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Allen Friedman says he declined the optional insurance when he rented a Chevrolet Impala from Dollar Rent a Car at Denver International Airport recently.
So when Friedman, a retired dentist from Sarasota, Fla., returned the vehicle a few days later, he was surprised to see an extra $215 for insurance and $53 for roadside assistance added to his bill charges Dollar insisted were legitimate because it said Friedman had signed an agreement asking for the additional coverage.
Friedmans complaint is the basis of a lawsuit brought against Dollar in federal court in Colorado by lawyer and consumer advocate John Mattes, who says hundreds of other car-rental customers have faced similar fraudulent charges.
Dollar says the claims are without merit.
We deny the allegations and intend to defend the case vigorously, said Anna Bootenhoff, a company representative. The company declined to answer questions about Friedmans bill.
But according to the lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, the rental company brushed Friedman off with a form response. When he disputed the charge on his credit card, Dollar wouldnt budge. It showed his credit card company a signature that it claimed was his. When Friedman finally obtained copies, he realized that his signature had been forged, Mattes alleges in the complaint.
Friedman eventually got his money back after his credit card company sided with him and reversed the charges. But others arent so lucky. Mattes said he has a file of complaints from other car-rental customers who verbally opted out of extra services but then found them on their final bill. Faced with a form-letter rejection from their car-rental company, they gave in and paid up.
I truly find it difficult to believe that anyone would forge a signature ever, said Sharon Faulkner, executive director of the American Car Rental Association, a trade group. As a former owner of a Dollar franchise, she said no one ever accused her employees of forgery, although some customers complained that they were sold something they didnt want.
If the renter was truly upset and apparently confused about their decision, I would reduce their rental so they were satisfied with their final bill, she told me. If it meant either removing coverage they realized they did not want or reducing their rental fees to make them return again to do business with me, then I always decided that was more important.
Whats the source of this conflict? Mattes said it has to do with how companies make money and compensate their employees. Like other travel companies, car-rental firms derive a significant portion of their profits from up-selling optional services such as insurance, roadside assistance and fuel-purchase options. Car-rental employees, he said, often are paid the minimum wage but offered a generous commission as high as 12 percent from the sale of those extras. That gives employees an incentive to strong-arm customers into taking the insurance and, if they dont, to forge their signatures, he said.
Insiders have told me that if employees fail to obtain an average level of up-sells per month, they may be terminated, said Mattes.
Those allegations arent new. This class of dispute, which I call the sign here scam, was plaguing car-rental customers when I started mediating travel disputes in the 1990s. Back then, car-rental customers were issued contracts printed by a fuzzy line-printer and were told that the contract was the same one theyd agreed to when they made their reservation. Only later would they find out that theyd initialed the square to buy insurance they didnt want or need.
In recent years, technology has made this ruse even harder to detect. Contracts today often are signed electronically, through a touch pad at the counter. That favors the car-rental company, which conceivably could forward any e-signature to a credit card company thats contesting a charge. (And if Friedmans allegations prove to be true, they have.)
Most frustrating, perhaps, is that even if Friedman prevails against Dollar, the effects on consumers would be minimal. Car-rental firms routinely are fined by courts for consumer-unfriendly practices, but because the industry is not federally regulated, it can ignore any ruling except in the state in which its made.
As the case against Dollar notes, this is not the first time the company has been accused of deceptive sales practices. In a 1989 California case, Dollar was accused of instructing its workers to aggressively sell optional products in return for high commissions. An appeals court sided with consumers.
Until the federal government either by legislation or regulation steps in to put an end to these gotchas, they are likely to continue, even if Friedman wins his case. In the meantime, you can benefit from the artificially low car-rental prices subsidized by drivers who are talked or tricked into buying services they might not need.
Always read whatever you sign. Otherwise, you could end up in court.
Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. Email him at email@example.com, or troubleshoot your trip through his website, www.elliott.org. Distributed by Tribune Media Services.


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http://mmajunkie.com Rich Attonito got hip to the arms race of weight-cutting pretty quickly.
It was one thing to fight on the local circuit against part-timers who, like him, probably liked a trip to the buffet every once and a while. But the more success he had in MMA – and the higher his stature rose – the more he noticed flab turning to muscle in the physiques of his opponents.
"I always knew in the back of my head that to put myself in the best possible position to be successful, I'd probably have to take that extra step," Attonito recently told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio).
There were actually three steps, to be exact. Coming from light heavyweight, Attonito and his American Top Team coaches planned to fight at middleweight until a setback, then make the drop to the welterweight class. It would be tough. But one look at teammates Thiago Alves and Gleison Tibau – who cut big numbers to get to welterweight and lightweight, respectively – convinced him he could do it.
Attonito (9-4 MMA, 2-1 UFC) meets Daniel Roberts (12-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) this Sunday at "UFC on Versus 4: Story vs. Marquardt," which takes place at CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh. The event's main card airs live on the Versus channel, though Attonito vs. Roberts is part of the preliminary card.
Unlike Alves, Attonito is employing willpower over a diet manager to meet his weight goals. But with a background in the fitness industry, he's been able to cull a good regimen to make the weight cut palatable.
Now, the only hunger he's focused on is that driven by his most recent appearance. After a successful transition from "The Ultimate Fighter 11" to the UFC's middleweight roster, Attonito suffered a setback in his most recent appearance, which came against Dave Branch, who outpointed him this past December at The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale. More than providing a springboard for a change in division, it's motivated him to put his career back on track.
"You feel that extra incentive to get back on the winning track," Attonito said. "You don't want to take two losses in a row. That can be used as a motivational tool along with other things that you do to motivate yourself.
"I think about coming off a loss, but I don't focus too much on it. I just focus on what I need to do to learn and improve from what happened in my last fight, and use that knowledge to get better in certain skill areas.
"I'm confident I could have won that fight if it went a different way, but I just press forward and get ready to perform."
Of course, Roberts is coming into the fight with much the same mindset. After a trio of wins in the octagon, he delivered a listless performance in his most recent fight, which came against Claude Patrick at UFC 129. He needs a win to restore much of the hype he earned this past year; he was undefeated before entering the octagon.
Attonito has tasted defeat before. There was a time during his rise where a win streak was hard to come by. Ten fights into his professional career, he had three losses on his ledger. So he's confronted questions about whether to continue in a sport in which the payoffs aren't that great and the competition is staggering. But he's also risen to the occasion and gained entry into the world's biggest fight promotion. That counts for something.
"I had this goal and vision of what I wanted to be, and I wasn't going to jump on that," he said. "You're going to have setbacks. You're going to have good days and bad days at the gym. I remember leaving the gym at (American) Top Team feeling like the world was coming together, and other days feeling like I'm horrible and going to get killed against anybody. Maybe this isn't the career that I thought it would be.
"That happens along the way, but the lesson in the story is perseverance and hard work. Everybody always says that, but it really is true. Day in and day out, you're focusing on ways you can improve. You make the effort to do the stuff that might not be that exciting. When you're working on your boxing, it's fun to hit the pads, but you get in front of the mirror and practice your head movement and where your body is moving – all those little details make a difference."
The hope is, of course, that all of his efforts in training and diet have added up to success. He won't know whether it will until Sunday. It's been eight years since he began the journey.
But the way he feels now at welterweight, he's put himself in the best position to succeed.
For more on UFC on Versus 4, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.
MMAjunkie.com Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino's Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by Gorgeous George, MMAjunkie.com lead staff reporter John Morgan and producer Goze. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.

subset: commoncrawl


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01 February, 2013 | (01 hr)
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Operating within a highly regulated industry and highly complex business environment, The San Diego Airport Authority has transitioned from being part of a large government entity to now operating independently. With high stakes and a staggering level of complexity, the new San Diego Airport Authority faced the ultimate leadership challenge; defining the future of the organization in a way that built trust, integrity and ownership at all levels and across multiple disciplines. Discover how they used focused, visual conversation to create the future and prepare every associate to act with one voice and learn about their plans to keep the momentum going.
Audience: If you are a change practitioner, or executive responsible for change and direction setting, participate in the webcast to gain practical advice and innovative strategies from market leaders.
Gary Magenta
Gary Magenta is passionate about helping leaders and organizations change their business, transform how they engage their people, and deliver exceptional results.
He is the Chief Change Architect of Root Inc., a consulting company that helps the world's most influential organization...Full Bio
Angela Shafer-Payne
Ms. Shafer-Payne is Vice President of Planning and Operations at the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. In her capacity as Vice President of Planning and Operations, Angela is responsible for airside and landside operations, public safety and security, ground transportation, planning, l...Full Bio
Molly Breazeale
Molly Breazeale is the owner of AlignED, LLC. She brings 20+ years of adult learning and consulting experience to the field of leader development and organization effectiveness.
Molly was AVP, Learning and Development at Nationwide Insurance. ...Full Bio


