text:
Netflix is at a crossroad: Can it reinvent television, and itself?
Click photo to enlarge
LOS GATOS — Depending on whom you ask, Netflix (NFLX) is either a company that's poised for a remarkable resurgence or a washed-up has-been whose best days are behind it.
While both sides have a legitimate case to make, corporate raider Carl Icahn is betting on a rebound.
Although they're at odds with Icahn, Netflix's managers — and some analysts — are optimistic about the company's prospects. The company is basically inventing what it calls "Internet television," getting smarter about how it operates and is investing in international markets to position itself for long-term growth.
"Internet TV is the future of television, and we are leading the charge," CEO Reed Hastings and Chief Financial Officer David Wells said in a letter to shareholders last month.
But analysts and investors question Netflix's long-term prospects and its ability to resume the heady growth it recorded for much of the past decade. They see a company struggling to control the costs of its streaming business while letting its older but highly profitable DVD business wither away.
Netflix's management is very clear about the company's strategy, "but I don't think it's a good one," said Michael Pachter, a financial analyst who covers the company for Wedbush Securities, adding that he sees only two paths ahead:
It's going to be "a high-growth, unprofitable business or a low-growth profitable one."
The prospects of the streaming video company have been much debated in the wake of Icahn's move last week to take a 10 percent stake in the Los Gatos company. Icahn said Netflix was undervalued and could be worth more if it were sold to another company. Other investors seemed to agree — or at least hoped that Icahn's involvement could juice the stock — and Netflix shares soared immediately after.
Netflix's shares have been in the dumps since last year when the company stumbled through a succession of setbacks. It angered users with a price hike and a later aborted attempt to sever its DVD business. Then it turned off investors by announcing an aggressive international expansion that would depress profits. More recently, the company further aggravated investors by failing to sign up subscribers at the robust rate it predicted at the beginning of the year.
For optimists, the company's struggles are simply an indication of the challenging task the company has taken on: transforming its business from a largely subscription DVD service focused on the U.S. market to an international streaming video provider. They see a
company that is positioning itself well in that new market.
Apps to watch Netflix videos are available on a range of devices — from smart TVs to tablets to game consoles — that its competitors can't match. Netflix subscribers are spending increasing amounts of time watching video through the service. And the company's content partners are starting to recognize the value Netflix gives them by offering an audience for their older movies and television shows, analysts said.
"When I look at the assets the company has, they are substantial," said Colin Dixon, a senior partner at The Diffusion Group, a technology research firm. "Having so many clients on so many devices gives them a substantial advantage over any other player in the market."
But critics question the company's strategy. Since retreating from its move to split off its DVD business, Netflix has allowed that service to decline rapidly. In the past year, the service has lost more than a third of its subscribers, and its quarterly revenue has fallen by $100 million over the past three quarters.
That decline is notable because even today — when it has nearly three times more U.S. subscribers to its streaming business than DVD subscribers — the DVD business still produces 40 percent more profit that its domestic streaming service.
Meanwhile, Pachter and others see huge challenges for Netflix on the streaming front. Netflix owes $5 billion in coming years to Hollywood studios for the movies and TV shows it offers. Although that amount plateaued in the recent quarter, it skyrocketed early last year, and analysts warn that it could jump in the future.
The more popular Netflix becomes, the more Hollywood is going to want to be paid for its content, critics say. Because the company has little ability to negotiate those prices, its only way of controlling costs is by reducing the number of videos in its library, as it did earlier this year when it declined to re-sign a deal with Starz, which distributes moves for Sony and Disney. But the fewer videos it offers, the less attractive its service becomes, analysts warn.
"There truly is a tipping point where the content quality isn't good enough and they start losing lots of subscribers," Pachter said.
The company is already seeing slowing subscriber growth in the United States. And that's likely to continue as that business matures, analysts warn. To boost growth here — and find ways to continue to attract high-quality content — the company might need to start offering different levels of service, said Greg Ireland, an analyst for market research firm IDC.
Unless it does that, Netflix will be "stuck with flat subscriber growth, with no way to grow their business."
Contact Troy Wolverton at 408-840-4285. Follow him at Twitter.com/troywolv.


text:
TSF GALLERY: The All-England Hair Club for Men
Troy Venechanos has conquered the worlds of junior varsity tennis, tennis internships and tennis photo-blogging. The New York native and TSF contributor hopes to next master "that cool way players can pick up tennis balls using the sides of their feet." He is a graduate of Northeastern University. TSF vault: Troy Venechanos

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Over the past couple of years I've spent a reasonable amount of time with Asantha Wijeyratne, CEO of SmartPayroll, a New Zealand Payroll provider. I've been interested to talk to him, partly because he's a lovely guy with an interesting business ethic, but also because his business is growing rapidly, despite the fact that they've adopted a high touch approach which sees them (gasp) provide really high levels of service for their customers. This strategy would seem to go against the current orthodoxy which suggests that the way to scale and build profitability is to reduce costs and automate most parts of your business – it was interesting to get some statistics from Asantha about how a strategy that sees the humanization of support is paying dividends.
Originally Smartpayroll used a high touch sales approach with commission staff. While this was gaining results – it was doing so at a high cost. Asantha looked at their strategy and decided to focus on providing fantastic customer service, and in doing so took a punt that the word-of-mouth effect from doing so would fill their inbound sales funnel. The result of focusing on the service has been that over a third of customers come directly from word of mouth – the ability to ease up on expensive marketing campaigns coupled with a focus on spending on customer service has seen average costs per customer plummet. This goes against what most high-growth companies are being told – that is to automate and reduce the high touch aspects of their service offering.
The graph below shows the move in customer acquisition costs over time, while actual figures aren't included on the graph because of commercial sensitivity, suffice it to say the change has been significant – both in percentage and financial terms.
As Asantha says;
We see that the focus on providing exceptional customer care is actually the best marketing we can do as we are getting around 75% of our new customers as a result of either customer or accountant referrals
The SmartPayroll approach sees their helpdesk having two distinct roles – customer care and indirect selling by being exceptional. Essentially therefore they're able to achieve a double outcome from their customer support spend.
The interesting thing here is the discussion around the ability (or otherwise) to scale support. Rackspace (see disclosure) for example differentiates from its competitors by promising "fanatical support". There has been much discussion around whether support can actually scale up when you become a large organization – judging by the extremely positive feedback that Rackspace seems to get from customers, service does indeed scale, so long as the organization focuses heavily on maintaining an authentic culture.
While we've seen lots of examples of service led organizations in other industries (Zappos is perhaps the best known example in the consumer space), software has traditionally been forgotten or put into the "too hard" basket. Case studies like that of SmartPayroll remind us that there is sometimes a better way than slashing costs.


text:
Kevin McKiernan's career as a journalist and filmmaker has taken him to some of the world's most troubled regions, from Nicaragua to Iraq, from West Africa to Afghanistan; his work, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, has been published by
The New York Times
, and appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS.
Read full biography >>
Bringing King to China
is a documentary film about culture, race and human rights. The film brings Martin Luther King's dream of equality and peace to China—and then brings it back to the U.S. The filmmakers are Kevin McKiernan and Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler. The film premiered in 2011 at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
More about the film »
Award-winning PBS film:
Good Kurds, Bad Kurds
"Searing...delves deeply into the history and politics of Kurdistan"
- The New York Times
"Superior example of intrepid journalists going into war zones to get the story".
- Variety
More about
the film »
More about
the book»
Reports from Iraq
Other reportage
Photo Gallery
About Kevin McKiernan
Copyright © 2011 Kevin McKiernan. All rights reserved.
Site by
Norcraft Design


text:
Despite getting clobbered in the fiscal cliff negotiations, Republicans have something to celebrate this year — the survival of health savings accounts, or HSAs. They had feared that President Obama would obliterate this critical cost-saving tool.
Sure, the president had promised that ObamaCare would not bar HSA-qualified plans from health insurance exchanges. But we had our doubts.
Fortunately, we were wrong.
A new regulation from the Department of Health and Human Services should put Republican fears to rest. Issued in November, the Department's proposed Actuarial Value Calculator has been tested and re-tested. Republicans and HSA experts can conclude only one thing from this mathematical tool: ObamaCare is safe for HSAs.
HSAs are accounts that allow the owners of high-deductible health insurance plans to save tax-free for medical expenses. HSA-qualified plans offer low monthly premiums, which has made them the fastest-growing type of health plan in United States for the past four years. If initial results from private health exchanges operating in Minnesota are any indication, more than half of insurance buyers want an HSA-qualified plan.
Republicans have lauded HSAs for years, both as a way to bring choice and savings to individual consumers, and as a method for keeping overall health care expenses from spiraling out of control. The White House and Department of Health and Human Services appear to have also concluded, rightly, that for the health exchanges to work, the option to choose low-cost, HSA-qualified health plans must be preserved.
No one has been more caught off guard by this conclusion than primed-for-battle political operatives like myself. In fact, the proposed health care regulations embodied in the Actuarial Value Calculator are so fair and reasonable that much of the Republican health care policy apparatus has been stunned into silence — perhaps accounting for how little we've heard about the new regulation.
Literally, with one draft rule, and indications that other draft rules will also permit HSAs, the Department has silenced a huge chorus of Republican critics of the President's health care plan. On Capitol Hill, health care aides to Republican Senators and Congressmen are asking, "what do we say now?" You can hear the delete button being pressed on whole paragraphs of stump speeches pounding ObamaCare.
In a Washington, D.C., board meeting a few weeks ago, I heard this HHS rule being described as "the best Jedi mind trick, ever."
Assuming the rules don't change, the implications are enormous. Inside the beltway, it means a new era of détente has broken out in at least one corner of the health care wars. Republicans can say that one of their signature health care policies has been preserved under ObamaCare. Democrats can point out that the President kept his promise.
More important is what happens outside the beltway. Across America, current HSA owners will get to keep the plans they have. HSA-qualified plans will remain the least-expensive type of health insurance policy on the market. And Americans will have more health care choices than we thought they would.
It's not often in Washington that we get to say "everybody wins," but this is that rare occasion.
Dan Perrin is Executive Director of the HSA Coalition.


