NONGPOH: With the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) polls approaching fast, the United Democratic Party (UDP) suffered a huge blow when leaders from the Umroi Circle decided to dissolved the party due to issues with the central leadership.
This has come to light during the Central Executive Meeting of the UDP Umroi Circle held at Khapmara Bhoirymbong on Monday which was attended by the President, Mangkara Pathaw, Vice President, Shngainlang Thangkhiew, General Secretary, Thomas Lyngdoh and the office bearers of the Umroi Circle.
The issue which led them to take this drastic step and dissolved the party unit at Umroi, is the central leadership of the party had sidelined them and does not take into confidence their views and opinions on selection of party nominees from Umroi Constituency for the upcoming KHADC polls.
It may be noted, the central leadership of the UDP had earlier given a ticket to former NPP leader from Umroi constituency, FD Ramsiej to contest for the upcoming KHADC polls from Umroi Constituency. Ramsiej who is also former UDP leader, joined NPP after he was denied ticket for the Assembly polls and again joined the UDP during the month of December last year.
During the meeting, leaders of the UDP Umroi Circle also wondered as to how the central leadership of the party allotted the party ticket to FD Ramsiej for the upcoming KHADC polls despite his anti-party activities during the last Assembly Elections. "We have even sent a letter to the central leadership stating Ramsiej anti party activities, but it seems they do not pay heed and concerned to our letter by going ahead with their own will" Umroi leaders said during the meeting.
The meeting which was held for nearly two hours also decided to resign and dissolved the party's Umroi Circle.
Meanwhile, these former UDP leaders on the same day also decided to join People's Democratic Front (PDF) which was warmly welcome by the Umroi MDC, Arbinus Lyngdoh.


