text:
Spermatogenesis is regulated by the 2 pituitary gonadotropins, luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). This process is considered impossible without the absolute requirement of LH-stimulated testicular testosterone (T) production. The role of FSH remains unclear because men and mice with inactivating FSH receptor (FSHR) mutations are fertile. We revisited the role of FSH in spermatogenesis using transgenic mice expressing a constitutively strongly active FSHR mutant in a LH receptor–null (LHR-null) background. The mutant FSHR reversed the azoospermia and partially restored fertility of Lhr–/– mice. The finding was initially ascribed to the residual Leydig cell T production. However, when T action was completely blocked with the potent antiandrogen flutamide, spermatogenesis persisted. Hence, completely T-independent spermatogenesis is possible through strong FSHR activation, and the dogma of T being a sine qua non for spermatogenesis may need modification. The mechanism for the finding appeared to be that FSHR activation maintained the expression of Sertoli cell genes considered androgen dependent. The translational message of our findings is the possibility of developing a new strategy of high-dose FSH treatment for spermatogenic failure. Our findings also provide an explanation of molecular pathogenesis for Pasqualini syndrome (fertile eunuchs; LH/T deficiency with persistent spermatogenesis) and explain how the hormonal regulation of spermatogenesis has shifted from FSH to T dominance during evolution.
Olayiwola O. Oduwole, Hellevi Peltoketo, Ariel Poliandri, Laura Vengadabady, Marcin Chrusciel, Milena Doroszko, Luna Samanta, Laura Owen, Brian Keevil, Nafis A. Rahman, Ilpo T. Huhtaniemi
Uncovering the causes of pregnancy complications such as preterm labor requires greater insight into how the uterus remains in a noncontractile state until term and then surmounts this state to enter labor. Here, we show that dynamic generation and erasure of the repressive histone modification tri-methyl histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27me3) in decidual stromal cells dictate both elements of pregnancy success in mice. In early gestation, H3K27me3-induced transcriptional silencing of select gene targets ensured uterine quiescence by preventing the decidua from expressing parturition-inducing hormone receptors, manifesting type 1 immunity, and most unexpectedly, generating myofibroblasts and associated wound-healing responses. In late gestation, genome-wide H3K27 demethylation allowed for target gene upregulation, decidual activation, and labor entry. Pharmacological inhibition of H3K27 demethylation in late gestation not only prevented term parturition, but also inhibited delivery while maintaining pup viability in a noninflammatory model of preterm parturition. Immunofluorescence analysis of human specimens suggested that similar regulatory events might occur in the human decidua. Together, these results reveal the centrality of regulated gene silencing in the uterine adaptation to pregnancy and suggest new areas in the study and treatment of pregnancy disorders.
Patrice Nancy, Johan Siewiera, Gabrielle Rizzuto, Elisa Tagliani, Ivan Osokine, Priyanka Manandhar, Igor Dolgalev, Caterina Clementi, Aristotelis Tsirigos, Adrian Erlebacher
Natural and synthetic progestogens have been commonly used to prevent recurrent pregnancy loss in women with inadequate progesterone secretion or reduced progesterone sensitivity. However, the clinical efficacy of progesterone and its analogs for maintaining pregnancy is variable. Additionally, the underlying cause of impaired endometrial progesterone responsiveness during early pregnancy remains unknown. Here, we demonstrated that uterine-selective depletion of BMI1, a key component of the polycomb repressive complex-1 (PRC1), hampers uterine progesterone responsiveness and derails normal uterine receptivity, resulting in implantation failure in mice. We further uncovered genetic and biochemical evidence that BMI1 interacts with the progesterone receptor (PR) and the E3 ligase E6AP in a polycomb complex–independent manner and regulates the PR ubiquitination that is essential for normal progesterone responsiveness. A close association of aberrantly low endometrial BMI1 expression with restrained PR responsiveness in women who had previously had a miscarriage indicated that the role of BMI1 in endometrial PR function is conserved in mice and in humans. In addition to uncovering a potential regulatory mechanism of BMI1 that ensures normal endometrial progesterone responsiveness during early pregnancy, our findings have the potential to help clarify the underlying causes of spontaneous pregnancy loss in women.
Qiliang Xin, Shuangbo Kong, Junhao Yan, Jingtao Qiu, Bo He, Chan Zhou, Zhangli Ni, Haili Bao, Lin Huang, Jinhua Lu, Guoliang Xia, Xicheng Liu, Zi-Jiang Chen, Chao Wang, Haibin Wang
The spermatogenesis/oogenesis helix-loop-helix (SOHLH) proteins SOHLH1 and SOHLH2 play important roles in male and female reproduction. Although previous studies indicate that these transcriptional regulators are expressed in and have in vivo roles in postnatal ovaries, their expression and function in the embryonic ovary remain largely unknown. Because oocyte differentiation is tightly coupled with the onset of meiosis, it is of significant interest to determine how early oocyte transcription factors regulate these two processes. In this issue of the
T. Rajendra Kumar
Following migration of primordial germ cells to the genital ridge, oogonia undergo several rounds of mitotic division and enter meiosis at approximately E13.5. Most oocytes arrest in the dictyate (diplotene) stage of meiosis circa E18.5. The genes necessary to drive oocyte differentiation in parallel with meiosis are unknown. Here, we have investigated whether expression of spermatogenesis and oogenesis bHLH transcription factor 1 (
Yong-Hyun Shin, Yu Ren, Hitomi Suzuki, Kayla J. Golnoski, Hyo won Ahn, Vasil Mico, Aleksandar Rajkovic
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are negative modulators of gene expression that fine-tune numerous biological processes. miRNA loss-of-function rarely results in highly penetrant phenotypes, but rather, influences cellular responses to physiologic and pathophysiologic stresses. Here, we have reported that a single member of the evolutionarily conserved miR-7 family, miR-7a2, is essential for normal pituitary development and hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) function in adulthood. Genetic deletion of
Kashan Ahmed, Mary P. LaPierre, Emanuel Gasser, Rémy Denzler, Yinjie Yang, Thomas Rülicke, Jukka Kero, Mathieu Latreille, Markus Stoffel
Autoimmune responses to meiotic germ cell antigens (MGCA) that are expressed on sperm and testis occur in human infertility and after vasectomy. Many MGCA are also expressed as cancer/testis antigens (CTA) in human cancers, but the tolerance status of MGCA has not been investigated. MGCA are considered to be uniformly immunogenic and nontolerogenic, and the prevailing view posits that MGCA are sequestered behind the Sertoli cell barrier in seminiferous tubules. Here, we have shown that only some murine MGCA are sequestered. Nonsequestered MCGA (NS-MGCA) egressed from normal tubules, as evidenced by their ability to interact with systemically injected antibodies and form localized immune complexes outside the Sertoli cell barrier. NS-MGCA derived from cell fragments that were discarded by spermatids during spermiation. They egressed as cargo in residual bodies and maintained Treg-dependent physiological tolerance. In contrast, sequestered MGCA (S-MGCA) were undetectable in residual bodies and were nontolerogenic. Unlike postvasectomy autoantibodies, which have been shown to mainly target S-MGCA, autoantibodies produced by normal mice with transient Treg depletion that developed autoimmune orchitis exclusively targeted NS-MGCA. We conclude that spermiation, a physiological checkpoint in spermatogenesis, determines the egress and tolerogenicity of MGCA. Our findings will affect target antigen selection in testis and sperm autoimmunity and the immune responses to CTA in male cancer patients.
Kenneth S.K. Tung, Jessica Harakal, Hui Qiao, Claudia Rival, Jonathan C.H. Li, Alberta G.A. Paul, Karen Wheeler, Patcharin Pramoonjago, Constance M. Grafer, Wei Sun, Robert D. Sampson, Elissa W.P. Wong, Prabhakara P. Reddi, Umesh S. Deshmukh, Daniel M. Hardy, Huanghui Tang, C. Yan Cheng, Erwin Goldberg
Alexander N. Comninos, Matthew B. Wall, Lysia Demetriou, Amar J. Shah, Sophie A. Clarke, Shakunthala Narayanaswamy, Alexander Nesbitt, Chioma Izzi-Engbeaya, Julia K. Prague, Ali Abbara, Risheka Ratnasabapathy, Victoria Salem, Gurjinder M. Nijher, Channa N. Jayasena, Mark Tanner, Paul Bassett, Amrish Mehta, Eugenii A. Rabiner, Christoph Hönigsperger, Meire Ribeiro Silva, Ole Kristian Brandtzaeg, Elsa Lundanes, Steven Ray Wilson, Rachel C. Brown, Sarah A. Thomas, Stephen R. Bloom, Waljit S. Dhillo
Hooman Mirzakhani, Augusto A. Litonjua, Thomas F. McElrath, George O'Connor, Aviva Lee-Parritz, Ronald Iverson, George Macones, Robert C. Strunk, Leonard B. Bacharier, Robert Zeiger, Bruce W. Hollis, Diane E. Handy, Amitabh Sharma, Nancy Laranjo, Vincent Carey, Weilliang Qiu, Marc Santolini, Shikang Liu, Divya Chhabra, Daniel A. Enquobahrie, Michelle A. Williams, Joseph Loscalzo, Scott T. Weiss
Inflammation and oxidative stress are known risk factors for preterm birth (PTB); however, the mechanisms and pathways that influence this condition are not fully described. Previously, we showed that mTORC1 signaling is increased in mice harboring a uterine-specific deletion of transformation-related protein 53 (
Wenbo Deng, Jeeyeon Cha, Jia Yuan, Hirofumi Haraguchi, Amanda Bartos, Emma Leishman, Benoit Viollet, Heather B. Bradshaw, Yasushi Hirota, Sudhansu K. Dey


text:
Following over a decade of ground-breaking discoveries, Cassini is now approaching its mission end.
With little fuel left to correct the NASA's spacecraft trajectory, it has been decided to end the mission by plunging it into Saturn's atmosphere on 15 September 2017. In the process, Cassini will burn up, satisfying planetary protection requirements to avoid possible contamination of any moons of Saturn that could have conditions suitable for life. These include Saturn's largest moon Titan and Enceladus, which has a liquid ocean under its icy crust.
The grand finale is not only a spectacular way to complete this extraordinary mission, but will also return a bounty of unique scientific data that was not possible to collect during the previous phases of the mission. Cassini has never ventured into the area between Saturn and its rings before, so the new set of orbits is almost like a whole new mission.
These close orbits will provide the highest resolution observations ever achieved of the inner rings and the planet's clouds. The orbits will also give the chance to examine in situ the material in the rings and plasma environment of Saturn. It will also probe the planet's magnetic field at close distances.
This video explains Cassini 's final operations, what the Cassini-Huygens mission has taught us about Saturn, the potential for life on its moons and the promise of more science to come.
It contains soundbites from Michele Dougherty, the Principal Investigator of Cassini's magnetometer (English on A roll) and Nico Altobelli, ESA Cassini Project Manager (English on A roll; French on B roll).

