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The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (MacArthur) recently announced that IUCN member, the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI), is one of eight winners of the 2009 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, and the first-ever winner from the Caribbean. In making these Awards, MacArthur does not seek or accept nominations. To qualify, "organisations must demonstrate exceptional creativity and effectiveness; have reached a critical or strategic point in their development; have budgets of less than $5 million per year; show strong leadership and stable financial management; have previously received MacArthur support; and engage in work central to one of MacArthur's core programs".
This year also marks the 20th anniversary of CANARI's incorporation as an independent non-profit organisation, although its origins date back some ten years earlier to the Eastern Caribbean Natural Areas Management Program. CANARI's mission is to promote equitable participation and effective collaboration in managing the natural resources critical to development in the islands of the Caribbean.
CANARI's main programme areas are Forests and Livelihoods; Coastal and Marine Governance and Livelihoods; Civil Society and Governance; and Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction. CANARI's relationship with MacArthur dates back to the late 1980s and the Institute is currently implementing two MacArthur-funded projects:
- Climate change and biodiversity in the insular Caribbean
- Going from strength to strength: Building capacity for equitable, effective and sustained participation of civil society organisations in biodiversity conservation in Caribbean islands.
Additional information about CANARI is available at www.canari.org.
CANARI intends to use the US$350,000 grant that accompanies the award to test and apply new strategies for organisational development in three areas:
- enhancing its long-term financial stability, notably through the development of an endowment fund;
- enhancing the technical capacity of its staff through three-six week 'mini-sabbaticals' focusing on key aspects of CANARI's research; and
- communications research, with a particular focus on how research findings are best communicated to influence policy making and community-level action.
On June 11, 2009, awardees will be honoured at a ceremony at MacArthur's headquarters in Chicago, which will be attended by CANARI's Executive Director, Sarah McIntosh, and Board Member, Dr Patrick McConney. Additional information about the award is available at www.macfound.org/macei/2009.


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Jan. 22 (UPI) -- Despite a slew of critically acclaims comedies and cult hits like 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation, NBC has yet to recover from the departure of signature "Must See TV" 90s sitcoms like Friends and Seinfeld.
But network brass has high hopes for Bill Cosby's impending return to the network and prime-time comedy. The 76-year-old actor, comedian and education activist is developing a new family sitcom with Tom Werner, who co-produced The Cosby Show.
Cosby's upcoming project will continue in that vein, with the actor playing "the patriarch of a multi-generational family," according to Deadline.
Cosby said last November that he wanted to bring his family friendly brand of comedy back to television.
"There is a viewership out there that wants to see comedy, and warmth, and love, and surprise, and cleverness, without going into the party attitude," he told Yahoo TV. "They would like to see a married couple that acts like they love each other, warts and all, children who respect the parenting, and the comedy of people who make mistakes."
An executive told the New York Times that the show was still in the "very, very preliminary stages" of development and that they have yet to see a script.
[Deadline, New York Times]

subset: commoncrawl


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The game is going to follow Katrielle (or Kat for short) in her search for her missing father... Professor Layton. Given that she is a young adult from the looks of things and assuming she isn't adopted, the game looks like it'll be set 20 years or so in the future. This hopefully means we will see older versions of characters from previous games, if not in this game then at least in potential sequels. Also would be interesting to see who Kat's mother is at some point!
Right, now a mention about the slightly confusing release date(s). The game is going to be released worldwide on iOS and Android on July 20th. The 3DS version will be released in Japan on the same day, but for other territories it has been slated for a Q3/Q4 release this year. So not too long to wait thankfully.
Price-wise there is a pretty significant difference between the two versions. No prices except yen yet, but the 3DS release will be 4,800 yen (about £33) and 1,900 yen (about £13) for the smartphone version. So I'd expect that to become £39.99 and either £14.99 or £19.99 when it comes out here. Another thing to note is that the smartphone version will feature IAP (in-app purchases) though no word on what those will be.
So will you pick it up at the first opportunity on Smartphone? Or will you wait and play it on the 3DS?
Here is the trailer for the game (turn on subtitles as they've been fan-subbed)
Personally, I'm pretty excited for a new game in the series as from the looks of it it carries on in the same vein of the previous games. Though I expect there to be some new elements this time, especially with a whole new cast.
But yeah, what do you think? Excited to carry on where you left off?


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Americas Dirty War Against Manufacturing (Part 1): Carl Pope
January 18, 2012 1 Comment
"I'd love to make this product in America. But I'm afraid I won't be able to."
My host, a NASA engineer turned Silicon Valley entrepreneur, has just conducted a fascinating tour of his new clean-energy bench-scale test facility. It's one of the Valley's hottest clean-technology startups. And he's already thinking of going abroad.
"Wages?" I ask.
His dark eyebrows arch as if I were clueless, then he explains the reality of running a fab — an electronics fabrication factory. "Wages have nothing to do with it. The total wage burden in a fab is 10 percent. When I move a fab to Asia, I might lose 10 percent of my product just in theft."
I'm startled. "So what is it?"
"Everything else. Taxes, infrastructure, workforce training, permits, health care. The last company that proposed a fab on Long Island went to Taiwan because they were told that in a drought their water supply would be in the queue after the golf courses."
So begins my education on the hollowing-out of the American economy, which might be titled: "It's not the wages, stupid."
Manufacturing's share of U.S. employment peaked in 1979 and has since fallen by almost half. Although manufacturing has been a relative bright spot in the dismal economy of the past couple of years, in the last decade, the U.S. lost a third of its manufacturing jobs, with the damage rippling far beyond that base to erode millions of jobs that are dependent on it. Read more of this post


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Grammy's showstoppers must go on
While there were a lot of happy winners, the Grammy are all about the performances.
While there were a lot of happy winners at Sunday's Grammy Awards, the performances always take center stage — network-defying wardrobes aside — with creative collaborations and stunning stagings. USA TODAY's
Elysa Gardner recaps some top musical moments:
Taking her best shot
Performer: Taylor Swift
Set: We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
Recap: Smashing in a blinding-white mini-suit (CBS note: no "buttocks crack" in sight) and thigh-high boots, tongue firmly in cheek, the coyly confessional diva crooned her mega-hit as some anonymous schlub — not her latest ex, Harry Styles, though perhaps that's whom she had in mind — played the unlucky dude.
WINNERS LIST: Who took home trophies?
MORE: They said what? What you didn't see during the Grammys
Eddie and the Vet
Performers: Elton John, Ed Sheeran
Set: The A-Team
Recap: John joined fellow Brit and first-time nominee Sheeran for a simple, heartfelt rendition of the younger singer/songwriter's plaintive ballad. The old pro sat at the piano and let Sheeran, fervidly strumming his guitar, take the emotional spotlight.
Fire and rain
Performers: fun.
Set: Carry On
Recap: The latest little band that could played one of its anthemic singles, with frontman Nate Ruess looking suitably intense and making his case (if not all the notes) loud and clear. We're not sure if the downpour at the end was entirely necessary, but as the singer looked a bit sweaty, it was hopefully refreshing.
Glitter and grit
Performers: Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley
Set: Over You and Home
Recap: The country stars joined forces — Lambert glam in a sparkling dress, Bentley more casual in jeans — for their respective hits. Lambert ended raising her arm triumphantly, then draping it affectionately around her colleague.
Performers: Miguel, Wiz Khalifa
Set: Adorn
Recap: R&B star Miguel kept things relatively simple singing his nominated hit; there was the obligatory melisma, but not too much of it, and he seemed to have a swell time with guest rapper Khalifa. They even wore matching pinstriped jackets — probably the set's flashiest feature.
That old-time folk and roll
Performers: Mumford & Sons
Set: I Will Wait
Recap: The English folk-rock darlings delivered their usual energy and proficiency, with singer Marcus Mumford leading his bandmates through chugging, frenetic choruses, then keeping things lean and earnest for the verses.
Dapper duo
Performers: Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z
Set: Suit & Tie, Pusher Love Girl
Recap: OK, the four-day tease for his recent album announcement was a bit much; but Timberlake lived up to the hype with this smooth double shot, seguing from the silky Suit to the similarly old-school-soulful Love. Guest Jay-Z added extra kick, and the guys looked very classy in their tuxes; we're sure the network approved.
Pretty boy, hot girl
Performers: Maroon 5 and Alicia Keys
Set: Daylight, Girl on Fire
Recap: After Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine emoted and showed off his perfectly coiffed hair, Keys provided a much-needed blast of heat, as her fellow performer bounced around appreciatively. (She looked fabulous, too.)
From Rihanna, a keeper
Performer: Rihanna (with Mikky Ekko)
Recap: Looking luscious in long tresses and a (tastefully) sexy black gown, the diva offered a stripped-down, surprisingly supple reading of the song — better and sultrier than the album version. Ekko, who also appears on the recording, lent fluid backing vocals.
Lonely no more
Performers: The Black Keys, Dr. John, Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Set: Lonely Boy
Recap: The Grammy-nominated rock band served up a muscular set with a little help from their friends — though John's hat proved that the term "wardrobe malfunction" needn't be limited to inappropriately revealing garb.
A natural talent
Performer: Kelly Clarkson
Set: Tennessee Waltz, (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
Recap: It's not exactly news that Clarkson is still the most gifted winner that American Idol has produced; but if anyone needed a reminder, this robust, glowing performance — brief as it was — did the trick.
Reggae revival
Performers: Bruno Mars, Sting, Rihanna, Ziggy Marley (with brothers Steve and Damian)
Set: Locked Out of Heaven, Walking on the Moon, Could You Be Loved
Recap: The exuberant young star gave props in person to one of his obvious influences, Sting, who impressively fielded the impossible high notes of one of his Police faves. They were joined by Rihanna and the Marley brothers for one of their dad's classics, bringing the crowd to its feet.
White heat
Performer: Jack White
Set: Love Interruption, Freedom at 21
Recap: The rocker may not have had a prayer to win best album for his Blunderbuss, but he still delivered these two tracks with gusto — and the band gave his punk-blues some extra bite.
Fresh, glowing faces
Performers: The Lumineers
Set: Ho Hey
Recap: The best new artist nominees were clearly revved up to perform their frisky hit, and the audience seemed to eat it up. Hey, the refrain's easy to remember, right?
Innocence and experience
Performer: Carrie Underwood
Set: Blown Away, Two Black Cadillacs
Recap: She may have looked like a prom queen — a very lovely one, at that — but the wholesome country-pop star sounded convincingly fierce singing about love and retribution.
In memoriam
Performers: Elton John, Zac Brown, T-Bone Burnett, Mavis Staples, Mumford & Sons, Brittany Howard
Set: The Weight
Recap: An homage to the late jazz great Dave Brubeck was oddly brief, but Levon Helm, who also died last year, got a worthier tribute with this robustly sung all-star jam through one of The Band's most treasured tunes.
Soul food
Performer: Frank Ocean
Set: Forrest Gump
Recap: The banana-flavored jacket was a questionable choice, but the man who should have taken home this year's best new artist prize (and did collect other trophies) proved he's a keeper.
Over and out
Performers: LL Cool J, Chuck D, Z-Trip, Travis Barker, Tom Morello
Set: Whaddup
Recap: According to Rolling Stone, Z-Trip put this "all-star mixing of rock, rap and turntablism" together after working with LL Cool J, and assembled the team that hit the stage to close the show. Is a supergroup in the works? "One day at a time," Morello told Stone.


