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DNS amplification, application-layer attacks drive DDoS attack trends
Data from Arbor Networks shows an increase in DNS amplification attacks and application-layer DDoS attacks.
New data on the state of distributed denial-of-service attacks indicates that not only are supersized DDoS attacks increasingly common, but also that sophisticated application-layer assaults now account for nearly a quarter of all DDoS attacks.
For its ninth annual Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report, Burlington, Mass.-based distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) mitigation vendor Arbor Networks Inc. surveyed 220 organizations from around the world on network security threats, specifically DDoS attacks, encountered during a 12-month period from November 2012 through October 2013. In addition to data from survey respondents, half of which were Internet service providers, the company also included data it monitored through its security appliances and internal researchers.
DDoS attacks unsurprisingly continue to rank among the top "operational threats" experienced by Arbor's respondents, with around two-thirds of them having witnessed a DDoS attack last year.
Though it's a slight drop from the just over three-quarters of organizations in its previous survey, "DDoS remains a key issue; therefore, it should be no surprise that nearly two-thirds of service provider respondents are seeing increased demand for DDoS detection/mitigation services from their customers," Arbor wrote in the report.
Volumetric attacks lead the way
For the last two years, the largest attacks reported to Arbor were in the 60 Gbps range. The size of volumetric attacks, those focused on consuming the bandwidth of a target network or service, increased dramatically; the largest reported DDoS attack peaked at 309 Gbps.
Several respondents experienced DDoS attacks that surpassed the 100 Gbps mark, and according to Gary Sockrider, solutions architect for Arbor and a co-author of the report, some of those organizations experienced multiple high-bandwidth DDoS events.
Arbor noted in the report that the customers of the respondents were the main targets of volumetric DDoS attacks, but Sockrider said the infrastructure of network and service providers is coming under greater duress, with 17% of these reported attacks hitting those targets, compared to 11% in the previous year.
"Because of those large-scale attacks, we saw a shift back to infrastructure taking a hit. And that really makes sense," Sockrider said. "The very nature of a large, volumetric attack [means] there are very few entities on the planet that have that much bandwidth, so by nature, if you're going to have an attack that big, it's going to affect the infrastructure providers and service providers because that's the only place you can even perpetrate that level of attack."
Sockrider said Arbor has been closely monitoring these large-scale attacks, with the largest verified attack it has seen clocking in at 245 Gbps. He said "copycats" have sought to mimic the high-profile attack on Spamhaus, a non-profit organization that combats Internet spam through blacklists.
Launched by rogue hosting firm Cyberbunker in March of 2013, the DDoS attack that targeted Spamhaus purportedly generated traffic in the 300 Gbps range and was believed to be responsible for a large-scale slowdown in Internet speeds across swaths of Europe.
To generate that bandwidth, Cyberbunker utilized a DNS amplification DDoS attack, which takes advantage of misconfigured domain name system (DNS) resolvers that allow queries without filtering or rate-throttling. Attackers spoof the victim's IP address and craft small DNS request messages that are sent to those misconfigured servers around the Internet. The end result is massive waves of traffic capable of knocking an Internet infrastructure offline.
Nearly 85% of those organizations highlighted in Arbor's report operate DNS servers on their network, and 36% of respondents actually experienced an impactful DNS-based DDoS attack. Despite the publicity surrounding the Spamhaus attacks, one-fifth of those respondents operating DNS servers, approximately the same as last year, still do not implement the best practice of restricting recursive lookups.
"I think that the increase in lack of internal organizations with specific responsibility for DNS infrastructure, [just over a quarter of respondents], is partly to blame," said Andrew Cockburn, a consulting engineer with Carrier Group North America and contributor to the report, in a blog post. "Without a targeted and holistic approach to security, such organizations have no way to connect the dots between their decisions to leave a resolver open, and the associated security risks."
Attackers focus on application layer
In contrast to volumetric DDoS attacks, application-layer DDoS attacks do not rely on huge amounts of bandwidth. Instead, DDoS attacks targeting layer 7 tend to rely on low traffic rates, but a high number of concurrent connections. By targeting the underlying application logic of Web servers, credential systems and others that can only handle a certain number of requests, attackers can bring down infrastructures in a stealthier manner.
Arbor found that 24% of organizations experienced application-layer attacks during the reporting period, and witnessed them across a number of different services. In particular, 82% of respondents said that HTTP was targeted, representing the most common application-layer attack vector. Additionally, 54% of those surveyed also incurred an application-layer against HTTPS-encrypted Web services, compared to 37% in last year's report, and only 24% the year before.
Sockrider said application-layer DDoS attacks are on the rise, in part, because organizations are not defending them properly. Traditional security appliances such as firewalls, intrusion prevention systems and load balancers, he said, are largely useless in such scenarios because application-layer attacks are "explicitly crafted to beat them."
Simultaneously, too many organizations "depend on their service providers" to mitigate DDoS attacks, according to Sockrider, because the only place to deal with the more visible volumetric attacks is upstream.
"While it is possible to defend against application-layer DDoS attacks in the network, it's going to be a whole lot harder to identify them at the network level," Sockrider said. "At the very least, you need some visibility on the internal network and closer to the resources so that you can then send that information about the nature of the attack upstream and have it dealt with there."


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Product Description
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subset: commoncrawl


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One of the many highlights of the fab PAB2011 experience was the wit, wisdom and warmth of Anthony Marco.
While we await publication of the PAB2011 sessions, please enjoy his thought-provoking and experiential jolt from PAB2010, A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures (a PAB2010 JOLT! by Anthony Marco).
More words, wisdom and wide, wide smiles thanks to Anthony, here.


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Read More On
In the Bible, Emmanuel is another name for Jesus, the Messiah. But don't let that go to your little boy's head. Emmanuel kind of fell to the wayside once Manny appeared, but has lately been making a bit of a comeback.
Manny, Mannie, Imani, Iman
Manuelo, Manuel, Manolo, Manolito, Mano, Emanuele, Manny, Mannie, Imani, Iman
Biblical, Exotic
Actor Emmanuel Lewis


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It's odd, and I'm old, but I don't ever recall seeing so many carmaker recalls.
Or, put another way: Has General Motors built any cars recently that don't need to be recalled?
On Tuesday, the new poster boy for bad engineering and poor quality control (seizing the crown from former champ, uh, chump, Toyota) issued still another recall, this one involving 2.42 million vehicles for four separate issues. That's on top of the 2.6 million vehicles GM has recalled for faulty ignition switches, bringing its grand total this year to -- wait for it -- 13.1 million vehicles.
Though there is a silver lining in GM's recall cloud: It has (bad) company. As my colleague David Undercoffler reported: "This latest round of recalls puts 2014 on track to be the busiest recall year ever. With nearly 23 million vehicles recalled, the auto industry is well on pace to beat the 30.8-million vehicles recalled in 2004."
Whoopee. So if the crazy guy texting and weaving in the lane next to you doesn't kill you, your own car just might. It's (almost) enough to make you want to take the train (though not the bus; never the bus). Could we actually, shudder, be headed toward a day when biking to work is better?
Sorry. Got a little feverish there. This is L.A., land of the freeway, home of the Bimmer. Not gonna happen.
But the details of the GM recall do give one pause. As Undercoffler wrote:
"The most serious issue involved 1,402 Cadillac Escalades and Escalade ESVs from the 2015 model year. The hulking luxury SUVs have front passenger airbags that were not properly attached to the instrument panel. As a result, they may only partially deploy in a crash.
"Demonstrating the gravity of the problem, GM sent letters, emailed, and called all 224 owners of the vehicles and warned them not to drive with people sitting in the front passenger seat until the vehicles can be fixed. No accidents or injuries have been reported as a result of this issue, GM said."
Now, I suppose the good news is that GM discovered the glitch before anyone got hurt. Then again, that raises the question of why GM couldn't, or didn't, discover the glitch before it was a glitch.
The damage this is doing to GM is dramatic. The recalls have forced the company to take a $400-million charge against second-quarter earnings. Which is a lot, but it could well be chicken feed compared with the long-term damage to GM's reputation among the car-buying public.
But as Toyota's experience shows, you can both build faulty cars and still sell lots of cars. In fact, over at iSeeCars.com., they've helpfully compiled a list of the least and most recalled car makes since 1985 (a shout-out to Forbes contributor Jim Gorzelany for finding this). Here's the list, with the recall rate versus sales in the U.S. from 1980 onward:
- Mercedes-Benz USA: 2.1 million recalled/5.2 million sold; 0.41 recall rate.
- Mazda Motor Corp.: 5.2 million recalled/9.4 million sold; 0.55 recall rate.
- General Motors: 99.3 million recalled/153.2 million sold; 0.65 recall rate.
- Nissan North America: 19.1 million recalled/26.8 million sold; 0.71 recall rate.
- Subaru of America: 4.3 million recalled/6.0 million sold; 0.73 recall rate.
- Kia Motors: 3.7 million recalled/4.9 million sold; 0.77 recall rate.
- Toyota Motor Corp.: 38.6 million recalled/48.1 million sold; 0.80 recall rate.
- BMW of North America: 5.1 million recalled/5.7 million sold; 0.90 recall rate.
- Ford Motor Co.: 97.0 million recalled/104.7 million sold; 0.93 recall rate.
- American Honda Motor Co.: 31.1 million recalled/32.9 million sold; 0.94 recall rate.
- Chrysler Group: 63.2 million recalled/63.2 million sold; 1.00 recall rate.
- Volvo Cars of North America: 3.3 million recalled/3.1 million sold; 1.05 recall rate.
- Volkswagen of America: 10.2 million recalled/9.7 million sold; 1.06 recall rate.
- Mitsubishi Motors North America: 5.3 million recalled/4.8 million sold; 1.09 recall rate.
- Hyundai Motor Co: 9.9 million recalled/8.7 million sold; 1.15 recall rate.
Kinda sobering. Though personally, I'm feeling OK.
You see, I drive a Mazda.


