HEROES IN THE REAL WORLDTM MADAGASCAR

MADAGASCAR - The fourth largest island in the world, it’s uniqueness lies in the diversity of its people, the landscape and the unusual biodiversity, including unique animal species and natural resources.

We went to Madagascar in the fall of 2009 to produce a documentary about humanitarian efforts to educate the children in rural areas.  Our subject for this video has been Dr. Peter Balasky, a prominent veterinarian from Davie, Florida in the United States.

Aside from running his hospital (Balasky Animal Hospital), Dr. Balasky has spent the last ten or so years building schools and hiring local teachers to provide educational opportunities in remote villages and areas of Madagascar.   The schools are free to whoever attends.  Dr. Balasky, through his non-profit organization “Friends of Madagascar”, has built or reconditioned fifteen schools throughout Madagascar, his favorite being the Green School in Miandrizato, near Sandrandahy in the central highlands.  Dr. Balasky is also involved in Conservation efforts and personal health issues in Madagascar. bad credit loans

We flew into the capital city - Antananarivo, in the center of the island. unsecured loans  The pictures you see at the top of this page are from that city.  It’s not too hard to fall in love with this place and its people, especially the children.

America Texas Burger Japan McDs

It's common for U.S. companies doing business in Japan to make use of their American-ness as a bad credit loansmarketing tool, and businesses like Jack Daniels, KFC, L.L. Bean and Coleman are very good at accessing the iconic imagery of America to make their products appealing to Japanese consumers. So is McDonald's, which has brought back its Big America Texas Burger, an actual product despite sounding like a parody you might read in The Onion. I did my duty as a Japan blogger and had one for lunch the other day, and it was quite good as far as semi-synthetic pseudo-food goes, basically a Quarter Pounder on a custom unsecured loans bun with chilli, onions and bacon. The TV commercial is as cheesy as the burger concept (if you'll excuse the pun), with rugged cowboy-types eating the burger with the Footloose theme playing in the background. After the Texas Burger promotion ends, McDonald's will sell the Manhattan Burger, the Miami Burger and the Idaho Burger, the last of which will presumably involve potatoes in some way.

Did someone say Miku-donald's?

Final Fantasy 14

As many of us already know, Final Fantasy 14 had a bit of a disastrous launch. The pay to play MMORPG from Square Enix, which released in late September 2010, received largely negative reviews across the board, with an average aggregate score of 48.64% on GameRankings (as of this writing). I personally had a chance to play FF14 in its beta testing phase and aside from a terrible interface, I was largely impressed with what the game had to offer. The purpose of this piece is not to bash on Final Fantasy 14, as I personally think the game has a lot of potential, but to explore the possibility of the game relaunching as a free to play title. I personally think it’s  not only possible, but likely in the future. Why do I think Final Fantasy 14 will be free to play? Read on.

Final Fantasy 14 – Gorgeous Graphics

#1 Free to play would Revive the Playerbase
Although Square Enix hasn’t officially released any subscription numbers for the game, it’s easy to estimate the game’s popularity by simply looking at the total number of players online at any given time. Looking at these figures, it’s easy to notice that fewer players have been logging into the game since release. On October 4, 2010 Final Fantasy 14 had about 43,000 players online at once across all of its servers. On October 25 it only had 36,345 players online. For a game that just launched, these numbers are incredibly disappointing. One easy way for Square Enix to turn these numbers around would be to drop the monthly subscription fee and embrace free to play. Players who bought the game could be compensated with premium credit in the game’s new cash shop. Going free to play would act as a much needed phoenix down for the declining playerbase.

Final Fantasy 14 Players Online in October

#2 Free to play would Increase Revenue
Pay to play games dropping their subscription fees isn’t exactly a new concept. Dungeons and Dragons Online originally released back in Feb 2006 as a pay to play MMORPG, but relaunched as a free to play game three years later. Since going free to play Dungeons and Dragons enjoyed a huge surge in playerbase and their revenues increased over 500%. Since The Lord of the Rings Online dropped their subscription fee, their total concurrent players increase 300% with total active players surging over 400%. Revenues for the game also doubled since going free to play. These are just two exmaples of pay to play games going free to play; there are many more. By dropping its subscription fee, Final Fantasy 14 would not only increase revenues, but also reach a much larger audience the same way The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online did.

The Lord of the Rings Online Enjoyed a 300% Increase in Playerbase Once Going F2P

#3 Players are Upset with the Current State of the Game
As is, many Final Fantasy 14 players are upset with the current state of the game. This doesn’t mean the game can’t change later, but those extremely frustrated with the game today will likely quit, and getting those interesting in the game to give it a second try later in the future could prove to be difficult. Final Fantasy 14 has a lot to offer, but many players don’t want to pay monthly given the current state of the game. Realizing that players are upset, Square Enix extended the free month of playtime that came with the game from 30 days to 60 days, meaning Square Enix hasn’t even collected a dime of subscription revenues as of Nov 10. What’s going to happen when players are asked to fork over $14.99 a month to continue playing? Going free to play would give players an incentive to stick around while Square Enix adds new content and irons out all of the bugs.

