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Mr. Jones is coming into the city circa 2011. He has several quick stops to make. In past years he would have had to search fruitlessly for a rare, metered parking space near his destinations or paid $15-$20 at each of his three stops to park in a lot or structure. Not today, because Mr. Jones has his GPS and cell phone connected to Chicago's new EasyPark system. It sends alerts and guides him directly to available metered parking spots within a few blocks of each of his destinations. No more circling, no more tickets for illegal parking and no more hunting for higher cost lots and structures.
Is this a bit of fanciful thinking? While EasyPark may be fiction today, it could be reality soon for Chicago—all thanks to the use of privatization to improve services for taxpayers and residents.
In recent years, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has set himself apart from urban leaders by implementing a groundbreaking privatization strategy relying on long-term leases of city assets, generating billions of dollars to boost the city's fiscal health. So it should come as no surprise that even in the midst of the current economic crunch, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has been able to turn parking meters into an attractive private sector investment.
On December 2nd he announced the winning bid for a 75-year, long-term franchise for the city’s downtown parking meter system. In exchange for an upfront $1.15 billion payment, the agreement will grant the operator—a consortium led by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners—the right to maintain and operate the meters throughout the life of the contract. The deal also requires the operator to make significant investments in the system itself, replacing the antiquated coin-based meter system with a high-tech, multi-space/multi-pay meter system that will facilitate payment via cash, credit card, and other pay systems.
The deal follows right on the heels of the $2.5 billion bid for Midway Airport—announced in September and currently awaiting federal approval--as well as the 2005 lease of the Chicago Skyway (netting the city $1.8 billion) and the 2006 lease of four downtown parking garages (netting $563 million). These initiatives have allowed Chicago to significantly improve fiscal conditions, upgrade infrastructure, pay down city debt and unfunded pension obligations, establish "rainy day" funds, and turn government liabilities into revenue-generating assets.
The parking meter agreement represents the first urban parking meter system in the United States to be privatized under a long-term franchise. Indeed, with over 36,000 parking meters generating roughly $19 million per year, Chicago's is among the largest parking meter operations in the country and could thus serve as a model for other city systems.
Under the terms of the contract, the city retains full responsibility for rate setting, parking regulation enforcement and fine collection remains with the city. The deal also preserves the City Council's decision-making authority over rate setting, the number of meters and the length of time customers can park. The operator does have the ability under the contract to supplement the city's ticketing function if the city's own performance wanes in the future. But since all parking fines will continue to be collected by and to the benefit of the City alone, the operator does not stand to realize even a penny from enhanced ticketing; hence, hiring additional private ticketers would effectively represent a net cost to the operator, with no additional offsetting revenues.
Similar to what we've seen in the city's other leases, parking rates will be allowed to rise each year for the first five years of the contract. The reason is simple—Daley made a policy decision to structure the deal to get more cash upfront, and the allowed rate increases were critical to making that happen. After the first five years, any subsequent rate increases over the remainder of the contract term will be subject to City Council approval, and increases in any given year would likely be capped to some standard measure of inflation.
Further, the contract requires the operator to replace and upgrade the entire meter system—at their own expense, separate from the $1.1 billion upfront payment—removing tremendous future operations, maintenance, and capital expenditure costs from the city's books for decades to come.
Consumers and businesses will also benefit from the parking meter system modernization. In return for rate increases, consumers will benefit from a 21st century parking meter system that offers more payment options and more efficient use of the spaces, with the spillover benefit of traffic flow improvements as drivers avoid the need for multiple "trips around the block" to search for available spaces. The increased turnover in parking spaces should also benefit restaurants and other downtown businesses, as the improved availability and reliability of spots will likely be an attractive draw for those who might normally be deterred from visiting downtown due to the difficulty of parking.
Like Daley's other recent privatization initiatives, the proceeds from the parking meter system deal are not going to be used as a "silver bullet" to spare the city from an estimated FY2009 $469 million budget gap. Rather, Daley is investing the proceeds from these deals into a combination of near- and long-term investments that will help the city cushion the fiscal blow and put it in a far better position to weather the economic storm.
The proceeds from the parking meter agreement will be split four ways. The city will put $400 million into a long-term reserve fund; $325 million into city budgets through 2012; $324 million into a budget stabilization (i.e., "rainy day") fund; and $100 million for low-income assistance programs.
As local governments everywhere begin to reckon with the magnitude of their budget gaps in the wake of the financial meltdown and looming recession, Mayor Daley's leadership on privatization should serve as a case study. His privatization initiatives provided opportunities to extract maximum value of the city’s investments in non-core enterprises—such as running a parking meter business—and apply the proceeds to shore up the city’s fiscal health, expanding the boundaries of what is possible when governments think creatively about how to best mine their balance sheets.
This column was originally published by the Illinois Policy Institute. | <urn:uuid:8a4b537d-6b2b-40c6-a60f-fc3fea191e0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reason.org/news/printer/chicago-raises-the-bar-in-priv | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951689 | 1,262 | 1.726563 | 2 |
(Washington) - The leadership of the United States Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) today welcomed the decision by the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to close its missions in Estonia and Latvia, effective December 31, 2001.
“The governments of Estonia and Latvia have demonstrated their commitment to the principles embodied in their respective mission mandates, and this decision is an acknowledgment of that fact,” said Helsinki Commission Chairman Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO). “Closure of the missions will allow the OSCE to spend its limited resources in countries that need more assistance in fulfilling OSCE commitments.” Chairman Campbell has met with high-level officials from both countries and argued for closure of the missions.
“This is a welcome and timely decision,” said Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ). “Any fine tuning that remains to be done, and I understand this is the case with the Latvian mission, can be accomplished through appropriate consultations and monitoring. I urge the Latvian Government to take care of that detail.”
“The seriousness with which the governments of Estonia and Latvia took their OSCE obligations and their willingness to work with the OSCE missions is another indication of their commitment to democracy, human rights, and rule of law,” said Helsinki Commission Ranking Member Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD).
The OSCE missions to Estonia and Latvia were established in the early 1990s to assist in resolving problems associated with the thousands of former Soviet citizens, primarily Russian speakers, who did not qualify for citizenship in the respective countries.
The Russian Government opposed closure of the missions and continues to claim that the non-indigenous population suffers discrimination as a result of Estonian and Latvian domestic policies. In a statement at the OSCE Permanent Council session on the Latvian mission, the Russian delegation claimed that the OSCE is “bankrupt” in the human dimension sphere and that henceforth Russia would put its efforts into the Council of Europe.
The United States Helsinki Commission, an independent federal agency, by law monitors and encourages progress in implementing provisions of the Helsinki Accords. The Commission, created in 1976, is composed of nine Senators, nine Representatives and one official each from the Departments of State, Defense and Commerce. More information about the Commission is available on its web site, http://www.csce.gov | <urn:uuid:f9a304bf-d860-4d57-b9a8-e82b74305f7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.csce.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContentRecords.ViewDetail&ContentRecord_id=211&ContentType=P&ContentRecordType=P&UserGroup_id=107®ion_id=107&year=0&month=0&Subaction=ByDate&CFID=9166847&CFTOKEN=91053832 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959071 | 514 | 1.789063 | 2 |
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Graduates find rewarding careers in private industry and government
The environmental job market is strong and growing. However, the emphasis is always changing. Let Colorado Mountain College help you figure out which area is the most promising in the current job market.
The Natural Resource Management program has an advisory board made up of environmental professionals from government, academic, and private industry. The advisory board is essential to keeping the NRM program current with the proper education and training of students for careers after they graduate from Colorado Mountain College.
Graduates of the CMC Natural Resource Management program find careers in the areas of natural resources, geology, watershed science, geography, fishery and wildlife biology, forest sciences, forest biology/forest management (forestry), natural resource recreation and tourism, including rangeland science and rangeland ecology and waste management.
Environmental Career Links: | <urn:uuid:3dc5e101-97a6-4463-a069-249103ed1600> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.coloradomtn.edu/web/academics/programs/natural_resource_management/careers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945153 | 177 | 1.726563 | 2 |
I once had a friend who grew to be very close to me.
Once when we were sitting at the edge of a swimming pool, she filled the palm of her hand with some water and held it before me, and said this: “You see this water carefully contained on my hand? It symbolizes Love.”
This was how I saw it: As long as you keep your hand caringly open and allow it to remain there, it will always be there. However, if you attempt to close your fingers round it and try to posses it, it will spill through the first cracks it finds.
This is the greatest mistake that people do when they meet love…they try to posses it, they demand, they expect… and just like the water spilling out of your hand, love will retrieve from you .
For love is meant to be free, you cannot change its nature. If there are people you love, allow them to be free beings.
Give and don’t expect.
Advise, but don’t order.
Ask, but never demand.
It might sound simple, but it is a lesson that may take a lifetime to truly practice. It is the secret to true love. To truly practice it, you must sincerely feel no expectations from those who you love, and yet an unconditional caring.
- Swami Vivekananda | <urn:uuid:89d136b9-8e4a-424c-b70d-df16d270c566> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://myriadhues.wordpress.com/2008/08/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967849 | 284 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Profits for one of Company X's flagship products have been declining slowly for several years. The CFO investigated and determined that inflation has raised the cost of producing the product but consumers who were surveyed reported that they felt the product’s functionality didn't justify a higher price. As a result, the CFO recommended that the company stop producing this product because the CEO only wants products whose profit margins are increasing.
The answer to which of the following questions would be most useful in evaluating whether the CFO's decision to divest the company of its flagship product is warranted?
A. Does the company have new and profitable products available with which to replace the flagship product?
B. Will the rest of Company X's management team agree with the CFO's recommendation?
C. Can Company X sell the flagship product to new markets to increase its customer base?
D. Are there additional features that could be added to the product without raising the unit price?
E. What percentage of Company X's revenues is represented by sales of the flagship product in question?
I'd appreciate any help, thank you.
I think this question is poorly written in because of 'unit price' shouldn't it read 'unit cost'? If you added features without increasing the unit price yes people may continue to purchase the product however, if these new feature increased you unit cost then your profit margins would decrease thus creating an issue for the CFO. If the answer choice read 'add features without increasing the unit cost' then this question is a no brainer, I got it right but I was confused as to why they worded it like this. | <urn:uuid:adf4d7bf-026d-4bfd-b8b8-0c96247f65f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gmatclub.com/forum/profits-for-one-of-company-x-s-flagship-products-have-been-146522.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973366 | 331 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Crews work to repair Sabo bridgeby Curtis Gilbert, Minnesota Public Radio
Crews in Minneapolis were beginning on Sunday to repair the Martin Olav Sabo bike and pedestrian bridge, six months after a pair of cables supporting it broke loose.
Workers will retrofit one of the 18 diaphragm plates that secure the cables to the mast of the bridge spanning Hiawatha Avenue. The plates connect to cables, which help support the bridge.
In February, the topmost plate fractured, and an inspection found cracks in the one below it as well. Testing revealed the plates weren't strong enough to withstand vibrations caused by the wind.
The augmented plate will be 4.25 inches thick, more than five times as thick as the original.
Minneapolis Public Works Director Steve Kotke says the new plate design will address the problem with vibrations.
"Probably the simplest way for me to describe it is it's considerably thicker," Kotke says, "and that means it's going to be stiffer and it will be able to handle stresses better than the existing plate."
The city will test the plate for about a month. If the redesign works, the plan is to replace all 18 plates by the end of the year.
The cost of the investigation, engineering and repairs will approach $2 million. Minneapolis and Hennepin County are splitting the bill for now. They are talking with the firms that designed and built the five-year-old bridge about possible reimbursement. | <urn:uuid:9e08f4f5-0767-416f-8150-960772141531> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/08/19/regional/sabo-bridge-repair | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949013 | 304 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Professor Bowie's research is concerned with core issues in modern philosophy, particularly those explored by the German tradition from Kant to the present. He does not see the philosophical issues in question as separable from other key cultural responses to the problems of the modern world, and has written extensively about music and literature as well as philosophy. His books are: Aesthetics and Subjectivity: from Kant to Nietzsche (First edition 1990, second edition 2003, Spanish edition 1996; Iranian edition 2008, Chinese edition planned); Schelling and Modern European Philosophy. An Introduction; Introduction to, edition and translation of F.W.J. von Schelling: ‘On the History of Modern Philosophy’; From Romanticism to Critical Theory. The Philosophy of German Literary Theory (Iranian edition planned); Introduction to and Editor of Manfred Frank: ‘The Subject and the Text’. Essays in Literary Theory and Philosophy; Introduction to, edition and translation of F.D.E. Schleiermacher, ‘Hermeneutics and Criticism’ and Other Writings; Introduction to German Philosophy from Kant to Habermas (which was enthusiastically endorsed by Jürgen Habermas); Music, Philosophy, and Modernity; German Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction; Philosophical Variations: Music as Philosophical Language. These books and many other publications have helped bring the German tradition of modern philosophy to a much wider audience, and have been influential in philosophy, literary theory, musicology, and other areas of the humanities and social sciences. His next book will be on Adorno and the Ends of Contemporary Philosophy, which looks at Adorno from the point of view of his published and unpublished lectures, seeing him as a vital voice in contemporary debate about the aims and nature of philosophy. This project is part of a long-standing concern with mediating between the European and analytical traditions of philosophy.
He has supervised a very wide range of PhD topics, from, e.g., theses on Wittgenstein and Adorno, to theses on music and ethics, music and tragedy, philosophy and musical performance, to theses on modern literature and the history of the modern philosophy of language from Herder and Hamann to the present. He is particularly interested in cross-disciplinary work. He is an active jazz musician (saxophone), who has played with some of Britain's top jazz musicians, and is supervising theses on jazz and philosophy.
Current teaching on
GM1112 Truth, Language, Subjectivity and Art
GM2119 Introduction to Modern European Philosophy
GM3118 German Philosophy from Nietzsche to Habermas
Post Holocaust Philosophy on the MA Holocaust Studies
From 2011-12 these courses are being extended and altered as part of the Philosophy Joint Honours degree, but will still be offered to German and other modern language students.
He is also at present in charge of planning the new MA in Modern Philosophy, which aims to offer a chance to do post-graduate work on the relations between European and analytical philosophy. The MA will begin in 2011-12.
Professor Bowie did a comparative literature PhD on History and the Novel (1980) at the University of East Anglia, studied German philosophy at the Free University of Berlin, was Professor of Philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University until 1999, and Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Philosophy department of Tübingen University. He was on the Benchmarking Academic Standards Group Philosophy for the QAA, and is on the Advisory Council of the Institute of Philosophy. He has lectured on philosophy in the USA, Japan, and all over Europe, and was keynote speaker for the Nordic Summer University, and Guest Fellow at a conference of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was Founding Director of the Royal Holloway Humanities and Arts Research Centre (HARC).
