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Coton de Tulear x West Highland White Terrier mix breed (Weston)
The Weston is not a purebred dog. It is a cross between the Coton de Tulear and the Westie. The best way to determine the temperament of a mixed breed is to look up all breeds in the cross and know you can get any combination of any of the characteristics found in either breed. Not all of these designer hybrid dogs being bred are 50% purebred to 50% purebred. It is very common for breeders to breed multi-generation crosses.

subset: commoncrawl


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Most New Englanders have three categories for the Atlantic hard-shell Quahog clam. Little necks, usually eaten on the half-shell with cocktail sauce, or cooked in various ways and served with pasta, are the smallest - usually about 1-1/2 inches in diameter. The next size up are called cherrystones, and they average 2-1/2 inches in diameter. The largest are called quahogs, which is derived from the Narragansett word "poquauhock," and they are thick and about 3 inches in diameter or more.
Many recipes for baked clams exist in New England. Our Marketing Director, Paul Williams, hails from Lil Rhody and offered up his preferred recipe for stuffed clams. It uses cherrystones and includes a combination of both Italian and Portuguese ingredients that are readily available in southern New England.
Ingredients (serves four)
16 cherrystone clams
1 cup of bread crumbs
½ cup of chopped large Bermuda onion
½ pound of Chourico sausage
1/3 cup of Pecorino Romano cheese
1 tsp. of dried oregano
¼ tsp. of black pepper
3 tsp. of butter
2 tsp. of olive oil
Directions: I would recommend using cherrystones that are as close to 2-1/2 inches in diameter as you can find. If larger, you will have to increase the quantities of ingredients listed for this recipe to make enough stuffing. Fish markets in New England will let you select the ones you want. As you open them in preparation for stuffing and cooking, the clam meat inside will be cut in half. I scrape the clam meat from one side into the other, so 20 clams would make 20 half-shelled stuffed clams. Open them over a bowl to catch the clam juice, as you can use it in the stuffing as it flavors the stuffed clam.
For bread crumbs, I like to make my own, using dried Italian bread. If available (and it is in many southern New England markets), you can use dried Portuguese sweet bread or muffins. Leave it on the counter to dry for a day, and then chop it in a food processor. Use enough to make one cup of bread crumbs.
Chourico sausage is also available in most New England markets. If you can't find it you may use Andouille or Italian sausage, as long as there is some spice and/or a bit of heat. I take about a half pound of Chourico (remember to remove the casing first) and grill or cook it in a skillet. After grilling, finely chop in a food processor and set it aside.
Finely chop half of a large red Bermuda onion. Hand chopping is best, not in the food processer, as you don't want it to liquefy.
- Open the clams. Save the clam juice. Place the opened clams on a cookie sheet or baking dish.
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
- In a large pre-heated skillet, add the olive oil and when the oil is hot, add the onion.
- Once they are translucent (about 4 minutes) add the chopped sausage, mixing with the onion while the sausage heats for a couple of minutes.
- Add the butter to the sausage/onion mixture and as soon as it is melted, remove from the heat and add the bread crumbs, pepper and oregano. Mix all. Add whatever clam juice you collected. If mixture is really dry, add just a bit of water as you don't want to stuffing to be soggy, but a bit moist so it can be formed is fine. Once fully blended, mix in the cheese.
- Top each clam with an equal portion of the stuffing mix.
- Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes, or until clam is cooked.
- Serve with lemon slices, as a touch of fresh-squeezed lemon juice adds a lot.


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The controversial movie "The Interview" is now available online through Google and Microsoft services as well as a Sony Pictures website, the companies announced separately on Wednesday.
This development follows Sony's decision to screen the comedy in select U.S. cities on its original release date of Christmas Day after initially canceling those plans.
A satire that depicts how two U.S. journalists would carry out an assignment to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, "The Interview" has been anything but a barrel of laughs for Sony, which produced the film.
Sony suffered a cyberattack that resulted in theft of emails containing sensitive information like actor salaries and plots of upcoming movies. Additionally, threats of violence against theaters that showed the film led Sony to cancel its theatrical release, a decision it later reversed.
Google, which made the movie available to either rent or buy through YouTube and Google Play, weighed the security concerns before agreeing to offer the movie, said David Drummond, Google's senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer, in a blog post.
"Sony and Google agreed that we could not sit on the sidelines and allow a handful of people to determine the limits of free speech in another country (however silly the content might be)," he said, adding that Sony approached the company last week about making the film available online.
People with an Xbox game console, a Windows Phone and PCs and tablets running Windows 8 and 8.1 can either purchase or rent the movie, Microsoft said in a blog post that also touched on themes of freedom to explain its decision to sell the film.
"Our Constitution guarantees for each person the right to decide what books to read, what movies to watch, and even what games to play. In the 21st Century, there is no more important place for that right to be exercised than on the Internet," wrote Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel and executive vice president, legal and corporate affairs.
Microsoft and Google charge US$5.99 to rent the movie and $14.99 to buy it.
Sony offers a 48-hour rental for $5.99 from a dedicated website.
Read More at: http://mobile.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3592167/google-microsoft-sony-make-the-interview-available-online/


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Late on Wednesday, May 30, 2007, Microsoft shipped a new public beta of its Windows Live Mail client, which I briefly discussed in my review of Windows Live Hotmail. Once called Windows Live Mail Desktop (back when Windows Live Hotmail, confusingly, was to have been called Windows Live Mail), this new client offers a superset of the functionality in Outlook Express and Windows Mail. But unlike the Vista-based Windows Mail client, Windows Live Mail supports Windows Live Hotmail Web mail, as well as POP3 and IMAP email sources. Additionally, Windows Live Mail features the new Windows Live Wave 2 look and feel, RSS feed support, advanced photo-sharing capabilities, instant search, AV scanning, anti-phishing, and anti-spam protection, and integration with other Windows Live services, especially Windows Live Messenger (see my review) and Windows Live Spaces (see my review of its predecessor, MSN Spaces). Additionally, Microsoft released to related betas, including the first beta of Windows Live Messenger 8.5 and the second beta of Windows Live Writer.
I'll be writing a true review of this interesting mail client in the near future. In the meantime, enjoy this set of screenshots, which show off some of the new features.


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Tate & Lyle on monk fruit: 'Consumers intuitively understand that sweetness that comes from fruit is natural'
Speaking to FoodNavigator-USA at the Supply Side West trade show about Tate & Lyle's 'Purefruit' monk fruit sweetener, marketing communications manager Amy Lauer said: "We've been looking at natural sweeteners for about 10 years.
"We found that monk fruit extract, in terms of ability to scale up, cost, ease of use and formulation and great taste, was one of the best products out there."
And while Purefruit is more expensive than stevia on a weight-for-weight basis, it is approaching parity on a cost-in-use basis for many applications, she added.
It's actually very cost-effective
For example, in a neutral to high pH dairy product, you can get a lot of sweetness using only a very small amount, she said.
"It's actually very cost effective. When you look at for instance some of the sweetness enablers used with Reb-A [the best-known steviol glycoside] such as erythritol, or the flavor-masking technologies [that are used to mask bitter off notes associated with some stevia products], they add to the cost of formulation, and you don't need those for monk fruit applications."
Tate & Lyle, which has exclusive global marketing and distribution rights for Purefruit (partner BioVittoria handles the monk fruit supply chain), has well over 1,000 samples out in the marketplace, said Lauer.
She added: "Consumers intuitively understand that sweetness that comes from fruit is natural and they expect it to taste good. We're seeing Purefruit used in teas, waters, juice drinks, dairy products, ice creams and novelties, bars and cereals as well."


