text:
The Atlantic's First Marine Monument!
President Obama has designated the first marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean!
The newly-protected area, located off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is an underwater expanse of canyons and mountains. The designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument addresses the immediate ecological needs of the area, which is projected to warm nearly three times faster than the global average, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Today's designation will protect 4,913 square miles of marine habitat—that's roughly the size of Connecticut! Like much of the Atlantic's deep-sea canyons, including some areas deeper than the Grand Canyon, this area is largely uncharted. Atlantic deep-sea canyons have only been explored since the 1970s, so new species of coral and deep-sea fauna are being discovered every day! The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration considers these underwater mountains to be biodiversity hotspots, meaning they are home to a wide variety of rare and endangered species.
Whales, sea turtles and deep-sea corals—some of which date back more than 4,000 years, making them the oldest known living marine organisms—inhabit the area. The new federal protections limit harmful commercial practices, such as fishing, shipping transit and oil retrieval.
This designation comes shortly after the President announced the expansion of an existing marine monument in the Pacific. Under President Obama's administration, the amount of North America's protected ocean areas has increased by 20 times.
To learn more about today's announcement, click here.
To learn more about the Hawaiian Marine Monument expansion, click here.
conservation, marine-monuments, our-ocean-conference
A Prehistoric Find in Ocean City


Last Saturday I did two things I always wanted to do: 1. I woke and left the house early and 2. I met up with LM for breakfast at Birch Coffee.
New York feels private and intimate on Saturday mornings. As I walked through the Garment District to Birch coffee sleepy Broadway was just starting to open its eyes. I remembered how much I like to see the city this way, how I must go out early more often.
I hadn't been to the new Birch outpost and was impressed by its gray, minimalist design. Ms. LM was sitting at a communal table waiting for me. I was right on time.
I love new faces and new things, but I love old faces in new settings even more. (In example, the time I spotted my father alone, at a table in New York the first time. My father is a man who loves the country, and it was nice to see him so comfortable in New York, leaning back at an outdoor table at a restaurant, sipping a glass of wheat beer.) My friendship with LM was restricted to the house parties and gatherings hosted by my mutual friends, so it was nice to see and speak with her one-on-one, when we both weren't in cocktail dresses, or I four cocktails in. We both write and blog, its refreshing to sit with someone who's doing exactly what I'm doing, whose head is in the same realm. We're both fans of each others work, which is also helpful to get feedback (and secretly, I hope some of her effortlessly-chic-ness will rub off on me). I write this thing and have a hard time stepping back from it objectively, seeing where I can improve.
I had a workshop to attend near the Empire State Building and afterwards, did light shopping on 34th Street. The weather hasn't yet matured into spring, but in a light coat I was able to enjoy the sun without muffs and gloves and appreciate that New York broke 50 degrees for the first time. I took the M7 up Sixth Avenue and stopped at Columbus Circle for a few of my favorite things: macarons at Bouchon and the views out of Time Warner Center. Sure, it's a glorified mall. But most days, it feels like it's all mine.
The following day I met with L. (the other L.!) for coffee at Irving Farm on the Upper West Side. As always with L., conversation was delightful. There's nothing you can mention that L. is not an expert in. I'm rather envious of all the subjects she reads about and studies she is familiar with and how often she can recall them from memory.
The weather grew cold by the time we left.
The work-week was full of good news, minor triumphs and overall optimism that is abnormal to Ariel Davis. On Friday I took a peek at my phone during lunch break and noticed an email from my pen pal, Mr. Pemberton in the UK. He had good news to share, he was coming to New York in less than two weeks for business and we'd finally have that good, long talk we'd been meaning to have.
I beamed so brightly at this -- you'd think I was meeting the Queen.
I had many plans this weekend, too, but on Thursday I woke with a swollen jaw and a stubborn wisdom tooth. I scheduled a dentist appointment, started taking an anti-inflammatory and decided to power through all my weekend plans as if everything was peachy keen.
I wanted to get the girls from my Writing Group together, even though I was a defunct member I missed seeing their faces, I missed the conversations. So I picked my favorite spot in Soho, Delicatessen, and told them to meet me there early Saturday morning. We had a great time. I ate too much and laughed too much, and was glad I didn't cancel.
Afterwards, L. and I went to McNally, and Utrect and all the good spots, including my old favorite writing spot, La Colombe. But I couldn't lounge like I normally do, I was due in Crown Heights for a dance party.
Franklin Park was packed, and dancing was limited to a very small space. Eventually we went to the front garden, joining the smokers in the fresh air. At 2 am I was ready to call it a night, I rode the train to Brooklyn Heights with MM, the temperature had dropped significantly. I took a cab the rest of the way home.
The best thing about leaving New York is seeing it from far away, the view from Brooklyn Bridge from a cab window was (and always is) breathtaking. I love a good New York weekend.


There are a few ways to go about international expansion within the affiliate channel. Which route to take is dependent on a few variables based on the advertiser's existing processes, infrastructure, and technical architecture. Below are a few different scenarios and recommendations for each on how to expand your affiliate program globally.
Let's say an advertiser has multiple domains for each country/region they want to target. These sites may have different price points and inventory than their U.S. site. They are displayed in the language of the country/region and pricing is in the currency of that country/region. These sites may have separate shopping carts than their U.S. site, as well. In addition, other online (and potentially offline) marketing channels are being effectively implemented for these countries/regions. In certain cases, there are also different business units in charge of the revenue from these different countries/regions (ie: domestic vs. international). In this scenario it typically makes very good sense to open separate affiliate programs.
Alternatively, an advertiser may run everything through their .com, but based on the IP address or manual selection by the visitor, the content is displayed in the language and/or currency of the country/region. Depending how important things like separate reporting and tracking for sales through different countries/regions are to the advertiser, a new affiliate program(s) may make sense. The potential revenue amount will also be a deciding factor.
Finally, let's look at an advertiser who simply wants to grow the international exposure of their brand and increase international revenue. Everything comes through the .com and it may or may not have different language/currency capabilities, but international shipping is not only available, it is also competitively priced. Advertisers with this scenario are most often advised to work on growing international revenue through their existing affiliate program. The publisher recruitment tool is the best way to access and/or target particular publishers who are located in countries high on an advertiser's priority list.
Lastly, consider the publisher distribution within CJ Affiliate's network, for an advertiser's target list of countries. This is another important component for whether or not separate programs would make sense. For example, ecommerce in Europe is very substantial. It also is in Asia-Pacific, but only recent years have seen more of an uptick in cross border transactions, such as a consumer in China buying from a retailer in the US. Latin America only represents a low single digit percentage of the global ecommerce market. The publisher distribution in the CJ Affiliate network to a large extent follows these trends.
If you are interested in going global, hopefully this has given you food for thought about when and when not to expand into separate affiliate programs. If you still have questions, please contact your account manager. If you don't have an account manager, please feel free to leave your questions in the comment section below.


