text:
package org.apache.spark.sql.avro

import java.io.{IOException, OutputStream}

import scala.collection.JavaConverters._

import org.apache.avro.Schema
import org.apache.avro.generic.GenericRecord
import org.apache.avro.mapred.AvroKey
import org.apache.hadoop.fs.Path
import org.apache.hadoop.io.NullWritable
import org.apache.hadoop.mapreduce.{RecordWriter, TaskAttemptContext}

import org.apache.spark.SPARK_VERSION_SHORT
import org.apache.spark.sql.{SPARK_LEGACY_DATETIME, SPARK_VERSION_METADATA_KEY}
import org.apache.spark.sql.catalyst.InternalRow
import org.apache.spark.sql.execution.datasources.OutputWriter
import org.apache.spark.sql.internal.SQLConf
import org.apache.spark.sql.internal.SQLConf.LegacyBehaviorPolicy
import org.apache.spark.sql.types._

// NOTE: This class is instantiated and used on executor side only, no need to be serializable.
private[avro] class AvroOutputWriter(
    val path: String,
    context: TaskAttemptContext,
    schema: StructType,
    positionalFieldMatching: Boolean,
    avroSchema: Schema) extends OutputWriter {

  // Whether to rebase datetimes from Gregorian to Julian calendar in write
  private val datetimeRebaseMode = LegacyBehaviorPolicy.withName(
    SQLConf.get.getConf(SQLConf.AVRO_REBASE_MODE_IN_WRITE))

  // The input rows will never be null.
  private lazy val serializer = new AvroSerializer(
    schema, avroSchema, nullable = false, positionalFieldMatching, datetimeRebaseMode)

  /**
   * Overrides the couple of methods responsible for generating the output streams / files so
   * that the data can be correctly partitioned
   */
  private val recordWriter: RecordWriter[AvroKey[GenericRecord], NullWritable] = {
    val fileMeta = Map(SPARK_VERSION_METADATA_KEY -> SPARK_VERSION_SHORT) ++ {
      if (datetimeRebaseMode == LegacyBehaviorPolicy.LEGACY) {
        Some(SPARK_LEGACY_DATETIME -> "")
      } else {
        None
      }
    }

    new SparkAvroKeyOutputFormat(fileMeta.asJava) {

      override def getDefaultWorkFile(context: TaskAttemptContext, extension: String): Path = {
        new Path(path)
      }

      @throws(classOf[IOException])
      override def getAvroFileOutputStream(c: TaskAttemptContext): OutputStream = {
        val path = getDefaultWorkFile(context, ".avro")
        path.getFileSystem(context.getConfiguration).create(path)
      }
    }.getRecordWriter(context)
  }

  override def write(row: InternalRow): Unit = {
    val key = new AvroKey(serializer.serialize(row).asInstanceOf[GenericRecord])
    recordWriter.write(key, NullWritable.get())
  }

  override def close(): Unit = recordWriter.close(context)
}


"Fear the man who does 1 technique 1,000 times"
Founder of the Progressive Guard System, Master is a second generation seventh degree black belt. He resides in Rio de Janerio and travels to Winnipeg twice a year to train, instruct and put on seminars .
Professor Belbas is a second degree black belt under Master Sylvio. He is internationally recognized through the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) and holds a Canadian championship title.
Recently promoted, Instructor Ron has been training for 10 years and also holds a black belt in Aikido. He often assists with Children's classes and Self Defense classes.
© 2017 Forge Academy of Self Defense Inc.


text:
Dr. Vicki Kristman
Associate Professor, Department of Health Sciences
Lakehead University
Dr. Vicki Kristman is an associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont. She is also an associate editor of the Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation and a board member of the Canadian Society of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
Kristman currently holds a Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) New Investigator Award in community-based primary health care, focusing on preventing work disability through accommodation. Previously, she held a CIHR post-doctoral fellowship in work disability and epidemiology at the Toronto Western Research Institute and was an associate scientist at the Institute for Work & Health.
Her research interests include understanding the influence of workplace factors on work disability, specifically the influence of supervisors and workplace accommodation, with a focus mainly on musculoskeletal and brain injuries and, more recently, mental health.
Kristman earned her MSc in epidemiology at Queen's University and her PhD in epidemiology at the University of Toronto.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Because of the Lockwoods – Dorothy Whipple
January 10, 2017 January 9, 2017 / preferreading	/ 11 Comments
Harriet Evans, in her Preface to this edition of Because of the Lockwoods, writes of the "readability factor" in Dorothy Whipple's work & speculates that she is not better known & valued as a novelist because her books are just so satisfying to read that critics think she can't be writing "real literature". Well, I can testify to the unputdownability of her work. It was a very hot day last Saturday & I sat down at about 11am with a glass of iced tea & Because of the Lockwoods . I was at about p130 & I finished the book that evening. Apart from necessary breaks for more iced tea, lunch & opening the door to the cats & trying to convince them that they should stay inside, I read over 300pp in a day. I can't remember the last time I did that. I kept planning to stop but then "I'll read just one more chapter. I must find out how Thea gets on at the Pensionnat or whether Martin will accept the dress clothes from Mr Lockwood or will Oliver's plans for Molly work out?". In the end I just forgot about the heat & anything else I should have been doing & raced on to the end of a very satisfying novel.
The Hunters & the Lockwoods are neighbours. Richard Hunter's early death leaves his widow at a loss, emotionally & financially, & she eagerly clutches at the idea that William Lockwood will step in & help her with her finances even though he does this with a very bad grace. Money is going to be tight & Mrs Hunter has three children to bring up so they must sell their house on the pleasant outskirts of Aldworth, a Northern manufacturing town. The house they buy in Byron Place is cramped & inconvenient. The neighbourhood is not what the Hunters have been used to & Mrs Hunter struggles on, trying to make ends meet, keeping her distance from the neighbours. The Hunters are patronised by the Lockwoods, expected to be grateful for invitations to Christmas parties. Mrs Hunter is an ineffectual woman, pathetically grateful for Mrs Lockwood's cast-off clothing & completely unable to reassess her circumstances & pull herself out of the slump she went into at her husband's death.
Molly & Martin Hunter are forced to leave school early. Mrs Lockwood finds work for Molly as a governess & Martin, who longs to be a doctor, ends up as a bank clerk. Neither are suited for these jobs but they seem unable to change their circumstances. Thea, the youngest of the Hunter children is a different proposition altogether. Thea resents the Lockwoods & their unwilling patronage. She endured humiliating visits to Mr Lockwood's office as a child, watched his contemptuous dismissal of her mother & suffered through the torments of social occasions with the monstrously self-satisfied twins Bea & Muriel Lockwood. She manages to stay on at school, convinces her mother to allow her to go to France as an au pair for a year (unfortunately to the same pensionnat as the Lockwoods) &, when that ends disastrously, is the catalyst for the turn around in the family fortunes that comes after much heartache & misery.
Her mother, Molly and Martin wrote every week, mostly to say they really had no news. Their letters seemed to be both wistful and flat. Now that she was at a distance from her family, with only their letters to represent them, she noticed a factor common to all three: a lack of interest in what they were doing, in the way they had to spend their lives. Her mother wasn't interested in housework, Molly wasn't interested in governessing, Martin wasn't interested in the bank. Thea was shocked to make this discovery. Not only was it a waste of life, but she wondered, too, if it was a fault inherent in the family. With anxiety, she examined herself to see if it was in her as well. But though she had to admit to frequent dissatisfaction, resentment, indignation, she didn't think she could be accused of lack of interest.
Thea is the life force in the Hunter family but it's Oliver Reade who really makes change a reality through sheer energy & will. When the Reades move into Byron Place they see it as a step up from Gas Street where they had lived in poverty. Oliver's hard work has taken his mother & sister to a respectable home. The difference in the two families is as simple as their attitude to Byron Place. For the Hunters, it's a humiliating drop in social status & Mrs Hunter's pretensions to gentility prevent her from becoming part of the neighbourhood. She's lonely & her children are unhappy in their uncongenial jobs. For the Reades, it's an upward move. Oliver pursues Thea & is undeterred by her cold indifference. His attempts to become friends are rejected but he gradually becomes a friend of the family, helping Molly & Martin to eventually break free of the inertia they seem unable to overcome. His attempts to better himself, attending night school & taking elocution lessons are endearing rather than comic & his steadfast love for Thea is very touching. Oliver is successful despite his origins & the Hunter's superior social class is no help to them without the money to keep up the lifestyle they once had. Eventually Oliver is the catalyst for the tremendous & very satisfying conclusion to the novel when the Lockwoods & the Hunters get their just desserts.
I loved everything about this book. The first sentences set the tone for the relationship between the two families. "Mrs Lockwood decided to invite Mrs Hunter and her children to Oakfield for New Year's Eve. It would be one way of getting the food eaten up. There was always so much of it during Christmas week, thought Mrs Lockwood with a sense of repletion." Mrs Lockwood is skewered in those few sentences – her condescension, her canny thrift, her self-satisfaction in her own charity. Who are these Hunters who are to be condescended to? Immediately the reader wants to know & the New Year's Eve party is so awful that we can't wait to discover how the Hunters (whose side we're immediately on) found themselves in such a position. We know from the beginning that Mr Lockwood has indulged in a shady bit of subterfuge to get hold of a paddock adjoining the Hunter's house that he has always coveted. Part of the reason why we race through the novel is to see just how that dishonesty will be revealed & in what circumstances. Along the way though, we lose sight of it because we're so involved in Thea's romance with a young man in Villeneuve, a provincial French town where manners haven't changed since the 19th century; Martin being taken up by the Lockwoods as a presentable young man to squire the girls around & then secretly falling in love with the youngest daughter, Clare; Molly blossoming when she finds work that suits her; Angela Harvey, a friend of the Lockwoods, defying convention by planning a career on the stage.
Thank goodness Persephone Books have reprinted nearly all Whipple's novels & short stories. The rediscovery of Dorothy Whipple is emblematic of everything that Nicola Beauman has tried to do since Persephone was founded in 1999. Whipple's Someone at a Distance was one of the first three Persephones & I can still remember the sheer joy I felt when I realised that there were authors like Whipple, Susan Glaspell, Dorothy Canfield Fisher & Marghanita Laski that I had never heard of but could now read. The beauty of the books as objects just added to my excitement. Harriet Evans' Preface to this edition of Because of the Lockwoods is a passionate rallying cry for Dorothy Whipple & her place in 20th century fiction. Evans wants Whipple to be up there with Barbara Pym & Georgette Heyer as rediscovered & reclaimed authors now taken seriously by critics as well as fans. The same Preface could be written for all the authors I mentioned above & many others who have been reprinted by Persephone to the delight of lovers of absorbing novels, short stories, memoirs & diaries. I'm so pleased that this was the first book I finished this year. It's a wonderful start to my year of reading from my tbr shelves & getting back to the books, the authors & the imprints that I've neglected over the past few years.
The Dancing Bear – Frances Faviell
December 15, 2016 December 10, 2016 / preferreading	/ 2 Comments
After reading Frances Faviell's memoir of the Blitz, A Chelsea Concerto, I was keen to read this book, written before A Chelsea Concerto but set in post-war Berlin. Frances's husband was a senior civil servant in the British Administration in Berlin & Frances & their son, John, joined him in late 1946. Berlin was being administered by the four allies – Britain, the United States, France & the Soviet Union – in the uneasy years after the defeat of Hitler & before the Soviets divided Germany & took over the East.
During the War, Frances lived in Chelsea & helped many refugees with her practical kindness & friendship. Her life in Berlin is a continuation of that life in some ways. The contrast between the lavish social life of the Allied administration & the friendship she develops with the Altmann family is striking. She is exposed to the trauma inflicted by the war as well as the ongoing hardship of the defeated German people & her attempts to alleviate the hardship as much as she can for her friends.
Frau Maria Altmann lives with her husband, Oskar, & their children Fritz, Ursula & Lilli in a barely heated apartment stripped of anything that could be sold for food or fuel. Frances meets Frau Altmann one day when she sees the older woman collapse on the street. Taking her home, Frances discovers that Maria is depriving herself of food to help her children. The Altmanns had been a prosperous family but their belongings are gone & their savings are worthless. Ursula is working as a housemaid for a group of American servicemen & Lilli is a ballet dancer. Fritz, resentful of the allies & with a nostalgic longing for the Hitler Youth he was part of during the war, has become involved in the black market. Another son, Kurt, is missing in Russia. Their lives are made more difficult by the restrictions imposed on Berliners – the tiny electricity ration, the bans on fraternising with the British (the Americans were not so strict) & the lack of food & fuel even if they had any money to pay for it.
As Frau Altmann begins to trust Frances, she becomes more involved with the Altmanns. Assisted by her British driver, Stampie, she is able to help in practical ways. Stampie is adept at all the ways & means of getting hold of just about anything legally or not. He always has money & always knows someone who can help. He is supporting several needy families & has an answer for any problem. Frances also learns more of the Altmann's story. The horror of the end of the war when the Russians arrived, looting & raping indiscriminately. Frau Altmann hid her daughters in the attic but Ursula couldn't stand the cramped conditions & was raped several times. Frau Altmann grieves for Kurt & excuses Fritz for his rudeness & laziness but Lilli is the baby of the family & her father's favourite.Oskar Altmann is a gentle man, bewildered by his change of circumstances & at a loss in this new world.
Frau Altmann has a more difficult relationship with Ursula who has embraced the way things are, talks English with an American accent & comes home with cigarettes, food & smart clothes given to her by her employers. Her mother doesn't want to question how she gets the extras although she sees more than Ursula realises. She is practically supporting the family although her mother continues to disapprove of her behaviour & attitudes especially when she joins Fritz in his black market activities. Her rejection of the Church especially hurts her mother whose faith never wavers. Ursula becomes involved with Joe, an American who becomes her sole protector, & who wants to marry her & take her home with him to the States. Lilli is frail but, because the Russians love ballet, she is able to continue dancing & the company receive some privileges.Lilli's health is a worry but her quiet determination to keep going masks her pain until it's too late.
The Dancing Bear is an affecting & very moving story. By concentrating on the story of one family, Frances Faviell brings home the plight of many thousands more. Maria Altmann is a dignified, stoic woman who understands a great deal more about her children's lives than they realise. Her blind spot is Fritz, a bitter, resentful young man dealing with the aftermath of the defeat of his country by flouting authority wherever possible. His search for somewhere to belong will take him far from his family. Life in Berlin was difficult for everyone. The Allied Command employees had trouble getting food & fuel but they were the victors & their problems paled beside that of the Berliners who had lived through Nazism & then the destruction of their city by the Russian troops. Frances is able to help the Altmanns with her contacts & Stampie is a miracle worker but the contrast between her daily life & that of her German friends & servants is very great.
There are so many fascinating characters in this book. Fritz's place in his mother's heart is taken by her nephew Max who spent much of the war as a prisoner in England, working on a Welsh farm. Max is in love with Ursula & his return to Berlin stirs up emotions that she is unwilling to acknowledge. One of Frances's acquaintances is Frau von R, an unrepentant Nazi who grieves for the past & is hostile to the conquerors. Frances admires her honesty, unlike that of many others who denied that they were members of the Nazi Party or that they knew anything about the regime's horrors. Oskar's brother, Hermann, drinks to forget the present & to remember the glories of the past. Frances's servant, Lotte, shows Frances her journal, written during the Russian invasion, with its matter-of-fact descriptions of rape & destruction. Frances is an artist & uses her talent to record the life around her. This edition of The Dancing Bear includes some delicate pencil drawings, including a lovely one of Lilli. I've read very few post-war memoirs & this one stands out because of the compassion with which it's told. As in A Chelsea Concerto, Faviell doesn't flinch from recording the brutal realities of life for these desperate people. The aftermath of war & the reality of living under occupation requires compromises that will test the Altmanns but also shows how strong the will to survive can be.
The Dancing Bear is another of the Furrowed Middlebrow list from Dean Street Press.


