The ezPalm Blog

The U. S. economy is feeling the brunt of skyrocketing oil prices as the nation’s dependence on foreign oil continues to grow. We need a responsible energy plan to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. President Bush and Senator Kerry appear to be skirting the real issues involved.

Growing transportation requirements combined with declining domestic oil production have led to burgeoning oil imports. Rising oil prices are having an adverse impact on the U.S. economy as evident from recent economic data and stock market performance. We need a responsible energy plan which will balance our transportation requirements with the necessity to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Rising Oil Prices.

Oil prices have been on a roll this year. As of August 10, crude oil prices have climbed over 45% since the start of 2004. A barrel of West Texas Intermediate recently recorded its all time high of $45.04 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. And this has happened despite the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries increasing its oil output.

Earlier in the year, the run up in oil prices was attributed to surging demand for petroleum products due to a strong global economy. Then it was the unrest in Venezuela and Nigeria.

Concerns on security of oil supplies have heightened more recently. Added to the pipeline disruptions in Iraq are kidnappings of foreign workers in the Middle East.

Yukos, the Russian oil company’s tax evasion dispute has taken center stage currently. With a production rate of 1.7 million barrels a day (mmbd), Yukos is Russia’s largest oil producer.

While the underlying factors behind the dramatic increase in the price of oil this year are a combination of all the above, the impact is hardly comforting.

Weakening Economy.

Higher oil prices that work like an added tax have the effect of holding down hiring, consumer spending, and corporate profits.

The July jobs report that was released by the Labor Department on August 6 was a disappointment. The U.S. economy added a mere 32,000 to the non-farm payrolls, the lowest monthly addition this year. The rate of employment growth is slowing as business confidence appears to be undermined by rising oil prices. High oil prices are also taking the bite out of consumer spending.

By some economists’ estimates, every $10 rise in the price of oil knocks 0.5% off of GDP growth and adds about the same amount to inflation. The equity markets have been fixated with the trend in oil prices and have relentlessly spiraled lower since late June. On August 6, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9,815.33, its lowest level since Nov. 28 after losing more than 300 points over the last two sessions. The technology heavy Nasdaq Composite Index is down over 11% since the start of the year.

The Root Cause: Transportation Relies on Foreign Oil.

A combination of declining domestic oil production and increasing oil consumption has left the U.S. increasingly dependent on foreign oil.

The U. S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration states that domestic oil production in 2002 was 5.8 mmbd, about 36% lower than the 9.0 mmbd produced in 1985. The total use of petroleum products on the other hand has grown from 15.2 mmbd in 1985 to 19.3 mmbd in 2002.

The lion’s share of oil consumption stems from transportation needs. In 2002, the transportation sector accounted for about 68% of total petroleum use with gasoline accounting for two-thirds of the petroleum consumed in the transportation sector.

U.S. net oil imports have grown from 4.3 mmbd in 1985 to 10.4 mmbd in 2002. Net oil imports as a percent of U. S. petroleum product use has risen from 28% in 1985 to 54% in 2002.

Based on Sandia National Laboratories and U. S. DOE/EIA forecast, an additional 7.5 mmbd of oil and petroleum products will have to be imported by 2020 to bridge the gap between growing consumption and falling domestic oil production. In 2020, U.S. oil production will supply less than 30% of U.S. oil needs.

The Energy Bill: Long-Term Plan for Energy Security.

The picture the current events paint as a preview of the future is cause for concern.

On August 6, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry outlined a $30-billion, 10-year plan to veer the U. S. towards energy independence. The plan includes tax breaks and incentives for carmakers and buyers, coal producers and alternative fuels research. President Bush responded saying Kerry’s proposals mimic much of what Bush had already proposed but is stalled in Congress.

It will not be adequate if President Bush and Senator Kerry just reignite the energy debate. To bring clarity to energy security, we need a comprehensive long-term national energy plan that will reduce our reliance on foreign oil while meeting the nation’s growing transportation needs.

Both supply and demand sides of the transportation issue will have to be addressed to make a meaningful impact in reducing the dependence on foreign oil. Steps to increase the supply of domestic transportation fuels including alternatives to oil will likely be required. So too will efforts to reduce per capita transportation fuel consumption.

Based on what has been outlined to date, neither the Bush proposal nor the Kerry plan appears to fully address the critical transportation issue. The House-Senate conferees have an opportunity to deliver a responsible energy bill to the President’s desk for his signature. If the dependence on foreign oil is not reduced, the course of the U. S. economy and the stock market may well be shaped more by decisions made in Moscow, Riyadh, and Vienna rather than being determined by the decisions made at home.

Notes: This report is for information purposes only. Nothing herein should be construed as an offer to buy or sell securities or to give individual investment advice. This report does not have regard to the specific investment objectives, financial situation, and particular needs of any specific person who may receive this report. The information contained in this report is obtained from various sources believed to be accurate and is provided without warranties of any kind. AlphaProfit Investments, LLC does not represent that this information, including any third party information, is accurate or complete and it should not be relied upon as such. AlphaProfit Investments, LLC is not responsible for any errors or omissions herein. Past performance is neither an indication of nor a guarantee for future results. No part of this document may be reproduced in any manner without written permission of AlphaProfit Investments, LLC.
Copyright © 2004 AlphaProfit Investments, LLC. All rights reserved.

