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Adel Woman Sentenced To Prison On Fraud And Tax Charges After Embezzling More Than $500,000 From Her Former Employer
DES MOINES, IA – Stacey Lynne Gross, age 38, of Adel, Iowa, was sentenced today by United States District Court Judge Ronald E. Longstaff to a sentence of imprisonment of 20 months on federal mail and tax fraud charges, announced United States Attorney Nicholas A. Klinefeldt. Gross was also ordered to pay $518,364.38 in restitution, and ordered to remain on three years of supervised release after her release from prison.
Gross was the office manager for Data Business Equipment, Inc., in Des Moines between late 2007 and early 2011. Her job responsibilities included writing checks from the company account to pay for business expenses. Beginning in early 2008, Gross wrote more than 190 unauthorized checks totaling more than $518,364.38 from the company account for her own personal benefit. She wrote checks to her credit card company, mortgage lender, and to pay for furniture, jewelry, and other personal expenses. Gross admitted to using the United States mails to send some of the fraudulent checks to her creditors and to failing to report the illegal income on her tax returns.
To conceal her embezzlement, Gross made false entries in the company's books. She would enter the name of a real Data Business Equipment vendor as the "payee" on the company's general ledgers for checks she had actually written to pay personal debts. Her fraud was discovered in early 2011, and Gross pled guilty to the charges in November 2011.
This case was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service, the IRS, Criminal Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Urbandale, Iowa, Police Department. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Iowa.


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EU suspends sanctions against most Zimbabwe officials
The European Union has suspended sanctions against 81 officials and eight firms in Zimbabwe.
The decision followed a "peaceful, successful and credible" referendum on a new constitution earlier this month, the EU said in a statement.
However, sanctions will remain in force against 10 people - including Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe - and two firms, EU sources say.
The EU imposed sanctions, including a travel ban, in 2002.
It said it was in response to human rights abuses and political violence under Mr Mugabe's rule.
Allies of Mr Mugabe have long argued that the sanctions should be unconditionally removed and that they have had a negative impact on Zimbabwe's economy.
Mr Mugabe, 89, and his rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, 61, have been sharing power since disputed elections marred by violence in 2008.
Zimbabweans overwhelmingly approved the new constitution - which expands civil liberties and has been endorsed by both Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai - in the 16 March referendum.
Fresh elections are expected to be held some time this year.
'Worrying signs'The 27-member European Union said it had agreed to "immediately suspend" restrictive measures against 81 individuals and eight entities.
Zimbabwe constitution: Key changes
- Presidents limited to two five-year terms
- Legislation can no longer be vetoed by the president
- Devolves power to 10 provinces
- Establishes peace and reconciliation commission
- Creates independent prosecuting authority, anti-corruption commission, and guarantees independent electoral commission
- Includes bill of rights which stipulates freedom of expression and a free media
- Allows dual citizenship
- Seizure of farms under the land reform programme can no longer be legally contested; president appoints land commission to carry out national audit
"The EU congratulates the people of Zimbabwe on a peaceful, successful and credible vote to approve a new constitution," the EU said in a statement, adding that it "represents a significant step" towards general elections.
But it said "key decision makers" would remain subject to sanctions until peaceful, transparent and credible elections have been achieved.
Lifting the sanctions on all but 10 individuals and two firms is clearly intended to encourage further political progress as well as demonstrate continuing concern, the BBC's world affairs correspondent Mike Wooldridge reports.
The EU says it welcomes the repeated calls for reconciliation and peaceful political activity made by Zimbabwean political leaders, but is also concerned over the recent reports of intimidation and harassment against some political activists and civil society representatives, he adds.
Earlier on Monday, a court in Zimbabwe granted bail to prominent lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, who was detained a day after the referendum.
She was charged with obstructing justice after she intervened in a raid on the offices of Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in which three computers are alleged to have gone missing.
Four MDC members were also arrested during the raid.
They all deny the charges and say they were compiling information on corruption.
Allies of Morgan Tsvangirai say the arrests are a sign that critics of President Mugabe will face intimidation ahead of the elections.
Both men - who have repeatedly called for a peaceful poll - are expected to be the main contenders in the presidential election.

subset: commoncrawl


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[iPhone] The Habit Factor helps you set goals and track your progress towards achieving them
Posted By Tucker On November 13, 2012 @ 9:00 PM In iOS | No Comments
[1]The Habit Factor LITE is an iOS app that helps users to start building up good habits and track their progress towards achieving major life goals.
Main Functionality
The Habit Factor LITE aids users in tracking their habits and goals. The approach is simple: for every big goal users set, they also need to set smaller habits, which will aid in reaching that goal. For example, if the goal is to write a novel, then one habit to set might be to write for 30 minutes every afternoon.
[2]While it might seem a little cliche, it is nice that the first screen that users encounter when using The Habit Factor LITE is a screen of inspirational quotes. For people trying to make real, lasting changes to their lifestyle, starting off the habit tracking experience with a solid quote can definitely help to put users in a good mindset.
Between the inspirational quotes and the tracking tools it offers, the Habit Factor LITE is like having a life coach in your pocket. The interface is solid, and far easier to navigate around than many other habit-forming apps. Of special interest are the charts, which monitor not only your progress over time, but tell you how many days you have been on a "good streak."
One thing that is truly annoying is the way that Habit Factor LITE closes itself down automatically. When your phone goes to sleep, the app shuts down. If you were in the middle of something and got distracted, you need to relaunch the app and go past the main Quote screen to resume your work with the app.
Another thing that is problematic about Habit Factor LITE are the limitations imposed on the free option. While the full version of the app has no limits, the LITE version limits users to just 3 Active Habits and 1 Active Goal. Unless you want to shell out $6.99 for the full version of the app, you're basically limited towards working towards one goal. In short, the free version simply doesn't measure up to the needs of most people.
Still, it is nice that this functional app doesn't make you sit through a tedious signup process or ugly banner ads. It's a quality app, but still too limited to be truly useful.
Despite a great pedigree and outstanding tracking abilities, The Habit Factor LITE is basically only a good choice if you have a simple goal you're trying to achieve. Unfortunately, the limitations in the LITE version are too austere to make it useful for tracking all your life goals and good habits. But if the Full version is as nice as the LITE version, it may be worth buying the pay-to-play version of The Habit Factor.
Price: Free with optional paid version
Version reviewed: 1.9.2
Requires iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, iOS version 3.0 or later
Download size: 4.0 MB
Article printed from dotTech: http://dottech.org
URL to article: http://dottech.org/87246/iphone-the-habit-factor-helps-you-set-goals-track-your-progress-towards-achieving-them/
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[1] Image: http://dottech.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/mza_3995856807730895539.320x480-75.jpg
[2] Image: http://dottech.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/mzl.tkcfpasg.320x480-75.jpg
[3] The Habit Factor LITE on Apple App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/habit-factor-lite-daily-habits/id324002311
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(KMOV.com) -- Fire officials are investigating a "suspicious" blaze in a Cahokia neighborhood on Sunday afternoon.
The fire started at a vacant house in the 100 block of St. Dorothy around 2:30 p.m., then spread to a home next door.
Booker Grisby lives next to the vacant house, and said his daughter saw three young boys who may have started the fire.
"My daughter said she didn't see faces, she just seen them running out," said Grisby.
Firefighters spent several hours knocking down hotspots in the vacant house. Grisby's home suffered minor damage in the fire.
Cahokia officials said they are investigating several other fires at abandoned homes within the past week.
Stay with News 4 and KMOV.com for the latest on the investigation.


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Found the same room at a different price? Tell us, and we'll offer to match it.
Hotel Palladium
Enjoy beautiful views of Palma, including its impressive cathedral and Paseo Mallorca, from the Hotel Palladium's privileged setting.
After a wholesome breakfast in the hotel's cafe in the morning, take a stroll down to the cathedral and the port area, where you can relax in the sunshine. The old quarter of Palma de Mallorca is well preserved, and is well worth spending the day exploring, and stopping off for a drink in one of the numerous outdoor terraces.
Grab a drink and snack in the hotel's coffee shop. You can also unwind and check your emails or surf the internet in the hotel.


