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Cate Blanchett and Mia Wasikowska are heading the cast of the new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's Carol (aka The Price of Salt). It's directed by John Crowley (Intermission, Boy A) and Phyllis Nagy (Mrs Harris) has written the adaptation based on the novella by Highsmith (Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr Ripley). The film will be produced by Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley from Number 9 Films, and co-developed and co-financed by Film4. Filming starts February 2013 in London and New York. Carol is about the complex relationship between two very different women in 1950s New York. One, a girl in her 20s working in a department store who dreams of a more fulfilling life, and the other, a wife trapped in a loveless, moneyed marriage. HanWay will be handling international sales at Cannes.
Cate Blanchett, Mia Wasikowska Cast In Adaptation Of Highsmith's 'Carol': Cannes
6 Comments
I love that these two are working together. Perfect match.
Mia's so overrated. Such bland acting and limited range.
Between Mia, Jessica Chastain, and Chloe Moretz… I don't think there has been a movie made in the last three years that at least on of them wasn't in.
Actually, having read the book, i can't see where the drama is here. A lesbian love story was groundbreaking in 1952 when the book was published but these days has become a soap opera staple. The two women meet up, drive around the Midwest, are told by a private investigator that he knows what they're up to, and, er, that's about it.
Maybe they'll add a car chase which ends with the lovers driving off a cliff?
I predict that a grand total of six people will go see this movie in the theater, but of course you can adjust this figure up exponentially for the DVD if there is a decent amount of naked female flesh shown.
Same as it ever was.


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Partisan rancor is in abundant supply on Capitol Hill as Congress grapples with the prospect of a government shutdown and a credit default.
Vermont's two senators gave exasperated speeches about the situation on the Senate floor Tuesday.
To avoid a shutdown, the Senate and House have to agree on a budget bill. The House passed a bill that would temporarily maintain government funding, but it also cuts funding for the Affordable Care Act. The Senate is expected to reject that proposal. Beyond the threat of a shutdown, some Republicans have also sought to make raising the debt ceiling contingent on entitlement cuts and an Obamacare rollback.
The full text of Sen. Patrick Leahy's speech is available here, but the senator went off-script several times, scolding Republicans for bringing Congress to an impasse.
"I remember that Bill Murray movie 'Groundhog Day,'" Leahy began. "Wonderful movie. Farcical, but nowhere near as farcical as the Groundhog Day we have here in Congress."
Leahy also described his grandchildren as more magnanimous than congressional Republicans. "I love my grandchildren. They range from 5 to 15 … They sometimes have little squabbles, but they work it out. This [Congress] is a playground that would be a terrible example to children in a schoolyard."
The senior senator accused a "tiny minority" of taking part in political antics to attract television time. "Stop running to the cameras, and giving little soundbites," he said.
Sanders focused his ire on Texas Republicans, in particular. He read from the state's 2012 party platform, describing the document as a blueprint for the "rightwing extremist" direction in which the national party is headed.
Republicans' efforts to cut food stamps and defund the Affordable Care Act are just "the beginning of the game," Sanders said.
"All of these issues are related to something that is much, much larger and that is the transformation of American society in a radically different way than it is today," Sanders said. "And what my Republican colleagues, almost without exception, want to do now is take us back to the 1920s where working people had virtually no protection on the job at all."
One by one, he railed against other proposals outlined in the document, which ranged from shutting down the Environmental Protection Agency to repealing the minimum wage.
Later that afternoon, Sen. Ted Cruz, a member of the cadre of Texas Republicans, took to the floor, vowing to speak against the Affordable Care Act until he could no longer stand.


