text:
Scientific Rigor: Rock of Gibraltar or Sand Castle?
By Anthony Rosner, PhD, LLD [Hon.], LLC
Nearly 200 years ago, the French novelist Honore de Balzac wrote, "For the journalist, anything probable is gospel truth." When it comes to sorting out fact from fiction in some of the medical literature, that phrase often comes to mind when you review how published findings become a part of conventional practice.While we are blessed with the likes of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the rush to establish what we call "evidence" in the new postmodern evidence-based world, we need (as my chemistry professor liked to argue) to look at the kinetics as well as the robustness of the incorporation process of the evidence, in order to gain more insight into what truly is going on.
At one end of the scale is one of the most rigorous experiments ever performed by Barry Marshall, who as I discussed in this column space previously,1 essentially subjected himself to an entire sequence of Koch's Postulates to nail down his demonstration in the early 1980s that a strain of the bacterium Heliobacter was the causative agent of peptic ulcers. Previously, the prevailing belief had been that ulcers were the consequence of living in families with dominant mothers and passive fathers.3 It was not until 2005 that Marshall finally was awarded the Nobel Prize for this elegant investigation.
At the other end of the spectrum is the infamous testimony of the Canadian neurologist John Norris,4 who insisted that dozens of cerebrovascular dissections were the result of chiropractic manipulation, until he contradicted his own testimony under cross-examination in an inquest, with his survey instrument found to be poorly constructed.5 This occurred amid a flurry of other papers of similar dubious construction, attesting to cervical manipulation as the probable cause of what likely is an overestimated number of cerebrovascular accidents.6-12 The unhappy truth here is that this second body of literature seems to have gained immediate acceptance and media attention, whereas the first of almost unassailable logic remained in limbo for years until the prevailing beliefs about ulcers could be dislodged. Put in more pictorial terms, the Rock of Gibraltar lost. The sand castle won, with its presentation unfortunately capturing the attention of the public and that of several prospective insurers practically overnight.
So, if one were to decide how or whether to incorporate evidence into the pantheon of what is considered to be the most authoritative source of evidence, where would they turn? In cases such as this, I easily can relate to the massive frustrations of the renowned Italian film-maker Federico Fellini, who never seemed to be able to capture the proper attention of the priest to whom he periodically took confession in his hometown of Rimini. Either the priest would slap him upside the head profusely for what he considered to be grievous transgressions or he would immediately nod off to sleep within seconds, oblivious to Fellini pouring his heart out in great detail.
On Nov. 18, 2006, I was fortunate enough to attend a conference titled "Practicing Within Mainstream Health Care," presented by Integrated Health Care Practice Resources in Waltham, Mass. A multidisciplinary panel, bent on discussing the rationale and logistics of an integrated health care delivery model including chiropractic, wrestled with the concept of legitimacy, as demonstrated by the use of evidence appearing in the scientific literature. While the likes of David Sackett and others have developed models of evidence based upon the blending of experimental data and clinical judgement,13 it's all too easy to lose sight of the fact that flawed literature might be admitted into the body of what is regarded as sound experimental evidence, while deserving studies (such as Marshall's experimentation with ulcers) might be neglected for years. Once again, the sand castle prevails. Sand Castle 2, Rock of Gibraltar 0.
It gets worse. In the chiropractic literature, let us consider three glaring examples in which there is deliberate misrepresentation of the therapist held to be responsible for cerebrovascular accidents. The earliest, published over a decade ago by Alan Terrett, represents a careful retrospective of numerous studies in which the therapist involved was in fact not a chiropractor, but instead anything from a blind masseur, an Indian barber, a helipraktiker, to a kung-fu or lay practitioner. It was only after direct questioning from Terrett that the authors of the original articles recanted and admitted the true identities of the practitioners involved. Terrett rightfully concluded:
"The words chiropractic and chiropractor have been incorrectly used in numerous publications dealing with SMT [spinal manipulation therapy] injury by medical authors, respected medical journals and medical organizations. In many cases this is not accidental: the authors had access to original reports that identified the practitioner involved as a nonchiropractor. The true incidence of such reporting cannot be determined. Such reporting adversely affects the reader's opinion of chiropractic and chiropractors."14
But, of course, this act of misrepresentation was unfortunately followed 11 years later by a study from Germany that reviewed data from 13 academic neurology centers in which vertebral artery dissections were associated with "chiropractic" neck manipulation. The only problem is that in Germany, there is essentially a homeopathic dilution of chiropractors, with 60 or so practitioners swamped in a sea of some 10,000 helipraktikers who perform spinal manipulation and, for all intents and purposes, confuse the public as to who truly is qualified to deliver a spinal manipulation.15 This comes at a price, for it's clear in this second study that just 11 percent of the actual dissections occurred after visits to the offices of true chiropractors, with the remaining 89 percent occurring at the hands of orthopedic surgeons, physiotherapists or general practitioners.11 Clearly, one can draw conclusions as to the relative safety of each of these professions performing the cervical manipulations. Basically, this portrayal of chiropractic is both a serious and unfounded misrepresentation of the chiropractic profession, and needs to be rectified immediately.
As if this weren't serious enough, we have one final retrospective, located in a PubMed search, of 24 different cases in Europe. In each case, the author implicated that a chiropractor delivered the care prior to reporting symptoms suggestive of a traumatic cervical injury. Once again, the authors relented in most cases under direct questioning and admitted that the term chiropractor had been inappropriately used to brand the therapists involved who, in fact, did not receive the formal training associated with chiropractic. In this instance, letters to the editor with this correction were happily accepted and published by all four journals involved, with one actually publishing a correction.16 Once again, the flaky science got more exposure than it ever deserved. Taking all these three studies together, you can draw up a final scorecard of: Sand Castle 3, Rock of Gibraltar 0.
Sadly, these three papers are but the tip of the iceberg. This particular category of studies occupies such a low echelon as to have drawn a well-deserved raspberry (known in some parts as a Bronx cheer) from Adrian Upton, the head of the Division of Neurology at the McMaster University School of Medicine: "Attacks against chiropractic concerning perceived risks of cervical manipulation are currently based upon 'coincidence, anecdotal reports and junk science.'"17
Even with the abundance of systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses which are supposed to represent more objective poolings of the refereed clinical trials, more rigorous filters are going to have to be put into place by a team of experts representing all relevant professions if we are ever going to admit the truly deserving evidence with more efficiency and transparency. In this manner, the Rock of Gibraltar finally will have had the opportunity to prove its mettle against the sand castle, which, in a more natural setting, would be simply and rightfully swept away by the next incoming tide.
Click here for more information about Anthony Rosner, PhD, LLD [Hon.], LLC.


