What glue should I use to make jewellery?
Finding the correct glue to use can be frustrating, because you don't want to find that after a short time after you've made something its falling apart because you used the wrong glue.
Here are a few of the glues available with an explanation of their best uses. All can be bought at International Craft - wholesale jewellery supplies.
A very strong 2-part epoxy glue which is sometimes available in a very convenient syringe dispenser which ensures that equal amounts of the 2 parts are dispensed in an easy and even flow. A very fast acting adhesive that dries in 5-10 minutes. Can dry with a slight yellow tint and so is not recommended for use on translucent stones as the colour may show through.
Recommended for fixing cabochons to fittings and for any other jewellery making where a strong bond is required. Stronger than super glue. Dries in 5-10minutes.
G-S Hypo Cement was invented in 1930's for use in the watchmaking and jewellery repair industries. It is a combination fine precision tool and a crystal clear drying, medium-strength cement that will not damage surfaces. The cement is ideal for jewellery, beads, plastic, glass, metal, ceramics, painted or sealed woods and other non-porous surfaces and is perfect for sealing knots. This is a no-waste product that is ideal for many applications.
This is not an "instant glue." It becomes tacky in 10 - 15 seconds, allows parts to be adjusted, sets in 10 to 15 minutes and fully dries in about an hour.
Recommended for jewellery work where precision is needed. Good for positioning beads on a illusion styled necklace. Also good for holding knots on a stretch elastic bracelets. Great for use when making photo jewellery as the glue dries crystal clear.
Packaged with a unique, built-in precision applicator, makes intricate fabric and textile projects effortless and mess-free. The clear-drying Hypo Fabric Cement holds fast to fabric, textiles, leather, plastic, arts; crafts, appliques, costuming, beads, foam sheets, yarn and home decor projects. The cement is fast drying, and can be laundered in as little as 24 hours.
Recommended for glueing rhinestones to clothing.
The Original Super Glue® is a name synonymous around the world with strength, quality, and durability. Original formula Super Glue forms the strongest bonds on clean breaks of non-porous material such as plastic, rubber, and metal, and once exposed to air it bonds instantly and sets in seconds.
Super Glue Pen style applicators provide a simple, easy-to-use and easy-to-store solution for quick repair projects. Great when you're looking for a precise application - just press the pen point down on the surface to release the glue and lift to stop.
Recommended for where speed is of the essence. Do not use on elastic cord.


I think this is my third pancake post on here. What can I say? We love pancakes at our house. Though the pancakes recipes I've shared on this blog in the past are good (you can find them here and here), this is the recipe I make the most. My one-year-old gobbles these down for breakfast just about every morning; my five-year-old eats them most of the time (he'll opt for a bowl of cereal or oatmeal now and then to mix things up). I make a batch of these once, maybe twice a week. Whatever we don't eat goes into the freezer. Most mornings I just pop a couple pancakes in the toaster (our toaster has button for frozen foods that works perfectly for this) and the boys have a hot, healthy breakfast in mere minutes.
I like these pancakes not only because they're tasty and my boys love them, but also because they're full of healthy things -- whole grain flour, natural sweetener, flax meal, and blueberries. What makes these pancakes stand out, I think, from other whole-grain pancakes is the spelt flour. The spelt flour makes the taste and texture of the pancakes lighter than a traditional whole-wheat pancake, yet it has that yummy, nutty flavor you get from whole grains. Spelt is also high in fiber and contains more protein than regular wheat.
First, mix all the dry ingredients together -- the flour, Sucanat, baking powder, and salt -- with a whisk and set it aside.
In case you were wondering: this is Sucanat.
Sucanat is an abbreviation for sugar cane natural because it's just dehydrated sugar cane juice. It isn't nearly as refined as regular white sugar. It comes in the form of little brown crystals -- it's brown because it has retained the molasses that is present in sugar before it is processed (for more info on Sucanat, you can go to this interesting link I found). Sucanat can be subsituted in any recipe that calls for white sugar (so if, say the recipe calls for 1 Tbsp. of sugar you can use 1 Tbsp. of Sucanat instead). Sucanat does have a stronger flavor (from the molasses), so it works better in some recipes than others. It works really well in this recipe (and in the wheat bread I make). However, I used Sucanat in place of the regular sugar in some chocolate chip cookies last month and my five-year-old didn't eat a single one (I can't say I blamed him -- they weren't so great.). The next time I made cookies he reminded me to use "the right kind of brown sugar." Oh well. You win some, you lose some. I buy Sucanat in the bulk section of the natural food store, too. If you don't buy flours, nuts, rice, grains, and, in this case, Sucanat in the bulk section, you really should look into it. But that's a different post. On to the pancake making!
In another bowl -- I always just use a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup -- mix the milk, melted butter, and vanilla with a fork. Add to the dry ingredients.
According the recipe in Whole Grain Baking, they suggest setting the batter aside and letting it thicken for around 15 minutes. When you've got a baby in his highchair signing "Eat" (gosh, it's cute when he does that) and a five-year-old with his head on the table, whining about being hungry, waiting 15 minutes isn't really an option. And, really, if you don't wait the 15 minutes, they still turn out fine. Granted, they are a little fluffier if you wait. By the time I'm pouring the last batch of pancakes on the griddle, they've thickened up pretty well.
Pour about 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake. Once I've done that, I sprinkle each pancake with flax meal and drop a bunch of blueberries on them. I like adding the blueberries at this point instead of mixing it into the batter so as to avoid having blue-gray pancakes. Flip pancakes once the edges get set and the bubbles in the batter pop. Cook for another minute or two until the pancake is cooked through.
Add some butter and real maple syrup and you've got yourself a breakfast that keeps you going all morning. It's a lovely way to start the day.
Yum, I would like to try these. I have never been able to make as good pancakes with milk as with buttermilk, but yours look nice and fluffy. I couldn't find spelt at WF -- guess I'll have to look elsewhere.


Use the follow comprehensive list of major international airlines with flights to Australia.
The major international airlines with flights to Australia based in Australia.
Full service international airlines with flights to Australia.


The task is to be led by students own interests and can be mediated through more than one language.
This task is currently in development.
Facilitate discussions about blogging, spend time looking at existing blogs and sharing ones that are of interest - why? what makes them appealing?
Consider audience - investigate interests of partners through survey etc.
Students must participate in commenting and discussing on at least two other blogs of CLER/WAR partners.
Open badges will be available to recognise the stages of participation.


For a few year I've been partial to BeatsX headphones - honestly all wireless audio solutions lack gravitas - the Borg look of oldschool Bluetooth handsfree things, the double Uhura of Airpods - even over-the-ear big headphones look like earmuffs, or maybe Lobot from Empire Strikes Back. The "librarian eyeglass holder strap" look of BeatsX weren't so bad by comparison, and I liked how they use the same Apple W1 chip as Airpods - but you can take one out for a bit without having to hold it or put it away or have your music stop.
But I'd been through too many pairs - lost one, misplaced another, and then my main ones started losing sound on one side. (The build-quality / feel of them is great, but the durability just so-so.) So I went to Best Buy and discovered cheapish (~$30) earbuds of decent quality are now a thing! I bought a pair of Sony's WI-C300. This review agrees the sound quality is pretty decent, which is all I need - I tend to use other things for music, and have these for walking around to podcasts, and despite being a musician I'm not much of an audiophile.
Overall they aren't as comfortable as the BeatsX - the wire is a bit short, and that wire's skinniness is much less appealing than the Beats ribbon, and the buds don't have magnets (in theory useful to complete and secure the "necklace" feel when not in use, in practice it's just pleasing to have magnets to play with) but in one simple way it's much more comfortable - when you power them up, a chime plays and you hear a voice say "power on". As the things connect to your phone, another chime plays and it says "bluetooth connected".
The problem is, things are very unhappy if "bar" is undefined.
I had a great tech manager Eric last year. He shared some of my inexperience with React and Redux and the concepts that underlie them, but he attacked the learning curve with gusto.
He told me how he made a learning/side project for a trello-like system, and for grins he implemented it with React (or maybe one of those Build Your Own Baby React systems) and then with more traditional methods. And he said, the declarative rendering system was miles ahead in speed and ease of use.
For my Porchfests side project, I needed to redo the Hourtron - as you can see with the (fairly simplistic but clean) 2015 prototype for it, the idea is you have a bunch of rows representing porches, and columns that represent performance times, and then you can drag and drop bands unto performance times / locations.
Ah well, live and learn. I need to rethink my side project setup... I still like renting a cheap VPS and putting everything there, but I need to build up tools so that I can use tech that plays better with some kind of build system, rather than being spoiled by the "I save the raw file, reload, and run". Stuff with watchers and what not can get that feel pretty speedily, tbh, and then I have more options about the babel-ization and what not I use.
and looking at the network panel, the jQuery version does what I expect (using the print_r to mirror what I passed in (i.e. the 'data' parameter in both cases is a simple JS object) and the XMLHttpRequest version seems to send nothing. Probably missing something "obvious" but too tired and stressed to deal with it now.


If you like special foods but must eat “heart healthy.” what better breakfast would you need?
1. Dry roast Quaker Oats for 4-5 minutes. Cool and grind.
2. Soak Quaker Oats in ¾ cup hot water for 2-3 minutes.
3. Blend mint leaves, chilies, ginger and soaked Quaker oats until smooth.
4. Add Yoghurt, spices and 1 cup ice-cold water. Blend for 30 seconds. Garnish with mint leaves.
1. Soak instant Quaker Oats in hot water for 2-3 mins.
2. Put the mint leaves, chilies, ginger & soaked oats in a blender & blend till smooth.
3. Mix in the yoghurt, cold water & spices. Blend for another 30 secs.
4. Garnish with spring of mint & serve.
1. Blend curd, Quaker oats, sugar and water in a blender.
2. Add remaining water and crushed ice cubes and blend well.
3. Pour in a tall glass and serve chilled.


