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Friday Feb 12, 2010
Monday Jan 25, 2010
Building Communities by Building Schools
By jimgris-Oracle on Jan 25, 2010
"We don't want our babies to die, and we want our children to go to school"
That's what motivates Greg Mortenson to build communities because
that's what women tell him in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They don't want
their kids to die. So to help out, Greg builds schools -- in a region
of the world that has known only war and poverty for generations. Hear
Greg tell his story to Bill Moyers on PBS.
There are many more videos and articles about Greg and his foundations and books. Just a wonderful story all around. Even the highest levels of the U.S Military are now reading his book -- Three Cups of Tea -- and they are listening to him in the field because he knows more about the culture on the ground than most Americans involved in the battle over there. He's not fighting terrorism, tough. He's building community. There's a difference. The first action is defensive, based on fear, and short term. The second is offensive, based on inspiration, and long term. One breaks. The other builds. But this no hand out from some rich guy in the West or even a government program. Greg is not rich and he built his organization from pretty much nothing. And people of modest means -- and kids with pennies! -- create and drive these programs. Not the rich. Not the governments. In this case, individuals make the difference and that's why it's so inspiring. And the schools have to be earned, too. Educational leadership and resources are contributed from the outside, of course, but things are distributed and managed locally as well. Land is given for free and so is labor. This way the local community owns what they build.
This guys knows what he's doing, and he figured it out in real time. I just tripped over him today, but he's been doing this for sixteen years. I will study him closely. Everything he does represents a repeatable model for building community anywhere in the world for any purpose. Think you can't do something? Think it's too hard? You must check this out. Very cool.
Thursday Nov 26, 2009
Tokyo's Biggest Tech Party Ever: December 17, 2009
By jimgris-Oracle on Nov 26, 2009
A dozen international communities will be coming together in mid December for "Tokyo's
Biggest Tech Party Ever" (info here,
It's a charity event to benefit Room to Read. About 300 people are expected to gather in Roppongi, but I bet the number grows higher than that as the date approaches. I know a pile of OpenSolaris guys will be going, and I'll go for sure. I can imagine that thousands of very interesting photographs and videos will emerge from this gig, so I will shoot a set of photos myself. Here are some of the communities participating:
- Asiajin
- Digital Eve Japan
- International Computer Association
- Tokyo 2.0
- Mobile Monday
- Tokyo Hacker Space
- Tokyo PC Users Group
- Tokyo OpenSolaris User Group
- Ninjava
- Tokyo Linux User Group
The international tech community in Tokyo is obviously a community of communities, and there is certainly some overlap in membership as well. But intentionally creating mega social events like this to bring multiple groups together has significant value because the more we mix as communities the more we learn from each other. To me, that's one of the core values of BarCamp as well. You build your own community locally, you then connect that community globally, and while you are doing that you intentionally mix with other communities so you remain flush with new ideas.
Sunday Nov 08, 2009
Make: Tokyo Meeting 04
By jimgris-Oracle on Nov 08, 2009
I have never been to a Make Meeting. Just BarCamp and Hackerspace. May try Make.
Thursday Oct 29, 2009
Success and Failure
By jimgris-Oracle on Oct 29, 2009
Failure as a springboard to success. Nice piece there from Jono Bacon on how to fail gracefully, recover, and move on -- learning all along the way. I like it. Very practical advice for managing projects -- or doing anything, really -- in a community environment where credibility can be earned and/or lost rapidly and publicly. Much of the issue involves just recognizing your mistakes, apologizing, and fixing things so your actions support your words. Works for me. But I think many people struggle with this concept because they wait too long and the issue gets too big and complex. Then they feel they can't back down. Too much has already been said. So, they spin. What I have found is that if you get out there fast and correct things early -- whether it's your fault or your company's or someone else's in the community -- it's much more casual and normal and most people will engage pretty well. Early apologies on the small stuff tend to be more understated and easier to deliver than those bigger ones later on.
Also, Jono utters this gem in the article: "In my experience of working with communities, successes provide an incredible opportunity to learn about our strengths, but failures provide the inverse opportunity to learn about our weaknesses." I totally agree. People have always told me that you have to fail because "that's the only way you ever learn anything" or words to that effect. I never agreed with that. Actually, that notion always pretty much made me sick to my stomach. The truth is that you learn just as much from success as you do from failure -- it's just that you learn different lessons, that's all. You need a balance of both. That's obvious, right?
Sunday Oct 25, 2009
Conducting Leadership
By jimgris-Oracle on Oct 25, 2009
Here`s a interesting way to spend 20 minutes -- TED Talk: Itay Talgam: Lead like the great
conductors. Great presentation. Lots of fun. There are so
many ways to lead. And you can see both obvious and subtle differences
expressed in some of the great conductors Talgam profiles. Some control
forcefully and dramatically. Others relax and have fun and
enthusiastically guide people along effortlessly. While others are more
quiet and gently create an environment where musicians can express
their talent so it`s difficult to tell who leads who. Fascinating stuff
because you see it all unfold as a performance. Personally, I think the
best conductors (or the best anything) just blend into the music so the
focus is on the music and not on them.
That last bit is important. Many leaders miss it entirely and it
undermines them completely. For me, the word "leadership" has very
little meaning now. Actually, I view the word largely in the
pejorative. The very concept has been so thoroughly abused these days
(read a newspaper lately?) I am hard pressed to find leaders I can look
up to and learn from. In fact, I have pretty much given up on the
exercise as a waste of time. Don`t lead. Instead, do. Just do. And if you must lead or, gasp,
call yourself a leader, then lead with doing in mind. That is the only way you will ever earn
any credibility among those you think you lead. It`s also the only way
you will ever attract naturally those like-minded individuals
who want to grow with
you -- not as a result
of you.
Sunday Sep 20, 2009
Building by Contributing
By jimgris-Oracle on Sep 20, 2009
Anyway. I am going to put together a new presentation about all the people I look up to as great community builders. Most of them I have met and/or work with every day in the multiple communities in which I participate, but some are just acquaintances who I observe from afar and study in detail. And some I have never met but would love to because they are changing the world in important ways that oftentimes go unrecognized. They teach me. They are international and multi lingual. They are young and old. They cut across many industries and disciplines. Some think big and build globally, but even more think small and organize locally -- and many times that`s even more difficult and more important. Some are famous but most are not. And the common thread tying them together in my mind? They all build communities by contributing to communities. They do. They don`t just talk. That`s the bit they get right, and that`s why they teach so naturally by simply doing what they love. This is personal. That`s why it`s powerful. And that`s why I have to tell these stories. Just looking up to people who build community is not enough. We have to learn from these people and distribute community building opportunities among everyone. That`s the only way a community becomes sustainable.
Thursday Sep 17, 2009
Recognizing the Community Builders
By jimgris-Oracle on Sep 17, 2009
It's always nice to see people recognize your work
-- even in small ways and especially in the community building
business (which is generally not well understood). Sun's employees around the world who build community every
day are doing important grass-roots organizing work, and they have a
great deal to be proud of. Over the last few years, these people have
built global communities using tools such as blogs, wikis, forums, and even entire Free and Open Source development projects.
Thousands of employees have been involved, and they have engaged users,
customers, developers, and students in virtually every region of the
world with a connection to the net. Add to that all the employees who
regularly go out into the community and participate at user groups and
industry conferences and organize events, and the reach grows even deeper. Line it all up.
It's been quite a remarkable accomplishment. I think we should write a
book. The people who did the building should tell the story.
Monday Sep 14, 2009
FOSS.IN Bangalore 2009
By jimgris-Oracle on Sep 14, 2009
I see things gearing up for FOSS.IN in Bangalore in December. I went to FOSS.IN two years ago and really enjoyed the entire experience. And I learned a great deal as well. FOSS.IN was one of the best conferences I've been to. Perfect size. Interesting people. Real community feel.
Also note the excellent blog from Atul Chitnis outlining the changes being planned for this year's event. What seems core to the organizers at FOSS.IN is the concept of contribution. It's easy to get distracted and drift from foundational principles when you grow, but it's great to see FOSS.IN getting the basics right. Participation. Contribution. Doing -- not talking.
Tuesday Sep 01, 2009
Easing Communications
By jimgris-Oracle on Sep 01, 2009
Tuesday Jul 14, 2009
Community Leadership Summit
By jimgris-Oracle on Jul 14, 2009
I have an agenda in mind for my time. It's only a weekend, so I need to probe some issues as deeply as I can. I'd especially like to explore how software engineering and user communities are built across language and cultural barriers. That's the biggest deal for me since I live the issue every day and I believe there are big opportunities involved.
Other stuff: How/why do some communities seem to emerge organically (do they really?), while others are built using significant resources and sometimes face big challenges in the process. How do you manage around community dependence issues while investing resources? I know it's not popular to discuss, but I'll be asking people about competitive challenges they face while building communities. Over the years, many have told me that communities shouldn't be competitive (companies compete and communities cooperate, right?), but I've come to question and largely reject that line. I can point to many cases where it's absolutely true, but I also have lots of painful experience demonstrating that it's a lot of BS (I think it depends greatly on geography, culture, placement in the community, and politics).
More: Where is the line distinguishing building from natural evolution? And who defines the difference? On governance issues: Do you start out building with governance in place or let it emerge naturally over time? Do you build a top-down governing system, or let structures bubble up from the bottom when (and if) they are needed? And how do you resolve governance vs development methodologies? How do you measure growth or quality or whatever else you're building? What are the distinctions between building community from the platform of a major corporation vs building community while actually living out in the community itself? How are community development and engineering operations implemented differently around the world? How is community actually defined differently in various regions? Those are some of the issues I'll be poking.
