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Still missing my friend, John! Hope you are well, buddy!
Miss you!
yo med, where are you?
Hello my friend. I hope you are well. Great win on Sunday for you. I am just glad for me a real QB is here.
ready for some football???
Hope all is great with you and the fam!
Hey Med-man...Our Dodgers are back in first! May not last that long with Ethier on the DL now, but still. =)
Respect Med, good to have a conversation with someone who disagrees with me without finally degrading to 'well, you are an idiot then'.
Med, you're my friend whether or not we agree. Nonetheless, it sticks in my craw when a Tebow lemming such as Bullgator, who is here only because of Tebow, tells a long-time Broncos fan to move on. He is a punk.
equally human
Pinch & Roll
Tonka D
Consummate Bronco Fan
The salt in your haterade


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How the rise of the National Security State has eviscerated democracy. The peace-loving United States remains, of course, the only nation to have actually used nuclear weapons. --PG
By Herbert P. Bix
Friday, August 06, 2010
I start from the premise that the time has come to link Hiroshima Day remembrance with what historian Garry Wills called the "quiet revolution" in governance that was set in motion by America's development and use of atomic bombs against the citizens of two Japanese cities.
As Wills pointed out in Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State (The Penguin Press, 2010), atomic destruction in Japan and the growth of secret, non-accountable government in America are inseparably linked. So today we need to reflect not only on the damages that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered from the heat-rays, the blast, and the radiation that killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima and another 70,000 in Nagasaki by the end of December 1945. We must also, more than ever, focus today on how atomic bomb possession transformed American's global role, impacted its political class, and reshaped the nature of presidential power.
The atomic bombs that destroyed Japanese cities were the climax of a year of intense civilian bombing in Germany and especially Japan. The bombing hastened the conversion of the United States from a constitutional republic in which sovereignty supposedly inhered in the People into a National Security State in which it inhered in the President. Thereafter, overwhelming power steadily accrued to the executive branch while the Congress became its appendage. This paved the way for the illegal, secretive, aggressive use of force, and violation of constitutional norms that reached their height in the administration of George W. Bush and continue unchecked today.
This transformation occurred almost unnoticed, over a sixty-nine or seventy-year period starting around 1940-1941. That's when President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a state of national war emergency, after having secretly brought the U.S. into an undeclared war against Nazi Germany with his "Destroyer Deal" in exchange for the right to lease American bases from Great Britain. Then came Pearl Harbor -- a surprise attack welcomed by many politicians at the time because they thought it would unify the nation's deep class divisions behind a new war. Next, Roosevelt secretly authorized the Manhattan Project for the construction of atomic bombs. He kept funding for the vast, multi-billion dollar wartime project completely hidden from congressional and public scrutiny -- the first of many constitutionally illegal acts that occurred in the construction of the National Security State.[1]
It was during the last years of the Second World War that the government laid the foundations for a new American empire whose power rested on forward-deployed airplanes, warships, and bases that could deliver conventional and atomic bombs. The bases were secured by unequal military alliances and status-of-forces agreements (NATO and ANPO), or where treaties didn't suffice and governments refused to take U.S. orders, by coups d'etat and the establishment of client regimes. Concurrently, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower accelerated a nuclear arms race: first by Truman's decision to build up the military and produce and stockpile more and more nuclear weapons; then from 1949, when Russia broke the American monopoly on the Bomb, by his decision to build the hydrogen bomb and increase nuclear arms production and atmospheric testing. Both of these early cold war presidents expanded and consolidated the empire of bases and brought into existence a fully articulated National Security State.
Wills' useful time-line (p. 58) shows the initial steps that gradually transformed the post-World War II governmental system and ended up lodging power in vast, secret, unaccountable but interlocking bureaucracies. Creation of a sub-structure of hidden power started with the imperial president's assertion of a right to wage atomic, biological, and chemical warfare, and to instill fear in the public through various institutions of the executive branch. The Atomic Energy Act (1946) established under the president the Atomic Energy Commission, "a civilian body to control all domestic uses of atomic energy." It gave the president "sole authority" over the Bomb's use. So in the exercise of this power alone he was placed outside the constitutional order, unaccountable to anybody else.[2] The National Security Act (1947) established both the president's National Security Council (NSC) and the CIA, which quickly began acting outside the law. "Loyalty oaths" and the Attorney General's list of subversive organizations fleshed out the early institutions of the National Security State.
These were augmented between 1947 (the start of the Cold War anti-communist ideological crusade) and the inauguration of the National Security Agency (NSA) in 1952. In this period Truman established the U.S. Air Force as a separate service, charged with delivering the bombs. On his own authority Truman committed the nation to waging the Korean War, never asking Congress for a declaration of war, freeing him to use or threaten other countries with any weapon he chose. Abroad, the U.S. began assassinations and psychological warfare operations, and the overthrow of governments. At home, national mobilization in "peacetime" got underway in accordance with various NSC policy documents whose contents were also kept secret from Congress and the public.
The CIA, whose head (the Director of Central Intelligence) reported to the president, waged psychological warfare and engaged in massive foreign and domestic spying. Its agents in the Office of Special Operations committed murder, assassination, and torture. Their covert activity toppled the governments of Muhammed Mosaddeq in Iran, Jacobo Abenz in Guatemala, and Salvadore Allende in Chile, to name just a few. The president had authority over the CIA as well as the intelligence estimates that CIA officers produced. But their estimates could always be politicized and cherry-picked to give him and his policy-makers what they wanted if they wanted it badly enough. (Today we know for a fact that George W. Bush and Richard Cheney pressured the CIA and got from it in 2003 a WMD justification for launching the current unprovoked, illegal war against Iraq.)[3]
During the Vietnam War, whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg released the classified Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. His disclosure of "state secrets" frightened President Nixon, for Ellsberg pulled the veil from the hidden government operating on a clandestine level, with presidents lying to the public to justify aggressive war and cover-up their crimes. Until that time most Americans did not know what the various instruments of the U.S. government were doing in Southeast Asia, let alone how incompetent where Vietnam was concerned were presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon and their national policy advisers.
After the Vietnam War the National Security State underwent reorganization. Tension between the hidden or real U.S. government and Congress became visible in Senate and House investigations of the CIA.[4] In 1975 Senator Frank Church's Committee investigated CIA crimes and tried to retrieve lost Congressional prerogatives in foreign policy by checking the president's powers to wage war.[5] Representative Otis Pike, chairing the House Intelligence Committee, did likewise. Pike's committee issued a final report concluding (among other things) that the total U.S. intelligence budget had been hidden from Congress, and that because of secrecy "taxpayers and most of Congress did not know and cannot find out how much they [the CIA] spend on spying activities."[6] Under the Constitution (Art. 1, Section 9 [7]) such secret funding is plainly illegal.
But the rot produced by the American system of authoritarian decision-making, non-accountability for high officials, and weak or non-existent "congressional oversight" of the executive branch was far too advanced to be checked by any Senate or House committee. President Ford, Henry Kissinger, and the CIA undermined the Church and Pike committees. Ford and his successors, with the exception of Jimmy Carter, ignored the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, there were other scandals, such as Iran-Contra in 1986-87, which showed the extent to which secrecy had become a device for deceiving Congress. But it needs to be remembered that executive branch obsession with secrecy originally grew from the Manhattan Project, the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the need thereafter to care for atomic weapons and their means of delivery.
At the start of the 1990s, the Soviet Union collapsed and the National Security State resumed its expansion, eventually acquiring bases in Eastern Europe and near the southern and Central Asian borders of the Russian Federation. Meanwhile the U.S. military budget kept on growing to the dismay of many peace movement activists who had expected a "peace dividend" because they had mistakenly thought U.S. militarism was a function only of the Cold War, which it never was. Corporations doing business with the Pentagon and politicians owning their stock or taking both their dividends and campaign contributions always played an important role.
U.S. behavior in the Nineties, particularly during the G.W. Bush and W. J. Clinton presidencies, showed the recurrence of a U.S. tendency to ignore international law regarding the direct and indirect aerial targeting of civilians and their "dual use" infrastructure. This was evidenced in the U.S. and British air assault on Iraq and in their bombing of Kosovo and Serbia in 1999 with "precision"-guided weapons.
Then, during the first decade of the 21st century, the 9/11 terrorist attacks gave President Bush and his team their golden opportunity to declare a war on terror, expand the National Security State, and set aside international and domestic law constraints on the conduct of war. Thereafter, reflecting the fusion of governmental and corporate power that had been ongoing for decades, U.S. wars and intelligence-gathering were increasingly contracted out to private corporations. Official secrecy also increased and became (in constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald's apt words) "the religion of the political class, and the prime enabler of its corruption," as seen in the Pentagon's loss of billions of dollars earmarked for reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thus not only was a point reached where the momentum of the power-shift from legislature to executive branch became irreversible but, more important, the Patriot Act and other legislation, enacted after 9/11 allowed the Bush and Obama Justice Departments to brutally suppress civil liberties, trample on the Constitution, and punish whistle blowers. The presidency of Barack Obama, who normalized drone-assassination as a tactic of U.S. foreign policy, has merely confirmed these facts.[7]
To resume: as developed after 1945, atomic bomb power brought the U.S.--an historically militaristic nation--much closer to modern imperial Japan in the period when Japanese officials fought their "long war" on the Asian continent.
Control over nuclear weapons concentrated power in the office of the president, strengthened his mystique as commander-in-chief, and allowed President G.W. Bush to arrogantly assert a unilateral right to disregard the moral norms that underlie the laws of war, and to use the Office of Legal Council in the Justice Department to give "[him]self legal permission to do what [he] want[ed] to do."[8]
Last, atomic bomb power wedded the U.S. military to the veneration and massive use of force, to "shock and awe," and to "collateral damage," or the killing of civilians in situations where American forces could never distinguish friend from foe. Think of the Korean War, which ended in stalemate, and of the three subsequent illegal, unnecessary colonial wars of presidential choice fought in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Now that this succession of costly defeats for U.S. policy has finally started to break the back of the American middle class, we might, perhaps, expect more mass-based resistance to the National Security State, the antithesis of a constitutional republic.
1. Wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State (The Penguin Press, 2010), p. 99.
2. Wills, Bomb Power, pp. 31, 45, 49.
3. See Fulton Armstrong and Thomas Powers, "The CIA and WMDs: The Damning Evidence," New York Review of Books, Vol. LVII, No. 13 (Aug. 9, 2010), pp. 53-54.
4. Glenn Greenwald, "The Real U.S. Government," posted at salon.com, July 19, 2010.
5. Wills, Bomb Power, pp. 177, 197.
6. Cited from Gerald K. Haines, "The Pike Committee Investigations and the CIA," posted at http://bss.sfsu.edu/fischer/ir 360/Readings/pike.htm
7. Garry Wills, "Entangled Giant," New York Review of Books, Vol. 56, No. 15 (Oct. 8, 2009).
8. Wills, Bomb Power, p. 224.
Herbert Bix won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. This is the text of a talk given for Hiroshima Day, Aug. 6, 2010, at the First Congregational Church, Binghamton, NY.