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ISTSS Student GroupGuide to Trauma-Related Training ProgramsThis information is the result of the ISTSS Trauma Training Survey
and serves as a directory to trauma-related academic and training
opportunities around the world. Included here is contact information,
Web sites, types of training programs and primary type of trauma
populations. Lynnette Averill (firstname.lastname@example.com) or Links to Trauma-Related Training Programs Disclaimer for ISTSS Web Site Information ISTSS does not endorse or recommend these training sites. The information on this Web site is presented for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for informed medical advice or training. Do not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem without consulting a qualified health or mental health care provider. If you have concerns, contact your health care provider, mental health professional, or your local community health center. Copyright and Confidential Information © Copyright 2006, ISTSS. All rights reserved. Web site created by Deena Shakir and Greg Leskin - 7/1/04 |


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Evaluating Performance
Choosing investments is just the beginning of your work as an investor. As time goes by, you'll need to monitor the performance of these investments to see how they are working together in your portfolio to help you progress toward your goals. Generally speaking, progress means that your portfolio value is steadily increasing, even though one or more of your investments may have lost value.
On the other hand, if your investments are not showing any gains or your account value is slipping, you'll have to determine why and decide on your next move. In addition, because investment markets change all the time, you'll want to be alert to opportunities to improve your portfolio's performance, perhaps by diversifying into a different sector of the economy or allocating part of your portfolio to international investments. To free up money to make these new purchases, you may want to sell individual investments whose performance has been disappointing while not abandoning the asset allocation you've selected as appropriate.
To assess how well your investments are doing, you'll need to consider several different ways of measuring performance. The measures you choose will depend on the exact information you're looking for and the types of investments you own. For example, if you have a stock that you hope to sell in the short term at a profit, you may be most interested in whether its market price is going up, has started to slide, or seems to have reached a plateau. On the other hand, if you're a buy-and-hold investor more concerned about the stock's value 15 or 20 years in the future, you're likely to be more interested in whether it has a pattern of earnings growth and seems to be well positioned for future expansion.
In contrast, if you're a conservative investor or you're approaching retirement, you may be primarily interested in the income your investments provide. You may want to examine the interest rate your bonds and certificates of deposit are paying in relation to current market rates and evaluate the yield from stock and mutual funds you bought for the income they provide. Of course, if market rates are down, you may be disappointed with your reinvestment opportunities as your existing bonds mature. You might even be tempted to buy investments with a lower rating in expectation of getting a potentially higher return. In this case, you want to use a performance measure that assesses the risk you take to get the results you want.
In measuring investment performance, you want to be sure to avoid comparing apples to oranges. Finding and applying the right evaluation standards for your investments is important. If you don't, you might end up drawing the wrong conclusions. For example, there's little reason to compare yield from a growth mutual fund with yield from a Treasury bond, since they don't fulfill the same role in your portfolio. Instead, you want to measure performance for a growth fund by the standards of other growth investments, such as a growth mutual fund index or an appropriate market index.
Yield, which is typically expressed as a percentage, is a measure of the income an investment pays during a specific period, typically a year, divided by the investment's price. All bonds have yields, as do dividend-paying stocks, most mutual funds, and bank accounts including certificates of deposit (CDs).
When you buy a bond at issue, its yield is the same as its interest rate or coupon rate. The rate is figured by dividing the yearly interest payments by the par value, usually $1,000. So if you're collecting $50 in interest on a $1,000 bond, the yield is 5%.
However, bonds you buy after issue in the secondary market have a yield different from the stated coupon rate because the price you pay is different from the par value. Bond yields go up and down depending on the credit rating of the issuer, the interest rate environment and general market demand for bonds. The yield for a bond based on its price in the secondary market is known as the bond's current yield.
For instance, a bond with a par value of $1,000 with a 6% coupon rate might be sold in the market at a current yield of 5%. The bond itself keeps paying 6% of $1,000 every year, or $60. But because interest rates have fallen to 5% and newly issued bonds pay a lower coupon rate, a bond paying 6% is more attractive to investors. If you want to buy that bond, you will likely pay a premium—say, $1,200 instead of $1,000. If you divide the fixed annual income ($60) by the new market price ($1,200), you get the current yield (5%).
If you intend to hold a fixed-rate bond to maturity, the bond's coupon yield might be the only thing that matters to you since the coupon yield doesn't change after issue. However, current yield can matter a great deal if you're considering selling a bond before its maturity date. That's because bond yields go down when bond prices go up. As a result, you can often sell a bond you bought at the time of issue for a profit when the current yield is lower than the coupon rate because at that point the market price is higher than the price you paid.
Current yield might matter to you as well if the yield you're getting on older bonds is lower than the current yields of more recently issued bonds. In that case, you might consider selling your bonds even at a loss if you'd like to reinvest to get higher yields while they're available.
There are also two more complex and complete measures of bond yield that take other factors, such as reinvested interest and the impact of having your bond called, into account.
For example, yield-to-maturity (YTM), which is sometimes described as the most accurate measure of a bond's yield, calculates, among other factors, the effect of compound interest on what a bond is worth. Specifically, YTM assumes that you reinvest every interest payment you receive in another bond paying the same rate. While this may be difficult to do in practice, since interest rates change all the time, YTM nonetheless provides a longer-term view of yield that can help you choose among different bond investments if you aren't simply spending the income that your bonds provide. There are a number of online calculators that you can use to help figure YTM on a particular bond, and your broker or other investment professional can provide YTM figures as well—along with a fuller explanation of how to use the information.
Similarly yield-to-first-call helps you evaluate the yield a callable bond would actually provide if the bond issuer chose to call, or redeem, the bond on the first date that was possible. (When a bond is callable, the issuer has the right to repay the principal and stop interest payments on dates that are set at the time of issue.) If a bond paying higher than current rates is called—as is often the case—you not only lose that source of income but must often reinvest at a lower yield. So the yield-to-first-call can be a useful tool as you compare bonds you are considering. For example, you might prefer a bond whose initial call date is further in the future or one without a call provision.
If your assets are in conventional certificates of deposit (CDs), figuring your yield is easy. Your bank or other financial services firm will provide not only the interest rate the CD pays, but its annual percentage yield (APY). In most cases, that rate remains fixed for the CD's term.
For a stock, yield is calculated by dividing the year's dividend by the stock's market price. You can find that information online, in the financial pages of your newspaper and in your brokerage statement. Of course, if a stock doesn't pay a dividend, it has no yield. But if part of your reason for investing is to achieve a combination of growth and income, you may have deliberately chosen stocks that provided a yield at least as good as the market average.
However, if you're buying a stock for its dividend yield, one thing to be aware of is the percentage of earnings that the issuing company is paying to its shareholders. Sometimes stocks with the highest yield have been issued by companies that may be trying to keep up a good face despite financial setbacks. Sooner or later, however, if a company doesn't rebound, it may have to cut the dividend, reducing the yield. The share price may suffer as well. Also remember that dividends paid out by the company are funds that the company is not using to reinvest in its businesses.
Your investment return is all of the money you make or lose on an investment. To find total return, generally considered the most accurate measure of return, you add the change in value—up or down—from the time you purchased the investment to all of the income you collected from that investment in interest or dividends. To find percent return, you divide the change in value plus income by the amount you invested.
Here's the formula for that calculation:
(Change in value + Income) ÷ Investment amount = Percent return
For example, suppose you invested $2,000 to buy 100 shares of a stock at $20 a share. While you own it, the price increases to $25 a share and the company pays a total of $120 in dividends. To find your total return, you'd add the $500 increase in value to the $120 in dividends and to find percent return you divide by $2,000, for a result of 31%.
That number by itself doesn't give you the whole picture, though. Since you hold investments for different periods of time, the best way to compare their performance is by looking at their annualized percent return.
For example, you had a $620 total return on a $2,000 investment over three years. So, your total return is 31 percent. Your annualized return is 9.42 percent. This is derived by: (1+.31)(1/3) - 1 = 9.42%.1
If the price of the stock drops during the period you own it, and you have a loss instead of a profit, you do the calculation the same way but your return may be negative if income from the investment hasn't offset the loss in value.
Remember that you don't have to sell the investment to calculate your return. In fact, figuring return may be one of the factors in deciding whether to keep a stock in your portfolio or trade it in for one that seems likely to provide a stronger performance.
In the case of bonds, if you're planning to hold a bond until maturity you can calculate your total return by adding the bond income you'll receive during the term to the principal that will be paid back at maturity. If you sell the bond before maturity, in figuring your return you'll need to take into account the interest you've been paid plus the amount you receive from the sale of the bond, as well as the price you paid to purchase it.
There are several things to keep in mind when you evaluate return, however:
As you gain experience as an investor, you can learn a lot by comparing your returns over several years to see when different investments had strong returns and when the returns were weaker. Among other things, year-by-year returns can help you see how your various investments behaved in different market environments. This can also be a factor in what you decide to do next.
However, unless you have an extremely short-term investment strategy or one of your investments is extremely time-sensitive, it's generally a good idea to make investment decisions with a view to their long-term impact on your portfolio rather than in response to ups and downs in the markets.
Investments are also known as capital assets. If you make money by selling one of your capital assets for a higher price than you paid to buy it, you have a capital gain. In contrast, if you lose money on the sale, you have a capital loss. Capital gains and losses may be a major factor in your portfolio performance, especially if you are an active investor who buys and sells frequently.
In general, capital gains are taxable, unless you sell the assets in a tax-free or tax-deferred account. But the rate at which the tax is calculated depends on how long you hold the asset before selling it.
Profits you make by selling an asset you've held for over a year are considered long-term capital gains and are taxed at a lower rate than your ordinary income. However, short-term gains from selling assets you've held for less than a year don't enjoy this special tax treatment, so they're taxed at the same rate as your ordinary income. That's one reason you may want to postpone taking gains, when possible, until they qualify as long-term gains.
With some investments, such as stocks you own outright, you can determine when to buy and sell. You will owe taxes only on any capital gains you actually realize—meaning you've sold the investment for a profit. And even then you may be able to offset these gains if you sold other investments at a loss. With other investments, capital gains can become more complicated.
