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This Valentine's Day, when words are not able to come out of your lips, remember there's always the Pizza Hut's Valentine's Box where you can "Say It With Pizza Hut!"
Pizza Hut Valentine's Box
Check out Pizza Hut's latest offering as they recently launched the #SayItWithPizzaHut promo.
This is you chance to turn their limited-edition Pizza Hut Valentine's Box into giant greeting cards! You may doodle, write, and design with your personal message on the box.
You may also join in FREE Calligraphy classes organized in select Pizza Hut branches around Metro Manila! Find a 'Hut' near you to get the Pizza Hut Valentine's Box and choose from the delicious pizza offerings through their website.
Cheesy Lava Mozza Crunch Pan Pizza
Moreover, NomNom Club was able to try the new Cheesy Lava Mozza Crunch Pan Pizza and we love it!
We highly recommend it for its awesomely cheesy taste from the inside upto the toppings!
It's available for dine-in, take out and delivery. You may call (632)Â 911-1111 for delivery or order online at www.pizzahut.com.ph.


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Local IT companies have received a $78 million boost from a new federal government program.
A spokesperson for Senator Richard Alston, minister for communications, information technology and the arts, said the Building Information Technology Strengths program (BITS), would provide small to medium-sized IT businesses with financial and non-financial services in all states.
"It's not just financial assistance," the spokesperson said. "It's also assistance in things like developing business plans, in developing marketing tools."
The spokesperson said at least one "incubator" centre would be set up in each state, acting as a general support centre for participating businesses. The number and size of "incubator" centres would vary according to the needs of the particular state, the spokesperson said.
The government will hold information sessions in December and has called for applications from organisations wanting to operate the incubator centres.
The spokesperson said there would be no prescription for spending the money. "It depends on the quality and the nature of the application," he said. "People often think a good idea is all you need. You need a good idea plus the ability to commercialise that idea."

subset: commoncrawl


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Selling a home can take patience, but with proper staging and preparation, a home can sell in no time. Learn what it takes to sell a home with these articles.
When it comes to buying that spooky-ish-looking Victorian mansion, the word is "buyer beware." No states mandate disclosure that a house is haunted and only a few require disclosure if the seller is asked directly.
You'll deal with a lot of different people in your quest to buy or sell a home: a realtor, inspector and lender. But the one who might have the most power over the outcome is the appraiser. Learn how to get the best appraisal.
That friend/relative who said they only needed somewhere to stay for a few days is still on your couch a few months later. Getting them out legally might be harder than you think.
When you can't afford your mortgage any longer and don't want to foreclose, a short sale seems like a good idea. How do you qualify for one, and what should you watch out for?
New construction looks a lot different than it did even five years ago, but there are some plans that have stood the test of time.
Home equity loans are repaid according to the terms of your agreement. Learn about the ways home equity loans are repaid in this article.
Regardless of the careful consideration most of us put into the decision to buy a home, circumstances have forced many people into foreclosure. But it's the last thing your lender wants to do. So how can you avoid losing your home?
Foreclosures aren't pretty, and you may feel that you've exhausted all your options to save your home. Luckily, there's an alternative that may provide that final-hour solution: a short sale. Why would you choose a short sale over a foreclosure?
The economic downturn and real estate market crash led many homeowners into the distressing process foreclosure. However, for some, there's another option. How can a short sale be better than a foreclosure?
When you're suddenly unable to keep up with your mortgage payments, a barrage of questions come to mind: What happens next? Will you lose your home? But the most important question is can you stop the foreclosure process?
Being a landlord means you may sometimes want to evict a tenant. Learn about how to evict a tenant in this article.
A foreclosure is when a mortgage lender takes over a borrower's property due to missed payments. Learn how the government is trying to prevent foreclosures in this article.
Mortgages can become unbearable financial burdens. Learn how to manage your mortgage in a smart way in this article.
Listing agents help you find the right buyer for your house. Learn the best way to work with an agent in this article.
The final stage in buying a home is the closing process. Learn what the closing process for a home sale is in this article.
A mortgage is a loan that uses your house as collateral. Learn where the lenders get their money in this article.
We wish it were as easy as putting a sign in your front yard and listing the house on the Internet, but selling your home is going to take a little bit more work than that. But you don't have to spend a ton of money to get it ready.
A pre-foreclosure strategy called a short sale means foreclosure can be avoided and the auction gavel need not lower on your home. But will this process ruin your credit?
Short sales have gotten more common in the past few years, since the real estate bubble popped and banks have become eager to avoid the foreclosure process. What do you need to know about short sales?
Even when you still have money to pay on your mortgage, you may be able to borrow from the bank with your home as collateral. Learn how to calculate your home equity in this article.
You may be able to borrow money based on the equity, or worth, of your home. Learn about the possibility of a home equity credit line in this article.
A reverse mortgage is a way to increase your income in your later years, but the money will eventually have to be repaid. Learn about reverse mortgages in this article.
Home equity loans occur when a borrower takes out a loan and uses his house as collateral. Learn the important details in a home equity loan in this article.
Realtors only get paid after they've completed the sale or purchase of a property. You can learn more about the factors that affect a Realtor's commission in this article.
Landlords usually advertise their properties and meet with potential renters. Learn how landlords find renters in this article.


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Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability that typically impacts 5-20% of the population regarding reading and writing. Common characteristics of dyslexia include difficulty with spelling, manipulation of sounds within words (known as phonological processing) and/or quickly connecting visual symbols with verbal labels (called rapid naming). Its impact varies with every person who struggles with it due to differing levels of severity, the effectiveness of instruction and level of assistance the person has had in order to improve these skills.
There are several things that dyslexia is not. It is not a reflection of how smart someone is or his/her wish to be successful. It isn't a problem with perception that impacts vision. It is connected to different ways in which the brain processes and interprets language. People with dyslexia have trouble analyzing words. They also have difficulty with the sound-to-symbol connection (phonological analysis), meaning transforming the letters and sounds from the underlying neural system in order to form the sound-to-symbol relationship.
Professionals working in the field emphasize that early identification and treatment is a key for improving achievement in school and life; this can be accomplished with a comprehensive evaluation within our Learning Disabilities Clinic. One rule of thumb that we share with our clients is this: the more days per week of intervention (volume) and number of hours per day (intensity), the greater the possibility of a better treatment outcome.


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Web apps have revolutionized how businesses interact with their customers online. Pixel solvent offers professional and affordable web application development services to clients from all over the world. We believe that an interactive, secure and scalable web app is the backbone of any online business that's focused on growth.
As one of the leading app development companies in India, Pixel Solvent uses modern technologies to create innovative apps that are business driven and user-focused. That's why we always try to tie an app development project to the specific technology that will ensure that the app is secure, functional, scalable and easy to maintain and upgrade.
One of the leading server side web technologies, PHP is among our core programming competencies. It's highly scalable and can be used to build secure, fast and unique apps.
For smaller, secure and highly interactive web apps, JavaScript server side frameworks like Node js, Angular js and React js are popular technologies.
Pixel Solvent offers custom packages on every app development project we undertake. We have worked on a variety of projects that range from enterprise web applications to social networking web apps. Our packages include apps that are:
If you need a custom web app developed contact the best web development company India today for a quote.


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Rhododendron luteum Sweet
Fully-hardy, medium-sized deciduous shrub with oblong leaves, to 10cm, which turn to rich shades of crimson, purple and orange in autumn. The strongly fragrant, yellow, trumpet-shaped flowers are born in a rounded truss in spring. To 3.5m. [RHSE, Hortus, Hilliers', Millais].
Horticultural & Botanical History
According to Hilliers' Rododendron luteum was introduced to European gardens in 1793, and Millais notes that A. pontica was introduced in 1793 by Anthony Hare and is the yellow parent of all the early Ghent hybrids. The Botanical Repository records that seeds were sent to Lee and Kennedy by Pallas in 1792. [ABR pl.16/1798]. 'The figure and description here given were taken from a plant which flowered by means of artificial heat, in the spring of 1798, at Mr. Watson's, Nurseryman, Islington, and which had been introduced the same year, by Mr. Anthony Hove, of Warsaw. As an hardy ornamental shrub, it bids fair to prove an acquisition truly valuable, its flowers produced in the months of June and July, being highly ornamental as well as fragrant. We have the best authority for regarding this plant as the Chamaerhodendros Pontica of Tourneforte, it agrees with his own specimens in Sir Joseph Bank's Herbarium, it accords also with his description, and figures, more especially of those flowers which are of their natural size; nor have we any doubts of its being the Azalea Pontica of Prof. Pallas, figured in the Flor. Rossica since it corresponds generally with his description, though not in all points with his figure, which bears evident marks of inaccuracy, the stigma, for instance, is represented as trifid. Tourneforte found this plant on the eastern side of the Black Sea, Mr. Hove on the north side near Oczakow, and elsewhere; Professor Pallas on Mount Caucasus. As yet there has been no opportunity of ascertaining the best means of propagating this new denizen, but there is every reason to suppose that it will succeed with the, treatment bestowed on the other Azaleas.' [BM t.433/1799].
A list of recommended hardy azaleas in The Gardeners Chronicle of 1850 included 'Pontica alba', presumably a white-flowered form. The Gardeners Chronicle of 1853 commented: 'of buffs and yellows none surpassed Pontica Globosa and Pontica Princeps'. [Gard. Chron. 1850, 1853]. The Botanical Register figures Azalea pontica var. versicolor, a hybrid bred by Lord Caernarvon at Highclere. [BR f.1559/1833].
History at Camden Park
Received per 'Sovereign' February 1831 [MP A2948] but not listed in the catalogues until 1857, in an addendum [A.4/1857].
Rhododendron ponticum L., of which Azalea pontica L. is often given as a synonym, is a different species. See Rhododendron ponticum L.
Published Jun 10, 2009 - 03:14 PM | Last updated Sep 09, 2011 - 05:17 PM
|Region of origin
Caucasus and eastern Europe
|Common Name
Yellow Azalea
|Name in the Camden Park Record
Azalea Pontica
|Confidence level