text:
2nd Annual Native American Showrunner Program – Fellows Selected
« Inaugural Native American Writers Seminar – Fellows Selected
4th Annual Native American Feature Film Writers Lab – Fellows Selected »
The Native American Media Alliance announced its selections for the 2nd Annual Native American Showrunner Program, sponsored by WarnerMedia, Bad Robot, Comcast NBCUniversal and the Cherokee Nation Film Office, in partnership with Kung Fu Monkey Productions.
"We are so proud to be supporting the Native American Media Alliance with this incredible program," said Karen Horne, Senior Vice President, Equity and Inclusion, WarnerMedia. "Amplifying underrepresented voices is a major priority for our company, and the implementation of the Native American Showrunner Program is a key effort toward achieving that goal."
The Native American Showrunner Program is a nine-month intensive that offers mentorship from television showrunners and series creators to experienced Native American writers. Program fellows take part in meetings with assigned showrunners who will offer guidance on furthering the fellows' writing careers and to provide creative feedback on current projects. The program consists of one-on-one mentoring to develop the writers' abilities, offer advice as it pertains to producing for television and overall insight into running a television series.
The Native American Showrunner Program is a unique initiative designed to propel experienced Native American writers to higher levels of television. This initiative continues the Native American MedIa Alliance's drive for inclusion and focuses on new points of access for the Native American community. The fellowship is a direct extension of the Native American TV Writers Lab as it equips the next generation of Native American writers with the skills and professional network to break into the television producing positions.
The 2021 Native American Showrunner Program fellows:
Doane Tulugaq Avery
Jason Marcus
Carlee Malemute
The Native American Showrunner Program was created to expand the number of Native Americans working behind the camera to increase fair and accurate portrayals of Native Americans on television. Native Americans continue to maintain the lowest representation of writers on current television series.
In addition, participants will author a new pilot and series bible with the artistic support of their respective mentors. Participants will also have group meetings with their fellows participants and showrunners from other television series. These components offer additional creative and business oriented opportunities. Participants will also receive a small stipend, writing software and additional resources to help bolster their career.
Comcast NBCUniversal
Bad Robot


Improving factory data and a sliding yen helped lift Japanese shares overnight, amid a positive session for Asian markets in general.
Positive factory data from China – where the latest PMI reading provided some relief to investors – helped stabilise the region following heavy selling in recent days, while declines in the yen versus the dollar provided a further Japan-specific boost.
As a result, the Nikkei climbed sharply, closing up 2.2% at 13,660 points. The move higher halted a steep decline over the last month, the index having fallen around 7% from 14,700 just a month ago.
Japan's TOPIX, the Hong Kong Hang Seng, and a range of other Asian indices also climbed following the positive news from China, the region's economic powerhouse.
Elsewhere, shares also closed up in the US, with the S&P 500 finishing the session 0.9% higher, and the Dow closing up 0.4%.
Despite a major technical glitch that knocked it offline for over two hours, the NASDAQ also rose 1.1%.
We take a look at the key risks which could impact rising global equity markets as we head into 2014.


text:
Over 5,000 labourers get work at construction sites in Surat
SURAT: Over 5,000 construction workers have got employment at 75 construction sites that became operational in the city post relaxation announced by central government from April 20.
CREDAI sources said about 200 applications were submitted by realtors for permission to start construction activity. Out of this, so far 75 applications have been approved by district administration.
CREDAI-Surat president Ravji Patel said, "Construction work has been started only to provide employment to poor construction labourers and carry out their regular medical check-ups. Timely completion of residential and commercial units will go a long way in instilling confidence among valued customers about realty sector."
CREDAI-Surat vice-president Alpesh Kotadia said, "There are about 10,000 construction workers involved in realty sector in the city and we want more and more work to start."
Source: https://realty.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/over-5000-labourers-get-work-at-construction-sites-in-surat/75500201


Safety talks are necessary, but can't always dive deep into big topics - and often, workers struggle to remember everything you taught. In fact, worker's forget 70% of their conventional safety training within the first 24 hours. That's why SafetyNow uses powerful storytelling, interactive games, and retention modules to create real behavioral change and a better safety culture.
This is one of the most powerful and impactful safety training solutions available! Book your demo and pilot test today!
Supplement your frontline safety training with online courses, games, and retention programs.


