- Ministry of Health said new findings have proved that the main method of transmission of coronavirus was through droplets
- It has agreed that burial protocols introduced in March have resulted in trauma and pain for some families who lost their loves oned to COVID-19
- Burial protocols have, therefore, been revised to allow families to give their departed relatives dignified sendoffs
The Ministry of Health has said bodies of people who have died from COVID-19 have no capacity to transmit the disease.
According to fresh findings by the ministry, the main mode of transmission was through droplets from an infected person.
The government is therefore expected to implement revised burial protocols. The maiden rules that were introduced in March have over the past six months assumed that bodies of COVID-19 patients were infectious.
"On infection prevention and control protocols on the handling of COVID-19 bodies and burials, it was noted that the main mode of transmission is through droplets.
COVID-19 burial standards operating procedures have been revised to address rational use of PPEs and body handling," the ministry said.
The first burial protocols that required COVID-19 bodies to be buried within 48 hours have led to pain and trauma for a section of families that have lost their relatives to the new disease.
Apart from quick interment that saw some victims buried at night and in shallow graves, the old procedures also required the bodies to be buried in two body bags.
Some of the patients who succumbed to the disease were wrapped in the body bags together with their beddings.
Families were also not allowed to view the remains before burial.
" The disposal of human remains from COVID-19 cases should be overseen by a public health official within two days (48 hours) to avoid community practices that would result in more infections through contact. The health worker must ensure the casket is handled using the PPE at all times.
The body must not be opened for viewing thereafter. The body must be buried on the same day, immediately by the family under the supervision of the healthcare personnel, the local health care committee leader and religious leader," the old regulations read in part.
The new developments come at a time when the country was registering fewer cases of people testing positive for COVID-19.
On Sunday, September 6, MoH recorded 83 new infections pushing the national tally to 35,103. It was the first time in four months less than 100 cases were recorded within 24 hours.
So far, 21,230 patients had recovered from the disease as of Sunday while 597 had died.
The dwindling number of COVID-19 positive cases have been attributed to poor contact tracing and scarcity of testing kits.
President Uhuru Kenyatta, however, stated that the trend reflected flattening of the curve.
A separate study by Kenya Medical Research Institue (KEMRI) suggested that Kenya might have hit its infections peak in July 2020.
Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through email@example.com or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly.
My five children and I have nowhere to go - Jane Muthoni | Tuko TV.


A FORMER British National Party Welsh Assembly candidate has been found guilty of racially abusing a traffic warden.
Michael Whitby, 60, refused to take part in the hearing at Wirral Magistrates Court, but was tried in his absence.
He was accused of verbally abusing civil enforcement officer Henry Ibe in Wirral in November last year after the warden put a parking ticket on his Vauxhall car – and later making threats against him.
Whitby stood for the far-right BNP in Alyn and Deeside in the 2011 Assembly elections and finished last out of five candidates after polling just 959 votes.
Questioned by prosecutor Neil Evans, Mr Ibe said Whitby had become ‘agitated’ about the ticket and asked the traffic warden what country he was from, before following him and taking pictures, later asking him if he spoke English.
The court was also shown CCTV from a police station Whitby had followed Nigerian-born Mr Ibe to.
While the officer on the front desk went to get a colleague, Whitby allegedly said to him: “Your home is not safe, your car is not safe.”
The judge said ‘it was quite clear this was a racist incident’ and interpreted Whitby’s behaviour as ‘menacing’.
He found Whitby, of Hightown Road, Wrexham, guilty of racially aggravated threatening behaviour and a second charge of threatening behaviour.
Whitby, who is also a former mayor of Liverpool candidate, was fined £250 and ordered to pay £100 compensation to Mr Ibe, prosecution costs of £300 and a £25 victim surcharge.


Low profile tires for years associated with cars of the characteristics of sport. Lowered suspension and wide tires and low are also domain tuning. Low profile tires add sports sanding cars, which were originally ordinary or sedans.
(26-02-2017) Instead of using a marker or emulsion, you can also make yourself a small putty lacquer. To do this, check the paint code, which was covered with bodywork (information is located on the rating plate of the car or is able to decrypt the VIN), then buy new paint. There are even car lacquers in kit form with a brush, to facilitate application of the formulation on features.
The dynamically growing tire industry now offers a wide selection of tires diversified that we can install in our cars. How to correctly choose the tires for the car and their own preferences? And what type is best suited to the long holiday trip? In this article, we will try to find an answer to these questions.
What is the profile of the tire?
The profile is the ratio of the tire width to its height. For tires with the lowest profile include those whose height is only 30, and even 20 percent in width. The car with the tires a little different, and the wheels pointed out even casual observers. It is generally accepted, however, that low profile tires are those whose height is no more than 55 percent of the width. The most important are, of course, choose the appropriate tires for wheels and steering the vehicle manufacturer’s recommendations. Deciding on the extremely low tire, we are forced to replace the rims, the size of the whole wheel remained unchanged. Such an operation is best to consult with a specialist because the use of low-profile tires is associated with specific changes in the of the car.
The advantages of low-profile tires
First of all, low profile tires give better grip of the car to the ground. Also reduced is the center of gravity of the vehicle, and resulting in improved cornering. By reducing of offset side of the car, the vehicle can overcome turns at higher speeds without losing traction. Also, the braking distance is reduced and the brakes seem to react more dynamically. All the advantages of low-profile tires clearly indicate that it is in sport, they are most commonly used. Tires of this type, however, is increasingly being factory fitted in production cars. A Strong car with a sporty character is equipped with low-profile tires, which allow you to fully utilize the capabilities of the machine. With the development of the automotive industry and the launch of public cars with huge performance, increased demand for low profile tires. Currently, we have to choose very many opportunities, and the individual tire models differ not only in height but also used a mix of rubber tread and traction properties. Low-profile tires have in addition a number of attractive visual features. By emphasizing the wheels changed is the look of the car, and attractive tread becomes immediately noticeable. That is why the tires of this type have been used for years by fans.
The disadvantages of low-profile tires
The use of tires with a low profile in addition to the obvious advantages is also associated with disadvantages. Significantly worsens ride comfort on rough roads, because of low tire worse cushion vehicle. This translates into a greater load on the suspension and may result in a shorter service life of individual components. In addition, the car can handle worse with cornering during heavy precipitation. From the wide tires, it is much harder to drain water effectively. Therefore, low-profile tires are more susceptible to the phenomenon and thus slide on a “water cushion” for the resulting tires. On wet surfaces will also be longer braking distance tires compared to tires. Fortunately, a very dynamic development of innovative technologies recently helped greatly reduce the disadvantages of low-profile tires. Rubber treads have ever-more sophisticated models, whose job it is just better drainage. However, you should be aware of all the risks associated with the use of low-profile tires.


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This high-budget, high-octane US series started last week. If you missed it – as is always the way with these things – you’re too late to get into it because the plot is as complicated as an EastEnders family tree. It’s only been one episode!
In an age when A-listers are unable to command the fees they once did, the ensemble cast is king.
Reading singing sensation Paije Richardson has been voted through to the next live show in the X Factor.
This grisly comic book adaptation is not for the faint hearted.
It’s funny how when you meet someone and ask them if they’re on Facebook and they respond in the negative, you look at them with incredulity.
Fortunatley for Davina McCall this show does not involve groups of Premier League footballers, nor is it a cookery show for cannibals.
Zac Efron is making the transition from child star and teen heartthrob to legitimate screen idol with apparent ease, demonstrating some serious acting chops and a considerable screen presence along the way.
This is one the best things on TV, a very simple concept done fantastically well by the big-collared comic.
At first glance, the premise of Buried might seem better suited to an episode of an old anthology series like the The Twilight Zone and Tales Of The Unexpected.
This 2007 film is one of my favourite Brit-flicks of all time. It’s a bit like Midsomer Murders meets Lethal Weapon.

