text:
A PROUD MEMBER OF THE JEFFERSON DENTAL FAMILY
Appendix A to Part 92 – Sample Notice Informing Individuals About Nondiscrimination and Accessibility Requirements and Sample Nondiscrimination Statement:
Discrimination is Against the Law
JDC Healthcare Management, LLC, d/b/a Jefferson Dental & Orthodontics and The Smile Center complies with applicable Federal civil rights laws and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex. Jefferson Dental & Orthodontics does not exclude people or treat them differently because of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex.
Jefferson Dental & Orthodontics/The Smile Center:
Provides free aids and services to people with disabilities to communicate effectively with us, such as:
Written information in other formats (large print, audio, accessible electronic formats, other formats)
Provides free language services to people whose primary language is not English, such as:
If you need these services, contact Cathy Gainey, VP, Human Resources at 972-663-5313 or hr@jdcweb.com.
If you believe that Jefferson Dental & Orthodontics/The Smile Center has failed to provide these services or discriminated in another way on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex, you can file a grievance with Cathy Gainey, VP, Human Resources, 3030 LBJ Freeway, Suite 1700, Dallas, TX 75234 972-663-5313 (phone), hr@jdcweb.com (email). If you need help filing a grievance, Cathy Gainey, VP, Human Resources, is available to help you.
You can also file a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, electronically through the Office for Civil Rights Complaint Portal, available at https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/smartscreen/main.jsf, or by mail or phone at:
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services – Office for Civil Rights
1-800-368-1019, 800-537-7697 (TDD)
Complaint forms are available at https://www.hhs.gov/ocr/filing-with-ocr/index.html.


16 Beautiful Nails Designs Pictures - Lots of individuals ask exactly how to correctly nail. In order that will certainly aid you obtain a concept of the means to budget plan your time in a few of Italy's a lot of well-known areas, we've composed 3 sample travel plans. It's an exceptional area to get suitable information must you need it. What you should not do is send one which is generic or looks and also reviews the identical as the remainder of the Art Supervisor resumes. The secret to being successful in this fashion of life is achieved by having a program. Experience will certainly be provided premium by the bulk of employers.Write to them at the start of your bullet indicate supply a very clear photo of exactly how you did each endeavour. If you're considering a larger responsibility after that you need to think of taking a Master's Level in Arts. In some instances, higher-paid personnel proved substantially less motivated than others.
It is not necessary as you will likely have a team with details skill sets yet it'll be to your benefit in instance you have a functioning understanding of the other tasks.More firms will certainly comply with rapidly. Still, they can get rid of a major motorist of anxiety for the broad bulk of staff members. What these companies want to build goals which are extra fluid and also adjustable than annual goals, frequent responses conversations instead of annual or semiannual ones, positive coaching for development instead of backwards-focused score and also position, a bigger focus on groups than on individuals looks like the exact reverse of what they're deserting. An enhancing number of technology companies, for example, have gotten rid of performance-related benefits. This business is superb for men and women that are mechanically-inclined.
Stick to the pattern up until you finish the outside of your heart. The wall can be painted to collaborate with the subject of your circus. All you will require is some scrap wood, and also possibly just a little string. Just have a look at the numerous approaches you might structure post barns. If you have actually ever searched around your house for those scissors or dig through drawers to acquire the suitable needle, then you likewise require to understand just how essential it's to maintain all the crafting supplies and also tools arranged rather than taking over the entire area or perhaps can be detected all over the complete residential property.
Your post building has to meet your demands in relation to storage space and also aesthetics, however additionally, it should be created to hold up against weather condition and also basic wear and also tear.Make particular it's larger and also much better than every other material on the matter. Our website includes the greatest manicure options for your nails. The website includes 59 free ideas that might assist employers incorporate staff member acknowledgment in their daily routines as a method to improve morale and also inspire staff members. The trade page particularly is now much more clear to assist find the proper type of item. You might select to bookmark that tab.
Ordering You are now able to get utilizing Paypal. As quickly as your order is completed, we will make sure it's shipped and also provided to you in time for the big health fair. There's no extra expense to you. If the expenditure of constructing a post barn far exceeds your budget, we can work on the plan and also choices consisted of to lessen the post barn rate to meet your demands. You have actually got a significant advantage if your level of experience exceeds 5 years. If you have actually got this choice did not fit, we advise you to take notice of other options that are readily available on our website.
Related Posts of "16 Beautiful Nails Designs Pictures"


Our Fall for Moisture A Box (product #818-478) launches today, just in time for cooler weather. Give your skin and nails some TLC this winter with 5 of our top moisturizing products—get them for only $10 with a $40 purchase ($26 value).
Your winter survival kit. We've picked out the perfect cold-weather essentials just for you, treat your skin and nails with 2 full-size and 3 travel-size items.
2 Full Size 3 Holiday Travel Size Friendly!
Now ALL purchases in your campaign will count toward a qualifying $40 order for the $10 A Box offer. This includes orders from mark. by Avon, Avon Living, as well as Outlet and Marketing Flyers. It's an A-mazing value. I REALLY love this box, plus it really themes well with the winter soft collection that just launched today as well. This would be an EXCELLENT gift for those hard to shop for with it being basic enough for even the pickiest person. Get your holiday shopping started and add this to your order for only $10. Keep it for yourself as a little treat or gift it, either way $10 WELL spent.


text:
<!DOCTYPE html>

<title>Calendar_addBatch_missarg</title>
<meta charset="utf-8">

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


2013 PH Election: Senatorial Results Update - Exam News, Reviewer, Military Career, & Everything [MN] . .
The following data are still unofficial but live from the Comelec Transparency Server provided by ABS-CBN Halalan 2013 broadcast. As of this update, 30% of election returns already process.


SOMA Church Community: Santa Rosa, CA > God created everything, and it was good!
The opening chapters of the Bible begin with the clear assertion that God created everything, and it was good.
Here are a few of the resources mentioned in todays sermon.
Here is a link to Tim Keller's book The Reason for God which has a great chapter responding to the skeptic claim that science has disproved Christianity.
Here is a link to a debate between Al Mohler and Jack Collins: "Creation Debate: Does Scripture Speak Definitively to the Age of the Universe."
Here is a link to Sally Lloyd-Jones's kids Bible (which grown ups shoud read!) called The Jesus Storybook Bible.
Here is a link to The Bible Project and their colletion of videos. Here is a link to the video we watched on the TaNak.


