The public discourse on alcohol and drug addiction has shifted. Now, it’s gambling addiction’s turn.
There’s been a shift in the way addiction is perceived over recent years, with public discourse moving from a personal-responsibility paradigm to one that views addiction as an illness.
Gambling addiction, perhaps because it doesn’t take the obvious physical toll that drug and alcohol misuse does, is still catching up.
From April next year, the ubiquitous “Gamble responsibly” tagline that accompanies ads for online betting companies on TV, apps, radio, newspapers and websites will be refreshed.
“[Gambling] has not been front of mind for us, particularly as GPs,” said Dr Hester Wilson, a Sydney GP with special interest in addiction medicine.
“We think about smoking, we think about alcohol, we think about other drugs – and they have real medical impacts – but [problem gambling] is not something that we’ve routinely asked about or thought about with our patients.”
In reality, she told The Medical Republic, up to 7% of the population either experience gambling harm or are at risk of experiencing it.
What’s more, gambling addictions tend to harm more people than just the gambler.
“The person that kind of started me thinking, ‘hang on a sec, I could do this better’, was one of my patients who came in and said, ‘Oh my God, my husband has double mortgaged the house, we’re gonna lose the house,’” Dr Wilson said.
“They had three teenage kids and were going to lose the house, because he was gambling.
“I had no idea that he even had a gambling issue.”
Dr Wilson won’t be sad to see the end of the “Gamble responsibly” tagline.
“It doesn’t mean anything, because people don’t gamble to be responsible,” she said.
Those words will be replaced by seven new slogans, which gambling companies will be required to use on a rotating basis.
The new taglines were proposed by consulting firm Hall & Partners in a specially commissioned report for the Department of Social Services.
Two of the messages – “Chances are you’re about to lose” and “Think. Is this a bet you really want to place?” – are designed to reduce the overconfidence that gamblers feel when placing a bet.
Another two – “You win some. You lose more” and “What are you prepared to lose today? Set a deposit limit” – were written to remind consumers of the rational truth that they will likely lose money.
“Imagine what you could be buying instead” is meant to reframe the conversation away from the harms of betting.
The final two taglines, “What are you really gambling with?” and “What’s gambling really costing you?”, had a relatively weaker performance with test audiences.
Dr Wilson hopes that the new slogans will help cut through the noise.
“The bottom line is that the house will always win, you will always lose,” she said.
“When you say ‘gamble responsibly’, people say ‘well I’m trying to be responsible, I’m trying to get my money back’.
“But having [that tagline] where it says ‘you are going to lose’, is really countering and reframing those incorrect cognitions.”
The Sydney GP urged other doctors to consider making questions about gambling part of their routine.
“If you’re going to ask one question, ask about whether they have experienced any harm from gambling in the last year, [whether that’s] losing money or having arguments,” Dr Wilson said.
Central Queensland University gambling researcher Associate Professor Alex Russell said that while messaging is just one part of gambling reform, it was a welcome change.
“‘Gamble responsibly’ has always been a bit of a nothing slogan, with no real practical advice,” he told TMR.
“But it’s also been a really stigmatising slogan – it puts all of the onus on the person to keep themselves safe and takes away the role of industry to offer safe products and safe environments.”
Hall & Partners said their research had concluded that rotating slogans will reduce the chances of message fatigue, and that the range of messaging approaches will maximise the opportunity to reduce gambling harm.
“It’s meant to get rid of that saturation effect,” Professor Russell said.
The researcher also welcomed the fact that deposit limits were specifically mentioned in one slogan but highlighted the fact that it’s not the only limit someone can set.
“There are other things you can [set limits on too], like how much you’re willing to bet in a day,” Professor Russell said.
“It’s one thing putting money into the account, but actually placing the bets or have a set amount you’re willing to lose.”
Time limits, too, can be effective, according to Professor Russell.
“The focus is often on the money, but the time side of things is also pretty important too,” he said.
“People have different amounts of money, but we all have the same number of hours in a day.”
Australia has free gambling counselling services in every state and territory, which are also open to close friends and family of people who gamble.
Some states and territories also offer the option for people to voluntarily exclude themselves from the gaming areas of pubs, clubs and casinos.


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Vampire: The Requiem—Dark Influences
White Wolf Publishing
The fate of your Kindred is in the cards! Your Prince among the undead has declared that he will go into torpor, the rest of ages, and will choose a successor before he passes. Forge bonds, win favors, and break vows to reign supreme over the night in this standalone, strategy card-based game based in the Vampire: The Requiem setting designed for 2–5 ambitious (and devious) players.
This product is out of print.
Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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domain: game


Seahawks News | Links
Hey there folks and Happy Monday to you!
We all love the Seahawks right? But we all don’t have the time to go thru the web to try to find the latest news and the articles from the best writers on the planet.
The men that cover the Seahawks 24-7.
Remember folks that on the right sidebar of this page is our SEAHAWKS daily email blast subscription. If we have any Seahawks articles on any given day by subscribing you’ll get these articles from NWSB in your inbox.
Here are some articles and links for the Seahawks for Monday.
What Are They Saying Locally!?
Seahawks play follow the defense – Clare Farnsworth’s breakdown of today’s game. – Clare Farnsworth – Seahawks.com
ANIMATED: Red Bryant Interception And Stiff-Arm Of Austin Pettis – A good recap of the game along with a hilarious animated picture of REd Bryant‘s interception. – Avinash Kunnath – Seattle.SBNation.com
Carroll: “They did not waiver” – A clip of the Carroll presser with a good quote. – Eric Williams – TheNewsTribune.com
Seahawks top Rams 24-7 – One of the many recaps from the Seahawks game. – Keith Myers – 12thManrising.com
Seahawks smack hapless Rams, win 24-7 – A good summary of the game. – Kip Earlywine – 17power.blogspot.com
Seahawks Play Seahawks Football, Beat St. Louis 24-7 – The Field Gulls recap of the game. – Danny Kelly – FieldGulls.com
What Are The National Guys Saying!?
Seahawks sack Bradford, Rams – A recap of the game’s strong defensive effort. – R.B. Fallstrom – ProFootballTalk.com
Seahawks shut down Rams – Another recap of the Seahawks win with a highlight video included. – Foxsports.com
Rams stuffed by Seahawks 24-7 – Another recap from the game. – FoxSports.com
Justin Forsett Video: Watch Seahawks’ RB TD Scamper with One Shoe – A quick recap and a video highlight of Justin Forsett’s shoeless touchdown. – Brian Mazique – BleacherReport.com
5 Takeaways from Seattle Seahawks 24-7 Win over St. Louis Rams– 5 things to take away from the Seahawks win. – Darin Pike – BleacherReport.com
Despite win, penalties still a problem for Seahawks – Seahawks are winning, but penalties NEED to be eliminated. – John Boyle – CBSSports.com
We’ve got your back. Seahawks fans.
The Morning Java will be posted regularly so check us out each morning to find some of the best local and national Seahawks material on the web!


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A new figure that I recently received is ALTER’s Koizumi Hanayo – Love Live! School Idol Festival – Sangatsu Hen version. It’s the second Koizumi Hanayo – Love Live! School Idol Festival figure, the first one portrayed her in a sailor uniform. I wasn’t a big fan of that one, I decided to get the Hanayo figure from FREEing, which turned out nicely. I’m satisfied with my Hanayo in school uniform, I was happy when ALTER announced a second figure of my dear Hanayo.
This time her version is called Sangatsu Hen. Alter also made a matching version of Hoshisora Rin, both would have looked great together, but I only could afford one. Hanayo was sculpted by Tobita Takafumi and was released in May.
Hanayo is based on this illustration from the Love Live! School Idol Festival smartphone game.
This figure is scaled 1/7 and measures 22 cm in height, as optional item she has a cutely designed microphone staff.
Hanayo wears her usual dark blonde hairstyle without any decorations, her cute face is brimming with happiness and her wonderful smile has a contagious effect. With the big reflection spot in her purple eyes one could get the idea of her being slightly drunk, but she is probably only intoxicated with joy because she became a self confident idol now.
Her expression is really sweet, unfortunately this Hanayo figures comes without glasses, I always liked her appearance as bespectacled cutie, so I would have prefered it to have the glasses option, maybe in a funky cherry blossom design.
Hanayo is wearing a shoulder free top and a frilly mini skirt. Her cute costume is heavily influenced by the cherry blossom theme, it shows different shades of pink, white and green. The amount of detail on the beautiful outfit is incredible, you probably see it yourself, but I will nevertheless write about a few aspects of her enchanting outfit.
For example her wide open sleeves; they have a frilly green inlay painted in the color of young cherry tree leafs, a different tone of green is present at her over the knee boots, the pastel green is quite nice, but additionally pink cherry blossoms are printed on it, the shiny pink soles are a nice highlight as well. The rim is decorated with a pink frilly rim.
The outfit also highlights the attractive body of the rice loving Hanayo. Her fancy skirt has a striped top layer and several layers of frill underneath, the details on it are very elaborate. At first it appears a little odd what a short skirt Hanayo wears from a slightly lower angle, her nice behind can barely be ignored. The plumpness of her thighs or other areas is quite prominent overall and gives the figure an sweet, sexy and appealing appearance.
Hanayo is articulated in a cute looking pose, which captures her during idol dancing, the lifted open arms make it look quite adorable. Her legs are showing a nice articulation as well, the highs are close together, which highlights the Zettai Ryōiki in a great way. The angled left lower leg adds some more movement to the sweet pose.
Unlike ALTER’s other Love Live! School Idol Festival figures, the Hanayo Sangatsu Hen version has a different looking base, smaller in size and in shape of a cherry blossom with pink cherry blossoms and petals printed on.
The figure is without a doubt a very enchanting adaption of Hanayo’s character, Koizumi Hanayo is my fourth Love Live! School Idol Festival figure. I really like this style, she has a lovely outfit with a pretty color selection and an amazing level of detail. Her face is very cute and I just love her happy expression, the lack of glasses is a little letdown, but I knew that in advance. I also like that the sculptor adapted Hanayo as pleasingly plump as she is supposed to be ❤.
I’m really happy with the Koizumi Hanayo – Love Live! School Idol Festival – Sangatsu Hen version, ALTER’s Love Live! figures just never disappoint. Are there any of ALTER’s Love Live! School Idol Festival figures you would like to see another version of? I would like a new Kotori and Nozomi figure or Nozomi in a swimsuit, please.

