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A pastor, a football player, a ministry leader and a seminary student walk into a helicopter. Well, they don't walk, really. They hoist and scoot themselves into the seven-person Bell 407, a sleek navy-and-white beauty equipped with six aqua-green headsets attached to microphones that curl in front of the passengers' lips.
The helicopter is sitting on a helipad on the tarmac of Centennial Airport in Englewood, and its whirring propeller is making a lot of noise. The pilot, a lighthearted businessman with salt-and-pepper hair named Jeff Puckett, pulls back on the joystick, and the 407 begins to hover. For a few seconds, it feels as if the helicopter is a person standing on one leg, struggling to hold his balance. But just as quickly, the shaking smooths out and the 407 climbs into the sky.
"Thank you, Lord, for this day," Puckett says into his microphone. He steers the helicopter past the small airport's air-traffic control tower and toward the Cherry Creek Reservoir. From a height of 500 feet, the reservoir looks like a massive puddle, with boats the size of Matchbox cars making white streaks across the water. The viewpoint is close enough to see the individual people on the ground — mowing their lawns, bicycling to work — but far enough that you can't tell who they are. Now at skyscraper height, Puckett continues to pray into his crackly microphone. "And thank you for the folks on board this helicopter," he says. "We pray today, Lord, for those below."
It's the second flight of the day for Prayer One, an all-volunteer helicopter ministry started by Puckett and his friends five years ago. The passengers are among the nearly 2,600 people who have flown in the holy helicopter. A total of twenty people arrived at the airport at 7:30 a.m. this particular Monday and were led up to Puckett's handsome second-floor office in the X Jet building, an aircraft refueling center that feels like a luxury hotel. They sipped complimentary coffee, munched mini-muffins and looked out Puckett's wall of windows at a blue sky dotted with white clouds.
Most of the group didn't know each other. There were five people from various local Hispanic churches, including the pastors of Mean Street Ministry in Aurora. Amber Tafoya, a lawyer and former District 4 House candidate, was there with her political consultant. So were two women from Alternatives Pregnancy Center, a pro-life nonprofit in Denver that offers abstinence education and adoption resources.
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Everyone had been invited to take a helicopter ride around the city by Jude Del Hierro, a gregarious former pastor who runs a Denver ministry aimed at increasing collaboration between churches. He divided the would-be passengers into groups of five, mixing old friends with new acquaintances, politicians with businessmen, young with old. Before the first flight, he, too, offered a prayer to God in Puckett's office.
"Thank you for these men and women who have a passion for Denver," he said as the participants stood in a circle around the room. "We ask that they would see you and you would give them new eyes for the city."
"Amen," said Puckett.
Prayer One started with a question. Six years ago, Puckett, his pastor and four other friends were hanging in the Bahamas in a house that one of them owned. The men — "these obese white guys," jokes Puckett, who, at fifty, is nowhere near obese — were passing the afternoon wading in a few feet of water. The get-together wasn't a religious retreat, but since God is never too far from their thoughts, Tom Melton, Puckett's pastor at Greenwood Community Church in Greenwood Village, posed a question: What would you ask God for if there was no limit?
"I wonder if you can pray for a helicopter?" Puckett asked. It was a selfish prayer, he thought, but one he'd been dreaming about for a while. "Can you ask for something that has no intrinsic value to humanity?" he wondered.
Melton thought about it. To him, Puckett's question didn't seem self-indulgent. It seemed responsible — if not tinged with a little bit of guilt. His friend was well-off, and he was asking whether it was right to spend a million and a half bucks on something just for fun.
"I said, 'Well, yeah, I think you can ask him for anything you want,'" Melton says. "That's kind of up to God."
A few months later, Puckett bought his first helicopter: a tiny red Bell JetRanger that had belonged to the Los Angeles County Fire Department. And for the next six months, he flew his toy without much purpose.
As a boy, Puckett never really thought about airplanes. The youngest of three kids, he spent most of his childhood in a middle-class neighborhood in Littleton, playing sports and earning C's in school. His dad was in the oil and gas business, having started at age 21 as a landman, negotiating for drilling rights in several Western states, including Colorado. His mom stayed at home with Puckett and his older brother and sister. The Pucketts went to church on Sundays but weren't fervently religious.
Puckett always knew he'd go into business with his father. After graduating from the private Kent Denver School, he went to a small college in Salt Lake City, where he spent more time skiing than studying. He got serious his sophomore year, though, and transferred to the University of Denver to study business, geography and geology.
The day after he graduated in 1982, he showed up to work with his dad at what became the Puckett Land Company, an independent oil and gas business based in Denver that, in those days, leased land in northeastern Colorado to drill and speculated land for other companies. Puckett was eager, working six days a week at the small venture.
"I was anxious for independence," Puckett says. "I kind of saw [that] if I could be successful in business, that's a great way to get independence from being a kid."
He married his college sweetheart, Nancy, in 1983, but by the mid- to late '80s, the oil and gas business was in a slump, and times were tight for the Puckett Land Company. An unlikely real-estate deal with industry giant ARCO helped pull it through — and, just as unexpectedly, led to Puckett's learning to fly.
The story goes like this: ARCO, which is now a subsidiary of BP, once owned a molybdenum mine in the middle-of-nowhere desert town of Tonopah, Nevada. (The town's claim to fame is that reclusive billionaire and onetime Tonopah mine owner Howard Hughes married Hollywood starlet Jean Peters in a secret motel-room ceremony there in 1957.) To lure workers to its Tonopah mine, ARCO built dozens of houses and apartments. But when the mine closed several years later, ARCO wanted to unload the housing stock — and wound up offering it to the Pucketts.
Seeing an opportunity, the family ended up in the real-estate business, and Jeff ended up playing realtor and landlord for seventy houses and a 122-unit apartment complex. He sold the houses to government workers in Tonopah, which is the seat of Nevada's Nye County, and civilian contractors working at the nearby Tonopah Test Range, a military aircraft test site.
But Tonopah was difficult to get to from Denver; the trip involved flying from Stapleton Airport to Las Vegas, hopping in a car and driving four tedious hours. So in 1988, after reading the Stephen Coonts bestseller Flight of the Intruder, about Navy aviators flying attack missions during the Vietnam War, Puckett told his wife that he was thinking about taking flying lessons. The two were on vacation in Hawaii at the time, and Nancy was six months pregnant with their only son, Chase. "He enrolled himself in class and started pounding away at it," Nancy says. "He was working full-time in the business with his family. But before I knew it, he had his pilot's license."
Puckett bought a four-seat Cessna 182 and was soon making the trip from Denver to Tonopah in three and a half hours. Flying came naturally to him, and he loved it. "It's the freedom," Puckett says. "There's nothing in my life that I can go do and just think about that — and not think about business or other problems that might be on your mind.
"But I can go get in a WACO biplane and it makes me feel like — the sound of it sounds like a Harley, and the air is going through your hair, and you're looking down — there's nothing like it. It's definitely my escape," he adds.
Over the years, the Puckett Land Company grew. In 1990, Puckett and his dad negotiated to buy 40,000 acres of oil shale ground on the Western Slope from ARCO. That parcel, which also produces natural gas, is still the crown jewel of their holdings.
By 2005, the oil and gas business had brought Puckett financial success. He'd used some of that capital to start an airplane distributor called USAERO in 1999 that sold Diamond airplanes, Aviat Husky two-seaters, WACO biplanes and Extra aerobatic planes in six Western states. He also now owned a helicopter. A helicopter without much purpose.
Late 2004 was tough for Tom Melton, a usually laid-back Evangelical Presbyterian pastor with a gray mustache who speaks with a hippie intonation left over from his days at the University of Colorado in the late '60s. A friend had died of cancer, and the wife of another was killed in a snowmobile accident. And then Melton's own wife, Jill, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Puckett saw that Melton was suffering and wanted to lift his spirits. He thought about the way he himself felt when he was flying — unburdened — and it dawned on him: the helicopter. "So I called Tom and I said, 'Listen, why don't you just come out and take an hour, and let's just get you out of the house. Bring your boys and we'll go fly around the city.'"
Melton agreed, not expecting much. But once in the air, he was surprised by his reaction. "It changed my view of the city," says Melton, who grew up in Aurora. "There were no neighborhoods; there were no boundaries." In some ways, Melton says, he felt like he was seeing Denver the way God sees it: as a whole, instead of a bunch of little pieces separated by race and class. Puckett was touched by Melton's reaction. Flying at 500 feet had changed something — stirred something, even — inside his friend.
The next day, Melton was still thinking about the helicopter ride during a meeting with six other pastors and wondered: "What if we could take every single one of them up in the helicopter, too? What if they could see the city the way I had?"
That night, Puckett and his wife were having dinner with friends. Tom Fortson, then the president of the men's faith organization Promise Keepers, was also there. Though he and Puckett had never met, they struck up a conversation about aviation because Fortson's son was studying to be a pilot. Puckett told Fortson about Melton's idea to take pastors on helicopter rides over the city. The purpose, he said, would be to give them a break — a twenty-minute respite from their six-days-a-week servitude.
"I thought, 'Here's a really good idea,'" Fortson says. "Here's a guy who's interested in his community, and he wants to do something for it."
Fortson took the idea and ran with it, assigning a Promise Keepers staff person to book pastors on the helicopter rides that Puckett promised to make every Monday (a day that many pastors have off). He believed the experience would help them bond with each other, a goal that's sometimes elusive because of busy schedules, denominational differences and cultural divides. "This is a natural for pastors to come together," Fortson says. "The ice is broken and they begin to share and talk."
Soon, the helicopter had a name: Prayer One. It also had a purpose.
Prayer One's mission has changed over time. Through five years and three different helicopters (Puckett has traded up twice now), it's morphed from a novel way to give back to overworked pastors into a profound, multicultural, cross-denominational, inter-generational connectivity and networking tool. Puckett and his crew insist the change was organic, and that they couldn't have planned it if they'd tried.
At first, Prayer One's passengers were almost exclusively Christian, identified through Promise Keepers' connections. But the deal between Promise Keepers and Prayer One was never meant to be permanent; Promise Keepers was just trying to help Prayer One get going. After more than a year, the organization pulled out.
In need of a scheduler, Puckett turned to Del Hierro, who founded Confluence Ministries twelve years ago with his wife. Housed in a beautiful renovated synagogue in a working-class neighborhood off West Colfax Avenue, Confluence hosts monthly meetings for missionaries, pastors and youth, as well as GED, computer and English-language classes for the people in the neighborhood. Del Hierro also heads up the Confluence Band, a mishmash of Christian musicians who come together at a moment's notice to play events and church services.
Under Del Hierro's watch — and with the help of his cell phone, which seems to contain the phone number of every religious mover and shaker in Denver — Prayer One gained some diversity. Del Hierro is hesitant to claim credit, comparing the way he schedules passengers on Prayer One to the way the seemingly bumbling television detective Columbo solved mysteries. But in the past few years, Prayer One has flown government officials, religious businessmen, Christians of all stripes, rabbis, Muslims and, most recently, young former gang members involved in a church program.
Del Hierro's style fits perfectly with Puckett's vision for Prayer One. A helicopter ride can be a very bonding experience, says the latter: There's often fear and anticipation, followed by wonderment and joy. The result, he says, "is almost like going to battle. There's something that draws you close."
In 2007, Melton invited the members of Mayor John Hickenlooper's Clergy Council to fly on Prayer One. The council had been created a year and a half earlier when Denver Leadership Foundation president Don Reeverts asked Hickenlooper at the annual Colorado Prayer Luncheon about his dreams for the city. "He thought a minute and said, 'I have this dream. I've been thinking of the homeless issue in Colorado: If every church, synagogue and mosque could mentor a homeless family, it would change the face of homelessness in the metro area,'" Reeverts recalls. "I said, 'Would you like me to help you with that?' He said, 'Do you think you could?'"
Reeverts did. He called a powwow of religious leaders: a rabbi, an Islamic professor, a Catholic bishop and three Christian pastors, including Melton. They compared the number of churches in the city to the number of homeless families. At the end of the meeting, Reeverts had all of them on board, and the Family and Senior Homeless Initiative — tagline: One Congregation, One Family — was born.
The goal was for 1,000 churches to mentor 1,000 homeless families over ten years. Five years later, 724 families have been helped into housing by 290 congregations, says FSHI director Brad Hopkins. The congregations provide the families with $1,200 for a security deposit and first month's rent on an apartment. A team of congregation members also meets with the family to mentor them on how to be self-sufficient. A study of families helped in 2008 showed 85 percent of them were still housed a year later.
Prayer One is not directly connected to FSHI or the Clergy Council, but observers say it's helped the initiative in more ways than one. Hopkins says that with the help of Melton's connection, he uses Prayer One as a "soft sell" for religious leaders to get involved. "It maybe gets to be a perk," he says. "It's a thank-you to them."
It's also brought the members of the Clergy Council closer, says Roxane White. Now Hickenlooper's chief of staff, White was formerly manager of the city's Department of Human Services and chairwoman of Denver's Road Home, the mayor's ten-year plan to end homelessness, of which FSHI is a part. The sixteen Clergy Council members serve as point people for their denominations, recruiting churches to participate in the program.
At first, says White of the council, "we were all a little skeptical of each other. When it was offered to us to go up in the helicopter, it was like, 'Maybe this could be team-building, maybe this will be a waste of time.'"
But up in the air, something clicked. "We took turns talking about what we were seeing, starting with affluent households, and then we came around Sun Valley and saw households that were very poor. We all talked about issues of poverty. We all prayed," says White, who has a degree in religious studies from Oregon's Lewis & Clark College. "And each person put up a prayer to their particular god and their particular faith. We were coming together to solve a problem we all unequivocally agreed on, which was homelessness."
"You've found my soft spot," she says about Prayer One. "It was one of the most powerful experiences I've ever had in my life."
Hopkins was also on that flight. He says the sensation of flying over the city was "almost like angels or something": "The thing I saw is the inter-connectedness and interdependency we have in the city, no matter who you are or what your background or beliefs are. We all need each other to be successful as a society."
Up in the air, the football player, the seminary student, the ministry leader and the pastor stare out the big windows of the Bell 407. The sun is shining, and it's hot inside the helicopter. Outside, the view resembles the city-building video game SimCity. It's as if the windows are a computer or television screen, taking the passengers on an unfamiliar tour of their familiar city. There are recognizable landmarks: the colorful roller coasters of Elitch Gardens, the Macy's sign at the Cherry Creek mall, the towering downtown Qwest building. But much of what they see feels new, even though they've walked and driven those streets countless times.
At first, the houses below are gorgeous. There are clear, blue swimming pools and well-trimmed bushes that look like green gumdrops. The suburban streets are freshly paved and black. There is grass everywhere. But as the helicopter flies north, houses give way to apartment buildings, roofs look more weathered, the paint peeling and discolored. Grass appears more patchy, like a threadbare rug, and there is concrete everywhere — in schoolyards dotted with four-square courts, in endless parking lots and between houses. The roads are gray and full of cracks.
Kito Hicks, a tall, 33-year-old black North Carolina native who played for the Colorado Crush Arena Football League team and is now negotiating with an NFL team, is the first to pray. He'd been invited on Prayer One because of his fledgling business, Field of Visions, which will paint people's spiritual visions so they can hang them on the wall as a reminder. "Heavenly Father," he says into his microphone, "we are grateful to have the opportunity to be in fellowship this morning."
Chris Chancey, the 23-year-old seminary student — a thin white man in Nikes, who captures the view with a Sony camcorder — speaks next: "We pray that you raise up Christian leaders who live their lives promoting justice, mercy and love."
Christian Rubi is last. In a voice accented by his upbringing in Mexico, the thirty-year-old founder of the Conquistando Las Montañas ministry prays for single people to find love and for families to maintain it. He prays for "every teacher and every school."
Pastor Ron Johnson, who, at 47, is the eldest of the group, is mostly quiet. He jokes with Puckett and points out his house below. When Prayer One circles around the vivid green grass and steep bleachers of Coors Field, a grin spreads over his face. It's the sort of grin that you can't help, a grin so wide it's almost embarrassing.
"I often don't experience God in vision," he says later, after the ride is over. "I just don't experience God that way. But I did today."
While Puckett doesn't like the attention — "The Prayer One thing isn't about Jeff Puckett," he says — friends and family agree that without him, it would be impossible.
First, there's the cost. Though Puckett shies away from conversations about money, he says the cost to rent a helicopter for a day is $1,200 to $1,500. And while he claims his costs are lower, if you multiply that by 52 weeks per year and then by five — for the number of years he's been flying — it's at least $312,000.
But it takes more than money to fly Prayer One. It also takes heart, which friends say Puckett has in spades. "Here's a guy who doesn't have to do this," says Puckett's brother-in-law, Scott Southworth, who is also a pilot and has helped out with Prayer One since the beginning, loading passengers in and out of the helicopter. "He could just be a guy who keeps his toys to himself. And he feels absolutely the other way around. He feels he has a responsibility to take these gifts and use them and share them."
He also feels a responsibility to encourage others to follow in his footsteps. When he started Prayer One, Puckett dreamed that other helicopter pilots across the country would hear about what he was doing and follow suit, taking to the skies to bless their cities once a week. But that hasn't happened. So Puckett has switched tactics. With Southworth's help, he's come up with a question he asks everyone he talks to about Prayer One, whether they're religious leaders or schoolchildren: What's your helicopter?
"Find something in your life that you're passionate about," he says. "It's not necessarily about making the almighty dollar, but it's about giving back to your community and to mankind."
"I'm not a very good singer, and I don't know how to preach," he adds. "I know how to fly a helicopter."
Puckett was honored this past January at the annual Living Legends of Aviation Awards, the so-called Oscars of the aviation world, which are held every year in Beverly Hills and attended by stars with a penchant for flying, such as Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kurt Russell. Puckett was the first-ever recipient of the Harrison Ford Aviation Legacy Award, an honor he received largely for his work with Prayer One.
Puckett also volunteers as an honorary Douglas County sheriff's deputy, flying SWAT and reconnaissance missions for the police because they don't have their own helicopter. He serves on the board of the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Lowry, for which he helped make a twelve-minute video about aviation that stars Harrison Ford, a longtime pilot who flies his own plane in the film.
"Jeff is a very outstanding pilot," says museum president Greg Anderson. "But he also burns with a passion for sharing flight with others in special ways, and Prayer One is one of those very special ways."
Puckett was almost embarrassed by the star-studded kudos. But he laughs when he thinks about the practical effects of the attention received by Prayer One. "It is kind of fun to make people think that if they see a helicopter flying over the heads, 'I wonder if those are the yahoos that are praying over the city?'" he says.
Part of the miracle of Prayer One, its founders say, is what happens afterward. Though they don't keep strict records or do much followup, Puckett, Melton and company have anecdotal stories of people who have been inspired by the flight.
Prayer One led A.G.E. Sandoval, a Denver-born Christian hip-hop artist-turned-pastor, to the Methodist faith. Sandoval started Tha Myx International in 2006 as an outreach organization for at-risk youth and juvenile offenders. A former member of the award-winning Christian rap group Preachas in Tha Hood, he used Thursday-night basketball games, barbecues and what he calls "holy hip-hop" to spread the word of God.
But by 2008, Tha Myx still didn't have its own building. Sandoval was looking for a new place to host his Hoops and Raps program when a friend introduced him to the pastor of a Methodist church in Lakewood called Light and Life Community Church. The two churches didn't have much in common. One was in the suburbs, the other was in the city. The suburban church had mostly white congregants. Sandoval's had very few.
But Light and Life had a gym and offered to let Sandoval use it. The partnership was going well, he says, but it didn't extend much beyond that. Then, last year, Del Hierro asked Sandoval if he wanted to take a ride on Prayer One, and things changed.
"Up in the air, you can't see any separation at all," Sandoval says of the city. "That was a different experience for me, because growing up in the neighborhoods and dealing with the different ethnic backgrounds, you tend to think these walls set up on the ground are these big things to conquer."
When he came down, Sandoval began thinking more about his partnership with Light and Life. Until that point, Tha Myx wasn't affiliated with any particular religious denomination. "After this ride, it dawned on me that we could have a deeper partnership," Sandoval says. "Why worry about if they're in a suburban community and they're reaching a community that is primarily white Anglo? Why be afraid of that?"
Tha Myx became a member of the Free Methodist Church of North America, which has given it access to financial resources and training. And Sandoval says it hasn't changed what they do: "We continued to do what we were doing: reach the community."
Other pastors say flying on Prayer One helped reaffirm what they were already doing. Dave Runyon is the community development pastor at Foothills Community Church in Arvada. More than a year ago, he helped start a collaborative of churches in the northwest metro area based on the creed of "love thy neighbor." He and more than twenty other pastors encourage their congregants to introduce themselves to the people living around them, offer to help them out, throw a block party now and then.
For Runyon, Prayer One was confirmation that initiatives like his are needed. "For me, it was an incredible visual reminder of the fact that as churches, and as church leaders, we're all on the same team," he says. "When you open up the phone book, it doesn't look like we're on the same team, and that's the problem. Something like [Prayer One] helps you get a global picture that helps you see the forest through the trees."
Jeremy Rivera had a similar experience. The marketing and communications director for FOCUS, a Denver-based Catholic nonprofit that coordinates mission trips for college students, Rivera started a young-Catholics group called the Root a few years ago that began drawing hundreds of people eager to connect with twenty-somethings who held the same beliefs. Going up in Prayer One, he says, "reinforced the belief that people can be really close together and still feel really lonely," he says. "Community has to be something you have to be intentional about."
After flying on that recent Monday, the twenty or so people who'd been in the air gather to talk about the experience. They speak one by one.
A young man named Aaron says it was the first time in his life that he's been rendered speechless. A woman named Janice says she almost didn't show up because she's afraid of heights, but she's glad she did because "perfect love strikes out all fear."
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One woman says she prayed for lawmakers to make wise decisions as the helicopter flew over the Capitol. Another says that as she looked at the houses below, she prayed for an end to divorce. A woman named Maria tells the group that she had a vision of angels putting papers on the desks of judges at the courthouse, delivering justice.
The morning ends as it began: with a prayer. "Lord, once again, we thank you for being an awesome God," says Del Hierro. As they did at 7:30 that morning, the participants stand in a circle. But now, less than two hours later, they hold hands.
"We ask that you be glorified and show us more and more how we're supposed to connect together," they say.


