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For lunch, I was craving a BLT but didn’t have any tomato or lettuce but I did have some avocado and a kiwi. I thought, “Eh, what the heck.” Why not try the kiwi in lieu of tomato. Both are fruits right?

OMG! It was really good. In addition to the Black Forest bacon, honey turkey, avocado, and kiwi, I used Brianna’s Poppyseed dressing, some spicy honey mustard, and Whole Foods Bakery sweet multi-grain bread. As you can see, I’m big into the sweet & zesty.

I particularly enjoyed the sweet of the kiwi with the salty of the bacon. To me, the two flavors complimented well. Who knew!

Pet lovers tend to flock together. The majority of our family friends are people who have pets — whether they be cats, dogs, or just a fish — so when it comes time to put together the Christmas gift budget and figure out who’s getting what, they’re generally pretty easy to buy for! Here are a few ideas I’ve run across for this year’s shopping:

Willow Tree Angel: With Affection I adore the Willow Tree collection and own several, and this sweet angel holding a cat is on my wishlist this year.

This adorable Chester the Cat Teapot (with matching mug and salt and pepper shakers) makes me wish I drank tea!

I love calendars and for reasons I’m not even sure of, I tend to have several throughout the year. This 2010 calendar features “Bad Cats” in humorous situations.

Learn about the traditions and history of the Lucky Cat, a popular symbol of prosperity and good fortune across Asia and the world, in a hardcover book. Then check out the Lucky Cat figurines.

This Amazon seller has dozens of resin ornaments and figurines, perfect for any collector. Of course, I especially like the Chihuahua and rat terrier ornaments!

Show everyone who your best friend is with this adorable Dog Lover coffee mug.

I love these dog paw car stickers! The set of eight stickers costs less than $4 (including shipping!) and attaches cleanly to any smooth, hard surface.

Of course, we can’t forget the dogs when it comes time to look for a 2010 calendar. This one, like the cat calendar above, also features silly dogs in compromising situations!

[images: amazon.com; custom]

Post from: Blisstree

2009 Gift Guide for the Cat and Dog Lover

Filed under: Recalls, Safety

A few weeks ago, we learned that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ruled that the crash of a loaner Lexus ES350 that killed San Diego police officer Mark Saylor, his wife, 13-year-old daughter and brother in law was not just the result of an improper RX400h floor mat sticking the accelerator wide open it was due to a range of factors. In addition to the car having the wrong mats, the brake “rotors were discolored and heated, had very rough surfaces, had substantial deposits of brake pad material, and showed signs of bright orange oxidation on the cooling fins consistent with endured braking.”

According to the San Diego Union Tribune, it turns out that three days before the crash, Frank Bernard had been given the loaner Lexus and experienced the floor mat sticking the throttle wide open. “[W]hile merging onto Interstate 15 from the Poway Road on-ramp, [Bernard] took his foot off the gas and the car kept accelerating, to 85 mph.” Here’s where it gets even more tragic:

“Bernard pressed long and hard on the brakes and was able to pull over and slow down. He put the car into neutral, but the engine continued to race at full speed. After several failed attempts at turning off the engine, he realized the floor mat had jammed the gas pedal. He slid his foot under the accelerator, dislodged it and had no further problems, the report says.”

As stated above, without brake-assist (which would disappear after a few moments due to loss of engine vacuum at wide-open throttle) Bernard was able to stop the car, but the brakes would have been fairly stressed. Bernard returned the car to the dealership, but only told a receptionist about the floor mat incident. For her part, the receptionist at first stated she didn’t remember Bernard or his story, but later changed her tune, stating that she told a vehicle specialist about the issue. The vehicle specialist denies ever hearing about it. And the vice president of Bob Baker Lexus El Cajon has no comment.

The question then becomes if the proper personnel had been alerted to Mr. Bernard’s incident, would the ES350 have received new brakes and the correct mats before it was lent to the Saylors? It should also be noted that the ES350 was loaned to two other customers between Bernard and the Saylors without incident. Toyota has since recalled 3.8 million vehicles to reshape and replace accelerator pedals.