And finally, I'd really love to see how people feel about the issue of "leadership" in communities. That's the name of the conference, after all, and it's an issue we've wrestled with on OpenSolaris forever. My opinion on leadership has evolved greatly over time, but I'm clearly moving in a specific direction lately and feel much more comfortable asserting my view on leadership.
A Community Builder who Never Quits
By jimgris-Oracle on Jul 14, 2009
Monday Jul 06, 2009
Community Responsibility and Opportunity
By jimgris-Oracle on Jul 06, 2009
Last month there was an interesting thread developing on ogb-discuss about the lessons learned from the Townhall session at CommunityOne. The conversation died pretty quickly, though, which was a shame. I think it could have led to some good issues being explored.
In a couple of posts in the discussion, I talked about Jono Bacon`s Ubuntu session I attended at C1 and what OpenSolaris could learn from the Linux community in general (actually, we are already learning even if many people don`t realize it yet). I was trying to promote the notion that the OpenSolaris community ought to take on more community building responsibilities and not depend on Sun so much. That was in response to an observation that the "community" was somewhat lacking at CommunityOne. That may be true to a certain degree. C1 was a large event run by a company, for the most part, but it was intended to benefit the community. Let`s take it. It was a gift. I think that too may people are too quick to look to Sun for everything, which is not realistic and only leads to disappointment because expectations are simply too high.
Sun is doing its part (opening code, funding development operations and global community building programs, running conferences, hosting infrastructure, moving engineers outside, etc), but the community shouldn`t expect Sun to build the entire community at all levels, and that`s the impression I get sometimes from some of our list conversations. I have said that the community needs to assert more of its own community building role for four years now, but it never really resonates on list. I`m not sure why. Maybe I`m just wrong, but I think it`s painfully obvious. Just hang out a bit with the Linux community and you see many layers of communities with no single company in the center responsible for building everything. There are many companies and organizations and universities and individuals, and the attitude is very different. And there is no reason why OpenSolaris can`t grow in that direction as well. In fact, it`s already happening. Companies and large organizations are getting involved, and there are elements in the community that are asserting their role as builders beyond Sun -- the user groups. The OSUGs are helping to diversify community building functions because many of them are now running their own events (in addition to their normal meetings, I mean), and they are growing in their own ways without Sun necessarily being directly involved. This is a model on which we should expand.
Building the OpenSolaris community needs to be everyone`s responsibility and everyone`s opportunity, and it needs to be distributed as widely as possible. This is what we are doing in Tokyo, by the way.
Monday May 04, 2009
The Return of the OpenSolaris Facilitators
By jimgris-Oracle on May 04, 2009
There has always been confusion about where the Facilitators would come from. In reality, according to the Constitution, the OGB should have simply appointed the Facilitators all along. But that didn't happen. So Facilitators came along naturally based on the genuine needs of some of the more active Community Groups themselves. That's fine, of course, but that organic growth wasn't a comprehensive solution initially or even recently, and that led to communication problems between the OGB and the Community Groups -- most recently and most importantly with the low voter turn out this election and the failure to get enough votes to pass the new Constitution we spent most of last year drafting. Although the proposed new Constitution got a majority of votes from the people who voted, it didn't get a majority of the total votes among the OpenSolaris Membership. That means too many people simply didn't vote. And that's a communications problem that Facilitators can help solve.
Facilitators are basically project managers or community organizers or community managers -- pick your term of preference because they are all the pretty much the same thing. OpenSolaris does not have a single community manager or any single leader, for that matter, so it seems to me that the management-oriented functions are best distributed among the Facilitators because the leadership structure of the community is distributed as well. Facilitators can do more or less for their groups based on interest and need, of course, and they can be engineers or non-engineers. It doesn't matter. But there is a minimum level of governance-oriented communications required so the community can function, and that's specified right in the Constitution. It's all very basic stuff. But it's not enough. Let's think bigger than just implementing one Constitutional role. Let's think about how we are building a global community of communities -- not just one community on opensolairs.org. To me, this is a big opportunity for Facilitators -- to help manage the operations on opensolaris.org and then to help connect those operations to other communities around the world. There is no reason why this can't happen because the people on opensolaris.org are already distributed globally, but we don't really view them as global community builders doing local work. Some do it, sure, and those guys are well known. But I'm talking about building a global community development operation with people whose primary role is to build community. Community Organizers, basically. Or Community Managers, if you like that term better. I've always viewed the Facilitators as the foundation of that idea, and I thought that it was convenient that the seed of the idea was actually specified in the Constitution. Otherwise, the perception is that community building operations just rests with Sun exclusively, and I think that's too narrow a focus if we want to grow more rapidly. The community is already too international for it to be centralized around Sun, and that's pretty easy to see living from where I live. I've talked about this on list many times, but strangely, the idea is generally met with silence. Inside, too. That's why I eventually gave up.
Now, personally, I hate the term "facilitator" almost as much as I hate the term "evangelist" so I hope we rename the role to something more substantive in future versions of the Constitution. The word is weak. And that's part of the problem. People were never really interested in it and didn't see it of value, whereas in reality it has always been a needed role in this community. The truth is that we've always had communications issues in the community around governance -- quite literally from day one -- and those problems have not improved much over the years. Granted, the community doesn't experience its previous level of flame warfare these days, but that doesn't mean that communication has improved. It hasn't. What has improved is that some of the core projects have a much more clear focus now, and those guys are generating real results in their projects at their respective local levels. But overall, communication about governance issues and how the community is organized and where it's going as a community is still a missed opportunity. And if I'm being too critical, fine, then let me put it this way: the awareness of this issue is well below where I feel we should be in 2009. Regardless, I can't find anyone who'd disagree we could improve in this area. The Facilitators project is an excellent first step. We've had difficulty implementing or own community processes, so let's get that down and then grow from there.
Sunday Apr 26, 2009
The Distinction Between Power and Leadership
By jimgris-Oracle on Apr 26, 2009
Interesting talk from Marshall Ganz about building community and distributing leadership. At the 13:10 minute mark of the video he talks about the distinction between power and leadership and how in voluntary associations you can`t rely on political or economic coercion to get people to something. You can`t substitute power for leadership. Leaders of volunteers elicit cooperation by tapping into the shared values of the community, and that`s a much more challenging exercising than dictating orders with threats of force to back you up.
This quote at the 14:15 minute mark sums it nicely: "It`s very easy, if you are in a place where you can fire people if they don`t do what you want, to kid yourself about why people are collaborating and cooperating with you. It`s very easy if you are in a place where you can put people in jail if they don`t do what you want. When you are operating in a voluntary setting you don`t have those options so the burden of leadership is much greater because you have to elicit voluntary collaboration, cooperation, engagement, motivation, commitment, etc. So, in a sense, it`s sort of leadership on its own without the props that are often available to us to exercise authority in organizations."
Thursday Mar 05, 2009
The Stories of Community
By jimgris-Oracle on Mar 05, 2009
Nice article from Marshall Ganz on using the power of story (four specific levels of stories, actually) to engage people and build communities that drive change. Story telling is as old as it gets and remains probably the most effective way to deliver information that resonates. Here`s a little Ganz video, too. Good stuff.
Monday Mar 02, 2009
The "New" Organizers
By jimgris-Oracle on Mar 02, 2009
From Zack Exley's post: "The 'New Organizers' have succeeded in building what many netroots-oriented campaigners have been dreaming about for a decade. Other recent attempts have failed because they were either so 'top-down' and/or poorly-managed that they choked volunteer leadership and enthusiasm; or because they were so dogmatically fixated on pure peer-to-peer or 'bottom-up' organizing that they rejected basic management, accountability and planning. The architects and builders of the Obama field campaign, on the other hand, have undogmatically mixed timeless traditions and discipline of good organizing with new technologies of decentralization and self-organization."
That's interesting. You don't often hear community building described that with organizers using the best of both top-down and bottom-up approaches. So, in that sense I agree with the "new" bit, and it's a welcome lesson for all of us work in community-building positions -- any community.
I found that post on the Obama's guys from Barton George -- It takes a Community (and they could use a Marketing Guide) — Mozilla Debut's theirs -- as he was talking about community development efforts at Mozilla, Ubuntu, Debian, and OpenSUSE, and he points to the new Mozilla community marketing guide (see Patrick Finch). I sent these links to advocacy-discuss on OpenSolaris so we can talk about these issues, too. Teresa started the thread recently in an effort to get some ideas going for how we can do more as a community to organize ourselves. We've had this discussion before on OpenSolaris (many times, actually), but we still have some work to do to really document a substantial guide that we can all get around and drive together. We have some very good bits and pieces spread across the community, but perhaps its time to bring it all together into one document and label it as such?
Monday Feb 23, 2009
Alinsky to Obama: Organize! Organize! Organize!
By jimgris-Oracle on Feb 23, 2009
I`ve been catching up on my Saul Alinsky now that we have a community organizer in the White House. I was never much inspired with Alinksy, although I certainly appreciate his place in American history. When I read his stuff I just feel dirty, sort of like plodding through Eddie Bernays and his propaganda or Machiavelli and his lessons for princes. But all that is reality in power politics, and many of those guys articulate some wonderfully evil and practical tactics to gut a variety of opponents in just about any situation you`d find yourself in. If that`s the sort of thing you want to do, anyway.
It`s interesting, though. We oftentimes hear that you have to fight fire with fire, and that`s probably true in some cases. But what about the exceptions? For instance, I never get that dirty Alinsky feeling all over when reading Ghandi or King, and those guys were certainly grand community organizers fighting bad guys too. In fact, they were probably the two most effective community builders in modern history. I wouldn`t put Alinsky in their league. Ghandi and King inspire. Alinsky manipulates. Ghandi and King transcend and transform. Alinsky fights. Both views are probably necessary at various points in a great struggle, but I prefer to focus a tad more on the positive and not so much on an Al Capone street fight in a dark and dirty Chicago alley. But that`s just me.
