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What Is CBD
Cannabidiol oil, or CBD oil, is an active component found in cannabis. Unlike tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), it's not psychoactive. People make CBD oil by extracting CBD from the cannabis plant and diluting it with a carrier oil like coconut oil or hemp seed oil.Delta 8 Cookies Disposable
Cannabidiol is a popular natural treatment used for many common ailments.
Better known as CBD, it is among more than 100 chemical compounds called cannabinoids that are found in the cannabis plant, Cannabis sativa.
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main psychoactive cannabinoid found in cannabis, which means it causes the feeling of getting high that's frequently associated with cannabis. However, unlike THC, CBD is not psychoactive.
This quality makes CBD an attractive choice for those who are trying to find relief from pain and various other symptoms without the mind-altering effects of cannabis or other side effects related to some pharmaceutical drugs.
Is It Legal?
CBD is readily obtainable in most parts of the United States, though its exact legal status has been in flux. All 50 states have laws legalizing CBD with varying degrees of restriction. In December 2015, the FDA eased the regulatory requirements to allow researchers to perform CBD trials. In 2018, the Farm Bill made hemp legal in the United States, making it virtually impossible to keep CBD illegal– that would be like making oranges legal, but keeping orange juice illegal.
Benefits Of CBD
Pain Relief
Cannabis has been used to treat pain since as far back as 2900 B.C..
More recently, scientists have found that certain elements of cannabis, including CBD, are accountable for its pain-relieving effects.
The human body contains a specialized system called the endocannabinoid system, which is involved in regulating a variety of functions, including sleep, appetite, pain sensation, and immune system response.
The body generates endocannabinoids, which are neurotransmitters that bind to cannabinoid receptors in your nervous system.
Studies have shown that CBD may help in reducing persistent pain by affecting endocannabinoid receptor activity, decreasing inflammation, and interacting with neurotransmitters.
Anxiety Relief
In 2011, a small trial-tested CBD on participants with generalized social anxiety disorder (SAD) and healthy control patients undertaking a simulated public speaking test (SPST), which is a common anxiety testing method. Compared to a placebo, CBD substantially reduced anxiety and discomfort in the individuals with SAD. As a matter of fact, their decreased anxiety levels were comparable to those of the control individuals.
Eight years later, a 2019 test compared the efficacy of three CBD doses (150 milligrams, 300 milligrams and 600 milligrams) and a placebo in men taking an SPST. Compared to a placebo, 300 milligrams of CBD significantly reduced participants' anxiety throughout the speech, but the 150-milligram and 600-milligram dosages did not. These results highlight how dosage can be highly variable and that more CBD isn't necessarily more effective.Delta 8 Cookies Disposable
Might Reduce Symptoms Of Mental Health Disorders
Anxiety disorders and other mental health disorders can have terrible impacts on general health and well-being.
Mental health disorders are commonly treated with pharmaceutical drugs, which can create a number of negative effects, including drowsiness, agitation, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, and headaches.
What's more, drugs like benzodiazepines have the potential for dependancy and may lead to substance use disorder.
CBD oil has shown promise as a treatment for some mental health conditions, such as anxiety disorders, leading many people who live with these problems to become curious about this all-natural approach.
May Alleviate Cancer Related Symptoms
CBD may help in reducing some cancer-related symptoms and side effects connected to cancer treatment, such as nausea, throwing up, and pain.
An older study looked at the effects of CBD and THC in 177 individuals with cancer-related pain who did not experience relief from pain medication.
Those treated with an extract containing both compounds experienced a substantial decrease in pain compared to those who got only THC extract.
May Improve Neurological Disorders Such As Epilepsy
Scientists believe that CBD's ability to act upon the endocannabinoid system and other brain-signaling systems may provide benefits for those with neurological conditions.
In fact, one of the most researched usages for CBD is in treating neurological disorders such as epilepsy and MS. Though research in this field is still relatively brand-new, a number of studies have shown appealing results.
It decreased spasms in 75% of 276 individuals with MS who were experiencing muscle spasticity that was resistant to drugs.
In another study, scientists gave 214 people with severe epilepsy 0.9– 2.3 grams of CBD oil per pound (2– 5 grams per kg) of body weight. Their seizures reduced by a median of 36.5%
Heart Health
Some research has actually linked CBD with several benefits for the heart and circulatory system, including the ability to lower high blood pressure.
High blood pressure is linked to higher risks of a variety of health conditions, including stroke, heart attack, and metabolic syndrome.
Studies show that CBD may be beneficial for people with high blood pressure.
In a small study, 9 healthy guys were treated with 600 mg of CBD oil. The CBD treatment reduced resting blood pressure compared to a placebo.
In the same study, the men also participated in stress tests that usually increase blood pressure. Interestingly, the single dose of CBD led the men to experience a smaller blood pressure increase than normal in response to these tests.
These are some of the leading brands that our team has tested and recommends. These brands are some of the most potent and most trusted brands on the market today.
Diamond CBD
Diamond CBD is one of the most prominent and most powerful brands on the market today. One of the most impressive things about Diamond CBD is their large range of products. They carry all forms of CBD such as edibles, gummies, oils, creams, vapes and more. Diamond CBD also carries CBD products for pets as well.
Diamond CBD uses plants grown in Colorado, Kentucky, and Scandinavia. Hemp is thoroughly selected by the brand experts who make every effort to produce premium natural products. All the products are tested for quality and pureness at third-party research laboratories. All of their products are free of GMO,s, pesticides, toxins, and heavy metals. This company is one of the best, give them a try!
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Delta Extrax
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Delta Extrax has one objective in mind: to help as many individuals as they can with all-natural and wholesome CBD items. They provide a wide array of items so you can consume CBD by means of your favorite method of administration. They are a leading CBD company and offer both retail and wholesale opportunities.
Delta Extrax supplies you with third-party lab records on every one of its products. This straightforward fact alone helps enhance the company's reliability.
Delta Extrax tests every available item, as well as every flavor, on their site. SCLabs is the third-party company that performs these tests; they very carefully examine each batch to ensure consistency, high quality, authenticity, and taste. These outcomes can be quickly accessed under the "Learn" tab on the main web page.
Delta Extrax has a substantial line of products to include:
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PlusCBD, which is owned by CV Sciences, was started in 2014 and has since then expanded to become one of the most reputable and well-known brands in the industry.
PlusCBD is devoted to safety with high-quality products including 3 formulations customized for consumers with different levels of experience with CBD.
In September of 2018, CV Sciences announced that it had obtained a self-affirmed GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe by FDA safety standards) designation for their PlusCBD Oil Gold Formula product line.
CV Sciences became the first hemp-derived CBD company to obtain the extremely sought-after status.
The company received this classification by going through the essential protocols to confirm the safety and security of hemp CBD and published their safety data in the journal of toxicology.
On top of that, CV Sciences has actually committed to a safe and smart supply chain beginning with hemp sourced from Holland, CO2 extraction, and considerable third-party testing to guarantee accuracy and purity.
They carry all type of CBD products such as
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Empe-USA provides high-quality CBD and take particular care in selecting the very best local manufacturers.
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Joy Organics
Joy Organics CBD is a family-owned and operated company that offers a wide variety of broad-spectrum CBD items. The company was founded in July of 2018 by Joy Smith, a mom, grandmother, and humanitarian that struggled with chronic pain and sleep problems. After trying CBD products by various other brands and having very little success, Smith made a decision to start her own CBD empire, therefore Joy Organics CBD was born.
Operating out of the Joy Organics Ft Collins headquarters, the brand seeks to bring comfort, compassion, and confidence to its consumers. To achieve this feat, Smith enlisted the help of her loved ones, making her business a household affair, with her husband, daughters, and in-laws all playing vital roles in the operation.
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CBD has actually been used for centuries to treat a vast array of issues with virtually zero negative effects in many past cultures before big pharma came along.Delta 8 Cookies Disposable
CBD oil has been studied for its potential role in easing the symptoms of numerous common health conditions, including anxiety and neurological disorders. Plus, it may benefit heart health and help ease certain types of pain.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Come join us for a fun night out to de-stress, rekindle your creativity and paint your own unique masterpiece. Bring your friends and make some new ones during a guided two-hour painting session from start to finish. No experience needed to have a fantastic time!
"Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist." – Pablo Picasso
What you will learn:
Be guided step by step instruction to create your own interpretation of the selected painting.
Explore and enhance your creative side in a supportive atmosphere.
A fun night out, listening to music whilst you get creative.
What you will get :
Expert tuition from an experienced Artist.
All materials are provided including paint brushes, canvas 50 x 40cm, paints, easel and apron.
Everyone takes home their own masterpiece.
What to bring:
Your enthusiasm to learn!
Bring friends or meet new ones.
What to wear:
Casual. An apron is provided.
Appropriate for:
Attendees must be 18 or older for this event. No experience is necessary.
Sun Feb 21
3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
The Boardwalk Bar & Nightclub