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« Find what you are looking for with NikoScope |Main| Quantum's New Wireless TTL System »
November 17, 2005
Nikonians Search Engine Logo Contest
We are looking for the best, coolest logo for our new search engine NikoScope.com.
Participate and create a logo for our search engine NikoScope.com. The best three proposals will receive vouchers worth $75, $50 and $25 in our Pro Shop. Winning logo will be located at the NikoScope site and all proposals will make it onto a separate logo page in the community.
Send your proposal and your username to our contest mailbox. All entries must be received by December 20th, 2005.
Posted by covey22 at November 17, 2005 7:42 PM


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Mark Stanislav (@markstanislav) joins the podcast to discuss the evolution in his thinking about ethical hacking, responsible disclosure, and the value of combining both red team and blue team responsibilities. Mark then shares a few tips from his talk, So You Want to Hire a Penetration Tester: 10 Tips for Success.
Abstract: Whether due to compliance needs, best practices, or customer demand, penetration testing is an increasing requirement for many organizations. The process of hiring and working with an Ethical Hacking (EH) services company is much like every other IT contracting process at first glance, but has a number of important details to consider from company selection through post-penetration remediation. Come learn from a penetration tester the types of information that will allow your organization to have the best experience possible when going through the sometimes agonizing, always interesting, process of a penetration test. Most importantly, questions will be highly encouraged so that your concerns and thoughts can be addressed during this presentation.
For more information about BSides Detroit 13, please see:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download


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Mothers Of Preschoolers
You don't have to do mothering alone. Whether you need a friend to compare stories with, a shoulder to lean on, or ideas to help you be a better mom- MOPS is just the place for you. MOPS is a support group for moms with children from birth through kindergarten, focusing on the unique needs of moms in this phase of life. Join us to experience warmth and shared wisdom from other moms with a common desire to be the best mothers they can be.
What is CUMC MOPS?
CUMC MOPS provides a safe, welcoming, nurturing, supportive and encouraging environment where mothers of preschoolers can enjoy building Christian friendships while their children engage in Christian fellowship and activity. MOPS International exists to equip and encourage and develop moms.
MOPS is about…
- Celebrating motherhood
- Meeting needs as mothers
- Making connections
- Experiencing God's Love…
All through great relationships and timely resources. MOPS is fun and relaxing.
What Happens at a MOPS Meeting?
Our monthly meetings begin with socializing and brunch followed by a life-enriching speaker on a topic that relates to your everyday life. The remainder of our time is spent in small groups where you will have an opportunity to discuss the speaker's topic, joys or concerns in your personal life and to make connections with other moms.
MOPS provides moms a morning of rest, rejuvenation, food, fellowship, support and affirmation for mothers of infants through kindergarten in a kind and accepting atmosphere.
While you are attending the meeting, your children are also being enriched. We provide a fun, nurturing environment for kids to play and learn in the MOPPETS program. Each meeting has a bible based theme and craft. They will also enjoy a snack.
Where and When is MOPS?
MOPS meets at Crestwood United Methodist Church
7214 Kavanaugh Road
Crestwood, KY 40014
Contact: Jennifer Starr, Coordinator
Meetings held 1st Friday of each month.
September – May,
9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Our 2018-2019
Meeting dates:
September 7
October 5
November 2
December 7
January 11
February 1
March 1
April 12
May 17


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The Galaxy Note 7 saga is no laughing matter. Given how Samsung produced not one, but two batches of faulty devices prone to catching fire, melting, and exploding, the South Korean phone maker potentially put hundreds of thousands of people in danger. As if that isn't bad enough already, Samsung still has no idea what went wrong with the device as the company is still investigating the matter over a week after permanently discontinuing its latest flagship.
With that said, Halloween is approaching and people can always use a laugh. Cue Facebook user Chris Kiley who just made a costume out of half a dozen Galaxy Note 7 boxes. Better yet, it smokes on demand thanks to a somewhat hidden mechanism which looks like a large tube attached to a vaporizer. The inner workings of this unique costume are yet to be revealed by its creator but even if Kiley never posts a detailed guide, this can and possibly will be replicated easily enough come Halloween. While Galaxy Note 7 owners who had the misfortune of experiencing fire-related problems with their device probably won't be too entertained with this Halloween costume, many Facebook users disagree. Namely, Kiley's video is currently shared all over the world and already boasts over 2.2 million views. In other words, the smoking hot costume went viral and that certainly isn't good news for Samsung.
Namely, the fact that a viral video mocking Galaxy Note 7 is circulating the Internet is yet another indicator of potential long-term damage which Samsung may suffer due to what happened with its latest flagship. One worldwide recall is bad enough but a second one is absolutely terrifying for the company which claimed that it has managed to fix the issue and assured customers replacement units are perfectly safe just a few weeks ago. Given how an average consumer doesn't exactly follow tech news on a daily basis, this fiasco could easily poison the entire Samsung Galaxy lineup including older devices, result in a loss of brand value, market share, and consequently – revenue. All in all, Samsung is under a lot of pressure and it remains to be seen how the company will react to increasing complaints about its business practices and transparency.


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In today's world, it is very common to find organizations who have talent communities. Just like any community, a talent community provides an environment of like-individuals to learn and share about specific topics. By joining a talent community, you can expect to learn more about the organization and what it's like to work there.
Like many, you might think to yourself "Why should I join a talent community, can't I just apply to a job?" You certainly can just apply, but where does that get you? A submitted application with little to no follow up from the employer. A talent community connects you with the organization allowing a relationship to develop.
Here a just a few reasons you should take those 30 seconds to register or introduce yourself to a talent community that is hosted by an organization you are interested in:
- Stay connected to companies you like. Talent communities are not just for job seekers. They allow you to stay in-the-know and help to keep you connected to your favorite brands. Participation in discussions, contests, and events keep it light and fun. And you never know, you might even be privy to exclusive rewards that are only offered to the talent community members.
- See what else is out there. Whether you are an active or passive job seeker, the key benefit of joining a talent community is the opportunity to learn and explore. You can learn about the company and explore their culture, while even learning a little something about yourself. Perhaps you feel happy in your current role and don't feel the need to be job searching; that's ok! But you never know what the future holds, and the day might come that you feel you want to make a move. By establishing yourself a community member, you've given yourself the upperhand to have already educated yourself about the company and you've put yourself on that company's radar.
- Curious about what it's like to work at another company. Once you join a talent community, organizations provide insights to what is happening inside the company. It gives you—the outsider—a better understanding of what it could be like as an employee at the organization. You get a better understanding of not only the types of roles, but, also the culture of the organization. The more innovative companies provide a discussion-based community forum, like Talent Dojo, where you get to contribute and be recognized for your expertise while learning the inside story. Either way, you get to know the employer better to help you determine if it's your employer of choice.
- Dream job could be just a click or call away. Members of talent communities are typically given privileged information, that at times, could also include jobs. Imagine never having to search a career site, but having a recruiter contact you about an opportunity that fits your skills, motivation, and expertise. You may even receive newsletters spotlighting the company's hot jobs that fit your experience. Click or call, the recruiters are coming to you!
- Embed yourself in the organization's sourcing strategies. Talent communities have become the number one sourcing tool for companies when they are searching for new candidates/employees. Talent Communities were developed in order for organizations to keep connected to their talent audience. Companies have always wanted to keep a pipeline of top talent, however, the lack of technologies and other resources in the past didn't allow an organization to keep in touch with their talent of choice; therefore, the talent often got lost in the black hole of an application process. Many talent communities are CRM-based, making it easy and efficient for recruiting organizations to keep in touch.
- Efficiency in the searching for candidates is a must for any organization. Companies are no longer able to cast a wide net in hopes to attract the perfect candidate – for example, many jobs are not posted on Monster, Career Builder, and the like anymore. It's expensive and inefficient. Companies are focused more on quality, not quantity. A talent community allows an organization to see who is interested in them and understand their expertise. It is no longer about a job fit but, a talent fit.
- Contribute quicker. Typically, you start learning about the organization's culture and ways of working until you interview. As a member of a talent community, you begin to learn before you've even applied. This decreases the on-boarding time and allows you to begin contributing to the organization sooner!
By joining a talent community, you're allowing yourself to learn more about an organization. You're also letting the company know you may be interested in them as an employer. It's a great way to begin building a relationship well before you've even joined the organization. Talent communities give you the opportunity to learn beyond what you would find from a website. This knowledge will allow you to make well-informed decisions about your next career move.
So what are you waiting for? Get out there and join your favorite brand's talent community now! Start by introducing yourself to Qwalify!