Sanford D. Horwitt, an Alinsky biographer, writes nice piece about what the so-called father of community organizing would say to President Obama today (Alinsky would be 100 this year). I guess Obama studied under some of Alinsky`s guys for a bit. So, what`s the fatherly advice on building community? "Barack, remember what got you here ... Keep your eyes on the prize and keep organizing, organizing, organizing!" That`s not surprising. And it`s good advice. But it will be interesting to see if Obama can follow it, if he can keep his obviously well honed community organizing skills up to date from the perspective of living among the power establishment that Alinsky was always fighting. That`s where Obama sits now, after all. Will it work from way up there? To me, this is what makes the Obama presidency fascinating.
Also of note is Obama`s view of Alinsky himself. It`s far more expansive view than the narrow minded Alinsky pitched. Check out The Agitator: Barack Obama's unlikely political education for a lot of Obama`s views of Alinsky. I like this bit right here:
"Alinsky understated the degree to which people's hopes and dreams and
their ideals and their values were just as important in organizing as
people's self-interest. Sometimes the tendency in community organizing
of the sort done by Alinsky was to downplay the power of words and of
ideas when in fact ideas and words are pretty powerful. 'We hold these
truths to be self-evident, all men are created equal.' Those are just
words. 'I have a dream.' Just words. But they help move things. And I
think it was partly that understanding that probably led me to try to
do something similar in different arenas." -- Obama, 2007
In other words, community organizing isn`t always about going head to head. It`s not always about cutting people down. It`s not always about taking power away from the powerful (after all, what do you do with the power you get? Will it corrupt you as it did them?). Sometimes community building is about, well, building. It`s about inspiring. Liberating. Leading. And it`s about distributing power, not centralizing it. It goes far beyond words, too.
Sunday Feb 15, 2009
OpenSolaris Community Lending Project on Kiva
By jimgris-Oracle on Feb 15, 2009
It's great to see the OpenSolaris Community Lending Project open on
opensolaris.org and on kiva.org. Background on the Kiva project on
advocacy-discuss (here, here, here) and also at Simon`s blog (which
also talks about an interesting Amazon connection). This is exactly why
global communities are valuable: people who are passionate embrace
opportunities to solve problems in new ways. If people are empowered and able to connect, they self organize and get things done. They just do it. So, want to help change someone`s life? Just jump right in.
Sunday Jan 18, 2009
The Art of Community
By jimgris-Oracle on Jan 18, 2009
Jono Bacon at Ubuntu is writing a book on communities -- The Art of Community. I`m looking forward to this book. And I`m glad he`s writing it from his view at Ubuntu. I`m trying to follow Ubuntu more lately. I don`t know too much about the community, but I met some Ubuntu guys in Tokyo a while back and I also met Jono at CommunityOne last year and found him to be a very cool guy.
The reason I want to read this book is to learn more and learn faster.
There is so much opportunity here. Back when we launched the OpenSolaris project four years ago I kept
saying we should look at other communities and observe how they
evolve and how they build and manage themselves through various
circumstances. All communities are different and have to manage diverse
challenges, but they also share many common elements. I do some reading
on this, but where I most closely touch other communities live is in
Tokyo with the Linux guys (TLUG) and Web
2.0 guys (Tokyo2Point0) and
also with some photography things I do here. Hanging out with these
communities has given me a fantastic perspective to juxtapose with
OpenSolaris and bring to my activities here. I highly recommend
participating in other communities. It doesn`t matter what kind of
community, too. The point is to contribute somewhere. That`s where the
real lessons are learned. And that`s what makes a community. If you can
contribute and earn your own way and gain recognition and trust as a result in some sort of meritocracy, then that`s a little community.
Value that. Grow that. Promote that concept as the foundation of the
On OpenSolaris we have made a lot of progress in some ways and hundreds of people all over the place are contributing to multiple projects, but in other ways we are still struggling to find our way. This is normal to a certain degree. It`s not a criticism, per say. All projects in all industries are basically learning mechanisms. They start from somewhere and grow. Those that learn, live and grow more. Those that don`t, rot and die. You can`t avoid this. Also, if you are open minded enough to learn, that will help spark your imagination. And that`s far more important than thinking you actually know something or repeating the same thing over and over again. Einstein used to say something like that, and he knew a great deal more than most.
Anyway, what has been most gratifying within the OpenSolaris Community is that the OpenSolaris User Group Community (which we currently call the Advocacy Community) has been growing and learning steadily since Day One. We`ve made mistakes and adjusted along the way. Not only that but the overall personalty of the OSUGs seems clearly defined by global cooperation and openness, not internal conflict and bureaucracy. Have you noticed this too? I`m on all the OSUG lists and I see people talking about technology, doing events, and basically just hanging out and hacking on OpenSolaris. Quite literally, a culture is forming. And it`s spread out among dozens of languages, cultures, and countries. Some people are more active than others, some are more passionate than others, some are more technical than others. But everywhere I look on the OSUG lists I see that everyone is welcome. And the entire thing is just moving along at its own understated pace with relatively few resources and very little structure. I mean, really, we give some web space, a mailing list, and some t-shirts. Not much stuff. And not much process. But more than enough to get started. And it seems that we grow faster as a community when we reduce our processes. Granted, we are still very small (around 5,000 people) within the entire OpenSolaris community (which is way bigger), but revolutions have started with far less. And you have to start somewhere, right? I get this same feeling on some other OpenSolaris projects as well, where people have just been working all along since Day One doing what they can with what they have.
I find this stuff fascinating because the concept of the community is for all of us. You don`t have to have power or money or title to join. You can just show up and participate and contribute and learn. That`s what impresses me about open source communities. Jono`s book should be a very cool contribution to all this. I need the ideas. :) This stuff is an art indeed.
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Commentator battles with Maher, Rob Thomas and Anne-Marie Slaughter about the Clinton campaign on Friday's episode
On Friday's episode of HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher," things got heated when blogger Andrew Sullivan kept bashing Hillary Clinton and her campaign.
Speaking about GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, Sullivan said, "Who's up against this guy? This unbelievably useless, terrible candidate of Hillary Clinton who has shown no… has she ever given a speech that you were inspired by? Does she have any retail skills? Is she able to come across on TV?"
Maher rushed to Clinton's defense, but not before squeezing in his personal opinion about her presidential candidacy.
See Video: Matt Drudge Blasts 'Old, Sick' Hillary Clinton, 'Travesty' of Digital Media Sameness in Rare Interview
See Video: Matt Drudge Blasts 'Old, Sick' Hillary Clinton, 'Travesty' of Digital Media Sameness in Rare Interview
"I find her slogan, 'Are You Ready For Hillary?' to perfectly capsulize how I feel about her," he said. "Am I ready for Hillary? Yes. Am I excited? No. It's like getting a shot."
Sullivan did not stop there, and while Matchbox 20 frontman Rob Thomas and New America Foundation CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter defended the former Secretary of State, Sullivan wasn't having any of it.
"Since she started campaigning, her polls have continued to sink," he said. "A large majority of the country don't believe a word she is saying for good reason. This week, her cynicism almost reached a perfect Clinton level!"
Also Read: Hillary Clinton Movie 'Rodham' Dropped by Lionsgate (Exclusive)
Also Read: Hillary Clinton Movie 'Rodham' Dropped by Lionsgate (Exclusive)
Slaughter insisted that Clinton was a massive frontrunner, identified her achievements and argued that "she worked for women at every single level of her career."
"She's a talent-free hack," Sullivan said before tearing into Clinton's "disastrous Libya invasion which repeated every mistake that George W. Bush made."
When Maher asked Sullivan why he hates Clinton so much, Sullivan insisted that he doesn't "hate her, I just think she's a mediocrity. They need to find someone with ability and talent and leadership, not her!"
Also Read: Hillary Clinton Trolls GOP Candidates With Special Care Package
Also Read: Hillary Clinton Trolls GOP Candidates With Special Care Package
When he cited Clinton's "dumb error with the email server," the group turned against him once again, especially when he said that 60 percent of the country doesn't trust Clinton.
"60 percent of the country believes in Noah's Ark!" Maher fired back.
According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, Bernie Sanders is catching up to Clinton in the polls. From Oct. 4 to Oct. 9, Clinton's support decreased from 51 percent to just 41 percent.

subset: commoncrawl


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Hi I'm Luis, a new Chilean cosplayer!!!!
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Hi, I'm Hiromi (aka Honoka) a Chilean cosplayer. If you want to see more about my works check out the following sites: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hiromicos Cure: http://en.curecos.com/profile/?ch=39309 DA: http://honoka.deviantart.com/ Cosplay.com: http://www.cosplay.com/member/50440/ Ample Cosplay: http://ample-cosplay.com/?u=0000005839 Ruki & Hiromi works: http://ruki-hiromi.tumblr.com/
Hello welcome to my profile, I hope you like it, here you can see all cosplay I have done with much care and love. greetings to all visitors ^__^ my fanpage in facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HitoCos Deviant-art: http://sunako-hito.deviantart.com/
Hellooooooooo!!! ♥ My name is Stephanie but i hear Chise, I'm from chile and I am a fashion designer. ♥ :D!! I love the cosplay :D!!
