3 Things Every Therapist Should Know

The reason why I decided to create a post on the 3 Things Every Therapist Should Know is that I see therapist making the same fundamental mistakes over and over again when it comes to attracting new clients to their therapy practice.

I also wanted to give you the necessary info and tools to help you to stop making these mistakes.

OK so let?s get down to it.

#1 ? Research What Potential Therapy clients are Searching For

#2 ? Create Content Using The Research Results

#3 ? Promote Your Blog All Over The Web

One thing I can promise you is that if you research and establish what potential clients are looking for, create good strong interesting content around these search terms and then promote your new content to as many social sites as possible, then you?ll be on your way to creating extraordinary results for your therapy practice.

p.s. Gary?s ONE on ONE Coaching & Mentoring with Guaranteed Results

Judith Leiber - Top 15 Crystal Bags ?

Hungarian couture handbag designer Judith Leiber is best known for her signature crystal covered minaudieres, small ornamental cases, often in the shapes of animals or fruits. Her purses are so great that some pieces are even included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian!

Needless to say, Judith Leiber?s crystal covered evening bags are considered to be the best couture bags ever, and below you will see why:

15. Windflower Bag

14. Scarlet Bag

13. Maharaja Bag

12. Ganesh Bag

11. Rose Bag

10. Schnauzer Bag

9. Mosaic Bag

8. Heart N Soul Bag

7. Polar Bear Bag

6. Lacey Blossoms Bag

5. Spring Breeze Bag

4. Imperial Delight Bag

3. Satin and Crystal Bag

2. Prince Charming Bag

1. Love Sonnets Bag

Human, All Too Human:

Its an interesting choice as all had fascinating and turbulent lives - Nietzsche ending his life in insanity, Heidegger a unrepentant Nazi defended by a Jewish ex-lover, and Sartre who walked the line between free love and womanising.

All had a huge influence on psychology at various stages, and you can clearly see how many struggled with concepts of mind and society.

The programmes tackle both the characters and their theories and are some of the most engaging and gripping programmes Ive ever seen on philosophy, an essential subject that usually gets little more than satire or lip service from mainstream media.

A man who was shot by an off-duty Pittsburgh police officer last year is suing the city and the now-reinstated officer for false imprisonment and excessive force.

Officer Paul G. Abel Jr. was found not guilty of criminal charges -- including aggravated assault -- by Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Manning in June. He was reinstated to his position through arbitration last week.

According to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Kaleb Miller was walking on Sidney Street on the South Side about 2:10 a.m. on June 28, 2008, when he saw Officer Abel, an off-duty Zone 3 police officer. He had a gun in his hand and was "yelling unintelligibly and was visibly intoxicated."

World?s Most Expensive Sunglasses Costs $383,609

Bearing a product number DG2027B, the sunglasses demand a handsome sum of $383,609, leaving no doubts in calling it the world?s most expensive sunglasses.

An exhibition at Tate Modern considers the legacy of the Pop Art movement. The show takes Andy Warhols statement that "good business is the best art" as a starting point. It examines the ways in which artists have built up personae and brands for themselves since the 1980s

Dirty - Jeff on Top by US artist Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons posing next to his work Rabbit (1986)

Japanese artist Takashi Murakami poses with his artwork Hiropon

Ingo, Torsten, a recreation of a 1992 installation by Damien Hirst in which identical twins sit beneath two spot paintings

Damien Hirsts False Idol, a calf preserved in formaldehyde

Maurizio Cattelans work, Untitled

Polish artist Piotr Uklanskis work, The Nazis

A visitor stands inside a recreation of the late artist Keith Harings Pop Shop which opened in New York in 1986 to sell branded merchandise with his signature

A visitor looks at Pop (1993) by Gavin Turk

Spider "Resurrections" Take Scientists by Surprise

Like zombies, spiders in a lab twitched back to life hours after "drowning"?and the scientists were as surprised as anyone.

Scientists at the University of Rennes in France collected three species of wolf spider?two from salt marshes, one from a forest. The team immersed 120 females of each species in seawater, jostling the spiders with brushes every two hours to see if they responded.

As expected, all the forest wolf spiders (Pardosa lugubris) apparently died after 24 hours. The two salt marsh-dwelling species took longer?28 hours for Pardosa purbeckensis and 36 hours for Arctosa fulvolineata.

After the "drownings," the researchers, hoping to weigh the spiders later, left them out to dry. Thats when things began to get weird.

Hours later, the spiders began twitching and were soon back on their eight feet.

Marsh-dwelling A. fulvolineata, which took longest to "die," typically requires about two hours to recover, the researchers discovered.

Geldof Sick of Scroungers

In the combative world of cable news, America?s culture wars are often characterized as pitched battles between ardent religionists on one side and diehard secularists on the other.

In fact, on every hot-button issue facing the nation from abortion to health care, Americans of religious faith are among the most outspoken, engaged voices on all sides of the debate.

