Hasta La Gadget!

Verizon has confirmed today that it is going to start selling the Droid Turbo in Grey Ballistic Nylon with three new limited edition metallic accent colors. It’ll go on sale later this month and customers will have the option to pick from three metallic accent colors teamed up with Grey Ballistic Nylon. Verizon has had the Droid Turbo in its lineup for quite some time now and this might help breathe new life in the sales of this Motorola smartphone, that’s available exclusively from Verizon.

Big Red will be selling Droid Turbo in Grey Ballistic Nylon with three metallic accent colors both online and in stores for $99 with a new two year contract. Customers who don’t want to go with a conventional contract also have the option to purchase the handset on the Verizon Edge installment program. Verizon will also run a limited time device trade-in offer of $150 or more.

Since Verizon makes it clear that these color options are limited edition they certainly won’t be in ample supply once units start flying off shelves.

If you’re so inclined to purchase one of these units so keep this in mind, it would be in your own interests to be quick about it and purchase the Droid Turbo in Grey Ballistic Nylon when it goes on sale on May 28th.

Droid Turbo On Verizon Gets A Fresh Coat Of Paint , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Crowdfunding is a great way for startups to raise funds in order to bring their products to market. This way they get money to start production while customers get to purchase new and innovative products usually for less than what they would fetch at retail. There are no taxes involved which is an added advantage for backers, but this might change soon in Europe as the European Commission is mulling over imposing a tax on crowdfunding projects that you’ll find on websites like Kickstarter.

Over the past few years crowdfunding has become very popular and is now a major potential source of funds for companies who have limited resources.

Many startups have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, even tens of millions, for their projects through websites like Kickstarter. Some have even been acquired by bigger companies, like Oculus was acquired by Facebook.

The European Commission is mulling over imposing a value added tax on products that people pledge for, the VAT will be paid on the products that they’ll eventually receive since crowdfunding projects don’t immediately ship products, there’s always a gap of a few months if not more.

If the European Commission imposes this tax, crowdfunding projects will have to charge as much as 23% of the total value of the product to customers. Critics are against the idea as they believe that this will impact growth and will ultimately turn startups away from crowdfunding websites.

Europe Mulling Over Taxes On Crowdfunding Projects , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

What if you looked at your daughter and saw yourself? Not only the good parts but all of the negative self-talk you heaped upon yourself since you emerged from childhood. What would you do to stop your daughter from carrying the weight of that nonsense? Brittany Gibbons, blogger and author, answers that question in her memoir, Fat Girl Walking. Fat Girl Walking captures Brittany’s life from her late teen years to the early years of her marriage and motherhood. She takes an honest look at anxiety, self-image, and how to embrace yourself–no matter what size–not just for your benefit but for the betterment of your daughters, sisters, and nieces, too.

Photo Credit: Andy Gibbons

Between your blog, your TED Talk, wearing a swimsuit in Times Square, you have had many avenues for making your voice heard. What lead you to writing a book? How did Fat Girl Walking come to life? What is your story as a writer?

Every blogger wants to write a book. It’s basically our tagline. I truly didn’t think that it was going to be in the cards for me, I was just too in love with the online platform. But, following some media attention from a piece I’d written about how I’d used having sex with my husband for a year as a journey of body love, I was approached by a publisher to write a memoir. After that phone call, the seed was re-planted.

You said in a Holiday Café interview that Fat Girl Walking “is literally the hardest but awesomest project, ever.” What made it the hardest for you? What made it awesome?

I think I googled “how to write a book” at least 100 times. I was used to jamming a life’s worth of thoughts into 1000 words. Writing a book forced me to be expansive, and address the parts of the story that were hard and uncomfortable. Fully reliving something instead of just flashing through the highlight reel was really emotional. But, as hard as it was, and as often as I walked out of my office with my eyes puffy and swollen shut, it was also amazing to see how changed I was from those experiences. Here I thought I was just lucky to make it out alive, when in truth, I am thriving and stronger than I’d given myself credit for.