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Cape Reinga is a crown jewel, the spiritual and stunning northern tip of New Zealand. For Maori, Cape Reinga is where a person's spirit comes after death and departs for their eternal home. For visitors, it also offers spectacular ocean views including the impressive coming together of two major bodies of water.
Practical Information:
- While thought of as the most northern point in the country, it isn't. Surville Cliffs are the actual most Northern point and sit 30km east of Cape Reinga.
- It takes about 90 minutes to drive the 120km from Kaitaia to Cape Reinga. There is so much to see and do along the way that most people allocate at least a full day, stopping to eat, to swim, to drive on the beach, to sandboard or to walk through the ancient buried forest.
- Cape Reinga is on sacred grounds and should be left undisturbed. The welcome sign also asks visitors to follow the tikanga (custom) of not eating or drinking while you are here.
- There are many walking trails from here ranging from the 10-minute walk to the lighthouse to the stunning 3-4 day Te Paki Coastal walk.
Have you been to Cape Reinga? Have you seen anything like the meeting of the seas?
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This post is also linked to BeThere2Day for Wordless Wednesday on Tuesday, Our World Tuesdays, Wednesdays Around the World at Photographing New Zealand, Travel Tuesdays at Lauren on Location, and Wednesday Wanderlust at My Brown Paper Packages.and Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Daydreamer.
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What is the meaning of Addiction?
(taken from Overcome Addiction Now by Sandra Lenington)
How Do I Know If I'm Addicted?
An addiction, broadly speaking is a compulsive need for and use of a habit–forming substance such as heroin, nicotine,or alcohol.
It is characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal. Broadly speaking, it's a persistent compulsive use of a substance, known by the user to be harmful.
In this book, we will include behaviors that are indulged in compulsively,that are known to cause harm.
Examples of these might be binging (food),overspending, anger; in fact, any behavior that is harmful and over which the user has no apparent control.
There's a great definition in a book by Gerald G. May called Addiction and Grace. He says that addiction is any "compulsive habitual behavior that limits the freedom of human desire. It is caused by attachment, or nailing of desire to specific objects."
Dr. May also declares that action is essential to addiction. In other words, the person needs to act on his attachment.
For example, an addict using cocaine may experience the desire to escape the situation by getting high, but unless he actually acts on the desire, he is not behaving or acting out his addiction.
Dr. May also includes thinking as a behavior or a "doing," and he claims that certain feeling–states can become objects of attachment.
Examples may be anger, that can give the addict a feeling of power, and bliss that ignores reality(rose-colored glasses). Any emotion that gives the feeling of well–being can be addictive. When trying to attain these feeling– states at all costs,we're no longer free.
Who Is An Addict?
In general, an addict is someone either with a psychological or a physical dependence to something that he or she is unable to stop, despite the negative consequences.
Some addictions like drug or alcohol addiction can even lead to death.
Food addiction is currently becoming a more dangerous addiction, especially in the United States. Statistics are showing an increasing problem with obesity, with life-threatening diseases such as diabetes, heart–attacks and stroke.
In more recent years, compulsive behaviors like gambling, sex and "retail therapy" have also fallen under the banner of addiction in cases where the behaviors become uncontrollable by the affected person.
Another good way is to go back again to Dr.May's definition. There are actually five criteria that can help you see if you're addicted.
The tolerance to the substance of abuse increases. In other words, it takes more and more indulgence in the addiction to reach the same level of satisfaction.
The person suffers in some way or experiences dis–ease when the substance or behavior is removed or denied.
3. Self–Deception.
The mind deceives the addict with obsessive thoughts about the substance as well as about reality. The thinking then becomes a problem, and it's frequently called "DENIAL," an inability or unwillingness to face the truth or reality of the situation.
4. Loss Of Will Power
One part of the addict really wants to be free and realizes there might be a problem, but a bigger part is held captive by the addiction.
5. Distortion Of Attention
All the attention and energy is focused on how to find the next fix or act out the next behavior.
Analyzing the behavior against these five criteria can be a simple way to find out if, in fact, either the substance or the behavior is a problem.
Here is a short video I put together illustrating the what I call the 6 C's, an even simpler way of looking at the symptoms of addiction…if you can identify yourself in these, it may be time for you to get help!
The 3 Stages of Recovery
Step 1: What is the problem?
Step 2: What is the solution?
Steps 3-12: What is the program of action necessary for me to find and to use to implement that solution?
The Nature of the Problem:
AA & The Work ::Powerlessness (alcohol, thoughts)::
AA ("Main problem centers in the mind" AA p. 23
The Work ::An unquestioned mind::
The Solution to the Problem:
AA & The Work ::Power (God, God/love/reality)::
The Work ::Inquiry::
Another way of looking at the steps:
Steps 1-3 Getting right with God
Step 1: I can't
Step 2: He can
Step 3: I think I'll let Him
Steps 4-7 Getting right with self
Steps 8-9 Getting right with others
Steps 10-12 Living it out on a daily basis!
Some addictions have a physical component where a craving is set up once the substance is ingested. For the most part, The Big Book and The Work of Byron Katie agree that "the main problem …centers in the mind." Therefore it is important to begin inquiry from the beginning.]]>
This site is an offering of deeper support for all people suffering from addiction to a specific substance or behavior and those affected indirectly from someone else's substance or behavioral abuse. While we are all addicted to our stressful thinking, those of us in recovery and doing The Work felt the need to create this site for those of us who may have or still are working their 12 step program of recovery and want to support themselves with the tools of The Work as a complement to their step work.
Currently there are 12 steps fellowships for:
AA – Alcoholics Anonymous
Al-Anon – for those directly affected by the substance abuse of a family member, friend, etc
OA – Overeater's Anonymous (for Compulsive Overeating, anorexia and bulimia, compulsive exercising, body obsession)
NA – Drugs and Narcotics
DA – Debtor's Anonymous
SLAA – Sex and Love Addiction.
Other fellowships exist for gambling, marijuana and the list goes on. Most fellowships have websites with meeting info and directories to find support locally in your area.
The Twelve Steps begin by admitting powerlessness over our addiction and that our lives have become unmanageable. (Katie would say when we believe our thoughts we have zero choice over our behavior in relation to that thought. If I believe I have to eat and I don't question that thought, how could I not?) When I continue believing stressful thoughts and then act from them, my life becomes unmanageable. This is Step 1.
From here we come to believe in a power greater then ourselves (reality beyond our story) and surrender to that Power. We then proceed to take a moral inventory, tell the truth, get honest, make amends, drop into meditation and practice selfless service. Living this way, working these steps, hundreds of thousands of us have found we are relieved from our addictive behavior and /or substance. We don't control or force anything. Rather it falls away as we put our attention on the internal house-cleaning and rigorous honesty necessary to maintain our spiritual condition.
Many of us, anchored in the 12 step world and recovery from addiction, have come across The Work of Byron Katie. We have discovered this work to be a powerful and potent variation of the steps. In the 4 questions and turnaround we are doing Steps 4-11. The willingness to do the work itself is like Steps 1-3 and we live in Step 12.
Katie says the work is for people who want it fast–who want to end suffering now. We hare excited to offer the incredible tools here to all those struggling with addiction and/or working a program. We have found the tools offered here support us in our program of our recovery.
Source of Addiction
All addiction stems from self will. SELF, meaning a concept of who-we-are based upon past experiences and WILL being a projection onto a future that does not yet exist that we are attempting to control. Most addicts discover from working the steps and doing The Work that what we are really addicted to is painful thinking based upon a past or future that is completely devoid of Reality: the present moment– right now. To put down our substance cold turkey is often impossible for many of us, because we are flooded and inundated with our stressful thoughts. Many of our thoughts are unconscious. We have believed stressful thoughts for so long that they feel like reality. It is not until we begin taking inventory and putting our resentments and fears in writing or sharing them with others or taking them to inquiry (not analysis) that the attachment to the substance or behavior begins to fall away on its own. This is often refereed to as "God doing for us what we could not do for ourselves."
Concept of God
If you have an issue with the word or concept of God this is NOT a problem. Neither the Twelve Steps nor The Work fall into a religion category. God or spirituality has a different meaning for each of us. All ways are welcomed here. We are interested in freedom and those of us who have had these psychic changes that the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous speak about have surrendered our will to something greater than ourselves. Katie might call this God… or simply the essence of Love, the questioned mind.
Acccording to Byron Katie: "Addictions are always the effect of an unquestioned mind. The only true addiction to work with is the addiction to your thoughts. As you question those thoughts, that addiction ceases because you no longer believe those thoughts. And as those thoughts cease, as you cease to believe them, then the addictions in your life cease to be. It is a process. And there's no choice; you believe what you think, or you question it."
"People say, 'There are too many concepts to question. ..I'll never be done with it'…Well, you know, we begin right here, right now or not. But this is the only place we can begin and right here, right now is the only time you will ever have…..and now and now and now. We begin now."
The Solution
Byron Katie continues, "So to question these stressful thoughts, where is cause for addiction? If you were not worried, if you were not stressed out, and your mind was filled with more joy than your life could give you …Life ceases to be the effect of your happiness. So mind is cause and life is the effect. So as you work with cause, you work with the mind. Then the effects (addiction) have no cause. They have to stop. And if you take out the concept of time, and simply work with the thoughts that are arising for you now, then addictions start to shift. Again, the ultimate addiction is the addiction to our thinking."
Katie continues, "We work with our thinking and we loose stress, and we move out to addictive behavior because it's a way almost to control the mind. It's like if we keep moving, if we just keep being radical enough, then we shift the mind away from what we cannot deal with. But through The Work, we begin to deal with the mind, the stress level drops, so we don't use things any longer…that ceases, that begins to balance out….and then as the mind gets clearer, we begin to notice that we just notice cause and effect; for example, if you're allergic to wine, it just becomes clear that if you drink it, you just notice there is an effect that you don't particularly care for. And maybe there's not, so you might continue. Or an alcoholic who has an allergy to alcohol….they work with their mind and then one day they just notice, this hurts…this is not what I want…because they're clear enough to make clear choices. Alcohol gives you a head ache the next morning [addendum by SL:(or some people break out in felonies when they drink and use, or are suicidal, or homicidal, angry, etc)] and that's when you stop. Your mind is just clear enough that you see the internal effects. And then you begin to see the effects in life that alcohol has on your finances and your physical well being. And because your mind has been questioned, sanity takes over. You become so clear, that if I do this, then the physical effect is this. But because your mind is clear, you can take it in and there is no mind to argue with it, 'Yeah, but I will get away with it,' because you are just very clear that that's just not how you want to live any longer. And I have begun to notice that as the mind is questioned, it takes on a peace that I cannot even talk about."
Here is where The Work comes in: According to Byron Katie, "The only addiction is the unquestioned mind."]]>
Do you expect others to guess what you need and provide it for you without your having to ask? Or do you have a child, spouse or friends who uses alcohol, drugs, food to excess and you are trying to stop him/her before s/he injures self or others? These are some indications that there are stressful beliefs at work. The problem is never the circumstance; it is how you react/what you are believing that causes the stress.
Here is a man who does not want to be rejected again. Find out the surprising conclusion he reaches when he does The Work!
and further:]]>
Are you willing to go to any length for freedom?
How it works….
Getting Started
Willingness: Am I willing to go to any lengths to get and stay clean and sober/happy and healthy?
If not, what am I willing to do to recover?
If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it – then you are ready to take certain steps. [Big Book, page 58, line 16]
Are you ready?
Getting willing…
How is YOUR WAY working for you?
Is it time to try another way?
If what you have is not working for you, get honest and set aside the "I know" mind.
The Set Aside Prayer:
God (as you understanding him, her, it…or Reality (what is)), please allow me to set aside everything I think I know about myself, my life, others, my spiritual path, and especially about You, for an open mind and a new experience of myself, my life, others, my spiritual path, and especially of You. Thank you
So, there are at least two preconditions to taking the 12 steps.
1.The first of these is that you want recovery.
2.The second is that you must take these steps until the steps take you/ do The Work until The Work works you.
Yes, but HOW?
The Big Book of AA states that…the main problem of the alcoholic (addiction) centers in his mind, rather than in his body. [Big Book page 23, line 5]
…the mental states that precede a relapse into drinking…(are)… the crux of the problem, [Big Book page 35, line 1]
According to Katie,
"Addictions are always the effect of an unquestioned mind. The only true addiction to work with is the addiction to your thoughts. As you question those thoughts, that addiction ceases because you no longer believe those thoughts. And as those thoughts cease, as you cease to believe them, then the addictions in your life cease to be. It is a process. And there's no choice; you believe what you think, or you question it."
"People say, 'There are too many concepts to question. ..I'll never be done with it'…Well, you know, we begin right here, right now or not. But this is the only place we can begin and right here, right now is the only time you will ever have…..and now and now and now. We begin now."
