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Gracetom News
Home Alaska Arctic Barrow methane sea ice sea surface temperatures SST Arctic Sea Ice At Historic Low
Arctic Sea Ice At Historic Low
On May 20, 2015, Arctic sea ice extent was only 12.425 million square km, a record low for the time of the year since satellite measurements began in 1979.
As the Arctic Sea Ice is at a historic low, Alaska faces temperatures as high as 31°C (87.8°F), as illustrated by the image below.
How is it possible for temperatures to get so high at locations so close to the North Pole?
Typhoon Dolphin
Dr. Michael Ventrice, Operational Scientist at The Weather Channel Professional Division points at two typhoons, Noul and Dolphin, that recently hit the western Pacific Ocean.
These typhoons do have some impact. Importantly, global warming is increasing the strength of cyclones. In other words, a greater impact of cyclones on the jet stream can be expected as a feedback of global warming.
Furthermore, global warming is directly changing the path followed by the North Polar Jet Stream, from a relatively straight path at a latitude of 60°N to a wildly meandering path that at some places merges with the Subtropical Jet Stream and reaching speeds as high as 267 km/h (166 mph) and that at other places moves high into the Arctic and reaches speeds as high as 170 km/h (106 mph).
On above image, part of the jet stream even moves right across the pole. Such changes to the jet stream constitute one out of numerous feedbacks of global warming, as discussed at the feedbacks page. Decline of the snow cover and sea ice in the Arctic is another such feedback.
As discussed in earlier posts, heat waves at high latitudes cause thawing of frozen soil and melting of glaciers and snow cover, This results in large amounts of water draining into rivers that end up in the Arctic Ocean. At the same time, heat waves also raise the temperature of the water in these rivers. The larger amounts of warmer water result in additional sea ice decline and warming of the Arctic Ocean seabed.
Such heat waves also set the scene for wildfires that emit not only greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, but also pollutants such as carbon monoxide (that depletes hydroxyl that could otherwise break down methane) and black carbon (that when settling on ice causes it to absorb more sunlight).
Above image shows how much warmer the water in the Arctic Ocean is compared to what it used to be, with high anomalies where rivers flow into the Arctic Ocean and where the Gulf Stream carries warm water from the Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic Ocean.
The situation looks set to get worse, as the frequency and intensity of heat waves in North America and Siberia increases as temperature at high latitudes are rising rapidly. Furthermore, warm water is lining up along the path of the Gulf Stream, with sea surface temperature anomalies as high as 10.3°C (18.54°F) recorded off the coast of North America on May 20, 2015, as illustrated by the image below.
Green circle shows a 10.3°C (18.54°F) sea surface temperature anomaly from daily average (1981-2011)
Meanwhile, a very high methane reading was recorded at Barrow, Alaska (hourly average, in situ measurement), as illustrated by the image below.
The big danger is that the combined impact of these feedbacks will accelerate warming in the Arctic to a point where huge amounts of methane will erupt abruptly from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean.
The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as discussed at the Climate Plan page.
As the Arctic Sea Ice is at a historic low, Alaska faces temperatures as high as 31°C (87.8°F). From the post: Arctic...
Posted by Sam Carana on Thursday, May 21, 2015
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Northamptonshire worst in country as 900 patients are STRANDED in our hospitals
There are 900 patients currently stranded in Northamptonshire's two acute hospitals.
Nine hundred patients are currently stranded in Northamptonshire hospitals, making it the worst situation in the country.
Northamptonshire County Council's director of adult social services says that despite huge efforts to try to improve the situation, as fast as people are being sent home more people are arriving at the doors of the county's two hospitals.
Ninety over-65s are currently being admitted each day, which is twice the national average.
Stranded patients are those not classed as medically fit to go home because they are waiting on some further action by health or social care providers such as medical tests or home improvements.
Health and council leaders are meeting Northamptonshire MPs today (June 27) to try to get some more money into Northamptonshire's health and social care economy which is now buckling under the strain of more demand with a growing and ageing population.
The county council, which has responsibility for adult social services, is in a well documented financial crisis and its adult budget is £6m overspent just three months into the year.
The county's two clinical commissioning groups are also facing 'significant financial challenges' and only just managed to balance their books this April, having to raid reserves to do so.
Speaking at the council's scrutiny meeting yesterday the director of adult social care Anna Earnshaw said: "We are currently in the worst situation in the country in terms of stranded patients.
"The reason is not because we are not doing more to help and you will have seen some of the headlines around us reducing our delayed transfer of care rate, we are one of the most improved in the country in terms of doing that.
"That took about 20 per cent extra staffing that we all had to put in to make that happen. The sad part about that unfortunately was it didn't change the occupancy levels at the hospitals and how many stranded patients there were and very simply that is because as fast as we were taking people out the demand was coming in.
"So admissions are still too high and they are rising. The answer is clearly stopping people going in."
At the meeting Cllr Graham Lawman, who is a trustee at Kettering General Hospital, raised the issue of high admissions from care homes. Anna Earnshaw said the rate of admissions from care homes in Northants was three times the national average.
There are plans for health and social services to work together more closely as part of a 'integrated care system' and pool some resources.
Northampton's mayor officially opens new care home...having helped make it a reality
Calls for government cash as Northamptonshire adult social care already £6m overspent
The director said: "From my point of view health success is our success and vice versa. They are under horrendous pressure at the moment in the acute hospitals – we have 900 stranded patients. The only solution to all of that and to the budget pressures is that we work together.
"So there is a very strong plan around health and social care integration going forward, based in communities and we are building up the proposition at the moment about what that looks like.
"So how health, social care, housing, district and borough services and the voluntary sector will wrap around the primary care networks and how we can provide local care that will stop people ending up in hospital."
At today's meeting the health and council bosses will be asking for some funds to help cut the number of stranded patients by 170 people.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I will happily send out a replacement. You have 28 days from the dispatch date to contact me.
A photograph will have to be shown, for this process to take place.
Exchanges/refunds will only be made, if i'm unable to send out a replacement, i.e the piece you ordered is currently out of stock and I'm unable to get another one sent out to you on my next posting day.
You have 28 days from the dispatch date to contact me about the issue.
Though this problem rarely occurs, once or twice I misread or click on the wrong tab when packing up orders, I am only human.
Please send me an email via the contact page, making me aware of the problem.
A photo will need to supplied of the item you received, and please include your order number along with the photo.
The correct piece of Jewellery will then be sent out for you at no extra charge on the next posting day.
28 day product guarantee. You have 28 days from the dispatch date to contact me if your product breaks, though this is unlikely, I will happily replace any item completely free of charge.
Please be aware that a photo will need to be provided of the broken product for this process to take place.
Please note, that these are the only conditions for which any jewellery is to be returned/replaced. So please make sure you have fully read all the information provided on the listing. If you have any specific questions about any piece of jewellery, then you can always contact me for more detailed photos etc.
'Freebies' will not be replaced if they arrived damaged. These have no accounted for value so no claim will be able to be made, they are also usually stock clearance items, meaning theres a very limited number available.
Returns must be dicussed via email, before any pieces are sent back to me. Failing to email prior to sending back, may mean you will not be refunded, and/or a replacement will not be sent back. So please make sure you contact me first.
Got any questions? Please contact me.


A project for making easy-to-assemble furniture using rough boards and nails. An elementary technique to teach to look at present production with a critical eye. Anyone,apart from factories and traders, can use these designs to make them by themselves. The author hopes the idea will last into the future. and asks those who build the furniture.
Enzo Mari was born in Novara in 1932. The driving force behind his work has always been themeaning of form and projeckt. for yaers he has collaborated with top Italian companies He has exhibited in leading international museums where his some of his objects comprise part of their permanent collections. He has held teaching courses and has received innumerable award and prizes including 4 gold compasses.


Previously recorded from a Live Pot TV Broadcast. Marc Emery talks to Hillary Black of the Vancouver Compassion Club and editor of Cannabis Culture Magazine Dana Larsen. With Marijuana Man and the Tall Brothers Reefer Band.


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Cephalotes coffeae är en myrart som först beskrevs av Kempf 1953.  Cephalotes coffeae ingår i släktet Cephalotes och familjen myror. Inga underarter finns listade.

Källor

Externa länkar

Myror
coffeae

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Stephen G, if the co-pilot collapses the cabin crew have a code to enter the cockpit. To prevent the possibility of terrorists "obtaining" the code, if the pilot thinks there is a potential hijack he has to positively flick the switch to completely lock the door, thereby putting the cockpit into bolt down. Not the normal action of a sane lone copilot.