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Capital of the province of Bologna and of the division of Emilia, in northern Italy. As early as the beginning of the fourth century there were Jews in Bologna, but it is difficult to ascertain the exact date of their settlement. In 302 they had a cemetery, where, from malicious motives, two Christian martyrs were buried ("Ambrose," v. 302, ed. Rome, 1579). Nothing further is recorded of the Jews until 1171, when they were expelled from the city for unknown reasons. By the end of the thirteenth century Jews had again settled at Bologna, for they called from Forli the celebrated Rabbi Hillel of Verona. In 1308 they presented to Fra Aymerico, prior of the Dominicans, a Pentateuch written on vellum, and made in the form of a scroll like the copies used in the synagogue. Only the portions of this manuscript containing Numbers and Deuteronomy are now extant, and these are preserved in the university library. In 1700 it was still complete, with a Hebrew inscription erroneously asserting the manuscript to have been written by Ezra.
In 1366 the Jews were enclosed in a ghetto; but by the end of the fourteenth century they owned houses in all parts of the city and also held real estate. The two brothers Moses and Elia, of the Ne'arim family, came in 1394 from Rome to Bologna, bought houses, and founded one of the most beautiful synagogues of Italy. This family claimed to be descended from one of the four noble families carried captive by Titus to Rome. The two brothers were buried in a cemetery bought by themselves; the famous rabbi of Imola, Gedalia Yaḥia, mentions that he had seen their tombstones. In 1417 Albergati, bishop of Bologna, persecuted the Jews, and ordered them to wear the distinctive yellow badge; this command was withdrawn after a time, but renewed in 1458. In the same year a congress of rabbis was held at Bologna to consider the interests and security of the Jews, and it reassembled in the following year at Forli. (Its conclusions and ordinances, , have been published by Halberstamm; see the "Grätz Jubelschrift.") In 1419 a delegation was sent to Pope Martin V., who afterward issued a bull favorable to the Jews. Fra Bernardino da Feltre preached against them at Bologna in 1473, but without effect.
Persecutions in the Sixteenth Century.A series of persecutions began in the second half of the sixteenth century; in Sept., 1553, the Talmud, together with a multitude of other Hebrew books and even copies of the Bible, was publicly burned by order of Pope Julius III. In May, 1556, the Jews were again enclosed in a ghetto by order of Paul IV. A respite came under Pius IV. (1559-66). At that time the community of Bologna had eleven synagogues. In 1569, when Pius V. banished the Jews from the pontifical dominions excepting Rome and Ancona, 800 of them left Bologna. The Jewish cemetery was given to the monks of St. Peter, with the permission to disinter and burn the bodies ("Archivio Domaniale, Monache di S. Pietro," No. xxvi.); consequently some interesting sepulchral stones are preserved in the museum of Bologna. In 1586 Sixtus V. permitted the Jews to return, and in 1593 there were already more than 900 in the city. But in that year Clement VIII. again drove them out, and they departed, carrying with them the bones of their dead, which they buried in the small Jewish settlement of Pieve di Cento.
From 1593 to 1796 the Jews were forbidden to establish themselves at Bologna; a few at a time being allowed to stop in the city for two or three days by special permission. On Sept. 5, 1796, General Salicetti, the commissioner of the French Directory, issued a decree which accorded to Jews the same rights that were given to other citizens. The number of them in Bologna now steadily increased. When the city was restored to the popes in 1814, Pius VII. showed himself very friendly to them. Leo XII. made an effort to revive the oppressive laws, but did not cause much suffering at Bologna. Pius IX., liberal at first, afterward grew intolerant, and the Jews were made painfully conscious of this by the abduction of the boy Edgar Mortara, who had been secretly baptized by a servant during an illness, and four years later, in 1858, was forcibly taken from his family and carried to Rome. The offense created a great sensation throughout the civilized world. On Aug. 10, 1859, a decree of the governor of the Romagna (which had been united with the kingdom of Italy under Victor Emmanuel) proclaimed the civil and political equality of all citizens. The number of Jews in Bologna now increased rapidly, growing from 229 in 1861 to 350 in 1871. Formerly the dead were buried in the cemetery of the neighboring community, but later the municipality permitted their interment in the communal burying-place.
At the beginning of the twentieth century there were about 1,200 Jews in Bologna, these having come in part from the territory of Mantua, Modena, and other places. They have a synagogue and a chief rabbi. The ritual used in the synagogue is the so-called Roman (Zunz, "Ritus," p. 78).
The Hebrew printing-press was introduced at a very early time into Bologna, though the exact date is not known. Some bibliographers ascribe the first edition of the Psalms with the commentary of David Ḳimḥi (published Aug. 29, 1477, by Joseph Ḥayyim Mordecai, and Hezekiah of Ventura) to this city (Rabbinowicz in Merzbacher's "Ohel Abraham," No. 4041; compare De Rossi, "Annales," i. 14, and Steinschneider, "Cat. Bodl." col. i.). In 1482 Joseph b. Abraham Caravita (or Crovetta) set up a printing-press in his own house; and at this press Abraham ben Ḥayyim de Tintori printed the first edition of the Pentateuch, with Onkelos and Rashi, which was finished Jan. 26 of the same year (Zunz, in Geiger's "Wiss. Zeit. für Jüd. Theol." v. 38; Steinschneider, ib. col. i). It is supposed that the edition of the Five Scrolls with Rashi to the whole, and Ibn Ezra to Esther, was issued from Caravita's press, and in the same year (De Rossi, ib. i. 130; Steinschneider, ib. No. 1031). Again, in the sixteenth century a Hebrew printing-press was active, notably between the years 1537 and 1540, whena company of silk-weavers furnished themeans for this work. The following is a partial list of the publications during this period:
In 1537, Joseph ben David ibn Yaḥya's (the younger) "Torah Or" (Steinschneider, ib. col. 1477); Obadiah of Sforno's (the elder) "Or 'Ammim" (ib. col. 2076); (May 15), "Roman Ritual," together with Elijah Zaken's "Seder Ma'areket (ib. No. 2074); in 1538, Joseph ben David ibn Yaḥya's (the younger) commentary to the Five Scrolls and the Hagiographa (ib. col. 1476); Menahem de Recanati's "Pisḳe Halakot" (ib. col. 1737); Judah he-Ḥasid's "Sefer ha-Ḥasidim"; ed. Abraham ben Moses Cohen (ib. col. 1321); "Tefillot Latini," Italian in Hebrew characters, the text vocalized (ib. No. 2436); in 1539, Solomon ben Adret's "Teshubot" (ib. col. 2273); in 1540 (Oct.), "Maḥzor," Italian rite, with the commentary of Johanan ben Joseph Trèves to the whole and that of Obadiah Sforno to Pirḳe Abot (ib. No. 2579). For more detailed information, see De Rossi, "Annales Hebræo-Typographic i," § xv., passim; idem,"De Hebraicæ Typographiæ Origine," passim; M. Schwab, "Incunables Orientaux," Nos. 5, 23, 24, 467, 472, 473, 476, 484, 489, 495, 514; Freimann, in "Centralbl. für Bibliothekswesen," xix., part 3. In the university library of Bologna is a collection of about twenty-eight volumes of Hebrew MSS. which have been described by Leonello Modono in "Cataloghi Codici Orientali di Alcume Biblioteche d'Italia," Florence, 1878, pp. 323 et seq.


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WASHINGTON (AP) - The already-bizarre criminal case of a slain German socialite and journalist has been brought to a virtual standstill by her husband's refusal to eat, which has left the defendant unable to sit or stand on his own and at risk of death.
It's the latest twist in the case against Mr Albrecht Muth, a fellow German expatriate whose behaviour has ranged from odd to obstructive since he was charged with the killing. Mr Muth, nearly a half-century younger than his late wife, has argued unsuccessfully for the right to wear what he said was an Iraqi military uniform in court. He fired his public defenders - only to have them reappointed after he was deemed too physically weak to act as his own lawyer. He told the judge he'd follow his own rules and he's name-dropped Jesus, Mr David Petraeus and others in court proceedings.
Mr Muth's fasting prompted a judge to indefinitely postpone the trial, scheduled to start this Monday, March 25, after a doctor said Mr Muth was too weak to be brought to court and prosecutors and defence lawyers said it wasn't feasible for him to participate remotely from his hospital bed.
Frustrated prosecutors say Mr Muth, 48, is orchestrating his own unavailability and thwarting their efforts to hold him accountable in the August 2011 slaying, and an exasperated judge says the case was in "limbo status" until at least next month.
Mr Muth's behaviour has defied an easy solution: His presence in the courtroom could harm his health and disrupt the proceedings, but his absence could set up an appeal on grounds that the trial was improperly held.
The parties are right to proceed cautiously since a trial without the defendant is an option "reserved for the most bizarre, unheard of collection of circumstances that essentially result in a perfect storm", said Mr Bernie Grimm, a Washington criminal defence lawyer not involved in the case.
"When a defendant's not there, it's just a hornet's nest for the judge," he said, adding that a hastily made decision could raise all sorts of bases for an appeal.
Other options have been debated.
Prosecutor Glenn Kirschner suggested at one point that he might seek a court order to force-feed the defendant, but he's acknowledged that that Mr Muth - who's been hospitalised for two months - might be too ill for that.
Superior Court Judge Russell Canan also considered having Mr Muth appear via video link. But Mr Kirschner argued that Mr Muth could "very well die on camera, on a two-way video feed" before the jury. He said he saw no way for the trial to proceed as scheduled.
His starvation, which he claims is for religious reasons, has been the biggest roadblock yet in the strange case that's included his claims that he was a general in the Iraqi army and that the killing was an Iranian hit job. Mr Muth began fasting after he was ruled competent to stand trial in December.
The investigation began after Mr Muth reported finding 91-year-old Viola Drath's beaten and stabbed body in the bathroom of the couple's row home in chic Georgetown, where for years they hosted dinner parties for notable Washingtonians.
Police arrested Mr Muth, who has maintained his innocence, after finding no signs of forced entry to the home and observing scratches on his body that suggested a physical struggle. He also aroused suspicion when he presented a document - which prosecutors say was forged - stating that he was entitled to a portion of her estate upon her death. In truth, he had been removed from her will, authorities say.
Ms Drath, who contributed columns to The Washington Times and wrote on German affairs, wed Mr Muth in 1990. The couple's tumultuous relationship included his prior conviction for beating her, and prosecutors say he leeched onto Ms Drath's social connections to pass them off as his own. He walked the neighbourhood smoking cigars and sporting a military-style uniform that prosecutors say was actually made for him in South Carolina. He showed off a military certificate that came from a Maryland print shop.
Despite his grandiose claims, he lived off a monthly allowance from Ms Drath, had no connection to the Iraqi army or any income of his own, prosecutors say.
Though defendants are entitled to attend every step of their trial, courts in recent years have grappled with where to draw the line on intentionally disruptive behavior.
In 2011, a judge in Washington state temporarily barred a man charged with raping and killing a lesbian couple from his own trial. The trial began with Isaiah Kalebu, who cursed his lawyers and knocked over chairs during pretrial hearings, watching the proceedings from another room in the courthouse while chained in a restraint chair. He later testified and was convicted.
That same year, a federal appeals court in Chicago ruled that a judge was justified in barring two defendants from a gang crimes trial after their tirades disrupted pretrial hearings. The judge permitted them to follow the trial on a jail video feed and told them they could return once they committed to behave. After they were convicted in absentia, they unsuccessfully appealed the judge's decision to hold the trial without them.
In Mr Muth's case, a judge has scheduled a hearing for April. It's not clear whether anything will be different.
Mr Muth has dropped about 30 pounds (13kg) in the hospital since his fast began and his organs are failing, said Dr Russom Ghebrai. He did eat and drink last weekend - and has consumed food intermittently in the last few weeks - but then chastised himself for disobeying the orders of the archangel Gabriel and pledged to begin his fast anew.
He's shown no signs he intends to permanently resume eating, telling Judge Canan last week that if forced to choose between a jury of "secular-ites" and his own religious convictions, it was an easy decision: "I opt for God."