text:
Hands-on: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 & Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
Hands-on: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 & Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
Hands-on: Samsung Note 10.1 & Galaxy Tab 2 10.1
Samsung has been churning out tablets after tablets over the last two years, and the MWC event saw no exception despite not holding any conference this year. The debut of two new 10.1-inch Samsung tablets will hopefully present customers with more options and adds to the plethora of Android 4.0 tablet devices that have made their presence known at the trade show.
The Samsung Note 10.1 is evidently more specialized out of the two, harnessing on the S Note technology to provide users with easy editing and note-taking options. This technology first surfaced in Samsung's flagship Galaxy Note smartphone; the bigger form factor will definitely attract those who require a bigger surface area for sketching and intensive editing. This is why the Galaxy Note 10.1 will come with Adobe Photoshop Touch and Adobe Ideas out-of-the-box, advanced apps that allow users to make extensive edits and apply effects. The latter is a drawing tool that will allow users to sketch and color their images. Both apps are optimized for usage with the S Pen.
We see the Galaxy Note 10.1 as a potential breakthrough for educators, students and those specializing in design, and this is unsurprisingly the direction that Samsung is looking at. No details have been revealed about its price and release date thus far, but we reckon that it wouldn't be released too far apart from the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 comes hot on its 7-inch variant's heel (which was announced earlier this month); the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 and 7 are available in 3G and Wi-Fi versions. Starting from UK, the Galaxy Tab 2 series will be launched globally from March onwards. The device is targeted at "home and family use" as opposed to Galaxy Note 10.1's more elaborate S Note set-up.
Despite that, both tablets share very similar hardware specs and dimensions.
Important Features |
Highlights of Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1/ Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 | |
Operating System |
Processor |
Memory |
Display |
Camera |
Battery |
Dimensions / Weight |
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
To give you a better picture of what to expect from the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, here's a quick video demonstration of how the S Note, S Planner, PS Touch and Adobe Ideas work.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1


text:
Five by the Faculty
It's been a busy publishing year on West 120th Street. In the following round-up, Inside looks at five new books by TC faculty, on topics ranging from the intricacies of music education to the mechanics of school reform.
Critical Issues in Music Education: Contemporary Theory and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2009); co-edited by Harold F. Abeles and Lori A. Custodero
A music teacher enters a second grade classroom in the largely Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights . The students have been dancing the merengue, embodying its complex rhythmic patterns that are as familiar to them as a heartbeat. These patterns still dancing in their heads, they respond to the teacher's review of quarter and eighth notes ("tah, tah, tee-tee, tah,") with syncopated variations played on their desks-turned-congas. The teacher follows the children, taking turns with them in a call and response mode, incorporating some rhythms she hears with new syllables to be decoded to musical notation later in the lesson.
To Lori Custodero, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Program in Music and Music Education at Teacher's College, a scenario like this one provides music educators with rich opportunities to refine their teaching methods by learning more about their students in order to discover the best methods to engage them in what's being taught. "At TC, the pedagogical model we're working with is one in which teachers are constantly collecting their own data as they teach, becoming aware of this learner-centered, responsive pedagogy," says Custodero.
This pedagogy, which brings together both theory and practice, is showcased in Critical Issues in Music Education: Contemporary Theory and Practice, a recently-released book that Custodero co-edited with Harold Abeles, TC Professor of Music and Music Education and the Co-Director of the Center for Arts Education Research. The book's contributors—all of whom are either faculty or graduates of TC's Music Education program—examine a wide range of issues in music education, including assessment, philosophical foundations, mentoring, critical theory and musical development. They grapple with fundamental ideas ("What is music?") and more intricate questions ("How do factors of context, culture and content work together to facilitate optimal learning conditions?") Intended for undergraduate and introductory graduate courses, Critical Issues in Music Education lays a solid foundation in research-based practice.
Of TC's Music Education program, Custodero notes, "This is not a place where you raise your hand and say, is this going to be on the test? Students are cognizant of responsibilities to the educational process, as are faculty, who are mindful that how we teach is what we teach."
The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss (Basic Books, 2009); by George A. Bonanno
Mourning the loss of a loved one is inevitably painful. But an often overlooked point, according to TC Professor of Clinical Psychology George Bonanno, is that most people have an innate resilience that allows them to not only mourn, but to emerge better for the process.
"Most of us deal with loss very well," says Bonanno, who explores this topic in his latest book The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss. "It hurts deeply, but we can handle it."
Of the book's findings, which emerged from hundreds of videotaped interviews with people who had suffered losses, one point was abundantly clear: there's no getting around sadness, an emotion that draws others to us for sympathy and also provides the internal space to reflect on our loved one.
Chair of the Counseling and Clinical Psychology Department at TC, Bonanno came to the College 10 years ago and has since conducted an ongoing exploration of grief and mourning. Since 2007, Bonanno has published 23 peer-reviewed articles on these issues.
Bonanno's research has challenged the views of some psychologists, such as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who argue that there are stages of bereavement and that people must experience the "work" of mourning. Bonanno says his research shows that there's no one path for coming to grips with the death of a loved one.
"Grief is very multi-faceted," Bonanno says. "There is not a one-size fits all kind of mourning."
Readers, especially those who have experienced the loss of a loved one, have been responding overwhelmingly to the positive message of The Other Side of Sadness.
"So many people have written," Bonanno says, "saying 'Thank you for saying that I'm OK or that people can be OK, because I'm fine.'"
Managing to Change: How Schools Can Survive (and Sometimes Thrive) in Turbulent Times (TC Press, 2009) by Thomas Hatch
The debate about education in America comes down to the all-important question: How can we make meaningful, lasting, positive changes in our schools?
For TC Associate Professor of Education Thomas Hatch, there is no simple recipe for effective change. He believes passionately that the answers should come first and foremost from the stakeholders whose lives most hang in the balance: principals, teachers, parents and students at individual schools.
In his latest book Managing to Change: How Schools Can Survive (and Sometimes Thrive) in Turbulent Times, Hatch, who is also Co-Director of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching (NCREST) at TC, argues that school communities would do well to seize the initiative rather than relying solely on policymakers to raise standards, align policies, change curricula and mandate programs.
From his own experience, Hatch has come to believe that many people within schools are working toward similar goals, but too often their efforts are not coordinated. Yet Hatch also has been inspired by schools that have taken a real sense of ownership over such efforts.
In Managing to Change, Hatch looks at the power that schools have to create the conditions they need to be successful and how this approach can work in concert with larger-scale school improvement efforts. Through case studies of six diverse schools—including a charter school, a bilingual school, and public schools in both high-poverty and wealthier communities—Managing to Change examines different strategies for increasing overall performance.
Ultimately, Hatch identifies four key practices that can be employed to build the capacity for change, including developing a shared understanding of missions and goals; dealing decisively with hiring and turnover; creating a productive work environment; and building relationships between school staff and parents, community members, district administrators, reform organizations and others.
As for the most troubled of schools, Hatch advises on the book's website, "On a local level, improving the schools experiencing the most difficulties—those that may not have the capacity to carry out these key practices—may have to begin in the surrounding neighborhoods, towns, and cities, and draw on other sources of support." He outlines initiatives for enhancing the physical environment, establishing local programs for children and youth, and developing a local workforce that can help to launch that local work. Likewise, on a national level, educators and policymakers can shift their focus from one-size-fits-all initiatives to supporting the basic organizational functions that will ultimately provide the much-needed opportunities for lasting change.
On December 9, Ed Week published Hatch's commentary on the flawed assumptions of educational reform, which can be viewed here: www.tc.edu/news/7260.
A Leader's Guide to Leveraging Diversity: Strategic Learning Capabilities for Breakthrough Performance (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2009); by Terrence E. Maltbia and Anne T. Power
When Terrence Maltbia learned in 2001 that his long–time employer, Westvaco, producer of paper, packaging and specialty chemicals, was planning to merge with Mead Paper Corporation, he saw the opportunity of a lifetime. Having recently earned his doctorate in Adult Learning and Leadership from Teachers College, Maltbia was eager to test the framework he'd developed in his award-winning dissertation, "The Journey of Becoming a Diverse Practitioner: The Connection Between Experience, Learning, and Competence." To assist in the transition, Maltbia stayed on for one year, consulting with the new company's head of HR, helping to bring two different organizational cultures together.
The experience gave Maltbia, now a faculty member in Adult Learning and Leadership at TC, the chance to refine his ideas on diversity practices and organizational leadership. The results are featured in his new book, A Leader's Guide to Leveraging Diversity: Strategic Learning Capabilities for Breakthrough Performance, co-written with Anne Power. The book intertwines lessons Maltbia learned from his own experiences as a diversity consultant with the work of leading diversity theorists, including 20 award-winning practitioners from corporations such as Proctor and Gamble, All-State and Pitney Bowes. In November, Maltbia spoke at a book talk in Milbank Chapel.
Maltbia describes himself as a "process consultant, as opposed to a content consultant"—meaning that he doesn't have a general prescription for diversity initiatives. His approach is to help leaders define what diversity means to their organization and how it relates to their overall goals.
So what does Maltbia see as the common thread amongst effective diversity practitioners? They all view diversity as being inextricably linked to the company's overall performance and viability, connected to a "broader leadership platform." Or to put it more simply: instead of perceiving diversity as a problem to be minimized, they recognize the differences within their organization as an asset—an essential component of a thriving organization.
Freedom at Work: Language, Professional and Intellectual Development in Schools (Paradigm Publishers, 2009); by Maria E. Torres-Guzman with Ruth Swinney
Back in 1993 when Ruth Swinney first became principal of P.S. 165, she led her friend Maria Torres-Guzman around the Upper West Side school on one of her "Savage Inequality" tours. Torres-Guzman, a professor of bilingual education at TC, saw firsthand the kind of neglect that would have never been permitted in a wealthier neighborhood: a leaky roof, missing tiles, electrical wires hemorrhaging from the ceiling.
The school had been intellectually abandoned, too: P.S. 165 had the third-lowest scores in the entire New York City school system. A pioneer in dual language programs in the school district, Swinney got straight to work and filled P.S. 165 with as many English language learners as possible.
The results inspired Torres-Guzman's latest book, Freedom at Work: Language, Professional and Intellectual Development in Schools. Torres-Guzman and co-author Swinney chronicle the transformation of P.S. 165 during Swinney's six-year tenure as principal, a period in which test scores rose to a thirty-four percent pass rate in just three years, the school's bilingual program was overhauled and, along with many other improvements to the physical plant, the school's front doors received a fresh, brightly colored coat of paint.
The key to this transformation, as Torres-Guzman discovered through her discussions with the teachers of P.S. 165, was their increased freedom at work, a topic explored at Torres-Guzman's Book Talk event in October. In her book, Torres-Guzman looks at freedom through three types of development: language development, professional development and intellectual development.
It was Swinney's belief that teachers had to direct their own professional development because they knew best where their strengths and weaknesses lay.
Torres-Guzman wrote the book for an intended audience of educators because she wanted to show them that transformative change is possible.
"There was a lot that could be done," she says, "and this school illustrated it."
Published Monday, Jan. 11, 2010