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This is the time of year that our thoughts turn to gifting. Gifting can mean many things for businesses: either holiday gifts to customers that have done business within the past year, or gifting to recognize employee year-end achievements. Companies are starting to look at purposeful, appropriate gifts for the audience and for the season.
Recognition vs. Year End
Gifting at this time of year falls into two main categories: Recognition and Year-End landwirtschafts simulator 17 herunterladen kostenlos. Recognition gifting is usually based on merit awards or department/company profitability. Year-end gifting is that gift which is given to employees or customers to thank them for service or loyalty throughout the year. You need to start at the beginning and decide exactly what type of gifting you will be doing this season. And if you are like most people, our guess is that you will be doing both wie kann man wow classic downloaden!
The change of seasons affects the type of gifts you might be giving this time of year. It is time to update company uniforms, anyway. You may have already begun the switch from short-sleeved, pastel polo shirts to heather-colored henleys herunterladen. You may have begun the switch from windbreaker to fleece-lined zippered jacket.
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However you plan to gift this year now is the time to start thinking about it. Your budget should include the actual gift, packaging and presentation, and fulfillment (packaging labor, shipping costs, etc.). Take a look at some good-better-best options. And, if you weren't already thinking about gifting for recognition or year-end…maybe you should.
Tell us: What is one of the favorite year-end gifts you have ever received apps downloaden niet iphone? What is one of the worst?


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Lincoln Kirstein has written that while the New York State Theater (now the Koch) was under construction, George Balanchine wandered in and saw that the pit would hold no more than 35 musicians. He immediately threatened to withdraw the New York City Ballet as the principal designated tenant. The pit was redesigned to accommodate 70 players. Had Balanchine, to whom music was so important, … [Read more...]
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Monthly Archives: May 2010
Heart, Broken Open
We often spend so much energy keeping our hearts protected, closed and guarded. This may feel safer in a world of chaos and pain, yet even among challenges we face, it can feel very constricting to our spirit. When we keep a barrier or wall up around the heart, we cannot fully express the vast beauty and love that we are. I have experienced many times in my life when I had held my heart tightly, and it actually was more painful than when I simply allowed it to break wide open.
Pain is one of the life experiences we want to push away and avoid. Pain caused by being in a difficult relationship, ending one, or losing a loved one can sometimes feel overbearing. How can we go through such physical and emotional pain? Yet, feeling this much pain can show us how much we are able and willing to love and express love. And in my experience, when I allow the feelings of sadness, loss and heartbreak to be expressed, it often has a beauty held within it.
Pain can be exhilarating and awakening. A heart broken open is truly a gift in disguise. This uncomfortable experience offers us a sacred opportunity to allow the love to pour out of the vessel of one's being, expressed as pain. It cracks our shell of protection, sometimes causing actual physical pain and certainly emotional pain. Yet, if we allow it all, allow it to wash over us, there is a gift at the bottom of the ocean of our hearts. The crack reveals something which was hidden, and which we can experience directly in that moment of openness and raw exposure. It is a beauty which is indescribable in words, yet can be fully experienced. Once we have felt this, even once, we can continue to rest in this and become this. Deeper and deeper, we can feel and express this beauty in our lives and in the world. And just imagine how an open, unprotected heart can touch the world. No barriers, no boundaries; love pouring in and out, self to self. An empty vessel that is also full… and limitless. Love beyond measure.
I invite you to take every opportunity in your daily life to allow the heart to open; in the small situations and in the large, in all of it. Let us embrace this opportunity to its fullest capacity and see what is expressed through us, from this place of openness. Life is a blessed journey of our heart, merging and uniting with the one limitless Heart of all Beings.
Posted in Just In This Moment Tagged Emotions, Heart, Pain, Self Inquiry 2 Comments (scroll to bottom)


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Craft and Chat
New Earswick Library
14th August 2021 @ 10:00 am - 11:45 am
14th August 2021 @ 10:00 am - 11:45 am
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 10:00 am on Saturday, repeating indefinitely
Our friendly Craft and Chat meets each Saturday. Bring your own craft, and pick up a new idea. Free, small charge for refreshments.


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Dona Ana County Detention Center
The Doña Ana County Detention Center has a staff of 197 full-time positions, which include administrative, security, support and medical staff. In addition to county employees, there are 41 contract personnel and, at any given time, up to 67 volunteers.
Adult Detention Facility:
The adult detention facility differs from a traditional linear jail in that there are no bars separating officers and inmates. Instead, they are separated by glass partitions, which allow officers to maintain continuous observation of all inmates and to ensure that inmates are constantly aware that they are under observation.
Built in 1995, the facility was originally designed with 562 beds. In 2000, an additional housing unit was added and some remodeling was done to increase the number of beds to 846 and the total living space to 166,543 square feet. Inmates are housed in seven secure housing units. Most inmates share a cell with at least one other inmate.
The average daily inmate population in calendar year 2004 was 809. Most of the inmates are pre-trial detainees.
Juvenile Detention Center
The 50-bed facility was built in 2000 and opened in 2001. Detention officers are stationed inside the housing unit dayrooms, directly supervising and observing the juveniles and their daily activities. Juveniles are housed in five different units. Each unit is designed to house ten juveniles. Four of the housing units consist of a dayroom, eight single-person cells and one two-person cell. The remaining unit consists of ten single-person cells, a dayroom and a small outside recreation area. It can be utilized as a maximum-security and/or special-management unit when needed.
When the juvenile facility opened, the daily population averaged approximately 25 juveniles. In calendar year 2004, the facility averaged approximately 54 juveniles. Most of the juveniles are from Doña Ana County, but the facility does house juveniles from other counties and governmental agencies.
The Las Cruces Public School District provides two full-time teachers for educational classes, allowing the juveniles to maintain their education while incarcerated and earn needed credits toward graduation. In addition, religious programming and life-skills classes are provided. Each detainee is allowed two half-hour family visits per week. Various counseling agencies are available for court-ordered counseling, and some provide individual counseling for detainees when such needs are identified. Recreational activities, commissary and library also are provided.


