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Running time : 13:26 min
Actors : Judy
Miles was about to head home after a long day at the office, but when he saw his new secretary Judy sitting behind the receptionist desk with her piercing blue eyes and fit little body, he could hardly resist trying his luck with her.
Judy was more than happy to take Miles up on his offer and after sucking his dick to almost completion she decides the break room is where she wants to fuck her boss, and fuck her boss she does. Judy is not shy when getting fucked and she takes total control of this situation while having Miles doing everything she wants including making her scream and beg for more of his long cock.
Miles on the other hand seems to enjoy her instruction as he pounds her with every begging moan she releases and isn't shy about dropping his load on her stomach after teaching her what its all about to work for his company.
Everyone will walk away from this hookup with a 'Raise' including you the viewer!


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An Elvis impersonator is a great way to add a sense of fun and excitement to any party or event. There was only one King but GigMasters has hundreds of Elvis Impersonators and Elvis Tribute Artists for you to choose from.
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Wednesday, July 18th, 2018 5:57pm
An East Cork town is set for a major boost with the re-opening of one of Ireland's oldest cinemas.
It's hoped the newly opened cinema, which dates back to 1936, will not only benefit Youghal but will also provide a boost to the local economy as it's expected visitors will travelto experience the unique offering of the Regal cinema Our senior reporter Fiona O'Donovan has this special report from Youghal for RedFM News:
Discussions between representatives of Cork County Board and City Hall regarding the GAA's financial contribution towards public lighting at the newly renovated stadium took place last week
That's the message from the Director of Fermoy River Youth Club who says the weir is on the brink of collapse
The Environmental Protection Agency says the sector is the worst offender when it comes to pollution
Adam O Keeffe from Midleton denies Murder but admits the manslaughter of 22 year old mother of one Amy McCarthy.
The young Cork man travelled to the US to undergo life saving surgery on a rare brain tumour
Mobile homes have been moved onto a road outside New Kilcrumper cemetery and a Council owned picnic spot on the south side of the town
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When somebody wrongs you—either by accident or on purpose—it can be hard to get over it. You may…Read on lifehacker.com
Birken adds that it can be useful to ask yourself a really simple question: what are you getting out of your resentment? Answering this forces you to think about the situation more objectively.
"You might be displacing anger at yourself onto the person you resent, or you may feel comfortable with or even enjoy the righteous anger you feel," she says.
Asking yourself what you're gaining by feeling resentful, which probably isn't much, can help you to let go of the anger.
"Finally, you need to think through what story you are telling yourself about the financial injustice that you have suffered," Birken says. "We often resent situations because we don't know the entire context. We fill in the blanks with a story that makes sense to us, but may have nothing to do with what the other person intended. Recognizing what you actually know and what you have made up can help you to release the resentment."
This brings up another interesting point: we often judge other people's spending without understanding the full picture. We jump to conclusions, which can also lead to resentment.
Personal finance writer Ramit Sethi calls this spending hypocrisy , and he uses LearnVest CEO Alexa Von Tobel as an example. Von Tobel revealed her own spending habits and readers tore her apart, criticizing her $30 lunch or her decision to take cabs every day. Sethi explains why this kind of judgment is unproductive:
"Instead of automatically condemning the author for her spending habits, the angry commenters above should have tried to figure out how she affords such a lofty lifestyle in the first place. "But Ramit," you might say, "she went to Harvard. She's clearly a wasteful trust-fund baby who's living off mommy and daddy's money." Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? But if that's your first thought, you're guilty of the Shrug Effect . A better way to approach the question would be to acknowledge that she probably has a few advantages you don't, but focus on the things she DOES control — which you can learn from. If you want to live her lifestyle, it pays to ask: How could she be earning SO MUCH that she could afford to take cabs every day? What is she doing that I don't know about? Who can I talk to to learn more? How can I earn more money?"How could she be earning SO MUCH that she could afford to take cabs every day? What is she doing that I don't know about? Who can I talk to to learn more? How can I earn more money?"
For quantum dot (QD) materials to perform well in devices such as solar cells, the nanoscale crystals in them need to pack together tightly so that electrons can hop easily from one dot to the next and flow out as current. MIT researchers have now made QD films in which the dots vary by just one atom in diameter and are organized into solid lattices with unprecedented order. Subsequent processing pulls the QDs in the film closer together, further easing the electrons' pathway. Tests using an ultrafast laser confirm that the energy levels of vacancies in adjacent QDs are so similar that hopping electrons don't get stuck in low-energy dots along the way.
Taken together, the results suggest a new direction for ongoing efforts to develop these promising materials for high performance in electronic and optical devices.
In recent decades, much research attention has focused on electronic materials made of quantum dots , which are tiny crystals of semiconducting materials a few nanometers in diameter. After three decades of research, QDs are now being used in TV displays, where they emit bright light in vivid colors that can be fine-tuned by changing the sizes of the nanoparticles. But many opportunities remain for taking advantage of these remarkable materials.
"QDs are a really promising underlying materials technology for
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applications," says William Tisdale, the ARCO Career Development Professor in Energy Studies and an associate professor of chemical engineering.
QD materials pique his interest for several reasons. QDs are easily synthesized in a solvent at low temperatures using standard procedures. The QD-bearing solvent can then be deposited on a surface—small or large, rigid or flexible—and as it dries, the QDs are left behind as a solid. Best of all, the electronic and optical properties of that solid can be controlled by tuning the QDs.
"With QDs, you have all these degrees of freedom," says Tisdale. "You can change their composition, size, shape, and surface chemistry to fabricate a material that's tailored for your application."
The ability to adjust electron behavior to suit specific devices is of particular interest. For example, in solar photovoltaics (PVs), electrons should pick up energy from sunlight and then move rapidly through the material and out as current before they lose their excess energy. In light-emitting diodes (LEDs), high-energy "excited" electrons should relax on cue, emitting their extra energy as light.
With thermoelectric (TE) devices, QD materials could be a game-changer. When TE materials are hotter on one side than the other, they generate electricity. So TE devices could turn waste heat in car engines, industrial equipment, and other sources into power—without combustion or moving parts. The TE effect has been known for a century, but devices using TE materials have remained inefficient. The problem: While those materials conduct electricity well, they also conduct heat well, so the temperatures of the two ends of a device quickly equalize. In most materials, measures to decrease heat flow also decrease electron flow.
Warren Hoffman's book "The Great White Way."
This became clear to me, with a bang, during the operetta conference the Komische Oper hosted earlier in 2015. While most Germans at that conference spoke about operetta pre and post 1933, the feminist side of operetta and how to get over the Adorno influence, the few Americans that were present discussed "people of color" as an extension of their gender debates. Most notably, Bonnie Gordon did so when she interpreted Le belle Hélène as a "Black Venus" and asked about "the place of black women's bodies in discourses of degeneracy."
While Gordon's forced inclusion of black women in her otherwise fascinating essay on "Operetta Display" seemed somewhat unconvincing to me, also in the published version of the conference ( Kunst der Oberfläche: Operette zwischen Bravour und Banalität ), there is another new book that demonstrates brilliantly where all of this could be going to. Warren Hoffman has presented a 251 page study about "Race and the Broadway Musical" at Rutgers University Press, entitled The Great White Way . And even though it has Pearl Bailey as 1967's "all black" Hello Dolly on its cover, his book is not only about "black" aspects of musical theater; though they certainly play a prominent role.
In the course of six main chapters, Warren discusses how Native Indians are treated in Annie Get Your Gun , and how "I'm an Indian Too" was taken out of the 1999 Bernadette Peters revival on Broadway. He asks about the representation of Asians in Flower Drum Song , including the re-write by David Henry Hwang in 2001. But there are also fascinating analysis of Americans with "unnaturally blonde hair", Puerto Ricans and "Brown Face" in West Side Story , among many other famous shows dealt with ( Chorus Line, 42nd Street, Music Man etc.).
Warren rightfully asks whether the new "political correctness" and the adaptations of shows "to fit current sensibilities" are such a good idea."Saying that a libretto can be rewritten with little hesitation or thrown out altogether contributes to the ongoing misconception that musicals are frothy entertainment and have nothing particularly important to say or offer beyond their music in the first place." With regard to the new Flower Drum Song of 2001, now billed as "Rodgers Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song " (even though it's a re-write), Warren says: " West Side Story may be a modernization of Romeo and Juliet , but it never pretends to be or replace Shakespeare's classic play." He called the practise of re-writing shows for PC purposes "a dicey" one: "While perpetzuating stereotypes is obviously wrong, revising shows to make them acceptable for the current age feels like whitewashing history.


