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Getting To Know More About Astrology
Learning About Astrology
Most of us know a little about astrology. In my experience, many people snicker a bit when the subject of the zodiac is mentioned.
But interestingly, 99% of people I talk to know their own sign! So why is it that astrology is often viewed with idle curiosity or skepticism…yet almost everyone knows his/her own zodiac sign?
Perhaps that's because there is some merit to astrology. Maybe there is truth in the language of the stars. Maybe deep inside, everyone acknowledges that truth.
Astrology has been around for as long as humankind started observing the activities in the heavens.
To compare the movement of the planets and stars to our own human lives is a brilliant (and ancient) concept. Indeed, scientists confirm that the heavens are a macrocosm to our own physical being (which would be the microcosm). In short, the universe mirrors our human-ness and vice-versa.
Further pressing this point, we can recall the words of the great Hermes Trismegistus…
The concept of macrocosm and microcosm is best explain by this Hermes quote:
"That which is below is like that which is above. That which is above, is like that which is below. All to do the miracles of one thing only."
From this perspective, knowing more about astrology seems to be a very savvy practice. Learning zodiac sign basics gives us an edge.
What's more, there is no magic involved with astrology. It's a pseudo-science that is quite simple and straightforward. That's partly the reason why astrology has remained a steadfast tool to humankind – even to this very day.
There are endless ways to learn more about the human personality. Astrology is simply an alternate option for gaining insight into human behavior.
Simple Definitions About Astrology
The term astrology means "knowledge of the stars." A skilled astrologist views the stars and planets as if they are life forces that are experienced within each of us.
The term zodiac is Greek, and means "animal". The ancient Greeks improved upon the art of astrology by dividing the heavens into 12 groups known as constellations. Each of these groups is identified with a zodiac character, which in turn, correlates with the personality of each constellation.
The term horoscope a combination of "hour" and "instrument for viewing". It is termed thusly because thoughout the skies we are able to gain insight (view) our lives. We focus in on this view by determining the activities of the heavens at the hour of our birth. So when we read our daily horoscope, we are seeing a slice of our life in star-form. Essentially, the position of the stars are a reflection of our lives and vice versa.
The sun is viewed as the king of the stars. It takes center stage. Likewise, astrology dictates there is a center within each human that represents the sun. This aspect of your personality is that shining part of your being that is your core, our essence. This core is identified as your 'sun sign'. Your sun sign is determined by what time the sun rose upon the moment of your birth. Here, and throughout astrology we see the macrocosm mirroring the microcosm. Meaning, we reflect a bright sun shining brightly within us which mimics the actual sun in our solar system.
We owe it to ourselves to learn more about astrology because it opens up new perspectives for us. It also gives us an incredibly efficient and colorful strategy for living life with profound awareness.
Final Thoughts About Astrology
If we return to our understanding of the universe as a large energy (macrocosm) identically reflecting humankind as a smaller energy (microcosm), we may come to a realization. We may realize that knowing about astrology is more than just memorizing zodiac sign dates, or zodiac houses and facts. It's more about connecting ourselves with the vastness of the universe in which we live. It's about gaining broad vision from a unique source of wisdom.
In this spirit of exploration and awareness, I've written a bunch of articles about astrology. I hope you enjoy them and gain as much insight from these articles as I did creating them. Simply click on any of the links on this page to discover more stellar information about astrology.
Articles About Astrology
on This Site
An Important Note About Signs, Symbols and Their Meanings
Signs and symbols cultivate their meanings according to culture, context, passage of time, and mass societal opinion. What's cool and highly important is that signs and symbols earn their most powerful meanings from our own personal perspectives.
This website strives to provide you with the best, time-honored information when defining signs and symbols. However, in the final analysis, "Beauty (and symbolism) is in the eye of the beholder."
Having said that, it's in our best interest to invest the time to do personal research on symbolic events happening to us. This website is just one perspective in an ocean of variety and diversity in the realm of symbolism. So dive in! There is a whole universe of deeper meanings to explore! You can start your research by clicking on the links at the end or to the side of this page. Odds are good I've got a follow-up article about this symbolic topic.
As always, thanks for your willingness to learn more about the language of symbolism. It's a language that is universal and everywhere. It's super-groovy to travel with you on your symbolic path, and maybe offer a little translation along the way. Thanks for reading and exploring!


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The Women of the Year award is given to glamorous women. The following are three most beautiful and glamorous women of 2015:
Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon has shaken the Hollywood scene. She made an impact and people started noticing her after her performance in "Legally Blonde". She won an Academy Award for her role in "Walk the Line". Her most recent movies are "Water for Elephants", "This Means War", and "Wild". This past year, she introduced a production company and started purchasing scripts and books.
Victoria Beckham
Victoria Beckham became famous in the late 1990's as Posh Spice of the singing group Spice Girls. She is a singer, a model and an actress. She had cameo roles in episodes of "Ugly Betty", "Project Runway", "Germany's Next Topmodel," and "American Idol". In the last decade, she has become an internationally recognized fashion designer and launched her own label in 2008. In 2011, the Victoria Beckham label was named designer brand of the year in the United Kingdom.
She is married to David Beckham, a former professional English football star and they have four children. She works tirelessly for charities and non-profit organizations and for the elimination of AIDS and HIV.
Misty Copland
Misty Copeland is a classical ballet dancer who, in 2015, was singled out by Time as one of the most influential people in the world. That year, she became the first African American woman to be given the prestigious position as principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre.

subset: commoncrawl


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If you are Charged With DUI in Coeur d'Alene You Need a DUI Lawyer
Driving under the influence – of drugs or alcohol – is not a very good idea. However, what is even dumber if you are charged with DUI, rightly or wrongly, is to fail to get a Coeur d'Alene DUI attorney to fight your case. The penalties for DUI in Idaho are severe, so you need an expert to help you.
Even if it is your first offense, you can be imprisoned for up to 6 months, and if your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is .20 or higher there is a mandatory 10 days jail, and it could be up to one year. You can be fined up to $1,000 or $2,000 if BAC is over .20. Your drivers license can be suspended for 90 – 180 days. If BAC is .20 or higher there is a mandatory 1 year suspension after your release from jail.
A second Idaho DUI conviction within five years with a BAC of .20 or more carries a mandatory 30 days in the County jail or up to 5 years in the state penitentiary. Fines are up to $5,000 and license suspension is up to 5 years. An ignition interlock device is mandatory. You really do need the services of an expert Coeur d'Alene DUI attorney to help you fight the case. (Note that this blog post is NOT legal advice; you should ALWAYS consult with a DUI attorney as the specifics of your case and the law may evolve over time).Penalties in Washington Vary
Penalties in Washington can vary according to how high your BAC was. You can be charged with DUI for a BAC of 0.08% if you are over 21 years old, and 0.02% if you are younger. If driving a commercial vehicle the penalties kick in at 0.04%. A DUI in Washington can lead to penalties from the court and also penalties from the Washington Department of Licensing (DOL). When you are arrested for DUI in Washington the DOL will suspend your license for 90 days to 2 years and this begins 60 days after your arrest. You can request a hearing to review your DUI which costs a fee of $375, and if the hearing clears your DUI you will not face suspension. However, you could still be convicted of a DUI in court.
For DUI's of 0.15% BAC or more or for refusing a test you can be jailed for 2 – 364 days, and your license suspended for 1 year for the BAC level or 2 years for refusing a test. On top of that you can be fined from $1,195.50 to $5,000 and you may also be required to attend alcohol or drug treatment programs.
Whichever side of the state border you are arrested in, our Coeur d'Alene DUI attorneys can help you to fight your case. Contact us immediately for a consultation.


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I've got two videos for you this morning — both show you how to make a bag garden. The first is a a short animated video that just gives you the basic instructions. The second shows a very impressive, articulate Ugandan young woman creating a bag garden with the help of her family and friends. Both videos are associated with the charity Send a Cow that gives direct, practical help to poor farmers in East Africa.
This is a great project for those with a small space because everything grows vertically. I would think you'd be able to do this on a balcony. It would also be a fabulous project for kids, either as a family or with a school group. I've already forwarded this information on to the teacher at my boys' school who is in charge of their environmental club.
You should be able to purchase all the materials you need for the bag garden locally, but the Send a Cow website also offers bag garden starter kids. It's a U.K. site, but they take credit cards so as long as they ship to the U.S., you should be able to order from them.
You don't need to see this second video to be able to understand how to build a bag garden, but if you have the time, I encourage you to watch it and see a real one being created.


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Vaughan Woodruff owns Insource Renewables, a solar consulting firm in Pittsfield, ME. He is a NABCEP Certified Solar Heating Installer and serves on committees for NABCEP, IAPMO and IREC. Woodruff is a co-author of the NABCEP Solar Heating Installer Resource Guide and the author of NYSERDA's Field Inspection Guidelines for Solar Heating Systems.
This tool is used in HeatSpring's Solar Approaches to Radiant Heating course.


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Set in the heart of the Kent countryside, Chilston Park Hotel is a 17th Century Manor House and with its unique styling and beautiful grounds (including a giant outdoor chess board), it makes the perfect setting for a wedding. My older brother and one of my best friends have both had their weddings at this beautiful venue, so it holds a special place in my heart.
Whilst I have been building my business over the last couple of years I have worked with and got to see many different venues across the county but this was one venue that I couldn't wait to work with. When Sydnee and Sam asked me to create their dream wedding cake for their January Wedding I was of course thrilled to be part of their special day. But seeing my cake in the grand setting of Chilston Park was the icing on the cake for me (pardon the pun).


