text:
On Sunday, the website WikiLeaks posted online more than 250,000 U.S. State Department documents. Many of the documents reveal secret information gathered by the U.S. State Department about world leaders and foreign governments. Other papers describe meetings that were held between U.S. and foreign officials. The U.S. government fears that the release of the documents could put American diplomatic efforts at risk. And, the documents' release could embarrass the United States and some world leaders who never imagined their conversations would be made public.
Sensitive Information
Newspapers and magazines around the world printed information contained in the WikiLeaks documents. They gave readers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the work done by the U.S. State Department. One document revealed that U.S. diplomats collected personal data about the United Nations secretary general, his team and other foreign diplomats.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is the U.S. Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is the chief American representative to foreign nations. On Monday, Secretary Clinton spoke out against the release of the secret documents. "It puts people's lives in danger, threatens our national security and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems," she told reporters at the State Department, in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. State Department has embassies in more than 190 countries. American diplomats work in these embassies. The State Department's mission is to promote U.S. interests around the world. The release of information contained in the documents could make it more difficult for U.S. officials to conduct business with foreign leaders.
What is WikiLeaks?
The unauthorized release of sensitive information to the public is known as a leak. WikiLeaks provides a place for people to leak information without saying who they are or how they got the information. According to the group's website, its goal "is to bring important news and information to the public." In October, the group leaked U.S. military documents about the Iraq war. Over the summer, it posted secret military documents about the war in Afghanistan. WikiLeaks was founded in 2007 by Julian Assange, of Australia.
The White House Responds
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs also spoke out against the WikiLeaks release. He said that the U.S. government is conducting a criminal investigation into how WikiLeaks obtained the documents. Gibbs also said that the U.S. government might take legal action against WikiLeaks. In the U.S. it is illegal to release secret government documents to the public.


text:
Pat Slimmer is one of the organizers for the Lawrence KS Art Car event and paradeArt Tougeau. He has been interested in all things mechanical and art from a very early age and built his first motorized bicycle when he was 12 years old. Slimmer has been a professional automotive mechanic since 1977 and has owned his own shop since 1993. He loves the art of mechanics. Slimmer has been building Art Cars for years.
"The Flying Saucer from Outer Space" was built in four months in 2005. The chassis is an early 60s Cushman industrial cart, he bent most of the metal of the tubing using a form made out of scrap 2×6 lumber. Slimmer also used a 55-gallon metal drum to bend the top ring. He built everything himself except for the Plexiglas bubble. The Saucer was an award winner at the Houston Art Car Parade in 2006.
Slimmer also builds Art Bikes and will bring a couple of tall bikes that he built for his sons to Maker Faire.
The Dodge Neon (Plastered) is a Mosaic of beer caps that was completed in a two-month period in 2006. It required 10 cases of silicone to glue the caps on.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
An Africentric School Will Teach the Community Too
Anthony Morgan | Posted 08.03.2012 | Canada Politics
Read More: Canadian Citizenship, Ghetto, Education Reform, Blacks in Canada, Urban Violence, Africentric Schools, Canadian Identity, Urban Crime, Youth Urban Violence, Rap Music, Tdsb, All Black School, Canada Politics News
There are many misconceptions about black Canadians and where they "belong." For this reason, I am a strong supporter of the Toronto District School Board's (TDSB) decision to open an Africentric high school for this coming September. What better institution than our public schools to dispel the widely held misconceptions that black people are inherently violent, criminal, loud, aggressive, hyper-sexed, unintelligent and lazy?


text:
Terrible episode, worse then reading some of the threads on this message boards.
I was reading some comments on Facebook, you're not the only one who hated last night's show.
The show's storyline should have ended when they "found" Sophia. Season 3 started promising, but went downhill fast and season 4 has been absolutely terrible. They better come up with some twists or this thing will come to an end pretty fast.
Lol not a great episode but the ending was good. And we all knew he was still a sicko.
All I can say is Holy **** about crazy Lizzie!


text:
Gallery responds to Comcare investigation
A Comcare investigator has concluded that there is no evidence to support allegations that information was deliberately withheld from him.
Mr Robert Wray was appointed by Comcare in December 2004 to investigate allegations that documents that could have influenced the findings of an earlier investigation had been concealed from him.
'The Gallery was pleased to receive Mr Wray's report and has decided in the interests of accountability and transparency to make it publicly accessible by posting it on its website nga.gov.au/OHS/WrayReport, Deputy Director, Alan Froud said today.
Mr Wray's report includes two recommendations. The first requests Comcare to conduct a review to assess if recommendations made in Mr Wray's earlier investigation have been fully implemented. The second seeks another expert opinion on the possible association of security staff cancer illnesses with the Gallery environment.
'The Gallery has been actively implementing the recommendations of Mr Wray's first report. A steering committee comprising representatives of Comcare and the Union representing the staff, and the Gallery are all participating in this process,' Mr Froud said.
The Gallery has confidence in a report by Health Services Australia, which found no link between the Gallery's working environment and the incidence of cancer among security staff. However, it would seek a second expert opinion as recommended by Mr Wray in order to allay any possible lingering concerns about the state of health and safety in the Gallery, he said.
Mr Froud said that he noted that Mr Wray also speculated on the state of the building in the mid-1990s. This was despite the absence of supporting evidence. He said in recent years the Gallery had undertaken an extensive refurbishment of its air conditioning systems and would continue its long established practice of testing air quality to ensure the environment was safe.
For further information Ken Begg 0412 174 319


