Of the twelve systems I upgraded yesterday from NIS v20 to NIS v21 only one prompts for the vault PW when visiting a website requiring a login. This across a diverse mix of systems (hardware, OS versions, and browsers). The one system on which it does work correctly is a Win7/32Bit and with all three of its installed browsers (IE, FF, Chrome). All remaining eleven fail this function on all three browsers. On all twelve systems this function worked as expected with their NIS v20 installations.
OK, you have me confused now.
"one prompts for the vault PW when visiting a website requiring a login." I would think that would be controlled on the Security Option Tab via the Ask for my password before filling a login or form.
Also, it appears your Vault is closed on the Yahoo mail page - so it would not autofill nor ask for a password?
FWIW, I have reported that I am not prompted to open my Local Vault when I visit community.norton.com when using Firefox.
In NIS v21 and it's NTB this option was changed to a checkbox that is now located within the vault management applet and has been renamed to "Prompt me to open my Vault".
The basic jest of all this is that on only 1 out of the 12 systems that I upgraded from v20 to v21 does the new NTB continue to prompt for the Vault PW as expected, this regardless of how the option box is set - a rather unsatisfactory failure percentage to my estimation.
FWIW, All but one of those 12 systems have now been reverted to v20 and this function is once again actually functional on those reverted systems.
Thanks Krusty for confirming that you're seeing this problem as well!
I would assume that this is in some way related to the problem.
I can confirm that Prompt me to Open Vault option does refuse to stay selected on my systems as well.
Hmm, I wonder how this correlates to all the users reporting field & login fill failures with v21?
It's as though the wrong option table (or table position) for this setting is being referenced in (some) v21 installations - as I stated before, in 11 out of 12 installations this was the primary post installation failure. It still is the primary failure on the one remaining v21 test system I have not rolled back.
I have NIS 21.1.0.18 on a 64 bit Win 8.1 machine and have the same problem. NIS will not keep the "Prompt me to open my vault" setting checked on a consistant basis. Sometimes it keeps it checked for a day or two and other times, I have to reset it.
I wanted to add to this thread so I can keep an eye on the solution.
I was rather shocked yesterday when my one test system still running on v21 actually prompted for Vault login upon visiting a regularly used website requiring login credentials. Wow I thought - Symantec must have finally fixed this bug! So I checked the setting and sure enough it was enabled.
FWIW - I, my colleagues, and our customers rely heavily on the IDSafe being both functional and usable. As it presently stands v21's IDSafe is neither. This is the primary roadblock prohibiting my allowing v21 upgrading within my company. It will stay so until such issues are addressed.
BTW, let me add some information in case tech support wants to look into this.
This is a brand new install of NIS on a brand new Asus laptop after the update to Win 8.1. That is, I updated windows and all the system drivers before installing NIS. I then installed NIS before any other software install.
Thanks for reporting the issue. We are tracking the "Prompt me to open my vault" not getting retained after reboot issue with a defect.
Apart from that, we are still not able to reproduce the other issue - open vault infobar prompt not showing up.We will update this thread incase if we are able to reproduce and if being tracked.
I will add another piece of information for the team - This problem was not manifesting (for me) in the last two beta releases prior to the final RTM version - but it has been a persistent condition in all RTM versions since then. I've now confirmed this issue as repeatable on 12 different computer systems running various versions and architectures of Windows OS and Web browsers.
Edit: BTW: In my case(s), the issue happens whenever the user logs out of their Windows account and back in - a full re-boot is not necessary for the issue to manifest.
I can confirm the safe behavior. I check the "Prompt me to open the vault" checkbox. It doesn't work when the vault is closed and I visit a website requiring login info. If I reboot, the checkbox is always cleared. Sometimes, I don't even need to reboot for the box to be cleared.
I just renewed from NIS 2014 to Norton 360 and found this behavior on the first two PC's on which I installed it.
Both PC's are Win7Pro-64. One worked properly when I first installed N360-2014 yesterday afternoon and again early last night after the second install didn't work correctly. This morning, the both have the problem. Could there have been a problem with an update yesterday?
I just checked another laptop (Win7Pro-64) that is running NIS2014 and had been working properly for weeks; it is now broken too!
I have yet to be able to solve this issue. But to add insult to injury, NIS vault no longer shows it's control bar at the top of Google Chrome. It still works in IE, but not Chrome.
I suspect at some point Google updated Chrome and not I've lost that funtionality as well.
Norton has been aware of this problem for over three months now , but has done nothing about it. .Does anyone at Norton give a **bleep**? WTF?!
Unfortunately, the 'fix' hasn't fixed anything on my machine. Chrome is now worse off with the NIS extension.
The browser has started to act erraticaly. The menus and tabs go out of view and pages have odd behaviour.
This extension does not work very well with Chrome. No problems with IE, but Chrome doesn't like it.
...which among other things stated that they had achieved some degree of resolution to their issues by using the NRnR tool, and specifically citing that "The bar to request Vault password now appears and clears properly, as well as the add new and update existing password bars."
That post got me to thinking a little more deeply about this problem. After reading it I decided to give the NRnR tool a try. Using it temporarily restored the functionality of the vault prompting function so I went in and checked the prompting setting and it too was selected. Unfortunately however after restarting the computer the prompting bar would again not display and checking the settings option for it showed that it was deselected.
Hopefully with this new information regarding using the NRnR tool someone on the Norton team will now have (what I think is) a 100% repeatable way in which to find and correct this long standing v21 bug.
Let's say that the NRnRT (and I feel pretty confident an uninstall/reinstall saving settings would also) does in fact set the Prompt Me to "on". From lack of a better term, to me it's similar to a Default Setting (something else that is missing from the V 21 ID Safe Settings), in that it is supposed to be maintained thru various actions - reboot, restart, log into Vault, log out of Vault etc. That would appear to me as something that should not change state until one physically alters the setting itself. Very simialr to being logged into your Norton Account and remaining so thur reboot/restart etc.
I'm not into programming, but it seems whatever programming is used to set and maintain all the default settings within Norton Products would be the same programming for this function and should not be really that hard for a programmer to verify??
Looks to me they got the part that sets it initially (on install) correct, and just needs to set the "retain"!
Another point is that once the restart (or Windows Account sign-out) occurs, and the settings option (in all my test cases) again de-selects, the user can try to re-select the setting (and it will show as selected) but the setting change is ignored by the NTB and upon subsequent restarts or sign-outs will switch back to show its true condition state (in my case, un-selected). I'm phrasing in this manner because there have also been reports of users encountering the exact opposite; meaning the user cannot disable the prompting feature, and attempting to alter the behavior using the setting is likewise ignored by the NTB.
I just thought that the programming team may be able to utilize the "one-shot" condition alteration that the NRnR tool apparently provides, as a troubleshooting assist - assuming of course they are still aware of the problem and are still engaged in trying to correct it.
I'll flag this for @prasanna_a for addtional comment as he already posted in this thread.
Thanks Yank! I'm very much obliged.
Re: I am still having problems with NIS and Chrome with the toolbar is not showing.
I now appear to have the full functionality of the NTB and the Vault. The tool bar responds properly to open and close with no residual page errors such as a blank space at the top of page or ghosting of the NTB space duplicating the top edge of the webpage. The bar to request Vault password now appears and clears properly, as well as the add new and update existing password bars.
On Monday, 2/4, before I shutdown at the end of day after the Google 107 update, I unistalled and reinstalled Chrome. No change.
When I came up Tues (2/5) I ran Norton's Remove and Reinstall tool, NRnR.exe. Rebooted and ran LiveUpdate, rebooted, etc. There were 5 or 6 Patches included. In the end things appeared to be working properly. However, considering the history I chose to wait another day. Well here we are and (cautiously) so far, so good.
This morning the error was encountered first as the Open Prompt bar space appearing but the top of the current page being repeated in that space. On subsequent pages it didn't appear in any form. After reading this post, I checked the vault (using the NTB to open) and the prompt was deselected. Selected and rebooted and same result 2X: deselection.
FYI, yesterday there were 2 large LiveUpdate downloads I caught. The first was 175+meg and the 2d over 350meg.
This confirms that you're experiencing the same failure (bug) that I am seeing. It also confirms that using NRnR will create a one-time restoration of the feature that's in turn ended again by power cycling the system. It's now my feeling that this bug is consistent across all installations, as it has been since the v21 RTM version was released.
FWIW, I've one laptop system that I generally just close the lid on (which sleeps the system) when I'm done using it. Unfortunately doing this hides this bug because (and unless the logout on sleep option is selected in IDSafe settings) the current vault access login state is retained through periods of non-use of the system.
As we acknowledged earlier in this thread - "Prompt me to open my vault" not getting retained after reboot issue is currently fixed in our internal builds. It should reach all our customers in the next major product update.
Note - the inline patches released for Chrome and Firefox support did not carry this fix and i clearly call out - its the next major product update.
I will also update this thread when that particular engine patch is rolled out to all users untill then we request your co-operation!
Didn't mean to beat a dead horse, just sharing from another thread. Also, the bold was just a quick way to highlight the quote since the usual gray background didn't appear. Don't think I'll use that method again.
Just to acknowledge your last.
No luck with your favorite subject!
Also if you look around the boards you'll see that there is nothing mandatory about the last update obtained via the Norton Update Center - this does not equate to a major product update. A major product update wil be pushed thru the LIveUpdate function - in order for everyone to receive it as a mandatory update.
Question on Toolbar software loading with any new version or RnR.
After the revision update, the Chrome extension is still using my unpacked Toolbar .crx instead of the new one in NIS program location.
I assume it should load from the NIS program location. Should I have deleted the unpacked .crx and all traces once used? Just how should this work?
I had held out great hopes that this long awaited version release would address and correct the "Prompt me to open my Vault" bug as promised ... Unfortunately it has not.
Although the option box now stays selected (or deselected) through a system restart (or through a Windows account logoff), with this latest v21.2.0.28 release this setting has now been rendered completely meaningless - The actual prompting behavior remains unchanged in this latest version.
In previous v21 versions the check box for this option actually made some sense because its condition setting, though uncontrollable, did track with the observed prompting behavior.
I've noticed the same in the new three-dot settings panel on the Norton Safe Search option. I do have the Safe Search enabled in the toolbar, but the setting sometimes shows it's disabled, sometimes enabled. That's with Firefox, I haven't tried with IE11 and I have dumped Chrome altogether.
Thanks for confirming that you're still seeing the same issue as well... FWIW to you, the bug remains the same regardless of which of the three different browsers and respective NTB BHO add-ins is being used -- I've confirmed this on three different systems running different OS versions and architecture (32 and 64 bit) configurations.
Thankfully, this same function continues to work flawlessly within all the previous v19 & v20 based products, meaning that periodic LiveUpdates to those products have not (as of yet) crippled the function in those products. So I'll continue to hold out hope that the programmers will eventually get it right.
Sometimes I am prompted to open the vault, sometimes not. I don't know why, maybe it depends on the mood it's in.


