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Department of Western Virginia and East Tennessee – Order of Battle 28/02/1865
Notes and Appraisal
The below Order of Battle – for the Confederate Department of Western Virginia and East Tennessee – takes as its basis the "Abstract from Return of Forces" and "Organization of Troops" tables of said department given in OR Volume XLIX.1.1021-1022 (dated February 28th 1865, the last provided in the OR), with the general context and much valuable information being given in Volumes XXXIX, XLV, and XLIX. Beyond that, researching individual units online has tended to be the best way of pinning down numinous information, given the relative obscurity of the theatre (the best formal resources I have found tend to be books dealing with Kentucky in the war). However, it is an interesting theatre, microcosmic of many issues in the war in 1865 as a whole, and the Confederate forces included an interesting variety – Echols' hardened veterans, the remnants of Morgan's Men, and Vaughn's mounted infantry foremost amongst them. The various large skirmishes in late 1864 are of some interest to the wargamer, too – Bull's Gap, Morristown, Marion, and 2nd Saltville. The references given at the end of this article are representative only and not exhaustive.
Department of Western Virginia and East Tennessee – OOB 28/02/2015
Brigadier General John Echols (commanding Echols' Brigade)
Artillery and Engineers – 12-16 Field Guns, 127 Engineers
Page's Battalion – 12-16 Field Guns
Major Richard C.M. Page
Burroughs' Battery (Tennessee) – 2 3-Inch Navy Parrotts & 2 6-Pounder Iron Smoothbores ~ Captain William H. Burroughs
Lynch's Battery (Tennessee) – 4 US 3-Inch Ordnance Rifles ~ Captain Peyton Lynch
McClung's Battery (Tennessee) – 19 Gunners ~ Lieutenant W.G. Dobson [1]
Botetourt Light Artillery (Virginia) – 4 12-Pounder Howitzers ~ Captain Henry C. Douthat [2]
Engineer Battalion – 127 Engineers
Captain Richard C. McCalla
3rd Confederate Engineer Regiment, Company A
3rd Confederate Engineer Regiment, Company E – Captain William T. Hart
Infantry – 928+ Infantry [estimated 968-1028]
Echols' Brigade [Wytheville, Virginia] – 662 Infantry
22nd Virginia Infantry Regiment – Lieutenant Colonel John C. McDonald
23rd Virginia Infantry Battalion – Major William Blessing
26th Virginia Infantry Battalion – Lieutenant Colonel George M. Edgar
Preston's Brigade [Saltville, Virginia in 12/1864]– 266+ Infantry [estimated 306-366]
Colonel Robert T. Preston (commanding 5th Reserves)
5th Virginia Reserve Infantry Regiment – 222 Infantry
5th Virginia Reserve Infantry Regiment – 222 Infantry
4th Virginia Reserve Infantry Battalion – 44 Infantry ~ Lieutenant Colonel Samuel M. Wallace
13th Virginia Reserve Infantry Battalion – Lieutenant Colonel Robert Smith [3]
Cavalry – 2808+ Cavalry [estimated 2908-2958, including unknown number dismounted]
Cosby's Brigade – 243 Cavalry
Brigadier General George B. Cosby
6th Confederate Cavalry Battalion – Lieutenant L.C. Norman
2nd Kentucky Mounted Rifle Battalion – Captain J.K. Bradshaw
3rd Kentucky Mounted Rifle Battalion – Captain William T. Havens
Duke's Brigade [Abingdon, Virginia] – 324 Cavalry [4]
Brigadier General Basil W. Duke
1st Kentucky Cavalry Battalion – Colonel William W. Ward
2nd Kentucky Cavalry Battalion
3rd Kentucky Cavalry Battalion – Colonel Joseph R. Tucker
4th Kentucky Cavalry Battalion – Captain W.R. Messick
Giltner's Brigade [Lee County, Va.; Va.-Ky. Border] – 823+ Cavalry [estimated 923-973]
Colonel Henry L. Giltner
7th Confederate Cavalry Battalion – ~200 [23/02/65] ~ Lieutenant Colonel Clarence J. Prentice [5]
4th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment – Captain John G. Scott
10th Kentucky (Diamond's) Cavalry Regiment – Lieutenant Colonel George R. Diamond [6]
13th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment – Colonel Benjamin E. Caudill [7]
Jenkins' Cavalry Company (Kentucky) – Captain Barton W. Jenkins
64th Virginia Infantry Regiment (Mounted) – Colonel Auburn L. Pridemore
Vaughn's Brigade [Bristol, Tennessee] – 1303 Cavalry
Brigadier General John C. Vaughn
13th Georgia Cavalry Regiment – Lieutenant Colonel Samuel J. Winn
1st Tennessee (Carter's) Cavalry Regiment – Colonel James E. Carter
12th Tennessee Cavalry Battalion – Major George W. Day
16th Tennessee Cavalry Battalion – Lieutenant Colonel John R. Neal
3rd Tennessee (Lillard's) Infantry Regiment (Mounted) – Colonel Newton J. Lillard
39th Tennessee Infantry Regiment (Mounted) – Colonel William M. Bradford
43rd Tennessee Infantry Regiment (Mounted) – Colonel James W. Gillespie
59th Tennessee Infantry Regiment (Mounted) – Colonel William L. Eakin
60th–61st–62nd Tennessee Infantry Regiment (Mounted) – Colonel James G. Rose
Abbott's Scout Company (Tennessee) – Captain W.R. Abbott
Witcher's Brigade – 215 Cavalry
Lieutenant Colonel Vincent A. Witcher
34th Virginia Cavalry Battalion – Major John A. McFarlane
Swann's Cavalry Battalion (Virginia) – Lieutenant Colonel Thomas B. Swann
Notes and Appraisal
1: McClung's Battery had been all but destroyed at the Battle of Morristown on the 28th October 1864; its 19 remaining personnel were attached to Lynch's Battery thereafter.
2: In March Douthat's battery seems to have been ordered to Richmond; it was ordered back to Wytheville a few days later, before being ordered into different positions at Richmond a few days after that.
Lynch's, McClung's, and Douthat's had all served at Vicksburg and elsewhere; Burroughs' had only served "domestically", in east Tennessee. On the whole the gunners will have been good, experienced troops. Their artillery armament was probably better than Echols reported; there were 16 guns in the department prior to the assignment of first King's and then Douthat's batteries to the Petersburg lines. Even if they had taken their guns with them (which is not certain, especially as Douthat's manned emplaced guns at Richmond), this would have left 8 guns under Echols' command, and indeed Federal reports are that Echols had spiked 16 guns at Christiansburg when he dissolved his command. Though few, they probably will have performed respectably.
The 3rd Engineer Regiment was raised late in the war from the states in which this department operated – Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, as well as North Carolina. Many had served at Atlanta and in the Franklin campaign, whilst some may have been with Early in the Valley in 1864. They may have ended up fighting alongside Early at Waynesboro, though the evidence is scarce. One might safely assume they were fit for their task, but badly under-resourced.
Echols' Brigade
Echols' Brigade had chiefly been raised in the future West Virginia, and were seasoned veterans of many encounters. The 22nd Regiment and the 23rd Battalion had both seen service in the 1861 operations in western Virginia during the Cheat Mountain Campaign, and then later at Droop Mountain. The 26th Battalion was formed of members of the 59th Virginia (Wise Legion) not captured on Roanoke Island, and saw action thereafter in the Seven Days Battles. It spent its service after that along the eastern coast of the Confederacy, before returning north in 1864 to fight Virginia. All three saw action at New Market, at North Anna and Cold Harbor, and then during Early's Valley Campaign. They performed creditably throughout, and probably represent the best troops in the Department. Echols himself, too, had a respectable war record, starting in the Stonewall Brigade and leading its 27th Virginia at 1st Bull Run and in the Valley. He then spent several years chiefly in Western Virginia, losing with honour intact at Droop Mountain against significantly superior forces, before commanding a division under Breckinridge in Early's Valley campaign.
Preston's Brigade
3: The 13th Battalion, Virginia Reserves were on furlough at the time of the report. Their strength is not included in the brigade total; I would estimate the unit strength at between 40-100, given the strengths of other battalions of Virginia Reserves in 1865, both here as well as in the Valley and the Petersburg lines.
We may presume that Preston's troops were fairly par for the course for Reserve troops, consisting of old men and young boys, drilled intermittently, with a high absentee rate. They might perform adequately on their day, especially if in fortified positions, but are usually to be considered very unreliable. Preston commanded his troops at 2nd Saltville and seems to have kept them in good order in retreat.
Cosby's Brigade
