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The concept of slavery always has and always will be one of the most repugnant social institutions humanity has ever seen. It violates every sensibility in us. The idea of one person "owning" another cuts to the very core of justice. While much can be said about slavery (and we will in a few minutes), the fact remains that the Bible says in numerous places we are slaves of God, righteousness and Christ.
Consider these following verses (all verses are from the New American Standard Bible unless otherwise noted):
· 1 Corinthians 7:22 "For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord's freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ's slave."
· Romans 6:22 "But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life."
· 1 Peter 2:16 "Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God."
· Acts 27:23 "For this very night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood before me."
· Revelation 22:3 "There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him."
As we consider these verses and what they teach, we will address what it means to be a slave, what it means to be Christ's slave, and the impact on our lives.
Slavery Defined
In the New Testament, each of the occurrences of the word "slave" is the Greek word "doulos" (or a variation of it). Doulos comes from the word "deo" meaning to bind (Strongs, 1401). It was the term for a slave (Liddel/Scott, 210). It referred to one who was completely controlled by someone else, or something else (Luow & Nida, 1:472). The ancient Greek writer, Xenophon, explained that "doulos" speaks of one who is in a permanent relation of servitude to another (Trench, citing Xenophon, 30). Likewise, to be a slave means one person's will is completely bound to the will of another. It requires complete dependence and undivided allegiance. (Zodiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary, 1401).
The word "doulos" occurs 182 times in the Greek New Testament. It's the run of the mill term for slave. Actually, in most places in the New Testament where the word "servant" is used, it's the word "doulos." Thus, rather than being a rare word, it's occurs throughout the New Testament.
Much confusion in the Christian life can be resolved by understanding the principle that we are slaves of Christ, rather than his servants. The word "servant" implies we have a will; we have a "say" in the matter; that we could tell the Lord we'd rather not obey Him right now. However, if we realize all those "servant" verses should be translated as "slave," suddenly the scriptures come alive with what it means to live for Christ and follow Him.
To make this clearer, we need to understand the other Greek words that could have been used to describe our service. For instance, the standard Greek word for "servant" is the word "diakonos" from which we get the word "Deacon." It's from the root word "runner" and means someone who runs around serving others. If "diakanos" had been used those 182 times, we could easily make the case that we are servants of God as opposed to slaves. And while "diakanos" does occasionally speak of our service to Christ; usually it has the focus of serving other people.
There was the Greek word "therapone" from which we get the word 'therapy.' This was the idea of serving another person voluntarily.
Another word, "oiketes," was a house slave. Although this person was a full slave too, their status was higher than the "doulos." The "oiketes" lived in homes. They weren't work animals to be used up and discarded.
Finally, there was one more word for slave called "uperetes." This was a galley slave. They probably had an even lower status than "doulos"—and Paul even describes himself as an "uperetes" in 1 Corinthians 4:1, "Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants (uperetes) of Christ."
So, when the New Testament describes our relationship with Christ, it often uses the term "doulos." For instance, one of our favorite verses is Matthew 25:23 which says, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Yet the word there is "doulos" and the NAS even correctly translates this verse as, "Well done, good and faithful slave."
Likewise, in Philippians 2:7, Paul speaks of Jesus and says, "but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant." The actual word there is "doulos" and thus Jesus Himself took the form of a slave.
Just as a person was a slave in their era, and required to fully obey the will of his master, Christ was a slave of His Father. In the same way, we are slaves of Christ and obligated to do his will.
To understand this point further, let's talk about slavery in the New Testament times.
Slavery in the New Testament Times
The life of a slave in the ancient world was different than many of us might realize. On the one hand, it was an abusive and oppressive system. For instance, according to the Roman law of Patria Potestas, a slave owner essentially had life and death power over the life of his slave. During the ancient world slaves were so common they were often treated with disregard.
It has been estimated that at any given time, half of the empire were slaves—that's 60,000,000 people (Wight, Manners and Customs of Bible Lands, 292). The entire economy ran on the system of slavery. In fact, a person who had no slaves was considered as poor as a homeless person. It has been said in those days, having only three or four slaves was considered poverty. Having ten slaves was scarcely sufficient. Having 200 slaves was a good amount. But someone who wanted to count in society needed to have 1,000 slaves working for him. Wealthy Romans might possess as many as 20,000 slaves (The NT Milieu, ed by Du Toit, Section 5.3.3-514).
Slavery was certainly an evil system. The church father Chrysostom said, "Slavery is the fruit of covetousness, or degradation, of savagery." People were often forced into slavery against their will (though we'll see in a moment many actually chose slavery because of its potential benefits). Likewise, it is true that in many situations, slaves had no rights. They could be crucified, sold, branded and emasculated against their will.
The entire Roman economy was based on slavery. In terms of market principles, the ancient Roman economy was somewhat similar to ours. No doubt, there are massive differences between our two economies, but generally speaking, Rome was based on market economics. There were elected leaders, there were taxes, and there was trading and shipping.
Thus, part of the reason for slavery was simply to drive the economy.
The Romans engaged in business ventures somewhat like we might today, except typically these businesses were run by households. Whole households would own farms, mines, ships, pottery works, etc. Obviously, these business ventures would produce goods to sell and the whole house would benefit.
Here's where slavery was key. The Romans despised labor. They felt it was beneath them. So to get anything done, they used slaves. Often these slaves were imported from conquered nations. These slaves weren't always cheap and they weren't always unskilled. In fact, it was common to have slaves as the teachers. Slaves even taught medicine. Some of ancient history's most well-known writers were once slaves—such as Dionysius and Eutychides. Some of our most beloved Bible characters were once slaves—heroes like Joseph and Daniel are inspirational examples to us.
Another reason for slaves is a way of handling masses of people. Their society did not have a safety net of welfare and food stamps. A person in dire straights had no way of receiving care. Working in the home of a slave owner granted them food, clothing and a roof over their heads. In an odd way, slavery actually helped to extended the lives of many millions of people.
In many cases the slaves were living in better conditions than a free person. Often, a slave walking down the street was dressed as well as a freeman. If they came from wealthy homes, they were often dressed better than some freemen. Slaves and freemen were so much alike the Romans instituted a law that slaves needed to wear a designation so they could be distinguish from free citizens. Thus, many times individuals sold themselves into slavery.
This is not to gloss over the evils of slavery. By far the most common way a person entered slavery was to be the unfortunate citizen of a conquered nation. As the occupiers entered into a city they gave the residents two choices: slavery or death. Many chose death, but even more chose slavery. No doubt the conquering nation felt they were being merciful in granting life to these people. This is even more astounding when we understand many served in a family business and eventually earned their citizenship.
When we think of the American abuses of slavery; we think of permanent ownership. Roman slavery was not this way. Roman slaves were not without hope, and for diligent slaves, it was a path to Roman citizenship. The Romans learned early on that if a slave had no incentive of freedom, he also had no incentive to work hard. Slaves needed to work hard because an owner might have hundreds of slaves. Thus, he needed each one to justify his room and board. This was a motivation for slaves: they could eventually purchase their citizenship (Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves, 126).
Slaves would receive 5 denarii a month. Because their living expenses were already paid for, 5 denarii a month would have been twice the discretionary spending of the average freeman. Thus, if they saved their allowance, they could soon purchase their freedom. Cicero wrote a diligent slave could earn his freedom in seven years (Cicero, Philippic, 8.32).
There was both a humanitarian and economic reason for the freeing of slaves. As slaves became older, their skill would increase and therefore they were "worth" more. But on the other hand, as they became older, the cost to keep them healthy also grew. Therefore, their owner could sell them their freedom at a high price because of their skill, and then with the profit buy a cheaper, younger slave and still have money left over (Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves, 118). It was said most diligent slaves purchased their freedom by 30 years old.
When slaves of Roman citizens became free, they also became Roman citizens. Likewise, freed slaves were not permanently relegated to the lower classes. Slaves themselves could own property and even other slaves (Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves, 126). Likewise, the potential wealth of ex-slaves was limitless—ancient Roman philosopher Pliny spoke of an ex-slave who had amassed a fortune of 4,000 slaves, 7,200 oxen, and a cash savings of 60 times the fortune of some senators (Pliny, Natural History, 33.135).
Finally, when a Roman slave owner died it was common to free all his slaves. This was so common that eventually the government began to regulate this practice to not flood the society with 500-1000 slaves in a day. The book Conquerors and Slaves by Keith Hopkins, has an section of a chapter titled, Why did the Romans free so many slaves? The freeing of slaves in the Roman empire was designed, among other reasons, to reduce the natural repugnance of such a system.
We must not gloss over the evils of slavery but we do need to understand the world of slavery in biblical times. It has been said that no other book has done more to free slaves than the Bible. At the same time, the Bible tells us we are Christ's slaves. Likewise, Jesus says we are to love God and serve Him as our Master (Matthew 6:24). Furthermore, He Himself became a "doulos" to show us how to fully obey our Heavenly Father. Thus, when Paul and the other biblical authors teach this principle; they do not envision a Master who cruelly beats his slaves, but rather a kind and gracious Lord who loves and cares for His servants. Now let's discuss what it means to be slaves of God.
Our Slavery
As we began, the Bible teaches that all true believers are slaves of Christ. Sometimes you'll hear a person say, "I'm not a slave of anyone!" One of the principles we have to understand is we are all slaves. It's not as though we used to live as free people, but then became slaves of Christ. Instead, the Bible says we were always slaves, except that now our ownership has transferred from an evil master to a righteous Master.
The Bible is very direct in saying all people are slaves—we are either slaves of sin or slaves of Christ. Romans 6 makes this abundantly clear. Let's quickly look at some key verses from Romans 6.
Romans 6:16 says, "Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?" Paul's point here is when we are captive to a certain behavior, we are enslaved to it. Keep in mind, all the words "slave" in Romans 6 are from the Greek word "doulos."
So what were we slaves to? The next verse in Romans 6 makes this clearer. Verse 17 says, "But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed". Likewise, Jesus said in John 8:34, "Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin." If we sin, we are slaves of sin.
When Romans 6:16 says, "…you were slaves of sin…" this is the condition of every person outside of Christ. Ephesians 2:1–2 states this idea in slightly different words: "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience." We all formerly walked according to the course of this world and Satan. Why? Because we were slaves. No one is free. We are all slaves.
Praise God we have been set free from this evil master by Jesus Christ. Romans 6:18 goes on to say, "and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." Again, notice we have been "...freed from sin…" How were we set free? By Christ.
This is what the term "redemption" means. Redemption means to purchase something. It has the idea of us being on a slave block, under the evil master and ownership of sin and Christ comes up, pays our price and purchases our freedom from that old master of sin. Ephesians 1:7 explains this when it says, "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace." Christ has redeemed us and wiped away the former deeds we engaged in while we obeyed our former master of sin.
Does this mean Christ has bought us, paid for our forgiveness and now we're free to go off and wander the fields of life on our own? No. We were bought by Christ and now we have been taken to His home—our new home. Our old home was a vile dungeon where we were engaged in sin and being tortured and tormented. Now we are brought to a new home and treated as princes. We are not treated as galley slaves. We are not treated as field workers. We are treated as sons and we live as sons.
Here's what we need to understand—even though we are sons, we still must obey our Heavenly Father. Ultimately, He is still our Master. Just because He is loving and gracious and good to us as adopted sons, does not mean we are free to disregard Him and disobey Him. He still calls the shots. We still must obey.
Going back to Romans 6, verse 18 says: "and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." We are still slaves, but we are slaves of righteousness. Verse 22 rounds out the thought by saying: "But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life." Again, we are slaves of God who now obey God.
You see, we are no longer bound to the master of sin, we no longer have to obey it. We're set free. We're liberated. However, we are still bound to obey God. Remember when we read Ephesians 1:7 which says, "In Him we have redemption through His blood…" A few verses later, in verse 14 it says we are "God's own possession." As God's own possession, our will is now captive to our Father's. He is still the Master. We are still His servant.
This means we must do what is right and pleases Him. Once we have been set free from sin, we are no longer slaves to it. We no longer are bound to do what is wrong. Now our default orientation is to do right. We seek what is right. We long for what is right. We are grieved when we do wrong. We sometimes still sin, but at the end of the day, our heart's desire is to do the right thing.
And here's what we need to understand about our new slavery. Since we are free from sin; that means we are now bound to do what is right—and the right thing is always to obey Jesus. There is no such thing as being freed from sin into a condition of doing whatever we want. If God is our Master, we will want to obey Him. If we still want to sin, then sin is still our master. It's that simple. We can't thirst for righteousness while at the same time thirst for something Jesus doesn't want for us. We either obey sin or we obey God. Romans 6:16 gives us no other options.
Therefore, by definition, being set free from sin means we are finally free to pursue holiness and righteousness. We are finally able to obey the Lord. That's why Romans 6:22 says, "now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness." It leads to holiness because we can now actually pursue what pleases the Lord.
Practical Application:
The application of this principle is obvious—when Jesus is our Master, we will obey Him. We will seek to know His will through His Word. We will read it, study it, learn it, know it, and live it. It will become the guide for how we live life. Like a slave listening to his Master, His Word will mark and decide our actions, our decisions, our goals, and our objectives.
Our lives will begin to look different from before. For instance, there will be times when we may not "want" to have our daily devotions, but because Jesus is our Lord, we will. There will be times when we may not "want" to go to church, but because Jesus is our Lord, we will. There will be times when we won't "want" to engage in the acts of righteousness God calls us to, but because He is our Lord, we will.
Yet, even in this new condition, there will be times when our old nature rises up against our new nature. Even the eminent apostle Paul struggled with sin. He said in Romans 7:14 "…I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin." The fact remains, even though we have been set free from sin, our flesh keeps going back to our old master. Like an old horse that continues to follow familiar paths, our flesh will always want to go back to our old habits. That's why we need to keep reminding ourselves of these truths throughout all our days. If we have been set free, even though we may be riding a horse that wants to go the old way, we can control it and guide it to righteousness. And we can say with Paul a few verses later, "I joyfully concur with the Law of God… (Romans 7:22)." We will always struggle with our flesh, but if we are born-again, we have received the Spirit of God that crucifies our flesh (Romans 8:13) we might live and walk with Him.
Although we've stated it several different ways; in all of this, we need to understand our freedom from sin, and our freedom in Christ, does not mean we have the freedom to do whatever we want. Why not? Because that would be sin! If we just go off and live life any way we want; in complete disregard for Christ, then we are engaging in sin. Romans 14:23 says, "Whatever is not of faith is sin." To live a life unconcerned with God would be to live a life without faith; and this would be sin. As we mentioned earlier, Jesus said in John 8:34, "…everyone who sins is a slave of sin." Therefore, to engage in habitual disregard for Christ means to sin and to habitually sin means to be enslaved to sin. So, tying this back to Romans 8:13 if we live in sin; we will die. Why? Because we have demonstrated Christ is not our Lord and Master and we are still in bondage to sin.
Having said all of this, there are a couple of questions that might be asked.
For instance, "What kind of person enslaves their own children?" The heart of this question is rooted in the wrong perception of slavery. Remember in our discussion of slavery earlier, God graciously brings us into His home and His family. He lavishes His grace upon us (Ephesians 1:8) and treats us as adopted sons (Ephesians 1:5). He even extends to us an inheritance in Christ (Ephesians 1:11). In all these ways, He abundantly and graciously blesses us. Perhaps a similar question could also be asked—"What kind of person who has been bought out of a horrible enslavement would question the goodness of a Master who takes us from a dungeon of slime and puts us into a palace of blessings?"
Similarly, another question might be asked, "If I am set free from slavery, why do I have to now obey Jesus?" There are a couple of verses that seem to teach contradictory thoughts. For instance, in John 15:15 Jesus says, "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends." Galatians 4:7 says, "Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God." In light of everything we've discussed, what do these verses mean?
Well, for one thing—they do not mean we have to choose one principle and reject the other. We are not to approach the Word of God as a salad bar where we only agree with the things that we like.
As we've already demonstrated, the Bible clearly states our condition as slaves of God. But it also states our condition as sons of God. Both are true and neither is mutually exclusive. How do we understand this?
In the biblical world, children obeyed their parents. The Ten Commandments even say, "Honor your father and your mother." This principle was so serious Deuteronomy 21:18-21 says rebellious children could even be stoned. The principle is clear—God took obedience seriously. If a child did not to obey his or her parents, they could be cut off. And while the New Testament does not reinstitute the death penalty for disobedient kids, it does not remove the command. Instead, passages like Ephesians 6:1-3 reiterate it. The principle continues: children, obey your parents.
Thus, when we are reconciled to God through Christ, He adopts us as children. We have the rights and privileges of children. We have a status as children. This does not remove our requirement to obey. We are still captive to do the will of the father. Even in John 15:15 where Christ calls us "friends," the full thought begins in the preceding verse which says, "You are My friends if you do what I command you." We are friends, but we are required to obey. Likewise, we are sons, but we are required to obey.
Moreover, these passages (John 15:15 and Galatians 4:7) speak to the Father's disposition to us. They are both given to demonstrate the heartbeat of God is not as a harsh, uncaring Master. God knows us as His children. Christ knows us as His friends. He knows us like sons. He knows us like family. So, when He commands us to obey Him in any situation He allows into our lives, He knows what we can bear. His disposition is not to mercilessly make us miserable, but to lovingly lead us to the place of our greatest fulfilment and joy in submission to Him.
Final Thoughts
At this point, we still may not be thrilled with this concept. The question is not to figure out if we agree with this doctrine. The question is, "Does the Bible teach this?" The undeniable answer is, "Yes, it does." I may not have expressed these thoughts fully or the most eloquently, but we cannot deny the Bible teaches we are slaves to Christ. Like every other tenet of scripture, we need to let the Bible tell us what is true—and we need to likewise come humbly to these texts and submit to them. This is what it means to have Jesus as our Lord and Master.
So, now one final question remains: Is Jesus your Master? If not, it is time for you to surrender to Him. Romans 10:13 says, "Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved." To call upon Jesus as Lord means to surrender to Him and obey Him as your Master. We should regularly acknowledge this to Christ. If you have not done this recently, I encourage you to begin today.
Thanks for reading, and may we together press on to love and serve our Lord Jesus Christ.
Together in Christ,
Russ Brewer