How do you feel about the term body image advocate? What does that mean to you? What role do you see yourself playing in this conversation about body image in our society?

A few years ago, I would have proudly worn the badge “Body Image Advocate,” but these days I consider myself more of a Women’s Advocate. This whole movement to reinvent beauty and teach self-love and respect isn’t exclusive to plus size women, it’s a battle for all women.

What would you like to see happen for young girls growing up to empower them to turn off the negative self-talk?

What young women and girls need is a map for how to treat themselves, and each other. Right now, that isn’t happening. All they learn is that in order to be successful and valued, it’s at the expense of each other. There is room and value enough for all of us here, it’s time we show them how to do achieve that.

What advice do you have for people that want to be passionate advocates for change? What would you tell them about writing and making their voices heard?

Being an advocate isn’t about being the loudest when the cameras are rolling. It’s doing the hard work when nobody is watching. It’s fighting the fight when it feels like nobody cares. And it’s counting every singular person that steps up beside you as a win. My advice would be to be consistent and relatable. You wouldn’t think fighting for women of all sizes was an issue men would care about, but a week doesn’t go by that I don’t get emails from husbands, boyfriends and fathers. It matters to them because I made it matter to them.

How does writing for a blog differ from writing a book? What did you learn about yourself and your process as a writer?

Like I mentioned above, books are long. Who knew? The internet is full of hyper-moments. Making the biggest impression you can in the most digestible form of media. Writing a book was the chance to tell a full story, and that was something I’d never done before. Length aside, there is a huge difference in medium. Writing online comes with a healthy dose of instant gratification and discourse. I write something, it’s ingested, and we talk about it, good or bad. It took me ten months to complete Fat Girl Walking, and I can barely contain my excitement for its publication. I just want someone- anyone- to talk to about it besides my mom.

Who do you want to play you in the movie of Fat Girl Walking?

I don’t care, as long as it’s not an actress in a fat suit. I would, however, nominate Aidy Bryant. She is hilarious and my current comedy girl crush.

You mention the important of finding clothes that fit you; how did you figure this out? What process do you use? I mean my god, how much time does it take?

This took forever. It was months of going shopping on a Tuesday afternoon, when I knew the stores would be empty, and the retail staff would typically be older and less shocked by a 30 year old woman crying in a dressing room stall. Because I didn’t look like the typical model in a clothing ad, I had no guide for the shapes and cuts that looked great on my body. I tried on everything. With time, I was able to rule out pretty easily what wouldn’t work, which cut down on the crying meltdowns by at least 50%.

Along with good clothes, you mention practicing camera angles; I long suspected some women from my high school took a secret class that enabled them to pose for pictures, but it never occurred to me to practice. What are some tips to shorten the learning curve?

Oh yes, learn those angles. Stand in front of a mirror and practice holding your head, shoulders and legs in a way that makes you feel attractive and confident. Practice this every day as you are getting dressed or brushing your teeth. Eventually, your body will remember what those poses feel like. Now, when I pose for a picture, my muscles know what to do and I’m pretty confident I’ll like the way it comes out. This does not hold true for those candid shots taken of you eating chips and salsa in the background of a party. What kind of person posts those online and then tags you in them? They should have their Facebook accounts suspended.

What’s next for you?

Fat Girl Walking comes out May 19th, and the next week I am hosting the first session of my annual adult summer camp, Camp Throwback. Beyond that, I’m really looking forward to a summer of traveling around and interacting with people who loved the book, and in the rare moments of free time, writing the next one.

You can find Brittany at her blog or on Twitter @brittanyherself.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Senate hawks like Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) do not like diplomacy with Iran. Graham has repeatedly threatened war with Iran, whereas Kirk prefers to starve the Iranian people. Yet, given that most Americans do not want another military adventure in the Middle East, and largely support a negotiated nuclear deal with Iran, the hawks are pivoting. Instead of doubling down on untenable positions, hardliners like Graham and Kirk are now offering their own versions of an unobtainable perfect deal to provide cover to kill the good deal in front of us. The problem is, based on their recent comments on the scope of a final agreement, their versions of a “better deal” are, in many regards, much less stringent than what President Obama and the P5+1 have actually lined up.

