text:
I've Decided to Live 120 Years Audiobook (CD)
Very few people have goals or plans for their lives after their 70s or 80s, beyond simply staying alive. Yet many people nowadays are living longer and facing the challenge of 20 to 40 years of inactivity.
The solutions that New York Times bestselling author Ilchi Lee presents in I've Decided to Live 120 Years: The Ancient Secret to Longevity, Vitality, and Life Transformation focus on the body, mind, and spirit. For the body, Lee encourages people to get up and move, explaining that being healthy means relying more on self-care and exercise. In his book, Lee includes instructions for one-minute workouts, and for Longevity Walking and Belly Button Healing—special techniques that he?s developed to promote mental and physical health, improve sleep and mood, enhance energy levels, and alleviate pain.
When it comes to improving the mind as people age, Lee presents much wise guidance. He discusses, for example, the joy of creation, saying it is never too late to feel good about creating something new. And creation means action. Longevity is not about sitting back and letting the years pass. It?s a time to be fully engaged in life.
Much of I've Decided to Live 120 Years is devoted to the significance of spiritual growth in people?s later years, whether in the form of oneness with nature, meditation, or other practices. What is most important, says Lee, is attaining a sense of completion, a feeling of unity with the divine or with the Source of the cosmos. Completion "is about the world of consciousness, a sense that allows us to feel what is going on inside us. It is a feeling of fulfillment filling our hearts, like pride, satisfaction, oneness, and peace . . . A life of completion is one that allows us in the moment of death to look back on our lives, to feel satisfaction, and fulfillment, and to close our eyes in peace and happiness," he writes.
Throughout this book, Ilchi Lee encourages readers to enjoy new experiences, build relationships, become active helping others, take pleasure in the wonders of nature, and seek self-knowledge. These are all keys to living a long and fruitful life. Yet there is also a bigger theme underlying much of what Lee writes about. He is calling on seniors to create a new culture of aging, one that will act as a powerful force for making the world a better place for all. "Deciding to live to be 120 doesn?t mean that you merely want to live a long time; it?s an expression of your conviction and will to change your life, change your community, and set the human species and the earth on a course to a better future," he writes. Lee is asking older adults to put their passion and energy to work, and to pass their wisdom on to younger generations. Anyone who reads I've Decided to Live 120 Years will be inspired to do so.
About the AuthorILCHI LEE is a visionary and educator who has helped millions of people globally to expand their true potential. He has penned more than 40 books, including the New York Times bestseller, The Call of Sedona: Journey of the Heart. Lee is the founder of the mind-body practices of Body & Brain Yoga and Brain Education and of the Earth Citizen Movement. Learn more at www.ilchi.com.
About the Voice ActorFRED SULLIVAN is an award-winning longtime resident actor at Trinity Rep in Providence. He has received Norton, IRNE, Motif, and Earphones awards for excellence. A resident artist for Commonwealth Shakespeare Co in Boston, Fred has played Bottom, Jaques, Parolles, Menenius, and Malvolio.
Narrated by: Fred Sullivan
Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins (Unabridged), 6 CDs
Publisher: Best Life Media (January 31, 2018)
Listen to the Sample
This Book Is Already Loved by Many
"A delightful guide full of inspiration and information for those who want to live a full, vibrant, and meaningful life at any age."– Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements
"This extraordinary book renders the most complex secret of existence—how to give your life meaning, longevity, and fulfillment—amazingly simple. The wisdom here is miles deep, yet easily accessible, making it instantly useable. What you'll read here can change your life for the better immediately, and you can't ask for more from a book than that. What a gift!"– Neale Donald Walsch, author of The Conversations with God series
Ilchi Lee shines a bright light of ancient and post modern wisdom on the impact of how each of us defines our life purpose and the pathways we choose for its fulfillment.His book's genius is not only its scientific, time-tested longevity principles, but also how he infuses it with his own good heart.– Michael Bernard Beckwith, author of Life Visioning and Spiritual Liberation
"I've Decided to Live 120 Years is a magnificent book that ignites the true spirit of what it means to live fully—regardless of your chronological age. But more than that, this book provides the precise formula you need to follow if do indeed want to live as fully as possible, as healthfully as possible, for as long as possible."– Christiane Northrup, M.D., OB/GYN and author of the New York Times bestsellers: Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Wellbeing, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, and The Wisdom of Menopause
I've Decided to Live 120 Years
New York Times bestselling author and renowned meditation teacher, Ilchi Lee, challenges you to radically rethink your ideas on aging, health, personal fulfillment, and what's possible in your...
I've Decided to Live 120 Years Personal Workbook
Do you ever think a book has some great ideas but you don't put its teachings to use? This personal workbook based on Ilchi Lee's book I've Decided to Live 120 Years: The Ancient Secret...
He Decidido Vivir 120 Años (I've Decided to Live 120 Years Spanish Edition)
Ilchi Lee, autor con éxito de ventas según el New York Times y uno de los más renombrados profesores de meditación de nuestra era, te reta a repensar radicalmente tus...
I've Decided to Live 120 Years Book (Chinese Edition)
New York Times bestselling author and one of the most renowned meditation teachers in our time, Ilchi Lee challenges you to radically rethink your ideas on life, longevity, health, personal...


This is my sister's super special secret recipe for chicken shish kabobs. She finally shared this with me for a garden party for the opening of the Doctor Yum Project Teaching Garden and they were a hit! Kids love the juiciness of the chicken and the colorful arrangement of veggies. If you have any kid helpers let them smell and sample the different herbs. Kids can chop or tear herbs for the marinade and help arrange the veggies on the kabobs.
Combine the first 7 ingredients to make the marinade. Marinate chicken the night before. The next day, assemble kabobs and vegetables onto skewers and pour excess marinade on to assembled kabobs to season the veggies. Cook the kabobs on a hot grill until the chicken is no longer pink inside and veggies are softened slightly (about 3-5 minutes on each side).


text:
Q: How do you delete a subelement from a Scrapy Selector? I'm trying to scrape the content of some forum posts with Scrapy, and I want to exclude text that is quoted from a previous post. I'm lucky that the website marks this quoted text very clearly (it's inside "blockquote" tags), but I can't figure out how to get all the text that is not in a blockquote tag. There's an example of the forum post structure below. In this particular post, the user writes something, then quotes the previous post, then writes some more. So basically, the tag I want to get rid of is sandwiched between content that I want. More usually, the quoted text would be first and new text would follow, but I need to be able to handle weird cases like this as well.
I tried using the w3lib remove_tags:
from w3lib.html import remove_tags, remove_tags_with_content
body = post.css('div.bbWrapper')[0]
content = remove_tags(remove_tags_with_content(body, ('blockquote', )))

but I get an error: TypeError: to_unicode must receive a bytes, str or unicode object, got Selector
I've found instructions on how to do this with Beautiful Soup, but not Scrapy. If using BS is the only option, can I just switch to it in the middle of my Scrapy parse items method?

TEXT I WANT TO COLLECT HERE

    OTHER GUY SAID:

    TEXT I DON'T WANT

    TEXT I DON'T WANT

TEXT I DON'T WANT

TEXT I WANT

...

A: First of all in the example you gave if I choose only the text inside div I get:
In [1]: response.xpath('.//div/text()').getall()
Out[1]:
['TEXT I WANT TO COLLECT HERE',
 '\r\n',
 '\r\n    ',
 '\r\n    ',
 '\r\n    ',
 '\r\n    ',
 '\r\n    ',
 '\r\n     ',
 '\r\n     ',
 '\r\nTEXT I WANT',
 '\xa0',
 '\r\n...\r\n']

So you can do something like this:
In [2]: [x.strip() for x in response.xpath('.//div/text()').getall() if x.strip()]
Out[2]: ['TEXT I WANT TO COLLECT HERE', 'TEXT I WANT', '...']

Or even better don't select it (search all div tags that doesn't have a div class="bbCodeBlock-title" ancestor or self):
In [3]: response.xpath('//div//text()[not(ancestor-or-self::div[contains(@class,"bbCodeBlock")])]').getall()
Out[3]:
['TEXT I WANT TO COLLECT HERE',
 '\r\n',
 '\r\n    ',
 '\r\n    ',
 '\r\n    ',
 '\r\nTEXT I WANT',
 '\xa0',
 '\r\n...\r\n']

And you already know what to do with the list.

A: The post that @Fazlul linked to was helpful, though it was missing a step I needed. For future people with this question:
The thing that was tripping me up was that I couldn't remove the html element from a Scrapy Selector object. But I just needed to use extract() on the selector to get a string, then it worked.
from w3lib.html import remove_tags, remove_tags_with_content

posts = response.css('div.contentRow-main')
for post in posts:
    body = post.css('div.bbWrapper')[0]
    content = remove_tags(remove_tags_with_content(body.extract(), ('blockquote', )))
    item['content'] = content

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Luther College is a co-educational independent secondary school of the Lutheran Church of Australia located in the outer-eastern suburb of Croydon Hills in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It maintains a close relationship with the Outer Eastern Lutheran Church parish of the Lutheran Church of Australia, which congregates in the school's chapel facilities. It provides education for years 7–12.

History
Opened in 1964, Luther College is a school of the Lutheran Church of Australia, named for the father of the Lutheran Church, Dr. Martin Luther, a 16th-century German theologian.

Beginning as a boarding school with students from remote regional areas of Victoria making up a large percentage of its enrolment, the school grew to become popular with International students. However, after a decline in International enrolments and worries about the growth of the student body in relation to the school's facilities, the boarding program ended at the end of 2002, with the boarding house facilities being demolished or adapted into classrooms.