subset: commoncrawl


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I have Excellent News!!
I have managed to convince Alina to play. She didn't think she'd have the time, but a once-a-week game is pretty easy to handle. She has a GREAT character concept, too! She wants to play a Mind Melter who is also sort of a rogue scholar (not actually cross-class or anything, just with scholarly Technical skills) who is known and wanted by the Coalition. She uses Ectoplasmic Disguise and Hypnotic Suggestion and such to avoid detection by her Coalition foes. She was even going to take Mind Bond and Total Recall, and thus potentially have stolen some kind of military or government secrets, if Tom is willing to collaborate on that idea with her.
We talked a bit about character creation tonight, and chose Psychic Powers (deliberately selected to avoid much crossover with Thunderhowl and Chibiyuri). I'll post details in the game thread, which Alina can then use to create her character sheet tomorrow night, if Tom's willing.


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At launch Grand Theft Auto 3 made quite a stir. Offending as many people as possible, while giving enjoyment to gamers the world over, it is the Johnny Rotten of video games. What followed was a series of sequels, prequels and entirely different stories all built within the Grand Theft Auto universe.
Every developer wanted to do their own take on what Rockstar did so well. Crackdown offered something different, Saints Row just wasn't as good and True Crime, well True Crime all but disappeared.
That was until Square Enix picked up the then stagnating True Crime Hong Kong game, renamed it Sleeping Dogs and put things back into production. The result? A brilliant game which more than makes a stand against the gargantuan Grand Theft Autos of the free-roaming world.
Sleeping Dogs follows the story of Wei, an undercover cop who has already made quite a name for himself in the previous games under the True Crime moniker. This time round, Wei is in Hong Kong and looking to get up to his usual antics.
This means infiltrating a gang and turning over the top brass of Hong Kong's triads. Along the Wei (it was unavoidable, honest), he gets up to all sorts of mischief. The line between good cop and full blown triad member begins to blur.
We don't want to give away much more than that, but expect to be pleasantly surprised by the quality of True Crime's storyline. A particular highlight is all the little interludes along the way, which while being side missions, add plenty of colour to an already rich and diverse story.
There aren't any direct story choices in Sleeping Dogs per se. This isn't Mass Effect, but you can choose what type of mission you engage in. Helping the cops will bolster your cop-related character bonuses, giving you new abilities to help fight crime. Helping the triads will do the opposite.
Sleeping Dogs also succeeds in drawing you into its story very quickly. The game opens with a James Bond-style chase sequence through Hong Kong's docks. It makes you want to play on and had us gripped almost instantly.
This is where Sleeping Dogs really stands out. As games go, we haven't seen many with such attention to detail. Creating a map the size of Sleeping Dogs' means some texture and building repetition is unsurprising, but we are stunned at just how diverse Sleeping Dogs looks.
Of the various parts of Hong Kong, every area feels vary different. From the super-tall skyscrapers to the people-packed streets of the night market, we are so impressed by the visual feast Sleeping Dogs manages.
Cars, guns and characters also sound fantastic, creating a believable world in which to run riot. We also love the weather effects, with rain drenching Hong Kong's streets, transforming them into reflective neon rows for you to tear down on a motorbike.
This is all backed up with some very detailed character models. Some of the NPCs are less impressive but pretty much anyone you interact with verbally in the game looks amazing. Wei in particular gets covered in blood during fights and his clothes get soaked and then dry off in the sunshine.
Being able to customise Wei in different ways with clothing and other bits and bobs is a nice touch, especially given the number of garments on offer. The same applies to the vehicles that you can buy in game, which are highly detailed with lots of clever touches such as fully kitted-out interiors.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating and with Sleeping Dogs it is a very sweet pudding indeed. Forget any comparisons with the Grand Theft Auto series, this is a game that very much makes the open world idea its own.
It is definitely over the top like Saints Row is, but never crude, instead doing everything with the class and style of a Hong Kong action film. You are given the option to do whatever you want fairly soon into the game. Running, fighting or shooting your way about Hong Kong and doing plenty of damage along the way.
Each element has its own unique gameplay style. Chasing someone, for example, will require you to time each press of the A or X button in order to execute leaps over obstacles smoothly. Driving allows you to do things such as leap between vehicles, or fire from your own car in slow motion. Cars also handle in an arcade style that makes them incredibly fun to drive.
It is the hand-to-hand combat that really stands out, however. To put it bluntly - Sleeping Dogs is insanely violent. You can do some seriously brutal stuff to passers-by on the street. Early on, for example, you will gain the ability to break someone's leg in one hit, causing everyone else nearby to wince.
On top of a fairly well-established fighting system, which grows as the game goes on, you can also execute these brutal finishing moves. You can, if you are so inclined, smashed a foe's ribs in by using the shutters from a nearby shop.
Switching between all three gameplay styles is done effortlessly. It is this which really makes Sleeping Dogs great. You can just as easily tear down the motorway in a supercar, leap from it and begin shooting, as you can pull over and beat the hell out of a load of random people. It really brings out the gamer's bad side and we love it.
We can't fault Sleeping Dogs for effort. This is a game that has clearly had plenty of love poured into it. It looks and plays great, is pretty much bug free and gives you enough to get stuck into to get your money's worth.
The only problem we have with this game is that Rockstar has set the bar so high that other open world games, Sleeping Dogs included, just can't quite match up. Still, this is easily the best of the bunch and gives you a gameplay experience different enough for us to encourage you to give it a try. Very possibly the sleeper hit of 2012.


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Our volume UPS discounts are passed-on directly to you for the lowest possible shipping rates.
Description: DETECT-A-FIRE 225F Category: Temperature Controls SubCategory: Safety Controls
DETECT-A-FIRE® Detection and Release Devices
FEATURES• Repeatable - resets itself, nothing to replace, testable• Rugged - withstands shock and vibration• Versatile - offers various temperature settings• Durable - long lasting stainless steel shell• Economical - wide spacing, reduces installation cost• Factory set and the internal contact area is hermetically sealed in stainless steel APPLlCATlONS• Protection of schools, factories, offices, libraries, etc.• Paint spray booths• Range hoods DESCRIPTION DETECT-A-FIRE units are the "heart" of many Fire Protection Systems. These highly reliable devices have been a standard of the industry for over 45 years. Many thousands of these units are now in use controlling the release of extinguishants such as clean agents, C02, water, or dry chemicals. In some systems the device is used as an ALARM device, to sense overheat or fire, and alert personnel. In other systems, it is used as a RELEASE device, to sense fire and actuate fire attack systems. DETECT-A-FIRE units have met with wide acceptance because they are designed with RATE COMPENSATION. This provides a unique advantage over both fixed temperature and rate-of-rise types of detectors because only the DETECT-A-FIRE unit accurately senses the surrounding air temperature regardless of the fire growth rate. At precisely the predetermined danger point, the system is activated. Fixed temperature detectors must be completely heated to alarm temperature and therefore a disastrous lag in time may occur with a fast rate fire. Rate-of-rise devices, on the other hand, are triggered by the rate of increase in ambient temperature and are subject to false alarms caused by harmless, transient thermal gradients such as the rush of warm air from process ovens. The outer shell is made of a rapidly expanding alloy which closely follows changes in surrounding air temperature. The inner struts are made of a lower expanding alloy. Designed to resist thermal energy absorption and sealed inside the shell, the struts follow temperature changes more slowly. A slow rate fire will heat the shell and struts together. At the "set point," the unit will trigger, actuating the alarm or releasing the extinguishant. A transient rush of warm air up to 40°F/min. may expand the shell, but not enough to trigger the unit. By ignoring transient warm air excursions, the DETECT-A-FIRE unit virtually eliminates false alarms prevalent with rate-of-rise devices. If a fast rate fire starts, the shell will expand rapidly. The struts will close, actuating the alarm or releasing the agent. The faster the fire rate of growth,the sooner the DETECT-A-FIRE unit will react.
Replaces Part Numbers: 12-E27121-000-05, CAR12-E27121-000-05