Hello! I'm Misato, a chilean cosplayer, I invite you to be part of this group, so you get to know my cosplay work, my appraisals of events, etc. Thank you very much to whom will join for their support and good critiques and comments. Follow me in facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MisatonoirCosplay My Page: http://misatonoir.jimdo.com/ Follow me in twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/misato_noir
Hi everyone!!! I'm a Cosplayer from Spain! I really hope you like all my Cosplay works!! You can see more here!: ■DeviantArt http://xellosmadara.deviantart.com/ You can add me on facebook too!!!If you "like" I will be really glad! ♥ ■Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/tobicosplays
I'm GreatQueenLina, cosplayer and designer. I like making costumes, draw, sew, play a guitar, fantasy, Middle Ages. I've been into cosplay since 2001, seriously and thoroughly - since 2005. I'm studying at the Moscow State University Culture and Arts, program "Costume design". I hope that you will like my works :)) DA http://greatqueenlina.deviantart.com/ Cure http://en.curecos.com/profile/?ch=205680 Coscom http://www.cosplay.com/member/164391/ Site http://greatqueenlina.ru/


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How Will You Answer?
On August 28, 2012 the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) announced the launch of a $150,000 television ad campaign across Missouri highlighting President Obama's extreme record on abortion and featuring abortion survivor Melissa Ohden. Missouri has recently been at the center of the conversation on abortion.


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Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr. BCC distinguished president emeritus, decorated World War II veteran, member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen and 2009 recipient of a Congressional Gold Medal dies at age 94.
Get Advised….Get Ahead! Meet with your advisor, then register for Fall 2016 classes.
Andre Christie will receive his Associate in Science degree from Bronx Community College next month, days after returning from South Africa, where he is studying health care for the poor. The day after Commencement, he will fly down to Bethesda, Maryland, to work beside medical researchers at the National Institutes of Health. A month after that, he'll transfer to New York University, the next step in his dream of becoming a doctor.
[Students, Faculty/Staff]
The imprisonment without trial of Kalief Browder and his effort to restart his life at BCC has ignited discussion about criminal justice across the country. Support from individuals moved by his story is helping formerly incarcerated students earn college degrees.
"The Beauty of Their Dreams," a documentary produced by BCC's Dept. of Communications Arts and Sciences Chairperson and four-time Emmy award-winner Debra Gonsher, illuminates the stories of people advocating for girls' education. It airs on ABC affiliated stations on April 17.
[Students, Faculty/Staff]
It is not too late to start working towards your degree at Bronx Community College. The Office of Admissions is now accepting on-the-spot applications for the Fall 2016 semester.
A trio of BCC students are semi-finalists for the highly competitive Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship
[Students, Faculty/Staff]
Education is important in "unlocking all the doors," Thomas A. Isekenegbe tells first-generation learners at the City University of New York's Bronx Community College, where he became president in August.
[Students, Faculty/Staff]
CUNYfirst MyInfo gives students, faculty and staff quick access to important information right from your mobile smart device! A new app for a new semester!
In a Washington Post Op-Ed, the President discusses his banning of solitary confinement for juveniles, citing the tragedy of BCC student Kalief Browder.
[Students, Faculty/Staff]
February 5, 2015 - Gateway to College National Network has announced the election of Dr. Eduardo Martí to its Board of Directors. Mr. Marti will travel to Portland, Oregon, in February for his inaugural meeting with fellow trustees.
[Students, Faculty/Staff]
In the weeks since the terrorist attack on the offices of the Parisian satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, many have attempted to understand how it happened and what it says about the state of the world.
Members of BCC's community of dreamers, strivers and achievers talk about what matters to them and how, each in a uniquely individual way, they discovered it on our campus.
[Students, Faculty/Staff]
July 28
Summer Session II (5wk) and III (8 wk) - Last Day of Classes and Final Exams
July 28
Summer Session III (Last Day of classes - 8 week session)
July 29
College Closed
August 1
Summer Session II and III - Deadline for Final Grades to be submitted electronically
August 3
Payment due for Fall 2016 - Registration through July 26
August 4
USIP Courses End
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An overview of projects and plans for Bronx Community College as it strives to bring its historic campus into the 21st century while maintaining the grandeur of its magnificent history.
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I have found this description/perspective to be very helpful.
Type: Posts; User: gd8
I have found this description/perspective to be very helpful.
I am first time CBR owner. I found the book "the 10 minute retriever" by the Dahls to very helpful. In the book the Dahl's point out Chessie traits that have been eye opening as I am ex lab guy.
another test. Billy, at 8 mo sniffing the breeze and enjoying summer
TN Lab... i have recently moved to Chattanooga and joined East Tn Retriever Club. (their core area seems to be 1-2 hours north of Chattanooga.) Is their another club more local. formal or informal....
Thanks Gregg. Much appreciated!
I am up in Chattanooga, which is a Desert for pigeons. If your supplier has ample quantities I would take a drive for those $3.50 pigeons. Driving would be easier....So far I have over $350...


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|Timothy Bish <tabish...@gmail.com>
|Re: no IconnectionFactory implementation found - NMS
|Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:34:25 GMT
On Tue, 2009-12-29 at 09:06 -0800, slyfox wrote: > Trying to get the nms implementation working... > > The doc seems vague to me with regard to the config file? How is this file > (nmsproducer-activemq.confg) created and what goes in it? Sorry, not a > regular .net user. activemq and activemqcpp working, just need this piece. > > thanks, > bobby What version are you using? If you use the most recent 1.2 release candidate you don't need a config file. If you could provide some more details on your setup and what you are trying to do I can try to offer some help getting up and running. Regards Tim. -- Tim Bish http://fusesource.com http://timbish.blogspot.com/
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Vaccines and the Link to Auto-Immune DiseaseVaccination
Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD devotes an entire chapter in her book, Gut and Psychology Syndrome, to the issue of whether or not vaccines cause autism. Given that many of her patients are autistic children, her practice allows for a unique and very rational perspective of this controversial issue.
Some of the parents of the autistic children in her practice are able to directly link the MMR vaccine to the regression of their child's behavior into autism. Other parents clearly link the DPT vaccine to the development of autistic symptoms in their child. Surprisingly, Dr. Campbell-McBride maintains that most parents are unable to make a connection at all.
So, do vaccines cause autism? Dr. Campbell-McBride explains that things are rarely so simple as a "yes" or a "no". The answer to this question is much more complex and must be considered within the entire topic of vaccination as a whole.
The Law of Natural Selection
In the pre-vaccine era, it was not uncommon for a family to lose one, two, or even more children to childhood infections like measle, mumps, rubella, pertussis and others. This is called the Law of Natural Selection, and it ensures that only the strongest survive to pass on genes to the next generation, thereby ensuring the ultimate survival of the species.
Our modern society is not prepared to follow Mother Nature's cue in enforcement of this law. No Mother would allow her child to die if there is a way in which to prevent it. Hence the development of vaccines to protect and help the weakest members of the human race survive the onslaught of childhood illness.
Dr. Campbell-McBride's point is that she does not agree with the anti-vaccine lobby that shots as a preventive measure for childhood diseases should be abandoned completely. This approach is not feasible unless we, as a human race, are prepared to follow the rule of Mother Nature and let the weaker members die from childhood illness as the Law of Natural Selection intends.
Vaccines Were Originally Designed for Children with Normal Immune Function
The problem with vaccines arises with the rapid increase in the number of imunocompromised children in recent decades. This type of child was extremely rare back in the days when vaccines were originally developed.
Nowadays, look around – how many truly healthy, non-immunocompromised children do you see? Not many! Whereas just a few short decades ago, it was rare to find more than one child in a school classroom with allergies, today, it is rare to find more than one child with no allergies in a classroom!
A complete flip-flop has occurred with most children now falling under the "immunocompromised" label, which is the perfect storm for vaccine damage to occur. A compromised immune system is not going to react to vaccination in a "normal" or "expected" way. Dr. Campbell-McBride makes the crucial point that vaccines are an incredible insult to the immune system, and for immuno-compromised children, this insult can be devastating.
For children who already have compromised immune function, vaccines can frequently be the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak, leading the way for development of autism, eczema, asthma, allergies diabetes etc. For children with immune function compromised to a lesser degree, vaccinations will not be the instigator of auto-immune diseases, but will definitely deepen the damage, moving the child closer to the eventual development of such disorders.
Rational Approach to Vaccination
Dr. Campbell-McBride proposes a rational approach to vaccines, rather than the "one size fits all" approach of today.
She advocates that a comprehensive immunological survey of every baby be performed before any vaccines are administered. This survey would include a questionnaire assessing parental health, a stool and urine analysis to ascertain the health of the baby's gut, and an immune status test.
Once this procedure has been followed, whether or not a baby should be vaccinated would become immediately apparent. For some babies, the immune system would be in such bad shape that no vaccines would be administered at all. For others, a delayed schedule would be recommended until the tests improve.
Vaccinations Should be Single Dose Only
Whether a child is healthy enough for vaccination or not, Dr. Campbell-McBride strongly advocates that standard vaccination protocol be limited to single dose vaccines only. The current multi-dose approach is extremely dangerous because a child would never be exposed to measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) at the same time in a natural situation!
In the medical literature, in those very rare instances where a child comes down with two childhood infections at the same time, permanent physical and/or mental impairment of the child takes place!
Dr. Campbell-McBride concludes this chapter of the GAPS book by stating that multi-dose vaccines will very likely need to be abandoned altogether given that auto-immune disorders have now reached epidemic proportions in children with further increases projected in the future.
