text:
The chimpanzee Y chromosome is radically different from human
Do humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor? Is there genetic evidence for our kinship? If we wanted to test this, where should we look? There are many candidate regions in the genome, but new data on the Y chromosomes of chimpanzees may have shaken them out of the evolutionary ancestral tree!
According to many evolutionists, the Y chromosome, the DNA sequence that makes men what they are, is supposed to be a degenerate leftover from our early evolutionary history. It is small and slightly twisted when in its condensed form, much of it is made of repetitive material, it contains relatively few protein-coding genes, and, since the corresponding X chromosome is so large, the Y chromosome was thought to not do very much. In addition, only a portion of the Y chromosome is different from the X chromosome (the "male specific Y", or MSY).
Add some modern feminism to the mix, with its disdain for all things male, and one has a recipe for the relegation of the Y chromosome to the dustbin of history. One paper, published in 2009 (by two women, coincidentally), concluded there has been a dramatic loss of genes in the Y chromosomes of eutherians (placental mammals) and that the Y chromosome will eventually disappear if that loss continues.1 Of course, this is based on the belief that the X and Y chromosomes were once identical (there are, after all, two copies of all the other chromosomes) and that the Y chromosome is not a design feature. It also ignores the fact that every eutherian lineage still has a Y chromosome. They should have concluded that this little chromosome must be extremely important, since not one of the many species of placental mammals have lost it over the last 100 million years or so (using their dating scheme). Rather, they made some conclusions from faulty starting assumptions and decided the Y chromosome is vestigial. This is but one example of many that could be cited to illustrate this modern trend.
It turns out that the trend was wrong.2–5 From the findings of modern genetics, we have learned that the Y chromosome is a master control switch, affecting genetic expression of thousands of genes on all the other chromosomes. Its effects are so profound that it makes the difference between men and women. The Y chromosome is also very important for studies of heredity and evolution due to its mode of strict paternal inheritance.5 Using Y chromosome sequence data, one can build a family tree of Y chromosomes and use it to chart historical migration patterns of people across the world. Early work discovered that all human males have very similar Y chromosomes. This led to the conclusion that there was a single male ancestor for the entire world population, called Y-Chromosome Adam.6
A new study published on the Y chromosome of chimpanzees has surprised many. After a lot of work, the chimpanzee Y chromosome has finally been finished.7 This may come as a surprise to many who thought the chimpanzee genome was completed way back in 2005. Actually, the original chimpanzee genome construction was less than optimal as they did not sequence it to the same standards of the human genome. Rather, they used the human genome as a "scaffold" to reconstruct the chimpanzee genome. This created several problems and the worst being with the repetitive sequences. There are some considerable differences between the repetitive regions of the human and chimp genomes, and, since, the Y chromosome is extremely repetitive, the chimpanzee version was essentially left unfinished. Even today, the human Y chromosome is still only half-sequenced. The chimp chromosome was left in a worse state, but the current work mostly corrects the previous deficiencies.
Since Y chromosomes are small and since it is assumed they evolved from a larger chromosome, it is assumed that their evolutionary history included the loss of many genes. On top of this, the evolution of the Y chromosome is supposed to slow down as the chromosome loses more and more genes. This was not the conclusion of the paper, however, for they found remarkable differences between man and chimpanzee, including radical differences in the sequence and gene content of the corresponding MSY regions. Because of these huge differences, the researchers concluded that the chimpanzee has lost many of the MSY protein-coding genes, even entire gene families, since we supposedly diverged from the last common ancestor. Those are significant changes. David Page, who led the chimp Y chromosome sequencing project, said the two chromosomes are, "… horrendously different from each other … It looks like there's been a dramatic renovation or reinvention of the Y chromosome in the chimpanzee and human lineages."8
What are the differences? There are two main classes of MSY sequences shared between the two species: "ampliconic" and "X-degenerate" (humans also have "X-transposed" sequences, but the chimp does not). The X-degenerate regions of chimp and man differ by a full 10%. This is huge, considering the "99% identical" claim that we have heard parroted so often over the previous several decades. But this is only the beginning of the differences. To compare the ampliconic regions, they had to appeal to extensive rearrangement and "rampant" sequence gain and loss. Half of the chimpanzee ampliconic sequence, and 30% of the entire MSY, has no counterpart in the human MSY, and vice versa. These are sizable differences.
The 30% difference among human and chimp MSY regions was a shock. This amount of difference was expected between the autosomes of human and something like chicken (to use their example), and chicken is not even a mammal. Finding this much difference in one of the sex chromosomes was huge. When they looked at the gene content of the two respective chromosomes, they were additionally surprised to find that there were many fewer genes in chimp and many more genes in man, with "only two-thirds as many distinct genes or gene families as the human MSY, and only half as many protein-coding transcription units." That is, they found huge differences in the number and type of genes on the two Y chromosomes and were forced to claim massive gene loss or gain as the evolutionary mechanism responsible. Design was not considered as a possible answer (of course).
To account for their data, they proposed several factors that led to the differences between chimp and man, including sperm competition (because less DNA per cell is supposedly an advantage for chimpanzee males, where lighter sperm might be able to out-swim those of a competitor), genetic hitchhiking (where deleterious mutations are carried along with favorable ones), and high rates of gene conversion (where similar sequences recombine within a chromosome, leading to sequence homogenization). Again, they did not consider design as a reason for the differences.
The idea that the Y chromosome is evolving at a high rate is based on the assumption of common ancestry. But there is an extremely low level of variation between human Y chromosomes, which would not be expected if they were mutating at a high rate, and so there is no real evidence for any evolutionary changes within these chromosomes. Most of the sequencing of the chimp Y chromosome was from a single male, however, so we do not know the divergence of chimps from one another.
What are the implications of this new information? First, for the evolutionist, the Y chromosomes must be evolving much more quickly than anyone imagined previously ("evolving faster" is 'evospeak' for "very different"). They are now going to have to apply mathematical models to try to demonstrate how a sequence can change extremely rapidly, including wholesale rearrangement of significant parts and the evolution of entire gene families in a relatively short amount of time, yet stay homogeneous within a species. This is going to be very difficult for them.
Second, for the creationist, we now know that the old "humans and chimps are 99% identical" canard is passé. Interestingly, a significant paper appeared in 2007 calling the 99% rule "a myth" and claiming that we have known for decades that humans and chimps were much more different.9 But this has been a significant and powerful evolutionary argument. How many people had their faith wrecked on those "mythical" rocks? Now we have half of the chimpanzee Y chromosome and learn that it is only 70% identical to human. This is evidence that humans and chimpanzees are very different. How different? To quote the famous geneticist, Svante Pääbo, "I don't think there's any way to calculate a number … In the end, it's a political and social and cultural thing about how we see our differences."5 This statement was made before the chimp Y chromosome data became available. If the number is incalculable, can we not jettison every evolutionary story of chimp-human common ancestry based on genetics? The new data on the chimp Y chromosome makes the case for common ancestry that much worse.
- Wilson, M.A., and Makova, K.D., Evolution and survival on eutherian sex chromosomes, PLoS Genetics 5(7):e1000568, 2009. See also http://www.physorg.com/news167026463.html. Return to text.
- Hawley, R.S., The Human Y Chromosome: Rumors of Its Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, Cell 113:825–828, 2003. Return to text.
- Lemos, B., et al., Polymorphic Y chromosomes harbor cryptic variation with manifold functional consequences, Science 319:91-93. Return to text.
- 598-612, 2003. Return to text.
- Jobling MA, Tyler-Smith C., The human Y chromosome: an evolutionary marker comes of age. Nature Reviews Genetics 4:598-612, 2003. Return to text.
- Batten, D., Y-chromosome Adam? TJ [J. Creation] 9(2):139–140, 1995. Return to text.
- Hughes, JF, et al., Chimpanzee and human Y chromosomes are remarkably divergent in structure and gene content. Nature 463:536-539, 2010. Return to text.
- Buchen, L., The fickle Y chromosome, Nature 463:149, 2010. Return to text.
- Cohen, C., Relative Differences: The Myth of 1%, Science 316:1836, 2007. Return to text.