Final Fantasy 14 Has Beautiful Graphics but limited content and numerous bugs

#4 Japanese Developers Aren’t New to Free to Play
Even though most free to play MMORPGs today are either from China or South Korea, Japanese game developers aren’t new to the concept. Uncharted Waters Online is a successful Japanese developed free to play MMORPG available on both the PC and PS3. The game has proven to be a success in Japan and launched in English on the Netmarble portal in late 2010. The game is available in the West only on the PC, the PS3 version is Japan only. Techmo Koei, the Japanese developer behind the Dynasty Warriors franchise recently launched Dynasty Warriors Online as a free to play game world-wide through Aeria Games. The game has been available in Japan since the middle of 2006. If Final Fantasy 14 did go free to play, it most certainly would not be the first Japanese developed free to play MMORPG. unsecured loans

Dynasty Warriors Online – A Free to Play Japanese Developed MMORPG

#5 Free to Play is the Future
Let’s face it – free to play is the future of MMOGs. New free to play MMOs and MMORPGs are launching each and every month, with many of them being extremely high quality games. On top of this, more and more pay to play MMORPGs are dropping their subscription fees. Sony Online Entertainment already released a free to play version of EverQuest 2 while Pirates of the Burning Sea and Champions Online announced that they would be going free to play in early 2011. North America has always been the biggest market for subscription based games, but with so many of these games in dropping their subscription fees, it will be difficult for Final Fantasy 14 to justify its fee. bad credit loans

Pirates of the Burning Sea is Dropping its Subscription Fee

Final Fantasy 14 is an interesting game with a lot to offer. As a big fan of Final Fantasy franchise, FF14 is a game I would personally try getting into if it went go free to play. What are you thoughts on Final Fantasy 14? Would you consider playing it if were to goes free to play? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

African cats

Our oceans are larger than our landmasses, and countless—many undiscovered—creatures dwell within their titanic depths. But rather than convey the mysteries of the ocean deep by focusing on the lifecycle of a few sea critters, Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, makers of the breathtaking Oceans, thought bigger, absorbing only as much of the sea's wonders that time, money, and technology allowed, presenting our majestic oceans to us as an eye-catching collage of beauty and dread, environs as mysterious and worthy of our protection as the air that fills our lungs.

Disneynature's new film, African Cats, isn't quite so philosophically minded. More like a Disneyland attraction, it grossly anthropomorphizes the circle of life that connects the lions and cheetahs that live in Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve. The doc's visual approach, as fetching as it is dodgy, isn't the problem per se: Directors Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey's near-obsessive fixation on documenting the instinctual imperatives of their subjects is studied, hypnotic even, though you're always aware of who the G-rated film is directed at (a slow-mo shot of a hungry lioness chasing after a wildebeest culminates with the lioness sinking her teeth into her prey, but from the blocking they may as well be necking). What really boggles the mind is Samuel L. Jackson's ghetto narration, which, as curiously and tastelessly written, would have us believe that the lives of African cats are not unlike the lives of…people living in the ghetto? unsecured loans


Meet Fang, leader of the river pride, who clearly didn't get his bad-ass name until after a fight—probably with some pimp—left him with a broken tooth. Everything's aight in this particularly scenic hood when the zebras and wildebeests are chillin' on their terrain, but when the seasons take them elsewhere, a turf war ensues between Fang's gang and northsider Kali's posse. Caught in the middle of the lion drama is the courageous Sita, a foxy cheetah explicitly referred to as a "single mother," but what happened to her baby daddy is left completely to our imaginations. In the end, all that's missing from this vision of Africa-as-Compton is the bling.

African Cats is rich in on-the-plain minutia, but the plain doesn't always feel like a plain, as the film's anthropomorphization of its cast of critters is rife with allusions to African American social reality. There's a whole lot of a territory-pissing, some wife-swapping, even a hyena-initiated drive-by that claims the life of a bunch of Sita's cubs. You watch this animal-kingdom melodrama wishing it was completely divorced from the alliteration-rich, pun-friendly narration ("Fang the protector demands the lion's share" is a notable howler), which an overzealous Jackson eagerly delivers with the cool, smug menace of Kaa from The Jungle Book. With it, a passable Discovery Channel special is not only infantilized but given bad credit loans the feel of a Spike Lee joint.

Skyfall imax

The newest James Bond movie "Skyfall" is currently being shot for its release in U.S. theaters November 9. The movie, which will be put out by Columbia Pictures and MGM, is likely to benefit the two movie studios as well as movie theaters around the world. Sony owns Columbia Pictures, but it represents a small portion of its overall business so it should have a minimal impact. Two other big winners from the movie and James Bond franchise are profiled below.

Amazon 
Author Ian Fleming created the James Bond character back in 1953. Fleming wrote 12 books featuring James Bond and two short stories before his death in 1964. Since Fleming's death, several other writers have written books about the James Bond character.
Amazon's Thomas & Mercer unit will publish all the James Bond books in the United States starting in the summer. The deal also gave Amazon the e-book rights to produce the books for Amazon's bestselling Kindle. The Amazon deal is for 14 James Bond titles. The new "Skyfall" movie is not based on a book but will help spur demand for the previous titles, which had been hard to find in the American book markets. The 10-year deal in the United States will be exclusive to Amazon. bad credit loans
It is unknown how much cash Amazon had to pay to the Fleming family estate to get the rights to the books. The deal is a good way for Amazon to maintain its dominance in the e-books market. Scholasticfound out all too quickly how important the digital rights for a book series could be. Harry Potter J.K. Rowling maintained the rights to the series for electronic distribution. The move paid off for her as the books took in $1.5 million in their first three days on the market.
Amazon shares are trading at $189.98 as of Friday's market close. Shares will be traded heavily this week as the leading online retailer reports first-quarter earnings Thursday April 22. As I mentioned before Amazon is getting involved in sales of every item thinkable to consumers. Shares are trading well off of their 52-week high price of $246.71. In order to invest in Amazon, you would have to put aside the triple-digit price to earnings and focus on the company being number one in many areas of retail. Shares are expensive at this level in my opinion.
Recommendation: Hold

Imax
Imax recently announced that "Skyfall" will be hitting its screens around the world. The movie marks the first in the James Bond series to be featured on Imax screens. The movie will be released in the United States on November 9, on Imax screens and internationally in October with the international release date.
There are rumors that "Skyfall" could come to Imax theaters the same date as their international counterparts. This would give the latest James Bond movie a head start of exclusive time in Imax theaters, which could benefit the company greatly. This was a move the company tried with a successful early launch of "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol."