text:
Oh boy, I'm not sure how this is going to play out. Roger Dean is a British artist who is most famous for his album cover art for the rock group YES and ASIA. He has done some pretty incredible work.
He has filed a lawsuit against movie director James Cameron. He is claiming that his artwork was copied in the making of his film "Avatar". He is saying that people close to the film and the production of the film had used his artwork as a template to the creation of the movie.
The lawsuit claims the film copied "stone arches" and "floating mountains" and the antennae and markings on the flying creatures. Dean would like $1.5 million dollars. Bert Fields is the lawyer for James Cameron and he says James Cameron "is the most original and creative person in the motion picture business today" and that he does not need to copy from anyone.
You be the judge! Make sure you listen all weekend to win tickets to see YES in concert this coming July 9th at the Celebrity Theatre. We will have tickets all weekend long!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|8 Nov 2011
|Filing date
|8 Nov 2004
|Priority date
|8 Nov 2004
|Fee status
|Publication number
|Sameer Akbar Khan, Nasir Mahmood Mirza, Usman Mohammed Naim
|Original Assignee
|Sprint Communications Company L.P.
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (5), Classifications (17), Legal Events (4)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
Not applicable
Not applicable
Not applicable
1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the field of application deployment, and in particular, to a chargeback method for tracking infrastructure cost at a transaction level.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The cost for using an application program typically must include a portion of the hardware cost. The hardware cost generally contains a host cost and a storage cost. In many instances these hardware costs are billed to the user of the application using a "fixed cost" method. The Fixed cost method may not accurately account for the use of the CPU time or the use of the storage capacity of the system. The total cost for purchasing an application is also typically paid up-front by the user. In a corporate environment, an individual business unit may be unable to justify the total cost for purchasing the application even when the corporate wide demand for the application would justify the cost.
Therefore there is a need for a better method for tracking system resource usage and determining the actual cost per use such that a more accurate business decision can be made to determine the cost effective use of an application.
A system and method for determining the cost per unit transaction for running an application on a server system is disclosed. The total transaction capacity of a system is determined as well as the total storage capacity during a time period M. The total fixed cost and the total variable cost during the time period are also determined. A total cost per unit transaction is determined from the total transaction capacity plus the total storage capacity divided by the total fixed and variable costs. The resource usage of the system by the application is tracked during the time period M. The cost billed to the application user is the resource usage of the application multiplied by the total cost per unit time for the time period M.
In a distributed corporate environment, individual business units or entities may have a need for an application program that is not currently available on the corporate computer system. The IT department running the corporate computer system typically must charge the individual business unit the total cost of the application, as well as a percentage of the fixed cost of the computer systems, before loading the application onto the computer system. The individual business unit may be unable to justify the up-front cost for the application. There may be enough total demand, corporate wide, for the application even when the usage from a single business unit may not justify the up-front cost to the business unit. Under the current management constraints, the application program would not be acquired and installed until a single business unit paid the purchase costs.
In one example embodiment of the current invention, a usage model that only bills the individual business units for the amount of hardware and software costs used by the application program, may allow acquisition of application programs that could not be justified under the other business models.
In one example embodiment of the invention, the fixed cost of a system used in step 102 may not be the fixed cost for all of the distributed computer system. For example, some applications may require significant storage capacity, or real time access to large amounts of data. Other applications may require high end computational speeds. The cost for these specialized hardware components may not be included in the fixed costs for an application program that does not use them. The cost of these specialized hardware components would be included in the total system cost for applications that did use the specialized hardware components. In another example embodiment of the invention, the fixed cost of a system used in step 102 will be the fixed cost for all of the distributed computer system. The costs for the fixed expenses may include, but is not limited to, the cost of the following items: the server cost, the storage cost, the operating system license cost, other software cost, the network cost, data center space (rent), and the like.
The variable costs are typically costs that change from month to month. For example, the server support cost, the storage support cost, software support cost, data center cost (power and cooling), operational cost, installation costs, and the like.
The total transaction capacity of the system may be determined using any of a number of different capacity measurements. For example, by determining the number of execution cycles in the different CPU's in the system, by determining the clock speed and number of clock cycles per instruction, by determining how many data items can be processed per unit time, by using the total computational time available (time available per processor multiplied by the total number of processors), and the like. The time period M can be set to any amount. Typically the time period will be set to correspond to a billing cycle, for example one month. However as the distributed usage model for applications spreads beyond the internal corporate environment, the billing cycles may be shortened to an hour, a day, a week, or the like. The time period M may also be changed such that it corresponds to the time during which each application is used.
In one example embodiment of the invention, the program that calculates the cost for the usage of the applications running on the server farm may itself be running on the server farm as one of the applications. In another example embodiment the program may be running on an external device that has access to the data generated by the transaction meters. In another embodiment, the program that calculates the cost for running programs on the server farm may be integrated into the operating system of the server farm or the n�N switch. In one example embodiment, the program that calculates the cost for the usage of the applications running on the server farm may be called a billing module or billing unit.
In one example embodiment of the invention, a server may be running three programs A, B, and C. Program A is being run by the finance group, program B is being run by the Human Resource (HR) group, and program C is being run by an engineering group. The total transactions for the server are determined and may include the application CPU processes, the I/O traffic and the memory accesses. These may be benchmarked by the IT group or the specifications for each system may be used to determine the total transactions. The transactions per second (TPS) may be determined for each server system and is equal to the total transactions for the server divided by the total time the server was available for use. The total TPS for all the systems is equal to the net TPS. The resource usage (RU) for each software application A, B, and C will be tracked as a function of time. The percent resource usage (RU %) for an application is equal to the RU divided by the total available system time or RU %=RU/(total available time). The chargeback total (CBT) for each application is the percent resource usage for the application multiplied by the net TPS or CBT=(RU %)(net TPS). The amount billed to each application user, the usage cost (UC), is the CBT for the application multiplied by the cost per TPS or (UC)=(CBT)($/TPS). The cost per TPS is equal to the total cost of the system divided by the net TPS. The storage cost (SC) is added to the usage cost for a total cost (TC) or TC=UC+SC. The storage cost is determined by periodically measuring the storage usage per application (in mbytes) multiplied by the cost per mbytes. The cost per mbyte is the cost to install, maintain, and manage the storage area divided by the total storage capacity.
|Cited Patent
|Filing date
|Publication date
|22 Nov 1999
|30 Dec 2003
|Accenture Llp
|Problem isolation through translating and filtering events into a standard object format in a network based supply chain
|31 May 2001
|21 Sep 2004
|Oracle International Corporation
|Techniques for providing off-host storage for a database application
|22 Nov 1999
|17 Oct 2006
|Accenture Llp
|Asset tracking in a network-based supply chain environment
|19 Jul 2004
|31 Mar 2005
|Karolin Laicher
|Computing systems that capture cost information for total cost of ownership analyses
|14 Oct 2003
|14 Apr 2005
|International Business Machines Corporation
|Method and system for generating a business case for a server infrastructure
|U.S. Classification
|705/35, 705/51, 705/52, 705/1.1, 705/79, 707/791, 707/609, 705/64
|International Classification
|Cooperative Classification
|European Classification
|8 Nov 2004
Owner name: SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY, L.P., KANSAS
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:KHAN, SAMEER AKBAR;MIRZA, NASIR MAHMOOD;NAIM, USMAN MOHAMMED;REEL/FRAME:015971/0806
Effective date: 20041102
|19 Jun 2015
|Maintenance fee reminder mailed
|8 Nov 2015
|Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees
|29 Dec 2015
|Expired due to failure to pay maintenance fee
Effective date: 20151108


text:
Fallout 3?
View Single Post
September 2nd, 2007, 20:32
I voted "Good, but some concerns" thanks to a combination of naive optimism and avoidance of information about the game so as not to spoil the experience when I inevitably play it. My concerns are fairly big ones (to me). While there was certainly silliness in the Fallouts, there was still an ever present gritty realism that always appeals to me in games. Some elements I've heard about in Fallout 3 seem to exceed the level of silliness I can tolerate. I'm equally disappointed with some of the elements being omitted because they are too controversial. But it's hard to blame them for that. All in all, I'm determined not to prejudge too much.
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text:
The 2-pair symmetric high-bit-rate DSL high-speed WAN interface card (HWIC) provides G.SHDSL connectivity to a Wide Area Network. The 2-pair G.SHDSL HWIC provides two ports of 2-wire or one port of 4-wire connectivity options. This card is supported in all integrated services routers that have HWIC slots.The 2-pair G.SHDSL HWIC supersedes the existing G.SHDSL WAN Interface Card, which is a WIC-based G.SHDSL solution. The new G.SHDSL HWIC provides higher performance and increased reach when compared to the G.SHDSL WIC.G.SHDSL technology offers customers high-speed, symmetrical WAN connectivity at a lower monthly cost than traditional WAN circuits. The 2-pair G.SHDSL HWIC together with Cisco integrated services routers provides businesses the necessary bandwidth for critical traffic such as voice and video conferencing, and enable customers to save money by integrating voice and data traffic on the same WAN link. Service providers can increase subscriber revenue by bundling services and offering differentiated service levels through service-level agreements.
|Device Type
|DSL modem
|Enclosure Type
|Plug-in module
|7.1 cm
|10.3 cm
|1.8 cm
|82 g
|Interface Type
|Connectivity Technology
|Max Transfer Rate
|2.304 Mbps
|Digital Signaling Protocol
|Protocols & Specifications
|ITU G.991.2 (G.shdsl)
|Analogue Ports Qty
|2 x modem - SHDSL - RJ-11
|Compatible Slots
|1 x HWIC


text:
Alumnus to Speak at a TED Talk in Kansas City
University of Northern Iowa alumnus, Beth Nybeck, is set to speak at the Kansas City, Kansas, TED Talks on February 20th, 2014. The theme is Idea Generation(s), and will focus on creativity and innovation through perseverance. All presenters will have overcome personal and/or professional difficulties to reach success.
Their stories offer inspiration and challenge viewers to strive towards success in their own lives.
Nybeck, a visionary, artist and large-scale metal sculptor, lives and works in the Crossroads Arts District in Kansas City. Her work has been sculpted for places such as Concourse Park in Kansas City, the John Wayne International Airport in California and the National Special Olympic Torch in Nebraska.
Nybeck believes that art is a way to influence and connect to others. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from UNI.
This event is open to the public, and tickets are available.


text:
42,503 ways to enjoy music...
This product is currently not available for purchase
Product Ref: 54860
Tama Superstar Hyper-Drive shells are manufactured from carefully selected maple with a focus on shell moulding and bearing edge shape. The 6-ply, 5 mm shells (8-ply, 7 mm bass drum) produce full, powerful character and rich resonance with striking visual flare from a precision unicolour wrap and new badge design.
Tama's Star-Cast mounting system provides maximum resonance and stability in a streamlined design that allows closer tom positioning for greater ease and comfort. Aluminium construction provides lighter weight and even truer tonal vibration.
Zinc Die-Hoops manufactured by injecting molten metal into moulds, have more density and are more consistent in shape than triple flanged hoops, offering crisper attack, clear and resonant highs and much more powerful rim shots. Die-Cast hoops make tuning more consistent and easier to achieve because the tension bolts always contact the hoop properly.
Superstar's claw hooks feature rubber spacers that help protect wood hoops from damage. The hooks and hoops work as one unit and won't separate or rattle, even on loose tunings.
All Superstar's ''Power Craft II'' drum heads ensure a great sound practically right out of the box! Ring mufflers on bass drum heads remove the need for extra internal muffling.
Sound Bridge high-tension, low-mass lugs were specifically designed for Superstar kits. Sound Bridge's unique structure looks much like a traditional high-tension lug, but the body of the lug ''floats'' over the shell to minimize shell contact so the drum can resonate to its fullest. However, Sound Bridge still offers all the benefits of the traditional high-tension lug: it offsets the tension of the batter side and bottom side heads, reduces the stress on the shell, and provides greater protection to the drum shell during transport.
Cymbals and Hardware not Included. Image for Illustration purposes only.
The product price includes 6 years' warranty and 180 day money back guarantee.
However, the Gear4music extended warranty scheme provides an enhanced service, and is designed to offer a higher level of protection than many 'free' warranties offered by some retailers and manufacturers.
The highlights of this enhanced warranty service are:
Please note that this extended warranty is currently only available on products sold within the EU or EEA, and is subject to the terms and conditions as detailed on the extended warranty certificate provided.
For customers in outlying areas of the country, the price of the Extended Warranty may be marginally higher, due to the potential for higher collection and redelivery transport costs.
This enhanced warranty is in addition to the standard Gear4music and manufacturer warranty policies, and the Gear4music terms and conditions of trade. No statement or condition of sale contained within these terms affects or restricts your statutory rights as defined under the Consumer Contracts Regulation 2014.
Once the product is delivered, you have 180 days to decide that you definitely want to keep it. If you decide it is not suitable for any reason, you can return it back to us for replacement or full refund, including standard delivery charges.
All Products are new unless stated, and include a minimum of 2 years warranty.
Some items are only eligible for money back guarantee if they are returned to us unused and sealed in the original packaging, and in the case of software, unregistered. These items include:
We are unable to accept returns of any custom made items designed to work together as a unique package, such as computer system built to a customer's personal specifications. Exceptions may only be possible with prior agreement of the vendor, and may be subject to a cancellation fee.


