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Mocup is a tiny, adorable remote-controlled robot built from a Lego Mindstorms set with an off-the-shelf Beagleboard computer for a brain and a webcam for an eye. The machine is not fundamentally different from many other RC robots – except for the fact that its controller operates it from space.
The cat-sized robot can do little more than move around, avoid obstacles, and transmit video. It's mostly a testbed for communications to help humans in orbit and robots on the surface of a planet work seamlessly together. On Oct. 23, astronaut Sunita Williams sent commands from the International Space Station to Mocup – which stands for the Meteron Operations and Communications Prototype – telling it to travel around an obstacle course in Germany. The test may seem mundane but Mocup represents the first step in dramatically redefining how we discover and investigate the universe.
To most people, exploration means the kinds of things that travelers did in the past – Captain James Cook charting islands in the vast Pacific Ocean or Robert Peary and Frederick Cook planting a flag at the North Pole. The 1960s and '70s Apollo landings, with their flags and footprints legacy, were a continuation of this idea and many people assume that this is how future planetary exploration will proceed.
"An 'explorer' looks to us like Columbus, Magellan, or Lewis and Clark," said astronomer Dan Lester from the University of Texas at Austin. "But should that be true anymore? I think not. Those people weren't wired, and if they were, they would have done what they did in a very different way. It actually takes some cultural courage to give up that old historical definition of exploration and look at it more honestly. Can we do that?"
Rumors are currently swirling that NASA may soon announce plans to send humans back to the moon and then, onward, to an asteroid and Mars. While this immediately invokes visions of moon bases and the first footsteps on Mars, the truth is likely to be very different.
Nowadays some scientists and engineers at NASA and other space agencies are taking a second look at historical exploration scenarios. In the past, robotic and human exploration have been seen as rivals, we either do one or the other. Some in the spaceflight community have said we can do everything with machines while others argued that exploration is a man's job. But there's another option. The still-nascent field of telerobotics, where humans operate robotic surrogates from afar, means that our next exploration efforts will be quite unlike anything seen before.
With ever-improving computing power and communication protocols, astronauts could float in a space station in orbit around the moon or Mars, donning exoskeleton controllers to teleoperate robots in real time. These probes would drive, fly, drill, dig, scoop, and gather material faster and with more precision than current probes controlled from Earth. The best part of humans, our powerful brains that can identify the perfect geologic rock sample and make decisions on the fly, would be combined with all the advantages of robots – their advanced cameras, suites of instruments, and bodies that aren't prone to degenerative problems like blindness and bone loss after months of space travel. One day our mechanical proxies could even help humans visit places that would destroy our bodies, like the hellish surface of Venus or the frozen ocean of Europa.
"I don't want to replace the humans in space with robots," said NASA engineer Geoffrey Landis, who works with the Spirit and Opportunity rover science team and writes science fiction. "But I think it's a good way to start. Because we do have robots and the robots are getting much better, while the humans are evolving much more slowly. Let's not do humans or robots, let's work together."
The future will be one where human cognition visits another planet via machine while our bodies remain high above it. Welcome to planetary exploration rebooted or, perhaps, de-booted.
NASA is an exploration agency but there are currently several competing ideas as to what their destination should be. A plan that started development in 2004, President Bush's Constellation program, would have built an enormous new rocket and tons of new hardware to enable a moon base and future Mars mission. Constellation, sometimes referred to as "Apollo on steroids," would have also incurred enormous costs. The Obama administration canceled the effort in 2010 and decided NASA should avoid the deep and potentially dangerous gravity wells of planets, focusing instead on zero-g points around the moon or an asteroid. But vestiges of the old Constellation program remain.
Congress was all for ditching the moon and Mars plans but decided to keep building the shiny new rocket (maintaining employment in many of their constituent districts). The Space Launch System, which is scheduled to be ready for human crews in 2019, will be the most powerful rocket ever built, capable of bringing astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, where the space station sits, for the first time since the Apollo days.
This puts NASA in a conundrum. "Once you're out there, then what do you do?" said astronomer Jack Burns from the University of Colorado. Within a decade, we may be able to get people in the vicinity of the moon but "there's not enough money in the budget to build a human lander."
Space funding is flat. NASA is not projected to get much more than its current $17.7 billion per year for the next five years. This makes efforts that don't require human landings on other worlds much more attractive. Burns is part of the new wave of scientists and engineers that are re-thinking exploration. He helps run a consortium called the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research (LUNAR) that is looking at missions where astronauts teleoperate robots on the lunar far side to conduct scientific investigations.
Under such a project, NASA would use its big new rocket to get astronauts to the Earth-moon Lagrange 2 point, where gravitational forces from both bodies cancel out and allow a spaceship to sit tight without expending fuel. From here, a crew could stay in continuous contact with mission control on Earth while floating 40,000 miles above the far side of the moon, an area never explored by Apollo. Perhaps as early as next decade, three astronauts could visit L2 in NASA's Orion spacecraft. It's possible that there they would meet up with a deep-space habitat derived from leftover ISS parts that NASA is currently planning.
From their vantage high above the moon, the crew would release a flotilla of rovers and probes to the lunar surface and direct them to interesting geological areas, such as the South Pole Aitken Basin. As one of the largest and oldest impact basins in the solar system, Aitken would provide valuable information about the heavy asteroid shellacking our planet received during its earliest days. A human operator would drive the rover around and select several 4 billion-year-old rocks, corresponding to a time when the first single-celled life forms appearing on Earth. If the crew could return such rocks back to a lab, scientists might be able to figure out the origin story of terrestrial life.
Another project that researchers envision would use a remote-controlled robot to roll out 33-foot-long sheets of thin plastic studded with metallic antennas. These structures would act as a giant radio antenna, listening to signals from the earliest stars and galaxies. Scientists currently have little information about the time between the smooth universe just after the Big Bang and a billion years later, when the cosmos was full of stars and galaxies. Earth's radio frequencies are jammed up with noise from garage door openers, radio, TV signals, and other technology so the lunar far side provides a clean window to this early history of the universe.
In the summer of 2013, NASA will begin telerobotics field tests at Ames research campus in Mountain View, California. Astronauts aboard the ISS will control a robot named K-10 as it travels over the surface and deploys a roll of film antennas.
"The future will be one in which an astronaut leads a team of robots," said Burns. "They will be pioneers for what is going to be the new way of exploring in space and other planetary bodies."
Almost Being There ——————
Traditionally, there has been antagonism in the spaceflight community between those who believe humans are required for exploration and those advocating for robotic investigation of other planets. Human spaceflight proponents – mainly those who see advancing out into space as the rightful destiny for our species – say that only humans can experience things like adventure, risk, and courage. Robot enthusiasts – mostly scientists whose chief concern is getting data – counter that human missions are complex, expensive, and potentially deadly.
In the heyday of Apollo, there was no question about who would go to the moon. Only human footprints on the lunar surface would show our technological (and therefore cultural) superiority to the Soviets. But the idea of some sort of teleoperated human-robot hybrid mission was also out of the question. This was mainly a constraint of technology.
"Today, a lot has changed," said engineer Terry Fong, who directs the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA's Ames center. "Computers are much more competent, with different interesting sensors such as laser scanners. We've had more than 40 years of development in the field of robotics."
The smartphone likely sitting in your pocket has more computing power and advanced cameras than what Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin arrived on the moon with in their lunar lander in 1969. We have robotic self-driving cars that build instant three-dimensional LIDAR scans of their surroundings. The development of telerobotics has been particularly speedy. Modern surgeons can now operate on a patient from across a room and officers in the Pentagon can order a drone kill from across the world.
The history of space telerobotics starts in the 1970s, when the Soviet space agency deployed their bathtub-shaped Lunokhod rovers, which drove across the moon's surface under direct control from Earth. Though the light travel time between the moon and Earth is about two-and-a-half seconds, Russian hardware slowed the communications delay down to about 10 seconds. Even worse, the engineers were guided not by video but with low-resolution still images that updated every 20 seconds or so.
With such long latency, the typical human reaction is to over-correct, said engineer Josh Hopkins of Lockheed Martin's Human Space Flight Advanced Programs, which is developing NASA's Orion spacecraft. During modern simulations of similar latency conditions, controllers end up essentially "drunk driving on the moon, weaving back and forth."
The only other major telerobotics test was the German space agency's ROTEX arm, which flew in 1993 on the Space Shuttle Columbia and was teleoperated by astronauts in space as well as engineers on the ground. But considering the advances in robotic technology and the cost of landing on another planet, the field is now gaining interest from many in the spaceflight community. Culturally, the divide between humans and robots is also lessening, with many advocating for a "third way" that combines the best of both worlds.
"If you said 10 years ago that we'd like to do telerobotics in space, the people at NASA headquarters would say: 'That's just stupid, we're the agency who land people on the moon," said Dan Lester. "Lately, it's become so obvious that landing human beings on other planets, at least for now, is pretty unaffordable."
Lester is something of an evangelist for telerobotics, looking at how it can reshape and redefine our exploration efforts. In May, he helped organize a symposium at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center dedicated entirely to telerobotics and its potential in future exploration.
The main way that telerobotics differs from current robotic exploration, such as that done by Curiosity and other rovers, is that it places human cognition right where the action is. Light takes between four and 20 minutes to travel between Earth and Mars – depending on the relative distance between the planets – so Curiosity has to be careful and doesn't usually drive much faster than a crawling baby. On a given work day, NASA sends a list of commands for Curiosity to execute in the morning and then receives word about the robot's progress at the end of the day.
"It's almost like doing exploration by overnight FedEx," said Hopkins. If engineers could bring the light latency time down near human reaction times, about 200 milliseconds, driving Curiosity would be "more like playing a role-playing game with a pretty good DSL connection."
A rover controlled directly by humans in real time would greatly enhance the science potential of any mission. Steve Squyres, lead scientist for the previous rover duo, Spirit and Opportunity, has famously stated that a human geologist could do in a week what the rovers did in five years on Mars. Perhaps humans in orbit could do even more. For instance, a human landing party would only be able to explore out around 100 miles from their touchdown point. Astronauts floating high above Mars could place and control robots anywhere – the South Pole, Valles Marineris, Olympus Mons – all at once.
Remote-controlled robots would be just as capable as humans, and possibly more so, considering that astronauts would be stuck inside of clunky space suits. Robots could move swiftly over the surface of Mars, using dexterous human-like hands to pick up and identify rocks. Operated by an astronaut in orbit plugged into a large exoskeleton, it would be almost like being there.
Mocup, the diminutive Lego robot mentioned earlier, is the first phase of an ambitious European Space Agency project called METERON, the Multi-purpose End-To-End Robotic Operations Network, which will test sophisticated communications and human-machine interface technology for future exploration. In 2014, ESA scientists hope to fly an exoskeleton to the International Space Station that an astronaut would wear over their arm to provide haptic feedback – essentially a sense of touch – from a robot on the ground.
"Nobody has done haptics in space," said engineer Andre Schiele from ESA, the principal investigator for METERON robotics. Haptic feedback has been shown on the ground to improve teleoperated devices and "we want to show that task performance is equally improved when used within a microgravity environment."
Such a skeleton could one day help astronauts with detailed construction projects, plugging in or connecting components, on the moon or Mars. This version of space exploration looks much more like the movie Avatar than Star Trek. In addition to saving money, it keeps humans out of harm's way. There's no landing party but just think – no more red shirt deaths!
But Will It Play in SciFiLandia? ——————————–
Admittedly, this does not look exactly like the science-fiction scenarios of future exploration we were promised. There is no swashbuckling Captain Kirk wooing green space babes or even a Martian equivalent of Neil Armstrong, taking mankind's first step on another world.
"I think most people in the human spaceflight community are not comfortable with the idea of exploring without all the way being there," said Dan Lester. "It's a sociological and psychological reason."
Without the thrill and adventure, could Congress or any international government body approve such a program? Is this a mission the public could get behind? It probably seems to many that traveling the 140 million miles all the way to Mars and then not descending the last 100 miles to the surface would be a waste. But there are many reasons why this is not the case.
For one, the price tag of any Mars mission quickly escalates to many tens of billions of dollars, a large part of which comes from carrying a lander and tons of supplies out of Earth's gravity well to the Red Planet. Such a price tends to induce sticker shock in both lawmakers and the general public and unknown developments could drive it up further. Constellation's Altair lunar lander, which would have been five times the size of Apollo's lander, would have also needed tens of billions just to develop – part of the reason it was quick to receive the Congressional axe.
But these don't even start to address the numerous expensive engineering challenges of a manned Mars mission. Currently, we lack the technology to get a human landing party to the surface of Mars. We also don't yet know exactly how to build a habitat or a set of spacesuits that could sustain people on Mars for a year and deal with the constant barrage of radiation and dust. There is some indication that both lunar and Martian dust are far more toxic than previously assumed. This is not to say that these challenges can not be met but its just to point out that we are a little bit farther away from descending those last 100 miles than we might wish to be.
In contrast, a telerobotic mission would only require one vehicle – the same spacecraft takes people to another planet, keeps them in orbit, and then returns them to Earth. Similar spacecraft could shuttle crews to the moon, Mars, Venus, or anywhere else in the solar system, rather than designing specific landing vehicles tailored to the rigors of each destination. And there would still be many opportunities to learn about living in space. Sustaining human crews around other planets comes with its own engineering challenges and would provide valuable data about long-term deep-space missions.
Anyone who sees this as some sort of lesser or compromised vision should remember that technology is disruptive and often challenges ideas we have long taken for granted. The future of exploration is certain to look very different than it has in the past.
Perhaps our culture has already changed enough to make robotic avatars controlled by humans in orbit seem perfectly normal. These days, most people comfortably live with the idea of disembodied cognition. We watch live videos of our friends on the other side of the planet through a Skype window. We take on the roles of virtual surrogates in videogames and online RPGs. Geoffrey Landis related a conversation he had with artificial-intelligence researcher Marvin Minsky, who berated him saying, "You NASA folks are so old fashioned. You think people are excited by humans in space, but talk to any 10-year-old and they're excited about robots controlled in virtual reality."
If one day we decide to colonize other planets, our robots will have paved the way. They will have been the explorers. But we wouldn't have simply been passive players, waiting back at home. We would be there, exploring with our hearts and minds, if not our bodies, on the ground.
"NASA is bound to the word exploration," said Dan Lester. "Everything that NASA talks about that's worth doing, they use the word exploration. That's what makes NASA important. But the advances in our technology are literally redefining the word exploration."


