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60's Milk Parlour glass light 'Receiver'
+44 (0)1225 422221
+44 (0)7771 887771
United Kingdom
By phone: +44 (0)1225 422221
Mobile: +44 (0)7771 887771
20 Walcot Buildings
United Kingdom
Based in the beautiful World Heritage City of Bath, Simon and Frauke Jackson are a husband and wife team who not only deal in antique furniture but also undertake the high quality restoration of the same.
They met in 1983 at West Dean College in Sussex where they trained for their diplomas in furniture restoration. Simon had previously attended Brunel Technical College in Bristol, obtaining a City and Guilds qualification in restoration, and Frauke had served a three year cabinet making apprenticeship in her native Germany.
Following several years employment in London they moved to Bath in 1987 and established their own workshop.
Dealing in antique furniture followed as a natural progression from its restoration and Simon and Frauke now regularly attend fairs in both England and Northern Europe enjoying a large and loyal customer following in both areas.
For Simon and Frauke customer service is of paramount importance. Aware of the changing trends within the antique business they recognise the need to diversify and are constantly striving to satisfy their customer's requirements. Hence, decorative and painted furniture is now included within their range of stock.
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This is the third time we've visited the Pogoplug, a plug-and-play device designed to turn any USB hard drives or thumbdrives into Internet-connected data drops for storing or sharing files. The Pogoplug Pro is basically the same device as the second-generation Pogoplug we reviewed back in May, except that the new model sports built-in Wi-Fi. This review covers what we reviewed about the earlier Pogoplug, along with added software features and our experiences using Wi-Fi.
The desire for easy file storage and cloud sharing has only increased in the past year, especially with the growth of cloud-based storage and streaming options. The biggest appeal of the Pogoplug is its economy, in principle: the device uses whatever USB hard drives you have lying around and instantly turns them into online-sharable drives, doing away with the need for any additional hard drive or NAS purchases.
When we first reviewed the Pogoplug, we found its oversize wall-wart design to be refreshingly simple and compact, and its purpose streamlined. Although somewhat utilitarian, at least it didn't waste any space.
The Pogoplug Pro (like the second-generation Pogoplug before it) seems to have forgotten the lessons of the original product. The curved, awkward shape and bizarre springboardlike base, combined with its ribbed glossy minitower look, it can't help but make it come across like an iMac peripheral made in 1998. Thankfully, the Pogoplug Pro has shifted to a black color scheme, leaving the previous, frankly hideous pink design in the dust. At $99, the Pro is actually $30 cheaper than the second-generation Pogoplug was--essentially, the same as what the original Pogoplug cost in the first place. Plus, it has Wi-Fi.
Note: Despite its confusing "Pro" name, this is a consumer-oriented device that's the best version of Pogoplug, the one anyone interested should buy. A business-targeted Pogoplug with multiple user access functionality also exists, but it's called Pogoplug Biz, and costs a hefty $299.
The original Pogoplug got its name because it was a big wall wart: you could plug it directly into a wall AC outlet (though an extension cord was provided as well). Alas, the newer Pogoplugs need to stand on a table or other surface and use a long power cord by default. The Pogoplug Pro's squat and somewhat bulky box has three USB 2.0 ports in the rear and one poking out the front above a Pogoplug logo that lights up when the box is powered on. The box looks large enough to possibly house its own storage, but that isn't the case: you still have to plug in your own USB-connected hard drives or thumbdrives. With four attached at once you'll have an impressive, almost NAS-like online multidrive, but the setup will also look bulky and full of snaky USB wires. The Pogoplug Pro has a curved, springy stand that doubles as a cable organizer, but there's no rack or method for holding plugged-in hard drives. Hard drives can be unplugged and swapped easily, but we noticed that plugged-in USB thumbdrives got disturbingly warm after only a night of staying in the Pogoplug.
In terms of usability, the experience is straightforward if all you want to do is plug in and share a hard drive. The Pogoplug is compatible with NTFS, FAT32, Mac OS Extended Journaled and non-Journaled (HFS+), and EXT-2/EXT-3 formats, covering most bases for nearly any hard drive. Connecting a drive is as simple as plugging it into the Pogoplug after plugging the Pogoplug into a router via Ethernet and a power socket. The whole system recognizes itself and is ready to go, as advertised, after you log in to Pogoplug's Web site and register.
There are three chief methods of interfacing the drives connected to Pogoplug: directly through a Web browser via the my.pogoplug.com Web site; via a downloadable software client for Mac, PC, and Linux that shows the Pogoplug-connected drives directly on the desktop; and via mobile phone apps. Originally, the Pogoplug app was only available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but it's since expanded to Android, BlackBerry, and Palm (WebOS) phones.
Wi-Fi capability on the Pogoplug Pro works very easily, refreshingly so. The Pogoplug must first be plugged in via Ethernet to a wireless router, and then the device can be wirelessly connected to any available networks via a settings tab on the my.pogoplug.com Web site. The password settings are retained even when the device is unplugged and moved. That the Pogoplug can be used anywhere in an office or home, plugged into an outlet and tucked near a bookshelf or closet, really makes it a far more versatile device.
Wi-Fi worked great for sharing files like music and pictures, but videos suffered an expected bandwidth drop and slowdown. MP4 files that effortlessly streamed via the Pogoplug to our iPad when directly connected to a wired router suffered pauses and a long buffer time using Wi-Fi.
On the browser side, folders can be viewed, and music, photos, and video can be seen and streamed. All files can also be downloaded, and folders can be selected to be publicly shared via direct link or through social media such as Facebook or Twitter. Music streaming works after a short delay, but the controls are as small and awkward as before, and playlists can't be easily created--it's on a song-by-song basis. Video has a huge delay over the Internet; if you're on the same home network as the Pogoplug, the streaming result is markedly better, but--for video, anyway--still not reliably smooth.
The downloadable client offers the greatest flexibility, allowing drag-and-drop uploading and downloading of files. Deleting files was an awkward process, and sometimes we hit a few lags, but it's still a far cheaper and easier solution than most.
For mobile smartphone apps, interaction is limited largely to viewing and streaming of documents, photos, music, and video--again, with mixed success for video. But the problem is that it's something of a walled garden compared with the computer-based Pogoplug interface: you can't really do everything you'd like with the remote files. Yes, you can view and even download them to the phone, but once you do, you're not always free to share them outside of the Pogoplug ecosystem. For instance, we pulled down a PDF that we needed on our iPhone, but we couldn't e-mail it to anyone; instead, we'd be forced to set up a Pogoplug share with the intended recipients. That works, it's just more involved than we'd prefer for a one-off document.
Since our last review, a few new features have been added. The iPhone app now allows photo and video uploads from an iPhone or iPod to a Pogoplug-connected drive, but we were never able to make it work without crashing. There's also an iPad app which works well, provided you're not uploading. Interfaces on all apps still don't feel smooth, though: it took deep diving into the iPhone app to even discover we could upload at all.
Pogoplugs can also connect to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, use a NAS-like backup service called Active Copy to redundantly copy often-used files, and even cloud-print to an attached printer. The Pogoplug's list of proffered features is long and eye-opening, but the more fantastic the promised features get, the less likely we found the Pogoplug to be able to deliver on them.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Movie – If you are in the mood for something different, or want to do a bit of armchair traveling via stunning visuals from distant locations, Samsara may interest you. It is a movie that is experienced rather than simply watched because of the impact of the graphic imagery of landscapes and human culture that are presented without a defined context. Filmed over four years, the images were photographed entirely in 70mm and transferred to 4K digital projection format. I've read recommendations for seeing this film on as large a screen as possible because of the splendid visuals, and I completely agree. Amazing real-time and time-lapse images that are as diverse as natural landscapes, spiritual sites, and industrial settings are accompanied only by ambient sound and music, and no dialog accompanies the film. This enriching film alternates between soothing meditative scenes of aesthetic grace and thought-provoking, slightly disturbing, scenes evoking social commentary. Samsara follows in the footsteps of two award-winning predecessors Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi (which was accompanied by the music of Philip Glass).


