When tackling the challenge of finding out how big a down payment should be (for any large purchase, like a car or home), Jessica says that she uses "free online payment and mortgage calculators" and was able to find out "how much she could afford for a house and how much she was comfortable paying every month" with very little fuss or headache finance usual elicits. It's worth noting that she went with a 20-per-cent down payment for her mortgage to avoid mortgage insurance, which you pay into every month if your down payment is less than 20 per cent.
We offer a payment calculator on our very website, which allows customers to find out their down payment and monthly payments, while providing our exclusive pricing data. You can check it out right here.
Loans are sometimes a necessity, even the ones that last 84 months or longer, but Jessica says that she's "always been of the mind that you shouldn't get a long loan if you can help it." She suggests taking a few more years to save up and buy a car outright with cash, or taking a small loan you can pay off quickly. Debt is never fun, and if you have to compromise the kind of lifestyle and things you have, you'll be better off.
The biggest question that a lot of new car buyers have is to lease or to buy. Jessica's perspective on whether or not leasing is worth it might help you decide. She says that leasing is "essentially paying money towards a car that you will never have full ownership of," but if you do buy a car, "it will depreciate in value the longer you have it." So, she says that it really depends on whether you want to exchange the car later or plan on driving it for the next 20 years.
Knowing your down payment and monthly payments is only the start of the process, though, and Jessica's suggestion for saving up is that "starting early is always key." She's aware that it's not an easy task, especially as a student or graduate in the recession, but once you have your final number, she says to "calculate how long it will take to save that amount, then do automatic deposits into your savings account." It takes the hassle out of trying to recalculate, but you do have to stick to your numbers if you want to reach your goals within your timeframe.
Having automatic deposits paying into your future down payment is great, but it does put a cap on your funds, especially on top of regular savings, bills and emergencies. Monthly loan and lease payments can be another headache, and though Jessica says that she's lucky not to have loans, she notes that it was a choice. Forgoing luxuries and what others may consider necessities, she cuts costs by taking public transportation, while her husband made sacrifices and worked extra hours to afford his lease on his new car.
We all have that dream car in mind, and even back up dream cars, but before you ask how much you can afford for a car, Jessica suggests asking "what do you need a car for?" She notes that it's worth reconsidering if it's just to "drive around the city a few days a week to do chores," rather than commute every day for over an hour.
Another factor she says to include is your family size, such as needing more space for kids. Once you've got that figured out, Jessica says that the next step is "poring over reviews to see what car has the best track record, is good on gas, and won't cost an arm and a leg in car insurance." Her final tip touches on the dealership and that's to "have what you want written down." It'll help you avoid being upsold on extra features like heated seats and tinted windows, and that's money that can go directly back into your savings.
Even though there are a lot of factors to consider in buying a new car, they are important questions that reflect lifestyle choices and changes. With Jessica Moorhouse's advice and some hard decisions, you can be better armed before you step into a dealership.
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Kristin is an automotive writer at Unhaggle. Join her as she writes about the basics and beyond with a fresh perspective. She knows what it's like entering the automotive world for the first time and offers a guiding hand for new car enthusiasts. Her own car of choice? That would be a MINI Cooper, but when her novel series takes off, you can bet she'll be sitting pretty in a Dodge Viper SRT10 Roadster.
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Johnny Boo (Book 10): Johnny Boo and the Midnight Monsters $9.99 (US) Out of Stock
March solicits: NOCTURNE, WHY DID WE TRUST HIM, and more FROM HELL!
It's a feast for the senses — and for the funnybone. Announcing the second in Anne Opotowsky's acclaimed Walled City Trilogy, a new Shannon Wheeler collection, and From Hell: Master Edition continues...
Plus Belzebubs and the penultimate issue of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are in stores! Let's dive in, shall we?
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Nocturne: The Walled City Trilogy (Book Two) $39.99 (US) Add to Cart
Johnny Boo (Book 1): The Best Little Ghost $9.95 (US) $4.99 (US) DIGITAL Out of Stock Buy Digital
Johnny Boo (Book 9): Johnny Boo is King! $9.99 (US) Out of Stock

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Camellias are among the loveliest of flowering shrubs that can be grown and Camellia Japonica Brushfield's Yellow is no exception! This beautiful evergreen shrub has both stunning flowers and attractive all-year-round foliage to recommend it. Developed in 1970 in Australia by Keith Brushfield, this early-flowering variety has become a favourite of UK gardeners. In February through April, the 8-10 cm large, double flowers provide a welcome promise of spring. Creamy-white outer petals surround a frilly primrose yellow centre. The flowers are produced in such profusion that the glossy dark-green leaves almost disappear underneath.
Hardy in most parts of the UK, Camellia Japonica Brushfield's Yellow will grow to a mature height of 2.5 to 4 metres and spread of 1.5 to 2.5 metres in 10 to 20 years. Prune to deadhead spent blooms and remove dead or damaged branches after flowering is finished in mid-spring. It can also be trained into a small tree shape by removing lower limbs, or espaliered against a wall. Planted 1.5 metres apart, a row of Camellia Brushfield's Yellow would be a stunning hedge in spring and provide year-round screening for privacy.
Camellia Brushfield's Yellow should be grown in partial or full shade in a sheltered position with a north, east or west aspect, in acid to neutral pH well-drained sand, clay or loam soil. Avoid locations with early morning sun to prevent the loss of buds and flowers to late frosts. It is deer resistant so a good choice for country gardens, and once established will tolerate drought. This beautiful harbinger of spring can fit into even small gardens when pruned to size, and if espaliered against a wall will take up hardly any space at all, while still putting on a spectacular early season show! Well-suited to container growing, Camellia Brushfield's Yellow can easily earn a place on a roof terrace or patio, or in a courtyard garden, where its long blooming season and year-round foliage make it a valuable addition where space is limited. It's a natural fit in a woodland garden, where it would appreciate the dappled shade, or as a specimen plant or part of a mixed border.
Camellia Brushfield's Yellow is well worth including in your landscape plans; its brilliant show of blooms in late winter and early spring, as well as its attractive evergreen foliage, make it a hard-working member of your garden team!


About 785,000 people have an initial heart attack and another 470,000 people have a recurrent heart attack every year in the United States, according to the American Heart Association. This means that an American has a heart attack every 34 seconds and one dies from heart disease every minute. A new imaging technique may help identify who is at high risk.
The primary cause of heart attacks is clogged arteries. Arteries are blood vessels that carry oxygen-rich blood throughout the body. Blood flows easily in healthy arteries with smooth walls, but blood flow is reduced or blocked completely in clogged arteries when a substance called plaque builds up on the inner walls of the arteries.
Artery-clogging plaque is made up of fat, calcium, cholesterol and other substances found in the blood. Over time, this plaque can harden and rupture. If it breaks apart, a blood clot can form on its surface and completely block the artery, preventing blood from reaching the heart muscle and causing a heart attack. If the blood flow isn't quickly restored, the portion of the heart fed by the artery begins to die.
Coronary angiography is the "gold standard" way to identify these plaque blockages in the heart, but it's an invasive surgical procedure. During a coronary angiography, a thin flexible tube called a catheter is put into a blood vessel in your arm, groin or neck and threaded into your coronary arteries. Then a special dye is released through the tube, making your coronary arteries visible on X-rays pictures taken as the dye flows through them.
New study results, recently published in The Lancet medical journal, show that these high-risk plaque blockages can also be identified using a non-invasive imaging technique. The study was carried out by Dr. Nik Joshi and his research team from the University of Edinburgh, the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and the University of Cambridge.
The study involved 40 people who had recently suffered a heart attack and 40 additional people who had stable chest pain (angina). The patients were given a standard coronary angiography and a non-invasive imaging PET-CT scan.
A PET-CT scan measures metabolic activity using positron emission tomography (PET) and anatomical structure using X-ray computed tomography (CT). A trace amount of radioactive drug is injected into the patient's vein and used to produce 3D images. Joshi and his research team used a radioactive drug called sodium fluoride (NaF).
The study aimed to show how well a PET-CT scan using sodium fluoride detected plaques that had already ruptured or were at high risk of rupturing. The coronary angiography was used as a gold standard to identify the culprit plaque deposits that blocked the arteries.
The researchers measured the sodium fluoride distribution to determine if the artery-clogging plaques took up a significant amount of the drug. In 93% (37/40) of the people who had had a heart attack, significant sodium fluoride uptake was seen in the plaque responsible for the heart attack. The average drug uptake in these culprit plaque deposits was 34% higher than anywhere else in the heart.
In 45% (18/40) of the people with stable chest pain, culprit plaque deposits also took up significant amounts of the sodium fluoride drug. For both sets of patients, the culprit plaque deposits identified by PET-CT imaging were confirmed by histology or intravascular ultrasound to have high-risk characteristics such as calcification and a dead tissue core.
Further research studies with a broad range of patients are now needed before PET-CT sodium fluoride imaging is accepted as a standard clinical technique. These studies are likely to take several years to complete. If they confirm the initial promising results, the technique could then move immediately into clinics since it is already approved and commonly used for other applications.