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Anonymous, the loose collective of hackers, activists, and troublemakers were prohibited from making a news group on Google+. So they're gonna build their own social network. So much for being anonymous?
I'm not quite sure what the benefit of a social network designed to connect individuals would be to a group that completely eschews individualism. What info will anyone put in their profiles? "I also like V for Vendetta"?
It seems that they're looking to make a place that's censorship-free for disseminating information. Well, why not host a blog? Or use Twitter, which seemed content to let LulzSec release password dumps via the service.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
But hey, best not to judge before they reveal more details. But from what's available now, it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
Via Mashable


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Four new insurance-related bills take effect tomorrow. None were insurance commissioner request legislation, but they will impact consumers starting June 7.
Whether you'd like to share your car or get evacuated home from a trip, there's something for everyone. Want to know more? Here's the complete list:
Usage-based insurance
Car sharing
Air rescue
PEBB ombudsman for retired state employees
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
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#MLB Ozzie Guillen will be the one deciding his fate. If he wants to come back w/o extension he will be back. If not he'll be w #Marlins
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) September 16, 2011
September 16, 2011
Will Ozzie Guillen decide himself where he ends up?
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WASHINGTON—As they negotiate the details of the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act, Congress should find ways to assure continuation of Unemployment Insurance Benefits and reject proposals to exclude children of hard working immigrant families from the Child Tax Credit, said Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, California, chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
"The economy is still leaving too many people without work." wrote Bishop Blaire in a February 9 letter to Congressman Dave Camp and Senator Max Baucus, who are heading the conference committee responsible for crafting a final agreement. "When the economy fails to generate sufficient jobs, there is a moral obligation to help protect the life and dignity of unemployed workers and their families. We also must protect those programs that help low-income workers escape poverty and raise their children in dignity."
Bishop Blaire also raised concerns that proposed changes to the unemployment insurance system could harm jobless workers and their families, adding "[a]ny changes must protect the lives and dignity of beneficiaries."
The full text of Bishop Blaire's letter is available online: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/economic-justice-economy/upload/USCCB-UI-CTC-conference-Feb-2012.pdf
Keywords: Unemployment Insurance, Emergency Unemployment Compensation, Domestic Justice and Human Development, USCCB, U.S. bishops, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, Pope John Paul II, U.S. Congress, federal budget, joblessness, workers, poor, unemployed, families
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text: A US soldier's massacre of 16 civilians is Afghanistan's My Lai moment, says Escobar [EPA]"We must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig... cow after cow... village after village... army after army..." - Colonel Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now Hong Kong - It started way before a lone killer, a US Army sergeant, married with two children, walked into villages in Panjwayi, southwest of Kandahar city, and "allegedly" went on a shooting spree, leaving at least 16 civilians dead. This was Afghanistan's Haditha moment - as in Iraq; or My Lai - as in Vietnam. It had been building up via the serial drone-with-Hellfire bombings of tribal wedding parties; the serial secret US Special Forces' "night raids"; the serial "kill team" murders in 2010; the ritual urination onto dead Afghans by "our men in uniform"; and last but not least, the Quran burnings in Bagram. Mission … accomplished? Afghans demand justice over shooting According to the latest Post-ABC News poll - conducted even before the Kandahar massacre - 55 per cent of Americans want the end of the Afghan war. US President Barack Obama once again stressed that 10 years into a war that has cost at least $400bn, the "combat role" of NATO troops will end in 2014. According to Obama, Washington only wants to make sure "that al-Qaeda is not operating there, and that there is sufficient stability that it does not end up being a free-for-all". Al-Qaeda "is not operating there" for a long time; there are only a bunch of instructors "not there" but in the Waziristans, in the Pakistani tribal areas. And forget about "stability". The "Afghan security forces" that will be theoretically in charge by 2014, or even before, are doomed. Their illiteracy rate is a staggering 80 per cent. At least 25 per cent become deserters. Child rape is endemic. Over 50 per cent are permanently stoned on hashish, on steroids. The level of mistrust between Afghans and Americans is cosmic. According to a 2011 study that became classified by the Pentagon after it was leaked to the Wall Street Journal - the American military essentially view Afghans as corrupt cowards while Afghans see the American military as coward bullies. Get a Saigon 1975 moment now or in 2014, the facts on the ground will remain the same: Hindu Kush-rocking instability. Toss the COIN and I win Afghanistan was always a tragedy trespassed by farce. Think about NATO's original 83 restrictions on the rules of engagement, which led, for example, to a rash of French soldiers killed in 2008 because France, pressed by the US, stopped paying protection money to the Taliban; or think about Berlin calling it not a war, but a "humanitarian mission". Internal battles - unlike Vietnam - became legend. Such as the COINdinistas - the counter-insurgency gang, supported by then Pentagon chief Bob Gates - invested in a "new mission" and a "new military leadership", winning against Vice-President Joe Biden's CT PLUS strategy, as in less soldiers on the ground doing counter-terrorism. The winner, as everyone remembers, was rockstar General Stanley McChrystal, who insisted that the Biden plan would lead to "Chaosistan", which happened to be the name of a classified CIA analysis. Stanley McChrystal - a Pentagon spokesperson during the March 2003 invasion of Iraq - badly wanted to change the culture of NATO and the US Army in Afghanistan. He wanted to destroy the culture of shoot-first-and-blow-shit-up and go towards "protecting the civilian population". In his own words, he stressed that "air-to-ground munitions" and "indirect fires" against Afghan homes were "only authorised under very limited and prescribed conditions". He prevailed - shielded by his rockstar status - only for a brief moment. Meanwhile, even if on one side the State Department, the DEA and the FBI would be warning about nasty drug smugglers and assorted criminals, on the other side the CIA and the Pentagon, praising them for good intel, would always win. And everything was fully justified by an array of reluctant warriors/liberal hawks in places such as the Center for a New American Security - crammed with "respectable" journalists. Hamid Karzai won the Afghan elections by outright fraud. His half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai - then provincial council chief in Kandahar - was free to keep running his massive drug business while dismissing elections ("the people in this region don't understand it"). Who cared if the Afghan government in Kabul was/is in fact a crime syndicate? "Loyal" local commanders - "our bastards" - increasingly got funding and even dedicated Special Forces as personal advisors to themselves and their death squads. McChrystal, to his credit, admitted that the Soviets in the 1980s did many things right (for instance, building roads, promoting central government, education for boys and girls alike, modernising the country). But they also did a lot of things terribly wrong, such as carpet-bombing and killing 1.5 million Afghans. If only Pentagon planners had the presence of mind to read Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1970-89 (Profile Books), by former British ambassador Rodric Braithwaite, drawing on a wealth of Russian sources from the KGB to the Gorbachev Foundation; from the internet to a spectacular book by the late General Alexander Lyakhovsky. You have the right to be misinformed The Pentagon will never accept the withdrawal date of 2014: it goes full-frontal against its own Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine, which counts on scores of US bases in Afghanistan to monitor/control/harass strategic competitors - Russia and China. The way out will be a ruse. The Pentagon will transfer its special operations to the CIA; they will become "spies", not "troops on the ground". This will mean, essentially, an extension ad infinitum of the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which carried out the targeted killing of over 20,000 "suspected" Vietcong supporters. And that leads us to the current CIA director, media-savvy General David Petraeus and his baby - COIN field manual FM 3-24, the Pentagon's answer to William Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell as the marriage of counter-insurgency with the war on terror. And this, even after a 2008 RAND study titled How Terrorist Groups End stressed that the only way to defeat them was through a good old law enforcement operation. Afghan killings strain relations with US Petraeus couldn't care less. After all, his "information operations" - as in all-out media manipulation, coupled with the massive distribution of the proverbial suitcase full of US dollars - had won "his" and George W Bush's surge in Iraq. Proud Pashtuns were a much tougher nut to crack than Sunni sheikhs in the desert. They went so low-tech - fabricating tens of thousands of IEDs with fertiliser, wood and old munitions - that they in fact froze US technology dead in its tracks, leading to endless Pentagon newspeak reports on "vast increase in IED activity". Since Obama's inauguration, the Pentagon had been playing extra-dirty to extract the exact war they wanted to carry out in Afghanistan. They got it. Petraeus went on non-stop spin mode on "progress". Local populations were "becoming more receptive" to US troops, even as a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) - the cumulative knowledge of 17 US intelligence agencies - remained grim. Petraeus did what he does best: he remixed the NIE. He never admitted that the war would be over by 2014. He cranked up airstrikes, unleashed Apache and Kiowa attack helicopters, tripled the number of night raids by Special Forces, authorised a mini-Shock and Awe, totally levelling the town of Tarok Kolache in southern Afghanistan. After yet another US massacre in February 2011 in Kunar Province, with 64 dead civilians, Petraeus even had the gall of accusing Afghans of burning their own children to make it look like collateral damage. Good for him. At the time, his relationship with Obama was even improving. The Obama administration is, in fact, convinced that Obama's surge, led by Petraeus and scheduled to finish by September, has left Afghanistan "stable", at least in the region known as "regional command east"; that's what Petraeus dubs "Afghan good enough". Most of the country is in fact "Talib good enough", but who cares? As for burning babies, cynics might qualify it as a feature of American exceptionalism. One just has to remember the Amiriya Shelter in Baghdad on February 13, 1991, when no fewer than 408 children and their mothers were burned to death by the US. I'll never look into your eyes… again How not to remember the inimitable Dennis Hopper as the psychedelic photojournalist in Apocalypse Now, talking about Colonel Kurtz/Marlon Brando: "He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense…" "Poet-warrior" McChrystal was convinced Afghanistan was not Vietnam; in Vietnam the US was fighting a "popular insurgency", unlike Afghanistan (wrong: the many strands bundled under the moniker "Taliban" have become more popular in direct proportion to Karzai's disaster, not to mention that in Vietnam the official Pentagon spin was that the Vietcong were never popular). Generals, anyway, don't go on Kurtz-style killing sprees. Petraeus was promoted to unleash Shadow War Inc at the CIA. After he was sacked following a profile in Rolling Stone magazine - how rockstar is that? - McChrystal ended up rehabilitated by the White House. He taught at Yale, went into consulting, is making a fortune on the conference circuit - distilling wisdom about "leadership" and the Greater Middle East - and was made an unpaid adviser to military families by Obama. McChrystal sees Afghanistan as stuck in "some kind of post-apocalyptic nightmare". Conrad's "the horror… the horror…" is perennial. The Pentagon's key lesson from Vietnam was how to seal off the horror, how to put it in boxes, and how to, voluptuously, embrace it. So it's no wonder McChrystal could not possibly see that he was starring as the remixed Colonel Kurtz - while Petraeus was a more methodical, but no less deadly Captain Willard. Unlike Vietnam, though, this time there won't be a Coppola to win the war for Hollywood. But there will be plenty of Hollow Men left at the Pentagon. Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His latest book is named Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). SOURCE: Al Jazeera ABOUT THE AUTHOR Pepe EscobarPepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His latest book is named Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). Politics US & Canada Afghanistan China France