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The Hunger Games' top MTV Movie Awards Russell Brand appears onstage at the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday, June 3, 2012, in Los Angeles. ...
The Hunger Games' top MTV Movie Awards
Russell Brand appears onstage at the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday, June 3, 2012, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)
The fan votes — not just the odds — were in "The Hunger Games" favor at the MTV Movie Awards.
The dystopian survival saga escaped from Sunday's 21st annual extravaganza with the most golden popcorn-shaped trophies, including best fight for the film's final three-way battle and best on-screen transformation for Elizabeth Banks' over-the-top futuristic makeover. "Hunger Games" stars Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson were also honored for best female and male performances.
"I've wanted to hold a golden popcorn since I was 4 years old," beamed Hutcherson.
With four wins out of eight nominations, "Hunger Games" didn't totally decimate the competition. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2" won prizes for best cast and best hero, while "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1" won for movie of the year, and "Twilight" stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson locked the best kiss trophy for the fourth straight year.
"God, Rob's not here, you guys. I don't really know what to do," said Stewart, who pretended to make out with herself.
"Bridesmaids" walked away with two awards, though their wins weren't televised. The cast of the naughty comedy won best gut-wrenching performance for the scene in which the ladies battled food poisoning, and Melissa McCarthy won the best comedic performance award.
The live, fan-favorite ceremony was hosted by bawdy actor-comedian Russell Brand. He opened the show by poking fun of Michael Fassbender's full-frontal endowment in "Shame" and Kim Kardashian's short-lived marriage, which he acknowledged was hypocritical. (Brand filed for divorce last year from pop superstar Katy Perry, who performed at the Brand-hosted MTV Video Music Awards in 2009, after 14 months of marriage.)
"Tonight, I'm gonna keep my eyes peeled for my next wife," joked Brand. "Fasssssbender!"
In lieu of a wordy acceptance speech for his MTV Generation Award, the show's version of a lifetime achievement trophy, Johnny Depp performed with The Black Keys. Steven Tyler and Joe Perry presented the award to the 48-year-old "Pirates of the Caribbean" star, who accompanied The Black Keys on guitar for "Gold on the Ceiling" and "Lonely Boy."
"It's like the get-out-of-the-business award," said Depp.
Other winners Sunday included Shailene Woodley for breakthrough performance for "The Descendants," Jennifer Aniston as best on-screen dirtbag for "Horrible Bosses" and LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" from "21 Jump Street" for best music.


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Exclusive: Castle Arrests NYPD Blue Vet for Real Housewives Send-Up
NYPD Blue vet Gail O'Grady is back on the beat - sort of. The Emmy nominated actress will guest-star on an upcoming episode of Castle, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively.
O'Grady will play Margo Cowan, one of the stars of the hit Real Housewives-esque reality show The Wives of Wall Street. The cameras follow her as she runs her cosmetics empire - an empire that employed the victim of a murder the team is investigating.
Who is the best TV actor of 2012? Vote!
O'Grady joins Gina Torres, who will play one of Cowan's Wives of Wall Street co-stars, as first reported by TVLine. Their episode, titled "Reality Star Struck," is set to air in February.
Aside from playing Blue's big-haired squad secretary Donna for three years, O'Grady is also known for her role as American Dreams' family matriarch. She most recently guest-starred on Hawaii Five-0 last year.
Castle airs Mondays at 10/9c on ABC.
View original Exclusive: Castle Arrests NYPD Blue Vet for Real Housewives Send-Up at TVGuide.com
Related Articles on TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com


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Today's Music: Eric Clapton – Rock and Roll Heart
Back when I started blogging, I found a lot of the blogs I follow by reading the commenters on other blogs. Good comments led to a link click, and to some of my best online friends today.
Except for one guy. He was on a lot of the blogs I read, commenting, back and forthing with other comments. But his link was just a gravatar pic.
One of the first things I learned about him in those comments was that he loved goats (seriously).
I kept an eye on him. Because he's weird.
Then one day, the blogosphere was awhirl. Atwitter. Agog, even!
After months of gentle berating and cajoling, this whackadoodle got his own blog!
But it wasn't all things animal. For instance, he doesn't speak cat. For goodness sake, he drove a Vega!
But before you mock him too harshly, he's one of the few I know who's successfully used vomiting as a pickup technique. And there was a sci fi convention involved, so he's got that in his favor too!
He has a deep knowledge of history, and important world events. But mostly the world wars.
Yep, John Erickson got hisself a blog.
And to go with it, he's having a birthday.
Happy birthday John, and many more to come! Stay entertaining. Stay irreverent. Stay yourself.
I'm happy to just come along for the ride.
And they are too!
Doggy's Style
A Frank Angle
Fifty Four and a Half
Life Of Jaimie
The Idiot Speaketh
Madam Weebles
WhiteLady In The Hood


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Some of the gay gamers at reddit who congregate in the /r/gaymers subreddit view the blogger who sent them a cease-and-desist letter, Chris Vizzini, as a bully. Vizzini owns the gaymer.org website and says he has trademark rights to the word "gaymer." He claims other "social" websites that use it are stealing away clicks that belong to him.
The dispute over the term "gaymer" turned into a public brouhaha last week, when the folks at /r/gaymers lawyered up, working with pro bono counsel from Perkins Coie and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to file a petition [PDF] to cancel Vizzini's trademark. The petition says "gaymer" is a generic word that has been used by gay, lesbian, and bisexual gamers since the mid-'90s.
Vizzini explained his position late Friday, writing a blog post entitled "Help Save Gaymer—Erase The Hate." In the post, Vizzini tells the story of how he came to trademark "gaymer." Back in 2002, Vizzini was playing games like Everquest and the words "faggot" and "homo" were tossed around as "stock insults," he wrote. "It made me sad on a level I'd never felt before. I never felt so far removed from the human race in my life; as if somehow I didn't matter as much as a gamer because I was gay."
He goes on: "The straw the ultimately broke the Gaymer's back was when someone online was spouting gay insults hard and said to another player, 'I hope you die of AIDS you gay AIDS monkey.' This one hit me hard because I, like many other people in the gay community, have known people lost to the disease."
That inspired Vizzini to create his gaymer.org website back in 2003, and he has since built it into a community. "It was time and money I had spent, so I needed to protect the brand and sought to trademark the word in 2007," he wrote. But Vizzini didn't like the fact that Google searches for "gaymer" produced his website first, and then a link to /r/gaymers right underneath it. "My thinking was that those clicks that went to reddit searching the word Gaymer should have rightfully gone to my website," he wrote.
"I will be defending the trademark as they fight it," Vizzini continued, as he asks for donations for his legal fees. "The difference is they have free legal representation from two sources and I do not."
Even on Vizzini's own site the comments are mixed about his move. "For crying out loud hon," wrote a guest commenter going by the moniker Kitsunami Lupo. "You are making a fool of yourself. [Were] you not happy to simply have a functioning website, many friends, and a community that works? Why did you need to tell another community who probably set up in the VERY SAME WAY you did to stop, so that you could be the 'only' community... That is just selfish and downright wrong."