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MONTREAL - A fter swirling a spoon into the amber-coloured honey from Miels d'Anicet, I draw up a spoonful and smear it over my tongue. This is the "summer" honey, and the flavour is complex. Harvested from mid-July to August, the honey is made from the nectar of white clover, raspberry bush, alfalfa, mint and wild flowers. There is nothing cloying or rich about it. Though delicate, it is full-flavoured. It trickles down the throat softly without a blast of sweetness hitting my molars, or any trace of bitterness catching in my throat. Divine.
The next spoonful of honey I taste comes from a squeeze bottle shaped like a teddy bear. Almost colourless, this honey is sweet, not much else. Comparing it to the Anicet honey would be like comparing a fine wine to grape juice. And that's not being fair to the grape juice.
"For me, that little bear is the emblem of bad honey," says Anicet Desrochers, beekeeper, beebreeder and owner of Les Miels D'Anicet. "That honey is the polar opposite of what we do. Especially since the bears eat our hives."
What Desrochers does is make absolutely exquisite certified organic honey. "We use Anicet's honey everywhere in our cooking," says Toqué! chef-owner Normand Laprise, "from a fish entrée to desserts. It's gentle and floral. I think it's the best honey in Quebec, if not Canada."
Lanky, laid-back and with a definite hipster style, Desrochers looks more like a U of M philosophy major than the largest producer of organic honey in North America. And yet once engaged in honey and bee discussion, the 32-year-old is more professor than student. The Desrochers family's love of honey runs deep. His sister, Naline Dupuis-Desrochers, now runs the production of Desrochers organic honey wines (hydromel) including the renowned La Cuvée du Diable in Ferme Neuve, just north of Mount Laurier in the Upper Laurentians, founded by his father, Claude, in 1978.
Thirteen years ago, Desrochers and his wife, Anne-Virginie Schmidt, took over the family apiary, the Ferme Apicole Desrochers, renaming it Api Culture Hautes Laurentides. Also located in Ferme Neuve, Api Culture Hautes Laurentides includes both the Miels d'Anicet honey production, and a breeding centre for the Russian Primorsky Queen bees he sells to other beekeepers. There are five certified organic honey producers in Quebec, but none comes close to the production of Desrochers, who counts some 1,000 hives on his property. Each of those hives has 60,000 to 80,000 bees at work producing the 80,000 to 100,000 pounds of honey sold each year.
Organic is a word that gets tossed around often in food circles, but certified organic honey is rare. As there are no standards for USDA certified organic honey, there is no certified organic honey in the States. If you do find organic honey on American store shelves, chances are it comes from Brazil.
To be certified organic in Quebec, honey must come from hives within three kilometres of pesticide-free plants and flowers. Desrochers's land is bee heaven: rolling hills with wild flowers, forests and fields, none of which are planted with commercial crops. His hives are set over 100 kilometres of such land, in groups of 20 to 24 hives according to the number of plants in the area. "Bees will travel up to five kilometres to get the nectar," he says, "but normally they will stay as close as possible to the hive."
The word "terroir" comes up often with Desrochers. The term refers primarily to products whose typicity is reflected in the land from which they are derived. Wine and cheese are the most common "produits du terroir," yet Desrochers makes a strong case that honey also fits into that category. Well, his honey.
"All the pollens and nectars in our honey are from the plants from the Haute Laurentides," he says. "The complexity of the honey is directly related to this specific area with wild flowers and forests. In the Eastern Townships, there is far more agriculture, so the honey is less complex. In an area like Abitibi, you are far from industrialized areas, but the cold climate is not favourable for bees, so the production is small. We are between those two climates, isolated from commercial farming yet warm enough for the bees to flourish. Everything affects honey: the temperature, the humidity, the intensity of the flowering. That's what makes its magic."
Yet for honey to best express its magic, it must be manipulated as little as possible. Like raw-milk cheese, honey's flavour is at its most complex in its raw state. Unlike mass-produced honey, which is pasteurized to 60C to facilitate filtering and packaging, Miels d'Anicet never heats its honey above the internal temperature of a hive (40C), and only then after bottling to prevent it from crystallizing before being shipped.
"Honey is fragile," says Desrochers. "It degrades easily once heated; it loses all its beauty, all the flavour and the softness. Cold extraction preserves the honey's aroma, nutritional, and medicinal values. Large producers heat their honey to standardize the flavour; they want everything on the shelves to taste the same. And they want it to stay runny. Pasteurization is used to stop the natural crystallization process. What we want is quality and complexity, to keep honey in its purest, natural state. And raw honey should crystallize. It's a sign that it's rich in enzymes, that the honey is alive. People here often return the jar when the product has crystallized. Europeans have more respect for honey. They know that in the summer the honey from the hives will be liquid, but that by Christmastime it will crystallize."
According to Desrochers, the North American taste for honey has yet to blossom. "We eat no honey," he says. "I read a survey that only 10 per cent of 30- to 35-year olds have honey in their cupboard. We've lost our taste for it. We buy honey to put in our Martha Stewart recipe for barbecue sauce. But I want people to buy Anicet Spring honey to serve with cherries drizzled over sheep's milk cheese."
Desrochers may be discouraged, but there's a definite wave of honey love in foodie circles south of the border. Gourmet websites feature honeys with flavour descriptions worthy of fine wines.
The Bee Raw honey company out of New York sources honey from artisanal bee keepers to produce raw, unfiltered honeys produced from a single flower or fruit varietal. Tasting kits – "honey flights" – made up of wild flower honey or honeys for cheese will set you back $45 for four one-ounce vials. Ouch. Honeys include such varieties as Maine wild raspberry honey ("light and floral, with a unique raspberry finish intertwined with the aroma of warm cocoa butter"), Wisconsin cranberry honey ("smooth, pungent and mildly tart with subtle floral hints, finishing with a very light fruit flavour"), and Florida orange blossom honey ("notes of citrus and the tangy rind are playfully intertwined in a not-too-sweet captivating finish").
Bee Raw is just one of many companies marketing honey as the new "varietal-driven" foodstuff along the lines of wine and chocolate. When perusing shelves at the Manhattan gourmet emporium Dean & Deluca, I spotted beautifully packaged honeys labelled blackberry or blueberry, which certainly conjure up images of berry flavours wafting from your morning bagel. "Ah, the flower honeys," says Desrochers with a laugh. "If your honey tastes like blueberries, then essential oils have been added, and then it must be labelled as 'flavoured honey.'"
Generally, the origin of the plant doesn't dictate the flavour profile, but Desrochers has found exceptions including a lychee honey from Reunion Island that he said really does taste like lychee fruit, and a Corsican clementine honey that has a slight citrus edge. And, he says, lavender honey does give off a lavender flavour, but only when it's well made.
"In Europe," says Desrochers, "you really can produce lavender or rosemary honeys because the season is longer and there are distinct periods for each flower. The beekeepers literally move the hives around according to the timing of the flowers. But in North America, the flowering season is so short that everything bursts into flower at once. For that reason we prefer to label our honeys by season: spring, summer and fall. I also have a 'cru' honey, a very rare honey that comes exclusively from my hives in the forest. I prefer multi-flower honeys, which are more complex, rounder and have a richness of flavour. The only exception are three honeys we make that are 'mono-floral': wild mint, linden and buckwheat. Bees love these flowers so much that they will favour them over others."
The complexity of flavour in the Miels d'Anicet is also making fans of some of Quebec's top chefs, including Laprise, Martin Picard, Patrice Demers, François Blais and Eric Gonzalez. "Chefs have the greatest impact," says Desrochers, "because they use our products in an exceptional way. These are people who work with artisans, favour small producers and appreciate the signature we bring from our region."
Chef Picard, Desrochers says, glazes duck legs with Miels d'Anicet, and pastry chef Demers uses it in his innovative desserts. But how does the beekeeper enjoy his honey? "I eat so much while I work every day, " he says. "Every zone in which we have hives offers a different flavour. But I don't spread it on my toast in the morning. I taste honey with as much reverence as foie gras or a fine wine. It's important to take the time to uncover the subtleties of flavour, the richness, the undertones. And it's a lot of fun. It's not just honey, it's linden, clover, goldenrod, raspberry flowers ... it's 1,000 things. I understand when chefs say 'Wow!' "
Miels d'Anicet honey, as well as the company's honey mustards and organic soaps are available at Rachelle-Béry, Au Pain Doré, Première Moisson, as well as select IGA and Metro supermarkets. For a full list of store locations, visit the website api-culture.com.


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Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Divorce Finalized
uncategorized| |
A Los Angeles judge has put an end to Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's divorce drama by finalizing their split on Friday.
The former couple has been duking it out in court ever since The Danish Girl actress filed papers last May to end her 15-month marriage to the Pirates of the Caribbean actor.
Although Depp agreed to pay Heard $7 million to settle the divorce last August, proceedings have been delayed in recent weeks thanks to accusatory motions issued by both parties, but on Friday the judge presiding over the case declared he had had enough and ordered an official end to the matter.
"I just see this as a lot of bickering back and forth," Judge Carl Moor said in a court hearing, according to the New York Daily News.
Heard, who accused Depp of being physically and verbally abusive towards her throughout their brief union, slammed her ex last month for failing to pay the settlement funds by the agreed deadline.
Her attorneys then filed a Request for Order, imploring the actor to uphold his end of the agreement and pay the money, which she plans to give to the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) domestic violence unit and the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles.
However, Depp and his legal team answered the motion by requesting the judge order Heard to pay $100,000 toward Depp's legal fees, insisting she should be sanctioned for delaying the case and attempting to renegotiate the terms of their divorce settlement.
Judge Moor shut down both petitions in court on Friday and ruled the $7 million settlement stands, adding Depp and Heard are responsible for their own legal fees.
Following the hearing, Heard's attorney Pierce O'Donnell told DailyMail.com, "This is a great day, all Amber wanted was to be divorced and now she is."