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Police have still not identified a man who died Tuesday after being shot in Northeast Baltimore.
A 911 caller found a gunshot victim in the Lauraville neighborhood around 7:45 a.m. Tuesday, police said.
Around 2:25 a.m., officers responded to a call for shots fired in the 4900 block of Morello Road and canvassed the area, but did not discover a victim. The caller discovered a man in the 2600 block of Southern Avenue.
The man was transported to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 8:21 a.m.
Homicide detectives are investigating. Those with information should call 410-396-2100.
Tuesday night, a shooting victim walked into Maryland Shock Trauma Center around 8:15. The 39-year-old man was shot in the arm in the 1500 block of N. Payson Street.
Police are searching for a suspect.


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Tools for Home Maintenance.
As you ski or ride on your equipment the wax and base material wears away and the metal edges can become dull and damaged reducing performance.
WINTERSTEIGER Ski and Snowboard Tuning Tools are the perfect solution for the do-it-yourselfer who wants to keep their skis and snowboards in top notch condition between visits to their WINTERSTEIGER repair shop.
Our complete line of hand tools allow you to wax, repair minor base damage, and keep your edges sharp and smooth. By performing regular preventive maintenance such as waxing, repairing minor base and edge damage you will have a more enjoyable time on the hill. Why waste your vacation using poor performing skis and snowboards?
Over time, even with regular maintenance, the base will become worn and concave and the edges damaged beyond the point of work that can be done by hand. A quick trip to your local WINTERSTEIGER repair shop and they will bring your equipment back to better than new condition.


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Postcards from a Wedding
I wrote this post over a year ago and totally forgot about it. Sorry. It WILL be the last post I ever do in regard to anything related to a wedding. Ever. I've been out of that game for a long, long while and won't be going back anytime soon. I'm not even sure I could do it anymore. Anyone who has ever done a wedding knows it's both a mental and physical game.
CLIFF NOTES: If you don't want to read this opus the basis is MAKE YOUR OWN IMAGES.
I was asked to write about advice for wedding photographers, something I promised I would never do again. However, earlier in the year(2012) I photographed my last wedding ever and I thought it an opportune time to sign off on this industry and business. This post might seem hard hitting, which I hope it is, but the intention is simply to make people think. As photographers we are capable of so, so much, but in difficult economic times, or trying times for the industry, I am baffled by the level of conformity perhaps best illustrated by the portrait/wedding world. Yes, many weddings are comprised of the same format, preparation, ceremony, celebration, and there are similarities from shoot to shoot, so in some ways repetition, standardization and trends all contribute to an assembly line type situation. However, I spent ten years in the portrait/wedding world and was successful because I did NOT conform. There is power and there is value in unique imagery, just as there is in unique literature, poetry, art and sound. So the next time we find ourselves walking on the same well worn path, let's turn around, step off or begin hacking a new trail.
I named this post "Postcards from a Wedding" as a tribute to Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas and her "Pictures from a Revolution" film. Yes, we are talking a major stretch between the Nicaraguan Civil War and a wedding in the Caribbean, but hear me out. In or around 1990, when I was first beginning my official photojournalism degree at the University of Texas, Susan Meiselas came and screened this film for the PJ students. My first "photojournalism" class had hundreds of people in it because "photojournalism 101" was an elective that any communication, art or journalism student could take. Consequently it was a packed house. I was hooked. Completely and utterly hooked. First, the film gave me a feel for who Susan was. Second it gave me a feel for what type of effort it required to do this work, and it also gave me a clear picture of the connection between a committed journalist and the people she was working with.
Susan's Nicaragua work was also graphic, violent, beautiful and felt like the kind of work that I wanted to make. Years after meeting her, and years after graduation, when I finally had a portfolio I believed in-my first book-I sent her one, unannounced. This was before I had a computer, email, cellphone, etc, so it was mailed to her in a giant envelope. Several weeks later it came back, and it came back with a long, handwritten note. In a nutshell it said "You see the world in a unique way but you have to learn how to make YOUR images."
Maybe, just MAYBE, there were two or three images in the entire book that would prompt someone to say I saw the world in a unique way, so I figured she was being polite, which she had already proven by writing me back! What I took from her advice was the last part. I had to learn to make MY images. This is easier said than done. I see so much work today, so much, and the overwhelming majority is work I've seen before. Finding vision, as I've said many times in the past, isn't easy. And you can find it only to lose it just as quickly as you found it. I know, I've done it. Several times.
But let me break this down with the wedding thing in mind. It is a challenge to bring up weddings and Susan Meiselas in the same sentence, but it's my blog and my soul died a long time ago so I'm gonna go ahead and do it. I've written about this for years and normally get crucified when I bring it up, which is reason enough to do it. The wedding photography industry is filled with photographers who aren't really photographers in the traditional sense, but that's okay(They approach from a different angle). If someone finds joy in working in an industry then more power to them. However, there is a downside to this little tale if you have wider plans. If you have "other plans" in photography it can be difficult to be associated with the wedding industry, fair or unfair that is the truth.(Just had this conversation again, last week, with another photographer who said he was not getting commercial work due to being known in his area as a wedding photographer.Much to the chagrin of another photographer who didn't think this could be possible.) One of the ways this can go away is if wedding photographers learned more about not only photography but about themselves. You GOTTA study, work, toil and fight to figure out who you are with a camera in your hand, and frankly most people don't do it and the industry doesn't put ANY pressure on them to do so. There is also an unfair stigma associated with wedding photographers. "If you can't do anything else, you do weddings." This just isn't true anymore, not by a long shot, but the IDEA remains and sometimes this can be a real issue requiring educational skills on the part of the photographer.
The wedding industry was the first industry where I listened to photographers tell me they learned the business by going online, in 2005, and copying who was hot. This isn't good. That might get you a business but it doesn't make you a photographer. There is one photographer in particular, someone I first heard about years ago, who has been cloned by an entire generation of wedding photographer, right down to his camera and lens. I see dozens and dozens of wedding snaps that all look EXACTLY like his…only not quite as good. But guess what, it's good enough. The bar is low so people can get away with this. And also, a lot of wedding snappers base their work and credibility on their clients who are mostly people who DON'T look at imagery. They like most things. This doesn't lend itself to developing a higher standard.
I'm not gonna show you the bulk of the work I did on this wedding(Private), which by the way was the final wedding I will ever do. It's over Johnny. The vault has been sealed and dropped overboard. I did this wedding for several reasons, but most importantly I did it because I really like the people involved. That's all I need. Yes, the location was great, I had freedom to do what I thought best, and even though I was the official photographer I was also part of the gang, which makes things far more civil and enjoyable. The images you see here, with the exception of two, were all made with a plastic, discontinued underwater point-and-shoot. The rest were taken with a 43-year-old rangefinder. Why did I use these old tools? Well, I like them, but they also give me the STYLE of image I was going for. And when I say this I mean for THIS particular shoot. I had a very concrete idea of what I wanted the final product to look like the DAY I accepted this job, which was months and months before the shoot. I didn't just apply my "wedding photography" to this event like all the rest. I've done weddings where I shot a grand total of 20 images THE ENTIRE DAY(665 Polaroid), and I've done others where I shot digital and shot literally thousands of photographs. I've done weddings in black and white only. I've done 6×6 weddings, 6×7 weddings, 6×9 weddings, and even used a 4×5 once or twice. I've shot Lomo, Holga, Pentax, Fuji, Canon, Leica, Polaroid, Zeiss, Voigtlander, Contax and a homemade pinhole. I used this messy range of clunkers because I had a vision for what the job not only required but how I envisioned the final product. I had this vision because I had experimented enough to know what worked and what I could expect to walk away with, and I was fine tuning my approach and technique to fit each job individually. This is a doable thing when you are doing a total of ten shoots a year. It becomes REALLY difficult when you are shooting 20+ events per year and suddenly conformity becomes a part of the equation. If someone else can do your editing you might be on the path to assembly line.
The goal is to be able to see the final project, which in this case is a book, and say, "I know who did that." Call it style, vision(overused) or point of view, doesn't matter. What matters is HAVING ONE. Wedding photographers should demand more. They should rally around those who take chances and set a tone that borders on chaos and failure, not volume and year-end-sales. Could we possibly take anymore of the mystery and experience out of it?
To be fair, working as a photographer these days is not what it once was. There are different pressures and the value of photography, especially in the mind of the general public, has changed and not for the better. There is less appreciation for the process and also less concern with the longevity or impact of the images. But, this doesn't mean you don't fight the fight. If you are a wedding photographer you have to educate yourself and your clients to what it is you do, SPECIFICALLY, and why you do it that way. In the long run, it's all you've got. And don't go thinking this is a rant against wedding photographers because this level of operation is happening in almost all genres of photography. Having an online following or filling a workshop doesn't make a good photographer. These aren't bad things, not by any stretch, but what I see happening is people associating these abilities with photographic talent. In my opinion, the best photographers in the world aren't on social media and they surely don't teach a lot of workshops. Why? Because they are making their work instead.
For you newbie wedding photographers out there I'm going to cut you some slack. Keep learning, keep expanding your knowledge base. The people I want to direct this post at at the "pros" who have suddenly found themselves in the wedding world. This really started happening about fifteen years ago, based mostly on economic pressures. YOU folks have a responsibility. YOU have the knowledge and experience which makes it truly painful when I see YOU conforming to what the industry is subscribing. When you homogenize your photography to meet an industry with seemingly no quality bar it really has devastating effects and not only on the wedding market, which is some ways is impervious to impact. How many times have I see or heard a photographer from another genre land on the wedding market and make some bold proclamation about "doing things right" only to see the same person six months later churning out the same generic content under the fateful statement, "Well, the clients aren't complaining." Weddings offer certain photographers, very good photographers, their FIRST real chance to make decent money, and ultimately for some that becomes overpowering. I get it, but ultimately I don't get it. It just makes me sad. These folks tend to stop making good imagery, and not just within the borders of their wedding work. They just stop creating or thinking or whatever it is that made them photographers in the first place. This in turn drags the industry down ever so slightly. And then someone else does, and it happens again and again and again, and suddenly the slight variant is a deluge of brain drain. The truth is these people don't need to do this. Many of these folks came from genres where the photographer has lost all rights, all ability to work in a pure sense, and where they have had to conform, sign contracts and give up on working in the style they dreamed of working in, but in the wedding world you can do ANYTHING you want to do, so when someone gives up, conforms, caves in, it makes it that much more difficult to watch. So if by any strange change ANYONE actually reads this post, take this ONE thing away which is to find that inner photographic kid once again. Stop doing what you think you have to do and start doing what you WANT to do. I guarantee your work will improve and photography will be a lot more fun once again. Photographers have an inherent power I wish they would take more advantage of. Not everyone can do what we do. I'm a firm believer there are the SAME number of photographers there always has been. There are millions of people with cameras, but they aren't photographers. When you make a unique style, or recognizable style of image, there is a power you can harness and your clients will know and respect this. Your images might not fit every job, but you don't really want every job. You want the right job.
And stop talking about new equipment. It won't help and has no bearing on your imagery. I've been having conversations with photographers who tell me they are worried about showing up at a job with a 5D Mark III because they are afraid the client has the same camera and won't think of them as a professional. This is incredible. If your client can make the same image you are making they maybe you AREN'T a photographer? (Buy a 40-year-old camera and you won't have to worry about this!) Your photographs should be about light, timing, composition and your visual history, but if these items started in 2005 by you copying someone online…you might have a problem.
If you are offended by this post just know….I'm by no means a perfect person or photographer(OBVIOUS), but what I am is a pretty decent witness to the times and to photography. I've made plenty of horrible images, some for myself and some for clients. I've had successes and failures and this post is simply my opinion. Take it or leave it. I walked away from working as a photographer so that I could work on purely my own work. I fought the downward slide of "professional" photography for the past ten years. It's doable, but it's all about education of the client. To do this you need the kind of work that educates. You don't need a standardized test that EVERY OTHER photographer has.
My advice for wedding photographers? My advice to young photographers? It's all the same, and I'll go back to what Susan told me all those years ago….make YOUR photographs, whatever those may be. In the long run, it's all you have. You have to get outside of the wedding world and look at the full range of photography being made. Perhaps your images will be more influenced by Sternfeld, Steber, Shore, Smith, Salgado, Seliger, Stanmeyer or Strand than someone in the wedding field. If you don't know these names(Please, please, please don't tell me if you don't know.), start there, look them up and see how you feel.
I walk away from this industry with overwhelmingly positive thoughts because I walk with memories of the people and the true moments that happened far from the glitz and glitter of the reception, those moments when hearts beat fast and the honest decisions were made.I walk with the truth of knowing that I was chosen to be the witness.
PPS: The images you see are the images I printed for MY book of the wedding. A snapshot book. 6×9, 300-pages .