We stood at the turning point, [Big Book page 59, line 4]
" So mind is cause and life is the effect. So as you work with cause, you work with the mind. Then the effects (addiction) have no cause. They have to stop. And if you take out the concept of time, and simply work with the thoughts that are arising for you now, then addictions start to shift. Again, the ultimate addiction is the addiction to our thinking."
"We work with our thinking and we loose stress, and we move out to addictive behavior because it's a way almost to control the mind. It's like if we keep moving, if we just keep being radical enough, then we shift the mind away from what we cannot deal with. But through The Work, we begin to deal with the mind, the stress level drops, so we don't use things any longer…that ceases, that begins to balance out….and then as the mind gets clearer, we begin to notice that we just notice cause and effect; for example, if you're allergic to wine, it just becomes clear that if you drink it, you just notice there is an effect that you don't particularly care for. And maybe there's not, so you might continue. Or an alcoholic who has an allergy to alcohol….they work with their mind and then one day they just notice, this hurts…this is not what I want…because they're clear enough to make clear choices. Alcohol gives you a head ache the next morning [addendum by SL:(or some people break out in felonies when they drink and use, or are suicidal, or homicidal, angry, etc)] and that's when you stop. Your mind is just clear enough that you see the internal effects. And then you begin to see the effects in life that alcohol has on your finances and your physical well being. And because your mind has been questioned, sanity takes over. You become so clear, that if I do this, then the physical effect is this. But because your mind is clear, you can take it in and there is no mind to argue with it, 'Yeah, but I will get away with it,' because you are just very clear that that's just not how you want to live any longer. And I have begun to notice that as the mind is questioned, it takes on a peace that I cannot even talk about. We will know peace , [Big Book page 84, line 1]
Here is where The Work comes in: According to Byron Katie, "The only addiction is the unquestioned mind."
Question Your Thoughts:
So, go to Get a One Belief at a Time Worksheet and let's get started!
Recovery is too hard; Recovery is a myth;
____________(Other people) is/are responsible for my problems
Alcohol (Drugs, Food, Gambling, Being in control) offers me_______________________
Alcoholics, (Addicts, Overeaters, Gamblers, Codependents) are ____________________
Killer reservations. Most people being introduced to recovery have reservations (thoughts) as to whether they should adopt a program of recovery. Here is some of the mythology we often hear that keeps addicts away:
* I would rather not associate with a bunch of admitted ________ (alcoholics, addicts, self-help types, overeaters, gamblers) who have done (and might still do) some pretty sordid things. I am a cut above/different.
According to Katie, "There are no new stressful thoughts. …They are all recycled."
Belief to question: ___________ (alcoholics, addicts, gamblers, overeaters, etc) are beneath me (useless, weak, less than human, etc.
* I may not be (alcoholic, an addict, gambler). I didn't ___________ (drink, use, eat, gamble) as much as you did, and I have never been _______________(in jail, in the hospital, etc).
Belief to question: As long as I can find someone worse off than me, my life is fine.
* My problems are with my environment (job, home, health, misfortune, etc.). Once these externals are fixed, I'll be fixed, too.
Belief to question: _____________ (wife, husband, partner, boss, etc) is responsible for my difficulties.
* I need to find out why I ____________(drank, overeat, gamble, use, etc) before I do all that step stuff.
Belief to question: Self understanding, self reliance, self will can solve all my problems.
* This process just might be a religious cult.
Belief to question: All this God stuff is intrusive, ineffective, irrational and irrelevant.
Interviewer: Jim Guinness
So certainly your experience in 1986 is the defining point of your life from then on.
BK: Yes.
Q: And it certainly is very remarkable by your published accounts. Can you speak about what happened?
BK: What happened was, if I had to name it, a state of grace. And that state of grace came from realizing mind. I realized that mind was everything, and that it was nothing: by the time we think it, it's gone, and only another thought would tell us that it existed at all. So that doesn't leave much. (Laughs) But I noticed that no thought was true and that before thought there was nothing, and those realizations are where the questions of The Work came from. And it's not just for me. Everyone can have that same realization now by using these questions.
Q: People have compared your Work to everything from Socratic dialogue to Buddhism and 12-step programs. What do you think about that?
BK: A lot of people claim it. They'll say, "Oh, my gosh, that's Buddhism," or "Oh, my goodness, that's Christianity.? Others say, "It's meditation," or "It's A Course in Miracles."
Q: How do you think The Work is similar to or different from them, and what makes it unique?
BK: Well, The Work is just four questions, so it's nothing, actually. It has zero motive, zero philosophy. The questions don't even say, "Answer me." People hear the name 'The Work' and they think it's a religion or a belief system, but it's really a way we can question the beliefs that we already have.
Q: So when you use the word 'religion,' you mean it in a broader sense.
BK: Yes, in the sense of stressful beliefs that we haven't questioned. For me, my religion was, "My children should pick up their socks." I was devoted to it. Until they're questioned, thoughts like this make up our whole life. We're stuck in the small, painful world of our beliefs instead of experiencing the unlimited, infinite mind. So now we have a way out of the 'I know' mind. And as more and more people realize the power of questioning their stressful thoughts or beliefs, then it's easier for the next one to do it, and the next. And as I travel the world, I see this. It's becoming so potent.
Q: So as one person and then another and another learns this process of inquiry, that makes it easier for more people to engage in it themselves.
BK: Yes, because we're detaching from what we believed was true. And mind loves it! You know, when it can explode its own theories, mind finds peace, and that's exciting. That's what this is, it's the mind questioning the mind. This is the end of war. It's the end of internal war, and when that is lived outwardly, it changes the world.
Q: Now, let's talk about The Work itself, since that obviously is what you?re about.
BK: That's what I'm about.
Q: You've boiled it down to a remarkably concise process: Judge your neighbor, write it down, ask four questions, turn it around. Most of us are used to hearing that we shouldn't judge our neighbor. Why do you suggest that we start there?
BK: Because that's where we are. I mean, where else should we start? Would it be loving to say, "No, start where I want you to." If' that's where we are, it just makes sense to begin there.
Q: Well, some people would claim that they don't have judgments. You know: "I'm not involved in that sort of thing." But you seem to be observing that all of us, whether we think about it or not, actually are judging pretty much all the time.
BK: Yes. Anyone who sees the world as absolutely perfect, flawless, is a person who doesn't need this Work. But our judgments about having judgments can sometimes prevent us from realizing what we're actually experiencing. With The Work, we don't shame or blame ourselves about our judgments. We welcome them, and we use them to find our own freedom. It really is the truth that sets us free.
Q: And the next step is to write it down. Some people might wonder why that's important. If I already pretty much know what I'm judging, what's the purpose of the second step, writing it down?
BK: It's the mind's job to be right. If we don't write the judgment down, mind begins to prove its case with all its rationalizations and justifications and it gets lost in the process. But if we write it down, we have taken a stressful part of our mind and stopped it. There it is, our judgment on paper. Now when we put the questions up against that written statement, the mind can?t move. So it's a simple way to investigate the mind: Put it on paper, bring it into the world. And it doesn't mean the rest of it isn't going to fly around in our heads. But something from our minds is stable there, and we can use inquiry on that.
Q: Writing it down holds it still, so you can inquire into it.
BK: Yes. Then eventually, people don?t have to bother, because the questions become alive in them.
Q: So after time, this process becomes more or less integrated and automatic, without having to think of it in terms of steps.
BK: A stressful thought will come, and the questions will come with it, and the war ceases. People are reading Loving What Is, and I?m so pleased with that, because inquiry is starting to come alive in many of these people just from reading the book. That delights me.
Q: That must be gratifying.
BK: It is, because I know they become kinder to their children. I know they become kinder to their spouses and their neighbors. So that?s a wonderful feeling, the end of war. It's what we've all wanted.
Q: So continuing with the steps of the process, after we are told to judge our neighbor and to write it down, then we question the thought we have written. Maybe you could go through these four questions, and give an example of how they work.
BK: Okay. One example I use is about a man I recently worked with in New York. His business partner had called him a troublemaker in front of their employees and peers. And this man was furious. He believed that his partner should apologize. And so we began to question that thought.
Q: So his statement was,
My partner should apologize for insulting me."
BK: Yes.
Q: And the first question you ask is?
BK: "Is it true?" And he said, "Yes." He was sure of it. And then I asked him the second question: "Your partner should apologize." can you absolutely know that that's true?" And he was an intelligent man, so he began to go inside and look at it. And he said, "Well, I can't know where he's coming from. I can't know another person's mind. For all I know, he believes he's right. So I can't absolutely know that it's true that he should apologize." Then I asked him the third question, "How do you react when you think that thought?" And he began to give me a list: "I get angry. He comes up with a good idea, and I slam it down. I talk about him behind his back. When I see him, I avoid him. When I go home, I take the resentment with me, and I complain to my wife." Then he said, with a look of amazement, "Oh, my gosh. I am a troublemaker. He was right."
Q: The way he acted when he held the thought that his partner should apologize for calling him a troublemaker, was to act like a troublemaker himself!
BK: Yes. And in that discovery, he connected with his partner. Instead of defense and war, there's connection, and there's relief from fighting the truth and believing the lie.
Q: The lie, in this case, being that the partner should apologize.
BK: Yes. How do I know he shouldn't apologize? Well, what's the reality of it? Has he apologized? No. That's how I know he shouldn't apologize. He hasn't! And when we try to push reality, to make reality the way we think we want it, we're not happy human beings. Anything that argues with reality is stressful. So I asked him the fourth question: "Who would you be without that thought? Who would you be, working with your partner, if you didn't believe that he should apologize?" And he said, very softly, "His friend. His friend. I wouldn't be talking about him behind his back. I'd be working with him again, and our company would benefit from that. And I'd set a better example for everyone, and be a lot happier at home."
And then I asked him to turn it around, "Your partner should apologize; turn it around to the opposite." There are variations on the turnaround–I walk people through them in detail in Loving What Is? but what he found was, "I should apologize to him." He could now see where his partner was right to begin with. And then another turnaround is: "I should apologize to myself." Yes, he had cost himself money, he had cost himself a friend, he had cost himself his home life, and his professional life. So he owed himself amends. And then another turnaround is, "My partner should not apologize." And that one hit him really hard. You know, it turned out to be his own problem–the problem was caused by his thinking, not by his partner's action. Whatever the right or wrong of his partner's action might be, this man was prepared to clean things up on his side. It was wonderful watching him.
Q: So even if the partner had been inappropriate or out of line in saying what he did, the man himself could clean it up, he didn't have to wait for his partner to do something with it.
BK: Exactly. He could see and the three hundred or so other people in the room could see that we're responsible for our own happiness. If I think that someone else is my problem, I'm insane. I do The Work on my own thinking, clean up my own mess, and the other person lives with what they live with. But the only question we need to ask is "How am I doing?" because we can't change the world. Look at what he had done to manipulate and shift the world around him. It was unkind to everyone involved, especially himself. So through these four questions–I call them "checkmate!"
Q: Why do you call them checkmate?
BK: Because if you really want to know the truth, they've got you. There's no way out for people who really want to know the truth. It brings you back to reality. And what a joy that can be.
Q: Other spiritual or self-improvement practices suggest either disciplining your thoughts or cultivating positive thoughts or simply watching our thoughts. In The Work, how do we relate to our thoughts?
BK: As friends, as the beloved. What else is there? Who would want their mind to be quiet if they understood it, if they really understood it? If they could meet all their thoughts with unconditional love, which is what these questions bring, then who would want the mind to shut up? Who would want to escape or change it? We haven't been able to quiet the mind. And we haven?t been able to meditate it down or medicate it down, not for long. It looks like we have control over it until we get the parking ticket. So instead of fighting our thoughts, through these four questions we welcome them as friends.]]>
Are you struggling with stressful thoughts about your body or a food addiction?
Take a look at your thoughts!
Here are some of mine:
You can never be too thin.
I need to loose weight.
If I can only get thinner, then life will be great.
I can only attract a friend if I am "hot."
My ___________is too big/too small/too__________
What are your stressful thoughts?
People shouldn't binge.
Fat people are disgusting, lazy, ugly.
If you are in pain, look to your mind and your stressful thoughts.
There are no new stressful beliefs. You are killing yourself by believing your stressful beliefs. If you want your body to improve, question the thoughts that keep you ill, but do it for the love of truth, for freedom.
Let's say you are going to the refrigerator for ice cream and, before you reach for it, put the story on paper, do The Work, and then you either eat it or not. Every thought is about your identification. It's as though when you eat the ice cream, notice all the thoughts that attack you; until you come to love yourself, there is no way to understand that love is the power and hate is not. Keep questioning your thoughts until you come to LOVE.
Work with the mind and the body will follow!
Here is one example:]]>


