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The History of the Sports Bra
It's hard to imagine a world without sports bras. Yet, this lifesaver was invented just 30 years ago, when a frustrated runner stitched two jockstraps into one Frankensteinian creation that revolutionized women's athletics. The sports bra has grown more refined since then, courtesy of real-women innovators who steered its evolution by insisting on what they and we needed.
By Kelly Bastone
"What do you do for a bra? All that flopping about, it's hardly comfortable," complained Victoria Woodrow. She'd just tried jogging, the 1970's hottest new craze, but felt flummoxed by the boob-bounce thing. So for advice she'd called up her sister, Lisa Lindahl, who'd already gotten into jogging.
"She couldn't believe it when I told her I just wore my everyday bra," recalls Lisa. "She said, 'Why isn't there a jockstrap for women?' Oh, we laughed hysterically at that. But you know, after I hung up the phone, I started to think that might not be such a silly idea."
At the disco women might've felt like the dancing queen ABBA was singing about in 1977, but on the track they felt like interlopers. Title IX legislation had been enacted merely five years before; and although much of the country was turning on to jogging, many women who tried running for fitness encountered similar frustrations: runaway bra straps, chafed skin, and breasts so sore from bouncing that jogging seemed anything but healthy. For all the things women did in their Maidenform bras, running in comfort wasn't one of them.
So in the summer of 1977, Lisa drew up her wish list of everything a jogging bra needed: The straps shouldn't fall down. There should be no poky hardware. And it should eliminate breast bounce. "Later, of course, I discovered that minimizing breast bounce was more realistic than eliminating it, she admits. But back then she was shooting for the moon," and she knew she needed someone with better sewing skills than her own to corral her bucking ponies.
She enlisted the help of costume designer Polly Smith, and together they tried out a few prototypes. But it wasn't until Lisa's husband paraded around wearing a jockstrap on his chest that the pair saw their solution. "Here's your jockbra, ladies," he clowned; and for a while the name stuck, especially after Polly stitched two supporters together and found that a jockstrap for women was the way to go.
Lisa and her husband soon split, and the divorce left her wondering if her jockbra could be brought to market. "I wanted one," she says, "so I assumed every woman wanted one. Plus, just after the divorce, I thought this could be a nice mail-order business on the side to help put me through grad school." So together with Polly and her costume assistant, Hinda Schreiber, Lisa launched the Jogbra. She drew up a business plan and sought funding. Hinda's dad lent them $5,000, and the brand-new company worked with an equally nascent apparel manufacturer in South Carolina to produce the first marketable Jogbra, in three sizes: small, medium, and large. The bras were distributed primarily through mail order in 1978, and by the following year Lisa and a handful of hired product reps started targeting sporting-goods retailers.
"I made a decision early on that this was not lingerie," Lisa says. "It was sports equipment, something you needed like you needed your shoes." But sporting-goods stores saw the Jogbra as a tough sell, and their overwhelmingly male owners reacted squeamishly to sample cases full of sports bras. Lisa was fond of countering, "You sell jockstraps, don't you?" That always stopped them cold.
The stores that did take the gamble discovered that the Jogbra sold and sold well. Before long, new players entered the fledgling sports bra market, many with novel configurations whose designs were all over the map. "Early on there was this big push away from conventional bra construction," recalls LaJean Lawson, an exercise scientist who has been conducting sports bra research at Oregon State University's biomechanics lab for nearly 20 years. She recalls how some designs turned the cups upside-down; others, like the Damon Jogger, included leg loops. Still others were produced by athletic supporter companies, which dabbled briefly in bras. These models, like the Lady Duke, featured thick, heavy-duty fabrics that were "not pretty," says LaJean.
The bulletproof Lady Duke didn't fly in an era defined by Jane Fonda's glittering aerobics outfits and superstyled hair. By the 1980s aerobic dancing had become the new fitness fad, inspiring women everywhere to pull on their leg warmers, lace up their Reeboks, and pogo around wearing colorful Lycra tanks. It was in this glamorous age that lingerie companies ventured onto the sports bra scene: Olga, Warner, Vanity Fairthese and other intimate apparel manufacturers began reaching for the growing athletic share of the market. They turned to Christine Haycockaka -aka Dr. Bra- for direction.
A softball player herself, Christine conducted pioneering research throughout the 1970s and 1980s that measured breast movement by observing women running on treadmills. Coaches and other sports officials were most concerned about women's potential for injury. But Christine's prime motivator was solving soreness because she personally experienced breast pain every time she pitched a game. My mother suggested I try a maternity bra, Christine muses. But instead of experimenting with bra design, as Lisa Lindahl did, Christine turned to science. As associate professor of surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Christine represented the needs of female athletes by serving on the American Medical Association's Committee on Medical Aspects of Sports. She also conducted key studies investigating breast support and protection.
"On the one hand, the studies were debunking the myth that women shouldn't be in contact sports because they'd hurt their breasts," Christine says. "But on the other hand, the research gave credence to women's complaints of breast pain." In one study she actually measured the force of a breast in motion. "It was quite impressive," she recalls. So when bra manufacturers started looking at Christine's work and asking for her advice, she gave it freely: wide bottom bands for extra support and straps not so elastic that they let breasts bounce.
In response intimate apparel companies started making beefed-up everyday bras built for sport - not exactly ideal gear, but a sign that the needs of female athletes were moving into the mainstream. Even upstart Jogbra had grown big enough to attract corporate attention. Although its signature product remained essentially unchanged over the years, the company had expanded its line to offer a variety of designs, and in 1990 Playtex purchased Jogbra from Lisa and her partners.
One segment of the female population, however, remained firmly on the periphery: large-breasted athletes. The pullover shelf-bra design established during the aerobics craze worked reasonably well for A and B cups but was woefully inadequate for D-plus sizes. "It was ridiculous," says Renelle Braaten, a Montana hairdresser who struggled to contain her double-Ds while playing racquetball and volleyball. "Anything stretchy enough to fit over my head just let them bounce all over the place," she says.
So in 1988 Renelle collaborated with her mother, an accomplished seamstress, and the two started from scratch to design something for well-endowed women. Renelle knew that her bra would need really strong, relatively nonelastic material; a crisscross design for better back support; exceptionally wide straps; and a front or back closure to zip 'em in tight. In fact, her first prototype did use a zipper, though she soon switched to hooks and eyes to achieve the supersnug fit she sought. Before long she'd dialed in a design that actually worked.
"It made a huge difference," Renelle recalls. She stitched a few for herself, then for friends, and that set her wondering about the larger population. "I knew I was not the only DD out there," says Renelle. "There had to be other women in the same position I'm in. And I knew if I could find them, they would love the bra."
Renelle planned to sell her product to an existing company, but each manufacturer gave her the same response: "What can this crazy broad from Montana possibly offer that our fabulous designers haven't already thought of?" Renelle recalls. They also doubted that there could be many large-breasted women in sports - a skepticism that never fails to spark Renelle's indignation since she blames that dearth on inadequate gear. The rejections roused what Renelle calls her "Norwegian stubbornness" and inspired the hairdresser to bring the bra to market herself. A stroke of luck introduced her to freelance apparel designer Heidi Fisk, who made aesthetic improvements to Renelle's bra and helped locate a product manufacturer. Renelle's own savings funded Enell Incorporated, and the minimal startup cash made for a low-profile launch.
Fourteen years later, Enell Inc. sees about 40 percent growth annually and receives daily e-mails from women who have resumed or begun athletics thanks to the Enell bra. Renelle says getting those grateful e-mails is the best part of her job. "Some of these women had been hunting so long for something that worked and were always disappointed," she says. "They try the Enell bra, and it's, like, Oh my gosh! And suddenly these women are playing tennis and basketball again. It's great to make money with the business, but that's nothing compared to the satisfaction of getting this product to women who really need it."
The happy customer who's had the greatest impact on Enell is Oprah Winfrey. For years Renelle implored Oprah to try her bra, sometimes sending polite invitations, sometimes scolding the superstar for letting her boobs bounce around on national TV when she should be buckling them into the Enell bra. Finally, one day Oprah did just that, which prompted glowing product reviews in O, The Oprah Magazine and a 2001 appearance for Renelle on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The result was a surge in demand that depleted eight months worth of inventory in just three days and a valuable endorsement that boosts Enell's sales to this day.
Renelle now targets adolescents because she feels that large-breasted teens tend to give up sports once their ballooning chests make it too embarrassing to participate. "They just won't go through the humiliation of playing basketball in front of their peers if they're bouncing all over the place," Renelle sympathizes. She also believes that a properly supportive bra enhances athletic performance. She's often watched women running with their arms held tight at their sides, trying to stabilize their breasts. "You put those same women in a good bra and they forget all about holding onto themselves and really start concentrating on their sport," she observes.
And with the average breast size on the rise, more women need bras that offer greater support than those engineered for B cups. Americans in general are gaining weight, and for women those extra pounds have translated into plumper bosoms. Ten years ago 34B was the average; now it's 38C. That increase means larger-breasted athletes are no longer seen as a niche market. Profit potential is motivating big corporate players to cater to C and D sizes, which translates to more options for consumers, who are finding that the big brands are serving a wider spectrum of women than ever before. They're also producing sport-specific bras, meaning styles for low-impact activities like yoga and walking are engineered differently from those intended for running. And many bras now combine compression designs with encapsulation (a bra design that lifts and separates the breasts) for support without the monoboob look.
Along with advances in support, sports bras now offer high-performance moisture management; and technological advances made for outdoor sporting goods like parkas and tents have crossed over to sports bras. Welded and molded parts now replace stitched seams, which were too often the source of chafing and discomfort. The first high-support seamless bra, introduced in 2003 by Champion (Jogbra's current owner), combined slick nylon fabric with seamless design for friction-free performance. And Champion's brand-new Vapor bra uses Cocona fabric technology, a superwicking fiber made from coconut shells that makes CoolMax seem so last decade.
Having access to performance-oriented sports bras may not have made women more athletic but it definitely supported them to greater sporting accomplishments. "The history of the sports bra really tracks with the history of women in athletics," observes Lisa Lindahl. Prior to Title IX, women played half-court basketball, and running more than a mile was seen as a big accomplishment. But the bra that might've been tolerable on a 10-minute jog became a torture device during a 26-mile marathon. As women upped the intensity of their sports, they demanded equipment equal to the task. In turn that equipment made it possible for women to go longer, harder, and faster.
"It's been a transformative piece of clothing," says LaJean Lawson. "Finally, we have what we need to play hard, play well, and be comfy."
As the industry grew, profit motivated corporate players to join the effort, but the sports bra's inventor and innovators were real-women athletes fueled by passion for sports and the need for comfort. Lisa Lindahl is back in the bra business, this time with Bellisse, a company offering a bra for women experiencing the pain of truncal lymphedema following breast cancer surgery. Although she prefers to work on the leading edge rather than in an established industry, she still derives satisfaction from knowing that her invention is no longer a novelty. "I can't tell you what a kick it is to walk into a storea big store, like a JCPenney and see an entire wall of sports bras," she marvels. "It's an uncontested reality" - one for which active women can be profoundly grateful.
Major Moments in Sports Bra History:
A.D. 300 Roman mosaics in a villa near the Sicilian town of Piazza Armerina depict women exercising with bound breasts.
1906 American inventor Laura Blanche Lyon secures a patent for the bust supporter, a back-fastened canvas camisole with gathered cups now regarded as the first sports bra.
1917 American artist Ethel Quirk invents a breast supporter intended for theatrical, acrobatic dancing.
1972 Title IX of the Educational Amendments bans sex discrimination in schools, including unequal athletic opportunities.
1977 Lisa Lindahl, Polly Smith, and Hinda Schreiber stitch two jockstraps together to create the Jogbra, the first modern sports bra.
1982 Jane Fonda's Workout video launches the aerobic dancing craze and inspires millions of women to jump around in front of their TV's sporting shimmery, gem-hued Lycra tanks.
1984 In Los Angeles 27-year-old Joan Benoit wins the first-ever women's Olympic marathon with her lingerie-style bra strap showing as she completes her closing lap, an indiscretion that caused an uproar load enough to upstage her athletic achievement.
1988 Montana hairstylist Renelle Braaten constructs a front-fastening sports bra designed especially for large-breasted women.
1999 Soccer player Brandi Chastain celebrates her team's World Cup victory by stripping off her jersey and revealing her black Nike sports bra, which ignites inexplicable furor in a nation mesmerized by Baywatch. Others, however, see this as the moment when female athletes come out of the locker room to declare breasts as symbols of power and proficiency rather than impediments.
2000 Champion responds to women's complaints that sports bras flattened and de-feminized their bust lines by introducing the Shaper bra, which uses a unique nonfoam spacer fabric to maintain women's curves without compromising performance.
2003 Seamless sports bras virtually eliminate chafing and end the practice among distance athletes of covering themselves in Vaseline to prevent painful abrasions.
2007 High-tech fabrics improve bras' moisture management: Champion's Vapor sports bra features Cocona, a superwicking, odor-squelching new material made from coconut shells.
Fitting in, tips on finding a sports bra that fits:
Shop around, use your regular bra size as a guideline, but experiment with larger and smaller sizes to see what fits best. Sizing varies even among bras made by the same manufacturer.
Beware the band. Most of a bra's support comes from the band at the bottom, which restricts breasts vertical movement. The band should fit snugly against your rib cage; a too-big band lets the bra creep up your back. If the bra has an underwire, it should lie flat against your chest. If it's riding up onto your breasts, the bra's too small.
Go wide. Broad, nonstretchy shoulder straps provide the most support. If straps dig into your shoulder, they're either adjusted too tightly or the band size is too big.
Check the cups. Skin bulging out of the top or sides means the cup is too small; the fabric must completely cover your breasts to effectively contain motion. Wrinkling across the cups, however, means the bra's too big.
Dance around. Jog, jump, bend, reach - do whatever you can while trying on the bra to replicate the activity for which it's intended. Wear the bra for 5 to 10 minutes to give hot spots and other fit issues time to develop.
Trade up. Recent sports bra advances make today's models better than ever. If you're still wearing 1980s' technology, it's time to graduate to the twenty-first century.


