Through the power of the Holy Spirit and in the authority of the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we are asking You O God to bless the entity of marriage, married couples, and prospective marriages.
1. Restore. Bring back the trust, love, communication, unity, and whatever else that was lost.
2. Rekindle. Bring back the passion, love, and chemistry that was once there at just the sight of him.
3. Return. Bring back the commitment that was once so deeply rooted in our hearts that no matter what happens we will never leave each other; we are totally committed to God, thus we are totally committed to each other.
4. Renew. Bring back the freshness to our relationships and make them like new again. Bring back new desires for and new attraction to our one and only spouse.
5. Remove. Take away all bitterness, lack, miscommunication, silence, stubbornness, hurt, unforgiveness, fear, and anything else that isn't like You, Lord.
#FastingDay10 Fasting is extremely personal and intimate. You get to a place in God at which you can hear Him speak to you. You can't separate Him from anything you do. You take Him to the spa, to the movies, and to Bible study. He's in you and with you simultaneously.
God guides you through your fast. He isn't rigid, critical, and condemning. The Holy Spirit leads you through it. Eat this. Don't eat that. Drink now.
Pray now. Study now. Call her and give her a Word. Inbox her this scripture. Inbox him this meditation. The bond is inexplicable. The sacrifice, undeniably beneficial.
Some of you are 10 days in. Don't give in to yout fleshly cravings now. The results will be incredible. The journey itself is already indescribably amazing. Dr.J.
It's Fasting Season (Post 9): Save Me From the Great Multitude Against Me by Dr.J.
2 Chronicles 20:1-3 (KJV) 1 It came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. 2 Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria; and, behold, they be in Hazazontamar, which is Engedi. 3 And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
You proclaim a fast but not just you alone. You solicit your entire family to fast with you because you need a supernatural breakthrough to survive these attacks. You, your spouse, your children, and other God-fearing believers in your family join in on this fast with you. You, like Jehoshaphat have assembled the entire family together in prayer and petition. And then, God answers.
He may give you inner peace as your breakthrough. He may bless you financially as your breakthrough. He may promote you as your breakthrough. He may literally defeat the "great multitude against thee." He may do all those things and more. We don't know how God in His sovereignty will respond to our fasts. We do know that God is a God of breakthrough. We do know that His Word will not return void. We do know that we don't have to move. All we have to do is be still and God will fight for us.
Keep fasting. Keep being obedient. Keep the faith. Take God at His Word. Dr.J.
Get In Line For Your Bloodline by Dr.J.
You have to get in line for your entire bloodline to change. You keep waiting on change to take place in your family, but you ARE the change. You've felt this longing and strong desire for something better and something more. God placed that desire in you to get in line.
You must get in line in order to go to the next spiritual level, which brings greater spiritual blessings. The way the end times are set up, if YOU don't get in line, your entire bloodline's eternal lives are at stake. It doesn't matter if you are the youngest, you are the chosen one.
You are the one God chose to prepare your family for the spiritual battles ahead. Do they read the Word daily? Do you? Do they study God's Word? Do you? Are they living a life worthy of the calling of Christ Jesus? Are you? Are they saying, "God knows my heart" and continuing to live in sin? Are you? Are they straddling the fence between the world and the kingdom of God? Are you? Are they suffering from demonic oppression and generational curses that need to be renounced? Are you? It's time to let God and the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ get these things in line now. Some of us mothers are focusing so much on a man and our children aren't in line for salvation. Some fathers are narcissistic and concerned with being bachelor or player of the year and your children don't know Christ (they know OF Christ). It's time to get in line now.
You are the one God chose to make sure your entire family is saved. But it won't be enough for them to just confess it with their mouths. They have to live out their belief in every area of their lives.
When the enemy tries you and your family with the most severe, scary, and deadly attacks, will your bloodline fold and give in to Satan or go to their death for Christ? Will you fold or die for Christ? This is where we are now. This is how serious it is. Are YOU in line so your entire bloodline can be in line? God chose YOU. The time is now. Dr.J.
Revelation 2:10 KJV 10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.


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Mr. Daniel Morris Matthews
Mr. Daniel Morris (Danny) Matthews, 73, of Jones Chapel Rd. In Danburg, passed away Saturday morning, July 20, 2019. Mr. Matthews was a native of Wilkes County, and had lived in this community for about the last 35 years. He was the son of the late Robert Hugh Matthews and Dorothy Perkins Matthews. He was a retired truck driver, was a U.S. Army Veteran, and was a member of the Danburg Baptist Church. He is survived by his two daughters, Marty Matthews, of Tyrone, GA, and Meagan M. Kerr, of Dover, Delaware; and by six grandchildren. Funeral service will be 3:00pm Monday, July 22, 2019 , at the Danburg Baptist Church with Rev. Ficklen Guin officiating. Burial will follow in the Church Cemetery. Visitation will be at the church for one hour prior to the service (2:00pm-3:00pm). Pallbearers will be Henry Holsonback, Jimmy McNair, Wesley Land, David Armour, Chris Gilmer, and Jeff Myer. Memorial contributions may be made to the branch of the U.S. Armed Forces that you prefer. Hopkins Funeral Home is honored to serve the family of Danny Matthews.
Mr. Daniel Morris (Danny) Matthews, 73, of Jones Chapel Rd. In Danburg, passed away Saturday morning, July 20, 2019. Mr. Matthews was a native of Wilkes County, and had lived in this community for about the last 35 years. He was the son of... View Obituary & Service Information
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Gurvinder Singh is an engineer by education, Industrialist by professional experience. I have travelled and conducted business both India and abroad (34 countries).
The Sikhs have always been a peace loving people. With the grace of the 10th Guru many amongst the Sikhs are the 'Khalsa' (pure ones) a class of warrior-saints who always stand up against injustice, tyranny, and oppression.
"You may agree or not, but you have to give their opinions a hearing"
Discipline, discipline, wherever you go people talk about it or more so the lack of discipline.
It is not an issue of morality, but of biology.
The more we talk about truth, the more distant it grows.


The painful memories still haunt Manjima Sarkar.
Three years ago, her beloved uncle, Ardhendu Raha, began to feel quite ill. Like so many seniors, he opted not to call 911, attributing his symptoms to old age.
As his condition worsened, he finally went to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with a serious stroke. Because he had waited so long to seek treatment, he suffered permanent memory loss and impaired speech.
And so she has. Sarkar, along with three other USC Viterbi undergraduates, recently founded the startup INTRAM, a mobile app to help patients having a stroke receive the best possible medical care in the shortest period of time.
As a measure of INTRAM's potential, the National Academy of Engineering recently selected the USC team as one of the United States' representatives to the 2017 International Student Day Business Model Competition, which will take place July 18 in Washington D.C. A total of 15 university teams – five from the U.S., five from the United Kingdom and five from China – will compete for more than $50,000 in funding.
"Representing the U.S. as one of five U.S. finalists is an honor for our team," said USC Viterbi Dean Yannis Yortsos, who serves on the steering committee of the Global Grand Challenges Summit. "It also demonstrates the strength and reach of our technology innovation program for our engineering undergraduates, a key component of our Grand Challenges Scholars Program.
At the international competition, teams of undergraduate engineering students will present startup business plans based on one of the association's 14 Grand Challenges. These include engineering better medicines, securing cyberspace, advancing personalized learning tools to deliver better education to more people, and making solar energy cheaper and more competitive with traditional energy sources such as coal.
The competition "is dedicated to promoting engineering with social entrepreneurship and innovations for our world," the NAE's Maggie Bartolomeo said.
To reach the international finals, INTRAM had to get through the American semifinals contest held in March in Washington D.C. There, the USC team competed against 11 teams from across the country. Five advanced to the next round.
When INTRAM team members learned they had made the finals, "Rhea (Choudhury) hugged me. I hugged Adam (Walker), and David (Sealand) was just in shock," Sarkar said.
They have a right to feel joyful.
INTRAM team members appear to have come up with an app with potentially widespread application. An estimated 795,000 Americans have strokes annually, with 130,000 dying, making it the third-leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the American Stroke Association. Strokes are also the leading cause of long-term disability.
The INTRAM app, its creators say, might save thousands of lives and prevent scores of disabilities annually.
Doctors would help at-risk patients – the elderly, diabetics, people with heart disease, among others – download the app, which contains lots of rich information about strokes and their symptoms. At the same time, patients would scan their insurance card into the app, which would then create a database of available hospitals and treatment centers under their current insurance plans.
In the event an at-risk patient experiences stroke symptoms – such as severe headaches or sudden weakness, numbness or trouble walking – they could immediately call into an INTRAM-run telestroke network. Depending on the severity, a physician would encourage the patient to call an ambulance or head to an in-network treatment facility. INTRAM'S search algorithm would direct the patient to the nearest medical office with the shortest wait times.