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By Gerardo Reyes and Jacqueline Charles
The smuggling problem has worsened along the Haiti-Dominican Republic border, with money passed to officers and traffickers willing to sell children.
OUANAMINTHE, Haiti — The long-legged young man in a black jacket and shorts carries a child under each arm, given to him on the Haitian side of the border. He steps into the calm waters of the Massacre River and in less than 10 strides, without getting wet above the knees, he's in the Dominican Republic.
It's market day on the border, a chaotic scene where thousands of buyers and sellers pour into this bi-national market, and it provides the perfect cover for the smuggling of children. The young man pushes past stalls, dodges wooden carts, looks back as if pursued, until he reaches a house where arms extend from an open door to receive the children.
Above the river, Dominican border guards, soldiers and United Nations peacekeepers are tasked with keeping the peace and preventing this human trafficking via the river and bridge that links both nations. None of them react.
It took the young smuggler less than five minutes to ferry the children into the Dominican Republic, an easy, well-timed and completely illegal maneuver that repeats again and again on what is supposed to be the most surveilled border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
"It's a game," said Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, readily acknowledging to The Herald that smuggling is an economic driver between both countries. "A lot of people are trafficking. They make money. Everyone along the frontier is benefiting. It's the sole source of revenues. And everyone accepts it like that."
After the earthquake — which killed an estimated 300,000 people — Haitian and Dominican leaders pledged to protect children from smugglers. But an investigation by El Nuevo Herald and The Miami Herald found that the problem has only worsened, with reporters witnessing money being passed to border officers, the brazen smuggling of children, and traffickers even offering to sell children for sex, cooking or laundry.
The newspapers also found that:
• Both countries have long known their 200-plus-mile border is too porous to prevent trafficking, but have done little to tighten security — even at the four busiests checkpoints, which include the Massacre River crossing. When the countries have cracked down, business interests in both capitals, Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince, complain that commerce suffers, which happened Monday when Dominican authorities closed the border crossing, inciting tear gas and stone throwing.
"Every time the government tries to control the frontier or clean it up, there are protests; unions are upset. It's a form of manipulation by the big shots of Port-au-Prince and the big shots of Santo Domingo," Bellerive said. "Once the frontier shuts down, it's a political crisis."
• Traffickers say they routinely bribe Haitian and Dominican border guards to get kids through. There have been only two convictions in four years, even though Dominican authorities created a special unit to combat the problem.
• Despite assurances from Dominican authorities that they crack down on trafficking and child abuse, nearly two dozen smuggled adults and children said they traveled unhindered through checkpoint after checkpoint without being asked for papers. Haitian children are often abandoned in the countryside; other kids are held hostage until their families can cover trafficking fees. Reporters often saw cops ignore kids begging in dangerous intersections or never questioned grown men walking hand in hand with child prostitutes in Boca Chica.
Since the earthquake, more than 7,300 boys and girls have been smuggled into the Dominican Republic by traffickers profiting on the hunger and desperation of Haitian children and their families. In 2009, the figure was 950, according to one human rights group that monitors child trafficking at 10 border points.
The busiest of all border points is the Massacre River Bridge, linking Ouanaminthe in Haiti with Dajabón — also home to the Dajabón market, which provides cover for traffickers, especially on Fridays and Mondays when Dominican authorities open the iron gate in the middle of the bridge and thousands of merchants and buyers pour in.
No immigration papers are required on market days, and verifying if a child is traveling with a parent or guardian is selective. Immigration authorities in both nations say they try to stop kids who look out of place, well dressed or alone.
Saintlus Toussaint, the Haitian immigration officer in charge on the bridge checkpoint, said after the quake an average of 15 children a day passed illegally on the bridge into the Dominican Republic. He said arrests were made, but did not have figures handy. Toussaint concedes challenges remain.
"I can control the bridge, but not what's underneath it," he said, referring to smugglers using the Massacre River. "I cannot go into the water and arrest them."
Clarine Laura Joanice, a team leader with Heartland Alliance Haiti, a non-governmental organization whose mission is to prevent child trafficking, said workers who try to curtail traffickers on the river face threats and beatings. "They have attempted to beat the monitors with rocks."
On the Haitian side of the bridge, the smugglers cut deals inside makeshift huts. Just outside on a mud-laden field, Dominican and Haitian motorcyclists offer to cross anyone for a fee, no papers needed; others offer children. Standing on a bridge, Alix offers to sell a Herald reporter a 15-year-old girl.
He gives no price, but said the girl previously lived with a Dominican doctor and his Haitian wife in Santo Domingo, and they had bought the teenager for $5,000 Haitian gourdes or $125.
"The couple mistreated the girl and the girl cried to return," said Alix, who offered to go get the teenager. "You can give what you want. She can wash, and she can cook."
Two smugglers interviewed by The Herald say they charge on average $80 to deliver a child to any Dominican city on foot or by car. The cost includes bribing officers in both nations. "I paid between 300 to 400 pesos [$8-$11] for each checkpoint," said one trafficker, who asked not to be identified because he could be arrested.
Young go-betweens along the river were seen by reporters receiving cash, the equivalent of $1, in the open and in front of border guards. The young intermediaries stopped accepting cash once they noticed journalists taking photos and videos. But NGO monitors told the Herald that the go-betweens later gave the money to Dominican guards with the Specialized Corps for Borderland Security, or CESFRONT.
In late August Herald reporters witnessed two women — who had crossed the river into the Dominican Republic — hand CESFRONT guards money one block from the water. Guards chased the women and beat them. When the reporters confronted one guard, he said: "I was trying to break a bill into change." The guard ran off.
Asked why the guards pummeled them, one woman said "the soldiers had already asked for a bribe but wanted more."
• • •
Another smuggler explained that he used `road-runners,` bag-men on motorcycles to hand guards cash ahead of a smuggler's caravan once in the Dominican Republic. Another offered a better trick: dress kids in school uniforms pretending they are on a field trip.
"Dominican authorities here have always allowed the flow of illegal migrants, children and adults, young men and women. They encouraged it," said Father Regino Martínez, director of Border Solidarity, which works to prevent child smuggling. "It's corrupt and paid for."
Francisco Jose Gil, then-CESFRONT chief, repeatedly said that guards are not on the take, and any bribery was an isolated incident, comparing it to "mischief." Gil and other government officials said the Dominican army deploys on market days more than a dozen fixed and mobile checkpoints along 180 miles of highway between Dajabón and Santo Domingo, hoping to curb illegal immigrant smuggling.
But at least 20 undocumented adults and kids — who entered the Dominican Republic in the past six months after paying smugglers — told The Herald that guards did not stop them when they passed through those posts, and in the few instances that the guards did stop the caravan, no one asked to see the required immigration documents.
• • •
Once across the Massacre River, Herald reporters watched as the smuggled children were hid in clandestine shanties in Dajabón. One of these shanties is a block from the river and also functions as a sex motel, a neighbor complained.
"At night, the moans of pleasure mingle with the cries of children," said a neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous because he lives by the shanty. "It is very sad not to know what is happening with these children, whether or not they are with their parents."
After midnight, motorcycles and buses park, lights off, on the dark street outside the shanties. The children are led out. Some motorcyclists carry two or three children sandwiched between the driver and an adult. From there, they speed down the main highway to Santiago de los Caballeros and Santo Domingo.
In September a Herald reporter asked Pastora Rodríguez, who operates a shanty, if she knew the children she housed were undocumented.
"Their escorts have passports," she said.
"But do the children have them?" the reporter asked.
"I don't know," Rodríguez answered, walking away.
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You can now edit Office 2007 docs and spreadsheets on your iPhone.
Today, Quickoffice rolled out a new version of its iPhone office app suite that handles .docx and .xlsx files produced by Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows and Office 2008 for Mac. "We said it was coming, and now it's here," Gregg Fiddes, the company's vp of sales and strategic partnership told The Reg.
The .docx and .xlsx formats adhere to the Office Open XML standard that Microsoft cooked up all on its own and pushed through committee. They're the default Word and Excel formats for both MS Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac.
Priced at $14.99, version 1.4 of the Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite for iPhone can also view - but not edit - PowerPoint and PDF files. Fiddes won't say how many iPhoners are using the app, but he points out that it currently ranks first among business apps in the Apple App Store.
With the previous version of its suite, 1.3, the Texas-based outfit baked in several interface enhancement enabled by Apple's iPhone 3.0 update, including cut-copy-and-paste, undo-redo, and the ability to interface directly with email.
In the past, you could only transfer documents from email by shuttling them over Wi-Fi from your PC or mounting your iPhone as a PC drive. Now, you can directly open email attachments and, well, attach attachments, according to Fiddes.
The Quickoffice suite can also swap files with mobileMe iDisk accounts, the company says. Naturally, as with previous versions, you can edit good ol' .doc and .xls files as well as .txt. ®


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About 16 pieces minimum (depending on the size)
Prep: 1 hour – Cooking time: 6 min frying / 20 minutes Oven
- 1 cup of starchy rice
- 1 ½ cup water
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tsp of butter (optional)
- 2 pinches of salt
- 2 to 3 tbsp of caster sugar (or more to taste)
- A good pinch of mastic gum powder (optional but it tastes authentic with it)
- 2 tbsps of orange blossom water
- ½ kg of brik/ouarka sheets
- 1 to 2 tsp of cinnamon powder
- 2 tbsps of milk powder
- Oil for frying or brushing if you plan to bake them
- Almonds toasted and coarsely chopped (optional)
- Raisins soaked in orange blossom water
- Powdered sugar
- Ground cinnamon
Bring water to a boil, add rice and cook for 10 minutes over medium heat.
Add salt and milk and cook for 15 minutes, stir.
Continue to cook for 5 min while stirring. The rice should be creamy and the liquid evaporated.
Folding and frying
When the rice is cool, place the sheet on the table. Cut in long rectangles.
|Sbiaats/rolls au riz
Set aside, cover with clean cloth or freeze them until you are ready to fry/bake them.