Research output: Book/Report › Book
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
Research output: Book/Report › Book | <urn:uuid:8d499eff-815a-44a4-8769-e7e2572e10a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pure.rhul.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/andrew-bowie_3d787cff-bd1c-4349-b003-8f501c909611.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931295 | 815 | 1.578125 | 2 |
When you add it all together, things have not been going well for the pharmaceutical industry lately. There has been a spate of high profile drug disasters, such as the withdrawal of painkiller Vioxx and daily reports of malfeasance of all sorts by drug companies, including lobbying governments for coverage for vaccines, employing patient groups to do their dirty work and otherwise putting undue influence on the prescribing of medicine. In addition, several recently published, high-profile books by pharmacy insiders have unmasked the tricks used everyday to sway our physicians into prescribing certain drugs.
But what has attracted the indignation and is beginning to arouse the distrust of the general public is the in-your-face marketing of direct-to-consumer drug ads that has risen 500 percent over the last five years. You can’t turn on a TV without being assaulted by ads urging you to “Ask your doctor...” for just about everything.
Big Bucks, Big Pharma, a new DVD produced by the Media Education Foundation, attacks these concerns head-on in a 46-minute documentary. And it does a fabulous job for both those who know a lot about this stuff and others coming to it for the first time. The documentary’s main strength is that it talks to those working at the heart of the medical establishment – physicians, pharmacists and pharma salespeople – who have observed, close hand, the excesses of the pharmaceutical industry. Progressive American journalist and radio broadcaster Amy Goodman interviews, among others, Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Bob Goodman, founder of No Free Lunch and Gene Carbona, a former Merck salesman.
The single driving question behind this documentary is this: “How is the influence of the most profitable companies in the world affecting our thinking about our health and well being?” It’s a good question and the answers will turn even the most pharma-friendly people into pharma skeptics. Selling drugs is about creating a brand identity, a feel-good emotion that is emotive, rather than informative, involving all the power of public relations and advertising to create that feeling. While the industry brags that its ads educate consumers, no one is buying that guff, especially Marcia Angell, who says, “They are no more in the business of educating the public than a beer company is in the business of educating people about alcoholism.”
But all that advertising is having an effect and the industry spends upwards of $3 billion per year in the US trying to convince us to buy their drugs. Bob Goodman (www.nofreelunch.org) says that the marketing on TV is so effective that “Patients come in and ask for stuff they don’t even know what it’s for.” Now that’s effective.
One of the strongest messages in the documentary is that we must get rid of our preferences for “New and Improved” when it comes to prescription drugs. What propels the market for drugs is the hope for the miraculous cure, the wonder drug, and many people assume if something is new, it must be better. The problem, as Marcia Angell explains, is that newer drugs do not have to prove themselves to be any better than older ones, and frankly, most of the new drugs are not that new. An analysis of new drugs in the US from 1998 to 2004 found that only 14 percent of the newly approved drugs were classified as being a medical advance.
For me, someone steeped in this stuff, the most interesting part of the documentary was listening to Gene Carbona, a former salesman for drug giant Merck. Carbona is now working to sell The Medical Letter (www.medicalletter.org), one of the top sources of independent (read: not funded by drug companies) information for doctors in the world. As an insider with street cred, he’s someone you’re likely to believe when he tells you that, despite all that pharma says about being in the business of saving lives, etc, “Marketing is the real name of the game.”
He tells a story about being a sales rep for Prilosec (what we call Losec in Canada) – an acid suppression or heartburn drug – and describes how the drug was going to lose its patent and the company licensed a drug that was almost an exact replica (Nexium). He and his colleagues had the task of basically convincing doctors that the newer drug was better. With a rare peek at the inner workings of the drug marketing juggernaut, he notes, “In the final two years [as the patent on Prilosec was expiring], we were trained to cannibalize our markets, that is, shift the doctors from the older drug to the newer drug.”
That’s what it’s all about.
The documentary hits its stride when it talks about disease mongering and the role of the pharmaceutical industry in creating and shaping diseases: how peoples’ blood pressure went from “normal” to “high” overnight and where yesterday you didn’t have a cholesterol problem, but you have one today. Advertising drugs is one thing, but advertising health conditions is selling the sickness in order to capitalize on the cure.
Bob Goodman says that, of all the things that industry does, the one thing that you could say is evil is its medicalizing something that is part of everyday life. “A person who is not yet a patient sits down to watch the evening news and after a few commercials says, ‘I’m not as healthy as I thought…’”
It doesn’t have to be this way. As this documentary so clearly and simply shows, we need to become “healthy skeptics” and be better prepared to face a world where disease is being sold and drug companies are bankrolling the “education” of the general public through advertising both drugs and diseases.
Alan Cassels is a drug policy researcher at the University of Victoria and co-author of Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients. His new book, The ABC’s of Disease Mongering: A Guide to Drugs and Disorders, is available in stores this month. (See feature article in this issue.)
Big Bucks Big Pharma DVD is available at www.bigbucksbigpharma.org | <urn:uuid:3a454ea8-d684-46d7-ac4e-b51124044b35> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://commonground.ca/OLD/iss/195/cg195_bigbucks.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963153 | 1,333 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Dale Hawkins (born Delmar Allen Hawkins on August 22, 1936 in Goldmine, Louisiana) is a pioneer American Rock singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist who is often called the architect of the swamp rock boogie.( Fellow rockabilly pioneer Ronnie Hawkins is his cousin )
In 1957, Hawkins was playing at Shreveport, Louisiana clubs, and although his music was influenced by the new rock and roll style of Elvis Presley and the guitar sounds of Scotty Moore, Hawkins blended that with the uniquely heavy blues sound of black Louisiana artists for his recording of his swamp-rock classic Susie Q. Fellow Louisiana guitarist and future Rock and Roll Hall of Famer James Burton provided the signature riff and solo. The song was chosen as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
Hawkins went on to a long and successful career, recording a number of songs for Chess Records. In 1998, Ace Records issued a compilation CD titled "Dale Hawkins, Rock 'n' Roll Tornado" which contained a collection of his early works and previously unreleased material. | <urn:uuid:ae835955-81fc-400e-a0f6-7591c3d1b1c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chordie.com/song.php/songartist/Dale+Hawkins/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976696 | 226 | 1.570313 | 2 |
There are many varieties of restaurant chairs out there. If you’re among those who are planning to start a new restaurant then you might want to contemplate a stacking type as well. Stacking sorts of furniture carries too many advantages with regards to hotels or restaurants.
If you think these would be the same old kind of chairs and tables as utilized in outdoor gatherings then you’re completely wrong. Stacking furniture is now offered in all kinds of supplies and in all styles.
Restaurant chairs and restaurant table tops produced from wooden materials may be a piece of artwork in your restaurant. Whereas putting in the eating space in the form of a stack, these will appear like a creative piece. However while, you place them for the clients, these will provide their distinct impression that can double the stylish touch of your restaurant establishment.
Another well-known sort of stack furnishings is produced from a combination of wood and steel. Often the overall construction is made with properly polished metal pipes and the upper surface of the table or the seat of chair is built from wood lined with some kind of classy garment or pure leather. You can visualize that this mixture of steel, wood and leather can be more than sufficient to supply an extra elegant appearance into your restaurant with remarkable durability. A lot of these restaurant tables and chairs are extra suitable for those food companies which have or anticipated to have an increased number of customers each day since these are sturdier and definitely more resistant to damage and breaking down, therefore these chairs are indeed practical investments.
For more details regarding restaurant chairs, tables, stools, and other restaurant furnishings, you may check out http://restaurantchairshop.com/. | <urn:uuid:ea13b37e-42cf-467d-93c4-0ff31080d50c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.advicegenie.net/category/home-2/tables | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955693 | 341 | 1.5 | 2 |
Knocking heads together
Why go to court when you can settle cheaply, quickly and fairly elsewhere?
THE Bank of Credit and Commerce International's lawsuit against the Bank of England lasted 13 years and cost some £100m ($196m) in legal fees. The Bank of England's governor disgustedly described it as “the most expensive fishing exercise in history”. The presiding judge, Mr Justice Tomlinson, called it a “farce”.
Had the parties agreed to mediation it would have taken probably a day and cost just a few thousand pounds. According to the London-based Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), one of Europe's biggest mediation bodies, of the 3,000 or so commercial disputes that are subjected to mediation in London every year around 70-80% reach a settlement within one or two days, with a further 10-15% settling a few weeks later.
Litigation used to be the natural way of settling disputes, especially in advanced countries. Then clogged courts and ever-costlier lawsuits made arbitration look better, especially in cross-border commercial disputes. But it often proves no cheaper, fairer or even quicker. In America, from filing a complaint to an arbitration decision takes, on average, 16.7 months. So out-of court alternative dispute resolution (ADR) procedures, such as mediation, are now in vogue. The late Sir Michael Kerr, former president of the London Court of International Arbitration, was a leading convert. “In the same way as I have had my mind changed about litigation in favour of arbitration, my long devotion to arbitration is now being eroded,” he said.
Interest in mediation is rocketing, in countries of all legal traditions and none. Karl Mackie, the head of CEDR, talks of a “global revolution”. His outfit, a non-profit organisation that has joined forces with counterparts in the Netherlands, France, Italy and America, is dealing with requests for advice from would-be mediation providers in Saudi Arabia, Russia, Thailand, Japan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Uganda, Bosnia and Slovenia. As well as in Europe, it is training mediators in countries such as Nigeria, Finland and China, where they can charge up to $20,000 a day.
Whereas arbitration mimics a courtroom setting, with lawyers on both sides and a neutral decision-maker, mediation encourages the parties to talk to each other and strike a deal. The mediator's job is to prompt discussion, not judge the outcome. That is almost always a swifter, cheaper and more flexible way of solving disputes; it is also, if there is any suspicion of judicial corruption, safer. The parties are in control of the proceedings; no solution is imposed; they decide whether to settle.
Set up nearly three decades ago, JAMS, America's main mediation and arbitration service, has more than 200 full-time “neutrals”, as they are known, on its books: mostly former judges, attorneys, or law professors. It handles a fast-rising 10,000 cases a year worldwide. Conventional litigation is suffering: a paper written in 2003 for the American Bar Association by Marc Galanter, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, coined the phrase “the vanishing trial”. Whereas 11% of civil cases went to court in 1962, that has now fallen to under 2%. The number of federal court tort cases that ended in a trial dropped by nearly four-fifths between 1985 and 2003.
American states including Oregon, California, Texas and Florida have started making mediation mandatory, at least for some claims. Only if it fails may the parties go to trial. Some 1,500 law firms, and 800 companies including Time Warner, UPS, General Electric, the Prudential and Coca-Cola, have pledged to explore ADR in any dispute with another similarly pledged company before litigating.
In Europe, Finland and Denmark are considering similar moves. The European Commission is expected to issue a directive on harmonising mediation this autumn. A UK-China business mediation centre was recently opened with offices in Beijing and London. English courts are increasingly steering parties toward mediation and penalising them (in the award of litigation costs) when they refuse, though the government and the mediation profession are resisting any suggestion to make mediation mandatory. That, they feel, would dilute the whole idea of voluntary participation. But many countries, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Greece, Israel and Singapore, officially encourage the early use of mediation.
The catch, if there is one, is that mediation is confidential. For all their cost, court cases can bring a public benefit by setting precedents, constantly refining and modernising the law. But for those cynical lawyers whose income depends on stoking their clients' outraged intransigence, the growth in mediation may prove to be the end of a lucrative era.
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I know that I can relate to this "selective memory problem." These problems in my experiences seem to be more traumatic or embarrassing moments. If I was asked to say the first memory of grade school that popped into my mind, it would be my favorite doll being swallowed by the mascot, Philly Phanatic, and later returned to me after I saw him "eat" the doll. Today, I dislike the Philly Phanatic and get anxious when I see it.
The text explains that people are more likely to remember the things that they did not expect to happen or those things they did not want to happen. This is definitely true in my example. I have added an old but good video of the girl who ran onto a treadmill and immediately fell off. This girl probably can not look at a treadmill without thinking about that moment, especially since it was view by many people. | <urn:uuid:3a2216ad-c28d-4a91-b58a-d5bc7ca679a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pseudoparanormal.com/2012/07/selective-memory-problems.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987785 | 178 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Home » Opinion » Editorials
Taxpayers beware! Bailouts not a thing of the past
An independent audit found that the Federal Housing Administration doesn't have enough capital to cover its expected losses. In fact, the losses likely will leave it with a $13.5 billion deficit.
Already, the voices are talking about a taxpayer bailout.
And the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, charged with insuring pensions for about 43 million Americans, has a deficit reaching $34 billion in the past year, a record for the corporation. Overall, the agency's liabilities stand at $119 billion.
It is funded by insurance premiums on private employers and investment returns on its reserves. It says Congress needs to allow it to increase the premiums charged. The problem hasn't developed over night.
These are small potatoes, perhaps, compared to the fiscal cliff issue and the soaring deficit. But they are part and parcel of the entire problem.
Like Social Security, where there are obvious and simple fixes, these problems do not need to continue festering and growing.
Yet government, specifically Congress, fails to act. Why? Why are the losses, the problems allowed to continue to grow when simple solutions can be found?
Why is government in the housing mortgage business?
Why shouldn't pension insurance premiums be adequate to support the system?
Why shouldn't Social Security's retirement age be indexed to the major advances in life expectancy gained since the system was inaugurated?
Government's failures, and often its actions, are adding to the problems.
A fine example, of course, was the payroll tax cut reducing revenue for Social Security even as the very people voting for the tax cut wrung hands over the system's growing deficit.
The taxpayers are being left on the hook. And the hole is getting deeper.
Watch closely. Your future, and the future of your children and grandchildren, is at stake.
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License revocations for DWI announced
UPDATED: Derry marks a soldier's death
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This might sound like a joke at first but when you think about it, it's a pretty good idea.
I saw this photo while browsing Instagram the other day and I had to take a second look.
I'm Dusty, a 4G hotspot SMS HH Dusty to 25827 for access www.homelesshotspots.org
What a concept!
Homeless Hotspots is a charitable initiative by Bartle Bogle Hegarty New York that attempts to modernize the Street Newspaper model employed to support homeless populations, per their website.
Basically, they are trying to digitialize the paper boy by having him chant Wifi! instead of Extra!
BBH is a British advertising agency. You remember the "Axe Effect" commercials or the "Keep Walking" for Johnnie Walker commercials? Well that's them.
"Our hope is to create a modern version of this successful model, offering homeless individuals an opportunity to sell a digital service instead of a material commodity. SxSW Interactive attendees can pay what they like to access 4G networks carried by our homeless collaborators. This service is intended to deliver on the demand for better transit connectivity during the conference," explained on homelesshotspots.org.
They say all payments for access go directly to the person selling you the access through paypal accounts.
While it looks like the project was created with SXSW in mind, homeless hotspots have crept up in other areas.
If you visit the site you can see photos, maps and even find out more about these individuals who are the "hotspots."
Clarence is from New Orleans, LA. He prefers the term “houseless” to “homeless.” He originally lost his house in Katrina and has had financial trouble since. He considers himself a good guy and tries to be a good friend to people.