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– Katy Perry shows her patriotic side on the cover of this weekend's Parade. Here's what the 27-year-old pop star had to share: On why she included her divorce in Katy Perry: Part of Me: "I think if people walked out of the theater and that was completely avoided, they would be like, 'Well, there's an elephant in the room that's still there.' I like to go out there looking like a strong woman, because I am strong. But I am also a woman who goes through all kinds of problems and highs and lows. I wanted to show the complete spectrum."
On being honest in her concert film: "There are a lot of things that are personally uncomfortable to show, especially me without makeup and completely bloated or crying. But I've realized that it's time for me to show my audience that you don't have to be perfect to achieve your dreams. Because nobody relates to being perfect … I'm okay with having bad dance moves. I'm okay with having horrible lower teeth. That's what makes me me, and for some reason it's worked out all right."
Posted on: Katy Perry


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Profile: Sabine Lindorfer
My profession:
Marketing Services
Employed with Trotec since:
Since its founding in 1997 (I was one of the first five employees). Prior to that, I had been with Trodat since 1990.
My personal work motto:
Talent is what you can do. Motivation determines what you actually do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
This is how I would describe my job to a friend:
On the one hand, I support and train our Area Marketing Managers worldwide in the areas of email marketing and direct marketing. In addition, I handle marketing-related projects outside of segment and online marketing.
I spend most of my work day...
That depends. Sometimes in meetings or answering questions (mostly via email) or with project work or doing training or...
"Where should I start...in my first year with Trotec, I shared an office and a landline phone with Andreas Penz. I can't even imagine that nowadays. I will never forget the time we wanted to roll out our only prototype of the PRO power laser (at that time, it was the only product in the portfolio) to the car for a trade show and it fell off the rolling carrier because it was not strapped down. Thank God nothing happened to the machine. We didn't have another one! My initial time with Trotec was pretty chaotic in general, but those crazy incidents really brought us together. "- A funny anecdote from my work life - Sabine Lindorfer -
The coolest thing about my job is...
...that I don't have much routine work. Every day brings new challenges! And I like the collaboration with various people and characters from a many different countries and cultures.
The thing I appreciate most about Trotec is:
The opportunity to have flexible work hours and the easygoing and relaxed, but still respectful way we interact with each other. And of course I think our products - the lasers - are pretty cool.
Something personal about myself:
I love good food and good wine. At home and in foreign countries.


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Put your best foot fashion-forward in the finest footwear from boohooMAN. The chukka is the boot of choice for the best dressed, sophisticated suede brogues a sharp shoe and work boots one for off-duty daywear. Kick back in drop crotch sweat pants and PU trim hi tops for slick sports luxe style – we've got trend-led treads to keep your collection up to date.


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Frosting Cupcakes
When it comes to baking, one of the best compliments I receive is when I walk in with my hands full of baked goods and someone asks me what bakery I stopped at on the way. I am always happy to tell them that I did, in fact, bake everything from scratch. I usually get a somewhat puzzled look, since it seems fewer and fewer people these days actually do their own baking. I think that may be due partially to lack of time, but I think it is also due in part to the fact that people aren't confident in their ability to pull off a batch of beautiful cupcakes or cookies.
So, for this week's Works For Me Wednesday post, I thought I'd share my secret to perfect, professional-looking frosting for cupcakes. I'm always amazed how many people think that because a pastry bag is involved, it must be very difficult to get that pretty swirl of frosting on top of a cupcake. Here's the thing… I actually think it's MUCH easier to ice cupcakes with a pastry bag than with a spatula or a knife. The fact that they look like you bought them somewhere is just an added bonus!
For my cupcake frosting method, you'll need a few simple tools… Don't worry, they won't break the bank. You can find everything at a local craft store!
- Pastry Bag – Either a cloth pastry bag or a disposable one will work. You can typically buy a large box of disposable bags at a craft store to keep on hand (and keep your eye out for the 40% off coupons that many craft stores include in the Sunday paper for an even better deal!).
- Star Tip – When frosting cupcakes, I typically use an Ateco 827 tip, but any star tip will do. I believe the Wilton 8B tip is a similar size, but has additional ridges on it… That one is probably easier to find at a local store.
The Method…
Once you have the necessities, frosting cupcakes is quite simple. All you need to do is fit the pastry bag with the star tip. Then, use a rubber spatula (I find those spoon-spatula combos work quite well for scooping the icing) to fill the pastry bag with frosting. To stabilize the pastry bag while filling it, you can try setting it inside a large plastic cup. Only fill the pastry bag about half full and then gently push the icing down into the bag and twist the top shut.
For each cupcake, simple make a swirl of frosting with the pastry bag… no sweat!
- Keeping the tip relatively close to the top of the cupcake, begin piping out the frosting by squeezing the bag from the top while using your other hand to stabilize the bag (this is kind of like toothpaste… though, I am notorious for squeezing toothpaste from the middle). The bag should be straight up and down.
- Draw a circle of icing around the outside of the cupcake, moving your hands in a circle while keeping the tip close to the cupcake and the bag straight up and down.
- Once you have iced the outside of the cupcake, continue the swirl to the inside of the circle, filling in the middle of the cupake.
- Just as you finish the swirl of icing, push down slightly on the pastry bag in the middle of the cupcake. Then, as you stop squeezing the pastry bag, gently pull the pastry bag directly upwards from the cupcake.


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Every June, the number "120" takes on a new meaning when State Route 120 is mentioned. That's when 120 miles of garage sales are set up.
This year's Historic Old Territorial Road 120 Mile Yard, Barn and Garage Sale kicked off Tuesday and continues through Sunday, when half-price day will be offered by many sellers.
Last year's event was bigger than the inaugural year in 2006, and organizers Dave and Sue Blessing expect an even bigger turnout this year as the sale grows in popularity. As they put it, expect more sales per gallon as you head either east or west on the old Territorial Road between Sylvania, Ohio, and Elkhart, Ind.
Sellers who aren't located directly on the road but are close by are encouraged to post signs pointing to their sale.
Sellers are also encouraged to place their sale back from the edge of the road to discourage people from parking on Territorial Road. With the 55 mph speed limit and not much berm, the Blessings urge sellers not to be shy about asking shoppers to park in the driveway.
For more information, call the Blessings at 419/452-7438 or write to them at email@example.com.


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The Equal Opportunity Act 2010 took effect in August 2011.
This new Act replaces the Equal Opportunity Act 1995 and strengthens discrimination laws in Victoria by changing some key definitions, creating new responsibilities for the Commission, and strengthening the Commission's role in helping government, business and the community identify and eliminate discrimination.
The objectives of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 are to encourage the identification and elimination of discrimination, sexual harassment and victimisation and their causes, and to promote and facilitate the progressive realisation of equality.
To do this the Commission will provide a timely and effective dispute resolution service and has been given tools to encourage and facilitate best practice and compliance.
It is still against the law under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 to discriminate against a person on the personal characteristics listed in the Equal Opportunity Act 1995.
It is also against the law to sexually harass someone or to victimise them for speaking up about their rights, making a complaint, helping someone else make a complaint or refusing to do something that would be contrary to the Equal Opportunity Act.
Download the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 quick guide for more information.
Under the Act the Commission may also intervene in cases or appear as amicus curiae to assist a court or tribunal considering equal opportunity issues.


