Remember that experiment last month where I was supposed to be analyzing just how Multi-Irons Syndrome affected me? Yeah, me neither.
I wasn't able to post my month in review on May 30th because I was racing across I-15 that day. It seemed all of a sudden I was the guy elected to drive two of my daughters to an Irish feis in Scottsdale, Arizona. I would have enjoyed the scenery more if the trip hadn't occurred in the dark. I did get to see quite a bit of wildlife cross my headlights as I broke the sound barrier over the desert floor. (Who needs the Bonneville Salt Flats?) I saw a coyote and a whole herd of jackrabbits. I even saw the Milky Way, which I was relieved to find out was still there. I hadn't seen it in quite some time. Word must have been out, though, that I was coming. I had the singular experience of watching the gas go up from station to station from Utah into Nevada and back down into Arizona. Fortunately, I rest assured that my carbon footprint was still smaller than either Al Gore's or Barack Obama's. Besides, I fertilized the desert flora along the way, something I bet neither of those gents can claim. Actually, I probably shouldn't have claimed that either.
The sudden road trip was a good wild card to be played on me. As I detailed in "My First Steps at Managing Multi-Irons Syndrome", like many people with ADHD I go through a cycle every few years of pulling excess irons out of the fire in an effort to gain some sort of control over my time and my life. Prune. Collect. Prune. Collect. I've been doing it all of my adult life. This time after I pruned I set out to complete just two goals — the two most important at the time — and I watched and waited to see just how ADHD affected me. Could I do it? Could I stay focused? Would I be able to concentrate only on two goals? Nothing tested that more than a sudden road trip thrown at me at the end of the busy month.
The good news is that yes, I could do it. I put my shoulder to the wheel and pushed along, taking note of all the distractions that made the journey difficult. Although I needed a week to get my bearings again after returning from the trip, I didn't head off in a new direction as I have done in the past, but instead dove right back into the remaining goal. I will comment on all those difficulties in the next article which I am still writing. I aim to publish it later today.
The first goal I had set for myself was to finish the first draft of my picture/chapter book "Benjamin Fudge and the Vegetable Grudge". This I accomplished before the road trip. What a great feeling of accomplishment to finish another children's book. I know that I was only able to do it because I had organized my schedule and made it a priority.
The other goal was to "pour my attention" into the duihope.org project. I didn't have as much progress in that as I'd have liked, but by no fault of my own. The software I needed to work on the job didn't arrive until after I was back from Arizona, which is the way these things usually go. Still, I did work on the project, so that, too, was a success.
Just prior to squeezing a spontaneous road trip into my schedule I had rediscovered Jeff Smith of Cartoon Books. I had been a fan of his graphic novel, "Bone" , for years, but stopped following him when I stopped buying comics over ten years ago. Jeff had an exhibit of his work up at his old alma mater in Ohio and there was an online interview that really opened my eyes.
All these years I felt Jeff sprung up out of the American comic landscape overnight like a tall, original, and polished sequoia. Instead, I learned his work was heavily influenced in style by "Pogo" , a favorite series of his youth, and that when I had just begun a comic strip at college he had completed a four year run doing a comic strip at college. He then reworked those characters and proceeded to bring them to life in comic book form for thirteen years. Simply amazing. How did he prevent himself from wandering off and doing something new out of boredom? How did he find interest in the work instead of interest from outside of the work?
As I struggled with my two simple goals I was quite humbled by his accomplishments. When he was finished, the story of "Bone" was told in over 1300 pages – pencilled, inked, and published in 21 page installments. Jeff became a giant through hard work and perseverance; he is amazing to me. MIS is only one of my obstacles. I need to master my ADHD if I want to achieve anything on my list of goals. Otherwise, I'll be shuffling from project to project until the day I die, living my life as some sort of shrub eking out an existence in the shadow of giants.


but this is returning <uninitialized>. When I analyzed the $dispatcher it looks like it had been just instantiated, with almost all members <uninitialized>.
So my question is - how can I get the currently running DI? Am I missing something?
Thanks a lot! That worked. I have a question though - what is the trade-off here? Why not to set all services as shared?
Phalcon sets services as non-shared by default, however, classes like Phalcon\DI\FactoryDefault sets most services up as shared.


Should You Always Call the Police After a Car Accident in Virginia?
You were in a car accident, and now you wonder if you should call the police. The short answer is: yes, you should always contact the police about your car accident in Virginia. A police report adds validity to your insurance claim. Police are "professional witnesses" to your car accident. The insurance company generally accepts what the police say about your accident. Police reports are infrequently disputed by insurance companies and those reports help support your version of events.
When Should I Contact Police after a Car Accident?
If you were in a serious car accident where there were injuries, you should call the police as soon as you safely can or have someone call them for you. Ideally, the police should be at the scene to document injuries, interview the other driver, and get your statement. They will create a police report and possibly ticket the at-fault driver.
In minor car accidents, it is still a good idea to call the police. In instances where the damage is minor and there are no injuries, you may visit the police station in person with the damaged vehicle to make a report. If an unknown person damaged your car, there may be little the police can do. However, in the event they can find the responsible person, you can file a claim against their insurance company.
How Does a Police Report Help my Car Accident Case?
Police reports about your car accident can be incredibly valuable. Police officers are generally considered highly credible witnesses, even if they didn't personally see the accident happen. Their assessment of events is thorough and they can be called to testify in court.
If both drivers give conflicting statements, the police report is used to clear up any confusion. If the at-fault driver lies to the insurance company, the police report can be used to dispute their claim. However, the insurance company can challenge the information in the police report. For example, if both drivers' stories are the same, but the police report is different, the insurance company will typically assume the drivers' stories are accurate and the police report is incorrect.
Just because the other driver was ticketed does not mean they are automatically liable for damages. Police officers don't assign liability in a car accident, the insurance company does. In most cases, the police report helps the car insurance company determine liability. If the other driver receives a ticket, the insurance company will typically find them at fault for the accident.
What Should I do when the Police Come to the Accident?
First, make sure you communicate clearly and honestly with the officer. This can be hard to do if you are injured or confused after the accident. If you are unable to give a statement, it is okay to wait while you treat your injuries.
Next, make sure to get the police report number at the scene or as soon as possible. In Virginia, it can be difficult for the insurance company to access the police report. In some cases, it can take weeks before the insurance company can get a copy of the police report. You can facilitate this process by getting the report yourself and faxing it to the insurance company.
Police reports are an excellent way to enshrine the events of the accident. Car accident cases can take some time, particularly if you have serious injuries that require a lot of treatment. After several weeks or months, it can be difficult to recall the events of the day perfectly. Police reports are generally a reliable account of the accident, so you can count on that report to remember things you may forget while treating your injuries.


Financial accounting — its concepts, reports, and language — is often regarded by most people as something mysterious, at best, and, at worst, something downright frightening.
Additionally, Storch Consulting can design presentations tailored to your specific organization's needs and audience(s).
"Tutorials" are also available from Storch Consulting for any group or individual member of your organization — Board, Finance Committee, Program Committee, Executive Director, management, line staff, accounting staff.


When I first read this, it didn't quite ring true for me. Revisiting it now after more than a year, it still doesn't, and now I can better pinpoint why. With any statement as broad as this one, you're bound to turn up more than a couple of exceptions.
And take the contemporary character Olivia the pig. In all her precociousness, she gives no indication that life scares her. Rather she is one pig who seems to be able to take any bull by its horns. These are but two offhand examples.
But more to the point: it feels like the letter-writer is trying to compare opposites. Yet rather than contrasting, the two qualities she describes can co-exist in the same character.
You can believe in yourself and play it safe at the same time. Put another way, you can be confident and cautious simultaneously. Doesn't this sound like any character whose arc involves him/her coming out of his/her shell?
The letter-writer is clearly talking about fiction picture books, while my professional picture book experience is largely nonfiction. But before we're anything, we're readers. And whether as a reader or writer, I don't feel either the "classic" or "contemporary" era of fiction picture books can be predominantly characterized by either of Tervo's observations. It makes for a great conversation, though. Can you think of examples besides Ferdinand and Olivia?
Not quite "Boys of Steel"
Author with kidney stones! Race to the airport!


Chennai, November 29, 2018: Vivo, the global innovative smartphone brand, today launched the Y95 in Tamil Nadu as part of its growth strategy in the region. With a strong focus towards the Y series, Vivo plans to address the consumers' needs and preferences in the sub-20Kcategory with a suite of quality products that are a perfect blend of performance and design at an aggressive price.
With the launch of the Y95, Vivo aims to further expand its market presence in the state of Tamil Nadu. With a presence across4800+ retail and 25+ service centers, the Tamil Nadu market contributes almost 7.5% to Vivo India. The successor of the very popular Y83 Pro, the Vivo Y95 is the latest addition to the Y series of smartphones that aims to further strengthen its product portfolio in the region.


