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UH-OH: Trump Mauls His Slobbering Lapdog Lindsey Graham in a Barking 'Big Lie' Blowup
The stench of desperation is wafting through Mar-a-Lago as Donald Trump slides deeper into the sewer of his own lies and psychoses. Even as the news breaks that he knew early on that there were no significant irregularities in the 2020 presidential election, he is continuing to disgorge increasingly bizarre and repeatedly debunked claims of fraud.
On Thursday morning Trump released another statement via his spokes-shill, Liz Harrington (whose proxy Trump tweeting is violating Twitter's rules against circumventing a ban). Like most of his Twitter tantrums (twantrums?), this one was drenched with malice toward whoever he presently deemed worthy of his persecution and punishment. But this time the punishee was among his most loyal and shameless sycophants, Lindsey Graham.
Trump got wind of some of the excerpts from the new book, Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. He surely didn't read it, but the press has been quoting some of the more scandalous passages. One of them involved an account of how Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Mike Lee reacted to to Trump's obsession with having lost the election to Joe Biden. As reported by the Washington Post…
"The book, 'Peril,' describes parallel efforts by the South Carolina Republican [Graham] and his conservative colleague from Utah, Sen. Mike Lee, to personally investigate the president's claims of voter fraud as the lawmakers prepared to certify Joe Biden's victory on Jan. 6.
Graham and Lee, both of whom ultimately voted to certify the results, took the claims of election fraud seriously enough to get briefed on the details, involve their senior staff and call state officials throughout the country. But privately, Graham gave the arguments a withering assessment, according to the book, saying they were suitable for 'third grade.'"
And that was all it took to trigger Trump's tempestuous wrath. This isn't even an issue with Graham speaking out of turn on Fox News. It's an account from a book that Trump hasn't read, but would ordinarily dismiss as "fake" news. The tediously long tirade he released rebutting this was rife with seething animosity toward Graham, despite the Senator's wretched record of Trump-fluffing fealty to the Former Guy:
"I spent virtually no time with Senators Mike Lee of Utah, or Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, talking about the 2020 Presidential Election Scam or, as it is viewed by many, the 'Crime of the Century.' Lindsey and Mike should be ashamed of themselves for not putting up the fight necessary to win. […]
"Mike Lee, Lindsey Graham, and all of the other Republicans who were unwilling to fight for the Presidency … are letting the Democrats get away with the greatest Election Hoax in history—a total con job! […] They should be ashamed of themselves."
Most of the rest of Trump's harangue was dedicated to his "Big Lie" that the election was "rigged" and "stolen" from him. He insists that the evidence of fraud is "staggering" (a word that he also used in another tweet Monday) despite the inability of him or his legal flunkies (whose licenses are being suspended) being able to provide any of it in more than 60 court cases that they lost. Nevertheless, Trump whines…
"Look at the facts that are coming out in AZ, GA, MI, PA, WI, and other States. If this were Schumer and the Democrats, with the evidence we have of Election Fraud (especially newly revealed evidence), they would have never voted to approve Biden as President. […]
"We are losing our Country! The Democrats are vicious and fight like hell, and the Republicans do nothing about it. RINOs fight harder against Republicans than they do against Democrats. […] The evidence on determinative and wide-ranging Election Fraud is staggering. Your Republican Presidential candidate won in a landslide, but has so little backing from Republican 'leadership.'"
Trump also complained about the Republicans being politically negligent, asking "Why don't they have hearings [where] we would all hear the irrefutable facts!" Who wants to tell him that in Congress the minority party doesn't control the hearings schedule? However, nothing is stopping him from holding a press conference or a MyPillow-style symposium to make the "irrefutable facts" public. He could even produce his "staggering" evidence at one of his cult rallies. So is Trump just another RINO failing to expose the Democrats who "are destroying our Country"?
Trump's assault on Graham marks another milestone in his mental meltdown. After all, Graham is the guy who insisted that "the Republican Party can't grow" without Trump. He also said that he wants to "harness the magic" of Trump's "movement," while ignoring his "dark side." And he has pledged to "go to war for the principles Chick fil-A stands for." But even all of that isn't worshipful enough for Trump. And his dimwitted devotees still haven't figured that out.


May you find great value in these inspirational Lee Meriwether Quotes from my large datebase of inspiring quotes and sayings.
you're not tied down totally and completely to a schedule.
Architecture is basically a container of something.
without being overly heavy-handed about it.
I had no idea what I was doing in the world.
I was lost, and trying not to get into a fight every day.
when there's like basically royalty working with us.
We could have whatever we wanted.
I felt like Britney Spears.
which are basically sort of straight news.
and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.
great or it's a great story or anything.
I like to keep poking around in it.
to explore the subtle places.
I work here at the Raiders.
My position is basically what I make it.
complaint have been swept out from under me.
among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.
to be given the opportunities I've had.
in people following my work or making work like my work.
to anyone at a higher voice quality than they can with the phone lines.
in my hotel room, on the road, in the plane.
I'm basically living the same, I just curtailed the stupidity.
and it would always give you the right thing.
And we're a long, long ways from that.
except I can't do them as well and as much.
it's just reconfigured slightly differently from one to the next.
I try to have a single person who is basically the key person in that area.
So basically, I don't know what I'm talking about.
anything if a role called for it.
just hard work and basically being at it.
Well, Bobby was just basically a folk singer.
like all the rest of us.
Just played his guitar and sang his songs.
Thank you for visiting these Lee Meriwether Quotes and Sayings - Quotes by Lee Meriwether.