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Miami Heritage Month will return December 2018.
Beyond the shimmer and glitz of Greater Miami's ultra-chic hotspots and unrivaled beaches lies the rich history of a city with deep multicultural roots. This December, discover hidden cultural gems found throughout the destination and learn about our many influences during Miami Heritage Month.
Built in 1896, Overtown grew and developed into a vibrant Miami community anchored by churches, retail and entertainment establishments.
In Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, there's a vibrant Hispanic culture, including colorful storefronts, unique art galleries and quaint restaurants.
Downtown Miami is one Southeast Florida's most historic neighborhoods and it showcases a variety of architectural styles.
In adapting to new ways, the Miccosukees have always managed to retain their own culture.
Experience the diversity of Greater Miami and Beaches' many popular areas.
Laid back, quirky, bohemian waterfront village.
Exceptional shopping, dining, and residential living.
Ultra-hip clubs, Art Deco architecture, people-watching.
The airport area's growing corporate business community is located right next to MIA.
Enjoy family fun with nature, clean air and water, healthy outdoor activities, eco and agricultural experiences.
Cuban cuisine, domino games, even hand-rolled cigars.
Explore Downtown Miami and experience arts & culture, fine dining & exciting nightlife.
Mellow vibe, wide-open beaches, MiMo architecture.
Beach paradise and a delicious melting pot.
Art galleries, showrooms, and designer shopping mecca.
Historic Mediterranean beauty, fine boutiques, dining.
Haitian and indie-music culture, galleries, performances.
Exceptional golf, shopping, and residential community.
Relaxing beaches, golf, tennis, luxury views.
Soulful and vibrant, with a Broadway history.
Check out this complete guide to visiting the Florida Everglades. Find the information you need about camping, bike tours, and airboat ...
Luxury shopping, spectacular beaches, five-star resorts.
World famous murals, arts and nightlife district.

subset: commoncrawl


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These Sketches Reveal the Processes of 8 Iconic Artists, from Pablo Picasso to Judy Chicago
The Art Genome Project
Framed H: 36 3/4 x W: 31 1/2 x D: 5 in. (93.3 x 80 x 12.7 cm); Framed H with build-up: 36 3/4 x W: 31 5/8 x D: 5 3/4 in. (93.35 x 80.33 x 14.61 cm)
Link to The Walters Art Museum object page
Image rights: Image Provided by The Walters Art Museum
Acquired by Henry Walters, 1903
Studying under Jacques-Louis David for four years, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres developed a Neoclassical approach that changed little as his career unfolded. Known for his extraordinary drawing skills, Ingres believed that line, not color, conveyed the expressive content in an image. He did not share his colleagues' enthusiasm for battle scenes, preferring to depict revelatory moments and intimate confrontations that rarely included movement or violence, and his early work was criticized for stylistic and historical idiosyncrasies. Ingres despised the more fashionable work of the Romantics such as Eugene Delacroix, and was despondent when his work was poorly received in the Salons. Inspired by Orientalism, Ingres painted a series of odalisques that were originally panned for their exaggerated anatomy and depiction of odd accessories, but were later hailed as Romantic masterpieces.
French, 1780-1867, Montauban, France, based in Paris, France
These Sketches Reveal the Processes of 8 Iconic Artists, from Pablo Picasso to Judy Chicago
The Art Genome Project


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CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the strike called by the Chicago Teachers Union is "unnecessary" and unfair to the city's school children.
The mayor spoke shortly after union President Karen Lewis announced that the city's 25,000 public school teachers would walk the picket line Monday morning after talks with the school board broke down Sunday night.
Emanuel says the two sides disagreed mainly over two issues that could quickly be finished if the negotiations continued, and that the district's team was ready to start talks again at any time. He said the district had offered the teachers at 16 percent pay raise over four years.
The two sides have been negotiating for months. District officials plan to feed and monitor students at 144 schools throughout the city during the strike.


