I've been noticing willow trees as i have spent some time off work and travelling around country areas. Willow is renowned both for strength and flexibility, and also possesses the ability to regenerate itself when nearly destroyed.

I guess i feel some affinity that through my life i have chosen and been forced to accept my strengths and weaknesses and found anew flexibility to re-define, re-new and re-generate who I am and how I re-act to life.

_{photo (C) bobcuthillphotography@gmail.com}

Grahams Quick Guide to E-commerce:
Domain Name
A Domain Name is the address that people type into their web browser e.g. www.catholicbookshop.org to access your site. You must register a Domain Name with a Domain Registry. Once you have registered your domain name, you must configure the domain name so that it points to a Web Hosting company. If you have opted to purchase a Shopping Cart that provides hosting as part of the package, you will need to point your domain name to the Shopping Cart's servers.

Web Hosting
Before anyone can see what your company has to offer, you must elect a Web Hosting company to host your website. Everything you see on the Internet is stored on web servers around the world. There are many thousands of companies who provide this service and their prices all vary depending on your requirements.

Types of Websites
Websites come in many different shapes and forms. They can be static or dynamic. They can integrate with databases, or simply display basic information such as contact details and other company (or personal) information. They can be strictly based on your information, or can display links to, and ads for, other websites.

They can also incorporate third-party controls/services such as:
Shopping Cart Facilities
Real-Time Credit Card Processing
Content Management System(s)
Telephone SMSing / calling

Your WebsiteObviously, you will need an actual website to point your domain name to. Depending on your level of programming experience, you can either attempt to create this yourself, or employ a professional web developer to create it for you. In either case, remember that this is a virtual presence of your business and should reflect the quality of your products and organization.

Some suggested sections, which you may wish to include in your website, are;

Home page (the starting point of your website)
Contacts page (the numerous ways you can be contacted, eg. Email address, phone numbers)
About Us page (a general overview of your business)
Products / Services page (outline of your products / services)
Shopping Cart (the area of your website that allows products / services to be purchased.
Shopping Carts

To provide effective eCommerce services to your customers, you will need a Shopping Cart service attached to your website. A Shopping Cart, in its basic form, exposes a list of all your products and provides a facility to purchase them online.
Much like web hosts, Shopping Carts come in various different shapes and forms. Some carts allow you to manage your stock levels and update pictures, while other carts integrate complete Content Management System (CMS) facilities, which allow you to modify how your site looks, manage categories for products, adjust postage levels, set your own payment options and much more. A Shopping Cart can usually also be configured as a complete website, including the sections outlined above, or it can simply be used as an additional 'plug-in' to your existing site.

Shopping Carts basically provide you with the means to setup a complete online shop, with minimal effort or programming knowledge.

Since every Shopping Cart is different, here are some points you should consider when choosing the right Shopping Cart for your business.

Products
The more options you are given for your product, the better. You need to ensure that the software will provide you with the features you need. Such features to consider are Inventory Control, Stock-On-Hand (SOH) Warnings, Sales Reports and ease of use.

If were to adopt a Shopping Cart and then find that it's missing a core ingredient, such as SOH Warnings, you may be missing out on key elements, which are crucial to the automated stock-management environment. It's all about making your life easier.

Images

Pictures of products are one of the most important aspects when trying to sell online. Pictures re-assure customers and give them confidence in knowing exactly what they are paying for.

Shopping Carts should all incorporate images with their products. Desirable features of Image Management in Shopping Carts include (but may not be limited to):

Multiple images per product.

The option of using the same image for multiple products (as opposed to having to upload additional images every time).

Automatic Image-Resizing will save you time in having to adjust images manually, before uploading them to your website.

Straight-forward Image Management.