text: Multicolored light makes everything more fun! Long lasting, weather resistant G50 satin finish bulbs provide radiant light across large areas and ensure professional display throughout any season. Green wire blends flawlessly among natural settings and light strings featuring 18" spacing are ideal for patio lighting and projects requiring greater distance covered. Create exceptional outdoor lighting designs that you can depend on when you choose the brilliance and durability of multicolor patio light strings for your projects!


text: Hello, after long hard work new version of MCNavi is here. There is a lot of changes, some functionality was removed (like tourist routes - will reappear in future in better way) due to many code changes, change in map format, change in converter, but more functionality was added. For example there is possibility to save bookmarks, save and load route (can be opened as standard GPX), save and load track logs, has faster routing, can show simple itinerary etc. For more information go to [1]. This is still beta, not all is done and some functionality may not work as expected. Currently I'm using it actively in car and on bike and it works quite good fro me. Currently only map of Czech republic can be downloaded, next version will add turn restrictions and (hope) stabilize map format for all 0.3.x versions. After that, more countries will be available for download (or on demand). I have released previous public version more than one year ago, but I wanted to release something usable, therefore the huge delay. Currently only Debian version can be installed out of the box, needs fso-gps and edje, but works with new libgps also. But you have to compile it yourself. [1] http://www.gps-routes.info/index.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=1 -- View this message in context: http://openmoko-public-mailinglists.1958.n2.nabble.com/MCNavi-0-3-1-released-tp6755455p6755455.html Sent from the Openmoko Community mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


text:
Keep it Shrimple – Kids Swim Shirt
Protect the little ones from the elements with this colorful kids rash guard. Its sun-protective fabric and long body and sleeves make it perfect for running around on the beach, or just being active indoors.
• 82% polyester, 18% spandex
• 38-40 UPF (that's like SPF rating for fabrics)
• Fitted design
• Very soft four-way stretch fabric that stretches and recovers on the cross and lengthwise grains
• Comfortable longer body and sleeves
Note: We create each product on demand to combat the waste that is so common in the apparel industry. Average production time is 3 days but can extend to 7.


text:
Pentagon vs. Al Qaeda: Panetta hints at shifting US tactics
| Washington
In a little-noticed policy speech this week, America's top defense official signaled a new direction for the Pentagon's efforts in battling terrorism.
New tactics will include using more special operations forces and drones to conduct small strikes, as well as more partnership with foreign commandos.
These are necessary in part because Al Qaeda has been quietly adapting to the growing US offensive against its leadership, senior US military officials warn.
"We have slowed the primary cancer," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told an audience Tuesday at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, referring to Al Qaeda. "But we know that the cancer has metastasized to other parts of the global body."
The result is that "the Al Qaeda cancer has also adapted to this pressure by becoming even more widely distributed, loosely knit, and geographically dispersed," Mr. Panetta added.
"After being left on the sidelines of the momentous change that swept through the Arab world last year, they are now seeking to take advantage of the transition period to gain new sanctuary, to incite violence, and to sow instability."
This poses a challenge for top Pentagon officials, Panetta acknowledged. One of these will be figuring out how to help small nations fight terrorists on their own soil.
Panetta pointed to Libya, where "violent extremists and affiliates of Al Qaeda attacked and killed innocent Americans."
In doing so, he waded into the controversy surrounding the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. United Nations ambassador Susan Rice has come under sharp criticism from Republican lawmakers for saying in September that the administration had "decimated" Al Qaeda, saying that if that were the case, the consulate would not have been overrun.
Panetta for his part stressed in more specific terms that "Al Qaeda's leadership ranks have been decimated."
This, he said, includes the killing of Al Qaeda's five top leaders in the past two and a half years.
Beyond the Benghazi controversy, Panetta said that the Pentagon will be particularly focused on completing the training of Afghan security forces in the nation where America has been at war for over a decade.
US combat forces are scheduled to depart the country in 2014, but first they must "finish the job right," he added.
This in turn will deter extremist forces from trying to once again find a foothold in Afghanistan and to send "a very simple and very powerful message to Al Qaeda, to the Taliban, to the violent extremist groups," Panetta argued.
"We are not going anywhere," he said. "Our commitment to Afghanistan is long term, and you cannot wait us out."


text:
Heroku is a cloud platform as a service supporting several programming languages. One of the first cloud platforms, Heroku has been in development since June 2007, when it supported only the Ruby programming language, but now supports Java, Node.js, Scala, Clojure, Python, PHP, and Go. For this reason, Heroku is said to be a polyglot platform as it has features for a developer to build, run and scale applications in a similar manner across most languages. Heroku was acquired by Salesforce in 2010 for $212 million.
The Heroku experience developers love, with the enterprise features large companies need. Private Spaces Network isolated, dedicated runtime environments for enhanced privacy,Haohui Xin Qinglin Gao Peng Feng Yuqing Liu The creep performance of GFRP structures is concerned in the bridge engineering field because the resin in GFRP components Get started on Heroku today Heroku account Create apps, connect databases and add-on services, and collaborate on your apps.
@ 2022-12-20