text:
How to Play Contract Bridge
Rules of Play /
The Play of the Hand
The Auction
Contract Bridge is an auction and trick-taking card game for four players. The aim of the game is to earn points by winning as many tricks as possible. The players are divided into two teams of two. Each player is designated a compass direction, with partners sitting opposite each other (i.e. East-West will play against North-South). The game is played with a single standard 52-card deck, although having two decks available can move the game along more quickly.
Bridge is played over a series of hands. Each hand consists of two parts: the auction, where the partnerships bid against each other based on how strong they think their cards are; and the play, where teams try to win enough tricks to make or defeat the contract reached in the auction. Points are awarded depending on success or failure, and then another hand begins. Winning enough points earns a partnership a game. Winning two games makes a rubber (except in Duplicate Bridge, where each hand is treated independently).
One player is designated the dealer. He shuffles the deck and deals them all out clockwise, starting with the player to his left. Each player takes their 13 cards, looks at them and then sorts them. Cards are divided by suit and ordered by rank, with ace being the highest and 2 the lowest. The difference between the suits is important for the auction and scoring, but not for play.
Once the hand is completed, the player to the dealer's left becomes the new dealer and a new hand begins. If you're playing with two decks, the deck not being used for the hand can be shuffled and placed ready for the next dealer to make the game flow more quickly.
Bridge is a trick-taking game. If you know how to play other popular games like Whist, Hearts or Spades then you'll find that the cardplay of Bridge is very similar.
Although the auction comes first (see below), it's easier to understand once you know the basics of play. All you need to know for now is that the auction will determine the contract for the hand. The contract will specify a number of tricks and a suit for trumps (although there may be No Trumps). The team that bids the highest is the declaring side. The other team is the defending side. The declaring side will try to win the number of tricks bid, while the defending side will try to stop them.
A trick is a set of four cards, one from each player. The player to the left of the declarer (see below) leads the first card of the hand and play proceeds clockwise until all four players have played. The first card of each trick determines the suit. If possible, players must follow suit by playing a card of the same suit from their hand. If no such card is available, then another card may be discarded, but it cannot contribute to the trick unless it's a trump (see below). The player who contributed the highest ranking card wins the trick for their team and gets to start the next trick.
Once all thirteen tricks have been played, each pair counts up how many they've won. If the declaring side has made their bid (or higher) then the contract was successful. If not, the contract was defeated and the defending team will score penalty points.
If the auction (see below) resulted in a suit contract, then than suit will be trumps for the entire hand. Players must still follow suit if they can, but if they've run out of the chosen suit they may play a card from the trump suit instead. This is known as ruffing.
A trump beats cards from all other suits, so ruffing is a very powerful technique. If two or more trumps are played in the same hand, then the highest trump wins the trick.
The dummy separates Bridge from most other trick-taking games. Every hand, one member of the declaring side sits out as the dummy. Their entire hand is placed faced up on the table for all players to see. Although the order of play doesn't change, the declarer decides which cards to play from both his hand and dummy's.
Once the contract has been decided, the pairs are split into the declaring and defending sides. The player on the declaring team who first mentioned the contract suit during the auction is the declarer. Their partner will be the dummy. The player to the left of the declarer leads the first card blind, just based on what they can see in their hand. But once this card has been led, the dummy hand is placed face-up on the table for all players to see. For convenience, the cards are arranged in columns with alternating suit colors and the trump suit on the right (declarer's left).
For many players, the auction is the heart of Bridge. This is where the contract that governs the play of the hand will be decided.
Starting with the dealer and proceeding clockwise, players take it in turns to make a bid. A bid will have two components: the number of tricks the partnership is aiming to make, and the suit that will be trumps. The number of tricks will be between 1 and 7. This represents the number of tricks above six that the player thinks his team can make. (This is done because every bid also carries an implicit intention to win most of the tricks. With 13 tricks each hand, 7 is the lowest number that will give one team a majority.)
For example, a bid of 1 means taking at least 7 tricks with clubs as trumps. A bid of 4 means at least 10 tricks with hearts as trumps. A bid of 7NT means taking all thirteen tricks with no trump suit.
Like any other auction, each bid must be higher than the last. The numbers are treated as you would expect, with bids at the 7 level being the highest and bids at the 1 level the lowest. But within each level, the suit rankings come into play.
The suits are ranked Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades, No Trumps, from lowest to highest. (An easy way to remember this is that the suit names are in alphabetical order.) So the lowest possible bid is 1C and the highest is 7NT. The suit ranking means that if, for example, the bid currently stood at 3 , a bid of 3 would not be allowed. If someone wanted clubs to be trumps they would have to bid at the 4 level or higher.
If you do not want to bid you can pass. Unlike some other auction games, passing doesn't forfeit your right to re-enter the auction later. Once three players have passed in a row, the last bid made is the contract for the hand. The person in the winning team who first bid the trump suit will be declarer. Be careful here: often this will be the person who made the final bid, but not always!
If all four players pass before making a bid, the hand has been passed out. No play occurs, and the next dealer deals a fresh hand.
The auction is the chance for players to share information about the strength and weakness of their hand with their partners (naturally, no other communication about the contents of a player's hand is permitted). Most bids will be natural, with the suit choice indicating a preference for that suit and the number indicating hand strength. However, bids can also be used to signal other kinds of information, sometimes completely unrelated to the suit and number of the bid. These prearranged bid signals are collectively known as a bidding system. There are many different kinds of bidding systems with varying levels of complexity. Players who regularly play together in a partnership will try to employ a bidding system that complements their play style.
Here's an example auction. South is the dealer, so she begins the bidding:
All Pass
2NT
Doubling and Redoubling
Another bidding option is to double. If a player doesn't think their opponents can meet their bid, but doesn't want to be in a contract of his own, he can double. This drastically increases the penalty points for defeating a contract, but it also doubles its value and increases the rewards for making overtricks. A doubled contract can then be redoubled by the other team. Bonuses and penalties for a redoubled contract are twice those for a doubled one.
A double or redouble only stands if the other three players then pass. Any other bid cancels the double, although there's nothing to stop a player from doubling this new bid.
In rubber bridge there is a score bonus for successfully making a doubled or redoubled contract. These are known as points for the insult. The bonus is 50 for a doubled contract and 100 for a redoubled one.
Bridge scoring can seem a little complicated at first, but you'll soon get used to it. Many packs of cards come with a special bridge scoring card that you can use as a reference.
One player is in charge of the scoring. Two columns are headed "WE" and "THEY" to designated the scorer's team and their opponents, respectively. A horizontal line is drawn half-way down. Points that contribute towards a game are written below this line, while bonuses, penalties and other points are written above it. The difference between these two affects the course of play, but at the end of play all of the points are added up, with none being more important than the others.
Contracts are worth different amounts depending on the number of tricks and the suit bid. Clubs and Diamonds are known as the minor suits, and tricks bid and made here are worth 20 points each. Hearts and Spades are the major suits, and are worth 30 points per trick. A No Trump contract is the most valuable and calculating the score can be a little tricky: the first trick is worth 40, whereas subsequent tricks are worth 30.
To match the bidding levels, only the tricks after the sixth are counted for contract points. So a contract of 1C bid and made requires seven tricks but is worth 20 points (1 x 20). A contract of 3H requires nine tricks and is worth 90 points (3 x 30). A contract of 5NT requires eleven tricks and is worth 160 points (40 + 4 x 30).
Points for tricks bid and made go below the line (that horizontal line across the two columns). Once a team has 100 points or more below the line they have won a game. As soon as that happens, a new line is drawn beneath all the scores and the scores below the line are reset. Winning a second game ends the rubber, and the winning team gets a large bonus. This is worth 500 points if the team wins two games to one, or 700 if they win two games to nil.
Tricks which are made but not bid are known as overtricks. These score the same number of points as bid tricks, but these points are placed above the line and don't count towards making game. If the contract was doubled or redoubled, the points for overtricks are increased to 100 and 200, regardless of suit. This is doubled again if the team making the overtricks is vulnerable (see below)
Because the aim of Bridge is to win games and rubbers, it's helpful to consider the lowest bids for each suit that can win a game outright. For the minor suits this is at the 5 level (5 x 20 = 100). For majors it's at the 4 level (4 x 30 = 120). But the extra 10 points for the first No Trumps trick means that 3NT is sufficient (40 + 3 x 30 = 100). It's also important to remember that doubling and redoubling affects the base value of the contract as well as the bonus for overtricks. This doubled or redoubled value goes below the line, and can allow a team to score game at a much lower level than usual!
Because only a hundred points are needed for game, it may seem that there is little point in bidding at the higher levels. But there are special incentives for bidding and making contracts of twelve or thirteen tricks. Making twelve tricks is known as a small slam and is worth 500 points. Bidding and winning all thirteen tricks is known as a grand slam and gets a bonus of 1000. These bonuses are not affected by doubling, but if the pair making the slam is vulnerable (see below) then the bonus is increased by 50%.
Once a team has won one game they become vulnerable. A vulnerable side faces far stiffer penalties for missing their contracts. Conversely, the rewards for slams and overtricks are increased. Vulnerability is a key bridge concept that affects a lot of the strategy, especially when both sides are at different vulnerabilities. The tables below show the different points and penalties available at different vulnerabilities.
Honor Points
In rubber bridge there are a few miscellaneous bonuses for holding certain high cards. The top five cards in a suit (T, J, Q, K, A) are known as the honors. Having four trump honors in a single hand is worth 100 points, and having all five is worth 150. In a No Trump hand, having all four aces scores 150 points.
Scoring Tables
Here are some tables outlining the points and bonuses awarded for different contracts and vulnerabilities.
Contract Points Per Trick
Suit Regular Doubled Redoubled
NT - 1st Trick 40 80 160
NT - Other Tricks 30 60 120
Majors (H, S) 30 60 120
Minors (C, D) 20 40 80
Overtricks in undoubled contracts are worth the same as normal tricks in the bid suit, regardless of vulnerability. For doubled and redoubled contracts the contract suit no longer matters, but vulnerability is taken into account.
Points per Overtrick
Not Vulnerable
Doubled 100 200
Redoubled 200 400
And here are the penalties awarded to the defending team if a contract is unsuccessful. Again, the contract suit is irrelevant.
Points per Undertrick
Undertricks Undoubled Doubled Redoubled Undoubled Doubled Redoubled
1st 50 100 200 100 200 400
2nd & 3rd 50 200 400 100 300 600
4th and beyond 50 300 600 100 300 600
Card Handling
Funny Bridge Stories
If Chess was Played like Bridge

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Communications - Multimedia, Internet, New Technologies, grade: 2,3, University of Trier, language: English, abstract: In the following, an internet based activity, namely the WebQuest, is going to be observed by analyzing possible risks and benefits and its importance on the very relevant teaching aim of media literacy and competences referring to that. Then, a concrete example of such a task will be shown and an overall conclusion will be drawn in order to answer the initial question of this paper of whether the method of WebQuests is a useful one or not. Additionally, this paper justifies its relevance by the fact that WebQuests were not originally designed for language learning, so that creating one possibly is a challenge but the outcome will hopefully be supporting with regards to developing future WebQuests for the actual usage concerning me being a teacher.Being a modern (English) language teacher means to include the various forms of information technology (IT) available in the 21st century such as computers or even interactive whiteboards. IT can now add valuable extra dimensions to teaching English as a foreign language. Consequently, the usage of IT can definitely improve English language teaching for various reasons. Besides providing teachers with current material for every topic and easily overcoming geographical distance in order to observe relevant cultural aspects of the target language or to interact with native speakers, it is fun and therefore motivating for the students.The main goal of foreign language teaching is the mediation of competences which enable the students to communicate and overcome the language barrier. Concerning possible problems and risks, the time consuming aspect of WebQuests cannot be disregarded. They demand time beforehand and even though they can save teacher's time in the long term, WebQuests need to be nurtured when they are expected to perform over a longer period of time. The hyperlinks providing the learners with the sources need to be checked from time to time which means that WebQuests also need time in the long term.