text:
3 in 1? Yep! So at the moment, I'm working for a Tram Pararam Yaoi Collection, but it will take some days, so I post a preview with 30 pics. There are many exclusively gay-edited! In this preview are Aladdin, Simpson, Recess Kids, Drawn Together and other Shows Yaoi.
Next Part of the "Retro Weeks": the Art of Tom de Finlandia. I found 5 books "Go West", "Pleasure Park", "Ringo and the Renegades", "Service Station" and "Sex in Park" (120 pictures).
And finally I post my Ed, Edd n Eddy Yaoi Collection. Again a Cartoon Network show O_o. 168 drawings in HQ (black/white, color).


text:
Vintage American Flyer 662 Train Passenger Car for Parts ? Or Restoration LOOK!!
Sold for:
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- Sold Date:
- Source: eBay
This item is a Vintage American Flyer 662 Passenger Car. It looks fair with lots of wear and some rusty places. It might be missing parts. It might be a restoration project or just for parts. Immediate payment required! If you make prior arrangements with me and can pay within 3 days of auction end, that will be fine. NO more slow payers or Non Payers allowed! This item is sold "AS IS". No Refunds. But if you have a problem, please let me know before you leave feedback and I would see what I could do, if anything. Ask Questions and I will try to answer them. Condition of items are honestly portrayed, but sometimes things may have been overlooked, but not intentionally. ATTENTION: This is a USA ONLY auction! Please check out the answers to questions that may be listed at the bottom of the page, it could be very helpful. Please look at the photo. Buyer pays all shipping & handling costs. Handling costs are for bubblewrap, peanuts and may include delivery confirmation and insurance charges. They can range from $1.00 up to $4.00 depending on size of the item. Most handling charges are $1.00 without insurance. I try to combine shipping whenever possible. Due to my work schedule, I ship on Mondays and Tuesdays only. Sometimes I can ship on other days too! Keep that in mind when bidding. If You leave feedback for me, I will leave it ... read more


text:
Further evidence on the credit view: the case of Finland
The present paper provides further empirical evidence on the credit view (i.e., bank credit availability has a positive impact on macroeconomic activity) by investigating the case of Finland. The Finnish economy suffered a severe recession in the early 1990s that was marked by widespread banking crisis and extensive government intervention. Using monthly data for the 1980-1996 period, unrestricted and restricted vector autoregression (VAR) models with GDP, money supply, consumer prices, bank credit, and exports were estimated. It is found that, while money supply had the largest effect on economic output, bank credit exhibited a fairly strong effect on output that exceeded price effects for the most part. Exports had little impact on fluctuations in GDP but did help to explain industrial output changes over time. Based on these results, it is concluded that there is empirical support for the credit view in Finland. By implication, government intervention in Finland to restore safety and soundness during the banking crisis likely limited further damage to the macroeconomy associated with disruption of credit intermediation services.
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As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 34 (2002)
Issue (Month): 3 ()
Pages: 267-278
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text:
Deviating from the Norm in Baking
You bake cookies. You could do it on autopilot. Your kids even know the drill… one time, Tiffany came out to the kitchen as I was starting cookie baking and said, "Can I help you bake cookies?"
"How did you know I'm gonna bake cookies?", I asked.
"Because I saw you open the mixer and get that *pointing to the shortening* and the sugar out of the cupboard, and that's how you always start baking cookies.", she confidently said.
Sometimes I feel in such a rut with cooking and baking. When we have cookies around, 90% of the time they're either monster or chocolate chip. When we have cake around, 90% of the time, it's chocolate with peanut butter icing. When we have pie around, 90% of the time it's either peanut butter or lemon meringue. And it looks like when I get into a percentage rut, it's usually 90%. Seriously, though, if I make something other than the things listed above, you pretty much always see it on here. Sometimes I feel too predictable and want to change things up a bit…
We can still have our favorites, but in a different way.
Take chocolate chip cookies, for example. I was making some for an after school snack, so you know, for kids. Instead of using the same ol' Pampered Chef cookie scoop, I just used a spoon and made teeny little scoops. The teeny little scoops turned into adorable 1-and-a-half-inch-in-diameter cookies. The adorable cookies, placed in a little bucket, turned into an after school snack that was a huge hit… little cookies, huge hit. They thought it was great that they could have TEN cookies for after school snack! 😉
And now, not to wreck the fun I'm-SOOOOOO-gonna-bake-cookies-this-afternoon-and-do-that-cuz-the-kids'll-love-it mood or anything, but just let me warn you: the dough goes down v.e.r.y slowly, it takes way longer to put them on and get them off the cookie sheet, and the yield is dozens and dozens, do not even try to count.
We're now going to switch from baking dozens of little time-consuming mini cookies to 1 pan of bars.
Let's say you're baking cookies and you mix the dough up and while the first panful is in the oven, you realize you're not really in the mood to bake cookies after all… not in the mood to drop them onto the cookie sheet every 10 minutes, not in the mood to be setting your laptop down and jumping up 5 times an hour.
But, you've got a batch of dough sitting there.
No problem. Just spread the dough in a sheet cake pan and bake it for 25 minutes… and ta-da, bars made from your favorite cookie recipe. I just tried this for the first time about 3 weeks ago and thought it was really great that I thought to do this on my own UNTIL some of my friends said, "Oh, yeah, I do that all the time."
Side note here: that's my chocolate chip cookie recipe, except that I substituted FUDGE + 1 cup of flour for the chocolate chips. I had about 5 cups of fudge on hand from when I made this cake.
I was going to use the fudge in the middle layer between the 2 cakes, but then when I started spreading it on, I was afraid it would be too soft and squish out from the weight of the cake plus car on top of it (I used melted-then-hardened chocolate instead). So, I used the fudge up in those cooki— uh, I mean bars.
Another way to change up chocolate chip cookies is to mix them up and bake them, leaving out the chocolate chips. Then, melt the chocolate chips, spread them on something metal to harden and make cutouts. Or just drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookies. After they're baked, you can cut out some of the baked cookies into heart shapes… the girls (and I) did these 2 years ago for Valentines Day and we shipped them to WI to their 2 grandmas.
For cake: sometimes I do chocolate cake with peanut butter icing in a 9×13, sometimes I do it in a sheet cake pan, and once in a great while, into cupcakes. I know, exciting. 😆 Next time, I'm going to do mini ones. I made mini cupcakes for the first time last week. If you ever want to do this, one cake mix made exactly 6 dozen… I filled the wells about 3/4 full with batter. And it takes double the frosting. 😉 Pile it up even more than this… it's part of what makes minis fun. I only made a single batch, so I couldn't put as much on as I wanted to AND I ran out.
For pie… if you want lemon meringue pie, but not in big piece form, do this: make pie crust, cut 3″ circles, press them into mini muffin pans, and bake. Make your regular lemon pie filling and fill the crusts. Make regular meringue and pipe or dollop it on, brown it in the oven, and you've got these sweet li'l thangs…
You could do that with probably any kind of pie. It's great for potlucks or snacks.
And now, still on the pie subject, the grand finale to this whole 'switching things up' thing… how about calorie-free… 😉
I ran across this website (April Cottage Ramblings) one day as I was surfing and immediately saved the link. Absolutely amazing!!! Seriously, this lady is talented… she KNITTED a piece of pie and a donut!!! She knits and crochets other stuff too… I fell in love with a little short-sleeved ruffly purple sweater that she made for her granddaughter. I don't know her, and I don't knit, but I'm very impressed. And it sounds like she's going to knit more cakes, so I'm going to stay tuned.
Coming up next… Lately, I've been hungry for lettuce salad with craisins and pecans in it, so I'm going to look for a recipe like that. I don't have one in mind, so if you have a slam good one that you're bursting to share, let me know!
Mini Lemon Meringue Pies
Really mini. Not 4″ pie pans.
Not cupcake pans.
These were made in mini muffin pans.
These are perfect for a bring-a-salad-or-dessert church gathering. You know, there are 20 desserts to choose from and you have a hard time narrowing it down to 5 and one of the desserts calling to you is pie cut into 8 pieces. A piece of pie is a complete dessert, so there goes the rest of the selections. I decided to try making little individual pies instead of a couple big lemon meringue pies to take to the Fall Praise Social picnic this past Sunday evening. And it worked! With these little things, you can have a taste of lemon meringue pie without passing up the pecan bars, eclair dessert, monster cookies, and fresh peach delight.
Use your regular lemon meringue pie recipe or use my favorite recipe featured here. Roll the crust a bit thinner than usual, then cut out circles. The tube of my Pampered Chef Measure-All Cup was the perfect size for circle-cutting. Then, press them into the mini muffin pan and bake at 375 for about 10 minutes. Make the filling and spoon into crusts. Make the meringue and spoon on top of filling. Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes. Should be easy to remember… everything to bake gets baked at 375 for about 10 minutes.
Here's the process in pictures:
They tasted exactly like lemon meringue pie. I guess that would make sense, what with using that recipe and all. They're long gone, and I just feel like snitching one off the picture and inhaling it in 2 bites.
In other news, you may want to stay tuned. I think I might blog live this evening for a couple hours. Lexi is planning to make supper. She's 6. She feels quite capable and wants me to leave her alone in the kitchen with her cookbooks. Tiffany and I are allowed to help her by setting the table and we also may carry things to the table like bbq sauce and salt & pepper. I think she's in for a bit of surprise and will end up needing more help than she thinks she will. Here is the menu she picked out (going by pictures in cookbooks): Easy Mac n Cheese, Crunchy Chicken Tenders, Trees with Cheese, and Puddin' Cones. She gets home from school around 4:15. Supper is scheduled for 6:30.
Oh, and did I mention that she doesn't know the difference between a teaspoon and a Tablespoon?
Fresh Strawberry Pie
I just thought it would be ideal if I'd post this BEFORE the strawberries are completely over! You know, that way you could still try the recipe without having to go to the grocery store and buy some. How many of you have fresh strawberries in little square boxes in your fridge right now? Me! *raises hand*
I made this pie last evening and it lasted only about 24 hours. We have 2 big people and 2 little people here. And we all like strawberry pie! So… I'm gonna make another one this weekend! It is just so refreshing and bursting with juicy-berry flavor and so pretty!
This recipe comes from my mother-in-law. There is something about this strawberry pie that makes it stand head and shoulders above regular fresh strawberry pie. You can't tell it by looking at it. It's a hidden feature, until you cut it and serve a piece…
It has a cream cheese layer hidden under those strawberries! Mmmmmmm!
Fresh Strawberry Pie
1/4 cup butter
3 Tbsp. boiling water
1 cup Bisquick
Mix and press into a 9″ pie plate. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.
Cream cheese layer:
1/4 cup powdered sugar
4 oz. cream cheese
3/4 cup Cool Whip
Mix and spread on cooled crust.
Strawberry layer:
1/4 cup instant Clear Jel
3/4 cup sugar
4 cups sliced fresh strawberries
1/2 cup water
Add the water to the strawberries. Mix sugar and Clear Jel together. Sprinkle over the strawberries and mix in.
Pour over cream cheese mixture.
Top with more Cool Whip.
Chill. It sort of sets up right away, but it's best if it chills for a couple hours.
Important note 😉 :When peaches are in season, please remember this recipe… it works great to substitute the strawberries for sliced fresh peaches. I wonder if it would work to substitute other fruit too, like blueberries or raspberries.
Lemon Meringue Pie
I've been making this pie since before I started this cooking blog. Every time I'd make it, I'd toy with the idea of featuring it. But I never did… here's why: I don't have meringue down to a science yet. Sometimes it turns out, sometimes it doesn't. I was planning to have this detailed 'How to Make the Perfect Meringue' tutorial when I feature it. But, instead of waiting until I'm a meringue expert, I decided to feature it now and get tips from you for making the perfect meringue. 😉 So, I made this lemon pie this past weekend and the meringue happened to turn out well… which was kinda handy because it's not as much fun to feature flops!
I think this pie has just the right amount of lemon flavor, just the right amount of yellow color, and just the right amount of meringue. It's adapted from the A Taste of the Country cookbook. In there, it's called 'World's Best Lemon Pie'. And so far, in my opinion, it's held true to its name. When I say it's adapted from there, I mean that I follow the recipe, but made a few little changes:
1. Deleting the 1 tsp. of grated lemon peel
2. Insisting on fresh-squeezed lemon juice as opposed to any lemon juice
3. Adding a 4th egg white to the meringue to make a higher pile of it
4. Adding 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar to the meringue
I'll post the recipe how I make it…
Lemon Meringue pie
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
3 Tbsp. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
2 cups water
3 egg yolks, beaten
1 Tbsp. butter
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 9″ baked pie crust (for a pie crust tutorial, go here)
4 egg whites
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar
In a saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, flour, and salt. Gradually stir in water. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Reduce heat; cook and stir 2 minutes more.
Remove from the heat.
Gradually stir 1 cup into egg yolks.
Return all to saucepan.
Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Stir in the butter and lemon juice.
Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form.
Gradually add sugar and beat until stiffer peaks form and sugar is dissolved (if you rub a bit of meringue between your thumb and finger, it will feel smooth as opposed to gritty).
Pour lemon filling into pie crust
and immediately spread the meringue on, making sure to seal it to the edges of the crust. I start by taking a knife and sealing the edges, then pile and swirl the rest of the the meringue on.
Bake at 375 for about 13 minutes. Cool.
Store in refrigerator.
Tiffany (3) says she LOVES lemon pie… she eats the meringue off, then suddenly she's 'full and can't eat the rest'. Hmmm, never thought meringue would be so filling. 😉 I oughta make a meringue only pie for her sometime.
Want a piece?
ShooFly Pie – a Pennsylvania Dutch specialty
Did you ever have it? I'm pretty sure I did before, but I'd never made it. Shannon grew up with it. He mentioned it awhile ago and I couldn't think what it looked like or tasted like, so I decided to try it. It was good!
About the only thing I've ever made with molasses is Gingerbread cookies at Christmastime. If you like molasses, you'll love this pie.
I got the recipe from my friend Charlene.
Wet Bottom Shoo-Fly pie
1 cup flour
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1 Tbsp. butter
Combine all ingredients and mix until uniform Set aside 1 cup.
1 egg beaten
3/4 -1 cup golden molasses ( Charlene said, "I always use 1 cup", so I did too)
3/4 cup boiling water
1 tsp. baking soda
Stir soda into water. Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. Stir in remaining crumbs.
Pour into unbaked pie crust.
Top with 1 cup of crumbs.
Bake at 375 for 10 min and then 350 for 30 min.
Yum! Make one for yourself! This one didn't last long around here.