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Jennifer Mastroianni: Surprise Mom with classic breakfast dish
For a decadent breakfast, nothing beats eggs Benedict. Will I be served the restaurant classic in bed on Mother's Day morning? Probably not. And that's just fine with me.
Actually, I'd be thrilled with a repeat of last year's Mother's Day meal, prepared by my 11-year-old daughter, Lexi. She made me the most adorable buttermilk pancakes, fashioned into a smiley face and embellished with strawberry freezer jam we made together the previous summer. And what presentation! Clean dish rags lined her serving tray, which also included a container of Jell-O and a vase of fresh picked flowers. I get misty just thinking about it.
However, she's a year older, and assures me she is up for a bigger challenge. Wouldn't you know, I happened upon a scaled-down version of my favorite breakfast. It's called Eggs Benedict Casserole.
It features all the traditional ingredients yet requires just one dish for baking and serving.
It also has a spicy twist. No surprise since it is a recipe from Tabasco. If your family doesn't like heat, limit the amount or opt out altogether.
Lexi wants to give it a shot. I can't wait, and will no doubt be moved to tears. From the effort — and possibly the spice.
6 cups French bread, cut into cubes
12 large eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
3 tablespoons fresh chives, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons Tabasco Sauce, optional
12 ounces Canadian bacon, chopped
1 (9-ounce) package Hollandaise sauce
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place French bread cubes in buttered, 8-cup shallow casserole dish. Beat eggs, milk, chives, salt and 2 teaspoons Tabasco sauce in large bowl; stir in Canadian bacon. Pour over bread cubes. Let mixture stand 5 minutes. Bake 40 minutes or until mixture is puffed and set. Meanwhile, prepare Hollandaise sauce as package directs. Keep warm until ready to use. Serve casserole with warm Hollandaise sauce. Makes: 6-8 servings.


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The Standard & Poor's 500 index closed above 1,500 on Friday for the first time since the start of the Great Recession in 2007, lifted by strong earnings from Procter & Gamble and Starbucks.
The S&P 500 rose 8.14 points, to 1,502.96. It was the eighth straight gain, the longest winning streak since November 2004.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 13,895.98, up 70.65 points. The NASDAQ composite gained 19.33 points, to 3,149.71.
Procter & Gamble, world's largest consumer products maker, gained $2.83, to $73.25 per share,after reporting that its quarterly income more than doubled. P&G also raised its profit forecast for its full fiscal year. Starbucks rose $2.24 to $56.81 after reporting a 13-percent increase in profits.
"Earnings are growing," said Joe Tanious, a global market strategist at JPMorgan. "The bottom line is that corporate America is doing exceptionally well."
Tanious expects corporate earnings to grow at about 5 percent over the "next year or two," and stock valuations to rise. Currently, the S&P 500 is trading at an average price-to-earnings ratio of 14, below an average of 15.1 for the last decade, according to FactSet data.
Apple continued to decline, allowing Exxon Mobil to once again surpass the electronics giant as the world's most valuable publicly traded company. Apple fell 2.4 percent, to $439.88, following a 12-percent drop on Thursday, the biggest one-day percentage drop for the company since 2008, after Apple forecast slower sales. The stock is now 37 percent below the record high of $702.10 it reached Sept. 19.
Apple first surpassed Exxon in market value in the summer of 2011, grabbing a title Exxon had held since 2005. The two traded places through that fall, until Apple surpassed Exxon in early 2012.
Stocks have surged this month, with the S&P 500 advancing 5.4 percent. It jumped at the start of the year when lawmakers reached a last-minute deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff." Stocks built on those gains on optimism that the housing market is recovering and the labor market is healing. The Dow Jones is up 6 percent on the year.
Deutsche Bank analysts raised their year-end target for the index to 1,600 from 1,575.
Companies will be able to maintain their earnings even if lawmakers in Washington decide to implement wide-ranging spending cuts to narrow the budget deficit, the analysts said in a note sent to clients late Thursday.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, climbed 11 basis points to 1.95 percent.


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Storing details of everything you do isn't a new concept, but a new breed of apps and gadgets is helping…
1. Lifelogging apps for smartphones
There are several dedicated lifelogging apps for smartphones in 2014, taking advantage of the data and sensors inside your device. Sagastyles itself as a "digital autobiography" pulling information in from various other apps including Facebook, Instagram and various fitness trackers. Narrato describes itself as a digital journal, with a similar focus on importing data from all your apps, while OptimizeMe captures data, then helps you analyse it for correlations between, say, activity levels and stress.
2. Fitness trackers are big
A growing number of people own wearable activity trackers like Nike'sFuelBand, Fitbit or the Jawbone UP, and team these with fitness and diet apps like MyFitnessPal or RunKeeper to monitor their efforts to stay in shape. Some apps – Moves being one example – are extending to other forms of data. Moves doesn't just know how many steps you've taken in a day, but also where you've been – an accidental journal, of sorts.
3. There is dedicated hardware
A new generation of lifelogging cameras is designed to be worn so they can capture photos throughout the day. Autographer is a £400 camera capable of shooting up to 2,000 shots a day while worn around the neck or clipped onto clothing.
Narrative, meanwhile, costs $279 (but ships worldwide) shooting two photos a minute, and tagging their location using its built-in GPS.
4. Big tech companies are sniffing around
A lot of the apps and gadgets described above came from new startups, but larger consumer electronics firms are beginning to explore lifelogging too. In January, Sony unveiled a device called Core, a wrist-worn activity tracker that connects to a smartphone app calledLifeLogger. The app uses data from Core as well as your photos, music choices and social networking updates, collecting everything together into a daily record.
5. Wearables capture more data
Lifelogging is also likely to play a role in currently hyped categories of wearable gadgets like smart-watches and augmented glasses. Devices like Samsung's Galaxy Gear and Google's Glass are worn throughout the day, with various sensors to capture data – and apps to help make use of them.
6. Social services get logging
Facebook's timeline is now well established, but its annual Year in Review feature aims to show you your "biggest moments" from the last 12 months. Twitter now lets you download your archive of tweets and browse them by month. And Spotify's Year in Review 2013 showed each user what they'd been listening to most.
7. It really isn't a new thing
Microsoft's MyLifeBits project attracted attention in the early 2000s, as researcher Gordon Bell digitally captured a lifetime's photos, messages and work, while colleagues designed software to navigate it. Bell is still going strong, saying in a recent interview that "paper is terrible as it's unsearchable".
8. Lifelogging gets emotional
Lifelogging software and hardware can tell you what you did and where you did it, but apart from any related status updates, it can't tell you how you were feeling. Researchers have had a crack at that too though: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had a project called Inside Out: Reflecting on Your Inner State, which matched photos with measurements of the user's skin temperature and conductivity to map happy and stressful moments in the day.
9. Lifelogging can be art
A number of artists have used digital lifelogging as a source for their work. In Alan Kwan's Bad Trip, his wearable video camera captures his daily life, and uploads the data to a 3D virtual world for others to explore. Another artist, Stephen Cartwright, records his latitude, longitude and elevation every hour, and turns the data into artworks.
10. Privacy issues loom large
There are two thorny issues around lifelogging: your privacy, and that of others. The wearable cameras raise questions of permission from the people who are captured, especially if those photos are later published.
This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk.