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Home > Press Releases > 2006
Johns Hopkins Medicine
Media Relations and Public Affairs
Media Contact: Gary Stephenson
410-955-5384; email@example.com
May 8, 2006
Federal Grant to Johns Hopkins Continues Development of "Disaster" Clergy
Disaster preparedness rightly focuses on the need to train police, fire firefighters and health care workers to handle major emergencies. But a grant to Johns Hopkins from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene funded by the federal Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) concentrates attention on a an often neglected group of professionals - clergy and spiritual workers - who are asked to provide "disaster ministry" to congregations during disasters.
Last year, Hopkins won a $94,714 HRSA grant to develop a disaster preparedness curriculum in English and Spanish and a pilot program to train several hundred, mostly Christian, Baltimore-area religious leaders to respond to the mental health and spiritual needs of people in the aftermath of disasters. A second, Phase II grant for $240,000 provides funding to develop training programs so that communities can home-grow disaster specialists.
Under the new grant, a self-perpetuating disaster preparedness program for Christian, Muslim, and Jewish clergy will be developed. In addition to training in psychological "first aid" and bereavement counseling, experts will also provide guidance to the local clergy in disaster planning for their congregations and communities.
"This new grant lets us strengthen our communities and equip our neighbors to deal with disasters without the need to call upon other external experts or organizations," says Lee McCabe, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and director of the grant.
Community partners in the program include CURE (Clergy United for Renewal in East Baltimore), the Institute for Mental Health Ministry Inc., the Archdiocese of Baltimore-Office of Hispanic Ministry, the Center for Jewish Education, Masjid El-Haqq, and the University of Maryland Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.


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We love collecting books filled with Nursery Rhymes, reading them together, and creating simple activities. This week we'll be sharing a few activities that go along with a few of our favorites! Below you'll find links to a few of our favorite Nursery Rhyme readers and treasuries in case you are looking for some books for your home!
This post contains Amazon Affiliate links for your convenience.
Nursery Rhymes: with a Sing-Along Music CD by Roger Priddy
Nursery Rhyme Boxed Set (such great mini books)
Wee Sing Nursery Rhymes and Lullabies on CD (this was my favorite growing up!)
Hickory Dickory Dock By: James Marshall
Here Comes Mother Goose by Iona Opie
Hickory Dickory Dock by Keith Marshall


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Maureen Mullarkey, "Where Did Pope Francis's Extravagant Rant Come From?" (The Federalist, June 24, 2015). What, First Things wouldn't publish this? Heads will explode, if not roll:
Subversion of Christianity by the spirit of the age has been a hazard down the centuries. The significance of "Laudato Si" lies beyond its stated concern for the climate. Discount obfuscating religious language. The encyclical lays ground to legitimize global government and makes the church an instrument of propaganda—a herald for the upcoming United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference in Paris.[Hat tip to M.G.]
... Take no comfort from "Laudato Si's" restatements of the Catholic Church's traditional positions on the sanctity of life, the primacy of the family, and rejection of abortion. In this context, orthodoxy and pious expression serve a rancid purpose. They are a Trojan horse, a vehicle for insinuating surrender to pseudo-science and the eco-fascism that requires it.
... Replete with cooing reference to Francis of Assisi, "Laudato Si" ignores the single aspect of Assisi's "Il Poverello" most relevant to our time. It is not the fey proto-hippie of high-fructose legend that speaks best to us now. It is the would-be martyr who sailed to Egypt alongside Crusaders to preach the gospel to a Muslim sultan.
Resurgent Islam and the spread of Sharia are the church's enemies, not oil, coal, and gas. None are poorer than those who live, despised, in the path of ISIS. Where, then, is the encyclical calling for the conversion of Islam away from its murderous climate of hatred? Instead, the Vicar of Christ calls all the world—intending primarily the West—to "ecological conversion."
Intellectual and moral confusion of such magnitude is a judgment on the ecclesial culture that produced it and the popular culture that consents to it.


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THE BRONX — Gissette Rodriguez, 26, has had a very tough year.
She escaped from an abusive relationship.
She is now homeless with her two small children, ages four and one years old.
And she has Multiple sclerosis.
She says she is on the third floor of her homeless shelter and desperately needs a medical transfer.
"Sometimes I don't want to get out of bed. But I have to for my children. I'm afraid I will fall one day," said Rodriguez.
Every day she struggles up the stairs with her stroller and two children, and a limp.
"I need help," said Rodriguez.
PIX11 News reached out to the department of homeless services and they sprung into action and are working on getting her that transfer and urge all of their clients to file paperwork for a medical transfer if needed.
PIX11 also reached out to the national multiple sclerosis society. They are also trying to help her with services.
If you need services, visit http://www.nationalmssociety.org.
If you have a story email Monica Morales at firstname.lastname@example.com


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The ohiocrimelawyer.com website is designed for general information only. Any information on this site is not to be construed as formal legal advice from a criminal defense lawyer, a DUIlawyer, a family law lawyer or wills, probate, trusts and estate planning lawyer, nor formation of a lawyer/client relationship. Persons accessing this site are encouraged to seek personal advice regarding their individual legal issues.
The attorneys in our law firm primarily service Portage County courts (Ravenna and Kent), and Summit County courts (Akron, Stow, Barberton). Cases in all other courts in North East Ohio, including Cuyahoga County courts (Cleveland, Garfield Heights, Bedford, Parma, Rocky River etc…) are handled under specific terms and conditions.


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After the decision has been made that you want to keep a saltwater aquarium of your own then the researching phase begins.
Part of this research is to ascertain what size aquarium you actually want to have.
There are a lot of factors to be taken into consideration when choosing the size of the aquarium – one of these is the space available to you.
There are a lot of places (and people) who state that you must choose the biggest aquarium which you can afford and fit in. This is true to a degree as the larger the aquarium the easier it is to maintain excellent water quality and the more room for expansion (and corals) you have in the future.
There is a point which I in my opinion I believe is forgotten when choosing the aquarium size and that is that it is not the size of the display aquarium which is important – it is the volume of water in the entire system.
A lot of people nowadays are starting to understand the importance of this and are actively implementing sumps as well as other containers into the aquarium system purely to increase the physical amount of water.
Lets have a look at the two aquariums – large and small.
The Large Aquarium
The large aquarium when on display can be a fantastic centre piece, attract a huge amount of attention and be your pride and joy. It allows for expansion over time as your family of corals and fish grwo. You will be able to keep more and believe me they fill up rather rapidly.
They need a lot more of everything. They require more lighting, cleaning, maintenance, water circulation, live rock etc – practically more of everything and with this there is a cost associated.
The Small Aquarium
The small aquarium is perfect to fit into practically anywhere in the home. It can become home to a number of corals, fish and inverts and before long it will be at capacity
There is another however coming…..
You can watch the corals and fish more closely, you will be more selctive over the corals you choose and will get the satisfaction over watching the grow. You will require less equipment therefore the running costs will be a lot lower.
My aquarium is not large by any means, however on the same hand it is not small. It is about average. It is 44″ long, 32″ tall and 24″ deep. Tied to this is two sumps to increase the water capacity.
The aquarium previous to this was 72″ long, 24″ hign and 24″ deep again with a sump installed.
The previous one and probably the one which I got the most enjoyment over was a 24″ high, 24″ long and 24″ deep aquarium. A 2 foot cube. There was no sump under the aquarium, however there was a lot behind the scenes. This aquarium was nect to the garage wall so I drilled through into the aquarium and set up a bank of aquariums and containers provising various aspects – housing equipment, additional filtration and adding extra water volume.
I have both enjoyed and had success in all of these aquariums, however I believe that I gained the most from the smaller aquarium. The aquarium fitted into the house better and the water quality I had was simply amazing. Corals grew like wild fire and had to be regularly trimmed. I only had a few fish in the display aquarium – not due to filtration but due to physical swimming space and I was very selective over what I purchased as I know I could only have a few.
I got huge satisfaction over this aquarium. I knew the corals individually as I had less of them.
And then I moved house and had an idea.
Let's get a bigger aquarium.
The old aquarium was left going whilst the new one was researched and built. When it was ready everything was transferred and the old one shut down. Again the new aquarium was very successful and due to the extra size I was able to keep more corals and fish. Over time I had a large amount of corals and in my opinion the aquarium looked amazing yet looking back now I believe that I had to many corals and I was not able to enjoy them all as there was to much to see.
I then was asked to look after an aquarium for my brother in law and over time it became apparant that it was to be a permanent fixture. I thought long and hard and eventually decided to close the larger one down and concentrate on bringing the new aquarium back to life. It had been neglected for a while unfortunately.
It is a good size (not to large and not to small). I have a small amount of corals in there and not to many fish. Under the aquarium is a good sized sump which increases the water volume. To date this aquarium is doing quite well and is recovering nicely over time. In a short while I expect to have this aquarium back to looking its best and all the corals to be healthy, growing and vibrant.
I suppose that the moral to this post is that you should not necessarily go out and find the largest aquarium you can find. Find the size you are comfortable with (both your heart, head and your bank balance) and then look for possible ways in which the aquarium water volume can be increased.
Doing so will allow you to be able to maintain the water quality better (It does not mean that you should not perform the required care and maintenance though). It will also allow you to have an aquarium which although has fewer corals and fish in it you can enjoy them potentially more as there are less of them, you can watch each one individually grow, you can learn about them and you can get huge satisfaction from it.
Of course you can get the same from a large aquarium, however as said there is more for you to look after.