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Crosby: Getting to the heart of former Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner's legacy
By Denise Crosby
The Beacon-News |
Tom Vendafreddo and Michael Kurowski perform "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" at former Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner's memorial held Monday at the Paramount Theatre in downtown Aurora. (Denise Crosby / The Beacon-News)
While we all recognize Tom Weisner as a strong leader who left a deep footprint in Aurora, those closest to the late mayor offered up the final words at his "Celebration of Life" held Monday at Aurora's Paramount Theatre.
And their words revealed a side to this public man that many of us did not have a chance to know.
It was Tom, the caring older cousin, for example, who seemed to so naturally take the younger members of the family under his wing … treating them as equals, while also teaching them about baseball, about life and about the importance of "never compromising one's values in exchange for money or success," noted cousin Melinda Kroning.
It was Tom who continued to always put family first, especially wife Marilyn, who he referred to not only as his soulmate and his inspiration but as "the smartest person he knew," said friend and former city official Carie Anne Wittenberg.
It was Tom who, as he transformed Aurora "once known as a blue collar city with a serious crime problem into a 21st century city," touted diversity as its "greatest strength"… while also encouraging officials to not only embrace that diversity but "leverage it," said close friend and community leader John Savage.
On a lighter note, it was Tom, whose sense of humor — combined with writing skills — produced exceptional "Common Sense" columns for the The Beacon-News, including one titled "Sexes' blind spots can be summed up in cars and purses" that, read by award-winning actor and Paramount Theatre Creative Director Jim Corti, left the otherwise somber audience not only softly chuckling but at times laughing out loud.
And, on a more serious note, it was Tom who displayed what "courage, dignity and quiet strength" look like in the face of suffering.
Even close family and friends never heard him complain. When asked how he was doing in his long battle with cancer — much of it while leading the second-largest city in the state — Tom would always respond with "I'm feeling good," noted Savage.
"He did not lose heart, even when life became difficult."
It's a trait the former mayor obviously honed during his volunteer stint with the Peace Corps in the Solomon Islands, a place and a people he grew to love so profoundly that it might have become the Weisners permanent home, several speakers suggested, had it not been for the medical needs of their son who was born with cerebral palsy.
It was through Thaddeus, "who could always find joy in the little things, no matter how difficult his circumstances," said Wittenberg, that Tom found inspiration to keep fighting for those most vulnerable.
Wittenberg, who was Weisner's chief management officer as well as close friend, went on to tell a story about one of Thad's favorite toys — a talking Cookie Monster that sat on the mayor's desk as a "reminder that when life gets tough, just ask for more cookies."
On those days when the mayor felt beaten down by his critics or by the weight of decisions he had to make, she recalled, "I'd hear from the next office Cookie Monster and know that tomorrow would be a new day."
And every day, each of the speakers reminded the crowd of over 500 that turned out for the memorial, Tom Weisner was committed to giving a voice to the voiceless.
Lynette Olexa from Hope D. Wall School shared how "famous" Tom was at this school for the developmentally disabled, not because he was mayor of Aurora, but because he was "Thad's dad" … as well as a champion for "hundreds of students" he helped with no publicity or fanfare.
"Tom would not want me to share all the things I know he did because I don't think that's why he did them," Olexa insisted.
As Lulu Blacksmith, dean of community engagement for Waubonsee Community College, summed up the mayor's many educational initiatives in Aurora, she also revealed personal ways Tom reached out to help the disadvantaged — in this case, the immigrant population that included a young family whose husband and father was dying of cancer.
Not only were he and Marilyn committed to helping the widow learn English so she could get a better job, the couple took an active role in the young children's education, knowing how important it was for their futures.
"Building communities … that's what Tom was. Tom unified us, reached out to us," said Blacksmith. "He made them feel welcome and gave them a sense of belonging."
And while much of what he accomplished did, indeed, reach the public, especially after his death Dec. 28 from cancer complications, "what appears in print is only a small fraction of the many initiatives Tom championed to benefit the people of Aurora," insisted Wittenberg.
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"What's funny," she continued, "is that Tom knew his work, his role would be mostly forgotten. And it was OK with him" because he believed "Aurora's success was never dependent on any one person" but on the belief that "each one of us can change this world and our community through selfless acts of service."
It's that message, she suggested, which could be Tom Weisner's greatest legacy.
For Olexa, a way to keep the former mayor's spirit alive might be even more simple.
"Just be kind to each other," she suggested, "as a step in the right direction."


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7 fun facts about Pablo Sáinz Villegas
October 1, 2017 Nicole Glaza
Before you step into Knight Theater to hear the romantic and fiery sounds of Rodrigo Guitar Concerto, check out these facts about our guest classical guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas, otherwise kown as "the soul of the Spanish guitar."
1. Pablo was born June 16, 1977 in La Rioja, Spain.
2. Sáinz Villegas has performed numerous world premieres, including the first guitar piece to have been written by five-time Academy Award-winning composer John Williams.
3. Pablo was given the honor of performing in the presence of the Dalai Lama as well as the Royal Family of Spain. He was also chosen to serve as Cultural Ambassador to the Vivanco Foundation and its museum, considered by UNESCO as the best museum of wine culture in the world.
4. Sáinz Villegas has an extensive history of winning prestigious awards. Perhaps his most honorable was when he became the first guitarist to ever win Spain's top classical music honor, El Ojo Crítico. Pablo also won the famed Parkening International Guitar Competition, and prior to that he was already the recipient of more than 30 international awards, including the Francisco Tárrega Award and the Andrés Segovia Award at age 15.
5. Pablo has helped serve over 15,000 children, as he is the founder of "The Music Without Borders Legacy," a program that seeks to bridge communities across cultural, social, and political borders for the benefit of youth.
6. Sáinz Villegas is well known for his emotional artistry with the guitar, whether it's been in an intimate setting or before more than 85,000 people, as he did while accompanying the admired tenor Plácido Domingo, at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid.
7. In the 2015-16 season, Pablo accompanied Plácido Domingo on a floating stage in the Amazon River which was broadcast live to millions of people around the world.
Posted in Classics. Tagged as Classical, guest artists, Guitar.


Even without the thick mountain man beard currently hiding most of his chiseled jawline, Kevan Miller is one of the more intimidating figures in the NHL.
The Bruins defenseman, who's known most for his courage and willingness to sacrifice his body for the success of the team, doesn't often show fear. But even Miller had to admit Thursday that when he took a John Tavares shot to the throat Nov. 26, a scary scenario unfolded.
"Yeah, the doc said I was very fortunate that it didn't go the other way," said Miller, who continued to skate with the Bruins on Thursday but will miss his 11th straight game with a larynx injury when the Bruins host the Anaheim Ducks at TD Garden.
"So definitely the first 20 or 30 minutes, I was having some really tough time breathing, my body kind of went into a little bit of shock. And then after the 30-minute window the docs kind of gave me the 'hey it could go bad or it can go good.' And it started to get better and I was very, very thankful for that. So it could've been a lot worse, so I got to look on the bright side of things.
The bad news was that he would be out for more than a month, but there was also good news. He's been able to work out and eventually he started skating with protection over his throat.
There's hope that he'll be back in the Bruins' lineup as soon as next week.
"It's obviously been frustrating. I've had a number of injuries kind of back to back. It's just the way things have gone this season, unlucky. But I've been able to skate and work out and keep in shape for a while now, been feeling pretty good. Just waiting for that green light to get back in it," he said.
And, of course, in typical tough guy mode, Miller said that once he's cleared to play in games, the neck protection is going to stay on the hook in his stall.
For the first time since he started four games in a row November 8-14, Jaroslav Halak will make his second straight start Thursday against the Ducks.
Halak made 22 saves in a 4-0 win at Montreal on Monday. The Bruins are trying to end a nine-game losing streak to Anaheim.