text:
Casa Zahoja
Inside the villa there are high ceilings and marble floors throughout. The kitchen is fully fitted with everything you would expect to find in a modern kitchen, including a dishwasher.
The lounge has comfortable settees and a Flat screen TV with DVD player and Wii. There is satellite TV with limited English language channels.
The master bedroom has built in double wardrobes with plenty of room, a large Tv with some English channels and a DVD player. The master ensuite bathroom has a shower over bath.
The twin bedroom has two single beds and again double built in wardrobes and a small TV with DVD player. There is a separate family shower-room with walk-in shower.
There is a covered al-fresco dining area which has a large marble table with traditional Canarian seating and this is fully lit. There is a BBQ for outdoor cooking.
The garden is fully walled. Casa Zahoja also provide free WiFi.
La Goleta is very close to Faro Park, and as such is in walking distance of all the bars, restaurants and shops there.
Shangrila Park complex is adjacent, and has a small mini-market where you can by amongst other things, fresh bread baked on the premises 4 times a day, just 3 minutes walk away.
La Goleta differs in that it has its own large communal swimming pool as a centrepiece. More often than not, you will only see Seagulls paddling in it. Most of the villas have their own pools too; others have the luxury of a spa.
The gardens are mature and green; the grounds are well lit and kept. A spacious feel is conveyed, although you will have your own private garden and gate. The lighthouse is in view, and in the dark, it's comforting light swathes the villas in a hypnotic beam. Some villas have roof terraces, which allow excellent views of the sea.
Behind La Goleta is the incredible Montana Roja. You can take a walk up the mountain easily, and marvel at the crater below, gaze around and you will see most of Playa Blanca from above. Make sure you take water and sun tan lotion the nearly extinct Houbarra bird is probably the only thing you will see. If you don't want to drive into Playa Blanca, the bus stop is not too far away, and taxis arrive quickly once called.
La Goleta is a very quiet, pretty community with a mix of residents and holidaymakers. A super place to stay and venture to and from.
|P Holland
|Mar 2014
|Booking with Lanzarote Lates excellent as always. The cleanliness and presentation was very good.
|Ellen Rodenrys
|Feb 2014
|Very good
|Sharon Kybe
|Feb 2014
|The cleanliness and presentation were good and the villa met our expectations very well.
|Clauida Riediger
|Nov 2013
|The villa was perfectly clean on arrival. It is a superb place, cosy and comfortable and met our expectations. We enjoyed our stay completely.
|Sharon Martin
|Dec 2012
|The villa was everything I expected and more
|J Dann
|Nov 2012
|Very good
|Adam & Louise Foot
|Aug 2012
|Lovely presentation and very clean. The roof terrace was a nice extra. We had a lovely stay and would recommend to anyone.
|Lesley & Dick
|Jul 2012
The villa was very well presented and clean. As always we had a lovely holiday in this villa. Love the new outdoor furniture.
|M Kubisz
|Apr 2012
|10 out of 10
|P. Trweeke
|Apr 2012
|We had a lovely holiday....thank you!
|Toni Grey
|Apr 2012
|Cleanliness was good and we received an excellent service from the team.
|Rachel Mellor
|Mar 2012
|The villa was perfectly presented and very clean on arrival. The welcome pack was unexpected and very useful. The villa had everything we need and is very comfortable. The MVP team were very friendly. We hope to book again for next year. We found everything to be perfect, no faults, no complaints!
|Len Deighton
|Mar 2012
|Cleanliness on arrival was excellent and the service from MVP was 1s class, as always.
|Damian, Georgie & Ellis Sherrard
|Feb 2012
Thanks ever so much for all the toys you left for us at Casa Zahoja, they were brilliant and really helped to keep Ellis amused. He loved the pool and playing with the beach toys in the pool was just about his favourite thing to do, although he also loved the car/truck toys which he loved playing with on the tiled floors.
We had a lovely time and were delighted with the villa. We will certainly recommend Lazarote Lates to anyone we know who considers a villa holiday in Lanzarote.
Thanks again!
|Stefen & Linda
|Feb 2012
|The villa was very nice
|Damian Sherrard
|Feb 2012
|The cleanliness & presentation were both very good. The villa exceeded our expectations. It's a lovely villa with a fantastic pool. Thank you so much for the baby toys - our son loved them.
|Andy Webb
|Dec 2011
|Excellent, thanks!
|Mr Ireson
|Nov 2011
|Upon arrival the villa was excellent, we liked the welcome pack & music playing - nice touch!
|Andy Webb & Family
|Oct 2011
Email received upon Guests return to the UK:
Hi Angela and Marie,
Back in the UK , just getting sorted out , thought i would send you a quick email to say thanks for everything and to let you know we had a great time .
The villa was great thanks
Hope to see you in 2012, will be in touch after Xmas
|Nick Taylor
|Oct 2011
|The villa was excellent, exactly what we expected.
|John & Kath Pennington
|Sep 2011
Angela & Marie were very helpful and good humoured. There was plenty of information given and it was a quick and easy booking process. The villa was clean and tidy on arrival and all that we wanted. The music centre with the iPod doc was very much appreciated. The MVP team are friendly and efficient. We would definitely return - the villa is private, quiet and has everything we need.
|Tim Travis
|Aug 2011
|Booking online with Lanzarote Lates was quick and easy. We found the villa very good. We contacted the MVP office after our 4 year old locked us out of the villa and they sorted it very quickly! They provide an excellent service. We probably won't be back as we like to explore new places.
|B Bradley
|Jun 2011
|It was very clean thank you and we liked the villa very much, a few minor repairs were dealt with promptly and we would return
|Jemma Robinson
|Apr 2011
|We found the booking with Lanzarote Lates very good, they are responsive and helpful. We were impressed on arrival, spacious, lovely pool, lovely area, great facilities, MVP management were good, very helpful.
|Andy Webb
|Oct 2010
|The booking process was excellent as usual (this is our 10th booking with Lanzarote Lates!) The presentation was 1st class!
|Tracey O'Regan
|Oct 2010
|Casa Zahoja was excellent - as expected and a bit more! The MVP team were brilliant.
|Julie Pearson
|Sep 2010
I just want to say a very big thank you for all your help regarding our flight home to Bournemouth with Ryanair last Wednesday. Your efficiency and kindness ensured we were able to fully enjoy the last couple of days of our holiday without worrying about our checked-in baggage (two bicycles and a tempur travel set). When we arrived at the airport most of the passengers only had carry on bags and had had to leave their belongings behind, some people had given their clothes away and some had just thrown them away. Apparently because Ryanair gave passengers the choice of changing their flight or having their money back they had no obligation to get passengers' baggage home. We were very lucky as the pickets had just left the airport when we arrived so our baggage was loaded onto the plane. I would also like to say how brilliant Dave was in monitoring and cleaning our pool after the timer switch for the pump failed. He was a delight to have around, he was always professional, friendly and told us so much about life in lanzarote. We would also like to say how great the cleaners were, again very professional, friendly and kind. Again, thank you for the best customer service I think we have ever received.
|Richard & Julie Pearson
|Sep 2010
|The villa was excellent and totally exceeded our expectations. The MVP team were so friendly and professional.
|James Cox
|Aug 2010
The villa was excellent and more than met our expectations! The team are lovely and friendly people.
|The Baten Family
|Jul 2010
|The villa was perfect! It was really clean and well presented.
|Dave, Debbie & Tom Wilde
|Jun 2010
|The cleanliness and presentation was immaculate
|Rob Sutton
|Feb 2010
|The booking was very smooth - Marie was exceptional! The villa was spotlessly clean and surpassed our expectations. MVP were excellent and provided a friendly service. Would we consider returning - A great big YES!
|Rob Sutton
|Jan 2010
Hi Marie,
Thanks for a wonderful stay at Casa Zahoja.
Property fabulous, immaculately presented and spotlessly clean.
Thanks for your friendly, professional and seamless service.
Tell Angie that we met her lovely Mum as we left on Thursday morning.
Look forward to doing business with you again in the future,
With Kind Regards,
Rob & Di Sutton & Eileen Hopkins.
|Andy Webb
|Nov 2009
|We have used Lanzarote Lates on many occasions and the booking with Angela was excellent. Casa Zahoja was excellent as were the MVP Team as always.
|Gordon Glen
|Oct 2009
|We booked Casa Zahoja for the pictures and the video on the website. Upon arrival the cleanliness and presentation was perfect. MVP were excellent, thanks for the extra time on departure and for emailing Canal Travel.
|Jenny & Paul Jackson
|Jul 2009
The booking was Marie was a very easy process. We booked Casa Zahoja for the seclusion and after seeing the 360 virtual tour. Upon arrival the villa was very nice and clean. The team were friendly and helpful.
|Clare Marriot & Gary Brown
|Jun 2009
|The booking process and information was excellent. We had stayed in one of these villas before but this was a good price and had a roof terrace. Thank you for a FAB holiday!
|Clare & Stewart McNeill
|Apr 2009
The villa was very clean and comfortable. We received an excellent service from the team, they were very friendly and helpful. We would absolutely return!
|Jan & Jeannette
|Mar 2009
Perfect and beyond!
|Helen Bourke
|Feb 2009
The villa is excellent- spacious and comfortable.
|R Rigby
|Feb 2009
Casa Zahoja was very clean and well presented. The villa was welcoming when we arrived, welcome pack etc. Pool cleaned and towels changed.
|Graham Scott
|Dec 2008
The booking team were easy and helpful. The cleanliness and presentation was excellent - the best I have ever seen. It met our expectations in every way. The team are first class. It would be very difficult to improve on excellence.
|Glen & Isobel Tunstall
|Nov 2008
We booked Casa Zahoja on a recommendation from Angie. The villa was presented well and cleaned on arrival and exceeded our expectations. The clean towels half way through the week were unexpected but very nice! The pool man and gardener were very friendly. Overall we have had a fantastic stay in this lovely villa and have been very impressed - thank you!
|Pedersen Family
|Aug 2008
We booked via Angie which was excellent - as usual. We have been to this villa before and everything was fine. The team were good.
|Lesley-Anne Dick
|Jul 2008
Booked with Marie, excellent. We have been twice before and Casa Zahoja is a great child-friendly, home from home. The villa was cleaned and presented very well. We received a friendly service from pool cleaner and villa cleaner. We have had a fantastic 4 weeks in this very child friendly villa. It had everything needed for our family to have a relaxing stay.
|Carole Cotton
|May 2008
We booked for the price and location, the directions were satisfactory, the cleanliness was good, the villa was better than expected.
|Mr & Mrs Joe & Pinky Taylor
|Apr 2008
Thanks so much for all the preparation for our honeymoon - your team gave us a honeymoon we will remember forever! The villa was absolutely excellent, exceeded our expectations and we hardly noticed the servicing team were there as they were so quiet. Thorough cleaning. Totally Perfect xxx
|Mrs L Martin
|Mar 2008
Booking online was good and easy, as was getting to the villa and the spot on instructions we were given. The villa had great appeal because of its heated pool and the lovely, 'home away from home' feel it had. The villa met all of our expectations and was very good. The service we received from MVP was equally very good.
|Paul Taylor
|Feb 2008
The booking process was very good, the villa looked nice and it was in an area that we wanted. Directions and instructions provided were very good, so was the presentation of the villa, because all areas were covered the villa met our expectations. The pool cleaner was a friendly bloke so we have no complaints regarding the MVP team.
|Harrison family
|Feb 2008
It was great to have a heated swimming pool, a lovely roof terrace and a bbq all in a villa that had a great size and was in a nice quiet location. Inside the villa was excellent; in fact it surpassed all of our expectations-which is always a good sign! The MVP team were also all very good and very helpful.
|Sandra Ford
|Sep 2007
We dealt with Angie and she was very good, we booked for the fact it had a roof terrace and also presentation looked nice on the internet. It was very clean and very nice. Thank you.
|Mark and Sam Danks
|Mar 2007
We enjoyed our stay, we would not return but only because we want to go elsewhere we would recommend the villa to others!
|Janet Bennett
|Oct 2006
We own Villa Eireann but let family stay there and booked this one. We were very happy with the villa and the service was excellent as always very professional. Can´t wait to return or recommend to family and friends when we come in a group (both villas)
|Phil Cooper
|Aug 2006
Lanzarotelates.com provided good information, the villa was excellent, we would definitely return.
|Lesley Anne-Dick
|Jul 2006
This was our 2nd visit, this time for 3 weeks. It was beautiful, loved having flowers and chocolate éclairs! Everyone was very friendly and helpful. This is a beautiful villa in a great location; we had a brilliant, relaxing holiday. July 2006
|Nicholls Family
|Jul 2006
The villa was extremely well presented and clean, Angie & team were very efficient and helpful, surpassed all expectations, we loved everything. Thanks for putting up with all our silly emails and phone call, it has been worth every penny, we loved it here and will be in touch again next year. Love to you all!
|Mike Thorn
|Jun 2006
hi angie and lee once again our holiday is over and for me its back to sanity as i have the house to myself today. The family enjoyed our stay in both villa la colina and casa zahoja both were as expected first class! It was great to meet you all again and i thank you all for making this a great holiday once again. When i sort out dates for 2007 i will contact you, regards Michael + family
|Alan Dinsdale
|Apr 2006
Very good directions, even easy to find at , the villa was very clean and tidy, Montana Pools rep friendly and helpful, even allowed us to vacate at . The perfected location for our stay.
|Sue Withall
|Aug 2005
The villa was absolutely wonderful. We had not done a villa holiday before as was unsure about what to expect - well it exceeded all expectations! Thanks for all the help in booking the holiday and I will gladly recommend you to anyone. Thanks again.
|Lesley-Anne Dick
|Jul 2005
Everyone was very friendly and helpful. We received very good information from Montaña Villas and Pools. The villa had everything you could possibly need! Thanks for a great holiday!
|Aine Cregan
|Jan 2005
Angie, Just back and ensconced at my desk in a very grey
Flights: Flights available
Walking distances: Resort centre 45 min walk or more, Beach 30-40 min walk , Childrens play area 5 min walk Located within the neighbouring Shangrila Park, Internet cafe or terminal 15-20 min walk , Seafront promenade 30-40 min walk , Shop 5 mins walk Located within the neighbouring Shangrila Park, Taxi 15-20 min walk , Car not essential - bus service in area
Bathrooms: Family bathroom with shower over , Family shower-room
Bedrooms: Master bedroom with double bed, Zbed , Twin bedroom with - two single beds
Kitchen facilities: Coffee Maker or Caffertiere , Dishwasher, Hob, Iron and ironing board, Kettle, Microwave, Oven, Washing machine
Baby and Toddler equipment: High Chair, Travel Cot
Swimming Pool : Grab rail, Communal pool This villa has a private pool and use of a communal pool , Pool cover, Private Pool electrically heated
Outside facilities: Seaviews , Wheelchair friendly - ie. no steps, BBQ, Reasonable privacy, Shade - pergola, Some private areas, Sun-loungers, Walled and gated garden area, Mountain views, Off road parking , Roof terrace
Villa Management: Elite Villa Management
|Up to 5% discount for holidays taken between 10 May 2017 and 01 Jul 2017
|Per property 7 nights *
|Quoted in
|Approximate equivalent in
|1 May - 12 Jul 2017
|13 Jul - 6 Sep 2017
|7 Sep - 11 Oct 2017
|12 Oct - 31 Oct 2017
|1 Nov - 13 Dec 2017
|14 Dec 2017 - 3 Jan 2018