After working for the nation’s leading oil and auto companies, Sam Subramanian, PhD, MBA is currently Managing Principal of AlphaProfit Investments, LLC, an investment research firm based in Houston, TX. Sam edits the AlphaProfit Sector Investors’ Newsletter. For the 5 year period ending June 30, 2004, AlphaProfit model portfolios increased by up to 252%, a compound annual return rate of 28.6%. To learn more about AlphaProfit and to subscribe to the FREE newsletter, visit http://www.alphaprofit.com

Baby baptism is probably one of the most widely misunderstood rituals in the Christian (and many other) faiths. Almost all Christian churches practice Baptism in some form or another. Baptism comes from a Greek word baptizo which loosely translated means to dip, a washing or immersion. However baptism for babies is not a practice that was performed by the churches in the first century.

According to various chapters in the New Testament as you come into faith with Christ then the next few steps would be confession and then baptism. The process of baptism symbolizes the dying, burial and rising of Christ. Through baptism the symbolism of these acts are reenacted.

Baptism is done for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38), it washes away our sins (Acts 22:16). We are baptized so that will God will resurrect us from death (Colossians 2:12, Romans 6:3-6).

So when should someone be baptized?

In order to answer this question properly we will need to refer to the scriptures. The Bible clearly tells us that children are considered to be pure in the eyes of the Lord. The scriptures teach us that in order to enter God’s kingdom we need to become more like children and open our hearts (Matthew 18:3, Mark 10:15).

The baby baptism advocates interpret passages such as Psalm 51:5 as saying that we are born sinners. However with proper interpretation would say that we are just born into a sinful world. A close look at a couple of passages tells us that children do not have sin as a result being born and that sin is a result of lust and therefore turns into sin. See Ezekiel 18: 20; James 1:14-15. As children grow older they are filled with secular knowledge and through this process their hearts become hardened. This is when the blood of Christ is needed.

Being able to recite the word of God is very different to comprehending it properly. Whilst young children might mean well when they ask if they are ready to be baptized they do not know any better. The choice to become a Christian is one of the gravest and most serious decisions you can make; is your child really ready for that kind of commitment?

So who are the real candidates for baptism?

Anybody who is prepared to hear the word of God confess their sins, and ready to live a life committed to Christ can be baptized. Another place to learn who can be baptized is searching through the book of Acts. It is known as “the book of conversions.” The reason why is it shows how several people were told how to be saved and become a member of the church.

Children should be introduced to the word of God at the earliest possible stage in their lives. Parents will need to take care to strike a balance between guiding their child and supporting the child’s spiritual development. Any commitment they make to Christ is their own and should be something which they would have independently chosen for themselves.

It’s common for parents to push their children to agree with their religious beliefs. However well-intentioned it is sad because in the end this undermines the child’s spiritual development. To baptize someone who is not ready is to do them a grave disservice.

By waiting until they are ready to really understand the commitment they are agreeing to; the ritual becomes more meaningful for everyone involved, thus also approved of by God.

Christine Bettridge has loved writing since childhood. She has written Plays, poetry and many articles on several topics. She is the editor of the article directory Above All Content She is also the author of the highly popular End Times e-book which has caused a stir in the religious world. It can be found at End Time Secrets Visit her blog at: The Bible Sound Blog

You most likely already know how favourable posting your businesses online video is. For a businesses marketing manager, online video clips are a commendable media that can easily capture your potential clients’ attention & raise the overall number of visits to your businesses website. Promotional videos are enormously successful in maintaining the target consumers’ relatively short attention span. Moreover, if codes are built-in & online video sharing is promoted, Web videos can be a marvellous way to get one-way links & thereby positively affect your web site’s position on the search engines.

In reality, professional videos have become a significant source for business or self-advertising. The following are some tips to circulating your own short format promotional videos. Vidify is one of the best video production companies around that produce cost-effective short format online videos for local businesses.

Firstly, you can post your Internet videos on your own web site; although this would entail you to make your own video hosting arrangements. Ask your web hosting solutions merchant if video downloading or video streaming functions are supported.

Video downloading is where your viewers must download your Internet video to their hard disk. They need to save the Internet video to their own computers before they can play it using their PC’s video player or a downloadable video player application. There are countless video downloading service businesses that are reasonably cheap. There’s also a progressive downloading mechanism where your web viewers can play the Internet videos while downloading them.

Video sharing streaming on the other hand totally does away with the need to download the promotional videos and allows immediate playback so it gives the most convenience to your Web users. Of course, getting a video hosting provider that supports video streaming can cost you a pretty penny.

And finally, the more trendy way to distribute video commercials is by posting your sites to video distribution websites that have their very own video hosting infrastructure. These websites cost you nothing to become a member & will even sometimes give you money post video material. What’s more, also have an immense market base and reach; for example, YouTube gets around 19 million Web visitors each month.

