 24th birthday on June 18.
"As a group, you gain some confidence, but there's no momentum in a series like this," Stepan said. "You just keep working for the bounces."


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Tabouli, Taboule or Tabbouleh, is all the same.
It is time to get to know this terrific and tasty side dish.
Taboule is a middle eastern dish that has become part of the American diet. Just as Chinese foods became Americanized, so have middle eastern foods. So to call a particular taboule recipe an authentic middle eastern dish is not exactly accurate. There are regional differences – some use more parsley, some add cucumber and feta cheese. Then there are the non-traditional taboule salads that can have apples an walnuts in them or made with quinoa rather than bulgur.
My favorite version is simple with bulgur, parsley, tomato, olive oil, mint and lemon juice.
Sometimes I'll make a batch and sit down and eat an entire bowl. I love how this dish makes you feel like you are really doing something good for your body.
Serve taboule as a cold side dish. This recipe for taboule has a nice balance of traditional flavors.
- 1 cup bulgur wheat
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
- 1/2 cup fresh mint, chopped
- 1 large tomato, peeled, seeded, and diced small
- 1/2 medium onion, diced small
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
- pinch of salt
- fresh ground black pepper
- Place bulgur in a bowl and pour the boiling water over it. Soak bulgur in water for 30 minutes. The wheat should have absorbed all of the water. If there is any water left, drain and squeeze out as much water as possible.
- Peel, seed, and dice the tomato
- Dice the onion and finely chop the parsley and mint
- Mix the bulgur, tomato, onion, parsley, and mint in a large bowl
- Whisk the olive oil and lemon juice together and pour over the salad
- Season to taste with salt and pepper
Taste and adjust the various ingredients to your taste. More olive oil? More lemon juice? Just be careful not to make the salad too wet. Instead of adding more salt, consider adding feta cheese crumbles.
- Refrigerate for an hour or so to allow the flavors to blend
Optional additions:
- Finely sliced scallions
- Crumbled Feta cheese
- Diced cucumber
- Pitted olives
- Diced green and/or red pepper
Related articles
- Tabbouleh (wino-sapien.blogspot.com)
- A French American Thanksgiving holiday (latartinegourmande.com)
- Tabouli Homemade Recipe (groundtoground.org)
- Parsley's Goodness Packed in a Salad (sangaaa.wordpress.com)
- Middle Eastern Quinoa Tabbouleh Salad (hiphostessblog.com)


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Once, as a practical joke, my friend and I told this guy friend of ours that we knew a girl who had a crush on him. He was totally psyched about it and pumped us for more details so we made up a screen name for her and spent the better part of a month IM-ing him pretending to be her! Then he asked "her " for a picture of her so we cut one of a cute model out of an issue of TEEN, scanned it in and sent it to him. Needless to say he was lovestruck and has been trying to set up a date with his "dreamgirl" ever since.
We don't have the heart to tell him she doesn't exist!
There's this really popular girl who my friends and I all hate because she's so mean! Anyway she's always been known for having long blonde hair down to her waist. Well, this one day, my friends and I were in the cafeteria when she walked by. We were all chewing gum and as she pranced by tossing her perfect blonde locks, we got an evil idea...we spit our gum out into her hair! All of us! There were three pieces of gum in her hair (a few hit the ground) and she had no idea -- just kept walking on by. Guess she found out when she got home though cause the next day she came to school with a new 'do -- a really ugly one -- it's up past her ears and really uneven (I guess she didn't have time to make an appointment) It was so great to see everyone laughing at her.
More From Seventeen
Once when I spent the night at my best friend house I woke up in the middle of the night because I had the munchies. When I went to the fridge her older brother who I had a major crush on was there eating. I sat down and we stared talking. After a few snacks he leaned over to me and started KISSING ME, which lead us to the couch and a major make-out session. I never told my best friend.
I have always been BIG into tattoos and piercings so last summer me and a bunch of friends took a cab to a tattoo place and I got a tattoo of a tiger right on my butt! My mom has never found out! (Thank god!) and the best part is, I got the cab driver to pretend to be my dad so I could get it!
It was my Freshman year of high school and I was on the cheerleading squad. I'm not a dork or anything but I do have the reputation of being kind of reserved so when this guy I was talking to before a pep rally said, " I dare you to not wear your body suit under your cheerleading outfit" I didn't think I had a choice but to prove that I CAN be a rebel. Let's just say that when I went to do a back flip I flashed the whole school! Needless to say, I got a lot of attention afterwards.
I was really mad at my ex for breaking up with me to go out with this other chick. So I got about ten of my friend's o.b. tampons, colored them red with marker and since I knew my ex's locker combo, tied all the "bloody" tampons into his locker, and left a note from his current girl that said, "This is how much I love you. Love, Your Girlfriend." Then my friends and I watched him open the locker with a horrified look on his face and begin to go totally ballistic! He got an office referral and a DMC (Deliquent Management Class) for a whole day from the teacher whose classroom is right next to his locker for having pornographic material in school. The next day, he was single again.
It was my senior year of high school, and I had never been kissed. All of my friends were into the whole dating thing and I felt left out. About two months after my friend Anna stopped seeing this one guy, we started talking on IM. Finally we got together and we ended up making out. I felt so bad afterwards because I knew it was a "bad friend" thing to do so I told. I figured she would find out sooner or later, and I would rather her hear it from me then someone else.
I don't regret the whole make-out thing, just the guy I did it with.
One time my ex-friend was spreading big nasty rumors about me going really far with this totally dorky, nerdy guy. So the next day she was standing in the gym for an assembly and the whole school was there so when we were both called down to the middle of the gym and everyone was looking I pantsed her and she was wearing a see through thong. Everyone was laughing and calling her bottoms up!
night when my parents weren't home, me and my friends called the pizza place and ordered a pizza to their house. Along with the pizza we also ordered subs, soda, and garlic bread... a lot of it! After a few hours the pizza place called back and yelled at us for doing it!!
A few months ago while my older sister was away visiting colleges with my parents, I stole the keys to her car and took it on a major weekend-long road-trip to my friend's house in another city. The kicker? I'm only 15 and don't even have my permit. No harm, no foul though -- I drove really carefully and made sure to obey all the traffic laws and to stay under the speed limit. She never even knew it had left the garage - much less crossed county lines!