Am I a video gaming addict? Only you can answer this question. We use the term gaming addict to describe our condition of having an obsession and compulsion to game, which grows worse over time, and an inability to limit our gaming, despite all the trouble and losses it causes. The following self test should give you some food for thought and act as a guide to judge your own situation.
Do you often re-live gaming experiences or think about future ones?
Do you hide or lie about your gaming?
Do you get very angry when someone or something interrupts a game?
Have you ever taken a break from gaming and binged uncontrollably upon your return?
When upset, do you soothe yourself with games or plans to game?
Do you find yourself gaming in the early morning?
Do you find ways to game when away from home?
Do you set limits with gaming and then break them, playing hours longer than intended?
Do you lose hours of sleep to gaming?
Have you called in sick or late to work or skipped classes to game?
Have you sworn off a game, uninstalled it, and later returned to it?
Do you feel guilt and shame around your gaming?
Does gaming contribute to arguments in your relationships?
Has gaming taken the place of any hobbies or sports you used to enjoy?
Do you forget appointments, responsibilities or deadlines in work or school when gaming?
Do you become irritated and defensive when people suggest you might be gaming too much?
Have your hours spent gaming increased over time?
Do you blow off social events to game?
Have you lost contact with friends and family since gaming?
Do you have intense feelings (highs, lows, anger, fear) while gaming?
Most of us who now identify as gaming addicts answer yes to many of these questions. If you have answered yes to several of them, you might consider how much you have in common with us and consider experimenting with the solutions that have worked well for us.
You might consider these additional questions while thinking about any obsessive and compulsive behavior you might have around gaming and its effects on your life. Many of us have answered yes to many of these questions.
Do you eat while gaming or forget to eat while gaming?
Are most of your friends gamers?
Are gaming stories one of the most exciting topics of conversation for you?
Do you read many game-related guides and articles?
Do you fear a life without gaming?
Do you feel irritable and restless when away from the games for some days?
Do you envy people who can game in moderation?
Do you prefer your game character identity to your own?
Have you stolen money for gaming?
Do you think your life might be much better without games?
Do you find yourself bored with most everything else in life?
Have you put spending on games ahead of your financial responsibilities?
Have you gained weight since becoming a gamer?
Have you felt remorse after a gaming binge?
Have you suffered any physical pains from intense gaming?
Have you suffered more financial problems since obsessively gaming?
When you want to spend time with friends, do you invite them to game?
Do you spend real money in-game?
Do you get angry and insulting with other players who make mistakes?
Have you tried limiting game time by switching games?
Are the people in your life worried by your gaming?
Compulsive gaming is a condition that strikes both adults and children, sometimes at a young age and sometimes later in life. Like other addictions, it does not discriminate based on age, educational level, race or ethnicity.
© 2018 Computer Gaming Addicts Anonymous International Services, Inc.


text:
Dysfunctional Motherland: Reclaiming Ancestral Birthrights in Post-Imperial Britain
Alex Kurtagic
For a long time, I dated, and was subsequently engaged to, a ghost. This is because, for nearly four years, my now wife did not legally exist.
She was born in South Africa during the Apartheid years. Her father was German and her mother English. Her father passed away when she was very young. Her mother was born in South Africa of British parents, one of whom had been born, in turn, in Southern Rhodesia, back then a self-governing colony of the British Empire. Beyond these overseas imperial Britons, my wife's blood ties to Britain and Germany go back millennia.
My wife's mother spent a number of years in South Africa, working as a British expatriate in various corporate roles during the 1980s and 1990s. By 1999, however, she decided to return with her daughter to the British motherland.
Because my wife was young at the time, she entered the United Kingdom with a South African child passport on the basis of her mother's British citizenship. Subsequently the child passport was upgraded to a full 5-year passport.
The problems began when the latter expired in 2004.
In a sane world, it ought to have been a straightforward procedure for my wife to reclaim her British citizenship in 1999, given her ancestral heritage. Indeed, at the time of World War II, anyone born anywhere in the British Empire was automatically a British subject.
Unfortunately, however, my wife was born in the postmodern age, where a person's heritage has been redefined by enlightened politicians as a social construct with no ancestral basis. Consequently, the small matter of one's nationality is a legal construct to which any featherless biped has equal right of access, pending a bureaucratic process involving politically-correct forms—and (of course) the appropriate fees.
The U. K. Home Office's naturalization forms, therefore, only took into account the applicant's parents' places of birth. It ignored said parents' nationality and country of residence. Because my wife's mother had been born in South Africa, the forms effectively rendered my wife's mother a non-British national, even though she was English, had been a British subject from birth, had resided in England most of her life, and her British parents had merely opted to have their daughter be born in one of the imperial colonies because during the Apartheid years South Africa had better hospitals.
And since my wife's mother was regarded as a non-British national, as far as the bureaucracy was concerned, my wife could not naturalize on the basis of having a British mother—not without a complicated legal process.
The problem was compounded by my mother-in-law's loss of employment in the aftermath of 9/11, which was in turn further compounded by the fact that she was grotesquely over-qualified for almost any job, with a fellowship, two PhDs, two Masters' degrees, a BSoSci. Thus, by the time my wife's passport expired, the costs of legally challenging the bureaucracy had grown well beyond reach. This led to a two-year delay.
Once my wife was in a position to engage specialist lawyers, it took endless months, cubic light-years of paperwork, and torrents of money to ascertain that, as a step prior to reclaiming her British citizenship, she had to, first, renew the South African passport, then, second, obtain indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom.
For that, a special application had to be made with the courts—mysteriously, only after my wife had confirmed that she was sufficiently well versed in foreign cultures and religions by passing New Labour's U.K. citizenship test.
The reason the indefinite leave to remain was the more desirable route was that it made it possible to apply for naturalization on the basis of length of residence. Applying without an indefinite leave to remain, it seemed, would have led to the application being rejected.
The lawyers (ironically, like many of those keeping the gates within the civil service, of non-European extraction) stated that the process of naturalization would have been much easier, and indeed less costly, had my wife been "completely foreign". And indeed, it appeared that applicants from Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Sierra Leone, poor, uneducated, instrumentally motivated, and with no blood-ties to Britain, were, after only a few years of residence in the United Kingdom, successfully naturalizing themselves without comparable legal hassle.
You might be wondering why my wife did not simply renew her South African passport in 2004. The reason: Presumably because the security consequences of De Klerk's abandonment of white rule have instigated a furious and still-ongoing brain-drain, the South African Embassy had made it a condition for passport renewal that my wife present them with a letter from the U. K. Home Office (which was to be held on file permanently) stating that she did not already hold, nor had plans of ever obtaining, British citizenship.
Of course, this was untrue. Not inclined to permanently renounce her ancestral birthright, my wife was left unable to proceed.
This was, in fact, how my wife vanished from existence. She was effectively locked her out of having a legal identity. It made her unable to work, open bank accounts, obtain a driver's license, travel, rent property, marry, or register with a university.[VDARE.com note: All of those things are available to illegal immigrants in the United States.] Moreover, it also put her at risk of deportation—but not to South Africa or any other country, for she no longer held a valid passport, but, as she often said, probably to a dinghy in international waters, where she could be conveniently forgotten.
So, after much wrestling with, and throwing gold at the maw of, the shape-shifting anaconda of politically correct jurisprudence, my wife's lapsed passport, an accident of birth and a product of Britain's imperial past, remained an immovable obstacle.
Finally, with no other apparent option, she decided to chance a new attempt at renewing the South African passport.
Here, we had a stroke of luck: either because the rules had been changed, or the forms had been re-designed, during the intervening time, in 2007 my wife found herself able to submit her application without the letter from the Home Office.
The South African passport took many months to arrive. Once she had it, she made an application for indefinite leave to remain in Britain. It took months and cost hundreds of pounds.
And once the indefinite leave to remain had been issued, it had to be endorsed into the renewed South African passport. This took more months and also cost hundreds of pounds.
Thankfully, the paperwork came through in time for our wedding. My wife and I were able to marry in the summer of last year.
Thankfully, also, the London School of Economics allowed my wife to enroll for a correspondence [= distance learning] degree, so she was able to obtain a university education.
That I write an article complaining about the bureaucratic perplexities and contortuplications of current British nationality legislation for VDARE.COM, an American immigration reform website, will seem ironic only in the largely foreign-originated Freudo-Marxist scholasticism of postmodern academia. For VDARE.COM readers, it will be obvious that a Motherland that is generous to distant strangers while reneging on her own children is a dysfunctional Motherland.
Or, at least, a Motherland forced to do the inexplicable by Left-leaning utopians, ethnic radicals, and corrupt political opportunists—both the product and the beneficiaries of the "anti-racist" worldview of the intellectual elite, who have held Britain hostage since the end of World War II.
Their ascendance in the wake of the British Empire's dismantlement has left many overseas Britons without adequate legal sanctuary or a cogent legal identity.
Until the academic fraudsters and the corrupt political elite are fumigated out of the centers of learning and purged from the seats of power, not just Mother Britain, but also Mother Europe, will continue increasingly to spurn her own progeny—however bright or capable—in favor of distant strangers of arguable merit and questionable motivation.
Alex Kurtagic (email him) lives in England. He is the author of Mister and the founder and director of Supernal Music.