The school now admits small numbers of students from remote areas who take part in a home-stay program, residing with the families of local students.

Religious education
As a school of the Lutheran Church of Australia, Luther College students participate in mandatory religious education classes in all years.

All students from all year levels attend a chapel service in the school's chapel four days out of the week.

The school's campus contains a special Ministry Centre which contains the offices of the school's two chaplains as well as the school counsellor.

IT program

Students at all levels of Luther College use College-provided notebook computers, although senior students (years 10-12) are also permitted to enter a BYOD program. Whilst other students must use a school-provided and owned device, senior students own their devices and must purchase them from either the College or another vendor.

Involvement with Good Shepherd Lutheran Primary School
Both Luther College and The Good Shepherd Lutheran Primary School are private schools, as well as schools of the Lutheran Church of Australia. Both their campuses are located in Croydon Hills, separated by two sporting ovals.

The schools share many of their facilities, including the sporting ovals, as well as the Luther College chapel which is used by the primary school for special occasions. The schools have very similar uniforms, and until 2004 their physical education uniforms were almost identical.

As many as 80% of Good Shepherd students attend Luther College after the completion of year 6, due to the school's close proximity and affordable fees. Due to this, students of the schools share a close relationship. Many collegiates undertake work experience or voluntary service placements at Good Shepherd, and both schools often present chapel services for each other.

There has been speculation since Good Shepherd's inception that the schools will one day join to become one college that provides education for all students years prep-12, as other private church schools including Methodist Ladies' College and Yarra Valley Grammar have successfully done, but there has been no official acknowledgement of this proposal from either school at any time.

Sport
Luther is a member of the Eastern Independent Schools of Melbourne (EISM).

EISM premierships
Luther has won the following EISM senior premierships.

Combined:

 Athletics (16) – 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021
 Cross Country (16) – 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019

Boys:

 Athletics (9) – 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2018, 2019, 2021
 Basketball (7) – 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 2004
 Cricket (7) – 1971, 1988, 1990, 1996, 2013, 2014, 2018
 Cross Country (16) – 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
 Football – 1976
 Handball – 2002
 Hockey (6) – 1992, 1994, 1995, 2003, 2004, 2006
 Indoor Soccer – 2008
 Soccer (3) – 1987, 1995, 2002
 Table Tennis (4) – 1978, 1982, 1984, 2015
 Tennis (5) – 1972, 1974, 1994, 1999, 2001
 Touch Rugby (4) – 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
 Volleyball (7) – 1977, 1979, 1980, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2016

Girls:

 Athletics (15) – 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021
 Basketball (3) – 1977, 1978, 1986
 Bowling (2) – 2005, 2006
 Cricket – 2009
 Cross Country (17) – 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
 Indoor Cricket – 2014
 Softball (2) – 1971, 1977
 Swimming (7) – 2000, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2019, 2020, 2021
 Tennis (9) – 1971, 1972, 1978, 1983, 1984, 1996, 2002, 2007, 2012
 Touch Rugby - 2022
 Volleyball (11) – 1977, 1989, 1992, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2015, 2016, 2017

Luther Year 9 EISM Premierships

Year 9 Boys:
 Badminton (3) - 2014, 2016, 2017
 Basketball (2) - 2014, 2019
 Football (2) - 2010, 2011
 Hockey (3) - 2013, 2014, 2017
 Indoor Cricket - 2017
 Lawn Bowls (4) - 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018
 Netball (4) - 2010, 2011, 2013, 2022
 Table Tennis (4) - 2011, 2013, 2017, 2019
 Touch Rugby (3) - 2011, 2014, 2016
 Soccer (3) - 2016, 2019, 2022
 Softball (3) - 2016, 2017, 2019
 Volleyball (6) - 2011, 2012, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019

Year 9 Girls:
 Badminton - 2015
 Basketball (2) - 2013, 2016
 Football (2) - 2012, 2018
 Hockey (4) - 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
 Indoor Cricket (5) - 2010, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018
 Indoor Soccer - 2021
 Lawn Bowls (3) - 2016, 2017, 2018
 Netball - 2014
 Table Tennis (2) - 2016, 2017
 Tennis (6) - 2010, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2020
 Touch Rugby (5) - 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021
 Soccer - 2015
 Softball - 2013
 Ultimate Frisbee (2) - 2015, 2017
 Volleyball (6) - 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017

Notable alumni
 360 (Matthew Colwell) – hip hop artist
 Aaron Baddeley – golf player
 Sarah Blanck – Olympic representative for sailing
 Tom Boyd – former AFL player for the Western Bulldogs and the GWS Giants
 Greig Fraser – Oscar-nominated, Emmy Award–winning cinematographer
 Ash Grunwald – blues and roots artist
 Daniel McStay – AFL player for the Brisbane Football Club
 Kathleen O'Kelly-Kennedy – Paralympian (bronze medal, basketball, Beijing 2008)
Ross Dunn - Competitive eater - 2019 Grandmaster champion Meatstock Sausage Sizzle Throwdown
 Paul Ahern - E-sports professional - Smash Brothers - regional champion 2002, Leisuresuit Larry - National runner-up 2019

References

Educational institutions established in 1964
Lutheran schools in Australia
Private secondary schools in Victoria (Australia)
Eastern Independent Schools of Melbourne
1964 establishments in Australia
High schools and secondary schools affiliated with the Lutheran Church
Buildings and structures in the City of Maroondah

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


*Waves Hello* We're still a small site. Let us know what we can do to make AWFY better! Feedback and comments are much appreciated.
Can't blame a guy for wanted to catch some Z's. Here Jean Dujardin can be seen sleeping on various things.
Whether tears of joy or tears of sorrow, these are the many reasons Conan O'Brien cries.
One man's desire to prove to others that Git is better than X.
You've reached an end. Now to go outside and experience life.
One man's quest to get Google to hire him.
Things might be bad, but at least they're "better than Justin Bieber."
Just because they're on the radio, doesn't mean that they look all that bad in person.
Just because it looks like you can do it, doesn't mean that you actually can.


text:
function getAppsKey(){
	$('#getAppsKey').click(function(event){
		$.ajax({
			url: define.url.apps,
			type: 'POST',
			dataType: 'json',
			data: {
				email: $('#getAppsKeyBody').val()
			},
		})
		.done(function(e) {
			storeToStorageSimple($('#getAppsKeyBody').val(), "email")
			ajaxGetPage("init.clientkey.html")
		})
		.fail(function(e) {
			console.log(e)
			localStorage.clear();
		})
	});
}

function getClientkey(){
	$('#getClientKey').click(function(event) {
		$.ajax({
			url: define.url.clients,
			type: 'POST',
			dataType: 'json',
			data: {
				apikey: $('#getClientKeyBody').val()
			},
		})
		.done(function(e) {
			console.log("getClientkey is success");
			storeToStorageSimple($('#getClientKeyBody').val(),"apikey")
			storeToStorageSimple(e.clientkey,"clientkey")
			getDeviceId()
		})
		.fail(function(e) {
			console.log("getClientkey is error");
			localStorage.clear();
		})
		.always(function() {
			console.log("getClientkey is complete");
		});
	});
}

function getDeviceId(){
	$.ajax({
		url: define.url.devices,
		type: 'POST',
		dataType: 'json',
		data: {
			clientkey: getFromStorage("clientkey")
		},
	})
	.done(function(e) {
		storeToStorage(e,"devicekey")
		storeToStorage(e,"deviceid")
		ajaxGetPage("init.wifi.html")
		console.log("getDeviceId is success");
	})
	.fail(function(e) {
		console.log("getDeviceId is error");
		localStorage.clear();
	})
	.always(function() {
		console.log("getDeviceId is complete");
	});
}

function getWifiSetting(recieve,recieveThanks){
	console.log(recieve)
	console.log(recieveThanks)
	storeToStorageSimple(recieveThanks,"recieveThanks")
	$("#wifiSetting").click(function() {
		console.log("getWifiSetting is success")
		$("#contents").children().animate({
			"margin-left": "-50%",
			"opacity": "0"},
			define.a,
			function(){
				$(this).remove();
				$("#contents").prepend(recieve)
				initFunction();
				$("#contents").children().css({
					"margin-left": '50%',
					"opacity": '0'
				}).animate({
					"margin-left": '0',
					"opacity": '1'
				},define.a,
				function(){
					registerFunction()
					console.log("registerFunction is excuted")
				})
		});
	});
}

function selectVisualControll(){
	var selectVal = function(e){
	 	switch(e){
			case "0":
	    	return "WPA_WPA2"
			case "1":
	    	return "WEP"
			case "2":
	    	return "NONE"
		}
	}
	$("#selectVisual").text(selectVal($("#getSecurityType").val()))
	$("#getSecurityType").change(function() {
		$("#selectVisual").text(selectVal($("#getSecurityType").val()))
	});
}

function getSerializeKey(){
	$('#getSerializedKey').click(function() {
		storeToStorageSimple($('#getSecurityType').val(),"securityType");
		storeToStorageSimple($('#getSsid').val(),"ssid");
		storeToStorageSimple($('#getPassword').val(),"password");

		var serialized = keyserializer.serialize({
		    security  : (function(e){
		    	switch(e){
		    		case "0":
				    	return keyserializer.SECURITY_WPA_WPA2
		    		case "1":
				    	return keyserializer.SECURITY_WEP
		    		case "2":
				    	return keyserializer.SECURITY_NONE
		    	}
		    })(getFromStorage("securityType")),
		    ssid      : getFromStorage("ssid"),
		    password  : getFromStorage("password"),
		    devicekey : getFromStorage("devicekey")
		});
		postSerializeKey(serialized)

		recieveThanks = getFromStorage("recieveThanks")