My recommendations page on YouTube is in a weird place at the moment. Amid the standard basketball highlights, NPR Tiny Desk concerts, SNL clips and movie trailers, a new genre has taken up real estate: chess. For some reason unbeknownst to me, the 2018 World Chess Championship has piqued my interest since before the start of the 12-game contest in early November.
What does this esoteric word mean? To help explain, I will return to the world of normal sports with a college football connection. I watched one of the longest games in college football history over the weekend — LSU at Texas A&M — and let me tell you, that game was looking incredibly drawish.
This game had everything you could want from a college football game, an FBS-record 146 points, seven overtimes and plenty of sleep lost. The Aggies (8-4, 5-3 SEC) and Tigers (9-3, 5-3 SEC) managed a lovely coordinated dance throughout the overtimes, each team making sure to miss or make the two-point conversions when its opponent did the same.
Being an avid Cleveland Browns fan, experienced in the art of the draw, I was certain this game was going to end without a victor crowned. It had all the makings of a tie, yet five overtimes in, my friend told me that ties are not allowed in college football.
Unfortunately, the Aggies won and the chance for a draw disappeared. This is very much not the case in the 2018 World Chess Championship. It has been as drawish as can be, with each game ending in a draw so far and the scored tied 6-6.
I follow chess pundits, who do exist, on Twitter, and every game so far has gotten to a point where an expert has deemed it drawish, which means that the pieces sit in such a way where a draw is the most likely outcome.
A secondary, and arguably more important, definition of drawish is that it is something you can say in the middle of the chess game to sound like you know what is going on. This is the way I use the odd term the most.
Now that we established that I know very little about the game itself, it is time to delve into the exciting side stories that make the World Chess Championship unlike any other sporting event.
The biggest scandal of this year was a YouTube video leak documenting some of Caruana's preparation. That does not sound like much, but it turns out the top chess players in the world keep their training camps very secretive. This extends all the way down to keeping the members of a team anonymous, as knowing who is in the room might give an opponent a hint regarding certain tendencies the player is practicing.
The video was taken down quickly, and the championship is still even, so it seems this blunder has had little effect on the outcome so far.
The next big scandal came from Carlsen's side of the table in the ninth game, when the defending champion showed up with a bruised eye. No, it was not from some Caruana crony trying to take his opponent down a notch, but from a game of pickup soccer in between matches eight and nine.
Onlookers were worried that any need for painkillers or impaired vision would hurt Carlsen's chances in a World Championship, where he needed to operate at peak performance. Despite the away-from-the-table drama, Carlsen maintained control of game nine, but was unable to break the tie.
The 12th regulation game took place Monday morning, and something very out-of-the-ordinary happened. Carlsen had a large advantage on the clock as well as a clear advantage on the board after his 31st move. There were many pieces left, and the game did not look drawish. Yet Carlsen offered a draw, and Caruana took it happily.
Spectators were shocked at the quick ending and timid play by Carlsen. The championship will move on to overtime Wednesday, which will involve games with stricter time limits.
Just imagine two grandmasters in top form playing chess on the biggest stage. Now adjust the playback speed to 1.5 times in your head and that will give you a good idea of what tiebreaker format is like.
The defending champion Carlsen is favored in this overtime format, but if the competition so far tells us anything, we should be ready to expect the unexpected.
R.J. Stempak is a sophomore computer science major who enjoys basketball.


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S. Amdt. 2927 - To Establish a Congressional Advisory Panel on Revising the Governance Structure of the National Nuclear Security Administration to Permit It to Operate More Effectively and Independently of the Department of Energy.
Senate Vote: Amendment SA 2927 as modified agreed to in Senate by Unanimous Consent.
currently selected Senate Amendment SA 2927 as modified agreed to in Senate by Unanimous Consent. 12/04/2012 PASSED by voice vote
currently selected Vote 12/04/2012 Amendment SA 2927 as modified agreed to in Senate by Unanimous Consent.
currently selected S. Amdt. 2927 Kyl, Jon [R-AZ] November 15, 2012 Passed by voice vote on December 3, 2012.
December 3, 2012, 7:00 pm ET - Amendment SA 2927 proposed by Senator Levin for Senator Kyl.
December 3, 2012, 7:00 pm ET - Amendment SA 2927 as modified agreed to in Senate by Unanimous Consent.
Wartime Contracting Reform Act of 2012: Amendment SA 2927 as modified agreed to in Senate by Unanimous Consent.