Cosby's troops had all been recruited locally and only fought locally. The 6th Confederate Cavalry Battalion consisted of men from Virginia and Kentucky. Though they put in a solid showing at Marion defending breastworks, they are unlikely to have been of the highest grade. Cosby was a competent Chief of Staff to Buckner, Polk, Bragg, and in the District of the Gulf, before receiving a cavalry brigade under Forrest, which he seems to have commanded solidly if not with such inspiration as to remain in Forrest's command.
Duke's Brigade
4: Duke's four small battalions were the remnants of "The Raider" Morgan's cavalry division, which had been mostly captured in his 1863 raid into Indiana and Ohio; much of the remainder had been captured at 2nd Cynthiana, during his 1864 Kentucky raid. The remnant regiments who were consolidated into the four battalions are as follows: 2nd Kentucky (Duke's) Cavalry Regiment; 5th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment; 6th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment; 7th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment; 8th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment; 10th Kentucky (Johnson's) Cavalry Regiment; 11th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment; 14th Kentucky Cavalry Regiment; 9th Tennessee Cavalry Regiment. Some online resources report that officers of Morgan's Men were recruiting in west Kentucky at the end of the war; I have found no evidence for this in the OR, other contemporary accounts, or more scholarly works.
Many of Duke's men were combat veterans of one or other of Morgan's disastrous raids. That notwithstanding, however, the remaining troops are unlikely to have been of the very highest quality; on the one hand they had the potent memory of "The Raider" Morgan's reputation to buoy them, but on the other hand their hero was dead and over 2,000 of their comrades languished in Union prisons as a result of their exploits. John Ferry, in JTS's Campaign Overland, is likely harsh in rating them Quality E (on an A-F scale). They performed adequately in the retreat from Cloyd's Mountain, and quite well at Marion. They will have been armed with carbines and rifles, and been used to serving in a mounted infantry role. Duke was Morgan's brother-in-law, and a competent soldier.
Giltner's Brigade
5: The 7th Confederate Cavalry Battalion also failed to file a return; Giltner reported that they numbered around 200 (likely present rather than effective) in late February.
6: The OR entry notes that the Tenth Kentucky Cavalry did not file a return; given the denotation of Caudill's regiment as mounted rifles, I judge this to mean Diamond's regiment. An estimated strength of around 100-150 – given the strength of the rest of the brigade – would be reasonable.
7: Referred to regularly as the 10th Kentucky Infantry; certainly sometimes officially known, and most usefully referred to, as the 13th Kentucky Cavalry. Marked as mounted rifles in the OR entry.
Giltner gives a grim picture of his brigade in late February, fairly typical of the Confederacy at the time; many of his men are dismounted or without weapons and many of the remainder have lame horses. Their morale is mixed, and absenteeism, desertion, and bushwhacking are common. Giltner himself seems to have remained willing to take to the field, though he wryly comments on the state of the roads. Giltner's old regiment, the 4th Kentucky, had performed excellently as rearguard at the debacle at Rheatown in 1863, arguably saving the whole Confederate force there from destruction. The other Kentucky units and the 64th Virginia had been raised and stationed locally from about 1863, and have the fairly ordinary record common to most such units.
Vaughn's Brigade
Vaughn was of the same breed as Kirby Smith, constantly assailed by care, offering his resignation, keenly describing the plight of his badly armed, badly clothed, and badly fed troops, but nonetheless willing to assay any necessary effort to impede the overwhelming Federal advances upon his country. Some of his troops had been with him since 1st Bull Run, where he commanded the 3rd Tennessee; he had led them as infantry at Vicksburg, before mounting them in late 1863. He fought at Piedmont, earned the victory at Bull's Gap, but was routed at Morristown. His brigade joined President Davis' Last Ride and surrendered with him. They are likely to have been the best-mounted troops in the department, and will generally have been of a reasonably high quality.
Witcher's Brigade
Witcher's 34th Virginia Cavalry Battalion had been raised in the future West Virginia, and had seen action, having fought as part of Albert Jenkins' command at Gettysburg, and then at Piedmont and in Early's Valley Campaign that followed. They may be regarded as of reasonable quality. Swann's battalion had taken a great deal of time to raise, and only completed organization in late 1864; it is likely to have been of better quality than normal Reserve units, but still fairly raw.
As late as mid February, Vaughn was raiding successfully beyond Knoxville; at Marion, the Kentucky brigades successfully resisted a massively superior Union force for two days, and only withdrew due to a lack of ammunition; in October, the department's cavalry had beaten Gillem at Bull's Gap on a successful foraging mission; Vaughn's brigade contained troops who had fought at 1st Bull Run; and Echols' brigade consisted of hardened veterans with a good record. Its commanders were of respectable record, especially Echols and Vaughn. It only left the field when dissolved by Echols at Christiansburg on the 12th April, having heard of Lee's surrender – whilst Marse Robert fought, they were willing to fight also.
On the other hand, it would have been hampered as a field force not just by its small numbers. It struggled for foodstuffs (foraging, after all, being the chief objective of the Bull's Gap expedition), mounts for cavalry, clothing, and sometimes munitions. Morale was spotty, and some units had seen very little action – and some, perhaps, had seen too much. It technically had responsibility for a vast area of land, and some of its practical limitations are perhaps best illustrated by Vaughan's urgent messages to Echols over Stoneman's raid into North Carolina in March and April of 1865. Vaughan failed to receive much response from Echols, indicating both the poor state of communications available, and perhaps Echols' attention shifting to what was happening at Petersburg as the Confederacy finally collapsed. Vaughan eventually suggested that he might pursue Stoneman in accordance with Lee's general orders, albeit with a vastly numerically inferior force, but he evidently did not hold out much hope of success. Echols' command, by Spring of 1865, would likely have fought well in pitched battle, but struggled to function as an operational force.
Kentuckians in Gray: Confederate Generals and Field Officers of the Bluegrass State edited by Bruce S. Allardice and Lawrence Lee Hewitt
http://www.kykinfolk.com/adair/confederate.htm – Kentucky Confederate Units
Page's Battalion
http://www.tngenweb.org/civilwar/csaart/burrough.html – Burroughs' Battery
http://burroughsbattery.tripod.com/id2.html – Burroughs' Battery
http://www.tngenweb.org/civilwar/csaart/lynch.html – Lynch's Battery
http://www.tngenweb.org/civilwar/csaart/mcclung.html – McClung's Battery
http://barrsbattery.tripod.com/id17.html – Botetourt Light Artillery
3rd Engineer Regiment
http://www.angelfire.com/rebellion2/engineers/history.html – History of the Confederate Engineer Corps
Echols' Brigade
http://www.blueandgraymarching.com/army-of-the-valley-district/pattons-brigade.html – Echols' Brigade (then Patton's) in December 1864
http://www.wvcivilwar.com/22nd-virginia-infantry/ - 22nd Virginia Infantry Regiment
http://www.wvcivilwar.com/23rd-virginia-infantry-battalion/ - 23rd Virginia Infantry Battalion
http://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=CVA0026BI - 26th Virginia Infantry Battalion
Cosby's Brigade
http://www.history-sites.com/cgi-bin/bbs62x/kycwmb/arch_config.pl?md=read;id=1778 - 6th Confederate Cavalry Battalion
http://www.wvcivilwar.com/2nd-battalion-kentucky-mounted-rifles/ - 2nd Kentucky Mounted Rifles Battalion
http://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=CKY0003B0T - 3rd Kentucky Mounted Rifles Battalion
Giltner's Brigade
http://tn.gov/tsla/cwsb/1863-10-Article-117-Page166.pdf – account of the Battle of Rheatown
http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/military/civilwar/rosters/va7th.txt - 7th Confederate Cavalry Battalion
Witcher's Brigade
http://www.wvcivilwar.com/34th-battalion-virginia-cavalry/ - 34th Virginia Cavalry Battalion
http://files.usgwarchives.net/wv/wayne/military/VAStateLine.txt – Swann's Cavalry Battalion