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KARACHI (AFP) – Pakistan coach Dav Whatmore said Tuesday the team would be reviewed with an eye on building for the 2015 World Cup after their dismal showing at the Champions Trophy in England.
Abysmal batting led to Pakistan's defeat in all three matches as they failed to post a single total above 170 runs.
Pakistan's failure in the Champions Trophy has prompted calls from former players, media and fans to overhaul the system and ditch Whatmore and under-performing players.
Asked about the need to overhaul the team, Whatmore said he will give a report on the team's performance.
"The question of selection should be directed to the selectors but I will give my review, both verbal and written, perhaps (with) 2015 in mind," Whatmore, 59, told reporters as he arrived back in Pakistan.
Whatmore accompanied Mohammad Irfan, Imran Farhat, Kamran Akmal, Wahab Riaz, Saeed Ajmal, Nasir Jamshed and Ehsan Adil while captain Misbah-ul Haq and vice captain Mohammad Hafeez will return next week.
The former Australian batsman turned coach rejected the suggestion his players lacked in effort.
"The performance didn't meet the expectations which we, as a team, wanted to put. Obviously a lot of people in Pakistan wanted us to do well and that's why it is very disappointing," said Whatmore, who took over as coach in March last year.
"But it wasn't a case of lack of trying, it was a case of we were unable to score enough runs in all three matches."
Pakistan were bowled out for 170 against the West Indies, 167 against South Africa and 165 in a rain-shortened match against arch-rivals India in the Group B matches.
Only captain Misbah-ul Haq managed to hit two half-centuries while top order batsmen Hafeez, Farhat, Shoaib Malik and Kamran flopped badly.
Pakistan's batting was also found wanting on their tour of South Africa earlier this year, where they lost all three Tests and the five-match one-day series 3-2.
Pakistan had hired Australian expert Trent Woodhill as batting consultant for the Trophy but he failed to lift the batsmen.
Pakistan's next assignment is a five one-day and two Twenty20 matches in the West Indies next month.


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FY2012 State and USAID Budget Request
Secretary of State
Well, thank you, and I want to begin by thanking you, Chairman Kerry and you, Ranking Member Lugar, for not just those two eloquent statements of our priorities and our needs as a nation, but for your service, your lifetime of leadership on issues that really do matter to America's security, interest, and values. It's an honor to appear before you.
I recently took part in emergency meetings in Geneva to discuss the events unfolding in Libya, and I'd like to begin by offering a brief update. As the Chairman said, we have joined the Libyan people in demanding that Colonel Qadhafi must go, now, without further violence and bloodshed. And we are working to translate the world's outrage into action and results.
Marathon diplomacy at the United Nations and with our allies has yielded quick, aggressive steps to pressure and isolate Libya's leaders. We welcome yesterday's decision to suspend Libya from the Human Rights Council, as I had urged a day earlier. USAID is focused on Libya's food and medical supplies, and is dispatching two expert humanitarian teams to help those fleeing the violence into Tunisia and Egypt. Our combatant commands are positioning assets to prepare to support these critical civilian missions. And we are taking no option off the table so long as the Libyan Government continues to turn its guns on its own people.
As both the Chairman and the Ranking Member have noted, the region is changing, and a strong, strategic American response will be essential. In the years ahead, for example, Libya could become a peaceful democracy, or it could face protracted civil war or fall into chaos. The stakes are high. And this is an unfolding example of using the combined assets of smart power, diplomacy, development, and defense to protect our interests and advance our values.
This integrated approach is not just how we must respond to the crisis of the moment. It is the most effective and most cost-effective way to sustain and advance our security. And it is only possible with a budget that supports all the tools in our national security arsenal, which is what I am here today to discuss.
I understand and agree that the American people are rightly and justifiably concerned about our national debt, about our economy, and about unemployment. But I think also, Americans understand the need for responsible investments in our security for the future to make us safer, to keep markets open, to ensure that we remain the leader in the world.
Just two years after President Obama and I first asked you to renew our investment in development and diplomacy, we are already seeing tangible returns. In Iraq, almost 100,000 troops have come home, and civilians are poised to keep the peace. In Afghanistan, integrated military and civilian surges have helped set the stage for our diplomatic surge to support Afghan-led reconciliation that can end the conflict and put al-Qaida on the run. We have imposed the toughest sanctions yet to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions.
We have reengaged as a leader in the Asia Pacific region and in our own hemisphere. We have signed trade deals to promote American jobs and nuclear weapons treaties to protect our people. We worked with northern and southern Sudanese to achieve a peaceful referendum and prevent a return to civil war. And we are working to open up political systems, economies, and societies at this remarkable moment in history in the Middle East, and to support orderly, peaceful, irreversible democratic transitions.
Our progress is significant, but our work is ongoing. These missions are vital to our national security, and now would be absolutely the wrong time to pull back.
The FY 2012 budget we discuss today will allow us to keep pressing ahead. It is a lean budget for lean times. I launched the first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, the so-called QDDR, to help us maximize the impact of every dollar we spend. We scrubbed this budget. We made painful but responsible cuts. For example, we cut economic assistance to Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia by 15 percent. We cut development assistance to over 20 countries by more than half.
This year, for the first time, our request is divided into two parts. Our core budget request is $47 billion. That supports programs and partnerships in every country but North Korea. It is essentially flat from 2010 levels. The second part of our request funds the extraordinary, temporary portion of our war effort. This is the same way the Pentagon's request is funded, in a separate overseas contingency operations account known as OCO. Instead of covering our war expenses through supplemental appropriations, we are now taking a more transparent approach that reflects our fully integrated civilian-military effort on the ground. Our share of the President's $126 billion request for these exceptional wartime costs in frontline states is $8.7 billion.
Let me walk you through a few of the key investments. First, this budget funds vital civilian missions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, al-Qaida is under pressure as never before. Alongside our military offensive, we are engaged in a major civilian effort to help build up the governments, economies, and civil societies of both countries, and therefore help undercut the insurgency. These two surges, the military and civilian, now set the stage for the third surge, a diplomatic push in support of an Afghan process to split the Taliban from al-Qaida, bring the conflict to an end, and help stabilize the entire region. Our military commanders are emphatic. They cannot succeed without a strong civilian partner. Retreating from our civilian surge in Afghanistan with our troops still in the field would be a grave mistake.
Equally important is our assistance to Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation with strong ties and interests in Afghanistan. This is a complicated and often frustrating relationship, as the Chairman knows very well. And we're grateful to him for his constant attention and very helpful interventions. We are working to deepen that partnership, and keep it focused on addressing Pakistan's political and economic challenges, as well as our shared threats.
After so much sacrifice in Iraq, we have a chance to help the Iraqi people build a stable democratic country in the heart of the Middle East. What we are hoping will happen in Egypt and in Libya and in Tunisia is happening in Iraq. And it is imperative that as our troops come home, our civilians take the lead, helping Iraqis resolve conflicts peacefully, training police, and inculcating the habits of the heart that are at the root of any kind of democratic society. Shifting responsibilities from soldiers to civilians actually saves taxpayers a great deal of money. The military's total OCO request worldwide will drop by $45 billion from 2010, while our costs in State and USAID will increase by less than $4 billion for Iraq. Every business owner I know would gladly invest $4 to save $45.
Second, even as our civilians help bring today's wars to a close, we are working to prevent tomorrow's. This budget devotes over $4 billion in sustaining a strong U.S. presence in volatile places where our security and interests are at stake. In Yemen, it provides security, development, and humanitarian assistance in the midst of the headquarters for al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula. It focuses on those same goals in Somalia. It has helped the northern and southern Sudanese chart a peaceful future, and we need to stay on that path. It helps Haiti rebuild. And it proposes a new global security contingency fund that would pool resources and expertise with the Defense Department. We are trying to tear down the walls and the bureaucratic jurisdictional obstacles that too often prevent the United States Government from being as efficient as it can be by bringing all of our government assets together.
This budget also strengthens allies and partners. It trains Mexican police to take on violent cartels and secure our southern border. It provides nearly $3.1 billion for Israel, and supports Jordan and the Palestinians. It does help Egypt and Tunisia, and it supports security assistance to over 130 nations.
Now over the years, these security funds have created valuable ties with foreign militaries. We saw that in real time when it came to Egypt. Because the United States military has trained a generation of Egyptian officers, because that experience built relationships between American military leaders and Egyptian military leaders, we saw the Egyptian military refuse to fire on their own people. And there were many, many conversations going on between people who weren't picking up the phone for the first time but who had trained together, lived together, worked together. Across the board, we are trying to ensure that all who share the benefits of our spending also share the burdens of addressing common challenges.
Third, we are making targeted investments in human security. We have focused on hunger. And thank you so much, Senator Lugar, for your constant, constant pointing out that this is in America's interests as well as the world's interests. We have invested in preventing and ameliorating the effects of disease, climate change, humanitarian emergencies. These challenges not only threaten the security of individuals, and increasingly in our world, individuals here at home, but they are the seeds of future conflict. If we want to lighten the burden on future generations, we have to make the investments that will make our world more secure.
Our largest investment is in global health programs, including those launched and led by President George W. Bush. These programs stabilize entire societies that have been devastated by HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases. They save the lives of mothers and children and they halt the spread of deadly diseases. Global food prices are approaching an all-time high. Three years ago, this led to protests and riots in dozens of countries. Food security is a cornerstone of global stability. We are helping farmers to grow more food, drive economic growth, and turn aid recipients into trading partners. And I look forward to working closely with the Congress as we try to really sharpen this program.
Now climate change, we know, threatens food security, human security, and national security. Our budget helps to build resilience against droughts, floods, and other weather disasters. It promotes clean energy and it preserves tropical forests. It gives leverage to us to persuade China, India, and other nations to do their part as well.
Fourth, we are committed to making our foreign policy a force for domestic economic renewal. We are working aggressively to promote sustained economic growth, level playing fields, open markets, and create jobs here at home. And we are fighting for companies large and small. For example, our economic officers in the Philippines helped Jarden Zinc win a $21 million raw materials contract that will create and preserve jobs throughout Senator Corker's home state of Tennessee.
Fifth and finally, this budget funds the people and platforms that make possible everything I have described. It allows us to sustain diplomatic relations with 190 countries. It funds political officers who are working to diffuse crises and promote our values, development officers spreading opportunity and stability, economic officers who wake up every day thinking about how to put Americans back to work.
Several of you have asked the Department about the safety of your constituents in the Middle East. Well, this budget also helps fund the consular officers who evacuated over 2,600 Americans from Egypt and Libya, and nearly 17,000 from Haiti. They issued 14 million passports last year and served as our first line of defense against would-be terrorists seeking visas to enter our country.
I'd like to say just a few words about our funding for the rest of 2011. As I have told Speaker Boehner and Chairman Rogers and many others, the 16 percent cut for State and USAID that passed the House last month would be devastating to our national security. It would force us to scale back dramatically on critical missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. As Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen, and General Petraeus have all emphasized to the Congress time and again, we need a fully engaged and fully funded national security team, including State and USAID.
Now there have always been moments of temptation in our country to resist obligations beyond our borders, but each time we have shrunk from global leadership, events have summoned us back to reality. We saved money in the short term when we walked away from Afghanistan after the Cold War, but those savings came at an unspeakable cost, one we are still paying 10 years later in money and lives.
Generations of Americans have grown up successful and safe because we chose to lead the world in tackling its greatest challenges. We're the ones who invested the resources to build up democratic allies and vibrant trading partners in every region. We did not shy away from defending our values, promoting our interests, and seizing the opportunities of each new era.
I believe, as I have traveled around the world – and I am now the most traveled Secretary of State in history – the world has never been in greater need of the qualities that distinguish us as Americans – our openness and innovation, our determination, our devotion to universal values. Everywhere I travel, I see people looking to us for leadership. This is a source of strength, a point of pride, and a great opportunity for the American people. But it is an achievement, not a birthright. It requires resolve and it requires resources. So I look forward to working closely together with all of you to do what is necessary to keep our country safe and maintain American leadership in a very fast-changing world.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.