Postage
Every Shopping Cart tends to have a different method for calculating Postage Rates. Some opt to provide a per-product flat rate, while others give you the option of adding a percentage or flat rate across the board. Some Shopping Carts provide you with fields for product dimensions and calculate the postage "on-the-fly", based on rates from an online source (such as Australia Post). Other Shopping Carts have different methods and some prefer to give you free reign on how you would like to apply postage fees to your products. You should decide what would work best for you before choosing a Shopping Cart for your business. Payment Gateways

Some Shopping Carts only provide Credit Card processing through one particular Payment Gateway. Others will give you multiple options at setup time. You need to compare prices and features before making a decision on this topic. See Section 5 (Real-Time Payments) for more information on Payment Gateways.

Most shopping carts will also provide the option to accept payments by methods other than credit card, such as payment in invoice. If you choose to accept this method, you should be aware that payments are not necessarily in real-time, and to be wary of shipping goods, before payment is received.

Security

Any reputable Shopping Cart should have adequate security measures in place, or information on how best to secure your website if they do not.

If you have an SSL Certificate in place, or if the Shopping Cart provides one, you should check the characteristics of the certificate and make sure it has adequate encryption. You should also ensure that the certificate has not expired. See Section 6 (Secure Sockets Layer Certificates) for more information.

Marketing Tools

Marketing from a Shopping Cart can be of great benefit to your company. Marketing tools can differ greatly in functionality depending on the Shopping Cart you choose.

Tracking customers via Customer Accounts and Newsletters can be extremely useful and will assist in keeping your customers happy. It also helps to remind them that you are still operating. Furthermore, recording useful information from customers allows you target particular audiences (eg. Customers within ACT only; or Customers over the age of 40; etc) and will greatly improve your control over customers' interest in special deals, offers and products.

You should also consider whether or not your chosen Shopping Cart will allow you to add advertising banners and/or AdSense-type advertising on your site - these will assist your income.

Real-Time (Credit Card) PaymentsIn this day and age, Real-Time Payments are the fastest, most useful way to do business over the Internet - and they are quite safe, so long as you read and understand the remainder of this guide.

Real-Time Payments, for the purposes of this guide, are defined as Credit Card purchases made over the Internet. There are several ways of accomplishing this and you must be vigilant when choosing a suitable provider for this kind of service.

A Payment Gateway is a provider of such services. Once again, there are several Payment Gateways, around the world, who offer Real-Time Payment facilities. eWAY is Australia's leading payment gateway.

Once you delve into the realm of Real-Time Payments, you must be aware that security is your greatest concern when passing Credit Card numbers and other sensitive information to your chosen Payment Gateway. This is where Secure Sockets Layer Certificates (SSL) are a necessity.

If you've opted to use a Shopping Cart to sell your products/services online, then you should check what the Third-Party provider can offer you in terms of Real-Time Payments and the security that it demands
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates
Since you will be passing sensitive information from your website, you will require an SSL Certificate. As mentioned previously, some Shopping Cart solutions will provide SSL as part of their services. If they do not, however, you will need to apply SSL to your website. This also applies if you opt not to use a commerical Shopping Cart solution.

SSL Certificates have an encryption value showed in bits. You should ensure that the certificate you plan on acquiring is of adequate encryption (eg. 128bit, 256bit, etc).

Certificates also have an expiry date and must be renewed at the end of this period. You should not let your certificate expire before you renew it, so as to ensure it does not reflect poorly on your company.

Marketing
Now that you have the necessary information to set up your online business, you will need to start marketing your website. There are a number of ways to do this. Some methods are free and some cost money. The right marketing tool will be different for every company, but there are a few that make your life easy and some that even pay you for advertising for other businesses.

Submit to a Search Engine
There are many good Search Engines in cyber space and you should submit to as many free ones as you can. Depending on the expected revenue of your business, you may choose to pay particular Search Engines (such as Google, or Yahoo!) a sum of money to prioritise your website and essentially make your website appear above the others in search results - unless, of course, they've paid more money than you.

Advertising On Websites
There are a number of ways to advertise on the Internet. You could contact a company you wish to partner with and trade banners (small ads placed on a web page). Perhaps you could also negotiate newsletter content and include your partner's services in yours (and vice-versa). That is entirely up to you and them.