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Editor's Note: Reporter Dameon Pesanti and Visuals Editor Pete Caster are traveling from the headwaters of the Cowlitz River to its confluence with the Columbia River in Longview. Follow their journey online at Cowlitz.SeesouthwestWa.com. They are also posting regularly to Twitter (@JourneyCowlitz) and Instagram (journey_on_the_cowlitz).
Friday-Saturday, June 5-6: A Long Day's Float Followed a Campground So Sweet
Possibly the best element of a trip like this is falling into the rhythm of the natural world.
Sure, I'm still working just as hard — if not more so — as I do when I'm in my office back in Centralia, but the hours are more fluid and take on a different meaning.
Whether it's self-created or an adaptation to someone else, I think there's harmony lying below the surface. You wake up at this time, go to work at that building with these people, pick the kids up at this place, go to that store before it closes, pay your bills on this day, go to bed at that hour.
In my life, those behaviors are so far below the surface they're practically automatic. But for these two weeks on the river, those routines have gone out the window and I'm left with the cycles of the sun and the tendencies of the river.
As I've said in other stories so far, we rowed hard from the morning well up to dusk on Friday after departing from La Wis Wis Campground along the Ohanapecosh River.
Part of the joy in exhaustively pushing myself through a long day's work is savoring the flavors I otherwise wouldn't give much thought to. Realistically, yesterday wasn't so much about pushing as it was pulling — pulling our raft through the canyon, over rapids, around rocks, onto shore — but mostly down the lazy upper Cowlitz River by about 6 feet per stroke.
As far as rivers go this time of year, she's a lazy, wide-mouthed stream, now that humans have anesthetized her fiery personality with three hefty concrete dams.
But that doesn't mean she's without risk or personality.
While most of the time the Cowlitz is slow to anger, all in Southwest Washington know her fury.
Each river has an attitude.
Any river rats worth their neoprene will tell you of the polite but antagonistic relationship we have with the water. A stiff current is always great when you're seeking a little excitement, but can also be absolutely maddening when you need to slow down or get back up stream. Even the smallest currents can drive you nuts.
Ask anyone about their first few days at the oars.
I think of rafting and kayaking as dancing with a strong-willed partner. It's best to understand right away that she will do whatever she darn-well pleases, and the best way for you to get what you want out of the engagement is to make your move around hers. If you don't like it, then you can just prepare to die.
The outcome isn't always that severe, but make no mistake: the river will always win.
If you're too bold with her, she'll pin your craft against a logjam with the force of all the water she can muster from upstream, or she'll trap you in a recirculating hole from which escape is not guaranteed. Sadly, even those who do pay her the respect she commands still occasionally are found on the wrong side of the surface.
Washington state is full of angry waterways. Fortunately, for the purposes of our journey, the Cowlitz is a kind mistress — save the occasional snarl and snag.
We had every intention of stopping for camp around Packwood, but we couldn't find a worthwhile spot. There was a god-awful wind blowing upriver. Every beach was a rock garden, and most of the forested sides looked like private land.
I'm a pretty charming guy, but I'm not sure I could talk my way out of a confrontation with an East County rancher who spotted two trespassers squatting on his place.
So on we rowed, and rowed, and rowed and rowed toward what we knew was a campground somewhere up ahead.
By the time we saw the RVs poking out of the trees near the U.S. Highway 12 bridge between Randle and Packwood, my back muscles were ready to slip off my spine. We stopped just upriver of a few campers and scrambled up the bank and through the brush to get to the property.
When an older woman sitting outside her camper spotted our rough mugs coming out of the trees, she turned to her companion and said, "Oh, look. Bush people."
We found Jim Shepard, one of the employees of the Cascade Peaks Family Campground, and explained who we were and what we were doing. He lit up at the idea of our journey and offered us a free place to stay for the night.
Under typical circumstances, receiving gifts as a journalist is a huge no-no, but because this trip and this diary is not a typical pursuit of journalism, I felt in this instance it was acceptable.
As dusk settled in, I set to build a fire, but we didn't have paper to start it. My trip companion and Chronicle Visuals Editor Pete Caster tried to use some moss, but it proved too damp to catch.
Here, dear reader, is where I give you a bit of knowledge.
Tortilla chips are excellent, if not the best, fire starters. I can't speak to all chip varieties, but the grease left over from the creation fryers of those crisp, golden, triangles of deliciousness is enough to ignite, with the drop of a match, a flame that burns large and hot enough for even the thickest of kindling.
Even in spite of a fire, you don't realize the vacuous dark of the night sky until you escape the city lights. As much as I wanted to savor it, after I got some food in my belly, it wasn't long before I hit the sack.
Sunday, June 7: A Hot Sun and a Daunting Task
As fun as this trip has been, it was hard leaving that campground. We floated from Cascade Peaks down to Randle. By car, you could make that drive in under 10 minutes. Take a raft down this slow and incredibly meandering section of the Cowlitz, and plan on spending about eight hours pulling at the oars.
For the first few miles, the river banks yawn wide, the current relaxes and gravel bars snake just a few inches below the surface before suddenly giving way to deep, turquoise channels.
Buzzards hovered in the breeze around us and occasionally flocked to the dead trees scattered along the shore. I didn't know Washington had buzzards until recently, and I think they stared at me just as curiously as I stared at them. They're oddly beautiful animals. Even in the wind, the scavengers glide easy on ebony wings, their red heads seemingly the only things that distinguishes them from ravens. A couple bald eagles combed the water, as did a number of low flying osprey.
At one gravel bar, we met a group of people standing around a couple quads and admiring the water. Ken and Karen Egger were over from Yakima, visiting their in-laws Don and Kathy Palen.
As soon as the good weather hits, the Palens leave their camper at the river and visit nearly every weekend. The Vancouver residents aren't allowed to build a permanent structure on their property — it's in the flood zone — but they make maximum use of their little slice of the Cowlitz Valley each year.
Ken Egger said it's a welcome reprieve from the pace of life where he lives in Vancouver and owns and operates a mobile RV repair business.
They were all too happy to tell us stories and point us in the direction of a few elk upriver.
Our chance encounter with the group highlights what we have seen throughout the early portions of this journey — absolute, unfettered kindness.
Having exchanged names and information, we turned our raft west and again began the slow journey downriver.
At midday the current picked up, but the trees and submerged logs became so thick I almost thought the river had swallowed a forest. So far, no area has tested my oarsmanship as much as this one. The bossman himself, Chronicle Editor Eric Schwartz, joined us for this leg of the journey. He and Visuals Editor Pete Caster acted as lookouts for the many sunken lurkers that threatened to slice our floor in two. Heeding their warnings, I bobbed and spun from one side of the river to the other. More than once, we collectively held our breath as I missed some logs by only a few inches before spinning us back around to dodge another.
The trees begin to clear where the river twists into such tight serpentines that going around a bend almost feel like going backwards.
I spun the nose upstream and put my back into the oars. Eric and Pete sat on the tubes in front of me and paddled between my strokes. Despite our efforts, we moved at a little more than a crawl. If there was ever a time for chain gang work songs, something to imply finality to seemingly endless and futile work, this was it.
Salvation came in the form of a big steel and concrete bridge in the heart of Randle.
Burnt, dehydrated and exhausted, we scaled the sandy bank and headed for town. Maybe it was a trick of the brain or some vague hallucination, but I swear I heard angels at the sight of the Mount Adams Cafe.
With its classic diner feel and tasty American food, the place is a gem on U.S. Highway 12. The food was delicious, but I hardly had a chance to taste it because I ate so quickly. We chatted and swapped river stories with the owner, Don Lund. He, too, tried to float the Cowlitz years ago, but a nasty encounter with a logjam cut his trip short.
In a fortuitous twist, Lund offered to haul our raft across Riffe Lake in the coming days. Not looking to waste unnecessary time but still hoping to travel along the entire course of the river, his kind offer provides a compromise of sorts.
In one last gesture of the friendliness we absorbed from Packwood to Randle, he picked up our check, scrawling a note across the top.
"Thanks for not misquoting me," it said.
Still hungry, and itching to write a bit later, I went across the street to the Big Bottom Bar & Grill, another Randle gem, for a mountain of curly fries, a glass of beer and a couple hours at the keyboard. After a game of pool, I was too tired for more than just a few sentences. So I crossed the highway and pitched my tent on a sandy bank of the Cowlitz River.
In the coming days, we'll approach the three dams that give the Cowlitz River its form.
As daunting a task as this 105-mile journey seems, the events of the last few days have given us the mental fuel to move forward.
By Dameon Pesanti / email@example.com


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Shawn Clay began his career with Travel To Go nearly seven years ago and works from the company's San Diego office. He was one of the first member- assistant specialists, later advancing to a hybrid specialist where he can provide service to all member travel needs.
Since then he has helped cross train employees so that all agents can book condos, hotels and all-inclusive resorts, along with travel products. This has made the company a "one-stop" shop for members without the need to forward their calls to specialists in different departments.
Several years ago Shawn received a call from a new member who wanted to send his daughter on a honeymoon. But he did not know where or at what kind of property. Shawn walked him through the process, provided suggestions, and came up with an entire package that included stays at several Hawaiian Islands, as well as inter-island flights and hotels at highly discounted rates. Both the Travel To Go member and his daughter were delighted with Shawn's ability to create this special trip. Since then, Shawn has booked several other trips for the member. But he says he is equally happy helping a customer with even the smallest request.
Shawn also appreciates his group of "regulars" that continue to call him back with their travel needs–it shows they both trust and appreciate the service he provides.
Tommy Middaugh, VP of New Business Development adds, "Shawn has real heart and truly cares about members on the other end of his line. He will take their travel ideas and build on them much like an architect, resulting in a most memorable vacation."