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Animate CC
Layer depth and camera enhancements
Create the illusion of depth in your animations by placing assets in different planes. Modify layer depth and tween it and zoom into content on specific planes. Plus, you can lock objects to the camera and make camera movements and layer depth interactive at runtime.
Actions code wizard
Use a new wizard to add actions to events for HTML5 Canvas — no coding necessary.
More powerful Timeline
The Animation Timeline has several new enhancements that make it easier to use: Display time along the frame numbers and extend or reduce time for a selected frame spun. You can also scale frame spans using Frames Per Second (FPS), pan through an animation on stage and convert blank spans to 1s, 2s and 3s.
Enhanced ease presets
Manage the speed of your animations without all the manual work by creating enhanced ease presets at the property level for all tweens.
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Animate CC (2017.5)
New Ease presets
Create realistic motion faster by using new Ease presets to define the speed of your Classic and Shape tweens. You can also create customised Eases for Shape tweens.
Sprite sheet export
Move from game design to development faster by exporting texture atlases or sprite sheets from Animate CC to Unity and other platforms.
Component installation
Easily package, share and instal customised HTML5-based components using the Add-ons mechanism.
Better brush performance
Sketch faster and get higher-quality lines now that you no longer have to wait for a brush stroke to smooth before creating the next one.
In-app notifications
Get helpful contextual hints and information about new and existing features as you work in the app.
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Animate CC (2017.1)
Better viewing with HiDPI support
See icons and text in ultra-sharp detail with more pixels displayed on your screen. Animate CC automatically optimises your settings for HiDPI monitors.
Frame picker enhancements
Now it's easier to re-use art assets multiple times to adjust fine movements, like mouth and hand poses. Automatically filter frames based on criteria such as keyframe, all frames and more.
Support for Global JavaScript and third-party JavaScript libraries
Get the flexibility you need to use JavaScript code that applies to all frames in an animation. Also, now you can use the latest JavaScript libraries for animation from within the Animate UI.
Animate CC (2017)
Integrated virtual camera
Use the built-in V-cam to pan and zoom in and out on your animations just like you would with a video camera. The V-cam also lets you add tints and filters.
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Reusable components
Now it's quick and easy to add and re-use common components such as video players, buttons and carousels to your HTML5 Canvas documents.
Vector brush improvements
Create and share customised brushes, convert pattern brushes to standard art brushes and get more expressive with better pressure and tilt sensitivity.
Collaboration with CC Libraries
Collaborate simultaneously on animations with multiple team members. Share, modify and re-use entire animations, clips or symbols via CC Libraries and place animations directly into InDesign and Adobe Muse.
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Easier export
Now it's simple to share quick prototypes by exporting clips or excerpts as GIFs, JPEGs or PNGs and sharing them on social media or in instant messages, emails, and texts.
Creative Cloud Assets improvements
Archive and restore all your assets stored in Creative Cloud, including the ones in your Creative Cloud Libraries, assets created with your desktop products and mobile projects.
Introducing Typekit Marketplace
Buy fonts from some of the industry's biggest names and use them in your Animate projects. Adobe Typekit uses its font sync and web technologies to deliver your Marketplace fonts anywhere you need them.
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Animate CC (2015.2)
Google fonts
Get consistent, great-looking typography across browsers and devices by using Google fonts in your HTML5 Canvas documents.
New brush sizes
Draw with more precise control using brush sizes in the range of 1 to 200 pixels.
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Animate CC (2015.2)
Better collaboration with libraries
Control assets in read-only Creative Cloud Libraries so they can be used by team members, but not changed or deleted.
Updated Libraries panel
Find the assets you need faster with new filtered search of Adobe Stock and icons that make it easy to identify licensed Adobe Stock assets.
Enhanced brushes
New pattern brushes, vector brush smoothing and tiling give you more expressive ways to draw right inside Animate.
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Graphic symbol thumbnails
Animate character details such as mouth and hands faster with thumbnail previews, which can be added directly to the Timeline.
Improved web publishing options
Projects published in HTML5 Canvas now support HiDPI and Retina displays. Advertisers can also create and publish HTML5 banner ads that expand when you click or hover over them.
Transparent layers
Skip manual workarounds and sketch on top of other layers right inside Animate.
Adobe Portfolio to showcase your work
Now when you use Portfolio to show off your animations, you can create customised landing and contact pages to better connect with viewers.
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And so much more
Also includes: Advanced PSD and AI import options, bitmap snapping, latest Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR SDK integration and more.
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Animate CC (formerly Flash Professional)
Assets at your fingertips with Creative Cloud Libraries
Browse and access brushes, colours, graphics and other creative assets in libraries that are available in Animate and other Creative Cloud apps. Libraries sync to Creative Cloud and assets can be linked so that when one is changed, you and your team can choose to update it across any projects.
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Adobe Stock images and graphics
The new Adobe Stock marketplace lets you find, licence and manage royalty-free images and vector graphics from directly within Animate. Choose from 45 million assets, save your selection to your Creative Cloud Libraries and then drag it into your project to use. You can also licence video assets directly from the Adobe Stock marketplace.
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Adobe Typekit integration
Access thousands of Typekit fonts from right within your font menu and apply them to your Animate web projects. Fonts from top-tier foundries are all part of your Creative Cloud membership.
Greater flexibility with vector art brushes
New vector art brushes let you modify the path of a stroke after it's been drawn and scale to any resolution without loss of quality. You can also make customised brushes and import brushes created with Adobe Capture CC.
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4K+ video export
Use customised resolution export to ensure that your videos will look great on the latest Ultra HD televisions and monitors.
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Improved brushes and pencils
Easily draw smooth, precise vector outlines along a curve and get faster live previews.
Customised resolution
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Easy audio syncing
Attach and control audio looping directly on the Timeline of your animations for perfect synchronisation without having to code.
360° rotatable canvas
Rotate the canvas on any pivot point while you draw, just as you would with paper and pencil, to get perfect angles and strokes.
Colour changes made easy
Name tagged colours so you can change one and have it automatically update across your entire composition.
HTML5 Canvas templates
Easily produce rich interactive ads and other content by creating reusable HTML5 Canvas wrapper templates within Animate that can be modified with any code editor.
Coloured onion skinning
Easily orchestrate complex animations now that you can see multiple adjacent frames with different colour and alpha values on the stage.
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Also includes: Packaging of animations as OAM files, the ability to import SVG files directly onto the stage using Creative Cloud Libraries or the File Import command and more.
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Flash Professional CC (2015)
Life-like animation with the Bone tool
Bring your characters to life with advanced kinematics. Link objects together and manipulate them in real time to create natural, dynamic movement. The Bone tool — back by popular demand.
Sprite sheet export
Minimise the number of files in your projects. Export the bitmaps in your HTML5 Canvas documents as a single sprite sheet. Make the most of your animations in online ads and meet Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) guidelines.
Video import on the Timeline
Import H.264 videos directly onto the Timeline to use as a guide layer.
Audio splitting
Split audio files directly on the Timeline to co-ordinate blank frames as you animate.
Scaling of brushes
Zoom in or out. Your brush can now scale to match the stage size. No overgrown or microscopic brushes.
Quick file saving
Saving large files is faster than ever — no more waiting. Save your file and get right back to it.
HTML5 optimisation
Publish HTML5 projects without the waste. No unused library items, keyframes or assets. Drastically optimise your finished projects.
iOS 64-bit support
Take full advantage of advanced 64-bit processing in iOS to create rich interactive apps.
Flash Professional CC (2014.1)
Expanded WebGL support
Publish fully interactive animations — with scripting and audio — to the WebGL format. They can run in modern browsers without Flash Player and take advantage of GPU-accelerated hardware.
Customised brushes
Create your own brushes to get the ideal shape, angle and flatness. Save them to use again and access them across multiple computers thanks to Sync Settings in Creative Cloud.
SWF import
Back by popular demand: the ability to import SWF files into your projects as assets.
Animation guides
Control the scale transformation of an animated object to better customise its motion and transform its colour along the path of a motion guide.
Customised platform support
Thanks to a new SDK, developers can extend Flash Professional to add support for more formats.
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Also includes: Usability enhancements, the ability to publish Adobe AIR apps with a shared runtime and the ability to publish apps for Intel x86–based Android devices.
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Flash Professional CC (2014)
SVG export
Export any frame in your Flash project as an SVG file that can be scaled up and used in posters and other promotional materials.
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Variable-width strokes
Draw strokes with widths that can be adjusted at any point. Create and save profiles for any stroke or use variable-width presets.
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Tweening for variable-width strokes
Add a shape tween to a variable-width stroke to create an animation as the stroke changes.
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New Motion Editor
Back by popular demand, the updated Motion Editor gives you precise control over motion tween properties like colour effects and transformations.
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WebGL for animation
Publish animations to the WebGL format so they can run in modern browsers without needing Flash Player — and they can take advantage of GPU hardware acceleration.
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Object-level undo
It's back. Object-level undo lets you undo an action on one object without having to undo actions on other objects you changed more recently.
Projector support
Publish videos as Projector (EXE) files so they're viewable even on systems that don't have Flash Player installed.
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HTML5 extension support
Flash Professional now supports HTML5-based panels, so developers can extend the app's capabilities with new features and content.
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Flash Professional CC (13.1)
HTML5 Canvas support
Build interactive content in a familiar authoring environment that is now customised for the HTML5 Canvas platform. Add frame scripts using native support for JavaScript, including code hinting, code colouring and more.
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And so much more
Also includes: Usability enhancements to the Swatches panel; auto-formatting of code within the Actions panel; code hinting for JavaScript snippets and JS APIs; code snippets panel; and more.
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Flash Professional CC (13)
Improved HTML publishing
Reach virtually any screen with enhanced HTML5 support using the updated Toolkit for CreateJS, which includes new functionality for buttons, hit areas and motion curves.
64-bit architecture
Reengineered from the ground up, 64-bit Flash Professional CC is more modular and delivers unprecedented speed and stability. Easily manage multiple large files, publish more quickly and experience a more responsive Timeline.
Real-time drawing