Would-be asylum seekers have been warned off making the journey to Australia by boat in graphic new slogans and a cartoon strip on two websites administered by the Immigration Minister.
Human rights activists have slammed the latest campaign as being distasteful and embarrassing to Australia.
''NO WAY'' the slogan says on the freshly updated Department of Immigration site. ''They will not make Australia home''. The move is the latest element to the Coalition's hardline asylum seeker policy.
Late last year, Customs also released a graphic 18-page cartoon strip, warning asylum seekers on its website of the dangers of travelling overseas, showing one Afghan man being attacked by mosquitoes in a detention camp.
A snapshot of the advertisement on the Department of Immigration website.
It warns asylum seekers in the Afghan languages of Dari and Pashto that people will not be given entry into Australia if they go via boat without a visa.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said the ''targeted campaign'', which also says ''Don't waste your money – people smugglers are lying'', had gone live this week.
''This will complement the offshore communications campaign about the government's strong border protection policies which comprises the overwhelming allocation of resources in which messaging is delivered directly through transit and source countries,'' a spokesman for the minister said.
The spokesman said the campaigns would not be aired or shown on mainstream media, unlike the advertisements that were shown late last year by the Labor government across national media platforms.
The government's cartoon strip on the Customs website.
The Customs cartoon strip was originally developed and distributed offshore under the previous government, a spokesman for Mr Morrison said.
''It has been part of offshore anti-people smuggling communications campaigns. It has also been distributed in the period since the federal election.
But refugee groups and human rights advocates have slammed the low-key campaigns.
''This document is in incredibly poor taste,'' Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
''The fact that it came from the Australian government is a disappointing indictment on our once generous nation, which helped to draft the Refugee Convention.
''When did the lucky country, the country of the fair go, become the country that threatens to break people's spirits, including children, by locking them up on remote Pacific islands?"
Human rights advocate Jarrod McKenna described the advertisements as ''horrific''.
''Instead of saying "no way" we must provide "safe ways" for people to seek asylum without risking their lives or being imprisoned for trying. Compassion must make a way,'' he said.
The Australian Director of Human Rights Watch, Elaine Pearson, said the campaign was unlikely to work and should have given more practical information about how and where people should safely claim asylum.
''The 'No Way' campaign seems to be more of a rant geared to a domestic audience for political reasons to reinforce the government's hardline approach to deterring migration,'' Ms Pearson said.


Q) META keywords tag - should I use UPPERCASE, lowercase or a mixture, commas or spaces?
A) Use lowercase - except for geographical names which ordinarily start with a capital letter such as "Sooke", separated by commas, with a space after the comma.
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="gold jewelry, diamond jewelry, silver jewelry, platinum jewelry"> This would represent four repetitions of the word 'jewelry'.
A) I personally do not believe in spamming or putting multiple keywords throughout the page. This is too easy to check for and the search engines are not stupid. If we can think of it they already have. Most engines only count to 2 for keywords, so why waste the keyword utilization. Put in other keywords.
Q) Will I be penalized for using the same keywords on a lot of different pages that have the same content?
A) If the pages have exactly the same content, why are they in your site? If they are all related to the same subject, they can logically have the same keywords, but the Description tag would be different.
Q) What is the optimum number of keywords before the engine gets bored?
A) It varies. Some are more easily bored than others. I don't usually repeat keywords, maybe twice for the important ones. It's better to show up adequately on all the engines than perfectly on one and badly on the rest.
Q) Will the engines treat a phrase such as handmade gifts that is written as a keyword phrase the same as if it were written as two different words? Should I write them out both ways?
A) Use: "hand made gift, handmade gifts" to cover all the possible variations searchers might enter.


4 Topics and 15 Replies Being or Becoming a Scientist �4 �15 For example: What's it like being a scientist?
1 Topics and 4 Replies Scientist's Hobbies �1 �4 For example, perhaps you have a hobby in common with a scientist that you want to talk about.
4 Topics and 10 Replies Facts about the Sun �4 �10 Before asking a question about the Sun, you may want to check out these facts about the Sun. This will answer all your questions about how hot the Sun is (1), how big it is (2), how old it is (3), etc.
3 Topics and 7 Replies Sunspots �3 �7 For example: What are sunspots?
3 Topics and 7 Replies Solar Storms �3 �7 For example: How fast is a Coronal Mass Ejection? What is a solar flare?
1 Topics and 5 Replies Magnetism and Magnetic Storms �1 �5 For example: What is the strength of a magnetic field in a sunspot?
3 Topics and 7 Replies Solar Energy �3 �7 For example, how can we use solar energy?
2 Topics and 4 Replies Solar Eclipses �2 �4 For example: What's the difference between a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse?
2 Topics and 6 Replies Ancient Observatories �2 �6 For example, are there any ancient observatories in the United States?
3 Topics and 7 Replies Other �3 �7 Anything else you can think of not covered in the other categories.


What Ontario Franchisors need know about "Material Facts"
When compiling a disclosure document, franchisors are faced with an uncomfortable dilemma: disclose too little and risk a costly lawsuit resulting from inadequate disclosure.
The rigorous disclosure requirements enacted by franchise laws in several Canadian provinces have increased the risks of incorrectly drawing the line on disclosure, and even those provinces without specific franchise laws are coming to demand more disclosure and transparency from franchisors.
It would be tempting to advise franchisors to find a balance in their approach to disclosure. In an ideal world, franchisors could reveal just enough information to inform potential franchisees while safeguarding the internal knowledge they have worked so hard to build up.
But such advice would mischaracterize the uncompromising nature of the laws on franchise disclosure. The law has not left a happy medium for franchise disclosure whether or not a provincial franchise statute is in effect.
In Ontario, the Arthur Wishart Act (Franchise Disclosure) leaves no room for a Goldilocks solution to disclosure. The Act plainly states that in addition to a litany of specifically prescribed corporate and financial information, franchisors must also reveal "all material facts" to prospective franchisees, which must be current as of the date disclosure is provided. This range of information will then allow franchisees to make fully informed decisions on whether to pursue a franchise.
The Act's definition of material facts is frustratingly vague and broad in scope.
As defined, "material facts" include: [A]ny information about the business, operations, capital or control of the franchisor or franchisor's associate, or about the franchise system, that would reasonably be expected to have a significant effect on the value or price of the franchise to be granted or the decision to acquire the franchise.
The Ontario courts are still grappling with exactly what sort of information constitutes a material fact, but the consensus is that material facts include a vast scope of information that could potentially impact a franchisee's decision to invest. As a result, franchise lawyers are treading with great caution and taking an extremely broad approach when assisting franchisors in preparing their disclosure documents to ensure compliance with the law.
While the "all material facts" requirement is specific to Ontario, failure to provide pertinent information to franchisees could lead to accusations of misrepresentation in all provinces, whether or not they have specific franchise legislation in place. A franchisor who fails to disclose material facts is largely treated by the courts with the same disdain as a franchisor that deliberately distorts material facts.
Both are considered actionable misrepresentations at common law. So franchisors across the country should take careful note of the obligation to disclose, and how it might conflict with their desire to protect their information.
A further challenge to providing disclosure that meets the requirements of the Act is that a disclosure document must be presented as a single cohesive document. It is now standard procedure for franchisees to be provided with all relevant ancillary documents at the time the disclosure document is provided (all bound together as one document), such as the head-lease between the landlord and the franchisor.
The head-lease is likely to be ripe with material facts that may impact the terms under which the franchisee operates its business on the premises. A recent court case in Ontario upheld that failing to disclose the renewal and expiration terms of a head lease was tantamount to providing the franchisee with no disclosure whatsoever.
Providing the head-lease itself may seem like a safe means of ensuring that these material facts are provided to the franchisee, but it does not ensure that the relevant material facts are provided in the disclosure document itself. In complying with the obligation to disclose all "material facts", a franchisor should conduct a careful review of the head-lease, and the material facts of relevance to the franchisee should be listed clearly as a separate section of the disclosure document.
To the dismay of franchisors who give out disclosure documents, it is now quite common to see entire operations manuals, or extracts from them, disclosed to individuals who have expressed an interest in the franchise system, but have not made any substantive commitment to becoming franchisees. Given the availability of disclosure documents, and the potentially sensitive trade information they contain, franchisors may decide to keep certain information off the public record.
However, the relative ease of bringing an action for inadequate disclosure, at least in Ontario and the other provinces with franchise legislation, should serve as a significant deterrent and a constant reminder of the risks of keeping material facts hidden.
The internet has enhanced the free flow of disclosure documents. To receive a disclosure document, the potential franchisee must generally sign a receipt confirming that the disclosure document was provided and that it will be kept private. In reality, once a disclosure document is provided, it is entirely out of the franchisor's control. In the United States, a network of franchisee-friendly websites and message boards freely distribute franchise disclosure documents and court documents which are uploaded by users.
The spread of such sites to Canada, and the rapid exchange of Canadian disclosure documents, is likely to be imminent. These websites may make franchisors uncomfortable by easing access to potentially sensitive trade information, but the corresponding potential to expose inadequate disclosure on a large scale poses an even greater risk. It is yet to be seen, but the day may come when franchisees and their counsel surf these sites in the hopes of locating an exit strategy.
Even without access to disclosure documents over the internet, anyone with a bit of time and some passing knowledge of the legal system could get a hold of an array of current disclosure documents. Once a disclosure document becomes an issue in a legal proceeding, a copy with be filed with the court and publically available for anyone to read or copy. If a lawsuit proceeds to trial, the disclosure document will have the further exposure of being dissected and analyzed by each party's lawyer and the judge.
At this point, the sensitivity attached to any material facts will be less a priority than ensuring that the disclosure document is compliant with the law.
Concerns about the sensitivity of disclosure documents are not entirely new, even though the pressure to disclose has been increasing in recent years. When disputes arise between franchisees and franchisors, it is not uncommon for one side to request a confidentiality order from the court, which would seal the information brought forward by the parties and keep it off the public record.
A typical confidentiality order limits access to all documents produced in the proceedings, including the disclosure documents and financial information. Access is limited to the parties' lawyers, the court staff, and potentially one or two experts retained as part of the case. While they are effective in instances where they are granted, confidentiality orders cover only a small fraction of franchise disputes that end up before the courts.
Confidentiality orders are generally reserved for the largest and most complex of franchise disputes, where the court will be scrutinizing every iota of the franchisor's documentation.
The standard for obtaining a confidentiality order is set deliberately high by the courts, and a typical dispute over the adequacy of a franchisor's disclosure document is unlikely to meet the standard necessary to obtain a confidentiality order.
Furthermore, confidentiality orders depend upon the whims of the legal system, and the arguments of counsel. Obtaining a confidentiality order requires a costly motion before the court, and they are never guaranteed.
Franchisors simply cannot count on confidentiality orders to limit access to sensitive information in the event a dispute does end up before the courts.
It is understandable that franchisors do not want to hold an open house with their sensitive and proprietary information. Small compromises seem to have become standard practice, such as disclosing only the table of contents of an operations manual rather than the entire contents of the manual. Despite their understandable reluctance to broaden the scope of disclosure, franchisors must also consider the dire consequences of failing to disclose anything that might be considered a material fact.
A leading Ontario franchise case states that the franchisor has a "rigorous duty to disclose all material facts as well as protect the franchisee from entering into such agreements without having all relevant information". This may be counterintuitive to franchisors, who view franchisees as independent agents making their own investment decisions, but the duty of franchisors to protect franchisees is an integral part of their disclosure obligations.
Any suggestion that material facts were willfully obscured by franchisors will be treated harshly by the courts, and franchisees will continue to have access to a set of drastic remedies.
The free-flow of disclosure documents, and the increasing awareness of franchise lawsuits, will only see increasing pressure on franchisors to disclose. There is no option for franchisors to disclose "just enough" of their material facts, as franchisees, their counsel, and the applicable laws have all established an uncompromising standard for franchise disclosure.
At the end of the day, franchisors must have open and frank discussions with their counsel in determining how best to comply with all of their disclosure obligations.
Franchisors who prepare their disclosure documents without considering these issues and obtaining sound legal advice run the risk of defending lawsuits over their failure to properly meet their disclosure obligations.
 6862829 Canada Limited et al. v. Dollar It Limited et al.,  O.J. No. 4687 (Ont. Sup. Ct.) at para. 65.


