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The Serious Eats Guide to Taco Styles
I'm gonna say a word. Your job is to describe the first image that comes into your head. Ready?
What'd it look like? Hard yellow shell stuffed with a moist ground meat filling with shredded lettuce and cheese? Or maybe some battered and fried fish stuffed into a soft corn tortilla with a smear of chipotle mayonnaise and a cabbage slaw. Or how about braised goat's head with a red hot salsa verde?
Tacos come in all shapes, sizes, colors, makes, and models, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't like at least some form of meat-shoved-in-thin-flatbread. Here's a quick guide to the most common types of tacos around. I'm sure we've missed a few, so feel free to chime in with anything you think should be included!
There are many regional variations, but the oldest, most widely consumed forms are made with soft white corn tortillas griddled on a comal until lightly charred or steamed until soft. They're small (usually no more than three or four inches across), and are eaten as a street snack.
Fillings can be anything from the battered and deep-fried fish of Baja to grasshopper-stuffed tacos de chapulines of Oaxaca, but they generally fall into one of three categories: griddled/spit-roasted meats, fried meats, or braised meats. Most restaurants or carts specialize in one category. The meaty fillings are finely chopped into tiny pieces on a block of wood known as a tronco with a sharp cleaver before serving. Traditionally, Mexican tacos come very simply adorned with diced onions and chopped cilantro, with lime wedges, pickled or grilled jalapeños, radishes, and a choice of salsas for the customer to add themselves. Of course, nowadays, fillings and condiments run a wide gamut. We'll get into that.
Tacos de Asador (Griddled Fillings)
Griddled fillings include meats cooked using dry heat methods like frying on a flat comal or roasting on a spit. The most common ones you'll find are carne asada (grilled steak), chorizo (a sour fresh Mexican sausage), pollo (chicken), or tripita (grilled tripe). Often served on a double stack of tortillas, guacamole is a common addition, particularly to strong-flavored grilled meats like tripe or stomach.
Tacos de Cazo (Fried Fillings)
Fried fillings are generally slow-cooked in a simmering pot of lard before being crisped up on a hot comal. In that way, it's analogous to French-style confit. The most popular of this style of cooking is carnitas, made by slow-cooking pork shoulder in lard until meltingly tender. Other common cuts are tripa (pork tripe), buche (pig's throat), and suadero (beef cuts, usually from the brisket).
Tacos de Cazuela (Braised or Simmered Fillings)
These tacos include head meats like cabeza (mixed face meat), sesos (braised brains), tromp (braised lips), and cachet (cheeks). Whole sheep or goat wrapped in maguey leaves are cooked in large steamers into barbacoa, then the meat is shredded and mixed with the juices that drip out while it cooks before being piled back into a double stack of tortillas.
There's no doubt that the quality of the tortilla and the filing are what define a good or bad taco, but the best taco in the world can be either brought down or elevated by the quality of its salsa (which, by the way, is Spanish for "sauce"). There are four common types of salsa typical to taquerias or carts (though obviously, there are many more variations on these depending on where you go):
Salsa Roja
A deep red salsa made with cooked dried chili peppers and aromatics. It's generally smoky, complex, and hot. It may or may not contain tomatoes.
Avocado-based salsa
A loose puree of avocado, lime, and aromatics, it's similar in flavor to guacamole, but far thinner, with a pourable consistency.
Salsa Casera (pico de gallo)
Fresh salsa made from raw chopped tomatoes, onion, chili peppers, and cilantro, though other vegetables and fruits can sometimes be used. It's often called pico de gallo (the beak of the rooster), and represents the three colors of the Mexican flag (red, white, and green).
Salsa Verde
Green salsa made from tomatillos, chilis, and cilantro. Bright, tart, and fresh tasting, it can range from mildly hot to downright fiery
And if you branch out to Fast Food or Taco Kit-style tacos, you'll also find...
"Taco Sauce"
This smooth, tomato-based sauce vaguely resembles watered down ketchup flavored with chili powder and perhaps a bit of cumin with heat levels ranging from "mild" to "fire," which when adapted to the Mexican scale translate as "mild" to "sort of mild." Even the hottest won't have any but the most light-tongued reaching for the water.
Jarred Salsas
Made from cooked tomatoes and tomato purée, this is the stuff you'll find in the jars sold next to the tortilla chips. While they aren't the best choice for real tacos, they can make a great addition to kit-style tacos. Check out our taste test.
At some fast food taquerias, they use...
Weaponized Salsa Dispensers
These are caulk gun-like handheld devices designed to dispense a precise amount of sour cream, guacamole, or salsa onto an unwitting taco, burrito, or gordita.
These are some of the most popular regional variations on the soft taco theme that you'll find in Mexico and beyond.
Fish Tacos
Originally from Baja, the long peninsula off the Northwest coast of Mexico, fish tacos have been popular in Southern California for a long time and are finding greater popularity on these days on both coasts and everywhere in between (even the Cheesecake Factory has'em on the menu). Made with fresh fish either grilled or battered and deep fried, it comes served on a soft corn tortilla with a shredded cabbage slaw and a cream, mayonnaise, or sour cream-based dressing, often flavored with chipotle (smoked jalapeños), lime, or cilantro.
Shrimp Tacos
Remove the fried fish from a fish taco and replace it with grilled or fried shrimp and you've got shrimp tacos, also from Baja.
Tacos al Pastor or Tacos de Adobada
Meats cooked on vertical rotisseries. Very similar to Greek gyros or Middle Eastern shawarma, thin slices of marinated meats (like pork seasoned with adobo, for instance) are layered on top of each other on a long skewer, cooked via radiation in a vertical broiler, and sliced off in thin shreds as needed. You'll often find a pineapple, tomato, or onion stuck on the top of the stack to help flavor the meat as its juices drip down over the layers.
Tacos al Carbón
A specialty of Sonora, these tacos generally feature fast-cooking meats, most commonly thinly sliced beef steak, though stands specializing in tacos al carbón will often also serve chorizo, chicken, and/or organ meats like tripe and intestine. The meat is grilled on grates set over live coals, which impart a distinct smokiness and char them more deeply than those seared on a griddle. They're often accompanied by grilled green onions, sliced cucumbers, and radish.
Tacos de Canasta
Rarely found outside of Mexico, these tacos are made by stuffing corn tortillas with fillings like chorizo, potatoes, pork skin, or beans, then placed immediately inside a container lined with a cloth. The cloth is folded over the trap steam, and the tacos are then carried around until sold or eaten. In this manner, they get steamed as they sit, turning the tortilla extremely soft and fragile. So elusive are they that we couldn't even track down a photo of them in the wild.
Bug-Stuffed Tacos
Ok, so they may not be for everyone, and they're tough to find in the U.S., but tacos stuffed with fried chapulines (grasshoppers) can be quite tasty. They're crunchy and nutty and really quite delicious—as long as you close your eyes.
Vegetarian Tacos
Tacos are generally a meaty snack, but there are a number of traditional vegetarian options. Tacos de Papa are filled with creamy potatoes, while squash blossoms, rajas (roasted pepper strips) or even nopales (cooked cactus paddle) are not uncommon. Perhaps the most famous (and one of the rarest) is stuffed with huitlacoche: kernels of corn that have been infected by corn smut, a fungus that turns them black. Often referred to as "Mexican Truffles," huitlacoche has an almost cheesy, earthy aroma that's truly fantastic inside a hot corn tortilla.
Mission-Style Tacos
The style of taco served in San Francisco's Mission district, where burritos are really king. Along with meat, they come adorned with more burrito-friendly fillings, like cooked beans, refried beans, cheese, lettuce, and a variety of salsas. The archetypical mission-style taco comes from La Taqueria, on Mission Street.
Breakfast Tacos
With the popularization of Tex-Mex restaurants came a need for something other than Huevos Rancheros for breakfast. Breakfast tacos are a quick and easy option in the morning, consisting of a tortilla (often flour) filled with meat, eggs, and cheese. They're particularly popular in Texas, where you'll find everything from eggs and cheese to potatoes, bacon, and chorizo, like in the Suicide Taco at Rosie's Tamale House in Bee Cave.
Food Truck Fusion Tacos
With their simple mode of production and eminent snackability, tacos and food trucks naturally go hand in hand. While many rolling restaurants stick to the basics, serving either griddled or braised fillings, modern trucks veer from the creative to the just plain weird. The Kogi Barbecue Truck from L.A. can be attributed with popularizing this style, with their tasty, kimchi-stuffed concoctions. Note: These tacos don't actually have to come from a truck.
Fancy-Pants Tacos
This is what happens when renowned chefs get their hands on tacos. Like most foods, they range from excellent—try the chicken and green chorizo version from Alex Stupak's hot new Empellón (our review here) or the awesome smoked and confited beef tongue in the Benny Lengua Taco at Ken Oringer's La Verdad in Boston—to the downright silly (like the raw Spicy Tuna Tartar Tacos at Todd English's Bonfire). What they all share in common is a particular chef's attempt to add a twist and upgrade to the classic.
Fancy-pants tacos can occasionally end up in the dreaded realm of Tacos Gringos (see next section)
Tacos Gringos (a.k.a. Yuppie Tacos)
Imagine an alien flying over the earth observing us through a telescope and taking notes so they can recreate an earth exhibit back on their home planet. Now, they may well get a bunch of things right, and at first glance, their replica of the earth might fool some people. But get down to the details, and the façade falls short. That's what gringo tacos are. Tacos that bear a resemblance to the Mexican original soft corn taco, but lose something (or several things) vital in preparation.
This often manifests itself in the following ways:
- Badly heated or stale tortillas that either get saturated with juice and fail, or crumble when you try and fold them.
- A vain attempt to up-scale-ify the meat. This can mean, for instance, using higher quality beef cooked medium rare and sliced into strips (thus making them impossible to consume without sliding out of the tortilla). Marked by high quality but low flavor.
- Odd fillings and salsas that compete rather than complement the main filling. The biggest offenders include corn and black bean relishes, or the dreaded mango salsa. Horrors!
- Soy-based vegan fillings. That's all there is to say about that.
For an example of tacos that offend on nearly all of these fronts, head to Papalote Mexican Grill in San Francisco's Mission District. Or better yet, don't.
Chinese Soft Tacos
I can't verify the following story, but it seems to make sense to me. Starting about ten years ago, Chinese immigrants to New York who planned on opening Chinese restaurants found the takeout Chinese restaurant market to be saturated. Rather than throwing in the towel, they instead opted to open cheap, fast, taco shops around the concept of tortillas cooked fresh to order. Hand over a couple bucks and the cook deposits a small ball of flour-based dough into a machine that rolls and grills the tortilla, which is then stuffed with toppings, usually limited to steak, chicken, or black beans. They often serve other NY Chinese Takeout staples like fried chicken with duck sauce and french fries.
Depending on the quality of the fillings, these can range from excellent to stomach-churning. Look for restaurants that look suspiciously like Chinese takeout joints with names like "Taco Mex" or "Fresh Mex" or "Tortilla Max." The combination of "taco" or "tortilla" in the name along with a Chinese cashier is a dead giveaway.
Indian Tacos
Indian tacos, sometimes called Navajo tacos, are a regional specialty, found in the American West and Midwest. They swap the tortilla for frybread, yeast-leavened disks of dough fried in lard or oil until puffy. Though you can find them at restaurants like Tim's Drive Inn in Oklahoma City (review here), they are more commonly served at pow-wows and Native American festivals.