Who are these religious activists ? and how do they see the world? This week we got some answers from a survey conducted by the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron in partnership with Public Religion Research. The study is the first to compare conservative and progressive religious activists.

Consumers Complain They Get More Overdraft Fees Due to Bank Reordering

After Maria did the math, she was aghast. Since the start of the year, the Houston woman said, she and her husband have paid more than $1,200 in overdraft fees at their local credit union.

Maria, who asked that ABCNews.com withhold her full name, said part of the problem lay in the fact that the credit union didnt seem to be posting her debit card charges and big bill payments, like car loan payments, in the order she was making them. Multiple, small charges would be applied later than large ones, triggering many overdraft fees.

"We were having a hard time keeping up with the bills and to have all these overdraft charges come in and attack us, hit us even harder," she said.

1) NUDITY

I was driving with my three young children one warm summer evening when a

woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and waved. She was stark

naked! As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my 5-year-old shout from the

back seat, ?Mom, that lady isn?t wearing a seat belt!?

2) OPINIONS

On the first day of school, a first-grader handed his teacher a note from

his mother. The note read, ?The opinions expressed by this child are not

necessarily those of his parents.?

3) KETCHUP

A woman was trying hard to get the ketchup out of the jar. During her

struggle the phone rang so she asked her

4-year-old daughter to answer the phone. ?Mommy can?t come to the phone to

talk to you right now. She?s hitting the bottle.?

4) MORE NUDITY

The Tabata protocol is a high-intensity training regimen that produces remarkable results. A Tabata workout (also called a Tabata sequence) is an interval training cycle of 20 seconds of maximum intensity exercise, followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated without pause 8 times for a total of four minutes. In a group context, you can keep score by counting how many lifts/jumps/whatever you do in each of the 20 second rounds. The round with the smallest number is your score.

In a piece today, Politico finds Palin, in a survey of regional Republicans, to be the singular personality within the party. According to Politico: ?Most Republican Party leaders would jump at the chance to have her headline one of their events.?

This follows yesterday?s news that Sarah Palin has delivered her book?biography/memoir/political-tract?early, and that it will be published for the prime Christmas season in a printing of 1.5 million copies, as many as Teddy Kennedy?s posthumous memoir.

Alexandre Alexeieff (born as Alexey Alexeieff, sometimes credited as Alexander Alexeieff or Alexander Alexeïeff or Alexandre Alexieff) (August 5, 1901 - August 9, 1982) was a Russian-born artist, filmmaker and illustrator who lived and worked mainly in Paris. He and his second wife Claire Parker (1910 - 1981) are credited with inventing the pinscreen as well as the animation technique totalization. In all Alexeieff produced 6 films on the pinscreen, 41 advertising films and illustrated 41 books. [cont. reading]

Birds on The Wires

The Unicorn Brewery in Cheshire is making what it calls "soft brews", a dry fizzy drink made with English hops and malt that look like a beer with a full frothy head, smell a bit like a beer, but are completely free from alcohol.

The drinks are then flavoured with fruit juice, to add a small amount of sweetness to the otherwise dry drink. The bottles come in three flavours: citrus, apple and blackcurrant.

Matthew McAuliffe, M&Ss product development manager, commented, ?We?re really excited about our new ?soft brews? ? there is no other drink on the market quite like them ? they have the tang of beer but without the alcohol and are the perfect choice for a soft drink to enjoy an alcohol-free night out.?

The drinks cost £3.99 for a pack of four 275ml bottles.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obamas decision to head to Copenhagen, Denmark, later this week to make a push to bring the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago is not without political controversy.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said winning the games for Chicago would help the U.S. economy.

In the latest incident of violent rhetoric against the president, an anonymous user of Facebook posted a poll on Saturday asking if Barack Obama should be assassinated.

Administrators of the online social networking website took down the poll on Monday, but not before it received 730 responses to the question, ?Should Obama be killed??

The poll on Facebook seemed to be playing off the healthcare controversy, listing as its four answers: ?Yes. Maybe. Yes if he cuts my healthcare. No.?

The Secret Service is investigating two other possible threats against Obama, as ABC News reports:

The Secret Service is investigating a Maryland man who held a sign reading ?Death to Obama? and ?Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids? outside a town hall meeting this week. And in New Hampshire, another man stood across the street from a Presidential town hall with his gun on full display.

Hansen and his colleagues looked at cigarette pack warnings from the perspective of Terror Management Theory, which was developed in the mid-1980s by psychologists Tom Pyszczynski, Jeff Greenberg and Sheldon Solomon. It contends that our awareness of our own deaths creates the potential for extreme anxiety, which we keep at bay by reaffirming faith in our belief systems (which give our lives a sense of meaning) and maintaining a high level of self-esteem.

Reasonably enough, the researchers assert that for some people, smoking is a facet of their positive self-image. They consider the habit sexy or attractive, or perhaps a proud example of their rebellious spirit.