The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation is announcing refinements to the design of the second year of the Medicare Advantage Value-Based Insurance Design (MA-VBID) model. The MA-VBID model is an opportunity for Medicare Advantage plans (MA plans), including Medicare Advantage plans offering Part D benefits (MA-PD plans), to offer clinically nuanced benefit packages aimed at improving quality of care while also reducing costs.
In the second year of the model, beginning January 1, 2018, CMS will: open the model test to new applicants; conduct the model test in three new states - Alabama, Michigan, and Texas; add rheumatoid arthritis and dementia to the clinical categories for which participants may offer benefits; make adjustments to existing clinical categories; and change the minimum enrollment size for some MA and MA-PD plan participants.
Value-Based Insurance Design (VBID) generally refers to health insurers' efforts to structure enrollee cost sharing and other health plan design elements to encourage enrollees to use high-value clinical services – those that have the greatest potential to positively impact enrollee health. VBID approaches are increasingly used in the commercial market, and evidence suggests that the inclusion of clinically-nuanced VBID elements in health insurance benefit design may be an effective tool to improve the quality of care while reducing its cost for Medicare Advantage enrollees with chronic diseases. As part of the "better care, smarter spending, healthier people" approach to improving health care delivery, CMS will test VBID in Medicare Advantage and measure whether structuring patient cost sharing and other health plan design elements encourages enrollees to use health care services in a way that improved their health and reduces costs.
The MA-VBID model will begin January 1, 2017 and run for five years. CMS expects to release a Request for Applications for the second year of the model test in the fall of 2016, and will accept proposals from MA and MA-PD plans to offer VBID benefits in 2018.
In its first year, CMS will test the model in seven states: Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. Beginning January 1, 2018, CMS will also test the model in Alabama, Michigan, and Texas. These states have been selected in order to be generally representative of the national Medicare Advantage market, including urban and rural areas, areas with both high and low average Medicare expenditures, areas with high and low prevalence of Low-Income Subsidies, and areas with varying levels of penetration of and competition within Medicare Advantage. Test states have also been selected based on the availability of appropriate paired comparison areas for the purposes of evaluation. Eligible MA plans in these states, upon CMS approval, may offer varied plan benefit designs for enrollees who fall into certain clinical categories identified and defined by CMS. Benefit design changes made through this model may reduce cost sharing and/or offer additional services to targeted enrollees; however, targeted enrollees can never receive fewer benefits or be charged higher cost sharing than other MA enrollees in their plan as a result of the model.
The existing Medicare Advantage "uniformity" requirement generally requires that an MA plan's benefits and cost sharing be the same for all plan enrollees. Because of this, clinically-nuanced VBID approaches have generally not been incorporated into MA or MA-PD plans.
The model will test the hypothesis that giving MA plans flexibility to offer supplemental benefits or reduced cost sharing to targeted groups of enrollees with CMS-specified chronic conditions in order to encourage the use of services that are of highest value to them, will lead to higher-quality and more cost-efficient care. The increase in high-quality, cost-efficient care is expected to improve beneficiary health, reduce utilization of avoidable high-cost care, and reduce overall costs for plans, beneficiaries, and the Medicare program. The model is also intended to improve outcomes and reduce costs by encouraging targeted enrollees to obtain care from high-value providers and by providing new supplemental benefits specifically tailored to targeted enrollees' clinical needs.
The MA-VBID model is authorized under Section 1115A of the Social Security Act (added by section 3021 of the Affordable Care Act) (42 U.S.C. § 1315a), which authorizes the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to test innovative health care payment and service delivery models that have the potential to reduce Medicare, Medicaid, and Children's Health Insurance Program expenditures while preserving or enhancing the quality of beneficiaries' care. CMS will test this model in the Medicare program through a limited waiver of the Medicare Advantage and Part D uniformity requirements.
The MA-VBID model supports improved health outcomes and health care cost savings or cost neutrality through the use of structured patient cost sharing and other health plan design elements that encourage enrollees to use high-value clinical services. The MA-VBID model will provide flexibility for MA and MA-PD plans accepted into the model to develop clinically-nuanced benefit designs for enrollee populations that fall within certain clinical categories.
In addition to developing interventions targeted at all enrollees in one or more of the above categories, participating MA plans will have the flexibility to identify specific combinations of the listed chronic conditions for one or more "multiple co-morbidities" groups and establish tailored VBID interventions for each group. Participating MA plans are required to provide VBID benefits to all VBID-eligible enrollees in the selected group. Participating MA plans selecting the Mood Disorders group will also have additional flexibility to focus on specific conditions within that group.
For each of the selected enrollee groups, participating plans may select one or more plan design modifications from a menu of four general approaches. Within each approach, plans have flexibility on how (and to what extent) to implement that approach. Plans may vary their proposed interventions from one target population to another, and from one participating plan to another. CMS will also consider proposals for related variants of these interventions offered to targeted groups of enrollees, such as supplemental benefits conditional on participation in a disease management program.
Plans can choose to reduce or eliminate cost sharing for items or services, including covered Part D drugs, that they have identified as high-value for a given target population. Participating plans have flexibility to choose which items or services are eligible for cost-sharing reductions; however, these services must be clearly identified and defined in advance, and cost-sharing reductions must be available to all enrollees within the target population.
Examples of interventions within this category include eliminating co-pays for eye exams for diabetics and eliminating co-pays for angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors for enrollees who have previously experienced an acute myocardial infarction.
Plans can choose to reduce or eliminate cost sharing when providers that the plan has identified as high-value treat targeted enrollees. Plans may identify high-value providers based on their quality and not solely based on cost, across all Medicare provider types, including physicians/practices, hospitals, skilled-nursing facilities, home health agencies, ambulatory surgical centers, etc.
Participating plans can reduce cost sharing for an item or service, including covered Part D drugs, for enrollees who choose to participate in a plan-sponsored disease management or similar program. This could include an enhanced disease management program, offered by the plan as a supplemental benefit, or it could refer to specific activities that are offered or recommended as part of a plan's basic care coordination activities. Plans using this approach can condition enrollee eligibility for cost-sharing reductions on meeting certain participation milestones. For instance, a plan may require that enrollees meet with a case manager at regular intervals in order to qualify. However, plans cannot make cost-sharing reductions conditional on achieving any specific clinical goals (e.g., a plan cannot condition cost-sharing reductions on enrollees achieving certain thresholds in HbA1c levels or body-mass index).
Under this approach, participating plans can make coverage for specific supplemental benefits available only to targeted populations. Such benefits may include any service currently permitted under existing Medicare Advantage rules for supplemental benefits.
The MA-VBID model test is open to all qualifying MA and MA-PD plans in the test states that submit acceptable programmatic proposals to CMS. Only certain MA and MA-PD plan types are eligible and certain restrictions apply to multi-state plans.
CMS will generally restrict the model test to plans with a minimum enrollment in the test states of 2,000 enrollees. However, beginning in 2018, a MA organization participating in the model test with at least one plan with enrollment over 2,000 enrollees may have additional Plan Benefit Packages (PBPs) participate with a minimum enrollee requirement of 500 enrollees; an additional plan benefit package using this lower enrollment requirement may be from that MA organization or other organizations with the same parent organization. CMS may also grant an exception upon request.
Additionally, plans must meet minimum quality thresholds, including: being rated by CMS at three stars or higher, not consistently low-performing, not an outlier in the CMS past performance analysis, not under sanction, and able to pass a program integrity screening.
The plan must have been offered in at least three annual coordinated election (open enrollment) periods prior to the open enrollment period for the year for which the plan is applying to participate. There is no cap on the total number of participating plans.
CMS will accept applications for the second year of the MA-VBID model via a Request for Applications (RFA), to be released shortly. Once released, application materials will be available at: http://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/VBID.
More information about the MA-VBID model test can be found in the model's announcements and other documents, available at http://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/VBID. The announcement includes instructions for providing CMS with feedback on this model test's design.
For more information on the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation's division of Health Plan Innovation, please visit: http://innovation.cms.gov/initatives/HPI.


St Helens Common is an area of common and woodland on the south side of Duver Road at St Helens. A footpath descends the slope from Duver Road through the woodland to the Duver, but apart from that, there is no public access.
Hilda married Dr Ernest Ainsley-Walker and died in 1917, Ronald played international rugby for England and was killed in WWI, May 1915, Janet married Charles Symonds in 1915 and died in 1919.


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Does Better Call Saul's Kim Have To Die For Star Rhea Seehorn To Get Emmy Love?
Nick Venable
Life on Better Call Saul is hard, I get that. Next to nothing that these characters deal with from episode to episode ends up going completely their way. That's drama. It's Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould's specialty. Those skills help earn the AMC drama all of its awards recognition on a yearly basis, as proven by this year's Emmy nominations.
But maybe once, just once, can star Rhea Seehorn get some of that Emmy love? Does Kim Wexler seriously need to die in order for her portrayer to get a well-earned spotlight from TV's highest honors? Does that reeeeeally need to happen?
Okay, Fine, Kill Off Kim And Give Rhea Seehorn The Emmy
Hey, I know that awards aren't everything, and that good memories and pride in one's work are all that are needed for a job to feel satisfying. Plus, it's impossible for awards ceremonies, large or small, to maintain perfect objective clarity when things are being voted on by our lowly human brain systems.
However, I also know that logic is good, and that it's nothing but logical that the TV Academy should constantly be publicly recognizing Rhea Seehorn's efforts on Better Call Saul, even when it's nowhere near awards season. It's definitely not the kind of argument that I should still be making after the fourth season. Everyone from Mike to Lalo to Chuck's nitpicking corpse could understand that.
Knowing that Kim likely isn't around during "Saul Goodman's" career run during Breaking Bad's timeline, it's likely that death is the only way she and Jimmy could be driven apart for good. And so – as if I have anything to do with it – I'm now willing to accept Kim Wexler heading down a tragically fatal road, but only if that would be enough to send a wake-up call to voters that Rhea Seehorn deserves all the gold statues in Hollywood.
Wait, That's Crazy, Keep Kim Alive And Still Give Rhea Seehorn The Emmy
The previous paragraph felt like a filthy lie being typed by a filthy liar's hands. I obviously can't specifically say what the hard-working and hard-forgiving Kim Wexler would actually need to do on screen in order for awards voters around the country to not only accept Seehorn's brilliance, but to reward it in full above anyone else who happened to be nominated. But she damned sure shouldn't have to die in order to make a dent!
This diatribe might come off as more hyperbolic and reaching if Better Call Saul regularly faced disappointment when it comes to awards recognition and critical acclaim. But Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks are widely recognized on a yearly basis, and deservedly so.
This year, though, Giancarlo Esposito even got in on a Supporting Actor nomination for his work as Gus Fring, which he'd previously done on Breaking Bad in 2012. As well, Michael McKean earned a Guest Star nom for his work in a pair of flashbacks in Season 4. (Not to mention all the nods for writing, editing, sound mixing, etc.)
At some point, it's going to feel like Rhea Seehorn is the only person working on Better Call Saul that doesn't have any Emmy nominations under her belt. And at that point, Kim Wexler might take that belt off and start convincingly whipping some asses into shape so that the next round of nominations doesn't look so embarrassingly Seehorn-free.
AMC's Better Call Saul is set to deliver Season 5 to fans at some point in 2020, and no one should expect any leaks to break free before then, either.
television AMC Boss Admits The Walking Dead Lost Viewers Over Negan Being 'Too Hopeless'
television Two Breaking Bad Alums Are Returning For New Season Of Better Call Saul
television Better Call Saul Renewed For Sixth And Final Season, So What About Jimmy And Kim?
television Kim Wexler Finally Meets 'Saul Goodman' In Better Call Saul Season 5 Preview
Aaron Hernandez's Lawyer Jose Baez Has Blunt Thoughts About Netflix Documentary Series television
Modern Family Just Said Goodbye To A Character Before The Series Ends television
Bad Boys' Will Smith Admits He Sometimes Has To Pretend To Like His Own Movie During Publicity Tour news