Fast Food Soft Tacos
In the realm of soft tacos, fast food tacos are usually made with flour tortillas instead of corn, and rather than being served flat or rolled up, they're folded in half, mimicking the U-shape of a hard-shell crisp taco. Filling options generally include small bits of steak or chicken, a seasoned ground beef mixture, or refried beans, and they come topped with diced tomatoes, shredded iceberg lettuce, shredded yellow cheese, and sour cream, with some sort of sauce served on the side.
Taco Bell's Cantina-style tacos, a recent (and now retired) limited-time offering, were more similar to traditional Mexican tacos, with soft corn tortillas and a garnish of onions and cilantro.
TLO's (Taco-like-objects)
These are taco-based products that involve wrapping ingredients in soft flour tortillas. That's about all the similarity they have to real tacos. The McDonald's Snack Wraps is probably the most notable form of TLO, though Taco bell also serves several TLO's, like their Gorditas (not to be confused with the true deep-fried gorditas of Mexico) and their Chalupas. I strongly believe that this category only exists so that it can be avoided.
Here are some of the more common hard-shell taco varieties you'll see.
Tacos Fritos
Probably the closest thing you'll find to a "traditional" hard taco. The fillings tend to be similar to a soft tacos, but the shells (usually made of corn flour) are fried until crisp before serving, folded in half to cup the filling. If fried flat, what you've got instead is a tostada (also delicious).
Tacos Dorados (aka Flautas or Taquitos)
Tacos stuffed with a simple filling of shredded chicken or beef, rolled up into cigar-shaped cylinders, and deep fried until crisp. They can be served to be eaten out of hand as-is, or served a few at a time on a plate drizzled with salsa and crema.
Taco Kit tacos
In 1950, New York restaurateur Juvenico Maldonado helped to make tacos a popular weeknight dinner in American homes when he patented a device to hold the tacos in U-shapes as they are deep-fried; after this was invented, grocery stores across the country began to sell taco kits, complete with hard shell tortillas, seasoning mix, and taco sauce.
If you grew up in a certain era (like the '80s), these are probably what you came to know as the taco when your mom declared one tuesday night a month (Taco Tuesdays!) as Taco Night. Brands like Old El Paso and Ortega make kits that contain a dozen hard taco shells, a squeeze bottle of ketchupy-sweet and tangy "taco sauce," and a packet of dried herbs and spices.
All you do is brown some beef, add some water and the seasoning packet, then serve it all at the table with accompaniments of your choice. Standard options include chopped tomatoes, onions, shredded lettuce, shredded cheese, sour cream, jarred salsa, some homemade guacamole (if you're lucky), and a couple cans of refried beans. People would stuff their tacos as they see fit, then try and eat them without letting the shells crack in half at the seam.
Cafeteria tacos
Closely related to the Taco Kit Taco, these are the industrial-scale version of the same. They're served on the same schedule (once a month, on a tuesday), but this time the filling is spooned into taco shells by cafeteria staff outfitted with hair nets and aprons. Taco filling doesn't fare well in steam tables, so its advisable to sprint down to the lunch hall as soon third period algebra lets out.
Puffy Tacos
The cracklier, greasier, puffier cousin to hard shell tacos, puffy tacos are always made with a fresh corn flour dough. The dough gets pressed into disks of a specific thickness (it takes practice to get this right), then tossed into a deep frier where they gently puff up. They come served with typical hard taco-style fillings, including beef or chicken garnished with cheese, lettuce, and chopped tomatoes. A specialty of San Antonio, we like the ones from Los Barrios.
Choco Tacos
Chocolate cookie taco shells stuffed with ice cream and dipped in nuts. Need we say more? Here's how to make your own from scratch.
Fast Food Hard Tacos
There are almost too many styles of fast food tacos to enumerate, but the most popular are probably the hard corn-shelled version from Taco Bell, which comes with a choice of filling (usually a seasoned, paste-like beef mixture), the soft wheat tortilla version of the same, or the deep fried version from Jack-in-the-Box, which features a shredded beef mixture, plenty of cheese, and minimal toppings. Shells can be plain corn, or dyed bright red, coated in powdered cheese, etc. Straddling the line between Fast Food Taco, Tacos Dorados, and TLO's are the Go-Go Taquitos from 7-11, tube-shaped, deep fried tacos served off of a hot dog warmer.
This cross-bred lovechild of a taco and a quesadilla was created by Gabrielle Arnold of the blog Honest Fare. it's made by sandwiching cheese in between two tortillas, griddling them until melted, then wrapping the whole thing up around a taco filling.
Taco Salads
Taco salads were created as a clever way to serve a 3,000 calorie meal under the guise of health food. They start with an oversized deep-fried bowl-like taco shell made of either wheat flour or corn. In the bowl goes a layer of lettuce followed by any or all of the following: grilled meats, refried pinto beans, black beans, chopped onion, tomato, peppers, salsas, grated cheese, sliced olives, pickled jalapeños, cheese sauce, sour cream, guacamole, diced avocados, and chili (did I miss anything here)? It's essentially cold nachos in which some of the chips have been replaced with chopped lettuce. Ideal for taco lovers on a diet...or...something like that.
UPDATE (7/14): Taco Dogs
The cutest, cuddliest taco of all. Don't eat these at home.
UPDATE (7/15): Taco Grande
Ok, so it may not be a taco you can eat, per se, but it must be the greatest song about Mexican food ever written. You see, I just gotta have a tostada, that's right, I want the whole enchilada. My only addiction has to do with a flour tortilla (I need a quesadilla). I love to stuff my face with tacos al carbón (with my friends or when I'm all alone).
UPDATE (7/15): Tacos Arabes
Tacos al pastor may be the Lebanese immigrants' take on tacos, but tacos arabes are the true taco-shawarma hybrid. Made with shawarma-style meat cooked on a vertical spit, they're sliced like tacos al pastor, served in either warm thin, Lebanese-style pita, or occasionally a flour tortilla, topped with taqueria-style condiments. You can find these in Puebla, as well as in many American cities, like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, or New York (I recently spied them on the menu at the Tacos Morelos truck on Bedford and North 7th in Williamsburg.
Thanks to the commenters and readers who tipped me off to this omission!
And that's the whole tamale!
Make sure to let us know about any styles we missed in the comments!
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ZIFFPAGE TITLEThe PlanBy CIOinsight
Lexis-Nexis: Ground Zero for War vs. Data Thieves
I don't think I'm being paranoid. I think I'm being realistic," says Allan McLaughlin, senior vice president and CTO of LexisNexis Group, the New York City-based data aggregator. "But you can't be too careful anymore," he continues. "Worst-case scenario: There are vendors selling security products that, on the face, look strong, but are actually designed to be weak. They're made by somebody malicious, designed to weaken your security. It's like putting a screen door on a submarine. Before you know it, you're sunk. I'm not paranoid. The world has changed."
It would be easy to chalk up McLaughlin's high anxiety to one too many viewings of The Matrix. But his perspective on security is more informed than most. Just this past March, McLaughlin, and his company, experienced the sinking feeling of learning that the personal recordsincluding names, Social Security numbers, and driver's license numbersof 310,000 individuals had been stolen from the LexisNexis databases.
The discovery came just a month after the world had learned that LexisNexis' biggest competitor in the data-aggregation market, ChoicePoint Inc., had compromised the personal information of 145,000 people. Like ChoicePoint, LexisNexis collects all kinds of information on millions of individuals. The informationranging from public data such as
real estate records and published telephone numbers to nonpublic information such as Social Security numbers, financial data and criminal recordsis used by everyone from direct marketers to law-enforcement agencies. Add to that LexisNexis' databases of legal filings, newspapers articles, and periodicals (for which it is better known), and you've got a healthy $2.1 billion information services business.
That's why LexisNexis has suddenly become a great big target for identity thieves and idle teen hackers alike. The kind of data it collects and sells is highly valuable, both to the black-market operators who promote identity theft by trafficking in personal information as well as to the company's 4.5 million legitimate customers.
Company: LexisNexis Group
Corporate Headquarters: New York City
CTO: Allan McLaughlin
Revenues: $2.1 billion (trailing 12 months)
Parent Company: Reed Elsevier
Unfortunately for LexisNexis, not all of those legitimate customers take security as seriously as McLaughlin does. And that provides an open invitation to the enterprising hacker. A full complement of a person's name, address and credit card number can fetch $100 on the Web. More detailed information is even more valuable. The Federal Trade Commission estimates that about ten million Americans have their personal information stolen each year, costing businesses a jaw-dropping $48 billion annually.
This particular saga began in February, when a group of young hackers sent out a blast of junk e-mail promising an attached file of pornographic images. According to published reports, someone in a police department in Port Orange, Fla., and someone in a constable's office in Denton County, Tex., took the bait.
By clicking on the link, the two victims downloaded key-logging software onto their computers that recorded every keystroke and every click of their mouse. And when they later logged into their LexisNexis accounts, which police use to obtain background information on criminal suspects, their passwords and user names were captured by the hackers.
McLaughlin was made aware of the activity weeks later, when one of the two police departments (he won't say which) noticed an unusual amount of activity on their account and contacted a sales rep. "They basically said, 'Gee, I don't remember running up this bill. Can you help me understand it?'" says McLaughlin. He was lucky the customer caught the mistake. "You'd be amazed at how many businesses don't look at their invoices," he adds.
Kurt Sanford, CEO of U.S. corporate and federal markets at LexisNexis, was brought on the case immediately. Given the bad press ChoicePoint had received a month earlier for failing to notify people in a timely manner that their data had been compromised, Sanford took the bull by the horns: He called the Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, notified the press, and began an internal investigation into a recently acquired subsidiary called Seisint Inc., which managed the database that had been breached. (LexisNexis itself is a division of Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier.)
At first blush, it appeared that the fraudsters had made off with about 30,000 names. But after an exhaustive month-long search through the Seisint databases, LexisNexis found that ten times that number of names had been stolen, in 59 separate incidents, over a two-year period. LexisNexis issued another press release, began notifying the people whose personal data had been taken, and launched a public relations effort in hopes of mitigating the damage to its image.
But the real work had only begun. The hardest lesson learned by LexisNexis in the aftermath of the theft was that it isn't enough to protect your internal network. In our brave new networked world, companies must also take responsibility for the security of their customers and business partners, as either can provide a point of entry for an eager hacker. "I mean, nothing against the customers. They all do really good things," says McLaughlin. "But it's naïve to think you can trust the security of your customers' environments."