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"Fais de ta vie un rêve, et d'un rêve une réalité."
Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Make your life become a dream, and your dream a reality.
"Si un peu de rêve est dangereux, ce qui en guérit, ce n'est pas moins de rêve, mais plus de rêve, tout le rêve."
Marcel Proust
If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.
"Man will never stop dreaming. Dreams nourish the soul like food nourishes the body"
Paulo Coelho
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Mark Twain
"I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
Henry David Thoreau
I've been fascinated lately by dreams. They are the product of our imagination, our soul, but are often seen as useless distractions from reality. Yet, dreams have often been channelled into wonderful achievements, and have inspired some of our greatest minds.
Having the courage to follow one's dreams is the first step in making them a reality. It takes incredible faith in ourselves, as well as passion, patience and perseverance but the exhilaration and sense of well-being is worth it even if the journey is sometimes long and arduous. I'm all for making dreams come true.
To share ideas and events about writing, photography, art and music
Friday, June 26, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Self-promotion is often a daunting task for us, artists, as we'd rather be creating. It's a perpetual challenge to flaunt our work, and keep our ego up there as we constantly search for truth within ourselves. But promoting our work is a necessary cog in the wheel of survival, especially in our wired world.
So, here's my website, another dot in the sea of dots that populate cyberspace. Please, click here to view it.
Thanks for your help Mondo, you wild artist/photographer and website guru. Thanks for being such a patient friend.
So, here's my website, another dot in the sea of dots that populate cyberspace. Please, click here to view it.
Thanks for your help Mondo, you wild artist/photographer and website guru. Thanks for being such a patient friend.
Posted by Peggy Lampotang at 9:00 am 2 comments: Links to this post
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Christmas at Calvary
Everyone is invited to the Christmas events this weekend. On Christmas Eve we will have a candlelight service with carols, and readings from the Christmas story. Join us at 7:00 PM for this quiet and special start to the holiday weekend.
On Christmas morning we will host a worship gathering at 10:45 AM (there is no Sunday School this week). It will be a wonderful opportunity to include the true meaning and story of Jesus in your celebration of Christmas. We hope to see you here.


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Should I get a car now and drive to work? Or get a condo instead and live near my area of work?
Late this year, I've been thinking about finally getting a car by next year. The past 6 years of commuting and queueing to work is slowly taking its toll on me. Gets me tired, haggard, sweaty at times and late despite of leaving home very early. I live northeast of NCR, in the province of Rizal, and I work in Makati CBD. Travel time usually takes 2 to 2.5 hours. Was asking my self why not get a car by next year, with some extra cash flow I will have. With a car I can drive to work and avoid the increasing challenges of commuting.
Comfort vs Cost
A car will help me own my time more. I can go to places more easily and without restrictions of public transport. Presumably it will also make my way to work easier in spite of rush hour traffic. I also fear that our MRT sytem will get far worse in the years to come before it gets any better. Less toxic, more comfort but for a higher cost of living. Was in fact asking around already the usual fuel costs my colleagues up north incur when they bring a car to work. Add to that the daily parking fee, insurance, vehicle add-ons, registrations, tests, tune-up, cleaning, accessories, license renewals, etc. Plus the temptation to go to vacations and road trips more often because of increased accessibility. And of course the monthly car loan amortization for the next 3-5years.
My rough estimate for fuel, amortization and parking alone is Php14k a month. I have a sunk cost of Php5k a month which is my fare allowance, so with a car that amount will be used instead for fuel etc. My incremental cost is then Php9k a month. I also plan to create a carpool in my subdivision to at least partially offset my daily costs.
Charm of Condo
Then encountered pre-sell condominiums for sale for as low as Php10k monthly for the next 3-4 years (down payment portion). Saw a pre-sell one near my place of work. Living a alone in a condo away from my family was never a plan for me. Until now. Considered this option which will also cost me around Php14k a month (downpayment payable for 3 years). So the question now is car or condo? With the condo, my monthly amortization will reach Php20k once the unit is turned over in 3years time (home loan for the balance), plus other costs such as association dues, utilities, unit furnishings, food, laundry, groceries and other incremental costs of living alone.
Advantage though is that I'm purchasing an investment (whereas the car will only depreciate over time) and this will also make my way to work a lot easier (though not as soon as having a car). Value appreciation vs vehicle depreciation. Risks are also much higher though. A condo is definitely a bigger ticket investment than a car. It will also be a longer cash flow commitment via home loan. Other options will be to lease the unit or sell it once price goes up. Though right now I'm more inclined to live in it.
Getting a condo over a car requires lots of guts and risk appetite. But for me, I'd rather spend on an investment with some comfort down the road, rather than spend for comfort now with only a depreciated car left after 5 years. Delay of gratification. Until next time car, for now I'll go for condo first.
If you were in my situation, what would you do?


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OEE doesn't download file with address php?q=
- User Forums
- Offline Explorer Enterprise Edition
- OEE doesn't download file with address php?q=
|Pier Lazux
|09/26/2016 05:49 am
I notice that OEE doesn't download webpage with address *.php?q=* but it download webpage with adress *.php@q=*.
Is this a bug? And how to I make OEE to download *.php?q=* webpage?
|Pier Lazux
|09/26/2016 05:51 am
|Please ignore the other thread that I have created. That thread is an mistake on the question that I want to ask.
|Oleg Chernavin
|09/26/2016 08:48 am
|Actually, it downloads web pages with .php?q=.... However Windows doesn't allow filenames to contain ? symbol and Offline Explorer has to change it to @ symbol.
However if you update the downloaded web site, Offline Explorer would correctly request webpages with ? symbol, not with @.
Best regards,
Oleg Chernavin
MP Staff
|Pier Lazux
|09/26/2016 09:46 am
|How can I update the website?
|Oleg Chernavin
|09/26/2016 04:35 pm
|Simply select the Project and click the Download button. By default, it tries to get only new and updated files.
This depends on the Project Properties - File Modifications Check section.


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Southrop is a village in southern Gloucestershire; its church, St Peter's is just off the main road through the village, at GL7 3NX.
We meet for worship every week – usually Holy Communion at 9.30am on first & third Sundays and Evening Prayer at 6.00pm on second & fourth Sundays.
Southrop's Vicar is Rev'd Dr Andrew Cinnamond, and the Churchwardens are Margaret Davey & Gavin MacEchern; the PCC Secretary is Diana Guest. The Southrop PCC Privacy Notice is available to read here.
Upcoming Services at Southrop:
Sunday 3rd Holy Communion 9:30am
Sunday 10th Remembrance Sunday 10:45am
Sunday 17th Holy Communion 9:30am
Sunday 24th Evening Prayer 6pm


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No. Your agreement with ReverbNation allows for your music to be licensed to any client who is willing to pay for its use. The agreement you sign with ReverbNation pre-clears all of your music for potential licensing. Pre-clearance is a strong and important selling point for production clients.
Will I get to approve the specific uses of my songs?
Have more questions? Submit a request


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Blue Cheese Spinach Frittata
Total TimePrep: 30 min. Bake: 30 min.
Makes6 servings
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 package (10 ounces) fresh spinach, coarsely chopped
- 2 cups egg substitute
- 1-1/2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
- 1 cup crumbled blue cheese
- 2 plum tomatoes, diced
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
- 2 cups coarsely chopped fresh spinach
- 2 plum tomatoes, diced
- 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
- In a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray, cook onion over medium heat for 3 minutes or until tender. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Remove from the skillet. Add spinach to skillet in batches, cooking for 1 minute or until wilted. Remove from the heat.
- In a large bowl, beat the egg substitute until frothy. Stir in the onion mixture, spinach, mozzarella, blue cheese, tomatoes and nuts. Place in a 10-in. ovenproof skillet coated with cooking spray.
- Bake, uncovered, at 400° for 30-35 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Combine the salad ingredients; serve with frittata.
Nutrition Facts1 piece: 244 calories, 14g fat (7g saturated fat), 33mg cholesterol, 689mg sodium, 9g carbohydrate (0 sugars, 3g fiber), 22g protein. Diabetic Exchanges: 3 lean meat, 1 vegetable, 1 fat.
Every product is independently selected by our editors. If you buy something through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
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Apr 27, 2017
While I do love blue cheese, I have to agree that the blue cheese gave this frittata a slightly off taste, almost as if one of my ingredients had gone bad. I didn't have walnuts, so I used chopped pecans, which I sprinkled on top. I also used only about 6 ounces of spinach and it still seemed pretty full of spinach. Instead of egg substitute I used regular eggs (2C eggs substitute = 8 large eggs). Seemed to work out fine. I refuse to spray my non-stick skillet with cooking spray (that will ruin your pan!), so I just used a small amount of olive oil. I had to add another small dollop after a couple of batches of spinach. Despite the slightly off taste of the blue cheese, we still very much enjoyed this recipe, and I'd easily make this again with a different cheese (maybe feta!).
Oct 23, 2016
Not our favorite frittata at all. While the texture cooked very nicely, the blue cheese added a sourness that we didn't care for, and some did not like the crunchiness of the nuts. Won't make again.
Aug 14, 2012
Delicious! I've made this several times. It's good for any meal or occasion, and it's very easy to make.
Jan 1, 2012
This is a wonderful dish. I made it using eggs rather than egg substitute. It is great for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I also made it for a couple in my church. The husband had had surgery and we were providing meals for them.. They are big fans of blue cheese and really loved this dish. They ate the left overs for breakfast the next morning with fruit.
Sep 1, 2011
excellent! I have made this multiple times. So good! Just be prepared that it takes a good long while to bake in the oven, mine is in for as long as an hour to get it totally browned and solid in the middle.
Aug 24, 2008
Hubby and I thought the blue cheese flavor was a little too intense, so the next time, I used gorgonzola instead and we liked it much better.