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#AllFamiliesSpeakOut
How the EU works
In this section, we collect links that explain how the different EU institutions function and give some historic background.
What does the EU do?
Why do we have the EU?
How are laws being made?
European political and policy issues under the spotlight: 2019 political changeover in Europe: What will change – A less predictableEuropean Parliament? Why is it relevant for businesses seeking to influence the EU? What is the Spitzenkandidat process and does it matter?
About the EU – basic information (in all 24 languages): Information on countries, EU symbols, the Euro, Eu budget, EU in figures, European history, EU presidents, institutions and bodies, agencies, working for and with the EU, EU funding and downloads of The General Report on the Activities of the European Union, The European Union – What it is and what it does and Europe in 12 lessons.
How the European Union works – Your guide to the EU institutions: This publication is a guide on how the European Union (EU) works. 'How the EU works' means how decisions are taken at EU level and who takes those decisions. At the heart of this decision-making process are the EU institutions — such as the Parliament, the Council and the European Commission — which you may have heard of, and there are others. To show how the EU works, this publication first explains how EU legislation is made. It then gives further insight into each of the EU institutions, as well as the agencies and bodies supporting them.
The EU at work (in all 24 languages): The European Union has its own legislature and executive, as well as an independent judiciary and a central bank. These are supported and complemented by a set of institutions and bodies, the powers conferred on which derive from the founding Treaties. The Union's powers have evolved considerably over the years through the successive Treaties, as have its decision-making procedures, which Parliament and the Council now follow when legislating on most EU policies. The Union also has its own budget with which to achieve its objectives. The Lisbon Treaty gave Parliament an equal say with the Council to decide on the entire EU budget and the multiannual financial framework.
How the EU budget will be spent (in all 24 languages): The long-term budget sets out the EU's long-term spending priorities and limits. The EU budget finances activities ranging from developing rural areas and conserving the environment to protecting external borders and promoting human rights. The Commission, the Council and Parliament all have a say in determining the size of the budget and how it is allocated. But it is the Commission that is responsible for spending. The EU countries and the Commission share responsibility for about 80% of the budget. This page contains drafting the budget, managing EU funds and what the money goes on.
How does the council vote? (in all 24 languages): Depending on the issue under discussion, the Council of the EU takes its decisions by simple majority, qualified majority or unanimous vote. Read more about it and look into voting results.
#AllFamiliesSpeakOutCampaigns
European Elections: #AllFamiliesSpeakOut
We launched a call to the network to vote and speak out in May 2019 using 10 key values as a compass. #AllFamiliesSpeakOut
Oct 27, 2021 | 1 min read
#AllFamiliesSpeakOutOpinions
OPINION: Family diversity in the EU – a call for more respect!
Most recently, Commission President von der Leyen used her State of the European Union to underline her support for the LGBTIQ community and the recognition of rainbow families.
Oct 2, 2020 | 5 min read
#AllFamiliesSpeakOutCampaignsOpinions
Many blame the critical sentiments on a lack of effective communication on the benefits of Europe, leading to a growing detachment between the Brussels-based EU and its citizens.


using the dreamhost username & password?
I've always been under the impression that the ftp sub-domain is reserved for anon FTP or user authenticated FTP.
Try just putting your domain name into the hostname such as "myaddress.com" and leave off the "www" and/or "ftp".
Actually, ftp.example.com resolves to the same IP address as example.com - it's just a convenience IP… so ftp.example.com, example.com, or www.example.com would all work.


Free services for all enrolled students.
The Tutoring Center provides academic assistance for all Penn College students.
Any student can benefit from learning how to study more efficiently.
The Writing Center uses a process-centered approach to writing.
The Academic Mentoring program helps students transition to and through the college process.
Penn College has a vested interest in student success. That's why we have invested in Mapworks to identify at-risk students early in their academic pursuits. Mapworks enables faculty and staff to initiate coordinated communication and intervention efforts among student support services across campus. And whether at risk or not, all first-year students who complete their Mapworks surveys receive a customized report that helps them gain a better understanding of strengths and weaknesses in areas essential to persistence and academic success in college. Students can learn more about Mapworks on the myPCT portal (login required).
Staff in the Academic Success Center are caring and patient. They're willing to explain concepts in as many ways as needed to help you understand.


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Deep Politics Forum › Deep Politics Forum › War is a Racket
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US arms industry makes strong comeback to Turkish market
http://www.today.az/news/regions/85072.html
- Lockheed Martin will provide Turkey with 30 modern F-16 Block 50 fighter aircraft worth nearly $1.8 billion soon. Lockheed Martin is also modernizing most of Turkey's older F-16 jets.
In addition Turkey is taking part in the Lockheed Matin-led, multinational program for new-generation and stealth F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lightning II fighter aircraft, and plans to buy around 100 aircraft.
For a long time the United States defense giants have failed to win a lucrative Turkish contract in the face of competition from European and non-European rivals, but the spell was broken last week when Sikorsky Aircraft, a top US helicopter maker, grabbed the job to lead the production of Turkey's next utility helicopter for the military.
Under the move by Turkey's top decision-making body on defense procurement last Thursday, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a United Technologies company, defeated Italy's AgustaWestland in a $3.5 billion competition to lead the joint manufacture of 109 T-70 platforms, a Turkish version of the company's S-70 Black Hawk International.
AgustaWestland is a subsidiary owned by the Italian conglomerate Finmeccanica, the closest defense partner for Turkey in recent years. It was competing with the TUHP-149, a proposed Turkish version for its newly developed AW-149.
Turkey has two methods of defense procurement from foreign sources. The first is single-source purchases through government-to-government agreements, and the second is commercial tenders that are international competitions where more than one foreign company is competing.
In the first method, the U.S. is still the largest supplier of Turkey's weapons systems. For example the U.S.'s Lockheed Martin will provide Turkey with 30 modern F-16 Block 50 fighter aircraft worth nearly $1.8 billion soon. Lockheed Martin is also modernizing most of Turkey's older F-16 jets.
But in commercial tenders, U.S. companies have been failing against other foreign firms in the past 10 years. For example, in 2007 AgustaWestland won a multibillion-dollar Turkish tender to provide the Turkish Army with 51 T129 attack helicopters. Later the company grabbed another contract to make Turkey another nine T129s.
Also, U.S. companies, over the past 10 years, lost bids against Israeli firms to modernize the M-60 main battle tanks and to buy unmanned aerial vehicles. In addition, a South Korean company, Korean Aerospace Industries, won a Turkish tender for basic trainer aircraft, and an Italian company, Telespazio, topped U.S. rivals and won a Turkish contract to build a military satellite.
Turkey in recent years managed to locally design, develop and produce most of what it needed for its Land Forces and Navy by manufacturing armored vehicles and smaller vessels, and its new defense industry strategy calls for greater self-sufficiency in other fields, including some fixed-wing and rotating-wing aircraft.
Sikorsky is no stranger to the Turkish military. In the 1990s it sold more than 100 S-70 Black Hawk International helicopters in two batches. In 2006, it finalized a deal to sell 17 S-70B Seahawk naval warfare helicopters to the Turkish Navy. Recently it started deliveries, and in the face of a delay in deliveries, it accepted a Turkish request to provide an 18th S-70B free of charge.
Sikorsky Aircraft, based in Stratford, Connecticut, was founded in 1925 by aircraft engineer Igor Sikorsky, an American immigrant originally born in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
AgustaWestland said it was disappointed it had lost the latest utility helicopter competition to Sikorsky.
"Unfortunately Turkey's decision was to opt for an old design of helicopter instead of leveraging on the fruitful collaboration and advantages achieved with the T129 program for attack helicopters," said Ugo Rossini, vice president head of AgustaWestland for Europe. "With that decision Turkey's aerospace industry has lost a unique opportunity to become a major player in the helicopter industry through the co-development of a new generation helicopter."
But Turkish procurement officials said Sikorsky Aircraft's financial and commercial cooperation package was better and more concrete, providing Turkey with benefits worth billions of dollars for the $3.5 billion utility helicopter program.
Now, whether the U.S. defense industry's comeback to the Turkish market will remain in place will mostly be up to who wins a new multibillion-dollar Turkish contract for long-range missile and air defense systems.
For that program the U.S. Raytheon-Lockheed Martin is offering its Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) systems, and is in competition with the Italian-French MBDA, Europe's largest missile maker competing with Aster 30 SAMP/T, and Russian and Chinese rivals.
Most defense experts here suggest that the Chinese and Russian options are not compatible with NATO systems, so the actual competition will take place between the PAC-3 and SAMP/T systems.
In addition, the U.S. so far has not accepted a Turkish request made more than two years ago for the purchase of MQ-9 Reaper armed drones. "It will remain to be seen whether the positive climate between the U.S. and Turkey created by Turkey's selection of Sikorsky Aircraft will extend to cover the sale of Reapers," said one defense analyst.
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West Ham's forgotten man O'Neil running last laps of road to recovery
Nathaniel John
Published: 9:00 AM October 14, 2011 Updated: 8:34 AM October 14, 2020
Hammers midfielder targeting a return in the new year
There is one player in the recent West Ham team photo that is yet to even kick a ball in training this season, let alone on the pitch.
That player is the Hammers' forgotten man Gary O'Neil.
The midfielder was signed from Middlesbrough on a two-and-a-half year contract less-than 10 months ago, but in April, O'Neil's world and footballing career was rocked when he found himself on the end of a sliding challenge from then-Aston Villa player Nigel Reo-Coker.
Having taken the full brunt of the tackle on his ankle, O'Neil crumbled to the floor in agony.
"It was quite strange because I didn't really see him coming," said O'Neil, who is currently undergoing his rehabilitation at West Ham's Chadwell Heath training ground.
"He (Reo-Coker) sort of came from behind me. I wasn't aware he was there at all so when I got hit I wasn't ready for it."
Having fallen to the ground in pain, O'Neil attempted to get back to his feet, and that is when the former England under-21 captain knew that his injury was serious.
"I didn't know instantly that it was that bad," he said.
"I spoke to Rollsy (Andy Rolls, West Ham's head of sports medicine) when he came on and then tried to stand up and it was only then that I realised I was in trouble.
"It was only when I had the scans and saw the specialist that I found out how serious it was."
It was very serious. Following a scan, O'Neil was advised that he would need an operation immediately and received a shocking answer when he asked what the chances of making a full recovery were.
"I asked the surgeon what are the chances that I will be okay, expecting him to say 99 or 90 per cent and he said 50/50 – and really it was then that it started to sink in how serious it was," said O'Neil.
"It was a matter of trying to deal with that as quickly as possible, get the operation done and then crack on."
Thankfully for O'Neil, the two-hour operation on his right ankle was a success.
"They (the surgeons) are pleased with it," he said.
It has been a long time since the dark days of April for the 28-year-old midfielder, and O'Neil revealed that there had been times when he thought that he would never recover.
"There was a spell when I first came off crutches and started to walk and try and do some work in the gym and it just seemed impossible that this ankle was ever going to get near to where it was before," he said.
"I just couldn't see how it was going to get where I needed it to, and it has got a lot, lot better, but that was probably the worst time, the middle four months, where I was trying to do stuff and the ankle wouldn't let me, it was so frustrating."
So what has the path of rehabilitation looked like for O'Neil since his operation?
"Early on it was completely non-weight bearing and I had my foot up for 55 minutes of every hour," he said.
"After that, I got in the gym once I could walk and started doing some work with the medical team just trying to strengthen the calf because obviously there is a lot of muscle wastage.
"There was a lot of swimming, quite a lot of bike and unbelievable amounts of strength work for the ankle, basically just to try and get it as strong as possible.
"It was tough for the medical staff as well as I don't think they have had any injuries like this one, so it was tough for them too to try and find the right balance and they were relying on a lot of feedback from me.
"It is just a little bit nerve-wracking every time you come to do something new, getting your brain to trust the ankle to do it.
"We are starting to do new stuff now outside, we are doing some running and trying to get that started.
"At the moment, everything is really good and we are just upping it a little bit to try and get me closer."
With O'Neil on the right road to recovery, how much longer does the midfielder think he will be watching from the sidelines, before he is fit enough to join in with West Ham's promotion challenge?
"We haven't really set a date," he said.
"When I first did it, it was about a year, so I am a long way ahead of that providing everything goes well.
"That is the only thing because you can't tell from day to day if you need to ease off it for a week or a couple of weeks.
"I guess we are talking about January or February time.
"Getting back to running and training is one thing, but having been out so long, getting ready to play is going to take a while as well, so I would say some time in the new year."
When O'Neil is ready to make his comeback in a claret and blue shirt he knows it will be hard work to get into a Hammers midfield that contains names such as Kevin Nolan, Henri Lansbury and Matt Taylor.
"Yeah it looks (like it will be difficult) won't it?," he said.
"At the minute I'm not too worried about that, I just want to be in a position to have half a chance to be available.
"I'm looking forward to getting my boots on again and getting involved in some training and kicking the ball about will be good for me I think."
O'Neil is one of a few faces to have survived from West Ham's ill-fated 2010-11 campaign and the midfielder believes that the atmosphere has changed at the club as a result of Sam Allardyce's appointment.
"I think it is a little bit more focused which Sam demands," said the midfielder.
"You have goals and he wants you focused on them and that the only important thing is three points and winning promotion.
"That is all we are worried about and come May, if we have done that it's a good season and if we haven't it's a failure.
"I think it is a good place to work in when you know what it expected of you."
So what does O'Neil make of his new boss?
"He's good, I've got on with him really well," he said.
"It is a bit different for me because I'm not involved, but he has been fantastic with me.
"He told me to get myself fit as soon as possible, but he knows the nature of the injury.
"The lads really like the gaffer as well so I've got a good feeling about this season."
Having watched the Hammers from the sidelines this season, O'Neil has been pleased with the start that West Ham have made to their Championship campaign.
"I've seen all the home games and I don't think we are firing on all cylinders yet, but there has been a big change around," he added.
"I expect us to get better as we go along. When the hard months come, then you will see the strength of our squad kick in."