It seems clear to me based on the very rational arguments put forth by Dr. Campbell-McBride that if either of the parents suffer from any autoimmune disorder (even as mild as one or two allergies) or have any gut dysbiosis symptoms whatsoever, their children should not be vaccinated. Doing so greatly risks devastation of the child's health.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
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Comments (25)
I can't say whether immunizations cause autism. However, I strongly believe that this should remain the right of a parent to decide. When you are forced to take immunizations you should not be forced to sign a consent to treatment form that releases liability. My oldest child was immunized through 5 years old. She had serious health issues that began at 12 months immunizations, including asthma (severe), allergies, stomach problems, severe crying fits, eczema and other issues. She spent time in the hospital for various diagnostic tests. She had multiple ear infections, strep and was constantly sick. By age 2 she had her tontsil and adnoids removed and a second set of tubes in her ears. We began an aggressive treatment with natural remedies and she is now a healthy child. Was this caused by immunizations? – I don't know. BUT….I do not the other 5 children were not immunized. None of them have asthma, eczema, or allergies. None of them had repeated ear infections. I don't think they are a threat to anyone else either. The youngest was exposed to whooping cough (surprisingly enough from a toddler who was fully immunized – at church) our child did not develop whooping cough. I asked our peditrician about it – she stated that of her 200 patients only her immunized patients were being diagnosed with whooping cough. Our 3 year old developed encephalitis – we were told by the admitting ER that it was from lack of immunizations. The team of doctors at the Children's Hospital disagreed – they tracked down the virus that caused the encephalitis to the common cold virus. The head doctor told us that while immunizations serve their purpose most of the time they are NOT a garuantee that your child will not get a child hood disease. She told us that many vaccines are not even effective and that later testing will show that vaccinated children in fact do not have an immunity to the disease that they were vaccinated for. Last year a close friend's son went to work with our local fire department. He was current on all his vaccines but yet he developed Tetanus when he was cut at a house fire. He did not die – because we have modern medicine. The fact is that many of these diseases are treatable. Yes, some are life threatening but not all. I would never tell a parent not to immunize but I also want that same right.
Christina Waldman
I did not mean–in saying "While not all autism is "caused" by vaccines, surely some of it is,"(a paraphrase of a sentiment expressed by Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center)–to detract from the eye-witness testimony of the many parents who have seen their children regress into autism after vaccinations, like Hannah Poling.
Also, pesticides that attack the "nerves" of insects and accumulate in soil and runoff into drinking water, GMO's, Electromagnetic frequency fog from cell phones and cell phone towers are all unnatural and have not been sufficiently tested to rule out neurological damage to children. But here is Dr. Russell Blaylock's video on How Vaccines harm Child Brain Development." http://www.vaccinationinformationnetwork.com/how-vaccines-harm-child-brain-development/
He wrote the Foreword to Neil Z. Miller's "Vaccine Safety Manual, a Handbook for Concerned Parents and Health Practitioners."
Great article, I agree with her approach to single vaccines only. My problem is that I can not find combo vaccines as singles. For example, Merck used to make individual doses (instead of the combo vaccine) for Measles, Mumps and Rubella but stopped several years ago. Do you have any recommendations on how to find individual vaccines?
Thanks for the article and the discussion. I think it is important to mention that the following stressors can negatively impact a childs immune system (according to Dr. Natasha), making vaccinations unwise: poor quality flora passed on by the mother (and father) to the child at birth; the dietary absence of fermented and bio-active foods; the excessive dietary presence of chemical additives, processing, yeast and sugar; and the use of prescribed medicines such as the Pill, antibiotics, cancer treatments and steriods which can render the gut flora profoundly abnormal (and toxic) – in a profession that tends to ignore the necessity to rebuild gut flora after it has been compromised (i.e. medical insurance will fund therapeutic strenghth antibiotics, but not therapeutic strength probiotics).
Ooops, Dr. Natasha did not mention Cancer in her writings; however, I have seen digestive devastation in Cancer survivors myself.
I agree somewhat to the line of thinking that immune-compromised children should not be vaccinated….but the tricky part about the recommendation of the doctor to check their immune status….the problem is kids that are perfectly healthy before vaccines STILL end up with all of the issues caused by the toxin overload. And while the idea of only getting one virus injection at a time instead of the multi-virus shots, is good in theory, but you are now taking on those toxins 3 or 4 more times instead of just once…so it's a draw either way.
To the anonymous above, you can't claim that the absence of information means that it is "fact" that there was no "autism" prior to 1930. There IS evidence of people having autistic symptoms, but you have to think about how times have changed since then and also different cultures and societies. Back then if you had symptoms like autism you would have been sent away to an asylum or locked away at home, most of the neighbors wouldn't even know about the child, or the family wouldn't speak of them. "Disabled" children were looked down upon as evil or something the parents did wrong, when in many cases as we know now it was simply just a nutritional deficiency or chemical imbalance etc… In many other cultures around the world, people with symptoms like autism would be treated as if they were possessed or evil and even killed and shunned by their family or others. But I'm sure that it wasn't PREVALENT to see people with autistic behaviors because we are learning now how much of it is connected to our environment (diet, toxins (vaccines) and pollution etc…) I've not heard of a child "born" autistic, and that it only seems to start in childhood and not in adulthood, it seems to me that it is definitely environmental and affecting children at a pivotal point in their growth. If we could get doctors to embrace HEALING rather than TREATING SYMPTOMS with drugs, these kids would have a huge advantage, but until then, kids are going to keep getting sick and not get TRUE HEALING. I think this diet can be a pivotal roll in changing how we see autism if we could get more people on board with giving it a try and see if it heals their child's symptoms.
No, the fact that autism did not exist prior to the introduction of thimerisol is just that, a fact.
The claim that new diseases created by chemicals existed in the past but that our ancestors were too stupid to diagnose them is one of the most common lies developed by the companies responsible and the scientists on their payroll.
Another example is this. A number of babies were born in the 1950's with flippers instead of hands and feet. This also never happened before in human history. Do you think that our ancestors could not diagnose flippers instead of hands or feet? The condition was caused by a drug called thalidomide, and even the government admitted it. No thalidomide, no flippers. No vaccines, no autism.
Has anyone who hasn't been vaccinated ever been diagnosed with Autism?
Christina Waldman
Sure. Vaccines are not the only cause of autism, but I read somewhere they may be the cause of about ten percent of it (That may be conservative…). They now say don't give Tylenol with vaccines, or at all.
We live in a toxic world. Babies are born with already over 200 toxic chemicals in their cord blood, according to the Environmental Working Group's video "Ten Americans." According to Prof. Boyd Haley, the EPA and National Academy of Science both say 8-10% of American women have enough mercury in their bodies to give birth to a child with a neurological disorder. Mercury from dental amalgams is one cause. Just as with mercury, chemicals such as lead, fluoride, and aluminum from shots can interact synergistically.
Americans are not very healthy in general. Many don't eat right, and smoke or drink alcohol or soda pop all day or take drugs, including prescription drugs, or get vaccinated unnecessarily while they are pregnant (Dr. Russell Blaylock, neurologist, says vaccinating a pregnant woman is insane!).
Research suggests some of the invasive birth procedures like ultrasound, unnecessarily induced labor leading to too many C-sections, and overuse of antibiotics also contribute. It would seem that often Mother Nature really does know best.
Dr. McBride says all auto-immune diseases begin in the gut. So it would be important for all of us to heal our guts and detox as best we can and get healthy before having children. I am looking forward to having grandchildren one day. I sure hope they get this autism thing figured out before they come along. I agree that today they give too many shots, and too many at once, and too early to babies, compared to the few vaccines required 30 years ago. I am glad I found this website!
Sorry, but I need to jump back in here. I think it's more likely that people just didn't use the word "autism" to describe autistic-like disorders pre-1930s.
Treating people for various mental ailments, and classifying those mental ailments by their unique properties, is a pretty modern thing. Doesn't mean those people didn't exist before modern times.
That's not to say that autism hasn't grown dramatically, but to say that it did not exist is a bit of a stretch.
The doctors views on natural sekection disturb me, and they are just not true. They are frighteningly similar to views first held in Nazi Germany, though I am certainly not calling the doctor a Nazi. Many people,including myself, who have been ill, and would have died but for medicine, have become very healthy on a WAPF style diet. Now I never need to take medication. Not for 7 years.
Autism is caused by vaccines, period. There was no autism, none, anywhere in the world, until the 1930's, when thimerisol was introduced as a preservative for vaccines.
There was no autism in China,none,until American vaccines were introduced afew years ago. Now there are several million cases.
Dr. Meyer Eisenstein, in Chicago, whose physician group advocates against vaccines, has never seen a case of autism in an unvaccinated child, not one among the tens of thousands of children cared for by his group during the years.
Every vaccine contains toxic additives such as aluminumm formaldihyde, and most still contain thimerisol, even now. If the mercury contained in one dose of vaccines commonly given to children was spilled on the floor, the room and quite possibly the building would be evacuated.
Vaccines are death and disease.
I disagree that autism is caused by vaccines. I believe it is enhanced by vaccines. My son is 5 and had many autistic symptoms, which many of my friends attest to when comparing him to their diagnosed autistic children (I never got him tested as I didn't want the medical system involved). He was never vaccinated. My sisters daughter also displays similar symptoms and she was never vaccinated. I believe autism is a triggered thing, when the gut is not working properly, and when vaccinated, it is the straw that breaks the camels back and becomes uncontrollable. My son's autistic traits were there but manageable and he was highly intelligent but not "very bright" like 2D almost. I suspected this long before I read Dr Natasha's book. When I read her book, it confirmed what I already suspected, and after 4 months on GAPS, my son is a new person, whole, 3D and bright! He's interacting normally now, he doesn't have allergies, he doesn't have asthma, he no longer gets night terrors every night (AT ALL!!) All these things are HUGE for us and him. I believe vaccines are death and disease and wouldn't touch them with a 40foot barge pole either, but I believe the bigger picture is the state of the gut – the centre of the immune system – and THAT is what Dr McBride is all about – fixing the gut so the body can withstand this toxic world we live in. Because after all, we can't control what is in the air around us when we walk out our front door, but we CAN control what we put in our mouths and nourish our bodies with, what we put on our skin, and whether we help our bodies to endure the onslaught of toxins in our world.