Time is of the essence with strokes.
The company hopes to market its services to health insurers, who stand to benefit financially from cheaper costs associated with post-stroke care.
INTRAM began working on the app in October. They received mentoring from Eun Ji Chung, a Gabilan Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Team members, through a $2,500 grant from the National Science Foundation, canvassed potential customers to learn their problems and how they might address them. The NSF awarded the money to USC through an Innovation Corps "I-Corps" Site grant.
Looking forward, team members believe INTRAM has a bright future.


If you run a blog, you've probably wondered like me when is the best time to publish a post. Recently I came across an infographic (see below) created by the team at Kissmetrics which I found very beneficial.
As you'll notice, the best time to publish a blog post is the morning. I guess I'm on the right track at it's 7:50 am EST =) right now.


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Hear Chris Stapleton's 'The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy' From 'Toy Story 4'
By Bobby Moore 1 month
If you're itching for a new Chris Stapleton song, look no further than the closing credits for Disney and Pixar's upcoming summer blockbuster Toy Story 4.
Fans won't have to wait until the film's June 20 release to hear Stapleton's Wild West take on "The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy," a new song penned by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member and Toy Story soundtrack regular Randy Newman ("You've Got a Friend in Me," "We Belong Together"). A lyric video and soundtrack teaser unveil the brief tale about friendship, told from the standpoint of beloved series co-star Sheriff Woody Pride, voiced by Tom Hanks. As a good Disney soundtrack cut should, it suits the moral of the Toy Story while standing on its own as a fun family sing-along.
Read More: See Chris Stapleton Join Pink For Tender Live Performance of 'Love Me Anyway'
As a promotional tool, the video gives fans brief glimpses of some new characters, including Keanu Reeves' Duke Kaboom, an Evel Knievel homage with an inferiority complex. Plus, it telegraphs a happy ending, as such an upbeat song wouldn't fit if Woody didn't solve the existential crisis teased in trailers.
For Stapleton, it connects an old soul with Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and other singing cowboys responsible for introducing country and Western storytelling to a mainstream audience. Considering the Toy Story series' sustained popularity over nearly 25 years, Stapleton's involvement should expose his music to even the sternest consumers of "everything but country and rap."
The song's timing barely precedes two perks of the summer: the arrivals of family-friendly movies and amphitheater-heavy tour schedules. Stapleton's All American Road Show Tour hits full-stride in July, with select dates featuring Brent Cobb, The Marcus King Band and fellow new parent Margo Price.
Now Watch: Songs Every Chris Stapleton Fan Knows By Heart


I won't lie to you. When I first heard about using your own placenta post-partum, I wasn't convinced. Actually, I was super turned off. I'm supposed to eat...what!? But, here's the thing. Once I learned the benefits (and that there are many options other than eating it), I became a believer.
When I had Brooks, it wasn't as popular or readily available. When I gave birth to Scarlett, it was definitely starting to become more mainstream. I ended up trying it and I loved it. I could notice the difference in my energy level off the bat. I also loved the way it balanced my hormones. Yes, I still had those post-baby mood swings--but it wasn't as drastic. Those are just a few of the benefits!
When I became interested in the possibility of using my placenta, I was referred to a postpartum doula by Lori Bregman. reached out to Ida Reid who is a postpartum doula here in Los Angeles. She's been working in this field extensively for years and has helped me through the process.
Since the topic of placenta is still relatively new, I thought it would be a great opportunity for Ida to share her insight with you, too. I'm currently taking the pills after I gave birth to baby Grey and I highly, highly recommend it!
1. What are the benefits of the Placenta post-baby?
There are many benefits to consuming your placenta postpartum. Many women report a boost in energy, more balanced hormonal shifts, a fuller milk supply, less fatigue and a more relaxed/"ease" into the wild transition that is motherhood.
Oxytocin- often referred to as the love hormone it aids in a person's ability to bond with others.
Hormones from placenta are absorbed in the mother's bloodstream; in turn, these hormones cause a clamping down of uterine contractions which can lead to reduced postpartum bleeding.
The placenta produces and carries an array of hormones within it. Some benefits to these hormones are; stabilizing a mother's metabolism (managing fatigue), aid in the production of the mammary glands (milk supply), and stress reduction, it also triggers the body to heal and increases postpartum iron levels. One of the key factors to combating depression is being well rested and as stress-free as possible. While there is no current research on the effects of placentophagy and depression, I have had clients report a drop in overall mood once their supply of pills was done. Placentophagy can also help with PMS and menopause.
There are many ways to ingest a placenta; pills, tinctures, smoothies, Homeopathic remedies, some people fry it up (like a steak) some will even put a raw chunk between the gums and cheek allowing for the nutrients to be absorbed that way. The most popular methods of consumption are through pill form, a tincture, or smoothie.
For women who want to reap the immediate benefits of placentophagy postpartum to control postpartum bleeding and in some scary cases a postpartum hemorrhage; a smoothie is going to be desirable. These smoothies can be made by placing a palm-sized chunk of placenta into a blender along with your favorite smoothie ingredients.
Placenta pills are the most common form of placentophagy. There are two methods to making placenta pills: the raw method and TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) method. There are benefits from both these methods.
TCM- the placenta is placed in a water along with lemon, ginger and pepper (these ingredients are believed to bring a cooling and heating element Yin/yang) the mixture is steamed up to 30 minutes, then the placenta is cut into thin strips and placed into a dehydrator for 8-10 hours, those strips are then finely ground to make a powder which is then encapsulated.
Raw method- The placenta is cut into strips and placed in a dehydrator at 50 degrees Celsius till dried, then ground into fine powder that is encapsulated.
Both gelatin or vegan pills can be used for encapsulating.
3. Can you explain the tincture process more in depth?
Tincture is made by placing a chunk of the mother's placenta along with a high-grade, high-alcohol content liquor ( I use vodka or tequila) into a glass jar and steeping it for 6 weeks. This liquid is as potent as the pills and can be taken by placing several drops into a glass of water and consuming this mixture. Tinctures can last forever by replenishing the alcohol.
4. Is one better than the other?
Both these methods have their benefits; it's up to the mother to decide what she is comfortable with. Some people believe that we as humans have evolved over the years to eat cooked food and that by heating the placenta the nutrients are better absorbed. It is true that by heating the placenta some of the nutrients will be affected (to what degree is unknown) such as, vitamins, stem cells and some hormones. Other less sensitive vitamins, hormones and nutrients for example, iron, is not affected by the heating process.
4. What do you think scares people the most?
My clients are most concerned with the sterilization and storage of the utensils/ instruments I use when processing placentas. It is important when considering a placenta specialist to employ someone who has been certified in food and blood safety and uses a disinfectant that is effective against blood borne pathogens. I personally will not process more than one placenta at a time. For this reason, I tell clients to expect a 24-72 hour turn around for the pills.
The cost of placenta pills can range from as low as $150-350. I charge $300 for the pills and tincture. Most placentas will yield 75-200 capsules. I will tack on an additional charge for smoothies. This additional charge is dependent on where the mother has given birth and what I need to supply for these smoothies.
7. Any other information new moms should know?!
New moms should be aware that placentophagy is not FDA approved; but has been a known practice in many cultures for centuries. I personally get great satisfaction out of knowing that I am helping new moms transition into motherhood in a supportive way. The feedback I get from my many clients has been extremely positive. Two years ago, I personally enjoyed the benefits of ingesting my placenta. I was able to freeze additional pills and continue taking them to this day when I'm feeling tired or as if I'm coming down with a cold. The benefits are enormous!
If you'd like more information on how placenta can be benefit you post-partum, visit Ida at her website here.
10 Books To Help Ease You Into Motherhood. These days, we are lucky. There are so many trusted books out there that help ease our anxiety and give us the answers we need...when we need it. Here are 10 books I've read over the years that I recommend to every new mom.
Lori Bregman's Post Birth Healing Pads. Lori Bregman's Post Birth Healing Pads. These healing pads are full of ingredients that reduce inflammation/swelling and help speed up the healing process. These are super simple and can be whipped up pre-delivery so you can have them on hand when you arrive home!


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You are here. Home » Interview » Dakota Johnson Interview with Toronto Sun
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Dakota Johnson Interview with Toronto Sun
by Grace February 7, 2016
written by Grace February 7, 2016 263 views
It literally pays to know people who know people In Hollywood. Case in point: Connections came up in casting the new romantic comedy How to Be Single, which turns the usual rom-com gender politics topsy-turvy by making the gals free of the guys.