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Does green tea have caffeine? This is a question we get asked all the time, so we’re going to answer it once and for all.
We’ll also take a look at which teas are highest in caffeine and which teas are lowest in caffeine.
Finally, we’ll show you how to raise or lower the caffeine in green tea depending on how you prepare it.
Let’s get brewing! 🍃
Does green tea have caffeine?
So let’s start off with the question on everyone's mind, does green tea have caffeine?
The answer is yes, there is caffeine in green tea.
All green teas will contain some level of caffeine, and if you find a green tea that is caffeine free, chances are the caffeine has been removed from it.
But where does the caffeine in green tea come from?
That we will discuss in the next section.
By the way, if you're looking to find which teas are the highest in caffeine, we recommend you check out this article 👉 Which tea has the most caffeine
Why does green tea caffeine exist?
Before we get into the details and talk about how much caffeine in green tea, let’s talk about where the caffeine in green tea comes from.
Is green tea caffeinated naturally, or is green tea caffeinated during the production process?
What is green tea?
To be considered a tea, it has to come from the tea plant, Camelia sinensis. This plant contains caffeine naturally, so it is not a question of does green tea have caffeine, it’s a question of how much caffeine is in green tea.
Green tea simply refers to a tea that is made from unoxidized tea leaves. This unoxidized tea is made by heating the tea leaves after the harvest so they don’t oxidize overtime and turn into a black tea.
Caffeine in green tea leaves
The caffeine in green tea leaves is actually produced as a self defense mechanism. Caffeine is incredibly bitter and even poisonous to small insects, so it is produced to form a protective coating around the tea leaf.
The younger, more tender leaves of the tea plant produce more caffeine as they are more vulnerable, while the tougher mature leaves and stems will produce less.
How much caffeine in green tea?
The amount of caffeine in green tea is typically between 30-50mg per serving. This takes into consideration 1 serving of typical tea leaves, like those you would find in a grocery store.
But does green tea have caffeine higher or lower than this range? This is something we will cover when we talk about the varieties with the highest and the lowest green tea caffeine content.
How much caffeine in a cup of green tea?
The question of how much caffeine in a cup of green tea is a little bit different because green tea leaves can be infused 3 times or more. Because the caffeine is on the outside of the leaf
Is there caffeine in green tea if it’s the third brewing?
Is green tea caffeine free if you only drink the third brewing? Technically, the caffeine in green tea will be incredibly low by the time you get to the third brewing, but it still can release about 12% of the total caffeine in the tea leaves.
If you are sensitive to caffeine, you can share the first two brewings of the caffeine and only drink the third one, but just know that it still won’t be entirely caffeine free.
How green tea caffeine can vary
How much caffeine in green tea depends on a number of different factors. Let's dive into the different ways a farmer can raise or lower the green tea caffeine.
Keep in mind, these methods aren’t used solely to raise or lower the caffeine content, they are to alter the flavor of the tea leaves.
In Japan, one technique farmers use is to cover the tea plants with a special type of netting called a “kabuse”. This cuts the tea plant off from sunlight, which causes the leaf to produce less bitterness.
This shading process can be a stressful time for the tea plant, so it also produces more caffeine in order to defend itself. This is why shaded teas will have more caffeine than unshaded teas, all else being equal.
After the tea has been shaded, the farmer can also control the amount of caffeine ends up in the final tea by how it is picked. If the farmer harvests the younger sprouts of the tea plant, the tea will have more caffeine.
If the picking is done lower down on the tea plant, it will include the older leaves and stems, which will produce a lower caffeine content. This is easy to remember! Higher picking: higher caffeine, lower picking: lower caffeine.
The tea harvest is a complicated and fascinating event, and if you want to learn more about it, you may want to read this article 👉 Complete Guide about Tea Harvesting
While not as big of a factor as the first two, the caffeine in green tea is altered once again during the processing of the tea itself. In the case of matcha, the stems are removed from the tea leaf, which boosts the caffeine content.
In the case of hojicha, the tea leaves are roasted, which lowers the green tea caffeine slightly.
Lowest green tea caffeine content
Does green tea have caffeine if you choose the right type? All the teas on this list will contain some level of caffeine, but the green tea caffeine content will be so low you can enjoy these teas in the evening and still get to sleep alright.
Let’s go through 4 different teas to find the lowest caffeine in green tea!
Does green tea have caffeine if you make it with toasted rice? Genmaicha is a tea made by combining green tea leaves with toasted rice, and while it still does contain caffeine, the green tea caffeine content is significantly lowered because of the toasted rice.
Genmaicha will have around 18mg of caffeine per serving and it has a pleasant popcorn or cereal flavor to it that works great in the evening time.
Does green tea have caffeine if you roast the tea leaves?
It is a common misconception that you can “roast” all the caffeine out of the tea leaves, but roasted teas like hojicha are lower in caffeine nonetheless.
The low green tea caffeine content comes mostly from the fact that these teas tend to be made from the older leaves and stems of the tea plant.
One way to lower the caffeine in green tea is by incorporating the stems of the tea plant.
These stems contain ⅓ the caffeine as the tea leaves.
So by making a tea that is half stems and half leaves like kukicha, you can significantly lower the green tea caffeine content.
Another way to lower the caffeine in green tea is by using the older leaves of the tea plant.
Bancha is a delicious green tea that is made from these more mature tea leaves.
As we mentioned before, the younger tea leaves are more tender, so they require more caffeine to protect themselves. The older leaves are tougher, and therefore they require less caffeine.
This means that you can enjoy bancha tea even if you are sensitive to caffeine.
Highest green tea caffeine content
How much caffeine does green tea have at the higher levels? Green tea can have up to 140mg of caffeine per serving.
Matcha powder has the highest green tea caffeine content because it is made with younger, shaded tea leaves, it has its stems removed and it is ground into a powder and mixed directly into water.
What’s even more impressive is that you can easily raise the caffeine content of matcha by simply adding more powder to the water. A single gram of ceremonial matcha has 34mg of caffeine but when you use 4 grams in a typical 8 ounce cup, you end up with 136mg of caffeine, more than a cup of coffee!
Still confused about what matcha is exactly? We made the perfect guide for you 👉 What is Matcha? The one and only Matcha-Encyclopedia
How much caffeine in green tea can depend on how long the tea is shaded.
Gyokuro is a super sweet, high caffeine green tea that needs to be shaded for 3 weeks before the harvest.
During this longer shading process, the tea leaves develop more caffeine and a rich, sweet and savory flavor.
Because of this intense flavor, gyokuro has been called “the Emperor’s tea” because it was once the tea of choice for the Emperor.
#3 Kabuse Sencha
Kabuse sencha is another shaded green tea, but it is not shaded for quite as long as gyokuro.
If a sencha is shaded for between 10-20 days, it is considered a kabuse sencha and it usually has a delicate sweet flavor to it with very little bitterness.
The caffeine content is somewhere in between gyokuro and sencha, with 60-80mg of caffeine per cup.
Sencha tea is the most common type of green tea in Japan, and it really falls in the middle when it comes to how much caffeine is in green tea. Sencha is made from younger tea leaves that have been steamed, rolled and dried.
It can have between 40-60mg of caffeine per serving, which is around half a cup of coffee.
How does sencha compare to gyokuro? We did a full comparison between these two teas, and you can read all about it here 👉 Gyokuro vs Sencha: Health Benefits, Caffeine, Taste, & More
How to change how much caffeine is in green tea
We’ve talked about how the farmer can change how much caffeine is in green tea, but how can you as the tea brewer control how much caffeine is in green tea?
By the way, if you want to learn how to brew tea like a Japanese tea master, you may want to give this a read 👉 How to Make Loose Leaf Tea explained by Tea experts
#1 Less Tea Leaves
This may seem obvious, but using less tea leaves will allow prepare a cup of tea with a lower caffeine content. We typically recommend to brew tea with 5 grams of leaves and 150ml of water, but you can use 2.5 grams if you want a lower caffeine brew.
#2 Shorter Brewing
If you use a shorter brewing time, the water won’t have as much of a chance to extract the caffeine from the tea leaves. Normally, we recommend a brewing time of 1 minute for most Japanese green teas, but a 45 second brewing time would extract less caffeine.
#3 Lower Temperature
Hotter water will extract more from the tea leaf, so if you lower the temperature of the water you brew with, you will end up with a cup of green tea that has less caffeine.
Instead of brewing with 160 fahrenheit, try brewing the tea with 140 degrees fahrenheit. This will extract less caffeine and it may even make your Japanese green tea less bitter!
Does green tea have caffeine if you brew it cold?
So is there caffeine in green tea if you prepare it with cold water? Caffeine is one of the compounds in green tea that is extracted better with hot water. This means that cold water will extract less caffeine than hot water, but the green tea will still not be caffeine free.
Is green tea caffeine free if you choose the right kind?
So does green tea have caffeine in it if you choose the right kind, brew it the right way and drink only the third steeping?
Technically, there will always be some level of caffeine in green tea, but if you follow all the steps we laid out in this article and choose one of the low caffeine varieties, the level of green tea caffeine will be so negligible that it won’t impact your sleep or your health.