text:
I never met Ralph Wilson, but I felt like I lost a friend today when Buffalo Bills president Russ Brandon announced the passing of the Hall of Fame Bills owner.
Growing up a mile and a half from the stadium that bears Wilson's name in Orchard Park, NY, the Bills were my childhood team. My father mustered up the money to take me to a game a year and the Bills represented the AFC in the Super Bowl each of my four high school years. Fall Sunday mornings in Western New York were unique because everything would shut down for three hours when the Bills were in action. It was like Friday Night Lights on a professional level. Bills flags on seemingly every house, endless tailgates and even the local priests would end morning mass by asking, "Should we pray for the Bills today?"
It was a way of life and the adolescent me never really grasped who this Ralph Wilson guy was.
Wilson was part of "The Foolish Club," eight businessmen who founded the American Football League. He purchased the Buffalo franchise in 1959 for $25,000, which at that time was considered a risky investment. He famously lent the Oakland Raiders tens of thousands to keep the Silver & Black afloat and also gave the Patriots a franchise-saving loan.
In 1964, Wilson negotiated the television contract with NBC that allowed the AFL to battle the NFL for players. Weeb Ewbank's Jets would ultimately change the football landscape with their Super Bowl III victory over the NFL's Baltimore Colts. But the victory was celebrated by the entire AFL and I remember my dad telling me that the Bills fans saluted Namath and the Green & White with a standing ovation when they came to War Memorial Stadium (The Old Rockpile) during the 1969 regular season.
Three years before my birth, the Bills moved to the suburbs and called Orchard Park their home. Despite operating in a tiny economic market, Wilson never left for a more lucrative option. Tremendous Buffalo News sportswriter Mark Gaughan pulled this quote today when he looked back at Wilson.
"The strength of the Bills franchise is the passion of the fans," Wilson said after signing a 15-year lease deal in 1997. "Buffalo is a community of down-to-earth, hard-working families who, in large numbers, are also avid sports fans. You know how the people here feel about you because they are very straightforward. That is a quality I admire."
Wilson, a World War II veteran who was finally enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2009, was 95 years old. Maybe he wasn't so foolish after all considering that Forbes now estimates that the Bills are worth $870 million. He was truly a football pioneer who did a lot of great things for our league and my hometown.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Neilalien's Favorites of MoCCA 02009
You've heard about the big releases and books-of-the-show, you've heard about the autobiographical works, the Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp, the Paul Karasik's new Fletcher Hanks collection You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation! (sequel to I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets!), you've heard about the heat, you might have even heard of a large comics event in San Diego that's happened in the interim. Now it's time for Neilalien to share, and hopefully send some new eyeballs to, his favorite purchases of this year's Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival, in his mostly-non-autobio minicomix vein.
Neilalien's MoCCA tradition of getting a Doctor Strange piece of art, preferably from an indie artist doing sketches in support of the Museum, continues unabated with a beautiful illo by fave R. Sikoryak [Wikipedia page], with Doc being twisted around in a world of Doctor-Strange-ified comic-strip characters he never made! Check out the full scan! Thanks so much, good luck with Masterpiece Comics, and see you at the next Carousel. | |
Kool Aid Gets Fired by Tim Piotrowski
After 55 years of smashing through walls promoting the drink, Crapft Foods decides it's time to go in a new direction, and this minicomic hilariously chronicles Kool Aid Man's sad descent from sheltered icon into an ill-fated production of Sweeney Todd with other corporate mascots, career failure, a court-mandated name-change, an illegitimate child with Mrs. Butterworth, drugs, murder, poverty, and finally a cubicle-grind job given out of pity. Perfect. Unfortunately, the mini has been so popular that it's not available right now, but you can email Tim for notification when your copy is for sale. [Piotrowski's Portfolio] [Kool Aid page] [LiveJournal] |
Joe And Azat by Jesse Lonergan
Coming in September, published by NBM ComicsLit: Jesse Longeran's graphic novel about his time in the Peace Corps in Turkmenistan, a Central Asian former Soviet Republic whose noble people are now saddled with one of the most corrupt and human-rights-abusing governments on Earth, complete with President-for-Life dictators with elaborately-inflated visions of themselves. While what's happening there is sad, you can imagine this is entertainment gold, and Lonergan's story and art is very charming. [Jesse Lonergan's Comics] [NBM Blog] [Amazon] |
Egg #1 written by Eric Skillman
An entertaining collection of twist-ending crime vignettes written by Skillman with a rather good collection of artist collaborators: Connor Willumsen, Jorge Coelho, Jhomar Soriano, Dan Duncan, and Joe Dellagatta. The world awaits longer deeper stories from the talented (or at least talentedly-named ;) ) Skillman. [EricSkillman.com] [Comics (much of Egg can be checked out here)] [Blog] |
Cragmore, Book One, by Pat Lewis
The cartoonist's cartoonist, Lewis is set to strike again (this isn't his first Neilalien Fave of MoCCA) with Cragmore. "A Trump-esque billionaire has a near-death experience and becomes the devil's number one enemy in the process. It's evil vs. slightly more evil as Cragmore does everything possible to escape eternal damnation!" Funny stuff. Book One is the first 40 pages in minicomic format of the upcoming full-length graphic novel. [Pat Lewis' LiveJournal] [Flickr] |
Oak And Linden #1 by Pat Barrett
A delicious anthology of short surreal works: "Abraham Lincoln", "Lil' I-O", "Petrified Girlfriend", and "Lawrence the Projectorhead". Barrett lives in Brooklyn, draws for Slate, and seems to abhor using right angles for arm-elbow bends and panel shapes- and who doesn't? [Blog post about creating the cover/logo] |
Robot 13 #1 by Thomas Hall and Daniel Bradford
Robot 13 tells the odyssey of a mysterious hero, awoken from the ocean floor in 01939, a mechanical man with a skull floating in a vat for a head, searching for answers about who he really is, fighting large tentacled monsters along the way. A new quarterly series from Blacklist Studios. Looks like fun, and Neilalien will be watching-- but to keep his long-term interest, Neilalien will either have to stop himself from being reminded of, or the work will need a new angle non-reminiscent of, Hellboy, Atomic Robo, and Basil Cronus of Godland. [Robot 13 on Myspace] [Tom Hall's Blog] [Dan Bradford's DeviantArt] |
There was a time when Neilalien did his MoCCA recap and Favorites list the Sunday or Monday after the festival. Now it's two months later. Neilalien scoffs at your notion of "internet time", especially if the comics are not only still available, but with future projects and graphic novels coming out sooner now than two months ago, this is almost a better time to pimp these books and creators. But let this not be a sign of blogger burnout- just a busy summer for Neilalien- it takes time to read all that great MoCCA loot! If anything, the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art's annual festival is a burnout preventive, once again a complete and wonderful affirmation of comics and life and creativity. Despite the heat- dude, you might have heard about the heat this year. It required all of Neilalien's Photoshop skillz to edit out the sweat-shine from his photos. And some administrative glitches- Earth Minds Are Weak almost didn't get the table he paid for in advance!- there's no MoCCA Fest without him. The Puck Building is a more beloved and hip venue, but the Armory had the advantages of (a) everything on one floor, and (b) some amazing Works Progress Administration-era murals Neilalien probably would have never gotten to see otherwise. Always a joy to see Tim Leong, Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat, Jog, BeaucoupKevin and many others again. See you next year! [Comics Reporter recap, Collective Memory]
Posted 31 July 02009 - Permalink


text:
Moore Essential Clinical Anatomy 5th edition
Essential Clinical Anatomy, Fifth Edition presents core anatomical concepts in a concise, student-friendly format. The text includes the hallmark blue Clinical Boxes, as well as surface anatomy and medical imaging features. It is an ideal text for shorter medical courses and health professions courses with a condensed coverage of anatomy.
Essential Clinical Anatomy, like the authors' more comprehensive text, Clinically Oriented Anatomy, receives global acclaim for the relevance of its clinical correlations. The book emphasizes anatomy that is important in physical diagnosis for primary care, interpretation of diagnostic imaging, and understanding the anatomical basis of emergency medicine and general surgery.
The 5th Edition features:
- A NEW AND IMPROVED ART PROGRAM: Illustrations have been redrawn in a modern, updated style that enhances student understanding of key concepts
- CLINICAL BOXES: Renowned "blue boxes" highlight information on pathology, anatomical variation, trauma, the life cycle, surgical procedures, and diagnostic procedures
- SURFACE ANATOMY AND MEDICAL IMAGING: Chapters include surface anatomy and imaging sections to enhance clinical and diagnostic knowledge
- INTERACTIVE REVIEW QUESTIONS: Prepare for board and class exams with online review questions at thePoint.lww.com
This content is restricted to subscribers


text:
We are the most effective way to get your press release into the hands of reporters and news producers.
Check out
our client list.
Personhood Alliance Officially Launched
Contact: Genevieve Wilson,
Personhood Alliance
, 770-339-6880
NORCROSS, Ga., Oct. 13, 2014 /
Christian Newswire
/ -- Defending innocent human life—from earliest biological beginning through natural death—took a major step forward this weekend in launching Personhood Alliance (PA).
"This represents an earthquake in the pro-life movement," Georgia Right to Life (GRTL) President Daniel Becker said. "Personhood Alliance stresses a back to basics approach to speaking for those who can't speak for themselves at the state, national and international level."
Unlike what he called "outdated top down" groups, Becker said PA's agenda, strategies and activities will be determined by a confederation of state pro-life organizations and leaders.
"Many existing pro-life organizations are out of touch with their base and are more interested in winning elections than saving lives," Becker said. "Personhood Alliance will draw on the strength of local organizations in developing educational and political action strategies and activities."
Representatives from 15 states—from Florida to Alaska and California to New Hampshire—attended the founding convention in Duluth, GA which adopted the group's bylaws and elected delegates and alternates who will have their first meeting in early March.
Personhood Alliance is a Christ-centered organization that believes pursuing Personhood is essential to protecting innocent human life in the 21st century.
"Personhood Alliance's goal is to bring the movement back to its original mission," interim PA President Molly Smith said. "We will honor the fact that everyone is created in the image of God and deserves protection, regardless of manner of conception."
Convention speakers included: U.S. Rep. Paul C. Broun; GA Congressman-Elect Barry Loudermilk; Molly Smith, President Cleveland Right to Life; Rebecca Kiessling, founder of Save the 1; Catherine Davis with the National Black Pro-Life Coalition; Jake DeVantier of 2nd Vote; Ben DuPre, Chief of Staff to Alabama State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore; Pam Stenzel and Monica Kelsey of Living Exceptions; and Joshua Edmonds, GRTL Director of Education.
Becker noted that the concept of Personhood has received widespread policy support since the inception of the modern pro-life movement. It is only in recent years that the revival of personhood, as a strategy, has been seen. Many of today's pro-life organizations and leaders have come out in support of personhood as an immediate objective. A partial list of supporters can be found on