		$("#contents").children().animate({
			"margin-left": "-50%",
			"opacity": "0"},
			define.a,
			function(){
				$(this).remove();
				$("#contents").prepend(recieveThanks)
				initFunction();
				$("#contents").children().css({
					"margin-left": '50%',
					"opacity": '0'
				}).animate({
					"margin-left": '0',
					"opacity": '1'
				},define.a,
				function(){
					registerFunction()
					console.log("registerFunction is excuted")
				})
		});
		// ajaxGetPage("init.thanks.html")
		initFunction()
	});
}

function postSerializeKey(e){
	$.ajax({
		url: 'http://192.168.1.1/wifi',
		type: 'POST',
		data: e,
	})
	.done(function(door) {
		storeToStorageSimple(door,"hostname");
		console.log("success");
	})
	.fail(function(){
		localStorage.clear();
		console.log("error");
	})
	console.log("ajax is end");
}

function initThanks(){
	$("#thanks").click(function(){
		location.reload(true)
	});
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Let's handle standby like thought police: eradicate all traces and deny its existence.
This is another one where I can see some argument for its existence ("primary server, standby server", "hot standby", etc.), but it seems entirely meta.
If nobody comes up with a good reason to save it I'm all for its wonton and violent destruction.


text:
Celebrities January 3, 2022 <January 3, 2022
Eminem spent close to half a million dollars on a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT that looks like him.
With the rise of NFTs, more and more celebrities are gravitating towards the world of virtual art. And the latest to join the bandwagon is Eminem. The renowned rapper recently purchased a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT for $450,000 USD, and as word has it – it looks just like him! Called "EminApe," the graphic displays the signature Bored Ape figure dressed in a khaki army cap and a gold chain necklace – accessories often worn by Eminem in his performances and media interviews. The artwork was sold by BAYC member GeeGazza for the whopping sum.
I'm living in a simulation.
Thank you @Eminem for buying my ape and joining the club!
Madness. Let me write a lyric in your next single 🤣 pic.twitter.com/myGNRmMLeD
— GeeGazza  (@Gee__Gazza) December 31, 2021
As per reports, the artist was hoping that the rapper would purchase it from him. Back in November, he had tweeted, stating, "I still think @Eminem is destined to buy my @BoredApeYC one day." Little had he known that it was destined to happen this soon.
Noting his happiness, GeeGazza thanked the rapper for the sale, with a tweet reading, "I'm living in a simulation. Madness. Let me write a lyric in your next single." The transaction was secured by digital agency Six, which has previously worked with several other celebrities in the NFT industry, including Wu-Tang Clan, Tycho, and Galantis. It is also worthy to note that the NFT purchase isn't Eminem's first either. The rapper already owns 15 virtual pieces on the OpenSea platform under the name "Shady Holdings" and is expected to buy more in the time to come. NFT artists, are you listening?
An incredibly rare California license plate paired with an NFT is on sale for an astounding $24 million.
Unable to get the Hermes Birkin bag many are settling for a NFT of the coveted handbag.
T-Mobile's Ex-CEO John Legere has bought a Steve Aoki NFT for $888,888.88
Digital Tulips? Beeple, an American artist has auctioned his digital crypto art for a record $69.3 million
The Doge meme makes Internet history by selling for $4 million to officially become the most expensive meme NFT ever sold.
Her eyes and lips alone may fetch $100,000 – This Polish singer is the first in the world to digitize her entire body and sell it in parts as NFT's.
During his school holidays, this 12-year-old boy from London made $400,000 by creating and selling NFTs of pixelated whales.
From launch of the Challenger to live reports of the Gulf Air to Larry King interviews – CNN is selling clips of its historical news as NFT's.
Patek Philippe's incredibly rare and desirable Nautilus 5711/1A-010 has now been turned into the watchmaker's first-ever NFT
Previous articleThis toddler from Ohio cutely dressed up as the Queen for Halloween. So good was her costume that she received a 'thank you' letter from the queen herself.
This toddler from Ohio cutely dressed up as the Queen for Halloween. So good was…
The bad, the ugly, and the little good that 2021 had for Donald Trump. From…
Jeff Bezos and his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez are having the time of their lives in…
From restoring the Notre Dame to owning Europe's richest sports team – Inside the luxurious…
Elon Musk has serious beef with him – Meet Austin Russell – The 26 yr…
Not a rare Ferrari or a bespoke Rolls Royce – Selling for $22 million this…
Ferrari has revealed a new logo to celebrate its 75th anniversary of building some of…

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Rooms at Travelodge hotels include 30 minutes free wifi per day plus toiletries and free tea and coffee making facilities.
It is more cost effective to include breakfast with your booking rather that pay when there and you can pay an extra fee to book into your room earlier or check out later.
Click here for availability and bookings Travelodge.
Read our review of the Travelodge we stayed in in Manchester.


text:
Fatal crash causes major delays on Highway 17 in Santa Cruz Mountains
Steve Rubenstein
June 5, 2021 Updated: June 5, 2021 10:34 p.m.
Highway 17 was closed in both directions in the Santa Cruz Mountains because of a fatal, multi-vehicle crash Saturday morning, the Santa Clara County Fire Department announced on social media.
The road was closed between Highway 9 and Bear Creek Road and motorists were being urged to avoid the area and to allow emergency vehicles to pass. The closure of the southbound lanes of the highway lasted through the afternoon, until one lane opened around 3:45 p.m., according to 511.org. Motorists were still advised to use alternative roadways.
The San Jose unit of the California Highway Patrol reported that a truck had overturned shortly after 8 a.m. and that there was a fire. The CHP said at least one driver was dead as a result of the collision north of Bear Creek Road. Traffic was being diverted and there was no estimate for when the closed stretch of highway would reopen.
The identity of the victim and the further details were not immediately known.
More from Steve Rubenstein
Shooting in southeast San Jose is city's 19th homicide of 2021
74% of California and 52% of the Western U.S. now in 'exceptional' drought
Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Steve RubeSF
Reach Steve on
Chronicle staff writer Steve Rubenstein first joined The Chronicle reporting staff in 1976. He has been a metro reporter, a columnist, a reviewer and a feature writer. He left the staff in 2009 to teach elementary school and returned to the staff in 2015. He is married, has a son and a daughter and lives in San Francisco. He is a cyclist and a harmonica player, occasionally at the same time.


text:
Q: TypeError: unorderable types: int() > list() # Import Packages
import random

# Global Variables
perf_num = 500
species = [20]
temp_num = 0
length = 0
s = 0

# Main Program
for num in range(100):
    r1 = int(random.random()*10)
    r2 = int(random.random()*10)
    species.append(r1)
    length = len(species)
    while s < length:
        print(s)
        if species[s-1] > species[s]:
            temp_num = species[s-1] - r1
            species[s-1] = temp_num
        else:
            temp_num = species[s] - r1
            species[s] = temp_num
        if s-1 < 5:
            species[s-1] = []
        s += 1

    print(species)

Please don't explain in very complicated coding language as I just started learning Python from youtube. I tried making my own program and continue to get this error.

A: In the following line:
species[s-1] = []

you're assigning an empty list to a list of numbers, which results in something like:
20 [20, 2] 2

Then when you try to compare a number and a list:
if species[s-1] > species[s]:

you'll get that error:
TypeError: unorderable types: int() > list()


Calendar of events for oriental rugs & Textiles: If you note date discrepancies, or have events to add, please feel free to contact us! This is a work in process.
In the upper right corner, you can select what events to show: This is a combination of several calendars.
Oriental Rug Auctions and dates: Note this does not include viewing dates unless clicking on "Details"


Aerotek® Inc., a leading provider of recruiting and staffing services, announced today that recent reports by Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) have named Aerotek the largest U.S. staffing firm in the following three areas: clinical/scientific, engineering and office/clerical jobs. In addition to these rankings, Aerotek was also named second largest staffing agency for finance/accounting jobs and fourth largest for industrial jobs.
The 18 firms on the SIA 2018 list of largest clinical/scientific staffing firms in the U.S. generated $1.8 billion, which accounts for 77 percent of the total market. As the largest supplier, Aerotek accounts for 21 percent of the market share.
The 22 firms that comprise the SIA 2018 list of largest engineering staffing firms in the U.S. generated $5.3 billion, or 66 percent of the total market. As the largest supplier, Aerotek accounts for 19 percent of the market share.
The 13 firms listed on the SIA 2018 list of largest office/clerical staffing firms in the U.S. generated $7.0 billion, which accounts for 40 percent of the total market. As the largest supplier, Aerotek accounts for 7 percent of the market share.
The 11 firms that comprise the SIA 2018 list of largest finance/accounting staffing firms in the U.S. generated $4.1 billion, or 53 percent of the total market. Ranked second, Aerotek accounts for 5 percent of the market share.
The 40 firms on the SIA 2018 list of largest industrial staffing firms in the U.S. generated $24.1 billion, which accounts for 72 percent of the total market. Ranked fourth, Aerotek accounts for 6 percent of the market share.
The companies included on the SIA 2018 annual lists are ranked based on 2017 revenue numbers. Numbers were submitted via an online survey in February of 2018. Aerotek currently operates more than 250 non-franchised offices throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information about Aerotek, visit Aerotek.com.
Known for our award-winning content, data, support tools, publications, executive conferences and events, we help both suppliers and buyers of workforce solutions make better-informed decisions that improve business results and minimize risk. As a division of the international business media company, Crain Communications Inc., SIA is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices in London, England. For more information: http://www.staffingindustry.com/.