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Since the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the federal government has made significant changes in its approach to protecting federal facilities and the more than 1 million employees and members of the public that work in and visit these facilities annually. However, federal facilities continue to be vulnerable to terrorist attacks and other acts of violence, as evidenced by the 2010 attacks on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Austin, Texas, and the federal courthouse in Las Vegas, Nevada, which resulted in loss of life. These attacks highlight the importance of protecting federal facilities by, among other things, conducting timely and comprehensive risk assessments, which can help decision makers identify and evaluate potential threats so that countermeasures can be implemented to help prevent or mitigate the facilities vulnerabilities to those threats.
The Department of Homeland Securitys (DHS) Federal Protective Service (FPS) is the primary federal agency responsible for providing physical security and law enforcement servicesincluding conducting risk assessmentsfor the approximately 9,000 federal facilities owned or leased by the General Services Administration (GSA).[1] Risk assessments for federal facilities, which FPS refers to as facility security assessments, are to be completed every 3 to 5 years according to DHSs Interagency Security Committee (ISC) standards.[2] FPSs assessments are to include a full examination of the facility, including a review of access points to the facility and the security of the facilitys perimeter, such as closed circuit television monitoring and lighting. Its risk assessment process entails gathering and reviewing facility information; conducting and recording interviews with tenant agencies; assessing the threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences associated with a facility; and recommending appropriate countermeasures in accordance with ISC standards to mitigate vulnerabilities to tenant agencies.
[1]GAO is referring to facilities that are under GSAs control and custody as GSA-owned or leased facilities.
[2]The ISC, composed of representatives from 50 federal agencies and departments, was established under Executive Order 12977 to enhance the quality and effectiveness of security and protection of buildings and facilities in the United States occupied by federal employees for nonmilitary activities.
GAO has found that there is duplication in the federal governments approach to assessing risks at some of the 9,000 federal facilities managed by GSA. As GAO reported in June 2008 and as it has recently found, multiple federal agencies are expending additional resources to assess their own facilities; although, according to an FPS official, the agency received $236 million from federal agencies for risk assessments and other security services in fiscal year 2011. For example, an official from IRS said that IRS completed risk assessments based on concerns about risks unique to its mission for approximately 65 facilities that it also paid FPS to assess. Additionally, an official from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) stated that FEMA has assessed its own facilities for several years because of dissatisfaction with the security levels FPS has assigned to its facilities, and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials said that EPA has conducted its own assessments based on concerns with the quality and thoroughness of FPSs assessments.[1] EPA officials also said that the agencys assessments are conducted by teams of contractors and EPA employees, cost an estimated $6,000, and can take a few days to a week to complete. An official from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told GAO that it duplicates FPSs assessments at some of its regional facilities because the agency follows U.S. Army force protection regulations, rather than the security requirements followed by FPS.
According to an FPS official, FPS planned to use its Risk Assessment and Management Program (RAMP) to complete assessments of about 700 federal facilities in fiscal year 2010 and 2,500 facilities in fiscal year 2011. However, since November 2009, according to an FPS official, the agency has only completed four risk assessments using RAMP, which does not provide adequate assurance that FPS is utilizing an effective risk management approach to help protect federal facilities and may contribute to more agencies completing their own assessments. RAMP was intended to provide FPS with the capability to assess risks at federal facilities based on threat, vulnerability, and consequence; and track countermeasures to mitigate those risks. As GAO reported in July 2011, FPS experienced cost overruns, schedule delays, and operational issues with developing RAMP and as a result the agency could not use it to complete risk assessments. Without risk assessments that identify threats and vulnerabilities and the resources required to achieve security goals, FPS has only limited assurance that programs will be prioritized and resources will be allocated to address existing and potential security threats in an efficient and effective manner. GAO recommended in July 2011 that FPS develop interim solutions for completing risk assessments while addressing RAMPs challenges. FPS agreed with this recommendation and is in the process of developing an interim assessment tool.
As noted above, FPS charged federal agencies $236 million in basic security fees for risk assessments and security services in fiscal year 2011, although FPS has completed few risk assessments using RAMP.[2] As GAO reported in May 2011, FPS does not know how much of the basic security fee is used for completing risk assessments of federal facilities. Nonetheless, FPS increased the basic security fee from $.66 in fiscal year 2011 to $.74 per square foot in fiscal year 2012. GAO recommended in May 2011 that FPS make information on the estimated costs of key activities, as well as the basis for these cost estimates, readily available to affected parties to improve the transparency of the process for setting and using the fees.
[1]FPS is responsible for coordinating with tenant agencies to determine a facilitys security level, which ranges from I (lowest risk level) to V (highest risk level).
[2]In addition to risk assessments, the $236 million in basic security fees funds security services including ongoing review of facility countermeasures to ensure they are functioning as designed; assistance with emergency planning and exercises; response to criminal incidents and reports of suspicious activity; patrol of facilities to deter and detect criminal activity; and awareness training to inform tenants how to prevent and react to events in the facility.
GAO has found that multiple federal agencies are incurring additional costs by completing their own assessments while paying FPS to complete risk assessments for the same facilities. However, DHS has not taken any actions to address the duplication and it is not clear whether FPSs planned risk assessment tool will help minimize duplication. Achieving the financial and other benefits that may result from reducing duplication and increased cost that occurs in assessing risks at federal facilities will require additional effort on the part of DHS and other key stakeholders.
GAO recommended in July 2011 that the Secretary of DHS
GAO recommended in May 2011 that the Director of FPS
In addition, DHS should
The information contained in this analysis is based on findings from the products listed in the related GAO products section and additional work GAO conducted to be published as a separate product in 2012. To update that information and identify continuing issues related to duplication and overlap in risk assessments for federal facilities, GAO interviewed officials from FPS, EPA, FEMA, GSA, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, IRS, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
GAO provided a draft of this report section to DHS for review and comment. DHS agreed with GAOs previous two recommendations and has begun action on both. DHS did not provide comments on GAOs newly identified action needed. DHS also provided technical comments, which were incorporated as appropriate. In its response, DHS stated that although FPS has only completed four risk assessments using RAMP, the agency is collecting data, through site visits, interviews of facility occupants, and evaluation of countermeasures, which will be used to generate risk assessments when its interim assessment tool is implemented in spring 2012. As part of its routine audit work, GAO will track agency action to address these recommendations and report to Congress.
For additional information about this area, contact Mark Goldstein at (202) 512-2834 or email@example.com Susan J. Irving at (202) 512-6806 or firstname.lastname@example.com
The Federal Protective Service (FPS), which is within the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), is responsible for protecting the more than 1 million federal employees and members of the public who work in and visit the over 9,000 federal facilities owned or leased by the General Services Administration (GSA) from a potential terrorist attack...
The Federal Protective Service (FPS) is a fee-funded agency in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for providing physical security to over 9,000 federal facilities. In 2003 FPS transferred to DHS from the General Services Administration and for the first time was to fully recover its costs. GAO recently reported that stakeholders were concerned about FPS's ability to determine se...
The Federal Protective Service (FPS) is responsible for providing physical security and law enforcement services to about 9,000 General Services Administration (GSA) facilities. To accomplish its mission of protecting GSA facilities, FPS currently has an annual budget of about $1 billion, about 1,100 employees, and 15,000 contract guards located throughout the country. GAO was asked to provide inf...
In 2003, the Federal Protective Service (FPS) transferred from the General Services Administration (GSA) to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). FPS provides physical security and law enforcement services to about 9,000 GSA facilities. To accomplish its mission of protecting GSA facilities, FPS currently has an annual budget of about $1 billion, 1,100 employees, and 15,000 contract guards lo...
Jump to another area below related to this mission.