The Congressional Task Force on Economic Growth in Puerto Rico has released its final report, recommending legislation in early 2017 to address an impending Medicaid "cliff" on the island as well as an expansion of the federal Child Tax Credit (CTC) in Puerto Rico, a closer look at inequities throughout the federal government and careful consideration by Congress of any plebiscite held in Puerto Rico under federal law.
"I want to thank my fellow Task Force members for working together in a spirit of bipartisanship to produce this report, which I genuinely believe is the most comprehensive and constructive document that the federal government has ever prepared on Puerto Rico," said Puerto Rico's Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi.
"This report will serve as a blueprint for action for the next Resident Commissioner and the next Congress as a whole. I think it is a fitting capstone to my congressional career," added Pierluisi, who will leave office this year.
With respect to Medicaid, the lead item in the report, the Task Force recommended that Congress enact fiscally-responsible legislation in early 2017 to address the impending Medicaid "cliff" so that the Puerto Rico Medicaid agency—ASES—can engage with more certainty when formulating capitation payment contracts with its managed care organizations. The Task Force further recommended that federal financing of the Medicaid program in Puerto Rico and the other territories should be more closely tied to the size and needs of the territory's low-income population.
The Task Force recommended various steps to improve Puerto Rico's treatment under Medicare, including that Congress amend federal law so that Medicare beneficiaries in Puerto Rico are automatically enrolled in Medicare Part B with the option to opt out of coverage, the same way their counterparts in every state and other territory are treated.
In another key recommendation, the report suggested that Congress authorize families in Puerto Rico with one or two children to claim the federal child tax credit (CTC), just as island families with three or more children in Puerto Rico are currently able to claim the credit.
An appendix to the report describes 40 federal programs in which the U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico are treated differently than their fellow citizens in the states because Puerto Rico is a territory and not a state.
The Task Force was established by Section 409 of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, known as PROMESA, which became law on June 30, 2016.
The Task Force was composed of eight U.S. senators and representatives. It was chaired by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is also the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The other members were Rep. Pierluisi (D-Puerto Rico), Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-New York), Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wisconsin), Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-New Jersey), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida), and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey).


Spectrum Home Health, established in 1993, is located in Wyandotte County with a satellite office in Missouri.
Our service area includes greater Kansas City and surrounding counties.
Spectrum is a Medicare and Medicaid certified home health agency, and has been providing the highest quality health care to residents in their homes for over 20 years.
Our delivery of home care services are dependable and paid for by Medicare and most Private Insurance plans.
Skilled staff members are available to assist patients and their caregivers to make a smooth transition from Hospitals or other Rehab Facilities. As our aging population increases the need for all areas of health care, particularly in-home health care will play a vital role in the delivery of overall health care.


text:
Concorde and the twin towers attack
The first flight after the modifications departed from London Heathrow on 17 July 2001, piloted by BA Chief Concorde Pilot Mike Bannister.
During the 3-hour 20-minute flight over the mid-Atlantic towards Iceland, Bannister attained Mach 2.02 and 60,000 ft (18,000 m) before returning to RAF Brize Norton.
The test flight, intended to resemble the London–New York route, was declared a success and was watched on live TV, and by crowds on the ground at both locations.
The first flight with passengers after the accident took place on 11 September 2001, landing shortly before the horrific World Trade Center attacks in the United States. This was not a revenue flight, as all the passengers were BA employees.
One of the contributing reasons British Airways decided to abandon the Concorde was the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.
Forty of the Concorde's best customers who travelled a minimum of 20 times a year worked at the World Trade Center, and were killed in the terrorist attack.
Following these attacks confidence in aircraft travel was at an all time low and the repecussions were felt across the globe with a downturn in customer confidence.
Some flights between the USA and UK/France were almost empty, when carrying a full load, Concorde achieved 15.8 passenger miles per gallon, post 9/11 the continuing costs of flying empty aircraft rocketed.
Not to be deturred normal passenger operations resumed on 7 November 2001 by BA and AF (aircraft G-BOAE and F-BTSD), with service to New York JFK, where passengers were welcomed by then mayor Rudy Giuliani
The city of New York and indeed the entire world would be a different place to live following the tragic events that unfolded on 11/9/2001.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


KL International Book Fair 2010 Coverage , Day 2 . | Arib Ismail Arib Ismail: KL International Book Fair 2010 Coverage , Day 2 .
KL International Book Fair 2010 Coverage , Day 2 .
Today I visit again to the KL International Book Fair 2010 to see how the book fair state by today. Of course the book fair today was very lively from yesterday. Seem response on the book fair really joyful and very encouraging.
At 2 pm, I departing from my house to PWTC and around 2.25 pm, I arriving in PWTC. Arrived me at there, I rushed to MPH Booth. Like what I say, Dato' Sheikh Muszaphar will be there at 2.30 pm. Yes, Dato' Sheikh was there, seem many visitor throng at the booth to take Dato' Sheikh Muszaphar signature and picture. At that moment, I also not letting the opportunity to take signature and picture with Dato' Sheikh Muszaphar.
At 3.25 pm, I went at MPH Booth to take picture again with Dato' Sheikh Muszaphar. Pictures that I take with him earlier was unsatisfied (my face 'buruk' maa). At last, I got that what I want, Dato' Sheikh stood up, hoho.
After that, I go out to McDonald's (huhh, again) to fill stomach on hungry. When I on take food, Hazwan, Azlan, Azim and Khairul Nizam coming to the restaurant, haha.
After eating, I continue my journey to the book fair again. Here the shots that I took on the 2nd day of the book fair.
Okay, that's it for 29th Kuala Lumpur International 2010 coverage. Tomorrow I will not go there anymore to make preparation and get ready to asrama. Hoho, who are still not have a time to there at this week, the book fair administered until 28 March 2010. So, don't disengage the opportunity to visit to the book fair which held only once a year. Urge your friends or your family to the 29th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair 2010 with various price offers and chance to meet famous writer and fabulous personality. Have fun !
Editor Notes: Hurmm, tomorrow is the last day of March 2010's school holiday. Why time passes so fast? =.="


text:
6525.0 - Experimental Estimates of Imputed Rent, Australia, 2003-04 and 2005-06
Contents >> Differences between Households >> States and territories
There are considerable differences in the average levels of household income between the states and territories. The effect of adding net imputed rent to income increases incomes, on average, by 6%, with the biggest increase in the Australian Capital Territory at 7% and the smallest increase in Western Australia at 4%. However, much of the variation in income levels between states and territories is preserved after net imputed rent is added to income. That is, the relative income rankings remain the same and the ratio of the lowest to highest mean incomes for states and territories remains at 0.69.
Table 6.6 presents the mean incomes, with and without net imputed rent, for each of the states and territories as well as their capital cities and the balance of state.
6.6 Mean equivalised houshold income, with and without imputed rent, by states and territories, 2005-06
Mean equivalised disposable household income (per week)
Adjusted mean equivalised disposable household income, incl. imputed rent
(per week)
NT(a)
ACT(b)
Aust.
. . not applicable
np not available for publication but included in totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated
(a) Households in collection districts defined as very remote were excluded, accounting for about 24% of the population in the NT. NT estimates for balance of state are not shown separately since estimates for the NT other than Darwin are not considered reliable.
(b) The balance of state is not available for the ACT. Estimates for the ACT are the same as those for Canberra.