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Exclusive: Big Powers To Offer Easing Gold Sanctions At Iran Nuclear Talks
Major powers plan to offer to ease sanctions barring trade in gold and other precious metals with Iran in return for Iranian steps to shut down the nation's newly expanded Fordow uranium enrichment plant, Western officials said on Friday.
The officials said the offer is to be presented to Iran at February 26 talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and they acknowledged that it represents a relatively modest update to proposals that the six major powers put forward last year.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials said their decision not to make a dramatically new offer in part reflected skepticism that Iran is ready to make a deal ahead of its June 14 presidential election.
The group, which includes Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States - and is known as the P5+1 - wants Iran to do more to prove that its nuclear program is for only non-military purposes and to permit wider U.N. inspections.
Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons but has refused, in recent years, to halt its uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or, ultimately, for bombs.
Israel, which is regarded as the Middle East's only nuclear power and which views a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat, has raised the possibility of taking military action to halt the Iranian atomic program.
While stressing he wants to resolve the dispute with Iran through diplomacy, U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday repeated a veiled military threat, saying "we will do what is necessary to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon."
The core of the new offer revises last year's demand that Iran stop producing higher-grade uranium, ship any stockpiles out of the country and close down its underground enrichment facility at Fordow, near the holy Iranian city of Qom.
"The next proposal is remarkably close to the old one," said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity, describing it as "a way to test whether they are serious or not."
"We don't think the Iranians have given us reason to do much more," he said. "It's basically an update ... so it does require a little bit more from Iran in terms of cooperation with the (International Atomic Energy Agency) and at Fordow."
According to the IAEA's November report, Iran has increased the number of centrifuges at Fordow, an underground plant that could be largely impervious to attack from the air, by 644 to 2,784 since mid-August.
It has been enriching uranium at Fordow with one quarter of the total, or 696, centrifuges. Western diplomats say Iran is technically ready to sharply expand enrichment at Fordow but that, as of last week, it was not believed to have done so.
In further defiance of international demands that it scale back uranium enrichment, Iran this week said it was installing advanced enrichment machines at its main plant at Natanz, adding to Western worries it may be able to refine uranium even faster.
According to an IAEA report released in mid-November, Iran has a stockpile of 134.9 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium, bringing it closer to the ability to produce the 90 percent uranium needed to provide fissile material for atomic bombs.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year said Iran must not be allowed to amass enough enriched uranium for a single weapon, suggesting it would do so by the spring or summer of 2013 and implying a decision on whether to use military force against Iranian nuclear sites would have to be made by then.
Western officials said their new demands take into account the advances at Fordow as well as their desire that Iran cooperate more broadly with the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
While declining to provide exact details on what the P5+1 members would demand of Iran, a second Western official said the group wanted the steps to "build in buffer time" to ensure that it would take Iran "more time to restart Fordow."
"We use very careful wording such as 'decreasing readiness of Fordow'. These are face-saving words," this official said.
The added inducement for Iran in the new offer is to suspend sanctions on trade in gold and precious metals, something that could be used as part of barter transactions that might allow Iran to circumvent increasingly tight financial sanctions.
It goes beyond last year's proposal, in which the powers offered sanctions relief on aviation spare parts, fuel for a medical reactor and other civil nuclear cooperation.
The Western officials described their new proposal as "more for more" - meaning that they are seeking more steps to curtail Iran's nuclear program in exchange for greater inducements on their part, but they admitted it is not a dramatic shift.
"It's still more for more, (but) not much more," said the second Western official.
Iran has so far been unwilling to embrace any of the P5+1's offers, including one made in October 2009 under which Iran would ship out much of its enriched uranium in exchange for fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor that produces medical isotopes.
The United States and the European Union have over the last 14 months put in place increasingly tough sanctions on Iran that directly target its lifeline oil industry.
The EU last year imposed an embargo on its members buying Iranian crude, while the United States moved to force other nations to curtail their oil imports from Iran with the threat of cutting off their banks from the U.S. financial system.
In a step to close a loophole under which third countries could barter for oil, U.S. President Barack Obama last July signed an executive order that would allow him to penalize any company that helped Iran acquire gold or other precious metals.
Any companies that did so could have their assets under U.S. jurisdiction frozen and be denied access to the U.S. financial system, a powerful deterrent to any bank or trading company.
The European Union bars trade in gold, precious metals and diamonds with Iranian public bodies and with the central bank.
The Western officials declined to specify precisely how the United States and European Union might ease such sanctions.
It is unclear whether the Iranians would find such an offer appealing or even the basis for further talks, or whether they might hold out for a much more comprehensive offer that the P5+1 do not, at present, appear ready to put on the table.
"It's not the crown jewel," said one Western official of the sanctions relief now on offer.


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The question of the weekend in Thoroughbred racing: Is Game On Dude really back on his game, or was his Santa Anita Handicap win just a fluke?
Meanwhile, there's the Illinois Derby at Hawthorne Racecourse, with Midnight Hawk representing the Chicago Blackhawks' brain trust, and Kauai Katie and Emollient make their 4-year-old debuts in the Distaff division.
Internationally, there's a new deal on the all-weather in England; the Satsuki Sho, or Japanese 2,000 Guineas at Nakayama Racecourse could define a budding star; and Carlton House could land an Australian Group 1 named for his owner. Can you guess who?
Starting at the top, is Game on Dude back on his game, dude?
The Classic Division
The next test for the Bob Baffert-trained, 7-year-old gelding is Saturday's $1.5 million, Grade II Charles Town Classic, with $1 million going to the winner. Game On Dude, by Awesome Again, was a question mark after he ran ninth in last fall's Breeders' Cup Classic. He rebounded with a second-place finish, just a head behind Will Take Charge, in the Grade I Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs later that month but then produced a dull, fifth-place showing in the Grade II San Antonio at Santa Anita in his 2014 debut. That was before last month's Santa Anita Handicap -- the "Big Cap". In the San Antonio, Baffert said, "He got tired and I thought that race would set him up for the next one. So I honed in on him. I used that as a steppingstone to the Big Cap. At the three-eighths pole when those horses came to him, for a split second I said, 'If they engulf him, we're watching Game on Dude's last race ever.' My wife, who loves him, put her head down and said, 'I can't watch.' I said, 'He's not done! He's kicking on!' and she picked her head back up." Game On Dude won by 1 3/4 lengths over Will Take Charge with Mucho Macho Man a fading fourth. Saturday, he will have to cope with Moreno, who was scratched from last weekend's Oaklawn Handicap in favor of this and likely will be a pace factor. When Game On Dude collected $1 million in this race last year, he let Percussion set the early pace and caught him in the late going so a repeat of that scenario is not impossible. Moreno has not raced since fading to finish 10th in the Breeder's Cup Classic after leading early. Clubhouse Ride also comes from California with multiple graded stakes placings but seldom wins. The other four look to be contesting minor awards, which, in this race, aren't so minor.
The favorites drew inside and outside in a 10-horse field for Saturday's $150,000, Grade III Ben Ali Stakes over the Keeneland all-weather course. Newsdad makes his third start after a long vacation and comes off a win in the Grade II Pan American, going 1 1/2 miles on the Gulfstream Park turf. He started No. 9 of 10 in that event and drew No. 10 for this 1 1/8-miles heat on the all-weather course. Norumbega, who drew the rail, comes off a second-place effort in the Grade III Skip Away at 1 3/16 miles on the Gulfstream Park main course.
Saturday's $500,000, Grade III Illinois Derby at Hawthorne Race Course is headlined by Midnight Hawk, whose top local credential may not be his race record but, rather, his ownership team. That group includes Chicago Blackhawks Coach Joel Quenneville and his assistant, Mike Kitchen, as well as Chicago Bears Offensive Coordinator Mike Tice -- all mighty popular figures among Windy City sports fans. Churchill Downs, in its wisdom, does not include the Illinois Derby as an official Kentucky Derby prep race, so participants are more likely to resurface in the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, rather than at Churchill Downs. Trained by Bob Baffert, Midnight Hawk has chased the top West Coast 3-year-olds, including likely Kentucky Derby favorite California Chrome, with limited success. Martin Garcia will ride. Rosie Napravnik will visit the Chicago suburbs to ride King Cyrus. Others of note in the 1 1/8-mile test are Dynamic Impact and Class Leader.
Saturday's $200,000, Grade III Coolmore Lexington Stakes at Keeneland is a Kentucky Derby qualifier. But it's only worth 10 points to the winner and, therefore, is unlikely to affect the lineup in the Run for the Roses. The morning-line favorites in a field of 11 are Mr Speaker, who has been at his best on the lawn, and Divine Oath, who is 2-for-2, with both starts coming over the Gulfstream Park grass.
Kauai Katie has not raced since she finished sixth in the Grade I Prioress last July but makes her return Saturday in the $200,000 Grade II Prioress at Aqueduct. Kauai Katie won her first three starts as a juvenile but then tired when stretched out for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, finishing fourth. She won the first three starts last season, then stumbled at the start of the Grade I Acorn at Belmont Park, finishing third. She then was last of six in the Prioress. "She has been feeling great in the mornings," said Byron Hughes, assistant to trainer Todd Pletcher. "This is a difficult spot. But she's a very high-quality filly and we think she's capable of competing at any level." La Verdad is the morning-line favorite among seven entered. She has won six of her last seven starts but steps up in class.
Emollient also makes her 4-year-old debut this weekend, in Friday's $100,000, Grade III Hilliard Lyons Doubledogdare Stakes at Keeneland. The Empire Maker filly won three Grade I events last season -- the Ashland and the Spinster over the Keeneland all-weather and the American Oaks over the Hollywood Park all-weather surface. She was unplaced in five efforts over real dirt. With Hollywood Park closed and Keeneland returning to a dirt surface for the fall, Emollient's future should include Arlington Park. Friday's rivals include Dixie Strike, Sisterly Love, Strathnaver, Ire and Solid Appeal.
Saturday's $150,000, Grade III Sixty Sails Handicap at Hawthorne attracted a nicely balanced field of eight distaffers to go 9 furlongs. Flashy American, Sonja's Angel, Gamay Noir and Ana Louisa all are at short odds on the morning line while Dixie Strike is cross-entered for Friday's Keeneland feature.
My Pal Chrisy and Solid Success are the morning-line favorites among 10 set for Saturday's $200,000 Sugar Maple at 7 furlongs at Charles Town. My Pal Chrisy has been a consistent stakes performer in Florida for trainer Marty Wolfson but exits the Sunshine State for the first time in nearly two years, when she ran fifth in the Doubledogdare at Keeneland.
Turf mile
An overflow field is set for Saturday's $100,000, Grade III Miami Mile at Calder Race Course. Summer Front won this race last year but comes off a dull effort in the Grade I Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap. The field also includes Hey Leroy, winner of the Grade III Appleton Stakes at Gulfstream in his last trip; Dad'z Laugh, who shows four straight runner-up finishes; and the persistent Travelin Man.
Friday is the inaugural "All-Weather Championship Finals" at Lingfield in England, capping a winter-long program designed to expand the definition of British racing. The program includes seven races, ranging from an apprentice handicap with a purse of 50,000 pounds sterling to the Coral Easter Classic All-Weather Middle-Distance Championships Conditions Stakes (fit that into a headline!) at 1 1/4 miles for 200,000 pounds. Total purse money is 1 million pounds. Grandeur and Robin Hoods Bay renew a rivalry in that headline race.
Eighteen colts and one filly are nominated to Sunday's Group 1 Satsuki Sho at Nakayama. A lot is expected from To the World, if only from his breeding. The colt is by King Kamehameha out of To the Victory, who finished second in the 2001 Dubai World Cup before returning to Japan to capture the Queen Elizabeth II Commemorative Cup. To the World has won four of his five starts and will be on a rise toward stardom with a good showing in the Satsuki Sho. The race also includes several young 3-year-olds who have blossomed relatively recently, adding an air of uncertainty to the 2,000-meters turf test.
Carlton House faces nine Group 1 winners set for Saturday's Longines Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick. Nonetheless, the 6-year-old son of Street Cry, owned by Her Majesty the Queen, is a viable choice while coming off a heartbreaking loss to Silent Achiever in the Group 1 Ranvet Stakes at Rosehill a month ago. "To win Her Majesty's race with Her Majesty's horse? It wouldn't get any better. He'll be right there," said trainer Gai Waterhouse, who has yet to coax a win from the royal steed. To achieve the goal this time, Carlton House will have to reverse the short-head decision to Silent Achiever and also cope with the likes of It's A Dundeel, Boban and Green Moon. Of note: My Kingdom of Fyfe, a 9-year-old, formerly was owned by Her Majesty and campaigned in England by trainer Sir Michael Stoute. He would be a surprise here, though. The Queen Elizabeth tops a rich day of racing at the Australian venue.