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The food and beverage industry has made some major moves in recent days in the struggle over super-sweet products.
Major cereal-makers Nestle and General Mills pledged to cut sugar and salt content in children's breakfast cereals abroad, while soda and restaurant trade groups sued to stop a New York City ban on sales of large sugary drinks.
On Monday, Nestle and General Mills said that by 2015, they will cut sugar content in 20 popular breakfast cereals by up to 30%. The two companies have a joint venture known as Cereal Partners Worldwide, which sells brands such as Honey Nut Cheerios and Nesquik outside North America.
As part of the new initiative, the cereals will feature 9 grams of sugar or less per serving and will use whole grain as their main ingredient. Sodium content will be reduced to 135 milligrams or less per serving.
Late Friday, a group of businesses and trade groups sued to invalidate the New York City Board of Health's recent decision to ban sales of large sugary drinks at certain merchants.
The new rule aims to curb obesity by barring sales of certain sodas, sweetened teas, energy drinks and other beverages in restaurants, movie theaters, stadiums, street carts and more. But the lawsuit alleges that the Board of Health, which is made up of members chosen by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, didn't have the authority to approve the regulations.
The new measure should have gone instead through the New York City Council, according to plaintiffs that include the American Beverage Assn., the National Restaurant Assn., a Korean American grocers group, a coalition of Latino chambers of commerce, a collective of theater owners and more.
The beverage ban is "arbitrary and capricious in its design and application," according to the suit.
"This case is not about obesity in New York City or the motives of the Board of Health in adopting the rule being challenged," according to the complaint. "This case is about the Board of Health, appointed by the Mayor, bypassing the proper legislative process for governing the City."
The suit also claims that the soda restriction "burdens consumers and unfairly harms small businesses at a time when we can ill afford it."
New York says no to obesity by banning big sugary drinks
Parent of Starbucks rival Tully's Coffee files for bankruptcy
Ouch: Greece's biggest company, Coca-Cola Hellenic, moves out


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Trulia Investors Back RadPad to Make Apartment Rentals Easier
Venture investors' appetite for technology that could transform the business of real estate has remained strong following two years of successful initial public offerings in the sector, including the September 2012 IPO of Trulia, and the July 2011 IPO for Zillow.
This year at least seven real estate companies raised new venture rounds since January, including Reesio, Cozy Services, Urban Compass, Starbroker, Anyone Home, Placester and Proxio. And notably, Realty Mogul launched a crowdfunding site that lets accredited investors back particular real estate deals, like property rehabilitation projects or new buildings.
The latest real estate startup to attain angel funding, RadPad Inc., has raised $800,000 in seed funding led by Deep Fork Capital, the first backers of Trulia Inc.