How does molecular geometry affect the boiling point?
Because it effects the the Brownian Motion and hence, the Entropy of the liquid.
First, we need to define the boiling point. The boiling point is the temperature at which a liquid will start changing into vapor.
Second, we need to understand what determines the state of a substance. It is simply determined by the distance (or rather the attraction forces) between the molecules of the substance.
A) Solids: molecules are tightly packed together, making the the volume constant and the shape fixed.
B) Liquids: molecules move freely but are still influenced by the intermolecular forces, giving them constant volume but an undefined shape that takes the shape of its container.
C) Gases: molecules are loose and have very weak (or zero) intermolecular forces, letting them lose any definite volume or shape. It will completely occupy the container its in.
So we conclude that the easier the molecules can move away from each other, the easier it is for those molecules to change from liquid to gas.
The driving force that causes molecules can move freely and randomly in a container (aka the Brownian Motion) is called Entropy. This force is directly influenced by the temperature.
"The less complex the 3D structure of a molecule is, the easier for that molecule to move freely and randomly near other molecules of the same substance."
3- Wearing heavy clothes and carrying food trays.
4- Wearing light clothes and carrying a few broomsticks.
That's exactly how molecular geometry effects boiling point.
I hope my answer wasn't too long and has given you a clear understanding of how matter works.


Can research have an immediate practical benefit in the place where it is undertaken?
-- a step-by-step study guide.
The theoretical section of the book provides a general definition of action research and compares action research with other forms of social research. It outlines the nature of a 'culture of inquiry' in the workplace and describes the links between action research and service-user research,,management, community development, evaluation, reflective practice, feminist research and anti-racist research.
The case studies show the variety of approaches possible in action research in a range of settings, for example: an acute surgical ward; a supported housing scheme for people with mental health problems; a Day Centre for people with profound learning disabilities, and a coronary care unit. They include examples of large and small-scale projects carried out by practitioners, managers and service-users.
The practical study guide covers all stages of the research process from preparing a proposal, gathering and analysing data, to writing a final report. Issues arising fromthe ethics and principles of action research procedure and the links between action research and critical reflection are also explored.
The title Handbook is intended to indicate the varied nature of the contents and the different ways in which the book may be used or approached. In Part I there is a sequence of chapters giving a general theory of action research, first as a simple outline, then in more detail - comparing action research with other forms of social research - and finally emphasising its range and variety. Some may wish to start with this material, but others may prefer to begin by looking at the series of practical examples from different contexts presented in Part II and then go on afterwards to compare them with the theoretical discussions. The most abstract presentation of a ‘theory’ for action research is postponed to the end of the volume, to signal that although it may be of key importance for some readers, others may not find it necessary, and that in any case it is not essential for an understanding of the rest of the book. There is also a ‘Practical guide’ (Part III) which is intended specifically for groups wishing to use the Handbook to support them in undertaking their own practical developmental work, either independently or as part of a tutor-led course. For such readers, Part III may be their starting point for approaching the other material.
The book is a joint enterprise arising from a longstanding commitment on the part of both authors to the democratisation of social research. The themes and structure of the book were the outcome of lengthy discussions in which we combined our different but complementary approaches. Thus, Carol Munn-Giddings contributes experience and knowledge of service-user movements, service-user research, the community development tradition, and feminist research; and Richard Winter has particular expertise concerning practitioner action research, theories of management, and research methodologies based on collaborative developmental reflection.
Most of Parts I and IV of the book were initially drafted by Richard Winter, and revised in response to commentary and additions by Carol Munn-Giddings. Chapter 3 was written jointly, and represents a synthesis of our differing perspectives on action research. The same is true of the series of practice examples in Part II, for which we were jointly involved in identifying the contributors. Part III consists of material devised over many years for Richard Winter’s courses on action research at Anglia Polytechnic University for social workers, nurses, managers, lecturers and school teachers. The final editorial work was undertaken by Richard Winter.


Businesses are used to asking the IT staff and data scientists to analyze customer data and generate a report. But with the latest version of analytics software ThoughtSpot, users have a new option: Simply ask the system via your computer or smartphone, in your own voice, for an analysis.
Among the many new features in ThoughtSpot 5 is a new voice-driven analytics engine called SearchIQ. The analytics software maker said the latest version, unveiled Nov. 14 at the company’s user conference, lets people use their own voice and “casual language” to ask the system to analyze data from customers and a wide range of other sources such as product sales, returns and human resources.
ThoughtSpot produces business-intelligence analytics search software. The company is based in Palo Alto, Calif., with additional offices in London and Seattle.
ThoughtSpot said it is using advances in machine learning, artificial intelligence and automation to offer a solution designed to help companies analyze the current state of their business but also predict what’s going to happen next.
Singh emphasized that ThoughtSpot 5 is a full-stack solution with a robust search engine at its core. The company has partnered on machine learning with Google and DataRobot and integrated with statistical software R to streamline data science workflows.
Singh gave a few examples of how ThoughtSpot 5 can be used, such as a retailer looking for markdown opportunities in different store locations or an HR person trying to understand where the most attrition is at the company and if it varies by location, age group or other criteria.
“You can be on your phone asking these questions and get results very fast,” Singh said. He said the company followed the LIMO model in its development where users do Less Input for More Output.
A recent Gartner survey of CIOs found that only 4 percent of organizations have already deployed conversational interfaces (including chatbots), but 38 percent of organizations are planning to implement or are actively experimenting with the technology.
While consumer voice-driven services like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa have been out for years, they are still very niche in the enterprise. Among other announcements, Zoho introduced a voice-driven digital assistant for its customer relationship management (CRM) application earlier this year.
ThoughtSpot 5 includes several other new features in addition to SearchIQ voice.
The integration with R lets business users build predictive models and analysis as simply as one might type in a search query. The new version of ThoughtSpot also has an updated version of AI software SpotIQ that pushes relevant insights to users that go beyond their initial query without them having to ask. A new “Did You Know” page quickly surfaces relevant information that might otherwise be buried in the company database.
Someone might ask, “Show me the top products last month.” In addition to that specific result, ThoughtSpot 5 might also show high sales in a particular region or other relevant insights.
The system might also assume that by “top products” you mean by revenue, but it would also give you other options such as top products by gross margin.
The company announced a partnership with Google that includes being certified to run its in-memory calculation engine Falcon on the Google Cloud Platform. ThoughtSpot also announced new integrations with Google Cloud Machine Learning Engine designed to simplify machine learning and data science workflows. ThoughtSpot already had support for Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
Current ThoughtSpot customers now have access to ThoughtSpot 5, including SearchIQ in beta. The company said a full commercial release will be available in the first half of 2019. Singh said the product has been tested for almost a year and the beta—free to current customers—is ready to use in real-world scenarios.