text: star2city Posted February 26, 2010 Wall Street Journal KILLDEER, N.D.—A massive oil reserve buried two miles underground has put North Dakota at the center of a revolution in the U.S. oil industry, a shift that has radically altered the fortunes of this remote area. The Bakken Shale deposit has been known and even tapped on occasion for decades. But technological improvements in the past two years have taken what was once a small, marginally profitable field and turned it into one of the fastest-growing oil-producing areas in the U.S. If current projections hold, North Dakota's oil production could pass Alaska's by the end of the decade. The Bakken Shale could contain up to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That would make it the biggest oil field discovered in the contiguous U.S. in more than 40 years—and many in the industry believe the amount of recoverable oil could be even greater as new technology allows companies to tap more of it. There is talk within the oil industry that parallel laterals may be placed with 600 ft of horizontal separation within both the Sanish-Three Forks and Bakken formations: effectively creating an tile-like oil drain system of the low porosity formations. The costs of such a system would be staggering ($100 billion?). But with 2010 capital budgets in ND by oil companies like EOG, XTO, Whiting, Continental, Hess, Marathon all approaching or exceeding a billion $'s, the oil companies are not without enthusiasm. North Dakota's economy is changing in a way that even the most optimistic Bakken supporters wouldn't have believed three or four years ago. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


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Giving Back to Our Community
If you have any questions about your donation, please contact us email@example.com or leave us a message at (360) 77563532. You can help support OVCF in many ways:
Pro-Pay – Safe and Secure Online Donations – Click to Donate
For your convenience we also offer online donations via Pro-Pay, our online third party donation processor. Pro-Pay is a leading provider of Safe and Secure credit card processing. If you would like to make a one-time donation or set up convenient automated monthly Payments simple click the button located in the column to your right. All donations are certainly appreciated and tax-deductible as well.
Mail in Donation
You can donate to OVCF operating or endowment fund, general grant-making fund, or a field of interest fund by sending a donation of a check or money order, mailed to:
Olympic View Community Foundation
P O Box 3651
Sequim, WA 98382
Sound Community Bank's "Helping Non-Profits" MasterCard
You can apply for a "Helping Non-Profits" MasterCard at Sound Community Bank. 1% of your transaction expenses are returned to OVCF by Sound Community Bank. We've received over $320,000 from this program to date, which has been returned to the Sequim-Dungeness Valley, in the form of grants. Please see your local Sound Community Bank branch for application details.
Supporting your Interests
You can establish a donor advised fund which is a flexible and personalized way to give based on the requirements you establish, such as addressing a particular need in the community or support for a particular area of interest.
You can establish an endowment for your favorite charity.
Olympic View Community Foundation's Federal Tax Identification Number is 91-2084105.
We make our IRS form 990 available by request.


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Talking Points on Protection of the Community Investment Act
The good news! The Governor's budget does not call for an extension of the 50% cut in CIA over the course of the next biennial budget which begins on July 1st. Under this proposal CIA dollars would be fully restored on July 1st.
Caveat! Of course, this is just the beginning of the biennial budget process. Over the next four months, the Appropriations and Finance Committees and legislative leaders will begin the process of crafting a budget that will require the support of both chambers and Governor Malloy. We must continue our work to protect the CIA. Please continue to share your community's CIA success stories with your legislators.
- The CIA is a Dedicated Fund: The CIA was established as a DEDICATED REVENUE SOURCE OUTSIDE OF THE BUDGET to provide consistent funding for reinvestment into our communities for open space, farmland/dairy support, historic properties, and affordable housing programs.
- The CIA Benefits all Communities: Funded through a $40 surcharge on local recording fees, the CIA has invested over $153 million for 1,400 projects across all four sectors in 168 Connecticut towns -- and the numbers continue to increase!
- The CIA is Critical to Land Conservation: The CIA is the only consistent source of funding for the Open Space & Watershed Land Acquisition Grant Program (OSWA). The continued cuts to CIA funds means less money available for the current grant round (applications submitted as of February 2) and future rounds of the OSWA program.
- The CIA is an Economic Driver: CIA investments boost local and state economies (projects have contributed to the viability of the $873 million outdoor recreation industry and the $3.5 billion agricultural industry).
- The CIA Leverages $$$: CIA investments leverage millions of matching funds.
- The CIA = Jobs! CIA projects have created over 3,000 jobs in affordable housing and historic preservation, and over 28,000 jobs in the agricultural industry.
- CIA PROTECTS NATURAL RESOURCES! DESCRIBE YOUR TOWN'S CIA SUCCESS STORY. View a Town-by-Town list of projects HERE.
- Visit the CIA website for more information.


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The Wheel of Time (Windows)
Published by
Developed by
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ESRB Rating
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SummaryVery refreshing shooter with a story (90/100)
The GoodThis game was excellent. The graphics are top notch and moody. The soundtrack is kind of a mix of "medieval" with "new agish", but it does fit the atmosphere and I found myself wanting to listen again to some of the tracks. Voice acting is quite good, too, and the story is entertaining and well told (a world well set helps a lot with the background, I suppose). But the awards really go to gameplay and level design.
Level design seems to depict "real" places instead of "random arenas", but without ever getting you lost. Some levels are quite memorable (Shadar Logoth's creepy monsters and simple but moody soundtrack; the White Tower heights; the Black Wind levels are *really* creepy). Also, while most of the time you do just kill monsters to keep going, some levels are about *defending* places instead -- a very nice change of pace in an action game.
As gameplay goes, we are given 40 spells to try out and they do feel different from each other. While some of them do work as "guns" (dart, fireball, seeker, etc.), some others have interesting defensive and strategic uses (reflect, swap places, detect traps, etc.). Once you are through with the game, you will realize that you will have used all spells in different parts of the game. While I have only played the single-player campaign, this huge number of useful options suggests that multi-player must be a blast.
And finally, it is refreshing to play a woman character in an action game that is NOT half-naked NOR "cold as steel" (though there are plenty of fairly visible big bosoms for some other characters). :)
The BadThe cutscenes' graphics are well drawn, with good dialogue and acting, but the physics of the models used in them is just horrible. Female characters have hair that looks like hard plastic; paper letters look like they are made of hard plastic; clothes often behave like hard plastic; the big bosoms I mentioned before... well, you get the idea. While I do appreciate the difficulty of making good physical models for cutscenes, these defects can be a bit distracting at times.
Some people might be put off by the fact that this is a HARD action game, while hardcore action gamers might be put off by the fact that there is a "slow" story unfolding and the main character is not a cigar-chewing Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alike. I particularly did not mind this first fact, and ENJOYED the second one for a change.


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Glee Season 5 Spoilers: Latest Cast Rumors Confirm Adam Lambert, 3 Female Characters to Join (VIDEO)
Glee Season 5 Spoilers: Latest Cast Rumors Confirm Adam Lambert, 3 Female Characters to Join (VIDEO)
Glee Season 5 is already creating buzz among fans, and recent spoilers and cast rumors have pointed to a change up in personnel on the show. American Idol's Adam Lambert is joining the cast and will be on the show for the upcoming season 5 of the hit show.
Lambert of course is an American Idol old boy and he should be a perfect fit for the show, and may turn into a new fan favorite.
Even though Season 5 of Glee is still not scheduled to return for a few more weeks, fans are getting very excited about the news and developments surrounding the show.
On Wednesday, co-creator Ryan Murphy confirmed that Adam Lambert would be joining the cast, "I am thrilled to announce that the super talented Adam Lambert is joining the cast of Glee this fall," he posted on Twitter.
Lambert is not the first American Idol star to join the show. American Idol winner Jessica Sanchez had a multi-episode recurring role as a singer on a rival glee club last season.
Lambert has not yet commented on the new role, but he has previously indicated his love for the show. In a January 2012 interview, the singer said he'd love to be able to play himself in the series. He said at that time, "'Glee' is really irresistible-it's charming."
TVLine has also reported that the series is hoping to cast a few new female recurring characters for the upcoming season. The publication has stated, "At least three new female recurring characters, including African-American McKinley newbie Ruby and twentysomethings Julie and Ryan.
"Interestingly, actresses auditioning for Ryan must be able to sing and play guitar. Potential portrayers of Julie just need to be cute and quirky."
Glee was of course renewed for both a fifth and sixth season in April to the delight of the show's fans. The show's Season 5 premiere will air on Thursday, September 19 at 9 p.m. on FOX.