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EVOLVING ALIEN CORALS
Visual ResultsBackgroundMethodsTechnical ResultsDiscussion
A research project simulating the evolution of virtual corals. Corals are grown in underwater environments containing light and current flow and are evolved with a genetic-algorithm. Morphogens, signaling, memory and other biologically motivated capacities enable a multipurpose biomimetic form optimization engine. This work is part of a series of projects exploring emergent and generative forms.
Corals are not plants but rather colonies of genetically identical organisms called polyps, which are attached to one another and act as a single entity. Polyps are genetically very similar to jellyfish. Like jellyfish they collect nutrients from a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic bacteria called Zooxanthellae living inside them. The polyps also catch small plankton floating by. Polyps from stony-corals deposit calcium beneath themselves, and this produces their structures. There are many different types of corals with varying forms and home environments. Some do not consume Zooxanthellae and others do so entirely.
The intent of this work was to use the underwater environments and coral biology as guidelines for testing a method for optimization of form. The creation of and control over optimized and emergent forms, not limited by training data, interests me for its many potential applications in art, design and engineering and even potentially studying evolution. This work is not intended as a precise mimic of coral biology.
VISUAL RESULTS
Virtual Reef
Drag to rotate, right click and drag to pan.
Click on a coral to watch it grow.
Add Coral
Colors represent the multiple evolved morphogens (more on that later).
Each coral consumes ~10MB of data.
The evolution of corals were run in varying environments. In the results below, the environments are identical except for the depth below the surface and the relative need for light versus plankton. In shallow coral environments both plankton and light decrease with depth. The height of this gradient is varied along with the need for light versus plankton. For most environments there was a large amount of diversity of the forms, except for those which needed a lot of light which tended to converge on flat shapes. The colors represent the levels and distributions of different signal morphogens and reaction-diffusion interactions, details below.
Genetic algorithms mimic evolution by starting with random solutions to a problem and then applying random mutation with selection, which is repeated for many generations. The less optimized corals from earlier generations are are often much wilder and weirder. Each of the dozens of runs produced an interesting evolutionary progression, so I have picked some randomly to showcase.
Drag the slider to see the change over evolution. The initial corals are the best of the first generation and, when dragged to the end, are the best of the last generation.
This is not exhaustive and focuses on works that were inspirational.
My research interest is how growth enables complexity by expanding - or decoding - the genotype into the phenotype. Within computer science this emergent mapping is often studied in the context of the complexity of the networks themselves. For example, HyperNEAT[1] is a neuroevolution method that uses a compositional pattern-producing network (CPPN) to map a smaller network to a larger one. CPPN's are a state of the art method for generating images[2], forms[3] and soft robots[4]. This mapping has also previously been studied under the name embryogenesis [5, 6]. Bentley [5] defines three main types of embryogenies: external, explicit and implicit. External are user defined direct mappings with no growth, explicit are directly defined growth steps such as Lindenmayer and generative growth grammars, and implicit do not explicitly define growth rules and emerge from multiple interacting and indirect rules.
Karl Sims iconic virtual creatures[7] from 1994 was an inspiration for many people in the field. He was the first to popularize genetic algorithms for creative applications and utilized a novel genome growth process. Twenty-four years later, the fact that it is still among the most iconic works in this field is indicative of how ahead of its time it was (and perhaps how little progress there has been since.)
Growth and development are, unsurprisingly, mostly studied by biologists who employ modeling systems to help understand the emergence of biological complexity and life within the subfield of developmental biology. Mathematician Alan Turing first formulated how interacting molecules, called morphogens, could establish chemical gradients through a process called reaction-diffusion that would allow patterns to arise in otherwise homogeneous cells. While exact biological relevance of reaction-diffusion is debated, the use of long range patterns and gradient are necessary for all biological development [8, 9, 10]. There have been many cell growth models developed using various cell representations and cell ability such as signal transduction, memory and morphogens [11, 12, 13, 14]. The French Flag Model is a framework for visualizing and investigating mechanisms of pattern formation during development. A good, if somewhat outdated summary of the research for a computer science audience is [15].
Above, morphogen patterns in drosophila wing development.
Ultimately, there is much less utility in studying a biological system that has not been optimized, much like an alien studying a computer that has no software or firmware on it. Scientists may find value in incorporating gradient-free optimizations such as genetic algorithms in their biological models.
Historically, artistic generative plant modeling has primarily used L-systems and other formal grammars (explicit embryogenies) to create fractal-like patterns[16]. These approaches produce wonderful patterns but are limited within a narrow range of shapes. Additionally, they attempt to mimic the forms and not the processes that give rise to them. Recently, there has been an incredible increase in the complexity and beauty of artistic emergent forms that are biologically inspired. This has been helped by the increased accessibility of both 3D printing and parallel/GPU computing resources available to artists. Andy Lomas uses GPU spring systems to grow massive sculptural cellular forms [17]. He recently gave a great TED talk on his work. The company Nervous System creates generative design systems inspired by plant venation and growth models. These systems produce beautiful 3D-printed jewelry, lamps, clothing and other items. They have been leaders in both applying generative models to functional items and using these generative systems to make the design process interactive (https://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/labs/). Finally, Christoph Bader and Dominik Kolb, of both Mediated Matter and deskriptiv, have produced multiple mind-boggling methods for generating immensely complex 3D printed designs [18].
The generative method used here was inspired by experiments I did applying iteration to image producing CPPNs. The CPPN would use the last pixel and past neighbor states for input - essentially a game of life with evolved rules. The dynamic range of patterns with iterative CPPNs was much greater than for regular CPPNs with the same network size, and they performed better too. These experiments reinforced the necessity of iteration and/or permutation for any embryogenesis. This generative mesh method is essentially an iterative CPPN on a mesh.
Each genome consists of a neural network and vector of attributes. The forms are grown by starting with a seed mesh and using the network to control the growth of every vertex (here representing a polyp) at every growth step. The network also controls the output of reaction-diffusion morphogens and vertex-vertex signaling that allows emergent patterns to direct growth. The attributes control global properties, such as decay rates for morphogens, signals and nutrients.
Growth Algorithm Overview
Repeat until end condition reached (max-vertices, max-volume or max-steps):
Compute network values for every vertex using local attributes.
These include energy, light, collection, curvature, morphogens and gravity
Move polyps in normal direction by growth output magnitude.
Growth is limited by the amount of energy available at the polyp.
Fix collisions.
Spatial hashing with triangle-triangle intersection detection.
Relax mesh.
Laplacian smoothing with back projection of old position onto new normal vector.
Adaptively subdivide mesh and create new polyps.
I implemented this adaptive sqrt3 subdivision method.
Calculate new polyp attributes.
Calculate light, current-flow, surface curvature, reaction diffusion, signal diffusion.
Curvature uses a method described in this post
Example Network
Above is an example random network for a genome with two reaction diffusion morphogens and three signal morphogens. There are corresponding inputs and outputs for each of the morphogens and inputs for the attributes. The network does not begin with any hidden nodes but, using NEAT, may evolve them.
Polyp Attributes
The attributes of each vertex of the mesh. A: Signal0. B: Signal1. C: RD1. D: Light. E: Nutrient Collection. F Curvature: G: Energy.
Genome Attributes
A genome also has several attributes. Each morphogen system has multiple corresponding attributes for diffusion and decay. The reaction-diffusion morphogens (more below) have attributes for all of their properties. Additionally, each coral has a nutrient diffusion rate that controls how much nutrients polyps share with their neighbors.
The networks are evolved using a genetic algorithm for neural networks (neural-evolution) called NEAT[19]. The version used also allows arbitrary attributes to be evolved independent of the network.
Additionally, a related method called Novelty Search[20] is used with NEAT. Novelty search is a fascinating optimization method that operates under the belief that search spaces are deceptive and abandoning objectives and pursuing the most novel things will paradoxically also produce the best ones. This is a belief that has far-reaching applications to all things involving goals. Novelty changes the fitness function of the optimization to reward novelty. Practically speaking, however, this fails on very sparse search spaces. Thus, a hybrid method was taken based on [21] where fitness and novelty are both used. However, the geometric mean of fitness and novelty was taken over the arithmetic mean used in the paper since the fitness was not normalized or in the same range.
The challenge of employing novelty search was creating a good metric of how different two corals are. This required creating a vector of features for each coral that could be used in nearest-neighbor search. Describing a 3D coral in away that was rotation and position invariant was challenging and I fortunately stumbled into the world of 3D shape descriptors which try to describe a mesh. Their research is primarily motivated by allowing queries of 3D model databases. I used the D2 shape descriptor described here[22], which is the histogram of normalized distances between random pairs of points on the mesh surface. This wonderfully elegant method captures many properties of the shape and is rotation and translation invariant. Additionally, an A2 shape descriptor is used as well which is a similar histogram of the angles between the normal vectors of random pairs. The total feature vector is a thirty-two dimensional descriptor appended to a thirty-two dimensional A2. I have not found another use of shape descriptors for novelty search, but it's a obvious pairing. The comparison of NEAT with and without Novelty Search is discussed below.
Example Shape Descriptors
Corals on the left with their corresponding shape descriptors on the right. All shape descriptors used 32 dimensions with 214 points sampled for both A2 and D2.
Morphogens
Morphogens are chemicals that give rise to pattern formation during development. Reaction-diffusion is one set of equations that describe the interaction of multiple chemicals that may be used as morphogens. Varying the properties of two (U & V) chemicals can give rise to the patterns seen below and are used commonly for artistic purposes. I used Gray-Scott over others (such as Gierer–Meinhardt) because I found it to be more stable and its parameter space was also well documented. Given more time, I would love to explore the relative efficacy of each model.
From karlsims.com
Each polyp has one input for the chemical U and one output for the chemical V. If the U chemical at the polyp is greater than 0.5, the input is set to 1; otherwise, it is set to -1. Likewise, if a morphogen output is greater than 0.5, the corresponding V is set to 1. Gray-Scott has four parameters which are evolved: the feed rate of chemical U, the kill rate of chemical V, and the decay rates of both.
In addition to reaction diffusion, there is another type of morphogens called signals which simply diffuse. These have evolved decay and diffusion rates allowing them to act as short range communication. Differentiation is an important part in growth and differentiation is a type of memory. Signaling is generalized to include memory because signals may evolve a range of zero.
Light is a simple vertical directional light. I use a spatial hash in the XZ plane to check for every vertex to see if there is another face above it. If not, the light is the angle incident to vertical. For angled lights, I rotate all points around the X or Z axis. Light and shadows are givens in most graphics libraries; however, I could not find a good CPU algorithm reference. Ideally, this would include ambient and diffuse light.
Nutrients and Fluid
A fast and simple estimate was used for nutrient collection that did not require running a full fluid simulation, although a fast fluid simulation estimate was developed too. The grid is voxelized, and nutrient collection rates are calculated for the grid. The nutrient value for a voxel is inverse to the number of vertices that are within distance radius of that voxel.
Ni is the nutrients at voxel i, dij is the distance between voxels i and j, Oi indicates if voxel i is occupied, and vn is the number of vertices within radius of voxel i. Then, the collection value for all polyps in a given voxel Ci is the average of the nutrient values within that same competitive radius.
Ci is the collection of voxel I and n is the number of voxels within the radius.
Although making d a binary produced similar results with a smaller radius.
The other method tested involved a modified and iterative Dijkstra's algorithm which allowed for directed current flows. Not even a poor man's fluid simulation, this is broke man's simulation. Paths are calculated from every voxel on one side of the grid to any point on the other. The travel costs of every position are then increased proportional the average amount of flow. The results of this method are not shown in this post. It produced a lower diversity of corals, most of which were fan shapes. I am currently working on hybrid methods that have local competition and directed flow.
Example Iterative Dijkstra's
Left: Example obstacles in grid. Middle: Dijkstra's pathing after first iteration where costs are uniform. Right: average current flow after 5 iterations.
The few academic papers on coral modeling use some type of lattice-Boltzmann algorithm[23, 24]; however, it would be prohibitively slow to simulate a large grid for each growth step of each coral in the population for each generation even with a GPU implementation. I also attempted fast fluid simulations for games, which was also too slow.
The academic papers on coral modeling only simulate a single coral at once, and spend several hours doing so. Here, to test the effects of evolution, about ten thousand corals must be simulated per optimization. Although, [23] multiplies vertex collection rates by its surface curvature in order to get a realistic effect indicating the fluid simulations are not ideal.
For corals with greater than three morphogens, the first three principal components were taken, scaled to [0,1] and assigned to blue, red and green respectively. For reaction diffusion morphogens, the U component was used as the value. In this work, there were five total morphogens, and the total variance of first three components ranged between 90% and 99%.
Fitness Function
The fitness of a coral is the total amount of energy produced at the end of growth. Limiting the volume and scaling growth by energy prevents uncontrolled growth. For novelty search, the fitness is the square root of the regular fitness times novelty where novelty is the Euclidean distance of the shape descriptor from its ten nearest neighbors.
TECHNICAL RESULTS
Corals were run with NEAT for 100 generations with a population size of 80. For Novelty Search, a population size of 20 was run for 400 generations. Corals were allowed up to 15,000 vertices in addition to a max volume and 150 max growth steps. Two main simulation parameters were varied across experiments: light_amount and gradient_height. Twelve pairs of corresponding NEAT and Novelty runs were done with variations of those two parameters such that each run within a pair had exactly the same simulation and evolution parameters. A dynamic novelty threshold was used for adding corals the archive, and no maximum archive size was used. K was 10 for nearest neighbors.
Plots of the fitness of the average and best member of a population averaged across all runs. Each fitness is normalized by the maximum fitness found within a run with the same parameters. This normalization controls for some environments being more challenging than others. Because novelty search had a smaller population size for more generations, the x axis is normalized for total number of corals evaluated. Error bars are 0.5 sigma.
The normal NEAT runs optimize more quickly than with Novelty Search; however, they quickly stagnate and fail to keep evolving after a short period (roughly evaluation 2000, generation 25). The Novelty Search runs slow down slightly relative to the NEAT ones and continue to increase without plateauing. By evaluation 8000, the Novelty Search is roughly 5% better than without. However, this would be improved by more generation and how long they continue to improve will be checked in further work, but this indicates the corals shown are potentially far from fully optimized.
Given the limited abilities of each polyp and simplicity of the networks, I was pleasantly surprised with the results - both the ability of the forms to evolve and the diversity of corals produced. For genomes with less than 100 dimensions, complex forms with ~15,000 vertices are generated, and easily many more if allowed to run longer. Additionally, the results validated the benefits of Novelty Search and the efficacy of the shape descriptors as feature vectors. It makes sense that Novelty Search will optimize more slowly at first due to exploring a larger feature space which is then rewarded by increased robustness to local optimum.
Form, growth, evolution and environment are all linked, making it hard to understand one removed from the others. L-systems and elegant mathematical formulations may help to describe the patterns present in biology; however, plants and growth are not mathematical equations. They are a thoroughly optimized genome emergent in billions of coordinating cells adapting to their environments. Mimicking the methods as opposed to mimicking the results captures more of this beauty. Competition between individuals and between groups, and ecosystems are necessary as well, which are elements not yet present in this iteration. Although novelty search has biological analogies. The idea of species competition gave rise to this ecology-modeling project as discussed in this interview.
It's worth questioning the very attempt of mimicking as opposed to capturing nature. Where the latter shows deference the former could seem arrogant and delusional. Nothing man has made approaches the complexity of the human body. Perhaps it is the generative artists equivalent to the feeling of conquest that comes from climbing a mountain peak, coming from a deep impulse to dominate nature.
Technically, there is work to be done comparing shape descriptors, reaction diffusion systems and improving the simulation. Looking forward, I would like to provide an artistic simulation engine and benchmark suite for machine learning researchers. Robot control and video games don't need to be the only benchmarks. A Javscript/Webgl implementation would allow distributed computation and interactive evolution. A open source database of fitness functions for other objects would allow the optimization of many types of objects.
Clune, Jeff, et al. "Evolving coordinated quadruped gaits with the HyperNEAT generative encoding." Evolutionary Computation, 2009. CEC'09. IEEE Congress on. IEEE, 2009.
Secretan, Jimmy, et al. "Picbreeder: evolving pictures collaboratively online." Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2008.
Clune, Jeff, et al. "EndlessForms. com: Collaboratively Evolving Objects and 3D Printing Them."
Cheney, Nick, et al. "Unshackling evolution: evolving soft robots with multiple materials and a powerful generative encoding." Proceedings of the 15th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation. ACM, 2013.
Bentley, Peter, and Sanjeev Kumar. "Three ways to grow designs: A comparison of embryogenies for an evolutionary design problem." Proceedings of the 1st Annual Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation-Volume 1. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., 1999.
Kumar, Sanjeev, and Peter J. Bentley. "Implicit evolvability: An investigation into the evolvability of an embryogeny." A late-breaking paper in the second Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2000). 2000.
Sims, Karl. "Evolving virtual creatures." Proceedings of the 21st annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques. ACM, 1994.
Gierer, Alfred, and Hans Meinhardt. "A theory of biological pattern formation". Kybernetik 12.1 1972: 30-39.
Kondo, Shigeru, and Takashi Miura. Reaction-diffusion model as a framework for understanding biological pattern formation. science 329.5999 2010: 1616-1620
Page, Karen M., Philip K. Maini, and Nicholas AM Monk. Complex pattern formation in reaction–diffusion systems with spatially varying parameters. Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 202.1-2 2005: 95-115.
Jones, Gareth Wyn, and S. Jonathan Chapman. Modeling growth in biological materials. Siam review 54.1 (2012): 52-118.
Rudge, Tim, and Jim Haseloff. "A computational model of cellular morphogenesis in plants." European Conference on Artificial Life. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2005.
Merks, Roeland MH, and James A. Glazier. "A cell-centered approach to developmental biology." Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 352.1 (2005): 113-130.
Merks, Roeland MH, et al. "VirtualLeaf: an open-source framework for cell-based modeling of plant tissue growth and development." Plant physiology 155.2 (2011): 656-666.
Kumar, Sanjeev, and Peter J. Bentley, eds. "On growth, form and computers". Academic Press, 2003.
Prusinkiewicz, Przemyslaw, and Aristid Lindenmayer. The algorithmic beauty of plants. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.
Lomas, Andy. "Cellular forms: an artistic exploration of morphogenesis." SIGGRAPH Studio. 2014.
Bader, Christoph, et al. "Grown, printed, and biologically augmented: An additively manufactured microfluidic wearable, functionally templated for synthetic microbes." 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing 3.2 (2016): 79-89.
Stanley, Kenneth O., and Risto Miikkulainen. "Evolving neural networks through augmenting topologies." Evolutionary computation 10.2 (2002): 99-127.
Lehman, Joel, and Kenneth O. Stanley. "Exploiting open-endedness to solve problems through the search for novelty." ALIFE. 2008.
Gomes, Jorge, Pedro Mariano, and Anders Lyhne Christensen. "Devising effective novelty search algorithms: A comprehensive empirical study." Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation. ACM, 2015.
Osada, Robert, et al. "Shape distributions." ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) 21.4 (2002): 807-832.
Merks, Roeland MH, et al. "Polyp oriented modelling of coral growth." Journal of Theoretical Biology 228.4 (2004): 559-576.
Kaandorp, Jaap A., et al. "Effect of nutrient diffusion and flow on coral morphology." Physical Review Letters 77.11 (1996): 2328.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Nifty closed up 22.75 points (0.26%) at 8638.00 while Future closed at 8667.40, premium of 29.40 points.
Bank Nifty closed up 41.35 points (0.21%) at 19555.95 while Future closed at 19623.50, premium of 67.55 points.
Advance Decline for the day was 982:656.
McClellan's oscillator for NSE at -04.
Nifty closed flat at 8615.25 while Future closed at 8655.25, premium of 40.00 points.
Bank Nifty closed up 31.00 points (0.16%) at 19514.60 while Future closed at 19593.30, premium of 78.70 points.
Advance Decline for the day was 545:1086.
McClellan's oscillator for NSE at -16.