See full previews instantly — with fill and stroke colour — as you draw, using any of the shape tools in Flash Professional. Your designs will take shape faster than ever before.
Sync Settings
Work the way you like on any of your computers — Mac or PC. Synchronise your workspace settings to Creative Cloud — including preferences and presets — so they go where you go.
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Simplified user interface
Focus clearly on your content with a streamlined user interface. Dialogue boxes and panels are more intuitive and easier to navigate. Choose between a light or dark user interface.
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Timeline time-savers
Manage properties across multiple selected layers in the Timeline panel. Easily swap symbols or bitmap images on the stage. Select multiple objects on a layer and distribute them to keyframes with a single click.
See it in action ›
Unlimited pasteboard size
Easily manage large backgrounds or content that's positioned offstage with an unlimited pasteboard/work area.
Powerful code editor
Write code more efficiently using the new code editor, built with the open source Scintilla library. Search across multiple files using a new Find and Replace panel to update code fast.
Testing and debugging via USB
Test and debug your content in fewer steps by connecting multiple iOS and Android mobile devices directly to your computer via USB.
Customised metadata APIs
Design layouts, dialogue boxes, game assets or game levels using a new set of JavaScript APIs. Assign properties to these elements as you create them in Flash Professional.
And so much more
Also includes: Enhancements for Adobe AIR application development workflows, error messages for JavaScript APIs and more.
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Located in a gorgeous flat valley just west of Boulder, Nederland was an ideal settling place for Native Americans and, later, trappers and hunters. Homesteaders arrived in the mid-1800's and by 1871 the town, know by then as "Middle Boulder," opened its first post office after the Boulder Canyon Road was constructed. In 1873, the Caribou Silver Mine was sold to a Dutch mining company called Nederland. When the town was founded in 1974, the community decided on the name Nederland. When the silver deposits were depleted just a few short years later, Nederland was little more than a mountain ghost town.
Nederland experienced another boom in mining in the early 1900s when tungsten was discovered surrounding Nederland. Tungsten is used to make steel. The town grew tremendously, then experiences another deflation as tungsten demand fell and the mountains became more accessible with the rise of personal automobiles.
In the 1960's, Nederland became a hotspot for hippies and in the 1990's the town began to grow again as people chose to enjoy the sleepy mountain town as a home and commute to jobs along the Front Range. The town is now a popular tourist location and is home to many thriving local businesses.
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text:
As search efforts intensify around the site of Washington state's devastating mudslide, geologists are looking into causes of the rapid collapse of the 1,500-foot-wide segment of hillside in Snohomish County that suddenly cut away and crushed the homes and roads below.
The chief culprit appears to have been the glacial composition of the hillside, which is made of silt, clay and soil, and very little rock, which tends to be very loose.
When these collapse they create something called a "rotational slide," meaning that the land turns on itself, with the base of the hills moving upward as the top collapses.
David Montgomery, a geologist at University of Washington explains the geological circumstances behind the mudslide.
- David Montgomery, professor of geology at University of Washington.
So what causes a devastating landslide like the one in Washington state? And can they be predicted? We turn now to Professor David Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington. He's with us from KUOW. Professor, welcome.
DAVID MONTGOMERY: Thank you.
HOBSON: Well, we've read in a 1999 report filed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that there was a warning of a potential for a large catastrophic failure on the hill where this slide occurred. So, based on that, should experts have been able to predict this?
MONTGOMERY: Well, that slide had happened before. There had been - that slide had moved before. This is one - the most recent reactivation of an active landslide. I don't think that people imagined that it could be as large as it went. The warning of a catastrophic landslide in the 1999 report at that site now seems prophetic. Looking at the geologic evidence in that valley, you can see evidence for that kind of an event having happened in the past across the valley.
But the recent slides on that site had not been as big, or gone as far. This is a reminder of just how violent landsliding can be, and how dangerous sites downslope of active landslides can turn.
HOBSON: So you're saying you could predict that there would be some kind of event, but you just have no idea how big it's going to be. And it could be quite small and not worth moving people out of the area for.
MONTGOMERY: Well, to deal with the first part, you could - it was inevitable that site would fail again in the future. How large it would be and when it would happen were open questions that nobody could address earlier. In hindsight, obviously, having a community living in that spot was not a terribly good idea. There can be sort of no debate about that at this point.
But how you make - how you translate those lessons to other areas that might be subject to similar hazards in the future is really the challenge of this for geologists and for those involved in land use regulation and planning. The hazard mitigation is not simply a scientific exercise. It involves how society interfaces with hazards. And this tragic event reminds us that landslide hazards - although one of the more underappreciated of natural hazards - really need to be in that mix and thought about and in terms of how we mitigate hazards as a society.
HOBSON: Well, what makes these hillsides in Snohomish County, where this landslide took place, so unstable?
MONTGOMERY: Well, you know, part of it is the glacial - the legacy of glaciation that deposited the sediments that make up that slope. That landscape is out of equilibrium. It's been responding to the post-glacial landscape evolution. You could consider it a glacial hangover, if you will. The river cutting down into these very loose, very weak sediments created the recipe for a very unstable slope that had failed in the past. And then we had a very, very, very wet winter this year. Those things all combining were a recipe for big slides. What's really hard to predict in advance, though, is which slides will actually fail in any given year or any storm.
HOBSON: So if you have a place like this that you know it's prone to a slide, it's had slides in the past, is there anything you can do to go in and reinforce it a little bit, so that it might not be so susceptible?
MONTGOMERY: Well, you know, the only real way to completely eliminate the hazard to people is to not have people living at the bottom of a slope like that. That - the demand of engineering that would - it would have taken to actually stabilize that particular slope is virtually unimaginable. This was a very large, very unstable slope. And, you know, you could conceivably do some work to try and reinforce the toe. There had been work to try and get the river from cutting into the toe of the landslide and taking out the buttressing at the bottom.
What more could've been done is, you know, in hindsight, perhaps not the right question to be asking in this case. Obviously, this was a terrible disaster and tragedy. Looking at the lessons that could be drawn from other sites and how we can prevent this from happening again is the lesson for geologists and planners and politicians and homeowners, people who'd be most affected by these events.
HOBSON: David Montgomery, professor of geology at the University of Washington, who's also the author of "The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood." Professor Montgomery, thanks so much.
MONTGOMERY: OK. Thank you.
HOBSON: This is HERE AND NOW. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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July/August 2010
Bruce Rashbaum, M.D.
I have been HIV-positive for almost four years and recently decided to go on medication because my T-cells dropped to 334 (they're now back up to 456 with an undetectable viral load).
Since starting my meds a few months ago (Truvada and Isentress), my total white blood cell count went from 6.4A (last September) to 2.8A now, and my neutrophil absolute count went from 3.81A to 1.09A in the same period. Is a decrease in white cells and neutrophils most likely from my medications, or from something else? I am worried that if my white cells are low I might develop some kind of infection or cancer or hyper auto-immune response. Can you help me understand what is happening?
-- John
Dear John,
First off, I agree with your doc that you need to be on medication to fight your HIV. In fact, I might have started you sooner. It has been well documented that patients tolerate ARV (antiretroviral) medications better when starting at a higher T-cell count, and they recover T-cells more quickly and typically more robustly when beginning therapy at an earlier stage.
You mentioned that your T-cell number dropped along with the drop in your white cell count. T-cell numbers are actually calculated from your total white blood cell (WBC) count, and so I would expect your number to be lower if your actual white cell count fell. The percentage of CD4s (T- cells) are also measured though, so that while the CD4 number fluctuates with changes in the WBC count, the percentage of CD4s often stays fairly consistent. So I would be curious as to what your percent change was, if there was any.
Neutropenia refers to a low level of a particular kind of WBC, the neutrophil. These cells are important because they help fight against bacterial infections. Severe neutropenia causes increased susceptibility to infections, usually with organisms normally found on the skin, in the nasopharynx, and as part of the intestinal flora. A worrisome value is when the absolute neutrophil count falls to less than 500 cells/mm3. The only HIV drug that has been associated with neutropenia is AZT. Yet any of the HIV drugs can cause an idiosyncratic or hypersensitive (allergic) reaction, manifesting as a drop in neutrophils.
Isentress has been associated uncharacteristically with neutropenia. Emtricitabine, one of the components of Truvada (along with tenofovir) has also been associated with neutropenia, but these associations are questionable. I think one concern today with HIV management is that even though we have recommended everyone with HIV be considered candidates for therapy, we may be too quick to use the newer agents before their definitive safety data has been more fully established. Isentress looks quite benign, for example, but there are more and more reports of elevated CPKs (a lab finding), muscle pains, and hypersensitivity reactions. Also, the inter- and intra-patient variability with Isentress levels is higher than with any other ARV agent. So if your T-cells continue to fall along with your neutrophil count, I would speak with your doctor about possibly changing your HIV drug regimen.
Neutropenia doesn't only result from medications. Infiltration of the bone marrow with a malignant process, connective tissue disease such as lupus, or an infection of the bone marrow with a virus like CMV (cytomegalovirus) can also lead to neutropenia. Typically there would be other signs and symptoms that would lead a clinician to suspect those types of causes.
With the rapid introduction of new HIV drugs, it is advisable for you or your doctor to consult the manufacturer, a drug information center, or even a poison control center when questions arise related to whether a certain drug may be suspected as a cause of your neutropenia.
Good luck -- I hope this information is helpful.
Bruce Rashbaum, M.D., A.A.H.I.V.S., is with Capitol Medical Associates, Washington, D.C.
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Ask Hanna Rosin Anything
The End of Men author and DoubleX co-founder is taking your questions on Reddit.
Hi. I'm Hanna Rosin, a writer for the Atlantic and an editor at Slate. I wrote The End of Men because I hate men. I really do. Of course I'm just saying that so that the angry commenters out there won't have to! (Who am I kidding, they're going to say it anyway.) I host Slate's DoubleX Gabfest with Allison Benedikt and Noreen Malone. We're doing a live show in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 13 with Slate's Dear Prudence columnist Emily Yoffe. Please come so my husband (Slate editor David Plotz) doesn't always get to brag about how many more people come to his show.
I've expressed my hatred of breastfeeding Nazis, my love of boxing, and my bafflement at arduinos. I have lots of opinions, but I'm not all that ideological, and my favorite stories I've written are the ones with the least bombast. I also wrote a book about Patrick Henry College, a school full of evangelical Christians trained to rule the world (including one former Miss America). I have never been chosen as Miss America or even Miss Delaware.