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template <class... Args>
iterator emplace_hint( const_iterator hint, Args&&... args );
|(since C++11)
Inserts a new element to the container, using
hint as a suggestion where the element should go. The element is constructed in-place, i.e. no copy or move operations are performed.
The constructor of the element is called with exactly the same arguments as supplied to the function, forwarded with std::forward<Args>(args)....
If rehashing occurs due to the insertion, all iterators are invalidated. Otherwise iterators are not affected. References are not invalidated. Rehashing occurs only if the new number of elements is greater than max_load_factor()*bucket_count().
[edit] Parameters
|iterator, used as a suggestion as to where to insert the new element
|arguments to forward to the constructor of the element
[edit] Return value
Returns an iterator to the newly inserted element.
If the insertion failed because the element already exists, returns an iterator to the already existing element with the equivalent key.
[edit] Complexity
Amortized constant on average, worst case linear in the size of the container.
[edit] See also
| constructs element in-place
(public member function)
| inserts elements
(public member function)


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forex-trade.ltd is an association of a large number of professional traders into one group in order to achieve a higher efficiency of cryptocurrency trading. In comparison with earlier stages of development, the company has significantly expanded its activities by trading several financial instruments. Simultaneous trading of multiple digital currencies allows forex-trade.ltd to diversify risks by blocking the sagging rate of one of them with successful transactions with another cryptocurrency.
The current goal of forex-trade.ltd is to stabilize the new, higher peaks of the profits by expansion of working capital and proper allocation of available financial resources.