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As a start-up run by women for women, we love meeting other female founders! We also love eating out. Who doesn't?!
We've combined both, by joining forces with Dell EMC to create a supper club for female founders. The supper club will bring female entrepreneurs together on a regular basis to share insights, ideas and experiences. You can book tickets for the first event here.
Team members from Dell EMC will also share advice on how to build for growth and scale from day one. How to navigate international markets, embrace digital transformation and access finance. Clearly, they know how to scale too. When Dell acquired EMC for $67 billion in 2015, it was the largest tech deal in history.
The company also runs the Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network (DWEN). DWEN is an annual gathering of female entrepreneurs established to address some of the challenges faced by women when starting and growing their businesses. The 8th annual DWEN Summit will be held in San Francisco in July. It will bring together entrepreneurs for two days of collaboration, thought leadership and networking.
While it is not possible for everyone to go to San Francisco for the DWEN summit. We aim to have our own summit style discussions over supper!
GirlCrew is a platform for women to make friends and the Supper Club will perfectly complement what we do.
The first will take place on June 21st in Dublin, and you get tickets for this great event here.


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Welcome to the technical Blog of Deepak Sharma. I mostly write over my Oracle Enterprise Manager related blog , sometimes answer questions at OTN Community Enterprise Manager Questions . I also post webinars at North India Chapter(YT Channel). I am part of Board-of-Directors [Director-Social Media] of All India Oracle Users Group and also core-team member of it's North India Chapter.
About AIOUG North India Chapter
"AIOUG-North India Chapter" is the very first and oldest running regional chapter of AIOUG. Since the very inception, despite all the odds, North India chapter team has been consistently pulling up the tradition of it's monthly tech-meets and more recently added, free webinars.
As the name reflects, North India chapter is the only chapter that has been organizing the events in the entire North India region, covering 6 states. At the moment of this writing, North India chapter has concluded the events at states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh–to name a few. It's been more than 4 years now NI Chapter has delivered total of 45 tech meets and around 100+ sessions of different topics.
Being the host of several celebrity sessions and technical conference such as OTNyathra, North India chapter is consistently working over to serve the Oracle Community in order to provide a platform for knowledge sharing and building a very strong tech-community of Oracle technology related professionals.
NI Chapter events are conducted on the last Saturday of every month. Please follow the social media pages to check for our latest events .
* Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AIOUG.NIC
* Google+: https://plus.google.com/+AIOUGNorthIndiaChapter
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/nichapter_aioug
* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/aiougnic
* WordPress: https://aiougnic.wordpress.com
Do check our social media links and hope to hear from you soon.
Deepak Sharma.


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HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — In a town-hall-style debate that was supposed to focus on questions from ordinary voters,President Obama and Mitt Romney circled each other on the stage and engaged in finger-pointing displays, arguing over energy, immigration and the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
Obama ducked a question from audience member Kerry Ladka about who in the administration had denied a request for extra diplomatic security in Libya, and why. But Obama seized an opening when Romney challenged the president's statement that he had described the incident as an act of "terror" on the day after the attack.
"Is that what you're saying?" Romney said. "I want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror."
Obama responded sharply, advising Romney to "get the transcript," as moderator Candy Crowley of CNN confirmed the accuracy of what Obama had said.
"He did in fact, sir," she told Romney, prompting Obama to respond, "Can you say that a little louder, Candy?"
According to a White House transcript of the Sept. 12 Rose Garden ceremony, Obama said, "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation," though he did not specifically declare that the Libya attack had been an act of terrorism.
Obama entered the night under pressure to rescue his candidacy with a more assertive debate performance. In contrast to his distracted mien in the first debate, the president watched his rival intently, sometimes leaning toward him as he listened from his perch on a stool. Romney, who returned time and again to the struggles of the American people, addressed the president directly, demanding answers in a prosecutorial manner.
An exchange over energy policy turned into a rapid back-and-forth over Romney's claim that oil and gas production on public lands was down under Obama. The two men spoke over each other as they faced off onstage.
"You'll get your chance in a moment. I'm still speaking," Romney said, and Obama turned his back to him and walked away.
The second presidential debate of the general election campaign, scheduled to end after 90 minutes, lasted nearly an additional 10. It was during the final moments that Obama zeroed in on Romney's remark about the 47% of Americans who paid no federal income tax last year and therefore, Romney had said, relied on government to fulfill their needs, a group that includes millions of seniors on Social Security and veterans.
"I want to fight for them. That's what I've been doing for the last four years, because if they succeed, I believe the country succeeds," said Obama, who had the last word. Romney could not respond, though he had said moments earlier, "I care about 100% of the American people."
From the outset, Obama was in an attacking mode. It was a signal that he had intended to engage his rival and defend himself far more aggressively than he did in the first debate, which recast the 2012 race after Romney was declared the winner. Polls taken since that event have shown Romney gaining and the contest statistically tied, three weeks before election day.
Century Fox Reports: Both promise a lot of Jobs in the Debate.
Though Obama's decision to engage his rival probably denied Romney a second consecutive debate win, the Republican stood his ground. He was at his best when he described the contours of a still struggling economy.
"We just can't afford four more years like the last four years," he said in response to audience member Michael Jones, who said he supported Obama in 2008 but that he was no longer as optimistic. "The president has tried, but his policies haven't worked. He's great as a speaker and describing his plans and his vision. That's wonderful, except we have a record to look at."
He challenged Obama over the high price of gasoline, the president's failure to advance immigration reform in his first year in office and his inability to reduce the government's budget deficit or see the jobless rate come down more sharply.
Century Fox Exclusive: American Poverty is highest since 1960.
But Romney also appeared to contradict himself when he stated that all women should have access to contraception, though he supported an amendment in Congress that would allow employers to deny birth-control coverage to their workers. He refused to acknowledge that he had changed his position on restricting assault weapons and skirted a question about the hard-line stance he took during the GOP primaries on immigration, an issue the candidates debated for the first time Tuesday night.
Obama's wide-ranging assault — on everything from Romney's personal tax rate, his comments about "the 47%" and his work as a venture capitalist, to his policies on taxation, immigration, contraception and healthcare — were studded with specific details designed to portray the Republican challenger as an avatar of the wealthy.
"Gov. Romney doesn't have a five-point plan; he has a one-point plan. And that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules," Obama said.
He also linked Romney to the unpopular Republican Congress, something he had failed to do earlier. And the president pivoted repeatedly from his critique of Romney to signal that, unlike his GOP rival, he intended to look out for the middle class.
"When Gov. Romney stands here, after a year of campaigning, when during a Republican primary he stood on stage and said, 'I'm going to give you tax cuts' — he didn't say rate cuts, he said 'tax cuts to everybody,' including the top 1% — you should believe him, because that's been his history," Obama said. "And that's exactly the kind of top-down economics that is not going to work if we want a strong middle class and an economy that is striving for everybody."
But when Obama returned to an earlier theme of his campaign attack ads, outlining what he described as Romney's efforts to profit from investments in companies that export U.S. jobs to China and other countries, Romney challenged Obama's own investments.
"Mr. President, have you looked at your pension?" Romney asked three times.
Obama replied that he hadn't because it wasn't as large as Romney's, prompting the GOP nominee to respond: "You also have investments in Chinese companies. You also have investments outside the United States. You also have investments through a Cayman's trust, all right?" Obama did not respond before Crowley turned the discussion back to immigration.
The debate, held at Hofstra University on New York's Long Island, was politics in the round. The candidates shared an intimate, red-carpeted stage in the school's sports arena with 82 local voters seated on semicircular risers. Crowley, the moderator, chose the questions, in advance, from written submissions by the voters, who were selected by the Gallup polling organization from surrounding Nassau County, a close suburb of New York City.At times, Romney revived a tendency, which surfaced during the GOP primary debates, of complaining about the debate rules not being enforced. The moderator had to wrestle both men, but especially Romney, for control.
Televised debates have been unusually important throughout the 2012 contest. During the Republican nomination battle, strong debate performances propelled a changing cast of GOP candidates into the lead. Others fell from contention after stumbling in multi-candidate forums. Romney's commanding performance in his first meeting with Obama two weeks ago reenergized his flagging campaign, and he has continued to make progress in head-to-head polling matchups against the president.
In a landmark for the fall campaign, Romney reached 50% Tuesday for the first time in Gallup's national preference poll of likely voters. Obama was at 46%.
The two men will meet in a final debate next Monday in Florida, which has more electoral votes than any other swing state.
EXPLORE: World News Romney Obama Curing U.S Economy Obama Vs Romney Pelosi Romney's Secret Video Sarah Palin Madonna
Edited By Cen Fox Post Team