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Moved Reply: thanks guys, keep them coming!
Could you guys actually list the websites without hiding the URL behind a link (which is normally a good thing)
- it's likely that someone might want to print out the whole page or to copy parts of it to another discussion forum, and the hidden URL wont turn up as easily.
MarkThis message has been edited. Last edited by: girl mark,
Moved Reply: Univar USA
Richardson, Texas (Dallas area)
55 Gal drums Technical grade methanol @ $2.28/gal delivered.
Business to business. As noted above, they are sticklers for refusing to allow it to be loaded into a passenger compartment, and they can't deliver into a residential area. But they were very friendly and easy to work with. They don't sell smaller quantities.
Moved Reply: location: Williamsport, Md (Closer to DC/Baltimore for a lot of people than the Mechanicsville location listed above)
supplier: D&D Auto, 301-223-7061
purity: pure methanol
cost: $116/55 gallons + $10 drum deposit
Special Notes: So close to my house, 20 minutes of backroads.
Moved Reply: Methanol in Nothern IL
Location: McHenry, IL (1 hour to Chicago, Milwaukee, and Rockford)
Supplier: Team Owings Motorsports - 815.557.6101
Purity: 99.98% pure methanol
Cost: $115/55 gallons + $20 drum deposit
Special Notes: Must pickup (delivery available for $75). Call ahead.
Moved Reply: Methanol in Mid Michigan.
Corrigan Oil Co.
775 N. Second St.
Brighton, MI 48116
7925 Napolean Rd.
Napolean, MI
$116.60 per 55 gallon drum for pure methanol
$20.00 core deposit on the drum
Just went up about 4 bucks a barrel.
WayneThis message has been edited. Last edited by: WayneThomas,
Very funny Scottie, now beam down my clothes.
Moved Reply: Dennis K. Burke (Burke Oil)
284 Eastern Avenue
Chelsea, MA 02150
Telephone: (617) 884-7800
Purity: 100%
5 gal drum - $21.99
55 gal drum - $149
Moved Reply: Methanol / KOH in Atlanta
Univar Atlanta
2145 Skyland Ct
Norcross GA 30071
770 246 7700
Methanol 100% 2.44/gal per 55gal drum plus tax
KOH 99.6% .94/lb per 100lb drum plus tax
Moved Reply: should we "sticky" this thread somewhere? I usually dont' like forums having too many stickies, so let me know what everyone thinks.
Moved Reply: A "sticky" would be good.
Moved Reply:
As of 3 days ago the price dropped to $1.81 a Gallon or $100 for 55 Gallon drum.
IanThis message has been edited. Last edited by: IanTucker,
Moved Reply:
Now those are words we rarely hear about ANYTHING these days!
Moved Reply: I agree mark you should sticky this one FOR SURE.....VERY Important information in this one.
Moved Reply: North Alabama, South Middle Tennessee
395 Swancott Rd
Madison, AL 35756-8413
Loading closes at 4pm
Methanol $2.26/gallon in a 55 gallon barrel, stocked. ($124.30 per barrel)
NaOH 99+% pure $.42 per pound in a 50 pound bag, stocked.
KOH 90.6% pure $.72 per pound in a 50 pound bag, not stocked.
Glacial Acetic Acid (nearly 100% pure) $37.10 for 47 pounds. (About a 5 gallon pail. Comes in a nice DOT approved blue Carboy.)
Business License is required
Cash and carry to the small guys, like me.
Due to DOT rules they cannot load more than one barrel of methanol in your truck. They cannot load one barrel of methanol & a bag of NaOH or KOH.
I got the rules explained on this. You can only carry one chemical at a time and you can take no more than 500 pounds of that chemical.
They do run routes to nearby towns. Minimum $200 order, no fee other than fuel surcharge.
-JimThis message has been edited. Last edited by: Jim D,
Moved Reply: Local source for Methanol, KOH and NaOH
Her name is Darlene and she works for The Alexander Chemical Company.
Her personal Cell number is (517) 719-1140
She lives in St. Johns Michigan which is just north of Lansing.
I'm not sure of the price of methanol but I'm sure it is competetive.
KOH is $45.00 plus 6% Michigan Sales Tax(bastards)LOL for a 50 lb bag.
NaOH is $37.00 plus tax for a 50 lb bag.
Very funny Scottie, now beam down my clothes.
Moved Reply: Hey hi Ian and everyone.
I am from NE NM. A friend made the trip to Texas last weekend, unfortunately for me Texas is one big ass state. Our friends are in the Lubbock vicinity and when I showed them your post on methanol in Academy TX, they said it was too far away. So, my buddies are heading back to Texas this weekend and are willing to pick up a 55 gallon drum for us. My question is: Where in west Texas can I find methanol?
Thanks for all of the lists of good suppliers around the country, and too bad Texas is so big!
Brian Rodgers
Brian Rodgers
Home of the biodiesel drinking bears.
2005 Jeep Liberty, 2003 VW Jetta TDI
1992 Dodge Dually Cummins Peirce Arrow Dumpbed
Moved Reply: Meth supplier
location: Baltimore / Washington M.d.
Interstate Racing Fuels
$ 135/ for a 55gal barrell(he delivers)
1990 Ford F-250
Moved Reply: Vancouver BC CANADA
Methanol from "VP Racing Fuels", local agent R&J Ent. Coquitlam BC. $1.75 / Liter, $8.00 / Imp. gal CAD funds.
Sodium Hydroxide from "Suds N' Scents", North Vancouver, $12.90 / kg.
Moved Reply: Eastern Ontario, Canada:
B.S.C. Chemicals, Cyrville Road, Ottawa
Methanol $196Cdn for 205 litres ($60 drum deposit, ouch!) 5kg NaOh $26 Cdn.
Pick-up only, pre-order the 205 litre barrels but 20 litre buckets in stock - they are about $26.00
Nuthin' needed but cash or a credit card!
Moved Reply: 4-Corners area (New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado)
Univar Inc.
County Rd. 5860
Farmington, NM 87401
50# bag KOH $90This message has been edited. Last edited by: BigHornRam,
Moved Reply: location: Hagerstown, MD
supplier and their address/phone number: Cordermans Auto Body
1000 Concord St, Hagerstown, MD 21740
Phone: (301) 797-7704
Cost: 55 gal drum = $135 (+ $10 drum, + tax)
Special notes: Available year round. Need 1 day notice to bring drum to their shop. In downtown Hagerstown... bring the family and make a day of it!
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text:
He raised his rifle and fired at the very large animal. BOOM!
I waited for it to fall, but Mr. Moose continued standing stoically.
Dad had missed — from just a foot-long sub away!
"The sights must be off," he whispered.
"The gun's or yours?" I replied. Slowly, he put the gun to his shoulder, took aim and fired again.
I waited for the majestic moose to hit the forest floor, but … it didn't.
It continued standing, taunting us.
"Geez, I've got to get those sights checked," Dad said softly, not wanting to scare a moose unfazed by two gun blasts.
"Don't worry, Dad," I chided. "I won't tell anyone. I'm going to tell EVERYONE."
I'm not a hunter, and held no licence to hunt moose or carry a gun. I was there to help Dad if he bagged some big game, and I couldn't offer to take a shot myself.
With stubborn determination, Dad fired at the big fella one more time.
Third time had to be a charm, especially with a moose seemingly posing for us.
But Dad missed again. He turned to me with the most defeated look I had ever seen on his face.
He shrugged his shoulders and announced he was done for the day.
The moose looked at us and started trotting away, as if to say, "So long, Suckahs!"
Sensing Dad's frustration, I did what every sensitive son would. I razzed him endlessly, referring to him as Big Shot, Eagle Eye, and Bullstinkle.
"Maybe you were too tight," I joked. "Maybe you need to be more loosey moosie."
"Why did the moose cross the road?" I asked. "To see if someone else could shoot."
"What a load of BS!" I proclaimed, "and by BS, I mean bull shot."
Dad, a talented teaser in his own right, took it all in stride.
We laughed a lot that day, but he never hunted again.
He was later diagnosed with dementia and was slowly stolen from us over the next decade.
I'll never know if the disease made him miss the moose that October morning.
I'll never know if his sights were off or if he just couldn't bring himself to kill an animal in front of his youngest son.
I'll just never know so many things.
But while we didn't get the moose, we got a lasting memory.
That was 17 years ago and I think about it every year when the calendar changes to the 10th month.
Thinking about that day brings with it a smile and, now that I'm a dad myself, a reminder to cherish time and make memories with the people you love.
Why not take your best shot at doing so today?
And don't feel any pressure for it to be perfect.
Sometimes the best memories are made when you miss.
Steve Bartlett is an editor with Saltwire Network. He dives into the Deep End Mondays to escape reality and having to eat moose steak. Reach him at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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A Hanafi scholar of comparative fiqh and author of numerous works on Law and tasawwuf, among which al-Tabaqat al-kubra in which he writes, as cited in the Reliance of the Traveller:The path of the Sufis is built on the Koran and sunna, and is based upon living according to the morals of the prophets and purified ones. It may not be blamed unless it violates an explicit statement from the Koran, sunna, or scholarly consensus, exclusively. If it does not contravene one of these, the very most that one may say of it is that it is an understanding a Muslim man has been given, so let whoever wishes act upon it, and whoever does not refrain, this being as true of works as of understanding. So no pretext remains for condemning it except one's own low opinion of others, or interpreting what they do as ostentation, which is unlawful.
Whoever carefully examines the branches of knowledge of the Folk of Allah Most High will find that none of them are beyond the pale of the Sacred Law. How should they lie beyond the pale of the Sacred Law when it is the law that connects the Sufis to Allah at every moment? Rather, the reason for the doubts of someone unfamiliar with the way of the Sufis that it is of the very essence of theSacred Law is the fact that such a person has not thoroughly mastered the knowledge of the law. This is why Junayd (Allah Most High have mercy on him) said, "This knowledge of ours is built of the Koran and sunna," in reply to those of his time or any other who imagine that it is beyond the pale of the Koran and sunna.
The Folk unanimously concur that none is fit to teach in the path of Allah Mighty and Majestic save someone with comprehensive mastery of the Sacred Law, who knows its explicit and implicit rulings, which of them are of general applicability and which are particular, which supersede others and which are superseded. He must also have a thorough grounding in Arabic, be familiar with its figurative modes and similes, and so forth. So every true Sufi is a scholar is Sacred Law, though the reverse is not necessarily true.
To summarize, no one denies the states of the Sufis except someone ignorant of the way they are. Qushayri says, "No era of the Islamic period has had a true sheikh of this group, save that the Imams of the scholars of that time deferred to him, showed humility towards him, and visited him for the benefit of his spiritual grace (baraka). If the Folk had no superiority or election, the matter would have been the other way around.1
1 al-Tabaqat al-kubra al-musamma bi Lawaqih al-anwar fi tabaqat al-akhyar (1374/1954) (Reprint, Beirut: dar al-fikr, n.d.) 1:4. In Reliance of the Traveller p. 863-864.