Mutual funds, for example, are different from stocks and bonds when it comes to capital gains. As with a stock or a bond, you will have to pay either short- or long-term capital gains taxes if you sell your shares in the fund for a profit. But even if you hold your shares and do not sell, you will also have to pay your share of taxes each year on the fund's overall capital gains. Each time the managers of a mutual fund sell securities within the fund, there's the potential for a taxable capital gain (or loss). If the fund has gains that cannot be offset by losses, then the fund must, by law, distribute those gains to its shareholders.
If a fund has a lot of taxable short-term gains, your return is reduced, which is something to keep in mind in evaluating investment performance. You can look at a mutual fund's turnover ratio, which you can find in a mutual fund's prospectus, to give you an idea of whether the fund might generate a lot of short-term gains. The turnover ratio tells you the percentage of a mutual fund's portfolio that is replaced through sales and purchases during a given time period—usually a year.
Unrealized gains and losses—sometimes called paper gains and losses—are the result of changes in the market price of your investments while you hold them but before you sell them. Suppose, for example, the price of a stock you hold in your portfolio increases. If you don't sell the stock at the new higher price, your profit is unrealized because if the price falls later, the gain is lost. Only when you sell the investment is the gain realized—in other words, it becomes actual profit.
This is not to say that unrealized gains and losses are unimportant. On the contrary, unrealized gains and losses determine the overall value of your portfolio and are a large part of what you assess in measuring performance, along with any income generated by your investments. In fact, many discussions of performance in the financial press, especially regarding stocks, focus entirely on these price changes over time.
One of the most important things you can do when tracking your investments is to set the right expectations. A percentage return that could be considered strong in one market environment might be considered weak in another. There's no single, unchanging standard—for instance, that all stocks should return a specific percentage each year. Instead, performance standards are moving targets. That's why it's important to judge an investment in the context of your portfolio strategy as well as against the appropriate standard or benchmark.
Generally, when people refer to the stock market's performance, they're actually referring to the performance of an index or average that tracks representative stocks or bonds. The index serves as an indicator of the overall direction of the market as a whole, or of particular market segments. Investors use these indexes and averages as benchmarks, to see how particular investments or combinations of investments measure up.
For example, when a mutual fund manager says the fund's objective is to "beat the market," it generally means the manager attempts to assemble a portfolio that has a stronger return than a particular benchmark. In contrast, the objective of index mutual funds is to replicate the performance of the market they track and the fund managers typically structure their portfolios by purchasing all of or a sample of the investments that make up their chosen benchmark.
Though the terms "index" and "average" are sometimes used interchangeably, they're actually quite different because of the way they're calculated. Averages add up all the prices of the investments included in their roster and divide by the number of investments. Indexes, on the other hand, set a base starting value for their holdings at some point and then calculate percentage changes from that base. The best-known market measurement, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, is called an average but it's actually calculated using a blend of the two approaches.
Some of the more frequently cited indexes and averages are these:
When choosing a benchmark, it's important to know what you're comparing your investment against and what the comparison means. For example, when you compare a stock's performance to the performance of the S&P 500, you're comparing it to U.S. large-company stocks. When you compare it to the Russell 2000, you're comparing it to small-company stocks. When you compare it to the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000, you're viewing it against the field of all listed U.S. stocks.
Which benchmark should you use? In general, if you want to know how an investment is performing you look at the benchmark that tracks investments that are most like it.
For example, it makes sense to compare the performance of a large-company stock or large-company mutual fund to large-company stock indexes, and small-company stocks or funds to small-company stock indexes. If you're concerned with how your stock is faring against others in its industry, you compare it against an industry benchmark. Comparing an investment to a vastly different benchmark may give you some information. For example, you may discover that your small-company stock fund isn't performing as well as the total stock market.
But that information might be of limited use, especially if small-company stock funds are an important part of your portfolio mix that you have included because they perform differently from the total stock market, and so you could reduce the risk of your portfolio. Instead, if you compare your small-cap stock fund against a small-cap index, and your fund is actively managed, you'll get a sense of whether your fund manager is performing well after the fees the fund is charging, or if you might be better off investing in a passively managed small-cap index fund.
There are, however, valid reasons for making cross-category comparisons when evaluating the performance of your entire portfolio as opposed to a single investment. For instance, you may be curious about whether your portfolio of stocks is doing as well as a mutual fund that has an investment objective similar to yours. Or, you may be considering changing your strategy by shifting some of your money to a different subclass of investment. In that case, you could compare the returns for your current portfolio to the benchmark for the class of investments you're considering.
You should always keep in mind, though, that you can't count on the market to behave the same way in the future as it has in the past. These comparisons, while a helpful way to evaluate your investment options, should not be considered predictors of future performance.
Another important rule to keep in mind when measuring investment performance against benchmarks is to examine returns over longer periods of time—ideally, several years versus one year or one quarter. Short-term results can be misleading because a particular company or fund may have a banner year or suffer a slump in comparison to its benchmark. But these results may be due to one-time events, which may be unusual and not a fair representation of the investment's performance over time.
On the other hand, the market as a whole could have an exceptionally good or bad quarter in the midst of what's known as a sideways market, where there's little long-term change. Benchmarking against an atypical quarter could give you a skewed view of actual performance of a particular investment.
Finally, you'll want to keep in mind that not all benchmarks are indexes or averages. For example, the standard benchmark for long-term bond yields is the yield of the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond.
Keeping track of your investments is important, but you might wonder how often you should check on them. Some investors look at their portfolio values daily or weekly, and if you own extremely volatile investments and have a short-term investment strategy, that can be a good idea.
However, if your strategy is long-term, it's important not to get overly concerned with short-term fluctuations in value, since trading based on short-term volatility could sidetrack your long-term goals and cost you money in taxes and transaction fees. Instead, you may want to check performance monthly or quarterly on the statements you receive from your investment accounts.
It's important to read your statements before you file them away, both because you need to know how you're doing in relation to your goals and because you need to see whether your statement is accurate, with all your trades accounted for and recorded correctly.
If you have all of your investments in accounts with a single financial services company, you may get a consolidated statement containing information about all your accounts. However, if you have accounts at several firms, or if you have both tax-deferred and taxable accounts, you may need to look at several different statements to get a complete picture of your total portfolio performance.
In addition to sending you regular statements, many brokerage houses give you 24-hour access to your account information online, so you can look up the latest values for your holdings any time you like. In addition, you may be able to access your account information by phone.
Your monthly or quarterly statement will generally tell you the current market value of your investments as of the closing date, the change in value since the last statement, and the year-to-date change. You'll also see a record of your transactions for the previous period, including purchases and sales, and information on dividends, bond income, and mutual fund distributions, as well as realized and unrealized capital gains and losses. Some statements also show projected earnings and provide pie charts showing how your portfolio is allocated.
Most likely, your returns will fluctuate throughout the year, reflecting both the fortunes of your particular investments and the ups and downs of the overall market. This is where benchmarks can come in handy, so you can compare the returns in your statement with the returns of other investments. For example, if the market is strong but your portfolio value is flat, that might be a sign for you to look more closely at your individual investments. Yet if your portfolio slumps when markets everywhere are falling, your portfolio may simply be reflecting market conditions.
Another way to evaluate your investments' ongoing performance is through analyst research. Analysts at brokerage firms and at independent research firms look not only at current performance, but also at future potential to give you a picture of an investment's strengths and weaknesses in the context of the wider market. Analysts also recommend actions based on performance. The actual language analysts use may vary, but in general, they recommend that you buy, hold, or sell an investment.
Whether you actually buy or sell based on an analyst's recommendation is up to you. Among other things, you should decide whether buying or selling a particular investment is in line with your individual investing strategy. You should always look at analyst research in the context of your own goals and your own expectations for performance.
Furthermore, analysts don't always agree with each other. As a general rule, they also tend to give more positive than negative recommendations. If you're using professional research, it may be a good idea to read the recommendations of several analysts to help you determine how an investment is performing and whether you should make any changes to your portfolio.
With bonds, analysts don't give buy, hold, and sell ratings. Instead, they provide credit ratings, which measure an issuer's financial ability to meet its debt obligations. If you've bought highly rated bonds, called investment-grade bonds, you'll rarely find the issuer's credit rating changing dramatically enough to affect your investment's return. However, unless you've bought U.S. Treasury debt, a lowered credit rating is always a possibility.
To keep current with your investments, you should also look at the reports issued by companies relating to their financial situation and future prospects. For example, companies that issue public stock must provide shareholders with annual reports, and they must also file annual reports with audited financial statements, known as 10-Ks, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which you can find online using the SEC's EDGAR database.
Companies also file quarterly reports with the SEC. You can use these reports to evaluate corporate performance in more depth than you can manage by simply checking prices and yields online. You might also want to keep in mind that the annual report that companies send to shareholders, while easier to read than the 10-K, is usually designed to emphasize the positive aspects. The 10-K is plainer and more direct, and may provide insights you may overlook in an annual report.
Mutual funds also provide semi-annual and annual reports to help you track the fund's progress. The reports give you information about returns and fees, plus a list of the fund's holdings, so you can check the underlying investments that the portfolio manager has chosen. By comparing these reports over time, you can see how the fund's holdings have changed. You should also compare the fund's results to the appropriate benchmark, to see how it fares next to its peers. Most mutual fund reports provide this information, often in the form of a comparison chart.
In addition, it's very easy to set up online news trackers that will email you stories on the companies, funds, industries, and markets that you're interested in. This way, you can be on the lookout for news that might have an impact on your investments, and provide you time to analyze the situation and decide what changes, if any, to make to your portfolio.
1 The standard formula for computing annualized return is AR=(1+return)1/years- 1