For his part, Graham apparently wants Iran to have more centrifuges than they would be entitled under the first ten years of the existing framework. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, he laid out eight principles for a good Iran nuclear deal. His first principle states “Iran must not be allowed an enrichment capability greater than the practical needs to supply one commercial reactor.”

Here is the issue: Iran has about 19,000 installed centrifuges, of which roughly 10,200 are enriching uranium. Under the final nuclear deal outlined by President Obama, Iran would be limited to 5,060 first generation centrifuges enriching uranium for a period of ten years before restrictions gradually ease. To fuel a commercial reactor under Graham’s fantasy deal – unlike the Arak research reactor, for example – Iran could expand its program to more than 100,000 centrifuges.

This is because Iran would need an enrichment capacity of at least 96,000 separative work units (SWU) and as high as 130,000 SWU to produce sufficient domestic fuel for the commercial nuclear reactor at Bushehr (Russia currently provides fuel for the reactor, though the agreement is set to expire in 2021-2022). In terms of centrifuges, these estimates range between 100,000 and 170,000 first generation centrifuges, or potentially 50,000 centrifuges if advanced centrifuges that operate with greater efficiency are included. Ali Akbar Salehi, the director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, floated the latter number by suggesting that 50,000 centrifuges would be needed to fuel the Bushehr reactor alone. Either way, allowing Iran to enrich sufficient fuel for a single commercial reactor would not force Iran to reduce its enrichment capabilities, it would enable Iran to significantly expand them.

There are two possibilities here. Either Graham is closer to the Iranian negotiating position than the American one, or he doesn’t quite know what he’s talking about. Given remarks he made in March, one has to assume it is the latter. Then, Graham said “I’m by no means an expert on nuclear enrichment, but the people that I do rely upon to advise me about such matters tell me that hundreds of centrifuges, rudimentary in nature, probably gets you to where you want to go if your goal was to produce commercial-grade fuel for one power plant.” Unfortunately, Sen. Graham has been misled on this score.

Graham may be strident, but he is no dummy, and his likely error underscores the highly difficult and technical nature of these negotiations. The point here is that the negotiations are better left in the hands of diplomats and our nation’s top scientific minds, like Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, not politicians. Those who are attempting to second-guess the framework have been unable to demonstrate how they would accomplish a better deal. It should also raise doubt as to the rest of Sen. Graham’s recommendations, many of which are neither necessary nor attainable.

Sen. Graham is not the only one whose deeply-flawed, transparently cynical attempts to poke holes in the deal deserve scrutiny. Senator Kirk, who has been warning of nothing short of nuclear Armageddon if a nuclear deal goes through, made fairly dubious recommendations during remarks at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week. According to Sen. Kirk, a good deal would look like “the agreement that Nelson Mandela signed with the international community to get rid of his four nuclear weapons that he had.” If it’s good enough for Mandela, it should be good enough for Iran, according to Kirk. That’s a catchy phrase, but one that is completely and utterly inaccurate.

As Stephen Schwartz at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies quickly pointed out, Iran did not decide to dismantle its nuclear arsenal under Mandela, who wasn’t inaugurated until 1994, but instead under the last President of apartheid South Africa, President F.W. de Klerk, in 1990. That decision was not made with the international community, but instead in secret. As Schwartz indicated, “There was no international agreement to end South Africa’s nuclear weapons program – nor any transparency, inspection, or verification provisions associated with such an agreement – for the simple reason that South Africa’s nuclear stockpile was kept secret from the rest of the world.” South Africa’s six nuclear weapons (not four, as Kirk claimed) were built and dismantled in secret.