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Versatile DL squad topples Perham
The Detroit Lakes boys' swimming and diving team collected a 103-77 victory over visiting Perham inside the BTD Aquatics Center Thursday in Detroit Lakes.
The dual gave DL head coach Rian Heimark an opportunity to swim different Lakers in different events.
"The guys are getting confident enough to swim out of their comfort zone and take on events they are not usually used to swimming in," Heimark said. "But we still had some good times."
Junior Quillan Oak was the Laker to win more than one events, as he won the 200-yard freestyle with a 1:49.81 time and the 100 butterfly with a 57.37.
Brandon Olson took second to Oak in the fly with a time of 58.74, while winning the 200 individual medley at 2:13.63.
"The boys did such a good job of keeping up and the time drops were big again tonight," Perham Head Coach Sherri Ressler said.
Four Yellowjacket swimmers had times qualifying them for sections.
Ben Collette and Mark Murphy qualified for Sections in the 200 IM. T.J. Studer qualified in the 50 Freestyle. Ben Sullivan qualified in the 100 Backstroke.
But the Laker tankers had too much for the visiting Yellowjackets.
Cody Okeson collected gold in the 50 freestyle at 24.44, while other winners included Carter Krengel (100 freestyle), Jared Olson (500 freestyle), Travis King (100 backstroke) and the 200-medley relay and 200 freestyle relay.
The 200-medley relay included King, Oak, Okeson and Krengel, who combined for a 1:52.37 time.
The 200 freestyle relay foursome included Brandon Olson, Okeson, Vaughn Johnson and Oak, which finished with a time of 1:37.33.
The Lakers also swept through diving, as senior Jon Melgaard posted a winning score of 309.85, while senior Justin George was second at 231.35 and Aaron Colby third at 192.95.
Zach Langendorfer was the lone Yellowjacket taking a top spot. He finished first in the 100 Breaststroke with a time of 1:10.64.
Brian Wierima, DL Newspapers, contributed to this story.