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William H. Bonney (born William Henry McCarty, Jr. c. November 23, 1859 – c. July 14, 1881)
Just about anything and everything about Billy the Kid seems to be bizarre, surrounded by questions, lost in lies, or mired in myth.
Then there's this:
Left-handed or right-handed?
It is very common – and confusing – to find the famous photo of Billy the Kid reversed – with the rifle on the left side – or the right. Which has caused many people to believe the 'The Kid' was left-handed.
Not so.
But the confusion is justified:
"It was widely assumed throughout much of the 20th century that Billy the Kid was left-handed. This perception was encouraged by the above mentioned photograph of McCarty (Billy the Kid's real name is not William H. Bonney) , in which he appears to be wearing a gun belt with a holster on his left side, but further examination revealed that as all Winchester Model 1873 rifles were made with the loading gate on the right side of the receiver, the "left-handed" photograph is in fact a mirror image. Indeed, the notion of a left-handed Billy became so entrenched that, in 1958, a film biography of "the Kid" (starring Paul Newman) was titled The Left Handed Gun.
In 1954, western historians James D. Horan and Paul Sann announced the disclosure that McCarty (The Kid) was "right-handed and carried his pistol on his right hip". More recently, in response to a story from The Guardian that used an uncorrected McCarty ferrotype, Clyde Jeavons, a former curator of the National Film and Television Archive, cited their work and added:
You can see by the waistcoat buttons and the belt buckle. This is a common error which has continued to reinforce the myth that Billy the Kid was left-handed. He was not. He was right-handed and carried his gun on his right hip. This particular reproduction error has occurred so often in books and other publications over the years that it has led to the myth that Billy the Kid was left-handed, for which there is no evidence. On the contrary, the evidence (from viewing his photo correctly) is that he was right-handed: he wears his pistol on his right hip with the butt pointing backwards in a conventional right-handed draw position.
A second look at the ferrotype confirms what Jeavons wrote. The prong on the belt buckle points the wrong way, and the buttons on the Kid's vest are on the left side, the side reserved for ladies' blouses. The convention for men's wear is that buttons go down the right side.
Wallis wrote in 2007 that McCarty was ambidextrous. This observation seems to be supported by contemporaneous newspaper accounts reporting that Billy the Kid could shoot handguns "with his left hand as accurately as he does with his right" and that "his aim with a revolver in each hand, shooting simultaneously, is unerring."
Thus – typically for 'the Kid' – both photos are legitimate.
The amount of strange myths, legends and disinformation surrounding Billy the Kid would fill several books. And 23 movies.
And it has.


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advertisement for Lifebuoy
Albert Dorne was an American artist, born in the slums of New York City's East Side. After a troubled childhood full of tuberculosis, heart trouble, and poverty, he had numerous odd jobs including a short professional boxing career, before turning to advertising art. He was a letterer with illustrator Paul Tepper and worked at Alexander Rice's art studio. He eventually turned freelance and began to work as an illustrator for Life, Collier's, Look and The Saturday Evening Post. He has also used the comics medium for his advertising art, among others for Lifebuoy Health Soap, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Kellog's. Dorne was one of the artists of the 'Mr. Coffee Nerves' strip for General Foods, in alternation with Lou Fine. Together with Norman Rockwell and ten other artists, he founded the Famous Artists School. Dorne built his program into one of the largest correspondence schools in the world.
Mr Coffee Nerves


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|What is a CanKor anyway and how does it work?
Who is behind CanKor? When did CanKor begin? Who reads CanKor? What do people say about CanKor?
Have a question we haven't answered yet? We want to hear it! Drop us a line..
FAQ about North Korea
All you ever wanted to know about North Korea but were afraid to ask.
UnCommon Sense – where common sense is not enough
CanKor's flagship blog features handpicked news, statements and analysis by experienced civilian intelligence analysts.
Beyond "realpolitik", there is The Human Factor
From Human Rights to Humanitarian Assistance – the blog for people who care for the people of North Korea.
Memoirs of a Stranger in Paradise
Erich Weingartner reminisces about his bumpy road to Pyongyang and the three years he spent there as head of the Food Aid Liaison Unit.
|The CanKor Report
A periodic compendium of the best material on this website. It's free and delivered straight to your inbox.
Step up to the CanKor Megaphone
Announcement? Job vacancy? Call for papers? Event you'd like to advertise? This is your space.
|What makes us so smart? The CanKor Brain Trust
Meet our advisory council of wise souls, open hearts and cunning minds that contribute varied perspectives and expertise.