What New Mothers May NOT be telling Their Doctors

By: Robyn B. Surdel
Robyn’s Nest ~ The Parenting Network

Postpartum mood disorders come in many shapes and sizes. Approximately 80% of all women in the United States will experience some form of mood disorder after the birth of their child. The emotional and physical discomfort they feel can be triggered by hormonal changes, lack of sleep, stress, socioeconomic factors and other changes. What is concerning, however, is that only 20% of women actually report their feelings to a qualified health professional, such as their physician, midwife, or pediatrician. Perhaps women are concerned about the stigma associated with mental health issues, or they fear that in reporting their mood swings and emotional pain they may jeopardize custody of their new baby. Whatever the reason, it’s time to change the way we look at perinatal (after birth) mood disorders.

The majority of women experience what is referred to as “the new baby blues”. This milder form of postpartum depression may be characterized by insomnia, fatigue, anxiety, tearfulness or sadness and may last anywhere from several hours to a week. The more serious forms of perinatal mood disorders include Postpartum Depression and the extremely severe Postpartum Psychosis.

Approximately 10-15% of new mothers will experience Postpartum Depression. Family members, partners and heath professionals should watch for symptoms that could include sleeping and eating disturbances, anxiety and insecurity, mood swings, confusion, loss of self, guilt or shame, and thoughts of harming herself.

Dr. Cheryl Beck and Dr. Robert Gable at the University of Connecticut have developed a new screening tool to assist health care professionals with identifying new mothers who may be at risk or suffering from postpartum depression. Dr. Beck suggests that doctors, midwives, and nursing staff should continuously evaluate new mothers throughout the first year after giving birth as the more severe of these conditions may not surface until well after the 6-week obstetric check up.

While only 1% of new mothers may experience the more obvious symptoms of Postpartum Psychosis (hallucinations, delusions, an inability to sleep, poor appetite, and bizarre/irrational behavior) these are the women who are at risk of hurting themselves or their new baby. Early detection of perinatal mood disorders is imperative to prevent another senseless loss of life, however our perception of mental illness and its associated diseases must change. Women need to feel confident that their healthcare professionals will take appropriate steps to get them the help they need without fear of shame or consequence.

If you are concerned that someone you love is experiencing any of the above symptoms, please request help in your area by going on the web to www.postpartum.net. Professionals are standing by to answer your questions.

Robyn B. Surdel
Robyn’s Nest ~ The Parenting Network
www.robynsnest.com
robyn@robynsnest.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After having children, Robyn found that there was a need for reliable and current information on all children’s issues. Not finding the medical, behavior or psychological information available to parents or grandparents, she wondered what to do. Of course, being skilled on the computer, informed about children’s issues and with a desire to help others, she started her web site and put aired information on TV.

There is a secret zoo that runs encaged along the roads.

They are liquid, semi-visible goliaths that rage through the streams and chunks of ordinary traffic, with the effervescent tendrils of mile-long tales whipping behind them like Chinese dragons. Though composed of hundreds of pounds of steel, glass and plastic, they are able to pass through solid objects. They are bound by the laws of the highway, but not by any conventional notion of time or space.

They are Aggregate Traffic Animals: a menagerie of emergent beasts drawn from the interacting behaviours of many individual human beings driving many individual cars with many individual goals, their collective activity giving rise to something with greater presence, power and purpose than the sum of its constituents. They take on a host of different forms, each to serve a different end.

They are real, and they drive among us.

Preamble

In his introduction to The Extended Phenotype (Oxford University Press, 1982) enthusiastic evolutionary biology cheerleader and Commodore-hacking pop-science guru Richard Dawkins invites us to consider the Necker Cube Illusion: a two-dimensional image representing two interlocked three-dimensional blocks in which the foreground and background can seem to flip back and forth as the brain fruitlessly seeks the “true” interpretation of the depicted space. This is Dawkins’ starting point for a thought experiment in which he blurs the lines between species, their genes and the environment, calling into question the traditional boundaries drawn through biological systems to identify the relevant level of study. To wit, to wank:

We look at life and begin by seeing a collection of interacting individual organisms. We know that they contain smaller units, and we know that they are, in turn, parts of larger composite units, but we fix our gaze on the whole organisms. Then suddenly the image flips. The individual bodies are still there; they have not moved, but they seem to have gone transparent…

In other words, if you are able to de-emphasise the organism itself you are free to appreciate the idea of beaver ponds as artificial lakes generated by beaver genes, or to see a spider’s web as an arrangement of silk drawn by DNA. By extending the lines with which we bound the traditional phenotype, we define new organisms, merging technology and individuals into communities the same way that ancient micro-organisms interacting inside bilipid membranes fell into symbiotic lockstep dances to found the first stable cells.

Organelles, cells, bodies, herds: at which level we discern the animal is purely a matter of focus.

This idea of the emergent animal or “super-organism” is hardly particular to Dawkins: William Morton Wheeler remarked on the idea in his 1911 paper “The Ant Colony as an Organism” in a treatment that is every bit as cogent but with considerably less otaku chic than Kevin Kelly’s printed-soundbyte manifesto on hive complexity, Out of Control (Perseus Books, 1994). In the words of Kelly:

There is nothing to be found in a beehive that is not submerged in a bee. And yet you can search a bee forever with cyclotron and fluoroscope, and you will never find a hive.