LexisNexis has embarked on an aggressive campaign to tighten up customer security. But it is an effort that does not always align itself with the business goals of the company. And there is a limit to how much LexisNexis can ask of its customers and still expect their continued patronage. "We have been thinking a lot about that," says Tammy Wright, vice president of sales operations at LexisNexis. "It's a line that hasn't been tested yet in our industry."
ZIFFPAGE TITLEThe Customer Conundrum
The Customer Conundrum
In February, Leo Cronin, senior director of information security at LexisNexis, was in the middle of a tennis match when he got the call from McLaughlin, his boss. "Allan told me there were a couple of issues with Seisint, and I would have to go down to [Seisint headquarters in] Boca Raton to check it out," Cronin recalls. The database showing the anomalies was called Accurint, an information service specifically designed for government officials, financial institutions and law enforcement agencies that includes detailed personal and non-public information. Customers with access to Accurint are required to undergo a thorough vetting process before they are permitted to subscribe. And the fact that customers had billing questions about this specific database was of particular concern to LexisNexis.
For years, LexisNexis had been focused on shoring up security inside its own network. "We were very preoccupied with perimeter securityyou know, viruses and worms," Cronin says. "We were putting in network security architecture, intrusion and detection software, that kind of thing." What they weren't doing was worrying about how they could address their vulnerabilities on the edges of the networkand particularly, how they could make their customers more secure. They learned that lesson the hard way. "If you look at the network, it's clear that it's there to serve the applications, which are there to serve the customer," says Cronin. "So we need to treat that as an extension of the network."
But that network includes more than 4.5 million LexisNexis customers and business partners, a large chunk of which comes from one of the most technologically challenged industries in the world: government. Both local and federal government agencies are notoriously backward when it comes to technology in general. Indeed, the Government Accountability Office issued this scathing assessment of federal information security in July: "Pervasive weaknesses in the 24 major agencies' information security policies and practices threaten the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of federal information and information systems."
For evidence of that on the local level, look no further than Denton County, Tex., the probable point of origin for the Lexis-Nexis data theft. It was at a constable's office in this county of 500,000, in the north-central part of the state, that the unforgivable security sin of clicking on an unknown attachment took place. It can happen to anyone, of course, but it is clear that when it comes to sophisticated and targeted attacks of this nature, the Denton County constable's office is overmatched. "We continually try to educate people," says Kevin Carr, director of IS for Denton County. "And we have a fairly intelligent workforce. But it's real easy to send an e-mail that looks legitimate and get the information from anyone you want. Next thing you know, you've got a Trojan or a worm."
The Secret Service thought so highly of Denton County's information security that when they came to town to investigate, they didn't even bother to interview Carr. In fact, Carr was only vaguely aware of the LexisNexis data theft: "I've heard here and there about some things that happened around here," he said. And there are very few IT security resources for the likes of Denton County. The International Association of Chiefs of Police, a 20,000-member professional organization, admits that there is only so much they can do. "We make sure this stuff is part of education and training," says Matt Snyder, administrator of the IACP technology center. "But realistically, we are touching a small percentage of organizations. The small agency is always going to require additional assistance."
Compounding the monumental task of securing even the most clueless of customers, LexisNexis has an additional problem. It's one thing for a bank to encourage customers to protect against identity theft, because a bank's customers are the actual people at risk from identity theft. But in LexisNexis' case, its customers are not the same people whose names and identities are at risk. So its customers have little incentive to spend their own money and time fixing what amounts to a gaping security hole in LexisNexis' own network.
"The bottom line on privacy is that there is a big flaw in this business model," says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a consumer advocacy group in Washington, D.C. "The customers of these data aggregation companies are not the ones that bear the risk. This industry needs to find a way to align the benefits of data collection and sale with the individuals whose personal information is being collected and sold."
ZIFFPAGE TITLEThe Plan
The Plan
In April, shortly after the news of the data theft became public, CEO Kurt Sanford was called before Congress to testify on securing personal data. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee that LexisNexis had provided a consolidated credit report and credit monitoring services to the people whose names were stolen from the Accurint database. They are also offering credit counselors and $20,000 worth of identity theft insurance to anyone who ultimately becomes a victim of fraud as a result of the theft. "We have learned a great deal," Sanford told Congress.
Less than a month after the theft took place, the company rolled out a new initiative called the LexisNexis Customer Security Program. The program is designed to push more of the burden for the security of LexisNexis' information out to its customers. It consists of four relatively simple changes: stronger log-in requirements, monthly user verification, IP address restriction (allowing access from predesignated IP addresses only), and restricted access to full Social Security numbers and driver's license information. (See "Four-and-a-Half Million Fingers," page 48.)
Some of the changes are mandatory for all LexisNexis customers, while others, such as IP address restriction, are voluntary. Some are already in place. Others roll out later this year. For the most part, the impact on customers has been minimal. (This magazine, which uses the LexisNexis newspaper and periodical database, was asked to change its password and to add a security question and answer as part of the effort. It took less than five minutes to complete the change.) "We want to make it as painless as possible," says Wright. "Security hasn't always been this big a part of the job, but once it crossed the line outside of our walls and to our customers, that's when I got involved."
Many of LexisNexis' customers are already well aware of the threat of identity theft, either through the constant media coverage the topic receives, or because of the nature of their businesses. Ron Morano is a collections strategist at Creditor's Interchange Inc., a third-party collection agency based in Buffalo, N.Y. He uses LexisNexis to get phone numbers, home addresses and mortgage information on people who are behind on their loan payments, and he often finds himself trying to collect on accounts that are overdue because their owners have been the victims of identity theft. "I'm more than aware of it," Morano says.
But even with his intimate knowledge of identity theft, Morano still finds the additional security to be a nuisance. "We've limited our Accurint searches to one IP address, and that disables access from any other computer," he explains. "It has become more of an inconvenience."
Wright downplays the effects of asking customers to tighten security on LexisNexis' behalf. "A lot of our customers are already required to do this stuff because of the regulated industries they're in," she says. "The majority of our customers are delighted, and some have even gone to great lengths on their own." LexisNexis is even considering helping them take the next step. The company is currently working with antivirus and antispyware companies to potentially provide some kind of bulk discount to its customers. An effort of this kind would not cost LexisNexis a great deal of money, says Cronin, given the eagerness of software vendors to gain new business.
ZIFFPAGE TITLEAftershocks
In late May, FBI and Secret Service agents served warrants at the homes of several hackers in Minneapolis, Winston-Salem, N.C., and elsewhere, seizing computers and disks they believe to be related to the LexisNexis case. According to a report in the Washington Post, the hackers gained access to the Accurint database, created a number of sub-accounts, looked up themselves, friends and celebrities, and then began selling Social Security numbers to data thieves. The investigation is ongoing, but one suspect told the newspaper that the Feds "got everybody."
Though the criminal investigation seems to be wrapping up, the shock waves from the break-in continue to reverberate throughout the LexisNexis ecosystem. "Have you seen what's happened to ChoicePoint's stock price?" asks Mark Marcon, a financial analyst with Milwaukee-based Robert W. Baird & Co., which downgraded ChoicePoint in June to neutral from outperform. ChoicePoint's stock lost more than a quarter of its value in the months following the disclosure of its security breach. Because LexisNexis is part of a much larger holding company, it's hard to say what effect the theft has had on investors.
Still, parent company Reed Elsevier's shares have been in steady decline since March. "These guys do a lot of business with the government, so it's important to have a good public image," says Marcon. "It's one of many factors that go into valuing a company."
Just ask John Perry, CEO of CardSystems Solutions, the credit card transaction processing company from whom 40 million credit card records were stolen in June. He told Congress that because of the security breach, his company faced "imminent extinction"the result of its two biggest customers, Visa and American Express, having canceled their contracts with the Atlanta-based company. "CardSystems is being driven out of business," he said.
ZIFFPAGE TITLEHigh Profile
High Profile
Yet another negative side effect of a highly publicized data breach is that it significantly increases the size of the bull's-eye on LexisNexis. The media coverage has made more people aware of the company and the type of information it sells. "What keeps me up at night?" asks LexisNexis' Cronin. "This whole thing has raised the profile of the company, so we need to be even more vigilant now. People are trying to make us their little project."
The government has also taken notice. It's not every day that Kurt Sanford has the uncomfortable experience of testifying before Congress, defending an industry that has flown well beneath the radar and, thus far, been loosely regulated. But the heat is being turned up on ChoicePoint, LexisNexis and the data-aggregating industry in general. Privacy advocates are calling for wholesale changes to the personal information business. "I think, at the very least, their business model should require them to incorporate the risks as well as the benefits of collecting and selling personal data," says EPIC's Rotenberg, who believes that companies such as LexisNexis need to be legally and financially responsible for the loss of personal data. "It's like a car company saying they can sell automobiles and not worry about whether the brakes work."
The argument against tight regulation of data aggregators is less convincing. Critics of federal intervention believe that the flow of personal information is the lifeblood of the free-market economy, and that to restrict the flow could severely inhibit the ability to approve credit and market products effectively. "Regulation is always good at protecting people's privacy," says LexisNexis' Wright. "But individual consumer transactions fuel our economy." Yet as the public clamor over identity theft rises, it's becoming increasingly likely that heavier regulation is in LexisNexis' future.
On the positive side, it has been easier for CTO McLaughlin to get budget approval of new security spending. He won't say just how much the data theft has cost the company thus far, "but it's not cheap." In talking with him, you can't help but get the feeling that no matter how much he spends on security, it will never be enough. "You can't ever stop," he says. "Whether you like it or not, you have to spend more money to try to stay one step closer. Because it's impossible to stay one step ahead."