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JURIST Guest Columnists Hitoshi Nasu and Donald Rothwell of the ANU College of Law, Australian National University, say that while Japan's proactive approach towards fighting maritime piracy marks a significant step in its rehabilitation as a global power capable of responsibly exercising limited military force, the initiative raises sensitive issues of international and Japanese law...
On 13 March, and in a significant shift away from its past 'rear-area support' policy toward international enforcement operations, Japan issued an executive order allowing for two Maritime Self-Defence Force (MSDF) destroyers the Samidare and Sazanami - to be dispatched to the Gulf of Aden to join the Task Force. Japan's decision to take 'maritime police action' at the front line was in response to the growing international and domestic pressure for protecting its own maritime commercial interests. But the executive order in accordance with Article 82 of the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) Act was issued without addressing the legal issues surrounding the counter-piracy operation. Japan's MSDF will have to battle not only with pirates but also with operational uncertainty. The executive order under the current SDF Act only permits the use of lethal weapons in legitimate self-defence and for avoiding imminent dangers. Accordingly, the MSDF mission cannot come to the aid of foreign vessels under pirate attack and use lethal force, as such action would be beyond the currently authorised Japanese limits of legitimate self-defence.
These developments highlight the challenge Japan faces in international enforcement and peacekeeping operations. Japan has gained a notorious reputation through the SDF's overseas peacekeeping operations where it has taken a restrictive approach to the use of weapons in self-defence, as illustrated in its deployments in Cambodia, East Timor, the Golan Heights and Iraq. On this occasion, however, Japan appears to be ready to take a more liberal approach, as seen in the draft bill submitted by the Cabinet in mid-March, which enables MSDF personnel to protect foreign vessels and authorises the reasonable use of weapons against pirate vessels if they approach or follow merchant ships or obstruct their navigation. The bill remains under consideration in the Diet. Although the leading opposition party is still yet to clarify its position, the bill has reportedly received wide public support in Japan. Once the bill is passed, it is expected that Japan will be able to perform the most effective operation ever in the history of SDF overseas missions.
Nevertheless, dangers will remain for the MSDF destroyers. One fear is that any revised rules of engagement may in fact permit an excessive use of force, intentionally or accidentally killing pirates or endangering their life. This has been dramatically highlighted by exercises which the MSDF have conducted en route to the area of operations during which an understanding has been gained of the dynamics of firing machine gun volleys into open water and the risks that arise from ricochets from the water's surface. In situations where nobody else is observing the scene, an unmonitored policing-type operation could easily amount to an extra-judicial killing. These are operational issues which have already arisen for other countries. British Royal Marines controversially shot and killed two Somali pirates in December 2008. The MSDF will therefore need to ensure they are operating under clear rules of engagement and exercise extreme caution if the use of defensive or lethal force becomes necessary.
Another legal and political challenge is the treatment of pirates once they have been arrested or captured at sea. Whilst the intervention of the Security Council through Resolutions 1816 (2008) and 1846 (2008) has gone some way to resolve these jurisdictional loopholes, there remain gaps which are compounded by a lack of political will on the part of some members of the international community to engage in law enforcement. The current situation in Somalia is unique and this goes some way towards explaining how the Security Council was able to go so far with its 2008 initiatives, including authorising limited law enforcement powers by the Combined Task Force within Somali territory. Nevertheless, all countries need to have the capacity under international law to prosecute persons who perpetrate acts of violence against foreign ships in all settings. To that end, innovative legal responses are required.
Japan's position on this issue is yet to be determined. The MSDF destroyers are also carrying coast guard personnel on board so that they can arrest pirates for crimes under Japanese law. This is an interesting departure from other countries' practice in their counter-piracy operations. In January the US and UK reached agreements with Kenya allowing for the transfer of suspected pirates to Kenya for trial, whilst the EU reached a similar agreement earlier this month. It remains to be seen if Japan adopts the same practice or makes efforts to return the captives to Japan out of consideration for the protection of their constitutionally protected human rights.
That Japan has chosen to take such a proactive approach towards this issue of international and Japanese maritime security is a significant step in its rehabilitation as a global power capable of responsibly exercising limited military force. It raises sensitive issues of international and Japanese law, but perhaps most importantly this maritime police operation may set the touchstone for Japan's ability to engage in international security issues and to meet the legal challenges that its robust peacekeeping and enforcement operations would encounter.
Dr Hitoshi Nasu and Professor Donald R. Rothwell teach International Security Law at the ANU College of Law, Australian National University


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|Fishing West Bay??
Fishing Galveston's West Bay
Capt. Greg Francis
I started out many years ago in West Bay not having a clue. I have spent many hours and days trying to learn this bay system and believe me, I have hit the bottom many many times out there. First of all West Bay in my opinion is the hardest bay of the big 3 in the Galveston Bay Complex to learn. The reason? Its the shallowest of the 3. But, its by far my favorite because it offers everything I like to do. You can wade the many many miles of shorelines, drift the open bay, drift oyster bars, or when in season there are plenty of birds to chase all over West Bay. But in fishing West Bay, navigation can be a pain. There are tons of shell reefs in the upper part of the bay that can end a day in a hurry. Areas around North Deer, South Deer, Confederate Reef, and areas around the ICW are loaded up with these shell pads. In the winter time you best know where you are going. The middle of the bay from lets say Greens Cut to the water tower near the San Luis Pass is the easiest part of the bay to run as long as you don't run to close to the shorelines. The only thing I really keep my eye on is Carranchua Reef, Shell Island Reef, Snake Island Reef, Tire Reef, and the Sunken Shrimp boat near the pass. These are all areas that can cause damage if not aware of.
Now! How to fish West Bay?
I'm no master of West Bay, NOT YET! But I do know almost every inch of this bay. I have figured it out enough where I consider myself successful on most outings. Over the next few post I will break the areas down I like to fish and I will break them down by season.
Alright! Lets start off with the winter time bite.
Winter Time Bite
Winter time can be a difficult time to fish and is by far the toughest time to run this bay. As I said before there are many exposed reefs here on the upper end of this bay. This is not a bad thing though, as winter time can be the best time of year to explore and learn structure that may not be seen in the warmer months. Makes notes of reefs, guts ,and other structure types that fish relate too. I promise you they will hold fish later on.
Areas I like to fish in the winter.
If you don't have a West Bay map you may need to get one. A lot of the areas I mention will be on a good map. The Hook-N-Line map is a good one to use.
Looking at a map, draw an imaginary line from Green's Cut south towards Dana Cove. I pretty much fish everything east of this imaginary line up to the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) where it runs between Tiki Island and North Deer.The average depth out in the open water between December and early March is 4 to 6'. Around the shorelines, around North and South Deer Island, and Confederate it gets shallow and shallow quick. BE CAREFUL IN THESE AREAS.
During mid December and the first part of March it will be strictly artificial baits. I'm not going to mention trophy Trout fishing here. I'm strictly talking about catching numbers of Trout. Drift fishing is the key here this time of year.
Since bait is not as abundant as the warmer months the signs of fish are more difficult to spot. My first goal is to try and locate dirty water. You will notice in West Bay during the winter time the bay gets too clear. I personally hate clear water and don't very well in it. Normally we are looking for the "mud streaks" as we call them. These streak are caused by tides and for the most part are easy to spot. Overcast day they may be a bit more difficult as they tend to blend in. Trout use these streaks to hide and ambush bait. If you can find these streaks you more than likely have found some fish. These streaks very in size but can be 10 to 50 yards wide and hundreds of yards long. Bait of choice here for me are soft plastic baits rigged on 1/8 or 1/16 ounce lead heads WORKED SLOWLY. Trout get real lethargic in the winter and aren't going to spend a great deal of energy to give chase to a bait. Later on in the warmer day they may get a bit more aggressive but most of the time it has to be right in front of them. Colors I like are the plum/chartreuse tail, black/char tail, red shad, and limetreuse. These colors work great for me. And I personally like the Saltwater or Bass Assassins. In my opinion there is not another bait that matches the Assassins wounded bait action. They are a little soft but they work. Other baits that work in these streaks are Mirrolures, Catch 2000's, Corky's, and any other soft plastic bait that drops to the bottom.
A mud streak is a great starting point to look for Trout. Find a mud streak with jumping mullet and your chances just doubled. Also, don't forget about birds. Diving Pelicans and Loons are a for sure sign of bait in the area and deserve a look over. Loons have put me on schools of Trout many many times.
If mud streaks, bait, or birds are not seen be patient. The tides play a critical role in getting things turned on. I have spent many times here fishing for hours with no fish then all of a sudden the tide starts moving or turns and then we end up with a great day. If no signs are found try and key in on water where the bottom can't be seen or you can barely make out the bottom structure. If the water is gin clear you are wasting your time in this location. Move on!
This area of West Bay is all mud with lots and lots of scattered shell. You will experience many break offs fishing this area so take plenty of lead heads. But this is the structure they like so we must deal with it.
This is my pattern for drift fishing upper West Bay. It will take time to learn to read the water and notice the signs to lead you in the right direction but it will come. The more time spent here the more knowledge to gain. You will find out West bay is an awesome place to fish in the winter. When the weather gets cold West Bay is hot!
Lower West Bay:
If someone said that I could only fish one area the rest of my life , which area what I choose? It would be lower West Bay! The reason is simple, its home to the San Luis Pass. And also some beach bum guy named John Turner . The San Luis Pass is by far my favorite place to fish in the whole Galveston Bay Complex. If you look at a map, draw an imaginary line from Alligator Point to Terramar Beach. Everything to the West I consider lower West Bay. I do fish a lot of Chocolate Bay, Christmas Bay, and Bastrop Bay but for now I'm only talking West Bay.
Navigation all around the lower part of this bay is pretty easy until you get to the San Luis Pass area. If running the open Bay two areas of concern would be Tire Reef which is a deep reef that is to deep to hit with boat or lower until but it marked by two big black poles on each end. Tire Reef sits about a half mile southeast of the entrance to Chocolate Bay. The poles can be a hazard if running at night. In the daylight hours they are easily visible. They stick out of the water about 10'. The other hazard is the sunken shrimp boat northeast of Bird Island about a half mile. This sunken boat is easily seen during the day light. The black mast is the only thing that can be seen. At night its almost impossible to see. If you find these two areas mark them on your GPS. Both of these are marked on mine for night time navigational purposes. The San Luis Pass area is a very tricky area to navigate. Unlike upper West Bay where there are lots of shell pads, this area contains lots of sand bars. I would recommend running very slow in this area. If you look at the map you can see the that the bars are running Behind the pass on the Galveston side, along Mud Island, and directly behind Bird Island. They are a pain to navigate and more than likely you will find some of them the hard way. I know I still do. Keep in mind that the current are very strong here and the currents are always changing the layouts of the pass. But with that said, the fish love the numerous guts and sand bars around here. The guts are like highways for the fish. Fish back off in the deeper guts on slack or warmer periods of the day and move up to the sand flats or edges of the sand bars to feed. Always remember if wading, some of the guts are very deep. One second you are in 12" of water and the next step you will be over your head. And with a hard incoming or outgoing tide this can be dangerous. I would recommend a PFD until you are comfortable wading the pass area.
When I fish the pass area I wade 99.9% of the time. Here are the areas I like to fish here. The south shoreline on the Galveston side. If you are looking at the toll booth on the San Luis Pass bridge I wade everything to the east of there. I will not wade past the toll booth. Currents are too strong for me going past the toll booth. I catch plenty of Trout and Reds between the toll booth and the water tower located down the shoreline towards Galveston. This is a safe wade here. There are really no deep guts here. There is one gut off the shoreline that runs down the shoreline about 75 yards off the bank but its only about a 2 to 2 1/2' gut. You can wade about 150 to 200 yards off the bank. Another area is what I like to call the Oyster Lake shoreline. This area is from Mud Cut and everything north of that to the ICW. This is pretty much a hard sand bottom with very little shell. There is 1 reef located in the middle of the shoreline between Mud Cut and the ICW. This is a great place to fish early in the morning or the late afternoon. My favorite place to fish is behind Bird Island. If you are looking at the Hook-n-line map you will see some red just north of Bird Island. This is my favorite place to wade. There are some deep guts off to the west and 1 deep one off to the southeast. Be careful here!
Like I said early my main choice is wading here. When wading top waters will be my first choice. She Dogs, Top dogs, Super Spooks, Super Spook Jr's, and Skitterwalks are all in my arsenal. All of these baits are deadly. Colors I like are solid Black, black/char head, char/pearl/char She Dog. Both of those baits are good for low light conditions. When the sun is out I like anything with flash. Baits like the blue/chrome back, solid chrome, or silver/pearl/char are good baits. Also, soft plastics work great along with Mirrolures, slow sink baits, and rattle traps.
When drift fishing all of these artificials baits will work too. If throwing live bait. I like drift fishing the edges of the guts with shrimp or mullet under popping corks. Also, free lined shrimp or mullet can be deadly. But you need a good current to help get the baits drifting down the edges of the guts.
The pass is a great place to fish but like everything else the tides play a major role when the fish feed. Personally I like the incoming tide the best but will take an outgoing tide as long as I have water movement.
When fishing these areas I listed above I'm keying in on a number of signs.
Trout slicks are the #1 sign I look for. This is a given sign that there are feeding fish in the area. Look for signs of jumping Mullet. Where there is bait you can bet predators aren't far behind. Pelicans, Gulls, and Terns are more signs of bait activity.
To me, the ideal water temp here is from 65 to 80 degrees. I will normally start hitting the pass hard in late March all the way until late June. July, August, and September I'm usually somewhere else. Then I generally come back towards the end of September. October and November are two great months to fish these areas too. The water temps are dropping and the Trout tend to stay up on the flats a lot longer and are real aggressive towards a surface plug. During the heat of the summer the pass can be hit or miss for me. Its just to inconsistent for me. I will not see the numbers or quality like I see in the spring and fall.
Middle West Bay:
Now lets talk about the middle section of West Bay. I call the middle section of West Bay from Green's Cut to Alligator Point. There is a lot of great fishing in this section of the bay but doesn't get as much pressure as lower and upper West Bay.
First of all this part of the bay is not that hard to navigate. You have one major reef in Carranchua Reef that is locate right dead center of West Bay. This reef basically runs almost from the north shoreline to the south shoreline. It can be waded (my preference) or it can be fished drifting. I prefer wading it during the spring and fall throwing soft plastics or top water baits. And I prefer the northern end of it. On a normal tide this highest point of the reef sits about 6" below the surface. There is also Shell Island Reef, Shell Island Reef #1, and Shell Island Reef #2, and Snake Island. All of these reefs produce good catches of Trout with a few Reds. Shell Island and Snake Island are the two reefs that are navigational hazards. These reefs can be excellent spring through the fall. Watch for nervous bait, slicks, and bird activity.
The north shoreline can be a good place to fish all year long. Areas around Alligator Point back east are good wading. Especially areas where there are cuts in the spoils that head back into the ICW. About a 1/2 mile back east from Alligator Points there are a series of these cuts that have shell bottoms in the cuts. The bay is on one side then deep water access of the ICW is on the other. These are awesome places to fish. Again, I'm keying in on bait, slicks, and bird activity. Winter time I'm keying in on mainly bait. A small warming trend in the winter time between fronts will allow bait to move on these flats. Trout and good sized Trout will not be far behind.
Now lets talk about the south shoreline and the many many coves that are located here.
I feel like the coves for me produce the best and most consistently in the spring and fall. They do produce in the summer months but to me not as good. The best bite in the summer months will come early and late. I catch more Reds in the hotter parts of summer than Trout. The winter time in coves are only visited in periods of warm weather windows where I am only after trophy sized Trout. The same can apply to the north shoreline. Gets a few days of rising temperatures and Trout will follow bait up into the shallows. Coves that have deeper guts that run into them are usually the best for winter time fishing. I wade just about all the coves I fish and will more than likely be throwing top water baits or Corky's. Bass Assassin lures are thrown often as well. Drift fishing is a good choice in coves like Dana's, Starvation, Snake Island Cove, and Carranchua Cove too. Drift fishing with top waters, soft plastics, and live shrimp under popping corks are all effective methods. When wading coves be careful. Some of these areas get pretty soft and there are deeper guts that run through these coves.
I hope this helps you get an idea of fishing the West Bay area. I would say its a great spring, fall, and winter bay. To me the toughest part of the year is the summer months. Just not that consistent for me. I can catch a lot of fish there but I really half to work hard for them.
Good luck