Imax continues to add movies to its already heavy 2012 lineup. Recent additions were "The Avengers," "The Hunger Games," "Battleship," "Frankenweenie," and now "Skyfall." The success of "The Hunger Games" and "Titanic 3D" should be shown in Imax's next earnings report. "Gravity," starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, will be shown on Imax screens starting November 21st. "The Hunger Games" returned to Imax screens for an additional week, which shows off the company's tremendous ability to capture additional revenue whenever it can.

Shares trade at $23.12 and are well off of their 52-week high of $38.00. Imax shares are one of my top 10 picks for 2012. The stock was up 33.33% in the first three months of the year, but as a shareholder I believe there is lots of upside left. The upside comes from a growing international base of theaters and the company's amazing 2012 lineup. Look for shares to hit $40 by the end of the year.
Recommendation: Buy

The Movie
The new "Skyfall" movie comes out on November 9, and will go up against "Anna Karenin," starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law. The last James Bond movie "Quantum of Solace" opened against limited releases and foreign movies. "Anna Karenina" is an adaptation off a Leo Tolstoy novel by the same name and will likely make $10 million or less its opening weekend. Holdovers from the week before include "Red Dawn," "The Guilt Trip," and "Wreck-it Ralph." The key thing to remember is "Breaking Dawn Part 2" opens the following weekend so "Skyfall" will likely only lead the box office for one weekend and will need to capitalize the theater counts it has for its premiere.

James Bond celebrates 50 years in 2012 and is rumored to be making a scheduled appearance at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, England. Daniel Craig was personally invited by the Queen to help open the Olympics. Craig will be in character and take on a new mission to open the games. The short video and liver performance will be directed by Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire"). Whether the opening ceremonies feature James Bond will be seen, as some are reporting this as a cruel April Fool's joke to fans of the series. unsecured loans

The James Bond movies have improved both theater counts and box office revenue throughout the 2000s. The last release "Quantum of Solace" was shown on 3,501 theater screens (compared with "Casino Royale's" 3,443). The movie took in $67.5 million during its opening weekend before clearing a domestic total of $168.4 million.

Look for the movie to be shown on 4,000 screens and hit the $70 million mark during its opening weekend for the first time in James Bond history.

'Zerg Rush' Easter Egg

If you love surprises from Google in the form of Easter Eggs, then here is something new for you to play with. Google's new Easter Egg has now come to the notice, which is quite interactive. It's more of a game that lets you hit and collect scores.

No matter what you are doing, you are suggested to go to the Google home page and search for the keywords "Zerg Rush". The search results will appear, but those links/results won't be clickable. Immediately after the search results appear, a chunk of little Os from the Google logo will start dropping from the top of the screen.

Now here the real fun starts! Use your mouse to click and destroy the Os - or zerglings - before they wipe out your search results, and form two large Gs on the page.

As the game ends, users are allowed to share their scores via Google+, thereby letting their followers know that how many zerglings they managed to target.

This Easter Egg is said to be a reference to a strategy used in the real-time strategy game StarCraft, which was developed by Blizzard Entertainment.

Google's new Easter Egg is so interesting that it went viral this morning in a short time frame, and also started trending on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

This gag is the latest in a long line of Google Easter Eggs. It is not the first time that Google has come up with such an awe-inspiring Easter Egg. In the past also, Google easily managed to grab the eyeballs of users with its top-drawer Easter Eggs. unsecured loans

Google's "Let it snow" Easter Egg, which was released in December, was another pleasant surprise. On typing the words "Let it snow" in the search box, snowflakes started falling in the browser from the top of your screen, and slowly covered Google's search results.

Besides, there is another Easter Egg - "do a barrel roll" - that was observed last year, and is still one of popular Easter Eggs from Google. It completely rotates Google's search results.

In June last year the search engine giant marked bad credit loans the the Gay and Lesbian Pride Month with an Easter Egg on its search results page. For search results for terms such as "gay", "lesbian", "transgender" and "lgbt", Google displayed a rainbow, signifying the rainbow flag of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) movement at the end of the search bar.

Cutty Sark launch

The Queen will relaunch the world famous Cutty Sark later, five years after a major fire nearly destroyed the vessel.

The icon of British maritime history will open to the public after the £50m restoration of the world's last surviving tea clipper.
"It's been blood sweat and tears," said Richard Doughty who, as director of the Cutty Sark Trust, has been involved in every step of the huge project.
"It really has been a rollercoaster. But the great survivor Cutty Sark survived that fire," he said.
"I remember the fire chief calling me that day and saying the ship was alight from stem to stern. Not only have we been able to bring her back but we have saved so much of the original timber, the original features."
Luckily, at the time of the fire in 2007, unsecured loans the restoration work was already under way which meant around 50% of the ship had been removed.

