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Lies In The Textbooks - Creationist Kent Hovind Reveals The Truth Abut Evolution Lies In The Textbooks - Creationist Kent Hovind Reveals The Truth Abut EvolutionKent Hovind59 min 46 sec - Mar 1, 2006Lies In The Textbooks - Creation Scientist Kent Hovind Reveals The Truth Abut Evolution! For more videos like this please visit http://www.drdino.com/downloads.php?type=Seminar+Video
Tying The Knot Tying The Knothere!TV1 hr 21 min 34 sec - Jan 1, 2004Buy $3.95 - Day-Pass $3.95Tying the Knot explores the passionate debate over same sex marriage in the United States. While mixing heated politics with moving personal accounts, the director offers a searing look at the issues surrounding this sensitive, but timely subject.
The Story of World War II - part 1/2 The Story of World War II - part 1/2Massachusetts School of Law59 min 36 sec - Mar 15, 2003World War Two was the defining event of the twentieth century. Concentrating on the Second World War through American eyes, Donald Miller has written a fluid, fast paced and extremely interesting account of the war. In this installment of “Books of Our Time” Dean Lawrence R. Velvel interviews Donald Miller about his latest work “The Story of World War II.” Miller is a professor of history at Lafayette College.Miller’s account should be of great interest to students and scholars of the war. He draws extensively on well-chosen oral interviews, book excerpts and contemporary newspaper articles. Miller focuses on all the major campaigns: Torch in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Anzio, Tarawa, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, D-Day, and air wars in both Europe and the Pacific. This work will also be of great interest (part 1) to scholars of the war, as the interview centers around Miller’s historical method used in writing and researching about the war.Commager, crusade against barbarism, blunderers, cover-ups, mistakes, cowards, breakdowns, racial prejudice, atrocities, mass killings, Shirer, Germans, Hitler, world war, Japanese, United States, hidden holocaust, rape of Nanking, Russia, Finland, defense by the Finns, western front, French superior power to the Germans, but screwed up mercilessly, militarily, politically, invade England, bombing submarine campaigns, invasion, defeated, percentage of losses, German submarine service, heroism of the merchant seamen, why Hitler invaded Russia, defense by the Russians, relocation of Russian industry, Russian guerilla campaign, racial aspect of the Russo-German war, Americans and Japanese in the Pacific, battle of Leningrad, battle of Stalingrad, most savage battles, decisive battles of history, United States and Japan at loggerheads in 1941, Japan seek to accomplish, attacking Pearl Harbor, Nagami, Japanese caught MacArthur’s air force on the ground, regard MacArthur as a brilliant general, negligent, publicity hound, arrogant, mistakes in World War II and Korea, brilliant things, factors which caused the Japanese to treat prisoners so cruelly, Doolittle raid, Battle of Midway, John Keegan, "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare",importance, battle for Guadalcanal, land and naval, Americans
Speed Talking Speed Talking1 min 59 sec - Nov 19, 2006In this version, I recite the books of the Bible (Old and New Testaments) the Book of Mormon, the 50 US States, the alphabet backwards, the United States Presidents and the Academy Award Best Picture winners.Hopefully, no one is offended because I choose to include religious-oriented items in my list.For those interested (and because it’s awesome for getting hits), here’s a transcript of the list:Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Samuel, Kings, Kings, Chronicles, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, First, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Phillipians, Colossians, First, Second Thessalonians, Timothy, Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, Peter, Peter, John, John, John, Jude, Revelation, First, Second Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon, Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, Third, Fourth Nephi, Mormon, Ether, Moroni, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Z, Y, X, W, V, U, T, S, R, Q, P, O, N, M, L, K, J, I, H, G, F, E, D, C, B, A, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert C. Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, "Wings," "The Broadway Melody," "All Quiet on the Western Front," "Cimarron," "Grand Hotel," "Cavalcade," "It Happened One Night," "Mutiny on the Bounty," "The Great Ziegfeld," "The Life of Emile Zola," "You Can’t Take it With You," "Gone With the Wind," "Rebecca," "How Green Was My Valley," "Mrs. Miniver," "Casablanca," "Going My Way," "The Lost Weekend," "The Best Years of Our Lives," "Gentleman’s Agreement," "Hamlet," "All the King’s Men," "All About Eve," "An American in Paris," "The Greatest Show on Earth," "From Here to Eternity," "On the Waterfront," "Marty," "Around the World in Eighty Days," "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "Gigi," "Ben-Hur," "The Apartment," "West Side Story," "Lawrence of Arabia," "Tom Jones," "My Fair Lady," "The Sound of Music," "A Man for All Seasons," "In the Heat of the Night," "Oliver," "Midnight Cowboy," "Patton," "The French Connection," "The Godfather," "The Sting," "The Godfather Part II," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest," "Rocky," "Annie Hall," "The Deer Hunter," "Kramer vs. Kramer," "Ordinary People," "Chariots of Fire," "Gandhi," "Terms of Endearment," "Amadeus," "Out of Africa," "Platoon," "The Last Emperor," "Rain Man," "Driving Miss Daisy," "Dances with Wolves," "The Silence of the Lambs," "Unforgiven," "Schindler’s List," "Forrest Gump," "Braveheart," "The English Patient," "Titanic," "Shakespeare in Love," "American Beauty," "Gladiator," "A Beautiful Mind," "Chicago," "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," "Million Dollar Baby," "Crash."Thank you.
On the March 9 broadcast of Fox News’s Hannity & Colmes, while discussing congressional Republicans’ willingness to oppose the Bush administration’s position on the Dubai Ports World (DPW) controversy, co-host Sean Hannity claimed that Republicans “are not Kool-Aid drinkers, like some of the Clinton supporters that defended the indefensible.” But from Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay to radio host and CNN analyst Bill Bennett’s controversial abortion remarks and Focus on the Family founder and chairman James C. Dobson’s comparison of embryonic stem cell research to Nazi experiments, Hannity has gone to astonishing lengths in defense of what are, at best, highly questionable comments and actions, often with falsehoods of his own. For instance:
- Hannity downplayed Abu Ghraib prison abuse
On the June 7, 2005, broadcast of ABC’s daytime talk show The View, Hannity downplayed the abuse of prisoners by U.S. military personnel at Abu Ghraib by claiming that the extent of the abuse was limited to “underwear on the head of one of them.” Numerous photos from news sources and an Army report documenting individual instances of abuse prove otherwise. On the September 10, 2004, edition of his ABC Radio Networks show, Hannity suggested that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) may have been behind the Abu Ghraib prison abuse photos, stating: “Was that a DNC plot, too?”
- Hannity minimized abuse at Gitmo
On the May 31, 2005, edition of Hannity & Colmes, Hannity claimed that “we didn’t hurt anybody” at Guantánamo, despite first-hand accounts by FBI agents and humanitarian workers for the International Committee of the Red Cross documenting prisoner abuse that included, but was not limited to, hooding and slapping prisoners, sleep deprivation, the use of dogs for intimidation, temperature extremes, persistent noise, and “some beatings.” During the March 3 edition of Hannity & Colmes, despite several reports to the contrary, Hannity asserted: “There’s nobody at Guantánamo Bay that’s there for nothing.”
- Hannity defended Bennett’s controversial race comment
On January 18, Hannity defended a controversial remark by Bennett, former Secretary of Education under President Reagan — that “if you wanted to reduce crime … you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” Hannity echoed Bennett’s own false claim that the remark was not his “theory” and that Bennett was “quot[ing] from a book.” As Media Matters for America noted, Bennett purported to explain the comment by falsely claiming that he was simply reiterating a theory presented in the book Freakonomics (William Morrow, May 2005) by authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. But, neither Levitt, nor the book, discuss “the racial implications of abortion and crime,” as Bennett did.