Often, the environments on which we tend to run web servers are also those which doesn't come with an abundance of memory. Many websites are run on shared hosting or vps which commonly offer 1 to 2 gigs of RAM (some would opt for even less). That's not much, considering the amount of people these servers are meant to serve. Inevitably, the amount of resources a web server uses may become no less critical part than its speed. Therefore a very important aspect of a web server is the amount of memory it requires to operate.
To make it as clear as possible I used a tool called 'ps_mem' which is a "utility to accurately report the in core memory usage for a program". Each server was configured to use all of the 8 cores available on my machine.
Here we can see a couple of interesting things, the first and most obvious being Lighttpd is simply the most lightweight of the three, that's probably not surprising anyone though. If we want to make the difference a bit more conspicuous, we can say that Nginx uses ~646% more memory than Lighttpd, and Apache ~530% more than Lighttpd. But remeber, these numbers represents the servers when they are on rest right after they were initially launched.
The second thing we can note is that Apache uses much more shared memory than Nginx does. That's quite surprising because shared memory is commonly used to enhance performance by letting processes access the same memory simultaneously which should prevent them from creating redundant copies. So the surprising thing here is that Nginx which is geared towards high performance isn't actually making much use of shared memory.
Now it seems that even when the servers are being stressed they still don't hog a huge amount of memory, an amount which could crash your entire server that is.
The above results also shows us that while Apache and Lighttpd have both increased the amount of memory they use (Lighttpd actually went up about x7 more than on rest), Nginx on the other hand didn't even break a sweat. But these numbers aren't telling us the whole picture because after the stressing was done I also took a peek at the number of requests processed by each server and the reports showed that Apache had an average of 1045 failed requests, Nginx 1173 failed requests, and Lighttpd – 226 failed requests. So take it with a grain of salt.
The last relevant piece of information I think worth relating to in this section is that after the initial memory tests were done I continued gauging each server's memory usage, I was particularly interested to know whether they would return to their initial state or not. I was a bit surprised to learn that non of the servers had return to their initial state of memory usage, though I guess that makes sense as the servers might have adjusted themselves to the amount of requests they are getting. But what really took me by surprise was that with each test I ran, and I didn't change the test itself, both Apache and Lighttpd kept growing in memory usage – after seven test Lighttpd had grown up to using ~21.3MiB and Apache ~45.1MiB, while Nginx stablized at ~17.9 after the second test.
Unfortunately it seems Apache won't bust its being a resource-hog myth, nor would Lighttpd its buggy, memory-leak myths (evidently, they are not myths). In fact, both Apache and Lighttpd apparently have memory leaks.
For the purpose of comparing the servers' performance I designed a simple test that involves sending HTTP GET requests to each server at a time. In each time, a server is tested against either of 2 criteria: 1) requests load, or, 2) concurrency load. For at the end of the day an http server's job is to respond to requests and what we're looking for is the server that could deliver the maximum responses in minimum time (and of course requiring minimum resources to do so).
As for the servers themselves, each was compiled with the features I thought were relevant for a standard web server (you can see which modules I had installed in the lists under the Features section). The configuration was tuned in to the maximum according to each server's optimization guide. I have also tried different modules on each server to see what works best and I shall elaborate more on the results with different modules later on.
As you can see, it was a close competition between Nginx and Lighttpd, especially in the concurrency area, Nginx did came on top though.
Unfortunately, I could not get Apache to behave nicely against the concurrency tests, it was unstable from the beginning with wide gaps between and within each mark. I actually did got it to perform 5,000 concurrency load however, the average result number was so high (14.732) that it skew the entire graph (therefore I excluded the result). Beyond 5,000 concurrent requests Apache simply kept throwing errors and refused to complete the tests, no matter the configuration I used (I raised MaxRequestWorkers, MaxClients, ThreadsPerChild, etc.. but to no avail).
Regarding the affect of different configurations on the performance, it seems that different configurations won't make any server faster than it was to begin with, however getting the configuration right can be crucial in order for the server to be able to deal with different loads. This was quite obvious in Apache's case where without raising the bar of MaxRequestWorkers, MaxClients and ThreadsPerChild the server simply couldn't deal with even 2,000 concurrency load. But that phenomenon isn't exclusive to Apache, Nginx for instance required me to raise worker_rlimit_nofile and worker_connections to be able to withstand the load.
And so, it is quite obvious that configuration can play a big role in the amount of load a server can withstand but it won't make it magically faster or anything of that sort – try to keep that in mind the next time you search for optimization guides.
Do Modules Have Any Affect On Performance?
Another confusing part of performance tests is that some modules appear to have the ability to affect performance by adding or removing these modules (think about cache modules for instance). Some of the tuning advice I read online suggested using only the modules I need and discard others to improve performance. Moreover, having the modules built-in to the servers, as in the case of Apache's static feature, also carries some confusion whether it can improve or worsen performance?
Anyways, I can report that non of the changes I made yielded any significant difference I could attribute to a certain module or feature. It seems the role of modules is merely to increase or decrease the functionality of a server, but other than that when it comes to performance at least, modules appear to have a very insignificant role to play. This might be considered a good thing, since you then know the server you get is already geared towards maximum performance out of the box, but on the other hand, if you're not pleased with the server's performance then it also means there's very little you can do about it. Tweaking to infinity won't help.
Considering all three main aspects of a web server: features, memory-usage and performance, it appears Nginx came out on top for now. While all three presented unique features that may appeal to users in certain cases, I think the drawbacks both Apache and Lighttpd currently posses (memory leaks) outweigh their advantages to the point they might hinder their further adoption (if people were actually aware of them). Although, as mentioned, Apache is the only server of the three to offer systemwide access overriding which is perhaps an irreplaceable feature for shared hosting services.
As said earlier, tweaking the servers to infinity is basically futile and won't get you better performance.
My conclusion regarding features, is that it really doesn't matter which server has the most features, but rather, which can deliver the features you need/want.
Unfortunately non of the servers seem to have manage breaking the myths related to it, but if I had to make a recommendation I would start with Nginx where possible and where it isn't then Lighttpd would be my second choice of the three (despite it isn't supporting http2 protocol yet). But to be more realistic, the places you can't use Nginx on are probably the same as those you can't use Lighttpd on, so in that case it's either Apache or something else entirely.
If you like to see how Apache and Nginx compare to Node.js server see my other comparison here: Apache Vs Nginx Vs Node.js And What It Means About The Performance Of WordPress Vs Ghost.


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The 'Killing Eve' Season 3 Finale Proves Eve & Villanelle Are Not Done With Each Other
by Amanda Whiting
Spoilers ahead for the Season 3 finale of Killing Eve. Season 3 of Killing Eve may be over, but its central question of who killed Kenny is still unanswered. He may have been pushed off the roof by Konstantin or tumbled by accident when Konstantin confronted him. If you want to get philosophical about it, perhaps Carolyn killed Kenny in a long run of dominoes that started falling when she recruited her son into espionage. That the mystery of Kenny's death isn't resolved is frustrating, but also revealing. The central question here was never the most important one. As it has been with every season so far, the only question of consequence is the will they or won't they between Villanelle and Eve.
The Season 3 finale of Killing Eve ends with Villanelle and Eve staring at each other from 40 paces on Tower Bridge, as far as they can compel themselves to walk apart before turning back. Have they reached the gravitational limits of their yoked hearts, or is it simply a last look?
Until now, there have been plenty of reasons why Villanelle and Eve couldn't work as a couple. When we meet Villanelle, she's a murderous sociopath; her most recognizably human impulse is that she forms an overpowering crush on someone she hardly knows because she has nice hair. That's not the case anymore. Across this season, Villanelle developed a deeper emotional sensibility and maybe even the beginnings of a conscience. She doesn't want to kill anymore. In fact, she can't even bring herself to finish off Dasha. When she finally suggests that she and Eve go their separate ways into the London night, it's the safest she's ever seemed.
Neither are the would-be lovers divided by work. Villanelle has quit The Twelve, and Eve's job... well, what is Eve's job? She started Season 3 as a line cook and finished it as an unpaid sleuth. When she was an MI-6 agent, her mission was to end Villanelle's murderous spree. With both women effectively retired, another barrier that prevented them being together has dissolved.
The most compelling reason for Eve to avoid Villanelle has always been what that relationship would ultimately cost her. Besides her job, Villanelle posed a threat to Eve's normal life and Eve's normal, loving husband. But Niko, of course, was last seen in a hospital in rural Poland, recuperating from injuries incurred at the hands of The Twelve and telling his estranged wife to "piss off." Eve's already paid the price she struggled to avoid. If she's not going to take a chance on Villanelle now, what was the point of her enduring so much ruin?
Eve's stated reason for walking away in the finale's last moments is that she doesn't like the side of her that Villanelle brings out. "I think my monster encourages your monster," Villanelle tells Eve, who responds honestly: "I think I wanted it to." But Eve's had scant contact with the assassin all season and her MO hasn't changed at all. Act recklessly first, think later. She leads danger to Niko's doorstep without any help from Villanelle at all.
It's what Eve says next to Villanelle — "Help me make it stop" — that it's hard to understand. She's sacrificed so much already. Villanelle, at least as she behaves with Eve, is practically transformed, so much so that Villanelle doesn't fight Eve's request at all. Instead, she's the one who starts to walk away.
But the decision to walk away is momentary; the decision to stay away, like a couple's decision to stay together, has to be made again and again. The episode leaves it unresolved, but it's hard to imagine that two people who can't endure the breadth of the Thames between them without looking back to check on each other are ready to make the commitment required for a true, lasting goodbye.
This Pre-'Love Island' Video Of Olivia & Zara Together Changes Everything
By Bustle UK
Season 2 Of 'Yellowjackets' Is Coming Sooner Than You'd Think
By Gretchen Smail and Grace Wehniainen
'Succession' Season 4 Will Be An "Absolute Banger" According To Cousin Greg
By Bustle Staff
'Ted Lasso' Season 3 Might Be Its Last
By Zosha Millman and Grace Wehniainen
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Banned subreddit sparks debate on censorship
Some redditors are up in arms over the banning of a controversial subreddit. The hidden truth may be a little more prosaic.
Dec 11, 2015, 3:52 pm*
Kevin Morris
Reddit admins banned a controversial but legal teen picture section yesterday, spawning intense debate and causing some to accuse the social news site of censorship.
The problems began after internal power struggles led to the ouster of a number of moderators at the subreddit, /r/jailbait. Their replacements attracted the attention of Reddit admins.
According to Reddit's general manager, Erik Martin, these new moderators "had been repeatedly banned from reddit for various reasons" and the situation in the subreddit "was out of control."
Essentially, trouble-making users had taken control of a subreddit that features legal but sexualized images of teenagers that border on child pornography.
Martin banned the subreddit.
He then reached out to violentacrez, r/jailbait's top moderator, offering an olive branch: remove the troublesome mods, or the subreddit would remain banned.
Violentacrez — a Reddit Larry Flynt of sorts, who created many of the sections that test the boundaries of free speech and legality on the site — refused.
In numerous comments across the site, violentacrez claimed that none of the new moderators broke any rules in their time at r/jailbait.
"I stand behind them 100 percent," the redditor, who manges over 260 subreddits, wrote. "If they had broken a single reddit rule, I would have been okay with removing them. But they did nothing to warrant having [r/jailbait] banned, so I stand with them on principle alone."
The Daily Dot asked Martin if /r/jailbait's new moderators had posted illegal content directly prior to the ban (or had threatened to) but Martin declined to comment for this story. "Explaining who did what and how will only encourage trolls," Martin explained, "and give new ones ideas."
Moderator power struggles are nothing new on Reddit or other web forums. But with 21,000 subscribers, r/jailbait was easily the largest of a group of borderline-legal subreddits that challenge the site's laissez-faire attitude towards free speech.
So does the move, as some claim, represent a step towards censorship on the site?
Martin emphasized that the bans had nothing to do with content. "It was a very specific situation with a big reddit with specific issues and a bunch of new mods with bad rap sheets," he wrote.
It appears that other free-speech testing subreddits, such as r/beatingwomen, r/pro_teen_models, and r/teen_girls remain untouched. And it's worth noting that Martin has been a strong advocate of free speech on Reddit in the past.
"Morally questionable reddits like jailbait," he wrote about a month ago, "are part of the price of free speech on a site like this."
Still, censorship or not, many worried that the site had begun treading on a slippery slope.
Wrote one: "Interfere due to trolling and drama in one subreddit, and people will expect you to do so in all of them."
*First Published: Aug 17, 2011, 2:35 pm
Kevin Morris is a veteran web reporter and editor who specializes in longform journalism. He led the Daily Dot's esports vertical and, following its acquisition by GAMURS in late 2016, launched Dot Esports, where he serves as the site's editor-in-chief.
Armie Hammer's Instagram post of an 'eating human flesh' license plate frame resurfaces
How did Notion get so popular on TikTok?
Chris Evans seemingly debunks Captain America reprisal rumors
Fans think Brie Larson is dropping hints that she's gay on YouTube