Hi Lissi, my son is 6 now and i am looking into the GAPS diet for the same reasons as you have, would it be possible to connect? We live in CA. Thank you.Eva
There might not have been Autism but there was juvenile shizophrenia. We have vastly changed out definitions in the past decades.
Cara at health home and happiness has a daughter with autism who wasn't vaccinated. You shouldn't pull information out of your butt, you should do actual research and quote that.
There are many cases of autistic children who are unvaccinated and Dr Campbell McBride has treated them. If autism were caused by vaccines then there would be no cure. Since autism can be cured by re populating the gut with beneficial bacteria and starving the pathogens through the GAP diet then obviously that is what causes autism. Our gut bacteria chelate heavy metals and toxins that we are constantly ingesting, including those found in vaccines. If your microbiome is healthy you don't have to be paranoid of toxins. They are everywhere, in greater amounts than vaccines.
"In the pre-vaccine era, it was not uncommon for a family to lose one, two, or even more children to childhood infections like measle, mumps, rubella, pertussis and others. This is called the Law of Natural Selection, and it ensures that only the strongest survive to pass on genes to the next generation, thereby ensuring the ultimate survival of the species."
— It almost sounds like you're romanticizing the pre-vaccine era. My grandmother lost two young children in the 1930s and 40s to disease, and the pain of it was still very evident in her eyes when she told me about it 60+ years later. Furthermore, many people without strong, healthy bodies still contribute greatly to our society — hello Stephen Hawking!
I absolutely agree that we need to examine our vaccine-crazed culture, and love the idea of delayed schedules (or opting out if you so choose), but I also think it's a little ethically questionable to be applying the laws of natural selection to human beings.
I think if we're going to have an honest discussion about all this that we have to acknowledge a couple of things:
1) people who developed vaccines had VERY good intentions
2) no mother or father should have to experience watching their child die of a preventable disease
I think we can at least all agree on those things, yes?
The American Animal Hospital Association recommends that canines be vaccinated on an individual basis (http://www.aahanet.org/PublicDocuments/VaccineGuidelines06Revised.pdf). Why can't we do the same for our children?
Sarah, the Healthy Home Economist
Hi Sarah, Dr. Campbell-McBride does not distinguish between food allergies and other types of allergies such as hay fever. Allergies are allergies and any type of allergy indicates auto-immune issues.
Sarah S
When you speak of allergies are you talking about just food allergies or are you talking about hay fever?
I believe that it is toxin overload that is causing so many heartbreaking ailments. I have had a few conversations with a benefactor to a major medical research group. He was very excited about some of the research that was being done on detecting genetic vulnerability to certain diseases. He was thrilled at the idea that one day medical science could detect what diseases people had no natural ability to survive so they would only get those vaccines. When I asked him about safer vaccines he responded "the technology is close, but like everything else until the public demands it it won't happen." I believe that we as consumers need to demand few toxins in our food, our daily enviroments and our medical system. Until then, my accupuncturist is my primary healthcare provider.
Sarah, the Healthy Home Economist
I should also point out that when I saw Dr. Campbell-McBride MD speak at a Conference a few years ago, a question from the audience was posed that if she could do it all over again, would she vaccinate her own children? She answered that no, she would not do it if given the choice again. Not with single vials either.
I have no doubt that vaccines have been the 'straw that broke the camel's back' in some children who have developed autism and possibly other disorders. I am incredibly thankful that neither of mine did. I think it is a wonderful idea to do single vaccines at a time, and I plan to do that with my now 4 yr old son since he has some due. However, it is extremely, if not impossible to fine mumps, measles and rubella vaccines separated. My husband has an autoimmune disease(Crohn's) and both of my kids have had(daughter still does) food allergies. We are fortunate that it did not cause them any problems to have multiple shots in the past.
I think her idea of assessment of infants prior to vaccines is an excellent idea. I'm not sure if I believe they should never be vaccinated if found with a compromised immune system, but a delay would probably be a good idea.
Linda, Dr McBride's GAPS diet using nourishing foods to heal the gut lining and reestablish good gut bacteria can heal Crohn's disease as well as allergies. If you do vaccines, it's a good idea to make sure the gut is working efficiently, as it is the centre of the immune system and is the catalyst for things going wrong with vaccines, if not healthy. I don't vaccinate my children, but am 4 months into the GAPS diet and have healed my 5yr olds autistic symptoms, his asthma, his milk allergies, his rash around his mouth that he had constantly, and he is now so bright and "with it" I feel like I have a new boy! It is astounding what good nutrition and gut health does! Look into it for your husband's Crohn's and your daughter's food allergies. You won't look back! I read people stories for a yr and a half before we started doing it ourselves and all of the results are so wonderful!
Did the Intro Diet and made some changes, kinda sorta GAPS protocol and already the difference is AMAZING in both my toddlers and it's the only thing that has haelped my lupus and neurological issues.


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We have a gigabit network and at each desk there is one outlet and a computer and a voip phone. The Voip phones have a 10/100 switch in them and then the computer needs to plug into the phone therefore eliminating the gigabit speeds.
Is there a small/micro device I can simply plug into the wall switch and have the ethernet power the device and then it gives me 2 gigabit ports?
I can't even find 2 port gigabit switches in my searches. I am thinking they are called something else.


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Live in one of the most convenient apartments in Washington, DC and surround yourself with world-class cultural, recreational, shopping and entertainment opportunities. Located on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue, NW and 23rd St, NW and K ST, NW, 2400 Pennsylvania Avenue Apartments is just minutes away from George Washington University and Hospital, World Bank, IMF as well as the MetroRail.2400 Pennsylvania Avenue Apartments offers completely redecorated studio and one bedroom apartments that include a Rooftop Deck with Monumental Views and Wi-fi. Utilities and Reserved Parking, just to name a few, are some of the exclusive amenities we offer our residents.Relax on our rooftop deck, stroll through our historic community or enjoy a day out on the nearby Georgetown Waterfront. If you want to experience the perks of a wonderful apartment home in a convenient location, 2400 Pennsylvania Avenue Apartments is the place for you in Foggy Bottom, Washington, DC. You deserve the very best in a
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The entire north side of the building (facing Pennsylvania Avenue) - which is the side I live on - suffers fro Read Morem a lot of noise. A bar heavily frequented by students is just across the street, making the hours of 1:30 AM to 2:00 AM particularly loud, especially on weekends.
Additionally, a bus stop is just outside the building, and it sounds like the buses are inside my apartment when they pull up. I can hear the automated vocal announcements of the bus destinations. I thought this was just because I am on the 2nd floor, but a friend who lives on the 5th has the same complaints.
I'd recommend living in this building, but NOT on the north side. It's just too noisy here.
One last unrelated comment: the rooftop patio is nice, but it's also pretty loud as there are generators up there. Still, it's a nice spot to hang out on. My likes and dislikes are: The apartments are quite nice; so is the lobby. The staff are friendly and competent and respond to requests very well.
April 28, 2014
The building is old and all apartment doors are made from metal and are extremely loud when they slam. Also, a Read Morell windows need to be replaced with noise and air isolation windows. My likes and dislikes are: Great Location and Friendly Staff
April 23, 2014
Most maintenance fixes have been quick and efficient. However, one of our windows has been broken for months, Read Moresupposedly awaiting supplies. At first it was cold and drafty, but now it's hot and stuffy and we can't open it either way. It would be greatly appreciated if it could be taken care of at the earliest convenience, or if we could at least get an update on the progress. My likes and dislikes are: There is a nice communal and generally friendly feeling. Also clean and nice decorum is a plus and helps it feel "homey" :)
April 15, 2014
It's a decent place to live, especially for a student. But the quality of the units are average. Whoever paint Read Mores the apartment does not know how to stay in the lines. There were a couple of small stains on my carpet when I moved in that they weren't able to get out. Service is also average. When I asked them to steam clean my apartment upon renewal, they said no. Every other place I've lived in before said yes.
If you can get over the small things, it's comfortable enough to make your home.
November 26, 2013
Excellent staff and maintenance. been here for 2 years with no problems. The location is great but it tend to Read Morebe noisy due to ambulance sirens from GW hospital. every thing you may need is of walking distance, with easy access to public transportation; Foggy bottom metro station and bus stop are near by the building.
October 11, 2013
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Homes for Heroes encourages you to "celebrate the Royal Wedding and National Plumbers' Day by getting your royal throne in shape." Click here to see what we're talking about!
Today is Tax Day! Homes for Heroes is busy getting ready for next year. Check out this article we found about the tax benefits of home ownership.
Homes for Heroes Is One of the Top 500 Small Businesses Recognized For High Customer Engagement Rates in Email Marketing SAN FRANCISCO, April 13, 2011 – Today Homes for Heroes... read more →


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Saturday, 09 Nov 2013 08:57 AM
GENEVA — Barring a late breakthrough, talks between Iran and six world powers on Tehran's nuclear program were likely to end on Saturday without an agreement, but are expected to resume in a few weeks, Western diplomats said.
© Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Oh the gun world is shaking tonight!
Oh the gun world is shaking tonight!
The 28 gauge monstrosity:
Attachment 22837
The Shotgun Clone War's first soldier:
Attachment 22838
Isn't it a little early for April Fool's jokes?