"The damage could have been a lot worse," Mr Doughty told Sky News. He reflects now on how the blaze turned out to be a blessing in disguise - triggering an outpouring of donations.
Every inch of what was left of the 143-year-old vessel has been painstakingly put back together in Greenwich, London. At every turn her history is reflected.
Launched in 1869 from Dumbarton in Scotland, the Cutty Sark visited most ports around the world, transporting everything from fine teas to gunpowder, whisky to buffalo horns.
She made her name as the fastest ship of her era during her time in the wool trade.
In an amazing feat of engineering the Cutty Sark has been raised 11ft in the air.
Visitors can walk underneath the vessel and view the lines of her hull and the innovative design which enabled her to reach the record speed of 20mph from Sydney to London.
The restoration is a source of fierce local pride according to Bill Edgerley, a volunteer with the Cutty Sark Trust.
"She represents something special. This is a memorial to the merchant seamen. To lose the ship would have been to diminish that memory," he said.
And he added that local people are hugely passionate about the ship: "Everyone is so excited. They really feel it is part of their history."
Today, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, who campaigned to get the Cutty Sark brought to Greenwich back in the 1950s, will relaunch the vessel. bad credit loans
The event will open a new chapter in the extraordinary life of this ship.

Skylanders Giants

Activision has announced Skylanders Giants, the next game in the Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure series. Activision and developer Toys for Bob will release brand new figures for gamers to collect, and they're, well, giant.

"Skylanders Giants builds upon the breakthrough fundamentals of the first game-merging the physical and virtual realms with an innovative line of cross-platform toy figures that have "brains," which players everywhere can magically bring to life in the world of Skylands," said Activision.

Eight new giant characters will be released and they'll all be more than twice the size of normal Skylanders figures, both out of the box and in the game. They'll also have lights built in and they'll illuminate when they're placed near the Portal of Power. The good news is that you won't have to buy a new Portal of Power for them to work, and all of the characters from Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure will work in Skylanders Giants.

For more info about Skylanders Giants, check after the break.

Along with the eight new giant characters, there will also be eight new regular sized Skylanders introduced with Skylanders Giants. Giants will also feature all new arenas, more gameplay options in Battle Mode, enhanced Elemental Zones, new Hero Challenges, and more.

"Skylanders Spyro's Adventure's success in 2011 validated an exciting idea-that with the right technology, and the creative minds to support it with engaging characters and story, we could define a new model for children's play," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO bad credit loans of Activision Publishing. "Skylanders Giants marks the evolution of this core concept. We've got super-sized figures, remarkably cool new characters that light up, as if by magic, and more ways to play and explore Skylands than ever before. We're delighted to announce the title at Toy Fair 2012 and can't wait for fans to go hands-on this fall."

The game will debut at the American International Toy Fair later in February and we'll have more details about it then, like how much the new game and its figures will cost, the release date, platforms, and more.
In the meantime, what do you think unsecured loans about the new Skylanders Giants? As someone who's a fan of the original Skylanders, I'm excited for the new game. And as we all know, bigger is always better so I can't wait to play with these new giant toys.

Pottermore E-Book

The digital versions of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books are among the most pirated in the world. So now that Pottermore’s e-bookstore has made them legally available for purchase, how are they selling? Quite well, according to Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne.

During an interview with Radio Litopia’s “The Naked Book” Wednesday afternoon, Redmayne said Pottermore sold more than $1.5 million worth of Harry Potter books in the store’s first three days online.
Which sounds pretty good considering how long the books have bad credit loans been available in stores and via torrent. Indeed, PaidContent, which has done the math (and was first to note Redmayne’s bad credit loans remarks), figures that at an average selling price of $9.13, some 164,000 Potter books were sold over those three days.

Which was far more than Redmayne or anyone at Pottermore had expected. “We had budgeted for a much lower figure,” Redmayne said. “I had looked at the physical sales of the books, and tried to anticipate what digital sales might be like, figuring that there was a certain amount of pent-up demand. But it surpassed anything we anticipated.”

And even now, a week after Pottermore’s unsecured loans debut, sales continue to astound. “They’re still running at a much higher rate than I was anticipating,” Redmayne explained. “They’re still surpassing anything I’ve ever seen for e-book sales. … Everything that Harry Potter does surpasses expectations.”

keratin

The good news is Keratin is found in a range of hair shampoos, conditioners, treatments for damaged and colored hair; but you’ll have to do some careful ‘label checking’ next time you’re shopping.

The purest type of keratin is the one we discussed in the last blog post – bad credit loans grown right  in the country of the Lord of the Rings’ ‘Middle Earth’ – yep little old New Zealand from their most common woolly mammals – sheep!

So wherever you shop, whether in the supermarket, drug store or at the hairdresser – what you want to look for is products that contain (the purest stuff) Replicine Functional Keratin technology.  This sometimes appears on the label as Keratin or oxidized keratin.

Some products sound like they contain Keratin (they use keratin in their product name to falsely mislead you, the consumer) but they don’t actually list keratin in their ingredients, or may only have hydrolyzed keratin, which is so far from being real keratin that it doesn’t do much.

So why is it used? And what are the benefits?

Replicine Functional Keratin technology contains a purified form of keratin intermediate filament protein manufactured purely, as mentioned before, from New Zealand sheep wool. The intermediate filament protein is the protein that gives natural hair fibers their strength.
This protein is really clever in how it works:

1. It coats the outside of the hair shaft in a shield which protects from nasty pollutants.
2. It penetrates the hair fibers and starts working to heal hair from the inside out.

The combined action makes it so effective – unsecured loans it’s basically a liquid form of hair!
As well as healing your hair from the inside out, it takes on the damage itself so your hair doesn’t! How cool is that?!
The nasty environmental pollutants that damage hair include cigarette smoke, UV radiation, and sulfur dioxide gas (from car and truck exhaust fumes).

French Bulldog Breeding Profile

French Bulldog fact file

KC Group: Utility
Size: Small
Good with children?: Seek breeder advice
Exercise requirement: Moderate
Good guard dogs?: Would bark
Moulting level: Low
Grooming: Little
Jogging partner: No

A companion breed that loves being bad credit loans part of the family and thrives on human attention. French Bulldogs were bred to remove some of the fighting nature of the classic Bulldog and develop a keener, more compassionate temperament.