text:
Perfume to make world debut in Disney's Cars 2 with Polyrhythm
Japanese Electropop all girl group Perfume will be making their world debut thanks to upcoming Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios animated movie, Cars 2.
In the movie, the duo of star race car Lightning McQueen and the incomparable tow truck Mater that their friendship to exciting new places in Cars 2 when they head overseas to compete in the first-ever World Grand Prix to determine the world's fastest car.
One of these places will be Japan and as the two of them together with the Finn McMissile from the British Intelligence are scene checking out the city before the race. And in the background you can hear Perfume's Polyrhythm playing the background.
It has also been decided that the Polyrhythm will also be included in the official soundtrack for Cars 2. This will not just be a Japanese release but a worldwide one thus giving Perfume their world debut.
Polyrhythm was selected thanks to many recommendations when the Cars 2 official website announced that they were looking for a nice Japanese song for the scene. It was also reported that the producers and directors liked it as well and were delighted to find such a fitting song.
It is common to have Japanese artist provide songs for Japanese releases of movies but only a few have been included in the international release of the non-Japanese movies. It is definitely an honor for Perfume and a good chance to become known outside of Japan and overseas J-POP fans.
Source: Sanspo
Tags Cars Cars 2Lightning McQueen Disney Electropop Finn McMissile J-POP Mater perfume Pixar Pixar Animation Studios Polyrhythm Walt Disney Pictures
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Magnificent Maleficent
Angelina Jolie stars as Maleficent in this month's Maleficent, the retelling of the classic story, …

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Pressnämnden var en fristående sektion som i Sverige under andra världskriget sorterade under myndigheten Statens informationsstyrelse (SIS) som upprättats av samlingsregeringen Regeringen Hansson III. Den efterträdde Pressrådet. Pressnämnden fungerade som övervakare och granskare av den svenska pressen. Den kom med påpekanden och varningar till tidningar som överträdde gränserna.

Föregångaren Pressrådet
Pressrådet inrättades av staten i september 1939. Dagens Nyheters chefredaktör Sten Dehlgren var ordförande. Det hade sex ledamöter med representanter från fyra partipolitiska pressorganisationer och från Publicistklubben och TT.

Pressrådet utfärdade anvisningar till tidningar för att uppamma självdisciplin och självsanering. Tidningarna skulle undvika "sarkasmer och sårande utfall" samt "alla smädliga omdömen och karikatyrer" om ledande personer och de krigförande.

Hösten 1941 efterträddes Pressrådet av Pressnämnden.

Pressnämnden

Organisation och verksamhet
I Pressnämnden satt sju representanter, främst chefredaktörer, för både Sveriges Journalistförbund och Publicistklubben. Journalisternas medverkan motiverades med att det var bättre att utöva självdisciplin än att censurlagen användes. Eftersom de flesta tidningar lydde fick svenskarna censurerade nyheter och många sanningar undanhölls folket.

Nämnden delade ut varningar till tidningar. Varningarna riktades främst mot antinazistiska, socialistiska och proallierade tidningar. Flest anmärkningar fick Arbetaren, Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning, Aftonbladet och Nya Dagligt Allehanda.

Detta samtidigt som Statens informationsstyrelse, via Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå, med totalt 260 sk grå lappar meddelade media vad som fick framföras och inte.

Tjänstemännen i SIS skrev många artiklar som framhölls som föredöme för tidningarna.

Ledamöter
Ledamöter i Pressrådet eller Pressnämnden:
 Sten Dehlgren, ordförande i Pressrådet och Pressnämnden, chefredaktör för Dagens Nyheter
 Allan Vougt (från 1941), socialdemokrat och chefredaktör för tidningen Arbetet
 Gustaf Reuterswärd (från 1941), vd för Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå och vice styrelseordförande för AB Radiotjänst
 Hjalmar Berlin, huvudredaktör och utgivare av Skånska Dagbladet