Poor Smith and Wesson, they must be really desperate...
Yawn. More copying and "me too" products.:frown:
The only really innovative handgun I've seen is the Boberg XR9s...if it ever actually hits the market.
I actually like the looks of the judge better than the S&W clone. Still don't see myself buying either though.
I know a lot of people that would love to see S&W put out a decently priced .45ACP wheel gun. To bad they will have to settle for this boat anchor.
As others have indicated... 'If you can't innovate then imitate'. I can hardly wait to see what comes out of next weeks event.
No buckshot ammunition is currently available for the 28 gauge, however.
#5 Birshot is the largest shot size that I see that any ammo company is currently loading for it. #5 birdshot is only .12 caliber in size !
Taurus must be working with some ammo vendor to come out with some new self-defense loads in 28 gauge.
There are some funny comments in the link:
"Wow, I think they even managed to out-ugly the Judge. That's an accomplishment."
"OK, first we get Ruger "borrowing" their inspiration from Kel-Tec. Now we get S&W "borrowing" from Taurus. What's next Sig "borrowing from" High Point?"


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September 24, 20118:00 pm 1 Comments
These last few weeks, Morningside Heights has seen a few yet snazzy improvements.
Also, in front of the circulation desks in 300 Butler, 16 computers have been revamped with Microsoft Office Suite and Adobe Creative Suite. And look out for upgrades at the Digital Humanities Center (305 Butler), and three new Macs in the Music and Arts Library (701) Dodge.
April 08, 20111:30 pm 13 Comments
We all know that Morningside Heights contains a lot of good eats, but they haven't always been taken seriously. Bwog's Senior Foodie Diana Clarke reports that this is changing. Our beloved neck of the woods is finally getting the culinary recognition it truly deserves from city's blogosphere.
Click the Morningside Heights tag on the excellent food blog Serious Eats NY, and you'll find a mere 23 entries, 12 of them dating to 2009 or earlier. Compare that to the East Village, which has garnered over 40 posts since the beginning of 2011, and remember why people sometimes look at you funny when you tell them where you live. "Morningside what?" they ask. "Upper West Side," you reply.
But no longer must Morningside Heights cling futilely to the Upper West Side's culinary coattails, Zabar's be damned! Ed Levine and the folks at Serious Eats have been giving Morningside some serious attention lately. If you look at the post-2009 entries, you'll see that there are 6 posts from the last three months, which is exceedingly generous considering our modest pedigree and the fact that New York City is one of the most premiere culinary destinations on the planet.
April 01, 20112:47 pm 6 Comments
January 26, 20116:30 pm 48 Comments
You've heard of them. You may have seen them—pet them even. But to be certain, you have lived under their ever present shadow of doom. Bwog speaks of cats. And not just any cats, but the cats that live in the grocery stores, bars, and coffee shops of our dear neighborhood. You know you've spent hours in Butler looking at stupid cat pictures/videos, so read a little about the feline overlords of 10027.
Hungarian Cat
As indie as the average Hungarian customer, the Hungarian cat leads a life of quiet (and ironic) desperation. The cat is rumored to avoid phonies, and approaches only those who have read Pablo Neruda in the original Spanish. Better leave that Twilight and Shel Silverstein at home. This cat wants to hand roll a cigarette and talk some Nietzsche.
Milano Cat
The grey and skinny Milano cat is very friendly, but you must approach slowly and in plain sight. After living in a cramped shop with 4-6 giant gourmet sandwich makers, the cat is understandably very quick to get out of your way if you are walking towards it. The cat can usually be found peering out from behind the cheese section, but has been known to venture as far out as the bread roll case. (more…)
March 10, 20098:10 am 21 Comments
A concerned discount fancier has informed Bwog that Milano Market, Broadway's finest supplier of Italian cheeses and window bread porn, is no longer offering buy-ten-get-one-free cards. Apparently it was a managerial decision, one that Hamilton Deli will hopefully never ever ever make.
But don't think of it as all bad. Yes, you're losing a free sub or salad, but you're gaining the peace of mind that comes with not having to worry about another damn card in your wallet. The recession: relieving stress every day.
Tags: bread porn, capitalism, milano market, not free food
March 03, 200912:21 pm 3 Comments
| – Photo by JCD
No, the crime franchise isn't adding a musical (although it now has a UK spinoff). Rather, trailers for Law & Order SVU are outside Milano Market right now! Although neither Milano nor any of the other establishments along the block are closed for filming, fear not: parking notices indicate that the trailers will be there until 10 p.m.
September 23, 20084:44 pm 11 Comments
Exciting news concerning your Milano Market! Starting this Thursday, it will start accepting Flex Points.
According to a Milano cashier, the "exchange rate" will be 1:1 and all products will be Flex-friendly.
Tags: flex, milano market, off campus flex
November 12, 20069:31 am 14 Comments
Eagle-eyed Bwog Editor Jessica Cohen noticed this interesting sign in Milano.
Nothing like "freshly killed turkey" to stir the appetite!
Thanks to Sumaiya Ahmed for the photo!
Tags: milano market, thanksgiving, turkey
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Milwaukee Ballet brings 'Nutcracker' to life
Uihlein Hall was peppered with sparkly shoes and fluffy frocks for Saturday afternoon's opening of the Milwaukee Ballet's production of "The Nutcracker" - and that was just the little girls in the audience.
The production of "Nutcracker," directed and choreographed by Milwaukee Ballet artistic director Michael Pink, is a lavish, stage-filling spectacle that tells a classic story through a deft balance of child-pleasing action and elegant dance. »Read Full Article(2)
Street party at Burnhearts benefits Bay View neighborhoods
They'll be dancing in the streets from noon to 8 p.m. Saturday outside Burnhearts, 2599 S. Logan Ave. No worries: They've been doing this for six years. They've got it down. The idea is to raise funds for the Bay View Neighborhood Association.
Restaurants Honey Pie and Classic Slice will be selling food, and there will be an art and craft fair with goods from local artists, plus live screenpainting with Redwall. Braid, Mama Digdown's Brass Band and the Championship will provide the music. DJ WHY B will be on hand. »Read Full Article
Artists turn Fond du Lac Ave. into their canvas
In 1842, Johnsons Park was a farm where escaped slave Caroline Quarlls stayed, marking the start of the Underground Railroad in the area. A century after that pocket of the city harbored slaves seeking freedom, and a generation after homes in the neighborhood were razed to make way for a freeway, dislocation remains an ongoing issue for many living and working in and around a swath of Fond du Lac Ave., according to the organizers of a community-driven, yearlong public art project.
The public art initiative along 20 blocks of Fond du Lac Ave., between N. 17th and 37th streets, is designed to help Milwaukeeans rediscover this once vital artery and its history while engaging with artists and each other. »Read Full Article
Bonfire on the Beach lights up lakefront with music
Make a list: You'll need a beach towel, a swimsuit, maybe some flip-flops and a party attitude for Bonfire on the Beach.
It may be the opening week of Summerfest, but this party kicks off at 6 p.m. Thursday at Bradford Beach with music from De La Buena. The band plays until 7:30 p.m. when DJ Kid Millions takes the stage, followed by Kane Place Records from 9 to 10 p.m. Bonfire pits will allow party-goers to see each other and keep them warm if the temperatures drop. »Read Full Article
Good day for a swim? Check out our guide to area swimming spots
Now, this is what summer feels like.
With temperatures headed for the upper 80s — and the humidity not far behind — it should be a good day for a swim. »Read Full Article
Fond du Lac Ave. art project; flamenco guitar performance
Ties that bind
Fond du Lac Ave. ties Milwaukee's downtown to the northwest side of the city. And the In:Site temporary public art project to be on display along the avenue from 17th to 37th streets hopes to tie together the people of those neighborhoods and the rest of the city. "Art on Fond du Lac" features thought-provoking installations that put a spotlight on the area and the needs of the people who call it home. Included in the projects are a sculptural urban greenhouse by George Jones; a tribute to Mattiebelle Woods, the first lady of Milwaukee's black press; and a painting on the avenue itself (at its intersection with Locust St.) by Reggie Baylor. »Read Full Article


text: If you purchase early this year you will be locking in on the lowest rate in 3 years. Pass rates, if purchased now, will be at the early season rate from the 13-14 season. Download the application and mail or visit us this weekend between 11am and 2pm (Sat and Sun - May 14, 15).


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Around the Nation
Lost Duffel Bag Returned To World War II Vet
Nearly seven decades ago, a young soldier from Indiana left his green duffel bag on a French battlefield in World War Two.This week it was returned to William Kadar. A teenager in France had found it in his grandfather's house.
Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne.
Nearly seven decades ago, a young soldier from Indiana left his green duffel bag on a French battlefield in World War II. This week, William Kadar's granddaughter, also an Army veteran, presented him with the bag still stenciled with his name and serial number. A teenager in France had found it in his own grandfather's house. Kadar was captured by the Germans, and has said: It's a miracle I came home.
It's MORNING EDITION.
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Crescent Sausage and Potato Brunch Bake
Total Time
Prep 35 mins
Cook 45 mins
This makes a wonderful weekend brunch! Although I have 4 cups listed for the hash browns, you can really use any amount you wish, just make certain that it covers the bottom of the baking dish, when I make this dish, 4 cups seems to be the right amount, but you can increase it to 5 or 6 six cups, and also you can use as much sausage meat as you want, for this casserole the exact amounts do not really matter, but do use only one can crescent rolls for a 13x9-inch dish. If you are using Italian sausages in place of breakfast sausages, remove the meat from the casings first before browning.