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Colour Streams Habotai Silk - DL 52 Cotswold Stone
Size: 30cm x 28cm
Extremely soft, lustrous delicate smooth silk fabric.
Beautiful for backgrounds, layering in collage work, and crazy patchwork.
Colour Streams hand dye each product, there will be slight colour variations in each product.
Colour Streams textile arts and embroidery supplies aim to inspire and ignite the textile artist in you - to help your imagination take flight and to 'let the colour do the work while you play.'


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BRENTWOOD (CBS / AP) – A Contra Costa County woman and Las Vegas man face charges for their alleged involvement in a multi-million dollar mortgage scam that bilked more than a thousand homeowners.
Federal prosecutors said Tamara Tikal of Brentwood continued the scam after her husband was arrested on charges of running a sham mortgage rescue company.
Alan Tikal is awaiting trial on allegations that he ran KATN Trust, which offered homeowners cheaper mortgages and promised to cover their existing, more expensive home loan.
Prosecutors said he collected more than $3 million from victims, most of whom lived in California.
The homeowners were allegedly instructed not to pay their original mortgages and ignore correspondence from the lender.
The new charges against Tamara Tikal and Jan Kornfeld stem from evidence seized from the company's Las Vegas office.
(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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Visualizing with VTK
Most scientists and engineers are adept at approaching and solving problems. If they use the scientific method, they may even get the right answer. However, analyzing results and measurements is often difficult because visualization tools are lacking. If your experience has been like mine, the tools for investigating data are either too specialized (vis5d), too weak (plotmtv) or too expensive (AVS). While good commercial packages exist such as Tecplot from Amtec Engineering, they often place restrictions (such as no remote displays in X) and constrictions on the user.
To solve this problem, three very intelligent men put their heads together (for nine months before coding began) and wrote The Visualization Toolkit (VTK). Will Schroeder, Bill Lorensen and Ken Martin have created one of the best systems available for performing scientific visualization. It is far and away the best value to be found today.
In this article, I will briefly describe what is required to obtain, compile and use VTK. The goal is to leave you with a sense of the scope of VTK and the level of commitment required to use it. You probably won't be able to immediately start creating visualization pipelines; however, you will have a good idea of the range of problems it is suited to solve and what will be required of you to solve them.
VTK is a collection of visualization "objects" which can be connected to make a visualization pipeline. VTK strictly follows the object-oriented model, whereby there is a hierarchy of objects, and any object which is a "sub-object" of another inherits the parent object's methods and properties. Objects are also broken down into "classes" which represent the authors' best estimate of the most effective set of tools required to put together a visualization. The objects are broken down into 14 categories by function: Foundation, Cells, Datasets, Pipeline, Sources, Filters, Mappers, Reader/Writer/Importer/Exporter, Graphics, Volume Rendering, Imaging, OpenGL Renderer, Tcl/Tk and Window-System Specific. The user will most often be concerned with Dataset, Pipeline, Sources, Filters, Reader/Writers and Graphics and/or Imaging or Volume Rendering, though the other classes are implicitly used in most cases.
With these classes, we have the ability to construct a "pipeline" which reads or creates data, filters it as required, and finally renders it on the screen or exports the rendering to a file. While the classes follow the object model, the pipelines are procedural, which is most often needed when reducing data. The pipeline starts with a source (data), is operated on by any number of filters (even recursively) and is finally presented as output. The "data" source may be unstructured points, structured points, structured grid, unstructured grid, rectilinear grid or polygonal data. The class of data determines the types of filters which may be used to operate on the data, with the more structured data having the most filters available. For example, unstructured points may not be contoured, but they can be remapped to a structured points set, which can be contoured. Armed with these tools, all that is required to visualize almost any data is a sound approach to reducing it. With the ability to visualize data well in hand, the rate limiting step is now relegated to performance, and it can be a big issue. Datasets can easily get quite large or require a lot of computational effort to manipulate. VTK has tools to deal with these issues as well.
To start, I recommend the book The Visualization Toolkit, Second Edition, by Will Schroeder, Ken Martin and Bill Lorensen, published by Prentice Hall. It is an invaluable reference for understanding both the visualization process and VTK. After you've read the terse (yet complete) man pages, you'll understand why the book is needed.
All of the following examples were created using the Tcl/Tk bindings to VTK. These examples can also be created in C++, Python or Java; the latter two are relatively new to VTK, so your mileage may vary. Some examples were borrowed with permission from the VTK distribution, and all are biased toward reduction of computational data as opposed to imaging data or graphics applications.
Often, the first thing we ask to see when we have a large dataset is "Where is the data?" A simple enough request, but most tools will not easily give it to you. Let's say we have smooth-particle hydrodynamics code which uses and generates unstructured points. For each point, we have the x, y and z coordinates as well as several scalar values (for now, tensor components will be considered scalars).
While not the most memory-efficient, one way to "see" the particles is to place glyphs at every particle position, scaled by the particle size. The visualization pipeline must take in the point data, create a glyph object and place one at each point location, scaled by the particle size. The set of glyphs must then be rendered on the screen. Listing 1 is the Tcl version of the code to do that, assuming you have read the point positions into the arrays xpos, ypos and zpos and the radius into rad.
Figure 1. Spherical Glyphs Scaled Relative to Particle Size
When this pipeline is run, a visualization window is opened on the desktop with a spherical glyph centered at the location of each point and a radius equal to the particle size (see Figure 1). Objects which are implicitly included in the scene but not listed above can be specified if required. These include lights, cameras and object properties. The implicitly defined objects are also accessible and controllable through their "parent" object; in this case, the renderer. In Tcl, a handy command is available from the VTK shell called ListMethods that informs you of all methods (and the number of arguments) available for any object. Adding the command ren ListMethods to Listing 1 would return the information that about 60 methods are available to you. After using this command on several objects, you will begin to see a structure to the methods and develop a sense of how the objects fit together.
With the addition of Tk entry boxes, all controllable attributes of all objects can be controlled interactively. However, changes to the pipeline will be seen only when the pipeline is re-executed with the new value and an Update is requested. This can be handled either by setting all attributes in a procedure called from the Tk interface or by attaching the method to the "command" argument of the widget that sets the value of the attribute. I recommend the former method.
The main access to the visible attributes of the scene is through the Actor objects and the Mapper objects. Attributes, such as visibility, color, opacity, specular reflectance, specular power and representation (wireframe, points, surfaces), are set with the vtkProperty object that is automatically created for the vtkActor, if one is not explicitly defined.
Now, let's say you want to evaluate a mesh created with an automatic mesh generator, and furthermore, you want to tag the cell with the smallest spacing. Starting with the nodes and connectivity list, the "mesh" can be built by connecting the connected nodes with line segments and placing a geometric object at each of the nodes containing the shortest and longest connection. Listing 2 is a "quick and dirty" bit of code that took me about 15 minutes to write (well, maybe a little longer). It assumes the nodal positions are known, and their right, back and upper neighbors are known and stored in the arrays i1tab, i3tab and i8tab, respectively.
Figure 2. Mesh Nodes, Connectivity and Minimum Cell Dimension
The code in Listing 2 creates the visualization shown in Figure 2. This pipeline does not include the code to make the boundaries visible. We will cover that next. The key features of this pipeline are the multiple sources (mesh data, sphere) presented in one scene. The sphere is placed on the node with the nearest neighbor in one of the three coordinate directions mentioned above. The polygonal data represented by the vtkPolyData object called mesh consists of two-point polygons, i.e., lines. Polygonal data is often read in with a reader or created automatically by a source or filter such as the vtkSphereSource (Listing 1) or a vtkContourFilter. Notice that the mappers for the mesh and for the sphere are different. The mesh mapper takes the mesh directly as input, but the sphere mapper operates on the vtkSphereSource, which is not vtkPolyData. The reason for this is that the mapper reads vtkPolyData as input. The mesh is vtkPolyData. The sphere is a source which can send out vtkPolyData, when requested, as we do when employing the GetOutput method on the vtkSphereSource.
Satisfied with our mesh, let's look at some data. The pipeline excerpt in Listing 3 is based on the same mesh data as above, but includes methods to show the boundaries in the model and vector fields. [Complete listings for this article are available by anonymous download in the file ftp://ftp.linuxjournal.com/pub/lj/listings/issue53/3010.tgz.]
A lot is happening in the pipeline shown in Listing 3. First, the "mesh" polydata set gained two attributes: scalars and vectors (e.g., SetScalars, SetVectors). The vectors were created in a vtkFloatVector object. Their magnitudes were calculated and stored in a vtkFloatScalar field called field. The scalars are used by the mapper to color the vectors, and the vector data is used by the vtkHedgeHog (vector plotter) to create the oriented and sized vector glyphs. A separate pipeline is used to draw the surfaces of the object, and a 7-case switch is used to build the point connectivities for the surface panels per cell. It takes advantage of any connectivity which may exist on a given cell and builds a special type of polydata called "triangle strips". Triangle strips allow n connected triangles to be created with n + 2 points. The vtkPolyData must be told that the given cell array values are triangle strips in order to properly set up the connectivity. This is accomplished with the SetStrips method, as compared to SetLines in the mesh example. The panels are made transparent by setting the opacity to .5, which allows the vectors to be seen. The color map for the vectors has been explicitly set to range between the minimum and maximum velocity magnitudes. By default, the mapping is red-to-blue from 0 to 1. The SetScalarRange method allows the range to be reset in the mapper. Notice the red vectors in the back left corner of Figure 3—an error is creeping in from the boundary and the location where it begins is very clear. Apart from verifying the correctness of the mesh, boundaries and boundary conditions, I can easily diagnose trouble spots in the calculation.
Figure 3. Vector plot of fluid velocities colored by magnitude and outer boundaries visualized with transparency.
Finally, these last two figures demonstrate some of the advanced features of VTK. Figure 4 is a BMRT-rendered (Blue Moon Rendering Tool) export from VTK. The complex shapes were built entirely from contoured implicit functions. Figure 5 is from the VTK examples directory and shows streamlines emanating from "seeds" that are located at a heater vent.
Figure 4. A BMRT-rendered view of a VTK scene. This visualization contains a complex combination of implicit functions, polydata and filters.
Figure 5. Plot from the VTK sample suite. This visualization includes streamlines flow colored by temperature.
While this treatment only scratches the surface of VTK's capabilities, you can begin to see the flexibility and power it affords the user. In addition to the features discussed in this article, VTK has objects for image analysis and manipulation, implicit functions, data transformation, data sampling, volume (solid object) rendering, memory management, texture mapping, data manipulation and exporting and more. Admittedly, the learning curve for becoming facile with VTK is somewhat steep, but it pays for itself many times over in saved time when doing complex analyses.
The official source code release of VTK is available from the VTK home page at http://www.kitware.com/vtk.html. For the more daring, almost-daily beta releases are available from http://www.kitware.com/vtkData/Nightly.html. On the average Linux system, software required to compile and run VTK includes the following: C++, OpenGL (or Mesa), tkUnixPort.h (from the Tk source distribution), Tcl 7.4 or higher, Tk 4.0 or higher. If you plan to use the Python or Java bindings to VTK, you will need those packages as well.
The VTK source code is written entirely in C++, and as of version 2.0 with Linux 2.0.31 and either libc5 or libc6, it compiles successfully without error with Mesa 2.5 and Tcl/Tk 8.0. In the README file at the top of the distribution, the user will find all the instructions necessary to do the build. Here's what I did:
Obtained and compiled Mesa (easy).
Retrieved tkUnixPort.h from the Tk source distribution and placed it in the (vtk_top_dir)/unix/directory (I used Tcl/Tk 8.0).
Ran ./configure --with-mesa --with-tcl --with-shared --with-tkwidget --with-patented
Edited user.make to find all the necessary support files.
Ran make.
Ran make install (optional; run only if you have the disk space).
Many more configuration options are available and can be seen by typing ./configure --help. I had trouble with the Python and Java bindings. The build, as configured above, takes about an hour on a Pentium-Pro 200MHz machine.
Many examples are available to test the installation in the (vtk_top_dir)/[graphics|imaging|patented|contrib]/examples[Cxx|tcl|Python] directories. Most imaging examples require the vtkdata archive to also be located at the VTK home site. Graphics examples will, for the most part, run as is. For the C++ examples, compile with make and run. Tcl examples can be run by typing the following from the Tcl examples directory: ../../tcl/vtk example_file.tcl, or, if vtk has been installed, vtk example_file.tcl. Examples employing the TkRenderWidget object cause a segmentation fault when using the XFree SVGA server, but work with the S3 server. (I haven't tested others.) Fortunately, TkRenderWidget is not required for any visualization pipeline; you can't embed the render window in a Tk window. However, this problem will likely be solved by the time you read this article.