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November 06, 2019 1 Comment
Samhain might be behind us, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to put your cauldrons away. In fact, with the cold winter months approaching, this is the perfect time for potion-making.
The idea of potions suggests magic, but you really experience the power of ‘potions’ every day, when you sip on an herbal tea for relaxation or drink a nutrient-rich smoothie for your health. Potions are a result of combining natural ingredients together into a brew or blend to reap the physical and spiritual properties they contain.
Potion making is a big part of Wiccan and other spiritual practices. Potions can have physical health benefits, but they can also be used to attract metaphysical energies into our lives, such as love, wealth, or protection.
Read on to find out more about potion making, including common potion ingredients and their properties.
Potions should always be made mindfully. You might have specific rituals attached to how you make potions, such as specific vessels to use, places to brew, or times of the day/moon cycle/season you prefer.
Be clear about the intention of your potion and what you want it to achieve throughout the process. You might include a verbal incantation or mantra as you brew your potion to imbue it with your intention.
Remember that, as with most magic, potions can’t necessarily influence other people’s actions. A love potion can’t make someone fall in love with you, but it can help you to get in touch with your own emotions and improve your relationship with others. A wealth potion can’t help you win the lottery, but it can help you to harness the talents you already have that might lead you to a windfall.
Types of Potions
- A ‘potion’ is traditionally a mixed brew of different ingredients that can be drank directly
- An ‘infusion’ is like a tea or tisane, whereby ingredients are steeped in a liquid - can also be drank directly
- An ‘ointment’ is a topical potion that is intended for external rather than internal use
Tools for Potion Making
Potions can be made with regular kitchen tools, but you might have ritual tools you use instead.
These might include:
- Ritual vessels, such as cast iron cauldrons for brewing or ceremonial chalices for serving
- Wooden spoons or utensils, to harness the earthy elemental qualities of wood
- A boline (ceremonial Wiccan knife) for cutting up herbs or other ingredients
- A mortar and pestle for crushing or grinding ingredients
There are also ways to bless and charge the water you use in your potions. You might decide to only use fresh rainwater, to charge your water with specific crystals, or to bless a bowl of water with moon energy by leaving it outside under a full moon.
Water is a common base for your potion, but isn’t the only one. Here are a few common potion bases and what they’re good for:
- Water - for cleansing and healing
- Syrup (e.g. honey, agave, molasses) - for happiness and joy
- Alcohol - for virility and longevity
- Vinegar - for change and transformation
- Milk (or whey) - for love and nurture
Common Potion Ingredients
Learning what ingredients to use in your potion-making can be an infinite study. Nature gives us so many edible gifts with powerful physical and spiritual properties, it’s hard to know where to begin! To help you start, here are some more common ingredients used in popular potion types:
Rosemary - for protection against mental ills
Blackberry leaf - for warding off evil spirits
Black pepper - for protection against disease
Garlic - for intense cleansing
Apple - for sensuality and romance
Vanilla - for pure love
Cinnamon - for heat and spice
Rose - for self-love
Orange - for youth and zest
Jasmine - for attracting beauty into your life
Eggs - for fertility
Honey - for sweetness
For good fortune:
Pine - for resilience
Ginger - for good luck
Allspice - for attracting money
Peach - for abundance
Mint - for cleansing and digestion
Cayenne Pepper - for clearing ill energies
Salt - for purification
Lemon balm - for healing
Lavender - for calming
Hibiscus - for divination and intuition
Chamomile - for relaxation
Licorice root - for easing bodily pains and tensions
Potion making is a wonderful way of harnessing the magic of the natural world. From herbs to fruits, spices to flowers, earth gives us an abundance of natural cures and gifts! Remember to brew your potions with mindfulness and intention, and enjoy reaping the benefits all winter long.
January 22, 2019
(Image: "The Creation of Summer" by Josephine Wall)
“May the Goddess bless you…” It’s a phrase commonly heard in Wiccan and New Age practice. But when you hear the word ‘Goddess’, who - or what - are you thinking of? What does the concept of the Goddess mean to you?
Wiccan and Neo-Pagan practices are largely derived from polytheistic religions, such as Ancient Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic, Indigenous and more. Unlike religions like Christianity and Islam, these belief systems aren't focused on one all-empowering god, but rather multiple gods, goddesses, spirits, creatures and deities. So it’s no wonder that it’s hard to pin down who exactly the ‘Goddess’ is.
We’re not going to attempt to do that in this post. The Goddess means so many different things to different people. She is Mother Earth, she is the Great Witch, she is the moon, she is femininity, she is love, she is the Maiden, the Mother, the Crone...She is a multitude of concepts and energies, each of them personal and powerful.
Instead, we’re going to take a look at some of the well-known Goddess figures from a variety of cultures and belief systems. Depending on your personal practice, you might choose to focus on one of these deities, multiple, or combine them into one central concept to guide your practice. Either way, their origins make for interesting reading and inspiration.
The Triple Goddess
The Triple Goddess is more a concept than an individual figure. She is believed to represent many of the mysterious three-fold aspects of life. For example, she embodies the three stages of the female life cycle - the Maiden (youth), the Mother (middle age) and the Crone (old age). She can also personify the three different layers of the world - the underworld, earth and the heavens - as well as the three main phases of the moon - waxing, full and waning. Looking inwards, the Triple Goddess can bring together the three components of the human psyche - the ego, the id and the super-ego. One of the most commonly worshipped figures in Neo-Pagan religions, the Triple Goddess is a figure of empowerment, transformation and wholeness.
Hecate is the Goddess of magick and witchcraft from the time of the Ancient Greeks. In some stories, she appears with animal familiars, like the dog and the polecat, which has inspired the concept of animal familiars in modern-day witchcraft. Hecate is also associated with the moon, the night, the wilderness, and the world of the dead. She is sometimes considered a necromancer, able to communicate with and raise the spirits of the afterlife. If you’re interested in the world of Wicca, the chances that you’ll come across Hecate are very likely.
Morrigan - also known as The Morrigan or Morrigu - is a fierce figure from Irish mythology. Considered a shape-shifter, she’s often depicted in the form of a crow, or having the ability to transform into a crow. She’s commonly associated with war and battle, with the old legends telling that she would fly over battlefields in her crow form, deciding who would live and who would die. Other stories depict Morrigan as a trio of three sisters or goddesses, as opposed to one entity...linking to the concept of the Triple Goddess.
Isis is a well-known Goddess from the Ancient Egyptian era. Partnered with her husband Osiris, she was one of the most commonly worshipped deities of the time. Like many Goddesses, she is considered a divine Mother and maternal figure, even protecting and nurturing the great kings and Pharoahs of the ancient kingdom. Isis is also linked to the underworld, helping to transport the souls of the dead to the next realm. Her connection to magic and healing make her a commonly called upon figure in modern magical practices.
Diana is the Roman Goddess of animals and the hunt, the counterpart of the Greek Artemis. She’s also strongly associated with nature and wilderness, in both primitive and domestic senses. Some stories give Diana the ability to speak with, and even control, animals. Like many Goddesses, Diana is also associated with the moon and nighttime. ‘Dianic Witchcraft’ is a branch of modern witchcraft that’s focused on womanhood and feminine spirituality.
Gaia is the personification of Mother Earth in Greek religion. She is considered the great Mother of all life and the world itself. She personifies motherhood in its ultimate form, as well as nurturing, fertility and nature. Gaia can also be considered a ‘creator’ deity, a type of deity that's commonly found in a number of religions from Judaism and Christianity to the animistic religions of Indigenous cultures. She’s a powerful figure, with a legend that stretches back to the dawn of time.
Kali is the Hindu Goddess of time, transformation and death. While she’s a formidable figure commonly associated with destruction, she’s in fact a destroyer of evil and a liberator of souls. Kali helps her worshippers come to terms with the passage of time, from birth to death and the turmoil in between. In her darkest depiction, Kali is a fearsome violent conqueror; while in her lightest, she’s a strong mother figure. To many, she’s a symbol of active female empowerment
Freya is the Norse Goddess of love, beauty and fertility. In the Norse legends, Freya was a pursuer of passion and pleasure, with an affinity for the finer things in life. But Freya’s love of beauty is more than simply materialistic - she embodies the beauty in all things, from nature to the internal self. Despite her soft romantic associations, Freya is far from dainty. She also rules over Fólkvangr, the meadow of the afterlife that works in conjunction with Odin's famed hall Valhalla to house soldiers who have fallen in battle.
These are just a few of the many powerful Goddess figures from cultures around the world and throughout time. Many of them have certain traits in common, particularly their connection to magic, motherhood, the moon, the afterlife and wilderness. Is it possible that some of these Goddesses are one and the same, interpreted with different names and stories depending on the culture? Is there one Goddess that you feel a particularly strong connection to, or do you draw from each of their energies in different ways? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, and keep an eye out for a follow-up post in future where we take a look at more fascinating Goddesses from around the world.
December 20, 2018
Among the frenzy and flurry of Christmas, you’re probably aware that we're also about to arrive at the Winter Solstice - December 21st, the shortest day of the year, also known as Midwinter or The Longest Night. It’s a deeply spiritual time of balance and change, and there are a number of ways you can honour it.
In Celtic and Pagan tradition, Winter Solstice and the traditional ‘Christmas’ are a part of one twelve-day midwinter festival called Yuletide. Yuletide, or Yule, is intended to commemorate the shifting or the ‘reawakening’ of nature, as the longest night falls over the northern half of the world, and the days begin to slowly lengthen.
The honouring of the Winter Solstice actually dates back as far as 3300BC and possibly further. At Newgrange in County Meath in Ireland - an important spiritual site even to this day - an ancient underground cairn is directly illuminated by the sun at sunrise every year on the Winter Solstice, strongly suggesting that our ancestors designed it for this purpose. So when we celebrate this sacred time, we’re continuing a tradition that’s endured for millenia.
Here are a number of ways that you can honour the Winter Solstice today, along with some book recommendations for further reading.
Share the ancient tale of the Holly King and the Oak King
The enduring legend of the Holly King and Oak King has been shared around hearths and bonfires for centuries. In Celtic lore, the Holly King is the nature deity that rules over the winter months, and the Oak King is his summer counterpart. The legends vary, but many of them involve these two kings battling each other all year long, with the Holly King de-throning the Oak during Summer Solstice as the days grow shorter and colder. Conversely, Winter Solstice is when the Oak King wins back his throne and starts to bring back longer, warmer days. While this tale is often one of battle, it’s widely believed that the Holly King and the Oak King are two parts of the same whole, and that neither could exist without the other. Either way, it’s a fun and riveting tale to share this Winter Solstice.
Read more about Celtic wisdom and lore in
Winter nature communion
It’s common for people to lose touch with nature over the winter months, choosing to stay indoors in the warmth away from the ice and frost and snow. Winter Solstice is the perfect time to go out and re-connect with nature. Go for a walk through the stripped-back forest, have a play in the snow, or go ice-skating on a frozen lake. Gather up winter plants, such as holly, heather, thyme, snowberry, winter berry and more. Take time to thank the natural world for providing gifts even in the harsh winter months, and seed spells of hope for a fruitful spring to come.
Read more about gathering plants and herbs in
The Boreal Herbal
Create a Yule altar
Your winter nature communion is the perfect chance to gather items for a seasonal Yule altar. If you’re a practising Wiccan or Pagan, you’ll be familiar with the idea of a magical altar, which we wrote about in a previous post here. It’s common to change your altar depending on the season or relevant Wheel of the Year festival. For Yule, decorate your altar with festive colours of red, green, silver and gold. Gather evergreen plants like pine, fir, juniper and cedar. Let a bowl of snow slowly melt on your altar, symbolising this powerful time of change and transformation. You can even include sun symbols, like sun wheels and yellow candles, to summon back the sun.
Read more about Wiccan practices in
Fire is an important element during Midwinter. It helps to keep us warm and illuminate the long nights, and also symbolises the return of the sun. This is a perfect time to practice candle magic, and how you do so will be up to your personal practice. You might perform a candle spell or ritual to bless the coming warmer longer days. You might perform a gratitude ceremony to thank the powers that be for the year that’s been. This is also a powerful time for cleansing and healing, so you might turn to candle magic to heal any wounds you might have suffered during the year and to clear the path ahead for a new year. Whatever ritual you choose, candle magic will be particularly potent at this time of year.
Read more about candle magic in
A Little Book of Candle Magic
On that note, this is an ideal time for setting intentions. Like many people set New Year Resolutions, Winter Solstice encourages us to pause, reflect and look ahead. Throughout the year, we might have lost track of our goals and intentions, so now is the time to re-direct our energies again. You might choose to write your intentions down into a diary or notebook, or place your notes on your magic altar to imbue them with spiritual energy. You might want to get together with family and friends to share your goals and intentions with each other, and discuss how you might be able to help each other on your spiritual journeys throughout the next year.
Whichever way you choose to celebrate the Winter Solstice, this is a powerful time to harness the transformative energies of the shifting seasons. Most of all, be sure to relax, enjoy and celebrate the natural world and all her many gifts. From us to you, happy Yule and Midwinter blessings!

