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Skip to comments.The Fiscal Cliff And The Keyser Soze Option
Posted on 11/08/2012 9:33:30 PM PST by Redcloak
Movies often serve as a useful shorthand for how to address some of lifes issues. In the movie Usual Suspects, Keyser Soze is confronted with the fact that his wife and children would be an impediment in dealing with his business competitors. In a way the House GOP finds itself in the same position as Keyser Soze. Our home has been invaded. Our family despoiled. And we are facing a never ending series of ever increasing demands from the criminals who have abused us.
Sometimes the only way out of a dilemma is by clearing the table and starting again from scratch. At midnight on December 21, 2012 the United States will be faced with what is being called the fiscal cliff. In short this cliff is composed of several parts.
1. The payroll tax reduction passed in 2010 will end.
2. The temporary tax rates passed under President Bush will lapse.
3. Obamacares taxes will come due.
4. The Alternative Minimum Tax will expand to many more taxpayers.
5. Extended unemployment benefits will expire.
6. Some $78 billion in federal spending will be sequestered.
7. Medicare doc fix will expire.
There are several sets of sacred cattle here. The GOP is primarily interested in protecting the tax cuts and Defense spending. The Democrats are primarily interested in preserving the social spending and free stuff for their base. This time around the Democrats, in their never ending paean to class warfare, are insisting that the Bush Tax Rates for the wealthiest Americans be allowed to expire. The GOP should not negotiate on this. This will put the GOP in the position of only getting part of what it wants in exchange for giving the Democrats everything they want, in other words this is a textbook case of bipartisanship in Washington.
(Excerpt. Click here for more.)
Obama doesn't want to own the disaster. He will offer no plan. GOP should say give us your detailed plan, we'll pass it, but Obama will own it whether it works or fails.
He's a chickensh1t marxist bastard who knows nothing about economics, much less saving us from this disaster he's helped greatly accelerate in such a short time.
Spread the Pain. I think I read that somewhere on Freerepublic today.
'cept there was no Keyser Söze
Obama, Pelosim and reid extended the Bush tax cuts in 2010 right after the TEA party took over. As soon as the ink was dry, they immediately began complaining that the Republicans wouldn't eliminate the Bush Tax cuts. Does anyone remember this?
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.
Exactly. And there's no downside for the GOP. The election is over and done with; and there's no way that the MSM can stretch a the-GOP-is-to-blame meme out for 2 years. Let our idiotic countrymen see Obama's tax hikes just as the skinny little twerp get inaugurated.
They'll find a way to blame the Republican-Controlled House for all of the problems.
I like this idea and the movie is a great metaphor. No matter what I say we don't move an inch until Obama presents his plan to the country. It's important he make the first proposal.
It doesn't matter who gets blamed. Besides, the President of the US will ultimately be blamed even if the GOP takes a short term hit.
In any case, my bet is Obama will blink. It's his presidency and his legacy. Is he really ready to push the entire country into recession over a tax hike from 35 to 40%? This hike barely brings any money into the coffers begin with. It's always been a political gimmick more than an actual policy.
I say Obama will blink and if he doesn't so be it. It's time to face this fisscal dissaster head on...right now...today.
Let it happen we either deal with some major pain now or we shall have to deal with excruciating pain later. A pain so horrible some will die. Rip that band-aid off and deal with it.
From the article
"At midnight on December 21, 2012 the United States will be faced with what is being called the fiscal cliff.
Hmmmm, December 21st, December 21st...
Now where have I heard that before, some special date.....
What they seem to want most is the tax hike on the rich. I would say: You can have a two year tax hike on the rich which automatically expires and must be shown to have substantially helped the situation before it can be renewed. We don't want it to be just for revenge. (Be sure to use the word revenge).
There is some merit to this argument. For the price of higher taxes, we get to dump the layabouts out of their hammocks. For me, that might be worth it.
Like they aren't going to do that anyway?
It's not even barry doing any of this! It's valerie j and Lord only knows who else.
I can't get that image out of my mind of the guy who 'worked' with Ayers and relayed that the 'plan' included eliminating millions of us.
Something very sick and sinister is playing out and all the bullcra* carping by the so called insiders on how this election was lost, is adding even more layers of confusion.
The puppet masters on the left must be laughing their a** off at how this is playing out. More chaos, more in-fighting.
No one in the Brown Shirt Media remembers anything Dear Leader doesn't remind them to.
This is 0bama's regime. Maybe we should Cloward Piven it until it is paralyzed. we have to rebuild america after all this, and defeating the vile adversary with his own crap will keep the adversary down.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Man charged in rape of girl sentenced to 60 years
Man charged in rape of girl sentenced to 60 years
A Lincoln man will spend 60 years in prison for sexually assaulting a teenager over four years, according to the Washington County Prosecutor's Office.
Robin Mason was sentenced Friday.
Authorities with the Washington County Sheriff's Office said Robin Mason confessed during an interview to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl and raping her one week after her birthday.
Investigators said Mason was also accused of striking the victim in the face on Nov. 4, which caused her to suffer a nosebleed.
Lisa Mason told authorities she witnessed the man strike the victim.
Robin Mason was charged with rape, first-degree sexual assault, terroristic threatening and endangering the welfare of a minor.


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dSPACE joined the AUTOSAR partnership as a Premium Member in April 2004 and is active in defining and developing parts of the architecture and its specifications.
New dSPACE products support these specifications. They fit seamlessly into our tool chain, helping you to adapt your development process to the AUTOSAR standard smoothly.


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Texas summer expected to be wetter, cooler
LUBBOCK — Spring showers that fell across Texas this year will likely spare the Lone Star State a second straight record-setting summer of heat and drought.
Texas got an estimated 8.5 inches of rain from March through May, more than three times the amount from those months in 2011 when the state endured its driest year on record. Although parts of West Texas are still battling drought, weather officials say this spring has left most of the state in position for lower temperatures and improved rainfall chances compared to last summer.
This would mean more water for thirsty crops, fewer brown lawns and less strain on a power grid that was tested last year by millions of Texans trying to escape record heat waves.
"This is just what Texas needed," National Weather Service meteorologist Victor Murphy said. "The rains will prevent another outlier event from happening again this year."
The weather service predicts a 67 percent chance of near normal to above normal rainfall for June through August. It also predicts average temperatures for the next three months statewide to hover in the low 80s — a significant change from last year when Texas recorded the second hottest summer in U.S. history with an average of 86.7 degrees.
Lack of rainfall in spring 2011 fueled a vicious feedback cycle in which the drought brought blistering heat and the heat perpetuated drought. That led to triple-digit temperatures and a dearth of rain across the state that left even the normally lush green forests of East Texas looking brown.
"This year we don't have that link," Murphy said.
He said the probability of an El Niño — a weather phenomenon that brings above normal rainfall — is about 50 percent starting late this summer and continuing into early 2013. It was the villainess La Niña that brought on last year's drought that plagued much of the Southwest, costing Texas' agriculture industry a record $7.6 billion in losses.
Already the spring showers have helped replenish reservoirs in parts of Texas and bring a new sense of optimism to a state that several months ago was locked in one of its worst dry spells in history. Heading into this year the state's 109 largest reservoirs held 61 percent of their storage capacity; by the end of April they were 78 percent full.
"We're pretty happy about it, of course," said Yvonne Dupre, water conservation coordinator in Dallas, where recent rains and conservation have brought many of North Texas' reservoirs to near capacity. "Things were a little dicey last year."
Some of the more arid regions are still recovering.
The latest U.S. Drought Monitor map shows wee portions of far South Texas in extreme drought — the second-worst stage — while West Texas is the only region with portions under the worst stage, exceptional drought.
There has been some steady rain in Lubbock this year, but already windy conditions and high temperatures — the city set a daily record of 104 degrees April 25 — have gobbled up plenty of the moisture needed to grow cotton. Producers had enough moisture to plant but will need more through the end of July to have a shot at a good crop.
"We might luck out and get the rain just right," said cotton farmer Doug Hlavaty, who tends to irrigated and non-irrigated fields 12 miles south of Lubbock. "That would be the ideal thing."
Two hundred miles southeast, in San Angelo, the story is far different. The city is having its fifth wettest year on record after getting 12.56 inches of rain through Wednesday, almost 5 inches above the normal. Yet, the parched land has prevented any significant runoff into the depleted O.H. Ivie Reservoir, the city's main water source. Ivie is at 16 percent capacity, down from 18 percent heading into this year.
The reservoir is so depleted that San Angelo now has water left for only 19 months. Its answer is to build a $120 million pipeline from water wells 60 miles away in McCullough County.


text: This may be a silly question...I'm a first time mom, my LO is almost 11 weeks old and has just started sleeping through the night this week (YAY!!!). Since she was born, I've had to sleep in a bra and use nursing pads to avoid leaking through to my sheets. Is this the norm for BFing moms? Will my body gradually produce less milk over night so that I won't need to sleep in a bra/nursing pads?