- Hannity defended Dobson’s Nazi comparison
During an interview with Dobson on the August 9, 2005, broadcast of Hannity & Colmes, Hannity defended Dobson’s August 3, 2005, comments, in which he compared embryonic stem cell research with Nazi experiments conducted on live human patients prior to and during the Holocaust. Hannity told Dobson: “You said if any ethics or morality is removed, then you have Nazi Germany. You were very clear. You weren’t making a comparison.”
- Hannity attacked caller for linking Rove to Plame leak
On the October 25, 2005, broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Hannity responded to a caller’s assertion that White House senior adviser Karl Rove was “involved” in the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity by labeling the caller a “nut case” and accusing him of “hatred, hatred, hatred for Bush and anyone associated with him.” Rove did reportedly disclose Plame’s identity to a reporter.
From the March 9 broadcast of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes, which featured co-host Alan Colmes and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA):
COLMES: It’s pretty astounding to have one of the president’s biggest supporters basically say — you know, distancing himself there from what the White House is doing.
GINGRICH: Well, wait a second. I mean, [Rep.] Mark Foley [R-FL] was describing the Constitution of the United States. Article I, Section 1, is the Congress. Now, the job of the Congress is that nobody in Congress is on the president’s team. They are independently elected members who work with the president. They are not people who work for the president.
COLMES: And he was making it very clear that he wanted to create some distance between House Republicans –
GINGRICH: Well, look —
COLMES: — and the White — and the West Wing.
GINGRICH: Look, on this particular issue — and I know you love hearing this, Alan, so I — I don’t know. I don’t know. Between now and your radio show later on tonight —
HANNITY: Hey, we got to — we —
GINGRICH: — how — how many times you are going to want to go at this, but I concede this was a mistake. I — you know, I feel very strongly this was a mistake. I’m glad it’s now over.
HANNITY: Mr. Speaker, hang on one — right there one second. And — and, actually, we are not Kool-Aid drinkers, like some of the Clinton supporters that defended the indefensible, which is interesting.
Loft & Beisser Loft & BeisserCyclops Arts1 hr 19 min 24 sec - May 25, 2005Loft and Beisser is the story of two dedectives and of god, who asks them to perform a mission. They accept the offer and start doing their investigations. The trace leads them to Bob Abel and his twin brother Mr. Black. To solve the case, they have to walk over corps, and eventually through a paradoxon. Loft and Beisser is a very weird movie with a sophisticated plot and a lot of black humor.
The accent, the answers, the day.
God, I am so on my last nerve with Elias right now. I can’t even write how frustrated I am– suffice to say, the way to be My Best Friend? Is NOT ignoring your nap, punching your sister in the head, pouring milk down your pants, throwing all my DVDs on the ground, harassing the dog, stealing my food, screaming over every topic in the known world, and then waiting until it is almost MIDNIGHT and not only staying awake but waiting until your sister and I doze off, and then YELLING IN OUR FACE at the opportune moment.
– and as soon as I finished typing that, he walked up and said: “Hi Mommy.”
Me: “Elias. I am really mad at you. Do you know that?”
Elias: “Yes.”
Then he wrapped his little hand around mine and just stood there. And stared. And slowly he started smiling, this really cheesy fake smile, and it got bigger and bigger and went from ear to ear, and it was so borderline-sleazy that I started laughing. And he then intoned: “BEST FRIENDS MOMMY!” like the Iron Chef, and– okay. I guess we are best friends. I was wrong.
I never finished off the questions from the in-between post; and I promised both myself and all visitors that I would. Daily stories, then answers. Deal?
SO. Today. Today, I slept in till 9:20, and spent the morning playing games with the children and trying to make them sleep. Fail. They finally go down at 3. I clean. And hack and wheeze (still sick: probably have to see the doctor– fail again). At 6, I wake them up and dress them. They are not happy. Elias yells at me that his shirt is too hot and NO BLUE MOM, and Addie says I don’t make the bottle right and her clown toy is evil. Fail. Fail. Fail.
Jason: Hey, my mom copied ‘Ghost Whisperer’ onto a DVD for you. And ‘24′ for me.
Becca: Oh my gosh, your mom rocks! I didn’t think she could do it.
Jason: Well, she basically hooked up her camcorder to the DVD recorder, copied it onto her camcorder, transferred that onto her computer, and then took the media and edited it and burned the result to a DVD.
Becca: That sounds seriously time consuming.
Jason: Yeah. She’s still perfecting the method.
I laughed so hard.
Drive to my parents’ for dinner. In front of me is this incredibly Stupid Driver. Normally, that would make me crazy, but they changed the road completely in the last month, and I’m secretly glad for Stupid Driver. Because if it wasn’t him going slow and making mistakes, it would’ve been me.
Taco salad for dinner. We eat taco salad with Doritos. Jason thinks that’s weird– so good thing Jason is at home on his shift, and not seeing the TACO SALAD INSANITY that is our meal. Chris lays on the couch for most of the night and watches TV. He puts on Larry the Cable Guy.
Michelle: Don’t watch that. Geez.
Chris: WHAT?
Becca: You know, you should go as Larry. For like, Halloween.
(Michelle mouthes to me: DON’T!)
Chris: Why? We don’t look alike.
Michelle: Um– yeah you do.
Becca: Chris, you are like the spitting image of each other.
Chris: Well, for one thing– I don’t own a flannel shirt. And another thing– I have a tattoo.
Becca: Oh. So people are going to see you and be like, “Larry the… TATTOO! I WAS DECEIVED! YOU MUST BE HIS JAILBREAK BROTHER!”
Michelle had to pause so she wouldn’t laugh and choke on her drink– or have it come out her nose. That almost happened last time we hung out, a few days ago. I was re-enacting a scene I saw online on World of Warcraft, and she almost turned purple. Becca as a dancing gnome? COMEDY GOLD.
The rest of the night, my mom and Shelly and Eli and I sit around eating heart candy, and asking the Magic Date Ball stupid questions. Am I pregnant? YES NO MAYBE SO. Is Michelle pregnant? GET REAL! Is Elias going to go to preschool? FOR SURE! Am I getting fatter? NO WAY! Should I have more chocolate? NO WAY! Will I get fat if I eat this chocolate? FOR SURE!
The heart candy says things like U R MINE and CUTIE PIE. Michelle and I make up our own. My suggestion wins: after Michelle pulls out a MARRY ME, I offer up LET’S LIVE IN SIN.
Tomorrow, my only plan is to shower.
And you know you’re a mom when even that is iffy.
Moving onto the final round– QUESTION CORNER!
How is Movable Type? Do you like it more than WordPress? Everything’s looking good.
THANKS! And I wouldn’t know about Movable Type. I’m still a WP gal… I was having tons of installation errors, and then somewhere in the middle of correcting them, I remembered I can’t run MT after all. Basically, the short version is that it generates more pages than WordPress– so many that when Jason ran it on burm for a week, Dreamhost sent us a warning that we were overloading the server with requests. Not a wise course of action.
PS: I heart WordPress. I’ll never leave you, baby.
hi becca! i’ve commented a few times, but i’m definitely a daily reader! a few questions i’ve had; i noticed you’re a fairly young mother. i know you wouldn’t give your family up for the world, but how do you feel about having children young? life happens, and the thought of having children young has come up, and the only response i get is “you’re so young, you have your life for that”. 2. if you could give someone advice about anyhting, what would it be? 3. what is the one thing you could live off of (besides diet pepsi-haha!) btw - your children are quite possibly the cutest ever. i’ve told my boyfriend so many “elias said” stories that every few days he’ll ask if there are any new stories about that “really funny little kid” 
- andrea
Okay, I loved the “really funny little kid” bit, and I ran out to tell Jason someone else was calling Eli that when I read it. Hee. Honestly, I think there’s no right or wrong age to have children– assuming that you can support them, and that you genuinely want them. I’m a huge proponent of family. I think, for me, being a young parent was the best thing that could have happened… I was a relatively wild teenager, and I think getting pregnant at 19 really was sort of like– a train crossing. You know, the track gets switched to the opposite direction. It forces you to look at yourself, to live better, to be strong, to be selfless, to be responsible, and that’s not always easy. It’s also one of the most rewarding, enriching things you can do in life. It’s so good. I could tell you how good it is– and I could try and tell you how difficult it is– but it’s just NOTHING LIKE WHAT YOU EXPECT. It isn’t. I have never met a parent who told me, “Yeah, all the books I read and people I talked to? Totally prepared me for everything.” What almost every parent tells me– what I would say– is this: “It’s incredible. I’m a different person. My life isn’t my own anymore. I don’t regret it at all.”