Se även
 Smädelseparagrafen

Referenser

Sverige under andra världskriget
Censur i Sverige

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text:
The World According to Tony Polombo
Dying to Get Out of Prison
With the recent headline Supreme Court Rejects Death Penalty for Child Rape one of the most emotionally debated issues, the death penalty has again made it into the news and as an issue in the presidential election where somewhat surprisingly both candidates have criticized the Supreme Court's decision.
When arguing the pros and cons of the death penalty, most of us are thinking of the punishment for murder although treason or espionage is also punishable by death in the US. Perhaps the most famous historical example is the execution of The Rosenbergs in 1953 after being convicted of passing secrets on the US atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
But the question for the Supreme Court was — other than the present exceptions of treason or espionage, can the death penalty be applied for other crimes when the victim did not die? The controversial decision by a narrow 5-4 margin was "no". Those in favor of the death penalty for child rape say that although the child is not killed, he or she suffers severe emotional damage for life which is almost as bad and which deserves a similar punishment to murder. Those on the other side feel that the death penalty is questionable enough for murder so expanding it to other crimes, no matter how reprehensible, is inappropriate.
As for me, I have been in favor of the death penalty for especially heinous crimes. From just an emotional standpoint, most of us would feel that no less than death would be appropriate for somebody like Timothy McVeigh who was convicted of the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. What if we had captured Adolph Hitler alive or what if we capture and convict Osama bin Laden? In these admittedly extreme examples, I believe that most people would agree that any punishment less than death would be absurd.
But the unmistakable trend around the world is that with the notable exceptions of China and Iran, capital punishment is becoming less and less used. Many opponents feel it is barbaric; some feel that life imprisonment is a sufficient enough punishment without having to resort to the taking of lives — especially if there is no chance of parole. One of the arguments in favor of the death penalty was that life imprisonment wasn't really for life. Looking at how it is applied around the world life imprisonment often means that the prisoner will eventually be paroled with good behavior. This is why as an alternative to the death penalty, some of the most evil criminals have been sentenced to multiple consecutive life terms to make sure parole will never happen.
But here in the US, the option of life imprisonment without possibility of parole has been advocated as a more civilized alternative to the death penalty. While some may feel that a murderer is getting off too easy by not being executed, it is worth noting that more than a few convicted murderers made the choice to demand that their legal teams stop fighting for their lives and allow their executions. Apparently they felt that that they would rather die now than endure the possibly many years until their natural deaths in prison. Even if one believes that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder (which is questionable in many people's view), it would be most difficult in my view to make a persuasive argument that life imprisonment without parole would be any less of a deterrent.
One of the possibly persuasive arguments for the death penalty is the leverage it may give the prosecution for plea bargains. In exchange for the death penalty being dropped, a defendant may plead guilty and/or perhaps aid in the successful prosecution of others who may have been involved in the crime. But an equally effective deal in the absence of the death penalty may be the offering of the possibility of parole as part of a life sentence in exchange for cooperation.
But on the other hand, the prosecution in the infamous O.J. Simpson trial for double murder made the decision that getting a conviction of the celebrity ex football star would be more difficult if the death penalty was a possibility. So they announced up front that they would not seek the death penalty despite the especially grisly nature of these murders. The O.J. trial and its subsequent acquittal have given tremendous ammunition to those who have argued that the death penalty as applied is unfair because people with more financial resources can hire better legal representation and thus fare a lot better in the courts than those of more modest means.
Politicians who underestimate how emotional this issue is with so many voters do so at their own peril. And probably none more than Michael Dukakis who in a 1988 presidential TV debate when questioned whether he would want the death penalty if someone had raped and killed his wife. Rather than admitting what most of us would be feeling in that situation which is that we would not only want that person put to death but we would want to do the job ourselves if we could — he just replied in a strangely emotionless response that since he was against the death penalty, the answer would be no.
It is widely believed that this response alone greatly contributed to his defeat. But besides being what was arguably an unfair question, it overlooks a fundamental principle that the only chance for justice to be fair is when it is administered by people who do not have any previous connection — emotional or otherwise — to those brought to trial. After all, Lady Justice is normally depicted as wearing a blindfold. But when the death penalty is imposed with the aim of 'closure' for the victim's family, as much as we grieve for them, isn't that just an indirect way of violating this same principle?
You will never see me at any of those candlelight demonstrations all too common outside the prisons where an execution is taking place. But I very much feel that we here in the US need to do what those in so many countries around the world have already done — which is to at least seriously question whether the death penalty is really worth all of the baggage it brings.
Posted by Tony Polombo at 8:40 AM No comments: Links to this post
Choosing Our Words With Respect
In the last month, Johnny Miller, Don Imus, and Dick Cheney all made the news for what were considered by many to be either racially or ethnically insensitive remarks. How each of them was handled by the media and the general public says a lot about us.
When I heard Johnny Miller's remarks about runner-up Rocco Mediate during the recent US Open golf telecast saying that Mediate "looks like the guy who cleans (Tiger Woods') swimming pool." and also saying that, "Guys with the name 'Rocco' don't get on the trophy, do they?" I can honestly say that I didn't get worked up at all even being of Italian descent but figured sooner or later, he was going to have to apologize — which he did.
Since Miller's apology said that the remarks about somebody named 'Rocco' were not ethnic in nature, I will give him the benefit of the doubt. But even if the remark was only in reference to his unique name, he overlooked the fact that someone with the name 'Tiger' has his name on the trophy along with a fellow born with the name Eugenio Saracini who by the way, also won a few other golf tournaments — The Masters, British Open and PGA Championship.
And while I in no way want to see anything happen to Miller for those remarks, I can't help but think that if he were to have said something insensitive about Tiger or any other person of color, he would likely have been fired on the spot instead of just having to give an apology. Which reminds me of happy-go-lucky golfing jokester Fuzzy Zoeller who during a 1997 interview at The Masters, passed along some tongue-in-cheek advice for the next year's Champion's Dinner that Tiger Woods "..not..serve fried chicken next year..or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve." Being self-employed, he couldn't get fired. But he did lose his two major endorsement deals that generated a great deal of his income.
As for Don Imus, he did eventually lose his job last year over his racial comments on the Rutgers women's basketball team and is in hot water again for what are perceived as racial comments on football player Adam "Pac-Man" Jones. How this will turn out is still up in the air as of this posting, but Al Sharpton is again lurking in the background deciding whether to again mount a campaign to get Imus fired.
Dick Cheney also made a comment early this month saying "So we had Cheneys on both sides of the family — and we don't even live in West Virginia." But Cheney's insult inferring that a group of people practices incest apparently didn't even rate an apology.
Is there something wrong with this picture? I think so.
While political correctness can be maddening enough to many of us, the dramatic inconsistencies in the way it is applied makes it even worse. So what causes these admitted double standards? In my view, it comes down to who we or the media fear reprisal from the most. Nowadays, a number of groups have the ability to cause serious havoc by way of demonstrations and boycotting. For someone offending blacks, there are publicity hounds Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, along with the NAACP and others to raise hell and get negative attention for the object of their wrath. For those who practice sexism, there are enough feminist groups to go around there too. And so on for other groups. Making fun of Italians might have gotten NBC into enough hot water to at least make them want to offer an apology just in case which is what of course Johnny Miller did.
But when it comes to people like rural Americans or yes, even swimming pool cleaners who don't have a publicly active group to support them, insensitivity to them seems to become a non-issue. This is why our outrage over issues like discrimination seems so terribly selective. For example, if someone from a protected minority suffers discrimination in the workplace, laws along with a group representing the minority affected are in place to try and protect this person. But if someone else in the workplace is suffering from workplace discrimination for reasons not having to do with being a protected minority, nobody really cares.
I have a simple but admittedly idealistic solution to all of this. Maybe, just maybe, we should all try to adopt the attitude that each of us has worth as a human being that is no better or worse than anybody else. OK, people like Saddam Hussein and Adolph Hitler make this a stretch but stay with me on this one. I'm not just talking about people of different races and ethnic backgrounds but also where they are on the social/economic ladder. Yes, we can respect great golfers like Tiger Woods while recognizing that the world also needs people to do the less glamorous but still necessary jobs like cleaning his pool. Human nature being what it is, we will still have the need to occasionally criticize or poke fun at one another. But if we would all make more of an effort to choose our electronically sent words to be the same ones we would use if speaking to that person face-to-face, we would all be a hell of a lot better off!
The Day The Levees Died
Who can forget Don McLean's classic American Pie? And that catchy refrain that went...
So, Bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee
But the levee was dry
Were you one of those who asked, "What's a levee?" I know I was. But now, because of Katrina and New Orleans and now the terrible flooding of communities along the Mississippi, we know all too well about this word that is again in the news.
In the case of New Orleans, so much of our focus and outrage was on the rescue effort (or lack of it) along with the rebuilding (or again the lack of it). But while helping people in an emergency should obviously be our first priority, there are a couple of vital questions that become overshadowed. Could we have prevented these tragedies? and How can we prevent them from happening again?
In my view, there are two main reasons that these two questions are often put on the back burner. One is that it's all too easy to say that these were natural disasters and you can't fight Mother Nature. The other reason is that talking about the infrastructure just isn't sexy enough for most people to care. If say, a year ago, someone were to suggest that we put more time and money into repairing our bridges before they start to collapse and kill people, it would get little more than a yawn. That is until the bridge disaster last year in Minneapolis finally made infrastructure a presidential campaign talking point — at least for a while.
As for the vital questions pertaining to New Orleans, Senate Committee Hearings have determined that the Army Corps of Engineers' flawed design of the levees greatly contributed to the disaster. And to add insult to injury, there are serious questions about whether there are design flaws in the replacement levees.
Although the flooding on the Mississippi is an ongoing story at the time of this posting, CNN's Drew Griffin presented a most interesting report that questions whether the levees built to control the Mississippi are actually causing worse flooding. According to the report, East St. Louis, IL will not likely have to face the worst of the flooding because so many levees have failed upstream thus relieving the force of the river on levees for those communities downstream. This directly questions the design soundness of the system of levees on the Mississippi since if the levees upstream had held, the communities downstream would be in more jeopardy of having their levees fail instead!
This begs the question of whether it is a sound practice to develop and live in lands that are so prone to flooding. It's easy to dismiss this all by saying that if people are foolish enough to live in these areas, they deserve what they get. But I think that greatly oversimplifies the problem. No matter what ones political persuasion is, I think most of us can agree that it is a legitimate function of the federal government (in this case, the U.S. Corps of Engineers) to design and maintain these levees for the protection of its citizens. Therefore, it makes sense that we should be able to rely on the people designing and maintaining these levees to help decide where it is safe to live.
Reclaiming land from the rivers or seas isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Netherlands has done this for centuries. But the big difference is that having made a choice to do this, they have committed themselves to doing it right by not skimping on money or engineering as in their Delta Works flood protection system. After all, people's lives hang in the balance!
Why can't we here in the US see this in the same way? If it is determined that a system of levees to reliably protect an area is either impossible or impractical, we should just admit it and relocate the affected people to safer areas. But if we determine that properly designed levees will indeed work, then we owe it to the people we are protecting to do the job right without trying to cut corners.
Right now, we are in no-man's land where we are doing little more than a half-hearted effort whose priority appears to be more about trying to save money than protecting lives and property. For example, it only makes sense to rebuild the levees in New Orleans to withstand a Category 5 hurricane to protect it against future storms like Katrina as advocated in this link. Instead the argument has been raised that we cannot afford to strengthen the levees beyond a Category 3. This is even more wrong if you accept the judgment of climatologists who are predicting the occurrence of more strong storms in the future due to climate changes from the warming of our atmosphere.
Few of us want to see government programs come back that are as extensive as the WPA or CCC which were part of FDR's New Deal to fight the Great Depression. But for a country that is now going through tough economic times, investing in the infrastructure would not only create jobs but leave us and future generations (the ones who will be stuck with the bill for our deficit spending) with something worthwhile in the form of improved and safer levees, bridges and the like. If nothing else, it's sure as hell a better way to get something of lasting value out of our tax dollars than spending it on wars or even those economic stimulus checks!
Why I'm Not Sure
I have been spending my Mondays at Priority Two a faith-based organization that provides valuable support and skills for those of us in the Pittsburgh area who are "between jobs". Our leader normally starts our sessions by leading us in prayer but this time, he unexpectedly asked if I wanted to do the prayer. As one who only attends church for weddings and funerals, I felt most uncomfortable doing this especially with the number of others in our group who have openly shared their strong faith.
"I'm not qualified to do this." I said sheepishly. "Are you a heathen?" he asked. "No, but sometimes I'm not sure."
I felt bad afterwards. Maybe it wasn't the time or place to talk about this but I was just sharing my honest feelings. But when you think about it, how many of us are really sure about the existence of God? After all, it is about faith which is defined in the dictionary as "belief in, devotion to, or trust in somebody or something, especially without logical proof" Especially for those of us whose science education demands that we insist on proof before accepting something as truth, this can present problems.
For those of us who have never experienced a direct revelation of God, all we can do is study and follow the revelations of others through scripture to help us try and find our way. But even this presents problems because of inconsistent revelations that can not only be inconsistent but mutually exclusive. If God is really there and wants us to know him, why does he throw us off the trail like this?
I really believe that a lot more people question their faith at least on occasion more than they let on. And believe it or not, even those in theology can question their faith as in this wonderful article I would like to share with you. Windmills - To know faith is to ask questions
One of the occupational hazards of advanced work in religion is the nagging doubt that one is chasing a chimera. Years of focusing on texts, apologetics, history and cultural studies leaves one parsed, deconstructed and problematized to such an extent that one wonders if the natural by-product of all this study is not a deeper emotional attachment but rather an abject poverty of attachment: One wonders if indeed there is even anything at all to this God business.
Especially since the author was kind enough to provide an E-mail contact, I was moved to send her the following E-mail:
Dear Sandra,
I have often wondered how people who have done extensive study in religion deal with it regarding their own faith. Thank you for writing this fascinating article to help give us some insights on all of this.
My question to you concerns the directly conflicting doctrine of different faiths, specifically Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. On many issues, not the least of which is the divinity of Jesus, at least one of the faiths MUST be wrong. How does someone who is a devout Christian believing in the New Testament for example, reconcile this with the teachings of the Quran which are often directly contradictory to Christianity but also devoutly followed by many others? It would be easy to just say that the other guys are just mistaken, but that is not a satisfying answer.
A more specific example applies to wine. Going back to ancient times, it has been an integral part of Jewish laws and traditions along with later becoming a central focus of the Roman Catholic Mass. But when the Quran was later revealed to Mohammed to correct the supposedly distorted revelations of the Old and New Testaments, alcohol was then declared to be taboo. Huh??
Can you please give me some insight on how somebody who wants to be a believer can try to reconcile all of this?
Tony Polombo
Delmont, PA
Often times when writing E-mails like this to article writers, I get no answer. Perhaps the crush of incoming E-mails from all over in response to their articles is too much to deal with. But it wasn't long before I received the following incredibly thoughtful and beautiful response:
From: s collins
To: Tony Polombo
Subject: Re: Windmills - a much longer answer than you probably wanted!
Mr. Polombo,
First, thank you for your kind letter. It's always good to know that one is read!
Secondly, well, I'll do the best I can with your concerns. But this is one of the vexing questions of religious orthodoxy and a response from the academy rather than the pulpit might not be terribly satisfying.
How does one reconcile the claims of one monotheistic tradition against another? Who is right or who has the truth? On the surface, those who study religions don't deal in truth claims since all religions claim to have access to Truth (capitalization intentional). Some are more ardent in discounting the claims of others, some are not. For example, Buddhism isn't terribly interested in weighing their truth-claims against Christianity or Judaism. Christianity, for its part, makes very sincere claims about Jesus as the way, the truth and the light and therefore, is at pains to show the error of those paths that fail to privilege Jesus as lord and savior. But those who study religions, whether they believe one particular religion or not, have to give due consideration to each without deciding the relative merits or truth of one over the other. Therefore, questions of truth or the wrongness of any particular tradition really don't have much bearing.