Leftover food from your holiday party?
I'm guessing your refrigerator is full of leftover odds and ends from holiday parties or family gatherings. Typically when I'm looking for a recipe, I try to choose something that I already have the ingredients for, or at least I know I will use. I hate to waste food. I'm a bit OCD about it. I'm guessing it comes from years of my mother reminding me of the starving children all over the world. I'll go to great lengths to use or preserve food. If I can't preserve it, I put it with the yard waste to turn it into compost to give it some purpose.
This year I hosted a holiday party which of course means lots of appetizer recipes. I made these yummy spring rolls, which were a hit by the way. I ended up with more than half a head of red cabbage (the red cabbage provided awesome color in my spring rolls). Cabbage isn't something I typically use so I searched for recipes. In addition to several grilling and sauteing tips I found some pictures of really pretty coleslaw. All you need is the cabbage and carrots to make a gorgeous raw veggie dish.
While the recipe calls for grating the cabbage and carrots, I usually take the easy route, so I chopped the cabbage and used a peeler to make thin pieces of carrot. Just make sure to keep the pieces small. You don't want cabbage hanging out of your mouth with each bite.
If you love the traditional creamy coleslaw dressing, check out this Homemade Coleslaw recipe. I tried a lighter combination with a vinaigrette.
I had to adjust the quantity of the ingredients as my cabbage head was huge, these numbers are good for a small head. You'll want enough dressing to lightly coat the slaw. Too much vinegar can be disastrous. You can dress it up with parsley or green onion.
Give this a try and let me know how you like it!!
More holiday leftover ideas to come.
I have always been a frugal person and I really had to put it to the test when I quit my job to stay at home with my daughter about 10 years ago. My Husband and I discussed how long we thought we could survive, we decided that when we started dipping into our savings account then it was time for me to go back to work. Well believe it or not 10 years later we have not dipped into our savings account, we've actually saved more money, I am working a small part time job but I'm home in the morning to take my daughter to the bus and I get home right around the same time she gets home.
I've also been a financial counselor teaching women how to create a budget and stick with it, the first thing I always emphasize is to build a $500 emergency fund and here's why. I've seen it where they are just barely surviving but they are working and keeping up with the bills and something as small as a dead battery or hole in a tire can totally throw off their entire budget and set them back months because of missed work and unplanned expenses. If you had a $500 emergency fund you would be able to replace that battery or get that tire fixed or take care of some other small expense without turning your life upside down for months trying to get back on track. Unfortunately it's not always less than $500 to fix things but it's a start or it's a down payment on something.
So how do I stop living paycheck to paycheck and put $500 into an emergency savings account? The simplest thing is to go to your bank if you have a bank account and set it up so a fixed dollar amount comes out of every paycheck and goes directly into your savings account, even if it's only $5 or $10 to start out with, it's painless and you don't have to think about it and before you know it you'll have a substantial amount and you'll want to see it grow even more. LEAVE IT ALONE, don't touch it, don't dip into it to buy anything else unless it's an absolute emergency, pretend like it's not there.
If you don't have a bank account force yourself to take $5 or $10 and put it in a separate envelope and hide it or put it away somewhere that you won't take it out and use it. When you are tempted to use it think about how amazing it would feel to have a little bit of savings and not feel so stressed out and worried every month.
Having an emergency savings is just one small step, you will have to make cuts, I'm sure you've cut out a lot of things already but you can always take another look. A no brainer is coffee, everyone always says stop buying coffee every day and make coffee at home but think about things like energy drinks or sodas. If you are stopping everyday at a convenience store to buy an energy drink or soda I can guarantee you are paying at least 3 times more than if you bought larger quantities at the grocery store and brought it with you every day. Look for sales on cases of energy drinks or your favorite soda, keep them in the fridge and just grab one on the way out the door.
Lunches are another huge expense that you might not think about, even if you get cheap fast food you are still spending more than if you packed your lunch and it's better for your health. You will also save on gas and wear and tear on your car if you aren't leaving work everyday to go buy lunch. Where I work I don't have enough time to leave and get lunch so I pack my lunch every single day, it takes extra planning and time in the morning or the night before but I like the feeling at the end of the week when I can say I didn't spend a cent all week long.
Shopping could be an entire post of it's own but here's a few of the highlights: stop buying convenience food and packaging, you save so much money by doing things like cutting up your own carrots instead of buying single serve bags of carrots or cut up your own apples instead of the single serve apples, buy the big tub of yogurt and put it in a small reusable container, buy big bags of chips and make your own snack bags instead of the singe serve bags. Anything that is in the single serve packaging is more expensive and fills our landfills with tons of plastic and packaging. I wrote a couple great articles with lots of money saving ideas... Simple changes to your shopping to reduce your grocery bill.
When you are cooking meals try to use real ingredients instead of opening up packages, something as simple as roasted potato's and chicken thighs and a steamed vegetable not canned can cost $5-$10 depending on the size of your family and you might have leftovers for someone to take for lunch the next day. See how I cut up a whole pork loin and make meals for $5 or less for an entire meal. Here's another article I wrote with some more interesting money saving ideas..... More quirky ideas to save money.
When I grocery shop, I look for deals on items that I know I'm going to use eventually so I stock up when it's cheap. I always have it on hand so I don't run out and have to go pay full price for the item. I'm not always a brand snob, some things I might be picky about but if it tastes the same and I can get it cheaper by purchasing another brand than I will do it.
I also shop seasonally, in the fall apples and different kinds of squash are in season so I buy those, I don't usually buy items that are not in season and are really expensive. In the summer, berries and watermelons are fresh and inexpensive so we eat a lot of those. Some things like bananas and broccoli and celery and onions are year round so I buy those every time.
Download the grocery store apps, most stores have them now and they offer additional savings and coupons that you can load ahead of time, some of them start tracking the items that you normally buy so they send personalized deals for those items.
There is a lot of apps out there that you can use to make extra money on groceries, the 2 that I use most of the time is ibotta and Checkout 51. I've earned $639.52 back from ibotta over the last couple of years, go ahead give it a try, here's my ibotta referral link. I've earned $199.70 over the last couple of years from Checkout 51, I can get cash or pick out a gift card.
Start thinking about things that you don't need to absolutely to survive, you don't need paper towels....yes they are nice to have but you could survive without them, start using rags and washcloths and see how much you could reduce your paper towel habit. Paper napkins is another thing you can live without, fortunately I am able to sew my own napkins and I used inexpensive fabric from the thrift store so I use very few paper napkins, I could probably quit using them altogether I just have a few on hand for guests.
Fabric softener and dryer sheets are other items that you can do without, you shouldn't be using fabric softener for a lot of things like towels anyway, use vinegar in the wash, it doesn't leave a bad smell and it softens clothes without leaving all the chemicals in your clothing. I don't use or buy fabric dryer sheets, I just don't need them. When it comes to laundry soap I only use about 3/4 of the recommended amount on the bottle, my clothes come out just as clean and my washer isn't working so hard to get rid of all the suds. You can try this with shampoo and conditioner, try to use just a little bit less when you pour it in your hand, it may take a few seconds longer to lather up but it gets your hair just as clean, more doesn't always mean better or cleaner.
Buying cleaning products is expensive but you can clean most things in your house with vinegar and baking soda and both of those items are very inexpensive to buy. Make a window spray with equal parts vinegar and water, clean your microwave with a small bowl of vinegar and water, heat it until the liquid boils and it makes all the stuck on food particles soft and easy to wipe off. Freshen stuffed animals and pillows that can't be washed by putting them in a large plastic garbage bag with a few sprinkles of baking soda, shake well and then let it sit to absorb odors. Shake well to to get rid of the baking soda when you are finished. Make little sachets, take a coffee filter and fill with baking soda and tie it closed, put them in places like shoes and closets to absorb moisture and odors.
These tips are not going to make you a millionaire but if you can make it a way of life you can start putting the extra into your savings account even if it's just small amounts it will give you the incentive to try to save more and before you know it you could have a substantial amount to start paying off debt or pay for braces or buy a house.....it's your money to do whatever you want with it.
I am fortunate enough to have a few cruises under my belt, we have been on 14 cruises. We are cruise people.....meaning we love everything about the cruise experience. We have been able to travel to some amazing places including Central America, The Caribbean, Mexican Riviera and Alaska. We've also been able to try different cruise lines but we generally stick to one in particular because we seem to find the best rates with them and cruise lines have loyalty programs so staying with one cruise line gets you VIP benefits.
I would say the first thing when deciding on a cruise is to "get a guy or gal", call the cruise line and get a personal cruise consultant. We have a guy that we have talked to for at least 5 years that is our main point of contact at the cruise line, he calls us several times a year with deals and offers and when we are ready to book our cruise we call him and he customizes the cruise to fit our needs, price, cabin location, dinner times etc.
Cabin type and location vary depending on your preferences and how much you want to spend, we have tried interior, ocean view (window), balcony and mini suite. An interior cabin on a lower deck is the most economical choice but keep these things in mind when considering one of these cabins..........way down low in the ship tends to be closer to the engine rooms or anchors so they can be noisy very early in the mornings when they are using the propellers to dock the ship at the ports, it is generally quiet when you are at sea.
If you need sunlight to regulate your sleep rhythm then an interior cabin is not for you, if it's a 3 or 4 day cruise it's probably ok but if it's 7 days or longer the lack of sunlight can affect your sleep pattern. Everyone is different so you might be totally fine, I just know for me the lack of sunlight made it hard for me to sleep, I would wake up super early and constantly check the time because I didn't have light to tell me that it was morning.
An ocean view cabin will cost a little more than an interior but can still be a very economical choice with the benefit of a window or porthole.
Of course a balcony is more money and honestly I love having a balcony so much that the extra money is worth it. I have coffee delivered to my room everyone morning (that is a free service) and I sit out on my balcony and drink my coffee and just bask in the extraordinary feeling of being on the ocean thousands of miles away from everyday life.
Being prepared can save you a significant amount of money, make sure to bring your sunscreen and toiletries otherwise you will be cursing yourself for forgetting and having to pay $20 for a small bottle of sunscreen or $10 for deodorant. I always bring a lanyard for my sail and sign card, I didn't travel all this way and pay all this money to carry a purse around the ship so having my lanyard with my sail and sign card around my neck lets me be hands free.
Alcohol can be very expensive on the ship, I've learned a few things that can ease the pain of that final bill that they slip under the door on the last night of the cruise with all of your charges. The ship is cashless, everything is charged to your sail and sign card during the cruise and you settle up at the end with a credit card or cash, it's easy to get out of control buying drinks because you just sign a piece of paper and voila drinks appear but they add on tax and gratuities to each drink so a $10 glass of wine on the bar menu becomes a $12 glass of wine after the extra charge.
Each adult in your cabin is allowed to bring one 750ml bottle of wine or champagne, bring it with you in your carry on when you board the ship, don't put it in your suitcases that you give to the porters. All the luggage collected by the porters and delivered to your room in several hours is put through xray machines and if they find alcohol they will confiscate it and you won't get it back. The wine that you brought in your carry on can be enjoyed anytime in your room (bring an opener) they provide wine glasses and I walk around the ship drinking my wine and go back to my cabin to refill. You can bring your wine to the dining room to enjoy, give it to your waiter and he will open and serve it, they do charge a $15 corking fee for each bottle opened, don't worry if you don't drink it all you can take it back to your room or they will store it for you to have the next night with dinner.
If you want to order wine from the menu I would recommend buying an entire bottle instead of by the glass, you get more for your money and if you don't finish that night your waiter will put your name on it and store it in the kitchen and bring it out the next night for you to drink......trust me it won't go to waste!!
Check your "What's Happening on The Ship" for special free drink times or deals on drinks at certain bars. They always provide free champagne at the art auctions, you don't have to buy anything you can just drink champagne and peruse fine art. They also have martini tasting or craft beer tastings in certain bars on the ship, these are not free but you usually get quite a bit for a small price and you get to try things you might not have ever been brave enough to try before. If you go to excursion talks or shopping talks in the theater they always ask for volunteers to come up on stage and they generally give you a bottle of free champagne so if you are comfortable volunteer, volunteer, volunteer!
Excursions can be the best part of your entire cruise, you stop at all these exotic ports and you can visit ancient ruins or go zip lining or climb down into underground caves and float along hidden rivers. You can visit plantations and rum and tequila making factories, swim with dolphins or take jeeps through the jungle or snorkel on an a reef. There are so many things you can do but they can get very expensive. If you just want a city tour you don't need to pay $85 just to go shopping, take a taxi or a bus, there is usually all kinds of transportation readily available right where you get off the ship.
When you buy an excursion through the cruise line you have the security that you will get back to the ship in time and will be safe, I recommend doing that your first few cruises until you learn what is offered at each port. We don't usually go on the cruise excursions anymore, we buy basically the same thing right when we get off the ship with private tour operators, you have to be very careful and smart about who you deal with and always triple verify that you will be back to the ship on time. We've been able to go to some really fun places because it might just be a van with 2 or 3 couples instead of a huge busload of people and the driver can take us wherever we want and customize it to our interests. Again be very careful, they should be operators that have clearance to be in the secure area right outside the cruise ship.
Spending money and shopping on the ship: You think when you buy the cruise that all your food and accommodations are paid for so you won't spend much more......that is so far from the truth. They will try to get you to spend more money around every corner. There is Bingo, casino, after hours kids club or yours want to do build a bear, there is premium restaurants that aren't included in the price of the cruise, They have a small mall where they put out jewelry, clothes, perfumes, watches, memorabilia etc..and it's on "clearance" so you need to get carnival tote bags and pj's and a gold bracelet because it's the last day of the clearance but honestly they do it on every cruise. You can pay to have your clothing dry cleaned or laundered, or you can rent a suit or gown if you forgot to bring your formal wear, you can buy flowers for your loved one and have a special cake brought to the dining room so they will sing Happy Birthday. It all just depend on how much you want to spend, we've gone enough times that we know what it worth it and what is not. Don't forget you've got gratuities at the end of the cruise that will add on several hundred more dollars. I'm just saying all this because you need to budget to spend money during the cruise as well, not everything is included.
This small list doesn't cover everything, just a few of my tips, I can do part 2 and get into more detail.
I can tell you that we have had some of our most amazing experiences on cruises and our daughter has been able to have those same experiences which is priceless to me.
Is it time to start thawing that frozen turkey? Here's a chart with thaw times depending on the size of your turkey. Keep these things in mind when you are thawing your turkey in the refrigerator.
Make sure your refrigerator is at 40 F or lower.
Leave the turkey in its original wrapper.
Place the bird in a tray or pan to collect any juices that leak out.
Keep it at the bottom of your refrigerator so any leakage will not contaminate anything below.
Check out this hot deal on Amazon on this adorable Woodland Owl White Noise Sound Machine & Sleep Aid Night Light. This wise old owl can help soothe your baby to sleep, plays 10 different lullabies and turns off after 30 minutes. Press the night light to project a colorful galaxy of stars on the wall or ceiling.
This Woodland Owl White Noise Sound Machine and Night Light won't last long at this price $21.54 shipped Regularly $43.43. Head over to Amazon to check it out!