domain: hobby


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North Syracuse, NY – The North Syracuse Board of Trustees will meet at 6:29 p.m. Thursday to hold a public hearing to discuss the tentative budget for 2012-13 for the village of North Syracuse.
The regular village board meeting will follow the public hearing. The board will be discussing and voting on the adoption of a local law to override the 2 percent tax cap. The board will also discuss the budget and may adopt it Thursday night. The village has until April 30 to adopt a budget.
The meeting will be held at North Syracuse Community Center at 700 South Bay Road.

domain: news


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Just a reminder: our Read Aloud books are mostly NOT just right books for our children. They are intended to be read to children by an adult.
This little video is a good explanation of what a "just right" book is. No more than 1 word in 20 is unknown. (That does not mean that if your child can "sound it out" it is ok. If your child needs to do any work to acquire the word, it is unknown and should be counted that way.)
Another indicator of a book being "just right" is that your child can understand the content independently. Even if your child is reading at a 96% accuracy rate, he(she) may not be understanding it. Many experts say 98% accuracy is a better indicator of accuracy and understanding.
Kids I have known can tell you that if you read books that are not "just right" in these ways, you become a 'DREADED WORD CALLER" and that is NOT really reading!
Mandy Saia found this site which is rich with books about and for strong girls.
Check it out..
Mem Fox, author of numerous children's books and literacy expert offers many read aloud tips including many from her book, Reading Magic.

domain: library


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Solid State and Technology, Vol. 16, No 2 (2008) 129-133
Corresponding Author: email@example.com 129
SOME ASPECTS ON FREE AIR BALL (FAB) FORMATION OF
COPPER WIRE BONDING
A. Jalar and S. A. Radzi
Advanced Semiconductor Packaging (ASPAC) Research Laboratory
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600 UKM Bangi,
Wire bonding is one of the popular interconnection methods in semiconductor device packaging. The most important technique in wire bonding process is the formation of Free Air Ball (FAB). The FAB form by Electric Flame Off (EFO) with diameter ranging from 1.5 to 2.5 times of the wire diameter. Copper wire ball bonding has been developed as an alternative method for gold wire ball bonding because of economic advantages, strong resistance to sweeping, superior electrical and mechanical performance. Copper wires normally being used in some low end ICs packages. Copper wire oxidizes readily at relatively low temperatures. During the formation of FAB, the copper wire must be enclosed in an inert gas environment in order to prevent oxidization of the FAB. This paper investigates the FAB formation for 50.8 μm (2 mil) copper wires due to various EFO parameters which are EFO current and firing time. It is found that the higher EFO current was needed to form copper FAB. The effect of firing time and FAB formation will briefly discuss in this paper. FAB would get symmetrical shapes and perfect surface in setting of high EFO current with low EFO time and in low EFO current with high EFO time.
. I.M. Cohen, L.J Huang, P.S. Ayyaswamy, (1995); Melting and Solidification of Thin Wires: A Class of Phase-change Problems with a Mobile Interface. Experimental Conformation, International Journal of Heat Mass Transfer,38, No.9,1647-1659.
. W. Qin, I.M. Cohen, P.S. Ayyaswamy, (1997);Ball Size and HAZ as Function of EFO Parameters for Gold Bonding Wire,” EEP-Vol 19-1, Advances in Electronic Packaging, 1, ASME, 391-398.
. J.L Chen, Y.C. Lin, (2000); A New Approach in Free Air Ball Formation Process Parameters Analysis, IEEE Transfer on Electronic Packaging Manufacturing, 23, No.2, 116-122.
. J. Onuki, M.Koizumi, H. Suzuki, (1990); Influence of Ball-forming conditions on the Hardness of Copper Balls, Journal of Applied Physics, 68, No.11, 5610-5614.
. C. Hang, C. Wang, M. Shi, X. Wu, & H. Wang (2005); Study of Copper Free Air Ball in Thermosonic Copper Ball Bonding, IEEE 6th International Conference on Electronic Packaging Technology. 414 - 418.
. J. Tan, B.H. Toh & H.M Ho, (2004), Modelling of Free Air Ball for Copper WireBonding. Electronics Packaging Technology Conference, EPTC. Proceedings of 6th, 711-717.


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Dad grew up in Hill City, South Dakota, in the Black Hills. He recounts his experience in a rare audio recording that I unearthed recently. It was on a poorly recorded 3 3/4 ips reel to reel tape that I digitized and edited to make the voice clearer.
The piece is about 45 minutes long, but it give wonderful insights into Dad’s boyhood experiences. If you enjoyed it, leave a comment below.
Olga Glassman Parker was born November 13, 1929, to William and Hope Glassman, in Philadelphia, PA. Olga grew up in Warren, PA, leaving that city at the age of 16 after only two years of high school, to attend the University of Chicago. She graduated in 1949 with a BA in liberal studies and proceeded to Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, PA, to earn a secretarial degree. She died of natural causes on June 19, 2023, in Rapid City, SD.
Olga met the love of her life, Watson Parker, at the University of Chicago. They were married in 1950 and moved to Hill City, SD, in 1951 where Watson managed his family’s business – Palmer Gulch Lodge. When Watson entered graduate school, they moved to Oklahoma and then to Oshkosh, WI, where they resided for 20+ years before retiring to the Black Hills. Throughout their marriage, Olga used her secretarial skills to type many of Watson’s scholarly papers and books. They enjoyed 63 years of marriage before Watson passed away in 2013.
While Olga was primarily a stay at home mother, she also worked occasional part-time jobs, in secretarial and bookkeeping positions. She was a Cub Scout Den Mother, a library volunteer, and a member of AAUW, the Embroidery Guild (Oshkosh, WI), the Antiques Club (Oshkosh, WI), Westerners Black Hills Corral #8, and Friends of Hill City Library.
She loved photography, traveling, and making pictures of the people and places she visited. A historian in her own right, she documented her growing family, and her trips to China, Russia, and historical monuments around the United States. Her photo albums are an amazing record of family life from the 1950’s onward.
Olga is survived by her three children James (Karyn Kozo), David (Tiggie), and Becky Jensen (Larry), as well as six grandchildren and nine great grandchildren. Olga was predeceased by her sister, Nema Maynard, and her brother, David Glassman.
In lieu of flowers (which she did not like) the family suggests memorials to the Hill City Library building fund (PO Box 88, Hill City, SD 57745) and Warren County Historical Society (210 Fourth Ave, Warren, PA 16365).
A new version of Badger Clark’s book on Hot Springs is now available, via Amazon.com. Proceeds from sales of the book will benefit the Fall River County Historical Society. Linda M. Hasselstrom assigned the copyright to this edition and her two previously published editions of the book to the society at the annual meeting on January 15, 2022. More information on Hot Springs, and the Pioneer Museum can be found here.
Badger Clark was already famous when he wrote When Hot Springs Was a Pup, likely a fund-raising project for the local Kiwanis Club in 1927. Clark extolled the virtues and foibles of his little community on the edge of the Black Hills, from its beginnings as a Lakota place of healing to its current status as a destination resort. Hot Springs, South Dakota is still a unique, thriving community, home to artists, craftspeople and the world-famous Evans Plunge.
Charles Badger Clark Jr., known as Badger Clark, became the first poet laureate of South Dakota in 1937. He lived and worked in his cabin, dubbed “The Badger Hole”, until his death in 1957, writing poems and humorous short stories depicting the cowboy life. Self-described as a “poet lariat”, he enjoyed spinning his tales for audiences across the country, as he became a much sought-after speaker for events ranging from rural junior high and high school graduations to women’s club meetings.
Except for added electricity, the cabin remains as it was when Badger Clark died at age 74. In summer, volunteers show visitors how simply the poet lived, with kerosene lamps, and a storage box below the kitchen where he kept perishable food and ice when he could afford it. His boots are lined up in the bedroom ready to wear, and a table holds the typewriter on which he composed poems. Above his fireplace hands a saying recalling his hospitality as well as the time he spent in Cuba. “Mi Casa Es Suya”: My house is yours.
Expanded edition with over 100 photographs and notes by the editors
Historian and author Peggy Sanders and author Linda M. Hasselstrom worked together to create this text to bring Badger Clark’s words to a new audience. This updated and revised edition contains additional notes and commentary; a biographical sketch of Clark, “Requiem for a Cowboy Poet”, by Peggy Sanders; and a timeline of Badger’s life. The book provides an abundance of detail on the early days of Hot Springs, with over 100 historical photographs, maps and illustrations.
A presentation on the methodology behind the Watson Parker preservation project will be given at the Jedediah Smith Corral of Westerners, at the Hot Springs Public Library, on August 23 at 1PM. James W. Parker will discuss the project, the tools he’s using to digitize the images, and the work involved. Everyone is welcome! The link below shows the location on Google Maps.
Progress has been slow on getting Dr. Parker’s images digitized. Soon after the enthusiastic start to the project, my slide projector threw a cog, and stopped advancing slides. I did manage to give a presentation on the project to the Black Hills Westerner’s group in May, and am scheduled to do another one in Hot Springs, August 23 at noon. The meeting will be held at Pine Hills Retirement Community, 2711 US 18, Hot Springs, SD.
It took a bit of futzing to get the projector disassembled and put back together, but all appears to be working now.
Yesterday, I went down another rabbit hole, looking for a video of Dad that was made in front of the Hill City shootout set. He is reciting one of his favorite poems, “The Fatal Ball”. It was also a recitation that Troy L. Parker was fond of. I did manage to find a small video of it, and am working on getting the videotape redigitized.
The new online home for the work of Dr. Watson Parker, the dean of Black Hills history. Here you’ll find some of his best lectures and talks, preserved in glowing RGB color, with audio commentary from the master himself. Audio files, images and writing are gathered here for the general edification and amusement of the general public, and those interested in the history of the West. Please browse and offer comments and suggestions if appropriate, or necessary.