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Celebrating staff achievements and news of research work at the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP).
Below are announcements from 2014.
We also archive announcements from previous years:
4 December: The case for low carbon interventions at a sub-national scale|
16 October: Gothenburg gathering of world's leading climate researchers|
18 September: The British Institute of Energy Economics has awarded a prize for the greatest contribution to British energy economics over the last ten years to Professor Lord Stern of Brentford, Chair of the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy: http://www.biee.org/nicholas-stern-biee-energy-economics-prize-winner/|
13 August: Global Environmental Change, which is edited by Professor Declan Conway and administered from the London School of Economics and Political Science, has been ranked as the highest impact journal in the environmental sciences, according to new figures published by Elsevier |
8 July: New toolkit designed to engage farmers with climate change|
21 May: CCCEP's Alina Averchenkova co-organized and presented at the regional Latin America and Caribbean workshop of the Low-Emission Capacity Building (LECB) Programme of the UNDP on 'Engaging the Private Sector to Contribute to Climate Change Mitigation' which took place in Santiago, Chile on 14-16 May 2014. This workshop provided an opportunity to initiate a public-private dialogue on stimulating involvement of the private sector in climate change mitigation. This involved policy makers, project developers and corporates in the key sectors, as well as financial institutions, including international, regional, national development and commercial banks. The objective of the workshop was to discuss experiences in private sector participation on mitigation activities and nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) in developing countries; engage various actors in a discussion on policy objectives and innovative approaches to support mitigation activities and NAMAs; and to exchange lessons learned on improving market conditions to enhance private investment.
The agenda and policy papers from the workshop can be accessed here|
Papers presented:
National mitigation actions (NAMAs): from concept to implementation, and engaging the private sector|
National mitigation actions: opportunities for the private sector and ways of engagement|
8 May: CCCEP Associate launches EUPORIAS project survey to investigate user needs for seasonal and decadal climate predictions|
CCCEP Associate Marta Bruno Soares, alongside Professor Suraje Dessai and the wider EUPORIAS team, have just launched a new survey to assess users' needs in Europe for information on seasonal and decadal climate predictions.
This survey is aimed at organisations in Europe whose activities and operations are susceptible to weather/climate events and impacts across a range of sectors including energy, water, transport, tourism, health, insurance, emergency services, agriculture, and forestry.
To take part, organisations and individuals can complete the online survey (http://survey.euporias.eu/|) to help advance existing knowledge of users' needs with regard to climate prediction information and to help improve the provision of season to decadal climate predictions across Europe.
6 May: Lord Stern of Brentford elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society|
Lord Nicholas Stern has been made a Fellow in recognition of his work challenging the world view on the economics of climate change and his distinguished career in mathematical economics with involvement in industry and in government.
25 February: CCCEP Associate Evan Fraser releases new videos about the global food crisis|
Created as part of Evan Fraser's work on food under the theme of "feeding the nine billion", these new films cover the role of science and technology in a sustainable food system, genetically modified organisms, government policy to promote sustainable agriculture and the need for greater equity with in our food system.
Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy


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Up-down recumbent builder seeks feedback on new model
A new website for the 'Velolution': it converts on the fly between upright to recumbent...
Posted by Peter Eland on Friday 7 Jun 2002 The above is a computer model of a development of the original Velolution: the designer Neil Jones has been riding a prototype round for a few years now. The machine was featured ages ago in an old BCQ magazine (No. 19, page 52). Neil has now set up a website: http://www.velolution.co.uk where you can leave feedback. He has no immediate plans to commercialise the design, but if enough people ask...
Posted by Seamus (email@example.com) on Wednesday 2 Aug 2006
Rather like the Batavus Boomerang, seen in (I think) New Cyclist, a few years back saw one in a shop in Brielle near Rotterdam being sold off cheap. In upright mode a fairly slack angled roadster which at the flick of a switch became a recumbent not entirely unlike this invention.Didn't the Velolution appear in Ross Lowell's brilliant film? Posted by Rogerthehilldodger (roger@spokesfest) on Wednesday 2 Aug 2006
You could buy a copy from us Seamus and find out....Posted by Seamus (firstname.lastname@example.com) on Wednesday 2 Aug 2006
Hang on. I remember now. It was definitely in Ross Lowell's film. Saw the premiere at Cyclefest and the other premiere at Spokesfest the week before.So what's this vid cost then Rog? Posted by Neil Wyn Jones (firstname.lastname@example.com) on Wednesday 2 Aug 2006
You're right Seamus the Batavus Boomerang was seen in Bike Culture 9&10 back in 96, I've put an image up on the Velolution web site, though it is quite different to my design it's obviously a similar concept, It doesn't feature in the current Batavus catalogue so I guess it's no longer produced. Velolution did feature in Ross Lovells film which he was filming while we were on an 'Open Road ' holiday. Cheers Neil. Posted by Roger the Hilldodger (roger@spokesfest) on Wednesday 2 Aug 2006
The video is £17 inc p+p, and I'm cutting my own throat at that. Only 5 copies left.Posted by Neil Wyn Jones (email@example.com) on Wednesday 2 Aug 2006
There appears to be a problem with the site host at the moment, hopefully the site will be up and running again soon, Neil  Add a comment
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Lawful Interception
The AQSACOM Lawful Interception System, ALIS, is AQSACOM's flagship product and has been described by many as the most flexible Lawful Interception Management System on the market.
With a proven track record spanning more than 18 years, ALIS is operating in over 35 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas in some of the most challanging and complex network infrastructures in the world.
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A Message from AQSACOM's CEO
15 February 2012 - Melbourne, Australia
Our new company image, branding and website focuses upon "Innovating Intelligence". This phrase is more than just a slogan. It is a commitment to our clients and the industry to do more than convert information in to knowledge. We intend to transform data in to customer-driven resources and tools that meet the continuously evolving challenges of lawful interception.
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This week, the Senate may not reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.
Since this bipartisan legislation first passed in 1994, it's been reauthorized twice without a hitch. And it's been tremendously successful in helping to combat domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.
So it should be a no-brainer, right? Not to the Senate GOP, not in an election year, apparently.
Republicans are willing to throw away the entire law now that it helps protect lesbians, gay men, undocumented immigrants, and Native Americans. Do they believe acts of violence committed against these groups don't matter as much?
The Senate's voting on the Act any moment now, and we need to put pressure on the GOP to pass it.
Since this law passed, it has helped reduce the annual rate of domestic violence by an astounding 53 percent. The rate of women killed by an intimate partner has dropped 34 percent.
Its programs, including violence prevention programs, shelters and rape crisis centers, and funding for the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes have made a world of difference in giving victims of violence a safe place to turn.
It has without a doubt saved thousands of lives.
And Senate Republicans are ready to roll back all our progress.
This year's Act would make sure that LGBT Americans receive equal treatment for services, it would make it easier for undocumented immigrants to come forward as victims and provide temporary visas in certain cases, and let Native Americans on reservations go to tribal courts for abuse cases. With these additional protections, the GOP has promised to fight it every step of the way.
If Congress votes against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, all of these programs could grind to a halt, and the hundreds of thousands of women who rely on them will once again be left on their own.
Unfortunately, the GOP's resistance is just another example of putting women's health and well-being on the line in order to score a few cheap, political points with their base.
We can't stand by and let them take away this critical legislation.
Before the vote, stand with me for all victims of domestic violence—no matter who they are. Add your name in support of reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act.
And keep an eye on when they do vote—because we'll be keeping the pressure on.