text:
Early retirement seems to be catching on in the Morenci school district.
An early retirement incentive package approved by board of education members last December resulted in three veteran teachers ending their careers here. Several more plan to follow next year.
"I hate to see them go, but it's going to help out the district financially," board president Dwight Mansfield said.
Superintendent of schools Kyle Griffith agreed, noting that a great loss of talent results from the retirements, but adding that incentive packages are attractive to the district during times of financial difficulty.
Griffith said that four additional teachers have made a commitment to accept the early retirement a year in advance.


text:
I tried to install openjdk6 on 12.04 LTS, with the command:
sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jre
but got the following error:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
openjdk-6-jre : Depends: openjdk-6-jre-headless (>= 6b24~pre1-1ubuntu3) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
Please help. Thanks!


text:
JetBrains has announced the final release of Upsource 1.0 this month. The product is a code review and repository browsing tool that helps read, browse, and review code in Git, Mercurial, Subversion, and Perforce repositories.
Users can explore and monitor all VCS repositories from a central location, using a "friendly" (so says JetBrains) UI. Upsource works for "most projects"; i.e., old and new, as it can read from Git, Mercurial, Subversion, and Perforce repositories.
In Java projects, users can enjoy code inspections when reading or reviewing code, search for usages, or navigate to symbol declarations, as if you were using IntelliJ IDEA.
"Discuss code and changes with teammates, create code reviews on revisions or entire branches, and keep the team up to date with important changes," reads the company's spec-sheet on this product.
Developers will be able to use Upsource to navigate to specific revisions, inspect diffs inline or side-by-side. "Track recent commits, branches and merges, or search the project history to learn who did what and when," says the firm.
The promise from JetBrains is an ability to explore "any revision" of your code base. Enjoy quick read access to the current or any prior state of your project's code, without having to check out locally. Browse project structure, view syntax-highlighted files, search for code, files, and text.
Use URLs to link to everything in code, including revisions, branches, code reviews, diffs, discussions, reports, search filters, files, or even selections in code.


text:
Two Penn State Beaver faculty members have had books published recently.
Kevin Bennett, senior instructor in psychology, is the author of "Jealousy's Design: Maladaptive Trait or Psychological Solution?" published by LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing. JoAnn Chirico, senior instructor in sociology, is the author of "Globalization: Prospects and Problems" published by SAGE Publications Inc.
Bennett's book focuses on previously unexplored dimensions of jealousy by viewing it through the lens of social-evolutionary psychology, including the biological and social origins of jealousy, the psychological and environmental cues that trigger it, and how these cues differ for men and women.
Chirico's book presents a clear image of the big globalization picture by providing a myriad of globalization topics, debates, theories, and empirical data. Students using this textbook are encouraged to relate their experiences as individuals to globalization processes.
Chirico also wrote "Sociological Research Exercises for the Global Age" published by Sage in 2010.
Bennett has taught at Beaver campus since 2004 and has conducted research in a variety of fields, including adaptive design and function of emotions; romantic and familial relationships; the psychology of teaching, and psychological design. He is the recipient of the 2012 Penn State Beaver Advisory Board/Andrews Industrial Controls, Inc. Faculty Excellence in Teaching.
He holds a master's degree in evolutionary social psychology with a minor in quantitative psychology from the University of New Mexico and a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Michigan.
Chirico joined the campus faculty in 1997. She is the 2010 recipient of the Penn State Multicultural Resource Center's Faculty/Staff Diversity Recognition Award and the Penn State Beaver Advisory Board/Sky Bank Excellence in Service Award. She also received the Penn State Commonwealth College Service Award and the Penn State University Vice President for Student Affairs Award for Outstanding Program in the Diversity Speakers Series.
Chirico holds a doctorate in sociology and education and a master's degree in elementary education from the University of Pittsburgh and a bachelor's degree in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Bennett can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.com or 724-773-3904, and Chirico can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com or 724-773-3846.


text:
Must-Read Book For Nonprofit Leaders
If you lead a nonprofit organization, the one hour it will take you to read Peter F. Drucker's book called, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization, will be well worth it.
This book may fundamentally change the way you work and lead your organization.
Perhaps one of most challenging questions Drucker asks the reader is:
"Do we produce results that are sufficiently outstanding for us to justify putting our resources in this area?
Because, Drucker argues that need alone does not justify continuing. Nor does tradition, if your results are not sufficiently outstanding.
If you volunteer for a nonprofit or are seeking employment at a nonprofit, this book is also an insightful and inspiring read.