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SQL Server 2005, and especially Analysis Services 2005, has embraced industry-standard dimensional modeling like a long-lost friend. When you build Analysis Services databases in SQL Server 2000, you have to compromise in creating the dimensional model. Specifically, you have to create multiple OLAP virtual dimensions and use member properties to capture attributes that don't fit into hierarchical dimensions.
SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services uses attribute-based dimensions, so every attribute in a dimension is automatically treated as a standalone hierarchy. Now, you can use the metadata layer that defines Analysis Services cubes (the Unified Dimensional Model—UDM) to define one customer dimension instead of a half-dozen artificially separate dimensions. One benefit of this deeper dimensional support is that data warehouse and BI system developers no longer need to convert standard dimensional-modeling techniques to the limited world view of previous SQL Server versions. Instead, you can build dimensions that realistically represent how your business operates and can change as your business changes. In this article, we define dimensional models, describe the basic elements and techniques that support them, and offer a dimensionally based data architecture for your data warehouse and BI system.
Related: Analysis Services Integrates with Reporting and Deploying an Analysis Services Database
Facts and Dimensions
What do we mean by dimensional modeling? Basically, a dimensional model contains two entity types: facts and dimensions. We keep the measurements of a given business process in entities called fact tables in the relational world, or measure groups in Analysis Services. In its classic form, a relational fact table contains foreign keys and numeric fact fields that measure the business process. Essentially, a fact table is a normalized structure for efficient storage and fast access of large, relational data sets.
For example, many organizations have a business process called Orders that tracks customer requests for goods or services. Figure 1 shows a simplified OrderLineItems fact table model based on the Adventure-Works Cycles sample database in SQL Server 2005. The three non-key numeric fields in the fact table are the quantities, dollar values, and shipping costs of goods ordered: the measurements of the Orders business process. The foreign keys in the OrderLineItems fact table link to the second type of dimensional entity, dimension tables, which we'll discuss in a bit.
The level of detail in the fact table is called its grain. The granularity of the OrderLineItems fact table in Figure 1 is at the order line-item level.The finer the grain, or the lower the level of detail, the more flexibility your model will have. You can always roll the data up to a higher level if needed, but you can never drill down if you don't have the detail in your initial database. Our team designs fact tables at the lowest level of detail available, the atomic level. Depending on your organization's data volumes and your users' performance needs, you might not be able to provide atomic-level granularity, but make sure business users understand what they're losing in terms of flexibility.
You'll most likely end up with fact tables at different levels of granularity in your BI environment. For example, in an Orders Forecast table, you wouldn't want the same level of granularity as the OrderLineItems fact table. Forcasting orders by day, customer, and product is just too much work. Instead, the Orders Forecast table would probably be at the month and product level, with a customer level possibly thrown in for large customer accounts or businesses that have relatively few customers. The OrderLineItems table in Figure 1 has data that could be at two different levels. The OrderQuantity and OrderDollar values are at the line-item level, but the Shipping-Amount might be generated at the Orders table level. In Figure 1, we've allocated shipping costs to the line-item level to avoid the need for two fact tables. Such an allocation is generally a good solution as long as the business users support the allocation rules. In some cases, it doesn't make business sense to allocate items this way, and instead we use fact tables at two levels of granularity to describe a given business process.
One final note about fact tables: Notice that the OrderNumber and LineItemNumber in Figure 1 are not foreign keys for separate dimensions. Their purpose is to tie together the rows of each order. Because all the descriptive attributes of an order reside in their respective dimensions, Order-Number and LineItemNumber become degenerate dimensions (or fact dimensions in Analysis Services).
A quick glance at Figure 1's example data rows reveals that the fact table is meaningless by itself—it has no business context. Any given business process has several relatively independent entities or objects that participate in the process. In dimensional modeling, these objects are called dimensions and the properties of a dimension are called attributes. Attributes describe the members of the dimension and provide a rich business context for analytic purposes. For example, the AdventureWorks Product dimension might have several standalone attributes such as color, size, and weight. Most dimensions also have several attributes that relate to other attributes in a hierarchical fashion.The product dimension might have a hierarchy in which products are members of a group and groups are members of a category. Figure 2 shows a simplified Product dimension and some example rows for Adventure WorksCycles.
In the transaction system, attributes and hierarchies are often fully normalized into separate tables that use foreign keys to link to products. We build dimension tables on the relational platform by denormalizing the descriptive attributes and hierarchies into one table for each dimension. These denormalized dimensions still present the same information and relationships as the normalized model; nothing is lost except complexity.
Even with a simple product dimension like the one in Figure 2, it's easy to imagine how the attributes will be used as row and column headers in a query or report. For example, a user request to see order dollars by color and size would reveal order patterns between size and color. All of the natural ways end users describe their business should find their way into dimension attributes.
Figure 2's Product dimension seems to have two keys: ProductKey and ProductBusinessKey. ProductKey is the dimension table's primary key and is a surrogate key, usually an integer, which is added as part of the process of creating the dimension table. ProductBusinessKey is the key from the transaction system. Although including both keys might seem redundant, there are several compelling reasons to assign and manage your own surrogate keys:
- They help isolate the data warehouse and BI system from operational changes such as a merger, acquisition, or system migration.
- You can add dimension rows for values such as Not Applicable or Date TBD that aren't in the transaction system.
- Surrogate keys let you integrate data from multiple sources that might have different business keys for the same entity, such as a customer.
- In some cases, the simple integer surrogate key provides better join performance than a more complex alphanumeric key.
If those reasons aren't enough, you must use a surrogate key if you're planning to track changes in attribute values over time.
Managing Changes in Dimension Attributes
Even though we think of dimension attributes as fixed properties (e.g.,a product's color), some attribute values can change over time. We call this Slowly Changing Dimensions. Dimensional modeling offers two basic techniques for tracking attribute changes in dimensions. The first, a Type 1 change, is to simply overwrite the old value with the new one. The second way to track attribute changes, a Type 2 change, is a bit more complex. When a Type 2 attribute changes, you create a new dimension row with the new value and a new surrogate key, and mark the old row as no longer in effect. Going forward, the fact table uses the new surrogate key to link new fact measurements to the dimension row that contains the new attribute value. Fact rows created before the change will continue to join to the old dimension row with the old key and return the old attribute value. With a Type 2 change, all measurements before the change will be associated with the old value, and all measurements after the change will be associated with the new value.
We often see the technical people on BI teams dismiss Type 2 dimension-change management as too complicated. Fortunately, SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS) makes managing Type 2 dimensions relatively easy. It's essential that business users—not developers—decide which attributes must have historical tracking. For some analyses, it's vital for the business user to know an attribute's value at the time an event happened rather than the value that the attribute has today.
Bringing Together Facts and Dimensions
A business process dimensional model brings together the facts and dimensions for a given business process. For example, Figure 1's OrderLineItems fact table involves three dimensions: a dimension for the customer who placed the order, the order date, and the product the customer ordered. Each of these dimensions is independent of the business process. For example, a product can exist in inventory even if it never sells. Figure 3 shows the business process dimensional model for the OrderLineItems business process from Figure 1. (You might also see the term star schema used to describe the business process dimensional model; the terms are essentially interchangeable.)
The OrderDate and RequestedDate dimensions in Figure 3 are actually the same underlying dimension. We call this reuse of the same dimension in one model dimension role-playing. The underlying Date dimension exists in almost all business process dimensional models and can be reused through views, aliases, or physical copies of the base table. The Date dimension supports analyses that trend across dates or compare time periods (i.e., nearly all business analyses). Analysis Services 2005 calls this a Time dimension and provides a wizard and MDX functions to help you create date-based calculations.
Although a business-process dimensional model such as the orders model in Figure 3 is powerful from an analytic perspective, this power is dramatically multiplied when you extend it across the enterprise. Many dimensions are involved in multiple business processes. For example, the Product dimension at a company such as AdventureWorks Cycles is tied not only to orders, but also to manufacturing, inventory, shipping, and returns. These separate business-process dimensional models must use the same product dimension with the same keys to reliably support true, cross-business-process analysis. If your company's inventory managers want to calculate inventory turns, they sum the total sales quantity by product from orders, sum the inventory quantities at the end of the period by product from inventory, and divide the two to get inventory turns by product.This type of analysis works only if the two business processes use the exact same product dimension and the same keys; that is, they use a conformed dimension. Conformed dimensions are the cornerstone of the enterprise-enabled BI system.
Getting all the people in an enterprise to agree on conformed dimensions is an organizational challenge for the data modeler and data steward.The organization must agree on how to define its product,customer,employee, or facility dimension tables. The definition includes the list of attributes, attribute names, hierarchies, and the business rules needed to define and derive each attribute in the table. Getting this enterprise-wide agreement can be hard, political work, and the effort grows with the number of employees and divisions in your organization, but it's not optional. Creating conformed dimensions is the only way to ensure that you're comparing apples to apples (assuming you are selling apples).
The idea of reusing dimensions across multiple business processes leads us to the concept of the data warehouse bus matrix, which is a useful way to map out conformed dimensions and the business processes they support. The classic bus matrix has dimensions across the columns and business processes down the rows. Table 1 shows an abbreviated version of the AdventureWorks Cycles bus matrix, which gives us the sense that the Orders business process is more complicated than we've been led to believe. The bus matrix includes a Promotion dimension and an Employee dimension in addition to the Date, Product, and Customer dimensions we've already seen.
Ultimately, the bus matrix is the enterprise-BI data roadmap. You implement the BI system one business process at a time. As you implement a business process, build conformed dimensions that will support other business processes as they come online. In Analysis Services 2005, you see the same concept as the data warehouse bus matrix in the Dimension Usage tab of the Cube Designer.
A Dimensional Approach for SQL Server 2005
Given that SQL Server is so dimensionally oriented, what should your data warehouse and BI data architecture look like? We recommend creating a three-tiered data solution like the one that Figure 4 shows. This solution includes a staging or extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) database; a relational dimensional database; and an OLAP cube in Analysis Services.
The ETL database is the construction site for the BI system. Business users generally aren't allowed access to this first tier. Within the ETL database, you manage slowly changing dimensions, assign surrogate keys, integrate data from multiple sources, and deal with business rules, data quality checks, and complex transformations. The underlying data model of the ETL database depends on many factors, including data volumes, referential integrity issues, data quality, the source system data model, and source system extract resources. For example, the ETL database might contain normalized versions of the dimension attributes and hierarchies to support the construction of the relational dimensional database and the Analysis Services database. Specifically, when Analysis Services builds a dimension, it issues a SELECT DISTINCT query against every attribute. Running these queries can be time-consuming for a large dimension table with dozens of attributes. This re-normalization is called snowflaking, and although it can be useful for maintenance and data load purposes, we encourage you to always present properly formed, denormalized dimensions to your users.
The second tier, the Relational Database in Figure 4, is a user-accessible, relational, atomic-level database built on dimensional models. This tier serves as the data foundation and is the cleansed, aligned, validated, atomic-level detail system of records for the data warehouse and BI system. The relational platform lets you store and manage the full data set. It also provides a level of ad hoc flexibility for certain kinds of queries (e.g., joins to new tables not in the original model) that are difficult to do in Analysis Services.
For the third tier, you build an OLAP cube in Analysis Services that replicates the relational dimensional database and functions as the primary user-query engine. Our practice is to build this tier as a MOLAP cube.The Analysis Services layer provides consistent performance by pre-aggregating, indexing, and compressing the data and delivers enhanced analytic functionality by using the MDX query language. Keeping the detailed data foundation in relational form lets you manage, redesign, and rebuild the Analysis Services layer when the need arises.
Why Dimensional Modeling?
Dimensional modeling supports our two main data warehouse and BI design principles: usability and performance. (For a quick explanation of why we use dimensional modeling, see "Modeling Myths.") The denormalization of the dimension tables improves usability by pulling all the related attributes together into one table, dramatically decreasing the total number of tables a user has to deal with. A business process that might require hundreds of tables in the OLTP system can be reduced to a dozen or so tables in its dimensional form.
From a performance perspective, dimensional models can help in several ways. Denormalizing the dimension tables during the load process reduces the number of joins the query engine must do at query time. Beyond this, the relational optimizer understands that the dimensional model is a large fact table with simple joins to several relatively small dimension tables in which the majority of constraints reside; the optimizer can formulate a query strategy that takes advantage of this structure. This strategy, known as a star join, can greatly improve the speed of most BI queries. Awareness of star-join optimization is built into the SQL Server 2005 relational engine. One of Analysis Services' main purposes is to improve performance by pre-aggregating across dimensions and up hierarchies within dimensions. Analysis Services can do this because it's dimensionally based.
Dimensional modeling is a powerful approach to building a robust, flexible data foundation for data warehousing and BI, and SQL Server 2005 wholeheartedly embraces the dimensional approach. This article only scratches the surface of dimensional modeling. To read more, consult the references listed in the Related Reading box.
Related Reading


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Vanessa Hudgens: Hurricane Sandy Celebrity Telethon Fundraiser!
Vanessa Hudgens is casual chic while attending the Hurricane Sandy Celebrity Telethon Fundraiser at Fuse Studios on Friday (November 9) in New York City.
The 23-year-old actress helped answer phones and raise money, alongside Katrina Bowden and Lisa Ling.
PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Vanessa Hudgens
Later in the day, Vanessa was spotted watching the Dallas Mavericks versus New York Knicks basketball game at Madison Square Garden.
Earlier in the week, Vanessa was seen all dressed up with her boyfriend Austin Butler at Rolling Stone's Top 25 DJ List party.