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President Bush goes to the port of New Orleans, Louisiana Tuesday to push his campaign for greater trade negotiating authority from Congress. It's the last stop on a three-state tour designed to highlight his domestic agenda.
The president says trade and tax cuts can help reverse the U.S. economic recession. And he is pushing both in this trip to towns and cities along the Mississippi River, from the agricultural heartland to the port of New Orleans.
His itinerary traces the movement of farm products from the fields of the Midwest to the southern port where they are shipped overseas.
The aim is two-fold: to convince the public that he is not neglecting Americans hard hit by the recession and to put pressure on the U.S. Congress.
Several of his legislative priorities remain stalled in the legislature. And the president is clearly hoping to translate his popularity as commander-in-chief to a series of legislative victories on Capitol Hill.
At each public appearance on this tour, he begins by talking about domestic security and his strong stand against those who would harm the United States. "We are not going to tire. We are not going to be impatient," he said. "We are going to do whatever it takes to find them and bring them to justice. They think they can hide but they are not going to hide from the mighty reach of the United States and the coalition we have put together."
He then shifts to the domestic agenda, focusing on steps he says will lead to economic growth. In Aurora, Missouri he talked about the importance of spurring international trade, particularly for the farm sector.
The Senate must still act on legislation that would give the president enhanced trade negotiating powers. Administration officials say it will encourage other nations to strike new deals and open their markets. Mr. Bush told farmers in Missouri that the U.S. agreement with China is a good example.
"Look at the agreement. We have opened up the Chinese market to U.S. farmers. It is good for China. And more importantly it is good for the U.S. farmers to have that market available."
Meanwhile, the White House is taking a close look at a ruling handed down Monday by the World Trade Organization in a case brought against the United States by the European Union.
A WTO appeals panel ruled against a U.S. law granting multi-billion dollar tax breaks to thousands of American companies operating overseas. The panel ruled the tax breaks amount to an export subsidy.
The ruling clears the way for the EU to ask for billions of dollars in punitive tariffs on U.S. imports. Chief U.S. trade negotiator Robert Zoellick says the Bush administration is looking for a way to resolve the dispute. He says the administration was disappointed with the ruling, but will fulfill its obligations under the WTO.


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The diabetes drug Byetta can help us control our blood glucose and lose weight. That's huge — and just the beginning of the story.
Full disclosure: I own 100 shares of stock in Amylin, the company that developed Byetta.
About a year ago, after the Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association in Chicago, I reported here how Byetta can reduce our risk of heart attacks and strokes. These are the most common and deadly complications of diabetes.
Now a study presented at the ADA's recent Scientific Sessions in San Francisco indicates that the reduced risk to our hearts may lead to previously unheard of benefits. Taking Byetta can lower our chance of dying compared with other diabetes drugs. The Times says that the chance of dying while taking Byetta is about 75 percent lower than on the other drugs.
While I attended these Scientific Sessions, I admit that I missed the big news then. But so did almost everyone else. It wasn't until The New York Times broke the story last Tuesday that it attracted public notice.
Other than The Times, the story doesn't seem to be in print. Times reporter Alex Berenson picked it up in an oral presentation at the ADA on the ACCORD study.
The presentation was a big and pleasant surprise to Amylin and to Eli Lilly, which markets Byetta for Amylin. "I was sitting in the audience, and my jaw just dropped," Dr. James Malone of Lily told The Times.
ACCORD stands for Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes. The New England Journal of Medicine online. But nowhere does it include the report on reduced death risk teased out by the drug that the study participants took.
This study included people with diabetes taking all the major classes of diabetes drugs. Some used insulin, others used the sulfonylureas, metformin, the thiazolidinediones, and a few were on Byetta. Only 826 of the 10,251 people in the trial were on Byetta.
That's a small subset, and the people taking Byetta could be different in some important ways from the others in the trial. For example, they could have been healthier from the start.
"We don't know whether it's the drug or the healthy participants," Dr. Michael Miller told The Times. He is a professor of biostatistics at Wake Forest University and the study's lead statistician.
The big question now is how and when Amylin and Lilly will try to confirm the exciting finding of Byetta's reduced risk of death. But the companies may never do the studies on Byetta itself, because they are looking forward to the once-weekly version, called exenatide LAR. They hope to have that version of the drug on the market next year. Since it promises to be an even greater success than Byetta with those of us who have diabetes, my guess is that Amylin and Lilly will do the life-extension testing on the once-weekly version.
Byetta would have been an even greater success if there were not some concern about pancreatitis and the fears of nausea. The Times article mentioned these issues, and people with diabetes are concerned about them. So I raised them with Dr. Joe Prendergast, an endocrinologist in Palo Alto, California, who has prescribed Byetta to hundreds of his patients ever since it first became available in Byetta's clinical trials.
Last October I covered the pancreatitis issue here — as a non-issue. Dr. Prendergast confirms my report.
"With pancreatitis the numbers were seemingly less than seen the general population," Dr. Prendergast told me. "I couldn't see how they could ascribe it to that. It's small enough that it's unlikely to be associated in any way."
Nausea is more real. But I know from my experience on Byetta that nausea isn't inevitable and reported here the many strategies different people use to deal with it.
"If nausea occurs, we do use medications now," Dr. Prendergast says. "We use Phenergan (promethazine), which is an easy drug. It is just an antihistamine with some anti-nausea capabilities. It's maybe 50 years old.
"If there is any nausea at all, we just say to take it just once a day, just before bedtime, because you probably won't be nauseous all night long. Don't do the second shot. I tell them that I don't care if it takes three months or six, we will just hang in there, because we know that everybody gets over the nausea eventually and we want you to as well. We are not going to hurry it."
He says that his patients get the results they want — lower blood glucose levels and weight loss. "But the most exciting thing is that we see all the complications diminish."
He says that several opthamologists told him about the surprising good results that Byetta had on the retinopathy of their patients. "With that I was emboldened to try it on a gentleman who already had a lot of retinal hemorrhage and was losing his sight. I said, 'Let us try small amounts of Byetta and see what it does.' And the reports started coming back saying that he was stable. All of a sudden after six or nine months his vision was improving."
It reversed his retinopathy? "He's not seeing like when he was 16, but it reversed a little. And we weren't doing anything else except Byetta."
So far we have only preliminary reports on Byetta's benefits for controlling complications. But the evidence of how it might help our hearts, our eyes, and even living longer lives keeps on coming.
This article is based on an earlier version of my article published by HealthCentral.
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I can't recall where, but I've read Dhofar described as a barbershop fragrance for the dark-haired man. Without hesitation, I'd say that this description is spot on. I've also read that Dhofar is too conservative, maybe a little boring. But this description is way off.
Dhofar opens with something resembling an exotic (oriental perhaps?) barbershop accord. Imagine walking into a barbershop, with seated men wearing woody citrus fragrances, smelling exotic spices from the bazaar while having your neck powdered after a shave. Combine all of this with a slightly astringent barbershop and an exotic something that I assume is the jatamansi, and you have Dhofar in a nutshell. Literally, a nutshell. There is something warm and comforting in Dhofar that briefly reminds me of the smell of freshly cracked walnut shells. It's weird, but awesome.
The base includes a glowy, resinous labdanum mixed with a salty ambergris note. The result anchors the fragrance, ensuring that it stands apart from more traditional barbershop fragrances. Moreover, these notes and the addition of carnation ensure that Dhofar reads as both traditional and exotic. Make no mistake: traditional it is, but typical it is not. Despite having these masculine notes, much like Xerjoff's own Mefisto, Dhofar includes florals that lend a smooth, stylish elegance to the scent, making certain that it is never brash.
Of course (as should be no surprise), with Xerjoff you get quality. I am impressed with the calibre of the ingredients, much like I have been impressed with 1861, Nio, Kobe, Uden, and so on and so forth. The quality from the juice to the bottle is great, and we can leave it at that. Performance is commensurate with the quality, and sillage, projection, and longevity are all at the medium-high range, with distinct and smooth evolution from top notes to base notes.
Would I buy it?: Yes! This is a fragrance that is instantly recognizable as a top quality, unique fragrance. Departing from the traditional lavender/vanilla or green fougere aspects of the barbershop fragrance, Dhofar smells like the Prince of Persia after a bath, a shave, and a spritz of perfume. Great stuff.
The fragrance "Dhofar" by Xerjoff is available at Essenza Nobile.