text:
An article you likely won't find featured in the Western mainstream media exposes the rampant child molestation problem in Pakistan, particularly the Punjab region (see article below). Islam is the religion of 90% Punjab residents.
There is no doubt that many of these paedophiles are being imported into the UK, primarily England, due the government encouraged explosion in muslim immigration thus placing our children at higher risk of being molested and raped.
Below are some of the instances of muslim pedophila that I have written about. These are only the ones that make it into the mainstream media......noting that the much of the media are just as complicit, as the police, in keeping muslim crime out of public purview. When the media does decide to expose muslim "bad behaviours" they are often stymied. Channel 4 wanted to air a television documentary that exposed the huge numbers of Pakistani muslim men involved in a pedophilia ring - police stopped the airing twice-due to fears it would "incite racial violence". The documentary was eventually televised. Soothing muslim sensitivities appears to be far more important, to the police, than warning about and likely preventing the rape of a child.
Interesting to note -- just like in Punjab, British children aged 11 to 15 are amongst the most likely to be molested/raped by muslim men.
Gang of 'Asian' Pedophiles Trying to Abduct Girls in Croydon England
Muslim Asylum Seeker Poses as Boy then Rapes Girl in Same Children's Care Home
Muslim men prey on young girls in Lancashire & Yorkshire
More Muslim Paedophiles Arrested in Britain
Muslim Millionaire Pedophiles Buying British Little Girls for Sex
Muslim Pedophile Rape Gang Arrested in Rotherham
British Judge Refuses to Deport Illegal Immigrant Muslim Pedophile
So whilst our dhimmified British law enforcement continue to pretend the ever growing problem of muslim crime, in the UK, is an occasional "one off" we, who know better, must vigilantly protect our vulnerable children from those who seek to do them harm.
Article in full:
Paedophilia in Punjab reaching alarming levels
* Child Protection Bill was drafted in 2008, but has not been approved by parliament to date
* Child molestation cases silenced for lack of evidence and fear of social stigma
By Hina Akhtar
LAHORE: Cases of paedophilia have seen a dramatic increase in the country in a span of a few years, Daily Times has learnt.
Child molestation is no longer a secret or something that can only happen to "other people". These sort of sex offenders may be people we meet every day. There are high chances of the victim knowing the offender. Paedophilia is not the problem of a certain area or income group. It is not likely poverty or illiteracy, which are problems of a certain class. Research from all over the world has shown that child molestation can occur in all socio-economic classes, even in educated families.
A Child Protection Bill was drafted in October 2008. Federal Minister for Information Qamar Zaman Kaira said, on July 5, 2009, that the government was determined to make the bill a vital part of legislation and it would soon be approved by parliament. He said this while speaking at the launch of the Post Card Campaign organised in connection with the Campaign for Child Protection, held at the National Press Club (NPC). "I promise that I, not as a minister, but as your advocate and representative, will leave no stone unturned to defend and pass the bill from parliament," the minister said.
It has been two years since the National Child Protection Bill was tabled before parliament. The proposed piece of legislation could have been a breakthrough for innocent girls and boys being molested and murdered across the country, but the lack of interest on part of the parliamentarians clearly shows that there is no chance of the bill getting approved. Likewise, the Punjab government has also continuously failed to implement pledges of stern action against criminals of child molestation, trying them under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
According to the recent statistics given by SAHIL, a non-government organisation, Punjab is on the top of the list for child molestation with 62 percent of such cases, 154 in Lahore and the rest in other cities of Punjab.
In total, 68 percent girls and 32 percent boys have been the victims of paedophilia. The number increased by 9.4 percent as compared to 2008. Statistics show that around 81 percent of the cases were registered with the police. The study shows that 2,012 children were reportedly abused in 2009 and most of them were abused by acquaintances.
The report says that children from the 11 to 15 age-group are amongst the most vulnerable, followed by the age-group 6 to 10. Out of a total 2,012 victims, 6 percent of the children were murdered after being sexually assaulted. However, 0.5 percent cases were of those children who were murdered during an "attempt" of sexual assault.
According to the study, "it is difficult to collect actual data regarding child molestation as the abusers threaten children not to share such experiences, even with parents".
Cases: Even in cases where the molesters are revealed, people are unable to bring them to the book without solid evidence. Due to lack of evidence and social stigma, parents of molested children often choose to stay silent, hence these incidents go ignored.
One of the worst cases of child molestation is the rape and murder of a four-year-old girl in the village of Kharrianwala near Faisalabad. The incident was appreciably highlighted by the media, and there were huge protests leading to a massive blockade of the Faisalabad-Sheikhupura road. The coverage by the media, eventually compelled Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to take notice of the case.
Examples of other child molestation cases in the year 2009 include the abduction, rape and murder of eight-year-old Mudassara in the New Anarkali police jurisdiction, the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl who was found dumped in a drain near the Gujjarpura police jurisdiction and the murder of 10-year-old Muzammil who was found near the Mayo Hospital on December 2, 2009. Up till now, in 2010, a 10-year-old boy, Jamshed was killed after being gang-raped on January 10. Other notorious and heinous incidents include the rape and murder of a 3-year-old girl named Sana by two policemen in Karachi. The child's body was recovered from a manhole and the culprits were sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court.
The legal officer of the Child Protection Bureau, Rana Mumtaz was not available to give any statement regarding this issue despite repeated attempts to contact him.


text:
The New York Times
From the article:
For a country that is said to have no homosexuality, Iran goes to great lengths to ban it. Gays are punished by lashing or death if it is proved that they have had homosexual relations. Two gay teenagers were executed in 2005 in Mashad, a northeastern city.
Human rights advocates have condemned the execution last week of two young men convicted of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy, calling it a violation of international law.The ages of the two men were not announced by Iranian officials at the time of the execution, which took place on July 19 in Mashad in northeast Iran. But Human Rights Watch said they were 18 and 19, and the younger man was a juvenile when the assault took place.
"Death is an inhumane punishment, particularly for someone under 18 at the time of his crimes," Hadi Ghaemi, an Iran researcher for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement issued Wednesday. "All but a handful of countries forbid such executions. Iran should as well."
The two were hanged in public in Mashad after they received 228 lashes. They were convicted of raping a 13-year-old boy 14 months earlier, theft and drinking alcohol, which is banned under Iran's Islamic law. Their lawyer, Ruhollah Rezazadeh, was quoted by ISNA, the student news agency, as saying that one of the young men was under 18 when he was executed. [...]
ISNA carried photographs of the execution showing two hooded men tightening ropes around the necks of two blindfolded young men. [...]


text:
These moves come to you from four of our top Daily Burn 365 trainers. For a new, 30-minute workout every day, head to DailyBurn.com/365.
When it comes to the ultimate ab exercises, crunches top the list. From runners to yogis to CrossFit buffs, athletes favor this simple, no-equipment move to strengthen the abdominals, obliques and hips. But the basic move can become, well, routine. So to help you kick up your core game, we rounded up these killer crunch variations, guaranteed to tighten and tone your midsection. As Daily Burn 365 trainer Justin Rubin says, "Crunches work your obliques, your sides, your lower abs, your upper abs. It's a total-core workout."
RELATED: 5 Standing Ab Exercises for People Who Hate Crunches
5 Crunch Variations to Sculpt Your Abs
1. Modified Bicycle Crunch
If you have trouble keeping your legs lifted during a bicycle crunch, this modified version helps ease discomfort on your lower back and keeps your neck supported — all while toning your obliques. Your upper body will also benefit from a fuller range of motion as you move from one side to the other.
How to: Lay flat on your back on an exercise mat and place your hands behind your ears on your head, keeping your arms in a straight line (a). Lift your head with your hands in a 45-degree angle to the floor and bend your knees in front of you with just your heels touching the mat (toes pointed up) (b). Lift your right knee to about a 90-degree angle to the floor as you bring your left elbow to meet it. Now switch opposite sides with the same motion, engaging your core muscles the whole time (c). Repeat for eight reps.
RELATED: Hate Crunches? 6 Better Core Exercises for Beginners
2. Standing Crunch
Standing crunches are great as part of a dynamic warm-up because they activate the muscles in your abs, arms and legs while getting your heart rate up. But they're also ideal for an active recovery mid-HIIT workout when you transition from one set to the next, or when you want to slow down your heart rate as you switch from cardio to strength training.
How to: Stand tall with your feet hip-width apart (a). Bring your arms up with your hands reaching for the ceiling and your palms facing each other (b). Engage your core to lift your right knee to hip height. At the same time, lower your arms at your sides, bringing them by your waist (c). Return to starting position and repeat on the opposite side. (d). Do eight reps.
RELATED: 5 Stability Ball Exercises For a Crazy Strong Core
3. V-Sit Crunch
In addition to strengthening your core like crazy, this challenging move will help elongate your body. Did we mention it helps stretch your hamstrings, too? (We're looking at you, runners!). If your hands can't meet your legs, keep your feet flat on the floor and bend your knees as you lift your hands to your feet.
How to: Lie flat on the floor with your arms by your head and your hands reaching for the wall behind you. Keep your feet straight out in front of you (a). Engage your core as you lift your right leg straight up into the air, until it's perpendicular to the floor (b). At the same time, pull your upper body toward your leg so your hands meet your ankle or shin (c). Return to the starting position and repeat on the opposite leg. (d). Repeat for eight reps.
RELATED: The Pilates Ab Workout to Sculpt Your Core
4. Reverse Crunch
This variation of reverse crunches borrows the pulsating movements of barre with the bridge pose. The trick is to keep your upper body still as your core and lower body do the work. In this reverse crunch variation, the spine is also lengthened and strengthened (win-win!).
How to: Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor hip-width apart. Your hands should be at your sides and your palms facing down (a). Press your feet against the floor and use your abdominal muscles to lift your hips up. Hold this pose for two seconds (b). Bring your hips back down to the floor and lift your legs as you pull your knees toward your chest. Avoid using momentum from your legs to pull them in and engage your core muscles instead (c). Hold the crunch for two seconds before bringing your feet back down to the floor (d). Do eight reps.
RELATED: Need a Cardio Fix? Try This 5-Minute Kickboxing Workout
5. Kickboxing Crunch
Add some pep and power to your standing crunch with this kickboxing-inspired move. For those looking to strengthen your balancing skills, this is the exercise for you. This kickboxing crunch offers the right combination of strength training and cardio, working out your core and arms while building endurance, too.
How to: Get into a kickboxing stance, standing tall with your hip-distance apart. Keep your left arm bent high at your side. (a). Jab with your right arm to the side from the bottom to the top. At the same time, engage your abs and do a squat. Then, pull your right knee towards your chest to do a crunch. (b). Next, kick with your right leg out in front of you with your hands at your sides (left arm bent high and right arm at waist-height). (c). Repeat this motion for eight reps before switching to the other side.
Want more quick and easy moves you can do right at home, head to DailyBurn.com/365 — it's free for 30 days!


text:
Both in D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder, Spell-Like Abilities are described as having "no verbal, somatic, focus, or material components." In both systems, however, activating them as a standard action provokes attacks of opportunity.
Is any explanation given for this? If the activation of the ability is purely mental, what provokes the attack? How is this different from quickened spells, which do not?