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text:
Congratulations on establishing a program where employees are offered a choice of company-owned devices. As your organization grows, we believe it will help you streamline collaboration, harden security and free up IT's time to support business initiatives.
Emphasize "Choice"
From your users' perspective, one drawback of your program is that it doesn't offer the unlimited variety of a bring your own device (BYOD) policy. To offset this, Lenovo suggests populating your device portfolio with a range of device types. You can also customize each user's options according to their job role. Moving forward, you'll want your portfolio to include:
- Business-grade build quality, support services, security features and connectivity options. For example, access prioritized tech support and on-site servicing. Or achieve the highest security standards with hardware-based fingerprint readers which are much harder to hack.
- A range of device types based on an audit of job roles in your organization. Today there are many choices, each with their own advantages for different worker roles. Gain user buy-in ahead of time to ease the transition to your new program.
- Intel® Active Management Technology, which enables IT managers to discover, repair and help protect networked computing assets. They can also remotely erase all the data on a device which has been lost or stolen.
- Windows 10 Pro security features that help to protect data in the event of a human error or if a device is lost or stolen. For example, Windows Information Protection helps prevent unauthorized or accidental sharing of company information and allows you to remotely delete business data from a lost or stolen device. BitLocker data encryption, supported by many ThinkPad and ThinkCentre devices, will encrypt all data on a device, ensuring it cannot be accessed by unauthorized users.
Additionally, you can simplify PC deployment with a solution like Advanced Deployment Services. This is a customizable self-install wizard that enables final configuration steps to be performed by your end users instead of a technician. Whether joining a domain, installing software, setting up printers or migrating data, you can empower your end users to self-serve and reduce the burden on IT admins.
How Can You Improve Your Program?
New technology, users and industry challenges force you to continually evolve. Here are a few tips from Lenovo:
- Include only business-class PCs in your portfolio (avoid low-security, hard-to-manage consumer PCs)
- Audit job roles in your organization to get user input on preferred device types
- Review the portfolio annually to determine your refresh needs. Make sure it includes device options for every user; don't open the door to shadow IT and increased risk
- Include managed business applications and containerization services during device provisioning to ensure better security and manageability


text:
Carolyn Hax: People have the power to set a tone
DEAR CAROLYN: We recently visited a local theme park, taking visiting relatives who have a 2-year-old. After a day of walking in 90-degree weather, we lined up for the tram to the parking lot. We were in the first line with a very large stroller that would fit only in that first row.
As the tram stopped, a much younger mom with three children ran in front of us from another line and grabbed those seats. I was appalled.
When we arrived at the parking lot, I told the young lady what she did was very rude. Of course her response was: "Too bad for you." I suggested she raise her children with better manners.
My husband said I shouldn't have said anything, but I disagree. I hope this mother discusses what happened, and someone in her group of friends suggests that what she did was indeed rude. If we don't speak up, it will only get worse. Your thoughts? - SAD THAT GENTILITY IS BEING LOST
ANSWER: I'm glad you spoke up, and I wish others in your place would attempt a calm correction - or a friendly one, even better. No one remark will cure rudeness, but, collectively, people have power to set a tone: "You can't operate with impunity. Not here."
Now it's my turn to speak up. If the implication in your signature is what I think it is, then you see this line-jumper as proof in miniature of a larger collapse of civilization as we know it. (If not, disregard what follows.)
But the gentility I remember was predicated on membership in society's preferred groups. The "Little Rock Nine," to use an infamous example, were not greeted by a society with manners that put today's manners to shame. Given that the courtesies of "then" were as much about knowing one's place as knowing one's place in line, nostalgia for them hits me wrong.
Yes, the victories by exposed flesh and Spandex over recent decades have done our public spaces no favors, and unrelenting profanity gets old - but when it comes to manners, there were losers before and there will be losers ever after. Believing otherwise suggests revisionist history or, worse, an agenda.
DEAR CAROLYN: Do I buy the bride-to-be a wedding gift, even though she owes me money she borrowed and never paid back? I'm not the only person to whom she owes money, by the way. It's like we're paying for her wedding because she's kept the money and it rankles to have to fork out more cash to buy a gift. It complicates matters that she's a family member. Is there a polite way to say your wedding gift is that you don't have to pay me back? - J.
ANSWER: The way you'd want to hear it if you were in her shoes is, as a general rule, the polite way to say it. So, no. Right?
You don't have to buy a gift, though. No matter what people tell you, gift-giving is purely at the giver's discretion. Stick to a card here with a thoughtful message - yours, not Hallmark's. When enough time has passed for the gesture not to be associated with the wedding, then tell her you're forgiving her debt - perhaps with a follow-up gift of a well-reviewed book on personal finance.
Email Carolyn at firstname.lastname@example.com, follow her on Facebook at facebook.com/carolyn.hax or chat with her online at noon Eastern time each Friday at washingtonpost.com.


text:
Morning Jolt: 2-year-old caught picking lock
In the news
Parents Mike and Joann Moser were incredulous when their 8-year-old daughter told them their 2-year-old son was picking the lock on her bedroom door so he could steal toys, so they set up a camera to see for themselves. And what they saw was the toddler using fingernail clippers to pick the door of his sister's room. Watch the cute, unbelievable video here.
Happening today
March Madness resumes today, with four Sweet Sixteen games scheduled for tonight. The first game of the night tips off at 7:15 p.m. EDT.
Opening bell
The Dow Jones opened at 14,526.16 after finishing down 33.49 points Wednesday.
Motivational quote
"Strive to be first: first to nod, first to smile, first to compliment, and first to forgive." - Anonymous
Watercooler talk: Bus driver in China has close call
A power pole or lamp post crashed through the windshield of a bus in China, but the driver walked away with minor injuries, and none of the passengers were hurt.
GateHouse News Service


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SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Coast Guard on Wednesday visited a mysterious barge that has been linked to Web giant Google, but a spokesman for the agency said he and his colleagues have been ordered to remain tight-lipped about the project.
A top-secret, four-story structure has been erected atop a huge barge that now sits next to a pier at Treasure Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, and several signs point to the Mountain View search company's involvement. The barge, as well as three others, belong to By and Large, a company with circumstantial ties to Google, and a regional environmental official told this newspaper Monday that attorneys for Google or an affiliated company approached his agency several months ago to inquire about permits needed if they want to park the floating structure on a long-term basis.
Reuters reported Wednesday morning that a Coast Guard spokesman confirmed that at least one employee had signed a nondisclosure agreement with Google regarding the project. The Coast Guard confirmed Wednesday that they had visited the barge, but would not elaborate.
Lt. Joshua Dykman said he had been told by superiors that he could not discuss the project that is currently underway on the barge, and he could not confirm whether anyone within the Coast Guard had been ordered to sign a nondisclosure statement.
Dykman said he personally had not signed any documentation forbidding him from speaking on the project, but that he was verbally told by superiors he could not discuss it for "legal reasons."
"Once the project is completed, we will be releasing information," he said.
The Coast Guard did confirm, however, that the agency's response to the barge was not due to a medical emergency or a fire.
Nobody knows for sure what the structure is expected to be: Initial news reports have centered on the possibility that Google is building floating data centers, which might use seawater for cooling and produce its own power from ocean wave movement. Google obtained a patent for just such an idea back in 2009. San Francisco television station KPIX reported that unnamed sources said Google wants to use the barge as an outlandish, floating "marketing center" or retail store, where the company could show off cutting-edge gadgets like the wearable Google Glass.
Executive Director Larry Goldzband of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the official who communicated with attorneys representing the project, said they told him they planned on "using the vessel as a tool to teach about technology."
Staff writer Brandon Bailey contributed to this report.