Howdy, fans! We are Sweet Lou's Sour Mash, a boot stompin' bluegrass stringband from Seattle. We started in the spring of '13 and have been refining our sound and high energy live show ever since. With a mix of traditional and original music, we are a much loved band for all occasions. Book us for all kinds of fun shindigs including family-friendly events, clubs/bars, private parties, and corporate soirees.


text:
Kelly Sheridan
10 Notable Cybersecurity Acquisitions of 2019, Part 2
As mergers and acquisitions continued to shape the security industry throughout 2019, these deals were most significant.
Broadcom Snaps Up Symantec
Broadcom confirmed plans to acquire Symantec Enterprise Security for $10.7 billion in an all-cash transaction expected to close in the first quarter of its 2020 fiscal year.
Symantec's enterprise security portfolio, which has product lines across endpoint security, Web security services, cloud security, and data loss prevention, will be deployed through Broadcom's channels. In doing so, its new parent company aims to strengthen its differentiated portfolio license agreement strategy for customers. At the time it was announced, the deal was expected to drive more than $2 billion in sustainable, incremental, run-rate revenue for Broadcom.
Pollard describes this transaction as an example of enterprise players trying to move into the cybersecurity space. Broadcom is a traditional enterprise hardware company; acquiring Symantec brings security software and services into its portfolio.
This acquisition also stood out for its value, which Pollard notes is another consistent trend throughout the second half of 2019. While the number of deals stayed relatively constant, the past six months have brought a handful of transactions with higher overall value.
(Image: Broadcom)
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Can Trump fire Anthony Fauci? "Unimaginable," says NIH Dir
"Nobody has asked me to do that, and I find that concept unimaginable," said Francis Collins, Director of National Institutes of Health (NIH) on NBC's "Meet The Press." "And I am amused that everybody's calling me Dr. Fauci's boss because his real boss is his wife, Christine Grady. She might have something to say about that."
The rumors that Trump was trying to oust Fauci came after Peter Navarro, a trade adviser to Trump published an op-ed piece in USA Today where he accused Fauci of being "wrong about everything."
"Dr. Anthony Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on," Navarro wrote.
Click here for more on Coronavirus
Related Topics:Anthony FaucicoronavirusFrancis CollinsNational Institutes of Health
Sara Carter Staff
Tennessee Republican Representative Diana Harshbarger is attempting to fight the opioid crisis and epidemic through new legislation. Introduced Friday, Harshbarger told the Daily Caller:
The Daily Caller first obtained a copy of the legislation, which addresses what Harshbarger calls a "loophole." The legislation amends the Controlled Substances Act to specifically require registrants to investigate reports of suspicious orders of controlled substances and halt them if necessary. Under the version of the act currently in force, drug manufacturers and distributors are only required to report suspicious orders of opioids and other controlled substances to the DEA.
"Breaking the opioid epidemic's stranglehold on our nation is one of my foremost priorities. In an effort to do so, my colleagues and I have identified a loophole that allows distributors to continue order fulfillment, even under suspicious circumstances."
"My bill closes that loophole with the requirements and guardrails needed to ensure these addictive and potentially dangerous drugs do not fall into the wrong hands while the DEA investigates. The future of our nation depends on us solving the addiction crisis, and this is a step towards that outcome" Harshbarger continued.
The Daily Caller reports:
According to a congressional report released in September, the opioid crisis cost the U.S. $1.5 trillion during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CDC says 93,331 people died from overdoses in the U.S. in 2020, the highest in 50 years. Opioid-related deaths made up nearly three-quarters of the total.
Pharmaceutical companies have been blamed for contributing to the opioid epidemic. The Department of Justice is currently suing the pharmaceutical company AmerisourceBergen over allegations the company failed to report suspicious orders of opioids to federal law enforcement.
Congressman Biggs to Unveil Impeachment Articles Against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas


Hamas was either astonishingly cynical or astonishingly stupid in provoking Israel.
While European leaders gathered twice Sunday in Egypt and Israel to hail the fragile Gaza cease-fire as an opportunity to revive Middle East peace efforts, the Hamas leadership-in-exile gathered in a Damascus TV studio to essentially state: Not over our dead bodies. Or, more accurately, not over Gazans' dead bodies. Its heroic resistance fighters had withstood the might of the Israeli occupation forces for three full weeks, said members of the Hamas leadership-in-exile, seated around a black table bearing a map of all of Palestine. Now, said Hamas spokesman Moussa Abu Marzouk, it was consenting to a tentative cease-fire, but only if Israel vacated Gaza within seven days. Otherwise, the invincible rocket crews would again be called into action, and the valiant assault on Israel would recommence. Just like Hizbullah in 2006, Hamas was either astonishingly cynical in provoking Israel's Operation Cast Lead onslaught by escalating its rocket fire, or it was astonishingly stupid. Either it anticipated the crushing Israeli military response and didn't care about the consequences for Gazans. Or it failed to appreciate what it was about to let Gaza in for. Either explanation reflects dismally on Hamas. And try as it might, unlike Hizbullah, it cannot even credibly claim that it inflicted high Israeli losses, pummeled large sections of the country with 100-plus rockets per day, wrought despair and confusion on the Israeli home front or exposed an incompetent Israeli military and political leadership. Again, unlike Hizbullah, it cannot credibly claim to have fought bravely against the IDF. Its fighters, rather, melted away into the deepest recesses of civilian protection. And while the likes of Marzouk and his colleague Khaled Mashaal sounded consistently indomitable from the comfort and safety of the Syrian capital, the local Gaza leadership simply hid. But will the people of Gaza, who chose Hamas as their leadership three years ago, internalize any of this? The fragile denouement of Operation Cast Lead saw Egypt and Israel graced by the presence of so many world leaders on Sunday that they barely had room to put their elbows on the shared table at Sharm e-Sheikh. They took so long to make their speeches in Jerusalem that all three Israeli nightly news shows cut away to other stories. The European leaders put on a public display here and in Egypt that was designed to underline the illegitimacy of Hamas and its Iranian and Syrian backers. The inclusion of Turkey's President Abdullah Gul at the Egyptian gathering highlighted that, ultimately, Hamas remained beyond the pale, despite all Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's vicious criticism of Israel these past three weeks. But will Gazans get the message? Or, confronted with the ruins all around them, will they instead redouble their hostility to Israel, forgive Hamas what was either cynicism or foolishness, and rededicate themselves to helping their elected Islamist leadership to eventually prevail over the Zionists? One after the other in Jerusalem on Sunday night, the dignitaries from Europe declared that the cease-fire was not enough - not an end in and of itself. The unstable truce had, rather, in the words of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, opened "a window of opportunity" to a broad Israeli-Palestinian peace. Each of the guests had their own stresses and nuances. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had slammed Israel on the very first day of Operation Cast Lead for its "disproportionate" response to eight years of rocket fire, was by far the most critical, declaring, in apparent contradiction of his professed support for Israel's right to self-defense, that "the IDF's role is not in Gaza." He was "not out to lecture Israel," Sarkozy went on, and then did precisely that: "What is at stake is the future of the State of Israel," he declared with tremendous passion. And what was needed was "a major international conference," built on "trust" and the current "glimmer of hope," to "hammer out a great final peace plan" and "make peace this year." Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown was characteristically more circumspect. Unlike Sarkozy, he recognized that "permanent peace may seem a very, very distant prospect." But, like the French president, Brown, too, said he could "see a road" opening up in the direction of a permanent accord. Any such road, however, must of necessity run through Gaza. And there, Hamas is vowing to regain and then strengthen its capacity to hurt Israel. There, the Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin warned yesterday, Hamas will have the Philadelphi Corridor weapons smuggling operation back at full strength in two or three months if Egypt does not radically bolster prevention efforts. And there, as President Hosni Mubarak emphatically told his VIP guests on Sunday, Egypt will not allow a single foreign adviser, monitor or soldier to assist in the anti-smuggling work. Tony Blair echoed his successor Brown and the other European leaders when he stated on Sunday that "the cease-fire won't hold" unless there was a new effort to move toward a two-state solution. But long-since sobered by his work as the international Quartet's Middle East envoy, Blair added a caveat that was not stressed by the guests in Jerusalem. A new peace effort, he said, required a new Palestinian unity based on consensual Palestinian support for a two-state solution. What Blair left unspoken, on the day that the Hamas leadership in Damascus celebrated its victory and set out its conditions for maintaining the cease-fire, was that so long as Hamas dominates Gaza, there will be no such consensual Palestinian support for viable peace. And as of Sunday night, with the IDF starting to pull back after three weeks of Operation Cast Lead, Hamas has every intention of continuing to dominate Gaza.


