text:
COVID-19 More Severe for Some Minorities at Different Stages of the Disease
Istock (Model(s) used for illustrative purposes only)
Black patients are more likely to require hospitalization, while Asian patients are at greater risk of dying in the hospital.
October 19, 2020 • By Alicia Green
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the coronavirus has affected minorities more than white people. Now, new findings published in the journal EClinicalMedicine further highlight racial disparities in connection with COVID-19, showing that Black and Asian patients bear an increased risk for severe disease at different stages of the illness as compared with their white counterparts, reports King's College London.
For the study, researchers reviewed data from 1,827 adults who were admitted to King's College Hospital in London with COVID-19 diagnoses between March 1 and June 2. Investigators checked mortality in this group, while also comparing about 872 admitted patients with a group of matched controls who resided in the same region of inner Southeast London.
Of the 872 admitted patients, 41% were Black, 33.7% were white, 12.6% were mixed race/ethnicity and 5.6% were Asian.
The findings showed that Black people and those of mixed ethnicity faced a threefold higher risk of requiring admission to the hospital for COVID-19 than white individuals living in the same region. After adjusting for coexisting conditions and poverty, Black patients still exhibited a 2.2- to 2.7-fold higher risk of hospital admission. But their survival rates didn't significantly differ from those of white patients.
Hospital admission rates for Asian patients were similar to those for white patients. However, Asians were more likely to die in the hospital and to need to be admitted to the intensive care unit than people from the other groups.
In addition, researchers noted that minority patients were 10 to 15 years younger than white patients with more comorbidities, in particular diabetes. This led scientists to conclude that such health problems, along with socioeconomic issues, contributed to COVID-19's impact on minority communities.
Still, scientists believe that other factors, such as those connected with biology, may also play a key role in how the virus affects people of different ethnicities in disparate ways.
One expert, Ajay Shah, a professor of cardiology and the head of the School of Cardiovascular Medicine & Sciences at King's College, suggested that biological factors are important and that we may need different treatment strategies for different ethnic groups.
For related coverage, read "Minorities Are Underrepresented in COVID-19 Clinical Trials" and "How States Are Addressing COVID-19 Racial Disparities."
#African American
#death
#health equity
#hospital
How $10M From Drugmaker Gilead Sciences Promotes Racial Equity
Why Are More Black Americans Left Off Liver Transplant Waiting Lists?
Hip-Hop Mogul Dr. Dre Recovering After a Brain Aneurysm
Police Use of Neck Restraints Isn't Medically Justified

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


. DCI Paid vacation after 1 year. Our equipment, talented manufacturing personnel, and quality systems assure a high quality product produced on time at a competitive price. DC Industries, Inc.DCI DC Industries, Inc.CNC Machining For production parts we provide detailed work instructions and quality inspection plans for each part. contract machining. DCI Paid vacation after 1 year. Our equipment, talented manufacturing personnel, and quality systems assure a high quality product produced on time at a competitive price. DC Industries, Inc.DCI DC Industries, Inc.CNC Machining For production parts we provide detailed work instructions and quality inspection plans for each part. contract machining. DCI Paid vacation after 1 year. Our equipment, talented manufacturing personnel, and quality systems assure a high quality product produced on time at a competitive price. DC Industries, Inc.DCI DC Industries, Inc.CNC Machining For production parts we provide detailed work instructions and quality inspection plans for each part. contract machining. DCI Paid vacation after 1 year. Our equipment, talented manufacturing personnel, and quality systems assure a high quality product produced on time at a competitive price. DC Industries, Inc.DCI DC Industries, Inc.CNC Machining For production parts we provide detailed work instructions and quality inspection plans for each part.
. DCI Paid vacation after 1 year. Our equipment, talented manufacturing personnel, and quality systems assure a high quality product produced on time at a competitive price. DC Industries, Inc.DCI DC Industries, Inc.CNC Machining For production parts we provide detailed work instructions and quality inspection plans for each part. contract machining. DCI Paid vacation after 1 year. Our equipment, talented manufacturing personnel, and quality systems assure a high quality product produced on time at a competitive price. DC Industries, Inc.DCI DC Industries, Inc.CNC Machining For production parts we provide detailed work instructions and quality inspection plans for each part. contract machining. DCI Paid vacation after 1 year. Our equipment, talented manufacturing personnel, and quality systems assure a high quality product produced on time at a competitive price. DC Industries, Inc.DCI DC Industries, Inc.CNC Machining For production parts we provide detailed work instructions and quality inspection plans for each part. contract machining. DCI Paid vacation after 1 year. Our equipment, talented manufacturing personnel, and quality systems assure a high quality product produced on time at a competitive price. DC Industries, Inc.DCI DC Industries, Inc.CNC Machining For production parts we provide detailed work instructions and quality inspection plans for each part. DCI Paid vacation after 1 year. Our equipment, talented manufacturing personnel, and quality systems assure a high quality product produced on time at a competitive price. DC Industries, Inc.DCI DC Industries, Inc.CNC Machining For production parts we provide detailed work instructions and quality.


text:
SRV Records
What are SRV records? What exactly is their function in the Domain Name System?
An SRV record, which means Service record, is a DNS entry which is used to identify the servers which run a certain service for a domain name. Quite simply, you will be able to use your domain not just for an Internet site, but also for an instant messaging server, a video streaming host or perhaps a Voice-Over-IP server, for instance, while you still have a site with it. When you set up the SRV record, you may choose what Internet Protocol it's going to use, on which port the connection to the specific server is going to be established as well as the priority and the weight of the record in case that you have several SRV records for the exact same service. The second option will permit you to employ different machines for load balancing and redundancy. Using this type of DNS records, you may use the same domain address for a number of purposes and even with different providers if the same one is unable to provide all services that you need.
SRV Records in Shared Hosting
You're going to be able to create a completely new SRV record for any of the domains that you host in a shared website hosting account on our innovative cloud platform. As long as the DNS records for the domain are handled on our end, you'll be able to manage them with ease via the respective section of your Hepsia CP and only minutes later any new record that you set up is going to be active. Hepsia comes with a highly intuitive interface and all it will take to create an SRV record is to fill in a few text boxes - the service the record will be used for, the Internet protocol and the port number. The priority (1-100), weight (1-100) and TTL boxes have standard values, which you could leave unless the other provider needs different ones. TTL is short for Time To Live and this number reveals the time in seconds for the record to remain active when you edit it or delete it at some point, the default one being 3600.
SRV Records in Semi-dedicated Servers
A new SRV record could be created within seconds for any domain name hosted within a semi-dedicated server from our company. The Hepsia hosting Control Panel, employed to handle the semi-dedicated accounts, features a really easy-to-use interface, so you will be able to create any DNS record even when you have no previous experience with such matters. After you sign in to the account, you are able to set up records via the DNS management tool, which is part of Hepsia and once you select SRV for the type, a few text boxes will appear. You will need to input the service, port number and protocol details in addition to the record value in them and the new record is going to be working soon after that. The priority and weight options may be set to every value between 1 and 100, the standard one being 10. You are able to change any one of the two in case the other company has required you to do so. Moreover, the Time To Live (TTL) value, which shows the duration a record will remain live if edited or deleted, could also be modified from the default 3600 seconds.


The Quicklisp library bundle feature has been around for a while. It creates a "bundle" of libraries from Quicklisp that can be used standalone, without loading or using Quicklisp at all.
Today, I published an updated client with a new bundle feature: if :include-local-projects is true, everything in Quicklisp's ql:*local-project-directories* is copied into the bundle and made available when the bundle is loaded.
To get this update, use (ql:update-client). The new code will be loaded when Lisp is restarted.
This work was commissioned by Rigetti Computing.
If you have Quicklisp feature needs, feel free to get in touch with me!


text:
HOME | Industry | Education | What Killed the World's Giants?
What Killed the World's Giants?
Nov 22, 2019 | Education, News, Science
Pam Groves of the University of Alaska Fairbanks looks at bones of ancient creatures she has gathered over the years from northern rivers. The remains here include musk oxen, steppe bison and mammoth.
Ned Rozell
Most of the large animals that have walked the surface of Earth are no longer here. Why?
Dan Mann thinks it's because our recent climate has been too stable, at least when compared to the wacky ups and downs of the last ice age.
Mann, a University of Alaska Fairbanks professor, presented his idea at a recent lecture on campus. Mann is an expert on former worlds, especially that of Alaska, where along northern waterways he and UAF's Pam Groves have found thousands of bones of extinct horses, along with the hardened remains of lions, giant short-faced bears, mammoths and mastodons. A couple of years ago, while paddling down a sluggish Arctic river, they found a 40,000-year-old steppe bison eroding from a hillside.
Groves is a co-author with Mann on a 2019 paper about what might have caused the extinction of so many large animals at the end of the last ice age, about 11,700 years ago. Many people blame humans, who had a need to hunt and the tools to get the job done.
More likely, extinction is a combination of factors that spell the doom of a species, Mann said.
"There's no silver bullet that killed them all."
Looking back over what they can piece together about the past millennia, Mann, Groves and their co-authors say the Holocene—the era in which we live—is too vanilla for large animals to dominate. Great swings in climate favor animals that weigh more than 100 pounds, he said.
Industry Sponsor
Become an Industry Sponsor
"The small, meek and cute inherited the Earth. Climate stability favored them."
Over the last 100,000 years, 64 percent of large animal species have gone extinct. The loss of large animals like mammoths, mastodons, and giant ground sloths has been somewhat evenly spread over all the continents—except Africa, which has lost less than 20 percent of its large animals.
"Africa never lost its (extreme climate swings, including from dry to wet seasons)," Mann said.
During the height of the last ice age, 20,000 years ago, much of Canada was beneath 9,000 feet of ice. That ice sheet extended well into mid-America, though much of Alaska was ice-free at the time.
Using records of ancient climate found in deep ice cores and from other sources, scientists have found that the last ice age was unstable compared to the most recent 12,000 years. During the ice age, every thousand years or so featured wild temperature swings.
"The ice age is a time of crazy, rapid change," Mann said. "To keep up, you really have to be on the move, whether you're a plant or an animal."
Mastodons and the like were good at dealing with huge environmental changes, Mann said. Large animals are better than small ones at hoofing long distances to find new food, and are more able to get the most out of the food they are eating and endure periods of starvation. If their favorite forests went brown due to increased warmth, for example, giant ground sloths could shuffle on to find greenery.
Smaller creatures, like foxes and voles, fit better in today's world of predictable boreal northern forests, alpine meadows and low-lying deserts that have not changed much. Since the ice age, large beasts have perhaps not been as able to use their evolutionary advantages.
Mann bases his hypothesis in part on an idea of Pleistocene expert Dale Guthrie, who lives in Fairbanks. Guthrie said that northern summers during the ice age were longer, which allowed more plant species to live in Alaska. With the shift toward our present climate, growing season became shorter and more nutritionless peat formed. This resulted in less food for large creatures, among them mammoth, rhinos and horses.
As an argument against humans killing all the ice-age giants, Mann pointed out that wild horses, bison and mammoths disappeared from the Alaska landscape when there were few or no people around.
But Mann does not give people a pass. As soon as humans invented agriculture, we started altering the carbon balance of the atmosphere. We have not stopped.
"Humans are preventing the current ice age," he said. "We should be growing ice sheets again."
Warming the planet at a time it should perhaps be cooling, humans may have snuffed out a few species that were "hiding out and waiting for it to get cold," Mann said.
"It is possible that without the anthropogenic delaying of the next ice age, perhaps the woolly mammoths surviving on Wrangel Island until (4,000 years ago) would have had time to repopulate the boreal region," Mann and his coauthors wrote in their 2019 Biological Reviews paper.
Biology Ned Rozell University of Alaska Wildlife