text:
Five-year Actively Controlled Clinical Trial in New Onset Juvenile Dermatomyositis (PRINTOJDMTR)
|The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government. Read our disclaimer for details.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00323960
Recruitment Status : Unknown
Verified February 2011 by Istituto Giannina Gaslini.
Recruitment status was: Recruiting
First Posted : May 10, 2006
Last Update Posted : February 17, 2011
- Study Details
- Tabular View
- Results Submitted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
|Condition or disease
|Juvenile Dermatomyositis
|Drug: 3 MPDN pulse + PDN Drug: 3 MPDN pulse + PDN + CSA Drug: 3 MPDN pulse + PDN + MTX
|Phase 3
Scientific objectives: The proposed project is aimed to improve treatment approaches for rare, severe and disabling paediatric rheumatic diseases (PRD). This goal will be achieved by the Paediatric Rheumatology International Trials Organisation (PRINTO) an international network whose main function is to provide a scientific base for current PRD treatments for which no evidence based data exist in the literature, and for drugs for which there is no support from industries.
This is a 5-year project, involving 46 countries (110 in 21 EU States and 75 in 25 extra-EU States), with a randomised clinical trials (RCT) in juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM): 5-year phase III single-blind, RCT in children with newly diagnosed JDM: prednisone (PDN) versus PDN plus methotrexate (MTX) versus PDN plus Cyclosporine A. The trial is aimed to find out the treatment regimen associated with the lowest occurrence of flare and the lowest drug related toxicity. The retention on treatment will be used as main measure of effectiveness.
Methodology: The present protocol is the natural follow up of previous work conducted by PRINTO. In particular the RCT foreseen in this protocol is modelled after the successful completion of an early phase trial with MTX in juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and will use validated JDM outcome measures for the evaluation of response to therapy.
It is the basic premise of this protocol that, without i) the involvement of the international paediatric rheumatology community, ii) the innovative type of mechanism described herein, these studies would never be conducted.
Objectives. The goals of the current protocol is therefore the natural follow-up of the objectives achieved with the previous grants and, in particular, of projects designed to discern new models for the successful conduct of clinical trials in children with rare diseases, and to develop standardized and validated measures for the evaluation of response to therapy in JDM.
The proposed trial in JDM (prednisone [PDN] versus PDN plus methotrexate [MTX] versus PDN plus cyclosporine [CsA]), should serve as a model for the successful running of early phase clinical trials for severe and disabling rare diseases of childhood.
The ultimate aim of these trials is to provide evidence-based information about the clinical utility of drugs in the management of rare paediatric conditions.
|Study Type :
|Interventional (Clinical Trial)
|Estimated Enrollment :
|120 participants
|Intervention Model:
|Parallel Assignment
|None (Open Label)
|Primary Purpose:
|Official Title:
|Five-year Single-blind, Phase III Effectiveness Randomised Actively Controlled Clinical Trial in New Onset Juvenile Dermatomyositis: Prednisone Versus Prednisone Plus Cyclosporine a Versus Prednisone Plus Methotrexate
|Study Start Date :
|May 2006
|Actual Primary Completion Date :
|December 2006
|Estimated Study Completion Date :
|May 2011
Active Comparator: MPDN+PDN+CSA
MPDN= methylprednisolone pulse PDN= prednisone or equivalent CSA= cyclosporine A
Drug: 3 MPDN pulse + PDN + CSA
3 methylprednisolone pulses followed (30 mg/kg/pulse max 1 gram) followed by prednisone 2 mg/Kg/day to be tapered to 0.2 mg/kg/day in 6 months and then discontinued in 2 years; Cyclosporine 5 mg/Kg/day in 2 oral doses
Active Comparator: MPDN+PDN+MTX
MPDN= methylprednisolone pulse PDN= prednisone or equivalent MTX= methotrexate
Drug: 3 MPDN pulse + PDN + MTX
3 methylprednisolone pulses followed (30 mg/kg/pulse max 1 gram) followed by prednisone 2 mg/Kg/day to be tapered to 0.2 mg/kg/day in 6 months and then discontinued in 2 years; Methotrexate 15-20 mg/m2 once per week. Patients treated with MTX will receive concomitant folic or folinic acid according to the attending physician decision.
Active Comparator: MPDN+PDN
MPDN+PDN MPDN= methylprednisolone PDN= prednisone or equivalent
Drug: 3 MPDN pulse + PDN
3 methylprednisolone pulses followed (30 mg/kg/pulse max 1 gram) followed by prednisone 2 mg/Kg/day to be tapered to 0.2 mg/kg/day in 6 months and then discontinued in 2 years.
- 20% improvement in at least 3 core set variables with no more than 1 of the remaining variables, (muscle strength excluded), worsened by > 30%. [ Time Frame: 6 months ]
The PRINTO JDM core set variables are:
- muscle strength by the mean of the Childhood Myositis Assessment Scale (CMAS);
- physician's global assessment of disease activity on a 10 cm VAS ;
- global disease activity assessment by the mean of the Disease Activity Index (DAS);
- parent's/patient's global assessment of overall well-being on a 10 cm VAS;
- functional ability assessment by the mean of the Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire (CHAQ)
- health-related quality of life assessment.
- Primary Outcome Measures after 24 months of treatment [ Time Frame: 24 months ]a) time to clinical remission on medication defined as normal muscle strength and physician global assessment of disease activity equal to 0; b) time to flare of the disease defined as at least 20%, worsening from the previous evaluation value in 2 of any 6 JDM core set measures with no more than 1 of the remaining improved by more than 30% (muscle strength excluded).
- Effectiveness [ Time Frame: 24 months ]the rate of retention on treatment will be used as main measure of effectiveness
- Change over time in the individual components of the JDM core set of variables; a) time to muscle enzymes normalisation; b) frequency of drop-out of suggested steroids use; c) frequency of drop-out for inefficacy of treatment. [ Time Frame: 6 months ]
- Safety parameters [ Time Frame: 5 years ]
Incidence of adverse events (AE):
- Number of patients discontinuing trial due to on-therapy conditions and AE possibly, probably, or definitely related to the experimental therapy, and listing of AE that cause discontinuation.
- Number of patients for whom the dosage was lowered, or withheld temporarily, due to AE, and listing of the specific AE that caused such action.
- Complete list of AE by system.
- Incidence of clinically significant changes in laboratory parameters.
- Drop out rate due to toxicity
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|1 Year to 18 Years (Child, Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria. Each patient must meet all the following criteria in order to participate in this trial:
- Newly diagnosed and untreated children (only treatment with 1 NSAID is allowed and/or prednisone >1 mg/kg/day for no more than 1 month from diagnosis) with probable or definite diagnosis of JDM according to the Bohan and Peter criteria (12;13). If a muscle biopsy will be performed (optional) it will be read by the pathologists of the participating centres (light and immunofluorescence). Slides of paraffin-embedded sections from all patients will be re-viewed by a blinded myopathologist at PRINTO.
- Age at enrolment ≤ 18 years.
- Female of child-bearing potential must have a negative pregnancy test at the beginning of the trial, and then every 3 months. If sexually active, they must agree to use adequate contraception, throughout study participation, and must have no intention of conceiving during the course of the study. Post-pubertal males must have no plans to father a child during the study and agree to use adequate birth control methods if sexually active.
- Ability to comply with the entire study procedures, ability to communicate meaningfully with the investigational staff, competence to give written informed consent; to be applied to the parents and/or patients, as appropriate
- Duly executed, written, informed consent obtained from the parents/patient.
Exclusion Criteria. Any of the following will exclude a patient from this trial:
- Neutrophil count <1,500/mm3 and/or platelet count <50,000/mm3
- Demonstration of cutaneous or gastrointestinal ulceration of JDM related pulmonary disease or cardiomyopathy at the time of diagnosis.
- History of poor compliance.
- Evidence of current use of alcohol or illicit drugs abuse.
- Live vaccines not allowed during the entire duration of the trial.
Dropout Criteria. Patients will be considered "treatment failures", and dropped from the trial but included in efficacy analysis, if any of the following will occur during the active period of the trial.
- Non compliance with study medication administration
- Enrolment in other therapeutic trials.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT00323960
|Contact: Nicolino Ruperto, MD, MPH
|Contact: Simona Angioloni, B.A.
|Istituto Giannina Gaslini
|Genoa, Italy, 16147
|Principal Investigator:
|Nicolino Ruperto, MD, MPH
|Istituto Giannina Gaslini _ PRINTO Senior Scientist
|Study Chair:
|Alberto Martini, MD, Prof.
|Istituto Giannina Gaslini_PRINTO Chairman
Publications automatically indexed to this study by ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier (NCT Number):
|Responsible Party:
|Nicolino Ruperto, MD, MPH, Paediatric Rheumatology International Trials Organization (PRINTO)
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|Other Study ID Numbers:
AIFA ( Other Grant/Funding Number: Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco (no FARMJWPZ) )
Myositis Association ( Other Grant/Funding Number: Myositis Association )
|First Posted:
|May 10, 2006 Key Record Dates
|Last Update Posted:
|February 17, 2011
|Last Verified:
|February 2011
Juvenile dermatomyositis
randomised actively controlled clinical trial
Muscular Diseases
Musculoskeletal Diseases
Neuromuscular Diseases
Nervous System Diseases
Connective Tissue Diseases
Skin Diseases