text:
F1 star Kimi Raikkonen has filed a complaint with Montreal police alleging extortion and harassment by a woman who claims he grabbed her breast at a bar during Grand Prix weekend in 2016.
The allegations against the Ferrari driver are detailed in a blog item by the Montreal woman, who doesn't name Raikkonen explicitly in the post.
RELATED: Afghan vet alleges sexual misconduct against NDP MP Christine Moore
The alleged victim, who was working as a waitress, accuses him of grabbing her breast and a member of his entourage of touching her genitals as she tried to get them to settle a bar tab.
A member of the F1 pilot's legal team who did not want to be named told The Canadian Press on Tuesday that Raikkonen denies the allegations and claims to not know the woman or have touched her.
But a lawyer for the woman says her client is devastated and feels side-swiped and shocked by the Finnish driver's legal manoeuvre.
"Our position is pretty simple," said lawyer Jamie Benizri of Legal Logik, the firm representing the woman. "Faced with allegations of this nature, we're obviously shocked, disturbed that this would be the response."
Benizri wouldn't disclose the woman's age or the amount of money being sought, but the representative of Raikkonen's legal team described it as extremely high.
The woman's lawyer also wouldn't comment on the public blog posts that outline the allegations.
RELATED: NDP MP Erin Weir ousted amid harassment allegations
But he pushed back against the allegation of blackmail, saying it was "a little more graceful than an offer to settle for cash."
"What we were looking for was an opportunity to sit down, what we were looking for was an opportunity to come to terms with what had happened to my client," Benizri said.
"Unfortunately, that was completely misconstrued and I think they jumped the gun to defend themselves or potentially thwart an imminent action."
Benizri said his client will collaborate with investigators and provide her version of events to police.
He said no motions have been filed in court and adds that no course of action has been ruled out.
Raikkonen's representative claimed the demands in April and earlier this month were "aggressive" with a threat to go public.
The complaint against the Montreal resident with police was filed Monday on behalf of Raikkonen, who is being represented by a Montreal law firm.
City police said they would not comment.
Raikkonen, 38, is competing in the F1 Canadian Grand Prix Montreal on June 10.
The Canadian Press


text:
Current phone numbers and email addresses for each of our City Council members are available on our website. To reach all City Council members you can email them at email@example.com
Show All Answers
The San Mateo City Council holds its regular meetings two times a month, on the 1st and 3rd Monday, at 7:00pm. These meetings are held in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 330 West 20th Avenue, San Mateo, CA 94403 and are open to the public. Meetings are occasionally moved to Tuesdays due to holidays. During the months of July, August and December, only one meeting is held during the month. The Council Meeting Calendar list all regular meetings.
Agendas are posted by the end of the day on the Thursday before each City Council meeting. You can also subscribe for agenda updates by email.
Yes, City Council meetings are televised live. You can watch meetings three ways: 1.Cable subscribers can watch meetings being televised on the following cable channels: Channel 26 (Wave) Channel 27 (Comcast) Channel 99 (ATT).2.You can also watch online on the City's public meeting portal. 3. Via the City's YouTube channel.
City Council meeting minutes are available on our Agenda & Minutes Public Meeting Portal page. Meeting minutes prior to 2019 are on our Public Records Portal page. If you need assistance contact the Clerk's Office: (650) 522-7040 or email@example.com
Agenda Reports are posted online in the agenda packet for each upcoming City Council meeting. Agenda reports prior to 2019 are available on our Public Records Portal page.
If you need assistance contact the Clerk's Office: (650) 522-7040 or firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
October 2011
Monthly Archive: October 2011
The Lego Sphinx Concludes Today
Today is the last day of the LEGO Sphinx build at the ROM. There has been a lot of progress and it's been great to have seen so many of you out to see the Sphinx near completion, and to join in on the other LEGO activities on this weekend.
Day 3, 10am - The LEGO Sphinx is almost done
Q&A with Robin, Certified LEGO Professional
Robin Sather, LEGO® Certified Professional at Brickville DesignWorks in Abbotsford, British Columbia talks with us about his upcoming build of a giant LEGO® Sphinx at the ROM on October 28-30.
Is Burton Pipistrelle a Budding Superhero?
Contest: How much do you know about the War of 1812?
Submitted by Liz Muir, volunteer with the Friends of Canadian Collections (FCC).
Almost 200 years ago, war broke out between the United States and Canada, which was still part of the British Empire at the time. That conflict became know as the War of 1812.
Sneak Peek: Recreating Ancient Mayan Architectural Facades
Here at the ROM, a project team is hard at work bringing Maya: Secrets of their Ancient World to life. The exhibition opens November 19, but ROM staff have been immersed in the project for well over a year!
Emilio Genovese, ROM Exhibit Designer, is a key member of the project team. Today he is working with an artist to finalize large graphic murals that will appear throughout the exhibition. We asked him to answer a few questions about the murals and tell us a little more about his role on the exhibition project team.
LIVE: David Hockney in Conversation with Charlie Scheips
Keeps your eyes here. At 7 pm we'll be chatting with David Hockney about his drawings on the iPhone and iPad.
October 21 2:35. pm
A big apology to everyone who was following our Live Blog of David Hockney in conversation iwth Charlie Scheips. We experienced some technical difficulties that evening, but are back up and running!
We did catch the whole conversation on tape and will make it up to you with a Vlog of everything you missed. Coming soon!
@janetcarding Tweeting from the Top
This article was originally published on UNMUSEUM on September 27, 2011. You can follow Janet on Twitter @janetcarding.
The Bee Contest Winner Visits the ROM!
I love sharing the cool secrets of the ROM with visitors, so it really made my day when our Name the Queen Bee Contest winner Kaitlyn visited the ROM with her mom and her brother Kynan (who also happened to be our third place winner). I got to show them around the Keenan Family Gallery of Hands-on Biodiversity and Life in Crisis: Schad Gallery of Biodiversity, as well as introduce them to a few special friends of mine who live behind-the-scenes at the ROM.
Sneak Peek of a Virtual Gallery Visit
By Brian Boyle, ROM Senior Photgrapher.
In celebration of Dinomania! this weekend, we wanted to share details about a new technique we are experimenting with in the photo studio. Recently, I began to explore how the ROM could use emerging technologies to provide virtual tours of our galleries (if you haven't already heard about the Google Art Project, take a look!)
Burton and Isabelle Pipistrelle are out of the Bat Cave and on Book Shelves!
Imagine you were a Pipistrelle Bat living in the ROM's bat cave and one night, when all the lights went out, you snuck out of the cave to explore the wonderful galleries of the Museum. What would you want to see? Where would you go first?
Need a little help boosting your imagination? Check out the ROM's very first children's book – Burton and Isabelle Pipistrelle: Out of the Bat Cave.
- 1
- 2


text:
PRESS RELEASE: Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH is pleased to announce the release of a 3.5 update to its award-winning HALion 3 virtual sampler VST instrument.
The update adds native support for 64-bit editions of Windows Vista, as well as a new Factory Content soundbank consisting of 128 new electronic instruments and drum kits.
HALion 3.5 is the latest Steinberg product to be made available in a 64-bit version, coming after the release of Cubase 5 and HALion Symphonic Orchestra 1.5 for 64-bit Vista. The update is now available for download for all HALion 3 customers at www.steinberg.net
"Because it adds compatibility to 64-bit Vista, HALion 3.5 can address vast amounts of memory, allowing many more additional instruments to be loaded simultaneously," comments Helge Vogt, Steinberg's Product Marketing Manager for Cubase and HALion.
"This frees up even more creative potential because it puts even more instruments and articulations at the artist's fingertips. And combined with the VST Expression technology in Cubase 5, HALion 3.5 really comes into its own, using all those articulations at once with a radically smoother workflow without worrying about the traditional 32-Bit RAM constraints.
"And when used with Cubase 5 as the host application, and the 64-bit-ready MR816 CSX/X FireWire audio hardware, HALion 3.5 is a key part of our complete 64-bit production solution," Vogt adds.
For more information, visit www.steinberg.net
Information taken from official press release
Submit press releases
Email your press release to email@example.com
Sign up for our free weekly newsletter
The free MusicRadar newsletter serves up the week's biggest artist and product news stories alongside exclusive tuition and gear reviews. Sign up here!
Follow MusicRadar on Twitter
Get instant updates and bonus content plus chat with the team. Start here!


text:
Federal Computer Week published a great, succinct quote from Richard Schaeffer Jr., the NSA's (National Security Agency) information assurance director, on three approaches that are effective in protecting systems from security attacks:
We believe that if one institutes best practices, proper configurations
[and] good network monitoring that a system ought to be able to
withstand about 80 percent of the commonly known attack mechanisms
against systems today, Schaeffer said in his testimony. You can
actually harden your network environment to raise the bar such that
the adversary has to resort to much, much more sophisticated means,
thereby raising the risk of detection."
Taking Schaeffer's three tactics as our lead, here is a FOSS perspective on these protection mechanisms:
Best practices implies community effort: discussing, sharing and collectively building understanding and techniques for managing systems and their software components. FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) communities develop, discuss and share these best practices in their project support and development forums. Debian's package management system implements some of these best practices in the operating system itself thereby allowing users who do not participate in the development and support communities to realize the benefits of best practices without understanding or even knowing that they exist. This is one of the important benefits of policy- and package-based operating systems like Debian and Ubuntu.
Proper configuration is the tactical implementation of best practices. Audit is a critical element here. Debian packages can use their postinst scripts (which are run after a package is installed, upgraded, or re-installed) to audit and sometimes even automatically fix configuration problems. Right now, attentive, diligent systems administrators, i.e., human beings, are required to ensure proper configuration as no vendor — not even Debian — has managed to automate the validation let alone automatically fix bad configurations. I think this is an area where the FOSS community can lead by considering and adopting innovations for ensuring proper configuration of software.
Good network monitoring invokes the discipline of knowing what services are running and investigating when service interruptions occur. Monitoring can contribute to configuration auditing and can help focus one's efforts on any best practices that should be considered. That is, monitoring helps by engaging critical thinking and building a tactile awareness of the network — what it does and what is exposed to the activities of a frequently malicious Internet. So, like proper configurations, monitoring requires diligent, attentive systems administrators to maintain security. LinuxForce's Remote Responder℠ services builds best practices around three essential FOSS tools for good network monitoring: Nagios, Munin, and Logcheck.