There's no place like home, and we understand that being away from your homeland can be difficult. Thankfully DISH offers a way to get a little taste of home even if you're an ocean away. If you're looking to enjoy your favorite Pan-African programming at a reasonable price, the Pan-African Bouquet from DISH may be for you.
From African news and talk shows, to movies and music, DISH's Pan-African Bouquet will surely appeal to the senses of the entire family.
The Pan African Bouquet offers an aura of refreshing and blooming African entertainment via a wide array of genres from African news and talk shows to reality shows, sitcoms, soaps, dramas, movies and music. The Pan African Bouquet will appeal to the sensibilities of the entire African Family and Diaspora by offering original content for everyone.


Vamp Protection Systems was established in April 2008 and is subsidiary of Vamp in Finland.
Vamp Protection System will be focusing on supporting the growing Wind Power Segment and be VAMP's center for Wind Power Applications.
Our customers are international manufacturers of low and medium voltage switchgear, industrial installations, utility companies, power plants as well as consultation companies.
Due to our small and flexible organization, we have always time to lend an ear to our customers' wishes concerning the product development or product customization.
Our success is based on our competitive products and our long-term parthnership with the customers.
VAMP is the world leading manufacturer of ARC protection.


The largest township in the Pyrenees, Beaufort offers visitors a wonderful taste of all the region has to offer.
Located on the Western Highway, 30 minutes from Ballarat, the township is dotted with small cafes and eateries serving local produce and home made treats, all accompanied by the fi ne wines the region is known for.
Beaufort is the ideal location to break your journey when travelling through to Melbourne or Adelaide with a main street dotted with cafes offering friendly country hospitality, craft and antique shops that are exhibiting and selling beautifully crafted pieces and galleries displaying local artist works.


Investment Analysts at Needham upgraded Virtusa Corp. (NASDAQ:VRTU) shares from Buy to Strong Buy rating with a price target of $65.
Virtusa Corp. engages in the provision of information technology consulting, technology implementation, and application outsourcing services.
Brokerage Firm B. Riley FBR, Inc. upgraded Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:IOVA) shares from Neutral to Buy rating with a price target of $22.
Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the development of cancer immunotherapy products for the treatment of various cancers.
Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX) shares were upgraded by analysts at Morgan Stanley from Equal-Weight to Overweight rating wirth a price target $72.
Seagate Technology Plc engages in the development, production, and distribution of data storage products and electronic data storage solutions.


Men's red stingray Del Toro round-toe smoking slippers with tonal grosgrain trim at top lines and stacked heels. Unfortunately, due to restrictions, this item cannot be shipped internationally. A portion of proceeds from this sale will benefit Wade's World charity.


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First PW1200G engine assembled and tested for MRJ
Tags: Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation, Mitsubishi Regional Jet, MRJ, Pratt & Whitney, Pratt & Whitney PW1200G
Assembly and testing of the first Pratt & Whitney PW1200G engine were recently completed at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Aero Engines Ltd. facility in Komaki, Japan. The engine will power the Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ).
Pratt & Whitney, a division of United Technologies Corp. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Aero Engines Ltd., called the assembly and testing of the PW1200G engine a "significant production milestone" towards Japan's first jet aircraft developed by Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation (Mitsubishi Aircraft), the MRJ.
The first PW1200G engine produced at the facility is designated to be used in the MRJ flight test programme.
Preparing for production
Katsuyuki Shimauchi, President & CEO, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Aero Engines, Ltd., said: "Thanks to extensive and close cooperation with Pratt & Whitney, MHIAEL is developing a facility in Komaki to perform final assembly of the PW1200G engine powering the MRJ. We're gearing up intensely as we prepare for production by building the capacities and expertise we need to perform this critical work. Our facility is in the process of obtaining approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration to produce these engines."
Graham Webb, Vice President, Pratt & Whitney commercial engine programme, added: "The assembly and test of the first PW1200G engine at MHIAEL in Komaki is a key milestone for the PW1200G programme. We greatly appreciate our long-standing partnership and high level of collaboration with the MHI Group. Congratulations to the MHIAEL and Pratt & Whitney teams that ensured this achievement was successfully accomplished."
Replay our Farnborough Airshow interview with Alex Bellamy, Chief Development Officer, MRJ Program Management Office:
Boeing forecasts demand for 2,300 new aeroplanes in India
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The LGBT+ marketplace is sizable.
Your millennials and LGBT+ agents want an inclusive environment.
I spent a few days last week in Fort Lauderdale attending the National Association of Gay and Lesbian Real Estate Professionals (NAGLREP) annual conference. NAGLREP is an advocacy group and a referral network of over 1,000 real estate professionals.