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Limited Edition iconic photography. Available as framed prints from $139
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From Russia With Love
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Liberty News
Registrar retires after nearly 12 years of service (UPDATED)
After serving Liberty University for nearly 12 years, Larry Shackleton will retire from his role as registrar and vice president of administrative information management on Dec. 31.
"On behalf of the Liberty family I would like to say we are all very grateful for Larry Shackleton's years of service to the university," said President Jerry Falwell, Jr. "Liberty has been blessed to have someone with such a high level of skill, competence, and professionalism in the leadership roles he has served. God used him to play an instrumental role in the monumental task of building the internal infrastructure the university needed to serve tens of thousands of students."
Shackleton was at the helm of the registrar in 2007, when Liberty became the largest Christian university in the world. Now with more than 100,000 online and residential students, Liberty's mission of Training Champions for Christ is unchanged, and Shackleton has been pivotal in making it the exciting university it is today.
After his retirement, Shackleton's position will be divided among key members of the registrar's management team. Luke Gentala will become the university registrar, and Michael Shenkle will become the senior associate registrar. Josh Redmond will become the director of external reporting.
During his years of service, Shackleton worked tirelessly to improve the relationship between Liberty's students and the Registrar's Office — which oversees both university reporting and Commencement, among other things. He created the Student Service Center as a "one-stop shop" where students can get assistance with financial aid, student accounts, registration, and graduation.
Shackleton praises the staff of Liberty's registrar office as the team that keeps the campus moving behind the scenes.
"The staff in the registrar's office are hard-working, over-achieving people who do things without fanfare, and with no hint of needing recognition for it," he said.
Shackleton remembers starting his job in 2002 during the construction of the Arthur S. DeMoss Learning Center. Liberty's growth since then has been "one of the most exciting challenges about working here."
"The campus was in a construction zone when I arrived and is still in a construction zone," jokes Shackleton. "Nothing much has changed except now we have more students, more faculty, more staff, better facilities, and an overall campus that attracts students and faculty from all over the world. President Falwell and his wife, Becki, understand what students need in a campus and they have provided it."
One of the construction projects Shackleton is most pleased to see completed is the new Jerry Falwell Library, which opens Jan. 15, 2014. "The library is the cornerstone of any great university," he said.
Shackleton first came to Liberty as a consultant for an educational software company, a job that allowed him to visit university campuses across the U.S. In retrospect, Shackleton believes God was working in his life, preparing him for leadership at Liberty.
"When you reflect on the things that happened — the signs that God put out there for me that I never noticed as they were happening — you see the knowledge, the wisdom, and the way that God prepared me for every aspect of what I had to do at Liberty. It was a God thing," Shackleton said.
While Shackleton's role in Liberty's growth is undeniable, he cites the vision of Liberty's founder, Jerry Falwell, Sr., and the developmental strategies of Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Dr. Ronald S. Godwin as key reasons why Liberty has become the force it is today.
Shackleton's ambition to make Liberty a place "where students have the ability to change their own lives" motivated him to excel during his 11-plus years at Liberty.
"Life is all about relationships and people," he said. "It is all about a relationship with the Lord and being able use that relationship to impact the lives of others. I am blessed to have been able to serve the Lord here at Liberty. I have looked forward to coming to work every day. How many people can say that?"