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Motorbike Accessories
Fast Bike Bits provides motorbike accessories and motorcycle parts for all bikers and scooter riders, including clothing, helmets, luggage, security, accessories, parts, service items and more.
Fast Bike Bits is a dedicated motorbike accessories website. We're here to help you find the right motorcycle accessories or parts for your motorcycle as easily as possible. Much of our motorbike bodywork is now broken down into motorbike manufacturer and motorbike model so you can search on your bike make and find the right motorcycle accessory you want.
Also, there are many new features, for example you can now see a complete history of any orders you place and the status that they hold right from order through to dispatch.


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€ 60,00
The Hasami Porcelain Bottle Black has clean cylinder shape, with a cork stop.
Hasami Porcelain
Hasami Porcelain is a collection of tableware existing of teapots, plates, bowls, mugs, and trays, made in Japan. Their signature clean shapes are repetitively made in similar and recurring diameters, making the individual items easy to stack freely. Hasami Porcelain uses the 85, 145, 185, 220 and 255mm diameter dimensions. This results in a beautiful esthetic view of the items in your cupboard, in the office pantry or kitchen.
Stacked and combined, the Hasami Porcelain pieces form a beautiful rhythmic harmony. The stacking mechanism, and the functionality of nesting, is inspired by tiered boxes – traditional lacquer ware – used in Japanese cuisine. This way plates also become lids for bowls; all pieces of the collection are multifunctional and complementary to each other.
Back-order Hasami Porcelain at Misc-store
Back-ordering is available for all Hasami Porcelain items at Misc-Store. This means it it possible to place an order the exceeds our current stock. Please note pre-orders take longer to process – expected delivery time is 2 weeks. Don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any further questions.
This porcelain is made with the traditional technique of pouring liquid clay into plaster molds and is than fired at very high temperatures making the porcelain strong and durable. More importantly, it is suitable for dishwasher and mircowave usage.
Hasami Porcelain – Made in Japan
A mixture of porcelain substance and clay, at a specific ratio, is used to create Hasami Porcelain. The charm of Hasami Porcelain is that this unique recipe creates a more textured surface that has a distinctly more organic feel than that of regular porcelain. The matte texture and color, which are characteristic to the material, create a soft an natural look and feel.
Please note: due to the raw materials used, the colors of the product of the Hasami Porcelain Natural series may slightly differ from the picture.
Hasami Porcelain x Misc-store Amsterdam
At Misc-store in Amsterdam, we carry the various designs of Hasami Porcelain in two finishes: Natural and Clear. Natural is the characteristic raw finishing of Hasami Porcelain. Their signature color and texture is directly derived from the unique material combination the porcelain is made of. Between kiln firings, the colour may slightly differ. The Clear pieces are glazed with a with a transparant glaze, creating a fine smooth surface without hiding the beauty underneath.
These two variations of porcelain finishes are accompanied by the Hasami Porcelain wooden trays. Also the wooden trays are made in the exact fitting dimensions to function as lids and serving trays for the porcelain pieces.
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Paper Rosy Dory Fish Blue
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Apple Announces $100 Billion Capital Return Program
Today's financial recap and tomorrow's financial outlook.
The three economic reports in the US showed manufacturing data continuing to weaken while new home sales continued their modest uptrend. Markit preliminary US PMI fell to 52.0 from last month's 54.6, well below the 53.9 consensus. The drop was due to significant drops in new orders, employment, and output. Similarly, the Richmond regional manufacturing index dropped to -6 from 3 the month prior on drops in new orders, employment, and capacity utilization. March new home sales rose 1.5% month-over-month to an annualized rate of 417,000, up from 411,000 in February.
Global economic data was not great. The eurozone composite PMI was unchanged month-to-month at a reading of 46.5, but more worrisome was the significant drop in German manufacturing PMI to 47.9 from February's 49. Similarly, Chinese flash manufacturing PMI fell to 50.5 in April from 51.6 the month prior. The Chinese Shanghai Composite Index fell 2.57% in overnight trading.
After the close, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) reported earnings. For the EPS and revenue numbers, both beat, but forward revenue guidance for the 2Q left much to be desired. However, the company increased its buyback plan by $50 billion to $60 billion, leaving $59 billion yet unpurchased, and increased its dividend by 15%. To fund such a large buyback and dividend plan, the company will issue debt. Apple received a AA+ reading from S&P.
Tomorrow's Financial Outlook
Tomorrow is an equally busy day in terms of both economic data and earnings reports. In the morning, we have March durable goods orders and capital goods orders. Durable goods orders will show a large headline number due to a decline in Boeing's (BA) aircraft shipments, but the more important ex transports number is expected to show a 0.6% gain. Given the fact that manufacturing surveys for March were generally weaker, we would expect this number to miss to the downside.
On the US earnings front, it will again be a busy day with more than 20 companies reporting. Notable reports include Virgin Media (VMED), Hess (HES), Ford (F), Sprint (S), Boeing, Qualcomm (QCOM), Zynga (ZNGA), and Fusion-io (FIO).
On the calendar for global economic data is Australian consumer inflation and German economic expectations via the IFO Institute. Australian consumer inflation is expected to increase annually to 2.4% from 2.3%.
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The following recall has been announced:
DETAILS: High-powered magnet desk toys imported by Reiss Innovations LLC of Manchester, Conn., and manufactured by Global Goler Co. Limited of Guangdong, China; sold exclusively at Amazon.com and Dynocube.com from July 2011 through April 2012. The high-powered magnet sets were sold under the DynoCube.com brand name for use as a novelty item or desk toy. Each set contains 216 small, silver-colored, spherical magnets that are approximately 5 millimeters in diameter.
WHY: When two or more magnets are swallowed, they can link together inside a child's intestines and clamp onto body tissues, causing intestinal obstructions, perforations, sepsis and death. Internal injury from magnets can pose serious lifelong health effects.
INCIDENTS: Reiss Innovations has received no reports of incidents or injuries.
HOW MANY: About 500.
FOR MORE: Contact Reiss Innovations at 866-212-8314 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or visit the firm's website online at http://www.dynocube.com .