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Home with the Armadillo
It's No Bummers Sunday
There are no bummers in this email!
andrea grimes Oct 13, 2019 1
It occurs to me that the last couple editions of Home with the Armadillo have been big downers (righteous downers, but) and perhaps we are entitled to some nice things for a change. Here are some new (or at least new to me) things that I have recently enjoyed, and I hope you enjoy them too.
GOOD TUNES
Here is my approach to music I have never heard before: It's all terrible noise rock. Unless it's definitely country music, it's definitely noise rock. Every band I have never listened to is, until proven otherwise, 100% without question a 24-year-old white dude in small pants screaming over some feedback while his stepbrother/weed dealer destroys a drum kit that Ronnie from upstairs found in the alley.
What I am saying is, I mostly listen to the same five songs over and over again until I accidentally stumble upon some new music that is not noise rock, at which point I listen exclusively to the new thing. This week, I found a new thing! She is Azniv Korkejian, known as Bedouine, and if you have been looking for a Carly Simon / Yola / Joan Baez / Bebel Gilberto combo to listen to while you sip your autumnal hot drinks and get cozy with your lover(s) by the fire, she is precisely what you have been looking for. Here's her Tiny Desk Concert from last year, when it was probably actually cool to know about her. I'm late, and I don't care! She's fabulous.
California will soon become the first state to require that all public colleges offer medication abortion on campus! This is a really beautiful example of the dedication and perseverance of young people, students, and repro rights, health, and justice coalition members in the Golden State refusing to be cowed by cowardly lawmakers and politicians. Former Gov. Jerry Brown originally vetoed a version of the bill, but Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the latest iteration on Friday. It's a strong reminder that just because somebody's got a (D) next to their name, it doesn't mean they believe in reproductive freedom, or that they will stand up for abortion rights and access when it matters. It's also about accountability, and making sure that, while we'll never elect representatives who align with everything we believe, we can choose who we want to sit across the table from when we're advocating for ourselves and our communities. Don't back down! Perseverance works!
A federal judge in New York has blocked the Trump Administration's racist, xenophobic "public charge" rule, which would have created barriers to immigration for people who might avail themselves of public safety net services. The rule relies on the (racist, xenophobic) idea that people who immigrate to the U.S. are doing so to milk or game the system, and that immigrant families don't deserve access to health care and support services. This, of course, contributes to the racist, xenophobic feedback loop — if you keep basic services away from people who need those services most, you can pretend that the people who need those services most are unhealthy and dirty and desperate, and therefore shouldn't be allowed to live here (or, really, anywhere — to live, period). This is peak "pro-life"/"all lives matter" hypocrisy, with a heaping garnish of respectability bullshit that denigrates the scope and value of what immigrants bring to this country — because people's worth as people must not be tied to white supremacist ideas of what kind of work they do or don't do. If you want to really get in the weeds with it, you can check out the webinar that the org I work for, If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, has provided on the subject (second video at the link).
GOOD SPOOPS
IT'S TIME FOR THE JEZEBEL SCARY STORIES CONTEST!!!! This is the annual comment-frenzy wherein folks write in with their scariest true stories, and I cannot recommend this highly enough if you, like me, honor Halloween in your heart, and try to keep it all the year. I'll add a content note to say that some of the stories are crime-scary and not ghost-scary, so you may want to approach with caution or create a diverse team of story readers with various tolerances together with your friends to pick out the best highlights and figure out what might be best to skip. I usually do a Twitter thread closer to Halloween highlighting the best stories with specific TW's and CN's, so keep an eye there for more.
GOOD WORDS (MOSTLY SPOOPY)
My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. You'll speed through this short, riveting novel set in Lagos in an afternoon.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (Catherine Webb). Britain! Time travel (sort of)! Huge global implications!
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. A classic-ish manor murder mystery with a twist. Strongly rewards two or more readings.
GOOD WATCHES
Season five of "Schitt's Creek" is on Netflix this month! I have never cried-in-a-good-way so much at a sitcom. If you, like me, were late to the Schitt's train, IT'S TIME TO CLIMB ABOARD, BEBES.
IT'S ALL TOO SHOCKING! Clue, the best murder mystery comedy of all time, is free (with ads) on Amazon.
Lin-Manuel Miranda played Julián Castro on "Saturday Night Live" and it is very funny but please stick around for Woody Harrelson as Creeper Joe Biden.
And finally! My best Texas girlfriends are friends!!!!! Lizzo and Kacey Musgraves have been hanging out lately and my heart is so full and fucking fabulous.
#STREAMTRUTHHURTS @lizzo
I love you, mom @KaceyMusgraves
5,197 Retweets72,746 Likes
See y'all again soon with probably a lot of yelling. <3
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I have been benchmarking Apache Solr batch indexing of a linearly increasing workload of XML documents… I am using Solr's Data Input Handler on a Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5200@ 2.50GHz that has 4 GB RAM. I ran 5 repeated runs for each workload and subsequently picked the minimum successful run for workload. The smallest workload (100 documents) took 1.11 seconds, while the largest took 18,261 seconds (~5 hours). Interestingly, throughput plummets when the workload goes beyound 256000 documents, however, it's possible there are other hidden factors that might have influenced this outcome… I intend to re-run these experiments with randomly generated workloads.
I harvested Dublin Core encoded XML documents using the OAI-PMH protocol from the NDLTD portal . I am indexing all the 15 repeatable Dublin Core elements.
I basically created seperate Apache Solr cores for each of the 15 workloads and used the following benchmarking technique.
I used a series of primitive Python& shell scripts to automate the benchmarking process and in case YOU are interested in them, the code is below.
Spawns different workload models --wN-- based on file limits.
Usage: python -c "import simplyctperformance; simplyctperformance.amfumu()"
coreurl = "http://localhost:8983/solr/" + workloadname + "/"
# print "Status: Busy... Waiting..." + str(workloadsleep) + "
"""Sends Solr HTTP request to Solr server.
"""Prints out name value pairs of Solr import results.
The size of the workloads (Top Left), index size (Top Right) increase linearly. The time it takes (Bottom Right) to index the documents increases after the 256k workload mark resulting in a drop in throughput (Bottom Left). Incidentally, I ran out of memory for the last two workloads and had to explicitly tell Apache Solr to use up 2 GB of memory.
My initial thoughts are that the inconsistent structure (Dublin Core elements are all optional) of the documents could have resulted in it taking slightly longer to process documents in the larger batches… I might have to randomize my workload samples and see where that takes me.