text:
Sun Sets Up Second Assault On Gold
Jul 29, 2012 - Craig Lord
Olympic Games, London, Day 2, men's semis:
200m freestyle
In the first semi, world record holder Paul Biedermann (GER), having missed the cut for the 400m, was not going to be left out again: out in lane 2 he kept with the lead pace the whole way before sprinting into the lead for a 1:46.10 down the last lap.
Next home in lane 4 was world champion Ryan Lochte (USA), on 1:46.31, his joint mission to make sure he got through and to conserve energy for a 4x100m restyle relay clash with Australia, France and Russia to come. Just behind was Robbie Renwick (GBR), in 1:46.65, good enough for sixth place equal into the final alongside Danila Isotov (RUS).
In the second semi, Sun Yang (CHN) swam with Yannick Agnel (FRA) and Park Taehwan (KOR) to the last turn but about 15m into the last lap turned on his outboard motor, kick kicking in towards a 1:45.61 conclusion. Agnel clocked 1:45.84, Park 1:46.02. It seemed, though as though Sun might have a response for anything this week. Fascinating developments in Chinese swimming. The last one in to the final, on 1:46.80, was Thomas Fraser-Holmes.
100m backstroke
Matt Grevers (USA) remained the only man to crack 53sec so far, his 52.86 in the second semi faster than the winning time four years ago and granting him lane 4 in the final by 0.17sec.
Closest to him was a 53.03 from Camille Lacourt (FRA), the world champion shadowed the whole way by Britain's Liam Tancock (GBR), who eased off in the closing three strokes, the lumpiness of that causing him to take two stunted strokes at the end. result: 53.25 and a middle lane in the big showdown tomorrow. The closest medal challenge will come from Ryosuke Irie (JPN), on 53.29, Nick Thoman the second American threat in with a shout to shine.


text:
Americans may not understand humour, only humor. Canadians and Australians may not understand anything at all. Don't change a thing to remedy this.
Human history and prehistory |
↑ before Homo (Pliocene) |
see also: Modernity, Futurology |
↓Future |
Colonialism is the art of teaching foreigners how to do things right.[1]
Colonialism became hugely popular after the 15th Century with White Europeans who wanted to export new products, such as typhoid, influenza, and syphilis to larger markets.
How Colonialism Works[edit | edit source]
Colonialism occurs when one nation exerts its sovereignty over another nation by means of superiority. More specifically, this image of superiority is usually impressed upon the indigenous population as much as possible. This is done in a number of ways[2]:
- Being taller than the indigenous peoples.
- Having a better haircut than them.
- Having better personal hygiene than them.
- Telling them to sit down.
- Being able talk/shout/scream over their opinions.
- Pretending they're too stupid to have opinions.
- Having a gun (and/or waving it about a lot).
- Spreading rumours of the coloniser's "enormous genitals".
Steps 5 and 6 prove to be the most important to Colonisers since they are often impeded in their work by members of the indigenous population who are literate and can sometimes believe in such nonsensical ideas as 'freedom', 'equality', 'self-determination' etc. In his book on the subject[3] Henry Galsworthy recommends either shooting these people or giving them jobs as academics.
Types of Colonialism[edit | edit source]
Also known as the 'Child-on-a-Leash' Colony, a Dependency resembles a thirty year old computer programmer/Uncylopedia editor who still lives in his parent's basement.
Settler Colony
Utilising the 'Overstaying Your Welcome' strategy, settlers enter a weaker nation's borders, ask for a drink and begin scrutinising their CD collection.
In this version of Colonialism, the coloniser leaves off their children with another nation and never comes back.
Famous examples[edit | edit source]
The author of this article doesn't care at all if you edit it, heck, your stuff is probably funnier than mine. |
America[edit | edit source]
In 1066, Christopher Columbus, whilst looking for a discreet invasion route to Australia, happened upon the coast of San Francisco which was inhabited by peaceful hippies and gays, and thus much easier to invade than Australia, which is notorious for its native criminal population. Although lacking the natural resources of Australia (lager, mutton and Kylie Minogue), an outpost was set up, which grew into a thriving settlement. Several religous extremists and fanatics, were incouraged to move to the new land to stop bothing the native people of their homes of origin. And so after a short period of time tele-evangelism was created. During a war with France, Britain conceded to let the colony become independent, but on the condition that they join their parent nation in the common loathing of France, (The French monarchy, under Louis the 16th and maris-celeste-antoinette the instrument of America's liberty, from the wise and noble rule of their earlier protectors and defenders Great Britain)
Australia[edit | edit source]
A circumnavigation of the globe race organised by magellan, captain cook and phileas fogg to be the first one to do ten laps and be home for supper, had an interesting mishap, cookes ship was abducted by a shoal of crabs and dumped on the coast of tasmania. Cook, whose entire crew were retired prison wardens, decided to set up a penal colony where he had landed. This endeavor was vastly profitable, and created the foundations for a decent country.
Britain[edit | edit source]
After first being colonised by the picts and celts in an attempt to escape the Roman Empire, they were quickly thwarted, by the Romans who invaded, built roads, and invented London, which is Latin for, a rod for your own back. This was shortly followed by an invasion of Vikings, and Saxons who carefully divided the country between themselves in organised knitting competitions. This state of affairs lasted for several centuries until it was decided by the French (who were and still are vastly inferior to any other nation). Even Holland managed to send a fleet of fishing boats full of joan of arc, to destroy England. Much to their dismay they failed, but instead managed to conquer the Kingdom. Recently, the UK has been infiltrated by the vast legion of American trading companies, and has been occupied by US troops since the war. Thus it is an semi-independent part of the vast American Empire.
Tibet[edit | edit source]
Tibet was claimed by the national bank of China after the Dhali LLama (the offspring of an alpaca and Oprah) failed to keep up with his mortgage repayments.
Iraq[edit | edit source]
Formerly a province of Babylon, now a trading company of the United States, Iraq is famous for its vast wealth of freedom fighters, and people of strong belief and noble conviction. Second only to its sister country Saudi Arabia, in prodicing enthusiastic, freelance activists, dedicated to the spread and upkeep of good old fashioned religious ethics, family values and beliefs.
Footnotes[edit | edit source]
Bibliography[edit | edit source]
Pat Boon; The Secret Diaries; Utah Universiy Press 1965
Nostrodamus; Me Thee and Dupree; Penguin, Kingston Upon Hull, 1255
Wikipaedia; http://en.wikipaedia.org/wiki/incest 3rd June 2005
Time Life Magazine; BeachGirls edition; October 1997
See also[edit | edit source]
- Frenchmen (although they were never very good at it)
- British Empire
- Bastards
- Europeans


text:
Celeste bracelet – Light sapphire
A gracious and pretty bracelet, Celeste displays a setting of a large multifaceted light blue stone in a frame of smaller clear crystals. Set on a silver chain, this piece looks great on its own or layered with other Lily & Rose bracelets for a stacked effect. Pair with Celeste earrings to complete the look.
Length: 16 – 19 cm
Crystals: Swarovski (info)
Color: Silver, Material: Brass
Art no. 50540


text:
Italy's De Agostini SpA is a family-owned international group, founded in 1901 and controlled by B&D Holding. The holding company is organized as a financial conglomerate that operates in the publishing, gaming, and media & communications and in the financial sector. The sub-holding firm De Agostini Editore is present in 30 countries with publications in 13 languages. Publishing activities are formed in four business units: De Agostini Publishing, De Agostini Libri, Editions Atlas France/Suisse, Digital De Agostini. In 2012, De Agostini increased its market share in Italy from 1.6% to 2%.
Key Company Developments in 2012 & 2013
The group has not yet published its turnover figure for 2012. In 2011, De Agostini's publishing revenue accounted for 1.34 billion EUR. Even if sales recovered in comparison to last year's 4% loss, the performance didn't match 2007 and 2008, when the company closed the year with 1.56 billion EUR and 1.62 billion, respectively. Meanwhile, EBITDA decreased from 27 million EUR to 23 million EUR. However, the corporate outcome in 2011 was improved by 18% to 5.11 billion EUR. The group's recorded EBITDA of 1.1 billion EUR is a rise of 26% compared with the previous year.
Ownership, Mergers & Acquisition, Internal Organization:
In October 2012 the board of directors appointed Paolo Ceretti as CEO. He replaced Lorenzo Pellicioli, who remains on the board.
The company initiated a reorganization of its publishing businesses in 2010, focusing on Partworks, Direct Marketing and Books, and implemented a two-arm structure in 2011. De Agostini Libri S.p.A. coordinates and manages the publishing activities on the Italian market, providing illustrated books, foreign and domestic fiction for children and adults, reference titles, cartography works and scholarly publishing. Additionally, De Agostini Libri will be active in the B2B market and sell online through DeAgostinilibri.it in partnership with Italian publishing house Hoepli. Meanwhile, De Agostini Publishing handles Partworks and of Direct Marketing with a product range of reference titles, nonfiction, children's educational material, and digital content.
DeAgostini Publishing USA Inc. was launched in January 2012 with an office in New York, to expand the company's presence in the US market.
Connecticut-based multimedia publisher Taunton Press and De Agostini have entered into an exclusive partnership agreement in which Taunton will distribute and publish all print content by Academia Barilla, a center dedicated to the promotion and development of Italian gastronomic culture in North America.
As the international arm, DeAgostini Publishing has a broad presence in Europe, Asia and Latin America, with total sales of 500m€ annually. DeAgostini publications are distributed into 46 global markets in 21 major world languages. It covers a 50% market share of partworks segment.
Bestselling Authors & Titles:
Despite De Agostini is most noted for children's books, although there are titles and packages for adults as well. Having sold 700,000 units in the U.K., the adult title "Cake Decorating" comes with the tools required. Other bestselling packages as Real Bugs and Real Treasures (equipped with insect specimens and gems) are so-called Collect-a-Case products that should encourage children to gather multiple copies of one title.
Click here to return to the full listing of the world's largest publishers.