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Architecture for Humanity is a nonprofit design services firm founded in 1999. We are building a more sustainable future through the power of professional design.
By tapping a network of more than 50,000 professionals willing to lend time and expertise to help those who would not otherwise be able to afford their services, we bring design, construction and development services where they are most critically needed.
Each year 100,000 people directly benefit from structures designed by Architecture for Humanity. Our advocacy, training and outreach programs impact an additional 60,000 people annually. We channel the resources of the global funding community to meaningful projects that make a difference locally. From conception to completion, we manage all aspects of the design and construction process. Our clients include community groups, aid organizations, housing developers, government agencies, corporate divisions, and foundations.
Design is important to every aspect of our lives. It informs the places in which we live, work, learn, heal and gather. We engage all stakeholders in the design process. We believe our clients are designers in their own right.
Thoughtful, inclusive design creates lasting change in communities by:
Architecture for Humanity is a catalyst for innovation. To foster knowledge sharing and promote best practices, we developed the Open Architecture Network and after five years have merged it with the Worldchanging platform (www.openarchitecturenetwork.org). This groundbreaking online network empowers architects, designers, builders and their clients to share every aspect of their projects and process in an open-source community. Drawings, documents, hi-res images, slideshows and more can be freely downloaded and shared by all.
Design is the ultimate renewable resource. Join us in building safer, more sustainable and more innovative structures—structures that are assets to their communities and an ongoing testament to the ability of people to come together to envision a better future.


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You won't find bits of date in the bread. The dried dates are pureed and used as natural sweetener.
You won't find any siliver coin or ring inside neither. (Some cultures hide a valuable item inside food as a celebration to a festival)
What inside is really special to me ... licorice nuances with hints of clove and citrus (from clementine's zest). None of the scent is striking, just lingering nicely on the palate. The texture is meant to be dense, that's why I used whole wheat flour all the way. Cut a thin slice, it's served good with swiss cheese.
May the new year enrich your life!
Although whole wheat flour yields a denser bread than that from a mixture of whole wheat and normal flour, if we knead the dough a bit more, and let it rise a longer time (which also results a more profund flavor), both will help the crumb turn out nicer.Fennel, spice, walnut-n-date wheat loaf
(yield one 12 x 16cm loaf)
- 1/4 cup boiling water
- 5 dates, stoned, finely diced
- 5.5 g dry yeast
- 370 g whole wheat flour
- 170 ml whole milk, lukewarm (prepare a little more as whole wheat absorbs well)
- 1 Tbp butter, soft
- 1/2 tsp raw brown sugar (I added extra sugar as the dates I used not very sweet)
- a pinch of salt
- 1 tsp fennel seeds
- 2 whole cloves, ground
- zest from 2 clementine
- nuts from 5 walnuts, shelled, finely chopped
- Soak the dried dates in the boiling water for 5 minutes, puree.
- Combine the flour, the date liquid, the yeast, milk, butter, raw brown sugar, salt, fennel seeds, ground cloves and clementine's zest, form a very moist dough, cover and rest for 10 minutes so give time for the flour to absorb the liquid.
- Knead the dough until it's smooth. It won't feel very elastic like a dough with normal flour, and it won't be that easy to knead. Just give it extra time in kneading, it will soften finally. Grease a bowl, place the dough inside, cover with plastic film, let it rise overnight (or 12 hours) in the lowest shelf of the fridge.
- Next day, in room temperature, add the chopped walnut to the dough, knead it again, probably you need to knead 20 minutes in order to turn the dough soft again. Shape it to a loaf. To create the two-tone crust, cut out two long strips from a piece of foil, lay them on the dough, tuck the ends under the dough. Place the dough into a 11 x 15cm pre-grease pan, cover with moist towel, let it rise in room temperature of 25 - 27 C for an hour, or until the dough looks very puffy.
- Pre-heat the oven to 170C (mine has a turbo function, adjust yours accordingly). Brush milk on the top of the dough, bake it for 25 minutes, loosely cover with a piece of foil if the bread browns too quick. Tap the base if it sounds hollow, the bread is done then.
- Remove the alum strips. After cool off, cut the loaf to thin slices, top with good quality swiss cheese. The wheat bread stores well in fridge 3 days. If you think you won't finish the bread by then, I advise you to freeze it (cut into smaller portions first so you just thaw what you need).
---------------------------------------- Happy New Year -------------------------------------------


