REPUBLICAN China aims to expand sovereignty over its border areas…. From The Australian. Full story

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Thanks to all the Marvelous Girls who’ve helped this blog reach 200,000 hits in less than a year!  Couldn’t have done it without you.

XOXO,
Marvelous Girl

Photo by VC Ferry

when trust
gets

twisted

in a knot sometimes
and devours
right

from wrong

like a cannibal
at a table

for two

it’s time to
pull back
and take

a second look
at the person
who

answers
to your name

sleeps in your

pajamas
and wears
the same size shoe

ask them
when are you

willing
to give them

you

don’t keep them
guessing
let the curtain
rise

the time is

now

to
shine

L. K. Thayer

All Rights Reserved

© 2009

les impressions de Gil Durand

mardi 24 novembre 2009

 

AFP

Réservé dans un premier temps à un public restreint, Google Wave devient, grâce à la multiplication des invitations, de plus en plus accessible. Nous l’avons testé. Après plusieurs semaines d’utilisation, voici nos impressions. Que propose concrètement Google Wave ? Peut-il séduire le grand public ? Décryptage.

Google Wave, c’est quoi ? Avec Google Wave, Google ambitionne de proposer un service de communication et de collaboration qui, selon le géant américain, devrait combiner l’usage du mail, du chat, des réseaux sociaux, des forums et du travail collaboratif. Rien que ça. Imaginé par les créateurs de Google Maps, le projet ressemblerait selon eux à l’email s’il était inventé aujourd’hui. Ca reste relativement… vague, comme définition.

En résumé, Google Wave n’est rien d’autre qu’un espace de communication inséré dans une interface sobre à la sauce Google et doté de fonctionnalités avancées. Tout un programme.

Google Wave, c’est pour qui ? Dans un premier temps (en mai 2009), Google Wave était réservé à un cercle restreint, principalement composé de développeurs – le projet est open-source. Depuis le 30 septembre, environ 100 000 internautes ont eu accès à la version « preview » de l’interface. Mais ces derniers ayant par la même occasion reçu 8 invitations supplémentaires, le nombre d’utilisateurs potentiels devrait sensiblement augmenter.

A terme, l’objectif de Google est évidemment de toucher le plus large public possible, de l’internaute lambda aux grandes entreprises. Car, en partant des deux principes de base – communication et collaboration – Google Wave devient avant tout ce qu’on en fait : un chat amélioré, une interface de travail collaboratif, un espace de discussion libre,…

http://www.lesoir.be/la_vie_du_net/actunet/2009-11-24/le-souffle-google-wave-va-t-il-retomber-739889.shtml

Each day, CheckFacebook tracks data reported from Facebook to visualise reach, growth; http://j.mp/8pA2Lg (via @mooose)

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Buy Low Price From Here Now
Four mysterious letters change Miranda’s world forever.

By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it’s safe to go, like the local grocery store, and they know whom to avoid, like the crazy guy on the corner.

But things start to unravel. Sal gets punched by a new kid for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda’s mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then Miranda finds a mysterious note scrawled on a tiny slip of paper:

The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she’s too late……..
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 “Great page turner!” 2009-11-22
By Shelby Skye (the Pacific Northwest, United States)
This story kept me wondering and guessing right up to the end. I liked the suspense of the mysterious notes and events as well as the building excitement of Mom’s appearance on the $20,000 Pyramid. Plus, it made me want to read A Wrinkle in Time all over again!

 “Awesome!” 2009-11-20
By
I really loved this book and couldn’t put it down. It was a great read!

 “Filled With Wonder” 2009-11-03
By Stephanie (Carson, CA United States)
Wow! Reading this book has filled me with wonder! Oh, the possibilities that Rebecca Stead explores and the characters feel so real and flawed and loving and scared and vulnerable and…human.

You know when they say a good book makes you feel like you’ve found family in those pages. That’s how I feel. I’ve found family and as with any family, I found pieces of myself in every character.

While the plotting is very tight, I was pulled more by the characters and the eloquence of the writing. Rebecca Stead’s skill with words is light and heavy, playful and thoughtful, joyous and blue. Isn’t that life?

By the end, I bought every last detail coming together so nicely. That’s difficult to pull off because most of the time, such endings feel contrived…forced. Because there is such a roller coaster of emotions, the ending also feels like ecstasy. I say that because while things are tied neatly, one has to then grapple with the larger themes of this wonderful children’s novel, themes of loss, love, making mistakes, finding family, finding redemption, etc.