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Please credit Joshua R. Poulson and the URL of the article or image used.The postings on this site are my own and don't represent anyone or any company's positions, strategies or opinions.
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YouTube Bans Kids Channel Amid Child Endangerment Concerns
By Dominik Bosnjak November 19, 2017, 9:41am
YouTube banned a controversial kids-oriented channel Toy Freaks earlier this week, citing violations of its policies and community guidelines. The move came amid a major public outcry over child endangerment concerns raised by the contents of the channel run by one Greg Chism and his two daughters which was focused on gross-out humor. Immediately before its removal, the channel was the 68th largest on YouTube, boasting 8.53 million subscribers around the world. The video streaming platform described its decision to ban Toy Freaks as a result of its policies that put a strong emphasis on child safety. In a short statement sent to some media outlets in the aftermath of YouTube's ban, Mr. Chism thanked the channel's fans and said that his two daughters have a "bright" future ahead of them, having been able to develop creative skills and self-confidence due to their video activities in recent years. The owner of the channel also dismissed accusations of child endangerment but thanked YouTube for being concerned about his family while also expressing regret that some viewers may have found "inappropriate pleasure" in Toy Freaks videos.
The ban of Toy Freaks arrived shortly after the Google-owned service said it's starting a global push to weed out inappropriate videos targeted at children that may be understood as being disturbing in nature or otherwise damaging to their development. The initiative was primarily aimed at regulating the YouTube Kids app but also encompassed the company's online platform as a whole, as evidenced by the removal of Toy Freaks from the most popular video service on the planet. It's currently unclear whether the firm has any intentions of withholding the remains of the channel's advertising revenue that was generated in the last period leading up to its ban.
YouTube has been cracking down on illegal and inappropriate content with unprecedented intensity over the course of this year, having experienced a share of controversies, criticism, and outright boycotts over videos posted by its users. The decision to directly ban an immensely popular channel over content deemed inappropriate by a portion of the general public is still unparalleled to any similar move ever made by the firm and seemingly marks a new era of content policing on YouTube.
Source: YouTube Via: TechCrunch
Dominik Bosnjak
Dominik started at AndroidHeadlines in 2016. He's approaching his first full decade in the media industry, with his background being primarily in technology, gaming, and entertainment. These days, his focus is more on the political side of the tech game, as well as data privacy issues, with him looking at both of those through the prism of Android. Contact him at [email protected]
Grab A 12-Month PS Plus Membership For Only $40 - Amazon Prime Day 2019


What's That Smell? Don't Let Odors Kill Your Sale!
We all know how important first impressions are in life. Sometimes a bad first impression can ruin your chance for a second.
If the first thing out a potential buyer's mouth is "What's that smell?", things are not off to a good start. For some buyers, they won't be able to get around a bad odor.
Many people are accustomed the smells of their own home or don't have a good sniffer. It might be a good idea to ask a neighbor, friend or your realtor to step inside your home and let you know the state of its smell.
Smoke: This can be a tough one to remediate and may require a more dramatic effort to conquer than most other smells. Begin by airing out the house. Clean fabrics with a white vinegar solution, use baking soda on carpets and furniture and clean nicotine on walls with an ammonia solution. If odor still lingers, rent an ozone machine. You may need to replace the carpet and paint the walls to conquer the smell for good.
Dirty laundry. If dirty laundry sits for too long, it can sour, and the smell can permeate into other areas of your home. This one is as easy as keeping up on the laundry and using a basic air freshener or open the windows to air out your home.
Pet odor. Litter boxes and carpet that has been urinated on are crude smells that hit buyers the moment they walk in the door. Keep litter boxes clean and place in an out-of-the-way location. Depending on how bad the urine problem has been, carpets either need to be cleaned and deodorized or replaced. Clean pet kennels and bedding to freshen them up.
Hidden mold. If your home has a musty or "wet cardboard" smell, or maybe that "old home" smell, it could be that you have a mold problem. Some molds can be toxic, so the EPA suggests bringing in a professional if it covers more than 10 square-feet. Get more information by visiting https://www.epa.gov/mold .
Aged carpets and walls. Carpets and walls absorb smells over time and can emit those odors back into the house. Cleaning ceilings, walls and baseboards with a white vinegar solution followed by a coat of paint can go a long way toward freshening things up. Carpet may only need a sprinkling of baking soda left overnight and vacuumed in the morning. If the odors are too strong, they may need to be shampooed or even replaced.
Filthy dishwasher. Once a month, run your dishwasher empty with a cup of vinegar or a sprinkling of baking soda. If it still emits an odor, deep clean it beginning with the seals and filter trap. If the dishwasher is old, you may need to replace the drain hose.
Sewage gas. If you notice a rotten egg smell throughout your house, exit the house without turning on any lights and call your gas company to check for a dangerous gas leak. However, if the odor is limited to one area, such as your bathroom, your P-traps are probably dry. Simply flush your toilet and run some water in the sinks and tub.
Water heater needs maintenance. If there is an odor when you run hot water, it could be an indication that the anode rod in your water heater needs to be replaced. Experts suggest that you replace it every five years.
Use lightly scented oil sticks or an essential oil diffuser.
Dealing with bad odors in your home sometimes requires a little bit of investigation, but it is certainly worth any effort and money if you want potential home buyers to have a good first impression and to make an offer. Freshen things up and they can focus on the true value of your home.


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JayWalk - All Your Xmms Are Belong To Me: Allo! Allo!
Mornings are my busiest time of the day and a big chunk of it is spent on the phone, be it my mobile or my Skype. Morning is the time where I can catch the US West Coast folks before they go home for the day, US East Coast folks before they go to bed and Australia before they go for lunch. That is on top of the fact that it is the start of the day back here.
As some of you are aware, it has been a crazy period of time for me right now. Severe bottlenecks causing a huge backlog of work for me. Be it quotations, submissions, sample productions, pre-production cutting, costing, etc. I have fallen behind in every aspect. The volume of work is just too overwhelming. There is nothing I can do but just keep plugging at it one at a time until the last one is taken care of.
I think I should be able to have everything sewn up by the first week of December. Hopefully by then, I would be ready to go home for a well deserved rest.
Anyway just this morning, in the midst of my numerous phone calls, I picked up my mobile phone and dial a customer in Spitland.
I could see from the screen of my mobile phone that the call went through. Strangely, I didn't hear any ring tone.
"Hello?" I spoke, thinking that customer must have had picked up the phone at the first ring and as such, no ring tone on my side.
"Hello?" I asked again. Still no response and the screen on the phone indicated that the call ended.
Hmm.... maybe it was a bad connection and I didn't suspect anything amiss initially given that it is a very common thing in Spitland.
The whole scenario must be replayed itself a few more times before I thought perhaps it was my bluetooth connection between the phone and the earpiece acting up. So I went ahead and did the usual troubleshooting of disconnecting and reconnecting, un-pairing and re-pairing.
I tried again and still the same thing.
I was getting myself very flustered until I saw a little blue light flashing at the corner of my desk.
jay.. this topic seem very related when you talk to me using Skype.. lol.. your voice so american-ish.. too bad i dont have mic.. if not i would have lol through your ears..
Gary: Well, all my customers are Americans and I guess some of their accent rubbed off on me.
Gumbatte! Jia You! Hard work will eventually pay off! I am rooting for you from Southern Texas. P.S. I like the photos of Faith and Gabriel.
Everton: Thanks for the pom pom wave. It is damn tough right now.


Want to win $100 Amazon gift card? It's easy! Just visit the Fairy Tale & Fantasy Book Fair here and sign up using the Rafflecopter! While you're there, make sure to check out all of the amazing books! You might even see some familiar faces... GOOD LUCK!
There is only 6 more days until the start of the New Adult Scavenger Hunt. Meet the authors participating in the hop during the Countdown to NewASH, then come December 26th, join us for the big event for a chance to win awesome books and other prizes!
M. Dalto is a New Adult fiction writer of adventurous romantic fantasy stories, and her debut, TWO THOUSAND YEARS, won one of Wattpad.com's coveted Watty Awards in 2016. She continues to volunteer her time as a Wattpad Ambassador, where she engages and hopes to inspire new writers. She spends her days as a full-time residential real estate paralegal, using her evenings to hone her craft. When she's not writing, she enjoys reading fantasy novels, playing video games, and drinking coffee. She currently lives in Braintree, MA, with her husband, their daughter, and their corgi named Loki.
Describe your novel in 3 words?


Spyderco's SLIPIT folders bring you the benefits of one-handed opening and pocket clip carry while respecting local laws with its non-locking mechanism and friendly size. The Urban inherits some great features from other Spyderco lines, including the classic leaf blade shape, index finger choil-enhanced grip, and FRN handles that make for a great everyday knife. Its 2.61" blade is full-flat ground from high-performance N690Co steel. With its trademark deployment hole and reversible wire clip, it doesn't compromise in giving you the full Spyderco experience. True to its name, the Urban is a great companion for navigating the cement jungle without breaking its rules.
I'm a real fan of this knife for UK edc. Small enough to not frighten the non knife folk yet big enough to be useful. The ergos, fit and finish, blade steel and slip-joint strength are excellent. Costs a bit more than I'd care to pay as a rule but the quality is on point. More earthy colours please Spyderco; I love my British Blades green handled Urban and would buy another in a heartbeat if it was in brown FRN or G10. In fact my one complaint would be the mall ninja black of the standard scales.