So too can you examine a driver in a car and know nothing about the greater animal in which they both participate when the circumstances are right. Some of the applicable forces can be seen most clearly in the rarified environment of the professional race course, as explored by David Ronfeldt, a senior social scientist at RAND, in his 2002 paper Social Science at 190 MPH on NASCAR’s Biggest Superspeedways, where fleeting moments of co-operation between rivals are necessary in order to win. Ronfeldt focuses in particular on the phenomenon of draft line formation, which is similar to the way flocking birds can share aerodynamic advantage. Like iron filings in a magnetic field, the large-scale distribution of opportunistically partnering cars are drawn into predictable macro-scale patterns across the speedway:

Once the racers sort themselves out - after ten to twenty laps - it is common to see a single draft line of four to seven cars running in front, pursued a hundred or so yards back by a second line of cars, all another hundred or so yards ahead of a large pack of cars that may still be running in parallel lines but are doing more dicing than drafting…Cars that run alone, often stuck dangerously between two draft lines, will appear to drift irrevocably backward.

Freed of the bonds of racing’s formalism, the Aggregate Traffic Animals are born, rooted in transient symbioses between individual patches of drivers that will crystalise into the organs of the beast. But the circumstances have to be just right for one to emerge. The unholy Hieronymus Bosch-style concert of homicidal applied-shadenfreude that may characterise your urban, intra-urban or sub-urban driving experience is not ripe ground for ATA growth: too frothy.

The sociological and scatological dances of the megalopolis rushhour, too, are beyond the scope of this article, and are at any rate most likely best explored with deep computer simulations using high-tech cellular automata tools with average driver profiles linked to real-world statistics of roadway usage coupled with an army of ten thousand angry ax-wielding orcs battling an equal number of obedient clonetroopers.

Rather, this field is perfect fodder for the amateur ethologist, observing phenomena with a keen eye, an open mind and a sharp pencil. And while much has been written about manipulating traffic waves, the dynamics of traffic jams and phase-transitions in traffic density, very little time has been devoted to the observation and cataloguing of persistent multi-car zoomorphia.

Early Observations

The author first became aware of the existence of ATAs while making his way through the hinterland of Canada on a long, mid-winter solo drive in a decrepit Dodge Charger with no functioning radio. Due to his dangerous penchant for immersive daydreaming in the absence of external stimuli, he began to parasite his driving decisions by locking in behind another car with comparable speed ambitions. By reserving a sliver of awareness for tracking the red brake lights of the “lead” car for changes in speed or direction, the author was able to comfortably enjoy his trance while a hefty burden of road awareness was outsourced to the other driver, causing the front car to function as a sort of early warning mechanism for changing conditions (including the Mounties’ speed-traps).

The notion resurfaced while the author was wrestling a dented Volkswagen Rabbit rental down a twisting, pot-holed two-lane jungle highway through the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. As the journey began he found himself hedged inside a short parade of other tourists, all driving their rental cars out of the airport at around the same time at a hesitant pace, breaking frequently to process the unfamiliar leafy darkness ahead. Fearing injury, the author laterally-leapfrogged the indecisive parade and drove on into the murk alone. Remembering his success in the far north, he latched onto the back of a local vehicle (a home-modded convertible Beetle carrying ten people, standing room only), using its varying speed as an indicator of road conditions. Unexpectedly, this move was noticed by several of the other tourists, who began to fight to separate themselves from the melee and join the newer, more surefooted pack that was rapidly pulling ahead…

By the time the author had reached his exit the impromptu fleet of vehicles had become a persistent, homeostatic phenomenon. The fleet had quickly learned to manipulate the spacing between its components in order to remain permeable to faster moving local traffic while defending its integrity against more disruptive external vehicles. Pulses of communication signifying when the passing lane was clear rippled down the chain through a conscientious leaning into the gravel shoulder, assisting in the process of expectorating invaders. Several of the original tourist vehicles ended up being swapped out for other vehicles without rocking the boat. Later on, even the leader was swapped out for another experienced local car.

It was a fetching game, contributing to the welfare of all of its players in an interesting way, but it was not a true ATA. It was too conscious a contrivance to be anything more than a delightful spontaneous social event.

You see, a distributed animal with human components can be very sensitive to perturbations from within. It is only when the conflicting threads of goals, reasoning and competition between individual human minds are quietened into the background noise that the soil can truly be ripe to raise a complex beast. When drivers can fall into a semi-hypnotic state and their herd instincts take over, the seeds are laid for something greater.

Habitat

While there are thousands of traffic animal breeding grounds along the paved networks of the world, only one driving region has been extensively explored at this time, largely due to budgetary considerations.

The TransCanada Highway is a nearly ideal environment for the production of large-scale ATA phenomena, due in great part to the simplicity of its shape: all cars are moving either westbound or eastbound, streamlining the goals of the drivers in much the same way as the shape of the Daytona superspeedway encourages drafting partnerships (see above). Also, because there are long stretches through lonely wilderness and semi-tundra, nascent traffic animals have a long period in which to mature before coming against obstacles like influxes of new cars or navigating around towns; and because the highway wends its way directly through most of Canada’s major cities, it provides a handy litmus test for the homeostatic integrity of a given specimen simply by observing whether or not it makes it through to the other side of the urban area intact.