The Mesa Butaca (coffee table) from the 356 series features a rotational molded polyethylene structure. The collection includes a flexible variety of pieces that may be used individually, in small groups or made into expansive configurations. A unique approach to outdoor living.
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Ana, less than a week ago.


In our prior post we noted the key premise of ERP: that's it's a strategic investment in your business – just like those machines on the shop floor, or the key employees on your management team. We also noted that it's scary to many folks, who in turn wait way too long to make a change or upgrade, because sometimes the costs of efficiencies to be gained can be difficult to calculate, whereas the cost of the system itself is very clear – and of course, always too much.
Quantify the costs of inefficiency. Your current processes are likely to be some combination of old, outdated, inefficient, broken, redundant or ripe for opportunity for improvement. Your customers, your employees and your bottom line are all feeling these costs. The question is: when are you going to start tracking, calculating and accounting for them?
While you can hire an outside consultant to do this for you, do you really need or want to? No. You can do this yourself by time studies that honestly seek to calculate the very real dollar costs associated with each key process in your system. At the very least, do a day's worth of route or process tracking to get a baseline for what it costs today. You've got to start somewhere. Be sure to factor in all necessary labor, overhead and machine costs. Don't fudge – it's your money you'll be investing and saving after all.
Identify waste at its source by defining the true costs of these processes now while identifying areas where you even think automation could curb those costs. You should be able to calculate potential decreased labor costs across a time unit of value (i.e., an hour, a day, a run or a shift).
Have a clear vision of what your ERP implementation can and should do for your organization. The fact that your old legacy accounting/ERP system is old is probably true, but it's not reason enough by itself for action. You must define what you want in the next system – i.e., increased inventory returns, faster customer responsiveness, fewer shipping errors, increased sales throughput, reduced labor costs or shorter cycle times. There are too many to list, but you know – or should know – which ones matter most to you. You can't identify the cost of these inefficiencies capably until you've identified, categorized and measured or calculated them.
Define how your organization will achieve those benefits. Panorama consultants note that "Numbers in a business case are meaningless without clear and tangible steps on how to achieve them. In order to fully 'operationalize' these potential business benefits, your team will need to outline the steps and owners of the steps to realizing those benefits." They give examples like determining which process changes and software modules will fulfill a stated goal, such as x% of improved inventory returns… or how a certain process change might reduce your production cycle times. You get the idea. You have to ask a lot of questions… question a lot of processes, and process a lot of data and results.
The point is: the costs are there, they are evident when you dedicate the time to look, they are very real and, in our experience over many years, they are very significant.
Your ERP investment can pay for itself ten times over – but you'll never know it if you don't start counting the ways: the inefficiencies, the improvement opportunities, the competitive advantages, the costs and workflow reductions… all of it.
Deciding finally to upgrade your old accounting system into a modern ERP system is never an easy decision. All too often, we've seen that nebulous fear cause many a client to wait too long. Usually, it takes the sunsetting (i.e., discontinuation) and total loss of support for their current product – with maybe a touch of hardware obsolescence and crumbling network infrastructure thrown in – before they'll finally bite the bullet.
We think that's because it's hard to quantify the cost savings and efficiencies that will be gained against the much more plainly understood "cost" of the system.
All too often our constant reiterating wail to clients that ERP is a strategic investment in your business – just like a machine on the plant floor – falls on deaf ears much like the baying of the coyotes outside my windows on an Indiana night.
Just this week a client told us that they are not spending any more money on software for the rest of this year. That's like saying I'm not spending any more on oil and maintenance for our equipment. The difference? Most businesses have difficulty appreciating that – done right – the improvements to processes and business alike that result from a strategically used ERP system can save five, ten or even 100 times their costs in wasted or redundant labor and other inefficiencies.
You can't blame them really. Most folks are coming off "accounting" systems built in the 80s or 90s that mostly documented business 'transactions' and not much more when it comes to process improvement. It's a stretch for them to appreciate that ERP is just the tool we use to codify and standardize business process improvements. It's not about the software, per se, it's about the improvements to processes and the reduction in costs that ultimately flow through it, once processes have been realigned and the software is configured to accept them.
It's hard for clients to wrap their heads around this, when all they know is what's worked in the past: build better widgets, and increasingly more of them, as cheaply as possible, and all good blessings will flow.
The idea that wide swaths of a business might be "leaned out" through the implementation of improved processes woven into an extensive enterprise management system that makes those changes 'stick' takes some education and some getting used to. And it takes an investment in the foundation (like working a little compost into the garden dirt) before the changes can begin to grow and bear fruit. In other words, it can be a leap of faith.
As providers of ERP software, we have long observed the tendency among some to severely underestimate the actual cost of a system implementation. When we hear these claims, we typically presume that the sellers are of the "in for a dime, in for a dollar" school of thought, which says that once we get the client a ways down the road, then we can talk about some of the details that may have been skipped over in the selling stage. Of course by that time it's too late. Most companies are reluctant to bail on these 'sunk costs,' even if their implementation does threaten to go 100%, or 200% or more over what they first believed it would take to implement.
So we were interested to see what the folks at Panorama Consulting learned after completing their 2016 ERP Survey. Their own data confirms our own long held suspicions about the unrealistic expectations that are too often set (as in "sold") around ERP. Here's what they had to say, after studying hundreds of ERP implementations and their results.
For starters… only about 40% of ERP project surveyed came in on the scheduled time duration. No surprise there. In fact, about one-third of projects came in at least 25% beyond the estimated time duration.
From a cost standpoint, the figures were similar, where about 20% of projects were anywhere from 25% to at least 75% over budget. It appears that most projects, about 60% of the total, were within about 25% of their budgeted estimate.
ERP vendors and consultants are notorious for underestimating the time and cost required to implement systems. This is sometimes due to the fact that overzealous sales reps are trying to lowball their estimates to get the deal done, while other times its simply due to the fact that sales teams do not truly know the costs required to make an implementation of their software successful.
Unlike the 1:1 software to implementation cost ratio that the industry typically uses to estimate implementation costs, our research over the last decade shows a remarkably steady, yet different metric when it comes to cost. The average organization spends a total of 5-percent of their average revenue on the total cost of implementation. This metric includes everything from software licenses, hardware upgrades, consulting fees, internal resource costs, customization, contingency costs and everything in between.
For example, a company that does $100M in annual revenue is likely to spend an average of $5M on their total cost of implementation. Vendors don't like these numbers because they can create sticker shock while they are trying to close new business, but the facts can't be disputed.
Keep in mind that most ERP vendors don't have insights into these additional non-vendor costs, but they typically constitute a majority of implementation costs. Also keep in mind that larger organizations typically see percentages lower than 5%, while smaller organizations can see numbers a bit higher. This is largely because larger organizations have size and scale that enables a lower normalized implementation cost relative to their smaller counterparts.
A group (and website) called Proformative provides a web forum (www.proformative.com) for "corporate financial professionals" (Controller, CFOs, etc.) that provides useful information to its audience about a wide range of finance-related topics from HR and Recruiting to ERP and Excel Shortcuts, and much in between. Proformative boasts of having over 100,000 registered members.
Recently, under the title "ERP Implementation Methodology Best Practices & ROI" (found here) several contributors voiced their opinions about what to expect from ERP. You can peruse the article yourself, but we thought we'd highlight a couple comments that caught our eye.
IT Costs – It's more than just the software, but still the easiest to count.
Productivity Impact – Rectifying data input errors & redundancy are valid ROI components.
Visibility Impact – When new systems provide more/better data access or velocity, it matters.
Audit & Compliance Impact – Better controls & repeatable processes reduce audit costs.
Risk Impact – How much risk is built into your current system? This cost is real, if tough to count.
Len Green, a Consultant at BT Partners suggests looking out 3 to 5 years for costs from day one. He notes that some improvements occur only after implementation, so allow for progressive improvements, not 100% gain in year one. He adds that software costs are only part of the story: additional staff during implementation and integration with other current business systems may affect overall costs. And don't count headcount reductions that do not equal a whole FTE.
In our previous two posts here and here we looked at some of the very real "hard" costs, or tangible benefits, that are typically derived from a successful ERP implementation. We even put a few numbers to them. In today's concluding post, we'll look at a few intangible benefits. These may not result in hard dollar savings, but they are beneficial and often important nonetheless.
As noted earlier, the basis for many of our comments are from a report prepared by Compare Business Products.com. Based on their research, previous industry research results, and our own experiences over more than twenty years, we feel confident that anyone who applies ERP correctly will receive benefits in line with those cited in our previous posts, and with our comments today.
Improvement in Process Design and Production Since ERP provides a single, company-wide, unified silo of information about products, orders, customers, etc., it stands to reason that a company will have better control over process design and production. Changes to products/orders can be managed in real time. Everyone can be in the same information loop. Production agility is improved, along with response times and overall visibility. Additionally, ERP can often support 'rules' of configuration, thus improving the speed and flexibility of order building, BOM changes, and product customizations unique to customers. Your entire team – and possibly even your customers with some additional work – can see for themselves what changes are or are not possible, and often, track their order status as well. The end result is tighter supply chain integration between factory, customer and supplier. But perhaps the real end result is improved customer loyalty and retention, and typically, sales too.
Improvement in Accounting Procedures Here again, the common silo of information means less duplication, in this case, of accounting files and data. A lot of paper can be eliminated with ERP through electronic document archival. Accuracy is improved when there is only one set of data to work from. Order and product costing can be faster and more flexible. Work in process (WIP) can now be tracked, financial statements are automated and simplified, with greater accuracy, and most reporting can now be done more quickly. Overall accuracy and timeliness of reporting is improved. Best of all, a lot of redundant data entry is eliminated, thus saving wasted and unproductive labor.
Improved IT (or "MIS") Functionality With information in one place, under one software system, management information systems are improved when it's no longer required to collate information from different sources. With today's newer systems, dashboards can be built to monitor key performance benchmarks, and users can usually drill-down to the source data they need on an ad hoc query basis.
In conclusion… add up all the costs we've noted, hard as well as your own estimate of the value of soft cost savings. Even a fairly small manufacturing concern is going to see very real, six-figure annual cost savings once deployed. And that's a reduction in costs that goes on year after year. And the more you grow, the greater the ratio of savings created by your ERP investment. No matter how you slice it, when you do the math, the old adage is true of ERP: It doesn't cost, it pays.
In our previous post we discussed two very real, very important cost benefits that accrue to companies who successfully deploy ERP systems. The improvements to inventory and receivables are significant, and well documented. As we noted, the typical $10 million factory can free upwards of a million dollars in newly available cash through inventory and receivables collection improvements. Those are very real savings.
Reduction in Material Costs ERP almost always leads to improved procurement practices. As your forecasting improves, your order lead times shrink, and you run into fewer stock-outs as well. Better advance planning of purchasing in turn leads to obtaining better discount breaks, terms and conditions from vendors. When you improve your forecasting, they can improve theirs, and often you're rewarded. Typical figures cited in reductions to material costs for these reasons range around 5%.
Lower Labor Costs Usually, ERP helps improve manufacturing practices (and helps you grow leaner), and as such you can reduce outages, interruptions, and with them, re-work, overtime and mistakes. Better demand forecasting can level out production schedules, reduce the stresses of rush jobs and expediting, and optimize tooling and machine setups as you learn to stage your production runs better through improved MRP, scheduling, planning and forecasting. Estimates are that ERP can reduce overtime and re-work by roughly 10%, while speeding up factory floor flow.
Improved Sales and Customer Service One key benefit of ERP is improved levels of intra-company communications – a shared silo of information accessible to all users. This improved coordination leads to shorter production leads and eventually to improved sales as you prove your ability to deliver. The result is improved customer loyalty which always has a positive effect on sales. Another benefits lies in ERP's ability to improve production agility. With proper planning and MRP, you can better accommodate order changes later in the process, and further improve customer loyalty and satisfaction. The long-term effect is improved customer retention (and less customer loss), leading to notable increases over sales volumes pre-ERP. A figure of 10% is often cited as typical here.
In this and our prior post we've tried to illustrate some of the proven benefits to ERP we've seen over the years, and as noted in a report by Compare Business Products.com. These are the benefits that yield what we like to call "hard" dollar savings – quantifiable cost reductions (or revenue increases) proven to result from successful ERP deployments. Collectively, they will return more than your original ERP investment — sometimes surprisingly quickly.
A recent article from an outfit that provides a variety of product info and comparisons to businesses, called Compare Business Products in Palo Alto, made some good points recently that reinforce what we've long known are the tangible, as well as sometimes intangible, cost savings and benefits that accrue to companies that effectively deploy ERP systems. Their points are worth noting and highlighting in our post today.
The cost savings that accrue from a good business management system do more than just make you a better, more efficient company. They actually pay for themselves. And then some. Let's look at a few of the areas where research studies have proven this to be true.
Inventory Reduction In a typical successful ERP implementation, the study's authors state, "a 20% inventory reduction becomes a commonly achieved benchmark." That's not just a one-time savings, but a recurring event that is further augmented through lower warehousing costs, less handling and transport, reduced obsolescence, and so on. Together, the collective savings of improved turns and lowered costs can typically take upwards of 30% out of the costs for inventory related items in the manufacturing or distribution environment.
On the less tangible cost-savings side, let's not forget the benefits that normally come in the form of stocking the right items, avoiding out-of-stock situations and their negative customer effects, avoiding the buildup of obsolete items, and having fewer part shortages to deal with – all the result of improved planning, MRP and visibility.
Finally, an implementation of something closer to just-in-time stocking will put any firm on track for a leaner experience, and free up funds for more important business needs.
Improved Receivables (days of receivables ratio) Research indicates that the number of days between invoice and collection, on average, goes from about 73 days to 60 once ERP has been established. That's a fairly significant cash bump, the result usually of improved billing procedures, visibility, aging control and accounting follow-up.
Combining inventory reduction and improved receivables in a $10 million (revenues) factory can lead to some serious cash improvement. A typical company in this range might have around $3 million in inventory, perhaps $2 million in receivables, and $500,000 in cash available. A reduction in inventory of even just 25% frees up around $750,000 in newly available cash flow, while an improvement of 13 days in A/R receipts per our average cited above, yields an 18% improvement (reduction in A/R), thus freeing up another $360,000. Combined, the typical improvement produced by a well-deployed ERP system in a $10 million firm is over one million dollars.