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This is 4 episode of Megaman Adventures. Enjoy :]
nice movie i liked it but the secret weapon is the peanut butter jelly time banana so it made me laugh
awesome job man. Keep up the good work. :3
OMG that was soo boring but I still love Metal Slug :)
hehehe man thx OMG :) "soo borin but still love MS" :P
That's also my weakness O_o
Why'd you submit this twice? Oh well it's still good. Keep it up.
After being exiled, the mysterious "Valdoros" must contend with home invaders
Tape One of a pixel animated Horror anthology series.
newgrounds.com — Your #1 online entertainment & artist community! All your base are belong to us.


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Hermon, Maine 04401
Products distributed by Advanced Modifications Inc. (listed alphabetically)
AUTOMATIC POWER CHAIR LIFT (MODEL AL550)
The Automatic Power Chair Lift, model AL550, is a platform van lift designed for use by individuals with mobility disabilities or spinal cord injury. The lift's docking station features a self-aligning base, enabling the user to drive onto the platform and be locked in place. An audible latching sound is heard as the chair's pin passes into the locking mechanism, and attempting to back the chair verifies that the latch is locked. The docking base also includes a bright colored indicator pin to confirm the latch is in the locked position. When unloading, the powered chair is released using a single lever located at the front of the base. The lift fits class II or III hitches and folds manually. POWER: Uses battery and supplied electrical harness with full-length leads that attach directly to the battery. DIMENSIONS: 28.5 X 39 INCHES. CAPACITY: 350 pounds. WEIGHT: 112 pounds. WARRANTY: Three year transferable warranty.
BRUNO BIG LIFTER (MODEL VSL-570)
The Bruno Big Lifter, model VSL 570, is a wheelchair and scooter loader designed for use at the rear of minivans, sport utility vehicles, and full size vans. The Big Lifter's manual swing has a low-resistance design, requiring minimum strength. Installation requires no structural modification. The adjustable low-profile arm allows the placement of larger power bases into smaller vehicle openings. A Bruno Custom Base provides for mounting the lift in the appropriate location. POWER: Big Lifter is powered by the vehicle's battery. CAPACITY: 400 pounds.
BRUNO TURNOUT TURNING AUTOMOTIVE SEATING (MODEL TAS-2400/2400E)
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27 January 2023
by Nicholas Fiorenza
The German Army's heavy weapon carrier will be based on Austrialia's Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle, pictured with Australian Army soldiers during Exercise ‘Chong Ju' at the Puckapunyal training area, Victoria, on 16 May 2018. (Australian MoD)
The German Army's share of the EUR100 million (USD109 million) Zeitenwende special fund, approved after Russia invaded Ukraine, focuses on armoured vehicles, Janes learnt at Defence iQ's International Armoured Vehicles (IAV) 2023 conference held in London on 23–26 January.
The Bundeswehr plans to equip three new medium brigades with the heavy weapon carrier (HWC) version of the Boxer armoured vehicle in 2025–30. Based on Australia's Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicle, the HWC will replace the Marder infantry fighting vehicle.
The German Army also intends to procure an airborne weapons carrier in the 2030s to replace the Wiesel. One of the new carriers would fit inside the Luftwaffe's future CH-47 heavy transport helicopter, compared with two Wiesels in the current CH-53G.
The German Army is also looking at replacing its short-range mortar carriers starting in 2027, replacing M113s remaining in service until 2030. Instead of spending seven to nine years procuring a new system, the Bundeswehr has decided to buy the self-propelled mortar version of the Common Armoured Vehicle Systems, a programme for which Germany signed a statement of intent to join in mid-2022.
Artillery to be replaced in the coming decades includes the Panzerhaubitze (PzH) 2000, with the Boxer-mounted Remote Control Howitzer (RCH) being one of the possible replacements, and the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS).
The Bundeswehr is also seeking ground-based air-defence systems to quickly build up these capacities.
It is procuring Leguan armoured vehicle-launched bridges, with the possibility of being complemented by Boxer bridgelayers.
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The German Army's share of the EUR100 million (USD109 million) Zeitenwende special fund, approved af...


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Supporters of legalization and decriminalization of marijuana received a boost from Capitol Hill Tuesday, as Massachusetts Congressman, Barney Frank introduced a bill to the House of Representatives, which, if passed, would decriminalize marijuana on the federal level.
The bill, labeled H.R. 2493, the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2009, would remove federal penalties for personal possession of up to 100 grams of marijuana (roughly 3.5 ounces), and would reduce the penalty for smoking pot in public to a mere $100, echoing Massachusetts’s similar (though controversial) marijuana law, which passed last November.
“I think John Stuart Mill had it right in the 1850s,” said Congressman Frank, “when he argued that individuals should have the right to do what they want in private, so long as they don’t hurt anyone else. It’s a matter of personal liberty. Moreover, our courts are already stressed and our prisons are over-crowded. We don’t need to spend our scarce resources prosecuting people who are doing no harm to others.” [via: WBZ]
On top of explicitly (re-)granting citizens the right to marijuana possession, the bill would give states legal breathing room to draft less insane, life-crushing drug laws without having to contradict federal law in the process.
But don’t get your bongs out yet – Frank introduced a similar bill last year, which failed miserably. So if you want to help push this bill through congress, visit MPP.org, here to sign their petition to congress. It’s called being active, people. Which, if you smoke enough pot, you probably know nothing about.

domain: politics


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I was one of those kids who was sick all the time. I had chronic sinus infections, ear infections, and had tubes surgically implanted in my ears on multiple occasions to help the fluid drain from my swollen head.
Throughout my childhood and into my young adult life, the second I sneezed, I had to start taking antibiotics in order to keep away or cure the inevitable infection that was coming. I cannot count the number of antibiotics I’ve been on throughout my life. Packs on packs on packs.
Flash forward two decades and I’m in a prominent dermatologist’s office, trying to figure out how I ended up with rosacea as a healthy young adult (a condition that normally surfaces in middle-aged adults). Rosacea is a pain in the ass. It causes itchy, red, hot and bumpy skin on the face. It’s obviously not life-threatening, but it is really uncomfortable and will deal a blow to your self-esteem.
Here’s a few of the tidbits I received from my health professional:
- We don’t know what causes rosacea
- We don’t know why you have it
- We don’t have a cure for it
- We think there’s a genetic link
- We do know that you should avoid spicy food, alcohol, exercise, sunshine and steamy environments like saunas (I basically heard: NO FUN EVER AGAIN), because these things are triggers for rosacea patients.
And here’s the last whopper:
- We don’t know why, but taking low-grade antibiotics over the long term seems to help.
Now, I don’t have a license to practice dermatology. What I do have is enough common sense to know that I didn’t have an infection, so why would I be prescribed antibiotics for the foreseeable future? And I'm not the only one who's read about antibiotic-resistant superbugs that have started springing up in the recent past. Why should I be binging on them?! I declined the prescription and high-tailed it out of there with a moderately helpful synopsis of some triggers for skin irritation, but with a lot of irritated feelings toward western medicine as well.
Now that I’m a certified Health Coach, I’ve gone through enough studies and experimentation with my own body to know that the biggest link between my skin health and antibiotics is that these packs were likely the CAUSE of my symptoms, not the CURE. Western doctors had it completely backwards.
Antibiotics disrupt the balance of gut bacteria, tipping the scales in favor of harmful ones and away from protective ones. It’s like setting off a bomb in your gut -- you can wipe out up to a third of your bacteria with one pack. And it’s not quick and easy work to get the good guys back. We’re now learning that an imbalance in gut bacteria is responsible for many skin conditions, such as cystic acne, eczema, rosacea and other skin irritations, as well as many chronic auto-immune conditions.
My advice to anyone who has been diagnosed with an auto-immune disease or stubborn skin condition (or unexplained mood swings and depression!!) is to explore gut health. My all-time favorite book on the subject is The Microbiome Solution by Dr. Robynne Chutkan. You’ll be empowered to help yourself on your journey to better health, and to be your own advocate when dealing with doctors who might not be up to date on the diet and lifestyle changes that could easily help.
And if you're prescribed antibiotics for any reason, make sure to have a conversation with your doctor about whether it's absolutely essential for you to have them. It's for the good of your gut, and your entire being!
To sign up for my workshop Caring for Your Second Brain: Intro to Gut Health, click here.

domain: medical


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Welington Castillo homered and walked as the Diamondbacks beat the Mets 2-1 on Saturday.
Diamondbacks manager Chip Hale said Thursday that he's yet to decide how he'll divvy up the playing time at catcher between Welington Castillo and Jarrod Saltalamacchia.
Diamondbacks acquired C Welington Castillo, RHP Dominic Leone, INF Jack Reinheimer and OF Gabby Guerrero from the Mariners for OF Mark Trumbo and LHP Vidal Nuno.
Welington Castillo is making his Mariners debut on Thursday afternoon against the Orioles.
Mariners acquired C Welington Castillo from the Cubs for RHP Yoervis Medina.
Yahoo Sports' Jeff Passan reports that the Mariners have acquired catcher Welington Castillo from the Cubs.
Welington Castillo brought in the winning run in the top of the ninth inning in Tuesday's comeback win against the Pirates.
Welington Castillo hit a pinch-hit, two-run home run against the Reds on Tuesday.
The Cubs are considering carrying Welington Castillo as their third catcher.
Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times reports that the Cubs are still actively looking to trade Welington Castillo.
CSN Chicago's David Kaplan expects the Cubs to have traded Welington Castillo before spring training opens in mid-February.
Cubs and C Welington Castillo avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year, $2.1 million contract.
The Diamondbacks have had discussions about acquiring Welington Castillo from the Cubs.
The Cubs continue to let teams know Welington Castillo is available for trade, sources tell Robert Murray of MLBDailyRumors.com.