Don't let your interior doors be written off as some functional piece of hardware. Come to Glenview Haus and make your interior doors just as stunning as the rest of your home. Glenview Haus' Traditional Wood Interior Door Collection ensures that every door stands out with all the elegance and style. Our Traditional wooden doors are finely made by expert artisans and designed with all of your needs in mind.
Our furniture-grade interior doors are customizable, allowing you to take control of the design and create the perfect door for you and your home. Spicing up your interior wood doors with your personality will ensure that the inside of your home is as stylish as you are. Glenview Haus' custom wood interior doors allow you to choose from the highest quality wood species, such as Mahogany and Walnut, and countless beautiful finishes. Our collection of traditional interior doors also offers you the ability to specify the panel profiles, sticking and moulding options, finish textures and glass details.
Along with standard pre-hanging options, we offer the units as complete systems with true rabbeted jambs, a rubber strip for soft closure and better sound insulation, and matching casing as well. High end concealed hinges are available for a very clean look along with magnetic locking mechanisms that add to the innovative function.
Our Traditional Wood Interior Doors are engineered in highest quality construction to improve stability. The solid wood doors have a stave core construction in their stiles and rails with opposite grain directions minimizing the natural movement of wood. The premium grade component of these doors are first kiln dried before craftsmen carefully match grain texture and colors to craft a beautiful wood interior door.
Shown in Mahogany Wood with Custom Finish • External Dimensions: 26 x 96"


Policymakers should be clear on their policy goals, for example, reducing the cost of higher education to those who would not enroll otherwise and who enroll in economically valuable educational and job training programs. They should then carefully design programs that specifically support those goals.
The rising cost of higher education has gotten more political attention recently. Some presidential candidates and the Obama administration have proposed significantly increasing federal funding to students. This would be on top of already substantial federal support given to the higher education sector through tax policy, direct student subsidies, and the allocation of credit (subsidized and unsubsidized student loans).
Yet the policy consequences of this flood of money to higher education have been less considered. Does it increase student enrollment and degree attainment, or is it simply a transfer of resources from taxpayers to students (and their parents) who would have paid tuition and attended college anyway? If college attendance and completion rates increase, does that lead to better paying jobs for the students and improved productivity for the economy, or is it just a waste of the potentially vibrant time in young people's lives when they could have been working and learning skills on the job? Perhaps the most immediate concern at the lowest rung of the policy and political ladder is whether this large flow of resources is a net benefit to students (or their parents) that reduces their out-of-pocket spending on higher education. Or do colleges and universities just raise tuition and fees to sop up the increase in federal resources coming through student grants and loans, perhaps moving that money to increase administrators' and faculty salaries, decrease their educational work effort, or reduce the institutional effort to obtain other sources of external funds.
That question was addressed by a comprehensive and carefully designed staff working paper, released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York this summer. Economists from the New York Fed, David O. Lucca and Karen Shen, and Brigham Young University professor Taylor Nadauld examined the causal relationship between expansions in federal student aid programs and tuition increases. Solving the simultaneity problem of not knowing whether cost pressures lead to increased borrowing or increased loan supply leads to higher tuition, the authors exploit detailed student-level financial data and changes in federal student aid programs to identify how increased student loan financing affects tuition. Lucca, Nadauld, and Shen found that higher education institutions that are more exposed to changes in the subsidized federal loan program increased their tuition disproportionately, with a significant passthrough effect on tuition of about 65 percent. The effect is most pronounced for expensive, private institutions that are somewhat, but not the most, selective in admissions. That is a concerning result for the efficacy and fair distribution of federal higher education spending and allocation of resources, at an initial level of impact, without even addressing the longer-term consequences on enrollment and economic improvement.
Noting similarities to the expansion of housing credit availability and the housing boom in the mid-2000s, Lucca, Nadauld, and Shen begin their study by reviewing the statistics on student loans and tuition in the last decade. They note that yearly student loan originations grew from $53 billion to $120 billion between 2001 and 2012, with about 90 percent in recent years coming through federal student aid programs. The increases were particularly large between 2008 and 2010. Average sticker tuition rose 46 percent in real terms from 2001 to 2012, from about $7,000 to more than $10,000, or at an annual average rate of increase, again after removing general price inflation, of about 3.5 percent.
Lucca, Nadauld, and Shen then proposed a solution to the key identification challenge in determining the causal relationship between these two trends. Borrowing from standard econometric techniques in studies of the labor market, they use changes in the maximum disbursable amounts of per-student aid in subsidized and unsubsidized student loan programs and Pell grants, legislated between 2006 and 2008 and put into effect between the 2007-2008 and 2010-2011 school years. The authors also use a data set containing student-level funding and family income information for a representative sample of higher education institutions. They note that some institutions had many more students who would be able to take advantage of the increases in student loans and grants because of variation in eligibility and participation. They use this pre-policy, cross-sectional variation to construct an instrument for student loan credit by interacting the shift in federal aid supply and the exposure of an institution to each shift, as measured by the ex ante fraction of students borrowing at a particular policy cap. They estimate in a first stage the impact of the federal policy changes on the amounts of loans and grants given to students. Then in a second stage, with suitable controls for time trends and fixed institutional-level effects and other variables, the authors relate the yearly change in each institution's sticker tuition to the instrumented yearly change in each institution's per-student federal aid.
In three separate first stage regressions for yearly changes in subsidized loans, unsubsidized loans, and Pell grants, Lucca, Nadauld, and Shen found that the effect of the cap increases is to raise dollar-for-dollar the amount of loans or grants disbursed to the students exposed to a policy cap change. This extremely high elasticity is not surprising for grants, but loans, even if subsidized, presumably must be eventually repaid, so it is more surprising there. The high elasticity is confirmed by other data on household borrowing — looking at the distribution of student loan origination amounts, there was a noticeable shift in the mass points of the loan distribution from the old caps to the new ones. The Pell grant instrument enters each loan regression with a negative sign, implying that the greater availability of Pell grants displaces these other forms of aid, likely because of lower demand or reduced eligibility.
In the second stage, with controls for all forms of aid, the authors found that each additional Pell grant dollar to an institution leads to about a 55-cent increase in sticker price tuition. For subsidized loans, they a found a somewhat larger passthrough effect of 70 percent, and for unsubsidized loans, the loading of tuition is about 30 percent. Those results, which are identified through cross-sectional exposures to the changes in student federal aid programs between 2007 and 2010 and contain numerous controls for other effects, support the hypothesis that increases in federal support for higher education lead to increases in tuition and not the other way around. The finding for subsidized loans is quite strong across different regression specifications in both magnitude and statistical significance.
To address the potential criticism that sticker tuition is paid by relatively few and it is tuition net of institutional grants that matters, Lucca, Nadauld, and Shen show that in the medium run, changes in sticker prices are largely reflected in the net tuition of all students, although the changes are somewhat smaller for those who receive high amounts of institutional grants. That result is consistent with other studies that find that institutions alter institutional grants (scholarships) as a means of capturing the federal aid provided through the Pell grant program. The authors also found that the passthrough of subsidized loan aid to tuition is highest among relatively expensive, mostly private, four-year institutions with relatively high-income students but with average selectivity, as measured by their admittance rates. It could be that the tuition rates of the most academically elite institutions are influenced more by the investment performance of their endowments or have significant extra demand coming from wealthy foreign students and that tuition rates at public institutions are at least partially determined by political considerations.
Finally, using the same instrument, the authors examine whether in the short-run student aid expansion increased access to higher education, looking for differential growth in enrollments around the policy changes. They found an effect only for changes in Pell grant availability, which makes some sense, given that Pell grants are only given to low-income students who may be on the margin of attending college.
It is my sense that the political system has reacted to the obvious problems of rapidly increasing college costs and rapidly increasing student loan balances held by young workers by proposing and actually throwing more money and resources at the problems without pausing to consider interactions and untoward results. Indeed, the evidence presented by the Lucca, Nadauld, and Shen study is that increasing loan and grant programs has largely resulted in corresponding tuition increases, with little net benefit to students and seemingly small increases in enrollment. Policymakers should be clear on their policy goals, for example, reducing the cost of higher education to those who would not enroll otherwise and who enroll in economically valuable educational and job training programs. They should then carefully design programs that specifically support those goals. There is every prospect that those goals can be accomplished through tailored programs at much lower fiscal cost to the federal government than the myriad and massive current and proposed programs, with little net loss incurred by college students and perhaps with improved efficiency in the higher education sector.


text:
Pavetta hongkongensis är en måreväxtart som beskrevs av Cornelis Eliza Bertus Bremekamp. Pavetta hongkongensis ingår i släktet Pavetta och familjen måreväxter. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Externa länkar