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Barney Rosset died in New York City on Tuesday 21 February 2012. I received an email from Barney's son, Peter, this morning. A couple of days ago I sent Astrid and Barney an email. I told them that I loved them. Which I do. But I didn't get a real chance to say goodbye. That is one of those regrets that stays with a person. This is my way of saying goodbye, Barney.
I lost someone who was a mentor, a father figure, and a friend. Our friendship started around the time my dad had died in the early 1990s. Barney's death came within ten days of the 20th anniversary of my dad's death. In many ways, Barney became my substitute father. Barney came to Bangkok to see me and I traveled to New York to see him and his wife, Astrid.
One year Barney brought along his son Peter to Bangkok.
We had a family dinner at Pan Pan on Soi 33 Sukhumvit and Peter and Barney swapped stories about personalities inside left-wing movements in Latin America and Cuba. On another trip he brought his daughter Chantal and again we had dinner, same restaurant, same menu. Barney ordered the pasta. He didn't eat anything that night. I rarely saw him eat anything in Bangkok or New York in all of the years that I knew him. He always took the (it is hard to call them leftovers) home for the next day. Astrid reported that he ate the meal the next day.
Barney loved Bangkok and Pattaya. He'd always find a place with a good pool table. He also played tennis. I have the video footage.
You can read his obit in the New York Times for all of the public accomplishments and they were many covering a long span of time. If you love reading novels, then light a candle in memory of Barney because without the determination, resources and bull-headed sense that you should be able to choose what you want to read, what you'd have to read would be much poorer, filled with lies and distortions.
That's Barney's legacy for me. Freedom of expression matters. Criminalization expression is the way authorities imprison and murder thoughts and ideas they don't like. In Barney's world, thought and ideas and their expression should always be free from oppression. He believed that to the core of his soul. While a lot of people believe in freedom, very few would have sacrificed their wealth in its service. In a world that Barney leaves behind a man's worth is assessed by the amount of wealth he accumulated. On that measurement, Barney's passing wouldn't have been noticed. The fact the New York Times devoted three pages to Barney is a testament that there are other measures beyond wealth and money. Barney will long be remembered after the super rich are dust and forgotten. No one who cares about literature can ignore the debt owed to this one man.
I have so many Barney stories. I flew to New York in 2008 and was at his personal table when the National Book Award gave him a special award in recognition of his importance to literature. Barney had asked me to read his speech in advance. I made a couple of suggestions. Barney used one or two of them. Two years, Barney and Astrid, along with Galen Williams and Harvey Shapiro, the bard of New York, dined at the Harvard Club in Manhattan. There was a band that night. Barney and Astrid danced and danced. The band wanted to go home. Barney didn't. I saw him eat an entire bowl of ice cream that night. Galen is my witness. Barney was 87 the night he forced the Harvard Club to pay the band overtime because it was a night to dance.
I spent countless hours in his loft apartment on the Lower East Side. Going through the old photographs, the memories, and his plans. He held a big party for my wife and me five or six years ago and invited editors, agents, and reviewers. That was Barney, the father figure, always trying to find a way to get someone in New York interested in my work. When finally Grove/Atlantic contracted to bring out four of the Calvino novels, he was the first to congratulate me.
Barney was a natural storyteller. Being half Jewish, and half Irish he inherited the story telling genes from both of his parents. I have hours of Barney on video telling stories. I want to go back and watch Barney again, and again, weaving tales of the great names in publishing in Paris, Havana, and London.
He told me over the years many stories about Henry Miller and Samuel Beckett. One of Barney's Henry Miller stories is included in a story I wrote called "The Star of Love" and is part of a book called Chairs. I wrote the occasional essay and short story for Evergreen Review. For many years I was the Review's Correspondent from Thailand. We were always hatching plans for Barney and Astrid to return to Thailand for one more round of pool.
There is one Barney story that comes to mind on this very sad day. When he was a child of 8 or 9, Barney set out in the company of his parents for what in those days would have been a journey of high adventure. They left Chicago and traveled to California where they board a ship that took them to Hawaii. Barney, the boy, had the full run of the ship, exploring the cabins, engine room, captain's quarters and the decks. It was his first time at sea. It was his first real journey. In World War II, Barney was a young officer in the army and he was assigned to a film crew in China. He filmed and photographed the war from the area in Yunnan Province, around Kunming . At Barney's loft, I've spent hours over the years studying the photographs of war in China. Together we look silently at the dead soldiers on dirt paths, their sandals still on their feet. I listened to his stories of traveling through the bombed out villages.
After the war ended, Barney found himself on a ship sailing home. He was a young man, but a war veteran. He'd seen war up close and photographed the brutality that war brings. The ship was packed with other veterans who were also returning home. Not long into the voyage, Barney discovered the name of the ship. He found a place where some child had written under a hand railing: BR. It was the same ship that Barney had taken as a kid. The ship was delivering him back home for a second time.
Somewhere out in that great beyond, Barney's back on that ship, sailing the open seas, carving his initials into the hand railing. And for those of us who love literature, take a moment to remember that the boy who set out on that journey is the man who returned so that truth could be spoken and those in power had no force to sink the ship that Barney captained.