Our hospital strives "To improve the health and healing of the people and comminutes we serve" and to be the "Most trusted for personalized coordinated care." The Junior Volunteer Bridge Program through careful coordinator works toward fulfilling our future staffing needs by assisting in the exploration of medical specialties on the horizon and by exposing high school student to current careers and trends. It is such a pleasure to see every day former junior volunteers in our hospital as nurses, physical therapies, social workers, physician assistants and at a nearby hospital a physician.
The energy our high school student volunteers bring to the hospital is positive and contagious! We do not have specific questions on our Press Ganey report for the program we have received many glowing comments from our patients and staff. Staff truly enjoying talking about their professions.
The positive energy is throughout the hospital. The multi-generations interactions with patient, staff and senior volunteers starts at the front door and continues through the patient stay with wheelchair transport, meal trays, delivering cards and flowers, patients visits to discharge. Our staff look forward to each summer and our elderly patients love to compare their high school experiences.
The Junior Volunteer Bridge Program has been very fortunate to have our philosophy of volunteerism, coaching, mentorship, and job shadows supported through four (4) hospital administrations, executive staff and management teams. There is a cost to a job shadow. Staff work slower to explain and demonstrate. Over the past ten years 618 junior volunteers have actively participated, 1,200 job shadows and have given 63,833 service hours.
AHVRP is formally recognizing traditional volunteer programs (i.e. pet therapy, patient rounding, meals on wheels, etc.) that have been taken from good to great with the help of creative and innovative changes that invigorate an existing program.
The Traditional Excellence Program Award recognizes a seasoned, traditional volunteer program that has undergone a modification or was given a new twist by a DVS, manager or coordinator, that resulted in achieving exemplary results, and has demonstrated substantial benefit to the recipients, to the health care organization, and to the volunteer(s) providing the service.
To qualify for the Traditional Excellence Award, programs will have been in operation for at least five years, will exemplify one or more of the areas below and should be referenced in the submission narrative.
Promoting a Caring Environment -- A program designed to reduce the anxiety of patients and family members, to enhance the social and/or cultural environment of the health care organization, to improve the understanding of the organization and its service, or to heighten the sensitivity of staff to the dignity of patients and their families.
Change Management - A program designed to reflect sociological changes in the health care organization including changes in patient populations, changes in types of services offered, or new volunteer services to enhance patient services.
Health & Wellness - A program designed to educate and encourage patients and others to exercise increased responsibility for personal wellness.
Volunteerism – A program designed to promote the philosophy of volunteering and/or raise the morale of volunteers.
Recruitment/Recognition - A program designed to encourage individuals to become volunteers or to recognize outstanding volunteer activities.
Fundraising – A program designed to raise monies to enhance patient care or increase visitor or staff amenities in the facility.
Special - Exemplary volunteer program/service that does not fall within the other six categories.
This award is open to all AHVRP members and the health care organizations they represent. If selected, AHVRP will honor the Traditional Excellence Program Award recipient at the 50th Annual AHVRP Conference & Exposition Recognition Breakfast, Sunday, September 30, 2018, Hyatt Regency O'Hare, Rosemont, Illinois. The recipient will receive one 2018 AHVRP conference registration(non-transferable), an award and notification to senior leadership of the recipient's organization.
All entries must be submitted by Wednesday, April 25, 2018, 11:59 p.m. CT.


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Q: Webdriverio / Selenium - Basic Authentication with Safari I have been running tests on a cloud service provider for Selenium and Appium called LambdaTest and I have been trying to run tests using webdriverio.
The company's sites all use Basic Auth, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. I am able to get by this with the old user/pass in URL trick, but it seems to be deprecated from support and already Safari seems to block it.
Is there any other way I can perform my tests and get past the Basic Authentication alert on browsers like Safari?
Thank you.

A: Couldn't you try using the Apple's Keychain Manager ?
The authentication is stored in the Apple's Keychain for that particular website and you connect through it with Selenium.
It should work.

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Where to get this great gear?
Sea to Summit's Comfort Light Insulated sleeping pad is in my opinion one of the best outdoor pads that I have ever had the opportunity to review. This pad features an innovative, very unique design, highlighted by two separate chambers that form the top and bottom of the pad. The Comfort Light is simply "comfortable and provides warm insulation!" Given an R-value of 4.2, this sleeping pad will provide you with enough insulation for cold weather use. Designed with Air Spring Cells, the Comfort Light provides great support on hard, cold ground. I have slept very comfortably on this pad out in the field in some extreme conditions. Exhibiting great compressibility the Comfort Light takes up little room in your backpack and is a perfect sleeping pad for mountain hunters and backpackers like myself who spend multiple days at a time out on the mountain each year.
Like all of my field tests on outdoor gear I have used Sea to Summit's Comfort Light's Sleeping Pad in some very difficult and tough backpacking conditions for the past two months. In the cold, wet conditions of high Alpine basins and rugged, rocky terrain of Utah's high deserts, I have found thissleeping pad to perform like a true champion. A quality-sleeping pad is one of the most important items of gear that I have in my backpack. If I don't get a comfortable, quality nights sleep when I'm out on the mountain for multiple days then I know that I won't have the strength and energy to ensure peak performance in extremely physical demanding conditions. I have enjoyed Sea to Summit's Comfort Light. It is not only comfortable but I've found that its insulation features keep me warm. I'm what I refer to as a "cold sleeper" when I'm out in a tent on cold, frozen ground, but with the Comfort Light I've had many nights of warm comfort. I own half a dozen quality-sleeping pads and I can attest that the Comfort Light performs as well as any mat that I have.
For me personally, I appreciate Sea to Summit's 331 Air Sprung cells designed specifically for thissleeping pad. It's different than the smooth, surfaced matts as the unique cells provides great support and act like a massage for my body. To me, many of the other sleeping pads sound like you are sleeping on a crinkly space blanket while the sound of this pad, although it is not noiseless, doesn't bother me near as much.
Sleeping comfortably out on the mountain is very important to me when I'm out in the wilderness on my hunting adventures or scouting trips. With the Comfort Light, Sea to Summit's Air Spring technology/ padding I have found that it helps me sleep comfortably because of its high insulating R-Value. I don't feel the hard surface of rough terrain beneath me and I can adjust the pad by releasing the desired amount of air for individual comfort. I prefer to "hollow" out a small bed in the ground beneath my tent or ground sheet to place the Comfort Light pad into so that it's design/form fits into a "curved cacoon around my body." Because the individual spring cells are so supportive, I believe the Comfort Light functions perfectly for hunters and backpackers who don't like the unstability or bouncy feeling of other air pads.
I simply can't afford to have a sleeping pad that isn't durable and tough because of the rugged terrain I spend my nights in. It should be noted that the Comfort Light sleeping pad has been designed with 40denier ripstop nylon that makes it very durable, especially if you use a ground cloth or tent to sleep in. For those who spend their time sleeping out under the stars on rugged terrain I would always suggest using a ground sheet underneath you to prevent punctures in your sleeping pad!
Putting My Air Stream Pump To Use – Comfort Light Out on the Mt.
When I store my sleeping pads such as the Comfort Light I always push all the air out and leave the valve open so that any moisture trapped inside the pad can escape. It is always best to leave yoursleeping pads "unfolded" so that they can proper ventilation can occur.
Sea to Summit is one of the most innovative outdoor companies out there today. I love the thought and research behind each one of their products. They have done an incredible job with their Comfort Light sleeping pad. It is a great piece of gear that I highly recommend.
Gear, Outdoor Skills gear reviews. permalink.