I could go on and on but I won’t because part of the joy in reading this book is allowing yourself to discover the mysteries of life.

I know I certainly did!

 “A Gem For Older Elementaries” 2009-10-30
By Portianay (KY, USA)
This one had me glued to the page so much I even read it during commercial breaks in the World Series–and I am an ardent Phillies fan! Naturally, anyone who loves Madeleine L’Engle will love this book. Like L’Engle’s works, though, I think we will find that this book’s appeal will be mainly for girls, though if a boy would try it, he would enjoy the whole time-travel theme. It seems like, if the protagonist is female, the readership will be, also. This is a shame, in the case of this book, because it is a fascinating story of L’Engle’s “tessering” neatly inserted into “reality.”

 “Strange and thought-provoking” 2009-10-22
By A. Knight (Somerville, MA)
This novel is strange and thought-provoking–but in a good way. It starts off quietly, and reads as an episodic kind of a story (which usually bores me to death) but as soon as the overall story begins to form, it becomes clear that everything in the previous “boring” chapters were actually clues to the greater puzzle in the story. Awesome.

Basically, the story is about a young girl who is obsessed with A Wrinkle in Time who begins finding cryptic messages in hidden places. The phrase “masterfully woven” is over-used in book reviews, but I think it actually fits really well for this story. Usually, I’m pretty good at figuring out what’s going to happen at the end of a story, but in this case I only half-way figured out the mystery before it was revealed. The half I didn’t figure out was quite the surprise. The end will leave you wanting to re-read the entire book to see if you can piece it together the second time around!

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China says 87 people are now known to have died in a coal mine blast in Heilongjiang province, with 21 still trapped…. From BBC News. Full story

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This picture is of the Gloucester River above the falls pictured in the last two posts.

There are a series of falls along this stretch of the river, including a section I have been unable to reach because of the drop. One day I hope to trace the river upstream and locate the last section of the falls and get some photos.

The area photographed includes some great little spots for a dip on a hot day.

I noticed I should be more consistent,  I would say (like most people) that sometimes that’s the biggest problem, to start something and follow through. I do honestly have a reason for just not writing, I finally got a job and I’ve been working longer hours than I thought, and my internal clock is a little out of whack but Im getting use to it, so Im getting right back in motion. Let’s Talk about what I really wanted to talk about.

Sometimes I sit here while Im thinking of writing  new song, writing lyrics to be more specific. Well a thought comes through my mind one day and it was “I feel like I should experience more or something”, it seems to me that this is where I am limited or feel limited. What can I possibly write that has not been written, what story can I share from my life that some artist hasn’t experience or wrote about. I sit around and think about it often then it hit me, while I read another lyric I wrote I realized that I’m no “have my heart in your hand bleeding” artist or write songs on heartbreak (Theres just way to many of those),  My lyrics go a little further than just plainly telling you what it is that I’m trying to project. I above all feel that Music should capture emotions and portray that, and depending how it’s done is all on the actual artist, you can do that on almost any instrument and with lyrics, but a thought came into my mind “Naturally I would add music and lyrics together, but how can I make it affective in my own way”, that thought gave me insight onto myself, which explains some lyrics I have written, Have you ever capture something visually and really digest it?, if it’s a bird or soil, or even a film?, and not only digest it but portray it as well?. This night I was specifically watching a film and it was one of those film that made you feel this overwhelming feeling of just (enter unexplainable feeling here), it was a combination of so many things, the film, the time of night, what I have experienced before I saw the film and what I was experiencing right then and there, and that feeling right there is what I want to capture, it’s quite the Epic catch. Through my lyrics  I want to explain everything all in the moment and in hope not only make a person hear but to also see and really get right down to your bare core. It’s as if you are just watching something happen, your mind jumps from one thought to another, it’s as if your feelings were thrown into a blender, blended, and then served to you, now that I think about it theres no way to even explain it *laugh*. I guess the only way to experience this is for me to portray it through my music, I will most likely not be good at doing just that right away but thats ok, I’m in this for the journey and for the hope of just one day being able to just get more in tune with everything around me and above all myself, it my own way of being my own therapist and it shows to be quite effective.