subset: commoncrawl


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i have a netbook and my wifi detects an open wifi access point near my home . but when i connect i was unable to get internet access after getting connected.. it seems unsecured network.. it says"no internet access" i thought they are using mac filtering so i spoofed my mac but still got no luck.. may be they are using dhcp or something like that.. or may be radius.. im not sure about it
im using windows 7 ultimate.
so please help me out...
actually i found out its like some local ISP,s and i think they use a radius or dhcp system .. there are 3 open wifi ap .. all are isp ... i tried to use airodump-ng and got the connected clients mac address and then i spoofed them.. but i was still unable to get internet access... its became a challenge for me..
so its sure they are not from some school or university it doesnt have any custom screen for login..one more thing once before 1 week i accidently connected to this network and i was able to use internet though...why not now???? ...i can provide you any additional information about this networks if you want...
if you want live info we can use some IM my Yahoo im is: firstname.lastname@example.com msn is: firstname.lastname@example.com
im sending a image of detected network below link
http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g46 ... /image.jpg
thanks in advance


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The creators of Metropolitan Mayhem, an urban-themed level pack for Duke Nukem 3D, uploaded a brand-spanking new trailer for their mod, which came out in... March 2012. Odd timing. Still, there's "an hour's worth of oldskool entertainment" to be had, so if you've got Duke 3D and like the way this looks, dig in!
New Trailer Released For Duke Nukem 3D's Metropolitan Mayhem Mod [DSOGaming]


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CL&P seeks 5.9 percent rate increase
BERLIN >> Connecticut Light and Power said Friday that it plans to seek a 5.9 percent rate increase from state regulators as it works to replace aging infrastructure and improve reliability.
The state's largest utility, which has about 1.2 million customers, said any approved electric rate increase would not go into effect until December.
Under the proposal, customers using an average of 700 kilowatt-hours of power a month would see their bills rise by $6.76.
The company says it is investing in new and stronger poles, wires, transformers and substations, which it says will result in fewer outages.
"Already, CL&P customers are seeing fewer and shorter power outages, as the system performed at its highest level in 2013 since the year 2000," the company said in a statement.
State Attorney General George Jepsen urged the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to carefully review the rate increase request.
"Connecticut's electric rates remain extremely high," he said. "My office will participate in this proceeding, and I will urge PURA to approve rates that are no more than just and reasonable, as required by law."


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Hotel Down Comforter
What Our Customers Are Saying
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One night at a fine hotel is wonderful, but 365 nights is even better. Upgrade your year round sleep experience with our Hotel Down Comforter in a classic box stitch design that is excellent in any climate. The 550 fill power Hyperclean® down encased in soft 230 thread count 100% cotton will envelope you in fluffy comfort.
The sewn through box construction keeps the fluffy down fill evenly distributed over you for a great night's sleep. The Hotel Down Comforter is ideal for those who sleep at an average room temperature.
Keep your comforter clean with a duvet cover or comforter protector. This comforter fits in the Basic or AllerRest® comforter protectors.
Pacific Coast® Down
Down is the soft insulating material found on the breast of geese and ducks. Unlike feathers that have a quill, down has no hard elements. Considered one of Mother Nature's best insulators, a down cluster is a light and fluffy three dimensional spherical puff with multiple filaments that expand to trap air - giving down bedding its signature loft and cozy, embracing warmth.
When used in comforters, down allows air to circulate around you contributing to a comfortable environment and deep, sound sleep. When used in pillows, down provides soft, adjustable comfort that conforms to your changing sleep positions.
Pacific Coast® down is carefully sorted and selected to ensure that only the fluffiest clusters are used.
Sewn Through Box
In our traditional sewn through box design, the top and bottom fabric layers of the comforter or blanket are sewn or quilted together in a large grid pattern. This design feature keeps the down in place and prevents it from shifting from one box to another so you can enjoy all over warmth and comfort.
Barrier Weave® 100% Cotton
Our bedding products are made with a unique, tightly woven fabric weave that is specially finished to keep the down and feathers from sneaking through the fabric. This leak proof fabric is finer, softer and more durable for lasting comfort and easy care.
Year round comfort for a wide range of climates
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Sewn through box construction
Regular sized (see dimensions)
Corner loops on Full and Queen size only
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Twin: 63" x 86"
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King: 108" x 96"
Dimensions are based off fabric shell before filling. Size may slightly vary.
|Country of Origin
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30 Night Comfort Guarantee
Allergy Free Limited Warranty
3 Year Limited Warranty
|Dry clean or professionally launder


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A federal judge Monday ordered Ohio officials to recognize the marriage of a same-sex couple wed in Maryland on the death certificate of one of the two men currently in hospice care.
U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Black wrote in Monday's order that despite Ohio's 2004 constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, "Ohio law has historically and unambiguously provided that the validity of a marriage is determined by whether it complies with the law of the jurisdiction where it was celebrated."
Moreover, Black states that Ohio law "likely violates the United States Constitution" by treating lawful same-sex marriages differently than it does lawful opposite-sex marriages, including those that are not permitted to be performed in Ohio but are still recognized when legally performed elsewhere.
"Although the law has long recognized that marriage and domestic relations are matters generally left to the states," Black wrote, "the restrictions imposed on marriage by states, however, must nonetheless comply with the Constitution."
The order concerns plaintiffs James Obergefell and John Arthur, a same-sex couple from Cincinnati who have been together for more than 20 years. Although Arthur is currently in hospice care and "certain to die soon" from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the couple flew to Maryland on July 11 in a jet equipped with medical staff and equipment and were married on the tarmac in Anne Arundel County.
Following the Supreme Court's ruling last month to strike down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, the couple's marriage in Maryland is now recognized by the federal government, but under Ohio law Arthur's martial status would be listed as "unmarried" on his death certificate and Obergefell would not be noted as a "surviving spouse."
"Dying with an incorrect death certificate that prohibits Mr. Arthur from being buried with dignity constitutes irreparable harm. Furthermore, Mr. Arthur's harm is irreparable because his injury is present now, while he is alive," Black, who was nominated by to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2009, wrote in his order today. "A later decision allowing an amendment to the death certificate cannot remediate the harm to Mr. Arthur, as he will have passed away."
Quoting from Justice Anthony Kennedy's sweeping majority ruling in the Windsor case, Black added that Ohio's same-sex marriage ban is meant to "impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the States."
Wrote Black, "the local Ohio Registrar of death certificates is hereby ORDERED not to accept for recording a death certificate for John Arthur that does not record Mr. Arthur's status at death as 'married' and James Obergefell as his 'surviving spouse.'"
[Photo: Judge Timothy Black (via Linkedin)]
Read the order here:
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it's crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won't you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week's magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!