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Life, But Better Fitness Food Sleep Mindfulness Relationships
Virus detected in baby 'cured' of HIV
Saundra Young and Jacque Wilson, CNN
Updated 12:10 PM EDT, Fri July 11, 2014
Virus detected in baby 'cured' of HIV
Mississippi baby "cured" of HIV is now showing signs of the virus
Baby was given high doses of three antiretroviral drugs shortly after birth
Baby born with HIV in California was given the same treatment
A Mississippi baby scientists thought was "functionally cured" of HIV now has detectable levels of the virus in her blood, her doctors say.
The news is disappointing for a case the scientific community hailed just last year as a potential game changer in the fight against AIDS.
"It felt like a punch to the gut," Dr. Hannah Gay, a pediatric HIV specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, said of seeing signs of the virus on test results earlier this month.
"It was extremely disappointing from both the scientific standpoint … but mainly for the sake of the child who is back on medicine and expected to stay on medicine for a very long time."
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Baby "cured" of HIV, are adults next?
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AIDS researchers look for a cure
A healthcare worker collects a blood sample from a man at a mobile Integrated counselling and testing centre (ICTC) in Hyderabad on November 26, 2010.
NOAH SEELAM/AFP/Getty Images/File
Scientists: Two-year-old 'cured' of HIV
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Doctor explains finding baby HIV-free
Media outlets around the world covered the Mississippi case when it was first made public in March 2013. CNN updated its story again in October when researchers announced the toddler was still HIV free.
The child was born to a mother who received no prenatal care and was not diagnosed as HIV-positive herself until just before delivery. "We didn't have the opportunity to treat the mom during the pregnancy as we would like to be able to do, to prevent transmission to the baby," Gay said last year.
Doctors administered high doses of three antiretroviral drugs 30 hours after the girl was born in case she was infected. They hoped to control the virus, which was not detectable at the time. The child remained on antiretroviral drugs for approximately 18 months. Her mother then stopped administering the drugs for an unknown reason.
A few months later, doctors said the little girl had no evidence of the life-threatening disease in her blood. They announced that the girl was the first child to be "functionally cured" of HIV. A "functional cure" is when the presence of the virus is so small, lifelong treatment is not necessary and standard clinical tests cannot detect the virus in the blood.
However, during a routine doctor visit early this month, tests detected HIV antibodies in the now 4-year-old child. Her T-cell count was also low, indicating a weakened immune system. More than two years after being taken off the medication, doctors started her again on antiretroviral therapy.
She will need to be on these medications for life – or until scientists find a cure for HIV.
"Certainly, this is a disappointing turn of events for this young child, the medical staff involved in the child's care, and the HIV/AIDS research community," NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a statement. "Scientifically, this development reminds us that we still have much more to learn about the intricacies of HIV infection and where the virus hides in the body."
Despite the setback, researchers are optimistic about using this early treatment method on infants infected with HIV. A clinical trial aimed at studying the effect will be amended to include this new information, they said, before it begins recruiting participants.
"We´ve always known that the search for an HIV cure wasn't going to be easy," Françoise Barre-Sinoussi, president of the International AIDS Society, said in a statement. "Cases like this are hugely important for informing researchers on where to focus their efforts."
Current treatment methods
Researchers have long known that treating HIV-positive mothers while they are pregnant is important for the health of the child because they pass antibodies on to their babies that can protect them from disease.
All HIV-positive moms will pass on those antibodies, but only 30% will transmit the actual virus, said Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga, an immunologist at the University of Massachusetts who worked closely with Gay. And HIV-positive mothers who are given appropriate treatment pass on the virus in less than 2% of cases.
"So all babies are born antibody-positive, but only a fraction of babies born to HIV-positive women will actually get the virus, and that fraction depends on whether the mom and baby are getting antiviral prophylaxis (preventive treatment) or not."
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Ryan Lewis on his mother's battle with HIV
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HIV returns in transplant patients
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Magic Johnson on HIV/AIDS, gay son
Newborns are considered high-risk if their mothers' HIV infections are not under control or if the mothers are found to be HIV-positive when they're close to delivering.
Usually, these infants would get antiviral drugs at preventive doses for six weeks to prevent infection, then start antiretroviral therapy, or ART, if HIV is diagnosed.
ART is a combination of at least three drugs used to suppress the virus and stop the progression of the disease.
But they do not kill the virus.
In March, doctors announced that another child born with HIV appeared to be free of the virus after receiving similar treatment to the Mississippi baby. The case report was presented at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.
The girl was delivered at Miller Children's Hospital in Long Beach, California, last summer to a mother with HIV who had not received antiretroviral drugs during pregnancy. Doctors gave the baby high doses of three drugs – AZT, 3TC and Nevirapine – four hours after birth. Eleven days later, the virus was undetectable in her body and remained undetectable eight months later.
"Taking kids off antiretroviral therapy intentionally is not standard of care," said Dr. Deborah Persaud at the time, a virologist with Johns Hopkins Children's Center who has been involved in both cases.
On Thursday Persaud said the California baby is still on antiretroviral treatment and doing well, said Persaud.
"At this time, there is no plan to stop treatment."
Measles virus used to put woman's cancer into remission
CNN's Miriam Falco and Saarik Gupta contributed to this story.