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Lil Duval reports "LIL DUVAL GOES AND VOTE AND SHOWS HOW BLACK FOLKS VOTE ON OTHER SHIT."
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"I feel GREAT about our Julia web tool & LOVE the Repub freak-out"
"Mr. Obama's advisers are clearly hoping that the idea of Julia will capture the public's imagination the way the Harry and Louise ads did two decades ago. The story of the fictional couple worrying about their health care helped crystallize opposition to Mr. Clinton's proposals…
"It's not clear that Mr. Obama's effort will have as much effect. In 1993 and 1994, the health insurance group that broadcast the Harry and Louise ads spent millions of dollars to run them on television. So far, Julia lives only on an Internet page.
"And Julia could backfire on Mr. Obama if voters get the impression that the president has to invent characters who are benefiting from his policies because he can't find real people to portray the situation."
"In the new Barack Obama campaign piece The Life of Julia, voters can 'Take a look at how President Obama's policies help one woman over her lifetime — and how Mitt Romney would change her story.' It is one of the most brazenly statist pieces of campaign literature I can ever remember seeing.
"Let's, for the purposes of this post, set aside the misleading generalizations regarding policy in the ad (no one is innocent on that account, obviously). What we are left with is a celebration of a how a woman can live her entire life by leaning on government intervention, dependency and other people's money rather than her own initiative or hard work. It is, I'd say, implicitly un-American, in the sense that it celebrates a mindset we have — outwardly, at least — shunned."
"From the overarching narrative of drab dependency to the comically blunt and clumsy contrasts with Romney, the utterly unironic pseudo-edginess ('Julia starts her own web business'), the self-caricaturing lifestyle liberalism ('this allows her to volunteer at a community garden'), the un-self-conscious intermixing of the vocabularies of liberty and entitlement ('thanks to Obamacare, her health insurance is required to cover birth control'), the imagery of studied nonchalance, and the whole look and feel of the enterprise, it appears to have been created by people deeply immersed in the culture of overeducated twenty-something hipster self-effacement but unaware that it is all intended sarcastically. It's like Portlandia earnestly offered up as a drama…
"Above all, though, the Life of Julia is deeply telling of the view of American life underlying contemporary progressivism. Mitt Romney has taken to describing President Obama's vision of America as one of a government-centered society. It's hard to imagine a more perfect illustration of what he means than this."
"'That's their dream for women?' asked Wendy Wright, a social conservative leader and acting director of the conservative Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute. 'That she be alone, without family, struggling as a single parent, dependent on a government that is going broke?'
"'This is not the American dream,' Wright told The Daily Caller. 'It's creepy. … It's what China promises its people.'"
"'The Life of Julia' is, of course, another of the Democrats' never-ending efforts to lock up the 'women's vote.' But that is a misnomer: what the Democrats really dominate is the single women's vote. Single women do vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Why? Because they worry that they may need to fall back on the government for security. Married women, on the other hand, change their priorities: their first object is their family's well-being, and most of them consequently vote Republican. Notice that at no time in 'Julia's' life is she ever said to have a husband.
"In a sense, I think that the Democrats' crude slide show and the conservatives who mock it are ships passing in the night. Sure, 'Julia' validates everything Mitt Romney says about Obama's vision of a government-centered society. Sure, as conservatives tweeted, 'Julia' depicts Americans as helpless losers who can't do a thing without a government handout. But the sad truth is that the Democrats know their audience. There are a great many Americans, most but by no means all of them women, who evidently are not embarrassed by the fact that their life plan consists of using government to get their hands on someone else's money. What conservatives see as the life of a pathetic loser, Democratic voters see as a heck of a good deal."
"The CBO tells us that after 2037, the debt-to-GDP ratio will remain above 200 percent, but it doesn't have an annual breakdown after that. It does have projections on government spending through 2085. According to the data, by the time Julia celebrates her 73rd birthday, government spending would equal 76 percent of the nation's economic output. To put that in context, it would mean that avoiding an annual deficit would require collecting taxes at more than quadruple the post-World War II average of roughly 18 percent of GDP.
"Of course, these numbers are all hypothetical, as the economic and financial system would collapse well before we reached this point. What's Obama's plan to spare Julia from such a bleak scenario? As his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., 'We're not coming before you to say we have a definitive solution to that long-term problem. What we do know is we don't like yours.'"
"#Julia is bummed. Her share of the national debt went up $16,345 under Obama…
"#Julia, about to graduate, can't find a job in the Obama economy…
"#Julia the commuter has to pay double for gas from what she paid 4 years ago…
"#Julia in the future won't have Social Security thanks to Obama"
"Alas, Team Obama has omitted a few milestones from the life of Julia:
"4 months: Julia's mother decides that giving birth will be hard on her figure. She kills Julia. Under Barack Obama, her right to do so is absolutely nonnegotiable.
"10 years: Trapped in a failing and dangerous public school, Julia (another Julia, not the dead one) is terrified and miserable. Under the Obama administration, protecting the government education monopoly from competition and accountability is almost as sacrosanct as abortion. School-choice programs are severely constrained or eliminated. Julia falls behind…
"57 years: Julia (different Julia, not one of the dead ones) has been paying very high taxes for most of her life, mainly to support three federal programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. In fact, the payroll tax diverts about 12 percent of her income — income she might have saved — into the entitlements. Under President Obama, stubborn refusal to reform these unsustainable entitlements means that the programs have to be radically cut or entirely eliminated, and Julia and her whole generation get hosed in spite of the fact that they have been taxed for decades under the phony promise that they were 'paying into' the programs. The only alternative to massive cuts was an 88 percent increase in all federal taxes, which already have been rising to offset costs from Obamacare, which were wildly underestimated."
"So basically OFA's Julia campaign is the footsteps poem, but for Obama instead of God?"
Click the image to watch.