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Surveillance Camera Captures Russian Journalist's Brutal Beating
Saturday morning, young Moscow journalist Oleg Kashin was attacked and savagely beaten by two men. Everyone believes it was retaliation for his work—which, distressingly, wasn't even all that radical. Today, video of the beating emerged.
The beating left Kashin in a coma and severed one of his fingers. It seems (from here, at least) to mark a disturbing step towards menacing of thoroughly mainstream reporters in Russia. A report this morning says that "Over the weekend, Kashin underwent a second round of surgery. Doctors say it was successful and, after removing the bone fragments in his cranial cavity, that they've ruled out brain damage. His broken leg has been set, as has his jaw, which was fixed in the first operation so he could breathe."
Any goons out there looking for something to do: go protect some Russian journalists.
[There was a video here]


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The Afrobarometer Network is a series of partnerships between survey researchers based mainly in Africa. Our main types of partnerships are:
- National partners – these are organisations (or individuals) who are responsible for conducting all in-country survey activities
- Core partners – these are institutions that manage and provide assistance to our national partners in their region
- Support units – these are university-based teams that provide technical support to our core partners and Executive Committee.
- Executive committee - The Afrobarometer Executive Committee meet 2-3 times a year and oversees all aspects of the Afrobarometer network including fundraising, programme planning and implementation and network management. It also confirms decisions about new survey countries and any major structural or staff changes. All members of the Executive Committee are tasked with implementing decisions made by the Committee.
Afrobarometer could not exist without its partnerships. Explore this section to find more about our partner organisations and institutions.
If you would like to know more about Afrobarometer senior management, visit our Leadership page.


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EAST NORRITON - A motorcyclist has died after being struck in a multi-vehicle collision on the 200 block of West Germantown Pike in East Norriton Thursday night.
According to a press release from the East Norriton Police Department, officers responded to the scene at approximately 10:40 p.m. for the report of a vehicle crash involving three cars and a motorcycle. The operator of the motorcycle was taken to Mercy Suburban Hospital where he was pronounced dead. His name is being withheld until his family has been notified.
Police said there were no other injuries.
An investigation by the East Norriton Police Department and the Montgomery County Detectives Bureau is ongoing.
The Times Herald will update this story with more details as they become available.


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This layout was inspired by Anat's December Challenge: White space layout.
The title says: First day in 'Noga' kindergarten
I used: Sonburn cardstocks, Page Accents wave-border, ribbon, stapler, clip, crochet flower, pencil from ikea, Sharpie.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
First day in Noga kindergarten
5:17 PM Posted by Unknown
1 comments labels Crochet, layout, Page Accents, Sharpie, sonburn
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Mewslade Bay
The tidal information shown is for Mumbles in the Gower Peninsula, Wales. Please note that there is an approximate + 20 minute time addition required to the tide times for Llangennith versus those shown for Mumbles.
We have additionally provided detailed daily tidal information for the specific times when the tide reaches certain heights. Please click here to view detailed Swansea Tide times.


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Born out of our quest to maintain our extensive collection of rare and fine wines, West Palm Wines built and maintains Florida's premiere Wine Store & Professional Wine Storage facility. We proudly offer the largest selection of Fine Wines you'll find in a retail setting. West Palm Wines is also the home of the Beaune's Wine Bar and the Tampa Wine Institute.
Whether you are a connoisseur, collector, interested in learning more about the art of wine tasting or simply in need of a bottle to go with dinner, West Palm Wines will meet your needs. Come pay us a visit.


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Is U.S. Ready to Join the War in Syria?
Washington Institute Senior Fellow Andrew Tabler explains the ramifications of the U.S. authorizing the delivery of arms to rebels in Syria. Photo: Getty Images.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... I'm ... Obama raises the stakes in Syria's civil war ordering shipments of weapons to mutter rebel forces ... the decision comes up the White House today to confirm the troops loyal to President Bush are outside ... has used chemical weapons during the conflict ... Tilley of two hundred and fifty people in costume with the president has described as a red line ... the morning on Michael Casey ... welcome new sub ... for more on this significant development award is now being into its third year ... we tend to Andrew Tabler ... senior fellow at the Washington Institute for near ... East policy doom oriented ... good morning ... to you know Angie this announcement from some weeks of the rebel forces first claimed that seven had used chemical weapons against the people ... some will say this isn't to ALM them is the case of too little too writes of a rise ... well not entirely the rebels are desperate for for weapons were still not sure the administration ... they are deftly providing military support it's un clear exactly ... what if they're providing weapons what kind of weapons this'll be in that that's really where the D tells are here ... if they provide something sophisticated something the walao been to push back outside the aircraft and troops ... more effectively then this can change the tide of battle if it's just something like ... porn on going nature it's unlikely to change the balance on the ground didn't understand it that that was in fact meat weapons but some that will cause the significant wheels understand it there's a no-fly zone and ... identify what are in place of the Syrian airspace I'm ... it is that how significant is that ... well it we could've had a lot of options they will be looking at this that's really one of the options ... and that would do that would allow you to treat a no-fly zone for example with Patriot missile batteries ... using aircraft are just a neighboring countries or file a flight of the country ... so they're looking for options are all being explored ... as everybody looks and watches the Syria crisis ... reach the ... approximate hundred thousand killed in the former Yugoslavia but in half the time and that's that that's where a raised area ... right in city history repeating itself isn't the greatest of the other concern of cost them into use with the cliche is the Vietnam one audit would say in Afghanistan one ... of the new is that the U S at risk of Draghi itself into a difficult sectarian conflict ... I've that just a drag on an extremely complicated Sonata a ride on the border of Israel ... get it done it's one of those situations where even though he didn't break it you still might buy into the cleanup ... so far has just this year we spent the US is been so hundred and sixty million dollars on the clean up on your doubts that substantial that silly Guinea go up soon ... right ... and what about the state of the war that because of course in this interim period ... I'm side ... has gone into such an alliance with Hezbollah ... and has made some progress ... in sickly in battles the strongholds in Aleppo ... what how how close ... are we to set some new ... shifting toward it ... yes I mean I think that the US that is on the offensive mostly through through hell from Hezbollah ... doubted the Iranians AMR Deal The from their mistakes ... now with everything Aleppo or not is another matter ... but the rebels now we make our choices ... this is only gonna be won one battle in a pretty long war it's like the last two years and in what we call today Syria ... and what about this chemical weapons use I'm ... in Paddy relatively small amount of costs to even small amounts of causes and strain breach of international ... norms and accepted practices ... aam ... and and ... how Zynga was and we really why would they have the use of knowing this could only provide ... the international community ... I think they were calling Obama slots I think they knew that he did when intervened that's ... it they were testing in pushing the red line ... I said does this all the time and he gets away with this time ... in Safari has got away with it and the question is will be among the stations response stop him from using the full legality of his arsenal gets a lot more nastier weapons in his arsenal ... and he could use in the US is in people and that would be a disaster for them to disaster for us foreign policy ... and of course the sun is not the weapons had been diluted by a roster ... and an honest and that the administration to share the information it has ... on the chemical weapons use with ... the Russians ... is is likely to to sway Moscow's anywhere ... I doubt it's gotten ... so far they backed ASA to the hilt and ... and I don't expect a walkway from the right now but that what we can see ... could this escalate even further and to give ... ground troops U S troops ... but that's the problem the the the conventional wisdom the missed ration is we don't get involved it'll get better that hasn't happened to die going on two-and-a-half years ... it's hard to see how doing more of the same ... to be hands off approach ... aam is gonna make this better but troops goods in the ground unlikely at this point ... serving on offensive capacity ... but it's early on in the war and it and we've we really are scary ... looking into the abyss aam has the look of this euro crisis would oversee the phone is very close to what would you have the cat is the solution is to it ... ay ay ay ay Britain is up to that of Twinkies for Foreign Affairs said and it's very simple one is yes do you have to lay down the red line ... to the actor established a sense ... free app to work with the opposition in border areas of Syrian within the country and then last but not least ... out we have given negotiations involving the Russians ... on it until now the administration has reversed that they perceive negotiations first ... and I and dealing with rebels last ... night and you'll thank you very much his time


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In the first half of the 16th century, just few decades after Christopher Columbus discovered America, Cabeza de Vaca and the group of Spanish explorers went to the new world wand experienced troubles like no one before them. Here you can find out his life story of adventure and exploration.
Samuel de Champlain is the most popular and influential French explorer of all time. His discoveries enabled France to take foothold in the North American continent, and his formation of the Quebec City proved to be an ignition for the creation of the country of Canada.
History of River of Mississippi cannot be told without describing the life of Father Jacques Marquette, Christian priest that accompanied Louis Joliet in his discovery of central America. Here you can find out everything about his life and journey that made his name immortal.
As one of the most famous 16th century explorers from France, Jacques Cartier will forever be remembered for his discoveries in North America. Among his greatest achievements was naming of the land that is today known as Canada.


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Dubbed "Megalopolis" in 1961, the densely populated 500-mile swath of eastern cities is highlighted with the "Boston to Washington, Megalopolis" map. Published in July 1994, this work is half of a two-map set with the "Boston to Washington, Circa 1830" historical map.
Coverage Area: Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, southern New York, southeastern New Hampshire, eastern Pennsylvania, northern Virginia


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100% siguran sustav za plaćanje
Platiti u eurima
Više od 3,5 milijuna prodanih ulaznica
Additional safety measures: find out more before visiting. Read more
Additional safety measures: find out more before visiting. Read more
O Ticmate
Od 34,70 €
Od 54,60 €
Od 22,70 €
Od 51,50 €
Od 67,00 €
Od 16,50 €
Od 28,90 €
Od 30,90 €
Od 30,90 €
Od 17,60 €
Berlin is the queer capital of Europe and has been a pioneer of gay and lesbian rights since the late 19th century.
On this Queer Berlin tour we will explore Berlin's gay neighbourhood, Schöneberg, home of Marlene Dietrich and chronicled by Christopher Isherwood and Otto Dix.
We will visit the Eldorado, one of Berlin's oldest gay and transvestite bars, and frequented by openly gay Nazi SA leader Ernst Röhm. We also stop by the Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under the National Socialist Regime and find out how openly queer and transgendered individuals found assistance from advocates such as Magnus Hirschfeld, whose Institute for Sexual Science was shut down in 1933, its library destroyed in the infamous Nazi book-burning.
We'll walk through the Tiergarten, the city's best-known gay meeting spot in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. Find out how queer figures from the Prussian King Frederick the Great to today's openly gay mayor Klaus Wowereit have shaped the history of Berlin, a city which still believes a "kiss-in" to be the best form of protest. We'll end the tour at the Gay Museum in vibrant Kreuzberg.
Duration: 4 hours.
Important information:
- Shortly after completing your booking, you will receive an e-ticket by email. Please bring this ticket with you on your tour.
- The tour starts outside the restaurant Weihenstephaner at Hackescher Markt. Here you will find the guide from Original Berlin Walks.
- As this tour incl. rides with the Berlin Subway, please bring an AB public day pass transport ticket or buy one from the guide.
- Children under 12 years old are free, when accompanied by a paying adult. Youth price is for all under 26 years old.
- The tour is in English.
- The tour is on rain or shine, so please wear clothes and shoes that are weather appropriate.
- Food and drinks are not included in the price.
- The tour ends at the Gay Museum.
- The Queer Berlin tour operates April through October on Fridays at 1.30 PM.
Children under 12 years old are free, when accompanied by a paying adult. Youth price is for all under 26 years old.
Food and drinks are not included in the price.
Instant confirmation
Print out voucher
Duration: 4 hours
Queer Berlin Tour
Neue Promenade 3, 10178 Berlin
English helpdesk
Need help with your booking? We will gladly answer your questions.