So you help Clarence out and he gives you some decent wifi, sounds like a win-win right?
Not everyone thinks so.
Tim Carmody, Wired, writes, "This is my worry: the homeless turned not just into walking, talking hotspots, but walking, talking billboards for a program that doesn’t care anything at all about them or their future, so long as it can score a point or two about digital disruption of old media paradigms."
John Mitchell, Read Write Web, critizices the wording of the shirts the homeless are given to wear, "The shirt doesn't say, 'I have a 4G hotspot.' It says, 'I am a 4G hotspot.'"
He has a point. But are we really going to get into a fight over semantics in an otherwise seemingly legitimate campaign to bring awareness to the homeless while bridging the gap between the digital divide?
But I think it is a good thing. If we didn't questions things, we would lose a lot of the reasons improvements end up being made.
So if you happen to see one of these guys around, take a minute and talk to them. Let us know what you think and they think about the project.
Thank you for your contribution.Flag this as inappropriate
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Tax $$ At Work: Federal Agency Asks Why Lesbians Are Obese
The conservative news website Cybercast News Service, formerly known as the Conservative News Service, recently reported that the National Institutes of Health was awarded $1.5 million to study biological and social factors for why three-quarters of lesbians are obese (according to their statistics, at least), and why most gay men are not (ditto).
The study, titled "Sexual Orientation and Obesity: Test of a Gender Biophysical Model," has been around for two years and will continue into 2016, the Atlantic Wire points out. The project is lead by S. Bryn Austin, an associate professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health, and is funded by grants from the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. According to the study’s abstract, researchers will look into the connection between obesity and sexual orientation.
In a statement to the Atlantic, Austin said in order to stop the obesity epidemic in the U.S., "we need to understand what all the causes are, and the causes and solutions to obesity are likely different for different parts of society. Lesbian and bisexual girls and women make up almost 5 million Americans."
Austin adds that lesbians and bisexual girls and woman and straight men are "the hardest hit" when it comes to obesity. "Why is that? We don’t know, but our study is designed to find out so we can come up with better ways to combat the epidemic for these communities," he said.
The Atlantic also cites a passage from the study, which says, "It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with nearly three-quarters of adult lesbians overweight or obese, compared to half of heterosexual women. In stark contrast, among men, heterosexual males have nearly double the risk of obesity compared to gay males."
Although the Atlantic explains why the study would be beneficial, the publication took issue with CNS News’ headline, "Feds Spend $1.5 Million to Study Why Lesbians Are Fat."
"But there’s more here than the knee-jerk (and not very subtle) lesbian fat joke," the article reads. "It’s important to remember that nearly half of straight women are obese, too, and that the study is also figuring out why straight men are more often overweight than gay men." The Atlantic goes on to say that CNS News’ headline could have read, "’Obama administration spends $1.5 million to figure out why straight men are fat’" or "’Obama administration spends $1.5 million to figure out why gay men have rocking bodies.’"
The publication notes that the conservative media has a problem with the study because they view it as "insignificant" and that it is "wasteful spending on the sciences," especially during trying times and when President Obama and Congress are working out a budget deal.
The Atlantic defended the study. "Before you go pointing fingers, consider that the $741,378 granted to the study in 2012 is .08 percent of the estimated $829 million the NIH spent on obesity research in 2012," according to the magazine. "If you’re going to get mad at that tiny fragment of that massive budget, you could also get angry at the fact that, in 2011, the Obama administration OK’d around $10,000 more than that on Pediatric Primary Care Based Obesity Prevention Obesity, which figures out how doctors’ phone calls can help kids stay healthy."
It’s hardly surprising that Rush Limbaugh (who could be a poster boy for the "straight men are fat" part of the NIH hypothesis) picked up on this study, "this in the midst of a sequester," he hastened to note. "So 75 percent of lesbians are fat, and gay males are not, and that isn’t fair, and that is unjust, and so we’ve gotta allocate a million and a half bucks in the sequester to find out why, to get to the bottom of this." (Nowhere did the NIH say that it "isn’t fair.")
The real shocker of the program, however, was the female "Dittohead" who called into the radio host’s program and made an intelligent, perceptive and even incisive observation.
"The lesbian woman, really, she doesn’t have to deal with a visual, shallow man," the Florida caller said. "She just has to please her partner, and usually women are less concerned with physical attributes and more concerned with a internal, like, you know, the way they think in their personality and so forth. And the homosexual man, he has to please a man, who is visual and shallow." | <urn:uuid:06ed77e5-18aa-49fd-940f-6931b7edc0f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edgeonthenet.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=142513 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966062 | 1,001 | 1.828125 | 2 |
NEW YORK — Brute, a German shepherd, lay anesthetized on an operating table, his hairy chest under a plastic cover and his powerful paws taped immobile.
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"Here comes the wire up the artery!" said Dr. Chick Weisse, who infused the dog's cancerous liver with chemotherapy via a catheter at the century-old Animal Medical Center in Manhattan in an effort to "buy him some time."
Brute was home in days, the cancer at bay a while longer — perhaps eight months. The cost: $2,000.
Around the nation, veterinarians are practicing ever more advanced medicine on the nation's 77 million dogs, 90 million cats and a myriad other animals — treatments that vie with the best of human medicine. The driving force is "the changing role of the pet in our society," said Dr. Patty Khuly, a veterinarian at Miami's Sunset Animal Clinic.
The bottom line for many people, she said, is that investing in a pet's life "improves the quality of a human life immeasurably more than, say, buying a luxury car."Story: Holy water on dog food? Pet-sitters face odd requests
In a radiation suite at The Animal Medical Center, a black cat named Muka was undergoing a CT scan for a lung problem. A medical team hovered over the tranquilized animal, injecting contrast dye and poring over digital readouts to diagnose the problem: chronic pleural fibrosis.
The new, half-million-dollar Toshiba Aquilion — one of the latest, fastest 3-D imaging scanners — was a gift from an owner whose pet was saved at The AMC, a not-for-profit research and teaching facility. The AMC offers 24-hour emergency care using once-unthinkable procedures like heart surgeries, MRIs and ultrasounds. It has a staff of 81 vets, including 27 certified in fields such as radiology, endoscopy, neurology, cardiology and oncology.
They train 18 interns and 24 residents, including two from Italy and one from Croatia this year.
Khuly, who has an MBA and a veterinary degree from the University of Pennsylvania, says more people have come to believe that investing in their pets' health enriches their own lives. And that, she says, has prompted young vets to enter specialty medicine.
The result is the kind of cutting-edge care The AMC gives to a mammoth Bernese mountain dog named Alpha for his lumbo-sacral disease, marked by excruciating back pain. He receives electrical neuromuscular stimulation via a light laser, is exercised on an underwater treadmill and lies under a heat pack.
Alpha comes in twice a week with his owner, Dr. Paul Greengard, winner of a 2000 Nobel Prize for research on the human nervous system.
Though many Americans don't get the kind of care their pets do, there are often no limits to what they'll do to save the animals — spending $12 billion last year paying veterinary bills, according to The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. That's about double what owners spent a decade earlier.
"In terms of priorities, some might find it unusual that we might spend thousands for animals and yet millions of Americans are uninsured," said David Magnus, director of Stanford University's Center for Biomedical Ethics. "Realistically, the amounts spent are vastly less for animals. It's a lot and it is increasing, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the amount spent on health care for humans."
He added that with medical breakthroughs, veterinarians are now having discussions about quality-of-life issues involving pets. "There's a whole discussion about whether you want an animal's miseries prolonged at the end of life," he said.
"It's apples and oranges," Dr. Dianne Dunning, associate professor and director of the Animal Welfare, Ethics and Public Policy program at North Carolina State University, said of comparisons to the amount spent to relieve human suffering. "It's an individual's judgment call to spend what they feel is appropriate. If we stopped spending on our pets, would that decrease human suffering in the world? I don't think so."
In some cases, advanced medicine perfected on pets leads to procedures then applied to humans.
The AMC says animals' painful arthritic joints are now being healed with stem cell transplants not yet approved for humans. The cost: $4,000.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, a new surgical technique to repair torn knee ligaments in dogs was so successful that it's now being used on NFL players, said Dr. William Gengler, director of Wisconsin's Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.
Wisconsin also pioneered treating cancers in animals with TomoTherapy — image-guided radiation that targets only the tumor, sparing surrounding tissue. That's achieved by pinpointing the diseased tissue with a 360-degree CT scanner, then opening radiation windows precisely at the needed location, Gengler said.
TomoTherapy is now state-of-the-art treatment for people, with several hundred such machines being used worldwide on human cancers.
Among the recent pet beneficiaries was Scout, a Wheaten terrier that belongs to a family in Mequon, Wis.
The cost of saving a life
Kathy Hrkac and her husband had bought the dog for their two daughters, "and he was a family member, full of life and love," she said — until suddenly, about two years ago, blood started dripping from the 5-year-old terrier's nose and he had a hard time breathing.
The diagnosis: a quickly spreading nose cancer that left him with about one month to live.
"It was heart-wrenching," Hrkac said in a telephone interview from her home.
Scout underwent TomoTherapy about a year and a half ago and it spared his mouth and eyes, which likely would have been damaged by conventional radiation, Gengler said.
The Wisconsin veterinary school at first shared a TomoTherapy machine with the university's medical school. Private donations have funded a $3 million unit opening in January — the first in a U.S. veterinary facility, Gengler said.
He said a treatment like that for the Wisconsin terrier would now cost at least $6,000. But at this veterinary hospital supported by academic grant money, the Hrkac family paid $3,000.
In New York, The Animal Medical Center sees about 40,000 patients each year, from dogs and cats to lambs, iguanas and a ring-tailed lemur, a primate native to Madagascar.
Some end up in the ICU, with a soundtrack of beeping monitors surrounding stainless steel cages crisscrossed with tubes and wires. Plexiglas cubicles are for creatures needing emergency oxygen.
Khuly said such sophisticated medicine is within reach thanks to pet insurance, payment plans offered by hospitals like AMC and interest-free credit cards for veterinary bills.
AMC also raises funds for owners whose animals might otherwise die because they can't afford pricey treatments.Story: Pets may be the next frontier of health reform
The most advanced pet medicine involves "high-tech procedures with highly qualified people performing them — and it's expensive," said Jennifer Fearing, chief economist for the nonprofit Humane Society of the United States in Washington, the world's largest animal advocacy organization.
She said she doesn't feel pioneering veterinarians are overcharging for reaching to the edge of medical science.
Until such treatments become mainstream, with supporting insurance, says Fearing, owners can opt for effective, more affordable care that still saves lives.
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Area residents reacted to the news Tuesday that Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson ruled there was not enough time before the Nov. 6 election to implement the law requiring Pennsylvania voters to show a valid, photo ID and ensure that no one is disenfranchised.
Melissa Mitchell, 32, Muhlenberg Township, insurance claims:
"It doesn't really affect me. I have a driver's license. I have a passport. My husband has a driver's license. He has a passport. So it doesn't really affect us. I think as long as you are a citizen and are able to vote, you should be able to obtain what is needed if you wish to vote. Putting it off for a year? To be quite honest, not many people vote if it's not a presidential election. It's not really going to come back into effect for another four years."
Lawrence Keppen, 48, Mohnton, truck driver:
"I feel they should have identification. I feel all United States citizens, whether they're naturalized or not, they're required by law to have identification on their person at all times when they ask for it in certain situations, whether it be voting or driving or 'what are you doing?' I don't like that (the implementation delay). I totally disagree with that. If it was already on the books, you shouldn't be able to make an amendment or change the law or put it off in any way, shape or form."
Charles Boettcher, 69 , Exeter Township, small-business owner:
"I think it should be enforced."
William Roberts, 63, Lower Heidelberg Township, attorney:
"I would think that you have to consider things deliberately, and I don't know that there's enough time to consider it deliberately between now and the election. So it's all right with me to put it off."
Steven Guiles, 32, Laureldale, mental-health case manager:
"It seemed like it all kind of came together very quickly. A lot of the driver's license centers in the state there was a lot of miscommunciation between all the involved agencies, and things just didn't seem to be working out well. There was a lot of frustrated people in the area, and it just seems like the involved agencies didn't have things set up right to get things in place this quickly. Moving forward, I think giving another year is a great idea, to allow more time for the agencies to get a game plan, to put things together the right way."
Clarence Miller, 63, Reinholds, tool and gauge inspector:
"I think he should have, because I think a lot of people won't be ready this year yet. In all fairness to everybody to get a chance, I think that might be the best."
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The village of Grand Beach, Michigan is a beautiful, upscale beach and golf lovers' haven. The name Grand Beach perfectly describes this charming village that boasts some of the most breathtaking beaches on Lake Michigan. A beautiful white archway welcomes visitors and residents alike as they pass underneath it to enter Grand Beach, and the village is virtually built around a pro-level nine-hole golf course, where championship matches were often played in the 1930's.
If you are looking for spectacular, upscale living where golfing and magnificent beaches and sunsets are the norm, then let us show you around Grand Beach and help you find the perfect home for you and your family.
Grand Beach was initially developed by Floyd R. Perkins in the early 1900's, when he bought 600 acres of land to establish a shooting preserve. He quickly realized the potential of the area as a short-stay summer resort colony for wealthy Chicago and Michigan residents looking to vacation on its beautiful dunes, beaches and rustic woods. He and his partner, George Ely, quickly formed the Grand Beach Company and bought more acreage along with four miles of beachfront property, then built the original roads and bridges of the community and a 9-hole golf course to attract even more tourists.
Initially there were about 20 cottages that were bought from Sears and Roebuck, and a lodge and dining hall were built to accommodate the tourists. Visitors would take the train from the cities to the Grand Beach Station and stay for a few days and enjoy swimming and golfing. By 1920 the number of cottages had grown to about 100 and were nestled among the dunes and beachfronts. Soon the famous Golfmore Hotel was built with a full 27-hole golf course that welcomed the Hollywood and Chicago elite and other visitors during the 20's and 30's, until it burned down in a spectacular blaze in 1939.
Afterwards the remains of the hotel were bought out, along with the first nine of the golf course, by the Grand Beach Property Owners Association and then donated to the village, thus giving Grand Beach its very own village-run professional nine-hole golf course. To this day the village still runs the Grand Beach Golf Course and the Pro Shop as well as providing government functions and essential services.
Three homes were built by Frank Lloyd Wright in Grand Beach and one of them, the Ernest Vosburgh Summer House (built in 1916), still has much of its original design visible today.
This small village is now a semi-private residential community, with a little over 325 homes and a population of just over 240 year-round residents. In the 1980's the former YWCA Camp was developed with multi-million dollar homes, giving the village a very upscale image and increasing property values.
Grand Beach residents are mostly of German and Irish descent. It is a very safe place to live, with a below-average crime rate, above-average law enforcement presence and no violent crime reported in 2009. The unemployment rate is also well below national average, and the average educational attainment and income are significantly above national average. If you are looking for a quiet beachfront and golfing paradise, that is unaffected by urban problems and congestion, is safe for children, great for retirement and has a relaxed, laid-back lifestyle, Grand Beach could be just the village you are looking for!