text:
I'm currently attempting to figure out how to use a Derby database in java. So-far I've been reading through this (Java For Complete Beginners - Databases) tutorial and I'm kinda-sorta sure that I've done most of this right but I'm a bit stuck at the moment.
So-far my code looks like this:
import java.sql.*; public class DataBaseTest { public static void main(String args[]) { int id = 1; try { String host = "jdbc:derby://localhost:1527/Test Database"; String uName = "removedTheUsername"; String uPass = "removedThePassword"; Connection dbConnection = DriverManager.getConnection( host, uName, uPass); Statement statement = dbConnection.createStatement(); String sql = "SELECT * FROM TESTTABLE"; ResultSet resultSet = statement.executeQuery(sql); for(int i = 0; i < id; i++) { resultSet.next(); if(i == id) { System.out.println(resultSet.getInt(1) + " " + resultSet.getString(2) + " " +resultSet.getInt(3)); } } } catch(Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } }
It's pretty mush just mashed together since I'm still figuring this all out. The error that I'm getting is:
run: java.sql.SQLSyntaxErrorException: Schema 'TYEEEEE1' does not exist at org.apache.derby.client.am.SQLExceptionFactory40.getSQLException(Unknown Source) at org.apache.derby.client.am.SqlException.getSQLException(Unknown Source) at org.apache.derby.client.am.Statement.executeQuery(Unknown Source) at DataBaseTest.main(DataBaseTest.java:19) Caused by: org.apache.derby.client.am.SqlException: Schema 'TYEEEEE1' does not exist at org.apache.derby.client.am.Statement.completeSqlca(Unknown Source) at org.apache.derby.client.net.NetStatementReply.parsePrepareError(Unknown Source) at org.apache.derby.client.net.NetStatementReply.parsePRPSQLSTTreply(Unknown Source) at org.apache.derby.client.net.NetStatementReply.readPrepareDescribeOutput(Unknown Source) at org.apache.derby.client.net.StatementReply.readPrepareDescribeOutput(Unknown Source) at org.apache.derby.client.net.NetStatement.readPrepareDescribeOutput_(Unknown Source) at org.apache.derby.client.am.Statement.readPrepareDescribeOutput(Unknown Source) at org.apache.derby.client.am.Statement.flowExecute(Unknown Source) at org.apache.derby.client.am.Statement.executeQueryX(Unknown Source) ... 2 more BUILD SUCCESSFUL (total time: 0 seconds)
The database is named 'Test Database' and the table I'm trying to access is called 'TESTTABLE'.
I've checked out line 19 where the first error says something is going wrong but I don't know enough about half of these statements to figure out what's going wrong. If anyone can see where I went wrong and explain how to fix it that would help!