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Welcome to Home Runs, Apple Pie, and Rock 'n Roll.
I am a writer on SB Nation's Shakin' the Southland, where I write about Clemson athletics. This is my personal site which will be focused on:
Home Runs (Sports)
Apple Pie (American Politics)
Rock 'n Roll (…guess)
I may also work in the occasional career-related (marketing research) posts so expect some eclecticism.
About Me
I'm a Clemson fan, alumnus, donor, and football season ticket holder. I fell in love with the Tigers in the 8th grade when I visited for the first time and my neighbor bought my a souvenir basketball that I played with in my yard nearly everyday.
I'm also a die-hard Yankees fan and have been since 1996, when my mother bet me $0.50 that they'd beat our hometown Braves. Upon winning the bet, she offer that rather than pay her the $0.50, I become a Yankees fan. Four World Series Championships later, I'd say that's great parenting.
I graduated from Clemson in 2011. While there I spent some time writing for a school newspaper about sports and politics– discussing mostly Clemson sports and current political events around the country. I graduated from the Master of Marketing Research program at UGA in Athens and now live and work in the Atlanta, GA.
The Beginnings of The Blog
This blog was originally started by two Clemson University seniors, Ryan Kantor and Tommy Dianora, looking for an outlet for writing and their passions. Tommy has since started his own movie blog a topic he's become increasingly passionate about. He's also become a writer for The Artifice.
I now operate this blog under the domain of RyanKantor.com and the updated title, "Home Runs, Apple Pie and Rock 'n Roll," mostly writing about sports, politics, music, marketing research, and on rare occasion something totally random. Starting in Fall of 2013, I began contributing as an author on SB Nation's Clemson site, Shakin' the Southland. I'll occasionally share a post from that site on here, otherwise it will have original content.
If you enjoy reading my blog, please subscribe to receive new posts to your inbox. Just click the "Follow" button on the top right sidebar to subscribe. You may have to enter your email address as well. Please leave comments and keep the conversation going.


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The Zen of Scooters
I rode my first scooter about a month ago and within a week I had bought my own. I had never ridden a motorcycle (except as a passenger, netting me a nasty burn on my leg) and had dreams of being butch. Pipe dreams, of course.
But the scooter! There was the ride for me. I found it fascinating how "in-the-body" I had to be while scootering. It was so zen. I went to Columbia Scooters in PDX, picked out a little hot pink and silver number, the Kymco Sting 50, and was off and riding.
So I'm scootering around the 'burg, learning new things about myself as I go. Today, riding to my writer's group, I realized that I was tensing my arms and locking my elbows. No wonder I was going wide on the S-curves. Can't turn the handlebars if your arms won't bend. I relaxed my arms, which relaxed my body, and we sailed gracefully through curves I have previously overflown, ending up in the oncoming lane. Thank God/dess we live in the back of beyond and I don't have much traffic to contend with! Now I take the curves effortlessly, leaning into them as I should. (It seems so odd to me that I naturally lean on a bicycle but am afraid to lean on the scooter.) Guess in part it's trusting your ride. I've been riding a bike for over 50 years, a scooter for about three weeks. And the weight difference between a 20+ lb bike and 200 lb scooter is also a bit scary.
I'm also getting the hang of putting the scooter on its stand. I challenge myself to do it in one try and most of the time today I was successful.
Apparently the rules of the scooter world require you to wave at fellow scooter riders. Which I do if I can spare the hand. But today, for the second time, a motorcyclist nodded at me. Not quite a wave, but an acknowledgment that we were sharing the same road. That made my day!
So todays lesson: relax and unbend. And if you can't wave, nod!


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| 3.5°C Belfast
The Republic's two main political parties are coming under intense pressure to forge an unprecedented alliance as confusion reigns over the possibility of a new government.
A seismic split in the general election vote has thrust bitter enemies Fine Gael and Fianna Fail into a bout of soul-searching as to whether they can come together to restore stability to the country.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny is to meet with his party leadership while Fianna Fail chief Micheal Martin will open talks this week with his own stalwarts about the way forward.
Fractures have already opened within both parties, Civil War-era adversaries who have swapped power for decades, about a widely-forecast "grand coalition".
Fine Gael looks set to be the largest party despite suffering humiliating losses after five years in power implementing austerity, taking a narrow lead over its arch-rivals.
Outgoing junior coalition partners Labour have taken a drubbing with a number of its ministers being ejected, although party leader Joan Burton and deputy leader Alan Kelly won fights to retain their seats.
Ms Burton said she did not see her party in the next government.
Sinn Fein is on course to further increase its vote south of the Irish border.
With a large section of the electorate backing smaller parties and independents, the make-up of a new government remains in doubt, if an administration can be formed at all.
Among the battered coalition's biggest casualties were Fine Gael's deputy leader and former Health Minister James Reilly, the party's former Justice Minister Alan Shatter and Labour's Communications Minister Alan White.
Such is the uncertainty, senior political figures have talked openly about a new political system, citing continental European-style consensual arrangements or even a power-sharing executive similar to Northern Ireland.
After retaining his seat, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams ruled out propping up one of the traditionally dominant parties in coalition.
He said he would not "betray our electorate and betray the other people who need a progressive government".
"We are not going to go in and prop up a regressive and negative old conservative government, whatever the particular party political complexion," he said. Sinn Fein's rejection of what would be a left-right coalition maintains the position his party adopted during the lacklustre election campaign.
Mr Kenny has ruled out resigning or rerunning the poll.
The outgoing premier said his party would remain a large bloc in the new Dail despite throwing away the largest majority it had ever secured.
"I'd like to think that it could be possible, given the final results, to be able to put a government together that could work through the many challenges we have," he said.
The clearest majority would come from Fine Gael and Fianna Fail setting aside their historical rivalries, borne out of the Civil War and cemented over the last 90 years.
But several key figures from both parties have already hinted a split within their own ranks if an alliance is formed.
Fine Gael strategist Frank Flannery maintains an historic coming together of the ancestral adversaries remains a "fairly major option".
"If it is to be rejected, it would have to be for very cogent, clear and precise reasons," Mr Flannery said.
Belfast Telegraph


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It's creeping crud season, and while I'm not quite sick, I'm definitely not feeling quite well either. I was browsing through Pinterest and spotted a spicy beef noodle soup recipe. I was about to save it when I realized I already had one! So I made that instead.
The beauty of this is that it's really easy, and quick, as well as being spicy (good for fighting germs), hot (the steam is good for fighting congestion) and comforting on a cold day. I sort of got this recipe from my online friend Terry. She had posted a "recipe" (no amounts or detailed directions, just the ingredients) for a spicy beef noodle soup that sounded awfully good.
She used red pepper which I didn't have, as well as a specialty Korean chili sauce (which I also didn't have). However, cooking is part following what someone else is done, part inspiration, and part improvisation, so I went with improvisation.
I did have cabbage, and I also had leftover steak, sriracha, and chili garlic sauce. I figured those would work just fine for my beef noodle soup.
If you don't have turkey stock, you could use beef or even chicken if you prefer (see improvisation!). If you want to make your own turkey stock, the recipe is here.
Either way, once you have the stock, the rest of the soup is really easy to make and only needs a few ingredients.
Start the noodles first, then while they're cooking, heat the stock in a separate pot and add the other ingredients. Or, you could throw everything (except the steak!) in one pot. If you do, the noodles will absorb a lot of the liquid, so you'll need more.
Since I had the leftover steak, I didn't even have to cook that. If you don't, cook that while the noodles are cooking, and then add it to the soup at the last minute.
Another thing about this spicy beef noodle soup is that with all that garlicky, spicy goodness it will kill any germs that may be plaguing you!
Spicy beef noodle soup for one.
- 2 ounces dried noodles (I used penne, you can use spirals or macaroni, or spaghetti)
- 2C turkey stock
- two small cabbage leaves, chiffonade
- 2 squirts sriracha
- 1/2 tsp chili garlic sauce
- sliced steak (leftover, about 4 oz)
- Start the water boiling for the noodles in a large saucepan, add salt to taste, then add the noodles, and cook until al dente (about 10 minutes)
- While the noodles are cooking, heat the turkey stock in a medium saucepan on a low flame
- Cut the cabbage in a chiffonade (that means pull of the leaves, stack them on top of each other, roll them into a cylinder and cut slices off, this should make long strips of cabbage)
- Add the cabbage to the stock, then the sriracha, and the garlic sauce.
- Once the noodles are cooked, drain them, and add them to the soup.
- Add the leftover steak (if you don't have leftover, start the steak while the noodles are cooking).
Spicy Beef Noodle Soup Substitutions and Variations
- Use roasted gochujang (which is what Terry used)
- Swap the steak for cooked turkey (especially if you still have turkey to use up), add that at the end, just for a minute to heat up
- Add sliced red peppers
- Put in some mushrooms; crimini or other stronger flavored varieties would work best
Tools and Ingredients for Spicy Beef Garlic Soup
I love this stuff. It's got a stronger kick, and less sugar, than the sriracha, plus the extra heat (and spiciness) from garlic. It's great in meatloaf, on eggs, in soup, or in a sauce. Think garlicky salsa.
Huy Fong Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce
If you prefer a hint of sweetness, you might like this instead of the chili garlic sauce (or use them both). Squeeze it over eggs, into soup, on enchiladas, or burritos. It's also good for stir-fry. Think of it as ketchup with a kick.
Get More Small Batch Soup Recipes
Quick and Easy Spicy Leftover Turkey Soup
Chinese Chicken Noodle Cabbage Soup for One Person


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The online gambling industry is co-formed by online poker and online casino. When the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed in 2006 both parts of the indutry were opposing the ban un unison. Representatives from both, online poker sites and casino operators, spoke out in one voice. This was because the issue at stake concerned both of them, the right to gamble online from the comfort of your home.
The Interactive Gaming Council (IGC) and the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) filed cases against the UIGEA arguing that everyone should be free to gamble from the privacy of their homes and expected to overturn the UIGEA. However, it did not take long for the industry to realize that this issue had more depth to it and that it was not an open and shut case in their favor. As its next move, the online gambling industry started offering a deal with regulation and taxation of both online poker and online casino.
It was only when the online poker sites realized that they had a different card to play in this argument that the online gambling industry faced a rupture. Online poker sites began pushing an argument forward that did not apply to online casino sites. The PPA began to make big stress in the skill factor of poker. Poker is being promoted as a game of skill, the PPA does not argue that there is no element of luck, but they claim that skill plays a greater part in poker and that a good player will consistently succeed in the long run. They have also made some scientific studies that prove this and helps them in prosecutions against land based poker players.
This is an argument that online casinos cannot use because in games like roulette, slot machines and craps are completely dependent on luck. Even games like blackjack and video poker which have some skill into them are mostly based on luck. Also, the fact that players gamble against the casino and not other players which takes even more away from this argument for online casinos.
Come back to the blog tomorrow to read about how a rupture within the online gambling industry would affect online casinos with financial concerns and the UIGEA.