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|Reviews for To Kari: How am I supposed to explain?|
| ME chapter 1 . 5/9/2005
Wow, Ok I dont know what to say to that or how I am suppose to react. First off I think it is important for me to applogise for anything I have said or done to hurt you. It was ment in jest and once in awhile I say things I shouldn't I am sorry. I won't lie that I have been tempted to tell but against my better judgement I wont because you had the trust to confide in me and that is something I would never betray and if it were me I would expect the same from anyone else. It has scared me and I am very worried about you. You are a very unique person...lol...to say the least and I you are someone I love to hang around you add a new and very alive demension to my life...lol...very colorful too (gotta love orange) On a more serious note. It does matter to me..it matters very much and I hope that you would realise that if you can't trust anyone else to talk to you can always and will always be able to trust me and tell me everything. I know that these are just words and to you they may be worthless but I dont know what else to say that would make you believe me. So it is up to you whether or not you choose to trust me but which ever you choose I will still be here for you whenever you need it. I understand more than you know and I would tell you about it but that is another day another time...but trust me I know more that you think and understand with a clarity most can't. Again I am sorry for anything that I have said and I hope that you will trust me.
| dollface and her cancer chapter 1 . 5/9/2005
For those of us who have been there, it's an echo in the darkness, a mirror of what we are and have been. A painful piece that rings true and speaks honestly. Good job on the writing, and good luck to your battles.

domain: literature


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1899-2019: Emanuel gets to its 120th birthday strongly, bringing in XXI century its values of reliability, quality and continuous technological advancement. Our aptitude to customer’s
Emanuel has developed 4.0 industry and enters the future! Thanks to the natural predisposition of its products with the computerized systems, the Company increases its
Emanuel is proud to announce its new CFS lifting boogie platform. Emanuel keeps investing in new products, increasing its product ranges in the key sectors
Emanuel is proud to announce the completion of its ST Ergonomic Positioners range by adding three new models to the already existing STR: the STS


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Saturday, May 10, 2014
Palestine Mandate Trumps PLO Charter
By David Singer, INN http://www.israpundit.com/archives/63596425
The 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – and international law – have finally emerged as triumphant victors over the 1964 PLO Charter, following the collapse of 50 years of failed attempts by the PLO to arbitrarily void the vote of the 51 members of the League of Nations who unanimously endorsed the legal right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in 23% of former Palestine.
This significant PLO defeat and loss of face follows the ignominious end – on 29 April 2014 – of the nine months negotiating deadline period imposed on Israel and the PLO by US Secretary of State – John Kerry – designed to achieve the “two- state solution” – the creation of a second Jew-free Arab State – in addition to Jordan – in former Palestine (a name given by the Romans to the area and that has no connection to the Arabs who invaded hundreds of years later) for the first time ever in recorded history.
The American and PLO failure to achieve the “two-state solution” after 20 years of fruitless negotiations represents a lost opportunity not likely to return for a long time – leaving the political prestige, influence and credibility of those much-vaunted negotiators in total disarray in the rapidly growing silent and abandoned diplomatic graveyard.
The PLO – since its formation in 1964 – had arrogantly strode the world stage claiming Palestine as the sole property of the Arab nation, while simultaneously denying the Jewish people any right to live in their 3000 year old Jewish, ancient, legally sanctioned and biblical homeland.
Article 18 of the 1964 PLO Charter had brazenly declared:
“The Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate System, and all that has been based on them are considered null and void. The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood. Judaism, because it is a divine religion, is not a nationality with independent existence. Furthermore, the Jews are not one people with an independent personality because they are citizens to their states.”
Four years later article 18 had been replaced with a more strident, equally dismissive article 20:
“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”
This outright rejection of international law by the PLO has never been questioned by the League of Nations’ compliant successor – the United Nations – which, acting in clear breach of Article 80 of the UN Charter, knowingly collaborated to prolong the Arab-Jewish conflict in violation of international law when welcoming the PLO purveyor of Jew-hatred -Yasser Arafat – into its midst, with adulation and enthusiastic applause, on 13 November 1974.
The acceptance of this terrorist organization into the realm of civilised political discourse by the United Nations, while the PLO simultaneously continued to assert that the League of Nations had no power to make any legally binding decisions, must surely rank among the most shameful episodes and low points in United Nations history.
Lecturing to Israel on international law while allowing the PLO to reject international law was breathtaking hypocrisy on the United Nations part.
The principle of respect for the law was cast aside by United Nations members as they trashed the original and noble principles enunciated in the Mandate on the altar of expediency and national self-interest
Adopting countless condemnatory General Assembly resolutions of non-binding validity, those spineless members lined up with the automatic majority represented by Arab Islamic and third world member States to sell out their souls to appease an organization of terrorists, law-deniers and Jew-haters.
Former UN Secretaries General stood by in silence as anti-Israel resolutions denigrating and delegitimizing Israel were ramped up with ever increasing hatred.
The legal commitments enshrined in the Mandate had previously stood resolutely firm against this Arab assault on the Jewish National Home since 1922 – as partition proposals by the Peel Commission in 1937 and a newly created United Nations in 1947 were contemptuously shredded into the garbage bin of history by an Arab leadership that would not brook any compromise or reconciliation with the Jewish people.
The advent of major wars, including the 1948 War of Independence, the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, brought staggering losses and suffering for both Arabs and Jews as the Arab League armies still vainly attempted to eliminate the Jewish State and the consequences of the Mandate.
While the PLO fails to recognize Israel as the Jewish State – no peace between Jews and Arabs is realistically likely to occur.
The Arab League and Kerry have the power to create a breakthrough – pressuring Jordan and Israel to redraw the internationally recognized boundary between their respective countries, as successor States to the Mandate for Palestine
In view of their loss of political clout, do these neutered politicians and the United Nations really possess the diplomatic ability to make peace finally happen?
Using the wisdom and political sagacity of their League of Nations ancestors – the miracle created by the Mandate for Palestine 92 years ago might hopefully be set to resurface.if attempts to rescue the peace process are started once again.David Singer is an Australian lawyer who is active in Zionist community organizations in that country.


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#FreeComicBookDay reminder: my queer cyberpunk webcomic Crossed Wires is 100% FREE TO READ ONLINE. Give it a look today after you get home from your local independent comic book shop! http://crossedwires.irisjay.net
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Pioneer TOM-XVStarting At:$0.00
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text:
Cook syrup, sugar, and water in a heavy pan over med. heat, stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved. Cook until mix reaches 285 degrees on a candy therm.
Remove at once and stir in nuts and butter. Cook and stir again to 295 degrees and remove from heat and add vanilla and soda. Stir rapidly. Pour onto a well greased cookie sheet and cool. When cool crack into pieces.
Last Step: Don't forget to share!
Make all your friends drool by posting a picture of your finished recipe on your favorite social
network. And don't forget to tag Just A Pinch and include #justapinchrecipes so we can see it too!

domain: food


text:
SUNDAY, AUGUST 13
[EDITOR'S NOTE 1: Audio descriptions for tonight's episodes of THE SIMPSONS and BOB'S BURGERS are available on the SAP Audio Channel.]
[EDITOR'S NOTE 2: FAMILY GUY is preempted tonight.]
**TWO-HOUR SPECIAL** - "TEEN CHOICE 2017" - (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) CC-HDTV 720p-Dolby Digital 5.1
THE YEAR'S HOTTEST FILMS, TV, MUSIC AND MORE GET THE SURFBOARD AWARDS
ON "TEEN CHOICE 2017"
SUNDAY, AUGUST 13, LIVE ON FOX
TEEN CHOICE 2017 TM returns to FOX. The two-hour LIVE event will honor the year's best films, most loved TV shows and fiercest music, as well as the top moments in fashion, digital and comedy, with the coveted TEEN CHOICE Surfboard Awards. Host(s), performers, presenters and nominees for TEEN CHOICE 2017 to be announced. TEEN CHOICE 2017 airs LIVE Sunday, Aug. 13 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on FOX. (SP-1801) (TV-PG L, V)


text:
§ 44. Mr. Edwin Wainwright
asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many consultants are required to bring the numbers up to the national average in the Rotherham and Doncaster area health authorities, respectively, in anaesthetics, general medicine, general surgery, mental illness and orthopaedic surgery.
§ Dr. Vaughan
I regret the information is not collected centrally on the detailed basis requested. Information about consultants is, however, available on a regional basis in the regional whole-time equivalent table for hospital medical staff in England and Wales at 30 September 1978, a copy of which is in the Library.


text:
While the official search for a missing 80-year-old man has ended in Langley, volunteers are still hunting for Shengyun Song.
Song was reported missing at 7 p.m. on Thursday March 21 by his son, who says his father left his residence in the 8600 block of 206B Street in North Langley to go for a walk alone and did not return home.
The missing man is a resident of China and does not speak any English.
Song is described as an elderly Asian male, with balding white hair, 5'7", 147 lbs.
He was wearing a blue puffy jacket, pants, and brown shoes with a white stripe (as seen in the photograph released by RCMP).
After four days, Langley RCMP issued a statement saying the "physical search … has now been concluded" but the investigation remains active.
Mounties said several Fraser Valley private citizens have offered to search the area in planes and helicopters.
They planned to fly over North Langley, Port Kells, Fort Langley, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Shengyun Song is asked to call Langley RCMP at 604-532-3200.


