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White-Nationalist Terrorism Must Be Stopped
Conservatives have not been afraid to confront extremism in our world, and we must not be afraid to confront terrorism here at home.
George P. Bush
Texas Land Commissioner
Callaghan O'Hare / Reuters
Not long after the El Paso shootings occurred, I took to Twitter to denounce white-nationalist terrorism as a real threat to our country. I didn't realize at the time that I was the first major Republican elected official to do so. But I certainly won't be the last, as more details come out about the goals and views of this terrorist.
What made me comment so soon? It's simple: I read the shooter's manifesto. We don't have to guess what was on the shooter's mind—he told us in plain, dark, and racist language. He wrote about protecting white people from an "invasion" of Hispanics and wanting to kill "Mexicans." Plus, his actions underscored his words—he drove nine hours from Dallas to a shopping center in El Paso. Why didn't he go to a mall in North Dallas to kill people? The answer is obvious—he wanted to kill Hispanic people.
But for me, the real question now is: What comes next? Terrorism by white supremacists is indeed a real and present danger. We've seen it in this country in El Paso, Texas, and in Gilroy, California. We've also seen it in faraway places like New Zealand, where another white supremacist walked into a mosque and killed 51 and injured another 49.
The recent attacks in the United States are shocking, but not surprising. Just a few days ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the U.S. Senate that most domestic terrorism arrests in 2019 have been related to white terrorism. Stop and think about that statistic. Islamic radical terrorism remains a real threat around the world and even here at home, but most of the terrorist attacks in the U.S. are a consequence of white-nationalist terrorism.
No substantive debate exists about whether this threat is real. The only question is: What are we going to do about it?
As a statewide elected official in Texas and as a naval intelligence officer who served during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, I believe we must continue to defeat and destroy terrorism whenever we can, wherever we find it. And that means all terrorism. Many on the left are wrong in downplaying the threat of Islamic radical terrorism, and many on the right are wrong in downplaying homegrown white-supremacist terrorism. Both are evil, both are real, and both must be confronted and conquered.
As a conservative, I especially want to charge my party to take this challenge seriously. As the heirs to Lincoln and Reagan, we can't look the other way when people threaten our security. When President Ronald Reagan spoke to the nation following his military action against Libya after a brutal terrorist attack in 1986, he said that the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi "counted on America to be passive. He counted wrong."
Today, we face the same sort of challenge. By definition, conservatives know that the world is a fallen place and that evil exists. We are not naive to it. And we have historically been willing to confront this evil. We must not be passive. We must not look away. The stakes are too high, and so are the consequences.
Confronting domestic terrorism starts with speaking honestly about the threat itself. No more euphemisms, no more attempts to explain away these actions. When a terrorist tells us in his manifesto that he is killing people because of their race, we should take him at his word.
But confronting domestic terrorism also means strengthening our law-enforcement approach to the challenge it poses. I applaud the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas for announcing that the shooter will be prosecuted on domestic-terrorism charges. We should prosecute white-supremacist terrorists the exact same way we do other terrorists.
Furthermore, confronting domestic terrorism means rebuilding the bond of trust between Americans and their law-enforcement agencies. There were a great number of heroes in El Paso on Saturday, and many of them were wearing uniforms. Police officers were on the scene in El Paso in just six minutes. And, once there, they quickly detained the shooter and saved countless lives.
Being Hispanic, I appreciate that there is sometimes tension between minority communities and police officers. But police brutality is, by far, the exception and not the rule. The vast majority of police officers around the nation are heroes who, every day, are willing to risk their lives to save others. We must support these brave men and women. And we must look for ways to work more closely with them to fight domestic terrorism. The policy of "If you see something, say something" needs to be followed when people see someone acting suspiciously, regardless of who it is.
Finally, confronting domestic terrorism means leading by example. All of us have a role to play. I know that our country has come a long way in addressing our national birth defect—racism. But more work remains to be done. Racism of the past was overt; racism of today is often covert. It's more casual, but no less toxic. When I was growing up, I experienced open racism, including being called a wetback. Now the racism I encounter is generally more subtle. When I ran for reelection as Texas land commissioner, I saw ugly vestiges of racism. For my work in trying to protect and preserve the Alamo for generations to come, I was accused of wanting to change the story of the Alamo and to build a statue honoring Mexican General Santa Anna. It was offensive, it was outrageous, and it was completely untrue. It was also racist.
As conservatives, we have to do better than this because we are better than this. "I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life," Reagan once said. Those words were later engraved on Reagan's tombstone. And they speak to the heart of what conservatives believe. Conservatives must defend all Americans from all threats. There are no second-class Americans. All of us help make this country great. Like different streams flowing into one river, America is made a stronger place by the unique communities and cultures all across our land. "Out of many, one," our national motto says. And we must defend this principle from attack.
Conservatives have not been afraid to confront extremism in our world, and we must not be afraid to confront terrorism here at home: anywhere, anytime, and in any form. The events in El Paso serve as a painful reminder that we don't have any other choice.
George P. Bush is the Texas land commissioner and a grandson of President George H. W. Bush.


1. I will see India dissociates the governments of it's neighbours with the common public of that country. For instance, I will starve my people to feed Pakistan or some other in floods, but not talk with the governments in international forums if there are differneces.
2. I will rewrite Indian History from an Indian point of view, not a western point of view.
3. I will try to address the root cause of a problem for things like Naxalism, not a temporary solution.
4. I will make all Indian citizens equal – no separate status for Kashmir, no inner line permits for Arunachal and Andaman.
5. I will try to see that per capita income of the bottom ten percent of Indian population will be doubled every year.
6. I will see that development statistics are pulled out at district level and disparities addressed at that level.
8. I will make public bodies accountable to what they do and put a perormance allowance for them.
9. If a person resigns from a post to which he is elected on government's expense, I will see that the re-election expense will be carried out from his pocket.
10. I will give a boost up to literature in Indian language and discourage English literature. Education will emphasise on both English and his mother tongue. I will try to see that a person is proud of his culture and history.


Producers with SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA standard software want to differentiate themselves in the market, plan to particularly agile, particularly more flexible responses or map particular technological constraints. Therefore they need a supplement for all eligible, mostly identical ERP standards. ORSOFT provides such differentiating features based on very quickly introduced add-on products to SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA for simultaneous material and multi resource planning for master data maintenance and other SCM and APS-related topics.
From the lived interlink between developments and consulting at ORSOFT, ORSOFT can quickly respond to individual requests based on release-proof standard software. This results in speed, effectiveness, flexibility and creativity.
ORSOFT add-ons create added value in the use of ERP systems in the areas of SCM, APS, MES, and master data maintenance. The central ERP system is the integration platform. There is no second data storage, no new Sprechweise and no additional authorization concept. As an SAP partner ORSOFT keeps 100% to the standards. With the local in-memory solution all hardware resources are undivided available for the planner. The data in the main system will be better qualified by the use of ORSOFT products, benefiting all users. An ORSOFT solution doesn't changes the processes of the leading system, but complements it.
There is only one detailed model, but different interpretations of it. By this breakage in the planning levels can be avoided. ORSOFT has frequently demonstrated that within the SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA data model complex situations can be well modeled.
In unique, customizable surfaces data from different systems are expanded with additional functions (ATP, CTP exam, prospective indicators etc.). The customization is release saved.
ORSOFT offers a pilot project using the SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA data of the customer. Based on this pilot, the user can get an overview of the situation of their own data and the functions of its software. Typical integration and project risks are minimized.


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Texas hosts Cup double-header
Published:Monday | July 6, 2015 | 4:17 PM
HAWTHORNE, California:
The 2015 edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup gets underway this evening with a Group A double-header at the Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas.
Panama and Haiti will kick off action at 6 p.m., with hosts United States battling Honduras in the 8:30 p.m. feature encounter.
Twelve teams are participating in the North, Central America and Caribbean Confederation's biennial championship, with first-round action on a round-robin basis in three groups.
Jamaica are participating in Group B, alongside joint hosts Canada, Costa Rica and El Salvador.
The Reggae Boyz will bow into action tomorrow evening against Costa Rica at StubHub (formerly Home Depot Centre) at 7 p.m. (9 p.m. Jamaica Time), with Canada and El Salvador kicking off at 9:30 p.m. (11:30 p.m. Jamaica time).
Group C includes perennial favourites Mexico, Guatemala, and Caribbean runners-up Trinidad and Tobago, and Cuba. They will bow into action on Thursday.
The top two teams will advance from each group, as well as the two best third-placed teams, to the quarter-finals.
Ahead of the championship's opening matches, the coaches were circumspect as they weighed up their chances of advancing past the group phase.
"It is difficult to say how we are or how we are doing because football players have many ups and downs now, and it is difficult to give a clear idea of this," said Panama's head coach, Dario Gomez.
Panama and Haiti have largely home-based squads.
All the members of Gomez's squad, with the exception of three based overseas, have been training together in advance of the tournament. The squad will be joined by MLS players, goalkeeper Jamie Penedo (LA Galaxy), as well as forwards Blas Perez (FC Dallas) and Gabriel Torres (Colorado Rapids).
Haiti's head coach, Marc Collat, also expects competition but wants his players to express themselves.
"It is a very difficult group, but what I want the players to understand is that we really are able to compete with the other teams within the region," he admitted.
«Schäfer eyes Gold Cup semis
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


During our third annual luncheon on Jan 15, 2016, we celebrated the great things we have already accomplished and honored incredible leaders, advocates, and change agents in community health and wellness.
Hundreds of hospital supporters joined us at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to enjoy great food, amazing music, and inspirational awards—all to benefit the initiatives, programs, and services of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital.
Together, we are creating the future!