The residents are primarily working families and professionals in their early fifties, who live in Grand Beach for the quality of life here and the privacy and beachfront beauty it affords. The rest of the homes are summer homes and are used as a getaway during the summer months.
Housing prices remain strong in the village with homes ranging from the low 200's to the multi-millions. There are still deals out there in Grand Beach, so be sure and let Lake Living Realty give you a tour of the area and show you some of the beautiful homes available in this magnificent beachfront and golfing community. Imagine yourself living among the dunes of some of the most beautiful beachfront property along all of Lake Michigan.
Median Home Price - $455,000
Schools - Two elementary schools, one middle school and two high schools serve the Grand Beach area.
Hospitals - There are three hospitals serving the Grand Beach area.
Emergency Services - There are local police, fire and ambulance services throughout the Grand Beach area.
Find A Great Real Estate Deal in Grand Beach Now
There are still real estate deals right now in the Grand Beach area, with a nice inventory of single-family homes available. Prices range from the low 200's to the multi-millions for homes. Lake Living Realty will be glad to help you in your search for just the right home, in one of the most stunningly beautiful areas of Michigan. Call us today for an appointment to find your new home! | <urn:uuid:19ef7b4e-1b0a-4ef2-a4de-c50ab5567dec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lakelivingrealestate.com/grand-beach.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967539 | 988 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Member # 3164
It used to be used as rat poison. It was a toxic waste, that some really good salesman convinced the government to put into our water supply.
They cite new studies suggesting fluoride leads to brittle bones, cancer, kidney disease, neurological problems and other ailments, including lower IQs. Proof positive if you ask me. I think I read that our national average is down 20 points from the 50's.
20 IQ points may not seem a lot to you... but I think if Americans had those IQ points, they wouldn't have put George Bush in office twice!
It baffles my mind that the government would add anything to our water supply. I say leave it up to the average American to decide for themselves how much Fluoride to consume... we'd get plenty from our toothpaste!
The government says the limit of a safe dosage of Fluoride for humans (the most you can consume) is 1 mg. per day.. yet in the same breath says that there are .25 mg of water in an 8oz. glass of water!!
And they also say you're supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day!
Double the safe amount of fluoride .
Where is the outrage??
[ July 23, 2008, 01:04 AM: Message edited by: Charles ] | <urn:uuid:3ffb8d41-30a9-463a-b969-5ec390464df7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.animationnation.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=003335;p=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970621 | 269 | 1.75 | 2 |
Nancy Lockard, aka “The Turtle Lady,” made a return visit to the Meigs County Public Library on Thursday, bringing along several “friends.” The program, which is always one of the more popular of the Summer Reading Program, was split into two sessions to accommodate the anticipated large crowds. More than 160 people enjoyed learning about turtles, frogs, snakes and other creatures. Kids were then given the opportunity to touch the turtles and other animals. This is the eighth year for the “Turtle Lady” to visit Meigs County for the Summer Reading Program. The Summer Reading Program continues at 2 p.m., Wednesday (today) at the library in Pomeroy. | <urn:uuid:17b9663c-bf53-4070-a7ea-96113de7ae42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mydailysentinel.com/pages/home/push?x_page=103&class=prev_page&per_page=5&rel=prev | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964174 | 144 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Your Opinion: Don’t criticize hunters
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
I was a bit offended by Mr. Winter’s letter regarding hunters. I do not hunt, but I am surrounded by family members who do.
First of all, if there was no harvesting of deer then the numbers of these animals would be so great that they would either die of starvation for lack of food or they would venture out of the borders of the woods even more in their desperate search for food. This would cause even more accidents involving vehicles and deer.
Also, there are people who “live off the land” eating food from their gardens and meat from wild animals. Sometimes this is survival. Have you looked at the cost of meat in the stores? Often those who don’t eat the wild game, donate the deer to the “Share the Harvest” program, which gives the meat to needy and very hungry families. Is this not a great service?
Deer meat is extremely healthy; very lean and high in protein. The Missouri Department of Conservation does a great job of wildlife management. Hunters don’t shoot animals year-round. There are specific seasons for specific animals-usually just weeks at a time.
My husband commented once, “Non-hunters really don’t understand hunting. They think we are a bunch of blood-thirsty killers. They don’t understand that hunting is about the whole experience in the woods, especially in the pre-dawn hours; the waking up of nature, seeing little animals run across your path, the birds singing, the beauty of the sunrise, the peace and quiet in the outdoors.”
I read Winter’s letter of apology in this column also. I admire him for his heartfelt apology for writing a letter not based on fact. But his letter on hunters is another example of misinformation. I urge him to talk to any acquaintances who might deer hunt, before coming to uninformed assumptions. We are not asking others to hunt, or to eat deer meat if they choose not to.
Please don’t criticize those who choose this way of life. | <urn:uuid:6b818f81-c740-4a6c-8a47-cc15e7900aa7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newstribune.com/news/2013/mar/05/your-opinion-dont-criticize-hunters/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966122 | 442 | 1.671875 | 2 |
During the Eighties, Mark Little was best known for his role as lovable rogue Joe Mangel in Neighbours, though his real love was stand-up comedy.
In Laughing At Dingoes, a new, three-part Radio 4 series, Mark explores his homeland 's unique brand of humour and the evolution of Australia 's most famous comic exports.
Mark begins his story in the late 18th century with the "convict sense of
humour ",and says the history of Australian comedy reflects the country 's search for a national identity as well as its physical characteristics.
"Laughing At Dingoes goes back to the time of the invasion of Australia and the creation of the penal colony to look at where the Aussie sense of humour comes from," explains Mark from his Brighton home, his base for the last 10 years.
"Australia is a big,dry,hot country of extremes and the humour manifests itself much as the country does:a lot of the humour is very dry and it is a comedy of
"The convicts' beginnings were fairly brutal, so it 's a sense of humour based very much on an anti-authority feeling and having to cope with extreme conditions. There 's a lot of irony and understatement."
The series explores how was later flavoured by vaudeville, pioneered by early stage and radio stars during the Forties, and brings the story to date by celebrating the country 's current crop of comic talent.
Hills says the country itself is the ultimate joke. "The wave you body-surf into shore after a day at the beach could contain a shark or a rip-tide and, when you get back, your house could have been burnt to the ground in a bush fire. That 's where the whole 'no worries ' thing comes from." he says.
But. like many Australians, Little is ambivalent about the country 's most famous comic exports.
"A lot of what 's been exported are cultural clichés," he says. "The series looks at the 'Oker ' stereotype of the Aussie male with his cork hat, Dame Edna Everage and Les Patterson the characters the British public is most familiar with."
Let 's not forget, Little adds ruefully, that Australia 's last big comedy export was Puppetry of the Penis "A little dubious and maybe a sign of the times. We hope we can do better than that..."
Laughing At Dingoes also takes in Norman Gunston, who Little calls "an important force in Australian comedy ". Quantock describes how Gunston "interviewed unwitting celebrities in 'daggy ' clothes and shaving cuts, turning the 'dumb Aussie ' stereotype on its head in the Seventies. He was Ali G,30 years before his time and, in the Seventies, the first comedian to turn the 'dumb Aussie' stereotype on its head.
But as proud as he is of his country 's home-grown talent, Little admits that the comedians who inspire him come from a different continent. "They tend to be American in origin," he admits. "Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks the social commentators of their time. They tend to be my biggest focus of ambition."
Laughing At Dingoes starts on Radio 4 at 11.30am on Tuesday May 13.
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New National Arts Policy Roundtable Findings Released by Americans for the Arts and Sundance Institute
Stanley Tucci Brings the Message To Congress After Participating in Roundtable Roundtable Inspires National and Local Initiatives Including The Bully Project: 1 Million Kids Program Based on Movie “Bully”
Posted May 23, 2012
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sundance Institute and Americans for the Arts, the nation’s leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts and arts education, today released a new report based on findings from the most recent National Arts Policy Roundtable.
Innovating for Impact: Arts-Based Solutions for a Stronger America is the result of a gathering of 35 leaders from the business, government, philanthropy, education and the arts sectors, which took place at the Sundance Resort in September 2011 to address ways in which the arts can be an economic driver as well as a vehicle for initiating positive social change.
The Roundtable participants made the following recommendations:
- Deepen Strategic Alliances Across Sectors: Expand cross-sector collaboration between the arts and other institutions to help solve social problems.
- Communicate the Value of the Arts: Engage individuals of all demographics in crafting and delivering personal narratives that demonstrate the importance of being an artist and the power expressing oneself gives them.
- Expand Lines of Inquiry and Future Research: Use both qualitative and quantitative data to demonstrate to the philanthropic, government and corporate sectors how the arts can be a key component in social problem-solving efforts.
- Integrate the Arts into Legislative and Other Policy Reforms: Leverage available funding streams to include the arts as part of economic development, neighborhood revitalization or other community-based initiatives.
Roundtable participants included Joyce Foundation President Ellen Alberding; actor and former Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, Jane Alexander; filmmaker Angad Bhalla; Albert Chao, CEO Westlake Chemical; theatre artist Rha Goddess; musician Robert Gupta; filmmaker Lee Hirsch; playwright and former Sundance Institute board member Moises Kaufman; Americans for the Arts President and CEO, Robert L. Lynch; Anand Mahindra, CEO Mahindra & Mahindra, Ltd; Jeremy Nowak, President, William Penn Foundation; filmmaker Patrice O’Neill; Sundance Institute Executive Director Keri Putnam; Edgar L. Smith, CEO World Pac Paper; and noted actor, writer, producer and Sundance Institute board member Stanley Tucci.
“The arts are a fundamental component in the DNA of our communities and society at large,” said Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. “I look at every part of our society and see the arts affecting so much positive change for the economy, jobs, crime prevention, race relations, education, the health system and infrastructure. The recommendations communicate the value of the arts in American society and the integral role arts play in solving America’s social needs and issues.“
"The multifaceted power of the arts in communities, great and small, continues to grow and diversify,” said Sundance Institute president & founder Robert Redford. “From cultural diplomacy and fostering innovators of today and tomorrow, to massive economic impact, the arts are well past being considered a luxury we can do without. Public and private investment in the arts pays off in a big way and needs to expand and increase. Our own Sundance Film Festival’s overall economic impact, just since 2001, has been a half billion dollars, including thousands of jobs – a story repeating itself in cultural institutions all over the country.”
Participation in Roundtable Motivates Stanley Tucci to Testify Before Congress
Inspired by his participation in the 2011 Roundtable, Stanley Tucci testified before Congress on March 22 in Washington, D.C. Appearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, Tucci’s testimony focused on the unique ability of the arts to unify people from diverse backgrounds by giving them common experiences. He also discussed how the arts can be used to help America’s citizens better understand and be proud of who they are as a people.
“We must not look at the arts as an adjunct to society, but a vital and integral part of society,” Tucci noted in his testimony. “Sometimes the arts make us think and see things as we have never before, sometimes they simply entertain and sometimes, if we are lucky, they do both.”
Roundtable Inspires Launch of The Bully Project: 1Million Kids Program in Cincinnati
The Roundtable gathering has already sparked action on both the national and local level. Lee Hirsch’s inspiring discussion of the making of critically acclaimed documentary “Bully” at the Roundtable prompted WorldPac Paper CEO Edgar L. Smith to bring the filmmaker and project to Cincinnati for a premiere as well as a series of in-depth dialogues with more than 12,000 young people in May 2012. The community-wide partnership has galvanized leaders from the Cincinnati school system, businesses (such as Procter & Gamble, Sunny Delight and the JLB-Cincinnati Reds), nonprofit organizations (such as The Strive Partnership, and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts) and government to participate in the project.
“At the start of the National Arts Policy Roundtable, Robert Redford charged us, as leaders of a movement, to come up with ways to use arts-based solutions for a stronger America. And in Cincinnati, we feel we have done just that,” said Smith. “I am honored and proud to have been a significant contributor to facilitate Hirsch’s vision of making The Bully Project: 1Million Kids Program a reality.”
Recommendations Stimulate Arts-Based Social Problem-Solving Initiatives
Two initiatives linking arts and social problem-solving strategies are underway to create opportunities for direct dialogue between artists and business leaders around creativity and embed artists in social change and policy organizations.
The first, National Creativity Conversations,proposed by The Conference Board President and CEO Jonathan Spector, establishes a series of dialogues between artists and business leaders to be co-led by The Conference Board and Americans for the Arts. At these day-long gatherings business executives will gain an understanding of the skills artists practice such as creativity, innovation and the ability to influence others through dramatic articulation and the visualization of ideas. Because they will take place in both a business and an art setting the conversations can take on a more immediate flavor of each operation. The experience is designed to unlock potential collaborative models.
With support from the Time Warner Foundation, Ann Beeson, senior fellow, Open Society Foundations is initiating the National Culture and Change Fellowship Program, which is a concept for placing artists in social change positions in policy organizations, including businesses, foundations and local governments. Time Warner Executive and Roundtable participant Lisa Quiroz is participating along with Americans for the Arts Animating Democracy Co-Directors Barbara Schaffer Bacon and Pam Korza on the design team creating the initiative. Among the objectives for the project are to encourage more nonprofit, government and business leaders and organizations to routinely incorporate art and culture in their social change strategies.
About The National Arts Policy Roundtable
The National Arts Policy Roundtable was launched in October 2006 by Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, and Robert Redford, president and founder of Sundance Institute, on the premise that issues important to the arts are also important to society. Since its inception, the Roundtable has convened more than 175 top level decision makers and thought leaders from the fields of business, government, the social sector, education and the arts in a unique cross-sector forum designed to discuss issues and propose solutions critical to advancing American culture and vitality. Each Roundtable yields a series of recommendations on public policies and private sector practices that are necessary to move the issue from thought to action. Past topics addressed include the future of private sector funding for the arts, the role of the arts in building a creative and internationally-competitive and 21st century workforce, fostering civic engagement and in strengthening global communities. The National Arts Policy Roundtable is currently organized and hosted by Sundance Institute and Americans for the Arts. Event organization is led by Cara Mertes, Director, Documentary Film Program, Sundance Institute, and Nora Halpern, Vice President of Leadership Alliances, Americans for the Arts.
For a full copy of the report, please visit the National Arts Policy Roundtable page on Americans for the Arts’ website.
Americans for the Arts is the leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts and arts education in America. With offices in Washington, D.C. and New York City, it has a record of more than 50 years of service. Americans for the Arts is dedicated to representing and serving local communities and creating opportunities for every American to participate in and appreciate all forms of the arts. Additional information is available at www.AmericansForTheArts.org.