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Daily Politics reporters Giles Dilnot and Adam Fleming took different journeys from central London to Heathrow Airport to see whether the journey is quicker by road or rail.
The Clarkson and Hammond test came as the government announced that all transport projects planned by local councils were being put on hold and subject to review.
What are these?
E-mail this to a friend


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If you use ALTER ROLE/DATABASE SET to configure an invalid search_path, PostgreSQL 9.1 issues a complaint about the invalid setting on each new connection. This is a behavior change relatively to previous releases, which did not. git bisect blames this commit: 2594cf0e8c04406ffff19b1651c5a406d376657c is the first bad commit commit 2594cf0e8c04406ffff19b1651c5a406d376657c Author: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> Date: Thu Apr 7 00:11:01 2011 -0400 Revise the API for GUC variable assign hooks. The previous functions of assign hooks are now split between check hooks and assign hooks, where the former can fail but the latter shouldn't. Aside from being conceptually clearer, this approach exposes the "canonicalized" form of the variable value to guc.c without having to do an actual assignment. And that lets us fix the problem recently noted by Bernd Helmle that the auto-tune patch for wal_buffers resulted in bogus log messages about "parameter "wal_buffers" cannot be changed without restarting the server". There may be some speed advantage too, because this design lets hook functions avoid re-parsing variable values when restoring a previous state after a rollback (they can store a pre-parsed representation of the value instead). This patch also resolves a longstanding annoyance about custom error messages from variable assign hooks: they should modify, not appear separately from, guc.c's own message about "invalid parameter value". Is this an intentional change? And is it desirable? -- Robert Haas EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
Next: From: Tom Lane Date: 2012-04-03 15:33:38 Subject: Re: Speed dblink using alternate libpq tuple storage Previous: From: Robert Haas Date: 2012-04-03 15:04:41 Subject: Re: patch for parallel pg_dump


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Due to its size, liquidity and past rocket ship ascent through the market, Apple (AAPL) is a favorite of traders. And then it was hated by traders who lost as the stock fell from north of $700 to below $400. Since traders read a lot, eager to gain the latest insight to help them, for the most part, they lose money in this stock because everyone writes about Apple. Even my cockapoo Sumo is starting a website to guide people who trade this stock, and people who do so deserve his insight – and no more.
Last night I held a webinar for my subscribers, replete with great questions and tactics – we sell options to generate income rather than buy options to generate losses – and the question of Apple came up. Here is what I said, to both traders and investors.
AAPL for Traders
Apple needs to push past the $490-$510 level for five to ten trading days to put in place a base for the next leg up. This being August, with light trading the norm, putting this level in before the return of traders after Labor Day is important. If this happens, you can expect, barring a market meltdown, a move up prior to the anticipated iPhone announcement on September 10, six trading days after Labor Day. The stock could touch $550-$565 if everyone comes back from the beach afraid of missing out on a run in the shares.
AAPL for Investors
Buy now and go to the beach after Labor Day when rates go down, Before you do, sell some calls. The stock is currently selling between $505 and $510. Buy it here, sell some September $510 calls and you will net around $16 a share. If you are called out, you will be mad at me for missing the run – but you will also have netted $3.7% in a month, and with Sumo doing the multiplication, that is an annualized return of 45%.
Why would you want to own Apple if you do not already? It is the cheapest terrific company on the planet, it has plenty of room to grow in the real world with new products, it has more cash than the combined central banks of Africa and it is picking up market share in smart phones. Yes, rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated; it is picking up share. Almost all catalysts are on the upside: new products, a deal with China Mobile, better earnings.
And if you are not called out, and the stock never moves, you will generate more than 30% a year in income from selling calls at current prices.
My Options Income Strategy Is So Effective, 93% of Investors Who Use It Make Money. This Special Video will teach you how to instantly add CASH to your account every week, every month and every quarter and NEVER put your portfolio at risk. Create Your Own "Extra Pay Day" Every Week.


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Posted by anonymous
Steve is careful, thoughtful and thorough. He also chooses who he represents and which cases he takes. My wife and I had several related issues and he represented us in some, went to trial in one and referred some to specialist attorneys with detailed knowledge. While our matters concerned real estate and contract matters, I hear he also won two large settlements recently in personal injury cases.
Posted by Steve
Stephen Weeks is representing my wife and me in some very complex litigation. He exhibits a high level of competence, professionalism & integrity. I highly recommend this law firm!


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Kim Kardashian Talks Divorce on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno"
Paying a visit to the late night circuit, Kim Kardashian stopped by the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" at NBC Studios in Burbank, CA on Wednesday (March 21).
The brunette bombshell looked stunning in a white knee length dress with a floral lace embellished neckline while accessorizing with a white jade bracelet from Elizabeth Taylor and a slicked back ponytail.
Doing her best to bring in viewers, Miss Kardashian took to her Twitter page earlier in the day to remind fans of the television appearance, as she tweeted, "I'm on 'The Tonight Show' tonight 11.30pm on NBC http://bit.ly/GFk51G See you soon @JayLeno!"
Though we haven't heard much talk of it yet, Leno got right to the questions everyone has been dying to hear about - including the "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" starlet's 72 day marriage with NBA player Kris Humphries.
The 31-year-old reality royalty explained that, when she knew the marriage wasn't working anymore, she had to end it, saying, "I hear stories of people that were married for ten years, but they knew it wasn't right, but they wanted to stick it out and then they involved kids. I want that forever and I believed in love, I still do, but I felt to be fair to everyone I knew I had to end it and I'm ok with that decision"
Kim also admitted that, when the whole thing happened, she wasn't expecting it to bring such a firestorm, telling, "I didn't know that the media would be so brutal with it, but I learned so many lessons about it and its changed who I am as a person I think for the better and the things that I care about in life have completely changed because of this so I really think everything happens for a reason."


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Police 'refused to detain drug dealer'
State Political Reporter
Page Tools
Items seized from an alleged drug dealer at Holmesglen TAFE last weeks.
Holmesglen TAFE has lashed out at police after they refused to approach a student allegedly dealing drugs at the college.
Executive director Bruce McKenzie told The Sunday Age that the student, who had already been under suspicion, was found with illegal drugs on Wednesday morning at Holmesglen's Moorabbin campus.
"The institute contacted the Victorian police for assistance. The police's response was that they had no powers to intervene and that it was our problem," Mr McKenzie said.
"We have the most punitive road laws in Australia, rigidly enforced by the police, inquiries into police corruption emanating from trade in illicit substances, but when it comes to taking action against dealers selling to students - call anyone but the Victorian police."
The education union and the Opposition were horrified at the incident, saying it was unacceptable that the college be left alone to deal with alleged drug dealing.
Mr McKenzie has since alerted Police Minister Andre Haermeyer and asked the Ombudsman to consider the matter.
A spokeswoman for the Ombudsman said on Friday that the matter would be investigated, but a Government spokeswoman declined to comment, saying it would be inappropriate to do so because the police were investigating.
A police van went to the college on Wednesday morning in response to a call from a staff member. But when alerted to the college's concerns that a student was dealing drugs, the two attending officers said they were unable to get involved and left.
Campus manager Frank Virik said in a later statement to police that a policewoman had said the police "had no power to conduct a search" because "Holmesglen was not a public place under her definition".
A police spokesman said yesterday that under the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act, police were unable to conduct searches on private land without a warrant, even if they had been invited by TAFE management.
Instead, the officer told TAFE management on Wednesday to "do what they had to do" and left, Mr Virik's statement to police said. However, the police are investigating the matter.
Holmesglen staff removed the student from class and seized about "five marijuana heads", $190 cash, and a contact list apparently detailing recent sales. These were taken to the local police station, the statement said.
Australian Education Union secretary Mary Bluett was shocked to hear of the incident.
"I find it incredibly strange. It's an absurdity that if an offence is occurring on campus that the police can't attend," she said. She urged the Government and the police to do whatever needed to be done to ensure police were allowed to attend such incidents.
The Opposition said it was "totally unacceptable" that police were unable to deal with a suspected drug dealer simply because he was on campus.
"This is sending a message to drug dealers that they can go on to TAFE campuses because the police can't do anything about it," Opposition police spokesman Kim Wells said.
Opposition education spokesman Victor Perton said it was unacceptable for TAFE authorities to be left holding the can.
College staff became concerned after a student was seen regularly carrying a small set of scales, lots of small plastic bags and other equipment. They were also worried that fellow students appeared affected by drugs when they were operating heavy machinery as part of their course, Mr McKenzie said.
The student is expected to be expelled.
Mr McKenzie said Holmesglen had had few drug problems in the 20 years he had been in charge.