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Taste For Life proudly hosts blogs from some of the top nutritionists and life coaches in the country. Opinions expressed by the author are their own, and do not necessarily represent those of Taste For Life or its editorial staff. For questions about this blog or its content, please contact Cheryl Myers.
Just about everyone in the US has experienced what it is like to alter brain function. Maybe you had a cup of coffee and were suddenly more conversational, or a margarita and you were suddenly more conversational. Maybe you were partially anesthetized for a dental procedure and have hilarious videos to prove it.
These experiences show us we are not who we think we are. We are, at least partially, how our brain is currently functioning.
Our thoughts are influenced by a complex electrochemical soup that triggers emotions and actions. Our memories are physically coded into special areas of our brain. Our ability to walk, run, jump, and dance are coded into another area.
If the brain is not healthy, its poor functioning will manifest in thought and behavior changes. If we break a leg, no one is surprised that our walking ability is changed. But if the brain is not working correctly, and we exhibit sadness or lethargy or anxiety or some other unpleasant emotional state, we are often told to cheer up or settle down or get a grip. No one tells a boy with a broken leg to just get up and walk, darn it! Because brain functioning is not as visible, and because we are wedded to the idea that all behavior is—or should be—under our conscious control, people with these types of challenges are often stigmatized.
Therefore, it makes sense to take good care of our brain if our goal is healthy thinking, good memory, emotional stability, and predictable behavior.
Inflammation and Brain Function
Inflammation can create all kinds of havoc in proper brain functioning. There are many dietary and lifestyle interventions that can reduce inflammation, including reducing sugar in the diet, increasing whole food consumption, and maintaining healthy levels of movement throughout the day. There are also clinically proven supplements that have been shown to reduce brain inflammation.
The best all-around natural inflammation-reducing botanical is curcumin. Curcumin is extracted from turmeric, but turmeric will not deliver enough curcumin for medicinal benefits in people with brain health concerns. Turmeric contains only 2% to 5% curcumin. Turmeric is an excellent food, but curcumin is the natural medicine.
Early studies on ordinary curcumin required as many as 24 capsules a day to attain any serum levels of key compounds. The best curcumin forms have enhanced absorption so that medicinal levels can be achieved with only 2 capsules a day.
One enhanced absorption curcumin is BCM-95, which uses turmeric essential oils rich in turmerones as the delivery system, and has four published studies on major depressive disorder (MDD). It has been found that people with depression and anxiety both have elevated levels of inflammation in the brain. Inflamed tissues create neurotransmitter imbalances and suppress the brain's auto-repair activity, called neurogenesis.
In one human study, this curcumin was compared to the prescription drug fluoxetine (one brand name is Prozac) and found to be as effective as the drug without the major side effects. BCM-95 has also been shown to be especially useful in atypical depression, which is often resistant to drug therapy.
Other studies on curcumin have shown it is effective for both depression and anxiety, and may be quite useful in other brain disorders, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. Initial animal research has demonstrated potential for this herb to help people with autism as well.
How to Rebuild Your Brain
The omega-3 fatty acids from fish—eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) —are crucial for proper brain health. About 60% of the brain is fat, and nearly 20% of your cerebral cortex is specifically DHA! If you are low on omega 3s, your brain will suffer. Not only are EPA and DHA anti-inflammatory, DHA is used in the brain cells themselves as part of the cell membrane.
Increasing healthy levels of EPA and especially DHA has great promise for schizophrenia, stroke, traumatic brain injury, depression, anxiety, autism and spectrum disorders, and more.
Even people without a serious brain disease can derive brain benefits from DHA and EPA from fish. In a published meta-analysis reviewing a variety of studies on mild memory problems associated with aging, using these two omega-3 fatty acids demonstrated significant improvements in memory in otherwise healthy older adults.
Another review article looked specifically at studies on DHA and found impact in almost every measure of cardiovascular health. This is important, because the same risk factors for heart disease are risk factors for strokes and other types of brain problems.
There is no question that omega 3s are beneficial for a healthy brain. However, there are an enormous amount of omega-3 products on the market, including oils from fish, squid (calamari), and krill, as well as more cutting edge extracts without oil from salmon. Losing the oil as a delivery system means you don't have to worry about triglyceride content and/or rancidity.
The brain is a physical organ that responds to physical interventions. Helping to improve brain function in turn improves brain activity, whether it be mood, memory, or risk of disease. Lifestyle changes and clinically validated supplements can be more beneficial that once imagined, and it is never too late to late to make a difference.
"Curcumin Attenuates Beta-Amyloid-Induced Neuroinflammation via Activation of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor-Gamma Function in a Rat Model of Alzheimer's Disease" by Z.J. Liu et al, Front Pharmacol, 8/16
"Curcumin and Cognition: a Randomised, Placebo-controlled, Double-blind Study of Community-dwelling Older Adults" by S.R. Rainey-Smith et al., Br J Nutr, 4/16
"Curcumin and Major Depression: A Randomised, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled Trial Investigating the Potential of Peripheral Biomarkers to Predict Treatment Response and Antidepressant Mechanisms of Change" by A.L. Lopresti et al., European Neuropsychopharmacology, 12/5/14
"Curcumin for the Treatment of Major Depression: A Randomised, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled Study" by A.L. Lopresti et al., J Affect Disord, 2014
"Docosahexaenoic Acid and Adult Memory: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis" by K. Yurko-Mauro et al., PLoS One, 3/15
"Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA): An Essential Nutrient and a Nutraceutical for Brain Health and Diseases" by G.Y. Sun et al., Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids, 3/10/17
"Efficacy of Curcumin, and a Saffron/Curcumin Combination for the Treatment of Major Depression: A Randomised, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled Study" by A.L. Lopresti and P.D. Drummond, Journal of Affective Disorders, 2017
"Efficacy and Safety of Curcumin in Major Depressive Disorder: a Randomized Controlled Trial" by J. Sanmukhani et al, Phytother Res, 2013
"Impact of DHA on Metabolic Diseases from Womb to Tomb" by I.A. Arnoldussen and A.J. Kiliaan, Mar Drugs, 12/18/14
"Neuroprotective Effect of Curcumin as Evinced by Abrogation of Rotenone-induced Motor Deficits, Oxidative and Mitochondrial Dysfunctions in Mouse Model of Parkinson's disease" by D.K. Khatri and A.R. Juvekar, Pharmacol Biochem Behav, 11-12/16
"Neuroprotective Potential of Curcumin in Combination with Piperine Against 6-hydroxy Dopamine Induced Motor Deficit and Neurochemical Alterations in Rats" by S. Singh and P. Kumar, Inflammopharmacology, 2/17
"Neuropsychopharmacotherapeutic Efficacy of Curcumin in Experimental Paradigm of Autism Spectrum Disorders" by R. Bhandari and A. Kuhad, Life Sci, 11/15
"Six-month Randomized Placebo-controlled, Double-blind, Pilot Clinical Trial of Curcumin in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease" by L. Baum et al., J Clin Psychopharmacol, 2/08