For those individuals, terror management theory suggests mortality-laced warning labels could be counterproductive. The threat to ones life would presumably result in an urge to pump up ones self-esteem?which, for those individuals, could easily mean a renewed commitment to smoking.

Make: How-To Smoke Photography
Learn how to create and shoot sculptures made with smoke and how to paint with smoke.

Circle the Cat

This is quite difficult but can be done. Please  do not blame me if you get no work done today.... or  your catnap.. this is addictive.... 

Try to encircle the cat, without letting it get out! Start by clicking on the image then on the light green dots to try to trap it with dark green dots. Not easy, its a smart cat.

Four years ago on September 30, 2005,  Jyllands-Posten published twelve drawings of Islam?s prophet Muhammed. To demonstrate that prohibition of any depiction of the prophet, as stipulated by sharia law would not trump Denmark?s freedom of the press, twelve cartoonists had their entries published.

Here they are:

Muslims around the world rioted in response. At least one hundred deaths were reported. The Danish embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran were torched. European buildings were stormed and the Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, and German flags were desecrated in Gaza City. Mahmoud al-Zahar of Hamas issued death threats. Critics of the cartoons described them as Islamophobic and racist, arguing they were blasphemous to Muslims and a manifestation of western imperialism. In 2008, slightly after two years of the initial publication, the cartoons were re-published. More riots ensued, complete with shouts of ? death to the cartoonist!?.

Feb 8 2008 Zing! Food Fight Weapon Is Questionable

I enjoy a good fight as much as the next guy. I think theyre the key to a healthy marriage and having dried food particulate caked all over the kitchen walls. To help the less adept food fighter Fred & Friends developed Zing! food launching spoons. As you can see theyre spoons with a spring in the middle. Personally I have no problem getting a good launch with a regular spoon, but I studied food projectiles in middle school. You should have seen the shot I made two nights ago! I hit my wife right between the eyes with a good sized portion of tuna noodle casserole. She was pissed but acknowledged the great shot. Then she waited till I was loading the dishwasher and beat me in the skull with a meat tenderizer until I was unconscious.

Whoop .....here it is: Going Rogue: An American Life Yes, I want to see this baby fly off the shelves. Ah, a book with a spine.  Order it today,

Passing a Shell of A Bill: Congress? Secret Plan to Ram Through Health Care Reform

With the President and Congress?s plan to pass comprehensive health care reform reaching increasingly high levels of unpopularity, and reconciliation becoming an impediment, the leadership of the Senate is rumored to be preparing a new secret plan to railroad the bill through the Senate in record time by using a seldom used parliamentary procedure.

Their plan is to proceed to a House passed non-health care bill to provide a shell of legislation to give Obamacare a ride to the House then to the President?s desk.  Sound confusing? We lay out the steps below, but essentially the Senate would pass health care reform as an amendment to a completely unrelated bill so the Senate and House could act quickly and without further debate. Even worse? Nobody really knows what that legislation looks like but they plan on voting for it anyway.

Q: Are you going to the opening ceremony?

Ai: I?m not attending the opening ceremony, I?m not interested in it, and I haven?t received any invitation.

Eating in America Still Unhealthy: CDC

TUESDAY, Sept. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Most Americans dont eat the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables, says a U.S. government study released Tuesday. And no state has achieved national objectives for consumption of fruits and vegetables, it found.

The goal for the Healthy People 2010 program is to get at least 75 percent of Americans to eat the recommended two or more daily servings of fruit and for at least 50 percent of Americans to consume three or more daily servings of vegetables.

It shows Jackman breaking character to tell the owner of the ringing cell phone, "You want to get that?" as the audience erupts in cheers. As the ringing persists, Jackman pleads: "Come on, just turn it off." He then paces the stage of the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, waits about a minute for the ringing to stop and the play resumes.

The interruption occurred during an intense moment in the play, when Jackmans character, a Chicago policeman, reveals haunting memories.

Here SHE is, the USS New 
York, made from the 
World  
Trade Center !

USS 
New York 
It was built with 24 tons of 
scrap steel from the 
World  
Trade  
Center .

Pictured: The tiny kingbird that took a piggyback on a predatory hawk and lived to tell the tale

Tsunamis triggered by a strong quake in the South Pacific have killed more than 100 people across a number of islands.

An 8.3-magnitude quake struck at 1748 GMT on Tuesday, generating 15ft (4.5m) waves in some areas of the islands.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PTWC) said the quake struck at a depth of 33km (20 miles), some 190km (120 miles) from Apia in Samoa.

Radio New Zealand quoted Samoan residents as saying that villages were inundated and homes and cars swept away.

Graeme Ansell, a New Zealander near Apia, told the radio station the beach village of Sau Sau Beach Fale had been "wiped out".

Witnesses have reported scenes of destruction.