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Your ad will go to 3,500 subscribers of the news-feed of http://is.gd/8FiW5.
They are people who are interested in Jail and Prison Ministry, Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation. Many of them have loved ones behind bars.
You buy one time mailing: text, image and a corresponding link to your website or a page.
You can monitor effectiveness of this method by subscribing to the news-feed here: http://is.gd/8FiW5.


text:
Buffett to Get Top 10 Stake in Goldman, and More
What's News: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is on pace to get nearly 2% of Goldman shares. Cyprus orders its banks to stay closed until Thursday. On the economic front, home prices edge up and durable goods orders surge. Photo: Getty
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... the the apartheid state Goldman Sachs this is what's news I'm WS J live unto Lanco ... the Oracle of Omaha is on pace to get nearly two percent of Goldman Sachs thanks to soaring Value The warranty holds an investment bank ... Goldman and Berkshire Hathaway are demanding their agreement from an investment Mr. Buffett made at the height of the financial crisis ... Berkshire receive warrants to purchase forty three point five million shares of Goldman and one hundred and fifty dollars each until October twenty thirteen ... under the new terms of the pack this fall for sure will receive Goldman shares instead of the tax difference between Goldman stock price ... and Berkshire's exercise price ... this will put Mr. Buffett's taking the company posted two percent making him the ninth largest holder of Goldman ... according to FactSet and Cyprus orders at the base remain shut until Thursday and she is that those institutions ... will be overrun by customers try to extract their money after a bailout deal was reached Monday ... I'll in Asian stock markets will also remain close Wednesday ... all that the nation's two biggest banks had been preparing to open today ... and the economic front U S home prices edging up one ... percent in January making the year-on-year gain to eight point one percent ... that's the fastest growth of more than six years according to NASA peak Case Shiller report ... the front durable goods surging if it were employed by demand for transportation equipment like airplanes ... orders jumping five point seven percent reversing gaining three point eight percent drop ... looking keep us anomaly business about Mr upbeat and what's his aunt WS J last ...


text:
Welcome to Tuesday Night Fights, a weekly celebration and analysis of street-fight videos found on YouTube. Tonight's fisticuffs: "Epic girl fight! Parenting fail. Shocking woman pulls a knife with child watching." Tonight's commentator: Steve Spell II, proprietor at The Float Dog LLC in Hammond, La.
Yes, this is merely a verbal tiff between two gentleladies. But anytime a knife is used to gain advantage in a confrontation, in front of a child, it bears notice. Here's Steve Spell II's account of events:
I own a little retail store next to the finance company. Well, the finance company rejected this woman's loan over the phone for $125 unless she could provide collateral.
Fair enough. Go on.
The woman then drove her car straight up here to the finance company and entered the building threatening and screaming obscenities.
The lady that denied her application for loan then followed her outside and the trash-talking commenced.
Then, the rejected would be recipient of the loan brandishes a knife.
Well maybe she really needed that buck twenty-five?
It is not known whether or not the finance company eventually gave her the loan, because the angry woman did re-enter the building stating that her child was sick with asthma.
This is one woman that you definitely need to save a bunch of money on car insurance for.
So, the loan company wanted her sick kid to choke all asthma-y? Cold. Warrants Mr. Spell grabbing the camera to record this after hearing yells through "double walled 5/8ths sheet rock" at his smoke shop. Did he think they'd get violent-er based on the yelling?
I wasn't sure, I was surprised to see the kitchen knife.
In a strange twist, the lady comes back the next day and the finance company called the sheriffs over here and they asked her to leave.
She was much calmer, I think she thought she was really gonna get the loan after all the smack talking and brandishing the knife, but they (the finance company) called the law the next day and the police instructed her NEVER to come back or she was going to go to jail.
True story. She came over here to my little smoke shop and asked to borrow $10 for gas as soon as the police left!!! I gave her a roll of quarters and wished her well. Wasn't getting a knife pulled on me.
And now, the rest of your Tuesday Night Fights action:
• Many a YouTuber shared "Massive Ghetto Brawl at St. Louis Community College." Also to share it? InsideHigherEd.com. (SoV, instantaneous)
• Hey, remember that O-town Burger King parking lot brawl that we tried to class up with some Mozart n'shit? Of course you do. Who could forget? Well, check it: Someone went ahead and scored a few seconds of it with Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" as a lead-in to a cavalcade of street-fight clips. It's either racist or a collective call for folks to wake up and stop the devolution. (SoV, 0:00)
• "Tr!ple Bi!GV'zz brawl'n in the Bronx Cue Lounge." (SoV, 0:15)
• This is a battle between Aisha and Tyeisha. It involves a head getting bounced off a brick wall and what appears to be an eye fingering.
• Fightin' in the girls' room, or "Raw Footage***Girl Fighting Crazy Uppercut Punches." (SoV, from the get-go)
• And this will be an exhibit in a domestic assault (and counterclaim) case in 5, 4, 3 ... (SoV, 0:11)
• What appears to be happening here is a foreign student attacking a foreign teacher with her shoes and anything else she can get her hands on. (SoV, 0:09)
• This bro asks people to punch him in the face by a campfire. They oblige him. (SoV, 1:22)
• When Moobed Gingers Attack, A Spring Break Case Study:
• On this day, at this moment, wherever this is, the homeless got revenge. (SoV, 2:09)
• Brewer High School Fight! (SoV, instantly.)
• "Workers even brought out swords to hit out at each other and injured a dozen people." (SoV, 0:04)
• Others: "Fight on VanDyke (5400)." "Dodger Stadium, First Home Game of the Season." "Cat fight." "Newark Fight #2." "Crazy fight." "Jaelin n Some Girl Et Da Park." "CHICK PASSED OUT AN FIGHT ON GLENWOOD DAY AFTERPARTY." "This nigga gets done dirty in front of his girl." "Girl Fight off da Chain They Bumping." "April B. Vs. Tichina R. FIGHT."
Coda: And now, your NSFW "Crazy Triple Chick Fight" finale in which "there's mad ass on the floor" ...


text: I don't know about critics being corrupt but I am tired of their "I'm better than you because I flunked out of film school" shtick. Their so called "criticism" is just meaningless and usually a sign of them trying to live their vicariously through their reviews or worse putting down a film because it was successful/popular. Some one should tell these morons that no one wants to make another "Bonnie and Clyde", "Easy Rider" or "Chinatown" and no one wants to watch them. "The Dark Knight Rises" doesn't need to be reviewed. Chris Nolan has a record of excellence and I don't mind spending $12 on the movie.


text:
Duck Dynasty
Quack attack! After three days' worth of DVR usage was included, the A&E hit's season premiere on Aug. 14 drew a whopping 16.3 million viewers. "This show reaches a big swath of America," says David McKillop, A&E's executive vice president of programming. "This is not a boutique or niche show."
Breaking Bad
The AMC series isn't treading lightly in its final eight episodes. In fact, it's drawing its largest audiences ever. The drama's return on Aug. 11 reached 8 million viewers after seven days of DVR use. "I can almost taste the meth," star Aaron Paul tweeted before the first show.
Under the Dome
The Stephen King-Steven Spielberg thriller hooked an average of 14.4 million viewers (including a week's worth of DVR playback). CBS has renewed Dome and also picked up Extant, a new 13-episode sci-fi series from Spielberg, for next summer.
Devious Maids
Lifetime's primetime soap is the network's fastest-growing drama ever and attracts an audience that is 18 percent Hispanic, almost double what Lifetime normally draws for that demographic. The serial, which Rob Sharenow, Lifetime's executive vice president and general manager, calls "one of the most daring series on television," has been renewed for a second season.
Hollywood Game Night
In a summer lacking many original unscripted hits, Game Night defied the odds. The NBC show, hosted by Jane Lynch, has won its time slot among the broadcast networks with adults 18 to 49 and was renewed for a second season.
Paula Deen
You have to marvel at how quickly Paula Deen was dropped by Food Network, QVC and her many endorsement partners after a lawsuit revealed that she used a racial slur. The fallout from the suit, which was ultimately dismissed, will cut deep into the estimated $17 million per year she reportedly earned from her empire.
Chris Hayes, who was hand-picked by Rachel Maddow to be her lead-in, has lost nearly half the audience that his predecessor, Ed Schultz, pulled in at 8pm. As a result, the network's entire primetime lineup is hurting, down 25 percent compared to last summer, when the Olympics and the presidential election helped it become the No. 2 network in cable news.
Hillary Clinton Movies
An NBC miniseries that was to star Diane Lane as the likely presidential candidate will probably be a no-go: Reports of the TV movie's creation led the Republican National Committee to threaten to keep its 2016 candidate debates off of NBC and MSNBC, as well as CNN (which is planning a Clinton documentary). NBC now describes its project as being "in development."
Big Brother
The good news for CBS's reality staple is that its audience grew this year, averaging 7.2 million viewers (including seven days' DVR use). But the ratings growth was tainted by outrage over racist and homophobic comments made by contestants, which forced the network to run a disclaimer for the first time: "At times, houseguests may reveal prejudices and other beliefs that CBS does not condone."


text:
'Tis the season for giveaways, and I have 3 copies of Camilla's Saulsbury's new book "Shortcut Cookies" to give to 3 of you. To win a copy of the book, just leave a comment with your favorite cooking or baking shortcut. I'll pick 3 at random and email the winners between now and October 19. So you have a week to enter.
With over 745 recipes for cookies starting with packaged doughs, mixes, and cereals, Shortcut Cookies is one of Camilla's best books yet. And given her penchant for perfection, you can be sure anything Camilla's tested will be delicious enough for the school functions, bake sales and friends.
Some stand-outs from the book include an Italian Cheesecake Bar made with refrigerated sugar cookie dough, ricotta cheese, and traditional Italian flavorings of orange, golden raisin and hazelnuts; Lemon Curled Swirled Cheesecake Bars made with a packaged lemon cake mix base; Mango Cream Bars, with a crust of crushed gingersnaps and cream cheese & fresh lime topping and a recipe called "Dad's Double Peanut Butter Frosted Brownies" made up of a brown sugar doctored brownie mix and topped with Camilla's homemade peanut butter frosting. My favorite chapter is always "Brownies" and Camilla has a bunch including Turkish Coffee Brownies, Whiskey Brownies and Aztec brownies which I will review very soon.
And finally, leave it to Camilla to take things to yet another level. Over on her blog Shortcut Cookies, she's taking recipes from the book and making them with all-natural and gluten free mixes. And of course, she's there to answer questions as well.
Now it's time for you to win the book. As stated above, all you need to do is post your own cooking or baking related shortcut. I'll be picking winners randomly.