There is another form of advertising on the Internet, which has grown to be quite well known and very simple to use. This form of advertising has been adopted by a number of Internet businesses world-wide and is based on a per-click scheme. Here's how it works: You setup your website and sign-up for the advertising scheme The advertising company finds your website and provides you with links that are appropriate to the content of your website (these links may change on a regular basis) You receive money every time somebody clicks on one or more of these links. Similarly, certain advertising companies will pay you, per-click, to put their banner on your site. Afterall, you're advertising for them - why shouldn't you get paid for it? Two companies who adopt this advertising methodology are Google (AdSense) and ClixGalore Affiliate Network.

_{shamelessly stolen from EWAY}

The emotional roller coast continues: grieving clergy who I have watched grow old and die, young ones with cancer, families dealing with still-births, the agony of Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Gaza. The horror of child abuse. The sorrow, disbelief and grief of sudden deaths, and suicides. The pain of cancer. Friends, relatives, customers- it's almost too much at times.

I find solace that friends have the same emotional reaction to me. I'm not alone. And the rejection and abuse is common.

Last Saturday I rang the Peace Bell in Cowra for my friends, my childrens children and world peace.

I'm not getting too excited, but I'm thinking that some special times may lie ahead for me. Otherwise I guess I just hang onto the old adage 'offer it up' I'm increasingly fond of Annie:

From Sydney and New York, filmed on mobile/cell phones.

_{hattip facebook users}

Palestine and Israel War in Gaza @ The Agonist Updates:
Part VI Part V, part IV, part III , part II, part I.

How Does it feel to lose two wars in a row

And People Wonder Why they hate us

Justification

turn coat

Canberra Lunchtime Gaza Protest

On the Jewish Tradition of Just War

I emailed Condaleeza Rice today

Ipologise this

EU_Israel Relations, Israeli politics and the Gaza Strikes

Should Israel talk to Hamas

Gaza as depicted by Al Jazeera

The Jewish community debates the Gaza strikes

Israel uses White phosphorus munitions in defiance of treaty

Israel goes for regime change in Gaza

Damnation indeed

George Kenney on Gaza, Forgiveness and American complicity

An Atrocity in Gaza

Hard to believe I've been a python fan for 35 years. hattip Tina for above

Silent vigil outside the Israeli embassy.

[Anna Blatzer in Palestine]
Gaza Massacres; The Time is Now

Please, everyone, stop what you're doing. This is not just any report
from Palestine, but the worst in my lifetime, the worst in 40 years.

At this moment, Israel is raining bombs down on Gaza, an enclosed tiny area that is home to 1.5 million men, women, and children, most of them innocent civilians. This space is tightly sealed by Israel, which constantly denies Gazans electricity, food, medicine, and the ability to leave. Gaza is one big prison being bombed from above. The death toll is up to 428 in the past 7 days. That's more than the number of Israelis killed in the last 7 years. This is what I would call a massacre.

Yes, more Palestinians killed in 7 days than Israelis in 7 years, and yet no comments from President Bush or President-elect Obama. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice places blame solely on Hamas for holding Gazans "hostage," as if Israel's actions were beyond judgment. Would Rice ever respond to a Palestinian attack on Israelis by blaming the Israeli government for holding its citizens hostage with their army's violence?

I am writing you from Jordan. I arrived the day after the attacks began. The day before they began, my friend and colleague Hannah had asked me to deliver a book of poetry to her friend Summer in Gaza, hoping I'd manage to make it on a Free Gaza boat. Since then, these boats bringing unarmed witnesses to Gaza (http://www.freegaza.org) have been attacked in international waters, and Summer's house has been blown to pieces, her brother almost died under the rubble, and her father desperately needs an operation but the hospitals are overflowing. In every home or shop I enter in Jordan, people are huddled watching the stories unfold: a family killed in their home, a university destroyed, a pharmacy blown to pieces, countless bloody babies screaming or worse, silent.