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Easy Recipe: Spinach Apple Salad with Toasted Walnuts
2 Opal apples
5 ounces baby spinach
1/3 cup dried tart cherries
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons fresh thyme (or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed)
1 teaspoon lemon zest, freshly grated
Salt to taste
Ground pepper to taste
1/3 cup (about 2 ounces) goat cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
Core apples, and cut into thin slices (about 16 per apple). Place spinach in a large bowl; remove long stems and any bruised leaves. Add cherries and half of apples and set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil, vinegar, thyme, lemon zest, salt and ground pepper to taste. Toss spinach, apples and cherries with just enough dressing to coat. Top with remaining sliced apples, goat cheese and toasted walnuts.
-- Family Features


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SPAC invites community to enjoy 'Golden memories of Christmas Past'
The Siskiyou Performing Arts Center (SPAC) will open its Christmas spectacular – "Golden Memories of Christmas Past," directed by JJ. Lewis-Nichols on Friday, Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m. at SPAC in Yreka. The show will continue Dec. 8, 14 and 15 at 7:30 p.m. with a final Sunday matinee on Dec. 16 at 2:30 p.m., stated a SPAC press release.
This treat for the whole family includes four mini-versions of Lewis-Nichols' work with Melinda Perlman and Bob Marshall: "The Littlest Angel," "Little Women – A Merry Christmas," "Millenium in Rosewood Park," "Christmas Carol," plus "A Speech to the Mice" – an original piece by Tim Mason.
The cast of 40 features favorite performers and talented 'newbies.'
"The Littlest Angel," based on the narrative by Charles Tarzwell, stars Gabby Gliatto, Katie Bicego, Rhonda Lindquist, Cooper Bruhns and Akemi Dean.
"Little Women – A Merry Christmas," based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott, stars Laura Flett and Sarah Knox, Allayana Darrow, Madie Meyer, Sophia Gliatto and John McNally.
"Christmas Carol" brings Ned Nichols to SPAC as Ebeneezer Scrooge with Bart Ackerman, Robin and Tom O'Brien, John Timm, Destiny McNally, Dee Jones and Nicole Ottinger and is based on the novel by Charles Dickens.
One crazy Calypso rap summarizes "Millenium In Rosewood Park," which spoke to the Y2K phenomenon in 1999.
And the final piece, "A Speech to the Mice" by Tim Mason, features Kymberly Morgan as an eccentric ballet teacher giving notes to the cast of her "Mouse Armada" before their final performance of "The Nutcracker Ballet."
"Every part of this show has been especially contoured for this Christmas and is sure to bring laughter and a few tears," stated the release.
Lights and sound will be coordinated by Angelina Toney; the set artist is Mary Carpelan; "The Orphan Ballet" is choreographed by Angela Martinez with Akemi Dean; and costumes are headed by Cindy Brown, Barbara Soule and Heidi Martin.
SPAC's poster and press pictures are by Celeste Foster. Corrina Soule created the posters.
Tickets are $14 and the outlets include the Yreka Chamber of Commerce, Nature's Kitchen, Bella Art Works and Hairazors in Fort Jones.
"This Christmas extravaganza is SPAC's gift to our wonderful community. These 'golden memories' re-kindle loving kindness, joy and heartfelt goodness. Buy a ticket for someone special, and join us for our annual festivities," stated the release.
The performances may be enjoyed by children over the age of 3, and cameras and recording devises will not be permitted.


text:
NOTES from the UNDERGROUND No. 215 (& Poetry Dispatch) | April 30, 2012
The 10 Best First Lines in Fiction
(Our Guide to the greatest lines of novel in the English language from Jane Austen to James Joyce—The Guardian)
James Joyce
Ulysses (1922)
"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed." This is the classic third-person opening to the 20th-century novel that has shaped modern fiction, pro and anti, for almost a hundred years. As a sentence, it is possibly outdone by the strange and lyrical beginning of Joyce's final and even more experimental novel, Finnegans Wake: "riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs."
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice (1813)
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." The one everyone knows (and quotes). Parodied, spoofed, and misremembered, Austen's celebrated zinger remains the archetypal First Line for an archetypal tale. Only Dickens comes close, with the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light etc…"
Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre (1847)
"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day." The polar opposite to Austen and Dickens, this line plunges the reader into the narrative, but in a low-key tone of disappointed expectations that captures Jane Eyre's dismal circumstances. Brontë nails Jane's hopeless prospects in 10 words. At the same time, the reader can hardly resist turning the first page. There's also the intriguing contrast in tone with her sister Emily, who opens Wuthering Heights with: "I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with."
Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
"You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter. That book was made by a Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly." The influence of this opening reverberates throughout the 20th century, and nowhere more so than in JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye: "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like… and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
PG Wodehouse
The Luck of the Bodkins (1935)
"Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French." A classic English comic opening, perfectly constructed to deliver the joke in the final phrase, this virtuoso line also illustrates its author's uncanny ear for the music of English. Contrast the haunting brevity of Daphne du Maurier in Rebecca, partly situated in the south of France, and also published in the 1930s: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. "
Anthony Burgess
Earthly Powers (1980)
"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me." This is one of the supreme show-off first-person openings. Burgess challenges the reader (and himself) to step on to the roller coaster of a very tall tale (loosely based on the life of Somerset Maugham). It is matched by Rose Macaulay's famous opening to The Towers of Trebizond: "'Take my camel, dear,' said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass."
Dodie Smith
I Capture the Castle (1948)
"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink." A brilliant beginning to a much-loved English classic, which tells us almost all we need to know about the narrator Cassandra Mortmain. Quirky and high-spirited, Dodie Smith's novel is really an exercise in nostalgia. Smith (subsequently famous for The Hundred and One Dalmatians) was living in 1940s California, and wrote this story, in a sustained fever of nostalgia, to remind her of home. Perhaps only an English writer could extract so much resonance from that offbeat reference to "the kitchen sink."
Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar (1963)
"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York." Postwar American first lines don't come much more angsty or zeitgeisty than this. Compare Saul Bellow's Herzog: "If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog." First published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas", this first novel seems to parallel Sylvia Plath's own descent into suicide. In fact, The Bell Jar was published only a month after its author's tragic death in the bleak winter of 1963h resonance from that offbeat reference to "the kitchen sink.
Donna Tartt
The Secret History (1992)
"The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation." In this spooky opening, Tartt plunges the reader into the middle of a crime whose consequences will reverberate throughout the ensuing pages. Like all the best beginnings, the sentence also tells us something about the narrator, Richard Papen. He's the outsider in a group of worldly students at Hampden College in rural Vermont. He was expecting a break from his bland suburban Californian life, but he doesn't quite understand what he's got himself into."
Robert Louis Stevenson
Treasure Island (1883)
"Squire Trelawnay, Dr Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17– and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof." Among the most brilliant and enthralling opening lines in the English language.
[from: The Guardian The Observer, Robert McCrum, Saturday, April 28, 2012]
Editor's Note: I'm sure not everyone would agree with these ten choices, still it's a pleasure to entertain them, recall some of these first lines or be introduced to others for the very first time. Though I agree most with Joyce's, Ulysses and Twain's, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I would add some favorite first lines of mine:
Herman Melville
Moby Dick (1851)
"Call me Ishmael."
Ernest Hemingway
The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
"He was an old man who fished alone in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish."
Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita (1955)
"Light of my life, fire of my loins."
Ralph Ellison
Invisible Man (1952)
"I am an invisible man."
Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."