What is the worst of woes that wait on age ?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow ?
A bunch of medical students were guided to an old age home as part of their community medicine posting . I was one among them . For us the daily visits to such places as part of the posting was kind of a breather given the hectic clinical postings that we were supposed to handle otherwise . Giggling and passing jokes to each other, we entered the building . On our way we passed a dainty old man who was sitting crouched on a chair straining hard to scan the newspaper . There was a moment of absolute silence when it started dawning on our minds that this visit is not going to be mere fun . The assistant professor of the department who was at the helm of our group asked us to settle down . And then , he started speaking . He was so subtle in his content, painting before us a rather dark picture of the despondent , dejected people residing in that particular old age home .
We left the building with a heavy heart . Atleast a couple of us promised in our minds that this would never be the fate of our parents .
I climbed the stairs of the very same old age institution which left me shattered a few years back . I had started earning stipend as part of my internship and i was here to bring to fulfillment a decision i had made a couple of years back, while i disembarked the very same stairs . Meeting the Mother Superior , i handed over whatever little the amount i could manage as monetary help . Right then while she was giving me a more vivid account of the working of the institution , an eldery lady of around 70 years came by . The topic diverted to her past . She belonged to a brahmin family , who had to elope from her tharavadu owing to the rejection and harsh treatment she had to bear from her daughter in laws . And now look at her , she was helping the servants there cook non vegetarian dishes something which she wouldnt have even dreamt of in those happy minutes of holding her new born son close to her bosom, years back .
What goes wrong in the mindsets of people when they grow older ? what happens so much so that it destroys the innocence and care deep from the rootlevels ? Yes its true, life starts becoming an ordeal once you step into family life . But certain emotions connecting two people are so deep and inseparable that they never deserve to be viewed differently by either anytime in their life , however far and high life takes you . Like the emotional chord that connects a mother and her kid and vice versa .
During my pediatrics posting i have seen sorrows of mothers who had to witness their babies passing through sickness which leaves them numb , motionless , with not even an ounce of energy to cry out . The unfortunate mothers would be yearning from their bottom of their heart to feed their babies atleast once, to hear their long hoped for bundle of joy cry out at the top of their voice like every other child . How does it end up in a situation where the same mothers cry out to their sons not to bully them infront of others , many years down the lane ? Pitiful isnt ?
If you can jot down a promise in the back of your hearts never to let your parents suffer when they are old , never to let them weep in the dark corridors of an old age home sinking in helplessness and desperation , that would be the most heavenly manner by which you could repay all the hardships they had to suffer to watch you grow up ,all the care and affection they showered on you all these years . Let no parent soak any more in loneliness . They deserve every bit of love from their children till the very last minute of their life . Dont they ?
Previous postHealthy you , beautiful you !
Very beautiful post with very beautiful message…..All the best for the contest….
THe saying in the picture , the last one in the post NOW THAT is something all youngsters need to READ and understand for sure ..
Unique viewpoint on soak.Loved this !
thanks for those good words panchali . . and yes that picture sure leaves a very important message . .
Maliny, almost 10 years back I used to frequent an old age home after college hours to spend time with senior citizens, and it moved it! Old tattered body, and arms wide open to give love to those who would love them and talk to them, They were abandoned by families, it broke my heart everytime, and then suddenly one day, the security stopped allowing me to visit them, saying he has been told not to, since they oldies are getting used to me frequenting them. Sigh! I am not sure they ever knew what was in store for them, when they wear running for every single cry of their kids and doing whatever they could to give them a happy life. Good write up!
Thanks a lot nevin ! Glad that it influenced you . . Drop by more . .
Looks like this post is coming straight from your heart ,i am sure it will convert many,thanks & good luck.


All those papers accepted by ISMAR 10 Scientific Committee submitted (voluntarily) by their authors, and a summary with a 30% of the content for those 18 papers selected for MDPI ISMAR 10 monographic Water Journal (waiving APCs), will be mounted in a final ISMAR 10 proceedings book, co-edited by ISMAR 10 co-organizers just after the Symposium.
The 18 papers selected for the Journal would publish an extended abstract in the proceedings book (maximum 30% of the total paper), with a reference to the open access site. Authors in the Journal who submitted their papers directly are also invited to include a summary with maximum extension of 30% of their papers in ISMAR 10 proceedings book.
The Editors will be: Instituto Geológico y Minero de España (IGME) and Tragsa. The title selected for the proceedings book is: Managed Aquifer Recharge: Local solutions to the global water crisis.
A digital version of the ISMAR 10 proceedings book will be released by 2019 December (at the latest) freely. Punctual information will be provided in due time.
In the meantime, please, find enclosed the link to access the last ISMAR 7 proceedings book, edited by DINA-MAR with the permission of the organizers.