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Well surprise surprise:
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Well surprise surprise:
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
# bagonails 2010-07-27 16:34
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Ancient Roman Lawyer, Writer, Scholar, Orator and Statesman, 106 BC-43 BC)
Saturday, 24 July 2010
Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a Libyan national, was the only man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am Flight over Lockerbie, Scotland.
The bombing killed 270 people - most of them US citizens. In 2001, al-Megrahi was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
But the Scottish government released him last year on 'strict justice criteria' - saying he has terminal cancer with just three months to live.
Shortly after Megrahi's return to Tripoli, the Libyan government awarded BP a multi-billion dollar offshore oil deal.
The timing of the deal, and the fact that 11 months after the release Meghrahi is still alive has led to speculation as to whether BP had anything to do with the release.
The oil giant denies lobbying for al-Megrahi's release - saying it only encouraged the British government to complete a prisoner-transfer deal with Libya.
So, what are the likely implications of the alleged BP role in al-Megrahi's controversial release?
Inside Story, with presenter Sohail Rahman, discusses with Bill Kidd, a member of the Scottish Parliament for the Scottish National Party, Hans Koechler, who was an International Observer at the Lockerbie trial, and Dave Cole, the managing director of the Atlantic Council.
This episode of Inside Story airs from Thursday, July 22, at 1730GMT, with repeats at 2230GMT, and the next day at 0430GMT and 1030GMT.
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Baby eating water melon
Thursday, 15 July 2010
You gotta laugh.
The teacher replies, 'The correct answer is 4, but I like your thinking.'
Then, Little Johnny says 'I have a question for YOU. There are three women sitting on a bench having ice cream: One is delicately licking the sides of the triple scoop of ice cream. The second is gobbling down the top and sucking the cone. The third is biting off the top of the ice cream.
Which one is married?'
The teacher, blushing a great deal, replied 'Well I suppose the one that's gobbled down the top and sucked the cone' To which Little Johnny replied,
'The correct answer is the one with the wedding ring on, but I like your thinking.
(Even this is not my own stuff)
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
PostHeaderIcon Megrahi, the media and the myths - Part 1: The Desert Deal
Monday, 12 July 2010 11:21
One of the earliest incarnations of this site was as a monthly online newsletter sent out to a few hundred interested individuals. The newsletter was consolidated by a very basic blog that served as a kind of portal in order to encourage people to register for the newsletter.
Few posts on the blog attracted more by way of traffic and comments than our analysis of the coverage provided by the Scottish media of the release, on compassionate grounds, of the man known as the Lockerbie Bomber, Al Megrahi.
Few events have caused as much controversy and debate and there can be little doubt that views on the release are entrenched. Whilst Scotland's religious and legal institutions supported the release, the general populace were pretty much evenly split. The same can be said of the international community, the release was welcomed by some respected international figures whilst others, mainly Americans, reacted with anger.
Last week saw the Scottish/UK media re-visit, yet again, this pivotal moment in Scottish politics. The catalyst for this latest regurgitation of the story was the report coming out of Libya suggesting that Megrahi's treatment had been stopped and that death may be only weeks away. The story however was quickly supplanted by bizarre headlines suggesting that Megrahi may live for a further 10-20 years.
The 20 year claim was based around a comment from a Libyan professor Karol Sikora who said of the type of cancer Megrahi had: "There was always a chance he could live for 10 years, 20 years," he said. "But it¹s very unusual."
The 'imminent death' reports disappeared and the 20 year claim then formed the basis for that weeks headlines. It culminated in the issue featuring prominently on the BBC's flagship current affairs programme 'Question Time'.
Given this renewed interest, and the headlines and claims that are now gaining currency, Newsnet Scotland decided that it was time to take a fresh look at this coverage. We have also decided to re-publish our original analysis from almost a year ago.
Before you read on, please be aware that we do not seek to change the views of anyone regarding the actual release, we have already acknowledged that these views are entrenched. There are SNP voters who thought the release wrong just as there were Labour voters and indeed Labour politicians who thought the release the correct decision.
Even families of the victims were split as to the relative merits of keeping a dying Mr Megrahi in prison.
What we are seeking to do is to urge people to ask themselves whether the Scottish media have provided informed analysis, objective coverage and reasoned debate on this very serious matter or whether they have manipulated the story in order to satisfy an agenda.
The backdrop to the release was of course the 9/11 New York tragedy and the appalling 7/7 attack on London transport. These two events have redefined the political narrative as far as the Middle East is concerned.
We begin our look back at the coverage of this whole release issue at the point at which it all began. Not, as you might expect, with the announcement of the release by Kenny MacAskill in August 2009, nor with Megrahi's actual release days later.
We begin in fact with the now forgotten interview of Alex Salmond in 2007, an interview conducted by the BBC's Kirsty Wark. Ms Wark is a friend of former First Minister Jack, now Lord, McConnell who had only months earlier been replaced as First Minister by Mr Salmond after the SNP had shocked the political world by defeating Mr McConnell's Labour party in the Holyrood elections.
Why begin here you ask?
Well, the interview relates to the (then) new SNP government's attack on a secret deal that had been hatched by Tony Blair and Libyan leader Col Gadaffi in the Libyan desert – a deal that we now know concerned the Lockerbie bomber Al Megrahi.
It is interesting to note the reaction of Ms Wark and her tone as Alex Salmond makes clear his concern that such a secret deal had impinged on Scottish legal jurisdiction. A deal that was designed to facilitate the return of a then healthy Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi to Libya.
Not seen in this clip, but Ms Wark introduces the interview by informing viewers that the new SNP government were expected by many commentators to want to 'pick fights' with Westminster – and, adds Ms Wark, "they didn't have long to wait".
An interesting line taken by Kirsty Wark, who actually went as far as to accuse the First Minister of exposing Blair's secret deal in order to make political gain and of "risking the sensitivities of the families of the Lockerbie victims".
It's clear that in 2007 a secret desert deal involving the transfer from Greenock prison of the convicted terrorist Al Megrahi did not concern Scottish journalists to any great extent. The effect on the families of victims, that such a transfer might have, did not lead to a huge outcry – the only outcry was that the new SNP government had exposed the deal.
In fact the highlighting of this secret deal by the SNP led to them being denounced by many media commentators, including Ms Wark, as simply trying to pick a fight. Alex Salmond was accused of 'grandstanding' for convening an emergency session at Holyrood in order to inform the Scottish parliament of the secret deal.
The deal had been done, the mechanism for agreed repatriation of Al Megrahi would be put in place and the man himself would in time submit an application to return to Libya. Critically, the procedures put in place by the then UK Labour government afforded Al Megrahi the right to make legal representation to the Scottish Justice Minister as part of this process.
In 2007 such an arrangement caused no great media concern. There were no outcries from Labour politicians, nor any cries of 'outrage' from BBC Scotland political correspondents. Tony Blair was not the 'Toast of Tripoli' and there were no thoughts of any American backlash.
UK companies stood to benefit from oil deals and the cost of such lucrative deals was the return of a long forgotten terrorist to the former pariah state of Libya - a small price to pay.
Aside from complaints by the SNP, who were only picking a fight after all, the whole thing was just another behind the scenes deal struck by the UK government. The episode was quickly forgotten and would have remained so had fate not intervened in the form of an incurable illness.
In 2009 the deal in the desert was rendered academic as Al Megrahi was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Doctors advising the Scottish Justice Secretary explained that a life expectancy of around three months was a reasonable estimate and, having satisfied the criteria for compassionate release, a dying Al Megrahi was allowed to return home to Libya on August 20th 2009.
A media circus then kicked off as presenters, commentators, journalists and politicians jostled with the families of victims and residents of the town of Lockerbie as each attempted to make points, report and analyse.
This week Newsnet Scotland will take a look back at the coverage of the release in the days and weeks following. How the Scottish press reported this dramatic event and, more importantly, how the event was covered by the BBC – specifically BBC Scotland.
CLICK HERE...........To be continued.....
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CLICKE HERE.........newsnetscotland.com
Friday, 9 July 2010
Jeff, If I had any confidence in the FOIA, I would write to the BBC and find out the methods used to select the audience, who did the selecting, and what was the demographic make up of the audience. However the contempt that the BBC has demonstrated for Scotland and her politics makes me believe I would be wasting my time.
It was very obvious that the audience was stuffed with Labour supporters, every means possible will be used between now and the Scottish elections to snuff out the SNPs voice, hence the referendum on the same day as that election on the constitution of the Westminster parliament. The TV and the MSM, channels will be overflowing with that debate so once more sidelining the debate on Scotland. This is no more than the cynical agenda we have come to expect from the Unionist establishment, in particular the Scottish Office. Respect my big hairy a...! Unionism if fighting to the last man for it's survival, and they have all the tools to make it very dirty, and they will.
As is usual on these few QTs that come from Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon was interrupted and treated in a very brusque manner by Dimbers. She was not allowed anything like the time of the rest of the panel.
No questions were taken regarding the democratic deficit now in Scotland, where we are to vote in a referendum on the constitution of Westminster, but prevented from voting on a Scottish independence in a referendum. To rub our faces in the muck that vote will obscure our own parliamentary election, in terms of the MSM.
Nicola failed to point out, (or was prevented from,) to Forsyth that the banks only became Scottish when they failed. Before which they had been pouring billions into the UK treasury in London. That he was spreading unionist propaganda by speculating that Scotland would not have been able to deal with the bank problem. Also that he knows fine well had Scotland not been prevented from having full fiscal autonomy, we would now have one of the strongest currencies in Europe with an embarrassing surplus, (according to the suppressed McRone report.)
Notably no questions were taken on Scottish independence.
I say taken because I do know that these questions were submitted.
The SNP have to find a way of getting out from under this blanket that is trying to smother them, and they have to do so now. Not leave it to the last minute like the last UK election and then run out of time. If the SNP is serious about independence and turning Scotland round they need to act in ways they have not perhaps considered. However, they must do it and do it soon. At the moment they are being suffocated by lies and propaganda, gleefully assisted by the MSM, in particular BBC Scotland. On this form they are heading for certain defeat in Holyrood.
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Chic Murray, one of Scotland's greatest comedians, was born Charles Thomas McKinnon Murray in Greenock, in 1919. He began an apprenticeship in engineering at Kincaid's shipyard in 1934 whilst employing his musical talents in amateur groups such as The Whinhillbillies and Chic and His Chicks. He formed a double-act with his wife, Maidie Dickson. Billed as "The Tall Droll with the Small Doll" their combination of jokes and songs made them a popular attraction on television and in theatres throughout the country. The peak of their success was in 1956 when they appeared in the Royal Variety Show at the London Palladium. Later, working as a solo act, with a forbidding expression and omnipresent "bunnet", Chic offered a comic vision of the world that was absurd, surreal and absolutely unique. Much mimicked and much loved by his fellow professionals, he acted in films such as Casino Royale (1967), appeared as the headmaster in Gregory's Girl (1980) and played Liverpool Football Club manager Bill Shankly in the musical play You'll Never Walk Alone (1984). He died in Edinburgh in 1985 at the age of sixty-five.
"Chic Murray was brought up in the land of sugar, ships and showers. He got a lot of his tales from the Tail of the Bank - joiners, platers, plumbers in the yard, were his main source of supply. A very funny man, originality in style was the keynote. He toured the halls both as a double act with his 4 feet 11 inches high wife Maidie - a clever wee lass, as a feed, a singer and accordionist.
Chic's fun was plucked from life. He perhaps combined the humour of two of his mates and the character that emerged was a riot. The two workmen, who were the subject of his impersonation, probably didn't twig it but they certainly enjoyed the result.
A typical Chic Murray joke "I met this chap at the Olympics. I said to him, "Excuse me but are you a pole vaulter?", he replied,"No, I'm German, but how did you know my name was Walter."
Latterly Chic was making films all over the world. In fact when one bumped into him in Glasgow and asked him what he was doing - "doing" he would repeat indignantly "I suppose because you don't see me at the theatre or on the local TV you think I'm not working. Listen fellah I can't do half the work I'm offered. I arrived from Germany this morning. I'm making a film out there - they like me there you know - and flying out to Hollywood on Tuesday for another film. Back here I've got two jobs to do for Bill Forsyth - I like him. Yes it's busy, busy, I'm thinking of doing the love life of a lamplighter - ha ha !" He was a big success in a cameo part in Bill Forsyth's 'Gregory's Girl' where he played a headmaster and was ideal for the role but a few eyebrows were raised when he gave a girl permission to play in the boy's football team."
Archie McCulloch
Goodbye from Archie
Here are just a few examples of Chic's unique material:
It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it.
I made a stupid mistake last week. Come to think of it, did you ever hear of someone making a clever mistake?
So I gave him a wave. Actually, it was more of a half wave, because I only half know him.
What use is happiness? It can't buy you money.
I met this cowboy with a brown paper hat, paper waistcoat and paper trousers. He was wanted for rustling.
If something's neither here nor there, where the hell is it?
My father was a simple man. My mother was a simple woman. You see the result standing in front of you, a simpleton.
I had a tragic childhood. My parents never understood me. They were Japanese.
I won't say I was slow developer, but our teacher was quite pleased to have someone her own age in the class to talk to.
If it weren't for marriage, husband and wives would have to fight with strangers.
After I told my wife that black underwear turned me on, she didn't wash my Y-fronts for a month.
Kippers- fish that like a lot of sleep.
The boat was so old; it must have been launched when Long John Silver had two legs and an egg on his shoulder.
It was a pretty posh place. They were so used to fur coats that two bears strolled in and ordered lunch and nobody even noticed.
I felt as out of place as a left-handed violinist in a crowded string section.
Get into yourself to get yourself out of your self. Then try to lose yourself.
I drew a gun. He drew a gun. I drew another gun. Soon we were surrounded by lovely drawings of guns.
We've got stained glass windows in our house. It's those damned pigeons.
You know what they say about stamp collecting. Philately will get you nowhere.
There's a new slimming course just out where they remove all your bones. Not only do you weigh less, but you also look so much more relaxed.
The police stopped me when I was out in my car. They told me it was a spot check. I admitted to two pimples and a boil.
I first met my wife in the tunnel of love. She was digging it at the time.
I dreamt I was forced to eat 25lbs of marshmallows. When I woke up, my pillow was missing.
My girlfriends a redhead, no hair, just a red head.
I admit to spending a fortune on women, booze and gambling. The rest I spend foolishly.
A neighbour put his budgerigar in the mincing machine and invented shredded tweet.
My parents were wonderful, always there with a ready compromise. My sister wanted a cat for a pet I wanted a dog, so they bought a cat and taught it to bark.
I got up this morning. I like to get up in the morning; it gives me the rest of the day to myself. I crossed the landing and went down stairs. Mind you, if there had been no stairs, I wouldn't even have attempted it.
We were so poor; the ultimate luxury in our house at the time was ashtrays without advertisements. It was all the wolf could do to keep us away from his door. A luxury meal was prairie sandwiches- two slices of bread with wide-open spaces between them. There were so many holes in my socks I could put them on seventeen different ways.
She had been married so often she bought a drip-dry wedding dress.
My mother was so house proud that when my father got up to sleepwalk she had the bed made by the time he got back.
This friend of mine had a terrible upbringing. When his mother lifted him up to feed him, his father rented the pram out. Then when they came into money later, his mother hired a woman to push the pram - and he's been pushed for money ever since.
I went to the butchers to buy a leg of lamb. "Is it Scotch?", I asked. "Why?" the butcher said in reply. Are you going to talk to it or eat it?". "In that case, have you got any wild duck?". "No", he responded, "but I've got one I could aggravate for you".
I rang the bell of this small bed-and breakfast place, whereupon a lady appeared at an outside window. "What do you want?", she asked. "I want to stay here", I replied. "Well, stay there then", she said and closed the window.
A Scot is a man who keeps the Sabbath, and everything else he can lay his hands on.
I was in London the other day and this man came up to me and asked me if I knew the Battersea dog's home. I said that I didn't know it had been away.
There are two rules for drinking whisky. First, never take whisky without water, and second, never take water without whisky.
My wife went to a beauty parlour and got a mudpack. For two days she looked nice, then the mud fell off.
I don't swim. I can swim. I just don't have much cause to do so in the normal run of things.
So there I was lying in the gutter. A man stopped and asked '"What's the matter? Did you fall over?" So I said "No. I've a bar of toffee in my back pocket and I was just trying to break it."
This chap started talking to me about this and that - about which I know very little.
My father was from Aberdeen, and a more generous man you couldn't wish to meet. I have a gold watch that belonged to him. He sold it to me on his deathbed. I wrote him a cheque for it, post dated of course.
It was raining cats and dogs and I fell in a poodle.
I was out walking the other evening. This fellow accosted me, and asked if that was the moon up there in the sky. I replied that I had no idea as I was a stranger there myself.
I was taking my dog out the other day and I met this chap who asked me where I was going. The dog is foaming at the mouth, so I explained that I was on my way to the vet to have it put down. He asked if it was mad, to which I replied that it wasn't exactly pleased about it.
This chap said to me, "If you look over there, you'll see Dumbarton Rock". Well, I looked for 20 minutes and the thing never moved an inch.
I met this chap at the Olympics. I said to him, "Excuse me but are you a pole vaulter?", he replied,"No, I'm German, but how did you know my name was Walter."
I went to the doctor and he told me I only had three minutes to live. I immediately asked if there was anything he could do for me, to which he replied, that he could boil me an egg.
Thursday, 1 July 2010
http://tinyurl.com/2vlauzs A BBC investigation into the planning department of one of Scotland's largest councils has revealed evidence of a close personal relationship between an influential councillor and a millionaire property developer.
Labour councillor Jim Docherty is facing calls to resign after failing to declare a long-standing friendship with Labour donor James Kean, who owns large areas of land in South Lanarkshire.
This has long been known in East Kilbride, but they have managed up until now to keep the lid on it. The EK news has reported on it, as a result of which McCann the MP who took over from five jobs Ingram, will no longer speak to the EK News. Their is a deep and fetid pit of sleaze to be tapped in this South Lanarkshire town.
I wonder how Docherty can afford a house costing £320000. he probably took lesson from Charlie Gordon who has become a millionaire property owner in Glasgow.
Docherty is the one with the foilage growing out of his nose. McCann is wearing the red tie.
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About Me
- Key bored warrior.
- Retired and loving it.