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Allen International-National Bank of Greece's I-Bank Digital Gateway
At Design Interviews
(Excerpt) Interview with allen international : Frank Scott: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?. allen international : The concept's primary goal is to attract and acquire new i-bank customers. To educate and train in the use of electronic banking channels: Internet Banking, Mobile Banking, Phone Banking, Auto Payment Systems. Therefore in line with this goal the overall inspiration that shaped the final design was the creation of a digital gateway, metaphorically and architecturally. .Frank Scott: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?. allen international : To create a customer experience that would challenge local customers perceptions of the National Bank Of Greece. An environment that would utilise the latest digital communication technologies to engage the consumer. We were focussed on developing a space that would utilise a contrast of technology and natural materials to demonstrate the brands commitment to ecology and break from the purely hi-tech aesthetic that customers may expect from such a concept. Finally, to create an environment that will feel as different to traditional banking spaces as possible. .Frank Scott: What are your future plans for this award winning design?. allen international : NBG have built a further 2 i-bank branches in different locations across Greece and our hope is to work with them to expand the concept to further locations and formats in the future. .Frank Scott: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?. allen international : Approximately 12 months. .Frank Scott: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?. allen international : Our company allen international specialise in retail design and particular financial retail design. We have been fortunate to work with NBG on several projects in the past including their branch network. We were approached by the bank to develop this new format based upon our previous successful working partnership with them. .Frank Scott: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?. allen international : The concept is solely for the use of the National Bank Of Greece. .Frank Scott: What made you design this particular type of work?. allen international : Our strong experience in retail store design and brand identity development led us to begin working with financial institutions over 15 years ago. We utilise strong retail principles to design total customer experiences for banking clients. .Frank Scott: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?. allen international : The simplicity of the Apple store was an influence on the concept generally in terms on the degree of innovation we wanted to pursue for this project. It was also an influence as it captures the the overall ambience we wanted to create, a space that feels more like a community space than hard sell store. .Frank Scott: Who is the target customer for his design?. allen international : We designed a concept that we believe will appeal to both a young and old customer segments of different backgrounds but essentially to those whom would not generally consider using traditional NBG branches. Early signs since the space has been opened indicate the concept has this cross demographic appeal we targeted. .Frank Scott: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?. allen international : It's concept, aesthetics and operation. .Frank Scott: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?. allen international : The i-bank name was already registered and in use by NBG. We developed names for the various zones in the space via careful strategic development of their uses and the atmosphere we wanted to create within each. These zone names included the i-amphitheatre, i-lounge, ambassadors bar and entrance portal. .Frank Scott: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?. allen international : During it's conceptual development: traditional Sketching, Vectorworks modelling software, Cinema 4D visualisation software, Adobe illustrator and photoshop for graphic development, Adobe after effects for the production of the on screen digital communications and C-nario for the broadcast of the digital contents across the screens. Audacity software for the mixing of the unique audio soundtrack we compiled to broadcast across the space. .Frank Scott: What is the most unique aspect of your design?. allen international : We believe the culmination of aesthetics, architectural features and technology for the delivery of banking services makes it a unique design and experience. .Frank Scott: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?. allen international : Our internal team of designers as credited on the project details. Client side the Alternative Channel Division at NBG and their internal architects, technical division and marketing team. The talented external suppliers and construction companies whom all worked together made the concept a reality: -Technology provider & content management: Panou company, Web: www.panou.gr , local representative for the C-nario software. -Vertical Garden: supplier VitaVerde, www.vitaverde.gr. -Interior fit out main contractor -AcrylicArt, D. Markakos company, http://www.acrylicart.gr .Frank Scott: What is the role of technology in this particular design?. allen international : It is the key to guiding, showcasing and delivering the services the customer will obtain from the brand. It immerses, engages and leads the user through the space. A fundamental part of the concept without which their could be no design! .Frank Scott: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?. allen international : Research undertaken by the National Bank Of Greece formed the basis of the design strategy we developed and final design delivered. .Frank Scott: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?. allen international : Realising such a unique design that had never been piloted before provided a huge challenge particularly in the time scale of the project. .Frank Scott: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?. allen international : By researching the awards available in the market that had the high caliber of design entries submitted we wanted to be associated with. .Frank Scott: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?. allen .[ End of Excerpt: Read complete interview with allen international on National Bank of Greece's I-Bank Digital Gateway at design-interviews.com ]
Allen International-National Bank of Greece's I-Bank Digital Gateway Images:
End of the article, click here to go back to previous page, or alternatively go back to Design Industrial homepage.


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Dear Vanessa,
I was wondering, what type of cleaning products do you recommend for cleaning your bathroom, kitchen and the rest of the house?
— Gatlin Massey
Dear Gatlin,
I'm not in the habit of recommending specific brand products. Instead, here are some guidelines and alternatives to consider.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that indoor air can be two to five times more polluted than the air you breath outdoors. Why add to those numbers by using toxic cleaning products? Too many of the cleaning products on the market are not only full of dangerous chemicals and pesticides, but also may contain antibacterial ingredients that are unlikely to make your home cleaner and could add to the creation of treatment-resistant "super germs." At least 17,000 petrochemicals are sold for home use, and only 30 percent of them have been tested for exposure to human environmental health. There's an average 63 synthetic chemical products found in American homes, translating to about 10 gallons of chemicals. For your own, and the environment's health, only use nontoxic products or ingredients when you clean.
Specifically, don't use anything with chlorine or phosphates. Instead, use products that are biodegradable and phosphate-free, and choose ones that are plant-based not petroleum-based.
One basic rule of thumb is to buy powdered products in lieu of liquids. When you buy liquids, you are essentially paying — literally and environmentally – for the packaging and shipping of the bulk and weight of water. Add your own water at home, and save the high price of transportation and packaging. Personally, I think powdered cleaners work better anyway.
You can find lots of recipes online for making your own cleaners with inexpensive, readily available, and natural ingredients. Three of the most effective and versatile ingredients are baking soda, vinegar and lemon.
Baking soda is a great, mild abrasive and natural deodorizer and can readily replace harsh commercial scouring products. You can make a paste of baking soda and water for scrubbing jobs, or sprinkle it on carpets and fabrics to absorb nasty odors.
Vinegar's mildly acidic nature dissolves dirt, soap scum, and hard water deposits, and can be used for anything from cleaning hardwood floors, and eliminating mildew to replacing fabric softeners. Really. Add white vinegar to your wash instead of buying fabric softeners: it neutralizes the pH of laundry cleaners. And, no, your clothes won't smell like vinegar. The smell disappears as the vinegar evaporates. In fact, vinegar is a natural deodorizer, absorbing odors instead of covering them up. A vinegar-and-water spray can clean countertops, ovens, toilets and is a good glass cleaner.
Lemon oil is used in many commercial products because of its great cleaning properties. Lemons have effective antibacterial qualities, a great smell, and can dissolve all sorts of grime. Try a mix of lemon and salt to clean chopping boards. (I sprinkle salt on the boards and scrub them down with leftover lemon halves.)
Keep it clean AND green.
Photo: Jill Clardy/Flickr
MNN homepage photo: jorgegonzalez/iStockphoto


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Umbra Infinity Wall Mount / Free Standing Photo Frame
The 'Infinity Floating Photo Frame' from Umbra is a modern non-traditional way of displaying precious memories, mount on the wall or use the pedestal stand included to stand on a shelf, bookcase or desk. The 4 x 6 and the 5 x 7 have different depth wall mounting blocks enabling them to be overlapped to create stunning wall displays.
- Photo floats in the middle of the frame between two panes of glass
- The photo can be mounted portrait or landscape
- Non-traditional design
- Wall mountable
- Tabletop stand included
4 x 6
Height: 27cm
Width: 22cm
Depth: 10cm
Weight: 600g
5 x 7
Height: 30cm
Width: 26cm
Depth: 10cm
Weight: 700g
£4.99 Next Working Day Delivery
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Large & high value items are dispatched by DPD.
Other items are dispatched using Royal Mail 48.
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Standard delivery can take up to 3 working days
Next Working Day Delivery
Next working day delivery is £4.99 and for orders placed by 14:00 hours. This will guarantee that your purchases will be dispatched that day (Monday to Friday).
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Extreme weather and other unseen circumstances may cause delivery delays - when possible we will provide updates
Covid-19 Update - Last updated 26/5/2020
We are working hard here at Aspen of Hereford to keep everything running as normally as possible while strictly adhering to all government guidelines.
Dispatch - Currently we are still dispatching orders as normal.
Delivery – We have extended our free delivery from the normal 2 days out to 3 to 5 days due to delays in various places around the country.
All of our carriers have now switched to contactless delivery – they will sign scanners on your behalf and are requesting that if you see them arriving that you do not open the door and allow them to leave the parcel for you.
We are seeing delays of up to 2 weeks with the Royal Mail, but this is only in a small number of cases - Royal Mail is not used on any upgraded delivery orders
Returns - To help our customer self-isolate we are extending our returns period. Any purchase made from the 26/3/2020 has the return period extended to 30/6/2020. We will keep reviewing this date as the situation develops. We have also temporarily stopped offering exchanges due to reduced staff numbers in our returns team, if you have an exchange already set up with us this will still be honored and we will carry on to offer refunds as normal (please see the returns page for more details)
Customer Service – We are still answering emails and the phone, however refunds make take an extra day to be processed.
Our Team – Where possible we have taken steps to allow as many of our team as possible to work from home and are reducing contact between team members still working on site.
We will provide updates as soon as we hear more from the government or anything else changes.
From everyone here as Aspen of Hereford we wish you the best through these tough and unprecedented times