Also, money? I have a bunch of older friends, and we all agree: you’ll never be able to afford kids. You might be able to afford them slightly less now, but you’ll never be ahead of that one. It’s one of many of God’s little jokes.
If I could give advice to anyone about anything? I KNOW THIS ONE. I actually thought about it in the car today. ENJOY IT. That’s it. ENJOY IT. Because right now, you undoubtedly have something that you’ll want at another point in your life, and your task is to find every good thing and celebrate it before it’s gone. Because ten years ago, you wanted the job you have now, or now you want the boyfriend you had nine months ago, or you wish you were healthy like last week, or Future You will look back on Current You and be like, “I WAS SO SKINNY! WHY WASN’T I FLAUNTING IT WHEN I HAD IT?” Hee. So, enjoy it. Even when it sucks, enjoy it. I can promise you that you have something worth appreciating.
3. Pez. Sweet, sweet Pez. If I were rich, I’d have a vault of it like Scrooge McDuck and do laps in Pez every morning. (I probably wouldn’t want to eat them after that, but it would be a good moment anyway.)
Well - I’ve been reading your site for a couple of weeks now and have enjoyed the stories about your wonderful life. I love people who find joy in having children and family and imagine their lives like you described in one of your answers. Taking that path can be scarey but I think your writing shows how great it can be. I am writing to say that I might not have started reading your blog if it wasn’t for your excellent design. You definately have alot of talent - Keep up the good work! - Aidan
This isn’t a question. I just worked so hard on the new design that I really appreciated the love. Heh. SHOUT OUT TO AIDAN!
DUDE !! I feel so lucky. I’VE ACTUALLY TOURED THE HOUSE, PEOPLE !! Yessuh !!! You are probably the one person that understands me when I talk because, just like you, I talk reallyfastanditalkaboutrandomthings. I either get told to slow down — especially by my parents — or to speak up !! I’m just happy to have you in my life my precious Becca. No, I really am. Although I don’t comment a lot, I’m always thinking about you guys !! Addie is so precious !! She’s so chubby and LOOKS JUST LIKE JASON !! Elias is just so funny !! I’m always laughing when I see pictures of him. I bet my mom thinks I’m super weird since she’s always asking “wha arr juu laughing at ?!” I can’t really do that well — you know the whole writing out the way someone sounds thing … Okay, I’ll ask some questions: Lol — I was going to ask “what do you do when you’re bored” because I’m bored right now since everyone is sleeping. But, then I thought THERE ISN’T A DULL MOMENT WHEN YOU HAVE TWO KIDS !!! a) How do you sit on a couch ? Do you curl up ? Do you sit in the middle or do you sit on the right/left side ? I actually laughed at myself for asking such a stupid, random question lol b) How long do you spend at your favorite store ? Mine happens to be Target and I never do the whole in and out thing c) How many Diet Cokes/Pepsi’s do you drink a day ? d) What do you usually order at a restaurant — did I spell that right ? Okay, that’s all I can think of ! It’s past midnight and I don’t know why I’m up ! BYE BEWCA !! =] - Bianca
Okay, number one: Bianca, I love you. I really miss you tons, and I hate that we haven’t found a good time to get together yet. I laughed at your Mom Impersonation– because she DOES SOUND LIKE THAT. Internet: Bianca’s mom is hilarious.
(A) I sit on the edge of a couch. I usually sit with my left foot tucked under me and my right folded up next to my chest. I used to drive in that position, too, until Jason convinced me it was An Accident Waiting To Happen.
(B) If I’m by myself, I’m a really fast shopper– I can be in and out. If I’m with anyone else, it’s usually an hour to two hours– just to get milk. I TALK A LOT.
(C) I just counted the cans on my desk. Eight.
(D) I virtually always order a veggie burger with a slice of cheese and pickles, nothing else. I used to be one of those people like, “Um, no tomato, no lettuce, yes pickles, no onions, slice of cheese, American, no mayonaise, maybe mustard, ketchup is okay–” and finally it just got easier to say CHEESE AND PICKLES, THE END.
I love your questions– you’ve got the skill from all those surveys. Hee.
Becca, I have a minor suggestion that maybe you could look into doing when you do your new layout launch 
I’ve been meaning to suggest it for awhile, but Amber’s comment reminded me. Lots of people with websites do like ‘bedroom tours’ and I think it would be really awesome if you could do like a house tour We always see bits & pieces of your house and it looks amazing. It might be really fun & easy to do. [/end dorky suggestion] - Devin
I really love this idea. I’d like to do it right, and maybe make a nice little interactive floorplan with 360 views. And I have to clean up first. So, remind me again in like– a week. Deal? DEAL!
I’ve been reading your site daily, for over 1 year now. HOWEVVVERRR.. this whole time, I do not know how to pronounce Elias.. how do you say it?! I’ve asked around, and everyone is saying it’s a different spelling of Elijah.. but I’m sure it isn’t! I love your site, and everything you talk about. You seem like you’re such a genuine person.. and that is SO hard to find nowadays. I’m being so rude, let me introduce myself; I’m Jen, just turned 21, I’m from Chicago, no kids.. but 2 cats (which are just as great as kids!) I’m a Pharmaceutical Technician annnd that’s about it. Take care!! And hurry back.. you’ve been hiding! - Jen
Hey Jen! So very, very nice to meet you! I’ve been bugging Jason to get a cat, but he’s all, “Not till we get a house– crowded enough as is.” Sigh. We drove through Chicago once– all I remember was a lot of snow (we came in a blizzard), and we got stuck on this inner loop and couldn’t get out of downtown, and I saw my first Church’s Chicken… glowing and holy in the storm.
Elias is the Latin form of Elijah, and we’ve always pronounced it EE-LYE-AS. I made a little sound clip of it here– and because several other people asked
WHAT DOES YOUR SOMETIMES-MINNESOTAN ACCENT SOUND LIKE?
– here’s another clip of me saying “Casper the Friendly Ghost”. Listen to the ghost. Jason thinks it’s hilarious.
How did people really start coming to your site, did you advertise or was it word of mouth (or linking) that got you more visitors? And can you be my mentor now? I honestly can say that even at my age, I know the biggest thing I ever want is what you have, children. Plus you’re a writer, smart, and amusing as well as a good mother. So yeah. I’ll quit worshipping now. - Liz
Everything has been word of mouth and linking. I sort of thought about advertising, but, you know, I like it this way. Word of mouth means that (probably) the only people coming to my site are people that want to be here, or have heard it’s nice, and are prepped to like it… Versus someone surfing Google for dirty photos of Britney Spears and seeing a big YOU SHOULD VISIT DASBECCA! banner on the side. Those people? Would be disappointed.
And um, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for all the nice words. If I ever start a mentoring program, I’ll be sure to let you know. And PS: it will be free. So, you know. Don’t worry.
Hee.
Archive of American Television Interview with Norman Lear Part 6 of 10 Archive of American Television Interview with Norman Lear Part 6 of 10Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation28 min 12 sec - Feb 25, 1994Producer Norman Lear talks about the creation and production of "All in the Family".This is part of a multi-tape interview. To see if other segments of the interview are available, search for "Archive of American Television Interview with (interviewee name)" in the search box, and click the search button.