Everyone has stories no matter how you look at it, whether this person has traveled all over the world or stayed in their hometown their entire life, it’s all a story and part of the bigger picture. To have experienced anything is an experience no matter how great or small and each time anything happens try to look at it from different camera angles, you’ll be surprised at what you will find out and see. These are things that I try to hold, almost anything and everything and preserve it for this is what shapes and molds me from my original being, in one word its “growth”.

 Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced late Thursday a compromise deal with Ukraine on the thorny issue of gas supply, lessening the threat of multibillion-dollar fines that might cripple Ukraine’s economy.

Speaking after several hours of talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko, he said Russia had agreed to allow Ukraine to buy less gas next year and it would now be up to the two countries’ energy companies to put that agreement in writing.

“Gazprom and Naftogaz will agree on new volumes,” Putin said, referring to the two countries’ energy firms after talks.

“We deemed it possible to meet Ukraine halfway and tweak several of our earlier agreements,” Putin said.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (R) exchanges documents with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in Moscow in April 2009.

Earlier this year, Russia also agreed to reduce the volume of gas Kiev must acquire this year without imposing fines. That agreement however has yet to be put in writing.

Ukraine’s Naftogaz has said it is meant to buy 52 billion cubic metres of Russian gas next year but may only need 27 bcm.

It could have faced potentially crippling multibillion-dollar fines if it did not pay for all the gas it had contracted.

Russia has repeatedly warned of Ukraine’s financial problems in the past weeks.

Putin also said Moscow agreed with Kiev’s decision to boost the tariffs Russia pays for the transit of Russian gas to Europe through Ukraine by 60 percent from next year.

The two premiers took pains to allay fears in Europe where officials are concerned that a new gas dispute between the two ex-Soviet nations would lead to a new cut in energy supplies.

Both Putin and Tymoshenko stressed that their countries would fully meet their obligations.

“I sincerely hope that all the agreements that have been previously reached will be implemented,” Putin said. “It would be good to meet the New Year without any calamities.”

Tymoshenko played down the prospect of gas disruptions, saying: “We will very carefully and precisely carry out our functions of transit of Russian gas.”

“Ukraine pays and will pay on time” for Russian gas, she said at the talks.

In January, a row between the two countries resulted in Russian gas being cut to much of Europe for two weeks amid freezing temperatures.

Earlier in the day Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko warned Russian gas supplies to Europe are under threat. He said in a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that current gas contracts between Moscow and Kiev had to be revised.

“Potential risks will appear for the security of gas deliveries to Ukraine and its transit to other European countries,” he said ahead of the talks.

While relations between Russia and the pro-Western Yushchenko have reached crisis point, Putin and Tymoshenko have boasted of their cordial relationship.

The meeting in Yalta was also a chance for Putin and Tymoshenko to flaunt their strong relations ahead of presidential polls in Ukraine in January in which the Ukrainian premier is a frontrunner.

Putin’s foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said ahead of the meeting that Putin and Tymoshenko would most likely discuss the presidential vote, set for January 17, even though the issue was not on the official agenda.

In the polls, Tymoshenko will compete with Yushchenko and more pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovich, whom Russia supported during the 2004 election.

The talks were held at the Livadia Palace in the Black Sea resort of Yalta, the venue for the 1945 conference where the Big Three, Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, redrew the postwar map of Europe.

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Portugal, Slovenia and Greece win their respective play-off ties to book their places at the 2010 World Cup…. From BBC News. Full story

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När man fick reda på att Bungie ska visa Halo: Reach för första gången den 12:e december, då åkte hypemätaren upp till max. Detta är ett spel som man har längtat efter sedan man har läst The Fall of Reach som är riktigt bra bok dessutom, boken/spelet tar sin handling precis innan första spelet. Och alla vet att första Halo-spelet är det bästa, då kan man alltid hoppas på att Reach blir lika bra. Typ ta: Halo: Combat Evolveds singleplayer och Halo 3s multiplayer och slå ihop det i Reach.

Åhhhhhhh, klarar knappt av väntan…

Länk: Halo: Reach – VGA Announcement Promo

Larga semana es aquella que pasa lenta. El concepto temporal de lentitud va estrechamente relacionado con la cantidad de cosas de tu agrado que puedes llegar a realizar. Por ejemplo, los hay que disfrutan corriendo 2km al día y para ellos ese momento significa un lapso de tiempo invertido, atemporal y sin otro parangón posible. Otros se pasarían horas mirando arte o simplemente creándola, de hecho a veces el tiempo puede llegar a ser ínfimo, pues cuando tu mente se centra en una hoja de papel en blanco pueden pasar 2 cosas o que la rompas y te dediques a otros quehaceres o que empieces y una vez acabado te des cuenta que han pasado más de 4 horas.