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Cheboygan man to see son drafted by NFL team tonight
Everybody has a dream.
In the case of Central Michigan University offensive tackle Eric Fisher, he will live his dream of playing professional football when his name is called in the first round of the 2013 NFL Draft in New York City tonight.
Whether he is selected No. 1 overall by the Kansas City Chiefs or even gets picked by his hometown Detroit Lions, he'll cherish the moment for the rest of his life.
But while millions of people around the country are learning quickly about the 6-foot-7, 306-pound stud lineman, the story behind the CMU grad might truly be just as fascinating.
Something special
For Eric's father, Tim Fisher, who moved to Cheboygan permanently in 2001, the day of realizing his son would one day be special came in the most unusual of circumstances.
Tim, who has consistently been around Cheboygan since 1991, used to cut firewood before bringing it back downstate with his pickup truck to sell to anybody in need.
On one cold night in the winter, Tim brought an entire pickup load of three-face court wood, taking it to a fellow neighbor in Rochester.
"It was the winter, we backed (the truck) down into our neighbors' yard, I got out of the truck, the guy came out of the house, and we started talking like a lot of guys do, we just started BS'ing," recalls Tim.
A young Eric, just a 6-year-old at the time, witnessed his father and the fellow neighbor chatting away.
But — unlike them — he wasn't messing around.
He decided to take care of business.
"Eric jumps up in the back of the pickup truck ― six years old, mind you ― he starts throwing the wood off the truck. I kept talking, I told him (my neighbor), 'I better finish off this load because we gotta get out of here.' I look around and the whole truck's unloaded. Six years old, and he unloaded the whole truck himself. I looked back at the guy and we both started laughing. He said, 'Do you believe that?', and I said, 'That's unusual.'"
"I knew then that there was something special about Eric."
Strangely, it was not the first — or last — of the unusual stories of Fisher, who is projected by many to be a top-5 draft pick on Thursday.
It was just the beginning.
Nearing Halloween on a cold October evening, Eric's father saw some trouble as he did not get his swimming raft unhooked from the cord from the anchor at the bottom of the lake. With his boat already put away, Tim became quite concerned.
"I said, 'Oh, my God. It's 30 feet deep out there," Tim recalled.
Eric stepped in and took charge.
His dad was once again in amazement by what happened next.
"He goes, 'Dad, I'll get it.' I said, 'How are we going to get it now? The water's freezing, the boat's put away.' He dove off the dock, swam 80 feet out in the freezing water, got under the raft, unhooked it, and brought the raft to shore. Ten-year-olds just don't do stuff like that, so I knew again there was something with him.'"
"Being as a 6- or 7-year-old, Eric's tenacity to complete a project was mind-boggling."
Before long, Eric could do just about anything.
"One time when we were clearing out property where we built our house, he helped me clear the whole lot, cut the timbers down, the trees, clear everything," Tim recalled of another day the two worked together. "He was even using a chainsaw with my supervision. He could handle a chainsaw as a 10-year-old!"
Along with his mother and father, Eric grew up with his sister, Lauren, and his brother, Brian.
"They're all good kids. I love em' to death, but Eric was different," Tim explained. "At a young age, he could just roll up his sleeves and get into it. When you get little kids in a task, they get bored quick, and they say, 'I want to go swimming, I want to go fishing, I'm tired of this' ― not him. He was so determined and such a hard worker. He saw his dad do it, and so, if I did it, he wanted to do everything I did."
Times up north
As young Eric kept growing up, he continued to stay close with Tim, who separated with his wife, Heidi, in 1998, before moving up to Cheboygan for good in 2001.
But nothing stopped Eric from becoming the hard worker he is today.
When visiting his dad in the summer, Eric worked at Kitchen's Transplant — a Christmas Tree Farm in Cheboygan — in the summers of 2002-2003.
Together, the two helped out at the farm, whether it was planting Christmas seeds, pulling weeds or any other work required.
"It wasn't hard at all," Tim recalled of the work. "Pretty much the summers that Eric spent there, for most of the time, it was pulling weeds. He was in the mud with me. Some days it was raining, but we were still out there pulling weeds in the grass."
The farm, which was run by Jim and Pat Kitchen at the time, closed about four years ago.
Despite not working out on the farm with Tim and Eric, Pat sensed a dogged worker in Eric, who was only about 12 years old at the time.
"He wasn't here that many days, but when he was here, he was on vacation with his dad," Pat explained, "but, I mean, he did work very hard out there. He did work right alongside his dad, and he didn't seem to complain at all. He seemed to be a good worker."
Being recognized
As Eric continued to work as hard as he could, he eventually enrolled at Rochester Hills Stoney Creek High School, where he went out for the freshman football team.
Ironically, as a freshman, Eric did not start out as an offensive lineman. Not even a defensive lineman.
He was the team's quarterback.
And he wasn't bad either.
"As a freshman in high school, I saw him throw a 60-yard touchdown pass in a non-conference game at Mount Morris," his father recalled. "That's when he was quarterbacking, but after that year, the coaches called him up to the varsity the next year and said, 'Well, you got a great arm, but you're going to be playing linebacker for us.'"
For the next season, Eric flourished at the linebacker and defensive end positions at Stoney Creek.
Calvin Gross, his varsity head football coach at Stoney Creek, decided it was time for a change, putting his star player on the offensive line before his senior season.
The football field was not the only place Eric dominated at, however. In fact, he excelled on the basketball court, where he holds the school record for total rebounds at Stoney Creek.
While competing in one of his basketball games, some notable faces were in attendance to scout Eric ― then CMU head football coach Butch Jones and then CMU offensive line coach Don Mahoney.
They certainly loved what they saw.
"They were sold on his athleticism and footwork, then decided to offer him a scholarship at Mount Pleasant," Tim explained, discussing the interest from the CMU coaches.
It didn't take long for Eric to sign a National Letter of Intent to play for the Chippewa football team.
When he made his way to CMU in 2009, the coaches continued to laud his ability, even as a young freshman with the Chippewas.
"After one of his games at CMU as a freshman, the offensive line coach (Mahoney) told Eric's mom, Heidi, that, 'I don't say this often ― and certainly not to many parents ― but your son will play in the NFL when he's done here.' He told her that during his freshman year, and he said, 'Heidi, keep that between you and I, but I swear this kid's playing the NFL. So he knew it then."
Despite not being a highly-touted recruit coming out of high school, Eric made the most of his chances as a Chippewa. In his past senior season, Eric was named to the Sports Illustrated All-America Second Team, while also being honored as a third team All-American by the Associated Press.
New York state of mind
Tonight, a life of hard work will culminate with Eric being selected in the NFL Draft.
Speculation is the talented lineman could possibly be picked by the Chiefs at No. 1. Meanwhile, teams like the Detroit Lions also could have a shot if he falls to them.
For his father, he'll be happy just about wherever he lands. But he did offer up hope for a few teams.
"All I can tell you is I'm a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan," Tim explained. "That would make my life if he could play for the Cleveland Browns (sixth pick). But also, very honestly, I'll make it as simple as I can: What dad wouldn't want their sons' name called first in the NFL Draft? So Kansas City? Yes. Then Jacksonville and Philadelphia is a possibility, but I hope it skips over that and he might as well be a Detroit Lion. I would love to see him play for his hometown if he can't be named number one."
Eric, who worked out in his hometown of Rochester last week, flew out to New York City with his mother on Sunday. His father and other family members met up on Tuesday.
Wherever he goes, Eric will always have the support of his father, Tim, his mother, Heidi, his brother, Brian, his sister, Lauren, his grandparents, Opa and Oma, his uncle, Herbie, and his six-year-old nephew, Ethan.
Once Erics hears NFL commissioner Roger Goodell call his name on Thursday night, it will be one of the proudest moments ever for the Fisher family.
"I think I'm going to lose it," Tim said. "To me, it's like a dream I don't want to wake up from."
Not surprisingly, Tim offered up one more 'different' story about his son.
Years ago, when Eric was just four living in Rochester, he sat on his grandfather's lap during a family gathering in the winter. His grandfather, Tim's father who passed away in 1997, asked young Eric what he wanted for Christmas.
Like many times in his life, Eric's answer was unusual.
"My dad said, 'What kid asks for a wheelbarrow for Christmas?,' Tim recalled. Eric does."
"Eric would ask for that."
After his name is called on Thursday, he'll be able to buy as many wheelbarrows as he wants.
But, more importantly, he'll be living his dream.