So, when Lily Collins (daughter of English rocker Phil Collins) was forced to drop out of the lead role as Alice because of a scheduling conflict, writer-producer Dana Fox knew exactly what to do for director Christian Ditter. She called her close friend Dakota Johnson (daughter of American actors Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson) to fill in. Suddenly, the movie had a bigger breakout star, thanks to Johnson's 2015 mega-hit, Fifty Shades of Grey.
"She is such a great friend," Fox says of the 26-year-old Johnson. Fox and Johnson had worked together on the short-lived TV series, Ben and Kate. They instantly bonded and hung out even after the TV series was cancelled.
"This was the next thing I asked her to do," Fox says of casting Johnson in How to Be Single,"and we got to work together again — and hopefully we'll be doing it to the end of time!"
This really is a mutual admiration society. "She's so great!" Johnson says of Fox in an exclusive one-on-one interview following a series of group sessions. "She's such a wonderful woman, isn't she? Don't you think? She is so brilliant. She is so smart."
As a result, it was a no-brainer to say yes to starring as Alice in the R-rated comedy, with its salty language and sexual romps (although it is far tamer and less twisted than Fifty Shades). How to Be Single is poised to be a hit among young women when it opens Friday for the Valentine's Day weekend.
With her star ascending in Hollywood, Johnson is proud of her family heritage in Hollywood, which includes Antonio Banderas as her former stepfather (Griffith and Banderas divorced in 2014 after 18 years of marriage). Johnson also happens to be the granddaughter of former Hollywood star and animal rights activist Tippi Hedren, who debuted in Hitchcock's eerie 1963 classic, The Birds.
"Those are the things that I love about this industry, the historic threads," Johnson says. "I think that's what keeps it special. Otherwise, it's a total s—show!"
Johnson says she does not take her family connections for granted. "I just feel lucky about that. But I grew up on-set. I grew up around actors and storytellers and people who had a magnetic energy to make other people feel things. So that's where my admiration comes from. That's (the inspiration for) my drive."
As for the gender politics in How to Be Single, Johnson is totally on board with what Fox did in juicing up the screenplay by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein. That included adding a lot of F-bombs, hotter sexual situations and some off-the-wall comedy from co-star Rebel Wilson.
"You can't talk about being single without being able to swear and talk about sex," Fox says."Why would we tell that story if we can't do that?"
Johnson agrees. "I think this movie portrays women behaving however they want to behave and being true to themselves. This is a movie about women who are funny and smart and real — and that's important. I think it is so important for women to feel that it is not only okay but it is encouraged to be alone and to expand your mind and your experiences and your personal growth.
"For me personally, I love to be alone and read and watch movies and to go into a K-hole of Google in researching something. But society has put this pressure on women to really pay attention to their biological clock and find a mate and be a wife and make a family."
In the movie, Johnson says, "everyone is just figuring out what they want." In life, that is what she finds herself doing in her twenties.
"There are times when I'm like: I wish I was married and had babies now because I like that." Then she retreats and goes travelling … alone.
Johnson is also modest about her lifestyle in Hollywood — and she does not hit the party circuit like Alice in How to Be Single. "I'm a pretty quiet person. I like to stay home. I don't think you'd ever see me in a super-club environment or going out and raging. I mostly just do that on my couch …" She laughs coyly at the thought.
Not surprisingly, Johnson's advice to single women on Valentine's Day weekend is simple, and a bit cheeky: If you are not going out to see How to Be Single, stay home and "get drunk!" she says.
Johnson smiles mischievously and adds: "Get a bottle of wine, get f—ed up and go to sleep!"
JOHNSON EAGER TO WATCH FIFTY SHADES OF BLACK
Actress Dakota Johnson is making no apologies for her co-starring role in the Fifty Shades trilogy, despite the furor over its sexual politics, her explicit nudity and the celebration of S&M bondage in the first one, Fifty Shades of Grey.
"It's kind of a fairytale story," Johnson says happily about the trilogy, which is based on the novels by British author E.L. James (a pseudonym for 52-year-old writer and mother Erika Mitchell, who originally created her novels as Twilight fan fiction).
Johnson, who will start shooting Fifty Shades Darker in British Columbia on Feb. 9, plays Anastasia (Ana) Steele). She is a college student who gets caught up in a sexually deviant romance with billionaire businessman Christian Grey, played by Jamie Dornan.
"In that relationship," Johnson says in a tangent during a one-on-one interview for her new romantic comedy, How to Be Single, "these two people find each other and I think they're supposed to be together and there is that innate soulmate-magnetic connection."
Johnson admits that the gender politics of How to Be Single are exactly the opposite of those in Fifty Shades and that her Single character learns how to be an independent woman without a man to shape her destiny. "I think it's really important," she said of How to Be Single. "I would prefer to see young women admire characters in films and stories who are capable of being alone!"
Regardless of that noble notion, the two Fifty Shades sequels are coming. They will be shot back-to-back by director James Foley, with Fifty Shades Darker due in theatres on Feb. 10, 2017, and Fifty Shades Freed scheduled to debut on Feb. 9, 2018.
The sequels follow in the naked footsteps of Fifty Shades of Grey, which filmed in Vancouver and environs in 2013-14 under director Sam Taylor-Johnson. With its release early in 2015, the first instalment shucked off bad reviews to win over female audiences and generate a stunning $571 million in worldwide box office.
"The stories unfold in a really interesting way," Johnson says of the sequels, which were adapted to the screen by James/Mitchell's husband, Niall Leonard. "It's more of a thriller (going forward)," Johnson says, "and there are some psychological changes that seem to carry the characters through multiple ups and downs. It's cool!"
So, contrary to rumours that she was loath to work again with Irish actor Dornan, Johnson says she is eager to get back into the Fifty Shades world. She is even considering how to sneak a peek at the Marlon Wayans spoof, Fifty Shades of Black, which opened Jan. 29. "I don't know if I will be able to see it in theatres, but it looks awesome," Johnson says. "I would love to see it."
Source: Toronto Sun
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The Astana Water Action — a collection of possible actions for improving the status of water and water-related ecosystems through their more sustainable management — was approved by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Committee on Environmental Policy at its special session as an outcome of the Seventh "Environment for Europe" Ministerial Conference (Astana, 21–23 September 2011).
This initiative was developed by the Chair of the Bureau of the UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention), assisted by the Bureau of the Water Convention, the Water Convention secretariat and a drafting group composed of members nominated by the Committee on Environmental Policy.
Countries and other stakeholders are invited to commit to implementing some of the actions and to report on their progress at the future meetings of the Committee.
1. The Astana Water Action was developed in spring 2011 by the Chair of the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) Bureau, assisted by the Bureau, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Water Convention secretariat and a drafting group composed of representatives of Austria, Azerbaijan, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Monaco, the Russian Federation, Spain, Switzerland, the United States of America and Uzbekistan, as well as representatives of the following international organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs): the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe); the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/Environment and Security Initiative; the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); the Scientific Information Centre of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia; European ECO-Forum, the Global Institute for Water, Environment and Health; and the Global Water Partnership (GWP).
2. At its special session held from 24 to 27 May 2011 in Geneva, the UNECE Committee on Environmental Policy endorsed the Astana Water Action as an outcome of the Seventh "Environment for Europe" Ministerial Conference.
3. The action proposals are structured according to the agreed questions for discussion at the Astana Conference (see ECE/ASTANA.CONF/2011/1, annex) and the official substantive document on sustainable management of water and water-related ecosystems (ECE/ASTANA.CONF/2011/3). In addition, the Astana Water Action builds upon existing policy documents, declarations and guidance material already adopted under UNECE, as well as other international organizations, NGOs and processes.
4. The Astana Water Action is a collection of possible actions for improving the status of water and water-related ecosystems through their more sustainable management. They are meant to serve as a supporting tool with concrete suggestions for Governments for an improved implementation of their past commitments in water management, assessing the current status of actions in support of sound water management and identifying priorities.
5. Due to the different situations in countries of the UNECE region in terms of the status and management of their water and water-related ecosystems, the actions are not ranked or evaluated in a systematic way: priorities for actions will differ among countries reflecting the current state and actual challenges to water management. The arrangement and order of the lists of such actions in the present document should, therefore, not be seen in any way as constituting a ranking of the actions or conferring priority on those mentioned first; the intention has been, rather, to permit ease of reference in discussions on the draft.
6. The time frame for the Astana Water Action is 2012–2015.
(d) To provide arguments for improving Governments' funding basis for water management from all sources.
8. The Astana Water Action should be seen as a complement to present policies, programmes and strategies at all levels, which takes due account of existing instruments and processes and which is flexible enough to deal with new ones, without duplicating efforts.
9. In order to make the Astana Water Action more practical and concrete, as well as to increase its political relevance, Countries and other actors are invited to voluntarily commit to some specific actions contained in it or other similar actions, using the template developed for this purpose (see annex). Countries and other actors should register their commitment to actions as soon as possible (preferably by 30 August 2011) so that this can be acknowledged at the Ministerial Conference and presented in an informal document complementary to the present one.