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Old Federal Ramp
Old Federal Park is located mid-lake on the east side. From 985, take the Flowery Branch exit (hwy 13) going west. Cut across Radford Road to McEver, then take a left on McEver, and an immediate right on Jim Crow. Old Federal Park is at the end of Jim Crow–follow the sign at the split.
Vans Tavern Ramp
Vans Tavern Park is located mid-lake on the west side. To get there, take Hwy 369 (Brown's Bridge Road) to Waldrip Circle—there's a sign there that says "Vans Tavern". Follow the signs to the end of the road to the park.
Van Pugh Ramp
Van Pugh is located mid-lake on the east side of Lanier. Follow Gaines Ferry Rd. west straight to the park.


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Rates of meningococcal disease are at historic lows in the United States. Tracking for meningococcal disease is very good in this country. Health departments respond to every case of meningococcal disease and implement control measures to reduce spread of the disease.
Disease Trends
Rates of meningococcal disease have been declining in the United States since the late 1990s. In 2018, there were about 330 total cases of meningococcal disease reported (See Figure 1). Anyone can get meningococcal disease, but rates of disease are highest in children younger than 1 year old, followed by a second peak in adolescence. Among adolescents and young adults, those 16 through 23 years old have the highest rates of meningococcal disease (See Figure 2). The proportion of cases caused by each serogroup varies by age group (See Figure 3).
Meningococcal disease is also seasonal: the number of cases generally peaks each year in January, February, and March.
Figure 1 shows incidence rates (per 100,000 persons) of meningococcal disease in the United States by year from 1970 to 2018. The incidence rate began declining in 1995; however, it has reached an historic low of 0.1 in 2018. View data for this chart.
Figure 2 shows incidence rates (per 100,000 persons) of meningococcal disease by age group from 2009 to 2018. Infants, young adults, and adults >80 years of age have the highest rates of meningococcal disease in the United States. View data for this chart.
Figure 3 shows incidence rates (per 100,000 persons) of meningococcal disease caused by serogroup B compared to serogroups A, C, W, and Y by age group from 2009 to 2018. Serogroup B caused approximately 65% of cases among children less than 5 years old. Serogroups C, Y, or W, which are covered by meningococcal conjugate vaccines, caused approximately two in three cases of meningococcal disease among persons 11 years old or older during this time period. However, in 2018, serogroups C, Y, or W caused approximately 1 in 2 cases of meningococcal disease among persons 11 years old or older. View data for this chart.
Surveillance Systems
Analyze and visualize ABCs N. meningitidis data using Bact Facts Interactive.
Meningococcal disease is a reportable condition in all states, with cases immediately reported to the local and state health departments. CDC closely tracks meningococcal disease through the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System and Active Bacterial Core surveillance.
In 2015, CDC implemented enhanced meningococcal disease surveillance. The goals for this surveillance are to:
- Collect more complete data on key variables for monitoring meningococcal disease epidemiology
- Inform vaccine policy decisions
- Collect meningococcal isolates from a broad and representative population
Most state and large jurisdiction health departments now routinely collect data and isolates.
The most recent Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) case classification (2015) for meningococcal disease is:
- Clinical purpura fulminans in the absence of a positive blood culture; or
- Gram-negative diplococci, not yet identified, isolated from a normally sterile body site (e.g., blood or cerebrospinal fluid [CSF])
- Detection of Neisseria meningitidis antigen
- In formulin-fixed tissue by immunohistochemistry (IHC); or
- In CSF by latex agglutination
- Detection of N. meningitidis-specific nucleic acid in a specimen obtained from a normally sterile body site (e.g., blood or CSF), using a validated polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay; or
- Isolation of N. meningitidis
- From a normally sterile body site (e.g., blood or CSF, or less commonly, synovial, pleural, or pericardial fluid); or
- From purpuric lesions.
Enhanced Meningococcal Disease Surveillance Reports
View meningococcal disease data, including case counts and incidence by serogroup and age. Reports also include vaccination history of cases, meningococcal related deaths, incidence by serogroup and college attendance, and HIV status.
- Surveillance Manual's Chapter on Meningococcal Disease
- Active Bacterial Core surveillance Reports
(see Neisseria meningitidis)
- Bact Facts Interactive


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Home for the Holidays
The Jingelbell daughters bring their families home for the holidays.
Copyright © 2002-2020
All-Star Puzzles
All rights reserved
The Jingelbell family home in Fallcreek will be full this festive season: all five Jingelbell daughters, their husbands, and their children will be home for the holidays. Each couple, including Mr. & Mrs. Davies, will be arriving from a distant U. S. city--one from Miami--and will help fill the Fallcreek home with a different number, 1-5, of children. Given the clues below, can you find each couple's full names (one husband is Steve), the city in which they live, and the number of children they are bringing Home for the Holidays?
The five Jingelbell daughters are Jodie, the one whose husband is named Rob, Mrs. Conners, the one who lives in Las Vegas, and the daughter with 5 children.
Mrs. Conners, who isn't Jasmine, and her family aren't the ones coming from San Diego.
Jill and her husband Tom, who aren't the Bensons, were home for the holidays last year.
The Jingelbell daughter who is married to Phil has one more child than Mrs. English and her husband, who aren't the couple with 4 children.
Juliet and her husband Mike had their first and only child in October of this year.
The Bensons have one more child than the couple who live in Phoenix.
Mr. & Mrs. Adams have one more child than the couple who live in Dallas.
Jenny isn't the daughter whose married name is English.
The Jingelbell daughter married to Rob isn't the one who has 2 children
Neither Jenny nor Jodie is the one whose husband is Phil.


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STUDENTS, charities and running clubs across the city are anticipating the upcoming Coventry Half Marathon.
Taking place on Sunday, March 18, the race will see thousands of volunteers and fundraisers support several main charities – including the Penny Appeal, Myton Hospices and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust.
This year's event, which will see competitors race around a 13.1 mile route is being organised by students at Coventry University.
It is hoped the event can build on the city's successful City of Culture bid.
Scott Staniland, vice-president of sport and wellbeing at Coventry University Students' Union said: "Everyone at the Students' Union is excited, and we are pleased how the city has supported the race.
"It's a great opportunity to bring the community and university together at one big event that can showcase everything Coventry has to offer."
Leader of Coventry City Council, Coun George Duggins, said he is delighted to see another event attracting participants.
He said: "As a regular runner in the event, I'm looking forward to taking part in the Coventry Half Marathon.
"The race has become a popular date in the Coventry calendar. Being led by the Students' Union, it is a good example of how working in partnership with other organisations can deliver success.
The Penny Appeal, a crisis charity helping people in countries across the world, will again be the marathon's official charity partner.
Haroon Mota, fundraising and challenge events manager from the charity said: "We're excited to be official charity partners again.
"We've had more than 100 runners participate in the past two years, raising over £60,000.
"We are saving and transforming lives in over 30 crisis-hit countries worldwide.
"But more importantly we're working to tackle poverty close to home, it's important for us to have that local support too."


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Faith is always a difficult thing to understand. Many people believe that faith in God is a blind faith i.e. believing against all the evidence. However, it is far from that. Blind faith is throwing yourself out of an aeroplane at 20 000ft and hoping to land safely. Faith is throwing yourself out of an aeroplane at 20 000ft with a parachute which you've packed yourself, checked and double checked and hoping to land safely.
I've talked about faith and belief using the analogy of the chair. You may test out the chair before you have faith enough to sit in it. The same is true with belief in God. You don't just blindly decide one day that you're going to move from a place of vague belief to a strong faith in God. As with the chair you test it, look at it from all angles and assess it in every way possible. Faith in God is not something you blindly walk into – if it is going to be a real, genuine, living faith you have to go into it with your eyes well and truly wide open.
So, how can I test this belief to see if it will hold my weight? There are many ways that a belief in God can be explored, tested, challenged and built upon. Here are just a handful of ideas…
Find a friend
Do you have a friend who is a faithful Christian? If so I'm sure they will help you explore the whole area of faith. They may not have all the answers but I'm sure they'd be willing to help you find them. Talk to them about their faith – how they made the move from not believing to believing or from a belief to a stronger faith. Ask them about things to do with faith that you don't understand. Ask them what it means for them to be a Christian. Some Christians love to be asked about their faith, some however don't like it as they are worried about giving the wrong answer or worried that they might not have an answer at all. If your friend is worried about answering your questions ask them if there is someone in their church who you can ask.
You may want to ask your friend to pray for you as you explore the whole area of faith. Get them to pray that god would help you understand and reveal Himself to you.
Read all about it!
Some people love to read and some hate it. If you like to read there are so many good books out there to help you think through the whole area of faith. Your local Christian Bookshop manager should be able to direct you to the right book or books for you. It is very difficult to recommend books generally as there are so many out there, some not internationally available and you all have differing preferences. However, I would consider suggesting most books by Nicky Gumbel, Lee Strobel and Ralph O. Muncaster. They are writers with well thought out arguments to help you build a foundation of faith.
What better place to start than with the Bible
The Bible may seem like a very daunting place to start, but it needed be. Whatever you don't sit down and start reading the Bible from the beginning with the idea of reading it like a novel. You'll find it as difficult as reading a dictionary!!! What I would suggest is starting with the book of Mark, it can be found near the back of the Bible and is the second book in the New Testament. It tells the story of the life of Jesus and is an excellent place to start. As you're reading it you may want to make notes. Especially of things that you don't understand. If you do have things you don't understand you can ask a Christian friend or you are more than welcome to contact us here using the contact tab above. We are always happy to answer questions and receive people's feedback.
A Short course in Christianity
Many churches offer short courses in exploring the Christian faith. These are relaxed times of learning where you can ask questions and explore with others in a similar position about the Christian faith. There are courses such as ALPHA, Christianity Explored and many others run by individual churches. Many churches have posters outside advertising these courses or you could give your local church a ring and even if they are not running one they would be able to find out your nearest venue.
Attend a church service
Any church would love to see you. If you have a Christian friend why not ask if you can go along with them one Sunday to a service – they'd be delighted to take you. You may find the service a bit strange, especially if you've never been to church before. Don't worry they're not going to get you to do anything you don't want to do but a bit like going to a bookmakers or Royal Garden party you won;t know exactly what is going on or what to do – if in doubt just follow what everyone else is doing!! You should find the church very welcoming and friendly – after all they're just a bunch of fairly normal people meeting together to give their thanks to God and draw encouragement from each other – in its most basic sense that is what church is all about.
Finally how about speaking to God?
Praying – basically having a conversation with God – can seem pretty weird to start with. However, let's face it – if God does exist then it's the most natural thing in the world to do – if god doesn't exist all we're going is talking to ourselves which is good therapy anyway!!! I jest a little but you get my point. If God created you, loves you and wants the best for you there is nothing He like better than to communicate with you, to hear your worries and concerns and to help out. The whole subject of prayer is a huge subject, especially when talking about faith and belief. Next week we'll take a further look at the subject and delve a little deeper.