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to introduce audiences to their new work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to inform, inspire, and unite diverse populations around the globe. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Son of Babylon, Amreeka, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, I Am My Own Wife, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Catherine Brandt, 202-712-2054, firstname.lastname@example.org
Sarah Eaton, 310-492-2320, email@example.com | <urn:uuid:2958cb1d-3386-4014-aca5-37f78c01af63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sundance.org/press-center/release/national-arts-policy-roundtable-findings-released-by-americans-for-the-arts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933522 | 2,061 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Systems Inc., located at 2744 Mt Moriah Parkway in Memphis, Tennessee, is a modern day computer firm
selling the latest in hardware and software technology. While many larger
computer companies spend millions on advertising to attract new customers,
Cooper Systems emphasizes customer satisfaction and local service to
maintain and grow it's customer base in the greater Memphis area. The philosophy here is simple: if you don't make your customers mad and run
them off, you won't have to replace them. Eighty percent of Cooper
Systems business is either repeat or by referral. That says a lot. From
Dell and Gateway laptops and PC computers to computer repairs and complete
network installations, we can be of service to you.|
The roots of the company go back to 1932 when Harry S. Cooper started the former Cooper typewriter Company, selling new and used typewriters. This was located on Second Street across from the Peabody Hotel. Today as it was in the 30's, customer service is the corner stone of the business. As technology progressed, electric typewriters were introduced, and after WWII, his son Melvin B. Cooper entered the business and expanded the product lines adding metal furniture and calculating machines and the Cooper Typewriter Company became Cooper Office Equipment. Again, technology pushes the business ahead; Melvin imported the first electronic calculators into the Memphis area, electric typewriters became electronic and calculators became programmable.After working many summers a third generation, Lee D. Cooper, joined the company permanently in 1974.
In the late 70's Lee brought the company into the computer age and started selling Apple computers, and shortly after IBM PC compatible computers, and it became Cooper Systems Inc.
Realizing the design of most computers required the owner to have to purchase a new computer every few years, in 1992 Lee Cooper designed a line of IBM clones that could be expanded and upgraded without having to start over with a new machine.He named this brand of computers Phoenix after the mythical Phoenix bird, that burned itself up every 500 to 1600 years and "reinvented itself".
Cooper's ideas have been noticed and he was written up in the The Commercial Appeal on May 30, 1994.The following are some quotes from that article: By practicing simple concepts, such as providing customer satisfaction and local service, Lee D. Cooper figures he's got the giants beat.
Cooper's advice for consumers is to steer away from many name-brand computers sold in electronic stores, warehouse chains and department stores. His reasoning, he said, hinges on two components that can easily upgraded or replaced. Those that aren't modular have an integrated design, and may be more difficult to repair or expand.
Of course, computers Cooper builds are modular and nonproprietary. He calls his two-year-old computer Phoenix, because, like the mythical bird, his computers can be upgraded to rise again. He credits customers 75 percent of the current market value for old parts if they come back to have their Phoenix computer upgraded. "Upgradeability is one of the keys. Is it clone equipment, 100 percent IBM compatible, nonproprietary and modular in design? If it is, you can go a long way with it. And, if it isn't you're going to get stuck."
Cooper Systems is winning business from local corporations that are fed up with the service from mail-order computer makers, Cooper said.
Copied signs hanging through the office remind workers of the company philosophy. "Cooper Systems total customer satisfaction is not just lip service, it's how we do business. And I drum that into the heads of everybody here."
Use of this material is restricted by copyright law. Copyright, 1994 The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN. Used with permission. This material may not be copied, downloaded, or reproduced in any form or medium without express, written permission from The Commercial Appeal.
Phone: 901.360.9679 Email: email@example.com
© 2008 COOPER SYSTEMS INC. | <urn:uuid:496ca7ac-3fbc-4b14-884a-efd1afab7431> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.coopersystems.com/Memphis_Dell_Computers.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957231 | 829 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Posted by Smokey Stover on December 10, 2005
In Reply to: "The pics are more equal" Posted by Anurag kumar on December 08, 2005
: meaning and origin of the phrase "the pics are more equal"/ "the picks are more equal"
You apparently heard this phrase rather than read it and I suppose you can't remember in what context you heard it or you would, of course, have included that information. Well, if what you heard was "the picks are more equal," that obviously means that the things or people picked or chosen are more evenly matched, which in general is a good thing. SS | <urn:uuid:87ac1921-2ed8-40b9-a977-84f9435681a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/44/messages/864.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991769 | 132 | 1.703125 | 2 |
A new North Korean propaganda video shows images of what appears to be an imagined missile attack on U.S. government buildings in Washington, including the White House and the Capitol.
The roughly 4-minute video was posted Monday on the YouTube channel of the North Korean government website Uriminzokkiri.
It carries a montage of clips of different weapons, including artillery guns firing and large missiles on display at military parades.
Just before the three-minute mark, it cuts to footage of the White House in an electronic sight's crosshairs, and then a simulated explosion of the Capitol's dome.
At the same time, the voice narrating the video says, "The White House has been captured in the view of our long-range missile, and the capital of war is within the range of our atomic bomb."
Analysts say that North Korea is still years away from being able to target nuclear missiles at the United States.
But the video's release comes amid spiking tensions between Pyongyang and Washington after the U.N. Security Council voted to impose tougher sanctions on North Korea following its latest nuclear test last month.
In a slew of angry rhetoric in response to the U.N. vote, North Korea has threatened to carry out a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the United States and South Korea and said it was nullifying the armistice agreement that stopped the Korean War in 1953.
Although U.S. officials say they don't believe North Korea is in a position to strike the United States at the moment, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last week announced plans to deploy additional ground-based missile interceptors on the West Coast as part of efforts to enhance the nation's ability to defend itself from attack.
This isn't the first time a North Korean propaganda video has evoked the prospect of an attack on the United States. | <urn:uuid:f0d170ce-a5a3-4f91-a63e-b892d61c12ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wmur.com/news/national/N-Korean-video-imagines-attack-on-D-C/-/9857926/19372152/-/vym601z/-/index.html?absolute=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952042 | 380 | 1.632813 | 2 |
SALISBURY — All too often, unwanted or forgotten prescription medication can get into the wrong hands, be it a small child or someone looking to get high.
In an effort to reduce overdoses and lower the town’s crime rate, the Salisbury Police Department is urging residents to bring unnecessary prescription drugs to the Railroad Avenue police station and deposit them in a recently purchased drop-off box.
The green box is located in the department’s lobby and can be accessed 24 hours a day. The town, along with other nearby communities, has hosted periodic drug take-back days. But with the box now inside the police station, residents won’t have to hold onto unwanted medications for a minute longer, officials said.
The box was purchased through the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, Edward J. Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant.
Salisbury police Chief Thomas Fowler said police will accept, with no questions asked, prescription medication, patches and ointments; vitamins, over-the-counter medications, samples and pet medications. The police department cannot accept needles, hydrogen peroxide, inhalers, aerosol cans, ointments, lotions, liquids and medications from businesses or clinics, IV bags and thermometers. Medications brought from nursing homes, clinics, doctors offices or other businesses that distribute medications will not be accepted as well.
“Studies have shown that residential supplies of pharmaceutical-controlled substances — those found in our home medicine cabinets — have become the supply of choice for young people and criminals. Many abusers, a high percentage of which are teens, are known to have obtained their controlled substances from the homes of family and friends,” Fowler said.
Salisbury police now join nearby departments Newburyport, Seabrook and Amesbury in offering prescription drug drop-off boxes. Amesbury Crime Prevention Officer Thomas Hanshaw said his department’s box, which first became available 1 1/2 years ago, is emptied every two weeks or so.
“It’s one of our most widely used services, it’s very popular,” Hanshaw said, adding among the most frequent users are older residents with small children in their homes.
In Amesbury, dropped-off medication is stored along with the department’s evidence and disposed of periodically following state and federal laws.
“There’s really no extra work,” Hanshaw said.
According to Salisbury town officials, research has shown the environment has been threatened by medications being flushed down toilets. Most controlled substances are created synthetically and are not removed through normal water-treatment processes. This can result in the discharge of these substances into the environment and into groundwater supplies.
“The Health Department is pleased that Chief Fowler and the Salisbury Police Department were proactive in this venture. This drop-off program will remove unwanted drugs from society that are harmful to people that abuse drugs and it will further protect the environment and water supplies,” Salisbury Public Health director John Morris said.
Elizabeth Pettis, executive director of the Salisbury Council on Aging and Elderly Affairs, said local senior citizens are always looking to do the right thing and seeking ways to rid themselves of medications they no longer need.
“Thanks to the Salisbury Police Department, we now have the tools to anonymously dispose of expired, unwanted medication without harming the environment. Removing those unneeded medications from their homes will help our senior citizens prevent accidental overdoses and avoid potential medication confusion,” Pettis said.
The Salisbury Police Department will evaluate the program on an annual basis to determine its effectiveness. More information can be found on the police department’s new website, www.salisburypolice.com. | <urn:uuid:5b0dd569-1eec-457b-aea5-8f2412010d98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newburyportnews.com/local/x1746090630/Salisbury-adds-drug-drop-off-box-to-station | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950901 | 766 | 1.703125 | 2 |
A section allowing virtual charter schools was removed from the bill in committee, but the bill will allow charter schools in C, D and F accredited districts without the approval of the local school boards.
The Committee met for about 20 minutes Tuesday to pass the bill to the floor of the Senate. But on Monday, according to various sources,the Senate Education Committee met with Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves for more than one hour in an unannounced meeting to discuss the legislation.
Even though a majority of the Committee was discussing the legislation in a private meeting, it was not online Monday night for members of the public to read before Tuesday morning's vote.
The bill passed the Senate last year, but died in the House. It has been identified as one of the primary issues of the legislative leadership for the 2013 session.
Read more in Wednesday's NEMS Daily Journal newspaper. | <urn:uuid:c27320cb-2786-4f9c-849f-f4db49f542c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://djournal.com/view/full_story/21415304/copyright_policy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961864 | 176 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Fri June 1, 2012
Egypt Braces For Verdict In Hosni Mubarak Trial
Originally published on Fri June 1, 2012 5:13 pm
An Egyptian court plans to announce the verdict Saturday in the trial of former President Hosni Mubarak, and regardless of which way the decision goes, it could prompt a public outpouring of emotion at a sensitive moment for the country.
Mubarak is charged with corruption and complicity in the deaths of hundreds of protesters during the revolution last year that ousted him.
If convicted, he could face the death penalty. But some are predicting he'll be acquitted, and that could set off another round of protests and possibly violence.
Photographs from the trial, which began last August, showed the 84-year-old Mubarak propped up in a hospital bed in a courtroom cage.
He, his former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, and six other security officials are accused of ordering — or failing to stop — the killing of protesters during the revolution.
Weak Case Against Mubarak?
The trial stirred so much national emotion — including clashes outside the courthouse — that the judge soon closed the proceedings to the public. Much of the high-level testimony, including that of the current military ruler, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, was banned from being discussed publicly.
Heba Morayef, the Egypt analyst for Human Rights Watch, has been closely monitoring the trial. She is one of several analysts who say prosecutors presented a weak case in their attempt to link Mubarak to the killings.
"When they started their pleadings in the Mubarak trial, [the prosecutors] said that they had not received sufficient cooperation from the Ministry of Interior and from intelligence agencies in their attempts to investigate the case and, in particular, to investigate Mubarak's responsibility on those days," Morayef says.
In the end, no one testified in public that Mubarak gave the order to kill protesters.
Hoda Nasrallah of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights is on a legal team representing 75 of the victims' families. She says she believes that even if it is a weak case, there is still enough evidence to link the former president to the crimes.
"[Minister] Adly would not be able to give the orders to kill the people without Mubarak's knowledge. He does not need to give the order to Adly to shoot, but his knowledge of it and not objecting to it makes him guilty," Nasrallah says.
Mubarak's lawyers declined requests for an interview.
Trial Eclipsed By Crime, Economy
On a busy street in the Cairo neighborhood of Garden City, not everyone is convinced that a Mubarak conviction would bring Egyptians justice.
When the trial started in August, many Egyptians were demanding revenge for the deaths of the protesters. Since then, public attention has shifted to an ongoing crime wave and the stagnant economy.
The impending verdict is competing for attention with the divisive presidential campaign. A runoff vote later this month pits Mubarak's last prime minister against the candidate of the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Mohammed Hassan, a 60-year-old butcher, says he's more concerned about seeing his business wither since the revolution than seeing Mubarak executed.
"He's an old man — he's over 80. What good would it do to punish him now? He's dying anyway," Hassan says.
But other Egyptians like Karima el-Sayid, a 35-year-old housewife, say a "not guilty" verdict on the murder charges is unacceptable.
Mubarak and the others shouldn't just be punished, she says — they should be executed.
Mubarak also faces corruption charges, which could lead to a prison sentence. He and his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, are accused, among other things, of accepting bribes in exchange for facilitating natural gas contracts.
This week, the younger Mubaraks were also charged with insider trading involving the sale of an Egyptian bank. A trial date for that case hasn't been set. | <urn:uuid:efb903ea-05db-45fd-96d2-214d40da7d8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kccu.org/post/egypt-braces-verdict-hosni-mubarak-trial | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973963 | 823 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Another book review that I hope is worth sharing. This one should be out in the journal Patterns of Prejudice soon. Did anyone else like this?
Debra Higgs Strickland
Saracens, Demons, and Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art
Princeton University Press, 2003
The gorgeous frontispiece to this book depicts a sinuous green devil inviting a solemn Christ to indulgence, while its back cover is populated by a rainbow of demons tormenting the damned. With its crisply reproduced images drawn from stained glass windows, manuscripts, and the plastic arts; with its oversized, glossy pages and its generously spaced, wispy typeface, Debra Higgs Strickland's Saracens, Demons and Jews is more than an outstanding work of scholarship. The book itself is a work of art.
Strickland discerns in the western depiction of monsters a movement from innocent fascination to a hatred-spurred rejection. Monsters are in the process transformed from marvels to contemplate into enemies to destroy. This metamorphosis in cultural meaning is catalyzed by Christians' burgeoning desire to distance themselves from rival ethnic and religious groups. As a result the so-called monstrous races (creatures of strange body and even stranger custom who have haunted the imaginative spaces of the west since at least the time of the early Greeks) stop referring to mythic beings that dwell in some great and ambiguous Beyond and begin to incarnate those toward whom Europeans harbored a real and growing animus. Once the vocabulary of monstrousness inherited from the classical tradition was applied to the Jews who lived among the Christians and the Muslims of Iberia and the Holy Land, the possibility that these peoples might be co-equal tended to vanish. Strickland's book, then, is less about monsters per se than about the process of monsterization, a heterogeneous set of representational practices that varies over time and place but always had the same outcome: the denial of humanity to the people represented.
Saracens, Demons, and Jews begins with a succinct preface that lucidly articulates the main themes, and contains a series of five chapters that flesh out the analytic framework through close engagement with a series of specific and usually related images. Comprised of a quick excursion through classical and Christian theories of monstrosity, the first chapter is the least innovative, covering ground that scholars have been treading for several decades. The chapter culminates, however, in the bold thesis that the classical monstrous races "with their deformed bodies, strange dwellings, barbaric habits, and sinful behaviors" were the template upon which later medieval constructions of non-Christian groups were based. This emerging tradition of monstrous religious Others was hybridized with Christianity's interest in "Demons, Darkness, and Ethiopians" (the title of chapter two), so that representations of Jews and Saracens of the Middle Ages combine the infernal with the classical. Thus in a famous antisemitic caricature of the moneylender Isaac of Norwich contained in Exchequer roll for 1233, the Jew and his wife are depicted consorting with devils.