text:
Comfortable and Cozy Apartment
Size81 m²
Floor No.2
- Internet/WiFi
- Towels
- Family/child friendly
- Kitchen
- Washer/dryer
- Dishwasher
- Lockable room
Accommodation summary
|Vlkova, 13000 Prague, Czech Republic
|Property type
|Property ID
|Acceptance rate
|Response time
|A few hours
|Calendar updated
thank you for your interest in my living, I glad that you stopped by at my listing.
Welcome to this newly reconstructed flat in typical Prague department called Zizkov. It uses to be a working-class neighborhood, anyway now it is mix of very posh reconstructed buildings, cool art and music places and old settlers living with there typical czech atmosphere and pubs. Everybody finds his own enjoyment.
The flat consist of three rooms with total size of 81 m2, fully equipped kitchen, bathroom and WC. First room is facing to the very calm and green courtyard, second one is facing to the street anyway it is very quite place. All the rooms with the living room as equipped for very comfortable nights. "My beds" are composed of machined pallets and very comfortable health mattresses with summer and winter size. There is a mysterious surprise during the evening under the beds...
Linen for beds are provided, keys too and there is high speed internet connection in the flat with WiFi. The flat has got very easy access from train and bus station and airport. Walking distance to the city center is 10-15min., depends on how tired you will be :-) There is a easy and quick access to the city center by public transport too.
There is a lot of restaurants and bars at Zizkov department where you can spend a nice time. At the other hand the street is very quiet and safe.
For accommodated visitors I have prepared maps and points of interest from Prague and surroundings, also I am sending g map where you can find in Prague interesting places, bars, city views, where advantageous to change money, etc.
During your stay I am available personally, by mail or by phone to help you with anything during your stay.
Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Still reasonably cheap and safe to travel. No matter if you are going just for a short break or for longer - there's so much to see and do. There's something magic about that city. We don't know if it is Franz Kafka who's attracting many Jewish to see Old Synagogue. We don't know if it is view from famous cafe Slavia over river and castle where former president used to go.
House rulesPlease, contact me and check availability before booking.
Home rules:
1/ leave the flat as clean as it was before your arrival. I am not charging you cleaning fee. If you decide to not clean the flat at all, please leave 10EUR for the cleaning lady and I will add another 5EUR (I am giving this job to old ladies or single mothers only to get better their financial situation). I have a good experience so far with that.
2/ To protect the wooden floor, please, take off your shoes and use the slippers next to entrance or yours and please, do not pull the heavy luggages across the wooden floor. Keep in mind that Wimdu do not provide insurance, all demages/loses will be charged.
3/ It is strictly forbidden to smoke at any part of the flat, balcony (if there is any), coridor and main entrance of the building. Security and neighborhood reason
4/ Please, do not be loud at the flat, corridor/hall of the building as there are living other people too.
Thank you, Jakub :-)
|Price for > 1 guests
|£ 9 per guest/night extra
|Check-in After
|On arrangement
|Check-in before
|On arrangement
|Check-out Before
|On arrangement
|Cancellation Policy
Reviews of this property
We enjoyed our stay There. It was very clean and comfortable and calm. It is the peferct place if you want to explore prague. If you are many people just keep tab on the warm water otherwise some have to take a cold shower.
Jakub is charming and informative and easy stay. The apartment is very well and is in a quiet area. The furniture is basic and we miss a television, but to know Prague and return to rest after spending all day out there is enough. To access the center is better to use the tram, because walking is necessary to surround the train station and quite turns.
Jakub es encantador y te informa y facilita la estancia. El apartamento está muy bien y está en una zona tranquila. El mobiliario es básico y se echa de menos una televisión, pero para conocer Praga y volver a descansar tras estar todo el día por ahí es suficiente. Para acceder al centro es mejor utilizar el tranvía, porque andando hay que rodear la estación de tren y se da bastante vuelta.
Jakubs Apartment was clean and comfortable. Our stay was great! Also, Jakub was very friendly and helpful! I only can recommend the apartments. Furthermore, the price-performance ratio is fantastic!
I stayed here with three friends for three nights. The apartment is large and clean, with everything you could need, even for more than a few days in Prague. Very easy to get anywhere in the city from the apartment with public transport.
Jakub was fast in responding to our messages and gave us a lot of useful information about the city and places to go to. Highly recommended!
Trank you for giving us such a cosy and live flat with its own character. Everything was so uncomplicated and we had a welcome home feeling from the very beginning. We also liked the self made furniture and the charme of the flat very much. It was super clean, renovated bathroom and a comfortable Environment-hope to see you soon jakube!
The owner very nice, the apartment just renovated, spacious, minimalist-chic equipped, maybe a tuck too much minimalism: bedside lamps would not be bad. the area is very quiet, but you can work out well.
Der Vermieter sehr nett, die Wohnung gerade renoviert, geräumig, minimalistisch-chic ausgestattet, vielleicht ein tuck zu viel minimalismus: nachttischlampen wären nicht schlecht. die gegend ist sehr ruhig, aber man kann gut ausgehen.
- Quality assured accommodation
- Every host is verified by telephone
- Secure payment via SSL encryption


text:
Sagrada Família Apartment (Dolce)
Size90 m²
Floor No.(with elevator)
- Family/child friendly
- Internet/WiFi
- Kitchen
- Air conditioning
- Washer/dryer
- Elevator in building
- Balcony/terrace
Accommodation summary
|Independencia, 08041 Barcelona, Spain
|Property type
|Property ID
|Acceptance rate
|Response time
|A few hours
|Calendar updated
|2 days ago
Situated in the Eixample District, this well-equipped apartment is a 5-minute walk from the Sagrada Família Church. Casa Milà House and Casa Batlló House are both 20 minutes' away by metro.
This spacious apartment boasts a balcony where guests can sip wine and enjoy the bustle of the streets below. A double bedroom and 2 single bedrooms are brightly decorated. The living room receives plenty of natural light and is a pleasant space for guests to enjoy meals, watch TV or listen to music.
Catch a show at the Palau de la Música Catalana Concert Hall which can be reached in 20 minutes' via Barcelona Metro. Stretching from La Rambla Street to Via Laietana Street, the Gothic Quarter is 25 minutes' away via Barcelona Metro.
The apartment is well-situated amongst public transportation lines which link guests to all corners of the city and to coastal areas. Many restaurants, bars and shops are also located nearby.
House rulesDeposit: € 150 (to be refunded upon departure if the apartment is in good condition).
Arrival between 22h and 24h have a supplement of 30 €. Arrivals after 24h have a supplement of 50 €.
Barcelona tourist rate is € 0.70 per person / per night for up to 7 nights, not included in the price. Young people under 17 years free.
|Check-in after
|Check-in before
|On arrangement
|Check-out before
|Cancellation Policy
Reviews of this property
We had a great time in Barcelona, the apartment is cozy, with a little more dinner will be better (bowls or mugs for tea ...)
Our host was very nice, the city is beautiful and the apartment is conveniently located between 2 metro stations on line 5.
We will leave one day for sure.
Thank you to Mr Angel.
Nous avons passé un excellent séjour à Barcelone, l'appartement est confortable, avec un peu plus de vaisselles se serai mieux ( bols ou mugs pour le thé...)
Notre hôte est très sympa, la ville est magnifique et l'appartement est bien situé entre 2 stations de métro de la ligne 5.
Nous repartirons un jour c'est sûr.
Merci encore à Mr Angel.
The apartment is quite nice, conveniently located, very close to a metro station. It is also within walking distance from the Sagrada Familia. There is a supermarket round the corner and restaurants within close reach.
We found the apartment generally very neat and clean with adequate space for the four of us, two adults and two kids. The apartment has all basic facilities that one needs for a pleasant holiday. There is air-condition in the living room which was very helpful! The internet connection (wireless) also worked fine.
So we had a very pleasant stay. We would certainly recommend the apartment to others.
There are 2 aspects though where there is scope for improvement:
1) Cooking in the apartment is not a good idea as the number of utensils in the kitchen is inadequate. Moreover there is hardly any table space for chopping things or doing other preparation.
2) We experienced that the thermostat in the shower with the glass door in the nicer looking bathroom (with the cupboard) did not work properly. In addition the water outlet seemed to be clogged. So one had to stop the water flow during the shower a number of times and then continue with the shower. That was definitely, to say the least, not very convenient.
But we are sure that the drawbacks could easily be fixed by the owner soon.
We had a great four days in the flat.
the apartment was very clean and very well flagstone streets.
A subway station is 3 minutes walk to reach.
The handover was unproblematic and fishing was very nice.
When I am back in Barcelona, I would stay here again
Es ist alles super gelaufen. Wir haben das bekommen, was wir gebucht haben. Der Mitarbeiter, der die Schlüssel uns übergeben hat, war auch freundlich und konnte unsere letzten fragen vor Ort klären. Im großen und ganzen waren wir zufrieden.
Se trata de un piso excelente.Bien situado, al lado de una estación del metro.Limpio,bien cuidado.Las imagenes del apartamento no alcanzan a valorarlo adecuadamente.Resulta mejor al verlo en directo.
La recepcion y trato con los responsables del chek in muy bueno. en definitiva que yo lo recomiendo sin dudas.
Goed appartement , goede prijs kwaliteit verhouding. Ligt heel dicht bij het openbaar vervoer . Supermarkt om de hoek is uitstekend , echt hele mooie producten te vinden. Appartement uitgerust met alle voorzieningen . 1 minpunt om aan te merken : de kleine douche wordt niet goed warm . Voor de rest is alles netjes , genoeg ruimte om in te leven . Wij hebben een hele goede vakantie hier gehad !
Reviews for this host's other properties
Very nice apartment, complete, good bathroom, very well located. Nice neighborhood.
Never seen an apartment with so many cabinets and drawers!
The host cancelled the booking, this review is automated.
Very good
Sehr gut
- Quality assured accommodation
- Every host is verified by telephone
- Secure payment via SSL encryption