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What Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Children's Heart Center Is Known for
Unifocalization: Repairing a Fourfold Defect All at Once
A small number of newborns suffer from a complex and potentially fatal congenital defect known as tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia and major aorto-pulmonary collaterals. In infants with this defect, the blood vessels that should connect the heart to the lungs instead connect the lungs to the aorta, and the heart itself has a hole in the wall separating its lower chambers (ventricles). Use our interactive 3-D animation to learn more about the heart and unifocalization.
In the past, surgeons could repair this complex and life-threatening defect only with several separate surgeries, each of which required the chest to be opened and the heart stopped. Unifocalization - developed and pioneered by Children's Heart Center Director Frank L. Hanley, M.D. - repairs the complete defect with only one surgery, in the majority of patients.
In unifocalization, the misdirected blood vessels are rerouted into a single vessel (or into the pulmonary artery if it is present), which is then attached to the right ventricle of the heart through a conduit called a homograft. This restores normal circulation from lungs to heart. Next, the hole in the ventricle wall is repaired.
Because unifocalization is complex, the procedure takes six to 10 hours, and is followed by hospitalization of up to 14 days.
The benefits of unifocalization to the patient are significant. The procedure decreases overall hospital time for the child, and it reduces the number of major surgeries, anesthesias, and incisions, sparing the child additional pain and trauma. In addition, this procedure makes it more likely that the heart can be repaired before the child's condition worsens and makes surgery either more difficult or, worst of all, impossible.
Complex Repairs in Premature and Very Small Infants
Premature newborns with both congenital heart disease and very low (less than 1,500 grams, or 3 pounds 4 ounces) or extremely low birth weight (less than 1,000 grams, or 2 pounds 3 ounces) pose a particularly difficult challenge because of their small size and immaturity. Conventional wisdom holds that it is better to wait for the child to develop further before undertaking heart repair. However, waiting entails serious risks, because the heart defect leaves the child highly vulnerable to potentially fatal complications such as infection or lung disease.
Since fixing the defect as soon as possible gives the infant the best chance of living normally, the Children's Heart Center has developed techniques that allow congenital heart surgery even in extraordinarily small newborns, including successful repair in the smallest, youngest infant known. As a result of this experience, the Children's Heart Center is among the world leaders in this demanding specialty.
Heart Transplant
The Children's Heart Center is one of the leading heart and heart-lung transplantation programs in the world and the only program in Northern California. To learn more about this treatment option, visit the heart transplant program's page and our Health Library.
Innovative Research Programs
The Children's Heart Center is actively involved in exploring new approaches to the surgical repair of pediatric heart disease and developing evidence-based guidelines for clinical care. Current efforts focus on three areas:
- Repairing the unborn heart. A Children's Heart Center research team is investigating ways of diagnosing heart rhythm problems while the fetus is still in the womb and performing corrective surgeries before birth. The Center is the world's leading site for research in this area, spearheaded by Frank Hanley, MD.
- Seeing the heart in depth. The Children's Heart Center also leads the nation in the use of electronic beam three-dimensional CT (computerized tomography) scanners, which provide highly accurate images of the heart and major vessels. These images give surgeons a detailed view of the patient's condition and allow thorough planning of the procedure in advance.
- Robots and surgery at a distance. Using a voice-activated robot equipped with a tiny fiber-optic camera that projects images on a computer screen, the surgeon can go directly to the problem area without stretching heart tissues or distorting delicate structures. Since robot surgery uses only three small incisions — one for the camera and two for surgical instruments — this approach minimizes pain and trauma. It also raises the possibility of surgery at a distance, in which a physician on a computer at the Children's Heart Center performs a procedure on a child miles away in an operating room in his or her home community.


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CHARLOTTE, NC, April 15, 2014 – Joerns Healthcare, a company controlled by Charlottesville, Virginia-based investment firm Quad-C Management and RecoverCare, a company controlled by Los Angeles, California-based investment firm Aurora Capital, today jointly announced they have signed a definitive agreement to combine the two companies in a merger-of-equals transaction. The merger will create one of the leading healthcare equipment providers across the continuum of care, offering providers a full suite of products and services through one of the most comprehensive distribution networks in the nation. It is anticipated that the transaction will close during the second quarter of 2014.
About Joerns Healthcare
Joerns is a leading manufacturer and rental provider of Bed Systems, Therapeutic Support Surfaces, Safe Patient Handling Equipment, and Wound Management Services to the Post-Acute healthcare market; aligned with top skilled nursing providers and the Veterans Affairs Health Administration. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina with operations across North America and Europe, Joerns delivers solutions by leveraging its global supply chain and national service network. For more information, visit its website at www.joerns.com.
About RecoverCare, LLC
RecoverCare is a leading distributor of Therapeutic Support Surfaces, Bariatric, Wound Care, and Safe Patient Handling equipment and solutions across the entire continuum of care, including acute care hospitals, long term acute care hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, rehabilitation facilities, and hospice facilities. RecoverCare has the industry's largest service footprint with over 100 centers nationwide, supported by more than 400 delivery vehicles using state-of-the-art equipment tracking systems. With a commitment to service excellence, our clinical and support teams are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. For more information, visit its website at www.recovercare.com.
About Aurora Capital
Aurora Capital Group is a Los Angeles-based investment firm formed in 1991 that acquires and builds companies in partnership with operating management. The Firm currently manages approximately $2 billion in capital and is committed to investing in companies with unique, defensible market positions. Aurora is dedicated to generating long-term value principally through investing the time and resources necessary to enhance the fundamentals of each of its businesses. For more information, visit its website at www.auroracap.com.
About Quad-C Management
Founded in 1989 and headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia, Quad-C Management is a middle market private equity firm focused on investing in well-established business services, consumer, general industrial, healthcare, specialty distribution and transportation/logistics companies. In its 25-year history, Quad-C has invested over $2 billion of equity across more than 50 companies. The Quad-C team is committed to partnering with entrepreneurs and management teams to accelerate growth and create long-term value. For more information, visit its website at www.quadcmanagement.com.


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The revelation that $165 million in bonuses have been paid by AIG, a giant insurance company bailed out with roughly $170 billion of taxpayers' money after it came close to collapse last year, has turned into a political drama for Barack Obama. The latest payments are in addition to $55 million paid out in bonuses in December. It is one that may constrain his ability to obtain future funds from Congress should money be needed for more bail-outs.
Mr. Obama has been forced into the embarrassing position of instructing his treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, to see if there are any legal ways to claw back the money. Since it seems unlikely that there is (contracts being contracts), this protest will merely serve to highlight his impotence. Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister, knows all about that; a similar eruption of fury followed news that the man who presided over the collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland, Sir Fred Goodwin, was walking away with a pension worth over £700,000 ($986,000) a year. Mr. Brown and various of his ministers threatened all sorts of retribution, but there has been none. They even had to resort to hoping that Sir Fred would feel honour-bound to return the money. He has not.
Various options remain open to Mr. Obama, none of them good. He could try to invoke some form of executive power to break the contracts; but that would tie him in impossible legal knots, and it would not make sense in political terms as Republicans would be sure to attack this even more loudly than they denounced the original bonuses. And if such a thing did turn out to be possible, it raises the obvious question of why it was not done earlier, while vast sums of public money were being pushed in AIG's direction.
Instead, Mr. Obama may seek to recoup the money, on behalf of taxpayers, by withholding an equivalent amount from the next tranche of bail-out money, some $30 billion, due to be paid to AIG. "White House aides" have told the Washington Post that this is being considered.
A moment's thought, though, should show how foolish that would be. The bonuses would still remain in the pockets of the employees whose failures, so the public believes, deserve censure, not reward. AIG itself would get less; but that would send the rather odd signal that the government had been prepared to give the company more than it really needed; the point of bailing out private companies with public money, surely, is that it is in the vital public interest to do it, not that it is a matter of discretion.
Alternatively, Mr. Obama can simply ventilate a bit, as he has done; but actually do nothing. The danger here is that by seeming to have been taken for a ride by AIG's spendthrifts, he will weaken his position with Congress. Getting money from Congress has not been easy, either for Mr. Obama or for George Bush. Mr. Obama's stimulus package only went through with a wafer-thin majority; both rounds of TARP funding for the banks have been extremely difficult to procure (the first tranche of TARP was turned down by Congress, initially).
Mr. Obama may have to go back either for a second stimulus package, as is constantly being rumoured, though the whispers are firmly denied by the White House, or for a third round of the TARP. If so, he could face not just angry Republicans, who are opposed to bail-outs, but Democratic ones infuriated by the thought of Wall Streeters being paid bonuses while ordinary Americans are losing their jobs and homes. Christopher Dodd, a senior Democratic senator and the chairman of the Senate's Banking Committee, for example, has already spoken to the administration of an "unprecedented level of outrage".
The intricacies of restructuring assets and saving banks can be hard even for the experts to understand. But everyone can grasp that using taxpayers' money to pay a large bonus, or a fat pension, to bankers who have crashed their banks is a hard sell during a recession.