text:
All Audio The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
Snippet of the Athletic Football Show: The Best and Worst Drafting Teams with Bill Barnwell
From Audio: Examining the best and worst drafting teams with Bill Barnwell
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
Which teams have nailed the NFL Draft over the past five seasons? Which teams have not? Robert Mays and ESPN's Bill Barnwell dive deep into the data to determine the best and worst drafting teams, some of which may surprise you.
Category: Sports & Adventure Football
TBrown's Audio Station
There are currently no playlists containing this audio.
Add this audio track to one of your playlists
And what I wanted to do was I wanted to kind of find a way to evaluate which teams have been the best and worst at maximizing their draft capital over the last five years. And when we originally I presented this to you, you were hesitant about it because I think you thought it was going to be a way to evaluate those Gs. But that's not what I want to do. Because I think we know that over time most teams aren't good or bad at drafting, it's a lot more random than that. But I do think that looking at this and seeing which teams have succeeded or failed in the draft is a good way to understand what good and bad drafts do for teams, like what are the actual impacts of doing well or doing poorly in the draft? And how does that affect the other decisions that you have to make? Yeah, I think that's fair. And I think we can have a conversation about the randomness and you know, there's a lot to say about that. I think we sort of have that as an ideal in our head and yet I think everyone, if given the choice, I'd rather have Ozzie Newsome run a draft than say me, which is again fair and smart and I would do that too. But you know, like, like I think there is a a question of like given how much we invest, given how much effort is put in here, how much the returns actually matter. We can talk about that. But I do think there is a lot to discuss about how the grease and dress have actually impacted teams because I think you can see a lot of, you know what we sort of form in our heads about certain teams or certain GMS come down to one pick or one or one year of selections. And I think that, you know, as we get sort of bigger samples and some of the James who have been around for a while when it comes to a bill Belichick or john Schneider or the aforementioned Ozzie Newsome. You know, it can go in so many different directions. I think we get these sort of different eras where we have guys who look like geniuses who then turned out to look like idiots or vice versa. And the reality is, I mean, we're just basing it on a very, very small sample of information. But for these teams, that's really all you might get. It's so fast, how quickly it all changes. They can change on a dime. You think about how recent the Jason light trading up for Roberto, Aguayo pick was, it didn't happen that long ago. And as, I mean that that team won the Super Bowl a couple of months ago and we're talking about how well they built that team and I do think they did a great job in putting together that roster. It was arguably the best roster in the league by the end of the season, but it wasn't that long ago that we were making a lot of jokes about them trading up for a kicker in the second round and we'll get to the box in a bit. But I think the other team that you mentioned that's the most illustrative all this might be seeing because if we look at it over a 10 year period, Seattle still has the best drafting record. You looked at over five and 10 years, we're gonna talk about five, but if you extended out to 10 it's still the Seahawks because of what they did in the early part of the 2010. And in recent years, It's been almost memorable how bad they're drafting has been. Like, it's a joke on Seahawks Twitter about how misguided some of these choices have been and this is somebody that we considered the best drafter in the league as recently as like 2012 2013. So that's the amazing part of me, is just how fickle all of this is consistently. Yeah. And if you go back to those Seahawks teams from the turn of the decade, we have a name by the way, for the 10s. Is there a I don't know because I almost said the odds and I was like that's not right, that's not the odds. But then after the odds, No one No 1 has ever had to do with this problem before. Unfortunately. What are we gonna do with the twenties? Are we just gonna call it the twenties? Because the twenties means something else? Yeah, I feel like we can erase that. Like, I don't think they're going to be roaring twenties. Uh we're off to a pretty terrible start so far, so they haven't been roaring so far that much. Um so, I mean, I would say that, I think we have to ask the questions about how much scott McClellan came into play for the Seahawks in the beginning of the decade. And then that extends to every sort of group, right? I mean, you know, with the Saints, um then bringing Jeff Ireland in its sort of credited for uh they're great draft, which we're going to talk about later on, you know, and then Jeff Ireland wasn't all that great of a GM in Miami. Um McLaren had some success in Washington, but obviously Uh didn't stay there in the long term. I mean, there's so many things come into play here that we have to, you know, it's so hard to parse out credit for what works and doesn't work. And then to the point about the bucks, I mean, you know, having Tom Brady, they're probably made a lot of those pics look better. I mean the defense had great advanced metrics in 2019 but only got attention really in 2020 because their quarterback wasn't turning the ball over three or 4 times a game. So I really feel So where do you find what kinds of players you find in the draft, write the books? The books found the meat of their roster in the draft, especially if you look at the 2018 and 2019 classes, but we'll get to them. There are a lot of stars on that team that haven't been found within this range. And I also think talk about gms that our opinions have changed. I think that both of us would probably look at what the dolphins have done over the last few years under chris Greer and say this is smart process for the most part. That was gonna be my question for you. Actually just came to mind for me, not in our little um, google dot, not little. I don't want to be disparaging, but not in a google doc, but it's a robust google doc. Yeah, yeah. Your, your chart is robust. The google doc is whatever. No, I'm gonna ask you a question that I want to ask you this. We'll get started. We're gonna talk a lot of things. But Patrick Mahomes is the most valuable draft pick of the last five years, correct, I think, I think. No. Right. No, I think he's the best player of the last five years, but if we're accumulating total value over the last five years, probably deck Prescott. Right. I'm not I'm not even I'm not even bringing up back. I I think you can make that case. I think Mahomes is probably more valuable still. But anyway, I'm not trying to really compare. It is the most valuable player, but I think an accumulated value since they were drafted, it would probably be Prescott up to this point. The question I want to ask you is this, it's really not about Mahomes attack, but I think that those are both fair points is Laremy Tunsil the most valuable draft pick. That's a great question because I don't know if you noticed he's been pretty good for the Miami dolphins in terms of getting them. A lot of other players who are valuable. It's so funny you mentioned that because for tomorrow I'm ready in the athletic about the debate that the Bangles might be having about offensive tackle versus receiver and how hard it is to find tackles because if you look at, I did it by Pff grades and a couple other things. If you look at the top 32 tackles in the NFL by that metric from last year, 23 of them were drafted in the first two rounds and most of them by the team that drafted them. The three guys who were first round picks that weren't drafted by their team were all traded for at least the 51st pick in the draft and often times more than that. And then we're given massive extensions. If you drafted offensive tackle in the first round, even if he doesn't become a star for you or doesn't play for you for 10 years, you're probably going to get a decent return for that guy. If he ends up being


text:
export default {
  id: 1,
  title: 'Let\'s get it (this site) started!',
  post: `
### Let's get it (this site) started!

This site is really just for me to have a place to play around. Building it as a blog gives me a reason to keep revisiting it and making improvements. It will also serve as a convienent place to keep an online resume. My plan is to post about once a month. With that out of the way let's move on to what I used to build this site.

I wanted to use [React](https://facebook.github.io/react) in large part due to it's current popularity and because it appears to be a well done component framework.
To get started I used Facebook's own [create react app](https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app) tool which I highly recommend to anybody just getting started with react, and possibly to those already familiar with it.
With that I have a simple hello world app, now I just need to figure out what I'm going to build.

I'm not a designer.
I'm not artistic.
I can build just about anything, but for me to pick the colors and layout is a recipe for disaster.
With that said I wanted a nice set of base tools to build with.
I'm familiar with [bootstrap](http://getbootstrap.com/) and it's a great set of basic tools.
Thankfully there's a [bootstrap for react](https://react-bootstrap.github.io/) that gets me what I want.
Add in [react router](https://github.com/reacttraining/react-router) and [react router bootstrap](https://github.com/react-bootstrap/react-router-bootstrap) and we have the tools for a simple but functional site.

The final piece I need to finish the site, at least this beginning basic site, is a way to author blog posts.
The obvious solution is to pick a CMS solution and integrate that.
There are several very good options in that direction and I looked into several that would have worked just fine.
However at the end of the day I wanted to keep it simple.
I don't need much of a feature set.
All I need is a means to write a blog post and display some summary information in a list.
Additionally it'd be nice to write a blog post have have it wait to publish.
Comments would be a nice feature, but I'm going to push that off for future work and not worry about it for now.
*Update: Comments have been added using the free version of Disqus.*
What I decided on is to create my blog posts as individual files written in markdown (template literals in a js file) and keep a json file that holds the metadata for the blog post.
So my workflow for creating a blog post is to add a new entry to the json file and write the blog which really isn't any more work than most publishing tools, it's just a bit more manual and I"m okay with that.
Thanks to the live nature of the \`create-react-app\` I can even preview as I type just by saving the file.

Now there are a ton of things I dont' yet have.
Permalinks don't exist.
The site is not very SEO friendly.
There are no comments as I previously mentioned (stealth edit - have comments now).
There's no RSS feed (or JSON feed as is the new hotness).
Were I building this site for anybody else, or for any organization, I probably wouldn't have made nearly any of the same choices.
For me though, I think this will work just fine, and all those missing pieces are just opportunities to add a little more later.
`};

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


I received a BFA in Graphic Design from San José State University.
I was born in San José, California and studied communications until I found my passion for graphic design. In addition to design, my main interests are music, communication, and spirituality.
I believe that as a designer, I can contribute to the greater good of all by bringing an awareness to the projects that I work on.


* debian/rules: Add missing epoch in dbgsym migration version.
* debian/control: Update Maintainer and Vcs fields, moving off alioth.
* debian/control, debian/rules: Generate dbgsym package.
* debian/control: Bump Standards-Version to 4.1.4.
* New upstream release. Closes: #894982.


text:
About Pompe Disease
Types of Pompe Disease
Classic Infantile-Onset Pompe Disease
Non-Classic Infantile Onset Pompe Disease
Late-Onset Pompe Disease
Cause of Pompe Disease
Inheritance of Pompe Disease
Symptoms of Pompe Disease
Diagnosis of Pompe Disease
Incidence of Pompe Disease
Living with Pompe Disease
Pompe Disease and Exercise
Pompe Disease and Diet
Physical and Occupational Therapy for Pompe Disease
Gene Therapy for Pompe Disease
rAAV1-CMV-hGAA
rAAV9-DES-hGAA
Chaperone Therapy for Pompe Disease
AT-GAA (ATB200/AT2221)
Val-1221
Substrate Reduction Therapy for Pompe Disease
Stimulation of Lysosomal Exocytosis
Health Insight
New Genetic Variant May Help Explain Variability of Symptom Onset, Study Says
by Joana Carvalho, MSc
Click here to subscribe to the Pompe Disease News Newsletter!
Scientists have discovered a genetic variant that might help explain why some people with Pompe disease experience their first symptoms earlier or later in life.
The study, "A genetic modifier of symptom onset in Pompe disease," was published in EBioMedicine.
Pompe disease is a rare genetic disorder characterized by the excessive accumulation of glycogen (a sugar molecule) inside cells. The disease is caused by mutations in the GAA gene, which provides instructions to make an enzyme called acid alpha-glucosidase (GAA).
In the absence of this enzyme, glycogen starts accumulating inside lysosomes (small cell compartments that digest and recycle several molecules) until it reaches toxic levels, impairing certain organs and systems, especially the muscles.
"In the Caucasian population, 90% of patients with onset at childhood or adulthood carry the c.-32-13T>G (IVS1) variant on one allele (one of the two different forms of the same gene) in combination with a [disease-causing] variant on the second allele," investigators said.
"However, symptom onset in these patients varies widely, ranging from [less than a year old] to 62  years old. This suggests the possibility that unidentified modifying factors are able to modulate age at symptom onset," they said.
In this study, a group of researchers from the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam (Netherlands) and collaborators set out to identify gene disease modifiers that might explain the variability of symptom onset in patients carrying the IVS1 variant of the GAA gene.
The study involved 153 patients with Pompe disease — 143 carrying one copy of the IVS1 variant and 10 carrying two copies of the IVS1 variant. The age at symptom onset was recorded for all patients in the study.
Genomic DNA analyses identified a genetic variant (c.510C>T) that was present in 27% of the patients with childhood-onset Pompe disease. None of the 110 patients with adulthood-onset Pompe disease carried this variant.
In patients carrying two copies of the IVS1 variant, the c.510C>T variant was absent in four out of four (100%) asymptomatic individuals and present in 50% (three out of six) symptomatic patients.
Biochemical analyses showed that fibroblasts (connective tissue skin cells) from patients carrying the c.510C>T variant had lower activity of GAA, compared with cells from patients who did not carry this variant.
Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (a technique to measure the expression levels of genes, RT-qPCR) revealed the c.510C>T variant affects the splicing of the messenger RNA (mRNA) of GAA, leading to a marked reduction in the levels of full-length functional GAA mRNA and, consequently, lower GAA enzymatic activity.
RNA splicing is a process in which certain non-coding sequences in genes, called introns, are removed from the final RNA sequence; mRNA is the template for the production of a protein.
"These findings are important for the estimation of age at symptom onset and for deciding when to start [enzyme replacement therapy]. Reports on the presence of c.510C>T should be included in the genetic diagnostic analysis of Pompe," the scientists said.
Joana Carvalho, MSc
Joana is currently completing her PhD in Biomedicine and Clinical Research at Universidade de Lisboa. She also holds a BSc in Biology and an MSc in Evolutionary and Developmental Biology from Universidade de Lisboa. Her work has been focused on the impact of non-canonical Wnt signaling in the collective behavior of endothelial cells — cells that make up the lining of blood vessels — found in the umbilical cord of newborns.
Tagged disease modifier, GAA gene, genetic variant, IVS1 variant, symptom onset.
Previous: Rare Diseases Constitute a 'Public Health Issue,' NCATS Director Warns
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Pompe Disease News
Pompe Disease News is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.