[Source: San Diego Union Tribune]

REPORT: Prior driver of loaner Lexus in fatal crash told dealer of floormat issue originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HAVANT, UK… Diversified industrial manufacturer Eaton Corporation has added a new Series 760 variable displacement closed circuit piston-type pump and fixed motor to its heavy-duty product offering. Intended primarily for mobile vehicle applications, the new pumps and motors are available with displacements of 130cc/rev at 3200 rpm operating speed, and 160cc/rev at 2950 rpm operating speed. Working pressure for both displacements is 430 bar, with a high pressure relief setting of 465 bar for the pump. Both pumps and motors have a SAE D-flange mount. Key benefits of the new Series 760 pumps and motors are a high-efficiency inline axial piston design with high-speed/high-flow capabilities and high corner power. A full range of features and options are included in a durable, exceptionally quiet, package. Standard features of the new pumps include a high displacement integral charge pump and same-side porting. Bolt-on valves and rear ports are optional. The motor features a standard integral shuttle valve design with optional bolt-on valve configurations for same side or rear ports. Typical applications for Series 760 pumps include drilling and associated equipment, sewer cleaning equipment, agricultural sprayers and harvesters, tub grinders, railway maintenance equipment, material handling systems, marine thrusters, snow groomers, earthmoving and construction equipment, and directional drilling machines.
More information: [email protected] or www.eaton.com

Top Line Process Equipment sells Top-Flo TF4 Series Food Grade Automated Ball Valve With Moniteur Devicenet switchpackages and Low Power Namur Mount Type Solenoid Valve to a leading food manufacturer. Top Line Ball Valves are engineered to be the finest in the industry. Each valve is built to exacting specifications and is constructed to perform flawlessly in the most hostile environment. Top Line’s Ball Valves are utilized by firms which demand the uncompromised ability to regulate flow – from full flow open to various degrees of closure.

This post is part of the IT Innovation series, sponsored by Sun & Intel. Read more at ITInnovation.com.
Of course, the content of this post consists entirely of the thoughts and opinions of the author.

Reader JohnForDummies alerts us to yet another example of extreme “ownership culture” found in a Stack Overflow query from a guy who works in IT for a school district. The school district needed to export a list of all its students every year to send to a company that handles their online exams — and for years (before this guy was hired in IT), the district had contracted out the process to a guy who charged them $500 per year, to basically write and then run an SQL query that exported the data. Each year, all he had to do was change the date, but he still charged them $500. So the IT guy figures that he can change the date himself, but noticed that the contractor had put a nice copyright notice in the file:

// This code was writtend by [the guy]
// and is the property of [his company]…Copyright 2005,2006,2008,2009
// This code MAY NOT BE USED without the expressed written consent of
// [his company].

The Stack Overflow community basically suggested that the best course of action is to rewrite the query (even potentially asking the Stack Overflow community via a separate entry, with the details of what the query needs to do), but it does raise some basic questions about whether or not an SQL query can be covered by copyright. The answer, tragically, might be more complicated than it needs to be, but assuming that the query wasn’t anything really out of the ordinary, it’s difficult to see how a single SQL query, by itself, would be considered unique enough to be covered by copyright. However, I’m sure there will be differences of opinion here, so let’s see if any of our copyright lawyer readership would like to weigh in on this one… As for the IT folks, it would be interesting to see what people think of the idea of copyrighting a single SQL query for something like this.

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Think that bag of popcorn and soda at the movies is just a snack? Think again. A recent report released by The Center for Science in the Public Interest reveals that consuming a medium-sized popcorn and soda at the movies is similar to eating all of the calories and saturated fat found in three McDonald’s Quarter Pounders…plus 12 pats of butter. Yuck! Learn more.

Asia, Globe | Subterranean Sites

In 326 B.C. Alexander the Great, the Greek King famous for conquering an empire ranging from Asia into Africa and Europe, was making his way across Pakistan. Stopping his army for a rest in the area now known as Khewra, Alexander’s horse began licking the stones on the ground. Seeing that all the horses were doing so and taking note, a soldier himself tried one and found that the rocks were quite salty. The Khewra salt deposits had been discovered.

Today, some 2330 years later, the Khewra salt mines are the second largest in the world — behind the Sifto Canada, Inc. salt mine in Goderich Ontario — turning out 325,000 tons of salt per year, and an estimated 220 million tons over its lifetime. This is barely even a dent in the massive salt stores here which are said to be 6.687 billion tons. Officially, salt mining isn’t recorded until the 1200s under the Janjua-Raja’ tribe, but salt has probably been mined and traded here since Alexanders time.