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"Serve with the Spirit," Liahona, Nov. 2010, 59–62
Serve with the Spirit
Let us do whatever is required to qualify for the Holy Ghost as our companion.
I am grateful for this opportunity to be one with you, honored by God to hold the priesthood. We have been called to use divine power to serve the children of our Heavenly Father. How well we meet that obligation will have eternal consequences for those we are called to serve and for us and for generations yet unborn.
I hold in sacred memory two priesthood bearers who had qualified for the Spirit of God to go with them on the errand to which the Lord called them. They had found the restored gospel themselves in America. They were the Lord's servants who first spoke of that gospel to two of my European ancestors.
One of those ancestors was a young girl living on a small farm in Switzerland. Another was a young man, an orphan and an immigrant to the United States from Germany, living in St. Louis, Missouri.
Both of them heard a priesthood holder testify of the restored gospel—for the girl by the fireplace of her little home in Switzerland, and for the boy it was sitting in the balcony of a rented hall in America. Both of them knew by the Spirit that the message those elders brought to them was true.
The boy and the girl chose to be baptized. The two of them met for the first time on the dusty trail years later, walking hundreds of miles to the mountains of western America. They talked as they walked. What they talked about was the miraculous blessing that in all the world, the servants of God had found them and even more miraculous, that they knew their message was true.
They fell in love and were married. And because of a testimony of the Spirit, which began as they heard the words of priesthood holders under the influence of the Holy Ghost, they were sealed for eternity by priesthood power. I am among the tens of thousands of descendants of that boy and that girl who bless the names of two priesthood holders who brought the ministrations of the Spirit of God with them as they climbed the hill in Switzerland and rose to speak in that meeting in St. Louis.
That happy story and millions more like it are repeated across the world and will be over generations. For some it will be the story of a young home teacher who said words that sparked a desire in your grandfather to come back to the Church. For some it will be the words of comfort and blessing from a patriarch that sustained your mother when tragedy nearly overwhelmed her.
There will be a common theme in all those stories. It will be the power of the priesthood in a holder whose power to serve was magnified by the Holy Ghost.
And so my message for us tonight is this: let us do whatever is required to qualify for the Holy Ghost as our companion, and then let us go forward fearlessly so that we will be given the powers to do whatever the Lord calls us to do. That growth in power to serve may come slowly, it may come in small steps that are difficult for you to see, but it will come.
Tonight I will make a few suggestions for the qualification of receiving the Holy Ghost as a companion in your priesthood service. Then I will give a few examples of priesthood service in which you can expect to see your powers to serve strengthened by the influence of the Spirit.
Now, we all know that confirmation into the Church gave us the gift of the Holy Ghost. But the companionship of the Holy Ghost, the manifestations of it in our life and service, requires us to put our lives in order to qualify.
We cultivate spiritual gifts by keeping the commandments and trying to live a blameless life. That requires faith in Jesus Christ to repent and be cleansed through His Atonement. So as priesthood holders we should never miss an opportunity to participate with all our hearts in the promise offered in every sacrament meeting for members of the restored Church to "take upon them the name of [God's] Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them; that they may always have his Spirit to be with them."1
Just as we must be cleansed of sin to have the Spirit with us, we must be humble enough before God to recognize our need for it. The disciples of the resurrected Savior demonstrated that humility, as recorded in the Book of Mormon.
The Savior was preparing them for their ministry. They knelt on the ground to pray. Here is the account: "And they did pray for that which they most desired; and they desired that the Holy Ghost should be given unto them."2 They were baptized as you have been. And the record says that in answer to their pleading, they were filled with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
The Savior prayed aloud to thank His Father for giving the Holy Ghost to those He had chosen because of their belief in Him. And then the Savior prayed for a spiritual blessing for those they were serving. The Lord pled with His Father: "I pray thee that thou wilt give the Holy Ghost unto all them that shall believe in their words."3
As the humble servants of the Savior, we should pray for the manifestations of the Holy Ghost to come to us in our service and to those we serve. Humble prayer to our Heavenly Father, in deep faith in Jesus Christ, is essential to qualify us for the companionship of the Holy Ghost.
Our humility and our faith that invite spiritual gifts are increased by our reading, studying, and pondering the scriptures. We have all heard those words. Yet we may read a few lines or pages of scripture every day and hope that will be enough.
But reading, studying, and pondering are not the same. We read words and we may get ideas. We study and we may discover patterns and connections in scripture. But when we ponder, we invite revelation by the Spirit. Pondering, to me, is the thinking and the praying I do after reading and studying in the scriptures carefully.
For me, President Joseph F. Smith set an example of how pondering can invite light from God. It is recorded in the 138th section of the Doctrine and Covenants. He had been reading and studying many scriptures, trying to understand how the effects of the Savior's Atonement would reach those who had died never having heard His message. Here is his account of how revelation came: "As I pondered over these things which are written, the eyes of my understanding were opened, and the Spirit of the Lord rested upon me, and I saw the hosts of the dead, both small and great."4
Repentance, prayer, and pondering over the scriptures are essential parts of our qualifying for the gifts of the Spirit in our priesthood service. Further magnification of our power to serve will come as we respond with faith to go forward in our callings with the Holy Ghost to help us.
President Thomas S. Monson put it this way for us: "What does it mean to magnify [your] calling? It means to build it up in dignity … , to enlarge and strengthen it to let the light of heaven shine through it to the view of other men. And how does one magnify a calling? Simply by performing the service that pertains to it."5
I will suggest two services to which we are all called. In carrying them out under the influence of the Spirit, you and others will see your power to serve, strengthen, and magnify.
The first is as His agent to teach and testify to others for Him. The Lord included the youngest and the least experienced of the Aaronic Priesthood holders in that call to serve. After describing the duties of the Aaronic Priesthood holders, He said:
"But neither teachers nor deacons have authority to baptize, administer the sacrament, or lay on hands;
"They are, however, to warn, expound, exhort, and teach, and invite all to come unto Christ."6
Somewhere in the world this week there will be a deacon asked by his quorum president to invite a member of their quorum whom he has never seen to a meeting. The 13-year-old president is not likely to use the words "warn, exhort, and teach," but that is what the Lord expects of the deacon assigned to go to the rescue.
To the deacon who receives the call to go to his quorum member, I will make three promises. First, as you pray for help, the Spirit will calm your fears. Second, you will be surprised that you know what to say when you get to his home and during the walk with him back to the church. What you say may seem jumbled to you. But you will feel that words were given to you at the moment you needed them. And third, you will feel the approval of the Lord, who called you through your president, whatever the outcome.
I cannot promise what success will come since every person is free to choose how he or she responds to a servant of God. But the deacon you speak to for the Lord will remember you came to him. I know of one boy, now a man still far away from Church activity, whom a deacon was sent to find, and he told his grandfather of that visit 20 years earlier. And it seemed to have no effect, and yet he even named the deacon who came. The grandfather asked me to find and thank the deacon who was called to invite, to exhort, and to teach. It had been only one day in the life of a boy, but a grandfather and the Lord remember the words the boy was inspired to speak and the boy's name.
I urge all of us, young and old, who are called to speak in a meeting in the name of the Lord to dismiss our feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy. We don't have to use soaring language or convey deep insights. Simple words of testimony will do. The Spirit will give you the words for you to speak and will carry them down into the hearts of humble people who look for truth from God. If we keep trying to speak for the Lord, we will be surprised someday to learn that we have warned, exhorted, taught, and invited with the help of the Spirit to bless lives, with power far beyond our own.
In addition to the call to teach, all of us will be sent by the Lord to succor those in need. That is another priesthood service in which we will feel the influence of the Spirit increase our power to serve. You will find yourself more able to recognize pain and worry in the faces of people. Names or the faces of people in your quorum will come into your mind with the impression that they are in need.
Bishops have that feeling come to them during the night and each time they sit on the stand looking at the members of their ward or thinking of those who are not there. It can happen to them when they find themselves near a hospital or a care center. More than once I have heard the words when I walked in the door of a hospital: "I knew you would come."
We need not worry about knowing the right thing to say or do when we get there. The love of God and the Holy Spirit may be enough. When I was a young man I feared that I would not know what to do or to say to people in great need.
Once I was at the hospital bedside of my father as he seemed near death. I heard a commotion among the nurses in the hallway. Suddenly, President Spencer W. Kimball walked into the room and sat in a chair on the opposite side of the bed from me. I thought to myself, "Now here is my chance to watch and listen to a master at going to those in pain and suffering."
President Kimball said a few words of greeting, asked my father if he had received a priesthood blessing, and then, when Dad said that he had, the prophet sat back in his chair.
I waited for a demonstration of the comforting skills I felt I lacked and so much needed. After perhaps five minutes of watching the two of them simply smiling silently at each other, I saw President Kimball rise and say, "Henry, I think I'll go before we tire you."
I thought I had missed the lesson, but it came later. In a quiet moment with Dad after he recovered enough to go home, our conversation turned to the visit by President Kimball. Dad said quietly, "Of all the visits I had, that visit I had from him lifted my spirits the most."
President Kimball didn't speak many words of comfort, at least that I could hear, but he went with the Spirit of the Lord as his companion to give the comfort. I realize now that he was demonstrating the lesson President Monson taught: "How does one magnify a calling? Simply by performing the service that pertains to it."
That is true whether we are called to teach the gospel by the Spirit or go with the Holy Ghost to those with feeble knees and hands that hang down.7 Our priesthood service will be strengthened, people will be blessed, and the light of heaven will be there. The light of heaven will be there for us as well as for those we serve. We may be tired. Our own and our family's troubles may loom large. But there is a blessing of encouragement for those who serve under the influence of the Spirit.
President George Q. Cannon had more than his fair share of sorrow, opposition, and trials in his years of priesthood service. He also had experience with the Holy Ghost as his companion in difficult times and hard service. This is the assurance to us in our priesthood service, in the Church and in our families. For me the promise has been true when I have felt the Spirit in my priesthood service. "Whenever darkness fills our minds, we may know that we are not possessed of the Spirit of God. … When we are filled with the Spirit of God we are filled with joy, with peace, and with happiness, no matter what our circumstances may be; for it is a spirit of cheerfulness and of happiness. The Lord has given unto us the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is our privilege to have that Holy Ghost reign within us, so that from morning till night and from night till morning we shall have the joy, the light and the revelation thereof."8
We can watch for that blessing of happiness and joy to come when we need it during the difficult times in our faithful priesthood service.
I testify that we are called of God by prophecy. This is the true Church of Jesus Christ, restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. God lives and hears our every prayer. Jesus is the resurrected Christ and our Savior. You can know these things are true by the power of the Holy Ghost, which will come to you in your service. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.