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1/2 lb okra, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup cornmeal
2 teaspoons ground chipotle pepper
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
canola oil for frying
Place the okra and the buttermilk in a bowl and allow to soak 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, in a bowl, mix together the paprika, salt, pepper, chipotle pepper, and cornmeal. Set aside. Drain the okra and place it in the bowl. Shake to coat. Heat 1/2 inch of oil in a large skillet. When the oil is hot, add the okra in a single layer. Cook until all sides are golden brown, turning occasionally. This step should only take a couple of minutes, do not over cook. Remove to paper towel lined plates. Serve hot.
Spring this recipe!


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It's finally here: Instagram is officially available for Android. After a long and often tortured wait, one of the most popular applications is now up for grabs in the Google Play store. While it's good news for Android users, it's greater news for Instagram. The platform has surpassed 30 million registered users and Android's 500 million activations means that that number is about to skyrocket.
"We've been working tirelessly to make this new Android app a first-class mobile photo-sharing experience," said Instagram. "We've been meticulous about translating the Instagram experience to the Android platform. The Android app offers an extremely familiar Instagram experience when compared to the iOS app. You'll find all the same exact filters and community as our iOS version."
As you might imagine, the app's UI (seen above on our Galaxy Nexus) looks nearly identical to the original that we've come to know and love — the more than 430,000 Android users on the waiting list for the app should be happy about.
In all the revelry, it's easy to forget about the bigger picture – which is that Instagram could easily become much more than a smartphone app. Just think about those numbers for a second and put them into perspective:
- Instagram has more than 30 million registered users.
- 430K+ Android users are going to download the app.
- Its original release was in October of 2010 – less than two years ago.
So that's (assumingly) nearly 30.5 million users in less than two years. To offer scale, Facebook had 7 million users by mid-2006, approximately two years after it launched. Of course, it was limited to college students at the time and was a Web-only platform (and one that people hadn't really wrapped their minds around yet).
But it's still proof of the unprecedented growth that Instagram is experiencing, and evidence that it's well on its way to being our first true social-mobile platform – if it wants to be. With great power comes great responsibility, and if Instagram is going to rise to the challenge it would mean heavy investment in its infrastructure. It would have to open up to Windows Phone and BlackBerry (yeah, I said it) and make sure it's able to support that kind of traffic and use. It also needs to have fully staffed teams for each platform, and be picky about the talent it brings onboard.
Instagram has admitted that focusing solely on iPhone for so long allowed it to do exactly this. "Launching on a single platform allowed us to focus on the product and the user experience. It's given us the ability to stay small and nimble, and we've been able to respond quickly to user feedback."
Those days could be numbered. This market is Instagram's for the taking, which is sort of amazing for an app that still retains such a narrow focus and utility.
Windows Phone has to be up next – right?
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So I have come across a video series called Beekman Boys, which shows the life or partners, one formally a drag queen, the other is a VP from the Martha Stuart empire, They have decided to become farmers. It is an interesting mix of polo shirts and pig farming. I really like the dynamic of the two and it is pretty entertaining, plus a bit eye opening. Check it out!
Click the photo below for the video


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Master Plan Warranty
Master Plan Warranty
Ask yourself... What would you do in the event of a costly failure occurring? How would you cover this cost? Have you or someone close to you ever experienced a large repair bill that would have been covered by a reputable warranty?
It makes good sense for any motorcycle purchaser to be protected from financial impact if an unforeseen mechanical failure were to occur by simply extending the warranty at time of purchase.
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The cost of part/s and labour to repair or replace any of the covered components of the motorcycle are covered under the Master Plan Warranty.
Ultimate's Master Plan Warranty is available for 1, 2 or 3-years, and with flexible payment options, can you afford not to have it?
Make sure you ask about the benefits of Master Plan Warranty when you enquire about your next motorcycle purchase.


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Welcome! -Comfort Garni-
The Comfort Garni Hotel welcomes you to East-Westphalia's regional centre
Located right in the pedestrian precinct of Bielefeld's inner city, near all important event and convention venues, our house is the ideal starting point for all your business, academic and private matters in Bielefeld. The main station and the Convention Hall can be reached by foot in 400 meters distance from the hotel. The University of Bielefeld can easily be accessed by tram in 10 minutes.
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Fat, bald, likes a drink and a smoke. No, not me. That's a description of Darren Lehman, the new coach of the Australian Cricket Team.
Sounds like a good bloke to me.
As a cricket fan, with the Ashes as the highlight of the sporting summer, I'm getting a horrible sense of deja vu.
If you read the press, Australian and English, you might be forgiven for thinking that the series is a foregone conclusion.
Yes, England should win, on paper. However, unless the groundsmen at the relevant venues have been doing something very innovative, the Tests themselves will be played on grass.
In order to take my mind off some of the more worrying parallels with this series and the one in 1989 – when Alan Border and a bunch of Aussie no-hopers demolished England 4-0 – I've been looking at one of those niggling little problems that I always mean to get sorted but never quite get round to.
Generally speaking, I much prefer Linux to Windows. There is however, on area where Windows has the upper hand.
When you're working in SQL*Plus, Windows allows command line recall and editing by default. This feature is not present in Linux by default.
However, Linux, being Linux, there is a handy utility that can implement this functionality. It's called rlwrap.
What I'm going to cover here is :
- a recap of built-in SQL*Plus editing capabilities
- Using rlwrap with SQL*Plus
- The joys of TAB-Completion