Covering an area of 110 sq. km, 228 meters or 748 feet deep, (with 11 separate stories) the massive mine has over 40 kilometers of tunnels running some 730 meters, or nearly half a mile into the mountain under which the salt deposits are found. To keep the huge space from collapsing in on itself only fifty percent of the salt found is mined the other half serving as massive columns to hold up the mine. With such a massive area, a large workforce, and the ease of carving and building with salt bricks, some interesting sights have been built within the salt mine.

Among the earliest structure built within the mine, is the small Badshahi Mosque complete with a small salt minaret. Built more recently specifically to attract tourists are small salt versions of the Great Wall of China, the Mall road of Murree, Lahore’s Shimla hill, and the Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore. Both the mosque and the miniatures are built from salt brick, which vary in color from red to pink to white, and which are now lit with electric lights and radiate a beautiful warm glow. The varied colors and bricks of light, at times, give the mine a sort of disco-yellow-brick-road look.

Other sights, and there are many, include a 75 meter tall “assembly hall” chamber with stairs spiraling up the walls, a 25 foot long Salt Bridge called the Pul-saraat ( an illusion to the Islamic “Pul-e-Saraat” a bridge ou must cross on judgment day and described as ‘thinner than a strand of hair, and sharper than a sword’), brine ponds, and beautiful salt crystal formations such as stalactites. Much of this can be seen from the narrow gauge electric railway, in place since the 1930s, which once extracted salt from the mines, and now brings tourists into them.

The Khewra salt mine even has it’s own fully functioning postal office within it, for use by the workers. The post office is built entirely from salt bricks, and is the only post office built out of salt in the world.

While a popular tourist destination today, the salt mines were the scene of brutal oppression and forced work by the British in the 1800s. Miners were locked into the mines and not allowed to leave until they fulfilled their quotas. This included pregnant women and children, and a number of children were born within the mine, due to this policy. Strikes were met with violence from the British and in 1876 twelve minors were shot and killed at the entrance to the mines. Their graves can be seen at the middle gates of the mines.

One can taste the output of this salt mine, by going to their local grocery and looking for “Himalayan Salt” a reddish or pink rock salt. It is significantly more delicious then your average table salt, and comes with a much more interesting back story.

Today I’ve got a book review for you. This is a eco-minded, nature focused book that would make a nice gift for little ones who are too entrenched in the digital era.

BOOK: The Looking Book by P.K. Hallinan, published by Ideals Children’s Books (October 2009)

COST: Hardcover, $16.99 list price but you can find a sweeter deal at Amazon.

AGES: 4-8

ABOUT THE BOOK: From the publishers, “A delightful story that encourages children to put down the TV remotes and video-game controllers and take a look at the wonder of the world around them… author P.K. Hallinan uses lively rhyming verse to entice children to delight in the wonders of the world around them. Given a pair of ‘lookers’ by their mom, two boys soon realize that the lookers aren’t needed at all. They just need to take the time to step outside, and they will see how much fun they can have.”

Excerpt below:

WHAT I THINK:

Reviewers included my son Cedar and me. There were things to love about this book and a few cons. First the pros. The book does have lovely rhyming text (think A LOT like Dr. Seuss) that little kids will find appealing and parents will find fun to read aloud. The book has a major focus on enjoying nature vs. sitting around inside watching TV or playing video games which I like. There was also an adventure feeling to the book with the main characters hunting down all sorts of cool new nature things to see.

The children characters in the book, Mikey and Kenny, were cute and likable, although I would have liked to see a girl character as well vs. two boys. Boys, in my experience, are more likely to play outside without coaxing and studies show that girls really benefit from green spaces.

The artwork was charming and full of cool nature shots. Plus, for art in a book it was actually very mobile – i.e. active. I liked the busy aspect and the fact that all the pages had numerious nature items to look at and discover.

The age target is right on I think. Cedar is eight years old but closer to nine. He liked the book because he’s a nature fan but he would have liked this book more last year I’m guessing. I’d say this book is good for kids 8 and under.