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Carnival cancels 12 more cruises on troubled ship
HOUSTON - Carnival Cruise Lines has canceled a dozen more planned voyages aboard the Triumph and acknowledged that the crippled ship had been plagued by other mechanical problems in the weeks before an engine-room fire left it powerless in the Gulf of Mexico.
The company's announcement on Wednesday came as the Triumph was being towed to a port in Mobile, Ala., with more than 4,000 people on board, some of whom have complained to relatives that conditions on the ship are dismal and that they have limited access to food and bathrooms.
The ship will be idle through April. Two other cruises were called off shortly after Sunday's fire.
Debbi Smedley, a passenger on a recent Triumph cruise, said the ship had trouble on Jan. 28 as it was preparing to leave Galveston. Hours before the scheduled departure time, she received an email from Carnival stating the vessel would leave late because of a propulsion problem. Passengers were asked to arrive at the port at 2 p.m., two hours later than originally scheduled.
After losing power on its most recent journey, the ship drifted until Tuesday, when two tugboats began moving it toward shore.
A third tugboat was enroute Wednesday from Louisiana.
The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation into the fire.
Passengers have had limited cellphone service because of the power failure, but many were able to make calls to friends and family when the Triumph rendezvoused with another Carnival ship that dropped off food and supplies. The other ship had a working cellular antenna.
Robert Giordano, of the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond, said he last spoke to his wife, Shannon, on Monday. She told him she waited in line for three hours to get a hot dog, and that conditions on the ship were terrible.
"They're having to urinate in the shower. They've been passed out plastic bags to go to the bathroom," Giordano said. "There was fecal matter all over the floor."
Even more distressing, Giordano said, has been the lack of information he has been able to get from Carnival, a complaint shared by Vivian Tilley, of San Diego, whose sister is also on the vessel.
Carnival, she said, has not told families what hotel passengers will be put in or provided precise information about when they will arrive in Mobile, Ala. And that came after the cruise line switched the ship's towing destination from Progreso, Mexico, to Mobile.
Tilley said her sister, Renee Shanar, of Houston, told her the cabins were hot and smelled like smoke from the engine fire, forcing passengers to stay on the deck. She also said people were getting sick.
"It's a nightmare," Tilley said, noting Shanar and her husband chose a four-day cruise so they wouldn't be away from their two daughters for too long.
Meanwhile, officials in Mobile are preparing a cruise terminal that has not been used for a year to help passengers go through customs after their ordeal.
The Triumph is expected to arrive this afternoon.
The cruise ship company has chartered 15 buses to haul passengers to hotels in New Orleans, said Barbara Drummond, a spokeswoman for the city of Mobile.
Carnival said passengers would also be able to fly home on chartered flights.
The company has disputed the accounts of passengers who describe the ship as filthy, saying employees are doing everything to ensure people are comfortable.
Passengers are supposed to receive a full refund and discounts on future cruises.
Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen acknowledged the Triumph's recent mechanical woes, explaining that there was an electrical problem with the ship's alternator on the previous voyage. Repairs were completed Feb. 2.
Testing of the repaired part was successful and "there is no evidence at this time of any relationship between this previous issue and the fire that occurred on Feb. 10."
But according to the email sent to passengers on Jan. 28, the issue affected the ship's cruising speeds, delaying its arrival in Galveston. The email also informed Smedley and other passengers that the propulsion problem would prevent them from docking at two ports.
"Due to the limited cruising speed, our itinerary will be impacted. Depending on the progress of the repairs, we will either visit Progreso or Cozumel," stated the email, signed by Vicky Rey, vice president of guest services. "The good news is that we will remain docked overnight at either port."
Smedley said the ship was in poor condition overall. During her five-day cruise, a water line broke in the hallway ceiling near her cabin, and a separate sewer line broke outside the main dining hall, she said. Metal was protruding from handrails on the staircases, and the elevators often did not work.
Rather than docking in Progreso for only a few hours as planned, the ship stayed in the port for two days, and cruise workers repeatedly told passengers they were waiting for parts to fix a mechanical problem, she said.
Jay Herring, a former senior officer with Carnival Cruise Lines who worked on the Triumph from 2002 to 2004, said the ship was not problematic when he was on it. But he had been on another vessel that seemed to have trouble on nearly every voyage. The Holiday, which at that time was the oldest ship in Carnival's fleet, has since been sold to another company, he said.
"It seemed like it had problems every cruise or every couple of cruises," said Herring, who also authored the book "The Truth About Cruise Ships." ''So it may not be unusual to have recurring problems."
The Triumph, he said, is the size of three football fields or a skyscraper laid on its side. It takes five generators - with one on backup - to power the ship, and 80 percent of that energy is needed to simply push the massive vessel through the water, Herring said.
Each of those generators is the size of a bus, so it's unrealistic to think that the ship could have enough backup power on board to run services when the engines die, Herring added.
"It's one of their bigger ships. It's certainly on the top end of Carnival's fleet," he said of the Triumph. "There are so many moving parts and things that can go wrong."


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Circus elephants being abused?
When the Carson and Barnes Circus rolls into Kirksville on June 28, it will be accompanied by clowns, trained animals, the big top -- and controversy.
An ongoing dispute with a national animal-rights group regarding the treatment of the circus' elephants has surfaced before the first performance.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to the Adair County Commission last week urging them to enact ordinances banning bullhooks, electric prods and other devices used on elephants.
PETA's letter was accompanied by a videotape depicting Carson and Barnes animal care director Tim Frisco using a bullhook while training elephants.
"Sink that hook into 'em," Frisco said in the video. "When you hear that screaming, you know you got their attention."
At another point in the video, Frisco tells trainers not to come into the barn if they are afraid of hurting the elephants, adding they can't use these methods in public.
"You can't do it on the road," he said. "I'm not going to touch her in front of a thousand people."
The video is available online at www.circuses.com.
Jennifer Johnson, a spokeswoman for Carson and Barnes Circus, confirmed Frisco is in the video but said it was shot more than four years ago, adding it was severely edited and spliced together. She said PETA sends out the same news release and letter to commissioners in every town to which the circus travels in an effort to generate donations.
"PETA lies about what we do," Johnson said. "In 71 years of Carson and Barnes Circus, we have never been found in violation of animal protection laws."
In the letter sent to the commissioners, PETA claims the video resulted in a $400 fine for mishandling the elephants. But Johnson said the $400 was a settlement with the USDA, not a fine, and the circus was never found guilty of any formal charge.
While Johnson denies the circus uses electric prods, she defended the use of bullhooks, likening them to a leash or a bridle.
"The bullhook has been a tool used in elephant training for centuries," she said. "It's not used to inflict pain and punishment. It is quite a legitimate part of their training. There is nothing sinister about it."
PETA director Debbie Leahy said bullhooks cause extreme pain to elephants.
"Bullhooks are cruel tools of the circus trade that are routinely used to beat elephants into submission," she said. "The County Commission must send circuses the message that these instruments of torture will not be permitted in Adair County."
Adair County presiding Commissioner Gary Jones said the commission received the letter and video June 25. While they did view the video, Jones said the commission has no plans to further investigate the matter or discuss any ordinances regarding elephant training techniques.


