text:
'Judge Jeanine,' Establishment Republicans caved to the Dems
By Nancy • Posted in Political News
Success: Charges Dropped Against Rescuer Who Saved Animals From Hurricane
Charges have been dropped against an animal rescuer who opened up a temporary shelter for dozens of animals during Hurricane Florence. Applaud this action that acknowledges that this woman acted out of compassion and therefore should not be punished.
Source: Success: Charges Dropped Against Rescuer Who Saved Animals From Hurricane
By Nancy • Posted in Good News • Tagged Good News, Rescue News
Applaud Massachusetts Animal Cruelty Legislation
Massachusetts just took a huge step towards protecting animals and prosecuting their abusers. Applaud Governor Baker for signing the PAWS II bill and looking out for the welfare of animals.
Source: Applaud Massachusetts Animal Cruelty Legislation
By Nancy • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Animal Protection Law, Animal Welfare
Save Remaining Orcas From Toxic Chemical Pollution
Half of all remaining killer whales may be doomed to die due to toxic pollution in the world's oceans. Sign this petition to demand that nations commit to cleaning up banned PCB chemical waste that is causing severe harm to these animals.
Source: Save Remaining Orcas From Toxic Chemical Pollution
By Nancy • Posted in Marine Life News • Tagged Chemical Pollution, Marine Life News
Protect Atlantic Ocean From Hurricane Waste Pollution
North Carolina's polluted rivers and streams are flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, carrying decaying organic matter such as leaves and bark. This matter contains various bacteria and chemicals that can contaminate the water and make it dangerous for all living beings. Sign this petition to demand cleanup of the rivers and stronger protection of the ocean.
Source: Protect Atlantic Ocean From Hurricane Waste Pollution
By Nancy • Posted in Protection • Tagged Protection
Demand Harsher Punishment for Convicted Eagle Killer
An Australia farmer will only receive 14 days jail time after pleading guilty to the killing of over 400 wedge-tailed eagles. This is nowhere near enough punishment for harming a species protected under the Victoria Wildlife Act. Sign this petition to demand a harsher sentence for this man immediately.
Source: Demand Harsher Punishment for Convicted Eagle Killer
Protect Newly Discovered & Critically Endangered Hummingbird
A newly discovered species of hummingbird may go missing forever. Sign the petition to demand the rare and endangered blue-throated Hillstar of the Andes be protected.
Source: Protect Newly Discovered & Critically Endangered Hummingbird
By Nancy • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Endangered Species Act News
Don't Allow the Mass Killing of Majestic and Endangered Cougars
Citizens are calling for the mass killing of mountain lions after a female hiker was killed by one of these powerful felines. Such attacks are rare and do not warrant slaughtering native wildlife. Sign this petition to demand non-lethal solutions that allow people and wild cats to coexist.
Source: Don't Allow the Mass Killing of Majestic and Endangered Cougars
California bans giant ocean fishing nets blamed for killing sea turtles, whales (USA)
September 27th, 2018 (Paul Rogers). Ending years of controversy and debate, Gov. Jerry Brown late Thursday signed a new law phasing out the use of giant ocean fishing nets used to catch swordfish, but blamed for accidentally killing sea turtles, dolphins and other sea creatures.
We need to fight against the illegal trade of native fauna with a police group and stronger laws
sosvox.org
For years we have seen in some markets of different neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, northern cities, and in many towns, as wild animals are sold without any control, many of them protected by the Law. And nobody does anything, nobody he ends up imprisoned and they continue hunting and killing animals.
Unfortunately this will continue to happen until people understand that we should not buy wild animals and thus stop the trade of these dealers, but in the meantime we must ask to fight against this scourge that causes so much suffering to animals.
Please Mr. Macri, you who have shown love for animals should do something, talk to Mrs. Bullrich to carry out the creation of this police force to fight illegal wildlife trade.
SIGN AND SHARE THIS PETITION
https://www.sosvox.org/en/petition/we-need-to-fight-against-the-illegal-trade-of-native-fauna-with-a-police-group-and-stronger-laws.html?fl
By Nancy • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Animal Protection Law
Anthony Appolonia: Craigslist Kitten Killer
VIDEO: Body language expert weighs in on Kavanaugh hearings ~ September 28, 2018
We talk to a body language expert to get some insight into Thursday's testimony at the Kavanaugh hearings. Need anyone say more?
NSPCA Launches Urgent Legal Appeal for Lions
Banner Image: "Rack and stack captive-bred lion bones ready for export." File photo: African News Agency (ANA)
ISSUED ON 26 SEPTEMBER 2018
The National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) has lodged an urgent interdict [Case No. 86515/17 in The High Court of South Africa] against the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) to suspend DEA's authorisation of lion bone exports.
The NSPCA has long been actively involved in addressing the cruelty in the captive lion industry; starting with lion cubs for petting to 'canned lion' hunting or slaughter for lion bone, with pending cruelty cases.
The NSPCA has been frustrated in its efforts to prevent this cruelty by the lack of regulation within the industry. Not only are there regulatory loopholes, but there is also generally a lack of cooperation and communication from both national and provincial authorities.
Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness – SGT Report
A Mother black bear will teach her cubs everything they need to know in order to survive…
Wolves of Douglas County WI Films
The Black Bear moves softly through the berry patch showing her cubs the way, teaching her cubs where to find food, just like her mother taught her generation after generation, until…
The greedy men laid out sweet smelling donuts hidden in a hollow log that tempted mother bear, and she used her strong paws to gain access to the sweet smelling treats. Thereafter, the silence in the forest was broken in by the noise of hollering hounds. These hollering hounds chased mother bear and her terrified cubs through the thick forest. Their hearts beating fast as they tried to out run the mob of noisy hounds. Along the way a mother deer and her fawn were chased up by the mob, and soon the once quiet forest rang with the sent of fear. Mother bear sent her cubs quickly up a tree, and made herself the decoy, and led the…
Christine Blasey Ford and her Family's Long and Deep Relationship with the C.I.A. | SOTN: Alternative News, Analysis & Commentary
http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=104988
BOMBSHELL REPORT: Blaseygate Exposes Shocking Sex & Booze Culture at Christine Blasey Ford's High School | SOTN: Alternative News, Analysis & Commentary
Cult of the 1ST Amendment
CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD AND THE DRUNKEN WHITE PRIVILEGED RACIST PLAYGIRLS OF HOLTON-ARMS.
On Monday September 17th, Christine Blasey Ford's high school yearbooks suddenly disappeared from the web.
Vegan beer-battered tofu sticks with ranch dressing
Hey. Do you have some extra firm tofu hanging 'round the fridge? Get it, press it, grab a bottle of beer and let's go. Seriously!
Vegan beer battered tofu sticks with ranch dressing. Click to visit source.
I found this recipe on VegWeb created by user meg777. This is my favourite comment:
So I had to use white wine because I didn't have any beer, and I was afraid it would ruin the recipe, but OMG! I used wildwood tofu and these sticks tast exactl;y like mozzarella sticks! Delicious!
I made mine with a pale ale. Gotta go now and make some more. Happy Saturday. ♥
Go Vegan. For Life!
Kavanaugh Confirmation Fight Has Consequences for Climate Law
scientificamerican.com
Mark K. Matthews,E&E News
If Senate Republicans plow ahead and confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the longtime jurist could have near-term impact on a slew of environmental cases.
Among the disputes the high court has agreed to hear this fall: a case that pits villagers from India against the World Bank in a fight over a coal plant. If the villagers prevail, it could have worldwide economic and political repercussions.
Several other climate-related issues have a decent shot, too, of getting a future date with the Supreme Court, including one closely watched fight—the "kids' climate case"—that makes the far-reaching argument that the government must take action on global warming so as not to imperil future generations.
Kavanaugh—currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit—would replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired in July after three decades of service and dozens of landmark decisions.
Kennedy was often a swing vote on the ideologically divided court, and he played a key role in several major environmental cases.
In 2007, for example, he sided with the court's liberal wing in the case Massachusetts v. EPA, which granted EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. A year later, he joined with the court's conservatives to limit the financial damages against Exxon Mobil Corp. for its role in the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989, which coated miles of Alaska coastline with oil.
Kavanaugh, nominated to the high court by President Trump in July, likely would shift the court further to the right. But a rightward shift would occur regardless of whether Kavanaugh weathers the sexual assault allegations that multiple women have raised. If the Kavanaugh nomination is derailed, Trump would likely tap an equally conservative replacement.
There's a lot at stake for domestic and international efforts to address climate change. Here are five brewing legal fights in which the future justice could play a role.
Kids want action on climate
When they filed their lawsuit in 2015, the plaintiffs behind what has become known as the "kids' climate case" picked the biggest target available: the U.S. government.
Three years later, their case—Juliana v. United States—appears bound, tractor-beam-like, for the Supreme Court.
The 21 plaintiffs, all children and young adults, argue that the federal government has chipped away for years at their constitutional right to live in a safe environment.
From one administration to the next, the government allowed decades' worth of planet-warming emissions to accumulate, even though top researchers at national laboratories and around Washington knew of man-made climate change and its perils, they say.
Through their case, the plaintiffs want a court to declare that their rights as U.S. citizens have been violated and to force the government to draft a plan to phase out fossil fuels.
No matter the outcome of the case, which is slated for trial beginning in late October in a federal Oregon court, it will likely wind its way back to the Supreme Court.
Justices in July rejected the Trump administration's attempt to halt the trial, though they hinted at concerns at the case's scope (E&E News PM, July 30).
Julia Olson, counsel for the plaintiffs, said then, "This decision should give young people courage and hope that their third branch of government, all the way up to the Supreme Court, has given them the green light to go to trial in this critical case about their unalienable rights."
A Justice Department spokesperson called the case "deeply misguided" and noted that the Obama administration had opposed the suit, too.
Villagers take on the World Bank
In January, a group of villagers from western India petitioned the Supreme Court to hear their case against the World Bank, and at Oct. 31 oral arguments, the justices will listen.
At issue is the liability of the International Finance Corp., the lending arm of the World Bank, which financed a coal plant in Gujarat, on India's western coast, home to the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs sued the IFC in 2015, accusing it of violating its own environmental policies when it extended $450 million in loans for the project to Tata Power Ltd., an energy conglomerate in the country.
"Without the IFC's funding, the Tata Mundra Project could not have gone forward," they said (Climatewire, July 26, 2017).
The plant spews coal dust, ash and other toxic debris, according to the plaintiffs, who say its existence has killed and scared off fish, which they rely on for income. But the D.C. Circuit ruled against the plaintiffs, who want a court to declare that the IFC is not immune to lawsuits like theirs.
The IFC defends its actions, and in court papers, its lawyers argue that allowing this case to proceed would expose multinational entities such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund to a rash of similar suits from foreign nationals.
In a brief filed Sept. 10, Donald Verrilli Jr., former solicitor general under President Obama, who is representing the IFC, stuck to the slippery-slope stance.
A ruling against the IFC, the brief says, "would open U.S. courts to a flood of foreign-focused lawsuits that would require U.S. courts to second-guess international organizations' core policy judgments, and that have only the most tenuous connection to the United States."
Kavanaugh questions EPA's reach
One big question before the high court is one that Kavanaugh already has dealt with—how far can EPA go to regulate hydrofluorocarbons, a class of potent greenhouse gases?
Under Obama, EPA in 2015 barred the use of HFCs in four major economic sectors: aerosols, air conditioning for new cars, retail food refrigeration and foam blowing.
Two foreign manufacturers sued in response to the rule with the claim that EPA had overstepped its authority under the Clean Air Act.
Kavanaugh agreed, and in a 2017 majority opinion for the D.C. Circuit, he asserted that EPA had "tried to jam a square peg … into a round hole."
"The Supreme Court cases that have dealt with EPA's efforts to address climate change have taught us two lessons that are worth repeating here," he added.
"First, EPA's well-intentioned policy objectives with respect to climate change do not on their own authorize the agency to regulate," Kavanaugh continued. And second, he wrote, "Congress' failure to enact general climate change legislation does not authorize EPA to act."
The issue is now on the radar of the high court, which soon could decide whether it wants to weigh in. Justices are scheduled to consider petitions challenging the ruling at their Oct. 5 conference.
If Kavanaugh is ultimately confirmed, his biggest impact likely could be his previous opinion, as it's typical for justices to recuse themselves from cases in which they already have played a part.
What happens to Trump's replacement of the Clean Power Plan?
Even if justices reject the HFC case, EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases may still wind its way back up to the high court in the form of challenges to the Affordable Clean Energy rule, the Trump administration's proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan.
The ACE rule is aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. If finalized, it's certain to face strong legal challenges from opponents who say the rule does not do enough to cut CO2 or protect public health.
Because EPA is still developing the rule, it would likely take until 2020, barring any major delays along the way, before the case could even get in front of justices, according to Joanne Spalding, deputy director of the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program.
EPA would first have to finalize the rule, and initial challenges would have to go through the D.C. Circuit.
A faster way to the high court would be if the D.C. Circuit agreed with a recent request by states and environmental groups to decide on litigation on the Clean Power Plan. The case has been on hold as the agency has been drafting the ACE rule.
If the court does decide the case—and Spalding suggested the D.C. Circuit could respond when the latest extended stay of litigation expires—parties would then be open to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Clean cars fight raises 'interesting' legal issues
The high court in years ahead could also look at the Trump administration's bid to roll back motor vehicle mileage and pollution rules.
EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are examining whether to freeze the standard at 30 mpg from 2020 through 2026. The Obama administration wanted 36 mpg by 2026.
The Trump agencies also proposed peeling back California's authority to set more stringent standards. That could kill the Golden State's programs aimed at getting more clean cars on the road.
If a final rule revoked California's waiver, the state would likely sue. But California and other states could also separately sue over a final rule that froze mileage and emissions at 2020 levels. That case potentially would question EPA's ability to allow more tailpipe pollution, given the Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. EPA.
Ann Carlson, co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the Supreme Court likely would be interested, especially in the California waiver question, because it's "novel."