text:
How we could have saved the passengers of the Titanic : going beyond the functional fixedness
2018 / 05 / 02
Illustration by Naolito
During the night of the 14th April 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg in the Atlantic ocean and sank two hours and forty minutes after. Only 705 passengers over 2200 survived, rescued by the Carpathia after waiting for some salvation in the sixteen salvation boats. There could be more survivors if the iceberg were seen as the solution to the catastrophe it caused.
The functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits our innovation capacity, that keeps us in the uses we attribute to objects. This concept was first discovered by Karl Duncker with his "candle experience". The exercise was to find the way to fix a candle on a wall on a cork support, so the melted wax would would not fall on the floor. To do that, the participants had a candle, a box full of matches and another one with pinups. Most of the people propose non-efficient solutions because they can't think out of the box (that's the case to say). Indeed, the boxes are only seen as containers. However, we just have to deconstruct the elements to build new ones, as it's shown here.
But let's bring back the Titanic case. There were not enough lifeboats to save every passengers. Some of them survived by floating on furnitures, like Rose did in the James Cameron's movie. However, this is not the optimal solution, and some sources underwrite that there were pieces of ice pack around the boat. That is what saved 127 Irish migrants going to Canada from the deep waters sixty years before the sinking of the Titanic. When navigating on the seas, icebergs are seen as a dangers and for the passengers of the "Unsinkable", it is the cause of the disaster they lived and not a possible salvation. Even when we ask the question now, it is not a obvious to imagine a scenario where people would climb on the ice pack to survive.
The workshops including serious games lead people to experience and go beyond this notion in a playful way. Hélène Michel often introduces her workshops with the "sheet of paper" exercise. What could we do with a sheet of paper? Could you see all the possibilities? The participants often propose solutions that are in a large scope, from the coffee filter to the umbrella. A simple material such as a sheet of paper, which costs a few cents, can have a huge value depending on how we use it.
However, even if I am aware of this bias, I feel like I am always going back to what I learned about the world, in a sense, without thinking about hacking things. And it happened a few days ago. Djeff introduced us in a working room. There are some coloring draws on a table and a short instruction I don't even bother to read. We have 5 minutes and I start pimping the chickens that remind me of Zorro and Superman. The Z of Zorro makes me think about a 2 so I add a "Hive #" in front of it. I feel very audacious at this point.
The minutes pass and the drawings are done. Djeff starts his feedback: why did we color the papers? He brings the instructions that say we can do anything with them. Everything became clear, this was not an innocent exercise. I saw Hélène in my head explaining that yes, we sometimes must go beyond the uses we assign to objects. I almost felt ashamed about falling in this trap.
I had a discussion with Ryan, a fellow Hiver and poet. When I told you how I felt about the exercise, he answered that there is no problem about enjoying coloring in the lines, and that he likes it. But does he like it because he learned to color this way, or does this feeling come from himself? He does not find any satisfaction in doing a mess just because we need to question rules. It is obviously a good way to question the rules and push our limits but we will still face rules that we can't break. For example, we can create an extraordinary machine but to build it, we need to constraint us in the uses of the tools. A hammer is made to tack, a saw cuts. And to describe this machine, we will still use words that have a specific meaning. And if we create a new language, we will still use words or letters, which will be transcripted on paper with a pen, or on a computer.
This discussion was full of meaning and made me put into perspective the freedom we have towards imagination and creation. In the end the functional fixedness we get into at around 7 years old is a lot more than the use we assign to tools. It's also an anchorage in repositories to be able to live in society and to think. Can we really be free of this bias?