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Market Street to reopen Saturday night
Updated 9:15 pm, Friday, August 29, 2014
SAN ANTONIO — Market Street near the Convention Center will reopen Saturday night after being closed for a year of construction.
Two lanes of Market, which remains one way eastbound, will reopen around 9 p.m. Saturday, said Mike Frisbie, director of the city's Transportation and Capital Improvements Department. Two other lanes will remain closed while construction continues on the Convention Center.
The city closed the street between Bowie Street and Interstate 37 starting in September to reconstruct and straighten Market to allow for the eastward expansion of the Convention Center.
Once Market reopens, drivers will have more options where the street crosses I-37: They can turn left and head toward Commerce Street, or turn right and drive toward Montana Street or César E. Chávez Boulevard.
As part of the project, the city has added pedestrian walkways, bike paths and an area that can be shared by both cyclists and pedestrians, said Melissa S. Sparks, spokeswoman for TCI.
News Channel
The city still has to complete some sidewalk improvements and landscaping, which could take another month. The city also might have to close some lanes at night while they install overhead signs, Frisbie said. email@example.com, Twitter: @viannadavila


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Selected Date:
Daily Devotions
Daily Devotions Podcast
Truth In Real Life
Truth In Real Life Podcast
"Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go; keep her; for she is thy life." (Proverbs 4:13)
Pretend you have invented something very special. It took a very long time for you to design, and it is very useful. Let's say you call it a "Jillipy-Bop." The Jillipy-Bop is so special and useful that all your friends tell you they want a Jillipy-Bop of their own! Your parents are so impressed with the Jillipy-Bop that they help you get your Jillipy-Bop patented, mass-produced, and marketed. A store in your hometown has agreed to sell your Jillipy-Bops, and you are now in business!
However, your Jillipy-Bops each come with some small parts that the buyer must put together before it works. You must put a set of instructions in every Jillipy-Bop box. You write up the instructions and ship out the boxed Jillipy-Bops. The instructions you wrote up are very simple, so you are sure that no one will have trouble putting your invention together if they follow the instructions.
But soon you receive a letter from a customer that has a problem with his Jillipy-Bop. "This thing doesn't work!" the customer writes. "I want my money back!" This customer includes his name, address and telephone number, so your parents tell you that, as a businessman, it would be wise if you call and try to find out what happened.
Your first question is" "Was the Jillipy-Bop broken during shipment?" The answer: "Well, no."
Your next question: "Were all the parts there?" The answer: "Yes, I guess so."
Finally: "Were the instructions in your box?" The answer: "Yes, I guess so."
"Did you read the instructions carefully before you tried to put your Jillipy-Bop together?"
There is a long silence…so you decide to ask him again: "Did you read the instructions carefully before you put your Jillipy-Bop together?"
The answer, when it finally comes out, is spoken very quietly: "No. But I thought it looked easy enough that I could put it together myself. The instructions are still in the box."
Your reply: "In order for it to work properly, you have to read and follow the instructions. When I hang up, read the instructions , take your Jillipy-Bop apart, and put it back together again. Then call me back and let me know if it works."
Later the phone rings, and a much more cheerful voice tells you that after following the instructions, he put the Jillipy-Bop together. It is working perfectly now, and he thanks you.
You might think this is a silly story, but it illustrates something that happens every day in many believers' lives. We get frustrated because it is hard for us to trust God or to respond rightly when we are in trouble. We get confused about what we ought to do or how we should handle a certain situation. And sometimes we call out to God and say, "Why isn't this working? Why does this have to be so hard? I don't know what I'm doing wrong! I want to give up!"
The last place we seem to want to look is God's Word--and yet it is our very best source for the wisdom we need! Our "instructions" from God are all in the Bible. If our Bibles go un-touched and un-read, we cannot expect to know what God says about "life" and "how to handle it." We will go through life trying to figure it out on our own, without any clue what God is trying to teach us! God's instructions are not all that difficult, if we will just be willing to follow them. He desires for us to be able to "put all the pieces together" for His glory and for our good.
Proverbs 23:12 says, "Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge." To "apply your heart" means to heed, or pay serious attention to. Are you paying attention to God's Word?
God wants us to read and obey the instructions that He gives in His Word.
My Response: » Am I serious about reading God's Word and "hearing" His instructions for life? » Do I decide daily to obey God's instructions for life?
"I don't need explanations from God. I simply believe Him and accept whatever comes my way."
He crouched at the starting line of the Olympic track, waiting nervously for the starting gunshot to go off. He was competing in the Paris Olympics of 1924, but his chances for winning were very poor. The 400-meter race was not his strongest run, and he knew it. The 100-meter race was by far his best chance at a gold medal, but 100-meter had been scheduled for a Sunday. That was no good. Eric Liddell always refused to run on the Lord's Day.
Born on January 16, 1902, Eric Liddell was the son of missionaries to China. Spending most of his younger years at school in Scotland, he was known for being both humble and athletic – a rare combination in most athletes. He loved races and rugby; and he excelled in them so much that he was encouraged to enter competition for the Olympics!
He trained hard, and it was a long journey to become an Olympian athlete. He and his teammates were very disappointed when they arrived in Paris to learn that "his" race, the 100-meter race, had been scheduled for the one day he could not – would not – run. Liddell's conscience felt compelled to honor God by resting and "not doing his own thing" on God's special day. He wanted to do whatever he could to bring attention to God's glory. He understood God's nature and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Liddell's motto was, "He who honors Me, I will honor."
So Liddell had a race in front of him now that was 3x longer than the one he was accustomed to running well. The gunshot sounded and the race began. In his signature style, he threw back his head and ran with absolute abandon, giving it everything he had for all 400 meters. When he crossed the finish line, the crowds thundered with shouts and applause. Not only had he finished the race, but he had finished first! He had also broken the previous record! God gave Eric Liddell a gold medal after all that day.
After those Olympics, Liddell returned to China as a missionary. He learned the difficult Chinese language and told everyone he met about the Gospel. Whatever he did – running, preaching, living out the Gospel – he was faithful and gracious. People were attracted to his determination and humility and wanted to know more about his God. His life story pointed all kinds of people to his Savior. There was even a movie made about his story (Chariots of Fire).
Do your decisions and priorities make it clear to everyone around you that you love and value your Savior more than your own fame and reputation? Have you ever risked losing something you really wanted because you felt God would be displeased with you for going after it? Are you truly humble about God's gifts to you? Do people praise your talents and your gifts only, or are they able to see beyond them to the One Who gave you what you have?
Isaiah 40:31 – But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
The Lord of Hosts
Psalm 24:10 "Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah."
At death, the souls of the wicked will be cast into the torments of hell, and their bodies will lie in their graves until God raises them up to be judged. Mark 8:36 – For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
The word "incarnation" does not appear in the Scriptures. It is a word that the church has used to describe the act of God the Son who took upon himself human nature and human appearance. (John 20:31) "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name."
© Copyright Kids 4 Truth International. All Rights Reserved.


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For nearly 25 years, I have jealously guarded the value of my brand.
According to the researcher, jealously is the culprit, the "fear of losing a beloved to someone else."
Sparta could not hold on long to naval dominion, but jealously tried to prevent Athens from regaining it.
Even in the West, the health status of top leaders has often been jealously guarded.
Intelligence gathering is one of the most jealously guarded and legally protected authorities of a chief executive.
For obvious reasons match targets must be jealously guarded and their individual identity carefully preserved.
"He seemed to have an air of proprietorship," he said jealously.
And jealously shepherding the other out of the house, he withdrew the key when both had passed the threshold.
What is the cause that you so jealously Pick out the lean for me.
Music was in the care of the priests, who jealously guarded the sacred hymns and melodies from innovation and foreign intrusion.
c.1200, gelus, later jelus (early 14c.), "possessive and suspicious," originally in the context of sexuality or romance; in general use late 14c.; also in a more positive sense, "fond, amorous, ardent," from c.1300, from Old French jalos "keen, zealous; avaricious; jealous" (12c., Modern French jaloux), from Late Latin zelosus, from zelus "zeal," from Greek zelos, sometimes "jealousy," but more often in a good sense ("emulation, rivalry, zeal"). See zeal. In biblical language (early 13c.) "tolerating no unfaithfulness."
Most of the words for 'envy' ... had from the outset a hostile force, based on 'look at' (with malice), 'not love,' etc. Conversely, most of those which became distinctive terms for 'jealousy' were originally used also in a good sense, 'zeal, emulation.' [Buck, pp.1138-9]Among the ways to express this in other tongues are Swedish svartsjuka, literally "black-sick," from phrase bara svarta strumpor "wear black stockings," also "be jealous." Danish skinsyg "jealous," literally "skin-sick," is from skind "hide, skin" said to be explained by Swedish dialectal expression fa skinn "receive a refusal in courtship."