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!! History Commons Alert, Exciting News
This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event Spring-Autumn 1994: Taliban Arise in Afghanistan; Quickly Co-opted by ISI. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.
In the early 1990s, future Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is an up-and-coming military general, who is in charge of military operations. He is a pupil of Hamid Gul, director of the ISI in the late 1980s and a long-time and open supporter of Osama bin Laden. Around 1993, he approaches Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto with a special plan to undermine Indian forces in the province of Kashmir, disputed between India and Pakistan. As Bhutto will later recall, "He told me he wanted to 'unleash the forces of fundamentalism' to ramp up the war" against India in Kashmir. Bhutto gives Musharraf the go-ahead, as she had lost power once before by opposing the Pakistani military and ISI, and "Second time around I did not want to rock the boat." Musharraf approaches several Islamic organizations and commits them to supply volunteers who could be trained to fight as guerrillas in Kashmir. One group he works with is Markaz Dawa Al Irshad (MDI), founded several years before by followers of bin Laden. The MDI already has a military wing known as Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Musharraf is allowed to use LeT's fighters for his purposes in Kashmir and elsewhere. Other groups effectively created by Musharraf include Harkat ul-Ansar, later known as Harkat ul-Mujahedeen (see Early 1993). In the following months, the level of violence in Kashmir grows as the militias begin sending their fighters there. Around the same time, Musharraf sees early successes of the Taliban (see Spring-Autumn 1994), and along with Interior Minister Nasrullah Babar, begins secretly supporting them and supplying them. The two policies go hand-in-hand, because the militant groups begin training their fighters in parts of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban. The Pakistani policy of tacitly supporting these militias and the Taliban will continue until Musharraf takes power in a coup in 1999 (see October 12, 1999), and beyond. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 239-243]
Entity Tags: Markaz Dawa Al Irshad, Benazir Bhutto, Hamid Gul, Nasrullah Babar, Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, Taliban, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Pervez Musharraf
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline
The Indian government grows concerned about a new Pakistani policy of funding and supporting Islamist militias in Pakistan so these militants can fight the Indian army in the disputed region of Kashmir. Since these groups are not officially part of the Pakistani government, Pakistan has some plausible deniability about the violence they are involved in. An Indian joint intelligence committee determines that the Pakistani government is spending around $7 million a month to fund these proxy fighters. They present a file of evidence to the US, warning that Muslim fundamentalists are being infiltrated into Indian-controlled parts of Kashmir and that Gen. Pervez Musharraf (who will later take power in a coup) is behind the new policy (see 1993-1994). They ask the US to consider where these fighters will go after Kashmir. Naresh Chandra, Indian ambassador to the US at the time, will later recall: "The US was not interested. I was shouting and no one in the State Department or elsewhere could have cared less." Pakistan continues its tacit support for these groups through 9/11. The US will decline to list Pakistan as an official sponsor of terrorism despite growing evidence over the years that the Pakistani government is supporting these militants attacking India. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 241]
Entity Tags: Naresh Chandra, India, US Department of State, Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf
Mullah Omar. [Source: US Rewards for Justice]By early 1994, many people in Afghanistan have become fed up with widespread corruption and violence between warlords fighting for power. The Taliban starts as a small militia force near the town of Kandahar. It is led by Mullah Omar, a former mujaheddin fighter who preaches and teaches in a small remote village. Feeding on discontent, the Taliban's popularity rapidly grows. [Coll, 2004, pp. 285] The Pakistani ISI takes an interest in their success. Journalist Steve Coll will later comment, "There was a meeting at ISI headquarters with some of the early leaders of the Taliban—not Mullah Omar, but some of his aides—and the ISI chief in the late autumn of 1994." [PBS Frontline, 10/3/2006] The ISI floods them with weapons and new recruits taken from religious schools in Pakistan and soon effectively dominates the group (see October 1994 and Autumn 1994-Spring 1995). [Gannon, 2005, pp. 37-39] Before long, as Coll put is, the Taliban becomes "an asset of the ISI." [PBS Frontline, 10/3/2006] Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a future president of Pakistan, is also an early supporter of the Taliban (see 1993-1994).
Entity Tags: Taliban, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Pervez Musharraf, Mullah Omar
It is frequently reported that the Pakistani ISI created the Taliban. For instance, in 1996 CNN will report, "The Taliban are widely alleged to be the creation of Pakistan's military intelligence [the ISI], which, according to experts, explains the Taliban's swift military successes." [CNN, 10/5/1996] And counterterrorism "tsar" Richard Clarke will later claim that not only did the ISI create the Taliban, but they also facilitated connections between the Taliban and al-Qaeda to help the Taliban achieve victory. [Clarke, 2004, pp. 53] The Wall Street Journal will state in November 2001, "Despite their clean chins and pressed uniforms, the ISI men are as deeply fundamentalist as any bearded fanatic; the ISI created the Taliban as their own instrument and still support it." [Asia Times, 11/15/2001] Technically, the Taliban appear to have actually started out on the own, but they were soon co-opted by the ISI and effectively became their proxy force (see Spring-Autumn 1994). Benazir Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan at the time, will later recall how ISI support grew in late 1994 and into early 1995. "I became slowly, slowly sucked into it.… Once I gave the go-ahead that they should get money, I don't know how much money they were ultimately given.… I know it was a lot. It was just carte blanche." Bhutto was actually at odds with her own ISI agency and will later claim she eventually discovered the ISI was giving them much more assistance than she authorized, including Pakistani military officers to lead them in fighting. [Coll, 2004, pp. 293-294]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Benazir Bhutto, Central Intelligence Agency, Richard A. Clarke, Taliban, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence
Afghanistan has been mired in civil war ever since the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989. The Taliban arise organically in early 1994, but are soon co-opted by the Pakistani ISI (see Spring-Autumn 1994). By mid-October 1994, the Taliban takes over the town of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Before the end of the month, John Monjo, the US ambassador to Pakistan, makes a tour of areas controlled by the Taliban with Pakistan's Interior Minister Nasrullah Babar, who is said to have been been a force behind the Taliban's creation. The State Department issues a press release calling the victory of the "students" a "positive development likely to bring stability back to the area." [Labeviere, 1999, pp. 261-262]
Entity Tags: Taliban, Nasrullah Babar, US Department of State, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, John Monjo
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. [Source: Government of Pakistan]Gen. Pervez Musharraf becomes leader of Pakistan in a coup, ousting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. One major reason for the coup is the ISI (Pakistan's intelligence agency) felt Sharif had to go "out of fear that he might buckle to American pressure and reverse Pakistan's policy [of supporting] the Taliban." [New York Times, 12/8/2001] Shortly thereafter, Musharraf replaces the leader of the ISI, Brig Imtiaz, because of his close ties to the previous leader. Imtiaz is arrested and convicted of "having assets disproportionate to his known sources of income." It is later revealed that he was keeping tens of millions of dollars earned from heroin smuggling in a Deutsche Bank account. [Financial Times, 8/10/2001] Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmed, a close ally of Musharraf, is instrumental in the success of the coup. Ahmed actually secured the capital and detained Sharif, but then honored the chain of command and stepped aside so Musharraf, as head of the military, could take over. Ahmed is rewarded by being made the new director of the ISI. [Guardian, 10/9/2001; Coll, 2004, pp. 504-505]
Entity Tags: Taliban, Pervez Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Deutsche Bank, Mahmood Ahmed, Brig Imtiaz
Abdullah Omar Naseef. [Source: Public domain]As the US is preparing its first post-9/11 list of supporters of al-Qaeda in order to freeze assets, the Rabita Trust is slated to be included on the list. The Rabita Trust was founded in 1988 by Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef, the secretary-general of the Muslim World League (MWL) in the 1980s. It is considered a popular Islamic charity in Pakistan and is linked to the MWL, which is closely tied to the Saudi government. Wael Hamza Julaidan, one of the founders of al-Qaeda, has been director general of the Rabita Trust since 2000 (see September 6, 2002), and there is evidence it has been funding Islamic militants in the disputed region of Kashmir between Pakistan and India. However, politically connected Pakistanis, including Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, are on the Rabita Trust's board of directors. The US gives Musharraf about 48 hours to quit the board, and threatens to withdraw US aid from Pakistan if he does not. However, he refuses. The charity is kept off the first US list on September 24, 2001 (see September 24, 2001). But it is added to a second list on October 12, 2001 (see October 12, 2001), even though Musharraf apparently does not quit the board first. Julaidan will be listed a year later (see September 6, 2002). [Herald (Glasgow), 10/4/2001; Newsweek, 10/8/2001; Washington Post, 10/14/2001; Burr and Collins, 2006, pp. 100-101] But the Rabita Trust simply changes its name to the Aid Organization of the Ulama and continues functioning. The US does not take further action against it. [Burr and Collins, 2006, pp. 100-101] It is unclear what Musharraf may have known about the charity's militant ties, if anything. However, in the early 1990s, Musharraf was behind an effort by the Pakistani army to fund militants fighting in Kashmir (see 1993-1994).
Entity Tags: Rabita Trust, Abdullah Omar Naseef, Wael Hamza Julaidan, Muslim World League, Pervez Musharraf
The Red Fort in Delhi, India, shortly after being attacked in 2000. [Source: BBC]The US officially blocks the assets of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), a Pakistani militant group, and Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (UTN), a Pakistani charity front. [White House, 12/20/2001] LeT has frequently attacked targets in India with the tacit support of the Pakistani government. For instance, LeT took credit for an attack on the Red Fort in Delhi in 2000 that killed three people. [BBC, 3/17/2006] But the US fails to mention Pakistani government support for LeT, particularly long-time support by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who is now president of Pakistan (see 1993-1994). The Pakistani government officially bans LeT one month later. But the group changes its name to Jamaat-ud-Dawa and continues operating, though less openly than before. It is said to be closely linked to al-Qaeda. The US action comes just days after LeT was implicated in an attack on the Indian parliament (see December 13, 2001). [Asia Times, 6/4/2004] India will blame the group for major attacks in 2003 and 2005 that each kill about 60 people. [BBC, 3/17/2006] UTN was founded by Pakistani nuclear scientists (see 2000). The CIA was aware before 9/11 that UTN had proposed selling a nuclear weapon to Libya (see Shortly Before September 11, 2001), and that two UTN scientists met with Osama bin Laden (see Shortly Before September 11, 2001), so it is not known why the US waited until now to act against it.
Entity Tags: Pervez Musharraf, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau
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Google is sending us some beautiful and super-rare prototype Chrome OS notebooks and we want to give one to you. Here's how you can enter a random drawing for the gadget.
You just have to follow the @gizmodo Twitter account and tweet something including the #gizmodolovesyou hashtag to enter the drawing. We'll pick a winner at 11:59pm EST on Friday, December 10, 2010.
If you're struggling to figure out what to tweet, you can just use our sample text right here:
Follow @gizmodo and tweet the #gizmodolovesyou hashtag to win a prototype Chrome OS notebook. More details: http://gizmo.do/hvIEt9
THE FINE PRINT: Standard contest rules apply. You need to follow the @gizmodo Twitter account and include the #gizmodolovesyou hashtag in at least one tweet in order to win. The winner will be randomly chosen at 11:59pm EST on Friday, December 10, 2010.


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By Steven Hale, audiologist Tinnitus is an invisible hearing condition that for people who have it severely can render them helpless and desperate. It's a phantom sensation of noise that originates within the body and is only heard by the individual who has it. One in seven in the UK experience tinnitus to varying degrees, […]
Posts Tagged 'diagnose their symptoms'
Take an Ear Bud Break to Avoid Tinnitus
August 13th, 2013 Admin


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She's a Tiger held off fast-closing Fascinating by a half-length Saturday in the $300,000 Del Mar Debutante for 2-year-old fillies at Del Mar.
Ridden by Gary Stevens, She's a Tiger ran seven furlongs on the synthetic surface in 1:22.71 and paid $11, $5.40 and $3.80. The 50-year-old jockey, who began a comeback in January, won his fifth career Debutante and first since 2002 with Miss Houdini.
Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert saddled three horses in the eight-horse field, including Fascinating, who returned $6.60 and $4.60. Awesome Baby, the even-money favorite, finished seventh. Secret Compass was fourth.
Concave paid $3.60 to show in the Grade 1 race.
The victory, worth $180,000, increased She's a Tiger's career earnings to $315,650. Jeff Bonde trains the half-sister to former star sprinter Smiling Tiger.
In the $110,400 Harry F. Brubaker Stakes, Summer Hit led all the way to win by 1 1/4 lengths.
Ridden by Edwin Maldonado, Summer Hit ran one mile in 1:34.99 and paid $10.60 to win. The winner earned $72,420.
Wilkinson was second and Liaison was third. Sky Kingdom, the 5-2 favorite, finished fourth.
Victor Espinoza rode three winners on the 11-race card.