Whenever Christians imagined Jews (chapter three), they tended to think of them as a stubborn and malicious race, unchanged since their rejection of Christ centuries earlier. Thus it is not uncommon to find illustrations of biblical Jews sporting the pileum cornutum, the horned hat that medieval Christians forced Jews to wear as a distinguishing sartorial mark. Such scenes would also reinforce the pernicious notion that contemporary Jews were just as responsible for deicide as their forebears. These negative depictions of Jews would also have had real-world effects. In a world increasingly saturated with anti-Jewish visual propaganda, it was increasingly easier to allow Jews to become victims of violence, and even of mass expulsion.
Depictions of Saracens (Muslims) and Tartars (Turks and Mongols) were hardly more positive, especially once crusading fervor had disseminated powerful fantasies of the monstrousness of these non-Christian peoples. As chapter four indicates, these groups were often depicted as dog-headed men, dark-skinned demons, and deformed giants. They were also at times granted a more ambivalent existence as physically attractive people in need of conversion. A final chapter on "Eschatological Conspiracies" examines how Saracens and Jews function in Christian thinking about the end of the world. The conclusion to the book ("What is a Monster?") undermines some of the definitiveness with which monstrousness has been analyzed, offering problematic cases of affirmative monsters and declaring that "Medieval monstrosity ... is neither positive or negative: it is both" (255).
If the book has a weakness it is in its failure to explore this positive aspect, the attraction of the monster, preferring instead to equate ugliness with simple rejection. If that were simply the case, could a book about monsters be as beautiful as this one is? So many of the illustrations that Strickland reproduces are "empirically" rather vile. They are motivated by hate and prejudice. Yet they are also strangely haunting aesthetic objects, awakening human desire and making monsterization seem a work of art. Strickland does a brilliant job of researching the cultural worlds that produced these images, and she expertly traces the historical inheritance of each image as well as its potential innovativeness. If she had only said a bit more about how desire works in these images, and about how a powerful ambivalence often lurks beneath every depiction of the monster, she would have moved a little closer to her stated goal of helping to bring about a world in which "being 'otherwise' eventually might come to be more respected than despised" (20).
Saracens, Demons and Jews is a rare book: impeccably researched, crisply penned, provocative in its findings, and handsomely produced. It will provide any readers interested in the long history of how humans have denied humanity to their fellow beings much to ponder, and probably leaving them wondering why so little has changed in the course of a millennium. | <urn:uuid:f6eae042-fc0a-41c0-8ac2-61616b6324b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2006/02/monstrous-beauty.html?showComment=1138846080000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961733 | 1,248 | 1.640625 | 2 |
IUCN Member Royal Society for Protection of Nature (RSPN) receives MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions
“Continuing its tradition of encouraging creativity and building effective institutions to help address some of the world's most challenging problems, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced today that 11 organizations in six countries will receive the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. The Awards recognize exceptional Foundation grantees and help ensure their sustainability with grants of $350,000 to $1 million each, a large sum given that recipients' annual operating budgets are under $5 million.”
These excerpts have been taken from the MacArthur Foundation website:
The Royal Society for Protection of Nature (RSPN) is among 11 organizations in six countries, which will be the recipient of the award. According to the MacArthur Foundation, the recipient organizations’ missions are diverse – from protecting biodiversity in Bhutan to fighting poverty in the U.S., from analyzing how tax policy impacts people to improving maternal and child health among India’s impoverished. Still, they have much in common. All are highly creative and effective organizations that have made a remarkable impact in their fields, driving significant change on modest budgets. Groups will use their awards for a range of purposes, including purchasing office space, upgrading technology, and constructing a library and conference space.
“These exceptional organizations effectively address pressing national and international challenges and they have had an impact that is disproportionate to their small size,” said MacArthur President Robert Gallucci. “The MacArthur Foundation is proud to recognize them. It is our hope that these Awards will help position them for long-term growth and even greater impact in the years ahead.”
RSPN has been a member of IUCN, since March 2008, and is focused primarily on the conservation of the country’s famed environment and biodiversity. The Society does so through conservation, education, outreach, and sustainable development.
For more information about RSPN programme, please visit www.rspnbhutan.org | <urn:uuid:c1f46f0e-5dae-499b-a63a-19665473ddfb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cms.iucn.org/about/union/secretariat/offices/asia/working_together/asia_members/?6800/IUCN-Member-Royal-Society-for-Protection-of-Nature-RSPN-receives-MacArthur-Award-for-Creative-and-Effective-Institutions&add_comment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941791 | 419 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The first couple are my own work - but there isn't much else out there :)
domain names -
a marketer's perspective is quite lengthy, but you'll struggle to find anything similar anywhere.
The second -
why register a domain name
- is a promotional hand-out I used at meetings, seminars, presentations and the like around 1997/8. At that time
I was 'selling' domain names - but if you can get past the 'selling' element of it there is some reasonable
advice on choosing a name included.
When I talk on domain names I always emphasise the way they will look in print [see also articles above]. There are some
classic errors around [one of my favourites is the holiday site ChooseSpain.com which reads as 'Chooses Pain'].
However, it seems I'm not the only one obsessed with the subject, take a look at
Good URL Bad URL. For some more 'classics' here's another site -
Easily mispronounced domain names.
Just out of interest really - there are some
odd-ball .uk domain name suffixes
out there. The chances are you will never see most of them - and you certainly won't be able to register them.
This article -
Sender-Line Branding Tactics In Retail Emails
- is on the 'sender' details on emails, but it does include some domain name stuff.
I have often advised against the use of 'novelty' suffixes -
Google Delists All CO.CC Domains From Index
is part of the reason why. | <urn:uuid:d7c24ec6-a9dc-47c0-a49c-533eb1bfa5a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alancharlesworth.eu/tips-hints-advice/domain-names.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944329 | 334 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Staff Picks of the Week:
Memorial Day 2013
Memorial Day 2013 Preaching Bundle »
Greater Love Video Illustration » Everlasting God Worship Music Video »
Sabbath Sabbath Preaching Bundle »
1 Outta 7 Video Illustration » Before The Throne… Worship Music Video »
I made a startling discovery soon after our child was born, they do not come with an instruction manual. The way that we dealt with this emergency was to call our moms, with questions that went something like this, “Mom she doing so and so, is she suppose to do that?
Most parents feel a little like the story I heard about a young student of child behavior who frequently delivered a lecture called “Ten Commandments for Parents.” He married and became a father. The title of the lecture was altered to “Ten Hints for Parents.” Another child arrived. The lecture became ‘Some Suggestions for Parents.” A third child was born. The lecturer – so the story goes – stopped lecturing. [Paul Lee Tan. Encyclopedia of 7,700 Illustrations. (Rockville: Maryland: Assurance Pub., 1979. # 635] The truth is that we never have more opinions about child rearing than when we do not have any ourselves. We say things like, “MY, children will never do that!” Those words can sure come back to haunt you.
Mark Twain, the humorist, had these words of advise on raising children. He said, “When they become teenagers put them in a barrel and fed them through the knot hole. When they turn sixteen stop up the knot hole!”
Two children were heard discussing their parents. The first said, “I’m really worried. Dad slaves away at his job so that I have everything I need, so I’ll be able to go to college some day. Mom works hard washing and ironing, cleaning up after me, taking care of me when I am sick, driving me everywhere I want to go. They spend every day of their lives working for me. But I’m worried.” His friend asked, “What have you got to worry about?’ The first little guy replied, “I’m afraid they’re going to try to escape some day.”
James Dobson in his book “The Strong Willed Child” said, “ Child rearing is like baking a cake. You don’t realize you have a disaster until its too late.” But success in both child rearing and cake baking is best achieved by following the recipe, so this morning I would like to offer you “A Recipe for Success for Parenting.
The first Ingredient in our Recipe for Successful Parenting is the Recognition that Your Child is a Gift from God. If we are going to survive the challenges of parenting, we must remember that your child is a gift from God. Psalm 127:3-5 “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. (4) Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. (5) Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; ...”. (NKJV)
If you want to survive parenthood remember that your child or children are worth the struggle and are a gift from God even if they sometimes act like the devil.
The Second Ingredient of our Recipe for Successful Parenting is Unconditional love. Deal with your child as God, your heavenly father, deals with you, that is with patience, grace and unconditional love. Never allow your child to think that your love is conditional to his behavior.
The Third Ingredient of our Recipe for Successful Parenting is Recognize and Work with our Childs Natural Bents.
If you want to survive parenting we absolutely must realize we have a duty to “train up our children.” There is nothing anymore challenging or rewarding than the privilege and responsibility given by God to parents to raise their children. Scripture
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Join the discussion | <urn:uuid:6c72e757-123b-4195-9e8a-588fbbb074ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/a-recipe-for-successful-parenting-john-hamby-sermon-on-family-37483.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96043 | 943 | 1.632813 | 2 |
United Way — Live United
Your opinion counts! Contact your elected representatives and let them know your positions. Find your US and Oregon State legislators by clicking here.
26 ways to LIVE UNITED....and counting.
1. Invite a friend, neighbor, family member to attend a school board meeting with you.
2. Organize a book drive with your family, co-workers, school, club or faith community
3. Read to children in your family, at your library, or with a local non-profit engaged in child care or literacy.
4. Purchase school supplies for a local school to distribute to children who need them.
5. Enroll your child in a summer reading program at the local library.
6. Donate your newspaper subscription to a local school when you go on vacation.
7. Allow a high school student to shadow you at work and show them how apply things you learned in school.
8. Take the children in your life to a local museum, exhibit or play.
9. Be a mealtime partner for a pre-school class to help kids develop social skills.
10. Mentor an at-risk youth at your neighborhood school.
11. Bring a child in your life to a bank to have a tour and open up a savings account.
12. Tutor at an adult literacy or technology program
13. Donate new or gently used professional clothing to an organization assisting individuals in seeking employment.
14. Serve as a greeter at a free tax preparation community coalition site to help low-income families acquire up to thousands of dollars in earned income tax credits.
15. Volunteer to prepare tax returns for low-income families.
16. Contact your local representative about and issue affecting working people in your community.
17. Ask your bank if they offer free checking and savings accounts to low-income families and encourage them to start if they don’t.
18. Engage with a middle school to teach a class on how to save money and watch with them as it grows.
19. Help senior citizens learn how to detect and prevent fraud.
Health20. Contact your local health clinic to offer assistance in anything from distributing flyers to serving on an event committee to writing a letter to the editor on their behalf.
21. Check into what healthy snacks are or are not available in your local schools and call on others to promote tasty healthy meals and fun exercise at school.
22. Start a walking group for friends, families, neighbors and/or community members that meets regularly at a set time and location. Soon the group will exist even if you can’t make it!
23. Get a flu shot.
24. Buy pedometers for your friends and have a fun competition for who can walk the most steps.
25. Purchase personal care items such as deodorant, toothbrushes and soap and drop them off at the local homeless shelter.
26. Help transport families to necessary medical appointments so children can have proper screening and immunizations. | <urn:uuid:b86c4e47-3e39-4622-87d3-462b98e59744> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://unitedwaylane.org/get-involved/advocate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936816 | 622 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Enjoy Vancouver Island
Stay at Beachview Bed & Breakfast in Port Renfrew on the southwest edge of Vancouver Island and then explore all the Island has to offer!
The Vancouver Island region is a large, sparsely populated area, encompassing Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, as well as a portion of the mainland. Condé Nast Traveler magazine's 2009 Readers' Choice Awards ranked Vancouver Island second in the "Top Islands of North America" category.
It has one of the world's most diverse ecosystems: Rainforests, marshes, meadows, beaches, mountains, oceans, rivers and lakes create habitats for multitudes of wildlife species. In fact, the region is one of the world's premier locations for whale watching, birding, as well as salmon and trout fishing.
Much of the island is protected parkland. It contains many pockets of old-growth fir and cedar forests, as well as rare, naturally occurring groves of Garry oak. Vancouver Island is bisected, north to south, by the Beaufort Mountain Range, which is home to one of Canada's biggest all-natural ski bases.
The beauty and tranquility of this region has long been a draw for artists and artisans. Galleries, studios and shops selling unique, locally produced arts and crafts are found in many population centres, particularly on the Gulf Islands.
(Source: Tourism BC) | <urn:uuid:755d507c-386d-4ae9-86b6-49fc25779dfc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://beachviewbedandbreakfast.com/index.php/vancouver-island | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93459 | 284 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Prominent local physician takes life
The shock of the June 10 federal raids turned to horror on June 11 when Dr. James Redd, one of the defendants, was found dead near a pond on his property, the victim of an apparent suicide.
Wide range of items on antiquities list
The crux of the initial charges center on the purchase of a large number of antiquities by an undercover agent of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Up to 150 agents involved in raid
Early in the morning on June 10, the army of federal agents descended on the unsuspecting towns of Blanding and Monticello to make the arrests and execute 12 search warrants.
Walter C. Lyman
Early on the morning of September 24, 1887, Walter C. Lyman was riding his horse toward White Mesa from Bluff.
Photo of the week
Willy Wonka’s factory or a flash flood in White Canyon? Enter your photos in our Photo of the Week contest. We will pay $10 for each photo that runs in the San Juan Record. You can email your ent... | <urn:uuid:8a5dc2d7-c9ee-45fc-82f2-7ee563120bf5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sjrnews.com/pages/news/push?class=&x_page=7&per_page=10&rel=next&instance=1&k_group=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942254 | 234 | 1.742188 | 2 |
One of the main problems for the image of the pharma business is the persistent public perception that drug companies are more interested in treating symptoms on an ongoing basis than actually curing diseases and conditions. The conspiracy theory logic is that long-term treatment is far more lucrative than a one-shot cure. Those theorists got a boost for their conspiracies today in the WSJ, which reports that senior figures in the government’s anti-smoking campaign are on the payroll of GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Nicorette and Commit. By amazing coincidence, the government’s campaign materials urge smokers to utilize products like GSK’s instead of quitting cold turkey. And GSK runs an ad campaign called “Don’t Go Cold Turkey.” By further amazing coincidence, the data actually show that gums and patches are not more effective than going cold turkey. In fact, in 2006, two reps for GSK told me that consumers had difficulty with Nicorette because “The taste of Nicorette gum in general has been a barrier to compliance” and “They sat through years of focus studies to hear that their brand was terrible . . . Smokers wouldn’t stick to their smoking cessation attempts due to the lack of flavor.” Does this mean that the “scientists” GSK was paying who were on the government’s anti-smoking campaign were in fact recommending a product that GSK itself knew was “A barrier to compliance?” Like the French police chief in Casablanca, I am shocked—shocked!—to discover that there is gambling going on in this casino! | <urn:uuid:44578e03-3cab-4650-921d-47f28390a384> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brandweeknrx.com/2007/02/gsks_antismokin.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973121 | 340 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Many have a problem of letting go of control. This results in anxiety, restlessness and it sours relationships.