Charlie Rose - Christiane Amanpour / Steve Case / Paul Giamatti Charlie Rose - Christiane Amanpour / Steve Case / Paul GiamattiCharlie Rose Inc.56 min 40 sec - Jul 21, 2006Buy $0.99Segment 1: The latest on the conflict in the Middle East with Christiane Amanpour, Chief International Correspondent for CNN. She reports from Metula, Israel, near the border with Lebanon. Segment 2: Steve Case, Chairman and CEO of Revolution talks about health care and media. Segment 3: We conclude with actor Paul Giamatti. The film is "Lady in the Water".
Notes from Last Night’s ICT Toronto Event
A wide-angle shot of the MaRS Centre, where the event was held.
I caught last night’s ICT Toronto gathering at the MaRS Centre, where ICT Toronto announced the release of their “cluster development strategy” paper — a plan to boost the competitiveness and standing of Accordion City’s information and communications technology sector over the next five years.
A close-up shot of the MaRS Centre entrance.
It was easy to spot the DemoCamp gang — me, David, Jay, Sutha, Bryce, Mark — among the attendees, who numbered around 100. We were the only people there not in suits. It certainly looked as though we were there only people there who wrote code for a living. We made sure to mingle and found that most of the attendees seemed to be from the management side of various information and communications tech firms or from organizations that invested in them.
The riff-raff! From left to right: David Crow, Sutha Kamal, Jay Goldman.
While waiting for the presentations to begin, we talked about how we could get some of the “suits” in the room to attend some of the upcoming events like Mesh, DemoCamp or BarCamp. Would these events hold any interest for them? I suggested that we “sell” the idea of such events to them as some kind of “walk on the wild side” tour. “What Burning Man is to us, DemoCamp and BarCamp could be to them!”
David enjoys a drink; Jay prays that nobody mistakes him for a bike courier.
In addition to my notes below, Mark Kuznicki and Rob Hyndman have posted blog entries about the event as well. The Globe and Mail has an article on ICT canada titled Toronto Aims to be High-Tech Hub and we have yet to see if the National Post is going to take a break from their “Oil! Oil! Yeah, baby, we got the Prime Minister and the oil! Suck it, Eastern Canada!” binge long enough to notice.
The strategy proposed by ICT Toronto boils down to these four points:
- Increase collaboration between education, industry and government in the field of information and communications technologies.
- Increase the profile of the information and communcations technology sector.
- Increase the competetitiveness of our information and communications technology businesses.
- Retain and attract information and communications technology businesses.
They presented an executive summary of the strategy paper after the presentations, and the full paper is now available for download [600K PDF].
A Couple of Videos of the Crowd
Notes from the Speakers
Here are my notes from the presentation. The first speaker was Accordion City mayor David Miller, followed by three speakers from the ICT Toronto working group, followed by a question-and-answer session.
Mayor David Miller
- The MaRS Centre is a symbol of of what Toronto can do with technology, and by extension information technology.
- MaRS is the only research centre of its type located in a downtown location, and a prime one at that. It’s across the street from a world-class university across the street, some of the world’s best research hospitals just down the street, a short walk from the most respected financial institutions in the world, plus Toronto Hydro — who are setting up the city with WiFi across University avenue.
- We should be comparing ourselves to the world’s great cities.
- Toronto is a world leader in mining finance — our competitors are cities like London! We need to think of ourselves in the ICT cluster in the same way.
- On a business developement mission to New York City, Miller sold the virtues of Toronto to businesses there. Their responose at the end: “We didn’t know that about Toronto.” Toronto needs to sell itself better: “The only thing we haven’t done is tell our story.”
- Our goal: Make Toronto the 5th leading ICT sector in the world.
David Ticoll
His presentation: “Toronto’s ICT Industry in a Global Context”
Some statistics:
| Canada’s workforce, c. 2001 | 15.4 million |
| Toronto’s workforce, c. 2001 | 2.4 million |
| Canada’s ICT and related workforce, c. 2001 | 580,000 |
| Toronto’s ICT and related workforce, c. 2001 | 133,000 |
| Service occupations facing global competition | 80+ |
| Affected workers in Canada | 2.4 million |
| Affected workers in Toronto (guesstimate) | 550,000 |
| Canada’s world rank as exporter of business services in 1995 | 6 |
| Canada’s world rank as exporter of business services in 2002 | 13 |
On Offshoring
- We’re not keeping up in the use of offshoring.
- It is both a problem and a competitive advantage
- If you offshore, you send away jobsm but if you don’t…
- You don’t lower labour costs
- You lose the ability to do certain things that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive
- Offshoring is a competitive challenge with ambiguity
On India
- Showed a photo of an oxcart in the middle of automobile traffic. The oxcart is delivering materials for the construction of a superhighway. That’s their challenge — their infrastructure for the infrastructure is a mix of modern and archaic.
- Showed a photo of the Accenture campus in Mumbai. “There are about 5,000 Accenture employees in Canada. There are 18,000 in India right now.” Accenture’s goal is to have 50,000 in India in 3 years.
- Accenture seems to follow a pattern. They recently bought a Wall Street firm, moved it to Toronto for about 6 months to make it operational, and then transported it to India.
- Offshoring will be a $110 billion industry by 2010
- India’s potential share, should they “stay the course”: $60 billion
- If India takes an “innovation” strategy, their potential share could be as high as $70 to $80 billion
- The Indian government is a very well-educated group who understand technology. India’s president is a rocket scientist…literally!
- They’re pushing for innovation; not just “predictable work”
- Promod Haque (Norwest Venture Partners) is working on a US/India joint arrangement to create a “Bell Labs” in India”
- The arrangement would be to do bleeding edge R&D with the US doing the “R” and India doing the “D”.
- The US would invest $500 billion
- India’s strengths:
- Strong national strategy, with government and industry working together
- Culture of winning
- Continuous learning and questioning
- Strategic thinking
- Strong domestic industry
- Articulate, knowledgable government leadership
- India’s weaknesses:
- Infrastructure
- Other emerging countries moving into the same business
- Things we need to ask:
- What should go offshore to make our businesses more competitive?
- How do these deals yield competitive gains?
- How do we prepare our young people for the job landscape of the future? (It seems to favour well-rounded people over those with someone with a narrow skill set.)
- What about geopolitical plays — such as the proposed US/India deal? This sort of thing isn’t on the radar of the federal government with their “5 priorities”.
- Things we need to do:
- Embrace productivity-enhancing business investments
- Foster domestic exportable knowledge-based services
- Partner with government
- Compete and constantly rethink strategy
- Remember Andy Grove’s motto: “Only the paranoid survive”
Ron Friedman
- ICT Toronto is concetrating on these sectors:
- Computer and telecommunications manufacturing
- Software development
- IT and telecom services
- New media
- Toronto ICT stats:
- 3rd largest ICT city in North America — only surpassed by the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City
- 3300 ICT companies in the Toronto region
- These companies have a total of 148000 employees
- They generate $30 - 35 billion annually
- They generate $6 billion in exports
- ICT is the fifth largest employment category in Toronto
- There is a lack of political recognition of the importance of the ICT sector
- Toronto has a high level of entrepreneurship
- The vision: for Toronto be be recongized as one of top 5 ICT centres in the world by 2011
- The plan:
- Establish ICT Toronto as a central point of contact for the world
- Bring people together to do business
- Link ICT and key economic centres
- Build professional development centres and business mentoring services for the entrepreneurial community
- Advocate for federal or provincial research institute in the Toronto region (Toronto lacks federal/prov-funded ICT research organizations
- Ensure that TO’s wireless infrastructure is leading-edge internationally — assess future bandwidth and wireless needs and make sure that we have world-leading WiFi users to match
- Implement an international marketing communications action plan
Frank Maw
- Canada:
- Currently experiencing a bout of prosperity
- But: there are unprecedented levels of displacement in labour — manfacturing, agricultural, forestry and fishing are going to emerging economies
- China graduates more engineers annually than all the North American engineering students and profesisonal engineers put together
- When it comes to information and computer technologies, Toronto is 3rd in North America
- Among the qualities that make Toronto attractive to high-tech companies:
- World-class universities
- A rich city culture with lots to do and cultural diversity
- A creative class and “bohemian charm”
- According to KPMG, Canada is the most competitive of the G8 nations
- Why did we set the goal to be in the top 5 tech cities in the world by 2011?