Home / Dog / Premio Duck Bites Dog Treats With Duck Breast 59% Meat Content.
Premio Duck Bites Dog Treats With Duck Breast 59% Meat Content.
Snacks with duck breastmeat content 59 %, rich in proteins and no added sugar in resealable bag.


This is Jimmy Hinton's third and final blog on how the Church Steps Outreach has been working for their congregation. I am so encouraged by this! Thanks Jimmy for passing this along. Praise God that He is up to some mighty things when it comes to reaching the lost!
In the two previous blogs, I laid down some of the guiding principles and theology behind what we do for our Church Steps Outreach. This final blog will lay down some specifics for what a typical week looks like. I called Matt last fall to ask specific questions about how they do their steps outreach. He did give some specifics, but told me that one size doesn't fit all. For example, Pennsylvania's culture is different than Florida's. St. Petersburg's population is 245,000. Somerset's is almost 7,000. You get the picture. We ended up keeping the same 5 steps that Matt laid out in previous blogs (Attract, Welcome, Relationships, Transformation, and Integrate). We also use the same template that Matt uses at his congregation for our Wednesday nights (see link below under #2), but with minor adjustments. For example, instead of a 20 minute devotional, we do 30 minutes, with the remaining 30 minutes working through the template.
Because we are a rural church, Wednesday attendance has always suffered. Before beginning Steps, our average Sunday attendance was just over 70 and our Wednesday attendance hovered around 20. Since 20 people were present on Wednesdays, we began with all of them. I took adequate time to explain what each of the 5 steps were, then had everyone sign up to minister in one group. Several asked me where I felt they would serve best. I emphasized that people should pray about it and only sign up for a group where they would best be using their gifts. In other words, they shouldn't sign up for a group just because it looked like that group needed more warm bodies. We all worked together to organize us 20 into the best group possible for each of us.
1. 30 minute devotional—The devotional is always rooted in scriptures about evangelism and the church's response to new converts. We began with 1 Corinthians 12-14 and are now going through Acts. This is really helping us all develop a healthy theology of evangelism and the examples laid out in Acts are giving us courage and confidence to model the behavior of the first Christians.
2. 30 minute template—Don't let the word template scare you. I probably prefer the word "structure" over template but either way, the point is that you are consistent each week. You can see a copy of Matt's template here: http://mattdabbs.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/churchstepsclasstemplate.pdf We do everything the same except the times have been adjusted. In 3 months, the only thing we have changed at this point are the time adjustments. This structure is so important because it allows everyone to communicate and celebrate what blessings have been going on throughout the week, where new visitors are in their journey, and who has/has not been contacted throughout the week.
3. How do we keep it all together?–Communication, communication, communication. As I mentioned before, e-mails are a lifeline for us. I've created distribution lists for each of the 5 groups in my e-mail contacts. They are always kept current as we add people to each group. I remind each of the 5 groups almost weekly how important each of their ministries are and offer them encouragement (usually through a mass e-mail to all 5 groups at once). I took a lot of time this week and, for the first time, e-mailed each of the 5 groups a separate e-mail with some reflections and suggestions to fine-tune their specific ministry. Then I emphasized the need for each of the 5 groups to have weekly contact within their own group so that they know who (of the new people) they are responsible for. We have tried to not let one week go without having some sort of contact with our new people. Until they are fully integrated into the church, they will need very consistent contact with their new church family.
4. Not just a way to get new people—Everything we do is deeply, I mean deeply, rooted in God's commission for us to reach a lost and dying world with the Good News of Jesus Christ. If people are doing this to pad their numbers at church, new people will see through them immediately and run. We are all being driven by a love for God and a love of neighbor. We reach people because we love them and care about them, not because we want to grow the church. Though there is a structure in place, we must never lose sight that we are doing this because we genuinely love people, want them to join our family, and want to spend eternity with them. We reach everyone the same regardless of social-economic status. We have no target demographic. We have no agenda. We simply call others to join us in blessing people, teaching them, and joining together as the body of Christ in response, to further grow, equip, and mature.


Everyone has fond memories of looking at their favorite children's books when they were growing up. Those childhood stories still bring us back to a time when everything seemed dreamlike and magical. The pictures and illustrations kept us captivated and enthralled in this mystical and "other world" with endless possibilities. In respect to those fond memories I asked Bob Ostrom, an extremely talented children's illustrator, to be featured in this week's blog. I personally have asked Bob in the past to share his opinion and give me guidance with helping others create their own children's books. And if you have ever considered creating a children's book Bob can give you a glimpse into what it's like to illustrate for the most imaginative audience.
David: Hey Bob, I'm thrilled to feature you on "Don't Pick the Flowers" blog. Your illustration for children's books is astounding. Can you share a little about your work and Bob Ostrom Studio?
Bob: Thanks for the kind words David. I've been illustrating children's books for a little over 20 years. I began by working mostly with licensed properties. I was fortunate enough to be able to work with lots of big companies like Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Disney early in my career. Having things like Rugrats,MagicSchoolbus and Ninja Turtles in my portfolio helped my credibility and made it easier to find work but doing licensed art is very demanding. Eventually I became restless and wanted to expand. So I found a new rep who helped me change directions. She was an excellent mentor and helped me pursue my dream of doing more original art. The books I work on now all feature artwork and characters that I've created.
David: What do you consider to be some of the rewards of being a children's illustrator?
Bob: There are lots of great things about being a children's illustrator but one of my favorites is being able to share my art with kids. I really enjoy teaching kids about what I do and how to draw silly stuff. I teach lots of art classes for kids. I also do appearances at schools and libraries. For kids who aren't able to come see me or take my classes I've built a website. It's got all kinds of lesson plans, videos and free coloring pages for anyone interested in art or cartooning.
David: Do you ever consider it difficult at times to produce someone else's ideas?
Bob: Not at all. My job as a children's book illustrator is to be creative and bring those ideas to life. Designing and illustrating a book is a collaborative effort so the best part of any project is when I get to exchange creative ideas with an art director, author or client. Whenever I'm working on a project I try to make sure I'm not just painting pretty pictures. Yes, I want my illustrations to tell the story but I also want them to be fun and engaging. Sometimes I'll build in little subplots or develop fun relationships between the characters. Richard Scary was great at that. He used to have this little worm on each page doing something silly. The trick is keep it subtle. You never want the subplot to upstage the actual storyline. Anyhow the point is if it's fun for me then it's usually fun for the reader too.
David: There are a couple of avenues for publishing children's books, finding a publisher or self-publishing. For anyone who is looking to create their own children's book, what advice would you give?
Bob: There are pluses and minuses to both.
Plus side- publishers and the people who work for them really know what they are doing. They understand every aspect of producing and marketing a book. They are professional, respectful and always strive to bring out the best in you.
Minus side-finding a publisher to accept your work can be very challenging. The children's market is extremely competitive and the odds of getting published right away can be a little discouraging.
Plus side- There are no barriers. All you need to do is have an idea, a little bit of money and then follow through with it. You are in charge. Whatever you dream, you can do.
Minus side– Self publishing comes with a whole different set of challenges. As a self published author or artist you will basically need to take on all the rolls of a traditional publisher. Being a just writer or illustrator is not enough. You'll need to understand everything it takes to produce and market a book. You'll need to know illustration, layout and design. If you plan to make money you'll also need to know about sales, distribution, marketing and promotion. If you can't do all these things, you will need to pay someone else to do them for you. The costs can add up. Be aware that the less experience you have the more expenses you will incur.
Advice- I work on both traditional and self published books all the time. My advice to anyone who is truly interested in pursuing either directions is to learn as much as you can about the Industry. Do your homework and make a plan before you begin. There will be a lot of things you learn as you go but it's a good idea to surround yourself with experienced and knowledgeable people who can help you gain understanding and eliminate some of the more costly mistakes you might make along the way. If you decide to take the self publishing route try to avoid bargain shopping. If you plan to partner up with someone be sure they can handle the task. There is no substitute for talent or experience. Above all in either case have fun and let it reflect in the work you do.
David: What is your take on books being downloaded, kindles and the like?
Bob: I can't wait for this market to take off. We're just at the tip of the iceberg right now and the possibilities are limitless. I love the idea of a story truly being able to come to life in an interactive way. The potential for learning and creativity are amazing. It's the kind of thing I used to dream about as a kid. I still have a bit to learn when it comes to e-publishing but I'm really excited to bring some of the projects I'm working on to life.
David: And it does sound as exciting for the creators as it does for the kids. Thanks for being featured Bob and for helping me personally when I've had questions about illustrating for others who want to dive into the world of children's literature.
This entry was posted in Interviews and tagged Art, Bob Ostrom, Bob Ostrom Studio, Cartoon, Children's book, children's literature, Comic, comics, David Hurley, Don't Pick the Flowers, Drawn by success, fun, Funny, Humor, Web comic. Bookmark the permalink.


From Diana's Bananas we now have Banana Babies, the world's best chocolate dipped frozen treat. At least that's what it says on the box. It also claims to be healthy with zero trans fat and made with real banana. There are five treats to a box (which come in dark or milk chocolate) and they are all natural and contain only 130 calories each.
THE VERDICT: Pretty good. They are exactly what they claim to be. It's a real banana covered in a thick coating of chocolate. They're so simple yet strong in their two dominant flavors, so you'd better like chocolate and banana if you're going to get these cause that's exactly what you'll taste. And that's a good thing (sorry Martha)!
Visit our friends at MenuJoy.com for area restaurant menus.


