Hasta La Gadget!

WASHINGTON — The backlash to Indiana’s new “religious freedom” law grew stronger Saturday, with professional basketball organizations and teams condemning the measure.

“The game of basketball is grounded in long established principles of inclusion and mutual respect. We will continue to ensure that all fans, players and employees feel welcome at all NBA and WNBA events in Indiana and elsewhere,” said a joint statement issued by the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, the Indiana Pacers and the Indiana Fever.

Indiana Pacers and Fever owner Herb Simon added that all fans and players will continue to be welcome at his games.

“The Indiana Pacers, Indiana Fever and Bankers Life Fieldhouse have the strongest possible commitment to inclusion and non-discrimination on any basis,” he said. “Everyone is always welcome at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. That has always been the policy from the very beginning of the Simon family’s involvement and it always will be.”

Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act will allow any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party. But what most troubles opponents of the legislation is that it could open the door to widespread discrimination. Business owners who don’t want to serve same-sex couples, for example, may now have legal protections to discriminate.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed the legislation despite opposition from business leaders, convention organizers and even the Republican mayor of the state’s largest city.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association, which is set to hold its men’s Final Four game in Indianapolis next week, also came out Thursday and condemned the new law. Reggie Miller, the former NBA star who played for the Pacers for 18 years, tweeted his disappointment Friday:

pic.twitter.com/21LwD5Ie72

— Reggie Miller (@ReggieMillerTNT) March 27, 2015

Other businesses that have criticized Pence for signing the law include tech giant Salesforce — whose CEO said the company will be cancelling events in the state — and Angie’s List — whose Republican CEO said he will not be moving forward with a $40 million expansion of the company’s headquarters in Indianapolis.

“Angie’s List is open to all and discriminates against none,” Bill Oesterle said, “and we are hugely disappointed in what this bill represents.”

Under pressure, Pence told the Indianapolis Star Saturday that he will back the introduction of a bill to “clarify” that the law does not promote discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. Such a measure could come next week.

“I support religious liberty, and I support this law,” Pence said. “But we are in discussions with legislative leaders this weekend to see if there’s a way to clarify the intent of the law.”

But gay rights advocates greeted Pence’s announcement skeptically. Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin tweeted that legislation would need to include explicit LGBT protections — something that Pence has already said is not on his “agenda.”

Note to @GovPenceIN: ‘clarification’ is phony unless it has explicit LGBT nondiscrim protections & RFRA civilrights carveout. @JohnRussell99

— Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin) March 29, 2015

“You can’t ‘clarify’ discrimination. Indiana now has billions of dollars and thousands of jobs on the line, all because the Governor wouldn’t stop this dangerous bill,” added Katie Blair, campaign manager of Freedom Indiana. “He has a second chance to save our reputation for Hoosier hospitality, but he has to stand up and protect LGBT Hoosiers.”

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CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia announced on Sunday that it would join negotiations to establish a new a Chinese-led Asian regional bank that has emerged as a potential challenge to United States influence in a part of the world where the Obama administration has tried to forge stronger ties.

The U.S. has expressed concern the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB, will allow looser lending standards for financial transparency, the environment and labor rights. The U.S. also worries the new bank will undercut the World Bank, where the U.S. has the most clout, and the Asian Development Bank, where it is the second-largest shareholder after Japan. Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Treasurer Joe Hockey said in a joint statement that the government will sign a memorandum of understanding that will allow Australia to participate as a prospective founding member in negotiations to set up the bank.

“Good progress has been made on the bank’s design, governance and transparency over the past few months, but we still have issues that we will address through ongoing consultations,” the statement said.

“Key matters to be resolved before Australia considers joining the AIIB include the bank’s board of directors having authority over key investment decisions, and that no one country control the bank,” it added.

Beijing has pledged to put up most of the initial $50 billion in capital for the bank, which is expected to be set up by year’s end. It is intended to help finance construction of roads and other infrastructure.

Working with institutions such as the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank, the AIIB has the potential to play a valuable role in addressing infrastructure needs and boosting economic growth in the region, with potential benefits for Australia, the joint statement said.