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I am a HUGE fan of serverless architectures. This new type of compute not only opens up more possibilities for developers, but can support highly-scalable, complex applications for a fraction of the cost compared to provisioning virtual servers. My first question when planning a new application is always, "Can I build this with serverless?" Spoiler alert, the answer is almost always YES!
I've been building serverless applications since the release of AWS Lambda in 2015, so answering the question above is pretty easy for me. However, a lot of people I talk to who are new to serverless often have many questions (and misconceptions). I want you to be successful, so below I've create a list of 10 things you need to know when building a serverless application. These are things I wish I knew when I started, so hopefully they'll help you get up to speed a faster and start building some amazing applications.
All of the cloud providers give you a number of CLI and web-based tools to configure, deploy and manage your serverless functions. AWS even has their own Serverless Application Model (SAM) that lets you configure serverless resources. Many developers have built their own deployment pipelines for pushing serverless code to the cloud, but nothing compares with the completeness, ease-of-use, and stability of the Serverless Framework. With a few minor configurations, you can publish functions, configure resources, and completely manage your entire development workflow. The Serverless Framework integrates with all major cloud providers and is the most valuable tool in my serverless arsenal!
A cloud provider's shared responsibility model extends much further with serverless functions than it does with virtual instances. Even though we may no longer be responsible for OS-level security, we as developers still need to take responsibility for the security of our applications. Traditional approaches with WAFs (web application firewalls) only partially address the problem. Serverless applications can go well beyond HTTP and respond to several different types of events. This creates new attack surfaces by accepting untrusted input from logs, SMS messages, IoT devices and more. Ory Segal has a great talk about this from Serverless Days TLV 2018 here: https://youtu.be/M7wUanfWs1c. You can also read Securing Serverless: A Newbie's Guide for a crash course on securing your application.
Even with traditional applications, third-party packages should always be scanned for vulnerabilities before used in production. A compromised dependency can not only leak data, but can exploit server resources for nefarious purposes. This can be exacerbated with serverless applications because of their ability to scale quickly (sometimes without limits). It's also difficult to detect a compromised function since serverless applications have limited observability. In the summer of 2017, a post on Github describes how an exploit allowed nearly 54% of the NPM ecosystem to be compromised. NPM now provides their npm audit feature, which helps, but it still isn't foolproof.
While the general notion that you don't have to "provision, manage, patch or update" servers is true, there are still several cloud configurations that need to be applied and managed in order for your serverless functions to run optimally and securely. Function level configurations, such as memory capacity and execution limits, are easy enough to manage, but when building your application, there is a heck of a lot more to think about. VPC configurations, security groups, Internet gateway configurations, access to other resources, etc. all take time and require deeper knowledge of your cloud provider to properly configure.
This isn't specific to serverless, but since serverless lets us break up our applications into really small pieces, making sure passwords, API keys and other shared secrets are accessible (but properly secured) can be a bit of a challenge. Obviously we don't want to check them into our source repository or let them sit on developers' machines. Using a parameter store (like AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store) makes this process extremely easy and keeps all of your important credentials locked down.
A common complaint of serverless architectures is the cold start problem. Since functions are loaded on demand, they require extra time to load into the container on first use. Cloud providers keep functions "warm" for several minutes so that they can respond more quickly to subsequent requests. This not only reduces latency, but also gives us the benefit of reusing data and connections from those functions. Serverless applications will "freeze" connections to databases, caching clusters, and more, allowing you to save valuable time by not having to establish new connections on each invocation. See How To Reuse Database Connections in AWS Lambda for more information.
With the advent of container services, like Docker, developers gained the ability to break up applications into smaller parts. This allowed highly-specific containers that were tailored to each part of the application's workload. Serverless takes this concept even further, allowing developers to break their applications into even smaller parts with much more granular control. Well-designed applications can take advantage of event-driven functions to handoff workloads that effortlessly scale to meet demand. Even complex APIs can be broken into several smaller functions to ensure separation of concerns. I wrote Lambda API, a lightweight web framework for AWS that makes routing HTTP events a lot easier without all of the dependencies and overhead of other web frameworks.
One of the biggest benefits to serverless architectures is the ability for it to scale almost infinitely on demand. By running hundreds or thousands of containers in parallel, a properly configured application can gracefully scale to meet almost any amount of load. The problem is that many of the backend services that are needed to support your application aren't as robust. Even if you are using scalable datastores like DynamoDB, you still need to provision throughput for read and writes. Burst capacity may support short spikes, but larger, sustained loads will require adequate provision planning. If you are using relational database backends, connection limits can quickly be reached which can cause complete outages if not handled correctly. Some of this can be mitigated by using a good caching strategy. See How To: Manage RDS Connections from AWS Lambda Serverless Functions for some ideas for addressing these issues.
Unlike traditional, server-hosted applications, serverless applications typically run in containers managed by your cloud provider. This means that you don't have access to the underlying infrastructure that runs your code. In most cases, basic logging needs to be managed by the application, which can add unnecessary overhead and code complexity. AWS provides their X-Ray service which gives you the ability to trace requests and analyze issues, but it still requires code level integration as opposed to traditional agents and daemons running behind the scenes. Yan Cui has a series on serverless observability that is worth exploring to learn more.
AWS Lambda, Microsoft Azure Functions, IBM OpenWhisk Cloud Functions, Google Cloud Functions and Webtasks are some of the native serverless cloud platform offerings available to developers. Each of these cloud providers have robust offerings that manage the function containers for you. If you'd like to host your own environment, or you need more control over the underlying infrastructure, Kubeless, Spotinst and the Fn Project are some popular choices. While choice and competition are certainly a good thing, it also comes with the caveat that each service implements things somewhat differently. Choose wisely. There is a great post by Nick Gottlieb on the Serverless blog that addresses the issue of data portability and vendor choice.
There you go, 10 things that should help you accelerate your serverless journey. It really is amazing what you can build using this technology. Plus, the cloud providers are adding more functionality and services every day to make serverless even more powerful. I'm excited to see where this will take us and what types of problems will be solved. Good luck, and I hope you enjoy building serverless applications as much as I do.
Did I miss something important? What are some of the lessons you've learned building serverless applications? Let me know in the comments and I'll be sure to add them to this post.
🗓 This post was originally published on June 22, 2018 by Jeremy Daly.


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text:
Wierman Coat of Arms / Wierman Family Crest
This English surname of WIERMAN was an ancient occupational name meaning one who dealt in wine, either in the making or selling of the grapes or the fermenting of the wine. Other spellings of the name include WYRMAN, WYREMAN, WYRE, WIRE, WIRES and WIREMANN. During the Middle Ages the manufacture and fermenting of wines and ale was necessary in every small village. Ale was the people's food in liquid form, and was consumed by everybody at all times. The extreme poverty of the Franciscans when they first settled in London was noted by a writer at the time 'I have seen the brothers drink ale so sour that some would have preferred to drink water'. In early times each villager usually brewed his own drink although he often had to pay the lord of the manor for the privilege of using his equipment. In later times the manufacture of ales and wine became an important monastic industry. The earliest of the name on record appears to be WIR (without surname) who was recorded in Lancashire in the year 1184, and WIRA (without surname) was documented in the year 1205. It was not until the 10th century that modern hereditary surnames first developed, and the use of fixed names spread, first to France, and then England, then to Germany and all of Europe. In these parts of Europe, the individual man was becoming more important, commerce was increasing and the exact identification of each man was becoming a necessity. Even today however, the Church does not recognise surnames. Baptisms and marriages are performed through use of the Christian name alone. Thus hereditary names as we know them today developed gradually during the 11th to the 15th century in the various European countries. Later instances of the name include Robert le WYRMANN, who was recorded in Yorkshire in the year 1273, and Adam WIREMANN of Yorkshire, was listed in the Yorkshire Poll Tax of 1379. In the Middle Ages heraldry came into use as a practical matter. It originated in the devices used to distinguish the armoured warriors in tournament and war, and was also placed on seals as marks of identity. As far as records show, true heraldry began in the middle of the 12th century, and appeared almost simultaneously in several countries of Western Europe.


text:
Lola Krimson
Lola Krimson (°1985, Berchem) makes photos and performances. By exploring the concept of landscape in a nostalgic way, Krimson investigates the dynamics of landscape, including the manipulation of its effects and the limits of spectacle based on our assumptions of what landscape means to us. Rather than presenting a factual reality, an illusion is fabricated to conjure the realms of our imagination.
Her photos are characterised by the use of everyday objects in an atmosphere of middleclass mentality in which recognition plays an important role. By creating situations and breaking the passivity of the spectator, she wants the viewer to become part of the art as a kind of added component. Art is entertainment: to be able to touch the work, as well as to interact with the work is important.
Her works establish a link between the landscape's reality and that imagined by its conceiver. These works focus on concrete questions that determine our existence. By taking daily life as subject matter while commenting on the everyday aesthetic of middle class values, she often creates work using creative game tactics, but these are never permissive. Play is a serious matter: during the game, different rules apply than in everyday life and even everyday objects undergo transubstantiation.
Her works are based on inspiring situations: visions that reflect a sensation of indisputability and serene contemplation, combined with subtle details of odd or eccentric, humoristic elements. Lola Krimson currently lives and works in Ghent.


Who doesn't love onions or garlic in a delicious curry or perhaps a savory stew? These pungent foods add delicious flavor to almost any meal. And, most of us know that they also help boost our immune system to fight off colds and flu or other infections. But, it turns out that onions and garlic offer even greater benefits than previously believed.
According to recent research published in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Clinical Oncology, garlic and onions may also help protect you against cancer. To determine whether these foods could help with cancer, the scientists took 833 people suffering with colorectal cancer along with an additional 833 people who acted as controls for the study. They were matched in age and gender and even lived in similar locations.
The researchers interviewed each study participant, recording their food habits using a food frequency questionnaire. They found that, contrary to what the conflicting earlier studies showed, there is a significant relationship between the amount of allium vegetables, like onions, garlic, leeks, chives, etc. a person consumes and their risk of colorectal cancer. Those who ate the most allium vegetables had a 79 percent lower risk than those people who consumed the lowest levels of these foods. In other words, the more garlic, onions and other allium vegetables you eat, the greater your protection against colorectal cancer.
There was another interesting finding in this study: the results were found in both women and men, which contradicts some earlier studies that had found differences between the genders, including one published in Cancer Causes and Control. In that study, researchers found that garlic helped prevent colorectal cancer in women but not in men. The new study suggests that this is not the case at all and supports a stronger link between eating more alliums and cancer prevention.
There are many types of allium vegetables, some of the which include: garlic, onions, garlic greens, garlic scapes, leeks, spring onions, scallions and chives.
-Cut the tops off a head of garlic, leaving the skins intact. Drizzle a little olive oil over it and then place in a small covered baking dish and bake for 350 for 45 minutes to an hour. Spread on bread in place of butter.
-Add raw or roasted garlic to sauces.
-Add raw or roasted garlic to salad dressings.
-Add raw or roasted garlic to soups.
-Add raw or roasted garlic to curries or stews.
-Add some minced raw onion or chopped green onion to guacamole.
-Add onion to soups and stews.
-Top your soup with some chopped spring onions or chives.
-Add scallions to 2 parts olive oil, 1 part apple cider vinegar, a pinch of salt, and a teaspoon of mustard for a delicious salad dressing.
-Slowly brown onions over low to medium heat in a saute pan and use as the base for your next soup or stew.
-Add some roasted garlic and chopped onions to your next pizza (preferably a gluten-free, dairy-free option).
-Add plentiful amounts of garlic to chickpeas, tahini, olive oil and a dash of sea salt for a delicious hummus.
-Mix chopped onions, garlic, olive oil and some balsamic vinegar together for a marinade for kebabs.
-Blend garlic, handfuls of fresh basil, olive oil, pine nuts and a pinch of sea salt to make a pesto for your sandwiches, wraps and of course, pasta.
-Mash roasted garlic into potatoes for a flavor boost.
-Add whole cloves of garlic tossed in olive oil and add to a baking dish of potatoes, then roast until cooked.
-Saute your favorite greens or other vegetables with chopped garlic and onions to give them a nutrition and flavor boost.
I found an article about cancer on the internet. Importance of Ginger, Garlic, Onion for preventing cancer.
Please, can you tell me the information is 100% correct?
This is my Holy Grail when it comes to cooking most meals. In my opinion, there is NEVER too many onions, and NEVER too much garlic !