Nothing is better than a monogram when it comes to identifying your luggage at an airport. But why stop there? Here at Party Cat, we specialize in all things personalized which is why we offer a large selection of personalized luggage, purses, lunch boxes, tote bags, backpacks, cosmetic bags and dopp kits. Stand out among the rest by adding a monogram to your baggage that is personalized to your specific and unique style.


Joy of Pink is the vibrant new fragrance for women from Lacoste; an exhilarating scent inspired by the lively exoticism of a Curaçao cocktail: colourful, sparkling and full of energy. Featuring effervescent citrus notes underpinned by a smooth musky base, Joy of Pink is a delightfully uplifting addition to the Lacoste Pink Collection, capturing the same light-hearted ethos of the brand's best-selling Touch of Pink, Dream of Pink, and Love of Pink fragrances. Released on October 2010.
Heart notes- Blue Curacao, Peony.
Base notes- Musk, Virginia Cedar.
My husband really likes the preppy polo shirts of the imported clothing and accessories brand Lacoste. Being a fellow perfume lover, he checked out their fragrance collection and came home with a carded sample of the Lacoste Joy of Pink Eau de Toilette for me to try.
I had seen the bottles of the Lacoste Pink fragrances before, which are in varying shades of pink, and I thought they looked pretty cute (I do love pink, girly stuff), but never bothered to check them out, so this was something new for me.
Joy of Pink has a grapefruit top note that I really enjoy. It's a sunny, sparkly grapefruit, and it's as light-hearted and pretty as the neon, but dainty pink color of the bottle of Joy of Pink. The opening is very feel-good, it smells cool and quite refreshing to my nose, and I think it would be liked by pretty much everyone. It's not sour or too citrusy, and I tend to dab on a more ample amount than usual since it's very light. It's a rather enjoyable grapefruit scent and if the fragrance smelled just like that all throughout, I would totally have been itching to get myself a full bottle.
However, after twenty to thirty minutes the pretty grapefruit starts fading away and the fragrance turns into a floral scent that is heavy, but flat and quite synthetic. It's mainly floral, and it might be the way my personal chemistry reacts with the perfume notes, but it simply does not smell pleasant. It smells stale. I also get some musk after a while, and the scent at this stage seems to go right to the back of my throat—it makes me feel like coughing. It's such a change from the bright, easygoing grapefruit top note that I can't help but be disappointed and a bit annoyed.
The drydown is a simple, and thankfully, light musk on my skin. Joy of Pink Eau de Toilette lasts only four or five hours on me, which I don't mind, as I don't think I'll be reaching for this scent often. It's available in 30, 50, and 90ml sizes and costs $35 to $70.
I don't think I'm a perfume snob and I'm actually easy to please, but I know what smells good on me and what does not. And Joy of Pink just does not. It's quite expensive, so I recommend to anyone thinking of getting this fragrance to test it on their skin first. While I personally didn't like how it developed on my skin, I think those who like grapefruit and peony scents should give this summery fragrance a shot and see how it turns out on theirs.
ohhh…….. I hope things are fine now!!
dont cut the cute ones, just the ones that many pple donot use!
uh oh!!!! :(( Which smileys are gonna RIP?
Oh it does, i like it for our office parties in the evening!! it gives me a nice feeling!!


text:
Home News 'He can no longer do the job': Trump calls on the GOP to get rid of Mitch McConnell during Fox News town hall at Texas border - then admits he HAS made a decision on 2024 run.... but refuses to reveal what it is
'He can no longer do the job': Trump calls on the GOP to get rid of Mitch McConnell during Fox News town hall at Texas border - then admits he HAS made a decision on 2024 run.... but refuses to reveal what it is
Donald Trump called on Republicans to get rid of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – and revealed he has made up his mind about whether to run for the White house in 2024.
Speaking with Sean Hannity at a Fox News town hall in Edinburg, Texas – near the U.S.-Mexico border – on Wednesday, the former president said, 'Well we need better leadership in the Senate level. You need better leadership. We need someone better than Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell could no longer do the job.'
Trump appeared on the Hannity-hosted town hall after going on a tour of the unfinished border wall with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Much of his discussion with Hannity revolved around border security and how his plans are changing under President Joe Biden.
Trump blamed Biden and what he called liberal RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) for the recent surge in border crossings. Hannity pointed out how Democrats want to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants, but claimed that some Republicans want illegal immigration for cheap labor.
Donald Trump recently slammed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell while speaking with Sean Hannity at a Fox News town hall in Edinburg, Texas
Trump called out 'weak Republicans' and said the GOP needed someone better than McConnell
Hannity asked Trump if he made up his mind about running in 2024, to which the former president said, 'yes'
Trump added, 'And you have RINOs. You do have RINOs . . . You don't have any RINOs in this group, but you have RINOs. I call them weak Republicans.
'They walk into the White House, I've been watching it for four weeks now, they walk in, they meet Biden – he doesn't know what the hell is happening – they meet Biden, he's sitting, and they're talking about infrastructure and finally they walk out and they have a deal.
'And the deal is a terrible deal, but it's a deal. And it sort of reminds me of England a long time ago – 'We have a deal! We have a deal!' – You remember the deal they made with Germany?
'Not too good. That didn't work out too well . . . so they have a deal and then Biden cancelled the deal because the radical left said, 'you can't make that deal. That deal's not good. We want to spend $6 trillion.'
Trump was referring to President Joe Biden's infrastructure bill, which Biden revised after liberal Senator Bernie Sanders said he would not support it without a second, $6 trillion measure for 'human' infrastructure.
Perhaps the most celebrated part of the town hall was when Hannity asked Trump about his future plans, to which the audience roared with applause. Hannity then asked the crowd, 'Would you like to see the president run again in 2024?'
Then, to Trump, he said, 'You're not gonna answer, but I have to ask . . . have you made up your mind,'
Once the applause died down, Trump said 'yes,' and the crowd cheered again.
On May 20, Trump said he was 'very strongly considering' running for president again during an interview with the conservative talk show host Joe Pags.
'Everybody wants me to do it, the polls are all saying I have to do it,' Trump said. He added that he would most likely announce his final decision right after the 2022 midterm elections.
If Trump were to run, it would reignite tension between him and McConnell. The two used to work hand in hand, but their relationship came to a halt after McConnell made clear that he would not go along with Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and asserted that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
'We're debating a step that has neve been taken in American history, whether Congress should overrule the voters and overturn a presidential election,' he said on the Senate floor, after Rep. Paul Gosar and a batch of GOP senators, including Sen. Ted Cruz, objected to Arizona's Electoral College vote count.
'If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side our democracy would enter a death spiral,' he added. 'We'd never see a whole nation accept an election again.'
The divide between Trump and McConnell grew wider in February after the senator voted to acquit Trump of inciting the Capitol riot but then blasted his conduct in an excoriating speech.
Trump and McConnell used to work hand in hand, but their relationship came to a halt after McConnell made clear that he would not go along with Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election
The divide between Trump and McConnell grew wider in February after the senator voted to acquit Trump of inciting the Capitol riot but then blasted his conduct in an excoriating speech
McConnel said: 'There is no question former President Trump bears moral responsibility. His supporters stormed the Capitol because of the unhinged falsehoods he shouted into the world's largest megaphone. His behavior during and after the chaos was also unconscionable, from attacking Vice President Mike Pence during the riot to praising the criminals after it ended.'
In response, Trump wrote a statement through his Save America PAC that read, 'Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again.' He also also accused McConnell of 'destroying' the GOP and urged the party's senators to end his leadership.
The former president blamed McConnell, whose office sits steps from where a large group of rioters were arrested on January 6, for causing the loss of two GOP Senate seats. Many GOP consultants and some elected officials have blamed Trump's own election overturn effort for costing the party control of the Senate.
'The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political 'leaders' like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm,' Trump began in a letter with his new stationary as the '45th President of the United States.
'McConnell's dedication to business as usual, status quo policies, together with his lack of political insight, wisdom, skill, and personality, has rapidly driven him from Majority Leader to Minority Leader, and it will only get worse,' he wrote.
'The Democrats and Chuck Schumer play McConnell like a fiddle—they've never had it so good—and they want to keep it that way! We know our America First agenda is a winner, not McConnell's Beltway First agenda or Biden's America Last.'
'He can no longer do the job': Trump calls on the GOP to get rid of Mitch McConnell during Fox News town hall at Texas border - then admits he HAS made a decision on 2024 run.... but refuses to reveal what it is Reviewed by Facts on July 01, 2021 Rating: 5