"It would raise questions that the justices would find interesting," she said. "They've never weighed in on the power of California under the waiver."
In terms of a case looking at vehicle mileage and pollution levels, Carlson said, the court has "tended to take up these big, meaty environmental issues," like regulations on mercury pollution and greenhouse gases.
"It just seems like they have shown interest in weighing in on EPA authority and interpreting the Clean Air Act in particular," she said.
If he's confirmed, Kavanaugh might urge his colleagues to look at a case dealing with EPA authority. "He's interested in questions of agency power and statutory power that these cases raise," Carlson said.
Reporters Benjamin Hulac, Niina Heikkinen and Anne C. Mulkern contributed.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at http://www.eenews.net.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kavanaugh-confirmation-fight-has-consequences-for-climate-law/
Evil Spirits Will Rise In These End Times. Battle is On. ~ September 27, 2018
The deep state is fighting HARD for their lives…to no avail. Please watch the confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee brought to us by BP Earthwatch, and get ready to grab your popcorn. Eyes to the skies after this is over, and…
InJoy!
The American Bar Association is Calling for a Delay on Kavanaugh Vote Until the FBI Investigates
The American Bar Association is calling for an FBI investigation of allegations against Trump Supreme Court pick Kavanaugh before vote.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DoJxuB5U8AA396j.jpg
Republicans delay Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation vote to allow the FBI to investigate
Earlier today the Judiciary Committee voted to send Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the full Senate for a test vote on Saturday with the intention that the official vote would take place on Tuesday. However while voting in favor of sending the nomination to the Senate Jeff Flake demanded an FBI investigation into the sexual misconduct charges which have been levied against the nominee.
Shortly thereafter the Republicans agreed to a one week delay to allow the FBI to investigate and the President has issued the order, although it appears as if the procedural vote will still happen on Saturday. Here is more:
Senate Republicans have agreed to delay a vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation for one week to allow for an FBI probe into allegations of sexual misconduct against the judge, according to a statement issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday.
The committee requested…
WATCH: Man Who Conducted Polygraph Says Kavanaugh Accuser Only Answered TWO QUESTIONS
ilovemyfreedom.org
Democrats have been hyping the results of Christine Blasey Ford's polygraph test and claiming that they serve as proof that her allegations against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh are accurate.
However, the man who conducted the polygraph test in August says Ford only answered two "yes or no" questions, and reminded people that so-called "lie detector" tests are generally inadmissible in court because they aren't reliable.
During an interview with Fox News, the former FBI agent, Jerry Hanafin, who conducted the polygraph test on Ford said he only asked her two "yes or no" questions about her allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her almost four decades ago.
"Is any part of your statement false?" he asked first, followed by, "Did you make up any part of your statement?"
Hanafin said she answered "no" to both questions, and that the test determined that she didn't deceive with her responses. The final report also doesn't make any mention of questions regarding specifics about what she alleges.
It appears she was only asked basic questions about what she alleges, not about anything specific that would require details.
Hanafin said he didn't push Ford for specifics because he didn't want to overwhelm the victim while she was revealing what she alleges happened.
JUST IN: Former FBI agent who conducted polygraph on Christine Blasey Ford says he only asked two questions
— Wired Sources (@WiredSources) September 27, 2018
Kavanaugh was never accused of any wrongdoing for nearly four decades while he served in the Bush administration and on the federal court — but in the past three weeks, five people have come forward and accused him of sexual misconduct.
Ford alleges he pinned her down and attempted to grope her during a party roughly 36 years ago. She and Kavanaugh are testifying on Capitol Hill on Thursday about the allegations.
The second woman, Miranda Ramirez, alleges Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party in 1983.
A third individual, Julie Swetnick, claims Kavanaugh was "present" when she attended parties in the early 1980s, where she alleges men were carrying out gang rapes. She has only accused Kavanaugh of possibly being present at one of the parties where this was taking place.
The other two allegations are from anonymous "people" who refused to give their names, locations, or literally any proof at all that they know Kavanaugh or have ever been around him at an event.
Kavanaugh strongly denies all of the allegations, but that hasn't stopped many on the Left from portraying Kavanaugh as being the leader of supposed a "gang rape" cartel when he was in college.
Ford's allegations have gotten the most attention because she is testifying on Thursday, and her supposed lie detector results are being portrayed as "proof" to support he claims.
As Hanafin noted, he only asked her two general questions. He didn't ask her about anything specific or direct about what she alleges. The questions were about as vague as "Do you know Brett Kavanaugh." Of course her answers are going to be truthful when they are so broad and general that it would be impossible to lie.
This is nothing but a last-minute delay tactic by Democrats — and Ford's polygraph, many argue, is anything but proof.
https://ilovemyfreedom.org/watch-man-who-conducted-polygraph-says-kavanaugh-accuser-only-answered-two-questions/
CASHING IN: GoFundMe Donors Have Given Christine Ford Over $500,000 After She Made Allegations
Christine Blasey Ford, with the support of the Democratic Party, presented her story against Judge Brett Kavanaugh yesterday at a hearing in front of the Senate Judicial Committee. She could be receiving a check, or multiple checks, for a total amount of over $700,000 (so far) because of multiple GoFundMe campaigns raising money to help pay for her costs.
I don't know if GoFundMe will send her one check for each campaign, or one large check, or if GoFundMe sends the money to the people running the campaigns. I'm not 100% certain how their system works, but if the accounts are cashed out, then Blasey Ford might literally be getting almost a million dollars after all of this is said and done. Of course, GoFundMe would have to decide on what happens with the campaigns. Either way, that's a ton of money that Ford could have in her hands after her story and testimony accusing Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.
Her story has created thunderous waves on social media and disrupted the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, even though she presents little to no evidence and no corroboration from her own friends.
No one seems to be supporting her story except for the Democratic Party, but Ford's own friends refused to back her up.
When Ford was in front of U.S. senators during the hearing, someone had asked how she would pay for the polygraph test, which could cost anywhere from hundreds to a thousand dollars. "During a break after Blasey Ford's testimony, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Kavanaugh's most outspoken advocates, told reporters: "I don't know who paid for her polygraph but somebody did."
How was Ford going to cover other costs such as travel to appear at the hearing? What about lawyers? Nevermind that, her lawyers are working pro-bono.
Ford mentioned that she wasn't sure if she paid for the polygraph, a check someone would not forget about cutting, but she then found out that her attorneys (referred to her by Democrats) had paid for the test.
Ford then mentioned that there were a few GoFundMe campaigns going on in support of her. A few? Upon further research, it appears that GoFundMe has 13 current campaigns raising money to support her.
CNBC reported "I'm aware that there's been several GoFundMe sites," Blasey Ford told Rachel Mitchell, the Arizona prosecutor who was hired to ask questions on behalf of Republican senators. "I haven't had a chance to figure out how to manage those because I've never had one."
GoFundMe, a crowdfunding website that allows anyone to start a fundraising effort, is hosting 13 campaigns related to Blasey Ford, according to a search on the site using her name. Most of them haven't gotten much response, though they picked up after the topic was raised.
However, the top two campaigns have reeled in more than half a million dollars for Blasey Ford, a professor of psychology and statistics at Palo Alto University in California."
I located two of the highest yielding GoFunMe accounts. One has $473,812 of $150,000 goal raised. Another has $209,987 of $175,000 goal raised.
The first of the GoFundMe accounts listed appears to be using Ford as a means of pushing their own material. They have several other campaigns listed in the description of their campaign for Dr. Ford. This is called being an opportunist. They're raising money for Ford, but they're using it to advertise their own things.
The second GoFundMe listed is basing their campaign on death threats that Ford has allegedly received. What's odd about this is that it's usually unhinged Democrats who send death threats or participate in violence. For example, Antifa, Steve Scalise being shot, and any of the other violence and protests conducted by liberals behaving badly. This GoFundMe is to provide funds for security, although it doesn't seem like anyone is actually going after her.
It should be noted that many people percieve that the Democrats have used Ford as their pawn in a chess game to delay the confirmation of Kavanaugh until after the midterm elections and even possibly until after the 2020 election where they can hope to get a seat back.
The smear campaign and political agenda has been called out by numerous senators such as Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz.
The Democratic Party might not cut Ford a check, but it looks like she'll be taking home a ton of donations if GoFundMe allows the campaigns to be cashed out.
That's not a bad paycheck for agreeing to help destroy a man's life with a smear campaign that appears to be designed by Democrats.
https://ilovemyfreedom.org/christine-blasey-ford-may-receive-over-700000-after-alleged-incident-with-brett-kavanaugh/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=postup
Facebook hacked as up to 90m accounts are vulnerable after 'security breach' – Mirror Online
https://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/breaking-facebook-hacked-up-90m-13327076?utm_source=mirror_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=EM_MirrorNews_BreakingNews_Button1&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter
By Nancy • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Internet News
Japan and the Killing of Elephants
Sometimes the word ivory feels a little too objective for me. Ivory is actually an elephant's tusk which they use because it's theirs to use. It's essential to their survival. Tusks are used for defense, offense, digging, lifting objects, gathering food, and stripping bark to eat from trees. They also protect the sensitive trunk, which is tucked between them when the elephant charges. In times of drought, elephants dig water holes in dry riverbeds by using their tusks, feet, and trunk.
It's unfortunate that somewhere down the line somebody figured out that these tusks can be harvested from an elephant by killing it, and that the "tusk" can be carved into trinkets, jewellery, piano keys, chopsticks etc…. But you have to kill the elephant to get the tusk. That's just the way it works.
About 100 years ago there were approximately 10 million elephants in Africa. According to…
Take action against horse slaughter in Washington
Fund Horse, US Flag and Capitol Dome. Vivian Grant Farrell.
WE ASK YOU to please contact Congress in support of the SAFE Act — HR 113 and S 1706.
First, find out if your US Representative and both of your US Senators have co-sponsored these bills. Then take action!
Thank them if they have co-sponsored and ask them to do everything they can to help get the SAFE Act passed. If they have not, ask them to please do so right away.
Here are links to both the House and the Senate co-sponsors.
115th Congress (2017-2018)
• SAFE Act HR 113 Co-Sponsors »
• SAFE Act S 1706 Co-Sponsors »
Don't know who they are?
Locate your Member on-line:
US House of Representatives: www.house.gov
US Senate: www.senate.gov
OR another way to find your US Representative, enter your zip code (including +4) in…
Belgian Students Commemorate 100 Years By Restoring Graves of WW1 Soldiers «TwistedSifter
Belgian students commemorate 100 years by restoring graves of ww1 soldiers 2 Belgian Students Commemorate 100 Years By Restoring Graves of WW1 Soldiers
© Benny Proot
To commemorate 100 years since the end of World War I; Belgian students cleaned, repainted and restored 250 graves spread over 5 cemeteries in Oostkamp and surrounding municipalities.
The idea was to honour and remember the brave soldiers of World War I, and ensure that their identification and data remains clearly legible for all visitors wishing to pay their respects.
The pupils who volunteered for the effort were art students currently enrolled in painting classes.
picture of the day button Belgian Students Commemorate 100 Years By Restoring Graves of WW1 Soldiers
twistedsifter on facebook Belgian Students Commemorate 100 Years By Restoring Graves of WW1 Soldiers
https://twistedsifter.com/2018/09/belgian-students-restore-graves-of-ww1-soldiers/#like-118311
Categories: ART, BEST OF, HISTORY, PICTURE OF THE DAY
Tags: · belgium, cemetery, painting, restoration, tribute, war, world war 1
By Nancy • Posted in Military News • Tagged Military News, News, Support Our Veterans
How to stop robocalls, scams and phone spam | CREDO Mobile Blog
https://blog.credomobile.com/tuesday-tip-stop-robocalls-scams-phone-spam/?pc=331356&page=handset&aid=7157012&utm_source=house_em&utm_medium=acq_engage&utm_campaign=331356&utm_content=sep18_tuesday_tips_spam_robocalls_em_continue_reading
By Nancy • Posted in Protection, Scam Alert News ⚠ • Tagged Safety and Security Guidelines
Kleptomaniac Cat Won't Stop Stealing Vancouver Neighbors' Stuff
thedodo.com
Stephen Messenger
This is Bella — a long-haired tabby cat with a very sweet and affectionate spirit. For the past 10 years, Bella has been a delightful companion to her owner, Shawn Bell, simply by being her loving self.
Not long ago, however, she began to reveal one not-so-positive aspect of her feline personality.
Shawn R. Bell
Turns out, Bella's a thief.
Bella's foray into a life of crime seemed to have begun spontaneously last summer. One day, much to Bell's surprise, he noticed his cat arriving to their home in Vancouver, Canada, carrying a sock. The next day, she brought home another. The day after that, yet more socks.
On the fourth day, Bella came in carrying a child's drawing, apparently just to mix things up a bit.
Here's a photo of the cat's first haul:
Where those items had come from was anyone's guess, though Bell was sure of one thing: They weren't his. Bella had presumably stolen them while out on her evening prowls. And she didn't stop there.
That summer, Bell filled half a garbage bag with purloined clothes. But in recent months, Bella's thieving ways have only increased.
"She used to just come home with one piece of clothing per night," Bell told The Dodo. "Now she is coming home with two or three a night — or more."
And all those stolen clothes have been really piling up.
Bell has posted signs around his apartment building in hopes of reuniting the garments with their rightful owners, but to no avail.
He's been piling them up on a chair outside his place, just in case someone recognizes their stuff.
The whole thing has Bell feeling sorta guilty — and a little uncomfortable.
"It sucks to have to keep buying clothes if they keep going missing," he said. "Then there is the issue of the undergarments and her starting to make me look a bit weird."
That's right. Bella's been stealing people's unmentionables, too.
Bell hopes that, as word spreads about his cat's ill-gotten gains, the person or persons Bella has been stealing from will come forward to reclaim their laundry.
The cat, meanwhile, has yet to see the error in her saddling her owner with stolen goods.
"I think she's proud of herself," Bell said. "But she's not picking the right size or the right gender for me."
Still, Bell admits he adores Bella regardless.
"She's my girl no matter how bad her behavior is," Bell said. "I guess she has my unconditional love, even though she's a kleptomaniac."
https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/canadian-cat-thief-wont-stop-stealing-laundry
By Nancy • Posted in Funny and Interesting Stuff • Tagged Cats, Cute Animals, Funny and Interesting Stuff, Pet News