Wake up and see, are you really in control? What are you in control of? Perhaps a tiny part of your waking state! Isn’t that so?
You are not in control when you are sleeping or dreaming. You are not in control of thoughts and emotions coming to you. You may choose to express it or not, but they come to you without your prior permission! You realize that most of the functions of your body are not in your control, and the same for your life and the whole universe.
Similarly, do you think you are in control of all the events in your life or in the world? That is a joke!
When you look at things from this angle you need not be afraid of losing control, because you have none! Whether you realise it or not, when you let go of your sense of control that is when you truly relax. Your identification of being somebody does not let you relax totally and it keeps your domain limited. | <urn:uuid:35fedd8a-95fc-43bb-aa7b-1b8f72f7071c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artofliving.org/ar-es/letting-go-control | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954056 | 222 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Upbot Goes UpPublished on April 29, 2011. Played 924 times.
If the game you are trying to play is not working, browse our Help / FAQ page.
Your objective in this challenging point-and-click sliding puzzle game is to solve each puzzle by moving the colored bots to the target pads that match their colors. Looks like easy? Try it!
Simple rules, but some of the later puzzles get surprisingly tricky!
Use YOUR MOUSE to click bots to move them around a board – but each bot can only go in one direction. Bots can push other bots. Good luck! | <urn:uuid:450f3f6c-2929-4da6-974b-15e63990201a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fungamesarena.com/upbot-goes-up.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933605 | 125 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Boeing wanted more time and Wednesday got its wish. The Pentagon delayed a decision on who will build the Air Force's new refueling tanker until next year. That means the 35 billion dollar decision will be made after President Bush leaves office.
The new administration will choose who gets the tanker contract. Remember, the president makes a number of political appointments including the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Air Force.
Some are speculating whether an Obama or McCain presidency would favor one company over the other.
Both candidates say if elected they'll make sure it's a fair process. After seven years of controversy, the current Secretary of Defense says delaying the decision is the right move.
"I believe that the resulting cooling-off period will allow the next administration to review objectively the military requirements and craft a new acquisition strategy for the KC-X as it sees fit," said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. | <urn:uuid:7af05bef-a2bf-493b-9759-5268a9f3861c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kwch.com/kwch-newadministrationwilldecid-8989068,0,454320.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950822 | 184 | 1.632813 | 2 |
EU deal 'fails Wales' says First Minister Carwyn Jones
The first minister says the EU budget cut could be "deeply unfair" to the poorest parts of west Wales and the valleys.
EU leaders agreed a 908bn euros (£768bn) budget limit for 2014 to 2020, about 3% lower than the current seven-year period.
Carwyn Jones said early estimates show Wales could lose £400m in funding.
But Prime Minister David Cameron said it would be "good for the UK and good for Europe".
Responding to the deal, the First Minister Carwyn Jones warns that the agreement "fails to deliver" for Wales.
He said this would result in significant cuts to funding programmes.
"We are disappointed that the agreement fails to deliver the level of investment in jobs and growth needed in Wales," said Mr Jones.
Analysis by Tomos Livingstone, political correspondent
It is difficult to imagine a more different response from Carwyn Jones to that of David Cameron.
Mr Jones says it will not do anything to stimulate the economy and create growth and jobs in Wales or indeed across Europe.
He says he is very disappointed that west Wales and the valleys, which are areas that have received a large amount of European funding over the years, appear to be missing out as a result of the budget cuts.
Mr Jones says they are missing out to pass money over to areas in Britain and across Europe that are already well off.
Over the past few weeks, the Welsh government has been going through all the European projects in Wales with a fine toothcomb looking at which ones are working and which ones are not.
I suspect that process will now intensify because we have got this confirmation that there is going to be a good deal less money to spend in those areas.
It is a cut of around £400m for west Wales and the valleys, we expect - under some estimates, they were expecting a rise of £400m.
So very disappointing from Carwyn Jones's perspective but, as with so much in politics, it depends which way you look at things.
"We are especially concerned that the most vulnerable part of Wales - west Wales and the Valleys - appears to be losing out to wealthier regions in the UK. This cannot be seen as a fair reflection of priorities for Wales.
"Despite all of our efforts to promote a fair deal to protect Wales' interests, the agreement reached by the European Council is deeply unfair to the poorest parts of the EU.
"The prime minister says this is a 'good deal for Britain'. He will need to explain how it's a good deal for Wales."'Siphoned away'
Speaking after the marathon negotiations in Brussels, David Cameron said he could look the taxpayer in the eye and argue that he had helped deliver the agreement.
"I think the British public can be proud that we have cut the seven-year credit card limit for the EU the first time ever," he said.
The deal would see a fall in the share of money given to agriculture, while protecting areas such as research and development, he said, adding that "working with allies it is possible to take real steps towards reform in the European Union".
But the Welsh first minister said the agreement had come at a high price for Wales.
End Quote Dr Elizabeth Haywood South East Wales Economic Forum
We should be looking at some regionally significant programmes rather than having lots of little dissipated mini programmes all over the area”
"The Welsh government has always recognised the need for discipline in the overall EU budget but it cannot be right for EU money allocated to the UK to be siphoned away from poorer regions, like west Wales and the Valleys - to richer regions elsewhere," he said.
"We must now look to the UK government to make a fair allocation to Wales of its much reduced structural funds budget, so that we can continue our work in transforming the economy of our country."
Dr Elizabeth Haywood, director of the South East Wales Economic Forum, told BBC Radio Wales it looked like west Wales and the valleys would get £400m less, but it was possible to make improvements in how the funds received were spent.
"I argued when I was chairing the city regions task group... we should be looking at some regionally-significant programmes rather than having lots of little dissipated mini-programmes all over the area," she said.
"If we could actually achieve that this time round, we could end up getting more value out of our European funds.
"I think it's also got to be remembered that whatever you put in, in terms of European funding, has to be match-funded from somewhere else and of course that's been getting more difficult as the economy has been in a more difficult state."
Dr Haywood added there was the possibility Wales would not have been able to spend the amount it received because match funding could not be found. | <urn:uuid:593eff5b-c8b9-46b2-ae36-fea1c358d184> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-21388591 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97498 | 1,007 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Do Business/AgBusiness Schools Need a New Curriculum?
Mar 19, 2009
At least from these comments from a recent New York Times article ( Is it Time to Retrain B-Schools 3/17/09
) I get the impression that there are some people that think that one of the problems with the financial crisis might have something to do with business students being taught to give profit maximization too much emphasis.
"Critics of business education have many complaints. Some say the schools have become too scientific, too detached from real-world issues. Others say students are taught to come up with hasty solutions to complicated problems. Another group contends that schools give students a limited and distorted view of their role — that they graduate with a focus on maximizing shareholder value and only a limitedunderstanding of ethical and social considerations essential to business leadership."
First, I think it is important that students be properly informed about what profit maximization implies: Profits represent the net contribution a firm makes to society. That is, when a firm produces a product or service, it imposes costs on society ( through the resources it uses, the leisure and time given up by laborers, and the use of scarce funding etc. ) but with a free market system that firm has to pay a price for those costs. People only buy a product or service from a business if it benefits them as members of society in some way. The difference between a firm’s costs and the benefits it contributes to society represents that firm’s ‘net contribution to society.’ This is ‘profit.’
It follows then that the ethical and socially responsible thing to do is to maximize the firm's net contribution to society, or in other words maximize profits, or as a close approximation, maximize shareholder value.
Now, what if there are cases where in the process, people in society are harmed as a result of the firm’s pollution or something of that nature? We learned from economists Ronald Coase and Howard Demsetz that most cases of these ‘externalities’ can be handled quite easily by the market as long as the government assigns and enforces property rights. With property rights and markets, all parties are forced to take the well being of others into account, and over time as new problems arise, new institutions and forms of property and markets evolve to deal with them. ( like selling carbon offsets or trading water quality permits)
One thing that may need more emphasis in business school however, is how to run a profit maximizing business in an environment of government intervention. With the current financial crisis we have seen what happens when the government manipulates interest rates ( see this piece from the Wall Street Journal) and the risky incentive structure created by public-private partnerships and government sponsored enterprises ( see this piece from the Wall Street Journal).
How many times have you heard it said that the current crisis is the result of failed market philosophies and deregulation? Perhaps it is our political leaders and media that should be retrained . With an understanding of markets, profits, and incentives their stories may not end up so far off base.
'The Myth of Social Cost' Stephen S. Cheung
Coase. 'The Problem
of Social Cost
(1960) Journal of Law and Economics
. 1967. Toward a theory of property rights
. American Economic Review 57 (
Matt Bogard, Economic Sense | <urn:uuid:1b429bb9-1b08-44d5-871f-98a1048e11b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agweb.com/blog/Economic_Sense_190/Do_BusinessAgBusiness_Schools_Need__a_New_Curriculum_11098/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947923 | 692 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Pastels by Degas, Pissarro, Cassatt and Others Subject of Special Installation Opening October 29 at the Clark
For Immediate Release
October 12, 2005
In the spirit of the 50th anniversary of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, a special installation of pastels will be on view beginning Saturday, October 29. The pastels are drawn from the Clark’s extensive collection of works on paper, which includes prints, drawings, and photographs, and now numbers 5,000 objects. The installation is on view through June 18, 2006.
French and American artists Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Mary Cassatt, Jean-François Millet, Frederick Childe Hassam, Edouard Vuillard, and Edouard Manet will be featured. These 19th-and early 20th-century artists revived the traditional use of pastels for portraiture, and often depicted new subjects, particularly modern life and the city. The fleeting quality of the pastel also made it the perfect medium for representations of light, and these artists experimented with the physical qualities of the medium.
The Clark’s pastels, favorites with many visitors, are exhibited in the galleries for limited periods of time because, as works on paper, they require limited exposure to light. When not on public view, pastels and other works on paper in the collection, including prints, drawings, watercolors, and photographs, may be seen in print study room by appointment.
The Clark is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm (daily in July and August). Admission June 1 through October 31 is $10 for adults, free for children 18 and younger, members, and students with valid ID. Admission is free November through May. For more information, call 413-458-2303 or visit www.clarkart.edu. | <urn:uuid:3742e870-44fa-4c2b-9de8-dbd22db664a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clarkart.edu/about/press/content.cfm?ID=492&year=2005&email=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946706 | 397 | 1.578125 | 2 |
You are correct. Those poles are floating in the air not connected to the corners directly.
The idea of freeestanding is to be able to set the shelter up and move it about but you still need to peg it down.
That gives you a bit of latitude on where to insert the stakes and or use ballast or guylines to keep it on the ground.
(A common mistake that people make setting up tents (and tarps...) is to get the angle of the tie-out pegs wrong. This is not so important with freestanding shelters.)
A mate has just used my Moment with the somewhat similar freestanding option, he did that because he was camping on rocks on an island on Lake Huron. To keep the tent in place he piled rocks on top of the end guylines.
Do keep in mind that a lot of "freestanding" tents need more than 6 pegs to keep the fly taut, if you really want to you do not need any stakes with the Scarp, just weight inside and no gale force wind to turn it into a kite.
BTW, Henry has been granted a patent on that cross pole with embedded support for the freestanding pole and inverted V corners. | <urn:uuid:17afa369-a458-4379-a78a-5de88f84144b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=36308&skip_to_post=308344 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934777 | 259 | 1.679688 | 2 |
I received the following informative note from reader Petrina:
As a Type I diabetic for 43+ years since age 9, I applaud your article
about the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. I want a cure for diabetes, but not one derived from embryonic stem cells. Last year, the JDRF raised $85 million and spent $1 million in California lobbying for embryonic stem cell research (not exactly what people expected, I'm sure, when they gave their dollars for research to find a cure for diabetes!).
What is even more disgraceful is that JDRF refuses to fund Dr. Denise Faustman's research in Boston.
Dr. Faustman, whose research so far has been funded by the Iacocca Foundation [Jill note: Lee Iacocca, pictured right, refuses to allow his foundation to fund embryonic stem cell research], has been the first to cure diabetes in mice by stopping the autoimmune process that destroys the insulin-producing cells, and she didn't use embryonic stem cells. The beta cells regenerated in these mice and the mice were cured of diabetes, with no need for islet cell transplants or anti-rejection drugs!
Faustman has FDA approval to do human clinical trials to see if this will cure diabetes in people, but the JDRF won't give her one red cent. They are more interested in promoting embryonic stem cell research than they are in curing diabetes!
Lee Iacocca is trying to raise the $11 million needed to do the clinical trials in humans. He knows the tragedy of diabetes because his wife died from diabetes complications in the early 1980's. Please let your readers know about this very hopeful diabetes research, and ask them to help make it happen by giving donations to Join Lee Now. They can read more about it at and at www.iacoccafoundation.org.
If we can cure diabetes in a morally acceptable way, we can put the JDRF out of business, which is not what they want.
Mr. Iacocca was on ABC's This Week yesterday discussing his involvement with diabetes stem cell research.
Thank you so much for researching Iacocca's ethical foundation! After seeing Iacocca plea for funds for a probable diabetes cure on TV Sunday morning, I was extremely curious about their stance since JDRF not only espouses destroying embryos, they lied about it last June in the Kansas City Star.Posted by: topekaprolife at August 1, 2005 9:39 AM | <urn:uuid:aa007274-c0d7-46e0-9dbf-54ef32f446bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jillstanek.com/stem-cell/diabetes-iacocc.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958972 | 513 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Mount Hillyer is an easy peak to climb near Horse Flats campground in the Angeles National Forest. It is near Mount Pacifico and Bare Mountain to the North, Roundtop Mountain to the west, Vetter Mountain to the South and Winston Peak and Waterman Mountain to the East. There is some confusion where the summit actually is. The Sierra Club Hundred Peaks Section (HPS) Hillyer Webpage states that the true summit is the southernmost bump along the ridge at 6215 ft. Topo maps show the summit to be at 6164 ft about 1/3 of a mile north and slightly to the east. Whereas this is not the highpoint, it is definitely a more prominent peak that the other bump. Regardless, both locations are a worthy objective and while you are on the ridge, I suggest hiking to both. There was a Sierra Club summit register near the southernmost bump, but all I could find was scraps of the old log book all over the ground just north of the south bump, it looks like some animal used it as nesting material. I could not find the can.
Whereas this is peak is not very exciting and hardly stands out from the ridge, the area is beautiful and the views along the ridge make this a worthy objective. The most attractive feature of the area I feel is all of the boulders along the ascent route from Horse Flats Campground.