En fin, que hay algo de lo que todos no podemos escapar y son de nuestras obligaciones y mientras yo preparo todo lo que necesito para el día de mañana, pues los fines de semana son tan escuetos que a veces parecen una utopía. Pero para ello existe el ocio, cualquier tipo de ocio y desde Under My Mind os recomendaremos que durante los momentos de tedio explotéis los 5 sentidos, y si puede ser combinándolos mejor que mejor, así que si la semana que viene no sabéis que hacer y queréis rellenar las horas estas son mis recomendaciones:

Pues la primera va de Manga y vaya título, que decir que cuando la empecé a leer no dejé el tomo de 420 páginas (Edición Kazenban) hasta terminarlo y es que la historia del Dr. Tenma va mucho más allá del bien o del mal, de lo moral o lo inmoral.

Y si con lo anterior aún no habéis tenido suficiente, con Ágora tendréis horas de reflexión, pues la película invita una vez visualizada a largas tertulias discutiendo sobre qué podríamos ser y en qué nos convertimos. Gran señor Amenábar muy grande.

Tendido en tu cama, sin ganas de hacer nada sólo de dejar las horas pasar, pues para mí es el momento perfecto para escuchar algo que me haga olvidarme de donde estoy y hacia donde quiero ir. Si no tengo más remedio iré hacia donde me lleven mis pasos pero mientras iré escuchando a éste vocalista de los Linkin Park con tendencia a tener hernias en las cuerdas vocales, eso sí, en Death by Sunrise (disco en solitario) nos muestra su cara más melancólica.

Y para terminar esta semana recomendaré este libro, que aun no ser un Bestseller está inspirado en una de las Sagas más grandes de los videojuegos…así que esta semana en mis ratos libres me lo voy a leer. Es una promesa. Pero Lao, ¿ésto no era un blog de videojuegos? Pues sí, pero no de pan sólo vive el hombre, aunque para ratos de relleno y algún que otro momento íntimo con nuestro amigo Roca, he elegido éste gran título…

Have a nice week and see you later.

Sinceresly, Laocoont.

Betancourt: How Social Media is Taking the News Local; http://j.mp/2Rbukt

New exhibition opening Friday 13th November 2009, called Writing On The Wall, at Cold Krush Gallery in Adelaide, South Australia. Each writer invited to take part has had to submit one of their handstyles. It has then been lazer cut out of wood, measuring approx. 40cm high by 100cm long. Each writer then has been asked to paint/decorate it however they like.

This time it’s different.  I didn’t mean to say goodbye.  God is a door toward which the wind takes us.  Open it.  He is a gate.  Beyond the gate another gate until you reach the last.  Finally, when you least need it, the thing you couldn’t have asked for comes.  It feels strange now to accept it.  To look the man in the face and say, God bless.  I knew it was a wound.  Still, custom makes men say terrible things.  But not so when he wants to be useful.  Then he is dangerous.  Then he might offer his life.  It might have been a gift if I were able to accept it.  Thank you.  Thank you.  And then, Goodbye.  When I was young I used to sing a song about forgiveness.  Now I want to know the other word for paradise.

2009 Changing Hearts and Saving Lives Dinner a Success!
By Steve Bowman, GRTL Director of Development

The 2009 benefit dinner on October 29 is now history. The event took place at the Cobb Galleria again, and by all counts was a big success.  Well attended, with over 430 attendees,  the mood was upbeat, and the message challenging and encouraging.  Donna Rodriguez, host of Dishing with Donna Show on WGKA radio, was our emcee.

Our newest video debuted, highlighting the various aspects of our work.  It included testimonies from Joni Eareckson Tada, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel,  Rev. Flip Benham, and Jill Stanek, recounting what we are doing and why it is so critically important to the future of the nation.  Several of our staff, including our Minority Outreach Director, Catherine Davis,  Legislative Director, Mike Griffin, donor Greg Winchester, and board member Melanie Crozier emphasized their perspectives in how the battle for life is being waged here in Georgia.