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Follow directions in the "getting there" section of the main page.
Route Description
This route follows a well maintained trail up the cliffs that make up the east side of Blue Hill. The trailhead starts across from the bridge that crosses the west branch of the Susquehanna. The trail is only about .9 of a mile in length to reach the top and can be done in half ah hour. You'll gain almost 400 feet on the trail. The views from the top are among the best in the area unless your flying. This makes for an excellent sunrise trip if you are in the area as well. The total round-trip is almost 2 miles.
Essential Gear
Comfortable shoes, snacks and a camera.
Miscellaneous Info
If you have information about this route that doesn't pertain to any of the other sections, please add it here.


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ACParadise Network: American Cosplay Paradise American Cosplay Experience American Cosplay Snapshots
Cosplayer Sweet~Pea > Unsorted Photos > Photo #99779
Isabella, Arashi, Yukari and Miwako from Paradise Kiss. Made for Spring 2008. Responsible for designs and creations of all aspects with assistance from Missi. (SilverReith as George- styling/creation by her)
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MISSISSIPPI (WCBI) – Today the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) reports two new deaths and 19 new human cases of West Nile virus (WNV) for 2012. Both deaths were in Rankin County, and the new cases were reported in Calhoun (2), Copiah (1), Hinds (1), Lamar (1), Lauderdale (1), Madison (2), Marion (1), Pearl River (1), Rankin (6), Warren (1), and Yazoo (2) counties, bringing the state total to 114 cases and four deaths. The MSDH is also reporting a human case of La Crosse Encephalitis in Lawrence County.
In 2011, Mississippi had 52 WNV cases and five deaths. The MSDH only reports laboratory-confirmed cases to the public.
MSDH is currently working with city and county officials to boost mosquito control efforts in their jurisdictions by providing map specific information for spraying efforts. The agency has developed and printed educational materials and door-hangers for mayors, boards of supervisors and other elected officials that are now being distributed locally through civic groups, churches and volunteer organizations. The MSDH is also working with the Mississippi High School Athletics Association and the Mississippi Independent Schools Association in announcing public service messages at high school football games and other athletic events.
Peak season for WNV is July, August, and September in Mississippi, but mosquito-borne illnesses can occur year-round. Mississippians should take appropriate precautions to reduce the risk of contracting WNV and other mosquito-borne illnesses: remove sources of standing water, especially after rainfall; install or repair screens on windows and doors; and if you will be in mosquito-prone areas, wear protective clothing (such as long-sleeved shirts and pants) during peak times from dusk until dawn, and use repellents containing DEET, or Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) registered repellents for use on human skin. Always read the manufacturer's directions carefully before you put on a repellent.
Symptoms of WNV infection are often mild and may include fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, a rash, muscle weakness or swollen lymph nodes. In a small number of cases, infection can result in encephalitis or meningitis, which can lead to paralysis, coma and possibly death.
For more information on WNV and other mosquito-borne illnesses, a checklist to reduce the mosquito population in and around homes, and recommended mosquito repellents, visit the MSDH website at www.HealthyMS.com/westnile or call the WNV toll-free hotline from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at 1-877-WST-NILE (1-877-978-6453).


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Israeli nationalist, charm offensive
Leading American supporters of Israel have been quick to embrace a controversial Israeli nationalist who is likely to play a major role in the new Israeli government in an effort to blunt any harm his rise might do to Israel's image in the United States.
Avigdor Lieberman's party took third in the parliamentary election earlier this month on a platform warning of threats from Israeli's Arab minority. The success of his "Israel Is Our Home" party makes him a key player in forming a new government, but he has drawn denunciations from leading figures on the American and Israeli left, who warned that he could endanger a pillar of the U.S.-Israel relationship: the case that the countries share pluralistic, democratic values.
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Palestinian advocates, meanwhile, say Lieberman's popularity exposes an ugly face of Israel's relationship with its own Arab citizens.
But Lieberman has mounted a charm offensive, downplaying the harsh stands — like a demand that Israeli citizens swear a "loyalty oath" — that many of his supporters found so appealing. This week, he published an op-ed in an American Jewish newspaper, The Jewish Week, claiming that his concept of "responsible citizenship" is actually no different from Great Britain's.
A former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Danny Ayalon, has been trying to smooth and soften Lieberman's profile with nervous American Jews.
"Since there was no good answer by the Israeli left to the rise of Lieberman, they began all this name-calling — 'fascist, racist, not democratic,'" said Ayalon, who served in Washington from 2002 to 2006.
On the stump during the election, Lieberman seemed to suggest that Israeli Arabs, many of whom tell pollsters they sympathize with Hamas, could be stripped of their citizenship. "Without loyalty, there can be no citizenship," he said. Lieberman is also known for an undiplomatic tone: He has been quoted saying everyone from disloyal Israel Arabs to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak can "go to hell."
But Ayalon said Lieberman's words had been misinterpreted and that a loyalty oath would be required only for government positions.
"Nothing is further from the truth," he said. "Nobody's going to be kicked out of here or anything like that. Stripping citizenship is really something which is not a good idea and this is not what we would like to see."
Lieberman will visit the United States after Israel's new governing coalition forms, Ayalon said, though he has already begun reaching out to American Jewish leaders. The party leader addressed a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations at a hotel in Jerusalem last week — a meeting at which he did not bring up the loyalty oath. He also met Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) in Jerusalem last week.
His allies make the case that he's not really that conservative — he supports a two-state solution, though he would reach it in part by bargaining with Palestinian leaders using land that includes Israeli Arab populations — and that he's avowedly secular. And American Jewish leaders, who had initially taken a standoffish posture amid fears that Avigdor Lieberman would damage the U.S.-Israel relationship, are now publicly making the case that he's not so bad.