I'm fairly certain there's basically no chance of a Democrat majority Senate given the seats that are up in 2020, even projecting a Dem win in White House.
Transmogrified Tiger wrote: At the risk of summoning the anti-anti-fun brigade, is it really that objectionable that he says "I'd prefer if people liked the sport for the sport, and not the celebrations"? He doesn't even say or imply the celebrations are bad or too much.
Are the celebrations not part of the sport?
Guys, Matthew Boyd is the best pitcher in baseball. If you're convinced that a player who has been the best pitcher in baseball is actually not the best pitcher in baseball, I don't know what to tell you.


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Japan January 2017: Nissan Note leads, Toyota C-HR up to #4
The Toyota C-HR is up to #4 at home in January.
* NOW UPDATED with the Top 55 All-brands, Top 30 regular cars and Top 33 kei cars *
The Japanese new car market starts 2017 on a positive note with a 4.9% year-on-year gain to 401.650 registrations. Market leader Toyota edges past the market growth at +5.3% to 28.7% share, a full two percentage points below its FY2016 level. In contrast, Honda frankly outpaces the market at +16.2% to 15% share, as does Nissan up 10.6% to 14% share, followed by Suzuki up 5.9% and Daihatsu down 0.1%. Beyond the Big Five, Lexus (-14.8%), Mazda (-19.2%) and Mitsubishi (-21%) struggle whereas Subaru (+11.7%), Hino (+12%) and Isuzu (+12.7%) impress.
The Nissan Note is the best-selling car in Japan in January.
Mercedes (+1%) remains the most popular foreign carmaker but this month the German brand stays outside the overall Top 10 at #11, ahead of Volkswagen (+4.7%), BMW (-4.6%), Audi (+7.6%) and Mini (-1.3%). A handful of other foreign manufacturers also register double-digit year-on-year gains in January in Japan: Volvo (+20.6%), Jeep (+26.1%), Renault (+41.4%), Maserati (+57.6%), Lamborghini (+64.7%), DS (+65.4%), Citroen (+70%), Abarth (+119.5%), Rolls Royce (+145.5%) and McLaren (+175%) are among them. At the other end of the scale, Cadillac (-58.7%) and Ford (-79.1%) implode.
The Nissan Serena shoots up to 2nd place overall. The new generation boosts the Subaru Impreza up 60% to #11.
The models ranking is suddenly and completely reshuffled in January. Boosted by the new generation and its e-Power variant, the Nissan Note reclaims the top spot it held in November with an imposing 14.113 sales (+69%). Nissan even manages a historical 1-2 with the Serena up 95% to 11.179 units in 2nd place. Leader over the FY2016, the Toyota Prius freefalls 53% year-on-year and is knocked down to #3, its lowest ranking since November 2015.
The Suzuki Swift gets a 77% lift from its new gen in January.
But the big news is the arrival in 4th place for its 2nd month in market of the Toyota C-HR at 9.144 sales vs. 6.013 for its rival the Honda Vezel (+8%). The C-HR could be positioning itself as a serious contender for the 2016 pole position at home. Also launched late last year, the Toyota Roomy (#9) and Tank (#13) post very solid scores again. Other great performers in January include the Honda Freed up 3-fold on its January 2016 score to #6, the new gen Subaru Impreza – Car of the Year 2016-2017 in Japan – up 60% on the previous one to #11, the Toyota Harrier up 55% to #15, Suzuki Swift up 77% to #21 and Mazda Axela up 63% to #25. In the kei cars ranking, the Honda N-BOCX (+28%) keeps the lead by far, followed by the Daihatsu Tanto (-13%), Move (+63%) and Nissan Dayz (-14%).
Volvo sales are up 20.6% year-on-year in Japan in January.
Previous post: Japan Full Year 2016: Toyota Prius returns to #1 spot after 3 year-hiatus
One year ago: Japan January 2016: New gen Toyota Prius cements new leadership
Full January 2017 Top 55 All-brands, Top 30 cars and Top 33 kei cars below.
Japan July 2015: Now with Top 150 All-local models (BSCB exclusive)
41 Toyota Mirai found a new home in Japan in July. * See the Top…
Japan June 2012: Toyota Prius & Aqua lead, Mazda CX-5 up to #13
Mazda CX-5 * See the Top 30 best-selling models by clicking on the title! *…
Japan September 2013: New gen pushes Honda Fit back up to #3
Honda Fit 3 * See the Top 30 best-selling models and Top 13 All-local brands…
next post: Japan Full Year 2016: Now with exclusive Top 170 All-local models
swiss-apo.net/en/products/cialis-generic
самые лучшие видеокарты