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Disability NEWS - March 16, 2012
- April 2012 Portland Commission on Disability meetings
- Commissioner Fritz to speak at Hearing Loss Association of Portland
- Clackamas County Disability Resource Fair to be March 21
- Brain Injury Support Community holding its meeting on April 7
- Center seeking volunteers for research how brain processes sounds
- Mayoral forum to address Building an Age-Friendly Portland
- Community forum on age and disabilities is April 10 in Salem
- Career Expo offers opportunities to meet employers
- Visit the City's Disability Program Facebook page for current postings
Portland Commission on Disability (PCOD)
April 2012 Meetings
PCoD Executive Board Meeting
Wednesday, April 4, 6 to 8 p.m.
Rose Room, City Hall, 1221 SW 4th Avenue
PCoD Accessibility in the Built Environment Subcommittee
Monday, April 9, 10 am to 1 pm
1900 Building, 1900 SW Fourth Ave, Room 4A
PCoD Livability and Wellness Subcommittee
Tuesday, April 10, 3 to 5 pm
Rose Room, City Hall, 1221 SW 4th Avenue
Portland Commission on Disability Meeting
Friday, April 13, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Conference Room C, Second Floor
Portland Building, 1120 SW Fifth Ave
PCoD Public Outreach and Awareness Subcommittee
Wednesday, April 18, 3 to 5 p.m.
Disability Rights Oregon
610 SW Broadway, Second Floor
PCoD Employment Subcommittee
Friday, April 27, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
Pettygrove Room, City Hall, 1221 SW 4th Avenue
Commissioner Fritz speaking to Hearing Loss Assn of Portland
Portland City Commissioner Amanda Fritz will be speaking to the Hearing Loss Association of Portland at its March 20 meeting. She will describe the work of the City's Disability Program and the Portland Commission on Disability. These two programs are housed in bureaus that Fritz directs. The meeting will be held at Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital in the North-South Conference Room and starts at 7 pm. The meeting room is in Building 2, 1040 NW 22nd Avenue at the corner of NWW Marshall St. For more information about the Hearing Loss Association of Portland, visit their website at http://www.hearinglossor.org/portland/.
Clackamas County Disability Resource Fair to be March 21
The 2012 Clackamas County Disability Resource Fair will be held Wednesday, March 21, from 9 am to 1 pm at Clackamas Community College's Gregory Forum Building. The college is located at 19600 Molalla Ave in Oregon City.
This free resource fair is for Clackamas County adults, youth and veterans to learn about resources and services available in the community. Last year, over persons attended the fair. For more information, contact Iliana Fontal, NW Family Services Employment Assistance Department, at 503-546-2566.
Brain Injury Support Community holding its meeting on April 7
Service & Accessibility Issues Following Acquired Brain Injury will be the theme at the next Brain Injury Support Community (BISC) meeting on April 7 from noon to 2 pm in the Lorenzen Conference Room at Emanuel Hospital, 2801 N Gantenbein. The keynote speaker is Julia Greenfield, an attorney from Disability Rights Oregon (DRO), and she will address the services that DRO offers.
BISC community meetings are free and are provided for audience participation and interaction to share ideas, thoughts, techniques, and information. Other agenda items include what's new with BISC, BIRRDsong, Brainstormers, Thrive and Family Services. For more information, call BISC at 503-224-9069 or email firstname.lastname@example.com.
Center seeking volunteers for research how brain processes sounds
The National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research (NCRAR) is seeking volunteers for a research study concerning how the brain processes different sounds. NCRAR is located at the Portland Veterans Administration Medical Center. The purpose is to learn how individuals with hearing loss and other individuals with normal hearing process and understand sounds that are presented in background noise.
Up to eight visits, totaling 16 hours will be needed to complete the study and scheduled for the participant's convenience. Twenty dollars will be paid for each visit and participants will receive a hearing evaluation at no cost. Volunteers should be over age 60, right-handed and not taking sleep, seizure or mood altering medications, including antidepressants.
An appointment for a hearing test will be arranged to see whether participants meet the study criteria. This is a research study and should not be considered treatment. Anyone interested in participating or wanting more information, should contact Tina Penman at 503-220-8262, extension 52007 or email firstname.lastname@example.com.
Mayoral forum to address Building an Age-Friendly Portland
Portland's mayoral candidates will discuss their plans and visions to help create a Portland that is friendly to all ages and disabilities at a Mayoral Candidate Forum and Community Conversation on April 7. The forum and community conversation will be held from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm at the DoubleTree Hotel, 1000 NE Multnomah.
Seating is limited, please reply by April 2. Call toll-free at 1-877-926-8300 or go to the AARP website for more information and to register online.
Community forum on age and disabilities is April 10 in Salem
Can You See Me? is set for April 10 in Salem to discuss interacting with those who are aging and people with disabilities. The Salem Human Rights & Relations Advisory Committee (HRRAC), in partnership with Oregon Paralyzed Veterans of America, is conducting the community forum at the Salem Public Library, 585 Liberty St. SE, starting at 6:45 pm.
The forum is to dispel myths about age and disabilities through observations of community members who have experienced a range of reactions in their daily lives. The event is interactive and will include a film and panel discussion. All are invited to attend and fully participate. For further information, contact Marilyn Johnston at 503-540-2371.
Prior to the community meeting, there will be a short HRRAC business meeting, beginning at 6 pm, followed by an opportunity to speak with Commissioners. The Community Forum will begin promptly at 6:45 pm.
Career Expo offers opportunities to meet employers
The 5th annual Tapping Fresh Talent – Career Expo 2012 offers job seekers and students with disabilities the opportunity to meet with employers who are interested in talking to them. This premier free event will be April 12 at the Sheraton Portland Airport Hotel, 8235 NE Airport Way from 10 am to 2 pm.
Activities include: Resume Review, mock interviews, an internship workshop and student central. Visit http://tappingfreshtalent2012.eventbrite.com/ for more information and how to register. There is also info for employers and sponsors at the link.
Visit Disability Program Facebook page for news, event postings
The Office of Neighborhood Involvement Disability Program Facebook page features daily postings of news, videos, events and issues of interest to people with disabilities. Visit the program's Facebook page to read these postings and other information posted daily on disability issues, news and concerns.
Get more news/information at the Commission's website
You can access more information on resources, events and the Portland Commission on Disability at the program's website,
The Commission has begun development of its own website, which is found at www.PortlandDisability.com. There are links for the meeting calendars, commissioner profiles and other information. The site will be adding more content as it now is moved to the new Office of Equity & Human Rights.
To update your contact information, if you know someone who would like to receive the newsletter or if you wish to submit information for the newsletter, please contact Patrick Philpott, Portland Commission on Disability administrative coordinator, at:
Phone: 503-823-4432 - TTY:503-823-6868
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Please note: This information may also provided in Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF formats. Please use the contact information above to make your request for an alternative format.
The Disability NEWS is distributed by the City of Portland Office of Neighborhood Involvement's Disability Program and the Portland Commission on Disability.


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Penn State Berks at a Glance
History: Penn State Berks was founded in 1958.
Enrollment: About 2,800 full- and part-time students
Faculty: 206 full-time and adjunct
Location: Penn State Berks is located in suburban Reading, PA
Campus Life: More than 50 special interest clubs and organizations; intramural, club, and varsity athletics; a range of theatre, arts, and entertainment.
Student Demographics:
Average Class Size: 24
Student-to-Faculty Ratio: 16.7 to 1
Students Receiving Financial Aid: 2,384
Student-to-Faculty Ratio: 16.7 to 1
Students Receiving Financial Aid: 2,384
Geographic Distribution of Students:
Pennsylvania Residents: 2,482
Out of State: 261
International: 41
Part-time Undergraduates: 12.3%
Male Undergraduates: 55.6%
Female Undergraduates: 44.4%
Computers on Campus
For Student Use: 475 desktops, 132 laptops, 607 total
Research Computers: 80
Total (counting faculty & staff): 1,077
Laser Printers for Student Use: 37
No computer for student use is more than 3 years old.
Wireless capabilities are available in all campus facilities, including the outdoor Perkins Plaza.


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Casual and comfort blended together into this ringer t-shirt. Made from 100% 6.1oz preshrunk soft cotton, the contrasting colors around the neck and sleeves with the main body gives this tee a whole new feel.
If you order more than 50 pcs items (can be combined), please click here to contact us for whole price quotation, please include the SKU# and the quantity you want for each of them. For order less than 50 pcs, please order directly from our website.