text:
Proud to be the 326th backer on @BackerKit for Mindjammer - The Roleplaying ... https://t.co/oOpiUvGwdQ1/22/2016
Main WebSite re-launched. All content from old site will be available there soon. Have fun!11/5/2013
Updated content on "RiftRoamers: Nations of Orion" . As currently other projects are more pressing, no dev-progress for now.6/12/2012
Nations of Orion - MMO Server sucessfully compiled on our tiny GuruPlug Server Plus. Due to NAT errors however it's currently inaccessible.10/23/2011
RiftRoamers - Nations of Orion: Next step is a working copy of vegaogre (http://t.co/4QyuekTV)9/23/2011


text:
SAN FRANCISCO — A veteran San Francisco firefighter who was blamed for running over a teenage passenger who was thrown from the wreckage of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 is suing her department, alleging she was made a scapegoat for larger failures in responding to the July 6 crash at San Francisco International Airport.
Elyse Duckett, a 24-year veteran firefighter who is still with the department and is the longest-serving firefighter at SFO, alleged in a lawsuit Friday that onboard video shows that a 120,000-pound, San Francisco Fire Department Aircraft Rescue Firefighting rig twice ran over 16-year-old Ye Meng Yuan before Duckett's rig ran over the girl. Yet only Duckett's name, home address and phone number were released to the media by unknown department officials.
"The sacrificial lamb selected was 24-year veteran firefighter Elyse Duckett, a lesbian and woman of color who helped pioneer desegregation efforts in the SFFD," according to the lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court. "Despite having video evidence that Ye Meng Yuan was first blanketed in foam and then run over by another vehicle, the SFFD attempted to pin the blame for Ye Meng Yuan's death solely on Elyse Duckett. In furtherance of their attempt to scapegoat Elyse Duckett and to draw attention away from the failings of leadership, training, triage and communications during the response, the SFFD leaked allegations to the news media describing Plaintiff as solely responsible for the death of Ye Meng Yuan."
The San Mateo County coroner ruled in July 2013 that Ye initially survived the crash but died from multiple blunt injuries consistent with being run over by a vehicle.
San Francisco fire officials said they had no comment on the lawsuit. Duckett made similar allegations in a claim that was rejected by the city, paving the way for Friday's lawsuit.
Asian Airlines Flight 214 was trying to land at SFO on a clear morning following a nearly 11-hour, overnight flight from Seoul. The tail of the Boeing 777 slammed into a sea wall that abuts Runway 28 Left, sending the plane careening down the runway where it burst into flames, leaving more than 180 of the 291 passengers and crew with injuries.
Ye was sitting near the back of the plane along with two other teenage girls who also died. It's never been explained how her body ended up on the tarmac near the left front of the plane, where she was run over.
Duckett's lawsuit says the firefighter who drove the original rig that ran over Ye — Rescue 10 — was never interviewed while Duckett was twice "interrogated" by fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White and other high-ranking officials — even after Duckett told her superiors that onboard video clearly showed that Rescue 10 rig first ran over Ye.
Duckett's lawsuit alleges she was pinpointed for blame partly because of her history fighting for equal rights for women and minorities after she joined the department in 1989 as part of a court-ordered consent decree to diversify its ranks.
The suit also names several high-ranking fire officials who responded to the crash scene who lacked proper training and experience and allegedly violated department procedures that led to communication problems and delays that put both firefighters and the plane's passengers and crew at risk.
"Elyse's willingness to speak up regarding both the workplace environment and issues of public safety has made her a target within the SFFD," according to the suit. "The SFFD's efforts to place sole blame on her for the death of Ye Meng Yuan were designed to kill two birds with one stone–attempting to silence Elyse while trying to protect their own reputations by covering up the larger failures in training and leadership that led to the chaos of the Asiana 214 response, dangers that pose a continuing threat to the people of San Francisco."
Contact Dan Nakaso at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/dannakaso.


text:
Although you'll never be able to time travel like Marty McFly or Doc Brown, next month you will have an opportunity to purchase their car.
The Delorean DMC-12 seen here was actually used in Back to the Future III and will be sold as part of a large movie memorabilia auction. According to the auction house selling the car, seven Deloreans were actually used while filming the three movies. Of those, three cars are still known to exist.
This particular Delorean, used while filming Back to the Future III, is the only movie car that is privately owned. Pre auction estimates have this authentic "Back to the Future" Delorean selling between $400,000 and $600,000.


text:
Here's your exclusive first look at the T-shirt all good Firefly fans will want to sport while drinking Mudder's Milk. It's coming soon from Quantum Mechanix, who already have some kick-ass Dr. Horrible and Firefly shirts. Check them out below.
You can find all of these shirts - except for the Jaynestown, Dr. Horrible Lab Coat, and "If Wishes Were Horses" ones, which aren't available yet - over at Quantum Mechanix. You can find out about upcoming releases by signing up for their mailing list or following them on Twitter as QMxInsider.
Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal!
Says Quantum Mechanix's Andy Gore, "Blue Sun Grain Alcohol is based on one of the bottle labels used in the Maidenhead bar in Serenity. We thought it would be fun to do a t-shirt that was like a riff on a beer t-shirt."
Evil League Of Evil!!!
"If Wishes Were Horses" (from Serenity.)
"Define Interesting" (from Serenity)
Serenity in flight. Love keeps her in the air!
Speak Chinese.
Let's Be Bad Guys!


text:
A security company announced yesterday that it has discovered a "significant vulnerability in the Google Wallet mobile phone payment system." The company found that a Wallet PIN is susceptible to a brute force attack – trying all possible key combinations until the PIN is discovered – that can make it possible for thieves to make purchases with a Google Wallet-enabled phone.
But Zvelo, the security company in question, buried the lede; a phone must be rooted ahead of time in order for its hack to work. An attack will not work on a non-rooted device, and rooting the phone post-theft would wipe away the PIN information and be of no use. Google made that important distinction in a statement to The Next Web.
The zvelo study was conducted on their own phone on which they disabled the security mechanisms that protect Google Wallet by rooting the device. To date, there is no known vulnerability that enables someone to take a consumer phone and gain root access while preserving any Wallet information such as the PIN.
We strongly encourage people to not install Google Wallet on rooted devices and to always set up a screen lock as an additional layer of security for their phone.
Zvelo did note in the bottom of its announcement post that root is required for the hack to work. However, the company claims that because Nexus devices are more likely to be rooted, that doesn't diminish the danger of the way that Google Wallet data is stored on a device. The only solution is to move PIN information into the Secure Element, an area in which all data is encrypted. Google is already working on this adjustment.
So the simple solution here is to not root your phone if you want to use Google Wallet. And if you are rooted, you already know that doing so exposes you to a lot more security risks than the average customer. That naturally means the onus is on you to keep your information secure. Employ a pin code lock screen on your phone and don't lose your phone.
It's still safer than losing your actual wallet and credit cards that thieves can use for a shopping spree before you realize its gone.
« Top 10 Android app updates for the week ending February 10 From the Editor's Desk: Second thoughts … »


text:
See Real Results!Your daily serum already delivers the skin-enhancing benefits you want, but what if you could supercharge it with the boosting power of pure vitamin C? That's the beauty of TimeWise® Vitamin C Activating Squares™. In just two weeks,* the squares were shown to deliver these visible benefits:
- Skin looks more even-toned.
- Skin looks more radiant.
- Fine lines and wrinkles look improved.