text:
IDF AMD's upcoming Phenom desktop processor family will include CPUs with three processing cores, the chip maker announced last night. Now that dual-core products are commonplace and four-core chips becoming more so, why not tri-core too?
AMD didn't provide any details of the Phenom series members' speeds and feeds, but it did state that the three-core versions will go on sale in Q1 2008 following the shipment of quad-core parts this year.
It also confirmed the chips will use HyperTransport 3.0 for connectivity and contain a bank of L3 cache that will be shared by however many cores a given CPU contains. It didn't say how much L3, however.
Of course, no one sets out to make a three-core product - AMD is simply being commercially canny. Of all the quad-core chips it punches out, some will have cores that are dead or not up to scratch. AMD can't sell them as four-core products, and while it might have once sold them as dual-core chips, by disabling one of the remaining cores, it now plans to offer them as three-core CPUs.
That allows it to not only sell chips it might otherwise have had to discard or offer as cheaper, two-core parts, but also allows it to position the three-core products as superior to Intel's rival Core 2 Duo chip.
Until the three-core Phenoms are independently tested, we can't say how they will line up against the Intel chips, but there's no doubt that three cores provide more processing resources than two, to the benefit of anyone running CPU-intensive tasks like games, media manipulation applications and so on.
The problem for AMD is that Intel is gearing up to release CPUs based on its 45nm 'Penryn' architecture - the Phenoms will be 65nm chips - and if it can get half-decent yields will push quad-core chips into the mainstream.
Indeed, here at the Intel Development Forum, company CEO Paul Otellini will today speak on the subject of "extreme to the mainstream". Core 2 Extreme is Intel's four-core gaming product line, and even if Otellini will be using 'extreme' in a broader sense, he clearly means to drive four-core products further down-market.
Intel has the advantage here that its quad-core chips are made from two, dual-core parts. AMD's four-core chips are based on a single, monolithic four-core design. Inevitably, that means Intel is going to get better yields than AMD, since statistically a given 300mm wafer is going to yield more working dual-core chips than working quad-core parts.
Factor in the greater production density afforded by 45nm production - smaller cores mean you get more of them out of a given standard-sized wafer - and Intel will potentially have the volumes to allow it to push down prices.
Why then buy a three-core CPU from AMD when you can get a four-core chip from Intel for the same price? Yes, an AMD chip may perform better than an Intel one with the same number of cores, but an extra core will surely give Intel the lead.
Intel hasn't said how it will price up its 45nm desktop chips, but there's no doubt it will be very aggressive, and AMD will have to follow suit.


text:
Yes, the Dolomite Precipitation mod was what I was looking for, Flat. It gives the vanilla weather that tweak it was missing, thanks!Flatfingers wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 7:13 pmI'm really enjoying Dolomite Precipitation: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecial ... mods/8006/ which changes the look of rain and snow to be much more attractive but without altering weather patterns.
If you'd like something that does change the weather, there's the larger package of which Dolomite Precipitation is a part, which is Dolomite Weathers: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecial ... mods/7895/
YMMV, as always. Whatever works for you!
Tue Oct 03, 2017 8:29 pm


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G'head, Jeremy, Yer Doin' It Right!
Move over, Keith, there's a new number 17 in town and he's got everyone going so LINsane that those all-night disco-caine parties from '86 look like an afternoon tea. That's right, folks. Just when you thought you might finally be over that Tim Tebow hangover, in walks the first EVER American born Chinese to play in the NBA. And boy can he play!
(If you don't know who Jeremy Lin is by now, then it's time to OPEN YOUR EYES)
Don't worry, I'm not gonna go into some long philosophical diatribe on how Lin's soft swishing three serves as the perfect metaphor for a hard-working, faith-based US American populous because, as you might already know, THAT'S CRAZY TALK.
What I am going to do is urge you to jump on board the LINvincible Train so you're not all alone out there on Planet Boring. Besides overusing the same lame LIN puns, the LINvincible Train also features dramatic spin-moves and celebrity bandwagoneers… like the Colorado Rockies' Jeremy Guthrie!
It's amazing what getting out of Baltimore can do for a pitcher's offseason creativity.
G'head, Jeremy! Yer doin' it right!
Hate me 'cuz you can, just don't hate me 'cuz I'm right.


text:
Sennheiser Communications
Sennheiser Communications A/S is a joint venture between the highly successful electro-acoustics specialist Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG and internationally renowned hearing health care company, the William Demant Holding Group.
By combining the high-end audio and sound reproduction experience of Sennheiser, with the miniaturisation and advanced digital signal processing technology of William Demant (Oticon), Sennheiser Communications is able to create state-of-the-art headsets that improve speech, intelligibility and listening comfort for all types of communication.
Sennheiser Communications manufactures wireless & wired headsets for mobile phones, offices and call centres as well as PC & Mac computer headsets for VoIP, entertainment and gaming.
Sennheiser Communications has moved to sennheiser.com. Visit our new website for product information.


text:
It's therefore time to define a simple process for collecting, sorting,
reviewing, and prioritizing proposals and plans for new features, for
JDK 8 and for later releases.
Some essential requirements (not in priority order):
- As lightweight as possible.
- Simple mechanics.
- Version-controlled, so that changes can be tracked.
- Open to all committers, with transparent decision-making.
- The basic format should not be too different from (a simplified
form of) the old Sun "one-pager" template [1], with which many
are already familiar.
- An approved proposal should be able to serve as the authoritative
source of the summary and reference information needed for related
documents such as the release feature list [2] and the Platform
Umbrella JSR specification [3].
[emphasis mine]
A big problem I've seen with the JCP is this desire to use it as a rubber-stamp for JavaSE rather than, as most other JSRs including the JEE ones are, an actual debate on what needs to be done. I agree with soliciting feedback from a wide community and making that open (I'd argue that the JCP should be open ala OASIS) but I really don't get why we need a proposal mechanism outside of the JCP to manage this unless the ambition is to purely manage it from an Oracle/OpenJDK perspective rather than as an actual part of the Java Community Process. The proposed approach smacks of the pre-JCP days where Sun solicited feedback and controlled the process and which the JCP was set up to change.
I'm depressed, I'd like to see the JCP successful and the voices listened to not a new process created outside of a standards group and controlled by the leader of the JSR who will then present it to the JSR team as a fait accompli which is exactly what led to the debacle with JAX-WS and the problems that it delivered.


text:
Jeff Faile's Negroni Classico Recipe
This Negroni, found at Fiola in Washington DC, is made with Gran Classico Bitter instead of Campari. The result is bit lighter and a little smoother than the traditional mix.
- Yield:makes 1 cocktail
- Active time: 2 minutes
- Total time:2 minutes
- 1 1/2 ounces Plymouth Gin
- 1 ounce Gran Classico
- 1 ounce Dolin Rouge Vermouth
- Garnish: Orange slice
Combine gin, Gran Classico, and Dolin Rouge in an Old Fashioned glass filled with ice. Stir to until chilled, about 10 seconds. Garnish with orange slice and serve immediately.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


text:
Malvern Chair Massage
Malvern Businesses Are Looking To Refresh And Reboot Tired Employees With Professional Massage Service
Let our team of licensed, massage professionals visit your Malvern business location and give your employees a healthy, revitalizing break with one of our signature chair massage treatments.
Learn more about our Corporate Chair Massage service.
Need a quote for your event? Contact Us (215)326-9352
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Go to Contact Us to see a complete list of areas served
Relax 'N Go Massage (215)326-9352 email@example.com
Greater Philadelphia's On Site Chair Massage Provider
Greater Philadelphia's On Site Chair Massage Provider


text:
Online donations save Tesla lab
MINEOLA (AP) -- A six-week Internet crowdfunding effort has raised $1.3 million to restore a New York laboratory once used by visionary scientist Nikola Tesla.
The rival of Thomas Edison imagined a world of free electricity and conducted experiments in the early 20th century at his Wardenclyffe laboratory in Shoreham, about 65 miles east of New York City.
Volunteers on eastern Long Island had struggled for nearly two decades to raise money to acquire the property with little success -- until they encountered an unexpected benefactor this summer. Seattle cartoonist Matthew Inman started promoting a fundraising effort on his website, theoatmeal.com.
Within hours of posting an appeal last August on the fundraising site Indiegogo.com, donations began to accumulate by the hundreds of thousands. By last Saturday, over $1.3 million was collected from 33,000 donors in the U.S. and 108 countries.
"I always refer to Tesla as an unsung hero, but with what's happened on the Internet over the past few months, I'm not sure that's appropriate anymore," Inman said in a statement.
Indiegogo.com CEO Slava Rubin said it was the company's fastest fundraising campaign.
Jane Alcorn, president of the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, declined to discuss negotiations on the group's plans to purchase the property, noting that attorneys are still investigating environmental and other concerns.
Decades after Tesla abandoned the site in 1917, it was home to a photo chemical processing plant. In 1993, officials determined that the area's groundwater had been polluted with cadmium and silver. The current property owners, Belgian-based AGFA Corp., which wasn't linked to the pollution, worked for years to decontaminate the site. State regulators deemed the remediation complete this year.
In addition to the $1.3 million raised, the science center also has an $850,000 state grant to help it purchase the property. It was listed this year for sale at $1.6 million, but a real estate official handling the sale said that figure was negotiable. Any leftover money from the property purchase will be used to help develop the envisioned science center.
"This has all been very exciting," Alcorn said. "We are very optimistic about the future and will move as quickly as we can" in acquiring the property.