Måreväxter
hongkongensis

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
231 W. Michigan St. | National or State Registers Record | Wisconsin Historical Society
National or State Registers Record
National or State Register of Historic Places
Historic Name:
Public Service Building
Location (Address):
City/Village:
Township:
231 W. Michigan Street, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County
Architect: Herman J. Esser
Date of Construction: 1902-06
In the mid-1880s railroad financiers Henry Villard and Henry Payne purchased and developed the Milwaukee Railway Company and the Edison Electric Illuminating Company with hopes to create a power and traction monopoly. The consolidation of these companies gave Milwaukee the first unified electric power utility in the nation, known as the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company. John Beggs replaced Payne in 1897 and built the 'interurban' streetcar system. In 1905 their new Public Service Building became the center of this transportation network. It was intended to be a multiple use facility, serving as offices and as the downtown street car terminal.
Milwaukee architect Herman J. Esser designed the building using Beaux Arts Neoclassicalism. The rectangular building covers an entire city block. It is four stories high and each floor has its own level and type of ornamentation on the exterior. An operating clock is set in the center of the lintel above the main entrance doors. The arch surround above features two carved medallions, one depicting horse powered traction when the company was founded and the other an electrified street railway of 1905 when the terminal opened. Three large areas on the ground floor were trolley entrances into the terminal.
The interior was designed to make a grand statement about the company that it housed. The most noteworthy spaces are the marble clad two story lobby, the remodeled auditorium in Modern style and the wood paneled Chairman's Suite. Oval stained-glass skylights manufactured by Tiffany Company in New York are placed in the lobby and Chairman's Suite. A copper relief of a beehive with bees buzzing around it is also located in the lobby. It symbolizes the level of activity in the building and the company.
In 1938 the company was restructured and became the Wisconsin Electric Power Company, which later became WeEnergies. The building continues to serve as their headquarters. It is open during regular business hours.
Period of Significance:
Area of Significance:
Applicable Criteria:
Architecture/Engineering
Commerce/Trade: Business
Transportation: Rail-Related
Classical Revival
Esser, Herman J.
Historic Status:
Listed in the National Register
Listed in the State Register
National Register Listing Date:
State Register Listing Date:
NUMBER OF RESOURCES WITHIN PROPERTY
Number of Contributing Buildings:
Number of Contributing Sites:
Number of Contributing Structures:
Number of Contributing Objects:
Number of Non-Contributing Sites:
Number of Non-Contributing Structures:
Number of Non-Contributing Objects:
RECORD LOCATION
National Register and State Register of Historic Places, Division of Historic Preservation, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin
For the purposes of a bibliography entry or footnote, follow this model:
National Register of Historic Places Citation
National Register of Historic Places, "Historic Name", "Town", "County", "State", "Reference Number".
If you didn't find the National Register listing you were looking for or have other questions about the National Register, please email us and we can help:
peggy.veregin@wisconsinhistory.org
Resource Descriptions
About the National Register and State Register of Historic Places
All Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places listings are searchable on our website.
About Our Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory (AHI)
Search digital records on more than 153,000 historic buildings, structures and objects throughout Wisconsin.
Is Your Property Eligible for the National Register or State Register of Historic Places?
Eligible properties must retain the essential physical appearance of the period in which they were important, and meet one of four criteria.
Related products from our Online Store:
Wisconsin Cribbage Board
Wisconsin Wool Pillow
When the White Pine was King: A History of Lumberjacks, Log Drives, and Sawdust Cities in Wisconsin
Stained Glass Window Polyester Scarf


Hey guys, I debated whether to post this vid or not because I was a lot happier when I recorded it. I'm kinda...super bummed out at the moment, so posting something light and cheery feels like a lie right now, but hey, things gotta change someday, right? Yeah, I'll just keep on faking the smiles, and telling myself this elusive and whimsical fairytate called "Someday." Heh.
I'm thinking of splitting Starkeeper: Longing into two more parts, and keep later installments short (about 20-30 pages,) so they're easier for me to draw, and get them out to you guys faster. Thoughts?


Posted By VHelper On Saturday, March 02, 2019. Under 40 to 49, Dark, Shaven/Waxed, United States.
Posted By VHelper On Sunday, January 20, 2019. Under 30 to 39, Shaven/Waxed, United States.
Posted By VHelper On Monday, January 14, 2019. Under 40 to 49, Shaven/Waxed, United States.
Posted By VHelper On Wednesday, January 02, 2019. Under 20 to 29, Brown, Semi-Shaven/Waxed, United States.
Posted By VHelper On Thursday, December 20, 2018. Under 30 to 39, Shaven/Waxed, United States.
Posted By VHelper On Tuesday, December 18, 2018. Under 30 to 39, Shaven/Waxed, United States.


High quality Electrical, Lighting Components helps your business or for any other domestic usages that matters. Wide ranges of electrical and lighting components are made available to suit your various needs and requirements for any special or for normal occasions. Wide range of world class electrical and lighting components are listed in bestmadeinkorea.com for both domestic and for any other industrial purposes. There are tremendous benefits for buyers as well as for sellers here at bestmadeinkorea.com. As a seller you can showcase your amazing products and you can reach your target audience as well as for the buyers as they can reach their sellers with their specific product requirements, from which they are ready to buy the products from them and in short, a perfect platform to showcase, sell and buy wide range and variety of products in the most happening b2b and b2c market place.


text:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace _01.Letter_Repetition
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var letters = Console.ReadLine().ToCharArray();

            var count = new Dictionary<char, int>();

            foreach (var letter in letters)
            {
                if (count.ContainsKey(letter))
                {
                    count[letter]++;
                }
                else
                {
                    count[letter] = 1;
                }
            }
            foreach (var kv in count)
            {
                Console.WriteLine($"{kv.Key} -> {kv.Value}");
            }

        }
    }
}


Beth Sandor directs the Zero: 2016 initiative for Community Solutions, a national effort to help 75 communities end chronic and veteran homelessness.
Brownsville resident Kirby Mitchell job hunted for nearly two years before finding her current job as a security guard. After being laid off from the certified nursing assistant position she held between 2010 and 2013, she believed she had the experience that could lead her to another full time role. But a few months into her search she became disheartened and confused.
Tyasia Sims, a 25-year-old Brownsville, Brooklyn native, was unemployed for nearly five months during the fall and winter of 2014. After submitting to job after job, she was hitting a wall. "I felt like giving up. I felt like a slouch," remembers Tyasia, who didn't know where to turn after seeing almost all of her applications left unanswered.
Community Solutions President Rosanne Haggerty reflects below on the life of Paul Pholeros, an Australian public housing advocate who heavily influenced our own work in low-income communities. Pholeros died last month.
This week, Community Solutions says goodbye to Jackie Kennedy, the interim director of our Brownsville Partnership and a 6-year veteran of our team. Jackie is moving on to do inspiring work coordinating partnerships to improve public health in neighborhoods all across New York City. We're thrilled for her. We're also sad to see her go.
David Thompson is Chief Learning Officer at Community Solutions. Even though he holds a PhD in Theoretical Chemistry from the University of Cambridge, he thinks not knowing is more powerful than having all the answers.
I am doing a bad job of training for a marathon.
In October 2014, the MGB POPS marketplace opened its gates to the neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn in direct response to resident calls for high-quality community spaces and a diversity of retail options. The goal was simple: leverage a placemaking strategy to create economic opportunity in Brownsville while activating outdoor space along a depressed commercial corridor.
Ruth, the mother of two adult children, has battled challenges throughout her life, including more than a decade of homelessness. She grew up in state care from the age of one until she was emancipated at 16. Over the past 10 years, she has struggled through frigid winters and bounced from place to place as she learned to survive on the streets in Rhode Island, one of four states participating in our Zero: 2016 initiative.
Katie Gordon joined our team this month as Director of the 5,000 Jobs Campaign. The Campaign's goal is to figure out what it will take to help 5,000 residents of Brownsville, Brooklyn join the workforce by the end of 2018. Our own Jake Maguire caught up with Katie to welcome her, and learn more about her background and plans for the work.
JM: Tell me about your role here at Community Solutions.


Watch out for the Bollywood edition of BBC One's 'Doctors'!
The Conference at BCU to mark 15 years of the journal 'South Asian Popular Culture'!
CBD's annual food festival @ Victoria Square!
Indian artist Sheela Gowda's exhibition at the Ikon Gallery.


In late 2010, Google developed their new smart TV platform entitled Google TV. The service is built on the Android operating system, and functions as a set-top box to allow users to watch on-demand video services, such as YouTube, Google Reader, and Google Chrome. This integration allows users to subscribe to your site and have regular updates pushed to their Google TV devices (similar to an RSS feed with an RSS aggregator). Mobile phones and tablet devices are changing the landscape of the web for organizations, and soon you may even ask "how does my site look on TV"? This is especially important since Google TV will soon be able to access the Android Market, according to recent news. Since Google TV lies somewhere between mobile devices and desktops/laptops in terms of functionality and user experience, here are a few helpful guidelines to make sure your site is ready for prime time on Google TV.
According to the Leichtman Research Group, as of 2010, 61% of US households own at least one HDTV, with 26% owning more than one. These high resolution displays mean that there is an increased distance between the user to the television, which means that elements on websites need to be large enough to be seen across the room at a glance. Larger elements also means increased white space between elements. Lets take a look at the New York Times on Google TV.
Along with this, websites need to make sure that the most important information is at the top of the page. Web designers call this property "above the fold", meaning that you include information at the top of a page to prevent users from scrolling vertically to find more information. Since HDTVs will more than likely be widescreen displays (either 720p or 1080p), this means that organizations should rely on either horizontal or grid navigation to make it easier for users to go through your site.
Keep in mind that the processors for most Google TV devices will be somewhere between your mobile phone and your desktop or laptop in terms of processing power. Google has partnered with Intel, Sony, Logitech for current Google TV devices, and new partnerships with Samsung and Vizio ensure that new, faster devices will be coming to the market by the holiday season. Websites designed for Google TV will need to be able to load quickly without a lot of extra animations or Flash videos. Google TV can display Flash content, but it will not be at the same speed as a desktop or laptop, so keep that in mind. Let's take a look at Al Jazeera on Google TV.
One thing the Al Jazeera site illustrates is that you should also look to use access keys for navigation, such as arrow keys or letters on the keyboard. The mouse pointer on Google TV is small and hard to see, so enabling navigation by keyboard to access a menu or a section of the website creates a great user experience. The key is to simplify user navigation as much as possible. Primary actions for the user should be available in one click; don't hide key features for your site in menus. You should also provide a legend to explain your keyboard-based navigation system. Don't make your users think too much about how to navigate your website on Google TV, or else they may change the channel.
The Chrome Browser in Google TV supports the non-standard CSS property called zoom. What does this do, you ask? According to Sitepoint, this property controls the magnification level for the current element. This means that text, videos, and other elements on your page can be enlarged to allow for viewing across large distances or for visually impaired users. Because zoom is a non-standard property, you would probably have to test this on Google TV for troubleshooting purposes.
Overall, these are just a few things developers can do to optimize news websites for Google TV. Other news organizations have already started developing for Google TV, including USA Today, Huffington Post, and KQED. Google has provided a full optimization guide, as well as a number of optimized templates. What news organizations have you seen on Google TV? Share your findings in the comments.