text:
Ha! We beat the NBA in handing out awards. This way, if any of our awards coincide with the Association's awards, I'll be able to claim the league as a loyal Razzball reader when I solicit companies to advertise on the site. Yes, I know the voting for those awards ended weeks ago, but did you know that the voting for these awards ended weeks ago? Exactly. How would the NBA have known about the awards weeks ago if they were only just published today? Advanced screeners, man. How do you think two animated bug movies or two Prefontaine movies or two Truman Capote movies all released within months of one another? One movie put a lot of heart and soul and research into their production and the other rushed it, released it first and hoped for the best. Not that that's what we did. Anyway, here's hoping for the best. Let me know down in the comments if you think I missed anything. I know you will. You're good like that.
Here are your 2010 Fantasy Basketball Year-Ends Awards:
Most Valuable Player – This is the part where I feel I ought to be fancy – throw out Win Share Per 48 stats at ya or something, but then you'd call me haughty and one of you jerks would accuse me of drinking raspberry tea or reading David Foster Wallace novels. Skip it. Fancy stats would give us all the same answer our common sense would. Obviously fantasy titans like LeBron or Durant are the most valuable, but you also drafted them first or second or third. There are only two guys in the league that you waited until the second, third, maybe fourth round to draft and could have picked up with the fourth pick and been justified to do so, Derrick Rose and Kevin Love. They'll both crack the top 10 in fantasy next season. For the record, I'm giving it to Rose because he played the final two weeks of the season, assists are more valuable than rebounds, because 0.6 bpg from a PF is underwhelming, but miraculous from a PG.
Least Valuable Player – I had Brandon Roy ranked several rounds lower than the majority of fantasy sites, and I still wasn't low enough. Not only did he see his star fall this season along with his mpgs (by 10), but the perennially injured guard managed to play only 47 games with absolutely no guarantee of every being healthy again. One of the sadder stories of the season, one of the most harmful picks of 2010.
Most Improved Player – Considering you didn't have Dorell Wright on your top 70 rankings and by Week 3 were offering your no. 6 pick and a hot wax to the guy that picked him out of the free agent pool before you, this award just seems apt.
Most Constantly Rotated On Your League's Waivers – At some point this season, your team had point guard problems. Don't shake your head no at me, it did. You know it did. I know it did. You know how I know? Because of the time I spent fielding questions from commentators about Baron's health,Wall's health, Harris' health, Rondo's health, Paul's health, Deron's health; fielding questions of how real Augustin or Lowry or Ridnour or Conley is. Unless you owned Derrick Rose, or maybe Tony Parker, you had questions this season. Point guards in fantasy basketball this year were like closers in baseball. A few stalwarts and a lot of flip-flop. None moreso than Toronto's Jose Calderon. In one season, Joe Kettle found himself in a time share with Jarrett Jack, then injured, then in a timeshare with the guy they got from New Orleans when the got rid of Jack in hopes of clarifying Calderon's role, Jerryd Bayless. Then Calderon was hurt again. Then he was sorta hurt, but also sorta throwing in the towel on the season. All of which, sorta drove me crazy.
Lifetime Achievement For Being Constantly Rotated On Your League's Waivers – Shane Battier shot .688 from the line this season and couldn't muster more than 7.6 points a game, which coaxes the same reaction from fantasy hoopsters as lemon juice on a baby's tongue. But this hasn't always been the case for Batch-yay and you know it. He might be done as a fantasy option, but he's not forgotten … until this sentence ends.
Player You Should Have Dropped Sooner – It's gotta be Troy Murphy I owe him this after he refused to return my email about his outlook back in October. Why no head's up detailing how angry he was planning to make Avery Johnson, which would led to almost no playing time in Jersey, a trade to Golden State, a release and eventual free agent pick-up by the Celtics where he would be too out-of-shape to make any impact? Had I received that e-mail, I wouldn't have ranked him in the top 50 (right next to Kevin Love, bee-tee-dubya). Everyone was holding this guy through February. Waiting. Hoping. Woof.
Player You Should Have Held Longer – Ty Lawson, but I ain't mad at you for dropping him when you did. His situation could have ended like Murphy's. It didn't, and he's a big keeper pick for next season, but you didn't know that when you dropped him.
Most Surprising Player That You Rostered For Most of the Season – Tyson Chandler. If you told me in October that Chandler would average 13.5/10, with 1 bpg as a starter in December, and end with 10/9.5, with the best PER of his career, I would have asked which Euro team he'd been traded to. Then you would have chuckled at my wit, offered me a Montieri cookie on a plate lined with an ornamental doily and finished discussing the Rococo period that ushered in the King Louis XVI era.
Player That Turned It On After The All-Star Break And Probably Won You The League – Marcus Thornton. *sigh* Okay, Western Conference, let's try it again. Marcus Thornton is a killer in this league. Stop burying him on your bench. Stop overthinking his use, wind up dude's confidence at let him go. You hear that Kings? Marcus Thornton has spent his first two Novembers in Benchtown and his first two Marches in Shooterville. He likes it in Shooterville. He bought a pet and that pet likes it in Shooterville. He hired a landscaper for his house. Let him live! Let him live!
Player You Traded Away Just In Time – Mike Miller. Let's face it, if you were able to trade him away at all for anyone, it was just in time.
Player You Traded Away And Immediately Regretted – Al Jefferson. He averaged 17/9.5/1.5 and shot .484 before the All-Star Break. Certainly not a bad line, but you took him somewhere around the 20th overall pick and he was getting hammered by Love or Z-Bo or West and it angered you. So you ditched him and he ended the year 21.5/11/2.5. A trade in one of my leagues consisted of Jefferson for Felton straight-up. So that's funny.
Player You Can't Believe Seemed Like a Good Idea on Draft Day – Marcus Camby. He seemed like a good idea to almost everyone but me, anyway. Answer me honestly, is there any other player in these playoffs that look more frail and breakable? Camby grabbed 18 boards on Saturday and every time he jumped up to grab the rock, I cringed. I could preemptively hear the snap of an ankle bone or the contusion of … anything, really. I caught hell in the preseason for being down on Camby. In 15 seasons, he's only missed fewer than 10 games twice. Last season happened to be one, and many people felt he was in the clear. But there is no "clear" with Camby. And in the mere 59 games in which he was a participant, he socred a career-low 4.7 points and grabbed a six-season-low 10.1 boards. Fair warning, I'm not hearing pro-Camby rhetoric next season. Not at all.
Keeper Who Most Stands To Benefit From Joining a New Team in 2011 – Raymond Felton. With the Knicks: 17/3.5/9, with nearly 2 spg. With the Nuggs: 11.5/3.5/6.5, with 1.5 spg. You have to figure the Nuggets rid themselves of the "Tymond Lawton" situation they created for themselves in the second half of last season and since Lawson understands the team better and started for Denver, my guess is Felton either returns to New York next season or takes over for Chris Paul in New Orleans.
The Good Player You'll Most Likely Avoid Next Draft Day – We both know you're not touching Mo Williams next year. He might remain in L.A., he might not. It won't matter. He averaged 15/5.5, with a pair of treys a game with the Clippers as a super-solid third of fourth option. That won't matter either. NoMo cooled down in your mind. Half of you still think of him as an injured Cav, or will be bothered by the fact he's a supporting guy for Griffin and Gordon, or the 24 games he missed this season, or just the fact that it's going to take several playoff appearances before people think of the Clippers as a decent team (think: the 2006 Hawks). Anyway, you're not touchin' him.
The Bad Player You Most Likely Won't Avoid – Hedo Turkoglu averaged 11/4.5/4, and generally saw his averages dip almost across the board. Yet, when fantasy owners look at the Magic, they're going to see him as the biggest name after Howard and maybe Richardson. And suddenly, a guy not likely to improve much on this season's averages will find himself in the top 100 again. Don't be one of thee people.


text:
From U.S. 5th Fleet Public Affairs
MANAMA, Bahrain (NNS) — An E-2C Hawkeye from Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 121 stationed aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) crashed at sea March 31 while operating in the North Arabian Sea.
Three of the four crew members have been recovered and search and rescue efforts for the fourth crew member are currently underway.
Further information:
navy.mil courtesy


text:
Looking for the right words to say on Valentine's Day?
Sweethearts candies will be expressing such sweet nothings as 'Tweet Me,' 'Occupy My <3,' '#Love,' and '1 4 3' - code for the number of letters in each of the words I (1) Love (4) You(3).
What messages those little heart-shaped flavored candies won't be bearing are: Hey Babe! Jump 4 Me. Adore Me. High Five.
Such sayings are passe and have been retired from the mix of these hard candies that have been a part of Valentine's Day conversations since Jesse James was robbing banks and kissing girls.
'We've been in business for 167 years and we're trying to remain relative,' said Alan Gulachenski, president of NECCO, the New England-based confectionery company that makes Sweethearts. The recipe and the process that Daniel Chase created in 1866 - devising a machine that would press food dye letters onto candy lozenges - is pretty much the same. Over the years the sayings have reflected how America and its culture have changed.
'There used to be a saying that said, 'I'm gay,' which meant, 'I'm happy,'' said Gulachenski. 'That was back in the '30s. That word doesn't mean the same today as it did in the past. 'Fax me' is another one. It was popular in 1995 but was retired in 2009. The following year we added, 'Text me' and 'Tweet me.''
Sweethearts are relative to what people say, but they've also held a place in their hearts because they're as traditional to Valentine's Day as candy canes are to Christmas.
'We've been here for 36 years and we've always had Sweethearts,' said Darlene Zatelli who's owned the mom-and-pop Z's Penny Candy shop in Eastpointe for a year. Her mother, affectionately known to neighborhood families as Mrs. Zee -owned it for 35 years before that.
When Mrs. Zee first opened, her business was landscaping. But she put up a display of Swedish Fish near the cash register for people who fancied sweets.
'People loved it and they were always giving her suggestions for more candy,' said Darlene Zatelli. Soon candy covered the counter and people came in for that rather than lawnmowers. So Mrs. Zee passed the landscaping business on to her son and named the spot Z's Penny Candy. Today, its stock includes everything from Sweethearts and Pop Rocks to the kind of old-fashioned licorice pipes your grandfather loved as a kid.
'That's what is so great about candy,' said David Sklena, who owns Doc Sweets in Clawson. 'It brings back childhood memories for people.'
While kids love to imitate their parents, Gulachenski said his company recognizes that every generation wants something of its own. So NECCO is sweetening Valentine's Day this year by launching products to suit the social network and school-age kids.
'Each year, passionate fans reach out to inform us they love Sweethearts and are constantly seeking more extraordinary ways to express their love,' said Alyssa Hills, NECCO's director of marketing. 'In response to this year's Valentine's Day excitement, we are offering even more bold ways of customization.'
Tweet it
For anyone who loves how social media provides an ever-expanding way to express one's sentiments, there is #Tweethearts. The dedicated website neccotweethearts.com invites users to send a personalized tweet to @tweethearts. After sending the tweet, an image will be sent back instantly, spelling out the message in candies. Customers can then order the candy for delivery, share the image virally or both. One pound of personalized candy is $29.99, delivered within five business days.
Color it
For the youngest fans, NECCO released a series of packages for a 'Color Your Own' Sweetheart box contest. Children between the ages of 5 and 12 are invited to use the crayon-friendly packages to create their own Sweethearts design. Children can use the boxes as a canvas to create their own personalized gift or enter it into the contest at necco.com, which runs through March 1, 2014. Grand prize winners in each category receive a $1,000 savings bond and the opportunity to have their own personal saying appear as a Sweetheart candy for the 2015 season.
So, for next Valentine's Day the popular sayings might be, 'Tweet for Pete' or 'Ava Rocks!'
'We've started a tradition that these children might look to share with their children,' said Gulachenski.