Arterial: These roads provide mobility so traffic can move from one place to another quickly and safely.
Collector: These roads link arterials and local roads and perform some duties of each.
Local: These roads provide access to homes, businesses, and other property.


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About Kim Pullen
The eldest child of two Marines, Kim grew up in Miami and received her Bachelor's in Telecommunications with a minor in Theater at the University of Florida in 1985 and has been writing and directing plays in Florida ever since. She collaborated to create and produce the original Hammer and Nails: The Sounds of the Crucifixion. Her dramatic production, Table for Two, is available on DVD. She is a freelance writer, novelist, blogger, poet, filmmaker, actress, and stage director.
Aside from writing full-time, she is an AFAA certified group fitness instructor of Yoga, Yo-Chi™, Pilates, and Body Sculpt, former Zumba™ and Bokwa™ instructor, chemical awareness advocate for Every Body Wellness, and former secondary Language Arts teacher and homeschooling mom. She lives in Orlando with her massage therapist and fitness guru husband, Russ Pullen, their three teenage children, and a very devoted cockerpoo.
Her books, The Intimacy Manifesto, The Chasm Crosser, and Water for the Wound, are available through Amazon.


text:
Q: symbol(s) not found for architecture Hi everyone i get an error, I build my game in xcode from unity
the error start with this:
Undefined symbols for architecture arm64:
  "std::ostream::write(char const*, long)", referenced from:      Pfx::Linker::Detail::InstancesMapping::write(Pfx::Linker::Detail::MappingOStream) const in libiPhone-lib.a(linkerdetailcachemapping.o)

and too much logs i can't paste all
the error end with this:
"std::string::insert(unsigned long, char const*, unsigned long)", referenced from:
      PatchShaderFogGLES(std::string&, std::string&, FogMode, bool) in libiPhone-lib.a(GLSLUtilities.o)
      PatchVertexShaderFogMetal(std::string&, FogMode) in libiPhone-lib.a(ShaderPatchingMetal.o)
      InsertFogVaryingMetal(std::string&, bool) in libiPhone-lib.a(ShaderPatchingMetal.o)
      PatchPixelShaderFogMetal(std::string&) in libiPhone-lib.a(ShaderPatchingMetal.o)
  "std::_Rb_tree_insert_and_rebalance(bool, std::_Rb_tree_node_base*, std::_Rb_tree_node_base*, std::_Rb_tree_node_base&)", referenced from:
      std::_Rb_tree<std::string, std::pair<std::string const, void (*)()>, std::_Select1st<std::pair<std::string const, void (*)()> >, std::less<std::string>, std::allocator<std::pair<std::string const, void (*)()> > >::_M_insert_unique(std::_Rb_tree_iterator<std::pair<std::string const, void (*)()> >, std::pair<std::string const, void (*)()> const&) in libiPhone-lib.a(InternalCalls.o)
      std::_Rb_tree<std::string, std::pair<std::string const, void (*)()>, std::_Select1st<std::pair<std::string const, void (*)()> >, std::less<std::string>, std::allocator<std::pair<std::string const, void (*)()> > >::_M_insert_unique(std::pair<std::string const, void (*)()> const&) in libiPhone-lib.a(InternalCalls.o)
      std::_Rb_tree<TypeInfo*, std::pair<TypeInfo* const, TypeInfo*>, std::_Select1st<std::pair<TypeInfo* const, TypeInfo*> >, std::less<TypeInfo*>, std::allocator<std::pair<TypeInfo* const, TypeInfo*> > >::_M_insert_unique(std::pair<TypeInfo* const, TypeInfo*> const&) in libiPhone-lib.a(MetadataCache.o)
      std::_Rb_tree<void (*)(), void (*)(), std::_Identity<void (*)()>, std::less<void (*)()>, std::allocator<void (*)()> >::_M_insert_unique(void (* const&)()) in libiPhone-lib.a(RegisterRuntimeInitializeAndCleanup.o)
      std::_Rb_tree<TypeInfo*, TypeInfo*, std::_Identity<TypeInfo*>, std::less<TypeInfo*>, std::allocator<TypeInfo*> >::_M_insert_unique(TypeInfo* const&) in libiPhone-lib.a(MonoType.o)
      std::_Rb_tree<void*, std::pair<void* const, ExternalAllocInfo>, std::_Select1st<std::pair<void* const, ExternalAllocInfo> >, std::less<void*>, stl_allocator<std::pair<void* const, ExternalAllocInfo>, (MemLabelIdentifier)49, 16> >::_M_insert(std::_Rb_tree_node_base*, std::_Rb_tree_node_base*, std::pair<void* const, ExternalAllocInfo> const&) in libiPhone-lib.a(MemoryManager.o)
      std::_Rb_tree<TexturesMetal::MetalSampler, std::pair<TexturesMetal::MetalSampler const, id<MTLSamplerState> __strong>, std::_Select1st<id<MTLSamplerState> __strong>, memcmp_less<TexturesMetal::MetalSampler>, std::allocator<id<MTLSamplerState> __strong> >::_M_insert(std::_Rb_tree_node_base*, std::_Rb_tree_node_base, id<MTLSamplerState> __strong const&) in libiPhone-lib.a(TexturesMetal.o)
      ...
  "std::string::insert(unsigned long, std::string const&, unsigned long, unsigned long)", referenced from:
      PatchShaderFogGLES(std::string&, std::string&, FogMode, bool) in libiPhone-lib.a(GLSLUtilities.o)
      PatchVertexShaderFogMetal(std::string&, FogMode) in libiPhone-lib.a(ShaderPatchingMetal.o)
      PatchPixelShaderFogMetal(std::string&) in libiPhone-lib.a(ShaderPatchingMetal.o)
  "RegisterStaticallyLinkedModuleClasses(ClassRegistrationContext&)", referenced from:
      InvokeRegisterStaticallyLinkedModuleClasses(ClassRegistrationContext&) in UnityClassRegistration.o
ld: symbol(s) not found for architecture arm64
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)

if you have any suggest thanks.
and i tried:
1 add "-ObjC" or "$(inherited)" to "other linker flags"
2 change "c++ standard library" to "libc++(LLVM)"
3 delete "libiconv.2.dylib" and add "libiconv.2.tdb" because"libiconv.2.dylib" not exists in my project
I am using: XCode(10.1) and Unity4.7.0f1

A: Figured it out. It is necessary to change "C++ Standard Library" in the "Apple LLCM 6.0 -Language - C++" from "Compiler Default" to "libstdc++ (GNU C++ standard library)"
(Unity forum)
https://answers.unity.com/questions/837103/unity3d-for-ios-a-lot-of-linker-errors-after-upgra.html