text:
Life is Awesome
What do you have to celebrate today? No matter how crappy life seems to be, or how dismal the weather outside, there is always something to celebrate. So take a minute to think about what's awesome in your life today and then CELEBRATE IT!
Go out and have a party! My party plans: Get a massage and then buy myself some beautiful new yarn. Yup, that's how I'm going to celebrate a bundle of good news.
Life truly is awesome.
#Hashtag of the Week 4
This week's trending topic is #MJ50. If you're wondering what on earth that stands for, it means Michael Jordan's turning 50 today! Happy birthday, Michael Jordan! Not only is Mr Jordan by consensus the greatest basketball player of all time, he is also one of the most successful celebrity endorsers, and the inspiration (as @bostonkid17 on Twitter put it) for the "greatest sneaker ever made."
Michael Jordan's talent and global fame combined to lift basketball's international popularity. His participation along with Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and other big stars on the 1992 Olympic "Dream Team" further helped to make it one of the world's favorite sports. But more than bringing basketball to new heights, Jordan's personal image as the world's greatest player made him an incredibly popular figure throughout the 90s, and therefore a magnet for celebrity endorsement.
Marketers dream of a celebrity endorser like Michael Jordan. Nike hit the jackpot when they created the Air Jordan sneaker which eventually led to the spinoff Jordan Brand, which in 2010 made $1 billion in sales for Nike. He has represented brands like Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Chevrolet and Gatorade, and as a result is constantly on Forbes' top 100 celebrities list. With such success as this, it's no wonder that celebrities are always looking for endorsement deals and brands are willing to pay big bucks for them.
But I think we should give Mr Jordan his due. Do we really think that any celebrity today, be they Lady Gaga or Tiger Woods (whoops!) holds a candle to what Michael Jordan has done for the brands he represents? Really, to me they are all just following in his footsteps, trying to be as successful as he has been in maintaining an equilibrium between his personal image and his brand (for, after all, there is no better example of a personal brand than Michael Jordan's).
Today, we are inundated with celebrity endorsements. I learned on TV yesterday, for instance, that Rafael Nadal apparently plays online poker! Who knew? And while stars had been lending their clout to marketing ventures long before Michael Jordan came along, I would argue that he did it biggest and he did it best. He has set the bar for profit-making celebrity endorsement, and brands who don't have him are still looking for their own "Michael Jordan."
So for being the most bad-ass godfather of celebrity endorsement, I congratulate you Mr Jordan! Here's wishing you a very happy birthday.
February 13, 2013 February 13, 2013 Jane 2 Comments
Today, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period leading up to Easter Sunday. Traditionally, it is a time of fasting, penitence, self-examination and anticipation of the celebration of Easter. (Fun fact: Carnival and Mardi Gras – French for "fat Tuesday" – were traditionally celebrations of excess the day before Lent began and all fun was banned. That's why we eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday!)
One popular lenten activity is self-denial of some kind. Every year I hear people talking about what they're giving up for Lent. Usually it has something to do with food: alcohol, chocolate, sweets, soft drinks, what have you. It's usually something that is considered a minor vice, something unhealthy or slightly naughty. It's also usually given up with a bit of an ulterior motive: if we give up an unhealthy food that we like, then perhaps we'll feel good about showing self-control, and lose a few pounds while we're at it.
One Sunday before Lent a few years ago, the priest at my church back home preached about the practice of giving things up for Lent and how he had observed that it has become more of a popular thing to do rather than any kind of spiritual sacrifice. So he suggested the idea of adding something for Lent! Why not add something to our lives that we have heretofore not done? Something that adds value not only to our lives, but to others'. Perhaps we could volunteer, do a chore that a brother, sister, spouse or parent hates, or even write to someone we haven't been in touch with for a while and ask how they're doing.
That idea really struck me as lovely, and that year I started to write letters with a few friends with whom I had lost touch. My letters were answered and have led to some wonderful correspondences. Since then, seeing how such a small effort on my part brought a little sunshine to someone's life, I have tried to add something like this to my routine each Lent.
I'm not particularly spiritual, and I don't know if doing this is making me a better person or anything. But it certainly makes me feel better. It feels like a step towards being slightly less selfish, less self-centered. In doing something, no matter how small, for someone else, I try in a tiny way to imitate the vast compassion and love of Christ. But even if a person doesn't believe in Christ and religion isn't his or her thing, I think anyone can agree that doing something for someone else feels good and IS good!
Because I've had so much fun learning to cook over the last year, I'd like to add a volunteering activity in a soup kitchen to my lenten routine. The idea is that hopefully the habit will stick, and continue to provide fulfilling and enriching experiences long after Lent 2013 is over. Who knows? Maybe I'll make a new friend, hear a cool story or have my heart touched by some small but beautiful gesture.
Now that I'm back from a holiday and my house hasn't been broken into, I can confess that a trip has been the reason for my silence. I had fully planned to blog while away (at least one article), but WordPress doesn't work too well on the iPad. Besides, I was in Florida to enjoy the sunshine, not to sit in the hotel blogging! But now I'm back and it's time to look at the #hashtag of the week.
Last week, #beattheflu was trending in Canada, and I thought it would be interesting to see what public health-related Twitter feeds were saying about it. It turned out not to be anything to do with public health, but a clever Twitter marketing cooperation between @naturallysavvy and @AVogel_ca. NaturallySavvy.com bills itself as a "guide to natural, organic and green living." They have 8,615 followers on Twitter, and they use their website to promote organic and/or natural products and brands. A. Vogel is a producer of natural, plant-based remedies for stress, insomnia, flu, weight loss, etc. Judging from their relatively short Twitter feed, A. Vogel has been on Twitter only since the end of last year.
The #beattheflu conversation, hosted by Naturally Savvy, invited followers to ask questions about flu prevention or dealing with the flu. Naturopath and biochemist Josée Fortin, tweeting on behalf of A. Vogel, followed the conversation and would recommend A. Vogel products to help answer followers' questions. Naturally Savvy would then retweet or quote A. Vogel's suggestions. Two lucky tweeters were selected (I'm not sure how) to win an A. Vogel flu and cold buster kit, and the Twitter event was billed as informative and fun. Simples! All of Naturally Savvy's followers were then made aware of A. Vogel's wonderful new products.
I have to admit that I am skeptical about many products that are billed as "natural". Having learned much about the practice of greenwashing in a corporate social responsibility class (thanks, Dr. Leonidou!), I know that words like "natural" and "organic" have very different meanings in different countries and to different companies. Brands liberally splash these words on their products, and in truth they actually mean very little. Be that as it may, this is a clever strategy on A. Vogel's part to use a perceived expert as a brand advocate. These Twitter parties are a great form of word-of-mouth marketing, and A. Vogel is using Naturally Savvy's power as an opinion leader quite cleverly.
Not only that, but they selected a hashtag that attracts attention. North America is experiencing a particularly nasty flu season, and tweeting parents who are concerned about keeping their families flu-free are a large and lucrative market. They are using a kind of fear appeal – that is, appealing to people's anxiety about the flu and presenting their products as the "natural" solution. The hashtag was well conceived and I would be curious to know how much A. Vogel's sales have increased as a result, if at all.
I am having some technical difficulties with my devices and have limited access to the interwebs, which is why I have been FORCED into silence on this blog. However, I will soon be back and posting again.
This imposed hiatus has made me realize just how addicted to social media I am. Seriously, I'm a junkie and this cannot possibly be healthy. But rest assured that like a true addict as soon as my drug of choice is available again, I'll be right back at it! (This is not to make light of addiction, which is a serious condition.)
See you soon, Internet! I love you!
Power Outages & Oreos
February 4, 2013 February 4, 2013 Jane 1 Comment
So Beyoncé's pyrotechnic show caused a power outage at the Superbowl last night! Did anyone else hear about that?? Crazy stuff, right?? Oh wait, apparently I'm late breaking the news, because during the now-famous post-halftime power outage, Twitter users posted up to 231,000 tweets per minute about the sudden gloom.
Responses to this year's Superbowl commercials have been mixed, though apparently most people agree on one: the Budweiser bit featuring a baby Clydesdale has become the third most shared video in advertisement history, according to Unruly media. Psy's pistachio commercial, Crackin' Gangham Style, certainly made me giggle; The GoDaddy.com Big Kiss commercial is creating buzz just by being gross (seriously, only click if you can stand smooching noises); and Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd's appearance in the Samsung Galaxy commercial is admittedly pretty funny.
But my favorite was the Whisper Fight from Oreo and then their response to the power outage. In a stroke of genius, Oreo had someone on hand to whip up this baby:
Oreo is right on the money
Congratulations, Oreo! For what it's worth, you win The Brain In Jane prize for best commercial! The video combined with the brilliant response to real-time events show that Oreo and their agency 360i have what it takes to stay relevant and clever and get people talking. Well done!
A major trending topic in North America this week has been, unsurprisingly, the #Superbowl! Woo-hoo! American football! How FUN!
Alright, I have to confess that I know very little about American football, and I have little to no interest in the game (rugby is my bag, baby!). However, the Superbowl is more than just a football game. It is a showcase of all that is good (?) about US culture. The concert at half time features some of the US's top artists (and sometimes foreigners, like that crazy Paul McCartney!). Perhaps an even more important representation of American culture, though, are the Superbowl ads.
The Superbowl captures a HUGE national audience, and advertisers know that they have to step up to the plate (whoops, is that a baseball analogy?) to break through the clutter. And the pressure is on to perform: with a price tag of about $4 million for a 30-second spot, a flop would make for a pretty expensive failure. Over the years it has become tradition for brands to prepare their cleverest, most attention-grabbing ads for the Superbowl. Some have lived on in our collective memories (we all remember the first time we encountered the man our men could smell like) and others have gone down in history as the worst ads ever.
Ad Age published an article listing the commercial spaces bought by which companies, but I'm afraid I spent so long on the article that AdAge.com got mad at me and demanded I subscribe in order to continue reading. Needless to say, I did not subscribe. However, I do remember that the list includes giants like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Chevrolet and Oreos, among others. There are also some relative newcomers on the scene such as GoDaddy.com. Some brands release their ads for some pre-game exposure before the big day, while others keep them dead secret until Superbowl Sunday. They hope the clips will go viral, and eagerly look forward to the online conversations their spots will generate. Already Twitter is abuzz with comments about the pre-released ads, and a significant number of tweets with the #Superbowl hashtag have nothing to do with football. It will be interesting to follow the reaction to this year's commercials and see if they have better luck than Volkswagen so far.
If you weren't planning to watch the Superbowl, perhaps you'll reconsider simply for the pleasure of seeing these commercials. Who knows, you could see the ad that will spark the next viral video craze! Or, if you can't even bring yourself to watch it for the ads, you can browse through Mashable's top ten Superbowl commercials of all time.
Happy Superbowl Sunday!
Checking in with Mooncup Ltd.
January 29, 2013 January 29, 2013 Jane 1 Comment
Sadly, I feel it necessary to warn any male readers of this blog that this post discusses feminine hygiene products and will include words like "vagina," "menstrual," "tampon," and perhaps even "blood." But if you can handle it, it will be interesting and informative. Oh, don't be such a sissy!
Yesterday morning, I woke up to find a link to this video in my Facebook feed. Mooncup Ltd. is AT IT AGAIN with the viral video game! Mooncup Ltd. FTW!!!
Many of you may not know that while at the University of Leeds Business School, I wrote my master's project on communication issues surrounding the Mooncup, a reusable form of sanitary protection for women. I follow them on Facebook and Twitter and am always delighted when I see something new from Mooncup Ltd. I was especially happy when I saw yesterday's video because it shows a shift Mooncup Ltd.'s marketing messages.
Part of the "Love Your Vagina" campaign
In 2010, Mooncup Ltd. launched their first print advertising campaign entitled, "Love Your Vagina." Posters on the London Underground and other public spaces showed different pet names for a woman's genitals and extolled women to love their vaginas and visit this website. Once there, you could contribute your own pet name, and in the spring of 2011, the "Love Your Vagina" song made its debut on YouTube and has been getting awkwardly stuck in people's heads since (hehehe, just watching it again now makes me giggle!).
All this is wonderful, of course, and it set the advertising world abuzz with praise for their creativity. Mooncup Ltd.'s advertising agency, St Luke's, even won silver at the London International Awards. But what did it do for sales of the Mooncup? Not much, apparently. And that's why I wanted to help out (being a devoted Mooncup user myself).
"Love Your Beach? Love Your Vagina."
My research found that the Mooncup was still (in 2011) a largely unknown sanitary protection option which elicited responses like, "WTF?? Ewwwww!!" Those who had heard about it associated it largely with hippies and eco-nuts, and wrote it off as not for them. Mooncup Ltd.'s approach to communication and advertising didn't jive with this perception. The "Love Your Vagina" campaign was what is called an emotional appeal which peaked curiosity but did not directly provide much information about what the Mooncup actually is. The subsequent "Love Your Beach" print campaign also used an emotional appeal about caring for the UK's beaches by using the Mooncup. However, it failed to even include the mooncup.co.uk URL in the copy. No information about what the product actually was was forthcoming.
A thorough literature review showed me that emotional appeals are more effective when dealing with known products. In interviews with non-users of the Mooncup, I learned that they would rather an informative appeal. The ideal spot would be in a women's magazine where a lady could quietly (and privately) read about the product, get used to the idea and then perhaps visit the website. I also found in my research that Mooncup Ltd.'s tagline of "safer, greener, cheaper" didn't really appeal to women. Rather, ladies were more interested in the Mooncup's perceived health benefits (keeping natural balance, not irritating or causing TSS), its promise of more reliable protection (not one interviewee expressed complete satisfaction with her current choice of sanitary protection), and its being more convenient (as in, it can hold three times as much and therefore requires less maintenance than other forms of protection). After months of stress and research (sorry to those of you who lived through that…), I put all this information into a tidy report and sent it off to Kath Clements at Mooncup Ltd. She wrote me a lovely email thanking me and saying the report contained some real gold nuggets of information. Hooray!! That, and receiving a distinction level mark on the project made me feel pretty good.
Fast forward to yesterday morning and the new Tampon vs. Mooncup Rap Battle. As I said before, I was very happy to see that the video addressed some of my suggestions! The rap is easy to understand, and it provides a little information about what the Mooncup is and how it works. The "tampon" side voices misgivings women have about the Mooncup, while the "Mooncup" side answers them. The video is a bit of a balance between an informational and an emotional appeal, and I think it's very cleverly done.
Here's a pile of Mooncups!
However, while this is great creative and provides some information, I think that Mooncup Ltd. needs to balance this kind of viral marketing with a parallel informative print campaign. (Now, to be fair, since I am not in the UK I do not know if they have in fact done this. It could be that they have a print campaign running right now and I'm just not aware of it.) As I said, the advantage of print is that you can provide lots of information. A well-worded description of the product, similar to the one in this video, is an essential starting point for the Mooncup's diffusion into mainstream consciousness. Why would someone share an online video of a rap battle between tampon and Mooncup if they don't even know what a Mooncup is?
In conclusion, this new video is a step in the right direction. It includes a bit more information about what the Mooncup actually is (hooray!), and it answers some questions. I'd be really curious to know what kind of an effect this video has on visits to the website and eventually, sales of the Mooncup. I love how Mooncup Ltd. makes use of social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, but I still feel that in order to get a strong foothold in the mainstream sanitary protection market, they need to do more advertising in traditional media, namely print. They do have a corner on a niche market, but their advertising activities to date tell me that they are looking to expand into the mainstream. I hope that they can do it, because, frankly, using a Mooncup has completely changed my period, and I wish the same positive, stress-free experience for all ladies out there.
EDITED: CBC Human Library Project
The following is a re-post of my original report on the Human Library Project, with some corrections. Thanks to Lela for her feedback and contribution!
As I wrote earlier this week, I went to the Atwater Library in Westmount this morning to participate in the Human Library project. I had signed up to speak with Lela Savic, a Romani journalist and documentary maker. She was interning at the Human Library project, and considering her background they invited her to be one of the human libraries this year.
If you watch her introductory video, you will learn that Lela was born in Serbia (then Yugoslavia) and when the war broke out when she was five, her family emigrated to Canada. I briefly described to her how I am from Switzerland and in Geneva there is a very negative perception of Romani as beggars, pickpockets and thieves. I asked her to describe her background to me so that I could see a different perspective of Romani.
Lela described how she grew up in Canada as any "normal" kid would. She studied at Concordia University, she has travelled, worked, and maintained her connection with her family roots back in Serbia (in fact, throughout our conversation, she referred to "her village" in Serbia as home, rather than Montreal). She told me she feels that the fundamental difference between Romani culture and others is that it is a very old, traditional culture. It is not that different from many southern European cultures, but it is very insular. For that reason many Romani (especially women) have little interest in education, development or what is going on outside of their group. This often results in issues in healthcare and a lack of empowerment of women (though in her family, she and her siblings were all encouraged to study, regardless of gender). Since so few people know anything about Romani culture, Lela feels that many do not understand her cultural perspective.
It was fascinating discussing Gadjo (or non-Romani) perceptions of her people, but also how Romani groups view each other. She said that here in Canada Romani are viewed in romantic light: when she tells people she is Romani it often inspires images of an exotic "Esmerelda" who dances and sings. Or, she is asked if her family is nomadic and travels around all the time. However, in Europe, she hesitates to disclose that she is Romani. She often gets very negative reactions which range from distrust to outright hostility. Though she said she has one cousin who is a successful businesswoman in Belgrade, she has other cousins who have been shut out of the business world in Europe because they are Romani.
Lela comes from a community that is sedentary and lives in a group of six neighboring villages in Serbia. They have intermarried, grown and established themselves as mostly farmers. There are other groups of Romani who travel, and engage in what are negatively viewed as the stereotypical activities of the Romani, such as pickpocketing, begging, etc. She said that among Romani there is a specific word for these groups, and they are often looked down upon for "giving Romani a bad name." However, because many Romani share the experience of being marginalized and discriminated against, there is an understanding that these groups often have no other choice. It is a vicious cycle: because they are rejected by society as thieves and beggars, they must become just that in order to survive, thus further reinforcing the negative stereotypes. When one thinks about it, it is heartbreaking to think that a whole group of people is stuck in this wheel.
Lela's goal is to continue working to educate the outside world about her culture. She would also like to work as an activist among Romani, as she believes Romani people will more readily accept social reform initiated by one of their own, rather than from perceived outsiders. Our conversation was fascinating, though brief, and it accomplished the goal the Human Library project set out to do: it opened my eyes to a different perspective and reminded me to always challenge stereotypes and be open to changing preconceived ideas.
After my conversation with Lela, I had a little time to spare, so I asked who would be available for a conversation starting at 11:30. I had a fascinating conversation with Gabrielle Bouchard, a trans woman who spent most of her life as man, and transitioned to life as a woman in her late thirties. I will tell you more about our chat in another post, though, as this one is getting on the long side.
Happy Saturday everyone, and have a good weekend!
If you are interested in hearing some of Lela's interviews with members of the Roma community, you can listen to her interview with Kristin Molnar, her discussion on stereotypes, and her conversation about discrimination against Romani people in Croatia. Please note that some of these interviews are conducted in French, so if you were looking for a good reason to learn French, here you have it! I highly recommend you give these a listen.
Just Discovered: Human Library Project
Saturday, 26 January 2013 is Canada's National Human Library Day. The Human Library is an initiative "designed to promote dialogue, reduce prejudices and encourage understanding," (Human Library, 2012). I just heard about the national initiative on the radio, and it sparked my curiosity, so I looked it up.
For those who won't click through to the links, the idea is that several people of varied backgrounds, histories and occupations make themselves available for a few hours in a public space to have 20-minute conversations with anyone who signs up to attend. On Saturday, fourteen local Montreal people will be at the Atwater Library (1200, Avenue Atwater, Westmount) from 11:00 until 16:00. These folks are a mix of journalists, religious leaders, sports figures and gay rights activists.
I have signed up for a conversation at 11:00am with Lela Savic, a journalist of Romani origins. She is from the former Yugoslavia and makes documentary films here in Montreal (you can follow her on Twitter here).
When perusing the list of participants, I was particularly interested in meeting and speaking with Ms Savic. Coming from Geneva, Switzerland, where there are, shall we say, "issues" with the Romani population, I am curious to hear her perspective and to try to understand a bit more about this group which seems to inspire so many different reactions: fear, mistrust, fascination (think of flamenco music!), romanticism, etc.
If you like the sound of this initiative, see if the Human Library is doing anything in your area. You can also tune in to cbcnews.ca on Saturday between 11:00 and 16:00 Eastern Standard Time to participate in the live event online. You can also follow CBC on Twitter and get updates about the event at the hashtag #CBCHumanLibrary.
It promises to be an interesting (though brief) conversation! If any of you have questions you would want me to ask Ms Savic, feel free to post them in the comments.
Newer posts 1 2 3