text:
Winner of the 2015 Ned Shank Award for Outstanding Preservation Publication
In 1980, photographer Geoff Winningham and architect Cyrus Sutherland traveled extensively throughout Arkansas to locate and photograph examples of southern American vernacular architecture. They were working on a commission from the First Federal Savings and Loan of Arkansas, and after a year they had finished their project. But, with their interest piqued and enjoying their collaboration, they continued on with the project in hopes of amassing a collection of photographs of vernacular architecture from every region of the state.
For two more years, Sutherland continued helping Winningham find every possible "dogtrot house, wood frame church, octagonal barn, and one-of-a-kind hog house" in the state. By 1983 Winningham had photographed over three thousand structures, and the architect and photographer put the collection aside and moved on to other projects.
Three decades later, after Sutherland had died, Winningham reopened his archive of Arkansas photographs, found his interest rekindled, and decided to return to the sites of the structures he had photographed. Most of the buildings, he discovered, had disappeared due to fires, storms, or neglect. But while Winningham was unable to find many of the structures he had photographed, what he did find were local people who remembered them. The stories of these local people join the original photographs in Of the Soil in a remarkable fusion that shows us much about the culture of the American South.


text:
What got me to thinking about educational jargon is the discussion, mmm, occasionally argument, over STEM vs. STEAM. Then there is the on-going yawner of tired controversy over Common Core. Of course, we talk about student engagement, student success, and student achievement and there are long lists of words, like stringers of bait, attached to each of those terms. What is so fascinating is how quickly we take that bait and leap to the next idea. Our appetites are often satiated for a while, but only for a while. I'll stop trying to make that analogy work, but you get the idea.
Writing in 2015, Liz Wellen wrote for The Hechinger Report on this very topic of "edu-speak" (and introduced me to the term "argle bargle"!).
Don't get me started on overused phrases like "grit" and "rigor," along with "21st century skills" or "researched-based programs" that educate "the whole child." As opposed to only half of a child? And what of charter-school movement lingo, replete with "restorative practices" and "growth mindsets"?I appreciate and applaud Ms. Wellen's frustration and mission to eradicate jargon and try to insist on returning to saying what we mean and meaning what we say.
I know educators often adopt language they don't really understand because they've read it or they've heard a boss use it. I know educators often use language they hope will confuse parents or others for a variety of reasons including that they don't really know what else to say so they hope using a litany of edu-babble will help move things along. What can happen is that people break into groups to have conversations about stuff they don't understand and everyone pretends to know what it means so they contribute superficial observations or simply agree with the person who is talking the most because maybe he actually knows what he's talking about and no one wants to look stupid. Great model for the kids, people.
Now I don't want to be the jargon police and not just because it's a thankless and endless job. But I do think that countermanding or, as Greg Garner wrote, undoing edu-speak is and will be difficult. In fact, his piece on trying to unload jargon is littered with jargon, which is no surprise given how embedded it can become. And not just because we are wont to incorporate the language of others into our own lexicon and often without vetting it, sifting it, or otherwise checking to see if it makes sense.
An aside: some years ago I noticed how quickly certain people picked up the current jargon. "Going forward" was the phrase du jour. It hadn't been a part of conversation and then everyone was using. Just because I'm stubborn about some things (okay, a lot of things) I chose not to use it. In fact, every time there was the possibility of using the phrase "going forward," I used something else. Then I decided to try an experiment. I used the word "hiccup" to describe what was, I hoped, an anomaly in a process. I noticed some interesting non-verbals when I used that word. It was weird. It was like predators sniffing the air to figure out if this was something on which they should pounce or if it wasn't worth their time. In my head, my little editor guy and I snickered. "Oh yea, this will be fun," we chortled. In another meeting I found an opportunity to use "hiccup." It wasn't contrived so the word fit the situation. Again, the non-verbal check. A few days later I used it again and within a couple of days after that, people were talking about hiccups. I stopped using it immediately. That fad didn't last long. After all, no one outside of our little community was using it but the experiment and experience left a profound impact on me.
I doubt we can eradicate edu-speak any time soon. There is too much government in our education and governmentese seems designed to obfuscate and frustrate any chance of anyone knowing what anyone is really saying. Ever.
But I do think we can make inroads. Each time we're in a meeting in which someone is yammering and using a string of education-sounding words, do a quick look-up in the The Glossary of Education Reform to do a bit of fact-checking. Or just ask the person to use plain English. And when we're in workshops or faculty meetings or professional development and we find our eyes glazing over because of the use of language we really don't understand, let's be brave enough to raise our hands and ask for an explanation.
buzzword bingo cards and play the game with your colleagues, then hand the cards to the speaker/presenter on your way out.
For those of us who get to conduct workshops and trainings, who get to design professional development and other content, let's be much more mindful of the language we use. And if we have to use jargon, let's be sure offer clarification and edification but also find consensus. Please be sure it's on your radar and that your folks have visibility so it's easy for them to tap in. It's a value-add, win-win for us all. ;)


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Ideally, patients come away from their hospital stay not only healthier, but happier too. So how about taking a page from the Happiest Place On Earth? Yes, I mean Disney Land.
Dissatisfied with its patient satisfaction scores, one Florida hospital has struck a partnership with Walt Disney Co. to pick up some of that Mouse Magic. Since then, the hospital's scores have shot up — and patient volumes, too.
Back in 2009, satisfaction was at rock bottom at 200-bed Florida Hospital for Children. To change its luck, the 200-bed hospital decided to make sure of a pioneering program run by Disney, laying out about $200,000 in consulting fees to bring the entertainment company in.
Not only did Disney help the hospital improve its presentation, it also got tips on improving staff morale and treating patients as customers. (The "staff morale" thing is a bit amusing, since, as all former Florida residents know, Disney's own employee policies have earned it the title "the Rat." But I digress.)
These days, when little patients and their parents enter the Walt Disney Pavilion, they're greeted by a "park ranger" who offers directions, a Disney-theme play area and a ukelele-playing greeter in character costume, according to USA Today.
Behind scenes, some staffers have been tagged as Disney-style "cast members," and work areas have been renamed "back stage" and "front stage" areas.
While some of this may sound a little silly, it's generated big results. Florida Hospital's patient satisfaction scores have climbed to the 80th percentile of all children's hospitals nationally. Even better, patient volumes are up by nearly half, administrators told the paper. You can't beat that with a stick.
Though I'm sure kids are more focused on the fun, park-like attractions, my hunch would be that the back-office changes were as important to Florida Hospital's transformation as the cosmetic fixes. After all, when it comes right down to it, the parents who pay for care are more worried about things like working with staffers who are upbeat and happy with their jobs. Still, it's an intriguing approach overall.