Crown lengthening is a surgical procedure done to expose a larger area of the tooth, and is usually done in preparation for a dental treatment or procedure to fix a damaged tooth. The affected tooth will need to have sufficient structure showing from out of the gum line to be able to support a dental filling or a crown; in cases when there is not enough of the tooth structure from above the gum line, a crown lengthening will need to be done.
A crown lengthening procedure is done by cutting through the gum tissue, and then removing some of the tooth structure (usually around the tooth's circumference) in preparation to the placement of a dental filling or a dental crown. There are cases when both the structure of the tooth and the soft tissue surrounding it (the gums) will need to be removed or altered, as in the case of dealing with a gummy smile problem.
The crown lengthening treatment will be done with the help of a local anaesthesia, to ensure the comfort of the patient throughout the entire procedure. Depending on the dental concern that needs to be addressed, some of the gum tissue and the bone structure may be removed or altered, before the tooth can be fixed with a dental filling or a dental crown. After the procedure, the gums will be stitched together to promote healing, and to protect the area that has been affected by the crown lengthening surgical treatment.


I just used the section map off the website. Plenty large.
I set the grid lines to 10km.
I had real trouble getting the image to go to the right corners of the grid. It seemed like there was an invisible section above the image that threw off the center point. I could see that the insert box was square while the image was rectangular and hugging the bottom of the outline of the reference frame.
Okay, I just got a serious problem: When I open, the San Jose fld I made, it doesn't open anything, only blankness. What happened? It was working fine a minute ago when I saved and quit out of Editor.
Is there a vertices limit for a single .fld or section within a .fld? That maybe the cause for the failure...Oh well.
I've got maybe 40% of the lost work re-done.
If there's a city in our section, would it be better to add the ground objects now, or when the final map is assembled. I plan on doing the roads and such, but not sure about buildings.
May as well add the buildings, and the roads only to a certain point, that way we can fudge them together to be continuous. Same with rivers or anything that continues from one sector to another.
Not a clue why Scenedit doesn't recognize stuff. If you still have the broken file, open it in Notepad and see if anything's weird. Usually there's something messed up that can be fixed to give you a working map again.
I was able to recreate the lost work and add in some details like a river and a few bogs. When I looked at what it is on google maps, It is just a bunch of farms!
The roads were even rectangles and I thought they were city blocks.
Last edited by decaff_42 on Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
Just got these two guys joined. It's nice when you have to do minimal editing to get them to like each other!
What part of Philippines is this?
Luzon, Visayas or Mindanao region?
The larger island in the middle is the bottom half of Mindoro Island. The islands on the right are Romblon. Pretty much at the center of the Philippines.
The green outlined area is the same structure as Paranaque.
Calcoocan and Malabon are in the most densely packed region of the city, I have checked this on Wikipedia. the houses should be have little to no spacing between them and the streets should be EXTREMELY narrow, barely wide enough to fit a van down.
Muntinlupa should be in the green outlined zone.
Hawkstar lives, or lived, in Cavite, so he should know all about it.
I have a slightly modified color scheme for the map, influenced by Navy Gator.
The water color designations stay the same, but for land, and elevation, use the Green#2 for higher elevation gradiant for mountains/hills under 1000m or so. If the elevation grid is predominantly under 1000ish meters and only a few peeks higher by a few hundred meters, use Green#2, for elevation grids with predominantly higher elvations like 1500ish meters or more, use the brown as the higher gradiant. For VERY tall peaks (closer to 3000m) or ranges, you might want to consider two overlaping grids with the lower portions using the greens, and the higher elevations using the brown. For non elevation grid accents, use the second green and brown to help add a little bit more.
It is ultimatly up to you what to do for the elevation grids, use this as a guideline, but by no means is it an absolute rule. This map should bare the styles and influence of the different map makers, so be unique, but stick to the colors!
Last edited by decaff_42 on Sat Jan 21, 2012 7:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Aye i do its a bit like paranaque but malls are a bit bigger some stores subburbs here and there and just one big road to to the south it think.
Google earth it its much accurate than my exp.
Looking for suggestions about which ground pack(s) to use for this project. It can't be super-high detail like some of Airbourne's stuff because of the huge size of the map and the number of objects to be used in the cities.
FYI this map is going to cover aprox. 200,000 square miles when all is said and done.
The light blue is a little less green and lighter now.
On the small towns and stuff in like um provinces and faraway from cities you could put major's huts the one on vietnam but on iff1.
decaff_42 wrote: Looking for suggestions about which ground pack(s) to use for this project.
maps, and something like that would be too much.
Hawkstar wrote: On the small towns and stuff in like um provinces and faraway from cities you could put major's huts the one on vietnam but on iff1.
Would those palm trees from the Vietnam map look alright too?
the type of area being depicted by each polygon.
Nao, nao i dont want abu sayyaf ambushing me in my roadtrip in mindanao.


text:
Story 12: Bullying & Harassment – Representing Quaden and Yarraka Bayles
16 May 2022 /in 20 stories, Publications /by AusPBC
2020-2021: Queensland
Quaden Bayles with the Indigenous All-Stars
The joint pro bono representation of Quaden and Yarraka Bayles by law firm K&L Gates and public relations and strategic communications firm Sefiani (with lead counsel National Justice Project) was an exemplar to both industries of the synergistic excellence to be achieved and leveraged on clients' behalf, particularly in areas lacking strong regulation and enforcement.
Quaden is a young Indigenous Australian who suffers from a rare case of dwarfism and other health issues. At 9, Quaden's story went viral and global following the release of a video filmed by his mother and anti-bullying advocate, Yarraka, of a distressed Quaden following extensive bullying and harassment. Support came from all angles, including from the National Rugby League, who invited Quaden to lead out the Indigenous All-Stars team in the annual All-Stars Game. A GoFundMe page was started by US comedian Brad Williams raising over $460,000 USD in funds to support Quaden. However, this outpouring of support also led to a deluge of threatening, racist and/or defamatory photos, comments and accounts on various social media platforms endeavouring to undermine the family's intent.
Client Quaden Bayles
K&L Gates proceeded with in-app reporting of the threatening, racist and defamatory content on social media platforms while engaging with direct contacts in safety, legal and public policy roles, resulting in the:
removal of over 50 fake or imposter accounts from Instagram alone;
establishment of protocols with Facebook and Instagram to prevent recidivism;
removal of 106 YouTube videos on basis of copyright infringement and community guidelines; and
permanent suspension of nine Twitter accounts and removal of ten individual Tweet URLs.
The engagement of K&L Gates with the social media platforms was greatly assisted by the work of Sefiani and the resulting media attention to the issue. Sefiani advised the family to cease social media engagement and secured the production of the wonderful half-hour documentary "About a Boy" on the ABC's Australian Story to get the true story told about Quaden and further prevent recidivism.
K&L Gates also advised the family on the funds raised via GoFundMe, a significant portion of which was donated to six charities. K&L Gates advised on the different trust structures to receive the funds in a tax efficient manner, prepared the trust deed and arranged for it to be stamped, and coordinated the disbursement of the funds from the US to the family and the Australian based charities.
Eric Boone (K&L Gates) & Robyn Sefiani (Sefiani) at Mumbrella Awards
This story was submitted by K&L Gates.
Click here for more Stories of Change
https://www.probonocentre.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Untitled-180-×-180px-2.png 0 0 AusPBC https://www.probonocentre.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Untitled-180-×-180px-2.png AusPBC2022-05-16 09:30:002022-05-16 11:41:25Story 12: Bullying & Harassment – Representing Quaden and Yarraka Bayles
Story 11: Relieving an Unfair Financial Burden on a Refugee Story 13: Reuniting Domestic Abuse Survivor with Family
https://www.probonocentre.org.au/publications/story-12-bullying-harassment-representing-quaden-and-yarraka-bayles/


"Pinoy Iskolars sa Korea" or PIKO organized a fun "Amazing Race"/ "Running Man" type of event last October 6th, Sunday. The participants of the said event are all non-Filipinos. They moved from one Seoul tourist attraction to another to complete their missions. It was a fun day and thanks to the support of the Seoul Metro government and the Philippine Embassy that the event was successful. The members of FILIPOS (Filipino Photographers in Korea) covered the pre-run (September 30) and the actual race.
Of course, we didn't join the race nor the coverage but I did enjoy watching the video and looking at the photos. I hope there will be another one next year and for sure, it's going to be bigger!
Have you found the Philippines in Seoul? Tara na!


Video poker strategy guides, analyzers, simulators and programming information.
Video poker advice from video poker advisor -- Learn video poker odds, myths, game strategies and money management skills.
Guide to video poker for the amateur to professional online video poker player. Information on a wide range of games as well as strategy and general tips.
VideoPokerReview.com - A Review of Video Poker Games, Land-based and Online.
Best video poker games at land-based casinos in the south and online.


text:
Q: Retrieving user's email Google Login iOS I am trying to find the email of the logged in account from the google login API in iOS using Swift.
The code i used is the same as given in the google Developers instruction page.
This is my code

description = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"%@ %@ %@ %@ %@ %@",
  person.displayName,person.gender,person.ageRange.min,person.ageRange.max,person.emails,person.birthday];

The output when i print this "description" id is this:

Karanvir Singh male 18 20 (
      "GTLPlusPersonEmailsItem 0x7fbe4a67aee0: {value:\"karanvir95@gmail.com\" type:\"account\"}"
  ) (null)

I want to know how i can remove the excess of output when i just want to know the email ID
i want the output as such:

Karanvir Singh male 18 20 karanvir95@gmail.com 17/02/1995

Code as requested:

import "ViewController.h"
import "GoogleOpenSource/GoogleOpenSource.h"
import "GooglePlus/GooglePlus.h"
import "AppDelegate.h"
@interface ViewController ()
@end
@implementation ViewController @synthesize signInButton; @synthesize
  signOutHandle; @synthesize signInHandle; @synthesize infoLabel;
  @synthesize description;
  - (void)viewDidLoad {
      [super viewDidLoad];
      signOutHandle.hidden=true; }

*

*(void)didReceiveMemoryWarning {
  [super didReceiveMemoryWarning];
  // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated. }

  -(void)refreshInterfaceBasedOnSignIn {
      if ([[GPPSignIn sharedInstance] authentication]) {
          signOutHandle.hidden=false;
          signInHandle.hidden=true;
          infoLabel.text=description;
      } else {
} }