text:
There's over five thousand miles between Liverpool and Los Angeles. One vast expanse of ocean and no direct flights. Land wise, there's Ireland, Newfoundland and then a continent's worth of cities, towns, lakes, rivers and rocks. A chaos of wi-fi connections and errant mobile signals; weather systems and colloquial differences. On one side, Big Sur. The Pacific Coast Highway. On the other, Crosby Beach. The M62. The similarities aren't immediately obvious. Yet…
Listen as the piano starts. The notes roll in gently like waves lapping at soft sand. A voice sighs from somewhere along the Water's Edge… "From the sky, I can see the birds fly…" It's transportational. It's a trip. It's the sound of the Mersey opening out into the Pacific Ocean.
The debut album from We Are Catchers flips effortlessly through time and space as it tiptoes a musical ley line stretching from the North West of England to the West Coast of America. It weaves the harmonic threads left by the likes of the Wilson Brothers, Arthur Lee and Buffalo Springfield, threads that were picked up and pulled along by people like the Head Brothers, the Coral and their former guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones. It draws patterns and shapes in the dust Lee Mavers ordered for the mixing desk back in Eden Studios in the late '80s while conjuring beautifully basic rhythm tracks that sound like someone kicking against the floor to keep a beat going.
Timeless and out of time, We Are Catchers is a long player that easily could have come about in 2014 or 1966. Wistful and hopelessly romantic, it's the soundtrack to the city of Liverpool daydreaming under a different sky, a record that makes sense of the undeniable melodic and rhythmic connections that link two of rock'n'roll's richest wellsprings.
We Are Catchers is Peter Jackson (vocals and piano). The album was recorded with a little help from Bill Ryder-Jones, Austin Murphy, Richard Formby & Henry Broadhead. It was recorded in Eve Studios and in Peter's house and produced by Peter, Bill Ryder-Jones and Darren Jones.


text:
Darius Rucker (born May 13, 1966) is an American musician. He first gained fame as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld and Dean Felber. The band has released five studio albums with him as a member, and charted six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Rucker co-wrote the majority of the band's songs with the other three members.
He released a solo R&B album, Back to Then, in 2002 on Hidden Beach Recordings but did not chart any singles from it. Six years later, Rucker signed to Capitol Records Nashville as a country music artist, releasing the album Learn to Live that year. Its first single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It", made him the first African American to chart a number one on the Hot Country Songs charts since Charley Pride in 1983. It was followed by two more number-one singles, "It Won't Be Like This for Long" and "Alright" and the number three "History in the Making". In 2009, he became the first African American to win the New Artist Award from the Country Music Association, and only the second African American to win any award from the association. A second Capitol album, Charleston, SC 1966, was released on October 12, 2010, and was led off by the number-one "Come Back Song" to later be followed with the number-one song "This".
Darius Rucker was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, where his family history goes back generations. His single mother, Carolyn, who was a nurse, raised him with his five siblings: three sisters and two brothers. According to Rucker, his father was "never around," and Rucker only saw him before church on Sundays. His father was in a gospel band called The Rolling Stones. Rucker has said that he had a "typical Southern, African-American upbringing." His family attended church every Sunday and was economically poor, and at one point, his mother, her two sisters, his grandmother and 14 children were all living in a three-bedroom home. Even so, he says that he looks back on his childhood "with very fond memories." His sister, L'Corine, recalled that singing "was always his dream".


text:
By Dan Smoot
As I see it, the beginning of the United States of America was the most dramatic and significant episode in a long pilgrimage – the pilgrimage of the Christian idea of law, liberty, and self-government. Christianity is the master principle of our organic documents of government – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
Neither Paul nor any of the other early Christians had any particular interest in social reform or political revolution. Their dedication was spiritual; yet, at the core of Christian faith is the most revolutionary idea ever conceived: that individual man is infinitely important. Individual man is imperfect, yet God so loved him that He sent His only begotten Son to save him from sin.
After that basic Christian idea had worked for centuries in the finite minds of men, it led to an obvious conclusion: Individual man, the object of such infinite grace and mercy, is the most important creature on earth. This is the origin of the basic American political ideal: that man gets all his rights and powers from God, the Creator; that government is weaker and less important than man, because government was created by man.
A Christian Foundation
The beginnings of America were Christian. Most of our organic documents of government give recognition to God. While the Mayflower rode at anchor in Provincetown Harbor, near Christmas time, 1620, the Pilgrims aboard decided to form a government before going ashore in the new world. Hence, they wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact, which begins:
In the name of God, amen, we whose names are underwritten … having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and the honor of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic.
In 1787, the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia could reach no agreement on the kind of national government needed – a kind which would bind individual states together in a union for protection against foreign powers and for preventing wars among themselves, while preserving the sovereignty of the states, leaving to the people their God-given rights to govern themselves in their own states, without interference from the national government.
The Constitutional Convention was on the point of breaking up when Benjamin Franklin gave the delegates a reminder and a warning:
How has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our -understandings?…
I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth; that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?
I… believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.
The Declaration of Independence expresses the essence of Americanism; and the essence of the Declaration is a Christian assumption:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."
There were no arguments or committee meetings or panel discussions about it: Simply, we proclaim these things as truth because we know them to be truth! The basic truths of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights can be summarized in a short paragraph:
Government derives its just powers from us, the governed. We want it clearly understood, moreover, that the power we give to government is very limited. Even though we must delegate to government enough power to protect all of us from one another, and from possible foreign enemies, we have certain rights which we are not willing to surrender or modify for any purpose whatever. We call these rights unalienable because God, our Creator, endowed us with them: We consider them sacred. Each of us as an individual, whether rich or poor, weak or strong, has certain rights that God has given him and that no power on Earth can legally take away – neither government, nor an organized group, nor an overwhelming majority of the people themselves.
Christian Individualism
The Christian concept of equality (also written into the Declaration of Independence: All men are created equal) is not tainted with materialism. Jesus rather impatiently said that the poor are always with us. His concept of equality had nothing to do with man's physical attributes and possessions, or with the general distribution of worldly goods. The teachings of Jesus did not imply mass organization and standardization of people, or worldwide uniformity, or a universal leveling of mankind. They implied the opposite. Jesus taught that men are equal before God, regardless of their status on Earth.
The Christian concept of equality is spiritual. It has nothing to do with income, health, or environment. It simply gives a little, imperfect man, born in sin, an individual, personal relationship with God – equal to that of any other man on Earth. In short, Christianity exalts individualism, stressing the importance and exclusive dependence on God and self of the human individual.
The strength and culture of America, built on faith in Jesus Christ, will start degenerating when Americans no longer hold aloft the central tenet of Christian faith – namely, that the human individual (not the masses or society, but the individual) is a divinely important being, because God sent His only begotten Son into the world to make a blood atonement for the sins of individuals.
Socialist Togetherness
The strength and culture of communism-socialism-fascism, built on faith in the almighty state, or government, would die if heavily infiltrated with Christian individualism, because the central tenet of communist-socialist-fascist faith is that the individual is nothing; the State (or society, or the masses, or government) is everything.
Could the socialist concept of man as an unimportant unit in a soulless something called "the masses," win converts among free men? Could materialistic faith in socialism ever have a stronger appeal to free men than Christian faith in the divine importance of -individuals?
It has.
The blossoming of socialism occurred in the modern world almost simultaneously with explosively sudden, worldwide developments in the physical sciences. In the new enthusiasm for science, a monkey-like amazement at his own inventive cleverness replaced man's ancient awe for things spiritual. In the 20th century, the material promises of socialism presented themselves as a new faith and captured some of the most cultivated minds in the Christian world.
The Irrepressible Conflict
After seizing power in Russia, the Bolsheviks discovered that the only way to destroy Christian churches is to infiltrate them so that they will be destroyed gradually, by church people themselves. Reinterpret Scriptures to remove the deity of Christ and convert Him into a socialist. Distort biblical sermons on charity to prove that government should confiscate property and enforce economic equality. Strain spiritual content out of Scriptures, and religion's hold upon the people can be broken: God then becomes some kind of vague universal force; Jesus becomes merely a great man – a teacher, philosopher, social reformer.
A church establishment built on such notions as these is not an insurmountable obstacle in the path of the socialist revolution. On the contrary, it can become a very useful instrument for promoting socialism.
Thousands of church people have supported hundreds of communist causes; but that is relatively unimportant. The important question is whether preachers have rejected or corrupted the doctrines of the Christian faith.
The fundamental doctrine of Christianity is that imperfect man can be saved only by the grace of Jesus Christ. The fundamental doctrine of socialism is that all of man's sins – all evils on Earth – result from man's physical environment; that government can create paradise by taking total control of the lives of all the people, legislating away all evils, creating the right environment – regulating, controlling, and redistributing until everyone has an equal share of everything.
It is at this point that preachers who regard themselves as Christian socialists begin to substitute government for God. It is at this point that the social gospel becomes socialism.
Emphasizing material reform, achieved by man himself, with only casual, or no, reference to salvation by the grace of God, seems to have left many modern liberal ministers with no confidence in God. They react to problems around them by exerting pressure, in the name of religion, for federal laws to impose their notions of equality and morality on the entire nation. They do not believe in voluntary, individual Christian giving – except to their own churches. They believe in organized political pressures for legislation which will force other people to give. They have become class-conscious political Robin Hoods: perpetually petitioning government to take money away from one group of citizens for distribution to another group.
Most of the clergymen who have had some connection with communist activities probably got into the fronts because they could not tell them from respectable organizations.
There is the danger: The language of modern liberalism is so similar to the language of communism; the root ideas of socialism are so closely akin to contemporary doctrines of the social gospel – that many cannot tell the difference.
If church congregations of America do not become critically conscious of the basic issues involved in the struggle of our times, and do not exert every effort to correct grave errors on the part of the professional and lay leadership of the churches, the great religious institutions will, at best, be nothing better than pleasant social organizations. At worst, they can become dangerous propaganda centers for socialism.
The great struggle of our time is a war to the death between the Christian forces of freedom and the atheistic forces of slavery. It is, therefore, dangerously significant that American Christians will tolerate any gesture on the part of their own church organizations to announce neutrality in this great struggle … or tolerate a "brotherhood" brainwash which results in the outlawing of Christian instruction for their children.
Having been reared and educated in the intellectual atmosphere of the 20th century – an atmosphere laden with the virus of socialism – many church leaders seem never to have learned that the Gospel of Jesus is spiritual. They think it is merely a moral message to help men solve the material problems of human relations. Hence, they easily identify the teachings of Jesus with the socialistic ideal of enforced materialistic equality for the human race. They show more zeal for "brotherhood" and "togetherness" than for the saving grace of our Lord Jesus. This withering of spirituality and growth of materialism are primary characteristics of the 20th century.
How Late the Hour?
How late is the hour in the night of our history? Not too late. Americans are beginning to hunger for spiritual sustenance. Instead of accepting the socialistic credo that man with science and with "scientific political organization" no longer needs God but can lift himself by his own bootstraps, intelligent Americans are beginning to realize that a worship of science and of scientific political organization will create a Frankenstein monster capable of destroying the human race.
People who have for a long time – out of ignorance, or indifference, or something – followed the leadership of misguided men, into a dead end of frustration, doubt, and fear, are now beginning to search for the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Our Only Hope
It came upon the midnight clear. As the white flocks lay sleeping along the hills of Judea, Christ was born. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them:
Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
That is the hope of the world.
This article first appeared in The New American in the December 23, 1985 issue. It was taken by permission from the annual Christmas broadcast the late Dan Smoot delivered for the radio and television stations that carried his weekly syndicated Dan Smoot Report.