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Hello all,
I'm feeling really very bad since some months, but know i'm really depressed and under AD treatment that make me feel paradoxically worse and worse. It's all about relationship, my loved boyfriend and me.
I'm in this infinite loop of remebering what has been said, what hasn't been said, why i was said, why deserve what has been said, why, why he said me this awful things even if I know that also me I said awfal things.
Now, we decided to take some distance because we were so harmful, and no more positive energy. Personally I feel not able to forgive some things that I heard, that he reproach to me. We all know this phases when all our components, all what we are doing and all what we are become problematic to the other one.
I'm suffering from PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder) and all months, fights during hours and weeks, we are both tired of this situation and I admit that we are 50 / 50 responsable of this situation. Me weith my PMDD, and him with his possessivity and dominance...
Can't see any positive thing in this experience, it's so painful, fight that dure for hours for a word that has been said, or not bas been said.
Relationship, PMDD, dominance
Talk about relationships in the context of Spiritual Enlightenment
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My father played soccer before I was born. The dusty trophies on a shelf in the basement and a few faded sepia-tinted photographs were all I knew of it. I don't remember my father ever watching soccer while I was growing up and though I was given a soccer ball for my first Christmas, the game was only played casually in our yard, just another ball that was part of our collection of toys, piled in a box along with cob-webbed baseball bats, tennis rackets, and flat basketballs.
It wasn't until I started working at a little Italian restaurant that fútbol fever took over. The owner was from Italy, and as any good Italian should, he loved soccer, ("calcio" in Italian.) Business was often slow and he was infamous for working us hard, always reminding us in his thick accent, "If you can't find something to do, I will find something for you. I am not paying you for nothing." But during the World Cup, he allowed us to sit with him at the wobbly uneven-legged tables in the dinning room once in awhile to watch the games play on the little TV up in the corner, (though we had to re-fill ketchup bottles and salt shakers while we watched.) Sometimes he even forgot to complain that we were taking advantage of his generous "unlimited fountain drinks for employees" benefit.
It was during this time that I really fell in love with the game, and not just because it offered a momentary respite from scrubbing floor tiles with a toothbrush. The actual game itself is beautiful; there is beauty in the skill in which the men move the ball down the field, but also in the ball itself. Such a humble object, so humble that people have been known to create them out of trash in the most dire circumstances. There is beauty in the fact that the game is accessible to all, and that no matter our differences, for a brief time, it can bring the world together in a common love.
My husband's love of fútbol is a very different story, (as is almost every story which directly compares our childhoods.) Growing up in El Salvador during a bloody civil war, with the sounds of helicopters and gunfire as background noise, he still ran out to kick the ball around with his friends. His father was the coach of a second division team, and my husband was the team mascot. Sometimes they would go to the crowded stadium to watch games, which could often times be dangerous as it was common for passionate, (and sometimes intoxicated) fans, to become violent. The Football War, (La guerra del fútbol), between El Salvador and Honduras happened before my husband's time, but that just goes to show the passion they have for the game. (In truth, that war had other causes and the game was just the straw that broke the camel's back.)
Though my husband has told me he wasn't given toys as a child, and his Christmas present was usually a pair of shoes, (purposefully bought a few sizes too big so they would last), somehow he remembers having the official FIFA World Cup sticker albums. While I collected puffy, sparkly, and scratch-and-sniff stickers like most American children of the 1980's, my husband collected stickers of futbolistas and it's one of very few fond childhood memories he has.
So this year, as the 2010 World Cup in South Africa fast approaches, I encouraged my husband to buy the sticker album. He was at first reluctant, saying that there was no one to trade stickers with, but after I found out some friends would be buying the albums, he agreed. It didn't take long for my husband's enthusiasm to be re-ignited. When we bought the album at one of the local Latino markets, we bought a few of the sticker packets with it. The next day, he came home from work with more packets in hand, having stopped at the store on the way. Watching him open the packets and sort through them gives me a glimpse of the little boy he used to be.
We also like sharing this experience with our boys. At first it was just to force our love of fútbol on them, but it turns out, the album provides a great opportunity for practicing Spanish. The pages are multi-lingual, listing the names of the countries and other vocabulary in a dozen or so languages.
As for the stickers, so far we've got three doubles. We've got an extra Sebastian Abreu (Uruguay/Sticker #86.), Maxi Rodriguez (Argentina/Sticker #117), and Hendry Thomas (Honduras/Sticker #612). Who wants to trade? :)


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Stephen Colbert returned to his late night show Wednesday after a week-long hiatus due to his mother's death.
A choked-up Colbert opened the show with heartwarming tribute to his mother Lorna who passed away on June 12. He told the audience about her life, her faith, her childhood and how she met her husband.
"If you watch this show and you like this show, that's because of everybody who works here and I am lucky to be one of them," he said. "But when you watch the show and you also like me, that's because of my mom."
U.S. & World
The day's top national and international news.
The tribute was peppered with a few humorous moments and anecdotes about her deep love for her 11 children.
"I know that it may sound greedy to want more days with a person who lived so long," Colbert said. "But the fact that my mother was 92 does not diminish, it only magnifies the enormity of the room whose door has now quietly shut."
"Her favorite memory of prayer was a young mother tucking in her children," he said, pausing to compose himself. "We were the light of her life, and she let us know it until the end. And that's it. Thank you for listening."
Check out Colbert's tribute to his mother here:


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Today (3/14) is Pi Day, a hallowed celebration in which radius and circumference lovers everywhere convene to eat circular pastries and challenge each other to decimal-reciting contests. Score your festivities with the awesomely underrated soundtrack to Darren Aronofsky's Pi.
The 1998 soundtrack not only launched Clint Mansell's film composing career; it also acts as a veritable who's who for electronic music at the end of the 20th century. It's kind of incredible how this indie movie with a budget of less than $1 million managed to attract such heavyweight talent as Aphex Twin, Massive Attack, Orbital, and Autechre. In the spirit of Pi Day, we've posted a retrospective of the soundtrack below. On second thought, you better not spin this at your Pi Day Party. It'll just fill your guests with profound psychological dread and perhaps inspire some impromptu self-trepanations.
1.) Clint Mansell - "πr²"
2.) Orbital - "P.E.T.R.O.L"
3.) Autechre - "Kalpol Intro"
4.) Aphex Twin -"Bucephalus Bouncing Ball"
5.) Roni Size - ""Watching Windows" (Ed Rush & Optical remix)
6.) Massive Attack - "Angel"
7.) Clint Mansell - "We've Got The Gun"
8.) Dave Holmes - "No Man's Land"
9.) GusGus - "Anthem" (PS: The below music video splices this song with Akira footage. Nice!)
10.) Banco De Gaia - "Drippy"
11.) Psilonaut - "Third From The Sun"
12.) Spacetime Continuum - "A Low Frequency Inversion Field"
13.) Clint Mansell - 2πr


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Here we have VTech's Jeff Allen, expressing himself the only way he knows how on Valentine's Day. Jeff led his team in rebounds, and birds flipped last night.
Despite his valiant effort, Allen fouled out of the game, and was less than pleased as you can clearly see in the image. I'd hate to see how he reacted once he found out what the final score in the game was: Maryland (83) - Virginia Tech (73).
Maryland beats Virginia Tech [Winston-Salem Journal]