text:
Code debt refers to the code clutter and required system maintenance accumulated over time during software development, especially when done in haste. The time required to clean up clutter and perform maintenance accrues as the development progresses, like interest on a regular debt, and must be paid down at some point to keep the project healthy.
We've been developing this open source project for a year, but with all the TODOs and commented out code, we probably have another years worth work to pay down the code debt!
by TheGremlyn May 04, 2011


text: Today is the 22nd so we have about 2 months left before the end of the world......any plans? Actually, just ran across this clip and thought it was kind of funny. This guy is pretty entertaining. I've seen him do a bunch of stuff like this and he always makes it pretty fun to watch. [youtube]QJjQMwEjC1I[/youtube]


text:
A red-painted Launch Umbilical Tower (LUT) was the Saturn V rocket's constant companion from the moment technicians lowered the rocket's 138-foot-tall S-IC first stage into place beside it within a Vertical Assembly Building (VAB) high bay until shortly after the the S-IC's engines ignited on one of the twin Launch Complex (LC) 39 pads. The nine servicing arms linking the 398-foot-tall LUT to the 363-foot-tall Saturn V would retract or swing out of the way; then, between 1.4 and 9.4 seconds after liftoff, the rocket would perform a LUT clearance yaw maneuver, its five F-1 engines bathing the launch pad in flame. After that, the LUT would stand alone, awaiting transport back to the VAB and the arrival of a new Saturn V.
By late 1969, with the Apollo 11 and 12 lunar landing missions successfully accomplished, it had become clear that only a few more Saturn V rockets would depart LC 39 for the moon. The $25-billion Apollo Program had achieved its goal of humbling the Soviet Union, and many outside of space industry and the fledgling planetary science community saw little cause to continue it.
Meanwhile, NASA Administrator Thomas Paine aspired to replace the moon program with a large Earth-orbiting space station (a "Space Base") serviced by a fully reusable crew rotation and logistics resupply spacecraft (a "Space Shuttle"). By the beginning of the 1980s these would, it was hoped, become elements in an Integrated Program Plan that would lead to a manned lunar base and men on Mars.
The Nixon White House would have none of it, however. By the time Congress passed the $3.75-billion Fiscal Year 1970 NASA budget – the lowest since 1962, the first year of the Apollo build-up – space planners had begun to look for tactics that they could use to achieve ambitious goals while spreading out costs. One of these was "series development."
As applied to the Space Shuttle, series development could occur in either of two ways. First, the Space Shuttle's fully reusable manned Booster could be developed and brought into service, then work could begin on its fully reusable manned Orbiter. Until the Orbiter became available, the suborbital Booster would lift off from Cape Kennedy, Florida, carrying an expendable upper stage based on an existing stage design (perhaps the Saturn V S-IVB third stage) and an unmanned payload. The upper stage would ignite high over the Atlantic, boosting the payload to Earth orbit and beyond. The astronauts, meanwhile, would pilot the Booster back to Cape Kennedy, where it would be refurbished and flown again.
More attractive to planners who were eager to see astronauts continue to fly into orbit (that is, almost all of them) was development of the Shuttle Orbiter followed by development of the Booster. In this "Orbiter first" scenario, an expendable Saturn V S-IC first stage would stand in for the Booster during early Shuttle flights.
On the last day of 1969, C. Eley, an engineer with Bellcomm, NASA's Washington, DC-based planning contractor, published a memorandum in which he examined how the Orbiter/S-IC combination might be serviced and launched using a LUT "without extensive modifications." Eley assumed that the S-IC would fly virtually unmodified (apart from a 10-foot-long streamlined shroud linking its dome-shaped top to the Orbiter's tail) and that the Orbiter would measure 183 feet long. This would make the combination 331 feet tall, or 32 feet shorter than the Saturn V.
Eley found that LUT servicing arms 1, 2, 4, 8, and 9 would remain useful. He recommended that arms 3, 5, 6, and 7 be removed and stored to prevent them from becoming damaged (implying, perhaps, that the LUT might be restored to its original form and purpose – that is, to launch Saturn V rockets – at a later date). Arms 1 and 2, which would service the S-IC, would remain completely unchanged.
All Orbiter servicing – for example, propellants loading – would occur via arm 4, close by the Orbiter's tail. Arm 8 would provide services – for example, cooling – to the payload in the Orbiter's cargo bay, but would not enable access to the payload because the orbiter's back, where the bay doors would be located, would face away from the LUT on the pad. Ealy assumed that the Mobile Servicing Structure used on the launch pad to reach parts of the Saturn V located away from the LUT arms would not be used with the Orbiter/S-IC. He suggested that a special arm be added to the LUT if payload access on the launch pad were judged to be necessary. Arm 9 would reach out from the LUT to cap the Orbiter's nose, permitting access to the Orbiter crew cabin.
Eley then examined the Orbiter/S-IC stage's probable launch rate. He assumed that the Orbiter would include an "autonomous checkout capability" that would dramatically reduce the time it would need to spend on the launch pad prior to launch. Assuming that all three Apollo LUTs would be modified for Orbiter/S-IC launches, that a LUT could be refurbished within 15 days of a launch, and that pre-launch Orbiter/S-IC preparations on the launch pad would last only five to 10 days, then more than 40 Orbiter/S-IC launches could take place in a year. If, on the other hand, only a single modified LUT, a 30-day LUT refurbishment period, and an on-pad preparation time no less than 30 days were assumed, then only six or seven Orbiter/S-IC flights could occur in a year.
A little more than two years after Eley completed his memorandum, budget shortfalls forced NASA to postpone Space Station development until after the Shuttle flew – another example of series development. Two of the Apollo-era LUTs were put to use in the Space Shuttle Program, though not as Eley envisioned. NASA partially dismantled them, reducing their height to 247 feet (not counting a new 100-foot-tall lightning mast), then permanently mounted them on the two LC 39 launch pads. The third LUT was dismantled sometime after 1982 and scrapped in 2004 after its peeling red paint was judged to be an environmental hazard.
Feasibility of Shuttle (Orbiter)/S-IC Launches at LC-39 – Case 320, C. Eley, Bellcomm, Inc., 31 December 1969.
Beyond Apollo chronicles space history through missions and programs that didn't happen.
Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.


text:
You are here
Post Masters Certificate: Nursing Administration
The Post-Masters Certificate in Nursing Administration has been developed to meet the needs of nurses who have a master's degree in nursing for advanced roles as nurse executives in the healthcare field. This program gives nurses, who are currently in administrative positions or who desired to obtain a position in nursing administration, the knowledge base required for these positions. The classes are offered in evening sessions via a cohort-based model with a hybrid delivery method, blending classroom and e-learning. The program sequence is offered in 8 week sessions.
Admission Requirements
- A completed application.
- A Master of Science in Nursing degree from a program accredited by a national accrediting agency.
- 3.0 or higher GPA.
- Licensure as a registered professional nurse in New Jersey. The licensee cannot have any pending disciplinary action against their nursing license from any Board of Nursing.
- Submission of two professional and/or academic references from persons qualified to judge applicant's ability to succeed in graduate study.
- Submission of all official academic transcripts.
- International academic credentials are reviewed by an international accrediting agency (World Education Services) on an individual basis.
- A minimum score of 79 in the Internet-based TOEFL or 550 on the paper-based TOEFL is required of graduates of non- English speaking countries.
- Criminal history background check(s) or other requirements mandated by the practicum site.
- Successful completion of an undergraduate or graduate course in statistics and a graduate course in nursing research.
Certificate Requirements
The program of study is 24 credits comprised of courses already offered in the Master of Science in Nursing Program. The Post–Master's Certificate Program student can meet program requirements in the following ways:
- Complete: 24 credits at Felician University
- Transfer credits from another graduate program accredited by a national accrediting agency. Credits must have been earned within the past five years, and the student must have received a grade of B or higher. The Associate Dean of the Department of Graduate Nursing will determine the equivalency of courses and transfer credits on an individual basis after the student has been accepted into the program. A minimum of 12 credits must be completed at Felician University.
- Credit bearing academic course work may be accepted with the approval of the Associate Dean of the Graduate program.
Certificate Requirements for Nursing Administration (24 credits)
- NURS 600 Scientific Underpinnings of Practice
- NURS 610 Principles of Administration and Leadership
- NURS 620 Critique of Quality and Safety Practices
- NURS/CIS 630 Information Systems/Technology and Management of Data
- NURS 640 Regulatory and Risk Management Issues in Healthcare
- NURS 650 Strategic Planning and Project Management
- NURS 660 Executive Field Placement I: Professional Role Development Project
- NURS 670 Executive Field Placement II: Change Project


text:
We made the decision to undertake this rather large project to double our draught capacity in appreciation of the variety and innovation that marks the craft beer movement. We will be featuring American and international craft beers that spark interest and excitement amongst the beer-loving community.
The explosion of craft beer, most particularly in the U.S., has changed the way beer is perceived. The innovation and experimentation shown by the many, relatively small, craft breweries has led to a more critical and thoughtful approach to tasting and enjoying the many styles of beer.
The range of craft beers is enormous. In Massachusetts, alone, there are over forty craft breweries and, probably, as we write this, that number has grown. Our focus will be to spotlight brewers in the northeast of the country, but there will be other selections, both international and U.S., as well.
|Not the easiest space to work in...
- 60 Minute IPA - Dogfish Head, Delaware - American IPA
- Allagash White - Allagash Brewing, Maine - Witbier
- Chimay Tripel - Biere de Chimay, Belgium - Tripel
- Affligem Blonde - Brouwerij Affligem, Belgium - Belgian Strong Ale
- Declaration Belgian IPA - Backlash Beer, Massachusetts - Belgian IPA
- Green Monsta IPA - Wachusett Brewing, Massachusetts - American IPA
- Fluffy White Rabbits - Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project, Massachusetts - Tripel
- Peeper Ale - Maine Beer Company, Maine - American Pale Ale (APA)
- Smuttynose IPA "Finest Kind" - Smuttynose Brewing, New Hampshire - American IPA
- Hop Devil Ale - Victory Brewing, Pennsylvania - American IPA
- Unearthly - Southern Tier Brewing, New York - American Double / Imperial IPA
- Wachusett Summer - Wachusett Brewing, Massachusetts - American Pale Wheat Ale
- Cadillac Mountain Stout - Bar Harbor Brewing, Maine - American Stout
- Crooked Tree IPA - Dark Horse Brewing, Michigan - American IPA
- Red's Rye PA - Founders Brewing, Michigan - Rye Beer
- Vanilla Java Porter - Atwater Block Brewery, Michigan - American Porter
- Sunrise Saison - Cape Ann Brewing, Massachusetts - Saison /Farmhouse Ale
- Woodchuck Amber Hard Cider - Vermont Hard Cider, Vermont