*

*(void)finishedWithAuth: (GTMOAuth2Authentication *)auth error: (NSError *) error {
  NSLog(@"Received error %@ and auth object %@",error, auth);
  if (error) {
      // Do some error handling here.
  } else {
GTLServicePlus* plusService = [[GTLServicePlus alloc] init];
plusService.retryEnabled = YES;
[plusService setAuthorizer:[GPPSignIn sharedInstance].authentication];

GTLQueryPlus *query = [GTLQueryPlus queryForPeopleGetWithUserId:@"me"];
query.collection=kGTLPlusCollectionVisible;
[plusService executeQuery:query
        completionHandler:^(GTLServiceTicket *ticket,
                            GTLPlusPerson *person,
                            NSError *error){
            if (error) {
                GTMLoggerError(@"Error: %@", error);
            } else {
            //    [person retain];
                NSString *age = [NSString string];
                description = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"%@ %@ %@ %@ %@ %@ %@", person.displayName,person.gender,person.ageRange.min,person.ageRange.max,person.emails,person.birthday,email];

NSLog(description);
                      }
GTLQueryPlus *query2 =
                      [GTLQueryPlus queryForPeopleListWithUserId:@"me"
                                                      collection:kGTLPlusCollectionVisible];
[plusService executeQuery:query2 completionHandler:^(GTLServiceTicket *ticket, GTLPlusPeopleFeed *peopleFeed, NSError *error) {
                            if (error) {

                                GTMLoggerError(@"Error: %@", error);

                            } else {
                                // Get an array of people from GTLPlusPeopleFeed

NSArray* peopleList = peopleFeed.items;
                            }
                        }];
                [self refreshInterfaceBasedOnSignIn];
            }];
} }

- (IBAction)signOutButton:(id)sender {
      [[GPPSignIn sharedInstance] signOut];
      [[GPPSignIn sharedInstance] disconnect];
signOutHandle.hidden=true;
signInHandle.hidden=false;
infoLabel.text=@""; }

*

*(void)signOut {
  [[GPPSignIn sharedInstance] signOut]; }

*(void)disconnect {
  [[GPPSignIn sharedInstance] disconnect]; }

*(IBAction)signedIn:(id)sender {
  GPPSignIn *signIn = [GPPSignIn sharedInstance];
  signIn.shouldFetchGooglePlusUser = YES;
  signIn.shouldFetchGoogleUserEmail = YES;
  signIn.clientID = kClientId;
AppDelegate *appDelegate = (AppDelegate *) [[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate];
signIn.shouldFetchGoogleUserEmail = YES;
  signIn.delegate = self;
signIn.scopes = @[ kGTLAuthScopePlusUserinfoProfile, kGTLAuthScopePlusLogin,kGTLAuthScopePlusMe,kGTLAuthScopePlusUserinfoEmail
  ];
  signIn.delegate = self;
  [signIn authenticate];
  email=(@"%@",signIn.userEmail);
  NSLog(@" email:%@",email); }

*(void)didDisconnectWithError:(NSError *)error {
  if (error) {
      NSLog(@"Received error %@", error);
  } else {
      NSLog(@"The user is signed out and disconnected.");
      // The user is signed out and disconnected.
      // Clean up user data as specified by the Google+ terms.
  } }
@end

A: description = [NSString stringWithFormat: @"%@ %@ %@ %@ %@ %@ %@", person.displayName, person.gender,person.ageRange.min,person.ageRange.max,person.emails.value,person.birthday];

And I want to note that your person has nil bithday

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Macaroni is a very special and sweet little kitty. Not only is he very handsome, but he is also very loving and chilled out. Mac and his sister Ravioli are desperately searching for their new homes, and will be forever thankful when they find them. These two kitties have been raised at our rescue, and are therefore extremely comfortable around cats and other animals.


text:
Are you aware that HM Revenue and Customs no longer need a reason for opening an enquiry into your business or personal affairs? This means that potentially everyone is at risk of a tax investigation
TaxAssist Accountants can offer you a Fee Protection Service which covers the cost of work your TaxAssist Accountant has to do towards an investigation.
The costs associated with an investigation can be devastating, and even if you are successful in defending yourself against HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), you cannot recover your costs from the department. But with this service, we feel that you will have peace of mind should you be investigated.
Furthermore, your TaxAssist Accountant will be provided with experienced consultants (paid for by the insurance company) to assist through the investigation to make sure it is resolved as quickly as possible using experts.
How can I avoid an investigation by HMRC?
The best route for avoiding an investigation would be to employ an accountant first and foremost. Using an accountant should ensure that your tax return is accurate and complies with the UK tax regime.
TaxAssist Accountants also uses specialist software which will analyse the completed tax return to check for anything which may arouse suspicion by HMRC.
HMRC does, however, carry out a number of random investigations which are, unfortunately, unavoidable. So even if you believe that there are no unusual entries in your accounts or on your tax returns, an investigation could still happen to you.
Our accountants offer competitive pricing with flexible appointment times and are dedicated to offering a professional, friendly service. If you wish to be protected using this tax investigation fee protection service then speak with us today on 0800 0523 555 or drop us a line using our online enquiry form.
Share Plans & Incentives
A TaxAssist Accountants Franchise owned under licence by N Brook Ltd. VAT Registration No. 883 111 044 Registered in England and Wales. Company Number: 6853024


A Detailed Account Of The Winners Of The Great Depression. Learn The Marketing Strategies, Products Developed, Industries That Flourished And Consumer Behavior. This Book Reveals Time-tested Secrets That Produce Profits In A Down Turning Economy.
We apologize for the delay regarding your product review. Rest assured that our team is working hard to meet our daily quota for critiques and respect your patience at this moment. Our esteemed staff of writers are devoted to bringing their clients a quality service with a level of expertise that is a class above the rest. Not convinced? Come visit our site today for a trial run.


Google's world class shopping platform is going to become a paid comparison site in mid 2013. Early reports has stated that product listing ads would be taking over from these free listings as early as February 2013. However, various delays have meant that this paid model has been delayed to June/July 2013. We are now beginning to see various verticals within the Google shopping platform become all paid, meaning that the only way you are going to be able to have your product visible on Google Shopping is going to be via Product Listing Ads that have been set up within Google Adwords.
Many businesses rely heavily on the traffic that come from Google Shopping and they need to ensure that this flow of traffic continues for their business to survive. This is why we here at Star Web Innovations have developed a strategy to ensure that we can set up product listing ads for targeting particular searches within Google. So for example, if you want your product to show up for a particular Google Search, then we can optimise your Google product feed to enable this to happen!
This finely tuned skill along with generic product listing ad creation puts your business at the forefront of this new innovation in search based marketing. Our initial client base are alrteady enjoying reduced cpc's, increased revenue and an optimal return on investment using our product listing ad techniques.
Google Product Listing Ad set up, feed creation/management and product listing ad Management. Get help with your Google Product Listing Ad campaigns by using our certified product listing ad management services.
We also offer Search Engine optimisation and Adwords Management as our specialties, optimising your site to increase sales and traffic.
Google Product listing ads management explained starweb http://www.starwebbinnovations.co.uk/html5/html5.files/html5video/product_listing_ads_starweb.jpg View our video of our Google Product listing ads management service. By Star Web Innovations Ltd.


You just graduated from college.
And now it is time to master your money.
In this post, I'm going to share five money tips that will have you mastering your money as a college graduate starting right now. If you're looking for our high school tips, check out this article on our five money tips for above average high school graduates.
Here are out five favorite money tips for the above average college graduates.
It sounds like a broken record, but my number one piece of advice to college graduates is to start paying off debt as soon as possible.
Here's the thing: even if you file for bankruptcy, the financial obligation of paying off your student loan debt will never go away.
Thus, the sooner you get started on it, the better.
The first step is to find out who owns your student loan debt. You could find this out by contacting your school's financial aid office.
Alternatively, you could visit the National Student Loan Data System to help you locate your student loan servicer.
Once you have determined who owns the debt and where your payments will be going, those factors will give you a solid idea of how much you can expect to go out each month in student loan debt payments.
The sooner you get out of debt, the better!
According to this report by GOBankingRates, in 2017, 57% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings.
This is not good at all considering we have a fairly high per capita income compared to most of the world.
Saving up money is easy when it is automated.
Check out this post where we described eight apps that will help you automate your savings.
Once you start saving money consistently, the next thing I recommend is to start investing.
When you invest, your money works for you instead of the other way around.
You can get started investing today with as little as $100.
In fact, I would say this is an even better way to get started investing because you will learn the intricate ins and outs of the stock market with smaller amounts of money which will help you down along the line when you have more money to invest.
I've reviewed most of the major investment companies, and compare them here at our Online Brokerage Comparison Tool. Don't take my word for it, explore the options for yourself.
If you would like a robo-advisor to help you with choosing stocks, I recommend Betterment. Betterment is a great tool that allows you to simply deposit your money and it takes care of the rest of your investing. Get started with Betterment here.
Last but not least on the investing front, make sure you are taking advantage of 401(k) and IRA opportunities that are offered by your job.
It is never too early to start investing! Read our full guide to getting started investing after college.
Paying off your student loan debt consistently will put you in the right direction when it comes to building up your credit.
If you do get a credit card for rewards purposes, make sure you are paying it off at the end of the month.
A great credit score will help you save a lot of money in the long run.
When you go to buy a new house or get that new car, your interest rates will be much, much lower. Those savings eventually do count in helping you pay off your home or car faster.
Starting a side hustle to bring in extra money can feed all of the above money tips.
If you do it right, it will help you get out of debt faster, save more money so you can invest, and because you will be paying all your bills on time, your credit will be stellar.
It has never been easier to start a side hustle.
You hardly need capital to start one and you can dedicate as little or as much time as you want to it.
In this post, we shared 50+ ways to make money using a side hustle. Read it and get started on one right now.
When it comes to mastering your money, every penny you earn in income helps.
Becoming a master of your money does not have to wait until you're in your 40s and 50s.
You can start right now with whatever money you have no matter how little it is.
In this post, I have shared five money tips for the above-average college graduate.
Putting all these five tips into practice will have you eons ahead in the financial game before most people even realize what is happening.
I agree with all of these. You wouldn't believe the people that are 50+ and still paying on student loans. Life passes by a lot faster than we think, so getting started on improving your finances early is a great thing to do.