10. Subsequently, countries and other stakeholders who made commitments are encouraged to implement the actions they committed to and to report on progress at future meetings of the Committee on Environmental Policy.
(f) To budget sufficient financial resources to finance water management (measures and staff).
A. Which policies proved to be effective to value and protect water-related ecosystems, including payment for ecosystem services? What are the main obstacles and gaps?
(h) Continue funding and implementing the National Policy Dialogues (NPDs) on integrated water resources management and water supply and sanitation in countries in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia within the European Union Water Initiative.
(m) Estimate the values of ecosystem services, for example through the assessment of costs of avoided damages resulting from lost ecosystem services, costs of replacing ecosystem services, or costs of providing substitute services such as additional water treatment.
(f) Develop and expand the use of payments for ecosystem services (PES), including new pilot projects on PES.
B. What policies proved to be effective in addressing human health issues related to water quality and quantity? What are the main obstacles and gaps?
(k) Provide schools with safe water and environmentally friendly sanitation facilities, in particular those to be used exclusively by girls.
(g) Support research to improve understanding of emerging potential waterborne threats to human health.
C. What are the priorities/challenges in adapting management of water and water-related ecosystems to extreme weather events and to climate change?
(g) Continue the programme of pilot projects on climate change adaptation in transboundary basins and the platform for sharing experience in this regard under the UNECE Water Convention, as well as other international initiatives of UNECE countries, United Nations agencies, and international organizations.
(d) Promote research and study of climate change related processes, e.g., glacier/permafrost melting, desertification, etc., and their impacts on water resources, as well as the health-related impacts, e.g., on drinking water distribution systems, and how to better predict and prevent human exposure to waterborne pathogens.
D. What are the experiences and lessons learned from the cooperation in transboundary basins to improve water quality, manage water quantity and protect ecosystems?
(g) Improve transboundary cooperation on shared groundwaters with a view to concluding and implementing bilateral/multilateral agreements for their protection and sustainable use.
(d) Develop and implement transboundary cooperation aimed at the maintenance, protection and restoration of transboundary water-related ecosystems in the basins such as forests, riparian zones and wetlands, including through establishing transboundary protected areas.
(d) Promote coordination between donors and international organizations on financial support for transboundary management, as well as possibly for the establishment of transboundary institutions (i.e., initial funding-seed money).
(f) Improve information and stakeholder participation in transboundary water basin management planning and its implementation, while supporting NGO participation in transboundary water bodies restoration and management measures.
A. What policy mixes and practical tools, such as integrated water resources management, pricing, standards, and water users associations, can be most effective to improve water efficiency by different water users, especially in agriculture, households and industrial operations?
(k) Develop public-private partnerships for increasing the efficiency and productivity of water use in industry and in agriculture, as well as its reuse and use lifecycle assessment for assessing the water footprint of products.
B. How can we encourage investments to take into account the impacts on water quantity and water quality, energy and resource efficiency and vulnerable populations?
(j) Strengthen the regulation of natural monopolies regarding water supply and sanitation and establish clear tariff-setting rules to promote efficient water use and ensure transparency and predictability.


text:
Breaking (Old) News: Bush and Cheney Lied us into Iraq.
By Ramona on Fri, 05/22/2015 - 6:28pm | Politics
In a startling conversation on Tuesday--three days ago by my calendar, not that you would know it by the mainstream media coverage--Chris Matthews, bless his passionate, irritating bulldoggedness, pulled the truth out of Michael Morell, George Bush's CIA intelligence briefer during the lead-up to the Iraq war: the Bush White House lied about WMDs in order to get us into a war with Iraq.
It was not bad intelligence, as every Republican alive in Washington--and some Democrats--still keep repeating. The intelligence that there were no WMDs was, in fact, presented to the decision-makers, and the decision-makers--Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld,Wolfowitz, Rice, and so on--lied and said their experts were telling them otherwise. That was in 2003. This is 2015. For 12 years most of the people in the loop who know the truth have kept it hidden. They've said nothing.
There are exceptions: Richard Clarke, GWB's former counterterrorism coordinator, appeared on PBS' Frontline in 2006 and, in an interview riddled with bombshells, dropped this one, which, along with the others, sadly but predictably didn't detonate:
"Yes, the intelligence community made mistakes in erring in the direction of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. But the president, the vice president, the national security adviser, they went a lot further in their public remarks than the intelligence analysis had gone.
There's nowhere in the intelligence analysis that says there's imminent threat and that we have to do something right away. Yet the president, the vice president, the national security adviser all tell the public, tell the Congress: 'Got to act right away! Something's about to happen!'"
In that same interview he said this:
"I remember vividly, in the driveway outside of the West Wing, Scooter Libby, from the vice president's office, grabbing me and saying, 'I hear you don't believe this report that Mohamed Atta was talking to Iraqi people in Prague.' I said, 'I don't believe it because it's not true.' And he said: 'You're wrong. You know you're wrong. Go back and find out; look at the rest of the reports, and find out that you're wrong.' I understood what he was saying, which was: 'This is a report that we want to believe, and stop saying it's not true. It's a real problem for the vice president's office that you, the counterterrorism coordinator, are walking around saying that this isn't a true report. Shut up!' That's what I was being told."
Immediately afterward, the White House attack machines went after Richard Clarke, trying to make him out to be the liar and not the other way around. Poor Richard. He's still trying to tell the truth about what he and others knew then, but preaching to the choir has its limitations. A whole lot of tsk-tsking goes on but nothing really gets done. The Bush/Cheney gang still runs free. Cheney, the man we'll always believe was the oily kingpin behind the whole operation, is so unafraid of consequences he still rambles on publicly about the benefits of torture against our supposed enemies.
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's right-hand-man during his tenure as Secretary of State, rails against the Iraq warmongers every chance he gets, admitting that both he and Powell got sucked in by them, but he stops just short of calling the misinformation falsehoods.
"It's a mess, to be sure," Wilkerson says, "a mess we largely created -- 'we' being George Bush and Dick Cheney and all their minions, myself and Powell included, however reluctantly. I'm fairly certain that no one knows now how to extricate us from that mess. So, most do not want to have that ignorance exposed."
They were lies, Larry. Lies.
Why Michael Morell decided to play Hardball with Matthews (besides hawking his new book) is something only Morell knows, but once he got there it was Katie bar the door! Matthews was gunning for him. From David Corn in Mother Jones:
MATTHEWS: So you're briefing the president on the reasons for war, they're selling the war, using your stuff, saying you made that case when you didn't. So they're using your credibility to make the case for war dishonestly, as you just admitted.
MORELL: Look, I'm just telling you—
MATTHEWS: You just admitted it.
MORELL: I'm just telling you what we said—
MATTHEWS: They gave a false presentation of what you said to them.
MORELL: On some aspects. On some aspects.
"That's a big deal," Matthews exclaimed. Morell replied, "It's a big deal."
Soon after the attack on 9/11 the White House began diverting our attention from Afghanistan to Iraq. It was such a crazy idea nobody believed anything would ever come of it. The craziest part was that the press--the guardians of truth, the defenders of liberty--walked away from their duties and went AWOL.
It wasn't because the hawks were itching to get into battle--the war against Al Qaeda was legitimate; it was justified. We as a nation knew who the enemy was. We understood the need. We never intended to send our sons and daughters to a battleground that didn't involve a real enemy, yet we did just that, and nearly 4500 of them didn't come home. Another 32,000 suffered injuries; lost their limbs, their eyes, and, too often, the part of them that allows them peace.
As Andy Borowitz said yesterday on his Facebook page, "No one could have known that invading Iraq would be a disaster, unless you count the millions of people who protested against it." Our protests were ignored. That war was an unnecessary disaster and we know who to blame, but the time for inquiries is apparently over. There are no planned hearings on the responsibility for the Iraq War, even though we're faced every day with the consequences of a murderous, trillion-dollar war built on lies.
Contrast that with the Republicans' need to know what happened in Benghazi, when our embassy was attacked and four Americans were killed under then-Secretary-of-State Hillary Clinton's watch. So far the Republicans have held 13 hearings, 50 briefings, and have produced 25,000 document pages on the events surrounding the attack. The blame rests on Clinton's shoulders and to their minds she has much to answer for. She'll be required to answer to them at least until November, 2016, when the next presidential election is held. If she wins that election, she'll be required to answer for Benghazi until 2020, assuming she'll decide to run again. If she wins that election, Benghazi will be her ball and chain until Hell freezes over.