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Numi Paris announces Athiya Shetty and KL Rahul as brand ambassadors
The campaign featuring Shetty and Rahul is set to launch on June 16...
Published On Jun 16, 2021 at 10:56 AM IST
KL Rahul and Athiya Shetty
Numi Paris, the French luxury eyewear brand, has announced actor Athiya Shetty and cricketer KL Rahul as their brand ambassadors. They have been roped in by Numi Paris to promote their stylishly handcrafted eyewear collection.
"I am delighted to collaborate with a brand like Numi Paris. Their ethos celebrates precision and class, something that has been an inherent part of my outlook, be it in films or outside of it. I can't wait to see the magic we create together," Shetty said.
"I am super excited to be welcomed into the Numi Paris family. Numi has all the attributes that I always look forward to when I indulge in a brand. And I am happy to share that Numi is the perfect extension of my personality," Rahul added.
Jean-Phillipe Chilet, the Directeur du Development Commerciale for Numi Paris, said, "Numi Paris is extremely lucky to have youth icons like Athiya Shetty and KL Rahul on board. They both are talented artists in their own right and people look up to them because of their style and their sense of relatability. We are looking forward to a long journey with them."
The campaign featuring Shetty and Rahul is set to launch on June 16 across various digital and social media platforms and on their dedicated website. In addition, Numi has partnered with Hotstar for the broadcast of the inaugural ICC World Test Championship Final to be played between India and New Zealand, and as part of this association, the campaign shall be aired across the medium through the duration of the big-ticket event.
NUMI Paris partners with The French Open as associate sponsor
As an associate sponsor, NUMI Paris will continue to accentuate its brand ethos of passion, craftsmanship and uniqueness...
numi paris
celebrity endorsement
Athiya Shetty
eyewear collection


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Home › STROKES - IS THIS IT Vinyl LP
STROKES - IS THIS IT Vinyl LP
Is This It is the debut studio album by American rock band the Strokes, first released on July 30, 2001, through Rough Trade Records and RCA Records. It was recorded at Transporterraum in New York City with producer Gordon Raphael during March and April 2001. For their debut, the band strived to capture a simple sound that was not significantly enhanced in the studio. Building on their 2001 EP The Modern Age, the band members molded compositions largely through live takes during recording sessions, while songwriter and lead singer Julian Casablancas continued to detail the lives and relationships of urban youth.


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Why Raw Honey and Not Just Honey?
HomeFood & Drinks Why Raw Honey and Not Just Honey?
Shivangana Vasudeva, NDTV
Updated: November 29, 2018 12:27 IST
Raw honey is the most original sweet liquid you will find
Raw honey contains all the enzymes, antioxidants and minerals
These can be destroyed on heating and processing
I love honey. The kind that is worth relishing. Bursting with caramel notes or honey which has dark, smoky overtones and even the one with a floral finish. The flavours are heavenly more like a sweet boon. But you may not feel the same way, if you've been picking up the ordinary jar of honey that lines grocery shelves. Such a pity. The buzz about bees Honey is nature's most interesting sweetener and true honey will always surprise you with its scent, taste and colour which reflect the flora from where the bees collect their nectar. The beauty of it is that the result is always up to nature and more so, when bees are allowed to express the uniqueness of their surroundings in honey. For instance, the flavour of honey collected from bee boxes on a mustard plantation will be very different from the robust wild forest honey extracted from natural hives. But a lot of the flavour and quality of honey depends on how carefully it is handled after being procured.
What is so special about raw honey?
Raw honey is the most original sweet liquid you will find. It is collected fresh after being produced by honeybees with the nectar they sip from flower blossoms. It is unheated, unpasteurized and unprocessed. This is not too difficult to understand as the word 'raw' clearly indicates being 'uncooked'. Sonia Sharma, Certified Nutritionist and Founder of Nature Organic who sources raw honey from the Himalayan foothills tells me that honey in its raw state still has the essential prana or life force which is found in every other raw food. "According to Ayurveda, it is this energy that gives raw honey its intense flavour. It is the purest form of nectar that has come out of the flowers and is just so potent. You'll know the difference when you taste it. It leaves a slight tingle in your throat unlike regular honey which has no flavour or texture and is plain sweet. In the Charaka Samhita, an ancient text on Ayurveda, it has been written that raw honey which has been aged for a year has amazing therapeutic and detoxifying properties. The natural nutrients are known to rejuvenate the cells in the body. A lot of scientific studies have shown that applying heat to raw foods changes their molecular structure and in the process they may lose this life force," she explains. In its pure form, raw honey contains all the enzymes, antioxidants and minerals most of which are destroyed on being treated with heat and more often than not, replaced with synthetic material to undertake mass production and give it a shelf life. Many of the beautiful, golden bottles sitting on supermarket shelves contain commercial honey that has been pasteurized (heated at about 70 degree Celsius followed by rapid cooling). This makes it easy to filter, handle and package and gives the liquid a cleaner and smoother finish but a lot is lost in the process. Honey is made up of more than 70% sugars, less than 20% water and trace minerals. Think about it - Honey travels from the farms to the middlemen to one factory for processing and then another factory for packaging and by the time it reaches the stores all that is left are glucose and fructose plus added preservatives and stabilizers. The same old story of big business interests making it hard to maintain quality may leave a bad taste in the mouth."It was about four years ago that a person from Noida shared with me that he sells low-quality honey for Rs. 15 per kg to certain brands that use it to mix with their product to increase the volume and reduce the price. Thereafter, I visited the forests in Uttaranchal where a family of farmers have been involved in bee-keeping for generations and witnessed how real honey is made. You are not allowed inside the forest to prevent any form of contamination, but I have been told by the farmers that they place the bee hive in a spinning container and while it spins the honey falls off the comb and sticks to the walls from where it is scooped and delivered to us," shares Manav Chaddha, Co-Founder, Organica. The thing about honest, real honey is that it not really 'pure' literally. "The raw honey that we source from the forest is filtered manually and no machinery or heat is used at any step. This is why you may find bee pollen or some fibers still in our honey but they don't really pose a problem to your health and also the colour or texture may be slightly different every time because honey is obtained through a natural process that we cannot control. We add nothing to it – no artificial flavours or synthetic sugar. In fact, the farmers having been eating unfiltered honey for years now but that is little understood by the public. Sadly, the only qualities of honey that we refer to is that it should be smooth, shiny and sweet. But, that's not the case and when commercial honey looks and tastes the same each time, it raises doubts because it is far from what raw, natural honey would be," says Manav. Unfiltered raw honey, which you get directly from the bee farm, does contain fine crystals and flecks of bee pollen, honeycomb bits and even broken bee wing fragments since it is extracted and cleaned by hand. It is cloudier, has high levels of antioxidants and crystallizes to a thick consistency very soon. Raw honey is alkaline in nature (unlike processed honey) which simply means that it does not ferment in the stomach and can be used neutralize acid indigestion. Back in the 1800s, honey came in a comb packed in a wooden box. Honey stored in the honeycomb was the purest, rawest form of honey. And there was no other alternative. As time went by, several things changed. Food safety laws were tightened and the natural honey that people had been eating for so many years was not considered safe anymore. Unfortunately, we lost a real treat. Today, suppliers of raw honey, keeping the needs and health of the consumers in mind, may only warm it slightly to allow the honey to flow for bottling and filter it to remove the unwanted particles.
Crystallization is a good thing The crystallization of honey is actually a trait of pure, natural honey. During crystallization the glucose sugar in honey separates from the water and turns into white crystals because it is an over-saturated sugar solution. The process of crystallization is known to preserve certain characteristics of your honey like flavour and quality. "People believe that crystallized honey has gone bad but honey never expires. If it is stored in a cool and dry place, it will naturally crystallize in a few months. Just place the jar in hot water for a few minutes and it will regain its original texture. The one that doesn't may have chemicals to increase its shelf life or the one that crystallizes partially at the bottom may be adulterated,' adds Manav.The recent controversies are a reflection of how food-safety procedures unfold in India and that adulteration is common. Honey can be easily adulterated with glucose solution or high-fructose corn syrup and ingredients you may never know. It's best to do your due diligence before buying and not always trust what you see. A simple trick that I use to check the quality of honey is to put some in a glass of water. Pure honey should remain solid and not dissolve when submerged in water.
Well-known raw food guru David Wolfe, in his book – 'Superfoods: The Food and Medicine of the Future', talks about raw honey being 'nature's richest source of live healing enzymes and that it increases reflexes, mental alertness and even IQ!' He suggests that all honeys should be eaten raw as cooked honey has no enzymes and wherever possible select organic honey packaged in glass.
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Yesterday I made a trip to Chatfield to start doing research for the show this fall. My guide was Tom Hilgren, a Chatfield High School history teacher, and board member at the arts center. He lined up a few interesting places for me to see, and we got to talk to a few people about their favorite places in town. It was great to just roam around with no agenda other than getting a feel for the town. This week I'm getting my notes in order from the short stories I was told, and I'll post a few once I'm organized.