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With current market conditions and global economic trends, advisors have a good opportunity to introduce more clients to companies that make the Mergent Dividend Achievers roster. According to Mergent Inc., less than 6% of the more than 4,200 North American-listed, dividend-paying common stocks qualify as Dividend Achievers.
The standards for inclusion are high: A company must have increased dividends for the last 10 or more consecutive years and meet certain capitalization requirements. The companies that make the cut span nine industry sectors and more than 35 industries and have consistently increased dividend payments through volatile markets and political climates.
Investor Benefits
What's the best approach for investors to take when it comes to dividend investing? Experts say that consistency is helpful. (Some investors' interest in dividend stocks tends to decrease during bull markets, and when equity markets hit a rough patch, investors refocus on dividends' contribution to total return). It's better to take an all-weather approach to dividend investing, since the stocks perform well over a range of market environments.
"In the short-term, dividends provide the investor [with] income that is not dependent on the whims of the share price," says William H. Rogers, CFA, director, global index development with Mergent Inc., in Fort Mill, S.C. "Companies that pay increasing dividends in the aggregate exhibit much less volatility than the overall market. They participate, to a great extent, when markets are up, but they provide better downside risk during bear markets."
Historically low interest rates also increase dividends' attractiveness versus bonds for investors seeking current income. The S&P 500's dividend yield of 2.3% is now higher than the 10-year Treasury bond, an extremely rare event historically, points out Josh Peters, CFA, in the July 2012 issue of the "Morningstar Dividend Investor." This 2.3%, Peters explains, is weighed down by the 97 S&P constituents that don't currently pay dividends; if this group is excluded, the other 403 dividend payers yield an aggregate 2.6%.
Retail investors appear to value growing dividends, notes Kevin C. Jones, director of investor relations for Hormel Foods Corporation in Austin, Minn. "While lower interest rates have no impact on our dividend-growth policy, it certainly makes a strong dividend-growth rate more important to investors who are looking for growth and income," Jones explains.
The income potential is certainly valuable, other experts say. "For investors in the accumulation phase, the reinvestment of dividends allows the investor to purchase more dividend-producing shares to pay increasingly higher income payments in the future," Rogers notes. "Many companies in the Dividend Achievers increase their cash dividends by amounts greater than the rate of inflation. This protects the purchasing power of the investor in the distribution phase and leads to a compounding of future cash payments for younger investors."
Historical stock returns illustrate the value of dividends for long-term investors. Jeremy Schwartz, director of research for ETF-provider WisdomTree in New York, notes that over the last 75 to 80 years, the average return on the market is close to 10% a year, with about 4% coming from dividends. "Although that's changed in many decades, [for] four of the last eight decades in the U.S., you got more returns from dividends than you did from prices," says Schwartz. "With the latest [decade] in the 2000s, you had basically flat to negative prices; really, your only returns came from dividends."
Recent research from Al Frank Asset Management supports that contention. The company's June 2012 report, "The Season for Dividends," discusses how dividend payers have performed between 1930 and 2011.
Dividend-paying stocks "have delivered better long-term returns than non-dividend payers, with the higher yielders as a group performing best," the group explains. "Interestingly, we've also found that the returns of the middle 40% and highest 30% of the dividend-paying universe seem to have a profound performance advantage over stocks with no or low dividends during periods when the U.S. suffers sub-par economic growth. With most prognosticators not expecting GDP growth to move above 3% anytime soon, the case for mid- and high-yielders grows stronger."
Producing long-term returns takes a broad outlook and incredibly steady execution of that growth plan through a multi-year period. W. P. Carey & Co. LLC's objective, for instance, is to generate steadily increasing income to support consistent dividend growth for its investors over the long term, according to Cheryl Sanclemente, the company's corporate communications manager in New York. To that end, the company's dividend has increased each year since going public in 1998 and for the past 45 consecutive quarters.
"The business model is based on a core strategy of investing in a diversified portfolio of critical operating properties leased to credit worthy companies on a long-term basis," says Sanclemente. "Most leases are structured to provide for rent escalation over time, and the assets acquired are typically financed on a moderately leveraged basis with non-recourse debt."
Corporate-Quality Indicator
Paying dividends, in general, is not an automatic business result: A company needs to have the confidence that its free cash flow is sustainable for the foreseeable future before declaring or increasing a dividend. That ability to pay increasing dividends, of course, is a positive sign for investors.
"It's very good for a company to raise its dividends every year," said Morningstar's Peters in an interview. "That says a lot about the company and its management. Still, it's not a guarantee of future performance. A good dividend record is a starting point for analysis. You also have to look at the business, the balance sheet and how dividends would fair in the next recession."
While advisors and investors shouldn't ever take future performance for granted, experts say, companies with strong dividend-paying records do warrant special attention. "Although Mergent does not make determinations on a company's corporate governance, companies with rising dividends for a considerable amount of time appear to exhibit good cash-management practices," explains Rogers. "More important, companies with a significant history of raising dividends appear to be 'wide-moat stocks' that have a competitive advantage in the market relative to just dividend-paying stocks."
Dividends also impose a degree of corporate financial discipline that benefits investors, because the market punishes firms that cut or eliminate their dividends. "Companies are loath to reduce their dividend or not pay a dividend entirely if they've already had one in place," says Rich Powers, a senior investment analyst with the Vanguard Group in Valley Forge, Pa. "And so, having a dividend and a policy around it, I think, provides a level of structure and framework that guides behavior in a positive way for shareholders on one score."
Financial executives at companies that have been classified as Dividend Achievers agree with Powers' analysis. Kevin Habicht, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Orlando-based National Retail Properties Inc., points to the real estate investment trust's conservative balance sheet and careful underwriting of new investments as key dividend-policy supports.
These supports provide the foundation for National Retail Properties' consistent operating results, which have allowed the company to increase its annual dividend for 22 consecutive years, he says. Also, "thoughtful" pacing of dividend increases has allowed the company to increase the dividend in good times and bad times.
In some cases, such discipline is based on a company's conservative management philosophy, which—along with successful financial planning and business execution—can allow the firm to raise its distributions with confidence. "This discipline takes shape in how we manage our balance sheet by maintaining an investment-grade credit rating with a significant line of bank credit for future financing flexibility," says John Chandler, chief financial officer at Magellan Midstream Partners L.P., in Tulsa, Okla.
"As we set our dividend-growth plans, we plan for higher interest rates and also make sure that we maintain adequate excess cash flow to cover us if interest rates increase or if various other risks take shape," he explains. "We also maintain a very low amount of floating rate, near-term debt, which lowers our exposure to increasing rates. With such attractive low rates, we are taking every opportunity to term out floating rate interest risks with longer-term (10 years or longer) fixed-rate debt."
The importance of dividend-paying discipline may be even more critical when it comes to international stocks, WisdomTree's Schwartz believes. He notes that in the emerging markets, over 94% of the companies pay dividends. Those dividends provide an important signal to investors of the firms' actual profitability and the presence of cash flows, he notes. "It helps give an extra level of oversight," as well, Schwartz says.
Dividends' Predictive Power
Research conducted over the past decade also has found that higher dividends go hand in hand with higher earnings. When looking at whether dividend policy, as measured by the payout ratio of the U.S. equity market, forecasts future earnings growth, Robert Arnott of Research Affiliates and Clifford Asness of AQR found a strong relationship: "The historical evidence strongly suggests that expected future earnings growth is fastest when current payout ratios are high and slowest when payout ratios are low."
Another research team—Ping Zhou and Ruland William of the City of New York University—examined a large sample of companies' payouts over a 50-year period and found that high-dividend-payout companies "tend to experience strong, not weak, future earnings growth."
This potent earnings record, along with benefits like attractive levels of current income, reduced volatility and a standard of corporate quality, are sound reasons for advisors to encourage clients to refocus on dividends.