domain: design


Auburn 'light years ahead' at linebacker compared to summer of 2013
AUBURN – Just as Gus Malzahn had to reinstall his offense last year, Ellis Johnson had to teach his scheme to the Auburn defense.
But Johnson didn't have the luxury of players being familiar with his 4-2-5 scheme the way the offense was only a year removed from Malzahn's Hurry-Up, No-Huddle.
The Tigers were coming off a dismal year defensively while running Brian VanGorder's complex and traditional 4-3 defense, Johnson was bringing a whole new approach and moving personnel around to spots they never played before.
Linebackers were asked to change and learn more than other positions. Johnson inherited a thin personnel group and the strong side linebacker is replaced by the "star" safety in his system, putting an additional premium on communication out of the middle linebacker.
Jake Holland missed a few practices during spring practice in 2013 due to a class conflict, making the process more drawn out than Johnson would've liked.
Now Johnson enters year two, and the focus is no longer installation, it's about improvement and refinement.
With Cassanova McKinzy, Auburn's leading tackler (75) last season, moving to the middle and Kris Frost (59 tackles) sliding to the weak side, Auburn is shuffling personnel, but familiar personnel.
"I think coach Johnson would say we're light years ahead of where we were at this time last year with our linebacker situation because he knows more about them," Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. "JaViere Mitchell coming back, and he's got some flexibility with some other guys too. But with (McKinzy and Frost) specifically, coach Johnson has got a lot of information and I know he feels good going into the season with the information he has."
But like Holland had to miss time a year ago, McKinzy was hampered with a hip injury and was unable to take part in much of spring practice. In limited time on A-Day, he had one tackle and forced a fumble.
"His transition to that position was really effortless. It was easy," Johnson said. "I just wish he hadn't missed so much time, because I think fundamentally he hasn't improved. And he's still a relatively inexperienced linebacker who would have gotten a lot better with spring"
McKinzy, who has not spoken publicly since immediately following the BCS National Championship, enters his junior season with 16 career starts, though just two as a middle linebacker. His fall camp will be focused on improving as the figurative quarterback of the defense.
"When I first got here, I thought he was a Mike linebacker but he wouldn't talk," Johnson said. "He didn't communicate well at the line of scrimmage and things of that nature."
Frost is the more vocal of the projected starting duo, but needs to keep learning the scheme.
Mitchell, Kenny Flowers, Khari Harding and Anthony Swain also return and Tre' Williams and Deshaun Davis join the group, which lost only Holland, who had 46 tackles and started 13 games last season.
The Tigers were not good against the pass and average, at best, against the run, but when their backs were against the wall they buckled down in the Red Zone.
It was all a bit perplexing to the veteran defensive coordinator, who stated the need to eliminate "garbage" plays on a weekly basis.
With run-heavy Arkansas in the season-opener on Aug. 30, the Tigers will know early on if their linebackers have seen the proverbial light, and are ready to lead the Auburn defense in a year of throwing out the garbage.


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MMOsite Morning Call: Weekly Cosplay Highlight [Mar.13th]
ByDate: Mar 13 2017 Views:
Morning, MMOsiters! It's Monday again. Are you waiting for awesome cosplay images? In today's collection, we have characters from Overwatch, Onmyoji, NieR：Automata, LoveLive, League of Legends, YURI!! on ICE and other games and animes. Hope you like them. And have a wonderful Monday!
NieR：Automata & YURI!! on ICE
FF 7 & Black Butler
Spirit Blade Mountain & Re:Life in a different world from zero
Cinderella girls & EGOIST

domain: artistic


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Tied for first. The Giants delivered a crucial, mid-season knockout punch to their hated rivals,
sweeping the three game set, and unbelievably, not allowing a run to score:
…. The year was 1890. Benjamin Harrison was president. Bread was 3 cents a loaf. Milk was free because you just squirted it out of the cow. Bruce Bochy’s great-grandfather first uttered the words, “There’s no getting around it,” and the teams that became the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers played their first game.
They have met 2,361 times over 123 seasons. Through all the generations the Giants had not shut out their ancient rivals in three consecutive games.
Wow. That was nice. The Dodgers are reeling, and the Giants are surging. Great time to
be a Giants fan.
UPDATE: OK, maybe not a knockout punch. Maybe more like a standing eight count. ;-)

domain: history


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Please connect our fashion consultant for any Price/Details Query.
Price Query & Customization
Work Technique: Embellished with crystals, sitara, dabka and nakshi in a sweetheart neckline
Beautifully detailed ivory dress hand embroidered birds with crystals, sitara, dabka and nakshi in a sweetheart neckline and worked straps and double-piping finishing on the hem. Paired with a gorgeous kataan silk shawl also finished in double-piping.
It is a 2 piece outfit.


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About Camp California
Camp California will be held from Sunday April 9th - Tuesday April 11th in Yangon, Myanmar.
The full day (9am - 4pm) camp is designed as a cultural and language exchange experience through creative and fun science, tech, and art projects!
Your child will learn about science, technology, art, and English, and connect with and learn about life in the Silicon Valley, California from high school students from the USA!
Camp California will be hosted and run at Myanmar office of "360 ED Lab", Singularity University founded EdTech venture based in Yangon, Myanmar located on the 6th floor of Tarmwe Plaza in Tarmwe Township.
Seating is extremely limited, please reserve early to ensure your seat is available. Open to all children ages 8 - 15 year old.
Register by phone:
09 455 047 370
09 771 333 976
360Ed is a Yangon based startup dedicated to democratizing teacher training through 360 VR and smart phones. 360Ed is founded by Hla Hla Win, a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Public Policy and Singularity University in Mountain View, California in the heart of Silicon Valley.
OUR TEAM FROM CALIFORNIA
Camp California is designed and lead by 9 top students from some of the top middle and high schools in the US as part of the International Program of the Hongyun Art Foundation based in Cupertino, California in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Kathy (Age 15, Monta Vista High School)
JAIMIE (Age 15, Monta Vista High School)
Hey! My name is Jaimie Chan. I’m 15 years old and going into 10th grade at Monta Vista High School. I’ve been at Hongyun art for a little over 2 years. I enjoy playing soccer, which I was on Varsity and won Freshman of the League, and participating in my school’s business club,FBLA. I was a WEB leader at my middle school and that taught me communication skills, responsibility, but also how to have fun while being a mentor to younger kids. Last year I went on a student exchange program to Japan and had a lot of fun with my host family. In my free time I enjoy hanging out with my friends and watching movies.
Anoop (Age 15, Monta Vista High School)
Hello I am Anoop, a 15 year old student from Monta Vista high school! I am part of my school's Science Olympiad team, which is a team that competes with other teams in different events. Each event is about a branch of science. This was my first year, so it was all brand new to me. I was filled with emotions of nervousness and anxiety, but I quickly overcame these feelings after the first competition. I ended up get thing first place in one of my events, which brought a smile to my face. Other than Science Olympiad I am a T.A. at hongyun art as well as a T.A. at my Indian religion class. Teaching kids at both of these places is a fun way to balance out the hard parts of high school.
Eng (Age 14, Saratoga High School)
Hello, I am Eng, currently 14 years old, and an upcoming sophomore that goes to Saratoga High. I enjoy swimming and swim competitively, and I swim year round almost everyday(even in the summer at 6 AM). I also enjoy art and like to create things and engineer. In addition, I like science and I hope to pursue a science career in the future? Personally I like to express myself through art rather than through words. Also I like to play video games. I can't think of anything else write.
Olive (Age 13, Monta Vista High School)
Hello! My name is Olive Tang. This year, I will be starting 9th grade, my first year in high school. I have been at Hongyun Art for 8 years. I love crafting (mainly card-making), lettering and typography, and playing badminton. Some awards I have recently won are the "Energized by Art” Utility Box Pilot Project and the Kennedy Middle School Eighth Grade Distinguished Student Award. One of my biggest accomplishments that I am proud of is that I co-designed and painted a mural for Kennedy Middle School.
Sherri (Age 12, Miller Middle School)
Hi! My name is Sherri Wu. I am 12 years old, going to eighth grade this year at Miller Middle School. I have been at Hongyun Art for 6 years. I like to draw, read, and debate. At Hongyun Art, I've hosted birthday parties, helped out with Maker Faire, and also taught art classes for parents. I love to tease my sister, go to TA parties and be silly with my friends, and glueing random things I find athome together. My best friends are Carolyn, Anya, Jamie, and Andy. Italian and Sushi are my favorite foods, and I love annoy my friends.
Audrey (Age 11, Stanford Middle School)
Hey, I'm Audrey Guo. I'm currently 11 years old and have been at Hongyun Art for just over two years. With the help of teachers, I won the 2016 Utility Box Contest and had the chance to help make Cupertino more beautiful. When I'm not attending Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle, I love to photograph, use technology, draw, cook, snack, and watch videos in my free time.
About HONGYUN ART FOUNDATION
The Hongyun Art Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with the mission to use art as a vehicle to better society and grow creativity, entrepreneurship, and leadership skills in communities worldwide.
Hongyun is the founder of Hongyun Art School and the Hongyun Art Foundation. Hongyun Art is the Bay Area's largest private art studio with over 600 weekly students and growing. Hongyun's philosophy and style of teaching emphasizes creativity, action-taking, and sharing ideas. Hongyun was trained in traditional art technique growing up in China. At the age of 16, Hongyun ran away from home to attend the prestigious Shanghai Theater Academy in Shanghai, China. After moving to the US, Hongyun graduated from UC Berkeley in Fine Art Practice and opened Hongyun Art in 2011.
Tommy is the jack of all trades that helps manage and run Hongyun Art. Tommy was trained as a Computer Science and Engineering major at UCLA and is a veteran of the tech industry having worked for several teams at Microsoft over the course of decade-long career including most recently on the Powerpoint team. He quit Microsoft in 2012 to help Hongyun run Hongyun Art full time and now helps develop new programs..
Hope you'll join us for Camp California! Seating is extremely limited, please reserve early to ensure your seat is available.
Open to all children ages 8 - 15 year old.
Register by phone:
09 455 047 370
09 771 333 976