Torrance Memorial Medical Center is a non-profit, stand-alone medical center with a 401-bed capacity. The Medical Center is one of only 26 hospitals nationwide to receive the Gold Performance Achievement Award for 2012 from the National Cardiovascular Data Registry.
The new plant was completely rebuilt to meet current seismic standards. Cannon Building performed planning, preconstruction, construction, startup and commissioning services without interrupting hospital operations. The central plant houses administrative offices for facilities maintenance and plant operations, including maintenance shops.


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Home › Medication Assisted Therapies for Heroin Addicts
Medication Assisted Therapies for Heroin Addicts
Published: 03/17/2017 | Author: Admin
Methadone isn't the only option for medication-assisted therapies for heroin addicts. In fact, there are at least three different medications you can use as part of your treatment to put an end to your heroin abuse and start living a better life. Call 800-530-0431Who Answers? now to be matched with the best rehab program for your needs.
Methadone maintenance is one of the most popular treatment options for heroin addiction for a number of reasons. For one, it has been used professionally as a heroin addiction treatment since the 1970s, according to Harvard Medical School. It is also particularly effective for the treatment of those with severe dependencies, which heroin addicts often form because of the intensity of the effects of the drug. And many methadone maintenance clinics exist all over the country as relatively easy to locate treatment options for opioid addiction.
Methadone is an opioid agonist that, when dosed correctly, does not cause euphoria, blocks the opioid receptors in the brain, and allows patients to live their daily lives without experiencing the severe withdrawal symptoms and cravings associated with ending heroin abuse.
As stated by the National Institute of Justice, patients are usually given doses of methadone between 80 and 120 mg. The effects of the drug usually wear off after 24 to 36 hours, so patients must receive a dose every day.
Patients can only receive methadone through a federally licensed clinic that is allowed to dispense the drug.
Unfortunately, there is still a strong stigma associated with methadone maintenance in many communities. This is because many people do not understand the purpose of medication maintenance and because methadone is the most popular of these treatment options for heroin addiction. Many people struggle with their belief (and the belief held by their loved ones) that methadone maintenance is really just another type of addiction, even though it is not.
Buprenorphine has a lower abuse potential than methadone, making it easier to obtain.
Buprenorphine is a much newer option for medication-assisted treatment. Many people choose it because of the stigma methadone has and because it is much easier to obtain than the other drug.
Buprenorphine is a partial opioid agonist. It works similarly to methadone in that it minimizes cravings and withdrawal symptoms and allows individuals to live their daily lives while blocking the opioid receptors in the brain.
Buprenorphine is usually taken once a day, although its effects can last longer. Patients can receive a prescription for the drug from a doctor who is licensed to prescribe it instead of only in a specialized clinic like methadone.
One reason why the drug is easier to obtain is because it is safer from abuse than methadone. It has a ceiling effect that keeps it from causing the dangerous effects of opioid overdose in many cases, and it is usually paired with naloxone as the brand name drug Suboxone. When a person attempts to crush the drug and snort it, they will experience immediate withdrawal symptoms.
Still, optimal-dose buprenorphine is not usually as effective as optimal-dose methadone for the treatment of individuals with severe opioid dependencies (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration).
Naltrexone has a history of compliance issues when it comes to medication-assisted treatment, but a new version of the drug may be better tolerated by future users.
Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist. Instead of treating heroin addiction like buprenorphine and methadone do, the drug is only given after a person's detox ends. It blocks the action of opioids, does not cause sedative effects, and is not addictive. If an individual does use opioids while on naltrexone, they will immediately experience withdrawal effects.
A person who takes their medication as prescribed will theoretically never relapse, but many people stop taking naltrexone because of the intense effects of the drug.
A new version of the drug called Vivitrol is administered once a month and may remove some of the compliance issues that currently plague the drug's effectiveness, but it is still unknown if this will work.
What Is the Best Drug to Use for Getting Off Heroin?
There are several different medications a person can use during their heroin addiction treatment program. But which is the best …
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Let us help you find the safest, most effective rehab programs for your heroin addiction recovery. Call 800-530-0431Who Answers? to speak to a treatment advisor and to begin your journey of recovery as soon as possible.
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African literature is a genre in and of itself. And it is one that I have always admired, albeit from a safe distance.
For me African literature is like a gobstopper – strong, distinct but difficult to eat. Like a painting that is beautiful but has you turning your head this way and that, wondering if perhaps the gallery accidentally placed it upside down. It is like listening to someone telling you how your body works on the inside, and though you knoooooww what they are saying is true…you forget the lesson as it comes.
But as a writer, and as a writer of Nigerian heritage, I'm expected to know about African literature – to be well read in the genre (more about why it is a genre in a future post). I'm tired of those looks I get when African writers are mentioned and I merely shrug. When asked who my favourite writers are, a bunch of British and American names dribble out of my mouth, eliciting disappointed glances.
So I shall no more shirk the genre and instead read 100 African books before concluding whether or not the genre is for me. I shall read MORE. I shall open my mind to MORE of these books that are winning the Caine prize and even MORE that have not smelt the award.
I shall open this blog to the journey that I am about to embark on and talk about the books as I read them. I will even go back to the ones I have read before.
It is a new dawn people! Be prepared!


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Dr. Sheldon Fields of Penn State, National Black Nurses Assoc. Talks All of US Research Program, its Efforts For a Diverse Healthcare Database
Briana Contreras
In this first of a two-part video series, Briana Contreras, associate editor of Managed Healthcare Executive spoke with Dr. Sheldon Fields Associate Dean for Equity Inclusion and Research Professor in the College of Nursing at Penn State University, about the ongoing All of Us research program. All of Us is an initiative through partners of the National Black Nurses Association, which Fields is vice president of, and the National Institutes of Health that invites one million people across the U.S. to help build one of the most diverse health databases in U.S. history.
Below is a brief Q&A from the interview with Dr. Fields. The text has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: What inspired the All of Us project? Is this an effort to correct the under representation of black patients in healthcare research?
A: The National Institute of Health actually formed something called the Precision Medicine Initiative working group of the Advisory Committee to the director of NIH back in March of 2015. The group concluded its work in September of that year, with a very detailed report. That report provided a framework for setting up the All of Us research program. This program was stretched over 10 years, but it may go even longer.
Now, All of Us is actually working to improve healthcare through research. Unlike research studies that focus only on one disease or one group of people, All of Us is really building a very diverse database that can inform thousands of studies on a variety of different health conditions. Also, it is trying to correct some underrepresentation. Everyone is different. You know, where we live, how we live, even our background can all affect our health, right? So what works for one community might not necessarily work for another community.
So, by helping correct those representation gaps that we know we have in the research, we can address specific diversities in healthcare. Also, researchers know less about patients who are underrepresented in healthcare research. By studying data from as a diverse group of people as possible. We researchers can really learn more about what makes people sick, or what keeps them healthy. What researchers learn could also lead to a better treatment and disease prevention for everyone.
Q: How does the program work? Who is able to participate?
So we're really, really clear and we really do mean that anyone is welcome to participate.
The All of Us research project is free to join. It will remain free to participate in. Anyone can sign up directly by going to the website. Join AllofUs.org, or at any participating healthcare provider organization.
It works like this: people will take part in a program by answering surveys on different topics, they will be asked to share their electronic health record, they may give samples of blood urine and your saliva for lab and DNA tests. The information that participants share through All of Us will then go into a very secure database. Then researchers from all over the world will have to apply to use that database to actually study the different health conditions that are that are present within the million people sample. This really will lead to better treatments and for better ways of preventing all kinds of diseases.


The report on the global "MDF Crown Moulding market" provides an overview of the current scenario of the market worldwide. The report, titled MDF Crown Moulding Market Research 2018, points out the key drivers and restraints affecting the growth of the global MDF Crown Moulding market. It cites the latest development trends in the market and the opportunities for the market to grow in future. The report analyzes the effect of Porter's five forces on the overall growth of the global MDF Crown Moulding market. The report further studies the global MDF Crown Moulding market on the basis of product types, applications, and regions. For the purpose of the study, it profiles some of the key players operating in the global MDF Crown Moulding market. In addition, it also highlights the dominating players in the market joined with their market share. The well-established players in the market are Metrie, Alexandria, RapidFit, House of Fara, Woodgrain Millwork, Bosley Mouldings, BT Moulding, Boulanger, Burton Mouldings, Universal Wood Products.
The report cites the various macro- and micro-economic factors affecting the growth of the global MDF Crown Moulding market. Presently, the global economy is being affected by the slow growth in countries such as China. This would in turn affect the consumer behavior and demand from the global MDF Crown Moulding market. The report studies the entire value chain of the global MDF Crown Moulding market and analyzes the upstream and downstream components. The report studies the global MDF Crown Moulding market according to the product types, applications, and regions. Prevailing demand trend for each of the product types has been analyzed and the consumption pattern across key applications has been mentioned in the report. Additionally, the global MDF Crown Moulding market report covers the major product categories and segments Relief Type, Flat Type, Pattern type, Others along with their sub-segments Ceiling, Door & Window, Others in detail.
The report segments the global MDF Crown Moulding market on the basis of key regions and studies the demand generated from each of the regions. To describe the competitive landscape, the report profiles some of the key players in the market and analyzes their growth. The report also provides information about the key players such as their market share, revenue, sales, geographical presence, product specification, and latest developments. For the benefit of new players, the report analyzes the feasibility of new projects in the global MDF Crown Moulding market.
Chapter 13, 14 and 15, MDF Crown Moulding sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.
Global Form-fill-seal Equipment Market Trend 2018-2023: Robert Bosch GmbH , SACMI FILLING S.P.A.