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Brunei diplomat to become new ASEAN Secretary-General
by Arno Maierbrugger - Nov 15, 2017
Lim Jock Hoi, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Brunei, has been appointed as the next Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN.
The appointment was announced by Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during a speech to mark the start of Singapore's chairmanship of the ten-nation bloc in 2018.
Lim Jock Hoi will take on his new role in January, replacing current ASEAN Secretary-General Le Luong Minh of Vietnam. Minh is wrapping up his five-year term at the end of this year.
Lim, who entered the Bruneian government in 1977, has been serving in governmental offices dealing with foreign affairs since 1989. He also engaged in multilateral affairs, participating in meetings and talks of the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation and ASEAN as the Bruneian representative.
Media reports say Lim's experience will help push forward negotiations on the ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a trade pact that rivals the TPP and is set to conclude next year.
In running the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, Lim will be responsible for overseeing a staff of about 300 and managing more than 1,000 ASEAN meetings each year.
The ASEAN secretary-general is appointed by the ASEAN summit for a non-renewable term of five years, selected from among the ASEAN member states based on alphabetical rotation.
Lim Jock Hoi, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Brunei, has been appointed as the next Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. The appointment was announced by Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during a speech to mark the start of Singapore's chairmanship of the ten-nation bloc in 2018. Lim Jock Hoi will take on his new role in January, replacing current ASEAN Secretary-General Le Luong Minh of Vietnam. Minh is wrapping up his five-year term at the end of this year. Lim, who entered the Bruneian government in 1977, has...
ASEAN Secretary-General
Le Luong Minh
Lim Jock Hoi
Trade bloc
FDI into ASEAN down 20%, Indonesia, Thailand drop the most
Philippines retains rank among world's fastest growing economies
The Philippines dropped 14 spots on the ranking of the world's most corrupt countries in the newly...


Thanks for stopping by. I hope all is well in your world. I am very excited to share my recent interview with the awesome Kids Style File. I really love this website because they pick the cream of the crop in all aspects of children's designer fashion, decor and design. How awesome that Bespoke Moments is part of it.
I am also offering a 20% off discount for all readers. Head to the feature to read more. Use this code to select any of our beautiful prints for girls, prints for boys or prints for the home. Remember, we do free shipping for all unframed prints Australia wide. We also offer international shipping too.


This has been described as being like tearing up £10 notes while standing fully clothed under a shower. This is, of course, completely untrue, inflation has set in, and nowadays you're tearing up large cheques instead. Actually, in the slightly off mainstream branch of dinghy sailing I indulge in its not quite like that - for a start its more like a jacuzzi full of ice cold water going down the neck of exotic rubber clothing - but also because the actual design and building of the boats is, for me, a major part of it, and over the years I've probably spent as much time doing that as sailing them - but that's all part of the fun! Less fun, of course, is swimming for the shore because your latest superior design feature had a major flaw that you hadn't spotted.
In theory my father and I used to do this as a business, but when the accountant did the books he said it just HAD to be a hobby. Basically you buy lots of expensive ewes (female sheep), a very expensive ram (male sheep), and put them together in a field on the first of September. You then spend the winter putting lots of food into the sheep, picking up the ever fatter ewes when they fall over, and picking yourself up every time the ram knocks you over.
On about the first of January, if you are lucky, all hell lets loose. Lambs start appearing - well appearing - I use the term loosely - looking ready to appear, getting stuck, and needing to be extracted, often expensively by the vet. You then spend all your time feeding sheep, feeding lambs, stopping sheep treading on lambs, stopping foxes eating lambs, stopping dogs chasing sheep, running around like a blue arsed fly etc. etc. until the week before Easter.
Now its decision time. Any lambs that aren't good enough to be sold as breeding stock have to go to the Easter market (Its the only chance you have of getting a price that will pay for half the food they've eaten). The rest have to be fed more and more until its show time.
With show time approaching its time to make the lambs look pretty. Here is where you discover whether your choice of breed was a mistake. If you went for the pretty brown and white ones with curly horns (Jacob's Sheep) it was. These need to be bathed, trimmed, permed, curled, waved, polished (the horns) and blow dried like any society female - worse in fact, since there's so much more of them. If you were wiser you went for something with a black face, black legs, and a white carpet grade wool body (Suffolks). These only need the bathing, trimming and blow drying, and in addition to have all the bits of white wool where there should be black removed ( you're not allowed to dye it, but you can pull it out!).
In any case you put your beautiful sheep in a van, drive to a show, and pull out a selection of indescribably filthy objects that have been rolling on the floor all the way there. You then line up your scruffy sheep with a number of other people, who have got beautiful immaculate animals, and a judge wanders round and looks at your sheep. He whistles under his breath, looks again, and picks your sheep out. Your heart beats faster, until he says, "That will be all, thank you" and you realise you've just come last.
Finally it comes round to market day. The pick of your best sheep are at the Breed Society's Show and Sale. You've even won a rosette ( 4th out of 5 in the best newcomer class). Your best lamb goes into the ring. All the incredibly gnarled and knowledgeable shepherds surrounding the ring head for the bar. The auctioneer looks, gulps, and says;" Here we are, gentlemen. fourth in his class, a lot of growing still to do, perhaps, but a good sort. What am I bid ? Thirty guineas ? Twenty five ? Who'll start us at twenty?"
This is my partner's hobby rather than mine so all I can do is offer a few observations. Dog breeding appears to be almost identical to sheep breeding, except that it has a few other drawbacks. Sheep don't wake you up barking because you won't let them sleep on the bed, and aren't normally allowed in the house to pee on the rug. Perhaps more to the point, if you breed sheep you can at least eat your mistakes. Exports to Korea are prohibitively expensive.
I spent a certain amount of time doing what is called roadying. This involves driving miles and miles to places you've never heard of, unpacking tons of equipment, getting insulted and sworn at by the band, packing up all the gear again, finding you've missed last orders at the curry shop, and driving home again hungry. The band get all the girls too. It is a mystery to me how everyone in the music business is a socialist, when they treat the people who work for them so badly. In reality its the last home of real kick 'em in the balls capitalism.2 Someone I knew who was well up the music business tree 3 once said to me "In the music business you can forget all that crap about being nice to people on the way up so they'll be nice to you on the way down - you'll meet a different bunch on the way down anyway."
Actually playing isn't much better. Until you've been seen on television audiences think it isn't cool to get excited and enjoy themselves, so they stand there like mindless zombies and talk until the band comes off and the disco starts, then they all dance and enjoy themselves until your second set, when they stop again. As a result you spend your whole time being blown off by discos until you get your big break - a support slot for someone fairly well known. Now its quite different, they all stand like mindless zombies until the main band comes on, but at least you've been humiliated by human beings. Back stage you get to meet your heroes - except that half of them can't string two words together due to mental or chemical deficiencies, and the other half won't talk to you anyway.
He did promotion work for one of the major labels, and at the time he was doing the press releases for a long forgotten band called Sigue Sigue Sputnik (Inventing stories about £5m advances, fights, cut heads etc. etc.). I remember him being amazed that, no matter how preposterous the story the PR department made up, the UK papers would print it as true!