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To make: use 3 ounces each of two plant butters of your choice, 1 ounce of coconut oil, 3 ounces of infused oil, and a half ounce of beeswax. Combine above ingredients in a double boiler and gently warm until everything is fully incorporated. Remove from heat and allow to cool until consistency starts to harden. At this point take a hand blender and whip until fluffy. Store in glass jars.
Spring holds within it the essence of new growth, unlimited possibilities, and a carefree wild spirit. My hope is for us all to embrace this child-like wonderment and frolic through the forest and fields, basket in hand, gleefully and lovingly playing with our plant friends.


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Many well–known Mexican icons—including sombreros, rodeos, the Mexican Hat Dance and mariachi music—originated in culture–rich Jalisco. It's also the birthplace of tequila. The state is the second largest urban area in Mexico. It has grown to encompass several smaller municipalities, including the traditional Tlaquepaque, the affluent Zapopán and the colonial towns of Tonalá and El Salto. Guadalajara is home to some of Mexico's finest universities, such as Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, Universidad de Guadalajara and ITESM Guadalajara.
Early History
Nomadic tribes moved through Jalisco 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, as testified by the bones, projectile points and small tools they left behind. There is some evidence that they were passing from the north to the south, following large game such as mastodons and mammoths. Later, simple settlements began to emerge on lakeshores and along rivers. In the neighboring state of Michoacan, the archaeological site of El Opeño has yielded ceramic figures that are 3,500 years old, and similar artifacts have been discovered in Jalisco.
The earliest pre-Hispanic city in Jalisco is Ixtépete, whose structures include tombs and pyramid platforms. This city reached its zenith between the 7th and 10th centuries A.D.; the reasons for its decline are unknown.
From the 10th to the 16th centuries, many nomadic tribes hunted game in Jalisco's central valley. The Cuyuteco Indians lived near the present-day towns of Cuyutlán and Mixtlán, and the Coca occupied the vicinity of Guadalajara. The region extending from Guadalajara northeast to Lagos de Moreno was home to the Tecuexes. The Guamare lived along what is now Jalisco's eastern border with Guanajuato, while the Caxcane populated the northern part of the state.
Middle History
Spanish explorers began to arrive in Jalisco soon after the conquistador Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City) in 1521. The first was Cristóbal de Olid, commissioned by Cortés to search the northwest territory of Mexico for precious minerals in 1522. Seven years later, Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán followed a similar route with a force of 300 Spaniards and 6,000 indigenous warriors. Guzmán was known for his brutal treatment of Mexico's native people, and his atrocities in Jalisco created such outrage that a large number of Indians began the Mixtón Rebellion in 1541, laying siege to the recently founded Spanish town of Guadalajara. The rebellion was put down only with the aid of thousands of additional forces supplied by Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza.
Despite the violence Guzmán brought to Jalisco, he did make a lasting contribution to the region by ordering his chief lieutentant, Juan de Oñate, to establish La Villa de Guadalajara in 1531. The first location was in the modern state of Zacatecas, north of Jalisco, but repeated attacks by the Caxcane forced the settlement to relocate several times. Finally, on February 14, 1542, the city of Guadalajara was founded at its current site.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, Guadalajara increased its wealth and influence by importing goods from the Pacific coast and distributing them to the rest of Mexico. The region also achieved greater stability by negotiating peaceful settlements with the indigenous tribes.
Mexico's political future changed dramatically on September 16, 1810, when a priest named Miguel Hidalgo launched a movement for independence from Spain. Rebel forces in Jalisco quickly took up the cause, defeating the loyalist militia at Zacoalco on November 4 and opening the way for Hidalgo's new army to take the city of Guadalajara a few weeks later. Royalist forces under General Félix María Calleja del Rey soon responded, marching toward Guadalajara and engaging Hidalgo's troops east of the city on January 17, 1811. Although the rebel force outnumbered the loyalists, Calleja del Rey's artillery happened to strike Hidalgo's ammunition supply, starting a grass fire and panicking the rebels. Hidalgo lost the battle, was captured two months later and was executed on July 30.
Jalisco was the site of additional conflict as the war for independence continued, especially around Lake Chapala in 1812, but it was no longer at the center of events. Key leaders were captured, killed or granted amnesty, and a major earthquake in 1817 added to the general disorder. Nevertheless, the movement for independence eventually succeeded, with Spain signing the Plan of Iguala in 1821. On June 2, 1823, the Free State of Jalisco joined with the other states to form the Mexican republic.
Recent History
Like the rest of the country, Jalisco experienced frequent turmoil throughout much of the 19th century. Between 1825 and 1885 the state had to contend with 27 rebellions, mostly from indigenous tribes. In the 1850s, the struggle between Mexico's liberals and conservatives moved into Jalisco, causing the government to change hands 18 times between 1855 and 1864. Meanwhile, the French invaded the country in 1862, and several battles were fought in Jalisco. The French occupied Mexico City from 1863 until 1867.
The state of Jalisco became a battleground again during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. At first, Jalisco's local militias, which were loyal to President Porfirio Díaz, overpowered the revolutionaries. By 1911, however, Díaz had fled the country to live in France, and the revolutionaries began to battle among themselves. Venustiano Carranza, representing the Constitutionalists, became president and appointed Manuel Diéguez to be governor of Jalisco. In 1914 Carranza's adversary, Francisco "Pancho" Villa, entered Jalisco and began attracting the peasants to his cause. In December, he arrived in Guadalajara and forced the city's richest citizens to give him a 'loan,' which he immediately distributed to the poor. Although this exploit contributed to his popularity, Villa was soon driven from the city, which returned to the control of the Constitutionalists.
The new constitution of 1917 placed political and economic restrictions on the Roman Catholic Church in response to claims that the church had abused its power. These restrictions increased friction between the church and the government, but the issue became critical only after President Plutarco Elías Calles began rigorously enforcing the requirements and adding new ones in the 1920s. In 1926, supporters of the church launched the Cristero War against the Calles government. In Jalisco, the town of Los Altos and the "Three Fingers" border region became combat zones in the war. Although the conflict formally ended in 1929, occasional violent outbreaks continued into the 1930s. Partly as a result of this conflict, the state government changed hands 10 times between 1926 and 1932.
Political turmoil and power exchanges continued for over a decade, ending with the establishment of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (Institutional Revolutionary Party), which ushered in a period of stability for Mexico City and the rest of the country that lasted until 2000.
Jalisco Today
Today, Jalisco has the third-richest economy in the Mexican Republic. Over 30 of Mexico's largest companies are based in the state, which ranks first in agribusiness, computers and jewelry manufacturing. Chief agricultural products include peanuts and agave (used for distilling tequila). The state manufactures 60 percent of all computers produced in Mexico, and Guadalajara is the country's main software producer.
Guadalajara hosts an annual May Cultural Festival, featuring musical concerts, theatrical performances, art exhibits and games. Each September brings the International Mariachi Encounter, which draws mariachi bands and their fans from all over the world.
Jalisco's diversity, beautiful landscapes and cultural traditions make it one of Mexico's most popular tourist destinations. The state has introduced the world to the traditions of mariachis, tequila, the Ballet Folklórico, the Mexican Hat Dance, charros and sombreros.
Facts & Figures
- Capital: Guadalajara
- Major Cities (population): Guadalajara (1,600,940) Zapopan (1,155,790) Tlaquepaque (563,066) Tonalá (408,729) Puerto Vallarta (220,630)
- Size/Area: 30,538 square miles
- Population: 6,752,113 (2005 Census)
- Year of statehood: 1823
Fun Facts
- In 1542, Spain's King Carlos V formally named the city of Guadalajara and granted it a coat of arms. The state of Jalisco used the same design until 1989, when small modifications were made to distinguish Jalisco's coat of arms from Guadalajara's. At the top of the design, a silver helmet supports a red pennant displaying a yellow Jerusalem Cross. The main shield portrays two lions beside a tree, recalling the bear and tree that adorn Madrid's coat of arms. The shield's gold border contains seven red crosses.
- Jalisco gave birth to Mariachi music, charreadas (Mexican rodeos), the Mexican Hat Dance, tequila and the wide-brimmed sombrero.
- The town of Tequila was the site of the state's first tequila factory, established in 1600. Tequila, made from the juice of the blue agave cactus, is Jalisco's best known product. There are five tequila categories: plata (silver), clear tequila bottled immediately after it is distilled; oro (gold), silver tequila with added color and flavorings; reposado (rested), tequila aged in wooden containers for two to twelve months; añejo (aged), tequila aged for one to three years; and extra añejo (extra aged), tequila aged at least three years.
- Lake Chapala in southeastern Jalisco is Mexico's largest lake, occupying about 1,112 square kilometers (430 square miles). The lake provides critical habitat for several species of migratory birds, including the white pelican.
- The city of Guadalajara suffers a major earthquake about once every 80 years.
- In 2011, Guadalajara will host the Pan American Games, drawing athletes from 42 countries to participate in 28 sporting events.
- Las Chivas de Guadalajara, one of Mexico's most popular soccer teams, is based in Jalisco. Only Mexican players are permitted on the team, and many of them then go on to play for the national team. Las Chivas now has a sister team, Chivas USA, that plays in Los Angeles, California.
- The people of Jalisco customarily drop the first letters of Mamá and Papá, calling their parents Amá and Apá.
- The popular tourist destination of Puerto Vallarta features a rare combination of mountain rainforest alongside picturesque white beaches.
- Well-known Jalisco natives include muralist Jose Clemente Orozco, guitarist Carlos Santana, Academy Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro and golfer Lorena Ochoa, ranked number one in the LPGA in 2007.
Pueblo Tequila
The city of Pueblo Tequila, situated at the foot of Volcán de Tequila, enjoys warm weather and rain throughout the summer and autumn. The town's history is closely connected to the drink that carries its name. Tourists can visit the many distilleries here to observe the process involved in making tequila. Since pre-Hispanic times, alcohol distilled from cactus plants has been called mezcal. In the late 19th century, the name tequila was applied to mezcal produced the blue agave cactus, which grows throughout Jalisco.
Tourists to the area can take guided horseback rides along remote trails, through the sugar cane and agave fields and up into high mountain forests.
Beaches and Lakes
Puerto Vallarta, the state's best-known resort, offers many outdoor activities, such as sport fishing, rock climbing and mountain biking. Jalisco's Pacific coast is also home to many smaller beach resorts such as Cuastecomates, La Manzanilla, Tenacatita, Boca de Iguanas, Playa Tecuán and Barra de Navidad.
Lake Chapala, the largest expanse of inland water in Mexico, is situated about 55 kilometers (34 miles) southeast of Guadalajara. The greater part of the lake lies in Jalisco, with the southeastern portion in Michoacán. Carp, catfish and whitefish abound in the lake.
The mountain range Sierra Madre Occidental stretches all the way from Jalisco to the U.S. border. Locally, the range includes Los Huicholes, Los Guajalotes, the San Isidro Mountains, El Gordo Hill and the Tequila volcano. Jalisco residents enjoy weekend trips to San Isidro, where they can take in beautiful views of the mountain range.
The Sierra de Manantlán Biosphere Reserve is nestled between the states of Jalisco and Colima. The reserve, which protects the Jalisco dry forests, shelters over 2,700 species of plants (40 percent of all plants native to Mexico) and about 560 animals. The biosphere is one of the most ecologically diverse areas in North America.