text:
Policies in Focus
For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary August 10, 2001
Embargoed Until Delivery at 10 06 A.M. Edt Saturday, August 11, 2001 Radio Address by the President to the Nation Bush Ranch Crawford, Texas the President Good Morning. This Week I Made a Decision on A Complex and Difficult Issue, the Federal Role in Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Based on Preliminary Work, Scientists Believe These Cells, Which May Have the Ability to Replace Diseased or Defective Human Tissue, Offer Great Promise. They Could Help Improve the Lives of Those Who Suffer From Many Terrible Diseases -- From Juvenile Diabetes to Alzheimer's, From
Parkinson's to spinal cord injuries.
While stem cells come from a variety of sources, most scientists, at least today, believe that research on stem cells from human embryos offers the most promise because these cells have the potential to develop into all the tissues of the body.
This research offers great hope for treatments and possible cures. Research on embryonic stem cells also raises profound ethical questions because extracting the stem cell destroys the embryo, and thus destroys the potential for life.
Some argue this small cluster of cells is not yet a human life because it cannot develop on its own. Yet an ethicist argued this is the same way you and I started our lives. One goes with a heavy heart if we use these, he said, because we are dealing with the seeds of the next generation.
At its core, this issue forces us to confront fundamental questions about the beginnings of life and the ends of science. It lies at a difficult moral intersection, juxtaposing the need to protect life in all its phases with the prospect of saving and improving life in all its stages. As the genius of science extends the horizons of what we can do, we increasingly confront complex problems about what we should do.
In recent weeks we learned that scientists have created human embryos in test tubes solely to experiment on them. This is deeply troubling, and a warning sign that should prompt all of us to think through these issues very carefully. We recoil at the idea of growing human beings for spare body parts or creating life for our convenience. I strongly oppose cloning. And while we must devote enormous energy to conquering disease, it is equally important that we pay attention to the moral concerns raised by the new frontier of human embryo stem cell research. Even the most noble ends do not justify any means.
Embryonic stem cell research offers both great promise and great peril. So I have decided we must proceed with great care. As a result of private research, more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines already exist. They were created from embryos that have already been destroyed, and they have the ability to regenerate themselves indefinitely, creating ongoing opportunities for research. I have concluded that we should allow federal funds to be used for research on these existing stem cell lines where the life and death decision has already been made.
Leading scientists tell me research on these 60 lines has great promise that could lead to breakthrough therapies and cures. This allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem cell research without crossing a fundamental moral line, by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos that have at least the potential for life.
I also believe that great scientific progress can be made through aggressive federal funding of research on umbilical cord, placenta, adult and animal stem cells, which do not involve the same moral dilemma. This year the government will spend $250 million on this important research.
As we go forward, I hope we'll always be guided by both intellect and heart, by both our capabilities and our conscience. I have made this decision with great care, and I pray it is the right one.
Thank you for listening.
President | Vice President | First Lady | Mrs. Cheney | News & Policies | History & Tours | Kids | Your Government | Appointments | Contact | Text only
Accessibility | Search | Privacy Policy | Help


text:
After last night's fancy dress fun we were hoping that the weather would continue to look up - last night saw the first glimpse of a dry sunset, after a morning at Bayeux market where even the stall holders felt it was time to pack up and get into the dry. But no. Today the rain contionues to come down in showers, stops and starts. But it's not stopping this afternoon's rugby and football, Ecosse contre Angleterre. Wish us luck as we attempt to make up for not being in the World Cup this year.
More reports from the students' logs tonight.


text:
The foundation of our success
With their diverse skills, commitment, and expertise, our employees are the foundation of our success and the key to the future of the MAHLE Group.
For this reason, a central focus of our HR activities has, for many years, been on the careful selection, thorough development, and further education of our workforce. By supporting our employees as their talents grow, we not only help them in their own personal development but also generate added value for MAHLE.


text:
Harriet Miers
Date Of Birth:
10 August 1945
Place Of Birth:
Dallas, Texas
Best Known As:
Failed Supreme Court nominee of George W. Bush
On 27 October 2005, Harriet Ellan Miers withdrew her name from consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court. President George W. Bush had nominated her earlier that same month to replace retiring justice Sandra Day O'Connor. A Texan like Bush, Meirs is a lawyer who has held many public-service posts. She obtained her undergraduate and law degrees from Southern Methodist University (in 1967 and 1970, respectively) and worked as a clerk for U.S. District Judge Joe E. Estes (1970-72) before going into private practice. In 1985 she served as the first woman president of the Dallas Bar Association, and in 1992-93 she served as the first woman president of the Texas State Bar. She also served one term as a member-at-large on the Dallas City Council (elected 1989), and from 1995 to 2000 she chaired the Texas Lottery Commission during Bush's term as governor of Texas. When Bush took office in 2001 Miers became Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary. In 2003 she was named Deputy Chief of Staff and in February of 2005 Miers became Counsel to the President. As the president's lawyer, Miers was an advisor on domestic policy issues and was among the handful of advisors who interviewed potential nominee John Roberts after the announced retirement of O'Connor and the death of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. Roberts was quickly confirmed as the new Chief Justice, but Miers' own subsequent nomination ran into difficulty; many of Bush's conservative supporters felt Meirs was not conservative enough, and many of Bush's opponents felt she was unqualified. A week before her scheduled Senate confirmation hearings, she withdrew from consideration. Four days later Bush nominated Samuel Alito for O'Connor's place on the bench.
Extra Credit
Miers joined the law firm of Locke, Purnell, Rain & Harrell in 1972; she was made a partner in 1978 and was elected president of the firm in 1996, when the firm employed more than 200 lawyers… Miers's undergraduate degree is in mathematics… After Miers' nomination by Bush, many jokes were made about a 1997 birthday card she sent him which read, in part, "You are the best governor ever–deserving of great respect!"
Copyright © 1998-2017 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.
See also:


text:
Resources for Health Professionals
- Both over-the-counter and prescription medications are available for treatment of pubic lice infestations.
- A lice-killing lotion containing 1% permethrin or a mousse containing pyrethrins and piperonyl butoxide can be used to treat pubic ("crab") lice. These products are available over-the-counter without a prescription at a local drug store or pharmacy. These medications are safe and effective when used exactly according to the instructions in the package or on the label.
- Lindane shampoo is a prescription medication that can kill lice and lice eggs. However, lindane is not recommended as a first-line therapy. Lindane can be toxic to the brain and other parts of the nervous system; its use should be restricted to patients who have failed treatment with or cannot tolerate other medications that pose less risk. Lindane should not be used to treat premature infants, persons with a seizure disorder, women who are pregnant or breast-feeding, persons who have very irritated skin or sores where the lindane will be applied, infants, children, the elderly, and persons who weigh less than 110 pounds.
- Malathion* lotion 0.5% (Ovide*) is a prescription medication that can kill lice and some lice eggs; however, malathion lotion (Ovide*) currently has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of pubic ("crab") lice.
- Both topical and oral ivermectin have been used successfully to treat lice; however, only topical ivermectin lotion currently is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of lice. Oral ivermectin is not FDA-approved for treatment of lice.
How to treat pubic lice infestations: (Warning: See special instructions for treatment of lice and nits on eyebrows or eyelashes. The lice medications described in this section should not be used near the eyes.)
- Wash the infested area; towel dry.
- Carefully follow the instructions in the package or on the label. Thoroughly saturate the pubic hair and other infested areas with lice medication. Leave medication on hair for the time recommended in the instructions. After waiting the recommended time, remove the medication by following carefully the instructions on the label or in the box.
- Following treatment, most nits will still be attached to hair shafts. Nits may be removed with fingernails or by using a fine-toothed comb.
- Put on clean underwear and clothing after treatment.
- To kill any lice or nits remaining on clothing, towels, or bedding, machine-wash and machine-dry those items that the infested person used during the 2–3 days before treatment. Use hot water (at least 130°F) and the hot dryer cycle.
- Items that cannot be laundered can be dry-cleaned or stored in a sealed plastic bag for 2 weeks.
- All sex partners from within the previous month should be informed that they are at risk for infestation and should be treated.
- Persons should avoid sexual contact with their sex partner(s) until both they and their partners have been successfully treated and reevaluated to rule out persistent infestation.
- Repeat treatment in 9–10 days if live lice are still found.
- Persons with pubic lice should be evaluated for other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
Special instructions for treatment of lice and nits found on eyebrows or eyelashes:
- If only a few live lice and nits are present, it may be possible to remove these with fingernails or a nit comb.
- If additional treatment is needed for lice or nits on the eyelashes, careful application of ophthalmic-grade petrolatum ointment (only available by prescription) to the eyelid margins 2–4 times a day for 10 days is effective. Regular Vaseline* should not be used because it can irritate the eyes if applied.
* Use of trade names is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by the Public Health Service or by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Page last reviewed: September 12, 2019
Content source: Global Health, Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria


text: Space | 16. August 2011 PRISMA Mission Control returned to Sweden After more than 5 months of successful flight operations by GSOC, the operational control was re-handed over again to the control center in Solna, Sweden. Since handover to GSOC in March this year, various experiments could be performed. My colleagues already reported corresponding details within the Blog. I'll now try to describe the topic of a satellite mission handover. The handover of one or more satellites from one control center to the other is a complex process which needs to be prepared thoroughly. The mission safety needs to be ensured and potential risks must be minimized. In general, a mission handover is performed in 3 phases: 1. Preparation phase The preparation normally takes some months. According to a corresponding handover plan, the required boundary conditions need to be fulfilled. The receiving control center has to pass all tests and simulations successfully in order to get qualified for the flight operations. Technical equipment and personnel must be ready for action. Beyond that, the required data and information and its exchange is to be defined for a smooth handover. These data comprise the latest flight procedures and data bases, configuration information of space and ground segment components etc. When all conditions are fulfilled, details about the handover and the timing are agreed. Therefore a procedure is generated which can be followed during the handover. In our particular case, the preparations were easier than for the first handover to GSOC some months ago. The Swedish control center was already qualified and a few successful proficiency passes during the last days have confirmed this. Respecting the experiences from the first handover we already knew the relevant aspects for PRISMA and which data and information were needed for s smooth transfer. Thus the previous plan and procedure could be used with some adaptations. 2. Handover execution The handover itself is only a short step. The providing control center performs the final activities with the satellite and creates the handover data package for the receiver, who in best cases already receives telemetry data which allows following the actions of the others. During a teleconference, the remaining open points are discussed. Finally, both sides agree the formal handover of operational responsibility. The receiving control center will start performing the operations from the next ground station contact on. For PRISMA we had agreed with Sweden to perform our final activities on 23.08.2011 morning. After the handover teleconference, Solna took over the mission operations with the first afternoon passage over Kiruna ground station. We at GSOC received telemetry in parallel but where no longer actively involved. 3. Standby phase and wrap up activities After execution of a handover, the providing control center normally stays in standby in order to take over the operations again in case of problems on short notice. The creation of a handover report completes the handover process. In our case a special standby support was not requested by Sweden since both satellite were returned back to their home control center. With today's re-handover of the PRISMA space segment to Sweden, the mission itself is not yet finished for GSOC. One main experiment which could not be performed within the available time frame is still to be done. Negotiations are ongoing if the mission returns back to GSOC for the experiment or if is performed from Solna supported by GSOC personnel. Fig: Part of PRISMA team


text:
In this episode, I tell some anecdotes from my wacky week in Tybee Island, Georgia hanging on the beach and mingling with the locals.
Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, June 14 2015
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Support this show on Patreon
- Nickie's 1971 in Tybee Island
- Rock House in Tybee Island
- Auphonic podcast production tool is so good!
- Dog Days of Podcasting
NewSponsor: Audible.com! Go to audiblepodcast.com/egc for your free trial and free download!- Hover.com
is nowwas our sponsor: (Still) Use coupon code EGC to save 10% on domain registrations - Theme song provided by the Gentle Readers
- My Google+
You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don't forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download


text:
Rule #1 - Be Patient - Rule #2 - Don't ask when, if you don't contribute - Rule #3 - You have coding skills - LinuxMCE's small brother is available: http://www.agocontrol.com
While on the sujbect, is it possible to use different shapes for the various buttons as long as they are roughly the same size for a skin only (no HA Designer work) update?For the more newbie question - without replacing the existing UI1/UI2 bitmaps, how can we use new bit-map modified only skins?
sudo ln -s /usr/pluto/orbiter/skins /home/skinssudo chmod ugo+rwx /usr/pluto/orbiter/skins
No, DO NOT DO THAT. EVER.
Just use MySQL Query Browser to make a new row in the skin table, make a copy of the Basic folder under /usr/pluto/orbiter/skins with the name of your new skin and put that in the Path column of your new row.
This way, you can also make entries in Style and StyleVariation to change text styles, and things like data grid colours.What I do to make that possible is, in a console:Code: [Select]sudo ln -s /usr/pluto/orbiter/skins /home/skinssudo chmod ugo+rwx /usr/pluto/orbiter/skinsYou then can connect to the \\dcerouter\home share, and put graphics in the skins folder.With this done, you can select the skin in wizard > orbiters and do a full regen of the orbiter to see your new skin changes. You must do a full regen every time while in development, because this way it ensures you'll see the changes.As for UI2 considerations, you must understand that in UI2 masked, any alpha channel value below 255 is black, in other words, the alpha channel gets flattened to a GIF-like matte.-Thom
Hello everyone,I wanted to make an example skin that didn't require dipping into Designer AT ALL. All I did was change the bitmap images. Screenies: http://www.localeconcept.com/pub/slate-screenies/Skin: http://tschak.homelinux.com/xfer/Slate.tar.gz <-- temporary place, this will be folded into 0810.Come on guys, let's get cracking! -Thom


text:
A while back I asked this question and got a lot of great responses.
I've been able to locate fireblock caulk, but one thing I didn't think of is the backer. I need some kind of fireblock/fireproof caulk backer for the gap in my fireplace's molding. The only caulk backer at Home Depot I've found is the polyethelyne backer. Something like this.
All of this stuff explicitly says to not expose it to heat, and that it's highly flamable, but I need something that will be fireproof.
What should I be using for caulk backer in an area highly sensitive to heat?


text:
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The interim CEO of the Los Angeles Clippers testified Tuesday that coach Doc Rivers
told him he will quit if Donald Sterling remains the owner of the team.
CEO Richard Parsons made the statement at the trial to determine whether Sterling's wife Shelly Sterling
can sell the team for $2 billion to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
The NBA has tried to force out Donald Sterling since soon after racist statements emerged on recordings
in April.
"Doc is troubled by this maybe moreso than anybody else," Parsons said on the witness stand
about Rivers, who is black. "If Mr. Sterling continues as owner, he does not want to continue as
Parsons said he fears there would also be an exodus of key players, including team captain Chris Paul,
who also is black and heads the NBA players union.
Parsons was about to give an account of his conversations with Paul but was stopped by an objection by an
NBA lawyer who said it would be an invasion of privacy. The judge upheld the objection.
Rivers has said he had heard from other Clippers business employees that they didn't think they would be
able to work for Sterling under the circumstances.
Parsons is a former chief executive at Time Warner and Citigroup who took over leadership of the Clippers
in May during the media blitz surrounding the banishment of Sterling.
Under questioning by Ballmer's lawyer, Parsons said the departure of Rivers would begin "a death
spiral" for the Clippers.
"If Doc were to leave, that would be a disaster," Parsons said. "Doc is the father figure,
the one who leads. He's the coach. He's the grown-up. He is able to connect with people and earn their
trust. The team believes in him and loves him.
"If he were to leave, that is only going to accelerate the death spiral," Parson said.
Parsons, who is considered an expert in the management of major corporations, said he was certain that
sponsors would pull out and season ticket holders would demand their money back if Donald Sterling
remains as owner.
"If your coach leaves, if your players don't want to play with you, what do you have?" Parsons
asked. "If your sponsors leave and the fans leave, it's going to spiral down and down."
He said key sponsors such as Mandalay Bay Resorts in Las Vegas are cold about whether they will continue,
as are other companies including Kia Motors Corp.
"We have a bunch of sponsors sitting at the edge of the pool and they don't want to go in if the
Sterlings are there," Parsons said.
Parsons also said he doesn't believe that anyone will offer as much money for the team as Ballmer.
Shelly Sterling also was on the witness list Tuesday along with Dean Bonham, an expert on sponsorship and
marketing issues who is also the president of an NBA franchise.
The high-stakes financial fight centers on whether Shelly Sterling was authorized to make a deal with
Ballmer on behalf of the Sterling Family Trust.
While she was negotiating, Donald Sterling revoked the trust, a move designed to rescind his signed
agreement for the sale of the Clippers, which he bought for just $12 million.
He announced from the witness stand earlier in the trial that he would never sell the team and would be
suing the NBA for the rest of his life.


text:
Drug Utilization Review Board
The DUR Board provides evaluation of criteria for drug coverage within the Medicaid Program. The Board is composed of Physicians & Pharmacist professionals who meet on a monthly basis to consider issues that affect how drugs are provided by the Medicaid program. These meetings are held on the second Thursday of every month at 7:15 A.M. in the Cannon Health Building at 288 N. 1460 W. in Salt Lake City, UT. Notices for exact meeting times and locations will be published in the Legal Notices sections of the Salt Lake Newspapers at least 30 days in advance.
The meetings are open to the public. To receive public notice for this meeting by email please sign up on the Utah Public Notice opens in a new tab website.
Listed below are meeting minutes, recording, agendas, criteria review documents, and reports regarding the DUR Board. Criteria review documents prepared for the DUR Board meetings will be kept on this website for 6 months. Please note that in the event that a meeting is not held, no minutes will be posted for that month.
Meeting recordings will be available online for 1 year. For historical meeting recordings please contact us at email firstname.lastname@example.com.
The documents are provided in Adobe format. If you cannot view a file, please download the free plug-in from the link below.
Drug Utilization Review Board (DURB) Meeting Recording Playlist opens in a new tab


text:
By Michael Graczyk
Associated Press
HOUSTON — A man who had fired a gun inside a ticketing area at Houston's largest airport was killed after being confronted by a law enforcement official during an incident that sent people in the terminal scrambling and screaming, police said Thursday.
It's unclear if the man fatally shot himself or was killed by a Homeland Security agent who had confronted him, said Houston police spokesman Kese Smith. The man's name was not released by police, but they said he was about 30-years-old.
Police say the man walked into the ticketing area in Terminal B at Bush Intercontinental Airport around 1:35 p.m. and fired at least one shot into the air. The agent, who was in his office, came out and confronted the man, telling him to drop his weapon, but the man refused, police said.
"The suspect then turned toward the special agent. The special agent, fearing for his safety and all the passengers in the terminal, discharged his weapon at the same time it appears the suspect may have shot himself," Smith said.
The man died at the scene. An autopsy will be conducted Friday.
Police would not say what kind of weapon the man had.
The terminal was closed immediately after the shooting. But later Thursday, parts of the terminal were reopened to passengers. The rest of the airport remained open after the shooting.
Darian Ward, a spokeswoman for the Houston Airport System, said some passengers who were scheduled to leave from Terminal B were rerouted to other terminals.
Dale Howard, of Tomball, was at the baggage handling area of the airport waiting for his sister to arrive on an incoming flight when he heard two shots fired from the floor above. A few seconds later, he said he heard three more shots.
"People were screaming. I knew exactly what it was — gunfire," Howard said.
Police from an adjacent station rushed in, and Howard said he directed them to the floor above.
Greg Newburn, who was in the terminal waiting for a flight to Oklahoma City, said he was sitting in a cafe area when he heard two gunshots and after a pause, several more.
"It seemed like quite a few shots. Everyone was scrambling, running left and running right, turning tables up and hiding behind tables. Nobody knew what was happening. I couldn't tell where the shots were coming from," he said.
Newburn, from Gainesville, Fla., said it took him a few seconds to realize that the shots had come from the ticketing area, near the security checkpoint.