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10 Speakers That Are Trending Now
Each month we keep careful track of the Speakers and Topics Clients are asking about.
Covering a vast range of topics, these speakers have been booked by organizations across North America.
Here are the most requested speakers in December 2021:
Dr. Nicole Lipkin | Organizational Psychologist & Speaker on Leadership and Mental Agility
Dr. Nicole Lipkin is an organizational psychologist, speaker and the author of What Keeps Leaders Up At Night: Recognizing and Resolving Your Most Troubling Management Issues and Y in the Workplace: Managing the 'Me First' Generation. Nicole's aim is to help organizations, leaders and their teams develop behaviors and practices that increase personal and organizational resilience and sustainability by integrating the science of human behavior with practical approaches to business and leadership challenges.
Nicole is the CEO of Equilibria Leadership Consulting, an international business/organizational solutions company based in the US that provides leadership and management development, executive assessment and executive and emerging leader coaching. She also is the owner of Equilibria Psychological and Consultation Services, a mid-sized group psychology practice located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Video: https://thesweeneyagency.com/speakers/dr-nicole-lipkin/
Peter Sheahan | Bestselling Author on Innovation & Accelerating Growth
Having grown his own companies by accelerating the growth and transformation for clients that include: Apple; Chick-fil-A; DeBeers; and AT&T — Peter Sheahan will provoke you to get bigger, by getting better! When leaders are true to their purpose, they gravitate towards doing work that matters and solving higher-order problems. The journey to get there requires that they have the courage to tell themselves the truth, take intelligent risks, and assume ownership for driving the alignment necessary to build an organization which behaves in ways worthy of its leadership position.
In being true to his own ambitions and relentless pursuit of growth, Peter has published seven books, built three global companies and delivered more than 2,500 presentations in 40+ countries. Today he and his team at Karrikins Group are focused exclusively on inspiring leaders to do the hard work required to accelerate growth and transformation.
Video: https://thesweeneyagency.com/speakers/peter-sheahan/
Colette Carlson | Author & Motivational Speaker on Human Behavior and Communications
Colette Carlson is a human behaviour expert and hall of fame keynote speaker who teaches audiences how to transform relationships through the power of connected conversations. After all, at the heart of every sale, every interaction between a leader and a team member, every conversation with a customer… is a connection.
Colette's presentations weave together powerful life lessons, research-backed strategies and the call to up their emotional quotient for personal and professional success. Audiences connect with Colette through her inspiring content, ability to model transformative conversations, extensive customization, and laugh-out-loud humor.
With a Master's Degree in Human Behaviour and more than 20 years of experience helping individuals change behaviors that impact their success, Colette understands the psychology, mindset, and skills required to make positive, long-lasting change.
Video: https://thesweeneyagency.com/speakers/colette-carlson/
Troy Hazard | Entrepreneur & Business Strategist
Troy Hazard is a best-selling author, business strategist and serial entrepreneur, who has founded and nurtured twelve businesses over two decades, and has consulted to countless successful companies over the last 25 years.
Through his business career he has owned a diverse range of businesses including a recording studio, an advertising agency, a pizza outlet, pool service, real estate brokerage, property development company, leading franchise-consulting business, and a technology business.
These business management talents earned him international respect, so much so that he was elected by the world's foremost business leaders for the role of Global President of the Entrepreneurs' Organization.
Video: https://thesweeneyagency.com/speakers/troy-hazard/
Erica Dhawan | Leading Authority on Collaboration and Innovation
Erica Dhawan is the world's leading authority on 21st-century Collaboration and Connectional Intelligence.
She challenges audiences and organizations to innovate faster and further, together. Her newest book – Digital Body Language – decodes the new signals and cues of effective collaboration and teamwork in a digital-first human workplace.
Erica Dhawan is the Founder & CEO of Cotential, a global organization that helps companies, leaders, and managers leverage 21st-century collaboration skills and behaviors to improve game-changing performance.
She is the also the co-author of the bestselling book Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence, named #1 on What Corporate America is Reading. Dhawan was named by Thinkers50 as "The Oprah of Management Ideas" and featured as one of the Top 20 Management Experts around the world by GlobalGurus. She hosts the award-winning podcast 'Masters of Leadership.' Erica speaks on global stages ranging from the World Economic Forum at Davos to TED and for companies such as Coca-Cola, FedEx, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, SAP, and Cisco. Erica writes for Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company. She has degrees from Harvard University, MIT Sloan, and The Wharton School.
Video: https://thesweeneyagency.com/speakers/erica-dhawan/
Adrian Gostick | Speaker on Leadership, Anxiety in the Workplace and Employee Engagement
How do today's best leaders accelerate business results? By engaging their employees to execute on strategy, vision, and values. In his challenging, information-packed talks, #1 best-selling leadership author Adrian Gostick provides real solutions on managing change, organizational culture, driving innovation, and leading high-performance teams.
Gostick is a global workplace expert and thought leader in the fields of corporate culture, leadership, and engagement. He is founder of the training and consulting company The Culture Works, and author of the #1 New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-sellers All In, The Carrot Principle and The Best Team Wins. His books have been translated into 30 languages and have sold 1.5 million copies around the world. Keep an eye for Adrian's upcoming book Leading with Gratitude: Eight Leadership Practices for Extraordinary Business Results (Publisher: HarperBusiness) — slated for a March 2020 release.
Video: https://thesweeneyagency.com/speakers/adrian-gostick/
Victoria Labalme | Performing Artist and Performance Strategist for Top Leaders & Brands
Victoria Labalme helps people perform at their highest levels by unlocking their hidden genius and unleashing their unique creativity.
With more than 20 years in the Performing Arts – from Broadway to comedy clubs, landmark films to high-profile television – Victoria's electrifying, custom-crafted Keynotes awaken innate talents in individuals and teams.
Her proprietary systems and strategies have been embraced by C-suite executives at Starbucks, Microsoft, PayPal, as well as Hollywood celebrities, best-selling authors, and top teams in over 700 organizations.
With breathtaking stage skills, gripping stories, and comedic highlights, Victoria takes audiences through a profound experience they'll never forget. Along the way, she shows people how to distinguish their brand, gain competitive advantage, focus their communications and achieve sustainable growth through a surprising blend of art and business.
Video: https://thesweeneyagency.com/speakers/victoria-labalme/
Terence Mauri | Innovation & Disruptive Leadership Speaker
Leaders from Alibaba, HSBC and Facebook choose Terence to ignite Mindset 2.0 – a disruption mindset to break the rules and reimagine your business today.
Terence Mauri is the Founder of global think tank Hack Future Lab and is a Partner with MIT Solve, an initiative to address world challenges. He brings decades of experience and knowledge sharing cutting edge principles on the future of leadership beyond disruption. He is a Bestselling Author and his new book The 3D Leader: Take Your Leadership to the Next Dimension is an actionable and robust guide for ALL people to realize that a new dimension in personal leadership is at the core of creating opportunity. The 3D Leader is for every person who wants to learn three winning mindsets – THINK BOLD, CHOOSE BRAVE, GO BEYOND – that will equip you with a practical set of actions for you to completely reimagine how you lead.
Terence's Inc. column Future Proof has over 1M views per month, and his thinking on how to find your next cutting edge has been published in The Economist, Forbes, Reuters, Huffington Post.
Video: https://thesweeneyagency.com/speakers/terence-mauri/
Cassandra Worthy | Change Enthusiasm Global Keynote Speaker on Change
With contagious energy that radiates throughout every room she steps into, Cassandra Worthy is the world's truly DISRUPTIVE thought-leader on CHANGE that companies need to build organizational resilience and adaptability. During times of major shift such as merger, acquisition, organizational restructure, new systems integration, and market disruption RARELY do businesses ever face the tumultuous emotional landscape of the organization head-on.
Only 10% of successful change adoption is about know-how…the other 90% is squarely centered on an organization's motivation and willingness to embrace the change. Without addressing the emotions standing in the way of motivation, any transformation journey is stopped in its tracks. This is where Cassandra steps in. She has created and cultivated the unique strategy of Change Enthusiasm® which is arming individuals around the world with the means to harness the power of emotion, a resource in infinite supply, to embrace and accelerate change and transformation journeys. Cassandra's message nurtures highly resilient and adaptable organizations beginning at the heart of the individual.
Video: https://thesweeneyagency.com/speakers/cassandra-worthy/
Daniel Burrus | Futurist Expert and Speaker on Business Strategy, Technology, Innovations & Their Impact
Daniel Burrus is considered one of the world's leading futurists on global trends and innovation. The New York Times has referred to him as one of the top three business gurus in the highest demand as a speaker.
Burrus has delivered over 2,800 keynote speeches worldwide, and is a strategic advisor to executives from Fortune 500 companies, helping them to develop game-changing strategies based on his proven methodologies for capitalizing on technology innovations and their future impact. His client list includes companies such as Microsoft, GE, American Express, Google, Toshiba, Procter & Gamble, Honda and IBM.
He is the author of seven books, including The New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller Flash Foresight, as well as the international best-seller Technotrends. His latest book, The Anticipatory Organization: Turn Disruption and Change Into Opportunity and Advantage (2017), is an Amazon #1 Hot New Release for Business.
Video: https://thesweeneyagency.com/speakers/daniel-burrus/
Contact us to inspire your team at [email protected] or give us a call at 1-866-727-7555.
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Professional Leadership, Innovation and Economy keynote speakers for events & conferences. https://thesweeneyagency.com
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Detroit is the fourth mixtape by American rapper Big Sean. It was released for free download on September 5, , by G.O.O.D. Music. Detroit features guest. Detroit. +. Finally Famous. +. Hall Of Fame [Explicit]. Total price: $ Add all three to Cart Add all three to List. These items are shipped from and sold by. Detroit is the fourth mixtape by American rapper Big Sean, released free on September 5th, under Kanye West's Kanye West's label "G.O.O.D Music".
17 Jan Detroit rapper Big Sean is using music to help his hometown "Bounce Back". Big Sean is. 7 Sep - 59 min - Uploaded by Esteban R BIG SEAN - DETROIT (MIXTAPE) BIG SEAN - DETROIT (MIXTAPE) TRACKLIST: 1.) Higher. 30 Oct - 59 min - Uploaded by Trevor Locke Big Sean's massive "Detroit" mixtape is here! Featuring Chris Brown, Tyga, Juicy J, King.
23 Jan - 6 min - Uploaded by EminemVEVO Eminem, Royce da 5'9", Big Sean, Danny Brown, Dej Loaf, Trick Trick - Detroit Vs. 19 Sep This September, "music's next big superstar" will make his first-ever appearance at the Global Citizen Festival in New York. That artist is Big. 28 Feb Big Sean's always been one to rep for Detroit since he first got his foot Home> Music> Big Sean Announces Plans To Build Luxury Movie. 27 Feb With locations still being scouted, the theater and music venue is expected to Big Sean, Emagine team up for Detroit cinema and venue. 26 Feb Big Sean has scrapped his upcoming tour, including a June 2 date at "Before I step into this new chapter of music, I was really sitting and.
30 Jan Brian McCollum, Detroit Free Press Pop Music Critic Published a.m. ET Jan. Big Sean launches student studio at Cass Tech High. Once Bitten, Twice Shy. Life Should Go On. All I Know. Sellin Dreams. Higher. 24K of Gold. How It Feel. 11 Aug Billboard breaks down some of Big Sean's best rap features of his career. ' Despacito' Is Now the Latin Song With the Most Billboard Music Awards .. back in , Sean stood out on several records but really shined on "Mercy. . Big Sean has his own handful of club bangers, like "Bounce Back" and his. 1. Higher · Big Sean. 2. 24K Gold · Big Sean. 3. Story · Big Sean. 4. How It Feel · Big Sean. 5. Woke Up · Big Sean. 6. Experimental.