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Randall Kennedy: How about some new music?
I want to hear new music. Am I alone? Yes, what goes around comes around and given that in all of music the basic notes are the same, it all comes down to the actual implementation. Do we rip off Horace Silver or Funkadelic or Bob James?


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Thursday, March 14, 2013 06:03 pm
Guess who showed up last Friday at Illinois State Police headquarters at the same time as we did to pick up a copy of reports on the DUI arrest of state auditor general William Holland? Calvin Christian. And how are things at Springfield Leaks, Calvin? "I'm not part of them, but I know who they are," responded Christian, who is the son of the publisher of Pure News USA. Sure. Guessing who is behind Springfield Leaks, the website (www.springfieldleaks.com) that dishes on courthouse happenings and police blotter stuff from the anonymous safety of cyberspace, has been something of a parlor game. When we asked for an interview, we got an email straight from the keyboard of a masked caped crusader: "We're trying to keep our identity kind of secret due to we have some stories that will be coming out and if individuals are identified as behind it, then it could mean danger and possible prosecution." Oh. Based on photos that appear to come from inside the yellow tape and police-speak in stories that includes such acronyms as TRU (tactical response unit) and HNT (hostage negotiation team) and ERT (emergency response team), it's a safe bet that a cop is involved. And we would never suggest that Mr. Christian is also in on this. Never.


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See what questions
a doctor would ask.
The list of complications that have been mentioned in various sources for Melena includes:
Complications and sequelae of Melena from the Diseases Database include:
See also the symptoms of Melena and Melena: Introduction.
For a more detailed analysis of Melena as a symptom, including causes, drug side effect causes, and drug interaction causes, please see our Symptom Center information for Melena.
Complications of Melena are secondary conditions, symptoms, or other disorders that are caused by Melena. In many cases the distinction between symptoms of Melena and complications of Melena is unclear or arbitrary.
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Copyright © 2014 Health Grades Inc. All rights reserved. Last Update: 13 August, 2015 (5:09)


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Elizabethcraftdesigns.com ships primarily via USPS and FedEx Ground for US visitors. International orders ship FedEx International.
Shipping and Handling United States
Shipping rates are calculated by weight.
Orders $75 and up FREE SHIPPING
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Orders $200 and up FREE SHIPPING
If you are located in Europe you can now shop local here www.elizabethcraftdesigns.eu
Shipping Estimates
Orders are typically shipped within 2-4 business days. Please allow 7-10 business day once the order is placed. Elizabeth Craft Designs, Inc. is not responsible for any parcels that are lost or damaged by USPS or FedEx once the parcel has left our warehouse.
Custom Duties
Elizabeth Craft Designs will not pay any customs duty charges. Any extra charges will fall under the responsibility of the customer.
Returns & Exchanges
We want you to be happy with the products that you purchase from Elizabeth Craft Designs, Inc. Please call or email us within 15 days of your ship date and we will discuss the situation and the available options. If the return is due to an error we made we will make the corrections needed. If it is simply an item you don't want, it will be your responsibility to return the item at your cost for a refund or exchange. However, you must first have authorization - please email us.
Please understand that our return process is a bit more rigid than the big discount stores. We work hard to offer and deliver quality products and expect that our customers will work with us to resolve problems in a manner that is fair to both of us.
Elizabeth Craft Designs, Inc. offers the following Returns Policy:
We happily accept returns or exchanges on defective merchandise. The buyer is responsible for the shipping and return postage. Please be certain of your selections before making payment as we are unable to make modifications once your order has been placed.
For non-defective merchandise there will be a 15% re-stocking fee, unless otherwise specified. The items must be returned in the original packaging unaltered and/or tampered with and in resalable condition. All requests must be made within 15 days of receipt of merchandise. Any and all damages not reported prior to requesting authorization for a return will be the purchaser's responsibility and may be subtracted from the total refund amount. Please ship the authorized item(s) with proper packaging to ensure the integrity of the items enclosed. Elizabeth Craft Designs, Inc. is not liable for any damages and/or losses in transit to our warehouse. Please include a detailed summary inside the package or copy of email correspondence regarding the authorization, to include invoice number and reason for return.


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7:00 pm
Antiques Roadshow "San Diego, CA - Hour Two" Highlights include an 18th-century ivory carved creche that could be worth up to 30 times what the owner paid for it; a beautifully preserved banner from George Washington's inauguration ball; and a circa 1900 Turkmenistan rug, valued up to $150,000.G
8:00 pm
Antiques Roadshow "San Diego, CA - Hour Three" Host Mark L. Walberg checks out early posters of mechanical flight at the Allen Airways Flying Museum. At the convention center, appraisers find an extensive collection of comics, and an original Hortus Eystettensis, the botanical illustrations published in 1613 and valued up to $350,000. Part 3 of 3G
9:00 pm
Globe Trekker "Globe Trekker Special: World War II in the Pacific" The Trekkers explore the epic events of World War II by visiting key locations in the Pacific, a region where great battles were fought and military history was made.G
10:00 pm
Independent Lens "Young Lakota" In a small town in the heart of the Pine Ridge Reservation, Sunny Clifford, her twin sister Serena and a neighbor share a common dream of helping to create a better future for their tribe. When South Dakota passes a law criminalizing abortion, their tribal president challenges it with a threat to build a women's clinic on the reservation, drawing the trio into a political storm that changes the course of each of their lives.G
11:00 pm
Charlie Rose NULL


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Portland Head Light at Sunset
Connie Chung 7/26/2006 5:39:28 AMwow its gorgeuos..i love it!
<33 Connie Chung <33 #491494
Julie Robinson 8/26/2006 3:34:14 PMCongrats on your wondeful finalist! #3220150
Jenny D 8/26/2006 5:18:42 PMWow, gorgeous! Congrats! #3220946
This photo was taken earlier this year at Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. I added a sunset feature and an artistic blur. Comments appreciated.
Exif: FNumber: 11, ExposureBiasValue: 0/6, ExposureTime: 0.0025, Flash: flash did not fire, ISO: , WhiteBalance:
Uploaded on 7/25/2006 11:45:22 PM
Camera: Nikon D70S Digital SLR Camera
Copyright for this gallery photo belongs solely to Angela M. Blanco. Images may not be copied, downloaded, or used in any way without the expressed, written permission of the photographer.
Log in to follow or message this photographer or report this photo.


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PITTSBURGH - An employee of a McDonald's restaurant in Pittsburgh is charged with selling heroin in Happy Meals.
Investigators in the county district attorney's office received a tip that an employee was selling heroin at a McDonald's in the East Liberty section of the city.
Officers say customers looking for heroin were told to go through the drive-thru and say "I'd like to order a toy." The customer would then be told to drive to a window, where they'd hand over their money and get a Happy Meal box containing heroin in exchange.
Undercover agents on Wednesday set up a fake drug buy and arrested 26-year-old employee Shania Dennis of East Pittsburgh.
Dennis denied wrongdoing to reporters as she was being led away in handcuffs.


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Our All-Time Best Recipes
Cafe Latte's Turtle Cake [1]
Sheer three-layered audacity put this creation from a Saint Paul bakery in our hall of fame: buttermilk-cocoa cake, candylike chocolate frosting and creamy caramel sauce. Originally published: December 2005.
Download a free printable collection of our all-time best recipes [3]
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Biggies [6]
Yes, even a kid could sandwich ice cream between cookies loaded with chocolate chips, oatmeal and peanut butter. But who says you have to grow up? Originally published: October 2000.
Danish Pastry Apple Bars [10]
Put apple pie flavor into a convenient bar, and you have the most popular recipe ever on our website. The flaky, double-crust pastry and sweet apple filling add up to a sure sellout at every bake sale. Originally published: October 2008.
Caramel-Banana Muffins [14]
Reimagine an all-time quick bread favorite as a moist single serving, and it's an instant classic. Caramel sauce adds a luscious accent to cinnamon and pecans. Originally published: February 2010.
German Chocolate Pecan Rolls [18]
Choices, choices. This recipe makes a mouthwatering regular cinnamon roll -- or an equally compelling German Chocolate Pecan Roll. The secret ingredients for the pecan roll variation: Chocolate cake mix (it adds an extra-delicate texture) and coconut. Originally published: February 2010.
German Chocolate Pecan Rolls (Variation on Best Cinnamon Rolls) [19]
Paradise Pumpkin Pie [22]
You'd better have a good reason for messing with tradition. And we did. Adding a cheesecake layer and streusel topping transformed ordinary pumpkin pie into one of our most requested recipes. Originally published: October 1989.
Paradise Pumpkin Pie [23]
Porketta [26]
This moist pork roast preps quickly, then grills slowly as the herbs and garlic tucked inside work their way throughout the meat, leaving a blast of Italian flavor. Originally published: August 1992.
Porketta [27]
Easy Balsamic Chicken [30]
No collection is complete without an easy weeknight chicken recipe. This version offers sweet balsamic taste and a golden grilled finish with 10 minutes of prep. Originally published: August 2002.
Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza [34]
Before we published this recipe, getting deep dish usually meant heading to Chicago. We helped bring the yeasty crust, spicy sausage and tomato topping home. Originally published: June 1987.
Mediterranean Eight-Layer Dip [38]
We've seen a lot of dips through the years, but we've never forgotten this one -- juicy veggies, tangy olive tapenade and feta piled on a thick layer of hummus. We like to make it ahead and serve it with warm toasted pita wedges.
Pepperoni Pizza Pull [42]
This warm and cheesy pull-apart bread takes just a few minutes to make. Keep the ingredients on hand for a soup supper with family and friends. Originally published: February 2008.
Pepperoni Pizza Pull [43]
Overnight Cherry-Chocolate Coffee Cake [46]
This is our give-you-a-break coffee cake. Prepped in a half-hour, it waits in the fridge to pop in the oven the next morning. Originally published: December 2009.
Overnight Cherry-Chocolate Coffee Cake [47]
Download a free printable collection of our all-time best recipes [3]
Free printable cookbooks [50]
Enjoy more of our favorite recipes in any of our free printable cookbooks.
Top 10 Slow-Cooker Recipes Cookbook [51]
10 Favorite Casseroles Cookbook [52]
Best of the Midwest Recipe Contest Winners Cookbook [53]
7 Fresh Chicken Recipes Cookbook [54]
21 Sweet Corn Recipes Cookbook [55]