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Tom Konrad CFA
Last week, when Lime Energy (NASD:LIME) announced that an internal investigation by its audit committee had revealed up to $15 million in misreported revenue, my first instinct was to sell, especially because the misreported revenue included not only revenue assigned to the wrong period, but possibly completely fictitious revenue.
Whenever a company reveals accounting problems, it's bad. But there are levels of bad. As Garvin Jabusch, Cofounder and CIO of Green Alpha Advisors and manager of the Sierra Club Green Alpha Portfolio put it,
"The revelation that the company may have recorded "non-existent revenue" is a major concern. Somewhat less concerning is "Revenue being reported earlier than it should have been," which is a violation of the matching principle, and is a relatively easy mistake to make and can be readily forgiven if properly restated. But the term "non-existent revenue" is a major red flag… There are only a couple of reasons phantom revenue could get booked, and most firms have controls in place to make sure that sources of revenue are verified before they're booked. So at the very least, we can say that there are material weaknesses in LIME's internal controls. At worst, some relatively senior person may have misinformed the accounting team. "
The stock had closed (after a suspicious day-end decline) at $2.03 the day before, so I put in limit orders to sell my entire position at $1.75 when the market opened. LIME opened at $0.83, which I found shocking because the announcement also said, "[The company] currently believe[s] that the cumulative adjustment to revenue for the affected financial statements will not exceed $15 million."
I took this statement as an extremely positive sign. When there are known accounting irregularities, usually all bets are off, and executives know that shareholder lawsuits are going to follow in short order (at least eleven such lawsuits have already been filed.) For company and executives and the board, the risks of making a statement like "adjustment to revenue… will not exceed $15 million" are large, and one sided. If they are wrong about the $15 million, there are guaranteed to be additional lawsuits, and, unlike the original accounting problems, they will not be able to say "we had no idea there was anything untoward going on." So Lime's board is confident that the scope of the accounting problems is limited, and does not affect the entire company's books.
Since the $15 million in question is small (Lime's revenues over the two and a quarter year period were $233 million,) the board audit committee is saying that the problem is isolated to a small part of the company, possibly a single, lower level employee. This is still bad for management, and particularly the CFO, Jeffry Mistarz, who should have had a system in place to verify all sales. But it should not put the existence of company at risk, which is why I think the current $0.90 price of the stock is way too low, and why I wrote that any price below $1.25 not only conservatively values the stock, but leaves an ample safety margin to account for the current uncertainty.
To add further evidence that the accounting problems were very limited in scope, senior management and board members were all acquiring the stock, often in large quantities, for the entire period that the accounting problems were taking place. Not only was Mistarz buying and holding on to all his incentive stock awards, but the former chairman of the board, David Asplund, whose departure from the board for "health reasons" in June raised the suspicions of some observers, also made purchases of the stock shortly before he left his job as CEO, and in March, shortly before his June departure as chairman. It seems unlikely to me that any of these share purchases would have been made if Mistarz or Asplund had been aware of the accounting problems.
Lime or Lemon? photo via Bigstock |
Making Limeade
In short, while it makes sense "to avoid corporate drama that involves unexpected resignations and unscheduled week-end board meetings," as Debra Fiakas put it, I disagree with Jabusch when he says, "until these accounting concerns are addressed – which for us means a thorough review by an auditor not previously associated with the firm and clear corrective measures of whatever the underlying problem turns out to be – we aren't interested at any price."
In my opinion, there is strong reason to believe that the accounting problems at Lime Energy are limited in scope, both because of the $15 million limit mentioned (6.4% of revenue over the relevant period in question), and because of the buying of stock by company insiders. Lime's audit committee will put out a full report on the accounting problems in when they have completed their review, quite possibly with the help of an independent auditor, as Jabusch suggests. If that report shows that the improper accounting was as limited in scope as I believe, the stock will rally strongly. If only half of the losses associated with the current uncertainty are recouped, investors who buy the stock at toady's $0.90 price, will see an immediate gain of 74%.
That gain needs to be compared to the downside risk that the accounting problems are pervasive, and the whole company is a Ponzi scheme, and Enron writ small. But Enron's CFO Andrew Fastow sold 687,445 Enron shares, worth $33.7 million in the three years leading up to the scandal. He wasn't buying, like Lime's Mistarz. Even if the problems are more pervasive that I think, the company should at least be able to be liquidated for something resembling its tangible book value of about $1 a share.
With the stock already below $0.90, even a liquidation should not result in catastrophic losses to investors buying now. Despite this, the current lack of information is forcing many professional money managers like Jabusch to stay away. Due to the higher standards of caution usually employed when managing client funds, Jabush says he has "no business exposing clients to companies where there is real, public possibility of accounting shenanigans," even though he "would consider buying LIME at this point for a personal account, being fully aware of the risks."
When there is more information out about what has been going on with Lime's books, the return of such cautious money has the potential to quickly boost the stock price.
Disclosure: Long LIME
DISCLAIMER: Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results. This article contains the current opinions of the author and such opinions are subject to change without notice. This article has been distributed for informational purposes only. Forecasts, estimates, and certain information contained herein should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed.