text:
By Jake Tapper, Elise Labott and Ted Barrett
Republican members of Congress plan a host of questions for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her long-awaited testimony on Wednesday about the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
Questions are expected to range from a security vacuum in Northern Africa to new cables suggesting that Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the September 11 assault, once proposed moving the compound to a more secure location adjacent the CIA Annex, sources tell CNN.
Congressional staffers have been shown new State Department e-mails and cables indicating that in November 2011, Stevens, concerned about the safety of the compound in Benghazi, proposed two options to the State Department, sources tell CNN. The first involved moving the compound back into a hotel. The second would move the compound to an unoccupied villa adjacent the CIA annex. CIA officials agreed with U.S. diplomatic personnel on the ground that the latter option would be safer. But the State Department rejected the idea.
The presence on the House Foreign Relations Committee of several new members and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of at least two possible GOP presidential hopefuls – Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky – has some State Department officials anticipating aggressive questions about whether the presence of Islamic extremists in Mali and Algeria were in any way related to past decisions by the Obama administration to keep U.S. combat troops out of Libya.
Most questions are expected to re-visit well-worn lines of inquiry about why requests by officials on the ground in Libya for additional security were not heeded, and faulty talking points about whether an anti-Islam video played a role in the attack that also killed three other Americans.
Other questions could involve the State Department response to the terrorist bombing of the U.S. compound in Benghazi that had occurred the previous June.
Lawmakers may also be interested in Clinton's precise whereabouts on the night of the September attack, her personal involvement in administration actions that night as well as efforts to locate Stevens, who went missing before he died.
Clinton will testify for 90 minutes before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the morning and 90 minutes before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the afternoon.
What questions Clinton will face on Bentghazi
Senior officials tell CNN that Clinton will not shy away from any tough questions and intends to assert responsibility for weak security at U.S. diplomatic posts, something that State Department is urgently addressing, senior officials tell CNN.
It's a position Clinton took soon after the September attack, telling CNN in an interview last October that she was ultimately responsible for security.
"I'm in charge of the State Department, 60,000 plus people all over the world, 275 posts. The president and the vice president certainly wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals," Clinton said in the interview.
An independent investigation of the incident absolved Clinton of blame for weak security. The probe, instead, placed responsibility in the Benghazi case on working level officials in the offices of Diplomatic Security and Near East Affairs.
The findings of the Accountability Review Board prompted the resignation of the top diplomatic security official. Others have been fired or reassigned.
There have been more than 30 hearings and closed door briefings on Benghazi with State Department officials present.
Her scheduled appearance in December was postponed after she fell ill and then suffered a concussion and a blood clot in December.
Responding to accusations from her harshest critics that Clinton has been avoiding Congress, the officials noted that she was the first top official to brief the full Senate in closed session on September 20.
The meeting was held at her suggestion and she answered any and all questions for more than two hours, the officials said.
Expect the same direct approach on Wednesday.
"She's going to answer every question asked of her," one senior official said.
"She gets it," the official said of the former senator from New York. "She served up there for eight years and has sat on both sides of the dais. She knows they have a role to play, not just in figuring out what happened but they need to be partners in providing security for our diplomats."
The official noted that since Congress holds the purse strings for security budgets, they have been historically instrumental in helping secure resources for embassy and diplomat security.
Despite the heated politics surrounding Benghazi ahead of the election, committee staffers say they expected the tone of the hearings to be civil, saying that "even Republicans on both committees generally like and respect her."
Republican Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and John Barasso of Wyoming both told CNN that they will have detailed questions about what went wrong in Benghazi but expect the overall tone of the hearing to be very respectful.
Democrats privately say they don't expect Republicans to be overly adversarial because they think Republicans are chagrined by being linked, fairly or unfairly, to the conspiracy theory that Clinton faked her illness to get out of testifying.
Clinton is expected to detail what the State Department has done to implement 29 recommendations from the investigation by the review board in addition to a few of her own.
But officials note that she didn't wait for the review board report before appointing a State Department team to work on tightening security.
Joint teams of military special forces and diplomatic security threat analysts were sent to more than a dozen high-risk posts. A senior official was appointed to focus solely on high threat posts.
President Barack Obama ordered a review of security at all diplomatic outposts in the wake of the attack.
But despite the renewed focus on security, Clinton will stress that U.S. diplomats still need to operate in high threat environments.
"The reason that hasn't changed is that these places have a direct and vital national interest" to the United States, one official said.
Clinton also is likely to face questions about the storming of the natural gas facility last week in Algeria during which militants seized dozens of hostages. Three Americans lost their lives.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is believed to have had a hand in the attack. Clinton also will likely face questions about the battle against extremists in neighboring Mali.
Republicans may raise the issue of Obama's suggestion that al Qaeda was on the run following the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011.
"Clearly Benghazi and now Algeria show that is not the case," one House staffer said. "I would expect questions asking what the U.S. is going to do now."
Clinton right away starts to say it was not political. What a liar she is. Right before the elections yeah she says she is taking responsibility for it well 4 Americans are dead and she should just resign from politics.
watching the senate question Hilary Clinton 2 HOURS 30 MINUTES
the BLIND SHIEK is behind the mass confusion so if they change CABINET OF PEOPLE INVOLVED then that takes attention of who's involved and whats going on! The Algerian gas explosion is all part of Blind Shiek & MB! The trrist want him released! THIS IS VERY BIG & GOVERMENT IS COVERING IT UP! THE SHEIK HAS BEEN IN US PRISION FOR 24 years he is 74 ,he gets 1 (15) minute phone call a month!
I supported Hillary during her presidential bid. I still have the yard posters and bumper stickers. Overall, she's done a great job, however, she should forget about 2016 due to this coverup BS. I was hoping for a little more truth.
Maybe she told all the truth necessary and you just didn't realize it as such!
Reading most of the comments from those on the left, one thing is clear; no fouled up operation or whiffs of crony capitalism or funding irregularities, etc. are ever to be investigated. Every Obama adminstration explanation must be taken at face value and is not to be questioned.
Does anyone else see that as a dangerous trend? Not that anything has been proven to be illegal. That's not the point. But since when is any politician of any party to be so trusted that nothing is worth investigating no matter how it looks? My concern isn't over some nefarious plot by Obama. My worry is that there will be a politician some place, some day, that will abuse that blind trust from the left...or the right for that matter.
Visit Bush on this concern. No problem. But look at two proven abuses. The Gulf of Tonkin incident that justified widening the Viet Nam war and Watergate. Dem and Republican scandals.
And look at recent scandals involving congressmen. Wiener and (there's a Repub, can't think of the name, feel free to name one because there is more than one). These yahoos thought they could get away with their idiocy because they felt their followers would automatically blame the other side. And, until there was undeniable proof, their followers did blindly absolve them of sins.
Now...these indiscretions were relatively small. However, how soon before some blind follower of the next Dem prez (or Repub) says that they don't care how corrupt he or she is, I will let them do whatever they want?
I don't think that is a fair assessment. Both sides have folks that will support their side to the bitter end. But this blind trust isn't universal to either party. Or at least it shouldn't be.
More to the point, we shouldn't have politicians who have those positions. If you blindly vote for either party, if you blindly vote for any bill, you should NOT be involved in politics.
Democrats are not for the most part, simply giving anyone a pass. However, when you say that your stated goal is to defeat someone, when you have investigation after investigation that show nothing, you wind up with crying wolf syndrome.
The same republicans that were screaming about Solyndra took stimulus money for their own donors. The same republicans that were screaming about Fast and Furious weren't concerned that this also occurred years earlier. Don't you get the feeling that crying foul while doing the exact same thing is kinda funny?
The GOP and FOX act like Benghaze was a purposeful attack by our government on our own people. What's that all about if not politics?
Thank you for your service, Hilary Clinton.
GOP Grilling? Oh, did we not lose a US Ambassador and other great Americans?
So, the article says the Dems are silent? If this was a Republican Sec of St, all haides would break out.
Dems are the ultimate hypocrites.
Well, I think the democrats are interested in finding out what happened. Republicans are interested in scoring political points.
For the most part.
All she has to do is turn Republican.EVERY time someone asks you a question.Answer it with another question.They've spend years doing it,And still have never answered a question put to them.
All politicos do it. Grow up.
This will not be a positive for Republicans if they grill her over this.
Women have all but left the Republican party.....It would be stupid for them to rake her over the coals here.
Doesn't she have another wine tasting in Australia to attend? She's a liar so don't expect the truth.
Why GOP? You never questioned Bush or Cheney about the phony reasons for heading into Iraq. Get the eff over this. It was a tragedy, but we've had much larger at home since them that you folks don't seem to care about (read Newtown and GUNS)!
If I agree Bush is evil, does that somehow mean this even should not be further investigated? If I acknowledge that Bush is the worst prez ever, should we somehow ignore Obama's sins?
Well, if you were silent then, you shouldn't be screaming now. That would be his point.
In other words, ghostie, unless you protested Bush to your satisfaction, everything Obama does is to be overlooked and never investigated? What would it take for you to be outraged? Legitimate question. Is there anything Obama could do that you wouldn't blindly follow? Say...rendition? Say...tapping overseas phone calls? Both of which were started under Bush and continued today. So. If somebody is taken in the middle of the night at this time you are okay with it but 6 years ago it was an outrage?
Why does she keep smiling?
Americans being killed is nothing to smile about.
And why does she keep shaking her head like a bobblehead?
One word "disgusting"
She is a chabacka bobblehead!
Sen Menendez is such a kiss A-s!
It starts off like a goodbye party for Clinton. She is smiling as if no one lost their life
She's going to "forget" alot of stuff.
I'm sure the sea hag will blame the republicans and retard leftists will believe her. They don't have the brains of a hummingbird with its head smashed.
She's gonna mop up the floor with them because they're gonna underestimate her. She has been dragged through everything the GOP could throw at a woman, everything a man can throw at a woman, everything politics can throw at a woman and she became SOS and is in a position to be the first female prez.
Palin put up with a lot more. She had to defend against your liberal press. Clinton will skate by like all the libturds in washington do these days.
You're forgetting that Palin was borderline retarded. That played a role in her downfall as well. Seriously, since we're arguing from facts here.
No, Palin whined and cried foul when she couldn't cope with the extremely easy questions she was asked. She didn't put up with anything. Liberals have nothing to do with this, you just want to call names to distract from the comment above, which adds credence to it.
Palin had to handle tough questions like what she reads.
Isn't Fox the most watched cable news network? Why do you guys care so much about the liberal media? You have your own. People will choose which to watch and what to believe. Don't be mad that folks aren't really feeling you guys.
I find it funny because every person that posted a comment on here really don't care about the people who died, they only cared about their political position and for their love/hate of hiliary clinton and this current administration. If everyone stop trying to be holier than thy and be all honest with themselves, the reason for this all political/personal gain for this grilling and they don't really give a rat @ss about the people that die. Same can be said about any person that dies that we don't know, we give sympathy but in the end of the day we really don't care what others go through since it's sometimes hard enough living our own lives to really care what strangers do or don't do with theres.
People that are complaing about the government lying and cover-ups, guess what the government have always and will be continue to do this no matter if its a Republican, Democrat or Indepented. No matter who is in office there will always be someone hating, whiny, name calling the government because you can't satisf everyone in this country because everyone will find something to complain about even if that person is perfect, they'll find fault. People in the US are just whiny about everything and no matter who in office people will always find a reason to complain.
and claiming that no one cares about those that died as a blanket statement against everyone isn't the ultimate in whining? Of course people care that innocent people die. However, one political group tried to capitalize on the tragedy and use it as a wedge during an election. It ilicits a response. It demands one. Rigidly refusing to be objective, like you are doing here, is far worse than whining.
Clinton will be fine. The desperate, goofy right-wing BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI blah, blah, blah conspiracy has already been proven to false. So there was some confusion about an attack on our embassy. It's a CONSPIRACY!!!!!
Exactly. These are foreign posts. They might as well be on Mars. You just can't micromanage every little facet of governance. Something WILL slip by. It does not matter who is in charge. Terrorists are like mice or rats. They look for tiny holes in the system, chinks in the armour, to squeeze through. It is the way of things. This examination is necessary to plug the newly found rat hole. So Stevens requested more security. Well, our government is filled to the brim with people that want more for their offices or projects, while certain portions of Congress are screaming loudly to cut back in every way possible. And continue to scream bloody murder when something very bad comes from folloowing their lead. As for Stevens & the other victims. HELLO! They are in a foreign land. It wasn't a mission to the French Riviera. There are dangers that confront many of our missions abroad. Sadly, it is almost a routine occurance, but predicting when, or if, it will blow up in our faces is well nigh impossible to predict. Again, plug the darn hole, then Congress should plug it's own hole, and get back to fixing our economy, (or ruining it further).
No it's not a conspiracy, I bet you blame the GOP if it was your mother that died there. When a liberal screws up they call it GOP conspiracy and when GOP screws up they are evil. Mmmm the Liberal Sect are Saints and make no mistakes. Love to see Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, a retard for President 2016. I am sure that the GOP wil be banned in the USA. We just need 1 political party, liberals.
Why do you have to "prep" to tell the truth?
Because if the truth before she prepped was "I don't have the answer to that question", you would accuse her of lying or withholding evidence.
Sure blame the bilnd man that is in prison, and the liberals are too scared to tell Morsi that the man will die in prison. I won't be surprised that Morsi will d some damage to the United States. Liberals say How could it be? The Muslim Brotherhood are our friends and not terrorist. Liberals wishy washy hypocritical parasite of America.
Why is it GOP...GOP...GOP??? Don't the Dems want to know the facts? I just don't get it.
Read a very good article in the NYT regarding foreign embassy workers and the fine line they have to walk. One cannot have diplomacy from behind brick walls and barbed wire. Many of the workers and the families interviewed still believe that and do not want this episode to cloud diplomacy and drive us behind the walls.
How are the Republican Senators going to reply to the law that was passed during George H. W. Bush's administration that requires the State Department to use the Lowest Bidder for local security guards at Embassies, Consulates and Missions? Notice, that law REQUIRES, not suggests or recommends. They are not allowed to follow any other criteria. That being the case, the every one of those facilities is at risk.
Joe, it is always heartening to know that, regardless of the situation, negative results will always be the fault of George W. Bush. When Blackwater was ever used in any kind of similar situation there were always cries of foul because they weren't the lowest bidder or they were the only bidder. Now that the use of the lowest bidder and W can be blamed for Benghazi, well...lowest bidders are terrible!
Having a bad day, Joe? Must be W's. Dog bites you? Must be W's fault. Bad hair day? Must be W's fault. Thankfully we have him to blame for all the ills that have befallen the United States since January of 2009.
Says the guy who wants to blame this attack on Clinton and deny Obama credit for killing Bin Laden. You're right, though, the problem here is the blame game.
Cap, in no statement I have made did I blame anything on O or Clinton. Asking questions is not assigning blame. And, as Hillary once opined, dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
You need to reread Joe's post. He never mentioned George W. Bush.
OK, so you don't blame Clinton for this attack and you do give credit to the POTUS for his role in killing Bin Laden. Glad to hear. I stand corrected.
LOL – yeah, H W Bush. My mistake. But...you can blame him for your bad hair day as well, if you like!
What a bunch of nonsense. How about further congressional hearings into why and how we went to war in Iraq? That resulted in over 5,000 American deaths and countless injuries. But instead we just get more grandstanding by congressional buffoons. Pathetic.
I'll bet she stubs her toe and doesn't make it.
Yes, Drew, why weren't they held from January 2007 to January 2011? The Dems held both houses. Why didn't they investigate Iraq? Do you consider them congressional buffoons as well?
She's just so cute, like a chipmunk ( from hell ).
As with the President; "the Buck Stops Here". I am not certain if Clinton would have heard about every request for more security in every embassy as it is likely every embassy was requesting more & better security. However since Libya was such a hot spot you would think Libya would be in every briefing she received. She would also have reason to expect that the Head of Embassy Security (a long term employee) would be dealing with the issue. Ultimately Clinton is responsible for what happens in the State Dept; including the security of personnel. She is leaving as Sec. of State; so she needs to step up and take "ultimate responsibility"; the Head of Embassy Security has already resigned over this.
I wonder how many LIES she is going to tell. She is a "congenital liar" as said by William Safire in the New York Times. I have a list of her many lies if anyone would like me to list them.
I find it funny that people think this "grilling" means anything. As if cover-ups and lies aren't the basis of politics or something.
So much for running for President in 2016..... that's out the window.
We already know what happened. What we deserve to learn is who lied.
Maybe this wouldn't have happened if Libya passed an assault weapons ban... it was just like Newtown... only 1/7th as many people died and none of them were in 1st grade. Needless to say, heads will roll over that, too. What did the Republicans know and when did they know it!? Ridiculous political theater. Get back to work, idiots.
I'm glad the GOP has so much free time to continue asking about an event from September in which almost every person involved has been grilled. Don't mind the fiscal situation in the US. Let's continue pushing this. Stop trying to bring Obama down and get your frickin job done. And the same goes for the Dems. Stop trying to make Congress look bad and focus on what you CAN do, not what you can't.
Funny post for someone who works at Goldman Sachs! lol
Why does she even bother? Folks on the right wing can't even remember the Ambassador's name any more, but they're still screaming for Democrat blood–just because it's Democrat. I sure didn't hear any of this indignation from them when our embassies and outposts were attacked under Bush. Bunch'a hypocrites, all.
It was Christopher Stevens. Now, who was Brian Terry? Don't care do you? How about the names of the other three who died that day? Do you even care that they died AFTER some coward told them to stand down? Do you even care about the name of the coward?
I guess you Democrats have to ask yourselves why Obama is supporting and feeding arms to the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda ? Now lets watch Hillary do what she does best. LIE!!!
How come Cheney and Bush didn't get grilled for lying about WMD?
What about Bush's "Mission Accomplished" lie? He couldn't even deliver this lie from Iraqi soil, he told this lie while aboard an aircraft carrier well out of harms way! Bush was an idiot, managed and handled by powerful "interests" outside of our government (many of Cheney's friends). Today, neither Bush nor Cheney dare appear or speak publicly. Neither would dare endorse Romney, wonder why?
Rock, let us assume Bush and Cheney lied. That they were the MOST evil people to ever walk on the earth. Now, how does that absolve anyone of any responsibility for what happened to Stevens and the others?
Bush and Cheney are evil, evil, evil. Their sins don't justify the sins of others.
Because the congress at the time realized they had more important things to do. Something this bunch of buffoons needs to realize. They're so intent on hoping to make clinton look bad and trying again to introduce personhood amendments to worry sbout anything of real importance.
mkjp, are you so ignorant of the machinations of our government that you don't realize that Congress has time to pass meaningless bills declaring things like "National Get a Haircut Day"? I think they have all the time they need. They passed the cliff bill in 5 minutes.
Hope Mrs.Clinton give to us her acknowledge openly of what really happened, The reason I respect her truly because all the issues on her life she is very strong woman.
The people responsible, who suppose to be fired only they been reassigned to other positions, my question is why ?.
Ambassador Stevens was moving arms into the hands of Libyan rebels and some into Egypt,he was doing the State departments dirty work and was a target for getting taken as a hostage in order to free some rebels in custody. Of course Clinton knows the whole story but the media will never get it because of security for the state department .Now much of the secrets died ominously with Stevens having the 16 man special forces protection he had only a few weeks before 9/11 pulled out ,reluctantly from Bengazi. The state department obviously knew he would never live to talk.
Bravo to Secretary Clinton for being the only politician in DC able to accept blame. Wish more of them (from both parties) were like her.
When does OBl@mer get grilled on this? He successfully buried it until after the election. Impeach him NOW!!!
A thorough grilling is entirely appropriate. Far too many lies and a coverup about Benghazi by the White House and State Department in the weeks leading up to the November election. The far left media was complicit too by refusing to probe into the situation. Perhaps avoiding an Obama re-election loss.
I believe this is what you call "grasping for straws".
Remind me again of when it was Pres. Bush was questioned before congress for lying about WMD? Then for starting something that caused many more deaths? Where was the GOP wrath then? Oh wait...
Congress voted the for the invasion of Iraq. Dem and Repubs alike. What's your point?
Based upon false information.
Right, plus not only did Clinton also talk about Iraq's WMD's, but so did the leaders of major European countries. An informer at the time testified that the WMD's were moved to Syria. No one ever took that seriously (no dems, that is), and today no dems are asking where Syria got its WMD's that it recently threatened to use on its own people. So THERE!
Remind me again of when it was Pres. Obama was questioned before congress for lying about the video? Then for ignoring Al Quaeda links to things such as Ft. Hood that caused other deaths? How about responsibility for Fast and Furious. Where was the Dem wrath then? Oh wait...
I hope the Repubs take it easy on Hillary Gagme Clinton, her face looks haggard enough as it is.
The reality is that the higher your position is considered to be, the less likely you are to be blamed for any wrongdoing.
For sure! Look at Owebummer....
A grilling by the GOP? Might I suggest to the GOP that Mrs.Clinton is admired by Democrats and Republicans. Choose your words wisely. 2016 will be her year and could be the downfall of those who choose to inflame her admirers.
She claims she isn't interested in running in 2016. She has emphatically stated that several times. Or are those just more lies?
She's a lib. Of course she'll lie.
This will turn into nothing but a politically debate to further some republicans future agenda's. Some on this committee might be running against Clinton if she decides to throw her hat into the ring. What better way to get a head start on her if they can show she is not Presidential material. Benghazi will be secondary
when it all boils down to it its a democratic verses republican thing.
Where does that leave the Libertarians or Independents?
and it should never do that. we don't send representatives to either house to run in a pack.
Notice the liberal bias in the headline...she is not going to be grilled by the GOP. She is going to answer to the people of the United States why 4 people including an Ambassador were killed and then our government officials lied to us about it. If the media did it's job we would already know the answers to most of the questions she will be asked. It's time the liberal media did it's job instead of just being a mouthpiece for Democrats
Completely BS!!!


text:
Time will tell what yesterday's 17th-inning Chris Davis-Darnell McDonald pitching showdown means for the 2012 American League East race. But for the world's scattered Red Sox and Orioles fans, it already proved one thing: MLB.tv can't do the job. Not long after both teams ran out of pitchers, MLB.tv ran out of broadcast ability. The people who built the system assumed that it would never need to handle anything that long. So just as the game was crossing over from the epic to the mind-boggling, in the middle of the 17th, the online folks at MLB gave their audience the 21st-century equivalent of the Heidi game. Reader Shawn T. writes from Nevada:
Deadspin -
Being an MLB.tv subscriber in Las Vegas, you would imagine, would be great. No local team, therefore no blackouts. Not quite. Living in Sin City, I am blacked out of all Diamondbacks, Padres, Dodgers, Angels, Giants and Athletics games. (I'll save you the time, the drive from Vegas to Oakland is over 9 hours). Sure, Boston isn't blacked out from New York games that take place 4 hours away. That makes plenty of sense. (Iowa gets screwed out of 5 teams themselves).
All this said, I still pony up the cash every year to subscribe.
Their advertising says "Watch every out-of-market game LIVE". So when the second game of the season with my beloved Red Sox facing the Tigers was blacked out—I was perplexed. The game was being televised by Fox Sports, however it wasn't airing on my local affiliate. (the barn-burner of Angels vs Royals was instead) So by all means, this was an out-of-market game... but again, couldn't see it. Game 2 of the season. Already issues. Their advertising flat out lies. (I caught a portion of the game via an illegal stream.)
Last night, the Red Sox took on the hot-as-hell Orioles in what turned out to be a ridiculous ending. 17 innings. Position players pitching. Regardless of the game's outcome, it'd still be a great memory to watch. 17 innings. Over 6 hours of watching. Then, in the commercial break in the middle of the 17th: streaming stopped. Home, Away, Radio and TV. Done. They stopped providing the game. Paying customers were left to scramble for illegal streams and pitch-by-pitch coverage online.
Livid is a word. I called customer service and said I wanted a partial refund. If you watch a movie in the theater, and the projector dies with 20 minutes left in the movie, you'll either get a free ticket, or a refund. It's only right. In this case however, MLB.tv said they cannot provide partial refunds (their customer service agreed, it was bullshit). So I asked for a full one and cancelled my account.
My father still lives in Boston and has internet access. A cable box rental? $60. An HD Slingbox? $200. And I can get every Red Sox game (as well as Bruins, Celtics and Patriots).
Major League Baseball is so out of touch when it comes to its internet offerings and its customer service - they suck. There. I feel better now.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Hillary Clinton, Bill and Chelsea, visit Washington
WASHINGTON >> Spending a night in the Washington in Litchfield County, as opposed to that other, much more partisan Washington, must be a refreshing reprieve.
And that's what the Clinton family was doing Saturday in Connecticut, where former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to campaign for U.S. Senate candidate Chris Murphy in Waterbury Sunday.
Mr. Clinton, joined by his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, their daughter Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, were reported by sources in Washington, Conn., to be spending Saturday night at the posh Mayflower Inn & Spa, celebrating Hillary Clinton's birthday. She turned 65 Friday.
Saturday was apparently a day of leaf peeping that included a noon lunch at chef Carole Peck's acclaimed Good News Café in Woodbury. Mother and daughter enjoyed chicken and salad plates, Mr. Mazvinsky had the lamb hero and Mr. Clinton, who is said to be a vegan, ordered the bean burrito without dairy.
"Well I said to them, 'I assume you came to Good News because I'm one of the few Democrats in Woodbury,'" said Ms. Peck, who had no idea they were coming.
After lunch, the popular political family made its way to Washington Depot's Hickory Stick Bookshop, where children's book illustrator Wendell Minor was signing copies of his latest effort, "If You Spent a Day with Thoreau at Walden Pond."
Author Davyne Verstandig, an English professor at the University of Connecticut campus in Torrington and a devout Democrat, was present for the surprise drop in.
"They were very gracious," she said. "I happened to have on my Obama pin and Hillary thanked me."`
Though it was unclear where the Clintons went next, it was suggested that they have dinner plans with a local family with whom they are friends.
According to the Mayflower Inn, there is nobody by the name of Clinton on the registry. But other sources in town said it was certain they were staying there, and elaborated that there obvious and high levels of security at the resort inn.
Mr. Clinton is scheduled to speak at Library Park in Waterbury at 3 p.m. on Sunday on behalf of Mr. Murphy, who is in a tight race with wrestling world figure Linda McMahon for the Senate seat being left open by the retirement of Sen. Joe Liberman (D-New Haven).


text:
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, endorsed same-sex marriage Wednesday, making her possibly the fourth Senate Republican to do so, if one counts Susan Collins of Maine, who led the fight to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell ban on gays in the military.
The others are Mark Kirk of Illinois and of course Rob Portman, the GOP heavyweight from Ohio who changed his mind after hearing from his gay son.
Here is an excerpt of her letter to Alaskans: "With the notion of marriage – an exclusive, emotional, binding 'til death do you part' tie – becoming more and more an exception to the rule given a rise in cohabitation and high rates of divorce, why should the federal government be telling adults who love one another that they cannot get married, simply because they happen to be gay? I believe when there are so many forces pulling our society apart, we need more commitment to marriage, not less."
The endorsements arrive as the Supreme Court is expected any day to deliver its opinions in Hollingsworth v. Perry on California's Prop. 8 and United States v. Windsor, dealing with the Defense of Marriage Act.
More than 100 well-known Republicans signed an amicus brief in the case. Murkowski's endorsement reflects a rapidly shifting ground on marriage within the GOP, where as recently as 2012 party presidential nominee Mitt Romney endorsed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
Opponents of same-sex marriage have taken to calling this "the Inevitability Assumption, a quasi-Marxian or at least Hegelian view that History is beckoning in one direction and there will be no turning back."


text:
Day Trip Photo:
Healdsburg FallWinter 2017
Healdsburg is charming. Every brick, every flower box, every elegant shop and eclectic gallery, every five-star restaurant and cozy cafe on every single corner speak to this town's genuine individuality and down-to-earth-treasures. Downtown Healdsburg may be surrounded by bucolic rolling hills and picturesque vineyards, but around this age-old square, its hard to imagine being anywhere else more delightful. No matter what time of year, Healdsburg is a town for every season.
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The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) might create a benefits world in which typical employers pay penalties and send employees streaming into government and private exchanges to buy individual health insurance.
If Mitt Romney gets into the White House and kills PPACA, employers might still move on their own to create a similar "bring your own coverage" (BYOC) system.
What would a BYOC system mean for the employers, their health insurers, and their benefits brokers and plan administrators?
One way to analyze the question is to look at Web forums for owners and would-be owners of nightclubs.
New participants often ask about the idea of setting up a "bring your own bottle" (BYOB) club. Other participants quickly ask whether some customers will bring in low-quality, or even lethal, grain alcohol; whether the BYOB club owner will face liability problems; whether the BYOB policy will affect the club's ability to attract and retain patrons; and whether the BYOB policy will lead to ferocious administrative hassles. Such as: What happens when some patrons' bottles go dry? What happens when some patrons are jealous of other patrons' bottles?
Similar questions can come up in discussions about a possible BYOC health benefits universe.
Shawn Pynes, a partner at Barney & Barney, an independent brokerage in California, chuckles when he thinks about the proposition that a BYOC system could make business managers' lives easier.
"It's going to be more complicated," Pynes says. "It's not going to be easier."
The U.S. government got employers into the health benefits business after World War II, when it tried to control inflation by imposing controls on wage increases. To get around the restrictions, employers began offering workers non-cash benefits.
Rita Numerof, a St. Louis management consultant, says employees — and many employers — have come to expect employers to provide group health coverage,
"The benefits have gotten richer and richer," Numerof says.
The latest federal Bureau of Labor Statistics survey results show that 73 percent of U.S. civilian workers have access to employer-sponsored health coverage and that 54 percent of workers participate in their employers' health plans.
Health policy specialists once hoped health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and tough care utilization managers could rein in skyrocketing health benefits costs. A few bad utilization management decisions later, benefits experts mostly gave up on the idea that the savings from aggressive utilization management programs were worth the risk of creating more HMO horror stories.
In 2000, National Underwriter Life & Health began writing about a new cost-management concept: The defined contribution health plan. Consultants suggested that an employer could give each employee a fixed amount of cash. Employees could use the cash to buy their own coverage and get the employer out of the plan selection business.
In the real world, medical underwriting got in the way.
In the group market, underwriting has little effect on whether employees can get coverage. In the individual market, however, carriers in the states with reasonable health insurance rates use medical underwriting to control risk and keep rates reasonable. In most states, employers that shifted to pure defined contribution health plans had no way to ensure that their employees could get affordable coverage.
If PPACA survives its many foes, takes full effect in 2014, and works more or less as drafters expect, it could breathe new life into the defined contribution health plan concept, by requiring health insurers to sell coverage to individuals on a guaranteed-issue basis. Insurers could charge three times as much for the oldest enrollees as they charge for the youngest enrollees, but they would not be able to consider health problems, such as cancer or kidney disease, when setting rates.
PPACA is supposed to create a new health insurance purchase tax credit for people who have no access to affordable employer-sponsored health coverage and earn from 133 percent to 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), or about $29,000 to $88,000 for a family of four.
Suppose John Doe has a family of four and earns $29,000 per year. The full cost of his coverage is about $700 per month. Analysts at the Congressional Research Service say the PPACA tax credit could cut Doe's share of the monthly premium to $83. Doe's share would rise to $230 if he earned $44,000 per year, and to $524 if he earned $66,000 per year. If he earned more than $88,000 per year, he'd have to pay the full cost of the coverage.
A PPACA employer responsibility provision will require employers with more than 50 full-time workers to provide a minimum level of affordable health benefits or else pay a penalty.
Small, cash-strapped employers may be quick to send their employees to the exchanges, but larger employers may have more trouble deciding what to do, Numerof says.
Dan Maynard, president of Connecture, a company that develops Web-based health insurance sales and exchange systems, says it's not clear whether employers really want to get out of providing any health benefits, or if they simply want to escape from the cost of insuring against health care claims risk.
Pynes notes that, in most of the United States, employers provide health benefits today because they want to attract and retain the best employees, and to maximize workers' productivity, not because any law requires them to provide health benefits.
The PPACA tax credit would do nothing for higher-income workers, Pynes adds.
At employers that offer good health benefits today, the result may be that health plans will continue to look about the same, Maynard says.
For employers that do decide to shift to a BYOC system, insurance costs might be much lower, but administrative costs and administrative headaches could grow, benefits specialists warn.
Mark Yoest, a director with Deloitte Consulting, scoffs at the idea of the kind of business owner who offers good health benefits today simply e-mailing employees PPACA exchange contact information.
"The consumer has really relied on the employer to provide some guidance," Yoest says.
"It's not easy for employers to get out of the middle," Pynes says.
Employers that want to shift to a BYOC system without ruining employee morale will have to find someone to advise employees on how to cope, Pynes says.
What could a BYOC shift mean for insurers?
Bernard Tubiana, a principal with Deloitte Consulting, says the shift could create opportunities for a small insurer, a regional insurer, an insurer not known for participating in the group health market, or a company like Amazon.com or Wal-Mart to "figure out the magic sauce" for becoming a BYOC benefits market giant.
Maynard says a BYOC market could be especially friendly to insurers in the voluntary benefits market or the Medicare Advantage markets today.
Voluntary benefits insurers already know how to persuade workers to use their own money to pay for life insurance, disability insurance and supplemental health insurance.
Medicare Advantage and Medicare supplement insurance market players already know how to sell heavily regulated health insurance products to individuals without having much, if any, ability to use medical underwriting procedures to manage claims risk.
One thing that's noteworthy about the voluntary benefits, Medicare Advantage and Medicare supplement insurance markets is that health insurance agents are active in all of those markets.
Good group health insurance agents and brokers who want to operate in the BYOC universe should be able to find ways to stay in the game, health benefits market watchers say.
Traditionally, health insurers have marketed to brokers, brokers have golfed with employers, and employers have generously and magnanimously provided health benefits for the employees.
"Health insurers have not been able to invade that ownership they [brokers] have over these employer relationships," Maynard says.
In 2014, a health insurer that enrolls 10 auto body shop employees through an exchange program would probably be thrilled to see a broker help the body shop and the employees with the shift, Maynard says.
"That auto body shop is not going to hire a human resources person," Maynard says.
PPACA is supposed to create an ombudsman program — a Navigator program — to help consumers understand the exchange system, but it's not clear whether that program will be a temporary program or a permanent program, and the Navigator program staffers are not supposed to help consumers decide which coverage to buy.
In some cases, Yoest says, employers with BYOC health benefits programs might handle the programs roughly the same way they handle worksite benefits programs. Individual health insurance marketers might come to see the employers as the gatekeepers who control access to the workers' attention.
For brokers and other BYOC advisors, limits on the availability of competent live human advisors could be a major constraint, Pynes and Maynard say.
When workers call for help with exchange bureaucracy, "the advocate at the other end of the line really needs to help them navigate," Pynes says.
At Barney & Barney, getting a new enrollee advocate licensed takes 52 hours of training, and getting the new hire to be a skilled benefits navigator takes about two years, Pynes says.
For insurers, brokers and exchange managers, another BYOC shift challenge might be learning how to run business-to-consumer marketing programs.
Nital Patel, a partner at Lippincott, a brand strategy firm owned by Marsh & McLennan, says a company in the BYOC game needs to start by making sure that it can deliver what consumers want, and by making sure that its own employees believe the company can deliver on its promises.
A successful brand "needs to be rooted in something that's very true," Patel says. "It's about empowering consumers and creating advocates."
Patel says a company in the BYOC market will know it's succeeded when the customers themselves start marketing the company to their own friends and relatives.
See also:


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A very bright anthropology student from Michigan, with a personal interest in mathematics, statistics and probability theory, asked for my opinion on some of his interesting thoughts about where we all came from. Here is my reply.
I wish I had your knowledge of, and skills with, numbers so I could respond more intelligently to your thoughts and questions. Following are some of my thoughts based on what I've read, and what I see daily as I visually travel back and forth through the most extremely interconnected web of thousands of years of ancestral history (the Family Forest®), based on recorded history.
I believe that the theoretical estimate that an average person in 1500 has about 1.5 million offspring alive today is too low. Here's why.
The Family Forest® is based on what actually did happen, according to recorded history, and not on what might happen, theoretically. Here are a few examples of what can happen in just one century.
Martha (Clarke) Willard (b. 1694, d. 1794) was said to have had 12 children, 90 grandchildren, 206 great-grandchildren, and 45 great-great-grandchildren when she died at the age of 100.
Catharine (Andrews) Shattuck (b. 2/16/1753 Ipswich, MA, d. 11/19/1845 Temple, NH) was said to have had 150 living descendants when she died, seven children, 51 grandchildren, 90 great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren when she died.
Esek Brown (b. 3/8/1678/9 Newport, RI, d. 12/4/1772 Swansea, MA) was said to have been survived by 11 children, 112 grandchildren, and 129 great-grandchildren.
As is explained in the third-from-the-bottom paragraph at http://familyforest.com/captainslog/36.html, from Mayflower Society estimates 1.5 million offspring appears more reasonable from 1600.
In addition, I believed I read that one of the foremost living genealogists, Gary Boyd Roberts, estimated that prominent Colonial ancestor Governor Thomas Dudley may have 10 million descendants.
So couple the three actual one-century examples from above with the 1600 estimates, and it seems that a reasonable estimate from a 1500 person is tens of millions of living descendants.
It would be difficult to factor in the overlap that would need to be subtracted, but certainly the number should be very large.
Considering how many boxes each of us would need to fill in to truly know a substantial part of our deep ancestry (http://familyforest.com/resources/51/ancestors-at-a-glance), it may seem reasonable to assume that going back 400-500 years ago, we most certainly had at least one Japanese or Chinese ancestor.
Visually exploring so many generation-by-generation ancestral pathways zig-zagging geographically over the millennia in the Family Forest®, according to recorded history, leads me to the following opinions.
My odds of having at least one Japanese or Chinese ancestor in the last 500 years is in the range of slim to none. During the last 1,000 years, the odds becomes quite possible. During the last 2,000 years, I believe it is almost certain.
I also believe that the reverse is true about Japanese or Chinese descendants having some European ancestors.
Hopefully this helps. Please stay tuned here for a free Family Forest® give-a-way that will be available in a couple of days. It will help illustrate genetic migration over centuries.


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Posted 01 September 2008 - 11:03 PM
Posted 22 September 2008 - 12:23 PM
A court in Bangkok has begun hearing the extradition case of Viktor Bout, a Russian businessman facing charges of arms trafficking and terrorism in the United States. Proceedings were delayed briefly after Bout's lawyers claimed he was being illegally detained. But the judges decided their complaint would be dealt with later. Bout was arrested in the Thai capital in March at the request of the U.S. Washington says he was caught in Colombia trying to sell weapons to U.S. agents posing as FARC rebels.
Bout is accused of attempting to sell shoulder-to-air missiles and armour-piercing rocket launchers. Prosecutors say the weapons were supposed to be airdropped into Columbia. His long-term associate, Andrew Smulyan, also arrested in Bangkok, is reportedly willing to testify against Viktor Bout. It's believed Smulyan has negotiated a plea bargain.
Bout has been dubbed 'The Merchant of Death' and is said to have been the inspiration for the 2005 film 'Lord of War', in which Nicholas Cage starred as an arms trafficker.
However, Bout denies all the charges - and doesn't like the film. "I feel very sorry for Nicholas Cage who played in this. It's very silly. I feel pity for him as it's a bad movie," said Bout on RT's Spotlight programme two years ago.
The accused's defence team told RT that American prosecutors have not provided the Thai court with any evidence. They have only asked for extradition on the basis that there is a criminal case against him in the U.S. The judge may decide that this doesn't constitute sufficient grounds for an extradition order.
"If the American side has to provide proof of Viktor Bout's guilt, in that case he will win the case fair and square. He didn't do anything in Thailand. He only spent three hours there before going to jail and he has never been there before," said Yevgeny Belenky, an associate of the defence team.
However, U.S. officials insist he has a case to answer.
"He was apprehended in the final stages of arranging the sale of millions of dollars of high-powered weapons to people he believed to represent a known terrorist organisation - the FARC," said South New York District Attorney Michael J. Garcia.
The Russian businessman built up an air transport empire in the 1990s. In 2005, Bout's airline transported armed vehicles and troops from the UK to Kosovo.
Posted 22 September 2008 - 02:19 PM
Not so fast please, Let us not hang the witch yet.
The source of the above news seems to be from Baku. Nowhere there is an indication that "andrei" is of Armenian descent. A simple search will bring up sevaral nameslike Smulian/Smulyan, still no reference to Armenian ancestry. All it says above is that he is a British citizen. The name strongly suggests Irish ancestry. Besides, I have never met an Armenian with such a surname.
Here is the first google to jump at you; http://www.akerman.c...aphy.asp?id=463
For all I know, he may be a hrya as well.
Edited by Arpa, 22 September 2008 - 02:27 PM.
Posted 22 September 2008 - 02:29 PM
by a defoult - anything that any azeri .... posts on the web .. is just a lay
Posted 22 September 2008 - 02:35 PM
by a defoult - anything that any azeri .... posts on the web .. is just a lay
Bingo! Exactly my point. By the same token, any time there may be bad news about people named ahmed, mehmet, ali, mustafa etc. then we should advertise it as azzy or furky.
Edited by Arpa, 22 September 2008 - 02:37 PM.
Posted 22 September 2008 - 02:35 PM
so it was ok to transport from UK but not transport from russia ??
Posted 22 September 2008 - 02:43 PM
so it was ok to transport from UK but not transport from russia ??
The plot thickens even more. Since in some languages (yebrayeren) S and SH are interchangeable, as in Samuel- Shamuel, salam-shalom....
Google using "shmulian/shmulyan , schmulian, schmulyan and see what you get.
Also remember that in the furkish alphabet S is also used (with a tail under) to sound like SH. Consider the name of Shahan Artsrouni (Sahan)
Tarakuys chka. Mard@ hrya e. Just google "smulian jewish" and see how many you get.
Edited by Arpa, 22 September 2008 - 03:19 PM.
Posted 22 September 2008 - 04:49 PM
2008-09-22 11:47:00
ArmInfo. Publication of another Azerbaijani book about 'oppression
of Jews by Armenians' is farce, head of Jewish community of Armenia
Rimma Varzhapetyan said when commenting on publication of Rovshan
Musrafayev's book "March of the death".
She also added such steps are not a new thing for Azerbaijanis
since lie is their most beloved way for reaching their propagandist
goals. 'Azerbaijan is a country which does not have its own history,
but ir pretends to the right of being called "one of the oldest
countries". No comment', - Vazhapetyan concluded.
As Azerbaijani mass media report, Professor Rovshan Mustafayev's book
was published in Israel in English and Jewish. A part of the edition
will be handed over to Germany, the controlling copies of the edition
have been already handed over to Baku.
Posted 22 September 2008 - 05:01 PM
May I also ask the mods to change the title of that thread to "Comedistan" so we may add whatever comedic news from whichever "stan", all the way from afghanistan to zulustan.
Edited by Arpa, 22 September 2008 - 05:31 PM.
Posted 22 September 2008 - 06:46 PM
2008-09-22 11:47:00
ArmInfo. Publication of another Azerbaijani book about 'oppression
of Jews by Armenians' is farce, head of Jewish community of Armenia
Rimma Varzhapetyan said when commenting on publication of Rovshan
Musrafayev's book "March of the death".
She also added such steps are not a new thing for Azerbaijanis
since lie is their most beloved way for reaching their propagandist
goals. 'Azerbaijan is a country which does not have its own history,
but ir pretends to the right of being called "one of the oldest
countries". No comment', - Vazhapetyan concluded.
As Azerbaijani mass media report, Professor Rovshan Mustafayev's book
was published in Israel in English and Jewish. A part of the edition
will be handed over to Germany, the controlling copies of the edition
have been already handed over to Baku.
jewish language?
Posted 22 September 2008 - 09:09 PM
This schizophrenic claims that more than 3,000 Jews have been killed by Armenians in Guba town on March 31..., he also accuses Armenians to have planned the extermination of the Tat population.
2008-09-22 11:47:00
ArmInfo. Publication of another Azerbaijani book about 'oppression
of Jews by Armenians' is farce, head of Jewish community of Armenia
Rimma Varzhapetyan said when commenting on publication of Rovshan
Musrafayev's book "March of the death".
She also added such steps are not a new thing for Azerbaijanis
since lie is their most beloved way for reaching their propagandist
goals. 'Azerbaijan is a country which does not have its own history,
but ir pretends to the right of being called "one of the oldest
countries". No comment', - Vazhapetyan concluded.
As Azerbaijani mass media report, Professor Rovshan Mustafayev's book
was published in Israel in English and Jewish. A part of the edition
will be handed over to Germany, the controlling copies of the edition
have been already handed over to Baku.
Posted 22 September 2008 - 11:47 PM
Arpa is right - we should move this not only to comedaijan, but also to the "epic tales of Furkia and Azerbadrjan" - and forward it to Jay Leno! this will be a hit for the next few centuries!
Posted 23 September 2008 - 08:32 AM
Mosjan is it OK to merge this topic with Arpa's "Comedistan"?
Posted 23 September 2008 - 09:05 AM
Mosjan is it OK to merge this topic with Arpa's "Comedistan"?
Thank you Yervant.
We will wait for MosJan's assent, so we can have real fun ridiculing those crackpot 'professors", holders of P(upu)-H-Ds from the university of clownology, be it at baku or buga-buga-stan.
How about holders of degrees from the university of "history" ala turqa", also known as "Hysteria U".
Where did thet clown halajoglu-qaqaji-oglu go? We were having such fun!
Who said "Laughter(derison) is the best medicine"?
In the meantime, let us not forget all the "comedy" that emanates from osmanistan, hryastan, and, yes, even from Hayastan.
REST IN PEACE Hakob Baronian!
Yes, indeed RIP Hakob. Where are you to RIP them apart?
Edited by Arpa, 23 September 2008 - 09:51 AM.
Posted 23 September 2008 - 10:38 AM
Mosjan is it OK to merge this topic with Arpa's "Comedistan"?
it's ok
Posted 23 September 2008 - 10:56 PM
Posted 24 September 2008 - 09:03 AM
Here is one from supreme stand- up comic of Parsk-a-stan.
Is he a president, a mullah, rabbi or a priest? He may have thought that the UN General Assembly was mosque, a synagogue or a Church. The first 15 minutes of his over 30 minute sermon was a tribute to Alah, Jehovah and God, with references to the prophets .. including Jesus . See below.See where he refers to Moses, Abraham, Noah!!!!? and Jesus as prophets. (Noah, Abraham and Moses are prophets?
Note; His name Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad is all based on the Arabo- Perse hamd to mean praise/glory and the nejad (once again from the Arabic) means saviour , as in Hisous Prkich. Did you know that the worlds most common boys name is all based, a variation of mohammed/mahmoud, hammoud (as in Bourj Hammoud), ahmed , hamid and mehmet?
How come Christians dont name their children Hisous, Jesus etc. Yes, they do. The Spanish do, jesus to sound like hesus/hisous.
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
United Nations, New York, Sept 17 2005, IRNA
Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday offered proposal on nuclear program.
The following is full text of President Ahmadinejad before the Sixtieth Session of the United Nations General Assembly:
"In the Name of the God of Mercy, Compassion, Peace, Freedom and Justice
"Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
"Today we have gathered here to exchange views about the world, its future and our common responsibilities towards it. It is evident that the future of the world is intertwined with its current state and the prevailing trends ,which exhibit signs of hope and despair.
"On the one hand certain hopes and opportunities exist, and this august Assembly is convened on such hopes. Today human thought reflects outstanding commonalities which provide appropriate grounds to build upon. With the passing of the era of agnostic philosophies, today humanity is once again joined in celebrating monotheism and belief in the Creator as the originator of existence. This is the common thread which binds us all.
"Faith will prove to be the solution to many of today's problems.
The Truth will shine the light of faith and ethics on the life of human beings and prevent them from aggression, coercion and injustice and will guide them towards care and compassion for fellow beings.
"Another hope is the common global appreciation of the sources of knowledge. Although reason, experience and science are among valuable sources of knowledge, the darkness of the Middle Ages deprived major portions of the Western world of appreciating. This reactionary tendency deprived many of access to various scientific findings and knowledge and led to the exclusion of other sources of knowledge namely God and knowledge based on revelation from the life of human beings in the West; Divine knowledge that was carried and disseminated by such prophets as Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad (peace be upon them).
"Today, agnostic thinking is on the decline and presently humanity is equally enamored with religion knowledge and spirituality. This is an auspicious beginning. Divine prophets teach us about proper regard for the exalted state of human beings on earth.
"The human being is blessed with dignity, most importantly manifested in being the viceroy of the Almighty on earth. The Almighty placed humans on earth to develop it, institutionalize justice, overcome their egoistic tendencies and praise no lord but the Almighty.
"Faith and good deeds can bring deliverance and the good life even in this world. Attaining this depends on human will, that is the will of each and every one of us. We must heed the call of our common primordial nature and achieve the realization of this good life.
"On the other hand, the prevalence of military domination, increasing poverty, the growing gap between rich and poor countries, violence as a means to solve crises, spread of terrorism, specially state terrorism, existence and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the pervasive lack of honesty in interstate relations, and disregard for the equal rights of peoples and nations in international relations constitute some of the challenges and threats.
"Although these challenges are very real, we believe we are not predestined to experience them. Our common will not only can change this course but in fact can lead us to a life filled with hope and prosperity. Divine revelation teaches us that "The Almighty changes the fate of no people unless they themselves show a will for change" (Holy Quran, 13:11).
"How can we influence the future of the world? When and how will peace, tranquility and well-being for all come about? These are the fundamental questions before us.
"We believe that a sustainable order, nurturing and flourishing peace
Edited by Arpa, 24 September 2008 - 09:06 AM.
Posted 24 September 2008 - 09:15 AM
Another stand-up comic from Rouss-a-stan who is not standing anymore. .
He pronounced those words with a shovel in hand, and now he is reciting his comic lines under a couple shovelfuls of earth.
Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev famously used an expression generally translated into English as "We will bury you!" ("Мы вас похороним!", transliterated as My vas pokhoronim!) while addressing Western ambassadors at a reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow on November 18, 1956.[1][2][3] The full translation of the quote reads: "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in" (Нравится вам или нет, но история на нашей стороне. Мы вас закопаем).
On August 24, 1963, Khrushchev himself remarked in his speech in Yugoslavia, "I once said, 'We will bury you,' and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you," [4] a reference to the Marxist saying, "The proletariat is the undertaker of capitalism"; a popular articulation of the materialist conception of history as the inevitable progression of class struggle towards communism.
The quotation was used as the title of Jan ejna's book on communist Cold War strategies.[
Posted 24 September 2008 - 09:19 AM
On 18 August, Yusuf Halacoglu, president of the Turkish History Foundation (TTK) had made controversial comments on the ethnic make-up of Turkey at a symposium in Kayseri. Associations have called for his resignation.
b--a news centre - --stanbul
21 A--ustos 2007, Sal--
Gökce Gündüc Ayse Sah Bozdogan
At a symposium in Kayseri, central Anatolia, Yusuf Halacoglu, president of the Turkish Historical Society (TTK) had made comments on the ethnic composition of Turkey which have caused enraged reactions.
Halacoglu had claimed that "People we call Kurds are actually of Turkmen origin, while those we think are Kurdish Alevi are really of Armenian origin". He put forward the claim that "most of the people in the TIKKO (Turkey Workers' and Villagers' Liberation Army) and PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) organisations are Kurds of Armenian origin." Maksudyan: 'Race' is an outdated concept
Nazan Maksudyan, author of the book "Measuring Turkishness: Science Fiction Anthropology and Turkish Nationalism's Racist Aspect (1925-1939) and history PhD candidate at Sabanci University, has commented:
"It is impossible to read Halacoglu's comments without feeling alarmed. It has long been accepted by scientists that the concept of 'race' has no scientific base. Categorising people as Armenian, Kurdish, Turkmen and ascribing certain characteristics to these groups and assuming that they behave in a certain way is at best a simplification, but at its worst racism." "Race" is an exclusionary category
"We know that in the foundation years of the Turkish Republic, racism was one of the currencies affected by the nationalist paradigm and that there were serious references to the 'Turkish race' when the national history and national language theses were formulated. There was research done in the name of anthropology which was far from scientific, and the superiority of the 'Turkish race', designated as the founders of the state, was continuously emphasised. 'Race', unlike 'culture' or 'citizenship' is a category that does not allow for later membership. Its points of reference are blood, lineage and roots, which are exclusionary and result in second-class citizenship."
Maksudyan continued, "By claiming that Kurdish Alevis are really Armenians, Halacoglu has also referred to a touchstone of today's nationalism: the denial of the 1915 disaster: The Armenians did not die, they are alive with an Alevi identity."
Posted 24 September 2008 - 10:36 AM
qaqam alekum salam alekum.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Khanums and Aghas,
My name is hamid mehmetoghlu.
I am a professional stand up comic, today I will speak about a non-comical serious subject.
Armenians are such a pest. They are descendants of lemmings.
In 1915, when they realized they(we) had reproduced at such a prolific rate, that they decided a mass migration(not unlike the mass migration to Glendale today) and take a dive. The rats that they are, they hired the Kirk Krkorian et al. the Pied Piper of Hamelin** to lead them through the deserts of Arabia in search of water to drown in. There not being any sea or ocean in the desert, they chose to jump in the Rivers of Euphrates and Tigris to commit mass suicide. Some of them did not drown. They swam all the way to the shores of Glendale, and they still do.
Dont get me wrong. We love Armenia, it is our only obstacle/bridge to the (baku) Caspian and beyond. But, who are these so called Armenians? Why dont they all mass migrate to Glendale and leave the land to us?
The behaviour of lemmings is much the same as that of many other rodents which have periodic population booms and then disperse in all directions, seeking the food and shelter that their natural habitat cannot provide.
Lemmings of northern Norway are one of the few vertebrates who reproduce so quickly that their population fluctuations are chaotic,[1] rather than following linear growth to a carrying capacity or regular oscillations. It is unknown why lemming populations fluctuate with such variance roughly every four years, before plummeting to near extinction.[2]
While for many years it was believed that the population of lemming predators changed with the population cycle, there is now some evidence to suggest that the predator's population may be more closely involved in changing the lemming population.[3]
Myths and misconceptions
Misconceptions about lemmings go back many centuries. In the 1530s, the geographer Zeigler of Strasbourg proposed the theory that the creatures fell out of the sky during stormy weather (also featured in the folklore of the Inupiat/Yupik at Norton Sound), and then died suddenly when the grass grew in spring.[4] This was refuted by the natural historian Ole Worm, who first published dissections of a lemming, and showed that lemmings are anatomically similar to most other rodents.
While many people believe that lemmings commit mass suicide when they migrate, this is not the case. Driven by strong biological urges, they will migrate in large groups when population density becomes too great. Lemmings can and do swim and may choose to cross a body of water in search of a new habitat[5]. On occasion, and particularly in the case of the Norway lemmings in Scandinavia, large migrating groups will reach a cliff overlooking the ocean. They will stop until the urge to press on causes them to jump off the cliff and start swimming, sometimes to exhaustion and death. Lemmings are also often pushed into the sea as more and more lemmings arrive at the shore. [6]
The myth of lemming mass suicide is long-standing and has been popularized by a number of factors.
** http://en.wikipedia....iper_of_Hamelin
In 1284, while the town of Hamelin was suffering from a rat infestation, a man dressed in pied[1] garments appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. He promised the townsmen a solution for their problem with the rats. The townsmen in turn promised to pay him for the removal of the rats. The man accepted, and thus played a musical pipe to lure the rats with a song into the Weser River, where all of them drowned. Despite his success, the people reneged on their promise and refused to pay the rat-catcher. The man left the town angrily, but returned some time later, seeking revenge.
Edited by Arpa, 24 September 2008 - 10:47 AM.
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We could maybe tweak some of the settings, since we now have the forums at our own server. Have you some ideas how we can tweak it?
I personally would deactivate the "birthday"-feature. This is a technical forum and now private community. Is it really important, how we have our birthday?


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Latest Diet & Weight Management News
FRIDAY, Oct. 19 (HealthDay News) -- A combination of exercise and healthy eating is better than dieting alone in reducing body fat and preserving muscle in adults, according to researchers who analyzed data from 11 participants on the reality TV show "The Biggest Loser."
The program features obese adults who attempt to lose large amounts of weight over several months.
The 11 participants' body fat, total energy expenditure and resting metabolic rate (energy burned when inactive) were measured at the start of the program, at week 6 and at week 30. The participants had an average weight loss of 128 pounds, with about 82 percent of that coming from body fat and the remainder from lean tissue such as muscle, the investigators found.
Preserving muscle during weight loss offers a number of benefits, including lowering the risk of injury, and promoting strength and mobility, according to the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) researchers.
For the study, the investigators used a mathematical computer model of human metabolism to create simulations of the diet and exercise that led to the participants' weight loss. The computer program calculated that diet alone was responsible for more weight loss than exercise, with 65 percent of the weight loss from body fat and 35 percent from lean mass (including muscle).
On the other hand, exercise alone led to the loss of only fat, with no muscle loss, and also resulted in a small increase in lean mass despite overall weight loss, the study authors explained in an institute news release.
The findings also indicated that the participants could avoid regaining weight by adopting more moderate lifestyle changes than those shown on the television program; for example, by maintaining 20 minutes of vigorous exercise a day and a 20 percent reduction in calorie intake.
"This study reinforces the need for a healthy diet and exercise in our daily lives," Dr. Griffin Rodgers, director of the NIDDK, said in the news release. "It also illustrates how the science of metabolism and mathematical modeling can be used to develop sound recommendations for sustainable weight loss -- an important tool in the treatment of obesity -- based on an individual's unique circumstances."
The study was released online in advance of print publication in an upcoming issue of the journal Obesity.
-- Robert Preidt
Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.


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Download Final Fight
Its FBA version of game and its in better quality. Download Final Fight PC game free.
How to Play
Run fba.exe
Game > Load Games
Select Game and Click Play
If you can't find games there then use 'Scan ROMs' and 'ROMs Dir' buttons.
'roms' folder is at the root
Press 5 for coins couple of times
1 to start
Keys: Arrow keys, Z, X, C
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Tags: game, final fight download, fighting game, fba, pc game, classic game, final fight
6 Reviews
Installed DirectX and tried again but still getting error required files are missing
fba.exe does not work, gives error Unable to Locate Component.