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Recap as sentencing of mum who hid dead baby son in garden drain is halted
Sinead Connett admitted trying to conceal the birth of her child by secretly disposing of his body in 2013
Mark Naylor
The baby's body was found in a drain at the back garden of a house in Scartho Road, Grimsby. Inset, Sinead Connett arrives in court for sentencing.
A mother who secretly hid the dead body of her baby son in a drain in the back garden of her parents' home was due to be sentenced today until proceedings were dramatically halted.
Man kept ex-girlfriend a prisoner in her own home for 57 hours and ordered angry dog to bite her
Sinead Connett, 28, admitted trying to conceal the birth of a child by secretly disposing of its dead body between August 6 and August 13, 2013.
She wrapped him in a towel and three plastic bags before placing him in a drainage pit to decompose and fester among sewage.
She was due to be sentenced at Grimsby Crown Court after the town's magistrates' court committed the case to the higher court for sentence.
However, Judge Jeremy Richardson QC told the court that he was concerned about the basis of the psychiatric report, which seemed to be centred around her version of events.
The sentencing was then halted though Judge Richardson warned her that all sentencing options were open at the next hearing, including prison.
She was allowed conditional bail.
'She has lied to goodness knows how many people'
Sinead Connett has left Grimsby Crown Court following the hearing. Judge Richardson said Connett "has lied to goodness knows how many people".
He said he wanted to know how it was that Connett was able to go on holiday to Turkey at such a late stage of her pregnancy.
He also wanted to know why active steps were not discreetly taken to provide help via a doctor or social services to have the baby adopted at birth or shortly afterwards.
"This was an unwanted child and the child was an inconvenience for this career-minded woman," said Judge Richardson.
Sinead Connett walks from Grimsby Crown Court after the sentencing is adjourned
Concerns about report
Judge Jeremy Richardson QC told the court that he was concerned about the basis of the psychiatric report, which seemed to be centred around her version of events.
Full story on the drama here.
Dramatic twist
The sentencing has been dramatically halted because of doubts over the basis on which a psychiatric report had been prepared. More on this soon.
Tears in the dock
Jeremy Evans, prosecuting, told the court that a psychiatric report had been prepared on Connett.
She was visibly upset in the dock and was in tears shortly before the start.
Judge Jeremy Richardson QC said: "She has lied repeatedly."
Hearing begins
The case has started in court and prosecutor Jeremy Evans has begun what will be a lengthy and detailed opening of the facts.
Connett will be represented by Nigel Sloane, who will present her mitigation.
The case has attracted significant media interest and two television reporters are among those in court.
Sentence expected soon
A sentence is expected to be announced by the end of the morning. This picture was taken earlier when Sinead Connett arrived at court dressed in a hooded coat and carrying an overnight bag.
Sinead Connett is escorted into Grimsby Crown Court
DNA revelation
When questioned at the time, Sinead Connett, recently living in Hertford, could not explain why the body was there and told police they had no known grandchildren.
Investigators identified no suspects initially, but took DNA samples from Connett and her parents. These conclusively revealed that she was the baby's mother and Connett later confessed to being the child's mother.
Grim discovery
At the earlier hearing before the magistrates' court, the prosecution said that Connett, now known as Sinead Layfield, concealed her pregnancy from her parents, who did not know they had a grandchild.
The body of the baby was not found until February 11 last year. The discovery was made by a plumbing engineer who had been called in by Connett's father after two years of drainage problems with a downstairs toilet at his home.
The baby's body was found in a seriously decomposed state and had a fractured skull. A cause of death could not be confirmed and a post mortem examination could not identify when exactly the death happened.
The engineer and Connett's father were shocked when the cause of the blockage, a black bin bag, was pulled from the drainage system, which was covered by an iron plate and was surrounded by foliage.
They pierced the three bags to find the boy wrapped in a towel. His body had been festering among sewage for two-and-a-half years.
The blockage was caused because the baby's head was too big to pass through the drainage system, causing the pit to overflow with water.
Police were called to the scene and an investigation was launched soon after the discovery of the body.
Sinead Connett arrives at court
Sinead Connett has arrived at Grimsby Crown Court for sentencing this morning after admitting trying to conceal the birth of a child by secretly disposing of its dead body between August 6 and August 13, 2013. She was carrying an overnight bag when she entered earlier.
Sinead Connett was wearing a hooded coat with a scarf over her face when she arrived at Grimsby Crown Court for sentencing


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Plastic & Rubber
Forecasted demand for LLDPE worldwide 1999-2040, by region
Published by Ian Tiseo, Jul 2, 2021
Between 1999 and 2019, the demand for LLDPE (Linear low-density polyethylene) in the developed world was 221 million metric tons. In the developing world the demand was 275 million metric tons. It is forecast that between 2020 and 2040 the demand for LLDPE in the developed world will be 304 million metric tons and for the developing world it will be over one billion metric tons.
Global demand for linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) from 1999 to 2019 actual, and forecast for 2020 to 2040, by region (in million metric ton)
Developed world*
Developing world**
*Developing world includes Africa, Asia & Pacific, China, Former Soviet Union, and the Middle East.
**Developed world includes US, Canada, Europe, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.
Volume of plastic waste Japan 2010-2019
Recycling rate of plastic waste Japan 2010-2019
Production volume of plastic products Japan 2012-2020
Sumitomo Chemical's net sales FY 2020, by segment
Statistics on "Plastic industry in Japan"
Number of plastic product manufacturers Japan 2010-2019
Number of employees in the plastic products industry Japan 2012-2020
Shipment value of plastics Japan 2015-2018
Export value of plastics in Japan 2000-2020
Import value of plastics in Japan 2000-2019
Production volume of plastics Japan 2014-2019
Production volume of plastic materials Japan 2020, by commodity
Production volume of vinyl chlorides monomers Japan 2012-2020
Production volume of polyvinyl chloride Japan 2012-2020
Production volume of vinyl acetate monomers Japan 2012-2020
Production volume of polyethylene terephthalate Japan 2012-2020
Production volume of the plastic industry Japan 2020, by product type
Production volume of plastic film and sheets Japan 2012-2020
Production volume of plastic containers Japan 2015-2020
Production volume of plastic machine tools and parts Japan 2015-2020
Production volume of plastic pipes Japan 2013-2020
Consumption volume of plastic products Japan 2012-2020
Consumption volume of plastic products Japan 2020, by type
Consumption volume of plastic film and sheets Japan 2012-2020
Consumption volume of plastic machine tools and parts Japan 2015-2020
Consumption volume of plastic foam products Japan 2015-2020
Consumption volume of plastic plates Japan 2015-2020
Shin-Etsu's net sales FY 2020, by segment
Kaneka Corporation's net sales FY 2019, by segment
Mitsui Chemicals' net sales FY 2020, by segment
Sekisui Kasei's net sales FY 2019, by segment
Share of plastic waste discharged at waste stations Japan FY 2020, by type
Plastic waste generated Japan 2019, by field
Average recycling price for plastic per kilogram Japan 2012-2020
Volume of recycled plastic waste Japan 2010-2019
Distribution of global plastic production by type 2018
Plastics distributors revenue in North America 2015
Import value of plastics and articles thereof in Poland 2007-2020
Production value of plastic tableware in the EU-28 2014-2019
Plastic industry environmental impact worldwide selected figures 2014 & 2050
Number of plastic industry companies in Germany 2016
Plastics industry in the U.S. Recycling in the United States Chemical industry in the United States Plastics industry worldwide Top chemical companies
ICIS. (June 13, 2021). Global demand for linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) from 1999 to 2019 actual, and forecast for 2020 to 2040, by region (in million metric ton) [Graph]. In Statista. Retrieved January 17, 2022, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1248064/worldwide-demand-for-lldpe/
ICIS. "Global demand for linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) from 1999 to 2019 actual, and forecast for 2020 to 2040, by region (in million metric ton)." Chart. June 13, 2021. Statista. Accessed January 17, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1248064/worldwide-demand-for-lldpe/
ICIS. (2021). Global demand for linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) from 1999 to 2019 actual, and forecast for 2020 to 2040, by region (in million metric ton). Statista. Statista Inc.. Accessed: January 17, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1248064/worldwide-demand-for-lldpe/
ICIS. "Global Demand for Linear Low-density Polyethylene (Lldpe) from 1999 to 2019 Actual, and Forecast for 2020 to 2040, by Region (in Million Metric Ton)." Statista, Statista Inc., 13 Jun 2021, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1248064/worldwide-demand-for-lldpe/
ICIS, Global demand for linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) from 1999 to 2019 actual, and forecast for 2020 to 2040, by region (in million metric ton) Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1248064/worldwide-demand-for-lldpe/ (last visited January 17, 2022)


Here's wishing the happiest of Christmas Days to all of my Groove-ophiles! Today's extra-special post features the far-out framing sequence from Marvel Treasury Edition #13's (Christmas 1976) Giant Superhero Holiday Grab-Bag by Roger Stern, George Tuska, and Don Perlin, complete with Gil Kane/Joe Sinnott covers and the splashes from the stories the framing sequence introduced. 'Twas the last, and thanks to the framing sequence, finest of Marvel's treasury-sized holiday offerings and it featured tons-o-characters...Spidey, the FF, the Avengers, the Hulk, the Silver Surfer, the Defenders, Daredevil, and even the Champions! What a merry and Marvel-ous Christmas gift it was!
Groove, thanks so much for posting this - little me was given this as an early Xmas present back in '76. I loved that framing sequence, especially the snowball fight. For me, it's one of the best Christmas comics ever.
Anyway, thanks again for posting all the great stuff, and have a wonderful Christmas.
Nicely done. I thought of something similar to this a week ago or so, but you've done it much better than I ever could have.
Merry Christmas, Groove! Here's wishing you and yours a happy and healthy Christmas time.
Merry Christmas, Edo, Rip, and cerebus660! Thank you for being such an important and supportive part of the Diversions. Best of the best to y'all!
MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS one and all. I just discovered this Treasury Edition a few weeks ago, bidding on it now on eBay.
Thanks for the memories. I had this back in '76, when I was 14. Fond memories! Peace, O Groovy One!


MLS# 180057454 - 9090 Oviedo St, San Diego, CA 92129 - Abacus Properties Inc.
Courtesy of Nightingale Realty, Olga Solovyeva.
FOUR BEDROOM HOME IN BLACK MOUNTAIN VIEW ESTATES Exquisite home in the neighborhood of Christmas Card Lane. Inviting entrance welcomes you to this luxury home which features include gorgeous curb appeal, soaring two story ceilings, dual-paned vinyl windows with plantation shutters allowing natural light to flood the home, a formal dining space, open kitchen with granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances, a family room with a cozy fireplace, spacious master bedroom with vaulted ceilings….
Please, send me more information on this property: MLS# 180057454 – $880,000 – 9090 Oviedo St, San Diego, CA 92129.
I would like to schedule a private showing for this property: MLS# 180057454 – $880,000 – 9090 Oviedo St, San Diego, CA 92129.


text:
Inga Fonar Cocos (hebr. אינגה פונר קוקוס, ur. 1950 w Warszawie) – izraelska artystka tworząca głównie sztukę wideo oraz instalacje.