text:
30+ quotes from Live Wire by Harlan Coben
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos The Blindfold Nancy and Plum Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal The Anybodies Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure Annie John Visions of Cody The Hand of Oberon Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Education
Quotes from Live Wire
Harlan Coben · 371 pages
Rating: (33.4K votes)
"We are often told during times of bereavement that time heals all wounds. That's crap. In truth, you are devastated, you mourn, you cry to the point where you think you'll never stop - and then you reach a stage where the survival instinct takes over. You stop. You simply won't or can't let yourself "go there" anymore because the pain was too great. You block. You deny. But you don't really heal."
― Harlan Coben, quote from Live Wire
"With everyone else, you put up this facade so you can hide the crud and make them like you. But with real friends, you show them the crud-and that makes them care. When we get rid of the facade, we connect more."
"Myron remembered something his father once told him: People have an amazing capacity to mess up their own lives."
"What we so admire and call "single minded dedication" was really "obsessive self-involvement". What in that exactly is admirable?"
"We don't pray in foxholes because we are ready to meet our Maker. We pray because we don't want to."
"He leaned in conspiratorially. "Do you know why the fans turned on those two guys so horribly?" Just to keep him talking, Myron shook his head. "Because those pretty boys pointed out the truth: We are all shallow. Milli Vanilli music was pure crap—and they won a Grammy! People listened to it simply because Rob and Fab were handsome and hip. That scandal did more than rip away the façade. It held a mirror up to the fan's face and let him see a total fool. There are many things we can forgive. But we can't forgive those who point out our true foolishness. We don't like to think of ourselves as shallow. But we are. Gabriel Wire looked brooding and deep but he was anything but. People thought that Gabriel didn't do interviews because he felt he was too important—but he didn't give them because he was too dumb. I know I was mocked over the years. Part of me was hurt—who wouldn't be?—but most of me understood that this was the only way. Once I started, once I created Gabriel Wire, I couldn't destroy him without destroying me." Myron tried to let this information settle. "That's what you meant with all that talk earlier about Suzze falling for you or falling for the music. About being Cyrano." "Yes."
"You'd just turned pro. Adolescent boys hung your poster in their bedrooms. You were supposed to beat legends right away. Your parents redefined pushy. It's a miracle you stayed upright."
"The women were, in this smoky light, largely on the attractive side, albeit young, and dressed more like they were playing adults than actually being ones. The majority of the women had their cell phones out, skinny fingers tapping off texts; they danced with a languorousness that bordered on comatose. Esperanza"
"Half an hour later, Win came home. He was accompanied by his latest girlfriend, a tall modelesque Asian named Mee. There was a third person too, another attractive Asian woman Myron had never seen before. Myron looked over at Win. Win wiggled his eyebrows. Mee said, "Hi, Myron." "Hi, Mee." "This is my friend, Yu." Myron held back the sigh and said hello. Yu nodded. When the two women left the room, Win grinned at Myron. Myron just shook his head. "Yu?" "Yep." When Win had first started up with Mee, he loved to share jokes using her name. "Mee so horny . . . It's Mee time . . . Sometimes I just want to make love to Mee." "Yu and Mee?" Myron said. Win nodded. "Wonderful, don't you think?" "No."
"Esperanza had a small smile on her face. "What?" Myron said. She gestured to the right side of the dance floor. "Check out the ass on that chick in the red." Myron looked at the crimson-clad dancing buttocks and remembered an Alejandro Escovedo lyric: "I like her better when she walks away." It had been a long time since Myron had heard Esperanza talk like this. "Nice," Myron said. "Nice?" "Awesome?" Esperanza nodded, still smiling. "There are things I could do with an ass like that." Looking"
"No. Where have you been all night?" Win leaned in conspiratorially. "Between Yu and Mee . . ." "Yes?" Win just smiled. "Oh." Myron sighed. "I get it. Good one." "Be happy. It used to be all about Mee. But then I realized something. It's about Yu too." "Or, uh, in this case, Yu and Mee together." "Now you're in the spirit," Win said. "How was your sojourn to Adiona Island?" "You want to hear this now?" "Yu and Mee can wait." "By that, you mean the girls, not us, right?" "It does get confusing, doesn't it?" "Not to mention perverse." "Don't worry. When I'm not around, Yu can keep Mee occupied." Win sat, steepled his fingers. "Tell me what you learned." Myron did. When he finished, Win said, "Methinks Lex doth protest too much." "You got that too?" "When a man does that much philosophizing, he's covering." "Plus that last line about her going back to Chile or Peru in the morning?" "Throwing you off the track. He wants you to stay away from Kitty." "Do"
"Esperanza gestured with her chin at a man with slicked-back hair oiling his way toward them. When he filled out his job application, Myron had little doubt that it read, Last Name: Trash. First Name: Euro. Myron checked the man's wake for slime tracks. Euro smiled with ferret teeth. "Poca, mi amor." "Anton,"
"He spoke with a funny maybe-Hungarian, maybe-Arabic accent, like something he made up for a comedy sketch. Anton was unshaven, the stubble on his face glistening in a not-pleasant way. He wore sunglasses even though it was cave-dark in here. "This"
"You are still such a magnificent creature, Poca." He spoke with a funny maybe-Hungarian, maybe-Arabic accent, like something he made up for a comedy sketch. Anton was unshaven, the stubble on his face glistening in a not-pleasant way. He wore sunglasses even though it was cave-dark in here. "This is Anton," Esperanza said. "He says Lex is in bottle service." "Oh," Myron said, having no idea what bottle service was. "This way," Anton said. They"
"He was a rock star and an absolute major yummy, but he had a certain predilection." "That being?" "He liked underage girls." "He was a pedophile?" "No, I don't believe so. His targets were fully developed. But they were young. Sixteen, seventeen." Alista"
"As they continued to wind through the crowd, a few women met Myron's gaze and held it, though not as many as one, two, five years ago. He felt like an aging pitcher who needed this particular radar gun to tell him that his fastball was losing velocity. Or maybe there was something else at work here."
"So what do we do?" "What we always do. At least in the morning. Tonight I have plans." "And those would again be between Yu and Mee?" "I would say bingo again, but I so hate repeating myself." "You"
"Win waited. Myron stared at the can of Yoo-hoo. "Forget it." "And now," Win said, "you think my behavior, for a man of my years, is somewhat closer to pathetic." "I didn't mean it that way." "You think I should settle down a bit." "I just want you to be happy, Win." Win spread his hands. "So do I." Myron gave him the flat eyes. "You're referring to the Yu in the other room again, aren't you?" The rakish grin. "Love me for all my faults." "Again, by me, do you mean, uh, Mee?" Win stood. "Don't worry, old friend. I am happy." Win started moving toward the bedroom door. He stopped suddenly, closed his eyes, looked troubled. "But you may have a point." "That"
"There's this song I love," Lex said. "The lyric says, 'Your heart is like a parachute.' Do you know why?" "I think the line is about a mind being like a parachute—it only functions when it's open." "No, I know that line. This one is a better, 'Your heart is like a parachute—it only opens when you fall.' " He smiled. "Good, right?" "I guess." "We"
"Esperanza sat back and looked at him for several beats. "Do you remember when Suzze won the US Open?" "Of course. What does that have to do with anything?" "She'd cleaned up her act. She focused solely on her tennis, and bam, right away, Suzze wins a major. I never saw someone want something so badly. I can still see that final cross-court forehand to win, the look of pure undiluted joy on her face, the way she threw her racket up in the air and turned and pointed at you." "At"
"Win stood. "Don't worry, old friend. I am happy." Win started moving toward the bedroom door. He stopped suddenly, closed his eyes, looked troubled. "But you may have a point." "That being?" "Maybe I'm not happy," he said, a wistful distant look on his face. "Maybe you're not either." Myron waited, almost sighed. "Go ahead. Say it." "So perhaps it's time to make Yu and Mee happy." He"
"Yes. In the meantime, arm yourself." "I'll pick up a gun when I get back," Myron said. "No need to wait. There is a thirty-eight under your seat." Terrific. Myron reached under his seat, felt the bump. "Anything else I need to know?" "I birdied the last hole. Shot two under par for the round." "Talk about burying the lead." "I was trying to be modest." "I"
"Fights normally last mere seconds—and those seconds are chockfull of three things: confusion, chaos, and panic. So when people see a fist heading toward them, they naturally overreact. They try to duck all the way down or fall all the way back. That was a mistake. If you lose your balance or lose sight of your adversary, you end up, of course, in more danger. Good fighters will often throw blows for just this reason—not necessarily to connect but to make the opponent put himself in a more vulnerable position. So Myron's move to avoid the blow was a slight one—only a few inches. His right hand was already up. You don't have to knock the fist away hard with some big karate move. You just need to divert its course a little. That was what Myron did. Myron's"
"He traveled back again, to when she was that adorable teenager dominating center court, and his favorite Yiddish expression came back to him in a rush: Man plans, God laughs. This was not a kind laugh. "Kitty?"
"As Myron started to rise, he felt something hard and metallic push against the bottom of his rib cage. He had a tenth of a second, maybe two, to wonder what it was. Then Myron's heart exploded. At least, that was what it felt like. It felt like something in his chest had just gone boom, like someone had placed live wires on every nerve ending, sending his parasympathetic system into total spasm. His legs turned to water. His arms dropped away, unable to offer up the least bit of resistance. A stun gun. Myron"
"There were two laminated class chairs in front of most of the doors. The chairs looked sturdy and practical and about as comfortable as a tweed thong."
"There are two people in a tennis match. One ends up winning, one ends up losing. And I think the pleasure comes not from winning. I think the pleasure comes from beating someone." She scrunched up her face like a very puzzled child. "Why is that something we admire? We call them winners, but when you think about it, they really get off on making someone else lose. Why is that something we admire so much?" "That's"
"Win opened a leather-bound first-edition false front bookcase to reveal a refrigerator. He grabbed a Yoo-hoo chocolate drink and tossed it to Myron. Myron caught it, and reading the directions—"Shake It!"—did just that. Win opened the decanter and poured himself an exclusive cognac called, interestingly enough, The Last Drop. "I"
"During the car ride Myron asked for details. Kitty sat up front next to him. In the back, Mickey ignored them. He stared out the window, white iPod earbuds in place—playing the part of a petulant teenager, which, Myron surmised, he was. By"
"They pushed Crisp into a seat. Win wrapped him in restraints. Crisp was still blinking through the tranquilizer. Win had used a diluted form of Etorphine, a sedative normally used for elephants and potentially fatal to humans. In the movies, sedatives work instantaneously. In reality, it's hardly a guarantee. In"
Born place: in Newark, New Jersey, The United States
"She looked at him and shook her head, smiled a little as she told him, "You are so like your father."
Then she looked past me and Zach, past Bex and Abby, to where Agent Townsend stood by the door with his arms crossed.
"What do you think, Townsend, darling? Isn't he just like you?" She looked at Zach again. "I think he's just like you."
And then she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep."
― Ally Carter, quote from United We Spy
"Evolution is a trajectory through multidimensional space, in which every step of the way has to represent a body capable of surviving and reproducing about as well as the parental type reached by the preceding step of the trajectory."
― Richard Dawkins, quote from The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
"Honor wears different coats to different eyes."
― Barbara W. Tuchman, quote from The Guns of August
"Having a personal philosophy is like having a pet marmoset, because it may be very attractive when you acquire it, but there may be situations when it will not come in handy at all."
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Grim Grotto
"Tug looked nervously at his master.
Horses aren't supposed to fly, he seemed to be saying."
― John Flanagan, quote from Erak's Ransom
Bright Star: Love Le...
by John Keats
Deadly Little Games
by Laurie Faria Stolarz
Drowning Instinct
by Ilsa J. Bick
The Treachery of Bea...
by Ruth Frances Long
by Catherine Anderson