text:
This is the Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important - all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parcel it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?
We're doing a special one this morning because of the LA Auto Show, which you can follow along using this tagpage all day long. Here are some highlights.
1st Gear:The 2014 XFR-S Is The Sinister Jaaaaag Sedan With More Powwerrrr
Jaaaaaag can't seem to do anything wrong lately. The F-Type looks sensational. The XKR-S makes a sound that causes tsunamis.
And now there is the XFR-S, which is the hottest sedan - in looks and power - to come out of Coventry... ever. Seriously. More »
2nd Gear: This Is The First Picture Of The Brand New, Super Hot Porsche Cayman
When the Boxster got a new body last year, we knew it was just a matter of time until the Cayman was refreshed as well.
After the first picture of a camouflaged car leaked onto Instagram, we knew it was a matter of time until we saw the car in all it's Porschey goodness. And thanks to French Porsche magazine Flat6, we have our first peek. More »
3rd Gear: 2014 Ford Fiesta ST: Meet The US-Bound Mini Me Of The Hot Hatch World
Hot hatchbacks are the best of both worlds. Sports car performance, awesome looks, and they can swallow belongings. Sign us up.
Now Ford is bringing the proverbial mini-me of the hot hatch world to market: Say hello to the Fiesta ST. And yes, it's coming to America. More »
4th Gear: The 2014 Toyota RAV4 Is A Sleeping Pill You Can Drive
Toyota is unveiling a new RAV4 tomorrow. Some pictures just leaked. I better tell you about it quickly before I fall asleep.
Just close your eyes and imagine a Camry that's slightly taller. Well, actually, don't close your eyes. Imagining that will make you pass out. More »
5th Gear: Is BMW's Vision Of The Future Insanely Boring?
BMW's "i" subbrand is their vision for the development of an urban future. Thus far they have unveiled two concepts in the brand: The i3 city car and the i8 hybrid supercar.
And now it's time for number three: The i3 Coupe Concept. More »
In keeping with our new discussion system, here's a place for you to own the floor. We're asking each day what you think about an issue that comes up in TMS.
Today, we want to know what you're looking forward to most at the LA Auto Show? Electric cars? Hot rod Jaguars? Something else? Remember there's no right answer or wrong answer. It's Neutral.
Show us your tips!
Got tips for our editors? Want to anonymously dish some dirt on a competitor? Know something about a secret car? Email us at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Lost in our new layout?
Click here for the Opposite Lock or Tips forums. Want a more "blog-like" look? Click the button up top next to "Top Stories."
Get more Jalopnik!
Want even more Jalopnik? Want to know which of your friends read us? "Like" us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter.


text:
Many people swear by alternative and complementary therapies. Find out more about these treatments by taking this quiz.
Complementary and alternative medicine practitioners see the body as responsible for its own healing. Complementary and alternative medicine practitioners try to find the best approaches to support the body in its self-healing. They also see themselves as teachers, instructing you on ways to heal. Docere is a central part of most alternative and complementary practitioners. This term refers to the healer as teacher.
Another complementary and alternative medicine principle is prevention, or doing all you can to keep yourself healthy and avoid illness. This is a principle used by conventional medicine, as well. Some complementary and alternative medicine practitioners believe in various types of balance between forces or energies that are outside of the body to which the body needs to align itself in order to heal. An example of this is acupuncture.
For Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts members
Find a Doctor & Estimate Costs
Health & Wellness
Review Benefits
Review Claims
Attend a Seminar
Medicare Plans
Request a Call
Manage Your Account
Plans & Products
Forms & Documents
Tools & Support for Educating Employees
Medical Policy
Office Resources
Provider News
Annual Report
Contact Us
Corporate Citizenship
Diversity Leadership
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.® Registered Marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.®´ ®´´ Registered Marks are the property of their respective owners.© 101 Huntington Avenue, Suite 1300, Boston, MA 02199-7611 | 1-800-262-BLUE (2583)
About Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
Terms of Use, Privacy & Security
Nondiscrimination and Translation Resources
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is a leading provider of quality health insurance for residents of Massachusetts. Our main goal is to make health care cost-effective by offering health insurance solutions for individuals, families, and large and small businesses at affordable rates.
Our Vision — Making Quality Health Care AffordableOur Promise — To Always Put Our Members First
To learn more about our Massachusetts health plans, please visit our Plans & Products page, where you can compare Massachusetts health insurance plans, buy health plans online, and get Mass health insurance quotes.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts also offers insurance, pharmacy coverage, and Medicare Plans for seniors; life and disability insurance through Indigo Insurance Services (a wholly owned subsidiary); and insurance for individuals aged 18-26 years. Learn more about our other insurance plans and Medicare plans, or contact a sales representative today.


text:
Red Sox introduce dynamic pricing for Green Monster
Tickets for April and May Games go on Sale Tuesday, March 18, at Noon
BOSTON, MA - The Red Sox today introduced dynamic pricing for seats and standing room tickets atop the Green Monster, where prices will be set by the market in real time. Green Monster tickets for April and May games go on sale Tuesday, March 18, at noon on redsox.com/greenmonster.
With this new pricing model, Green Monster tickets will increase or decrease in price based on demand and market factors such as the date of the game, opponent, and even weather conditions. Demand-based analysis will be provided by two companies, Qcue and tixtrack.
"This pricing model for Green Monster tickets is similar to how airlines and other industries - including several other Major League teams - price their tickets," said Red Sox EVP/COO Sam Kennedy. "Unlike the variable pricing structure adopted in other parts of the ballpark, where prices vary by game but are set in advance for the season, dynamic pricing can and will change based on market conditions."
Dynamic pricing has been adopted in some form by approximately 80 percent of Major League Baseball teams. It is the latest move by the Red Sox to better align tickets with their market value. In November, the club announced a variable pricing structure for regular season tickets, where prices for the 81 home games were organized into five tiers based on expected demand for each game. As a result, 32 games had a reduced average price in 2014, including 16 'Sox Saver' games.


text:
Austrian Economics Core Curriculum
The Austrian Economics Core Curriculum course lays out the fundamentals of Austrian Economics. Drawing on the tradition of Mises and Rothbard, the course begins with Praxeology, the study of human action, from which economic principles are deduced. An exposition of subjective value and the division of labor follow, providing the requirements for exchange and markets. From there, the concepts of money's origin and value are explored, with the interest rate coordination of consumer preferences and the structure of production and business cycles. Finally, the crucial role of the entrepreneur in the market economy and economic calculation are explained.
Featuring lectures by David Gordon, Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Jeffrey M. Herbener, Lucas M. Engelhardt , Roger W. Garridon, Joseph T. Salerno, and Peter G. Klein.
Students that complete this course will earn a certificate of completion.


text:
Next week, the United States will exit the Paris Agreement. It comes as concerns mount about climate catastrophes. This Backgrounder examines global efforts so far.
Since 1992, when the United Nations recognized climate change as a serious issue, negotiations among countries have produced notable accords, including the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement. But leaders have struggled to maintain momentum and failed to slow global temperature rise.
Speakers discuss the rapidly-changing global energy landscape, climate change, and emerging geopolitical threats.
Tens of thousands of unaccompanied children have been arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border each year, leading the Trump administration to expand child detention policies and sparking debate over how to handle the flow of asylum seekers.
Comprehensive immigration reform has eluded Congress for years, moving controversial policy decisions into the executive and judicial branches of government.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority group, have fled persecution in Myanmar's Rakhine State, fueling a historic migration crisis.
Election 2020
The prospect of a contested U.S. presidential election has spurred concerns about militias appearing at voting locations. State and federal laws have strict guidelines for any deployment of forces at polls or to quell election violence, but worries persist.
Heavily armed, right-wing groups are poised to rebel against the election if President Trump loses, an extraordinary danger to U.S. democracy.
The 2020 U.S. election is threatened by pandemic-related disruptions as well as long-standing weaknesses that could undermine its legitimacy. How will international election observers judge the process?
Vaccines are a major public health success story, but the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the many challenges involved in getting a vaccine to everyone who needs it.
The search to find a vaccine for the new coronavirus is well underway. Governments and researchers are aiming to provide billions of people with immunity in eighteen months or less, which would be unprecedented.
How is a vaccine developed? Can a vaccine end the COVID-19 pandemic? Senior Fellow Tom Bollyky answers pressing questions about the search for a coronavirus vaccine.
In CFR's final forum of the Election 2020 series, Secretary Albright and Dr. Haass discuss the foreign policy challenges awaiting the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995, only two years after he shook hands with Yasser Arafat on the White House South Lawn following the signing of the Oslo Accords. Panelists discuss his legacy, achievements, and the ramifications of his assassination on the Middle East peace process twenty-five years later. The Lessons From History Series uses historical analysis as a critical tool for understanding modern foreign policy challenges by hearing from practitioners who played an important role in a consequential historical event or from experts and historians. This series is made possible through the generous support of David M. Rubenstein.
Panelists discuss U.S. democracy, including current challenges, possible reforms, and lessons learned from other democracies.
Yanzhong Huang discusses his new book, Toxic Politics: China's Environmental Health Crisis and Its Challenge to the Chinese State. Environmental degradation in China has taken a heavy toll not only on public health, but also on Chinese society, the economy, and the legitimacy of the party-state. Toxic Politics connects the limited success of China's pollution control to pathologies inherent in the institutional structure of the Chinese party-state, revealing a political system that is remarkably resilient, but fundamentally flawed. The CFR Fellows' Book Launch series highlights new books by CFR fellows.
Expert Spotlight
Farah Pandith
Adjunct Senior Fellow
Radicalization and Extremism Terrorism and Counterterrorism U.S. Foreign Policy
Robert K. Knake
Whitney Shepardson Senior Fellow
Martin S. Indyk
Distinguished Fellow
Featured Publications
CFR Senior Fellow Yanzhong Huang discusses how China's environmental crisis is undermining public health and becoming an Achilles heel in its reemergence as a global power.
The definitive account of how regime change in the Middle East has proven so tempting to American policymakers for decades—and why it always seems to go wrong.
Charles A. Kupchan mines the nation's past to uncover the ideological and political roots of ongoing changes in U.S. foreign policy, including the sources of Donald J. Trump's "America First" doctrine.


text:
Gold ETF holdings also set new record on buy-and-hold investors.
Silver hit a one-month high on Monday, propelled higher by a broad-based rally in financial markets amid hopes that politicians can reach a compromise to avert the "fiscal cliff" in the United States.
Any improvement in the economic outlook should benefit the gray metal, which derives close to 40 percent of its demand from industrial users. Of course, silver also benefits from investment demand, which remains strong in this environment of extremely loose monetary conditions.
Indeed, silver exchange-traded fund holdings reached a record high of 606.2 million troy ounces last Thursday, finally surpassing the previous record set last spring, when prices briefly spiked above $50/oz.
The steady rise in ETF holdings is encouraging as it relates to the long-term silver outlook. Despite significant gyrations in prices, holdings haven't fluctuated nearly as much, suggesting that investors that buy these products are holding the metal for the long term and with conviction.
We see a similar pattern in gold ETFs, which also hit a record level in recent days above 83.7 million troy ounces.
In a recent interview with HardAssetsInvestor, Marcus Grubb, managing director of investment for the World Gold Council, explained that "It's quite rare that you get significant streams of redemptions in the ETFs. On a day-to-day basis, you will see redemptions. But overall, most quarters you see net additions to tonnage throughout the last eight years or so.
"The profile seems to be, even when the price corrects significantly in the gold market, that you don't get large redemptions. And when the price rises, you get significant new creations. So I think that these investors, generally speaking, are buy-and-hold investors."
Bottom Line: In our view, the basis for investing in gold and silver remains firmly in place. We continue to see the Federal Reserve's policy decision on Dec. 12 as the next big catalyst for the duo.