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Zimbabwe’s flour imports, dropped by more than 60 percent between January and November last year saving the nation at least US$80 million.
The decline in flour imports during the 11 month period is largely being attributed to improved wheat stock and production.
Latest official trade figures released by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency ( Zimstat), indicate despite the fall in flour imports, the country has however experienced a negative trade deficit.
In the past few years flour imports were costing the nation more than $100 million, resulting in the prices of the end products being on the increase.
Sources in the milling sector have also revealed the sector has adequate stocks of wheat that are required to produce the required flour by industry and commerce.
Zimbabwe consumes between 400 000 to 450 000 tonnes of wheat per year with expectations the recovery in the production of the commodity will ease reliance on imports of the commodity.
Due to depressed production, the country is relying on importing key raw materials for industry, a move that is draining the scarce foreign exchange in the economy.

domain: agronomy


Introducing the Zero Tolerance 0562 Hinderer S 35 VN Slicer G 10 Flipper, a premium knife crafted with precision and durability in mind. This exceptional knife is proudly made in the USA, embodying the high-quality standards and craftsmanship expected from the Zero Tolerance brand.
Featuring a robust 3.5-inch blade made from CPM S 35 VN steel, this knife is designed for superior slicing performance and edge retention. The blade thickness of 0.156 inches ensures durability, while the overall open length of 8.3 inches provides a comfortable and balanced handling experience.
The handle of this knife is meticulously designed with a thickness of 0.49 inches, combining G 10 and titanium materials for a secure grip and enhanced durability. Weighing in at 5.55 ounces, this knife offers a substantial feel without being overly heavy, making it suitable for a variety of tasks.
Equipped with a reliable frame lock mechanism, the Zero Tolerance 0562 ensures safety and ease of use during operation. Whether you're an enthusiast or a professional, this knife is a versatile tool that combines functionality with an elegant design.


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In fact, you can consider us every decorator’s dream for cool and sophisticated décor. We’ve got plenty of fun options for the family room or play room too. When it’s time to update a boy’s bedroom, our fun collection of no parking and personalized street signs are a great option. You’ll love how easy it is to customize your pick, choose a color scheme or add an engraving. Plus, with so many fast and affordable shipping options to choose from, we’ll have your special gift wrapped up and delivered before you know it.
There’s quite a bit going on in this room. It looks as though there is a little loft area next to the bed. Along that whole wall is a mural of black flowers and leaves. On the wall in the middle of the room, there are a few paintings that have the same colors in them as on the wall-that mint green color. The rest of the room is pretty simple and well designed.
Thinking of setting up your very own home drinking den? Whether you’ve got a small dining room bar or an all-out dedicated den complete with a wet bar, our personalized bar signs are sure to bring a little imaginative flair to your bar area. Go with a classic cocktail lounge feel, rustic pub ambiance or exciting sport’s bar vibe. You’ll also find a wonderful collection of unique wine and bar accessories to complete your personal look.
If you?re looking to make a stylish statement on a home or office wall, consider a metal wall art piece that is filled with decorative beauty. Perhaps you?re looking to invoke a touch of nature with metal tree wall art or metal flower wall art; or need a piece for a specific area. You could use a coffee cup wall sculpture to add character to your breakfast nook, or bring about a vast ocean of sea-themed art for a decidedly coastal feel. Inspire your family or guests with an encouraging phrase rendered artistically so you can always keep an eye on positivity. Create a conversation piece with some shimmery abstract art and let the communications flow. Whatever you seek, you?ll find unique and striking metal wall decor of all sizes at BedBathandBeyond.com.
This is definitely a man’s room. If you couldn’t tell, there is minimal furniture and the colors are all the same. The bed is a white color and the headboard and floor both match, using the same wood color and texture. On the wall behind the bed is a gorgeous painting of two sets of birds. This seems to bring a sense of individuality into the bedroom. This room is also very brightly lit, thanks to what I can only assume is a window on the other side of the room.
This room’s decoration is perfect for teenage boys which a taste for sports while keeping a very modern and open environment. That is especially affirmed by the wallpaper behind the bed and the American football helmet on the nearby table in combination with the blue bed sheets and dark wood flooring. The floating bed and large window make the room feel much bigger than it is.
I really like the exposed brick designs that I come across when doing these posts. This bedroom features that exposed brick and on that brick are very different pieces of wall art. The overall room is simple and there isn’t much to it, but the atmosphere is nice. I like the simplicity of the wrought iron bed as well. It’s the perfect space for a bachelor or college student.
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Excellent product! I got one in translucent copper for my husband's birthday and I think it's the best gift I've ever gotten him. He was genuinely happy. He's normally low-key about gifts, but he lit up when he unwrapped this metal sign. I love the translucent copper color. I wanted something that was reminiscent of a rust or rich wood tone to compliment his woodshop. The color online doesn't do it justice. It's better in real life and this particular color is rich and multi-dimensional. This sign fits perfectly on a standard-sized door.
The "similar styles" price noted is our researched retail price at a point in time of similar style of aesthetic item at another retailer offering home décor products. Like other home décor retailers, we work with a variety of partners to source our products, making each one unique to At Home. Copyright © 2018 At Home Stores LLC. Selection, quantities and pricing of products may vary by participating store. All rights reserved.
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Evoke mystery and adventure when adding this blackandwhite Evoke mystery and adventure when adding this blackandwhite print of a foggy dirt road. A bit of shine suggests recent rain or a generally moist environment while the nearby trees lean over as though to get a better view. This Amanti Art Decorative Framed Art Piece is a home decor ... More + Product Details Close
With a contemporary and creative design, with details that refer to elements of fashion, this room is perfect for modern girls. The floor’s black and white stamp, which was eternalized by Coco Chanel, French fashion icon, together with colorful furniture and wall stickers, create a contrast that makes the place feel cool and fun. The stamped lamps and the picture frames make the decoration seem very youthful and upbeat.
The predominance of several shades of blue in the ambiance reminds us of the sea, which combined with other neutral colors and the presence of the plant, mark the natural aspect, giving off the feeling of harmony and tranquility. Wooden furniture also highlight this aspect. The comfort is present in the image. The large bed with several pillows, beyond being part of the decoration that seems to simulate waves, put comfort as it’s priority.
Valid 2/14/19–2/18/19 at worldmarket.com on ground shipping on a purchase of $250 or more, excluding items purchased for in-store pick up, and before taxes, shipping, and handling. Delivery surcharges, and 2-day and overnight shipping charges still apply. Offer not valid in Alaska and Hawaii. Cannot be combined with other coupons. No adjustments to prior purchases. To redeem online, enter promotion code PRESIDENT10 at checkout.
Your choice of wall art is a great way to express your personal taste. Designs range from minimalist to complex, prints of natural scenery to everyday objects, geometric patterns to abstract ink swirls, black and white or bright, bold colors. The texture is just as important as the image and while flat prints and paintings are ideal for many wall spaces, some spaces just need a little bit more to make them stand out. In this case, go for dimensional art. Intriguing designs made from paper, wood, metal or capiz make the wall art pop before your eyes. This type of art is particularly suited to a room with a calm, minimalist design, neutral tones or fairly large size.
This room is very similar to the previous one in that it’s simple. Both the walls and comforter are white, as is the carpet. However, on the wall, there are some unique pieces of art. The first one is an exposed human. Their rear end is exposed for the world to see. The piece of art on the other side seems to be a bunch of different patterns and writings put together into one. I really like how simple, but cool, the room is overall.
Art doesn t have to be expensive to make a big impact in an otherwise neutral room. Choose the best options for your decorating needs by considering the wall space you want to fill. If your wall space is small, one piece of art will do. Larger spaces do best with a series of wall hangings or one large piece that serves as a focal point. Consider your existing decor when choosing art and wall decor. Vintage signs add appeal to a home that already has an antique flavor, for example. Sleek, minimalist art goes best with contemporary decor. Choose art and wall decor that reflects your taste and personality. If you love nature, create a garden on your walls. If you're more of a romantic, adorn your walls with red hearts and a sentimental quotation. Whether you go for canvas wall art, metal decor or vinyl wall decals, there's an abundance of pieces that speak to you at Walmart, where you'll find gorgeous artwork at Every Day Low Prices.
The Sleep Judge is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and other similar affiliate advertising programs which are designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to such affiliates’ websites such as Amazon.com. Sometimes we get a commission through purchases made through our links. We may receive products for free for review. The information contained on The Sleep Judge is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Any statements made on this website have not been evaluated by the FDA and any information or products discussed are not intended to diagnose, cure, treat or prevent any disease or illness. Please consult a healthcare practitioner before making changes to your diet or taking supplements.To support our work we earn a commission if you purchase through some of the links listed below at no additional cost to you. We may also review products we’ve received for free. This does not influence our opinions, but we believe in transparency so you can make informed choices. Read more here.
If you have some spare fabric samples that you aren’t sure what to do with, then check this out. They used their samples to make a headboard! This is probably one of the neatest ideas that I have seen so far-very creative! They matched those samples up to some floral printed pillows and a comforter. I really like the overall coloring of the room accents and how they all go together so well.