Love Thy Frenemy
Can it really be good to have a one-upping frenemy? Actually, it is, say some experts. ?It can definitely make life a little more challenging and interesting,? says Andrea Lavinthal, coauthor of Friend or Frenemy?: A Guide to the Friends You Need and the Ones You Don?t. ?Some healthy competition can propel you in a positive way and keep you on your toes.? If your frenemy goes on a diet and loses a lot of weight, chances are you will hit the treadmill with more vigor and out-diet her. Besides, a frenemy can make you aware of your negative behavior and help keep you in check. ?You know how there is always one girl in a group of friends who ?tells it like it is? whether you want to hear it or not?? says Lavinthal. ?That honesty, while annoying and sometimes hurtful, can also be really helpful.?

Robocops Come to Pittsburgh

    No longer the stuff of disturbing futuristic fantasies, an arsenal of "crowd control munitions," including one that reportedly made its debut in the US, was deployed with a massive, overpowering police presence in Pittsburgh during last weeks G-20 protests.

    Bean bags fired from shotguns, CS (tear) gas, OC (Oleoresin Capsicum) spray, flash-bang grenades, batons and, according to local news reports, for the first time on the streets of America, the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD).

    * M5 Modular Crowd Control Munition, with a range of 30 meters (about 98 feet) "is similar in operation to a claymore mine, but it delivers ... a strong, nonpenetrating blow to the body with multiple sub-munitions (600 rubber balls)."

Red Bull Air Race Series 2009 in Barcelona

Attention, fans of extreme sports and exciting entertainment! If you do not want to miss one of the greatest events on the planet, come to Barcelona and enjoy the fantastic Red Bull Air Race World Series 2009 the Formula 1 of the air!

On 3rd and 4th October the Catalan capital will host once again the World Cup Competition of the Red Bull Air Race. This is an unprecedented event in the field of the aerobatic aircraft sport that combines speed with acrobatics with sports planes.

Figures released to Fine Gael show that almost 9,000 operations were cancelled in Irelands public hospitals in the first six months of this year.

The figures, received by Fine Gael in response to a parliamentary question, show a 27 per cent increase on figures for the same period in 2008.

A total of 8,935 operations were cancelled in the first six months since January 2009. Of these, 2,594 were scheduled for day patients and 6,341 were scheduled for in-patients.

The latest figures bring the total number of cancelled operations since 2007 to over 40,000.

?It is depressing that figures I sought from the HSE confirm that the gridlock in our hospitals continues to see patients? procedures cancelled. At 8,935 the number of cancelled operations in the first half of the year is well up on the same period in 2008," Fine Gael health spokesperson, Dr James Reilly TD, said in a statement issued this morning.

Photo courtesy of the half-blood prince

Editor?s note: This is a guest post from Alex Fayle of the Someday Syndrome blog.

1. Be you. This is The Happiness Project?s number one Happiness Commandment. I hate team sports, so there?s no way I?d play football (soccer). Running allows me to exercise when I want and I can do it on my own or with a friend. Perfectly me.

4. Make a grand plan. I say ?grand? because this is the big picture plan. Don?t get carried away. Planning can feel like action, but really it?s no different than talking. Until you actually do something, you?re still procrastinating.

Ultra marathon for the mind:

MSDs include back pain, arthritis and repetitive strain injuries.

It warns that both these numbers are set to rise as a result of an ageing workforce, the growth in obesity and the general decline in physical activity.

The Work Foundation is now launching a wider Fit for Work Europe campaign to press for more co-ordinated action to target MSDs by governments, healthcare professionals and patients.

REMEMBER WHEN?

Spacecraft comes within 142 miles of Mercury

OSLO (Reuters) - A new users guide is needed to help protect the Earth from dangerous changes such as global warming and extinctions of animals and plants caused by humans, scientists said.

A group of 28 experts suggested nine key areas, such as freshwater use, chemical pollutants or changes in land use, where governments could define limits to ensure a "safe operating space for humanity."

If you want  to:
 

• Know how almost anything works
• Know how to do almost anything
• Know how to fix almost anything
  
  
  You are at the right place!
  
  Simply type your question in the search box  below, and have the answer in seconds!

Here is the new thing for you to worry about, in terms of your own unavoidable violent death: Al Qaeda is now smuggling bombs inside their rectums. There is no hope of detection until it blows.

Here, let CBS just clarify it for you:

"Absolutely nothing [can detect these rectum bombs] other than to require people to strip naked at the airport," said Yates.

And al Qaeda says it will share its new technique via the Internet very soon. There is nothing that can stop that either.

There you have it: there is no stopping it. Just pray that it will be quick.

In a way, the same issue is at stake in Afghanistan. Having labeled Afghanistan as critical ? indeed, having campaigned on the platform that the Bush administration was fighting the wrong war ? it would be difficult for Obama to back down in Afghanistan. At the same time, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has reported that without a new strategy and a substantial increase in troop numbers, failure in Afghanistan is likely.