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LONDON -- FIFA will try to minimize the number of empty seats at the 2014 World Cup by taking measures to ensure sponsors use their allocation or lose them.
There were large blocks of empty seats at some stadiums at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and this year's European Championship in Poland and Ukraine.
At the Leaders in Football conference on Wednesday, FIFA marketing director Thierry Weil said sponsors would have to name the people using tickets two or three days before matches in Brazil.
"They cannot just say the people will come and then nobody comes," Weil said. "The tickets will only be handed over the day of the game to the people, so you can reallocate tickets to different people, even in the sponsor families."
That was a major issue at the London Olympics, where there was public outrage when fans couldn't get into venues despite corporate seats initially being empty.
"We are concerned by no-shows, that is clear because it does not look good," Weil said. "And it especially does not look good if you announce to the world that you have no tickets, then you see on TV that you have a lot of empty seats."
Ticket prices for the World Cup will be announced next month. A system will be tried at the Confederations Cup in June when Weil says Brazil will show it is ready to stage the World Cup.
"At certain stages, there will be some wake-up calls," he said. "At certain stages, there will be some delays. At certain stages, there will be negative things from different people. But Brazil will be ready."
Former Brazil striker Ronaldo tried to assure the conference members in London.
"The organization of course has to be perfect _ we guarantee it will be perfect," Ronaldo, who works for the organizing committee, said through a translator. "As for the sporting side, there will be no guarantees there."
But Ronaldo hopes playing at home will help the team deliver Brazil's sixth world title.
"This will be added incentive. It will be motivation. I think it will have a positive impact," he said. "Otherwise, I will be playing again."


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Wow! Dalia wasn't clowning around when she decided to pursue the carnival/circus theme party. I love it! Thanks Dalia! Marlene"Hi Marlene,I love perusing your site for ideas and inspiration!!! I wanted to share with you some pictures from my son Ikey's first birthday party. I chose a circus/carnival theme. The dessert table consisted of a variety of fun carnival-themed candies, including popcorn, large shelled peanuts in small personalized cups, mustache chocolate lollipops, large whirly pops, cotton candy, chocolate covered pretzels, cupcakes, small personalized packages of animal crackers, candy buttons, dumbbells made of marshmallows, as well as other assorted candies. For the food, I served hot dogs with different toppings, french fries, corn on the cob, hot salted pretzels, and taco salad. I found wonderful food/treat labels and water bottle labels on etsy.com. I decorated the room with a carnival bunting. I also made my own napkin rings (an idea inspired by your site – and very simple, I might add!) using red and white striped grosgrain ribbon and personalized "Ikey" cut-outs. The kids played pin the nose on the clown, and we also had a "photo booth" where they dressed up using silly costume accessories (e.g., clown wig, tie, sunglasses, jester hat, huge inflatable clown shoes). Everyone had a fabulous time!!! Thanks for letting me share! Dalia Dabah"
Related articles
- Baby Joyce's Pink Lacy Ballet Themed Birthday Party (thejewishhostess.com)
- A Kid's Dream! An Edible Purim Candy Encrusted Maypole by Raquel Dabah (thejewishhostess.com)


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Interview 5/09/2009 Part I (10 minutes):
Interview 5/09/2009 Part I (10 minutes):
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Gerald Celente's Latest Thoughts…
Posted byAmy Jamison at9:27 AM
World View & Market Commentary.
Forest first; Trees second.
Focused on Real & Knowable facts that filter through the "experts" fluff and media hyperbole. Where we've been, what the future may hold and developing a better way forward.


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- Make sure your best people are personally committed to the goals of the organization.
- Ensure talented employees feel they are playing a suitably significant role in reaching those goals.
Related How-Tos
Adapted from "The Wall Street Journal Guide to Management" by Alan Murray, published by Harper Business.
In 1943, social scientist Abraham Maslow outlined a pyramid that showed what he called the human being's "hierarchy of needs."
People start with a desire for basic physiological needs: food, clothing, shelter – that's the bottom of the pyramid. Once they've achieved those, they seek safety, and then social interaction and love, and then self-esteem. Finally, at the top of the pyramid, is what Maslow called "self actualization" – the need to fulfill one's self, and become all that one is capable of becoming.
In the early days of the study of management, Frederick Winslow Taylor wrote that what workers most want is high wages – which would help them fulfill their basic physiological needs. But it's fair to say today, most workers – and particularly your best workers – have made their way to the top of Maslow's pyramid.
"Making a living is no longer enough," wrote management guru Peter Drucker. "Work also has to make a life." If you want to keep good people, their work needs to provide them with meaning – a sense they are doing something important, that they are fulfilling their destiny. At the end of the day, these psychological needs are likely to be as important, and perhaps more important, than the salary you pay.
To keep your best people, then, you need to make sure they are personally committed to the goals of the organization, and that they feel those goals are worth achieving. And you need to make certain they feel they are playing a suitably significant role in reaching those goals.
That's a complex management challenge, not easily summed up in a few simple rules or guidelines. One good description of the complex social and psychological elements that go into creating a satisfying workplace is in Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "The Soul of a New Machine." Mr. Kidder skillfully records the human drama, and, ultimately, the magic that motivated a team of engineers at Data General Corp. in the 1970s to develop a new generation of computer.
The Data General team worked with little formal encouragement from the company's top management. But they came to believe in what they were doing. At the end of his book, Mr. Kidder compares the people on the team to the stonemasons who built the great cathedrals:
"They were building temples to God. It was the sort of work that gave meaning to life. That's what [team leader Tom] West and his team of engineers were looking for, I think. They themselves liked to say they didn't work on their machine for money. In the aftermath, some of them felt that they were receiving neither the loot nor the recognition they had earned, and some said they were a little bitter on that score. But when they talked about the project itself, their enthusiasm returned. It lit up their faces. Many seemed to want to say that they had participated in something quite out of the ordinary."
That is the magic of managing talented people.