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Romney v. Gingrich: How Would They Govern?
Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, the two leaders in the Republican presidential race, have large differences in terms of their campaigns, character and backgrounds. What do these differences say about the type of president either would become if elected?
"I know Newt Gingrich. And Newt Gingrich is a friend of mine. But, he and I are not clones, I promise," Romney pointed out at the Dec. 10 debate in Iowa.
Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, grew up in a wealthy family, but his father, who wanted to instill the value of hard work in his children, required him to do chores. Romney maintained that sense of thrift even as he became a successful businessman.
Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, grew up in a family of modest means. He became wealthy later in life through his expertise and connections, but has a reputation for spending heavily on unnecessary luxuries.
Romney has a well-funded, professional campaign that exemplifies his preference for order and discipline.
Gingrich's chaotic campaign has seen staffers leave and return. Its ad-hoc methods reflect Gingrich's eccentric style.
Both Gingrich and Romney are seeking to diminish their perceived weaknesses. Gingrich tries to emphasize that he is stable, while Romney emphasizes his empathy with working families.
Gingrich was the mastermind behind the historic Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. Even if he loses the current race, he has already earned a place in the history books as one of the most important leaders in the conservative movement of the last half-century.
Yet, his erratic leadership style frustrated members of his own party so much that there was an attempted coup just two years after Gingrich became speaker of the House. The leader of that coup, Lindsay Graham, now a U.S. senator, believes Gingrich has changed.
"If you could bring out the best of Newt Gingrich and encapsulate that, you could have a transformative president. He seems to be more settled now," Graham told reporters on Dec. 6.
Gingrich has emphasized his age and that he is now a grandfather.
"I've had to go to God for forgiveness. I've had to seek reconciliation. But I'm also a 68-year-old grandfather. And I think people have to measure who I am now and whether I'm a person they can trust," Gingrich said at the Saturday debate in Iowa.
Romney, meanwhile, has emphasized his upbringing.
"I didn't grow up poor. And if somebody is looking for someone who's grown up with that background, I'm not the person. But I grew up with a dad who'd been poor, and my dad wanted to make sure I understood the lessons of hard work. And my mom and dad wanted to make sure that I understood the principles that made America the greatest nation on earth. And so they made sure we had jobs as we were growing up. They made sure we didn't spend money foolishly. And they made sure that I had a care and concern for other people," Romney said at the same debate.
Romney has also recently spoken more about his time as a missionary in France. While admitting that France is "no third-world country," he lived on only $110, about $600 in today's dollars, per month. Romney described his modest living conditions during that period when he lived with no toilet, shower or bathtub.
Gingrich's and Romney's campaigning styles would likely each translate to governing styles similar to two recent presidents, should they find themselves in that office.
Gingrich would be like Bill Clinton. The Clinton White House was informal; staff could wear jeans. Much like a college dorm, Clinton would sometimes have "all-nighters," complete with pizza delivery, when a big project was "due."
Romney would be more like George W. Bush. Unlike the Clinton White House, staff never wore jeans in the "W" White House. Orderliness and punctuality became the norm.
Trying to figure out how each candidate would govern is a "difficult one to answer," admitted Richard Conley, associate professor of political science at the University of Florida, in a Wednesday interview with The Christian Post. Conley specializes in the study of the American presidency and has written and edited books and journal articles on the topic.
Gingrich's experience as a congressperson and speaker of the House should not be discounted, argues Conley. "Gingrich has certainly been in the trenches." Plus, Gingrich deserves some credit for getting the welfare reform bill passed in 1996.
Conley is concerned, however, that some Republicans who served under Gingrich have described him as "a terrible manager."
Also, leading the House requires a different set of skills than the president, Conley pointed out, because the House is governed by the majority party, but presidents must build coalitions with other party members. "You're going to have to reach out to the other side," and "there is some question about [Gingrich's] ability to do that."
Conley agreed that Gingrich could be similar to Clinton in his management style, especially Clinton's first term.
"Clinton would go into these policy meetings and they would get into these great academic debates, but nothing would get resolved. He and [Vice President Al] Gore both have this academic strain to them where they like to talk about these big issues and so forth. It's the mark of a highly intelligent individual, but the problem is, when it comes to policy-making that doesn't get it done."
Romney, on the other hand, would be "more inclined to have a tight run organization" similar to George W. Bush.
"Romney has something Newt does not, which is executive experience. He's had to make decisions to balance the state budget. He's got a set of skills, between the private sector and being governor, which probably put him in a place where he would be a fairly decent manager."
Another one of Romney's potential strengths, Conley points out, is also what is causing him difficulty with some Republican primary voters. As the governor of a liberal state, Massachusetts, Romney has more experience building coalitions with members of the opposite party.
Conley also qualifies his answers, however, by noting that "there's no real job that prepares you to be president," including governor or speaker of the House.


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|Zucchini (from a plant I got on Freecycle), spaghetti
squash, tomatoes (which have finally stopped rotting
from the blossom end), and hot peppers!
|I coo at these babies whenever I walk by...they're so cute!
The pepper plant is full of these:
|I can't figure out if I should pick them when they're green
or wait until they're red. Thoughts?
|I guess it's time to make some rattlesnake pasta!
|These are *cough* local and organic
(acquired thanks to some urban foraging).
|I came inside from picking these and Jaymz said,
"Whatcha gonna do with all them plums?!"
(In case you were wondering, the first harvest was potatoes and carrots. I posted a photograph here.)
Linked up at Wordless Wednesday at Hobo Mama and Natural Parents Network.