There are people who will knock themselves out for a position of power. They kiss up to those in authority while looking down on the ones they've deemed useless and unimportant to them. When exposed to these types, it can feel demeaning to work with, socialize with, church with, network with, campaign with or whatever "with," but it shouldn't.
When you love and put God first, are happy with who you are and where you are and you treat everyone equal, no matter their title or importance, (if they're living in a mansion or a motel, the CEO or the custodian, the prince or the pauper) you're already in perfect position.
If someone craves power, it's a testament that underneath all the façade, all the anxiety they put themselves through to try to get noticed or attain position, their real hunger is for the Holy Spirit.


text:
As PM Trudeau restates drinking water pledge, many communities still waiting
Published Wednesday, May 2, 2018 5:41PM EDT Last Updated Wednesday, May 2, 2018 6:13PM EDT
OTTAWA – During his address to the Assembly of First Nations on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau restated his belief that every person in Canada should be able to drink the water that comes out of their tap, but many communities are still waiting.
As of April 24, there were 76 long-term drinking water advisories in effect for public water systems managed by the federal government. A third of these have been in place for over a decade.
This number is down from January, when the number spiked to 91 as the result of the government taking on an additional 250 water systems as federal responsibility. Now, the government is working to manage 1,047 public drinking water systems.
Some First Nation communities are dealing with advisories for more than one water system on their land.
The federal government has pledged to eradicate all drinking water advisories in First Nations communities by March 2021.
At the end of 2017 there were 67 advisories forcing communities to turn to alternative water sources for drinking, bathing and cooking.
Since forming government, the Liberals have lifted 61 drinking water advisories. However, 32 new advisories have been added in that time, according to the Indigenous and Northern Affairs department.
Trudeau referred to the lifted drinking water advisories as one of the "successes that we have already achieved."
On the Liberals' mandate tracker, the promise -- which is wrapped into a category about improving essential Indigenous infrastructure -- is listed as "underway with challenges."
"Working in partnership with First Nations, the government is taking action to close the gaps between the living conditions of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Every person in Canada -- wherever they may live -- should be able to drink the water that comes out of their tap," Trudeau said at the AFN Special Chiefs Assembly in Gatineau, Que.
Minster of Indigenous Services Jane Philpott -- who has been mandated to oversee this promise -- also addressed the AFN Wednesday, focusing her remarks on the state of child welfare "humanitarian crisis."
While her speech did not touch on boil-water advisories, she has continuously affirmed that the government will fulfill its clean drinking water promise.
The government's most recent projection is that by the middle of 2018 there will be 66 advisories left to lift, dropping to 51 in 2019.
"We can do this quickly, or we can do this right, and I know that those two are mutually exclusive. There are things we are moving forward on tangibly and in very meaningful ways, and communities with which we're moving forward very quickly, but there are others where we will take more time," said Trudeau, speaking generally about the Liberal's commitment to develop a new relationship with Indigenous people in Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde listen to a question after the Prime Minister's address at the Assembly of First Nations Special Chiefs Assembly, in Gatineau, Que., on Wednesday, May 2, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Assembly of First Nations greets Liberal agenda, rhetoric with skepticism
First Nations face dozens of boil water advisories on World Water Day
Feds' First Nations drinkable water pledge just got harder
Cost of bringing First Nations water systems up to snuff could total $3.2B: PBO
Can PM Trudeau keep drinkable water promise to First Nations?


text:
Book: Why We Fight
"Somalia needs a chamber of commerce before it needs a cabinet", or the case for anarchy in the Horn
That is Alex de Waal in the New York Times.
African neighbors and the West want to stop piracy, uproot terrorism, relieve famine, end civil war, and strengthen a federal government:
This is all very laudable, except for one thing: It won't work.
The transitional government, established in 2004, has no credibility, in part because it could not exist without foreign backing. In fact, many Somalis don't want a central government. Or, to be exact, they are so embittered by their experience of centralized power that they would rather have no government than the type that their African neighbors and the West have designed for them.
…For quite a lot of Somalia and for quite a lot of the last 20 years, quite a lot of things have worked. Above all the country has a booming private sector, self-regulating and helped by the country's simple monetary policy (no one can print banknotes). The efficient, informal hawala system of money transfer allows the Somali diaspora to send money home. And Somalis enjoy one of the cheapest and most modern mobile phone networks in Africa, if not the world.
Somali society has functioned for centuries without a state, on the basis of kinship, customary law and Islam. These traditions survive.
…Instead of gathering Somalia's discredited politicians and promising them more help, Cameron should support what already functions well in Somalia: the vibrant middle class and Somaliland. Britain, and other donors, should empower Somali businessmen with lines of credit and an improved system to regulate money transfers; Somalia needs a chamber of commerce before it needs a cabinet.
Interesting throughout. I concur with supporting the business community. It's the idea that this is done "instead" of boosting a central government that is less obvious. "Before", "alongside" or "at least as much as" would be more defensible.
Can we really expect regional political stability without some kind of national-level regime? Is this institutionalized anarchy? Why not a highly federal system in its place?
Most of all–Is it realistic to ask the UN, Presidents and Prime Ministers to accept that route (and could they if they agreed)?
I don't know in general, and I know next to nothing about Somalia. Readers?
h/t @cheng_christine
10 thoughts on ""Somalia needs a chamber of commerce before it needs a cabinet", or the case for anarchy in the Horn"
Brandon on March 9, 2012 at 2:56 am said:
Yeah either the high federal system or institutionalized anarchy would work better than what we currently have, but the West still has to work with Somalis on creating something new. Check it out: http://notesonliberty.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/hillary-clinton-on-somalia-more-of-the-same/
Farhan on February 27, 2012 at 3:05 pm said:
To Write Some words About Somalia its easy, but to change your words practically its very hard for those who doesn't have enough information about whats going on somalia, rather than Articles posted public or personal websites. My Opinion,its very difficult for the somali people how they can to understand what the federalism is? Clan Based Administration, Self-interest Policy, Can not Change Somalia's Future Less Than 0.00%, To Build Somalia .US and the world They Solved Many Problems Like Rwanda, Liberia, Seri Lion, but somalia's Consequence It will mean the Somali problem is insoluble; it will encourage opportunist groups to maintain the status quo and once again, the civilised world will be humiliated.
Adedayo on February 24, 2012 at 10:59 am said:
I think what de Waal is arguing is that the international community needs to support a more organic approach to state building by working with systems that Somalis support. I agree with with de Waal on this. A federal system might yet work but I still find it curious that the intellectual community cannot seem to conceive of alternative ways of organizing states that do not fit the general conception of what a state should look like.
Nick on February 23, 2012 at 10:45 am said:
I do like a lot of de waal's work but i find it this article to be premised on some big assumptions that make it a bit hard to take seriously. there is a strong case to be made as with any context, that the approach needs to be multi-faceted. the importance of developing the business community does not need to be done in isolation, as you've said it seems that organic growth and development of relationships between political entities is probably the way to go.
i don't think proliferating mini states, that are unsustainable, that can't be secured, and that perpetuate single-clan structures as a way of governing, is a viable solution here (or anywhere for that matter) – and i really worry about referencing the article above. there is a lot of research and experience on secession beyond this – it isn't a new discussion/topic and i worry about using this article as a reference. First, (a) because of it's newness, and (b) because of all that is going on now, are we going to seriously use South Sudan as a model for independence? I also think this concept that a geographically coherent vision of African states is normative and doesn't reflect the cultural and economic realities – particularly of this region. On the 'why not' question – it's the same as for anywhere else – it seems questionable whether creating states based on the aspiration of a homogenous identity is really going to lead to peace, or whether it more likely continues to perpetuate the same problem that people of these states were original victimized by….
JacobAGeller on February 23, 2012 at 4:14 am said:
"Highly federal" would be nice, yeah, but you could even go further than that. Real men call for secession.
G. Pascal Zachary wrote in the Atlantic last year that a lot of African countries, Somalia included, suffer from a "secessionist deficit," or an over-centralization of government. There's no particularly good reason, he argues, for southern Somalia (where the real trouble-makers are) to be politically unified with Puntland, which is technically a part of Somalia, but which in reality has its own government, its own economy, its own reality. Why not recognize Puntland as its own country? Ditto for Somaliland. Do they *have* to be mere regions within a unified Somalia? Where did this idea of a unified Somalia come from in the first place… the Italians? British?
G. Pascal's article is here: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/07/after-south-sudan-the-case-to-keep-dividing-africa/241705/
…it points to a lot of other research on the subject.
B on February 23, 2012 at 1:23 am said:
This is a fine idea in theory, but in practice it hasn't worked. Kinship or clan ties have allowed the commercial sector to function surprisingly well. But a very weak state is never going to encourage stability because a very weak state will just encourage groups to try to capture it.
If there were actually a consensus in the country that no state was best, this all might work. But there will always be groups/people that want to change that, so you'll end up with bloody internally-led state capture and state-building efforts intermixed with foreign intervention when things get out of hand and spill across borders.
Ángel Martín Oro on February 22, 2012 at 5:07 pm said:
I've read several interesting articles and papers on Somalia's relative success without central government. Some of them defend the view that anarchy might be preferable to having some kind of central government. At least, it's food for thought.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12278628
Leeson, P.T. (2007). Better off stateless: Somalia before and after government collapse. Journal of Comparative Economics, 35(4), 689—710.
Nenova, T. y Harford, T. (2004) How Does Somalia's Private Sector Cope without Government? Note Number 280, Public Policy for the Private Sector, The World Bank Group.
Powell, B., Ford, R., Nowrasteh, A. (2008). Somalia after state collapse: Chaos or improvement. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 67.
genauer on February 22, 2012 at 4:58 pm said:
Well, after hearing a lot of negative stories about development aid, especially personally, I was kind of looking at your blog in hope to hear some more optimistic things.
But in the moment I tend to say: just leave them alone, if they engage in attacks like Piracy, meet out immediate and indiscriminate punishment, like destroying every pirate harbor completely, and otherwise save on the engagement costs.
Your opinion ? on :
The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly (Paperback – Feb 27, 2007)
A Women from Sambia, with PhD, MBA, World Bank experience:
Dead Aid: Why Aid is not working and how there is another way for africa von Dambisa Moyo , Penguin 2009
PeterDoerrie on February 22, 2012 at 4:34 pm said:
I'm not an expert, but I think your "highly federal system" idea is spot on. Parts of Somalia (Like Puntland and Somaliland) are already independent entities and the high level of distrust towards a central authority means that every try to create such an authority would require immense amounts of energy and cold hard cash to work. Having a "Federation of Somali People" would circumvent many of these problems.
Andreas Moser on February 22, 2012 at 2:01 pm said:
All I know about Somalia I have learnt from watching "Black Hawk Down". So I will rather abstain.
I'm a Professor in the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. I use field work and statistics to study poverty, political engagement, the causes and consequences of violence, and policy in developing countries. [Read more]
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A magical medieval castle with drawbridge and towers. The set also includes a prince, a princess, a white horse, a dragon, a witch, and a treasure chest. This toy aims to stimulate children's imagination and role play. In total 7 pcs.