text:
Mar 22, 2018 , Spectator
Jerry Brown's rail fantasy keeps getting pricier
"That's bulls**t," Gov. Jerry Brown told a group of union leaders in Sacramento this week as he addressed the latest bad news about his pet project to build a bullet train connecting San Francisco with Los Angeles. The union folks probably loved the tirade, given that the proposed rail system is more of a make-work project for union members than a transportation system. But the governor's promise that the state can build the railway if "we don't let these small-minded people intimidate us into lowering our expectations" rang a bit hollow.
Brown said he is "so tired of all the nonsense that I read in the paper and you hear from other politicians." But the latest nonsense comes from his own High-Speed Rail Authority, which released its latest business plan. The project already is over budget and behind schedule. The new plan bumps the predicted costs from $63 billion to $77 billion — and delays the opening date by four years, to 2033.
Those costs will surely grow even more given that the current overruns are taking place on the flat, easy-to-build section of the system through the Central Valley. Just wait until the real engineering challenge is confronted, as rail planners figure out how to take the train through the Tehachapi Mountains separating the valley from Southern California.
Look at other major California infrastructure projects for an idea of realistic cost overruns. Rebuilding the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, following the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, was 2,500 percent (that's not a typo) over the original estimate and wasn't completed until 2013.
Apparently, it's "small minded" for Californians — including one of the authors of the 2008 statewide initiative that secured $9.95 billion in funding for the train project — to question the overruns, delays, and failure of the latest plan to live up to the promises made to voters. That author, former Sen. Quentin Kopp, remains an advocate of high-speed rail in concept, but he calls the current alignment "foolish" and said "it is almost a crime to sell bonds and encumber the taxpayers of California at a time when this is no longer high-speed rail."
Kopp is right. To make it feasible, rail boosters created a route alignment that shares tracks with commuter trains (the blended route) on the peninsula south of San Francisco and in the Los Angeles area. It's highly unlikely that it will connect the state's two megalopolises anywhere near the promised time of 2 hours and 40 minutes given how slow the trains will go in these areas.
It's magical thinking to expect the project to do that as 2008's Proposition 1A promised – with no operating subsidies and at an affordable price funded by private investment. Investors have run for the hills and the subsidies are a given. And why is this project even needed? I just took a Southwest Airlines flight from Sacramento to Los Angeles for under $100 roundtrip (on a special deal, which you can regularly find) with a flying time of a little more than an hour. It's not as if Californians have no options to travel up and down the state.
The project has been unable to tap federal funds now that the Obama administration, which supported the project, is history. The initial bond funding is a pittance of the project's estimated total cost. The auctions of cap-and-trade credits are another funding source, but even the Democratic-controlled Legislature is reluctant to open up those spigots given its other priorities.
But Brown has a plan: "I'll tell you how we're going to fund the railroad. We're going to take back the Congress and then a Democratic Congress is going to put the high-speed rail in the infrastructure bill and then we'll get that trillion dollars and we'll put America back to work." That's far from a certainty — and it's a bizarre way to plan for a major investment. Let's just start building and hope that the political winds change and a new Congress will dole out the money. OK, I guess.
That approach is reminiscent of the one detailed by flamboyant former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. In a July 2013 San Francisco Chronicle column addressing $300 million in cost overruns for the city's Transbay Terminal, he argued, "If people knew the real cost from the start, nothing would ever be approved. The idea is to get going. Start digging a hole and make it so big, there's no alternative to coming up with the money to fill it in."
The bullet-train project epitomizes such public-sector cynicism. Proposition 1A offered myriad detailed promises to woo skeptical voters. A superior court initially halted the sale of the bond funds to begin digging the hole, so to speak, because the authority wasn't following requirements that it identify enough cash to complete the first 300-mile segment. Unfortunately, a higher court ultimately gave the project the go-ahead. That shouldn't be a shock to Spectator readers, who are used to hearing the absurd promises made by politicians. But voter initiatives are written laws, not suggestions.
In recent months, the governor's other large infrastructure boondoggle has also run into trouble. Brown wants to build two giant 35-mile tunnels underneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to bring water from the relatively rainy north to arid Southern California. It's a way to keep water flowing even when the state shuts the pumps to protect the endangered Delta smelt.
"The $17-billion bill for the twin-tunnel version was supposed to be paid by the San Joaquin Valley agricultural districts and Southland urban agencies," reported the Los Angeles Times. "But the farm districts have for the most part declined to open their wallets, saying the water is too expensive for them." Not all of the urban agencies are all that excited about paying for it, either.
These projects are unfathomable given that Brown last year insisted that Californians raise gas taxes — or else their roads and bridges will continue to crumble. As Brown leaves the public stage after decades of elected office, he is reduced to hurling insults at Californians who make perfectly reasonable criticisms of costly projects that divert money from far more pressing priorities. In my view, that's very definition of small-minded BS.
Senior Fellow and Western Region Director, State Affairs
Letter Calling On House Democrats To Publish Caucus Rules Online Kevin Kosar
Testimony On Adjustments to CRS Report Formatting Before the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee Kevin Kosar
Smart Ideas: Presidential Records Act Is Largely Unenforceable C. Jarrett Dieterle & Courtney Joslin


The vision of Descon Technical Institute is to enable young men and women from the under privileged sectors of our society to make a decent living. We want to give them hope, enable them to fulfill their dreams and build their aspirations. Our mission is skills for livelihood. Our aim is to develop the skills that our industry badly needs. We have millions of young people, who do not have those skills. We have industry but they are suffering because of lack of skills. So we want to fill bridge that gap. Also we want to enable our people to be able to go and seek the opportunities that are available in the Middle East.
We need to concentrate on productivity and quality both to be competitive internationally and it can only be possible if our workforce understands the requirements. That is where we are putting a lot of our emphasis. This model is successful because we have spent a lot of time to build an error free curriculum as per market's demand. We have right faculty to teach and demonstrate the agreed curriculum. The type of facility we have,there is amount of land that we have allocated but most important is the rigger of the program. Our students are kept busy throughout the day. This is not like many of the other institutions who work till afternoon. Our students will go all the way through to 5 p.m. We are teaching soft skills, work ethics, because we are in industry, we know what the industry requires.


Strength training + shorter workouts = success!
Let's be honest, we all work hard to meet our own nutritional and workout goals, but there is always something more we can accomplish right? Almost everyone can find a reason why they wish they could become leaner. Cardio has always been in the forefront in terms of being considered the way to lose weight quickly and especially lose sizes! However, there is more and more information out there now supporting the importance of strength training and prioritizing this type of training, which has been an obvious focal point for all of us here at Shine!
Don't get me wrong, Aerobic exercise absolutely should be part of your workout program if leaning out is a goal of yours as cardio has a role in shedding pounds and fat tissue quickly! However it's important to understand that this aerobic training alone is missing some key values that strength training brings to the table, and along with the addition of strength training we should understand the importance of your length of workouts!
First, some more understanding of what cardio brings to your body... extended programs of cardio at a moderate rate is not the efficient way to get lean. The main source of energy for this type of exercise will be glucose in the blood, or glycogen stored in the muscles. Fat is also used, and will be naturally burned, because you are using up calories. It will just take longer.
Extreme amounts of cardio may release the hormone cortisol which could play a role in negating muscle growth. It could also create a catabolic state in your body which means that things are being broken down to supply your metabolism, including lean muscle tissue, and can actually lead to strength loss!
If you are trying to stay lean AND strong, strength training gives you the maintenance to accomplish that! It increases the resting metabolic rate, increases power and performance, and it will give your heart various rates instead of the same consistent cardio activity levels that can occur for those who have a repetitive cardio workout plan. Avoiding overtraining during your week will also help you find the results you are working so hard to find and achieve. There is no reason to pass the 50-60 minute mark while doing a workout circuit, we want to push our cardio levels through strength training and lengthening the time only allows our body to regulate our body's workout level to the point where the activity towards the end (60-80 min) isn't actively progressing our body's fit levels.
As you train with weights your body will pack on some pounds with lean muscle mass as you lose fat. If you notice that you aren't losing weight, or if you even gain weight after training at such a high intensity, don't worry about it! Many of us will find that we lose inches around our waist, hips, thighs, etc. while keeping a consistent number on our weight scales! Make time for strength training during your weekly routine, and pair it with the correct nutrition and you'll be on your way to a happier, stronger, and leaner you!


Pedro Moncarz & Marcelo Olarreaga & Marcel Vaillant, 2016. "Regionalism as Industrial Policy: Evidence from MERCOSUR," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 359-373, February.
Richard E. Baldwin, 1997. "The Causes of Regionalism," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(7), pages 865-888, November.
Baldwin, Richard, 1997. "The Causes of Regionalism," CEPR Discussion Papers 1599, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1995. "The Politics of Free-Trade Agreements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 667-690, September.
Grossman, G.M. & Helpman, E., 1993. "The Politics of Free Trade Agreements," Papers 166, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Public and International Affairs.
Grossman, Gene M. & Helpman, Elhanan, 1993. "The Politics of Free Trade Agreements," Foerder Institute for Economic Research Working Papers 275582, Tel-Aviv University > Foerder Institute for Economic Research.
Grossman, Gene & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "The Politics of Free Trade Agreements," CEPR Discussion Papers 908, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
Grossman, G.M. & Helpman, E., 1993. "The Politics of Free Trade Agreements," Papers 14-93, Tel Aviv.
Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1993. "The Politics of Free Trade Agreements," NBER Working Papers 4597, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
Beatriz Muriel & Cristina Terra, 2009. "Sources of Comparative Advantages in Brazil," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 15-27, February.
Muriel, Beatriz & Terra, Maria Cristina T., 2007. "Sources of comparative advantages in Brazil," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 658, FGV EPGE - Escola Brasileira de Economia e Finanças, Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil).
Beatriz Muriel & Cristina Terra, 2008. "Sources of Comparative Advantages in Brazil," THEMA Working Papers 2008-12, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
Michihiro Ohyama, 2007. "Partial Free Trade Agreements and Economic Welfare: Reconsidering GATT Article 24," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(4), pages 621-628, November.
Yeats, Alexander J, 1998. "Does Mercosur's Trade Performance Raise Concerns about the Effects of Regional Trade Arrangements?," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 12(1), pages 1-28, January.
Richardson, Martin, 1995. "Tariff revenue competition in a free trade area," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 1429-1437, August.
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:rdevec:v:20:y:2016:i:1:p:359-373. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.


text: Q: How is the PR of the car calculated in NFS No Limits? I have a few cars, and parts are rare to come by, so I need to  look for the place to fit them for the maximum increase in PR, so that the car is allowed for more races. So my question is, how does an increase in top speed, acceleration, and nitro affect the increase in PR?