This is where I'm putting generally useless things that do neat yet mostly useless tasks.
The only thing I've ported forward so far is my old translator. It doeesn't do much, just has some funny filters for things like ebonics, hacker and Y to K.
A computer simulation of the problem where you have 3 choices, you pick one, and the host eliminates one of the remaining two giving you the option to switch.
Cheeziness at it's best. Output from /proc/cpuinfo and /bin/free. Real time even! Whoop!
OK, this may actually be useful. It's an interactive color wheel, for choosing web colors mostly. It can take RGB or HEX values and position the color wheel, and you can also click around the color wheel to navigate it.
Find words in your phone number!
Generates words based on a sliding window and letter frequencies so that fake words resemble real words. Has a few word databases, including Lord of the Rings, male and female names, misc names, and a normal word dictionary.


BOSTON, MA, June 13, 2003 — Perceptive Informatics, Inc. (Perceptive), a subsidiary of PAREXEL International Corporation (Nasdaq: PRXL), today announced that it has entered into an agreement to market the LifeShirt System developed by VivoMetrics.
The LifeShirt System is the first non-invasive, continuous ambulatory monitoring system that can collect data on ventilation, ECG, posture and physical activity as well as other physiological parameters and correlate them over time. It also includes a diary function to capture subjective patient experiences and validate them against objective measures.
"It is the mission of Perceptive to leverage technologies that can accelerate the clinical trial process," said Mark A. Goldberg, MD, President of Perceptive. "The ability of the LifeShirt System to provide continuous physiologic monitoring during a clinical trial, together with Perceptive's trial management and portal solutions, will give clients visibility into the efficacy and safety profiles of their compounds."
The LifeShirt System monitors subjects' physiologic parameters 24/7 as they go about their day, enabling them to carry out normal activities without interruption. As a result, trial researchers are able to garner more realistic data. Additionally, providing subjects with the ability to be monitored during normal activity significantly lowers the inconvenience of participation.
"Teaming with Perceptive was a natural fit for VivoMetrics," said James D. Utterback, President, Pharmaceutical Division of VivoMetrics. "I believe that the LifeShirt System is a completely novel way of collecting clinical data that complements Perceptive's expertise in implementing technologies that help reduce the time and costs associated with the clinical trial process."
Perceptive Informatics, Inc. develops and offers a portfolio of sophisticated and innovative technology-based products and services that facilitate clinical drug development and are designed to decrease time to peak sales. The technology portfolio includes web-based portal solutions and tracking tools, Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS), and clinical trial management systems (CTMS). IMPACT™ is Perceptive's market leading CTMS product and Initiator™ is a trial management product targeted to the needs of Phase I units. Perceptive offers advanced medical diagnostics services to assess rapidly and objectively the safety and efficacy of new drugs, biologics, and medical devices in clinical trials. The company also provides electronic data capture, electronic diary, and investigator database solutions. Perceptive is headquartered near Boston, MA with approximately 260 employees in offices located throughout North America and Europe. Perceptive Informatics is a subsidiary of PAREXEL International Corporation, one of the largest biopharmaceutical outsourcing organizations in the world, providing a broad range of knowledge-based contract research, medical marketing and consulting services to the worldwide pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. PAREXEL operates in 57 locations throughout 36 countries around the world, and has approximately 5,100 employees.
VivoMetrics is a privately held company that provides continuous ambulatory monitoring products and services for the collection, analysis and reporting of patient-specific physiologic data. The company's offerings, based on proprietary, field-tested technologies improve the process and economics of pharmaceutical clinical trials and allow for the collection of high-resolution physiologic data in "real-world" environments.
This release contains "forward-looking" statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. For this purpose, any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed forward-looking statements. Without limiting the foregoing, the words "believes", "anticipates", "plans", "expects", "intends", "appears", "estimates", "projects" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. PAREXEL's actual future results may differ significantly from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements contained in this release. Important factors that might cause such a difference include, but are not limited to, risks associated with: actual operating performance; actual expense savings and other operating improvements resulting from recent restructurings; the loss, modification, or delay of contracts; PAREXEL's dependence on certain industries and clients; PAREXEL's ability to win new business, manage growth, and attract and retain employees; PAREXEL's ability to complete additional acquisitions and to integrate newly acquired businesses or enter into new lines of business; government regulation of the drug, medical device and biotechnology industry; consolidation within the pharmaceutical industry; competition within the biopharmaceutical services industry; the potential for significant liability to clients and third parties; the potential adverse impact of health care reform; and the effects of exchange rate fluctuations and other international economic, political, and other risks. Such factors and others are discussed more fully in the section entitled "Risk Factors" of PAREXEL's Amendment No. 1 to Registration Statement on Form S-3/A, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 22, 2003, which "Risk Factors" discussion is incorporated by reference in this press release. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent PAREXEL's estimates as of the date of this release. PAREXEL specifically disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the future. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing PAREXEL's estimates or views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.
*LifeShirt and VivoLogic are trademarks of VivoMetrics, Inc.


Reflections of a Grady Doctor: Side effects.
This picture was taken on rounds the other day. . .just two seconds after my resident and I sang "Happy Birthday" to one of our patients. We sang it loud and proud and our patient just smiled and smiled. Man, how she smiled. My favorite part was the part where she was singing with us and substituted "Happy Birthdaaaay, dear ME-EEEE" for the part where we said her name. I also loved how she was waving her fingers high and animated like a conductor leading an orchestra through a beautiful masterpiece concerto.
People were wondering what the commotion was about and sticking their head in there and everything. That made her smile even more and us sing even louder and prouder. She then said, "Wow. I feel so special."
Yeah. That's what she said. And isn't it cool for someone to say that to you on their birthday? Because really, isn't that your goal on somebody's birthday? Like, isn't it really?
We examined her carefully and compared our findings that day on rounds. Next we wrote orders for her medications and discussed the progress of what had her hospitalized. Yes, we did the business part and answered all of the questions, too. We crossed the 't's' and dotted the 'i's' and made sure about the things that needed to be made sure of. We sure did.
But the best therapy we had to offer that morning on rounds was when we sang "Happy Birthday." Loud and proud. . . .
Man. I love it when "feeling special" is a side effect of our treatment.
Yeah, I love those kind of side effects too!
Thanks for this. I needed to hear "some wonderful" today.
And that Happy Birthday song may have done more for her than ANY medication has done or will do.
That's the sort of side effect we could all live with.
Ode to a dreamer: So long.
You make a grown man cry.
Freeze Frame: Girls of summer.
Top Ten: The Kitchen Table.


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The top women's tennis stars are opting for exhibition play or rest as none of the Top 10 players on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour are in action as the 2008 season kicks off this week at the Mondial Australian Women's Hardcourts in Gold Coast, and at the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand.
Former No. 1 Amelie Mauresmo will try and kick-start her 2008 season in Gold Coast where the No. 18-ranked Frenchwoman is the No. 6 seed. Mauresmo's 2007 season was derailed by a combination of an emergency appendectomy, various injuries and lack of motivation. Mauresmo will open against a qualifier, with No. 4 seed Patty Schnyder lurking in the quarterfinals, and top seed Nicole Vaidisova in the semifinals. Other seeds at Gold Coast are Nadia Petrova, Dinara Safina, Shahar Peer, Sybille Bammer and Agnes Szavay.
No. 22-ranked Vera Zvonareva is the headliner in Auckland, with fellow Russian and poster-model Maria Kirilenko as the No. 2 seed amidst a low-powered field. The floater in the field to watch is the unseeded Lindsay Davenport, who opens against fellow American Laura Granville, with potential meetings including No. 5 seed Anabel Medina Garrigues in the second round, No. 4 Michaelaa Krajicek in the quarterfinals, and Kirilenko in the semis.
Last year Davenport alluded she would retire due to the birth of her first child, but the competition bug had her competing in three events after the delivery of son Jagger. davenport won the title in her first event back in Bali, then reaching the semifinals in Beijing and ended the year with a title win at Quebec City.
Safina is the defending champ at Gold Coast, ousting top seed Martina Hingis in the 2007 final. Jelena Jankovic, the 2007 winner at Auckland, this week opts to represent Serbia at the Hopman Cup. Last year she edged Zvonareva in the three-set final.