UPDATE: I did a decimal decryption, but still nothing like fully decrypted. I will keep working.
even if enough exposure to the unvarying gray sickness had somehow managed to immunize him, he could still never accept the way each owner, each shadow, filed in only to exchange a dented, malfunctioning version of himself for another, just as futureless, automotive projection of someone else's life.
Thanks. I looked this up on TRI-Databank and it all sounds very odd.


Friends may call Monday morning from 9 to 10 a.m. at the Frank T. Mazur Funeral Home, Inc., 601 Dundaff St., Dickson City. The funeral will be at 10 a.m. from the funeral home with mass of Christian Burial at 10:30 a.m. in St. Mary's Visitation Church, Dickson City. Interment will be private at the convenience of her family. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to St. Joseph's Center, 2110 Adams Ave., Scranton, PA 18509. For directions or to leave an online condolence, visit the funeral home website.
Margaret Balish Brewinski, 79, of Scranton, beloved wife, mother, grandmother, and sister, died Wednesday April 10, 2019, at Allied Hospice, Scranton. She is survived by her husband of 57 years Joseph Brewinski.
Born in Scranton, she was the daughter of the late Daniel and Mary Balint Balish, and was a member of St. Mary's Visitation Church, Dickson City. Margaret was a graduate of West Scranton High School, and prior to retirement she was employed as a service representative with Verizon Communication and GTE Corporation, and was the co-owner of Oakhurst Liquors in Seminole, FL.
Margaret is survived by her daughter, Dr. Margaret Brewinski Isaacs and her husband Rev. James Isaacs, and her grandchildren James, Joseph, and Helen Isaacs, all of Potomac, MD; her brother, Thomas Balish and his wife Jean, Groton, CT; nieces, nephews, and cousins.
She was preceded in death by six brothers, Army COL Harry Balish, attorney John Balish, Navy CDR Daniel Balish, William Balish, Frank Balish, and Dr. Edward Balish, and two sisters, Mary Kunda, and Helen Balish.
Margaret's family would like to extend their appreciation to Dr. James Klena, Dr. Pius Ochieng, the physicians, nurses, and support staff in the Geisinger CMC Oncology and Emergency Medicine Departments and Allied Hospice Facility. They are also grateful to the residents of the Marshall Apartment Building for their friendship and support and the time they enjoyed spending with Margaret, especially assembling puzzles together.


SUNDAY, Oct. 15, 2006 (HealthDay News) -- It sounds too simple to be an effective weight-loss strategy. But it just may be. Let your teens who are battling their weight choose their favorite low-cal beverages, stock the refrigerator with those drinks, and watch the pounds slip away.
That's the suggestion from a team of researchers at Children's Hospital Boston, who studied the strategy, found that it worked, and published their conclusions in a recent issue of the journal Pediatrics.
"Simply decreasing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption seems to be a promising strategy for preventing and treating obesity," said Cara Ebbeling, co-director of obesity research in the division of endocrinology at the hospital and the study's lead author.
The strategy makes sense to another expert, and here's why. "This works because it is a small change," said Lona Sandon, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association and a registered dietitian at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
"The adolescents are not being asked to give something up or go out of their way to do something differently," Sandon said. "Nor must they worry about counting calories."
In the study, Ebbeling and her team evaluated 103 teens; half were asked to pick non-caloric or low-caloric drinks they liked and a supply of them was delivered to their homes. The other half were not asked for their favorite non-caloric drinks nor did they receive any. Over the 25-week study, the researchers found that consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages dropped by 82 percent in the low-cal beverage group compared to the control group.
When the researchers weighed the teens and re-measured their body mass index (BMI, a ratio of weight to height), they found that the heavier teens in the low-cal group lost about a pound a month.
The low-cal choices included sugar-free sodas, non-caloric lemonade and ice tea, and bottled water.
The simple strategy comes at a time when many parents of teens are frustrated trying to help their overweight children. The rate of overweight among children and teens ages 6 to 19 was 16 percent in 2002, triple the percent in 1980. That 16 percent translates to 9 million kids, according to estimates by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sandon said small changes like the one tried in the study can be effective approaches to weight loss. "A simple change of what is available in their [the teens'] environment helped them to decrease calorie levels without really being aware of it. This shows that our environment can have a profound effect on food choices."
Other small steps can also offer big payoffs for teens who want to lose weight -- or simply control it, Sandon said. Parents can offer a lower-calorie cereal alternative for breakfast, for instance. And they can be sure a green, leafy salad with low-fat dressing is available with lunch and dinner.
Switch to smaller dinner plates because they tend to encourage less consumption of food.
Besides changing the "eating environment," teens can also increase their levels of activity. It can be as simple as walking the dog more. Limiting television time is another good way to discourage sedentary behavior, Sandon said.
Ebbeling is continuing her research, which was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the Charles H. Hood Foundation. She is working on a similar, much larger study.
For 10 more tips on cutting calories, visit the American Dietetic Association.


Pre-registration is closed for this clinic/camp.
Team Sports Soccer is designed for participants who are unable to go "full speed" due to a physical, cognitive or emotional challenge.
Each session is a four weeks in length and includes weekly practice along with game play on Saturday mornings. This program is a great way to introduce your loved one to a variety of team sports.The first half hour will consist of drill and station work, followed by a half hour of game play. Participants will be placed onto teams based on age and ability.
This league is for all abilities and ages no matter your physical, cognitive or emotional challenge. If you have a desire to play with a team, this is your league.
Tickets are not available as this clinic & camp has passed.


Hip Hop Affirmations: Sa-Roc "Forever"
I was in that mirror like 4-5 times a week, with my mala beads reciting affirmations like holy rites" - Sa-Roc "Forever"
My body art a laundry list of all of life's unkindnesses.
In your natural state, you are whole, complete and beautiful. Your past mistakes do not define you nor take away from your value. Accept your scars and the wrongs done to you, but use them to grow even more beautifully.
Every scar, whether physical or emotional was meant by the enemy of your soul to break you forever, but you can use those scars to remind you of your lowest point and how you survived it.
People will critique, pull, push, slander and talk down on you and what you do, but realize that even though you are not who they want you to be, you are purposed, you have to keep pushing and doing you, never changing for the masses, and then you will reach your point of inner peace and true power.
There is a fighter in your blood, you, your ancestors and your GOD have been through way too much for you to consider yourself weak. You are a warrior, you are straight fire.
Older PostThe Wonder in all Women.