While daytime ATA formation is not rare, it is under the cover of darkness that development can proceed in a comparatively unfettered fashion. This is due in large part to the more abstract, disconnected experience of interacting with other vehicles merely as points of coloured light. Familiar prejudices and stereotypes — potential sources of destructive competition — are smoothed out by the shadows. At least on the basis of visual impressions, a Volvo and a Camaro can enter a system as peers.

Diminished visibility resulting from mild to moderate weather conditions can have a similar equalising effect, but when conditions become too severe drivers tend to clump into packs for safety, leading to pseudo-ATA fleets that are all too conscious social events (as in the Quintana Roo experience).

Show me an autumn stretch of prairie transcontinental highway at twilight, and I will show you the secret zoo of the road.

Typical Morphologies

The most basic form of multi-car life is the Asipetal Caterpillar, also known as a worm. Worms begin when a stable solo vehicle spawns a linear, single-lane chain of vehicles composed of loose monomers joining at the rear (a closely related, but dysfunctional, construct known as an Acropetal Caterpillar grows by adding vehicles to the front of the chain, generally leading to destructive diffusion or autolysis). Short, lithe worms are the fundamental building blocks of healthy ATA tissue. Perverse, long-form worms are the seeds of congestion and death.

The second atomic element of ATA tissue stands in stark contrast to the worm, for it is a fleeting thing, and when it takes concrete form at all it is often manifested as a single car. The Apparent Coxswain is a vehicle that appears, to the conscious or semi-conscious mind of one or more drivers, to be a leader of the worm. When the Apparent Coxswain changes lanes, there is a higher probability that a majority of the worm will follow suit than if the change were initiated by a less trusted vehicle. In many cases each car in a worm perceives the car immediately ahead of it to be the Apparent Coxswain, leading to domino-effect lane-transitions; such formations have high homeostatic integrity because of the worm’s ability to “find a new head” should one Apparent Coxswain be lost to the currents. (Please note: the Apparent Coxswain should not be confused with the Virtual Coxswain or the Napoleonic Coxswain, discussed below.)

Formations that achieve such integration become Cholingers: Asipetal Caterpillars with tightly-integrated internal feedback systems of Apparent Coxswains, capable of transmitting information from tip to tail with high fidelity. Cholingers can slither to avoid torn tyres on the road, twitch around slow-moving vehicles, and even slip through packs of alien worms, wild axenes and other traffic froth to arrive on the other side intact.

Of course, not all Cholingers slip through the strangers: sometimes they interact.

Every Cholinger is either benthic or pelagic. Benthic Cholingers travel at a similar rate to the currents of the road, while Pelagic Cholingers travel at a dissimilar rate when compared to other traffic (typically a faster rate). It is possible, however, for a benthic line to be picked up and carried along by a pelagic cousin, leading to a coupled form. This is the first real Aggregate Traffic Animal we will meet tonight: a bilaterally asymmetrical diageotrope known as the Epiphysian Cyclosalp.

Within the body of the Cyclosalp the individual Cholingers are transmuted into a pair of Librigenates — stretchy, free-flowing tissue that is bounded in space by the relationship with its partner, the accelerating pelagic lobe sliding forward and the steady benthic lobe catching up in a slow-motion slingshot, compressing and expanding between the loose, senseless clumps of other cars. This accordion-like effect might initially seem to be a force tearing the animal apart, rending pelagic from benthic — and this is indeed what might happen in too rarified an atmosphere — but when presented with obstacles of any kind, the Librigenates that comprise the Cyclosalp fall back on their Cholinger heritage of local integrity, crystallising en masse to navigate the hazard.

Unfettered, the Epiphysian Cyclosalp is like half a butterfly, its riparian body gilded by a slowly flapping wing of accelerating, gliding Librigenates ebbing and flowing in a stately round. Its insides whorl as partners switch places, benthic turning briefly pelagic, pacer cars joining a rippling pulse of local inertia forward, headlights cross-sweeping.

It is beyond the scope of this article to detail the myriad circumstances that provide seed for the profitable entanglement of multiple Cyclosalpic streams. So diverse are the possibilities that we could fill a Biblical tome without scratching the surface, without revealing the common thread of simplicity upon which the complexity hinges. Suffice to say the larger clade includes such varied forms as the whiplashing Epinastic Tricyclosalp, the many-fingered Dicyclosalp Fimbriatum, and the diaphanous, fleeting wonder of the mile-long Merosporangic Super-Cyclosalp…

Of course, not all Asipetal Caterpillars grow up to become stately Cholingers; instead, they lock into Lego-like bricks of uniform properties called Pycnoblastoids. While short-lived Apiculate Pycnoblastoids (in which the Apparent Coxswain is always the most forward car) are more common, it is the more flexible Laxiflorous Pycnoblastoid (in which the Apparent Coxswain is any car except that most forward) that lives a more fruitful life.