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From the video box:
Vincent Price portrays the brother of a brilliant research scientist (Al Hedison) who discovers how to transport matter through space. But things take an astoundingly bizarre turn when Hedison's atoms intermingle with those of a common housefly, leaving him with the head of an insect while his own head is attached to the fly's body. A gruesome freak of nature, his desperate battle to return to normal becomes all the more difficult when he begins to lose his human will. (1958, color)
Mark says:
I don't think anyone who ever saw this movie as a kid ever forgot it. I know that I never have.
Al Hedison (who later changed his name to David Hedison) and Patricia Owens do a capable job portraying Andre and Helene Delambre, a very happily married couple with a young son, Philippe. You may recognize Philippe (Charles Herbert) as Buck Zorba from 13 Ghosts (1960), or from his minor role in The Monster that Challenged the World (he played one of the kids fighting for the sailor's cap). Personally, I think he is less than convincing in any role, but his brief appearances in The Fly does not hamper the film, much.
The Fly is filled with some of the most memorable scenes from sci-fi/horror film history, beginning with the opening sequence. As the story opens (most of the tale is told in flashback) we find Helene Delambre crushing her husband's head and arm in a hydraulic press. The scene is shockingly gruesome, and sets an uneasy tone for the rest of the movie. This segment is much more graphic (and in color!) than similar films of the time.
Another image that leaves an indelible impression is when Helene tears off Andre's ominous black hood to see his hideous fly head for the first time. We are suddenly given the fly's point of view and watch multi-images of Helene as she screams. It's hard to express how startling this scene was upon first viewing. The fly's head may not be much by today's standards, but it was certainly more than adequate for the time.
And who can forget the concluding segment as the spider advances on the hapless human-headed fly? It's hard to imagine a scene that inspires more pity and horror. Well, I suppose there's a touch of humor here, too, but mostly pity and horror.
But The Fly is much more than just a sci-fi shockfest; it's also a love story. Helene's devotion to her husband, even after his transformation, is not only admirable, but touching. Because we get a genuine feeling for the affection Helene and Andre share for each other (and to a lesser extent, Philippe) the tragedy that befalls them seems even more calamitous.
Vincent Price is quite convincing as Andre's brother, François. Of course, my good opinion of Mr. Price borders on the brink of bias, and I wouldn't completely blame you if you regarded my praise as a bit suspect. Still, it is hard to imagine this film being as successful (or as fun) without him.
Unfortunately, The Fly has its share of unintentional humor. For example, when Andre attempts to teleport the family cat, the kitty never reappears. Instead, we hear his pained meows calling from "somewhere in space." Even Andre says, "It'd be funny if life wasn't so sacred."
Also, when Andre starts losing his human will, his fly hand begins to battle his human hand. At first, it simply appears that Andre is having a tough time controlling his fly instincts. However, by the end of the film, it's a full out war between the hands, and it can seem a little comical.
In addition, it's hard not to grin when you hear the human-headed fly crying for help. Even as a kid I couldn't take that voice completely seriously.
I would also suggest that the pacing is just a little slow. It's good that we get to know the Delambre family, and I like the anticipation building up to the unveiling of the fly's head, but it seems we are held in suspense just a wee-bit too long. But I've never been known for my attention span.
None of the drawbacks I mention above are enough to keep me from listing The Fly as one of my all-time favorite science fiction films. If you haven't seen it for awhile, I heartily recommend you watch The Fly again.
Directed by Kurt Neumann (Kronos, Rocketship X-M).
Based on a story by George Langelaan, scripted by James Clavell.
Scene to watch for: The disgusted look on Helene's face as Andre (under his hood) slurps up the milk and rum mixture she has prepared for him.
Line to listen for: "Hellllp meeee!"
Mark's Rating: ! ! ! ! ½ out of 5.