National Fuel Gas Company, a vertically-integrated natural gas corporation whose holdings include a regional natural gas utility, a transmission pipeline company, and an oil and gas driller, is planning a 96-mile pipeline project, called Northern Access Pipeline, through Western Pennsylvania and New York. The pipeline is proposed to cross 206 bodies of water and impact 389 wetlands and to include a new 22,000 horsepower compressor station, the expansion of an existing compressor station to ten times its current capacity, and the construction of a gas dehydration plant in order to export gas from National Fuel's Western Pennsylvania fracking sites to what the company calls "premium markets" in Canada.
Because of the threat posed by the pipeline to the streams and wetlands it is meant to cross, the air quality threat from emissions from the compressor and dehydration stations, and the global climate threat posed by increasing fossil fuel infrastructure, the Seneca Nation, local governments, and several environmental groups have organized to oppose the Northern Access Pipeline.
This report analyzes the forces pushing the Northern Access Pipeline and the interests that would benefit from its construction. It is the second in PAI's "Power Behind the Pipelines" series, which examines the financial interests and political influence operations behind controversial oil and gas pipeline projects.
Revolving door lobbyists. National Fuel has hired two former Cuomo environmental attorneys – Robert Rosenthal, Cuomo's former assistant counsel for energy and environment, and Steven Russo, former deputy commissioner at the Department of Environmental Conservation – to lobby for the Northern Access Pipeline. The DEC is the agency now deliberating on whether to issue water quality permits for the project. Other pipeline lobbyists include former State Senator George Maziarz, who resigned suddenly in 2016 amid a campaign finance investigation, and Samantha Diliberti, who represented Cuomo in the Hudson Valley.
Backed by global capital and regional banks. National Fuel has a $1.25 billion credit facility with a syndicate of banks. The largest lenders are large global banks such as HSBC, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America. Smaller regional banks such as Buffalo's M&T Bank and Pittsburgh's PNC Bank are also financing the gas company.
Executives earn more in less than two weeks than average family does in a year. National Fuel's top executives earned $17.2 million in 2016. Each earned more than the median household income for an Erie County, NY family in less than two weeks. National Fuel CEO Ronald Tanski was paid $7.2 million in 2016; this means he made more in two days than the average family in his service area earned in a year.
$1.2 billion in dividend payouts come from home heating monopoly. National Fuel has increased its dividend payout to shareholders for 46 years running, supported by cash generated by its natural gas utility, which has an effective monopoly on home heating in the Buffalo, NY region. National Fuel is currently asking the New York State Public Service Commission to hike rates for Buffalo-area customers to generate an additional $41.7 million per year in revenue. Since the last time National Fuel hiked rates, it has paid out $1.2 billion in dividends.
National Fuel Gas is a vertically integrated energy company, comprising drilling (Seneca Resources), midstream (National Fuel Gas Midstream Corp, National Fuel Gas Supply Corp, Energy Pipeline Inc), natural gas utility (National Fuel Gas Distribution Corp), and energy marketing (National Fuel Resources Inc) segments.
National Fuel is extremely profitable for its leadership and major shareholders. The corporation's executives are routinely listed among the highest paid in the region, often topping those lists. National Fuel prides itself on its dividend, which it has paid for 114 years running (and increased for 46 years), earning top individual shareholder Mario Gabelli $12 million in 2016 for simply owning the stock.
Payouts to National Fuel's owners and executives are supported by the company's utility subsidiary, which has a near-monopoly on home heating in the Buffalo, NY region; 87% of households in the Buffalo-Cheektowaga-Niagara Falls metro area rely on utility gas to heat their homes, according to the US Census Bureau.
Concurrent to National Fuel's proposal for its pipeline segment to build the Northern Access Pipeline, the company is also asking for approval from the New York State Public Service Commission to raise the rates on the captive customers of its utility segment. These customers are most concentrated in Erie County, New York, where Buffalo, one of the poorest cities in the country, is located.
National Fuel's largest individual shareholder is Mario Gabelli, a Westchester County investor who controls 7.76% of the company's stock, according to National Fuel's most recent proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Other major investors that own more than five percent of National Fuel stock include some of the largest investment firms in the United States. The Vanguard Group, a Philadelphia-area firm, controls 11% of National Fuel stock. BlackRock, the New York City investment firm led by Larry Fink, controls 7.01% of the stock. State Street Corporation, based in Boston, owns 6.76% of the company's stock.
Further, former National Fuel CEO and chairman Philip Ackerman owns 1.1% of the company's stock.
In 2016, National Fuel paid its top executives $17.2 million.National Fuel CEO Ronald Tanski brought home $7.1 million of that money. By contrast, the median household income in Erie County, New York, where National Fuel is headquartered and where many of its customers reside, is $52,214 per year, meaning that Tanski is paid more in two days than a family of his average customers earns in a year. In fact, all of the top-paid executives of National Fuel make more in two weeks than the average Erie County household does in a year.
The table below shows the salaries of National Fuel's top executives in relation to the median household income in the area where they operate.
In April 2016, National Fuel applied to the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) to increase the rates it charges its utility customers in order to generate an additional $41.7 million in annual revenue. According to National Fuel, this rate hike would pay for a "modernization" of the company's pipelines and customer information systems.
However, it's worth noting that National Fuel has the funds to make these supposed improvements without asking customers to foot the bill. The company chooses instead to dole out dividend to its wealthy owners. Indeed, National Fuel's SEC filings and statements to financial analysts indicate that utility customers prop up the company's 114-year trend of dividend payments, passing revenue directly to shareholders.
In 2016, National Fuel paid out $134.8 million in dividends to its shareholders, including $12 million to Mario Gabelli. Since 2007, the last time that the Public Service Commission approved a rate hike, National Fuel has paid $1.2 billion.
National Fuel executives have made similar statements to financial analysts. In 2010, Ronald Tanski described the utility as "the jewel of the organization" and then-CEO David Smith said earnings from the utility and the pipeline company "cover our entire dividend." David Bauer said in 2013 that cash generated by the utility and pipeline businesses "fund a good chunk of our dividend," which he repeated in 2016.
National Fuel has been touting that the stable cash flow from its utility business – which as mentioned above controls 87% of the home heating market in an area of intense poverty – subsidizes its dividend since at least 2007, the last year that the PSC approved a rate hike.
The rates paid by utility customers also support National Fuel's lending, indirectly subsidizing pipeline construction as described below.
National Fuel is backed by a range of global and regional banks hoping to profit from financing the company's operations. In September 2016, National Fuel signed a $1.25 billion credit agreement with a syndicate of 14 banks. The company plans to tap these funds in order to pay the $455 million estimated cost of the Northern Access Pipeline.
This lending is supported by the revenue from bills paid by National Fuel's utility customers. In the same analyst calls where National Fuel executives tout their consistent and ever-increasing dividend payouts, they also describe how customers support the company's borrowing. Steady cash flow from customers reliant on National Fuel to heat their homes supports National Fuel's credit rating, allowing it to borrow more money at lower interest rates.
Megabanks are the biggest lenders to National Fuel and its pipeline project. Four of the largest banks in the world – JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America – are each committing to lend a maximum of $150 million.
A number of smaller regional banks are also in on the credit arrangement for National Fuel. CIBC, Citizens Bank, and US Bank are each committing up to $97.5 million as part of the line of credit. M&T Bank and PNC Bank are committing up to $75 million each, and KeyBank is committing up to $72.5 million. Even at the lower levels, BB&T is providing $52.5 million in financing, while First Niagara Bank is providing $32.5 million. The Bank of New York Mellon and Comerica are providing $25 million each.
In total, banks with a presence in Buffalo have committed $677.5 million as part of the credit agreement, more than half of the total credit facility. This funding, however, appears to conflict with the professed environmental philosophies of some of the local banks providing the credit.
KeyBank proclaims that it "helps its business clients make smart decisions, especially ones that involve energy efficiency and renewable energy investments," and touts its financing for a California solar array in its corporate social responsibility report.
KeyBank merged with First Niagara in 2016, and it appears that the combined bank, headquartered in Cleveland, is now the biggest regional lender to National Fuel. The two banks loaned National Fuel a total of $105 million, more than any other bank besides the four global megabanks.
It is also worth noting that eight of the 14 banks financing the Northern Access pipeline are also funding the highly-controversial Dakota Access pipeline being built by Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners.
In the case of the Northern Access pipeline, the specific intent is to ship natural gas produced in National Fuel's wells in Western Pennsylvania across the Niagara River to Canada. According to the same presentation, 350,000 decatherms per day (Dth/day) of the pipeline's 490,000 Dth/day capacity – 71% – would be exported to Canada.
National Fuel needs the approval of several regulatory agencies to build the Northern Access Pipeline. In addition to approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), National Fuel also needs approval from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
While FERC approved the pipeline in February, the DEC has until April 7, 2017 to decide on National Fuel's application. In the face of widespread opposition from local communities and environmental groups, National Fuel hired lobbyists from four different firms to advance its interests in 2016 in New York State alone. It also engaged the high-powered firm Sidley Austin to push the pipeline through the FERC approval process.
Because the pipeline's primary purpose is to export gas to "premium markets" where National Fuel can derive a larger profit, the Town of Pendleton in Niagara County, where National Fuel wants to build the larger of the compressor stations for the project, argued to FERC that the project is "speculative and unnecessary" and not worth the community impact. The town is currently being sued in federal court by National Fuel for refusing to issue a building permit for the compressor station.
The Seneca Nation has raised concerns about the pipeline's impact on Cattaraugus Creek, a stream that flows through the Cattaraugus Reservation to Lake Erie as well as the possibility of National Fuel seizing Native land through eminent domain. Environmental groups such as Sierra Club and Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper have also objected to the pipeline due to its impacts on water bodies, air quality, and the climate.
The Northern Access Pipeline was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission along with several other pipelines in a blitz of proposals before Commissioner Norman Bay stepped down and left the Commission without a quorum. As PAI has reported, FERC approves nearly 100% of pipeline applications and has been dominated by veterans of the oil and gas industry.
The Sierra Club objected to FERC's approval of the pipeline, saying that it had been rushed through the process without sufficient environmental review. Sierra Club accused FERC of "rush[ing] to issue the Certificate Order in response to National Fuel's desired construction schedule." As mentioned above, the Town of Pendleton also objected to FERC's approval, questioning whether the pipeline's impacts were justified by the benefit of bringing National Fuel's gas to Canadian markets.
Bay's concerns about increases in drilling driven by FERC pipeline approvals, which the commission is not currently required to consider, are especially relevant considering how the Northern Access Pipeline fits into National Fuel's plan for "long-term growth" in Appalachia and the "vast acreage" the company seeks to drill.
National Fuel also needs the approval of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, which has authority to award or deny air and water quality permits, though National Fuel claims that federal approval of the project preempts any state authority to regulate it, as described below.
To usher the Northern Access Pipeline project through the regulatory process, National Fuel has hired a multitude of legal and government affairs firms. National Fuel has four firms – Ascension Consulting, E3 Communications, Greenberg Traurig, and Statewide Public Affairs – lobbying state and local governments in New York in addition to its in-house lobbyists. The company has also hired the high-powered law firm Sidley Austin to argue its case to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
National Fuel's lobbying team includes several veterans of New York State government, including two former environmental attorneys from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration and a former state senator who remains influential in Niagara County politics.
Disclosures with the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) reveal that National Fuel has hired the firm Greenberg Traurig to lobby on a number of issues. Two of the Greenberg Traurig attorneys lobbying for National Fuel, Robert Rosenthal and Steven Russo, are former members of Governor Cuomo's administration. Rosenthal worked in the governor's office as assistant counsel for energy and environment while Russo was formerly the chief legal officer of the Department of Environmental Conservation.
While he still worked at the DEC, Russo worked on proposed rules that would regulate hydraulic fracturing in New York State should the state lift its moratorium on the controversial drilling practice. Russo was criticized by environmental groups in 2012 for giving oil and gas companies advance access to the proposed state regulations, which in one instance a driller used to propose weaker environmental standards.
Correspondence between the DEC and National Fuel reveals that Russo is now lobbying his old agency on National Fuel's behalf, advocating for the Northern Access Pipeline water quality along with Rosenthal.
Ascension Consulting LLC, one of the firms listed on National Fuel's lobbying disclosure, is a recently-launched venture for George Maziarz, a long-time state senator from Niagara County who stepped down in 2014 amid a probe into campaign finance violations.
Maziarz represented Niagara County in the New York State Senate for nearly 20 years, from 1995 to 2014, and he was extremely influential in county politics, presiding over a Republican political machine that controlled the county legislature and had several seats on the board of trustees of Niagara County Community College.
Maziarz has been representing National Fuel to the town of Pendleton "regarding the location of a natural gas compressor station," according to a filing with JCOPE. Part of the Northern Access Pipeline plan is a 22,000 horsepower compressor station in Pendleton, which the town opposes.
National Fuel has hired William A Williams, a partner at the high-powered law firm Sidley Austin and a veteran of the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline as its regulatory counsel to FERC. According to his Sidley Austin biography, Williams is also currently representing Alliance Pipeline and has previously worked for ExxonMobil and TransCanada on their Alaska Pipeline Project.
After FERC approved National Fuel's Northern Access Pipeline, Williams filed a motion on behalf of National Fuel asking that the Commission rule that New York State had waived its right to regulate the project since it had not yet acted on National Fuel's water and air quality applications and that federal approval of the pipeline should prevent the state from exercising any regulatory authority over the project. That motion, which has not yet been acted on since FERC does not have enough commissioners to form a quorum, was stridently opposed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Another Cuomo administration veteran lobbying for National Fuel is Samantha Diliberti of Statewide Public Affairs. Diliberti represented Governor Cuomo in the Hudson Valley, liaising between the administration and local stakeholders, according to her profile at Statewide. Diliberti has also worked in the same capacity for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
Before joining Statewide Public Affairs, Diliberti was an associate publisher at City & State NY, a website and magazine about politics in New York City and statewide.