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Blepharoplasty or an eyelift is a procedure where we remove the redundant skin that develops over the upper eyelid, and this happens naturally through normal aging. It also happens as a byproduct of natural dropping or drooping of the forehead. Occasionally, this is bad enough where it actually can interfere with peripheral vision. And when this happens and it's documentable, some insurance companies will pay for this procedure to be done. It's a relatively simple, hour long procedure. It can be done under local anesthetic, although most patients tend to like to have a little sedation, given that we're working near the eyes. The recovery is minimal in terms of pain. Most people just take Tylenol or Motrin. How long you're out of work or social activities is primarily related to how bruised you get. You can aid in your recovery by staying off of medications such as aspirin, ibuprofen, vitamin E. Anything that would help you minimize bruising will get you back into doing normal things the quickest. The lower eyelids are also called a blepharoplasty, and those are done primarily for when you have bags under the eyes. That makes you look very tired, and as you well know, if you're salt intake the night before is high, you'll wake up much puffier in the lower eyelid region, and it makes you look much more tired than you feel. So, in that procedure, we're making an incision underneath the eyelashes or in the eyelid itself, removing the herniated fat and then closing it back up. We get rid of that bulge, and then you don't have the shadow there any longer. It makes you look much younger and much more well-rested.


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El colibrí ermità becllarg (Phaethornis longirostris) és una espècie d'ocell de la família dels troquílids (Trochilidae) que habita els boscos des del sud de Mèxic, a Veracruz i Chiapas, cap al sud fins a Nicaragua, Costa Rica i Panamà, nord de Colòmbia, nord-oest de Veneçuela, oest de l'Equador i del Perú.

Descripció
 Colibrí mitjà, amb uns 15 cm de llargària.
 Mascle verd bronzat per sobre. Gola pàl·lida i pit gris.
 Una línea blanca sota de l'ull i altra a sobre.
 Bec llarg i corbat, amb mandíbula superior negra i inferior groga.
 Cua amb plomes verdes amb bordells canyella. Les dues plomes centrals són blanques i molt llargues.
 Femella semblant.

Taxonomia
Aquest gènere està format, segons la Classificació del Congrés Ornitològic Internacional (versió 4.1, 2014), per quatre subespècies:
 P. l. baroni Hartert, 1897. Oest de l'Equador i nord-oest de Perú.
 P. l. cephalus (Bourcier i Mulsant, 1848). Des de l'est d'Hondures fins al nord-oest de Colòmbia.
 P. l. longirostris (Delattre, 1843). Des del sud-est de Veracruz i Chiapas fins al nord d'Hondures.
 P. l. susurrus Bangs, 1901. Nord de Colòmbia

El taxó baroni ha estat considerat una espècie de ple dret per alguns autors, però avui, tant l'IOC com el South American Classification Committee, consideren que és una subespècie de Phaethornis longirostris.
Fins fa poc també s'incloïen dins aquesta espècie les dues subespècies amb les quals s'ha format recentment Phaethornis mexicanus Hartert, 1897, arran els treballs de Howell 2013, i Arbeláez-Cortés i Navarro-Sigüenza 2013.

Referències

Becllarg

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


This is the archive for NEP-TRE, a report on new working papers in the area of Transport Economics. Erik Teodoor Verhoef issued this report. It is usually issued weekly.
Halkos, George & Kevork, Ilias & Tziourtzioumis, Chris, 2014. "Greenhouse gas emissions and marginal abatement cost curves for the road transport in Greece," MPRA Paper 61032, University Library of Munich, Germany.
World Bank Group, 2014. "Cambodia Trade Corridor Performance Assessment," World Bank Other Operational Studies 20763, The World Bank.
Francesco Rotoli & Panayotis Christidis & Elena Navajas Cawood & Héctor Guillermo LÓPEZ RUIZ & Lorenzo VANNACCI, 2014. "Improving speed and frequency in the European rail system: Impact on accessibility and welfare," JRC Working Papers JRC85894, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
World Bank, 2014. "Republic of Congo Economic Update, September 2014 : The Road to Economic Development," World Bank Other Operational Studies 20737, The World Bank.
Dasgupta, Susmita & Hossain, Md. Moqbul & Huq, Mainul & Wheeler, David, 2014. "Climate change, groundwater salinization and road maintenance costs in coastal Bangladesh," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7147, The World Bank.
Wignall, David & Wignall, Mark, 2014. "Seaborne Trade between South Asia and Southeast Asia," ADBI Working Papers 508, Asian Development Bank Institute.
Alexander Kihm & Colin Vance, 2014. "The Determinants of Equity Transmission Between the New and Used Car Markets – A Hedonic Analysis," Ruhr Economic Papers 0521, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
Nilsson, Jan-Eric & Ahlberg , Joakim & Pyddoke, Roger, 2014. "Optimal supply of public transport: subsidising production or consumption or both?," Working papers in Transport Economics 2014:27, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI).
Florento, Hector & Corpuz, Maria Isabela, 2014. "Myanmar: The Key Link between South Asia and Southeast Asia," ADBI Working Papers 506, Asian Development Bank Institute.
Ivaldi, Marc & Petrova, Milena J & Urdanoz, Miguel, 2014. "AirTicket Sales as Bids from Airline Alliances," TSE Working Papers 14-546, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised 26 Jan 2015.
Marie Delaplace & Frédéric Dobruszkes, 2014. "From low-cost airlines to low-cost high-speed trains: the French case," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/185809, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.


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МПК-82 — малый противолодочный корабль проекта 1124М (шифр «Альбатрос», кодовое обозначение НАТО — Grisha III class corvette). Предназначен для поиска, обнаружения и уничтожения подводных лодок противника в прибрежных районах. Мореходность — 4 балла, применение оружия возможно до 3 баллов.

Строительство
МПК-82 заложен на судостроительном заводе «Ленинская кузница» в Киеве 20 апреля 1989 года, спущен на воду 20 апреля 1991 года, включён в состав ВМФ СССР 2 октября 1991 года, 6 октября 1991 года торжественно поднят Военно-Морской флаг СССР. Включён в состав ТОФ с 11 февраля 1992 года.

Служба
1 октября 1992 года корабль вышел из порта Севастополь и своим ходом начал переход в Петропавловск-Камчатский. 20 декабря 1992 года прибыл в пункт базирования на Камчатке. Зачислен в состав 117-го дивизиона ПЛК 114-й БрОВР ТОФ (бухта Завойко). За время перехода, который занял 81 сутки, экипаж прошел 2 океана, 12 морей и 14 проливов, всего пройдено 11 815 миль. Индийский океан МПК-82 прошел на буксире.

23 февраля 1993 года поднял Андреевский флаг. МПК-82 один из крайних кораблей ВМФ России, так долго носивший Военно-Морской Флаг СССР после его развала.

В 2009 году по итогам состязаний на первенство ВМФ был объявлен лучшим кораблём 3-го ранга в рядах КТОФ, и награждён переходящим призом и грамотой ГК ВМФ.

В 2011 году принял участие в учениях Тихоокеанского флота.

В марте 2013 года МПК-82 в составе  под общим командованием капитана 1-го ранга Василия Опрышко совместно с малыми ракетными кораблями «Смерч» и «Иней» успешно сдал курсовую задачу №2.

24 августа 2014 года МПК-82 вернулся с трёхмесячной боевой службы в районе Курильских островов и Сахалина. А уже в сентябре экипаж принял участие в стратегических командно-штабных учениях «Восток-2014».

В мае 2015 года близ Камчатки МПК-82 совместно с МРК «Мороз» отработал действия по ведению морского боя в составе группы.