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Click on the bold blue text below or on a topic listed on the left side of the page to read more.
Note: Testing for each type of porphyria is found under the descriptions of each type of porphyria.
Why laboratory tests are important for diagnosis of porphyrias
The porphyrias are readily diagnosed by laboratory testing, especially at or near the time of symptoms. However, the number of tests available is very large, and the results among laboratories are not always reliable. It may be difficult to choose the most appropriate test and properly interpret the results. Many of these tests are overused, resulting in unnecessary expense, delay in diagnosis, and even misdiagnosis of Porphyria. For these reasons, it is important to locate a laboratory skilled in performing tests for Porphyria and a physician skilled in interpreting the test results. The American Porphyria Foundation can help you locate laboratories and physicians with expertise in Porphyria.
Many of the symptoms of Porphyria are very similar to those experienced with other more common diseases. In other words, the symptoms of Porphyria are nonspecific. This is why the diagnosis of Porphyria is often delayed or even missed altogether. To avoid this problem, Porphyria should be considered and ruled out in the many patients who have compatible symptoms but may turn out not to have Porphyria. Laboratory testing is much more effective for confirming or excluding a diagnosis of Porphyria than is the case for many other types of illnesses. Therefore, laboratory tests are extremely important when a diagnosis of Porphyria is suspected.
The most common tests used for porphyrias are measurements of substances that accumulate in large amounts in the body, especially when someone has active Porphyria. These substances, porphyrin precursors and porphyrins, can be measured in red blood cells (erythrocytes), blood plasma, urine and feces. Measuring enzymes in cells and looking for changes (mutations) in DNA is useful for confirmation and for family studies.
At present Labcorp, ARUP, & Quest are not recommended for EPP testing.
**Diagnostic Testing for the Acute Porphyrias - Clarification of Testing Results**
Important Update - Click to view


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Using pg upgrade on Ubuntu/Debian
From PostgreSQL wiki
Instructions for how to convert/upgrade a PostgreSQL database cluster using pg_upgrade on Ubuntu or Debian. For the sake of example, I'm upgrading from version 9.1 to 9.2, but it should work with any version (8.3 and up -- subject to limitations in pg_upgrade).
Simply replace any version numbers on the example command lines given below.
These instructions are experimental! This way of upgrading is not yet supported by Ubuntu upstream. Do it at your own risk. Always test in a staging environment before running on production. I have tested this on Ubuntu 12.04.
When in doubt, use the old but slower pg_upgradecluster method.
Update: postgresql-common 141 (released in April 2013) supports pg_upgrade via pg_upgradecluster --method=upgrade. See the manpage for details.
First you need to install relevant packages: postgresql-VER and postgresql-server-dev-VER. If you're using contrib extensions, you also need postgresql-contrib-VER, and possibly other modules like postgresql-plpython-VER...
sudo apt-get install postgresql-9.1 postgresql-contrib-9.1 postgresql-server-dev-9.1 \ postgresql-9.2 postgresql-contrib-9.2 postgresql-server-dev-9.2
By default, Ubuntu creates a database cluster named "main" with each installed version. We will use these. Verify that these are configured:
# sudo pg_lsclusters Version Cluster Port Status Owner Data directory Log file 9.1 main 5432 down postgres /var/lib/postgresql/9.1/main /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-9.1-main.log 9.2 main 5433 down postgres /var/lib/postgresql/9.2/main /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-9.2-main.log
Upgrading to version 9.2 or later
First you need to stop the relevant database clusters. To stop all clusters, run:
sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql stop
(If you don't want to stop all clusters, you can also use pg_ctlcluster to manage them one by one)
Do the upgrade... (For extra performance, you can use the --link option to pg_upgrade; please read pg_upgrade documentation first)
cd /tmp sudo -H -u postgres /usr/lib/postgresql/9.2/bin/pg_upgrade \ -b /usr/lib/postgresql/9.1/bin \ -B /usr/lib/postgresql/9.2/bin \ -d /var/lib/postgresql/9.1/main \ -D /var/lib/postgresql/9.2/main \ -o ' -c config_file=/etc/postgresql/9.1/main/postgresql.conf' \ -O ' -c config_file=/etc/postgresql/9.2/main/postgresql.conf'
See if it worked...
sudo pg_ctlcluster 9.2 main start sudo -u postgres psql --cluster 9.2/main
postgres=# select version(); PostgreSQL 9.2rc1 on x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.3-1ubuntu5) 4.6.3, 64-bit postgres=# \l+ ... list of databases ...
Upgrading to version 9.1
The above instructions don't work when you upgrade to PostgreSQL 9.1. You have to jump through some hoops.
First, stop all clusters:
sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql stop
Note that I'm now using version numbers 9.0 and 9.1:
# sudo pg_lsclusters Version Cluster Port Status Owner Data directory Log file 9.0 main 5432 down postgres /var/lib/postgresql/9.0/main /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-9.0-main.log 9.1 main 5433 down postgres /var/lib/postgresql/9.1/main /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-9.1-main.log
First you have to symlink the configuration files to respective PostgreSQL data directories, where pg_upgrade expects to find them.
ln -s /etc/postgresql/9.1/main/postgresql.conf /var/lib/postgresql/9.1/main/ ln -s /etc/postgresql/9.0/main/postgresql.conf /var/lib/postgresql/9.0/main/
And now you have to run the pg_upgrade script with your respective configured port numbers:
cd /tmp sudo -H -u postgres /usr/lib/postgresql/9.1/bin/pg_upgrade \ -b /usr/lib/postgresql/9.0/bin \ -B /usr/lib/postgresql/9.1/bin \ -d /var/lib/postgresql/9.0/main \ -D /var/lib/postgresql/9.1/main \ -p 5432 \ -P 5433
Afterwards, you may delete the unnecessary config file links (but it's safe to leave them there if you want)
rm /var/lib/postgresql/9.1/main/postgresql.conf rm /var/lib/postgresql/9.0/main/postgresql.conf
What next
Don't forget to merge your configuration changes in postgresql.conf, pg_hba.conf and other files.
If you upgraded from 9.0 or earlier and you're using contrib modules or other addons, it is recommended to migrate them to proper extensions. For example:
CREATE EXTENSION hstore SCHEMA public FROM unpackaged;
New cluster database "XXX" is not empty
The new cluster version already contains some data. If you want to get rid of it -- delete all data in the 9.2 version cluster, run:
pg_dropcluster 9.2 main pg_createcluster 9.2 main
Where do I get PostgreSQL 9.2?
On Ubuntu, you can simply install 9.2 from the semi-official "PPA" repository:
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties sudo apt-add-repository ppa:pitti/postgresql sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install postgresql-9.2 postgresql-contrib-9.2 postgresql-server-dev-9.2
Warning: Support for the current major version in the PPA may be dropped when a new major version is released. If you want to use this PPA, be prepared to always upgrade to the newest major version soon after it's released.