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A new NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist Poll has good news for Democrat Barack Obama and for Republican Pat McCrory in North Carolina.
The poll, released Friday, shows Obama with the support of 48 percent of likely North Carolina voters to 46 percent for Mitt Romney. It's the latest in a series of polls by the NBC partnership that show Obama leading his Republican opponent in swing states.
In North Carolina, Obama is up by 1.1 points in the Real Clear Politics polling average.
"This was the closest of the battleground states four years ago and it is close again this time," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "The competitive presidential contest is not, however, spilling over to the race for governor."
The poll shows McCrory leading Democratic Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton 52 percent to 39 percent. Jim Morrill
Friday, September 28, 2012
NBC/WSJ Poll: Neck and neck in NC
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist Poll has good news for Democrat Barack Obama and for Republican Pat McCrory in North Carolina.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Biden will campaign in Charlotte on Tuesday
Vice President Joe Biden will campaign in Charlotte on Tuesday (Oct. 2), an Obama campaign official said Wednesday.
More details on his itinerary are to come.
Biden's return to North Carolina comes as the race for the state's 15 electoral votes is heating up.
The vice president's stop follows a visit to Durham last week by First Lady Michelle Obama.
On the Republican side, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan -- GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's running mate -- also stopped in North Carolina this month.
And this week, two high-profile Republican surrogates -- U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina -- have campaigned for Romney-Ryan in the Tar Heel State.
Both campaigns are also airing new TV ads in the state, where Romney and Democratic President Barack Obama are virtually tied in recent polls.
-- Tim Funk
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Pittenger debates Roberts Wednesday
Republican Robert Pittenger and Democrat Jennifer Roberts meet for the first debate of their 9th Congressional District campaign Wednesday afternoon at the Charlotte Chamber.
Both are trying to replace Republican U.S. Rep Sue Myrick in the district's first open-seat election since 1994.
The meeting will be preceded by two legislative debates. Democratic Rep. Martha Alexander and Republican Rob Bryan will face off for the House District 88 seat and Democrat Robin Bradford and Republican Charles Jeter will debate for the newly created seat from District 92.
Jim Morrill
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Rubio to promote Romney at Charlotte rally
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio -- one of the GOP's rising stars -- is scheduled to be in Charlotte on Wednesday afternoon (Sept. 26) for a Romney-Ryan "Victory Rally."
The Florida Republican will speak to Mitt Romney supporters at 1:45 p.m. at SteelFab, Inc., 8623 Old Dowd Road, according to an email from the Romney campaign.
Rubio was among those considered by Romney as a running mate. The Cuban-American lawmaker, who introduced Romney at the recent Republican National Convention in Tampa, is also touted as a future presidential candidate.
-- Tim Funk
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Chamber CEO talks up Charlotte on TV
Charlotte Chamber CEO has been making television appearances all week talking up the city as the country's fastest growing metropolitan area.
On Fox Business, Morgan said the convention was Charlotte's "debut" and said the city is "doing pretty well economically by this convention."
On C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Morgan described the city's rise into a major financial center and touted the city's manufacturing. When asked about hwether the city had contingency plans for more trouble at Bank of America or Wells Fargo, he praised the two big banks for bringing wealth to the city and said "very little gets done civically" without their taking a lead role.
Beyond that, he said the city continues to diversify its corporate base, though he also said other banks like PNC and BB&T have been increasing their presence in the city.
--Andrew Dunn
Video: North Carolina delegation's roll call vote
You might have missed the North Carolina's delegation in the roll call vote, since they didn't get to cast their votes until well after midnight. But they spoke briefly before casting 152 of their 157 votes for President Obama.
You can watch them above, courtesy of a clip from C-SPAN.
Here's our brief transcript. The clip starts with the tail end of New York's vote.
Charlotte businessman Cameron Harris: "The great and sovereign state of North Carolina, the cradle of liberty, is delighted to host the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina."
Democratic Party chairman David Parker: "Madam secretary, North Carolina, the state of our great Gov. Beverly Perdue, our fantastic Sen. Kay Hagan, where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great, where we will elect Walter Dalton our next governor, where we voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and where we will carry North Carolina again in 2012, to keep this recovery going, to keep our American dream alive, North Carolina proudly casts 152 votes for Barack Obama."
--Andrew Dunn
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
DNC: The outtakes
Here's the serendipity of conventions: You run into all sorts of people from the world of politics. Here are three:
-- James Carville: The Democratic strategist and TV talking head was relaxing outside the CNN booth at Time-Warner Arena. I asked him if he thought holding the DNC in Charlotte would help President Obama's campaign.
"I hope so," he said. "I'm always sort of skeptical that a convention site in early September brings voters in early November."
He also said if Mitt Romney loses North Carolina, he loses the election.
-- Jeff Greenfield: The TV analyst was with his friend Joe Klein at a Sunday reception at the Duke Energy building. He likes Charlotte as a host city.
"It's great, he said. "The whole uptown area is so amenable. The folks are terrific. The venues are spectacular."
-- Chris Lehane: The Democratic strategist turned film-writer is here in part to screen his new film "Knife Fight" starring Rob Lowe about corrupt California politics. He showed parts of it at a Politico Playbook breakfast hosted by Mike Allen at Packard Place.
He called conventions "a political appendix," vestiges of another era. This is the first year parties will have done both their conventions in three days, not four.
"Between Tampa and Charlotte, they'll be inflection point conventions," he said. Jim Morrill
Monday, September 3, 2012
Duke CEO defends Obama, talks up Charlotte on CNN
Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers defended President Barack Obama and talked up Charlotte during an interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien on her show Monday morning.
When asked about whether the country is better off now than four years ago, Rogers first talked about how energy efficiency has improved over Obama's term and how natural gas has emerged as a low-cost energy source.
When pressed about the economy, Rogers said Obama started in a "deep hole" that he's worked out of.
"The more relevant question is, are we on the right trend?" Rogers said. "Are we moving in the right direction?"
O'Brien also asked Rogers about Charlotte and whether the city can handle the convention despite its relatively small size.
"Charlotte has a history of punching above its weight," Rogers said. "Charlotte has a history of re-inventing itself. Charlotte is a can-do city."
Rogers and the panel went on to talk briefly about carbon regulations and cap-and-trade. You can read a transcript of the interview here.
-Andrew Dunn
Will rain force Obama speech indoors?
Possible thunderstorms could move President Barack Obama's Thursday night acceptance speech indoors -- a contingency plan that would frustrate tens of thousands of North Carolinians now planning to watch the speech at Bank of American Stadium.
With forecasts calling for a 50 percent chance of thunderstorms Thursday -- though clearer skies by nightfall -- Obama campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter raised the possibility Monday morning that the president may have to deliver his speech in Time Warner Cable Arena.
"We're still hopeful we can speak in the stadium," Cutter said on MSNBC's Daily Rundown show. "We've got tens of thousands of people from all over North Carolina and the country traveling here for that, with enormous enthusiasm for it. But we always knew this could be part of the plan. We'll make a call sometime in the near future about whether to move it indoors."
But later Monday morning, at a news conference at the Charlotte Convention Center, convention committee CEO Steve Kerrigan told reporters: "This is going forward, rain or shine."
Kerrigan added, though, that a contingency plan was on the table if thunderstorms pose safety issues.
In Tampa last week, Tropical Storm Isaac forced Republicans to change their plans, shortening their convention by a day.
-- Tim Funk and Ann Doss Helms
LA mayor expects 65,000 for Obama speech
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says to expect 65,000 people to be in Bank of America on Thursday night for President Barack Obama's acceptance speech.
Speaking Monday at uptown's POLITICO Playbook Breakfast, the mayor and chair of the 2012 Democratic National Convention also acknowledged that delegates in Charlotte may have to give themseves some extra time all week to maneuver the various security arrangements on their way to events and Time Warner Cable Arena.
When the Democrats held their convention in his city in 2000, Villaraigosa told host Mike Allen and his audience, "LA felt like it went very smoothly -- because that was before September 11 . . . I hope it's going to go as smoothly as possibly here."
When asked about Charlotte, though, Villaraigosa showered the Queen City and its residents with compliments.
"Don't you just love the Southern hospitality? They're so warm, so gracious," he said. "I love the trees, This is a beautiful city . . . This is a city where you'd want to love."
The mayor also gave a shout-out to Osso restaurant and the whole N.C. Music Factoy complex. And he called Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx "the face of the New South."
-- Tim Funk
Three new polls show race tight in NC
Three new polls are showing the race in North Carolina continues to be tight between President Obama and Mitt Romney.
-- A new survey by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning firm, shows the two tied at 48 percent. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.
-- A poll by High Point University and Fox 8 showed Romney with 46 percent to Obama's 43 percent. The sampling error is 4.3 percentage points.
-- And an Elon University Poll, released Sunday, showed Romney up 47 percent to 43 percent. Like the High Point University Poll, it was conducted during the GOP convention. The margin of error is 3 percentage points.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
DNC to be exhaustively live-streamed
For everyone who can't be inside Time Warner Cable arena this week for the Democratic National Convention, the proceedings will be exhaustively live-streamed at DemConvention.com/live, organizers said Sunday.
The feed will be available on desktop and mobile devices, and will be broadcast in Spanish and with closed-captioning as well.
Convention organizers also hope to get people around the country involved, including highlighting the some-4,000 watch parties.
On Thursday evening, as President Barack Obama makes his acceptance speech, DemConvention.com/live will host a web-only special. Actor Kal Penn, a big Obama supporter, will interview big names including Marc Anthony, Elizabeth Banks, Aisha Tyler, Olivia Wilde, Fran Drescher, Zach Braff and Alexis Bledel.
--Andrew Dunn


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There's a lot to be said for the looking for group dungeon finder tool.
These things can largely be split into two distinct categories, the good and the bad.
Let's get the quick thing out of the way first.
If you're looking for a quick run through a random heroic to get your points for the day, the LFG tool is not the way to go about it.
If you're maybe feeling a bit stressed one night and you want to knock out a heroic dungeon to relax a bit? The LFG tool is most definitely not for you.
If that's the sort of situation you're in now, best thing to do is to grab a few reliable guildmates or friends and knock that out in half an hour or less.
But always running with that static group cripples you as a tank. If you always run with smart CC, strong healers that can keep the group up with no mana for half the boss fight, you won't grow as a tank. And if you think that you will, you're probably deluding yourself.
Rolling the dice and playing with the random people in the LFG tool will help you learn.
It'll teach you to keep on your toes. If your CC is never broken, you never learn to react instantly to a loose mob to pick them back up. If your warlocks never accidentally unbanish a mob way before the time is up, you never learn that banished mobs can be taunted and it's occasionally good to burn your taunt on a banished mob just to make sure that it'll come straight for you as soon as it's released.
If your party members never accidentally pull the big patrol along with the group you're fighting, you don't learn to charge or intercept to the middle of them and lay down some quick threat all around or even burn your aoe taunt to keep things under control for just long enough for the mobs to die.
If your group never makes a mistake, works like clockwork, you as a tank will never learn how to utilize your cooldowns effectively. You'll never learn to use just enough of your cooldowns to stay alive without being wasteful about it.
You see, I always used to run only with people I knew. Primarily because I didn't like to waste time. In the LFG dungeon finder, you'll run into bad dps that can't do more damage than you, healers that need to drink after every pull and people that just cannot CC the right targets when you need them to.
But in time, I came to learn (as you will) that these are the things that will help make you a better tank.
Runs always going smoothly without a single hiccup teaches you absolutely nothing.
Runs that are a nightmare, ones that make you tear out your hair? Those are the ones that help you grow stronger as a tank, one that will easily react to the unexpected and know what abilities to use and when.
So embrace the unwashed masses, throw yourself at their mercy and we'll hope with you that you come out of the other end in one piece.


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The 118th Annual Anderson Reunion was this past Sunday, and a good time was had by all. Especially me, as I had the pleasure of playing with my new cousin, Izzie, who is not quite five months old. Yes, she is adorable, and my only regret is that I couldn't also spend some time with my other new baby cousin, who is three months old and also adorable. And that is the joy of a family reunion: seeing old friends, and making new ones as well.
If you're wondering, this reunion is for the descendants of Mansfield and Harriet (Black) Anderson, who lived in Blount and Sevier Counties, Tennessee, before moving to Macon County, North Carolina, before 1850. I'm connected to the family through my maternal grandmother, Ruth (Anderson) Ledford, who was Mansfield and Harriet's great-great-granddaughter. I've spent a little time researching Mansfield and Harriet, but have mostly left them alone because so many others are researching the family, including Roy Duane Collier, who published an article on the couple in 1987,1 and a cousin-in-law, Steve Beck, with whom I corresponded a little in the early 1990s, among others.
After the reunion, I spent some time on the Internet looking through FamilySearch's wonderful online database. I thought I'd see if they had any records online in Tennessee for Blount and Sevier Counties, something I hadn't had a chance to look at yet. Honestly, I was really just piddling and didn't expect to find anything.
Funny how those things turn out.