В мае 2016 года появилась информация, что во время ремонта будет отремонтировано радиотехническое вооружение корабля: МГК-335МС и МГ-339Т «Шелонь-Т». В июле 2016 года в составе отряда кораблей (МРК Мороз, Иней, Разлив, МПК-107 и БТ-325) вернулся в базу после восьмимесячной БС.

Современное состояние
На 2016 год корабль входит в состав 117-го дивизиона кораблей охраны водного района с базированием на Петропавловск-Камчатский.

Командиры корабля
Командиры корабля (войсковая часть 53132):
 капитан-лейтенант Садов Игорь Сергеевич (1991—1993)
 капитан-лейтенант Баранов Владимир Николаевич (1993—1995)
 капитан-лейтенант Мурашко Сергей Дмитриевич (1995—1997)
 капитан-лейтенант Волжанин Валерий Вениаминович (1997—1998)
 капитан-лейтенант Баранов Денис (1998—2000)
 капитан 3-го ранга Липин Александр Владимирович (5.12.00—05.2004)
 капитан 3-го ранга Стеглик Кирилл Николаевич (2005—12.2010)
 капитан 3-го ранга Зинченко Иван Александрович (2011-05.2014)
 капитан 3-го  ранга Быков  Андрей Вальеревич
 капитан - лейтенант Карольков Артур Вальеревич
 капитан 3-го Знахаренко Сергей Витальевич(09.2018-по настоящее время)
к-лейтенант Подобед Кирилл Андреевич (08.2022-.....

Бортовые номера
 с 1991 года — 091
 с 1992 года — 379
 с 1995 года — 375

Примечания

Литература

Малые противолодочные корабли проекта 1124
Суда по алфавиту
Военные корабли и суда, построенные на заводе «Кузница на Рыбальском»


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Перуштица () — город в Болгарии. Находится в Пловдивской области, входит в общину Перуштица. Население составляет 5000 человек (2022).

Политическая ситуация
Кмет (мэр) общины Перуштица — Никола Костадинов Янкулов (БДСР) по результатам выборов в правление общины.

Примечания

Города Пловдивской области


Stay on topic. Other readers expect the comments about a post to deal with the topic at hand. If your comment is not relevant to the post, please post it as a Discussion topic.
No personal attacks. Criticism of decision-making and operational management, including the names of the individuals involved, is legitimate. Criticism on a purely personal level is not.
No profanity. No spam. No sexually explicit or discriminatory material.
Comments about politics and politicians must, like everything else, be on-topic and free from personal attacks.


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Q: How to maintain bottom space when image and growing label are being used in parallel in swift? I have 3 elements, imageview, label and a view. I want to maintain the eqaul space (15) for bottom view. Layout is as :
Imageview then label and at the bottom, there is a view. I have defined the top constraints of the view >=15 from the imageview, 84 from label but I want to push down the view when the label grows beyond the imgeview. Now what is happening the view is pushing down when the lable gets on new line and there is more than 15pt space between label and the bottom view which I don't want.

A:

*

*This is the screenshot for storyboard.

*This is from simulator running app with label smaller than image.

*This is from simulator running app with label greater than image pushing bottom view.

A: Probably the easiest way is to put the image view and label in a horizontal stack view, with Alignment set to Top:

The stack view is constrained at 16-pts Top / Leading / Trailing, and 15-pts to the "blue view."
At run-time, with different amounts of text in the label:

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The Annual Intel Developer Forum that used to be the chipmaker's flagship event for showcasing its technological developments and products stands canceled from now onwards. The company later revealed the above has much to do with the way the entire PC landscape has changed the world over.
With interest in PCs as we have known of them so far slowing down, Intel has been forced to look for other emerging segments to continue remaining relevant. Those include autonomous cars, data centers, Internet of Things, drones, and so on. So while Intel has been left to search for other areas to fuel its growth, interest in its IDF events too have been on the wane.
All of these factors led Intel to pull the plug on an event that has seen a continuous run for two decades now. Instead, the chipmaker stated they would be focusing more on smaller events and workshops to showcase its developments.
Intel also revealed they would look to interact directly with the customers and business partners during trade shows such as the CES, Computex or the Mobile World Congress. The company already maintains a sizeable presence in each of these events along with many more around the world.
The IDF event first started in 1997 and had soon grown in both size and scope in the subsequent years. That again was the period when the PC segment was booming. Unfortunately, things changed drastically once Apple launched the iPad back in 2010.
That one single development turned out to be a devastating blow for the PC market, and the aftershock continues to be felt even though the tablet market itself has off late been shrinking. However, while analysts predicting the PC segment too will be back on the growth trajectory after years of being on the downslide; Intel has since hit upon other segments to maintain its momentum.
The chipmaker has already invested heavily in the autonomous car segment and also has a few partnerships going with both automakers and technology firms engaged in developing self-driving car technology. With the driving aspect set to be replaced by computers, here again extremely powerful processors are called for to ensure all the processing is carried out flawlessly and in real time.
Meanwhile, the 2017 edition of IDF was planned during Aug. 15 to 17 in San Francisco though as things stand right now, we have already seen the last of it.


Is Your Business A Potential Spear Phishing Victim?
Since January 2015, The FBI in the US estimates that, using spear phishing scams, cybercriminals have stolen around $3 billion (USD) from more than 22,000 companies worldwide. The most popular method is a type of spear phishing attack known as a Business Email Compromise (BEC) scam. The targets for these BEC scams are businesses that regularly use wire transfer payments, or work with foreign suppliers.
INTELLECT IT > Articles > Is Your Business A Potential Spear Phishing Victim?
So why are BEC spear phishing scams so effective? They're personalised. Cybercriminals spend a lot of time and trouble tailoring each email they send, hoping to avoid suspicion and increase the chances of them not being questioned.
First step is to gather personal information, and there's various techniques used to get it. One way is by sending out a generic phishing email to all employees at a targeted business. This could contain a request for details about the business, or certain individuals who work there. Another is to send an email containing malware designed to obtain information that hackers need for the next step in their spear phishing scam.
Another popular method for information gathering is the use of social engineering. Cybercriminals will scour a targeted business' online presence, such as checking the popular social media networks. They're trying to get information about the business and the people they will be sending the email to. Sometimes, they even call the company to get a job title or email address.
What Do Spear Phishing Emails look Like?
Because they're personalised, they can be hard to spot. By being aware of what elements to look for, your employees stand a better chance of not becoming a victim to a BEC scam. Keep in mind that the better cybercriminals have done their research and customised their spear phishing emails. Most of the tell-tale signs might not, at first, be obvious.
No generic greeting: Spear phishing emails will often use the recipient's name, or no greeting at all.
No awkward wording: It's extremely rare a BEC email will contain grammatical errors or spelling mistakes.
No generic messages: Spear phishing emails are well crafted with business matters relevant to the recipient. There's never anything common about them.
No urgency: BEC Spear phishing emails are often professional in tone. They entice the recipient to act, instead of trying to scare them to act quickly.
Spoofed 'From' name: Used to trick the recipient into thinking the message came from a trusted source. Researchers at GreatHorn analysed around 500,000 spear phishing emails sent by hackers in 2016, and found that about 90% contained spoofed names in the "From" field.
Masked URL's: URL masking is where the actual URL for a link within an email, is not the same as the displayed link or text. For instance, the displayed text might show as a legitimate supplier's name or web address. www.intellectit.com.au as an example. We've masked the actual URL and it leads to another website altogether. Cybercriminals aren't as nice with URL masks. Theirs are designed to steal sensitive information, or install malware. Often, if you hover your mouse over URL's, the destination will show up and you can see where the link will go.
Unsafe attachments: Oldest trick in the book, used because people still fall for it. Opening attachments without stopping to think about what they are or who they're from is still far too common. Back in 2016 many hackers used spear phishing attacks to encourage recipients to open malicious attachments. This would set off a ransomware attack, encrypting all the business files that the user had access to, and demanded money in return for an unlock code.
A call for action: Spear phishing emails often encourage the recipient to do something. For example, a spear phishing email is sent to the person responsible for performing money transfers. It's masked to look like it's from a director. It is requesting the transfer of money to a certain account because the sender is stuck at an airport and can't do it themselves. Or, the email is trying to trick the recipient into opening an attachment, or click URL. These are classic signs of a BEC scam.
Protecting Your Business from Spear Phishing.
To reduce the risks of your business becoming the next victim, we suggest adopting a two-tier approach.
Firstly, if you don't have it already, implement an email security appliance or filtering system. Keep it up-to-date and patched regularly. If more of these emails are stopped from reaching you in the first place, it's less likely you'll become their next victim. Also ensure that potentially sensitive information (such as management or key employee email addresses) are not made publicly available.
Secondly, Educate your employees about the problem. Particularly the personalised nature of spear phishing. Use that opportunity to remind of email security basics, such as the risks around clicking email links or opening email attachments. Show them how to check for masked URLs or spoofed 'From' names.
If you're still unsure of how best to protect you and your business from spear phishing attacks, let us help you. We can advise the best course of action as well as provide you with recommendations on how the best protection suited to you.


June 27, 2016 – Dominican Republic Hundreds of patients come each day to the endoscopy unit at the pediatric hospital Hugo Mendoza, designed to treat digestive disorders in children.
In the unit, considered the most modern in the Caribbean, have performed hundreds of procedures a year since its opening.
Ibtgroup Children's hospital treats digestive disorders Google Maps.


We are delighted to announce that, after a lot of work and perseverance, our aid has arrived in Syria and has finally been distributed. Getting aid inside Syria this time round was not an easy task, but it was more than a worthwhile one and the aid will feed 200 families for an entire month.
Transparency is something that has always been important to us at RTF so it makes us extremely happy to be able to show you exactly where your donations are going and who they are benefiting.
None of this would have been possible without your generosity and fundraising efforts, for which we are extremely thankful. We would like to give special thanks to Al-Fatiha Global also for their never-ending help and support with our projects!
The RTF team will be back on the road shortly, heading to a number of camps to supply clothing, food and long-term support including accommodation, medical and educational to those most in need.
COPYRIGHT © 2019 - ROAD TO FREEDOM - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. || WEBSITE DEVELOPED BY AKS FOR NMNL .