The tiny unrecognized republic of Transnistria is the latest jurisdiction to announce it wants to join the Bitcoin mining race.
The breakaway segment of Moldova, which unofficially declared independence in the 1990s and has received support from Russia since, is looking to capitalize on cheap electricity costs.
Laws are "already in place" to facilitate wholesale cryptocurrency creation, according to Russian news outlet Lenta.
"The Transnistrian government is already talking about how they are fourth in Europe in terms of internet speed and penetration, they have very cheap electricity and this is one of the key factors supporting the creation of a mining farm," the founder of major export conglomerate Russkiy Eksport Igor Chayka told the publication.
The tiny state sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine has a population of around 500,000, with electricity around $0.03 per kilowatt hour.
Authorities will likely have keenly eyed Russia's own decision to conquer the Bitcoin mining market, leveraging its own spare power capacity and creating a state-sponsored outfit to take over a reported 30 percent of total output.
"In Transnistria, there are movements in terms of partnerships in the information technology sphere, which include Blockchain and cryptocurrencies," Chayka added without giving specific details.
Neighboring Ukraine has recently taken an altogether more hostile view of virtual currencies meanwhile, refusing to recognize it as a means of payment.


Joy Shapiro of Framingham, Mass., was the sort of hyper-cautious expectant mother who doesn't just cut out alcohol and caffeine. She worried about the ingredients in everything she consumed or put on her body, from fitness drinks to sunscreen.
But thanks to a referral from her obstetrician, she had a secret weapon against her anxiety: Patricia Cole, the program coordinator for MotherToBaby Massachusetts — also known as the Pregnancy Exposure Infoline — whom she "bombarded" with queries.
Cole helped Shapiro navigate not just food and cosmetics but medications — prescription steroids, acid reflux, nasal sprays. The sorts of decisions that have become commonplace, nearly universal, in a country where 9 out of 10 pregnant women take at least one medication during pregnancy, and 7 out of 10 take a prescription drug.
Many of the old concerns about risky exposures during pregnancy — leaded paint, thalidomide — have faded, but in this nation of prescription-fillers, meds have become a major worry.
Last year, the CDC launched its Treating for Two Website, part of a national initiative aimed at making medication use during pregnancy safer. It seeks better research on the effects of meds during pregnancy, and better guidance for expectant mothers and their doctors. The agency warned just last month about the potential risks of opioid painkillers — such as codeine or oxycodone — for pregnant women.


Grand Canyon Gas Logs 3BRN-24 3 Burner, 24 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs TS-12-SS Stainless Steel Torch Fire Star, 12 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs AJST30LOGS Arizona Juniper See-Through Logs, 30 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs AWO30LOGS Arizona Weathered Oak Logs, 30 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs FRS06 Stainless Steel Single Fire Ring 0.5 in. Hub, 6 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs TPS-36 Tee-Pee Stack Complete Logs Fire Pit, 36 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs AWO42LOGS Arizona Weathered Oak Logs, 42 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs AWOC42LOGS Arizona Weathered Oak Charred Logs, 42 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs RFS-36 Round Flat Stack Complete Logs Fire Pit, 36 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs AWOST30LOGS Arizona Weathered Oak See-Through Logs, 30 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs AWOC30LOGS Arizona Weathered Oak Charred Logs, 30 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs AWOST18LOGS Arizona Weathered Oak See-Through Logs, 18 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs AWOST42LOGS Arizona Weathered Oak See-Through Logs, 42 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs BPS30LOGS Blue Pine Split Logs, 30 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs AJST36LOGS Arizona Juniper See-Through Logs, 36 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs GLASSBRN-24 Stainless Steel Glass Burner, 24 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs MSO30LOGS Mountain Split Logs, 30 in.
Grand Canyon Gas Logs AWO21LOGS Arizona Weathered Oak Logs, 21 in.


text:
Q: Program still runs on one thread using par_iter and par_extend I'm trying to parallelize a portion of my code, and despite it using rayon and the parallel iterators par_iter() and par_extend(), it still looks like it runs on a single thread.
I simply create a vector of i32, fill it up with a lot of values, and then move these values into a collections::HashSet of integers.
My single threaded code:
use std::collections::HashSet;

fn main() {
    let my_vec: Vec<i64> = (0..100_000_000).collect();

    let mut my_set: HashSet<i64> = HashSet::new();
    let st = std::time::Instant::now();
    my_set.extend(
        my_vec.iter().map(|x| x*(x+3)/77+44741)  // this is supposed to take a while to compute
    );
    let dur = st.elapsed();
    println!("{:?}", dur);

}

Running time is around 8.86 s in average.
Here is the code using parallel iterators:
extern crate rayon;
use rayon::prelude::*;
use std::collections::HashSet;

fn main() {
    let my_vec: Vec<i64> = (0..100_000_000).collect();

    let mut my_set: HashSet<i64> = HashSet::new();
    let st = std::time::Instant::now();
    my_set.par_extend(
        my_vec.par_iter().map(|x| x*(x+3)/77+44741) // this is supposed to take a while to compute
    );
    let dur = st.elapsed();
    println!("{:?}", dur);
}

The average running time for the 'parallel' version is almost the same (8.62 s), and the cpu monitor clearly shows that a single cpu is working at 100% while the others just wait.
Do you know what I did wrong, or did not understand?