text:
ORSYP Extends Cloud Performance Management With Streamcore Acquisition
– ORSYP integrates Streamcore Wide Area Network (WAN) technology to assure end-user service delivery
PARIS and BOSTON, Nov. 12, 2012 /PRNewswire — ORSYP, a leading provider of IT Operations Management software and services, today announced it has acquired Streamcore, an award-winning provider of application performance management solutions for the Cloud. Streamcore adds critical streaming, response-time and traffic monitoring of wide area networks (WANs) to ORSYP's leading performance monitoring, capacity management and workload automation capabilities.
As organizations expand global operations, leverage Cloud with in-house applications and seek to manage the inexorable growth in data volumes and network traffic, they require performance monitoring solutions that assure end-users have access to responsive IT services. Combining Streamcore with ORSYP, customers will be able to address critical challenges optimizing delivery of IT services to end-users throughout the enterprise network in real-time as well as anticipating future demands.
"With Streamcore we can ensure customers get end-to-end visibility and control of the critical applications and services they provide, from the end-user experience right down to the communications infrastructure," commented Jean-Michel Breul, ORSYP Chief Technology Officer. "Further integration of Streamcore and ORSYP technology will allow customers to benefit from more integrated performance measurement as well gaining extra insights that will assist them in predictive analysis and capacity planning."
According to Gartner, "As basic acceleration capabilities mature, we are seeing a resurgence of interest in visibility and control, both as a means to demonstrate WOC [WAN Optimization Controllers] effectiveness, and as a bandwidth/response-time planning tool. Providing application and user performance measurement and SLA reporting are key emerging requirements for WOC equipment." [1]
"We have worked with ORSYP and Streamcore; they have solutions that target our needs for IT process automation and application performance over the network. The combination of these two companies consolidates proven expertise in production operations, performance monitoring and capacity planning domains," said Michel Brouant, Technical Director, Pole Emploi.
"We are excited about becoming part of a team that prides itself on technology innovation," said Remi Lucet, Streamcore co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer. "Joining ORSYP we are looking forward to exploiting the powerful synergies that our companies share that will enable us to bring significant value to the quality of services our customers provide to their users."
About ORSYP
ORSYP is an IT Operations Management specialist that develops and markets innovative solutions that automate IT processes and optimize resource utilization. Headquartered in Boston, Hong Kong, and Paris, ORSYP has been chosen by over 1400 customers as their trusted partner for software, consulting and education since 1986.
About Streamcore
Streamcore provides cloud services delivery assurance solutions that enable reliable delivery of business-critical applications and communications from any cloud or data center. With Streamcore, enterprises can successfully adopt a cloud services model in order to provide IT-as-a-Service to their end-users over any network. Streamcore's solutions deliver unparalleled business-oriented and network-aware visibility for any application service, whether delivered from a private, public, or hybrid cloud, or from traditional data centers. Streamcore serves global enterprises, telecom service providers and government agencies that require stringent performance assurance for their cornerstone applications.
[1] "Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization Controllers" Joe Skorupa, Severine Real, Gartner, January 24th 2012
Kristen Diamond
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.


text:
Life and Teaching of Naropa
— by Herbert V. Guenther
In the history of Tibetan Buddhism, the eleventh-century Indian mystic Naropa occupies an unusual position, for his life and teachings mark both the end of a long tradition and the beginning of a new and rich era in Buddhist thought.
Naropa's biography, translated by the world-renowned Buddhist scholar Herbert V. Guenther from hitherto unknown sources, describes with great psychological insight the spiritual development of this scholar-saint.
It is unique in that it also contains a detailed analysis of his teaching that has been authoritative for the whole of Tantric Buddhism.
This modern translation is accompanied by a commentary that relates Buddhist concepts to Western analytic philosophy, psychiatry, and depth psychology, thereby illuminating the significance of Tantra and Tantrism for our own time.
Yet above all, it is the story of an individual whose years of endless toil and perseverance on the Buddhist path will serve as an inspiration to anyone who aspires to spiritual practice.
Translated from the original Tibetan with a Philosophical Commentary based on the Oral Transmission.


text:
Most valuable companies in history, adjusted for inflation
When Apple surpassed Exxon-Mobil as the world's most valuable company in August 2012, it ignited a debate over what, precisely, "most valuable" means--and how inflation influences the calculation. Apple's 2012 market valuation topped out at $661 billion U.S., the highest absolute-value figure in history, but a longer-term view of other corporate giants shows it has a ways to go before it can claim the all-time, inflation-adjusted top prize. Here are history's 9 most valuable companies, adjusted for inflation.


text:
(Pocket-lint) - The INQ Cloud Q is a QWERTY touch and type mobile phone running on Android and designed to come in where the INQ Chat 3G left off, offering smartphone features along with a full keyboard for those who love to bash out messages.
Like the INQ Cloud Touch, also announced today, the INQ Cloud Q will run on Android 2.2 at launch and offer a highly customised user interface with the emphasis on the experience, rather than hitting spec sheet buzzwords.
Of course the biggest buzzword is Facebook, with a Facebook experience the likes of which we've never seen before in an Android, or any, device. INQ has obviously spent a lot of time really working on the details to give you integration with the social network so that it feels completely natural - not just an app.
You'll benefit from all the usual apps that Android offers, although the smaller 2.6-inch screen size will mean that the experience might not directly translate. We're yet to see exactly how the specs break down, but with the INQ Cloud Q pitched at the affordable end of the market, we suspect it will be close to the INQ Cloud Touch.
You'll find the default music player is from Spotify (although you'll need a Premium account if you want its music streaming too) accessed via a dedicated key on the side. Across the bottom of the screen you'll find a control bar that offers menu, home and back controls. Around the back the INQ Cloud Q offers a 3-megapixel camera.
No wording on exact pricing, we guess it might hit a £15/20 a month contract price, sending the BlackBerry Curve 8520 scurrying for cover. The INQ Cloud Q will be available through Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy in Q3 2011.


text:
Lasting change begins now!
Are you looking for real solutions to your problem alcohol or drug use?
Are you trying to find support for someone who is struggling with addictions?
You've come to the right place.
Tamarack Recovery Centre is a private, non-profit, accredited, organization that has been providing residential addictions treatment and recovery services in Winnipeg, Manitoba for 40 years.
As one of the top treatment centres in Manitoba, we have created a unique, structured program that provides individuals with a better chance of recovery by building in flexibility and providing client-driven, community based treatment and support. Our extended program and continuing aftercare strengthens clients' ability to make lasting change.
We're ready to work with you right away. Contact us today to find out how our friendly professional staff, high standard of care, and comfortable environment can support you or someone you care about in taking the first steps toward recovery and a new, healthier lifestyle.


text:
NPR reports on the new NIH guidelines(pdf) for animal care in research. Of course, the comments at the story are the usual ink-blot test of personal positions, using the current guidelines to argue anything from pro-life positions to pro-animal-study to anti-NPR, to you name it. A few thoughts, after the jump:
I remember when our lab, a number of years ago, upgraded its animal cages. Cuttlefish Hall was being renovated, so we got to see the animals' cages increase in size (the old racks of cages were unceremoniously dragged to the dumpster–I wanted to keep one for nostalgia's sake, but we were renters at the time) even as the size of our offices shrank considerably. The animal floor was climate-controlled (as, of course, it should be); our offices froze in winter and baked in summer, with single-paned antique windows that stayed where they were painted stuck, whether open an inch or two or solidly closed with a draft coming through the sides. Of course, I'd still rather be able to leave my little cage when I wanted than be stuck in the climate-controlled little box.
I've seen rat studies which use an "enhanced environment"–typically, a slightly larger cage and access to a running wheel, and a few other doodads. Compare that to the real world. Sure, no foxes or hawks, but no heaps of garbage, either.
If you've never had the chance to work in an animal lab, take a look at the new guidelines. Many of the commenters at the NPR site clearly have not done so; the guide is put together by people who are clearly advocates for the animals, while also clearly believers in the necessity of animal research.
For my part, it's as good an excuse as any to repost this:
To A Rat, On Looking Back On Her Career, In The Lab
Oh, little lab rat, in your prison,
What a sad day has arisen—
Yours, a life of serving science,
Not of resting,
You help us climb atop of giants
Through rodent testing
Tis your misfortune, some fine morning
To be dispatched without a warning
With hopes we'll find, on close inspection
Some information
Perhaps enough so your dissection
Is our salvation
Some remedy for our diseases,
Grown from bread mold, or from cheeses:
In times of plague or killing fever
You played the villain;
It's fitting now, you help deliver
Psychologists who study learning
Used your help in their discerning—
You led them through the many phases
Of their endeavors,
Teaching them, by running mazes
And pressing levers
And pictures made from careful staining,
Slicing, mounting, then explaining
Former secrets, now revealed
Through brain perfusion,
Dissecting what we know is real
From mere illusion
As we devised atomic powers—
Mushroom clouds that bloomed like flowers—
And looked at what we'd now created
With admiration
You showed us how you tolerated
The radiation
You've had a paw in our advances;
We blunder on, and take our chances
Faster than our contemplation,
So please forgive us;
Our lot is likely annihilation,
And you'll outlive us.
The high plateaus we're proud of reaching
Are ours because of your good teaching
Let's hope these skills, which keep on growing
Through your instruction
Are for the best, not simply sowing
Our own destruction


text:
Single Line Earring - Ruby
We love and recommend mixing and matching our earring pairs! Please view the different sets and contact us for special requests.
This jewel can be customized to your special requests and set with a variety of gemstones. Please feel free to contact us for any questions.
Total Diamond/Gemstone Approximate Weight: 0.20 Carat Natural Ruby
Measurements: 2 x 20 mm
- Available by request in white, yellow or rose 14-18K solid gold.
- This jewel is custom made to order, please allow 14-21 business days before shipping.
- This jewel is shipped worldwide.
- All jewels are sent in a beautifully wrapped gift box, if you wish to include a special note, please let us know.