The number of troops being discussed, 30,000-40,000, would bring total U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan to just above the number of troops the Soviet Union deployed there in its war (just under 120,000) ? a war that ended in failure. The new strategy being advocated would be one in which the focus would not be on the defeat of the Taliban by force of arms, but the creation of havens for the Afghan people and protecting those havens from the Taliban.

We are never impressed with campaign positions, or with the failure of the victorious candidate to live up to them. That?s the way American politics work. But in this case, these promises have created a dual crisis that Obama must make decisions about now.

Iran

Back in April, in the midst of the financial crisis, Obama reached an agreement at the G-8 meeting that the Iranians would have until Sept. 24 and the G-20 meeting to engage in meaningful talks with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (P-5+1) or face intensely increased sanctions. His administration was quite new at the time, so the amount of thought behind this remains unclear. On one level, the financial crisis was so intense and September so far away that Obama and his team probably saw this as a means to delay a secondary matter while more important fires were flaring up.

The 31 Wildest Conspiracy Theories

Crazy Conspiracy Theories ... or Are They?

Why Moms Can Be Meanies

Is there something about having a child that makes a woman feel like she?s superior to others? That?s what you might think considering how often moms judge other moms for making ?bad? decisions. Now I?m not talking about dangerous decisions, just ones that someone might not agree with, like deciding not to breastfeed, or to put your child in day care, or to have a child when you?re ?too young? or ?too old,? to let your child watch television, to enroll her in too many activities or too few, or to work full-time or part-time, or to exercise too little or too much during pregnancy. You name it and there are plenty of moms out there willing to shame you for it.

With 98% of surface water already accounted for, one wonders how much groundwater is available for use. Currently 41% of usable groundwater is allocated, leaving roughly 10,000 million cubic meters of groundwater available, but during droughts South Africa will have 25% less water available. Scientists are also estimating that South Africa has become 2% hotter and 6% drier since the 1970s, affecting water resources and increasing the struggle between citizens, animals, farmers and industries, all in need of water rights.

I will make one final point. Supporters of the health care legislation are claiming that Congress has the constitutional right under Article 1, Section 9 to make this massive power grab. That section of the Constitution states that Congress has the power to provide ??for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States??

State to Mom: Stop Baby-Sitting Neighbors Kids

Judge the Movie, Not the Man

I met Roman Polanski in 1977, when I was 13 years old. I was in ninth grade that year, when he told my mother that he wanted to shoot pictures of me for a French magazine. Thats what he said, but instead, after shooting pictures of me at Jack Nicholsons house on Mulholland Drive, he did something quite different. He gave me champagne and a piece of a Quaalude. And then he took advantage of me.

It was not consensual sex by any means. I said no, repeatedly, but he wouldnt take no for an answer. I was alone and I didnt know what to do. It was scary and, looking back, very creepy. Those may sound like kindergarten words, but thats the way it feels to me. It was a very long time ago, and it is hard to remember exactly the way everything happened. But Ive had to repeat the story so many times, I know it by heart.

State to mom: Stop baby-sitting neighbors kids

IRVING TOWNSHIP, Mich. ? Each day before the school bus comes to pick up the neighborhoods children, Lisa Snyder did a favor for three of her fellow moms, welcoming their children into her home for about an hour before they left for school.

Regulators who oversee child care, however, dont see it as charity. Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she continued, shed be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed day care centers.

"I was freaked out. I was blown away," she said. "I got on the phone immediately, called my husband, then I called all the girls" ? that is, the mothers whose kids she watches ? "every one of them."

...or at least thats what Ray Kurzweil thinks. He has spent his life inventing machines that help people, from the blind to dyslexics. Now, he believes were on the brink of a new age ? the singularity ? when mind-boggling technology will allow us to email each other toast, run as fast as Usain Bolt (for 15 minutes) ? and even live forever. Is there sense to his science ? or is the man who reasons that one day hell bring his dad back from the grave just a mad professor peddling a nightmare vision of the future?

FEMA Grant to ACORN is Offensive

Earlier this month and despite the public scrutiny over the voter fraud and felony criminal activity associated with ACORN, the Department of Homeland Security went ahead and granted $997,402 to ACORN under the FY 2008 Fire Prevention and Safety Program. 

With fire departments all over Louisiana ? and the rest of the country ? struggling to make ends meet and get the equipment and training they need to protect their local communities, the idea of a million dollar grant going to ACORN is unsettling, to say the least. 

The infection could have starved the dinosaurs to death.

He says it may have been spread through biting in territorial disputes.

"Just like with the modern devil facial tumour thats occurring among Tasmanian devils, that face biting behaviour probably would have been the ideal mechanism for this disease to have spread among populations," Dr Salisbury said.

The celebrated director fled the United States and settled in France to escape jail, but by the standards of those in Hollywood, the case is ancient history.