- To create large and growing stream of jobs for our kids and grandkids
- Generate incremental tax revenue at the local, provincial and federal levels
- To boost other business segments
- Because ICT is a market segment with “currency”
- To improve our quality of life and standard of living
- We won’t compete on cost, but quality
- There needs to be political will at all 3 levels of government
Points Raised During the Q & A Session
- There are about 40,000 people in Canada who are doing “nearshoring” work
- We haven’t done an assessment of what Canada’s real assets are
- The big ICT challenge: finding good, affordable management
- Our strength: initial innovation - pre-commoditization
- Structural problem in canadian ICT industry — large and medium sized players are foreign-owned, which makes it hard for the presdient of a Canadian branch office to promote Canada
- Toronto’s current ranking in world — “Embarrassingly, we don’t know”. We know that we’re number 3 in North America, but don’t know the world ranking. Currently looking into that.
- Areas for early attention:
- Fusion between financial industry / IT
- Digital media world — partnered with San Francisco — creating centres of excellence
- ICT accounts for 42% of R&D spending in the private sector but only 2% of R&D spending at Canada’s universities.
Charlie Rose - Joe Roth / Bryce Dallas Howard / Appreciation of Wilson Pickett Charlie Rose - Joe Roth / Bryce Dallas Howard / Appreciation of Wilson PickettCharlie Rose Inc.56 min 40 sec - Feb 2, 2006Buy $0.99Segment 1: Revolution Studios founder and director Joe Roth talks about his latest film, "Freedomland"Segment 2: Actress Bryce Dallas Howard talks about her role in the new Lars Von Trier film, "Manderlay"Segment 3: An appreciation of Wilson Pickett
Charlie Rose - Oscar Preview / Santiago Calatrava Charlie Rose - Oscar Preview / Santiago CalatravaCharlie Rose Inc.56 min 40 sec - Mar 3, 2006Buy $0.99Segment 1: A preview of the 78th Academy Awards, with a look back at some of the nominees that have appeared on the show in the past year.Segment 2: Architect Santiago Calatrava talks about is work in art and architecture, which is on exhibit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Archive of American Television Interview with Quincy Jones Part 1 of 5 Archive of American Television Interview with Quincy Jones Part 1 of 5Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation28 min 56 sec - Nov 13, 2002Composer Quincy Jones discusses his early musical training and influences.This is part of a multi-part oral history interview. To see other segments, search for "Archive of American Television Interview with Quincy Jones" in the search box. Or, access all Archive links at http://tvinterviewsarchive.blogspot.com
LINGsCARS.com Mongol Rally - Two British Boys Drive a Crap Car From Gateshead to Ulan Bator LINGsCARS.com Mongol Rally - Two British Boys Drive a Crap Car From Gateshead to Ulan Bator4 min 22 sec - Oct 8, 2006James Rickwood-Dodsworth and Andy Wallace (both 19), from Newcastle and Gateshead cross Europe and take in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in the Mongol Rally 2006.——–We want to drive to Mongolia, but there’s a crazy Chinese woman standing on top of our newly-purchased car, in Gateshead, yelling “Take photos!”. Ling Valentine from our major sponsor LINGsCARS.com had just finished filming her promotional video for her new-car leasing website and we were all exhausted. She had forced us to drive like rally madmen for her video, and the car smelt hot. As soon as Ling’s boots abandoned our roof and hit the ground, we hit the road. Why did we choose a mental Chinese woman for a sponsor? Earlier, Ling had provided our food as she had promised. Eight boxes of identical “Chicken soup flavour” sell-by-date this month, Chinese brand packet noodle had been thrown into our Fiat, along with 100 pairs of chopsticks and two boxes of Chinese tea bags. We stood there and watched, with our mouths open. We were expecting food, not dried chemicals. “Go!” Ling simply yelled after provisioning us, then turned her back and walked off.We jumped straight back in the rubbish car we had bought, an R reg Fiat Seicento, and it took us 7 hours to reach London from Gateshead. The rally rules stipulate a “car less than 1000cc”, and when it was sitting and shining at the photo shoot, our black LINGsCARS Seicento had seemed a fine choice. That was before three breakdowns on the way to London; the radiator hose kept falling off the Seicento and eventually the engine seized. We reached the hotel at 2am and it seemed as if our rally was over. We called Ling, to apologise. “You useless! Mend car! Send photos!”, she shouted, and the phone hammered down. The next day, we trekked 3 hours across London to Clapham to find a new radiator hose, under the threat of a Chinese chop-chop gang reprisal.Later, with the stupid car fixed-up so it would drive, we rolled into the Mongol Rally car park feeling confident, the triumphal arrival of the LINGsCARS.com team. One of our other secondary sponsors, from Gloucester, (also a Fiat expert) heard our engine and diagnosed a dodgy exhaust gasket. Further inspection saw that it had rusted away. Ling has said, “no problem, all Fiats sound like that”. Oh yeah, right, Ling. We frantically called around garages trying to find a place open where we could get onto a repair lift. We ended up in Kwik-Fit and bodged the gasket. Racing out onto the M25, we made our Channel Tunnel train by 5 minutes and were in France by 8.30, and in 2nd place in the rally overall. We were on top of the world.France disappeared in a blur of tiredness and we blitzed through the night in Germany but we got lost in Cologne, and slept from 2-6am in the cramped car, awoken by German school kids laughing at us.After a sausage breakfast (no noodles today!) we made Prague by the Sunday evening but were stopped in the city centre for driving down a one-way street the wrong way and not having our lights on. It wasn’t even dark.We went to Krakow the next day, no drama – remarkably the car was singing along. This rally will be a piece of cake. Then on Tuesday went past Auschwitz and carried on to the Ukrainian border. We planned to stop at the border and cross in the morning but carried on too far by accident, got sucked into border traffic and eventually crossed at 2am. Three other teams were waiting there to cross, a Mini Scamp, a Fiesta and a Seat Marbella (slightly shabbier than our car) and we decided to convoy with them from now on. None of us have much faith in our motors.We drove for 3 hours covering 50 miles on awful Ukrainian roads. That night we slept folded in the car in a petrol station, to be woken up at 7am by a solider shouting at us. Does he think we can speak Ukrainian? We didn’t argue; we drove on.The drive to Kiev took 9 hours to cover 350 miles. We saw gangs with AK47’s but didn’t get pulled by the police, probably because we were in a convoy of four cars. Other rally teams got emissions tested, were given speeding fines and even had their passports confiscated. Any excuse for the Ukrainian police to rake in some cash, we suspected.Rolling into Kiev at about 5.30pm, on the main road into the city centre, the Mini Scamp broke down on an uphill, one-way street. After an hour of trying to fix it, we decided to give in and tried to bump start it downhill the wrong way down the street. Blocking the road, delaying a few dozen mafia Mercedes and several hundred Ladas heading into the city centre we started the car. The police just laughed at us this time, and we shared cigarettes with them, which were rough.Our time in Kiev was spent sharing stories and fixing the Fiat Seicento. An Irish team had driven over the Ukrainian border last night by hiding behind a coach with their lights off, but with no passport stamps they will be in trouble on the way out. Everyone loves the Irish; they never seem to have the same problems as most other nationalities do at borders. Ukraine was a nightmare with bad food, unfriendly locals and poor roads. We decided we were never going back there, ever.Leaving the Orange revolution behind we blasted through a little bit of Russia via Volgograd and towards Kazakhstan, the land of Borat. Russia was amazing. The Mini Scamp we were convoying with snapped its knicker-elastic suspension so we stopped in a truck stop and a mechanic made them a new part from scratch. To celebrate, we nailed four bottles of vodka and some sweet pastries with him before passing out and sleeping for whole day. I even passed out the next day, too, and Andy had to take over driving. I was experiencing the worst hangover in my life, fuelled by chicken chemical noodles.We crossed into Kazakhstan and it seemed like we were entering the asylum. People ran into the road and stopped us in every town, the police stared at us then tried to extort money and goods – Ling’s noodles were rejected - from us. The roads were so bad that the locals have formed their own dirt tracks by the side. The character Borat is just about spot-on, we all agreed.It was into desert, now, and we drove for four days straight in this vast country in temperatures of over 40 degrees. The Fiat had been overheating badly and blew a radiator hose so we bodged it up with a condom and silicone. The bonnet was unbolted and strapped on the roof to aid cooling, the brakes on the left hand side of the car were shot by now and the exhaust had blown (again). The vibration damper on the driveshaft was so useless it sounded like we were in a tumble dryer. I think that this might all be standard Fiat Seicento, so no complaints. Later on that day we crashed into a sand dune lying across the road, ripping out the fuel lines and smashing the sump guard. Somehow the car still drove, although we are trying to find another radiator top hose from somewhere. The overheating is becoming a real problem. We decided not to phone Ling and tell her, despite her claim that “I give you support during trip”. We just couldn’t face more parcels of noodles, or instructions to “Continue!”