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I was sitting on a beach in Montenegro when my wife got a text saying the pub down the road from our home in London was being burnt to the ground.
The city, our neighbour told us, was on fire as rioters and looters ran amok.
It was a few days in to what would become known as the 2011 England riots, and as I wiggled my toes in the warm water of the Adriatic, it couldn't seem more alien to me the thought of what was going on.
I'd left the city a few days beforehand, reporting on the very start of the riots, as hundreds of people protested the police shooting of unarmed criminal suspect Mark Duggan.
As the first night of violence took hold, one of London's iconic double decker buses was set ablaze in Tottenham and the Carpetright building burned down, but by morning there was calm and a clean-up underway. As our taxi picked its way past cordoned-off streets on the way to Luton airport, there was no indication that the civil unrest was set to explode further across the country.
But explode it did, spreading like brush fire to several London suburbs as well as Birmingham and Bristol in The Midlands and Manchester and Liverpool in the North. Four days later, five people were dead, thousands had been (or were soon to be) arrested and £200million of damage had been caused by fires and looting.
Despite a fiscal downturn and a series of harsh cuts imposed by the government in the lead-up to the riots, it still seemed to come out of a clear blue sky. Few could have predicted the situation, but opinion afterwards about what caused it, its significance and the appropriate reaction, varied dramatically.
Appalled communities came together, the courts threw the book at rioters and looters, councils began evicting tenants and their families who were involved, and slowly the damage was covered over.
A report out on Tuesday blamed a lack of support for 500,000 "forgotten families" - a neglected 'underclass' it said. To some it was put simply down to bad parenting. Others blamed an already existing culture of spongers and petty criminals.
But significantly the report highlighted poor standards of education in some schools, some areas, that had led to one in five leaving school with the literacy levels of an 11-year-old. Compounding it, said the report, was a lack of jobs for school leavers.
Speaking to artists about their own response to the violence, the events of last August remain confused and uncertain.
A profession that normally sides with the underclass and with anti-authoritarian action, the arts community was fragmented in its reaction. Some, like Hackney-based designer Nick Scott expressed outrage at the violence. His poster Stop Smashing up London You Stupid Bastards! said it all.
Others attacked the rightwing response to the rioters and the harsh sentencing of the courts.
Many more approached the subject objectively, unable to make complete sense of why it had happened and unwilling to take sides.
Stan Karczmarz, a 52-year-old Polish émigré who came to London 25 years ago, painted through the night as he listened to radio reports of fires starting across the city.
His oil painting London Riots shows the Carpetright store and the bus burning in Tottenham with hooded silhouettes circling the fire like shamen. The reds and yellows and blues explode out of the centre of the collapsing building almost joyously, capturing the excitement of the rioters and the volatility of the occasion.
"In the afternoon it began and continued for weeks after the riots, fires and violent movements," said Karczmarz. I've lived in this town - in London - for 25 years and I love this city. I have followed every moment listening to the radio, reading newspapers, watching on the screen and on the street, but many unanswered questions arose.
"I started painting because I felt great firepower, the colours, noise, confused, angry young men. I felt like a double for the day following it all, and at night when I painted I wanted to present a whole action on one canvas."
Known as 'Pete the Street' Bath-based artist Peter Brown has made a successful career with his well-observed street scenes, land and sea scapes. His works have a tranquility that seems to suggest to the viewer the very action of an artist sitting before his easel gently and deliberately recording a scene that could hang on anyone's living room wall.
In the wake of the riots, however, Brown felt compelled to document the destruction and veer from his normal subject matter.
"On Monday, 8 August I was painting on Primrose Hill. There was an above average number of police sirens ringing around the city and a large group of mounted police trotted up Primrose Hill Road," he said. "The riots had kicked off on Saturday night and I think places like Ealing were experiencing it that afternoon.
"That night when I watched the news I wondered why I was painting on a hill during all this and thought it would be a good idea to try and paint the Carpetright on Tottenham High Street before it was levelled."
Brown got up the next morning, parked on Burlington Road and walked up Lansdowne Road to the police cordon. He set up his easel and began painting the TV camera crews, onlookers, police and cranes tearing down the ruined structure.
"I set up there feeling very voyeuristic and worked on a 14 x 21," he said. "Various film crews from all around the world were coming and going, and I suppose I offered them another angle, if only for some footage. But on interview I was not a great story. I told them I didn't know enough to make any informed comment and that I wasn't much different to them in that I was just having a look.
"Those few days were, however, very moving. It was interesting that within the world of finance, when crisis hit, the reaction was to immediately protect your own position. The sense of dog-eat-dog got worse, and yet, here, there was a real feeling of community defiance."
Post Office workers asked Brown to come back and paint the building when it was restored and he watched a local jeweller "to and fro between his car and the black shell that was his life's work".
"Even on Thursday, five days after, there was a real feeling of shock," he said. "I felt bad when a woman walked past me and said 'It's not the Tottenham I know'. I wondered why I was preserving this scene. If someone had been killed, I don't think I could have.
"It took them three and-a-half days to make the high road safe, to re-tarmac, put up new traffic lights where the old ones had melted, and to remark the road. It was a concerted effort to paper over and move on. I drove away on Friday afternoon with a very positive view of that North London community."
Illustrator Ian Stevenson produced a poster Start Art Not Riots because he felt the initial protest over Duggan's death had given over to wholesale carnage with no political point.
He said: "I followed the riots on the internet and the TV. I was confused at what I was seeing and felt I had to create a piece to show my thoughts. I chose to represent the idea as a slogan as I wanted it to talk directly to the rioters in a language they understood. There are better ways to make a point than setting fire to buildings and putting peoples live in danger. I also created another piece which said 'Thou Shalt Not Riot For Cool Trainers'. They weren't 'fighting for' anything and instead just wanted some material goods to show off to their friends.
"It's never very arty to be against the rioter as we are all 'fighting against the system man', but I think there was an absence of support in the art community for the riots. Nobody really knows why it happened. Maybe people just wanted free stuff and had become completely selfish."
Graffiti artist Ben Eine, 41, who gained international fame when David Cameron presented one of his works to Barack Obama, has been living in the US for the past three years.
He "witnessed the chaos" from afar as the riots spread to his old home in East London and returned months later to spray paint London Riot on a wall in Hackney Road.
He told me: "I personally believe the riots wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the hot weather and the school summer holidays. The rain is London's greatest policeman. These two things, combined with the sense of social and financial inequality felt by our inner-city youth, resulted in the riots.
"Whilst this may not have been a conscious feeling among most, the riots swept up those who felt ignored by society and who felt that they had nothing to lose by behaving in such an unacceptable way.
"The riots themselves were nothing but destructive and anti-social but throughout history uprisings of this nature have bought great changes and may have at least brought the subject of dissatisfaction felt by the underclass back to the politicians debating table.
"The real story of the London riots is not of a window being smashed or a car being set on fire but the changes which will hopefully come about so that these people begin to feel like part of the group contributing towards society and not the sidelined minority. These talks and discussions are obviously taking place, yet only behind closed doors and not in a way where the general public feel their woes are being addressed.
"By writing the words 'London Riot' I was hoping to keep this debate in people's consciousness and as a reminder of how quickly things can spin out of control. We need to consider our own actions and behaviour towards each other to prevent people from feeling maligned and these incidences occurring."
Welsh sculptor and performance artist Dave Stephens produced a sculpture on the summer riots, using pictures from newspapers and a smashed plate.
He said: "It's not meant to be a comment on the riots rather a response to the imagery that came out of them. I was thinking about how energy when generated often seems to ignite. There seems to be a trigger mechanism that starts it all off."
Aged in his 50s and based in Brighton Stephens happened to be visiting a friend the night after rioters tore through Clapham in South London. He found large swathes of it boarded up.
"It's hard to say what starts off a riot and probably there are many different causes," he said. "The flames seem to become a physical embodiment of the energy."
Watching the riots from his home in Port Jefferson, New York, US artist Anthony Freda also felt moved to document them, creating a work that shows a crow sitting above London Bridge and the city burning in the background. It is a piece that immediately conjures up images of the great fire of London, a rare historical reference in the art that the riots inspired.
Freda's view also, living away from the source of the trouble, was more objective, and shaded with that sense of historical perspective.
He said: "I watched in amazement as the first protests against police brutality in Tottenham spread and became something bigger and more profound. I heard two different takes on rioters. The authorities wanted to portray the rioters as gang members and lazy bums who had no justification for their outrage.
Their defenders were saying these were underprivileged victims rising up against social injustice. "I suspect that the truth is not as simple as either explanation.
"I wanted to comment on the importance of the events, without judgement of the participants. I still don't fully understand what happened, or what the implications for the future are, but I know the conditions that brought them upon us cannot just be swept under the rug."
Freda, who describes himself as a low-brow information warrior, added: "I wanted to create an image that made people think outside the narrow confines provided to them by most mainstream media."
Children's book illustrator Emmeline Pidgen produced a limited edition poster of 75 and raised over £1,000 for young people's charities Reclaim Project and Leap Confronting Conflict.
The 23-year-old, who published The Flyaway Blanket last year, is more used to sketching dragons and posies but said the community reaction of coming together after the riots inspired her to get involved.
"During the riots, what stood out in the midst of the destruction were the images of local communities of all ages and backgrounds working together to restore their neighbourhoods," she said. "It showed real strength of purpose and hope for a better future.
"I felt inspired by the positive attitude of the riot clean ups and tried to capture those feelings through illustration. I posted the artwork on Twitter to share it with my followers and friends, receiving an overwhelming response of over 19,000 views in two days."
Emmeline then got in contact with Riot Clean Up Manchester and organised an auction of prints in support of the community and charities. True to the post-riot spirit local businesses got involved to produce them free of charge.
Although the riots drew debate about social conditions, it was largely overshadowed by outrage and a desire to punish those involved. Civil strife frightens people, it gives them a glimpse of a society without rules, and the England riots were no different. CCTV captured at least one murder on film and the merciless assault and robbery of a student by a succession of people. Aside from my local pub being burnt down, crimes reported within a mile of where I live ranged from widescale looting to the rape of a 13-year-old girl by a teenage boy who had never been in trouble before and was said to be from a God-fearing Christian household.
Such was the snowballing effect of the mob violence, and often slow police response, people with no prior history of violence or disturbance became caught up in it. Some of the young people arrested were regarded as role models in their community before the riots.
Such images and the daily roll call of arrests and indignities that had been heaped upon the cities of England hardened attitudes quickly to those involved or suspected of it. And the fact that they had taken place in built-up areas in close proximity to large populations brought the violence home to a far greater number of people than is usual.
Art student Elizabeth Eisen produced her Planet of the Chavs painting as a sarcastic response to the hardline taken by many over the rioters.
She said: "I was obviously saddened and angered by the riots but I could completely understand that people were discontent with recent events, living conditions, government etc. and that something like this was inevitable if not condonable.
"Some of the comments I read from friends and acquaintances on Facebook and blogs that suggested using water cannons, drafting in the army, or were racist, classist or downright ignorant, shocked me.
"I was amazed by how right-wing so many people I knew became as a kneejerk reaction and without any consideration for the rioters backgrounds."
Though the courts are still processing cases and charred buildings are yet to be restored, for the most part discussion about the riots has subsided. Tuesday's report aside there has been little to no sign of the government addressing the conditions of a dissatisfied underclass that fed the unrest. Instead a raft of new welfare cuts and taxes await. What happens next is anyone's guess.