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THE BLACK MOODS Announce "August Isolation" Livestream Concert Supporting "Music For Rocky Point" Covid Relief Fund; "Sunshine" Lands at #16 in Active Rock Radio Charts
Posted By : Kelly Walsh/
Under : Press Releases, THE BLACK MOODS
DT: AUGUST 4, 2020
FM: KELLY WALSH, SRO PR
AZ-BASED ROCK TRIO
THE BLACK MOODS
ANNOUNCE "AUGUST ISOLATION" LIVESTREAM SHOW
"MUSIC FOR ROCKY POINT" COVID RELIEF FUND
ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 20 @ 7:00 PM PT
LAND THEIR FIRST-EVER TOP 20 BILLBOARD ACTIVE ROCK RADIO SINGLE
WITH TITLE TRACK OF NEW ALBUM,
'SUNSHINE'
BAND SHARE DETAILS ON RECORDING NEW SONG WITH LEGENDARY PRODUCER EDDIE KRAMER,
BEGIN TRACKING NEW ALBUM WITH JOHNNY "K" KARKAZIS
Arizona-based guitar-driven rock'n'roll trio THE BLACK MOODS have refused to let a pandemic slow down their momentum following the release of their sophomore album SUNSHINE on May 8 via Steelhorse Entertainment/The Fuel Music. Instead, they landed their first-ever Billboard's Top 20 Active Rock hit with the album's title track, currently at #16 and marking a career highlight for them. The success of the "Sunshine" track follows three previous singles from the album that debuted in the Active Rock chart's Top 30: "Bad News" (#24), "Bella Donna" (#29) and "Whatcha Got at (#30).
THE BLACK MOODS have announced a livestream concert, "AUGUST ISOLATION," to benefit the "MUSIC FOR ROCKY POINT" Covid Relief fund which supports the community of Puerto Peñasco, MX (aka Rocky Point) whose livelihood is dependent on tourism and has been drastically affected due to border closures and government restrictions on account of the pandemic. The livestream will be free to the public with an optional tip jar with all funds raised going to "MUSIC FOR ROCKY POINT." The band will also donate 20% of all merch sales generated during the stream, which will include an exclusive signed event poster, limited to 100 copies.
"Rocky Point has become our second home over the years and where a lot of our early success began," shares THE BLACK MOODS. "We have been playing shows there for almost a decade and our drummer Chico's grandparents lived there during his childhood. With the pandemic, the city–which already had financial issues–is really suffering. We are proud and honored to be able to help support the 'Music for Rocky Point' fund through our music."
THE BLACK MOODS have spent the past few months of quarantine in the Ozarks, hometown of vocalist/guitarist JOSH KENNEDY, where they transferred equipment from their home studio in Arizona to write and record material for their next album. The band have re-enlisted SUNSHINE's Grammy-Award nominated producer Johnny "K" Karkazis for the new album and recently completed the first recording session. The trio are also excited to share they have collaborated with legendary producer Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones) on a new track which was remotely recorded using software programs such as Zoom and Audio Movers. Stay tuned for updates and details on new music in the near future.
SUNSHINE bridges the gap between hard-rock's past and present by merging guitar crunch and tight songcraft with urgent, blunt lyrics about romantic desire and conflict. Itwas lauded as "a fun, refreshingly simple record-the kind that will have critics talking about a return to a bygone era of rock 'n' roll" by Phoenix New Times who featured the band on their May cover issue.
Stream/download SUNSHINE online at http://hyperurl.co/TBM_Sunshine and/or get it on CD or Vinyl (available in standard black or limited-edition, hand-numbered and signed blue variant) at https://the-black-moods-shop.myshopify.com/.
(Lineup [l-r] Chico Diaz (drums),Josh Kennedy (vocals, guitars), Jordan Hoffman (bass); Photo Credit: Jim Louvau)
For more information on THE BLACK MOODS, please visit:
FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | WEBSITE
YOUTUBE | SPOTIFY
SRO PR Assets + Releases: http://sropr.com/portfolio/the-black-moods/
For press inquiries, please contact:
Kelly Walsh – [email protected]


text:
Eurozone debt crisis 2.0: French election and Greece 'toxic cocktail' sparks market fears
THE eurozone faces a toxic cocktail of risks that could create a second debt crisis and send the bloc into a meltdown worse than 2012, fear investors.
By Lana Clements
PUBLISHED: 05:51, Tue, Feb 14, 2017 | UPDATED: 08:41, Tue, Feb 14, 2017
Panic over upcoming French elections and the Greek debt crisis can be seen in debt markets, with borrowing costs for the two countries spiking over the past week.
There are further concerns about German and Dutch elections, as well as Italy's ongoing bank problems.
The rising popularity of anti-Brussels candidate Marine Le Pen in France is particularly pertinent, as investors fear populists in the country could follow in the path of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to score a win.
At the same time, Greece's debt crisis is spiralling out of control with Athens, the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bickering over how to solve the issue.
The struggling country has a looming repayment scheduled for June, which it's feared won't be paid unless an agreement has been found.
The eurozone faces rising political risks
Brexit and Trump WILL hurt eurozone economy, admits Brussels
Trump trade: Dow Jones and FTSE 250 boosted by President's tax plans
Amid the deluge of risks, president of the European Central Bank (ECB) Mario Draghi last week signalled he would extend the bloc's huge money-printing programme if worries become much greater.
The central bank is already pumping billions into the economy every month, and has pledged to continue the support until December.
Experts said market panic could deepen in the coming weeks to hit the euro and European stock markets.
Kathleen Brooks, research director at City Index Direct, said: "Political fears, mixed with concerns about Greece's ability to pay back large debts in July, are starting to bite, and there could be further declines for European stocks, and some bond markets in the coming weeks and months."
Germany orders Greece to LEAVE euro if it wants debts cut
Germany warns UK will NOT be financial gateway to Europe after Brexit
Things you didn't know about Marine Le Pen
Fri, May 5, 2017
Marine Le Pen is a French politician who is the president of the National Front, a national-conservative political party in France and one of its main political forces.
AFP/Getty Images
Described as more democratic and republican than her nationalist father, she has led a movement of "de-demonization of the Front National" to detoxify it and soften its image
Fiona Cincotta market analyst at City Index added: "Investors continue to watch for developments surrounding the political situation in the Europe and more specifically in France.
"Whilst speculation swirls as to whether Le Pen will be able to whip up sufficient support to take Presidency, investors are starting to position themselves accordingly.
"Up to now French treasury yields had been bearing the brunt of the Frexit risk, however as we move closer towards the elections we expect this political risk to show itself in the single market currency and consequently the euro to come under considerable pressure."
Marine Le Pen Eurozone
Bitcoin price news: 'Sentiment remains bullish' for 'king of crypto' BTC and ETH bull run
Bitcoin values poised to 'drop' as Joe Biden presidency to create 'volatile market'
Bitcoin 'made Wall Street panic' as cryptocurrency boom expected to strike $500,000
Bitcoin 'will surge to value of $1million' as expert predicts 'enormous money'
Bank helps co-ops network thrive with £400,000 of new support
Bitcoin 'will reach £73,000 value by end of 2021' in startling claim