For clergy, obviously, their task is different: they are religious professionals, called to a particular religious expression. If they did not accept and believe in the absolute merits of their particular religion, how could they possibly be taken seriously as clergy? They must, as a matter of course, accept the Truth of their tradition to have any success at all in their call. Whether they feel their job is simply to celebrate their particular religious tradition or to denigrate all others in order to build up their own – well, that's a matter of each person's call, is it not?
What religious scholars are interested in is showing the ways in which each tradition values and talks about God or the divine or transcendence and how each deals with things like life and death, good and evil, happiness and suffering.
Anyways, let me leave this overly-long response with a quote from the Dalai Lama. He is responding to your question: what to do with competing claims from so many religions. Basically, he says the following:
Human beings naturally possess different interests. So, it is not surprising that we have many different religious traditions with different ways of thinking and behaving. But this variety is a way for everyone to be happy. If we have a great variety of food, we will be able to satisfy different tastes and needs. When we only have bread, the people who eat rice are left out. And the reason those people eat rice is that rice is what grows best where they live.
The idea is this: God speaks to God's people in ways in which they can best hear Him. The Israelites in the Old Testament heard God's voice through Moses and the prophets. For the New Testament community and beyond, God's message came through Jesus and the apostles' writings. This isn't relativizing God; it's saying God is free to communicate with God's people—all of God's people—as God sees fit, not according to our standards. Your job, according to this sort of thinking, is to be the very best Christian (or Jew or Muslim) you possibly can be. Do the things that Christianity calls you to. The Dalai Lama seems to be saying that God grows best where He finds a good home and if you are a Christian, then be the very best Christian you can be and don't concern yourself about whether Buddhists or Muslims are right or wrong. Concern yourself with your relationship with God. If we are God's temple, then the task is to create the best home you know how, with the information that you have been given. And what is that information? According to Christ, it's love the Lord thy God and love thy neighbor as thyself, because everything else depends upon these (Matt.22.36-40).
~sandee collins
So where to go from here?
One devoutly faithful friend of mine with whom I shared this E-mail exchange said like in the Nike commercials – JUST DO IT! and don't worry about which religion is right. Others feel that since we will never know for sure about God during this life that they should put their energies elsewhere. As for me, I plan to do what I can to find God through prayer and living life as the best person I can be. And hopefully, I will find Him someday — preferably before I leave this world!
Posted by Tony Polombo at 4:30 PM No comments: Links to this post
Why Not Medicare for Everybody?
Just recently, I was invited to attend a presentation on single-payer health insurance, a system that Medicare is based on to insure citizens who are 65 and older in the US. What it lacked in balance, it sure made up in passionate belief from the presenters and audience for the need for single-payer insurance.
Only a few miles away, I attended another meeting last summer. But this time it was a Town Meeting to meet and ask questions of US Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican representing my home state of Pennsylvania. There too, a number of passionate people asked questions of the Senator on when we can expect help from the government to address what is rapidly becoming a health care crisis in America. While he said that something needed to be done, he firmly declared that the government shouldn't be getting involved in health insurance — which immediately got a huge ovation from much of the crowd. Many of those clapping were surely over 65 and thus getting their health insurance from the government through Medicare. Did the irony of this dawn on any of these people, I wondered?
Of all the issues facing us this election year, it's hard to imagine one that directly affects so many people in the US in such a profound way. Most of know about the roughly 47 million without health insurance and the countless millions more who are underinsured. But what the two examples above show is that this is an issue that is often driven far more by political ideology than the search for real solutions.
So maybe we should just strip the BS away and just look at what doesn't work and what does. Then we can try to solve the problem by getting rid of what doesn't work and adding more of what does. Are you with me? Let's go!
Relying on employers as the basic source of health insurance It works if you can get (and keep) a job at a large company that offers health insurance. But even some large companies only offer health insurance for full-time employees while making sure to keep as many employees as possible at part-time hours. What about those at smaller companies where decent health insurance can be too expensive to offer while at the same time trying to stay competitive? Sometimes companies make the decision on whether to hire American workers and also pick up the tab for health insurance or locate factories out of the country without this worry. And we all know where this has gone lately. What about people who have lost their jobs through illness or otherwise? What about people who want to become entrepreneurs and start their own businesses but cannot because of the cost of health insurance for themselves and possibly their employees? This is especially unfortunate because small businesses generate many of our new jobs.
High-deductible health insurance policies It may sound appealing to some, but it is a phony solution at best. Most of those who need to buy this type of insurance are economically struggling to begin with. So they will likely forgo the preventative care that is not covered and if they have to go to the hospital may well be stuck with a bill that is large enough to cause serious hardship if not bankruptcy. What's the point of insurance if it doesn't protect against financial hardship or catastrophe?
Having to buy health insurance directly from insurance companies Some Republican presidential candidates have said that it might be a good idea if we would all do this. For those of us who have been there, it is a plain case of the need to be careful of what you wish for. An individual compared to a large company has almost no bargaining power with insurance companies. And it shows in the often unaffordable premiums that drive many into the ranks of the uninsured. While insurers may be glad to compete for healthy people to insure, those with "pre-existing conditions" often cannot get health insurance at any price, let alone a reasonable one.
What Does Work
Medicare Like any program, it has its problems but overall it does work. I don't know about you, but I haven't heard any complaints from senior citizens that they should have the right to buy their own health insurance instead of having to rely on the government. But what is remarkable is how well Medicare works considering that everybody in the program is 65 and older bringing along all of the health issues associated with that age group. If Medicare works for a group like this, wouldn't it work at least as well if everybody else including all of the younger and healthier people were included? This works in Canada. Other similar systems work throughout the world. So why not Medicare for everybody here in the US?
Both John McCain's Healthcare Plan and Barack Obama's Healthcare Plan attempt to address the What Doesn't Work issues by trying to either force or persuade the health insurance companies to offer competitively priced and affordable health insurance to everybody without regard to those pesky "pre-existing conditions" getting in the way. Would either be successful? This would require the insurance companies to completely change the ways they do business that have resulted in their handsome profits. Can you see that happening? I know I can't.
So looking at What Does Work, why not expand Medicare to include everybody? A bill in the US House of Representatives, H.R. 676 asks just that! Most Republicans oppose this for ideological reasons like "Socialized Medicine" and "More Big Government". But even some Democrats are reluctant to support this bill not necessarily on its merits but the fear of being labeled "Too Liberal". Indeed, only Dennis Kucinich of the Democratic presidential candidates supported this bill. But at this writing, the bill has 90 co-sponsors in the House so the last word on this has yet to be spoken. For those who are interested, an in-depth FAQ on single-payer health insurance that addresses some of the questions and concerns is in this link.
For those who haven't seen it, the Michael Moore movie Sicko now available on DVD would be a real eye-opener to the suffering (and sometimes needless death) caused by our present health care system. While Moore has a well-deserved reputation as a liberal agitator from his previous movies, I urge those of you who haven't to at least consider giving this surprisingly apolitical movie a look. And for those who have seen the movie, the 90 minutes of DVD extras are also quite thought provoking.
In closing, I hope you will take the time to become more informed about this vital but complex issue. It has been estimated that nearly 18,000 die annually in the US for lack of health insurance. So for some people, maybe even you or a loved one, it could someday literally mean the difference between life and death! Just something to think about.
Posted by Tony Polombo at 11:38 AM 1 comment: Links to this post
The Speed Trap Industry
Sometimes you get involved in an issue looking from the outside. In this case I became a part of one through no choice of my own. While driving on a stretch of 4-lane divided highway I had driven hundreds of times before, a policeman pulled out behind me flashing his lights. Like every other time before, I was going at about the same speed as everybody all around me on a busy road so I figured he was just going after somebody else who may have been driving faster up ahead. But when I slowed down to let him pass it was apparent that I was the one he was after.
"Do you know why I pulled you over?" he said. After replying "No" he informed me that I was driving 52 in a 40mph zone. Although I was emotionally stunned, our conversation was cordial. I remarked that if he was pulling people over for stuff like this, he could literally write tickets continuously all day long if he wanted to. He said that he would be returning to his outpost to write more tickets and that he was doing this as special overtime duty funded by the Pa. Department of Transportation (PennDOT). After handing me the ticket, he then suggested that if I had the time, I should ask for a hearing which would likely get me a lesser fine and maybe the points dropped.
Later after looking at the ticket, I saw the words "Smooth Operator" at the bottom. What did that mean? One of my neighbors who is a retired policeman then told me that this is a state funded program to combat aggressive driving. A look through some search engines gave me this article.
13 county officers recognized for curbing aggressive drivers
This strongly suggested that my speeding ticket was not just an isolated incident but part of a coordinated effort to rack up a wholesale number of traffic tickets throughout the area. At this point, it was no longer an issue of 'my' ticket but a question of whether lots of people were being ripped-off by this program that was allegedly there to promote safety. Somebody had to speak up and ask the tough questions. It might as well be me! So I wrote to Joe Grata, the longtime Transportation Editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to get his thoughts on all of this. He later called to tell me that he would be running an article incorporating my comments and concerns. The next day, this appeared in the Post-Gazette.
Police crackdown snares thousands of 'aggressive' drivers
In nearly 40 years of driving, Tony Polombo of Delmont has gotten two speeding tickets, the latest for traveling 52 mph in a 40 mph zone on divided, four-lane Route 22 through Murrysville.
A police officer working overtime stopped him as part of the state's 2-year-old "Smooth Operator" program intended to target aggressive driving.
Mr. Polombo wasn't pleased.
"Aggressive driving is normally boorish behavior where a driver is going much faster than others, maybe tailgating, maybe constantly changing lanes," he argued. "We all would like to see this kind of behavior ticketed. But driving above the speed limit, no matter how safely or courteously, is being enforced as aggressive driving."
Some folks like Fred Honsberger who read this article on his KDKA Radio show that day admonished me by name saying that "You shouldn't do the crime if you can't do the time". But a number of other people felt differently as in this response in one of Mr. Grata's later columns.
Speeding response. The federally funded, state-sponsored program that targets aggressive driving and resulted in 3,370 citations April 6-20 in Allegheny, Beaver and Lawrence counties did not sit well with lots of people, including Doug Ament.
"Smooth Operator does not make me feel any safer," he e-mailed. "The feds bribe cops with overtime pay so they can send them out to write thousands of questionable tickets. I live in Murrysville and 52 mph is not aggressive or dangerous for that road," a reference to Export [sic] resident Tony Polombo, who was ticketed on Route 22 in Murrysville for driving at that speed during the crackdown.
Mr. Ament said time and money would be better spent on traffic safety by enforcing violations such as failing to yield at merge points or engaging in such practices as weaving, tailgating and running yellow lights.
"That I would like to see!" he said.
So am I against speed enforcement? No. Some people do drive in a way that makes them a threat to the safety of themselves and others on the road. I along with everybody else want safe roads. The problem is that under our present system, it is too easy for speed enforcement to become much more of an abusive revenue generating device instead of one that is there to promote safety.
The idea of imposing fines is to punish the person who committed the infraction. But when the people administering the fines are financially benefiting from them, it's only a matter of time before human nature takes over and people begin to take advantage of this situation.
So who is financially benefiting from a program like Smooth Operator? In addition to the usual suspects like the local municipalities and the auto insurance companies (through surcharges), in this program the policemen themselves get overtime pay for not only writing the tickets but appearing at the hearings. Suppose we were to find out after the fact that a referee at a sporting event was not only getting a salary but also a bonus based on the number of fouls or penalties given out? Since this would distort the officiating and thus the integrity of the game, nobody would stand for this but when it comes to programs like this, why should we not question its integrity also?
But it is easy to dismiss all of this by saying that people wouldn't get speeding tickets if they didn't speed. While this has some truth, it overlooks the other part of the problem which is the unrealistically low speed limits that appear in all too many places which provide abundant opportunities for speeding ticket revenue.
So what is a realistic speed limit? Although most people are unaware of it, traffic engineers who set speed limits go by a fundamental principle that a great majority of drivers (about 85%) will drive a stretch of road at a sensible speed that combines safety and efficiency.
See the following PDF link. How are speed limits set?
When speed limits for a road are determined by traffic engineering studies, at least 85% of the drivers will be in compliance. Those who drive at a speed that is unsafe for the road are at risk for getting a ticket – as they should be. But unfortunately, many needlessly low speed limits are posted for arbitrary and sometimes political reasons. When this happens, many or most drivers are now non-compliant. So now even perfectly safe drivers are at risk for getting tickets if somebody decides to take advantage of this situation to raise revenue.
Shouldn't we change the laws we don't like instead of just ignoring them? In a law-abiding society, the answer is yes. Enough people decided that the national 55 mph law was an idea whose time was past. And since Congress passed this law to begin with, it was simply a matter of working with Congress the repeal it.
But speed limits are many times a decision of individual communities. These communities enforce the laws and run the traffic courts. According to most sources, about 97% of speeding tickets are not contested. Undoubtedly, many of these are innocent people who feel that the fix is in and resisting is hopeless. So what are the realistic chances of getting a traffic law changed, especially in a community you do not live in? And what if that community is taking advantage of low speed limits to help fund its budget instead of the more painful alternative of raising taxes? Good luck!
So if there is any attempt to change the law that has a chance to be effective, it would likely have to be at the state level. If the state government could require local communities to re-post speed limits on their major thoroughfares based on traffic engineering studies instead of arbitrary and political motives, this would be tremendously helpful in returning the purpose of speed enforcement to being about safety. Even communities that continue to try and raise revenues through speed traps will have a tougher time with more reasonable speed limits in place.
But in addition, we should encourage state governments to take the profit motive out of local speed enforcement by having them forward their proceeds to the state treasury. If a community still needs to devote some of its time and resources to traffic enforcement, it can be done on its own merits instead of the money it brings in.
I first read about speed traps being described as an "industry" in one of the car magazines many years ago. And while this view may well be on the money, their credibility on this issue has always been on shaky ground. After all, is their love of performance automobiles consistent with a desire to drive at law-abiding speeds?
But even so, I feel that the word "industry" may be too kind. It implies something that makes money by providing products people want to buy. This is different. Programs like Smooth Operator makes money by confiscating it from its citizens in what amounts to little more than a legalized shakedown scheme. But what's worst of all is that some of the people we are paying to protect and govern us are in on it! This is what more people need to be outraged about! We deserve better! But only if more people care enough to speak up and ask the tough questions of those who govern us!!
Posted by Tony Polombo at 2:10 PM 1 comment: Links to this post
Cooking - A Basic Repertoire by Tony Polombo
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text:
Pakistan's Ruling Party Choose Shahbaz Sharif as Candidate for Premiership in 2018 Elections
Lahore, Pakistan 21 Dec 2017 (The News, Pakistan)
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Nawaz Sharif has nominated his brother Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif as the candidate for the prime minister in the next elections.
Nawaz announced this decision after a meeting of PML-N bigwigs at his Jati Umra residence. According to sources present in the meeting, Nawaz praised the chief minister for his hard-working nature and devotion to public service.
"Shahbaz has always worked to further the party policies for public welfare and this unflagging attitude earned him the opportunity to be trusted for a higher office. We are a democratic political party where everyone is free to voice their mind. Shahbaz has had difference of opinion over some issues yet his commitment to the party overrules all else, which is why he has never violated the party discipline," said the former prime minister.
He lauded Shahbaz's vision of swift progress and development and the success he has achieved as chief minister and said there was no harm in consultation and/or agreement with the younger brother. "Shahbaz Sharif has never disappointed me," said the PML-N president.
Putting his foot down regarding the party discipline, Nawaz said those who claimed to be in the PML-N should stand by the party and the party's stance in testing times instead of creating and fanning discord.
"Such behaviour will not be tolerated," he warned and added that the dissenting statements were not being appreciated in the party. Nawaz warned that the orchestrators of the religious sit-in would [inevitably] understand the dangerous long-term consequences of this action. Talking about the future, he said the election campaign and movement for non-partisan across-the-board justice and supremacy of civilians in democracy would be run jointly.
"These two principles of civilian supremacy in democracy and sanctity of vote will be the slogans for the 2018 election campaign," he made it clear. The announcement has huge implications. At the one end, it announces a truce between the two brothers over the disagreements that had been widely reported by the media. The statements given by Maryam Nawaz, Shahbaz and Hamza Shahbaz after several meetings too hinted that both sides were trying to convince each other to adopt their stance.
Nawaz's decision on not nominating Shahbaz as the party head after his disqualification was also seen by some an outcome of the rift and the resultant distrust between the two. This announcement could very well be seen as an announcement of an end to that friction.
December 21, 2017 / Current Affairs