text:
Mary has discovered amazing walking trails during her travels around the world. In this episode, she chronicles outstanding hikes in New Zealand, Turkey and Italy.
Hear about Lycian, Queen Charlotte, and Cinque Terre Trails, it might just make you want to get your hiking shoes on!
See pictures, and further details of these walks, at the Mary Clark Traveler website.


text:
Which CMS is best for seo - Joomla or Wordpress?
I've never used Joomla much. Back in the day it has a pretty bad reputation of security. Everybody was using it, just not me
That being said my response is likely to be biased, but I would have to say WordPress.
I use SEOProcessor and SEO Yoast for my top SEO plug-ins for WordPress. Using these two the sky if your limit. Apart from that I recommend you use Domain Samurai for a carefully selected domain.
I hope this helps.
No CMS is inherently better at SEO than any other. If it renders content then it will get picked up by search engines.
Sure, some have fancy plugins, but these will provide very small benefits.
No CMS is going to rank better than another just because it is Wordpress, Joomla, or whatever.
That being said, Wordpress + Thesis Theme (DIYThemes) = Awesome SEO
It has just about every functionality you would want for SEO prebuilt including Google Authorship and Microformatting. Thesis is also flexible enough that you can design literally ANY website using Thesis if you try hard enough.
I am so fond of this theme, I won't even post an affiliate link
:eek2: I should hope not! Affiliate links are not allowed anywhere in the forums. [/ot]
Noted, I didn't plan on using any, that was my attempt at a joke haha (I'm not very funny)
That's like asking which colour car can fly the fastest. Joomla and wordpress are the colours, CMS is one type of car and seo is flying.
It's OK - I understood that. I was just making sure other folk knew the rules, too. It's amazing how few members seem to read them …[/ot][/FONT]
SEOTOASTER, it's free and open source like WP. Difference is SEO is embedded, so it works very nicely out of the box without plugin. My business is local so I like the automated KML file creation which helps with Google Earth, Map, mobile and seems to improve rankings with local search.
For the record, this looks like it's your website. Self-promotion is fine when it's relevant, but it's always a good idea to say if a website is yours.
However, there is little information provided, and the kind of services that use KML data don't directly help SEO.
I think Wordpress is pretty much so configurable that it is difficult to find something that is much better SEO-wise. But then I am quite biased since I am a huge Wordpress fan.
I'd argue that it is less SEO than other CMS's. The reason for this is because the only realistic way of adding this is by adding a plugin, whereas a developer is likely to pick a real CMS and will be able to add all of this functionality very easily themselves.
I said above that no CMS is better at SEO than another, but I would probably say that WordPress is worse than the rest, because its reliance on plugins makes it harder to modify. A developer is far more likely to use a different CMS, and would be capable of making any changes easily to benefit SEO.
Below video may answer the question, during WordCamp san francisco 2009 Matt Cutts mention that wordpress CMS is great mechanism to handle 90% of SEO issue.
Bear in mind this was at WordCamp, a conference all about WordPress. He's hardly going to slate WordPress.
Agree, the video cant provide a very solid answer. Secondly the video is take on 2009, technologies is keep changing, Joomla could do better for now.
But if we compare the CMS trending, most webmaster more prefer wordpress. With those facts, I believe wordpress slightly deliver better platform for customization, SEO and rich plugin resources.
A lot of webmasters use WordPress because it is simple, not because it is the best CMS. It's not even a CMS really. If you compare the feature set of WordPress to a real CMS then you see WordPress flagging behind by a lot. Hell, marketing a tool as a CMS when it doesn't even cache as default is criminal. CMS's across the board have been doing this for the best part of a decade. Don't even get me started on WordPress' move into becoming an application framework.
A lot of people say that WordPress is the best because there are loads of plugins to help with SEO, but a real CMS will only manage your content. Umbraco has been able to do this for years, and whenever it has been needed I have just added an additional field into a document type. It's fully extendable because that's the nature of a true CMS. Every single CMS I've used over the past five years has been able to do EVERYTHING that the average WordPress install can do, and a lot more.
The only reason WordPress is touted as good as anything is because developers that cannot use a real CMS will use it. WordPress is by far the best blogging tool there is, but it is a truly awful CMS. I'd think twice about hiring a developer that solely uses WordPress if I were looking for a Web Developer to work with PHP, because it's very likely that they will be unable to actually build anything.
I do agree your point, not all the developer have good knowledge in programming, so they use a ready made CMS. But at the same time, there are lot of advance user using wordpress to manage their content. When millions of developer contribute their knowledge to open source, it reduce site owner time on R&D, especially for small business they don't have budget to hiring developer. The successful of wordpress not because of plugin nor easy to use, but their marketing strategic is great, they manage to attract community.
There should be no "best CMS" in the world, because it is subjective to individual requirement. If we back to question on Joomla VS WordPress for SEO, which one you vote? (Comparison on average users usage, technologies and popularity)
I love Wordpress because it makes developing websites very easy and scaleable. I create very custom designs (usually with Thesis 2.0 or a ThemeForest theme which I heavily modify using CSS and/or PHP), and it allows for me to create just about any website in 10-14 days. Some large projects take a little bit longer, but we have never had a web design turnaround longer than 45 days.
Our company's fast turn around time has won us loads of business because most web design companies in our area tell their clients to expect the design/development process to take at least 3-6 months (I have heard quotes of up to 18 months!). Once we agree in principle to work with a company, we usually give them 2-4 styles (psd's that take about 20 minutes each) to choose from and tell them to expect the site to be ready for review in 2-3 weeks.
I have used several other CMS's (Joomla, Pyro, etc), but I strongly prefer Wordpress. It's not because I am lazy or because no one in our company knows how to code; as a company, we are best at sending targeted traffic to a website, and we like to finish up the design and begin sending traffic as soon as possible.
The speed at which Wordpress allows us to crank out new websites has presented us with a lot of opportunities and turned into a lot of direct revenue.
I personally like wordpress better than Joomla or any other platforms.
I have used them in few of my websites and they are ranking better though i have not used other platforms too much or not did the seo on that websites
Wordpress plugins are good and minimize most of the seo tasks.
I am sure joomla too has that extensions but I am not sure if they have that many different plugins as WordPress
The question is rather meaningless as SEO and CMS are completely unrelated. It is effectively like asking what filling for the sandwich you have for lunch will make your car run more efficiently.
The CMS provides the framework into which you put your content - it is that content that matters for SEO and not the framework you place it in.


text:
I can't believe that my blog will soon be 5 months and I now have over 30 followers. I've enjoyed sharing my book reviews and thoughts with you all. I look forward to sharing my passion for reading with all of you every day. Thanks to you, blogging has been really fun. I want to continue to grow, get better at blogging, reach new book lovers and followers, which brings me to my first giveaway. Please help me reach my next goal of 60 followers.
For those that have been following my blog from the beginning, you will know that I have a soft spot for YA literature. Like many of you, I'm also counting down the days for Suzanne Collin's Mockingjay, the third and final book of the blockbuster, bestselling Hunger Games series. So to celebrate my first 3 months and my first 37 followers, I am going to give away a copy of Mockingjay! Wait, there's more!! If I reach my goal of 120 followers I will add a second great book to my giveaway... The Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare. If I'm lucky enough to get 180 followers, I will throw in another item to the giveaway.
The Rules...
- You must be a follower of my blog.
- You must be over 13 years old.
- Contest is open to US and Canadian residents only.
- Only one entry per follower
- Since these books are currently only available in pre-order, they will be sent out once these books will be available in print.
- There will be one winner per book
Please leave a comment below and include the following information:
- Old (prior to contest) Blog follower: 2 points NOTE: If you follow through Network Blogs only, you must post as an Anonymous with all the required information.
- All entries must have a name and an email address so I can contact the winners
- New Blog follower: 1 point
- Tweet about my contest (leave link) : 1 point
- Put my button (grab on side bar) on your blog (leave blog link): 3 points
- Bonus: Since I'm all about libraries, show your library blog some love. Leave a meaningful comment (leave link): 4 points
Contest is open until midnight EDT on Tuesday, August 17, 2010.
Winners will be chosen randomly. I will announce the winners on my blog after contest ends. Winners will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.
Good luck to you all and thank you so much for sharing in my fun!


text:
Here's the garden she walked across,
Arm in my arm, such a short while since:
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss
Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!
She must have reached this shrub ere she turned,
As back with that murmur the wicket swung;
For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned,
To feed and forget it the leaves among.
Down this side of the gravel-walk
She went while her rope's edge brushed the box:
And here she paused in her gracious talk
To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox.
Roses, ranged in valiant row,
I will never think that she passed you by!
She loves you noble roses, I know;
But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie!
This flower she stopped at, finger on lip,
Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim;
Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip,
Its soft meandering Spanish name:
What a name! Was it love or praise?
Speech half-asleep or song half-awake?
I must learn Spanish, one of these days,
Only for that slow sweet name's sake.
Roses, if I live and do well,
I may bring her, one of these days,
To fix you fast with as fine a spell,
Fit you each with his Spanish phrase;
But do not detain me now; for she lingers
There, like sunshine over the ground,
And ever I see her soft white fingers
Searching after the bud she found.
Flower, you Spaniard, look that you grow not,
Stay as you are and be loved for ever!
Bud, if I kiss you 'tis that you blow not:
Mind, the shut pink mouth opens never!
For while it pouts, her fingers wrestle,
Twinkling the audacious leaves between,
Till round they turn and down they nestle---
Is not the dear mark still to be seen?
Where I find her not, beauties vanish;
Whither I follow ber, beauties flee;
Is there no method to tell her in Spanish
June's twice June since she breathed it with me?
Come, bud, show me the least of her traces,
Treasure my lady's lightest footfall!
---Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces---
Roses, you are not so fair after all!
Plague take all your pedants, say I!
He who wrote what I hold in my hand,
Centuries back was so good as to die,
Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land;
This, that was a book in its time,
Printed on paper and bound in leather,
Last month in the white of a matin-prime
Just when the birds sang all together.
Into the garden I brought it to read,
And under the arbute and laurustine
Read it, so help me grace in my need,
From title-page to closing line.
Chapter on chapter did I count,
As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge;
Added up the mortal amount;
And then proceeded to my revenge.
Yonder's a plum-tree with a crevice
An owl would build in, were he but sage;
For a lap of moss, like a fine pont-levis
In a castle of the Middle Age,
Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber;
When he'd be private, there might he spend
Hours alone in his lady's chamber:
Into this crevice I dropped our friend.
Splash, went he, as under he ducked,
---At the bottom, I knew, rain-drippings stagnate:
Next, a handful of blossoms I plucked
To bury him with, my bookshelf's magnate;
Then I went in-doors, brought out a loaf,
Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis;
Lay on the grass and forgot the oaf
Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.
Now, this morning, betwixt the moss
And gum that locked our friend in limbo,
A spider had spun his web across,
And sat in the midst with arms akimbo:
So, I took pity, for learning's sake,
And, de profundis, accentibus ltis,
Cantate! quoth I, as I got a rake;
And up I fished his delectable treatise.
Here you have it, dry in the sun,
With all the binding all of a blister,
And great blue spots where the ink has run,
And reddish streaks that wink and glister
O'er the page so beautifully yellow:
Oh, well have the droppings played their tricks!
Did he guess how toadstools grow, this fellow?
Here's one stuck in his chapter six!
How did he like it when the live creatures
Tickled and toused and browsed him all over,
And worm, slug, eft, with serious features,
Came in, each one, for his right of trover?
---When the water-beetle with great blind deaf face
Made of her eggs the stately deposit,
And the newt borrowed just so much of the preface
As tiled in the top of his black wife's closet?
All that life and fun and romping,
All that frisking and twisting and coupling,
While slowly our poor friend's leaves were swamping
And clasps were cracking and covers suppling!
As if you bad carried sour John Knox
To the play-house at Paris, Vienna or Munich,
Fastened him into a front-row box,
And danced off the ballet with trousers and tunic.
Come, old martyr! What, torment enough is it?
Back to my room shall you take your sweet self.
Good-bye, mother-beetle; husband-eft, sufficit!
See the snug niche I have made on my shelf!
A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s shall cover you,
Here's C. to be grave with, or D. to be gay,
And with E. on each side, and F. right over you,
Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment-day!
Back to Robert Browning