The cons:

• The book is not printed on recycled paper – which would have been an organic thing to do with a book of this nature.
• The mama in the book stays inside instead of heading out with the kids. I’m not sure why this irked me, but it did. In my opinion nature loving parents raise nature loving kids. For me the impact would have been better had the whole family gone out outside exploring together. I think that one small change would help encouraged parents in the right direction.

OVERALL SCORE:

3.5 little trees. The book automatically loses one point for not being printed on recycled paper, and another half point because I felt a girl character and more parent interaction would have been cool. Overall though, this is a nice book about kids in nature and would be especially good for a kid who is not very interested in heading outside. This book might help encourage them in that direction.

I’d check it out at the library or if you do want to purchase The Looking Book for the holidays without guilt about the non-recycled pages visit Eco-Libris where you can offset the books you buy.

Other opinions – Sierra Club listed the Looking Book in their nature books for kids round-up and the Celebrate Green gals, who I adore actually gave The Looking Book a similar review to mine.

*See my green product review criteria.

Post from: Blisstree

Ignite Nature Love with The Looking Book

Watch a recording of the event.

A panel discussion titled “What Would a Good Conscience Clause Look Like? A Catholic University’s Perspective” was held Dec. 3 (Thursday) at 12:30 p.m. in the Patrick F. McCartan Courtroom of the University of Notre Dame’s Eck Hall of Law.

The discussion concerned how Catholic teaching and tradition, scholarship and legal developments might inform efforts to protect the rights of conscience of health workers, pregnant women, taxpayers and other citizens.

The panelists were Rev. Michael D. Place, chair of the International Federation of Catholic Health Institutions; O. Carter Snead, associate professor of law in the Notre Dame Law School; and Margaret F. Brinig, Fritz Duda Professor of Law in the Notre Dame Law School.

Father Place, who holds a doctorate in sacred theology from The Catholic University of America, is the former president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States. Snead, former general counsel to the President’s Council on Bioethics, was recently appointed by UNESCO to its International Bioethics Committee. Brinig, who co-chairs Notre Dame’s Task Force for Supporting the Choice of Life, teaches courses in family law and has written and lectured widely on issues arising from fertility, pregnancy, adoption and financial stresses on families.

The panelists hope that the discussion will launch a university-wide critical discussion and lead to a “white paper” addressing these and other issues of conscience, law, healthcare and public funding.

The event was sponsored by the Notre Dame Law School in association with Notre Dame’s new Task Force on Supporting the Choice for Life.

October saw U.S. consumers’ outstanding credit balances fall by 3.25%, the ninth straight month in a row balances have fallen. It seems clear now that Americans have learned that “credit” is not synonymous with “free money.”

Below, the report from The Fed:

Fed Consumer Credit Oct 2009 –

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Consumer Credit Plunges
• Gartman: Here’s Why Credit Card Delinquencies Fell To 1.1%
• 10 Ways Credit Card Companies Are Still Screwing You

The Mortgage Bankers Assocation (via Rolfe Winkler) is out with its latest look at loan delinquencies across a variety of investor groups.

The one trend: up.

CMBS has now crossed the 4% delinquency rate, though at least there are some signs of a turn, rather than just a pure straight line.

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When pen-testing a corporation, always look for the Guest WLAN. If there is one and you manage to get on it, you are in luck!
Corporate Guest WLANs are a great place to get a lot of interesting and possibly confidential information without much effort. And this is simply because there are a lot of corporate laptops on the same WLAN.

Ofcourse, you’ll discuss that the corporate devices have wired access to the internet, which is much more reliable and faster. But also, the wired infrastructure is fully controlled by IT – with web filters, content filters etc. So on the guest WLAN you can easily find the following high-profile targets related to the corporation:

1. corporate laptop holders – usually employees higher in the hierarchy who just got bored from the restrictions of the corporate Internet filters can easily turn on their wi-fi and check the private e-mail, or just download something.
2. corporate guests – most visitors to corporations have WLAN enabled devices, ranging from mobile phones/pda, over netbooks to full blown laptops
3. external contractors – a lot of corporations will isolate external contractors to the guest WLAN for internet access.

The following diagram is an example of hunting for interesting targets in the corporate WLAN

The diagram clearly depicts the high concentration of possible high profile targets – marked in red color.