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I've been very fortunate that most of my accounting jobs more than the years have afforded me travel on audits, market conferences and CPE courses – all paid by the company. A history of on-time payment has a higher impact on your score than opening a new line of credit. Brian can teach you which rewards applications to join, which credit cards are ideal for what, and how to rack up further points for damn near something, which includes shopping on the internet and liking Facebook pages. Travel credit cards and the lucrative bonuses and awards they can get you are predominantly an American issue. But I believed that opening and closing lots of credit cards was a excellent way to ruin your credit rating. This consists of the rewards applications he joined, and the exact credit cards he applied for, plus his strategy also. For example, that very same Chase Sapphire card that I talked about above provided a whopping 70,000 bonus points back in October. I found out about travel hacking in 2014, thanks to Chris Guillebeau more than at The Art of Non-Conformity.
Last year on our trip to Disney World we saved a quite substantial quantity of funds with a couple of diverse credit card methods. That implies, for signing up for this credit card, you can potentially get a free of charge round-trip ticket to Europe with 10K to spare. I'm Huntly Mayo – seasoned travel hacker, private finance blogger, and life-style entrepreneur. Due to the fact frequent flyer miles and points are the lifeblood of travel hacking, being in a position to earn and redeem miles is vital. Each and every parent applies for the Southwest Airlines Speedy Rewards Premier Credit Card Devote $2,000 in the first three months to unlock a 25,000 point sign-up bonus. By investing a couple of hours per week in this, you will be in a position to collect adequate points to travel as typically as you want.
If you have credit card debt already that you are working on paying down, this would not be a excellent time for you to commence travel hacking. Other cards provide perks like lounge access or hotel room upgrades, so if you travel sufficient you might want to hold it for the added rewards. Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Credit Cards – Both a private and organization card are offered. When new bargains and promotions come out for earning travel or hotel points, you'll be noticed by means of e mail!
This entirely took me by surprise when I study it, I always thought that travel hacking in such a way was only possible if you had the proper quantity of funds and connections to commence with. Pro tip: Setup auto-spend on all of your credit cards so you by no means have to be concerned again about missing a payment. City Tourist Cards: City tourist cards, while costing cash, supply unbelievable savings for those who want an attraction-heavy getaway. Normally, these are treated as a single inquiry and will have small impact on the credit score. You need to have an exceptional credit score to get authorized for these premium travel rewards credit cards (almost usually more than 700). He knows every little thing there is to know about travel hacking and is such a nice guy!
If you already have credit card debt it does not mean that you cannot grow to be a travel hacker. I haven't researched a lot Yet but my close friends travel card, Amex premiere gold rewards card, which he loves and has paid for his numerous over seas flights, is like $120/year.…


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We are a comprehensive dental health care practice in Campbell River, British Columbia and we are passionate about providing excellent dental health care. No matter what your dental health care needs may be, we will care for you with a high level of compassion and professionalism. Our goal is to provide you with an optimal long-term solution so you can enjoy your smile for a lifetime!
We love being a part of the Campbell River community and we look forward to being your dentist!


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Competitive Pricing
How Does Price Affect Buyers?
- Well-priced properties generate immediate enthusiasm among buyers and agents love showing competitively priced homes.
- Homes priced above market value have less buyer interest.
- Bargaining room is not as powerful in negotiating as bringing in a larger number of truly motivated buyers.
- When you price your home below market value, you increase the pool of interested buyers.
Properties will generally sell for less than market value if they linger on the market. Buyers who see properties that do not sell quickly will assume the property is either overpriced or has problems.
DANGER...Watch Out When Overpricing
Unfortunate results are often followed when a home is priced too high for the market:
- Best offers are usually made within the first weeks of the initial listing, overpricing a home will cause it to quickly lose momentum.
- The home will attract "lookers" rather than serious home buyers. Showings will be few and far between.
- Comparable properties will take priority with buyers ~ they will look more attractive & sell quicker! Buyers will think the seller is not motivated.
- Home appraisal may not come in at higher price and leave the buyer unable to finance the home


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It's the inevitable question, anytime I take my boys to the park. "Daddy, can I bring this stick home? It's the perfect sword (or gun or fireball shooter or the deadliest combo of all, a sword-gun-fireball shooter cannon)!"
And, inevitably, my answer is "No. Sticks belong in the park." This answer is received with various combinations of whining, pouting and pleading, until the advanced weaponry disguised as a lowly stick is slowly and dramatically dropped to the ground where it will hopefully not be discovered by a villain with bad intentions.
And then one day, I thought "why not let them bring the stick home?" The thought struck me with the force similar to what I imagine Einstein felt with the whole relativity thing. So, I walked through what the process would look like:
1. Boy asks to take stick home
2. Dad inconceivably says "Yes"
3. Boy weeps with joy at the thought of his newfound sidekick and the adventures they'll share
4. Dad puts stick in trunk of minivan
5. Dad puts stick in garage / yard / shed
6. Boy plays with stick 1-2 more times until a more advanced fireball-shooter cannon disguised as a stick is discovered
7. Dad solemnly places old stick in the yard debris can, with the sound of "Taps" playing in the distance
As this process rolled through my head, I had two primary thoughts: 1. What's the harm in letting him bring a stick home? 2. In his world, the stick is actually an advanced weapon with which he can fight bad guys and save the world.
After my revelation, I thought, how can I not let him bring the stick home? Heck, he can bring 10 sticks home if it means he'll spend more time in that fantastically fertile world of his little boy brain.
I hopped on board this train of thought and rode it a little ways until I realized that this approach can be expanded. Oftentimes, I will shoot down an idea from my boy(s) because it seems silly, pointless, illogical, etc. And that's the whole point. Of course, it seems that way to me. I'm all grown up and their ideas are not. What if I asked myself more often "what's the harm?" and considered their perspective of adventure, exploration and just being little boys. I don't want them to have logical, clear plans! In fact, I wish I had more crazy, illogical, silly and FUN plans. I very quickly went from "No sticks!" to "Gather yer weapons, men and get to the fort 'cause the bad guys are coming!"
Immersing ourselves in the world of our children gives us a healthy perspective and lets our kids see that we're not always sticks in the mud. We too, can handle a fireball-shooter-cannon.
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I've been super busy since mid Ocotober getting a heap of art ready for a bunch of shows. I've not exhibited anything all year, but just managed to show at 4 exhibitions in as many weeks. The first one was held down on the Gold Coast at Sneak and Destroy's annual One Offs show, at Comb Gallery/Neverland Bar. It was in a pretty rad little space out the front of Neverland and there was a really great turn out. We only got down there for a short visit but it was great to catch up with a heap of mates and check out some impressive works, with all artists starting out with a blank pair of Vans.
The next week Red Bull and Laced organised the awesome "Mo Munny Mo Problems" show in the alley behind Laruche in the valley. The talent was amazing, such a great array of artists and heaps of crazy ideas. You can check out a heap of pics the boys from Project 4000 took here, and a sweet vid of the night is up on Vimeo.
Then the very next night we headed back down to the Goldie for The 360 Project's One x One x One show. Again there was a really impressive range of ideas on display across a bunch of skate decks. I also did some live drawing on the night with a couple mates, Josh KID9 Thorsen and Ryan RyRy Parsons.
I had heaps of fun painting my deck for the One x One x One show, so I was pretty stoked to be invited to paint another for the Board show which is currently on until the start of February at the National Gallery of Victoria. From the photos I've seen so far, it looks like another great show the girls from Just Another Agency have organised, and I'm keen to get down there and check it out. The decks are now all up for sale too, click the Board – NGV Studio section here.
And if that wasn't enough hands on art for one month, I got commissioned to paint up one of Kid Robot's Krackas. I'm really happy with how he turned out, hope he likes his new home. I'll post up some pics of him soon (though theres a lil sneak preview of him if you go digging through my SQUIDTANK account on Instagram)!


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Wednesday, June 20, 2007
New work at Nelson Hancock Gallery
"Three girls on Friday night," Nelson Hancock, All rights reserved.
Artist/gallerist Nelson Hancock's "Kamchatka: Photographs from Russia's Far East," are on display till July 28th at his gallery in DUMBO. A highly accomplished photographer, Hancock brings an anthropologist's sensibility (he has a PhD from Yale) to these brilliantly lucid & direct black & white portraits.
"Most in the US who have heard of Kamchatka at all know it as a good place to launch an attack on North America in the Cold War board game Risk," [Hancock writes]. "Russians consider the region the consummate backwater; the provinces are one thing, but Kamchatka is beyond provincial. It is beyond Siberia, beyond everything, on Russia's Pacific, about a thousand miles north of Japan."
One of the many things I like about Hancock's portraits is that this "otherness" is not the point, as it so often is in National Geographic-style depictions of other cultures. Hancock's decision to use black and white and shoot in large format is part of this, but mostly it's a matter of approach. There's no unspoken pretense that these people are any more "exotic," or unfamiliar with cameras & representation than people in, say, Michigan. The pictures are not trophies. They're about the subjects, not the photographer and his excellent adventure.
"I-95 Branford," Keith Johnson, All rights reserved.
I'm sorry I missed Keith Johnson's recent show at the same gallery. Reflecting a somewhat different anthropological approach, Johnson's pictures matter-of-factly document oddities that don't seem to know they're odd – turf farms, for example, or shrink-wrapped fields or giant plastic whales. He says, "I am endlessly entertained by what I see" and "humor is a major component." But there's much more to his pictures than a quick laugh.
Working mostly in landscape mode, Johnson may share to some extent the intention to shock one feels behind Duchamp's famous urinal. But I'd guess the proportion of cynical to wide-eyed in that work is higher than in Johnson's. Johnson doesn't seem angry. He seems to have a sympathy for absurdity. With no obvious axes to grind, his photography is more like a form of pure play. After all, from somebody's point of view, the weirdness makes sense.
1 comment:
- Tim Connor said...
Can somebody advise me on the best free hit counter I can sign up with for this blog? I tried one (have forgotten the name)& told it to send me once-a-day reports. For 3 days it told me, no visitors, no page views, no nothing. I knew from other evidence that wasn't true (it may have been close to zero, but not zero). Anyway, it's something I want to know. Suggestions very welcome.
- June 22, 2007 at 12:15 AM
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Do not reply to PMs using your email software! The correct way to reply to a PM is through the forum.Read more about it here...
Found an old badger shavin' brush, I'll toss in the pot. Still lathers good!
I'd bet the lather mug but someone is drinking out of it nowhands pat
Delmonico tosses in his real straight razor and wants to see who is really man enough to shave with it.
I've seen everything.....a shaved rat Did I actually see that? I promise I wasn't in the bay rum..... --TK
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Genting Casino Wirral
The casino in Wirral is a relatively small casino. The casino's official name is Genting Casino Wirral. It offers a small number of slot machines. The total number of live game tables is 8, which is rather small. The casino Wirral offers the classic table games such as Blackjack and Roulette and in addition Poker Table Games. Poker lovers will find Poker cash tables featuring Texas Holdem Poker and also enjoy Poker Tournaments. Visitors can play the slot machines from 12:00 until 06:00 and the live table games from 14:00 until 06:00.
Live Table Games Genting Casino Wirral
|Live Table Games
|Opening Hours Table Games Casino Wirral
American Roulette (4 Tables) Minimum £ 0.50
Blackjack (3 Tables) Minimum £ 2
Poker Table Games (1 Table) Minimum £ 2
|Monday-Sunday: 14:00-06:00
Poker Genting Casino Wirral
|Opening Hours Poker Casino Wirral
Texas Holdem Poker
Texas Holdem Tournaments
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Slot Machines Genting Casino Wirral
|Slot Machines
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Slot Machines
Video Slots
Electronic Roulette (16 stations)
Jackpot Slots
|Monday-Sunday: 12:00-06:00
Dress Code Casino Wirral
Smart Casual (closed footwear, no shorts, no sportswear, jacket and tie not required)
Minimum Age / Entrance Fee / Payment Options Casino Wirral
Minimum Age: 18
Entrance fee: free
Currency: Pounds Sterling
ID not required
Contact Details Genting Casino Wirral
Genting Casino Wirral
25/27 Oxton Road
Wirral CH41 2QQ, United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0) 151 653 6667
Website: http://www.gentingcasinos.co.uk/casino/wirral/


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Here's a list of things that we've either done or want to change around our home or in the way we live that are helping us reduce our ecological footprint. Reducing your ecological footprint can be done by simplifying your life, becoming more self-reliant and saving resources by thinking of the future. And yes it's okay to have a dishwasher…..
We're all at different stages in our life cycle and we at Serendipity2000 have made our decisions based on our own needs and priorities. Don't get caught up worrying that you're not doing enough – you don't need to be a fanatic. Be happy and proud of any changes you make, no matter how big or small. And remember, we've made these changes over many years.
Things we've already done to make our home and our lives more sustainable and healthy:
- installed a solar hot water system
- installed 2 water tanks providing 5,000L for the garden
- run a 4 star water rating 3.5 star energy rating dishwasher
- run a 4 star water rating 4.5 star energy rating front loading washing machine
- Low flow showerheads
- Dual-flush toilets
- Low energy light globes
- Low emission combustion stove for heating and providing free hot water for washing up and a cuppa
- Organic preferred shopping buying locally grown food when available – think about 'food miles'
- Support fair trade produce
- Menu planning to reduce food waste and streamline shopping trips
- Growing vegetables and herbs
- Use green cleaning products
- Using 100% of our kitchen scraps
- Worm farm
- Compost bin
- Lawn free native garden
- North facing passive solar design house
- Low emission small fuel efficient diesel cars
- Solar pond pumps
- Solar garden lights
- 'No Junk Mail' sign – save up to 23 kgs of paper, 70 kgs of CO2, 100 litres of waste water and 55 m² of habitat each year!
- 6V solar electric fence for vegie garden
- Habitat logs, rocks and boxes for native wildlife
- Efficient kitchen gadgets
- Semi completed bio-diesel plant for vehicle fuel
- Low wattage Apple MacBook Pro laptop
- (If you can't find your broomstick then choose) carbon neutralised air travel
- Ethical and sustainable travel options – contributing towards welfare of host communities
- Use of 2nd hand building materials and garden supplies where possible
- Purchase of long-lasting quality clothing, furniture and fittings
- At home 'surprise wedding' in March this year including ethical and recycled his and her rings, locally grown native flowers, organic food
Recent changes:
- 4 additional water tanks now providing 10,000L for garden
- 2 additional compost tumblers
- Zero green waste removal from site
- Purchase of mulcher/chipper/paper shredder
- Reuse of on-site materials for garden bed construction
- Low sodium and nil phosphorus washing powder
- Home made green cleaning products
- Offload excess stuff – sold old Discovery
Forthcoming plans:
- Fit flow controllers to all internal water spouts (5)
- Garage sale or ebay unused and excess stuff
- Attend Garden Design Permaculture course Ryde TAFE July 2011
- Complete 'Chook Nook' and add 2 chickens to provide eggs, manure and entertainment
- Plant out food forest using Permaculture and backyard biodynamic systems
- Install drip irrigation system
- Install grey water irrigation to fruit trees from washing machine
- Finish and fit out plant nursery
- Increase vegetarian meals
- Planned visits to Kimbriki green waste recycling centre, Michael Mobbs sustainable house in Chippindale and Chullora waste recycling centre
Future Dreams:
- Off-the-grid solar and wind powered electricity
- Complete bio-diesel plant
- Consider retrofitting downstairs toilet flushing from tank water
- Promote sustainable living through open house demonstrations and World Permaculture Day


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'Air/Sea Battle,' Escalation, and U.S. Strategy in the Pacific
Since the first reports of its development, the new U.S. military concept of "Air/Sea Battle" (ASB) has been the focus both of hope and of criticism. An operational concept that seeks to improve joint operations by the Navy and Air Force against foreign "anti-access and area-denial" (a.k.a. "A2/AD") capabilities, ASB is widely viewed as a conceptual blueprint for the contingency of a conflict against China in the Western Pacific.
To be sure, the Pentagon has said little in public about what ASB actually envisions, and it reportedly exists at multiple levels of classification within the U.S. government. As a result, most commentators who write about it in the press are only speculating about its contents.
Its general contours, however, are generally believed to involve "fighting back" into the region by using sophisticated long-range attacks against the command-and-control (C2) networks, strike platforms, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets associated with Beijing's A2/AD capabilities. For this reason, ASB has generated controversy.
The most pronounced criticism has been the argument that acting according to ASB's assumed recommendations would represent a dangerous escalation in a conflict, because the targets that would need to be destroyed in order to cripple Beijing's A2/AD capabilities include a great many that are on the Chinese mainland. ASB, in other words, is decried in some circles for being likely to take things one step closer to a general (and implicitly nuclear) war by involving us in strikes upon China itself in response to Chinese attacks merely upon forward-deployed U.S. forces.
To evaluate this criticism, however, it's helpful to look back at an earlier articulation of U.S. naval strategy that was also decried as being dangerously escalatory: the "Maritime Strategy" adopted in the early 1980s in order to help deter (and if necessary, fight) war with the Soviet Union.
The story of its development is a fascinating tale of groundbreaking open-source analytical insights, deep intelligence penetrations that corroborated radical new conclusions about Soviet war planning, and bureaucratic serendipity within the U.S. government that permitted a wholesale revision of the U.S. Navy's planning for World War Three.


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Yellow Dog
by Martin Amis
340pp, Cape, £18.99
Yellow Dog is a disturbing book, but its opening pages create a mood of excited reassurance: Martin Amis at his best, in all his shifting registers, his drolleries and ferocities, his unsparing comic drive, his aesthetic dawdlings and beguilements, his wry, confident relish of his own astonishing effects. The pace is smartish, and there are three strands of narrative, each with its particular social register and verbal colour, distinct as the worlds within a Dickens novel, and with a comparable sense of latent connectedness.
There is Xan Meo, the actor who has also written a book of short stories, and is married to a beautiful American academic; Xan is coshed over the head outside a Camden bar in the first chapter, and the resultant changes to his personality, the newly assertive id, the reawoken violence of his gangland origins, are the painful, the deliberately not-quite-funny heart of the novel. Xan is someone who has settled down, who has made himself good and sober and loyal, and the regression, the "de-enlightenment", caused by the head injury has a nightmarish compulsion to it. Amis is wonderful on "the violence hormones still squirreling around in him: voluptuous killers of pain and reality". Social disruption, people saying and doing quite the wrong things at the wrong time, is the mainstay of an unsentimental kind of comedy; but Amis makes more painful use of it here, since it is the sentimental life that is brutalised by it, in the violent demands Xan makes on his wife and the creeping and horrified sexual interest he feels for his four-year-old daughter Billie. This is, even so, a tricky matter to situate in a novel of comic hyperbole, but Amis can do it; indeed the amnesiac rereading of the normal world harks back more than 20 years, to the case of Mary Lamb in Other People .
Above and below Xan's story run two extravagantly funny satires, on the royal family and the yellow press, which is just getting its hands on a royal item of unprecedented invasiveness - a film of the teenaged Princess Victoria in the bath. No year is given, but as often in Amis, the satirical exaggeration of today's concerns seems to carry us into an even more deplorable near-future. We are given an alternative royal line, springing from the real one at some unspecified past date, and replacing it in an otherwise unaltered history. Thus the present king Henry IX's grandfather was John II, and his father, Richard IV, was blown up by the bomb that killed the real Mountbatten. Certain details are borrowed from the actual royal family (Henry shares the late Princess Margaret's fondness for singing "My Old Man's a Dustman" round the piano), but Amis avoids direct satire of so pummelled a subject for a more forgiving vein of sublime silliness. King Henry, dull and shy, "senescent with ennui", but decently perplexed by the "dreadful world we're living in", suggests a memory of the bemused monarch in Ronald Firbank's The Flower Beneath the Foot, and there are several moments when Amis's oblique narration and dotty fantasy are surprisingly akin to Firbank's; while the depiction of Henry's household seems also to draw on Waugh and Wodehouse. The king, indeed, might be a dim but distinguished member of the Drones Club, taking months to get through dog-eared books of puzzles, and coming unstuck on "these bally cryptics". The description of him playing patience and solitaire in a child like pretence of having limitless time before an unwelcome engagement is so silly and so acute as to bring a tear to the eye.
Meanwhile, at the Morning Lark, the journalist Clint Smoker, a classic Amis mixture of failure, aggression and completely hopeless longing, is busy writing pun-crippled celebrity gossip. The Lark is a kind of down-market version of the Daily Sport, its readers known professionally as "wankers", its pages impermeable to all news but capable of the occasional intervention in current affairs ("You're forgetting the enormous groundswell of wanker response to our Nuke the Nonces campaign"). Clint is a setter-up of stories, a broker in unreality, but also, as an inhabitant of Amis's bad-sex/no-sex world, a needy believer in such unrealities. Throughout the novel he pursues an email courtship with a woman called k8, whose emails go to all lengths to incorporate abbreviations: "i've got a new str@agem: not washing. let's c how long he can st& the s10ch!" or "r u o fait with the poetry of Ezra £?" This is really the language of texting, and it is indeed a textual joke, ruefully admitted by Amis, who gives us a further list of such things that he hasn't quite bothered to put into an e-mail ("i must -", "a 2nd 9-hour operation on his :"). It comes as no surprise that k8, when Clint finally meets her ("How's your father, love?" "decim8ed"), is herself a kind of textual joke.
It doesn't, I hope, give too much away to say that the tiny hinge of the action is the title story in Xan's collection Lucozade; Amis buffs will recognise that this story, in which Xan has ill-advisedly mentioned someone working in Las Vegas for Joseph Andrews, is closely akin to Amis's own story "State of England", collected in Heavy Water (1998), and containing, by a further intertextual twist, a good deal of background on Mal, the very person with whom in the novel Xan has a conversation about "naming" Joseph Andrews. It's not quite clear what we're to make of this. A further strand, concerning an approaching comet and an aircraft destroyed in flight by a coffin that breaks loose in the hold, sounds that apocalyptic note recurrent in Amis's comedies, but does not feel essential to this one.
Everything Amis writes is highly structured, but Yellow Dog gives signs of quite bristling organisation, in its three parts and its subdivided and subheaded chapters. They create a vague sense of anxious coercion, of asserted significance, of the author insisting on his terms and inventions. Few writers are more tirelessly in charge than Amis, and the tirelessness, in the bigger books like London Fields and The Information , seemed at times to upbraid the feebler stamina of the reader. Yellow Dog is a shorter-breathed book altogether, and there is perhaps a sense, in its second half, of the insistent management being a distraction from the thinness of the content. No harm at all in changing the tempo and playing with the reader's expectations, but after the confident agility of the first half the second half falls back on oddly bald chunks of back-story, presented through the talk and the dictated memoirs of Joseph Andrews himself, the exiled Mr Big. Amis has always been interested in really bad men, and can't help but be funny about violently bad behaviour: "In the old days," recalls Andrews of a criminal partner, "he'd have himself committing crimes even in his alibis . He'd go: 'I was never in on the Brink-Mats lark. I was busy flogging this condemned Argie beef.' Or: 'How could I have been in on the Waterloo jewellers? I was up West, demanding with menaces.' A very dishonest man, Tony Eist." Amis acknowledges the memoirs of "Mad" Frankie Fraser, and one feels he could spool out this kind of heightened pastiche for ever. When the action moves to Lovetown, or "Fucktown", the southern California city devoted entirely to the making of porn, there are still some good walk-ons, such as the indignantly under-valued porn-actor Sir Dork Bogarde, but the protracted explications of porno lore read like a slightly too earnest magazine article, and the novel's energy runs into the sand; for once Amis doesn't take us with him.
Several details of this novel that most linger in the mind are to do with the children: four-year-old Billie's levitating walk of inquisitive anxiety when she visits her father in hospital; her "unreadable contentment" in finding that he has changed; the episode when the two of them see a fox on the roof of the garden shed, the animal's "entreating frown with its depths of anxiety". They are moments of magical vigilance and great emotional delicacy, intimations of a quite different kind of writer that Amis could be, or would be, perhaps, were it not for the demands of his devastating comic gift.
Alan Hollinghurst's new novel, The Line of Beauty, is published next year.


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Excellent post, Andy. Absolutely stunning stool. Truly a work of art.
An Esoteric Lesson in Furniture Design: Pt. 1
I've gone out of my way to really try to push myself in design and technical execution over the last few years. Doing so has taught me that having curiosity to try new things and a willingness to fail are two critical elements for moving forward my passion for woodworking. This is as true for visual design as it is for learning new woodworking skills. Like anyone with a hobby like this, I only have a limited amount of free time to spend on woodworking's many facets (design, tools, technique, writing, and everyone's favorite $$) so the choices I make on how and where I focus my time has to be deliberate and impactful.
The Design Inspiration
This is the case for my most recently completed project, a bathroom stool with a carved seat. The project was a commissioned piece and had a few customer-driven requests:
- Match the color and material of the client's current bedroom furniture (built by Jeff Miller) and bathroom cabinetry: I used a Java Brown stain by General Finishes on Sapele wood.
- Carry a modern, 20th century studio furniture design aesthetic
- Be comfortable and sit at 16″ high
I shared a project inspiration board on Pinterest with my customer appropriately named "Stool Samples", and used that as a general guide for design and structure. After discussing a few elements of design the customer liked, solid construction, heavy joinery and carved wood seats, I landed on attempting a variation of the Renwick Stool by 20th century artist and craftsman David N. Ebner. Asian-influenced, carved and solid joinery, Ebner's pieces look at furniture as functional art. This is evident by his influence and instruction by artist Wendell Castle, whose stacked lamination wood creations push the limits of furniture as a functional art. And, from what I've been told through reliable sources, unlike Bruce Wayne, Mr. Castle has been known to show up to public events wearing a heavy wool cape. More on Castle in my next post "Design Along A New Dimension: Pt. 2".
This project was the first time I've ever carved a wooden seat bottom. Despite its density, wood can be shaped to achieve exceptional comfort. Two friends and fellow woodworkers, Ian Grunder and Jeff Miller take wood to a whole new level of comfort.
Ian's furniture style is classic Sam Maloof, proven comfortable based on the enduring popularity of Maloof's style.
Jeff's work blends design, comfort and technical execution, and looking at his work tends to make the most skilled woodworkers scratch their head in amazement. Jeff always pushes himself to tackle challenges he doesn't necessarily have a complete solution for at the onset of his designs. This is a piece of advice he also imparts to his students around design, always push yourself if you expect to progress. Evident from the rocking chair shown above, one doesn't simply sit in a chair built by Jeff, rather you "melt" into its contours and forget you are on something relatively dense.
The Build & Tools
I selected a single 17″ wide board of 6/4 ribbon stripe sapele, and then purchased an ArborTech Turbo plane cutter head that is made to fit most 4.5″ angle grinders. This is used to help speed up the process of carving the wood to achieve the comfortable convex cup of the set bottom. To hold things together, I decided to use heavy, hand-cut dovetails, rather than the finger joints of Ebner's design. I also increased the severity of some of the curves and lines between the sides and seat bottom, using a French curve as a guide. Gorilla Polyurethane glue and their 2 part epoxy mixed with some Sapele dust helped hide a few minor flaws and a bit of tear-out in my handwork. Here's a video link on that particular process if you are interested.
The learning curve for the Arbortech TurboPlane is fairly quick. This is very consistent with what they claim on their web site as well as a video posted by Marc Spagnulo "The Wood Whisperer". The price of ~$165. sounds steep at first, but is the same as a couple of hand tools designed to accomplish the same thing. I practiced first on a small shallow carved bowl from a scrap piece of niangon, and then plunged headfirst into the seat bottom for the stool.
The Esoteric Lesson
Borrowing from another area of personal curiosity, I was struck by how this experience can be equated to a principle of evolutionary biology known as Punctuated Equilibrium. The principle in its simplest form, states that significant evolutionary change in a species take place quickly over what are mostly long periods of stability.
Connecting the dots back to how I spend my time in woodworking, I work over longer periods of time on one particular facet such as a complicated build (the stability). I'm then pushed to change and adapt (the punctuation) because of a need to design something that's outside of my wheelhouse such as learning to use a particular tool that helps in the execution of a new design. This project as well as another current project have allowed me to try something I was unfamiliar with—carving through the process of removing wood—adding a new dimension to my woodworking and designs. Esoteric for sure, but lesson learned.
Part 2 of this series will cover the design and building process for a new coffee table that is a Wendell Castle-inspired stacked lamination piece. Plenty of carving and organic curves to follow.
Note: Independent of my mention of their products, (Arbortech, General Finishes and Gorilla Glue) I received no compensation for this post.
2 thoughts on "An Esoteric Lesson in Furniture Design: Pt. 1"
I am the happy client–this stool is incredibly comfortable and so beautiful. Andy's work is impeccable.
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2 thoughts on "An Esoteric Lesson in Furniture Design: Pt. 1"
Excellent post, Andy. Absolutely stunning stool. Truly a work of art.
I am the happy client–this stool is incredibly comfortable and so beautiful. Andy's work is impeccable.


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No Words
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Three years ago today my foundation crumbled. I felt like a kite that had its string cut. I was floating aimlessly not sure where, or if, I would land.
Three years ago tonight I was sitting at my dad's house getting my drink on with my brothers. I watched my sister clean the carpet. I couldn't help her, not that night. That night I spent in the arms of my brothers we were drinking and crying.
The next morning I tried to clean the carpet. I worked on it all day with the help of the others. We took turns. We took turns remembering our foundation. We took turns trying to forget what happened. We took turns trying to remember everything that happened.
The world ended for my brothers and me that day. Our grieving father had finally joined my mother. The blood was real, the blood was proof. He was happy, we were devastated. Even though we were all in our 40's we were orphans. My Dad traded his life for the life of my grandson.
Three years ago this week we had a Dixie Land goodbye party. Dad had chosen all the music and had CDs made. I spoke in front of a packed chapel. I was compelled to, for my dad. Then we laid my Dad next to my Mom. It felt right. They were together.
My brother texted me today to see how I was. I thought it was sweet for him to text. I thought he texted about all the crap that's been going on here. I blocked out the date. I didn't remember. I didn't want to remember.
I'm a terrible daughter.


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I never thought I would be so excited about my yoga bag. I have been lugging this old pink thing around since my training last September and asked the children to give me a gift certificate to Lululemon for Christmas so I could get a new bag. It's taken me this long to go pick one out, but I LOVE it! They have thought of everything. Even if you don't do yoga this is a perfect gym bag, diaper bag, or over night bag. I think it will be my second carry on when I travel. It's got a compartment for everything! I choose the gray because it has gold zippers and a bright pink lining with inspirational sayings on it. I love how organized it is keeping me!
|It has labels for where everything goes!
|This section is big enough to hold my laptop- even though I usually carry my IPAD
|Water bottle pocket
|Love this bright pink lining!
|It comes with an extra drawstring bag for wet items- The blue bag is my make-up case
|It's really roomy inside even with these two side pockets
|There is even a pocket for my phone- so it doesn't get lost in the bottom of the bag!
|And it has a strap to hold my yoga mat- I'm in love !


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Dr. Peter Wrobel
Practicing medicine in Georgia for over 20 years, Dr. Peter Wrobel is a skilled physician experienced in diagnosing and treating vein disorders. He is the Medical Director of both North Georgia Vein Institute in Cumming, GA, north of Atlanta, and Vein Specialists of South Georgia in Waycross, GA.
A member of the American College of Phlebology, Dr. Wrobel has extensive experience treating vein disorders having performed over 8000 vein procedures. As part of his Phlebology studies, he trained under nationally recognized vein care specialists.
Dr. Wrobel has obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Saskatchewan, College of Medicine, and undergraduate degrees in Physiology and French, also from the University of Saskatchewan, in Saskatoon, Canada. He interned and completed his residency at Plains Health Centre, an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan.
He began his career in Waycross, GA in 1995. Since then, he taught through the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, GA as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine; and was an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine for Okefenokee Residency program in Waycross. In addition, Dr. Wrobel has a special interest for treating patients with Sleep Apnea and Venous Insufficiency at both locations.
Dr. Wrobel is a diplomate of the American Board of Family Practice, is ABFP certified. He is also a member of the American College of Phlebology, American Academy of Family Physicians, Southern Medical Association, National Commission on Correctional Healthcare and Society of Correctional Physicians.
Dr. Wrobel resides in Georgia with his wife and children. He is an active member of his church and enjoys going on mission trips around the world to help others with medical needs.
Elite Vein Specialists
1710 Reynolds Street
Waycross, GA 31501
Phone: 912-283-2200
Toll Free: 877-214-8346
Fax: 912-283-2251


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University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications
UMMS Affiliation
Department of Family Medicine and Community Health
Publication Date
Document Type
Family Medicine | Health and Medical Administration | Primary Care
Purpose: Research in other medical specialties has shown that the addition of medical scribes to the clinical team enhances physicians' practice experience and increases productivity. To date, literature on the implementation of scribes in primary care is limited. To determine the feasibility and benefits of implementing scribes in family medicine, we undertook a pilot mixed- method quality improvement (QI) study.
Methods: In 2014, we incorporated 4 part-time scribes into an academic family medicine practice consisting of 7 physicians. We then measured, via survey and time-tracking data, the impact the scribes had on physician office hours and productivity, time spent on documentation, perceptions of work-life balance, and physician and patient satisfaction.
Results: Six of the 7 faculty physicians participated. This study demonstrated that the use of scribes in a busy academic primary care practice substantially reduced the amount of time that family physicians spent on charting, improved work-life balance, and had good patient acceptance. Specifically, the physicians spent an average of 5.1 fewer hours/week (hrs/wk) on documentation, while various measures of productivity revealed increases ranging from 9.2% to 28.8%. Perhaps most important of all, when the results of the pilot study were annualized, they were projected to generate $168,600 per year--more than twice the $79,500 annual cost of 2 full-time equivalent scribes. Surveys assessing work-life balance demonstrated improvement in the physicians' perception of the administrative burden/paperwork related to practice and a decrease in their perception of the extent to which work encroached on their personal lives. In addition, survey data from 313 patients at the time of their ambulatory visit with a scribe present revealed a high level of comfort. Likewise, surveys completed by physicians after 55 clinical sessions (ie, blocks of consecutive, uninterrupted patient appointments; there are usually 2 sessions per day) revealed good to excellent ratings more than 90% of the time.
Conclusion: In an outpatient family medicine clinic, the use of scribes substantially improved physicians' efficiency, job satisfaction, and productivity without negatively impacting the patient experience.
medical scribes, electronic medical record, family medicine, physician efficiency, job satisfaction, productivity, patient satisfaction
J Fam Pract. 2017 Apr;66(4):206-214. Link to article on publisher's website
Related Resources
Journal/Book/Conference Title
The Journal of family practice
PubMed ID
Repository Citation
Earls ST, Savageau JA, Begley S, Saver BG, Sullivan K, Chuman A. (2017). Can scribes boost FPs' efficiency and job satisfaction. University of Massachusetts Medical School Faculty Publications. Retrieved from https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/faculty_pubs/1316
Included in
Family Medicine Commons, Health and Medical Administration Commons, Primary Care Commons


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Today in labor history, the American Railway Union, headed by Eugene Debs, is founded in 1893 in Chicago. It was the largest labor union of its time and one of the first industrial unions in the United States.
The union was notable in that it sought the unification of all railroad workers, regardless of craft, race, or ethnicity.
Eugene Debs was one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World and also worked with several smaller unions – like the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen – before leading the ARU.
When, two months later, the Great Northern Railway enacted a series of wage cuts for its workers, the ARU organized its members in a strike action that lasted for 18 days and succeeded in pressuring the company to roll back the cuts.
In the Pullman strike a year later, the union was defeated by federal injunctions and troops, and Debs was imprisoned for violating the injunctions. Debs educated himself on socialism in prison and later ran as the Socialist Party's candidate for presidency on five different occasions.
Photo: Wikipedia