This application has failed to start because d3dx9_42.dll was not found.
Can't run fba.exe??? Why is it different from the other arcade games / MAME/ Says that a component is missing…


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In the fourth minute Conor Casey controlled the ball at the top of the
The Sounders cleared a ball off the line in the 20th minute. Casey headed a Jose Cancela cross to the far post but former Rapids player Danny Jackson recovered to save the goal.
The Rapids went down 1-0 in the 23rd minute. Josh Gardner swung in a corner kick that was knocked over the line by Taylor Graham at the back post.
In the 25th minute
In the 56th minute
A breakaway goal by Le Toux made the difference five in the 68th minute.
Scoring Summary:
SEA – Graham (
SEA – Scott (O'Brien) 25
SEA – Own Goal (Ihemelu) 43
SEA – Gardner (Le Toux) 56
SEA – Le Toux (unassisted) 68
Colorado Rapids – Zach Thornton Brandon Prideaux Ugo Ihemelu Facundo Erpen Colin Clark (Niko Hernandez 45) Jacob Peterson Pablo Mastroeni (Jovan Kirovski 60) Jose Cancela (Dan Gargan 51) Mehdi Ballouchy Conor Casey Herculez Gomez (Daniel Osorno 64)
Substitutes Not Used: Bouna Coundoul Terry Cooke Nick LaBrocca
Substitutes Not Used: Ben Dragavon Adam West
Misconduct Summary:
SEA – Treschuk (Caution) 29
SEA – O'Brien (Caution) 43
SEA – Le Toux (Caution) 69
Referee: Ricardo Salazar
Referees Assts.: Jeff Hosking Mike Rottersman
Fourth Official: Shahram Pourazari
1996: Advanced to semifinal round
Defeated: Kansas City Wizards (3-2)
Lost t Rochester Raging Rhinos (0-3)
1997: Lost in third round
Lost t Chicago Stingers (1-2)
1998: Lost in qualification round
Lost to Miami Fusion (2-3)
1999: Advanced to championship game
Defeated: Seattle Sounders (1-0) Tampa Bay Mutiny (1-0) Charleston Battery (3-0)
Lost t Rochester Raging Rhinos (0-2)
2000: Lost in third round
Lost t Richmond Kickers (0-3)
2001: Lost in third round
Lost t Pittsburgh Riverhounds (0-2)
2002: Advanced to quarterfinal round
Defeated: Charleston Battery (1-0)
Lost t Dallas Burn (0-1)
2003: Advance to quarterfinal round
Defeated: Kansas City Wizards (3-2)
Lost t Chicago Fire (1-2)
2004: Lost in fourth round
Lost t Dallas Burn (0-3)
2005: Lost in fourth round
Lost t Minnesota Thunder (1-4)
2006: Advanced to quarterfinal round
Defeated: Real Salt Lake (1-0)
Lost t LA Galaxy (3-1)
2007: Advanced to quarterfinal round
Defeated: Real Salt Lake (2-1 [MLS qualifying match]) California Victory (3-1)
Lost t Seattle Sounders (5-0)


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America, Forever Racist?
The central criticism of the George Zimmerman trial is that there was one. It was simply impossible to convict him of anything beyond a reasonable doubt.
The central criticism of the coverage of this trial was that there was any. How did this story merit consideration as national news? Why was the death of Trayvon Martin a thousand times more newsworthy than any other person shot on an American street? Answer: because Al Sharpton and other race-hustlers wanted it that way.
Liberal journalists loved to suggest that the lives of young blacks in America are worth less than white lives. This was not a maxim in the coverage (or to be more accurate, shocking avoidance of) the trial of inner-city Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell.
But when 17-year-old black boys are shooting other black teenagers? Yawn. In the 20-day period of the Zimmerman trial, the Chicago Sun-Times reported four minors – three teens and a five-year-old boy -- were gunned down in the president's adopted hometown of Chicago. Those victims will not be adopted as a cause by Sharpton & Co. Their deaths generated zero coverage by the national "news" media.
Like the jurors, most Americans saw the confrontation between Zimmerman and Martin as unnecessary and tragic. But that doesn't make it a murder. It doesn't make it an occasion for our "news" media to pander to liberal "civil rights" leaders and sound the wildly inccurate alarm that America hasn't moved an inch on racial matters since 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered in 1955.
Twitter is like alcohol: it can lead people to show their true colors. Associated Press writer Cristina Silva asked "So we can all kill teenagers now? Just checking." HBO star Bill Maher tweeted "This is America, waddya expect? The only thing [you] aren't allowed to kill in an instant is a fetus."
CNN disgraced itself on Twitter by ignoring the facts. "I find it very hard to accept that it's 'lawful' to shoot an unarmed 17-[year]-old boy dead as he walks home," tweeted Piers Morgan, as if Martin never caused Zimmerman's head wounds. Supposed legal expert Jeffrey Toobin also ignored the head-banging fight: "Trayvon got the death penalty for buying Skittles in a hoodie."
MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing swooped in shortly after the verdict to declare some kind of anti-black plague had descended on the country. "I think there is one thing that is undeniable. And that is, the result of this case, there are 12-year-olds who are crawling into bed with their parents tonight out of fear."
Stay classy, MSNBC.
The Sunday shows were poisonous. CNN host Candy Crowley baited Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn: "Do you think that the American justice system is innately racist?" At least Quinn resisted, suggesting "The American way is color-blind." On MSNBC, anchor Thomas Roberts proclaimed, "I'll say it. Honestly, there's a lot of white shame today."
PBS talk-show host Tavis Smiley, who's forever complaining that President Obama isn't radical enough for blacks, was brought on ABC's "This Week" to trash the public. "I think this for many Americans, George, just another piece of evidence of the incontrovertible contempt that this nation often shows and displays for black men."
NBC blurred into MSNBC on Monday morning, when anchor Savannah Guthrie stooped to asking Al Sharpton if the prosecutors hadn't relied enough on attacking Zimmerman as racist.
NBC also interviewed MSNBC host Toure and MSNBC analyst Michael Eric Dyson. "I'm taken back to Emmett Till and Amadou Diallo and Aiyana Jones and all these other situations where we understand that black life means a little bit less than white life in America," proclaimed Toure.
Dyson agreed: "I have two sons, and my son texted me and said, 'How do I protect my two black boys who are very young?' So for us it's a reminder, it's a kind of deja vu all over again and it's a negative appraisal of the American soul."
No one who had a more positive opinion on America's racial harmony was invited.
The Washington Post ventured there as well, explicitly comparing Trayvon Martin to the fictional victim of racism in "To Kill a Mockingbird." Writer Wil Haygood strongly implied it was another Southern injustice like "the Scottsboro Boys, Emmett Till, Isaac Woodward, Medgar Evers, the four girls killed in the Alabama bombing."
Haygood did talk to Southern lawyer Bill Baxley, who stuck with reality. "I think it was just difficult for the prosecution. You did have a guy [Zimmerman] with some kind of injuries." Even if the America-bashing media didn't want to acknowledge there was "some kind" of inconvenient truth.


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There's a write up of some pushing the envelope on ODIEE 11g capabilities here that I presented parts of last week at ODTUG KScope 11 in Long Beach, California.
The ODTUG Kaleidescope/KScope is certainly an awesome conference with gurus on all fronts willing to talk about their cherished areas. Next year its headed for San Antonio, Texas – Long Beach was fun and it was great to meet all the folks that I did!


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DOYLESTOWN, Pennsylvania – November 14, 2012. ProPhase Labs (NASDAQ: PRPH, www.ProPhaseLabs.com) today reported net sales of $5.4 million and $13.3 million for the three month and nine month periods ended September 30, 2012, compared to net sales of $5.1 million and $10.0 million for the three month and nine month periods ended September 30, 2011.
The Company realized net income for the three months ended September 30, 2012, of $1.1 million, or $0.07 per share, compared to net income of $1.1 million, or $0.07 per share, for the three months ended September 30, 2011.
The Company incurred a net loss for the nine months ended September 30, 2012, of $1.5 million, or ($0.10) per share, compared to a net loss of $877,000, or ($0.06) per share, for the nine months ended September 30, 2011.
Results for the nine months ended September 30, 2012 compared to the nine months ended September 30, 2011 principally reflect the net effect of (i) an increase in net sales of $3.3 million, offset by (ii) an increase in sales and marketing expense of $1.7 million, (iii) an increase of $610,000 in administration costs and (iv) an increase in research and development costs of $461,000 primarily attributable to the successful development of our new Cold-EEZE® Daytime/Nighttime QuickMelts® and research costs related to our Phusion Joint Venture.
The revenue growth we realized for the first nine months of fiscal 2012, as compared to the first nine months of 2011, was in part attributable to the success of our marketing efforts in late fiscal 2011 and early 2012. Our marketing strategies led to increased consumer purchases in late fiscal 2011, as a consequence of which, our retailers placed larger stock replenishment orders in the first quarter of 2012 to maintain their inventory levels which were depleted in late fiscal 2011. In addition, the timing, stocking and ultimate level of demand of retailer purchases of our OTC cold remedy products are affected by the change in the timing and the comparative severity of the respective cold season as well as the effects of the timing and scope of our marketing and promotional efforts to increase consumer awareness and to influence purchaser decisions.
Ted Karkus, ProPhase Labs' Chairman and CEO, stated, "In fiscal 2011, our net sales for the year grew by approximately 20% versus the prior year. For the first 9 months of 2012 our net sales have grown by more than 30% year over year. While our growth is likely to fluctuate from quarter to quarter due to factors beyond our control, including but not limited to the severity of the cold and flu season, we are clearly on track to report our second straight year of double digit net sales growth. It is noteworthy that our team has accomplished these results during a two year period in which the incidence of upper respiratory illness declined and sales of cough/cold products declined for many of our direct competitors.