.Police and drunken passers-by have been a constant pain in the backside in Kazakhstan. We have been stopped for misdemeanours such as driving right-hand drive cars, speeding (even though the cop was on foot with no radar) and we were made to remove our spotlights as we looked like a police car, they said. How many police cars have a giant Chinese female head and “LINGsCARS” on the side? It took us four days of 6am to 9pm to drive 1200miles. We even dropped in at the Aral sea to have a look but it was boring and we ended up in an underage school disco that night before moving on to a nightclub, based in some guy’s front room. Drunk again.Under another viscious hangover, we were working on the car outside the atrocious Hotel Tema in Shymkent when the gardener approached us. We gestured to him that we need a new top hose. He didn’t understand us, but we jumped in the back of his van anyway and set off on a tour of the city’s auto parts stores. However, there were no spare parts for Fiats anywhere in the city, or anything that would fit. Lada and Mercedes parts seemed to be all they had in this part of Southern Kazakhstan. So the gardener called up his father, a local taxi driver. We all piled into his taxi and set off for the auto-bazaar. The taxi soon started to cough and splutter and the driver coasted into a petrol station. Without cutting the ignition he handed the 5-year old petrol assistant the equivalent of five pence and the most miniscule amount of fuel dripped into his tank. English minicab drivers could learn a trick from this guy. We continued to the bazaar, a giant scrap yard of a place and bought a number of odds and ends that we thought we could get to work on the Fiat. Getting back into the taxi, it wouldn’t start - being on a hill and only having a tiny drop of fuel. The driver got out and with cigarette in one hand grabbed the fuel line with the other and squeezed petrol in the car, like he was milking a cow. He tried to start it numerous times but only succeeded to kill the battery, so we bump started it. He stalled it. So we bumped it again.Back at the hotel, the Fiat was patched up with our second hand parts and we checked out. The hotel fleeced us by withholding our passports until we paid double. Out in the bombsite car park we careered around the guards who were demanding even more payment and drove off.By this stage, we had bumped into an American film crew so we thought that maybe we’d get on telly. Ling had made it quite clear that she expected publicity at any cost, and if we suffered injury or even death, or if there was the slightest sight of blood, we should get it on film. She imagined blood and guts on the 10 o’clock news on the BBC, with a leg hanging off one of us, and the car shouting “LINGsCARS” in the background.Our ears were constantly filled with whoops and yelps from the American film crew. No wonder Americans drive the insurgents in Iraq crazy, we were going mad listening to their soundtrack.On the road in the Fiat again and heading for Bishkek, chasing the TV crew in the desperate quest for publicity for Ling, we suffered a few problems. First of all our ‘fix’ on the top hose blew apart. We had to put the old cracked hose back onto the engine and limp on. By now it was dark and we were struggling to see the dust road as it twisted through the mountains in southern Kazakhstan. Although the road was perfectly smooth we managed to hit the only pothole for miles, a loud bang was heard and the car would no longer drive straight. We found that the front right spring had snapped and now the chunky off road tyre was rubbing in the arch. In pitch black we started to change all four tyres for the original, smaller set using the completely useless Fiat scissor jack and striking matches for light. Whilst we were changing the third wheel, the jack slipped out from under the car and embedded itself in the fuel tank. This was hilarious, as we had to use matches to see the damage and to try to fix it. Andy grabbed a mallet and tried to smash the wedged jack out from under the car. I stood ready with a bucket to catch the leaking fuel but by some small miracle the tank was not punctured, just dented. We drove on, using half a turn of lock to keep the car straight until we eventually parked the car in a Kasakh field and fell asleep.The next day we drove on to Taraz to get the car fixed. A 12-year old apprentice at a small garage replaced our broken spring with a cut down, welded up Lada piece. Eight dollars and three hours later and we set off again for Kyrgyzstan. We had to wait in southern Kazakhstan because our visas for Kyrgyzstan don’t start the next day, so we prepared for a midnight crossing. We agreed that it would help if we could pronounce the country. We updated Ling by phone and were greeted by “Who this is?”This border was the easiest yet and we pushed our way to the front past the trucks and terrorists, showed our exotic British passports and carried on pushing until we were the whole way through.It was a 30-mile drive to the capital Bishkek and we managed to get stopped 7 times by police. We sent a text to the rest of our (rather loose) convoy telling them that we had arrived and were filling ourselves in an English cafe called quite appropriately, ‘Fatboys’. Five minutes later, one of the other team-members, Seth from “The Dukes” - an American team - appeared. I fell off my chair as he climbed out of a brand-new Audi Limousine. Over a beer, he filled in his story. Apparently, whilst Andy and I were slumming it in Shymkent, they had arrived at the Hyatt to meet with The Dukes multinational Casino group sponsors. I tried to imagine Ling whisking us to the Hyatt in a limousine, but quickly realised a phone call home was not a good idea. More noodles would arrive by plane, and I would get a 5 second torrent of abuse, ending in “Continue!”. The Casino sponsors had invited their rally team into the restaurant for complimentary drinks and food - totalling over $500, before giving them three room keys, the manager apologising that they were ‘only’ King size deluxe rooms - another $1000 on the house! The team had been further chilling in the Hyatt waiting for us to reach Bishkek, when an American ex-pat lady ran screaming towards them and asked them if they were the “Mongol Ralliers”. She had been following them on their website and insisted they visit her at her restaurant that night. They got free food, lots of martinis and were then taken by the lady’s driver (in the Audi limo) to a club where all the drinks were on the house. Naturally when Andy and I heard this we insisted on an introduction to this generous American woman.We stormed over to the Hyatt for our free drinks and then followed the Audi back to the ex-pat lady’s mansion where we were invited stay for he night. We dumped our bags and then got into the limo to be taken up to an exclusive restaurant up in the hills above Bishkek. Nice.Next morning the Audi driver took The Dukes to the local auto bazaar to get FOUR new springs for their car. Luxury! To make up for our jealousy, we ignored the problems with the Fiat, relaxed in the house and used the pool at the Hyatt. That night we went to the driver’s brother’s restaurant and had another incredible and free meal. We were abducted to a nightclub where the girls were extremely friendly. There was a strip joint upstairs. I did not phone Ling. I didn’t want to “Continue!”