26 March marks Purple Day, where people from across the globe raise awareness for those affected by epilepsy. Roald Dahl's Marvellous Children's Charity is showing support for this marvellous awareness day. Some of our Roald Dahl Nurses recently took part in PET (Paediatric Epilepsy Training) courses to enhance their skills, enabling them to continue to provide expert care to families affected by epilepsy.
There are currently 32 Roald Dahl Epilepsy Specialist Nurses, caring for thousands of seriously ill children, young people and families affected by the condition. They work in communities in the UK, providing specialist support to help families manage their child's condition.
Roald Dahl's Marvellous Children's Charity supports all Roald Dahl Nurses, including those who care for families affected by epilepsy through the Roald Dahl Professional Development Package. This helps them to develop their career and their service by funding training opportunities such as the PET course.
Roald Dahl Epilepsy Nurse Specialist Teresa who recently attend the course said, "It enabled me to build upon my current knowledge of epilepsy and lead me to be more of an expert in my field. I feel this is an essential part of my role as I am responsible for giving complex information to families and professionals alike, as well as teaching epilepsy awareness in nurseries, schools and colleges."
Roald Dahl Epilepsy Nurse Specialist Lynn who also attended the course said, "Working with children and young people with complex epilepsy can be incredibly challenging and I want to ensure that the information and guidance provided by me offers the utmost support for my families, as I know how much of a difference this makes to them. The paediatric epilepsy training courses offer an incredible learning opportunity and I was lucky enough to attend the two day, PET2 thanks to the charity."
The charity is also planning a marvellous workshop in June which will bring together Roald Dahl Epilepsy Nurse Specialists to identify how we can further support the nurses. Find out more about Roald Dahl Nurses.


Create a fun and imaginative Easter banner using paper and Mod Melts.
Insert Milk Glass White Mod Melt into Mod Melter. Fill in the letters of choice on the Mod Mold. When cooled, remove letters from mold.
Punch 1" circles from the purple scrapbook paper. Glue to lavender paper leaving enough room in between circles to cut out.
Cut around the circle with scalloped pinking shears to create flowers.
Glue Mod Mold letters to circles.
Punch two small holes at the top of each flower shape. Weave baker's twine through flowers. Secure with glue on the back.
Tie to the Easter basket handle and secure with a drop of glue if needed.