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The global organic chemical market was worth over USD 6 billion in 2014, and the market grew at an average of 8% per year from 2009 to 2014. Global organic chemicals market is expected to be driven by growing industrialization and rapid urbanization over the forecast period. This market has a plethora of applications such as food & beverages, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, agrochemicals, water treatment, crop protection, personal care products & cosmetics, fertilizers, automotive industry, gasoline additives, polymers, and chemicals. These industry products account for a major share of the overall global chemicals industry.
Such broad application scope spread across various industries promises robust growth prospect over the next six years. Rapid industrialization, especially in the emerging economies such as China, India, and Brazil, is expected to aid the global organic chemical market growth over the forecast period. Growing financial prosperity across the globe coupled with rising disposable income levels in the emerging economies promise positive growth prospects in future.
Stringent regulations and growing awareness regarding the harmful health & environmental effects related to organic chemical applications such as plastic manufacturing are anticipated to hinder growth and development. Release of hazardous chemicals during organic chemical production and the subsequent cost-intensive treatment processes is presumed to challenge market growth over the next six years. A weak economic scenario, particularly in the European region, is anticipated to negatively impact the regional as well as global market over the forecast period.
The organic chemical industry is technology-driven, which results in R&D spending playing a critical role along the value chain. These R&D investments regarding innovative applications and reduction in production costs promise ample opportunities for the industry participants. Massive government initiatives to encourage the manufacturing industry in the emerging economies are projected to provide ample opportunities for the organic market development.
A few important organic chemical products include ethyl alcohol, gum & wood chemicals, cyclic crudes & intermediates, fatty acids, synthetic organic alcohols, synthetic flavors, perfume materials, and bulk pesticides. Other than these products, the industry participants also manufacture a range of additional products that have applications across various industries.
Applications for organic chemical market are spread across various industries. Such wide acceptance makes these products extremely valuable for manufacturing and industrial purposes, as they are used as raw materials for manufacturing the final downstream products. Government initiatives, particularly in the emerging regions such as Asia Pacific, Central & South America, and Middle East & Africa, to encourage manufacturing operations with an aim to aid GDP growth are presumed to complement market growth and development.
North America dominated the global organic chemicals industry over the last few years due to large-scale consumption across the end-use industries. Asia Pacific and Central & South America are projected to witness rapid rise in organic chemicals demand owing to rapid industrialization and urbanization fuelled by favorable government initiatives. Burgeoning population in Asia Pacific is expected to aid the end-use industries and in turn develop the regional as well as global market. Government infrastructure and manufacturing initiatives in countries such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, and China are touted to play a critical role in developing their respective regional organic chemicals market.
The industry is fragmented with major companies focusing on a particular area of expertise. This market is vast and covers extensive applications across multiple industries. Innovations and research related to novel applications play a critical role in providing industry participants with a definite competitive edge. A positive economic outlook in future coupled with growing demand is expected to provide ample opportunities for the existing participants as well as for new industry entrants.
Companies are taking ardent steps such as forging partnerships and investing in R&D activities to increase their production capacity and enhance their product portfolio. These steps are being taken with an aim to gain organic chemical market share and fulfill growing demand, especially in the emerging regions such as Asia Pacific and Central & South America.
Major global organic chemical industry participants include TCI America, PPG Industries, BASF SE, AkzoNobel, Dow Chemicals, Reliance Industries, Mangalore Petrochemicals, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
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Thursday, September 28, 2006
I've decided to reformat my Blog into a slightly wider format. The old layout was all very pretty, but the narrow window didn't allow for pictures and text very well. This layouts also much better for code to be displayed - hope you like it and it doesn't get you blue.
Posted by Mike at 11:18 am
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Responding to Kenneth L. Woodward's Getting Religion: Faith, Culture, and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama (New York: Convergent, 2016)
Few people have had the opportunity that has come to Kenneth L. Woodward who devoted most of his career to writing about American religion. His base was one of the most favored journalistic posts of the half century during which he worked: religion editor for Newsweek. This position provided financial support and entrée so that he could go places, watch from the inside, and talk extensively with people who were central to what was going on.
He wrote extensively and frequently in disciplined and lively, readable language. In later years, institutional archives have made this backlog of material available for him to draw upon when needed. Among the strengths of Woodward's reporting is that he writes as a Christian believer and as a self-aware old man, conditions he affirms in the final paragraph of the book.
"One of the blessings of old age is the clarity with which diminishing energy of mind and body allows us to see what has been our human lot all along—namely, contingency, transience, and finitude. We cannot control what may happen to us. Nothing lasts forever. We must die. These hold true for believer and nonbeliever alike. They are the existential facts of life that all religions in different ways address. In reply, Christians like myself are called to abide in Faith, Hope, and Love. What matters is that God's grace is everywhere" (413).
Everyone interested in the life of our nation during this half century can benefit from this book of "lived history" that Woodward has written. It is clear, articulate, vivid, and filled with insight concerning the central topic, which is the interaction of religion, culture, and politics during this period.
As soon as I started reading the book, I liked it. Perhaps the most important reason is that we are close to the same age (I was born in 1931, Woodward in 1935). We grew up in an era when the United States was characterized by what he calls embedded religion, marked by a fusion of faith, culture, and politics. He grew up in a Catholic culture in Cleveland, Ohio, whereas I grew up in a low-church Protestant culture in Portland, Oregon. Although the details of church life and education differed dramatically, there was an undergirding system of values, especially as focused on family structure, transmitted by church and school, that was much the same.
The first half of the book held my attention as Woodward describes the traditional patterns and then reports on the rapid changes that occurred, especially during the fifties and sixties. He describes the entrepreneurial religion of people like Billy Graham, basing his accounts on frequent interaction with leaders of these religious responses to changes in American life.
He gives careful attention to major changes in his own church, pushed in part by the Vatican Council, and describes the dismantling of the embeddedness that had been so important in his growing up years. Changes in Catholic liturgy and debates over birth control are carefully chronicled, and Woodward's ambivalence about what was happening is clear. He quotes from his feature essay in a 1971 issue of Newsweek to describe why he and other Catholics of the time could remain steady in their faith.
"When the Catholic faith runs deep, it establishes a certain sensuous rhythm in the soul, a sacramental sensibility that suffuses ordinary things—bread, water, wine, the marriage bed—and transforms them into vehicles of grace. In these spiritual depths, doctrine and church laws fade in importance" (92).
At this point in his book, Woodward turns in a new direction. He describes the civil rights movement, as led by Martin Luther King, Jr., in which religious faith and zeal led to public engagement and the vigorous efforts to realize religious aspirations in public life by transforming a racist society. He emphasizes the restructuring of American religion, as described by writers like Richard John Neuhaus and Robert Wuthnow.
Woodward quotes from James Davison Hunter's book Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America in order to state the central feature of the change that was occurring. "The great polarity in American religion, he argued, was between 'orthodox' believers who appealed to an external, definable, and transcendent authority and 'progressives' who tended to resymbolize the contents of historic faith according to the presuppositions of contemporary life" (179). Read more: woodward