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Discussion in 'Training Horses' started by CharlieChick, Aug 15, 2011.
What is the best bit for mouthing ?? Also what bits are considered soft ?*
Bits are only as soft as the hands attatched to them. Timeing and feel is all that matters, with ANYTHING going though the mouth of a horse. Rope, twisted wire, ect ect can all be soft.
Generally - the thinner the bit, the softer the hands need to be, and their isnt much need to be harsh anyway - but the thicker the bit, the more uncompfortable your horse could be with no pressure on the bit at all. Their honestly isnt as much spare room in a horses mouth as we like to think.....
But start looking in the range of snaffles or mylers.
I personally like the FM snaffle - or a similar myler. ALWAYS use with rubber tubeing over the cheek points for mouthing.
**)Thank you
FM or tom thumb - tom thumb has similar cheek points to FM but shorter and will sit slightly flatter against the outside of his cheek.
I always mouth in the bit I intend the horse to train on with...KKUltra
I was under the impression that the tom thumb pinched? Could be wrong..
I would suggest the spregner kk loose ring. Love it! Changed the whole attitude of my riding horse .. fantastic.
I'm going to try a full-cheek french link snaffle - just ordered one online


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Indira Renganathan
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A Flower To Auroville Mother-68
Wax Begonia(Fibrous Begonia,
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(Begonia tuberosa 'Ruffled Yellow')
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It's the teen vengeance fantasy du jour: Scorned by mean-spirited classmates for being "different," a high school misfit flees Arizona for the more tolerant environs of Southern California, blossoms, then finally returns for the 10-year reunion in a triumphant blaze of fashion fabulosity that sets the student body on its collective ear.
The plot of Romy and Michele's High School Reunion?
Well, not quite.
But reverse the sexes, divide by two, then doll up this former scourge of the campus in a wig, minidress and size-15 high heels. Voila! You've got the makings of a real-life scenario that promised to be every bit as outlandish as the antics of Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino's dizzy reuniongoers.
More than a month after Sunnyslope High's Class of '87 reunion, some attendees still aren't sure what hit them.
But that's getting way ahead of a story--call it Wong Foo Does Carrie--10 years in the making.
Flash back to the Sunnyslope High Junior Prom, spring 1986. Enter Dennis Bevins, a flamboyant gay teenager, who, along with his friend Lisa Currie, thought it'd be fun to blow everyone's minds by showing up at the dance dressed in semiformal monster attire.
Bevins sported a tux, dead-white makeup and a towering Bride of Frankenstein hairdo, complete with silver lightning bolts. His date, meanwhile, was only slightly less startling, sporting a conventional prom gown and what one classmate vividly recalls a decade later as "hideous makeup and hideous hair."
Their fellow promgoers were not amused.
"It was awful," remembers Dennis Bevins. "The minute we got there, some big jock started in on me. 'What the fuck you lookin' at my girlfriend for, fag?' This went on all night. People started throwing stuff in our hair. We had our picture taken and we were out the door. We couldn't have been in there an hour."
That evening, Bevins and Currie forged a pact. Combing debris from their mile-high coifs, the pair vowed that they'd make a surprise appearance at their 10-year reunion--and really give everyone a show.
During last month's reunion at the Scottsdale Hilton, the pair finally made good on their long-ago pact.
Or at least Bevins did.
Now a professional drag queen who works under the name Moist Towelette, Bevins--accompanied by Currie--confidently swaggered up to the registration table outside the banquet room.
When the reunion coordinator looked up from the desk, she was startled to find herself staring up at a seven-foot Amazon suggesting a cross between Peg Bundy and Frankenhooker.
"I was a little nervous," Patti Munzert, co-owner of First Class Reunions, later confides. "We've been doing 40 or 50 reunions a year, and this was definitely a first. We've been in business for 15 years, and I've never seen anything like this happen."
The afternoon of the reunion, the twin outcasts kick back in a friend's home and eagerly anticipate the event for which they've waited so long. Never mind that, a decade later, their motives aren't exactly running on parallel tracks.
In close touch with Bevins for the past 10 years, Lisa Currie has returned to Phoenix to lend moral support and see old friends. Sort of a misfit by association, the onetime "fag hag" claims she could easily move within the school's various social circles whenever Bevins wasn't around.
But her flashy sidekick has darker designs.
"I'm here to shock and show 'em," says Bevins, who, as "Moist Towelette," is now a player in L.A.'s flourishing drag demimonde. "Ha ha! I'm still a freak!"
In reality, "freak" was one of the tamer epithets that echoed through the halls whenever Sunnyslope High's answer to Boy George was in the vicinity.
"Everything was 'fag this' and 'fag that'; I was always getting pushed all the time," recalls Bevins. "Of course, I was the one who provoked it all," he adds sarcastically. "It was my own fault because I was the one who came to school with makeup on and my hair standing on end."
"Some of those kids really did give him a rough time," explains Currie, now a computer consultant living in San Diego. "This was 10 years ago, and a lot of those people weren't ready for what he was doing."
But what he was doing at school was nothing compared to his extracurricular activities with Currie. The inseparable pair got jobs working side by side at Carl's Jr., somehow finagling a work schedule that left every weekend evening free. Decked out in bizarre makeup and hairdos, they'd hit a popular teen club called Tommy's--or, when they got lucky, sneak into a gay bar.
"What was really difficult for Dennis was that he was living this weird double life," says Currie, now a computer systems trouble-shooter for a San Diego law firm. "At Tommy's, everyone knew him--he was a star. Then he'd go to school, and he couldn't even raise his hand without someone yelling 'fag.'"
Things weren't much better at home, a single-parent household Bevins shared with his perplexed mother and a half-sister who reportedly had little interest in her stunning sib. "Since high school, my mother's been telling me I look like a freak," says Bevins, who dropped out of school at the end of his junior year. "Now that she's seeing me on TV and I'm making a little money, she's finally getting used to the idea. A little."
Aside from lacquered nails, tweezed eyebrows and so many piercings that his ears resemble the binding on a spiral notebook--affectations now embraced by some artsy heteros--Dennis Bevins' current appearance couldn't be less startling.
Lanky, languid and laid-back, his drag-free demeanor is wildly at odds with the over-the-top "inner woman" simmering beneath the surface. With his soft, sleepy voice, he might be a gawky basketball player who just woke up from a nap.
By contrast, Moist Towelette is a refugee from an overheated dream, a gimlet-eyed seductress who looks as if she escaped from an old Terry and the Pirates comic strip. The cartoonish creation grew out of a Halloween-party impersonation of the villain in Russ Meyer's cult classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!--a butch go-go dancer who dispatches victims with judo chops.
Bevins groans. "Big hairy belly hanging out, shoes two sizes too small, makeup from Thrifty--whoever let me out of the house looking that way should have been shot."
If there's any shooting going on near Moist Towelette these days, it's done with a camera. Since giving birth to the character several years ago, Bevins has landed TV appearances on Roseanne, Wings, MTV's Loveline and numerous rock videos. On stage, he's appeared in Joan Crawford's old role in a drag production of The Women and has performed at Dragstrip 66. Screen work includes a bit part in Arnold Schwarzenegger's Eraser; and he provided comic relief as a white-trash lesbian in the porn video The Hills Have Bi's, a role that earned him a "best nonsexual performance" nomination from an adult-video magazine. He'll also be seen in the upcoming Leather Jacket Love Story, an indie featuring John Waters regular Mink Stole.
Softening Towelette's rough edges for last fall's big "Battle for the Tiara" AIDS fund raiser in L.A., Bevins made his drag-pageant debut. Posing as "Miss Texas," he performed a crowd-pleasing square-dance spoof with a height-challenged partner that climaxed when Bevins stripped down to a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader outfit, mounted a coin-operated supermarket horse and then lassoed his partner and hog-tied him. The first-timer placed third--quite an achievement in a contest where politics and personal following are half the game.
A buyer for a chain of porn shops since 1990, Bevins recently gave up that job to concentrate on his drag career. Now working part-time in a high-end designer-furniture business, he estimates he spent more than $7,000 last year keeping Moist Towelette in style.
"Drag is very addicting and very liberating," he explains. "When you've got the wig, the makeup and the dress going, something happens. You can be absolutely insane and do things you'd never ever do if you weren't in drag."
A quick drag fix was exactly what Dennis Bevins could have used during a prereunion get-together the night before the actual event. Attending a reception at a Mexican restaurant wearing nothing more protective than street clothes, he momentarily panicked.
"'This is ridiculous,'" Bevins remembers thinking. "'There's no way I can go through with this. This isn't going to be any fun.'"
Currie picks up the story. "We recognized a few people, but only marginally," she explains. "If these were the only people who were going to attend Saturday night, maybe we shouldn't even bother to go. The problem was that there were no people that we disliked enough to irritate--or people that we liked enough to have fun with."
In an attempt to salvage the evening, the pair phoned a friend from school and convinced her to come over to the reception for a drink. When she finally showed up several margaritas later, the party had gotten considerably looser. When word spread among guests that an off-duty drag queen was in their midst, the line to Bevins' table formed to the right.
"Once the girls found out I was a drag queen, they were all Chatty Cathy," says Bevins. "Like, 'What are you going to wear tomorrow night?' When they found out I brought a short dress, it was all, 'Oh, girl, we should wear our short dresses, too.' Suddenly, everyone knew me."
Moist miss this reunion? Suddenly, Bevins wouldn't dream of throwing in the towelette.
The Big Moment has arrived. Moist Towelette and Lisa Currie have hardly stepped into the banquet room when the buzz starts.
"He's here!"
"Ohhh, my God . . ."
"That person was in our class!?"
Smiling glacially and staring straight ahead, Bevins makes his way through the fashionably dressed crowd and heads directly for the bar. Pretending not to notice the undercurrent of attention their arrival has caused, Bevins and Currie feign chitchat while they wait for their order, knowing full well 400 eyes are watching their every move.
Somewhere across the room, several baffled women frantically flip through yearbooks, not quite sure exactly who--or what--it is they're looking for.
Abruptly whirling around, Bevins leans against the bar and takes a dramatic pull off a longneck beer bottle. Surveying former classmates from beneath a fringe of inchlong eyelashes, he looks like an extraterrestrial bar girl just daring anyone to say a word.
So far, the evening's gone according to a plan Bevins had mapped out earlier: "We'll show up early, let everyone get a good look at us--then leave before anyone has a chance to get too liquored up."
But only minutes later, his carefully crafted plot to scandalize his classmates begins unraveling fast when he's besieged by several "Chatty Cathys" from the night before, eager to get a closer look at his get-up. The ice broken, Bevins is soon holding court, joking about old times with several dozen reuniongoers who've come over to see him. Basking in the glow of disposable-camera flashes, Bevins congratulates one attendee on her good taste--the woman is wearing a dress nearly identical to his.
"I was surprised he showed up," reports classmate Deanna Leo. "That was very, very bold of him. And he looks damn good . . . better than all the girls here tonight. In school, everyone was so mean to him. Sure, he tried to be different, but Dennis is, well, Dennis."
Chalk it up to maturity or the media's recent mainstreaming of drag queens, but the unthinkable has happened. If a poll were taken tonight, it's a cinch that Dennis Bevins, former Junior Prom Reject, would be named Belle of the Ball.
Okay, so that vote might not be unanimous. Nearly half of the people here are spouses or dates of classmates and never even attended Sunnyslope High. And Bevins' elaborate persecution memories to the contrary, many attendees claim they have no recollection of him at all--not surprising upon learning the '87 graduating class numbered more than 300 students.
"I can't remember him from nothing," says Larry Wright, a former classmate who now operates a hair salon with his wife. "I'd need to see a yearbook. There's just too much hair, too much makeup, too much of everything."
"I'll be honest," says another alum with a shrug. "I smoked too much dope in high school and I don't remember anything."
But others who remember Bevins corroborate his stories of long-ago gay-bashing.
Matt Knowles, now a Southern California process engineer, still remembers that junior-prom fiasco. "There were some people there that night that wanted to beat him up, but luckily, it didn't happen. I guess everyone always knew he was [gay] and gave him a hard time."
Another classmate puts it more succinctly. "Some people were assholes," says Laki Tsaninos, an insurance broker who's known Bevins since grade school. "People can be mean in high school; I can sleep every night because I know I wasn't. But, yeah, it was bad for Dennis."
Tonight, meanwhile, couldn't be better. By the time awards are to be given out, Bevins has his own highly vocal cheering section and takes "Most Changed" kudos in a walk.
For a moment, it looks like he's also bagged "Most Unusual Occupation" (the crowd is audibly impressed that he's appeared on Roseanne), but Bevins ultimately loses to an Army sniper. The emcee jokingly apologizes for the upset, explaining that everyone was afraid to vote against Bevins' competitor for fear that they'd be shot.
Taking a pass on the "Most Eligible Bachelor" category, the mostly ineligible bachelor retires to the patio for a smoke and admits he's stunned at the turn the evening has taken.
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"I'm really having a good time," says Bevins, preening in the reflective surface of a brass wall plaque. "I guess what's really amazing to me is how well everyone's dealing with this. I thought that there would be no room in their minds for anything fresh or new or exciting." Pause. "I find this very surprising," he says, almost sadly.
Gasp! Could it be that Bevins actually misses those hideous old days when he could still send shock waves through the Sunnyslope High seismograph?
Even his co-conspirator isn't exactly sure what's going on beneath that wig.
"Dennis has always liked attention," says Lisa Currie. "I think the whole point of coming back for the reunion was that he finally wanted acceptance--or one last piss-off."
Currie laughs. "When we were planning this, I told Dennis that if he really wanted to shake everyone up, he should show up in a suit, with someone like Traci Lords as his date," she says. "Now that would have shocked everyone.