Satelytics is an industry innovator in imagery analytics providing spatial constituent concentration derived from spectral imagery. We are able to provide valuable data to our clients using imagery analysis techniques, trained scientists, and proprietary algorithms processed with issued US patents. At Satelytics, it is our priority to be on the cutting edge of technological developments so we can provide our clients accurate, cost-effective imagery products as quickly as possible.
Advances in satellite and computer technology have made the utilization of these images in the enhancement of water quality more effective than ever. Current earth observatory satellites in conjunction with new image acquisition platforms, such as "nano-satellites", will empower us to acquire high-resolution, low-cost imagery with frequent revisits. We combine the datasets from the sensors on these platforms with sophisticated machine learning technology and algorithm development to detect and classify objects on the ground more accurately and quickly than with human-based observation. Today, Satelytics is able to easily and accurately identify solutions that improve safety and quality of bodies of water, and we are leading in the implementation of transformative water quality enhancement technology.
Satelytics employs a four-step process in the identification and remediation of water quality issues.
This four-step process has been proven to be successful in several cases. We are able to accurately and efficiently identify problems and find solutions that benefit both our clients and the environment.
Identify the Issue – Satelytics utilizes satellite imagery and our unique algorithms to identify the concentrations of contaminants in bodies of water.
Isolate the Source – We are able to use our imagery, algorithms and scientists to locate the land areas contributing nutrients to bodies water.
Recommend Solutions – Our scientists analyze point-source problems and recommend partnering solutions that may include multiple abatement practices and remediation strategies.
Monitoring Program – We develop a plan to continue monitoring mitigation efforts to determine effective implementation.
Satelytics recommends several approaches to using satellite imagery to help improve water quality in our clients' specified bodies of water. A phosphorus assessment example is included below.
Satelytics can obtain historical satellite data ranging as far back as 1984 and utilizes it to analyze point-source phosphorus pollution. The use of satellite imagery over a multi-year historical period is required for conducting trend analysis to determine where the "hot spots" exist for phosphorus in the watershed. This is achieved using multiple images over a predetermined time period. To enhance the utility of the phosphorus imagery Satelytics studies other surrogates throughout this period related to high phosphorus such as chlorophyll-a and cyanobacteria. Hot spots can be identified through trend analysis, during both high flow after heavy rain and normal flow conditions. Correlation of higher constituent concentrations in water with land location hot spots yields significant information into areas of interest.
We will map out a satellite imaging strategy as part of the fast track monitoring plan and a necessary step moving forward to quantify improvement of bodies of water, percentage reductions in phosphorus, and the success of mitigation strategies.
This big-picture approach allows assessment of remediation effectiveness by truly observing the entire water body. After an imagery assessment is conducted the most effective remediation strategies can be increased, and the non-effective strategies discontinued.
Petit Lac St. Francois in Quebec, Canada experienced significant issues with high phosphorus resulting in Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) problems. Satelytics utilized satellite data and topological maps to reveal particular farms—indicated with the arrows below—were high on a hill with a valley connecting them to Petit Lac St. Francois. After we identified a source of the problem, the remediation strategy selected was the construction of phosphorus remediation berms around these farms and application of non-phosphorus fertilizer. Satelytics processed imagery analysis provided the means to focus remediation efforts on a high impact area.
Farms on a hill northeast of the lake (left), phosphorus accumulation in the lake (right).
Clear Lake in California has historically had major HAB problems. Clear Lake is a very large (43,000 acre) lake with thousands of acres of land draining into the lake. With such a large region, locating the origins of phosphorus is quite difficult using ground sampling. Our client was compelled to determine where phosphorus runoff originated after a high flow rain event. Satellite imagery revealed higher concentrations of phosphorus in the northern portion of the lake's watershed. These processed satellite images illustrated areas on land where phosphorus remediation would have significant impact. The remediation strategy for Clear Lake is ongoing; however Satelytics generated a macro view of total phosphorus in water and a micro assessment by conducting a pixel analysis. This emerging technology allows lake managers to better view and understand the true dynamics of lakes and their watershed systems.
Phosphorus problem in Clear Lake California Watershed. Red is high. Dark blue is low.
Satelytics can help cut costs while providing reliable, precise data that you need to improve the quality of your water. Your team will have access to the most current information available on the status of your water—at your desktop, on your tablet, or on your smartphone.
For more information please visit www.satelytics.com or email info@satelytics.com.