text:
As Windows 8 Looms, Tech Investors Hold Their Breath
- Order Reprints
- Print Article
It's fair to say that Wall Street is looking past the first big week of earnings season with an intense fixation on just one thing: Microsoft's (ticker: MSFT) next operating system, Windows 8. That could be a problem for the company's stock in the next several months.
Microsoft and the other PC giant, Intel (INTC), both reported humdrum quarterly earnings—not stellar, but good, and better than would have been expected by the intense hand-wringing of the preceding weeks.
Microsoft beat earnings projections, helped in part by a lower tax rate, but also in part because of strength in business software such as Microsoft Office and its database offering, SQL Server.
Intel met expectations for the second quarter, helped by continued strength in chips for server computers, which rose 15%, year over year.
Both reports were encouraging, given a steady stream of negative news in recent weeks about companies around the world holding off on IT spending. Both stocks outperformed the Nasdaq's 0.6% rise for the week, with Microsoft up 2.5%, to $30.11, and Intel up 1%, to $25.52, since the prior Friday's close.
Oh, and then there's the personal computer, a category that never fails to cause chagrin at each earnings season, for both companies. As a consequence, the focus for now is less what's going right for Microsoft and Intel, and more what's going to happen come Oct. 26, the date that Win 8 shows up in stores.
Both companies talked of the lingering weakness in consumer PCs, a weakness no doubt pegged to the growing infatuation with smartphones and tablets, though both companies continue to deny such.
Microsoft's sales in the division that includes Windows fell 1%, more or less in line with reports the week prior from Gartner and IDC that second-quarter PC sales fell fractionally from the same level a year earlier.
In the current quarter, Microsoft CFO Peter Klein said sales of Windows will trail overall PC sales while the market waits for that October milestone, when Win 8 will boost operating-system sales.
For its part, Intel cut its year-revenue outlook, something CEO Paul Otellini attributed to general caution about macroeconomic weakness. When pressed, Otellini clarified that "we don't see the PC sales to be as robust as we first thought."
Even that wasn't sufficient candor for some analysts, who asked Otellini whether tablet computers and smartphones were eating into PC sales. The Intel chief conceded that yes, those devices are competing for "share of wallet" among consumers, wallets that are less bountiful these days. But Otellini quickly added that the introduction of Windows 8, while perhaps not an immediate barnburner for this calendar year, will nevertheless allow Intel to play more in a tablet market that has been dominated by Apple's (AAPL) iPad, and, to some extent, by Samsung Electronics (005930.Korea) and Google (GOOG).
And so, because both Intel and Microsoft look to Windows 8 for their respective fortunes, as RBC Capital's Microsoft observer, Robert Breza, wrote on Friday, "investors remain focused on the approaching Windows 8 launch" more than anything else.
WHY IS THAT A PROBLEM for Microsoft? The stock is in some sense a supreme value, at a recent price of $30 or so, trading at 10 times next year's projected earnings per share, not counting the company's $6 per share in cash. And yet the outlook for PC sales, and for Windows, is clouded by the advance of those smartphones and tablets.
Google's new tablet offering, the Nexus 7, has gotten rave reviews and at $199, I think it could move a lot of units. Apple may have a new, smaller iPad in coming months, also priced to move, so the rumor goes. And Amazon.com (AMZN) seems likely to have new models of its Kindle Fire, according to reports.
In the face of all that, the announcement of a final ship date for Windows 8 hasn't made any clearer what kinds of computer hardware will reverse the flight to other sorts of gadgets.
As I wrote recently in this column, the unveiling of Microsoft's tablet, the Surface, only served to show that Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell ( DELL ), and other hardware makers don't seem, in Microsoft's eyes, to have any direction. (See Technology Trader, "Microsoft Tries to Etch a Future in Tablets," June 25th.)
Intel has done yeoman's work in trying to sell the world on "ultrabook" computers, which will include all manner of laptops and tablets, and everything in between, to suit various tastes and needs. But that category of product is waiting for the very same PC makers Microsoft has just publicly embarassed to step up to the plate and make something running Windows 8 that will entice buyers.
This three-legged race, in which Microsoft and Intel drag the dead weight of the PC makers, may yet produce some winning computer designs. We won't know, however, until we see consumers buy them.
Windows-division revenue was 23% of total revenue for Microsoft last quarter, which makes it not the largest single segment, but big enough to offset solid growth in the business programs that are working for the company.
What's at stake for Microsoft is nothing less than to win the hearts and minds of consumers. Until it's clear that will happen, the promise of a new Windows won't mean as much for the company as it would have in times past, when it was just yet another version of the software many already knew.
And what of Intel? Uncertainty in the PC market is not good for the chip giant either. But I think the ebbing of Intel's influence in personal computing is a story that has been written for some time, and expectations have generally been curtailed. The cut in outlook by Intel gives investors a chance to accept a diminished outlook and to go ahead and buy the stock.
I WOULD BE REMISS IF I DIDN'T offer my sincere hope that former Googler Marissa Mayer can turn around Yahoo! (YHOO), which this week named her CEO a day before reporting revenue slightly less than what the Street expected. Quarterly sales of the company's banner ads are not falling anymore, but they're not rising much either. Ditto for ads the company sells for Internet searches. I don't know what will change that, but the company could do worse than someone with high-tech cred from a more successful opponent. Yahoo! shares rose 1.1% for the week. Here's hoping.
Ad Hock
Online ads offset Motorola's drag on Google earnings, but Microsoft wrote off its Internet-ad unit. The Nasdaq Composite Index ended the week at 2,925—up 0.6%.
Tiernan Ray can be reached at email@example.com or at blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily or www.twitter.com/barronstechblog


text:
Huma Bhabha
The Orientalist
Huma Bhabha
The Orientalist
177.8 x 83.8 x 104.1 cm
Bhabha's The Orientalist conveys ideas of exoticism, difference, and otherness. Equally primitive and futuristic, Bhabha's figure theatrically poses as an ominous king or deity. Cast in bronze, it sits as an imposing relic from a fictional history, a regal air emanating from its polished geometric armour, molten death mask, and ethereal chicken wire veil. Humanised through exaggerated hands and feet and sympathetic cartoon styling, its powers waver between the comically surreal and portentously intimidating, drawing narrative suggestion from the loaded clichés of late night science fiction and horror movies.
close window
© All rights reserved -
Saatchi Gallery


text:
Rolex Oyster Perpetual Datejust 41 Watch 126300 blij
5 year warranty on watches
Wire transfer discount
Safe and secure
100% Authentic
Free shipping on US and International Orders
We accept Bitcoin
DESCRIPTION: Rolex Oyster Perpetual Datejust 41 Watch 126300 blij 41mm 904L stainless steel case, screw-down steel back, screw-down crown with twinlock double waterproofness system, smooth bezel, scratch-resistant double anti-reflective sapphire crystal with cyclops lens over the date, blue dial, index hour markers, Rolex calibre 3235 perpetual self-winding movement with date at 3 o'clock that changes instantaneously at midnight in a few thousandths of a second, approximately 70 hours of power reserve, 904L steel Jubilee bracelet with five-piece links, folding Oysterclasp buckle with Easylink 5mm comfort extension link. Waterproof to 100 meters.
What our customers say
danny yoo
Bought an AP Perpetual Calender from Gabriel at Sky Diamonds. By far the smoothest transaction I have experienced. Could not criticize one part of the process. Very reputable and they live up to their word. Definitely will buy from Gabriel again
Sarah C.
Would definitely purchase from SkyDiamonds again!! It was my very first time purchasing an incredibly expensive item online and I was very nervous! However, SkyDiamonds was very reassuring- They were super responsive and easy to communicate with throughout the entire purchase process of the Patek Philippe watch I purchased from them! It arrived exactly as described! Beautiful!


text:
|PDF (504 KB) | MS Word (943 KB)
The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998 is designed to encourage and improve occupational education, with a particular emphasis on this kind of education at the sub-baccalaureate level. In evaluating the effectiveness of the current legislation and in developing ideas for reauthorization, Congress needs to understand how the educational experiences of occupational students compare with the experiences of students who are in academic programs.
This report addresses a specific issue within that broad question. It considers whether postsecondary occupational students, particularly at the sub-baccalaureate level, are more likely than other types of postsecondary students to achieve their educational goals. We first analyze what proportion of occupational students who set out to earn a particular certificate or degree actually complete that credential. We then compare these findings with similar findings about postsecondary students enrolled in academic programs.
The data for this report were provided primarily by two longitudinal studies conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The first is the Beginning Postsecondary Student Longitudinal Study (BPS89), which follows a sample of students who entered postsecondary school for the first time in 1989 from their enrollment through the 1993-94 academic year (NCES 1996). The second dataset is the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS), which follows a sample of students from 1988, when they were in eighth grade, through the year 2000. (See appendix A for a brief description of these datasets and their survey design.) Thus, we could evaluate students' progress in postsecondary education within a five-year window for BPS89 and within a six-to-eight-year window for NELS. We also made use of a third dataset, BPS96, which follows a sample of students who entered postsecondary education in 1995 through the 1997-98 academic year (NCES 2000). Because this dataset provides only a three-year window, it is not well suited for an analysis of college completion. Nevertheless, BPS96 does provide more recent data than the other datasets, and it contains some interesting questions not found in NELS and BPS89. Therefore, when we used BPS96, we analyzed persistence rather than completion, and we argue that, to complete, students must at least persist.
To conduct our analysis of the educational outcomes of occupational sub-baccalaureate students, we developed a general model of the factors that predict educational attainment for first-time college students. The model includes student characteristics such as gender, race, age, socioeconomic status (SES), and academic skills as well as information about the timing and sequencing of a student's educational experience. (The sequencing factors account for whether students attend part time, interrupt their schooling, delay their enrollment or work while they are enrolled. We call them educational "pathway" features.) Therefore, as a by-product of this comprehensive analysis of the effects of occupational education, we also generate conclusions about the effects of demographic, educational and pathway characteristics on educational goal achievement as well as how those characteristics interact with the academic or occupational major. As a result, we can consider, for example, whether a student's race or enrollment interruptions have a different influence for occupational and academic students.
An important feature of our study took into account students' goals, and thus, we divided the datasets into three groups: students pursuing a certificate diploma, an associate degree or a baccalaureate degree. Students were categorized within these groups according to their degree expectations and the institutions where they were enrolled. We conducted separate analyses for each of these groups for two reasons. First, the demographics characteristics and goals of these groups differ significantly (Bailey et al. forthcoming). Second, we believe that the process and determinants of retention and completion for these groups differ.
The report develops as follows. Section II reviews the research literature related to postsecondary persistence and completion. We highlight what factors have been found to significantly affect degree attainment and what the previous research found with respect to how occupational students fare in relation to their academic peers. Section III discusses how we identified the three groups of students and briefly describes similarities and differences among the samples we used. Section IV provides a descriptive analysis of the student groups and describes retention and college completion for each group. We also describe the variables used in our analyses and the composition of the groups in terms of these features. Section V specifies our empirical approach, discusses our findings and extends the analysis to focus on the effect of occupational education on special populations such as academically and economically disadvantaged associate students. Section VI provides a thorough analysis of one- and three-year persistence rates, with an emphasis on occupational students seeking associate degrees. It also discusses the findings and integrates them with those from the completion analyses of section V. Finally, we summarize our findings and discuss policy implications in section VII.