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Read this news 1000 times or the Epicosaurus will come tonight and assassinate you
FlipWell, in 08 Sploder, there was no avatars, no friend system, hardly any rules, only the Ship Shooter Creator existed. on the forums people could upload their own avatar images, and anybody could sink. We would do all sorts of stuff, raiding other forums, talk about new game concepts, show each other cool websites or talk about life. Bullying was quite a problem back then ,though. My favorite memory is when I made my game Kingdom of Sand(on my old account Jake101x) and obeliskos rated it 10/10
ThebestmanWell, as far I remember, Tookewl and few others people were there. It's almost the same as now- members spamming and insulting other users. I was actually given the privileges to either close or sink a thread. But I lost mine back in November.
TheimageIt was really the same, except there were more older members present. Many of them have left or have gone inactive since then. My favorite memory was probably Samus64. He was going to call the cops on Jason or something like that.
Wxg58Everything seemed to have a better sense of community, there were not many members so everyone knew each other, this went for both the mainsite and the forums. There were no ranks and not many rules, it was basically make games, share them and have fun. The mainsite was dominated by about 5 people. Me, Maxliam, Raiden, Teb and skorm. Favourite memory would be on the forums where maxliam and westknight3 were having a website fight.
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Many people think of the law as a field for judges and lawyers only. But the legal profession is full of interesting types of jobs, many of which are challenging and interesting, and many of which pay well, too. The job of legal researcher is just such a job.
A legal researcher is someone who researches past cases, legal precedents and legal statutes for a lawyer or a law firm. The information a researcher gathers will become an important part of a lawyer's presentation to a jury, or to motions that a lawyer files. Legal researchers used to spend hours toiling away in law libraries, poring over documents and pawing through thick law books. The Internet has changed this profession, however, as it's changed so many professions. Now, much of a legal researcher's work is performed online. Still, the job requires careful work, patience, and persistence. You might be searching for one obscure case among thousands of cases. Sometimes, you might not even know precisely what you're searching for, only that you'll know it when you find it. You also have to be someone who is an independent worker, and someone who is self-motivated and able to follow instructions well, because oftentimes you will simply receive a complicated set of instructions and be left unsupervised to complete them. Legal researchers also prepare legal documents and memos in many cases.
To become a legal researcher, you need to be an accredited paralegal (a paralegal is a legal assistant). That means you'll have to have at least an associate's degree, although more often nowadays legal assistants will need at least a bachelor's degree in order to secure a good job. It wouldn't hurt to have an advanced degree, either.
When it comes time to find a job, you have to decide whether you want to work for government lawyers at a private law firm. Most legal researchers work in private offices-about seven in ten. This work can be more stressful and more demanding, but it also tends to pay significantly better. If you choose government employment, you can either work for the Justice Department (most public legal researchers work for the Justice Department) or work for a district attorney. You might even think about becoming a freelancer. It was once highly unusual for a legal researcher to work for himself or herself, but with the Internet it's becoming much less rare. This kind of work would involve firms all over the country assigning you research projects and legal documents to prepare over the Internet, and you would work one project at a time. The beauty of legal freelancing is that you can set your own hours and be your own boss. The downside, of course, is that income is not steady and there might be times when you are between assignments and not receiving a paycheck. Still, if you are tenacious and self-motivated it's likely you'll find plenty of employment.


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Does Caloric Restriction Alone Explain the Effects of Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass on Glucose Metabolism? Not by a Long Limb
- Adrian Vella⇑
- Corresponding author: Adrian Vella, vella.adrian{at}mayo.edu.
Among patients with type 2 diabetes, bariatric surgery has been the subject of considerable interest because of its favorable effects on glucose metabolism. Indeed, various procedures have been associated with high rates of diabetes remission (1), although the outcomes of these studies have been assessed in a heterogeneous manner (2). Despite the favorable results overall, there has been divergence among procedures regarding improvement of diabetes (1). This observation raises the possibility of identifying underlying mechanisms leading to improved glucose metabolism as a means to identify new diabetes treatments. The pathophysiology underlying development of type 2 diabetes includes defects in insulin secretion, disordered postprandial suppression of glucagon secretion, and defects in insulin action and glucose effectiveness (the ability of insulin and glucose to stimulate glucose uptake and suppress glucose release) (3). The heterogeneous effects of various forms of bariatric surgery on these parameters remain a topic of intense interest.
Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) is currently the most common bariatric procedure. This surgical approach results in both gastric restriction and malabsorption. Increased delivery of calories to the jejunum/ileum increases enteroendocrine secretion, most notably that of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) (4). Whether the increase in postprandial concentrations of GLP-1 is relevant to insulin secretion or gastrointestinal motility in ways that benefit glucose metabolism after gastric bypass is uncertain. GLP-1 increases insulin secretion and suppresses glucagon secretion. In an intact upper gastrointestinal tract, GLP-1 also delays gastric emptying (5) and increases gastric accommodation (6). However, it is uncertain if these actions are present after RYGB due to the alterations in upper gastrointestinal tract anatomy. Some studies have suggested that increased GLP-1 concentrations after RYGB contribute to insulin secretion, although the experimental conditions do not relate directly to actual postprandial conditions (7).
Bariatric surgery is associated with a rapid improvement in fasting glucose concentrations and insulin action (8). These changes occur early in the postoperative course and are independent of a significant change in weight (8). The same improvements are also observed in response to significant caloric restriction (600–800 kcal daily), suggesting that these benefits are not unique to bariatric surgery (9,10). Therefore, caloric restriction per se likely plays an important role in the favorable metabolic changes observed after bariatric surgery.
In this issue, Jackness et al. (11) compare the effect of a very low–calorie diet (VLCD) (500 kcal/day) and RYGB on β-cell function in type 2 diabetic patients during the first 3 weeks after intervention. Previously, the same group demonstrated that an 800 kcal/day diet produced less improvement in β-cell function compared with a matched cohort of subjects post-RYGB with equivalent weight reduction (12). The new study was undertaken to better control for differences in caloric consumption between the surgically treated and calorically restricted groups. Subjects with a history of type 2 diabetes scheduled to undergo RYGB and control subjects willing to maintain a VLCD were studied before and approximately 21 days after intervention using an insulin-modified, frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test (fsIVGTT). The investigators reported that both groups achieved similar degrees of weight loss and that there were no significant differences in β-cell function between the groups. The authors concluded that caloric restriction was primarily responsible for the early effects of RYGB on glucose metabolism.
The investigators acknowledge that a significant limitation of their study was the use of an fsIVGTT to measure β-cell function. This approach does not account for potential influences of the incretin system on glucose metabolism (13). This is a significant weakness given the known effects of RYGB on incretin hormone concentrations. Another weakness is the potential carryover effects associated with glucose-lowering medications, which were stopped 2–3 days prior to the study. Furthermore, there is a dearth of information regarding how medication dosing changed over the duration of the study and whether any differences in treatment between the groups might have accounted for the end result.
Despite these limitations, there is some important information to be gleaned from this study as it creates conditions of controlled caloric intake and activity that mimic those in the immediate RYGB postoperative period. The authors suggest that none of the baseline function testing predicted the response to intervention as measured by changes in disposition indices and weight. This may be because the population under study had type 2 diabetes for a relatively short period of time (<6 years, self-reported) and their diabetes was controlled by relatively few agents and <60 units of insulin daily. While this limits generalizing the study's conclusions to a broader population, the data imply that it is reasonable to expect improvement in β-cell function after a similar intervention in subjects with similar characteristics as those studied here. The study also reinforces the clinical suspicion that caloric restriction is a significant contributor to the rapid improvement in glucose metabolism observed after RYGB.
While two recent prospective, randomized, non-blinded studies concluded that bariatric surgery was superior to medical therapy alone in achieving glycemic control (14,15), there was significant heterogeneity in response. In the study by Schauer et al. (14), 12% of patients receiving medical therapy achieved an HbA1c <6% in contrast to 42% undergoing RYGB. While this is a significant difference in favor of RYGB compared with intensive therapy, less than half of the RYGB group achieved the (admittedly arbitrary) definition of remission from type 2 diabetes. The reasons for this heterogeneity in response to surgery and how to better predict an optimal response to bariatric procedures remain elusive. Intriguingly, while sleeve gastrectomy had similar rates of resolution to RYGB 1 year after intervention, at 24 months subjects with RYGB exhibited greater reduction in truncal fat and improvement in β-cell function compared with sleeve gastrectomy or medical therapy (16). Whether these differences are attributable to intestinal factors or merely reflect differing degrees and durability of restriction remain to be determined and warrant further study (Fig. 1).
A.V. has received support from the Mayo Clinic CTSA (RR24150), and DK-78646 and DK-82396 grants.
A.V. has been the recipient of investigator-initiated grants from Merck, Novartis, and Daiichi Sankyo in the past 5 years, and has consulted for XOMA, Sanofi, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Novartis. No other potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported.
See accompanying original article, p. 3027.
- © 2013 by the American Diabetes Association.
Readers may use this article as long as the work is properly cited, the use is educational and not for profit, and the work is not altered. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ for details.