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Jump to the content
"I have nothing but good to say about the ALCS. I was only vaguely aware that the organisation existed, but it took the trouble to get in touch with me and send me a nice little bit of money that I had no idea was due to me; and every year it sends me money for photocopying and similar fees that I would otherwise have no clue how to track down. All this for zero effort on my part. What's not to love?"
Jane Spencer, Academic (Exeter University)
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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is feeling the love, after voters backed him Tuesday for a nine-point victory, making him the first governor to win a recall election in U.S. history.
And to think, all it took to bury the chances of Walker's Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, was $45.6 million, most of it from outside interests and individuals.
If any nonwealthy Wisconsinites voted for Walker in spite of reservations about him and what he's doing, they had better fasten their seatbelts and prepare for a rough ride in the months ahead. Walker was a conservative Republican, anything-to-win bully before the recall. Now, expect him to feel liberated to pursue his radical, union-busting, trickle-down agenda with no holds barred.
After all, Walker has fat-cat Republicans and special interests all over the country willing to write big checks for him. His state is well stocked with people who can be persuaded by the propaganda those big checks buy to vote against their own best interests.
So for Walker, the Koch brothers, et al, it's blue skies and green lights all the way in Wisconsin.
No one should be surprised if the repercussions spread beyond Wisconsin. Middle-class people and unions in other states with Walker-type Republican governors and Republican-controlled legislatures could well see their powers that be emboldened to do more and worse in the months and years ahead.
We hope for their sake the middle-class and working-class voters who gave Walker his easily bought victory don't end up being road kill when the election's buyers reap their rewards.
And make no mistake, those election buyers will reap their rewards.
P.S.: This Mother Jones item, toward the end, provides revealing insight into the kind of big-money interests backing Walker. Think fracking.


text: JJJ - Unregistered May 04, 2012 6:49 PM Judging by the first 4 races neither Vergne nor Ricciardo is ready to step into that RBR yet and Webber is doing reasonably well so far so it makes a lot of sense for RBR to retain Webber for another year. I just wonder if Webber wouldn't/shouldn't want to move to a different team (particularly Ferrari) right about now. In the past when he could partner up with FA at Renault he refused to do so, probably out of fear that he'd be 2nd fiddle and it would be a carreer ender, but at this point if you're going to be a nr2 driver, why not do that with the most iconic team in F1. 7 agree 0 disagree


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WOOSTER, Ohio -- Last year the city's building department saw a return to a more "normal" year in te
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Madigan predicts Rauner funding plan will fail
ILLINOIS (WCIA) -- Tensions ran hot during Governor Bruce Rauner's first day of a special session intended to finalize a school funding formula overhaul.
Keeping your children healthy at school
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The word bully is one parents dread, and it doesn't matter whether their child is on the giving or …
Study: Homeschooled Kids Sleep More Than Others
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The ACT is an important college entrance exam some students choose to take. Most colleges require …
What's a good ACT or SAT score?
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Starting high school can cause a lot of anxiety for some teens. Take a look at some ways you can …
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Get tips for building your kids' math skills this summer
It might be summer vacation for school kids, but that doesn't mean kids should take a break from …
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By Mayo Clinic News NetworkA number of things can reduce test anxiety and increase your performance…
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When a test is coming up, kids can get nervous. Some even get nervous on small tests or even if …
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Many children who have learning disorders, also known as learning disabilities, struggle for a long…
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Should you pay your child $10 for every "A"? Banish video games for a month for each "F"?Lisa …
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Good parents stay involved
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Observers are commenting on a pattern of increasingly brazen acts of instigation of Americans to take up arms in the event that Obama wins the November general election.
Observers are also pointing out that the US is going through an intensification of race-ethnic political tension previously exclusively associated with "Third World" countries.
The liberal website Think Progress notes the growing success of the intensive extreme right wing conspiracy theory propaganda and the increasing acceptance and influence of extreme right wing views in mainstream circles. The main line of right wing conspiracy theory claims that President Obama is plotting to use the United Nations and the National Security Presidential Directive-51, signed into law by George W. Bush on May 2, 2007, to transform the country "into a nation of liberal secular humanists with a Socialist government that will plot on behalf of a New World Order. " (Prison Planet, Free The Nation).
Observers of recent trends in right wing circles emphasize that the intensification of clamor over "right to bear arms" and assertion of Second Amendment rights is in response to the perception that Americans need to be armed to resist an imminent move by Obama to impose UN-backed left wing dictatorship on Americans.
The growing intensity of tribal drums of war is increasingly noticeable as the November election approaches. Right wing websites have intensified the Obama smear campaign. For instance, the extreme right wing website, Natural News, in a series of posts, promotes a conspiracy theory propaganda that borrows a lot from, and is eerily reminiscent of pre-World War II anti-Semitic propaganda in Germany that targeted Jewish controlled financial institutions in Europe, and which led to the crazed orgy of tribal killings of the Holocaust. The Natural News writer's allegations read like passages from pre-World War II German anti-Semitic tracts that promoted Jewish financial world-takeover conspiracy theories:
"The U.S. government clearly sees the writing on the wall. What lays ahead for America is a day of unbearable reckoning. The financial collapse will wipe out savings accounts, pensions, investment funds and equities of the working class, all across the nation. Imagine bank accounts being reset to zero, 'bank holidays' enforced at gunpoint. That will unleash a wave of violent protests, social chaos and even talk of revolution. The government will almost certainly respond with a declaration of Martial Law, the rolling out of highway checkpoints, and before long, the use of live ammo on unruly protesters."
The website claims that the Obama administration itself is preparing for war in anticipation of the financial apocalypse it claims is imminent:
Are Republicans preparing for war if 'African' Obama wins?
Current Status: Blessed (1)
Seeded on Fri Aug 24, 2012 7:28 AM
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Matt Wilson, a managing director at the hedge fund Oaktree Capital Management was on the line. He informed Myers that Oaktree had just bought a large slice of Billabong's debt from its banks.
The next day Myers took a similar call from a New York hedge fund called Centerbridge Partners.
These calls continued over the next few days and by the end of the following week, Billabong learnt that all of its debt was now owned by two hedge funds working together.
For the past couple of months Billabong and its adviser Goldman Sachs, led by Christian Johnston and Zac Fletcher, had been trying to negotiate a refinancing deal with rival private equity firms Altamont Capital Partners and Sycamore Partners.
Over the previous 18 months a series of profit downgrades had caused Billabong's debt to balloon relative to its earnings. The company had been the subject of half a dozen takeover offers during that time, but by July all but Altamont had walked away.
Oaktree's founder Howard Marks was a Wall Street legend, famous for his distressed debt plays. Marks had made billions over the years by buying the debt of embattled companies at knockdown prices and then converting that debt into equity, taking control and wiping out existing shareholders.
Oaktree had just months earlier completed one such deal to become a stakeholder in Nine Entertainment Co. at the expense of its former owner CVC Asia Pacific.
Myers called an urgent board meeting and the Billabong directors called Oaktree and Centerbridge to try to figure out their intentions. They told the hedge funds Billabong was close to signing a bridging loan with Altamont, and if they had a plan to recapitalise the company, they should let it be known fast. O/C told Billabong it would be happy to extend its financing, for a $40 million fee.
A week later on July 16 Billabong signed a deal with Altamont that provided the funding to repay the hedge funds.
The deal saved Billabong's shareholders, who potentially faced oblivion if O/C was left as the sole source of finance, and triggered the departure of
The hedge funds had made quick and impressive profit. They had received a 100 per cent repayment on $300 million worth of loans bought for between 80¢ and 90¢ in the dollar just days earlier.
But O/C wasn't ready to walk away just yet. The hedge funds made an application to the Takeovers Panel, complaining that Altamont's $65 million break fee, one of the largest in history, was a lock-up device that deterred rival proposals. It also argued that the interest payable to Altamont on a convertible note was likely to coerce shareholders into approving the issue of a controlling interest in the company.
The panel agreed, forcing Altamont to change the terms of its deal.
Two days later O/C emerged with a counter offer that would mark the beginning of three weeks of intense negotiations.
O/C's initial offer would provide cheaper debt, more liquidity, and greater shareholder participation, but it lacked a clear strategy for Billabong's future growth. Critically, the hedge funds were unable to propose a potential chief executive.
Altamont had lined up Scott Olivet, a highly-respected former Oakley and Nike executive.
Based on calculations of higher interest rates under Altamont's terms, O/C argued their offer was more than $100 million superior over a period of five years. For a fraction of that money they could lure any chief executive in the world.
Altamont countered that Billabong's problem was the collapse of its earnings, and with the right chief executive and strategy, which they had, a quick turnaround would solve O/C's complaints.
Each party revised the terms of its offer more than a dozen times over the next few weeks. The challenge for Billabong and Goldman was to evaluate financials against less tangible considerations. Each time one party made a concession on an interest rate, the other would counter with a revised configuration of board members.
Last week Myers, who was now interim chief executive flew to Sydney to meet with his chairman Ian Pollard.
The discussions reached a crescendo this week between the offices of Goldman Sachs and Billabong's lawyers Allens, with early morning teleconferences with the United States.
Discussions tipped O/C's way once it convinced Neil Fiske, a former Boston Consulting Group partner to be its CEO choice, but ultimately the hedge funds presented the best deal for existing shareholders. The deal was signed at 3am on Thursday morning.
The Australian Financial Review


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The intake valve is withdrawn by the use of special tools through the cylinder head, the exhaust valve being first dismounted.
Five seconds later the inventor was creeping out along one wing toward the intake valve of the port gas tank.
When the exhaust valve is operated by the tappet rod and rocker arm the intake valve is also carried down with it.
A little to one side stuck up the small tube of the intake valve.
The intake valve, in order to operate properly, should be located between the auricle and ventricle, and this is where it is.
The detective closed the intake valve of the mask and expelling all of the air from his lungs, took a deep breath.
He could get the odor faintly through the intake valve of his helmet.
The intake valve on the left side of the heart, which is composed of but two flaps, is known as the mitral valve.


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A true gem of English Tudor style perched on top of Luke's Mountain in a historical district with a spectacular view of the mountains.
This grand home is within easy access to I-64 and Amtrak and located between Lexington, VA and Lewisburg, WV.
Skiing, boating, fishing, hiking, swimming, and hunting activities near the property. The Greenbrier and the Homestead resorts are within an easy drive.
Louise ShowalterFairfield Farms Realty, LLC540-862-1150 email@example.com www.fairfieldfarmsrealty.com


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PCC Catalog
Machine Manufacturing Tech
Click the course title to view the course sections available in the latest term.
|MCH 280 Cooperative Education: Machine Technology
|Provides an opportunity to work at a manufacturing site. Requires applying the skills learned in the Machine Manufacturing Technology (MMT)program to manufacture real world parts and products. Department permission is required. Offered for one to eight credits based upon the number of clock hours completed at the work site. One credit equals 30 hours of work. Prerequisites: MCH 121 and completion of at least 12 credits of MMT coursework. Audit available.
You may also view all courses for Machine Manufacturing Tech.