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Birthday party games do not need to only be for the kids.
In fact many of the best adult parties I have been to have been where we have all sat down and played some hilarious games, usually ending up with me having tears running down my face and my sides aching with all the laughter.
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I find new boxed games bought from the shop too expensive for my purse and anyway, it is so easy to become bored of them after a while.
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This is just a small sample of the games available. Click on the pictures to see more.
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subset: commoncrawl


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This six-hour series chronicles the full sweep of African-American history, from the origins of slavery on the African continent through more than four centuries of remarkable historic events up to the present.
Take a musical journey through the evolution of modern American folk music, from its roots in bluegrass to San Francisco coffee houses to clubs in Greenwich Village. The Smothers Brothers and Judy Collins host.
Dr. Daniel Amen returns with his newest special! The Washington Post wrote that by almost any measure Dr. Daniel Amen is the most popular psychiatrist in America. He is a double board certified psychiatrist, who has written 10 New York Times bestselling books, including the mega-bestseller Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.
This music-filled documentary traces the Carpenters' career through the eyes of Richard Carpenter and the group's friends in the music business, featuring their top recording hits, including "(They Long to Be) Close to You," "Top of the World," "For All We Know," "Superstar," "Yesterday Once More," "Rainy Days and Mondays," and "We've Only Just Begun."
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Armed with a passion for their, work, Elkay unveils their newest finish yet – the antique hammered copper.
The new range of waste systems of BS&BK's Easy Clicker Waste is an innovative combination of the plug. The clicker system can be pulled out easily and make easier to maintain.
Roca, the leading global brand from Spain specialising in bathroom design and products for the architectural construction and interior design spaces, unveiled its latest bathroom collection, Inspira, on Oct 26. The range of Roca bathroom products were showcased in a pop-up concept at the outdoor space just a stone's throw away from the iconic Singapore Indoor Stadium.
The appearance of this ultra-sleek faucet gives an idea of the extraordinary. The modular design and easy maintenance concept of this series is unique.
The designer Gunilla Lagerhem Ullberg has balanced various colours carefully, inspired by coat fabrics from the world of fashion in Kasthalls new rug John.
The chair met an immediate success right after its official release at the May 2016 New York ICFF Design Exhibition. Félix Guyon considers it as being part of Larose Guyon's La Belle Époque collection.
Smart, elegant and really powerful, Alba is Roca's most complete smart toilet, and certainly one of the most influential toilets in the world.
Gaggenau, the pioneer of steam cooking technology and healthy food preparation, releases the new vacuuming drawer 400series. In combination with the Combi-steam ovens 400 series, both create the perfect conditions for gentle sous vide cooking.
To bring nature inside the VertU health bar was at the heart of the ideation. The space represents different aspects of nature, formally or informally.
Silestone® by Cosentino is one of the world's leading brand in quartz surfaces. This high-tech material is highly resistant to stains, knocks and scratches, and has a low level of fluid absorption. The unlimited material comes in over 90 colours, three textures and several different formats that will effortlessly transform your space.
All rights reserved. (c) Trade Link Media Pte Ltd at 2019


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Cheney Slams Obama for Troop Cuts: 'He'd Much Rather Spend on Food Stamps'
Former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke with Sean Hannity by phone to discuss the administration's plan to shrink the military.
Earlier today, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced a proposal which would shrink the Army to pre-World War II levels.
Report: VA Destroyed Vets' Medical Records to Eliminate Requests for Exams
Cheney said the plan is "absolutely dangerous." He called it over-the-top and said "it does enormous long-term damage to our military."
The former vice president said that this move will have a huge impact on the ability of future presidents to deal with future crises. He also cited Hagel's remarks today, in which he said that the world "is growing more volatile, more unpredictable, and in some instances more threatening to the United States."
"That would lead me to think I need to strengthen my military capabilities, not cut [them]," he told Hannity.
Cheney said Obama has always wanted to cut the military.
"He'd much rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military or support for our troops," Cheney said.
George W. Bush Pushing to Take 'Disorder' Out of PTSD
Hear the full phone interview above. Read more about the plan below, via FoxNews.com:
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called Monday for shrinking the U.S. Army to its smallest size in decades, along with other cuts, drawing criticism that the drastic changes will hurt U.S. security.
Hagel announced his Pentagon budget priorities Monday afternoon. The Army had already been preparing to shrink to 490,000 active-duty members from a wartime peak of 570,000. Hagel is proposing to cut it further to between 440,000 and 450,000.
That would make it the smallest since just before the U.S. entered World War II.
"We are repositioning to focus on the strategic challenges and opportunities that will define our future: new technologies, new centers of power, and a world that is growing more volatile, more unpredictable, and in some instances more threatening to the United States," Hagel said at a press conference at the Pentagon.
He defended the proposed reductions in troop strength, as a trade-off for building up "technological superiority" and priorities like Special Operations Forces and "cyber resources."
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, warned that the cuts would hurt military readiness. And he said the country is only in this position because the Obama administration and Congress will not seriously take on cuts to entitlements.
"It's all being sacrificed ... on the altar of entitlements. This president cannot take on mandatory spending, so all we've done in the Congress -- and this president -- is basically cut discretionary spending," he told Fox News.
Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said Monday that Hagel consulted closely with the military service chiefs on how to balance defense and budget-saving requirements. "He has worked hard with the services to ensure that we continue to stand for the defense of our national interests -- that whatever budget priorities we establish, we do so in keeping with our defense strategy and with a strong commitment to the men and women in uniform and to their families, Kirby said.
"But he has also said that we have to face the realities of our time. We must be pragmatic. We can't escape tough choices. He and the chiefs are willing to make those choices," Kirby said.
The New York Times first reported on the proposed cuts. The changes reportedly would leave the military capable of waging war, but unable to carry out protracted occupations of foreign territory, as in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Officials told the Times that Hagel's plan has been endorsed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It calls for the Navy to maintain all 11 of its aircraft carriers currently in operation. However, the budget proposal mandates the elimination of the entire fleet of Air Force A-10 attack aircraft, as well as the retiring of the U-2 spy plane, a stalwart of Cold War operations.
The budget plan does keep money for the F-35 warplane, a project which has been beset by delays and criticism over design flaws.
Other characteristics of the budget will likely draw further ire from veterans groups and members of Congress. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Hagel would recommend a limit on military pay raises, higher fees for health-care benefits, less generous housing allowances, and a one-year freeze on raises for top military brass.
"This is a real uphill battle with Congress," Mieke Eoyang, director of the National Security Program at Third Way, a centrist think tank in Washington, told the Journal.
"God bless [Hagel] for trying to get a handle on these costs," she said. "But in this political environment, in an election year, it's going to be hard for members of Congress to accept anything that's viewed as taking benefits away from troops."


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As the Chinese economy continues to develop, many are viewing the Middle Kingdom as a great place to advance their careers. However, it's important to make the most of digital networking platforms, such as LinkedIn and WeChat, to maximize your chances. Take a look at this article for some useful tips and advice.
Communication Tips
In China, language and culture both play an important role in shaping communication styles but can be difficult for the uninitiated to comprehend. This section focuses on providing insights into Chinese communication styles and short lessons on effectively using the Chinese language for Westerners who are planning on traveling or working in China.
5 Reasons You Need to Learn Chinese Names
Names are extremely important to the Chinese, and learning how to pronounce them and their meanings is an excellent way to begin engaging more with Chinese friends, colleagues, and partners. In this article I go over five key reasons we need to stop constantly asking for English names from the Chinese.
The Pull of the Cantonese Language
In this interview, my friend Jeremy Ryder details his wonderful journey learning the Cantonese language and exploring the many facets of southern Chinese culture. This is a great read for anyone interested in traveling to Hong Kong or Guangdong, China.
The Quest for an Accurate Translation, a Chinese Fable
Ensuring accurate translations between the Chinese and English languages is tough in today's fast and frantic business climate. Through a short fable, readers will learn why taking it slow can not only ensure higher-quality translation deliverables, but also aid in cross cultural learning and communication.
What is the Secret to Speaking Better Chinese?
Learning to speak Chinese has become increasingly important to many in the international business community, but still presents many difficulties for the Western learner. However, focusing on the right issues can provide a key advantage in one's studies, as outlined in this article.
Saying "No" in China
Saying no in China can be difficult for Westerners because of the Chinese tendency to speak in a vague and indirect manner. In order to help the Chinese save face and maintain valuable relationships it is important to know how to properly say no in a way that local Chinese business people can accept.
Tips For Communicating With The Chinese, Part 2
In an earlier post, I offered a general overview of several common elements in Chinese society (and the business environment) which will often influence how the Chinese communicate. These include concepts such as social harmony, giving or losing Face, maintaining relationships, and observing business… Read More ›
Tips For Communicating With The Chinese, Part 1
Unclear communication by Chinese business people can cause frustration and concern among Westerners. In this article some of the key aspects of unclear communication by the Chinese are addressed to assist Western businesses in successfully negotiating business deals and forming strong relationships with the Chinese.
A Guide to Hanyu Pinyin and Correct Chinese Pronunciation
The Chinese language is becoming more important with the economic and political development of Mainland China. Start learning Chinese by first reading and reviewing this introduction to Chinese Pinyin.


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A complete digital solution that acts as a synchronized customer oriented sales machine to improve the overall shopping experience through several of connected smart devices within a retail area.
A centralized cloud based application that provides total control over the behavior of all the components in the solution.
Some features are :
Sales Optimizer Control Center - Allows the reseller to target the members that are more relevant to their business.
Presence Feeder - Provides a live floor plan display with view over the current shoppers within the retail area.
A series of digital media signage displays that exposes targeted promotions / media to the shoppers that are within visible distance of each display.
Some features are :
Focus on cross-selling.
Focus on up-selling.
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A mobile application that allows the user to manage the purchases.
Some features include:
Promotions - Provides a list of tailored promotions to each member.
Shopping List - An easy way to prepare a shopping list. Includes some intelligent product suggestions.
Purchase History - A detailed list of purchase history with advanced sorting options.
A mobile application that links the floor assistant to the shoppers and the management.
One of the main features is :
VIP Shopper alert - Signals when a VIP profile enters a specific area, allowing the Floor Assistant the possibility to build a close relationship with key customers.