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This review was written by guest author, Michael Hait. Michael is a professional genealogist living in the Maryland / Delaware area. He can be reached at http://haitfamilyresearch.com or firstname.lastname@example.com.
FAMILY TREE UNIVERSITY is a new online-based educational opportunity sponsored by Family Tree Magazine. Family Tree University debuted in 2010, and has since expanded their offering of genealogy educational opportunities. This evaluation uses FTU's official website as its main source: http://www.familytreeuniversity.com.
As of April 2011, Family Tree University offers several different options for its educational programs:
ONLINE COURSES: The online courses are led by "expert instructors" and last four weeks, "in a virtual classroom." The courses generally cost $99.99 each, but there is also a "VIP membership" that offers discounted rates. The syllabi for all of these course is available as a PDF download from their website.
o "Advanced Google for Genealogists: Techniques to Take Your Research to the Next Level"
o "Build a Family Website: Make a Site for Your Family in Four Weeks"
o "Cemetery Research 101: Dig Up Your Family History"
o "Civil War Research: Find Your Ancestors in the War Between the States"
o "Computer Boot Camp for Genealogists: Become a Power User in 4 Weeks"
o "Creating a Family History Book: Start-to-Finish Guidance for Assembling and Printing a Family Keepsake"
o "Death Records 101: Find What Your Ancestors Left Behind"
o "Digital Photography Essentials: Techniques to Capture and Preserve Your Family History"
o "Discovering Your Czech and Slovak Roots: Strategies for Searching Over Here and Over There"
o "Discover Your Family Tree: Genealogy for the Absolute Beginner" (only $19.99)
o "Exploring City Directories: How to Trace Your Family in Yesterday's Yellow Pages"
o "Find Your German Roots: From America to Deutschland"
o "Finding African-American Ancestors in Newspapers: Research Strategies for Success"
o "Finding Ancestors in the US Census: Online and Offline Research Strategies"
o "Finding Your Ancestral Village: Strategies and Tools to Pinpoint Your Family's Place of Origin"
o "German Genealogy 201: Strategies and Skillbuilding"
o "Google Earth for Genealogists: Plot Your Ancestors' Lives"
o "Google Master Class: Improve Your Online Search Skills in 8 Weeks" (8-week course, $199.99)
o "Google Tools for Genealogists: Four Resources to Enhance Your Family History"
o "Immigration Master Class: How to Find Immigrants, Ancestral Villages and Foreign Records" (8-week course, $199.99)
o "Land Records 101: Using Deeds, Plats, Patents and More"
o "Mastering Google Search: Secrets to Smarter, Faster Online Research"
o "Newspaper Research 101: Find Your Ancestors in American News Sources"
o "Organize Your Genealogy: Get Your Research in Order (and Keep It That Way)"
o "Organize Your Photos: Preserve Your Family's Pictorial Legacy"
o "Published Genealogies: How to Use Others' Research to Grow Your Family Tree"
o "Research in Foreign Records: How to Find Your Family Across the Pond"
o "Reverse Genealogy: Working Forward to Break Down Brick Walls"
o "Source Documentation 101: How to Cite Genealogy Sources Accurately and Effectively"
o "Trace Your Polish Roots: Strategies for Searching in the US and Poland"
o "Tracing Immigrants: How to Research Your Family's American Arrivals"
o "US Military Records: Trace Your Ancestors' Service"
o "US Vital Records: Researching Births, Marriages, Deaths and Divorces"
o "Write Your Family History: Create a Captivating Record of Your Family's Story" (8-week course, $199.99)
INDEPENDENT STUDY COURSES: Many of the online courses listed above also have "Independent Study" options. These independent study courses contain the same material, without the guidance of an instructor. They can be purchased either on CD or as digital downloads. Both delivery methods are currently listed at a $99.99 price, but are discounted to $74.99. It is unknown whether this lower price is time-limited or a permanent sale price.
WEBINARS: The webinars are occasional one-hour presentations by the FTU instructors on various topics. They are presented live and consist of audio and video, using the GoToWebinar software. These webinars cost an average of $39.99. The webinars are also recorded and can be accessed "on demand." Past and upcoming topics include:
o "Life in Civil War America Free Webinar"
o "South Carolina Genealogy Crash Course: Find Your Palmetto State Ancestors"
o "New York Genealogy Crash Course: Find Your Empire State Ancestors"
o "Georgia Genealogy Crash Course: Find Your Peach State Ancestors"
o "Historical Books on the Web: Millions of Tomes at Your Fingertips"
o "Pennsylvania Crash Course: Find Your Keystone State Ancestors"
o "10 Steps to Discover Your Roots"
o "Your Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com: Tips, Hints and Hacks for Finding Your Ancestors"
o "Ellis Island: Finding Your Ancestor in a Sea of Online Records"
o "Brick Wall Busters: Solutions to Real-Life Stumpers"
o "Online Military Records: Document Your Family's Service"
o "Making the Most of FamilySearch.org"
o "Photo Sharing 101: How to Organize, Archive and Share Family Memories Online"
o "Search Engine Tips & Tricks: Google Techniques to Boost your Research"
o "Organization Made Easy"
o "Photo Retouching"
o "Brick Wall Strategies"
o "Vital Records"
o "Online Immigration Records"
o "FamilySearch Essentials"
o "Finding Your Family in Old Newspapers"
o "Heirloom Preservation Made Easy"
o "Online Census Secrets"
o "Googling Your Genealogy"
Lisa A. Alzo
James M. Beidler
Charlotte Marie Bocage
Lisa Louise Cooke
Grace Dobush
Midge Frazel
Nancy Hendrickson
Ceil Wendt Jensen
George G. Morgan
Sunny McClellan Morton
Tim Pinnick
Diana Crisman Smith
Allison Stacy
Most of these instructors are either employees or frequent contributors to Family Tree Magazine. A few of the instructors are active members of national organizations such as the Association of Professional Genealogists and the Federation of Genealogical Societies. Several of them have relatively high-profile genealogy blogs. Only a few of them identify themselves as professional genealogists. None of the instructors are certified (CG) or accredited (AG) genealogists.
Family Tree Magazine can sometimes contain articles for "intermediate" skill level genealogists, but the majority of its content is aimed at beginners. Family Tree University appears to be focused on the same audience.
The faculty contains several recognizable names, but the skill level of the instructors also comes into question. Though these instructors have often contributed to Family Tree Magazine, they have not, to my knowledge, had case studies published in peer-reviewed genealogy journals. None of them have had their research skills otherwise evaluated by either BCG or ICAPGen.
Considering the focus of the courses, the questionable quality of the instructors, and the , the average cost of the online courses seems particularly high. The webinars are likewise priced extremely high when considering that most genealogy webinars by other companies are offered between $0 and $10.
These courses may be useful for beginners and intermediate genealogists, but would probably offer very little for advanced genealogists.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Review of Family Tree University
Posted by Unknown at 8:37 AM 2 comments
Labels: Guest Authors, Online courses
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
New Course on Writing Family History
There is a new week-long seminar on "Writing Family History Narratives and Other Genealogical Works" coming this summer. It is sponsored by the Boston University Center for Professional Learning and will be held on campus in Boston from July 25 - 29, 2011. This course will be taught by Dr. John Colletta and Dr. Thomas Jones and will cover many aspects of genealogical writing. The fee is $795 for the five day course.
Here is the description of the new course from the website:
Taught by Dr. John Philip Colletta and Dr. Thomas Wright Jones, this course explores a broad range of genealogical writing, including genealogies and family histories, scholarly articles, reports and summaries, and guides and manuals; however, it focuses mainly on the principles and mechanics of writing and publishing narrative family history. Elements of grammar, syntax and vocabulary, forms of documentation, numbering systems, indexing, illustrations and other aesthetic considerations are all discussed and demonstrated with examples. Ways to organize materials, establish historical context and create vivid and engaging real-life stories are addressed. The mechanics of self-, subsidized and commercial publishing are explained, considering the option of publishing on paper or electronically. In-class exercises critiqued by the instructors allow students to apply the concepts taught, while reading assignments culminate in a class discussion of the broad literary possibilities of family history narrative.Prerequisites
- Students should have completed the BU Genealogical Research Certificate Program or have comparable experience.
- Familiarity with Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills and Professional Genealogy manual
- Prior to the course, students should read the Writing and Compiling and Editing and Publishing sections of Professional Genealogy manual
Posted by Unknown at 9:10 AM 0 comments
Labels: Courses
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
British Institute Announces Speakers for 2011
I received the following announcement and it looks like there are some great programs lined up for the British Institute this year.
The International Society for British Genealogy and Family History Unveils Speakers for Upcoming British Institute
WESTMINSTER, Colo., 11 April, 2011—The International Society for British Genealogy and Family History is excited to announce its speakers for this year's British Institute, to be held from 3–7 October in Salt Lake City. This year's host hotel will be the Radisson Downtown, just a couple of blocks from the Family History Library. Registration is now open and class size is limited.
The Institute consists of three tracks:
Barbara Baker, AG will offer Finding Records of Property Ownership in England. There is no national registry of deeds in England until after 1862 and Barbara's course will cover various types of land and records and where to look for the them.
John Kitzmiller, II, AG, FSA, (Scot), FSG (Eng.), will present The Amazing Honourable East India Company (HEIC). The HEIC was instrumental in making many a military officer or civil servant becoming quite wealthy during their tenure in the service. Learn the history of the HEIC, where to find the records and how to apply them to your research.
David Rencher, AG, CG, FIGRS, FUGA, will present Genealogical Research in Ireland-Advanced Methodology. This course will include Strategies for a Solid Beginning, Catholic Strategies and Research, Scots-Irish Strategies, Mining the Evidence and Drawing Conclusions from the Evidence.
More detailed information can be found at the ISBGFH's Web site http://www.isbgfh.org and you can register on-line, or print, fill out the application and mail to ISBGFH, PO Box 350459, Westminster, CO 80035-0459. If you have any questions, please send an e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.com . When registering at the Radisson Downtown Salt Lake, ask for the British Institute conference rate.
Posted by Unknown at 2:25 PM 0 comments
Labels: Institutes
Friday, April 1, 2011
Season Two: The Generations Project
The following announcement was issued by FamilySearch. I watched this show last season and really enjoyed it. I am looking forward to more stories of average people seeking their ancestors.
Season Two: The Generations Project
The second season of BYUtv's The Generation Project premiers Monday, March 28 at 7:00 p.m. MDT. The Generations Project is a reality-based family history show that uncovers the remarkable stories and family histories of everyday people. The people take a hands-on journey to learn about their ancestors, and in the process they discover more about themselves.
The second season of The Generations Project "takes you from Germany to Holland to New York's 'Little Pakistan' and everywhere in between, following eleven journeys into the past: the Denkes explore the origins of their children's life-threatening genetic disease. Kerry hopes his ancestors will help him find his estranged son, and Ty delves into his complicated heritage as a son of Nazi Germany. They along with eight other guests engage with the past to understand the present."
BYUtv is available through many local satellite and cable companies. In addition, The Generations Project can be viewed live online at http://www.byutv.org (you'll need to register for a free account to view the show live). All episodes are also available to be viewed immediately after airing at http://www.byutv.org/
A link to more information has been placed on the home page of the FamilySearch.org website. Please share the information in this e-mail with others.
Posted by Unknown at 3:33 PM 0 comments
Labels: FamilySearch
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Good friends, a beautiful day, food, wine…perfect!
Obligatory knit content: I knit in the car on the way out (no, I wasn't driving). I'm trying to finish editing a washcloth sampler set that I wrote for a class a couple years ago, and I need pictures of the finished items to include in the pattern. I gave away all the samples as gifts, way back when. So I'm making new ones, but there are six of them, and I've only finished two…keep knitting! Still working on the second shetland shawl, too, just have to finish the border, and block it. I need to finish by next knit nite so I can return Helen's blocking wires to her. A self-imposed deadline. I can't wait to get these done and start something new. Why is it always faster to knit in our heads, than with our hands?