Want to be notified of new releases in MiSTer-devel/Arcade-CanyonBomber_MiSTer?
Initial release: -- There is still some cleanup of the code that can be done and a minor bug where occasionally there is a small glitch in the motion object as a ship hits the edge of the screen. I am not abslutely certain at this time that this is specific to the FPGA version and not a bug in the original hardware or code.


text:
Q: How to serve static files using both express and ejs and send the data? I am trying to serve files with express and send data to an html file using ejs. The problem is that I only have to use either express to serve the files or ejs to send data but for some reason I cant use both. My paths are right but probably I have to do something different to make both work. My code doesnt reach app.get when I use app.use(express.static('../dist')), but when I comment that line it does send the data. If I can know what is happening that would be great.
My code is the following:
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');

app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
app.use(bodyParser.json());

app.use(express.static('../dist'));

app.engine('html', require('ejs').renderFile);
app.set('view engine', 'html');
app.set('views', __dirname, '../dist');

app.listen(4000, function() { console.log('listening')});

let views;

jwt.authorize((err, response) => {
    google.analytics('v3').data.ga.get(
        {
            auth: jwt,
            ids: 'ga:' + view_id,
            'start-date': '30daysAgo',
            'end-date': 'today',
            metrics: 'ga:sessions, ga:pageviews'
        },
        (err, result) => {
            console.log();
            views = result;
            console.log(views.data.rows[0][0]);

            app.get('/', function(req, res){
                console.log('test');
                res.render('../dist/index.html',{sessions:views.data.rows[0][0], pageviews:views.data.rows[0][1]});
            });
        }
    );
});

A: If two routes match one URL, then whichever route is defined first will be used.
/ hits the static route, finds a match (with an index.html file) and serves it up.
The route matching code never gets as far as app.get('/'.

EJS files are not static files. Don't mix them together with your static files.
If there isn't an index.html in the directory you keep your static files in, then it won't match on the static route, so the route matching code will reach app.get('/'.
You should probably separate the files (into static and templates rather then lumping them together in dist) and make it clear which files are EJS templates by giving them .ejs file extensions instead of .html.