One can always make the argument that the same attack can be made within a Mall, or even in the home networks of those interesting targets. This argument is completely true, but in a Mall your high profile targets are blended in the multitude of the students, casual freebie surfers and even the mall store clerks with their WLAN devices.

And the home environment is even more difficult, because the high profile targets are dispersed all over the city, and you may not know where they reside. So, sniffing the networks one specific high profile target will bring a lot of costs to the attacker.

The following diagram is an example of the difficulties in sniffing for interesting targets in the home or public places WLAN

So, for my money, I’ll always prefer to sniff for traffic in the corporate guest WLAN

Talkback and comments are most welcome

Related posts
5 Rules to Home Wi-Fi Security
Example – Bypassing WiFi MAC Address Restriction
Obtaining a valid MAC address to bypass WiFi MAC Restriction
DHCP Security – The most overlooked service on the network

Residents in Arizona and New Mexico should check with stores to see if purchased ground beef may be affected by a recall that was announced earlier today.

The USDA says the meat recall affects beef packed at Beef Packers Inc. of Fresno, California. They produced 2,723 pounds of the affected ground beef on September 23. The beef was repackaged in Arizona and sold under different brand names. The recalled ground beef is believed to be associated with two cases of the Salmonella Newport strain in Arizona. Unfortunately, that strain is resistant to many common drugs, and that means that the risk of treatment failure and hospitalization is increased.

According to the USDA, the recalled ground beef bears the establishment number “EST. 31913,” but since the meat was repackaged, consumers in Arizona and New Mexico will need to check with stores to see if they’ve purchased the recalled ground beef.

If you have questions about the recall, contact the Beef Packers Consumer Line at (877) 435-4071.

Consuming foods contaminated with Salmonella may cause salmonellosis. The illness may be life-threatening, particularly to people with weak immune systems.

Symptoms of salmonellosis occur within eight to 72 hours and may include diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever. Additional symptoms that can last up to 7 days may include chills, headache, nausea and vomiting.

The USDA says that raw ground beef should be cooked to a temperature of 160° F and tested with a food thermometer to make sure the appropriate internal temp has been reached. Poultry should reach 165° F.

(Image via stock.xchng)

Post from: Blisstree

Beef Recall in Two States

Recessions are not sprints; they are endurance events. To find out how nonprofits are faring during the toughest recession in more than 30 years, we have been surveying 100 nonprofit executives across the United States at six-month intervals since late 2008. As of October 2009, some 80 percent of our respondents had experienced funding cuts, and a full 93 percent said that they were feeling the effects of the downturn. Yet many of our respondents are also adopting healthy habits that not only will help them survive the present recession, but also may help them thrive when better times return. Below we summarize the seven healthy habits of nonprofits that endure. Act quickly, yet thoughtfully Anxiety tends to provoke one of two responses: unthinking activity or deer-in-the-headlights paralysis. Both are understandable; neither is helpful. Instead, nonprofits must be both thoughtful in their decision making and fleet-footed in their implementation. And that means planning for the worst, starting now. For example, take the Women’s Lunch Place, a Boston-based nonprofit that gives poor and homeless women and children a daytime refuge. By the fall of 2008, the organization had seen its funding reduced by $400,000 and wasn’t sure what its future held.…

Filed under: Europe, Hatchback, Volkswagen, Electric, Diesel

Volkswagen Group of America President, Stefan Jacoby, has confirmed that the next-gen New Beetle, due to hit North American as a 2012 model, will be offered with a clean diesel engine. The current New Beetle was last offered with a 1.9-liter TDI in 2006, but was discontinued the following year due to tougher emissions requirements.

In addition, the U.S. market will reportedly get an electrified version of the Up! hatchback in 2014, but it will not be the gasoline version (the diesel/electric Up! Lite concept debuted at the LA Auto Show last week). Ulrich Hackenberg, head of technical development for Volkswagen AG, says the car will be manufactured in Germany and sold in the European marketplace before it makes its way across the Atlantic.

The complete Up! lineup — including a hatchback, minivan, and sedan — all are slated to go on sale in Europe during 2011. but still no word on which models will make it to the U.S.

[Source: Automotive News – Sub. Req.]

REPORT: Diesel Beetle, electric Up! coming from Volkswagen originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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