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|Image: Larry Madin / AP
What we have here is one of the weirdest Sea Cucumbers the deep sea has to offer. It's a member of the genus Enypniastes, which is comprised of a couple Deep Sea Swimming Sea Cucumbers.
One bunch of researchers who spotted it named it "The Headless Chicken Fish." Ha! Works for me! Although we have a habit of calling just about everything that swims a "fish" of some sort. And starfish don't even swim. This animal is really, really not a fish.
It is of course, an echinoderm, a relative of starfish, and it reaches about 30 cm (1ft) in length. In case you're wondering, that's a mouth. Surrounding the mouth are the tentacles used to grab mud from the ocean floor to plunge into its gob.
The path this mud will then take is unusually apparent. There isn't much in there other than a straight-forward, round-the-bend gut. But, CALAMITY of CALAMITIES! Where is the all important, multi-purpose anus?! "Sea Cucumber Anus!" the people cry. "We want Sea Cucumber Anus!"
|Image via Wikimedia
I guess I should make absolutely clear that I don't actually 100% know that the little dark area there is the "EXIT", but it's definitely the other side of the Swimming Sea Cucumber and it looks from those guts like that's where they're going. I mean, it's so rare to clearly see an animal's guts, you may as well use it when you can, right?
Also, if you're a tad bewildered by all this anus talk, please check out the Sea Cucumber post before you judge me too harshly.
Video: NOAA via kzelnio
These odd fellows certainly can swim. They do so very slowly by flapping that vampiric cape of theirs. It's slow going, but it all looks rather tranquil and graceful. Looking closely, it appears that as the cape strikes the rest of the body, their flesh wobbles like so much flab. I presume they have soft bodies to deal with the immense, deep sea pressures. Regardless, this is probably the most attractive any Sea Cucumber is ever gonna get!
|Image: SERPENT Project
Sometimes it all goes wrong. This is the sight that earned it the Headless Chicken Fish name. I really can't blame those researchers. It feels like I'm watching someone playing a "Kill All The Aliens" computer game.
Images: SERPENT Project
Apparently, they live in depths between 500 and 5,000 metres (1,640-16,400 ft), and can swim up to 1,000m (3,280 ft) above the ocean floor. Wow! Those other Sea Cucumbers must be pretty jealous! Or maybe ugly jealous.
The actual reason for all this determined elevation, this journeying like no Sea Cucumber has journeyed before, seems to be for finding new feeding grounds as well as avoiding predators. So... it's back to the mud, glorious mud!
|Image: SERPENT Project
In any case, if it all gets too much they can of course just up and leave. But there's something else they can do. Something reassuringly disgusting. Something totally Sea Cucumber.
It happens when they're threatened. When it's a case of "live or die trying". They bioluminesce when touched. If it's a light touch, just a small part lights up, though this can slowly spread across the whole animal. If it gets touched too much the whole thing will quickly light up, revealing not only its own position, but also the position of its assailant to any predators who may be in the area.
I guess the Swimming Sea Cucumber has its tentacles crossed for that one. Perhaps the attacker will itself be attacked. Maybe it'll just run away.
But it goes on.
Ocean Content
For one, the biolumenescent particles are sticky, so predators are lit up in the gloom for all to see, whether the Sea Cucumber gets away or not. But the most ridiculous thing is that while other Sea Cucumbers sacrifice internal organs to escape predation, the Swimming Sea Cucumber has a similar "on again off again" relationship with its own skin.
That's right. When push comes to shove and our Sea Cucumber has simply had E-nough, it releases it's sticky, sparkling skin into the water and shuffles off. Its hated enemy now has this gruesome sheathe either distracting it, or sticking to its face and beckoning all sorts of other deep sea meanies with the promise of something tasty or at the very least eye-catching.
Meanwhile, our heroic Sea Cucumber is once more cloaked in darkness and free to recover.
You have to respect that kind of gutsy defence (I can't believe I didn't even think of calling the "internal organs to the face" defence gutsy. Oh well!). Sure, it's utterly disgusting and it's not what you would want for your children, but there's something really amazing about it, you have to agree. There's nothing like a Sea Cucumber to expand your understanding of life and its possibilities!
Circus of the Spineless #65, hosted at the cephalopodiatrist.


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Hey there everyone. I just wanted to let you know that we have a plan for Earth Day, April 22nd. I am hoping to host a pancake breakfast and caching event on that Saturday morning. The details are still being worked out, and it may change in the next week - depending on election results, but, please keep the day available for caching together! There will be an event that day, it's just a matter of details.
Double cache for me too.
Check out the Earth day CITO Event cache


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Vauxhall Mokka X 1.4T Active 5Dr Auto Petrol Hatchback
Mileage: 3,814
Trans: Automatic
Body: Hatchback Year: 18/18
Colour: Metallic - Boracay blue
Fuel Type: Petrol
Quote Reference Number: 056-512840
Call our Sales Advisors: 0330 096 7479
- Insurance Group14E
- Performance (BHP)140
- Number of Seats5
- CO2 (g/km)149
- Road Tax£140
|Body Glass
|Electric front+rear windows
|2 speed wipers/wash wipe/intermittent wipe
|Rain sensitive windscreen wipers
|Traction control
|Emergency brake assist
|Hill start assist
|Driver Aids
|Speed sensitive power steering
|Cruise control + speed limiter
|Front and rear parking sensors
|Driver Information
|Digital clock
|Multi function trip computer
|Outside temperature display
|Driving Mirrors
|Electric folding door mirrors
|Electrically adjustable and heated door mirrors
|Electrochrome anti dazzle rear view mirror
|Exterior Body Features
|Stainless steel exhaust tailpipe
|Body colour door handles
|Body colour side mouldings
|Front skid plate
|Silver roof rails
|Exterior Lights
|Front fog lights
|Automatic lighting control
|LED daytime running lights
|High beam assist
|Dual zone electronic climate control
|Interior Features
|Front centre armrest
|Illuminated glovebox
|Multi function steering wheel
|Reach + rake adjustable steering column
|Front door pockets
|3 spoke leather covered steering wheel
|12V Accessory socket
|Chrome interior door handles
|Front passenger underseat storage tray
|12V power socket in rear
|Milano cloth upholstery
|Interior Lights
|Front/rear courtesy lights
|Front seat side impact airbags
|Seatbelt warning
|Curtain airbags
|Tyre pressure monitoring system
|Driver/Front Passenger airbags
|3x3 point rear seatbelts
|Height adjustable front/rear head restraints
|8 way adjustable drivers seat
|60/40 split folding rear seat
|Isofix on outer rear seats
|Front seat back storage pockets
|6 way electric adjustable passenger seat
|Remote central locking
|Remote security alarm system
|Vanity Mirrors
|Illuminated vanity mirrors
The specification listed for this vehicle was standard when purchased new. The actual specification may vary, for confirmation, please contact our sales department.
"We are please to offer this Mokka X Active Automatic finished in stunning Boracay Blue.. The award winning MokkaX SUV is packed full of features such as front and rear sensors, Bluetooth connectivity, DAB radio, dual zone climate control just to name a few. Please call or sales team to arrange a test drive."
Keith Guy, CMA General Manager
Key Features
- Air Conditioning
- Climate Control
- Metallic Paint
- Cruise Control
- Alloy Wheels
- DAB Radio
- Bluetooth
- Low Mileage
Electric front+rear windows, ABS, Speed sensitive power steering, Digital clock, Electric folding door mirrors, Stainless steel exhaust tailpipe, Front fog lights, Dual zone electronic climate control, Front centre armrest...
|0 to 60 mph (secs)
|0 to 62 mph (secs)
|Engine Power - BHP
|Engine Power - KW
|Engine Power - PS
|Engine Power - RPM
|Engine Torque - LBS.FT
|Engine Torque - MKG
|Engine Torque - NM
|Engine Torque - RPM
|Top Speed
Go Green
|Emissions - ICE
|CO2 (g/km)
|162 (g/km)
|Standard Euro Emissions
|Fuel Consumption - ICE
|EC Combined (mpg)
|EC Directive 1999/100/EC Applies
|EC Extra Urban (mpg)
|EC Urban (mpg)
Car Finance
Need Finance For Your Vehicle? We Can Help!
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Opening times: 8.45am-9pm Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm Saturday & 10am-5pm Sunday
Terms & Conditions: Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information shown. However, errors do sometimes occur. The specification of each vehicle listed on the Vertu Honda website is provided by "CAP". Please note that the Images of each vehicle are range shots, these can include images which do not reflect the precise details of the vehicle you are looking at and are purely used for illustrative purposes. The inclusion of such data does not imply any endorsement of any of its content nor any representation as to its accuracy.


text:
akky on Family Tree Circles
view: full | list
Journals and Posts
Barry John Attwood: Paternal Descent
Barry John Attwood, b.1954 (Southend on Sea), m.1983 Lynn Amor (Peacock) (Beverley), son of
Jerrold Malcolm Attwood, b.1929 (Woolwich), m.1953 Olive Spencer (Laindon), son of
John Malcolm Attwood, b.1893 (Plumstead), m.192? Eveline James (Woolwich), d.197? (Chesterfield), son of
Henry Havelock Attwood, b.1858 (Southwark), m.1886 Alice Duncombe (Woolwich), d.1934 (Woolwich), son of
Thomas Henry Attwood, b.1812 (Southwark), m.1851 Ann Whitehead (StMary Newington), d.1861 (Southwark), son of
Thomas Attwood, b.?, m.1808 Amelia Yearman (Southwark), d. before 1841 (Southwark), son of
Attwood of Kent
I am the son of Jerrold Malcolm Attwood, born on 5 June 1929 to John (Malcolm) Attwood and Eveline (nee James) in Abbey Wood, Kent, England. I would be interested in finding which line of Attwood's I am descended from. My dad is alive but he does not have much recollection of family members earlier than his own father. His sister is deceased and was named Sylvia, married to Norman McMaster. I have two cousins, Janice and Rosemary, but have not seen them since childhood and have no contact details.
- Displaying 1-2 of 2 Journals
- 1
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Cancelled: Basic Meditation 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM EDT (Video Enabled)
Date: 01-May-2018
Cancelled to allow the team to prepare for the Summer Retreat this weekend.
Cancelled to allow the team to prepare for the Summer Retreat this weekend.Where: 111 Boston Post Road, Sudbury, MA 01776 Unit 210 or video conference
This class introduces you to the Divine Heart Center and is a great way to learn basic yet powerful meditations and energize yourself. The meditations taught vary by each class and include:-
- The Pink Lotus meditation to generate love
- Swayagya or "The Personal Fire Rite" to generate will power
- So Hum to generate self-realizatio
- Breathing exercises to reduce stress and develop focus
- Exercises to generate Kundalini in the body
Fee: $10.00 per attendee.
Location: 111 Boston Post Road, Sudbury, MA 01776, Unit 210 or via Video Broadcast.
If you are attending in person, please RSVP by clicking here at least 2 hours in advance of the event . You can also pay by using the form below.
This event is also available via a video broadcast. Upon registration a zoom.us meeting link and password will be sent to you via email. Before registration please check your system compatibility by clicking here. Please register for the event using the form below.
Note that if the event is happening in your area, then we prefer that you make every effort to attend in person.