The Numbers for the coming month are a peek into the vibrations of 2019. This is a time for preparation, for trial runs, colouring outside conventions, and building prototypes.
As we conclude the Two energy of 2018, we can no doubt identify the changes in relationships that have occurred in our homes, offices, towns and the international community. The way we relate to others, and the others to whom we relate, are very different now than they were a year ago.
The Numbers for November 2018 are profound. There is a strong karmic influence all around, and it will have an impact on all our relationships in every part of life.
Some people may arrive, others may depart, and still others might remain while shifting their role in our life. None of this is by chance or without meaning. These people are fulfilling the contracts they have made with you – just as you are meeting the obligations you made to them.
The store displays are already filling with the October accessories for Hallowe'en, and in some cases even with Christmas supplies. Getting caught up in the excitement and planning for these festivals can divert us from living each day to the fullest. It is not difficult to stay connected to the richness of the Here and Now when we put a plan in place: a daily meditation or mindfulness practice can keep us from being swept up in mindless activity.
September 2018 brings amplification of the Personal Year energy that is with you. Whatever your year-so-far has been asking you to process, and whatever steps you are being asked to take, circumstances will redouble their efforts this month.
August 2018 brings a Numerological new beginning. No matter where you are, you can still grab at new ideas, explore how concepts can be expanded in new ways.
Innovate! Originate! Ready ... Set ... Go!
My July begins with Canadian celebrations of Canada Day and Newfoundland and Labrador marking the anniversary of the 1916 Battle of Beaumont Hamel.
As this Two Year ** continues, July brings Cosmic energies that will help us conclude some of the work that is underway.
For some, that may mean completion of long-term commitments, for others it may be a time of realizing that they are heading in the wrong direction, and need to re-think and re-evaluate their plans.
This month, I am watching the calendar change from the West coast, where I am visiting in Nanaimo BC.
The air is filled with the salt-scent of the sea, and a surprisingly rainless month of May has left many of the lawns and grasses yellow and dry.
April sunsets are a little later, here at the edge of Gatineau Park. The ground is a little softer, and people aresaying that they believe in Spring.
In this year of Two Energy**, March will provide opportunities for personal growth. We will be able to 'start over' if we're feeling false starts have taken us off course.
Modern Groundhog Day and the Christian celebration of Candlemass occur on the 2nd of February which is the ancient festival of Imbolc, (pronounced I'molg).
The day is important because it lies at the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, a time when the days are still short, even though they are lengthening.
When the numbers on the calendar change, the cosmic frequencies carried by number change as well.
The shift from a Seven to an Eight in the digits of year moves us past the obstacles that a Seven can carry, and allows us to more easily access the connexions that are supported by the Eight.