"We hope today that this latest order will be dropped," Winger said. "It is based on a three decade old case that is all but dead, except for a minor technicality."

The best way to clean an optical disc is to wipe the data surface with a clean, dry, lint-free cloth. Don?t wipe the disc in a circular pattern. Instead, wipe the surface in straight lines starting from the center of the disc and wiping toward the outer edges. This keeps you from making scratches in the disc along the spiral data track. If absolutely necessary, you can dampen the cloth, but be absolutely sure to squeeze as much excess water from the cloth as possible.

Yet even as Scott makes the rounds of Congress and talk-show green rooms, a wrongful death lawsuit has been working its way through the Florida courts against a doctor employed by the chain of walk-in clinics Scott founded. Scott has repeatedly bragged that the 27-clinic, Florida-based company, Solantic, is an example of the free-market ingenuity needed to fix our ailing medical infrastructure. The lawsuit, however, alleges a Solantic doctor misdiagnosed a patients deep-vein thrombosis as a sprained ankle, leading to a pulmonary embolism and death. That same doctor was reprimanded by the state for misdiagnosing deep-vein thrombosis in a patient who died two years earlier. Its the kind of anecdote youd expect to hear in Scotts documentary -- except that it condemns a free-market system where profit and patient volume may take precedence over care.

"Often we want to scream and shout, but most of us do so internally. The way we cope is to withdraw."

"We experience life with great intensity and have a very poor filtering system.

"We can get bombarded with stimulation and information and can become easily confused and overwhelmed."

For years he struggled with depression and anxiety as he tried to conceal his autistic traits behind a façade of learnt, socially-acceptable behaviour.

Neither his adoptive parents nor his teachers realised what was wrong and at 15, he left with no qualifications and started on a downward spiral of depression, ending up in a psychiatric hospital for a year on anti-psychotic medication.

When he was 20, he traced his natural father and was shocked to discover he shared what he later recognised, were autistic traits.

Recent stories of a private security force descending upon a Montana town in black Mercedes SUVs with police department insignias emblazoned on the side have caused an Internet uproar.

The reason? Hardin, Mont., where the American Police Force entered driving the phony patrol cars, doesnt have a police department.

Other tales of private cops "taking over the city," patrolling the streets and erecting city gates to keep people in have also been splashed all over the Internet.

"Hardin is the test town for President Obamas new law to privatize the police force of local communities," decried one widely circulated blog post.

"Who is the American Police Force? Thats what I would like to know," Hardin resident Kizzy Neutgens asked KULR-TV.

How are cluster headaches diagnosed?How are cluster headaches treated?

A conversation with Gore Vidal unfolds at his pace. He answers questions imperiously, occasionally playfully, with a piercing, lethal dryness. He is 83 and in a wheelchair (a result of hypothermia suffered in the war, his left knee is made of titanium). But he can walk (?Of course I can?) and after a recent performance of Mother Courage at London?s National Theatre he stood to deliver an anti-war speech to the audience.

Eighty-three percent (83%) of U.S. voters say legislation should be posted online in final form and available for everyone to read before Congress votes on it. The only exception would be for extreme emergencies.

Of those who favor posting congressional bills in their final form on the Internet, 64% say they should be available to the public two weeks or more before Congress votes and 29% favor posting bills one week before a vote. Just four percent (4%) think three days before a congressional vote is soon enough, while one percent (1%) say one day is enough.

Among voters, there is no partisan disagreement on the issue. Eighty-five percent (85%) of Republicans, 76% of Democrats and 92% of voters not affiliated with either party favor posting non-emergency bills online for the public to read before they are voted on by Congress.

Support for posting legislation online is high across all demographic groups.

FEMA Grant to ACORN is Offensive

Earlier this month and despite the public scrutiny over the voter fraud and felony criminal activity associated with ACORN, the Department of Homeland Security went ahead and granted $997,402 to ACORN under the FY 2008 Fire Prevention and Safety Program. 

To most people, the timing and the amount of the grant would seem off base, but when you take into account the fact that DHS awarded ACORN?an organization with no clear expertise in fire safety and prevention?a fire prevention and safety grant, it?s just plain offensive.

With fire departments all over Louisiana ? and the rest of the country ? struggling to make ends meet and get the equipment and training they need to protect their local communities, the idea of a million dollar grant going to ACORN is unsettling, to say the least. 

1. Im a nobody, nobody is perfect, therefore Im perfect.
2. Ive got to sit down and work out where I stand.
3. If I save time, when do I get it back?
4. Where theres a will, I want to be in it.
5. I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally.
6. Take my advice, I dont use it anyway.

8. As I said before, I never repeat myself.
9. Sometimes I need what only you can provide: your absence.
10. I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence.. theres a knob called brightness, but it doesnt work.
11. A conscience does not prevent sin. It only prevents you from enjoying it.
12. If at first you dont succeed, skydiving is not for you.
13. War doesnt determine whos right. War determines whos left! .
14. Best way to prevent hangover is to stay drunk.
15. Doesnt expecting the unexpected make the unexpected become the expected ?