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Generation of tailored magnetic materials
(Nanowerk News) Every day, new technologies require more precision in the intrinsic properties of the materials used. To meet increasingly specific requirements, physicists are interested in a generation of artificial materials, the properties of which can be controlled. Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, in collaboration with French and English teams, have succeed in manipulating the properties of two oxides which make up the artificial material, more exactly they managed to modify the magnetic properties which can be either ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic; that is, with or without net magnetic moment.
The scientists have demonstrated, in their study published in Nature Communications ("Interlayer coupling through a dimensionality-induced magnetic state"), that they are able now to control the magnetism in this type of materials and that they could, in the near future, offer tailored materials for the devices of tomorrow.
Artist view of the manipulation of the magnetic properties achieved in the oxide materials LaNiO3 and LaMnO3 when few atomic layers of each material are grown one on top of the other successively. In this case, LaNiO3, which initially was conducting and non-magnetic, is found to become insulating and magnetic when in contact with LaMnO3. (Image: Marta Gibert Gutierrez - UNIGE)
When two materials are in contact, they interact in different ways and, sometimes, exchange electrons. But what happens when one stacks up ultrathin layers, of the order of one nanometer? «We have combined two materials, LaNiO3, a metallic paramagnet (without magnetic order), and LaMnO3, an insulating antiferromagnet, by alternating a layer of the first, then of the second, etc. We then observed what the influence of interactions at the interfaces was and we noticed a profound change in the intrinsic properties of the two materials», said a statement from Jean-Marc Triscone, professor at the Department of quantum matter physics in the Faculty of Science of UNIGE.
LaNiO3 and LaMnO3 have the same cubic crystalline structure, and thus the researchers can stack the elemental unit cells of these compounds, that is the small "cubes" made of just a few atoms, by using state-of-the-art technology. They then manage to create an artificial structure with a perfect alignment of the unit cells. To do this, the physicists deposit one unit cell after the other on a substrate; that is a small heated crystal tile. The layers are very thin and their thickness of about a nanometer is controlled precisely at the unit cell.
Goldsmith precision
«In order to realise a perfect structure on the crystal tile, we had to find the exact temperature and pressure conditions required to grow the materials one on top of the other. Then we investigated the properties of the interfaces depending on the number of layers stacked», explain Marta Gibert, researcher in physics at UNIGE and first author of the study. «Measurements of the physical properties then revealed that the properties of LaNiO3 are very different when in contact with LaMnO3. From being a metal without magnetic order, it becomes not only magnetic but also insulating. Moreover, the overall properties of the artificial material depend on the individual thickness of the layer of each material and they can also change as a function of the chosen thickness», added the physicist.
Thanks to this discovery, the researchers are therefore able to control the magnetic state of these materials -- a track to build artificial tailored materials according to specific needs in the future. Such control of the magnetic interactions could especially be used to develop future magnetic memories, allowing the high dissipation energy of current processors to be reduced.
This research is not limited to magnetic materials, but it is also of interest for materials that are simultaneously magnetic and ferroelectric, another way to new memories or even to superconducting materials working at higher temperatures -- a dream which may be not so distant.
Source: Université de Genève
Nanoengineering technique could aid exploration, scalability of next-gen electronics
The mysterious movement of water molecules


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Extinct Ground Sloth Mylodon Was Not a Vegetarian
by AMNH on Oct 7, 2021 5:00 am
Reconstruction of the South American giant ground sloth Mylodon darwinii feeding on the carcass of the hoofed native herbivore Macrauchenia. These extinct mammals roamed the Pleistocene landscape of Patagonia and other parts of high and mid-latitude South America, like this reconstructed scene from about 12,000 years ago in front of the famous Mylodon Cave (Cueva del Milodón) in southern Chile.
Artistic reconstruction: Jorge Blanco
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Today, all six living sloth species are relatively small plant-eating tree-dwellers. But a new study suggests that Mylodon—a giant ground sloth that lived in South America until about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago—was not a strict vegetarian, at times eating meat or other animal protein in addition to plants.
"We now have strong evidence contradicting the long-standing presumption that all sloths were obligate herbivores," said Julia Tejada, a Museum research associate and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Montpellier, France, who is lead author on the study, published today in the journal Scientific Reports. Tejada began this study as a Ph.D. student in the Museum's Richard Gilder Graduate School collaborative program with Columbia University.
Hundreds of fossil sloth species, some as large as an elephant, once roamed ancient landscapes from Alaska to the southern tip of South America. Mylodon darwinii, also known as "Darwin's ground sloth," is thought to have weighed between 2,200 and 4,400 pounds and was nearly 10 feet long.
Based on dental characteristics, jaw biomechanics, preserved excrement from some very recent fossil species, and the fact that all living sloths exclusively eat plants, Mylodon and its extinct relatives have long been thought to be herbivores as well. But these factors could not directly reveal whether an animal might have ingested food that requires little or no preparation and is completely digested, as happens in carcass scavenging or some other kinds of meat-eating.
To get a more complete picture, researchers analyzed the amount of nitrogen in hair samples from living and extinct species of sloths and anteaters—close relatives of sloths. Nitrogen is found in different proportions in plants and animals and is also preserved in fossils, allowing paleontologists to determine whether an animal was a plant-eating herbivore, mixed-feeding omnivore, meat-eating carnivore, or specialized marine animal consumer.
Lead author Julia Tejada sampling a specimen of the North American ground sloth Nothrotheriops shastensis on display at the Yale Peabody Museum.
© Julia Tejada
The results clearly flagged Mylodon as an omnivore, while the other extinct sloth in the study, the North American ground sloth Nothrotheriops shastensis, was determined to be an exclusive herbivore.
Prior research speculated that there were more herbivores than could be supported by the available plants in ancient ecosystems of South America, suggesting that some of those herbivores may have been finding other sources of food. This new study provides compelling evidence to support that idea.
"These results, providing the first direct evidence of omnivory in an ancient sloth species, demands reevaluation of the entire ecological structure of ancient mammalian communities in South America, as sloths represented a major component of these ecosystems across the past 34 million years," Tejada said.


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Q: Descripency in data received from LinkedIn API We are trying to fetch the likes count, share count, impression count etc for a given update.
We are using the endpoint https://api.linkedin.com/v1/companies/4822304/historical-status-update-statistics:(like-count,share-count,click-count,engagement,impression-count,time,comment-count)?time-granularity=day&start-timestamp=1517443200000&update-key=UPDATE-c4822304-6378756278751109120&format=json to fetch the same
For the same access token, the above endpoint is reporting 0 likes while another endpoint https://api.linkedin.com/v1/companies/4822304/updates/key=UPDATE-c4822304-6378756278751109120/likes?format=json is reporting 1 like.
Any ideas why this is happening?