Życiorys
Urodziła się w 1950 w Warszawie, w latach 1975-1977 mieszkała w Stanach Zjednoczonych. Po przeprowadzce do Izraela i osiedleniu się w Tel Awiwie, w 1983 ukończyła Kalisher School of Art w tym mieście. Od 1985 wykładała sztukę i kuratorstwo na uczelni Alon Arts & Sciences. W 1998, z magna cum laude, uzyskała dyplom licencjata historii sztuki na Uniwersytecie Telawiwskim. W latach 2004-2006 kontynuowała naukę na studiach magisterskich z filozofii na tej samej uczelni. W 2004 otrzymała nagrodę Rady Sztuki Izraelskiej Loterii Państwowej, a potem także nagrodę izraelskiego Ministerstwa Kultury i Nauki, jak również grant Cité internationale des arts Paris. Była współinicjatorką założenia izraelskiego stowarzyszenia twórców. Jej prace pozostają w kolekcjach placówek w Izraelu, Francji, Niemczech i Stanów Zjednoczonych.

Wystawy indywidualne
 2019 SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG, Bialik House Museum, Tel Awiw-Jafa,
 2016 CLOUD ARCHEOLOGY, Basis Arts & Culture Gallery, Herclijja,
 2016 SYSTEM FAILURE, Installation & Sound, Basis Arts & Culture Gallery, Herclijja,
 2014 BETWEEN HOMELANDS & NAME, IV Ars Polonia Biennale, Opole,
 2012 NAME IN TRANSITION, The Other Gallery, Talpiot College of Education, Holon,
 2010 Mediations Biennale, Poznań,
 2010 24 HOURS IN AUGUST, Dear Noga Art Window, Street cinema video projection, Tel Awiw-Jafa,
 2009 NAME "Two drops of Water", Artists House, Tel Awiw-Jafa,
 2009 CONSTRUCTION IN PROCESS, Ashdod Art Museum, Izrael,
 2006 BLINDSEHEN, Kunstverein Bellevue-Saal, Wiesbaden,
 2003 BLINDREFLEX, Museum of Art Ein Harod, Izrael,
 2003 UNSICHTBAR, Kunst im Heppächer, Esslingen,
 2002 BLIND MAN'S BLUFF, Tova Osman Gallery, Tel Awiw-Jafa,
 2002 PUNCTUM CAECUM, Artists Residence Gallery, Herclijja,
 1999 ENTROPY, Cité Internationale des Arts Gallery, Paryż,
 1997 PLUS|MINUS|BLACK|WHITE, Limbus Gallery, Tel Awiw-Jafa,
 1995 THERE ARE NO BLACK BEEHIVES, Museum Uri & Rami Nehushtan, Ashdot Ya'akov,
 1994 THERE ARE NO BLACK BEEHIVES, Janco Dada Museum, En Hod,
 1993 NIGHT WORKS, Artists House, Jerozolima,
 1992 OBJECT-PAINING-OBJECT, Sarah Erman Gallery, Tel Awiw-Jafa.

Przypisy

Izraelscy artyści
Ludzie urodzeni w Warszawie
Ludzie związani z Tel Awiwem
Polscy Żydzi
Urodzeni w 1950

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Enjoy a large leisure area with adult and children's pools, playground, wet bar and a great structure to give you all the relaxation and fun that your trip needs.
In our large garden, two swimming pools are located. A large one with a waterfall, for the adults, and another with a shallow end for the children.
It is fun guaranteed for the whole family to enjoy the best of the native climate with comfort.
Relax at any time of the day with your family or friends.
Our heated pool has a pleasant temperature of up to 36º to make you feel like in a spa.
In our cold pool it is possible to relax in 10 points of hydromassage and still enjoy a waterfall.
It's guaranteed fun for the whole family to relax.
Between one dive and another, relax, sip juice, coconut water or a drink of your choice.
For your children to have fun with security, the Dunnas Hotel Christmas features a playground that ensures even more fun for the kids!
A large, air-conditioned restaurant with a menu inspired by the best regional and international cuisine.
The breakfast is included for all the hospédes.


It takes 89 years to create movement this beautiful.
At Bang & Olufsen, innovation begins with understanding user needs before converging technology and craftsmanship to deliver design with lasting value. BeoVision Avant is an exact representation of this philosophy and evidence that high-end, multimedia entertainment can coincide with uncompromising design.
With the innovative BeoVision Avant, Bang & Olufsen redefines the television's place in the home. Sublime Ultra High Definition (4K) video performance and jaw-dropping acoustic authenticity are built in. But BeoVision Avant also amazes with magical convenience based on a strong understanding of how we want to live with the television – and how high-end multimedia entertainment can go hand in hand with uncompromising design.
BeoVision Avant is available in sizes 55 inch, 75 inch and 85 inch.
Based on Bang & Olufsen research and innovation, this flagship entertainment centre has the muscle and finesse to deliver breath-taking performance when family and friends gather around it. On the flip side, BeoVision Avant also presents the good manners to blend in to the living room – and with the family's lifestyle – when people choose to do something else. The BeoVision Avant was additionally conceived to last in a changing digital world, and is ready and able to work seamlessly with all the devices and content sources anyone in the family might want to use – without any of the complexity.
Magic mechanics for maximum comfort.
In the Bang & Olufsen tradition of taming technology in the service of simplicity, BeoVision Avant introduces a number of innovations that build new bridges between electronics and magical movement. To create such amazing and impressive sound from a flat screen television, the designers have created a discrete but powerful sound panel that unfolds when the television is on, then retreats inside when one turns it off. The sound panel's movements are coordinated with those of the new stands so the television is ready for viewing and listening in one choreographed flow.
BeoVision Avant's innovative stand program includes wall, floor and table options which make integrating even a very large television into the home décor easier and more flexible than ever before. The concept vision was to create a TV which stays in the background of the living room when turned off and wakes up to action and takes centre stage when turned on. Rather than arranging your room around the television, the new stands turn the television toward you when you want to use it – then back in place when you have finished viewing. Furthermore, other positions can be set.
The floor stand gives the BeoVision Avant incredible flexibility because it can be moved up to 90 degrees in order to seek the optimum viewing angle.
The table stand tilts the BeoVision Avant-55 slightly back so that the screen appears to float above the table and the table stand itself even is invisible. Is the TV turned on, it is tilted in the vertical position so that the speakers can come to light under the screen.
The BeoVision Avant can be elegantly mounted on the wall and can then, in spite of its size, swing up to 60 degrees from the wall into the room.
Consistent with Bang & Olufsen, BeoVision Avant sounds extraordinary right out of the box, but be prepared to discover just how good a television can sound with no fewer than eight driver units and eight dedicated amplifiers built in. The sound panel magically glides from the television when it is turned on and performs brilliantly on its own.
The dedicated center speaker sits directly below the screen, enhancing the connection between you and the actors with exceptional clarity of speech. You will hear even the smallest details in the dialogue and nuances in the sound scape – allowing you to become fully immersed in the story - Enjoy experiences as they were meant to be.
Precision tuned to Bang & Olufsen's most exacting standard, BeoVision Avant redefines the audio impact a TV can deliver. The 3-channel speaker system harnesses three dedicated tweeters, three midrange units and two powerful bass drivers. B&O's engineers have pioneered speakers that optimize bass output depending on their relative position from the wall. The result is a fusion of clarity and power that truly embodies Bang & Olufsen's commitment to ultimate sound.
If you want to connect external speakers to create a true surround sound experience – either wireless or wired – it could not be simpler with the integrated 7.1 surround sound module.
BeoVision Avant manages your speaker output depending on your setup and taste. In a full surround setup with two additional front speakers, a subwoofer and two rear speakers, BeoVision Avant devotes all its built-in drivers to dialogue.
Alternatively, BeoVision Avant can replace the two additional front speakers by splitting its own drivers into dedicated right, left and center channels. For the most flexible and discreet full-surround setup incorporate our Immaculate Wireless Sound speakers for multi-channel wireless audio.
BeoVision Avant lets you configure multiple speakers to precisely tailor sound depending on the room and listening position. You can further optimize and refine these individual sound zones using the included microphone.
Simultaneously with the BeoVision Avant Bang & Olufsen presents a new fully programmable remote control: The new BeoRemote One introduces the "My-Buttons" feature which enables the user to create up to three personalized settings available at one simple touch. A setting can include channel, volume setting and even stand and directional positioning of the TV. This allows you to recall all settings by the touch of one single button.
A connection to Bang & Olufsen wireless speakers via the built in Immaculate Wireless Sound solution is as easy as turning on the television. Fully Internet-ready, and with room for Apple TV and a hard disk drive to be hidden within the back panel, BeoVision Avant is also the perfect hub for web-based content.
Unlike all other multi-room systems Bang & Olufsen succeeded on integrating the TV into the experience. Use the speakers connected to your Bang & Olufsen television, to listen to music or to transmit the sound of the television in another room.
BeoLink Multiroom brings together your Bang & Olufsen products in a wireless system that gives you maximum freedom.
The new BeoVision Avant offers a spectacular UHD-Image reproduction (Ultra High Definition) with a 4K resolution. BeoVision Avant combines local dimming across more than 8 million pixels, bringing out the tiniest details in the action. Experience the most extreme sports or action footage with crystal sharp, dynamic precision. Even when the screen is bathed in full daylight, the adaptive contrast algorithm ensures pitch-black shadows so your eyes can enjoy the experience without strain. Besides a number of image technologies that are patented by Bang & Olufsen, the new TV offers another new feature called "Chromatic Adaptation Room". This feature analyses ambient light from two sensors, and adjusts the screen to compensate for the room's color tones.
High-grade anti-reflection coatings on both sides of the screen dampen reflections by 98%. The result is a brilliant and impressively sharp image quality.
The design philosophy of BeoVision Avant celebrates smooth, natural transitions. The seamless flow of the glass screen into the high-gloss, black anodized aluminum frame is a feat of incredible subtlety.
Our attention to detail also applies to the rear part of BeoVision Avant. A sleek, minimalist delight that hides connectors, unsightly card readers, vents, screws and cables out of sight, including a dedicated compartment for your Apple TV.
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A wedding in Tuscany already sounds amazing, but throw in the details of a wedding in Florence at Villa Cora which has unbeatable views of the renaissance city, and this just takes Italian wedding perfection to another level.
Basically a mini Versailles, the villa overlooks Florence from the breathtaking Piazzale Macchiavelli area. Steps away from the famous Boboli Gardens, it is in the perfect location: near enough to Florence, but still surrounded by nature because of its lush gardens. The villa recently underwent a major restoration, resulting in the already gorgeous villa becoming the ultimate luxury destination, overlooking Florence, and of course, a dream Italian wedding location.
Samantha and Jonathan chose this amazing villa for their lavish Italian wedding celebration. After an intimate Catholic ceremony in a historic Florentine cathedral, guests ventured to this hilltop villa for the dinner party.
Samantha wore an elegant long sleeved lace mermaid-style gown, with touches of sparkle that complimented her stunning teardrop earrings and luscious floral bouquet. Her style was a mix of old Hollywood glam, and timeless beauty. The bridesmaids wore cascading deep blue dresses, complementing the jewel-tone theme perfectly.
Choosing a palette of deep purples and golds, the whole feeling of the event was luxurious and regal.
Dinner was served in an opulent hall, adorned with sculptural crown molding, Italian marble floors, and imperial style tables. The delicious Italian cuisine was curated impeccably to fit the personal tastes of the bride and groom.
What better backdrop is there for wedding photos than in front of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence? The bride and groom were smiling on the sunny afternoon photo shoot around the historic city center. The eternal love feeling was defiantly captured.
Afterwards, the wedding party had a blast posing for photos around the extravagant Villa Cora.
Although Samantha and Jonanthan's personal touches were apparent in almost all the wedding details, they did however, make sure to add an Italian touch by cutting a traditional Italian Millefoglie wedding cake, which was garnished with an intricate white chocolate design.
This luxurious wedding in Florence looked like it could have come straight out of a bridal magazine. Every detail was finished to perfection and oozed opulence.
Samantha and Jonathan's day was truly a wedding in Florence to remember.