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Looking for an End of Year Writing activity?
These are also ideal for an End of Year Writing task!
You can use these prompts from the image below or download a pdf of this file from
The Summer Writing Quilt is available at
There are 7 different printable writing prompts and each one comes in 2 different formats. When the writing activity is done, the children color the quilt squares and these can be displayed to show their writing making a great summer quilt display!
These are a few of the Summer writing prompts quilt printables.
Hope this give the kids plenty to write about!


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Colgan Bra & Mittor Protector
Reviewed By Orest K (MORRIS PLAINS, NJ) Reviewed for a 2006 Chevy Corvette —8/11/2017 5:38 AM
Purchased a Colgan Bra for the nose and mirrors of my 2006 C6 Corvette. Easy to install and looks great. I would recommend to all who want to protect their car and have a real sporty look.


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A lot has been made about the change in sound between Angel Olsen's breakthrough Half Way Home, and this year's equally masterful Burn Your Fire For No Witness. Her last record was made up of soft shuffles for her voice to somersault across, but this year's LP pares down on the vocal gymnastics, and floods the textures with scuzzy guitars and driving rhythms.
The motif of change has always been at the forefront of Olsen's lyrics, and it's a force which colours her approach to writing and recording as well. "As a writer, I could maybe say: At the moment, this is what something means to me to write this", she tells me. "But ten years from now, it could mean something entirely different… I listen to stuff from Strange Cacti and Half Way Home and I don't know where any of these songs came from. I have no idea."
Transience is built into to Olsen's songs. Just listen to how many of her lines slip in the qualifying word "sometimes", whenever she's expressing a desire or a conviction. It's little surprise that the feelings which inspired the songs – whether drawn from life or from fiction – are quickly lost, and difficult for Olsen to retrieve. Nor does she seem especially interested in trying. For Olsen, it was the recording process of Burn Your Fire..., rather than the writing, which was the greater experience of personal growth.
The number of times she refers to the positive working relationship she developed with the album's producer John Congleton is striking. "Congleton nailed it in terms of interpreting my personality", she tells me. "I'd always worked around a lot of men, and a lot of people in the music industry, and everyone felt the need to tell me they knew how to do everything already and I didn't need to worry about my opinion." But this process was different, allowing Olsen to move from her inspiration to execution with complete creative control.
"When we went into the studio, I'd written one detailed page for each song about what I wanted, and why I wanted it to be like that", Olsen explained. "Sitting in that room, being with Congleton, and talking about different parts – he got what I was saying. For the first time, I could clearly say what I was thinking".
Olsen arrived at these one-page briefs after recording some demos with her new bandmates and building in some time to reflect. "We were experimenting, and we played [the songs] in certain ways, and a few weeks before we went into the studio we set up a bunch of crappy mics and listened back", she explained. "It made me realise a lot. You can feel comfortable, and the melody can be tight, but for it to be interesting you have to really think about it, and even start eliminating some things".
"On certain songs, we started eliminating drums, or introducing really minimal keys, or strange guitar noises to bring some airy space to things. I never really had such an open experience, doing that. Recording was like sitting in a room and looking at a reflection of ourselves: learning what we were capable of, and what we couldn't do too. It was such an eye opening experience for me. I remember finishing it, and thinking: 'Well, if nobody likes this record, I think this experience has been really fulfilling'"
On Half Way Home, the loose, breezy arrangements were pretty much the same from song to song, automatically granting the record coherence. But on Burn Your Fire For No Witness, Olsen thought that "each song needed to be dressed differently, to accentuate whatever space they were in", and pursued a recording process which allowed the tracks to flourish in different directions; from the two-minute punch of songs like 'Forgiven/Forgotten', to the fragile guitar-and-whispered-voice of 'Enemy'. Far from fearing that the LP would sound disjointed in comparison to its predecessor, however, Olsen enjoys the vivid contrasts between the songs' tones and sounds.
"When I was writing the songs individually, I had no idea what would go first and what would go last", Olsen admits. "It was really cool when we'd finished it, trying to decide. [It's like] when you make a playlist or a mix tape for someone, you start with one song and it ends on a certain note – sometimes you want the next song to begin on a similar note, and sometimes you want the change to be drastic. I feel happy how it worked out"
In spite of its tonal range, Burn Your Fire... is undoubtedly an assured and unified album. This may be at least partly because of an added confidence in Olsen's vocal, even though it's also somehow more restrained. On the heart-stopping 'White Fire' – a song so macabre as to be comical in the hands of almost anyone else – the force comes from the emotionlessness of Olsen's voice, paradoxically. And on songs like 'High and Wild', you could argue that she's barely even singing at all.
"I might be capable of doing certain things with my voice", she explains, agreeing, "but it's not always about doing backflips and showing off that you can do interesting things. Instead I wanted my voice to sound as close to my speaking voice as humanly possible – not trying to exaggerate it too much"
This new directness in her voice is what led me to ask about the writing process before the recording techniques. A voice which connects with such intensity feels like it must be loaded with personal meaning, especially as the songs appear to revisit themes like the struggle between the internal and the external, or the capacity to define oneself in the face of constant, unavoidable change. But Olsen disagrees. "I don't really notice things like that in my writing", she says half-dismissively. "I don't know if it's interesting to anyone else, or if it makes sense, or has any meaning in my life."
"But it's possible that when I listen back to this record I'll hear stuff in it I didn't see before", she adds later, revisiting transience and the active presence of change in her songs.
It seems that the strongest bond Olsen holds with Burn Your Fire... isn't with the content of the songs, but with the invigoration she drew from the recording process. Having a producer and bandmates she trusted, Olsen enjoyed space to pursue her creative instincts in whichever directions the songs took her. The result is an album which is more sprawling than her debut, but somehow more focused at the same time. And most importantly of all – it's every bit as emotionally affecting as well. No matter how Angel Olsen changes next, we can be confident that's one thing which will remain the same.
Burn Your Fire For No Witness is out now.
Angel Olsen plays the following tour dates:
Sun 1 June, Barcelona Primavera Festival
Wed 4 June, Brighton The Old Market
Thurs 5 June, Birmingham Hare & Hounds 2
Sun 8 June, Belfast McHughs
Mon 9 June, Glasgow Mono
Tues 10 June, Bristol The Lantern
Sat 9 August, Oslo Øya Festival
Sat 16 August, Brecon Green Man Festival
Tues 23 Sept, Manchester The Deaf Institute
Thurs 25 Sept, London Electric Ballroom


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The Lost Gate...Orson Scott Card
Westilians are from the planet Westil.
they were very powerful Gods of ( multiple deities ) polytheistic society(Greeks, Hindus, etc...).
Few families of them live in Earth (Mittlegard) now.
Loki, was the last gatemage from North family.
Gatemage can create tunnels, gates between the two worlds. The mightiest of powers , magic gathered from other place could only be sustained by frequent passages back and forth though this GREAT GATES.
But Loki closed all the Great Gates.
Now without access to the gates, Westilians of Earth are diminishing in their power.
The Great Gates had been what turned the mages of Westil into Gods when they came to the Mittlegard(Earth).
Now, these families live like ordinary folks, and isolate themselves because of the inexplicable act of Loki.
They don't want another gatemage like Loki in North family.
They have an agreement to kill if there is a new Gatemage 'new loki' born to them.
Our Danny North's story..
Danny North's family was one of the Gods, live in the isolated area of western Virginia far from schools, other regular community.
He, his cousins, uncles and aunts lived under his dad's leadership.
When Danny grows up, all his cousins, uncles, aunts can do magic, they all have some special talents.
But Danny did not have any.
All he can do is learn from books and run fast.
Yeah... Danny can sure run fast.
In fact Danny runs fast outside their North compound to the areas of drowthers(ordinary Earth folks- have no magic powers) to get away from his bully cousins.
Soon Danny realized how he is able to go past the compound.. yeah, our weak Danny is a GATEMAGE. He is not just a North family kid without special gifts.
He is not a poor pathetic Danny anymore. He is not a drekka.
He is POWERFUL mage of rarest kind.
All these years his cousins bullied him, the time he finds out he rather powerful mage of rarest kind, he is not jumping with triumph, instead he is afraid.
He can't go home.
If they find out he is Gatemage, 'new Loki' emerged from North family, they will kill him.
So what will our Danny do?
Danny decided to flee his compound and self teach and learn to know and control his powers in drowther's part of the world among drowthers.(us..magic less folks of earth)
How does Danny do now?
Does he learn to master his gifts, learn to control them?
His trips to library, school at a regular American society and his tricks, snobbish attitudes ,learning and understanding of our regular folks lives are very enjoyable.
Above all, does he learn to create THE GREAT GATE between the worlds?
There is a second story, fantasy on the planet Westil.
A mysterious boy born out of the tree.
He showed up into the palace kitchen of kingdom Iceway.
He showed up at a time kingdom is going through turmoil, resentment and distrust.
Wise guy comments, petty thefts , his life out on the streets of America, I have fun with Danny.
Wad's part is full of love, hardships , deception, murder , loyalty, heartbreak in the other planet.
I enjoyed reading both the stories.
At the very end both the plots come together.
THE LOST GATE BY ORSON SCOTT CARD....fun and enjoyable read.