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How To Secure The Internet: Troy Hunt Talks Breaches, Passwords And IoT
Kate O'Flaherty Senior Contributor
I'm a cybersecurity journalist.
Troy Hunt's HaveIBeenPwned has become a phenomenal success.
Troy Hunt
Troy Hunt is busy. He's been travelling across the world giving talks about security, and his much loved and lauded website HaveIBeenPwned went up for sale in June. But that's not before the site–which gives users the chance to see if their emails and passwords have been compromised–had been baked into services such as Firefox and 1Password.
The acquisition is in its final stages, says Hunt. But he concedes that "it's just a huge amount of effort for one person: Even the acquisition itself."
To be fair to him, Hunt has done pretty well as one person. HIBP, as it has affectionately become known, has been a phenomenal success. As well as educating users on the importance of strong passwords, it's raised awareness of credential stuffing–where attackers will throw people's credentials at a number of big services in the hope that the victim has reused their passwords.
It's due to this that Hunt could even be credited with improving the security of the web. "The success of HaveIBeenPwned largely speaks for itself: It's a globally recognized tool adopted by millions of individuals, and it's helped companies and individuals take an interest in their own online security posture," says security researcher Mike Thompson.
But despite the impending sale of HIBP, Hunt's work is certainly not over.
Tackling cybersecurity issues, one at a time
On December 7 at 3 p.m. ET (8 p.m. GMT), Hunt will take part in a virtual conference organized by security researcher group The Beer Farmers, called Beer Con One. The 24-hour event will see Hunt and other guests reflecting back on 2019 as well as the industry as a whole to raise money for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Mental Health Hackers.
As part of this, he'll talk about one major attack vector that remains an issue: the so-called internet of things (IoT). Among the issues in IoT is the fact that product vendors so regularly fail to build in security from the start. Worse, when notified of a problem, vendors often fail to fix it.
Hunt cites the example of one of the biggest IoT issues this year: location tracking on children's smartwatches. "I bought my daughter one of these and found how she could be tracked," he says, explaining how he worked with security researcher Ken Munro at Pen Test Partners to solve the issue. "He handled it so eloquently, but the vendor responded so badly. The PR made it out to be two hackers out to make money."
Another talking point that has dominated 2019 is data security and privacy practices of big tech companies such as Google and Facebook. So, as a security researcher who sees a lot of the issues firsthand, has Hunt deleted Facebook yet?
"I think the privacy thing around this is fascinating," Hunt says. "I haven't deleted Facebook as my friends are on there. I use Google because it's the best search engine, but it's really interesting to see the challenges they have. They are told by authorities that they need to retain data for terrorism–and then people want privacy."
Troy Hunt on the worst breaches of 2019
There have been multiple breaches this year, so which were the worst? Hunt says one breach that affected him "due to the scars it left" was a "zoophilia and bestiality" site called Zooville. "A vulnerability meant you could personally identify individuals. There were user names, email addresses, and IP addresses."
Before he even started, Hunt had some rather unexpected investigations to make. "I had to work out: Is this legal? Different aspects of it are legal in different places. There was a little bit of me that was fascinated by how weird it was."
One of the biggest breaches of the year took place at the start of 2019. Revealed in January, Collection #1, saw more than a billion unique email address and password combinations posted to a hacking forum for anyone to see.
This mega-breach containing several data sets from different sources was first revealed by Hunt, and he says it was actually the catalyst for his site's sale. Predictably for a story so big, it gave HaveIBeenPwned a huge spike in customers.
However, many misinterpreted the story, and gave Hunt a hard time. "It got interpreted by a number of people as the world's largest data breach–but it was an amalgamation of different breaches."
Even so, it was important Collection #1 got the coverage: The exposed details could be used for credential stuffing attacks, seeing bots automatically testing millions of email and password combinations on a range of website login pages.
"Credential stuffing has become massive this year," Hunt concedes.
This attack thrives on the chance that people reuse their passwords, which means hackers can throw these credentials at several services and bypass authentication on all of them.
Asked how people can be stopped reusing passwords, Hunt says: "The only way you are going to not do that is using a password manager. Then two factor authentication (2FA)."
Services can actually use the Pwned Password service on HIBP to prevent their users from using already breached passwords. "People are using bad passwords–we need to save users from themselves," Hunt says.
But he points out that so far, stats show just 2% of people are using a password manager. In some cases, it's because it is too complex. For this reason, Hunt doesn't discount using a physical password book.
"You need to look at who your threat actor is–it's someone who can get the book. It's now someone who can break into your house, but then they don't want the book, they want the computer. The book is better than what 98% of people are doing: that's the discussion we want to be having."
Meanwhile, says Hunt, 2FA is "a pain in the ass."
"I am a proponent but the usability sucks. Or we end up with SMS–you can then do Sim swap attacks."
But at the same time, he says: "People say using SMS for 2FA is like not having 2FA at all. It's always going to be better–credential stuffing goes away."
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Kate O'Flaherty
I'm a freelance cybersecurity journalist with over a decade's experience reporting on the issues impacting users, businesses and the public sector. My interests within