text:
Last edited by BeeCurious; 04-28-2013 at 07:07 PM. Reason: The first rule of Treatment Free Beekeeping is: You do not talk about Treatment Free Beekeeping.
Trying to think inside the box...
sounds like warre hive material here
It seems to me that the present conventional beekeeping system is more than a little broken. He's doing a lot more to fix it than many folks. I don't always agree with him, but at least he always argues from a factual basis, and I respect that.
RHaldridge wrote:
It seems to me that the present conventional beekeeping system is more than a little broken.
But is it? They do alot of things I do not, but where do most of the replacement bees come from? When the average commercial beekeeper is buying his replacement bees from a TF beekeeper, I will concede this point.
Crazy Roland
I think things have got a bit more real here on the TF forum than they were a few years back. The main players now do say you will lose more hives if going treatment free, whereas a few years back a lot of people were in total denial. Many, if they lost a hive, could accept any possibility, except mites. It would be starvation even if the hive was full of honey, or whatever.
Before I started TF hives I read extensively, but only here on Beesource, plus a lot of Dee Lusby. Not much else. I did figure out that Dees bees are a bit different, so based most of what I did on what's reported here in the TF forum. And, I WAS mislead, or at least, not fully informed about potential losses. Fact was, most of what I read was that losses of TF hives were little different from treated hives, and people were constantly reporting how well they were doing and how they didn't lose any hives. A bit like this, a common type post:-
I was not given this information before I went TF with some of my hives, had I known I probably would not have done it.
From a practical perspective for a beginning beekeeper, if they do average, they will lose 4 hives in 10 if TF annually, or 3 hives in 10 if not TF annually. This can be a hard path for a beginner. If they lose 4 in 10, of the 6 survivors they need to be able to successfully split 4 of them, just to stay where they are numbers wise, this can be a big ask and why so many new beekeepers disappear after a few years. If they treat and lose 3 out of 10, they only have to make 3 splits out of the 7 survivors, a much more palatable proposition for a beginner and gives a lot more room for success. These kind of statistics are not made readily available, or, they weren't to me, so people go in over optimistic.
I think some of the TF "evangelicals", will think, so what. We have to get people to be treatment free. Personally, I'd rather see people succeed. It is now standard procedure that all beginners start TF, believing anything else is wrong, damaging, makes weak bees, etc. Some of them do better than average and stick around. Some of them do worse than average and quit, disillusioned.
"Thinking Inside The Box"
I am left wondering what a "conventional beekeeping system" actually consists of. Sounds kind of like an assumption that those who don't follow the Beesource treatment free definition are all doing things in a like manner. But if that is the case then why do some seem to have much better results than others, shouldn't those following this system all be losing their bees? Hmmmm.
"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney
In a past time the wax moth was the varroa mite wiping out hives. Honeybees adapted and now wax moths are a thing of the past. I started out treatment free 8 years ago. Was it tougher yes. Was it worth is yes. My expenses are lower, my wax better. My genetics localized, successful and deep.
I am keeping my bees up to par with the times.
I believe that is why apples and roses need so much spraying. As the diseases and pests continue to "naturally" evolve the plants are grafted and remain outdated.
Our honeybees are the same we have kept them out of date and are paying the price when we go off the crutch of chemicals.
Africanized bees are a great example of an awesome selection of nature. nature selects the best, we needs to only let the best be selected as well.
I believe the future of successful chemical free beekeeping (or beekeeping period) must be realized thru the local industry.
small cell makes sense. it's natural. better yet go foundationless and save money.
keeping 10 frames in a ten frame box keeps true cell depth and is natural. helping keep tracheal mites at bay.
What kills new beekeepers namely is the waste of money packages that are commercially sold. With queens so poor a great beekeeper could not coax them to a crop. (if the bees don't supersede her right away) Then after that I would say a lack of successful beekeepers T.F. and old fashion ones are to blame as well.
As in everything in life there are those who can't and those who can.
Last edited by Kamon Reynolds; 04-28-2013 at 10:29 PM.
Since I started in 2007, I never once treated my bees for anything. Helps when you start with stock that isn't treated for mites either (Bee Weaver). Haven't lost a single hive to pestilence. And I don't do small cell either. And I don't do drone frames or anything like that.
But aren't these last 2 posts a classic example of what I just said 4 posts back? The typical scenario - I never treated, I never lost any hives, success success.....
The reality that the average TF beekeeper loses 4 out of 10 hives each year is not to be found by reading the treatment free forum on Beesource. As the OP has been saying.
"Thinking Inside The Box"
It might well be that the replacement bees produced in large quantities for both commercial and hobby beekeepers are part of the problem, not evidence that the system is working well.
Most of the commercial beekeepers I know replace their losses by buying or producing their own queens and splitting their live colonies. Some folks will buy truck loads of other beekeepers hives. I imagine their are some who buy packages, but I don't know what percentage of package bees go to commercial use. I'm under the impression that most of the packages go to non-commercial beekeepers.
Mark Berninghausen
I guess what I was referring to is the idea that it's possible to poison our way out of our present difficulties. I'm deeply dubious about that proposition. I could be wrong, but I think the evidence is on my side. As an analogy: consider antibiotics. We've managed to evolve organisms that are resistant to just about every antibiotic in the inventory, and all we can do is hope for new drugs that the organisms haven't yet acquired resistance to. But when those new drugs appear, it will be only a matter of time until they become less and less useful. This has a familiar sound to it, doesn't it?
Now with people, we can't take the Bond approach and let the weaklings die. I'd be dead myself if not for antibiotics. But bees aren't people, they're bugs with a high reproductive rate, we do not become attached to them as individuals, and the superorganism that is the colony is much too alien a being for us to have the same emotional attachment to it as we do to other people. Just as with other livestock, we can select for traits we find desirable. If you believe B. Weaver, their bees are fairly resistant to varroa. To me, that approach makes a lot more sense than the insecticide de jour.
To extend the analogy I tried to make above, it's much more effective, cost-wise and quality-of-life-wise, to try to keep people healthy enough that they only rarely need antibiotics. From what I've read here, this is the approach you take with your bees, only resorting to acaricides when you deem it necessary. To me, that's much more admirable than what I learned in beginner bee classes, which took the view that all hives must be treated for everything, whether they have a problem or not... lest they develop a problem, One of the demos consisted of sprinkling drifts of Terramycin around the demo hive, and we were told that this was a necessary prophylaxis, to be done regularly..
The beekeepers I admire the most, and hope to emulate in some small way are those who take the view that if we can make our hives strong enough and healthy enough, we can avoid many of the problems that currently afflict bees. They try to do this through a combination of genetics and management practices, and there are enough cases where it seems to be working to demonstrate that this can indeed be achieved. To me, that's a more promising longterm strategy.
I tried to avoid that pitfall. I bought a local nuc from a guy nearby for one hive, and a package of Wolf Creek small cell, semi-untreated bees for the other.
I still expect them to die. I hope to be able to replace them from splits I make.
You might like to watch Danny Weaver's video explaining how they got there.
Have non-treating experience for 9 years now. Started enthusiatically and with all hives I had at this time. No small cell, nothing, just live and let die. First year - not many problems. Second year, some hives died, but nothing serious. Than lost almost all in the third year.
Tried all sorts of fixed comb beekeeping. In skeps, Warré hives and logs and all. Avoided pesticides from agriculture. Let them swarm and all. Just honey, no feeding, no transfering of comb, nothing. The hyper-natural way to "keep" bees.
As indicated above, after some time I got into trouble keeping up the number of hives. After a second hard hit I decided to follow the Soft Bond Test as worked out by John Kefuss. See: http://www.immenfreunde.de/SBT.pdf
With this method, you treat hives that need it, sorting them out from breeding and multiply from those that keep varroa at bay. I was able to increase my apiary since and do have zero to very little losses this way.
Doing nothing, live and let die is a waste of ressources, both money, time and nerves. And it isn't natural for the bees to waste away.
Instead working methodly and with a defined and measurable target is most promosing. It might need some decades to get fully resistant bees, but that is not a problem since there are few to no losses.
The Soft Bond Test method greatly reduced the use of miticides in my apiaries. Some years you need to treat more hives than other years. (There seems to be a three to four year cycle.)
Going live-and-let die is most educating, since you observe when the point of no return/recovery is reached, you are able to distinguish between varroa and virus damage and the combination of the two. You learn to distinguish the varroa damage from your own foolish mistakes.
I do not recommend beginners to go all-in as I did, since you need to learn beekeeping first. Beginners do many many mistakes. Of course. Once you've wintered bees with no losses for five years in a row, you can start thinking of going treatment-free. But then I recommend to do it the Soft Bond Method way.
I keep treated and non-treated hives side by side. Some say that varroa distributes from non-treated to treated hives. But I think the effect is negligible - as long the hive is not collapsing. A collapsing hive spreads a lot of varroa. In the Soft Bond Test you prevent this by treating before it collapses.
I learned that all the natural things: swarming, no comb transfering, natural comb (means fixed comb: no frames, no foundation, no barrier, different cavity shapes and sizes), just honey no sugar supplements, no saving of weakened colonies (let die...) and other things considered "natural" do not and will not save the honeybees. Nor is helpful any way.
My lessons learned is, that the environment - at least where I am - is artificial, creating artificial problems which create necessities for artificial solutions.
I think we as natural beekeepers shouldn't target ideals but instead try to aim at an optimum. An optimum is right in the middle between ideals and necessities. It is the intersection of ideals and necessities. That is what nature does. Nature doesn't select for the best, but for the optimized.
So I develop my beekeeping towards a more natural way to do things, but keep an eye on necessities. From all attempts I have seen so far, the most promosing are methodical proceedings. If you have no plan, no method, nothing to measure - you'll fail. (Unless you throw in hundreds and hundreds of hives into the game. Which is something that might work out, but surely not for a beginner.)
Again, have a look at: http://www.immenfreunde.de/SBT.pdf
I highly recommend that method.