WASHINGTON, March 26, 2017 – When President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act into law in 1862, he set in motion the development of a system of land grant colleges and helped create the foundation for U.S. agricultural research that's endured until today.
That foundation is still strong, thanks to formula funding established by Congress over the years, but there are new fears that the U.S. is no longer leading way in innovation.
Part of the answer is money, says Tom Grumbly, president of the Supporters of Agriculture Research (SoAR) Foundation. But perhaps an even bigger piece of the equation is finding the right policy and management system to govern the complex web of government-funded research programs. SoAR and its supporters are pushing for an overhaul in the next farm bill. They want a power shift at USDA to elevate the department's top scientist to a near-cabinet level position.
It's a big request, but not unprecedented as leaders throughout U.S. history have tried to change policy and management to get past immediate short-term issues and focus on the long game of science.
"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today," Lincoln said, way back when, and while he may have been talking about abolishing slavery, he could just as easily have been describing the need for America to invest in agricultural research.
Fast forward 150 years and current House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with Agri-Pulse.
Conaway will be helping write the next farm bill, but he won't be doing it alone, and the priority of Congress has always focused first and foremost on the safety net programs for America's farmers in Title I – not intangible promises of future cures and breakthroughs in Title VII, which deals with research.
But the future is closer than it seems as new plant and animal diseases present bigger and bigger threats, and that's pushing researchers harder than ever to get a single message to Congress in the lead-up to the 2018 farm bill: Better science and innovative policies are needed if farmers are going to be able to continue to feed the world.
It's not a new message, but it's becoming more urgent as the amount of arable land remains constant or shrinks and the world's population continues to grow.
Ironically, government funding for agriculture research continued to slide downward over the past 40 years as demand increased for farmers to produce more while using sustainable methods. In the early 1970s, about 6 and a half percent of federal research dollars went to agriculture science, according to Grumbly. That level is now down to just 3 percent.
It's the primary reason behind SoAR's latest all-out effort to get Congress to act. The group wants more money for researchers – a lot more money – but perhaps more importantly, it is advocating for a shakeup at USDA and a new structure for the way that federal programs are run.
This was the same message that lawmakers were getting from the research community more than a decade ago as the process to create the 2008 farm bill was in full swing. Demands for a new way of managing research were escalating and thousands of individual requests for increased research funding were pouring into the Senate and House Agriculture committees.
Sitting in his Longworth Building office on Capitol Hill, House staffer John Goldberg was feeling the pressure. Just a couple years earlier, in 2004, the USDA Research, Education and Economics Task Force, under the guidance of the esteemed plant biologist and medical doctor William Danforth, had submitted to Congress its report supporting the creation of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).
But Goldberg said he was certain more was needed. On the one hand, he had the NIFA report, on the other hand he had two competitive-grant programs that were very similar but also in conflict with each other.
There was a constituency that favored the grants in the Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems (IFAFS) and there were those who favored grants in the National Research Initiative (NRI), but Goldberg said the distinction were minor, and he came up with the idea to combine the two.
He went to his boss at the time – Rep. Bob Goodlatte – and pitched the idea for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, now well-known by the acronym AFRI. Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, said he liked it and told Goldberg to run with it.
"When we had the individual programs, we were thinning the resources, trying to push for funding," Goldberg said, explaining one rationale behind the combination.
The idea was initially a hit with other House and Senate staffers and gained enthusiastic support from the likes of Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. Collin Peterson. So AFRI was created, tucked into NIFA and Title VII of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008.
And AFRI has been the star jewel of ag research ever since.
Just last year, Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, hailed the grant program as America's best chance to combat avian influenza, the virus that forced farmers to destroy 48 million chickens and turkeys in 2015.
NIFA director Sonny Ramaswamy sat down with Agri-Pulse to talk about the program – its successes as well as shortcomings that have stood in the way of allowing it to shine even brighter.
"The vision articulated in creating NIFA and AFRI was not to use small amounts of money for evolutionary increases in knowledge, but truly revolutionary, transformative increases in knowledge," said Ramaswamy.
AFRI, he said, has been drawing on the excitement to innovate from the private sector, the academic sector and the government sector, he said, and the results have often been astonishing.
For example, when an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 touched down at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14, 2016, then-USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack was proudly waiting for it. That's because the jet fuel used to power the cross-country trip from Seattle, had been partially made from wood chips, and the science used to make that happen had been partially funded by a $40 million AFRI grant.
The House version of the 2008 farm bill tried to protect $200 million in mandatory funding for AFRI, but it didn't survive the conference committee. Still, AFRI has managed to prosper. Funding for the combined competitive grant program – the program that the research sector hoped would help propel agricultural research the way that medical research blossomed at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – has gotten incremental increases over the years, rising from an initial $190 million to its current level of about $350 million.
It's a substantial increase, so long as you don't compare it to the meteoric rise of research under NIH. In the mid-1970s, the government spent about $1 billion on both agriculture and medical research, Ramaswamy says. Today the NIH gets about $30 billion per year and more than 80 percent of it goes to pay the salaries of more than 300,000 scientists at about 2,500 universities and other institutions across the country.
In 1970s, SoAR's Grumbly said, $1 out of every $16 of total federal research money went to agriculture science. Today that ratio is about $1 out of every $30.
Pharmaceutical companies banded together in the 1980's to form Research America, a group that better enabled them to lobby successfully for massive increases in spending on medical research.
While SoAR – effectively the agricultural version of Research America – is lobbying hard and in the midst of yet another campaign to drum up support, medical science may always have the edge on Capitol Hill and with the public. That's perhaps the fault of our farmers and ranchers for keeping the country so well-fed -whereas most people have been impacted by cancer or other diseases that we all wish there was a cure for, not many know someone who has starved to death.
Barbara Glenn, CEO of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA), says there's no reason ag research shouldn't share the spotlight.
Much of the success of medical research is also attributed to the competitive nature of the NIH grants, and that's why Grumbly and others are pinning the hopes of farm research expansion on AFRI – the main competitive branch of research at NIFA – but SoAR and the science community aren't leaving out the formula-funded land grant university system and in-house science by the Agricultural Research Service. Indeed, beyond just the formula-funds, scientists at the nation's land grant universities have been pulling in about 80 percent of the competitive grants, and that's not expected to change.
It's not just AFRI that was the source of new competitive grant funding. Lawmakers also created the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) in the 2008 farm bill after prolific lobbying on behalf of fruit, vegetable, tree nut and horticulture producers.
It was in January of 2007 when USDA Secretary Mike Johanns presented Congress with a proposal for the 2008 farm bill (At the time it was still expected to be the 2007 farm bill), and specialty crops were highlighted like they had never had been before.
For two years the USDA had been holding farm bill forums across the country. After 52 of them, Johanns said that the message was clear: More specialty crop research was needed.
One of the results was that the USDA proposed $1 billion over 10 years for the SCRI, the first-ever national competitive grant program specifically for fruits, vegetables and other specialty crops.
But it wasn't just the USDA that was listening to groups like the United Fresh Produce Association. They were getting a warm reception on Capitol Hill and finding champions like Sen. Debbie Stabenow.
Not only did she say she'd support SCRI, but said she wanted an entire specialty crop title for the farm bill, one lobbyist recalls from a pre-farm bill meeting with the Michigan Democrat.
As a result, SCRI ended up getting $230 million in mandatory spending for the life of the 2008 farm bill. It wasn't as much as the Johnanns proposal, but more than either the Senate of the House proposed in their respective bills.
Lawmakers doubled down on the program in the 2014 farm bill, giving SCRI $80 million per year through 2018.
When it comes to the farm bill, there's just no competing with the safety net programs in Title I. And when it comes to getting the attention of farm state lawmakers, there's no better people to do that then the heads of some of the largest farm groups in the country that represent America's farmers and ranchers.
In May of last year SoAR, announced several new board members including Neil Dierks, CEO of the National Pork Producers Council; Chris Novak, CEO of the National Corn Growers Association; Richard Wilkins, then- president of the American Soybean Association and Farm Bureau member; and Erik Olson, senior strategic director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
And it was just four months later that Duvall – leader of the largest and most influential farming group in the country – penned his op-ed that got immediate cheers from the research sector.
It's statements like this that Grumbly points to when he talks about farmers' evolving priorities and the elevation of science on their priority lists.
Farmers may need science more than they know, but as the farm bill debate begins to rage and lawmakers are putting together the pieces of the 2018 legislation – not to mention the 2018 appropriations bill, scientists also need the farmers.
It's why Grumbly and his team at SoAR have been reaching out to the farm groups to get new allies.
"I think that's critical because I don't think that the appropriations committees of Congress or the authorizing committees for the farm bill will respond positively if it's only what seems to be the self-interest of the scientific community, urging them for more money," Grumbly explained. "It has to be the people whose lives actually depend on the results of research to make that case.
Randy Russell, president of the influential lobbying firm The Russell Group, said that the efforts are already working.
Part of Russell's job is meeting with senators, representatives and their staff, but he also spends time with the farm groups and he says he's seeing a real shift in priority there too.
"There is really a renewed interest in ag research – making it a priority in the upcoming farm bill," he said.
One of those farm groups that is making research a priority is the National Pork Producers Council.
About a month ago, NPPC CEO Neil Dierks gathered the group's farm bill task force from around the country to meet in Washington.
Dierks and the 17 representatives from the pork industry sat around a table in the group's headquarters, just a few blocks from Capitol Hill. The visiting farmers, meatpackers and other members settled on just two requests for Congress in the 2018 farm bill: The establishment of a foot and mouth disease vaccine bank and increased funding for agriculture research.
The NPPC board of directors approved both.
Dierks stressed, though, that it is research for all of agriculture that NPPC supports and not just studies that support swine production. Pork researchers, he said, will compete along with everyone else.
But there's a lot that researchers are asking Congress to support. Just as Congress agreed to a structural overhaul and created NIFA and AFRI in the 2008 farm bill, SoAR and its coalition are asking for big changes again.
They want new policy that will add mandatory funding for AFRI – something that's never been done – and they want a stronger and more independent NIFA director.
Russell explained that rather than a USDA Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics (REE) that encompasses the entire mission area, what's called for is a powerful director who is also the chief scientist and has only two core responsibilities: the intramural research that's conducted by in-house scientists and extramural research conducted under competitive grants.
"I think we need to change the culture, change the management and then the funding will follow," Russell said.
Lawmakers authorized AFRI at $700 million when the program was created in 2008, but it's never gotten the budget to match. Today it stands at about just half that, but Grumbly and others are confident they'll get there soon and SoAR has structured its funding proposal on that bet.
The proposal stipulates that the first $700 million in AFRI's yearly spending would still come from discretionary funds, but reaching that target would trigger the ability to use mandatory funds.
The proposal, Grumbly said, would eventually add about $1 billion to the overall research budget at USDA.
Another leader in the science community that's going to be fighting to thrive in the 2018 farm bill is Sally Rockey, the executive director for the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR).
FFAR is another attempt by lawmakers to energize agricultural science and Rockey – who works out of a nondescript building near D.C.'s Chinatown with a meager staff of 12 – said the Foundation is doing exactly that.
The Foundation matches government funds to private investment for research that might otherwise go unfunded in more common competitive or land grant research programs.
Created in the 2014 farm bill and championed by Democratic Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Amy Klobuchar and Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, the Foundation may have gotten off to a slow start, but that's changing this year.
In fact, the foundation recently announce its first major collaboration on a grant to sponsor a study into improving the nation's soil health. FFAR, together with the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, will be funding a $6.6 million study on cover crops in five states.
But that's just the beginning. FFAR, together with agricultural businesses, universities and other foundations, plans to fund at least $62 million worth of projects, according to a FFAR spokeswoman. Last year – the second of the Foundation's existence – it handed out a total of $4.8 million to nine university researchers.
"We're really hitting our stride now," said Rockey, who has previously worked for both USDA and the National Institutes of Health.
Altogether, though, that's a major chunk of the Foundation's finite funds. It was given $200 million in mandatory funds by Congress, but when that runs out it doesn't replenish.
Rockey said she hasn't begun focusing on making the case to reauthorize FFAR in the next farm bill, but stresses it shouldn't be too hard of a sell.
SoAR, meanwhile, is asking for a lot of money, but scientists around the country have already shown that they are producing significant results from what little is already available.
It's not just research that allows woodchips to fuel airplanes that is being made possible by AFRI. Ohio State scientists are using funds from the program to improve the immune systems of chickens and help fight off avian influenza.
At North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University scientists used AFRI funds to help remove 98 percent of the allergens in peanuts. The school has patented the process and licensed it to companies that are working on getting the peanuts onto the market.
Recombinetics Inc., based in St. Paul, Minnesota, used $435,000 of AFRI grant money to breed cattle without horns through gene editing. De-horning cattle is must for the dairy industry in order to prevent the animals from injuring each other, but the process is time consuming, expensive and, for the cattle, unpleasant.
Researchers have bred cattle conventionally without horns in the past, but a side effect was they produced lower-quality milk. The gene-edited cattle don't have that problem.
And at Texas A&M University, AFRI funds went into studying the genomes of thousands of beef and dairy cattle from New Mexico, Colorado, California, Washington and Texas. Researchers were looking for genetic variants associated with the susceptibility to bovine respiratory disease. Christopher Seabury, one of the project scientists, said they were successful.
Using their results, Seabury predicted that ranches and dairies will be able to significantly keep the disease out of future herds, saving the industry billions of dollars.
But he also stressed that the funding is just not there for many scientists with projects just as valuable as his.
Seabury, who spoke at a recent briefing for Capitol Hill staffers, said he serves on five separate panels that choose grant recipients from the hundreds of proposals that are submitted.
Under a typical panel, he said, there may be up to 250 applicants that have to be judged. Of those 250, there are usually 25 to 45 proposals that are deemed "outstanding" and given high priority. But only between eight and 12 are actually funded, Seabury said.
"We're actually rate-limiting ourselves in terms of the amount of agricultural progress and food security that we could have in the United States in terms of sustainable agriculture by not investing in our future," he told the Hill staffers.
NIFA's Ramaswamy gave Agri-Pulse a higher estimate of grant approvals – he said an average of one in 10 is approved – but still called it an "incredibly tough" rate.
Gary Felton, head of the Entomology Department at Penn State University and another of the visiting scientists who took part in the Hill briefing, called it a sad situation.
The problem is so bad, Seabury said, that foreign governments are trying to poach our scientists and their research.
It was just a couple of weeks ago at a meeting held by the American Association for the Advancement of Science that Felton noticed something he'd never seen before at one of these gatherings.
Scientists were carrying their papers and other documents in bags with a European Union logo on them. Not only that, but EU representatives were handing out pamphlets, inviting U.S. scientists to take their work across the Atlantic Ocean.
But it's not just the EU that's ramping up investment in agricultural research so much that they are willing to pay for U.S. science. It's also China, India, Brazil and Australia.
The investments those countries and others are making have already begun to show results, said Russell.
If the results of all of that research that China is funding were made available to the world, that might be acceptable. But with China, that's often not the case, scientists say.
If the thought of losing research superiority to China isn't enough to get lawmakers behind agriculture research, the scientific community has another card up its sleeve: the threat of impending disaster for major crops.
U.S. farmers grow about 2 billion bushels of wheat every year to make the bread, pizza dough, donuts, pretzels, cookies and noodles that we eat. And it's all at risk from a devastating fungus that's making its way around the world and wreaking havoc in the fields it touches.
Just one spore of the Triticum pathotype of the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae – known more commonly as wheat blast – is enough to kill a wheat head. A severe infection can wipe out a farmer's entire crop. That's the scene that replayed over and over in Bangladesh last year.
The closely related rice blast has been around for about 7,000 years and farmers are equipped to deal with it, according to Barbara Valent, a Kansas State University researcher and the preeminent expert on the fungus in the U.S. But wheat blast was first detected only about 20 years ago in South America and farmers still have no real defenses.
It's still not completely clear how the fungus got to Bangladesh, but Valent said it can travel through the seed and grain trade. And that's scary, she warned.
The fungus that caused between 30 percent and 100 percent losses throughout southern Bangladesh last year has not reached the U.S. yet, but Valent fears it's only a matter of time.
Researchers at Kansas State, the University of Arkansas, the University of Kentucky, Ohio State, Purdue University, and USDA's own Agricultural Research Service have received about $5.4 million in AFRI funds since 2009 to fight both wheat and rice blast, according to NIFA.
Scientists have used that money to come up with the first wheat gene that's resistant to the blast fungus, but that's not nearly enough, Valent said. There are hundreds of resistant genes for rice blast and now there's only one for wheat – and that one's not very effective.
Meanwhile, Valent is leading the effort to try to detect what she calls a "cereal killer" that's on the move again and has likely already spread to crops in India this year.
Detection is key she said, because the fungus could arrive in U.S. fields and begin spreading long before farmers know it's there. It's complex work she said, but it's not just time that's running out – it's money, too.
There's also a threat to the U.S. orange juice industry. Unlike wheat blast, the tree-killing Huanglongbing disease, or citrus greening, has ravaged Florida orange groves for years and is quickly bringing the industry to its knees.
USDA is now predicting that Florida will produce just 71 million boxes of oranges this year, That's a 13 percent decline from just last year and less than half of the 162 million boxes produced in 2009, before citrus greening took hold in the state's groves, according to Candice Erick, head of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The statistics are a morbid testament to how fast the disease spreads on the wings of the Asian citrus psyllid.
The Agriculture Department has spent about $400 million since 2009 on research to combat the disease, which causes fruit to shrivel and become unsellable as well as eventually killing the trees. In January, NIFA announced $13.6 million in new SCRI competitive grants to try to save Florida's groves.
Perhaps one of the most promising efforts is a Clemson University research project led by Feng Luo. NIFA is giving him and his team $4.3 million this year to start a five-year study to create new lines of breeding that are resistant to citrus greening.
Luo is sampling citrus trees across the state of Florida, hunting for "mutants" that can naturally survive the deadly bacteria. Once he has enough mutants, he'll be able to compare them to the more normal, susceptible trees and isolate the genetic targets that the bacteria latch onto.
Once those targets are established, Luo said, it should be easy to just remove them using the gene editing technique called CRISPR/Cas 9.
What won't be easy is getting Congress to increase funding for AFRI and make the authorizing changes for the program that groups such as SoAR are after.
Putting aside all of the evidence that scientific gains are essential to feeding the U.S. and the rest of the world, it just doesn't seem that urgent to many when compared to tanking commodity prices, rising farm debt, sinking profit margins and endangered international trade pacts.
The House Agriculture subcommittee on research, chaired by Illinois Republican Rodney Davis, recently held its first farm bill hearing and only four reporters showed. Most of the audience chairs were filled in the hearing room, but several members of the panel didn't show up to listen to testimony and ask questions.
The research community can make its case, but it can't make lawmakers listen.
It's unclear, though, if Congress is at that juncture yet.
The same day of Davis' subcommittee hearing, President Donald Trump released his "America First" budget proposal for fiscal year 2018. Not a lot of details were included in the "blueprint" document, but it did include a line promising to keep AFRI stable at $350 million, still just half of the 2014 farm bill authorization.
Still, it had to be a letdown for the scientists, their supporters and lobbyists in the hearing room. Just a year ago the Obama administration released its budget plan, calling for a full funding of $700 million for AFRI.
But after the gavel went down on the subcommittee hearing and the reporters gathered around the chairman, Davis assured them that he would keep fighting for more research funding.