Kirkpatrick (hamstring/calf) is active for Saturday's game against the 49ers.
The veteran cornerback has just one game absence on the season, and he'll have an opportunity to help push Arizona to its first playoff appearance in five years with a Week 16 win. Kirkpatrick has three interceptions on the 2020 campaign, and he's containing opponents to a sub-83.0 passer rating for the second time in three years.
Kirkpatrick (hamstring/calf) is considered questionable going into Saturday's matchup against the 49ers after being held out of Thursday's practice session, Darren Urban of the Cardinals' official site reports.
Kirkpatrick was unable to participate throughout the entire practice week, but there remains a chance for him to suit up Week 16 after he proved capable of fighting through his hamstring injury last Sunday in a win over Philadelphia. An absence from Kirkpatrick would spell more opportunities for 2019 second-round draft choice Byron Murphy, who hasn't started since Week 10.
Kirkpatrick (hamstring) was held out of Wednesday's practice.
Kirkpatrick also missed last Wednesday's practice due to the hamstring injury, but he logged limited sessions Thursday and Friday before suiting up in Sunday's win over the Eagles. However, Arizona is currently on a short week -- they play San Francisco on Saturday -- making Wednesday's DNP a bit more concerning. Kirkpatrick has amassed 53 tackles (50 solo) this season and is tied for the team lead with three interceptions.
Kirkpatrick (hamstring) is active for Sunday's game versus Philadelphia.
Kirkpatrick was considered questionable due to the hamstring injury, but he's good to go for Sunday's contest. The 31-year-old should operate in his usual role as a starter at cornerback for Arizona.
Kirkpatrick (hamstring) is questionable for Sunday's game versus the Eagles, Katherine Fitzgerald of The Arizona Republic reports.
Following an absence from Wednesday's practice, Kirkpatrick strung together consecutive limited sessions to close out the week. If he's not given the green light this week, both Byron Murphy and Kevin Peterson will receive increased duties against rookie quarterback Jalen Hurts.
Kirkpatrick (hamstring) was a limited participant during Thursday's practice, Darren Urban of the Cardinals' official site reports.
Kirkpatrick missed Wednesday's practice with the hamstring issue, but it's a good sign that he was able to practice in some capacity Thursday. It's still unlikely the veteran misses Sunday's game against the Eagles, but his practice status Friday should paint a clearer picture. Byron Murphy and Kevin Peterson still stand to gain an uptick in snaps should Kirkpatrick miss any game action.
Kirkpatrick missed Wednesday's practice due to a hamstring injury, Darren Urban of the Cardinals' official site reports.
Kirkpatrick popped back up on the injury report Wednesday with the hamstring injury that hampered him earlier in the season. The veteran has missed just one game this campaign, racking up 51 tackles (48 solo), seven pass breakups and three interceptions in 12 games. If Kirkpatrick were forced to miss Sunday's game against the Eagles, Byron Murphy and Kevin Peterson would be in line for an uptick in snaps in the secondary.
Kirkpatrick (hamstring) doesn't carry an injury designation into Thursday's game against the Seahawks.
The veteran was estimated to be a limited participant for Monday's practice session, but this news is evidence that he's ready to play in Thursday's divisional clash. Kirkpatrick logged 86 percent of defensive snaps in last week's win over the Bills, racking up three solo tackles and an interception, so expect him to handle a similar roll now that he's officially healthy.
Kirkpatrick was listed as a limited participant on Monday's estimated injury report with a hamstring injury, Darren Urban of the Cardinals' official site reports.
The veteran cornerback played 63 defensive snaps during Sunday's win over the Bills after being listed as questionable with a thigh injury, and the fact he was estimated as limited indicates the hamstring issue isn't a serious concern. Kirkpatrick could avoid an injury designation for Thursday's game at Seattle if he can practice fully in the next couple days.
Kirkpatrick (thigh) is active for Sunday's contest against the Bills.
Kirkpatrick will return after missing last week's loss to the Dolphins. The veteran cornerback has been shaky in coverage at times this season, allowing a 104.5 passer rating and two touchdowns through seven games, but he's totaled 29 tackles, three pass breakups and an interception in that stretch.
Kirkpatrick (thigh), who is listed as questionable for Sunday's game against the Bills, is expected to play, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports.
Kirkpatrick was a limited participant in practices Wednesday through Friday, but he looks like he'll be ready to return from a one-game absence and reclaim a starting role Week 10. Expect the Cardinals' top cornerback, Patrick Peterson, to spend most of the day matching up with Stefon Diggs, leaving Kirkpatrick to follow John Brown.
Kirkpatrick (thigh) is officially listed as questionable for Sunday's game against the Bills, Darren Urban of the Cardinals' official site reports.
Kirkpatrick wasn't able to suit up against the Dolphins last weekend, but he's since managed to resume practicing and has logged three limited sessions. If he's able to get the green light and play Sunday, the veteran cornerback's presence will provide Arizona's secondary with a notable boost against Buffalo's dangerous receiving corps.
Kirkpatrick was a limited participant during Wednesday's practice.
Kirkpatrick didn't practice last week before missing Week 9 against the Dolphins, so the fact that he was limited is a positive sign. Kirkpatrick was deemed day-to-day Monday, so expect his practice availability throughout the week to shed a light on his chances to suit up in Sunday's game against Buffalo.
Kirkpatrick (thigh) is considered day-to-day heading into Week 10, Kyle Odegard of the Cardinals' official site reports.
Kirkpatrick didn't practice at all last week, but his current designation signals he could get some work in as soon as Wednesday's session. The Cardinals hope Byron Murphy (COVID-19) will return, too, which would round out their typical starting secondary.
Kirkpatrick (thigh) won't play Sunday against the Dolphins, Kyle Odegard of the Cardinals' official site reports.
Kirkpatrick will join Byron Murphy (illness) on the sidelines, so De'Vante Bausby and Kevin Peterson are both likely to log heavy snap counts at cornerback along with Patrick Peterson. Arizona's Week 10 matchup with the Bills represents Kirkpatrick's next opportunity to get back on the field.
Kirkpatrick (thigh) is not practicing Thursday, Josh Weinfuss of ESPN.com reports.
Kirkpatrick looks set to miss a second straight practice, despite the fact that he's coming off extra rest during a bye week. The veteran cornerback has been a standout coverage option this season, so if he were to miss any time, it could provide a notable boost for Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins on Sunday.
Kirkpatrick (foot) is active for Sunday's game against the Seahawks.
Kirkpatrick dealt with a foot injury during practice leading up to Sunday's game, but he'll be available against Russell Wilson and the Seahawks. The veteran cornerback stands to handle his usual key role in Arizona's secondary.
Kirkpatrick (foot) is questionable for Sunday's game versus the Seahawks, Gregg Bell of The Tacoma News Tribune reports.
Kirkpatrick popped up on the injury report Thursday when he missed practice, but he upgraded to a limited session Friday and could be a close call for Sunday's divisional clash. The veteran cornerback is enjoying a bounce-back campaign, as he's allowed an 80.3 passer rating and no touchdowns when targeted this season. Kevin Peterson is set to fill in if Kirkpatrick can't go.
Kirkpatrick didn't participate during Thursday's practice due to a foot injury, Darren Urban of the Cardinals' official site reports.
Kirkpatrick was absent from the injury report Wednesday, so his addition just a day later is certainly cause for concern. Expect his practice availability throughout the week to shed more light on his chances to play Sunday. If Kirkpatrick were to miss any game action, Kevin Peterson would be in line for slot cornerback work behind starters Byron Murphy and Patrick Peterson.
Kirkpatrick (head) is active for Sunday's game versus the Panthers.
Despite not practicing Friday, Kirkpatrick has recovered and likely won't be held back Sunday. Last week against the Lions, the veteran cornerback logged 64 percent of defensive snaps and recorded six tackles (four solo).
|Sun 09/13||@ SF||W 24-20||3||0||3||0||0||0||0||0|
|Sun 09/20||vs WAS||W 30-15||2||0||2||0||0||0||0||0|
|Sun 09/27||vs DET||L 23-26||4||2||6||0||0||0||0||0|
|Sun 10/04||@ CAR||L 21-31||3||0||3||0||0||0||0||0|
|Sun 10/25||vs SEA||W 37-34||10||0||10||0||0||1||0||0|
|Sun 11/08||@ ARI||L 34-31||0||0||0||0||0||0||0||0|
|Sun 11/15||vs BUF||W 32-30||3||0||3||0||1||1||0||0|
|Thu 11/19||@ SEA||L 21-28||6||1||7||0||0||0||0||0|
|Sun 11/29||@ NE||L 17-20||3||0||3||0||1||1||0||0|
|Sun 12/06||vs LAR||L 28-38||5||0||5||0||0||0||0||0|
|Sun 12/13||@ NYG||W 26-7||4||0||4||0||0||2||0||0|
|Sun 12/20||vs PHI||W 33-26||2||0||2||0||0||0||0||0|
|Sun 01/03||@ LAR||L 7-18||3||0||3||0||0||0||0||0|
|Career Defensive Stats|


text:
The food truck industry can be traced back to the years after the Civil War. According to the History Channel “Chuck wagons and pushcarts served cowboys and urban workers…” The wagons served breakfast, lunch and dinner on vehicles designed to prepare, cook and store food. Pushcarts served cheap and on-the-go lunches to construction workers, delivery boys, busy newspaper reporters and anyone who would enjoy a cheap but nourishing meal.
The 1920s brought us the first motorized food vehicles – while the Henry Ford-led automobile industry expanded, Harry Burt Jr. invested in 12 refrigerated trucks for distribution of Good Humor ice cream bars in the city of Youngstown, Ohio. By the 1960s, thousands of ice creams trucks became part of communities across the country.
Since the 2008 recession, the food truck industry has grown in popularity, and the most devoted foodies love the convenience, the quality, and overall experience street food has to offer. To enjoy this finger-lickin’ experience, you must step out of your comfort zone – support our local entrepreneurs and try delicious street-side cuisine from these mobile eateries in the Western North Carolina region.
For many, food trucks are often associated with fast and poor quality food which is simply not true. Over the years, food trucks stepped up their game and just like a regular restaurant, operating a food truck involves regulations and licensing. From cupcakes to locally-sourced and gourmet foods, food trucks cater to all tastes, offering diverse food to people looking to try something new and different. The ethnic variety of these mobile kitchens provides unique signature dishes with a combination of creativity, value and speed. The food truck culture is absolutely contagious even for people who had second thoughts about them, such as myself.
Tip: check social media to know exactly the daily locations of these food trucks.
Hola Arepa, it is SO nice to meet you! One year ago, the Western N.C. culinary landscape cherished the arrival of Urban Flavor. Often parked at 2501 Northwest Blvd. in Newton, this special mobile eatery serves authentic and fresh South American flavors such as empanadas, tacos, quesadillas, sopes and the star of the show: arepas. A culinary staple in Venezuela and Colombia, the arepa is a flattened corn cake that is griddle-grilled, sliced in half and stuffed with meats, cheese, vegetables and what your heart might desire. The garlic salsa is a must – each bite of the arepa seems to call for more and more of this salsa, until you’re finally satisfied.
The chorizo tacos are probably the best on this neck of the woods. If you are craving for a great taco, Urban Flavor is the right place to go; they make you hungry just by looking at them, and expectations will exceed at first bite.
Everybody loves a perfect wing or a drummie, and some might claim they taste even better during football season. If you are a wing aficionado, you must visit Wingz On Wheelz to have a taste of their fantastic wings. Perfectly seasoned and soaked in a sauce of your choice, the spice blend pushes them to the top of the “best wings” discussion. The hand breading gives the dish that wonderful outside shell and if you want to add a creamy note, try the delicious homemade ranch or blue cheese dressings. The wings are likely to be consumed in a fraction of the time it took to make them.
With a Floribbean-inspired menu focused on boldly flavored tacos, quesadillas, bowls and burritos, this food truck is as festive as it is convenient – vibrant hues and the mix of colors the truck displays is both random and playful. Street style tacos are on the smaller side but they are packed full with ingredients, offering traditional and gringo favorites. Choose from steak, pork, chicken, vegetables ($8) or the day’s special (prices vary) in three styles: Mexican with salsa verde, chili lime slaw, queso fresco, cilantro and Mexican crema; Island with signature mango salsa, pepper jack, cilantro and pineapple guava aioli; or Southern with guava BBQ sauce, chili lime slaw, cheddar cheese and chipotle ranch.
If you are in search of a superior donut, Granny’s Old Fashioned Donuts might be the answer to your prayers. With only three menu items (Yeast glazed donuts, coffee and lemonade), Granny’s yeast donuts are made from scratch and cut by hand into a ring shape before being fried to golden, dough-y perfection. They’re light and airy, but have a chew and a slight yeast flavor, swaddled by the sweetness of a delightful glaze. The mobile eatery is a grin-inducing throwback and just one gigantic ring of goodness will satisfy you for hours. Let’s have a donut for lunch, shall we?