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on After Effects, Final Cut Pro, AVID and much more.
A blog by Premiumbeat
Posts Tagged 'tiff'
Are Film Festivals Worth the Money?
Let's answer a common question among filmmakers: Are film festivals worth your time, energy, and money?
How To Develop A Festival Strategy For Your Film That Doesn't Waste Time Or Money
Pinpoint which festivals are best for your film project and develop a solid application strategy. In this post, I share my own personal experiences in applying for both big league and small niche film festivals.


text: Dr. Abigail Moran is Deputy Manager and Pharmaceutical Assessor in Product Lifecycle Assessment Team (PLAT) 6, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). She is a registered UK pharmacist and joined the MHRA as a pharmaceutical assessor in 2004. Dr. Moran completed a PhD in the characterization of spray-dried protein/carbohydrate formulations using gravimetric vapor sorption analysis and near infrared spectroscopy. She has worked in the therapeutic areas of cardiovascular disease and anti-infectives before moving to the team working in the areas of malignant disease, immunosuppression and musculoskeletal disease in 2006. Dr. Moran is currently a member of the EU drafting group of the CHMP Quality Working Party which works on the development of the EU guideline on the use of near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) by the pharmaceutical industry and the data requirements for new submissions and variations. [November 2012, AH]


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The power to visually blend into immediate environment.
Also Called
- Chameleon Effect
- Dynamic Camouflage
The user can visually blend into surroundings by blending in with the coloration and form of their background to avoid optical perception. Some users can affect their attire by means of "static camouflage".
- Must be able to have similar colors as the location one is at.
- Users of Enhanced Senses can detect the users.
- May be limited to visible light.
- May still cast a shadow.
- May have to stay still.
Known Users
See Also: Chameleon Camouflage.
- Mayuri Kurotsuchi (Bleach)
- Kisuke Urahara (Bleach)
- Cyan Sung-Sun (Bleach)
- Yukio Hans Vorarlberna (Bleach)
- Sōsuke Aizen (Bleach)
- Kagerōza Inaba (Bleach)
- August (Fairy Tail)
- Indominus Rex (Jurassic World)
- Peeta Mellark (The Hunger Games)
- Bug (Gone series)
- Chamelemon (Digimon)
- Chameleon Girl (Heroes)
- Fang (Maximum Ride)
- Karen (Misfits)
- Martians (Young Justice/DC)
- Miss Martian (Young Justice/DC)
- Martian Manhunter (Young Justice/DC)
- Motoko Kusanagi (Ghost in the Shell)
- Randall (Monsters Inc.)
- Wampas (Star Wars)
- Sendou Ryuuichi (Code: Breaker)
- Stealthed Units/Structures (Command & Conquer series)
- Sting Chameleon (Mega Man X)
- Pisces Aphrodite (Saint Seiya)
- T-1000 (Terminator/Terminator 2)
- The Predator (Predator series)
- TJ Botsford (WordGirl)
- Zeo (One Piece)
- Psycho P. (One Piece)
- Zetsu (Naruto)
- Tsuyu Asui (My Hero Academia)
- Merlinisapiens (Ben 10: Ultimate Alien/Ben 10: Omniverse)
- ChamAlien
- Prisoner 775
- Subdora
- Kevin Levin (Ben 10: Alien Force)
- Squidstrictor (Ben 10: Power of the Omnitrix)
- Great Kanohi Volitak (Bionicle)
- Toa Chiara
- Toa Nidhiki
- Toa Nuparu
- Makuta (Bionicle)
- Rahkshi of Chameleon (Bionicle)
- Roporak (Bionicle)
- Daolon Wong (Jackie Chan Adventures)
- A-Bomb (Marvel Comics)
- Namorita (Marvel Comics)
- Spider-Man/Miles Morales (Marvel Comics)
- Laughing Octopus (Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots)
- Solid Snake (Metal Gear Solid)
- Quiet (Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain)
- Parasite Unit (Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain)
- Deerling (Pokemon)
- Kecleon and select others via move Camouflage (Pokemon)
- Mothim (Pokemon)
- Sawsbuck (Pokemon)
- Sewaddle (Pokemon); only by breeding
- Staryu (Pokemon)
- Stunfisk (Pokemon)
- Cammile (Power Rangers Jungle Fury)
- Trent Fernadez (Power Rangers Dino Thunder)
- Desserians (Tracker)
- Nestov
- Zareth
- Logan Dunn
- Yahir
- Suudor
- Changewings (How to Train your Dragon)
- Espio the Chameleon (Sonic the Hedgehog)
- Bride of Constant Vigil (Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog)
- Erma Ermine (Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog)
- Sebastian (One Piece)
- Gekkou CLIII (Akatsuki Otokojuku)
- Blendin Blandin (Gravity Falls)
- The Chameleon (Godzilla the Series)
- Eric Kirby (LEGO Jurassic World)
- Owen Grady (Jurassic World/LEGO Jurassic World)
- Ilia Amitola (RWBY)
- Lizaflos (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)
Known Items
- Cam Foil (Artemis Fowl)
- Mirror Ship (Dragon Ball Z)
- Camouflage Suit (G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra); via mirror camera paneling
- OctoCamo (Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots)


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300 East 71st StreetApt. 4K
Between Second Avenue and First Avenue Upper East Side
This home has been sold
We have 22 similar homes for sale.
Subway Lines
Nearby Subway Stations
- Price$600,000
- TypeCo-op
- Bedroom1
- Bathroom1
- Rooms3
- Approx. Sq. Ft.725
- Exposure West
Key Features
- Balcony
- Concierge
- Doorman
- Elevator
- Pet friendly
- Excellent light
- Great closet space
- New windows
- Walk-in closets
Enjoy the best the Upper East Side has to offer in this bright & lovely 1 bedroom, 1 bath apartment complete with a 23 ft. western facing terrace. Features include an entrance foyer, pergo floors, stainless steel appliances, extensive closet space and thru-wall air conditioning. 300 E. 71st is a full service, pet friendly cooperative with a newly renovated lobby and hallways, common and rentable storage, roofdeck and a garage right next door. Parents may buy with children & guarantors are permitted.
Agent Ask me a question
firstname.lastname@example.com Email Me See my 2 other sale listings
Upper East Side
Upper East, from 59th Street to 110th Street, from the East River to Fifth Avenue, with Sutton Place and Carnegie Hill as separate enclaves.
The Upper East Side historically exemplifies serious landmark-type apartments but remains a neighborhood where a co-op or condo can be found for everyone. Strict co-ops (some with incredible Central Park views) continue to prevail in the Upper East Side from Park to Fifth Avenues, but there are plenty of studios, one- and two-bedroom condos, and rentals on the Upper East Side as well. New luxury condo buildings include 20 East End Avenue, inspired by the pre-war architecture of the Upper East Side, and Citizen360 which is committed to sustainable building practices.
300 East 71st Street
2nd Ave - 72nd St7 mins
Lexington Ave - 68th St7 mins
Lexington Ave - 63rd St7 mins
3rd Ave - 60th St7 mins
3rd Ave - 60th St7 mins
3rd Ave - 60th St7 mins
3rd Ave - 60th St7 mins
300 East 71st Street is a mid-size, postwar building in an excellent location. It includes a newly planted roof garden, common luggage storage room, bicycle storage, garage access and additional storage cages to rent. There is also a huge laundry room with new machines. The super lives in the building.
Additional features of this building include: Live-in super, Furnished rooftop, 24 Hour concierge & doorman.
- Postwar
- Built in 1961
- 19 floors
- 284 units
- Elevator
- Pet friendly
- Concierge
- Doorman
- Cable ready
- Central laundry room
- Common roof deck
- Garage
- Guarantors allowed
- High-speed internet
- Package room


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A Beefy Jake Gyllenhaal Shows Off His Boxing Moves
Jake Gyllenhaal was spotted out and about with a friend in New York City yesterday (August 17, 2014).A much beefier
Jake was showing off his new muscles and boxing moves since getting in shape to play a boxer named Billy Hope in the upcoming movie Southpaw.
The movie follows a junior middleweight champion of the world (played by Gyllenhaal) who suffers a tragedy that causes his world to come crashing down around him. To regain the respect and love of his daughter, he fights to put his life back together.
Southpaw co-stars Rachel McAdams, who Jake has been linked to romantically, however the pair have denied that their relationship is anything more than that of a professional one.
Launch the gallery to see more pics of Jake Gyllenhaal and his lady friend.


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Arte! you're alive! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709598 …
Comment on Puella Magi Madoka Magica X "Godly" "Best Yet" by Unsung Li Britannia:
Arte! you're alive!
Recent comments by Unsung Li Britannia:
- AKB Idols Offer To Have Fan Babies For Cash:
>"Won't you make a baby with me? [On the net?]" >On the net? /mass disappointment envelops damnit! I thought they were cereal for a minute there~
- Top 13 Anime Vampires:
[quote]1. Alucard (Hellsing)[/quote] that's all that needs to be said
- Top 15 Anime with the Most Sexy Scenes:
"This applies to all recent vapid moe anime"
- Lady Gaga: "I Want To Live in Japan" 2ch: "Please!":
- Teacher Jailed for Breast Feeding Pupil Sex:
I wish I had a sexy teacher to breast feed me….