For instance, consider the case of a typical composite entity like a Tripycnoblastic Oomycotum, in which independent pycnoblasts jockey for position internally directly or by proxy through one or more Napoleonic Coxswains (that is, drivers who suffer from the delusion that they are single-handedly responsible for steering/leading their local sub-structure). The domino-line behaviour of an Apiculate Pycnoblastoid makes it too brittle to survive the stresses of being permeated by a competing pycnoblast, whereas the comparatively elastic structure of the Laxifloroid — imparted due to the inherent time delay involved in co-ordinating with a mid-fleet Apparent Coxswain — retains a perfect balance of rigidity and looseness, riding a line between orchestration and dissolution that makes composite forms like Oomycota possible.

Pycnoblastic tissue is unusual in that it makes use of some level of awareness on the part of the driver that they are participating in a formation (though drivers are only likely to be aware of the local level of structure). When this awareness reaches a certain level the composite entity is usually destroyed by internal stresses, but occasionally a dissolving multi-pycnoblast will emit a stream of highly energised vehicles — the Apheresoid Lirellate, a concentrated apiculatoid pycnoblast flung free from the miasma of death to rocket away, using for a coxswain the abandoned carcass itself.

…These are but the fringes of the zoo, the tip of the iceberg.

We have not even touched on the sensitive antennae of the Stipitate Phototaxites fringed with Virtual Coxswains, pseudo-lead cars ready to be sacrificed to trip any trap, the chaotic wrath of the Biflagellate Ableptic Figmo and the fate of the cystidial flotsam locked within them; the weird rhythms of the Cacospysic Super-Barbicanoids and their elaborate dance of shifting coxswains, the majesty of the motorcycle-based Raging Fallaxoid; the menagerie of endless cancers that can grow from unexpectorated papillic granulomae, from cataracts of geriatric nektons, or from service-stations with badly planned driveways.

Further Study

The study of a new order of life is not without its risks, both professional (in terms of reputation) and practical (in terms of being maimed by mis-navigated vehicles). The amateur automotive ethologist must not only have keen skills of observation, but also the fortitude to persevere despite the slings and arrows of dubious dissenters. Like Leeuwenhoek’s controversial animalcules and Pasteur’s superstition-defying microbes, there will always exist a certain testudinal resistance to new ideas among older quarters. There will be those who doubt the very existence of aggregate vehicular life, or who insist that the zoo of the road dwells in metaphor alone.

The opinions of such sceptics could be changed by a single night spent on a grassy hill overlooking a well-travelled country highway, watching the streams of red and silver lights merge and split, compress and attenuate, roil and interact, fatten and reproduce…

Watch the roads, and see the zoo for yourself. There is no denying its patterns of insectile purpose, its myriad variations in anatomy and configuration, or the orchestrated madness of the low-cost petroleum feeding frenzy. Your own mind, honed by thousands of generations of natural selection to recognise life from non-life, will tell you it is true; the disciplines of careful observation and meticulous classification will tell you how, and why.

Open your eyes, and witness an untapped world.

About The Author

Matthew Hemming is an animator and amateur automotive ethologist based in Toronto, Canada.

mfdh@quackquack.com

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The Property Index site has a vast range of property for sale in Portugal, view the range online.

Only 20 years ago there’d be merely a dribble of Britons looking for real estate in Portugal. Ask any one person who has chosen to remove to Portugal and they will confirm it. Many people would would view it as a momentary vogue and others would view it as a near to a fetish! Shoppers intent on relocating to this region may extend from young freshly weds keen on some new perspective to elderly people who are looking to enjoy themselves and relax. Note that you may have to deal with obstructions when attempting to buy real estate in a foreign country; as can be expected, there are hundreds of actions to come to terms with whether planning, popping in or finalising. If you miss out on one single action it is liable to create great obstructions plus, of course, most importantly, a financial hammering.

Obviously and expectably with this well-liked area, real estate might well be high-priced in this location and that’s just on account of the peaking buyer demand. Regardless of this the buyer certainly is spoilt for choice in a destination blessed by bright setting. It indeed has the whole enchilada a buyer could possibly itch for, and plenty more.

Wise Woman herbal and home remedies are simple, safe ways to help yourself when you have a diagnosis of uterine fibroids.

Uterine fibroids are solid muscle tissue growths in the uterus. They are also called fibroid tumors, myomas, or leiomyomas. Fibroids occur so frequently (in up to half of all women over forty) that they could be considered a normal irregularity. The occasional fibroid can become enormous (medical literature reports one that was 100 pounds!), but the majority (80%) remain as small as a walnut.

Fibroids are the number one reason American women have hysterectomies.

The causes of uterine fibroids are unknown, but estrogens, especially estradiol, promote their growth. After menopause fibroids disappear. But because estrogen levels can rise during the early menopausal years, previously asymptomatic fibroids may grow in the years just before the cessation of menses, resulting in symptoms such as feeling of heaviness in the belly, low back pain, pain with vaginal penetration, urinary frequency or incontinence, bowel difficulties, or severe menstrual pain and flooding.

Women of color are three to nine times more likely to have fibroids than white women, and theirs will grow more quickly.