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From post-war to post-conflict
A year after the military defeat of the LTTE, Sri Lanka is faced with the challenge of moving from its current post-war state to a post-conflict one. This entails that the sources of the conflict that plagued the country for over three decades are not sustained and reproduced. The priorities should be: peace via a political settlement; reconciliation through ameliorating the plight of the Internally Displaced Persons; the reversal of the culture of impunity promoted by human rights violations; and promoting unity by resisting the assertion of majoritarianism.
However, current government policy is on a different trajectory, in which economic development is posited as the panacea to achieve peace, reconciliation and national unity. In this perspective, economics is not only given precedence over politics but it is assumed that economic development will blunt political aspirations and grievances. Civil and political rights are at best considered irrelevant or of secondary importance and in extreme cases, downright subversive. In pursuing economic development with the same single-minded purpose it pursued military victory, the Rajapaksa government also intends to change the political culture of the country from the more boisterous and pluralistic one shared with India—characterised by an implicit faith in democratic norms and traditions—to a more disciplined and monolithic one along the lines of some South East Asian states, with their over-emphasis on the economic and suppression of the political.
While the end of the war has ensured an increase in economic activity, it is by no means assured that the expected post-war boom will underpin the government's ambitious plans to make Sri Lanka a key economic hub of South Asia. The economic developments projects for the North and East, designed and implemented from Colombo with little or no local consultation, arouse suspicions about attempts to change the demographic composition through majority community colonisation in the guise of development. The emphasis is currently on tourism and infrastructure, with considerable dependence on Chinese and Indian assistance and investment. The government has also taken a substantial IMF loan which entails considerable reduction in the budget deficit and public spending as well as the re-orientation of economic ties towards Asia's emerging powers.
Credit: Hafiz Issadeen
There appears to be no urgency with regard to a political settlement of the ethnic conflict. The recent focus of constitutional reform has been on the removal of the two six-year term bar on the executive presidency. A resolution of the ethnic conflict revolves around the scheme of provincial devolution ushered in by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution following the India-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987. Despite preliminary talks between the regime and the main Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance, there has been little progress on the subject of devolving more powers to the provinces within a united Sri Lanka and its current unitary constitutional framework.
The situation of the IDPs, though far removed from their incarceration in camps in tens of thousands immediately after the war, is far from settled. Some 30,000 out of the initial 300,000 still remain in camps along with another 10,000 surrendered fighters, who have been denied access to the international Red Cross. The majority of those let out of the camps is in transit camps and host families, since its return to homes is hampered by the slow pace of de-mining operations, establishment of military high-security zones and problems related to proof of land ownership.
The government's unwillingness to reverse the culture of impunity in dealing with human rights violations—fuelled by allegations of war crimes by both sides in the last days of the war—is at the heart of the criticisms leveled against it by local and international civil society organisations. The UN Secretary General has set up a panel to advise him on this issue in the face of strident objections from the Rajapaksa government. A leading cabinet minister led an attempted siege of the UN compound in Colombo and embarked on a fast to death unless the panel was disbanded. The UN Secretary General, however, stood firm and the fast was abandoned after two days. Sri Lanka has also lost the European Union's GSP Plus preferential trade concessions after failing to ratify and effectively implement 27 international human rights instruments and labour standards.
The Rajapaksa government's response has been to allege infringements of national sovereignty by the West and Western resentment of Sri Lanka's defeat of terrorism. It points out that these criticisms are unfair since it has established a Presidential Commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation (LLRC). Sri Lanka, however, has a dismal past record on such commissions. Their reports are neither made public nor their recommendations adopted. This has been the case with at least two high profile commissions on human rights violations in the last five years. One of them had an international panel attached to it, which quit in frustration after identifying the Attorney General's (AG) office—the AG headed the LLRC—as a key obstacle to their work. The current LLRC has neither any investigative powers nor a witness and victim protection scheme.
The regime's hyper-sensitivity on the issue of accountability is a major driver of its closeness to China, Russia and Iran. This has raised questions about Beijing's intentions in the Indian Ocean region and of Sri Lanka being turned into the site of Sino-Indian strategic competition. Notwithstanding the attempts to downplay the same, India's role remains pivotal to the process of a political settlement of the conflict. The Rajapaksa government, for its part, has steadfastly maintained that its relations with Delhi are founded on age-old cultural bonds and geo-political realities whereas Chinese interests in Sri Lanka are economic—assistance for infrastructural development—rather than military.
Peace without unity, unity without reconciliation, and reconciliation without accountability—these are the dilemmas that both the regime and society will have to bridge if Sri Lanka is to fully grasp the historic opportunity presented by the end of the war. Only then can Sri Lanka transform from a post-war environment to the post-conflict period of growth and reconciliation.


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Q: Ag Grid: How do I know which row group was removed when a user removes one? When using an Ag Grid with Angular 6, when I listen for the columnRowGroupChanged event that fires when "A row group column was added or removed", if the user removes a row group, how do I determine which row group was removed?