text:
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Deceased grandma lives on in Google street view
PORTLAND, Ore. - Dustin Moore's grandmother died last year. But she still lives on in cyberspace.
The Beaverton man occasionally likes to search Google Maps street views in his spare time. He was surprised recently when he saw a familiar face: A street view of his grandma's house in Northeast Portland showed her sitting on her porch, reading the newspaper.
It's not often you get a view of real people on a Google street view -- much less your dear grandmother who died only a year ago.
Moore posted his story on the social media site Reddit and it quickly became popular.
"What surprised me was that Google captured one of the last few pictures of my grandma because she passed away less than a year after the picture was taken," Moore said.
In a way, it's like she's not actually gone.
"I made the joke with my brother. I was like, 'Well, grandma's gone, but she still somehow lives on in Google and is watching over us," he said.
The Google picture taken at the home on Northeast 62nd Avenue now reminds Moore of fond memories of pruning her juniper bushes, fixing her steps and pulling weeds in her yard.
Moore said Grandma Alice was "everybody's grandma" and the picture seems to prove that. After he posted it on Reddit, people quickly responded.
"All of a sudden there was a bunch of comments like, 'Oh, I recognize that. Your grandma's awesome,'" Moore said. "I didn't really expect people to respond in that way - in the same way that I did."
Moore knows Google will eventually update the site with a new photo. But that's usually done every six or seven years, so he figures he has some more time to spend with her.