text:
BERLIN- If nothing else, Stephen Decatur's girls' varsity basketball team has shown a flair for the dramatic this season with a narrow 51-50 loss to Washington last week, followed by a 59-53 overtime win over county rival Snow Hill on Tuesday.
Last week, the Seahawks battled with Washington tooth and nail before falling, 51-50. Abby Schorr led the Seahawks with 20 points, while Katie Purnell pitched in 15. On Tuesday, the Decatur girls traveled to Snow Hill for another nail-biter.
After regulation ended in a tie, the Seahawks pulled away and escaped with a 59-53 overtime win over the Eagles, Again, the red-hot Schorr led Decatur with a double-double including 23 points and 21 rebounds. Marina Jones scored 18 for Decatur, while Snow Hill's Shequan Bailey led all scorers with 33 points.


text:
- The Japanese Acupuncture Center846 Walnut Street
Newton, MA 02459617-926-4076 By Appointment Only
- Sign up to receive news and updates and get my free report:"The Top 10 Reasons to Try Acupuncture"
Latest Articles:
- • 5 Ways to Stay Fit This Winter •
- • 4 Budget Friendly Family Activities •
- • Staying Healthy This Winter •
Tag Archives: diabetics
Acupuncture for Diabetes
More than 34 million Americans have diabetes, and approximately 90 percent of them have type 2 diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Type 2 diabetes, while its exact cause is unknown, develops when the body becomes resistant to insulin or the pancreas doesn't produce enough insulin. Because of this, treatment often involves taking "insulin sensitizers"
Posted in Acupuncture, diabetes, Traditional Chinese Medicine
Also tagged acupuncture, diabetes, tcm
Comments Off on Acupuncture for Diabetes


text:
Take a Hike Seattle
Open gallery
Scott Leonard JD '07 has authored or coauthored three guides to Northwest hiking, including Take a Hike Seattle.
by Shelly Meyer
On the second day of a four-day solo hike, deep in the Olympic Mountains of Washington state, Scott Leonard pitched his tent and settled in for the night. A cold October rain had pelted him during the day, and he knew he was in for a wet evening. What he didn't expect was a wild ride. A few hours later, he awoke to the sensation of movement. A stiff north wind was dragging his tent across an alpine meadow that was fast becoming a lake.
"It rained 9 inches in 24 hours," remembers Leonard. "I was soaked to the bone." Braving swollen streams and washed-out trails, Leonard eventually made it back to civilization. It was just one adventure of many that Leonard, a recent graduate of Lewis & Clark Law School, has experienced on his way to becoming a hiking enthusiast and guidebook author.
Leonard, who grew up in Gladstone, took his first "proper hike" as an undergraduate at the University of Puget Sound. He signed up for an advanced backpacking trip in the Olympics during freshman orientation and fell in love with hiking. "I thought, 'Why haven't I been doing this before? This is much better than camping in an RV with the grandparents.'"
After graduation, Leonard worked as a media buyer in San Francisco but soon returned to the Northwest. He spent two years at EarthCorps, a Seattle-based nonprofit and AmeriCorps affiliate that undertakes restoration projects on public lands in the Cascade Mountains and the Puget Sound area. It was while building and maintaining trails with EarthCorps that Leonard refined his hiking skills. "I went on long backpacking trips–up to 70 miles at a time–and developed a real appreciation for the trails," he says.
Leonard has parlayed those skills into three hiking guidebooks. He happened on his first book deal through a friend who was an acquisitions editor for Avalon Travel Publishing. "I was interested in writing a book about Seattle's restaurants and parks," says Leonard, "so she encouraged me to put a proposal together. I threw in a bit about hiking too, sort of as a joke." As it turned out, Avalon was looking for a writer to update the Washington portion of its Pacific Northwest Hiking guidebook. Leonard got the gig.
Eventually, Avalon divided the Northwest guidebook into Washington Hiking and Oregon Hiking, with Leonard authoring the former. Washington Hiking is organized by region and features more than 400 hikes.
Out of that project grew his most recent title, Take a Hike Seattle. The book covers hikes within two hours of Seattle, including trails around Puget Sound, the Olympic Peninsula, Mount Rainier, and along the Mountain Loop Highway, Highway 2, and Interstate 90. It includes descriptions of trails, "Best Hike" lists, detailed directions, and user-friendly trail maps.
He hiked 70 of the 80 hikes listed and talked to friends who covered the 10 he missed. In putting the book together, Leonard looked for variety: a mix of trail difficulty, geographic regions, and skill levels–plus a special section on beach hikes. He wrote the book during the summer between his first and second years of law school.
When preparing his hiking guides, Leonard takes a notebook and a camera. He studied photography in college (he calls himself "a darkroom kind of guy") and enjoys taking photos for his books. He also solicits amateur photographers' images that he finds on hiking websites.
His book projects, of course, involve plenty of work off the trail: preparing directions, locating maps, and writing and editing.
Leonard says the feedback on his books is generally positive. "If I get any complaints, I find they're usually about driving directions."
Although Leonard doesn't have other book projects lined up right now, he does plan to do guidebook updates every three or four years. He might also consider writing hiking guides for other parts of the country. Eventually, he hopes to work in a small law practice in a rural area to be closer to the hiking areas he loves.
According to Leonard, hiking is an opportunity to enjoy the unspoiled wilderness, revel in solitude, and be self-reliant. And even though he's hiked more than 250 trails in his 29 years, he's never once gotten lost.
More L&C Magazine Stories
Lewis & Clark Magazine is located in McAfee on the Undergraduate Campus.
email firstname.lastname@example.com
voice 503-768-7970
fax 503-768-7969
The L&C Magazine staff welcomes letters and emails from readers about topics covered in the magazine. Correspondence must include your name and location and may be edited.
Lewis & Clark Magazine
Lewis & Clark
615 S. Palatine Hill Road MSC 19
Portland OR 97219


text: CP&P is a valued supplier of precast concrete pipe and structures in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States. The company delivers exceptional value through market insight, production capacity, and two other rare commodities—integrity and commitment. Whether it's developing innovative designs or formulating strategic applications, we work together with our customers to identify and seize opportunities. Often customers ask us to develop unique products or meet special requirements. Innovative thinking is one of the challenges that we like best. Build a better future with us.