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Cat Foreheads & Rabbit Hutches
A blog about housing in Japan
regulations & policy
Am I high?
Posted on 6 Days Ago by catforehead
Tower condos in central Kobe
Local governments are starting to realize the disadvantages of tower condos and doing something about it. According to a Jan. 3 article in Tokyo Shimbun, last July the city of Kobe implemented regulations that would limit construction of new condominium complexes in the city center. As mentioned in a previous post, last fall's kanto area typhoons brought home to the residents of at least one tower condo in Kanagawa Prefecture the truth that high-rises were especially vulnerable to storms in ways residents hadn't counted on. Western Japan has had more immediate encounters with typhoons in recent years, and that seems to have been part of the reason for Kobe's new regulations, though the main impetus may be purely economical.
The new law covers land to the south of Sannomiya Station. For the 22 hectares closest to the station, all new residential construction, including single-family houses, has been banned. Then, in the surrounding area, for any plots of land that are 1,000 square meters or more in size, the capacity rate for new residential construction is limited to 400 percent. That means, for instance, if a building with a footprint of 500 square meters is built on these plots, it can be no taller than 8 floors. Tower condos are defined in Japan as being at least 20 floors, and usually they contain at least 100 units. Currently, Kobe has 69 high-rise condos, 24 of which are located in Chuo Ward, which is where Sannomiya Station, the main transport hub, is situated.
One of the reasons for these restrictions is that the city can't provide all the services required for tower condos. The trend at the moment is for younger people to move as close to city centers as possible so as to be nearer to their jobs. They are willing to pay for such proximity because they understand, having grown up in the suburbs watching their fathers commute two or three hours a day to and from work, what that commute does to their lives. And a lot of these young people have families, but Kobe can't provide enough schools in the city center. At the moment, in fact, many existing schools in the area have had to provide prefabricated classrooms off-site, because there is no land left in the city center to expand schools or build new ones, and one of the reasons is that there are so many tower condo complexes taking up room. For the same reason, there aren't enough stores or other commercial facilities and, most significantly, there is a paucity of employment, which means, ironically, that the city center has become a kind of bedroom community for surrounding areas, including Osaka. Read More
Help the rich
Posted on 21 Days Ago by catforehead
The Japanese government expects 40 million foreign tourists in 2020, which would be a new record. Obviously, many of these people will be coming for the Olympics, but the government seems to think this wave with money to spend is going to be a regular and permanent thing, and they want to be prepared for a future where such people feel welcome. Legalizing casinos is part of this vision, but that plan was mostly formulated before the current foreign tourist boom was confirmed, and, in a real sense, the so-called integrated resorts that are being planned as excuses to allow casino gambling may not be as necessary as they once seemed, but it's too late to stop now.
You can't have too much for rich people to do, so the latest plan, reportedly the brainchild of Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, is to build 50 luxury hotels by the mid-2020s. Why luxury hotels and not just regular hotels? Why 50? So far, nobody has really clarified the reasoning behind this ambitious scheme, but in the end the biggest unasked question is: Why the government? Japan is a resolutely capitalist country, reverent to the invisible hand of the market. And while Japan has been jokingly called the most socialist liberal democracy in the world owing to its schemes to game the economy through elaborate spending plans (which invariably help political vested interests), the idea that they would blatantly come up with such a concept to lure rich foreigners seems almost funny.
Some media are saying the scheme was suggested by David Atkinson, a former Goldman Sachs analyst and advisor to the Japan National Tourism Organization who has been promoting inbound tourism for years as a solution to Japan's fiscal woes. In the interviews Atkinson has given over the years, he doesn't mention luxury hotels exclusively. He mainly says that Japan needs more rooms of a less traditional sort—fewer ryokan and onsen inns and more conventional Western style hotels where foreign guests can feel comfortable and make their own plans. The trouble with traditional Japanese accommodations is that they tend to take the guesswork out of everything. You eat what they serve you when they serve you and even tell you when to go to bed. Read More
Posted on December 6 by catforehead
One of the older neighborhoods in Inzai without utility poles.
In recent weeks, we heard that the city where we live, Inzai in Chiba Prefecture, has become notorious for something. This has happened before; in fact, it's happened several times. Though Inzai is about as nondescript as a Tokyo suburb can be, it occasionally pops up on the news for some reason or another. Earlier this year we were the butt of jokes because of a PR video produced by the city that had gone semi-viral because of its conflation of the name "Inzai" with the word "Indo," which is the Japanese pronunciation of India. The video, fashioned after a low-budget Bollywood production, featured Indian tourists supposedly flocking to Inzai because they somehow mistook the city for their home country. Yeah, it deserved all the derision it attracted, and not just for the bad humor. More often, however, Inzai gets cited as one of the most "livable" cities in Japan for reasons we've talked about before and don't need to get into again.
This latest blast of fame apparently originated on the prime time TBS information program "Newscaster," which ran a mini-feature during its "7 Days" weekly review segment in September about all the homes on the Boso peninsula that had lost electric power during and following Typhoon Faxai. The main problem was that the strong winds blew over utility poles, many of which were in poor condition due to neglect. Because of all the work involved in getting utility lines back up, some sections of Chiba Prefecture didn't have power for more than two weeks. In order to illustrate what could be done in the future to avoid such disasters, TBS visited Inzai, where a lot of new single-home construction is currently taking place. They went to one development near Inzai Makinohara Station on the Hokuso Line, the same station we use, because this neighborhood did not have utility poles. All the electrical cables are underground. Burying cables is the norm for most of the developed world, but Japan is way behind. In Tokyo only 8 percent of cables are buried; in Osaka only 6. In Hong Kong, London, and Paris all the cables are underground. Read More
Heirs? Apparently
Posted on November 22 by catforehead
This land is your land?: Property marker in the middle of a residential street
An ongoing headache for the government, in particular the land and justice ministries, is all the land in Japan whose titleholders are only vaguely determined. The reason this is a problem, of course, is that the central and local tax authorities don't know to whom they should send property tax bills, but also when public works projects are being planned that involve the appropriation of land the relevant authorities don't know whom to deal with. For a more detailed discussion of this problem see here, but suffice to say that the volume of property nationwide with undetermined owners amounts to a piece of land the size of Kyushu.
The reason for this confusion has to do with inheritance laws. When a title holder dies, if no formal transfer of the property has taken place, their property automatically passes to their heirs, meaning spouse first and then children. If those heirs never properly register the land in their names, then it then passes on to all their heirs when they die, and so on. According to a Nov. 18 article in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, there is one piece of land—location undisclosed—that has up to 700 potential titleholders since the land has not been re-registered since the registered titleholder died many years ago. The amount of money and resuources needed to sort out these matters is beyond the ability of local governments. Of course, in most cases, the land is worth probably nothing to the family—maybe it's on the top of a mountain or in a remote forest—and they simply don't want to be taxed for it. However, a good portion is located in already developed areas. In any case, the local government or maybe a developer may want to exploit that land someday. The central government would like to have everything properly registered.
The Civil Code states that the titleholder must be consulted in order to dispose of the land or any portion of it, so if the government really wants to solve this problem it should amend the law, and that seems to be the plan. The Nikkei article says the government is now considering an amendment to the law that will allow the sale of plots of land or any portions of it if a certain number of heirs agree to the sale. At present, all titleholders must agree to such disposal. The land and law ministries plan to send this bill to the Diet in 2020, and are currently carrying out research that will better define vague property lines. As of 2017, about 16 percent of the land in 80,000 "locations" classifed as "urban," meaning designated for residences and commercial businesses, does not have a definite titleholder in accordance with existing records. The portion of undetermined land is probably more, since the 16 percent mainly represents lots that are being disputed for some reason—either neighbors want to buy the land for expansion or local governments want to use it for parks and other public facilities or a developer wants to build a condominium on it. None of these entities have the money to negotiate with all the heirs, and according to most local laws any property line disputes have to be mediated through the consultation of surveyors and other experts, and those services have to be paid for by the parties involved.
On the surface, passing such a law should be easy. All the government has to do is specify the problem and how many of the identifiable heirs or titleholders must be located in order to dispose of the land. But because Japan has such a weak concept of eminent domain, it's likely there will still be limitations to what the government can do unilaterally. And it's apparent that people who have rights to a piece of land but are coy about being located have a reason for being coy. The main obstacle will be defining how much work should be involved in "notifying" all the interested parties. They must also determine if unpaid back taxes can be waived. One solution, according to Nikkei, would be a condition that the land in question must be sorted out within a certain timeframe due to health or safety concerns, and while that may sound like a limiting condition itself, the government has never been averse to bending such laws when it serves them.
The higher they are…
Tower condos in Musashi Kosugi
When Typhoon Hagibis roared through the Kanto Plain Oct. 12, three homeless individuals were turned away from an emergency evacuation center in Tokyo's Taito Ward because they could not prove they were registered as residents in the ward. The incident gave rise to a lot of soul searching on the part of the authorities, but there were also quite a few people on social media who felt the staff of the evacuation center didn't do anything wrong. To these people, the homeless really are on their own and shouldn't expect any help from the rest of society.
As it turns out, there is a corollary to this attitude that applies to the rich. As everyone knows, the Tama River overflowed its banks during the typhoon, causing flooding in parts of Setagaya and Ota Wards. The waters didn't inundate the other side of the river, which lines the city of Kawasaki. However, the rising waters did cause sewage lines to back up, thus resulting in what is called "internal flooding" that inundated train stations and the basements of some condominium and apartment buildings. This problem was totally unexpected by both the authorities and residents of the area. The neighborhood that was hit the worst was the one surrounding Musashi Kosugi station, which services several train lines and is thus extremely popular. There are at least ten tower condominiums surrounding the station, and as we reported in an earlier post, apartments in these buildings are quite expensive. It's one of the few areas in the Tokyo metropolitan area where used residences are increasing in price because they are in such demand. New condos in the area go for about ¥70 million, so only the affluent can afford them. Read More
Yen for Living: Houses As (non-)Assets
Posted on July 19 by catforehead
For sale? Good luck.
The following article was submitted as the July entry in our Yen for Living column for the Japan Times. However, it was rejected by the editors.
One of the issues facing voters in this month's Upper House election is the national pension system. The government received criticism after the Financial Services Agency announced that a couple would need at least ¥20 million in savings when they retire to supplement their pensions. Opposition parties are using this figure to point out flaws in the pension system, and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is challenging the FSA, saying that current pension benefits are adequate to support people after they retire.
In a letter published in the Asahi Shimbun on July 1, a 63-year-old dentist wrote about the ¥20 million figure, saying that when he was 30 he started saving for his old age. As a self-employed person he knew a public pension would not be enough when he retired, and so he joined a cooperative that, in return for monthly premiums, guaranteed a one-time payment when he reached a certain age. Over the course of 30 years, he paid a total of ¥18 million into the fund in the belief that he would receive ¥40 million in the end. But he received only ¥20 million. He also paid into a private pension plan, convinced that when he turned 60 he would start receiving ¥280,000 a month for a limited time. As it turns out, he is only getting ¥120,000, because interest rates have plummetted since he was 30. When he's 65, he will start receiving benefits from his national pension, but since he belongs to the kokumin nenkin system for the self-employed and others who weren't employed by large companies, he will only receive ¥65,000 a month. So even though he basically "invested" in private plans and paid his obligatory national pension premiums, he is not going to have as much income in his retirement as he once thought he would receive. Read More
Owners before tenants
Posted on February 24 by catforehead
This week our Media Mix column is about a housing-related issue, the Leopalace21 scandal that has been brewing for more than a year.
The Link to the article is here.
city planning (40)
condos & apartments (49)
design & construction (56)
field diary (11)
house hunting (28)
real estate business (42)
regulations & policy (82)
taxes & financing (26)
UR & public housing (25)
A-1 Group abandoned homes Abiko akiya besso building safety Chiba New Town Chiba Prefecture city planning collective housing company housing condominiums consumption tax danchi earthquake-proofing elderly Flat 35 Great East Japan Earthquake Great Hanshin Earthquake guarantors high-rise living high rise condominiums home heating home ownership house housing developments housing loans insulation Inzai Izu Japan earthquake Japan real estate Land Ministry landscaping lawsuits Leo Palace 21 liquefaction local government lumber Mujirushi new homes new towns nursing homes pensions population decline property taxes property values public housing real estate agents real estate transactions reform remodeling renovations rental contracts rental properties rentals resale value resort condominiums Sakura second homes security deposits seniors shitamachi singles social welfare southern exposure statistics subsidy the law Tokyo Tokyo apartments Tokyo condominium Tokyo real estate town house UR vacancy rate vacant homes welfare yakuza zoning
Alastair Townsend
japanbloglist
Philip Brasor
Yen for Living
Dancing to architecture
Year zero (1)
Suckered