.It was sad to leave Bishkek in the circumstances. I had finally called someone sensible back home in the UK and they found a Fiat dealer in Almaty where we could get some parts to fix the Fiat properly – if that’s ever possible with a Fiat.It was 3pm when we entered Almaty so we raced around for 2 hours trying to find the repair place. My map work was particularly poor today so in the end in true rally spirit, we gave up. Driving out of the city I realised that I had been reading the map the wrong way around and that we had been heading south instead of north the whole time. Dope. The garage was in fact only a mile or so off the main ring road at the edge of the city, but everyone was angry that we had dragged the convoy around Almaty for 2 hours in 40 degree rush-hour temperatures, so with lassaiz-faire we headed off into the desert forgetting that we had little petrol. Despite it being a proper desert, we found a small family run shack whose owner pumped what smelt like overpriced chicken stock into our cars. It was also bright pink. It reminded us of the soup from Ling’s noodles. The cars ran. So did we…The next morning we all awoke very poorly. The fine food we had eaten in Bishkek had obviously been too much for our systems, either that or the strippers had been carrying salmonella virus. This would not have been too much of a problem had we been in a country with toilets, water, food and medicine. However, we were in the desert, in a country we couldn’t pronounce - the only relief being to walk over the horizon out of range of everyone else. So one by one we ran off clutching a diminishing bag of baby wipes, returning briefly to camp before running back again. To compound this misery the mighty LINGsCARS Fiat would not start. In Almaty it had been running fine: no overheating, good idle, spring holding up - our confidence had gone up. We checked the oil to find that it was now mayonnaise. The head gasket had gone. So between 8am and 2pm, Andy (the expert with our six spanners and two hammers) changed the head gasket in 45-degree heat while I ate tinned pineapples in the shade and fed dried chicken noodles to the scorpions. Despite what Andy claimed was almost a complete engine change, the Seicento would not start, so the plugs, fuel pump, lambda sensor - basically every spare part that we had - was changed. This worked, we never found what cured it, and we carried on. Sixty miles later we stopped because car was overheating again, except this time it was not the radiator or hoses, the whole car seemed to be bubbling. We topped up the water and carried on. Soon after we had to stop again.Water and oil were spraying out of the engine itself; the cylinder head had warped - it had not been the gasket after all. Without a bonnet over the engine (it was on the roof, remember), driving the car with rainbows of oil, steam and water spouting into the sunshine was surreal. It was like a mobile mixture of a Yellowstone geyser and a North Sea oil strike.We limped on for the rest of the day, our heads out of the side windows so we could see where we were going, and we filled the Fiat up with oil and water every 20 miles. Then it spurted out again, for the next 20 miles. We knew it was over. Andy and some guys from other teams, did some last ditch tinkering that night, and we got drunk.The car started fine the next day but 50 seconds later died for good. A mixture of water and oil had now broken the fuel injector. The engine was a complete mess. We emptied our stuff, peeled off all the LINGsCARS stickers from the car and jumped in the back of “The Duke’s” Nissan Micra. The last thing I needed was Ling yelling at me because she had been billed for dumping a car in outer Kazakhstan.The Fiat officially died on Sunday 13 August 2006 after 5500 miles and just 5 days before we would eventually reach the finish. Out of respect, we left the remaining 150 packs of chicken noodles in the car. It was decided that since Charlie from The Dukes had to go home in two days we would be able to ride with Barry in the Micra the rest of the way to Mongolia.We camped that night outside Karagunda, a town described by the Lonely Planet Guide as being a former gulag with an 80% HIV-Aids infection rate. However much we wanted to avoid such a place we had to venture into town the next day to see if we could find a spare clutch cable for the Seat Marbella. We vowed to avoid the strippers, here. By 3pm we had found and fitted a VW Golf cable to the Seat and headed north to the Russian border (again). At about 10pm the Seat had to stop, as the Golf clutch cable was so thick that it had bent the clutch pedal out of shape. We decided we would have to leave the two American teams while they got it fixed. Charlie had to be in Barnul by the next day so he could be on a flight home the day after that, so we chugged off in the Micra. We wondered if we should inform our Chinese sponsor that we had decamped into a Japanese car, but wisely decided against a phone call from hell.We drove through the night to the Russian border and attempted to cross early the next morning. Ten hours later we were back in Russia having gone through another ordeal of post-communist paperwork, bribes, official stamps and more bribes. We reached the town of Barnul, Siberia that night and Charlie eventually managed to buy a plane ticket to for the following day.It was now late Tuesday night and we had to be at the finish by Friday to make the final party. A party is important, right? This meant driving over 2000 miles across Siberia on some pretty awful roads. A non-stop driving commitment would be needed as well as a competent car. Luckily, apart from breaking all four springs the Micra had behaved perfectly up to now. Why, oh why had we chosen a Fiat? Ling’s thought was it would be a challenge as “Fiats often break down!”. Right.Over the next 3 days we tore across Siberia, only ever stopping when we got lost or had another bad dose of diarrhoea or needed Red Bull. We were driving and sleeping in relay teams. By now we had grown sick and tired of Russia: the borders were a nightmare, the police were corrupt, the food was awful and none of the roads had signposts. Worst of all was that no Russian city had a ring road, this meant every time we came to a city we got horribly, horribly lost.Eventually we reached the Mongolian border by 8am on Friday morning. We had driven just about constantly since Tuesday night to make it and were smelly, tired, starving and lacking any sense of humour. The last thing we looked forward to was another nightmare border crossing. Entering Mongolia turned out to be just as bad as anywhere else, despite the fine assurances from the Mongolian Embassy in the UK. A whole lot of paperwork later we entered Mongolia at 2pm. Driving on the only paved road in Mongolia towards the finish at Ulan Bator we kept up a good pace. The land was barren, dotted with a few nomadic Ger settlements and despite the sun shining brightly it was surprisingly cold. I drove the car up to the sign welcoming us into Ulan Bator. Barry (the Micra’s owner) drove the rest of the way to the finish. We rolled into Dave’s Bar, the official finish in Ulan Bator, too tired to celebrate for the first thirty seconds. Until the complimentary beer gave us our ninety-eighth wind and the party began, again.The rally lasted exactly 28 days; we covered over 8500 miles in two cars, lost over a stone and a half in weight between the two of us and were dirtier than we had ever been in our life. We raised £5,000 for charity (Send a Cow). Ling had said “If you can’t take a joke, don’t take a Fiat”, but she had made it all possible. A final phone call to Gateshead broke the camel’s back. “Good! You finish, but where is car? Do you need more noodles? Send me story!”Here it is.Copyright LINGsCARS.com 2006
Archive of American Television Interview with Mili Lerner Bonsignori Part 4 of 7 Archive of American Television Interview with Mili Lerner Bonsignori Part 4 of 7Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation27 min 47 sec - Dec 11, 1998News editor Mili Lerner Bonsignori discusses her work on "See It Now" and working with Edward R. Murrow.This is part of a multi-tape interview. To see if other segments of the interview are available, search for "Archive of American Television Interview with (interviewee name)" in the search box, and click the search button.
Computers versus Common Sense Computers versus Common SenseGoogle engEDU1 hr 15 min 17 sec - May 30, 2006Google TechTalksMay 30, 2006Douglas LenatDr. Douglas Lenat is the President and CEO of Cycorp. Since 1984, he and his team have been constructing, experimenting with, and applying a broad real world knowledge base and reasoning engine, collectively "Cyc". Dr. Lenat was a professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University and at Stanford University. His interest and experience in national security has led him to regularly consult for several U.S. agencies and the White House.ABSTRACTIt’s way past 2001 now, where the heck is HAL? For several decades now we’ve had high hopes for computers amplifying our mental abilities not just giving us access to relevant stored information, but answering our complex, contextual questions. Even applications like human-level unrestricted speech understanding continue to dangle close but just out of reach. What’s been holding AI up? The short answer is that while computers make fine idiot savants, they lack common sense: the millions of pieces of general knowledge we all share, and fall back on as needed, to cope with the rough edges of the real world. I will talk about how that situation is changing, finally, and what the timetable — and the path — realistically are on achieving Artificial Intelligence.