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Immunotherapeutic strategies leveraging the immune system's antitumor activity have become a mainstay of cancer treatment. Strategies including antibody-directed approaches, stem cell transplantation, immunomodulatory drugs, immune checkpoint inhibitors, CAR T cells, and vaccines have demonstrated particular success in controlling and even eradicating hematological cancers. This Review Series, developed by JCI's associate editor Leo Luznik, discusses ongoing progress in immunotherapeutic targeting of hematological cancers. Reviews will address the state-of-the-art in immunotherapies for acute myeloid leukemia, multiple myeloma, and lymphoma and highlight recent successes and challenges in clinical trials for these diseases; take a detailed look at recent developments in CAR T therapies for B cell malignancies; and describe how personalized antigen targeting can be applied to immunotherapeutic treatment of blood malignancies.
Multiple myeloma (MM), a bone marrow–resident hematological malignancy of plasma cells, has remained largely incurable despite dramatic improvements in patient outcomes in the era of myeloma-targeted and immunomodulatory agents. It has recently become clear that T cells from MM patients are able to recognize and eliminate myeloma, although this is subverted in the majority of patients who eventually succumb to progressive disease. T cell exhaustion and a suppressive bone marrow microenvironment have been implicated in disease progression, and once these are established, immunotherapy appears largely ineffective. Autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) is a standard of care in eligible patients and results in immune effects beyond cytoreduction, including lymphodepletion, T cell priming via immunogenic cell death, and inflammation; all occur within the context of a disrupted bone marrow microenvironment. Recent studies suggest that ASCT reestablishes immune equilibrium and thus represents a logical platform in which to intervene to prevent immune escape. New immunotherapies based on checkpoint inhibition targeting the immune receptor TIGIT and the deletion of suppressive myeloid populations appear attractive, particularly after ASCT. Finally, the immunologically favorable environment created after ASCT may also represent an opportunity for approaches utilizing bispecific antibodies or chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells.
Simone A. Minnie, Geoffrey R. Hill
Lymphoid malignancies typically promote an infiltrate of immune cells at sites involved by the disease. While some of the immune cells present in lymphoma have effector function, the immune system is unable to eradicate the malignant clone. Therapies that optimize immune function therefore have the potential to improve the outcome of lymphoma patients. In this Review, we discuss immunologic approaches that directly target the malignant cell as well as approaches to optimize both the innate and adaptive immune response to the tumor. While many of these therapies have shown single-agent activity, the future will clearly require thoughtful combinations of these approaches.
Stephen M. Ansell, Yi Lin
Hematological malignancies have long been at the forefront of the development of novel immune-based treatment strategies. The earliest successful efforts originated from the extensive body of work in the field of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. These efforts laid the foundation for the recent exciting era of cancer immunotherapy, which includes immune checkpoint blockade, personal neoantigen vaccines, and adoptive T cell transfer. At the heart of the specificity of these novel strategies is the recognition of target antigens presented by malignant cells to T cells. Here, we review the advances in systematic identification of minor histocompatibility antigens and neoantigens arising from personal somatic alterations or recurrent driver mutations. These exciting efforts pave the path for the implementation of personalized combinatorial cancer therapy.
Livius Penter, Catherine J. Wu


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Get ready for classic arcade video game action with a whole new modern look and feel in the Wreck-It Ralph video game. As a story extension to the Walt Disney Animation Studios film, Wreck-It Ralph is set to inspire a whole new generation of young gamers as a classic, arcade-style side-scroller featuring Ralph -- the misunderstood villain of his own arcade game who sets out to prove he can be a hero too.
The game picks up where the movie leaves off as Ralph partners with Fix-It Felix and sets out to save their friends and home from a huge Cy-Bug invasion. Pounding through all-new levels in the "Wreck-It Ralph" universe, like Sugar Rush, Hero's Duty, and Fix-It Felix, Jr., players will have to use Ralph's destructive strength to beat by the Cy-Bugs, while switching back to Felix to repair the damage. With story campaign and two-player co-op on the Wii platform, players can switch between Ralph and Felix to solve action-packed puzzles and collect "Hero Medals".
Release Region: United States
Release Date: October 30, 2012
Publisher: Activision
Also available on: Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo DS


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Therapeutic Retreat Includes Horses for Healing
Jul 25, 2014 05:14PM
Marilyn Kortendick
Equine (horse) facilitated experiential learning (EFEL) is a relatively new approach to personal therapy that puts people close to these supersensitive and generous animals. Marilyn Kortendick, founder of The Body/Mind/Soul Connection, in Barrington Hills, is a trained EFEL instructor and certified spiritual director who works with her own herd of three horses.
She completed an intensive instructor apprenticeship at Eponaquest, founded by Linda Kohanov, author of The Power of the Herd, more than 15 years ago. Sessions with Kortendick involve a one-on-one encounter with her and a horse for two or three hours in two- and three-week increments plus mail and phone consults; or one- and two-day retreats with other individuals. A two-day retreat for six to eight people is being held on August 22 and 23.
Kortendick states, "Horses are unique. They perceive more about everything, including people, than other animals because they are 'sentient' beings, meaning they are keenly in touch with their bodies and their environment, and can mirror our state of being. A horse can sense if what we are feeling internally is not the same as what we're expressing externally, which helps people to be more aware of whether they are being their authentic selves. This is why horses are used in this work, versus any other animal."
For more information, call 847-858-6440 or visit TheBodyMindSoulConnection.com. To learn more about Eponaquest and Linda Kohanov, visit Eponaquest.com.


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Washington Bangla Radio Feature – http://www.WashingtonBanglaRadio.com keyword KidnapperThe premiere of the latest Indian Bangla comedy movie opened at Priya cinema Hall on 8th March in the form of Kidnapper (2013). Rupak Majumdar's directorial debut saw some of the youngest faces of the Kolkata Bangla Movie industry coming together at the venue and thus making the premiere a bustling affair.
Peoples are using these keywords: Bangla cinema, Bengali film, Indian kolkata bangla movie, Kolkata bangla movie, Indian bangla movie, Bengali film industry, Bengali, Launch, Asia Pacific, Promotional Activities, Romance, Actress, Actor, Kolkata, India, Press meet, Musical, Drama, Events
Home Entertainment Indian Bangla Movie Kidnapper (2013) Full Premiere Report from Kolkata


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The Greenway is an ancient road which was meant to connect Arnor with Gondor.
Beginning at Fornost Erain in northern Eriador, it meets with the Great East Road at Bree, and then continues south to Tharbad on the Gwathló, where it crosses the river and becomes known as the Old South Road. From there it leads into Dunland, arching slightly towards the Fords of Isen. After it crosses the Isen it is called the Great West Road, and runs along the Ered Nimrais through Anórien, then goes south past Minas Tirith and Osgiliath as the South Road and ends at Pelargir.
Other roads which meet up with it are the King's Highway from Minas Tirith past Osgiliath to Minas Ithil, and at Pelargir the road which eventually ends at Erech as well as the Harad Road which leads into South Harad.
The Greenway was long the main path of traffic between Gondor and Arnor, but in the later Third Age after the division of Arnor in three realms it became less used. The use of the road virtually ended after the Great Plague and Long Winter when Tharbad was abandoned and its bridge ruined, and the road in Dunland was mostly lost.
Boromir took this road, crossing Tharbad but losing his horse, on his way to Rivendell. In the Reunited Kingdom of King Elessar the road was restored and became usable once more.
Portrayal in Adaptations
Translations around the World
|Foreign Language
|Translated name
|Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal)
|Caminho Verde
|Spanish (Spain and Latin America)
|Camino Verde


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Ballito on the North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal.
A little bit more about Ballito and the other areas on the North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal.
Ballito, affectionately known as the Dolphin Coast, is a vibrant seaside town on the North Coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal.
Ballito is in close proximity to Durban's King Shaka International Airport to the south, and many beautiful beaches including Westbrook Beach, Thompson's Bay, Chakas Rock, Salt Rock, Sheffield Beach and Umhlali as well as Tinley Manor, Blythedale Beach Stanger and Zinkwazi Beach to the north. Ballito is flanked by the warm Indian Ocean to the east and some of the most spectacular green rolling hills and farm lands to the west.
Opportunities offered to Ballito's visitors and holiday makers are exciting and diverse. If you're looking for adventure, there are many enchanting locations within easy reach, or you may choose to simply relax on the warm sandy beaches and soak up the sun.
With the North Coast's many bustling retail centres, sumptuous restaurants, fabulous beaches, breathtaking fairways, exhilarating cycle / running trails, wonderful wedding and conference venues, there is so much to enjoy, whether you're a Ballito local, or visiting from afar.
Living on the Dolphin Coast is a dream for many, and as our beloved home-town grows and expands, we see more and more people choosing to holiday, retire, or even buy a second home here. The North Coast has seen a definite increase in families moving into the are and this generation mix gives the town it's distinctly all-round "village" charm which sets it apart from most seaboard resort towns.
• Some highlights of life in Ballito.
• Durban's King Shaka International Airport is only 12 minutes away.
• World class hospitals in close proximity offering specialist care.
• Excellent local schools offering a variety of different curricula.
• Scenic mountain bike and running trails.
• Fantastic shopping and entertainment facilities. (Lifestyle Shopping Centre, Tiffany's Shopping Centre and the new Ballito Junction Regional Mall).
Ballito's Beautiful Beaches
Ballito's spectacular bathing beaches are a popular attraction along the Dolphin Coast. They are protected by shark nets or bait drums which are checked daily by the Natal Sharks Board. Qualified life-guards are on duty to ensure bathers' safety seven days a week.
Surfing & body boarding are popular activities at Salmon Bay, Clark Bay, Willard's Main Beach, Thompson Bay, Salt Rock and Tiffany's Beach as they are renowned to offer great wave action.
For those that want to stroll and enjoy the sea views and other beach activities, there is the very popular 2.6km long Ballito promenade of snaking along the coastline from Willards Beach to Salmon Bay. One could cool down in the refreshing Clark Bay tidal pool.
Willard Beach is Ballito's main bathing and surfing beach and home to the world-famous Ballito Pro surfing festival presented by Billabong, held each year in June and July.
There are four popular surfing spots that are also frequented by locals on a regular basis and are known as Bog, Bathers, Surfers and Sunrise. (South to North.)
Lifeguards are on duty during normal beach-going hours and there are shark nets installed and serviced by the Natal Sharks Board to protect bathers and surfers.
Bustling Ballito
The upmarket town of Ballito is thriving with the developments of Simbithi Eco-Estate, Zimbali Estate, Dunkirk, Brettenwood, and many other residential secured estate-style living investments.
With land becoming increasingly scarce in surrounding areas and the King Shaka airport and Dube Tradeport less than 12 minutes away along the N2 between Verulam and Tongaat, the latest property 'hot-spot' is right here on the Dolphin Coast.
There are many breathtaking areas to choose from, whether you're looking for property on the beach or inland. For more information about acquiring your piece of Ballito or the surrounding areas, contact one of the many real estate agents in town.
This is the very popular and scenic Ballito promenade snaking along the beach front for 2.6km from Willard Beach to Salmon Bay.
From early morning to late evening, you will find locals and visitors strolling, walking or running along this pathway, or simply taking in the scenery by watching others enjoy their beach-front activities.
There is also a good chance of seeing a school of dolphins surfing in the waves or a whale or two in the deeper water off backline and if things get a little warm, one could take a dip in the Clarke Bay tidal pool.
Upcoming Events