text:
Again, as I said in an earlier piece , we want to keep double opt-in as a way of demonstrating best practice. We're aware that some email systems are aggressive about treating email subscription confirmations as spam but a check on Neverbounce showed me that our lists are 'clean' in the sense that less than 1% of all emails sent do not bounce.
We want to combine double opt-in with the checkbox GDPR statement as a way of both setting out our approach while at the same time having that all-important GDPR opt-in confirmation on the subscriber'srecord. Is that possible? Nope.
This doesn't make sense to us. New members should know what they are signing up for and the inclusion of a field that does not adequately explain the ways in which we are holding data for inclusion on a sign-up form yet asking the person to check the box misses the mark. It is both anugly UX issue and, in our opinion, positioned at the wrong point in the process.
That's tough because we use a third party to create the sign-up form, largely because the ones MailChimp provides are…crap. There are numerous suppliers of this kind and I suspect that each one of them has largely been ignored because as far as I can tell, there is no obvious way to include the embedded GDPR compliance field on a third party form.
However, the MailChimp member record does show what the member did to sign up in the sense of using a form or some other method but doesn't include the double opt-in as a field on their member record.
UPDATE: MailChimp came back suggesting that we use a custom merge field for the purpose but warn that we are taking the risk on compliance. We are on the hoo as data controllers anyway so nothing new there.
We created a form that uses the embedded field that allows folk to update preferences. Creating this form was a PITA because you have to hide a bunch of fields from the main sign-up form in order to make it work. I can see why this was done.
It harks back to a time when people might have wanted to change email address, location or any other information for that matter.
We only want to use it for GDPR compliance so the only field I want to show is the email address and the checkbox, along with some explanation as to what's going on.
That means anyone wanting to change other data is out of luck – the fields are hidden.
This is a clusterf*k of epic proportions because there is only ONE update preferences form available.
UPDATE: There's no answer that makes sense in a GDPR situation because of a (mostly) hidden feature. I"ll post separately on this.
At this point in the process, I have a clutch of open tickets with MailChimp around these topics. I have advised them that they need to look at whether what they are doing provides us with the best opportunity to remain compliant in an environment where the lack of flexibility in handling an embedded field is crimping our ability to get this sh*t done.
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African Union Headquarters P.O. Box 3243 | Roosvelt Street (Old Airport Area) | W21K19 | Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Tel: (251) 11 551 77 00 | Fax:(251) 11 551 78 44 | Webmaster: firstname.lastname@example.com
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Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills are killing us
Read this article recently and did not see it discussed here. This appears to me to be an entire facet of health care problem that is not being discussed at all nationally. I found the pricing practices to be extremely disturbing.
Also saw this guy on the Daily Show. It's a long article, but worth the read IMO.
Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us
By Steven Brill
Feb. 20, 2013
1. Routine Care, Unforgettable Bills
When Sean Recchi, a 42-year-old from Lancaster, Ohio, was told last March that he had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, his wife Stephanie knew she had to get him to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Stephanie's father had been treated there 10 years earlier, and she and her family credited the doctors and nurses at MD Anderson with extending his life by at least eight years.
Because Stephanie and her husband had recently started their own small technology business, they were unable to buy comprehensive health insurance. For $469 a month, or about 20% of their income, they had been able to get only a policy that covered just $2,000 per day of any hospital costs. "We don't take that kind of discount insurance," said the woman at MD Anderson when Stephanie called to make an appointment for Sean.
Stephanie was then told by a billing clerk that the estimated cost of Sean's visit — just to be examined for six days so a treatment plan could be devised — would be $48,900, due in advance. Stephanie got her mother to write her a check. "You do anything you can in a situation like that," she says. The Recchis flew to Houston, leaving Stephanie's mother to care for their two teenage children.
About a week later, Stephanie had to ask her mother for $35,000 more so Sean could begin the treatment the doctors had decided was urgent. His condition had worsened rapidly since he had arrived in Houston. He was "sweating and shaking with chills and pains," Stephanie recalls. "He had a large mass in his chest that was … growing. He was panicked."
Nonetheless, Sean was held for about 90 minutes in a reception area, she says, because the hospital could not confirm that the check had cleared. Sean was allowed to see the doctor only after he advanced MD Anderson $7,500 from his credit card. The hospital says there was nothing unusual about how Sean was kept waiting. According to MD Anderson communications manager Julie Penne, "Asking for advance payment for services is a common, if unfortunate, situation that confronts hospitals all over the United States."
Diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 42. Total cost, in advance, for Sean's treatment plan and initial doses of chemotherapy: $83,900. Charges for blood and lab tests amounted to more than $15,000; with Medicare, they would have cost a few hundred dollars
The total cost, in advance, for Sean to get his treatment plan and initial doses of chemotherapy was $83,900.
The first of the 344 lines printed out across eight pages of his hospital bill — filled with indecipherable numerical codes and acronyms — seemed innocuous. But it set the tone for all that followed. It read, "1 ACETAMINOPHE TABS 325 MG." The charge was only $1.50, but it was for a generic version of a Tylenol pill. You can buy 100 of them on Amazon for $1.49 even without a hospital's purchasing power.
Dozens of midpriced items were embedded with similarly aggressive markups, like $283.00 for a "CHEST, PA AND LAT 71020." That's a simple chest X-ray, for which MD Anderson is routinely paid $20.44 when it treats a patient on Medicare, the government health care program for the elderly.
Every time a nurse drew blood, a "ROUTINE VENIPUNCTURE" charge of $36.00 appeared, accompanied by charges of $23 to $78 for each of a dozen or more lab analyses performed on the blood sample. In all, the charges for blood and other lab tests done on Recchi amounted to more than $15,000. Had Recchi been old enough for Medicare, MD Anderson would have been paid a few hundred dollars for all those tests. By law, Medicare's payments approximate a hospital's cost of providing a service, including overhead, equipment and salaries.
On the second page of the bill, the markups got bolder. Recchi was charged $13,702 for "1 RITUXIMAB INJ 660 MG." That's an injection of 660 mg of a cancer wonder drug called Rituxan. The average price paid by all hospitals for this dose is about $4,000, but MD Anderson probably gets a volume discount that would make its cost $3,000 to $3,500. That means the nonprofit cancer center's paid-in-advance markup on Recchi's lifesaving shot would be about 400%.
When I asked MD Anderson to comment on the charges on Recchi's bill, the cancer center released a written statement that said in part, "The issues related to health care finance are complex for patients, health care providers, payers and government entities alike … MD Anderson's clinical billing and collection practices are similar to those of other major hospitals and academic medical centers."
The hospital's hard-nosed approach pays off. Although it is officially a nonprofit unit of the University of Texas, MD Anderson has revenue that exceeds the cost of the world-class care it provides by so much that its operating profit for the fiscal year 2010, the most recent annual report it filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, was $531 million. That's a profit margin of 26% on revenue of $2.05 billion, an astounding result for such a service-intensive enterprise.1
The president of MD Anderson is paid like someone running a prosperous business. Ronald DePinho's total compensation last year was $1,845,000. That does not count outside earnings derived from a much publicized waiver he received from the university that, according to the Houston Chronicle, allows him to maintain unspecified "financial ties with his three principal pharmaceutical companies."
DePinho's salary is nearly two and a half times the $750,000 paid to Francisco Cigarroa, the chancellor of entire University of Texas system, of which MD Anderson is a part. This pay structure is emblematic of American medical economics and is reflected on campuses across the U.S., where the president of a hospital or hospital system associated with a university — whether it's Texas, Stanford, Duke or Yale — is invariably paid much more than the person in charge of the university.
I got the idea for this article when I was visiting Rice University last year. As I was leaving the campus, which is just outside the central business district of Houston, I noticed a group of glass skyscrapers about a mile away lighting up the evening sky. The scene looked like Dubai. I was looking at the Texas Medical Center, a nearly 1,300-acre, 280-building complex of hospitals and related medical facilities, of which MD Anderson is the lead brand name. Medicine had obviously become a huge business. In fact, of Houston's top 10 employers, five are hospitals, including MD Anderson with 19,000 employees; three, led by ExxonMobil with 14,000 employees, are energy companies. How did that happen, I wondered. Where's all that money coming from? And where is it going? I have spent the past seven months trying to find out by analyzing a variety of bills from hospitals like MD Anderson, doctors, drug companies and every other player in the American health care ecosystem.
When you look behind the bills that Sean Recchi and other patients receive, you see nothing rational — no rhyme or reason — about the costs they faced in a marketplace they enter through no choice of their own. The only constant is the sticker shock for the patients who are asked to pay.
Gauze Pads: $77
Charge for each of four boxes of sterile gauze pads, as itemized in a $348,000 bill following a patient's diagnosis of lung cancer
Yet those who work in the health care industry and those who argue over health care policy seem inured to the shock. When we debate health care policy, we seem to jump right to the issue of who should pay the bills, blowing past what should be the first question: Why exactly are the bills so high?
What are the reasons, good or bad, that cancer means a half-million- or million-dollar tab? Why should a trip to the emergency room for chest pains that turn out to be indigestion bring a bill that can exceed the cost of a semester of college? What makes a single dose of even the most wonderful wonder drug cost thousands of dollars? Why does simple lab work done during a few days in a hospital cost more than a car? And what is so different about the medical ecosystem that causes technology advances to drive bills up instead of down?
Recchi's bill and six others examined line by line for this article offer a closeup window into what happens when powerless buyers — whether they are people like Recchi or big health-insurance companies — meet sellers in what is the ultimate seller's market.
The result is a uniquely American gold rush for those who provide everything from wonder drugs to canes to high-tech implants to CT scans to hospital bill-coding and collection services. In hundreds of small and midsize cities across the country — from Stamford, Conn., to Marlton, N.J., to Oklahoma City — the American health care market has transformed tax-exempt "nonprofit" hospitals into the towns' most profitable businesses and largest employers, often presided over by the regions' most richly compensated executives. And in our largest cities, the system offers lavish paychecks even to midlevel hospital managers, like the 14 administrators at New York City's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center who are paid over $500,000 a year, including six who make over $1 million.
Taken as a whole, these powerful institutions and the bills they churn out dominate the nation's economy and put demands on taxpayers to a degree unequaled anywhere else on earth. In the U.S., people spend almost 20% of the gross domestic product on health care, compared with about half that in most developed countries. Yet in every measurable way, the results our health care system produces are no better and often worse than the outcomes in those countries.
According to one of a series of exhaustive studies done by the McKinsey & Co. consulting firm, we spend more on health care than the next 10 biggest spenders combined: Japan, Germany, France, China, the U.K., Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain and Australia. We may be shocked at the $60 billion price tag for cleaning up after Hurricane Sandy. We spent almost that much last week on health care. We spend more every year on artificial knees and hips than what Hollywood collects at the box office. We spend two or three times that much on durable medical devices like canes and wheelchairs, in part because a heavily lobbied Congress forces Medicare to pay 25% to 75% more for this equipment than it would cost at Walmart.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that 10 of the 20 occupations that will grow the fastest in the U.S. by 2020 are related to health care. America's largest city may be commonly thought of as the world's financial-services capital, but of New York's 18 largest private employers, eight are hospitals and four are banks. Employing all those people in the cause of curing the sick is, of course, not anything to be ashamed of. But the drag on our overall economy that comes with taxpayers, employers and consumers spending so much more than is spent in any other country for the same product is unsustainable. Health care is eating away at our economy and our treasury.
The health care industry seems to have the will and the means to keep it that way. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the pharmaceutical and health-care-product industries, combined with organizations representing doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, health services and HMOs, have spent $5.36 billion since 1998 on lobbying in Washington. That dwarfs the $1.53 billion spent by the defense and aerospace industries and the $1.3 billion spent by oil and gas interests over the same period. That's right: the health-care-industrial complex spends more than three times what the military-industrial complex spends in Washington.
When you crunch data compiled by McKinsey and other researchers, the big picture looks like this: We're likely to spend $2.8 trillion this year on health care. That $2.8 trillion is likely to be $750 billion, or 27%, more than we would spend if we spent the same per capita as other developed countries, even after adjusting for the relatively high per capita income in the U.S. vs. those other countries. Of the total $2.8 trillion that will be spent on health care, about $800 billion will be paid by the federal government through the Medicare insurance program for the disabled and those 65 and older and the Medicaid program, which provides care for the poor. That $800 billion, which keeps rising far faster than inflation and the gross domestic product, is what's driving the federal deficit. The other $2 trillion will be paid mostly by private health-insurance companies and individuals who have no insurance or who will pay some portion of the bills covered by their insurance. This is what's increasingly burdening businesses that pay for their employees' health insurance and forcing individuals to pay so much in out-of-pocket expenses.
Rest of article (LONG)
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Can your prove, with evidence, that those countries are not doing a better job of healthcare than the U.S.?
Can you prove, with evidence, that any of what you are afraid of happens in other Developed Countries?
Can you name another Developed Country without government healthcare besides the U.S.? How do the preform?
Why do you want Insurance Companies, a socialist healthcare system, to be in charge?
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The problem is you are saying "our healthcare program is broken, therefore, single payer is a magical cure-all." Again, it's like having a broken down Yugo, and convincing yourself that fixing the brakes is going to make it run as well as a Mercedes. The entire car is broken.
And I don't understand the argument that private insurance companies created a socialist healthcare system versus what you're proposing, which is a monopsony.
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This article was excellent. I wish it wasn't paywalled now.
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Related and very informative and even-handed episode of 'This American Life'
If link proves a problem or you want to actually download the broadcast, it's Episode 490 'Trends With Benefits'
Big recommend. It's [by which I mean both the podcast and the additional materials] lengthy but not bloated. Rarely will even a minute pass throughout that something eyebrow raising doesn't come out.
Additional info
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More from What Soviet Medicine Teaches Us:
H a l l o w e d - S t a r r y - N i g h t
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I find patient satisfaction metrics for actual quality of care suspect as well.
Interesting angle that I hadn't quite articulated until I was listening to an Adam Carolla podcast, and AC wasn't the source.
He had Dominic Monaghan on recently and he went on and on about how 'The American Dream' was unique in the world. And it is more properly 'The American Expectation.' ie, growing citizens of the UK don't grow up with expectations of riches or fame or to be an astronaut or president.
I think this transfers to a different calibration of expectations for Americans WRT to health care. Kind of like polling gourmands versus regular folk on satisfaction with a food stuff. And reporting back that regular folk get better food because they're more satisfied with their consumption of it.
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"America represents something universal ...'You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman..... 'Anybody.... can come to America to live and become an American.'"
--Ronald Reagan, 1988
"Theres not a liberal America and a conservative America. Theres the United States of America. Theres not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America....We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States....
--Barrack Obama, 2004
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We're closing out another fabulous week with quite the gorgeous bang if I do say so myself. This wedding is one part pink, two parts DIY and all sorts of pretty! Lucky for us all the fabulous details were captured perfectly by Amalie Orrange Photography, like the pick your own shade of coral bridesmaid dresses and some of the prettiest flowers and table numbers we ever laid eyes on. See even more right here.
Click here for the FULL wedding!
From the Bride... Andrew and I wanted to have our wedding in a place we had ties to and meant something to us. Andrew grew up in Hobe Sound and attended the church we got married in. We got engaged on the beach there and we have so many special memories over the past five years that have taken place in Hobe Sound. We wanted to share this small beach town with lots of character with all of our guests.
Andrew and I wanted to incorporate things we love and love to do in our wedding to make it uniquely ours. Some ideas and items we incorporated included a sundae party, having a bonfire, having our reception on the water, serving our favorite cocktails, having a dessert table with all of our favorite desserts instead of a big wedding cake, donating to charity in lieu of favors, making our save-the-dates, and giving guests goody bags when they check into the hotel with our favorite snacks and a list of our favorite places to visit and things to do in Hobe Sound.
We wanted to have our wedding theme be rustic elegance with natural materials, lace details, candlelight and gorgeous flowers. The guys wore gray, and the girls wore wear different dresses in shades of coral. We wanted everyone to be comfortable and have fun.
Wedding Photography: Amalie Orrange Photography / Ceremony: St. Christopher Church in Hobe Sound, Florida / Reception: Harbour Ridge Yacht & Country Club in Palm City, Florida / Floral Design: Beth Halpern of Creative Florals / Wedding Paper Goods: Icing on the Paper / DJ: Thomas Edunk of Accents Sounds & Entertainment / Wedding Dress: Custom by the In-House Designer at Minerva's Bridal / Hair: Tracy Bond / Makeup: Katherine Devers / Bridesmaids' Dresses: Amsale / Groom's Attire: Men's Wearhouse