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On the dusty, unkempt field at Santa Ana's Jerome Park, two Mexican folklorico dancers — the man wearing an embroidered cowboy tunic and the woman an expansive, rose-colored dress — clacked their heels and whirled atop a makeshift stage as dozens of Latino onlookers whooped and reveled.
Yet surrounding the dancing duo were things not normally found at Mexican festivals: Strings of red, white and blue balloons festooned over the stage in a bow, arching above an American flag.
A sign next to the stage read, "United We Vote. Building a land of Opportunity for All."
Sunday afternoon's event, while steeped in Mexican tradition, was meant to promote the very American tradition of voting. The festival, organized by Orange County Congregation Community Organization (OCCCO), a faith-based activist group, is part of a larger get-out-the-vote drive aimed at Latinos, a minority group that tends to shy away from ballot boxes.
For already impoverished neighborhoods of Santa Ana, Anaheim and other cities in the county with significant Latino populations, not voting has had depressing consequences on their communities' quality of life, activists assert. They say that cuts and government inattention on issues ranging from lack of park space to larger class sizes in schools disproportionately affect Latinos.
If only Latinos would vote, the activists insist, politicians in Sacramento and at their city halls wouldn't ignore their plight.
"Politicians listen to people who vote," said Luis Bravo, a 20-year-old OCCCO volunteer. "And if our community's not voting, they're not going to have their voices heard. … We want to change that."
Most of these activists readily admit that the low participation rates among Latinos — specifically Mexican immigrants and their American-born children — stems from an entrenched disenchantment with Mexican government and by extension all governments. Having been politically excluded for generations in their home country, Latino migrations northward brought their apathy in tow.
But a new generation of activists, like those with OCCCO, is pleading with these residents to realize that in this country, the people can exert control over their political fortunes.
"Here it's different," Sergio Hernandez, an immigrant from Mexico City, told a gathering of Santa Ana neighborhood groups earlier this year. "Here we can participate."
The effort is multifaceted. OCCCO is part of a larger coalition called Santa Ana Collaborative for Responsible Development (SACReD), which is fighting for a transparency ordinance at Santa Ana City Hall.
The ordinance, among other things, would further connect local communities with their city government by expanding the radii of development notices and requiring premeetings with residents before projects are approved.
And in Anaheim, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a suit demanding the city change from an at-large council election system to council districts, which would have residents in Latino-heavy areas elect representatives who live in their neighborhoods.
Yet even with these dramatic steps toward civic engagement, transforming the abundant Latino population into a forceful political power bloc remains a daunting challenge.
Workers at a voting registration desk said that about midway through the event they had registered only five residents. They had been expecting to register closer to 200, according to the workers.
Jan Meslin, an OCCCO board member, said the plan is to get 10,000 voters who usually don't vote to the polls in November.
Event organizers had expected around 500 attendees, Bravo said, yet fewer than half that number could be counted. Lack of viable transportation is one problem that could have prevented more from attending. Bravo said activists did their best to bus in residents from other cities.
The stakes for Latinos in this year's election are enormous, the activists say. Much of the voting drive focused on Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown's sales and income tax increase. If it doesn't pass, planned reductions in education funding would take effect.
"We will succeed," said Santa Ana resident Ricardo Ramos, a 36-year-old volunteer who had been working the voter registration desk. "It's a lot of work, but little by little we're moving the community."


text: You already know what the PRADA II looks like, and what it's packing, so the LG PRADA II official announcement is kind of like that Christmas morning when you peeked at all your gifts beforehand. Sorry if we killed the buzz 'bout this 7.2 Mbps HSDPA touchscreen phone, but that's what we do. The phone is supposedly going to launch in Europe before the end of this year at €600 ($817), but thanks to the quad-band frequency bands, importers should be able to get it to work here in the States.


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HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Most golfers want to hit a long drive on the course, but one South Florida woman actually wanted to go on a long drive on the course.
Last Thursday, golfers playing in a U.S. Open qualifier at The Club at Emerald Hills in Hollywood were startled to see a vehicle driving on the cart path on the 11th hole.
Unfortunately, it was not a golf cart... it was a full-sized sedan driven by an unidentified elderly woman.
One of the participants, John Powers, was able to record the afternoon drive, capturing the entire bizarre scene on video.
The woman drove all the way up the path until she decided to turn around in the middle of a giant bunker on the hole.
Powers and his playing partners were able to continue their round once the woman had motored off the course.


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One day I woke up and cooked and cleaned like all the other days and then the next day he called and said he is coming home. It was hard to say words. What do you say?
It feels unreal to have my husband home living amongst us, his family.
I'm so happy he is home.
He is ours.
We waited at the airport through snow and ice. It seemed impossible he would walk through that door.
But he did.
He is getting acquainted with the baby, who is sporting new rolls of chub and some tiny teeth.
When I walk into a room and see him sitting with the children and everyone is smiley, it makes me so emotional. Missing him has been hard work.
This Christmas has new meaning for me, about what is real and good.
I feel humbled and merry all at the same time.


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I am not feeling well. My whole body hurts and I just feel icky. There is a bump on my neck which has been there for months but in the last week or two has gotten a lot bigger and much more painful. Just the collar of my shirt brushing against this spot on my neck makes tears come to my eyes or when I bump it as I sweep my hair back with my hand. My pain level overall is high but the added ICKY feeling that can not really be described well is the worst part. I am just plain miserable but am working super hard to hide it. Trying really really hard to enjoy NaNoWriMo and other things and not burden others with my issues. It is exhausting.
My Nanowrimo novel this year is about a Vampire who lives in and around Disneyland and will be as accurate as possible when it comes to the facts about Disney. He has a human friend who does not know his true nature who he is sharing his knowledge about Disneyland with and helping her survive some difficult life circumstances in the process. Word count on this is fairly easy but getting the story to actually MOVE is the hard part. The plot stalls easy with so little action happening. I'm working on the lack of action issues now.
In other news I FINALLY GOT A NEW DARREN HAYES CD! I hope to have a review of the album written for the blog some time soon. Most of my writing patience is going into getting nano done so it might not happen soon. We will see. But now I should be off doing other things besides this blog!


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Valve Still Experimenting with Team Fortress 2 Items, May Eliminate Unlock System
"I think we've learned that the random drop system is only good for some types of things, like the rare cosmetic hats," said Walker to CommunityFortress. "It's good for delivering items to newer players over time, so they're not swamped with choices when they're starting out, and they're not required to grind achievements to get them once they reach the point where they want to start making strategic choices," he said. "For competitive players, it's obviously a bad way to deliver items."
The solution may be to simply skip the fuss and hand over the weapons nice and quick.
"At the very least, future packs will allow you to use achievements to get the new items, but we might move to a mode where we just give them to you," he added. "As part of our goal of supporting tournaments more, I think we'll probably add better tools for them to control exactly what players can and can't use within matches."
Walker also said that his team is not happy with the trend of competitive players flocking to smaller maps that public players typically do not prefer.
"We've got a map where we're trying out areas that modify themselves based on the number of players in the game, in the hopes that both public and competitive players can use it," he added.