I wonder if people in the US are also seeing the bodies and faces or, as I fear, only some rubble and angry Gazans. The day after attacks began, Israel's largest newspaper Yediot Aharonot covered almost the entire front page with the words, "500,000 Israelis Under Attack!" In smaller font, one could learn that in addition to 1 Israeli, 225 Palestinians had also been killed. It was surreal.

Consider where you are getting your news, and what is not being told to you. For example, the stated purpose of the attack is to drive out Hamas, i.e. to kill anyone in Hamas and scare the rest into turning against Hamas. Not only does this tactic not work (brutality fosters violence), but it clearly fits the definition of terrorism: unlawful violence intended to frighten or coerce a people or government in order to achieve a political or ideological agenda. Israel is operating as a terrorist state in the true sense of the word.

Hamas is also a terrorist organization by this definition, so it would be easy to simplify the conflict as "an endless cycle of violence" were there no historical context. But there is a context, and there are alternatives: Let us remember that Hamas was elected after an intentional shift away from violence towards a mainstream political agenda. Hamas stopped its attacks and began offering the Palestinian people an alternative to the corruption of Fatah. Hamas was democratically elected and immediately strangled by a US-led boycott, preventing the government from functioning. Hamas continued to hold to its one-sided ceasefire (totaling almost 2 years), meanwhile the US and Israel began to train and arm the opposition government, Fatah, which they preferred.

In response to plans for a coup in Gaza (anti-democratic takeover by the US-supported opposition government), Hamas secured its control (again, democratically-elected whether or not we like them) over Gaza, and continues to offer Israel an indefinite ceasefire--no more violent attacks, period--if Israel simply complies with international law. The Arab League (comprised of 22 Arab nation members) has offered the same. These offers are dismissed by Israel and silenced in the US media. Israel says it has tried everything else, but it has not tried the most obvious: complying with international law and accepting repeated offers for a peaceful resolution.

As events unfold in Gaza neither the media nor the people are silent here in Jordan, where people refuse to go on as if nothing were happening to their brothers and sisters (sometimes literally--more than 60% of Jordan's population is Palestinian refugees). Just one day after attacks began, the king of Jordan gave blood to send to Gaza and inspired hundreds of others to do the same (meanwhile President Bush was on vacation in Texas). Spontaneous demonstrations have erupted at least twice here in the capitol today, and thousands are protesting in various major cities around the Middle East and around the world.

Please, wherever you are, do something. Write a letter to the editor. Get a large group to inundate your congressperson at once. Protest! There are demonstrations being organized around the US. If there isn't one happening near you, then do what I would do: buy a poster-board and large marker and write something on it ("Gazans Are People Too," "Massacre in Gaza: Silence is Complicity," "Our Weapons Are Killing Palestinian Children," or anything you can think of). Go outside and stand on a busy corner with it. Force others to confront the reality. Talk to people, invite them to join you. People around the world are empowered enough to take to the streets; we have no excuse not to. The time is now.

hattip Sean Paul

all the news!

Favourite News Sites
BBC	ABC.au
New York Times	Al Jazeera

I'm waiting for you. You will turn my life upside down, I want that!

It's over, except for a miracle.

I need one. But don't deserve one.

Births are for the most part wonderful.

And I'm well pleased to see some continuity here, the new curevents.org!

GIVEN UP

18 Ways to Power Search Google - Duncan Riley

Nearly everyone uses Google, but most people search Google by entering the term or word they are looking for without ever using any of Google’s built in features. Google is great as it is, but as the web gets bigger even Google, once famed for its great results, is delivering poorer results for basic search terms.

Google power users know the tricks, and they aren’t hard to pick up at all. Using Google’s built in features helps you find what you’re looking for faster, and that’s always a good thing. Here’s 18 ways to power search Google that you can use today to improve your Google experience.