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The above demonstration isn't the smoothest we've ever seen, but the technology it describes is powerful. ChatMusic.me turns the already-potent combination of Facebook and YouTube into an even better way to share tunes with your friends.
A Google Chrome Extension created by Jukata CEO Eyal Fishler and Ness Technologies systems engineer Yuval Pinker at Music Hack Day New York, ChatMusic lets you share music playlists consisting of YouTube videos within a Facebook chat, where anyone can add music to the list.
Essentially, this turns Facebook into something more like Listening Room, where friends gather to listen together rather than in solitude — the way so much digital music is consumed.
ChatMusic lets users control playback from within a Facebook chat (see above), as well as searching YouTube for music to add to the playlist without leaving the chat. The extension also enables the browsing of your friends' playlists, and allows you to organize your lists, decide which ones to share, "Like" certain playlists, and share it via Facebook (of course) as well as email, Twitter, and a few dozen other sharing services:
Suddenly, Napster becomes Facebook — except this time, record labels approve.


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It's not big, it isn't clever, but it's sure as hell difficult to dislike Feeder. And don't let self-appointed bastions of cool tell you otherwise. After two decades of varying unfashionable-ness they're still going strong, even though core members Grant Nicholas and Taka Hirose could hardly be described as spring chickens. Still, they say life begins at 40, and while not suggesting Feeder's output prior to its principal songwriting duo reaching such a milestone age was in any way inferior, they seem to have enjoyed something of a rejuvenation of late. Silent Cry, from 2008, was arguably their most consistent record since 2001's breakthrough album Echo Park. And its successor, Renegades also highlighted a band still brimming with creativity after all these years.
Indeed, what Renegades seemed to reintroduce was the youthful exuberance omnipresent throughout both their Swim and Polythene periods when the band was still in its infancy. Bearing that in mind, it's perhaps no real surprise that the man responsible for producing them at their most rough and ready, Chris Sheldon, found himself invited to work on their latest long player Generation Freakshow. While not as raw as its predecessor, one gets the impression a similarly carefree approach was prevalent throughout the recording sessions here. While their arena filling days may be well behind them, they've retained a loyal fanbase in a similar vein to those devoted to kindred spirits the Manic Street Preachers. And like James Dean Bradfield and co, Feeder have remained true to themselves, making records for themselves rather than the marketing gurus and radio pluggers that dominate the industry today.
Perhaps the best way to describe Generation Freakshow would be as a career spanning collage that resembles moments from almost all of Feeder's past. Having gone on record earlier this year as saying it's possibly their most accessible album since Pushing The Senses seven years ago, Nicholas and Hirose have conjured up a collection of songs that wouldn't sound out of place on any mainstream radio or television channel, despite protestations to the contrary.
Opener 'Oh My' follows the traditional blueprint that made former singles 'Seven Days In The Sun' and 'Day In Day Out' such important landmarks in the band's extensive archive. Employing crushing layers of guitar upon its chorus while Nicholas delivers lines like "She spent the weekend getting clean flushing out the enemy", 'Oh My' represents their most incisive entree in years, setting the scene admirably for what follows.
Lead single 'Borders' may share the same bridge as The Killers' 'Mr Brightside', but it's the familiar crunching riffs and sardonic vocal delivery that seal the Feeder patent to its mast. Likewise 'Idaho' - the oldest track here, predating Renegades even, and the guttural punk rock of the title track, a timely throwback to the likes of 'Tangerine' and 'Crash' off their 1997 debut. Occasionally the mood and tempo lighten, with 'Quiet' doing exactly what it says on the tin while epic closer 'Children Of The Sun', on which Nicholas declares "It's time to leave" from the outset, waves its lighter aloft as this record's 'Feeling A Moment'.
As with most Feeder records, not everything here hits the jugular. Both 'In All Honesty' and 'Fools Can't Sleep' find themselves confined to the final third of the album, the latter perhaps unfortunately sandwiched in between the far superior ballsy rocker 'Headstrong' and aforementioned 'Children Of The Sun', rendering it forgettable by comparison. 'Tiny Minds', a leftover from the Renegades sessions given a second bite of the cherry here ends up as Generation Freakshow's anomaly, sounding neither in kilter with the rest of the record, yet never quite forceful enough to stand out from the crowd either.
Nevertheless, the good far outweighs the bad here, and with Generation Freakshow Feeder have created another strong addition to their mostly impressive back catalogue.
7Dom Gourlay's Score


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CDB Leasing Co., Ltd. of China Is the First PurePower® Engines Customer in Mainland China
With an order for up to 30 CSeries aircraft, CDB Leasing Co., Ltd. (CLC) of China will be the first recipient of Pratt & Whitney PurePower engines in mainland China. Pratt & Whitney is a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) company.
In a purchase agreement with Bombardier Aerospace, CLC will receive up to 30 CS100/CS300 aircrafts. The CSeries aircraft family is powered exclusively by Pratt & Whitney PurePower PW1500G engines.
"CLC highly commends Pratt & Whitney for their state-of-the-art and fuel efficient engine. We are confident that the PurePower engine will serve the Chinese sector well, and we are looking forward to a long relationship with Pratt & Whitney," said Chairman Wang Chong, CLC.
"We are very pleased to work with CLC, the first PurePower customer in mainland China," said Dave Brantner, president, Commercial Engines. "Our game-changing GTF engine technology continues to accumulate successful test and flight hours with now more than 7,600 hours completed across the PurePower family of engines."
CDB Leasing Co., Ltd., based in Shenzhen, China, as the leading leasing company in mainland, provides leasing services within the aviation, rail, shipping, infrastructure, commercial vehicles, and industrial equipment industries. CLC's current fleet size is over 170. To learn more about CLC, visit http://www.cdb-leasing.com.
Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, auxiliary and ground power units, and small turbojet propulsion products. United Technologies Corp., based in Hartford, Connecticut, is a diversified company providing high technology products and services to the building and aerospace industries. To learn more about UTC, visit its website at www.utc.com, or follow the company on Twitter: @UTC.
This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning future business opportunities. Actual results may differ materially from those projected as a result of certain risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to changes in government procurement priorities and practices, budget plans and availability of funding, and in the number of aircraft to be built; challenges in the design, development, production and support of advanced technologies; as well as other risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those detailed from time to time in the companies' Securities and Exchange Commission filings.


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Islam and Other Religions: The Shi'ite View
Islam is based on two realities: the blessed personality of the Prophet Muhammad, who was chosen exactly fourteen lunar centuries ago to deliver God's message and to be the leader of mankind; and the Qur'an, the Book from God which is the Prophet's enduring miracle and which contains God's words in the form of intellectual and practical teachings of a universal nature.
These two realities must be considered as one of the most important factors in the development and perfection of human life, or rather, they are the most important factor to have manifested itself over the course of fourteen centuries in the faith and practice of hundreds of millions of men, extending its influence deep into every aspect of their society.
It is true that of the world's religions Islam is the youngest and that its followers are fewer in number than the sum of the adherents other faiths, yet Islam is possessed of certain distinguishing characteristics which sets it apart from other religious ways. For example, if we refer to the sacred books of Hinduism, and in particular the Veda, we see that the religious teachings presented there are almost exclusively of an ascetic nature and at the same time that they are directed towards a minority of the religion's followers. Thus, the majority of Hindus are excluded from deriving direct spiritual benefit from these sacred books.
Buddhism and also Christianity display with Hinduism the same exclusively ascetic outlook in their teachings. In the case of Christianity this is obvious from the four Gospels and the other basic religious texts. There are no practical injunctions or social laws and moreover philosophy and rational thought are looked upon with disfavor.
The Divine Sacrifice and the remission of the sins of mankind are doctrines which reduce the relevance of injunctions concerned with this world.
Other religions have either ceased to draw men to themselves, such as Sabeanism and Manicheanism, or else are limited to a particular race of people, such as Judaism.
Thus it is only Islam which gives first importance to rationally demonstrable beliefs and positive individual and social injunctions, as, it is hoped, the present paper will make clear.


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Consumers paid less for books in all formats in 2012 than they did in 2009. That was one of the key findings in the 2013 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics & Book Buying Behaviors Annual Review, the newest study published by Bowker on consumer trends in the book market. Digital formats saw the biggest change: the average price paid for e-books fell to $5.65 in 2012, from $10.19 in 2009. The average price of an audiobook fell from $17.87 in 2009 to $11.50, driven by the growing adoption of lower-priced digital downloads. On the print side, price changes were less dramatic and more up and down during the four-year period. Prices paid for mass market paperbacks, for example, were down only 3¢ between 2009 and 2012, and they actually rose between 2011 and 2012—mass market was the only format with a price increase in the year.
The complete report is available through August for $799. The report is also being sold by chapter, and more information is available here.