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In my last post I alluded to trying out some new things this coming year in SL and one of those things is having a son! Well, I have a son in RL and he has long been interested in SL and quite the lil gamer himself, so I made him an account so that he and I could experience SL together! There are a few things I have in mind for him, and I won’t share those things just yet as I am not sure how many of them will materialize, but if they do, my son and I are going to be cracking up quite a bit. He really is my lil sidekick and I love him to bits. Made sense to me to share Second Life with him where we could have even more fun!
Since I was all excited about my Bento makeover I was just as excited to make my son a cool looking, age-appropriate avatar! I admit I was kinda scratching my head on this one as there sure are a lot of toddler avatars and toddler fashion, but no where near the same offerings for more teenaged looking avatars. Knowing how much Trouble Dethly of PENUMBRA/Eclipse & Spotlight (such a busy guy!) supports the toddler community in SL, I figured he was the right guy to reach out to (not to mention he is super cool and my bro) and I was right! He connected me with Kenzie Thomas Numbers (mckenzieky) of MESHMERIZED and that is all it took! My son’s avatar is perfect and he has some fun kid appropriate clothing. My son’s skin and shape are from MESHMERIZED as well as his cute lil lip tattoo. In this photo, I wanted him to dress up and not clash with Mommy’s outfit so I took him over to ISON and got him a few things including the Scoopneck Sweater he is wearing. His hair is Boys & Girls 27 from Dura.
Once my son’s avatar was ready and I handed it over to my son to play with, I asked him if he might want to model like mommy and he was like “YEAH!” Next step, launching my son’s teen modeling career!
Thanks for reading! Oh, and in case you are wondering what I am wearing, I pulled out some oldies but goodies from my inventory! I am wearing a Truth Hair called Soliel from 2013 and a Valentina E Floral Bohemian Coat from 2015! I am also wearing Kunglers Lakshmi Necklace and Jeune by Rowne Emeline Leather Jumpsuit. The pose is by KaTink and called “Besties for Life” (so true) and the photo was shot on the KaTink sim.
It has been quite some time. I am sure you have seen blogs go from active to inactive and anywhere in between. I was never a truly prolific blogger, I don’t always have something to say or anything newsworthy to share. I am just a resident enjoying her SecondLife and who happens to like to blog about it sometimes. I recently celebrated my Rez Day…9 years in SL! I wanted to do a post, but the stars did not align right for that. I have spent half of my 9 years in SL exploring and learning how to role play, then I spent the second half of those 9 years breaking into the SL modeling scene. I am very comfortable with both and enjoy both sides of my SL to this day. I do feel the familiar urge to do something new with my SL, perhaps I get that urge every 4 years or so…who knows.
What has captured my interest of late is all chatter about Bento. If you don’t know what I am talking about you will have to visit Strawberry Singh’s blog because as always, she does an excellent job explaining things. Between her and Wicca Merlin, I got a crash course in Bento. As a model in SL your brand is important. Your uniqueness is your brand, which includes your face. It was this line of thinking that kept me from getting on the mesh head bandwagon. There was little way to modify them beyond skin and I just couldn’t accept that as me. I was very impressed with my fellow models who were able to work skins and layers to their advantage and make their own unique face, but I still figured anything I would do would still not give me my own unique face so I held off.
Now that Bento has arrived and I watched my dear friend Wicca (my mesh head queen) work various heads (Bento and not) and share her experiences with me. I felt confident after a few conversations and screen shares with Wicca to dive in and give making my own unique face with a Bento head a go. I was so excited to use a Bento head that I went for the Bento hands too! Both were just the refresh I needed. While I love my avatar, I knew it was time to give her a make over, which can be both time consuming and frustrating. Not this time! I have a new Bento me now and am very pleased with the results. Just like when I finally found Silly’s face (that she has had for 3ish years), I felt that same feeling once I had the right skin on and had tweaked the sliders to my liking. I know this is likely not the final look for the new Bento Silly, but I am very pleased with her beginnings!
I have some other things in mind for my SL in 2017, and I hope to be back with another post soon to talk all about that!

domain: hobby


First Alert Weather: Nice weekend, then Yellow Alert for storm potential Monday
We’re setting ourselves up for a fair weekend as a secondary cold front drops south tonight. We’ll see little in the way of precipitation with this, but it’ll help to dry our air out. That means lower humidity returns on Saturday. Meanwhile, high pressure building in will ensure us dry weather and comfortable temperatures in the upper 70s. Sunday will see temperatures tick up a few degrees into the lower 80s. We’ll see a good deal of sun, but some clouds will begin to move in later in the day with our next area of low pressure that is set to bring us storms on Monday.
A Yellow Alert is up for our storm potential Monday. This is a “heads up” that weather may have a bigger impact on your day, including the chance for some severe storms. Overall, the larger scale setup is conducive to strong to severe storms, especially Monday afternoon, but at this early point, there are still some questions regarding the specifics. If we see some rain earlier in the day, that will help to cut back on storm fuel, and thus the intensity of any storms. If we do get severe storms, the greatest threat will be damaging winds, hail and locally heavy rain.
First Alert meteorologists Alex Bielfeld and Glenn Johnson will have updates this weekend on News10NBC.


Apparently, you can never be too rich, you can never be too thin, and you can never be too wing-nutty. With only three of ten Republican presidential hopefuls displaying the integrity to admit they don’t believe in evolution, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn is considering adding his authentic conservative voice to the GOP debates:
Sen. Tom Coburn is mulling an entry into the Republican presidential primary, according to sources inside and outside the Senate. Coburn, a senator from Oklahoma, is believed to be receiving encouragement from a small group of wealthy businessmen and philanthropists in the Oklahoma-Kansas-Texas region of the country.
“He’s all about faith, lower taxes, and staying the course in Iraq,” says an adviser outside of the Senate who has been speaking to Coburn.
He’s all about “lower taxes” huh? And, you know, one way to lower taxes is to not spend taxpayer dollars building $500 million hoops palaces for billionaires.
Coburn is believed to have the backing of several low-profile members of the so called “Swift Boaters,” men who financed the ads that doomed the presidential aspirations of Sen. John Kerry.
Yeah, well, I don’t really have anything snarky to add here. I just thought it might say something about the type of folk who support Coburn.
According to Wikipedia Coburn has said he favors the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions, and that homosexuality is the biggest threat to America. The inimitable Cliff Shecter thinks Coburn is just “another whackjob“:
He’s the freaking tool that says lesbians are in the school bathrooms, silicone breast implants are “healthy”, is blocking celebrating Rachel Carson’s birthday and and was against airing “Schindler’s List” on regular tv.
He’ll fit right in.
He certainly will.


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Two Massachusetts Federal Judges Conclude that Insured v. Insured Exclusion Does Not Apply to Claim by Bankruptcy Trustee
The United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts has recommended a finding that the insured v. insured exclusion does not bar coverage for a claim by a bankruptcy trustee against the former directors and officers of the debtor. Gray v. Executive Risk Indem. Inc., et al. (In re Molten Metal Technology, Inc.), Adv. No. 00-1386 (Bankr. D. Mass. Jan. 3, 2002) (Kenner, J.). In another coverage suit arising out MMT's bankruptcy, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts likewise held, inter alia, that the insured v. insured exclusion does not bar coverage for the trustee's action against the debtor's former directors and officers. Lewis v. Executive Risk Indem. Inc., No. 00-11093-RWZ (D. Mass. Dec. 28, 2001) (Zobel, J.).
The Chapter 11 trustee of Molten Metal Technologies, Inc. ("MMT") filed an adversary proceeding against the former directors and officers of MMT alleging breach of fiduciary duties and duties of loyalty, corporate waste, insider trading, and gross negligence. Thereafter, the directors and officers tendered the claim to their D&O insurers in two successive policy periods. The insurers determined that the claim was barred under their policies' insured v. insured exclusion. In response, the Trustee filed an insurance coverage adversary proceeding, seeking, inter alia, a declaration that insurers are required to indemnify the directors and officers.
The bankruptcy court focused on the policies issued in the first of the two relevant policy periods. The operative exclusion during that period barred coverage for "a Claim made against an insured . . . which is brought by any Insured or the Company." Concluding that the adversary proceeding was non-core and that the bankruptcy court therefore could not issue final findings, the court issued recommendations subject to review by the district court. First, the bankruptcy court looked to the language of the exclusion and determined that under the unambiguous language of the exclusion, the Trustee is not an "Insured" or the "Company." Therefore, the court reasoned that the policy language supported the Trustee's position. In the alternative, the court indicated that at least the terms "Insured" and "Company" are ambiguous and thus should be construed against the insurers.
Second, the court looked at the relationship between the debtor, to which the insured v. insured exclusion applied, and Chapter 11 trustees. Attempting to distinguish First Circuit precedent holding that a trustee stands in the shoes of the debtor, the court held that the debtor and a Chapter 11 trustee are legally distinct entities and that the Trustee was prosecuting the claim against the directors and officers on behalf of the creditors and not just MMT. The court also asserted that the purpose of the insured v. insured exclusion—prevention of collusive suits—was not implicated because a Chapter 11 trustee is "genuinely adverse" to the directors and officers. (As discussed in the article beginning on page 1 in this issue of The Executive Summary, this analysis is at odds with other recent precedent.) Lastly, the court refused to consider the insurers' evidence regarding MMT's interpretation of the insured v. insured exclusion and admissions by the Trustee that he stood in the shoes of MMT.
Separately, in the Lewis case, which involved a former officer's claim for coverage for the same underlying adversary proceeding under the insurance policy in place in the second relevant policy period, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts held, inter alia, that the insured v. insured exclusion does not bar coverage for the Trustee's action against MMT's former directors and officers. Lewis v. Executive Risk Indem. Inc., No. 00-11093-RWZ (D. Mass. Dec. 28, 2001) (Zobel, J.). In so holding, the court rejected the insurer's claim that the insured v. insured exclusion applied because the Trustee's action was brought "by, or on behalf of" MMT, which was the operative language in the second policy period. The court found that, contrary to the insurer's assertions, the Trustee's action was brought on behalf of the creditors of MMT and not MMT itself, relying on Pintlar Corp. v. Fidelity Casualty Co. of New York, 205 B.R. 945 (Bankr. D. Idaho 1997), and American Casualty Co. of Reading, Pennsylvania v. Sentry Savings Bank, 867 F. Supp. 50 (D. Mass. 1994). Moreover, the court asserted that the perceived purpose of the exclusion, "to protect the insurance carrier from collusive suits," is not implicated because the Trustee was a "genuinely adverse party."
The insurer also denied coverage for the adversary proceeding based on the "pending litigation" and the "prior notice" exclusions. The policy provided no coverage for losses for "Claims" related to "pending litigation or to litigation with respect to which prior notice had been given pursuant to a previous insurance policy." Prior to the insurer's policy period, a consolidated securities class action was filed against several MMT directors and officers, but not the plaintiff, and notice of the suit was provided to MMT's insurers from a previous policy period. The insurer claimed that the adversary proceeding related back to the prior pending securities class action. The plaintiff countered that because he was not a defendant in the securities class action, the allegations contained therein are not "sufficiently related to the claims made against him" in the adversary proceeding. The court held that the "pending litigation" exclusion did not apply. The court reasoned that the policy's severability clause modified the "pending litigation" exclusion. Thus, the court found that when the adversary proceeding was filed, there was no pending litigation filed against Lewis because he was not named as a defendant in the securities class action, and the conduct of the directors and officers at issue in the securities action could not be used against the plaintiff to deny him coverage.