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Choose from condo and apartment rentals, cozy cabins or beach villas - holiday rental options in Puerto Viejo provide perfect holiday retreats for groups, families or couples. Planning a holiday with your surfing buddies? Combine luxury and nature at a 4-bedroom tropical villa in the rain forest, just a few steps from the Playa Chiquita. As it sleeps 8, you'll enjoy plenty of space for around $100 per person - a great value for low-cost holidays. For a romantic getaway, awake to a symphony of sea and forest sounds in your private beachfront cottage with hardwood floors and custom furniture. It's elevated with an enormous porch overlooking the sea, so perfect for outdoor wine sipping at sunset.
Puerto Viejo manages to combine the best of all worlds with sparkling beaches, tropical rain forests, a refuge for wildlife and reefs for snorkelling. Outdoor enthusiasts have a complete menu of activities – world-class surfing, hiking through lush, exotic forests, diving in pristine waters and mountain biking. With increasing numbers of young people attracted to the Salsa Brava waves, the village has a lively assortment of bars, night spots and restaurants that exude the relaxed Caribbean life style. Expect a great mix of seafood, steak and hearty regional fare. Try Cococongo in Playa Negra for enticing Mediterranean cuisine or, for a taste and touch of Paris, the entrée and dessert crepes at Sel et Sucre (Salt & Sugar). To dine as the locals, Soda Johanna's humble eatery fits the bill, where you'll discover fabulous Caribbean cuisine and some of the best fried plantains in Costa Rica. Wrap up the day at El Loco Natural for calypso to reggae live music, food and drink.
With so many opportunities to enjoy the rich tropical landscape around Puerto Viejo, you'll appreciate the many tours available to visitors. Talamanca Ecotourism & Conservation Association (ATEC) is a good choice, as it is a local, non-profit organisation with over 100 native naturalist guides devoted to preserving culture and ecosystems in the area. They offer everything from surf lessons and waterfall hikes to horseback riding or a tour of the Kekoldi Indigenous Territory, just 15 minutes from Puerto Viejo.
From colorful bungalows to beachfront villas, holiday rentals deliver comfort, space and convenient amenities to make your stay memorable. Take your home-cooked breakfast on the veranda followed by a walk by the sea. Enjoy a day of surfing and come back to your special retreat for a home-grilled steak. Hotel stays simply don't compare with the privacy and privilege of home rental holidays.


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Members of the anti-Putin punk protest collective Pussy Riot attempted a demonstration in Sochi today, but were quickly set upon by security forces with whips.
Six members gathered in a plaza in downtown Sochi—about 20 miles from the Olympics, which are actually in Adler and the mountains—to film a performance of a new protest song, titled "Putin Will Teach You How To Love Your Motherland." But they were set upon by uniformed Cossacks almost before they could begin. Photos and video show members restrained and bloodied.
(The Cossacks, an ethnic group with a long history in Russia, have in recent years become a sort of regional militia, and have been hired to provide security for the Olympics.)
The incident comes a day after two members of Pussy Riot were arrested before carrying out a protest—possibly the same one attempted today.


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On Jan. 17, Michelle Obama's 49th birthday, the FLOTUS debuted her stylish new bangs.
Now, in an interview with "The Rachael Ray" Show airing Wednesday, Mrs. O jokes that the haircut was "my midlife crisis!"
"I couldn't get a sports car. They won't let me bungee-jump. So instead, I cut my bangs," she quips.
U.S. & World
Karl Lagerfeld is not a fan of Michelle's bangs
Of course, Michelle's man is a fan of her 'do. "I love her bangs," President Barack Obama said after inauguration weekend. "She looks good. She always looks good."
We'd have to agree!
For more of Michelle, tune into "Rachael Ray" this Wednesday and "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" on Friday.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Copyright E! Online


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Black – iPad Mini 1/2/3 PU Case
Created for your busy lifestyle and crafted with your love for elegance
Never underestimate a design that has complexity under the surface of simplicity. This lightweight Foxwood case may look minimal, but there is more to it than meets the eye. Explore multiple stand options depending on the way that you fold the cleverly designed front cover that is also removable for a streamlined feel. Just change the position depending on whether you're reading, typing, or watching a film, making it easy to mould your case to what you need.
Only materials of the highest calibre are chosen with care, as every part of the design you see was chosen for a reason: form and function balancing beautifully.
What makes Foxwood?
Functional accessories carry their own natural beauty. We craft form with practical function. Every product offering a level of use that you could not have imagined.


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Over at Big Fat Deal, they're discussing a Gawker thread about "curvy" women that I really, really don't recommend reading — but I couldn't resist posting about one of Mo Pie's observations on it:
Marilyn Monroe's name is dropped. Maybe there should be a Monroe's corollary to Godwin's Law.
Oh, lord, YES THERE SHOULD. As an online discussion about fat women grows longer, the probability of a mention of Marilyn Monroe's dress size approaches one.
Y'all. Seriously. I know Shapelings aren't likely to pull the "Marilyn Monroe wore a size 16" argument, but for the benefit of the whole entire internet, I need to say this: STOP IT.
Marilyn Monroe was not ever, ever fat — or anything close to it — let alone plus-sized. At times, she was slightly heavier than today's ingenues, but so are a lot of fifth-graders. As for the dress size, you can check out Snopes for the full treatment, or you can just digest these facts:
- Sizing has changed. I usually wear a size 16 now. In the fifties, I probably would have worn a 20 or 22, minimum.
- The "Marilyn Monroe wore a size 16" myth might also come from a dress of hers being auctioned as a contemporary British size 16, which is roughly a U.S. 12. And that was only an estimate.
- She was 5'5 1/2″, and the highest recorded weight for her is 140 lbs. The highest recorded waist size is 23 inches. Even if those numbers were fudged (and they might very well have been), she would have had to weigh nearly 20 pounds more than her highest recorded weight to have the same BMI as this woman.
- Once again, I am a contemporary U.S. size 16 (more or less). I'm 5'2″ and 185 lbs., and I have a 34-inch waist. I do not look like Marilyn Monroe.
- Even if Marilyn Monroe at one time owned a dress with a size 16 label in it? She was, for most of her adult life, clearly not a fifties size 16, let alone a contemporary one. How do I know this? I HAVE EYES.
I tried to represent a range of different sizes there since, like most women, Marilyn wasn't exactly the same size throughout her short life. In a couple of those photos, yeah, sure, she would be considered "Hollywood fat." But, setting aside the fact that "Hollywood fat" is FUCKING INSANE, the more interesting point is that she doesn't necessarily look too fat to get work today in all of them. That last photo, and the Seven Year Itch one? Are, like, Scarlett Johansson/Catherine Zeta-Jones/Salma Hayek-style "curvy" (which is to say, "not emaciated"). She's not even America Ferrera "fat," for fuck's sake. And speaking of which, if you Photoshopped the shit out of the pink bathing suit shot — which is exactly what would happen if she were a contemporary starlet? She'd be ready for the cover of FHM.
The other three were the "fattest" pictures I could find of her on Google. And the woman in those photos is not going to be opening a Lane Bryant charge account any time soon, I'll tell you what.
I have no idea why the "Marilyn Monroe was a size 16!" myth has gained so much goddamned traction, but it needs to stop. Because it only reinforces a more damaging myth, that fat people are too stupid to realize we're fat. That somehow, our eyes and brains and mirrors don't work the same as thin people's, so we delusionally believe we're not fat — we're just the same as Marilyn Monroe! — which is the only possible explanation for why we still are fat. 'Cause if we knew, we'd have stopped it already, right? We'd have put down the tray of donuts and taken up running, which everyone knows are the keys to making any fat person thin.
Marilyn Monroe was a beautiful, curvaceous woman. But she was not remotely fat. And she was certainly not ever a contemporary size 16.
All of the fat women I know are well aware of those facts. It would be awesome if the internet stopped acting like we aren't.