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Author InformationThis technical article was written by Immunity's Chief Java Interrogator, Esteban (who you can follow: @sagar38)
IntroductionNot so long ago Oracle released a new Java update [1] that included 30 security fixes. Many of those fixes appear to be the result of the research conducted by Security Explorations [3] who in turn informed Oracle. The research paper clearly explains the vulnerabilities discovered and some generic exploitation scenarios and techniques. Instead of analyzing the vulnerabilities we'll discuss something that is really interesting and was recently used in the JAX-WS exploit (CVE-2012-5076) that was found in the wild [4].
This time besides killing bugs, Oracle also killed an "exploitation technique".
We haven't seen any articles or papers explaining this technique, so now that it has been used in the wild and is publicly available, we think it is worth explaining in detail. This Oracle patch has changed a class that could be used to exploit a target if the right bug primitives were available. This technique will only work from JRE/JDK 7 up to JRE/JDK 7 update 7.
The technique explained here has been used in our two latest CANVAS Java exploits. And remember that if you want to learn this kind of Java stuff you can join us during the next Infiltrate at the Master Class being taught in part by Esteban!
BackgroundIs a well known fact that there are certain packages that are restricted when working with Applets. So any class inside sun.* package is a tempting destination if we have a vulnerability that bypasses the restrictions. Lets assume we have a couple of vulnerabilities which give us the primitives to:
1) Create an instance of any class in any package (for example something in sun.*)
2) Call any public method on the instance we create, for example by using reflection and bypassing security checks.
Even if we have all that, we need to find a way of fully exploiting the target because having access to restricted packages doesn't mean we can just disable the Security Manager.
In 2010 Sami Koivu explained [5] a really cool vulnerability class that worked because a "Trusted execution chain" was built. The security checks were then passed simply because all the callers in the stack were part of the JDK and had enough permissions. The first question is "how do we start a trusted chain?"
The trick Koivu used to "start" the trusted execution chain was to create a javax.swing.JList instance, passing an object to it and then adding the instance to the applet. What happens then is that an AWT thread (that is trusted) would render that JList instance and would eventually call the toString() method on the object we put inside the JList.
It is important to keep Koivu's technique in mind because it will help to better understand part of the AnonymousClassLoader technique.
Analyzing the PatchA quick diff performed against the two latest JDK 7 versions: update 7 and update 9 will show that there are a lot of changes to several classes in order to fix may vulnerabilities and one class that gets our attention is sun.invoke.anon.AnonymousClassLoader. The differences between these JDKs can be obtained for example using reJ tool [6], but we can also find the patch by taking a look at the OpenJDK repositories [7] [8].
Although OpenJDK is not Sun's implementation it is really useful when auditing new JDK releases since parts of the Sun JDK source are not included in the releases. In the OpenJDK patch for CVE-2012-5088 [8] we can see the exact change made to the sun.invoke.anon.AnonymousClassLoader.
AnonymousClassLoader Technique
A curious thing to notice is that although this class seems to be a "class loader" it does not inherit from java.lang.ClassLoader. If we take a look at the java.lang.ClassLoader type hierarchy, the AnonymousClassLoader is not listed:
The changes made to this class show that its public constructors were removed together with other methods. We all know that ClassLoaders are important when it comes to exploitation so this "strange" class loader seems to be worth taking a look at.
According to its documentation and from what I've researched [9] [10] [11], this class does some weird things that will allow us (the attacker) to load classes that we can then use to bypass security checks. The classes that are loaded with AnonymousClassLoader appear not to be registered since this is not a normal class loader. The first thing we notice from the AnonymousClassLoader source code [12] is that it has an attribute called hostClass which is very important. The class documentation says:
If we take a look at the default constructor (the one without parameters), it calls sun.invoke.anon.AnonymousClassLoader.checkHostClass method with a null parameter. When that happens, the hostClass is set to the constructor's immediate caller. You can see this at the beginning of the checkHostClass implementation:
The changes made to this class show that its public constructors were removed together with other methods. We all know that ClassLoaders are important when it comes to exploitation so this "strange" class loader seems to be worth taking a look at.
According to its documentation and from what I've researched [9] [10] [11], this class does some weird things that will allow us (the attacker) to load classes that we can then use to bypass security checks. The classes that are loaded with AnonymousClassLoader appear not to be registered since this is not a normal class loader. The first thing we notice from the AnonymousClassLoader source code [12] is that it has an attribute called hostClass which is very important. The class documentation says:
The access permissions of the anonymous class are borrowed from a host class. The new class behaves as if it were an inner class of the host class. It can access the host's private members, if the creator of the class loader has permission to do so (or to create accessible reflective objects).Depending on the hostClass, the classes that we load with AnonymousClassLoader could possibly inherit privileged protection domains!
If we take a look at the default constructor (the one without parameters), it calls sun.invoke.anon.AnonymousClassLoader.checkHostClass method with a null parameter. When that happens, the hostClass is set to the constructor's immediate caller. You can see this at the beginning of the checkHostClass implementation:
private static Class<?> checkHostClass(Class<?> hostClass) { // called only from the constructor // does a context-sensitive check on caller class // CC[0..3] = {Reflection, this.checkHostClass, this.<init>, caller} Class<?> caller = sun.reflect.Reflection.getCallerClass(CHC_CALLERS); if (caller == null) { // called from the JVM directly if (hostClass == null) return AnonymousClassLoader.class; // anything central will do return hostClass; } if (hostClass == null) hostClass = caller; // default value is caller itself [...] }
This means that if the AnonymousClassLoader default constructor is called from any class that is part of the JDK, then its immediate caller will be considered trusted and hostClass will have privileged protection domains.
And more importantly, any class that we load with the AnonymousClassLoader instance will have a privileged protection domain and if we use this with Koivu's JList rendering trick to start a "Trusted execution chain" [5] we'll be able to disable the Security Manager.
What we can do now is make use of the public method sun.invoke.anon.AnonymousClassLoader.loadClass(byte[]) that receives a byte array containing a class (this is just a valid .class file that we read and store in a byte array or a class file from our JAR file that is obtained as a stream and converted to a byte array). This loadClass method will return a Class object and after that we can simply call objclass.newInstance() on it.
Remember we mentioned we need two primitives, so the first one would be used to create an instance of AnonymousClassLoader which is in sun.* and satisfies our first requirement.
What would probably happen with a vulnerability that provides such primitive is that the instance we get is an Object reference and unfortunately AnonymousClassLoader does not implement an interface so we don't have anything to easily call the "loadClass" method and a cast operation would just fail. This is where the second primitive comes in play!
As we mentioned before, if we wanted to call any method in this object variable we would need to cast it like this:
This will not work! :(
The cast operation will raise an exception because we cannot access sun.invoke.anon package from the applet. If we simply tried to call getMethod/getMethod on the instance we have, we would also get the same exception.
So the second primitive would have to allow us to bypass the security checks and get a Method instance that is a reference to that loadClass public method we want to call. An example of a such primitive is one of the vulnerabilities used in the CVE-2012-4681 exploit [13].
Using this vulnerability as the second primitive we would obtain the method reference and load any class we wanted with the following piece of code where the "acl" variable is our AnonymousClassLoader instance created with the first primitive:
Class objclazz = acl.getClass(); Method m = com.sun.beans.finder.MethodFinder.findMethod(objclazz, "loadClass", byte[].class); smd_class = (Class) m.invoke(cl, smd_bytes); Object x = smd_class.newInstance();
What class should we load using this AnonymousClassLoader?
We need a fully trusted execution chain to disable the security manager and the only public trick that still works is the JList approach that calls a toString method on any object we pass it. We have to create a class with just a toString method that executes "System.setSecurityManager(null);". Such a class is something as simple as this:
public class SecurityManagerDisabler { public String toString() { System.setSecurityManager(null); return ""; } }
That we compile that to generate a valid .class file and then read it to create a byte array we can hard-code in our exploit. This byte array would be the "smd_bytes" variable in the code snippet shown above when calling the loadClass method.
Once we have an instance of this class that disables the security manager we create a JList instance containing our object and add it to the applet so the AWT thread renders it and calls our toString method resulting in a trusted execution chain. The code to achieve this is just 2 lines (where "x" is this custom class instance we created in the previous code snippet):
JList l = new JList(new Object[] {x}); add(l);
This works and the complete call stack is trusted because our class was created with the AnonymousClassLoader and inherited the protection domain from a class that is part of the JDK.
An example of the complete stack call when using this technique would look like this:
Our custom class SecurityManagerDisabler is there and it has full privileges so the call to System.setSecurityManager will succeed.
An important thing to keep in mind about the AWT thread is that it may take a little bit until it effectively renders the Jlist object so we need to take this into consideration before executing our payload. One possibility is to launch another thread that sleeps for a bit and the executes the payload. Though we have to be careful not to call Thread.sleep directly in our applet init or start methods because the AWT thread may be delayed waiting for them.
Some of you may consider that using the JList trick is too much, so there is another more straight forward approach that can be used here. The class loaded with the AnonymousClassLoader could be something like this:
public class SecurityManagerDisabler implements PrivilegedExceptionAction { public SecurityManagerDisabler() { } public Object run() throws Exception { System.setSecurityManager(null); return null; } public String toString() { try { AccessController.doPrivileged(this); } catch (PrivilegedActionException e) {} return ""; } }
The difference here is that the class is implementing the interface PrivilegedExceptionAction and the toString method is using a doPrivileged block.
If you remember how the security checks are performed – which are clearly explained in the Secure Code Guidelines, section 9 [14] – when there is a doPrivileged block only the immediate caller is considered. So in this case, the immediate caller would be the SecurityManagerDisabler.toString method which has full privileges because we loaded the class with the AnonymousClassLoader allowing this way to perform any action. Now instead of creating the JList and adding our SecurityManagerDisabler instance we could directly call its toString method and everything will work just fine.
One important thing about the AnonymousClassLoader is that it is only available since JDK 7 and it has been moved to different packages in different versions [15]. JDK 7 included the class in package sun.dyn.anon but since JDK 7 update 1 the class is now included in package sun.invoke.anon, so one must be careful when targeting different JRE/JDK versions in order to get the AnonymousClassLoader from the right package.
- Java 7 update 9 release notes - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/7u9-relnotes-1863279.html
- Oracle Java SE Critical Patch Update Advisory - October 2012 - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/javacpuoct2012-1515924.html
- SE-2012-01 Security vulnerabilities in Java SE - http://www.security-explorations.com/en/SE-2012-01.html
- CVE-2012-5076 Java sample from "Cool" exploit pack - http://contagiodump.blogspot.com.ar/2012/11/cve-2012-5076-java-sample-from-cool.html
- Sami Koivu's Blog - Java Trusted Method Chaining (CVE-2010-0840/ZDI-10-056) - http://slightlyrandombrokenthoughts.blogspot.com.ar/2010/04/java-trusted-method-chaining-cve-, 2010.html
- reJ - http://rejava.sourceforge.net/
- CVE-2012-5088 OpenJDK: MethodHandle insufficient access control checks (Libraries, 7196190) - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2012-5088
- 7196190: Improve method of handling MethodHandles - http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/release/icedtea7-forest-2.3/jdk/rev/43113374306c
- Da Vinci project - http://openjdk.java.net/projects/mlvm/subprojects.html
- John Rose Oracle Blog entries: https://blogs.oracle.com/jrose/entry/notes_on_an_architecture_for, https://blogs.oracle.com/jrose/entry/dynamic_invocation_in_the_vm
- A First Taste of InvokeDynamic - http://blog.headius.com/2008/09/first-taste-of-invokedynamic.html
- Sun.invoke.anon.AnonymousClassLoader - http://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/root/jdk/openjdk/7-b147/sun/invoke/anon/AnonymousClassLoader.java#AnonymousClassLoader
- Java 0day analysis (CVE-2012-4681) - http://immunityproducts.blogspot.com/2012/08/java-0day-analysis-cve-2012-4681.html
- Secure Coding Guidelines for the Java Programming Language, Version 4.0 - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/seccodeguide-139067.html#9
- Move JSR 292 to package java.lang.invoke and adjust names - http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/hotspot-compiler-dev/2011-March/004961.html