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Stubborn penalty-killing unit lifts Penguins
The Penguins have been maddeningly inconsistent over the past couple of weeks, but one aspect of their game remains unflappable.
Penalty killing has been a team strength from the day Dan Bylsma became coach, and nothing has changed this season. The Penguins rank second in the NHL with a 90.3 success rate on the penalty kill and have blanked opposing power plays in 18 of their 22 games.
"What's been so impressive to me is how the four guys on the ice always work together," said veteran center Richard Park, a longtime penalty killing specialist who has fit in nicely. "It's very clear that there is a plan in place, and everyone is always on the same page."
The Penguins have been especially impressive at home, killing 28 of 29 penalties for a 96.5 success rate. Washington scored the only power-play goal against the Penguins at Consol Energy Center this season, and that tally came with a 4-on-3 advantage because it took place in overtime.
Also, the Penguins have permitted only two power-play goals all season when goalie Marc-Andre Fleury starts.
Only New Jersey (93.8 percent) ranks higher than the Penguins, who led the league in penalty killing last season.
"The whole unit has been very good," Park said. "And when you've got goaltending like we get, that only makes it better."
Note: The Penguins held a 45-minute Thanksgiving practice. Only defenseman Kris Letang and left wing Chris Kunitz did not participate, but both are expected to play Friday night against the Ottawa Senators.


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Information Processing
Guess What: IBM is Losing Out in Mainframes, Too
It's playing catch-up in traditional machines and new technologies as competitors snare business
John W. Verity in New York with bureau reports
Business Week
February 8, 1993
No question, 1992 was a disaster for IBM: The company's first-ever operating loss, a costly round of cutbacks resulting in the biggest net loss in American corporate history, a 50% plunge in its share price, and a hail of criticism that led IBM's directors on Jan. 26 to seek a replacement for Chairman and CEO John F. Akers (page 24).
Nearly lost in the headlines, however, was a particularly alarming revelation: IBM, it seems, has even lost its touch in mainframe processors and storage systems -- a $ 50 billion worldwide industry that it has dominated for 25 years. While overall sales of such equipment grew by an anemic 2% in 1992, analysts figure that IBM's mainframe processor revenues dropped 10% to 15% in 1992, to about $ 7.5 billion. At the same time, mainframe rival Amdahl Corp. posted a 48% revenue gain and confounded Wall Street predictions of a fourth-quarter loss with a $ 2.45 million net profit. Unisys Corp., the No.2 mainframer, reported that its mainframe sales jumped more than 10% over 1991. Clearly, the mainframe is not dead. What is dead, though, is revenue growth from the old-style machines, such as IBM's current System/390. Even Amdahl and Unisys face the challenge that looms over IBM's mainframe business: a painful shift to large-scale computers based on the same kind of microprocessor technology used in personal computers and workstations. Dozens of companies, from Hewlett-Packard Co. to American Telephone & Telegraph Co., have pulled years ahead of IBM in creating machines from these inexpensive parts. These new computers can outperform the old ones in absolute power but are often priced at a tenth or less per unit of computing.
As they race to teach big corporations the new math, IBM's rivals are beginning to indulge in what James Cassell, Gartner Group Inc.'s chief mainframe analyst, calls a "feeding frenzy." Consider: Using Big Blue's mainframe processors, customers pay approximately $ 100,000 for each MIPS, or the capacity to execute 1 million instructions per second, a rough gauge of computing power. Hewlett-Packard's largest minicomputers, built from the company's own RISC (reduced instruction-set computing) microprocessors, cost about $ 12,000 per MIPS. Because of that disparity, "companies that had Big Blue stamped on their forehead are now talking to us," says Willem P. Roelandts, vice-president and general manager for HP's Computer Systems Organization.
HP's "mainframe alternative" marketing program has won some 200 orders since last May -- and IBM's latest bad news is helping. Says Roelandts: "Customers are saying: 'The whole world has changed -- why should I listen to just IBM?' They're looking for a second strategic supplier." The mounting attack extends to the highest levels of IBM's mainframe line. Leading the pack is AT&T's NCR unit, which sells a "massively parallel" machine that can gang together as many as 1,000 Intel Corp. 486 chips, just like those in PCs. It outruns IBM's $ 20 million-plus ES/9000 processor complex on many jobs, yet sells for a maximum of $ 12.6 million. A mere 32-processor version has yielded, on average, a sevenfold reduction in processing times compared with an Amdahl mainframe at Shepard's, a publisher of legal citations and a unit of McGraw-Hill Inc., which publishes BUSINESS WEEK. "There's no way a conventional mainframe could keep up with our growth," says Gary Richard, director of information systems and technology at Shepard's.
NCR is getting its foot in the doors of major IBM customers by showing how its machines can do things that conventional mainframes just can't -- at least not quickly. William J. Eisenman, vice-president of NCR's Large-Computer Products Div., says the focus is on industries such as retailing, airlines, and banking, where managers need to search vast amounts of data for telltale patterns. Hallmark Cards Inc., for instance, uses its new NCR 3600 mainframe to scan daily sales at 250 of its own outlets and those of such chains as Wal-Mart Stores, Kmart, and Target Stores. "There's a real sense that IBM as a company hasn't given customers the tools to run their businesses in the '90s," says Henry Burkhardt III, president and CEO of Kendall Square Research Corp., one of several startups planning to attack Big Blue's commercial mainframe base.
IBM's conventional technologies in mainframe disk and tape storage have also become vulnerable. Despite a $ 6 billion annual budget for research and development, IBM has begun trailing in these key sectors -- a $ 6.1 billion business for the company. It has yet to bring out, for instance, a disk array for its mainframes. Offered by such companies as EMC Corp. and Cambex Corp., these devices get dozens of small, low-cost disk drives to do the job of a few large, old-style drives -- for a third of the price.
What's more, IBM's conventional drives have suffered reliability problems, allowing Hitachi Ltd. to gain seven points of market share since 1989. Meanwhile, Storage Technology Corp. has cleaned up by selling IBM customers an automated tape library that in some jobs can replace the high-margin disk drives IBM would prefer they use.
IBM isn't sitting on its hands. On Feb. 2, it plans to unveil a parallel processor built from dozens of the same chips that power its RS/6000 engineering workstations. That machine is designed for scientific jobs and may fill the gap left by the Jan. 25 demise of Steve Chen's Supercomputer Systems Inc., a startup IBM had funded for five years. By summer, Big Blue is expected to answer the NCR challenge with a parallel data-base processor designed to attach to its mainframes. It will rely on a microchip version of the 390 design that's being developed under the code name Renoir.
IBM also has plans to revamp its conventional mainframes. In hopes of stimulating demand for the System/390, it's expected to announce on Feb. 9 a new price structure for the big machines. Marc Butlein, chairman of consultant Meta Group Inc., says it may be IBM's most significant pricing action since 1979, when it launched the low-priced 4300 mainframes. The new 390s will offer as much as 30% more processing power per dollar than current models. The executive responsible for modernizing IBM's mainframe business is Nicholas Donofrio, president of the Enterprise Systems Div. He inherited it in 1992 with the retirement of Carl Conti and found himself with a product line that was trailing those of Amdahl and Hitachi. Without new models of his own -- and a glut of used IBM mainframes on the market -- Donofrio has been re- sorting to heavy discounts, sometimes lopping as much as 50% off list prices to cut deals. "Price has been their only weapon," says Gartner's Cassell. IBM declined to comment for this story.
The discounting didn't save enough deals to keep IBM's mainframe business in the plus column, however. One reason, says Cassell, is that by mid-1992, customers slowed buying in anticipation of this year's new models. Meanwhile, IBM's price-cutting quickly took a toll on profits. Gross margins on sales of mainframes and their storage systems have dropped from 65% just a few years ago to under 60%, helping to push the corporate gross-margin rate down to 42%. Now, Donofrio is leading the first serious cost-cutting in IBM's mainframe development and manufacturing. Early this year, Big Blue disclosed plans to cut jobs at its East Fishkill (N.Y.) and Endicott (N.Y.) plants. Both have been heavily involved in producing thermal-conduction modules (TCM), an elaborate and costly type of microchip package that requires water-cooling. For years, competitors such as Amdahl and Hitachi have built cheaper air-cooled mainframes using different packaging techniques. Evidently, IBM is now moving away from water-cooling and by 1996 may convert entirely to air-cooled machines built around Renoir and its successors.
Some IBM critics are calling for a far more aggressive change in IBM's large-systems unit. Charles H. Ferguson and Charles R. Morris, co-authors of a new book, Computer Wars, advise IBM to treat its mainframe business as a "cash cow." Their open letter to IBM directors advises: "Put all your traditional data center businesses by themselves. Make the managers responsible for milking profits from a dying business."
Some variation on that theme will likely turn out to be IBM's future tack, especially if the new CEO it hires is less enamored of mainframes than Akers and Jack D. Kuehler, his chief technologist, seem to have been. But even as the market for traditional mainframes begins to shrink, reports of the large-scale computer's death are premature. "The level of rhetoric has gotten absurd," says Amdahl President and Chief Operating Officer E. Joseph Zemke. Large companies will always have a need for big computers, in one form or another. It's just that in the future, when shopping for such machines, IBM may not be the first brand that comes to mind.
GRAPHIC: Table, IBM'S MAINFRAME RIVALS, OLD AND NEW (This table is not available electronically. Please see the February 8, 1993 issue.) DATA: BUSINESS WEEK; Photograph, Donofrio, lopping as much as 50% off list prices to make mainframe sales 'companies that had big blue stamped on their forehead are Now talking to us,' says an HP exec
Copyright 1993 McGraw-Hill, Inc.