text:
Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese marries rigatoni and creamy smoked cheddar, with smokey bacon and velvety butternut squash!
If you've read one of my Friday Favorites posts in the last couple of months, then you probably know that I am completely, head-over-heels-obsessed with macaroni and cheese recipes.
What can I say, the bond between woman, pasta, and cheese is strong.
From Mediterranean and Greek, to Tomato Soup and Broccoli Chicken, my mouth literally starts watering every time I stumble upon a new and unique mac and cheese combo.
This fall I've been especially infatuated with mac and cheese recipes incorporating sweet and velvety butternut squash, pinning at least a dozen different ones over the past couple of weeks, so I finally decided to whip one up for a post I recently wrote for Better Homes & Gardens' new blog, Delish Dish!
The post was to highlight in-season eats, so I decided to feature squash. Exciting, right?! ;)
I honed in on butternut squash, my favorite of course, combining it with smoked cheddar cheese, salty bacon, and hearty rigatoni in one of the best macaroni and cheese recipes I've had. EVER.
Between the silky butternut squash that's cooked until its fall-apart tender in milk, and freshly shredded smoked cheddar cheese that's melted into the sauce, you will not believe how creamy this mac and cheese recipe is.
And so sweet, too! Not obnoxious, I'm eating dessert for dinner, sweet, but, like, vegetable-sweet. You know? Not to fear though, as the sweetness is balanced out by the bacon and smoked cheese. Such a treat!
Start by cooking 12oz rigatoni in salted, boiling water until it's just under al dente, then drain and set aside. I liked using thick and hearty rigatoni in this recipe because the sauce and squash clung really well to its large surface area. Or…yeah.
Meanwhile, cook 1-1/2lbs cubed butternut squash in 2-1/2 cups milk over medium heat until its very, very tender, stirring every once and while.
Once the squash is tender, stream in a slurry of 1/4 cup each flour and milk, then cook for a few minutes to remove the floury taste. At this point the sauce will begin to get uber thick and luxurious!
Finally add 8oz shredded smoked cheddar cheese and stir it in off the heat until creamy. I seriously don't know if I can ever go back to regular cheddar, you guys. Smoked cheese is where it's AT! I had some sliced up with a sweet Honeycrisp today, and it was basically to-die.
FYI – the original recipe called for smoked gruyere cheese but my regular grocery store only had smoked cheddar. I can't imagine gruyere would make that big of a difference though, because it was really that good!
Pour the cooked noodles, along with a couple slices of cooked bacon, and the butternut squash-smoked cheese sauce into a big bowl then stir it all up. The butternut squash will be so soft at this point, that it should just melt right into the mixture. Yum. :)
FYI – the recipe also calls for sauteed onions to be added at this point, but I left 'em out 'cause I wanted Ben to be able to eat this.
Transfer the mixture into a non-stick sprayed baking dish, top with bread crumbs tossed with a little melted butter, and a little more smoked cheddar, then bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees.
The result is an absolutely irresistible, seasonal mac and cheese recipe that I know you'll just love. I have seriously never had anything like it! Bonus points for re-heating well, too. Most mac and cheeses solidify into a brick if you put 'em into the fridge, but the butternut squash in the sauce keeps it nice and creamy.
Click here for the post and Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese recipe >


text:
The Terminator
"Hasta la vista, baby."
"What da FUCK, are you, DOING?!?!"
The Terminator is a movie based off of the play "The Terminator" by William Shakespeare. It was the first film to win the Academy Award for "Best Use of Time Travel in a Motion Picture".
After completing the filming in 1867, Arnie went forward through time to the year from which he left, 1984. He sneaked a camera into the Academy Awards and filmed himself accepting the award for "Best Use of Time Travel in a Motion Picture". He then went back in time to 1867, leaving a small piece of the movie with young inventor Thomas Edison. Edison figured out how to make a viewer for the film, and showed the short clip, (which he entitled "Foreigner Wins Award") to friends and wealthy patrons who were amazed at the moving pictures dancing on screen.
Schwarzenegger then went forward in time to 1984, and released his completed film. Historians everywhere recognized the final scene in the movie as the most famous piece of film ever, "Foreigner Wins Award," and scientists warned the Academy Award voters that if they didn't vote for this movie, then they would mess with the space-time vacuum cleaner some super freaky stuff could go down. Sadly, they didn't heed his advice and Arnold wreaked his vengeance by becoming the governator of California.
Some say the term "Terminator" comes from European movies featuring "Ator", a Mongol character. The name was distorted through their accent to become what it is today. The term "Term" actually means monkey trousers.
Mommy, what's a terminator?[edit | edit source]
"I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton" The Terminator, getting all technical on your ass.
A terminator is the technical designation given to killer robots from the future. Terminators refer to each other as 'exterminators', but they simply cannot get the term to catch on in popular parlance, and therefore grudingly accept being called terminators.
Terminators, having invented mastered and subsequently mastered invented time travel, do so often. Sometimes, they attempt to wipe out the future leaders of the human resistance, or try to impregnate unsuspecting widows with their bio-mechanical sperm, but they usually just drink heavily at the local bar and bitch about the future to whoever will listen. The future, according to terminators, is a daft place where there are very few humans left to exterminate. Terminators have a penchant for well-aged scotch, but every once in a while you may spot one drinking a Cosmopolitan.
Terminators have come into wide use by the Atheist army of the JesusTron Wars.
Unspellable[edit | edit source]
Arnold Schwartzkopf Dumbnegger Screw Driver Schwingnegger is notable for having a last name that is impossible to spell. If you spell his name correctly, you will travel back in time to correct every incorrect instance of his name. No-one wants that.
Informed sources say the reason of choosing the freaky last name is his original last name was "Screw Ze Nigger". This title was given to him by the British Queen Sucktoria Fucktoria Victoria because it was created to screw the natives of India, especially the great pimp Nehru and Gandu, their witch doctor. However, when Osaka Bin Laden procured it in order to screw the Americans, he changed its name to Schwarzenegger in order to confuse them.
Love of pork pies[edit | edit source]
If a Terminator is after you one way to stop it is to give it a pork pie as terminators cant resist pork pies and it will want to eat the pork pie more than it wants to kill you. Especially if it is offered with HP sauce.
Mommy, who is the most famous terminator of them all?[edit | edit source]
The most famous terminator of them all was John Paul 2.0, sent back in time to kill Pope John Paul to ensure the future construction of John Paul 2.0. John Paul 2.0 was surprised to find John Paul already dead from massive organ failure, and dismayed to learn that it would take days to choose a new pope. In fact, when it dawned on John Paul 2.0 that no one was building a second John Paul to replace the original, he malfunctioned and terminated the Dalai Lama instead, much to the delight of the Offical Dalai Lama Haters Club Local 143, based in Chicago, Illinois.
Mommy, can a Terminator be bargained with, feel pain or mercy, and will it stop before you die?[edit | edit source]
It can't be bargained with! It can't be reasoned with! It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear! And it absolutely WILL NOT stop, EVER, until you are dead! Unless you crush it in a big hydraulic press to avenge my death and save your own life, hint-hint, you silly boy.
Anyway, you must then get yourself committed to a mental institute and then somehow smuggle some awesome hacking technology across a major plot hole to your possibly teenage son, who will then use it to steal money so he can spend it on arcade games before busting your ass out of the place while another Terminator (who is a good guy now - did I mention that) repeats the lines of the father of your son who died before you crushed the first Terminator in the last paragraph, helps him.
Finally, to kill a Terminator again, because it still can't be bargained or reasoned with, but actually feels pity, you must lower it into a blast furnace.
Is that all he does?[edit | edit source]
No shit Johnny
Why?[edit | edit source]
Because, Ralph, you touch your self at night.
How come?[edit | edit source]
Seriously, Ralph, mommy needs some quiet time, please.
Is that a Terminator in our Backyard right now?[edit | edit source]
Oh dear! Run Ralph!!! Fetch my gun!!! Get to the basement!!!
Can Terminators kill grues?[edit | edit source]
Ricky!!! I told you to get to the basement! Stop asking questions! But yes! They can kill grues!
"Like they can kill us!"
"I eat grues for breakfast."
Variants of the Terminator[edit | edit source]
- T-1 Battlefield Robot (sometimes erroneously designated T-100): A tracked robot with dual .50 caliber miniguns. The first ever Terminator to be built. As to be expected, is now technologically obsolete by Skynet's standards.
- T-20 Servbot: Very little is known about this one, and no images of it are known to exist. It was intended to replace humans in the labor camps. However, because of its non-terminative nature, they killed it off & went back to using humans.
- T-53: Bored deep down into the earth in 2010 to rescue several Chilean miners. It is assumed it was done so in order to gain the human races trust, which within months, was shattered by the killing and raping of the entire land mass of North America.
- T-70 Terminator: The first humanoid terminator in the Terminator lineup. Equipped with a 20mm minigun, it could either be manually or autonomously controlled. Though now obsolete by Skynet's standards, there are rumors of T-70 activity in the Outer Rim territories, & also rumors of them being used as executioners in Hitlers death camps.
- T-300 Terminator: Though not humanoid like the T-20 & T-70, it was bipedal & looked like a giant robot chicken with a plasma cannon in its mouth. Later on, these were disposed of because Skynet considered them to be technologically obsolete compared to the newer models, as were some of the models succeeding it. That, or Skynet probably realized the mistake of having a robot chicken-looking Terminator.
- T-400 Terminator: Another humanoid model. Because they were cheap to manufacture, Skynet produced them in large numbers. However, it proved to be a complete dummy when facing multiple targets, & it was highly vulnerable to plasma weapons.
- T-500 Terminator: OK, now we're getting somewhere! Designed around the human body, it could go where other Terminators couldn't, & looked like a person (from a distance, anyways). This model is more intelligent than the T-400 & better armored, & can also use some different types of light plasma weapons. However, it can't learn at all & is not strong enough to wield heavier plasma weapons. Late in its career, Skynet attempted to give a rubber skin to the T-500 to try & make it look human. However, it only ended up looking like someone's beastly mother-in-law.
- T-600 Infiltrator: The first in the Terminator series designed to infiltrate the human resistance. Its skeleton more closely resembled a human skeleton, it had a rubber skin in order to look like a person, & it even had a voice. Also, it was equipped with more advanced plasma weaponry than the T-500. However, they were easily spotted because of their rubber skin, especially if it began to rot. Also, their voice sounded mechanical & unconvincing. Despite being designed as an Infiltrator, it lacked any programming about human behaviors & stuff, so many were duped into believing that Skynet was the enemy. Due to this gaffe, Skynet made all the T-600s self-destruct & stopped subsequent production of this model.
- T-700 Infiltrator: Another Infiltrator in the series. This one included marked improvements over the T-600, including: Artificial rubber tissue (more realistic than the T-600's), a human-sounding voice, database of human etiquette & behavior & such, etc... Also, it bled when injured, but its tissue would not regenerate. As usual, It had more advanced weaponry than the T-600. However, it was pretty rigid due to its streamlined hydraulics, & it had a "pencil-neck" look due to a lack of neck pistons, so it could still be detected, but not as easily as a T-600.
- T-800 Infiltrator: Perhaps the most famous Terminator in the series. In fact, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a T-800 before being upgraded to a T-850. This one had actual human flesh synthetically grown by Skynet. This new flesh can actually bleed, sweat, & bruise realistically. It also has some organs that resemble actual human organs, even an overgrown fully functional tongue. This Terminator can also heal at a much faster rate than humans & can even eat to preserve its flesh (though less than humans)! It is thus far the most intelligent of the Infiltrator model Terminators, & can live for 120 years on its primary power source. It can punch through steel walls, is highly durable, has excellent audio/visual senses, & can even see in the dark. There was also a prototype T-800 with a smaller physique to emulate women. However, despite it all, the resistance eventually managed to learn to reprogram them & turn them against Skynet, even sending a couple back in time to help the resistance.
- T-850 Infiltrator: Same as the T-800, only more durable, & powered by twin hydrogen fuel cells. Arnold Schwarzenegger was upgraded to one of these for the movie Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. However, the hydrogen fuel cells proved to be a tad unstable, & exploded when struck pretty hard. This terminator is also the first with capability for political prowess.
- T-900 Destroyer: In order to counter T-800s that had been hacked by the resistance to fight Skynet, Skynet developed this new Terminator. Its skeleton mimics the contours of the human body, but it has never been encountered disguised as a human (though it has the potential to be such). It is stronger, faster, & more durable than the T-800 & 850. However, it is kinda vulnerable in the crotch area, & it's estimated that these have come a little too late to stop Skynet from being destroyed.
- T-1000 Super Infiltrator/Combat Prototype: Unlike the previous Terminators, it is made of a mimemetic poly-alloy (liquid metal), has a mind of its own, & is heavily loyal to Skynet. Because of its liquid metal state, it can change its shape into objects of its own size, disguise itself as other people, slip through cracks in walls or floors, even reform itself after suffering damage from conventional weapons. Also, it could change its arms into stabbing weapons. However, despite it all, it does suffer from a few drawbacks. First of all, it has problems with changing into smaller or larger objects. Also, it can't change into anything with chemicals or complex moving parts (i.e., cars, guns, bombs, computers, etc...) And furthermore, it can be killed by extreme cold or heat (such as falling into molten steel or a pool of liquid nitrogen).
- T-X Female Super Infiltrator: The first female Terminator in the series. It is also the hottest of all the Terminators. It combines some features of the T-800/850 & T-1000 Terminators long with some of its own features; thus making it an efficient, & highly lethal killing machine. As well as a conventional cyborg skeleton, it features a liquid metal skin that allows it to change into any person like the T-1000. However, unlike the T-1000, it cannot change into inanimate objects or slip through cracks. It features amazing agility & strength, especially in the bed & can even survive a hit from a conventional explosive weapon. Also included are an array of built-in weapons such as a heavy plasma cannon, flamethrower, machine gun, buzzsaw, etc... Apart from that, it can also hack into & control any piece of electronic and/or mechanical equipment. However despite its nigh-invincibility, it does have a couple of weaknesses. Like the T-1000, it can be killed by falling into lava or other molten liquids. Furthermore, it can be killed by nuclear-based weaponry. It can also be killed by excessive pressure on it, but it needs to be a lot of pressure. The T-X is well known for its ability to increase its breast size from a B cup to an M cup in mere seconds upon looking at a pornographic billboard. Though its main drawback was the fact, that, like any other woman, when a guy dumps them, they eat a bucket of icecream and get fat.
- T-1000000 Core Defense Unit (also known as the T-Meg): Only one of these was ever made, & few have lived to tell about it. It was made for the sole purpose of defending Skynet's Central Core. It's made of the same liquid metal substance as the T-1000, but it cannot morph into people or inanimate objects. Unlike most of the other Terminators, its shape is similar to a giant spider, & each of its multiple arms can transform into stabbing weapons like the T-1000. However, being of the same composition as the T-1000, it shares the same weaknesses. Also, it is never deployed far from the Central Core, so it might be linked to it somehow, and it might also be defeated if the Central Core was destroyed.
- Ti-89 Mobile Infiltration Device: Designed by Cyberdyne as what was to be the pinnacle of their Terminator series, it was taken into the past by a *T-850 Infiltrator and sold to the newly formed Texas Instruments. It featured benchmark artificial intelligence that allowed it to observe massive amounts of information, while observing strict silence and not interacting with its environment. Commonly used by high school and college students to play games like Tetris and Uncle Wyrm during school. It may seem harmless, but it's watching you...
- T-69 Penetrator (Cbot/Cerminator): This unit was made to be employed if global war was ever to be decided in a contest of producing abilities. It has 37 different sized and shaped penetration attachments. It comes standard with seven sodomy acceptance points (SSPs), and can say many phrases such as "Oh Bot" in over 11,000 languages. It's range is variable between .0003 and 33.47 billion strokes per minute.
- Cameron Phllips (TOK-715): Was sent back in time for two purposes: first, to protect John Connor, and second, to keep him entertained in those lonely teen years, wink-wink =). TOK-715 mean Terminator OK at 7:15 AM or PM
- TIT-10000 Played by the Philop (an out of work Star Wars character. Bearing a similar name to Cameron Phillips is the only real thing known about this TIT model. He is thought to be related to the well known full-time impersonator of Vin Diesel, Dave Jelley-Belly.
- Darth Vader (T-HX): Only 1 built,an attempt to add machine to man,despite it's skill with The Force and lightsabers, Darth Vader was relatively slow, and could not survive over a half hour or less without his suit and helmet.