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Potterygod is Cindy Ginter's Etsy shop where she sells her whimsical handmade pottery. Cindy has been a part-time potter since 1985 and started selling her ceramics on Etsy in 2006. She contributes the success of her business to learning how to market herself on Etsy.
Cindy's adventure into ceramics began at The 577 Foundation, a local community center in
. In the "Art Barn" under the instruction Edith Franklin, a great potter local to Perrysburg, Cindy learned to throw, hand build and extrude pots. "I love to sculpt, so many times I use the skills to make cute monsters, cats and clocks." Perrysburg, Ohio
The day Cindy discovered she couldn't keep up with the sales from her Etsy shop is the day she cites as her greatest accomplishment. "After that time, I decided I would switch to selling on Etsy exclusively." Cindy works full time as an administrator for a large social service organization and creates at night. "Thankfully I retire in a few years and I hope to spend my days potting full time and increasing my sales on Etsy. It is a great time for the steady build up of my Etsy shop."
These are a few of Cindy's favorite items from her shop:
|Porcelain Tea for Three Cups
|Wild Snack Bowls
|Bird and Flower Art Platter
|Set of 2 Ceramic Tumblers
It's no surprise looking at Cindy's whimsical work that she is inspired by Dr. Seuss! "I like unusual shapes, bright floors and whimsical characters and my work is often described as 'Seussian'." Cindy enjoys cheerful colors and finds she is disappointed with the results when she strays from her bold color palette.
Like so many Etsians, Cindy is a true artist and enjoys other creative outlets in addition to her potting. As a graphic artist and amateur photographer, Cindy has found another outlet for her crativity. "I have a line of designer ties, messenger bags and posters." You can find her other work on her Potterygod Blog
Cindy prides herself on great customer service including quick delivery and at times, working with others to produce custom designs. "I don't want my functional pots sitting on a shelf getting dusty!. I make my pots food safe, dishwasher and microwave safe all in hopes that people use the pots daily!"
VisitCindy's Etsy Shop
Visit Cindy's Blog


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I'm doing this new trendy thing; trying to keep everything organized, including my blog work. Yes, there truly is such a concept! I was finding that I wasn't really keeping my blog ideas and upcoming events ordered in such a way that I would actually remember to type up events, that interested me most, on time. For instance, up to this point, my weekly comic related posts were … [Read more...]
A Fabulous New Way to Spend Your AIR MILES Cash – with IRIS The Visual Group
Remember that post I wrote earlier on how to ensure you're earning AIR MILES reward miles while shopping online? Well, now that I'm a pro at earning AIR MILES, I just found a fabulous place to redeem my nicely accumulating AIR MILES Cash balance! It can be hard to decide how to use your reward miles, as the program partners with a ton of great retailers across Canada, so you … [Read more...]


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By Carol Ryczek, community relations manager, Shawano Medical Center
If you've ever been in a hospital bed, you know how important it is to have your call button within reach. Simple things, like sitting up or going to the bathroom, can get very complicated when you are in a strange bed surrounded by (and sometimes strapped to!) unfamiliar machinery. The nurse call button becomes your ticket to comfort.
A good nurse call system can have a big impact on a patient's overall hospital experience. It can also help the staff bring care to the patient with the fewest steps—and the least amount of time—possible. That's why the new ThedaCare Medical Center-Shawano will have an advanced nurse call system – thanks to the Shawano Medical Center Foundation's capital campaign. The Foundation agreed to fund Rauland Responder V, which uses wireless technology to send patient requests directly to the person who can help.
The new patient communications system takes the concept of a nurse call button and makes it much more efficient. It might have started out as a nurse call system, but if it were correctly named, it would be the patient-nurse-lab-imaging-housekeeping-certified nurse assistant-call button. To the patient, though, it would be the one-touch-does-it-all button.
A patient can press one button to ask for help in going to the bathroom, for pain control, or to let a nurse know that an alarm is buzzing. That button will send a text to the patient's nurse, and she will call the patient to find out exactly what the patient needs.
The staff can use the new system to coordinate the patient's care between visits to the Lab, or Imaging Departments. They can let housekeepers know when a room is ready to clean. There are fewer hallway beeps, fewer transfers, and faster responses.
It's a small thing with a big impact, and it is a good example of how Shawano Medical Center Foundation's capital campaign will help every patient at ThedaCare Medical Center-Shawano.
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Episode 41: Tron Legacy
Posted in DefaultTag, superhero, movie review, psycho, obsession, Meta, Homage, lifehacker, eric ravenscraft, Disney, Monsters, Comedy, Crime, Film, Prequel, Fantasy, Death, Comics, Reboot, Remake, Geek, Nerd, Geekcast, sci-fi, camp, technology, memories, Paul, history, Violent, Violence, Movie, Classic, Remix, Love, Family, Storytelling, Kids, Pixar, Podcasting, Love letter, Lore, Dog, Action Movie, Life, Arrival, Twist, Beyond, Drama, Animation, Speed Racer on Aug 10th, 2017 Comments
Join us as we discuss the sequel to the cult classic film Tron. The film is titled Tron: Legacy and was released in 2010, 28 years after the original Tron. We discuss our thoughts on the plot, which we thought was much too convuluted for the intended audience. We discuss the new characters, as well as the performances by Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, and Jeff Bridges. We discuss the amazing visuals and how each Tron film has moved cinema forward, and we also discuss the fantastic soundtrack which was done by electronic music superstars Daft Punk.
Listen to our thoughts, and leave your own in the comments. Thanks guys, and happy listening!