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Feature Friday: Recognizing Wine Labels
My son turned me onto a wine app called Delectable Wine. I am waiting for the Android version so I can use it too. But I've used it a bit on his iPhone and its a really nice and useful application.
Think of Delectable Wine as Instagram for wine. People post the wines they are drinking, their reactions, tasting notes, etc. You follow your friends and experts (likeArnold) and you see what they are drinking. You can tag where you had the wine and what you thought about it. There's a really nice searchable archive so you can go back and see what the wine was that you had at Perla that night with your friends that was so good.
But all of this is possible because of a very cool feature that my son calls Shazam for Wine Labels. When you want to add a wine to Delectable, you take a photo of the wine label and Delectable figures out what wine it is, what vintage it is, etc, etc. All of that important metadata comes in automatically just because you took a photo of the wine label.
I don't think Delectable would work nearly as well without this feature. It enables so much of the discovery and data that makes the app so great. The first time I saw it in action, I said "wow". I see a lot of technology demo'd every day. I don't saw "wow" that often. But I did when I saw Delectable in action.
If you are into wine and have an iPhone, try it out. I think you'll like it.


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A student and instructor of Okinawa Kenpo Karate and Kobudo. Thoughts on Karate, Tai Chi, ACL Reconstruction and the Challenges of Parenting.
Monday, May 9, 2011
In Between
If you have the opportunity to attend a seminar by Kyoshi Hayes, I highly recommend attending. Make sure to bring paper and a pen…you will need them. If you have not read the book "My Journey With The Grandmaster"....read it. It will change the way you think about training.
I want to share with you one of the concepts presented at the seminar. The dojo wall was lined with charts, definitions and concepts. I have pages of notes but one line of text on a chart jumped off the page for me.
Written on the third line of the chart comparing "martial science" to "martial arts" was the following:
Martial science - end of motion bunkai.
Martial arts...in between motion.
Focus on the "in between".
Enjoy your training!
Welcome and thank you to the new Followers of this blog: Patty Pitman and Yamabushi. I appreciate all the Readers and Followers! Thank you to all who comment and share their insights!
7 comments:
- Yamabushi said...
Very thought provoking! Martial arts are the in-between motion. What is in-between motion? This sounds like a koan to me. Thanks for sharing.
- May 9, 2011 at 11:59 PM
- Narda said...
Yep. For me, it's all about the 'in-between'.
- May 10, 2011 at 9:06 AM
- Loukaei said...
I agree wholeheartedly. All of the meaning is "in-between". If we think of our form in terms of flow (like water) then how we move from point A to point B (in-between). Taking it a step further..if your form is truely flowing like water the "in-betweens" are so tight that the form becomes a single action rather than a series of related actions.
- May 11, 2011 at 4:34 PM
- Journeyman said...
I like it.
Do you know if Kyoshi Hayes had a list of upcoming seminars?
- May 11, 2011 at 8:30 PM
- Michele said...
Thanks for the comments! :)
It appears that a few comments were lost due to Blogger technical issues. Perhaps Blogger will be able to repost the missing comments when the problem is fixed.
Thanks again,
- May 15, 2011 at 10:43 AM
- Journeyman said...
Hopefully Blogger can retrieve the comments. I had wondered if you know if Kyoshi Hayes has a list of upcoming seminars?
- May 15, 2011 at 5:17 PM
- Michele said...
Journeyman: Sorry for the delayed response. I have been checking but have not found a list of upcoming seminars for Kyoshi Hayes. In July, he will be in PA for the IKKF Annual Training.
- May 23, 2011 at 12:14 PM


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Dubai is one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates. This place is also home to the world's most luxurious and rich life. As a result of this wealth, you can find the most interesting things on the Earth at here.
Volkswagen Beetle Convertible MPG & Fuel Economy
2019 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible MPG
2018 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible MPG
|2018 Beetle Convertible 2.0TS 2.0L (174 hp) - Convertible
|2018 Beetle Convertible 2.0T Dune 2.0L (174 hp) - Convertible
Recent Blogs
Dashboard Language
To see the status of the equipment on your vehicle, you must follow the warning lights on the dashboard panel. Of course, if you don't have any information about the warning lights, you cannot understand what the problem is. However, we are going to help
Lamborghini Sian
Everyone will use electricity one day! This statement explains today's automotive industry quite well. Italian automobile manufacturer Lamborghini also joined to electricity believers.
Selection of the Millionaires
What would you do if you were a millionaire? Would you buy expensive jewellery? Or would you buy a huge mansion? Many millionaires around the world own most of them. However, some of those millionaires love expensive hobbies such as car collections.
Humvee's Success
They can work anywhere! They are tough and reliable. Yeah, we're talking about the Humvees, one of the most important vehicles in the United States army!
Tips for the Amateur Drivers
We all want to get our driver's license as soon as possible, don't we? However, most of the people are unaware of their readiness to make this dream come true. The excitement that some people experience in traffic, might jeopardize traffic safety.
Famous Racing Games
There are millions of car lovers in the world. Some have the opportunity to drive a car in real life, while others continue this love on the computer screen virtually. On both sides there is only one thing that does not change. The pleasure of driving.
Hyundai 45 EV Concept
The Hyundai brand, which produces a lot of vehicle models in the electric vehicle market compared to other brands, comes up with a new and futuristic concept. Hyundai 45 EV Concept.
Original or Sub-Industry?
Auto parts prices in the market do not help us much. The result is a single question on the driver's mind. Original auto parts or sub-industry auto parts? In this article we are going to examine this topic under three main categories to clear your mind.


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Now, after I spent enough time with both Flex dual action/random orbital polishers, I have some (deep) thoughts to share.
Flex XFE7-15 is the newest addition to my detailing tool collection. The quality of that polisher is amazing. It's manufactured in Germany, where all Flex polishers are assembled. It's a 12mm long throw/large orbit dual action polisher. It operates very quietly, even on higher speeds, and its ventilation system is much more advanced/improved, comparing to model 3401.
A lot has been said about the new trend in car detailing world of using long stroke/large orbit dual action polishers. They operate very smoothly with much less vibration, they are easier to control and cover large area to get work done faster. There is exactly the case of XFE7. But on vertical, contoured or uneven surface they experience the same issues, known from other dual action polishers, they loose rotation. While during polishing and waxing process it's not a problem, during defect removal it is absolutely not wanted. Those 12mm/15mm/21mm polishers really shine on large even panels. They work just effortlessly.
Flex XFE7-15 spins in the right direction: clockwise (looking from top of the polisher). Flex XC 3401 VRG spins the opposite direction (counter clockwise), which some detailers find annoying.
Below it's pictured Flex XC 3401 VRG, dual action/random orbital polishers, with forced rotation and traditional 8mm orbit.
It's pictured with optional Lake Country Mfg. 4-inch changeable backing plate system, to allow the machine operate with 4-inch spot buffing pad. My friend, Eric Dunn (ex Lake Country Mfg., currently Buff & Shine) was the master designer of that changeable pad system.
The strongest asset of Flex 3401 it's the forced rotation mechanism. No matter what, the rotation can't be stopped. It's a big advantage during paint defect removal/ paint correction work. The polisher is very sensitive to flat pad holding, just like rotary buffers, it will "walk" if not kept flat. Therefore it's much harder to control and requires some time/training. Flex 3401 removes paint defects very quickly. I estimate its power as 80% of rotary buffers, some detailers say it's even more. This effectiveness increases while used with microfiber cutting discs/pads or foamed wool pads.
Flex 3401 gets hot pretty quickly, especially when working on higher speed settings. It causes some vibrations and requires down pressure for effective paint removal, just like all traditional 8mm polishers.
Overall Flex produces very well engineered polishing machines. They operate very smoothly and effectively. Model XFE7 is definitely more user friendly, due to its large 15mm orbit. Model 3401 is more powerful/more effective during paint correction work, due to its forced rotation mechanism.
They both get their jobs done well, but users looking for faster defect removal/time efficiency won't be disappointed with 3401, while XFE7 users will glory its super smooth operating process.
At the moment model XFE7 can only be used with 6.5", 6", 5.5" and 5" buffing pads, extra backing plate needed for 5.5"/5".
Model 3401 will work also with 4" spot buffing pads, with additional backing plate.