You will respond to the one of the following options In a 7 to 1 Sentence paragraph. Option 1 If you were a Hollywood movie producer, and you were remaking this video for a 21st century audience, what celebrity or well known person would you cast as the speaker, and where would you set the scene? Compare or contrast your choices with at least one of the gig even versions from this lesson. Option 1: As a producer I would have the famous and well known actor Llama Ones.
The first r season why Loud pick Lima is because he is my favorite actor, and when he speaks his voice e not only carries but also has purpose and deep meaning to it. Secondly, he has numerous s awards like the Academy Award For Best Actor, ABAFT, and three Golden Globe for Best Actor In A Motion Picture Drama. In contrast to interpretation 1 Video, where the actor is on a SST age depicting his Interpretation with a rather funny tone I would have my setting Just Like the second video had It.
In the back of the stage. But Instead of Llama thinking about the 7 stages of Man through looking at other people, he will be deeply comparing the stages of an actor/actress to the Stages of Man. In the first stage, you start off as a baby actor, that one cute baby everybody loves to s e in a film. The second stage, the actress/ actor is now a small teen, just starting to grasp his/nerd own potential.


Cook the potatoes following package instructions.
In another large skillet sauté the turkey crumbles in two tablespoons of oil. When the turkey sausage is done, add the carton of egg whites to the same pan with the sausage. Cook the egg whites and sausage until cooked through.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take four tortillas and gently place them in your Norpro Nonstick Tortilla Bowl Makers. When oven is 350 degrees place your tortillas in oven and bake until crispy.
Place cooked potatoes in bottom of each tortilla shell and top with the egg white and sausage mixture. Top with shredded cheese, diced avocado, jalapeño slices and Pico De Gallo.
Mix all ingredients. Add salt and pepper to taste.


I find it interesting that there have been various cases where a religious or ethnic minority has ruled over a larger majority population in a particular country. For instance, think of the Alawites ruling over Sunnis in Syria or Whites ruling over Blacks in South Africa and Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia). I suppose that another case of this might be Tutsis ruling over Hutus in Rwanda since 1994. The rule of Sunni Arabs in Iraq over a Shiite majority would likewise qualify for this--as would the rule of Sunni Arabs over a Shiite majority in Bahrain. Manchu rule over the Han Chinese during the Qing Dynasty would likewise qualify for this--as would Muslim rule over Hindus in the Mughal Empire.
Anyway, which other cases of this could there have realistically been?
I could imagine a pied-noir-led Algeria if the pied-noir population there would have been much larger. In such a scenario, France might transfer power to the pieds-noirs instead of to the Algerian FLN if/after France withdraws from Algeria. However, what other cases of this could there have realistically been?
Yes, but they weren't independent countries and thus don't count for this.
The Bulgar state in the Balkans, probably Hungary as well (not sure?).
Another example is the USA under presidents of the catholic minority. Aren't over 50 % of Jordans inhabitants Palestinians and the dynasty of the head of state is from Arabia?
Pre-1971 Pakistan where minority Punjabis ruled over the majority Bengalis and even unleashed a genocide upon them for winning the General Election in 1970. Pakistan during its initial days was dominated by Muhajirs (Urdu speaking migrants from India) until the military coup by Punjabi dominated army in 1956 who were just quarter of the population back then.


Fill in the blank: Organizing is... Necessary!
Favorite place to Travel: Chicago, even in cold winters, you will find me there. There is something about the city that draws me... cant stay away!
Life's Mantra: "I am who I serve"
What grounds you: Humility. Being authentic, for my daughters.
Life's Mantra: " A cada rey se le llega su hora."
Who inspires me: My parents are my biggest inspiration. They came to this country with nothing and gave me everything. I admire their hard work and their family values.
What grounds me: My community - witnessing the struggles that the immigrant community experiences first hand is humbling. I am reminded that we are stronger when we stick together and that in our eyes, eveything is possible.
Fill in the blank: Organizing is... uplifting others so they can fight with you.
Who inspires me: The resilient families and individuals, who despite being constantly attacked, rise up and fight back.
Fill in the blank: Organizing is... a passion for people, truth, and justice. It is about recognizing that we are all not free until everyone is free, and not giving up until we reach utopia.
What keeps you going: Thinking back about the way I felt growing up, I realized I went through most of my days feeling out-of-place. After moving to Kansas City, I realized I no longer wanted to feel that way and do something about it. I wanted to make sure people of color felt welcomed, support, and appreciated. This is when I realized I wanted to get more involved in the community and organizing. Thinking of a place where the dignity of every human being is celebrated keeps me going. In all honestly, organizing is where I found my home.
Who inspires you: My heros are all undocumented. Working with immigrant youth both grounds me and keeps me going at the same time.
Fill in the blank: Organizing is... not about being beholden to political party or about fighting a singular policy battle, it is about fighting with/for your chosen brothers and sisters that you've come to love.
Favorite color: The color of flan when made to perfection.
Life's Mantra: "Nothing can dim the light which shines from within."
How do you imagine the future: I imagine the future will be a place where we better coexist. Our new generation gives me hope; witnessing social activism from our youth, and their level of acceptance and tolerance towards others, is something worth celebrating.
What keeps you going: Coffee, water, food, dogs, sunshine, and music, obvi.


Let x be a node in a binary search tree. If y is a node in the left subtree of x, then key[y] <= key[x]. If y is a node in the right subtree of x, then key[y] > key[x].
It is a binary search tree. And it can be built by inserting the elements of vector A <12, 6, 3, 18, 20, 10, 4, 17, 20> sequentially. But it can also be built by the vector B <12, 18, 17, 6, 20, 3, 10, 4, 20>.
Now given a vector X, then you may get a binary search tree from X. Your job is to calculate how many different vectors can build the same binary search tree. To make it easy, you should just output the number of different vectors mod 9901.
Input consists of several cases. Each case starts with a line containing one positive integer n, which is the length of test vector. The integer n is less than 100. Following this there will be n positive integers, which are less then 10000, on the next line. The input will end with a case starting with n = 0. This case should not be processed.
For each test case, print a line with a single integer, which is the number of different vectors mod 9901.


Clinical Question Can CBCT locate a displaced Inferior alveolar canal in patients diagnosed with tumors and cysts capable of expanding the mandibular bone?
Clinical Bottom Line CBCT was used effectively in a study to locate the mandibular canal in the presence of two types of expansile tumors; however, no studies have been done to evaluate the accuracy of CBCT in this clinical situation.
Key results "The results of statistical analyses showed that in ameloblastoma, the inferior alveolar canal had been displaced more buccally in the ramus area (point A) (84.6%) but in the distal region (point C), the displacement was less buccal (41.6%). The canal was displaced buccally in 53.8% of cases at point A and in 46.2% of cases at point C in KOT [keratocystic odontogenic tumor] lesions." A chi-squared test did not show any statistically significant differences (P=0.70). Therefore, the statistical analyses showed no relationship between these lesions and the inferior alveolar canal displacement.
The Evidence Validity: Preventive measurements were used to reduce bias in order to increase validity; for example, the CBCT examiners were blinded to the biopsy results and to each other, and two examiners each gave their own CBCT reading; in the case of disagreement, a third examiner was used so that the recorded position was the result of agreement between two blinded examiners. Perspective: Due to small sample size of 26, larger sample sizes are recommended. In addition, it would make the argument more valid to study other common cysts and tumors and their effect on finding the exact location of mandibular canal.
Applicability CBCT is indicated prior to any type of surgery that can potentially damage critical anatomical features. If expansile lesion is suspected to affect the mandibular canal, CBCT diagnostic technique should be used to locate the lesion’s exact relation to the mandibular canal before resection. Use of CBCT enables surgeons to accurately locate the margins of expansile lesion in relation to mandibular canal and more precisely avoid damaging them.


I want to recycle some old quiz questions for a final. How do I let students see past quizzes but not re-take them?
Robert, to add to the information Steve provided, it's a common misconception that quiz due and until dates in Canvas have something to do with students ability to view their quiz results (questions, answer options, the student's answer, which answers are correct/incorrect, and student feedback).
In all actuality it's the different quiz options that allow/don't allow access to this information; see screenshot below. Even if the quiz due or until date has passed students will still be able to see quiz information based on the options set for that quiz. For more information on this check out this document - Quiz Settings to Maximize Security or webinar - Feel Secure about Your Relationship with Quizzes. Hope this helps!
Just to clarify - have all of the students taken the past quiz and you want them to see the questions with their own original attempts and the scores they got?
If you edit the old quiz so that the "available until" date is in the past, students who have taken it already will be able to review their previous submission but will be told that the quiz is closed for further attempts. However, if a student didn't take the quiz the first time around then there will be nothing for them to review so they will just be told that it's closed.


Almost all nurses who treat dementia patients have admitted 'telling white lies' to avoid distressing them, a study has revealed.
And more than two thirds of psychiatrists have said they do the same, in an NHS survey.
But many have also condemned the use of 'white lies' - which are employed to avoid upsetting confused patients - as a 'slippery slope'.
Examples of small 'lies included not correcting patients who had forgotten that a friend or family member had died when they asked after them.
Another case saw a dementia patient allowed to wait outside a care home for an imaginary bus so they would stop 'pestering nurses', the Telegraph reports.
The nurses and health professionals quizzed said repeatedly forcing them to face an upsetting reality could mean they repeatedly undergo bereavement.
One said while they could 'live with non expression of the truth' they could not tell an outright lie.
The Alzheimer's Society said patients should be given proper support rather than a 'false reality'.
The research was carried out by teams from Newcastle University and Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS trust and reported in the Nursing Standard.
They found that half of 112 care staff - including nurses - has ethical doubts about it, but almost all (98 per cent) admitted they had lied in the past, believing it was best for the patient.
They also asked 76 psychiatrists the same questions and found that 70 per cent had also told 'therapeutic lies'.
Lead researcher Ian James, a clinical psychologist, said that it needed to be clarified when such lying was appropriate, and training should be offered.
The Department of Health said that there were no immediate plans for guidance on the issue, and it should be judged on a case by case basis.