Sometimes, it can feel like the weight of the world is resting solely on our shoulders. This emotional strain can often be hard to deal with. This is the sort of situation where stress is getting out of hand. In such situations, you can use a little advice to help you deal with that stress and improve your overall mood.
Practicing good health care will help you to not stress out as much. Worries over your health cause stress. Also, neglecting efforts needed to maintain good health can cause your health to deteriorate over time. So keep those regularly scheduled physicals to ensure your consistent well being and give yourself less to worry about!
Daily life produces different emotions such as fear or anxiety. Try to choose narrowly descriptive labels for what you are experiencing rather than labeling all uncomfortable feelings as stress. Using words such as uncomfortable or restless can help you understand that what you are describing as stress may be produced by a variety of different situations in life. Think about it, when you tell yourself over and over that you are hungry, eventually you realize you are starving. The same idea holds true for stress. Find another way to look at your situation. If you keep using the word stress, you will end up making it worse.
Professional massages are very relaxing, and they are a great way to relieve your stress. A lot of times stress is carried in your body, and it makes your muscles tense. A professional massage will help to relax your mind, body and soul, leaving you feeling less stressed out.
Listening to music can have a very calming effect that is helpful for managing stress. It can effect us in powerful ways and influence our feelings. Studies have shown that music can make a person much calmer. Since everyone likes different types of music, it is crucial to find the variety that will help your stress slowly slip away.
There are those that look for relief from drugs and alcohol whenever they are feeling stressed. They may feel temporary relief but the stress only comes back even worse than before. Drugs including alcohol, however, are never the solution to your problems. Illicit drugs create complications that will just magnify the problems you are already facing.
Living a less stressful life is not as impossible as you think it is. Once you start identifying the things that cause you stress, you should then work on how to overcome them.
Try purchasing some spearmint oil to help reduce stress. When you are feeling a bit overburdened, just place a small bit on your temples as well as your neck. There are tons of simple remedies like this that can make a big impact on your stress levels.
As a young adult, a great form of stress relief is to play video games. Playing a video game gets you focused on something else and helps clear your mind. Playing with friends or alone will help improve your mood and relieve your stress.
Going out to a dinner with someone you are in love with is a great thing to do when you're in a relationship. Your attention will be on your partner and how relaxed you are rather than stressful events.
Be aware of the clenching of body parts when stressed. Often these are your shoulders, lower back muscles, teeth or fingers. Whenever you recognize an area of tension in your body, consciously relax it by stretching. This will reduce the tension in your muscles and help relax you.
To avoid stress, prepare for events in advance and make plans in case something goes awry. For example, always keep a spare house key in a safe location. Other ideas include back-up plans for babysitters and always having a first-aid kit in your vehicle. Just some basic planning ahead can save those emergency situations from causing stress.
Take a deep breath before you react to any stressful situation. Step back, count to ten as you breathe, and then confront the situation. Although this is a simple strategy, it may make a world of difference in the way you react to unfavorable conditions.
Don't hang onto stress. In spite of the fact that some types of change can reduce stress, many people still resist it. Admitting that your resistance to change is keeping you stressed can make it easier to accept that you need to change. It can be challenging to change certain types of behavior, but once you realize that you have the power to control your own destiny, making the needed changes will be easier.
Learn to focus on your breathing. Drawing in deep breaths provides additional oxygen to the bloodstream and enables you to relax quite quickly. When people are under a lot of stress, they tend to take shallow breathes filling up only the upper chest with air. Shallow breathing can add to feeling stressed because heart rates are increased and chest muscles tighten.
Using tonics designed to relieve stress can help. There are many homeopathic remedies to help alleviate stress and anxiety. Natural remedies, like the ones just mentioned, are extremely safe and effective for lots of people. You can consider trying something like Kava, which research has shown to be just as therapeutic as alprazolam, or Xanax.
You should take some time for yourself every day to do something you enjoy. If you do so, you'll hold up better to the other, more stressful parts of your day. Find something that you really enjoy and commit to doing it at least once a day.
Doing yoga is an excellent way to deal with stress. Yoga brings together your mind and body into a state of peacefulness. During practice, your mind is brought to a state of calm as you begin to bring your focus onto different areas of your body. Yoga also helps to ease tension in your muscles. Your entire body and mind benefit greatly from all that yoga offers, and in the process your stress is minimized or even eliminated.
You don't have to take on the weight of the world. The article above has provided you with some really useful tips for reducing stress. It is very important that you actually use these tips to help you.


Des Moines, Iowa – The Iowa Barnstormers played their best game of the season on Saturday night as they defeated the San Antonio Talons 66-63 on a last second field goal to send the Wells Fargo Arena crowd of 9,184 home with smiles. With the win, the Barnstormers finish the 2012 season with a record of 7-11, while San Antonio heads to the playoffs as the conference's top ranked team at 14-4. Iowa's victory snapped the Talons 11 game winning streak.
The game turned into a quarterback duel between two of the AFL's best. The Talons Aaron Garcia lived up to his reputation, connecting on 23 of 29 passes for 361 yards and 8 touchdowns. Meanwhile, Iowa's J.J. Raterink completed 27 of 39 for 350 yards and 8 touchdown passes of his own. Raterink's final touchdown pass of the night was his 93rd of the season, breaking the team record which ironically was held by Garcia. Neither quarterback threw an interception on the night.
Raterink wasn't the only Barnstormer breaking records on Saturday night. WR Jesse Schmidt finished the season with a team record 58 receiving touchdowns, besting his own team record of 55 set last year. FB Rodney Filer closed out his 13 year AFL career by moving into 5th place on the AFL's all-time rushing yards list with 1,232.
The Barnstormers played flawless on the offensive side of the ball, scoring touchdowns on their first 9 possessions, giving them a 63-49 lead entering the fourth quarter. San Antonio rallied to tie the game 63-63 with two long scoring drives sandwiched around stopping the Barnstormers on downs. Iowa took possession of the ball for the final time with 1:17 remaining and drove to the Talons 4 yard line before kicker Craig Camay sealed the victory with a 19 yard field goal as time expired.
The Barnstormers would like to thank the Arena Football League's best fans and sponsors for another great season. Season tickets for the 2013 season are already on sale now beginning at $99.00 per seat. To purchase yours, call the Barnstormers today at 515.633.2255. As always you can find all of the latest team updates and information online at www.theiowabarnstormers.com.


Our platform is fueled by hosts and guests who are loyal to Airbnb because we treat them like members of a community, not commodities.
We have an unrivaled brand.
Our community has created a truly global network. Guests who are seeking unique listings and experiences around the world find what they want at Airbnb. That demand generates greater opportunities for even more hosts.
Our community offers unique, high-quality accommodations and experiences that have created a new way to travel that did not exist before and cannot be found anywhere else.
Today, we are announcing that there are over six million Airbnb listings around the world—more listings than the six largest hotel groups have rooms, combined.
As we noted in our recent report on the expansion of Airbnb in emerging markets, Airbnb is growing around the world. In 2014, listings from Latin America, Asia Pacific and the Middle East and Africa accounted for 15 percent of all Airbnb listings; today, they account for over 30 percent. For example, the number of listings in Mexico increased by 53 percent in 2018, giving more people access to neighborhoods like Roma. Thanks to the award-winning film of the same name, many travelers are discovering this Mexico City community and some of the amazing Airbnb listings there.
Airbnb listings are not concentrated in any one market. There are over 900 cities with more than 1,000 listings. Today, roughly 3 percent of all active listings are in New York City, London, and Paris. Five years ago, over 10 percent of all active listings were in those three markets.
There are over 14,000 tiny houses listed on Airbnb, over 4,000 castles, and over 2,400 tree houses.
Big events and partnerships continue to help grow our community. For example, there were more than 16,000 guest arrivals during Super Bowl week in Atlanta and over 1,200 hosts recorded their first booking ever during Super Bowl week.
We have worked with a range of organizations around the world to deliver the economic benefits of hosting to more people and communities. For example, we have partnered with the Self-Employed Women's Association of India – an organization representing two million self-employed women living mostly in India's rural areas – to help its members to pursue new livelihoods by sharing their homes on Airbnb.
By the end of the first quarter of 2019, we project that there will have been half a billion guest arrivals in Airbnb listings since Airbnb was founded in 2008, and we will continue to provide additional updates as we work to fulfill our mission.


Ariane Dutzi, designer behind Dutzi Designs has made Tulum and Valladolid, Mexico her home since 2005. She is a women of the globe, having worked in both Paris and New York and traveled the world before settling in Mexico. Ariane not only produces beautiful designs with eco-friendly materials, but she also creates jobs and leads entrepreneurial workshops for locals living in the Yucatan Peninsula. We spoke to Ariane about her global style influences and favorite spots around the world.
I would say it is a mix between classic, ethical and bohemian-chic.
What is the inspiration behind your style?
I always was a big fan of Yves St. Laurent. He had a classical style, but gave all his designs a little something, which made it more interesting even sexier. I loved his work. He understood women and the body of a woman. I look for clothes in the Vintage world and I love it. It?s like time travel. I pick from the fifties, but add modern accessories. Living in Mexico I find great pieces from local artisans. You use that and put on some Christian Louboutin pumps and some jewelry.
How does travel influence your style?
I always loved fashion and because of that I always love to see what people wear in different countries. I love when people create their own style. That is one of the reasons I love to work with indigenous people. They still make their clothes and their traditional clothes pieces are embellished with embroideries that have special meaning. For example, this embroidery was put on the dress, when the women got engaged or married or had her first child. This way clothing is really unique. I love that. Traveling brings me closer to people and their different cultures and this certainly influences my personal style. Especially all the tribal jewelry I collected over the years. Just wearing my jewelry brings me back to the different places I have been. I also noticed living and traveling in Mexico, I now wear much more color than when I lived in Paris and in New York.
Paris. I still own an apartment their. Even though I haven?t been back to Paris for many years, Paris is Paris. It?s the romantic in me. I love the details, the songs, the cafes, the French elegance; it is deeply embedded in my soul. I think, deep down even though I am born and raised in Germany but deep down I am so French. I just can?t help it.
Can you share your top three favorite spots for eating, drinking, and shopping?
How has travel influenced you?
My parents loved to travel. I think they gave me the travel bug. My mom still travels all the time. I think we are kind of modern gypsies. Even now in my daily life I live between Valladolid, Tulum and Merida. That?s just on my weekly routine with out even going on the trip. Traveling and living in different countries made me the person who I am now. It opened my mind at a very early age. I was interested in the different cultures and different languages. I discovered that there are many ways to live and therefore there are many ways to think. I really think by traveling and knowing different countries and people will make you more open-minded, more tolerant and more compassionate.
Train, it is more civilized these days than the plane and you can see how the landscape is changing in front of you. They are now building a speed train between Merida and Cancun. I can?t wait.
Favorite shop, market or souk?
The world, I can?t decide. Where I have favorite restaurants, if it comes to shops or markets, there is always something new I like to discover. But if I have to narrow it down, I would say the flea market, the Marche aux Puces in Paris.
A road trip thought the United States. I can?t believe it, but I never have been to the Grand Canyon. I would love to go to the different National Parks and Northern California and Arizona. I would like to discover the Amangiri Resort Hotel in Arizona. I am especially attracted to the desert these days and I can?t wait to visit the Atacama Salt Lake in Northern Chile.
Buy Everything or Buy Nothing?
Room service or Street Food?
I love both. I love street food in Asia and in Mexico. But sometimes when you travel or after a day of sightseeing, it is nice to get room service too.
Lots of Luggage or Carry-on Bag?