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What type of dates can I use in chutney
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All About Shoes:
Sabatons, part of a complete suit of armour. German c. 1490's |
Fashion Afoot
Fashion returns to the Bata Shoe Museum with an exciting area dedicated to style in our All About Shoes semi-permanent gallery. 'Fashion Afoot' is an exciting look at the development of fashion shoes in the 20th century. No longer hidden beneath voluminous skirts, the shoe emerged as an essential fashion accessory. Its ascendancy also lifted the cloak of anonymity from the shoe designer. Over the course of the century, a handful of visionaries profoundly influenced fashion and many became adored celebrities in their own right. Visitors will be able to see how much shoes changed decade by decade in response to design, politics, and social change.
Button boots, made by Miller. American, c. 1900's. |
What's Their Line?
Along with our new fashion area, function is also explored in the revamped section of the 'All About Shoes' gallery called 'What's Their Line'. Offering visitors an in-depth look at footwear with a purpose, 'What's Their Line' features shoes that are both ordinary and extraordinary. The most practical reasons for donning specialized footwear are to protect feet from injury, permit us to do a better or easier job, and improve our performance. Around the world and throughout history, footwear has been designed in unique ways to satisfy these needs. Shoes that serve as tools are remarkable and fascinating inventions. No matter how limited the applications might be, appropriate footwear is essential in many jobs and for many occupations. And keep in mind that these seemingly ordinary and extraordinary shoes have altered jobs and lives over the past two centuries. Chestnut crushing clogs from France and sumo wrestler's geta from Japan are not to be missed!
Chestnut crushing clog, France, 1800-1900. |
All footwear collection of the Bata Shoe Museum.
Image credit: (c) Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto.
All photos by David Stevenson and Eva Tkaczuk