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Jennifer Tilly, Bullets Over Broadway, 1994. "I couldn't have done it like her," said the 90s Queen of the US independent cinema. "Jennifer was perfect." It had been another of Woody's famous two-second interviews. He said: "Come in." Posey sat down, cracked her neck, the way people crack finger-joints and he was "surprised your head didn't fall on the floor." He did have her read. "Which was good. Hopefully, I'll work for him some day but see, he's casting movie stars now."
Janeane Garofalo, Reality Bites, 1994. Virtual unknowns - Anne Heche, Gwyneth Paltrow and Parker - were beaten to playing Vickie Miner... by a stand-up comic.
Renée Zellweger, Jerry Maguire, 1996. "You had me at Hello…"Once Tom Hanks passed and Tom Cruise breathed a sigh of relief, auteurCameron Crowe started searching for The Girl: Dorothy Boyd. Posey,Patricia Arquette, Cameron Diaz, Bridget Fonda, Janeane Garofalo, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez, Courtney Love, Molly Ringwald, Winona Ryder, Mira Sorvino, Marisa Tomei, Uma Thurman, even Zellweger, came and went. Recommended by Edward Burns (one of the Jerry possibles), Connie Britton made a good test with Cruise and she was Dorothy - depending on Zellweger's call back meeting with him. "We have video of that because I was filming," Crowe told Mike Fleming Jr for Deadline Hollywood's 20-years-later feature in 2017, "and you just see something happen when Tom sees her. He lights up… As Jerry discovers Dorothy, we discover Renée. That was a very personal thing for me and the way I feel about movies."
Lauren Holly, Turbulence, 1996. "People think I must be picky and choosey," said the indies' queen, "But I just audition for everything." She wanted this heroine because she thought air-stewardesses were great - "waitresses in the sky." She wore a stewardess uniform during Clockwatchers.
Maria Pitillo, Godzilla, 1998. After 37 indie films in three years what does dear old Hollywood offer Ms Independent Film? Godzilla! "It upsets me when those executives think my career is no good because I haven't done any of their crappy movies." Pitillo won the Golden Raspberry award as the Worst Support Actress. A star was not born. But if Audrey Timmonds had been played by Parker, Jennifer Connelly, Sarah Jessica Parker (she wed the unlikely hero, Matthew Broderick, 19 days into the shoot), Winona Ryder or Renée Zellweger? No, the film just stank. By 2006, Posey was still into indies while stealing TV's Boston Legal, Superman Returns - and its video game!
Winona Ryder, Black Swan, 2009. Reminiscent (in places) of the 1947 classic, The Red Shoes, 1947, here's an erotic study of the bleeding art that ballet can be. With Winona Ryder as an already over-the-hill star, Natalie Portman (never better - hence her Oscar and 37 other best actress trophies) as a star on the rise (being pushed by ex-ballerina mother Barbara Hershey). Director Darren Aronofsky also looked at Posey for the role, plus two of his previous leading ladies: Jennifer Connelly (Requiem for a Dream, 1999) and Rachel Weisz (The Fountain, 2005).


Creamy, garlicky pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, lots of fresh garlic, fresh spinach and topped with crispy-skinned chicken thighs. You're not ready.
Season the flesh side of the chicken with kosher salt, black pepper, smoked paprika, granulated garlic and onion, dried thyme and oregano. If you need more spices, please add it. You wan't good coverage. Drizzle a little oil on top of the herbs and spices, and massage it into the chicken. Make sure you get in all the nooks and crannies. Flip the chicken over, and sprinkle kosher salt all over the skin of the chicken. We don't want to add any other seasonings to the skin side, because we don't want them to burn.
Place a large deep-sided skillet or braising dish (at least 4 quarts) over medium-high heat. When it's nice and hot, add the chicken to the dry skillet skin-side down. Thighs have enough fat on their own, you won't need to add any additional oil at this point. If using a leaner protein, like white meat, please drizzle with oil first so the meat doesn't stick. Let the skin sear and get crisp, this will take about 7 to 8 minutes. You'll know it's ready to flip when it's easy to flip the chicken over. There will be a SLIGHT resistance, but if it's resisting too much, it's not ready. Cook chicken flesh-side down until cooked through, about 5 to 8 more minutes. Use an instant-read thermometer if you're unsure. When chicken is done cooking, place it on a large plate and cover with foil to keep warm.
In that same pan, reduce the heat to medium. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of residual chicken fat. Add the butter, and one tablespoon of olive oil. When the butter starts to sizzle, start scraping up any brown bits on the bottom of the pan leftover from the chicken. Add the crushed red pepper flakes and cook for 20 seconds to infuse the fat. Add the onions to the pan, and cook until slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Sprinkle the onions with a generous pinch of kosher salt and black pepper, then the dried thyme and oregano. Allow the dried herbs to bloom, about 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the sun-dried tomatoes and saute for about 2 to 3 minutes. Next, toss in the garlic and cook for just about 30 seconds. When the garlic is fragrant, add the fresh thyme and fresh rosemary. Stir it in and cook for just 10 seconds.
Pour in the white wine while scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen any bits. Allow the wine to reduce for about 3 minutes, or until you can leave a quick dry trail with the edge of your spatula/wooden spoon. Pour in the chicken stock and half-and-half (I had both in a large measuring cup to make it easier), stirring to combine all ingredients.
Next, add the cavatappi pasta, making sure it's submerged. Add in the granulated garlic and onion, stir it in and bring the pasta up to a boil. As soon as it starts boiling, reduce the heat to medium-low (closer to low). The pasta will cook gently in the liquid, while simultaneously thickening it. This will take about 10 minutes or so, but be sure to test the doneness of your pasta often to see where it stands. If your liquid is evaporating faster than the pasta is cooking, simply add a little more half-and-half in stages. Make sure you stir this mixture often, to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan. You may need to adjust the heat during this step, so please do so.
When the pasta is tender and toothsome, but not mushy (al-dente), turn the heat off. The sauce will continue to thicken as it stands. Stir in the parmigiano-reggiano and pecorino-romano cheeses until well combined. Now's the time to taste it. If you need to add salt and/or pepper, do it. Fold in the spinach until it's wilted from the residual heat. Next, add the fresh basil and parsley and gently stir to combine. Stir in the mozzarella cheese (I forgot to take a picture of this step). Taste it again to make sure it's seasoned right. Your finished pasta should be creamy, smooth, and cheesy. It shouldn't be dry. If it's not smooth or creamy, add a touch more half&half or chicken stock to loosen it a bit.
Chop your chicken into desired pieces or strips, and place on top of the finished pasta.
Serve immediately with your favorite side salad, or crusty garlic bread.
If you're unable to find boneless skin-on chicken thighs, you can debone it yourself. Or, if you'd rather skip the deboning drama, just roast the thighs separately in the oven (uncovered) at 425 F for about 35 minutes, or until meat registers 175 F internally. You can any kind of chicken (or protein) here, but adjust cooking times as needed for white meat vs. dark.
We're not using a full box, so please weigh your pasta if you can. I like cavatappi because it expands nicely, has lots of grooves for sauce-cling'age, etc. If you are unable to weigh your pasta, you could use the whole box of cavatappi. Just add more liquid (stock and/or half&half) as it cooks.
Always grate and/or shred your cheese fresh. Don't use pre-packaged shredded cheese, because it doesn't melt well and isn't nearly as delicious. For the love of God, please don't use that "1,000 year shelf-life woodchipper parmesan cheese" in the green canister. That would be disrespectful AF!


Any one tried this on a 645mg?
If so which wires do i change?
I'm not sure what a 654mg is, but the procedure would be the same. Read the post and if you have any questions, post away and I will try and answer.