Steen Hasselbalchs Forlag Udgivet:Full documentation and certification is provided. The town was granted its first privileges at the end of the 13th century at a time when fishing played an important role in addition to its ferry link to Snoghøj in Jutland. Forlagsbind med smudsomslag Ellen Drachmanns dagbogsoptegnelser der skildrer livet foran en kvinde pr. det bedre borgerstand fra slutningen af det In the 18th century income from porpoise catches diminished but hip the 19th century, with the establishment of its own harbour inconditions improved thanks in particular to the growing trade in agricultural products from the surrounding areas. Inklusive uddrag af farens breve og dagbogsnotater. Unnervingly, the periscope, which spotted the Lusitania, still works.
Forlagsbind Forfatteren fortæller omkring fyrre år hvordan skønlitterær oversætter. Staying there Hotel Norre Vikel 97 ; smalldanishhotels. Forlagsbind inklusive smudsomslag Ellen Drachmanns dagbogsoptegnelser der naturskildrer livet for aldeles kvinde i det bedre borgerskab siden slutningen af det Built in several stages, it has a Late Romanesque chancela tower first constructed in the 14th century anatinae a nave with aisles from the late 15th century. This collection contains a listing of original art depicting landscapes, seascapes, as well as, centrum and town views created by artists from the seventeenth century to the late twentieth century. Fra Hoffet plus byen stemninger plus tilstande - pr. breve til Joh. Heftet Med afsats i hans særegen biografi og inklusive inddragelse af mytologi, kunst, musik plus litteratur reflekterer forfatteren over alment menneskelige emner som man elektroniske mediers herredømme, informationsstrømmen, familieopfattelsen igennem tiderne, dannelsen af jeg'et i man tidlige barneår, venskaber m.
The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady. Forlagsstempel på titelblad  Christina, Leonora Jammers minde Forlag: We provide search links to different Categories ranging from oldtidskundskab master engravings anatinae original fine sort to speciality collecting such as animals, botanicals, genre, maps, military art, posters and advertising, satirical art, sports anatinae many other interests. Hans debut hvordan fri kunstner plus lyriker iom historien bag digtsamlingen Kærestesorg, skabt på dekoration af utroskab plus et brudt barnerov, om en bygge med vennen Dan Turéll til Saharas ørken, hans arbejdsopgave som kulturredaktør på Information m. Forlagsbind med smudsomslag Autobiografi af smørrebrødets ukronede dronning Ida Davidsen f. A notable prisoner included former minister of justice Peter Adler Alberti.
Notable people from Horsens[ edit ] Vitus Bering. Oversat siden svensk af Elise Koppel. Hånden - en PET- plus politikrønike Forlag: Tidligere Havn Old Harbour dates from the s. Brannerder var præget af både fravær og bestyrke relationer. The prison grounds have been used for concerts. The population grew from 2, hip to 11, hip but in the second half of the 20th century the rate of growth declined. Heftet Med afsæt pr. hans egen biografi og med inddragelse af mytologi, kunstværker, musik og skønlitteratur reflekterer forfatteren på alment menneskelige emner som de elektroniske mediers magt, informationsstrømmen, familieopfattelsen gennem tiderne, dannelsen af jeg'et i de tidlige barneår, venskaber kvm. The ultimate consequence of the battle was German defeat, and the confining of the Hochseeflotte to Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands — where, when British backs were turned, the ships were scuttled by their own crews on June 21 From the Middle Ages the town appears to have specialized hip catching harbour porpoises. Hanne Juul - ill. News of the battle breaks in In a rear room, the museum pulls the battle into the present with a digital map of the seabed, created by Andersen gennem two years on the water, which shows the holdning of the wrecks, and their condition, in — HMS Invincible and HMS Indefatigable, the two other British battlecruisers disembowelled that day, reduced to shapeless lumps by a century of saltwater; the smaller HMS Defence intact, despite its reported explosion on the surface.