text:
Oprahism and the Church of Obama
Many people have noted that Obama's rhetoric often feels off, but fewer have looked into why that is so. A great part of Obama's success has been his ability to invoke values detached from belief systems. To break away symbols and ideals from religious and national value systems, and mix and match them into his own soundbites. Like the famous Hope poster, that mixed patriotic color schemes with socialist realism, or Obama's own logo, which mixed corporate branding with national politics-- Obama's "brand" was built out of a barely coherent mishmash of clashing elements. The only thing they all have in common is that they are bricks in the wall of Obama's image. They all combine together to promote him.
None of this could have succeeded if context mattered, but Obama's people were piggybacking on a culture where context had ceased to matter. Where growing numbers of people could not be bothered to understand and would not care about the different elements being combined together, only whether the final product appealed to them or not. Obama's image had more in common with the way hip hop artists sample songs, than with a symphony. His campaign was the perfect trailer to a movie that would never be released. It was the marriage of corporate advertising campaigns, pop culture, radical politics and Americana-- thrown together in a pot and boiled into one indecipherable mix that was appealing, and yet completely void of meaning.
Obama's speeches were robotic, not just because they were delivered via teleprompter, but because they had been assembled together artificially out of bits and pieces of old presidential speeches into generic templates that were meant to awe audiences through their presentation. And if afterward no one could quite remember what he said, or what he promised or why they were even impressed-- in an ADD culture that only added to his charm. And so Obama kept on saying very little of substance, yet entertaining his audiences. His speeches called up spirituality devoid of religion, Americana devoid of patriotism and ideals devoid of ideas. He appropriated them all and used them as props in his show.
His obvious inspiration for this was not Jeremiah Wright, who did however provide plenty of textual inspiration, but Oprah herself. Oprah's success lay in marketing that same diffuse spirituality, not grounded in any actual belief system. Instead what she offered was an endless self-centered buffet, spirituality as self-empowerment, with herself and her chosen gurus as the center of a new commercial belief system.
Obama echoed that same self-centeredness, telling audiences, "We are the ones we have been waiting for", a quote from one of Oprah's favorite authors, and appealing to their own search for meaning. A favorite Oprah theme. The search for meaning is a common enough crutch for the narcissist, who wants fulfillment on his or her own terms, rather than commitment. Oprah has been catering to her audiences' endless search for meaning, as expressed through products and courses they can buy. Obama was just the latest of those gurus offering a meaning, consisting entirely of inspiring quotes cribbed from more talented people, with no actual application to anything.
The implicit subtext of the commercial search for meaning is that the meaning itself can never be found, but searching for it is what makes you a better person. That search for meaning as identity defines Oprah, it also defined Obama, who turned that into his own brand with two separate books chronicling his search for meaning, as his identity. His own mentor, Jeremiah Wright, had discovered that packaging his Black Muslim background and Leftist politics into Trinity Church would make him more salable, than if he had marginalized himself as some radical crank. (It took videos of his own shameless speeches and stepping on Obama's media friendly toes to do that.) Obama similarly discovered that selling Islam and Alinsky in a vaguely Christian tone would make it go down smoother. And with enough tri-color bunting and American flags and hymn books scattered around the Trojan Horse, fewer people would notice what was really hiding on the inside.
Obama had daringly sold his journey as America's journey, encouraging voters to not only identify personally with him, but to identity America itself with him. Positioning his own background as the embodiment of America. This should have been an obvious warning sign, because rather than identifying with Americans, he expected them to identify with him. Structuring his campaign as a journey, he spoke to the need for drama by the detached and disaffected. People who were too busy looking for meaning, to understand that meaning cannot be detached from the larger religious and cultural ideas that define civilization. Yet that was exactly what Obama appeared to offer, context free ideas, faith without religion, hope without anything tangible to actually hope for. It was a one-sided romance in which the public, like chicks waddling over to a wire mother, mistaking a sham for substance.
If Oprah offered fast-food meaning on television, Obama offered fast-food solutions in politics. Paying for it was never an issue. Consequences were off the table as well. By clothing a self-centered appeal in altruistic clothing, people felt they were engaging in self-improvement, when they were only being manipulated by professional egotists.
Oprah and Obama did more than share a pastor. They shared broken families and a profound greed and resentment that they learned to disguise professionally as empathy and ambition. By channeling the resentments of others, they could get what they wanted, without appearing harsh or abrasive. By selling other people on answers they did not believe in themselves, they could position themselves as spiritual leaders, without the fuss and limitations of organized religions, written creeds and higher deities. Instead they marketed their own life stories as a form of spirituality, convincing their followers to become invested in their success. Their own achievements were no longer personal, but national and global.
Self-realization as religion is a thoroughly self-indulgent faith, which is what makes it both hollow and appealing. It begins with religion as therapy, and ends with therapy as religion. It borrows religious metaphors, while discarding their meaning. That is the faith that Oprah and Obama have successfully sold millions on. A vaporous hope and faith, with nothing standing behind them. Both came with an innate understanding of the profound weakness of their followers in a post-modern age. They copied the templates of the intersection of religion and entertainment, removing any gods from the equation, and leaving behind personal narratives, feel-good cleaning rituals and of course, money.
But while Obama proved that you can run a campaign, the way you run a talk show-- you cannot actually run a country the way you run a talk show. Oprah's paranoid commitment to secrecy could not be successfully mirrored at the White House, no matter how hard Obama tried. And people expected more from an elected official put into the highest office in the land, than they did from a talk show host. And there was no avoiding that. And now it is Sarah Palin who's creating her own media empire, with books, a TV show and public appearances. Meanwhile Obama is discovering that reality cannot be remixed. That trotting out upbeat brands, slogans and logos is no substitute for results. And that eventually even loyalist reporters will have questions they want answers to. If only to the question, "Why can't I ever ask you a question?"
Yet there is a larger problem behind Obama and Oprah, the problem of a culture that neglect context, and instead favors short-term entertainment. When the Obama Administration ends, it may well go down as the most expensive bit of public entertainment in American history. And what is worse, is that even if Obama is somehow shown the door tomorrow, the cultural blind spots he exploited will still be there, and only getting worse. The self-help shelves of bookstores are still jammed with the search for meaning. That same empty yearning, which Obama exploited so very well.
There is a hole in our culture, and it is there because the verities that once defined us have been marginalized. Religion and national identity are relentlessly mocked by the same media culture that has usurped their place, with its own replacements like Oprah. What once provided meaning to people, lies by the wayside. And instead people search for personal fragmented meanings, for happiness and self-realization, when the search itself represents a denial of the mature commitments that make happiness and self-realization possible. Behind that fragmentation is a culture's loss of who and what it is. Leaving behind lonely individuals looking for something to hang on to, and at the mercy of predators whose own identities come from gaining their confidence, and preying on them.
The left has always understood that it can only succeed by replacing religion and nationalism, either through direct assault, or through the Trojan Horse effect of dressing their own ideas up in mock nationalistic and religious colors. The left was never atheistic. Its religion was government, its functionaries and doctrines were its priests and its creed. The Communists radically launched a direct assault. The more moderate socialists rode inside the Trojan Horse. And their depredations have left behind a West with a wounded soul. It is not only the likes of Oprah and Obama who know how to exploit that wound. There are far worse predators drawing closer to the campfire. Islam is preparing to engulf a Europe that has turned its back on its own values. What predators will come for America in the night is still an open question. With Obama and Soros, we have seen the first ugly glimmer of what may be coming. But unless America reclaims its soul, far larger predators will arrive on the scene.
Brock Townsend 17/4/12
The top picture is more than I can bear.....:)
more than I can bear too
Morey 18/4/12
Hallelujah Save them Whales!
Laurene Tuttle 18/4/12
You can mock all you want both people are terribly impressive and greatly needed by many.
Miss Oprah is a saint. Obama is messiah. You think that's a joke?
These people lay down their very lives for the American public and for some of us, this is very very real.
You need to have your head examined Knish because what Obama and Oprah do for America is priceless.
I used to be lonely until I found the Oprah show. But then my afternoons were filled with brightness for the first time in years.
I was raised a Protestant, but the church is vague and valueless at best. The ministry are boring and hypocritical.
Not Oprah. I began to watch her when she was broadcasting in Chicago.
I found deep respect for that lady and if she loved Obama and thought the nation needed him, well I did too.
She knows. She is spiritual and deep and right minded.
The left is not the problem in America. It is the religious right that has brought deep degradation to the states with their evangelical haughtiness and their servile love of guns and landfills.
Islam will not make inroads in the USA because there are no merry hymns about someone like Jesus in that religion and that is what the evangelicals love.
Also there are no happy holidays for people to stay home and drink hot chocolate around the fire either.
Its why Judaism never made any progress.
But if Oprah is a religion then its a darn good one.
Yonah Moshe 18/4/12
"both people are terribly impressive and greatly needed by many."
They have convinced you that you need them. And you say the bloggist needs HIS head examined? LOL, You just made his point.
"But if Oprah is a religion then its a darn good one."
Another one who is so blinded that they embrace this religion of nothing with open arms. Pathetic and precisely what is wrong with America.. too many like this fool. There really must be something in the water...
Oprah once gave me a few bucks when I was down on my luck in Chicago. It changed my life.
You can call people fools Yonah but you sound like a man whose head is stuck in a big fish.
I think one of your best.
Surely, there is some parody in the previous comments? Nobody can be that dumb and still breathe.
Jealousy from the right which has no icons who are looked up to at all.
RichardFromOz 18/4/12
Oh-oh, Daniel. I fear from the sudden dropping of the standard of responses from some of the "contributors", the leftards have found you.
@ anonymous ....Also there are no happy holidays for people to stay home and drink hot chocolate around the fire either......
Its why Judaism never made any progress......
You apparently have no idea about Jews and their happy holidays, as for those the entire world should already have been Jewish and on a diet!
I do however agree that Oprah may have filled a void in many empty lives which empty religious words could not fill as not every pastor, priest or rabbi has the gift of "connection".
TheGhostofBelleStarr 18/4/12
Honestly...Oprah is the biggest sanctimonious, guilt-ridden, elitist snob to ever epitomize liberal guilt. She makes her enormous success due to her vacuous existence on daytime television stroking the emotions of scores of pathetic women who would do better reading books or expanding their mind over watching the daily chit-chat about the most superficial tripe our pop culture can pass from its bowels. Oprah...just be thankful you pull down more than the GNP of most small nations in the world each year, and please just shut your dang yap!
Every time I see her doe-eyed, rapt, child-like attention on the latest trend of spiritualistic nonsense she pedantically dissects as some form of new enlightenment she is bestowing upon her dumbass lemming masses everywhere, I desperately want to skewer my eyeballs like martini olives, and guzzle them down with some gin.
tickbird 18/4/12
Mr Greenfield,
Most of the comments confirmed exactly what you wrote about. Oprahism is the religion of which Oprah is the high priestess and Obama is the god. Laurene Tuttle is obviously a devotee and so are so many in your country. Tragically so.
Jules 18/4/12
Dear Daniel,
Absolutely spot on yet again sir.