A: You will need to compare this manually by using columnApi.getRowGroupColumns():
  // gets all column definitions that are grouped
  let groupedColumns = this.gridOptions.columnApi.getRowGroupColumns();

before/after the columnRowGroupChanged event.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
abookofmusic
============

Make music in artist biographies in ebooks playable

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Irish museum voted Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction for 2019
The Irish Emigration Museum (EPIC) has been voted Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction at the 26th annual World Travel Awards.
Michael Dorgan
@M_Dorgan
The Irish Emigration Museum (EPIC) has been voted Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction at the 26th annual World Travel Awards. Getty Images
The awards are Europe's most prestigious global travel industry accolade and EPIC Museum beat off stiff competition from Buckingham Palace, the Roman Colosseum and the Eiffel Tower to take the gong.
Read More: Ireland's most unusual tourist attractions
The award comes just three years after opening its doors in Dublin by former Irish president Mary Robinson, surpassing many long-standing tourist attractions such as Greece's Acropolis, Barcelona's Sagrada Família, Portugal's Ribeira do Porto and Rome's Colosseum.
The Irish Emigration Museum (EPIC) has been voted Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction at the 26th annual World Travel Awards. Image: EPIC
"It is truly an honor to receive an award of this magnitude; we are delighted to be named Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction for 2019," said EPIC founder, Neville Isdell.
"We have thoroughly enjoyed welcoming the tens of thousands of people who have visited us both from Ireland and overseas each year and look forward to welcoming many more.
Read More: Ireland's emigrant museum offers Donald Trump immigration education ahead of visit
"I have always believed that the story of Irish people around the world was worth telling.
"When we opened in 2016, we had a vision to create a local museum that could connect globally."
A visitor experiencing Ireland's EPIC Museum. Image: EPIC
The museum expects to welcome over 300,000 visitors this year, shows the far-reaching influence of Irish people and covers 1,500 years of Irish history.
Speaking about the museum, Isdell said: "It tells the powerful story of 10 million Irish people who traveled abroad to start a new life have had, including the contributions they have made, and the enormous influence they had and continue to have on the world.
Read More: The woman who changed Ireland - Mary Robinson turns 75
"It's very important that we honor the Irish diaspora abroad and recognize the vital contributions and monumental impact Irish people have made worldwide."
EPIC, a state-of-the-art interactive museum
The museum takes visitors on a journey of emigration from Ireland, to the far corners of the globe including America, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
Galleries in the state-of-the-art interactive museum illustrate the incredible global impact Irish emigrants have had on areas such as sport, music, dance, creativity, charity, politics, science and technology.
Visitors get hands-on with Irish culture and its past – swiping through video galleries, dancing through motion sensor quizzes, listening to remastered audio from 100 years ago and watching videos that bring Irish history to life.
Other highlights include a gallery of infamous Irish rogues, a whispering library featuring some of Ireland's most prominent Irish writers, a celebration of Irish music and dance, which includes Riverdance, and an Irish Family History Centre where visitors can consult with a genealogy expert to learn more about their own family history.
Read More: WIN premium tour passes to the Irish Whiskey Museum
The World Travel Awards are renowned as the most prestigious and comprehensive in the global industry and previous winners include the Guinness Storehouse and the London Eye.
"Each year, the World Travel Awards ceremonies are regarded as milestone events in the industry calendar, attended by the industry's key decision makers and figureheads, as well as trade and consumer media," said Isdell.
"The WTA brand is recognized globally as the ultimate hallmark of quality, with winners setting the benchmark to which all others aspire."
To purchase tickets for Europe's number one attraction, visit www.epicchq.com.
Have you ever visited Dublin's EPIC Museum? Let us know in the comments below
Traveling to Ireland in 2019: Are you hoping or planning to travel to Ireland this year? Join with other travelers, adventurers and lovers of Ireland in our dedicated travel group, where you can find top tips, great recommendations, and air out any of your concerns and questions.
Related: Dublin, Immigration, Inspiring, Irish American


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Home > ULR > Vol. 2014 > No. 4
Is Congress Now the Broken Branch?
Barbara Sinclair
The Struggle over Executive Appointments
John C. Roberts
Managing Political Polarization in Congress: A Case Study on the Use of the Hastert Rule
Holly Fechner
Actually We Should Wait: Evaluating the Obama Administration's Commitment to Unilateral Executive-Branch Action
William P. Marshall
Holding the President Accountable to Constitutional Limits
Executive Power in the Obama Administration and the Decision to Seek Congressional Authorization for a Military Attack Against Syria: Implications for Theories of Unilateral Action
Kenneth R. Mayer
Democracy-Assisting Judicial Review and the Challenge of Partisan Polarization
Terri Peretti
Unequal Inequalities? Poverty, Sexual Orientation, and the Dynamics of Constitutional Law
Jane S. Schacter
Reinvigorating the Judiciary's Role in Resolving Interbranch Disputes
Michael Teter
Unfunded Federal Mandates and State Judiciaries: A Question of Sovereignty
Christine M. Durham and Brian L. Hazen
The Real World of Interdependence of Governments and Corporations: What We Know vs. What We Teach
David Menefee-Libey, Charles Herman, Chad Powell, and Jeffrey Zalesin
All Issues Vol. 2023, No. 1 Vol. 2022, No. 5 Vol. 2022, No. 4 Vol. 2022, No. 3 Vol. 2022, No. 2 Vol. 2022, No. 1 Vol. 2021, No. 5 Vol. 2021, No. 4 Vol. 2021, No. 3 Vol. 2021, No. 2 Vol. 2021, No. 1 Vol. 2020, No. 5 Vol. 2020, No. 4 Vol. 2020, No. 3 Vol. 2020, No. 2 Vol. 2020, No. 1 Vol. 2019, No. 5 Vol. 2019, No. 4 Vol. 2019, No. 3 Vol. 2019, No. 2 Vol. 2019, No. 1 Vol. 2018, No. 5 Vol. 2018, No. 4 Vol. 2018, No. 3 Vol. 2018, No. 2 Vol. 2018, No. 1 Vol. 2017, No. 5 Vol. 2017, No. 4 Vol. 2017, No. 3 Vol. 2017, No. 2 Vol. 2017, No. 1 Vol. 2016, No. 5 Vol. 2016, No. 4 Vol. 2016, No. 3 Vol. 2016, No. 2 Vol. 2016, No. 1 Vol. 2015, No. 5 Vol. 2015, No. 4 Vol. 2015, No. 3 Vol. 2015, No. 2 Vol. 2015, No. 1 Vol. 2014, No. 5 Vol. 2014, No. 4 Vol. 2014, No. 3 Vol. 2014, No. 2 Vol. 2014, No. 1 Vol. 2013, No. 5 Vol. 2006, No. 4


A complete textbook of liquid chromatography by Yuri Kazakevich and Harold McNair on the Web. Extraordinarily comprehensive in its coverage of fundamental chromatographic theory and instrumentation for a website.
This eleven-minute video clip offers information how to organize a school binder.
Aquaculture is the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a re-circulating system. Growing Power uses Tilapia and Yellow Perch to fertilize a variety of crops and herbs using aquaponics. Currently, we have three Tilapia systems and six Yellow Perch aquaponics systems in our greenhouses at our urban farm in Milwaukee.
26th September 1935 Number 371 Leslie Thompson, baker. Number 373 Harry Smith, grocer. Number 369 British and Argentine Meat Co. Ltd, butcher. Number 3 Thrift Stores Ltd. grocers. Goods visible in the shop windows.
This brief online article show students how to use a formula called the biodiversity index to describe the amount of species diversity in a given area. The article starts with an explanation of why an environment with a single species of adapted plants is more at risk. Two sample calculations are given along with the formula, illustrating how the formula can be applied to a carrot patch or a forest area.
Will the Real Cinderella Please Stand Up?
Students learn that folk stories can be told in many ways and learn to write their own Cinderella story and script according to their own gender or culture. They also become aware of the steps that are necessary to make a film as they learn the various parts that go into the process.


yoga energy, are you feeling tired or are you alive and bouncing?
Yoga energy: How is your energy today?
In the west we tend to think of our own energy in this rather simple and limited way. While yoga and other eastern traditions have a more expansive understanding of energy flow.
While we also have only one word for love, regardless of whether we are talking about our, mother, friend, lover or our dog, the ancient Greeks had six words to describe the different types of love we may feel in the different relationships we have. In a similar way, the ancient yoga and tantric texts mapped out the flow of energy within ourselves and within the universe.
One of these yogic traditions tells us that the human being consists of five 'sheaths' or layers. In Sanskrit, the ancient spiritual language of India, the layers are called Koshas. They begin at the most subtlest form and like the Big Bang which created the universe, they flow outward, each layer becoming denser until matter is formed and we have become a physical body.
The most subtle layer is the bliss body which unfolds into the wisdom body, which unfolds into the mental layer. The mental layer consists of thoughts and from our thoughts, an energetic structure or field is created.
Imagine a human shaped energy matrix consisting of energy channels flowing one to another like blood vessels or nerve pathways. The energy field known as the Pranamaya Kosha, provides the structure from which the physical body maps itself around. It is the bridge between body and mind and is sustained by thoughts, breath, sleep and diet.
Starting at the densest place and most easy for us to comprehend, the physical body; the practises in Yoga point us back towards the bliss body.
Through asana, right diet and balanced lifestyle we hone the physical layer.
Pranayama, or control of the breath, bridges the body and mind and removes blockages in the energetic layer.
Through meditation we access the higher mind and wisdom arises.
The ego, ahamkara – the part of ourselves which identifies as an individual, quietens or is transcended and we reach into the bliss layer.
Through yoga, journey deep into who you are. Tap into the energetic structure of your body and find physical and mental health and wellbeing.
Discover the beauty of the yogic maps of being human.
In the picture: Rachael Wharton practising Nadi Shodhana – Alternate nostril breath which physically balances the right and left hemispheres of the brain, while effecting the Ida and Pingala energy channels running the length of the spine. Ida: the feminine channel, lunar energy, mysticism, intuition, creativity, yin energy. Pingala: the masculine channel, solar energy, action, logic, yang energy. Rachael Wharton teaches drop in classes, one to one sessions and restorative workshops Find out more on Rachael's website. You can also immerse yourself in truly deep rest and wellbeing at Tara Casa in Spain. Find out about Yoga retreats and venue hire for teachers at Tara Casa.