French Bulldog Character

Much is made of the Frenchies' clown like attitude and whilst they are a fantastically fun breed they're also intelligent and sensitive to the needs of their family, thriving on the companionship and a love of being included in everything. They will play with children and other pets happily if properly socialized although there are sometimes issues of dominance arising in males.

French Bulldog Size

The Breed Standard for the French Bulldog does not specify an ideal height but does give a weight of 12.5kg for dogs and 11kg for bitches.

French Bulldog Health

Breeds with compressed faces tend to suffer unsecured loans from a higher unsecured loans incidence of breathing issues. They are also prone to suffer from spinal conditions

French Bulldog Special Care

Due to their short muzzles French Bulldogs have difficulty in keeping cool and regulating their temperature so care should be taken whilst exercising them in hot conditions. Their eyes, ears and any folds of skin should also be cleaned regularly to help prevent infection.

John Keats

St. Augustine, the founder of Western Christian civilization, wrote, of poetry:

The purpose of it is to lead young people of ability, and perhaps older people too, gradually, with Reason for our guide, from the things of sense, to God, in order that they may cling to Him who rules all and governs our intelligence, with no mediating Nature between. ... It is the ascent from rhythm in sense, to the immortal rhythm which is in truth. (De musica)

		John Keats

Great poetry describes what is visible and sensible, emotional, in such a way that we think—ascend—to the invisible, the eternal—"with no mediating Nature between"—while, being mortals, we keep still the visible and sensible Nature, being transformed in our mind at the same time. This genius of poetry, Lyndon LaRouche shows and fully defines as "Metaphor," in articles appearing in Fidelio magazine.In "How Hobbes' Mathematics Misshaped Modern History," LaRouche, early in his discussion of classical poetry, says:

The form known as the classical strophic poem, provides the poet, thus, a medium whose potential is a nest of paradoxes: within the stanza, among the stanzas, and in the poem taken as a unit-whole. As in the idea of curvature of the meridian, in [the ancient Greek scientist] Eratosthenes' measurements, the solution to the paradox of what is explicitly stated, lies outside any individual sense perception, any mere symbolism. Until the Twentieth-century development of rockets and supersonic jet-aircraft, led by Hermann Oberth's team, the idea of curvature of the Earth's surface existed only in the domain of metaphor. The distinction between non-living and living processes, is measurable in its effects, but has primary existence only in the domain of metaphor. The idea of the poetic stanza, of the poem as a whole, exists only in the domain of metaphor, but in neither sense-perception nor symbolism.

The quality of Metaphor in the greatest classical poetry and tragic drama, has been under conscious attack by the deniers of universal truth, ever since Aristotle, who, in his Poetics, called Metaphor "strange or extravagant speech," and bragged that by his time, "poetry has given up all those words not used in ordinary speech, which decorated the early drama" of the great Aeschylos. After the passing of William Shakespeare and his fellow Elizabethan poets of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries, this attack upon Metaphor erupted unsecured loans viciously from the evil Thomas Hobbes, then from the arrogant British Royal Society and the fraudulent Sir Isaac Newton. The quality of Metaphor was virtually completely extingiuished—outlawed—from English poetry for more than a hundred years, until a counterattack was led by John Keats.
John Keats made a transformation in English poetry and wrote some of its most beautiful works, in a lifetime of only twenty-five years (October 1795 to January 1821). Although not a very "religious" man, Keats, in a letter of 1817, expressed the same, concerning poetry and truth, as had St. Augustine:

What the imagination seizes as Beauty, must be Truth—whether it existed before for us or not. ... I am the more zealous in this, because I have never yet been able to perceive how anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning—and yet Truth must be. ... Have you never, by being surprised with an old Melody, felt over again your very speculations and surmises at the time it first operated on your soul? Do you not remember forming to yourself the Singer's face—more beautiful than it was possible, and yet, with the elevation of the moment, you did not think so? Even then, you were mounted, on the wings of imagination, so high that the prototype must be hereafter—that delicious face you will see.

Keats was the son of a modest English tradesman, an orphan by his early teens, sent to an ordinary school by a guardian who apprenticed him to a surgeon; he never showed anyone a poem of his own composition until he was eighteen, and he was on his death-bed with tuberculosis, too ill to compose any longer, by age twenty-four. Yet, in his very few years, he composed potent poems in virtually every form, style, and construction that Irish and English (and Italian) poets had invented over the thousand years before him. He showed ways of developing poetic stanzas, like movements of a musical composition, which had not been heard in English before, especially in his five great Odes, including the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightingale." Keats was distinctly a republican, an enthusiast of America and its War of Independence, like his great contemporary Percy Bysshe Shelley—who was said to have died with a volume of Keats' poetry in his hand.
By the time Keats was twenty-one, this beautiful soul was under vicious attack by the British Establishment literary reviews, which called him "Cockney vermin" and many other like insults. Even his friends reprimanded him for his "intemperate" criticisms of Sir Isaac Newton's influence upon thought and language, for his assertions that Newton had mathematically removed the colors from the rainbow. Keats frequently made a toast: "To Newton's health, and confusion to his mathematics."
Of course, Keats had not made a study of the crucial issues of mathematics or physics; nor, judging from his library, did he know the work of G.W. Leibniz, against which Newton had directed his frauds. But Keats did know, that poetry in the English language had been destroyed since the Seventeenth century by what Keats called, in another letter the same year, "the bad credit loans mathematizing of language"; and he knew that this destruction had come from the direction of the influence of Newton and Descartes.
Keats' English poetry survived twenty-five years of British attack and obscurity, many more years of misprintings and "editings," and ranks amongst the most beautiful, truthful, and Metaphorical of all poetry in the English language. His Odes are a beautiful means of showing how Metaphor in poetry works.