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6 - Black Tail Deer Song
6 - Black Tail Deer Song
This is TRACK 6 of Yuwipi Songs: Ceremonial Songs in the Lakota Language recorded by The SInging Stone in Crestone, CO.
To download a PDF with lyrics click HERE.
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Ah, it's that most wonderful time of the year. The store shelves are groaning gentle reader, from the weight of merchandise placed on those shelves and the skinny arms which hold them up. Stores are crowded with more racks of clothing and the people, ah yes the people, loaded down with stuff over-flowing from their carts, picking out things for those who are naughty and nice. After all it is the season for forgiveness.
The makeup counter is bustling with people sampling items and browsing free gift offerings. There are numbers of sales people trying their best to get you to sample all of the pretty things they have for you to buy with the offer of a free gift! People crowd around shoving and pushing trying to see the merchandise.
The music overhead blares "Deck the Halls" and trees, wreaths and even a Santa or two are decked out with bright blinking lights. And the noise gentle reader, it is deafening to a point where it's difficult to understand the words the carolers are singing as they joyfully ring their bells. Ding, Dong, Ding, Dong.
But wait…look over there. There is a woman with her aide, cringing in fright to the point where she looks like she is going to scream. The woman looks so terrified, so alone and confused. I go over and see if I can help. The aide holding onto her coat sleeve smiles at me when I ask if I can help. She says, "No, she will be alright." But she sure doesn't look alright. I glance at the woman's wrist the aide is holding and see a bracelet that says "MedicAlert + Safe Return." The aide quietly whispers in my ear, "She has Alzheimer's."
I tell you all of this, gentle reader because that woman is me! I am one of over 5 million individuals in the U.S. affected by this terrible disease. When you have Alzheimer's, or another dementia, your life can feel like a mess during the holidays. The loud noises, the ringing bells, the singing, twinkling lights and the crowds can make a person with Alzheimer's feel all sorts of horrible, scary feelings. This stimulation has caused me to feel panic stricken, unable to move at times.
You see with dementia, things are always changing. I have good days that can last for weeks and then suddenly, I find myself in a life-squeezing terror because my partner dropped a dish and the noise triggers a panic. I freeze not knowing what to do. My heart seems as if it is going to burst out of my chest. And then it's over. A degree of peace washes over me like water in a shower and everything is right again, but maybe only for a moment. A child's scream, a baby crying — those are triggers for me. I go into a stomach-griping fear, and it rises up and makes me want to scream.
My tips to make the holidays more enjoyable
The holiday season can be a stressful time for individuals living with Alzheimer's and other dementias. Here are some things you, gentle reader can do to make this time of year more enjoyable for the person with dementia:
- Assist the individual with dementia to set their own limits early, and be clear about them with others. Remind them that they don't have to live up to the expectations of friends or relatives to attend holiday gatherings or participate in every social event.
- Encourage family and friends to visit the person with dementia — even if it is difficult for them. However the number of people visiting at one time should be kept to a minimum. Perhaps try a few people visiting quietly in a separate room. Ensure that the person with dementia has adequate private time to rest between visits or as needed.
- Be mindful of sensory stimulation such as light intensity or sound. Avoid changing light intensity; too bright or too dark. Be careful not to make sudden, loud noises that may startle the person with dementia or cause overstimulation.
- If you are a caregiver and receive an invitation to a holiday celebration which the person with dementia cannot attend, GO YOURSELF. Enjoy the chance to be with friends and family who love you and enjoy your company. Ask friends and family to visit with the person with dementia while you are away.
For more information about how you can support the Alzheimer's Association to enhance care and support for those affected by Alzheimer's disease, visit www.alz.org or call their 24/7 Helpline at 800.272.3900.
Join me and let's make a difference together.
Learn More:
- If You Have Alzheimer's
- Find Support and Share Experiences on Our Message Boards
- Holiday Tips for Families
Kaye Fox is a member of the 2012 Alzheimer's Association National Early-Stage Advisory Group. As an advisor, Kaye is interested in advocating for support groups that concentrate on living with the disease and planning for the future. More specifically, as a transsexual woman and pastor, Kaye has a special interest in developing "safe" meetings for members of the LGBTQ community dealing with Alzheimer's disease.


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Meeting Notes 2010 07 27
The 120th Meeting of Noisebridge
Get someone to grab the membership binder now. Get someone to take notes.
- Moderator: Ronald Miloh Alexander
- Note-Taker: SuperQ
Quote of the day: "Someone told me to come to 2169", "Are you sure they meant mission street?"
Welcome to 2169
- What noisebridge is about
- We are excelent
- Who's here?
- I don't know, I didn't write that down
- Tres. report
- We have not enough money - Only 10k in bank, 5k invoices this month.
- membership binder
- paper is hard, let's use computers
Introduction and Names[edit]
- Anyone new to the meeting/space should stand up and say something cool.
- What Noisebridge is about: We make stuff and so can you!
- A brief primer on consensus process: We agree and so should you!
Financial Report[edit]
Funds in bank:
Membership Binder[edit]
- Read off any names from the binder for the past month.
- Anyone up for join this week should introduce them selves then leave the area in search of gifts for the rest of the group.
What's Going On at Noisebridge[edit]
One short sentence about each of the following:
- Circuit Hacking Mondays (7PM, 2169)
- Python Mondays (6:30 PM, 2169)
- Linux system administration certification study group 3 PM to 6 PM (turing)
- Linux discussion group 6 PM to 8 PM (turing)
- SCoW craft group - Wednesdays at 7PM
- GameDevelopment - Wednesdays at 8PM, back from Berlin and 2010 class is in session
- Programming_for_Poets Gentle introduction to Processing; most Thursdays at 8 if !(5MoF)
- Linux system administration certification study group 3 PM to 6 PM (turing)
- Shop Friday still plans to come back when the shop is done.
- Sensebridge and the EEG group - Sundays at afternoonish (1-2ish) - come to try brain scanning
- Spacebridge - Sundays at 5PM planning meeting this Sunday to decide
- Knots, Go, and Locks! - Sundays 3PM
Project Updates[edit]
Consensus items[edit]
Discussion Items[edit]
End of Meeting[edit]
- PGP Key Signing could happen now, check the list to see who wants in on the action.
- Put back the membership binder.
- Save the meeting notes to the wiki.
- Send a copy of the meeting notes to the discussion list.
- Copy the Meeting Notes Template for next week's agenda and update the main wiki page's link to it.
- Enjoy a cocktail with your fellow hacker or robot.


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We use cookies to personalize content and ads, to provide social media features, and to analyze our traffic. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies. Privacy Statement.
Nicklaus Children's Hospital has several outpatient and urgent care centers throughout South Florida, including on-demand, virtual care.
Walk-in urgent care with no appointment needed.
Serving as your child's primary doctor's office.
Pediatric specialty consultations available closer to home.
A full range of comprehensive services all under one roof.
Connect with providers from the comfort of your own home.
With over 700 pediatric physicians on staff, we're dedicated to helping you connect with the right specialist for your needs.
We have expertise in treating children and educating families on hundreds of different conditions.
We use cutting-edge, specialized treatments and procedures to ensure the best care for your child.
Gingivitis is inflammation of the gums.
Gum disease; Periodontal disease
Gingivitis is a form of periodontal disease. Periodontal disease is inflammation and infection that destroys the tissues that support the teeth. This can include the gums, the periodontal ligaments, and the tooth sockets (alveolar bone).
Gingivitis is due to the long-term effects of plaque deposits on your teeth. Plaque is a sticky material made of bacteria, mucus, and food debris that builds up on the exposed parts of the teeth. It is also a major cause of tooth decay.
If you do not remove plaque, it turns into a hard deposit called tartar (or calculus) that becomes trapped at the base of the tooth. Plaque and tartar irritate and inflame the gums. Bacteria and the toxins they produce cause the gums to become infected, swollen, and tender.
The following raise your risk for gingivitis:
Many people have some amount of gingivitis. It often develops during puberty or early adulthood due to hormonal changes. It may last or come back often, depending on the health of your teeth and gums.
The dentist will examine your mouth and teeth and look for soft, swollen, red-purple gums.
The gums are most often painless or mildly tender.
Plaque and tartar may be seen at the base of the teeth.
The dentist will use a probe to closely examine your gums in order to determine if you have gingivitis or periodontitis.
Most of the time, more tests are not needed. However, dental x-rays may be done to see if the disease has spread to the supporting structures of the teeth.
The goal is to reduce inflammation.
The dentist or dental hygienist will clean your teeth. The may use different tools to loosen and remove deposits from the teeth.
Careful oral hygiene is necessary after professional tooth cleaning. The dentist or hygienist will show you how to brush and floss.
Your dentist may recommend:
Any other related illnesses or conditions should be treated.
Some people have discomfort when plaque and tartar are removed from the teeth.
Bleeding and tenderness of the gums should lessen within 1 or 2 weeks after professional cleaning and good oral care at home.
Warm salt water or antibacterial rinses can reduce gum swelling. Over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medicines may also be helpful.
You must maintain good oral care throughout your life or gum disease will return.
Call your dentist if you have red, swollen gums, especially if you have not had a routine cleaning and exam in the last 6 months.
Good oral hygiene is the best way to prevent gingivitis.
You should brush your teeth at least twice a day. You should floss at least once a day.
Your dentist may recommend brushing and flossing after every meal and at bedtime. Ask your dentist or dental hygienist to show you how to properly brush and floss your teeth.
Your dentist may suggest devices to help remove plaque deposits. These include special toothpicks, toothbrushes, water irrigation, or other devices. You still must brush and floss your teeth regularly.
Antiplaque or antitartar toothpastes or mouth rinses may also be recommended.
Many dentists recommend having teeth professionally cleaned at least every 6 months. Some plaque can be missed, even with careful brushing and flossing at home.
Amsterdam JT. Oral medicine. In: Marx JA, Hockberger RS, Walls RM, et al, eds. Rosen's Emergency Medicine: Concepts and Clinical Practice. 8th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Mosby Elsevier; 2013:chap 70.
Kawar N, Gajendrareddy PK, Hart T. Periodontal disease for the primary care physician. Dis Mon. 2011;57(4):174-183.
Chow AW. Infections of the oral cavity, neck, and head. In: Mandell GL, Bennett JE, Dolin R, eds. Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases. 7th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone; 2009:chap 60.


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Pretty much every Joe Schmo gambler in the country has given up hope in the once-mighty Philadelphia Eagles.
Almost 80% of bets on tonight's Philly-New York Giants game are on the Giants, according to SportsInsights' numbers.
In addition, Caesar's Palace sportsbook head Todd Fuhrman says that public bettors in Vegas "continue to pound on the Giants."
Despite the heavy Giants action, the line has barely moved from the -5.5 it opened at earlier this week.
It's at Giants -6 now.
Translation: While the public thinks the banged-up, beat-down Eagles are dead and buried, Vegas is still worried about them.