What is it with all the movie remakes that they have been doing over the last 20 or so years? Seems to be happening way more now than just 10 years ago, and even more than 20 or 30 years ago. Are people running out of ideas or is this like an easy way to make millions for Hollywood?
Nah, it's not about being out of ideas. Every piece of fiction is, to some extent or another, derivative. The answer boils down to this.
By the truck loads. Movies nowadays costs exuberant amounts to make. You're looking at movies that cost 200 million dollars to even more (Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides cost 412 million bucks to make for example). Because a lot of these movies cost so much combined with the fact that the movie would have to make double or more than the budget in order to even turn in a profit, that makes studios extremely risk averse. A new idea or franchise is extremely risky to put so much money on. This, combined with the trend of nostalgia pandering, then it's clear to see why remakes are so prevalent. This isn't exactly a new thing Hollywood has done. I mean, just look at how many versions of Dracula have been made over the years (I would also add that Hollywood cashing in on certain trends like Superhero movies isn't new either but that is another topic for another day). As much as it's tiresome, especially since a lot of remakes are just souless shells of the original movie (I am looking at you Robocop remake!), I don't see it slowing down especially with how much money is on the line with a lot of them.
Very valid points. I guess the same can be said of the music industry. Why would a label take a risk on something new when they already know what makes money?
Yep. I don't have a ton to add here except that they figured out the medium and how to milk it for the most reliable profit. Movies haven't been around for all that long so I'd say they just hit their stride in terms of profitability within the time-frame you identified.


Three new Mn(III) porphyrin catalysts of O2.-dismutation (superoxide dismutase mimics), bearing ether oxygen atoms within their side chains, were synthesized and characterized: Mn(III) 5,10,15,20-tetrakis[N-(2-methoxyethyl)pyridinium-2-yl]porphyrin (MnTMOE-2-PyP(5+)), Mn(III)5,10,15,20-tetrakis[N-methyl-N'-(2-methoxyethyl)imidazolium-2-yl]porphyrin (MnTM,MOE-2-ImP(5+)) and Mn(III) 5,10,15,20-tetrakis[N,N'-di(2-methoxyethyl)imidazolium-2-yl]porphyrin (MnTDMOE-2-ImP(5+)). Their catalytic rate constants for O2.-dismutation (disproportionation) and the related metal-centered redox potentials vs. NHE are: log k(cat)= 8.04 (E(1/2)=+251 mV) for MnTMOE-2-PyP(5+), log k(cat)= 7.98 (E(1/2)=+356 mV) for MnTM,MOE-2-ImP(5+) and log k(cat)= 7.59 (E(1/2)=+365 mV) for MnTDMOE-2-ImP(5+). The new porphyrins were compared to the previously described SOD mimics Mn(III) 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(N-ethylpyridinium-2-yl)porphyrin (MnTE-2-PyP(5+)), Mn(III) 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(N-n-butylpyridinium-2-yl)porphyrin (MnTnBu-2-PyP(5+)) and Mn(III) 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(N,N'-diethylimidazolium-2-yl)porphyrin (MnTDE-2-ImP(5+)). MnTMOE-2-PyP(5+) has side chains of the same length and the same E(1/2), as MnTnBu-2-PyP(5+)(k(cat)= 7.25, E(1/2)=+ 254 mV), yet it is 6-fold more potent a catalyst of O2.-dismutation , presumably due to the presence of the ether oxygen. The log k(cat)vs. E(1/2) relationship for all Mn porphyrin-based SOD mimics thus far studied is discussed. None of the new compounds were toxic to Escherichia coli in the concentration range studied (up to 30 microM), and protected SOD-deficient E. coli in a concentration-dependent manner. At 3 microM levels, the MnTDMOE-2-ImP(5+), bearing an oxygen atom within each of the eight side chains, was the most effective and offered much higher protection than MnTE-2-PyP(5+), while MnTDE-2-ImP(5+) was of very low efficacy.


About 1 of every 6 Californians lives in poverty, which helps explain why almost 12 million state residents are enrolled in Medi-Cal — the state's version of Medicaid, the health insurance program for impoverished Americans that's jointly funded by federal and state taxpayers. California's enrollment is by far the largest in the country. Yet because the state is relatively wealthy, California has to pick up a larger share of its Medicaid costs than almost every other state does. The higher a state's median income, the smaller the fraction of Medicaid costs that the federal government will pay.
For every dollar California taxpayers spend on Medi-Cal, the federal government puts up roughly $1. In Indiana, the federal contribution is about $2. In Mississippi, it's almost $3.
So, faced with an enormous Medi-Cal bill and insufficient help from Washington, the state Legislature decided in 2009 to game the system. It imposed a tax on private hospitals, nominally to raise more money to pay for Medi-Cal. In fact, the money went right back to the hospitals in the form of higher reimbursements for Medi-Cal treatments — but along the way, it drew a roughly equal amount of dollars from the federal government, effectively doubling the revenue generated by the tax. By 2015, the tax was bringing in about $4 billion, plus $4 billion more from Washington.
The Legislature has been approving the tax on a temporary basis, and it is currently set to expire at the end of next year. Proposition 52, which is sponsored by the California Hospital Assn. and backed by a spectrum of healthcare-industry groups, would write the current law into the state Constitution, making the tax permanent (unless the Legislature kills it by a two-thirds vote) and preventing lawmakers from changing in any substantive way how the resulting funds are spent.
Why not leave this issue to the Legislature? The hospital association, whose members pay the tax, is rightly worried about two potential problems: that partisan squabbling might prevent lawmakers from renewing the levy in the future, and that the Legislature might siphon off more of the dollars for something other than Medi-Cal. The state has been diverting a portion of the revenue to the General Fund in a way that effectively lets lawmakers spend it however they wish, with the portion rising from 15% in 2009 to 24% in current law. Proposition 52 would cap the diversion at 24% in perpetuity.
That's what critics call ballot-box budgeting — dictating through an initiative how the Legislature must spend tax dollars. It's a risky practice because it leaves lawmakers with less flexibility to shift priorities and respond to budget crises. Yet Medi-Cal is just the sort of program that could use some constitutional protection. The state already beggars it, paying some of the lowest rates in the country for medical services. As a result, poor Californians have struggled to find doctors who'll take Medi-Cal, so they've continued going to hospital emergency rooms — a costly and inefficient way to deliver healthcare. Proposition 52 wouldn't improve that situation, but it would prevent it from getting worse.
The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, which opposes the ballot measure, offers a different complaint: Proposition 52 would guarantee that the Medi-Cal funds raised by the hospital tax are spent reimbursing hospitals, not attending to any of Medi-Cal's many other needs.
The union is right that Medi-Cal should be putting more money into primary and preventive care, wellness programs and other efforts to keep enrollees out of the hospital in the first place. But hospitals remain a crucial source of many types of treatment needed by Medi-Cal patients, including outpatient services, specialists' care and, yes, emergency room visits. Medi-Cal is already a potential money-loser for many hospitals; without the money provided by the tax, it could become even harder for Medi-Cal patients to find hospitals willing to treat them outside the emergency room.
Generally speaking, it's better for voters not to tie lawmakers' hands on the budget. But the tradeoff presented by Proposition 52 is, on balance, a fair one. It would preserve an important revenue source for a vital safety-net program that's already woefully underfunded. It deserves a yes vote.


Brooke Mueller was hospitalized Friday morning for a possible drug overdose, according to TMZ.
Which TV shows should reunite?
Muelller, Charlie Sheen's ex-wife, has been in-and-out of drug rehabilitation over the years, according to TMZ.
But a rep for Mueller insists drugs were not a factor in her hospitalization. The socialite claims she passed out after making jewelry nonstop for the past several days.
"An assistant thought Brooke was non-responsive while she was napping and hastily called an ambulance," Steve Honig, told TMZ. "As a precaution, Brooke was brought to a local hospital and discharged after an hour. She was diagnosed with exhaustion and dehydration and is now fine and resting at home."
Mueller and Sheen are the parents of twin 3-year-old sons. The couple married in 2008, but separated a year later. They were officially divorced last year.