domain: finance


text:
On April 1, the San Francisco chapter of the Armenian Cultural Foundation held its annual fundraising event at the Green Hills Country Club in Millbrae, California with over 150 people in attendance.
On May 15, Converse Bank organized the German Music Gala Evening in appreciation of the German Bundestag’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The event was held in the Mural Hall of the National Gallery of Armenia with His Excellency Mathias Kiesler Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, Executive Director of Converse Bank Arthur Hakobyan, and AUA College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) Dean Dr. Thomas Samuelian, and other distinguished guests in attendance.
The aim of the workshop was to examine how university libraries can integrate research into writing courses. The exchange with several American universities across the globe provided AUA staff with new perspectives and knowledge.
SAN JOSE, California – On May 4, Dr. Mary A. Papazian was formally inaugurated as the 30th President of San Jose State University.
Second Annual AUA Ecotourism Conference a Success: More than 600 Participants Convened from Across the CountryMay 12, 2017
YEREVAN, Armenia – The American University of Armenia (AUA) Acopian Center for the Environment (ACE) hosted its second annual Ecotourism
On May 20, 2017, the American University of Armenia (AUA) will be participating in the Imagine Armenia forum organized by
AUA Researcher Valentina Gevorgyan (MPSIA ’11) Becomes a Doctoral Candidate in Political Science at University of FribourgMay 3, 2017
YEREVAN, Armenia – The American University of Armenia (AUA) College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) Turpanjian Center for Policy
Boghos and Shoghakat Kalaidjian lived their lives and raised their children based on the bedrock of sound advice. Berj Kalaidjian
Yerevan, Armenia — On April 17, the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC) granted the American University of Armenia
Gerald and Patricia Turpanjian School of Public Health Publishes on Results Based Financing in HealthApril 21, 2017
YEREVAN, Armenia– In April 2017, the Health Systems and Reform, an open access peer-reviewed international journal, published the article “National Scale-Up of Results-Based Financing in Primary Health Care: The Case of Armenia”, which looked into the interaction of contextual factors, actors, and processes that contributed to the successful scale-up and integration of result based financing (RBF) to Armenia’s primary health care system.

domain: library


ISI Kolkata Recruitment for the post of Administrative Officer and Accounts Officer
Government Jobs - Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata has invited applications for the Administrative Officer and Accounts Officer vacancies. Candidates who have post graduate degree in computer science and experience can apply for these posts. The department will give preference to the experienced candidates in the selection process.
how much will you get
Administrative Officer and Accounts Officer – As per rules
Important Dates and Notifications –
Post Name – Administrative Officer & Accounts Officer
Total Posts - 4
Last Date- 13-6-2022
Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Kolkata Post Recruitment Details 2022
Post Name Post No Qualification Age Limit Salary
Administrative Officer 3 MBA 40 Years 56100-177500
Accounts Officer 1 CA 40 Years 56100-177500
Selection Process Candidate will be selected on the basis of Interview.
how to apply
Eligible and interested candidates apply online on prescribed format of application along with self restrictive copies of education and other qualification, date of birth and other necessary information and documents and send before due date.
Click here to download official release
Click here for more Government Jobs of West Bengal


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By Nancy Flanders
On September 28, a group of pro-abortion women firebombed and attempted to burn down the doors of the Catholic Primatial Cathedral in Bogotá, Colombia, and sprayed pro-abortion graffiti on the walls. According to the Catholic News Agency, officials from the mayor’s office were present and took no action to stop the attack.
The pro-abortion group was taking part in the Day for the Decriminalization and Legalization of Abortion, and its members demanded abortion be expanded in Colombia. Abortion was legalized in the nation on February 21 when the Constitutional Court decriminalized abortion prior to 24 weeks — creating the least restrictive abortion laws in Latin America.
“We reject all forms of violence in actions and words, we demand civility on the part of the promoters and participants of marches and protests, we ask the authorities to guarantee the life, honor, and property of citizens,” the Archdiocese of Bogotá said in a statement on September 29.
The Archdiocese was joined in its condemnation of the arson and vandalism by United for Life, the Catholic Solidarity Movement, and pro-life members of Congress.
“We reject the acts of violence and intolerance that occurred yesterday by a group of marchers in defense of abortion. The attacks against believers and the attempted incineration of the doors of the Primatial Cathedral of Colombia are unacceptable,” said the Pro-life Caucus of the Colombian Congress.
The Catholic Solidarity Movement said that Mayor Claudia López has “dismantled the reaction capacity of the police,” allowing the attack to take place. “When a crime such as murder by abortion, which is in the Penal Code, is legitimized, these young women believe that they can commit any other crime,” said the group.
The group planned to file a complaint against the pro-abortion women “for the alleged crimes of damage to the property of others, rioting, damage to the public good, disrespect for beliefs, vandalism, terrorism, attempted murder, [and] conspiracy to commit a crime.”
According to the director of the National Police, General Henry Samaria, four women were taken into custody.
Editor’s note. This appeared at Live Action News and is reposted with permission.

domain: politics


Bill Cooper: The Man Who Predicted 9/11
Conspiracy theorist and Radio host Bill Cooper predicted a major terror attack on the USA in a broadcast on June 28th in 2001, nearly two and a half months before the attacks occurred on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He accurately predicted that Osama bin Laden would be blamed for the tragedy, and that he would be used as a frontman by the U.S. government to limit the personal freedoms of it’s citizens, under the guise of fighting “terrorism”.
On the 5th of November 2001, Cooper was killed by the police. They claimed he was “resisting arrest” for tax evasion, and thus had to unload nine bullets into his body.