text:
Holocaust Survivor Edward Mosberg
Ninety-three year old Edward Mosberg, holocaust survivor of the World War II German labor camp at Mannhausen, testifies of his experiences.
Built above a granite quarry outside the city of Mannhausen, the SS labor camp where Mr. Mosberg was held had been initially constructed with funds provided in part by the German Red Cross.
Mr. Mosberg testifies of being forced to move huge amounts of rock up and down a long flight of stone stairs, which was a signature landmark of the quarry. When asked his opinion of a man who claimed the death camp didn't exist, Mr. Mosberg said he'd gladly take the other man's hand in his and jump off the quarry's cliff with him.
Edward Mosberg is living proof of the German government's policy of mass murder of the Jewish people for no reason other than their ethnicity. The seven-minute video is well worth watching.
Written by Richard Paracka
Johan van Hulst – A Man who Saved 600 Jewish Children During WW2
In 1943, children started to disappear from a nursery – But the guilty man never regretted his actions.
New Study Reveals 42,500 Nazi Sites Operated Across Europe
A comprehensive new study has revealed that the Nazis operated no fewer than 42,500 sites across Europe as part of their killing machine, leaving Holocaust historians shocked yet again by the scale…
The Lack of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust
Many factors made Jewish resistance to the Nazis during the Holocaust both difficult and dangerous.
The Forgotten People - Ted Pearce
Ted Pearce wrote this song as the theme song for the March of Remembrance.
Rudolf Hoess, former Auschwitz Commandant, Testifying at Nuremberg Trial, April 15, 1946)
Rudolf Hoess, former Auschwitz Commandant, Testifying at Nuremberg Trial, April 15, 1946
We need to be reminded....... As General Eisenhower said at the time, "we want plenty of photos so no one can ever say this did not happen".
U.S. & Israeli Military Bands Surprise Holocaust Survivor
75 years ago today, the US Armed Forces liberated the Nazi concentration camp Dachau. Today is also Israel's 72nd Independence Day.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Holocaust survivor recalls horrors of Nazi camp ordeal
Rescued by and Egyptian in Berlin
Dr. Mohamed Helmy was born in Khartoum in 1901 to Egyptian parents. In 1922 Helmy went to Germany to study medicine and settled in Berlin. After he completed his studies, he went to work at the…
The Final Solution
The "Final Solution" of the Jewish Question refers to the German Nazis' plan to address the "Jewish problem" through systematic relocation and later extermination of Jews during World War II. The…
I Lived Through Kristallnacht
Eve Kugler's family lost everything in the 1938 Nazi pogrom of Kristallnacht.
Holocaust - We Remember
As holocaust survivors are dying, it is important that we never forget.
How I Escaped the Holocaust
From prisoner to soldier.
Holocaust Survivors Tell the Stories of Their Childhood
Israeli Triage Invention Wins Counter-Terror Contest 2
Medical device created by start-up company Cardioscale…
As a Little Child
I was not raised in a highly observant home. When I began…
Ingredients- 2 cups fresh basil- 1 cup fresh Italian…
International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Holocaust survivor…
Archeologists Claim to Find King David's City
Archeologists Claim to Find King David's City: Chirbet…
Tsitsit
The custom of putting Tsitsit, fringes or tassels, on the…
Ancient Ritual Bath Discovered in Family Home in Jerusalem
Harp Concert
Harp Concert by Steve Rees.
Make the World Better While You Can
Cleaning is something we all do (hopefully), and while I…
You can't miss identifying the largest of all geese, the…
"He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him."


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text:
DesJarlais searches for speaker candidate to support
Mary Troyan
Tennessean Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON – A Middle Tennessee congressman who is a member of the rebellious House Freedom Caucus said Tuesday that none of the candidates for House speaker has secured his vote.
Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., said the House GOP's chaotic search for a leader simply reflects the anti-establishment mood of the country. The drama began when House Speaker John Boehner said he would leave Congress at the end of the month. It deepened when House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, next in line for the speaker's post, dropped his bid for the job last week.
"It's an indicator that the leadership that I came in under five years ago is no longer viewed in a favorable light," DesJarlais said Tuesday.
The Freedom Caucus, composed of about 40 hard-line conservatives, had been considering an attempt to oust Boehner, then opposed McCarthy's bid to replace him and instead endorsed Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida.
DesJarlais said he was not among those backing Webster and instead had planned to vote for Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan for speaker. However, Jordan isn't running for the post. In January DesJarlais was one of two Republicans who cast a protest vote for Jordan instead of Boehner for speaker.
Congressman wants Marsha Blackburn to run for speaker
For DesJarlais the speakership is as much about process as it is about conservative policies.
"I would like to see us have somebody who is willing to understand that there are 435 representatives across the country with diverse and different districts, and they all should have a voice and a seat at the table," DesJarlais said. "We have this situation now that if you buck leadership or don't go along or you're not a good fundraiser, you don't always get your legislation to the floor or get seats on committees that you are very qualified for."
DesJarlais said that if Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee, doesn't run for speaker, at least 12 other House Republicans likely will enter the race. Only Webster and Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah have announced they are candidates.
"Smaller government, tax reform, immigration reform and repealing the (Affordable Care Act) — that's how we got elected, and I'm looking for somebody who will push that agenda forward," DesJarlais said. "I would like to see a speaker who stays on offense and plays to win."
DesJarlais said the House Freedom Caucus would be "willing to give Ryan a hard look." He also said he'll take another look at Webster.
"The more I study his principles and the way he describes pushing down the pyramid of power … that has appeal to me," he said.
He said GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Brentwood, may be among the dozen or so lawmakers "who would have to get out and make (their) case" to win election as speaker. Republican Rep. Steven Palazzo of Mississippi is urging Blackburn to run for the post.
DesJarlais offers no apologies to those who say Freedom Caucus members hinder GOP leaders' efforts to deal with President Obama by making unrealistic demands and refusing to compromise.
"We all want to live up to the promises we made on the campaign trail, and for those of us who are doing it, maybe it's easier to villainize us than for others to buck leadership and do the same thing," he said.
The election for speaker, postponed after McCarthy dropped out last week, has not been rescheduled. House Republicans will vote privately first before the full House votes on the floor.
DesJarlais has already picked up a primary challenger in the 2016 election, Grant Sterrett of Murfreesboro.
Contact Mary Troyan at mtroyan@usatoday.com


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Modern main memory is primarily built using dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips. As DRAM chip scales to higher density, there are mainly three problems that impede DRAM scalability and performance improvement. First, DRAM refresh overhead grows from negligible to severe, which limits DRAM scalability and causes performance degradation. Second, although memory capacity has increased dramatically in past decade, memory bandwidth has not kept pace with CPU performance scaling, which has led to the memory wall problem. Third, DRAM dissipates considerable power and has been reported to account for as much as 40% of the total system energy and this problem exacerbates as DRAM scales up.
To address these problems, 1) we propose Rank-level Piggyback Caching (RPC) to alleviate DRAM refresh overhead by servicing memory requests and refresh operations in parallel; 2) we propose a high performance and bandwidth efficient approach, called SELF, to breaking the memory bandwidth wall by exploiting die-stacked DRAM as a part of memory; 3) we propose a cost-effective and energy-efficient architecture for hybrid memory systems composed of high bandwidth memory (HBM) and phase change memory (PCM), called Dual Role HBM (DR-HBM). In DR-HBM, hot pages are tracked at a cost-effective way and migrated to the HBM to improve performance, while cold pages are stored at the PCM to save energy.


Airport safety officials have launched investigations into circumstances leading to the collision of two aircraft at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on Saturday.
The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) Director-General Gilbert Kibe says the two Embraer planes belonging to national carrier Kenya Airways collided while undergoing maintenance.
"We will find out what went wrong and we will mitigate to ensure it does not happen again," Captain Kibe says adding that no injuries have been reported.
Kibe says the incident could lead to disruption of services at JKIA, including cancellation of some flights.
"Some flights will likely be canceled. Every aeroplane has something that it's doing every day. If two are not available, that will really mess up the schedule," he says.
"We hope that the flights will come back to normal as soon as possible."
Take this news to the Chinese.
The direct flights to Newyork was pushed by the Chinese .
That's why Uhuru Kenyatta gets summoned to China.A sell-out.
We want secession and the sellouts can continue being used by the Chinese to attack Americans specifically Barack Obama.
what a let down after launching direct flights to +1. Testing full engine throttle Kama kukanyaya mafuta maximum acceleration ..sema kukosa breaks?? This Brings KQ back to safety issues both Human and other fleets..those 2 planes are write off just get new ones..an expensive point of correction there.
Why are you feeling let down?
Are you the Chinese government???
Kenya Airways belongs to China. Stop getting attached to Chinese property.
Uhuru Kenyatta sold Kenya airways a long time ago.
That's how they do their business. Cheap and inefficient.
This is so pathetic and disturbing;if our engineers CAN NOT prevent such an incidence on the ground, how can they be trusted in the sky?.What we are witnessing here is the effect of corruption. Most of these engineers bought their diplomas and this will kill KQ. That's why the Chinese are hesitating to hand over the SGR trains to the locals.
KQ belongs to the Chinese government.
I hope they sabotage that whole airline.
The Chinese MUST Suffer severe losses in Africa.
We will teach them how NOT to invest.
This Diana fellow needs to have his/her mind detoxified. It's full of poison na anaweza kutuambukiza.
@njai Uhuru Kenyatta works for the Chinese government.He is a Complete sell-out.
Kenyans we are on our own.Which is wonderful.
It's better to be on our own than to be controlled by the Government of China.
They should go take their scrap metal at KQ and stop disturbing us.
Are these engineers, "engine nears" or "engine hears" Professional development, training and certifications are important aspects of any profession. This qualifies for engineering gone wrong episode.
Lol results of certificates from aviation college. On the real how can we trust them in the sky. Once the Pride of Africa now Ethiopian Airlines taking over.
This is what happens when ATC is sleeping at work.