But Dick Cheney and George W. Bush have nothing to fear, nothing to answer for. Dick Cheney can appear on dozens of political programs and slake his thirst for war and profit, his hatred for our current president, his disdain for Democrats in general, without a care in the world about the misery his own recklessness has caused.
A furious Chris Matthews left Michael Morell with this thought:
Let me explain to you my position as an American. and why this infuriates me. I knew people in this business who were very objective people who finally went for the war--and we were arguing about it here--because they believed Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons. And you couldn't argue with that once you believed that this final piece of the sales pitch is what did it. And to know, and now hear it from you, that that wasn't based on fact or any evidence or any intel--that it was just made up--that's the case for why I'm so angry about that war. . . I think we got talked into a war by people who weren't being honest.
We didn't get talked into that war, Chris We knew all along it was a dishonest pitch made by dishonest people. Those who could have done something at the time didn't fight hard enough to stop them. Without the press, without members of congress, without the movers and shakers, the millions of us who protested were whispering in the wind. There is plenty of blame to go around but the blame lies squarely on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
The least we can do for the Iraq war casualties, both foreign and domestic, is to keep this alive: We went into a war based on deliberate lies. The perpetrators walk among us without fear, but we know. We can't forget. We won't forget.
(Cross-posted at Ramona's Voices)
Ramona's blog
Good one, Ramona.
I had to bite my lip this week as a business associate whose son is graduating from SMU in Dallas reported on the great speech Dub gave at his commencement. Dub repeated his usual bad joke, " for those of you who weren't the best students in the class, be reassured that you can still become president." I wanted to throw up over my lunch.
The SMU crowd, somewhat the equivalent in Dallas of Southern Cal in Los Angeles, still swoon at the feet of the dumb ass who became president. I think the statistic is that 160 people in Dallas, many from SMU, gave at least a million dollars to Dub over the years.
by Oxy Mora on Fri, 05/22/2015 - 6:54pm
And this post explains why I like Code Pink
by ocean-kat on Fri, 05/22/2015 - 7:14pm
by moat on Sat, 05/23/2015 - 8:25pm
Thanks Ramona. Good piece. I wrote a similar article at my site but focused more on the media's failure to hold politicians accountable for claiming that Bush's war was largely due to intelligence failures. http://halginsberg.com/latest-media-fail-on-operation-iraqi-liberation-coverage/
by HSG on Fri, 05/22/2015 - 7:48pm
Public Integrity .org, 935 pre-war lies of Bush Admin, notice the peaks right before the 2002 midterms, and the huge jump in early 2003 as the invasion started (in March 03):
by NCD on Sat, 05/23/2015 - 12:12am
They may go to the graves thinking they got away with this but they won't in history. Historians will write about their deceit and what it cost all of us.
I am not even worried about JEB Bush getting much traction in this primary season. His brother's legacy is still with us everyday. We see it every time we turn on the news.
by trkingmomoe on Fri, 05/22/2015 - 11:28pm
I think you're right, Momoe. Jeb is going nowhere. It's obvious he knows he can't win with his brother's skeleton in his closet. You have to almost feel sorry for him. How could he not have known that all along?
Republicans think they're protected from scrutiny, and they have good reason to believe that. So far it's worked for them. The key is to divert attention to a Democrat--any Democrat--until it all blows over. But the winds are changing, the populists are rising, the real journalists are waking up, and it isn't going to be that easy. I hope.
by Ramona on Sat, 05/23/2015 - 8:48am
Jeb isn't a very good campaigner and never has been. He got into office at the end of the peak of retirees living in Florida. They were all mesmerized with Fox and many were very old. Demographics dramatically changed in the bottom half of the state since then.
It is not going to be easy for the Republicans in this cycle. It wasn't easy in the last cycle for them to claim the Senate. They had to work pretty hard in some of the ruby red states. Republicans are fighting among them selves in this state over Medicaid and we are headed for a shut down. Alaska beat us to it. They passed out layoff slips to state employees last week. The Republicans are fighting also over Medicaid and can't come up with a budget in Alaska.
One more point, in a state like Florida we have a closed primary. Many who move here from open primary states tend to register as independent. There is a growing realization that many elections are won and lost locally in the primaries. This time the presidential election will be won or loss in the primary. Who ever wins the Democratic Presidential primary will be the next president. Independents that really don't like Clinton will reregister as Democrats so they can vote against her. I would not be surprised with a jump of the number of Democrats in this state. I heard several Republicans tell me since '08 that they had wished they would of changed their registration to vote against Obama in '08.
by trkingmomoe on Sat, 05/23/2015 - 7:10pm
Are Republicalns more idiotic than I thought?
Clinton won Florida in 2008, but the part stripped all delegates (similar to Michigan). What would have been the point of giving her more votes?
by Anonymous PP (not verified) on Sun, 05/24/2015 - 2:47am
Re Ramona's comment about Afghanistan. In 2001-2002, I thought the Afghan war was justified and legitimate. If I had known that it would drag on for thirteen years, and that it would cost the lives of 18,000 Afghan civilians and 2500 Americans, I would have felt differently.
by Aaron Carine on Sat, 05/23/2015 - 9:21am
Bloody hell, Obama ran on "dumb wars" and still dragged out Afghanistan. We just needed to invade Kabul, ring it (or all gov buildings or something) with explosives and tell them "next time you help Al Qaeda, these go off" and go bye. Even primitive 7th century theocracies understand this much. Whose bright idea it was to re-create the Soviet experience, I've no idea.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/23/2015 - 12:57pm
I get so mad about this Ramona, that it is difficult to respond.
There is 20 20 hindsight and then there is 40-10 hindsight.
Lincoln hated Black people.
I read that lie and I hear it.
Wilson wished for constant world war.
Black folks kill all the Black folks and yet Whites just defend themselves.
Civilized folks somehow make sure that dads are present.
Kill all Islamists and all will be okay.
But in the end,
war mongers win
by Richard Day on Wed, 05/27/2015 - 1:20am
Totally off-topic, Ramona, but I'd love to see The Fairy Ring posted here at Dag. Preamble included, of course!
by barefooted on Wed, 05/27/2015 - 5:24pm


The Planning Division is responsible for the administration of various zoning, land use regulations, and development standards per Chapters 6.10 and 6.55 of the City Municipal Code, including reviewing properties affected by the Lake Tahoe Airport Comprehensive Land Use Plan (PDF) and overlay map (PDF), California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), Plan Area Statements and Community Plans, TRPA, and various other state and federal agencies.
The City of South Lake Tahoe has adopted the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's (TRPA) plan area statements. Each area is depicted on the zoning map (PDF) and there is a corresponding plan area statement that lists the permissible uses. Some of the Plan Area Statements have been replaced by a Community Plan or an Area Plan.
Each Plan Area Statement contains land use categories and permissible uses for each land use category. In order to determine the zoning for a specific area first locate the property on the zoning map (PDF) then refer to the plan area statement or community plan for the specific area.


Healthcare satisfaction is an important indicator in quality of healthcare evaluations. Instruments with psychometric evaluation for pediatric healthcare satisfaction in China have been rarely studied. The PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module was a widely used instrument designed to measure parents' satisfaction of the healthcare for their children with chronic diseases. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module.
We used the standard procedure of cross-culture adaptation to develop the Chinese version of the PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module. We administered the scale to 354 parents with children experiencing chronic diseases from 5 third-grade class-A hospitals in Guangzhou by the convenience sampling method. The psychometric properties of the scale were evaluated.
The response rate was 94.4%. All the subscales reached the minimum reliability standard of 0.70 for Cronbach's alpha coefficient and the recommended test-retest reliability standard of 0.80 for intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC s). There were higher correlation coefficients between items and their hypothesized subscales than those with other subscales. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the scale had adequate construct validity with the main indexes of goodness of fit CFI and RMSEA as 0.99 and 0.078, respectively.
The results demonstrate that the Chinese version of the PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module is a feasible instrument with adequate psychometric properties.
With the changes of human disease spectrum, the prevalence of pediatric chronic diseases has increased significantly in recent decades [1, 2]. There are between 8% and 20% of the global pediatric population living with chronic diseases . The long hospitalization and treatment course of chronic diseases lead to two significant changes for pediatric patients and their families. Firstly, long treatment courses and hospitalizations results in increased time spent in bed leading to lack of playtime, lack of communication with friends, and greater burdens for their families. Such factors results in a series of physical and emotional symptoms, cognitive problems, and social adaption problems, ultimately greatly impacting family interactions. Secondly, traditional evaluation indicators such as cure rate and survival rate are not comprehensive enough for patients with chronic diseases. Instead of the cure rate and survival rate, people prefer to be concerned with the experience of the patients and their families in the long disease duration such as the satisfaction of the healthcare. Healthcare quality is a very importance influencing factor on the quality of life for pediatric patients and their families. One of the effective ways to assess the healthcare quality is the healthcare satisfaction assessments of patients/their families. Patient/parent satisfaction has been identified as one of the three major categories of criteria for the evaluation of health care systems . Patients tend to adhere to the therapeutic regimens and seldom change the doctors when they are satisfied with the healthcare team [3, 4]. Healthcare satisfaction assessments also may be helpful for healthcare professionals to improve their quality of care .