A: Your simulation is not right because your calculation is actually fast, so fast that it is faster by several orders of magnitude than a thread context switch. Your core at 100% is likely the rayon runtime, while the other cores are waiting for it.
If you actually replace your computation by a sleep, the results are as you expect:
use std::collections::HashSet;
use rayon::prelude::*; // 1.1.0
use std::time::Duration;

fn main() {
    fn slow(i: &i64) -> i64 {
        std::thread::sleep(Duration::from_millis(5));

        *i
    }

    let my_vec: Vec<i64> = (0..100).collect();

    let mut my_set: HashSet<i64> = HashSet::new();

    let st = std::time::Instant::now();
    my_set.extend(
        my_vec.iter().map(slow)  // this is supposed to take a while to compute
    );
    let dur = st.elapsed();
    println!("Regular: {:?}", dur);

    let st = std::time::Instant::now();
    my_set.par_extend(
        my_vec.par_iter().map(slow) // this is supposed to take a while to compute
    );
    let dur = st.elapsed();
    println!("Rayon: {:?}", dur);
}

Output:
Regular: 685.670791ms
Rayon: 316.733253ms

When you try to optimize your code, you must carefully benchmark it because sometimes, when you parallelize your code, that can make it slower.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Our powered Case Lathe makes neck turning brass an easy, pleasant job instead of a necessary project to be dreaded and put off. This power turning system is the result of many years of using and experimenting with neck turning systems to find the best balance of speed, convenience, power, ease of use and quiet operation. Any brand, style or make of hand-held neck turner will work well with the Benchrite Lathe. The 1/20th HP gearmotor turns cases at 181 RPM with plenty of torque to prevent motor drag down when making large cuts. Cases are held by the updated case holder and spindle system which makes inserting, tightening and removing cases from the lathe a snap. Heavy duty switch, 16ga. grounded power cord, professional finish and anti-vibration rubber feet complete a tool made to perform perfectly for many years. The Benchrite Neck Turning Lathe System comes complete with large primer or small primer spindle and one case holder. Choose included spindle and case holder to match the case head of the cartridge you wish to turn. Additional spindles and case holders may be ordered separately. Instructions included, made in USA.


text:
Q: Php Soap Client suddenly fails: Couldn't find  Very peculiar problem follows.
I call a service through PHP using a SoapClient:
$url = "https://paycenter.piraeusbank.gr/services/tickets/issuer.asmx?WSDL";
$client = new SoapClient($url);
This has been working for years, until yesterday noon. Since then and without any change, I'm getting the following error:
Fatal error: Uncaught SoapFault exception: [WSDL] SOAP-ERROR: Parsing WSDL: Couldn't find <definitions> in 'https://paycenter.piraeusbank.gr/services/tickets/issuer.asmx?WSDL'
The PHP version is 5.6
The WSDL document seems well formatted. However, when I try to connect to another service (e.g. https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/airavata/sandbox/xbaya-web/test/Calculator.wsdl;), there's no problem.
Also when I upload the simple script above to another server (running PHP 5.3) there's no error.
What is going on?


text:
January 19 ,2022
Enterprenuers
Movie/review
Home/News/Business/Goodbye 'godsend': Expiration of child tax credits hits home
Nora James 4 days ago
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Tumblr Pinterest Reddit VKontakte Odnoklassniki Pocket Skype WhatsApp Telegram
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — For the first time in half a year, families on Friday are going without a monthly deposit from the child tax credit — a program that was intended to be part of President Joe Biden's legacy but has emerged instead as a flash point over who is worthy of government support.
Retiree Andy Roberts, from St. Albans, West Virginia, relied on the checks to help raise his two young grandchildren, whom he and his wife adopted because the birth parents are recovering from drug addiction.
The Robertses are now out $550 a month. That money helped pay for Girl Scouts, ballet and acting lessons and kids' shoes, which Roberts noted are more expensive than adult shoes. The tax credit, he said, was a "godsend."
"It'll make you tighten up your belt, if you've got anything to tighten," Roberts said about losing the payments.
The monthly tax credits were part of Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package — and the president had proposed extending them for another full year as part of a separate measure focused on economic and social programs.
But Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, from Roberts' home state of West Virginia, objected to extending the credit out of concern that the money would discourage people from working and that any additional federal spending would fuel inflation that has already climbed to a nearly 40-year high.
According to IRS data, 305,000 West Virginia children benefited from the expanded credit last month.
Manchin's opposition in the evenly split Senate derailed Biden's social spending package and caused the expanded tax credits that were going out in the middle of every month to expire in January. This is whittling down family incomes at the precise moment when people are grappling with higher prices.
However, families only received half of their 2021 credit on a monthly basis and the other half will be received once they file their taxes in the coming months. The size of the credit will be cut in 2022, with full payments only going to families that earned enough income to owe taxes, a policy choice that will limit the benefits for the poorest households. And the credits for 2022 will come only once people file their taxes at the start of the following year.
West Virginia families interviewed by The Associated Press highlighted how their grocery and gasoline bills have risen and said they'll need to get by with less of a financial cushion than a few months ago.
"You're going to have to learn to adapt," said Roberts, who worked as an auto dealer for five decades. "You never really dreamed that everything would all of a sudden explode. You go down and get a package of hamburger and it's $7-8 a pound."
By the Biden administration's math, the expanded child tax credit and its monthly payments were a policy success that paid out $93 billion over six months. More than 36 million families received the payments in December. The payments were $300 monthly for each child who was five and younger, and $250 monthly for children between the ages of six and 17.
The Treasury Department declined to address questions about the expiration of the expanded child tax credit, which has become a politically sensitive issue as part of Biden's nearly $2 trillion economic package that has stalled in the Senate.
Manchin has supported some form of a work requirement for people receiving the payment, out of concern that automatic government aid could cause people to quit their jobs. Yet his primary objection, in a written statement last month, sidestepped that issue as he expressed concerns about inflation and that a one-year extension masked the true costs of a tax credit that could become permanent.
"My Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society in a way that leaves our country even more vulnerable to the threats we face," Manchin said. He added that he was worried about inflation and the size of the national debt.
The Census Bureau surveyed the spending patterns of recipients during September and October. Nearly a third used the credit to pay for school expenses, while about 25% of families with young children spent it on child care. About 40% of recipients said they mostly relied on the money to pay off debt.
There are separate benefits in terms of improving the outcomes for impoverished children, whose families could not previously access the full tax credit because their earnings were too low. An analysis by the Urban Institute estimated that extending the credit as developed by the Biden administration would cut child poverty by 40%.
The tax credits did not cause an immediate exodus from the workforce, as some lawmakers had feared. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the percentage of people with jobs increased from 58% the month before the monthly payments began to 59.5% last month. That same trend occurred in West Virginia, where the employment-population ratio rose to the pre-pandemic level of 52.9%.
There's an academic debate over whether the credit could suppress employment in the long term, with most studies suggesting that the impact would be statistically negligible.
Academics who study the tax credit are torn on how a permanent program would affect the economy and child welfare.
Katherine Michelmore, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, and two other researchers estimated that roughly 350,000 parents would exit the workforce, a figure that is not all that significant in an economy with roughly 150 million jobs.
Michelmore said the long-term effects of a permanent tax credit would have a positive impact on the economy, as children who grow up in families with higher incomes "tend to do better in school, they're more likely to graduate from high school. It might be 15 years down the road but there will be more cost savings in the future."
One of the key questions for policymakers is whether bureaucracies or parents are better at spending money on children. Manchin has proposed a 10-year, funded version of Biden's economic proposal that would scrap the child tax credits focus and instead finance programs such as universal pre-kindergarten, to avoid sending money directly to families.
"It's a moral question of do you trust families to make their own decisions," Michelmore said.
Hairdresser Chelsea Woody is a single mother from Charleston, West Virginia, who works six days a week to make ends meet. The extended child tax credit payments had helped pay for her son's daycare, as well as letting her splurge on clothes for him.
"It truly helps out a lot. It's an extra cushion, instead of me worrying how I'm going to pay a bill or if anything comes up," Woody said as she loaded groceries into her car. "It's helpful for a lot of people. It helps working families out because we struggle the most. I'm hardly home with my kid because I work all the time."
Hussein reported from Washington and Boak from Baltimore.
This story has been updated to correct Michelmore's projections for cost savings in the future.
NY Press News:Latest News Headlines
NY Press News||Health||New York||USA News||Technology||World News
Turkey's inflation hits a 19-year high of 36%
Stay home or work sick? Omicron poses a conundrum
Monthly child tax credit payments have ended. Here's why lawmakers face hurdles to add more
Business child Child welfare credits economy expiration Family finances godsend goodbye Government and politics Government business and finance hits home Human welfare inflation Legislature National governments National taxes Personal finance prices Social affairs Social issues tax Tax refunds
Snowflake CEO: Why you must 'declare war on your competitors'
Iqaluit investigating after 'influx of concerns' that the city's water smells like fuel again | CBC News
Cramer's lightning round: I can't recommend Wheels Up since it's unprofitable
Here's why 5G is so concerning for U.S. airlines, and what Canada has done to fix it
Pensioners could get cheaper glasses and dental care – don't miss out on free discounts
Wendy Williams Show guest host Michael Rapaport to return in February
Woman Shot Dead While Driving In Harbor Gateway
Ready To Restart The Race: Phil Keoghan Talks About The Return Of "The Amazing Race' After A 19-Month "Pit Stop"
Call for Action: Managing the Infodemic
New WHO tool to help countries advance towards universal health coverage
World's largest youth organizations, representing 250 million members, and WHO launch global mobilization to respond to disruptive impacts of COVID-19 on young people
Monitoring childbirth in a new era for maternal health
© Copyright 2022, All Rights Reserved New York Press News
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Reddit Pocket Skype WhatsApp Telegram
Wells Fargo, Bank of America and other banks temporarily close hundreds of branches – L.A. Biz
Texas driver shot dead after crashing vehicle, firing at 3 who came to her aid: report
r/netflix – What does Check Back For Future Availability mean? On Netflix UK. Spongebob, iCarly, Total Drama and Arrested Development all say it (as seen here) Does anyone know what it means?
Elon Musk's Kids: Meet His 6 Kids From Oldest To Youngest, & Their Moms
Bachelor: Clayton Echard Reveals How He Was Cast In Michelle's Season