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What happened during the downturn in the 2000s?
Please God, just one more bubble.
—Popular Silicon Valley bumper sticker, 2003
In many ways, the second installment in the boom-and-bust history of computer science is easier to explain than the first. The growth in interest that began in the mid 1990s coincided with the advent of the web and the elimination of commercial restrictions from the Internet. These developments ushered in a period of frenetic growth in the computing industry generally referred to as the dot-com boom or, when it is important to emphasize its ephemeral nature, the dot-com bubble. The excitement generated by both the new technologies and the opportunities provided by the startup culture attracted many students back to the field. In the years of flat enrollments between 1991 and 1996, departments had been able to rebuild their faculties, which meant that there was capacity—at least at the beginning—to accommodate a rise in student numbers. When the tech bubble burst in 2001, students began to move away from computer science, which led in turn to a multiyear decline. Figure 3 shows the rise and fall during this cycle of history.
Even though the causes of both phases of this cycle are easy to identify, it is still worth considering this period of history in more detail. From 1997 to 2003, the number of computer science graduates rose by an average of 15 percent per year, with many institutions seeing considerably larger increases. That rapid rate of growth raised echoes of the expansion of the early 1980s. Several committees were formed to study the problem in the hope that academic computer science could avoid the meltdown it had suffered a decade and a half before.
In 2000, academic computer science did avoid a meltdown, but not for any reason one would like to repeat. In a perverse sense, academia got lucky. The industry collapsed first. Had it not done so, it seems likely that capacity limitations would have forced universities to restrict enrollment, with all the negative consequences that the field endured in the late 1980s.
The aspect of the collapse in the early 2000s that seems hardest to explain is why things took so long for student interest to recover. The industry bounced back very quickly and was hiring at the pre-crash rate by 2004. The student numbers, however, did not start to rise substantially until after the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007. Somehow, a meme arose in the public consciousness in the form of a widespread belief that computing jobs were in danger of imminent collapse, either because they would be automated out of existence or because all software development jobs would be shipped offshore. Although there was no evidence to justify those fears—and ample data to refute them—that mythology kept students out of computer science until disaster struck in a different sector of the economy.
The sections that follow look more closely at the effect of the dot-com expansion on academic capacity and the failure of student interest to recover even after the dot-com collapse had passed.
The effect of the dot-com boom on enrollments
The frenzy of excitement around the dot-com explosion in the mid 1990s generated enormous student interest in computer science. As Figure 3 illustrates, the number of bachelor's degrees in computer science rose steadily from 1997 to 2003. Those numbers therefore reflect the decisions that students made about their major field approximately two years earlier, which aligns with the years of the dot-com boom.
During those years, the situation facing computer science departments corresponded closely to the rapid expansion of the early 1980s and generated a similar set of pressures. Along with the double-digit annual growth in student numbers, departments faced a shortage of available faculty. In the December 1998 issue of the SIGCSE Bulletin, Paul Myers and Henry Walker published a review of academic hiring, which concluded that there was "a very serious shortage of new Ph.D.s in computer science," to the point that in 1997-98 "only about half of the open tenure-track positions were filled."8 While that level of undersupply falls far short of the seven-positions-for-every-applicant crisis of the 1980s, it nonetheless generated considerable concern, not only in university departments, but also in the media, industry, and government.
In 1999, the Computing Research Association published a report entitled The Supply of Information Technology Workers in the United States, detailing the shortage of workers in both industry and academia. The report observed that academic institutions faced a special problem, invoking the "seed-corn problem" popularized by Peter Denning a decade earlier.9
Many educators, industrial laboratory leaders, and government science officials are concerned that the high industrial demand for information technology (IT) workers will siphon out of the educational systems many students who would otherwise pursue an advanced degree. This diminishes [the] pool of people who will join the university faculties that perform basic research and teach the next generation of students. This problem is compounded when industry also successfully recruits current faculty members, including junior faculty who would become the academic leaders of the profession in the coming decades. This is known as the "seed-corn" problem—an analogy to those who consume too much of this year's crop, reserving too little for next year's planting.
As was true in the mid 1980s, the problems of faculty recruitment were noted by the media. In September 1999, The Chronicle of Higher Education included a news story entitled "Computer scientists flee academe for industry's greener pastures" that begins with the following evocative paragraphs:10
Just as he prepared to leave Cornell University last spring to help start a new high-technology company, Thorsten von Eicken got word that the computer-science department at Cornell had voted to grant him tenure.
He left anyway.
Mr. von Eicken is part of a stampede of bright, young Ph.D.s in computer science who are abandoning academe for the corporate world.
High-paying, fast-paced jobs in the computer industry are attracting both seasoned academics and newly minted Ph.D.s who, in the past, would have opted for careers in higher education. The upshot: Computer-science and computer-engineering departments are suffering a serious shortage of professors at a time when undergraduate enrollments are booming.
Many departments are losing professors faster than they can hire them. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recruited five new professors in electrical and computer engineering to start this fall, but lost five others who were already on its faculty. The University of Washington recruited four scholars to its department of computer science and engineering but lost five. Cornell hired three but lost six.
The difficulty of faculty recruitment was also picked up by The New York Times, which ran an article entitled "Computer science departments are depleted as more professors test entrepreneurial waters" on August 9, 2000.11 The article quotes Ed Lazowska, then chair of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the University of Washington, as follows:
It is difficult to hold a computer science department together these days. You'd like to keep a lot of that entrepreneurial energy here. Faculty recruiting and retention are difficult. Ten years ago, industrial research labs were the enemy; now it's the lure of startups.
In 2001, the National Academies released a major study entitled Building a Workforce for the Information Economy that looked broadly at the questions of the computing and information-technology workforce, including several issues concerning education. At the request of the study panel for the National Academies and with the endorsement of the ACM Education Board, I submitted a white paper that focused on how the shortage of faculty candidates was making it impossible for universities and colleges to meet the demand from employers for graduates with the necessary level of expertise.12 That white paper was cited several times in the final report, which issued the following conclusion with respect to higher education:
The academic research enterprise in IT continues to be strong, but industry and academia are competing for the same small pool of highly productive, creative individuals. Ph.D. production and faculty recruitment and retention are both threatened by the lure of the commercial sector. Some faculty and graduate students are leaving academia for better-compensated positions in industry; others leave because only industry (especially start-ups supported by venture capital) offers them the opportunity to pursue their intellectual and research interests. . . . Compared to the benefits to be found in industry and start-ups, academic life—with the attendant burdens of low salaries, teaching, and the need to obtain grant support—is increasingly seen as unattractive to many graduate students. The long-term significance of these perceptions is at present unclear, but they do not bode well for the long-term health of the IT field.
Although many of the discussions that led to the National Academies report took place in 1999 and 2000, the final version was not released until 2001. By that time, the situation in the computing industry had changed entirely. The speculative bubble that had fueled the growth of a vast array of dot-com companies collapsed, and the industry went into a tailspin. The NASDAQ composite index—which had risen from 740.47 at the beginning of 1995 to a high of 5,132.52 on March 10, 2000—collapsed to 1,108.49 by October 10, 2002. With that collapse, investors lost trillions of dollars, the wide-open job market of the late 1990s disappeared (if only for a couple of years), and students who had been lining up to major in computer science, like many faculty members and graduate students before them, started to look for greener pastures.
The slowness of the recovery after the dot-com collapse
On one level, the decline in computer science enrollments after the dot-com collapse is easy to understand. At the time, the news was full of stories of the demise of Internet startups, so recently the darlings of Wall Street, many of which lost their entire value overnight. As startups collapsed and large companies started downsizing, the high-tech industry did not seem like a good bet for stable employment over the long term. Students headed off in other directions.
What is paradoxical about the downturn in student interest is that it persisted for many years after the industry had fully recovered. While there was a small dip in overall employment in the information-technology sector between 2000 and 2002, employment numbers quickly surpassed their pre-crash levels. By 2005, employment prospects for students completing a bachelor's degree in computer science and other specialties in information technology were considerably better than they were for students in any other discipline. That conclusion is underscored in the following excerpt from a December 2005 publication from the National Science Foundation:13
Continuing a pattern that has been evident for decades, recent bachelor's and master's engineering graduates and computer science graduates at the bachelor's level are more likely than graduates in other fields to be employed full time after graduation, and upon entering the workforce, they are rewarded with higher salaries.
These conclusions from the Bureau of Labor Statistics were echoed in the popular press. In May 2006, Money magazine rated "software engineer" as the best job in America on the basis of a combination of factors including salary, job availability, potential for growth, flexibility, and creativity.14
One of the best analyses about the shortage of software professionals appears in a talk by John Sargent, Senior Policy Analyst at the Department of Commerce, which he presented at the CRA Computing Research Summit in February 2004.15 Although the entire presentation is worth viewing—in part because it is striking how little things have changed over the past decade—the talk is particularly memorable for the slide that appears in Figure 4, which combines data on degree production from the Department of Education with job projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Because of its unusual effectiveness, several people have updated this slide as new releases of the relevant data become available. The most recent version I'm aware of was created by my colleague Phil Levis and is available from http://csl.stanford.edu/~pal/ed/. The take-home message of the graph, however, has remained constant over the past decade: universities are producing far too few graduates in computer science to meet industry demand.
The bar that towers over the other data points in Figure 4 makes it immediately clear that the number of jobs in computing-related disciplines far exceeds the number of students trained in those fields. If students were responding to market forces, the imbalance between degree production and job growth would have sparked a stampede toward computer science. That stampede did not happen. Despite the many economic advantages available to those with computer science degrees, students shied away from the field until after the subprime mortgage crash in 2007.
The reasons behind the lingering unpopularity of computer science during the 2000s are complex. The factors certainly included memories of the pain associated with the collapse of the dot-com bubble and a widespread fear that computing jobs would soon be shipped offshore to low-wage countries. The fear of offshoring was particularly intense, even though a 2006 ACM report entitled Globalization and Offshoring of Software found no evidence that software jobs were disappearing in developed countries. In fact, the report found that "despite a significant increase in offshoring over the past five years, more IT jobs are available today in the U.S. than at the height of the dot-com boom" and, moreover, that "IT jobs are predicted to be among the fastest-growing occupations over the next decade."16
An interesting illustration of the disconnect between the available economic data and popular perception appears in the online response to a keynote address at the CIO Leadership Conference by Maria Klawe, then Dean of Engineering at Princeton University, with the title "Blue skies ahead for IT jobs."17 The abstract for Klawe's talk reads as follows:
Contrary to popular belief, career opportunities in computer science are at an all-time high. We've got to spread that message among students from a rainbow of backgrounds, or risk becoming a technological backwater.
The comments that Klawe's talk elicited—which have, unfortunately, vanished along with the original website at CIO Magazine—ran at least ten-to-one against her assessment of the sunny outlook for the field. Here are a few typical reactions that I downloaded at the time:
All this talk about "Blue Skies" ahead just can't hide the stark fact that Americans who don't wish to migrate to India and/or some other offshore haven are going to have a difficult career.
Why would any smart American undergrad go into IT when companies like IBM and HP are talking of stepping up their offshoring efforts in the coming years? They want cheap labor, no matter the real cost.
I think the latest figures from the U.S. Department of Labor are not correct.
The last of these comments, which is quoted in its entirety, seems particularly telling. The reader offers no alternative data, just a deeply seated belief that the optimistic forecasts of the Labor Department must be wrong. Evidence counted for little in this debate.
Ironically, popular fears about the tenuous future of the discipline were in some cases encouraged by comments from within the academic community. In July 2008, Communications of the ACM published a debate about future directions for the technology curriculum.18 Professor Stephen Andriole at Villanova University predicted that the need for programmers would soon diminish:
Of course there will be programming jobs for our students. But the number of those jobs will decline, become more specialized, and distributed across the globe. . . . Today, Fortune 1000 companies have far fewer programmers than they did because of the rise of packaged applications and the labor-rate-driven sourcing options they now have. This trend will accelerate resulting in fewer programming jobs for our students. Should we continue to produce more programmers?
In my response, I argued that Andriole was looking only at one sector of the technology industry and that the number of jobs across the industry as a whole would continue to rise, in line with the predictions from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In recent years, the sustained increase in the number of software jobs makes it clear that my analysis was closer to the mark.
Although I never published an analysis of the reasons why students continued to stay away from computer science long after the industry recovered, I did prepare a report for the ACM Education Board, which considers this paradox in more detail.19