text:
Apache Chief Cochise dies (1874)
Chief Cochise, one of the great leaders of the Apache Indians in their battles with the Anglo-Americans, dies on the Chiricahua reservation in southeastern Arizona.
Little is known of Cochise’s early life. By the mid-19th century, he had become a prominent leader of the Chiricahua band of Apache Indians living in southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Like many other Chiricahua Apache, Cochise resented the encroachment of Mexican and American settlers on their traditional lands. Cochise led numerous raids on the settlers living on both sides of the border, and Mexicans and Americans alike began to call for military protection and retribution.
War between the U.S. and Cochise, however, resulted from a misunderstanding. In October 1860, a band of Apache attacked the ranch of an Irish-American named John Ward and kidnapped his adopted son, Felix Tellez. Although Ward had been away at the time of the raid, he believed that Cochise had been the leader of the raiding Apache. Ward demanded that the U.S. Army rescue the kidnapped boy and bring Cochise to justice. The military obliged by dispatching a force under the command of Lieutenant George Bascom. Unaware that they were in any danger, Cochise and many of his top men responded to Bascom’s invitation to join him for a night of entertainment at a nearby stage station. When the Apache arrived, Bascom’s soldiers arrested them.


Michael Fassbender joins the X Men
Michael Fassbender has accepted the role of the young Magneto in X Men: First Class.
The Inglourious Basterds star was reportedly spoilt for choice when he was offered both the chance to play a younger version of Sir Ian McKellen's X-Men character Magneto in the new X Men prequel and the role of the villain in Marc Webb's Spider Man 4.
Now Fassbender has made his mind up and signed up to star alongside James McAvoy and Benjamin Walker in X Men: First Class, Showbiz411.com reports.
The film is being directed by Kick Ass's Matthew Vaughn and tells the story of how Professer X and Magneto met as young friends discovering their mutant powers, before they became deadly enemies.
Wanted star McAvoy will play the younger version of Sir Patrick Stewart's character Professor X/Charles Xavier.
Fassbender, 33, is currently filming David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method with Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley.
He will appear in several films later this year including Jane Eyre in which he plays the dashing Mr Rochester, opposite Mia Wasikowska in the title role, and comic book movie Jonah Hex with Megan Fox and Josh Brolin.


text:
Many cultural events had to be cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak. This includes short film festivals which were due to take place across the world.
A group of more than 20 cancelled short film festivals is now joining forces to organise the “My Darling Quarantine Short Film Festival” online. The audience can vote for their favorite out of seven films on the topic of “dystopia” presented each week. The festival is accompanied by a crowd funding campaign for those who are most severely affected by COVID-19.

domain: sociology


text:
Should AI Be Scaled Down?
The case for maximizing AI models’ efficiency—not size
A driving force of the competition between AI companies is the belief that bigger is better. GPT-4, the model that powers the most advanced version of ChatGPT, contains an estimated 1.8 trillion parameters, or variables that determine how it responds to inputs. That’s six times more than the 175 billion parameters possessed by its predecessor, GPT-3—and 1,200 times more than those contained in GPT-2. The datasets used to train these models also continue to grow. OpenAI used 570GB of Internet text data to train GPT-3—a massive expansion beyond the 8 million web pages used to train GPT-2.
Bigger large language models (LLMs) have gotten better at producing humanlike, coherent, and contextually appropriate text. But this improvement has come with costs. Researchers estimated that the training process for GPT-3 consumed roughly the amount of energy consumed by 120 American households over the course of a year. An October study projected that by 2027, the AI sector could have an annual energy consumption roughly equivalent to that of the Netherlands.
The exponential growth of LLMs’ size—and energy consumption—isn’t likely to stop any time soon. As OpenAI, Google, Meta, and other companies race to develop better models, they’ll probably rely on expanding datasets and adding more parameters. But some researchers question the rationale behind this competition. At the first session of the Harvard Efficient ML Seminar Series, researcher Sara Hooker likened the pursuit of larger and larger models to “building a ladder to the moon”: costly and inefficient, with no realistic endpoint.
“Why do we need [these models] so big in the first place?” asks Hooker, head of the nonprofit research group Cohere For AI. “What is this scale giving us?” Some benefits of size can also be achieved through other techniques, researchers say, such as efficient parameterizations (activating only the relevant parameters for a given input) and meta-learning (teaching models to learn independently). Instead of pouring immense resources into the pursuit of ever-bigger models, AI companies could contribute to research developing these efficiency methods.
One draw of bigger models is that they seem to develop “emergent properties,” or behaviors that weren’t explicitly programmed into a system: the sudden ability to produce multilingual responses, for instance, or complete math problems. When these abilities emerged from LLMs, it “was mind-blowing to a lot of people in the field,” says seminar lead organizer and AI researcher at Harvard Medical School Jonathan Richard Schwarz. Before LLMs, previous AI models had been explicitly programmed to learn from experience, such as image recognition systems that can recognize new categories after being shown fewer than a dozen examples. But LLMs did not contain algorithms that allowed them to learn and adapt; they were simply trained to predict Internet text. The fact that they seemed to be learning from experience anyway was exciting—and many assumed this was happening because of their sheer size.
But these emergent properties didn’t just appear “out of nowhere,” Hooker says. Often, “the data is there in the pre-training,” she says. “It’s just that the dataset is so big that we don’t know it’s there.” In the case of the emergence of multilingual abilities, training datasets may have included multilingual sources—developers just thought they were only including English-language sources. Larger models are also more likely to capture rare data points, resulting in unexpected outcomes. But that doesn’t mean only large models can achieve this. The question becomes, Hooker says, how smaller models can be taught to similarly memorize those data points.
One way to encourage the emergence of similar abilities in smaller models is by training them in meta-learning, or teaching them to learn on their own. “The properties that seem to emerge almost by accident,” Schwarz says, might also arise in smaller models “if you found a way of more directly encouraging that behavior.” Researchers can draw from meta-learning techniques used in non-LLM AI models. But more research would also be useful: “There’s a lot of room for making these techniques more stable and easier to use,” Schwarz says, “and to reduce forgetting,” or the inability of models to retrieve previously stored information.
The data used in training also matters. “If you have a lot of junk in your dataset, you spend a lot of extra capacity and extra model size trying to deal with it,” Hooker says. “By focusing on data quality, you can get away with smaller and more highly performing models.” Pruning huge datasets isn’t easy: even if one figures out a way to distinguish between high- and low-quality data, there is the additional question of redundancy within the good data. Here is another place to direct resources: “It’s a massive inflection point in our field,” Hooker says, “where we’ve moved away from the algorithm and now think about what the data is and how it interacts with the algorithm.”
Not only is there too much data within many models, she argues; there are also far more parameters than are needed in most cases. A 2013 paper found that many deep learning models contain significant redundancy in their parameters. And of the millions or billions of parameters possessed by a model, only a fraction are required to process most inputs. The rest are needed only for fringe examples, “like if you keep your finger on the J key, and just input a page of J,” Hooker says. “That’s not a coherent pattern, so the model will spend a lot of time trying to understand what that is—and that’s not a good use of capacity.” Other fringe examples, though, are worth the capacity, such as text consisting of rare languages.
To address this problem, researchers can develop efficient parameterization systems, activating only the relevant parameters for a given input. “Instead of training my model of billions or trillions of parameters to be a single sort of system, I can instead try to actively encourage different parts of the model to specialize in different types of problems,” Schwarz says. This technique—called “mixture of experts”—consists of separating parameters into clusters (“experts”) and activating only the relevant experts for a given query. The challenge then becomes identifying which experts are needed for a given input. Research is ongoing to develop ways of doing this, such as by detecting keywords.
Experience in efficiently training such large-scale machine learning systems is in relatively “short supply,” according to the Efficient ML Seminar Series organizers. The organizations creating the most resource-intensive models, such as Meta and OpenAI, have not shared details about their energy consumption. Without that information—and subsequent public pressure—the incentives may continue to encourage size over efficiency.
Hooker believes that a solution could lie in a centralized system that rates models for energy efficiency: “In the same way we rate buildings for energy standards, we can do the same thing for models,” she says. “I’m in favor of badges like this, that reflect the energy standards that were used during training. Because right now it’s a black box, and we don’t communicate what the cost is.”
The Efficient ML Seminar Series, co-organized by the Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural & Artificial Intelligence, the Harvard Data Science Initiative, and Harvard Medical School, is held online and open to the public.