text:
+ Closed Thread
Results 1 to 1 of 1
Ultimate List of Resources For Building Your Credit
I thought it would be useful to have a page with all of our recommended resources for building credit and improving your credit score in one place. Many of these tools and services have been mentioned before across the forum, but this should give you a great overview of all of the services and tools that are out there to help you start building or rebuilding your credit.
Disclosure: To help support the community, some of the links below are affiliate links which will earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. However I have personally used many of the companies and services mentioned below and am recommending them because of my positive experience, not because we may earn a small commission if you decide to make a purchase.
Professional Credit Help
- CreditRepair.com: CreditRepair.com can eliminate inaccurate items from your credit report. On average, its members see an 11.6 negative items removed from their credit reports, and an average gain in their credit score of 40 points - all in just 4 months. Visit their website or call CreditRepair.com at (844) 346-3175 for a free consultation and to learn more.
- The Credit Pros: Get a free credit consultation with a credit expert who can help you to improve your credit.
- Jeanne Kelly: Jeanne and her team of highly trained credit specialists delivers practical advice and insight in respectful, private one-on-one phone-based coaching sessions. Hire them for a one-time review to help you get going! You can call Jeanne directly at (866) 283-8818
Credit Cards If You Have Limited, Poor, Fair or Average Credit
If you are looking to apply for a credit card we recommend the following card. You can also view the full list of the best credit cards for building credit here.
- Milestone® Gold MasterCard®: This is a great credit card for people with fair / average / limited credit. It has a pre-qualification tool that allows you to see if you are pre-qualified without impacting your credit score. Plus, it reports to all three major credit bureaus. It has an annual fee of $35 $99, depending on your credit worthiness.
- Milestone® Gold MasterCard®: This version of the Milestone card is designed for those who suffered a major credit event and still have poor credit. It is an unsecured card that provides you a great way to build and access credit. And it too allows prior bankruptcies, reports to all major credit bureaus, and has a pre-qualification tool with no impact to your credit score. The card does have an annual fee of $0 - $99, depending on your credit worthiness.
- CapitalOne® QuickSilverOne® Rewards: A rewards credit card for those with fair or average credit! It does have an annual fee. Apply now on CreditSoup®!
You can learn more about these card in this article.
Credit Scores
- Check Your Credit Scores Here: The first step in building or rebuilding credit is to check your credit scores and report so you know where you currently stand.
- Get Your Credit Reports: You can get your current credit reports from the three credit bureaus here.
- myFICO: You can get your current credit reports from the three credit bureaus here. myFICO is the leading expert in providing actual credit reports, scores and information to consumers online.
Identity Theft Protection
Identity theft continues to be one of the fastest growing crimes in the U.S. Last year there were over 12 million victims of this faceless crime. IdentityForce is the most trusted identity protection service, and it is available to individual and families across the U.S. Offer the best in protection, and do more for your bottom line.
IdentityForce offers the following protection:
- Protection backed by a nation-wide $1 million insurance policy
- Daily 3-Bureau Credit Monitoring
- Continuously monitor your personal information to detect illegal trading and selling
- Instant notification when your personal information is being misused
- 24/7 fully-managed restoration services by Certified Protection Experts
- Free Two Week Trial
Free Credit Score Tools & Services
- AnnualCreditReport.com: AnnualCreditReport.com is a free service that allows you access to*a free copy of your credit report every 12 months from each of TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. Unfortunately, these reports do not include your credit score from those bureaus. For that, you will need to pay extra or check out one of our other recommended resources.
- CreditSesame: 100% free personal finance credit and debt management tool with no credit card required or trial period. Credit Sesame makes managing personal credit online, owing less in interest and saving on mortgage, loan and credit card payments easy!
- Personal Capital: Track your bills and budget, make sure you have payment reminder set up, and start monitoring your savings and investments. Good payment history = good credit score.
Tools for Eliminating Debt
- My Total Money Makeover: Dave Ramsey has helped a lot of people get out of debt. Although I don't agree with him on the fact that ALL debt is bad debt his courses can be a godsend to those who are stuck in the debt trap.
- Personal Capital: Before you can eliminate debt you need to have a budget. Personal Capital is great for tracking expenses. Plus, you also can keep track of your investments and retirement accounts. Watch your debt shrink and your wealth blossom all in one place!
Useful Guides
- Master Your Credit Score - Free E-Book. : Everything you need to get started repairing your credit score - best of all it's free for CreditForums members.
- Official FTC: Credit Repair Guide : Great overview of your rights as a consumer, how to recognize a credit repair scam, and a sample dispute letter example.
- First Steps To Rebuilding Your Credit Score: If you are trying to rebuild your credit score you will want to read this.
I will update this list periodically as new tools and services become available or if I stumble across anything else useful.
We highly encourage you to Register for CreditForums and start posting if you are trying to improve your credit score. I've found that collaborating with others on this forum can be a HUGE help and we would love to follow along on your journey.
Last edited by CreditDave; 07-19-2016 at 03:12 PM.


text: Watch M Movies Online for Free. VIPMovies.to is the best provider of ad-free streaming, reliable servers and user requested content. Only here you can watch M Online HD Movies & TV-Series in the best possible quality for free, without registration or credit card required. Check below for M Movies and TV-Series collection and start watching! You can also check our homepage for list of full movies and TV-Series that you can watch for free without limits.


text:
GoogledGnome #68
Using bottom scanner to buy netherweave
Netherweave, old hat?
Well I guess Death Knights and powerleveled toons will still be picking it up.
Assuming it isn't all bought out or used for bandages, you might find some on the AH.
Anyway, best thing to do is set up a snatch for it, which will notify you if it finds any below a certain price.
Try /snatch [item] [price in copper]
The item is a shift-click of the item in question into the chat line.
Note, I am not sure at the time of writing this that bottom scanner even exists anymore, give it a go or ask at the auctioneer forums.
Gnomer and Out!


text:
original art direct from the artist Marie Mella - welcome in the atelier's shop !
Oil on paper, passepartout
Artist : Marie Mella
Year : 2003
Oil glazing-technique
might be framed this way
Visit the site !
mounted museum quality, window 30x40cm, outside 40x50cm
atelier marie mella
" satisfied or reimbursed " :
return /14 days, refund of net sales value (ship & fees excepted)
excepted rolled canvas when stretcher-option available
Copyright © 2020 atelier marie mella. Powered by Zen Cart


text:
A tribute is an expression of gratitude or praise. Last year I started a series about individuals who have impacted my career. I do this as a tribute to my father-in-law, Ed Jankowski who passed away a few years ago. Check out my original post about him and his impact on me being in software development today.
Cultural Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Studies
Prior to working with data and software, my career choice was to be a missionary. Yes, that is correct. I am trained to work cross-culturally with churches and other Christian organizations. Along the way, I learned how to work with software and my career changed. However, as with many things in life, seemingly unrelated items impact real life. In my case, my final degree work was done in Cultural Anthropology. This tribute post calls out one of my professors who greatly impacted me personally and whose training has helped me with my work in BI solutions.
During my stint at Bethany College of Missions in Bloomington, Minnesota, I took a number of courses from Dr. Thomas Correll in the field of cultural anthropology. He was responsible for providing me with the bulk of my investigative and research skills for use in this field. In particular, I remember three techniques that we studied in particular: Life History Study Method, Participant Observation, and Ethnographic Interviews. Two of these, Participant Observation and Ethnographic Interview are based on James Spradley's work. Through these classes and supporting projects, I learned much in the way of research and analysis.
Dr. Correll, or Tom as he preferred in class, ingrained in me a great desire to research and do it well. Even now, I am proud of the work I did for those classes as they stretched me to learn and delve into areas I was not entirely comfortable with. I really believe that those research techniques have served me well when I work with customers on BI projects. Here is how I see the impact on my daily work from the training I received.
Life History Study Method. The overall goal of this study methodology is to understand the changes that mean something to individuals in their culture. In BI, this has made me understand or pursue those points when companies or departments are ready for their next growth area such as time to move from reports to dashboards. Each of these types of changes reflect a significant shift in how a company sees its data or how to better to use it in day to day situations. Sounds a bit like the BI Maturity Model developed by TDWI.
Participant Observation. Can you say business analysis? This is the epitome of the initial step for a good BA. What do you see as the needs. Pay attention, observe, understand what is happening in the company. The skills I learned in this class helps me slow down and observe what is happening at a customer. This includes noticing who really impacts technology decisions in a company. It is not always what it seems at first.
Ethnographic Interview. This is a particular process where I deep dive into what customers are trying to do. I learned how to drive into business needs using these interview techniques. This research method uses similar techniques you might learn from Kimball. The key is to ask questions that get answers you need whether you were looking for them or not.
Overall, I can say much of what I am able to accomplish today is a result of what I learned from Tom. He was truly passionate about doing research, doing it right, and understanding the results. Thanks Tom. What I learned from you has been instrumental in my career and in love for information and getting results.