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Money Soup
From KitchenWitch87 Report abuse
This recipe was submitted by a reader and has not been tested in our kitchen.
This is a great kitchen witchcraft soup to help make money. Even If your not pagan you'll still be able to enjoy this simple recipe.
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Serves: 6
Prep Time: 30 min
Cook Time: 25 min
U.S. | Metric | Conversion chart |
- 1 Quarter Or Small Silver Object
- 2 cup(s) Water
- 1.5 tablespoon(s) Butter
- 1 large Onion, Diced
- 1 small Head Of Green Cabbage, Shredded, you can also use half of a large cabbage
- 4 cup(s) Chicken Stock
- 1 tablespoon(s) Salt
- 1 tablespoon(s) pepper
- Boil the quarter or silver object in the water to sterilize it. then set it aside.
- In a sauce pan melt the butter over low-high heat. then saute onions untill light brown.
- toss the coin or silver object in. Then add the shredded cabbage. Cover and cook until the cabbage is tender.
- in a separate sauce pan bring the chicken broth to a boil.
- When the cabbage is tender add the boiling chicken broth. Cover and let simmer for 10-15 minutes.
- (optional step)
About 1 minute before it is finished hold your dominant hand over the pot and visualize the quarter or silver object multiplying. watch how it multiplies so much it leaks out of the pot the same way as if you added too much soap to the washer.
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One must honor beauty, idealism, and the hunger for progress, while confessing in Marxist or Nietzschean style how much blood and wretchedness lie at their root. Only by bowing to our mortality can we live fulfilled." – Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith and Revolution
In my entry I'm going to offer a critical reading of Jeff Salzman's video 'The Case for Progress' by viewing it through the lens of the Hebrew prophetic tradition.
Let me first begin by making a couple of important general statements. The first is that I'm well aware of the type of cultural pessimism that Salzman refers to in the video, in fact, I hear it all the time. I'm currently in seminary at the moment and even there, even right within this spiritual tradition where themes of hope, promise, and a future kingdom of God on earth are central, deep pessimism about humanity and our current situation abounds. Many of my classmates are wearily waving the white flag, and I find myself running around with the defibrillator of hope, trying to resuscitate my fellows who are drowning in their anguish.
And this relates to my second point- I'm an unabashed optimist. I have been since as long as I can remember. Since I was twenty I've been making impassioned speeches to people about a better future. I didn't even really know why at the time, I could just feel it in my bones that something was wrong with the way things were, and that something else was possible. Bruce Springsteen, no stranger to the promise, became my favorite musician, and I clung hard to the passion and dynamism I found in poets like Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg. "Allons! the road is before us!"
Fast-forward to two years ago and I had a sort of watershed moment with all this when I saw Charles Eisenstein speak for the first time. Standing in front of about a hundred or so people, Eisenstein just sort of casually said that, "something wants to be born on this earth". And he called this "the better world our hearts know is possible". I just kind of sat there stunned, relieved and grateful. Others were feeling this too. Excellent.
So I actually share Salzman's general view that the universe is going somewhere, that this telos or directionality is a good one, and that this unfolding also wants to happen (and to some extent is already happening) on this earth. In my writings at Beams and Struts I voiced this view in multiple entries, often surfacing with this vision after first diving into darker territory. So I could not be more in agreement with Salzman on this important front.
Now let me turn to the prophetic tradition and highlight three major aspects of the prophetic voice and its unique role in human transformation, and through this lens suggest ways in which Salzman's talk falls short.
The first characteristic is one we've actually already touched upon- the prophet as energizer. As Walter Brueggemann writes in his 1978 classic The Prophetic Imagination, "It is the task of the prophetic imagination and ministry to bring people to engage the newness that is at work in our history with God" (1). The prophet is a bearer of hope and vitality for the weary. Through the use of poetic and impassioned language (s)he enables what Teilhard de Chardin called the "activation of energy", and gives voice to a people's repressed yearnings for a different future. It's this impulse that I suspect animates Jeff Salzman's video, or at least it's this role that I see him enacting in the talk.
But there's an important correlate to this role of vital energizer, which is that the hopelessness found in a given historical context is usually brought on by a system of political and economic domination. The despair and anguish the prophet seeks to dispel through their energization is often produced by a situation of profound oppression and a ruling power that the majority cannot imagine changing. We live in one of those times. The philosopher Slavoj Zizek famously quipped recently that the reason there's so much apocalyptic literature in our culture today is that 'people can more easily imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism'. According to Brueggemann the dominant powers always seek "to overcome history and therefore by design the future loses its vitality and authority" (2). It's in the interest of a ruling elite to have the general population believe that there's no possible alternative future (Margaret Thatcher's TINA in our day), as this saps people of their spirit and hope and thus power. We can also see this move in our time with the "end of history" ideology that was triumphantly pronounced after the fall of communism.
This situation leads to the second role of prophet, which is to express the grief, anguish and despair that people are feeling in these periods, as it often gets repressed or pushed away because it's too hard to face and bear. The prophet acts as a courageous vehicle through which this collective grief can be released of its disabling power; the prophet "brings to public expression those very fears and terrors that have been denied so long and suppressed so deeply that we do not know they are there" (3).
One person who is profoundly playing this role in our time is Stephen Jenkinson, who calls himself 'the Griefwalker'. Jenkinson argues that "we are living in a dying culture" and that there's a lot of "unspoken dread" about this disturbing fact (4). I think that this is much of what animates the strong current of pessimism that pervades our culture. We can add to this something that Charles Eisenstein said recently, which is that behind the veil of cynicism often lies a broken heart. It's actually out of a deep caring that this gloomy negativity is arising, and this needs to be better understood and attended to in my view. I think Jeff Salzman too quickly and easily (and uncaringly) dismisses this dimension in his talk. But Salzman is not alone, for too long now in the integral-evolutionary community people have been pushing against this cynicism by minimizing this pain and relentlessly promoting anything at all (whether a book or article or video) that's a possible counter to it. But Brueggemann points out that it's precisely by entering into and genuinely holding the despair that we can truly allow the space for a different future to emerge. He writes:
Jesus' concern was for the joy of the kingdom [of God]. That is what he promised, and to that he invited people. But he was clear that rejoicing in that future required a grieving about the present order…There is grief work to be done in the present that the future may come. There is mourning to be done for those who do not know the deathliness of their situation. There is mourning to be done with those who know pain and suffering and lack the power and the freedom to bring it to speech. This grief work is a precondition of joy…Only the public embrace of deathliness allows newness to come. (5)
So although this impulse to resist the prevalent cynicism and promote what's positive is understandable enough, I think this one sidedness needs to be transcended and augmented with a full-hearted embrace of this despairing dimension. As Chris Dierkes wrote in an article at Beams and Struts, it's time for the (over) emphasis on Eros to be combined with a thorough going Agape, and I don't think we've really yet to explore in a general way how the latter might open up and enable the former.
In a recent article entitled Progress or Pessimism- How Should We Think About the Future?, Carter Phipps makes some further cautionary points when it comes to this partial orientation towards progress. He writes:
Optimism can carry with it a concurrent blindness, especially when it's driven by the need to prove wrong all of those counter-cultural thinkers who are telling us that capitalism has failed and modernity's promise is a mirage…
And here is the delicate part: If we're more concerned about defending modernity than actually embracing the world as it is and the evidence as we find it, we may downplay and dismiss critical issues that need our attention.
This last point brings me the third and final characteristic of the prophetic voice that I want to highlight, which is a deep passion for justice. At 14:27 of his talk Jeff Salzman utters a sentence that I find truly astonishing and morally reckless. He says that with his evolutionary worldview he now realizes he "can actually just trust the system, because I see that it's reliable. And isn't that a relief". Wow.
Forget about the more fundamental possibility that capitalism itself is the crisis, or that structural violence is endemic to its operations (as Marx understood early), or that some outcomes of this are that medicine is kept from people who need it by patent laws and profit motives or that even Bill Gates admits that "capitalism will spend more on men's hair loss than malaria". What's worse then these basic points is that a turbo-powered market-fundamentalist version of capitalism has been dominant on this planet for the last forty years and has resulted in by now undeniable amounts of inequality, environmental devastation and widespread suffering, which cannot just be glossed over any longer as Salzman does.
Just listen to this (tiny) litany of the signs of our times. After the financial crash that was brought on by corrupt financial systems 'too big to jail', corporate profits are soaring as worker income limps. We have price fixing and bank scandals at the highest levels, and governments that have been totally corrupted by money, leading some to speak of a "coup d'etat in slow motion". There are new elite classes of super wealthy who are not beholden or responsible to any nation, and they're building fortresses to protect themselves. Corporations routinely avoid paying taxes to nation states by keeping money in tax havens, while austerity is systematically pushed on general populations and the working class is demonized. Slavery has reentered the United States, a place where whole communities are being left behind, for-profit jails are being expanded to house the growing and potentially dangerous impoverished populations, and police forces have become increasingly militarized. As George Carlin summed it up in one of his last performances- "there's a big club and we ain't in it".
This is not a reliable system, nor is it one we should just sit back and trust.
For the prophets and for the Judeo-Christian tradition in general justice isn't just something that we hope for, something that would be a nice add on to the inevitable wreckage of history, it's something much deeper and more fundamental and than that. Abraham Heschel describes this key point in his 1962 ground breaking text The Prophets:
[For the prophets] justice is not an ancient custom, a human convention, a value, but a transcendent demand, freighted with divine concern. It is not only a relationship between man and man, it is an act involving God, a divine need. Justice is His line, righteousness His plummet (Isa. 28:17). It is not one of his ways, but in all His ways. Its validity is not only universal, but also eternal, independent of will and experience. (6)
The integral political writer Joe Corbett has questioned the absence of a justice dimension in integral discourse, asking, "Is justice a part of the shadow of Integral Theory, a kind of repressed aspect of its existence?" Salzman's statement would seem to answer this question in the overwhelmingly affirmative.
Let's hold this point around justice for a moment and pull back out to the broader story mentioned at the beginning, of a cosmos that's evolving and going somewhere and which displays tendencies and directionalities (ie. progress) that can inspire great hope. Sri Aurobindo- one of the towering founders of this modern evolutionary worldview- had something important to say on this topic that's always stuck with me. Aurobindo said that, in his view, 'Nature' and the cosmos are indeed going somewhere and are animated by a divinely infused telos. However, there's nothing to say that humankind will inevitably be going along with this current. In fact, says Aurobindo, if we don't align ourselves with the greater and wider wholes of which we are only a part (ie. Spirit, earth and cosmos), then we'll be discarded along the way as just another of nature's many failed experiments.
In a recent podcast around the work of Teilhard de Chardin, the evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson made a similar point. After praising de Chardin for his many prescient insights, he says:
Now it is true that we have the increasing scale of society all the way to the mega societies of today, but the idea that this was going to result in a single global brain, and especially that there is some inevitability about this, is what's not quite right. It could happen. It's within the realm of possibility, but it is by no means certain. There is such a thing as collapse…I think the real situation is that, yes, there's an Omega Point, but we have to work real hard to get there. And if we don't get there, then woe is us. (7)
I think these views are much more sober, realistic and humble then the quasi-deterministic view that Salzman so confidently promotes. And what would it look like for us to move beyond the current global world-system that's running roughshod over the planet and its inhabitants, and to align with the wider currents of reality? Well one thing might be to take the prophetic teaching on justice seriously, to recognize it as fundamental to God's dream for this earth, and thus to put the work of justice front and center in an evolutionary worldview and praxis.
The other would be to continue creating systems and modes of being-in-the-world that are life enhancing, that are in accord with earth and cosmos, and no longer so separated, extractive and wasteful as our modern civilization has been (8). This difficult transition appears to be humanity's planetary initiation, and there's already much movement in this direction that inspires hope. It's through this ongoing prefiguration of a new society within the shell of the old that we can glimpse the New Jerusalem slowly forming amidst the hard rains of our time.
But this tomorrow will not come inevitably and of its own accord. To shepherd it into being we must acknowledge the cultural death swoon that's begun, and exorcise our collective grief through a love and broken-hearted solidarity that embraces the deep pain felt by so many. As Brueggemann says when speaking of the prophet Jeremiah, "He cannot cry enough. More tears need to be cried that his eyes will permit" (9). And as Jesus will say later, "Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh" (Luke 6:21).
And finally, let's always remember the possibility of collapse, or that we humans will not prove fit for the cosmic plan. In a recent podcast interview John Cobb Jr.- the process theologian and great purveyor of the thought of Alfred North Whitehead- said something in this regard that I found quite startling:
If I tried to be very philosophical, and look at things very broadly, I think that the divine experiment on this planet is not going to continue much longer. But I think whatever we have done, whatever we have accomplished, has enriched the life of God and it has not been a waste, so the experiment has not been a total failure. And I hope somewhere else in the universe, maybe many other places in the universe, there are other experiments and some of them will be more successful then this one.
Well I don't know about you, but I ain't going out like that. I appreciate the humility and graciousness with which Cobb spoke those words, and I admire his ability to really own up to the possibility of a termination to the whole human experiment. But I'm also still convinced that something wants to be born on this earth, this better world our hearts tell us is possible, or what Jesus called the coming 'kingdom of God' (10). And with any luck some of the points made in this article will act as one of countless trim-tabs that'll direct us past the multiple dangers we face, and towards this awaiting future.
"Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God". –Martin Luther King Jr., 'Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution'
(1) Walter Brueggemann. The Prophetic Imagination.
(2) Ibid, p.
(3) Ibid, p.
(4) http://www.extraenvironmentalist.com/2012/10/15/episode-51-culture-dying/
(17:30) "The inability to be sad is a culture wide dilemma".
(18:30) "It's not pessimism…Let's be frank and say, that our corner of the world has turned into a low grade hell, certainly during the course of my lifetime. But I would prefer to say that the deeper understanding of what's happening is, the culture that gave me my education, my livelihood, and so on, that culture's dying. There's no question in my mind, I know what dying things look like, I've been at enough deathbeds to know the signs and the symptoms, and the culture itself is beginning to die. I'm not talking about the rivers being fouled, although that's certainly a piece of it, or the air, I'm not talking about the wretched economic spirals and the extravagant greed that has become part of doing business. All those things are the signs, they're not the causes, but the culture itself is dying".
(23:20) "Those among us who plan to be human while the culture's dying, our job is to be as close to the death as possible, so someday we can bear faithful witness to it".
(5) Walter Brueggemann
(6) Abraham Heschel. The Prophets.
(7) http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/4967
(8) "We are on the cusp of realizing ourselves as one species organism, in symbiotic relationship with the planetary ecology as a whole. Once we make this leap, we will share resources equitably, adopt cradle to cradle and no waste manufacturing practices, and shift from competition to cooperation as our basic paradigm. We will go from acting like a parasite or a virus on the earth to becoming the earth's immune system". Daniel Pinchbeck. 'Planetary Initiation. http://www.realitysandwich.com/planetary_initiation
"Earth is primary and humans are derivative….The Earth economy can survive the loss of its human component, but there is no way the human economy can survive and prosper apart from the Earth economy….There is no such thing as a human community in any manner separate from the Earth community. The human community and the natural world will go into the future as a single integral community or we will both experience disaster on the way. However differentiated in its modes of expression, there is only one Earth community—one economic order, one health system, one moral order, one world of the sacred." Thomas Berry. The Ecozoic Era. Eleventh Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures, 1991. http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/publications/lectures/berry/thomas/the-ecozoic-era
(9) Walter Brueggemann. The Prophetic Imagination. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001. p.51.
(10) For a good nuanced discussion of Jesus' teaching of the kingdom of God, cf. this sermon/post by Father Chris Dierkes. http://beamsandstruts.com/bits-a-pieces/item/778-sermon-the-real-meaning-and-practice-of-the-apocalypse