Should he get Ofsteded? Vote here!
Discussion in 'Personal' started by TheoGriff, Jan 12, 2011.
David Miliband, ex-Education Minister, ex-Leader candidate, and untrained and inexperienced as a teacher, is going to start teaching.
School seems to have its last Inspection in 2008. So not really time yet. But should there be a special Ofsted Inspection when he starts?
Perhaps we'll ask Gail to make it her Vote Of The Week . . .
Isn't he a sitting MP?
... him and his brother look like that is what they are.
Has he been CRB and List 99 checked?
The 'Safer Recruitment' training (online) which I underwent highlighted the need for recruiters to make note of unusual or off-beat personalities. In that respect, Miliband is Legion!
Will his total lack of bias in the politics lessons be equally dismissive of all the party leaderships?
Teaching at haverstock combined not onl with role as MP but with a position at Sunderland FC.
I'd have more respect for him if he went to teach in Sunderland tbh.
The political bias point is interesting. What qualifies him to do this? Has he done a PGCE?
Sounds like he will just pop into a-level politics classes to me.
Just read that the p-t Sunderland Footie job pays £50k . . .
What's the difference between schools in Sunderland and those in central London?
Have you ever been to Sunderland?
London is a haven in comparison.


"The Faith of Men" is a short story collection originally published in 1904 and contains eight of Jack London's adventure tales, all of them set in London's favorite milieu - the Yukon Territory.
"A Relic of the Pliocene" concerns a "homely, blue-eyed, freckle-faced" hunter named Thomas Stevens and his tracking and eventual killing of a prehistoric mammoth.
"A Hyperborean Brew" also concerns Thomas Stevens and his schemes.
"In Batard," an evil master makes a monster of an evil dog.
Other stories included are "The Faith of Men," "Too Much Gold," "The One Thousand Dozen," "The Marriage of Lit-Lit," "Batard," and "The Story of Jees Uck."
... ranging from "1,000 Dozen Eggs" to "Batard" through "The Marriage of Lin-Lin" (and much more).....all short stories set in the Klondike, involving meticulous action descrptions (and, at times, a sense of incredulity) that range from hunting and killing a wooly mammoth to the heart-bteaking "Batard". Please don't miss this collection of short stories.


text:
<< Monowheel!
switch >>
fear the forward march of nature
Girl finds two-headed toad in Hopkinton
The two amphibians are conjoined, un-identical twins. [...] The two toads are stacked on top of each other. The one on the bottom is larger and darker. The larger toad appears to be normal, except for the second toad attached to its back. The toad on top is smaller and a lighter color. Its front legs have grown into the back of the larger frog, and it appears the bottom jaw may be connected to the larger toad's head.
"I don't know how it eats," Amy Dicken, Casey's mother said.
Tags: parts
16 years ago at 9:12 pm
I have vague memories of a journalism class teaching me to write news stories with the most important information first, then filling it out with less and less important details.
So of course I'm grateful that they got everyone's cute reactions to the naughty naughty mutant frog before mentioning pollution - perhaps because this implies that conjoined porking frogs might not be a good sign.
At least we can all sleep easier knowing it (they?) is (are?) in a bucket.
josephgrossberg says:
16 years ago at 11:37 pm
1) Well, we don't *know* it's because of the pollution. We do *know* what their reactions were. ;)
2) Now that it's in a bucket, I *really* don't know how it eats. Hope they drop some food in that bucket or get it to the lab real fast.
nategodin says:
16 years ago at 12:53 am
That's called "amplexus", which is Latin for "toad fucking". The real mutant frogs are in Minnesota.
16 years ago at 4:56 am
I (foolishly) assumed that since they make a toad-fucking joke in the article that somebody had jammed a popsicle stick in there to check what was going on.
Perhaps the topic can be salvaged if we shift the focus onto the kind of sexual repression that would tell their kid the frogs were mutants instead of explaining the concept of froggy style intercourse.
So wait, you mean that frogs are so enthusiastic that they won't abort the docking maneuver when you pick them up? Now that is focus!
I believe the biological term is fuckus.
eminence_gris says:
Three Frenchmen are arguing about the true meaning of savoir-faire.
The first says, "When you encounter your wife in bed with another man, but you calmly close the door and leave them to their business, then that is savoir-faire."
The second says, "No. If you encounter your wife in bed with another man, and then say 'Excuse me, please continue,' and then leave them to their business, then that is savoir-faire."
The third says, "No. If you encounter your wife in bed with another man, and then say 'Excuse me, please continue,' and he can continue, then he has savoir-faire."
msjen says:
"The larger toad appears to be normal, except for the second toad attached to its back."
(I can't actually stop laughing long enough to think of something witty to say about this.)


The new part-time, blended learning MSc and Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Pharmacy Practice (Primary Care) is designed for experienced pharmacists looking to develop new competencies at an advanced level.
You'll develop the clinical and advanced therapeutic skills required to work effectively in a GP practice, enhancing your ability to deliver safe and effective patient-centred care in partnership with multi-disciplinary teams.
You can proceed to MSc level by completing an additional two modules in a third year, including a Quality and Service Improvement project.
A number of optional modules are delivered face-to-face with other health care professionals in the Faculty of Health Studies, allowing inter-professional learning to take place.
An IELTS score of 7.0 is required in each of the four subsets, in order to align our English language requirements with those of the regulatory body for practising pharmacists, the GPhC.
This programme provides education and training for experienced pharmacists, who may be changing sector, to develop advanced level knowledge and skills whilst working in a GP practice. Working as part of a multidisciplinary team is key to the development of relationships and experience in any clinical setting and the University of Bradford School of Pharmacy & Medical Sciences is well positioned to ensure that multidisciplinary learning and working is at the forefront of the course design due to its close involvement with programmes for other allied health professionals including physician associates, nurses and paramedics.
All modules have been mapped to the RPS Advanced Pharmacist Framework.
* Students must choose one of these three modules as part of their three optional module choices.
If a student has already completed LEM7017-C then they may chose another 30 credit specified in year 1 or 2.
The mode of assessment will vary depending on your personal choice of modules. On induction, you will be guided through a learning needs analysis to help identify the most appropriate module choices for you.
Work based assessments will include pharmaceutical care plans, reflective journals and case based discussions. You will also undertake written assignments and OSCEs in some modules.
The topic for the final year Quality and Service Improvement project will be agreed between you, your GP Practice and the module tutor, allowing the outcomes of your project to direct and evaluate service improvement within your own workplace.
There has been an increasing shift of health services into primary care, driven by NHS policy. It has been recognised that pharmacists are a crucial part of the plan to address the increased workforce needs in General Practice.
This programme is designed to provide education and training so that experienced pharmacists are able to work alongside GPs in a variety of senior roles identified and endorsed by the Royal College of General Practice (RCGP), the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and the Primary Care Pharmacist Association (PCPA) in their document entitled 'A guide for GPs considering employing a practice pharmacist'.
The School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences employs experienced pharmacists working in primary care and has close links with primary care practice to guide you in career choices.
You will have an academic tutor assigned to support you throughout the programme. You will map yourself against the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) Advanced Pharmacy Framework, which will prepare you for application to the RPS Faculty.
The School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences has an excellent national and international reputation in practice research.
The most recent Research Excellence Framework (2014) exercise rated 92% of our Pharmacy research as of international quality/world-leading.
Staff teaching on the programme are active members of the School's Medicines Optimisation Research Group.


The Falmouth Memorial Library depends on a dedicated group of community volunteers for many day-to-day tasks. For both new and longtime residents of Falmouth, being a volunteer both supports our library and provides an opportunity to interact with the hundreds of people who visit each day. Volunteers are trained for their specific tasks of interest by the library staff.