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It requires a huge dose of optimism to trust President Goodluck Jonathan's instinct in declaring a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States. I confess I do not have such an endowment, and I am not careful to hold a contrary position on this very controversial issue. Majority of Nigerians, perhaps 99 percent, favour emergency, and either abusively denounce those who don't or equate opposition to emergency with support for Boko Haram insurgency. They are entitled to their opinion. The more supporters of emergency work themselves up into a fever over the few of us who see through the president's manoeuvres, the more convinced I am that both the president and his supporters are misguided and intolerant.
A day after Jonathan took the plunge and committed the Northeast angrily into emergency, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) spontaneously denounced the declaration and pointed out that the president was in fact playing politics with the issue of insecurity. But one day later, after having had the chance to reflect on the delicate matter and to measure the weight of their courage in the face of massive public endorsement of emergency, the party mellowed its stand from asking the National Assembly to reject emergency to asking them to examine it cautiously. I do not pretend to any of the party's luxuries. I understand the need for the party to cast a wary, indeed longing, eye on the next general elections, and must therefore be careful not to distance itself too inappropriately from the herd grazing on emergency. But I have no vote to seek, and if I wish, I may even have no vote to cast in 2015.
Of course the ACN, much more than any other party, did well to publicise its initial opposition to emergency even before it understood which way the cats were jumping. That it has had to quickly modify its original stand merely reflects that its leaders are realists who must watch the ballot box with a defensive keenness that exceeds its vaunted predatory instincts. The scale of support for Jonathan's emergency declaration must have stunned northern leaders themselves into whooping for the measure, I suspect, against their better judgement. Indeed, in the north, whether among former heads of state or among leading politicians, all we hear is a mellifluous chorus of support for emergency. Obviously, at a time like this, discretion is the better part of valour.
The dispute over emergency, it must be reiterated, is not about whether Boko Haram needed to be fought and defeated or whether it should be tolerated and pampered. Everyone, except the sect's members, agrees that the killings in the north needed to be halted. The dispute, therefore, is essentially about methods, not goals. The southern part of Nigeria never liked Boko Haram for one minute, and minced no words in vociferously deploring its methods and objectives, even at the constant and irritating risk of accusing the north of supporting the sect. A corollary of that assumed convergence between the north and the sect is the south's dismissive characterisation of every northerner who proposes a different perspective of tackling the insurgency as a Boko Haram supporter. Indeed, in my view, the northern part was at first ambivalent to the sect, even seemingly indulgent, and only belatedly horrified and shaken by the huge scale of atrocities the militants were perpetrating.
Readers of this column will recall my trenchant view of Boko Haram, my opposition to amnesty, except for the sect's foot soldiers, and only because of the administrative cost of prosecuting every sect member, and my unalloyed support for secularism and democracy. Boko Haram should be fought, and the military should lead the battle. But we must be careful to plan beyond military victory. The question to ask is whether emergency will help the government and the military to explain why they failed to defeat the sect and pacify the region. I suspect it will not. Dr Jonathan's state of emergency does not only reek of politics, it seems to me a facile and fatuous strategy to divert attention from serious issues pertaining to the long-running campaign against terror in Nigeria, such as the Baga killings. Emergency also conceals the general disinclination of the Jonathan presidency for rigorous thinking and scientific governance and foreshadows a rising dictatorship.
The Nigerian constitution places the responsibility for security squarely on the shoulders of the president, not in the hands of governors. If anyone was, therefore, remiss in his responsibility for security in the Northeast, it was the president. In fighting Boko Haram, there has been no presidential initiative to deploy forces that the states or local governments disagreed with. Dr Jonathan had the unlimited power to add to and subtract from the number of troops deployed in the war front. He took no input from the governors about tactical deployment, and there was no part of the affected states from which federal forces were barred. Does Jonathan therefore need a state of emergency to raise troop strength? What is he doing now that he couldn't do without declaring emergency? Warrant to search? Suspension of habeas corpus?
Section 305 of the 1999 constitution broadly describes the procedure for the proclamation of a state of emergency. As the ACN pointed out in its initial position, emergency was already in force in many parts of the Northeast, but was ineffective. Nobody ever questioned the government's deployments and even rights abuses until Borno elders began to notice strange killings. In fact, there are no powers granted by emergency proclamation that the people had not already vouchsafed to the president in view of the drastic circumstances of insecurity in those regions. It is, therefore, necessary for to be cautious about emergency and admonish Nigerians on why the proclamation should be considered carefully side-by-side with Sections 33 and 35 of the constitution dealing with the rights of the people. It may even be necessary to draw attention to the entire Chapter IV of the constitution for the public and the National Assembly to appreciate those rights that, in emergency, are or should be non-derogable.
The proclamation has been sent to the National Assembly, and the two chambers have scheduled a discussion for Tuesday. It is important they remove the fears of the people that Section 305 as applied will not be used inappropriately and narrow-mindedly to derogate the rights of the people under emergency. The legislature must not allow itself to be carried away by popular emotions, nor be blackmailed by the reckless and aggressive support most Nigerians have offered the president. They must carefully determine whether the cause of peace would be served by the liberty the president wishes to take over a war he has largely bungled and prolonged by his dithering.
By declaring emergency, it seems to me, Dr Jonathan gave the impression that someone else, perhaps the governors of the affected states and their conniving political elite, was to blame for insecurity and Boko Haram. The governors' economic and social policies probably contributed to the beginnings of the revolt and undoubtedly aggravated it, but it is inconceivable that emergency should be expected to remedy the problem and stamp it out permanently. The president also needed emergency to deflect censorious attention from the alleged atrocities that took place in Baga, Borno State in April. The matter was being probed, until emergency was declared. Not only will the probes now be compromised, it is certain that with emergency, no other probe elsewhere will be entertained. Frightened by the countrywide unanimity of approval for the president's extraordinary measures, northern leaders have, against their better judgement, abandoned the hapless people of the three states to be sandwiched between the extreme measures of the Nigerian security forces and the brutal fanaticism and extortion of the Boko Haram sect.
This abandonment is anchored on the indefensible argument, advanced mainly by the south and the presidency, that the people of those states had a duty to expose the sect. In other words damned if they rat on the sect, and damned if for fear of their lives they don't. I feel for them, and wish we had a more informed, more empathetic and more reflective president. The campaign against Boko Haram failed not because we didn't have the troops and the logistics to fight the sect, but because the security forces failed to fight a winnable and moral war, and win the confidence of the local populace, as indeed other victorious armies in the world take care to do. It is instructive that while Nigerians were hailing the president's show of force and firepower in the Northeast, it took a visiting British general, Robert Fry, a former deputy commanding general of the coalition forces in Iraq, to caution against the use of excessive force in the Northeast. But Nigerians would rather those states were smashed to smithereens, and the local populace blamed themselves for not pushing out the militants in their midst. It seems we have lost our senses.
President Jonathan, I have argued, does not need a state of emergency to take the measures he has just adumbrated. But none in the National Assembly will have the heart to tell him that. I am persuaded that indeed the proclamation reeks of offensive politicking. The Northeast is anti-Jonathan, and will stay so until 2015 and beyond. The president does not have any emotional attachment to those states, and could care less what they feel, as he said when he reluctantly visited them in March. Judging from his anger as he read his speech in a tremulous voice on Tuesday, Dr Jonathan was evidently tormented by his private demons, and was intemperate, unstatesmanlike and full of unnecessary fury. His supposed fierce mien was not, as some imagined, a ploy to display presidential toughness; it instead betrayed his boyish instinct for sophistry, his rustic impulsiveness, and his burgeoning ruthlessness and dictatorial tendency.
Future generations will recall how, on the excuse of battling insurgency and saving the union, we abandoned to the federal rampage our kith and kin in the Northeast, a majority of whom are law-abiding, and for whom sadly and mortifyingly the rest of the world feels more fellow-feeling than Nigerians. By whooping hysterically for war, rather than for a clinical and brilliant campaign to take out the offending rascals destabilising the union, we seem to say that the problem, whose roots are deeper than military defeat can extirpate, can be destroyed with a massive military blow. Nothing can be further from the reality. Military victory may be achieved in the near future, but it remains to be seen whether the fiery and indecipherable logic of the rebellion and the sect's promotion of borderless war can be subdued permanently by conventional military tactics.
But more saddening are those who argue that the president should have sent the governors and their legislative houses packing either for being the cause of this imbroglio or for worsening it. This is simply senseless. Are we so undisciplined that at the first hint of a major trouble we are willing to whimsically dishonour some of the provisions of the constitution, or select which part to obey and which to ignore or downgrade? Strangely, among those who make this nonsensical argument are lawyers and academics who should know better. But it is not only lawyers who are losing their heads, that is, after Aso Villa's melodramatic buck-passing, even journalists and editorial writers have gone completely irrational. They have not only endorsed Dr Jonathan's questionable decision to impose emergency, they, who should be the bastion of civil rights and free speech, have issued dire warnings to opposition parties to fall in line behind the president. Already, of course, and as the brusque declaration of curfew in Adamawa showed, executive, judicial and legislative powers have been abridged by the military. The governors will be ceremonial leaders throughout the emergency, even as the affected states may be coaxed into parting with a part of their monthly allocation to the war effort.
It is necessary for the National Assembly to scrutinise the president's proclamation very closely and tame it. If, without emergency, the Baga incident elicited so much controversy, what should we expect with the leeway emergency proclamation confers? The legislators must understand that with the events in Rivers State, where federal might is being immoderately and perversely deployed, and the unsupportable and capricious inclusion of Adamawa in the emergency declaration, we are well on our way to a brutal dictatorship. We recall how miserably we fared when we feebly confronted the dictatorship and arbitrariness of the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo presidency; it is up to us if in the face of Dr Jonathan's political dubieties we begin to prevaricate or, worse, wilt. We should not blame Boko Haram for exposing our poor mettle or northern leaders who failed to rally against the sect. If another president takes us for a ride again, and in the end corrupts and weakens the fabric of our democracy, we have ourselves, our weak legislature and our impressionable press to thank.