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Vasectomy IndexFeatured: Vasectomy Main ArticleA vasectomy is a simple surgical procedure used as a permanent form of male birth control. The odds of pregnancy after a vasectomy are low and the side effects are few. Although the procedure can be reversed, it is usually difficult, expensive, and unsuccessful. Patient Discussions - Viewers share their commentsLocal Resources - Find a local Doctor in your town
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EUGENE, Ore. — There's a great way to salute a veteran of your choice while providing housing for vets coming back from overseas right now.
It's all part of the Honor a Veteran display that went up at Valley River Center Tuesday morning.
Here's how it works. For $20, you can buy a flag with a personalized dog tag that will be on display at the mall until June 20. That donation helps fund affordable rental housing for returning vets and their families.
"It's cool to honor the veterans because they are people who have put themselves in harms way in order to let other people live in peace. You're glad to be able to say thank you to them in a way that continues their service to others," said Barb Ruiz of the Veterans' Housing Project.
The display will continue to grow and travel to various events and locations around the Eugene-Springfield area for holidays like Fourth of July.


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Celestial Pen and Stand
Create a Celestial Pen and Stand from AMACO, using slice-and-bake clay.
- AMACO® Slice 'n Bake Canes — Celestial "Saturn" Pattern
- FIMO® Soft Polymer Clay — Black (#9)
- AMACO® Fun Wire™ — Pearlized Gold 24 Gauge; Two 4" Lengths
- Bic® Round Stick Pen
- Index Card
- AMACO® PolyRoller™
- AMACO® PolyBlade
- AMACO® Pasta Machine
- Oven
- Pliers
Covering Pen Steps:
- Remove ink cartridge from pen with pliers.
- Knead FIMO® Soft in your hands or fold and roll it through a pasta machine until it is soft and pliable.
- Flatten a sheet of Black FIMO® Soft to 1/8" thick. Cut a strip 1" wide by the length of the pen plus 1/4". Place the pen along the edge and wrap clay around until it meets the other end. Smooth seam with fingers. Pinch clay over top of pen. Trim edge where pen cartridge is inserted.
- Warm "Saturn" cane in hand or place under a lightbulb. Slice cane in half. Reduce one section to 1/4 of its original size by rolling each side equally with AMACO® PolyRoller™. Cut very thin slices of reduced cane and place over covered pen. Smooth slices down with PolyRoller™. Repeat these steps until the pen is completely covered to your liking.
- Place on index card and bake in preheated oven at 265°F, 130°C for 30 minutes. Replace pen cartridge when completely cool.
Pen Stand Steps:
- Using 3/4 package of Black FIMO® Soft, roll into a ball and flatten to 1/2" thick. Make thin slices of the larger cane from step 4 and press these around the outside of circle. Smooth seams with PolyRoller™. Roll a log of Black clay and wrap around bottom and top of base. Make a 1/2" ball of Black clay and place in center of base. Press pen down into the center of this ball at an angle. Wrap a log around area where pen meets the base if desired. Remove pen. Cut a slice of the "Saturn" cane and place on front of ball in center of base.
- Slice two 1/8" thick sections of cane. Bend Fun Wire™ as desired and place slices on one end of each. Press remaining end of wire into each side of base.
- Place on index card and bake at 265°F, 130°C for 30-45 minutes. When cool, place pen into base.
- Other suitable pens include the Paper Mate® Flexgrip and the Pilot® Bettergrip pens.
Option: Substitute another Slice'n Bake™ cane and base color of your choice using these instructions as a guide.
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This revision of the popular Heritage program serves as an entry-level text for children being initiated into the life of the Church. Following the directives of the General Directory for Catechesis, it uses the RCIA model prescribed by the bishops to evangelize and catechize new learners in the intermediate grade levels.
" Offer a full initiatory catechesis " Present the life and teaching of Jesus" Lay a foundation for a lived faith" Introduce the Rites of Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist and Reconciliation" Presents Catholic prayers, practices and a helpful key teachings section" Provide online support


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Photos by Pete Navey
Shoes Alaia, Skirt Blaque Label (gifted), T-shirt H&M, Braces vintage, Leather Biker Balenciaga, Necklace Zara, and Clutch Valentino.
The fourth day of LFW was a lovely one. I always have tea with friends after the Burberry show, which is something I look forward to, and later that day we went to the Smythsons Party hosted by Samantha Cameron. It was very fancy, Brain Ferry played, actresses drank cocktails, and we soaked it all in. A fabulous evening all in all.
- Sitting on the steps at Kensington Gore after Burberry.
- Outside Burberry.
- As above.
- As above.
- Having fun being photographed by Candice Lake.
- The beautiful Osman show. You cant see here but the shoes were wonderful Manolo Blahnik's!
- Another of my favourite looks from the Osman show.


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4.5 Love it Greeneyes | 30/12/2009 | See all Greeneyes's reviews (1) My daughter is 4 and absolutely loves this game. She enjoys everything about it and although someone has to do the reading part for her it's not a problem. Well worth the money. I think it's fab myself.
4.5 a northie | 20/11/2008 | See all northie's reviews (1) I love this game it makes me feel like the princess i am


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Biodegradable Plastics
Name: Natalia Status: student Grade: 6-8 Location: N/A
What is the buzz about biodegradable plastics? I am learning about starch bioplastics. My plan is to try and add some type of biopolymer to make the starch plastic water resistant and strong. This is because starch is not waterproof or strong. If I have done my research correctly, starch is blended with other biopolymers due to its low cost. When it is blended with these other chemicals it ends up being more expensive. Price is the number one factor against bioplastics. So, what is really popular about this topic? What biopolymer do you suggest would complete the task that I am attempting?
The main interest in 'biodegradable' plastics is that they break down into simpler components sooner than traditional plastics. Usually, this means the chemistry of the polymers is such that they degrade into smaller molecules either chemically or by organisms. Biopolymers, however, are a different thing. The term biopolymer typically refers to polymers that come from biological sources. They are not necessarily bio-degradable. For instance you can make polyesters from soybean oil, and these polyesters are not biodegradable. The interest in biopolymers stems more from using renewable resources to make the plastics rather than petroleum. Conversely, biodegradable polymers can be made from petroleum. In other words, biopolymers are not necessarily biodegradable, and biodegradable polymers are not necessarily bio-based.
I am assuming that you are creating your "starch-plastic" by rinsing and acid-treating potato or other starch. You can then press the resultant starch into semi-hard shapes. There are several reasons why your homemade starch-plastic is not as strong or waterproof as you like. One reason is the nature of starch -- it absorbs water. Another reasons is that probably your starch has a rough surface. A rough surface means it has higher surface area, which means water can get into it more quickly. Last, the individual starch molecules have not been 'stretched', and therefore do not make as strong a matrix as if they had been stretched and entangled.
There are lots of things you can do. One option is to add a little vegetable oil to the dry starch -- the oil will repel water. Another is to heat the plastic (melt it) to get a smooth surface. The high temperatures are a safety risk and I would not do this unless you have proper safety equipment and equipment to melt it -- this is not a home-based experiment. If you want to add a bio-polymer, I might suggest PLA (polylactic acid) which is also made from starch. PLA is very popular these days. However, you would have to melt it to get it fully incorporated (it comes in pea-sized pellets commonly). PLA is water resistant, although it is not very strong. Adding other polymers starts to be a problem, because the way they need to be processed requires heat (to melt and mix them), and also a particular kind of mixing that stretches the molecules to make them strong. In industry, they use equipment called 'extruders', but these are not common in normal school science labs. Last, when you press the starch, make sure you use a very smooth surface. The smoother the surface, the longer it will take for water to infiltrate it (although the water will still get in quite readily). To increase the compressive strength, you could also add sand or even gravel to your polymer. The mixture of polymer and hard components will increase its compressive strength -- but it will increase its weight, and will not improve other kinds of strength like tensile (stretching) strength or toughness.
Hope this helps,
Burr Zimmerman
Ni Natalia,
Interest in biodegradable plastics is clearly driven simply because they can degrade over time in the environment. There is a lot more involved here, than trying to "add some type of biopolymer to make the starch plastic water resistant and strong". For one thing, you, as a pretty bright grade 6-8 student, unfortunately do not have the facilities to "blend" plastics. As they say, "it just ain't that simple!"
The simplest plastics that can be biodegradable, are made from starch as a starting point. But you must understand that this does not mean just stirring a bunch of starch into a vat of plastic resin! Instead, cornstarch is chemically modified into a new type of plastic resin, in the same way that ethylene gas is used as a starting point for polyethylene plastic bags (yet there is no ethylene gas in plastic bags!). This type of resin must NOT be totally waterproof, because if it were, it would not biodegrade. Typically warmth and moisture cause this type of plastic to swell and allow moisture to seep into it to begin the degradation process. Starch is not used only because it is cheap. It happens to be needed as a starting point to make this type of biodegradable plastic. Starch is in fact more costly than many traditional plastic "feedstocks". For example, ethylene gas (the starting point for ordinary polyethylene plastic) is way cheaper than starch, but of course, the resulting polyethylene is not biodegradable.
Another class of biodegradable plastics are not starch based, but are made from plant-based feedstock. An example is polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) biopolymer. But although this uses plant material as a feedstock, the manufacturing process still uses much more energy than the manufacturing process used in traditional plastics. So these plastics may be environmentally friendly once they are left to degrade, but the increased energy needed for their manufacturing process can result in much more fossil fuels needed (burned to make heat), than ordinary plastics that are actually made from oil-based chemicals.
You are indeed correct that price is one problem with bioplastics. This is a direct result of the increased complexity of their manufacture, the often higher cost of basic feedstock, and their increased requirement for energy in manufacturing.
Bob Wilson
You have raised a thorny bunch of problems!! First, you need to assess "the buzz" about biodegradable plastics. Second, cellulose is a high molecular weight of starch, which is a high molecular weight polymers of sugars. Third, cellulose is pretty stable. Trees and plants are composed largely of cellulose. I do not know of any non-biological process for decomposing cellulose that is energy efficient. Now there is a question of "blending" polymers. In general polymers of different types do not mix. It is like trying to mix water and oil. You have CORRECTLY identified the problem "PRICE / PERFORMANCE". How to blend polymers that have the desired properties at a reasonable cost. Adding a biopolymer to cellulose you recognize is blending one biopolymer to another bio polymer. In its "native state -- i.e. wood" cellulose is pretty strong and durable, in the short term. But in the long term it is "food" for microbes, so it "rots". This has led to the addition of some pretty powerful "preservatives". Finding an effective substitute or additive would be a technological breakthrough. But it is a case of "many have been tested, but none have been found." Your project is not simple or easy. A lot of failures can be found. Possibly you could organize the methods and materials that have been tried and failed, because I do not think that you will find a method/material that has not been tried unsuccessfully.
Vince Calder
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text: OK, since knives and baseball bats and golf clubs are now carry on luggage I think we need to arm every passenger with a 9mm handgun in case the terrorists try to take over the airplane with this stuff, this way we can be confident each passenger can defend him/herself. Take off your belt , watch, shoes stand in the X-ray scanner, but wait a min. you forgot your Bowie knife Sir? The whole stupid security theater at the airport these days is beyond basurd.