Even more important — South Africa actually had nuclear weapons, whereas Iran does not, and South Africa maintains more than 485 pounds of highly enriched uranium from their disassembled weapons. Although it is not in a form that could be used immediately for weaponization, highly enriched uranium is the key component of any uranium-based nuclear weapon. Under a final nuclear deal, Iran would be prohibited from producing highly enriched uranium or obtaining weapons-grade plutonium, an alternative pathway to a nuclear weapon. Not only is the South Africa deal non-existent, it would also probably be unacceptable to Sen. Kirk if it did exist.

The real issue here is that there are some who are dedicated to defeating an Iran deal and will cherry pick and misconstrue as many facts as it takes to reinforce a pre-conceived notion that any deal is a bad deal. Rather than back seat drive on the negotiations, if Sens. Kirk, Graham and their fellow Iran hawks really wanted to resolve the nuclear standoff, they would be more deferential to the experts and hardworking diplomats who have been at this process for 18 months.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

In the summer of 1986, I had the opportunity to work as a chaplain in a large trauma hospital. That’s where I met Jim. He was about my age at the time, 24 years old. The previous evening, he had attempted suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping medication. After he swallowed the pills, he changed his mind and awakened his brother to take him to the hospital.

Jim explained that he had felt overwhelmed by stress and had begun to drink heavily. He said, “I am embarrassed by what happened. It was stupid. I had been drinking a lot that night. They were my brother’s pills. I thought I would just fall asleep.”

I replied, “You thought that you would simply fall asleep?”

“Yeah, I really did not think that it would kill me. I just wanted to sleep and relax.”

We sat quietly together for a few moments, then, I noted, “Ten pills are a bit more than you need to relax.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you thought about suicide before?”

“Yes.”

“Can you talk about that?”

As a tear formed in his eye, he whispered, “No, I don’t think that I can.”

I wonder if Jim ever found someone to share his torment, to confide in, to walk beside him towards healing. I hope so, but the stigma of mental illness is painfully sticky. Hiding behind a wall of silence, we tend to suffer in isolation. Though deeply yearning to share our struggles, we fear rejection, judgment, and shame.

Yet, the scourge of mental illness is rampant in our society.

In a recent sermon I asked the members of my congregation if our faith community could make room for some popular and well-known individuals. Each of them has struggled with a mood disorder, and their candor and vulnerability have helped to shed light on this very dark challenge.

Do you recognize them in this brief video clip? Click here to view video.

Staggering Statistics

Mental illness strikes close to home, both yours and mine. According to the National Association of Mental Illness, the number of people in our society grappling with these diseases is truly staggering. One in four adults in the United States will experience mental illness in a given year. 20% of youth ages 13-18 will also experience severe mental disorders. 1.1% of American adults live with schizophrenia, 2.6% live with bipolar disorder, 6.7% live with depression, and 18.1% face anxiety disorders. Serious mental illness costs our nation $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year.

Although military members comprise less than 1% of our population, veterans represent about 20% of suicide each year.

None of us goes unscathed by these battles. Indeed, They are we. We see them in the faces of our friends and neighbors. We see them in the faces of sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers. We see them in the mirror.

A Small But Powerful Way To Help Those With Mental Illness

A former professor of mine, Rose, once worked as counselor in prestigious psychiatric hospital.

Every day, she visited Larry. Larry sat in a rocking chair, and he only ever spoke two words: shower and shave. With each rock of the chair, he rhythmically uttered, “Shower. Shave.” When he rocked his chair, Rose rocked beside him. When he stopped, she stopped.

On her last day, she sat next to him and explained that she was leaving the hospital and that she had appreciated getting to know him.

He stopped rocking, looked at her, and said, “Thank you. Thank you for caring about me.”

We have much to learn from Rose’s ministry. Even as Jesus reached out to those on the margins of society, even as he found those hidden away in the cemeteries of the religious, even as he spoke to those muted by tradition and fear, we too can embrace the full humanity of the mentally ill. We need not worry about what to say or what to do. The gift of presence offers desperately needed recognition, compassion and acceptance.

It might be to late for my grandfather, but it’s not too late for you.

Click here to receive Patrick’s weekly vlog, The Unlikely Minute.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.