Of course, we still have to wait and see how our loyal consumers of Cold-EEZE® lozenges and potential new Cold-EEZE® consumers respond to our new products and marketing campaign. However, if the initial success in introducing our new products to our retail customers is any indication of future results, we can all look forward to continued success."
Mr. Karkus concluded: "We are executing our core branding strategy: we have rebuilt and are enhancing our distribution platform; we have rebuilt and are expanding our flagship Cold-EEZE® brand; and we are leveraging these successes with new products and effective marketing strategies. We continue to believe that the long term strategy we are following is the right one for our loyal long term shareholders."
About ProPhase Labs
ProPhase Labs is a diversified natural health medical science company. It is a leading marketer of the Cold-EEZE® Cold Remedy brand as well as other cold relief products. Cold-EEZE® zinc gluconate lozenges are clinically proven to significantly reduce the severity and duration of the common cold. Cold-EEZE® customers include leading national retailers, chain food, drug and mass merchandise stores, wholesalers and distributors, as well as independent pharmacies. ProPhase Labs has several wholly owned subsidiaries including a manufacturing unit, which consists of an FDA registered facility to manufacture Cold-EEZE® lozenges and fulfill other contract manufacturing opportunities. ProPhase also owns 50% of Phusion Laboratories, LLC ("Phusion"). Phusion licenses a revolutionary proprietary technology that has the potential to improve the delivery and/or efficacy of many active ingredients or compounds. Phusion will formulate and test products to exploit market opportunities within ProPhase's robust over-the-counter distribution channels. For more information visit us at www.ProPhaseLabs.com.
(Tables Follow)
Press Only Contact
Jenny Miranda
5W Public Relations
Tel: (212) 584-4295


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This bit of history was linked today on Hacker News, and re-reading it touched on some points that I have been carefully considering the past few months, prompting me to write this.
I believe most people would agree that the Mozilla of today is a vastly changed beast from the dinosaur of the past. We are faster, stronger, and we are delivering products and services that are changing the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
Of course, we still have a few of the same problems Jamie mentioned in his post, but we are much more cognizant of those problems and both the employees of Mozilla and the community are hard at work every day to solve those problems.
The piece I wanted to specifically share my thoughts about is community participation. Jamie mentioned in his post that the release of the Netscape source code was a beacon of hope to him. It was putting the control of the web browser into the hands of anyone who cared to step up to the task. By the time that he decided to resign however, he did not feel that particular goal had succeeded. He stated that the project was not adopted by the outside. I might argue the details since it wouldn't have gotten where it was today if there was zero adoption, but the point is still useful.
Further down was the kicker for me. In "Excuse #2" Jamie states the following:
"People only really contribute when they get something out of it. When someone is first beginning to contribute, they especially need to see some kind of payback, some kind of positive reinforcement, right away. For example, if someone were running a web browser, then stopped, added a simple new command to the source, recompiled, and had that same web browser plus their addition, they would be motivated to do this again, and possibly to tackle even larger projects."
Wow, that harmonizes with my feelings today. Everyone who is active in the Mozilla Community today is active because they get something out of it. I believe that the majority of people who are no longer active in the community reached some point where they stopped getting something useful out of it. That might have been because something was too hard for them to do by themselves, or because of a bad interaction with another community member or even an employee. But, for whatever reason, they lost that spark and then we lost them.
The Mozilla employees need to become flint and steel for the community. We need to be constantly tossing sparks out, flashes of light that will ignite fire in the spirits of our community and will catch the attention of people across the globe and draw them in.
Back in December, I met with a few people including Pedro Alves, David Eaves, Asa Dotzler, and Dan Mosedale. We were discussing a project to quantify and provide actionable insight for community participation.
Since that meeting, the Mozilla Metrics team has been working on the first iteration of this project, a dashboard that visualizes commit activity in Mozilla's Mecurial repository. Within a few weeks, we should have this ready to share with people. Future iterations will also draw data from Bugzilla patches and reviews. There are a ton of other datasources that we could consider, but these are definitely enough to get us started. I am also very pleased to see several other teams working on other community focused projects. Obviously Mozilla Drumbeat is the flagship there, but the SUMO and Engagement teams have interesting projects in the works as well.
All this activity centered on engaging our community is thrilling to me. Every person that we inspire, assist, and collaborate with is much more likely to "pay it forward" and do the same for someone else. Community is what strengthens Mozilla. There are many open source projects with communities around them, but Mozilla is in the company of a special few whose goals are truly public benefit driven rather than using open source as a tool to make a great piece of software.
Throughout 2011, I believe we need to spend as much time focusing on ways to understand and collaborate to make our community an army of awesome as we spend on the more straightforward engineering task of making our services and products awesome. This is what Jamie stated inspired him about Netscape's original choice to embrace community and open source, and it is definitely what inspired me to become involved and make Mozilla's mission my own.


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"We've gotten away from the real meaning of food, and the power of food," Michael Pollan told us in a December 2013 interview. The famous food author has helped spur a movement encouraging people to return to using whole, real ingredients in home-cooked meals. He is known for touting a primary rule about food and eating: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
In our current food system, however, we can go to a grocery store and buy anything we can think of to eat, often with little information about where it came from or how it was made: everything from yogurt in a squeezable tube to countless pre-packaged dishes filled with additives. How have we arrived at this state in our food system? And what can we do to fix it? Pollan explains that in the face of a giant industry, change begins with our individual choices.
What has led us away from the real meaning of food? What could help us discover it again?
We're being encouraged to eat this way by the market. The food manufacturers love us to snack because those are the most profitable products. They love us to eat. They want to be able to market to you, and separately then your kids, and then your husband. They want us to buy this up because they'll sell more food that way.
We need to press against that to reestablish those connections. If you buy organic food or local food, you're supporting a completely different food chain. All the life grown out of the soil is different in an organic farm, right through to people working in the food chain and up to your body. You're linked with that food choice.
If you buy, say, grass‑fed beef, you're supporting a kind of agriculture where cattle live out on grass and they're not in feedlots and they're not getting pharmaceuticals. It's a different way of engaging with these animals that we depend on.
All this has been invisible because the industrial food system really doesn't want us to see it. They want to control the story about our food, which is essentially how convenient it is, how cheap it is, and how good it tastes—but not the story of how it is made.
What are some of the biggest problems that you see with our food system?
One of the really big problems is that the business model of the food industry is to process food as much as possible. It's very hard to make money selling whole foods. Farmers will tell you that all the time. You make a lot more money precooking it, complicating it, taking that yogurt and putting it in a squeeze tube for kids. That packaging adds so much more value than the work that the cow did, or whoever fermented it, or the bacteria.
This is not a good thing for our farmers. Of the average dollar you spend on food, 92 percent of it goes to the processors and the shippers and the packagers, and only 8 cents gets to the farmer. One of the reasons it is important to start buying raw ingredients and cooking is that more of your dollar will end up in the farmer's pocket. That's only fair because all our food comes from farms. Farmers need to be given a living wage so that they don't have to rely on chemicals and drugs, and all the things that are going on in industrial agriculture.
Food manufacturers don't have a compelling interest in our health. They have an interest in getting us to eat as much as they can. The way they do this is by stimulating our cravings, and using ingredients that are more or less addictive, like sugar and salt and fat.
How can we fix them or avoid these problems? Why should we?
Part of the reason to cook is to help rebuild the farm economy. I don't think that's a small thing at all. It's really important to get us off of this very unsustainable agriculture that we have, with the need to over‑process and the way that corporations shop, which is to say for very cheap raw ingredients which they then improve with salt, fat, sugar, and additives.
Getting off of that highly‑processed, industrial food chain does a lot of things for people's health. In fact, the single most important thing about your diet is not what nutrients are in it, good or bad, but who's cooking it. Is it a human being or is it a corporation? If it's a corporation, there's a very good chance you're going to be struggling at some point with your weight, with type two diabetes, and with all the chronic diseases linked to diet.
Even when they've gotten into healthy food, such as low‑fat foods, which was the craze for the last couple decades, the corporations just added more carbohydrates to make those foods acceptable, and people binged on low‑fat foods. In fact, the advent of low‑fat food tracks very closely with the rise in obesity, so it didn't turn out to do us any good.
I also think that there's an issue of animal welfare and animal mercy that needs to be addressed. Most large food companies buy the cheapest meat they can find. To raise meat cheaply involves a certain level of brutality, from what I've seen. I've been on a lot of feedlots and hog confinement operations and chicken houses. The industrialization of animals is a brutal process. That's something that I'm not comfortable supporting. I spend a lot more money on meat, when I eat meat, to eat meat that's been raised humanely and consistently with my values.
That's one of the biggest challenges of eating industrially: Is the way this food is being produced really reflective of your values? Everything we do should be reflective of our values, and very often food production is not. The use of chemicals and pharmaceuticals in food production, too, is an enormous public health problem. Those are big problems.
The great thing is, we have alternatives. We're not stuck with this, and we don't have to wait for the government to fix it. There are now options. Even in conventional supermarkets, you can find organic food. You can often find local food. You can find humanely‑raised eggs or chicken. And you're going to see a lot more of that.
The challenge is, it tends to be more expensive, and not everybody can afford it. That's important work we need to do, to democratize the benefits that the good food movement. We're not all going to make the same choices. Some people don't think animals have souls, and they're not troubled by industrial meat production. That's OK, but they should know what it is, and see how they feel about it.
This is a web-only sidebar that accompanies the article, "Something to chew on: How cooking can create community," that appeared in the December 2013 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 78, No. 12, pages 28-32).


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Official SOE Podcast #140 is LIVE
Join us for the latest Official SOE Podcast! This is Podcast #140, where we celebrate 2012 and the Holidays with you! Your hostesses Aimee "Ashlanne" Rekoske and Donna "Danicia" Prior talk about the holidays, share their favorite moments from 2012, and look forward to 2013! Let us know what you think at firstname.lastname@example.com or head over to the Station Forums and share your opinion with the Community!
You can download the MP3 file directly or subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking the button listed below.