NORFOLK, Va. – Myles Eugene Crandle, 33, of Virginia Beach, was sentenced today to 192 months in prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Crandle pleaded guilty on February 9. According to court documents, Crandle, who was convicted on federal drug and gun charges in 2008 and had another state felony drug conviction on his record, was caught by Virginia Beach Police with a stolen handgun in August 2015. Later that summer, Virginia State Police seized over 50 grams of heroin laced with acetyl fentanyl that Crandle had sold to another drug dealer, and found evidence of thousands of dollars in additional heroin transactions between the men. The second dealer, Henry Lee Giddens, pleaded guilty to the same heroin conspiracy and to possessing firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison on April 27.
Dana J. Boente, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Michael F. Boxler, Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' (ATF) Washington Field Office; and Colonel W. Steven Flaherty, Superintendent of Virginia State Police, made the announcement after sentencing by U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Bosse prosecuted the case.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia or on PACER by searching for Case No. 2:15-cr-158.


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20cm tall x 11.5cm wide with a 5cm spike.


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Sharp & Dapper Braces: A great way to add a touch of old skool to your look, manufactured by one of Britain's oldest brace factory's.
Details: Button loops in leather, adjustable metal clips, stretch fabric.
Colour Ways: Burgundy, Navy, Black, Navy Birds Eye, Grey/Black Birds Eye.


text:
Lucas wants assurance unpermitted drawdown will…
Lucas wants assurance unpermitted drawdown will not repeat
By Nathan Lamb and Nathan Lambe |
AYER — While a handful of local officials say vandals removed boards from the East Main Street dam in September 2005, a letter dated Oct. 27 of that year from the Department of Environmental Protection termed the incident an "illegal drawdown" of water level.
Protocols and safety measures were recommended at that point to ensure that it didn't happen again, Selectman Gary Luca said during the Jan. 23 selectmen's meeting, and he's been asked by constituents if that's the case.
Conservation Commission Chairman William Daniels iterated that vandals removed the boards in 2005. Permits were obtained from the state in February 2006 for the Conservation Commission to conduct its drawdown program on Balch, Fletcher, Flannagan and Sandy ponds.
The commission reduces the water levels some years as part of a weed-control program, he said, which is required to keep the ponds from turning into marshes.
Permits from the state for the drawdowns are good for three years, said Daniels.
Selectman Pauline Conley said she doubts there were any vandals behind the 2005 incident. She again asked what measures have been taken to avoid a repeat incident.
Fire Chief Robert Pedrazzi, who is officially responsible for the dams, said the boards were wedged into place after the incident. Fixtures were added for a lock, he said, but none was put on because the boards are difficult to remove.
There is little point in trying to get to the bottom of the 2005 incident, said selectmen Chairman Frank Maxant. The issue is what caused the state to get involved and threaten potential fines, he said.
Former Conservation Commission chairman Patrick Hughes said the protocols requested by the DEP were issued shortly after the incident. He said the major upshot of the 2005 incident is that permits are now in line for a program that's been implemented at various times for almost 10 years. He said the town notifies the state and public of drawdowns when they occur.
If that's the case, Luca said he has no problem with the process.
One major concern of the 2005 drawdown was that it compromised the Fire Department, which historically uses the pond as a water source. Pedrazzi said that's how the dam came to be under the department's bailiwick, though improvements in town water have relegated the pond to an emergency fallback.
Overall, Pedrazzi said he'd rather not be involved with the drawdown business.
"Every time you do it, some people are happy, and some people aren't. I'd just as soon be taken out of the loop on it," he said. "It's not really a Fire Department issue anymore, except in an emergency."
Nathan Lamb
Nathan Lambe


When you've been a quintessential figure in the Philadelphia rock music scene for 35 years, you collect a lot of stuff. Concert posters, vinyl records and various band memorabilia have turned WMMR DJ Pierre Robert's office into a rock'n'roll museum.
The Philly Home Show decided to step in, with the help of expert designers and a few of our favorite partners, including Cubicle By Design, Resurface Ugly Concrete and First Place Painting.
Together, we transformed Pierre's mountain of memorabilia into a functional workspace for one of Philly's favorite radio personalities. Take a look at the "before".
The Philly Home Show will be taking over the Pennsylvania Convention Center January 12th-15th & 19th-21st, 2018. Ready to give virtual reality a try? Stop by the Touchstone Kitchens & Baths booth (#622) this weekend! With hundreds of home improvement experts ready to help with your next project, it's a must-attend event for Philadelphia homeowners. What are you waiting for? Get your tickets NOW!


text:
Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study is a 2004 nonfiction work by economist Thomas Sowell.

Summary
Already known as a critic of affirmative action or race-based hiring and promotion, Sowell, himself African-American, analyzes the specific effects of such policies on India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Nigeria, four countries with longer multiethnic histories and then compares them with the recent history of the United States in this regard.  He finds that "Such programs have at best a negligible impact on the groups they are intended to assist."

A sample of his thinking about perpetual racial preferences is this passage from page 7:

According to Dutch Martin's review of this book:

Among the common consequences of preference policies in the five-country sample are:
 They encourage non-preferred groups to redesignate themselves as members of preferred groups (1) to take advantage of group preference policies;
 They tend to benefit primarily the most fortunate among the preferred group (e.g. black millionaires), often to the detriment of the least fortunate among the non-preferred groups (e.g. poor whites);
 They reduce the incentives of both the preferred and non-preferred to perform at their best—the former because doing so is unnecessary and the latter because it can prove futile—thereby resulting in net losses for society as a whole.

Sowell concludes: "Despite sweeping claims made for affirmative action programs, an examination of their actual consequences makes it hard to support those claims, or even to say that these programs have been beneficial on net balance."

Arguments

First, in repudiating what he refers to as the "myths" surrounding affirmative action, he contends that blacks had both higher rates of labor force participation and higher marriage rates before the 1960s' large-scale institution of civil rights laws and policies countering discrimination. Much of the economic upturn, which Sowell attributes entirely to personal initiative, must be put in the context of the postwar economic boom, which was accompanied by the widespread availability of manual jobs requiring little education. The post-civil rights period coincided with an economy that was experiencing steady de-industrialization. Significantly, manufacturing jobs that had been stepping-stones into the middle class for blacks from the U.S. South and immigrants from southern, eastern, and central Europe in the past, were fast eroding.

Second, he questions the conventional wisdom that has evolved around affirmative action. He claims that there is nothing beyond assertions and anecdotes to prove that diversity enhances the college experience for all students; that there is no systematic evidence that black "role models" are essential to the education of black students; that a "critical mass" of black students in the academic setting might actually be detrimental to the education of black students; and finally that black studies programs are "ideological crusades" which provide sanctuary for intellectual lightweights. It is this last point which makes up the bulk of his discussion on how affirmative action has led to a mismatch between minority students and the institutions they attend, setting them up either for failure or turning them out to be bad doctors and lawyers. Sowell asserts that colleges and universities which pledge to "develop minds and skills that serve society at large cannot be subordinated to the impossible task of equalizing probabilities of academic success for people born and raised in circumstances which have handicapped their development, even if for reasons that are not their fault and are beyond their control" (p. 153).

Third, Sowell is highly critical of William Bowen and Derek Bok, former university presidents of Princeton and Harvard, whose 1998 book The Shape of the River caused quite a stir when it revealed how race-sensitive admissions policies increased the likelihood that blacks would be admitted to selective universities and that upon graduation these students were more likely to become leaders of community and social service organizations.

Fourth, he argues that in the United States as in other countries, the original rationale for affirmative action has little to do with how it actually is practiced. The disproportionate benefit that well-placed, affluent blacks receive, with little if any going to those who continue to suffer the most, has discredited the ethos of affirmative action more than anything. On this last point, few disagree.

Critical reception
The Economist magazine praised the book as "terse, well argued and utterly convincing" and "crammed with striking anecdotes and statistics."

Economic historian Stuart Jones called the book a "brilliant empirical study of affirmative action" and stated that it "deserves to be read widely, especially by politicians and development economists."