text:
Illinois Health Care Costs to Increase 6 percent in 2013
(Crain's) — Premiums for health insurance plans will climb 6.3 percent in 2013, but employee costs will shoot up even higher as companies look to shift more of the rising expenses to their workers, according to a new forecast by human resources consultancy Aon Hewitt.
The average cost to insure a local employee is projected to jump to $11,283 in 2013, from $10,616 this year, according to the report by the unit of London-based Aon Corp.
But local employees' health care costs will increase even more. Workers' average contribution to their insurance premium will grow 8.2 percent next year, to $2,713, from $2,508 in 2012, according to the study, which is based on health benefit information for 486 large companies nationwide. Employees' out-of-pocket costs are predicted to jump higher still.
Both employers and employees are bracing for another year in which health care costs will substantially outpace inflation, which was just 1.7 percent during the 12 months ended in August, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
With health care costs soaring, employers are increasingly asking their workers to shoulder more of the burden.
Many companies are funneling employees toward "consumer-driven" health plans where workers pay for health care from a specially designated fund, and more employees are using high-deductible plans, said Dale Moyer, principal at Benefits & Compensation Resources LLC in Deerfield.
"The plan is being designed to cause employees to have more out-of-pocket expenses," he said.
Indeed, local employees' out-of-pocket health care costs will jump nearly 10.3 percent, to an average of $2,882, in 2013, from $2,614 in 2012, the study released last week said.
The 6.3 percent average increase in Chicago-area premiums is in line with the national average, and comes after local premiums rose 5.7 percent in 2012. In 2011, local health insurance premiums rose 9.2 percent, Aon Hewitt said.
Insurers scaled back increases last year in part because many people used their health insurance less frequently, part of a national trend of low utilization. Amid the weak economy, budget-minded consumers skimped on co-payments and deductible expenses. But that trend could change.
The state's largest insurer, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Illinois, says it is too early to say whether its premiums for 2013 will be in the 6 percent to 7 percent range, in line with Aon Hewitt's forecast.
"There remains some anticipation that there's pent-up demand, so it would be reasonable to expect to see increased utilization in 2013, and therefore medical cost increases that reflect it next year," Kevin Cassidy, vice president of the insurer's national and key accounts, said in a statement.
Among major metropolitan areas nationwide, Chicago ranks seventh in average health care cost per employee in 2012, according to the Aon Hewitt study, which covers 14.9 million participants. Philadelphia has the highest cost, with nearly $12,900 per employee, while Los Angeles, with $9,534 per employee, has the lowest cost among the 15 metropolitan areas studied.
The federal health care overhaul has added to insurers' costs with provisions that allow parents to add their adult children to their insurance or require coverage without co-pays of some women's preventive health care, such as contraceptives and mammograms, said Nancy Scola Lombaer, a partner at Laurus Strategies, a Chicago-based health care consultancy.
Nonetheless, insurers are moving slowly to pass along those costs to their customers, at least for the moment, she said.
"Everyone is watching and waiting to see what happens with health care reform," she said.


text:
We just received information from a tipster who apparently was part of a recent focus group for an upcoming device that appears to be a Facebook phone. Here are some features we anticipate will be part of the eventual Facebook handset based on questions asked at during the session:
- Location aware coupons: you pick main categories of interest. When you're near any stores that fall into those categories, coupons are automatically pushed to your phone. Basically, it sounds like "Facebook Deals on steroids," as our tipster elegantly phrased it.
- An always-on GPS service much like Google Latitude that would run in the background. The service would provide automatic "check-ins" and might share your location with friends.
- No local storage (or very little). Everything is cloud-based, including contacts, media, data, etc.
- Obviously the phone will include a camera, but everything will be uploaded automatically and stored in the cloud.
- A news ticker-style message notification system: all messages funnel into one mass inbox, sortable by type, but initially unfiltered. There will also be a ticker of some kind that reads off message content as it's delivered, regardless of message type.
The handset itself wasn't specifically referred to as a "Facebook phone," though our tipster tells us they spent over an hour of the session talking about social media in addition to very specific things like "how many photos do you upload to Facebook a day", and more.


text:
Last week's shooting at a wood-processing plant in Menznau, Switzerland, which left four people — including the shooter — dead and six others injured, is fueling a recurring debate about the country's gun policy, one of the most liberal in the world.
The issue is even more pertinent these days because the tragedy at the Menznau factory, where an employee armed with a Sphinx AT380 weapon opened fire on his co-workers in the company's cafeteria, came only weeks after another shooter killed three people and wounded two others in the southern Swiss village of Daillon in early January.
Over the weekend, authorities reported that the suspect in the Menznau shooting, who arrived in Switzerland as an asylum seeker from Kosovo in 1991 and became a naturalized Swiss citizen, used his brother's gun in the rampage. (The perpetrator, whose name was not released, reportedly suffered from psychological problems, and arms permits cannot be issued to people with a history of mental illness.)
However, unlike the current emotional debate surrounding gun control in the U.S., the Swiss approach is more dispassionate and pragmatic. Given Switzerland's long history of what the Swiss proudly call "responsible gun ownership" and a low crime rate, very few voices are calling for drastic measures like an outright ban on privately owned firearms. Instead, the majority of anti-gun activists are urging better control over who buys firearms and for what purpose.
(MORE: The Swiss Difference: A Gun Culture That Works)
"Ideally, we would like to reduce the number of guns to 1 million within the next seven years," says Josef Lang, a Green Party parliamentarian who is a member of the anti-gun coalition. "But that would require a national campaign like the one the government launched to fight AIDS, and there is no political will to do that."
One of the reasons there is not more of a push to introduce more restrictive laws is the country's deeply ingrained gun culture, which is based on an old belief that enemies could invade tiny Switzerland quickly, so every man had to keep his weapon at home to be able to fight. Many Swiss still consider gun ownership as their patriotic and civic duty, even though their neutral country has not been involved in an armed conflict in over 160 years.
Shooting is also a popular pastime. The Swiss learn to shoot from an early age, master safety techniques and develop a sense of responsibility toward their firearms. It is not unusual to see entire families — kids as young as 12 and their grandparents — participating in target practice or sharpshooting competitions that are held in towns and villages across the country.
Because of these traditions, gun ownership in Switzerland is among the highest in the world, trailing behind only the U.S. and Yemen. Between 2.3 million and 4.5 million are estimated to be in circulation in a country of only 8 million people. But while the gun-suicide rate is fairly high — about 300 cases a year — the number of violent crimes is relatively low: government figures show about 0.5 gun homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010. By comparison, the U.S. rate in the same year was about five firearm killings per 100,000 people, according to a 2011 U.N. report.
(MORE: Three Dead in Swiss Workplace Shooting)
Rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, automatic weapons and silencers are banned. But the law allows Swiss citizens or legal residents over the age of 18, who have no criminal record or history of drug abuse and mental illness, to buy semiautomatic and assault weapons with a permit. For sports and hunting rifles, a simple notification to the local firearms office is sufficient, but Green Party's Lang says his group wants a law requiring that all the guns kept in private houses be registered.
The biggest change to the firearms legislation was made in 2007, requiring soldiers to store their bullets in an arsenal rather than in the households, but they were allowed to continue to keep their firearms at home. However, people who own private guns can purchase ammunition freely, as long as their weapon is registered.
Although the government has repeatedly said existing laws are strict enough, Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga conceded this week that the authorities "are aware that the weapons law must be continually improved."
One area that needs a major overhaul, Sommaruga said at a postshooting press conference, is a better coordination of gun registers across the country. The government posts online the names of people who had been refused a gun permit by the army or the police. But licensing and keeping track of guns and their owners is left to each of the country's 26 cantons. There is no national registry. Now Sommaruga is urging local authorities to establish an electronic intercantonal database of gun owners.
(MORE: Swiss Vote to Keep 'a Gun in Every Closet')
In the meantime, Switzerland's pro-gun lobby claims that, even in view of the recent killings, there is nothing wrong with the current legislation or customs like keeping military weapons in one's closet (or under the bed). The majority of the Swiss agree: in a nationwide referendum held in 2011, 56% of voters rejected the proposal launched by anti-gun organizations to ban army rifles from homes and tighten the existing legislation.
"It is impossible to prevent tragic but isolated incidents like the ones in Menznau or Daillon, but we will never change our position regarding responsible gun ownership," says Hermann Suter, vice president of a gun lobby, proTell. He adds that considering the prevalence of guns in the country and tens of millions of rounds of ammunition that are fired each year during military and civilian target practice, the number of criminal shootings is very low.
He also argues that the way to prevent more killings is not to make guns less accessible, "but to instill safety measures as well as the sense of social responsibility in their users."