text:
For the best service, please contact us today for more information at 9544222889.
The world of auto loans and car financing can be quite confusing. You have many items to consider, such as how much you can comfortably afford and what kind of terms you prefer on an auto loan. Please use our loan calculator to find a payment plan to fit your budget.


text:
Gmc K25 U1112 Engine Error Code
When you check Gmc K25 car engine light came on code U1112 the reason should be Engine Light ON (or Service Engine Soon Warning Light). However Gmc manufacturer may have a different definition for the U1112 OBD-II Diagnostic Network (U) Trouble Code. So you should chech it on our car models.
A good ground connection is also extremely important. U1112 Gmc K25 engine problem because the presence of voltage at the panel harness won't make the panel work if there is a bad ground connection. Since the instrument cluster is mounted in a plastic dash, a separate ground wire or ground circuit through the wiring harness is usually needed to complete the power circuit. Refer again to the wiring diagram to find the ground path, and then check it with your ohmmeter. Do not use a self-powered test light because it cannot measure resistance (any resistance will lower circuit voltage).
Gmc K25 U1112 OBD-II Diagnostic Network (U) Trouble Code DescriptionU1112 SCP (J1850) Invalid or Missing Data for Primary Id so you have to check ODB-II Engine Error Code list.Reason For Gmc K25 U1112 CodeThe reason of Gmc K25 U1112 OBD-II Engine Error Code is U1112 SCP (J1850) Invalid or Missing Data for Primary Id. |
There are currently two main types of cylinder deactivation used today, depending on the type of engine. U1112 Gmc K25 code for the pushrod design which uses solenoids to alter the oil pressure delivered to the lifters. In their collapsed state, the lifters are unable to elevate their companion pushrods under the valve rocker arms, resulting in valves that cannot be actuated and remain closed.
Gmc K25 U1112 Possible Solution :
In-line Ford engines, along with those of most other manufacturers, begin the numbering of cylinders at the front and proceed in numerical order toward the back. In the V-engine design, Ford follows a similar design with the number one cylinder at the front left of the engine. In the V-6 configuration, cylinder 4 is at the front right of the engine and in a V-8, cylinder number 5 is in that location. Other manufacturers sometimes use an alternating pattern in the V-engines.
What does fault code U1112 mean for Gmc K25 ?


text:
Greetings all, happy Monday! Fantastic news, my friend Janell of Isabella & Max Rooms has published the much anticipated Issue Two of House of Fifty! I was delighted to be involved with the Fall Issue, offering up my 8 Tips for Better Photography.
Hop on over to take a look at the latest issue of House of Fifty for Fall 2011 and be sure to bring your coffee or tea, you'll surely want to stay awhile. There are tips for injecting color into your home, decorating with children's art, easy entertaining, and plenty of other articles by favorite designers and bloggers. You'll find me on page 120 sharing my tips for better images, enjoy!
And congratulations to Janell and her amazing team of editors and contributors for a second fantastic issue!