Snakecharmer return with new album and tour!
2017 sees the exciting return of Snakecharmer, with a new album Second Skin released on Frontiers Records. Six of the UK's most highly-esteemed and experienced rock musicians have joined forces to create Snakecharmer. Original Whitesnake member Neil Murray has teamed up with Laurie Wisefield (Wishbone Ash), Harry James (Thunder, Magnum), Adam Wakeman (Ozzy Osbourne) Chris Ousey (Heartland) and rising star and new member Simon McBride to bring you classic twin-guitar based rock as it should be played. Snakecharmer's forthcoming album, produced by Gary Stevenson, takes the band's blues-rock style and ratchets up the intensity and diversity, managing to be simultaneously both classic and current. The band members' biographies read like a Who's Who of rock, including such names as Whitesnake, Wishbone Ash, Brian May, Tina Turner, Ozzy Osbourne and many more. With a live set comprising material from their critically-acclaimed 'Snakecharmer' album and with the brand new second album due for release in May 2017 coupled with such Whitesnake classics as Ready And Willing, Fool For Your Loving, Take Me With You, Walking In The Shadow Of The Blues and Here I Go Again, Snakecharmer is the genuine article. Follow @SnakecharmerGB on twitter for the latest news and gig updates.


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Unique Fundraiser in SD72 Gives Back
Move over chocolate-covered almonds or wrapping paper sales, several School District 72 schools have opted for a fundraiser that not only helps their school, but also benefits the community and those in need this fall and winter.
From teaching children about the importance of local agriculture, encouraging healthy eating, sparking an interest in cooking, and giving back to those in need, the Fresh to You fundraiser through BC Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation has helped École des Deux Mondes, École Phoenix, École Willow Point, Georgia Park and Sayward elementary schools combine fundraising with delivering valuable learning opportunities for students.
Schools receive bundles of locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables to sell to family and friends as a fundraiser and, to help schools support families who have found it challenging to get fresh produce during COVID-19, Fresh to You matches every bundle sold so that schools can share produce with those in need.
At École des Deux Mondes two classes alone sold approximately 150 produce bundles and donated the matched produce to the school district's food service program which delivers weekly breakfast, lunch, and snack packages to students' homes.
Georgia Park Elementary sold over 290 bundles of food which was also matched by Fresh to You. The school donated most of those matched fruit and veggies to the Campbell River Food Bank at the beginning of December. Thanks to the school's fundraiser the food bank received 13 50-pound bags of potatoes, 19 cases of apples, seven 50-pound bags of onions and more!
"The amount of food was incredible and extremely generous to help families affected by COVID-19 in our community," said Mary Morrow, Georgia Park teacher-librarian. "It was a tremendous way for our families to give back to the community during these difficult times."
For Georgia Park, the fundraiser sold over $6,700 of produce with 40 percent or $2,680 going to the school to support the revitalization of their school garden.
BC Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation is a non-profit charitable organization that works with educators to bring local agriculture to BC students and a BC school fruit and vegetable nutritional program. The Fresh to You fundraising initiative is available for schools that are currently enrolled in the BC School Fruit and Vegetable Nutritional Program.
This story has been reproduced with permission from School District 72 (Campbell River). The original posting can be found here.
Helping Grads Prepare for the Future in SD73 Advocacy: Review of Provincial Council Motions and Priorities


Even though the holiday season just flew by, you can secure your spot for the next white Christmas at Jávri Lodge and experience the beautiful Finnish Lapland. The 13-room, adult only haven has opened reservations for winter stays starting November 1, 2019.
Rates starting from €1,690 (with 2 people sharing) per night in low season.
• Options for following 2-hour activities: One activity for a 2-night stay, Two activities for a 3-night stay, Three activities for a 4-night stay, etc.
• Lounge with large fireplace.
• Indoor pool, two authentic saunas and massage menu.
• Fine dining paired with wines from around the world.
Rates starting from €1,690 euros in the low season with 2 people sharing.
Low season rates are applicable for bookings in November, March, and April.
For more information or reservations, please email hotel@javri.fi.