Dan Becker, President, educated on the importance of passing relevant legislation, and what the stakes are for preserving the dignity of human life. He also announced a cooperative effort to challenge Roe vs. Wade in 2010, and our newest initiative in training high school and college students in pro-life apologetics with the goal to confront their peers with the truth about human life issues.

 Cindy O’Leary, Executive Director of the Hope Center in Woodstock, GA, gave testimony about a client who had seen one of our ads and received help, resulting in saving her child’s life.

Finally, Star Parker hit a home run with her energetic address on the issues distressing our nation, decrying the destruction of human lives through abortion and other technologies. She detailed the moral decline in our society, particular in the black communities,  which are plagued by the abortion industry.

If you missed the event, and would like to hear more about what we emphasized that night, please contact me at stevebowman@grtl.org.

Writing your will?  Consider including Georgia Right to Life in your estate planning. A gift to GRTL can save lives as an ongoing legacy. Please contact us concerning your gift of an IRA,  or an appreciated stock. Call 770.339.6880.

An adult from the Dumfries & Galloway region who was suffering from an underlying health condition has died after contracting H1N1…. From BBC News. Full story

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After having had quite the rough morning/early afternoon yesterday, it was a surprising relief to get to REACH, even though a group of us was running late. I was expecting the day to be work but it ended up being a wonderful couple of hours of insight, storytelling, and wonder.

Allison was the only one of my two mentees there yesterday. It had been two weeks since I saw my mentee Allison, since last week the kids didn’t have school, so there was no program either. She was filling me in on her life when she got her sketchbook back that she had been drawing on the cover last week. She was really stoked, and wanted to start drawing on it with permanant marker again, saying “I’m not finished!” Our guest yesterday was the RCAH’s Anita Skeen to take the kids on a Haiku Hike. The idea was that the kids would take a hike in the neighborhood, and we would make stops where the kids would make observations of where they were based off of their five senses. These observations later will be the basis for haiku’s they will write.

Prior to this, Anita talked with the kids about hiking, how the five senses of sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing are used. They were really excited, and their responses to her questions humored and impressed me. My mentee, Allison, kept talking about being able to smell garbage. We went on our hike and it was a brisk, November day. Most of the leaves were off the trees, yet some trees were still flaming with orange. The first place we stopped was in the middle of a roundabout, there were neighbors around, looking at us wondering what we were doing. There were a group of people on the porch nearby and I couldn’t really figure out if they were laughing at their own stuff, or at us.

We then continued to walk, and we went by Moores Park Elementary School, which closed last spring. Allison became incredibly nostalgic, since she had gone to this school. She told me lots of stories about when she went to school there. She told me it was a great school, but she didn’t like going to school there. She would point at the graffiti on the school, saying “Do you see that writing on the school? That was never there before!” She would tell me stories of playing in Moores Park, a park with big trees by the river and a giant power plant. It reminded me of being a kid again, and it made me realize how huge that park probably seems to her. The park ended up being our next stop. Allison went to the swing set, sat on the swing, and told me another story about how her friend was swinging and kicked her in the chin. “This was the same swing!” she said. As she swung on this swing, she says “You can still hear the squeak the swing makes when it swings!” It was fascinating. She always has a story to tell, and shes a great storyteller. She has so much enthusiasm when she tells stories. We went down by the river and looked at the ducks…

After the park, we walked back through the residential area, wandering by houses with Halloween decorations and wiltering pumpkins from Halloween, dogs and cats, a young girl waving in a window by us, by the Quality Dairy factory, by the motorcycle club, and eventually got to our last stop for observations, by the old train station. There were two cabooses, one of them had been graffited on, so the caboose looked like it had a face. Everyone was lined up on the curb, and eventually migrated to the cabooses, climbing on them. Soon after, we were heading back to REACH, ending our adventure. As we walked back, the sun was going down, creating a sky with lots of bright pinks and oranges and soft colors of blue, gray, and purple. It was really cool, everytime we looked over, the color would change dramatically in a matter of minutes.

As we got back, the kids seemed to be tired out. I was surprised how well they did, and so far have been pleasantly surprised by how well everything turns out with what we do. I would say this was successful. The kids got really into it, and it was beneficial for myself in a way that I didn’t really expect. My experience yesterday really gave me a new appreciation for a part of Lansing that I was hardly familiar with before.

Here are some photos of Allison and some places we hiked to. Enjoy!

Until next time,

Fiona