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Ethics Point
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This is a privacy policy for Emmanuel College. This policy does not contain a link to our homepage. The full text of our privacy policy is available on the web here. This policy does not tell users where they can go to exercise their opt-in or opt-out options.
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we are reaching and raising generations for Christ, and teaching them His Word.
We gather on Sundays at 10:30am
All are welcome, and we would love to see you.
We are reaching,
raising, and teaching
We strive to be firmly based on God's Word.
The church is
the family of God
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Nathan Bayly - February 16, 2020
Do Good In Secret
Scripture References: Matthew 6:1-4
From Series: "Matthew"
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Rumors Running Wild About Ubuntu's Top-Secret New Product
Dec 27, 2012 5:00 AM PT
Well, we're in the final countdown now as 2012 draws to a close, so you'd think all would be quiet here in the Linux blogosphere as bloggers hunker down to recover from what's been an exceptionally exhausting year.
Linux Girl, for one, has been putting in extra hours on her favorite barstool down at the blogosphere's Broken Windows Lounge in an effort to recover a bit of the sanity that slipped away in 2012.
Sadly, no such luck!
'A Brand New Product'
Right in the middle of yet another double Peppermint Penguin, Linux Girl's Tux Phone began screaming. There was fresh news to be covered, and with a hefty twist of mystery, to boot!
"Save the date: Jan 2 -- Ubuntu set to disrupt a new ecosystem," read the urgent message. "Ubuntu will announce a brand-new product."
Luckily for her readers, Linux Girl is always on duty. She donned her mask and a fresh cape and set off for Canonical HQ.
'Ubuntu for Phones or Tablets'
All lips were maddeningly sealed at the Ubuntuplex, of course, but the same couldn't be said of the blogger crowds camped outside in the hopes of learning more detail. The TuxRadar team, in fact, lost no time in launching one of its famous Open Ballots on the topic -- with prizes, even!
Meanwhile, Linux Girl fired up her Quick Quotes Quill and took down as much as she could.
"I'd love for Canonical to come out and completely surprise me, but I have a feeling that this is going to be Ubuntu for phones or tablets," Google+ blogger Linux Rants offered. "It's a product that we've all been aware of for quite some time, but Canonical hasn't really fleshed out with details."
'Hey, Let's Rip Off Apple!'
Canonical already has TVs, desktop computers and servers covered, Linux Rants added.
"Maybe I'm just lacking imagination here, but to me that really only leaves phone/tablet markets and game systems," he said. "I'm betting on the phone/tablet market, though it's possible that Canonical could surprise me and announce that they've partnered with Steam for an Ubuntu-based console game system."
Indeed, "it's a phone or a tablet," agreed Slashdot blogger hairyfeet. "Everybody is 'me too!' in the 'hey, let's rip off Apple!' dance that is tech now. Just look how the entire Microsoft team is slapping themselves stupid and torpedoing the company trying to rip off Apple."
'Probably Something for Business'
Blogger Robert Pogson had other ideas.
"If this were some consumer hardware product, it would have been released for Christmas," Pogson told Linux Girl. "This is probably something in software or a hardware product for business or data centers."
Pogson's guess?
"I would bet it's some cloud services to use with all the gadgets being sold over the Christmas period," he suggested. "Perhaps it's a service to help businesses manage 'Bring Your Own Device' systems, essentially passing all those problems inherent with that kind of flexibility to Canonical so as not to give so many heart-attacks to business IT departments already stretched thin."
'I Don't Have a Clue'
Google+ blogger Alessandro Ebersol admitted he was mystified.
"I don't have a clue what this big announcement might be," Ebersol told Linux Girl. "A new ecosystem? Cross platform? Oh, this could be Ubuntu ported to tablets or cellphones."
On the other hand, "if they mean software platforms... Would that be Ubuntu running Mac OSX apps natively? Or windows apps natively (with CrossOver integrated on it )?" he mused. "I can only guess."
'A Muzzle for Mark Shuttleworth'
Alternatively, "maybe the new product will be a muzzle for Mark Shuttleworth so he doesn't alienate the user base every time he opens his mouth," Google+ blogger Kevin O'Brien suggested. "I can't decide if he is really nefarious or just sounds like it when he talks."
Then again, "what is the point of even trying to guess what they are planning?" consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack wondered. "I might care after they announce something, assuming it is good, but to obsess over something they haven't announced yet is just silly."
In any case, "I don't think we should expect that much," opined Robin Lim, a lawyer and blogger on Mobile Raptor.
'The Boy Who Cried Wolf'
"The press release does say, 'next generation of cross platform operating system,' so I would expect an ARM-based operating system that can run on phones and tablets with an x86 variant for tablets and desktops," Lim went on. "Three versions will be released called Ubuntu Phone, Ubuntu LT and Ubuntu 8, and will have a user interface called Urban."
Apple's Steve Jobs "was a master of this kind of thing," Lim noted. "When Cook or Page sends one of these press releases, I do take notice."
Shuttleworth, on the other hand, "is like the boy who cried wolf," Lim concluded. "While I do seriously respect the company, plans are announced to generate interest and presumably to generate funding. Don't expect to pre-order something new and shiny on Jan. 2."


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Nine American Airlines workers are among the 23 people arrested in a federal investigation targeting a drug smuggling ring in Florida and the Caribbean who attempted to distribute 9,000 kilos of cocaine.
The Fort Worth-based airline confirmed the arrest of its employees in Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico, Tuesday. Airline spokesman Tim Wagner told NBCDFW.com that the company has been working with the authorities in the investigation.
"As a company, we hope the actions of a few employees don't reflect negatively on the tens of thousands of ethical American Airlines employees who work hard to serve the public daily," Wagner said.
U.S. & World
Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Waldo Santiago told the Associated Press at least 20 people have been arrested in connection with a ring that smuggled narcotics between Puerto Rico and the U.S. Mainland.
Federal authorities said they have 23 arrest warrants in the case for people in cities across Puerto Rico and Miami. According to the U.S. Dept. of Justice, the following AA employees were arrested in the four-count indictment: Wilfredo Rodríguez-Rosado, Manuel Santiago Alvarado, Wilfredo Santiago Ríos, José D. Cordero San Miguel, Orlando Jimenez Torres, Wilfredo Cancel García, Roberto Rodríguez Cruz, José M. Colón Martínez, Camilo Sánchez Rodríguez.
The Dept. of Justice said Rosado led the organization since about 1999 and that he recruited individuals who worked for the airline to insure the suitcases loaded with cocaine were ferried around the United States.
All defendants arrested were charged with conspiracy to possess and attempt to distribute approximately 9,000 kilos of cocaine abord American Airlines aircraft.
The third count in the indictment charges four of the defendants with trying to possess and distribute 20 kilos of cocaine in June of this year -- a transaction investigators said was never completed due to circumstances beyond the control of the defendants.
The $18 million forfeiture count includes the following properties: four residences in the municipality of Morovis; two residences in Bayamón; one residence in Barceloneta; one multi-apartment complex in Morovis; two business establishments in Morovis; and one business establishment in Bayamón.
If convicted, the defendants face a possible life sentence in prison and fines of up to $4 million.
A similar sting in 1999 led to the arrest of 42 AA ramp agents and 13 food service contract employees, according to CNN. Arrests began in Miami and New York by the DEA, ATF, U.S. Customs Service and the Miami-Dade police department -- while the grand jury indictments of the 2.5 year investigation were unsealed. Ramp agents were accused of unloading what they thought was cocaine arriving from Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia, CNN reported. The cocaine was fake and provided by the DEA.
In 2004, 14 people, including 11 former or current AA cargo workers at Miami International Airport, were indicted on charges of smuggling and distributing cocaine and heroin in the U.S., USA Today reports.


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OK, I'm creeped out. According to scientists in Turkey, a real-life vampire exists. He's a 23-year-old married man who allegedly has an addiction to drinking blood that is as "essential as breathing." While it started with him cutting his own arms, stomach, and chest to collect blood to drink -- it got much worse. The man's been arrested several times for biting and stabbing others solely to collect their blood. And get this: He also had his father get him bags of blood from blood banks. Um, hey dad, THIS ISN'T NORMAL
I want to be in denial. The man, whose name has not been released, was brought in for treatment and diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcohol abuse, and chronic depression. Now, his behavior is in remission. Clearly something's VERY wrong here.
My first question: Can you imagine being his wife?
I just envision the scene now, his wife hanging out with her girlfriends making dinner when the evening news comes on and a reporter is telling the world about a real-life vampire that just happens to be her husband. AWKWARD. City.
This man had and arguably still has a very serious problem. Reports say that there were a whole slew of traumatic events that lead up to his two-year phase of bloodsucking including the death of his 4-month-old daughter and seeing his uncle and another person get murdered. Those events are absolutely wretched, but I wonder when the switch went off in his head that he thought "Hey, maybe I should try out blood and see if this makes me feel better." And then CRAVING it? It's ... horrifying.
The question arises: if vampires and zombies weren't so sensationalized in pop culture today would this be happening? Who knows. I for one am just happy he's gotten treatment and hope that he never resorts to hurting others to fulfill his addiction ever, ever again.
Can you believe this?? Are you creeped out??
Image via Ollie Crafood/ Flickr