India and all 10 members of Southeast Asia’s regional bloc are among the more than 30 governments that have so far sought to join the bank before a March 31 deadline.

While Japan, which has tense relations with China, is still holding out, the Obama administration appears increasingly at odds with sentiment in the very region where it has tried to strengthen its relationships over the past five years.

Abbott said last week that he expected skeptical countries including the United States and Japan would also join if China gave required assurances on transparency and board management.

A man who went missing after Thursday’s explosion in Manhattan’s East Village was working as a busboy to save up enough money to live comfortably in his home country of Guatemala.

Moises Locon was employed by the restaurant Sushi Park, where he worked twelve-hour shifts six days a week. “He felt tired and wanted to rest, but he needed more money to be well in Guatemala,” his brother, Zacarias Locon, told the Wall Street Journal. He also said his brother wished to work as a teacher when he returned.

Many media outlets state that Locon’s age is 27, though a missing person flyer by the NYPD cites his age as 26.

Locon is one of two men left unaccounted for after an explosion and massive fire that originated in the building where Sushi Park was located. The other missing man, 23-year-old Nicholas Figueroa, was on a date at the restaurant when the blast from the basement shook the structure.

The inferno caused three buildings to collapse and severely damaged a fourth, leaving dozens of people without homes. Twenty-two people were injured, four of whom were taken to hospitals in critical condition.

Locon has lived in New York City for seven years, according to the New York Times. His cousin and roommate, Pablo Yac, told the Times that Locon was planning on returning to Guatemala to be with his girlfriend this year.

“I have a pain in my heart — for him and for the other families who don’t know where their loved ones are,” Yac told the Times.

Hyeonil Kim, 59, the owner of Sushi Park, called Locon a “friend” in a tear-filled interview with the Times.

Joseph Esposito, Office of Emergency Management Chief, told the New York Daily News he “would doubt very seriously” that either Locon or Figueroa will be found alive. The NYPD was using cadaver dogs to search the wreckage on Friday.

Though the official cause of the blast has not been determined, evidence suggests it was a gas leak, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference.

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Originally posted on Ambiance Matchmaking Website

Dating in our teens and 20s was challenging. Dating in our middle adult years, with significant exes, children, pets, mortgages, careers and a boatload of emotional, physical and perhaps even financial baggage, may seem impossible. I’ve single parented my son since he was very young, and didn’t have much time to date amidst parenting, working, continuing my education, doing dishes, mowing the lawn and attending various kid-related activities. So when my son left for college, I decided that there was no better time to start dating again.

But as often happens when we poke our heads into an activity after a few decades-long hiatus, I realized that everything had changed – and I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Rather than meeting someone at a dance, a bar, or if we go back far enough, a frat party, I soon learned that the majority of dating was occurring online. And rather than having to worry about my first impression when meeting someone, I had to worry about my first online impression.

We now have to worry about leading not with ourselves, but with an image of ourselves. We have to contend with parallel dating, encouraged by the online dating algorithms that push multiple potential partners at us at one time. We have to worry about competition that appears to be younger, thinner, wealthier and happier. Most of us are battle-weary, still struggling with past hurt and anger, with fears of getting hurt again, and now we find ourselves in completely unchartered territory, with very few ‘rules of the road’ to guide us.

These realizations got me thinking about the masks we wear in life, and why we wear them, and what purpose they serve. We all wear masks – some more than others, and some to more of an extent than others. We learned the importance of wearing masks as children when our parents taught us how to have good manners, and to apologize when we didn’t really feel like it. We may wear a mask when we interview for that job we desperately want, when we go to church, when we meet the parents of our friends. Basically, we are most likely to wear a mask when we’re trying to impress others, even ourselves. But we also wear masks when we’re trying to hide from things that may hurt us.

Deep inside all of us have a universal desire to be seen, heard, accepted and loved, by someone who remains steadfastly and passionately loyal to us, despite our flaws and even our worst mistakes. And this desire sits right alongside a fear of being seen and heard, and then summarily rejected. If we get hurt a few times along the way, particularly by those who made a commitment to love us and stand by our side no matter what, it is often very difficult to put ourselves out there again, particularly in such a vulnerable way. So we wear masks.