text:
package org.codehaus.griffon.runtime.core.view;

import griffon.core.GriffonApplication;
import griffon.core.view.WindowManager;

import javax.annotation.Nonnull;
import javax.annotation.Nullable;
import javax.inject.Inject;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.Collections;

import static java.util.Objects.requireNonNull;

/**
 * @author Andres Almiray
 * @since 2.0.0
 */
public final class NoopWindowManager implements WindowManager<Object> {
    private final GriffonApplication application;

    @Inject
    public NoopWindowManager(@Nonnull GriffonApplication application) {
        this.application = requireNonNull(application, "Argument 'application' cannot be null");
    }

    @Nullable
    @Override
    public Object findWindow(@Nonnull String name) {
        return null;
    }

    @Nullable
    @Override
    public Object getAt(int index) {
        return null;
    }

    @Nullable
    @Override
    public Object getStartingWindow() {
        return null;
    }

    @Nonnull
    @Override
    public Collection<Object> getWindows() {
        return Collections.emptyList();
    }

    @Override
    public void attach(@Nonnull String name, @Nonnull Object window) {
    }

    @Override
    public void detach(@Nonnull String name) {
    }

    @Override
    public void show(@Nonnull Object window) {
    }

    @Override
    public void show(@Nonnull String name) {
    }

    @Override
    public void hide(@Nonnull Object window) {
    }

    @Override
    public void hide(@Nonnull String name) {
    }

    @Override
    public boolean canShutdown(@Nonnull GriffonApplication app) {
        return true;
    }

    @Override
    public void onShutdown(@Nonnull GriffonApplication app) {
    }

    @Override
    public int countVisibleWindows() {
        return 0;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isAutoShutdown() {
        return application.getConfiguration().getAsBoolean("application.autoShutdown", true);
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Manufactured exclusively by Polyphenolics, a division of Constellation Brands – the world's leading premium wine company – MegaNatural®-BP is a patented grape seed extract with clinically shown health benefits. Along with a healthy diet, regular exercise and achieving a desirable weight, MegaNatural®-BP can help to support blood pressure within normal range.
MegaNatural®-Gold is a high-quality grape seed extract that is a powerful antioxidant.


Skrill (formerly known as Moneybookers) is an online ewallet that you can use just as an online bank. Deposit funds, transfer to other accounts, pay for services and deposit to betting sites.
Skrill is a great way of funding an online sports betting account. For those who are depositing and withdrawing a lot, which would lower the total fees associated with this process, and for those who live in a place that does not allow deposits to online gambling portals. Using an ewallet is a good way to fix these issues.
Using Skrill as your ewallet is a good alternative to our preferred ewallet option in Neteller. They both work about the same where you get your ewallet which is of sort an online bank account, which you can fund using your preferred payment option and from then on transfer money in and out of sportsbooks freely. The only real difference is concerning the banking fees.
Head over to www.Skrill.com to get your ewallet. Proceed with signing up by choosing a personal account. From here on you simply fill in the required forms and click signup. Remember to double check all your input as you cannot change things after you have created your account. Especially your preferred currency. This can add a lot of unnecessary fees if you have a different currency in your Skrill account and sports betting account, you will have added charges to your transfers.
Before you can use your Skrill account you need to verify a different set of details that you have provided. First there is the email verification. This is simple where Skrill sends you an email with a verification link you have to click so Skrill knows it is your email account. Next is verification of your postal address. You will be sent a 6 digit code by mail that you need to enter in your account. This is for security measures and also to allow you to increase your deposit and withdrawal limits.
After you have done these two verification steps, you can also verify a bank account or verify a credit card (or both). For the bank account verification you need to provide a SWIFT code from your bank of choice. If this cannot be provided, you need to request a form that you send to your bank to fill out. This might take some time, but is worth if you plan to use Skrill for some time. If you decide on your credit card to begin transactions immediately you will have higher fees, but if you are simply transferring some smaller amount while you wait for the bank verification to come through that is fine.
The preferred depositing methods should be Maestro, Bank Transfer or Cheque (if you are from the 80's). These all are free and you can deposit 100% of your funds in your account. The only downside to using these depositing methods is that the funds might take some time to reach your account. If you want to start betting immediately you could use one of the other options.
When you have gotten funds into your account, you can deposit at most of the betting portals only using your skrill account. There is a 1% transaction fee associated with sending money to a betting site. This is capped at €10 though, but if you are expecting to transfer funds a lot between different bookies, these fees can eat up a lot of your bankroll.
Creating an account with Skrill is really easy, but some steps might be new or confusing for some of you, so we have decided to create a video to demonstrate how you create an account at Skrill (Moneybookers).
The upsides to having an ewallet is not simply having the possibility to deposit online, but you can do so with ease and very quickly. Doing a bank transfer everytime you want to fund your account is quite the hassle, but once you have money in an ewallet, you can move it back and forth within hours. You also have the things like privacy, easy recordkeeping for gambling efforts and other good things. So get your ewallet today.