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Crunchyroll Community Manager
Hey guys ~ ! This is Victoria with another fun contest for all of you to enter!
I have selected the TOP FIVE FINALISTS for The Kids on the Slope Contest ~ !!!!
Here are the entries in no particular order ~ !!!
Congrats Finalists ~ !!!! We will announce the winner tomorrow night on THE LIVE SHOW. ~ ! Watch it here - Crunchyroll.com/live starting at 7:00PST ~ ! Thursday !!!
Thankyou so much for participating in the contest and see you all on Thursday ~ !
What am I doing in this pic? Sitting on a slide, I mean... a slope, of course. That's because one of my favorite new shows on Crunchyroll now is… Kids on the Slope!
This heartwarming story of jazz-loving teenagers in 1960s-era Japan hits all the right emotional notes (it's a show about music after all ~ derp!) and features incredible direction by Shinichiro Watanabe, of Cowboy Bebop fame, plus a soundtrack by Yoko Kanno. Please check it out!
Click here to watch now!
Anyway for this contest, we were originally going to ask you guys to learn a musical instrument and compose an original jazz song from scratch… but then again, maybe that would be asking too much ~ !
SO, instead, to enter here's all you gotta do…
TAKE A PICTURE OF YOURSELF (and maybe some kids, too, if you have them handy) ON A SLOPE! YOU CAN EVEN JUST DRAW A PICTURE, but we need to see *something* on a slope!
Ok, as the thrilling picture above shows… a slope is just an inclined plane, so make for your nearest steep hill or even a ramp in a parking garage. Me? I just perched myself on a slide in a park, and I'm sure you can do better than that, so BE CREATIVE AND POST YOUR PICS IN THE THREAD BELOW! We will select FIVE (5) of the funniest and most eye-grabbing pictures and drawings and throw prizes at the people who made them…
PRIZES: If you're not already a Crunchyroll Premium Member, we'll give you a free 90-day membership!
If you are already a Premium Member, we got you covered with an Anime Prize-Pack selection of some very, very cool toys and goodies from Japan!
The DEADLINE is Friday, May 18th, so SHOW US YOUR SLOPES ~ !
And, be sure to keeping watching Kids on the Slope here at Crunchyroll ~ !
♥ Streaming at the speed of Japan, DATEBAYO~ !
interesting, but I don't like my picture being taken.
I don't mind taking pictures
And I like free things
... I'm in
Waiting for Mr. Sand Man to bring me a dream
Crunchyroll Community Manager
Dear photo-phobics: like I said in the post, "YOU CAN EVEN JUST DRAW A PICTURE, but we need to see *something* on a slope!"
♥ Streaming at the speed of Japan, DATEBAYO~ !
This is where my awesome drawing skills comes in. It's going to be a masterpiece! OOOOOOH YEAAAAH!
*Shows a picture of a slope*
As if we didn't know what one was already.
Sounds fun! I am game for this will look for it on my next day off.
SailorBee wrote:
Dear photo-phobics: like I said in the post, "YOU CAN EVEN JUST DRAW A PICTURE, but we need to see *something* on a slope!"
if a drawing is just fine then here ya go, its the most accurate drawing of myself I've ever drawn.
if I had the time and some money I could have done something with 4 guys a donkey and fireworks but this is just fine.
and here's a sketch of my original idea.
SailorBee wrote: Anyway for this contest, we were originally going to ask you guys to learn a musical instrument and compose an original jazz song from scratch… but then again, maybe that would be asking too much ~ !
D: B-but I know how to play a musical instrument and I think it'd be pretty fun and neat to compose a jazz song! Mur... Why you tease me like that? =_=
That happened. Say hello to a Type-Moon nerd in training now~
Goodluck to participants c: !
Proof of drawing:
Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide
❝ Goodbye my almost lover, goodbye my hopeless dream.❞
I love munchthis's entry. No really, it literally had me laughing out loud and the post does say they will choose five of the funniest most eye grabbing pictures. I think that one pretty much meets the requirements xD
Yea that one cracks me up too, it's hilarious right lol..
I have a slope, a camera and dollies! I'll be here!
checking up on the new fall season
does this count?
I went with something on the creative side and since I really like pixelart I came up with the following...
A prototype version that was too bleak apparently...
Spoiler Alert! Click to show or hide


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From the latin root words "dundus" "rundus" - most accurately, the act of stealing another's basketball and booting it as far as possible therein bringing the game, or "run" to an unwelcomed end. This act of booting is usually accompanied by a spirited chant of the words "DUNDARUNS!" Dundarunning usually is done to communicate a message of superiority or general dominance over an inferior or "foul pitany". The term has evolved in colloquial use to a more general application outside the realm of "ball-booting" to signify the conclusion or finality of an event - e.g. "the movie is dundaruns".
"the movie is dundaruns" - "dundaruns on the beer" - "5 more pages and I'm dundaruns" - "as soon as i saw the competition I knew I was dundaruns" - or, simply "DUNDARUNS!"
by Kevin Pitany September 15, 2005


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F1 2016 Career Mode Part 15: Fire My Strategist! (Japan)
Race Sixteen of the season in the Renault
RaceDepartment League!:
Don't forget to like the video, leave a comment and follow me on twitter for any updates on future videos.
Social Media Stuff:
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/iam_thegame
Instagram: https://instagram.com/iam_thegame
Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/iam_thegame
Platform: PS4
Wheel: Thrustmaster T300RS
Subscribe to the channel for more F1 Career Mode and League Races as they happen.
Thanks For Watching!
F1 2016 Career Mode Part 15: Fire My Strategist! (Japan)
Copyright © 2017 RaceDepartment.com
XenGallery by sonnb