A review in the International Journal of Legal Information wrote that "Affirmative Action around the World is an informative, well-written book. The author cogently presents his arguments against group preferences and does not attempt to provide a comprehensive global analysis." The review also notes that there "is no single study that incorporates the five profiled counties or studies the aspects of affirmative action raised by Sowell for each country. The book does not contain the graphs, charts, or variable equations one might expect in a scientific paper."

A review in The Yale Journal of International Law wrote that the book is "an extensively researched, accessibly written, and refreshingly comparative addition to the conservative canon." According to the review, the most important shortcoming of the book is that it "lacks a comprehensive discussion of alternatives to affirmative action and possible ramifications of other options."

Michael Bérubé, writing for The Nation magazine, agreed with Sowell's arguments that affirmative action has gone far beyond what the Civil Rights Act of 1965 intended and that preferential benefits for ethnic groups without historical oppression in the United States are unjustified but criticized Sowell's association of affirmative action with unrest in the countries selected for the study and pointed out the United States has never implemented the racial preference systems of those foreign countries.

Economist Cecilia Conrad wrote that the book "might have been more accurately titled The Case Against Affirmative Action Around the World." Conrad concludes that the book "succeeds in establishing the costs of the policy are similar around the world, but it fails as an overall assessment of affirmative action."

A review in Ethics & International Affairs wrote that "Sowell leaps to conclusions without adequate evidence and oversimplifies complex issues" and that Sowell only presents a "selection of the facts." Additionally, the review concludes that the book is ridden with Sowell's "values and theoretical preconceptions."

References

Further reading

2004 non-fiction books
Books by Thomas Sowell
Books about affirmative action
Opposition to affirmative action
Sociology books
Yale University Press books

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Q: Can't find `DataProtectionScope` and `ProtectedData` classes in System.Security.Cryptography I've referred the file System.Security.dll as described in this article but according to my IDE, the line using System.Security.Cryptography; can be safely removed as it's not being used.
The same IDE tells me that I've got an error with DataProtectionScope and ProtectedData. Those are supposed to be in that namespace. However, when I dot my way through the packages, I can't see them in there.
Is the article wrong? How can I access the two classes?

A: I have referenced the System.Security.dll here: C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\.NETFramework\v4.0\System.Security.dll
Added  using System.Security.Cryptography; and I can see both DataProtectionScope and ProtectedData.
I'm targeting the .net 4.0 full framework (not client profile).
What framework are you targeting?

A: As @Coral Doe mentioned in a comment under @Dave Lucre:

"Had a similar problem and this worked. using System.Security.Cryptography; didn't [show] me [ProtectedData] and ProtectedMemory until I had referenced the System.Security.dll for the specific framework."

This fixed the issue for me. Specifically, I performed these steps:

*

*Open the project in Visual Studio.

*Right-click the project's name in Solution Explorer then choose Properties.

*Click the References tab on the left.

*Click the Add button.

*Click the .NET tab.

*Select System.Security and click OK to add the reference.

Hope this helps.

A: I had to add this NuGet package in addition to System.Security.Cryptography.
It is https://www.nuget.org/packages/System.Security.Cryptography.ProtectedData/.
After that, System.Security.Cryptography became "used".

A: As @Dave Lucre asked, what framework is your application targeting?  Visual Studio creates all new applications to use the Client Profile by default (which is asinine in my opinion), and it causes all sorts of trouble if you don't specifically change it back.  Give that a look, then see where we go from there.

A: Remove references System.Security.Cryptography and add it again.
It works in my case.

A: I'm sorry, I know that this is a quite old post, but I'm having this issue now and the only workaround that I've found is:

*

*Follow the steps mentioned in George Brian's answer

*Use System.Security.Cryptography.DataProtectionScope scope = System.Security.Cryptography.DataProtectionScope.LocalMachine; instead of DataProtectionScope scope = DataProtectionScope.LocalMachine;

A: This might be a slap in your face because you've probably tried that (and you haven't, you might deserve one). What happens if you reinstall the whole IDE? And I meant really the whole thing. Remove the framwork, the VS, remove the files, go paranoid and clean up the trash can, switch to a different installation directory etc. Does the problem still remains?
I know it doesn't explain why it happened but at this stage I'm guessing you're mostly interested in how to kill the problem.
If you have access to a spare computer - why don't you install VS on that machine and see if you can reproduce the error. If not, then there's something fishy with your primary machine and you'll probably never know what happened.
I'm stressing here that it's only a list of general suggestions that every programmer should rely on when nothing sane nor logical seems to work. And yes, I do hate computers. I love programming but I hate computers. They are like small, evil people with keyboards...


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Health / Politics / U.S. News
Trump's big agenda could put GOP's budget goals out of reach
Posted on 11/23/16 by mgivers10
In this Nov. 18, 2016, photo, the U.S. Capitol dome is seen at sunset on Capitol Hill in Washington. President-elect Donald Trump promises big tax cuts, a border wall and massive spending on infrastructure. That's a recipe for bigger deficits that fiscal conservative Republicans have railed against during President Barack Obama's tenure. Trump's agenda runs counter to years of promises by congressional Republicans to try to balance the federal budget. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump promises big tax cuts, a border wall and massive spending on infrastructure. That's a recipe for bigger deficits that fiscally minded conservative Republicans have railed against during President Barack Obama's tenure.
Trump's agenda runs counter to years of promises by congressional Republicans to try to balance the federal budget.
It's a marriage of conflicting priorities — on the budget at least — and that means that neither partner will get everything their own way.
Trump's tax cut, estimated to cost almost $5 trillion over 10 years, looks sure to be pared way back. Top lawmakers like House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, and No. 3 Senate Republican John Thune of South Dakota say the GOP's tax plans shouldn't add to the deficit. That would mean tax rates couldn't be cut nearly as sharply as Trump wants.
"We know we're going to have to pay for this," said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican. "The question is whether we do it now or whether we send it to our kids and grandkids and make them pay for it. So that's an important point that we need to achieve some consensus on."
On the spending side of the ledger, Trump's promises of a huge infrastructure plan are already running into difficulty with Republicans.
"We are not going to vote for anything that increases the national debt," said Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho. "Fiscal conservatives in the House are not going to support anything that is not paid for."
Asked during an interview with The New York Times about possible pushback by GOP leaders on his costly infrastructure goals, Trump said, "Right now, they're in love with me," according to a tweet by Times reporter Maggie Haberman.
The flip side involves longstanding promises by Capitol Hill Republicans to balance the budget by repealing the Affordable Care Act, sharply cutting social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and student loan subsidies. Trump promises to replace the so-called "Obamacare" and assured voters during the campaign that he wouldn't cut Social Security and Medicare — and he's on record as saying that 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney's choice of now-Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., "was the end of the campaign."
"I said, 'You've got to be kidding' — because he represented cutting entitlements, etc., etc. The only one that's not going to cut is me," Trump said at a February campaign stop.
Major reforms require presidential leadership — and as a candidate Trump didn't show much interest in attacking the budget.
"It's clear that deficits and spending retrenchment and entitlement reform was not what this election was about," said Neil Bradley, a former top House GOP aide who is skeptical of the party's ability to deliver major spending cuts.
The deficit, said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., "wasn't talked about in the campaign."
The math is also daunting. The most recent House GOP budget plan, for instance, promised to balance the budget over a decade by cutting spending by $6.5 trillion — roughly 13 cents of every dollar spent — over the next 10 years. But their budget plans have kept Social Security, the Pentagon, veterans programs and interest payments immune from cuts, so they've doubled down on cuts to the Medicaid health program for the poor and disabled, along with cuts to domestic programs like education, farm subsidies, housing vouchers and scientific research.
Recently, however, the focus in Washington has been to reverse cuts to the Pentagon and domestic agencies imposed by a 2011 budget deal. Along the way, Obama and top Republicans sought modest cuts to the federal crop insurance program and the generous military pensions paid to veterans in their 40s and 50s — only to have to reverse course after bipartisan squealing from rank-and-file lawmakers.
Given the inability to preserve such tiny spending cuts in recent years, one couldn't be faulted for doubting whether lawmakers could stomach the far, far larger cuts demanded by Ryan's balanced budget plans.
One option for both spending and taxes is to enact a one-time tax break on overseas profits that multinational corporations "repatriate" back to the United States. That could produce $100 billion or so over 10 years by some estimates and the windfall is being eyed for both an infrastructure package and a tax reform bill.
"I think the American people will support spending when they get something concrete and tangible for our efforts," said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. "There is a feeling that there's enough money there to pay for a big infrastructure program to get the economy going again and pay for stuff and also use part of the repatriation as a way to finance tax reform."
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While making a web series mocking their quaint small town, two high school teens slowly discover that their relatives and neighbors are being killed and replaced by creatures that are perfect copies of their victims. As the entire town is taken over, the teens' only weapon is to covertly record the takeover and put it on the web in a desperate attempt to attract outside help. It's a race against time before the whole human race goes extinct.