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What's New
Bride of the Monster Font Family by Harold's Fonts
The Bride of the Monster fonts were first inspired by the trailer of the classic film Bride of Frankenstein (1935). The hand lettered movie titles strongly resemble Rudolph Koch's NEULAND, which contains only caps.
This font is dedicated to the artists Rudolf Koch, James Whale (talented director of Bride of Frankenstein), and Ed Wood, Jr (famously untalented director of Bride of the Monster, a wonderfully bad film.)
All three BRIDE fonts have a complete Alternate version with a different a, e, and g.
Tags: Font, Historical, Sans Serif


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Punxsy Spirit Article for Love Life or Diamonds Book
Local author sidesteps 'Bubbles' in latest work
October 12, 2011
PUNXSUTAWNEY — Just because local author Julie Branken has published a novel for adults doesn't mean that the bubble has burst on her series of "Bubble" fantasy/adventure books for youngsters.
Instead, Branken describes "Love, Life or Diamonds" as a 25-year work in progress.
"I would classify it as a love story, with fights, adventure and intrigue," she said.
"It's a girls' book," she added.
Branken, owner of the Plantation Bed & Breakfast just outside Punxsy along Route 119, said the origins of the book came at a time when she was showing properties, and the writing bug just struck her.
"I thought, 'I just have to do it,'" she said. "And then I wrote and wrote, and there was a story."
The story: A French family is sentenced to work in the Capetown, South Africa, diamond mines for life after being falsely accused in a drug bust. Then, the family's son, Pierre using a fake name, Jacques is forced to find a jeweler to cut a stash of blood diamonds, or else his family will be killed.
The jeweler in Capetown, Jessy, finds Jacques half-dead on the beach, and, of course, they fall madly in love.
The reader must learn if Jacques follows through with the plot and his lies to Jessy, as well as about Michael, Jessy's would-be suitor, and the knowledge that Jessy's twin sister, Patricia, possesses about the plot.
For a story that has taken 25 years to develop, Branken said it's taken a basic structure of the story, reviews, additions for color, deleting other details and so on ... "So it takes a while," she said.
It took long enough that Branken said she was ready to wrap up the story.
"I didn't want the universe to give me any more ideas," she said. "I tried to ignore this, but it comes back and back. You just have to do it."
Branken has already written four books in her "Bubble's World" series, which stars her grandchildren and takes them on adventures around the world, courtesy of the magical Bubble.
In accordance with its alphabetical titles, the next Bubble book's title will include the letter G, and likely have much to do with Groundhog Day.
In the meantime, "Love, Life or Diamonds," published by Authorhouse, is available via Branken's Web site at http://bubblesworldbooks.com or at the Book Nook in the Punxy Plaza.


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Guitar Workshop Plus...Bass, Drums, Keyboards & Vocals
Performing Arts & Fine Arts Camp: Music
Co-ed - Day and Overnight Camp
Religious Affiliation: None
Camp Locations
San Diego, CA - Nashville, TN - Toronto, ON - Seattle, WA
California, Ontario, Tennessee, Washington
Phone: (905) 567-8000
Off-Season Address
99 Queen Street South
Mississauga, Ontario L5M1K7, Canada
Phone: (905) 567-8000
Have fun learning music from the finest musicians in the world! Guitar, Bass, Drum, Keyboard and Vocal courses are offered for all levels, ages, and styles. Past guests include Joe Satriani, Randy Bachman, Robben Ford, and more. Multiple sessions and resident and non-resident tuitions available.


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Beckhoff implements open automation systems based on PC Control technology. The product range covers Industrial PCs, I/O and Fieldbus Components, Drive Technology and automation software. Products that can be used as separate components or integrated into a complete and seamless control system are available for all industries. The Beckhoff "New Automation Technology" philosophy represents universal and open control and automation solutions that are used worldwide in a wide variety of different applications, ranging from CNC-controlled machine tools to intelligent building automation.
Headquarters Verl, Germany
The central divisions of Beckhoff, such as development, production, administration, distribution, marketing, support and service are located at the Beckhoff Automation GmbH & Co. KG headquarters in Verl, Germany. Rapidly growing presence in the international market is taking place through subsidiaries. Through worldwide co-operation with partners, Beckhoff is represented in more than 75 countries.
Since the foundation of the company in 1980, continuous development of innovative products and solutions using PC-based control technology has been the basis for the continued success of Beckhoff. Many automation technology standards that are taken for granted today were conceptualised by Beckhoff at an early stage and successfully introduced to the market. The Beckhoff PC Control philosophy and the invention of the Lightbus system, the Bus Terminals and TwinCAT automation software represent milestones in automation technology and have become accepted as high-performance alternatives to traditional control technology. EtherCAT, the real-time Ethernet solution, makes forward-looking, high-performance technology available for a new generation of leading edge control concepts.


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Posted on by
It's heaven for musicians. At Avaloch, I was spoiled with incredible food and facilities, surrounded by the finest musical company, and immersed in nature. The whole place gave me comfort and a sense of home even in the very nature of its design, and the staff really did everything to serve us well.


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Armed with a gigantic, spinning steel ball, researchers hope to simulate the Earth's magnetic field and discover how likely it is that our planet's magnetic polarity will flip sometime soon. Our magnetic field has reversed polarity in the past many times, though not in the last 780,000 years. So it's unclear what might happen. Science writer Clive Thompson speculates that it could be "pretty nasty." He writes:
The magnetic field deflects a lot of the Sun's incredibly nasty radiation, so if you take it away, we could all get microwaved to a crisp.
Even scarier: The Earth's magnetic field has weakened by ten percent over the last 160 years. Does that mean we're due for a flip? Dan Lathrop, a geophysicist at University of Maryland, will try to find out when he spins up his mega steel ball and recreates (on a small scale) the magnetic conditions on Earth. [via Collision Detection]


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15 Juniper Road, Marlborough
Living area: 2,022 square feet
Rooms: 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, 1 partial bath
Lot size: 1.14 acres
Year built: 1979
Taxes: $5,330
Asking price: $399,900
A mint-condition Colonial on premium acre-plus lot in sought-after East Marlborough neighborhood. Huge modern kitchen with all new stainless steel appliances. Maple cabinets and Corian countertops with sliders to 26-by-16 deck that overlooks flat yard and conservation land. Gleaming hardwood floors in kitchen, family room and bath. New master bath with granite and tile. Central air conditioning. Irrigation system.
Ask homeowner Craig Wilkinson to describe the selling points of this Colonial at 15 Juniper Road in East Marlborough and he replies, "I think of what's the hardest thing for me to leave behind."
He and his wife, Michelle, have three children under the age of three, and their young family has enjoyed their home bordering conservation land not far from the Jericho Hill sledding area.
Several trails are nearby. "We like to take the whole family for a walk around the pond," Wilkinson said. While walking their dog, they soon met many of their neighbors.
"It's a great neighborhood with wonderful people we have grown to know and like," said Wilkinson, who said some of best memories of the house involve having friends over and grilling on the deck.
In addition to the deck and spacious yard bordering the woods, the open kitchen and family room make the house "a great place to entertain," he said.
On the first floor, the kitchen with maple cabinets and Corian countertops has all new stainless steel appliances. A step-down family room has a working fireplace. Both kitchen and family room have hardwood floors and sliding doors to the back deck.
Crown molding adds a distinctive touch to the dining room. The carpeted living room has an inviting feel. Central air-conditioning keeps the home cool in summer.
Upstairs are three bedrooms and two baths. The master suite includes a walk-in closet and a master bath with tile floor, granite counter and shower. A second bath has a shower and bathtub and a linen closet. Two other bedrooms are used by the children. Pull-down stairs lead to the attic.
Downstairs, the unfinished basement includes the laundry, a workshop area and plenty of storage space. Here, too, are controls for the lawn irrigation system and access to the two-car garage.
The location is minutes from highways 495 and 290, and convenient to routes 20, 85, and 62. Wilkinson said he has a 20- to 25-minute drive in the morning to his job at a technology company in Concord. For those who work in the high-tech sector along Interstate 495, he said, the house is in a prime spot.
With twin daughters a year old and a son about to turn three, Wilkinson said his family is looking for a bigger place - but will leave this one with many fond memories.
He recalled building the nursery upstairs that his son and now his daughters use. "We brought all of our children to that house," he said. "It will be tough to leave."
To arrange a showing, contact Richard Anzalone, Re/Max Signature Properties, 28 South Bolton St., Marlborough, 877-485-5112, ext 220.


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Candidate Donald Trump has two events planned for today in New Hampshire. The first is a noon town hall in Exeter New Hampshire. The second is a 7:00pm rally in Portsmouth New Hampshire at Great Bay Community College.
The Exeter Town Hall event begins at noon:
Live Stream Link – Alternate Live Stream


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First batch of Nigerian troops off to Mali
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A top Nigerian military officer says that Mali's Islamist extremist rebels trained Nigeria's Boko Haram terrorists.
Lt. Gen. Onyeabo Azubike Ihejerika, speaking at the departure of Nigerian troops for Mali, said that Nigeria is sending troops as part of its efforts to stabilize and bring peace to the region.
About 100 Nigerian soldiers left Thursday from Kaduna airport, the first contingent of the 900 troops that Nigeria has pledged to Mali.
Ihejerika said Nigeria's mission to Mali will complement the efforts to bring about peace in Nigeria. Ihejerika said Nigeria has "evidence that some of the terrorists operating in Nigeria today were trained in Mali." Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamist extremists are blamed for attacks that killed more than 780 people last year.