Floor speech: The end of the Senate?
I congratulate the Republican leader for his remarks. Without being presumptuous, I think I could express the hope that all of us feel that he will help us restore the Senate to the role the American people need it to play in this country.
There is a new history of the Senate, "The American Senate," written by Neil MacNeil, the late Neil MacNeil, who wrote the best book about the House of Representatives, and the former historian of the Senate. I suspect this book is likely to become the best chronicle of this body. It speaks of the Senate as "the one touch of authentic genius in the American political system." It needs to be restored to that position.
The Republican leader is absolutely right. This does not require a change of rules. This requires a change of behavior -- some behavior on our part on this side of the aisle, but a great deal of behavior on the part of whoever the majority leader of the Senate is, because that is the person who sets the agenda.
The debate for this year really is: Will this year be the end of the Senate -- which is what the distinguished majority leader said it would be if we ever changed the rules in a way that allowed the majority to cut off debate -- or will it be the year in which the Senate is restored, restored to that role of authentic genius in the American system? I hope it would be that way. I hope it starts tomorrow because it could be started as quickly as tomorrow because it requires no change of rules, only a change in behavior, and that could happen as soon as tomorrow. But we know it can happen after November if we have six more Republican senators on this side.
We have heard your commitment on the floor today about how the committees can operate, about how amendments should operate. We have heard that before in our own meetings, in private lunches, and I am glad you took the occasion in this eloquent way to say to the American people and all of us what we expect out of service in the Senate.
I had the privilege, as the Senator from Kentucky did, of seeing Senator Mansfield as the leader of this body. I have not served in the Senate as long as others who were here, but I came here -- it seems hard to believe -- 47 years ago as a young aide to a senator who eventually became the majority leader of the Senate, Howard Baker. Those were the days of Mansfield and Dirksen. Those were the days when Barry Goldwater and John Tower and Hubert Humphrey would engage in hours of debates here and hug each other at the end of their discussion. Those were the days when the Democratic majority leader would offer an amendment of a Republican senator whose amendment had been denied unfairly, he thought. Those were the days of committees that did their work and Republicans and Democrats who came to the floor and together offered bills.
I saw the Senate in the 1970s when I came back and Senator Baker was the Republican leader and I saw it in the 1980s and the 1990s. I saw what the Republican leader said -- let's take the Panama Canal debate. Senator Baker and Senator Byrd would run the Senate in the way the Republican leader suggested, in the way most majority leaders have suggested. They would come to the floor and they would put a bill on the floor that a Republican and a Democratic senator agreed on -- let's say it is Senator McCain and Senator Levin, Senator Inhofe and Senator Levin. They would ask for amendments. They might get 300 amendments. They would then ask for unanimous consent to cut off all the amendments and of course they would get it because everyone had a chance to have his or her amendment.
Then within that unanimous consent agreement would be a procedure for how to vote on them, and they would say: We are here on Monday and we are going to finish this week, just as the Republican leader had said.
It does not work perfectly. There was a senator from Alabama, and then there was a senator from Ohio, and they did all they could to put glue in the works. But the majority leader had all the tools he needed to run the Senate in that way. Everybody got a say. Senator Byrd, in his last remarks before the Rules Committee, and I was there to hear it, said we should never tear down this necessary fence. He meant the filibuster that protects us from an excess of the executive and runaway popular factions. But he said one other thing. Senator Byrd said in 2010 that any majority leader had the tools he needed already in the rules to operate this Senate in the way it should be run. So we need a change in behavior, not a change of the rules.
One more example that goes to the point the Senator from Kentucky made. How important is it to be able to offer an amendment? Serving in the Senate today is like being invited to join the Grand Ole Opry and not being allowed to sing. The people of Tennessee expect me to have an opinion on their behalf about Obamacare, about Iran, about all of the issues -- how do we help unemployed Americans get a job, about the minimum wage or the lack of it. They expect me to have a say about that, not because they want to hear me but because I am their voice.
Senator Byrd wrote eloquently about that in his book. He talked about the Panama Canal debate. There was a tough debate. They didn't just bring the Panama Canal treaty here and plop it on the floor and say we are going to vote on it next Monday. Do you think it would have gotten 67 votes? No, it would not have gotten 67 votes. How did it get 67 votes? The Democratic leader, Senator Byrd, and the Republican leader, Senator Baker, read David McCullough's book and changed their minds and they both supported the treaty. Then they allowed every single amendment and reservation that anybody wanted to offer.
Senator Byrd wrote that many of those were killer amendments. In other words, they were designed to kill the treaty. But, he said, we allowed every one of them – 192 of them. Nothing passed that was not acceptable to the joint leadership. He said we beat everything else. We tabled them or defeated them. But if we had not allowed that to happen and the senators had not had a chance to have their say, we would have never ratified the treaty.
I know there may be others who want to speak. But we have gone down a trail in the last several years -- just a few years -- that I never thought imaginable. We have 43 new members of the Senate, 43 members of the Senate who are in their first term, plus one, the senator from Indiana, who is in his first term but served before so he has a broader view of this. Those senators have never seen this body operate properly. Most of them are on the other side. So it is not necessarily their fault that this is happening, but this is not the way the Senate earned the reputation as the unique deliberative body in the world. No one would recognize it as that today. No one would recognize it as the authentic touch of creative genius in the American system of government.
My hope would be that the Democratic leader would recognize this and have a change of behavior tomorrow, or maybe later this afternoon. But if he does not, I hope the American people take this seriously and take it into account when they cast their votes in November and put six more Republicans on this side of the aisle so a Republican leader can restore this body to the luster it deserves, and the American people deserve, as the authentic touch of genius in the American political system.


Whether it's rating the relevance of a search engine's results to help train its algorithms, grading the sentiment of customer tweets (angry? irritated? happy?) for Fortune 500 companies or screening dating-site photos for inappropriate content, this cadre of anonymous workers is supporting huge swaths of the social-networking empire.
"Crowd-sourced labor started off as this weird thing with people doing these funny little jobs in their spare time, but now it's really catching on," said Bill Quinn of Trada, a company based in Boulder, Colo., that hires people to help advertisers beef up online search campaigns. "I think 2013 will be the break-out year because the concept's not so strange to companies anymore."
The numbers back that up. A study by industry group Crowdsourcing.org said crowd-labor revenue was up 75 percent in 2011, to $375 million. And the number of crowd-workers is growing even faster, climbing more than 100 percent last year, with about 40 percent of the work force of 6 million living in developing countries.
While some workers can make six-figure annual salaries on more sophisticated tasks, one of the fastest-growing job segments, up 133 percent last year, is micro-tasks like the ones Amy Ellis of Alpine, Texas, does.
"I've done things like 100-word product descriptions that pay $2.25 each, like why you should buy this brand of fluffy towels," she said. She gets her work, like many of her fellow micro-taskers, from Amazon's Mechanical Turk, an online labor market that pairs businesses, or "requesters," with "Turkers" who compete for HITS, or "human intelligence tasks," for a specific price and time-frame. One recent job listing on Turk, for example, offered to pay two cents to "copy text from business cards."
While Ellis' husband works full-time, she uses her average weekly take of $70 to buy groceries. "It's not a lot of money," she says, "but I love the ability to log in and do a few minutes of work whenever I feel like it."
A primary question is whether the crowd-labor pool could essentially become one big worldwide digital sweatshop. While industry studies show average hourly earnings across all categories range from about $7 in India to $16 in Western Europe, the fast-growing segment of micro-taskers earns half that on average, and some make only $1.50 an hour.
Lilly Irani, a doctoral candidate in informatics at the University of California at Irvine who has studied crowd-labor, says these unrepresented workers remain ripe for exploitation.
"We need to make sure that workers are part of the conversation about how these systems are designed," Irani said. "And we must never forget that these are real people out there doing real work, sometimes making an extra $120 a week that literally helps them keep a roof over their heads."