Pascoe stated that there were no scientific definitions and adequate psychological models in previous studies of patient satisfaction. He defined patient satisfaction as patient response and evaluation of the healthcare environment, process and outcome comparing with their expectation . As healthcare satisfaction is an important indicator in the evaluation of the quality of healthcare, a well-designed questionnaire for healthcare satisfaction assessment is of increasing importance. However, a literature search through Pub Med, Web of Knowledge, and Medline for patient/parent satisfaction in pediatric area revealed few well designed and psychometrically evaluated instruments with Chinese versions.
Since the pediatric patients are too young to expect the quality of healthcare and understand the explanation for the diseases, healthcare staffs often discuss the details with the parents of patients. So the parents know more about the overall condition than the patients themselves, and to some extent, the parental satisfaction may represent the whole family's satisfaction including the pediatric patient [7–10]. In order to improve the assessment of pediatric healthcare satisfaction for the parents in China, we decided to introduce and establish the Chinese version of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™) 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module. The PedsQL™ Measurement Model, originally developed by James W. Varni et al. in 1999, is a promising Health-related quality of life instrument designed for pediatric patients aged 2–18 years . With progressive application and modification, it has developed into a questionnaire series including the General Core Scale and disease-special Module, Family Impaction Module, and Healthcare Satisfaction Module. All questionnaires were shown to be reliable and valid . The PedsQL™ has been translated into many languages and applied widely in different countries [13–17]. Additionally, some modules of the PedsQL™ Measurement Model were translated into Chinese and were evaluated that they had adequate psychometric properties [17–19]. The Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module was specially designed to evaluate parent satisfaction with the healthcare for their children with chronic diseases. However, the scale has not been translated into Chinese.
This study aimed to translate the PedsQL™ Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module from English to Chinese and undertake a psychometrical test to determine whether it was suitable for assessing the parents' satisfaction with the healthcare for their children with chronic diseases in China.
Parents of pediatric patients aged 2 to 18 years were eligible for the study if their children were diagnosed with chronic diseases such as hematologic diseases/tumor, cardiovascular diseases, nephritic syndrome, asthma and diabetes conforming to the national diagnostic standards of China. The parents were enrolled if their children were hospitalized for at least 3 days or were outpatients that had follow-ups for more than 3 months. All the participants were approached with permission from their doctors. Parents were excluded if they were illiterate or reluctant to participate, or if their children were reported to be mentally retarded (Some items in the scale are not suitable for the children with mental retarded).
This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University and obtained informed consent from all the subjects.
Four undergraduate students majoring in Preventive Medicine or Medical English were trained as interviewers by the project manager before the formal start of investigation. All the subjects were recruited from 5 third-grade class-A hospitals in Guangzhou, China between April 2012 and July 2012 by convenience sampling method. Third-grade class-A hospitals are the top-class hospitals in China which provide high-level medical services and implement high medical education and research tasks. The parents completed the questionnaires independently during the pediatric patients' hospitalization or outpatient department visit, and the interviewers were available to answer questions during the investigation. There were "start time" and "finish time" set up in the beginning and ending of the questionnaire for the collection of completion time. The questionnaires were then collected and checked for any missing data or logical mistakes by the interviewers. A total of 43 compliable parents of the hospitalized patients were asked to fill out the PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module repeatedly one week after the first interview in order to evaluate the test-retest reliability of the scale.
The Chinese version of PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module was used in this study. The scale was developed as a parent-reported instrument to measure the parents' satisfaction with the healthcare for their children with chronic diseases. This 24-item scale encompasses six subscales: Information (5 items), Inclusion of Family (4 items), Communication (5 items), Technical Skills (3 items), Emotional Needs (4 items), and Overall Satisfaction (3 items). The questionnaire asks about how happy the parents are with the care that their children and family have received at the hospital from the staff. A 5-point Likert responses scale is utilized for each item (0 = never, 1 = sometimes, 2 = often, 3 = almost always, 4 = always), and a not applicable option is added for subjects if the item is not suitable for them (When scoring, "not applicable" would be regarded as missing value according to the scoring manual). Items are transformed to a 0–100 scale linearly (0 = 0, 1 = 25, 2 = 50, 3 = 75, 4 =100) with higher scores indicating higher satisfaction. The subscale scores are computed as the sum of the items divided by the number of items answered. If more than 50% of the items in a subscale are missing, the subscale scores would not be computed .
The PedsQL™ Family Information Form, which was also developed by James W. Varni et al. , has been cross-culturally translated into Chinese. It is completed by parents, contains the socio-demographic information including the child's age, gender, disease duration, the parents' marital status, education, occupation, family income, and payment method for the child's medical care.
The project manager had been authorized to develop the Chinese version (Putonghua) of PedsQL™. The Chinese version of the PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module was developed following the linguistic validation of the PedsQL, which consisted of 4 steps: forward translation, backward translation, preliminary test, and field test . The aim of the linguistic validation of the PedsQL is to produce a Chinese version which is conceptually equivalent to the original version, as well as clear and easy to understand.
The forward translation from English to Chinese was implemented by a pediatrician and a medical English teacher independently, both of whom had a good command of English and Chinese. The two drafts were then discussed by a multidisciplinary team which consisted of translators, a health services researcher, and a project manager in order to produce a combined Chinese version with meanings equivalent to the original.
The backward translation from the first Chinese version to English was implemented by a pediatrician who had no access to the original US English version of the questionnaire and was bilingual in English and Chinese. The backward translated version was compared with the original source version by the multidisciplinary team. Any misunderstandings, mistranslations or inaccuracies were rectified after discussion and asking for the authorship's guidance by e-mail. The second Chinese version was then produced.
During forward and backward translations, we made several modifications. Firstly, we changed all the wh-questions into general questions or declarative sentences. Additionally, based on the opinion of the original author of the scale, Professor Varni, we gave an explanation behind the item "The preparation provided for you about what to expect during tests and procedures" of "Communication" subscale, stating that "how well did the medical staff explain to the parents on what would happen to their child during the medical test and medical procedures".
The preliminary test was conducted on 32 parents of pediatric patients with chronic diseases in order to obtain the comprehensibility of each item and the acceptability of the questionnaire. The second Chinese version of the scale was suitably revised according to the result of preliminary test. The average completion time of the second Chinese version of the scale was 15.20 minutes. There was no missing value in the questionnaire except the two items: "The sensitivity shown to you and your family during your child's treatment" in "Inclusion of family" subscale, and "How much time the staff took to help you with your child coming back home" in "Technical skills" subscale. The two items were classified as difficult to understand since they were literal translated into Chinese. Based on the meaning of the questions and the opinion of the original author of the scale, we revised the two items as: "The sensitivity of the staff that showing loving care for you and your family during your child's treatment" and "How much time the staff took to make your child improved or well-healed". The final Chinese version was produced and to be field-tested in the current study.
The demographic characteristics of the parents and children were reported by descriptive analysis. Score distribution was evaluated by assessing the presence of floor and ceiling effects (>25% of the respondents have the minimum and/or maximum score) . Continuous numerical variables were displayed as median, upper quartile and lower quartile as they did not obey normal distributions (the skewness values ranged from −0.840 to −0.206) while categorical variables were displayed as observed frequencies and proportions .
We assessed feasibility, reliability and validity of the PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module. Feasibility was determined from the response rate, average completion time of the questionnaires and the percentage of missing/not applicable values for each item.
Scale internal consistency reliability was assessed by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient and an alpha greater than or equal to 0.70 was considered acceptable . Test-retest reliability of the scale was evaluated with the Intra-class Correlation Coefficient (ICC) and the value greater than or equal to 0.80 was considered adequate .
Content validity was assessed by item-subscale correlations (Spearman's rank correlations). There was good scaling success when items had stronger correlations with their hypothesized subscales than those with other subscales.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to assess construct validity of the scale . CFA is a means of testing the hypothesis that the observed variables (items) are indirect measures of hypothesized latent variables (subscales) . The CFA model was fit to the data using maximum likelihood (ML) estimation . Goodness of fit was evaluated using the indexes including Chi-square (χ 2 ), χ 2 /df ratio, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI) and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) [19, 28]. A χ 2 /df ratio value of 5.00 or lower demonstrated an acceptable model fit . The values of RMSEA, NNFI, CFI, AGFI and SRMR were in the range of 0 to1. For NNFI and CFI, a value of 0.90 or greater indicated good model fit . A RMSEA value below 0.08 and an AGFI value above 0.85 were commonly considered adequate model fit . A good model fit between the target model and the observed data is distinguished by SRMR values below 0.08 . All of the goodness of fit indexes mentioned above were used in this study.