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|High temperature causes negative whole‐plant carbon balance under mild drought|
J Zhao, H Hartmann, S Trumbore, W Ziegler, Y Zhang
New phytologist 200 (2), 330-339, 2013
|Using digital cameras for comparative phenological monitoring in an evergreen broad-leaved forest and a seasonal rain forest|
J Zhao, Y Zhang, Z Tan, Q Song, N Liang, L Yu, J Zhao
Ecological Informatics 10, 65-72, 2012
|Phenological response of tropical plants to regional climate change in Xishuangbanna, south-western China|
J Zhao, Y Zhang, F Song, Z Xu, L Xiao
Journal of Tropical Ecology 29 (2), 161-172, 2013
|Intensified inundation shifts a freshwater wetland from a CO2 sink to a source|
J Zhao, SL Malone, SF Oberbauer, PC Olivas, JL Schedlbauer, ...
Global Change Biology 25 (10), 3319-3333, 2019
|Environmental and management controls of soil carbon storage in grasslands of southwestern China|
D Balasubramanian, WJ Zhou, HL Ji, J Grace, XL Bai, QH Song, YT Liu, ...
Journal of environmental management 254, 109810, 2020
|Do the rubber plantations in tropical China act as large carbon sinks?|
QH Song, ZH Tan, YP Zhang, LQ Sha, XB Deng, Y Deng, WJ Zhou, ...
Iforest-Biogeosciences and Forestry 7 (1), 42, 2014
|Gross primary production controls the subsequent winter CO2 exchange in a boreal peatland|
J Zhao, M Peichl, M Öquist, MB Nilsson
Global change biology 22 (12), 4028-4037, 2016
|Spatial heterogeneity of soil respiration in a seasonal rainforest with complex terrain|
QH Song, ZH Tan, YP Zhang, M Cao, LQ Sha, Y Tang, NS Liang, ...
iForest-Biogeosciences and Forestry 6 (2), 65, 2013
|Long‐term enhanced winter soil frost alters growing season CO2 fluxes through its impact on vegetation development in a boreal peatland|
J Zhao, M Peichl, MB Nilsson
Global change biology 23 (8), 3139-3153, 2017
|Enhanced winter soil frost reduces methane emission during the subsequent growing season in a boreal peatland|
J Zhao, M Peichl, MB Nilsson
Global Change Biology 22 (2), 750-762, 2016
|Investigation of temperature and aridity at different elevations of Mt. Ailao, SW China|
G You, Y Zhang, Y Liu, D Schaefer, H Gong, J Gao, Z Lu, Q Song, J Zhao, ...
International Journal of Biometeorology 57, 487-492, 2013
|The effect of drought stress on self-organisation in a seasonal tropical rainforest|
Q Song, H Lin, Y Zhang, Z Tan, J Zhao, J Zhao, X Zhang, W Zhou, L Yu, ...
Ecological modelling 265, 136-139, 2013
|Comparison of sensible heat flux measured by large aperture scintillometer and eddy covariance in a seasonally-inundated wetland|
J Zhao, PC Olivas, S Kunwor, SL Malone, CL Staudhammer, G Starr, ...
Agricultural and forest meteorology 259, 345-354, 2018
|Gap-filling continuously-measured soil respiration data: A highlight of time-series-based methods|
J Zhao, H Lange, H Meissner
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 285, 107912, 2020
|FluxCalR: a R package for calculating CO~ 2~ and CH~ 4~ fluxes from static chambers|
Journal of Open Source Software 4 (43), 2019
|热带森林植被冠层 CO2 储存项的估算方法研究|
姚玉刚， 张一平， 于贵瑞， 宋清海， 谭正洪， 赵俊斌
北京林业大学学报 33 (1), 23-29, 2011
|Litter-derived nitrogen reduces methane uptake in tropical rainforest soils|
J Gao, W Zhou, Y Liu, L Sha, Q Song, Y Lin, G Yu, J Zhang, X Zheng, ...
Science of The Total Environment 849, 157891, 2022
|Altered albedo dominates the radiative forcing changes in a subtropical forest following an extreme snow event|
P Gnanamoorthy, Q Song, J Zhao, Y Zhang, Y Liu, W Zhou, L Sha, Z Fan, ...
Global Change Biology 27 (23), 6192-6205, 2021
|Drivers of difference in CO2 and CH4 emissions between rubber plantation and tropical rainforest soils|
W Zhou, J Zhu, H Ji, J Grace, L Sha, Q Song, Y Liu, X Bai, Y Lin, J Gao, ...
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 304, 108391, 2021
|Contrasting photosynthetic responses of two dominant macrophyte species to seasonal inundation in an Everglades freshwater prairie|
J Zhao, SF Oberbauer, PC Olivas, JL Schedlbauer, JL May, JG Moser, ...
Wetlands 38, 893-903, 2018

domain: biology


text:
Can Emotional Problems Cause ADHD?
“My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD last year, while my husband and I were in the middle of a divorce. I’m not convinced that she had these problems as a younger child. Is it possible for emotional problems to cause ADHD-like behaviors and lead to a misdiagnosis?”
ADHD is a biological disorder. If an individual has it, it has been present since early childhood. To make a diagnosis, the doctor should verify that symptoms — hyperactivity, inattention, and/or impulsivity — are chronic (have been evident at least since preschool) and pervasive (occur at different times and in different settings — school, home, during the summer). If your daughter’s ADHD-like behaviors began only during your divorce and occur only at certain times (when she’s visiting a parent, after hearing you argue), consider that a red flag.
If this is the case, the problem is likely not ADHD, but behavior caused by psycho-social stressors. I would take your daughter back to the doctor, or get a second opinion. You may also want to see a family therapist for counseling.

domain: psychology


text:
Though we seldom see their use in our modern world and, even then, only in fiction, there was a time when it was common for people to actually use things like crystal balls and divining rods to try to uncover unknown yet valuable information. As unbelievable as it may seem, soothsayers peered into crystal balls aiming to help seekers look into the future for guidance, while prospectors would rely earnestly on divining rods as they attempted to locate underground riches of water or oil.
While we may still entertain such images in some of the literature, TV, and movie fantasies we enjoy, in our modern professional world, we tend to entrust industry predictions to those with real, practical knowledge of the business landscape, because they trek, mine, and drill there regularly.
The world of medtech is no different, and for me and my team, connected care is the ground we travel, excavate, and explore on a daily basis. As we venture further into 2023, here’s our perspective on some of the connected care trends we expect to see on the road ahead, from digital therapeutics to remote patient monitoring and clinical trial management.
Precision engagement is an emerging development within digital therapeutics
One of the fast-growing categories within medicine today is digital therapeutics (DTx), which is the delivery of evidence-based treatment through digital solutions that help prevent, manage, or treat a disorder or disease. One recent report valued the global DTx market at $4.2 billion in 2021 and predicted it would expand at a compound annual growth rate of 26.1% between 2022 and 2030, with other estimates projecting even faster growth.
Within DTx, the emergence of precision engagement is a development that holds great promise, especially for chronic conditions where day-to-day choices and behaviors have a significant impact on health outcomes—conditions like diabetes, obesity, and hypertension.
While remote patient monitoring is clearly important for giving care teams visibility into the management of a patient’s condition in order to facilitate vital provider interventions, those living with chronic conditions requiring day-to-day management must also make dozens of additional decisions every day. But initiating provider interventions for all of these would simply not be possible nor even desirable. With diabetes, for example, these can range from food and exercise choices to the need to take medications or interact with a medical device, like a glucose monitor or an insulin pen or pump.
Enter precision engagement. Just as precision medicine can utilize a patient’s genetics or metabolic profile to uniquely fine-tune the dosing of a drug to an individual, precision engagement—with the help of AI and machine learning—can be used by digital health developers and physicians to program connected care platforms to issue electronic interventions or “nudges” that are uniquely tailored and helpful to the individual patient.
These digital nudges prompt a patient to take necessary actions throughout the day that are not only personalized to their needs but delivered in a way that is consistent with their lifestyle and preferences, leading to a better likelihood of engaging the patient and, ultimately, guiding them to better health outcomes. These digital interventions are known in behavioral medicine as just-in-time adaptive interventions or JITAI, and they are helping healthcare professionals use software to precisely engage the right patients with the right interventions at the right time.
With precision engagement, these solutions programmed into connected care platforms are able to digitally “learn” about an individual patient’s preferences from their responses to questions and from the daily decisions they make in their self-management as they engage with the platform’s corresponding app. This learning enables the software to personalize future digital nudges for the patient.
Precision engagement software might be used, then, to help identify the right moment of the day to generate a nudge, like suggesting the patient eat an apple or take a walk at a specific time of day because that’s when the individual is most receptive to such a suggestion.
Or, a digital nudge might involve time- or activity-triggered reminders, such as the need to take medication or to sync the patient’s medical device to the connected-care platform. It might even send the patient an encouraging message prompted by their reaching of a daily target, such as meeting a specific exercise goal.
Precision engagement can even tailor the type of communication used for nudges, from the use of a pop-up message or the suggestion of a video or article to the kind of voice used—maybe through empathy or even humor—to deliver the nudge.
Precision engagement is one of the most exciting new developments within digital therapeutics, using digital health tools to deliver highly personalized, time-adaptive interventions in ways that lead to positive behavior change, extraordinary patient experiences, and improved health outcomes.
The need for greater RPM awareness is resulting in a measured pace of adoption
While necessity may have forced the issue for care teams during the pandemic regarding the adoption of telemedicine appointments, it turns out that remote patient monitoring (RPM) is still “one component of telehealth that has lagged,” according to the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA). In a Stat poll of 586 healthcare leaders taken by MGMA last year, the association found that 75% of medical practices had yet to offer RPM services.
Despite patients’ positive perspectives of RPM, demonstrated outcomes, payor recognition of RPM’s value, and the establishment of reimbursement mechanisms, the actual pace of RPM adoption has turned out to be more deliberate than these factors had originally led many to predict. In fact, in our work, we’ve found that a large part of preparing providers to make the actual leap to RPM adoption has really been a challenge of growing awareness.
For one thing, we’ve found that in the busy world of providing clinical care, some providers simply haven’t gotten a complete understanding of what RPM reimbursement looks like. So, we continue to chip away at the task of making sure our provider partners have the latest information.
And while some may have caught wind of RPM reimbursement, we’re coming across other providers who have the misconception that only Medicare reimburses for RPM. In reality, there are dozens of private payors covering RPM, with some reimbursing at even higher levels than Medicare.
Another misconception we encounter among some providers is the mistaken belief that, to get reimbursement for RPM, they must implement every piece of it all at once, from getting patients set up and syncing their data to analyzing the data and providing patient consults. Not only is that not true, but the idea of such a weighty burden is partly why CMS has assigned unique CPT codes for discrete RPM activities. For many providers, implementing RPM is such a significant change management challenge that it actually makes the most sense for them to start small, which they can do by getting patients set up and focusing them on simply sharing their data remotely on a monthly basis. With that, providers can begin submitting for reimbursement, then build from there.
One of the most useful steps for providers unsure of where to begin is to find a reliable partner who specializes in RPM planning and implementation. Resources like AMA’s recently published 12-step RPM Playbook can help, as it covers every stage of establishing a fully operational RPM program.
Pandemic-induced use of decentralized clinical trials provided an up-close view of their efficiencies and is leading to increased adoption
Decentralized clinical trials (DCTs) are trials in which some or all study assessments are conducted at locations other than the investigator site via either tele-visits, mobile or local healthcare providers, local labs and imaging centers, home-delivered investigational products and/or mobile technologies. During the pandemic, when thousands of non-COVID trials—some 80%—were interruptedvirtual trial companies experienced an explosion in demand.
And if market projections are any indicator, demand for DCTs will continue to increase, with an analysis issued earlier this year projecting the global DCT market will grow from $6.1 billion in 2020 to nearly $16.3 billion in 2027.
While the need for social distancing that precipitated the sharp uptick in DCT demand may have subsided from its peak during the pandemic, it’s clear that continued demand for DCTs will be driven primarily by the efficiencies of the model that researchers witnessed first-hand during the pandemic.
One of the biggest advantages of DCTs is how they boost trial enrollment, as they often allow for patients to sign up and participate from home via remote monitoring. Remote participation opens trials and the benefits they provide to those living outside urban centers, which means the trend toward DCTs is also broadening the number and diversity of eligible enrollees.
DCTs can also reduce patient dropout rates and speed up study timelines, two of biggest challenges in life sciences R&D. And they help researchers realize significant cost savings from decreases in the number of physical trial sites and reductions in research staff and travel.
Driven by this wide range of efficiencies benefiting subjects, researchers, and study sponsors, it’s expected the demand for DCTs will continue to ramp this year and in the future.
Overall, we expect 2023 to be a year where our prospecting and development efforts in the connected care landscape will continue producing exciting advancements that will enable us to better support patients living with chronic conditions as well as the physicians and teams who care for them.
About Russ Johannesson
Russ Johannesson is Chief Executive Officer at Glookoa leading provider of connected care, patient engagement, digital therapeutics, and clinical trial optimization. Deployed in over 30 countries and 8,000 clinical locations, Glooko’s mission is to improve the lives of people with chronic conditions by connecting them with their caregivers and equipping both with digital health technology for improved outcomes.

