when we implement the major site...sounds like we have great things in store. Did you see the dkos beta site is copying all of your handy gizmos? No more html...

Rare admission of weakness

(AP) — In his first public address in a year, embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad vowed Sunday to win his country's long-running civil war while acknowledging his troops had lost territory because of a shortage of manpower....
Assad acknowledged that his generals have had to move forces from one front to another in order to protect areas that are militarily, politically or economically important. He added that the loss of some areas to insurgents has led to "frustration" among Syrians.

If it wasn't for Hezbollah, Assad probably would have lost by now.

The "bailout" just keeps getting worse.

Greek banks are set to keep broad cash controls in place for months, until fresh money arrives from Europe and with it a sweeping restructuring, officials believe.
Rehabilitating the country's banks poses a difficult question. Should the euro zone take a stake in the lenders, first requiring bondholders and even big depositors to shoulder a loss, or should the bill for fixing the banks instead be added to Greece's debt mountain?...
"We want, if possible, an initial amount to be ready for the first needs of the banks," said one official at the Greek finance ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "That should be about 10 billion euros."
Others, including Germany, however, are lukewarm and could push for losses for large depositors with more than 100,000 euros on their accounts, or bondholders.
Imposing a loss, something the Greek government has repeatedly denied any planning for, would be controversial, not least because much of this money is held by small Greek companies rather than wealthy individuals.
"This is not like Cyprus where you can say these are just Russian oligarchs," said an insolvency lawyer familiar with Greece.
"It's the very community everyone is hoping will resuscitate Greece, namely the corporates. You'll end up depriving them of their cash."

Who would ever trust their money to a Greek bank again?

I don't know anything about this blog, but the story is interesting.

Every student is given a "THREAT ASSESSMENT" by police and school administrators!

Schools and police are using V-STAG to assess a students threat level:

"The Virginia Student Threat Assessment Guidelines (V-STAG) is a school-based manualized process designed to help school administrators, mental health staff, and law enforcement officers assess and respond to threat incidents involving students in kindergarten through 12th grade and prevent student violence."

The war on terror is out of control! Watch out that kindergarten kid could be a threat!

Did you know, police are giving American addresses color coded threat ratings? And our govt. has also assigned you a threat assessment while travelling inside the U.S.

V-STAG was developed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Secret Service, and the U.S. Department of Education.

"Although both the FBI and Secret Service reports made a compelling case for student threat assessment, schools had no experience with this approach and there were many questions concerning the practical procedures that should be followed. In response, researchers at the University of Virginia developed a set of guidelines for school administrators to use in responding to a reported student threat of violence."

Explained so well that even a tech dummy like me can understand it.

And thank you for all the work you have done and still do to get this site up and to keep it running smoothly.

to have, easy to follow!

But wait, you're upgrading? I came over here because I didn't like DKos upgrading! Guess I'm going to have to suck it up and get used to change, huh?

here's the headline from the International Business Times:

"Loretta Lynch Says Sandra Bland's Death Highlights Black Community's Concerns About Police"

and the link:

http://www.ibtimes.com/loretta-lynch-says-sandra-blands-death-highlights...

contains stuff like this:

“I think that it highlights the concern of many in the black community that a routine stop for many of the members of the black community is not handled with the same professionalism and courtesy that other people may get from the police.”

and

Lynch said Sunday that police departments also feel frustrated in these incidents. “I think they feel that they get the scrutiny...they get the complaints and the criticism, and they don't get the support,” she added.

with the payoff

Lynch went on to say the debate around Bland's death has inspired important discussions about training officers in how to de-escalate incidents. She has not opened a federal investigation into the case.

I'm so glad (he thought snarkily and angrily) that this administration is so big on important discussions. I know we must have had an important discussion on income inequality and government spying and now we'll have one on this. Great. Thanks, Obama administration, for thinking we can't see through the real message, which is "this is inconvenient for us but we'll act like we care while doing nothing about it."

family matter has cropped up that will likely keep me from trying out your excellent suggestions [for a day or two].

But, I "thank you" very much for the detailed step-by-step tutorial, JtC. Getting ready to print it, so that I can put it too use as soon as every thing settles down.

Have a great rest of the weekend, Everyone!

Mollie

link

Investors may receive as little as 35 cents on the dollar under a restructuring of Puerto Rico debt if the commonwealth defaults, Moody’s Investors Service said.
“We believe that the probability of default is approaching 100 percent, and that losses given default are substantial,” Moody’s analysts wrote. “Bondholder recoveries will be lowest on securities lacking explicit contractual or other legal protections.”