Moustaches are cooooooooooooool

One of the most important ways for any young man to prove his successful passage into manhood is some form of whiskers on the upper lip. Obviously such facial hair comes easier for some than others, and the styling of said thatch can be equally problematic.

Fortunately we think we have found the answer in the shape of the Notable Moustaches collection. Six of the most important facial hair stylings are provided for maximum choice, including the Handlebar (a favourite among circus ringmasters), the Pencil (for the sly cad), the Biker (for Village People re-enactments), the Walrus (for stuffy Army colonel types), the Stud (for your inner Swedish plumber) and the Banker (nuff said).

Not only do these fantastic moustaches come in a variety of designs, but the bristles are also a range of colours to either match, or clash with, your natural hair colour. unsecured loans But then again, who is going to argue with a guy wearing a Handlebar moustache? The Notable Mustaches collection saves you all the hassle of wearing a half-grown moustache (definitely not cool), and when you've had enough of it, there's no need to go through a lengthy shaving procedure either.

The Notable Moustaches collection is perfect for so many different scenarios it's worth buying one as a "just in case" addition to your car glovebox, briefcase or school bag. Need to look a little older? Who's going to ID a guy with a moustache. Heading off to a fancy dress party? Which outfit couldn't be improved with a moustache? Or maybe you just need to go somewhere unrecognised? The Biker moustache will ensure no one looks at you twice.

Each moustache is backed with a handy adhesive tape which will keep your new bristler firmly fixed in place on your upper lip. All you need do is develop the swagger that bad credit loans wearing facial hair entitles you to. Say goodbye to being a boring nobody and hello to the world of beardy weirdy. Life will never be the same again. Well until you take the moustache off again anyway.              

In addition to jónsi’s score, we thought you might like to see the entire soundtrack listing for We Bought A Zoo. If the movie hasn’t arrived in your country yet, you might want to avoid if want to be surprised.

• “Don’t Come Around Here No More” – Tom Petty
• “Do It Clean” – Echo & The Bunnymen
• “Airline To Heaven” – Wilco
• “Don’t Be Shy” – Cat Stevens
• “Go Do” – jónsi
• “Living With The Law” – Chris Whitley
• “Last Medicine Dance” – Mike McCready
• “Buckets of Rain” – Bob Dylan
• “No Soy Del Valle” unsecured loans – Quantic Presenta Flowering Inferno
• “Sinking Friendships” – jónsi
• “Like I Told You” – Acetone
• “Ashley Collective” – Mike McCready
• “For A Few Dollars More” – The Upsetters
• “Hunger Strike” – Temple Of The Dog
• “Ævin Endar” – jónsi
• “Mariachi El Bronx” – Mariachi El Bronx
• “Haleakala Sunset” – CKsquared
• “Boy Lilikoi” – jónsi
• “Cinnamon Girl” (Live) – Neil Young
• “Holocene” – Bon Iver
• “Throwing Arrows” – Mike McCready
• “Work To Do” – The Isley Brothers
• “All Your Love (I Miss Loving)” bad credit loans – Otis Rush
• “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today” – Randy Newman
• “Hoppípolla” – Sigur Rós
• “Gathering Stories” – jónsi

lamborghini aventador

I’m pretty sure we all think the Lamborghini Aventador is one of the most awesome cars in the world right now but there’s something even better than this supercar right now. It’s also from Lamborghini, it’s also an Aventador but.. it’s a special one off convertible version of the car with no roof and no windscreen either.

Named the Lamborghini Aventador J Speedster this unique model was even described by the guys from Lambo as the most uncompromising super sports car they’ve ever made. Without the roof and the windscreen the car is able to reach speeds of more than 300 kmh (186 mph) but you probably guess you need some protective gear like the guys from Formula 1 use.

The Aventador J is the lowest model that Lamborghini has ever built with a height of just a little over 1.1 m. The front side of the car features a huge carbon fiber air scoop with winglets on the outer edges that make it look like an F1 car unsecured loans when viewed from the side. The car sites on 20″ five spoke aluminum wheels and even though it has no windscreen, the ultra thin doors have very small side windows.

Under the hood, the Lamborghini Aventador J Speedster features the same massive 6.5L V12 engine from the “normal” Aventador with 700 PS and 690 Nm of torque that could take this car to a top speed of over 300 km/h as previously mentioned.

Next, the red exterior theme is continued in the car’s interior with a red stripe that runs from the hood, between the seats all the way to the car’s rear end. The only bad part about this car is that there will be only one Aventador J Speedster bad credit loans and it was already sold for more than 2.2 million EUR. Still, this is a seriously awesome little car.

Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, is a fascinating intellectual thriller. Based on the beststelling novel of the same name by Dan Brown, the story is part action, part mystery. Robert Langdon (Hanks), a professor who is in Paris for a conference, becomes swept up in a murder, religious intrigue, and a hunt for clues in the Louvre, the famous Paris museum. As he and Sophie Neveu (Tautou) escape from the Louvre and follow more clues, they meet Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen) who tells them they're on the trail of one of the most ancient coverups ever perpetrated by the Church: the true nature of Jesus and the Holy Grail.