domain: medical


Start off by editing the file /etc/network/interfaces with your favourite text editor. You will need to have root access to modify this file, so for example use the following command:
sudo pico /etc/networking/interfaces
Now tweak the file to your needs, this example sets the IP address to 192.168.1.123 on eth0. I suggest running the command ifconfig beforehand and reviewing its output to determine which ethernet or wifi adapter you’ll be using (ie: eth0) and your network (ie: 192.168.1.x).
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5). # The loopback network interfaceauto loiface lo inet loopback # This is a list of hotpluggable network interfaces. # They will be activated automatically by the hotplug subsystem.mapping hotplug script grep map eth0 # The primary network interfaceauto eth0 # Enable for DHCP #iface eth0 inet dhcp # Enable for Static IP iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.1.123 netmask 255.255.255.0 network 192.168.1.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255 gateway 192.168.1.1
Now restart your networking interfaces using the following command:
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart


The UK Independence Party MEP Marta Andreasen has defected to the Conservatives.
She alleges that UKIP leader Nigel Farage "treats any views other than his own with contempt."
She adds: "Essentially, I do not see the party being led to achieve presence in Westminster which is the place where decisions can be made to stop the EU juggernaut."
Ms Andreasen says she was convinced to switch to the Conservatives after David Cameron's "game changer" speech on Britain's relations with Europe, pledging an in-out referendum on the issue.
"I was also reassured by the financial deal that David Cameron got for Britain on the EU Budget", she added.
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Greeks have voted to reject the terms of an international bailout, putting it on the brink of a eurozone exit.


Serbia’s Central Election Commission has decided to bar observers from the United States and British embassies in Belgrade from monitoring the presidential election on January 20.
The commission said that observers from the pan-European Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which brings together former members of the Soviet Union, would be allowed to observe the balloting. According to the statement, released on Friday, 23 observers from the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, ODIHR, and three monitors from the CIS will be accredited. The statement did not elaborate further. The ultra-nationalist Radical Party’s representative on the Electoral Commission, Slavoljub Milenkovic, was quoted by AP news agency as saying that the US and British monitors were barred "because their countries want to destroy us and grab Kosovo away from Serbia." Asked by Balkan Insight, the British embassy in Belgrade said it would not comment until the situation was clarified.
However, ODIHR’s spokesman, Curtis Budden, told Balkan Insight that his organization had already deployed the numbers referred to by the Serbian Election Commission as long-term observers, and since this was to be a so-called “limited election observation mission”, no short-term monitors would be dispatched to observe proceedings on and just before polling day itself. Budden said the long-term mission already deployed included US and British citizens. A statement on ODIHR’s website said its long-term observation mission, overseen by Bulgarian election expert, Nikolai Vulchanov, had been launched on January 6.
The Warsaw-based ODIHR, which operates separately from the OSCE’s permanent mission to Serbia, has dispatched nine international experts to Belgrade and 12 long-term observers across the country, according to the statement. The mission will assess the electoral process in terms of its compliance with OSCE commitments for democratic elections, other international standards, and national legislation, and will issue a comprehensive report, the statement said.
Serbia’s presidential vote will pit President Boris Tadic of the Democratic Party against Tomislav Nikolic of the Radical Party. Other prominent candidates are Velimir Ilic, the Infrastructure Minister of the New Serbia party, a junior partner in the ruling coalition and Cedomir Mihajlovic, the head of the pro-Western opposition Liberal Democratic Party. According to polls quoted by Serbian media, no candidate will get more than 50% of votes required for an outright victory, and a runoff is tentatively scheduled for February 3. (balkaninsight.com)


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Six San Fernando Valley region hospitals were named in U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Hospitals” for 2021-2022.
Hospitals from the Valley ranked in the following order:
Adventist Health Glendale: No. 12 in Los Angeles, No. 21 in California
Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills: No. 14 in Los Angeles, No. 24 in California
Providence St. Joseph Medical Center-Burbank: No. 14 in Los Angeles, No. 24 in California
Providence Tarzana Medical Center: No. 20 in Los Angeles, No. 37 in California
Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills Medical Center: No. 28 in Los Angeles, No. 56 in California
Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia: No. 28 in Los Angeles, No. 56 in California
The hospitals were chosen from a list of 130 Los Angeles hospitals and 424 California hospitals. The rankings were based on analyses of patient safety, patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, staffing and technological capabilities.
Adventist Health Glendale, the highest ranked hospital from the Valley, has now been ranked for three consecutive years.
“Our medical center has faced incredible challenges since the dawn of COVID-19 in February 2020; I’m grateful for the extraordinary care our associates have provided throughout the pandemic and continue delivering today,” Alice Issai, president of Adventist Health Glendale, said in a statement. “It is their unwavering commitment to providing safe, quality care for our patients that enables our continued recognition.”
Published on 2021-07-29 16:39:34