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Joy Szabo recently drew nationwide attention when she refused to have a repeat cesarean section at her local Page, Arizona, hospital. Instead, Joy and her husband Jeff decided that Joy (alone) would move 350 miles from home to Phoenix where they could, according to CNN, get "the birth they wanted" – a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC). Many are calling Joy's vaginal birth a victory, but Jenn at Knitted in the Womb acknowledges that while on one level getting the VBAC is a victory, on a larger scale she wonders was it really a victory?
Here's a little history. While seven months pregnant with her fourth child, Joy Szabo was told by her local hospital that she would be required to have a repeat cesarean section rather than allow her to have the birth she wanted, a VBAC. It didn't matter that she had already had one VBAC at this hospital, the policy had changed and VBACs were no longer permitted there.
"VBACs carry a less-than-1-percent increased risk of a uterine rupture, which could cause brain damage in the baby or even death, according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists."
According to CNN:
After their discussion with their doctor, the Szabos made an appointment to speak with Page Hospital's CEO, Sandy Haryasz. When the couple told her about their desire for a vaginal birth, they say Haryasz would not budge, even telling them she would get a court order if necessary to ensure Joy delivered via C-section.
The Szabos thought that seemed extreme and rather than succumb to the hospital's new policy, a few weeks before her due date Joy moved into a Phoenix apartment 350 miles away from her husband and three children while she waited to go into labor. At the Phoenix hospital Joy gave birth to her fourth son Marcus Anthony in an "uncomplicated vaginal delivery."
Emily from Laundry and Lullabies said, "Joy, you're an inspiration. Thank you for standing up for yourself, for bringing attention to the state of maternity care in America, and for making it just a bit easier for other women to follow your example."
Danielle who blogs at Birth, Babies & Everything In Between believes VBAC is much safer for healthy, low risk women than elective repeat cesareans. She likes to use the example of Michelle Duggar to demonstrate the safety of VBAC. Michelle has had four c-sections and 13 VBACs and recommends the organization International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) for those wishing to gain information about VBAC.
On the Duggar's website, Michelle describes how things have changed from her first pregnancy to her 18th.
I would say the greatest change that I have seen in the field of obstetrics, and I might add that it is very troubling to me, is the idea that once you've had a C-section you must have a C-section for any other pregnancy. It is much healthier for mom and baby to avoid major surgery and all the complications that go along with a C-section if possible. Granted, there are health situations that would warrant such, but for years obstetrics encouraged TOL (Trial Of Labor after previous C-section) with many successful healthy vaginal births. It was quite alarming to be told that I could no longer have a vaginal birth due to hospital or insurance companies regulations. It appears that what is best for the patient is not the priority with this decision. I feel our health care is being jeopardized by this unhealthy approach. Doctors are having to tell their patients that they no longer offer VBAC assistance due to hospital regulations and some might even state to the patient that they are not safe so as to avoid confrontation. Statistics prove much differently. For the many women that find themselves in this situation, ICAN is an organization that is very helpful in gaining more information on this topic.
Jenn at Knitted in the Womb, who I mentioned above and questions the "victory" aspect, says:
I am glad that Joy got a vaginal birth, and on that level the birth was a victory. But on the larger scale level…the extreme hoops she had to go through make it less than that. The "victory" that I see missing is an acknowledgment by the Page Hospital administration that A) VBAC is safe and B) even if they disagree with "A," they have no right to force a person to have surgery. For a woman who does not have the financial means to do what Joy did – move away from her home for over a month – surgery is still a forced situation.
…this could easily be used by hospital administrators as "precedent." "You want a VBAC? So sorry, we don't offer that here. Do what Ms. Szabo did, go move to be near 'hospital X.'"
I agree with Jenn in that the CNN article headline, "Mom fights, gets the delivery she wants" is misleading. When I first read it, I expected that Joy Szabo had fought the Page hospital and had her VBAC there. I wasn't expecting that she had to move six hours from her home, leaving her children and husband, to get a VBAC at another hospital.
Yes, the fact that she got a vaginal birth is a victory, but this story also shows that birth advocates still have a lot of work ahead of them. As more hospitals ban VBACs, there will be more and more cases of women who are forced to make difficult choices.
The fact that this situation got the national attention that it did, that CNN covered it and posted "some tips for what to ask your doctor (or midwife) in the delivery room if the suggestion is made that it's time to give up on a vaginal birth and head to the operating room" is a step in the right direction. It might not be the big victory that many of us are hoping for, but it's a small victory and that counts too.
Related posts:
- Mama Seoul wrote How to Plan Your VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean)
- Heather at A Mama's Blog wrote The Reality of C-Sections and Insurers Denying Coverage to Women who've had C-sections
- Jill at The Unnecesarean wrote Do You Suffer from Physician VBAC Hysteria? and offers some VBAC information
Cross-posted on BlogHer.
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All News Releases By Date
EPA and DoJ To Hold Briefing on Home Renovation Settlement
Release Date: 04/17/2014
Contact Information: EPA: Julia P. Valentine, email@example.com, 202-564-0496, 202-564-4355; DoJ: 202-514-2007, TTY (866) 544-5309
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Cynthia Giles and the Acting Assistant Attorney General Robert G. Dreher of the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division will participate in a press briefing and conference call on a major environmental settlement addressing children's health. The briefing and call will be held today, Thursday, April 17, 2014 at 1:30 p.m. EDT.
Cynthia Giles, EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
Robert G. Dreher, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environmental and Natural Resources Division
WHAT: Press briefing and conference call on major environmental settlement addressing children's health.
WHEN: Thursday, April 17, 2014
1:30 p.m. EDT
WHERE: Department of Justice
Room 2143
950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC
BY PHONE: 202-353-0880 (Members of the media should dial in ten minutes prior to start of call.)
Toll free: 1-800-521-6079
Passcode: 15057606#
NOTE: Pen and pad briefing only (no cameras). All media must present government-issued photo I.D. (such as a driver's license) as well as valid media credentials. Media must enter the department at the visitor's entrance on Constitution Avenue between 9th and 10th Streets. Media may begin arriving at 1:00 p.m. EDT. Press inquiries regarding logistics should be directed to the DoJ Office of Public Affairs at 202-514-2007.
Search this collection of releases | or search all news releases
View selected historical press releases from 1970 to 1998 in the EPA History website.


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Home › Parent & Afterschool Resources › Podcast Episodes
Episode 48 — Celebrating Grandmothers
|Podcast Series
|Chatting About Books: Recommendations for Young Readers
See all episodes in this series
iTunes Subscription
|Original Air Date
|Published September 03, 2012
Music in this podcast is provided by Freeplay Music.
Book Chat
Grandma Drove the Lobsterboat
Author: Katie Clark
Illustrator: Amy Huntington
Publisher: Down East, 2012
This book is the third in a fun series about a no-nonsense grandma who takes on the unknown in times of need. Too sick to drive the garbage truck (Grandma Drove the Garbage Truck)? No problem! Need someone to drive the snowplow so that everyone can make it to the annual Carol Sing (Grandma Drove the Snowplow)? Don't worry! And in this newest book, Grandma takes on a lobster boat. It's the big Labor Day Lobster Bake, and Grandma's family is in charge of catching the lobsters. When a fog rolls in while out on the water and Grandma's sons are in predicaments of their own, Grandma and her grandson Billy find a way to steer the boat back to the dock so that the Lobster Bake can go on. Kids will laugh at this fearless grandma and relate to her grandson Billy, her reliable sidekick!
Grandma's Gift
Author: Eric Velasquez
Publisher: Walker & Company, 2010
The author shares his memories of a winter break with his grandma in El Barrio. His school assignment over the winter break is to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the new exhibit. His grandma's assignment to him is to help her make her famous holiday pasteles, a traditional Puerto Rican dish. Grandma takes him to the market to buy all of the ingredients, shows him how to make them in her cozy apartment, and then Eric takes Grandma to the museum where they enjoy the paintings together. This story, which is the second picture book that Eric Velasquez has written about his grandma (Grandma's Records), will make you feel the warmth of Grandma's kitchen and wish that you were sharing some pasteles with them while reminiscing and listening to records.
Dumpling Days
Author: Grace Lin
Publisher: Little, Brown, 2012
Pacy, the main character and narrator, is the middle of three sisters. Her family, who is Taiwanese-American, decides to visit their extended family in Taiwan for their grandmother's 60th birthday. They are staying for a whole month, and the worst part is that the sisters' parents are making them take classes to learn more about Taiwanese culture. At first all three sisters are tentative about the trip and the classes, but as they learn about and experience life in Taiwan they all find their place and things that they love there. This novel is based on the author's first trip to Taiwan and is the third in a series about Pacy and her family.
One Big Hug
Author: Shirley Hillard
Publisher: Mamoo House, 2005
Winner of a Mom's Choice Award, this book shares the game that the author played with her own grandson: a conversation about how big love can be. How much do you love me? asks the child. As much as one big hug. More. As much as two bugs in a rug. More. As much as 16 bears wearing a yellow coat. The grandma continues to invent wild scenarios to show how big her love is. The illustrations are intimate, showing a grandma and child sitting together on the porch, and the game is simple, one that any young child can pick up on and make his or her own.
A Path of Stars
Author: Anne Sibley OBrien
Publisher: Charlesbridge, 2012
Dara, which means star in Cambodia, tells the story of her Lok Yeay (loak yay). Lok Yeay is her grandmother, and her grandmother always tells the stories of her childhood in Cambodia: the sweet mangos, the soft warm air, and the stars at night. She also tells of a sad time when there was war and she and her brother fled with their few possessions and Daras mother. When the war was over, Lok Yeay came to Maine with her daughter, but her brother, Lok Ta, returned to Cambodia to find missing family. He married and started a new family. Lok Yeay always tells Dara that someday they will return to Cambodia to reunite with her brother, and she will show Dara all of these things that she has always shared stories about. But then the phone call comes that Lok Ta has passed away. This sends Lok Yeay into a deep sadness. Only Dara finds a way to reach her grandmother by telling her stories of Cambodia and promising her grandmother that someday they will visit Cambodia.
Expert Chat
Listen in as Emily and Anne Sibley O'Brien chat about her newest book, A Path of Stars. Anne discusses the sweet relationship that Dara has with her grandmother and shares a little about the history of Cambodia and her newest project, Im Your Neighbor (www.imyourneighborbooks.org).