text:
The cheesecake recipe comes from the latest in the series of "30 best loved recipes" books, which features Bahlsen Choco Leibniz biscuits. It intrigued me because the cheesecake topping is so simple: just cream cheese, sugar and chocolate. Normally with non-bake cheesecakes there's some cream in there too. The absence of cream made this a rich, dense almost truffle-y cheesecake.
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
700g Philadelphia cream cheese, at room temperature
100g icing sugar
200g chocolate – I used a mix of milk and dark


text:
Can all the strategies to create a 7-figure law practice get stuffed into one box?
They CAN, if it's The Rainmaker Institute's Rainmaker In A Box, Volume 2!
If you know anything about online marketing and the Internet, you know that nothing stays the same for very long. Things that were effective last year now don't work at all. Tricks that got your website on the first page of Google search results 6 months ago are old hat and ineffective.
Fortunately, you have The Rainmaker Institute staying on top of the trends and cutting edge strategies for you. We have one aim in mind – to teach you how to use these little known strategies so you can get more and more qualified leads and dominate your marketplace; to help you create the law firm of your dreams.
Discover how top attorneys are growing their top line revenues, generating leads from social media and the Internet, and increasing the quantity and quality of their referrals!
Rainmaker In A Box, Volume 2 includes:
8 Proven Steps for More & Better Referrals
Discover the proven step-by-step system used to double your referrals from current and former clients and how to build a network of strategic referral partners. Top attorneys have used this exact system to double their referrals in 6 months or less!
7 Strategies to Recession Proof Your Law Firm
This recession has hit the legal industry incredibly hard! How is it possible that some attorneys are bucking the trends and having their best years ever? Watch and learn as I walk you through the specific strategies top lawyers are using to increase their revenues in this tough economy-and it doesn't include reducing their fees! You can't afford to miss these!
6 Keys to Unlocking the Secrets of Social Media
Do you want to learn how to leverage LinkedIn? Fix Facebook? Tweak Twitter and use YouTube to generate more leads for your law firm? Social media has emerged as the fastest way to build a massive platform of prospects! Watch as I pull back the curtain and lets you in on little known secrets of how attorneys are generating dozens of leads every month from social media. We guarantee you have never seen any social media system like this one!
5 Core Components for Highly Successful Websites & Blogs
Listen carefully as I interview nationally recognized personal injury attorney John Bisnar on how his law firm uses search engine optimization and Internet marketing to drive tens of thousands of unique visitors every month to his 30 websites and 10 blogs. Discover proven techniques for converting website visitors into paying clients.
Data DVD: Includes all 4 PowerPoint slides for all 4 presentations. We recommend you print all these off and take notes on them as you experience these information-packed DVDs!
Rainmaker In A Box, Volume 2 usually sells for $397, but from now until midnight on Monday, Sept. 2, 2013, you can order it online for only $198.50!
Click on this link now to get 50% off Rainmaker In A Box, Volume 2!


text:
Masters Chair by Kartell, Set of 2
Don't see a configuration you like? Customize your Masters Chair by Kartell, Set of 2.
Masters Chair by Kartell, Set of 2
designed by Philippe Starck
Available at a discount when you buy a set of 4!
If there is a true heir-apparent to the mid-century furnituremasters, it's Frenchman Philippe Starck. How fitting then that Starck would take three of the most iconic chairs of the mid-century movement and assimilate their silhouettes into one masterful chair. Kartell presents to you Philippe Starck's latest masterpiece, the Masters Chair.
The Series 7 by Arne Jacobsen, the Tulip Armchair by Eero Saarinen and the Eiffel Chair by Charles Eames weave into a most engaging and sinuous hybrid. Standing on four slim legs, the Masters chair is roomy and comfortable. The back of the chair is its most fascinating feature characterized by the fullness and empty spaces created by the curvaceous crisscrossing lines of three different backs which descend to merge into the edge of the seat.
Dimensions: 33.1" h X 22.4" w X 18.5" d
See all product information and details here


text:
The UW Autism Center offers free public tours the first Wednesday of every month from 1:00 to 2:00p.m. Tours include an overview of our clinical and research areas with a walk through of our Clinic. Tours are offered to adults only; please do not bring children.
Advance reservations are required, as the group size is limited to 15 participants. Please email firstname.lastname@example.com to register. Please note that tours are informational in nature and do not provide individual clinical advice. To request an appointment for clinical services, please visit our intake page.


text:
Super Gamedev Weekend/2011: Unterschied zwischen den Versionen
TomK32 (Diskussion | Beiträge)
TomK32 (Diskussion | Beiträge)
|Zeile 34:
|Zeile 34:
== Ludum dare 22 ==
== Ludum dare 22 ==
Want more? The week after, from 16th to 18th December, [http://www.ludumdare.com/compo
Want more? The week after, from 16th to 18th December, [http://www.ludumdare.com/compo ludum dare 22] is taking place and a few metalabber will compete for this as well. Want even more? [https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=cWZmNGp1Z2hoZTRlY3V2cDVkNTZjb2JsbThAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ&gsessionid=OK the gamejam calendar] knows it all.
== Organisation / Questions ==
== Organisation / Questions ==
Version vom 30. November 2011, 15:39 Uhr
A whole weekend to create new games! The popular concept of 48hrs game development jams is taking its place at Metalab once more. The weekend is 9th to 11th of December 2011. At the beginning (Fri at around 18:00) we will agree on a topic, and at Sunday evening (at around 22:00) all participants are invited to vote on everyone's game to find the winner of a fantastic trophy. In last year's game jam we created seven games, let's top that!
Why compete in game jams, and why are there never too many?
Solo participants are welcome but a team of two to four people is most efficient. During the event please add your team and game here and update often to keep track of progress. Metalab has a github account for open source games: http://github.com/metalab
Florian Hufsky Award
In memorian of oneup we will award a priced named after him to the winning game of the contest.
kewagi will create trophies for the category and over-all winners. Design suggestions are welcome.
Some Help
And don't forget, metalab has a Kinect that anyone can try for creative game controlling.
Archived Workshops
Last year we had a workshop for everyone new to game programming and if interest is strong enough we might re-schedule those.
The chaotic and bug-infested presentation on Sunday set aside, Subotron has invited us to present the finished(?) games at their pro games series, that would be on December 22nd, enough time to really finish our games ;-)
Ludum dare 22
Want more? The week after, from 16th to 18th December, ludum dare 22 is taking place and a few metalabber will compete for this as well. Want even more? the gamejam calendar knows it all.
Organisation / Questions
Questions to firstname.lastname@example.com


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[First published November 14, 2005] One of the best sources for how values are distributed is the World Values Survey (here), and I have consulted its results a number of times, such as providing evidence on how Arab peoples view democracy (xx). Here, I want to provide their results on the relationship between freedom and subjective well being — happiness and satisfaction. I think all of us assume that the more freedom a people have the greater their happiness and satisfaction with their lives. If this is true, the utilitarian argument — policy should promote the greatest happiness and least pain — alone justifies promoting freedom.
Is it true?
The World Values Survey has published a study by Ronald Inglehart and Hans D. Klingemann, " Genes, Culture, Democracy, and Happiness," (in pdf; go here, and search under Hans Klingemann) which answer tries to question. Utilizing surveys done by the European Union over 25 years about respondents well being in 11 European nations, the authors first show that national language differences are not responsible for different survey responses on happiness and satisfaction. They moreover establish that there is not much change within nations over the 25 years. The correlation between earliest and latest EU survey in 1998 is .80. For the World Values Survey sample of 64 nations, it is .81, an amazing stability.
That out of the way, the author's show that subjective well being is highly correlated with economic development (.70) as measured by GNP. No surprise there. But, they point out:
This process is not linear, however. The correlation weakens as one moves up the economic scale. Above $13,000 in 1995 purchasing power parity, there is no significant linkage between wealth and subjective wellbeing. The transition from a subsistence economy to moderate economic security has a large impact on happiness and life satisfaction, but above the level of Portugal or Spain, economic growth no longer makes a difference.
Another factor in subjective well being is so commonsensical to many of us that I hesitate mentioning it. But it is commonsensical to all but the Marxists out there, who won't believe it anyway. That factor is whether a nation was communist or not:
Virtually all societies that experienced communist rule show relatively low levels of subjective well-being, even when compared with societies at a much lower economic level, such as India, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Those societies that experienced communist rule for a relatively long time show lower levels than those that experienced it only since World War II.
Religion also plays a role, especially Protestantism. The author's show that:
Virtually all historically Protestant societies show relatively high levels of subjective well being. A similar effect persists today in countries (the United States being an exception) where only small minority of the public regularly attends church. As Max Weber pointed out, Protestant societies were the first to industrialize, and although economic development now has spread throughout the world, Protestant societies still are relatively wealthy in large part because of this early lead.
Now for the most relevant part. Subject well-being is critical to the stability of a nation's political institutions and particularly the stability of democracy. The authors measure freedom using the Freedom House annual freedom ratings (here), which they added together for 1981to 1988. Since the ratings summed for both civil liberties and political rights for a nation for a year vary from 2 to 14, with 2 being the freest, they subtracted the summed ratings for a nation from the highest total rating to reverse the freedom scale. This way so the highest total rating is the freest. They then plotted freedom against the percent of a nation's people happy and satisfied with their life. It is below (click it to enlarge)
The correlation between well-being and freedom (liberal democracies, in effect) is .78. This is liner. The curvilinear (polynomial or logged correlation would be higher, since it would account for the slight sag in the middle of the distribution) of a number of partially free nations, some being electoral democracies such as Mexico and Turkey. Although the plot seems to imply that freedom is the cause of well-being (it can't be the other way around), the author's believe that this is in question, and that other factors may better account for well-being.
So, they did a multiple regression of well being against measures of a nation's economic development, whether it was historically rule by Protestant elites of not, its years under communist rule, and its measure of freedom. These variables account for 80 percent of the variation in well being, a remarkable fit. They then removed independent variables with low significance in stages to achieve of fit of 78 percent of the variance with three significant variables in the order of their significance: GNP per capita, years under communist rule, and freedom. Aside from applying sample tests of significance to a universe of cases, a problem with their analysis, is the high multicollinearity among these three variables (on this problem, see my blog here). Without eliminating this intercorrelation, it is impossible from this regression alone to determine what variables are dominant.
They conclude:
These findings in no way refute the evidence that genetic factors play an important role in subjective well-being; we find that evidence compelling. But these findings do indicate that genetic factors are only part of the story. Happiness levels vary cross-culturally. Since cultures are constructed by human beings, this suggests that the pursuit of happiness is not completely futile. Genes may play a crucial role, but beliefs and values also are important. Our findings also indicate that varying levels of well-being are closely linked with a society's political institutions: sharp declines in a society's level of well-being can lead to the collapse of the social and political system; while high levels of well-being contribute to the survival and flourishing of democratic institutions.
We now know that a nation's past communism, economic development, and freedom are closely related to well being. We still don't know whether it is freedom that is the strongest factor. That it has the highest correlation with well being suggests that it is, but a proper analysis of this has yet to be done. I will do it, and give the conclusions here.