In a strange mix of grace and craziness, a group of costumed women doing the stately Morris-dance lead down Elk Avenue a much less stately mob that is howling imprecations at a huge puppet on trial for its life, toward a big bonfire into which the puppet and a lot of old skis and grudges will be thrown. Or a midwinter parade comes down the street with masked and costumed krewes letting it all hang out (or as much as is possible in February) before the hibernation into Lent. Or a few hundred people dress up in red costumes and masks and dance to suggestive music in celebration of an event most of the celebrants weren�t around to know about. Or the floor of the Eldo literally bounces to the thunder of hundreds of people dancing to the honk and wail of the accordion as Crested Butteans celebrate the coronation of the new king and queen of Flauschink. Or kids ranging in age from ten to fifty conclude one of Colorado�s biggest and most irreverent Fourth of July parades with what might be the world�s biggest semi-sanctioned water fight in the middle of the street.
Vinotok, Mardi Gras, the Red Lady Ball, Flauschink, the Fourth of July � Crested Butte is a town that, in the eyes of its celebrants, knows how to celebrate itself. And these are truly �community celebrations,� even though not everyone in the community participates in them. They are not private parties; they are not expensive occasions for some socioeconomic faction to celebrate itself; they are not (primarily) Chamber of Commerce promotions to bring in more tourists; they are just a large bunch of Crested Butteans celebrating their common appreciation at living more or less together in Crested Butte.
There is of course another perception of these events. A lot of Crested Butteans look on these � tasteless public displays! � with disapproval and don�t join in. Some of them see it as �juvenile behavior� that drives away visitors (except when the events are scheduled when there are no visitors, in which case why bother); others find it, even worse, disquieting in its anarchical undertones and worry about the undermining of basic law and order. And some of the participants themselves don�t get it, and undermine the events to the extent that they see it as just another excuse to get wasted and engage in anti-social behavior.
So what�s the truth of the matter? Are these community celebrations a positive thing or a negative thing for the community? For any community? I want to try to make the case for why they are basically a good thing � even an essential component of a healthy community. It�s an appropriate time to do this; this winter will end with the 40th celebration of Flauschink, an end-of-winter festival that has never pretended to have any socially redeeming value but, arguably, has had some. And as one who was present at its creation, I�m as good as any to make that argument.
Crested Butte in 1969, year of the first Flauschink festival, was still a town without a foreseeable future. Seventy-five years of coal mining had ended in the mid-1950s with the closing of the mines and dismantling of the railroad tracks. For the following decade and a half, the fraction of townspeople who had stayed courted just about anything that came along. A parade of new owners and lessees tried to get the Keystone Mine on Mount Emmons going throughout the 1950s and 60s with no lasting success. The ski area began in 1961 but went through a major �financial reorganization� in the mid-60s and was still just hanging on in a very competitive environment in 1969. Dr. Hubert Winston Smith�s Law-Science Academy was a bright spot in the summer; there were the dependable but slightly distant �bugologists� up in Gothic all summer; and there were a few mid-westerners building summer homes in the area. But in sum, the town had no identifiable economy.
So why was it so much fun to live here? As novice editor of the town�s newspaper, I thought about that a lot. I had had no background or preparation for either the position or for informed thinking about what makes a community � but I�m not sure that even Ph.D.s in Journalism, Economics and Political Science would have helped me answer that question.
But even I could see one thing that made a difference: the presence of people for whom hard times economically had been a way of life for many generations. Those were the Butte�s �old timers,� the people whose parents had come from subsistence economies in Europe destroyed by either industrialism or war or both together, bringing and raising families into the worst living environment in the American industrial economy, a coal-mining town. Underground coal mining, the most dangerous and brutal work in the American �melting pot� � a pressure-cooker that filled from the bottom.
Those who were still here in the 1960s were the ones who had outlasted the coal mines here; they were either retired from the coal mines on pensions that hadn�t been there until their saint John L. Lewis had wrung them out of the owners, or they had escaped from the mines by having managed to save and borrow enough to buy into a business. Here because they either had no reason to leave, or couldn�t afford to.
Either way, they possessed the native wit, physical stamina and stoic sense of humor that had kept them and their parents before them human on the �rag ships� from Europe, and through the generations of life as �chattels� going back to feudal times, people with a millennial history of figuring out how to make life worth living in economies that offered very little (if any) opportunity to �improve themselves� economically.
And mixed in with them were handfuls of us new people � mostly a bunch of spoiled exurban and suburban hippies like myself who accepted the evidence from our pre-CB lives that �money doesn�t buy happiness,� and wondered what else there was that might. Mostly college graduates from the world�s richest and most domineering economy, our post-graduate education was in a place without a real economy, in the company of teachers who were used to that absence of what seemed to rule life everywhere else in America.
Among other things, they taught us to hang together by hanging out together like they did (easy lesson), and they taught us to dance. A harder lesson: I�d always thought of dancing as personal artistic expression, and the more beer I had, the better an artist I seemed (to myself) to be. But Mrs. Gal Starika, of Frank and Gal�s Bar and Restaurant, told me at a dance in her bar in 1968 that she was either going to have to teach me to dance right or kick me out. What she taught me wasn�t dance steps but respect; I learned that you aren�t really dancing unless the whole room is dancing � everyone �moving in measure,� as T. S. Eliot put it. It is individual only to the extent that every individual�s good time depends on every individual taking care of everyone else�s good time. Learning to dance with the whole room made it more fun.
And in some intuitive kind of way, that education seemed to lead to the need for something like Flauschink. The exact origins of Flauschink are best left shrouded in the ever-evolving myths and mysteries, which get better every year. But the basic truth is that it is indeed a local revival of an old European custom � brought to Crested Butte by the people who came to Crested Butte as refugees from Europe�s Industrial Revolution: the custom of turning a lot of life�s entries, exits, changes, or just going to the post office as a tradition, into an excuse for coming together to talk, eat and drink, dance, tell stories, and otherwise get merry. God knows the daily round of life itself, whether in the master�s fields or his coal mines or tending his ski lifts, didn�t produce a whole lot of reasons for the joy we are now supposed to find in our work; the people who survived were the ones who found or made the time to organize some collective joy with each other.
Lest you think I�m just bloviating in defense of my own bad habits, I will note that a respected American writer came out this year with an exhaustive study that affirms that late-60s intuition (and its European origins): Dancing in the Streets � A History of Collective Joy, by Barbara Ehrenreich � author before that of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, two studies of economic life today, the first about the working poor and the second about workers struggling to stay in the middle class.
In Dancing in the Streets, Ehrenreich drops back in time to examine one fundamental difference between pre-industrial societies and our contemporary industrial society: the absence today of what she calls the �ecstatic rituals� prevalent in virtually every traditional pre-industrial society worldwide. She focused primarily on medieval European cultures for which we have some written record, and found that in many parts of Europe during the height of Christian feudalism, as much as one day in every four was given over to community festivals for one Christian saint or another � and those �sanctified� holidays were only �Christian� because the pioneer church leaders had simply fastened a saint�s name onto already-existing pagan festivals.
She provides substantial evidence that what we moderns have been schooled to think of as �the Dark Ages� were really not so depressing as we try to make them out to be. People worked hard with no hope of �advancement,� but they also played hard, in community-wide playing that no longer happens in the mainstream society. Most parties today are acknowledgements of divisions in the society � college keggers, country club balls, fundraisers for specific organizations attended by their supporters, and private parties of �our kind of people.� Ehrenreich describes another type of party that bonded whole communities on a regular basis, and she proposes that such hearty partying might be a necessary element for a successful human community.
I won�t speak for the other revivers of the Flauschink celebration in Crested Butte, but I will say that Crested Butte in the late 1960s cured me, at least temporarily, of the brand of individualism the culture and its chief enforcer, the education system, had instilled in me � the perception that I was a free economic entity contracting with the society around me for what I wanted from it, giving back only what was necessary to get what I wanted. I had never experienced a community till I got to Crested Butte in 1966, which had a community instead of an economy, and was managing to survive.
The place also cured me, at least temporarily, of a chronic cynical depression I�d had for so long that I didn�t even know I had it, since it was nurtured and reinforced by most of our contemporary cultural institutions, television foremost among them. I have backslid too often since, into both that toxic individualism and its companion depression; but of all the things that help me get over myself, the surest is getting out and making a fool of myself dancing, with a bunch of people I live with, like or don�t like, enjoy or just tolerate, all doing the same, and all moving in measure, more or less.
Another thing that Flauschink has done, for all those in the community that care, is to mark the end of one thing and the beginning of another � not just the end of winter but the end of a season into which we put a lot and (we hope) take out a lot. My first two winters in Crested Butte ended � again in T.S. Eliot�s words � �not with a bang but a whimper.� Or not even a good whimper; everyone just sort of left. For someplace warmer, Mexico or Montrose. But from the first Flauschink in 1969 on through the 39th last year, we�ve �flausched� winter and the ski season and danced in spring (please, please come) with the exuberant acknowledgement such changes deserve in the natural calendar of life.
So, at the fortieth celebration of Flauschink � it is what it is, as the other occasions of collective joy in Crested Butte are what they are: just a way to balance out our serious efforts to make something of ourselves by indulging for a bit in collectively making fools of ourselves. I would not pretend that Flauschink or any of the others have helped the economy. Heaven forbid. But I would suspect that I am not the only one for whom they have, if only temporarily, made the economy more bearable, as well as life in general.