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Sunday, August 24, 2008
The villains who start these viruses cause an astonishing amount of property damage. I don't know the extent of the destruction, but it might run into the billions of dollars. My life has certainly been affected -- to what extent, is yet undetermined.
15 comments:
- Dismuke said...
One thing I learned a few years ago the hard way is to NEVER store important files on your C drive. Save them on a slave drive, either internal or on one of those nifty external hard drives.
A few years ago, my operating system became corrupted - a technical glitch with the OS and not a virus. But the tech support had me do a reinstall of the OS and that wiped everything on my C drive out.
- Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 5:50:00 PM PDT
- Myrhaf said...
I have Act I of a play I'm writing in that computer, not backed up. If nothing else, I need to get those files on a disk, then I'll buy a new computer. At $135/hr, it's not worth it for me to have the pros work more than a few hours on a computer that can be replaced fairly cheap.
- Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 6:19:00 PM PDT
Buy a new drive and a drive enclosure. Install the new drive in your computer and take the old drive out. Install Windows on the new drive. Put the old drive in the enclosure, it becomes an external USB drive. Depending on the extent of the corruption, your files may still be accessible.
- Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 6:23:00 PM PDT
- Myrhaf said...
Does a new drive mean a new computer?
- Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 6:40:00 PM PDT
- Jennifer Snow said...
Not much of a computer guy, eh?
"Drive" means hard drive--it's the part of your computer that stores your data. Drives are interchangeable, much like a box that you store tools in, so you can take out your old one (with corrupted data) and put in a new one. Generally if you buy a new drive (and you can get a decent one for roughly $100 without much trouble), it'll come with installation instructions.
Since Windows (the program that tells your computer what to do with itself) is on your old drive, however, doing this will mean that you'll have to reinstall Windows, which basically just means slapping the install CD into your CD-ROM drive and turning the computer on.
That's one method. There are actually a number of other things you can do, they just require computer savvy. $135 an hour is daylight robbery.
- Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 7:10:00 PM PDT
Here is a hard disk drive. That's just an example, there are many other disk drives and you have to know what kinds of drives your computer will support. Here is an external enclosure. Again, there are many different varieties.
I have not tried either of the above products, I just linked them because they were easy to find. I have had good experiences with Newegg in the past, but feel free to shop around. I did do something similar to what I'm describing when my laptop motherboard failed. I took the undamaged 2.5" hard disk drive out of my laptop and put it into a $20 enclosure. Then I could recover all of my data. (I did buy a new computer though; the old one was toast.)
A computer repair person may be willing to do this for you. It costs less to do it yourself, but you have to know what you are doing.
- Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 7:17:00 PM PDT
I hope you retrieve your data. Regardless, for the future (not much consolation now), get an external hard drive and back up your data on it every night. Your computer tech guy can create a "script" that you activate simply by clicking a button. It will back up all your data onto the external drive, thereby giving you two copies of all your work. The whole process is painless, takes seconds, and protects your data.
Best wishes for recovering your work.
- Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 7:25:00 PM PDT
- Mike said...
Have you considered a Mac? Obviously it'd be for next time. I have found that they perform much better as turn-key computer solutions for those who would rather not spend their time tinkering. As an added bonus, viruses are all but unknown on the Mac platform, and it has built-in backups in the background to any external drive you care to hook up to your computer or router.
- Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 8:26:00 PM PDT
- Billy Beck said...
Man, I sure hate to hear this. In 1997, I lost a 3-D AutoCAD model of a B-52 Stratofortress, a bit less than a week before I received in e-mail a purchase offer for that model to be used in a USAF refueling simulation.
I actually don't think I would have concluded that deal, but I sure hated to lose that model. It was the most complex thing I ever drew.
All my data goes to a D: disk, now, and then offline to DVD's.
I know the feeling. It sucks right out loud.
- Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 8:51:00 PM PDT
- Myrhaf said...
Well, the $135/hr guys advised me to just buy an new computer and if I really need to get the stuff in my old computer, I should go to a place called Data Recovery that works for the FBI. Fortunately, this advice came free. Apparently, any computer three years or older is an accident waiting to happen.
So I bought an emachines that is actually faster than my old computer, and it cost me $399 today! Now I need to call that place that works for the FBI and see how much it will cost me to get the Act I that I just finished two weeks ago and failed to back up.
In typing this message I hit caps lock three times on this new keyboard. I hate caps lock. I mean, HOW OFTEN DO YOU USE IT?! LESS THAN YOU ACCIDENTALLY HIT IT!
- Monday, August 25, 2008 at 2:58:00 PM PDT
- Myrhaf said...
Not much of a computer guy, eh?
I know where the on/off button is. It gets dicey beyond that.
- Monday, August 25, 2008 at 3:44:00 PM PDT
- Valda Redfern said...
Another thing you can do in future is back up your files on someone else's server. I've been using sugarsync for the last few months and find that it works well (hat tip: Ed Thompson post on hbl). To store up to 10Gigs of data there costs only $25 a year.
You could also use Google Docs to store specific documents - which, of course, you could then work on from any computer so long as you had an internet connection.
I recently switched from a PC to a mac iBook and I've been very happy with it; as Mike said, it can automatically back up everything on your inbuilt disk drive to an external drive, and there are no viruses targeted at mac operating systems - yet.
Meanwhile, I hope the vicious little bastards who get their kicks from destroying other people's work get their come-upance. Wouldn't it be fun if we could somehow send viruses back to their creators and ruin their computers!
- Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 12:06:00 PM PDT
- mike18xx said...
Windows advice:
1) As soon as your PC is up and running, Google "ComboFix". Hit the first or second link, page down a bit on that, and download it from "BleepingComputer.com". Run that bad-boy (in SafeMode, if necessary).
2) When that's done, get ahold of the free version of Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. Manually update and then full-scan every drive.
3) Install the free version of AntiVirus Guard (AVG) 8.
4) Open any window on the deskop, go to Tools, then down to Folder Options, then to View. In Hidden Files and Folders, check Do Not View. Also check Hide Protected Operating System Files. -- When that's done, close. You should see you open screen windows refresh. Now open up your C: drive; anything on the main volume that isn't a folder you can junk, even if it "looks" like an important system file like "AutoExecBAT" -- it's likely a leftover fake. (If it's real, you wouldn't be seeing it now, and you'll get a warning if you try to put it in the trash. If there's no warning, then it's garbage.)
- Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 10:38:00 AM PDT
It is not a certainty that a virus is involved with the crash, as Windows is pretty good at corrupting itself without any help.
Now that you have a new machine, it should be possible to pull your old drive and stick it into an external USB enclosure, as anonymous #1 said, and salvage your work. The glitch you describe sounds like Windows is broken, but the physical HD and filesystem (a "filesystem" is to "files" roughly what a building is to the people in it) are probably OK, which would mean it should be easy to recover your files.
As for myself, I have external firewire backup, and my data on a NAS (network accessible storage) server. Hard drives are so cheap I don't see the point of CD/DVD or tape backup anymore.
Valda's idea is a good one for most, as offsite backup like she suggests protects you against bigger issues like fire, flood or earthquake. I need to do something like that.
- Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 8:52:00 PM PDT
- mike18xx said...
You don't need an external enclosure; just hook the old drive up to the CD/DVD-rom's ribbon cable (provided your computer is a desktop or tower).
- Sunday, August 31, 2008 at 12:57:00 AM PDT


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Everyone with HIV should be offered treatment immediately upon diagnosis, according to new World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.
The recommendation -- dropping any eligibility restrictions for antiretroviral therapy -- brings WHO advice into line with guidelines in the U.S., and most other Western countries.
The new guidelines also say that all people at "substantial risk" of HIV should be offered pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) with an antiretroviral medication, combined with other prevention methods.
The advice forms part of a revised package of guidelines on HIV treatment intended to be issued later this year, but these two were released early because of their potential to affect public health, the WHO said in a statement.
Expanding therapy to all people living with HIV and increasing prevention options could help avert 21 million AIDS-related deaths and 28 million new infections by 2030, the agency said, citing estimates from the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
The immediate effect is to increase the number of people eligible for HIV treatment around the world, to 37 million people from 28 million under the previous guidelines.
But even today, only about half of those eligible are actually on therapy -- a gap that will have to be closed in order to reap any public health benefits, according to Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC, a New York-based nonprofit group that advocates for improved HIV prevention.
"WHO is paving the way for a fundamental shift in the world's response to HIV -- abandoning the partial or piecemeal use of antiretroviral medicines in favor of full access for men and women in need," Warren said in a statement.
"But there is much work ahead to translate them into practice, from securing resources to revamping HIV guidelines in country after country to implementing comprehensive treatment and prevention programs," Warren added.
Expanding access to HIV therapy is at the heart of the so-called 90-90-90 targets for 2020 -- 90% of people with HIV aware of their infection, 90% of those getting treatment, and 90% of people on treatment having no detectable virus in their blood, the WHO said.
The WHO's previous guideline had recommended antiretroviral therapy for those with compromised immune systems, defined as fewer than 500 CD4-positive T-cells per microliter of blood, as well as for vulnerable populations, such as children, pregnant women, and people with TB.
The WHO's decision to change that is a "dramatic shift," the CDC said and is based on science showing early treatment offers benefits both to the patient and to society as a whole.
"We now know unequivocally that early and effective treatment not only reduces HIV transmission but also significantly improves health outcomes for those living with HIV," the CDC said in a statement.
The WHO change comes after U.S. experts in 2102 issued similar guidelines recommending antiretroviral therapy for all patients diagnosed with HIV infection.
The new guidelines "recognize that antiretroviral treatment access upon diagnosis saves lives, averts serious illnesses, and prevents new infections," commented Kenneth Mayer, MD, speaking for the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association.
"As physicians and researchers witnessing the impact of HIV globally, and working to stem its toll, we applaud WHO for taking an important step toward control of the HIV pandemic," Mayer said in a statement.
Aside from the treatment issues, Mayer said, it's important to recognize that access to PrEP can "protect those at substantial risk of becoming infected."
Last year, the CDC issued a clinical guidance recommending physicians consider advising the use of PrEP for gay and bisexual men, heterosexuals, and injection drug users at substantial risk for HIV infection.
The 2014 WHO guidance on the issue recommended PrEP for men who have sex with men, but said it could be offered to heterosexual couples where one partner had HIV and the other did not and to men and transgender women who have sex with men.
But "further evidence of the effectiveness and acceptability of PrEP," the WHO said, now supports a broader recommendation that would include all people at high risk of transmission.
The agency added that PrEP should be "an additional prevention choice based on a comprehensive package of services, including HIV testing, counseling and support, and access to condoms and safe injection equipment."
Development of the guidelines was supported by the United States Agency for International Development, the CDC, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Many study authors reported potential conflicts, both financial and non-financial, that were deemed significant; such authors were excluded from the decision-making process where their conflicts impinged on the discussion.
- Reviewed by F. Perry Wilson, MD, MSCE Assistant Professor, Section of Nephrology, Yale School of Medicine and Dorothy Caputo, MA, BSN, RN, Nurse Planner
last updated
Primary Source
World Health OrganizationSource Reference: WHO. "Guideline on when to start antiretroviral therapy and on preexposure prophylaxis for HIV" 2015.