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Remedy AR System 8.0: Foundation - Part 1 (WBT)
In this highly interactive on-demand learning course, participants learn concepts that will build the foundation necessary to develop and administer applications in BMC Remedy AR System 8.0. This course introduces AR System architecture, terminology, and base concepts and functions. Participants learn how to navigate BMC Remedy Mid Tier and BMC Remedy Developer Studio in order to perform various tasks and how to apply these concepts in their own environments. In addition to the online course content, participants are given access to a remote lab environment where they can practice concepts such as creating forms, fields, and workflow objects in order to begin to experience the power of AR System.
Note: From the date of registration confirmation, you have 90 days of access to the core educational content, and 5 consecutive days of your choosing to access the remote lab environment. During the 5-consecutive-day period, you can work at your own pace through the lab exercises and associated Web-based education content within the remote environment, freely explore, and complete optional activities that supplement the core lab exercises.
Major release:
BMC Helix ITSM 8.x
Good for:
Course Delivery:
Self Paced | 16.00 hours
Course Modules
Introducing AR System 8.0
- Introducing the fictitious customer Venizyne
- Understanding the AR System architecture
- Understanding AR System business roles
- Summarizing AR System concepts
Accessing AR System Applications
- Using BMC Remedy Mid Tier
- Exploring user preference settings
- Accessing forms in AR System
Working With AR System Features
- Working with Notifications and Approval Central
- Using Basic and Advanced Search
- Creating Reports in AR System
Using BMC Remedy Developer Studio
- AR System application components
- Exploring BMC Remedy Developer Studio
- Using forms in AR System
- Using fields in AR System
- Using workflow in AR System
Understanding Access Control
- Understanding access control in AR System
- Understanding users and groups
- Creating groups in AR System
- Creating users in AR System
Understanding AR System Out-Of-The-Box Applications
- Understanding various out-of-the-box applications
- Overview of ITSM
- Overview of CMDB


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Eurozone agrees to first instalment of Greek bailout
Issued on: Modified:
Eurozone finance ministers agreed Thursday to give Greece the first instalment of a multibillion-euro bailout package but said agreement on the final portion, which Greece needs to finance a debt swap with private investors, would come next week.
AP - The finance ministers of the 16 other countries that use the euro on Thursday agreed in principle to give Greece a first batch of bailout money to finance a massive debt relief deal with private investors.
However, the final green light for as much as €93.5 billion ($125.69 billion) -- which Greece needs to implement the debt swap -- will come next week.
After a three-hour meeting in Brussels, the ministers said the payout can go ahead once Athens has passed "a few pending implementing acts" for promised austerity measures and the ministers how many banks and investment funds will actually participate in the bond swap.
A successful implementation of the €107 billion ($143.84 billion) debt relief deal with private bondholders is a precondition for Greece to receive the rest of the €130 billion bailout.
Private investors have until next Thursday to decide whether they will swap their Greek bonds for new ones with a lower face value, lower interest rates and longer repayment periods.
Overall, bondholders will lose more than 70 percent of the value of their holdings, but in return they will receive some of the money they are owed immediately and have at least the hope that they will get some more of it back in 30 years. Without the debt relief deal and the new bailout, Greece would have defaulted on its debts within weeks, potentially sending ripples across the world financial system.
Of the €93.5 billion Greece needs in the coming weeks, as much as €35.5 billion are immediate payouts for banks and other investors participating in the bond swap.
Around €23 billion will be used to recapitalize Greek banks that would otherwise collapse under the losses from the debt relief.
The remaining €35 billion will go as collateral to the European Central Bank while Greece's own bonds are rated in selective default. That money will be freed up again once Greece's rating improves.
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Three years ago, rising-star playwright Annie Baker spent time in Boston while a trio of local theater companies – the Huntington, the SpeakEasy and Company One – staged a trilogy of Baker's plays. During the rehearsal period, Baker mentioned to Shawn LaCount, artistic director of Company One, that she was working on a new play set in an old second-run, rundown movie theater in Worcester County.
LaCount was intrigued. As a Brookline resident, he had spent many hours in the dark at the Coolidge Corner Theatre before its spiffy renovations. And he had graduated from Clark University in Worcester – in fact, Company One's founding members were all Clark grads. So Baker started picking LaCount's brain about the area.
"She really grilled me about Worcester and Clark," says LaCount, who has since had a chance to read the resulting play, "The Flick," which features a character who's a Clark grad. "There's a lot in the play that feels like home to me."
So perhaps it's fitting that LaCount now directs the New England premiere of "The Flick," running Feb. 20 to March 15 at Suffolk University's Modern Theatre, in Boston.
"The Flick" follows Sam, Avery and Rose as they sweep the aisles of an archaic, single-screen movie theater and search for direction and purpose. It's the very human story of small lives lived in the margins. And Baker writes about them with tenderness, affection, humor and insight.
"Annie is on the record as saying she's a person of high anxiety," says LaCount. "And her characters are that way. They're not crazy in an unbelievable way, they're crazy in a way that's all too familiar."
He says Baker's penetrating insights account for the laughter during rehearsals. In the middle of a scene, he, or a designer or a crew member sitting in the audience will laugh out loud. "Listening to the play," he says, "you often think to yourself, 'Oh my God, that is so true.' "
Baker's unique style has given rise to an unofficial subset of actors – "Annie Baker actors."
"It's hard to articulate exactly what that means," says LaCount, and then he carefully pieces his way through the following description – with pauses – as he tries to put words to an abstract concept. "They are vulnerable, authentic actors who can truthfully wear anxiety on their sleeves. They can make you care about the characters, even if you don't always understand them. You kind of admire the characters, because they're working their way through life, even though it doesn't come easily to them."
All of this, by the way, falls directly in line with the mission statement of Company One, which, years ago, established itself in a crowded Boston theater market by carving out a niche for itself.
"We want to shine a spotlight on underserved voices," says LaCount, who founded Company One in 1998. "That's easiest to see when you're writing about race, but [Baker] is writing about a different culture. She's part of this new group of playwrights who are shifting the focus of the spotlight away from that classic Hollywood leading man or woman. She's shining the light elsewhere."
Indeed, even the staging of "The Flick" says a lot: The audience is looking at the seats of an empty movie theater. Baker is literally turning the focus 180 degrees: Don't look at the movie stars, look at the people working at the theater, people whose daily dramas are far different than those played out on the silver screen.
New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood liked what he saw when he attended a production of "The Flick" last year at Playwrights Horizons in New York. In a review laced with praise, he wrote, "Ms. Baker, one of the freshest and most talented dramatists to emerge Off Broadway in the past decade, writes with tenderness and keen insight about the way people make messes of their lives." Later, he added, "Ms. Baker specializes in moments of intimacy that are awkward, hilarious and ineffably touching."
LaCount has found the humor as well.
"It's a very funny play," he says. "And the funniest moments are also the most truthful moments."
That's a sign that Baker has written a play of depth. And LaCount, for one, finds it quite absorbing.
"I think this play is about three broken people, but not more or less broken than you or I," he says, adding that he doesn't find it depressing. "There is a forward motion to their otherwise stagnant lives, and that allows you to breathe."
There's plenty of time to breathe in this play; it runs about three hours. But LaCount isn't worried about delivering "The Flick" to today's audience with its GIF-length attention span.
"I'm not concerned," he says. "First of all, 'The Flick' has already been [successfully] staged. And, like all good art, it encourages investment. In this case, there's a big payoff to that investment. I find the play to be incredibly healing and cathartic, but only if you go along for the ride."
"The Flick"
WHEN: Feb. 20-March 15
WHERE: The Modern Theatre, 525 Washington St., Boston
INFO: 1-800-440-7654; www.companyone.org
'The Flick' reverses the spotlight
Three years ago, rising-star playwright Annie Baker spent time in Boston while a trio of local theater companies – the Huntington, the SpeakEasy and Company One – staged a trilogy of Baker's plays. During the rehearsal period, Baker mentioned to Shawn LaCount, artistic director of Company One, that she was working on a new play set in an old second-run, rundown movie theater in Worcester County.


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Welcome to Franchiseek Chile
Browse our franchise directory for unit and master franchise opportunities, franchising advice, franchise news, franchising advice and businesses for sale in Chile.
- Contact franchises direct by telephone, email or click through to their websites.
- Catch up on franchisor news and franchisee success, then click through to read more about the business opportunity.
- Read up on business advice and contact our panel of experts for advice and guidance on franchising
Discover franchising in Chile:
The franchising industry in 2008 contributes over $570million to the Chilean economy that year. Over 116 franchised concepts employed more than 25,000 members of staff.
There were 116 different types of franchises in Chile in 2008.
Growing franchise sectors include fast food, clothing, vehicle rental, beauty and cosmetics, vehicle hire and language training.
Population (million)
Primary Language
Urbanization (%)
GDP (PPP, $bn)
Unemployment (%)
TRIB3 Franchise Opportunity The team behind TRIB3 are genuinely passionate about bringing people together to experience their next level workouts, a...
Earn a six-figure income working with small businesses to help them get more customers. Set your own hours, choose your own workload but join the...
"Today we cleaned 17 homes, YET never left our house!" Imagine yourself owning a domestic cleaning franchise, imagine yourself earning around £65,...
Fantastic Services has over 10 years of experience in growing property service businesses in Professional Cleaning, Gardening...
The Business Coffee Blue has been designed from the ground up to be the best mobile coffee franchise available. Our Franchisees serve the highest...Franchise Cost: £13,950
Who Are Trulawn? Whilst there are many franchise business opportunities out there, becoming a franchise owner with Trulawn means joining a company...Franchise Cost: £23,000 + VAT
.quote-pc{padding:10px!important; border:2px solid #F3569D!important;display:table!important; margin-top:20px!important; border-radius:5px!...
Founded in 1992, Ovenclean has risen to become one of the most successful oven cleaning businesses in the UK, providing professional domestic...
MAX WAX Fleet Ltd. is a settled portable valeting and enumerating organization covering the South East, working from Shoreham Airport. The...Franchise Cost: £7,500 +VAT
Run Your Own Hotel Franchise with easyHotel! We work closely with owners to help them uphold the highest standards of quality and service....
Can You Help To Put The Heart Back Into UK Organisations? Only 8% Of UK Employees Are Engaged At Work... Founder and CEO, Richard Maloney has...Franchise Cost: £9,700
Home Instead Senior Care – the UK's No.1 franchise Home Instead Senior Care is the UK's No. 1 franchise company with a management led business model...Franchise Cost: £41,000
Why OSCAR? OSCAR specialises in providing the complete pet care service direct to the customer – from food and toys to treats, accessories and...
ChipsAway is the original, and market leading automotive SMART car body repair franchise. We have over 20 years of experience successfully developing...
Professionally maintaining beer lines since 2006 Our tried and tested methods, along with our own unique portable, water-fed mixing units, market...
| United Kingdom
Promedica24 is Europes leading live-in care franchise with a difference. We have dusted off the tired care model and produced a fresh...Franchise Cost: £15,000 + VAT
Transform your local Business Community… ActionCOACH won Compare The Financial Market's Award for The UK's Best Business Opportunity and has long...Franchise Cost: £21,000 Minimum Investment
01282 570 052