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Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories
The Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University announces hours for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The museum will be closed Wednesday, Nov. 21, Thursday, Nov. 22 (Thanksgiving day), Friday, Nov. 23, and Saturday, Nov. 24. It will be open on Sunday, Nov. 25, from 1 to 5 p.m.
The Castellani Art Museum is a place to bring out-of-town visitors and family members over the long weekend. A variety of exhibitions are on display this weekend, including "(Re-) Making Irish Lace"; "WNY Collects: Arnold Mesches; The Picturesque and War: Visual and Literary Aspects of 19th Century Niagara Tourism"; and "TopSpin10: The 10 Year TopSpin Retrospective." The museum also features "Freedom Crossing: The Underground Railroad in Greater Niagara," and the museum shop offers a variety of holiday gifts.
Admission is free. For more information, call 716-286-8200 or visit www.castellaniartmuseum.org.


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Liz Brenner had 17 kills and 17 digs to help fifth-seeded Oregon sweep the final three sets and upset top-seeded Penn State on Thursday night in the NCAA women's volleyball semifinals.
The Ducks (30-4) won 21-25, 30-28, 25-22, 25-19 to advance to the title game Saturday night against third-seeded Texas, a five-set winner over unseeded Michigan.
Alaina Bergsma and Katherine Fischer each had 16 kills for the Ducks, who are appearing in their first Final Four. Bergsma added 15 digs, Fischer 12 as Oregon was 63 percent on team attacks.
"I'm probably not supposed to say this, but I have no idea how we won that match because they are really good," Oregon coach Jim Moore said about the Nittany Lions.
Ariel Scott had 18 kills for Penn State (33-3).
Oregon beat Penn State for the second straight season. The Ducks won last season's opener over the Nittany Lions, ending their 94-match home winning streak.
This time, the Ducks ended the Nittany Lions' bid to win their fifth national title in six years.
Of course, Oregon had many of its owns strengths to speak of.
The Ducks entered the game leading the nation in team kills per set (15.97) and team assists (14.91). Most of that was due to Oregon's mix of quickness and improvisation that won all but two sets in the tournament.
Penn State nonetheless presented a huge challenge, having lost just one tournament set coming in. Size and movement had a lot to do with the Nittany Lions' domination this season, though it took some work to put away Oregon in the first set.
There were five lead changes and 14 ties in the opening frame, the last at 20-20 as the Nittany Lions got a point off an attack error. Penn State scored four in a row off Oregon mistakes and won it on a Katie Slay kill on an assist from Micha Hancock, the All-American setter.
Oregon controlled most of the second set, building a 20-10 lead as Penn State struggled on offense and defense. The Nittany Lions also played for a stretch without Hancock, who turned her left ankle after coming down on Fischer's foot.
But Penn State tied the set with a 14-4 run and traded the lead with Oregon before the Ducks finally won it on Brenner's kill.
Oregon led 19-16 in the third but Penn State rallied to tie the game at 19 and again at 21. A bad set from Penn State's Dominique Gonzalez gave Oregon the go-ahead point before Fischer added two kills for a 24-22 lead and the eventual set win.
Oregon's serve befuddled Penn State throughout but especially in the final two games, as the Nittany Lions struggled to set up opportunities and seemed out of place for many returns.
"I thought we had a few opportunities in the second game that we let slip away," Penn State coach Russ Rose said. "I just think we lost a lot of confidence and steam at that point."
Texas won the first semifinal 25-11, 21-25, 23-25, 25-12, 15-11.
Bailey Webster had 18 kills and Haley Eckerman added 16 for the Longhorns.
Texas (28-4) dominated the first and fourth sets and took a 4-0 lead in the final set before Michigan tied it at 8. After a timeout, the Longhorns won three straight points and held off the Wolverines.
"The fans got their money's worth. What a battle," Texas coach Jerritt Elliott said.
"I've been saying it, that we're good in the crunch. You never see them give up. Even though we give up games, you can just see that they stay in their routine and just battle."
Sarah Palmer had a career-high 31 digs for the Longhorns, 3-0 lifetime against the Wolverines.
Junior outside hitter Lexi Erwin had 26 kills and a career-high 87 attempts for unseeded Michigan (27-12), which was appearing in its first Final Four. Senior captain Claire McElheny added 15 kills and had a .419 hitting percentage.
Texas entered the semifinals having won 21 of 22 matches since a 6-3 start that included a loss to Penn State. That roll earned the Longhorns their fourth Final Four berth in the past five years with a bigger goal of closing the deal after blowing a 2-0 lead and losing to Penn State in the 2009 final.
The Longhorns wasted no time carrying out their strategy, using their size and power to dominate the first set.
Webster had six kills, Khat Bell four and Eckerman three as Texas mounted several runs and put the set out of reach with seven straight points for a 14-5 lead. A 5-2 run clinched the 25-11 win for the Longhorns, with Webster adding two kills while their defense deny the Wolverines at the net.
Unfazed, Michigan improved its attack and won the next two sets with several small scoring spurts that provided a cushion against Texas.
Texas quickly seized the momentum and ran away with the fourth set with left-side help from Webster. Her presence created matchup problems for Michigan and the Longhorns took advantage for a .455 attack percentage en route to a dominating 25-12 win.
Having found their rhythm, the Longhorns grabbed the early advantage in the fifth set and didn't flinch after the Wolverines tied the set.
Michigan's loss ended a resilient run to its first Final Four, one that included overcoming several losing streaks before turning things around late in the season. The Wolverines definitely had found their groove over the past month, beating conference rival Michigan State twice and upending Stanford in the Berkeley Regional final.


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Diplomacy is an excellent alternative to war, even when its byzantine twists, rhetorical and otherwise, remain mostly mysterious to those not born to wear a pin-striped suit and a Brahmin's poker face.
It's so mysterious, in fact, that even the Scandinavian sages who annually award the Nobel Peace Prize for "the best work for fraternity between nations" bestowed it upon Henry Kissinger amidst the Vietnam War and Barack Obama when he had been president for just a few months and had engaged in very little foreign policy.
These peacemakers, they move in such understated ways. Perhaps nothing should surprise us. Still, it came as a shock that what had looked to be an impending shooting war involving the United States and Syria over the issue of chemical weapons has apparently been replaced by a diplomatic initiative spearheaded by our nation's frequent global adversary, Russia, and our own diplomats.
Last week at this time, just as President Obama was trying and failing to raise national support for an air strike, the proposal to get the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad to voluntarily relinquish its chemical weapons was first made by the Russians.
This week, after shuttle diplomacy by Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterparts, with a lot of advice from American allies from Britain to France to Israel thrown in, there is an actual agreement to deal with the Syrian chemical stockpile through negotiation, inspection, removal and supervised destruction rather than through Tomahawk missiles or drone strikes.
So, two cheers for diplomacy. If the swift punishment for a genocidal crime against both a people and international law isn't being delivered, to the extent that what we're seeing in the Middle East is the usual proxy war with the threat of involving superpowers, we should all be relieved.
Talk therapy has, for the moment, won the day.
Even a tough guy like a former Israeli chief of military intelligence goes so far as to call it "a win-win-win-win for Russia, the United States, Syria and Israel." That, Amos Yadlin, is a lot of wins.
The editorial board said last week that it's time to try to make diplomacy work, and it may be that it has.
But it's hardly being unduly skeptical to note that this is the very same Russia that, when originally presented with the physical evidence that chemical weapons had been used in Syria, declined against all logic to believe in that evidence.
And suddenly it now not only believes the banned agents that killed some 1,400 Syrians exist — it wants to help oversee their removal and destruction?
That's quite a philosophical turnaround. It's also quite possibly a simple attempt to buy time for Russia's ally in Damascus. Because the Russians still insist that perhaps it was the rebels who used the gas to kill their own sympathizers.
Now that the diplomatic dance is underway, and the fine points about who will decide if and when all the chemicals and the ability to produce more are being worked out, it can't be ignored that the threat of airstrikes may have been key in making them unnecessary.
That threat can't be taken off the table if we want diplomacy to work. And if chemicals were to be used again, the consequences should be wholly clear.