Daniel

He had sex with a 13-year-old girl. He got her to go to Jack Nicholsons house by promising that she would be in a photo shoot. When she got there, he fed her a Quaalude and alcohol -- champagne for a 13-year-old, how enticing -- and then he raped her.

Roman the Rapist pleaded guilty. This is not one of those stories where you need to insert an "alleged" or a "purported" before each sentence. This is not a "he said-she said." He was in his 40s. She was 13. He was a famous director. She was a child. He lied, lured and plied her with drugs and alcohol.

Polanski pleaded guilty assuming he wouldnt go to prison. I dont have any idea why a famous director who raped a 13-year-old after plying her with drugs and alcohol would assume that no punishment was in order, but he did. Celebrity justice maybe? Who knows and who cares?

The music radio site Last.fm is one of the great ideas from the UK during the first dotcom boom. Users can listen to their own songs and other tracks recommended by Last.fms algorithms based on their tastes, including iTunes, and those of friends. It could easily have been a one-trick pony. But now a few academics have applied its serendipity to scientific research. Why cant researchers, instead of waiting anywhere up to three years for their papers to jump all the hurdles, be part of a real-time market place ? a fusion of iTunes and Last.fm for science? They pitched the idea, among others, to two of Last.fms investors: Spencer Hyman and Stefan Glaenzer, newly enriched by the sale of Last.fm to CBS. They bought into the idea of using the sites principles to aggregate users data (anonymously) while building up a databank of articles. Now the show is on the road and expanding fast. It is free, but a premium version will be added soon.

Mourners included his partner and biographer. Stand-up comic Jim Davidson, who knew Floyd for 25 years, also attended the service.

TV producer David Pritchard, who discovered Floyd at his Bristol restaurant, said: "Before he arrived, most cooking programmes were sensible."

Floyd died of a heart attack at the age of 65 in Dorset earlier this month.

He was also suffering from bowel cancer, which was diagnosed in June.

Davidson, who flew in from Dubai to attend the service, said: "He was such a positive man in a very difficult world. He was the first of a kind.

"It didnt matter what he cooked, he would just swig that glass of wine and we all loved him."

The non-religious ceremony included a reading of Rudyard Kiplings poem If and the performance of a song called Keith Floyd Blues by Bill Padley.

I was raped when I was 14 years old, by a boy of 16. I was not drugged or sodomized - thank God - but it was still rape. Rape-rape.

I could not imagine what it would be like to be drugged and raped by a man of my father?s age. As it was, my parents were excellent at protecting me from all the weird uncles who populated my mother?s side of the family. The idea that one of them might have done that to me? unimaginable.

I do however know what it?s like to have my peers tell me it?s no big deal. That it shouldn?t matter. That it?s over, don?t raise a stink about it. Or, better yet: That he didn?t mean it.

This behavior has always baffled me. Why is it ok to be raped, just because the other person is older/stronger/richer/more famous than you are? Why do people stand up for the rapist, but not the raped?

What the hell is wrong with Whoopi Goldberg?

Nike resigns from Chambers board, citing climate differences

American Samoa Tsunami Pictures

A wildlife scientist says people relieving themselves on top of Uluru may have killed off a rare species of shrimp.

Retired university professor Brian Timms says he has studied museum specimens of small inland shrimp that live in pools on top of Uluru.

He says his research shows the localised extinction of one species of fairy shrimp and the dominance of another - changes which could be due to human waste.

"Its happened already that the people going up the rock somehow have affected the animals which live in the pools, possibly by peeing on the rock and pooing on the rock," he said.

He says the Branchinella Latzi shrimp species, which once inhabited rock pools on Uluru, has not been found in collections since about the 1970s.

"Latzi is a very limited species and it might be susceptible to enrichment of the pools whereas [the other species on Uluru] is a widespread, tough species," he said.

"Certainly if they [tourists] go up, they should be behaving themselves, not pooing on the rock."

18-year-old rescues 30 people in Manila floods, then disappears in torrent

When the river near his Manila home burst its banks, Muelmar Luz Magallanes tied a rope around his waist and ferried his three younger siblings to safety. Then he went back for his parents

As the Philippines appealed for international aid yesterday, with the death toll from Tropical Storm Ketsana and devastating floods rising to 140, Mr Magallanes family mourned their courageous son.

The 18-year-old construction worker saved more than 30 lives, including that of the baby and her mother, Menchie Penalosa. "He gave his life for my baby. I will never forget his sacrifice," said Mrs Penalosa.

Karisoke staff and researchers brought the body of silverback Titus down from the mountain on Sept. 16, many weeping at the loss of their old friend. Titus, who has been followed by Karisoke staff since his birth in 1974, died on Monday, Sept. 14.