The gang heads to a ski lodge, where Fred breaks his leg while being chased by a snow creature and Velma gets a terrible cold. The gang must solve the mystery without Fred's leadership and Velma's brains, and capture the snow creature before he continues hurting people.
- Shaggy's lower jacket turns brown when he asks who has been controlling the Snow Creature.
- Chris Klug's face disappears when he flips the first time.
While visiting NASA, an alien egg hatches, releasing a creature from another planet. The gang has to stop the alien before the mission is permanently aborted.
- Two of the scientists in the background strongly resemble Professor Ingstrum (from Where Are You, "Scooby's Night with a Frozen Fright") and Dr. Jekyll (from Where Are You, "Nowhere to Hyde).
- Fred loses his eyebrows when says Janet works for E.T.I.S.
- The subtitles for this episode have several typos. Dinkley is spelled with the 'e' and Elliott Blender is named "Elliott Blinder." The credits also mistakenly credit the latter by this name.
The gang visits Costa Rica and meets famous Australian adventurer Melbourne O'Reilly, who is at the museum to watch the same film the gang is watching. During the film, a dinosaur jumps out of the screen and starts attacking the museum guests.
- The dinosaur roar used in the same one used in Jurassic Park.
- Daphne's lipstick erroneously disappears when J.J. Hakimoto introduces the film.
During Mardi Gras, Daphne is kidnapped by the spirits of two civil war ghosts, and the gang must find her before it is too late.
One night, when Shaggy and Scooby are returning from the movies, they see the Mystery Machine driving by itself.
- The beginning of this episode shows Shaggy and Scooby walking home from Astro: Space Dog of the Future. This is not only a reference to The Jetsons' dog, but also to the very first episode of Scooby-Doo, "What a Night for the Knight." In the original episode, Scooby and Shaggy also walk home from the movie Star: Dog Ranger of the North Woods.
- When Shaggy and Scooby are chased by the Mystery Machine onstage, the spare tire falls off the van. However, it reappears in a matter of seconds intact on the van.
- Randy's vest changes color when he tells the gang to find a mechanic.
- When the Mystery Machine traps the gang in the alley, the top and bottom colors switch places before returning to normal.
- When the Mystery Machine makes an appearance at the seance, the top of it is erroneously colored green (instead of blue).
- The chase song for the episode, "I'd Do Anything," is the only episode to chart on the Hot Billboard 100 as it was airing. It was at #51 when the episode first aired.
The gang wins a trip to Las Vegas to meet pop star Lindsay Pagano, but they must solve the mystery of the ghost of Rufus Raucous, a former magician, when Lindsay is nearly crushed by a falling speaker dropped by Raucous's ghost.
- Rats: The Musical is a parody of Cats: The Musical.
- Lindsay Pagano guest stars in this episode.
- When Shaggy helps Fred out of the magical cabinet, his eyebrows turn brown for several scenes before turning back to the correct black color.
The gang goes to an amusement park to meet two great roller coaster designers named Chris and Terry, but their fun is soon ruined when a ghost begins sabotaging all the rides.
The gang goes on a safari, but end up having to save Scooby when all the animals begin turning a strange yellowish color and Scooby disappears.
- Joan Goodfew is a parody of Jane Goodall, another animal scientist.
- Shaggy hums "It's a Rad, Rad World" in the intertube, a reference to the chase song from the first episode of the series.
While on a time share, Daphne takes the gang to a beautiful island, where a sea serpent is scaring all of the islanders away.
A trip to a town where the residents are afraid to celebrate Christmas leads to a mystery involving a snowman with no head. The gang tries to solve the mystery for the townspeople, and especially for a little boy named Tommy who's Christmas has been ruined because the Headless Snowman destroyed his house.
- Cartoon Network refers to this episode by the alternative title of "Ho Ho Horrors!"
- The Headless Snowman references The Wizard of Oz when he says "I'm melting, I'm melting! Oh, what a world!"
- This is the second episode in the entire history of the franchise to air on a day other than Saturday.
The gang visits a toy store to pick up a Spaceman Swinton doll, but realize that they are in over their heads when every toy in the store comes alive.
- The title is a parody of Toy Story 2.
- Acy's Department Store is a parody of Macy's.
A faceless phantom begins haunting the set of the remake of "Spy Me A River" to try to prevent the remake of the movie. The gang tries to investigate the phantom and why all the scenes being filmed are being sabotaged.
- The Modem is a probable parody of the hit movie The Matrix.
- Closed-captioning devices erroneously call Rip by the incorrect name "Rick."
While visiting scenic Italy, the gang runs into a gladiator zombie in Pompeii. To make things even worse, volcanoes have begun erupting again and the gang must figure out if those two things are connected.
- The title is a parody of the song "Pomp & Circumstance."
The gang goes to a baseball field to watch Luis Santiago try to break Cab Craig's home run record, but they have to solve a mystery when the ghost of Cab Craig returns and tries to stop Luis from breaking his record.
- The title is a parody of the Baseball film "The Natural."
Velma and her new invention DogBot win the gang a trip to Tokyo, Japan. When they arrive, Shaggy eats a cursed pizza, causing him to turn into a monster at night.
- The title is a parody of the film Big Trouble in Little China.
- Takamoto Studios is a reference to Iwao Takamoto, the co-creator of Scooby-Doo.
- Professor Pomfritt may be a thinly veiled reference to Leander Pomfritt, a character from The Many Loves of Doby Gillis (which elements of the original Scooby-Doo show were based on).
The gang visits Egypt with Melbourne O'Reilly, only to run into the mummy of an ancient pharaoh who has the power to turn people into mindless zombies.
Fred signs up the Mystery Machine to be in an off-road race, which is full of weird worshipers, creepy car racers and a giant worm that is out to try to end the race.
- The title is a parody of the film series The Fast and the Furious.
The gang goes to a fair with items from the projected future, and they visit a house of the future. After Daphne disappears, the gang must find her while navigating the house, which seems to have taken on a mind of its own.
- An alternate title for this episode is "High Tech House of Horrors."
- When Fred opens the bathroom (where J31 v2.3 was trapped), his collar turns the same color as his shirt.
The gang visits The Hex Girls in Fortescu Castle, only to find they are breaking up the video shoot because a vampire is haunting the castle.
- Thorn's eyes mistakenly turn black for a brief moment, but then quickly return to their normal tone of green.
-Grey DeLisle is mistakenly credited for "Wormian #1" in the credits, which was from two episodes ago. Presumably, the credit template may have been copy-and-pasted and someone forgot to remove it.
Velma visits her Aunt Megan and Uncle Evan for Halloween night festivities, but jealousy between Daphne and Velma's cousin Marcy, a creepy legend and ghostly scarecrows threaten to ruin the holiday spirit of the night.
- Banning Junction is a real town in Minnesota near the town of Anoka. However, Banning Junction is just a small town, whereas Anoka is the "Halloween Capital of the World."
- This episode has a laugh track.
Scooby is dognapped by two kidnappers at a dog show, and the gang must find him while dodging a cat creature.
- A dog with a strong resemblance to Scooby-Dee appears when the gang first arrives at the dog show.
- Shaggy's leg turns the color of Daphne's leggings very briefly.
The gang, with the help of famous skateboarder Ryan Sheckler, has to solve the mystery of an escaped inmate's phantom haunting the Grind Games where Ryan is skateboarding.
- Skateboarder Ryan Sheckler guest stars in this episode.
The gang meets famous rock band Simple Plan, and they both stay in a nearby town after their vans are wrecked in an accident. In the town, Simple Plan is attacked by an invisible man who is out to get the band.
- This episode guest-stars Simple Plan.
- The lettering on Groupie Monthly magazine switches from black to yellow.
- When David is kidnapped by the Invisible Madman, he is briefly shown to be walking with the gang erroneously, before Chuck correctly appears in his place.
Scooby and Shaggy's dream trip to the Scooby Snack Factory is ruined when a monster covered in Scooby Snack batter begins attacking the workers.
- This episode vaguely parodies Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
- Penelope's feet are tied together in the flashback, but when the gang finds her, they were not tied together.
The gang attends a Scotland Renaissance fair where a dragon is terrorizing everyone.
- Glasburgh is a mash-up of two famous Scottish cities Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Scooby and the gang go to Antarctica to return Little Pete, a penguin that Scooby took care of at the zoo, back to his natural habitat. Along the way, a fish monster attacks the gang and tries to disrupt the gang's journey.
- Armand Zola is a parody of Armin Zola, a Marvel comic character who transfers his mind into robots to avoid death.
- Daphne's arm disappear when Fred finishes his explanation of the trap.
Shaggy and Scooby take the gang to a Native American reservation to meet his friend Jimmy Proudwolf and his dog Shooby. When a giant bird kidnaps Daphne and steals Shaggy's Scooby statue that he was going to enter in a contest, the gang must climb a mountain to get Daphne and the statue back.
- Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner appear in this episode briefly. One of the rare birds on Avery's checklist is Tweety Bird.
- One of the Indian chiefs in a pictograph bears a strong resemblance to Fred Flintstone.
The gang goes to Greece where Shaggy picks up a mysterious amulet that he believes will protect him from an evil centaur, despite that it actually appears to attract the creature.
When the gang visits Fred's uncle in Wisconsin, they run into the mystery of the Creepy Keeper, a ghostly lighthouse keeper who is trying to keep people away from his old lighthouse.
- The Creepy Keeper is included in the LEGO Haunted Lighthouse set.
The gang goes to a robot ranch, Cyber Gulch, where technology makes everything seem perfect...that is, until a gang of robot bandits begins causing havoc.
- This episode vaguely parodies Westworld.
The gang returns home only to find that teenagers are disappearing from local date hangout Lover's Lane. When the gang finds a confession letter with their signatures on it confessing to the kidnappings, they are thrown in jail and must clear their names to stop the real kidnappers.
- J.C. Chasez guest stars in this episode.
- Daphne's comment about Sarah Michelle Gellar is a reference to the actress portraying Daphne in the first two live-action movies.
- (Spoilers!) The unmasked look-a-like versions of the evil gang all look very similar to the characters' respective voice actors.
The gang goes to a wrestling arena where the ghost of former wrestler The Titanic Twist is haunting.
- This is the second episode of the franchise to be titled "Wrestle Maniacs," the first being episode 24 of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
- The sign on the glass changes from "do not tap on the glass" to "do not touch glass" when Shaggy and Scooby hide from the Titanic Twist.
Daphne must save her model cousin Danika after she is captured by a gargoyle on a Paris modeling shoot.
The gang once again meets up with Mr. B and the Secret Six puppies up at their farm, where a demon farmer is terrorizing.
- Neville Poppenbacher is a parody of the famous popcorn brand Orville Redenbacher.
- During the face-off between the Demon Farmer and Fred, the Mystery Machine's tire briefly turns green (instead of orange).
Velma takes the gang to see the US hockey team compete against Russia for the Emperor's cup, but a weekend of fun soon turns into a mystery when a ghoul called the Frozen Fiend steals the cup.
- Tsar Nicolai II is a parody of Tsar Nicholas II.
The title is a parody of the famous Broadway song "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend."
When Shaggy's mini-golf tournament is cancelled due a giant clown, Shaggy suddenly becomes brave to try to save the competition. Meanwhile, Velma takes on the Shaggy's cowardly role due to her extreme fear of clowns from an incident during childhood.
- Taylor Lautner guest stars as Ned in this episode, before he became famous for his role in Twilight.
- In the flashback to Velma's childhood, the animation for A Pup Named Scooby-Doo is used. The only difference is that Daphne's sweater is shown to be purple, rather than the typical pink in was in the series.
- Cougar Forest is a parody of professional golfer Tiger Woods.
Shaggy and Scooby go solo to be camp counselors, and must find their own bravery to save the campers from a creature known as The Toxic Terror.
The gang goes to Hong Kong so Shaggy can get his rubber duck fixed by a toy store, but Shaggy is in grave danger after he sees a giant dragon steal a ring.
- Director Chuck Sheetz is miscredited as "Chuck Sheets" in this episode.
The gang visits the Secret Six at a U.S. Army base, where they are being trained for discipline, but the gang must rescue one of the puppies after a gold monster turns him to solid gold.
The gang enters a sand sculpture building competition, but when people start disappearing under the sand, and a coral creature appears, the gang must solve the mystery.
Velma wants nothing to do with the video game convention the rest of the gang is attending, but she ends up having to solve a mystery after video game creatures called the Osomons begin attacking the convention, and people begin turning into creepy zoned-out zombies.
- Daphne's shoe turns purple when she is carried away by the Osomons.
- This episode was originally scheduled to air on April 23, 2005, which would have concluded the series a year early. However, it was pre-empted last minute for Mucha Lucha, and What's New, Scooby-Doo? was completely removed from the schedule for a full year. The episode finally aired nearly a year and a half later, on July 21, 2006.


Clear colourless oily liquids. Immiscible with water, miscible with alcohol, with ether, with methylene chloride, with fatty oils.
The product is applied to the cosmetics extensively. It can make skin keep the moisture and moist. The adding amount of the product in the cosmetics is 2-10%.