text:
Trial of Dasatinib in Advanced Sarcomas
|The safety and scientific validity of this study is the responsibility of the study sponsor and investigators. Listing a study does not mean it has been evaluated by the U.S. Federal Government. Read our disclaimer for details.
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00464620
Recruitment Status : Active, not recruiting
First Posted : April 23, 2007
Last Update Posted : March 22, 2017
- Study Details
- Tabular View
- Results Submitted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
|Condition or disease
|Rhabdomyosarcoma Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumors Chondrosarcoma Sarcoma, Ewing's Sarcoma, Alveolar Soft Part Chordoma Epithelioid Sarcoma Giant Cell Tumor of Bone Hemangiopericytoma Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST)
|Drug: Dasatinib
|Phase 2
Further details provided by SARC (Sarcoma Alliance for Research through Collaboration):
Treatment: Subjects take Dasatinib twice daily by mouth for 28 days per 28 day cycle.
Subjects will be seen for interim medical history, physical exam and laboratory studies prior to each cycle. Subjects will undergo tumor imaging every 2 months (8 weeks) for the first 6 months and approximately every 3 months thereafter while on treatment.
A blood sample for collection of specimens with which to later study serum level of Dasatinib and effects on biomarkers of drug activity will be obtained approximately 2 to 4 weeks after the start of treatment.
Central collection of archival tumor with which to later study the frequency of expression and/or mutation of kinases inhibited by dasatinib will occur.
Subjects will be followed for approximately every 3 months until 2 years from registration and then approximately yearly until 5 years from registration.
|Study Type :
|Interventional (Clinical Trial)
|Actual Enrollment :
|386 participants
|Intervention Model:
|Single Group Assignment
|None (Open Label)
|Primary Purpose:
|Official Title:
|A Phase II Trial of Dasatinib in Advanced Sarcomas
|Study Start Date :
|May 2007
|Actual Primary Completion Date :
|December 2016
|Estimated Study Completion Date :
|May 2017
Experimental: Dasatinib, 70 mg, twice daily
Patients take 70 mg of Dasatinib, twice daily, for 28 day cycles
Drug: Dasatinib
oral agent, continuous dosing, Cycles = 28 days
- Evaluation of all lesions for progression or response will be made at 2-month intervals for the first 6 months and then every 3 months thereafter [ Time Frame: every 2 months ]
Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|13 Years and older (Child, Adult, Older Adult)
|Sexes Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
Unresectable, recurrent, or metastatic histologically-confirmed soft tissue or bone sarcoma of one of the following subtypes:
- Leiomyosarcoma --* NO LONGER ELIGIBLE*
- Liposarcoma--* NO LONGER ELIGIBLE*
- Malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH)/pleomorphic undifferentiated sarcoma--* NO LONGER ELIGIBLE*
- Rhabdomyosarcoma --* NO LONGER ELIGIBLE*
- Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (MPNST) --* NO LONGER ELIGIBLE*
- Osteosarcoma (skeletal or extraosseous)--* NO LONGER ELIGIBLE*
- Ewing's --* NO LONGER ELIGIBLE*
- Chondrosarcoma
- Alveolar soft part sarcoma
- Chordoma
- Epithelioid sarcoma
- Giant cell tumor of bone
- Hemangiopericytoma/solitary fibrous tumor
- Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST) --* NO LONGER ELIGIBLE*
- Documentation that subjects with leiomyosarcoma, liposarcoma, osteosarcoma, Ewing's, MPNST, rhabdomyosarcoma or MFH have received, not been eligible for or refused at least one prior chemotherapy regimen before participation in the dasatinib study. Subjects with GIST must have received or been intolerant to imatinib; prior treatment with other agents including sunitinib is not required.Neoadjuvant/adjuvant chemotherapy qualifies as prior therapy.
- Subjects must have unidimensionally measurable lesion(s) either by x-ray, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or physical examination documented within 30 days prior to registration.
- Prior radiation will be allowed. More than two weeks should have elapsed since the administration of the last fraction of radiation therapy, and subjects must have recovered from grade 2 or higher associated toxicities. Measurable lesions, which are selected as target lesions, must be outside previously radiated fields or have documented progression no sooner than 6 weeks after completion of radiation.
- More than 2 weeks must have elapsed since the subject has received any prior systemic chemotherapy (6 weeks for mitomycin C), and the patient should have recovered from toxicities to the baseline prior to the last course of chemotherapy.
- Adequate hematologic function within 14 days prior to registration.
- PT (or INR) and PTT ≤ 1.5 times the institutional ULN within 14 days prior to registration.
- Serum creatinine ≤ 2.0 times the institutional ULN within 14 days prior to registration.
- Serum magnesium, potassium and adjusted (or ionized) calcium ≥ the institutional LLN. (Supplementation of electrolytes prior to screening is allowed).
- Left ventricular ejection fraction ≥ 45% measured by echocardiogram or multiple gated acquisition (MUGA) within 30 days prior to registration (but must be performed after the last dose of an anthracycline) for subjects who have received an anthracycline (e.g. doxorubicin, epirubicin) or have a medical history of cardiac disease. The measurement of left ventricular ejection fraction is not required of subjects whom have not received cardiotoxic chemotherapy (e.g. anthracycline) and do not have a medical history of cardiac disease.
- Sexually active women and men of childbearing potential must agree to use an effective method of birth control during the course of the study and for up to 3 months following the last dose of the study drug, in a manner such that risk of pregnancy is minimized. Surgical sterilization, intrauterine device or barrier method (e.g. condom and/or diaphragm with spermicidal agents) are acceptable forms of birth control.
- Women of childbearing potential must have a negative pregnancy test (urine or serum) within 7 days prior to treatment. A pregnancy test is not required for registration. Women who have not menstruated for more than 2 years will be considered postmenopausal, thus not of childbearing potential.
- ECOG performance score 0, 1 or 2.
- Weight ≥ 50 kg because there is limited experience with dasatinib in subjects weighing less than 50 kg.
- ≥13 years of age Minors will be required to sign an assent document prior to treatment.
- Subjects must be able to swallow whole tablets.
- Subjects must be informed of the investigational nature of the study and provide written, informed consent and authorization to release protected health information using a document(s) approved by the investigator's institution.
- A paraffin block, either from a previous surgery or recent biopsy, should be available for correlative studies. If a block of tumor is not available, at least 8 unstained slides of tumor sample, 1 H&E and three (3) 15 micron-thick sections in an eppendorf tube for DNA extraction from a representative portion of the sarcoma may be substituted after discussion with and approval from the study Principal Investigator.
Exclusion Criteria:
- Subjects who are curable by conventional multidisciplinary management.
- Subjects with symptomatic central nervous system metastasis.
- Women who are pregnant or nursing/breastfeeding.
History of significant bleeding disorder unrelated to cancer, including:
- Diagnosed congenital bleeding disorders (e.g., von Willebrand's disease)
- Diagnosed acquired bleeding disorder within one year (e.g., acquired anti-factor VIII antibodies)
- Subjects currently taking medications that inhibit platelet function (i.e., aspirin, dipyridamole, epoprostenol, eptifibatide, clopidogrel, cilostazol, abciximab, ticlopidine, and any non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) because of a potential increased risk of bleeding from dasatinib.
- Subjects currently taking anticoagulants (warfarin, heparin/low molecular weight heparin [e.g., danaparoid, dalteparin, tinzaparin, enoxaparin]) because of a potential increased risk of bleeding from dasatinib.
- Diagnosis of unstable angina or myocardial infarction within 6 months of study entry.
Subjects currently taking one or more of the following drugs that are generally accepted to have a risk of causing Torsades de Pointes:
- Quinidine, procainamide, disopyramide
- Amiodarone, sotalol, ibutilide, dofetilide
- Erythromycins, clarithromycin
- Chlorpromazine, haloperidol, mesoridazine, thioridazine, pimozide
- Cisapride, bepridil, droperidol, methadone, arsenic, chloroquine, domperidone, halofantrine, levomethadyl, pentamidine, sparfloxacin, lidoflazine.
- Diagnosed or suspected congenital long QT syndrome.
- Prolonged QTc interval on pre-entry electrocardiogram (> 450 msec) within 30 days prior to study registration.
- Subjects unable or unwilling to suspend treatment with bisphosphonates for at least the first 8 weeks of treatment with study drug because of the risk of hypocalcemia caused by dasatinib.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT00464620
|United States, Arkansas
|Arkansas Children's Hospital
|Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, 72202
|United States, California
|City of Hope
|Duarte, California, United States, 91010
|Cedars-Sinai Outpatient Cancer Center
|Los Angeles, California, United States, 90048
|Stanford University
|Palo Alto, California, United States, 94304
|Sarcoma Oncology Center
|Santa Monica, California, United States, 90403
|United States, District of Columbia
|Washington Cancer Institute
|Washington, District of Columbia, United States, 20010
|United States, Georgia
|Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University
|Atlanta, Georgia, United States, 30308
|United States, Idaho
|Kootenai Cancer Center
|Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, United States, 83814
|United States, Illinois
|Oncology Specialists
|Park Ridge, Illinois, United States, 60068
|United States, Indiana
|Indiana University Cancer Center
|Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, 46202
|United States, Iowa
|University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics
|Iowa City, Iowa, United States, 52242
|United States, Maryland
|Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center
|Baltimore, Maryland, United States, 21231
|United States, Massachusetts
|Massachusetts General Hospital
|Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02114
|Dana Farber Cancer Institute
|Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02115
|United States, Michigan
|University of Michigan
|Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, 48109
|United States, Nebraska
|Nebraska Methodist Hospital
|Omaha, Nebraska, United States, 68114
|United States, Pennsylvania
|Pennsylvania Oncology Hematology Associates
|Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19106
|Fox Chase Cancer Center
|Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19111
|University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute
|Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, 15232
|United States, Texas
|MD Anderson
|Houston, Texas, United States, 77030
|Principal Investigator:
|Scott Schuetze, MD, PhD
|University of Michigan
Additional Information:
|Responsible Party:
|Sarcoma Alliance for Research through Collaboration
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT00464620 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|First Posted:
|April 23, 2007 Key Record Dates
|Last Update Posted:
|March 22, 2017
|Last Verified:
|March 2017
Keywords provided by Sarcoma Alliance for Research through Collaboration:
Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor
Alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS)
Epithelioid sarcoma
Giant cell tumor of bone
Hemangiopericytoma/solitary fibrous tumor
Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST)
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors
Nerve Sheath Neoplasms
Giant Cell Tumors
Bone Neoplasms
Giant Cell Tumor of Bone
Sarcoma, Ewing
Sarcoma, Alveolar Soft Part
Neoplasms, Connective and Soft Tissue
Neoplasms by Histologic Type
Neoplasms, Muscle Tissue
Neoplasms, Connective Tissue
Gastrointestinal Neoplasms
Digestive System Neoplasms
Digestive System Diseases
Gastrointestinal Diseases
Neoplasms, Germ Cell and Embryonal
Neoplasms, Nerve Tissue
Peripheral Nervous System Neoplasms
Nervous System Neoplasms
Nervous System Diseases
Peripheral Nervous System Diseases