# Not: adding a minus (-) allows you to narrow your search, for example if you wanted to search for New York but not City you’d enter New York -City
# Either/or. Google looks for the combination of terms you type in, but you can tell it to look for multiple words, for example Olympic or Gold. The short cut is | so Olympic | Gold works as well
# Specific Document Types use the modifier “filetype:” if you’re looking for documents or pictures, for example blogging filetype:pdf delivers pdf documents that include the word blogging.
# Quotation marks: I use this trick regularly. If you’re looking for the exact phrase, not the words entered, do your search like this “I did but see her passing by”
# Wildcard: old DOS users will remember doing directory searches using an asterisk (*) as a wildcard, and Google supports wildcard entries as well. Example: blogging *.com.au
# Definitions: stuck on a word you don’t understand? in Google, it’s as simple as define:word to deliver you a list of definitions
# Similar terms: ~ in front of a word tells Google to look for similar terms to that word, for example ~blog web 2.0
# Site Specific Search: another shortcut I use regularly. To search within a specific site, start the query with site:name.com term. Other rules can be used in the search.
# Calculator: who would have thought you could use Google as a calculator. Google supports /*-+ for a result.
# Phone Listing: Want to know who your missed call was from? type phonebook:555-555-5555 for the answer. Works primarily in the United States.
# Links: want to know who is linking to your blog, or even specific post? enter link:url.com into Google for the answer.
# Format specific search: sometimes finding what you want in Google can be difficult, but Google offers a range of format specific search sites. Google News, Blog Search, even Video are a few Google sites you can use to find what you’re looking for.
# Area Code Lookup: type in the US area code into Google to find out where the area code is.
# Movies: Get the latest movie times at your local cinema by typing movie:movie name zip.
# Stock Price: enter a valid stock symbol for the latest reported stock price, for example YHOO.
# Music: want the details of a song? use music:song name for Music specific search on Google
# Metric conversion: convert imperial measurements to metric and back again quickly via the Google search box. For example: 100 lbs in kg
# Term location: use inurl:, intitle:, intext:, or inanchor: to tell Google where it should look for the term your looking for.
# Cache: Google keeps a comprehensive cache database of many websites, and you can search this database by starting your search with cached:

Many of these features and more, including the ability to define the date rage for content, can be access via the advanced search link next to the Google search button.

Vale, Daniel, one of Canberra's special people.

A man with a beautiful voice who enunciated so well that one could imagine an angel was talking to you.

An angel with a dark side, an angel often bashed and abused.

An angel fighting demons within and self medicating so often.

'twas a privilege to care in small ways for Daniel.

Be at peace, and may the angels lead you into paradise.

Ronald Rolheiser writes again...

Some Guidelines for Service

To try to serve others is to be caught up in many tensions, some that beset from without and others that beset from within. How can we remain energized, effective, and true? Here are some guidelines for the long haul:

Be beyond ideology, be both post-liberal and post-conservative

Have an unlisted ideological number! Refuse to be pre-defined by any ideology of the left or the right. Like Jesus, transcend boundaries, constantly surprise, refuse to be classified. Don’t be liberal and don’t be conservative, be a woman or man of faith and compassion and let that take you down whatever roads it takes you, liberal or conservative.

Strive to incarnate both the kenotic and the triumphant Christ.

Don’t be afraid to be nothing and don’t be afraid to be everything! Christ emptied himself and refused to claim any status or to stand out in terms of public titles, distinctive dress, or in any triumphant display of power. But he is too the Christ who rose triumphant from the tomb and who needs to be proclaimed publicly, with color, pride, and display. He is both the Christ of silent, anonymous witness and the Christ of chanting, public processions. Honor both.

Be for the marginalized, without being marginalized yourself.

Walk a fine tightrope! Take your stand with the marginalized, even as you are known for your sanity and capacity to relate warmly and deeply to every kind of person and group. Be known for your radical stance for the poor even as you are recognized for the wide scope of your embrace.

Lead without being elitist.