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In short, keeping BTC on your home PC is about as secure as keeping physical cash in a pot on the mantelpiece while having your house redecorated.
So what would it take to make a bitcoin wallet secure? The answer is, quite a lot.
Threat AnalysisStep one of security is a threat analysis: what are you protecting, who are the threat, and how well funded are they?
What? In this case lets assume that we want to protect a bitcoin wallet for common transactions, but the user has conventional bank accounts, pension fund and so forth holding the majority of their non-physical wealth. So the wallet typically only has the equivalent of $100-$200 in it, enough for a week's groceries. Very occasionally it may have enough for a bigger purchase, say $20,000 to buy a car. Lets also assume that bitcoins are in widespread use (suppose Amazon accepted them) and hence pretty much anyone with sense will have done the usual things to protect their wallets. (If that means buying our solution, then our solution is going to be protecting a lot of money, more on this later). This is also not going to protect people who want to keep large amounts of cash outside of a bank: they will need to take stronger measures; the bitcoin equivalent of a safe bolted to a wall rather than a cashbox in a drawer.
This leaves out a lot of use-cases: Amazon, in particular, are going to need to keep a float worth many thousands of dollars, if not millions. And behind them are going to be financial institutions with substantial holdings. But at that point custom security becomes feasible. This post is about protecting Joe Sixpack's wallet.
Who? Lets assume that Joe and Jane Sixpack know enough to keep their wallet physically protected, and can trust the people they let into the house, at least to the point of not picking their pockets. That's not always the case of course, but its a good starting assumption. Similarly we are not going to try to prevent them from transferring money to confidence tricksters. So that limits the threat to the digital equivalent of burglary or pick-pocketing; an untrusted outsider gains access to the wallet and steals the coins from it. In this case that would be various forms of digital intruder, either using real-time hacking or malware.
How well funded? Not all crime is rational, but it can still be a useful starting point to assume that the threat is a hypothetical rational criminal willing to invest resources in the expectation of a return on their investment. In other words we can assume that the resources available to roughly match the rewards on offer.
The two strategies available to an attacker are to take whatever cash happens to be in the wallet at the time, or to wait until a substantial sum is transferred in and take that. Given the likely time to wait for Joe and Jane to buy a new car (and even assuming that they pay for it using BTC instead of a debit card), its probably better to take the available cash immediately.
So the most lucrative form of theft would be a "class break" against all wallets of a particular type, followed by a swift emptying of those wallets before countermeasures could be taken. That would be very lucrative indeed. If you could compromise a million wallets with $100 worth of BTC each, you could take $100,000,000. The actual yield would be smaller due to the need to hide, launder and extract value from the cash. But clearly Joe and Jane Sixpack are going to have to be protected against some extremely well-funded adversaries.
Rootkits that compromise virtual machines are already available and doing the rounds. So trying to wall off the wallet from the rest of a PC is not going to work. A secure bitcoin wallet has to be based on a dedicated platform. For the same reason this platform is going to need its own physical user interface: having it take orders to transfer money from an untrusted PC is as bad as having the wallet on the PC. So we need a device with enough computing power to send and receive BTC, plus a screen and a numeric keyboard for entering PINs and confirming transactions. When you want to transfer BTC to someone your computer sends the amount and ID of the destination wallet to your device, and the device then asks for independent confirmation of the transaction on its screen. As long as the device security is not compromised it is impossible to extract BTC from the device without a human being agreeing to it.
A Dedicated Device
This implies a small device with a modest processor, a couple of gigabytes of flash, a keypad, a low-resolution LCD screen and a USB port. This is about the same specification as a cheap mobile phone, suggesting that such a device could be mass produced and sold for a few tens of dollars.
Clearly such a device is going to need a very high degree of internal security, but, given a well defined protocol for transaction requests from outside, this should not be a problem. There will also need to be a secure path for updated software and corresponding upstream security: the digital signature for software updates in particular would be a very tempting target for an attacker.
BackupsClearly the wallet device may be damaged or suffer corruption. One solution would simply be to accept the risk, in the same way we accept that money is lost if a physical wallet gets destroyed in a fire. But computers fail rather more often than that, so a backup is probably necessary.
The problem is that a backup is also an attack avenue: because of the way bitcoin works, if you can get hold of a copy of someone's wallet then you can empty it using any PC. So any backup has to be just as secure, and yet kept reasonably up to date at the same time.
One option would be to keep the wallet on two independent SD flash cards configured for RAID 1: if one card fails it can be securely destroyed and replaced, and if the device fails then the cards can be moved to a new one. That just leaves data corruption and physical damage as risks. Corruption risk can be minimised by careful design of the software, such as keeping a known-good copy of the wallet as backup during a transaction and running validity checks before committing to the new one. Physical damage is a sufficiently remote possibility to be tolerable in this application.
Other AttacksThe kind of device described so far can be used to verify that money is being sent to a particular wallet, identified by a string of digits. As long as the user knows the destination wallet ID they can be sure that they have sent the right amount to the right person. But this creates a possible attack: malware on the user's PC could systematically replace receiving wallet IDs with those of the attacker. Thus when Joe Sixpack buys a laptop on Ebay he would see payment details specifying a wallet ID and, not realising that this was not the wallet of the vendor, unwittingly send payment to the thief.
In theory this can be avoided by a digital certificate tying the wallet to a particular person, to be verified and displayed by the wallet device as part of the transaction authorisation. But that requires a wider public key infrastructure that has so far proven expensive and fragile; it might work for large vendors, but not for small ones.
In the MeantimeFor now most of these measures are not necessary. Bitcoin wallets are sufficiently rare that simple measures, such as keeping your wallet on a dedicated virtual machine, are probably sufficient. But if bitcoins become a widespread and popular form of payment then standardised security solutions will become necessary, and any standardised security will be a target for class breaks that will enable many users to be attacked at once.
If I were to use bitcoins today I would probably put them on a dedicated Raspberry Pi set to make regular encrypted backups to a share on my regular PC, and write down the (very long and random) key somewhere safe. But not everybody is going to be able to set up such a system themselves.


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When the attack is used, the screen will come up with a number saying the Magnitude of the attack. This number varies from 4 up to 10 on specific random charges. This number determines the base power of the attack based upon this. The damage is as follows;
Pokémon That Learn Magnitude By Level Up


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PHILADELPHIA - A former Pottstown pastor and convicted thief with ties to a Phoenixville area ministry was reminded again 'Thou shalt not steal' by a judge who convicted him in connection with a $6 million real estate fraud scheme.
Michael A. Wilkerson Sr., 47, formerly of Savanna Drive, East Coventry, who according to court papers was once pastor of New Millennium Life Restoration Fellowship, with locations in Phoenixville and Spring City, was convicted Tuesday in U.S. District Court of charges of bank fraud, loan application fraud and aiding and abetting in connection with a scheme to fraudulently obtain $6 million in home loans for properties along Turnberry Circle in Schwenksville and Pumpkin Hill Road in Glenmoore between 2006 and 2008.
Denise Haines, 43, of Birdsboro, Berks County, a onetime mortgage broker with American Group Mortgage Corporation, was convicted of identical charges.
Each of the convicted defrauders faces maximum possible sentences of 180 years in prison.
Wilkerson, who remains in prison pending sentencing, faces a June 3 sentencing date, while Haines, who remains free on bail, faces a June 17 sentencing hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg.
Goldberg rendered the verdicts on Tuesday following an eight day non-jury trial.
Wilkerson, the founder and former pastor of the Freedom Christian Deliverance Center on Walnut Street in Pottstown and a former television evangelist on PCTV, is no stranger to law enforcement. He previously served state prison time for a fraudulent financial scheme during the construction of his planned $1.7 million luxury home along Red Corner Road in Union Township, Berks County.
In 2011, Wilkerson was convicted in Montgomery County Court of a felony bad check charge in connection with a 2009 incident during which he wrote a bad check for $111,000 to purchase a Mercedes Benz from a Whitemarsh dealership. He was sentenced to 1½ to 7 years in a state prison for that crime.
According to the federal indictment, Wilkerson operated a real estate development business known as Agape Development Co., of which his wife, Joyce, was part owner.
Wilkerson, authorities alleged, recruited several of his congregants, and the congregants' families and friends, to participate in a number of real estate transactions. If they had good credit and acted as 'straw purchasers' - meaning they would sign loan documents as the purchaser of a house and attend the property settlement - Michael Wilkerson would pay them $15,000. Wilkerson paid the recruits another $5,000 if they referred other straw purchasers to him, according to the indictment.
The pastor recruited at least six individuals who agreed to be straw purchasers of homes. Haines submitted fraudulent loan applications in the transactions to Chase Manhattan Bank. The fraudulent loan applications falsely represented the appraised value of the homes, the identification of the purchasers, the source of funds, the borrower's income and assets, and their intent to take possession of the homes as their primary residence.
Based on the representations made in the loan documents, Haines knew she could get Chase Manhattan Bank to approve the loans with little verification of the information on the loan applications, authorities alleged.
Wilkerson's wife, Joyce, who previously pleaded guilty to all the fraud-related charges, assisted in the scheme by writing out the checks to the 'straw' purchasers and pretended to be a co-purchaser of each of the homes at the time of settlement, authorities said.
Lee Garell, 66, of Elkins Park, a real estate broker who pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud in connection with the scheme, prepared the sales paperwork for each of the homes sold and, along with Michael Wilkerson, dictated the fraudulent terms set out in the settlement sheets, according to the indictment.
Joyce Wilkerson, who remains free on bail, faces a May 6 sentencing date while Garell, who also is free on bail, will be sentenced April 30.
When the loans were funded at the time of settlement, the defendants manipulated the documents prepared and later, forwarded the settlement documents to Chase Manhattan Bank to make it appear that the purchasers brought considerable cash to the closings, court documents alleged. All of the money involved at the settlement actually came from Chase Manhattan Bank and the defendants shared in the profits from the fraudulent sales, authorities said.
After settlement on the homes, Michael Wilkerson took possession of all of the homes, rented at least two of them and lived in another. He paid the mortgages with the proceeds from the fraudulent transactions and with rental income for approximately six months, then told the 'straw' purchasers that they had to pay the mortgages. This last act led to the loans falling into default and then foreclosure, resulting in a loss of approximately $3 million, according to authorities.
Follow Carl Hessler Jr. on Twitter @MontcoCourtNews