After a necropsy at the offices of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project in Ruhengeri, Titus?s body was today carried on a stretcher by ten porters, on a two-hour walk for burial at the site of Dian Fossey?s old camp and her own gravesite. They were led by Karisoke Field Operations Coordinator Jean Bosco Bizimuremyi and a military escort.

The burial site was dug in advance at the edge of a gorilla graveyard, where other important gorillas have been laid to rest, including Titus?s old friend silverback Beetsme.

Back in Bistate village after the ceremony, following Rwandan tradition, drinks were shared among the participants, a poignant conclusion to an emotional and sad day.

Dating site OKCupid has done an analysis of 500,000 inquiry messages in order to determine what keywords correlate most strongly with getting a reply or getting deleted.  It has an interesting gender lesson.

The lesson: Treat a woman (on the OK Cupid dating site) like a human being and she will respond positively.

On Wednesday, the Obamas hosted a reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, during which they stood for 130 photographs with visiting foreign dignitaries in town for the UN meeting. The President has exactly the same smile in every single shot. See for yourself - the pictures are up on the State Department?s flickr (link [here]). And, of course, compressed into 20 seconds for your viewing pleasure.

Remember your HISTORY

The device is said to release liquid imitating blood, allowing a female to feign virginity on her wedding night.

There is a stigma about pre-marital sex in conservative Arab [Muslim]  societies.

The contraption is seen as a cheap and simple alternative to hymen repair surgery, which is carried out in secret by some clinics in the Middle East.

It is produced in China and has already become available in other parts of the Arab [Muslim] world.

The device is reported to be on sale in Syria for $15.

Obama demands we respect this sickness.

Barack Obama is failing as President and the US is in danger of sliding into a military dictatorship, says Gore Vidal, the American essayist and intellectual.

In an exclusive interview with The Times, Vidal, 83, reveals that he regrets switching his allegiance from Hillary Clinton to Mr Obama during last year?s campaign to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.

On Mr Obama?s plan to reform healthcare, he said: ?He f***** it up. I don?t know how, because the country wanted it. We?ll never see it happen.?

Having blogged about Roman Polanski?s arrest, I reread an extraordinary interview Polanski gave to the novelist Martin Amis in 1979, the year after Polanski went on the run.

The interview originally appeared in Tatler and is collected in Amis?s excellent book Visiting Mrs Nabokov.

Here?s a section of the first quote it contains from Polanski.

?If I had killed somebody, it wouldn?t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But? f?ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f? young girls. Juries want to f? young girls. Everyone wants to f? young girls!?

Later in the interview, Polanski says he likes Paris, to which he?d fled, because it?s ?very grown-up?.

Unlike the 13-year-old girl with whom he admitted having unlawful sex.

LONDON - Physicist Stephen Hawking stepped down Wednesday as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University after 30 years in the post.

The roughly 350-year-old position has been held by such luminaries as Isaac Newton and Charles Babbage, one of the fathers of modern computing. It is customary for professors to retire from the post the year they turn 67.

Hawking, who reached that age in January, will continue to work at the university as director of research at a department dealing with applied mathematics and theoretical physics.

"This is an exciting time in cosmology with new observational results coming in thick and fast and large-scale terrestrial and satellite experiments underway," Hawking said in a statement. "I want to make sure this progress is matched by the development of theories of the universe which are both mathematically consistent and observationally testable."

MONTREAL - Guy Laliberte should bring a whole different kind of star quality to Earth orbit early tomorrow morning, when he blasts off aboard a Russian rocket and becomes Canadas first space tourist.

The 50-year-old billionaire founder of the Cirque du Soleil is set to launch his self-styled poetic social mission on a Soyuz TMA-16 rocket at 3:14 a.m. ET from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

Breaking with the tradition of the previous six space tourists, Mr. Laliberte wont conduct scientific experiments on the 12-day mission.

Instead, he has vowed to raise global awareness about water conservation and to bring enough clown noses for the other more logic-based spacefarers on the International Space Station.

Mr. Lalibertes journey reportedly cost him $35-million, not exorbitant by space tourism standards. But for that he gets to host a world first -- a live entertainment show on Oct. 9 from the 350-kilometre high space lab.

The Femme Den, a female focused offshoot of Smart Design, aims to change how products are sold to women by using a rarely deployed strategy: research.

In the sidebar, "Design in Action," the Femme Den demonstrates how these assumptions could literally become quite dangerous:

Regulators who oversee child care, however, dont see it as charity. Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she continued, shed be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed day care centers.

Snyders predicament has led to a debate in Michigan about whether a law that says no one may care for unrelated children in their home for more than four weeks each calendar year unless they are licensed day-care providers needs to be changed. It also has irked parents who say they depend on such friendly offers to help them balance work and family.

• 
• • Steve Bell
  • The Guardian, Wednesday 30 September 2009