text: Wale did his dam thing on this record, but honestly…Tiara Thomas stole the show with her vocals! This is a solid record, and I'm not much for this lovey dubby bull shit. Share and enjoy. I know it's a little late…but people are still finding out that Google actually works…so technically…I'm just in time. You can purchase this single off iTunes here. Shouts out to Bria Murphy for being sexy as hell in this video. httpvh://youtu.be/0TIIu9CERgI Follow @Wale @Tiara_Thomas Related


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Interest Rate Cycle Peaks
Hi Friends!
The Reserve Bank of India has just cut the CRR - without even waiting for the review due on March 15, 2012. That too by a "more-than-expected" 75 basis points.
This indicates a few interesting points about the thought process of the RBI:
- RBI thinks that the liquidity situation is quite tight.
- RBI feels that due to the Advance Tax payments next week, the liquidity situation will become even worse in the immediate future.
- RBI feels that the danger of slowing-down of GDB growth rates is very live and real. Enough to act, and act decisively.
While this may not result in an immediate reduction in the interest rates for home loan borrowers (and other borrowers as well), this is as powerful and as strong a signal as any that the Interest Rate Cycle has peaked in India. There's no doubt about that.
How does this impact us? A few ways in which it is likely to impact us:
- Market performance of interest-rate sensitive companies (like banks, automobile companies, infrastructure majors, real estate & construction companies, etc.) should do well in the months and quarters ahead. Hence, every dip in share prices should be used to load up shares of such companies. Obviously, we should focus on those that have been beaten down the most while the interest rates were moving up.
- Loan rates are certainly unlikely to go up significantly any longer. On the contrary, the interest rates on loans should start inching lower in the quarters ahead. Home-loan & Car-loan customers can heave a sigh of relief.
- Those who are planning to take a loan in the immediate future MUST take only a floating rate loan (even though, I'm sure, many banks would love to tempt you with supposedly attractive fixed rate loans). After all, once the interest rates start going down, they are likely to keep going down at least for a few quarters before taking a turn upwards.
- Those who are having fixed deposits (or planning to open fixed deposits) should use the presently prevailing high rates to lock-in their money in fixed deposits for as long a duration as possible. There are some good public sector banks which accept deposits for a period as long as 10 years. This would come in handy especially for recently retired senior citizens.
- Growth is likely to be back for Indian corporates - After tightening the belt for almost 4 years, chances are bright that you'll see smiles on the faces of CFOs. This should, hopefully, indicate increased job opportunities - both for freshers and for people looking forward to switch jobs to greener pastures.
Let's wait and watch the budget - and see if the Finance Minister also gives us reasons to cheer.


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By Robert Leo, EnStars | Sep 05, 2013 03:36 PM EDT
Many fans of the hit British-American TV drama, Downton Abbey, were shocked to see one of their most beloved characters in Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) abruptly die in an auto accident in the Christmas episode to end last season.
In real life, Stevens had made the career decision to move on from the popular show. However, while the actor is clearly long gone at this point, co-star Michelle Dockery had actually contemplated an exit herself after the third installment, according to a Vulture interview on Sept. 3.
"We all had that choice, and any one of us could have left. There was a point where I thought, 'Yeah, I'm done after three,' because that's what I was expecting to happen: I would do three series and that would be it. And then of course the success of the show was huge and I had my doubts. I discovered there isn't any rush. I wasn't ready to finish whereas Dan was very ready to leave," she explained.


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My Room: Jonty
Here's another striped wall stunner to take in, shared by Jess: Jonty's room is my favourite in the whole house. It's the one room where everything just "works" and everything has a place. I often just stand in the doorway looking in at it, wishing it was MY room!
It's full of second-hand and handmade treasures mixed in with some good old Ikea favourites. Special mention to Lila Frances on Etsy for the personalised wire hanger. It's one of my favourite things.
Thanks, Jess and Jonty!
Have you seen our Nursery & Kids Room Submission Form? In addition to working with some readers to feature full tours, we will also share the best as "My Room" posts on Ohdeedoh -- short, quick tours of great rooms. Submit yours right here.


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Progress in other big cities: the City of South San Francisco and its Sustainability Efforts
April 30, 2013
Outside EU there are interesting developments about EE.
Article taken from: http://www.dailyenergyreport.com/
South San Francisco, California "The Industrial City" is strategically located on 9.63 square miles facing the San Francisco Bay and eight miles south of downtown San Francisco. Also known as the "Birth Place of Biotechnology", South San Francisco was incorporated on September 19, 1908, and prides itself on its cultural, social, and economic diversity.
In the early 1900's South San Francisco became an industrial center; steel mills, metal foundries, meatpacking factories and other heavy industrial uses covered the City's eastern edge. In the 1970's and 1980's, heavy industry was replaced by light industrial and warehousing uses, hotels serving the San Francisco International Airport and biotechnology companies. At the center of this shift were Herb Boyer and Bob Swanson who founded Genentech in 1976 and helped spawn the City's biotechnology cluster and transform the City's economic base.
With a population of 64,000 that grows to 100,000 during the day, South San Francisco is focusing on sustainability. The City has created a Sustainability Division to pursue grants, help our residents and businesses use "green" technology to reduce energy and save on utility costs, and work to reduce our carbon footprint. The City received a significant State-funded grant to prepare a Climate Action Plan and Pedestrian Master Plan, which will help the City achieve its goal of reducing our carbon footprint by 2020. Additional projects include: completing an energy-efficient Downtown public parking garage with electric vehicle charging stations, focusing new development along transit corridors and transforming underutilized land into productive, livable space, linking the City with a pedestrian/bicycle path, installing solar panels on City buildings, utilizing a 400-kW cogeneration systems at our Water Quality Control Plant, and incorporating hybrid vehicles into its fleet.
Our environmental stewardship and smart growth land-use policies has produced positive results. The electric vehicle charging stations at our new parking garage have helped eliminate approximately 8,000 kilograms of Green House Gas Emissions in just the first seven months of 2012, solar panels on the City Hall Annex are helping the City save $12,000 in annual energy costs. Changes to light fixtures and other energy-efficiency projects resulted in an $80,000 rebate from PG&E and the City is preparing to launch a second round of energy-saving measures.
The City's Water Quality Control Plant (WQCP) has a 400-kW cogeneration system that utilizes methane gas produced by the anaerobic digesters. Since 1992, this co-generation system has produced up to one-third of the Plant's electrical needs, lowering the City's energy use and costs. In spite of this success, the City continues to explore the potential for new technologies to further reduce energy use and lower the cost to operate the Plant.
Our business community is embracing sustainability as well. The South San Francisco Scavenger Company is expanding their services and offsetting their fuel needs. Plans are underway to offer food waste composting to residential customers, generating bio-methane to fuel their compressed natural gas trucks. This process, called Anaerobic Digestion, will initially produce enough fuel for 5-6 trucks per day. Scavengers has also installed solar panels on their materials recovery facility, purchased two of the first available hybrid garbage trucks, and uses Biodiesel 20 in their fleet. Since 2006, they have realized an 18% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Blue Ribbon Supply has installed solar panels and an electric vehicle charging station on site, while Alexandria Real Estate built the first green biotech building. Onyx Pharmaceuticals is installing solar panels as part of their expansion to meet 45% of their energy requirements each year. We are proud to be home to LS9 and Solazyme, both leading the way in the emerging field of biofuels. LS9 received the 2012 Sustainable Biofuels Technology Award at the World Biofuels Markets Congress and Exhibition in the Netherlands and Solazyme has been recognized by Breathe California for their efforts to eliminate emissions. The South San Francisco Conference Center received their Green Business Certification from San Mateo County and is now working towards LEEDS certification.
To encourage even more businesses to take advantage of new "green" technology, the City established a commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program to finance the purchase and installation of solar panels, energy-efficient lighting and HVAC systems, and other energy-efficient upgrades designed to lower energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Starting in 2010, the South San Francisco Unified School District partnered with Chevron Energy Solutions to develop a robust, comprehensive energy-savings program for the District's 15 schools. Using Measure J bond dollars, the District installed solar PV canopies and ground-mounted systems designed to reduce electrical usage by 60%. The District is also taking advantage of a $2 million incentive payment from the California Solar Initiative. Along with new solar power, the District's upgrades to lighting, water/irrigation controls, and HVAC systems, will generate $20 million in general fund dollars over the next 20 years; these dollars provide budget relief for the District and go back into the classroom to serve students. These energy efficiency improvements and solar power generation will offset 1,500 tons annually in greenhouse gas emissions while creating teaching opportunities for South San Francisco's students to learn about energy conservation, sustainability and clean-tech technology.
The City is also participating in San Mateo County's ordinance process to ban single-use bags, leading to a consistent regional approach to the elimination of single use bags. This is one more important step in our ongoing efforts to reduce litter and debris on our streets, waterways and waste stream and compliments the Green Food Packaging Ordinance passed by the Council in 2008.
The Industrial City continues to find new and innovative ways to keep moving forward in our quest for a more sustainable future.
SOURCE: http://www.dailyenergyreport.com/the-city-of-south-san-franciscos-sustainability-efforts-progress-accomplishments/


text: The city of Crest Hill is located in the county of Will. It covers a total area of 23.8 sq. km. The local inhabitants are engaged in businesses related to advertising, alternative medicine, finance, construction, apparel, cleaning, freight forwarding, hotel, metal fabrication, real estate and telecommunication, enhance the local economy in a positive way. Commercial spaces are utilized by restaurants, seafood restaurants, resale shops and recreation centers.