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BOSTON (AP) — A man arrested outside Secretary of State John Kerry's Boston home over the weekend is headed to court.
State Department security officers spotted the man parked in a no-parking zone Sunday afternoon and called police.
Police say the man, 29-year-old Vladimir Romanov of Boston, told security officers he was taking pictures to show a friend. When asked to move his vehicle, he said he'd been drinking.
Kerry spokesman Glen Johnson issued a statement saying the man was taking pictures of a window in Kerry's house. He says a pellet gun was found in the vehicle.
Kerry, a former U.S. senator from Massachusetts, was not home.
Prosecutors say Romanov is scheduled to be arraigned Monday on a charge of having an open container of alcohol. The district attorney's office says no lawyer is listed for him.


text: I'd been training for years in the completely wrong fashion. Managed to gain some minimal strength and size but that quickly stopped. Then I enlisted in the Marine Corps and trained specifically for that, dropping weight lifting in favor of pushups, pullups, crunches, and running. Fast forward to last summer and I was admin separated from training due to illness (uncharacterized, convenience of government discharge - unlike some of the kids I had to stay with that were being ELS'd for quitting or fraud). Came back basically recovered but weak as **** and a shoulder injury that I claimed was better to not have to stay in separation platoon for a billion years. Decided to change that. In October I purchased an adjustable dumbbell from Ebay, started HST, and increased all my lifts about 15lb per arm (so around 30lb increase per lift), far surpassing where I was before terms of strength and and definitely adding some size. I'm 19 years old, currently 5'8, 150-155lb - probably around 14-15% body fat, and increased my caloric intake to 3,000 a day (thanks to member suggestions from a previous thread I posted) and am not as interested in aesthetics as I am in strength, at the moment. Luckily HST, at least for myself, finds a balance between the two, as I'm still making gains measurable strength despite being about 6 months since I started. Yeah, I'm not BIG, and I'm not STRONG AS ***, but I'm pushing myself hard and seeing results, and that's all that matters to me. A problem though is with the adjustable dumbbell, I haven't been able to squat or deadlift. I hope to change this by joining the gym come this upcoming cycle. Yet due to a Grade III Ankle sprain, I'm probably going to be even weaker and less coordinated going into the next cycle. So I don't expect to be putting up even decent numbers on the two lifts - especially squat. If I don't need surgery, which I will be finding out about in the next couple of weeks, I'll also be rehabbing my ankle as well. Going to be doing Stronglifts for my squats and deadlifts. Rest of my lifts will be in HST fashion. I'm going to continue with the calorie surplus until I don't like what I see in the mirror, and then I'll start a cut. Below is my plan for the upcoming cycle, which I will be documenting in this thread, assuming everything goes as planned. A few exercises that I've been doing have been dropped or changed in favor of simplicity - Bicep Curl, Tricep Overhead Extension, Lateral Raise, Dumbbell Row, DB Shrugs. 5th HST/Stronglifts Hybrid Cycle: Lift - Current 5 Rep Max - 5 rep max I'll be shooting for by the end of the cycle Deadhang Pullups (New) - Current: 15 reps - End: 20 reps Dumbbell Overhead Press - Current: 55lb (110lb) - End: 60lb (120lb) Dumbbell Bench Press - Current: 65lb (130lb) - End: 70lb (140lb) _____________________ Hammer Curl (New) - Current: Haven't tested max but I'm guessing around 50-55lb - End: Anywhere from 52.5 - 60lb...depends on what my current max is. OR EZ Bar Curl (New) - Current: ??? - End: ??? _____________________ MAYBE Tricep Pushdown (New) - Current: ??? - End: ??? Squat (New) - Current: ??? - End: ??? Deadlift (New) - Current: ??? - End: ??? ____________________________ Thread will be updated when my 4th HST cycle is finished (Soon) and I join the gym and test my maxes for the exercises I haven't done. Thanks for the read .


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CBA fallout widens as government mulls compo
The Abbott government has put intense pressure on Commonwealth Bank chief executive Ian Narev to make a more ''considered'' public response to the bank's financial planning scandal, possibly including a beefed-up compensation scheme costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
The government's efforts to squeeze a more generous settlement from the bank comes as it seeks to shore up political support for its controversial wind-back of consumer protections in the former Labor government's Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) laws.
A Senate inquiry this week called for a royal commission into the bank because the regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, was ''reluctant to actively pursue misconduct''.
Mr Narev is also believed to be under pressure from the government to reshuffle executive ranks over the debacle.
Pressure is also mounting from within the bank for Mr Narev, who has been largely absent from the public debate over allegations of forgery, fraud and a management
cover-up within CBA's financial planning division, to step into the spotlight ''so clients can see the bank is taking it seriously''.
ASIC chairman Greg Medcraft on Friday admitted there was ''an issue with trust and confidence in the financial advice industry''. He said the industry ''has to win the confidence of Australian consumers''.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann this week met Mr Narev to discuss the scandal and the Senate inquiry's findings. On Friday, Senator Cormann was talking down the inquiry's recommendation for a royal commission into CBA.
There has only been one royal commission focusing on a single company in living memory, into the collapse of insurer HIH in 2001.
Broadcaster Alan Jones, the Greens and industry super funds have thrown their weight behind a royal commission, with Jones asking Prime Minister Tony Abbott to call one ''immediately'' during his breakfast radio slot on 2GB on Friday. However, Senator Cormann said arguments against a royal commission mounted in a dissenting report tabled by the committee's deputy chairman, Liberal senator David Bushby, were ''persuasive''.
In a statement, CBA also pointed to Senator Bushby's six-page dissent, and said it had ''worked openly and transparently'' with the inquiry and ASIC.
Senator Cormann said: ''I have spoken to Ian Narev about the findings of the Senate Economics Committee today and I am confident that he and the CBA will have more to say by way of a considered response to their report next week.''
He dismissed suggestions the government should reconsider its rollback of FOFA, saying that the financial planning industry had ''worked hard to lift professional, ethical and educational standards'' since the CBA debacle, which ''happened some time in the past, incidentally over the period of the previous government''.
Australian Electoral Commission records show that last year the Liberal Party's Cormack Foundation reaped $938,400 from dividends earned from CBA shares. A spokeswoman for Senator Cormann said the money played no part in the minister's decision.
While the CBA has issued seven public statements on the financial planning scandal since June last year, when Fairfax Media first revealed allegations of misconduct, Mr Narev is not quoted in any of them.
A CBA spokeswoman said Mr Narev was not available for comment.
While not ruling out that a royal commission might eventually be needed, opposition financial services spokesman Bernie Ripoll said the government should first look at the results of inquiries already under way.


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In honour of the World Cup, I present you with the greatest video on the entire internet! "Refait" is a remake of the 1982 World Cup match between France and Germany. Every detail of the fifteen last minutes of the match was painstakingly reconstructed by Pied La Biche. The sheer pointlessness of it all is hilarious. Enjoy.
Watch the video below!


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Alamosa, great job on this. Instead of welding the base plate, how about welding a smaller coupling, male or female, that you could place the pole in or over. This would allow you to detach it for packing up better. If you make it a bit sloppy it would also allow the base to set on uneven ground a little better.
Edit: Was just sitting on the thinking chair and thought that all you would really need to do is have a bead or small mound of weld on your plate that is smaller than the inside diameter of the conduit. This would keep the pipe from slipping out sideways and minimize the weight. Of course to go even lighter you could find a rubber end cap, like for crutches. Either to slip over the pipe or use a dowel adapter. It would probably still sink into the ground a little.