Analyses were performed using SPSS 18.0 and LISREL 8.8 for Windows.
The survey took place from April 2012 to July 2012. Table 1 lists the descriptive analysis of the whole sample's demographic characteristics. The majority of the subjects were mothers. On the item of "Family economic condition", more than 90% of the subjects chose "intermediate to poor." Among the children, More than 65% patients were male. The average age of the pediatric patients was 6.42 years old (SD = 3.93) and over 60% of them were younger than 7 years old.
The response rate was 94.4%. There were 375 parents of children with chronic diseases participated in the study. 354 subjects completed the questionnaire, 18 parents declined to participate, and 3 participants answered less than 50% of the items. Since a not applicable option was added for subjects if the item was not suitable for them, there was no missing value. Most of the items had few not applicable values except the items in Emotional Needs subscale. The not applicable rate of each item ranged from 0.0% to 24.3% (Table 2). Three of the items had high not applicable rates (more than 10%): "The amount of time given to your child to play, talk about her/his feelings, and any questions she/he may have", "The amount of time spent helping your child with going back to school" and "The amount of time spent attending to your child's emotional needs". The average completion time of the questionnaire was 14.17 minutes (SD = 7.06).
Values denote Spearman's rank correlation coefficients (P < 0.01).
Bolded values represent correlations between items and their hypothesized subscales.
Table 3 presents the median, upper and lower quartiles, and the floor and ceiling effects on each subscale score and total score of the Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module.
Q L = lower quartile, Q U = upper quartile.
%Floor, %Ceiling = percentage of scores at the extremes of the scaling range.
ICC = Intra-class Correlation Coefficient, CI = Confidence Interval.
Cronbach's alpha coefficients are presented in Table 3, which were used to evaluate the internal consistency reliability of the PedsQL™3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients of all subscale scores and total score exceeded 0.70. The test-retest reliability was examined by calculating ICC s of all subscales, which were all higher than the minimum recommended standard of 0.80 (Table 3).
Spearman's rank correlation coefficients between items and subscale scores are showed in Table 2. There were higher correlation coefficients between items and their hypothesized subscales than those with other subscales.
CFA was performed to assess construct validity of the scale. A six-factor model was established based on the original scaling structure and the Goodness-of-Fit results were presented in Table 4. The CFI value, and NNFI value were greater than 0.90, RMSEA and SRMR was less than 0.08, while AGFI did not reach the minimum standard of 0.85.
AGFI = Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index; SRMR = Standardized Root Mean Square Residual.
The PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module, a module of the PedsQL™ Measurement Model, is an instrument to measure the parents' satisfaction with the healthcare for their children with chronic diseases and has been adapted for use in other countries . This study aimed to develop a Chinese version of the PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module and evaluate the psychometric properties of the scale. To our knowledge, this is the first report of psychometric properties of the PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module in a pediatric chronic diseases sample in China.
In the standard procedure of cross-culture adaptation, we strictly followed the PedsQL™ Measurement Model Translation to finalize the Chinese version. The result showed that the scale was a feasible and practical instrument with high response rate and short completing time. Most of the items had few not applicable values except the items in the Emotional Needs subscale, such as "The amount of time given to your child to play, talk about her/his feelings, and any questions she/he may have", "The amount of time spent helping your child with going back to school" and "The amount of time spent attending to your child's emotional needs." The higher percentage of not applicable values was found to be primarily from the lower age groups, with parents reasoning that their children were too young to go to school. Young pediatric patients also had difficulty talking about their feelings or emotional needs. In addition,some parents found the item "The amount of time spent helping your child with going back to school" hard to understand. This finding was consistent with the results seen in the Brazilian version of the scale . The results indicated that some suitable modifications were necessary for the items of Emotional Needs subscale. Future studies may develop different age-group scales according to their own characteristics.
Additionally, the study results showed that the Chinese version of PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module was a reliable and valid instrument to assess the parents' satisfaction with the healthcare for their children with chronic diseases. The internal consistency reliability of the scale was evaluated by Cronbach's alpha coefficients. All Cronbach's alpha coefficients exceeded the recommended standard of 0.70 in all subscales, indicating adequate reliability of the Chinese version scale. This finding was roughly consistent with the results reported by a prior study . Test-retest reliability was examined using ICC s. All ICC s of the subscales were higher than 0.80, which demonstrated a good test-retest reliability of the scale.
The results of Spearman's rank correlation coefficients between items and subscale scores indicated good scaling success since items had high correlations with their hypothesized subscales, which were stronger than those with other subscales.
The CFA was performed and the results indicated that the model fit the data well according to all the Goodness of Fit Statistics. The RMSEA, CFI and SRMR all reached the recommended standards. The adequate construct validity confirmed the premeditated hypothesis of the Chinese version scale.
Our study has several potential limitations. Firstly, this study was conducted only in the highest level hospitals and the results may not be generalized to other level hospitals in China. We recommend future studies to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Chinese version scale in the samples of other level hospitals in China. Secondly, convenience sampling was used in this study, and there may be sampling bias. Thirdly, the variety of chronic diseases was limited in the present study. Parents of pediatric patients with other chronic diseases should be recruited in future studies. Fourthly, only 35 children were 13–18 years old, therefore, the results of this study may have little generalizability for those high school students. Fifthly, the responsibility to change (sensitivity) of the scale was not evaluated. Intervention for the healthcare service can be implemented to assess the responsibility to change (sensitivity) of the Chinese version scale in future studies. Moreover, the parental satisfaction was assessed to reflect the healthcare satisfaction, but to some extent, it may be different from the patient's satisfaction. In order to evaluate the healthcare satisfaction comprehensively, the scale of pediatric patient's satisfaction (especially the older pediatric patient's satisfaction) could be developed in the future studies.
As the first study to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Chinese version PedsQL™ 3.0 Healthcare Satisfaction Generic Module, our results demonstrated that the Chinese version scale is a promising instrument with adequate reliability and validity to measure the parents' satisfaction with the healthcare for their children with chronic diseases. Future studies should focus on evaluating the responsibility to change (sensitivity) of the scale and testing on parents of pediatric patients with other chronic diseases and in a variety of different level hospitals in China.
Standardized root mean square residual.
We give our sincere thanks to Dr James W. Varni for permitting us to translate the instrument. We are also grateful to all the experts involved in the translation process and the doctors and nurses from the five hospitals in Guangzhou. There was no funding for this research.
JL conceptualized and designed the study, acquired, analyzed and interpreted the data, and drafted the manuscript. LY conceptualized and designed the study, acquired the data and revised the manuscript. YW and YL acquired data and revised the manuscript. YH conceptualized and designed the study, supervised the data analysis and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.


SPE are pleased to announce that they have been appointed by Wavehub, to carry out a safety audit on their key operational site in Cornwall. The Wavehub project is a unique in the UK, and provides a flexible 33kV or 11kV subsea connection point to facilitate the Research and Development in offshore renewable power projects from around the world, and represents a number of innovative technical concepts in engineering design.
SPE's scope will include attending the site to carry out a review and assessment of Wavehub's specified subcontractor to ensure that all routine and planned maintenance and switching activities are carried out in a safe and competent manner and that all relevant Health Safety and Environmental rules are being followed, that the relevant operator are suitably trained and experienced for the roles they are carrying out and that the operational procedures are being followed and are sufficiently robust for the role they are intended. In addition SPE will undertake a review of the operational philosophy of the site to identify any weak points or potential cost saving opportunities.
SPE look forward to working with Wavehub on this unique project.


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The Poetics of Space
Beloved and contemplated by philosophers, architects, writers, and literary theorists alike, Bachelard's lyrical, landmark work examines the places in which we place our conscious and unconscious thoughts and guides us through a stream of cerebral meditations on poetry, art, and the blooming of consciousness itself.
Houses and rooms; cellars and attics; drawers, chests and wardrobes; nests and shells; nooks and corners: no space is too vast or too small to be filled by our thoughts and our reveries.
With an introduction by acclaimed philosopher Richard Kearney and a foreword by author Mark Z. Danielewski.
The son two of shoemakers, Gaston Bachelard had an illustrious academic career at the Sorbonne, eventually gaining the Légion d'Honneur and the Grand Prix National des Lettres. His work has influenced intellectual titans like Foucault, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Althusser. Mark Z. Danielewski is best known for his striking debut novel, House of Leaves. Richard Kearney is the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College.