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Well, fresh off an exciting Singapore Grand Prix (congrats Lewis Hamilton and Tag Heuer), next stop is Japan, and then to Brazil (October 16-18). Brazil is the home of F1 Superstar Felipe Massa, who is unfortunately out of racing for the rest of the 2009 season due to a severe accident he suffered on the racetrack this past July at the Hungarian Grand Prix (Massa was struck on the helmet by a suspension spring that had fallen from Rubens Barrichello's car on a high-speed part of the track).
As you may also know, Felipe Massa has a special relationship with ultra-exclusive watchmaker Richard Mille. Richard Mille just revealed a special edition watch he has created for Massa, and it is an eye-catcher. The colors of Massa's Brazilian homeland with the technical prowess that Richard Mille is known for!
Limited to 10 pieces, one of which is surely Felipe Massa's.


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The Stupid News: Man Wants Boobies Back
MAN WANTS TO REPO BOOBIES … A man in Germany who paid for his girlfriend's breast implants wants to have them REPOSSESSED now that she's dumped him.
The guy – whose name hasn't been released – apparently paid just under 6 grand for his 20-year-old girlfriend's breast implants last year. At the time, he told her he'd buy them for her if she promised to stay with him for a year. He even had her sign a CONTRACT that said she'd have to pay him back for the implants if she broke up with him within a year. Sounds like a healthy relationship, no?
Well, she left him shortly after getting her new boobies and now he's gone to the police with the contract threatening to have her new breasts repossessed if he doesn't get the money soon. I'm not sure where you find a repo man for a job like this.
REAL (WO)MAN OF GENIUS … A woman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania accidentally got locked out of her house, which has probably happened to just about everyone, but no one else I'm aware of has ever tried THIS strategy to get back inside.
The woman – whose name hasn't been released – decided her best play would be to set the house ON FIRE so that the fire department would come and let her in. She set the rear awning of her house on fire, and then called 911.
After the firefighters showed up, she calmly explained her master plan and asked them to let her into the house. They instead called the cops, and the woman was arrested and charged with ARSON.
WOMAN SAYS SHE OWNS THE SUN … A woman in Spain says she's filed the appropriate paperwork with a notary and now owns the sun.
Angeles Duran says she now intends to start charging all of us on earth for our use of her sun, but says she's only keeping 10% of the proceeds. The rest she'll donate to charity.
OK, it's her sun. But her sun is trespassing through MY atmosphere. (I'm getting a piece of this deal, too!)


text: Hello, As someone new to the GSOC system there are some things I'm confused about. There's a bunch of info out there, and I certainly haven't read all of it. Who are the "program administrator" and "organization administrator" for the Haskell organization? Those roles are mentioned in the manual here: http://en.flossmanuals.net/GSoCMentoring/what-is-gsoc/ Presumably those are the people that actually click "accept" on the melange site: https://google-melange.appspot.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2012 How many slots did we get? Is the system just to accept the top rated student proposals? If I can find the answers to these questions maybe I can update the Wiki for next year so it has a bit more info for mentors and about the process as well as students: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/summer-of-code/wiki/Soc2012 Thank you, -Ryan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/attachments/20120419/531f7441/attachment.htm>


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This site contains code for several purposes and its intended to work within R (http://www.r-project.org/)
- Manuel Febrero Bande y Manuel Oviedo de la Fuente
• fda.usc
The purpose of this package is to integrate own developments in Functional Data Analysis with those from other authors: fda package and/or group STAPH.
- Manuel Febrero Bande
• PMICALC - Post Mortem Interval Calculator (Update 19/07/2007)
- Beatriz Pateiro López
• Librería alphahull para R
• Librería alphashape3d para R
alphashape3d: Implementation of the 3D alpha-shape for the reconstruction of 3D sets from a point cloud The package alphashape3d presents the implementation in R of the alpha-shape of a finite set of points in the three-dimensional space. This geometric structure generalizes the convex hull and allows to recover the shape of non-convex and even non-connected sets in 3D, given a random sample of points taken into it. Besides the computation of the alpha-shape, the package alphashape3d provides users with functions to compute the volume of the alpha-shape, identify the connected components and facilitate the three-dimensional graphical visualization of the estimated set.
- Rosa María Crujeiras Casais, Carla Moreira y Jacobo de Uña
• Paquete DTDA para R.
DTDA: Doubly truncated data analysis
- María Oliveira Pérez, Rosa María Crujeiras Casais y Alberto Rodríguez Casal
• Paquete NPCirc: Nonparametric Circular Methods
This package implements nonparametric kernel methods for density and regression estimation for circular data. Specifically, a circular kernel density estimation procedure is provided, jointly with different alternatives for chosing the smoothing parameter. In the regression setting, nonparametric estimation for circular-linear, circular-circular and linear-circular data is also possible via the adaptation of the classical Nadaraya-Watson and local linear estimators. In order to assess the significance of the features observed in the smooth curves, both for density and regression with a circular covariate and a linear response, a SiZer technique is developed for circular data, namely CircSiZer. Some real data examples are also included in the package.