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This website takes a critical look at the scientific evidence supporting common treatment decisions. The recurring themes include overdiagnosis and its consequences, how to recognize unnecessary treatment, how to understand inflated claims for screening tests and preventive drug therapy. (New to this website? click here)
We stopped posting new content on October 19, 2012. Feel free to use our archives. The policy work of the Center for Medical Consumers continues.
Should you get a flu shot? (This is the last post)
The World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and most primary care physicians would answer this question with an emphatic yes. But if you're someone who wants good quality evidence of safety and effectiveness to back your medical decisions, then the answer is no. read more
What is overtreatment? What are its harms? Watch this video
MDs distrust drug industry-funded studies
New survey shows that physicians assume industry-funded trials are not to be trusted, even when they are well-designed and superior to National Institutes of Health-funded trials. read more
Diabetes 2 drug warning
Of all medications, insulin and oral diabetes 2 drugs are the 2nd most common cause of E.R. visits and hospitalizations. People over age 65 with certain medical conditions are at highest risk. read more
U.S. health care system: A critique and proposal for change
The Institute of Medicine has issue a report entitled, "Best Care at Lower Cost." It both an extensive critique of the U.S. health care system and a broad exploration of the possibilities for change. read more
Understanding lab tests
Always request copies of your medical tests. That's the standard advice to consumers, but can you understand the results? There's a website that can help. read more
Drugs for mild hypertension
Once again, medical dogma doesn't hold up under scientific scrutiny. There's no proven benefit to treating people with blood pressure under 159/99. read more
Cranberries and urinary tract infections
Yes, this folk remedy can reduce some recurrences when antibiotics fail. read more
Medicare better than private insurance
First consumer satisfaction survey finds more people with traditional Medicare are satisfied with their care than those with private insurance or a Medicare Advantage plan. read more
How prescription drug harms can go unnoticed
Medical care is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. The death of the research physician who produced this statistic 12 years ago has recently been attributed to Plavix. read more
An honest take on lung screening scans
How lifesaving? How risky? New review of what is known so far. read more


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ABC News' Dan Harris: Drug Use Caused My On-Air Panic Attack
Ten years ago, ABC News anchor Dan Harris had a panic attack on live television - and now he says the incident may have saved his life.
"Shortly after seven on a sunny spring morning in 2004, I freaked out in front of five million people," writes Harris, who was filling in on Good Morning America at the time. "I was overtaken by a massive, irresistible blast of fear. It felt like the world was ending. My heart was thumping. I was gasping for air. I had pretty much lost the ability to speak. And all of it was compounded by the knowledge that my freak-out was being broadcast live on national television. Halfway through the six stories I was supposed to read, I simply bailed, squeaking out a 'Back to you.'"
Winter Olympics: Stars to watch
In his blog, which was published Wednesday, Harris reveals that his meltdown was likely caused by his habitual use of cocaine and ecstasy, which he says he began using to deal with depression after covering wars in the Middle East. "I'm not talking Wolf of Wall Street-level debauchery," Harris clarifies. "My intake was sporadic, and mostly restricted to weekends. ... A side-effect of all of this, as my doctor explained to me, was that the drugs had increased the level of adrenaline in my brain, dramatically boosting the odds of a panic attack."
Harris, now a co-anchor on Nightline, says his doctor told him he needed to quit using drugs immediately, and that he eventually turned to meditation despite initial skepticism. "I am not a stereotypical meditator," he admits. "In fact, I'd always had - and still have, really - an allergy to all things touchy-feely and New Age-y. As it turns out, though, meditation doesn't require robes, incense, crystals, Cat Stevens or 'clearing the mind.' It's exercise for your brain. ... Meditation is a tool for taming the voice in your head."
According to Harris, the practice of meditating makes him "10% happier," which is also the name of a book he's written that will come out in March.
Read Harris' full post here.
View original ABC News' Dan Harris: Drug Use Caused My On-Air Panic Attack at TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com


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While at Krause Springs in Spicewood, Texas…near the entrance they have a small butterfly garden. You can find a few fluttering around. Up on this cool looking plant/flower was this beautiful Swallowtail Butterfly. The flowers were about 7 feet high so I was using my 105 Macro hand held to try and catch some photos. He was a bit skittish, but was used to me in about 10 minutes. The tough part was that it was breezy and these tall flowers were blowing in the wind. A great challenge photographically! I tried shooting manual and increased my shutter to 1/250 of a second. Only a few shots came out. As it always goes, this was my first photo. The rest were a bit blurry. A breeze or wind is a tough one in macro photography. I was also curious to see how a butterfly works with fractalius and here is an extra version! Enjoy the doubleshot!
I just grouped all my Fractalius photos together in a gallery on my web site here… Talke Photography