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On April 24, 2012, President Obama went on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to make his case for student-loan forgiveness and college affordability. After slow-jamming the news, Obama pointed to a surprisingly traditional justification for helping young people reduce their student loan debt: It was causing them to delay marriage.
This moment encapsulates the overlooked underpinning of President Obama’s economic message: his focus on family. It is an approach fit for our times, as families in America face extraordinary pressures, obstacles and burdens. Both parties would be wise to emulate this in the upcoming midterm elections.
It is true that marriage is on the decline, birthrates are down, and divorce rates are high. Some are even suggesting we need to move “beyond marriage.” But people’s aspirations, rather than just their status, suggest family is still important in American life. This was affirmed in a New York Times feature on “the changing American family” last year which observed that “the old-fashioned family plan of stably married parents residing with their children remains a source of considerable power in America—but one that is increasingly seen as out of reach to all but the educated elite.” While this perception may result in part from a set of assumptions that need revision—for instance, the view of marriage as a “capstone,” rather than a “cornerstone”—the decline of marriage is not simply a matter of culture. The strains on families and family formation are real, rational, and profound.
A commitment to building a stable family is not the deal it used to be in America. The average American family is poorer than it was 10 years ago. As Stephanie Coontz has pointed out, over the last 40 years changes in the workforce and growing socioeconomic inequality have conspired to stoke familial instability. Our policies have failed to address this new landscape, and because of it we are inhibiting one of our nation’s greatest contributors to the public good, and Americans’ most personal aspirations: family.
It can be easy to miss the value of family to our nation because its contributions are so ingrained into our lives. Perhaps the best way to assess the value of a stable family is to examine the social costs of broken families. When Americans don’t have family to care for them, government must step in to provide those services. For instance, Matthew Zill at the Brookings Institution points out that state and federal governments spend billions of dollars each year to care for children in foster care—$9 billion through Title IV-E of the Social Security Act alone. There are longer-term costs for children who grow up outside of safe, permanent families as well, including the $5.1 billion the government spends incarcerating former foster-care youth each year.
Similarly, familial bonds help defray the costs of caring for the elderly. Filial responsibility—foundationally a moral responsibility, but also a legal responsibility in the United States and in nations around the world—has been central to social cohesion and distribution of social costs and responsibility. However, as family breakdown becomes more common, Medicaid (i.e., taxpayers) will have to bear more of the burden for care of adults. How much of a burden? In 2009, 61.6 million Americans gave uncompensated care to an adult “with limitations in daily activities” at some point during the year—an economic value of $450 billion in unpaid services. From cradle to grave, the social and personal benefits of a healthy family, and the costs of its absence, are evident.
These benefits of family are certainly evident to the president. Obama’s experiences as a father and a husband are essential to understanding Obama the politician. His first book, Dreams from My Father, is driven by his search for identity not just through the prism of race, but as a man who hardly knew his father. He has addressed some of the most important moments and causes of his political life through his perspective as a father and husband: his speech on race in April 2008 and his remarks about Trayvon Martin, his case for the Affordable Care Act, and his advocacy for women. He has made promoting fatherhood a signature issue of his presidency. As someone who personally knows the “hole in the heart” that a child has when a father is absent, Obama has withstood criticism from some on the left for focusing on the role of fathers in children’s lives. In private prayers I’ve shared with the president, and public moments where he leads through his perspective as a son, husband, and father, Obama’s value of family has always been clear and moving to me.
The case for Obamacare was not just about the benefits an individual would receive directly, but the indirect benefits received through family members. It’s not just college students who appreciate being able to stay on their parents’ plan until they were 26 but also the parents who no longer have to worry about their child going without care. Men benefit when their wives and daughters can no longer be denied health-care coverage because they are pregnant. Children don’t want to see the money their parents saved up to help them with college costs evaporate, because their sick parent or sibling hit the cap on their health-insurance plan.
As he closed his speech to a Joint Session of Congress on the Affordable Care Act in September 2009, Obama spoke about why the late Senator Ted Kennedy was so passionate about health reform:
Ted Kennedy's passion was born not of some rigid ideology, but of his own experience. It was the experience of having two children stricken with cancer. He never forgot the sheer terror and helplessness that any parent feels when a child is badly sick. And he was able to imagine what it must be like for those without insurance, what it would be like to have to say to a wife or a child or an aging parent, there is something that could make you better, but I just can't afford it.
Obama described this as Kennedy’s “large-heartedness.” In our personal lives and in our politics, familial relationships provide a pathway to greater empathy. People naturally disbelieve or do not wish to consider a future misfortune of their own, and when they do they would like to think they could manage it. However, everyone can imagine their parent, sibling, or child hitting hard times and how desperately they would search for help.
The White House continues to appreciate the value of approaching economic and social issues through the lens of family. The president hosted a Summit on Working Families in late June that packaged a mixture of tax reforms, women’s rights, and workplace policies under the banner of supporting working families. Obama told attendees that these issues are “personal” to him: As the husband of a “brilliant woman who struggled” with work-life balance issues, as the son of a “single mother” who “had to take some food stamps” to feed her family, and as a father of “two unbelievable young ladies ... I want them to be able to have families.”
The summit promoted a slate of policies that progressives put forward as supporting working families, including equal pay, raising the minimum wage, paid leave, child and elder care, and fighting workplace discrimination. Some of these are less about family than they are about supporting individuals who may happen to have families of their own. None of them explicitly value stable, two-parent families over other family types, and Democrats continue to show no interest in meeting Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam’s call to “stigmatize illegitimacy indirectly” through tax benefits available only to married parents. As the costs of family breakdown become even more apparent, Democrats’ no-judgment approach may seem insufficient in the face of a demographic and sociological tidal wave.
Still, Democrats are no longer just playing defense on “family values.” The summit, and much of the president’s political record, reflects Obama’s convictions about where American families are hurting the most, and the policies that will serve America’s families best. Hillary Clinton recently called for "family-centered economics." In fact, it is the Democrats that have dominated the policy conversation around families since 2008 as the GOP has retreated to a radical individualism in rejection of the Democrats’ more communitarian politics.
That is beginning to change. An emerging group of reform-conservative leaders is pushing a more family-focused economic agenda is emerging from top conservative leaders and thinkers. As Ross Douthat explained: “The immediate reformist priority, the raison d’etre of the movement, is serving the interests and winning the votes of those ‘middle class parents with kids’ (and people who might want to be middle class parents with kids) on economic issues.” These conservatives understand that people neither live, nor want to live, in isolation from one another—and certainly not members of their own family.
"Room to Grow," the “reformicon” manifesto, features a chapter on pro-family policies by W. Bradford Wilcox, which includes reforms to the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, eliminating the “marriage penalty,” and looking at job training and vocational education through the lens of the family. National Affairs has advanced family-friendly tax reform. Senator Marco Rubio tied the strength of the family to the strength of the American economy in remarks at Catholic University in late July.
This pro-working family approach did have something of a standard-bearer on the Republican side in 2012: former Senator Rick Santorum. During the 2012 Republican primary, Santorum—who wrote a book called It Takes a Family—was often a voice to address our obligations to one another, and he has continued to focus on this message since dropping out of the race.
He even spoke about family to a group of college students at the Heritage Foundation last summer. Of course, this group is not representative of college students in general (they were select politically active, primarily religious conservatives), or even the average young Republican activist, but Santorum is testing a message about families to audiences that do not have families of their own yet. Speaking after a presenter whose entire message was about applying the leadership lessons and ideology of Ronald Reagan to today’s problems (one audience member asked what Reagan would think about Common Core), Santorum argued bluntly that a Reagan-era message of cutting taxes and shrinking government is no longer adequate. When asked what Republicans should focus on in 2016, he answered energy policy, manufacturing, and the family.
“We need to focus on marriage, not the definition of marriage, but reclaiming marriage as a public good,” Santorum said. “Marriage and family is central. Every family in America is a little business … in fact, the word economy comes from the Greek word ‘oikos,’ which means home. Every home is a little economy. And when those little economies struggle and suffer … then America fails.”
In a widely read article in May, E.J. Dionne previewed the two central progressive critiques of the reformicon vision should it take hold in the GOP:
Who can disagree that the breakdown of family structures has been a tragedy for low-income Americans? And why would these reformers not entertain interventions in a marketplace that has failed to secure a modicum of equity? Setting aside the novel notion that the Founders had family life rather than property rights in mind when they edited Jefferson’s language, the more interesting question is what sorts of families the reformicons have in mind; surely not those composed of same-sex couples with children produced by in vitro fertilization.
Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig recently made a similar critique of "Room to Grow," suggesting that reformicons have chosen the sanctity of the free market over a robust family-leave policy that would help women and families proposed by congressional Democrats in the FAMILY Act.
These are serious charges. Ultimately, Dionne and Bruenig suggest, conservatives will value their ideology over the security and prosperity of families. But these are debates that conservatives have proven they can win. Reformicons are hoping they can convince Americans that the Republican Party once again cares not just for family values but for families’ realities. It would be a good thing for America if we had that debate.
The 2014 midterms are shaping up to reflect the most vapid of our partisan sniping over the last year and a half: Democrats will try to convince America Republicans are crazy, and Republicans will do their best to live up to that billing. Of course, this kind of politics does not serve America well, and it also does not help our politicians, who win elections with no policy mandate and enter Congress ill-equipped to work with the other side.
This is a shame, because for the first time in Obama’s presidency, the opposition—at least part of it—is putting forward real ideas and policies. There is also a growing consensus that the help families need includes both promoting family stability and cohesion, and providing economic supports. “Today, it is harder and harder to be good parents and good workers for many working families. That's a tradeoff that is neither good for our country or our families,” Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, told me. “That's why policies like paid leave, sick days, and child care are so vital, because they support families as they create economic security for their families.”
But Tanden also noted that “it’s important to have two parents involved in the life of a child whenever possible. As progressives, we see both greater economic support and support for family stability as key ingredients for success. We just wish conservatives saw both issues as well.”
In fact, Santorum took a similar both/and approach when I asked him about these issues. “Strong families produce a strong economy, and I absolutely think there is a role for the federal government to play when it comes to promoting marriage and family,” he said. “In 2009, the Brookings Institute released a study that, among other things, said if you graduate from high school, get a job, get married and then have children (in that order), your chance of being in poverty is just 2 percent. Yet our country—whether through tax policy or through the rhetoric of our current president—does very little to support the institution of marriage.”
The insecurity families are facing and the barriers to creating new families, acknowledged across the partisan divide, demand attention. The upcoming midterm should be about which party supports policies that best promote stable, secure and thriving families.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has recognized the new burdens families face. He recently announced that policies in the U.K. must pass a “family test,” which means “every single domestic policy that government comes up with will be examined for its impact on the family.” As British MP and economic expert Mark Hoban told me, “We look at equalities and business impact of policies—this adds vital new dimension.” Obama should announce a similar policy and call on Congress to do the same.
Congress can move forward on some specific areas of reform where there is general bipartisan agreement: expanding the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits, eliminating the marriage penalty, promoting workplace flexibility, expanding paid family and medical leave and addressing the high cost of child care. Dionne recently suggested in his column that some of these reforms could be part of a “plain vanilla bipartisanship” set of proposals Congress could pass right away.
We should also look at the two purchasing areas that create the greatest obstacles to marriage and having children: housing and higher education. Due to rising real-estate costs, the concentration of young people in urban areas, and their expectations for their careers and lifestyles, young people are becoming first-time homebuyers not with their spouses but with their friends. Though some young married couples are experimenting with communal households—living with one or more additional married couples—the vast majority are either delaying marriage because of the financial burden of buying a home, or renting for far longer than their peers due to income constraints. We should consider options—tax credits, interest-rate incentives, family-friendly zoning and city planning—that align America’s interest in marriage as a public good, and stability as an important factor in a child’s educational and social development, with our housing policies.
Similarly, we should help young couples that combine their student-loan debts through marriage by offering them lower interest rates. This would not only lessen an obstacle to marriage, but it would also respond to the fact that marriage is often a stabilizing force when it comes to managing and paying off debts.
The popular conception of the American Dream is a spouse, two and a half kids, and your own house with a car in the garage and a picket fence around the yard. When we talk about the American Dream slipping away, we tend to focus on the possessions: the house, the car, the picket fence. At a time when the income of American families is declining, this makes some sense. Materialism can be alluring, but mere consumption alone is unsatisfying: Our possessions do not make us human. The American struggle to acquire and consume more is not new. It is a more fundamental hope that is challenged today. The people that make up the American Dream—the spouse, the children, our dearest relationships—seem out of reach for millions of Americans.
Politics alone cannot restore this hope, but it will only further fuel Americans’ cynicism if Washington does nothing to address it.

domain: news