Fibroid tumors are not cancer, not malignant. Tumor means a swelling or a growth, not a malignancy, not cancer. Less than 0.1% of all uterine fibroids are malignant.

Small fibroids often disappear spontaneously. Larger fibroids are more difficult to resolve, but not impossible to control with natural measures.

• The “root chakra” (lowermost energy center in the body, which includes the uterus) said to store unexpressed anger. It is believed that any unwanted growths in these organs can be countered by allowing the anger to safely discharge.
  
  
  
• One woman’s fibroids (and menstrual cramps) disappeared within three months of beginning a vigorous exercise program. Exercise helps insure regular ovulation, and irregular ovulation seems to worsen fibroids.
  
  
  
• Consuming three or more servings of whole grains or beans daily not only reduces the size of fibroids but offers protection from breast and endometrial cancers as well.
  
  
  
• Red clover flowers (Trifolium pratense), are one of my favorite infusions, but use during the menopausal years may increase difficulty with fibroids.
  
  
  
• Strengthening the liver with herbs such as dandelion, milk thistle seed, or yellow dock root helps it metabolize estrogen out of the body, thus reducing fibroids.
  
  
  
• Vitex or chasteberry tincture, 25-30 drops two to four times daily, often shrinks small fibroids within two months. But results come from long-term use - up to two years.
  
  
  
• Ask someone to burn moxa over the area of the fibroid while you envision the heat releasing the treasures in your uterus. What is locked up in this fibroid? What can you give birth to?
  
  
  
• Acupuncture treatments can shrink fibroids.
  
  
  
• Poke root (Phytolacca americana), used internally as a tincture (1-10 drops per day; start small) and externally as a belly rub oil, has gained a reputation as a profound helper in relieving pain and distresses from fibroids. CAUTION: Poke is considered poisonous; it is not often found for sale. This is one remedy you may have to make yourself to try.
  
  
  
• Warm castor oil packs on the belly, or ginger compresses (soak a towel in hot ginger water) relieve pain and help shrink the fibroids.
  
  
  
• The use of progesterone to treat women with uterine fibroids is hotly debated. One side holds that fibroids are created by lack of progesterone. The other side makes, to my mind, the better case: that progesterone increases fibroids. Evidence? Fibroids increase in size during pregnancy, when progesterone production is high, and atrophy after menopause, when progesterone levels decrease. Whichever side is right, eating more whole grains and beans usually changes estrogen/progesterone ratio for the better and shrinks fibroids.
  
  
  
• Reduce fibroids by reducing your exposure to estrogen: avoid birth control pills, ERT/HRT, estrogen-mimicing residues from herbicides and pesticides used on food crops (eat organically-raised products). Tampons that are bleached with chlorine may mimic the bad effects of estrogen, too.
  
  
  
• Lupron (leuprolide acetate), a drug which induces “artificial menopause” by shutting down the body’s production of estradiol causes a significant decrease in fibroid size within 8-12 weeks. Fibroids do regrow to about 90 percent of their original size when the drug is withdrawn however.
  
  
  
• Major advances have been made in surgical treatments for women with fibroids. There are many options now besides hysterectomy (removal of the uterus), including hysteroscopic resection, uterine embolization, myomectomy, and suprecervical hysterectomy. Since these are fairly new procedures, take the time to find a surgeon who is skilled in the procedure.
  
  
  
• Hysterectomy can be a life-saving procedure, but by the age of sixty, more than one-third of American women will have given up their wombs to the surgeons. The presence of non-symptomatic fibroids is never sufficient reason, to my mind, for a hysterectomy. Of my students and apprentices who have had hysterectomies because of fibroids, those who “did their homework” - that is, helped themselves before and after their surgery with all the tools at their disposal - seemed to fare much better than those who did not.
  
  
  
• With very few exceptions, no woman is healthier without her ovaries. So, even if you elect a hysterectomy, keep your ovaries.

These Wise Woman ways are arranged in order of risk: the safest first, the most dangerous last. If you have a uterine fibroid and it is a problem, begin with the mildest remedies first. Set a time limit for your use of any remedy, but, except in an emergency, don’t go on to stronger remedies until you are sure the safer ones aren’t effective for you. As with any advice, you are the best judge of what works for you.

Legal Disclaimer: This content is not intended to replace conventional medical treatment. Any suggestions made and all herbs listed are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, condition or symptom. Personal directions and use should be provided by a clinical herbalist or other qualified healthcare practitioner with a specific formula for you. All material contained herein is provided for general information purposes only and should not be considered medical advice or consultation. Contact a reputable healthcare practitioner if you are in need of medical care. Exercise self-empowerment by seeking a second opinion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Susun Weed
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Vibrant, passionate, and involved, Susun Weed has garnered an international reputation for her groundbreaking lectures, teachings, and writings on health and nutrition. She challenges conventional medical approaches with humor, insight, and her vast encyclopedic knowledge of herbal medicine. Unabashedly pro-woman, her animated and enthusiastic lectures are engaging and often profoundly provocative.