I had this in mind when I completed my own online dating profile, after my son left for college, and I decided that I wanted to give love another try. When I looked at all of the self-descriptive prompts on the online profile, as well as others’ profiles, I realized how easy it is to wear masks with online dating, where people are too often assessed based on superficial criteria, and then easily cast aside.

We live in a culture that worships youthfulness, optimism, extroversion, “athletic and toned” body types and a non-stop array of outdoor activities. Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of these traits, but let’s face it – none of us are really glass-half-full-hiking-biking-bikini-clad-kayaking-social-butterflies around the clock. And yet a review of many online profiles of presumably full-time employed middle-aged adults with children would have us believing so.

In fact, many of us seem to treat dating like a job interview where we post our best photos, wear our most flattering clothes and put our best collective feet out there. We do this for many reasons, but one biggie is that we don’t want to be rejected (again). The problem with treating dating like a job interview though, is that if we’re lucky we might actually get the “job,” but it may not be the one we really want, or the one that’s right for us.

Wearing a mask (or masks) may seem like the best method for preventing re-injury, but the problem is that when we wear masks to protect our hearts, we are hiding our authentic selves, which makes it very difficult to find someone who is truly compatible with us. Not wearing a mask requires a willingness to be vulnerable. Unresolved hurt acts as a barrier to vulnerability, and often manifests in anger as we imagine all of the ways that we might be hurt again.

Anger in a new relationship that is rooted in the past often manifests as accusations, and while sometimes we may be right – someone may have the intention of hurting us, often we are wrong. In fact most often, what may seem like someone on the verge of hurting us, is really them wearing a mask to protect their own heart. Letting others see our vulnerable sides (when the time is right) draws people to us, while anger and defensiveness pushes them away.

So how do we achieve this difficult feat – letting go of past hurt and anger so that we can find love again? We must forgive those who have hurt us. But this can be very difficult since, often, forgiving feels a little too much like condoning the bad behavior that broke our hearts. But if we want to find love again, we need to take a risk, become vulnerable and face our demons.

Here are three steps we can take in our journey of letting go of the past, so that we can be free to find love again:

1. Admit We Are Hurt and Angry: the first step in letting go of past hurt and anger is to admit we have these feelings. Once we own our past hurt and anger we can then find their true home – in the past.
2. Know That We Are Enough: the next step involves telling ourselves every day that we are enough, brokenness and all. We can own our past, take responsibility for our pain (and those holes in our hearts), and make a commitment to wake up every morning making a choice to accept ourselves – even if our emotions are shameful, scary, pessimistic, and even at times make us feel undesirable.
3. Be Honest with Ourselves: Ultimately it is self-honesty that allows us to stop playing a relentless game of tug-o-war with our emotions and let go of the rope that binds us, freeing us to love again, with our whole heart.

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Earlier on Huff/Post50:

So, you are a musician who happens to have a band going. The thing is, rather than making use of the usual slew of musical equipment, perhaps it is time you checked out something that is different? The $149.99 QuNexus Smart Sensor Keyboard Controller would certainly play a role here, where this happens to be no ordinary keyboard, but a very special one, that will certainly help bring your future gigs to new heights.

For starters, the QuNexus Smart Sensor Keyboard Controller happens to be an extremely durable, portable keyboard that will feature a smart fabric under each key so that it paves the way for complete gestural control. In other words, this keyboard will boast of velocity sensitivity as with any self respecting controllers do, but it also comes with tilt sensitivity, now how about that? This translates to the fact that in the proper mode, one will be able to wiggle one’s finger on a key to add vibrato and pitch bend, and the ilk. Rubbery and compact in nature, this paves the way for protection against spills and drops, and it can even be run over by a car and still work. Best of all is, the keys light up as you hit them for that added “oomph” factor.. Because everything, even the amazing QuNexus Smart Sensor Keyboard Controller, is better with lights!

[ QuNexus Smart Sensor Keyboard Controller – tough, resilient and cool copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]