text:
Put CPIA Milestone 6 pre-release up on my Web site. If Ricoh's happy, it is going to be a project on Source Forge. Then we can add some more developers.
doc++ is nice, but trying to force it to generate C++/Java style docs for O-O C is a bit of a hack and not a clever one. I may have to hack doc++ to get what I want.


text:
June 2, 1973
San Francisco, CA US
Kezar Stadium
Rock and Roll, Celebration Day, (Bring It On Home intro) Black Dog, Over the Hills and Far Away, Misty Mountain Hop, Since I've Been Loving You, No Quarter, The Song Remains the Same, Rain Song, Dazed and Confused (incl. San Francisco), Stairway to Heaven, Moby Dick, Heartbreaker, Whole Lotta Love (incl. Let That Boy Boogie), Communication Breakdown, The Ocean.
KRON-TV & CBS News film news reports from the show.
News Report: 50,000 See Led Zeppelin in Bay City
The British rock group Led Zeppelin drew 50,000 rock fans who paid $320,000 at Kezar Stadium last weekend. Although the 2 ½ hour show Saturday was 6,000 short of capacity, listeners blanketed the football field and stands. Hundreds of others heard the music for free from rooftops in the surrounding neighborhood.
A month ago, Led Zeppelin grossed $309,000 to shatter the Beatles' mark in 1965. Organizers said the group netted better than $1,000 per minute during the show here. It was the second large rock concert in a week at Kezar. The only casualties reported were some bad drug trips, a broken leg and a security guard accidentally wounded with his own revolver.
More than 250 cars were towed away from illegal parking areas around the stadium, police reported.
Submit your personal review of a particular show you attended, updates, corrections, etc., which will be considered for addition to the official online archive.
You may also contact the webmaster at: email@example.com
Submit your personal review of a particular show you attended, updates, corrections, etc., which will be considered for addition to the official online archive.You may also contact the webmaster at: email@example.com
I was very young, very impressionable, mezmerized and there was no turning back after this show. The Tubes, Lee Michaels, Roy Harper and Led Zeppelin. About 3 hours of perfection that day from the band. This was the tour for Houses of The Holy. I believe it was the first un-official Day on The Green in the bay area put on by Bill Graham presents.
People partied all night in Golden Gate Park waiting to get in. They let us in very early with blankets, ice chests etc... in those days. People were very polite about your space on the green. It was great! I can't remember all the songs but remember Jimmy and the bow, the theremin box, Robert and the white dove. They were grand what more can I say.


text:
Tools and Resources for Parents and Youth
AcademicInfo is an online education resource center with extensive subject guides and distance learning information. Our mission is to provide free, independent and accurate information and resources for prospective and current students (and other researchers).
Adventures in Education
This site contains resources for families of college-bound students-from overviews of college savings plans to ideas about what they'll need to pack for their first semester away from home.
Celebra la Ciencia
The mission of Celebra la Ciencia is to increase awareness among Hispanic youth and parents of informal science opportunities and activities.
CollegeBoard.com for Parents
Help your child find the right college and pay for it. The site also contains information on college entrance exams and college admissions.
Colorín Colorado
This web site provides great information for parents who want to help their kids learn how to read and succeed.
Effective Parenting Educational Resources
These pages are designed to help parents with their educational questions and concerns. Learning is one of the few activities that comes naturally to all people and is its own reward. No one has to pay us to learn. Like all creatures, people are curious by nature. Parents and children go out of their way to learn all kinds of interesting facts and skills. Unfortunately, curiosity can be dampened and children can be turned off by school. So, explore these pages and learn how to keep ourselves and our children on the path to learning.
Family Education
The Family Education Network includes some of the best of the Internet's content, resources, and shopping for parents, teachers, and kids. Launched in September, 2000, the company's mission is to be an online consumer network of the world's best learning and information resources, personalized to help parents, teachers, and students of all ages take control of their learning and make it part of their everyday lives.
FinAid! can help you pay for your child's college education by helping you create a savings plan and apply for financial aid.
GetNetWise is a project of the Internet Education Foundation, and a product of public service efforts by internet industry corporations and public interest organizations.
Hablemos En Confianza
Hablemos en Confianza is a bilingual fountain of resources about the most commonly abused substances. It contains information that will help you talk to your children about alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs.
La Familia Network
La Familia Network hopes to create an environment where children, parents, teachers, and community leaders can find ideas and programs to address the Digital Divide.
Mapping Your Future
At Mapping Your Future, you can find out more about planning for your child's education.
Net-mom is the web site of the author of The Internet for Kids & Family Yellow Pages, a resource book updated yearly that lists over 3,000 family-friendly web sites. Categories include "For Kids Who Love Science," "For Emergency Homework Help," and "For Family Fun."
Parent to Parent
Parent to Parent is a web site for parents by parents. The site features articles and a weekly column by nationally syndicated columnist, author, and parent educator Jodie Lynn.
Parent Smart
Find the best articles to help your children succeed in school.
PBS Parents
A site that helps parents raise a child who is ready to learn.
Role Model Project for Girls
The Role Model Project for Girls site was created to share the notion that girls can grow up to be almost anything - in a wide variety of professional careers - way more than they probably know exist.
Sallie Mae's Parent Answer
If you have questions about paying for college, Sallie Mae's Parent Answer can help.
White House Initiatives on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans
A bilingual website that offers parents and students resources on how they can make going to college a reality.
Yahooligans Parents' Guide
A safe search engine for kids and their parents on many categories.


text:
Person who thinks she has the best taste in music (ever), who sinks a drink's worth of money into a bar's jukebox to prove it.
Don't upset a Jukebox Snob, she's liable to select the entire contents of David Lee Roth's Eat 'em and Smile before quickly exiting.
by Ariel Moore December 04, 2009