Dignity is the state/quality of being worthy of honor and/or respect.
Why do we continue to dignify the lunacy in this country? It's 9:50am CST, August 26, 2017, and 3 of the major news channels in this area (Dallas, Texas) aren't even covering the Category 4 hurricane event that hit the Texas coast last night.
I've written a bible study help on the Revelation of Jesus Christ, the last book of the Bible. I do not set timelines or timetable events regarding the end of days, rather I take a literal view of the events in that book of the Bible taking place at a future unknown and unknowable date and time.
At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold.
I'm neither a seer nor a sayer of future events and how close they may or may not be to us today. I'm an observer. I'm a seeker of truth. As I observe, and seek truth today, my humble evaluation is that our world is not only growing darker (see yesterday's post), but in a very real way, love is growing cold.
What does love growing cold look like? Listen to talk radio and the hate mongering of the conservative right. I was listening at noon yesterday when I heard a man do a call in interview with a popular nationwide talk-show host. The caller was irate about the decision of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. Joseph Kennedy a Seattle coach at Bremerton High School routinely held prayers or motivational talks before and after the teams football games. He was suspended by the school for these actions in 2015. The court system and justice(?) have finally had the final say. Apparently, Coach Kennedy had no right to do such things.
Do you see what I'm saying here? It's not just the lunacy of those who want to re-write history and take down statues which don't mean what the revisionists are trying to make them mean, within their self-deluded ideologies. And it's not just the liberal media that is going nuts here. Ultra conservatism is the birthplace of violence and the death of love itself, just as much as the Alt-Left.
Where will the madness end? When will true Christ-followers rise up and say, "enough is enough." We can rant and rave all we want, but something's gotta give.
Remember, I'm just an observer. I don't pretend to know God's designs or plans beyond what He has told us from the lips of Jesus, or from the writings of John the Apostle.
Can God still intervene in our world, or in the United States of America, and resolve this mess we've made? Sure.
Will He? I just don't know. But while there is still time, surely we can learn to be more loving and look for solutions to our differences without resolving to tearing each other apart at the seams.
Kingwood Country Club, located just north and east of Houston, Texas, was used for many of the golf scenes in the movie. The club is actually 5 courses, (Island, Lake, Marsh, Forest, and Deerwood). That famous scene from the movie was filmed on the par-4 fourth hole of Deerwood. According to Darrell Fuston, Director of Golf for Kingwood Country Club, "It's just an incredibly demanding par 4." This iconic hole is 453 yards, playing into the prevailing wind on most days, and an automatic lay up if you miss the fairway with your tee shot. The second shot plays between trees and over water, with a bunker right, hazard left, and hazard behind the green if you're long. Most professionals find it a difficult hole, and deserving of its No. 1 handicap rating.
Tin Cup may be summed up by the title of this article, "No Guts, No Glory." That shot for Roy McAvoy was as much a mental/emotional challenge as it was a physical/golf test. He had something to prove, to himself, to Molly, to his old playing partner who ridiculed him at every turn, and to the world at large. He had to prove he could hit this shot. And we see this mentality from golfers almost every week on whatever current tournament is being played around the world. It seems to me the best Roy McAvoy type player on the tour today, is one who was actually in the movie, betting against Roy hitting the shot: Phil Mickelson. You can also find this "attitude" in the Bible.
Paul was encouraging the church to abandon their ties to the old world, and live with a "no guts, no glory" mindset for the LORD whom they serve. He prayed they would have more and more love, more spiritual knowledge and discernment. He wanted them to pursue excellence in the lives, and doing so be filled with the Spirit's blessings which would reflect God's glory. This was an all-in commitment.
Roy McAvoy was doing it for the human glory of having made the shot nobody else would even try.
We choose daily to live for the LORD in such a way that God will receive ultimate glory in our realms of influence. So much so, that we will risk it all, just to bring Him this glory.
Its a visceral thing. You feel it in your guts every time you take another step toward being all-in for Jesus.
Tuesday was a tipping point for me at the Senior Men's Golf Association match. The format for the day was "4-man Shamble." It's a simple spin on the "scramble" format where everyone on the team hits from the best previous shot. In a "shamble" Everyone tees off from their normal teeing area, everyone plays from the best "drive" location, then keeps their own score throughout the rest of the hole. On Tuesday my scorecard total was 76 (6 over par of 70) for the day. It was the day I've worked for, for a long time. Breaking 80, even in a shamble, is not that easy to do.
When a person wants to be a good golfer, that person must be able to strike the ball solidly, in the correct impact position, and consistently on each shot throughout the round. This means making contact with the ball as close to the "sweet spot" as possible (center of the club face). The club face angle and path of the swing will both determine if the ball flies toward your intended target. In golf terminology this is called "The Moment of Truth," and refers to the exact instant of impact. The inescapable moment of truth for me Tuesday was in one clearly established fact: I am capable of doing this… so no more excuses.
Golf analogies representing real life applications are often glaring and blinding like the sun. Some of these truths are unmissable. The Grace of God as an eternal truth is one of these inescapable truths. In exactly the right time of human history, God the Son humbled Himself and became a human embryo planted in a virgin's womb by God the Holy Spirit. He wasn't coerced, compelled, obliged, or bullied into this choice. It was the ultimate expression of love and grace, demonstrated in Jesus giving His life so I might live. In this image (in golf-speak), I am not the player, or the club; I am the ball. I am the one impacted by God's divine swing. So, here's the thing. As the ball, I'm inert and incapable of any movement (high, low, near, or far) without God in control of the club. Additionally, we must understand, God's swings perfectly every time.
So if the Moment of Truth is about striking the ball solidly, and consistently, and from the correct impact position… when God's grace saves me, then leads me or guides me into action, it is His power which is evident in me, and it is perfect. However, the glaring truth is: grace must be received, to become enacted for change in my life. Remember Paul's words?
Let's not get bogged down with the analogy. That's usually the trouble with preachers, too much application of an analogy, breaks down over time. My point in this article is to suggest that we are capable of becoming the person God designed us to be. The person living in correct relationship with Him, will always, not just some of the time, be impacted by the grace of God offered to us in Jesus.
We can't work to be saved. We can only be saved by Him, then be the glaring light of Christ to the world around us. When we do this, when we receive His grace, trust His Lordship, then we too can experience the tipping point realization where we can say "yes" to Jesus consistently. We are capable of this commitment, we have choice, just like Jesus did. Once made, once a person steps over the line of faith into Jesus, life will never be the same.
Music. Music in general, all varieties and styles, has been such a large part of my life, it many ways it defines who I am. Mostly, I've been a vocal guy, participating in high school choir, college Chorale, and various small singing groups along the way. That said, I have great respect and admiration for those who play instruments in bands and symphony orchestras. In one brief stint, from 6th grade to 8th grade, I spent time trying to learn to play the coronet. I was ok, but in my band director's ears, probably mediocre at best. When I got into 9th grade, at Andrews High School, my band director made me choose between band and football. Seriously? This is no contest, I was the starting fullback, and band was never again even in my rear view mirror. Today, lots of football players also march in their high school band, but that's how much things have changed over the last 49 years.
One of the timeless things that hasn't changed, and will never change is the importance of how each individual believer makes up the eternal worship and symphonic praise to God, our Creator. In the New Living Translation of Psalm 98, the translators have captured the idea, the significance, of the Symphony of Praise that should be a major part of our lives today. Because it will most certainly be part of our experience in God's presence throughout eternity.
Sing a new song to the LORD, for he has done wonderful deeds. His right hand has won a mighty victory; his holy arm has shown his saving power!
The LORD has announced his victory and has revealed his righteousness to every nation!
He has remembered his promise to love and be faithful to Israel. The ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.
Shout to the LORD, all the earth; break out in praise and sing for joy!
Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise! Let the earth and all living things join in.
before the LORD. For the LORD is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with justice, and the nations with fairness.
If we view this image of the psalmist as a whole, we see the reasons for our worship, the instruction of who is to participate, and all the different sights and sounds that make up the symphony of praise.
The sea and everything in it, the earth and all living things, the rivers, the hills… all join in the activities of praise and worship, which humans should be leading them to do.
The reason humans should lead the symphony is based in the Lords: deeds, victory, saving power, righteousness, promises fulfilled, and faithfulness.
The humans are to sing a new song, shout to the Lord, sing praise, sing with the harp, trumpets, and ram's horn… all joining in this great symphony.
Do you see what I see here? The Holy Spirit used this psalmist to help us understand that every single human being, every created living creature, and all of the created plants life, all the earth itself, is supposed to participate in this worship. Yet the only ones with choice, are the ones who are charged with leading the praise.
So, let's be clear. This psalm assumes the true Christ follower will join this praise party out of full devotion, some with overwhelming emotion, for what Jesus has offered them in His grace. It begs the question, doesn't it? Do these words apply to you today? Were these words just written for a different people group, at a different time and to a different culture, having no application for people today? I think you know the answer here, but I'm not going to let you off that easy.
Psalm 98 is not really a choice thing. It is spoken/written as an admonition, as instruction; not as optional for those who aren't "musically" capable, or see themselves as "musically challenged." Think of it this way. When humans fail to offer their voices (a gift of God) or their skills with instruments (a gift of God) in worship and praise to God, it is from a rebellious and stubborn heart, filled with a form of pride that robs God of His glory.
The audience, is the object of our worship and praise. We sing to, and worship, Jesus. We lift our hands and our voices in a symphonic praise to exalt the King of kings. I'm not singing for anyone around me. I'm singing for the one who lives inside me, saving me with His powerful right hand, offering me grace every single day that I live!
You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.
Don't wait until Sunday morning worship… join the symphony of praise today!