text:
"Why do you have to travel so much?" he asked.
"Why do you have to breathe?" I shot back.
For some, travel is an addiction to adventure; for others, travel is a way to survive, in the same way that breathing oxygen ensures our continued existence. The knowledge that an escape has been planned can make our daily routines — our weekly drudgery — that much easier to bear.
But what if you can't afford to travel? That might be, but that shouldn't stop you from having a rejuvenating adventure. Some of the best escapes are right in your own backyard. But like all travel, they'll take a little planning.
Read on . . .


text:
- From: <firstname.lastname@example.com>
- Date: 30 May 98 6:32:43 PM
- TO: firstname.lastname@example.com
Union Nissan of Lake County can show you over 500 new, almost new program cars, and fully certified used cars of all makes and models. Whether you're looking for a great buy on a used vehicle, would like to save thousands on a program car, or you really have your heart set on a new car; you owe it to yourself to see our selection and talk to our people. Our service department has evening and Saturday hours and every new Union Nissan comes with Gold Card privileges. Your Gold Card will entitle you to $9.95 lifetime oil changes, free service loaners, free towing and more! We invite you to e-mail our Internet Sales Manager Aaron Segal at email@example.com or e-mail directly from our website, www.unionnissan.com., or call (847) 244-8000 and ask for Aaron. ALL INTERNET CUSTOMERS WILL RECEIVE A FREE TIRE ROTATION JUST FOR COMING IN. We look forward to hearing from you!
Received on Saturday, 30 May 1998 18:39:30 UTC


text:
This is a guest post by Sid Savara, whose main passion is personal development and personal productivity. Follow Sid on twitter @sidsavara for motivation, inspiration and just chatting
If a tree falls in a forest, I don't know if anyone hears it – but when your blog crashes or takes forever to load, I guarantee you nobody is reading.
When you work hard on your content, but aren't able to capitalize on the attention because your blog takes too long to load you are throwing away hours of hard work and thousands of visitors. I know because I've been there. I've had multiple performance issues over the past year where SidSavara.com was unable to handle some of the traffic spikes that came my way – and believe me, it is soul-crushing to see your site doing well on social media sites, and knowing that many of those readers will leave before your article loads. It's not every day you get 250,000 visitors to your blog.
Optimizing WordPress is a thankless, but necessary job. When your site is running quickly people don't notice – but if your blog is down or slow, visitors will complain or worse (and much more frequently) just leave. In fact, if the very first page a visitor sees takes even a second too long to load, they are likely to leave instantly without reading anything – on to the next shiny thing that has caught their interest, and on to someone's blog that is optimized.
I recently decided to dedicate some time to deal with this. After trying out many plugins, crashing my website a few times due to plugin incompatibilities and reviewing my results here are my recommendations – and it's easier than you think.
5 Plugins To Make Your WordPress Blog Blazing Fast
- WP Super Cache by Donncha O Caoimh– A very fast caching plugin for WordPress. This is what has been saving me from traffic spikes. In a normal WordPress install, every time a visitor comes to your site WordPress builds the webpage for them from scratch by pulling information out of the database and processing a variety of things in the software. The bottom line is, this is time consuming – and usually after you've published a blog post, it doesn't change very much except when people comment. When a page is loaded, WP Super Cache caches a static (one time generated) copy of that webpage, and then every time a new visitor comes, it preferentially gives them the cached version of the page. This is much faster, and has totally saved me when a rush of people come from one of my posts going viral.
- WP Minify by Thaya Kareeson– This plugin uses the Minify engine to combine and compress JS and CSS files to improve page load time. Like the previous plugin, it also automatically shrinks the size of your files without you having to do anything.
- W3 Total Cache by Frederick Townes– If I was starting a brand new blog today, this is what I would use on day one – and then go with a more complicated set up (like I have currently) after it grows. This plugin is amazing. It includes minify capabilities, caching (but less aggressive than WP Super Cache) and GZip compression.
- Free CDN by Phoenixheart– If you have static files (images, javascript, css) taking a long time to load and slowing your site down, you may benefit by installing Free CDN – especially if you have large images. Briefly, a CDN is a content delivery network. Static files are cached on the CDN and pulled from their servers instead of your own – which means that your server has to do less work, and potentially can serve more people at once, faster.
- Bonus: Upgrade WordPress! This isn't a plugin, but every time a new version of WordPress there's a good chance they've optimized the software so it runs faster than before. Be sure to test your blog after you upgrade to make sure everything still runs smoothly.
Firefox Plugins To Test WordPress Performance
You can check for yourself how fast your WordPress blog is and instantly get recommendations on what you can do to improve it with some free software. I use Firefox with the Firebug and YSlow plugins installed. The YSlow user guide is excellent and will give you all the tools you need to see where your site is slow, and what can be done to improve it. Darren has also previously written about 5 Methods to Enhancing Page Load with some best practices for ensuring your blog loads quickly for visitors.
This is a guest post by Sid Savara, whose main passion is personal development and personal productivity. For new email subscribers, he is offering a free copy of his new ebook The Little Book of Big Motivational Quotes.


text:
While the world watches elite athletes like Michael Phelps and Hope Solo go for Olympic gold, the athletes' team physicians will be watching them, too, but with a different perspective.
Orthopedic surgeon Damion Valletta, DO, has been working with U.S. women's soccer since 2008 and is currently with the team in Glasgow as the players get ready for their first match -- against France at Hampden Park on Wednesday.
"Each player has their own primary care physician who's worked to get them as able as they can be for the games," Valletta told MedPage Today from his hotel in Scotland. "But once they come into camp, it's our responsibility to take their [medical] information and best prepare them for match day."
That means taking care of injuries and optimizing exercise regimens, as well as treating any minor issues that crop up -- from coughs and colds to upset stomachs.
The U.S. Olympic Committee has 80 medical professionals on hand to care for its 525 athletes. Practitioners of allopathic and osteopathic medicine will work side by side with chiropractors and massage therapists to help their athletes stay at the top of their game.
Their efforts are coordinated by Cindy Chang, MD, a sports medicine specialist at the University of California Berkeley, who was selected to be Chief Medical Officer for the 2012 London games -- the first woman and the first Asian American to hold the position.
Almost all physicians are assigned to specific teams, but many also will serve in the U.S. team's medical clinic within the Olympic Village. It's a full-service walk-in clinic for athletes, coaches, and staff, equipped to handle most issues, from lacerations to fractures.
Athletes from every nation also will have access to the Olympic Village Polyclinic, set up by the London Olympics organizing committee and stocked with major equipment, including MRI and x-ray machines.
"Rarely do we have to access any outside care," said Scott Rodeo, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan who will be caring for the U.S. swim team -- though he noted that organizers have arranged for access to London hospitals in the case of a major emergency.
Olympic Training for Doctors
This will be Rodeo's third time taking care of Olympic swimmers -- he worked the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing games -- though the road to becoming an Olympic physician isn't a short one.
It usually starts with a sports medicine physician who's worked with a given sport taking an internship at one of the Olympic training centers in the U.S., then moving on to domestic competitions, followed by other international competitions, before being selected for the Olympic games.
As the games get closer and team rosters fall into place, team physicians need to review the athletes' medical history to get a full sense of each of their new patients.
"Like the athletes prepare with years of training, we prepare the same way," Rodeo told MedPage Today from his hotel in France, where the swim team was training just days before the opening ceremonies.
In addition to treating illness and injury -- "shoulder pain is common in swimmers," Rodeo said -- physicians also serve as advocates for athletes during drug testing.
That means keeping current with lists of banned substances, which Rodeo said can change year-to-year as new drugs are added.
"We need to understand which medications are allowed and which aren't so that we only use appropriate ones," Rodeo said. For instance, there's no treating those coughs and colds with pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) -- the over-the-counter medication would turn a positive on a drug test.
Diuretics are another tricky drug class, said Valletta, whose goalkeeper Hope Solo was recently flagged by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency when canrenone (Contaren, Luvion) turned up on a urine screen.
The 30-year-old said her doctor had prescribed the drug for premenstrual purposes: "I did not know it contained a diuretic," Solo said in a statement.
In the end, the agency concluded "that I made an honest mistake, and that the medication did not enhance my performance in any way," and Solo was allowed to continue on as a competitor, according to the statement.
Valletta said diuretics are one of the most commonly used medications that athletes are unaware will turn a positive on a drug test.
"The athlete may assume since it was prescribed by a doctor that it won't alter the accuracy of a doping control test," Valletta said, adding that they need to get a fair use exemption before taking such medications.
Medical Sportsmanship
Rarely do so many disciplines on the medical spectrum work so closely together, with MDs literally rubbing elbows with chiropractors and massage therapists in the Olympic Village clinics.
"Everyone has their own expertise, background, and perspective," Rodeo said. "You check your ego at the door, and you learn a lot. In medicine, the more information the better."
Valletta said some athletes appear to respond better to different treatments from different specialists: "Some benefit a lot from massage, while others do better with functional training and recovery," he said. "From ice baths to massage therapy to chiropractic work or just doing a recovery workout session, the different specialists here navigate the athletes through what best prepares them for match day."
Though Rodeo and Valletta both get to take care of all-stars -- Rodeo has been looking after Michael Phelps -- both are hesitant to single out the achievements of any certain athlete on their teams.
"It's hard to beat some of the things that Michael Phelps has done, but it's the day-to-day things, working with this very select group of athletes who've spent the better part of their lives training for this opportunity, that are really memorable," Rodeo said.
Though each athlete has gained "varying degrees of media attention for what they've done," Valletta said, their "common denominator is their focus and their drive to be the best."