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Since its inception in 1992, when it was conceived as a business venture, the Premier League has been mindful of its conservative corporate image. And equally, there have been those who refused to tow the line. But, with more and more money pouring into the game, the renegades are disappearing, silenced, lest their words and deeds kill the golden goose. And for me that threatens the personality of the league.
As I said, it wasn't always the case. Once upon a not so long ago the league was peppered with players who made a trademark out of their notoriety. Roy Keane, Paul Gascoigne, Eric Cantona, Vinnie Jones, El Hadji Diouf, Duncan Ferguson, Paulo Di Canio, Robbie Savage and the like were all explosive personalities, on and sometimes off the field.
And, whether or not you disapproved of their antics, you couldn't help watching, if only to see what they'd do next.
Obviously, if you subscribe to the view that footballers should be role models you'll regard such players as unlamented dinosaurs. And clearly, from the way the likes of John Terry, Joey Barton, and Luis Suarez have been vilified in recent times, there's a groundswell of opinion that says infamy is something the game is better off without.
But, while lily-white is the color of choice at the moment, I wonder how many people secretly yearn for that hint of gray that made for such an interesting contrast in days gone by? After all, the essence of good drama is conflict, and you can't have a hero without a villain.
Clearly, there have to be boundaries, and it goes without saying that nigh on criminal assaults, like Keane's career-ending tackle on Manchester City's Alifie Haaland in 2001, crossed the line. But while not wishing to endorse the deranged, the shock value of some pantomime villainy can sometimes be enticing, if only for its curiosity value -- a premise on which all tabloid journalism is built.
Personally, I loved Cantona, kung fu kick and all, because he was so enigmatic and visceral. "Sometimes in life one experiences an emotion which is so strong that it is difficult to think, or to reason," he said, in reference to one of his many controversies. Imagine that in today's choreographed, media-trained, pre-fabricated environment.
And he wasn't the only free spirited renegade. For example, I couldn't tell you the scoreline in Sheffield Wednesday's 1998 game with Arsenal but I can remember every frame of Paulo Di Canio's infamous push on the referee. Outrageous? Yes, but that and other misdemeanors certainly made the Italian unforgettable. And then there was Vinnie Jones and his notorious 1992 "Hard Man" video in which he dispensed "how to" advice to potential hackers -- Bad concept, bad advice, great entertainment.
But I know this is no more than a nostalgia trip, because England's top flight will never again celebrate its pariahs. For all its issues -- match-fixing, racism, etc. the game today aspires to operate in an environment that's hermetically sealed; an idealistic safety-first world where sponsors much prefer bland over colorful. That's one of the reasons Balotelli was such a Manchester misfit. He was a throwback -- a guilty pleasure, a rebel without a pause, and they are no longer tolerated.


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MOSCOW, Idaho -- Roughly 700 members of the Idaho FFA are on the University of Idaho campus this week working to develop their careers.
Career Development Events (CDEs) are competitions for students. They have been working in the classroom all year round under Supervised Agricultural Experiences, said Daniel Heikkila, state vice president for Idaho FFA from Meridian, Idaho, and Pocatello, Idaho.
"This is the progress report for the year," Heikkila said of CDE state competitions.
A student might compete in such CDEs as livestock judging, dairy foods, forestry, veterinary or agronomy.
Eventually, CDEs will hopefully be applied to a career, Heikkila said, noting he's used skills from his time in a few jobs while going to school, including rewiring outlets or welding repair.
David Gutierrez and Andrew Tibbets, both seniors from Burley, Idaho, were on hand to compete in the mechanics CDE.
"These past two weeks have been nothing but practice, practice, practices," Gutierrez said. He's been in the FFA since the eighth grade, doing electrical work. Gutierrez planned to compete in electricity and tool identification.
Gutierrez said his time in FFA has helped prepare him for college and learn to be a leader.
"Any activity is a leadership training experience," he said.
This was Tibbets' first year in FFA, competing in the small engines CDE.
"From day one, I just loved it," he said. "I've just enjoyed all of the awesome people who are so down-to-earth. It has really taught me to work a lot harder and to be passionate about what I like."
Cameron Pickett, employment coordinator for Western States Equipment, one of the sponsors of the event, said he works with schools throughout the year to recruit future employees, particularly diesel technicians.
Pickett said there is a shortage of skills in the trade, and so his company partnered with FFA to develop and build its own talented employee pool.
FFA members have the work ethic and attitude the company is looking for for the people side of its business, Pickett said.
Top placers in the CDEs go onto FFA nationals, held in Louisville, Ky., beginning Oct. 30.


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As Tom Joscelyn notes, Newsweek's Mark Hosenball says the Inspector General's report and other recently-released documents pertaining to Bush-era interrogations of top al Qaeda operatives do not show that waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) "actually worked." Hosenball concedes that the detainees gave up a treasure trove of valuable intelligence, but the documents do not "convincingly demonstrate" that the EITs "produced this useful information." Joscelyn fears that this is likely to be the new conventional wisdom on the documents and find it wrong. He takes it apart in detail here.
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"Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof." Inscription on the Liberty Bell


text:
A new feature from Google Maps will help you plan your next roadtrip:
The core Google Maps service has improved its directions feature by allowing you to enter more than 2 locations to plot directions between. Now when you plot directions between 2 points a link appears at the bottom of the instructions to the left labeled "Add Destination".
Click this link to enter more places to add to your route plotting. It doesn't appear to have a limit for the number of locations you can add and it will also auto-complete places from your 'Saved Locations' area if you have this feature enabled. This looks to be active for most Google Maps countries: USA, Canada, UK & Ireland, Japan, Germany, Spain, France and Italy. Perhaps the next feature addition will help NASA plot directions from Earth, the Moon.. then Mars! :)


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WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. John McCain insisted he is "more pro-Russian" than President Vladimir Putin, accusing Putin of corruption, repression and self-serving rule in an opinion piece for a Russian news website answering the Russian leader's broadside last week in The New York Times.
"I am pro-Russian, more pro-Russian than the regime that misrules you today," McCain wrote. "I make that claim because I respect your dignity and your right to self-determination."
"President Putin doesn't believe in these values because he doesn't believe in you," McCain wrote. "He doesn't believe that human nature at liberty can rise above its weaknesses and build just, peaceful, prosperous societies. Or, at least, he doesn't believe Russians can. So he rules by using those weaknesses, by corruption, repression and violence. He rules for himself, not you," McCain wrote.
In an op-ed headlined "Russians deserve better than Putin," McCain singled out Putin and his associates for punishing dissent, specifically the death in prison of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The Russian presidential human rights council found in 2011 that Magnitsky, who had accused Russian officials of colluding with organized criminals, had been beaten and denied medical treatment.
McCain also criticized Putin for siding with Syrian President Bashar Assad in the 2½-year civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people.
McCain's opinion piece was published Thursday on the news website Pravda.ru, a website established by former Pravda journalists. The newspaper Pravda is an organ of the Communist Party and is no longer an influential or widely read newspaper, in contrast to its huge presence in the Soviet Union's media landscape.
McCain assailed Putin and his associates for writing laws that codify bigotry, specifically legislation on sexual orientation. A new Russian law imposes fines and up to 15 days in prison for people accused of spreading "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" to minors.
On Syria, McCain said Putin is siding with a tyrant.
"He is not enhancing Russia's global reputation. He is destroying it. He has made her a friend to tyrants and an enemy to the oppressed, and untrusted by nations that seek to build a safer, more peaceful and prosperous world," the Arizona senator said.
McCain also criticized the imprisonment of the punk rock band Pussy Riot. The three women were convicted of hooliganism after staging an anti-Putin protest inside a Russian Orthodox Church.
The article by McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, comes just days after the U.S. and Russian officials reached an ambitious agreement that calls for an inventory of Syria's chemical weapons program within a week and its complete eradication by mid-2014. Diplomatic wrangling continues, however.
In his own op-ed last week, Putin blamed opposition forces for the latest deadly chemical weapons attack in Syria and argued President Barack Obama's remarks about America were self-serving. Putin also wrote in the Times that it was dangerous for America to think of itself as exceptional, a reference to comments Obama had made.
McCain was not the first U.S. lawmaker to respond to Putin. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., wrote in a piece for the Moscow Times about the suppression of the Russian people and the disregard for basic human rights.