text:
Save up to 30% off hotels with mobile exclusive deals
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Located in the heart of Centrum, this hotel is within a 5-minute walk of Beurstraverse and De Koopgoot. Maritime Museum and WORM are also within 15 minutes.
As of February 1943 the Jews vere obliged to wear a Yellow Star badge on their breasts and live only in certain areas (ghettos). They were forbitten to work as members of the professions (lawyers, physicians, professors) and to belong to any club or institution. On March 15, 1943 the first train left for the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. Until August 1943, another eighteen convoys would follow. They carried almost all the Jews, packed in carriages that had been designed for animals. Their destination was the place of their extermination. A very small number managed to escape thanks to the help of Christian friends or joined the Resistance Forces. These Jews returned to Thessaloniki after its liberation in October 1944 and together with the few refugees from the death camps they managed to start a new life from the ruins.
Today, despite the extermination of 96% of its members, the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki is once again a reality in the city.
The age-old hymns echo in the three synagogies, the young members of the Community attend a propet Jewish primary school. An ultra modern Old People's Home provides residence to the elderly and a Community Centre attracts the young. So, despite its tragic ordeal, the Jews of Thessaloniki managed to rise from their ashes and offer a tangible example of vitality and spiritual strength.
It is well known that of the 50,000 Jews of pre-war Thessaloniki less than 2,000 were saved.
Soon after the liberation of the city from the Nazis (October 1944), the few Jews that had joined the Resistance Forces or had joined within Greece turned up. They gathered at the Synagogue of the Monasteriotes, the only one that had been saved from destruction, and elected a Governing Gommittee. This Committee managed to take back the Community's property and organized some sort of Community life with the help of organizations such as American Joint Distribution Committee and HIAS. After May 1945 those who survived the death camps gradually appeared in Thessaloniki.
The largest number of the survivors had neither family nor means of livelihood. Those who managed to get their homes or shops back found them empty, looted by the Nazis and their collaborators. They lived in the buildings of the Community institutions and were fed by the Community. Many of them emigrated en masse to the USA and Israel. In spite of all these difficulties the small Jewish Community started to reorganize itself and return to normal.
Today the Community has one Rabbi and three Synagogues. For the Shehita and Moeluth needs a specialist is invited from Athens.
As for education the Community provides Jewish teachers from Israel or Greek-Jews who were trained in Israel. In the first few years after the War, the Community had entered an agreement with two private schools. So the children were all at the same place and could be taught Hebrew. Since 1979, the Community has its own private primary school and nursery. Every summer it organizes children's camps and also maintains a youth community center and the only Jewish asylum for the eldertly in Greece.


text:
Obama to host Bulgarian prime minister
- Associated Press
- December 3, 2012 - 3:25 AM
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama will meet with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov (BOY-koh baw-REES-awf) at the White House.
The two leaders are meeting Monday in the Oval Office to discuss Bulgaria's role in NATO and its contributions to NATO-led efforts in Afghanistan. They'll also discuss ongoing legal reforms in Bulgaria.
Obama plans to get an update on the investigation into a July bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists and a local bus driver.
Later Monday, Obama will speak at a symposium in Washington marking the 20th anniversary of the Cooperative Threat Reduction program. The 20-year-old program has provided billions of dollars in equipment and expertise to help Russia and other former Soviet nations secure nuclear stockpiles. It was initiated by Sen. Richard Lugar and former Sen. Sam Nunn.
© 2018 Star Tribune


text:
Gravestone stolen in HebronBy DAN SEUFERT
Union Leader Correspondent
May 08. 2014 8:46PM
HEBRON — Police are asking for the public's help in finding and returning a gravestone stolen from the Hebron Village Cemetery.
Police Lt. Travis Austin said the cemetery's sexton discovered the stone was missing on Wednesday afternoon.
The stone bears the name of Dave Jewell.
The stone is about 3 1/2 feet tall and 1 1/2 feet wide, and 2 1/2 inches thick, Austin said.
"It was stolen sometime between the evening of May 3 and the morning of May 7," Austin said. "We have no leads or suspects at this time."
Anyone with information on the taking of or whereabouts of the stone is asked to contact Austin at 744-5509 or via email at firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
Grateful Dead
Just like your favorite jam, things are going to get a bit funky on Dead.net over the next week or so. Community accounts will be temporarily closed October 16th-17th and may be under further maintenance through October 22nd. But rest assured, we will be back up and better than ever shortly thereafter. Stay tuned!
Listening Party: Dave's Picks Volume 3
We welcome you to hear "Cumberland Blues," "Brown-Eyed Women," and "Comes A Time" from the brand new Dave's Picks Volume 3.
Love them
nice, open sound, capturing the cowboy spirit of the breathtakingly brilliant studio gems, American Beauty and Workingman's Dead. Plus...it was recorded on my 4th birthday.
16 mile run on Saturday so I hope this comes before then so I can toss it on my ipod for accompaniment?
Sorry to hear about your problems w/ the service Mike V. That sucks.
Hey all,
I signed up for Dave's Picks last November, paid the subscription fee, but have only received Dave's Picks Vol 1. Anyone else have a similar experience? I never got Dave's Picks Vol 2 or the bonus disc for subscribers. Through close to two months, a dozen emails and several phone calls, I haven't been able to get any satisfactory answer to "where is my order", until today, when I was told Dave's Picks Vol 2 is on back order. So I'm a little bit frustrated, and I've asked for a refund. Honestly, I mainly signed up to be a supporter of the larger, ongoing Dead operation. Putting my money where my mouth is, so to speak. It's not like I have any shortage of quality shows to listen to, so I don't feel like I'm missing out on a whole lot by not getting volumes 2, 3, and 4 or the bonus disc. But I am surprised by how shabbily I was treated as a customer. Probably the worst customer service experience I've had, well, ever. Comcast is more responsive.
I was told I should get at least a partial refund. So that's something. But I don't think I'll be ordering anything else from Dead.Net in the future...
Excited to see Phil, Bobby, and Mickey at All Good, though!
Good to see you have cheered up a little
I hope your dream comes true. But after all your passionate campaigning, when that 80's and 90's box set eventually emerges, you may be held responsible (for better or worse!) ;-)
My favorite aspect of the Grateful Dead and how it relates to their approach to music, is that everybody who ever performed onstage with them at any given time throughout the bands 30 year career had the freedom to translate their parts to the songs in their own unique way.
For instance, the original core of Jerry, Bob, Phil, Pigpen and Bill will always be "The" Grateful Dead. Whether these 5 members in specific performed together during '65-'67 and the brief stint after Mickey's departure in '71, they always stayed true to their roots in this incarnation.
Beyond that, the subsequent variety of musicians who played with the band, pre-hiatus, whether they were full time members, or the wide variety of guests who recorded, toured or even just sat in for a few shows, consequentially added to the inevitable refinement in the overall sound.
Bringing Mickey and Tom Constanten into the mix enhanced the bands sound, for better or worse, depending how picky you might be and your own personal taste, added the experimental nature that stayed with them to the end.
The various personnel changes starting with Keith's enterance in October '71 was a necessary evil, if you are of the view that the Dead were terrible after that time in history. For me, I chalk it up to the natural process of evolution, on a musical level.
We should feel fortunate that the band lasted as long as they did. Many of their contemporaries from the '60s died young afetr very brief careers, and we'll never know what they would have sounded like 25, 30 years later, let alone until now, nearly 50 years out from 1965.
Thats why I love all era's of the Dead.
I have to come clean and admit though, that I can't say the same for too many other bands from that era who are still around and have always toured at some capacity. The Stones lost me after Exile On Main Street. Pink Floyd lost me after Roger Waters left. Jefferson Airplane/Starship lost me after Papa John Creach's tenure, in fact, I could have gouged my own ears out everytime "We Built This City" came on the radio every single morning on the way to school in the morning in 11th and 12th grade.
Deep Purple on the other hand, they are a band from that era that always, and even still rock, with the exception of that one bad Joe Lynn Turner era album in 1991. The tour was ok, but, he could be the Vince Welnick of Deep Purple....I kid I kid... lol. ;)
I'm now officially and eagerly looking forward to this release from 10/21-22/71 Chicago Theatre, even if I have to wait a little bit longer for the 180 disc Fall '89-Spring '90 super-mega-ultra box set. Just don't limit it's release is all that I ask.
carry on...
Hal_M -- I always enjoy your posts, and I mostly agree with them. Just one tiny quibble. We certainly agree on the best music of the Dead, but you always describe the best years as "tight" and the lesser years as "less tight". Just a matter of semantics, but I would describe the "tightest" playing beginning with 1977. From then on, they stay pretty dang tight through the end, to my ears, and the music suffers accordingly. True enough, the 70-76 years are filled with nights that seem to just crystallize into a perfection that sounds "tight", but it seems to me that was never the Dead's intention. The best years are where they play "loose"! Take 2/14/68 or the Fillmore West '69 shows- it almost sounds like they are playing deliberately, aggressively sloppy!- but it's also some of their greatest and most inspired music. Most of 1970 and fall '73 scream "looseness"! Sorry, I'm just rambling, cuz I'm excited about the new DaP3! Anyways, we love the same stuff!
This sounds good to me! I've never heard that 4th forgotten verse of Comes A Time. So excited to hear the rest of the release.
Very thoughtful post below, Hal M. I concur with your points :)
...it's just that I have amassed such an abundance of it, that I'm looking forward to less-than or unrepresented years.
We have five '71 releases, but zero '65 - '67, '84, '86 and '94 - '95 releases.
The more I contemplate this release from 10/22/71, the more eager I am to hear it when it arrives in my mailbox, even if this is the 28th of the last 28 releases to be from the '71 - '76 era.
Thanks Dave for Vol#03, a '71 show sounding clear as a bell with spot on crisp playin'.
Listened to 10/21/71 set#2 last night as a pre-primer, a great Dark Star is coming our way ! (~):E
We all have our favorite years and periods, no doubt. And all years have their choice offerings. But for me personally, the tightness and energy of the earlier years float my boat. Though my touring years started in 1979, and I saw some truly epic shows along my journey, the Grateful Dead I fell in love with came earlier. Post '79, I was witness, as so many of us were, to the slow decline of the Grateful Dead as a "tight" band. They became increasingly more "sloppy", less focused. They could still pull out all the stops and blow the roof off the place, but something essential had been lost. Jerry's voice started to go, he had both health and drug problems that were starting to take a serious toll (as did other members of the band). Don't misunderstand me, I love so many shows from those eras, too. And I buy them all as well since there is still so much to love there. But many of those shows also remind me of the forward momentum that was lost as the 70's gave way to the 80's and into the 90's. What if this band had maintained its tightness? I'm surprised to read folks complaining about 70's releases. It was the band's peak before health and substance abuse put so many bumps in the road of their incredibly long, strange trip. The beauty of Garcia's voice, the delicacy of Keith's playing (a level of delicacy they never recaptured in the post-Keith eras). It doesn't have to be your favorite, but slow and lacking in energy? Nothing could be farther from the truth. This music is vibrant, soulful, exploratory, daring and oh-so-heartfelt. It's the Grateful Dead. Doing what they do best. At their best. I'll buy those 80's and 90's releases when they're offered, but I celebrate these 70's releases with sweet relish and delight. Few things in life make me happier. Thanks, Dave, for making these shows available. My life is that much richer for it. :)