Ingredients Nutrition
- 10 large eggs
- 1⁄3 cup half-and-half or 1⁄3 cup full-fat milk
- salt and pepper
- 1 (8 ounce) can refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
- 1⁄4 cup grated parmesan cheese (or to taste)
- 1 lb small pork sausage (you can use more if desired, and Italian sausages can be replaced for the breakfast sausages)
- 4 cups frozen hash browns (can use more)
- 5 green onions, chopped (can use more)
- 1 small green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
- 1 small red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
- 3 cups grated cheddar cheese (or to taste)
- 1⁄2 teaspoon paprika (or to taste)
- grated parmesan cheese
- Set oven to 350 degrees.
- Butter a 13 x 9-inch baking dish.
- In a skillet brown the pork sausages breaking up with a fork until browned and cooked; drain any fat and set aside.
- In the same skillet add in some butter and fry the hashbrowns with green onions and both bell peppers until tender.
- In a bowl whisk the eggs with 1/3 cup half and half, salt and pepper.
- Unroll the crescent rolls (do not separate at the perforations).
- Line the bottom of the baking dish with the crescent rolls stretching to fit at corners if necessary.
- Sprinkle with about 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese on top of the dough.
- Layer the cooked sausage over the dough.
- Sprinkle the potato/green onion mixture on top of the sausage meat.
- Then sprinkle the cheese over the potato/onion mixture.
- Pour the eggs over top.
- Lightly sprinkle paprika over the eggs.
- Then sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the top.
- Bake for about 45 minutes.
- Delicious!
Most Helpful
Was expecting to love this since we like everything in it and it had such great reviews, but it was just ok for us. Needed some seasoning or something.
Loved it! Made it as directed and both my hubby and daughter loved it! Will add it to my tried and true list!
It took a while to prep, but only because of the sausage. I only had pork links, so I cooked those and cut them into little "moons". A pound was too much meat, so I cut that in half. I also cooked 3 slices of Wrights bacon and cut those up to mix with the sausage. I think little ham cubes would also work well with this recipe too. Also, I salted and peppered the potatoes because that is where it was needed. I did put a little cajun seasoning in the eggs, which I used 8 instead of 10, as that is all my pan would hold. I omitted that bell peppers, as we do NOT like those. Next time, I am going to add some mushrooms into the eggs as well as 2 or 3 tablespoons of white onions into the potatoes when I sautee them. Overall, a great breakfast if you are willing to put some time and effort into cooking it. Tweak it how you like because you can't really go wrong. Thanks for the great recipe.


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The St. Augustine City Commission will meet at 4 p.m. today at City Hall, 75 King St. For more information, please call 825-1010.
ISSUE: Proposed Lincolnville Citizen Board
WHAT'S INVOLVED: The city's planning and zoning board and its historic architectural review board met recently to discuss the possibility of architectural guidelines for Lincolnville. Both boards by consensus agreed to recommend to the city commission that a citizen board be established to develop guidelines and make recommendations about possible zoning changes.
STATUS: Don Crichlow, planning and zoning board chairman, will make a presentation about this proposal.
ISSUE: Proposed ordinance on aggressive begging
WHAT'S INVOLVED: Based on the commission's discussion on Sept. 24, an ordinance on aggressive begging has been prepared. Among the defining characteristics of an aggressive manner in the ordinance are: approaching or speaking to a person or persons or following a person before, during or after soliciting or begging, if that conduct is likely to cause a person to fear bodily harm, be threatened into giving money or other thing of value, intentionally being touched or having physical conduct without a person's consent, blocking or interfering with the safe passage of any person or vehicle, or using violent or threatening gestures toward a person being solicited or begged.
The proposed ordinance says it is not intended to limit any person from exercising his or her Constitutional rights to solicit funds in a non-aggressive manner, picket, protest, perform or engage in any other Constitutionally protected activity unless it violates the ordinance.
STATUS: The proposed ordinance is on first reading Monday.
© 2016. All Rights Reserved. Contact Us


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NY Republican Won't Run Despite Cuomo Endorsement
New York State Senator Roy McDonald will not try making a third-party run after losing his Republican primary, at least in part because of his vote for marriage equality in the state.
The two-term incumbent announced the decision today after losing his primary by about 100 votes, or less than 1% of the vote, in the low turnout contest on September 13. Mark Grisanti and Stephen Saland, two other Republican senators who voted for the marriage equality legislation last year and ran for re-election, won their primaries, with Saland emerging victorious from a close race this week.
"Roy McDonald stood on the right side of history and voted with the best interest of all New York families at heart when he stood up to support marriage equality," said HRC President Chad Griffin.
After it appeared that McDonald had lost, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had already made an unprecedented cross-party endorsement Wednesday, sending a two-page letter to the senator that said it "would be my honor to stand with you" should the Republican lawmaker proceed as a third-party candidate after being narrowly defeated in a primary where his marriage equality vote played a role. But he opted against a chance to run on the Independence Party line. A new poll showed McDonald would win a three-way race this November.
McDonald appeared to lose to Saratoga County Clerk Kathy Marchione following a count of paper ballots this week. Marriage equality advocates and opponents had viewed the outcome as critical to their ongoing campaigns in other state legislatures, with donors including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer giving large sums of money to the Republican senators.
In the two-page letter first reported by The New York Times, the governor said he believed McDonald's vote for marriage equality was a "contributing factor" to his defeat, and he accepted "personal responsibility" for his strong advocacy, which included one-on-one lobbying of McDonald and the other senators. He bemoaned the outsized influence of "extremists" from both parties that he said paralyze the political process, which in his view works best when "we elect people of substance and integrity to exercise their best judgment." The Democratic governor is popular with independents and Republicans in New York.
"I believe one of the greatest challenges facing the integrity of the political system is the disproportionate power of the political extremists – on both sides of the aisle," he wrote. "I believe government inaction on many levels, and in particular legislative gridlock, is often attributable to fear of political reprisal from those extremists."
Cuomo told McDonald that while he did not "presume to understand your politics," he did believe that, "You should not be left to stand alone now."
Log Cabin Republicans in the state lamented the loss of McDonald but praised his legacy.
"History will remember you as a hero," said Gregory T. Angelo, state chairman of the Log Cabin Republicans of New York. "While we are disappointed that Senator McDonald has decided not to actively campaign this fall — especially in light of recent polling that suggested he would win in the general election — we understand that this was not an easy decision for the Senator, nor was it one that was reached without a great deal of thought and deliberation."
One of the chief factors McDonald had to consider was whether his candidacy would split the Republican vote with Marchione and allow Claverack town supervisor Robin Andrews, the Democratic nominee, to win. The Republican senate leadership, which has not yet expressed a preference in the general election, is seeking to maintain and grow its slim majority in the chamber, and the conventional wisdom is that a third-party bid from McDonald would have complicated those efforts.
A new poll released Thursday morning by New York Unity PAC, a group funded by Singer and other Republican-affiliated figures including Ken Mehlman, indicates that McDonald would have prevailed over the other two candidates if he had run on the Independence Party line in the Republican-leaning district. The PAC has spent more than $200,000 to support the Republican senators who voted for the marriage equality legislation. Leading LGBT advocacy groups including the Human Rights Campaign, Empire State Pride Agenda and Gill Action Fund, which were heavily involved in the campaign to pass the legislation, had expressed their intentions to stand by McDonald.
According to the poll, which was provided to The Advocate, McDonald was in a strong position to win regardless of ballot designation. If he runs on the Republican and Independence party line, he would receive 47% of the vote against 25% for Marchione on the Conservative line, with 17% for Andrews on the Democratic line. Running on the Independence line alone, he would receive 45% compared to 28% for Marchione on the Republican and Conservative lines, with 18% for Andrews.
"Not only did Mark Grisanti and Steve Saland win their primaries, but Senator McDonald is also well positioned to win in November," said Jeff Cook, senior advisor to New York Unity PAC, in a news release. "New York Unity PAC is fully committed to making the independent expenditure investments necessary to ensure all three Republicans are victorious."
The poll shows that McDonald, who has a 49% favorable rating compared to 30% for Marchione, performs well among Democrats, receiving almost 50% of the vote regardless of his ballot designation. Andrews is largely unknown among voters, according to the poll, with nearly 87% of respondents saying they are unaware of her. The poll showed that 76% of voters approve of Cuomo, which suggests that his endorsement of McDonald could be very helpful.
Voters in the poll overwhelmingly listed the economy and jobs as their top concern, with only 12% naming same-sex marriage as their most important concern. While some 58% said they want to keep the new marriage equality law in place, the issue elicited strong feelings, a sign that a McDonald candidacy could have emboldened groups such as the National Organization for Marriage. When asked to consider the law, almost 49% said they strongly wanted a candidate who favored keeping the law, while 25% strongly want a candidate who supports repealing the law. Some 47% of Republicans in the district want to keep the law while 38% want to repeal it.
"It is clear that the small percentage of voters who turned out in the primary were not representative of likely Republican voters generally," said the news release that accompanied the polling data.
The poll of 300 likely voters was conducted by the Voter / Consumer Research, the polling firm used by President George W. Bush and his 2004 presidential campaign. More than half of those surveyed were over age 55, with almost 73% identifying as either conservative or moderate.
One interesting factor is that a three-way contest would have pit McDonald, a proven Republican ally, against Andrews, a lesbian who married her partner last year. No openly lesbian woman has ever served in the New York state senate, but Andrews told the Times that she understood why Governor Cuomo and LGBT advocates would feel allegiance to McDonald.
"We all appreciate the vote that Roy cast," she said.


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Summer increases everyone's risk of heat stroke and sunburn, but there's another warm weather risk that often flies under the radar—kidney stones.
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