A new wave of gamers have spotted the caption “offshore sports betting”, but are not completely confident of what that expresses. A foreign betting website primarily runs extraneous to the legal power of any particular nation instead it can also mean an internet sports betting site that has all of their host computer within the boundaries of a state in which internet based wagering is not currently vetoed. In short then, it’s a wagering establishment active outside the area of the consumer. Online gaming world wide web sites are currently modulated through the agency of three agencies. These are known as OSGA (the Offshore Gaming Association), IGC (Interactive Gaming Council) and finally the Fidelity Trust Gaming Association FTGA.

The Offshore Gaming Association is a nonpartisan office that presently supervises the current overseas betting business, they strive to also offer gambling fans the capability to easily identify respectable businesses to play gambling games with. The authority strives to maintain consumer’s rights, and in addition they charge no association costs.

The Offshore Gaming Association is a well-qualified and non-biased third party affiliation that gives non-biased info, built on your responses, objective studies, phone chats, tips and additionally dispenses inside communication.

The Interactive Gaming Council are a not-for-profit council. The organization was designed to provide an arena for curious individuals to discuss the latest issues also to collective matters in the global online betting business, in an effort to establish frank not to mention effective commercial rules and procedures that improve end user trust in world wide web based gambling products and benefits, also to function as the gambling trade’s universal practise advocate and the council also provides a data depot.

The IGC has built up a distinction for encouraging dependability, honorable action and solidity by virtue of its exacting integrity standards, and in addition its allure to business organizations of exemplary conduct. The Interactive Gaming Council governs offshore gaming by utilizing a characteristic 10-point operative code furthermore bills gaming websites a fee to feature the council’s logo. Disillusioned customers may moreover report any of their arguments to the Interactive Gaming Council.

The Fidelity Trust Gaming Association has been established in order to generate a standard which will reform the criteria of computer accessible sports betting business enterprises. The council believe that through associating only with good sites, they can create an alliance of the fairest and professional cyberspace betting businesses globally.

To recapitulate, there are organizations who oversee the practises of computer accessible gaming and which should help to take the edge off most of the apprehensions experienced by doubters. Computer accessible sports betting web sites are absolutely secure, beacuse individual data aren’t demanded also the payouts and the gambling odds are equivalent to your familiar Vegas-type sportsbet. These websites minimize traveling expenditure, but retain of a Vegas gambling casino, however these days you are able to game in your own home.

sport betting casino online

17.3 percent rate of interest may come out so fairish but will it stay unremitting after you have to requite your money loan. It doesn’t matter if you live in Orland Park Illinois or in Mesquite Texas a right online analysis will spare you often lots of incommode. That’s why now you really need to investigate and go steady if you can have a money loan at a respectable percent interest rate. You should be wise today to analyze if you have a nice deal or if you don’t with the bank that offers you a bank loan. Check up to see if the moneylender who is tending to give you a loan is proficient. Nowadays you can check out interest rates quickly on the internet and stick out if there are possible sneaky traps you should be aware of. A merchant bank in Danbury Connecticut or so may have a total different actual rate for a 35000 dollar loan then a merchant bank in Fremont California and that makes a large clear gap in your yearly pay backs. Many of the merchant banks wil show you a interest rate that looks comely but doesn’t feel well or so after a period of time.

Translated in Dutch is says: Woon je in Ten Boer of Zundert en heb je BKR codering. Lenen met een BKR notering is nog nooit zo eenvoudig geweest. Koop een andere caravan met geldproblemen, 204658 euro is geen obstakel om te lenen. Van Lelystad tot Son en Breugel, financieren met zonder BKR is altijd mogelijk.

Did you realise that its really possible to acquire a mobile totally free includingfree line rental? What that means is that you can obtain a free cell phone handset with free inclusive text messages and free inclusive minutes without paying a dime for them!By now your thinking that this is a bum offer, but you can rest assured this deal is 100% genuine!The way to be successful is to play mobile phone retailers at their own game. You have to understand, cell phone stores sell 12 month free line rental deals just to attract potential buyers into the shop. But then they attach a lot of strings to the packages to control the number of people that actually take out and successfully order a 12 month free line rental deal.12 month free deals operate on the basis that you sign up for a cell phone contract as normal, and make sure they pay the bill as they would with any other contract. Then, at pre determined times within the 12 month term of the mobile phone contract the customer are able to claim cash back. At this point the store who sold you the mobile will send you a cheque. Typically around three separate claims need to be made before you get back all of the cost of your mobile.Now, the vendors ensure the proces of claiming quite hard, as they stipulate that you produce phone bills (which you may lose). They stipulate specific dates for the claim to be made (which you may not remember) and implement various other loopholes and barriers. So, you must be on the ball and beat them at their own game!Read the contract, make a note of the dates, do not misplace the paperwork and make your claim on time and you should geta mobile cost free for an entire year!The simple fact is that the stores don’t mind giving away a few of these mobile phones for free as it is a a good promotion for them. Having the ability to push “free cellular telephones” promotes the profile of their business, and, as they recognise just a handful of individuals are likely to jump past all the clauses needed to obtain a 12 months free line rental mobile, it does not actually cost them too much money!A free line rental mobile offer may not be the right for everyone as you have to be prepared and be sure you properly complete all the tasks of your claim properly, but, a 12 months free line rental deal is definately something worth considering if you are cost conscious.