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Psychotherapeutic Values of Igbo Healing Practices: The 'Umunna Psychotherapy'
Posted by DataNexus
It had been observed by some researchers that psychotherapy should include effective emotional
healing activities of African traditional healers, religious faith healers, and African originated
forms of psychotherapy. This has not been achieved. To this effect, this study investigated how the
Igbo healing practices can be harnessed into psychotherapy interventions and techniques. The
main argument here is that Igbo traditional healing practices both the cultural and religious,
have definable psychotherapeutic values; hence, the need to provide some theoretical and
practical bases for recognition and adaptation of these practices into general and specific forms
of psychotherapy.
The research adopted a qualitative approach based on key informant interview (KII) of
four purposively selected native doctors, four spiritual kings and four clergy men: two Catholic
priests and two Protestant pastors from a purposively selected local government area in Anambra
State, Idemili North, in the Southeast Nigeria. Intensive structured interview method, where seven
specific questions were used to elicit information as concerned both the spiritual and traditional
'psychotherapeutic practices of the Igbo people' was adopted. The information gathered were
thematically analyzed based on the information of the participants, principles of Gestalt
psychology and macro ethical categorizations, and the general Igbo philosophy and world-view,
especially as express in idioms, names and proverbs; and in comparison to euro-western views of
psychotherapy.
The results revealed that 'psychotherapy' had been in existence in Igbo cultural traditions
for a very long time; having diagnosis (includes listening, questioning, examinations,
consultations, divination) and interventions (involves sacrifices and ikpu alu, among others) as its
major procedural parts. It also revealed the Igbo Concept and Sources of Psychopathology, and
Some Qualities that are Common to Most Igbo 'Psychotherapists'. It also revealed that the most
popular technique in use is the 'Umunna'-centered technique. Cultural aptness, acceptability,
affordability, availability, effectiveness, low cost, inclusivity, wholesome restoration, zero percent
chance of relapse and adoptability were found as some major advantages of Umunna
'psychotherapy'. It was also observed to provide high levels of psychological, spiritual and social
supports for the clients, and these in turn, lead to high restoration of eudemonia within a
calculated period, both of the client and his/her umunna. Though simple and unique, it covers a
wide range of psychotherapeuticism. However, the issue of confidentiality is of no interest to the
Umunna psychotherapy.
Based on the values found, the study recommends Umunna 'psychotherapy' to all
psychotherapists, both as a type and a technique, and both within and outside the Igbo cultural
regions.
Innocent U.O. Ejiofo,
Department of Psychology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Email: udobuchinno@yahoo.com
Category: IJPA Journal (Volume 1) Tags: Dibia, Ogwugwo, Psychotherapy, Umunna
Psychotherapy, Insurgency And Insecurity In The North-Eastern Region Of Nigeria
The Boko Haram insurgency has lately introduced a terrorist dimension into the crime space in Nigeria. The trademarks of the Boko Haram are wanton destruction of lives and property with reckless abandon, through bombings, abduction and slaughtering of human beings like rams, especially in Northern Nigeria. This has created palpable fear and sense of insecurity in the polity. It is a fact that the development of any country in the world is dependent on many factors, which may fast-track or retards its growth, among which security is central. Security of lives and property plays a major role in the development of any country, as investors in any economy want to be assured of the safety of their investments. The Boko Haram attacks have led to the direct exposure of children to unimaginable violence; horrors, bombing, killings, hardship, kidnapping, diseases, and family displacement. The general objective of this study is to examine the psychotherapy, insurgency and insecurity in Nigeria. This study employs qualitative research method in which analytic approach was used to address the research questions raised. The phenomenon of insurgency in Nigeria which subsequently led to the mass population displacement in the country is no doubt unconnected to the fragile nature of state and state institutions. Theoretically, it is proven in this paper that fragile nature of Nigerian state which failed to carry out its constitutional responsibilities of providing security and welfare to citizens was largely responsible for insurgency. Special rehabilitation and trauma centres should be established, especially for women and children who have had horrible experiences during the insurgency period. Traumaexposed individuals should be given special psychological debriefing treatment to prevent and contain possible post-traumatic stress and disorder (PSTD).Porous border controls should be intensified with intelligence gathering technologies in order to halt weapons and track illegal border movements and obscured border to halt weapons and track illegal border movements and obscured border crossings through collaborative efforts of regional border security personnel.
Category: IJPA Journal (Volume 4) Tags: Insurgency and Insecurity, Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy in a Hospital
This paper examines the nature of Psychotherapy, determining its role in the hospital
settings, and presents the case of the role of counseling intervention among discordant
couples in NAUTH prep demonstration project. Four couples, who tested positive to HIV
due to pre-wedding investigation (three females, one male,) and two others, a male and a
female who tested positive following community HIV awareness, were followed for three
months: March – June 2016. The objective was to access the behavioural changes of these
clients in the process of enrolment to Prep. These clients were interviewed on four issues:
their concerns about positive status, feeling of guilt and stigma, suicidal thoughts and what
helped them to resolve their worries. One of the males was concerned about his health, three
of the females were concerned about their marriages, and one male had no worry. All of
them expressed feeling bad because of the stigmatization associated with the virus. Three of
them had suicidal thoughts, but were reassured of hope after counseling. All said counseling
helped them resolve their worries. Counseling /psychotherapy have been identified as sine
qua non for patients on HAART to achieve effective viral suppression and act as immune
boaster for patients on Positive Living.
Author: Okpaleke Uche Victoria
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam Campus,
ucheokpaleke1@yahoo.com 08136006928
Category: IJPA Journal (Volume 1) Tags: Hospitals, Nigeria, Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy In Nigeria
There is no exact word for psychotherapy in many Nigerian languages, numbering over 250.
But equivalent words exist for expression such as counselling and cognitive behaviour
therapy. The practice of these arts predated the advent of the Europeans. When modern
psychology arrived in our shores, we naturally adopted the Euro-American models of
psychotherapy. All that makes psychotherapy necessary can be found in our country: trauma
due to child abuse, and neglect, abuse of human dignity, tribal wars, political conflict,
poverty, migration and stress-provoking lifestyles, among others. The Aro village system
developed by Lambo is an attestation to the usefulness of some of our native approaches and
to the efficacy of social support that is inherent in the African traditional system. The
introduction of a bilingual group psychotherapy at Aro in the early 1990 was a natural
follow-up to this development. Group therapy is the most popular form of psychotherapy as it
is practised in most teaching hospitals and psychiatric establishments. Meseron therapy and
harmony restoration therapy are the two foremost indigenous approaches to psychotherapy
in Nigeria. Meseron therapy is cognitive-behavioural in orientation while harmony
restoration therapy is existential-phenomenological. Other therapies commonly taught and
practised include: Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy; Cognitive Behaviour Therapy;
Behaviour Therapy; The Psychodynamic Therapies, etc. Modern psychotherapy services are
available in private clinics/consultations, schools, hospitals and medical centres. The
services are offered by a wide variety of professionals ranging from clinical psychologists
and psychiatrist, to social workers, nurses and pastors. At present, focused training in
psychotherapy is inadequate, in spite of the efforts by the universities and the Nigerian
Association of Clinical Psychologists. This is an important lacuna that the School of
Psychotherapy and Health Sciences, Okija, has come to fill.
Alfred Awaritefe
Department of Mental Health, School of Medicine,
College of Medical Sciences,
University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria.
Email: alfawa2000@gmail.com
Category: IJPA Journal (Volume 2) Tags: Harmony Restoration, Meseron, Nigeria, Psychotherapy, Training
Importance of Psychotherapy Towards Promotion of Mental Wellness in Africa
The issue of mental health affects everyone, particularly wellness of life such as emotional stability and stress free among others. Contextually, most African countries are beleaguered by poverty, wars, terrorism, insecurity and superstition leading to emotional distress, trauma, malnutrition, substance abuse, and other psychological problems. Therefore, provision of psychotherapy and its importance cannot be overemphasized, as it is essential for promoting mental wellness in the face of accumulated tension, which if not taken care of would lead to many illnesses. Example at hand is the aftermath of the just concluded political election in Nigeria, which have left many vulnerable that include loss of loved ones amidst myriad of other psychological problems. Accordingly, this paper wishes to survey the numerous contributions psychotherapy would make towards the development of mental wellness in African, using Nigeria as a case study, particularly in the form of providing advocacy for relaxation and stress management. Hence, data collected from 10 counsellors-in-training would be used as evidence-base narratives to support integration of psycho-therapeutic intervention to daily experiences of life aimed at achieving greater wellness of life.
Category: IJPA Journal (Volume 4) Tags: Africa., Emotional stability, Mental health, Psychotherapy, Wellness of life
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Two best friends, Elle Rose and Carter, are bossing in every area of their life but failing miserably when it comes to love. When they learn that a special woman in their life is ill, they agree to pretend to be in love to give her her dying wish, but actually falling was never a part of the plan.
Director: Jessica B. Smith
Actors: Bryanna Anné, Cherrie McRae, James Arthur Sims, Jean-Marc Mavinga, Jessica B. Smith, John Anderson, Kit Banks, Lakeysha Blackwell, Marki Henderson, Morgan Lipscomb, Shaun McMillan
Keywords:Elle Rose
Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension
Perry's worst fear comes true when Phineas and Ferb finds out that he is in fact Secret Agent P, but that soon pales in comparison during a trip to the…
Genre: Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Musical, Sci-Fi, TV Movie
A celebrity journalist, juggling her busy career and personal life, has her life over-turned by a freak car accident.
Hide and Creep
Residents of a small Southern town contend with bloodthirsty zombies, a mysterious flying saucer, and bad television reception.
Trinity Is STILL My Name!
A couple of two-bit thieving brothers try and keep a promise to their dying father: stick together and become successful outlaws. Bambino reluctantly agrees to show younger Trinity the ropes,…
Genre: Comedy, Western
The Kid Brother
The most important family in Hickoryville is (not surprisingly) the Hickorys, with sheriff Jim and his tough manly sons Leo and Olin. The timid youngest son, Harold, doesn't have the…
BROS. Last Call
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Sons of Provo
Will, Kirby, and Danny are the hottest new sensation in Mormon pop music! Will is an aerobics instructor, Danny is a student of eastern philosophy, and Kirby is a scrapbooking…
Don't Give Up the Ship
The Navy expects a veteran (Jerry Lewis) to pay for the ship he commanded, as they have no record of its return.
Dory is reunited with her friends Nemo and Marlin in the search for answers about her past. What can she remember? Who are her parents? And where did she learn…
Genre: Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family
SuperBob
Six years ago, Robert Kenner, a mild mannered postman from Peckham, South London was struck by a meteor which bestowed him with super powers. Today, Bob is an overworked under-appreciated…
Achmed Saves America
From the inventive mind of Jeff Dunham comes the first animated movie starring the world's most beloved, failed bad guy. Get ready to see Achmed the Dead Terrorist like you've…
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A Christmas Snow
For Kathleen, Christmas has always been an unwelcome reminder of her father's abandonment almost 30 years ago. Although she has tried to forget her past, it has not forgotten her….
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, TV Movie
Mr. Right
A girl falls for the "perfect" guy, who happens to have a very fatal flaw: he's a hitman on the run from the crime cartels who employ him.
The thrilling second chapter of the epic How To Train Your Dragon trilogy brings back the fantastical world of Hiccup and Toothless five years later. While Astrid, Snotlout and the…
Genre: Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Appetite for Love
Mina has everything going for her, but her world is turned upside down when work sends her to her hometown in Tennessee where she must convince an old, stubborn restaurant…
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance, TV Movie
Almost Adults
Follows two best friends in their final year of college while they transition into adulthood. One embraces her sexuality and tries to catch up on everything she has missed during…
Teen Beach Movie
Cowabunga! Catch a perfect wave of fun in the sun, splashed with excitement, surprises and budding romance. Life's a beach for surfers Brady (Ross Lynch) and McKenzie (Maia Mitchell) –…
Genre: Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Musical, TV Movie
The love story of a young man and the singing, suicidal femme fatale who leads him on a topsy-turvy search for his long lost-evil brother. As he gets closer to…
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Musical, Romance