According to Teabing, the Grail secret is that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and still has royal descendants today. And, Teabing says, the Church has been wrong all along about who Jesus really was. Jesus' marriage shows that he unsecured loans was a mere human being after all. No one believed Jesus was divine, Teabing says, until the Roman emperor Constantine, in order to bring peace to the Empire, called the council of Nicea in A.D. 325 in order to make Jesus the divine Son of God. Religious wars and witch hunts were perpetrated by the church to suppress the role of women in church leadership. As the action progresses, Robert, Sophie and Sir Teabing find out just how far the Church will go to hide its secrets.

Has the Church covered up the truth about Jesus? Dan Brown claims that it has. In an interview on NBC's Today show in 2003, Brown claimed, "Obviously, Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies-all of that is historical fact." The secret societies, of course hid the truth about Jesus and his bloodline. But is this what really happened? Did Jesus really marry Mary Magdalene and have children? Was he a mere human being, or was he the divine Son of God? The answers to these questions are about more than mere intellectual curiosity. How we answer the question about who Jesus was can have a tremendous impact on us and change our lives forever.

It turns out that very little of The Da Vinci Code is based on history. For example:

• There isn't any evidence that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene
• Jesus wasn't made divine by a politically bad credit loans motivated Constantine
• Christianity was never merged with pagan religious practices or deities
• The medieval crusades and witch hunts were not organized persecutions of women

Instead, it turns out that the New Testament is the most reliable history we have about Jesus and early Christianity, and it does say remarkable things about Jesus' words and deeds. Not only does it claim that Jesus was a wise teacher, and respected by many, it claims he did miracles and that he believed he was divine. It also claims that he was crucified, but then rose from the dead. The New Testament goes on to claim that Jesus can give us new life. And you can have new life through Jesus today. Check out the articles below to explore these topics about who Jesus was, and how he can impact our lives now.

Ipad 3 official

In today’s March 7 press conference, Apple announced  the New iPad Release  to its many Fans, this new iPad will support Verizon and AT&T’s 4G data networks.

This isn’t a surprise–analysts speculated about 4G support for months, and in order to compete with a growing number of Android tablets, Apple needed to upgrade the new iPad’s connectivity features significantly.

However, iPad fans will appreciate the  unsecured loans significant speed boost. The original iPad and iPad 2 could access 3G networks, but LTE networks can be up to 10 times faster. iPhone 4G LTE speeds reach about 5.17 Mbps, and we expect iPad 4G LTE speeds to be about the same.

Of course, accessing 4G networks will require bad credit loans a separate data plan. Both Verizon and AT&T offer tiered pricing plans for new iPad users. AT&T offers the cheapest option, but Verizon offers the largest data plan for power users. Here’s a quick breakdown of the costs from each provider:

Verizon New iPad 4G Data Plans:

2GB – $30
5GB – $50
10GB – $80

AT&T New iPad 4G Data Plans:

250MB – $14.99
2GB – $30
5GB – $50

There is currently no information about coverage charges. Both AT&T and Verizon will offer month-to-month pricing plans, so new iPad owners will be able to keep their data charges under control and cancel their 4G connectivity when necessary. AT&T and Verizon have priced their 4G LTE plans quite reasonably, and the month-to-month options should allow iPad owners to experiment to find an appropriate data plan.

The “New iPad 4g” will also support Apple TV, although early adopters will quickly exhaust their data plans by using the feature on a 4G network. Even so, Apple TV will look fantastic on the Retina display of the new iPad, which can display a stunning 3.1 million pixels at a time.

New iPad Apple TV now supports true 1080p video, so iPad fans be able to enjoy a truly theatrical experience when watching TV and movies.

Apple has also revised the Apple TV user interface, probably to compete with Netflix and other video-on-demand providers.

The New iPad also supports Bluetooth 4.0. Overall, its connectivity features are much better than the iPad 2, although none of the new features are unexpected.

Apple fans who have waited patiently for a  New iPad 4G will appreciate the faster speeds of the LTE networks, and as 4G versions of the new iPad start at $629, it’s poised to compete with 4G Android tablets.

Keep Calm and Carry On

We happen to live in a culture that rewards having a high tolerance to stress. The more work we can juggle without going nuts the greater the reward.  There’s a phrase going around, I see it printed on bags, people’s shirts, and coffee mugs. It’ says “Keep Calm and Carry On.” This is a tricky phrase because it can be understood in many ways, one way supportive the other way a slippery slope to greater distress. Let me explain.

“Keep Calm and Carry On” can be a signal to drop down from the chaos in our minds and just keep moving forward. This can be a godsend in the face of anxiety, depression, or addiction as that is exactly what we want to do. Disconnect from the flurry of automatic negative thoughts and keep putting one foot in front of the other. We might see this as a way to break the emotional spiral that can get us in trouble.

On the flipside “Keep Calm and Carry On” may tell me to move on from or avoid the feelings that are here just to get through the situation. When we’re experiencing a difficult moment in life, the recipe for healing can be the exact opposite. We want to open up to the experience that’s here as within this difficult moment may lay some innate wisdom. In going inward we start to realize that everything is going to be okay and we can handle the situation. We need this experience to really understand that we are more powerful than we know.

For example, when someone has fear around a particular topic. Sometimes the greatest thing to do is not keep calm at all. In fact, it can be helpful in a therapeutic encounter as long as there is trust between the client and therapist to have the client really engage their fear. I may even have the client amp bad credit loans up their fear and tell them to try and really hold onto it. What they find when they try and do this over time is that the fear begins to dissipate. We didn’t move on in this scenario we stayed with the feeling and in that experience the person begins to realize they can trust themselves in the face of fear.

This is just food for thought. I think the phrase can be helpful, but also misinterpreted in a way that can make us miss the benefits and true unsecured loans chance for change when we have the experience of nonjudgmentally “being with” what is here.