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The percentage of Marion County residents younger than 65 who don't have health insurance dropped by 3.3 percentage points between 2006 and 2011.
The percentage of Marion County residents younger than 65 who don't have health insurance dropped by 3.3 percentage points between 2006 and 2011, according to the latest Census statistics.
In 2006, 27.5 percent of Marion residents in that age group had no health insurance. That was down to 24.2 percent by 2011, the latest year for which full statistics are available.
Statewide, 24.8 percent of Floridians younger than 65 had no health insurance in 2011. That was the second-highest rate in the nation behind only Texas (25.7 percent.)
Hendry County (35 percent) had the highest uninsured rate in Florida, with St. Johns County (15.4 percent) registering the lowest, according to the Associated Press.
Marion County's percentage wasn't a surprise to Kerrie Jones Clark, executive director of the Heart of Florida Health Center in Ocala. The center provides primary care, pediatric dental and psychiatric/mental health services to all Marion residents, but particularly the poor and uninsured.
Clark said she suspects the 24 percent rate is still accurate in 2013, as well.
The uninsured rate is significant, she said, "because there's a direct correlation" between access to primary care — which is one of the chief benefits of having health insurance — and the ability to manage overall health, manage chronic conditions and ensure healthy pregnancies.
The uninsured rate is among the many statistics considered in the annual "county health ranking" report from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
In the most recent report, issued earlier this year, Marion ranked 48th out of 67 Florida counties for mortality and morbidity and 44th in other health-related behaviors.
Clark said she reminds city and county leaders that providing benefits packages — not just hiring a certain number of workers — should be an important requirement for companies that seek economic development incentives from government.
The "younger than 65" metric is significant because people age 65 and older qualify for Medicare.
Florida lawmakers recently passed on a chance to expand Medicaid, which is a state-federal insurance program for the poor.


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BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's government and rebels on Wednesday both demanded an international investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack, as the country's feared arsenal became the latest propaganda tool in the 2-year-old civil war.
President Barack Obama said the United States is investigating whether chemical weapons have been deployed in Syria, but noted that he is "deeply skeptical" of claims by President Bashar Assad's regime that rebel forces were behind such an attack.
"Once we establish the facts, I have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game changer," Obama said in a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.
The use of chemical weapons by either side is a nightmare scenario. Along with its warnings about Assad, the West is just as concerned that rebel forces, including some linked to al-Qaida, could get their hands on Syria's chemical weapons supplies.
Despite the importance, any clear confirmation of the nature of the attack that took place Tuesday in the northern village of Khan al-Assal, killing at least 31 people, is unlikely. Syria's government seals off areas it controls to journalists and outside observers.
The two sides blamed each other for a chemical attack without offering clear proof or documentation, as has frequently been the case in the Syrian civil war.
If confirmed, it would be the first time a chemical weapon has been used in Syria's war that has already killed an estimated 70,000 people.
Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Jaafari told reporters at the United Nations Wednesday that he had asked U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to form "a specialized, independent and neutral technical mission to investigate the use by the terrorist groups operating in Syria of chemical weapons" in Khan al-Assal.
Jaafari called the attack "very serious and alarming and unacceptable and unethical."
U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said he would have something to say "once we receive any formal request, which we have so far not received." He said the secretary-general remains convinced that the use of chemical weapons by any party under any circumstances would constitute "an outrageous crime."
Syria's main opposition group also demanded an international investigation.
"All evidence now indicates that the Assad regime is using these weapons against its own people," the main Western-backed opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, said.
"The Coalition demands a full international investigation, and asks for a delegation to be sent to inquire and visit the site," the group said in a statement.
Obama has declared the use, deployment or transfer of the weapons to be his "red line" for possible military intervention in the Arab country.
"When you start seeing weapons that can cause potential devastation and mass casualties and you let that genie out of the bottle, then you are looking at potentially even more horrific scenes than we've already seen in Syria," Obama said in Jerusalem, "and the international community has to act on that information."
Russia and Iran, Assad's main allies, backed his regime's charges.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast blamed "armed opposition groups," calling use of chemical weapons "an inhuman act."
"Undoubtedly, the responsibilities of a repetition of such crimes would fall on those committing it and the countries that support them," he was quoted by state TV as saying, apparently referring to Gulf states such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia
"There's definitely a propaganda war between the regime and opposition," said Ayham Kamel, a Middle East analyst at the Eurasia Group in London.
"Because we cannot verify either claims, we are going to be stuck in the same cycle of accusations, unless some international mission is actually sent there to verify what happened," he said.
Jordan's king warned Wednesday that an extremist Islamic state could form on his border.
King Abdullah II told The Associated Press in an interview that in his view, Assad was beyond rehabilitation, and it was only a matter of time before his authoritarian regime collapses.
"The most worrying factors in the Syrian conflict are the issues of chemical weapons, the steady flow or sudden surge in refugees and a jihadist state emerging out of the conflict," the king said.
The opposition's disunity was on display again Wednesday.
About a dozen members of the Syrian National Coalition suspended their membership a day after it elected the first rebel prime minister.
Among them were senior members including Suheir Atassi, Kamal Labwani, and spokesman Waleed al-Bunni.
Atassi said explained why she suspended her membership. "I refuse to be a follower and I refuse to be simply a woman who decorates their gatherings and conferences while they make all the decisions," she wrote on her Facebook page.
Coalition members have complained of the dominance of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood in the SNC, and Hitto was one of the top Brotherhood candidates.
In fighting Wednesday, activists reported intense clashes in the Quneitra region on the cease-fire line between Syria and Israel in the Golan Heights.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels seized control of parts of villages a few kilometers (miles) from the cease-fire line after fierce fighting with regime forces.
It said seven people, including three children, were killed by government shelling villages.
Activists on Facebook pages affiliated with rebels in Quneitra announced the start of the operation to "break the siege on Quneitra and Damascus' western suburbs."
The fall of Quneitra in rebel hands would be significant because it is close to the Israeli frontier.
Israel has said its policy is not to get involved in the Syrian civil war, but it has retaliated to sporadic Syrian fire that has spilled over into Israeli communities in the Golan Heights.
Also Wednesday, Assad made a rare public appearance, visiting a fine arts school in Damascus and meeting the parents of students who were killed in the civil war, state TV reported.
Photos run by the Syrian state media showed Assad shaking hands and listening closely to people who were said to be parents of war victims. It was his first appearance outside his palace since January, when he delivered a speech.
"All of Syria is wounded, and there is no one who hasn't lost a relative, a brother, a father or a mother," Assad said, according to the official news agency SANA.
"However, all that is happening cannot make us weak, and the battle is a battle of will and steadfastness," he added.
Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Ben Hubbard in Beirut, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Donna Cassata in Washington and Jamal Halaby in Amman contributed.