text:
Lance Richardson explores the carefully chosen deposits for the unique creations of pop-culture visionary Salvador Dali.
Salvador Dali once remarked that "the only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad". Try to follow the logic of that sentence as it folds back on itself: your head will explode into slithery fragments, but not before the clocks droop from the strain and you begin to hallucinate elephants with mosquito legs.
Perhaps it's more accurate to say that the only difference between Dali and a madman is that Dali succeeded in persuading everyone to redefine madness. Visit the Museum of Modern Art in New York and you muscle past crowds admiring The Persistence of Memory. You can buy a replica Lobster Telephone on the internet or drop by Canberra's National Gallery of Australia to see an original. Dali's surreal visions have become touchstones of popular culture, ubiquitous but adored, baffling but largely unquestioned as masterpieces.
This is not to say they never raise questions of another sort. For example, why the recurring cypress trees, fishing boats and loaves of bread in his paintings? Who was Gala, his model and muse? Where are the milky Mediterranean skies and craggy cliffs he used as reference points?
What does it all mean, really?
While it's easy to argue that surrealist art depends on dreams and imagination, even the great masters grew up somewhere; dreams don't spring from the void. This is my reasoning as I drive from Barcelona through the Catalonian province of Girona, determined to follow Dali back to his roots by visiting three sites that make up a "Dali triangle": Figueres, Port Lligat and Pubol.
"I have been made in these stones," he once said of his home. "Here I have shaped my personality, discovered my love, painted my work and built my house. I cannot separate myself from this sky, this sea, these rocks."
Here is another thing he said: "Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic."
I suppose that counts as a warning.
Dali at work: Figueres
Dali was born in 1904 in cosmopolitan Figueres, near the border of France. Years later, the mayor of Figueres tried to acquire a painting of the city's most famous son. Dali would have none of it.
"Where, if not in my own city, should the most extravagant and solid examples of my art remain?" he asked. Not one painting for Figueres, in other words, but a Dali Theatre-Museum. In 1960, the artist bought the Municipal Theatre, a building that had been destroyed by fire at the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939, turning it into the largest surrealist object in the world. First he painted the building maroon and stuck loaves of bread to the walls (they are made from plaster). He positioned giant eggs along the rampart and planted cypress trees out front.
Not only is the Dali Theatre-Museum a work of art in its own right, it contains some of the most recognisable pieces from Dali's career. This is the best place to start a driving tour focused on the artist: it offers both an induction to his extravagance and a retrospective of his work, with everything from Soft Self-Portrait with Fried Bacon to the legendary Atomic Leda tucked somewhere in the fray.
After standing in an interminable queue - the museum is extremely popular - I step into an open courtyard converted from the burnt-out Municipal Theatre. Here is a Cadillac with rain inside, because Dali once got wet waiting for a taxi. Here are statues like expressive Oscars, arms upraised to the open sky. Just past a ramp, draped across the stage, is a giant mural of a figure with an embryo in its head. There is a picture of Beethoven created by throwing squids at a blank canvas. Above is an enormous glass dome modelled on the eye of a fly.
The patron saint of Girona, Saint Narcis, chased away the invading French with a swarm of flies. Dali loved them. They were "dressed", he said, as if by Balenciaga.
Part of me finds the Dali Museum exhausting. Like works by the modern artist Damien Hirst, the museum is a calculated spectacle designed to engage the masses. But Hirst famously encrusted a skull with diamonds: his vision is cynical and nihilistic. By contrast, there is a room in the Dali Museum housing a heart encrusted with rubies. The heart beats. Dali may have been a showman, aware of his reputation, but he was neither cynical nor nihilistic. The artist celebrated life - celebrated living - in all its absurd detail.
Dali at home: Port Lligat
Dali lived mostly in Port Lligat, a fishing village across the hill from popular Cadaques on the Costa Brava. It is a cloudless blue day as I drive to Dali's house from Cadaques; it is like stepping from the stage of a theatre into his dressing room. Public viewings began at Port Lligat in 1997, when a foundation opened the Salvador Dali House-Museum, by timed ticket entry.
"I need the localism of Port Lligat like Raphael needed that of Urbino, to reach the universal along the path of what was private," Dali said. "One cannot understand my painting without knowing Port Lligat."
Over a period of 40 years, Dali bought fishing huts, fusing them together in a rambling, labyrinthine structure with numerous floors and unusual spaces. A polar bear, adorned with necklaces, greets you at the front entrance and sets the tone for everything to come.
"Is real," the guide tells me. "Is stuffed." And later: "The eagle, it is also stuffed."
"Stuffed" is an ideal adjective for the house in general, which is stuffed with exactly what you would expect from Dali. There is a model of a hydrogen atom, for example. A Greek statue wears the mesh helmet of a fencer near a giant cutout of a sea anemone. In the bedroom are bird cages and cricket cages (Dali liked their sound); the next room has collages of photographs of Dali meeting dignitaries such as Picasso and Walt Disney, and Dali on the cover of Time magazine.
There is also evidence of the artist at work, with brushes and turpentine scattered around the white sofa where he did much of his painting. "I cannot paint in any other place," he once claimed. "I need to be in Port Lligat, to see the sailors, the colour of the olive trees, and the bread, to feel the peace, the landscape."
Look closely at Port Lligat, with its blue Mediterranean Sea and pastel skies: The Spectre of Sex Appeal re-creates the rocky line of Cap de Creus, not far to the north. Dali's work, though random at first glance, was grounded in the specific world around him, its cypress trees and gently rocking fishing boats.
Indeed, visiting this house gives unparalleled insight into the man behind the public mask: the man who didn't like children because they moved too much; who rarely had guests (there is no guest room); who was obsessed with life, surrounding himself with bouquets of immortal flowers.
Even more than the Theatre-Museum, the house shows the interior mind made exterior.
Dali in love: Pubol
Many of his thoughts were tied to Gala, his muse and beloved Russian wife from 1934. He signed paintings with his and her name. It was mostly with her blood that he painted his pictures, the artist once claimed, though he also defined an elegant woman as "a woman who despises you and has no hair under her arms". Dali had complicated attitudes towards women.
Nevertheless, the last stop on the Dali triangle takes me to Pubol, where a converted 11th-century castle affirms his admiration for his older spouse (that is her, for example, reclining in Atomic Leda). Having promised Gala a castle of her own, Dali bought her this one when she was 76. She thanked him. Then she forbade him from visiting without an invitation. He complied, always bringing gifts, whether a porcelain chariot or a handful of acorns.
The castle at Pubol is a low-key affair compared with the Theatre in Figueres and Theatre-Museum at Port Lligat.
The garden reminded Gala of Russia, though Dali adorned it with a dozen busts of the composer Wagner - and a vomiting codfish. The building strikes me as elegant, with high rooms and sweeping views of the surrounding countryside and, were it not for odd touches such as the tapestry of a man trapped inside a burning giraffe, it could almost be mistaken for a nobleman's estate.
In one sense, the castle provides a final testament of the woman behind the man behind the artifice - there are artworks by Gala (a Jesus wrapped in tinfoil) and photographs of her laughing on the floor near her piano, socialising with younger men.
"Gala had started to explain to me in great detail the reasons for her desire and it occurred to me suddenly that she also had her inner world of desires and failures and she moved at her own pace between the poles of lucidity and madness." Dali sounds surprised to learn that his muse had musings of her own.
Nevertheless, Gala remains largely elusive, a symbol swamped by the curios of the famous man she motivated. The day she died, Dali stopped work entirely. His final canvas sits in the drawing room, blank but for a black line like the cut in a violin.
Gala is buried in a crypt at Pubol alongside a horse's head, giraffe and the bust of a man. This is the most private of Dali's spaces, so it seems appropriate that the source of his inspiration should be laid to rest here. But though Dali built the crypt for two, an accident with fire drove him away in the final years of his own life.
Dali died at Figueres, coming full circle. When you visit the Dali Theatre-Museum, look out for a large square in the floor. Dali is buried on the stage of his own creation. Perhaps this is perfect for an artist who once described himself as "eminently theatrical".
Lance Richardson travelled courtesy of Spain Tourism and Rail Europe.
Pablo Picasso. Most popular is the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, but travellers looking for Guernica should head to the Reina Sofia in Madrid. See museupicasso.bcn.es, museoreinasofia.es.
Francisco Goya. Sometimes called the father of modern art, Goya is renowned for dark subject matter. Many masterpieces can be seen in the Prado Museum, Madrid. See museodelprado.es.
Joan Miro. This Catalan artist is celebrated at a superb Barcelona museum on the Montjuic hill overlooking the city. See fundaciomiro-bcn.org.
Diego Velazquez. He had a profound influence on Dali and Picasso and his works can be seen across the country. A good starting point is the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville. See museodebellasartesdesevilla.es.
El Greco. A key figure in the Spanish Renaissance, El Greco confused contemporaries but became adored by modernists for his individualism. A museum in Toledo's Jewish Quarter houses many of his works. See museodelgreco.mcu.es.
Getting there
Singapore Airlines has a fare to Madrid for about $2260 low-season return from Sydney and Melbourne, including taxes. Fly to Singapore (about 8hr), then Munich (13hr), then to Madrid (2hr 45min). See singaporeair.com. This fare allows you to fly back from another European city. An easy way to traverse the Costa Brava is by rail. Eurail Select Passes covering Spain and the rest of Europe start from $366. See raileurope.com.au.
Staying there
A convenient base for the Dali triangle is Mas Salvi Hotel in Monells. It's only a short drive from the mediaeval village of Peraallada, which is famed for its carved buildings. Rooms cost from about €235 ($303) a night. See massalvi.com.
The Dali triangle
The Dali Theatre-Museum in Figueres is the centrepiece of Dali's creative empire. Tickets cost €12 a person. In Port Lligat, near Cadaques, the Salvador Dali House-Museum is accessible by timed ticket only. Advance purchase is recommended. Tickets are €11 a person. Gala's castle at Pubol is the least-visited site on the Dali triangle, meaning fewer people. Tickets cost €8 a person. See salvador-dali.org.
More information visitspain.info


text:
Our apologies, but we are currently having some technical issues with our database, causing an error on this page.
We hope to have this problem fixed soon.
Please return to the FF Today.com home page.
1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'FROM fft_player_master AS A, fft_team, fft_position, fft_position2, fft_gam' at line 2


text:
Following closely behind an ambulance or fire engine in your car, passing all the other cars that have pulled over. A great thing to do during peak traffic hours when the streets are packed with cars.
I was running late for work this morning, but I made up lots of time when that ambulance passed me. I siren surfed through the busiest part of town and made it there on time.
by Ricky Pompeii April 26, 2007


text:
|Kings drop Bruins in shootout
|01.30.10 at 10:30 pm ET
Summary — It took overtime and a shootout to decide the winner between the Bruins and Kings in front of a sold out TD Garden on Saturday night. In the end, it was the Kings who were able to claim two points as Jarret Stoll had the game-deciding goal in the shootout. Tim Thomas, despite 31 saves in regulation and overtime, took the loss for the Bruins while Jonathan Quick got the win with 27 saves. The Bruins have lost seven straight, their longest losing streak since the spring of 1997, when they went 0-7-0 from March 17 to April 3 of that year.
Marco Sturm returned to the ice after missing the last six games and scored a goal in the second period. Steve Begin also got back on the ice after missing five games and played forward on the fourth line.
The teams went back and forth with the Kings taking the lead into the second period off a goal by captain Dustin Brown set up by a shot from Anze Kopitar. It looked like another night where the Bruins would have trouble breaking through, but Boston found momentum in the second period when defenseman Mark Stuart leveled Kopitar with a hit on the blue line that led to a scrum with Kings forward Wayne Simmonds.
Sturm tied the game with a power-play goal later in the second, and Boston took the lead early in the third on the power play when Mark Recchi scored off a pass from the half-wall by David Krejci. The Kings came right back with a goal from Kopitar and the play was even through the rest of the third before overtime.
Three Stars
Marco Sturm — The Bruins forward scored his team's first goal of the game after missing six games with a lower body injury. On the power play in the second period, he found himself camped in front of Quick with time and space off a pass from Marc Savard. He let a defender slide by, waited, waited and found the back of the net on Quick's stick side.
Anze Kopitar — The Kings' leading scorer is deadly with the puck from the right wing. Twice from the top of the circle he let go of wily wrist shots that found ways past Thomas. He was credited with an assist in the first period when his shot deflected off Dustin Brown and tied the game in the third when Thomas could not handle a screamer from a couple steps in from the blue line.
Jarret Stoll — The Kings center had the game winner in the sixth round of the sudden death shootout.
Turning Point
A flurry of penalties broke out early in the second period. At 4:58 in the second period, Bruins defenseman Mark Stuart laid Kopitar flat on the ice with a big hit as the Kings forward took a clearing pass at his own blue line. Kings forward Wayne Simmonds immediately took exception to the hit on the rising star center, and he and Stuart immediately went at it, with Stuart tackling Simmonds to the ice.
The result was that Simmonds went to the box with instigator, unsportsmanlike conduct, fighting and misconduct penalties (Stuart also went for fighting) that resulted in a four-minute power play opportunity the Bruins. Tim Thomas gave two minutes of that back with a high stick to Brad Richardson 29 seconds later and the Kings killed the penalties. Still, the Bruins gained momentum over the series of plays that later translated into a game-tying power play goal by Sturm in the period.
Key Play
Stoll turned TD Garden from a rocking venue to a silent arena in a matter of moments when he beat Thomas over the goaltender's shoulder in the sixth round of the shootout. The Kings ended up winning the series 3-2 for the two points. Stoll's goal followed up scores from the Bruins' Marc Savard and Michael Ryder and the Kings' Kopitar and Ryan Smyth.