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The chill of autumn brings the start of a new school year, and the beginning of a new venture for me. I am pleased to offer "poetry surgeries" through the UK Poetry Society for the Hertfordshire area. If you're local, and interested in a bit of encouragement and some fresh perspectives on your writing, you can book your one-hour slot for an individual consultation through the Poetry Society website. I expect them to go quickly.
Since I naturalised as a British citizen just one year ago today, let me explain to my American readers what this is all about. The term "doctor's surgery" actually refers to a local family doctor's office, where he or she sees all manner of patients for initial consultations. The term is used exclusively for the operating theatre in America. So, please, think tongue depressors and stethoscopes--not forceps and saws.
In fact, I am a firm believer that, as Wordsworth said, "we murder to dissect". Which means, far from taking a surgical approach, that at the heart of all my writing, thinking, teaching, and consulting about poetry is the sheer love of poetry itself. This doesn't preclude incisive perception, but it does mean that I believe we can take our art both very seriously and without pretension.
So if this kind of "surgery" sounds like something that could give you a boost, do have a look at the available slots. I shall look forward to poring over some poems with a nice cup of tea with you in the charming medieval market town of St. Albans soon. No scalpels required.


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Indoor Summer Camps
Ages 5-11
Vertical Rock Gym's Indoor Summer Climbing Camp. A Monday through Thursday half-day indoor climbing camp for your climbers.
Kids will be introduced to age-appropriate safety skills, workouts, and games while climbing and challenging themselves in our safe, supervised environment.
Outdoor Summer Camps
Ages 9+
"ELEVATION" is a 5-day climbing camp that is a great way to get into the sport of outdoor rock climbing. Day campers will learn techniques, mechanics of rock climbing and an appreciation of the environment. The camp takes place at four different climbing areas: Carderock, Great Falls, Elizabeth Furnace and Vertical Rock.
Campers will experience all 4 climbing areas and will also learn how to identify the types of rock, flora/fauna, and other awesome facts about the area they are climbing in! An emphasis on the "Leave No Trace and Minimizing Climbing Impacts" principle are integrated into the program


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Regarding the riots in Athens
I bet you all have seen the news about Athens: yesterday many young people of Athens were having a march to remember the anniversery of the death of Alexis. As it often happens the march has become an occasion to demonstrate also for the high unemployment rates and more. Some of the demonstrations turned out in small riots since one othe themes is protesting against police authority. However, because it was the anniversery the police is well prepered, so eventhough there is some riots they are in a small area.
AthenStyle and also the major tourist sites (Acropolis etc" as well as the nightlife neighourhoods for partying are on a safe distance! We are not even close to the riots from last year. If you saw something last year, what happened and why it got so out of controll was that the riots started within a couple of hours in the whole country, it shocked the police and it took a while for the police realize what was going on. Right now there is over 6 000 police officers all around Athens to secure safety, then compare this number with the main demonstration that had 3000 protesters.
These demonstrations started yesterday, and are expected to finish tomorrow. We will keep you updated!


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Core Contents Media is the hottest mess in all of K-pop, but the good thing about stanning for the shady agency is that there's never a dull moment. CCM's latest blunder is sticking T-ara N4's Dani (remember, she was demoted from future member of the main group to a fill-in for the recently-departed Areum in the American subunit?) as a feature on the latest single from the struggling F-ve Flops.
I'm all for Dani working with F-ve Flops, but this could've been handled better. CCM should've just made Dani an official member of F-ve Flops from the beginning, rather than transferring a member of the already semi-successful The SeeYa into the group. It would've brought major publicity to the return of F-ve Flops, and also kept Dani away from T-ara for good.
Also, while I'm on the subject, can CCM please fire one of the F-ve Flops so they can actually match their name instead of being a six-member group named after the number five?
Anyway, F-ve Flops will release their new mini-album, First Love, on September 17, but the lead single, "Without Love," will be performed for the first time on tomorrow night's M! Countdown. First Love features production from T-ara hitmakers Shinsadong Tiger and Duble Sidekick, so I have no doubt that the songs on it will probably be just as fantastic as F-ve Flops' underrated "Roly Poly" rip-off, "Soulmate #1." I do predict another major flop, though. The group's doing a pure and innocent concept this time around, and their single has been described as a "mid-tempo pop ballad," which basically just means that F-ve Flops are going from T-ara copycats to A Pink wannabes.
I love F-ve Flops and the fact that they're a total trainwreck is a tonne of fun, but after seeing how legitimately awesome they were during their "Soulmate #1" performances, I wish CCM would retool them (again) into a genuinely good girl group instead of just a guilty pleasure. It's too late now, anyway, but if I had my way, I'd change their name to the scandalous S-x Dolls and replace the chick from The Seeya with Dani. That'd slay, right?
[Via T-ara World]


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Financial Times – Microcredit is not the enemy
By Abhijit Banerjee, Pranab Bardhan, Esther Duflo, Erica Field, Dean Karlan, Asim Khwaja, Dilip Mookherjee, Rohini Pande and Raghuram Rajan
Published: December 13 2010 23:17 | Last updated: December 13 2010 23:17
Microcredit is not the enemy
In the name of protecting India's poor, the state government of Andhra Pradesh has caused deep turmoil in microfinance. A new law clearly signals that borrowers need not repay their small-scale loans. Not surprisingly this has led to large-scale default, throwing the industry in India into a crisis it may not survive. This is having repercussions for microfinance worldwide.
As a result, the sense is growing that microfinance itself is a flawed idea. Some have even drawn parallels between this crisis and the sub-prime disaster. But this is badly misguided. Microfinance institutions are highly focused on avoiding default. The historic default rates in India have been close to zero, reflecting trust built over many years. If borrowers are encouraged to default en masse the system will fall apart, and a valuable financial product will disappear. This, in short, is a crisis born of government intervention, not flaws in microfinance itself.
If this sector collapses Indian banks will suffer losses, while commercially viable efforts to lend to the poor at reasonable rates will be thwarted for years to come. Clients will have found out that it is possible not to repay. Banks will learn that doing business with the poor is riskier than it need be. India's poor will, once again, have to rely either on failed public-sector efforts for financial inclusion, or on money lenders. It is even possible that this crisis could scare capital away in other countries too, threatening a sector that currently serves more than 200m poor borrowers across the world.
Microfinance fills a vital need in developing countries: the provision of financial services to those on low-incomes who lack access to formal banking. It is not a silver bullet that ends poverty, as is sometimes claimed. But studies have shown sound evidence that it allows many of the world's poorest people to develop businesses, insure against bad weather and illness, maintain employment, and smooth consumption. Its main innovation is not lending to the poor – but doing so at lower cost, and with lower interest rates, than informal moneylenders. Microcredit can be profitable, but its profits, at least in South Asia, come mainly from large volumes rather than large mark-ups.
To be sure, India's microfinance industry is not without its problems. Microfinance institutions charge rates ranging from 18 to 35 per cent. This looks higher than regular banks, creating the impression that microfinance is inequitable. But this impression needs to be tempered by the fact that credit card rates are quite similar. The costs of lending small amounts to vast numbers of poor people who lack collateral or credit records are high anyway, which is why they are often excluded altogether from formal credit channels. Microfinance manages to provide some credit access at rates substantially below the informal market, which ranges from 30 to 120 per cent.
Other problems in microfinance relate to its rapid growth. Loan officers are given financial incentives to recruit more clients, and may not screen them adequately. Anecdotal evidence suggests over-indebtedness of clients is a problem, while there are also rumours of debt-related suicide. Yet tragic though these problems are, we must remember that rural indebtedness is mostly a problem caused by loans from non-microfinance sources, and, in particular, from old fashioned money lending.
The priority now should be to stop the current crisis. Andhra Pradesh should withdraw its ordinance. Microfinance also does need better regulation, but the primary focus should not limit interest rates or profits. Instead, it should reform rules to help microfinance institutions better screen borrowers, thereby lowering costs. Other initiatives can help too, such as new ways to investigate client grievances and better enforcement of the code of conduct for credit officers.
When it works well microfinance really can be a win-win. Institutions need to be more diligent in their lending – but politicians also need to be wary. In taking aim at the occasional overstep, they may inadvertently destroy microfinance itself. That would be a disservice to the world's poor, and their hopes of climbing out of poverty.
The writers are economics professors respectively at MIT, Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Harvard, Boston University, Harvard and the Chicago Booth School of Business