Speech is powerful not just because of the words and ideas it conveys, but because the acoustical properties of speech itself—the pitch (or frequency), the range of pitch, loudness, pauses, etc.—all elicit emotional responses. Previous work by Signorello and others demonstrates that many politicians use a wide range of pitches when speaking to diverse audiences in order to be more persuasive. In contrast, they speak at a lower pitch over a narrower range and in hushed tones in situations where they want to convey power. In other words, politicians, and public speakers in general, use vocal qualities to help shape their social image and they often adjust these qualities depending on their audience.
This new research focuses on the perception of charisma in political speech. Charisma is often seen as a kind of magical quality that makes someone attractive and charming. In this work, the researchers describe charisma as a way of conveying leadership characteristics like vision and strength through cross-language verbal behavior. In other words, charisma is something that people can hear and emotionally respond to even when they don't understand the language being spoken.
In order to explore how vocal characteristics are related to charisma, emotional triggering, and voting preferences in political speech, the researchers studied two politicians that suffered from vocal disorders during their political careers. Umberto Bossi is an Italian politician and former leader of the Lega Nord party who suffered a serious stroke in 2004 that partially paralyzed his vocal cords. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ("Lula") is former president of Brazil who suffered from throat cancer in 2011. In both cases, the disorders affected voice quality, lowering the pitch and narrowing the range. This begs the question: Does a politician's change in voice quality affect how listeners perceive the politician and their voting preferences?
To find out, the researchers collected samples of speeches from the politicians before, during, and after treatment. They recorded the specific acoustic patterns in each case, creating vocal profiles of the different samples. Next, they employed French-speaking listeners that didn't understand the languages being spoken to see how they perceived the charisma and leadership traits in the different cases, along with their emotional response and voting preference.
To zoom in on just one politician for the sake of an example, the researchers collected speeches from Lula at four stages: before cancer, at its most severe—when he lost the ability to regulate the pitch and loudness of his voice, six months later when he had regained some control, and 12 months later when Lula had regained most of his initial vocal qualities. Listens were asked to rate Lula's age based on the vocal samples. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they rated him oldest when his vocal qualities were most diminished by the cancer and youngest when had the broadest range, pre-cancer.
Age is one of the hardest features of a speaker to assess by voice. For many politicians this is a good thing—through vocal coaching, politicians and others can maintain a healthy voice that makes them sound younger than they really are. This is important because perceived aging can be career-ending, says Signorello. In a politician, aging is often linked with the perception of having weak biological fitness and being less reliable, he says, triggering emotions and voting preferences in listeners that don't match the intended message. For politicians battling vocal disorders, this is not good news.
On the other hand, the researchers did find that listeners associated some of the "older" sounding vocal qualities with wisdom and competence. It's a complex scenario. The researchers caution that just as charisma is subject to social trends, so too are the perceptions of vocal patterns.
Either way, this news isn't good for those of us that support a rational and logical approach to the world. In an ideal world, the frequency, pace, and volume with which political leaders speak shouldn't matter nearly as much as the words and ideas they convey, not to mention their behavior. The good news is that through research like this, we can better understand and guard against such unintended biases in the future.


Stage 2 involved erecting a stud wall which consisted of a timber frame. Insulation was then put in place with a plasterboard and skim finish.
Increase the price of your house!
Just by adding a loft conversion you can easily increase the price of your house by a quarter! Also giving you room to store more or expand your living space for more family or renting it out to earn a little more cash. For a small price you can get a lot more out of your home. As I'm sure you know extra space in a property is always welcome and always comes in handy.
We built wardrobes across the middle and put an ensuite behind them so when the centre doors were shut you would never have known there was a bathroom up there.
Semi-Detached house with a gable end and rear dormer.
We first erected the scaffolding and sheeted up all working areas. We then gained access through the roof so that 85 per cent of the works could be done without entering the main part of the house to keep the dust to a minimum. We remove any insulation between the roof joists and then hover between the ceiling joists of the first floor. We are now ready to insert steels for the loft floor and ceiling. Once the steels are installed the floor timbers are fitted and a fire barrier and floor insulation is installed. The electrics and plumbing can now be first fixed ready for the loft floor to be boarded.
The next step is for the rear of the roof to be dismantled and a new dormer to be erected out of timber. This dormer and front roof slope is fully insulated and then plaster boarded.
The fibre glass flat roof is installed and the sides of the dormer cheeks are tiled. We are now water tight.
Now for the messy bit, we gently cut out the ceiling from the loft conversion to the main house ready for the installation of the new staircase. Once the staircase is fitted, the second fix of electrics can be installed ready for the plastering to the loft and staircase to be completed. Ready for the final touches now as the skirtings, doors, bathroom fittings, painting and decorating and floor coverings are ready to be fitted.
We carry out a final test on all of the fixtures and fittings and any snagging. The client is then issued with a completion certificate, NICEIC and a gas safe certificate on completion. Another loft conversion carried out in Eltham, SE9.