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6:33 am
March 16, 2012
Hi Guys,
I have been sitting on it for to long and it's been killing me. I have been keeping these images to myself out of fear and also out of disbelief that this stuff could be real but I have come to the conclusion that it must be.
I had been a member of the DMT Nexus forum since 2009 and thought it was just an innocent Forum that discussed DMT and other psychedelics and related.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
Around early 2011 a 'hidden' forum section appeared ( I beleive due to a moderator mistake ) entitled 'Elite Dawgz Chillout and Trade Area' and stayed up for around 4 days and then quickly vanished. You could see the thread topics when you entered that section but when you tried to enter any of the threads it said 'Access Denied'. So what I did was hovered my mouse over the different Thread topics and waited to the preview box popped up and quicky took PrntScr screenshots of each thread.
I have uploaded these screenshots here. I first thought that this was all an April Fools joke but there are topics there since 2010 and also some of the threads have had many many replies. I don't beleive this is an April Fools Joke ( as no one would put this much effort into an April Fools Joke would they? ) but that an Administrator on this forum made a very big mistake and exposed the underbelly of what these people are really doing.
I really don't know what to think, I need your guys feedback on this please!
Whowever these people are that run this forum, they are incredibly evil and morally bankrupt individuals that I beleive are in contact with the power Elite.
Here are the screenshots that I had managed to take (They look a bit small because I used a paint program to put a few forum screens in each file, the best way to view them is to grab them and open them up in a paint program or windows picture viewer and zoom in on the topics, they are indeed chilling to the bone) :
I further found this from the DMT Nexus Forum. I don't know what to think or believe. There's probably more sharper people on this forum then me that can discern whether this was a bigtime 'slip' from some kind of filthy Illuminati henchmen or if this is all some kind of sick joke:
http://lunaticoutpost.com/Topic-DMT-Nex ... Forum-Expo
1 Guest(s)


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Medicare Coverage - General Information
Medicare provides coverage for items and services for over 55 million beneficiaries. The vast majority of coverage is provided on a local level and developed by clinicians at the contractors that pay Medicare claims. However, in certain cases, Medicare deems it appropriate to develop a National Coverage Determination (NCD) for an item or service to be applied on a national basis for all Medicare beneficiaries meeting the criteria for coverage. This page provides general information on various parts of that NCD process, resources of both a general and historical nature, and summaries and support documents concerning several miscellaneous NCDs.
People with Medicare, family members, and caregivers should visit Medicare.gov, the Official U.S. Government Site for People with Medicare, for the latest information on Medicare enrollment, benefits, and other helpful tools.
Page Last Modified:


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The Elephunk bounces in unpredictable ways keeping dogs interested in play while the Treat Meter randomly dispenses treats, rewarding the play.
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VideoRapid technical progress makes this possible - one of the things you will find here are high-resolution videos in 16:9 format which naturally had to be heavily compressed in order to be transferred to the internet. Despite this, the files are still very large, some 50 MB or more – not much would be possible without fast broadband internet connection. It is also possible that your graphics card won't work.
If this is the case, wait for the connection to come and save yourself having to buy a new computer. In the meantime teach yourself to play the bass. (you'll progress a long way in that time...)
If everything does work: have fun!


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Appleton, WI
Looking for apartments in Appleton, WI? We've got them! Appleton, WI is located in Northeast Wisconsin, in an area comprised of Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh, Fond du Lac and surrounding area communities. Appleton, WI is yet another great place to live in Northeastern Wisconsin. StartRenting.com lists apartment rental homes of all shapes and sizes, from efficiencies and loftsto houses! Listed below are all the current available apartments for rent in Appleton, WI.


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SIOUX FALLS, S.D., Aug. 14 (UPI) -- Elizabeth Smart-Gilmour, who survived 9 months of sexual abuse after being kidnapped at the age of 14, shared her story while speaking at a round table discussion about sexual abuse and human trafficking in Sioux Falls on Wednesday.
"Well, I certainly consider myself a survivor. I do not think of myself as a victim," said Smart-Gilmour who was kept as a second wife by a couple after being taken from her home in Utah as a teen.
She went on to note the importance of knowing what human trafficking is and to acknowledge that "it's everywhere whether you accept it or not."
"What is human trafficking? That is slavery. Children being sold and traded for sex or whatever, that's slavery and it's everywhere whether you accept it or not."
Smart-Gilmour, 26, went on to discuss the importance of the treatment survivors receive after being rescued and praised human trafficking advocacy groups in the Dakotas for their services.
"Once they're rescued, it's kind of like out of mind, out of sight. So, giving that extra care and making sure their needs are met, that they have a way to settle back into society, that's huge," she said.
In the end, Smart-Gilmour hopes her message and her story will help spread the word that "happy endings exist and that children do come back and they can go on to be happy."
The conference will carry on for two more days with a focus on human trafficking as it pertains to the the North Dakota oil boom, internet predators, and sexual assaults taking place in the Native American communities of the U.S.


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Why Are Investors Ignoring the Fiscal Cliff?
It's strange that some investors don't seem to be doing anything to protect themselves in case Washington doesn't act to head off the fiscal cliff. Justin Lahart argues on Markets Hub. Photo: Reuters.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... I ... many could see their Heard on the streets in U S investors ignore ... the clip educate or crying chicken little appear on the show I would talk about it ... note this the real thing actually fiscal cliff that is happening ... just in labor who wrote that item is here with us ... say hi EU and I and everyone here we talk about the cliff would write it that we talk about NEWSROOM ... investors are or even ... while me if we take a look at it and what's going on with hedging costs are basically you think ... you know what you like to sleep well with fiscal cliff coming up with your hedge against it and ... I if you look at it it futures in options markets that just doesn't seem like it's happening in in them ... Mr. the Sher side of that is put into low levels of the Vicks which is ... called the volatility index but really it's it's the place of ... of options up which could we use to protect the drop in downside ... of the SB five hundred ... and to heal that we've been noticing this for awhile right this is been low as this fiscal cliff is closer and closer to few weeks away now ... ah these are people really don't worry or ... are they just thinking on with a more sure that due to the common wisdom in the market is that something's going to be gone yet it that's the common wisdom in the market in in ... at a collective order Sullivan Beetel story ... Write to tell a story that says while it would be so bad to go over the class that would do such deference to markets and so one of locally CEOs claimed at a walk and in in ... in August when leaning on Congress people to to ... do to get something done reading of present get something done ... this of course of things can happen ... but ... in the last is the story ... right you will ... give you know they say there's you know seventy percent chance that we won't go over there but ... it's used in the sense that says making things up ... by a ... you can tell the story ... it but you can tell another story in how people like you know Washington insiders like Erskine Bowles ... telling the story saying why think it's can ago over but ... the reality is nobody knows what's going to happen in you'd think and you would think that maybe you wanna be protected a little bit ... so far not only is this how quickly can people get into that market ... to start buying appetite has become a family on the can worry about it until you really need to I think you know that they and the funny thing is when we look at the Vicks it's just incredibly backward looking yet um so you if you look at the past thirty days volatility ... and the Vicks ... is about a minute two-and-a-half percent correlation to see if ... it's just a backward looking measure ... people don't worry about until we see the market actually go down ... and then they buy protection ... yet ... now you know it's it's funny the new colony me think of you hear the guns of August ... get it into guns of August my mom right everyone thinks that somebody else is going to blink and something will get the line that ... doesn't necessarily have to happen at some point we don't know what the key to what we ... don't know what is going to happen and Jane were first yes but still you would think that ... given that the risk right why not to get some insurance ... well Ellie people are betting that something will get done ... yet will their rates ... I really hope her and because of the rollers and for all of us trekked I just think you're a much thanks appreciated