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I can never get any good Unison sounds in 3xOsc...
The Audio Example:
1. The current "Unison" I get by utilizing the Fat Mode "detuned" preset. (bad)
2. Toxic Biohazard, Saw 7 Unison Voices, about 25% detune (good)
Can someone explain to me how I can get something at least close to "good" unison?
How to make good Unison?
find/exchange/discuss 3OSC & TS404presets & tips here
Return to "3OSC & TS404 - Presets & Programming"
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How to make good Unison?
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Re: How to make good Unison?
Hy! Play with the phase of individual timbres. ...
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Oakland, Berkeley, And East Bay News, Events, Restaurants, Music, & Arts
You don't get invited over to people's houses for dinner much once you become a restaurant critic. As you can imagine, I hear "I'd be too afraid to cook for you!" a lot, mostly from first dates and folks who aren't even considering an invitation. I can understand their paranoia -- hell, when I cook for new acquaintances I feel like my professional reputation is on the line with each bite.
Each time people assume my highfalutin gourmet sensibilities, I take umbrage. I tell them that I turn on my critic's palate only on assignment or when I'm putting out serious dollars of my own. Then I humble myself with a few examples of embarrassing things that I eat way too often. Like most of the cooks I've ever worked with, I down cheese steaks as eagerly I do a pâté de foie gras aux truffes. And I end my speechifying by stressing that I try to make my food criticism contextual: It's pure foolishness to judge a pizza parlor the same way you would a white-tablecloth bistro.
But despite my strident rhetoric, once in a while I eat a meal that makes me think: Damn, I am such a food snob.
The owners of Ristorante Il Porcino, a new Italian-American restaurant on Solano Avenue, are probably feeling their hearts sink as they read these paragraphs; I had two pleasant meals at the restaurant because I liked my servers and dined in the company of some of my favorite people. The food, however, left me cold.
Italian-American cuisine, everybody's favorite comfort food, is getting a little more respect than it did five years ago. After years of documenting "authentic" Italian fare, respected cookbook authors John Mariani and Lidia Bastianich have published books specifically on Italian-American cooking. Rocco DiSpirito's TV-created Italian-American restaurant -- no lardo here, just chicken cacciatore -- just got a nod from William Grimes, the New York Times' restaurant critic. And in the East Bay, similar (if less pedigreed) restaurants like LoCoco's are doing swell, partly because their owners are great at making their customers feel welcome.
Il Porcino doesn't have red-checkered tablecloths, but its menu looks like it should be spattered with the drippings from Chianti-bottle candles. The names of the dishes on the massive menu may be in Italian, but you won't find an unfamiliar ingredient or preparation.
The sister restaurant of Fremont's Il Porcino rose from the ashes of the Aegean Grill. The owners retained the beautiful hardwood floors from the previous tenant. They decided to "warm up" the large, open space, formerly white and Aegean blue, by sponge-painting the walls and installing enough antiqued plaster bas-reliefs to ornament a small palazzo. The best seats are clearly at the brightly lit window tables, which fill quickly, but once night falls, when you sit in the back you feel swaddled in the dimming, golden light.
And Il Porcino's young crew lacks some of the smoothness of a more experienced waitstaff, but they're uniformly sweet, with a casual cheer that fits in well with the neighborhood. They were happy to stop and chat with the chattiest of my dining companions, and left us alone when we got absorbed in discussion.
But the food they delivered was solidly, unshakably Olive Garden. We started with an antipasto platter for two. Kalamata olives and artichoke hearts, the two preprepared elements, were the high points of the plate. All the roasted vegetables -- the grilled zucchini and grilled eggplant -- needed more seasoning than a pass with the pepper grinder could provide. Thick slices of high-quality fresh mozzarella were placed atop tomatoes that came from a March hothouse, not a July garden, spoiling the effect. The roasted peppers were almost inedible, tossed with a little vinegar and an unpleasant amount of garlic, which did nothing to mellow their sharp flavor. I found myself pouring spoonfuls of the olive oil-balsamic mixture that was meant for the bread over my veggies, salting it all heavily, and scooping it up with lots of the spongy house-baked focaccia.
Another salad we ordered was advertised as a warm spinach salad with bacon and mushrooms. We got the spinach leaves, all right, but they came tossed in a bright, fruity vinaigrette with slices of juicy oranges and artichoke hearts. I had nothing to complain about -- except we hadn't ordered it.
Now, the cooks do make a good marinara, and it shows up frequently on the menu. Spiked with bits of black olive and fresh basil on a sautéed calamari appetizer, the sauce ended up sopped on my focaccia, because I didn't enjoy it on the too-chewy squid. (Squid is such a tetchy meat, ready to turn tough the second you keep it in the pan too long, which had clearly happened.)
That marinara was also the best thing about a "rollini" special, a close spiral of fresh pasta sheets, ham, and mozzarella that were liberally sauced and not so liberally baked. The pasta had a perfect texture, silky but not soft, but mozzarella was the wrong cheese to use. The roll should have been something oozing and a bit messy; instead it was undercooked and bland.
My friends and I enjoyed a couple of the secondi piatti. The pizza della casa had a light crust that inflated and crisped in the oven, and retained its texture throughout the meal, not sogging down under the weight of mushrooms, sausage, onion, artichoke, and cheese. And an involtini di pollo -- chicken breast stuffed with spinach, prosciutto, and mozzarella -- stayed tender, the simple white-wine sauce brightening the heavy mozzarella-dominated filling. But an order of veal scallopine alla erbe was too chewy to finish, and its puckery white wine-lemon sauce was guilty of overcompensation.
Desserts finished the meal in the style announced by the salads. The chocolate in the chocolate mousse had not been completely melted, leaving the otherwise fluffy concoction grainy with little shards of chocolate. I liked the profiteroles: high-quality store-bought. If you like the creamier end of the tiramisu spectrum, Il Porcino's high-whipped number is for you.
Snob or no, I wanted the food to be either more adventurous or more carefully prepared -- better yet, both. At present, Il Porcino is still struggling to find its groove. Or else it has, and it's just not one that I get into.
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text: HomeWorldwide NewsTexas State Trooper Hit With Bullet That Came From Mexico Mike Vance November 27, 2016 A Texas State Trooper was injured on the Texas-Mexico border, when he was hit by a bullet from a gun battle that happened on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. Texas-Mexico Border Lt. Johnny Hernandez of the Texas Department of Safety confirmed that the state trooper did suffer a leg injury. This happened at about 1 p.m. Friday. The trooper was on foot patrol when it happened. He was accompanied by a border patrol agent at the time. It was confirmed that the border patrol agent was also hit, but was protected since he had body armor on. The trooper's identity has not been released. He is at the McAllen Hospital and his condition is stable. There is not yet any information on who was involved in the gun battle that happened just across the border.