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What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? The Tennessee Valley Authority found out in 1936, when they tried to persuade the Randolph family to vacate their Campbell County farm. The irresistible force was the rising water impounded by Norris Lake; the immovable object was Mattie Randolph, the woman of the house. The resulting report would be a fantastic primary source to use in the classroom.
Although the exasperated author of the report claimed that "neither [Mrs. Randolph] nor any of her family have any idea as to the meaning of the TVA," when you read the document you can't help but wonder who was misunderstanding whom.


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Dinner Tonight: Fava Bean Salad with Toast and Poached Egg Recipe
Your source for quick recipe every single week day.
I carefully examine any recipe that calls for fava beans. Sure, I have a soft spot for them, but I'm also leery of wasting precious time shelling and peeling the tricky vegetables. Luckily this recipe from Francis Mallmann's Seven Fires definitely gets a pass. It's the perfect dish to make as we transition away from spring vegetables like peas and fava beans, and get into the point of summer where little cherry tomatoes are coming in.
Though it initially looks like a super healthy plate of food, this dish actually reminded me the most of a proper English breakfast. Just think about it: you have your bacon, eggs, tomatoes, peas, toast, and beans (albeit the green kind). Sure, you're missing the sausage, but the feeling is the same. There's a lot of green on this plate, but it's a hearty meal. Just about everything is cooked in some kind fat.
- Yield:4 people
- Active time: 45 minutes
- Total time:45 minutes
- 2 ½ pounds fava beans in the shell, shelled
- 6 ounces bacon, chopped
- 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
- 4 large eggs
- 4 thick slices country bread
- 1 ½ tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 8 ounces cherry tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 cups sweet green peas
- ¼ cup mint leaves, chopped
- ¼ cup basil leaves, chopped
- Salt and pepper
Bring a medium-sized saucepan halfway full of water to boil. Add the fava beans and cook for one minute. Remove with a slotted spoon, and rinse under cold water in a colander. Peel the skins off the fava beans, and then return to the boiling water. Cook until slightly tender, about two minutes. Drain in the colander and set aside. Refill the medium-sized saucepan halfway up with water, add the vinegar, and return it to the stove top. Turn heat to medium and bring to a gentle boil.
Meanwhile, add the bacon to a large cast-iron skillet set over medium-low heat. Cook until the fat has rendered and bacon is crispy, about seven minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon, and drain the bacon on paper towels.
Turn the heat to medium and add the as many of the slices of bread as will fit in one layer. Cook each until lightly browned on the bottom, and then flip and cook until lightly browned on the other side. Remove bread and set aside. Repeat process with any remaining slices of bread.
Wipe out the skillet, and then add 1 ½ teaspoons of the olive oil. Turn heat medium, and when oil is shimmering, add the fava beans. Cook until lightly browned, stirring occasionally, one to two minutes. Remove the fava beans and set aside in a bowl.
Add the remaining olive oil to skillet, and add the cherry tomatoes. Cook over medium heat until tomatoes are softened, one to two minutes. Remove the tomatoes from the skillet and transfer to the bowl with the fava beans.
Keep heat on medium, and add the butter. Once it has melted, add the peas. Cook until tender, one to two minutes. Transfer to the bowl with the fava beans and tomatoes. Season this mixture with salt and pepper, and add the mint and basil. Stir well.
Divide the slices of bread and the fava bean mixture between four plates.
Reduce the heat on the medium-sized saucepan to medium-low. One at a time, crack an egg into a shallow dish and then add to the simmering water. Cook the eggs until the whites just hold together, but the yolks are still runny, about three minutes. Remove each with a slotted spoon, and carefully dry on paper towels.
Place each poached egg on top of a slice of bread. Season to taste with salt and pepper, sprinkle with the bacon, and serve immediately.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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By contrast, the rest of America is getting swallowed up by corporate globalization. It's not a new trend, Huge mega-stores -- Wal-Mart, Target, Lowe's, Home Depot, etc., are wiping out smaller independently-run businesses. The days of substantial family-owned stores are all but dead. So what you are left with are chains -- Starbucks, Gap, Jamba Juice, Whole Foods, etc. -- and boutiques. Small, niche businesses that try to find a product or service that has slipped through the cracks of corporate greed. Take a stroll down any business district, any mall, anywhere -- all you will find are homogeneous Goliaths and quirky Davids -- nothing in between.
Last week, at the FX upfronts, I was having a conversation with my buddy, Walton Goggins. Walt and his partner Ray McKinnon, have written, directed, produced and starred in several great, small independent films (Their first short, The Accountant won an Academy Award). I was bitching to Walt about my frustrating hiatus and how my movie never happened. I am attached to direct a film from a script I wrote years ago, Delivering Gen. We have all our financing in place, a great casting director (Avy Kaufman), great producers (Lorenzo DiBonaventura, Brian Oliver), great roles for actors. All the pieces were there, and yet I couldn't get it cast.
Why? The globalization of America is impacting the film business as well -- the days of the 7-15 million dollar movie are dying. Take a stroll into any movie theater complex, anywhere -- all you find are huge, 50-500 million dollar studio projects and small, 1-5 million dollar indies -- homogeneous mega-movies and quirky boutique films -- nothing in between.
I was very naive about casting my movie. I mistakenly thought that because there were less films being made that it would actually be easier to attach talent. The thought of not getting it cast never crossed my mind. The two main roles are tremendous vehicles for actors. It's an actor's piece. Even though all our money was in place, you still need to attach an actor of a certain caliber to satisfy the financing. I won't mention names, but we started at the top with offers, A-list stars, then worked our way to the next tier, and when that tier wouldn't play, I realized how short the list actually was -- we were out of put-production names. (Complicating the issue when you are dealing with talent of a certain caliber, is that there are so many fucking people filtering projects -- agents, managers, lawyers, assistants, producing partners, girlfriends, gardeners, second cousins -- 80% of the time the actor never reads the script or makes the decision.)
Everyone's representatives loved Delivering Gen, it wasn't a big paycheck, but it was a respectable money offer, yet no one would commit. Why? I'm not sure, but this is my guess, and it speaks to theme of this piece -- in the globalization of content, the creative middle-class is dying and as a result everyone is scared about scarcity. Actors who could normally earn their rate or close to it with a 7-20 million movie, were no longer getting their quote, or because there were less projects, they were losing roles to more bankable actors. So actors were nervous. They were either holding out for a big studio movie (cash) or, if they were going to do a small project, they'd opt to work for a director that could at last bring them some critical cache (potential Oscar nod). The scarcity trend has created another problem. Because of the economic crunch, financiers are now demanding a substantial name to get even a 1-5 million dollar movie made. In the past, a smaller budget meant you had more flexibility in casting. You could hire a lesser-known actor (Jeremy Renner in Hurt Locker) because he was the best choice, not because he got it made. This trend of star restriction will handcuff independent film makers to cast their movies with the right name, instead of the right actor, inevitably bringing down the quality of American independent films.
What's left? An idea, people willing to work for a lot less money and a Red Camera rental. Filmmakers are going digital. Most of these movies never see a screen beyond the walls of a festival, but occasionally some break through. So like the rest of the US business culture you have the great divide -- elite lavish pigs and the inspired, hungry crumb-snatchers. The American dream -- life, liberty and the pursuit of more. This of course, is all my personal conjecture, based on my inside observation. I may be completely off the mark, but from where I sit, the film industry is in deep creative straits. Or maybe I'm just pissed I couldn't get my movie made.
I'm not sure what will happen with Delivering Gen. It's still in the mix, but I have a feeling it will suffer the same middle-class fate as others. It's too bad, (and yes, I know this is self-serving) it's really a special little movie. I hope someday that story gets told. I've always referred to features as my "virtual career". I've been writing movies longer than I have been writing TV, yet when I generate a feature script it slips into the netherworld of development -- perhaps never to be seen again. In TV, I have an idea on Monday, write it Tuesday, shoot it Wednesday and Thursday I'm watching it on dailies. My day job is very satisfying.
This brings me back to my chat with Goggins. Walton, who is starring in FX's new series, Justified, was expressing deep gratitude for cable. Both, for his opportunities on The Shield as well as his new gig. We were looking at the landscape of television and noting all the A-listers who are jumping into cable -- Close, Hurt, Pacino, Hoffman, Keaton, etc. It was Walt's observation that cable is now fulfilling the creative and compensatory void that has been created by film's dying middle-class. I think he's right. As network television continues to spiral down the shitter, cable continues to attract more and more talent. It's one of the few mediums that is actually thriving and growing creatively.
The world is in a media/content upheaval. Digital has changed the game. Everyone is grasping at what they thing might be the next big thing (that handful of WTF was the major reason for the WGA and SAG strike). But the truth is no one fucking knows. TV, internet, movies -- it changes every day. The good news is that no matter what it looks like, how, when or where they get it, people want entertainment. So there will always be a need for content -- writers, directors, actors.
I take solace in my experience with the human condition. Knowing that men and women will always find a way to express themselves. When I was a kid in 70's and 80's in NYC, it was performance art, Hip-hop, and bad experimental theatre. Artists always found a way to communicate ideas and feelings. Now we have You-Tube, Funny or Die, I-movies, even Twitter and Facebook. All grown from that same need -- communication of expression. I don't really know what the point of this blog is, so if you're expecting a clever, concise wrap-up -- I got nothing. Maybe the point is that we don't need a middle-class, maybe we are already part of it, maybe I've had too much coffee. I don't know.
Something to think about, or in my case, something to obsess over.