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Thank goodness we have organizations like FIRE to defend free speech on campus.
This week, FIRE sent a letter to the Chancellor of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and its student government president, urging the reversal of a recent student council vote to yank funding from all student print media outlets. The vote came the same day UCSD administrators condemned the humor publication The Koala in response to an article mocking the concept of "safe spaces" and using racial slurs.
Apparently aware that they could not lawfully target The Koala by itself, student council members attempted an end-run around the First Amendment by simply taking away all of its funding to student media. Unfortunately for those favoring press censorship, punishing all media outlets to get at one is still unconstitutional.
On November 18, two days after The Koala published an article entitled "UCSD Unveils New Dangerous Space on Campus," high-ranking university administrators including Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla released a statement denouncing the paper and the "offensive and hurtful language it chooses to publish." The same day, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Juan Gonzalez attended a meeting of the UCSD Associated Students Council, where he read the statement for the record.


The benefits of Pilates for those 50 or older are amazing; just ask Mick Jagger, Madonna, Sting or Jane Fonda. A strong and solid core is the nucleus of a healthy body, regardless of age. As we grow older, it becomes more and more important to concentrate on strengthening our core muscles to help support our spine. Equally as important is to strengthen the smaller muscle groups to take some of the strain away from the larger counterparts.
Pilates offers a low impact but effective way to strengthen and tone muscles. Exercise is important for everyone, but aerobic exercise puts a lot of strain on the heart, lungs and joints, something that can hinder the older population. For men and women over 50, Pilates can be a good alternative—a low impact regime with huge benefits. Through Pilates, one learns to strengthen weak muscles and correct their posture. Even people who haven't exercised for 50 years can achieve a degree of flexibility they have not enjoyed since their 20s.
Some of the problems we experience as we age include kyphosis (also called round back or hunchback), lordosis (commonly referred to as swayback or saddle back), lower back problems and frozen shoulder. By strengthening the muscle groups affected and increasing flexibility, Pilates can help relieve the pain that accompanies these ailments.
Even those who have already begun suffering from osteoporosis can benefit from practicing a modified Pilates routine. Pilates also helps to prevent osteoporosis by increasing bone density. Keep in mind that it's naturally important to check with your doctor first before starting something new.
Pilates exercises can be performed at any level of fitness, so it is good for beginners and then work to a more advanced level. The exercises are gentle; you will be comfortable performing them.
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