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Family businesses face a special set of challenges
- July 1, 2008
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by Edward D. Hess
Family businesses are a major part of the U.S. economy. Eighty percent or more of all businesses in the United States are family controlled. In addition, more than 60 percent of the U.S. work force works for a family business, according to the Family Business Review. Family businesses embody our country's entrepreneurial spirit and represent the hopes and dreams of many for financial independence and family enrichment.
What makes managing family businesses challenging is the added complexity of family dynamics. Consciously or subconsciously, these businesses factor in the family's needs and emotional issues in making business decisions. These extra elements can include sibling rivalries, jealousies, and competition for parental love, approval and financial favor. Family ways of communicating and generational differences also can contribute to the difficulty of trying to manage the business and the family successfully.
And what is success for a family business? Successful legacy family businesses do not let the family destroy the business or the business destroy the family.
My 25 years of working with family businesses has taught me that:
1) Your chances of having a successful multi-generational family business will be greater if you proactively and pre-emptively manage both the business and the family. Family issues will occur. It is best to deal with them openly and directly instead of trying to avoid them. Avoidance only builds resentment and creates more emotional baggage;
2) In order to manage a multi-generational family business successfully you need to understand that, as the family expands and ages, the emotional and financial needs of its members will change with their life circumstances. These changes will put stress on the business. Many problems are predictable and occur in almost all family businesses. Common issues involve inter-generational and intra-generational equity in the company (concerns about position, power, money and leadership) and financial equity between family members working in the business and those who are not.
3) To manage a multi-generational family business successfully you need a process that encourages frequent family communications about the business and sets forth a procedure for raising, discussing, and resolving business issues in a respectful, fair and inclusive manner;
4) The process should be based on four fundamental principles: transparency, inclusiveness, consistency and fairness. Spouses of family members should be included even if they have no direct ownership in the business;
5) The process should also reinforce key family values. These values (such as respect, humility, stewardship, integrity, equity, etc. ) will be the overriding factors in mitigating jealousies, rivalries and personal financial self-interest;
6) Unlike some other businesses, family businesses cannot be managed in a hierarchical, top-down, command-and-control manner;
7) The manner in which family members have input and communicate with each other is as important as the answer to any particular issue; and
8) Family business issues are difficult. They need time for incubation and consensus building. Many do not lend themselves to an entrepreneurial business-decision style.
A family and a business are two dynamic, evolving, changing organisms. Each is unique, and each has it own challenges. It is this constant change — the evolution of the family and the evolution of the business — that creates a continuous flow of multi-generational family business issues. They need to be managed proactively in order to increase the probability of the business remaining successful and the family remaining harmonious.


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In 2004, during his first debate with President Bush, John Kerry argued that U.S. foreign policy should be subjected to a "global test.†This piece of advocacy, the closest thing to a defining moment in the four debates that year, reinforced suspicions that Kerry's foreign policy would not put American interests first. These suspicions, in turn, probably cost Kerry dearly.
It's pretty clear that Barack Obama also favors a "global test.†How can one construe his persistent promise to "repair†America's image with the rest of the world other than as a promise to adjust our policies to conform to the preferences of the rest of the world? Indeed, Obama spoke explicitly during Friday's debate about adopting policies that will "send a message to the world."
Obama cannot even assert his patriotism other than in global terms. At the end of the debate, in what was obviously intended to be a big finish, Obama spoke of how his African father during the 1960s wanted more than anything else to come to America to study. Obama then claimed that "children around the world†no longer hold us in the same esteem. The clear implication was that our policies are to blame.
Obama thus intends to adjust our policies so that folks like his father will want to come to the U.S. Call it an African students' test.
Like much of what comes out of Obama's mouth, this particular "dream from his father†is rubbish. First, Obama's father didn't come to the U.S. in the 1960s; he came in 1959 (Obama, it seems, has played fast-and-loose with these facts before, claiming falsely that his father came here after the Kennedys decided to do an educational "airliftâ€). Second, at that time the U.S. was vastly unpopular throughout much of the world ("the ugly American†and all that). Third, if Obama really believes that African students no longer want to come to the U.S., he has been spending too much time in limos and not enough time on the streets (and in the taxis) of Washington, D.C. and other major cities.
But though Obama's yarn tells little about his father, its use during Obama's patriotism pitch tells us much about the candidate. For Obama, patriotism means making the U.S. more popular by bringing us more into line with the rest of the world. At best, this concept of patriotism drains most of the meaning from the word; at worst, it stands patriotism on its head.
But don't expect Obama's embrace of the global test to hurt his candidacy, as it did Kerry's. It's not that Americans agree with Obama; were Americans to vote up or down on this test, they would reject it. But I doubt that the electorate sees itself as voting up or down on the global test or any other Democratic doctrine. This election is becoming a referendum on the Republican party, and that's very good news for Barack Obama and for the global test 2.0.
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Dean Guitar Day @ Dolphin Music Shops!
Our Liverpool and Huddersfield shops are hosting Dean Guitar Demo days in the upcoming weeks...
Dean rocks. Dolphin rocks. And YOU rock as well, don't you? So let''s get together and rock even harder! We are organizing two cool events in the upcoming weeks, to showcase some of our new Dean stock, including some very cool limited-edition guitars.
Dean's top guitar dude Matt Speed will be at hand to show how those babes should be used, and you can also expect prizes and special offers on the day of those events.
Dean Guitar Day in Huddersfield: Saturday 14th March
The first of our Dean events is taking place on 14th March at our Huddersfield Shop. Register to let us know your coming on the day and be automatically registered to win a Dean guitar goodybag that can be collected on the day. Just email our Huddersfield shop: email@example.com our ring them on 01484 427455.
Also on the day we have a huge selection of guitars including ltd edition models, all with massive savings for this day only, and all available on the Take It Away 10 months interest free finance.
Show us you're worth a Dime and ring us early to book your place as numbers are stictly limited!
Dean Guitar Day in Liverpool: Saturday 18th April
One day is not enough! So we're having another Dean Guitar Demo day, this time in our Liverpool shop. Expect the usual: freebies, special offers, some cool new Dean guitars and Matt Speed doing his thing. More details to be announced near the date.
Come - it's going to ROCK!


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Partnership for a Healthier America: Making the Healthy Choice, the Easy Choice
The inaugural summit of the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), "Building a Healthier Future," was held this week in Washington, DC. The PHA was established as a parallel to First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign to eliminate childhood obesity in one generation. I was fortunate to represent Sierra Club's Mission Outdoors initiative at the summit as one of few representatives from the environmental community.
The summit's message was clear: we must make the healthy choice, the easy choice. With over 800 industry and civic leaders, primarily from the health sector, I was there to contribute a voice for the role our urban, state and national green spaces (as well as dedicated mentors) play in encouraging childhood physical activity and wellness. Our mission is "outdoors," and we are finding that there are innumerable co-benefits to the health and wellbeing of our children from the work we and many of our partners are doing to connect kids with nature. And the health community is beginning to recognize our contributions, as well.
Throughout the two-day summit, I was reinvigorated by some of our most distinguished leaders. PHA's honorary vice-chairs, Former US Senate Majority Leader William Frist and Newark Mayor Cory Booker, kicked off the opening session, announcing their commitment to work to build a healthier future. Booker had the crowd rolling with a tale about the time someone told him that what he wanted to do was impossible. Then he got serious and let us know that the "greatest threat to democracy in America is the health and wellbeing of our children," and reminded us that "change will not roll in on the train of inevitability."
Throughout the two days, I participated in break out sessions addressing the sedentary lives of children. The Executive Director of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, Shellie Pfohl led a session called "not every energy crisis is about oil; getting our kids moving again." She challenged us to think more collectively about the commitments that need to be made to get kids off the couch, away from the television and physically active again. One of the ideas on the table was the establishment of the National Physical Activity Plan for Kids, which would be an extension of the National Physical Activity Plan (Sierra Club co-chairs an advocacy strategy around Parks, Recreation, Fitness and Sports for the Plan).
The summit ended on a high note, with closing remarks by PHA's honorary chair, First Lady Michelle Obama. Mrs. Obama reminded us of some of the sobering statistics:
- One in three children is overweight or obese, with higher prevalence in low-income communities
- One-fourth of American kids play outside, down from three-fourths of all children just one generation ago
- Only about half of all young people have playgrounds, parks or even sidewalks in their neighborhoods
- Obesity has become one of the greatest threats to our national security as nearly 27% of 17-24 year olds are too heavy to serve in the military and additional training to ensure servicemen and women are combat ready is costing our country millions of dollars
Following a good reality check, the First Lady also instilled in the crowd the hope and motivation to tackle the challenge of childhood obesity. Appealing to a common sense of nostalgia for those of us over thirty years old, the First Lady conjured up images of the time when we were kids and we played outside and didn't come home until dinner time. She encouraged us to "make play cool again," and to dig deeper into our individual and collective abilities to help kids have healthier and more active lives.
The summit made me proud to work for the Sierra Club and the commitment our organization has made to connecting kids and families from all walks of life (including our nation's youngest heroes – military kids) with the wonders of the natural world where they can be inspired and physically active. Visit our website to learn more about how you can contribute to getting kids moving again in nature.
--Jacqueline Ostfeld, National Youth Representative, Sierra Club