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By Julie for the Pennsic Independent
Men and women of the SCA currently serving overseas in the armies and navies of many countries, we send a grand salute to you from Pennsic XXXVI. As you are stationed in foreign lands and perhaps in the midst of real life battle, providing support to combatants or serving in some other way that keeps you from being here, please know that you are always in our hearts. We hope that next year you will be back here fighting war the way it should be fought, pummeling each other with rattan and blunted sabers by day and reveling in friendship each night.
As usual, the fickle weather here in the Kingdom of Æthelmearc has left us withered by the heat and dampened by the rain, sometimes all in the same day. But, the Pennsic spirit is as strong as always, and we are persevering here in the wooded hills of the Debatable Lands. Our combatants take the field as weather permits, and the Midrealm and the East vie for points on every front. Crafters, artisans and entertainers continue to entertain and educate us. There is hardly a corner without a musician or juggler making us dance or laugh as we enjoy the sweet taste of chocolate milk from the Cooper's Store.
Everywhere are the sounds of Pennsic, a mixture of musicians on medieval instruments, the "Oyez, Oyez" of heralds spreading news, and the clunk of fighters' weapons meeting with armor on the battlefield. At night, the drums beat into the wee hours as dancers sway around firelight and revelry emits from the Swamp.
Soon we will be breaking camp for Pennsic XXXVI, and preparations for next year have already begun. As we pack up our tents, our combat gear, our garb, and everything else, we hope that next year you will be here. Until then may the spirit of Pennsic be with you.


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The Zealot 16 is Osprey's first foray into the gravity orientated hydration pack realm. The fully featured 16 liter capacity pack is comfortable, tough and carries loads competently, with a nicely padded and well ventilated back panel. Osprey has been making packs since 1974, and although they're headquartered in Cortez Colorado, their manufacturing takes place in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Osprey Zealot 16
The Zealot 16 is made with tough and durable 210D Nylon Nailhead, 500D and 1000D nylon fabrics, and utilizes their molded foam AirScape back panel, BioStretch ventilated harness and a 40mm straight ErgoPull hip belt with padded hip wings. It has their brilliant LidLock helmet clip and blinker light attachment patch. The pack has a 16 liter capacity, and includes their 100 oz (3 L) Hydraform reservoir and a roll-out tool pouch. The pack comes in two colors, Pitch Black and Octane Blue, and two sizes, Small/Medium and Medium/Large, weighs in at 920 grams and retails for $149. In addition, they have a Zealot 10, which has a 10 liter capacity and retails for $129.
The large main compartment is accompanied by a padded front compression pocket, a top stash pocket, two stretch mesh side pockets, two hip pockets, and a mesh and zippered harness pocket. The main compartment is cavernous, and the useful back panel opening makes it easy to access items. I do wish there was some internal zippered pockets, slots and pouches for better organization of items in the main area, since things can get lost in the vastness of the compartment. The hydration reservoir fits into a separate pocket or sleeve on the rear of the main compartment, which isolates it for easier insertion while the pack is still fully loaded, and it has an elastic compression cord system to hold it tightly in place to prevent unwanted movement. The hip pockets worked for a gel packs, cameras, and phones, although it was a tight fit jamming an iPhone in there.
The top stash pocket has a key clip, and offers enough space for multiple items, including electronics and food. The padded front compression pocket can carry a Full-Face helmet, and was quite useful for frequently required items such as a shock pump, rags, and soft armor, and when combined with the mesh side pockets, bulky items and armor could be carried. The pockets on the harness were too small for most items, except maybe a gel packs or energy bar, and sort of seemed superfluous. At the bottom of the pack is a zippered pocket for the roll-out tool pouch, which is quite handy as it keeps the usual heavy tool weight low on the back, although I found its zipper hard to close when the pack was fully loaded.
The Hydraform 3 liter reservoir uses an anti-microbial formula to prevent most mold and bacteria growth, and its BPA and PVC free. It has an excellent 180-degree pivot bite valve that rotates on and off in either direction, and features a magnet that attaches to sternum strap. The reservoir has a large easy to use handle for holding and filling, and an integrated plastic back panel for stiffening that has a slight bend in it to conform to the back. Unfortunately, that stiff bowed panel makes initial water filling difficult as it pushes the material up into the port opening, causing spills and messes unless you're careful or push the down on things. Cleaning the reservoir isn't easy since the opening isn't large enough for comfortable hand insertion, and the tube doesn't have a quick-release system like the competition. The Hydraform does have the benefit that it lays nice and flat when filled, which help keep the pack from feeling overly bulged out.


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If something is wrong with your cat or dog and you just can't pinpoint the problem, it may be allergies.
Signs and symptoms. Common clues that your pet has an allergy include sneezing, runny eyes and excessive scratching. Look for itchy or red skin, scratching at the base of the tail or ears, ear infections, constant licking, paw chewing or swollen paws. Other signs include vomiting, diarrhea, sneezing and snoring caused by an inflamed throat. Secondary infections caused by allergies can cause hair loss, scabs or crust on the skin.
Causes. Pet WebMD lists common causes of pet allergies. These include pollens, dust, mold spores, feathers, cigarette smoke, prescription drugs, fleas, perfumes, cleaning products, fabrics, rubber and plastic materials. Pets can be allergic to food ingredients too. A dog with food allergies often will be plagued by itchy skin, breathing difficulties or gastrointestinal problems like diarrhea and vomiting. It may be difficult to pinpoint which ingredient is causing the allergy. Talk to your vet about trying a process-of-elimination diet to identify the culprit.
Treatment. The most effective way of treating pet allergies is to provide an allergen-free environment. Prevention is the best remedy for pet allergies caused by fleas. Have a plan in place before fleas become a problem. Flea control products include monthly spot treatments, collars and powders. If dust is the cause, clean the pet's sleeping area once a week and vacuum all rugs and carpets in the house at least twice per week. Itching can sometimes be cured by weekly bathing.
Medications. Not all allergens can be removed from the dog's environment. If that's the case, your vet may be able to prescribe allergy medication. Allergy injections can build your pet's resistance to airborne allergens. A small percentage of dogs may find relief with antihistamines such as Benadryl. Never administer antihistamines, however, without consulting your vet. Sprays and shampoos may work for animals with itchy skin. If the problem becomes severe, your vet may administer cortisone shots.
The good news about pet allergies is that most can be controlled without resorting to drugs or injections. Consult your vet for an allergy control plan.


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Conference of State Bank Supervisors
Associate Certified Information Systems Examiner
1129 20th Street, N.W. 9th Floor Washington, D.C. MN 20036
Work Experience Required? YesOral or Written Exam Required? Yes Renewal Required? Every 3 Year(s) Renew through Continuing Educational Units(CEU)? YesRenew through Re-Examination? NoRenew through Continuing Professional Development(CPD)? NoDoes applicant have choice of at least two options from above for renewal (CEU, CPD, or exam)? No


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I have received several requests for the dry powdered pigments I use and having mentioned them in my forth coming book, I decided to offer them for sale as a set.
Black Iron Oxide, Red Iron Oxide, Yellow Ocher, Burnt Umber, & Zinc White.
These are the traditional pigments from the nineteenth century and earlier, zinc oxide is substituted for white lead, as some people won't allow the sale of lead for some reason.
All natural earth pigments ground 900 fine, they are non-fugative and will not fade. They are compatable with any medium: linseed oil and turpentine, shellac or spirit based varnish, oil based varnish [to make enamel], and water based finishes such as gum arabic or for distemper [hide glue size], etc.
Five one ounce (by weight) glass jars with metal lids, they are available here.


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Roland Promars Plug out Synthesizer Review
by Matt Jessup
During the 1980's, if you were anyone, you would have been stood behind a Roland Synthesizer. Depeche Mode's Vince Clarke, with his Jupiter 4. Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes behind a Jupiter 4 and Jupiter 8. Howard Jones, Gary Numan, The Human League, the list is endless, Roland's flagship machines were everywhere. Every Thursday night you would be guaranteed a glimpse of the Jupiter 8 on Top of The Pops.


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When it comes to reliving headline making news events, the spinning newspaper effect is old and antiquated. Social networks have long since replaced printed media as the go to source for breaking news, so visual effects artist Jeremiah Warren has animated a 2012 year in review using nothing but tweets from the past 365 days.
It's a lovely walk down memory lane, made all the more enjoyable in tiny 140 character snippets that are far easier to digest when you're nursing a killer hangover. [Jeremiah Warren via Laughing Squid]


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Fellow Oracles,
There is a nasty procedure in a nasty package which seems to cause this error quite frequently and I've run out of ideas as to why it happens.
The best bet was to come out here and consult with some Oracles which have been around for quite a good amount of time.
Anyone has ideas, or any little clue as to the instances which could possibly throw this error out.
The cursor query of the procedure uses two materialised views which get refreshed once in an hour. They donot have indexes.
Could it be that this error is caused when the procedure is called right at the time when the mat views refresh.
or could it be anything else?
ideas and suggestions are much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.