Andrew Zimmern hits the food mecca of Taipei. He faces down stinky tofu in a mountainside factory, learns the secret to turning eggs into hard-as-iron street food, and masters pulling the longest and strongest noodles.
Anthony heads to the marketplace in Ethiopia where he samples their offerings and then travels to Harrar, once known as the forbidden city.
Andrew samples snake bile, turtle-jelly soup and medicinal bug tea when he visits Hong Kong, the center for traditional Chinese medicine.
The host heads to Washington, D.C., to sample international cuisines at some of the foreign embassies.
The host tours Chengdu, capital of China's Sichuan province, known for its spicy cuisine. Featured eats include boiling chili and volcano-rabbit head.
Andrew is inviting his fans for a Halloween party, complete with some unusual foods which many may find horrifying. Sink your teeth into a baked tarantula, drink some fresh steer blood, and swallow some chilled lamb kidneys. A true learning experience about different cultures.
Winged ants, grilled intestines, grasshoppers and dried beef hearts enjoyed in Mexico's culinary capital.
Ancient tastes in Croatia like roasted dormice and giant offal kebabs to baked rooster and grilled frog.
Different styles of barbecue from around the world are eaten by Andrew, who shows up at a buffalo meat tailgate party and gives Texas pit BBQ a try. Also: a pig roast in South Carolina; mutton in Kentucky; chicken hearts in Peru; and pork in Korea.
Cow udder and veal brain to turkey balls and mullet roe.
Snake parts, pig's ears, silk worms and cat coffee--all foods Andrew Zimmern indulges in during his Vietnamese adventure.
Andrew visits the multi-cultural city of Montreal and eats duck livers and horse-heart tartar. Andrew digs into the culture and traditional dishes that represent the city's heritage and modern chefs with food-forward ideas.
A culinary tour of Morocco. Featured eats include lamb's head and pigeon pie.
The host visits Namibia, where he meets members of a semi-nomadic tribe whose way of life hasn't changed in hundreds of years. During his stay, he samples traditional tribal foods, including dried mopane worms and wildebeest eyeballs.
Andrew Zimmern heads to Kazakhstan in the heart of central Asia. He hunts for rabbits with a golden eagle, suffers a blow while milking a horse and feasts on everything from sheep brains to smoked horse sausage.
An exploration of Jamaican cuisine, which blends island flavors with African traditions.
Andrew visits a meat market and the central market in Ulaanbaatar, a nomadic family living in Gers in the Steppe on the edge of the Gobi Desert, rides a horse with help from an amateur child racer, takes an archery lesson, a throat singing lesson, and meets some contortionists.
Andrew travels to Maine where samples foods which are only found growing in his lawn and learns about recipes which are only found in the state.


Because too much subcutaneous fat can be caused by consuming the wrong food and drink, one of the first things you should do is make changes to your diet, express.co.uk wrote.
Alongside eating five fruit and vegetables a day, wholegrain, protein, some dairy and unsaturated fats, the NHS recommends you drink plenty of fluids — in particular six to eight glasses of fluid day.
This is because these drinks are considered sweetened beverages, meaning they contain added sugar.
The calories and sugar found in sweetened beverages can add up and cause you to gain fat around your waistline.
One study, titled 'Sugar-Sweetened and diet beverages in relation to visceral adipose tissue', showed a higher intake of sugar-sweetened beverages is linked to weight gain, specifically in the abdominal area.
Liquid calories also don't have the same effect on hunger as solid food, which means it is a lot easier to drink an excessive number of calories.
When it comes to what foods to eat, adding more high-quality protein to your meals can help you lose subcutaneous fat and maintain a healthy weight.
This is because protein helps keep you full between meals and may also help you reduce the urge to snack.
In a study titled 'Increased protein intake and meal frequency reduces abdominal fat during energy balance and energy deficit' it was found diets rich in protein are more effective at reducing belly fat than diets low in protein.


Mt. Rainier: Five Day Summit Climb 100% Success!
Congratulations to today's Five Day Summit Climb Team July 8-12, 2017 who reached the summit of Mt. Rainier at 7 am this morning with 100% of their team. The climbers enjoyed an hour on the summit of Mt. Rainier under blue skies and moderate winds. The will descend to Camp Muir and continue down to Paradise this afternoon to conclude their program.
I am glad our group completed the summit together. Thanks to Andy, Mike and Peter for their expertise and patience. I had a great time and will use the confidence from this successful climb to complete any other difficult task that I might face in the future.
Congratulations to the entire team!
Garrett, I'm so proud of you for doing this. I so glad you have developed such a love for the beauty nature gives us and for your sense of adventure!!!
RMI Guide Christina Dale led the Five Day Summit Climb June 15-19 on Mt. Rainier. The team ascended to Camp Muir on Saturday and spent the following day training at Camp Muir. This morning they made their summit attempt but due to new snow over the last few days the conditions today did not allow their team to summit. They have safely returned to Camp Muir. They will repack their gear and continue their descent to Paradise later today.


Cheer: Saturday is the homecoming dance so you can dance the night away with your friends and have some much needed fun.
Jeer: Homecoming is super early this year so you have to scramble to get an outfit in time for the dance.
Cheer: Homecoming week means spirit days so you can show off your school spirit in fun, wacky ways.
Jeer: Spirit Days mean you have to make sure you dress up every day so you can make sure to beat the other grades in the spirit competition.
Cheer: Friday is the pep rally and the football game so that means shorter classes and more fun with your friends.
Jeer: These events are outside so you might get eaten alive by the masses of pesky mosquitoes.


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Q: Xamarin.Forms.Maps map pin blincking every second on SOME android devices Here is a problem, I have in my Xamarin Forms project. It's OK for iOS and WinForm, but using some of android devices cause situation, when pin refreshing all the time, so user cannot navigate the map or change zoom level. Google Maps app is working fine.
It causes on Samsung S4 and some Samsung tablets, but is's OK on moto G. It also OK on another S4 device. Most of devices are 4.4.2, moto g is 4.4.4

A: This is a known issue, and will be fixed in the next version of Xamarin Forms.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Former Apple marketing manager describes company's 'controlled leaks'
AppleInsider Staff | Jan 06, 2010
As vague "unidentified sources" continue to leak information about Apple's forthcoming tablet device, the company's former marketing manager has revealed supposed secrets on how the Cupertino, Calif., company operates.
John Martellaro provided an analysis for The Mac Observer this week, giving insight into how Monday's leak on the tablet might have been given to The Wall Street Journal. Earlier this week, the paper reported that Apple will unveil its touchscreen tablet this month, and release it for sale in March.
According to Martellaro, the story "had all the earmarks of a controlled leak." As a former senior marketing manager at Apple, he said he was told to leak information in the past.
He said a senior company executive would ask him to release specific information to a trusted person at a major media outlet. Martellaro claims he was asked to "idly mention" the information in a telephone conversation, and to suggest to a reporter that publishing it would be "nice." E-mail correspondence was not allowed.
"The communication is always done in person or on the phone. Never via e-mail," he said. "That's so that if there's ever any dispute about what transpired, there's no paper trail to contradict either party's version of the story. Both sides can maintain plausible deniability and simply claim a misunderstanding. That protects Apple and the publication."
The Journal's top technology commentator, Walt Mossberg, was bypassed, Martellaro alleged, to allow him to remain "above the fray." In addition, the story was leaked late Monday, after the stock market closed, so no one could suggest there was an attempt to manipulate Wall Street.
Martellaro suggested there are a number of reasons Apple could have chosen to leak the information on Monday. They include, in his words:
to light a fire under a recalcitrant partner
to float the idea of the US$1,000 price point and gauge reaction
to panic/confuse a potential competitor about whom Apple had some knowledge
to whet analyst and observer expectations to make sure the right kind and number of people show up at the (presumed) January 26 event. Apple hates empty seats and demands SRO at these events
While Apple sometimes leaks information to its advantage, it also goes to great lengths to control what is publicly said, and when. Apple's tight-lipped nature was profiled last year by the New York Times, which said the company's veil of secrecy began to take shape around the release of the original Macintosh back in 1984.
One employee said that employees working on secret projects at Apple must "pass through a maze of security doors, swiping their badges again and again and finally entering a numeric code to reach their offices." Once inside the top-secret areas, employees are often monitored by surveillance cameras as they work. Those working with the most sensitive projects are allegedly instructed to "cover up devices with black cloaks when they are working on them, and turn on a red warning light when devices are unmasked so that everyone knows to be extra-careful."
Last month, one report highlighted Apple's supposed "Worldwide Loyalty Team," which are claimed to be a group of moles that spy on people and report directly to co-founder Steve Jobs and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer. When an employee is suspected of a leak, the source claimed that they are under a "gag order" that involves the confiscation of cell phones and a total blackout of all unmonitored communication.
anantksundaram
Yeah, but what this guy fails to address is, why Apple is able to do it successfully, and others are not. It's much more than just a yen for secrecy or playing media games.
paxman
This comes as no surprise. I am sure the Apple Hype that precedes every new announcement is fuelled to a large degree by the Apple marketing team. The fact that Apple goes to such an extent to guard its new wares makes perfect sense - for one it ups the info stakes considerably, any rumor is now big news, and secondly and definitely most importantly - by controlling the information Apple controls the hype machine. It would be interesting to see some kind of number on the many many millions of dollars worth of free marketing Apple has been handed through endless speculative rumor editorials. I mean, look at us! ;-)
al_bundy
Originally Posted by anantksundaram
everyone does it
Palm did it with the Pre, so did Verizon about the Pre and the iPhone. a lot of people holding out on the hope that the iPhone comes to Verizon
applestud
why doesn't AI just copy and paste the ENTIRE source article? I mean, either simply link it or simply copy and paste the whole thing. If AI was a legitimate news outlet, they'd be cited for plagiarism left and right. Stop with the mock "journalism" already!
nebrie
Meh, sounds more or less like any other big company I've worked at with projects they don't want competitors to know about.