Much has been said about the current economic disaster facing the people of Sierra Leone. But for many commentators, the signs have been on the wall, even before the Ebola epidemic.
The Koroma ruling APC party and government, have been in profound denial, burying their heads in the sand, instead of accepting the porosity of their so called economic plans.
What is shocking is that four years ago, when critics were pointing out the errors of the president's ways, his response was to brand those with whom he disagreed as 'wet blankets'.
After several years of economic mismanagement and cavalier attitude towards good governance, social justice and fiduciary responsibility, the Koroma government has come unstuck.
The government is in a mess and the economy on a free fall. The poor people of Sierra Leone are paying a very high price for trusting a political party that had once been discredited nationally and globally, and branded one of the most corrupt in the world. It seems not much has changed since the 1980s.
In June this year, the erudite lawyer and public policy commentator – Francis Ben Kaifala, wrote an article titled – "Looming bankruptcy of Sierra Leone: The perspective of an economic doomsayer".
It seems everyone saw this economic disaster coming, but the see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil president.
The above statement laid the foundation that stirred the thinking among economists that countries can become bankrupt, even though opinions remain divergent on the issue to date. What is indisputable however is that countries need money to finance their governmental projects and commitments.
To do so, countries use several means to raise money including borrowing from banks, other countries, International Financial Institutions, and from private individuals and investors. Countries also raise funds from various sources of revenue-generation within the economy, mostly through taxes.
Where a particular government relies on borrowing, it may take various forms including syndicated loans, inter-governmental loans, government-issued bonds, or such other facilities that may be made available by multinational/International Financial Institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, AfDB, etc.
It is these monies raised, together with various other sources of revenues like taxation, fines and duties that are used to run the governments, service existing debts (including those owed to employees of the state like teachers, soldiers, the police, the civil and public service, various contractors, etc.) finance various projects (like the construction of roads, education, water supply, electricity supply, healthcare provision and various other infrastructural undertakings) and run the day-to-day activities and commitments of government.
However, just as a State can borrow, so too is the reality that it can go insolvent (Insolvency being the condition where the state is unable to pay all of its debts when they fall due).
Whilst it is difficult to apply a typical "balance sheet" test to States to determine whether their debts exceed their liabilities at any given time (owing to the fact that it owns all the lands including the natural resources and can always expropriate businesses or even sell part of its territory – Banana Island could fetch a handsome sum even though there are reports that it is sinking), it is easy to apply a liquidity test instead to know whether there is enough money available to the government to settle the debts of the State.
Sierra Leone's corporate law adopts the liquidity test for companies incorporated in Sierra Leone. Based on that test, Sierra Leone now appears to be running on a low liquidity and cash flow – which is usually a good indicator of insolvency. This can be mended by borrowing more (panic borrowing) which will be at high cost (interest rates) with immense disadvantages.
Recently, there are worrying signs of an economic meltdown in Sierra Leone: Salaries are reported to have gone unpaid; several government agencies have either not been paid what it takes to run them or they have been delayed; the foreign reserve is mostly believed to be drying up; the Leones is on a free fall when compared to the US Dollar and other strong currencies of the World; the country is squeezed of liquidity, inflation is galloping out of control; the country's external debt is believed to be growing exponentially; there is an increased number of failing enterprises and businesses; and generally, there is a terribly gloomy economic atmosphere looming. The sad reality remains the lack of opened sourced data and transparency.
In a panic mode, the government has introduced subtle austerity measures (a good move if applied properly) like the unilateral cut on workers' benefits to their disadvantage (a clearly illegal move considering that there was no legal basis for it), increased taxes on income (as high as 35%), and various other planned actions to salvage the embarrassing state of the economy.
Even more embarrassing is the content of recent text message received by citizens – purportedly a quotation by the President, put forward for publication by the Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone, in the following terms: "I call on fellow Sierra Leoneans to buy, sell, lease, rent, hire, transact all businesses in LEONE. Together we can save our Currency. H.E Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma".
That message does not only contain a subtle admission by no less a person than the President of Sierra Leone that the currency needs saving and is spiralling out of control, it perhaps also worryingly shows that our policy makers are not as in charge of planning Sierra Leone's economy and its fiscal policies as we would expect them to be doing.
In fact, it exudes a shocking weakness in the administration. It is certainly perplexing that the government whose business should be to formulate and enforce policies and make prudential regulations for the good of all is "pleading" with its citizens to use the country's legal tender in order to save it.
It confirms the belief that those we have elected to look after our affairs are not as in charge of doing so as we would expect them to be, or perhaps they do not fully understand what it would take to save the economy.
We are on a similar path as failed economies in recent past like Greece and Cyprus – who had to be bailed out by their peers with huge consequences to their citizens.
Those familiar with monetary economics or macroeconomic policy can see the seeming ignorance that underlies that text message – the strength of the local currency against foreign currencies does not really rest with what the locals do among themselves ("to buy, sell, lease, rent, hire, transact all businesses in Leones").
On the contrary, it has everything to do with what the locals and their government do with other countries within the context of trade. We need to export more to other countries as we import goods from them so as to reverse the trade deficit that is weakening our currency.
In other words, what we need is more export by Sierra Leoneans to receive US Dollars in return, which will cushion the supply of FOREX and not have its price continue to rise to catch up with the demand for it. Clearly, that is not going to happen soon.
The other alternative we have is to reduce import and consume more of what we produce. That too is almost impossible as we currently lack policies that encourage or likely lead to self-sufficiency.
What the government should be doing is trying to address these two policy considerations and move the country towards a favourable balance of trade or self-sufficiency.
On a recent visit to Jamaica, a country similar to Sierra Leone in everything especially topography, I met a group of Jamaicans lamenting the sad state of their economy. They were particularly concerned that their currency is worthless as 1 US Dollar is equivalent to about 600 Jamaican Dollars.
I took out a 5000 Leones note from my pocket and showed them, they were thrilled to see an African currency. However, they could not believe, when I told them that Le5000 note was not even equivalent to a dollar and it would take about 6300 Leones-and-counting to get 1 US Dollar in exchange! There they were thinking they were worse off.
I will never forget the look of disappointment on the faces of those Jamaicans who adore everything about Africa but realized from my revelation that emancipation has not led to real freedom.
Sierra Leone may be on an economic path to doomsday because those in charge of planning the economy and determining policies have failed to properly or efficiently manage the resources they have been put in charge of in order to keep the country solvent or financially liquid.
Poor or rather misguided economic decisions and policies may have made the limited resources available to this small country insufficient to service its debts whilst still carrying on other commitments, liabilities or interests: The government carries a huge duplicated workforce in every department and sector (the Finance Ministry alone has four Ministers), the hemorrhaging of money to idle workers and projects, the proliferation of unnecessary white elephant projects just to score political points (see the street lights), perverted corruption and maladministration abound, and reckless government spending is going unchecked by our Parliament.
Worse still, there is no debt cap or limit on government borrowing. Faced with this situation, those of us who expect much from the government as the businessmen running the affairs of the state are hands-tied as, it is the state – it cannot be liquidated and we cannot sell our shares.
The economic morass that surrounds us is not new. We just have not learnt how to deal with it well to send a message and make our leaders more responsible counter-party social contractors.
Historically, the relationship between debtors who defaulted on repayments as agreed with their creditors was governed by the application of prescribed criminal punishments.
In medieval European states, a merchant who was not able to settle his indebtedness as they fell due was treated very severely – His creditors were allowed by law to visit him at the market place where he carried on business and break the bench he uses to trade on his head.
This is how the Latin phrase "banca rota"- which in English means "broken bench" – was borne, and it later developed as the linguistic source of the word "bankruptcy". The result of the 'broken bench' was that it prevented the debtor from continuing his trade and eliminated from society the burden of bad businessmen.
What we have are similarly bad businessmen running our economic affairs. We have to learn to deal with their failures so they know they are our agents and there are consequences for non-performance.
Municipal bankruptcy laws are well established and developed, but the International financial system has not provided a similarly organized bankruptcy regime for sovereigns (States). As a result, there is no established legal and regulatory system to deal with governments' failure to pay their debts or run a sound economy.
Dealing with the insolvency of Sovereigns can become complicated as, the usual debt recovery mechanisms that are available to normal debtors against corporate entities or individuals do not apply to States.
There is no effective Insolvency regime to enforce Creditors' rights (including those employees whose salaries may go unpaid) and it is almost impossible to liquidate the Sovereign's assets to repay its debts.
The effect is that citizens around the world have therefore used ad hoc measures to deal with the situation including literally "breaking benches" on their governments' heads. In recent times, there were protests in Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, and Greece that resulted in death tolls, civil unrest and sometimes the toppling or change of governments.
We do not want that in Sierra Leone, but we cannot rule it out considering the continued breach of social contract by successive governments and the resultant growing frustration and distrust among the citizenry.
The absence of an Insolvency regime for countries does not however mean that our government should not take steps to resolve the embarrassing economic situation or take conscientious action to create a sound economy.
We have more to lose beyond governments being voted out or even violently overthrown: In International Finance, poor economic policies lead to damage to a country's reputation; which may lead to the increase in its borrowing costs or its exclusion from the financial market, or limit its access to the financial markets. Sierra Leone may suffer a reduction in its international trade, or have this situation create a poor trade credit.
All these could be averted if we put in place customized and stylized economic and financial policies that will enhance our country's reputation and reduce our many post-independence woes.
Above all, a government that wishes to avoid the application of the "broken bench" to it should get its act together and take conscientious steps to better the people's lives in terms of economic planning and regulation other than literally beg for help from its citizens who expect it to have the answers.
If they do not do so, and fast, like the US in the 1930's, we are heading for economic Depression – and the bench upon which the bad businessmen sit may not be hard to locate by a depressed citizenry.
Editor's Note: This article was first published by Francis Ben Kaifala in June 2016.
Francis Ben Kaifala Esq.* is the Managing Partner in the Law Firm Kaifala, Kanneh & Co., Top Floor, 81 Pademba Road, Freetown; He holds the joint LLM (Master of Laws) in Law & Economics from the School of Law and the School of Economics and Finance at Queen Mary University of London.
Thank you Francis for your analysis. According to Joseph de Maistre: "In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve." Many Sierra Leoneans, especially the educated, are destructively partisan. Sierra Leoneans have some responsibility in this mess because they elect leaders the wrong way.
Tribal and political (nah this party ar born) affiliations, take prominence before integrity, competence, expertise and other leadership qualities. Until we think critically about how we elect our leaders, we will continue to be plagued by leadership of the gambits.
I agree with the author on his points. But he needs to go further to state that what we have is beyond a government of mismanagement. This is a government of daylight robbery.
We directly or indirectly elected this government and empowered them to loot. Our political consciousness needs to be elevated beyond primordial tribal thinking, into one of careful reflection on the qualities we desire. The economics of development is not difficult. But development and identity politics, never go hand in hand.
Democracies, like the United States and Sierra Leone are particularly prone to economic irresponsibility. As Aristotle observed in "Politics" written about 2,500 years ago, those who would have political power tend to 'buy' it.
Competition leads to ever rising prices for political influence which, in some cases, means that the party in power will use that power to borrow without consideration of the subsequent need to repay the loans.
Here in New Jersey, one of the wealthiest states in the United States, we have a debt crisis which requires higher taxes and less benefits. Like Sierra Leone, this has been festering, and getting worse decade after decade.
Our political parties simply hang on for today, leaving tomorrow in the hands of "God," or whatever. This is not uniquely a problem of Sierra Leone or New Jersey. Democratic government is often irresponsible government because the voters are not responsible rulers in many democracies, opting for immediate satisfaction rather than long term happiness.
That being said, in Sierra Leone the government price supports for fuel and rice imports have encouraged wasteful use of fuel and depressed the agricultural sector which should be able to feed everyone. These short-sighted policies have been in force for a very long time. Any party that would reverse these policies would likely lose power.
The problem is not Koroma, the APC, or the SLPP. The problem lies with the lack of sophistication of the electorate, just as it does here in New Jersey.
A prophetic article. The reality of the prediction did not take too long to occur.