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- Read about the grammar rule.
- Play the two grammar games to help you practise.
- Print the reference card, activity sheet and test for more practice.
- Remember to leave a comment!
Grammar Rule
I speak English well.
I play tennis badly.
I do my homework correctly.
To create adverbs we normally add -ly:
quick - quickly
slow - slowly
Be careful!
'good' is an adjective
'well' is an adverb
This is a good book.
I read well.
We say... We don't say...
This is a good book. (NOT This is a well book.)
I read well. (NOT I read good.)
DJDiamondScreen replied on Bangladesh Permalink
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i am very good in this game
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very beautiful and interesting game !!!
NewJade999 replied on United Kingdom (Great Britain) Permalink
yay 100%
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100% very well and easy
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sweet sweet 200%
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100 percent. yay
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Useful exersize and not so hard for me
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Very good exercise.


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Poll: US adults say 'whatever' so totally annoying
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. – When it comes to phrases that annoy, it looks like it's "whatever" forever.
Pollsters at Marist College in Poughkeepsie (poh-KIHP'-see), N.Y., found that Americans considered "whatever" to be the most annoying word or phrase in conversation for a fifth straight year.
Thirty-eight percent of adults polled said "whatever" was most annoying in conversation, followed by "like" at 22 percent and "you know" at 18 percent. Bringing up the rear were "just sayin,'" and "obviously."
The telephone poll of 1,173 adults living in the continental United States was conducted Dec. 3 through Dec. 5 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.


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--The series returns with a special two-hour premiere on Thursday, December 5 at 9 PM ET/PT-
In West Virginia's Gypsy community, the Stanley family's emotions run as wild as their wedding gowns. Putting everything on the line to protect their reputations and relationships, the outrageous ladies are back and bigger than ever on an all new season of TLC's GYPSY SISTERS, premiering on Thursday, December 5 at 9 PM ET/PT.
GYPSY SISTERS delves into the lives of six relatives (Nettie, Kayla, Mellie, Sheena, Annie and JoAnn) as they outspokenly set their own rules in the suburban town of Martinsburg. The drama continues with eight new episodes as the girls' tempers are hot and they are out for vengeance. In the premiere, a web of lies and Mellie's meddling causes Kayla and Nettie to reach a boiling point that erupts into one of the most outrageous and violent brawls in reality television history.
Black sheep Mellie is also pregnant and, after exchanging vows and blows during her wedding ceremony, has alienated herself from everyone in her inner circle. On top of that, her marriage lasted six days and she is back from serving a second weekend jail sentence.
In an environment where fistfights and family go hand and hand, will the ladies mend their broken relationships and show that they can love as much as they can hate? Or has the damage been done and the emotional and physical scars from previous arguments proven to be too deep?
GYPSY SISTERS is produced for TLC by Firecracker Films.


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It's seven days till MLS First Kick, so it's fitting that we take a look at the No. 7 throughout MLS history ...
The Greatest 7: Seven was the number worn by Columbus legend Guillermo Barros Schelotto, a three-time All-Star, two-time Best XI, two-time Supporters' Shield winner, one-time MVP and one-time MLS Cup winner and MVP.
Other 7s: Portland manager John Spencer, a Best-XI selection in 2003, wore No. 7, as did 2004 Golden Boot winner Eddie Johnson. Same with Brazilian attacker Fred, who won two Shields with D.C. United, and ironman Chris Klein, who's fourth all-time in league history in minutes and fifth in games played.
And, of course, 7 was the number of the immortal Andrew Shue.
Scoring at 7: The "other" Eddie Johnson scored for the Timbers in the 7th minute against Montreal in February, in what became Portland's first win as an MLS team.
7 Shields: The number of times the coach of the Supporters' Shield winner has been named Coach of the Year.
7 Stand-out Yanks in the Cup: Seven Americans have won MLS Cup MVP, including Nick Rimando and Conor Casey, the 2009 and '10 MVPs respectively.
[inline_node:325660]Extratime 7: Seven MLS Cups that have gone to extra time, including the last two.
7 Best 11s: Seven naturalized Americans have made the MLS Best XI: Stuart Holden the most recent in 2009, current Chivas USA coach Robin Fraser and former Chivas USA coach Preki the first back in 1996 – though Preki wasn't yet a citizen. He made the Best XI both before and after he completed the naturalization process.
7 Yank Scorers: Seven Americans are in the MLS all-time top 10 goalscorers.
7 Yank 'Keepers: Seven Americans are in the MLS all-time top 10 GAA.
Build-from-the-back 7: In seven consecutive years, the MLS Rookie of the Year has been either a midfielder or defender.
Pick 7: Chris Armas was picked 7th in the 1996 Supplemental Draft; John Wolyniec was picked 7th in the 1999 College draft; 2010 World Cupper Clarence Goodson was picked 7th in the 2004 SuperDraft; Houston's Hunter Freeman was picked 7th in the 2005 SuperDraft; and Chicago attacker Patrick Nyarko was taken 7th in the 2008 SuperDraft.
Record 7: Colombian Milton Rodriguez - who wears No. 7 - scored in the 7th minute of FC Dallas's 3-0 win over the Fire last October, a win that equaled the league-record unbeaten streak at 18 games.
Regular 7: Regular-season finish of the Colorado Rapids, last year's MLS Cup champions.
Quad 7: Number of MLS players to have scored four or more goals in a game.


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Asco Lights provides a wide selection of clocks for all rooms in your house by european manufactures (Occhio, Manooi , Linea Light, etc). Whether you are looking for a more classic look or a more contemporary look , Asco lights will certainly be able to find the perfect piece for your home.
Call on 0161 207 0212 for more information or if you are looking for a specific piece for your home.


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Our Cosmic team jersey providers, Miltag, recently worked with London's Brick Lane Bikes, on a special project creating a limited edition cycle jersey and water bottle…
The graphics are rather tongue -in-cheek but the message is serious.
In Miltag's own words;
"The inspiration for the design came from our mutual love for the more psychedelic pro jerseys of the past and the constant pharmaceutical cloud that hangs over our sport. However, our message is simple, we believe in "Looking dope, not using dope"."
The jersey and bottle are available to purchase now over at the Miltag shop.