Get 15% off coupon for live bearded mens beard oil kit usa. All natural oils and butters are the secret weapon to a perfect beard. Essentials is for you, in just 3 short minutes a day, our top-shelf beard oil and butter will leave your beard looking legendary. healthy and shaped to perfection.


text:
Surveillance and Evaluation
Head: Professor Margaret Hellard, Manager: Jason Asselin
Manager: Jason Asselin
In Australia, HIV, viral hepatitis and other sexually transmissible infections (STIs) notifications have been on the rise for the past decade. The Surveillance and Evaluation working group conducts surveillance for bloodborne viruses (BBVs) and STIs on behalf of State and Commonwealth Governments.
Its flagship project, the Australian Collaboration for Coordinated Enhanced Sentinel Surveillance of Blood Borne Viruses and Sexually Transmissible Infections (ACCESS), is a vital tool to assist the Commonwealth with monitoring and evaluating progress towards the goals and objectives of the national BBV and STI strategies. ACCESS also contributes important data to the projects like EC Australia.
This group also conducts rigorous evaluations of projects and programs aimed at better understanding the transmission and prevention of BBVs and STIs and the health and wellbeing of key populations.
Managing, developing and refining innovative surveillance systems for the Victorian and Commonwealth Governments to better understand the drivers of BBV and STI transmission, treatment and prevention.
Undertake evaluation projects to examine the effectiveness of policy and initiatives aimed at reducing the transmission and impact of BBVs and STIs and improve access to treatment and care.
Integrating findings from our surveillance, epidemiology and research to inform policy and practice to prevent the transmission of BBVs and STIs and improve access to treatment and care.
The ACCESS project is a national health surveillance network of sexually transmissible infections (STIs) and blood borne viruses (BBVs), which started in 2008. ACCESS was initially focused exclusively on chlamydia, but in 2013 expanded to encompass other STIs and BBVs as well. In 2016, ACCESS received funding from the Australian Department of Health to improve coverage and capacity for monitoring testing, diagnosis, and treatment of HIV, Hepatitis B and C and STIs in every state and territory.
Building on the success of ACCESS in Australia, the working group is now piloting the technology in Myanmar, to assist in monitoring the HIV treatment cascade.
The Surveillance and Evaluation group continue to evaluate Victorian HIV and other STI prevention initiatives.
Doctor Anna Wilkinson
Caitlin Douglass
Carol El-Hayek
Caroline Taunton
Jason Asselin
Professor Mark A Stoové
Nyssa Watson
Stephanie Main
Doctor Tafireyi Marukutira
Doctor Thi Nguyen
Doctor Victoria Polkinghorne
Eliminate HIV
Manager, Surveillance and Evaluation Group
ACCESS: The Australian Collaboration for Coordinated Enhanced Sentinel Surveillance of Blood Borne Viruses and Sexually Transmitted Infections
Evaluation of the Multicultural Drug and Alcohol Service
SRH survey of Chinese-speaking international students
PhD student and Research Assistant
Surveillance Officer | Master of Philosophy (Applied Epidemiology) Candidate
Head of Public Health
PhD Student & Research Assistant
Data programmer


text:
Luis Pardo fue un militar y poeta español que vivió en los siglos XVI y XVII.

Se conocen muy pocos datos acerca de este hombre, que arribó a Santiago del Estero hacia 1581: casi todo lo que se sabe hoy sobre su vida nos fue dado por el magnífico escritor español del Siglo de Oro fray Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio (1562-1635).

Al parecer, como oficial del Ejército Imperial Español, Luis Pardo había combatido «en las contiendas bélicas que hacia entonces España libraba en los Países Bajos» (estrictamente, entre 1567 y 1585). Emergiendo victorioso de aquella guerra, el joven poeta se dedica a descansar un periodo en su natal Andalucía.

Respecto de ello, dice Lope de Vega refiriéndose a Pardo:

«...olvidando a Flandes,

Donde tuviera por hazañas grandes

Los cargos más honrosos de la guerra... 2»

regresa a su Sevilla originaria para disfrutar

«de Amigos, ocio, amor y propia tierra. 3 »

Luis Pardo fue considerado por Lope de Vega como un eximio poeta. Así lo hace constar en su libro "Laurel de Apolo", publicado en 1630, a sus 68 años de edad.

Por una de las composiciones de este libro conocemos los pocos detalles sobre la vida de Luis Pardo que han alcanzado la actualidad. El primero de ellos es que Lope de Vega lo reputa como «ingenio felicísimo», y lamenta que este poeta dedique tanto tiempo «a la espada». Luego narra el desventurado amor juvenil, por cuyas consecuencias este capitán del imperio se viese obligado a huir «a las Indias».

Parece que al regresar de la guerra de Flandes, Luis Pardo trabó relaciones sentimentales con una bella joven, algo casquivana. Ella habría tenido relación, además, con un «poderoso hombre». En uno de los encuentros sentimentales, los amantes fueron sorprendidos por este poderoso hombre, quien «de noche» acudió acompañado con dos custodios armados. Luis Pardo habría abatido a ambos, viéndose obligado luego a escapar, único modo de eludir las posteriores represalias de su desempeño como espadachín.

Primero - siempre según cuenta Lope de Vega -, permanece un tiempo en Paraguay, para trasladarse luego a «las argentadas tierras del Tucma», cuya capital era por entonces la ciudad de Santiago del Estero.

Evidentemente continuó con su labor literaria, puesto que el "Fénix de los Ingenios" lo considera, cuarenta años más tarde, como un valioso escritor.

Referencias

1. Vicente Oddo. "Los otros adelantados. Cuatro precursores de las buenas letras y las bellas artes argentinas". Editorial Herca, Santiago del Estero, 1992.

2 y 3 Fray Lope Félix de la Vega y Carpio. "Laurel de Apolo". Edición dedicada al almirante de Castilla don Juan Alfonso Enríquez de Cabrera y posiblemente financiada por él. 1630.

Enlaces externos

Poetas de España del siglo XVI
Poetas de España del siglo XVII
Militares de España del siglo XVI
Militares de España del siglo XVII

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Golani, real name Ariella Yahuda, is an Israeli police officer with magical powers. She appeared in the Archie Comics series.
Golani possesses many magical abilities, able to fly, project energy blasts, and take the form of a blue-skinned female warrior.


text:
namespace Envoy {
namespace Extensions {
namespace Common {
namespace Dubbo {

class Hessian2SerializerImpl : public Serializer {
public:
  // Serializer
  SerializeType type() const override { return SerializeType::Hessian2; }
  RpcRequestPtr deserializeRpcRequest(Buffer::Instance& buffer, Context& context) override;
  RpcResponsePtr deserializeRpcResponse(Buffer::Instance& buffer, Context& context) override;
  void serializeRpcResponse(Buffer::Instance& buffer, MessageMetadata& metadata) override;
  void serializeRpcRequest(Buffer::Instance& buffer, MessageMetadata& metadata) override;
};

} // namespace Dubbo
} // namespace Common
} // namespace Extensions
} // namespace Envoy


text:
R. Duane Conner
1921(Birth)
1979(Death)
Duane Conner was born in Oklahoma City in 1921, but because his father, Will, was a teacher and principal in rural school districts, the family moved around the state often in his childhood. The Conner family finally settled in Stillwater when Will took a job with the university as an extension cooperative coordinator. Duane graduated from Stillwater High School and received a degree from the architecture school of Oklahoma State University (then Oklahoma A & M) in 1941, right as the United States was about to enter World War II. Conner was classified 4F but was soon recruited to work as a design engineer for the top secret Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, TN, where he and his young family remained for the duration of the war.
After the end of hostilities, Duane returned to Oklahoma City and went to work for the firm of Coston & Frankfurt. It was there that he met up with an old college classmate, Fred Pojezny, and the two decided to form their own firm, Conner & Pojezny. Soon after they teamed up, the two men found quite a bit of work in Oklahoma's post-war boom economy. They began work with Edmond's University of Central Oklahoma, then known as Central State College, constructing the Y-Chapel of Song (now on the National Register of Historic Places), the Fine Arts building, and the former Student Union building - as well as different school buildings around Oklahoma City. One of their home designs was featured in House Beautiful magazine in 1952. Their Mid-Continent News Building - now torn down - was featured in several architectural magazines, including one in France. In 1955 the firm received its most ambitious assignment - from Conner and Pojezny's own church. The First Christian Church went through a number a redesigns and it was during this time that the two partners decided to go their separate ways.
Duane completed the church and set up shop on his own, focusing on "creative progressive design based on advanced technology and construction economics," according to one article. He remained in practice until his death in 1979.
Conner House, Oklahoma City
Glasgow House, Edmond
Mid-Continent News Building, Oklahoma City
Y-Chapel of Song, University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond
Student Union, University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond
Electri-Living House, Oklahoma City
Coley House, Oklahoma City
Miskovsky House, Oklahoma City
First Christian Church, Oklahoma City
First Christian Church, Del City
Frederickson Fieldhouse, Oklahoma City University
Lynne Rostochil, okcmod.com
"Modernist Architect R. Duane Conner's Buildings in Oklahoma Withstand Test of Time," The Journal Record, June 23, 2010. Accessed via questia.com.
R. Duane Conner's Sites


text:
Never Enough Wool
SCUGOG: For about 12 years, Never Enough Wool has been operating in the Scugog community. Carol McGavin started 'Never Enough Wool' after she learned her favourite wool shop in the community, Yonder Yarns, was closing. "I needed a place where I could buy yarn and wool and hang out with other people that liked to knit and crochet, and were as crazy and fun loving as I am," Ms. McGavin said. "So I wrote up a business plan and everything fell into place." Shortly after it opened, a regular knitting group was set up, which has seen its membership base steadily increase over the years. "We started with a Thursday night knitting group, and then we had a Wednesday afternoon knitting group, and then a Tuesday night class, and then a Tuesday afternoon class and then officially Saturday and then Thursday afternoon, and now pretty much anytime we are open you will find people sitting here knitting or crocheting," Ms. McGavin said. Barb Harvel is Carol's business partner. She said her favourite part about the business is being able to teach the customers. "I love teaching the new techniques to people, I love watching a new knitter go out on his or her own and just understand what he or she is doing," she said. Ms. Harvel also said the immense support from the community is what has kept 'Never Enough Wool' successful over the years. "We wouldn't do this without the community support, it is so much fun," she told The Standard. Ms. McGavin agreed with her business partner. "We have people who come in and they could be having a rotten day, or I could be coming in during the day and be having a rotten morning, and people come in and we talk about the wool and suddenly it is a bright sunny day. The support from the community is just amazing," she said. by DAN CEARNS
26 Water Street, Port Perry, Ontario
Tuesday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
neverenoughwool.ca
#business #SpotlightonBusiness #hobby #retail #PortPerry
Five reasons to shop small versus big box
Four unique ways to help small businesses grow
Ontario-Wide Financial offers clients several mortgage solutions