Be led by the artist, but listen to the street! Be a leader, an aesthete, an artist, a creative person trying to lead others forward, even as you shun elitism of every sort and ensure that every kind of person is comfortable around you. Be a leader, but with empathy, without disdaining others’ culture, sentiment, or piety.

Be iconoclastic and pious at the same time.

Don’t be afraid to smash idols and don’t be afraid to bow in reverence! The problem is that the pious aren’t liberal and the liberals aren’t pious. Be both, one doesn’t work without the other. Great hearts hold near contradictory principles, lesser ones do not. Help smash the false gods that need to be smashed, even as you are unafraid to kneel often in reverence.

Be equally committed to social justice and to intimacy with Jesus.

Learn to be comfortable leading both a peace march and devotional prayer! Do not choose between justice and Jesus, between committing yourselves to the poor and fostering private intimacy with Jesus. Don’t choose between interiority and action. Dorothy Day didn’t. There’s a lesson there.

Be thoroughly in the world, even as you are rooted elsewhere.

Live in a tortured complexity! Love the world, love its pagan beauty, let it take your breath away, even as you root your heart in something deeper so that the realities of faith also take your breath away. Carry the tension between having a hopeless love for the world and a hopeless love for things beyond it. Love the world as you would a lover with some quirks of character and weaknesses that cause you pain. Pray a lot. Cry occasionally. Sneak off to a church as needed and walk in the sun regularly. The church has secrets worth knowing, and the world is also beautiful.

Ponder, in the biblical sense, by carrying the tension inside the community.

Eat the tension around you! Mary pondered, not by thinking deep intellectual thoughts but by holding, carrying, and transforming tension so as not to give it back in kind. Like Jesus, she helped take sin and tension away by absorbing it, like a water-filter that keeps the impurities, toxins, and dirt inside of itself and gives back only pure water. Be a tension-absorber inside all the communities wherein you live. Absorb the bitterness, the anger, the hardness, the group hysteria, the lack of reconciliation, as a water-filter might. Then drink wine with a friend to rid yourself of your own toxins.

Help incarnate a deeper maturity.

Go into dark places, but don’t sin! Stand up for the God-given freedom we enjoy, even as you model and show others how that freedom can be carried in a way that never abuses it. Like Jesus, who went into the singles-bars of his time (except he didn’t sin), walk in great freedom, go into dark places, but go there not to assert human autonomy but to take God’s light there.

Make love to the song!

Forget about yourself and how others react to you! A bad singer on stage makes love to himself; a more mature singer makes love to his audience; a really mature singer makes love to the song. Service is the same. Forget about yourself, your image, your need to prove yourself, and eventually forget about your audience too so that you and your song are not about yourself or about your people, but about God.

What will you leave to the next generation? Are you building your lives on firm foundations? Building something that will endure? The world needs this renewal. The Church also needs renewal. She needs your faith, your idealism and your generosity so that she can always be young in the spirit.

Pope Benedict, Sydney, Australia, 2008.

'Parity' with the Euro, best price around Canberra is about $1.51 Australian/litre.

For USA readers approximates to about $9.00/gallon, we can all fume together!~

Mirrorball Jesus - photo Nick Moir

THE pilgrims queueing up to have their photograph taken have named him Mirrorball Jesus, Disco Jesus or The People's Jesus. Sarah Robinson, the Sydney artist who spent seven weeks making him, prefers to call him Reflection. But everyone agrees he is one of World Youth Day's biggest celebrities. The 1.6-metre sculpture, whose surface is covered in a mosaic of mirror fragments, has become a magnet for pilgrims since it was installed near the Hyde Park fountain on Tuesday morning. They kiss him, pray to him, light candles at his feet and leave gifts, including a bunch of roses. "It's amazing to watch," says Robinson, a high school teacher who applied the mirrors by hand in her Coogee flat. "I'm finding people are having really intimate, private experiences in a very public space. They drop to their knees and pray in front of him and make the sign of the cross."