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Cumulonimbus + AgI = ?? (revisited)
Posted by John Hitchcock on 2013/12/13
I'm reprinting an article I wrote 13 months ago. An article I wrote 13 months ago, I'm reprinting. An article that doesn't even get into the most recent huge schadenfreudig spreading through the sane world. But an article I find especially prescient, given the Obama administration's desperate efforts to prevent ObamaCare's huge pains from actually hitting just yet…
A dark cloud follows him wherever he goes.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Farmers obviously need rain for their crops, so there are some who resort to cloud seeding, adding silver iodide to the clouds to try to force rain out of them. But it's a bad idea to seed a thunderstorm cloud. Cumulonimbus clouds can produce nasty things like hail storms, massive lightning storms, micro-bursts, tornadoes.
And of course, there are those who always bring bad luck with them, like Bad Luck Schleprock, our current President.
So, today I am telling you about the seeding of a 3,000 mile wide thunderstorm cloud hanging over the US — and the silver lining that comes with it. It's painfully schadenfreudig. Painfully schadenfreudig, indeed. (Multiple stacked redundancy intentional.) Barack Obama and the Democrats, very cynically aware that their grand scheme to shove the US headlong into Socialism could cause them to fall out of power, set up a series of Laws and programs that would save most of the very bad results until after the 2012 election. After having blamed Bush for all the Democrat-and-Socialist caused travails, they would have a way of avoiding responsibility for the looming mega-disaster. It works like this:
- Set up a Socialist system with all the false positives front-loaded and all the negatives back-loaded.
- Get possibly voted out of office before the negatives hit, so the Socialist-caused negatives would hit when Conservatives were in office.
- Blame the Conservatives in office for the economic disaster the Socialists caused.
- Get the Socialists re-elected to complete the evil transformation of the Free Market US into a Socialist state, with the Conservatives forever blemished by the results of Socialist actions.
But a strange thing happened along the way. The Socialists got re-elected by a completely ignorant, envious, slothful, free hand-out seeking crowd. And all the back-loaded disasters will hit while the Socialists are in power. (By the way, did you know that tornadoes are also backloaded? They are on the back end of cumulonimbus clouds, and not up front.)
ObamaCare is one such program. As most of it is set to kick in now that the election is over, total disaster is on the horizon. Businesses, who cannot pay the cost of ObamaCare and stay afloat at the same time, will be laying off massive numbers of workers nationwide. Other businesses will be cutting their low-level employees (the working poor) to under 30 hours a week so those businesses can stay in business. Very little expansion will be happening, if any at all. It'll be full-on contraction.
A nice little poisonberry in ObamaCare — that "make health care cheaper for all" lie — is a 2.3 percent excise tax on all medical devices, such as crutches, wheelchairs, heart stents, etc, etc. And an excise tax is far worse than a profit tax or income tax. It hits the gross revenue and not the after-expenses cost. For example, suppose it costs a business 5,000 dollars for the raw materials to make a single product. Add in the labor costs, the health insurance costs, the retirement costs, the social security tax, the medicare tax, the property tax for the building itself, the electricity cost, the property insurance cost, the transportation cost, the bookkeeping cost, and all other costs associated with getting the already developed product to market and the final cost to the business is 6,800 dollars. The business sells the product for 7,000 dollars because that's what the market will bear. The business gets a profit of 200 dollars per sale.
In comes the 2.3 percent excise tax. Another 161 dollars off the top. The new profit for the 7,000 dollar item falls from 200 dollars to a whopping 39 dollars (an effective tax rate of 80.5 percent of the profit). Not enough to make the company a going concern. Kill the Research and Development department of the company — the life-blood of all businesses that want to survive, for if a business is not growing and moving forward it is necessarily dying.
But it doesn't stop there. No, not at all. That same company also has to pay the new, higher costs involved in providing ObamaCare to all its employees (instead of the less expensive insurance plans which were optional, which fair portions of employees did not opt into). That 39 dollars per product, which used to be 200 dollars per product goes negative. It costs more to produce than it can be sold for.
But, again, it doesn't stop there. Obama's declaration that electricity costs must necessarily skyrocket and he'll bankrupt coal-fired electric plants necessarily means the energy-intensive manufacturing industry will get hit hard with skyrocketing overhead costs. Costs that cannot be reduced merely by laying people off. So instead, the companies will shutter its doors and either go off-shore or cease to exist, providing a double-whammy of forcing the products to become far more expensive than they are now and far more difficult to obtain.
Small businesses will collapse. The middle class will become working poor. The working poor will become the unemployable destitute. Products the middle class used to be able to afford will become luxury items. Items that were luxuries for the working poor will become nothing but unreachable pipe-dreams. Inflation will go into hyper-drive. Interest rates will climb, making the cost of borrowing prohibitive. And deficit spending, which has been kept artificially low (yeah, I said it), will explode.
How is 1.2 trillion dollars (or more) in deficit spending "artificially low"? That's a good question. And I have a good answer for that. Two words: "debt" and "service". Debt service.
Above is a chart showing the historic levels for the Prime Rate, from Forecast Chart.com. I added a red line at 8 percent for reference. Below is a chart showing the historic levels for the Discount Rate, from a 2009 article on Apin Talisayon's Weblog (data obtained from the Financial Forecast Center). I added a red line at 6 percent for reference.
From Apin Talisayon:
As I said, central banks had recently been dropping interest rates, and so we cannot use the abnormally low prevailing interest rates (0.5%). I plotted the historical data of discount rates set by the US Federal Reserve since January 1950 from the Financial Forecast Center[.]
As you can see in the above two charts, the Prime Rate and the Discount Rate differ in levels, but mirror each other. And they're not only at historic lows; they're far below historic norms. That means the future necessarily will provide much higher rates on borrowing than today. And the Federal Government's debt service costs absolutely must skyrocket. Couple that with the US credit rating crumbling — and will continue to crumble — and the interest on the debt will become astronomical. Even a fairly normal rate of 6 percent with our current 16,000,000,000,000 dollar deficit means 960 BILLION DOLLARS in interest payments alone. By 2015, our national debt will be 20 TRILLION DOLLARS and the interest on that debt will be 1.2 TRILLION DOLLARS. That's before paying for roads, bridges, high speed trains to nowhere, free birth control pills for Sandra Fluck (phonetic spelling), free abortion pills for Sandra Fluck (phonetic spelling), free ObamaPhones, free health care, free foodstamps, free college tuition, free housing for the poor and forever pregnant single mothers, free Big Bird, free NPR propaganda, bailing out California, Illinois, Maryland, New York, free cowboy poetry, and oh yeah, paying for our national defense.
The Socialist who ascended the throne in DC, along with the Socialists in the US Senate who have adamantly refused to produce a Federal Budget since April, 2009, in direct violation of Federal Law and the US Constitution, have successfully Cloward-Pivened the most prosperous nation in the history of the world. The most prosperous nation this world has ever seen has been successfully brought to financial ruin by the Leftists in power who have no use for a document that is "over 100 years old". The aim? Destroy the Free Market and implement Socialism worldwide.
The silver lining? Conservatives have not been responsible for any of it. Conservatives have not been in charge for any of it. I know, little solace for the loss of a once great and mighty and FREE nation. Will there be anything left to save by 2016? And will there be any conceivable way to save it and return to prosperity from the Abyss of Destitution Obama and the Socialist Democrats have created? Or will it already be too late? I, for one, am not looking forward to the disaster these next 10 years will provide us. (UPDATE: Nice Deb performed her Karnac impression and answered my questions before seeing them. Go to her site to read her answers.)
This medical device tax is just not going to end well
Economics 101: Schadenfreude!
Video: What free-market medicine looks like
2013: A Century Of Progress
Gee, why do you think the Obama administration waited until after November 6th to mail these letters?
This entry was posted on 2013/12/13 at 19:47 and is filed under ABJECT FAILURE, Character, Conservative, Culture, economics, Elections, Health, Health Care, Law, Liberal, Obama, Over-regulation, politics, Socialists, society, Tax, truth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
3 Responses to "Cumulonimbus + AgI = ?? (revisited)"
Brittius said
Reblogged this on Brittius.com and commented:
"But a strange thing happened along the way. The Socialists got re-elected by a completely ignorant, envious, slothful, free hand-out seeking crowd."
2013/12/14 at 19:10
[…] finally, John Hitchcock takes a brief time out from his time on the road with an article on Truth Before Dishonor. […]
Yorkshire said
Once and soon as the weakened Dollar loses its Reserve World Currency status, we're totally fu*********** ah, screwed. And combine raising the FED Interest rate, and we're fu********** screwed again.
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