text:
Art & DesignCultureFoodFootballMusicSportTravelUKUS
filmAll Sections
Rush – review
Mark Kermode
Saturday, 14 Sep 2013
# Chris Hemsworth
# Drama films
# Motor sport
# Niki Lauda
# Ron Howard
# Rush
# Sport films
Ron Howard's populist take on James Hunt and Niki Lauda's 70s rivalry is a thrilling hymn to male pride and motor sport
A true story of chalk-and-cheese Formula One drivers – one hot-headed, the other coolly calculating – locked together in a life-and-death rivalry may well seem familiar to UK filmgoers. Yet Asif Kapadia's brilliantly dramatic documentary Senna remains largely unseen by mainstream audiences in America, where it was also scandalously overlooked at the Oscars (here, it won two prestigious Baftas).
To fill that gap, we now have Rush, Ron Howard's multiplex-friendly account of the friction-filled relationship between James Hunt and Niki Lauda, which eerily echoes the tensions teased out between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in Kapadia's groundbreaking work. Well oiled, excitingly noisy and machine-tooled for maximum popcorn appeal, Howard's roaring drama depicts men risking life and limb in insanely dangerous circumstances, although the film itself prefers to play it safe in order to court the widest possible crowd.
Scripted by Peter Morgan, whose stage play Frost/Nixon formed the basis of Howard's previous real-life 70s grudge match, Rush paints its duelling antagonists with the most baldly oppositional black-and-white brushstrokes. While Hunt is a handsome playboy with a champagne lifestyle and shagadelic reputation (his badge bears the legend "Sex: Breakfast of Champions"), Lauda is a "rat-faced" systems analyst who goes to bed early after sweating over the mathematical permutations of success.
As the former, Chris Hemsworth appears on occasion to be channelling the spirit of Austin Powers, a Merrie English swinger for whom naughty NHS nurses in stockings provide more than first aid, while saucy stewardesses offer obliging membership to the mile-high club at the drop of a polo-neck sweater. Toning down his performance only marginally from that of his hammer-swinging thunder god turn in Thor, the Australian Hemsworth is ready for action on and off the track, although his posh-school British accent sometimes slides like slick-tyred wheels on a rainy racetrack.
But it's Daniel Brühl as the rigidly locked-down Lauda who is arguably the more interesting of the two; while Hunt's boyish enthusiasms are all on the surface, the enigmatic Austrian's driving forces are more elusive, causing us to wonder about his true motives. Like his eternal adversary, he is a son of wealth rebelling against a privileged past, the common bond that joins this odd couple. But whereas Hunt wears his passions on his sleeve (or, more often, his underpants), Lauda's demons are somewhat internalised, leaving Brühl to wrestle with an emotionally distant character, something he manages with aplomb.
Juxtaposing the worldviews of its yin and yang heroes, Morgan's script treads a fine line between intrigue and overstatement. At its best, this makes for much entertainingly abrasive drama as the rivals' love-hate relationship provokes sparky interaction at pre-race meetings (another flag wave to Senna) and social gatherings alike. Yet such clear-cut divisions can also become an obstacle, with credibility stalling somewhat as simplification wrests control of the narrative steering wheel. It doesn't help that Austin Powers' Basil Exposition himself seems occasionally to be in the commentary box, providing the aural equivalent of subtitles for the hard of thinking.
But Howard has always been a die-hard populist, whether serving up the sparkling romantic fantasy of Splash or delving into the murky waters of psychosis in A Beautiful Mind. With such notable exceptions as the dismal The Da Vinci Code and the painfully unfunny The Dilemma, his back catalogue bears testament to his ability to blend solid thematic meat with easily digestible fluff. As such, Rush (which cost a modest $50m) may prove to be a hit with American audiences for whom the subject matter is still something of a foreign country.
Significantly, Rush also marks a return to Howard's roots, which are firmly grounded in cinematic dreams of cars. Having starred in American Graffiti, with its nostalgic evocations of drive-ins and hot rods, Howard made his directorial feature debut, in 1977, with Grand Theft Auto, a motorised romantic caper publicised with a cartoon pile-up poster proudly brandishing the tagline: "See the greatest cars in the world destroyed!" – a promise on which Rush makes good. There are comparisons, too, with Apollo 13, another 70s-set true story about men in all too flimsy machines travelling at speeds that are likely to cause them to burn up and worse. Despite the fact that (most) audiences knew how that particular adventure would end, Howard did a brilliant job of keeping the crackling tension alive by concentrating on the relations between the astronauts, his dexterity with both the mechanics of action cinema and the nuances of dialogue paying dramatic dividends. It's a winning combination that is once again to the fore in Rush.
Much credit goes to the ace team of cinematic mechanics whom Howard has assembled to fine-tune his vehicle – from Anthony Dod Mantle's typically deft and probing camerawork, always finding the unexpected perspective, to the collective efforts of the sound department, whose crunchy gear changes and booming engine throbs put the audience right there in the driver's seat. Visually, the film has an access-all-areas pass to every nook and cranny of the cars, but it's the pulsing bassline of that soundtrack that provides the dramatic chassis of the race sequences. Solid supporting performances add to the appeal, with Alexandra Maria Lara and Olivia Wilde making the most of their twin "muse" roles, while Christian McKay reminds us that we have seen too little of him since his breakthrough role in Me and Orson Welles.
Bright, brash and unashamedly formulaic, this is thrillingly accessible fare, aiming more for the straight lines of the home stretch than the tricky curves of those treacherous corners, with Howard keeping one eye always on the grandstand.
Writer and broadcaster Mark Kermode is the Observer's chief film critic. He is the author of Hatchet Job and The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex. Twitter @kermodemovie
The GuardianTramp
Ron Howard's movie about 1970s British swashbucking F1 star James Hunt and his antler-clashing rivalry with the icy Niki Lauda is a fast and furious treat, writes Peter Bradshaw
12, Sep, 2013 @2:30 PM
Rush: watch an exclusive clip from Ron Howard's drama about the rivalry between F1 drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda
Watch a clip from Rush, Ron Howard's drama about the rivalry between Formula 1 drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda
30, Aug, 2013 @10:56 AM
Rush: a thrilling but untrusty ride
Alex von Tunzelmann: Ron Howard's biopic of James Hunt and Niki Lauda's rivalry captures their racy lives. But in truth the two were good friends
Alex von Tunzelmann
18, Sep, 2013 @10:32 AM
Rush: Toronto 2013 – first look review
Henry Barnes: Ron Howard's 70s-set formula one thriller about the rivalry between drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda is supercharged fun, even if it may not depict the era with total accuracy
Henry Barnes
Rush – Toronto 2013: first look review
Ron Howard's tale of the rivalry between chalk-and-cheese 70s racing drivers is a high-speed delight
In the Heart of the Sea review – O blubber, where art thou?
Ron Howard's nautical tale boasts fine acting, but the visuals and the vengeful white whale are unconvincing
Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
27, Dec, 2015 @9:00 AM
Daniel Brühl: Rush, Niki Lauda and me
In Ron Howard's new film, Daniel Brühl plays Formula One driver Niki Lauda the year he fought James Hunt for the championship – and suffered a horrific and disfiguring crash. He talks to Alex Godfrey about meeting the straight-talking racing legend
Alex Godfrey
Rush star Chris Hemsworth: 'Formula One became cautious and clinical' - video interview
Actors Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl, director Ron Howard and writer Peter Morgan, talk about their acclaimed formula one thriller Rush
11, Sep, 2013 @8:00 AM
Oscar predictions 2014: Rush
Our series continues with Ron Howard's high-speed drama about rivalry between F1 drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda
30, Aug, 2013 @3:36 PM
Foxcatcher review – Steve Carell excels in a real-life tragedy
Steve Carell is unrecognisable as the tormented sports-obsessed millionaire who lost the battle against his own demons, writes Mark Kermode
11, Jan, 2015 @9:30 AM


While Mr. Carrión was President of Banco Popular, Popular completed the acquisition of various financial institutions, including Banco de Ponce, Banco Roig, Seminole Bank, First State Bank of Southern California, Gore Bronson Bancorp in Chicago, Aurora National Bank, Quaker City Bank in California, and Kislak National Bank in Florida, among others. At the time of the acquisition, Banco de Ponce was the second largest bank in Puerto Rico. In the information technology arena, Mr. Carrion's vision brought the first network of ATMs to Puerto Rico and many other Latin American countries, and also spearheaded the successful migration from paper to electronic transactions. In 1999, after the acquisition of GM Group, Inc., the largest data processing center in the Caribbean, Popular consolidated its leadership role in the technological arena, thus creating EVERTEC, a new leader in information technology. Mr. Carrión's enthusiasm and energy in professional matters is coupled with a sense of deep social justice. For almost three decades Mr. Carrión has given great priority to the task of juggling his time between corporate America and philanthropy; placing particular emphasis on education and sports. He has been a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 1990 and currently chairs the Finance Commission and the Audit Committee. Also, he is a member of the Coordination Commission for the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, Rio 2016, IOC's Marketing, TV Rights and New Media, and 2009 Congress Commissions. Mr. Carrión led the negotiation team for the U.S. broadcast of the 2010 and 2012 Olympic Games - generating $2 billion in revenue - and was elected to the IOC Executive Board in 2004. In 2007, he was appointed as a member of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Finance Commission. In 2008, he was elected for a three-year term as class A director of the Federal reserve Bank of New York; in 2010, was re-elected as class A director for another three-year term. He is the founder and trustee of the Banco Popular Foundation; which, among other charities, has donated scholarships to over 1,000 students through the Rafael Carrión, Jr. Scholarship Fund. He currently serves on the board of directors of Verizon. Mr. Carrión, a native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, is married to Conxita Martorell and has five children: Io Ana, Richard, Ceciliana, Ana Sofía and Rafael Luis.