text:
The story of our Legacy Ranch
April Okerholm
I met my husband, Erik, ten years ago. I'm a native Texan through and through while he was born in Boston and raised in Ohio. We have had a storied life before we, before I, gave in and let fate take over. There's no doubt whatsoever that he and I were meant to be. It was only a year and a half ago that we got married. My husband and I, my three daughters, his son and daughter and our minister were the only people present at our little ceremony. I had lost my father in 1999 from a stroke and my mother couldn't travel. His parents lived in Florida where his father was battling lung cancer and his mother was her husband's full-time caretaker. It would take 6 months for me to finally meet my in-laws and regrettably it was urgently in Hospice in Florida. Beyond FaceTime on the iPad, I never got to have a full face-to-face conversation with my brilliant father-in-law, Dr. Richard A. Okerholm. I would also never be able to imagine how close I would someday be with my mother-in-law, Rita Okerholm.
Dr. Richard A. Okerholm was born in 1941 and raised with humble beginnings in Woburn, Massachusetts. Through his education and career, he and his family moved from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Fairfield, Ohio, West Chester, Ohio and finally settled in Palm City, Florida. He earned his Phd from Boston University school of Medicine. He dedicated his life to being a great father and a Research Pharmacokinetist. As the description of his field of study is more articulate than I am, I defer to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacokinetics Simply put, he studied the effects, chemical absorption rate and risks of the chemical makeup of pharmaceuticals on the human body. He was instrumental in the development of Lipitor, Sudafed, Seldane, Mucinex, and many more drugs and pharmaceuticals still on the market today. He often remarked at how he struggled with seeing the abuse of drugs which were designed to help, and it truly hurt him that people used these medications as the vehicle for self-harm. Despite that, millions of people worldwide have been positively impacted by his influence on the pharmaceutical industry through his work with Parke-Davis and Marion Merrell Dow. After his retirement, he continued to work as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of ProCertus BioPharm, Inc. as well forming his own consultant company, Okerholm & Associates where he was posthumously granted a patent for a project he collaborated on just months before his passing in November of 2016.
Rita Veronica Okerholm was born in 1943 and raised in Arlington, Massachusetts. She was a beautiful, loving, dedicated wife, mother and teacher. She earned her Masters in Education from Boston State College and became an elementary school teacher and reading specialist. In a few short calculations with her, we came to realize that she taught over 1,200 children in her lifetime before retiring in 2000. Much like her husband, Richard, she continued her passion up until just a few months prior to her death as well as her last student was Laurel, my best friend's little girl who needed a little extra help with reading. Rita had planned to spend Christmas 2016 with us in Austin and upon her arrival, we knew something wasn't right. She was intensely jaundiced and after a short hospital stay, it was determined she had stage 4 extra hepatic cholangiocarcinoma (liver cancer). Chemo was an option that would be palliative, but she could at least feel better and take care of any unfinished life business. She decided to stay with us in Austin as I was a self-employed decorator and my husband mostly worked from home as a Senior Sales Engineer for a software company. We knew we could work together to move our schedules around to care for her full time. She admirably endured 18 rounds of different chemo plans through 2017.
I would soon nickname Rita as the "Queen of the Silver Lining" with her unbroken spirit as she found joy in every little thing. It was awe-inspiring! She was faced with terminal cancer and illness from cancer, chemo or just ill. Her favorite saying was, "What is, is! Deal with it!" And deal with it she did...but then she let it go and moved on! We didn't sweep it under the rug, but we didn't sit around discussing cancer or chemo or hospice. There was no dwelling...we lived. Her Oncologist told her it was unlikely she would live until Christmas, but we never hard the heart to tell her. We tried to invoke life in each of our days...I never wanted to take that from her by giving her a date in which she may no longer be here.
I would soon learn this awe-inspiring lady and I had more in common than one would think. With a shared love of nature, pretty things, motherhood, cooking and making memories, I would sit with her and listen to stories of varieties of flowers, butterflies, recipes and her many travels. Realizing that every season upon us and ones past would be the last she would see, I sought out to locate and plant certain plants that might be able to endure the central Texas climate, even if just for a few weeks. As I sit here and type this in the very room and in the very spot she slept, chatted with friends from afar and read countless books, I can see her tulips, hyacinths and lilies I planted for her last spring. It's in these moments I know she is with me.
Rita had story after story of teaching and used the words "my children" interchangeably whether talking about her own children or her students. We all remember that one special teacher...Rita was that teacher! Hearing her speak of her students in great detail would lead you to think she just retired a few months ago. Her stories were so vivid, you would find yourself asking her what decade or year that student was in her class. She often spoke of one particular student named Linda...so much so that she called her "my Linda" so we thought her name was Mylinda. It was clear she absolutely adored this little girl that she had the joy in teaching Linda in Rita's first and second years of teaching. We found Linda, now a doctor, on Facebook and about a month before Rita passed away, she and her own lovely 80 year old mother came to visit Rita. I prepped Rita well ahead of time and told her I had the surprises of all surprises planned. I reminded her it was important to have a feel-good day and that we needed to do all we could to make sure she felt well as it was a surprise she certainly wouldn't want to miss. 46 years after a 5 year old Linda walked into Rita's first classroom, they were both tearfully embracing again. It turned out, Rita had the same impact on Linda as Linda did on Rita They never forgot, their hearts and adoration for each other never disconnected.
When Rita was finally having good days and in-between chemo, I took her for a day trip to Johnson City and Stonewall, Texas to see the Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) Ranch. When we were driving over the ranch and she said, "Why would you ever leave this place to become President??" in a tone that she made sound like the role of President of the United States was a menial job which still makes me laugh to this day. It was at that point my creative cogs began turning. She was so happy there and told me stories of how much she and Richard loved visiting Austin and the Hill Country. She said the Hill Country felt like Heaven on earth. We relayed our stories of our day trip to my husband and her son, Erik. It was days like these that we yearned for and were so grateful for with and for her...illness-free good days and happy days. While on the LBJ Ranch, she paid special attention to the schoolhouse on the property. Rita loved everything to do with teaching and education, even in the structures in which children were taught before or after her career . By now my creative cogs were spinning in overdrive. Through the year, our ideas began to take flight with ideas of an 1800's style one-room schoolhouse named in her honor, complete with the mementos she gave us from her many years of teaching for the schoolhouse.
We were told by the Gastroenterologist and Oncologist that Rita's cancer and cancer-related illness would take her quickly. She likely wouldn't linger. I found that harsh, but in
Rita fashion, I had to take it as a blessing. She wouldn't want to suffer or linger without living. Days before Christmas and for the fifth or sixth or seventh time (we lost track), Rita spiked a fever, became ill and we had to get her to the hospital. Only this time it would be the last. Within days, she made the decision to let go and was transferred to hospice. In one of our last conversations with her, we asked her where she wanted she and her husband's cremains spread as we had never discussed it. Options thrown out were Puerto Vallarta, Mexico where they spent two weeks of every summer for the last 30 years, the 10th hole on the golf course behind their house in Palm City, Florida or...."The Ranch" she said, "I want to go to the Ranch." In that moment, I lost it. After all we had discussed, after all we endured, she wanted her final resting place to be a place that did not yet exist. In that moment, I felt an overwhelming rush of Rita's approval.
This morning, I was eager to get out to the Hill Country to see a property that my husband and I quickly began to fall in love with over text. For the past year or so, we have had our hearts set on the Texas Hill Country, namely Fredericksburg. We knew that this dream, this purchase, would only come byway of the legacy and inheritances left to us by our parents. It was a bittersweet opportunity to not only stay true to our parents lessons of investing wisely, but also a way to continue to tell their story. Little did we know, it would be a prideful way of grieving their losses as well. Everything we've set out to do in this process has been with the thought of them at the forefront of our minds and hearts. We've sought out to make them proud, honor them, treasure their memory, and continue their legacy. These weren't ordinary people...they dedicated their lives to helping others and their reach is far and wide.
This is our story...today begins our story of our Legacy Ranch in existence.
Rita Okerholm
Dr Richard A Okerholm
Erik Okerholm
LBJ Ranch
Linda Atlas
Analysis Paralysis...Panic...annnnd Go!
Load up the Trailer!
It's a dangerous thing when a creative person is given more time!
Lights, Trailers, Graphic Designer, the Gate, Paint and Historic Family News
Time to light the Ranch!
Our offer was accepted!
Nolan K. Harper
Option Period
Reata Realty
Saltbox House
The Savant Home


Rodger Holmes, a Vietnam Veteran, died December 20th, 2014 after a problem with his liver was incorrectly treated by the VA in Grand Junction over the course of several months. Chris Blumenstein was Roger's social worker at the VA hospital in Grand Junction. He resigned in protest of Rodger's care saying it was systemic of larger problems at the VA.
Just before Roger's death in 2014, Sen. Michael Bennet announced that he had asked the VA Office of Inspector General for a full investigation of Rodger's care at the Grand Junction VA Medical Center. That report has just been released and Chris Blumenstein says that it reinforces much of what he has said about Roger's care.


In the past three weeks, politicians and industry leaders at a number of summits in the Caribbean have expressed the urgent need for better air connections and more reasonable prices. Sorry folks. That's an old hat to say the least. There may even be a skeleton in the closet.
In 2007, Ministers of Civil Aviation in the Caribbean and other tourism and travel officials drafted the 'San Juan Accord', which called for regional officials to put in place the policy framework that would make intra-Caribbean travel for airlines less expensive and more competitive in terms of attracting investment.
What was suggested in 2012 as hope for action 'in the next few months' takes six years and shows no results. The Director General and CEO of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) at the time commented: "The problem is, we have not implemented what we ourselves agree needs to be done." In other words, let's just call it a lot of 'um diddle diddle um diddle ay' and no action.
The alarm clock rang already in 2012, but apparently someone hit the 'snooze button'. Snoozing before officially getting out of bed is a pretty standard practice. To give some background on the biology of sleep. About an hour before eyes actually open, the body begins to 'reboot.' The brain sends out signals to release hormones, the body temperature rises, and one enters into a lighter sleep in preparation for the wake-up. So, the current big 'To-Do' about passenger taxes may very well be considered no more than 'the preparation for a wake-up'. Yet, snoozing six years could also be considered a coma and one may question whether there will be an actual rise-and-shine to remove or reduce taxes. After all, any Government will be very hesitant to give up a cash-cow.
At an industry conference in 2017, the tourism expert consultant and former Minister of Tourism and Aviation of the Bahamas, Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace called the implementation of the taxation 'committing economic suicide without doing it'.
In July 2018, the Prime Minister of Barbados, reminded the attending Honourables at yet another summit that "The single domestic space for hassle intra-regional travel must be a place where we must start if we are serious about the single market and the single economy. It must be the place if we want the buy-in of our citizens." She stated that a single domestic space for hassle free travel pre-supposes a single domestic space for transportation and that the Region could do better with respect to moving people between island to island and country to country.
In 2015, the Secretary General of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) has urged regional authorities to institute an Open Skies policy. It would allow regional carriers to take unlimited flights to all CARICOM member states and encourage the growth of competition among carriers, elimination of secondary screening would encourage greater demand for intra-regional travel. He spoke at the airline route development forum, "World Routes" in Durban, South Africa.
Already in 2006 a study was done for the same CTO, called 'Caribbean Air Transport Study' as part of the Caribbean Regional Sustainable Tourism Development Program. The main objective of the study was to 'assist the region in rationalizing international and intra-regional air transport as a means of ensuring the sustainable development of the tourism sector', or 'how to develop and maintain regional airlift capacity consistent with the sustainable development of the tourism sector'. The study called for 'Open Skies' between the various countries in the region. Most of the governments signed bilateral agreements with the USA because they want US airlines and passengers to come and visit. But 'Open Skies' among the Caribbean territories themselves? Fifteen years of ZZZzzzz and snoring!
Recently in 2018 at an industry conference, the before mentioned Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace stated that the Caribbean itself is the major market for Caribbean airlift.
The Caribbean may not need any more studies and committees, and meetings of Honourables, calling upon others to do something where they failed themselves to take the initiative for action. A 'Summit-and-Do' should be organized, whereby is nailed who will take the first step, what will be done, and a date of completion is set. Wouldn't that be an honourable initiative for Honourables to agree on and stick to? In the meantime, …. on and on it goes and where it ends no one knows.
Air Seychelles pilot a hero, Emirates Airlines A380 pilot in trouble, passengers extremely lucky!