text:
Main Rules for Relationship Charts
Example Judgements:
Will she leave her husband for me?
Judged by
Deborah Houlding
Will this be a permanent relationship?
Judged by
Olivia Barclay
Will he marry me?
Judged by
Deborah Houlding
Will they get back together?
Judged by
Cynthea Tasker
Is there a future in this relationship?
Judged by
Deborah Houlding
Contact Deborah Houlding | terms and conditions
All rights on all text and images reserved. Reproduction by any means is not permitted without the express
agreement of Deborah Houlding or in the case of articles by guest astrologers, the copyright owner indictated


text:
Product Detail
12x Haribo Berries Halal Sweets
Quick OverviewHalal Haribo Sweets. Net weight: 12x 80g. For wholesale prices, please contact us. More flavours available in our shop.
Halal Haribo Sweets.
Net weight: 12x 80g.
For wholesale prices, please contact us.
More flavours available in our shop.
The cost for shipping will be calculated and displayed on the Checkout page before you complete your order.
Average delivery time varies according to shipping destination. However, items dispatched from our UK warehouse and delivered within the UK are usually dispatched same day if ordered before 1:00pm on weekdays and are delivered within 1-2 business days, unless otherwise stated. Items dispatched from our international hub take longer to deliver. Therefore your order may arrive in several packages.
Subject to availability, you have the right to select the time and speed of delivery service during checkout process.
Once the item is dispatched from our warehouse, we'll send a dispatch notification email. This email may include the tracking number and a delivery date when available. You can use the tracking number in order to track your package with the shipping service provider.
We accept all major credit and debit cards payments. We also accept PayPal. All payments made by credit or debit cards are subject to validation checks and authorisation by the card issuing authority. The Orient shall not be liable for any delay or non-delivery resulting from failure or refusal by your payment card issuer to authorise payment to us for any reason.


text:
By continuing browsing this website you accept the use of L'OCCITANE or third parties cookies and other technologies such as tags in order to improve your user and shopping experience, to provide you with personalised content and offers tailored to your interest and to monitor traffic statistics. We have recently updated our Privacy Policy. For more information and to change cookie settings click here
When the magic of Christmas brings a moment of spellbinding delight. Discover the new Terre De Lumiere Perfume in Oil - A sparkling, gourmand signature – the perfect fusion of a radiant accord and a floral, fruity heart.
Sign up here to discover our latest news, exclusive offers and enjoy 10% off on your first purchase*


text:
Product 238/315
By Nike These colourful trainers are a mini version of Nike's popular Roshe Run style. Built for little feet, they feature a full mesh upper, a cushioned sole and a gym red, white, dark grey colourway.
About Roshe Run
The Nike Roshe Run trainer is inspired by the practice of meditation and the concept of Zen and epitomises simplicity. Almost every part of the shoe reflects an aspect of a tranquil Zen garden, a modified Waffle outsole made to look like stepping stones, an insole that mirrors a raked rock garden and slightly different midsole side lengths- a juxtaposition of seriousness and playfulness. The ultra light weight and breathable uppers, soft cushioning and EVA foam midsole provide minimal impact and durability whilst keeping the trainer simple and stylish.


text:
About Us
Blu Inc Media Sdn Bhd ("BluInc") helms the publishing industry in Malaysia. With almost four decades of experience, over 20 titles and three languages, it is the premier magazine publisher.
As specialists, our expertise and infrastructure encompasses the production of glossy, local and licensed international print titles integrated into digital platform setups, and custom publishing services.
What started out in 1974 as the Jack Chia-MPH Group in Singapore eventually went through ownership changes to evolve into BluInc which came into the stable of SPH Magazines (a part of Singapore Press Holdings Limited).
In Malaysia, Blu Inc Media Sdn Bhd was set up as a joint venture with SPH Magazines. Strategic business partnerships with Conde Nast, American Media Inc, Weider and Hearst and subsequent acquisitions of Magazine World and ACP titles, have further cemented its position as the industry leader today.
These partnerships ensure international quality magazines with a strong Malaysian appeal in the local editions of world-renowned titles such as CLEO, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, Malaysian Women's Weekly, Shape and Cosmopolitan.
These magazines, together with popular local titles, Female, Her World, Glam, Eh!, Nuyou and ICON offer a vast real estate for premium advertisers to reach their target audience, whether in English, Bahasa Malaysia or Chinese. BluInc's expertise in the publishing field is further augmented via its corporate lifestyle title The Peak.
The longevity of the business is anchored in the dedication of its employees to editorial excellence. Editors, writers and designers endeavour to inspire readers and enhance the quality of their lives by delivering target-specific content.
Blu Inc Media Sdn Bhd is committed to creating publishing solutions tailored to meet the needs of readers and clients.


text:
A tall and gifted striker with numerous club and provincial team achievements, Brody Huitema joined Whitecaps FC Residency in Sept. 2011 after last playing for Coquitlam Metro-Ford Sparta U-16 'A' Select.
U-18: Huitema was called up to a week-long training camp with the Canadian U-18 team in November 2012.
2012: As a 16-year-old, Huitema made his MLS Reserve League debut as a second-half substitute in Whitecaps FC reserves' 2-1 home defeat to San Jose Earthquakes reserves on Sept. 10.
From 2006 to 2008, Huitema was a member of Whitecaps FC Prospects, where he trained under Residency staff coach Bart Choufour.
Huitema brings a wealth of experience and accomplishments from his youth days. The striker started his soccer career in his hometown, as he played for Chilliwack FC Attack U-13 and U-14 Metro teams (2007 to 2009). In 2008, the striker helped Chilliwack FC Attack win the U-13 British Columbia Coastal Cup title. Huitema then joined Coquitlam Metro-Ford Soccer Club, where he played for the club's Sparta U-16 'B' and 'A' Select teams (2009 to 2011). The forward captured the U-16 Select league's Most Valuable Player (MVP) award in 2011. In his time with Coquitlam Metro-Ford Sparta, Huitema helped the side win the 2010 U-16 'B' Challenge Cup title and the 2011 BC Provincial 'A' Cup, with the striker named 'Man of the Match' in the final. A member of the BC provincial team from the U-13 to U-16 levels (2008 to 2011), Huitema was named MVP of the U-13 and U-14 BC provincial squads, while he served as co-captain of the U-14 BC team (2009) and captain of his province's U-16 side (2011). He also trained with the Canadian Soccer Association's National Training Centre (British Columbia region) program from 2009 and 2011.
A native of Chilliwack, BC, the striker's parents are Julie and Roger Huitema. He has a brother named Trent and a sister named Jordyn. As a student, Huitema attended Sardis Elementary (2000 to 2005), East Chilliwack Elementary (2005 to 2007), and Rosedale Middle School (2007 to 2010) before spending a year at Chilliwack Senior Secondary School (2010-11).
In his spare time, Huitema enjoys following all sports, reading, listening to music, and eating his favourite food pizza. The striker enjoys watching Spanish and European giants Barcelona play and hopes to one day play at their famous stadium, Camp Nou. He is also a big fan of Bayern Munich and Netherlands winger Arjen Robben.
Brody Huitema


text:
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Just as soon as Ohio State took a big step forward in replenishing its depth at linebacker, it once again appears to have followed it up with one in the opposite direction.
The school confirmed on Monday that former four-star and ESPN 300 recruit Mike Mitchell is no longer practicing with the team and won't participate in the camp that opens Tuesday, another blow to the depth at the thinnest position on the roster. ElevenWarriors.com, citing sources, reported previously that Mitchell is planning to transfer at the end of the spring semester to be closer to his family and ailing father.
His departure would put more pressure on a group of four new recruits and two returning starters for a unit that has clearly not lived up to coach Urban Meyer's expectations over the last two years and has been plagued by attrition.
The news release from the program doesn't address his future plans, but Mitchell's departure would make him the fifth linebacker to leave the program with eligibility remaining since the end of the 2012 season, ramping up pressure on the incoming freshmen and rising sophomore Trey Johnson to fill the void left by all those missing bodies.
"The emphasis is on linebacker," Meyer said last month. "There have been far too many mistakes in either lack of development or whatever, and it's just not where we need to be."
Mitchell was supposed to help address that when he chose to leave his home state of Texas last year and join the Buckeyes, but he ended up redshirting last season despite the lack of many options at the position.
The need to find more contributors in the middle of the defense only increased when star outside linebacker Ryan Shazier elected to skip his senior season and enter the NFL draft. And while veterans Joshua Perry and Curtis Grant will return for the Buckeyes, at a minimum they'll need to identify one new starter and could wind up counting on the newcomers to fill out the two-deep given the accumulating losses concentrated at linebacker.
Mitchell would join David Perkins, Luke Roberts and Conner Crowell (injury) as potential candidates for playing time who have left the program since the end of the 2012 campaign, stretching Ohio State thin and contributing to the uneven play of a defense that struggled at the end of last season during consecutive losses to Michigan State and Clemson.
"There's four linebackers that have been recruited, Raekwon McMillan, Sam Hubbard, Kyle Berger and Dante Booker, four guys I'm putting pressure on," Meyer said. "[Co-defensive coordinator Luke] Fickell and myself have to get them ready for next year. They have to play for us, in addition to the players we have on our roster already.
"So just so everybody knows, there's no redshirt plans for those players at all. We thought about that during the recruiting process."
It's now more clear than ever that Ohio State won't have much time to wait for those young guys to develop.