p.s. Can you explain why EVERY (and I mean EVERY) time I try to send a link to one of your articles on facebook, FB demands me to complete one of those "identify the obscured text" security checks before I can post it. Seems mighty strange and a tad sinister that your blog is being singled out for this treatment time and again?
gonzomocha 18/4/12
got to really wonder at the 'trojan horse'....that has now emerged on your site....where have these useless idiots/do gooders....been hidin'
my best line in your marvelously worded piece is the one that runs...'profound greed and resentment.....disguise professionaly as empathy and ambition'......absolutely on the button
personally can't tolerate the woman...an un-abashed charlatan....and was mightly pleased to hear that her new network was having financial problems and shedding staff at a rate....
could'nt happen to a 'nicer' person..chuckle chuckle
Harpo Amabo 18/4/12
Oh dear. All those starry-eyed, bedazzled people are merely demonstrating it is exactly as Mr Greenfield said.
Worse, no matter how thoughtful or objective articles like this, there seem to be enough people being taken in to sweep Obama into a second term –– and for that matter will keep swallowing without thought whatever the illusionists and delusion-makers tell them.
Yes, you will indeed receive a few dollars, a few warming words, from the promoted great and good but they will ensure they stay on top.
There are far worse predators drawing closer to the campfire.
Not sure that's possible.
It would be perfectly fine (although perhaps time-consuming) to just not publish their empty nonsense.
This won't count for anything, but I nominate Daniel for next year's Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. What a damning portrait he writes of Obama, a creature who feels a need to be something without actually being anything, a manipulator of contextless ideas and raw emotions and exploiter of resentments and wishes for the unearned who can't be anything unless he is seen as master of the universe by all the selfless and rudderless sheep. Without obedience and adulation, he is truly an empty suit – nay, an empty vessel. Frankly, he's an amateur in that respect – look at Putin, or Robert Mugabe, or Hitler, or Mao, or Stalin, or the faceless Party tyrants of China, but his professional standing as a wannabe tyrant and half-successful demagogue who keeps reality at bay by commanding the tides and the weather to do his bidding, doesn't make him any the less dangerous.
No Pulitzer was awarded this year for fiction. It ought to have gone to an anthology of Obama's speeches. Or to his biographies.
For a minute there I thought you were going for an allusion to Obama as Lucifer, "the morning start", the one who would make himself God and build a religion around himself.
chapter 14 of the Book of Isaiah: "And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ! ... How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit." (KJV, Isaiah 14:3-5, 12-15).
Daniel, It seems we're on a bit of the same wavelength. http://bokertov.typepad.com/btb/2012/04/parrr-ty.html
Unknown 18/4/12
I agree with others, this is one of your best descriptions of BHO's character. Removing the symbols of America i.e. our flag,and replacing it with his hollow, big fat zero logo is disturbing to Americans.
I would love to have you give this article as a speech at the GOP Convention - time to wake up America. Apparently, from reading the comments, you have touched the nerve of a few of his blinded followers.
Mr ED 18/4/12
The religion of the New Left preaches that its acolytes will find meaning (and redemption) within their own personal godhood. All attempts to find meaning elsewhere are not only doomed to failure, those attempts are in and of themselves evil and must be utterly destroyed so as not to interfere with the glorious search for redemption to be found only within ones personal, private sense of ethics (personal godhood). At least that is true for the elect who know how special they themselves are and how much better the world will be after they. the elect, have their chance to rule.
Those would-be gods of the New Left (Obamesiah, lying media scum, et al) truly believe they know best in all things and that those who resist their personal mission of godhood - leading we mere mortals into the perfect future - simply need to be forced at the point of a government gun to accept the self-appointed Leftist gods vision of the "perfect" world, all for their own good of course! Naturally that "perfect" world the Leftists create is just as corrupt and pernicious as human nature itself, but the Leftist gods believe themselves noble, corageous and utterly infallible and expect the little people they rule over to thank them for the blessings of the Leftists infallible wisdom and enlightenment.
But that is and always has been the New Left - Symbolism Without Substance - Morality Without Morals. While New Leftism isn't a religion in the strictest sense, there are a great many similarities between a much older totalitarian religion (Is-lame) and the newer totalitarian religion of the New Left. They both profess to be comprehensive systems that offer not only religious meaning, but also provide a government and set of laws by which humans should be governed. And that government, its laws and those who rule must not be questioned about their judgements nor the wisdom of their decisions - They are doing gods will (even if they themselves are the "god") and as such are beyond any need to explain themselves to the little people. The little people will just have to be made to submit and obey "gods will". Sound familiar?
TheBeatGoesOn 18/4/12
I have your site bookmarked and find the effort, your writing ability and topics of great importance. This particular piece is very well written and thoughtful. Your insight and ability to express your "ideas" is quite admirable. May I say "thank you Daniel" for doing a wonderful work for many. Dare I use a trite saying in that "you punch above your weight class". But you have class, Sir.
Charlie Whiting
Blue Ridge Mtns. of S.W. Va.
A Random Blowhard 18/4/12
Context, you say. Well, two things about that. First, that it remains the duty of every voter (consumer) to caveat emptor, be responsible for validating claims - be skeptical! If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Second, that we usually have some kinds of "gatekeepers" who attempt to enforce truth in advertising. Historically this has been the MSM. Who gave them the millenium off? What about the party apparatus, that is supposed to give us qualified candidates?
Context is not magic and does not enforce itself, it takes work on the part of many.
That said, your Oprah/Obama comparo is just so valid, it hurts. Still, Oprah seems to fulfill the needs of her context. And here's a thing, arguably, if all Obama is is a good laugh, maybe that fulfills the context, too. Our president is not the god-king of the USA, he's the top of the administrative branch. In may large organizations, all that is is a figurehead that people can unite behind, the real work being done in the bureaus. So, as hollow and wrong as Obama might be, let's not blame it all on him, personally.
Religion, sex, and politics. And drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll. Sex is the third rail between the other two in a sub-cultural transit system.
Obama is a rock-star politician. Oprah is a day-time-media groupie's drug of choice.
Fast food. Free sex. A man doesn't have to be a breadwinner in order to have his cake and eat it too. And a woman doesn't have to manage a home and family in order to find fulfillment in the marketplace.
Sex is just a word that means whatever Freud and Kinsey want it mean.
The past was a riddle pregnant with meaning; but now the future is an answer that can mean whatever we want it to mean.
I have a riddle for Chicago politics and Chicago religion. When is a young, first-time mother not expectant? When she is with fetal tissue.
Unless we can bring ourselves to repent for what we have done with our words there is no real hope or true change for us. Or for our children.
Keli Ata 18/4/12
This is wonderful Daniel and and should be labeled important. You nailed Obama. I'm tempted to ask how you managed to get Obama on your couch to analyze him but Obama left his diary open you didn't have to.
There always has been something off about Obama and his version of transparency and secretiveness. Sort of like Putin's response to voter fraud--live streaming video of each and every voter. Transparent spying and deception.
Three and a half years into Obama's reign and the second he opens his mouth I literally change the channel. Channel surfing literally and figuratively!
The MSM (Main Stream Miss) and led me to another controversial network to enagage me in US politics.
Re your articles and FB: FB is getting pretty strange lately. I tried to like The Alyona Show and got a pop asking if I really wanted to like The Alyona Show.
It sort of like FB asking are your really really sure you want to publicly admit to liking this show?
I'm getting the sense that liking anything remotely controversial will put me on one watch list or another.
This is anti-cyber censorship week. Forget SOPA and PIPA.
CISPA is far worse
Lawrence Howard 18/4/12
@FSY
Yes employ censorship to silence those whose opinions differ from your own. What freedom!
".....thrown together in a pot and boiled into one indecipherable mix that was appealing, and yet completely void of meaning."
I think you were thinking of this:
Shemot 32:24 "...Then they gave me the gold and I threw it into the fire, an out came this calf!"
The time we are in is the "Time of No Context" - this is why people cannot think for themselves, don't know how to measure from a baseline, spiritually and are emotionally labile consequently voting for anyone who makes them feel good.
...anyway counting down to the next big happy holiday - kate b
Lawrence Howard: Whom are you accusing of censorship? Your comment isn't clear. If it's Daniel, the charge fails. This is his blog, and not public property, and he may edit or delete commments as he wishes. The only entity that can practice or impose censorship is the government, which has a monopoly on force. In fact, one couldn't even charge the MSM with censorship when it omits certain facts or evidence that don't fit an agenda -- the Trayvon Martin/Zimmerman issue is a case in point. One can only charge the MSM with encouraging emotional insanity and lynch mob justice. So, if you're reading this, please do the other readers a courtesy and clarify your comment.
Jim Milord 18/4/12
Thank you Daniel and bless you. I cannot believe that these people could be so bad and effective on their own without water and fertilization by a corrupted culture dying to, um, die.
Jim Milord
Bellingham WA
Edward: Not to meddle but it was fsy who suggested not posting certain comments.
BTW: You're absolutely right about government censorship. I've experienced government censorship for my writing off line a little over a decade ago. You're right.
@ Edward
My comment was clearly marked as aimed at fys. Learn to read before you start barking your head off at people.
An angry man hating lesbian, and a closet homosexual male - they have met their match. Who are we to judge?
To Laurene Tuttle,
I postulate:
Nobody's excrement tastes like ice cream. Not yours. Not mine. And perhaps to your disbelief, not Obama's or even Oprah's. That said, now go get a life.
To Daniel,
A great article among great articles...You outdid yourself more than you you usually do.
Not Ovenready
Lawrence Tuttle,
Read my comment again. I never advocated "censorship" based on opinions, I simply suggested a reasonable filtering of content-free, repetitive spam.
As others have mentioned, your original comment was just nowhere near the intellectual standard seen in the comments on this blog, and that is was gave it away as trolling.
Oops, I meant Lawrence Howard.
Lawrence Howard, you chastised: "My comment was clearly marked as aimed at fys. Learn to read before you start barking your head off at people."
I wasn't "barking my head off." I was asking for clarification, calmly and civilly. I don't read all the comments here so "fsy" eluded me. Calm down.
Julia 19/4/12
See Ross Douthat "Bad Religion: How we Became a Nation of Heretics" I think Greenfield and Douthat are channeling each other!
To follow Obama or Oprah, to believe they have all the answers to being a happy, fulfilled individual or to creating a better society, is to follow a false messiah.
We have a watering down of mainstream religion into a homogeneous feel good spiritual food substitute. I respect everyone's right to believe as he or she wishes, but I refuse to shop at the church of feelgoodism for my faith. American religious laziness is part of the intellectual laziness we find within Ivy covered walls, in schoolrooms, round America's office water coolers, and round American dinner tables. Our laziness makes us vulnerable to charlatans and false messiahs.
That is so true Julia. So true.
The thing about happy, feel good religions is that they are just that--feel good.
There is no Jewish Vidui or Catholic Confiteor. No remorse for sin or recognition of sign. No thumping of the chest to demonstrate that sorrow and guilt through our own actions. To accuse ourselves.
oops. typo. I meant to write sin twice.
Chest tapping during Vidui has always reminded me of chest compressions in CPR. It's essential for the person to be revived.
Mascots of Western culture, &/or perhaps simply an extension of the underlying corrupt foundation of western civilisation, that has been let off its leash.......religious, but on its own terms & rules, devoid of the fullness of Torah through its own self indulgent cheery picking that has come home to roost.
I Can't Believe It's Not Israel
The Empire of Poverty
The Flying Car Culture
Friday Afternoon Roundup - Builders and Destroyers
Israel, A Nation Once Again
The United Nation's Useless Genocide Trials
The Savage Lands of Islam
The Universalist Holocaust
All the Morals of a Bulldozer
Friday Afternoon Roundup - Planet Liberal
Afghanistan At Home
Israel 50 Years From Now
We Are All George Zimmerman
Friday Afternoon Roundup - Bread and Racial Circuses
Better or Worse?
The Red Lorelei of Gunter Grass
In Green We Trust
One Hundred Broken Mirrors
Friday Afternoon Roundup - This Year in Jerusalem
The Democratic Party and Jewish Anti-Semitism
The Liberal Jewish Eunuch
Christian Blood on Obama's Hands