text:
October 2008
|MS Word (195 KB)
"Coupled with other reforms, this new form will provide families with real-time information on how much aid they can expect to receive... as opposed to how much they are expected to contribute under the current system. This will put students in the driver's seat, with more time to investigate their options."
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings
Confusing, Complex, Inefficient
The Commission on the Future of Higher Education, launched by Secretary Spellings in 2006, found that the current federal financial aid system is not serving the needs of students and families.
- It is "confusing, complex, inefficient, duplicative, and frequently does not direct aid to students who truly need it," noted the Commission.
- The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, has been characterized as more perplexing than the IRS 1040-tax form.
- The current form is six pages long with four additional pages of instructions. Applicants must answer more than 120 questions.
Streamlined and Simplified
The Commission recommended that the application process be "substantially streamlined," with the FAFSA replaced by a "much shorter and simpler application form." While recently enacted legislation would add even more questions to the FAFSA, Congress also asked the Department to identify ways to simplify the form.
The Department is outlining an example of how the FAFSA could be dramatically simplified for prospective and returning college students and their families. A new "FAFSA":
- Could be filed electronically (www.fafsa.ed.gov/);
- Would contain fewer than 30 individual questions arranged in eight easy-to-explain categories;
- Could be used with other reforms to provide real-time notification of aid amount and eligibility, so that families may begin planning for college early rather than having to wait until spring of the student's senior year;
- Could be coupled with other reforms to create a portable package of need-based aid that can be used at any institution of higher education; and
- Would reduce the burden on colleges and universities to verify information or rely on the collection of federal income tax returns.


text:
Quotes of the day
posted at 8:01 pm on March 22, 2013 by Allahpundit
Democrats celebrated the third anniversary of the passage of President Obama's signature health-care legislation on Friday by voting down a Republican amendment to repeal the entire law.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's amendment repealing Obamacare failed to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate on Friday, receiving 45 ayes and 54 nays. The amendment was attached to the Senate Democratic budget resolution for 2014…
"Tomorrow is the three-year anniversary of the passage of Obamacare," Cruz said on the floor before the vote. "Obamacare is hurting young people. It's hurting seniors. It's hurting Hispanics. It's hurting African-Americans. It's hurting single moms. It's hurting the economy. It should be repealed."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that her party "honor[ed] the vows of our Founders" in passing Obamacare during a statement to mark the imminent third anniversary of the law's passage.
"I see this as honoring the vows of our Founders, who sacrificed everything for life, liberty, pursuit of happiness," Pelosi told reporters today. "Here we have a healthier life [and] the liberty to pursue your happiness — whether it's to be a cameraman, a writer, self-employed, start your own business, change jobs, not be job-locked because of health care; whether you have a preexisting condition in your family or just [lack] the ability to afford access to health care."
Big government likes big providers. That's why ObamaCare is gradually making the local doctor-owned medical practice a relic. In the not too distant future, most physicians will be hourly wage earners, likely employed by a hospital chain.
Why? Because when doctors practice in small offices, it is hard for Washington to regulate what they do. There are too many of them, and the government is too remote. It is far easier for federal agencies to regulate physicians if they work for big hospitals. So ObamaCare shifts money to favor the delivery of outpatient care through hospital-owned networks.
The irony is that in the name of lowering costs, ObamaCare will almost certainly make the practice of medicine more expensive. It turns out that when doctors become salaried hospital employees, their overall productivity falls.
Over one-third of the 9.1 million full-time jobs among America's diverse business franchises could be cut back or eliminated by Obamacare as small businesses struggle to maintain profitability while coughing up money to pay for Washington-mandated health care coverage, according to the International Franchise Association.
The threat of hitting 3.2 million full-time workers as the Affordable Care Act takes effect next year is prompting the owners of fast food restaurants, service companies and other franchises to urge Congress to make significant changes in Obamacare…
"The ACA has made health care an inextricable cost of running a small business in America and continues to evolve with regard to its cost and complexity for franchisees and franchisors as the law becomes fully implemented ahead of 2014," said IFA Senior Vice President of Government Relations & Public Policy Judith Thorman. "Preparing your franchise business to deal with the ACA should be a top priority for franchisees and franchisors."
Federal officials are developing contingency plans in case the health insurance exchanges are not fully ready to begin enrolling people on Oct. 1, the head of the agency that's building the massive 50-state marketplace structure said last week…
Making contingency plans for October is necessary, Cohen said. "I think it's only prudent to not assume everything is going to work perfectly on day one and to make sure that we've got plans in place to address things that may happen," added Cohen, whose division is part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)…
Chao was frank about the stress and tension of the compressed time frame involved in setting up the exchanges. "We are under 200 days from open enrollment, and I'm pretty nervous,'' he said. "I don't know about you," he added, to murmurs from the insurance industry audience.
They seem to have forgotten about the third path: the right can replace Obamacare if it fails. And thus far, it gives every indication of failing. It has contributed to growing premium costs. Its budget impacts have been revised only in a negative direction (indeed, the only positives have been from fewer states implementing the Medicaid expansion). It has already been stripped of one mathematically and actuarially unsound entitlement. Most Republican governors have no interest in helping implement a program they believe to be ill-thought from its inception, and even Democrats don't want their fingerprints at the state level on exchanges and Medicaid expansions their systems can't handle…
So implementation is going to get messy, and in ways that will impact people's lives far more directly than the instability of the early days of Medicare Part D. We're not just talking about getting you a drug, keep in mind – we're talking about births, limbs, surgery, transplants, life and death. That's one reason Democrats have already shown themselves willing to be far more critical post-2012. They think this is fine because the law appears secure. But it's also still very unpopular, with Democratic support dropping substantially since the election. Removed from the conflict of electoral politics, Obamacare requires less ideological fealty, and pointing out its flaws becomes less an act of betrayal than an admission of the obvious.
The central problem here is that Obama promised too much, and Obamacare will deliver too little. The Repeal Coalition will continue to work to undermine it at every opportunity, and the nature of its passage means that there is no foreseeable avenue for the normal bipartisan fixes and tweaks to make a sweeping law work better. Instead, Republicans are likely to seize on every sad story as justification for dramatic changes – and in 2016, mount campaigns designed to replace the system in whole or in part with plenty of material to use in their cause. It's very possible, perhaps even likely, that moderate Democrats will run in 2014 promising to "fix Obamacare" in one sense or another.
Not only will voters be alienated by changes they dislike, the thinking goes, they'll also be confronted by the litany of promises Democratic lawmakers made before and after it became law. Rob Jesmer, who served as executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2008 and 2010, suggested Republicans might have an easier time making their case in the next election cycle than in 2010.
"Even then, it was all theory," said Jesmer, who is now a Republican consultant. "What I like about what's happening in 2014 is we can use statements that were said in 2010 by vulnerable Democrats. They said, 'You could keep your doctor, and your insurance premiums won't rise.' Well, the rubber is going to meet the road in 18 months. Many of them will prove largely not true."…
The ground is fertile, then, for the issue to reemerge in 2014, because the midterm battleground map will largely be fought where Obamacare is least popular. Deeply red states like West Virginia, South Dakota, and Montana will feature races next year. And several Democrats up for reelection, like Sens. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana, Mark Begich in Alaska, and Mark Pryor in Arkansas, are facing voters for the first time since voting for the legislation in 2010.
The law remains generally unpopular. Conservatives don't like it because it is expensive and intrusive. But they weren't going to like it anyway. Obama might have his legacy legislation on firmer footing today if he had done what Johnson did and found a program that could garner at least some bipartisan support. But Obama, always in a hurry, rushed into the legislation, saw it stall, and then rushed into final passage through the use of procedural shenanigans in the Senate…
But what makes Obama's entitlement vulnerable is that fact that Democrats don't much like it either…
When 35 members of the Senate Democratic caucus voted to repeal the tax on medical devices like pacemakers and artificial limbs they did so over Obama's protests and with full knowledge that doing so would make the law more fiscally unsustainable.
The president said that the hardship on medical device makers and their customers would be more than made up for once the law was in full swing and tens of millions more were added to customer rolls with free or partly free insurance. The Senate vote on Thursday night was a very vocal expression of doubt in the president's promise.
According to the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll for March, only 18 percent of Republicans, 31 percent of independents, and 58 percent of members of Obama's own party, have a favorable opinion of Obamacare. Overall, Kaiser's polling indicates that only 37 percent of Americans like Obamacare — down 9 points from Kaiser's tally in the month immediately following Obamacare's passage.
By about 2-to-1 margins, Kaiser's respondents now say that, under Obamacare, they expect the cost of American health care to rise (55 percent), rather than fall (21 percent), and the quality of American health care to fall (45 percent) rather than rise (24 percent). By more than 3-to-1 margins (57 to 16 percent on costs, 55 to 18 percent on quality), independents share these same low expectations for life under Obamacare…
With Obamacare set to roll out in earnest early next year, one hopes that Republicans will learn their lesson. If they forcefully oppose Obamarcare — rather than helping, like some GOP governors, to advance it — and if they articulate a clear and compelling replacement, they will win this war for the future of America. If they don't, then they (though not the country) will deserve their fate.
Smart conservative health policy analysts have proposed a way to cut the Gordian knot — Remove the tax deduction for health insurance purchases from employers and give it to individuals. This was actually candidate John McCain's proposal in 2008, though, as Yuval Levin (editor of National Affairs and one of those smart analysts) noted ruefully, "Nobody told John McCain." As Levin explains, if individuals were given a $5,000 tax credit (fully refundable for those below the poverty line) for the purchase of health insurance, insurance companies would compete to provide excellent coverage for $5,000.
If, in addition, individuals were permitted to shop across state lines for insurance, those states with fewer mandates would be able to offer cheaper plans and would accordingly get more business. Replacing traditional Medicare with premium support would encourage competition in that market, as well…
As Obamacare's rising costs and constricted choices alienate the American people, Republicans should be ready with an alternative that is market-oriented, assembled and on the launchpad.
Related Posts:
Breaking on Hot Air
'Liberals think they are tolerant but often they aren't' says…Fareed Zakaria?
Mad Dog Mattis: War with North Korea would be catastrophic. But what would it look like?
End of an era: Merkel signals that Europe can no longer rely on the U.S.