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Girls' Clothes
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MU Extension > calendar
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Stay Strong, Stay Healthy - Albany Aug-Oct, 2017 (Session 14 of 16)
Friday, Oct. 6, 2017, 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.
205 N Smith Street, Albany MO map...
Stay Strong, Stay Healthy is an eight-week strength training program for middle-aged and older adults. The program's goal is to improve health and quality of life. The class will meet twice a week.
We will incorporate warm-up exercises; simple strengthening exercises, with or without weights; and cool down stretches. Weights are provided for the class. Wear comfortable clothes and shoes. Bring water bottle and towel.
Call Janet at the Harrison County Extension office 660-425-6434 or email@example.com to register. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged. If you need special accommodations because of a disability, or if you need materials in an alternative format, please inform me when registering.
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It is well known that artificial neural nets can be used as approximators of any continous functions to any desired degree. Nevertheless, for a given application and a given network architecture the non-trivial task rests to determine the necessary number of neurons and the necessary accuracy (number of bits) per weight for a satisfactory operation. In this paper the problem is treated by an information theoretic approach. The values for the weights and thresholds in the approximator network are determined analytically. Furthermore, the accuracy of the weights and the number of neurons are seen as general system parameters which determine the the maximal output information (i.e. the approximation error) by the absolute amount and the relative distribution of information contained in the network. A new principle of optimal information distribution is proposed and the conditions for the optimal system parameters are derived. For the simple, instructive example of a linear approximation of a non-linear, quadratic function, the principle of optimal information distribution gives the the optimal system parameters, i.e. the number of neurons and the different resolutions of the variables
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The Madd MGP VX5 Nitro Scooter in Blue has arrived and it has all the features you would expect and more. Designed for intermediate to experienced riders but also suitable for pros this really is high end scooter. One big step forward on the VX5 Nitro is the brand new 120mm Vicious Extruded Alloy Core Wheels which provide a smoother and faster ride. The scooter community have been asking for these and Madd have delivered. The MGP VX5 Nitro is also lighter than last years model thanks to the improved fluted and extruded deck, it now weighs in at just 3.68 kgs. Terry Price describes this scooter as a beast and that sums it up pretty well.
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- DDAM M1 3D Forged Alloy 120mm HIC Fork
- Sealed and Integrated FSA Orbit C Headset
- Scooter Weight 3.68 kgs


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30 Twitter Reactions To Kelly Rowland's 'Dirty Laundry'
Kelly Rowland officially cleans out her closet on her latest song, "Dirty Laundry." It's an emotional saga that finds the usually media-prepped singer spilling verbal tears about an abusive relationship and her true feelings about Beyoncé.
Kells has always been nonchalant about living in Bey's shadow, but here she finally reveals some insecurity and humanness. Click through for Twitter's reactions, ranging from shocked to rounds of applause.


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What We Do
TCT&A Industries is an End Product Manufacturer in the Specialty Fabrics Industry specializing in Awnings, Curtain Wall, Graphics, Banners and Custom Sewing.
In the Industry's Top 10
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I am a new mom of a 4 week old baby. He was born at 38 weeks and I put him to breast almost immediately he was born. He became good at latching instantaneously. I nursed him for the 2 days while we were in the hospital. At the end of day 2, when we were about to leave the hospital, his pediatrician came for check-up and mentioned that he is very hungry and has lost considerable weight in the two days, so give him formula. (His birth weight was 6lbs,6oz and 2 days later it came down to 5lbs,7oz). So we had to give him a bottle.
She said that when my milk comes in, I can stop the bottle. But, I never felt any engorgement in my breasts, so I never knew when my milk came in. But I kept on nursing him on demand. Four days after birth during his first visit, his weight came back up to 6lbs,3oz (3oz short of the birth weight). After a week, I started nursing him exclusively and stopped formula completely, including at night. I checked his urine diapers, since I thought that is an indication of how much is he getting. He had a good count throughout the day but the diapers were not soaking wet. 3 weeks later, we went for his visit again and his weight was 6lbs,4oz. He had gained only an ounce of weight in the past 2 1/2 weeks. This concerned the ped. and she advised to start bottle again. I was very upset over this but everyone in my family thought I was starving him, and so asked me to give the bottle, saying if he is happy, then what's the problem.
Since day 3 after birth, whenever I pump, I get only around 20-25 ml of milk. When I breastfed my baby for 2 weeks, he used to seem hungry ALL the time, never satisfied. So, I nursed him on-demand.
Now, I want to EBF him and want to wean him from formula. I am still nursing him every 2-3 hours before giving him a bottle. If I try to nurse him on demand now, without giving him a bottle, he seems frustrated and cries after I nurse him, and nothing comforts him except a bottle.
He is eating 3oz at a time. Please tell me how can I wean him to EBF? I want to do it sooner rather than later as I am scared that I will lose time, and then it will be even more difficult. I am very very desperate on EBF him, as I was unable to do it for my older daughter due to post-delivery complications that lasted for several months.
Please, please HELP ME!!!!


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Carpenter grabs top seed in Indy's pole shootout
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — When Ed Carpenter, Carlos Munoz and Helio Castroneves were pushed to the edge Saturday, each remained calm and came up with their best-qualifying runs of the day.
Now they have to do it again one more time Sunday.
The American, Colombian and Brazilian who have celebrated some of their biggest career moments at Indianapolis each made daring runs over the final 80 minutes Saturday to take the top three seeds heading into Sunday's Indianapolis 500 shootout. Carpenter finished first with a four-lap qualifying average of 230.661 mph (371.213 kph). Munoz was second at 230.460 (370.889).
"I wasn't sure we were going to go 230 in our first run, so I was relieved when we did," Carpenter said. "But to be honest, I didn't think going into qualifying I was going to exceed 230."
Others drivers thought Carpenter would, and it only took one practice lap and one qualifying lap to assuage any doubts. Carpenter, the fifth car on the track, averaged 230.114 then sat around all day as other drivers tried to knock him off the top rung.
Nobody caught him until a rain delay ended at 4:18 p.m. Then in a flurry of speed, Andretti Autosport driver James Hinchcliffe knocked Carpenter off the pole, Munoz knocked Hinchcliffe, his teammate, off the pole, and Carpenter retook the pole. He finished the day waiting 65 minutes to see if it would stand.
Normally, the reward for surviving such tension would be celebrating a pole win.
Instead, under the new qualifying format, all Saturday did was assure Carpenter and the other eight top cars of a top-nine starting spot on Indy's traditional 33-car starting grid. Each of the top nine will have one qualifying run Sunday with the fastest claiming the coveted No. 1 starting spot for the May 25 race.
The success of Carpenter, Munoz and Castroneves was hardly a surprise.
Carpenter, last year's pole winner, had one of the fastest cars in practice Thursday and Friday. If he wins the pole again Sunday on the track his stepfather, Tony George, once ran, Carpenter would be the second driver since 1990 to earn consecutive poles at Indy. Castroneves also did it in 2009 and 2010.
Munoz, meanwhile, drives for Michael Andretti, whose team has consistently put four or five drivers in the top 10 all week. In 2013, Munoz made his IndyCar debut here and responded by qualifying second, finishing second and walking away as the 500 rookie of the year.
"I was questioning myself, the team, everything before, but as soon as I hit the track I forgot everything," Munoz said. "The car was really fast, and it's a shame we wasted that second outing. I think we're looking strong, and we'll see what happens tomorrow."
Castroneves owns three 500 wins and three pole wins at Indy — all for team owner Roger Penske.
But there was plenty of intrigue, too.
Kurt Busch, the fourth driver to attempt "the double" by racing in Indy and Charlotte on the same day, May 25, nearly made it into the pole shootout, too. He was bumped with 39 minutes left in qualifying when 2000 Indy winner Juan Pablo Montoya surpassed Busch's speed of 229.960 mph (370.085 kph). Busch could have bumped his way back into the fast nine had he not already left for NASCAR's All-Star race in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was scheduled to be back in Indy for Day 2 when the top 30 starting spots will be determined.
Two other Andretti drivers, Hinchcliffe and Marco Andretti, overcame unusual circumstances to reach the shootout. Hinchcliffe was fourth despite spending most of this week recovering from a concussion. Andretti actually withdrew his original qualifying time to move into a shorter line, then waved off on another attempt before making it back to No. 6.
France's Simon Pagenaud, who won the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis last weekend, was seventh.
Carpenter's teammate, JR Hildebrand, and Sarah Fisher's driver, Josef Newgarden, also made the shootout, though Chip Ganassi's four drivers were shut out.
"I think we need to find a little more speed," Charlie Kimball said. "As a team, the fact that we aren't in the top nine would prove that. We all work toward that goal, having four of our cars in the top nine. It was a lofty goal, but that was the expectation within the team."