text:
Jane Sanders Attempted to Evict Disabled Residents From Group Home
As you probably know, Bernie Sanders' wife is under federal investigation. It's pretty evident that the Sanders family is clearly lacking in the morals department. Now there's more. Jane Sanders attempted to evict disabled residents from a group home.
Per Judicial Watch:
The loan went through, some allege after her husband's senatorial office pressured the bank to approve it, and Jane masterminded a deal to purchase an undeveloped, 32-acre parcel of land and a 77,000-square-foot facility from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington. The purchase included a facility that served as a group home for disabled people and, under the terms of the deal, Jane was supposed to negotiate the transfer of the disabled residents before the school took over the property. Instead Jane tried to kick the disabled people out of their group home, records obtained by Judicial Watch show. The records, part of an ongoing Judicial Watch investigation into the Jane Sanders fraud case, include electronic mail exchanges between Jane when she was president of Burlington College and two former mayors of the city of Burlington.
Jane Sanders Attempted to Evict Disabled Residents
Meanwhile the mainstream media goes on and on about how Trump tweeted something stupid. Chuck Todd refused to even ask Bernie a question about his investigation. Both Bernie and Jane Sanders are under investigation that Jane committed bank fraud while acting as the president of Burlington College. The accusation is that Senator Sanders used his position of power to pressure a bank to approve a loan for the now shut down college. It has also been reported that they lied on the application about the college's funding. Both of the Sanders have already lawyered up with prominent defense attorneys.
Instead of asking about the investigation, Todd asked questions like these: "Why do you think Democrats lost that special election in Georgia last week?" and "are you open to some sort of bipartisan compromise [on the health care bill]?" You know, questions where he can easily push his socialist agenda without becoming uncomfortable.
When he was finally questioned about the FBI investigation, he blamed Trump. Take a look.
It's becoming more and more clear the Sanders are nowhere near the middle class heroes they make themselves out to be.
WATCH: Is This the End of CNN? - POLL
Muslim Cop Killer From Baton Rouge Left Sick Suicide Note With an Islamic Verse - VIDEO
Texas Makes Big-Time Move Against Black Lives Matter
Cubs Fan Banned From Stadium for Life for Flashing 'OK Sign'


Hugh Dames FRSA argues that the RSA's historical link with one example – the Adventure Learning Crystal Palace Park – speaks to the Society's current mission.
Joshua, Mark, Terence, and Danny work at Nexus Frontier Tech and are guest blogging for the RSA on what government should take into consideration when designing a roadmap for ethical AI.
Dr Brenda Watson FRSA argues that the reality does not connect well with Matthew Taylor's four key reforms to education and suggests what can be done.


text:
QNetNews.ca
QNetNews TV
91X FM News
QNetNews Interactive
Another successful year for Sleep Out event
February 4, 2014	at 12:39 pm
By Tyson Leonard
BELLEVILLE – More than 100 people converged on Market Square Friday to sleep outside overnight in an effort to raise money for local anti-homelessness initiatives.
The Sleep Out! So Others Can Sleep In event, organized by the Hastings and Prince Edward branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association, has been running for seven years.
The event surpassed its $10,000 goal, raising a total of $13,320. The money raised goes towards operational costs of the three local transitional houses that the CMHA runs.
Participants in the event raise money individually by canvassing their communities.
Sandie Sidsworth, executive director of the branch, said she is amazed year after year by how much the community comes together for the cause.
"This year people are so engaged and wanting to take part. It's just amazing," Sidsworth said.
"What impresses me is there is a consistent group that comes out."
Belleville city Councillor Pat Culhane is part of that consistent group. She has been sleeping out since the event started.
"I want to do whatever I can to help them raise operating funds for those houses," said Culhane.
"I think we need to take more action, because it's going to impact a lot more people than it ever has in the past."
Some people at the event mentioned recent layoffs in Belleville when talking about the issue of homelessness.
"The situation is so bad that people are becoming homeless who never ever thought that would happen to them," Culhane said.
"If you are a two-income family to maintain your housing, and one of you loses your job, as in the recent layoffs at Sears, you can become homeless very quickly.
Ashley Carroll, a Belleville resident, has been coming to the event for four years. She has seen the plight of homelessness affect the people around her.
"I have a lot of friends that stay in the local transition homes that we raise money for," she said.
"It's not just about homelessness. It's about poverty. It's about things just being really crappy for people. Especially when it's cold."
The only way to fix these issues is to put more money into anti-poverty initiatives, such as shelters and soup kitchens, and to create more jobs, she said.
Tags: BellevilleHealth
Larry Pohjola September 24, 2014
UPDATE: Crews continue to cleanup 401 massive accident near Brighton March 19, 2015
First ever Journo Awards ceremony at Loyalist College February 14, 2017
Cow causes accident on Highway 37 November 10, 2016
What to watch out for when enjoying the outdoorsJune 6, 2019
Loyalist students win national media awardsJune 6, 2019
Man charged for uttering threats in CobourgJune 6, 2019
Lower Trent Conservation kicks off three year Murray Marsh restoration projectJune 5, 2019
Belleville Dragon Boat Club gearing up for first race of the seasonJune 5, 2019
© 2014 QNetNews.ca. All Rights Reserved.


Fifteen years ago I found out it was likely I would never have children due to chemically-induced menopause after fifteen months of chemotherapy at age seventeen. I remember a time not long after that when I felt like God was telling me to trust Him. This new challenge would later give Him yet another opportunity for a miracle.
In July 2008, I went to the ER in severe pain and discovered I was pregnant! But the pregnancy was ectopic (tubal). My promise had been given and taken away in the same instant.
When we got home from the hospital, Nate settled me on the couch and then went out onto the deck to water our plants. A few moments later he came back into the house, carrying my favorite plant, a wrinkly old prickly pear cactus. Why that plant? Because to our surprise it had bloomed! It had never bloomed before. The blooms were these amazing, delicate, tissue-paper flowers: yellow with bright pink and orange center. They were absolutely stunning, but they only lasted for a day. Then they were gone. So 15 years later, my prickly pear cactus became God's little messenger and turned into an extension of the promise. It was only there for a day but it was real, and it was beautiful, and it was my own little celebration of life! I knew that God had given me that flower to remind me that He was right there, even when things didn't make much sense.
I wrote in a letter to my family at the time, "I am thankful for a life full of miracles, and look forward to more to come!" In March 2009 we discovered again I was pregnant.
Although the doctors were concerned that it could be another ectopic and were keeping a close eye on me, Nate and I chose to embrace this gift from God. Whether it would last for a day, a week, or a lifetime, we would embrace it with our whole hearts.
Imagine our excitement when I was finally far enough along to see something in an ultrasound. The ultrasound tech said, "I want to show you something," and suddenly, beautifully, there on the screen were not one, but two perfect little peas. We were having twins!
Today Addie and Asher are 19 months old and we are now expecting Baby #3 this August!
Incidentally, last November, Nate reminded me that on that prickly pear cactus there were THREE perfect blooms – our "little-big- hug" from heaven.
Again I say, I am so thankful for a life full of miracles, and I look forward to more to come!
Thank you for this inspiring testimony of triple miracles.
God is so amazing! I love this story. Thanks for sharing.