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Phun Photo! December 29, 1959
Not long after the invention of photography, savvy entrepeneurs realized that the public hungered for goofy novelty photos. Somebody hatched the idea of painting a life-sized scene, with one or more people engaged in a silly activity, leaving an oval hole cutout for people to stick their own noggins through. Voila! Instant hilarity. Even my grandparents joined in the fun in a photo I found (from somewhere in San Francisco, I seem to recall): grandpa's head is posed on the body of a lusty fellow who is eyeballing the too-short skirt of my dear old grandmother (complete with painted stockings and garters). It dates from the 1940's, and no, I'm not making this up. If I could find it right now I would have scanned it!
This old-fashioned fun could also be had (oddly) in Tomorrowland. There was a series of scenes from various "lands", including the caboose of the Disneyland RR, the front seat of the Monorail, and this one showing a family on the brink of almost-certain death atop the brand new, minty-fresh Matterhorn. I'm sure that the Disney folks frowned on guests taking their own (free!) photos, but I'm mighty glad that this family broke the rules.
Here's one of the finished souvenirs from another family (this time from 1963) so that you can see how it supposed to look. It looks pretty slick in its paper folder (address it, stamp it, and send it to some poor shnook who has been shoveling snow all day in Wisconsin).
I'll bet they made a pretty penny from this stapled Polaroid photo!


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It's easy to forget just how old Wikipedia is, compared to many of the free culture organizations on the Web. One looming example of this has always been our use of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).
Founded before Creative Commons, the GFDL was the only copyleft license that even came close to making our work free for others in a way that fit our mission.
But it's never been a perfect fit. Far from it, in fact.
Clauses such as the invariant sections rule and the burden of printing both the full text of the license and a list of authors have seriously handicapped past efforts to republish works of Wikimedia projects. The GFDL is not really to be faulted for this, since it's written with software documentation in mind, not an encyclopedia with thousands of authors.
But there's a solution on the horizon. With the advent of Version 1.3 of the GFDL, we can now legally transition to the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. But the choice to move to Creative Commons rests not with our non-profit, the Wikimedia Foundation. It rests with the people who have licensed their contributions: namely, you. If you've got more than 25 edits to a Wikimedia project before the 15th of March, please make your voice heard by voting!
More information:
- Meta: Licensing update
- Wikipedia:Comparison of GFDL and CC-BY-SA
- Wikipedia community vote on migration to CC BY-SA begins now (CreativeCommons.org)
- Wikipedians to Vote on Site-Wide Creative Commons (ReadWriteWeb)


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Estós River in the Benasque Valley
With its stunning beauty and its 3,404 metres, every year the Aneto tempts the conquering spirit of mountaineers from all over the world. Resplendent with light and life, the great colossus of the Aragon Pyrenees stands majestically over the impressive landscapes of the Posets-Maladeta Nature Reserve.
The Aneto is an ever-present watchtower of granite and ice, towering above the sea of mountains around the Benasque Valley, a stunning spot in the Posets-Maladeta Nature Reserve in the province of Huesca . Surrounded by the highest concentration of 3,000m peaks in the Pyrenees , its upper slopes are home to Spain's largest glacier.
Climbing this emblematic mountain is an adventure that requires respect and care, as well as appropriate equipment such as warm clothing, waterproof boots, ice-axe, crampons, harness, ropes, as well as the services of a professional mountain guide.
The Aneto can be explored at any time of year, but the most popular months to make a summit attempt are June and July when the weather is better and snow still covers crevices in the mountainside, making the way up safer. There is a bus that leaves the town of Benasque every half hour, taking visitors up amidst pine and fir forest to the Plan de Resurta Plain, the end of the road and start of the mountain climb.
After about forty-five minutes of pleasant ascent along a trail you reach the Renclusa Mountain Refuge, located on the lower northern slope of the Maladeta range. Note: If you want to spend the night here to begin your climb the following morning, it is a good idea to reserve a place beforehand.
From the refuge, following the classic ascent route, the landscape begins to change. Green meadows, home to scampering marmots, give way to a landscape of stark granite, typical of high-mountain areas. Jumping from rock to rock, in two or three hours you reach a pass called the Portillón Superior, where the Aneto glacier begins. From here there is a magnificent view, well worth a photo: the rectangular sea of ice, the valley, various peaks and, with a bit of luck, some intrepid climber will also form part of the landscape. This is also a good place to stop, rest, refuel with some dried fruit and put on crampons to climb over the ice.
Crossing the glacier normally takes about an hour and a half. The crossing is diagonal and should be undertaken with great caution. On reaching the Coronas Ridge, at the end of the great expanse of ice, crampons are removed for the last 200m of ascent to the famous Puente de Mahoma. This is a spectacular pass, 20 or 30 metres long, known as the most dangerous point on the climb, but essential to reach the summit. For this reason it is a good idea to use rope and harness for the crossing. Once at the peak, where you will find a cross, there is a spectacular view reaching from the Coronas Peak to the Maladeta.
After a descent of four or five hours, climbers can replace lost energy with typical gastronomy from the town of Benasque , based on age-old recipes from Aragon such as migas de pastor (fried breadcrumbs and meat) or lentils . A stay in this typical Pyrenees town, surrounded by the most spectacular landscapes, will complete the fascinating experience of climbing the Aneto.


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Tim McNerney, a Washington & Jefferson senior twice named to the Presidents' Athletic Conference all-conference team, died early Thursday morning after he and a friend were the victim of what police believe was a robbery gone awry. McNerney was in the midst of an excellent senior season for a Washington & Jefferson team that had acquitted itself well against the best of Division III. Police are still trying to piece together the events that led up to McNerney's death, but it has been ruled a homicide.
John Morse, of SB Nation's Bring On The Cats wrote of the strange way McNerney's death went undetected by the general sports media:
As of last night, there was not a single headline in any major national sports news outlet about this tragedy. Not on ESPN.com, not on CBSSports.com, not on SI.com, not on SportingNews.com.
Yes, I am angry about this. I'm angry because a college football player was murdered, and the nation's unaware. Not some reserve on a team nobody's ever heard of, but a star for a team which once upon a time was a fairly major program. For chrissakes, Washington & Jefferson played California to a tie in the 1922 Rose Bowl. This should be a story. Maybe not a huge story, but it should at least be an acknowledged one. Tim McNerney deserves that much.
Friends and teamates remembered McNerney as protective of his peers and well-liked. Washington & Jefferson will play its scheduled away game against Thomas More College this afternoon.
In other sad news from the lower levels of football: Ronald Rouse, a Carolina high schooler, collapsed on the field and died last night. An autopsy is scheduled for today.
Police Investigate Death Of Washington & Jefferson Football Player [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
Picture via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


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Auto Repair Brakes Orange County
Elite Car Care in Orange County
26801 Vista Terrace Lake Forest, CA 92630
Open 6 days a week. M-F: 7AM-6:30PM & Sat: 8AM-5:00PM
$25 off first visit ~ 3 year / 24,000 mile warranty
Automotive Questions: 949-415-5425
Auto Repair Brakes Orange County
949-415-5425 ~ Auto Repair Brakes Orange County. Elite Auto Repair in Orange County performs full brake diagnostics and brake repairs on all domestic, Asian and European cars, trucks and vans for clients living or working in Orange, Tustin, Villa Park, Garden Grove, Santa Ana and surrounding Orange County cities. All brake repairs are handled from basic pad and brake shoe replacement to anti-lock brake system (ABS) diagnostics and repairs. Most brake repairs are completed the same day for our clients so they get back on the road fast knowing their brakes are brought up to factory expectations. $25 off first visit coupon. Visit Auto Repair Brakes Orange County for your next auto repair or simply call 949-415-5425 to make an appointment.
Brake Repair in Orange County
949-415-5425 ~ Brake Repair in Orange County. Brake systems today are complex with a great amount of electronics controlling stopping in a safe and secure manner. Many of the vehicle's systems are integrated together in handling braking. Anti-lock, traction control and engine management are some of the systems that need to be inspected when performing a brake repair when the red brake light or yellow ABS light is illuminated. Our ASE certified master technicians have the knowledge, diagnostic equipment and brake repair service information to diagnose and perform the necessary brake repair here at Elite Auto Repair in Orange County. Brake pedal pulsation, brake squeal or grinding noise is a sign you need to see us right away. We take brake repairs seriously and will perform complete inspections and advise you of any and all necessary brake work that is necessary. Don't forget to stop by Brake Repair in Orange County for your automotive repair or call 949-415-5425.
Automobile Brake Repair in Orange County
949-415-5425 ~ Automobile Brake Repair in Orange County. Our clients from Orange, Tustin, Villa Park, Santa Ana, Garden Grove and surrounding Orange County cities feel safe and secure in getting their brake repair performed with us. The loyal customers who regularly get their service and maintenance performed at Elite Auto Repair appreciate the benefits such as a 3 year / 24,000 Mile Nationwide Warranty. They also enjoy the free hand car washes, free loaner cars, free high speed internet access in the lobby and our famous Hummer shuttle service back to home or to work locally. Call Automobile Brake Repair in Orange County today at 949-415-5425.
If you have any brake repair or ABS questions regarding your auto, please feel free to call Automobile Brake Repair in Orange County at 949-415-5425. We will be glad to help you and make your vehicle safe to drive again. We look forward to seeing you soon at Automobile Brake Repair in Orange.