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction creates a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Swiss Army Knife

I've carried a knife of some sort just about every day since I was 10 years old. I've been carrying a Swiss Army Tinker from Victorinox for about 20 years. Before that, I carried a Boy Scout model Swiss Army knife since about the 7th grade, until I lost it when my canoe capsized when I was on a camping trip in Ohio when I was in college.

This year for Christmas, I presented the Dauphin with his first pocket knife, a Swiss Army Climber model. He was very pleased.

Here are our knives, side by side, with mine on the left and the new one on the right:

Since it had been about 20 years since I looked the Swiss Army line, I was also pleased with the changes Victorinox has made. 

First, as the photo shows, mine is shinier than his, because his side panels are a matte texture, versus the old slick plastic. This makes the knife much easier to grip when wet. I tested it and I like it.

Second, there are a few more blades on the Climber versus my Tinker model. The scissors are much welcome. My wife carries a small Classic Swiss Army, and she tells me she uses the scissors at least once a week.

The Climber also has a hook and a corkscrew, but is lacking bad credit loans the Philips head screwdriver.

My impressions of the Climber are very positive, by itself, and compared to my Tinker. Opening is smooth, the blades are all solid and sharp, and the miscellaneous tools are easy to open and use.

I'm still pleased with my 20 year old Tinker, too. Although one panel is a little loose, the grip is still comfortable and usable. The blades have kept their edge, although I dress them regularly. 

In all, this new knife should serve my son well for the rest of his life, provided he doesn't put it in the pocket of an unsecured sweatshirt on any canoe trips.

A note of thanks is due here to Sheriff Jim Wilson. Some time back he and I swapped some tweets about pocket knives, and about unsecured loans how I had resisted giving my son a knife, for fear that he would accidentally take it to school, and in today's Zero Tolerance world, be expelled when it was discovered.

The worlds Smallest PC

Technology is getting more and more smarter and portable to use, Cotton Candy is one more example of such a useful device which makes technology, easy to carry and affordable to manage for everybody.

The Cotton Candy is a product of FXI Technologies, Norway, it is a USB stick sized computer device which allows users a single, secure point of access to all personal cloud services and apps through their favorite operating systems, while delivering a consistent experience on any screen.  The device will serve as a companion to smart phones, tablets, and notebook PC especially Macs, add smart capabilities to existing displays, TVs, set top boxes and other media that supports USB mass storage.

Cotton Candy is powered by a ARM® Cortex™-A9 1.2GHz Processor, 1 GB DRAM, support up to 64 GB of local storage capacity through microSD, Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity and will run on both Ubuntu and Android operating systems with a support for virtualization for Windows, Linux and Mac. 

A USB and HDMI 1.3 connector are on hand to connect the Cotton Candy to your screen, and the little PC can play HD video, show various picture file formats and if you choose Android, run all the usual apps from the Android Market. bad credit loans The Bluetooth connection lets you use a wireless keyboard and mouse too.

Cotton Candy is soon to be unsecured loans released and currently available on pre-orders with a price tag of $199 or £139. 

How to remove a Leather Stain of clothes

Follow these tips on leather stain removal and cleaning to get rid of those spots. Leather means any skin or hide that has been tanned, but after that the similarities end and the differences begin. Two main categories of leather require different cleaning techniques.

Natural leather has little surface protection and is highly susceptible to staining. It is not dyed with pigments, has no finish coat of polyurethane and is recognizable by its rustic, natural, appearance. Even water or treatments suitable bad credit loans for other kinds of leather, such as saddle soap, may mar its surface when cleaning leather stains.

Coated leather has a pigment-dyed surface treated with a polyurethane coating. Most – but not all – leather garments, upholstery, unsecured loans bags and shoes are coated leather.

A few guidelines apply to both kinds:

• If you have directions on how to remove leather stains from the manufacturer, follow them.

• Test any cleaning method on an inconspicuous area before using it generally.

• For any valuable leather article or serious cleaning problem, consult a professional, such as a dry cleaner who specializes in cleaning leather stains. Shops which sell leather goods may be able to guide you.

• Avoid harsh cleaners and even excessive water, which can leave stains and remove dye and lubricants.

• Never dry wet leather near a heat source.

To clean natural leather, rely on frequent dusting with a soft cloth. You could try removing dirt with an art gum eraser, available at stationary and art supply stores, but even that might leave a smudge. There is little more you can do without making a problem worse.

To clean coated leathers, dust regularly with a cloth, occasionally with a dampened cloth. Wash every 6 months or so with saddle soap, which is available at tack shops, sporting goods stores, some shoe stores and hardware stores. Here’s how:

1. Remove loose dirt with a stiff brush or damp cloth.

2. Rub a damp cloth on saddle soap and work up a lather.

3. Rub the soapy cloth on the leather using a circular motion. Wipe away the excess with another damp cloth. Let air-dry.

4. Buff with a clean, soft cloth.

5. Finish with a protective leather cream recommended by the manufacturer or a general-purpose one sold by leather retailers and supermarkets.

For leather stain removal on coated leathers, try these methods – but don’t forget to test first:

• Apply cornflour to greasy spots and let it absorb the grease. Wipe off with a cloth.

• Rub with a cotton wool bud dipped in isopropyl alcohol.

• Make a paste of equal parts lemon juice and cream of tartar, work it into the spot (including scuff marks) with a cloth, let it stand for an hour or so, and wipe clean.

• Been walking on the beach? Treat those ugly, white, leather stains on shoes and boots caused by salt with a 50-50 mixture of water and white vinegar. Dip a cloth into the solution and blot.

• On mildew, use a 50-50 solution of isopropyl alcohol and water on a cloth. Saddle soap also may work.

Have you reached leather stain removal success? I hope so!