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Ed Sheeran Galway Girl – Lyrics, Guitar Chords, Meaning
Anybody who listens to music is surely to have heard a song by Ed Sheeran. But who really is Ed Sheeran and why is there such a huge reaction over his song 'Galway Girl'? Before you can start to understand why the song Galway Girl is making such a commotion, you must first know exactly who Ed Sheeran really is.
Ed Sheeran, Who Is He?
Originally born on February of 1991, Ed Sheeran is from Halifax, England. Always being interested in music, he would start playing the guitar at a very young age, which would lead him to start writing his own music not soon after. While Ed was still only a teenager, he would make a huge move to London in order to further pursue his musical career. It is at this time when he would use his creativity to come out with several songs, so many in fact, that he would actually have several different early EP's and play hundreds of live shows all over the area.
Packed full of talent, Ed would go on to become the No.1 hit on ITunes without having any kind of record deal whatsoever. This would soon change however, when he would sign with Atlantic Records, which has helped him to sell multiple millions of albums worldwide, have one of his songs featured in the second film of the blockbuster franchise, The Hobbit trilogy, and has won Grammys on two separate occasions, once in 2014 for the hit single 'Thinking Out Loud', and the other coming in 2017 for his then hit single 'Shape of Your'.
Now that you know exactly who Ed Sheeran really is and what he is all about, what's the deal with the Galway Girl song? Here is everything that you will need to know about the Galway Girl song by Ed Sheeran, and why it is stirring up so much controversy.
The 'Galway Girl' Song – What's The Deal? Lyrics Meaning?
First off, if you have not yet heard Ed Sheeran's 'Galway Girl' song, none of this is going to make any sense until you listen to it, so do yourself a favor and go check it out real quick. Once you have done that, you are probably wondering yourself, what's the deal with that song?
Originally debuted off of Sheeran's 2017 album titled divide, Galway Girl is a song that basically talks about how the narrator has fallen in love with a girl who is Irish. In fact, in an interview Sheeran did with The Irish Times, he even went on to say that the very first line of the song is actually about a real Irish musician who is named Niamh Dunne. Niamh Dunne is well known for her role in an Irish folk band named Beoga. Dunne is the fiddler player in the band and was actually married to an English man in real life. So it has been officially revealed by Sheeran that he did write that opening line in his song Galway Girl about Niamh Dunne. However, the rest of the song is not about anyone in particular and can literally be related to anybody you can think of.
Some Facts About 'Galway Girl'
Oddly enough, Sheeran actually wrote the lyrics and recorded the entire song alongside the entire band of Beoga, of which included Niamh Dunne. As mentioned previously in this article, Niamh Dunne is exactly who the entire opening line of the song is all about. At the end of the day, there were a total of 9 different people who helped to writhe this song. They included Sheeran, as well as all the members of Beoga (Liam Bradley, Eamon Murray, Sean Og Graham, Damian McKee, and Niamh Dunne), Amy Wadge, Johnny McDaid, and Foy Vance.
Once the song was written, it would then go on to be produced by Sheeran, as well as the American record producer and musician Mike Elizondo, who gained critical acclaim for his frequent collaborations with the legendary producer Dr. Dre, as well as Eminem.
The song in question, Galway Girl, was almost scrapped from Sheeran's divide album. Sheeran has revealed that he had to repeatedly fight with his record label to keep the song on his album, as they had no interest what so ever to keep that song on his album. They would eventually yield to Sheeran, and agreed to let him keep that song on his album. It would late be revealed by Sheeran that the main reason the label wanted to song off his album was because it was a fold music song. According to the record label, folk music would not perform well at all on would never make the charts. Even with the labels optimism, the song would go on to do extremely well, even reaching the number 1 position in several different countries, some of which included Ireland and Scotland. In the UK, it would enter the UK Singles Chart in the number 2 spot.
The Galway Girl music video would be filmed and shot by Sheeran himself, and stars a very popular Irish actress who is named Saoirse Ronan.
This song has played a pivotal role in enhancing the popularity of the band Beoga, especially that of Niamh Dunne, the person that the opening line of the song is talking about.
This song actually shares the same exact title with another singer and songwriter named Steve Earle. He also had a song called Galway Girl back in 2000. Oddly enough, Earle's version of he song is also considered to be more of a folk music song, just like Sheeran's is. Sheeran has admitted that he had known about Earle's version of the song prior to starting on his own and did his best to change the lyrics as much as possible. However, the effort to change the lyrics would be to no avail.
Now you know everything about Ed Sheeran's song, Galway Girl. Knowing what we now know and how the song almost didn't make Sheeran's divide album, it is safe to say that most people probably are happy that they go to experience it.
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Technology that reduces the impact while walking.
The slip-on sneaker is a comfortable style made for everyday wear. It features a lightweight and flexible sole for a gravity defying stride while the sock foam provides great rebound and is breathable.


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The Isle of Iona
"It seemed this small island was a shining beacon of learning, the arts and spirituality." *
Iona Harbour looking across to the Isle of Mull
Iona is famous the world over – hailed as the cradle of Scottish Christianity. Computer searches almost always start the island's story in 563 AD when the Irish missionary, Columba, arrived there with twelve followers and founded Scotland's first Christian church and monastery. This over-simplifies history and does not do justice to this tiny dot in the Atlantic ocean that, since ancient times, has drawn pilgrims and scholars from far-flung places seeking healing of their souls; a place to lay down the burden of life for a short time; a chance to celebrate their Christian faith; a spiritual experience or for more secular reasons like historical or geological; architectural interest or just curiosity. It is thought likely that Iona was a sacred place long before Columba arrived. A Bronze Age burial ground is still in evidence and an Iron Age Vallum (earthwork enclosure) surrounds Iona Abbey rebuilt on the site of Columba's original 6th century monastic community. The Vallum is evidence of an Iron Age hill fort.
Iona Abbey
It is probably a safe assumption that the majority of visitors to Iona are there to visit the abbey which stands atop the foundations of the original, built in the 12th century on the site of that first 6th century monastery; some to marvel at the medieval parts of the building still remaining; others to walk in the footsteps of a Saint. For those who wish a comprehensive history of the abbey, its times of peace and those of violence and bloodshed, there are several internet sites devoted to the subject. Suffice to say here that Kings, Lords, Clan Chiefs, assorted Norsemen including a Viking are buried there, some of their gravestones kept safe in a tiny museum housed in an 8th century chapel. One Norse king became a monk at the abbey.
The island certainly has an other-worldy atmosphere. Even though dozens of monks were slaughtered by the Vikings on Martyr's Beach in 806 AD, I felt only a deep peace there.
Basalt fragments on the beach at Martyr's Bay
The black, basalt fragments littering the beach were a reminder that this was only 8 miles from wild, rocky Staffa. The smooth rounded surfaces attested to the eons they had spent being polished by the waves.
In the mid 12th century, Somerled, King of the Isles, rebuilt the abbey, burnt by the Vikings during their last raid of Iona in 825AD, when the remaining monks were slain. Many had fled to Europe or back to Ireland. In 1200 AD, his son, Ranald, brought in Benedictine monks and also established an Augustine nunnery. This was run as a retirement home for noble ladies of Argyll until its destruction during the Reformation. While the abbey and nunnery were dissolved and left in ruins, the magnetic draw of Iona as a place of importance persisted and in 1609 King James VI chose the island as the setting for the signing of the Statutes of Iona, designed to curb the power of the clans and their chiefs and to erase the cultural division between the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland. For reasons unknown, the nunnery was never restored as was the abbey. It remains the best example of medieval architecture anywhere in Scotland.
Nunnery Ruins and Ancient Graves
Nunnery Ruins
Nunnery doorway and ancient garden
Some of the gardens planted by the nuns of the island are still very much in evidence, some wild among the ruins, others lovingly tended by St Columba Hotel employees.
St Columba Hotel's Organic Garden
Hotel Picnic Area
The road leading from the nunnery to the abbey and burial ground there is known as The Street of The Dead. Of particular interest on this short route is a stone cross erected around 1500 AD. Carved from one lump of granite, it is 3 metres high and known as MacLean's Cross. Anna MacLean was prioress at the nunnery at that time so no doubt there is a connection to her or her prominent family. Facing the Atlantic ocean, unsheltered and having been exposed to the elements for over 500 years it is in amazingly good condition.
MacLean's Cross circa 1500 AD
The building behind the cross is a restored 8th century chapel now a museum that houses gravestones and other ancient, well preserved relics.
St Columba brought more than Christianity to Iona. He built a library and scriptorium where much if the Book Of Kells was written. Wikipedia describes the work as 'a masterwork of Western calligraphy and the pinnacle of insular illumination.' For safekeeping from Vikings and other spoilers, it was taken from Iona perhaps, briefly, to Lindisfarne, a tidal island off the northeast coast of England. This less prominent monastic community was also targeted by Vikings, but the Book of Kells was taken to the safety of Ireland where it was completed, perhaps by some of those same monks who first created it before fleeing from the Vikings on Iona back to Ireland. It now has pride of place at Trinity College, Dublin and is considered Ireland's finest national treasure.
Today, the hub of Iona is still around the abbey as it was in 6th century. Life is more bucolic than academic, but religious faith, while not as obvious, is still represented by the Iona Community.
It is described as 'a thin place', meaning a place where there is only a flimsy veil between this world and that of those now passed to the realm of spirits. Certainly something extraordinary has drawn and continues to draw legions of people to this tiny, pleasant but relatively unremarkable looking island.
Village and Iona Abbey
CalMac ferry leaving Iona with the Isle of Mull in the background.
* 'It seems this small island was a shining beacon of learning, the arts and spirituality'
Quotation from:
http://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=975
February 26, 2016 June 16, 2016 lochsplus
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Joyful Journey: Part 12a – Scotland's Sea Kingdom: The Corryvreckan Whirlpool →


I wanted to express my CONGRATULATIONS to all of the students who took the time and effort to fill out an application, get a teacher recommendation, and go through the interview process for next year's 2019/2020 AVID program. We have an amazing AVID program here at Cope and next year it will include approximately 230 students! We started with just 88 students two years ago! The AVID teachers are EXCITED to meet you and look forward to helping you be a better student!!
Please CLICK HERE to RSVP for the May 29th Orientation & Family Celebration Night!