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Q: glTexCoordPointer not working I'm trying to render a cube with textures using glTexCoordPointer, but the textures don't show up, but everything else is working fine (vertices and normals).
The fragment of code that enables textures is this:
    glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, material.texture()->id());
    glEnableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY);
    glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, mesh.texcoords().data());

    glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, mesh.vertices().size());

I'm I missing something? Does this require shaders support?
Regards.
EDIT:
I managed to get textures working by calling glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D) and glClientActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0), but now I have another problem. The texture is blinking/flashing randomly when i move the camera around.

A: I solved the problem, actually i was loading the texture more than one time by distraction...


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North Island's West Coast Travel Guide
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Places To Explore In North Island's West Coast
Discover the best places to explore near North Island's West Coast with curated recommendations from our team of travel experts.
For many travelers, Cambridge provides a good lunch break on their way elsewhere. But this cute town, with its historic buildings and rural...
Egmont National Park
Rising 8,261 feet above sea level, Mt. Taranaki dominates the landscape of this national park. It's difficult not to be drawn toward it. The...
This quiet country town, a hub for the farming community, provides a close look at the local history and way of life. Brush up on its backstory...
New Plymouth serves one of New Zealand's most productive dairy regions as well as the gas and oil industries. This natural wealth translates...
Nga Motu–Sugar Loaf Islands
About 17,000 seabirds nest in the Nga Motu–Sugar Loaf Islands Marine Protected Area, located just off shore from the Taranaki Port, near New...
1 Thing To Do
Palmerston North—or "Palmy" as the locals call it—is home to several major educational and research institutes. Thanks to these, students make...
It's hard to think of a more laid-back, welcoming spot than Raglan. On the drive out, tune in to radio station Raglan FM 98.1 to catch the...
Sitting under the eastern side of Mt. Taranaki, Stratford is a service town for surrounding farms. Its streets are named after characters from...
The Whanganui River and Whanganui National Park
The Whanganui, the longest continually navigable river in New Zealand, flows through one of the country's largest remaining areas of native...
Waitomo is a busy little village located a short drive from the main highway. Above ground, the surrounding hills are a mix of native bush and...
A major gateway to Whanganui National Park, Wanganui is worthy in its own right. Its compact center has lively streets with shops and galleries...
Explore North Island's West Coast
World's 10 Most Awe-Inspiring Caves
MUST-VISIT DESTINATIONS
FODOR'S GO LIST 2016
The top 25 places we think should be on every traveler's radar this year.


Freaky Friday Potpourri: Light the Fuse or Sell the News?
Earnings season will define the path to profitability.
I spoke at a philanthropic symposium Wednesday night for Canadian investors and thoroughly enjoyed the experience; I was somewhat surprised.
Why? After a strenuous stretch of juggles and struggles, the last thing I wanted to do was chew through my view of the markets. Given how much I love to debate the state of the tape, that pretty much tells you all you need to know about the gas in my tank.
When I arrived, I was told that the group spent the day with some of the biggest and brightest names in the hedge fund universe. I asked how I came to be part of such a stellar cast and was told they wanted to pick my brain. "Really?" I asked only half-joking, "They'll need a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass!"
What followed was a spirited discussion about where we are, how we got here, and an exploration of the probability spectrum that awaits. We spoke about the role of the government, conventional wisdom, the technical construct, upcoming earnings and what we've learned (versus what we've done) in our derivative-laced, finance based global economy.
It was a robust dialog and, in a way, extremely cathartic.
When we broke for the evening, I anticipated granular discussions about what to do and when to do it. Interestingly, as I spoke to a few folks, I found the common thread had little to do with the markets and everything to do with how we, the people, can personally effect positive change in such a frictionous environment.
We all want to make bread while we bake bread and pave a profitable path; that's human nature and necessity, at least for the majority of us.
After almost 20 years of trading and ten years in media, however, I've picked up a subtle shift in the mainstream mindset. While many still look for the bigger better thing, there's a growing contingent of those determined to make a difference.
There was legitimate concern for world peace, worries about how decisions today will effect children of tomorrow and genuine interest in giving back rather than getting back. We often talk about how socioeconomic change will arrive in waves and this was one wave that was most welcomed to see.
When we talk about positive change through financial understanding, it's not about calling the tape or catching a cusp, although those are always nice. It's about improving the process, however gradually, and taking responsibilities for our actions, both individually and as the collective.
It's not only our right to make a difference; it's our responsibility. As Minyans, most of you likely already know this.
A respite for Hoofy may be the most prosperous path as earnings approach. If he exhausts his energy running into next week, the likelihood that investors sell the news with furious vengeance increases in kind.
I can't help wonder if AIG (AIG) has emerged as a psychology proxy. It sure seems to be leading the tape in both directions of late.
Whatever happened to those billion dollar hedge funds that halted redemptions way back when? Could that be an unforeseen element of past or future price action? My gut says yes but it rarely pays to play invisible catalysts.
As research expenses can no longer be justified by investment banking revenue, an emerging trend of "outsourced information" should soon become industry standard. In time, a customer will have the ability to "opt-in" to a pool of commoditized research much the way they can currently craft a risk profile. This will ultimately benefit the investing public but has far-reaching implications for the financial complex.
Why do I bring that up? Because it's finally arrived in spades.
I know a few folks who are bearish but not many that are short.
S&P 1040-1070 remains the in-vogue range for technicians in our midst, although my back of the envelope calculations would extend support down to S&P 1025ish.
My grandfather Ruby taught me to think positive and never run scared. He was referencing life, not the markets, but the same lessons apply. That's sorta where "trade to win, never trade not to lose" came from, if we're giving credit where credits due.
We're always early in the 'Ville; we were pretty grizzly on the greenback from 2002 through the end of 2007 (DXY –40%) before championing "the return of the greenback" as one of our ten themes for 2008 (DXY +7%). I offer that as a context for my variant view -- one shared by Mr. Practical -- that we could see some strength before further debasing.
I got plugged on four Raiders tickets for Sunday's game against the Giants. The forecast is 62 and sunny, with gusts of silver, black and blue.
If the bovine relay race is the transference of risk from the government to corporate America to the consumer, we're in the midst of the first baton pass. That's what the credit markets are telling us and it's a valuable lens regardless of your directional bias.
Minyan Raoul from Mexico pinged to offer kind vibes on the completion of Memoirs and in front of Festivus (he's a mainstay at MV Events). He said, "I know you're running 300% (it shows)..." and he would be right. I won't complain (it beats the alternative) but will say that I look forward to some down time when it comes to pass.
It won't be next week, as we're taking the show on the road and hitting six cities in as many days (I'm lucky I work with my best pal; it makes the layovers a bit more bearable!). The Critter Express will complete this leg of our journey at Syracuse University on Friday for our version of a Town Hall Chat. Upstate Minyans are of course most welcome to attend.
Have you sniffed Paul Krugman, who recently offered an interesting take on World Trade through a historical lens?
Isn't that the same interview where he shares a variant view on protectionism, saying it was an effect -- not a cause -- of The Great Depression?
When's the last time you heard "whisper numbers?" into earnings?
Where are we in denial-migration-panic?
Is it possible that Paul McCartney is underrated?
Tough times? What tough times?
California, a prophet on the burning shore?
Do old school Minyans remember how we discussed the "disconnect" in psychology between 2001, 2002 and 2003?
Where 10% returns got funds a gold star on the front-end of that curve and fired on the back end?
Can it be that I'm hearing the same sorta stories?
Fund managers that were up double-digit returns over the last few years are being scolded for not taking enough risk?
I will again ask, where are we on that denial-migration-panic continuum?
Am I the only one who feels like there's a massive compression upon us?
Not necessarily through the lens of the market, but on society as a whole?
How awesome would an old school Yankee-Dodger World Series be?


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