text:
Health, mind and body books
Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf – review
Does this book reveal an existential crisis among women or merely tell us more than we wanted to know about its author, asks Jenny Turner
Jenny Turner
Fri 7 Sep 2012 17.55 EDT First published on Fri 7 Sep 2012 17.55 EDT
Two Calla Lilies on Pink, 1928 (oil on canvas), by Georgia O'Keeffe. Photograph: www.bridgemanart.com
A couple of years ago, Naomi Wolf signed up to write a book about the vagina. "I was euphoric, in creative terms … At the same time I was anxious about grappling with such a strong social taboo." A friend of a friend – "an impresario whom I will call Alan" – throws a party for her in his loft, "a pasta party at which guests could make vagina-shaped pasta", an idea Wolf says she finds "funny and sort of charming" though "not a thematic twist I would have chosen for myself".
At the party, "there was a slightly ominous, mischievous stir" from the kitchen, where guests have been hard at work: "Flowery or feathery, fluted or fanned, each small sculpture was detailed and different: lovely little white objects against a hand-painted blue Italian ceramic tray." "I call those 'cuntini', says Alan, laughing." "My heart contracted," Naomi responds. Next, she hears a sizzle. "I got it: ha, sausages … The room had become tense." Then comes the salmon. "I flushed, with a kind of despair," she writes, adding that the evening as a whole left her so upset, she was unable to write a word of her vagina book for the next six months. "I felt – on both a creative and a physical level – that I had been punished for 'going somewhere' that women are not supposed to go", she writes.
"A Rorschach with legs" is what Natalie Angier calls the vagina in her superb Woman: An Intimate Geography (1999). "You can make of it practically anything you want, need or dread." And the same is true, surely, of this sorry tale. Different readers will have different cringe-points, different places in the story at which they start shouting "Whoah!" You may be appalled at the thought of a book called Vagina in the first place. How backward-looking, how attention-seeking, can a 21st-century feminist get? You may be fine with vaginas in a book title, less so as a shape of pasta – most people avoid close-up genital chit-chat in mixed culinary situations, and there are obvious reasons for the taboo. You may find the pasta in theory, as Wolf did, "sweet" – a quick google brings up vagina cupcakes, pink felt vagina knickers, a commercial range of tricolore pasta from Naples cut in genital shapes – but it's the c-word that upsets you, or the sausages, or the fish. Personally, I particularly disliked the "impresario whom I will call Alan", and the "hand-painted blue Italian ceramic tray": ugh boasting, ugh sentimental, ugh ugh. I'm not keen on the post-party six-month trauma either. If you're a big enough show-off to have a vagina-pasta party in the first place, I kind of feel you've abjured your right to victimmy tender-plantdom. No doubt that says as much about me and my hangups as it does about anything else.
"I was aware," Wolf reports, that when she told people about her topic, "many people had immediate, probably measurable physical reactions." Some "smiled immediately, beautiful heartfelt smiles". Others "looked frightened or disgusted, as if I had suddenly produced from my handbag a trout". Neither covers my own reaction, though it was closer to Monty Python fish-slapping than the heartfelt-smiling thing. I admire, of course, the force-of-nature whorls in the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe, the magnificent White Hole by Rohan Weallaens in his show with Sarah Lucas, currently showing at Sadie Coles HQ Off-Site. But Judy Chicago and her Dinner Party, Eve Ensler and her Vagina Monologues – it's wretched stuff, po-faced and self-righteous, all the very worst bits of 1970s feminism rolled up in a tube.
It's not that it isn't possible to do really excellent work with lots of vaginas in it. Angier's survey, for example, is the book I'd give free to every schoolgirl if I was Michael Gove. Catherine Blackledge's much-overlooked The Story of V (2003) is lucid and thorough, and has some amazing illustrations. On the vagina as symbolic object, The Female Thing by Laura Kipnis (2006) is a sharp, funny, leftwing, Freudian essay about the many ways in which "having one of these things instead of one of the other things … invariably structures the female experience here on earth". Most recently, Florence Williams writes in Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History (Norton, 2012) about how the life of organs commonly thought of as private is always socially and environmentally conditioned, by the fantasies in the ether around them, by the chemicals they absorb.
Wolf's book, however, is something else again. Yes, it does a bit of science, and a bit of cultural history too. But mostly, it doesn't need to, because Wolf has found a magic key. "The vagina and the brain," Wolf has discovered, are "essentially one network, or 'one whole system'", though at the moment, not a lot of people know this, apart from "scientists at the most advanced laboratories and clinics around the world". Taken together, this "profound brain-vagina connection" forms "a gateway to, and medium of, female self-knowledge and consciousness", mediating "creativity and transcendence". You thought Angier was laying it on a bit when she poeticised the vagina as "a pause between the declarative sentence of the outside world and the mutterings of the viscera"? Well, for Wolf it channels "a sensibility that feels very much like freedom". Or if that's too much to deal with, just look on it as "essentially part of the female soul".
This discovery, Wolf writes, "started as a historical and cultural journey, but quickly became 'personal and necessary'". In 2009, she says, when she was 46, her life was outwardly great (aren't they always in this sort of story) – "emotionally and sexually happy, intellectually excited, and newly in love". And yet – as is the convention – "something was becoming terribly wrong". In her 40s, she explains, Wolf had felt her experience of orgasm deepen and become enriched, leading her to "see colours as if they were brighter" and "the connections between things" more distinctly. In 2009, though, "this was changing. I was … losing sensation inside my body." Worse, her sense of the "poetic dimension" was disappearing too. "Things seemed discrete and unrelated to me … and colours were just colours." She gets depressed and then despairing: "It was like a horror movie, as the light and sparkle of the world dialled downward and downward."
It turns out that Wolf has trapped a nerve in her lower back, between the lumbar region and the sacrum. Normally, this "pelvic nerve" carries messages between the brain and the clitoris, cervix and vagina, but in Wolf's case, because of the neural damage, the messages from the vagina were cut off. And yet, she still orgasms from her clitoris, no problem. "Every woman is wired differently," her specialist explains. "Some women's nerves branch more in the vagina; other women's nerves branch more in the clitoris … That accounts for some of the differences in female sexual response." "I almost fell off the exam table in astonishment," writes the author. "That's what explained vaginal versus clitoral orgasms? … Not culture, not upbringing, not patriarchy, not feminism, not Freud?"
Once she has picked herself up again, Wolf organises her argument round two main strands. Science, she discovers, has been making lots of progress in understanding the physiology of female sexuality, but nobody tells us about it. "Why didn't they tell us in eighth grade? … It's changed my whole sense of how we're put together," as she said to Emma Brockes in the Guardian this week. But also, this vagina-brain connection has an emotional, even spiritual dimension – "a 'hole'" that is "Goddess-shaped", no less. She gets surgery to put her back right, and finds her full-spectrum orgasms restored, and with them, the mystical intimations. "The moving grasses, the sweeping tree branches, the birds calling from invisible locations in the dappled shadows … I thought: it is back."
The first part of the book is called "Does the Vagina Have a Consciousness?" Wolf's evidence includes neuroanatomy – "your dreamy autonomic nervous system, or what scientists call the ANS" and neurochemistry – "the dopamine, oxytocin and opioids released by (the) orgasm, which in turn affect (the) brain". The take-home is basically that just as sensation runs from pelvis to brain, so it runs the other way as well, meaning that "gestures, touches, kisses and words aren't extras. They are integral parts of the activation of the female ANS." In other words, Wolf thinks that the sort of sexual pleasure the modern woman is encouraged to seek is far too wham-bam to release women from what she sees as a widespread "existential depression", an "An Epidemic of Female Sexual Unhappiness".
Much of this "sexual suffering" Wolf thinks has been systemically imposed on women, across the world and down the centuries: rape and genital mutilation, military, judicial and ritual. "If you are to subdue and suppress women, and in such a way that they come to do it to themselves …. you must target the vagina." There's also an interesting bit on the threat posed to the "happy heterosexual vagina" by internet pornography. The evidence isn't entirely there yet, but Wolf's argument that heavy porn use seems to follow an addictive pattern, desensitising users to images of violence and causing them to lose interest in affectionate sex with a partner whose name they know, seems increasingly plausible. Though I'm not sure about the impresario-I-will-call-Alan foodie spin: "The mass-produced, fast-forward, pornographic vagina is to the real vagina what highly processed or GMO food is to slow or organic food."
More surprisingly, she also blames "second-wave feminism", ie, the work of the early-1970s Women's Liberation Movement. In The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm (1970), she says, Anne Koedt argued that "Freud's elevation of the vagina over the clitoris" was a "patriarchal plot" in order that women be "brainwashed into dependency on men". An understandable move, Wolf thinks, but overstated, and with unfortunate consequences: "From the 1970s on, the vagina was recast as rather retro, housewifey and passé", whereas the clitoris was "a glamorous, mini-skirt-wearing Gloria Steinem".
But mainly her target seems to be ordinarily lazy boyfs and hubbies, who, she thinks, have to try much harder when appeasing the "entirely different model of female sexuality" she dubs "the Goddess Array". The quest takes her deep into the erotic texts of the Tantric, Tao and Islamic traditions. It takes her to a shabby hotel in Midtown Manhattan for a weekend workshop in "sacred-spot massage" run by "the surreally juicy" Caroline Muir ("While all of the women were conventionally attractive, many of the men were not at all"). It takes her to Chalk Farm in north London to visit Mike Lousada, "the world's nicest former investment banker turned male sexual healer", famous for having once stared at "the yoni" for so long, he saw an image of the Virgin Mary in it. If you want your own "sacred spot" expertly rubbed by Muir, Wolf tells us, the hourly rate is $250. Lousada, by contrast, charges only £100.
I read this book in utter bafflement. What is this big news that Wolf has to impart? Vaginas feel stuff, so yes, of course they must be packed with nerves; and nerves, we know, join up with each other at the spine to link into the brain. That's why they call it the central nervous system; that's what being human is all about. Feet, too, join up with the CNS – thus reflexologists, and why bunions are so painful. And so do the intestines, giving rise to the extremely interesting "Gut Feminism" of Elizabeth A Wilson at Emory University in Atlanta – digestive organs as "psychically alive", "the enteric character" of mood, "how biology can be an ally for those of us building models of mind-body that tax the limits of Cartesian dualism". In other words, the closer you look at attempts to argue that mind and body are not completely wrapped up in each other, the more you will see all sorts of connections, biological and symbolic and liminally teetering in between. "Having a body punctured by so many openings and canals," Kipnis writes, "blurs the distinction between inside and outside, self and world. The apertures invariably take on emotional resonance … She's so 'open'. He's a real 'tightass'." And of course the c-word, in all its abject force.
At the beginning of her Vagina book, Wolf says that her theory of "biological consciousness" comes in part from William James's mighty The Variety of Religious Experience (1902) – "the issue of neurology as a substratum for these common mystical experiences", ie, that particular brain-states may give people a feeling that they are, for a moment, in touch with God. After that, though, she doesn't mention James again. Which is a pity, because one great thing about the James book is the way he doesn't pooh-pooh these passing feelings, while also recognising that any individual attempt to "locate" them can only end in idiotic hubris: "We must frankly recognise the fact that we live in partial systems and that parts are not interchangeable in the spiritual life." Those selfish genes with their shoulder-pads, grabbing evolutionary advantages for the alpha males; dopamine and oxytocin, gambolling like SpongeBob SquarePants round the reptile brain; the stories told by the popular-science writers can only ever just be stories, partial facts filled out with cartoonishly consoling fictions.
So yes, body and mind are completely part and parcel. But no, this doesn't mean the connections are easy to conceptualise: neither goddesses nor Numskulls nor ghosts in the machine. Remember Wolf's "astonishment" when her doctor told her that every woman's pelvic wiring is slightly different? She should be more than astonished, I feel. She should be daunted and delighted at the great polymorphous cloud ahead of her, every individual equal and yet completely different – vagina and/or clitoris and/or all of these or none; fingers and/or penises and/or hair dryers and/or veg. But Wolf does not want to think about such glories. "One of my primary themes is the exploration of heterosexual women's physical and emotional interactions with men … Not because I think that lesbian and bisexual arousal, orgasm, relationships or mind-body connections are any less fascinating," but because women are "so complex and so worthy of careful, individualistic attention that I do not believe that the politically correct approach of lumping all female experience together … can do justice to the variations of female sexualities and their emotional counterparts." Lesbians, anuses and Betty Dodson do at least get passing mentions. Asexuality, blowjobs, sexual fantasy, do not figure at all.
The pulsing cloud becomes particularly shrunken in the neurochemistry chapter. "People differ from one another at every juncture of the dopamine matrix," Angier wrote of "today's It-neurotransmitter" a few years ago in the New York Times. "In the tonal background pace at which their dopamine neurons rhythmically fire, the avidity with which the cells spike in response to need or news …" For Wolf, on the other hand, dopamine is simply "the ultimate feminist chemical in the female brain". Whereas serotonin emerges as a baddie, particularly in its most famous role as the brain-chemical boosted by popular SSRI anti-depressants such as Prozac. "Women far outnumber men in being prescribed SSRIs. Are these same millions … warned that SSRIs may well send their libido and ability to experience orgasm plummeting?" ("Low sex drive", I read at second place on the "Common Side Effects" page on the NHS Choices website. Wolf may be appalled that many women seem resigned to sexual self-bludgeoning in exchange for the basic ability to keep going, but a lot of evidence suggests they do.) Oxytocin, best known for its part in stimulating childbirth and lactation, she dubs "the cuddle hormone" and "women's emotional superpower". Top advice for women who "want to have hot anonymous sex with some guy … but don't want to fall in love with him … discourage him from interacting with their nipples." Because if he does get his hands on your boobies, you'll have to marry him, obvs!
The stuff about rape and sexual violence is just strange. Wolf's main argument – that rape is at least half-consciously a subordinating tactic deployed by men – has been feminist orthodoxy since 1975, when Susan Brownmiller published her canonical Against Our Will: Men and Women and Rape: "From prehistoric times to the present, I believe, rape has played a critical function. It is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear." And yet, Wolf says that Brownmiller, like others of her generation, writes about rape while following an "individualised reading of sexuality posited by Freud", which is surely just not so. Wolf's take on classic women's liberation in general is perverse. Koedt, it's true, did mistakenly write that "the vagina is not a highly sensitive area" in her legendary paper. But her main thrust was to open, not close, sexual possibility for women; besides which, other feminists just went as fancy took them. Germaine Greer in 1971, for example: "To develop the muscles of the pubococcygeal region, think of something nice and contract the buttocks rhythmically … You might even succeed in making the whole pelvis awake to love and beauty."