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Government still seeking source of tainted turkey
(AP) -- Consumers looking for answers about a salmonella outbreak linked to ground turkey will have to continue to wait as the government investigates the source of at least 76 illnesses and one death.
The Agriculture Department and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they are still looking for a source of the outbreak, which dates back to March. The Minnesota-based meat company, Cargill, said Tuesday that it has been contacted by the USDA as part of the investigation and is working with the department. Cargill has not been named as the culprit.
Another large, Minnesota-based producer of ground turkey, Hormel, said it had not been contacted by the USDA about the current investigation.
California state health officials said Tuesday that the one death was in Sacramento County. Seventy-six people in 26 states have been made sick from the same strain of the disease.
The illnesses date back to March, and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that cultures of ground turkey from four retail locations between March 7 and June 27 showed contamination with the same strain of salmonella, though those samples were not specifically linked to the illnesses. The agency said preliminary information showed that three of those samples have been linked to the same production establishment but it did not name the retailers or the manufacturers.
The lack of information so far from government officials may be attributed to USDA rules that make it harder to investigate and recall salmonella-tainted poultry. Because salmonella is common in poultry, it is not illegal for meat to be tainted with the pathogen. Officials must directly link the salmonella illnesses with a certain producer or establishment, which is difficult to do because people don't always remember what they ate or where they bought it.
In this case, it appears that officials haven't been able to prove the link between the samples of salmonella they found - even though they are the same strain - and the 77 people who were sickened. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service sent out an alert about the illnesses late last week telling consumers to properly cook their turkey, which can decrease the chances of salmonella poisoning. But the department has not given consumers any further warnings about the source of the tainted meat.
"Despite an extensive investigation by FSIS and CDC to date, there is little epidemiological information available at this time that conclusively links these illnesses to any specific product or establishment," FSIS spokesman Neil Gaffney said Tuesday. "Without specific enough data, it would not be appropriate to issue a recall notice." Gaffney said the agency was committed to finding the source of the outbreak and then taking action to protect public health.
The illnesses are spread all over the country. The states with the highest number sickened were Michigan and Ohio, 10 illnesses each, while nine illnesses were reported in Texas. Illinois had seven, California six and Pennsylvania five.
The remaining states have between one and three reported illnesses linked to the outbreak, according to the CDC: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
A chart on the CDC's website shows cases have occurred every month since early March, with spikes in May and early June. The latest reported cases were in mid-July, although the CDC said some recent cases may not have been reported yet.
CDC spokeswoman Lola Russell said Tuesday it can take three to four weeks to confirm a single case. Identifying an outbreak can take considerably longer than that when cases of foodborne illness occur sporadically, in several states, as has happened in the current outbreak, she said.
Ground turkey is considered safe to eat when the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees during cooking. For turkey patties or burgers, internal temperatures on each side should be measured. The government also advises refrigerating meat promptly and washing hands for at least 20 seconds before and after handling raw meat or poultry.
The CDC estimates that 50 million Americans each year get sick from food poisoning, including about 3,000 who die. Salmonella causes most of these cases and federal health officials say they've made virtually no progress against it.
The most common symptoms of salmonella are diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever within eight hours to 72 hours of eating a contaminated product. It can be life-threatening to some with weakened immune systems.
Explore further
©2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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I am grieved to hear of the death of Siddhartha Shankar Ray last night.
I was introduced to him by an uncle who had been his college-buddy, and he took up a grave personal matter of mine in the Supreme Court of India in 1990 with great kindness, charging me not a penny, being impressed by a little explicit "civil disobedience" I had had to show at the time towards Judge Evelyn Lance.
He also told me he and his wife had been in London on May 29 1984 and had seen *The Times*'s leader that day about my critique of Indian economic policy. He invited me to his Delhi home where I told him about the perestroika-for-India project I had led at the University of Hawaii since 1986, at which he, of his own accord, declared
"You must meet Rajiv Gandhi. I will arrange a meeting".
That led to my meeting with Rajiv Gandhi, then Congress President & Leader of the Opposition, on September 18 1990, which contributed to the origins of India's 1991 economic reform as has been told elsewhere. https://independentindian.com/thoughts-words-deeds-my-work-1973-2010/rajiv-gandhi-and-the-origins-of-indias-1991-economic-reform/
Rajiv's assistant George told me Rajiv had said he had not heard more fulsome praise.
In Bengal, he took me as a guest to visit the Legislative Assembly in session when he was Leader of the Opposition; it was the legislature of which my great grandfather, Surendranath Roy, had been a founder, being the first Deputy President and acting President too; Surendranath had been friends with his maternal grandfather, CR Das, leader of the Congress Party before MK Gandhi, and he said to me in the car heading to the legislature about that relationship in Bengal's politics some seven decades earlier "They were friends".
He introduced me to all the main leaders of the Bengal Congress at the time (except Mamata Banerjee who could not come) and I was tasked by him to write the manifesto for the State elections that year, which I did (in English, translated into Bangla by Professor Manjula Bose); the Communists won handily again but one of their leaders (Sailen Dasgupta) declared there had never been a State Congress manifesto of the sort before, being as it was an Orwell-like critique of Bengal's Stalinism.
In a later conversation, I said to him I wished he be appointed envoy to Britain, he instead came to be appointed envoy to the USA.
In Washington in September 1993, he said "You must meet Manmohan Singh", and invited me to a luncheon at the Ambassador's Residence where, to Manmohan Singh and all his aides, he declared pointing at me
"The Congress manifesto (of 1991) was written on his (laptop) computer".
In later years I kept him informed of developments and gave him my publications. We last met in July last year where I gave him a copy, much to his delight, of *Margaret Thatcher's Revolution: How it Happened and What it Meant*.
I said to him Bengal's public finances were in abysmal condition, calling for emergency measures financially, and that Mamata Banerjee seemed to me to be someone who knew how to and would dislodge the Communists from their entrenched misgovernance of decades but not quite aware that dislodging a bad government politically was not the same thing as knowing how to govern properly oneself.
He, again of his own accord, said immediately,
"I will call her and her main people to a meeting here so you can meet them and tell them that directly".
It never transpired.
He and I were supposed to meet a few months ago but could not due to his poor health; on the phone in our last conversation I mentioned to him my plans of creating a Public Policy Institute — an idea he immediately and fully endorsed as being essential though adding
"I can't be part of it, I'm on my way out".
"I'm on my way out". 🙂
That was Siddhartha Shankar Ray — always intelligent, always good-humoured, always public-spirited, always a great Indian.
I shall miss a good friend, indeed my only friend among politicians other than the late Rajiv Gandhi himself.


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This website fulfils all requirements for the A-certification and almost all additional requirements for an AA-certification.
As far as is technically possible, we have indicated all sizes dynamically. You should also be able to read the individual pages many times enlarged.
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For each web page a structure of tags has been determined. This means that you can file individual pages as bookmarks and thus save the structure of the page at the same time.
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Fresh Sage Tea Recipe
Sage tea, also known as herbal tea is one of the finest teas that is also very easy to make. In brief, to make this tea, just pour approximately one cup of boiling water over one tablespoon of sage leaves and then steep to the desired strength. However, if you wish to learn how to make a more refined sage tea, here are the ingredients.
- A half oz of fresh sage leaves.
- ¼ oz of thinly peeled lemon rind.
- Juice from one lemon.
- 4 cups of water.
- 1 ounce of sugar.
- Boil the water.
- Ensure that the water simmers before adding the other ingredients.
- Allow it to steep for 30 minutes while stirring occasionally.
- Strain out the leaves and serve when hot.
Health Benefits of Sage Leaf Tea
Typically sage tea has many medicinal properties. For instance, it's a stimulant, an expectorant and a diuretic. More so, it not only serves as an anti-inflammatory but it also has antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. Due to these, it has many health benefits. Sage tea relieves unwanted effects of sore throat and asthma.
Effects on diabetes- According to researchers, sage tea is very helpful in treating those who are suffering from diabetes. It is actually useful in preventing diabetes. Read more on the effects of organic sage tea bags to diabetes.
Antioxidant effects- As an antioxidant, it helps in cleaning up the free radicals and other environmental toxins such as pesticides and smoke. This helps in preventing the radicals from attacking the cell tissues. This is ideal in curbing the early signs of aging and prevents conditions such as heart disease and cancer.
Effects of Sage Tea on Sweating, Breastfeeding, Hot flashes, and Sore Throat
- Effects on sweating- This special tea may directly reduce sweating making it very important especially for women who suffer from hot flashes. In fact, when it's combined with alfalfa, it can be more effective. Get more info on the benefits of drinking sage leaves tea to excessive sweating problems.
- Effects on breastfeeding- Many lactating mothers have also noticed a reduction in breast milk after drinking sage tea. This means that you should avoid using large amounts of sage herbs while breastfeeding because it is likely to decrease breast milk supply.
- Effects on the sore throat- Sage herbal tea have been noted to have healing effects on the sore throat. This means it can be used effectively to cure sore throats and coughs.
- Effects on hot flashes- Sage tea is also effective in treating the women who suffer from hot flashes. Many menopausal women who suffer from hot flashes can be treated with a daily tablet of containing sage for eight weeks. This means drinking pure sage leaf tea can also very effective in treating this.
Here is a Video on How to Make a Healthy Pineapple Sage Tea
The post What is Sage Herbal Tea Good For? appeared first on Sage Tea Blog.


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Your coverage of the fracking conference held by Maryland environmental, faith and health organizations ("Activists rally for fracking conference", Dec. 9) states that activists met "to organize a push for a legislative ban" on fracking. The focus of the discussion was actually to put a legislative "pause" or moratorium on fracking into law that would allow science, open debate and democracy to ultimately decide the fate of fracking in Maryland.
In 2011, Gov. Martin O'Malley ordered a series of studies on the potential impacts of fracking on groundwater, the climate, air, forests, human health and our rural communities. Unfortunately, thanks in large part to lobbying by the American Petroleum Institute (API), bills to fund these studies stalled in the Maryland Senate. Currently, Maryland has no achievable plan to carry out risk studies and assess whether the costs to our health and environment would be acceptable. We also have no formal laws on the books to ensure these studies are done before any drilling occurs.
Members of the General Assembly have a responsibility to ensure that Maryland takes a long, hard look at fracking before we leap into drilling. A legislative moratorium will ensure the public's right to know what the impacts on our communities could be — and allow them to then decide if they are acceptable. This is the prudent and responsible thing to do for members of the General Assembly who, unlike API, are charged with looking out for the citizens of Maryland.
Erik DuMont, Takoma Park
The writer is Maryland state director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.


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Exploring Hydrocarbon Depletion
Newfie wrote:The USA is a special situation because of the regulatory requirements. FDOT crash worthiness requirements are such that American rail vehicles are about 59% heavier than in other countries .... this also means our roadbeds need to be heavier, the engines bigger, the trains slower.
Newfie wrote:Yes, except no one is talking about that.
And also, the goal should be towards degrowth. We don't need more jobs, we need fewer people.
Newfie wrote:Yes, except no one is talking about that. [high-speed rail]
GHung wrote:Newfie wrote:Yes, except no one is talking about that. [high-speed rail]
Some are. High-speed rail is one of the transportation points in the "Green New Deal".
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environm ... sio-cortez
.Typically railroads in the Eastern United States ran speed signaling, while railroads in the west used route signaling, with some mixing of systems in the Midwest and South. This was due to the lower train density in the west combined with generally simpler track layouts. Over time, the route signaling railroads have incorporated segments of speed signaling through merger and have also adopted more speed-based aspects into their systems. Of the five major Class 1 railroads in the United States, CSX uses speed signaling, Union Pacific and BNSF use speed enhanced route signaling and Norfolk Southern uses a mix of speed and route signaling based on the original owner of the line. Commuter railroads and Amtrak all use speed signaling where they own or maintain the tracks they run on. Canadian railroads all use a strong system of speed signaling in Canada, but have some segments of route signaling on lines they have acquired in the United States.
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par FaceCulture
Chris and Willie about Their mother being a musician, albums that upset their parents, jamming together, pianoMore video's: http://www.FaceCulture.comTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/_FaceCultureFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/FaceCultureVideo interview with the American heavy metal band Lamb Of God. FaceCulture spoke to drummer Chris Adler and guitarist Willie Adler about their mother, sidesteps to other instruments, the motivation to play in a band, stupidity on the road, music becoming profitable, a documentary about the fans, coming up with new material, Resolution, redefining the music and more. (02/06/2012)
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