text:
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is ready for difficult concessions to reach a deficit deal, but GOP lawmakers must first commit to higher tax rates on the rich and specify what additional spending cuts they want, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said.
"There's no path to an agreement that does not involve Republicans acknowledging that rates have to go up for the wealthiest Americans," Geithner said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
Geithner presented congressional leaders Thursday with Obama's postelection blueprint for averting the "fiscal cliff," the combination of hundreds of billions in tax increases and spending cuts that will take effect beginning in January if Washington doesn't act to stop it. But House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, dismissed the plan as "not serious," merely a Democratic wish list that couldn't pass his chamber.
As outlined by administration officials, the plan calls for nearly $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue over the next decade, while making $600 billion in spending cuts, including $350 billion from Medicare and other health programs. But it also contains $200 billion in new spending on jobless benefits, public works and aid for struggling homeowners — and would make it virtually impossible for Congress to block Obama's ability to raise the debt ceiling.
With George W. Bush-era tax cuts expiring and across-the-board spending cuts possibly hitting in under a month, Boehner said the talks have reached a "stalemate."
But Geithner, appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation," had a somewhat rosier view. "It's true that we're still a bit apart. And they're going to have to move further," he said. "(But) I do think we're going to get there."
He also said if Republicans don't think Obama is cutting enough spending, they should make a counter-proposal.
"We're open to suggestions," he said. "If they want to come back to us and say we'd like you to do this differently ... then they should lay that out for us."
In the past week, Obama has held a series of campaign-style appearances urging lawmakers to accept a Senate-passed measure extending tax cuts for all but the top 2 percent of wage-earners. He'll continue the effort when he meets on Tuesday with governors and then speaks on Wednesday to the Business Roundtable.
GOP leaders contend letting top-end tax cuts run out would hit small businesses and cost jobs.
Still, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander said Republicans will "hold our nose and raise some revenues" if the result is a deal that reins in runaway debt. But he said the onus is on Obama to knuckle down to talks.
"I'm ready for the president to get off the campaign trail, and get in the White House and get a result," Alexander told reporters in Nashville on Saturday. "Right now he's got the presidential limousine headed toward the fiscal cliff with his foot on the accelerator."
Associated Press Writer Erik Schelzig in Nashville contributed to this report.


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After that I did my research into the Holistic foods I mentioned above and she did good on the Wellness but has since been switched to Raw which she is doing great on.
Avoid biting when a simple growl will do
The Spirit Lives As Long As Someone Who Lives Remembers You - Navaho Saying
Vindication ~ For all those pets who became sick or lost their lives from tainted pet food
oh, growler. i'm so sorry to hear about your baby. i am glad to hear she is doing better tho. is "raw" a brand name? where would i buy it? i am in nova scotia, so i don't know if we carry all the brands named, but i'd like to try for the one that is going to be best.
tracy : )
"To close your eyes will not ease another's pain." ~ Chinese Proverb
We must not refuse to see with our eyes what they must endure with their bodies. ~ Gretchen Wyler
Thank you Yeah the raw I buy for Duffy is pre-packaged from a local BC company recommended by my homeopath vet but so far it is only available here.
If you were interested in the pre-packaged form you would need to find a company (preferably local so it's not trucked great distances) that uses non-medicated, hormone-free, free range meats with an appropriate amount of bone (depending on which type of meat), organs, vit e and veggies (for cats 5% or less). As SCM mentioned you could also prepare it yourself, though there is more research & balancing of ingredient portions needed. I believe most members who are feeding raw are home prepping because there are not many companies who make raw food across the country (there are however alot in BC ).
If you are interested you can check out the raw food section of the dog & cat food forum and the site is also very informative http://rawfedcats.org/
Avoid biting when a simple growl will do
The Spirit Lives As Long As Someone Who Lives Remembers You - Navaho Saying
Vindication ~ For all those pets who became sick or lost their lives from tainted pet food
hooray - i found a retailer that carries merricks (plus some of the other brands mentioned in this thread) that is right here in my city. i'll be going over there this weekend to pick some up.
thanks again, all. it's also good to know that there are many sites out there offering advice re homemade cat food.
tracy : )
can't won't poop or eat: CONSTIPATED
After 3 days of not eating or pooping we took our 9 month old ragdoll kitten to the vet. She seemed happy and normal, was grooming, drinking and peeing but of course we were concerned because she's a piglet who adrores her food.
They gave her an x-ray to check for any foreign bodies/blockages (none, but she was chock full of poop) but they told us it wouldn't show things like hair elastics, string, tinsel etc that kittens her age like to nibble on.
They also gave her an enema. The enema only retreived 4" of poop, they told us to expect another 6" soon.
We were also told we could give her hairball control paste (aka kitty malt/beef flavoured mineral oil) 3 times a day to get things moving. We smeared a 1/4 teaspoon on top of each foot so she had to lick it off.
Also after vomiting one meal she attempted on day 4, she didn't want to drink anymore, so we took a syringe (no needle of course) and squirted water into her mouth regularly since hydration helps pooping.
On day 5 she finally pooped those 6" out and wanted her breakfast.
There was nothing foreign in her poop at all since the vet told me to check for carpet strings, etc so we would have a better idea what caused this. It was just constipation, but once there is no room in the colon for any more, they can't keep their food down or want any more.
In future we were told to supplement her diet with a little kittymalt once each day 1/2 teaspoon, and put out pumpkin to help her along with fibre. We plan to flavour the pumpkin with the juice from her wet food tin, which is what we feed her 3 times a day plus at night some dental kibble to snack on for her teeth.
Hope this helps you, too.
By the way, according the the research I've seen, mineral oil in it's liquid/watery form can be aspirated and be bad for cats. In it's petroleum jelly /hairball remedy medicine form, purchased from a vet or pet food store, it is meant to be injested and just passes through the body as a lubricant and doesn't harm kitty. I trust my vet wouldn't recommend regular use of a product that would be bad for long term health. Perhaps do it yourself medicating may not be the way to go versus formulated pastes. Also, that pumpkin is a great idea.
Constipation is best avoided by feeding a good quality species-appropriate wet food diet, supplemented with soluble fibre for cats that need it.
"To close your eyes will not ease another's pain." ~ Chinese Proverb
We must not refuse to see with our eyes what they must endure with their bodies. ~ Gretchen Wyler
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Skip to comments.The Romney Path To 271;Michigan,Wisconsin,Iowa,Indiana,N.Carolina,N.H.&Florida.
Posted on 07/10/2012 4:01:26 PM PDT by Reality_News
At this point of the 2012 race,these seven states should be a lock and/or a little easier for Mitt Romney to flip from the 2008 Map.We can all assume that North Carolina,Indiana,Michigan,New Hampshire and Florida are a lock for Romney,we still need to wait and see future polling in Wisconsin and Iowa. Now this doesn't include Ohio and Pennsylvania. In your opinion, do you feel Romney will take all of these seven states and show O'Bozo and Moochelle the door in January?
I have the feeling that Romney is going to win a state that no one currently expects him to win.
Why would Michigan be a Romney "lock"? His family hasn't lived there in decades. Few voters were voting when his dad was Gov.
Mr. RomneyCARE won't even win Massachusetts
where he is hated for RomneyCARE and death panels.
Very true.
Besides that....
How is that Rambler thing working out for yunz?
Romney 1 was a total RINO. AFAIK so is R ver.2.0
Romney ain't a lock for North Carolina. It'll depend on whether the rats can get my African-American friends to the polls.
Does Romney need to start calling Obama an extreme liberal. Was today the start?
"The very idea of raising taxes on small businesses and job creators at the time we need to create more jobs is the sort of thing only an extreme liberal could come up with," Romney said.
As long as everyone's standard of living is going DOWN at the same rate, Detroit will always vote for Socialism.
As an Indiana resident I'd pretty much bet my next Social Security check on Romney winning here.
We've got a very popular R candidate for gov (Mike Pence) and a motivated Tea Party contingent for Richard Mourdock who took out Liberal Lugar,
Minnesota or Oregon, perhaps?
"We can all assume that North Carolina,Indiana,Michigan,New Hampshire and Florida are a lock for Romney,we still need to wait and see future polling in Wisconsin and Iowa."
Obama beat McCain in Michigan by over 16 points in 2008. If Michigan were a lock, Romney would be winning in a landslide.
Romney needs FL, IN, NC and OH. This would bring him to 253, leaving 16 to tie. The most likely winning result would be VA plus one other state, although something like IA plus another state might be possible instead. The West looks to be trending more Dem while the Midwest Rep, so Romney could lose ground Colorado/Nevada/NM/AZ but gain ground in IA/WI/MN/OH, which is obviously a plus for him, given the respective electoral votes involved.
Also NH could hardly be called a lock, although it's winnable.
I think it's too early to get so specific.IMO a place to start is to look at states that W carried in 2000 but Osama carried in '08.Also,recent events in WI could be promising.One thing we can be sure of is that blacks won't turn out in *higher* numbers for Osama this year whereas fewer whites will go for him and at least as many will go for Romney as went for McLame....very probably more.
Or maybe NJ??
This is anecdotal at best, but speaking to one of my gnomes, the most recent immigrants to Detroit? Arab, Mexican and Indians. This maybe why the crime numbers are getting better...
If the Arab and Indian residents are primarily small business types will the go for Oboingo? I say not...
He'd better not count on NH.
Besides RINO I would add bizarro to Romney Sr. That "brainwashing" remark is one of the epic gaffes in American political history.
I am going to go out on a limb, but I am confident that Romney will win 40 states, including NY. I don't even like him that much. However, I think there are that many angry Americans out there who want Obama long gone.
Just asking that question is one hell of a joke..............
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