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The Minister's fabrications in parliament are the smallest of misdemeanours in the ongoing saga of Rohith Vemula suicide in Hyderabad Central University and Kanhaiya Kumar's arrest from Jawaharlal Nehru University. I say this with responsibility, knowing fully well the consequences of a cabinet minister speaking untruths on the floor of the house. The HRD minister's misleading statements have been nailed by the media — from Rohith Vemula's mother to the HCU chief medical officer to the Telangana Police report to JNU teachers association to numerous journalists, commentators and editors. The CPI-M will serve the notice for a breach of privilege against the HRD minister and she will be answerable for her 'bunch of thoughts' to the house.
If a minister lying to parliament is not the biggest misdemeanour, then what is? The bigger challenge faced by the country is the insidious attempt by the RSS to control India's thinking, distort its ethos and straitjacket into a majoritarian Hindutva ideology. The students at colleges and universities – especially those who come from families of the poor, the downtrodden, the farmers, and the labourers – are targets of the RSS in this project to distort young minds by killing progressive, modern education. Rohith Vemulla and Kanhaiya Kumar belonged to that group, and because they chose to oppose the RSS agenda, one of them is dead and the other behind bars on trumped up charges.
India's demographics are dominated by those below the age 35, making up 65 percent of the country's population. The Sangh Parivar realises that its pracharak Prime Minister had enticed the youth with a lot of false promises in 2014, and none of them have come to fruition. Modi had promised 250 million new jobs every year but what we have instead, due to his government's anti-people economic policies, are both greater unemployment and continued underemployment.
Modi had also announced huge skill development plans and private sector employment with great fanfare. The skill development plans have failed to talk off with only 13 percent rate of achievement of National Skills Mission. A scheme called SETU (Self Employment and Talent Utilisation) — only if every acronym coined by Modi added 0.1 percent to India's growth, then we would be a bigger economy than China!-– remains only on paper, with no funds allocated for it.
No wonder, youth across India are already comparing Modi's grandiose boasts to Mungerilal ke haseen sapney (The wonderful dreams of Mungerilal).
With the anger rising in campuses, the RSS, using its government at the Centre, is trying to remove the nodal points of channelising that anger. Student organisations, opposed to the RSS ideology, have become targets of blatant political witch hunts. Public universities and institutions of repute – FTII being a point in case – have been handed over to mediocre people to head, primarily because a Gajendra Chauhan is pliable while an Amartya Sen is not. Not fully unintended, but one of the consequences of such appointments is the destruction of these institutions, both by design and their incompetence.
A Vice Chancellor from the Sangh Parivar will take directions from the RSS, through the HRD ministry — as in the case of HCU — and allow police in the campus to intimidate the students opposed to the RSS' political line. Anyone who asks questions of the RSS or undertakes campus activity which opposes the BJP can be treated like a criminal by a pliant V-C.
The JNU V-C allowed the police in to the campus without any warrant or legal cause to arrest the president of students union, Kanhaiya Kumar.
By using these strong-arm tactics, the RSS is trying to push its students arm, the ABVP into a dominant position in the campuses where it has no support. The ABVP thinks it is able to demonstrate its power and dominance by making state agencies act at their behest, e.g. getting the JNUSU President arrested, and by ensuring through two union ministers that Rohith Vemula and four other Dalit students are pushed out of HCU hostel and denied their dues by the administration.
What the RSS is doing here in India is not unique. Majoritarian religious organisations in various countries across the globe, whenever they have captured power, have attempted to do the same. Pakistan after the mid-1980s, is a prime example of what happens when conservative, reactionary and majoritarian forces start controlling the education system of a country.
Pakistan, in fact, has always been an object of special fascination for the Sangh Parivar. BJP leaders were fond of asking all their opponents and critics to 'go to Pakistan' but have stopped saying so since Prime Minister went to Pakistan uninvited to attend a wedding ceremony at Raiwind. Their best hope, one fears, now lies in making India a mirror image of Pakistan.
Fortunately, in a country as diverse and plural as India, with robust democratic traditions imbibed by the students, the Sangh Parivar's failure is guaranteed. But this comes with the tragic loss of many lives, like it happened with Hitler's Germany or Mussolini's Italy, during the period of the rise of Fascism. This is a battle that will have to be fought and won by progressive forces. This government's web of fabrications, are set to only widen. Because they need untruths, distractions from addressing core bread and butter issues of the people with fanning hatred, to further their larger ideological agenda.
The latest desperation of the Sangh-sarkar, to try and tarnish the majority of India, which did not vote for them, as 'anti-national' is an attempt to cast a dangerous veil over its serious and mounting national security failures. A dangerous situation created by this government's rudderless policies since May 2014, continued flip-flops over Pakistan, Nepal, the Gurdaspur attack, Pathankot, followed by the more serious situation at Pampore, suggestive of a greater crisis in Jammu and Kashmir, the arrangement with PDP causing unease in its own camp, have forced them to try and hide behind a whipped up frenzy around 'slogan shouting' 'Anti-Nationalism! Fake charges, doctored videos and getting after students, have all been part of an attempted national diversion from its own failures in the field of national security.
The HRD minister's utterances in parliament defending the indefensible during the debate on JNU and HCU developments, are also a part of this design of trying to create a false category of only themselves as Deshbhakt.
This needs to be defeated, to first defend India, and from there, build a better India.
Sitaram Yechury is an Indian politician and a member of the politburo of CPI and the party's Parliamentary group leader
Originally posted here:
The biggest challenge faced by the country is RSS's attempt to control India's thinking and distort its ethos


text: Profile PESTLEWeb England Last activity: on 22/11/2017 Joined: on 22/11/2017 Design quotient Research 0pt Idea 0pt Evaluation 0pt Collaboration 4pt Total 4pt Recent comments (1) View all link PESTLEWeb commented on Moringa Miracles Ltd (MML) - Commercial Production of Moringa Oleifera 21:37, Nov 22, 2017 I have been hugely impressed by this project from the outset. Not only is it hugely worthwhile for local communities - but it is also being conducted with energy, integrity and enthusiasm by the founder Iain Church. I unconditionally support this project. Dr Rob Collins, Oxford, England


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Roy Thomas Receives the Sergio
My first Roy Thomas comic was also my first Marvel comic. I was a wee lad in third grade, a big devotee of the Batman TV show, and had thus far successfully badgered my mother into buying precisely one comic from the spinner rack at Young's Market. Some time later, I found myself parked on a naugahyde couch awaiting my turn in the barber's chair, when my eyes fell upon the cover of Uncanny X-Men #29. This was my introduction to both the Marvel Universe and its best writer, Roy Thomas.


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Telcos agree to consider Reliance Jio demands after Trai meeting4 min read . Updated: 10 Sep 2016, 01:42 AM IST
COAI says telcos will consider providing reasonable incremental capacity to Reliance Jio
New Delhi: At the end of a day of high drama, telecom operators struck a conciliatory note in their battle with Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd on Friday by agreeing to consider the new entrant's demand for additional points of interconnection.
The head of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the industry lobby group, was asked to leave a meeting called on Friday by the telecom regulator, illustrating the depth of the acrimony the interconnection issue has aroused.
COAI director general Rajan S. Mathews was asked to leave because he hadn't been invited to the meeting in the first place, said a person present at the meeting. Mathews then got into an argument with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) officials, whom he accused of acting at the behest of Jio, although he eventually complied, the person said on condition of anonymity.
"COAI has been kept out of the Trai meeting at the insistence of Jio, and Trai acquiesced to their demand in an unprecedented manner," Mathews said in a statement later.
Jio is also a part of the lobby group, together with established telecom companies Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone India Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd, but the Mukesh Ambani-led company has accused the group of maligning and damaging its interest in favour of its older rivals.
COAI, on its part, has accused the telecom regulator of furthering the interests of Jio.
Points of interconnection, which enable two operators to connect to each other's networks, have been a contentious issue.
"Incumbent operators have advantages over new entrants, they have well-established networks, customers. New entrants require fair access to both. Therefore, the onus is rightly on the incumbent operators not to misuse their market power by creating unfair hurdles," Jio boss Ambani said on 1 September.
In one week, Jio customers faced 50 million call failures in connecting to customers on competing networks, he said. That was when the Jio network was still in its test phase.
"This is a fight for justice, a fight for customers. Not just Reliance Jio customers or Airtel or Vodafone, but all Indian customers," Jio board member Mahendra Nahata told PTI.
"We have asked for the right number of connections, the right quantum of interconnections. We have put forth our point of view to Trai. It is for Trai to look into the matter. There is no time frame indicated by Trai," he added.
On Friday evening, COAI said the telcos will consider providing "reasonable incremental capacity" to Jio.
If they arrive at an agreement, it will take at least 90 days to fulfil Jio's demand for more interconnection points.
"Usually, the regulations kick in once the commercial service is announced and (has) begun," Mathews said at a media briefing. "During the test phase, there is ambiguity and usually there is minimal service in test phase. So we understand that Reliance confirmed that 5 September was the launch date, so now from this date incumbent players have to comply with providing POIs (points of interconnection) within 90 days as per the agreement."
"Prior to this date, they were in trial and there is no regulation that requires incumbents to comply with demand in trial period," he added.
The telcos had earlier said Jio's testing phase was of a scale that matched a full-fledged network launch.
On 1 September, Ambani announced audaciously low tariffs, low-cost phones and free voice calls for a lifetime to Jio subscribers, signalling a new phase of turbulence in India's telecom industry.
To Friday's meeting, Trai invited Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone India to discuss the ongoing dispute around telcos not heeding Jio's request for additional points of interconnection.
"It is definitely progress...this is certainly breaking of the initial deadlock...expectations have been set and we hope this will set the basis of a resolution," Mathews said about the agreement among the telcos to consider Jio's request.
Interestingly, Airtel raked up another contentious issue—of interconnection usage charges (IUCs)—in a statement released shortly after COAI's press conference. It urged the authorities to curb the "asymmetric" traffic Jio is generating as a result of free services.
"We urge Trai to find a way to curb the massive asymmetric traffic to ensure that receiving networks are not abused by a tsunami of free traffic. In this regard, IUC is an effective tool in the hands of Trai, which we hope they will use judiciously," it said in a statement.
Airtel said that after Jio's welcome offer to subscribers expires on 1 January and mobile traffic stabilizes, points of interconnection will not be a big issue. In the meantime, it agreed to augment the points of interconnection already provided to Reliance Jio.
"In the interim, we continue with our efforts to augment the hundreds of PoIs already given to Reliance Jio, as per the bilateral agreement, so that customers are not inconvenienced," Airtel said in the statement.
Reliance Jio has said its services are free till 31 December, following which consumers will be charged as per tariff plans that were unveiled on 1 September.
"None of the new operators who have launched services in the last few years have faced any POI-related issues with Airtel," said the Airtel statement.
According to Mahesh Uppal, a director at ComFirst consultancy, Trai can reconcile the concerns raised by both the parties.
"The issues are not unfamiliar elsewhere. The regulator must use its jurisdiction to resolve the issue based on international best practices," he said.
COAI has been arguing that the points of interconnection provided by incumbents to Jio are sufficient to support 15-20 million customers while the company has no more than two-three million customers right now. Jio is targeting the acquisition of 100 million customers in the shortest possible time.
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