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What's Happening at the Lincoln Art Center
"Finding Focus" Opens Fri Nov 7 Wed, 05 Nov 2014 14:48:31 CDT
"Finding Focus", features the photography of Dale Cole, Fritz Mendell, both of Salina, and Jill Van Doren Rolo, Tescott, and sculpture by Steven Jones, Hill City. The reception and gallery walk will be Friday, November 7 from 5:30-7:30 pm.
Annual Auction "Fandangle" October 25 Tue, 23 Sep 2014 16:32:37 CDT
Lincoln Art Center's 22nd Annual Art Auction will be held October 25, 2014, the Saturday before Halloween, in Lincoln, Kansas. Tickets $20 per person. Thu, 18 Sep 2014 14:28:56 CDT The Lincoln Art Center is bringing Bunco back again on November 29 (the Saturday after Thanksgiving). Everyone is welcome! Reserve your "spot" with Joyce at 785.524.3241! Sponsored by Citizens State Bank. read more. Featured Artist in the Gift Gallery Wed, 23 Apr 2014 17:10:03 CDT The Lincoln Art Center is began a new series of featured artists from our gift gallery. Our fourth featured artist is Lynette Fisk, Pleasant Hill, MO. Fisk loves to give new purpose to vintage jewelry, especially making a sentimental piece wearable again. Much of her body of work is jewelry, but she also enjoys handmade books and art journaling. See more. The Gift Gallery is always open! Thu, 03 Jan 2013 09:59:56 CDT Our gift gallery features the work of artists and craftsmen from throughout the midwest. You will find hundreds of one-of-a-kind items for sale at modest prices. By choosing your gifts from the Lincoln Art Center you support the arts and delight your special friends with creative and unique works of art. We encourage artists to apply to the art center for inclusion in the consignment gift gallery. Stop in soon and see the original artistry for yourself! read more. |
Finding Focus Opens Fri Nov 7 | Annual Auction "Fandangle" Oct 25 |
Thankfully Bunco's Back Nov 2014 |
Featured Gift Gallery Artist: Lynette Fisk | Gift Gallery Always Open |
LAC News and Events
Finding Focus Exhibit Nov - Dec Nov, 2014
Annual Auction "Fandangle" October 25 Sept, 2014
Thankfully Bunco's Back Nov, 2014
Rock Paper Scissors Exhibit Sept - Oct Sept, 2014
LAC Wins PRCF Grant July, 2014
Under One Roof Exhibit Opens July, 2014
Art Start Classes June 2014 June, 2014
New Dimensions in Glass & Fiber Exhibit Opens May, 2014
Gift Gallery Featured Artist: Lynette Fisk May, 2014
Bunco's Back April 26, 2014 Apr, 2014
Reincarnations & Resurrections Exhibit Opens Mar, 2014
Girls Night Out Bunco Saturday Bunco February 01, 2014 Feb, 2014
Calendar of Events


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Leader's death a 'devastating blow' to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
BOGOTA, Colombia — In a major victory for Colombia's new government, military officials announced Thursday that Jorge Briceno, the No. 2 leader of the country's largest guerrilla group, has been killed.
Better known as Mono Jojoy, Briceno, 57, was responsible for hundreds of kidnappings and a series of devastating attacks pulled off by the of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. During the bloodiest years of the war, Briceno was for average Colombians the most feared of the FARC comandantes.
"Mono Jojoy was a symbol of terror," President Juan Manuel Santos, who was sworn-in last month, said Thursday. He called Briceno's death "the most devastating blow against the FARC in the history of the rebel organization," which has been fighting since the 1960s.
Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said Colombian air force planes on Wednesday dropped about 50 bombs on Briceno´s immense jungle camp, which was outfitted with concrete bunkers and escape tunnels. Later, Colombian special forces engaged in fierce combat with the rebels, killing at least 20 more FARC fighters.
"This is a day of joy and glory for all of Colombia," Rivera told a Bogota news conference.
The U.S.-backed Colombian army has over the past eight years delivered a series of blows to the FARC, which has seen its numbers drop from 17,000 foot soldiers to about 8,000.
Colombian troops had been pursuing Briceno for years but, with a better grasp of the jungle, he always managed to escape. Rivera said informants within Briceno´s inner circle provided vital information about his location, which opened the door to Wednesday's raid.
His death is yet another calamity for the FARC's seven-man ruling secretariat, which has now lost four members in the past two years.
In March 2008, FARC founder and supreme commander Manuel Marulanda died of a heart attack at age 78. That same month FARC spokesman Raul Reyes was killed in a military bombardment and Ivan Rios, who led rebel units in western Colombia, was executed by one of his bodyguards.
But analysts said the loss of Briceno could have an even bigger impact.
For starters, he was one of the FARC's longest serving members. Briceno´s mother cooked for a top FARC commander in the 1960s, thus he grew up in the rebel army. Briceno was close to FARC leader Marulanda and was eventually named commander of the group's Eastern bloc, which fielded thousands of fighters.
He was also a cunning military strategist. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Briceno planned a string of attacks on poorly defended southern towns and military bases in which the guerrillas killed and captured hundreds of government troops.
"Mono Jojoy's death will demoralize the FARC due to his stature as a warrior and the respect from the troops that he commanded," said Alan Jara, a former state governor who was held hostage by the FARC for nearly eight years.
"He's irreplaceable," added Bogota political analyst Armando Borrero.
Briceno was also a driving force behind the FARC's decision to kidnap Colombian politicians in an effort to swap them for imprisoned guerrillas. In 2001, Briceno was filmed inspecting scores of hostages who were penned up in a jungle concentration camps surrounded by barbed wire.
Referring to the way the burly, mustachioed Briceno lorded over his prisoners, Keith Stansell, one of three U.S. military contractors kidnapped by the FARC, referred to him sarcastically as "the great and magnificent Mono Jojoy."