NOVA - Hunt for the Supertwister NOVA - Hunt for the SupertwisterWGBH Educational Foundation53 min 50 sec - Mar 31, 2004Buy $7.99On May 3, 1999, one of the most powerful tornadoes ever recorded carved a path of complete destruction near Oklahoma City. To scientists, the supertwister held sobering lessons about the future for rapidly expanding cities in tornado-threatened areas. Most tornadoes form suddenly and with little warning. But now meteorologists are on the verge of a breakthrough that may solve the puzzle of how these killer storms spawn and where they are likely to strike. NOVA follows stormchasers as they probe the tornado’s deadly secrets. The program features noted researchers Joshua Wurman of the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colorado, and Howard Bluestein of the University of Oklahoma—fellow stormchasers who have perfected the art of tracking down tornadoes with instrument-laden vehicles designed to gather data from as close to the churning vortex as possible. Also included is Lou Wicker of the National Severe Storms Laboratory, who is creating computer models in collaboration with scientists at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)/University of Illinois, that provide exciting insights into the intricate sequence of steps that goes into spawning a twister. NOVA goes supertwister hunting with Wurman and Bluestein and witnesses the first twin tornadoes ever recorded on radar.
Charlie Rose - John Edwards & Jack Kemp / Gene Sperling / Gordon Parks obit. Charlie Rose - John Edwards & Jack Kemp / Gene Sperling / Gordon Parks obit.Charlie Rose Inc.56 min 40 sec - Mar 8, 2006Buy $0.99Segment 1: Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC) and former Representative Jack Kemp (R-NY) are Co-Chairs of the Council on Foreign RelationsIndependent Task Force on U.S.-Russia Relations.Segment 2: A conversation about economics with Gene Sperling, Senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations and the author of "The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy For Shared Prosperity"Segment 3: An appreciation of Gordon Parks
This might be one of the best shows you’ve never heard–or even heard of. Oddly enough, it took almost six decades for Billion Dollar Baby to get a proper full recording. This is all the more surprising since it was the show the incomparable Comden and Green wrote right after their smash debut, On the Town. Bravo to New York’s York Theatre for its 1998 concert production, on which this recording is based. Set in the 1920s, Billion Dollar Baby is a wickedly funny, startlingly cynical fable about Maribelle Jones, a ruthless, amoral social climber whose fall coincides with the crash of 1929. Comden and Green are at their most acerbic, while Morton Gould’s score is so dazzling that you wonder why he didn’t do more on Broadway. The cast is topnotch as well, with special kudos to Kristin Chenoweth, who displays razor-sharp claws under the innocent demeanor in the title role, and Debbie Gravitte as a suave, wise, club entertainer. A highly recommended CD. –Elisabeth Vincentelli
The stylish, ultracompact Panasonic PVGS50S offers advanced features, including digital still photo capability, image stabilization, and the ability to create MPEG-4 video clips. The PVGS50S offers a 680K CCD, 10x optical zoom, 700x digital zoom, and 2.5-inch color LCD.
My Baby: A Personal Record is designed to provide parents with an invaluable, permanent, and easily accessible record of their childs health and growth. With its large format and beautiful design, parents can record everything about their child from infancy to childhood, using well-thought-out categories such as: Pre-delivery essentials to have on hand Baby shower gift list Keepsake letters from parents to baby List of babys firsts Babys menus for the introduction of solid foods Medical records and doctor appointments Illness checklist Child safety report Babysitter instructions Nanny interview questions Day-care questionnaire Clothing size chart Items borrowed, items loaned Record of birthday parties and a calendar of friends birthdays.
Send your sweetest wishes on any gift occasion with this generous - yet affordable - gift basket filled with luscious Lindt chocolate truffles, fine Swiss chocolates, Sweet Cherub caramel cookies, gourmet cocoa mix, strawberry bon bon candies, brie cheese spread, stone wheat crackers and MORE! It’s the perfect gift for someone sweet in your life and makes a wonderful thank you gift for important business associates and clients. Each gift basket is carefully hand packed with attention to detail, adorned with ivy, tied with ribbons and includes a personalized gift card message from you to convey your best wishes. We offer standard ground shipping (4-6 business day) and expedited shipping (2-3 business day) gift delivery services.
Atists:?? Nancy Ford,??Gretchen Cryer,??Ellen Foley 
A great way to record the fun and games at the baby shower. Includes space for photos, guest list, gift record, predictions, and advice from family and friends.
Author:??Metropolitan Museum of Art 
Extra Small & Tender. This small white is one of the smallest amd most tender kernels. It resembles an old variety called the Japanese hulless. It comes from separating the smaller kernels from our medium white. Great tasting and tender!
Baby Product:??Keepsake pillow with lines to record birth information,??Fun images of Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and Tigger,??Coordinate with other Classic Pooh Collection items (sold separately),??Machine wash
When one thinks of musicals from Hollywood’s golden age, the initials MGM come almost instantly to mind. Indeed when veteran song-and-dance man George M. Cohan was negotiating a film based on his colorful life story, his first choice was Metro–until a falling out with studio chief Louis B. Mayer. But L.B.’s loss eventually became Warner Brothers’–and film history’s–gain when the Burbank studio’s Cohan musical became a massive, patriotic hit in the opening months of World War II. As chronicled in this vibrantly restored, first-ever complete soundtrack for the film, it was a compelling twist of fate. James Cagney turns in one of the screen’s most ostensibly unlikely–and ultimately indelible–musical performances (netting him his only Best Actor Oscar??), teaming with studio music director Roy Heindorf to update Cohan’s once-quaint turn-of the-century patriotic ditties (”You’re a Grand Old Flag,” “Over There,” “Yankee Doodle Boy”) and infectious vaudevillian chestnuts (”Give My Regards to Broadway,” “Harrigan”) with bracing dollops of the studio’s ’40s orchestral sass–and, just months after Pearl Harbor, some crucial historical parallels. Also included are four bonus tracks that remarkably survived the film’s preproduction, including an outtake of “You Remind Me of My Mother” and voice-and-piano-only rehearsal versions of “Give My Regards to Broadway” and “You’re a Grand Old Flag” that further underscore Cagney’s deceptively effortless ability to sell a song despite his limited musical gifts. It’s a long overdue showcase for a true American film musical gem. –Jerry McCulley
SANYO has a rich history in creating and delivering technology-based products to every corner of the globe. SANYO manufactures a broad range of electronic products. SANYO’s broad product base is continually evolving in support of newer technologies and changing market trends.
An ideal choice for those with extremely sensitive skin conditions like atopic dermatitis or eczema who still want to use fun and esthetically pleasing skin care products. Great for use on both hair and body. Contains NO Fragrance, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate or DEA or animal products. Not tested on animals. HYPOALLERGENIC, NO TEARS FORMULATION
Audio CD:??Soundtrack
The music on this the divas’ first recording features the women in music that they were critically acclaimed for in musical stage performances. The songs featured are from well known and also obscure musicals.
The highlights of the first year, from the baby’s point of view, with space for all the important data and lots of photos. A wonderful lifetime keepsake.
Kit includes 100% cotton aida cloth, cotton floss, color chart, instructions and needle. 11”x14”
Wireless Phone Accessory:??Premium leather,??Cover features openings for camera screen, speaker and charging port,??Cover design blends into the shape of the phone,??Removable swivel on back