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Back to Attorneys
Ms. Valtierra received her J.D. from University of Illinois College of Law, where she graduated cum laude. During her time in law school, Ms. Valtierra served as the President of the Women's Law Society and Secretary of the Intellectual Property Legal Society. Ms. Valtierra also took part in rigorous trial advocacy and appellate advocacy courses. Ms.Valtierra also competed in moot court competitions at the national level for the Colleage of Law. She graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science degree - Pre-Law and Minor in Philosophy of Law in May 2014.
Ms. Valtierra was admitted to the Illinois bar in November, 2017.
U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, 2017.
U.S. District Court, Nebraska, 2019.
Elaina R. Valtierra
erv@lipelyons.com
Anniversary of Elaina Valtierra
Lipe Lyons is delighted to celebrate Elaina R. Valtierra's third anniversary with the firm. Ms. Valtierra is a litigation associate who focuses her practice on the defense of premise liability, construction liability, transportation liability, and product liability claims. Just a few of Ms. Valtierra's many successes in the past year are highlighted below:
Succeeded on four dispositive motions objecting to the court's personal jurisdiction in a products liability case;
Settled a complex construction liability claim weeks prior to trial, securing a settlement for a small percentage of Plaintiffs' initial $16 million demand;
Participating in the Illinois Defense Counsel Diversity and Inclusivity Committee's panel discussion: "Diverse Thoughts on Diversity."
Ms. Valtierra is an active member in a number of professional and civic organizations. Ms. Valtierra was selected to represent Lipe Lyons at the International Society of Primerus Law Firms' 2019 Global Conference in San Diego, California and the 2020 Young Lawyers Society Conference in Coral Gables, Florida. She also serves as the Vice Chair of the Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel's Diversity & Inclusion Committee. Additional information on Ms. Valtierra's experience and her exceptional results can be found in the attorney section of our website.
Lipe Lyons Women Attorneys to Join Rotating Cast of Female Neutrals from ADR to Discuss Impact of COVID-19 on Women Lawyers
On August 13, 2020, partner Amanda L. Zink, and associates Elaina Valtierra, Alejandra Barcenas, Sahrish Moyeed and Sarah Bourdet will join a rotating cast of female neutrals from ADR Systems, including Hon. Helaine L. Berger, (Ret.), Hon. Lisa R. Curcio, (Ret.), Amy L. Gertler, Esq., Hon. Kay M. Hanlon, (Ret.) and Hon. Brigid M. McGrath, (Ret.) for a virtual Happy Hour and Networking Discussion regarding the impact of COVID-19 on women lawyers. Topics will include how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted female attorneys' ability to network, stretched their abilities as working professionals, and challenged them to serve their clients in new and remote ways.
Illinois Appellate Court affirms summary judgment for law firm and attorney in legal malpractice case
Valtierra Joins the Firm as an Associate Attorney
© Copyright 2021, Lipe Lyons Murphy Nahrstadt & Pontikis Ltd. All Rights Reserved.


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Don's Home Sports Running Marathon
Marathons | Half Marathons | 5K | 10K
26.22 Miles (26 miles 385 yards)
Record a/o Dec. 2013:
Men 2h03:23 (4:42/mi)- Wilson Kipsang, Keyna
7 of the top 10 times were by Kenyans
Women: 2h15:25 - Paula Radcliffe, GB
Qualifying times for Boston Marathon (18-34 age bracket):
Men   3:10:59 (3 hours and 10 minutes) ( 7:17 min./mile)
Women 3:40:59 (3 hours and 40 minutes)
An exception to the qualification requirement is awarded to 1,250 runners who
raise a pre-determined level of sponsorship for officially designated local charities.
Equivalent pace (av. mile times)
2:11   -  5    min/mi
3  hr  -  6:51 min:sec/mi
3.5 hr -  8    min/mi
4 hr   -  9:09 min/mi
4.5 hr - 10:18 min/mi
5 hr   - 11:26 min/mi
(Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York City, IAAF World Championships Marathon and the Olympic Games)
Boston Marathon in April
New York Marathon November
California International Marathon (CIM)
Coverage at KCRA Channel 3
CIM 2008 Results (fastest by division [age group])
19UND 33 3:15 4:04 20 3:30 5:03
20-24 111 2:28 3:57 5:03 146 2:39 3:58 5:03
55-59 197 2:48 4:06 5:13 73 3:52 4:47 5:59
65-69 31 3:17 4:17 5:57 14 3:51 5:09 5:44
75-79 5 4:17 5:17 5:30
Total 3011 2:17 3:51 2185 2:32 4:16
90% - 90% of times were this or less.
Sample size was small with 14 women in the 65-69 group and 14 men in the 70-74 group.
Source: www.runcim.org/data/08Results.html
Note: According to a NY Times Article "Plodders Have a Place, but Is It in a Marathon?" "In 1980, the median finishing time for male runners in United States marathons was 3:32, a pace of about eight minutes per mile. In 2008, the median finishing time was 4:16, a pace of 9:46."
Note: The CIM is mainly downhill and gets a lot of runners trying to establish good qualifying times for the big races.
Women's times generally get better after those big birthdays, 40, 50 & 60.
Women peak earlier (20-24) than men (25-29) and drop off earlier (55-59) than men (70-74). This is a generalization, Paula Radcliffe set the worlds record at the age of 30 and Grete Waitz won her 9th New York marathon and Radcliffe her 3rd, both at the age of 35.
Men 30-39 (a smoother distribution).
One sigma (standard deviation) is 45 min.
(I don't know how to calculate the upper limit for a gamma distribution [are race times gamma?] but it is something greater than 4:24)
Run-Walk Strategy:
Many beginning and intermediate runners use a run-walk strategy instead of running the whole distance. This works for any distance running from a 5K up.
See Run-Walk
More no-shows than DNFs at New York Marathon:
Of the 60,000 people who qualify and register for the New York Marithon, 15,000 are no-shows, 2,000 do not finish.
Most cancel because of injuries while training or not meeting training goals.
Tips in the article below:
Have a complete exercise program including upper body to avoid things like back problems.
Build up slowly, 6 mos. is better than 2 mos. Long runs should include a 20 miler (or more) and two 18 milers spaced two weeks apart.
Taper 3 weeks prior to the race. No run should exceed 12 miles two weeks out with only two or three runs of two to four miles the last week.
The article tels of one runner who developed plantar fasciitis, a heel injury, 13 miles into his 20-mile training run and was going to cancel his first run in the Chicago marathon. With three weeks to go, his coach told him not to run any more and attempt the marathon; He did and finished his first marathon in 5:45. See Who Quits Before Race Day? WSJ 11/1/11.
American Marathon drought:
The days of the days of Salazar, Beardsley, and Rodgers are long gone. The last American to win the Boston Marathon was Grey Meyer in 1983. Americans are lagging behind rivals from many other countries, including Japan, Mexico, Australia and African nations like Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania.
Ryan Hall, with a 2:08:24 in his debut Marathon in 2007 and tenth in the Olympic marathon in Beijing, will run in 2009.
Pre-Race Prep:
See pre-race for 5K
See Warm-up in 5K
Compression shorts are claimed to reduce fatigue.
Enough people believed these claims to make sales of compression gear jump 170 percent from 2008 to 2010, giving it a 5 percent share of the sports apparel market, according to a recent consumer-research report.
You can spend anywhere from $30 to $100 for CEP Dynamic+ Run Shorts
Adds say thing like "Proven Compression Technology - Promotes faster muscle recovery & blood circulation, & minimizes injury." "fatigue reducing".
However the first two articles that came up in google (see below) were skeptical.
They were reviewing shorts; Tights deliver graduated pressure, meaning garments are tighter around the ankle than the knee, which helps improve circulation from the lower leg.
I can see where this would be an advantage.
Jeremy Repanich, a Brooklyn-based writer says at deadspin.com - What compression gear will and wont mostly wont do for you.
"I kept track of my own running times, with and without tights, and that data led me to the same conclusion as the scientists: If you're looking for better endurance or more speed, don't bother with compression gear. It makes no difference."
CEP Compression Shorts Review | No Meat Athlete agreed.
"So much of distance running is about comfort and being able to relax, and I found that having my thighs squeezed like vegan sausages made that tough."
A rule of thumb is, dress like it's 20 degrees warmer than the actual temperature.
Running USA's Annual Marathon Report | Running USA
Virgin London Marathon statistics | foot4ward
USA Track & Field (USATF)
www.MarathonGuide.com
Marathon at wikipedia Training:
MarathonTraining.com
www.MarathonRookie.com/
Marathon Training: RunnersWorld.com
Marathon-training.net
Do You Make These Four Tapering Mistakes? | Runner's World
5 Running Tweaks That Took an Hour Off My Marathon Time - Life by DailyBurn