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MGNY by Morilee 71705
- Brand: MGNY Madeline Gardner New York
- Style #: 71705 - In Stock*
- Availability: In Stock
- $312
The fabric in this MGNY by Morilee style is Beaded Lace Appliques on Chiffon. Matching Stole
Not ready to buy? Have any questions?
CLICK HERE to submit an inuiry on this style 24/7.
CLICK HERE to submit an inuiry on this style 24/7.
In Stock:
- Blush: 6, 8, 10 , 12, 14, 18, 20
- Navy: 4, 6, 12, 14, 16, 18
Items available in store
*A style on our web site listed as in-stock can usually be shipped today or next day for immediate delivery or quick delivery. An item listed as "Ships Today" can be sent the same business day as long as the order is placed before the cutoff time.


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About Us
For the past 30 years, Dame Trelise Cooper has been carving a unique space in the global fashion industry, a space she has come to describe as a 'Theatre of Dreams'.
For Dame Trelise, the phrase describes the special impact her designs have on women, and not just because they are beautiful clothes — it describes an ideal, a vision, a story, a sense of a woman's inner and outer beauty, her vulnerability, her sense of herself and her place in the world. It is this quality — Dame Trelise's ability to truly see a woman in her unique context and understand what is required to highlight a moment — that has made her designs stand out for three decades.
"A woman's femininity is the focal point in designing the dress," Dame Trelise says, alluding to what has motivated her from the start. "I design for women by relating to them, whoever they are. And that's because designing is an expression of who I am as a woman — all the complications, feelings and emotions. I understand a woman's vulnerability, just as much as I understand that fashion is an instrument to make her beautiful, confident, happy and content."
Dame Trelise is as well known for capturing that sense of connectedness and ethereal beauty in everything she does, as much as she is known for the fashion brand that bears her name and is globally recognised and valued. "My goal has always been to make a difference in women's lives," Dame Trelise says. "When I'm designing I think about a woman and how she lives — their empowerment is the most important thing for me. "Fashion is all about telling stories. It is where a woman takes it that is the exciting bit."
The Trelise Cooper story has been a lifetime in the telling. The story of Trelise Cooper has been its own Theatre of Dreams, one that saw a young New Zealand woman open a single store in 1985, to now, heading a global brand that boasts ten flagship stores worldwide, as well as more than 200 independent retail stockists across the US and Australia. The four Trelise Cooper labels — the bespoke Trelise Cooper range, the more casual Cooper, the youthful COOP, and the elegant Boardroom — are complemented by brand extensions Trelise Cooper Home, Trelise Cooper Eyewear, and Trelise Cooper Jewellery.
The Trelise Cooper designs that emerge from that space have always captured the romantic and the feminine with luxurious fabrics, dynamic colours, delicate touches of lace and sparkling embellishments. They are renowned for their attention to detail, and the flourishes of spirituality that linger beyond the moment or the occasion. The style may have become more simplified, more elegant and more subtle as the brand has matured, but each Trelise Cooper garment continues to be synonymous with that Theatre of Dreams.
Beyond this, the Trelise Cooper story has never ceased to celebrate the colourful, the exuberant and the luxuriant in other ways. The Trelise Cooper shows at the annual New Zealand Fashion Week, for example, have become as famous for theatre and big production values as the labels themselves. Some of Hollywood's most elegant and edgy female stars have been clothed in Trelise Cooper designs, including Liv Tyler, Miley Cyrus, Suri Cruise, Catherine Zeta Jones, Julia Roberts and Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks. But again, building and maintaining a high profile that appeals to such well-known names is only part of the story.
Just as significant are the women whose names never appear in the glossy magazines, but whose self-belief is impacted by the Trelise Cooper dresses they have worn.
Success is only partly measured by the longevity and popularity of a brand and its presence in boutiques and Department Stores. For Dame Trelise, 'success' is mainly gauged by the memories created by women in the garments she has designed. The ability to achieve this comes down to that indefinable gift of insight that only the best poets, writers, artists and dancers, sculptors and designers have … to see in-between, into that place of mystery and movement, of spirit and grace, hope and life, and out of that space to create something of deep value and significance.
It is out of this space that Dame Trelise also fulfils important roles as patron of the Breast Cancer Research Trust and Auckland's Returned Services Association for War Veterans. Dame Trelise passionately and generously supports several charities each year, including Habitat for Humanity, World Vision, 'Shine – making homes Violence free', and multiple small community charities. Her vital roles have been rewarded by Queen Elizabeth II, becoming a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2004, and Knighted as a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2014 for services to fashion and the community.
Ultimately, the Trelise Cooper brand has helped women of all ages to achieve their dreams because what Dame Trelise achieves on behalf of women of all circumstance, age, culture and body shape, is a sense of harmony — the union of a woman's individuality with the garment she wears. As someone gifted, as she is, with the ability to work in those sacred spaces in-between moments and people, the task of striving to achieve this sense of connectedness between a woman and her dress, a woman and her story, and between a woman and the moment, is more than a craft … it's a responsibility.
But it's a responsibility that Dame Trelise Cooper has happily accepted for 30 years … and will do so well into the future.


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With Jamin and La Shel's unique and extensive medical backgrounds and comprehensive experience, they will evaluate available methodolgies in order to provide and enable you with the safest and most rewarding prenatal, birthing and postpartum experiences.
Please contact San Diego Midwife at (760) 809-9396 or email email@example.com with any questions and to schedule your free consultation. Please include your phone number if you would like a call back. The office is located at Indigo Dragon 451 La Veta Avenue, Encinitas, CA 92024.
San Diego Midwife Office
Please call (760) 809-9396 or email email@example.com for all inquiries and to set up appointments.
Jamin Sylvada
Tel (760) 809-9396
La Shel Mongomery
Tel (760) 213-7384
Katrina Lertola
Student Midwife
Tel (609) 744-2639


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In order to catch a fish you need to have a rod, a reel, and great bait that will make the fish come to your hook. Here at Fishing Deals Online we have a large assortment of Lures, Baits and Attractants that are designed to help entice your catch of the day. Unlike live bait, this artificial bait is safer and easier for the fisherman/fisherwoman to use. In our below list you will discover a great number of lures, baits and attractants including fish decoy, poppers, artificial flies, and other various items. While there are many great items to choose from, they are all designed to work for a specific fish or water setting. Take a look at our below section now and select the perfect bait that will help you lure and attract your fish.
Catching fish takes time, a lot of patience, and the perfect bait, which we here at Fishing Deals Online offer. At our store we carry the latest and most popular Lures, Baits and Attractants that will help you catch a fish in no time. While live bait is a good way to lure fish, it can be unsanitary and can even lead to salmonella or other diseases. Artificial bait is a perfect way in which you can lure your fish because there are so many different options available so that you can easily find the perfect item that will help you catch your meal and your favorite fish type. In our above list you will find many lures, baits and attractants from popular brands such as; Panther Martin, South Bend Sporting Goods, Nuthin Fancy Outdoors, and other fine manufacturers. Choose one of our above options now and make sure to look at our other categories and products so that you are well prepared for your fishing trips and adventures.


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Husband & wife rural carriers with clean records and excellent attendance looking to transfer to Florida. Prefer to be close to beaches/ocean but will consider all.
We do not have to be in the same post office, as long as both offices are within 1 hour or so drive from one another.
We currently work in the same P.O. (Scottsdale Kachina) and there is a 99% chance you will both be in that office. We are part of a three office district totaling 90+ rural routes. I'm pretty sure all routes have LLVs.
Our transfer date is flexible but want to be here for a high school graduation on May 25th, so anytime after that!
Contact Charlie at 602-391-7453 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Charlie 602-391-7453 or firstname.lastname@example.com (formerly CharlieZ)
charlie i'm still interested in scottsdale, so keep sw colorado or mckinney tx in mind if its helps 505-801-2888
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