As for this "gendered sense of self that is shining, without damage, without anxiety or fear", this "radiant part of the universal feminine" that is activated by obeisance to the "Goddess Array" … What if you're a woman who practises forms of sex that bypass the vaginal? What if you were born without a vagina, or with two vaginas, or have a female-looking vulva, but are intersex inside? What if you are biologically and culturally female, but want to smirk or vomit at the very thought of a "Goddess" anywhere near you? What happens to "the universal feminine" then?
Naomi Wolf, presumably, is like many of us, a middle-aged woman who has been thinking a lot about spiritual matters, as middle-aged women often do. Her body has been changing – which also happens – and in her case, she's also had that miserable injury, which yes, I can see would make you look at your sexuality anew. But it takes a particular way of looking at things to extrapolate from that to the shining Goddess. Wolf, this book tells us, has also been looking at images of sexual awakening in Christina Rossetti and Kate Chopin, because she has recently gone "back to graduate school". And discussing orgasmic rats with "a group of brilliant young women" at "a cottage on an old farm". Chatting with Mike Lousada for "a London newspaper". And visiting, in 2004, a refugee centre for women raped during the civil war in Sierra Leone. All evidence, one way or another, for this spiritual-emotional-neurological network. All of it really just connected by the life, the interests and the ego of Naomi Wolf herself.
Back in 1990, I remember watching the young Wolf on television, with a panel of older feminist writers, discussing her first book, the bestselling The Beauty Myth (1990). These older feminists – I can't remember who any of them were – were being just horrible. Their gist was that Wolf, being 28 and good-looking and well groomed, had no right to speak out about any "beauty myth", or to call herself a feminist at all. Awful, I remember thinking, but also interesting – the way older women so often hate letting the younger ones have their turn. I wrote an article about it for a long-dead magazine called City Limits, which was where I was working, in my first London job.
And I guess that must be why I have a fuzzy memory of an evening shortly after, when Wolf came for tea to my Brixton house-share, together with my friend and then City Limits colleague, now Guardian columnist Deborah Orr. It was a nice evening, I remember; I made a huge spanakopita and Wolf was lovely. Only then, Deborah or I said something mildly critical of some point or another, and Wolf fought back. The forcefulness, the mental agility, the lack of embarrassment! The sense of entitlement and mission, the self-belief! It was quite an insight into what it takes to be a celebrity feminist. I immediately saw that I would never cut it. And so, more than 20 years later, I'm still bodging my spanakopitas in south-east London while Wolf has long been a figure of world renown.
After The Beauty Myth, Wolf wrote a sort of sequel to it, Fire With Fire – her own attempt to work out why feminists so often seem to hate each other and what to do about it. The decade subsequent, she published three memoir-based personal-is-political numbers, Promiscuities – herself and her friends as teenagers; Misconceptions – as young mothers; The Tree House – as burnt-out middle-agers, a condition Wolf remedied by doing up her country house with the help of her old dad. Throughout, I watched her from a distance, observing how tough the job of celebrity feminist can be: you have to keep publishing and opining, no matter whether you have much you really want to say. You have to present your ideas to public scrutiny even if they're still half-baked. A single wobble, and the media will leap – do a google, for example, on Naomi Wolf-Katy Perry. Naomi Wolf-abortion-New Republic. Naomi Woolf-Al Gore-consultant. Naomi Wolf-New York magazine-Harold Bloom. Naomi Wolf-rape-Julian Assange. Then after The Tree House, Wolf suddenly moved sideways, with two plain, useful books on civil liberties and the right to protest in the age of George W Bush. Neither The End of America (2007) nor Give Me Freedom (2008) was published in this country, but readers will have heard about them when Wolf was arrested – in her evening clothes – at an Occupy! demonstration in New York City last year. (Good-oh, I remember thinking when I saw it. Now, though, I catch myself checking dates and wondering about the state of her pelvic nerve.)
Between jobs, I guess Wolf has never stopped trying to think big thoughts about women and politics and feminism. How some things change and others don't. How the same things need to be said afresh for every generation, and how hard it is to bear this, as you yourself get older and feel you've heard it all before. How much you'd like to warn the youngsters, except that all they hear when you try it is their utter conviction that they themselves will never end up like you. Exhaustion, irritation, frustration at all these goldfish-brain debatelets, repeating themselves, round and round. In a world with Jessie J and Jamie Clayton in it, Caster Semenya and the work of Judith Butler, why are we still letting one of the Anglophone world's most famous feminists waste everyone's time with all this burble about the "universal feminine" with its "Goddess-shaped" hole?
Funnily enough, it was on this very topic that Laura Kipnis's vagina book began. "Female progress – how's that going? Let's see. Gender barriers have largely crumbled (some exceptions remain), the dominant paradigms of patriarchy have mainly eroded (some exceptions remain), women have increasing economic dependence from men if they choose to (though many don't). But then you keep stumbling across the tracks of a certain … ambivalence. No, not the backlash against feminism – I mean the ambivalence among women themselves." For Kipnis, the big problem with feminism – an open, bold, modern movement, aimed at getting power for women, fair and square – is that it gets confused with femininity, an ancient, occult body of lore women use to trick men into looking after them; and few of even the most famous feminists have entirely clarified the difference. Or as Kipnis puts it: "Feminism ('don't call me honey, dickhead') and femininity ('I just found the world's best push-up bra!') are in a big catfight, nowhere more than within each individual female psyche."
Kipnis would probably see in Wolf's book just another iteration of the basic problem. The main reason for the current "epidemic of sexual sorrow" is not so much that "the vagina is being disrespected", but that women who should know better underestimate the complexity of Kipnis's "female thing" – "the female psyche of course", as Kipnis puts it, the experience of living with "this small furry thing" in a world that doles out privilege according to anatomy at birth. So yes, nobody disagrees that women are, on the whole, sad and rancorous, and that the problem amounts to what Wolf calls an "existential depression". If not the yoni, under the Tantric management of Mike Lousada, what other wisdoms are there to save us now?
"I had to say The Force," Wolf told the Sunday Times, when they asked for her favourite word for the vagina. And maybe it was that, or maybe it was the bit in Kipnis about the "small furry thing", but the vision that came to me at this point was the Star Wars poster on the wall of my son's bedroom, a picture of Yoda with a book tucked under his arm. "Read and The Force is with you," it says; it's an ad from the American Library Association. And also a reminder – not for the first time – that in the struggle for good sex over all the evils of the universe, the most potent and far-reaching weapons are not vaginas or any other bodily organs, but research, ideas, thinking – not yonis or even "the Goddess", but carefully weighed and thought-through words.
Vagina by Naomi Wolf – digested read
John Crace reduces the latest book from the American author and feminist to a manageable 400 words
Vagina by Naomi Wolf covered up by Apple iTunes
The ebook of the feminist author's blockbuster study of how society has avoided thinking and talking about women's genitals is asterisked out
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When the feminist writer noticed that sex had become less enjoyable, it sent her on an unexpected journey of discovery of her own body and how sexist language can wreck women's lives
Published: 2 Sep 2012
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The accounts of 'Technicolor' climaxes in Wolf's new book Vagina are certainly illuminating, but we should avoid turning sex into a science
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Home / Newsroom / Releases / Zika Infection May Affect Adult Brain Cells
Zika Infection May Affect Adult Brain Cells
Mouse study suggests viral risk may not be limited to pregnant women
August 18, 2016 | Heather Buschman, PhD
Concerns over the Zika virus have focused on pregnant women due to mounting evidence that it causes brain abnormalities in developing fetuses. However, new research in mice suggests that certain adult brain cells may be vulnerable to infection as well. Among these are populations of cells that serve to replace lost or damaged neurons throughout adulthood, and are also thought to be critical to learning and memory.
The study, led by scientists from University of California San Diego School of Medicine, The Rockefeller University and La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, is published August 18 in Cell Stem Cell.
Zika virus (shown in green) can infect adult mouse brains.
"This is the first study looking at the effect of Zika infection on the adult brain," said co-senior author Joseph Gleeson, MD, professor of neurosciences and pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine, adjunct professor at Rockefeller and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. "Based on our findings, getting infected with Zika as an adult may not be as innocuous as people think."
Although more research is needed to determine if this damage has long-term biological implications or the potential to affect behavior, the findings suggest the possibility that the Zika virus, which has become widespread in Central and South America over the past eight months, may be more harmful than previously believed.
"Zika can clearly enter the brain of adults and can wreak havoc," said co-senior author Sujan Shresta, PhD, professor at the La Jolla Institute of Allergy and Immunology. "But it's a complex disease — it's catastrophic for early brain development, yet the majority of adults who are infected with Zika rarely show detectable symptoms. Its effect on the adult brain may be more subtle, and now we know what to look for."
Early in gestation, before our brains have developed into a complex organ with specialized zones, they are comprised entirely of neural progenitor cells. With the capability to replenish the brain's neurons throughout its lifetime, these are the stem cells of the brain. In healthy individuals, neural progenitor cells eventually become fully formed neurons, and it is thought that at some point along this progression they become resistant to Zika, explaining why adults appear less susceptible to the disease.
But current evidence suggests that Zika targets neural progenitor cells, leading to loss of these cells and to reduced brain volume. This closely mirrors what is seen in microcephaly, a developmental condition linked to Zika infection in developing fetuses that results in a smaller-than-normal head and a wide variety of developmental disabilities.
The mature brain retains niches of these neural progenitor cells that appear to be especially impacted by Zika. These niches — in mice they exist primarily in two regions, the subventricular zone of the anterior forebrain and the subgranular zone of the hippocampus — are vital for learning and memory.
Gleeson and his colleagues suspected that if Zika can infect fetal neural progenitor cells, it wouldn't be a far stretch for them to also be able to infect these cells in adults. In a mouse model engineered by Shresta and her team to mimic Zika infection in humans, fluorescent biomarkers illuminated to reveal that adult neural progenitor cells could indeed be hijacked by the virus.
"Our results are pretty dramatic — in the parts of the brain that lit up, it was like a Christmas tree," said Gleeson, who is also a professor at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego. "It was very clear that the virus wasn't affecting the whole brain evenly, like people are seeing in the fetus. In the adult, it's only these two populations that are very specific to the stem cells that are affected by virus. These cells are special, and somehow very susceptible to the infection."
The researchers found that infection correlated with evidence of cell death and reduced generation of new neurons in these regions. Integration of new neurons into learning and memory circuits is crucial for neuroplasticity, which allows the brain to change over time. Deficits in this process are associated with cognitive decline and neuropathological conditions, such as depression and Alzheimer's disease.
Gleeson and colleagues recognize that healthy humans may be able to mount an effective immune response and prevent the virus from attacking. However, they suggest that some people, such as those with weakened immune systems, may be vulnerable to the virus is a way that has not yet been recognized.
"In more subtle cases, the virus could theoretically impact long-term memory or risk of depression," said Gleeson, "but tools do not exist to test the long-term effects of Zika on adult stem cell populations."
In addition to microcephaly, Zika has been linked to Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare condition in which the immune system attacks parts of the nervous system, leading to muscle weakness or even paralysis. "The connection has been hard to trace since Guillain-Barré usually develops after the infection has cleared," said Shresta. "We propose that infection of adult neural progenitor cells could be the mechanism behind this."
There are still many unanswered questions, including exactly how translatable findings in this mouse model are to humans. Gleeson's findings in particular raise questions such as: Does the damage inflicted on progenitor cells by the virus have lasting biological consequences, and can this in turn affect learning and memory? Or, do these cells have the capability to recover? Nonetheless, these findings raise the possibility that Zika is not simply a transient infection in adult humans, and that exposure in the adult brain could have long-term effects.
"The virus seems to be traveling quite a bit as people move around the world," said Gleeson. "Given this study, I think the public health enterprise should consider monitoring for Zika infections in all groups, not just pregnant women."
Additional co-authors of this study include: Guoliang Chai, Hongda Li, Laura Saucedo-Cuevas, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Rockefeller University and UC San Diego; Jose A. Regla-Nava, Nicholas Sheets, William Tang, La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology; and Alexey V. Terskikh, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute.
This research was funded, in part, by the National Institutes of Health (grants R01NS041537, R01NS048453, R01NS052455, R01AI116813, P01HD070494, P30NS047101), Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (grant IT1-06611) and a Druckenmiller Fellowship from New York Stem Cell Foundation.
Care at UC San Diego Health
Heather Buschman, PhD
hbuschman@ucsd.edu
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Jimmy and Luiza have been using SeaDek on their boats and kayaks for years, keeping them safe and comfortable during their long hours on the water. Check out this new cover and article in Hooked Up Designs magazine that chronicles them catching beautiful reds on the oyster bars of Crystal River. Great job guys and thanks for all your hard work!
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Essentials Week 1 given on Monday, August 22 is due on Friday, August 26.
Essentials Week 2 given on Monday, August 29 is due on Friday, September 2.
Essentials Week 3 given Tuesday, September 6 is due on Friday, September 9.
Essentials Week 4 given Monday, September 12 is due on Friday, September 16.
Essentials Week 5 given Monday, September 19 is due on Friday, September 23.
Statistics Project given Tuesday, September 27 is due on Friday, October 7th. Students are to conduct 5 different surveys with different populations, sample size, and sampling methods, then create five different graphic displays. Students have directions, pacing guide, and grading rubric.
Project Due Date Extened to Oct. 11 is due on Thursday Oct. 13.
Cut out three newpaper clips with integers and bring in on Monday, Oct. 24.
Essentials Week 8 given on Monday Oct. 24 is due on Oct. 28.