A great wine is capable of making any occasion a great event. That said, knowing how to use wine properly is key. Keep reading for more information on everything about wine.
TIP! Use wine to create an impressive sauce for beef dishes. To make things even easier, add a dab of butter along with your ideal red wine.
Protect your wine's flavor with proper storage. Extreme temperatures, whether cold or hot, can destroy your wine. Store your wine at 50-55 degrees to allow the flavor time to develop. Specialized wine fridges can be used, or wines can be kept in cool basement spaces.
TIP! Visit the regions that grow the wine. You will have a deeper appreciation for your favorite drink.
Get a wine cellar when you're trying to keep wine good and valuable when you buy it. This can be important if you regularly purchase expensive wine and need to store it someplace other than your kitchen. As time passes, the wine cellar helps to keep the wine at high quality.
TIP! You should know how to take the label off of a wine bottle carefully by peeling. The easiest and most common method is to pop the bottle into the oven and then carefully peel back the label once the bottle is hot.
Sometimes, you will find that cheap wine can do the trick. Try looking at Chile for great wine at great prices. Many of their wines are prices reasonably. In particular, Cabernet Sauvignons and Sauvignon Blancs should be looked at. Argentina, South Africa, and New Zealand are all places that have great wines.
If you plan to drink your wine at a casual event away from home, you should get a bottle that does not need a corkscrew. You will not have to bring a bottle opener with you. The ability to securely re-seal the bottle also comes in handy.
Color is not a factor in terms of a wine's lightness. Red and white wines contain the same alcohol content. However, white wines usually taste a lot smoother. The Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc wines are the lightest you can get, so think about getting these for your dinner table.
TIP! Many wines go quite well with desserts. These wines are usually sweeter than most wines you might drink with your meal.
Red and white wines are made from different grapes. Purple grapes are used to make red wine and that gives it a stronger body. Green grapes are used to produce the light and crisp white wines. Of course, there is much more to the differences between the two, but that is the foundation.
TIP! Mix it up a little when selecting your wine store purchases. Don't always get the same bottles every time, because they'll become monotonous.
Try the Internet out for size and join a wine-tasting forum. By exchanging experiences you can easily broaden your knowledge without having to invest a fortune in various wines. A fellow member may lead to the discovery of your favorite wine.
TIP! Do not let the opinions of others color your wine palate. If you like a wine, it must be a good wine.
Don't fill your house with only the wines you enjoy at the moment. This a common mistake, but you should try to keep in mind that you will likely develop a taste for different wines rather quickly. You may love a label now, but might hate it tomorrow. Consequently, you may find yourself saddled down with bottle after bottle of ruined or otherwise unpalatable wines.
TIP! It is easy to maintain the freshness of Spanish wines, but different types require different strategies. Rioja is a popular Spanish wine that can be stored for up to seven years.
When you taste a given wine, begin by tipping your glass to the side a tad in order to examine the wine's color. Swirl the wine around and breathe in the smell. Now sip a bit of your wine, roll it on your tongue and then spit it out.
TIP! Get to know your local waiters and store clerks. If you make friends with them, you can get a heads up on good deals in the future.
It should now be apparent that many factors determine how to go about storing, tasting, and serving wine. The wrong wine can take away from the flavor of your meal. Why not enhance your enjoyment of wine by abiding by a few basic rules of thumb?


This book is based on presentations from the Conference 'Arctic Marine Resource Governance' held in Reykjavik Iceland in October 2015. The book is divided into four main themes: 1. Global management and institutions for Arctic marine resources 2. Resource stewards and users: local and indigenous co-management 3. Governance gaps in Arctic marine resource management and 4. Multi-scale, ecosystem-based, Arctic marine resource management'.
The ecosystem changes underway in the Arctic region are expected to have significant impacts on living resources in both the short and long run, and current actions and policies adopted over such resource governance will have serious and ultimately irreversible consequences in the near and long terms.
, land, water). Her research findings have been used to inform policymakers at state, national and international levels of governance. International maritime trade and marine resource management between countries is a current research area set in the Arctic with grant funding from the Belmont Forum/National Science Foundation. She has received research grants from the National Science Foundation, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Haynes Foundation and the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.
Dr. Joan Nymand Larsen is professor of economics and Arctic studies at University of Akureyri, and research director and senior scientist at the Stefansson Arctic Institute, Akureyri, Iceland. Her current research is focused on the issues and challenges of economic development and living conditions in the Arctic; socio-economic impacts of global change; and the development of systems for monitoring human well-being. She is co-editor of the Arctic Human Development Report (2015); Arctic Social Indicators (2015); The New Arctic (2015); editor of The Polar Journal´s special issue on Polar Economics (2016); and coordinating lead author of the IPCC 5th assessment report´s Polar Regions chapter (2014).
Dr. Brooks Kaiser is an environmental and resource economist and economic historian. She holds a PhD in economics from Northwestern University and is a Professor at the University of Southern Denmark, Department of Sociology, Environmental and Business Economics. She is Unit Lead on Fisheries for Polar Research and Policy Initiative (PRPI). She uses economic tools with interdisciplinary connections to ecology and history to generate insights into policies governing resource use and sustainable development, with a particular focus on invasive species. In conjunction with the other editors, she is currently investigating the impacts of the Red King and Snow Crab introductions in the Barents Sea and has run several workshops bringing together researchers across disciplines relevant to the Arctic with stakeholders, resource managers, and policy makers. She regularly contributes to international economics, natural science, and Arctic conferences and meetings as speaker and/or organizer, and publishes in both economics and interdisciplinary venues.
peer-reviewed articles as well as numerous book chapters and scientific reports. Recently, Niels and several colleagues formed a Nordic-based network of researchers interested in Arctic marine resource governance under climate change. In 2015, he was awarded the Fulbright Arctic Initiative grant, and he is currently engaged in examining 1) how the development of new technology and operations in resource-based industries interact, 2) the governance of Arctic marine resources and how to manage these resources under climate change. Before entering academia, he worked in the Greenland Home Rule Administration from 1987-1990. He earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Copenhagen in 1998.
Regulating Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean: Much Ado About Nothing?


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Monday was the first official day of the season and the decision to go to a JV schedule was made after seeing the low turn out. Talks have been on-going and it was based on the safety of the athletes and the intentions it would help to build the program. See article below for more details.


To know what may be deemed as a good U-value it is important to know how it compares to the U-values in the notional building used within SAP for Building Regulations compliance. The notional U-values within Part L Approved Document L1A 2013 are as follows: - external walls 0.18 W/m2K; party walls 0; floors 0.13 W/m2K; roofs 0.13 W/m2K; windows 1.4 W/m2K and opaque 1 W/m2K.
Achieving U-values higher than these will go against you, having a negative impact on the SAP and making it more difficult to pass.
There are a multitude of methods and construction types you can use to achieve good U-values however. Each product will differ slightly from the next, meaning that expert advice in tweaking product selections can help towards generating the best overall U-value.
There are also limitations and constraints which vary between projects. For example, lightweight aircrete blocks have improved thermal efficiency compared to a standard concrete block. However, it is not appropriate to use them for some designs due to their compressive strength.
The most important building element to focus on in achieving low U-values is the external wall element (masonry construction) as being a large exposed area it is often the cause of an SAP failure. From recent experience on projects, most contractors look to keep the overall wall thickness to 300mm, with cavities then either partially or fully filled using mineral wool or PIR insulation. A high performance full fill PIR would be sufficient to achieve a U-value of 0.18 to match the notional dwelling without requiring any internal insulation or increase in size of the cavity. (Maintaining the cavity at 100mm is desirable to avoid impacting the plot size and altering the requirement of other products, such as lintels and wall ties.) In this scenario, an aerated block would need to be used for the internal leaf; its specified thermal conductivity depending on what performance is required from the insulation in order to meet the target U-value.
This example of a U-value wall offering notional building U-value would internally comprise a 3mm plaster skim, 12.5mm plasterboard (lambda 0.21), 15mm minimum plaster dabs cavity with the following masonry, cavity insulation and external elements: - 100mm Aircrete block (lambda 0.15); 97mm Celotex CG5000 PIR insulation (lambda 0.021); 3mm cavity; medium density concrete block (lambda 0.57) and render.
In some areas, due to over exposure to driving rain, it may not be suitable to use full fill insulation, with a larger residual cavity being required to prevent moisture infiltration, plus foil backed PIR insulation which will offer high performance within the cavity. If a glass mineral wool product is used, offering much lower thermal performance than PIR insulation, the wall would need to be further insulated internally to meet the target U-value (this is also the case with full fill). To be able to achieve 0.18 W/m2K with a partially filled cavity wall, it is necessary to increase the cavity size or use insulated plasterboard on the internal wall.
This would internally comprise 3mm plaster skim, 12.5mm plasterboard and 25mm Celotex PL4000 PIR insulation (offering 0.022 U-value) plus 15mm minimum plaster dabs cavity. Masonry, cavity insulation and external elements would include: - 100mm Aircrete block (lambda 0.15); 50mm Celotex CG5000 PIR insulation (0.021); 50mm Low-E cavity; medium density concrete block (lambda 0.57) and render.
This would comprise of internally, a 3mm plaster skim plus 12.5mm plasterboard and 25mm Celotex PL4000 PIR insulation (0.022). Masonry, cavity insulation and external elements would include:- 100mm Aircrete block (lambda 0.15); 100mm Celotex CG5000 PIR insulation (0.021); 50mm Low-E cavity; medium density concrete block (lambda 0.57) and render.
If you are looking to provide U-values lower than the notional building specification for your overall construction, you need to be prepared to make improvements elsewhere further to those to external walls in order to pass the SAP calculation.
Written by: Sophie Peters, Sustainability Assessor, Darren Evans Assessments.