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Jenni Rivera Confirmed Dead After Plane Crash
Jenni Rivera died in a plane crash on Sunday (December 9) in Monterrey, Mexico, her father and brother have confirmed on Telemundo.
The 43-year-old singer was on the plane with four other passengers and two pilots, heading to Toluca from Monterrey, where she had performed the night before.
Jenni's untimely death has stunned many celebrities, who have tweeted their tributes and support to the friends and families who have lost loved ones from the plane crash.
Click inside to read what celebs had to say about Jenni Rivera's tragic death…
@Pitbull: I highly respected #JenniRivera 4 being a gr8 performer but more then tht being real & gr8 example 4 us all que dios la bendiga &may she RIP."
@MarioLopezExtra: Spent some time with Jenni Rivera recently. What an amazing lady… Cool, smart, funny & talented. Such a travesty… God Bless her family."
@Ricky_Martin: "Esto es triste. Un poco en shock. Mucha paz para su familia. RT @ElNuevoDia: Desaparece avión en q viajaba Jenni Rivera."
@GloriaEstefan: "Our deepest sympathy to the family & fans of @jennirivera & those that accompanied her on what was to be her last voyage. Rest in peace…"


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Value Line is regarded as the best independent research available. More than just recommendations, Value Line provides the rationale behind its picks for greater understanding.
American Express (AXP – Free American Express Stock Report) is one of the largest financial services companies in the United States and its products and logo are well known around the globe. However, like most other corporations, Amex started from humble beginnings.
The Founding
The company was founded in 1850 in Buffalo, New York. At that time, most lengthy journeys were done by steamship or train. However, this was before the Transcontinental Railroad, so coach or horse travel was typically necessary to reach one's final destination. The United States Postal Service traversed the country and delivered letters, but larger parcels and valuables would be handled by an express company. American Express, founded by Henry Wells, William G. Fargo, and John Butterfield, was one such company. These same individuals, in 1852, founded Wells Fargo (WFC) when some of the corporate directors objected to expanding its operations to California.
Over the next few decades, American Express grew rapidly. It inked deals with a number of railroad and steamship companies to expand its express business into new states and territories. In 1882, it entered the financial services industry by offering money orders and in 1891, launched its Travelers Cheque business. This offering filled an important niche. Prior to this, travelers were able to transfer funds from the United States to Europe only via a letter of credit, a tedious and time-consuming process. Only certain banks were authorized to offer this service and it took several days for these transactions to be processed. The Travelers Cheque was a significant improvement compared to the letter of credit. Its signature and countersignature provision made it secure and it could be easily converted into foreign currency at any American Express freight office. In addition, if lost or stolen, Amex would refund the owner's money. This product become very popular with travelers and provided the company with a major additional revenue stream.
Eventually, tourists and business travelers began to consider American Express' freight offices as banking substitutes, a place where they could convert funds and seek information. Around 1915, American Express officially entered the travel industry, offering hotel and transportation information services. Over the next few decades, the company changed dramatically. The express business, due to the World Wars, antitrust legislation, as well as fierce competition, became less profitable and management was actively searching for new directions.
Credit Cards and Acquisitions
In the mid-1950s, the American Express Green Card, its first charge card, was introduced. On the first day that it went on the market, the company received more than 250,000 applications and it possessed in excess of a half-a-million cardmembers within the first few months. In the 1960s, the company aggressively sought acquisitions. It purchased W.H. Morton & Co., an investment banking house that specialized in underwriting municipal and government bonds. It also bought the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, at the time, one of the largest property & casualty insurers in the country. Due to these additions, American Express' bottom line advanced materially over the next several years.
However, during the 1970s, Amex fell on some hard times. Its business and reputation suffered when four consecutive acquisition attempts failed. The last, and most noteworthy, was the company's endeavor to purchase McGraw-Hill (MHP), the large publisher. At the time, Roger Morley was Amex's President and also served on McGraw-Hill's board. After the acquisition fell through, McGraw-Hill sued American Express and accused Mr. Morley of corporate dishonesty, among other things. In 1982, its acquisition slump ended with the important purchase of Shearson Loeb Rhoades, one of the largest brokerage firms (Shearson later was sold and became part of Lehman Brothers.) Additional acquisitions throughout the 1980s further bolstered American Express' financial products and services.
In the 1980s, the company also expanded its card business. At the beginning of the decade it had approximately 10 million cardholders and 400,000 places where its cards were accepted. Before the calendar turned to 1990, Amex possessed 33 million cardmembers and they could be used at almost three million locations. Also, in 1987, it began offering the Optima, its first credit card. Previous to this event, all Amex cards were charge cards, meaning that the balance had to be paid in full every month. The Optima was well received by U.S. consumers. At this time, management positioned the credit card business as a premium service, a strategy that it still follows to this day. It typically charges a higher annual fee than most other credit card companies, like Visa (V - Free Visa Stock Report) and Mastercard (MA). As for the merchants who accept the card, Amex levies a higher percentage of the purchase amount. In turn, customers typically receive a higher level of service, as well as better credit card rewards.
Although its card business expanded rapidly during the 1980s, American Express, once again, struggled somewhat. Due to the stock market crash of 1987 and subsequent recession, its brokerage business incurred hefty losses. During this time, management decided to streamline operations and concentrate on its card and Travelers Cheques businesses. It sold Shearson and spun off First Data, its card processing arm (First Data, at this time, also owned Western Union (WU)). The capital it raised from these divestitures helped Amex bolster its business abroad. Over the next several years, it cobranded credit cards with France-based Credit Lyonnais and expanded into Australia, Japan and China, among other countries.
American Express Today
Today, American Express is a financial behemoth. Although Travelers Cheques are no longer used widely, the company has approximately $152 billion in total assets and 63,500 employees worldwide. Revenues in 2012 exceeded $31.5 billion and its 102.4 million cards-in-force made more than $888 billion worth of purchases during the past year. It continues to charge cardholders and merchants higher fees. The company has successfully developed a reputation of providing superior products and services, which causes most users to tolerate the elevated cost. In addition, the company is typically more selective in regard to credit card applications. It focuses on obtaining higher net worth individuals, who possess above-average credit scores. This strategy helped it weather the 2007-2009 recession better than some of its competitors. That said, Amex did suffer during 2008 and 2009. Its net profit dropped significantly due to elevated net-charge offs and credit card defaults. In early 2009, its stock price fell to a low of $9.70. For comparison purposes, the shares traded for more than $65 during 2007. On the bright side, it has recovered mightily. Indeed, AXP stock is up about 32% year to date through early August, thanks in large part, to Amex's healthy growth prospects and shareholder-friendly actions.
Investment Considerations
American Express has earned a reputation of being a financially strong company, with a solid business model, and products that span the globe. Although the stock will probably continue to be sensitive to swings in the U.S. economy, we typically recommend this Dow component (member since 1982) to investors with a long-term investment strategy. We expect that its credit cards and other products will remain popular with consumers and businesses, which should lead to healthy earnings gains and solid stock price performance over the long run. However, shares of American Express now appear fully valued, thanks to the aforementioned uptick in its value.
At the time of this article's writing, the author did not have positions in any of the companies mentioned.