This area also has some interesting history, as this excerpt from www.explorehistoricalif.com explains:
Long before Newcombs Ranch became a favorite stopping spot for a bite to eat for modern travelers going up Angeles Crest, East Chilao provided a remote refuge for Vasquez (El Bandito). West Chilao and Horse Flat, with a long narrow valley, and a secret trail, provided grazing grounds for stolen San Fernando & San Gabriel Valley horses. Mount Hillyer , overlooking Horse Flat, provided a rock fortress from any lawmen that might wander up after the bandits. Horses were often stolen from the United States government in Yuma , Arizona , taken up to Chilao where they were re-branded then sold down in San Fernando Valley . One time, a pair of extra large mules were stolen and brought to camp, also, but were too easily recognizable because of their size, and wound up being shot instead, so there would be no chance of the thieves being discovered. Before horses were taken to the Valley to be sold, Vasquez and his men picked the best for their own private use.
Getting ThereNOTE: As of 11/19/2007 the gate was closed a short distance along Santa Clara Divide Road making the approach much longer. It would be best to hike up from Chilao Campground Area via. Silver Moccasin trail near the old Visitor Center.
From the intersection of Angeles Crest Highway and I-210, drive north on Angeles Crest Highway for 26.5 miles, just past Newcomb Ranch Restaurant, to the intersection with Sulphur Springs Road (Three Points also called Santa Clara Divide Road). Turn left (north). See Google Map of this Intersection and to calculate direction.
If hiking from the Horse Flats Campground, drive just over 2 miles, past the Bandito Campsite turnoff, to the Horse Flats Campsite Road and turn left into the campsite. The trailhead is near campsite #10. Since the campsite was empty when we hiked we just parked in the campsite, otherwise you may need to park near the entrance.
If you are planning the shorter ascent of the northern ridge, drive 2.8 miles down the road to a parking area on the left side of the road (see photo). Park here on your left.
There are 2 main routes to Mount Hillyer:
Route 1: From Horse Flats Campground
From the campsite near site #10 hike west along the trail (see photo). The trail is well marked and leads up along a scenic ridge of quality, beige granite and beautiful views. The trail heads west until if connects with the main north-south summit ridge then turns to heads north. The highpoint is easy to miss and is encountered shortly after reaching the main ridge. The summit as marked on the topo maps leaves the well marked trail about 1/3 mile along the ridge and heads east to a gentle summit with nice views.
You can also hike to the Horse Flats Campground via the Silver Moccasin Trail starting near the closed Chilao visitor center, which adds about 1 mile each way. See Angeles National Forest website.
Route 2: Via North Ridge
For a shorter, albeit less interesting, hike you can start hiking along the ridge starting from the Sulphur Springs road. See Getting There above for picture of trailhead and driving instructions. From the trailhead, simply follow the well-marked trail south up the ridge to the summit. You will first encounter the summit at 6164 ft as shown on the Topo maps and will need to leave the trail and head east (left) a short distance to the gentle summit. Then continue along the ridge about 1/3 of a mile to reach the true highpoint at 6215 ft.
This hike makes for a nice loop if you combine route 1 with route 2. It requires about 1 mile of walking back along the road if you don't have a car shuttle.
Here is a GPS Track of the route in kmz format, this can be viewed in Google Earth and provides a very nice tool to plan your trip and see the route options. You can also get the GPS track in .gpx format and view Google Maps HERE.
Will's Horse Flats Climbing Page
bouldr.net Horse Flats Climbs
avbeat.com's description of the area:
Horse Flats is the premier granite bouldering area of the greater LA area and is about an hour drive from AV (Antelope Valley). It also offers a limited number of top-rope problems. Depending on the season, an additional half hour to one hour hike is required for the approach. The area provides rock quality from good to excellent and a genuine sense of solitude despite being only about an hour drive from AV and LA. This area is located in the pines near the bikers bar of Newcomb’s Ranch at an elevation of about 5000 feet, providing an alpine escape from the heat of the surrounding valleys. Most would consider the spring and fall the ideal time to visit, but hard-core climbers brave the coldest temperatures of winter when humidity is low and friction is optimal to send their projects.
CampingThere are many campsites in the area operated by Angeles National Forest.
Horse Flats and Bandito campsites very close but are closed for the winter November 15 through April 1, 2007, snow permitting opening on that date or as soon as possible thereafter.
The Chilao Recreation Area are also closed for winter the same dates as Horse Flats. This campsite includes many nice campgrounds, which are a short walk to Horse Flats and are located south of Newcomb Ranch Restaurant.
External LinksFor GPS Tracks and Google Map, check out the following website:
Dan Simpson has a very nice website with details of this hike, as usual.
Localhikes.com has a description for a Mount Hillyer Hike also.
Plant Guide for Mount Hillyer Trail. | <urn:uuid:a758ac05-495a-4588-ae3d-67c57538e0ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.summitpost.org/mount-hillyer/326167 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951514 | 1,516 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Finding divorce or marital status with church records
Church records may also give you clues to an individual's marital status. Of course, marriage certificates tell you whether or not an individual ever married, and more than one marriage certificate tells you that a death or divorce took place in the family. Other church records can also give you clues. For example, baptism and christening records normally list both parents' names. If children in the same family have different parents' names on their baptism certificates, then it may be that there was a divorce and second marriage.
The books listed below can help you locate your ancestors' church records by telling you who currently has the records belonging to your ancestors' church. You can find these books in a public or genealogical library. Depending on the book that you use, you can look up either the name of your ancestors' church or the name of the clergyman and find out who currently has the records belonging to your ancestors' church. Of course, if you live close to your ancestors' church, you should go directly to the church and ask the staff for assistance in locating the records that you need.
The Handbook of American Denominations, by Frank Mead
The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, by Constant H. Maquet
List of Historical Records Survey Publications, by the Works Projects Administration
State Historical Records Surveys, by the Works Projects Administration
Once you locate the records that belong to your ancestors' church, the current custodian of the records should be able to direct you in your search for the marriage, baptism, or christening record that you need.
Another good place to look for both American and foreign church records is among the microfilm records at the Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their church records are organized first by state, then county, and then town. Unless the town that you are searching for had very few churches, knowing a denomination will make your search easier.
Return to the Main Menu of the Genealogy "How-To" Guide
|© 2011 Ancestry.com| | <urn:uuid:6ed2823d-2835-4137-b8b4-b95592f06fb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.genealogy.com/00000571.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948789 | 425 | 1.625 | 2 |
1. How does ProPublica do it? Can it scale?
I received an intriguing email alert last week from ProPublica – the non-profit organization that, according to its mission statement, does “journalism in the public interest.” The email announced that ProPublica’s “nursing home inspection” tool now has a completely searchable database of “140,000-plus” reports from government inspections of these facilities for seniors, many of which have been plagued by charges of poor or even abusive care.
That reminded me that as its fifth anniversary approaches, ProPublica deserves full-blown feature treatment.
The small, New York-based organization, which has already won two Pulitzer Prizes, has done a slew of amazing reporting projects that have combined old-fashioned shoe leather with ingenious use of modern technology to gather and present compelling stories and provide ongoing resource materials. It has tackled subjects ranging from political ad spending to doctors getting payments from drug companies to presidential pardons to this nursing home project. And that’s all in addition to an array of killer one-off stories, such as its report on speaking fees paid to Chicago Tribune editorial board member and syndicated columnist Clarence Page by a group lobbying to be removed from a State Department terrorist list, or the story about Magnetar, the secretive financial firm.
ProPublica was founded in late 2007 with a $10 million grant from Herbert and Marion Sandler, the former Golden West Financial Corp chief executives who made a fortune when they sold the giant savings and loan to Wachovia Bank just before the mortgage bubble burst. Under the leadership of Paul Steiger, the former Wall Street Journal managing editor who conceived the project with the Sandlers, ProPublica has since attracted grants from other major foundations, as well as several hundred smaller individual donations.
Steiger now deploys 34 reporters, researchers and what he calls “data journalists.” Their impact is magnified not only by how cleverly they mine and present data related to important issues but also by the partnerships Steiger and his team have forged with other news organizations, such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR and Politico. These outlets, which often contribute reporters to supplement ProPublica’s resources, co-publish the resulting work through their own channels. | <urn:uuid:bc917f40-ff53-4bcb-98be-43641c0063d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.reuters.com/stories-id-like-to-see/tag/propublica/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967906 | 481 | 1.578125 | 2 |
ConocoPhillips received permission to resume full production at Penglai 19-3 oil field in China’s northern Bohai Bay after being sanctioned by the Chinese goverment for oil seeps during 2011, China's State Oceanic Administration said.
The clearance was announced on Feb. 16. Production was halted in September 2011. Previously, China's National Energy Administration approved a revised overall development plan (OGJ Online, Jan 11, 2013).
ConocoPhillips’s China owns 49% interest in Penglai 19-3, which it operates. CNOOC Ltd. owns the rest.
Production gradually resumed starting last year. ConocoPhillips reported its share of production at 45,000 b/d at the end of third quarter 2012 compared with 62,000 b/d before the spills.
On June 4, 2011, seepage was observed on the seabed along a natural fault near Penglai 19-3 Platform B. Oil and gas bubbles were seen on the surface June 17 near Platform C, 2 miles from the Platform B seep (OGJ Online, Sept. 12, 2011).
ConocoPhillips estimated the total volume released at 700 bbl of oil and 2,589 bbl of mineral oil-based drilling mud.
In 2012, ConocoPhillips and CNOOC reached agreements with China’s Ministry of Agriculture and the SOA. The oil companies agreed to pay $160 million to the Ministry of Agriculture and $173 million to SOA in compensation for two June 2011 oil spill incidents in Penglai 19-3 (OGJ Online, Jan. 25, 2012). | <urn:uuid:84e34d22-bf00-48c1-a8a5-14f36984b6ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ogj.com/articles/2013/02/conocophillips-cleared-to-resume-full-oil-production-at-penglai-._saveArticle.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9403 | 339 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The Best Destinations to Hunt Trophy Whitetail Deer Bucks in.
I carried 9 record books and several maps from my library up to my office in an effort to compose a current article surrounding where the most record book bucks had been taken in regard to location. After hours of research I discovered that not enough current information existed to compose an article with information any more recent than 2002.
With the whitetail industry peaking at an all time high I was disappointed as hundred maybe thousands more record book whitetails have been entered into the record books since 2002. Thus I will present statistical information through 2002 and then present recent trends to forecast or predict what states one should consider for the booking of a whitetail deer hunt.
Statistics through 2002
Now that you’ve decided to go on the hunt of a lifetime in pursuit of trophy whitetail bucks, which destination should you choose? What are the best locations to hunt from in an effort to bag that whitetail buck of a lifetime? It will be the focus of this article to provide through educated research, and provide evidence to the reader on where you should elect to book your next whitetail deer hunt. While we have heard and seen massive amounts of information targeting areas such as Webb County Texas, Pike County Illinois, Buffalo County Wisconsin, Zone5 of Iowa, and Provinces in Canada many other locations exist and go by unnoticed annually that I will attempt to reveal.
Initial information was researched through the Boone and Crockett Club, Pope and Young Club, Safari International Club, and Buckmasters. These entities are without doubt the primary sources of historical information available to the modern day whitetail enthusiastic.
In 2002 Field and Stream Magazine presented a four page foldout map to reveal what areas within the continental United States to show where Boone and Crockett and Pope and Young Deer were harvested. The map was color coordinated with the colors white, yellow, orange, dark orange, and red. White areas were locations that had no whitetail buck trophy entries. The red areas were areas that had more than 31 entries in the Boone and Crockett Record Books. Thus the entire map of the United States is shaded from white to red to show the densest areas of whitetail buck record book buck entry. A thorough look at this map shows the states that recorded the most whitetail record book buck entries. These area in 2002 were reported as being:
Illinois: Portions of Illinois that have produced the most record book whitetail bucks were in West Central Illinois in around Pike County, Illinois.
Iowa: Portion of Iowa that have produced the most record book whitetail bucks were in the South Central, and South Eastern areas which are typically known as Zone 5.
Missouri: Portions were extreme Northern Missouri with counties such as Shelby, Knox, Adair, and Macon being the primary targets.
Texas: While Texas seems to be famous for record book whitetail bucks the majority of the State of Texas did NOT show great success. Really the only counties that were impressive were Webb, LaSalle, Dimmitt, Kenedy, and Kleberg.
Wisconsin: This State show very impressive areas of hunting throughout.
Canada was not represented on this map produced by Field and Stream. I can remember as I began to build my outfit service these are the states I focused on obtaining ground and lodges in. While many hunters travel each year to Canada in search of the remote Canadian Wilderness Whitetails I suggest hunters can save a pile of money and get on just as big of whitetail bucks right here in the United States if enough research is done.
If you haven’t seen this four page color coordinated map it was quite impressive to say the least. Much research was done by Field and Stream to produce such a document. I applaud Field and Stream for the work but had always wished it showed Canadian Provinces. The problem with the map is that its almost 7 years old.
In college my Economics Professor once told me that statistics are only as good as the person recording them. I believe all the aforementioned clubs do keep good records and have great systems of service in place to the whitetail enthusiast. While we look to these clubs for guidance and statistics to determine where to book a trophy whitetail hunt trip there are always problems with reporting to some degree. Several of these clubs have actually set up scoring booths and promoted scoring of animals in certain areas. For example: If the Boone and Crockett Club were to set up and attend several Iowa Whitetail Deer Shows and allow for free scoring of bucks in the area obviously many more bookings would show up in Iowa for the that season.
Another problem is that many more whitetail bucks that would meet the record books are not reported for entry. For example. I have thirteen Pope and Young Bucks on the Wall and have never entered one of them. I would be bold enough to suggest many more bucks have been harvested that would meet the record books that have not been entered than those that have been entered into the books.
Also two of the major record book clubs allow high fence entries. As I have shared before I know for a fact in many high fence hunting areas domesticated deer are shipped in from other states for hunters to shoot.
Irregardless of whatever problems their may be with reporting entries in the record books the reporting is accurate enough to determine trends in mature whitetail buck existence in given areas.
Up to 2002 here is how the top ten states ranked in regard to most entries in the record books for whitetail deer:
# OF ENTRIES
Note that Iowa is listed as the number 1 State. This particularly interesting as Iowa is the toughest State in the United States of America to obtain a whitetail archery tag from. Think of it this way. Iowa ranks #1, and gives out the fewest tags. How is that possible. The truth is Iowa is whitetail heaven. Firearms tags are relatively easy to obtain but archery tags can take up to 3 years to obtain with 2 years being the norm.
The truth is do to the fact that these record book clubs only update their books every 2 to 5 years there is not enough current information recorded to determine where the top 10 states currently rank. Have they declined or inclined? Have new states entered into the top 10 or have old states dropped out of the top 10? Who knows? Disappointingly enough it is virtually impossible to see a current program, map, or resource to show us the top 10 states as they enter more or less entries into the record books. Thus one must be up to date on trends in the United States to predict where the States might lie to 2008.
Forecasted Rankings for Future Years
I would suggest the following top ten rankings of most entries based upon trends and conservation law changes discovered.
Iowa Whitetail Deer Hunting: The State of Iowa is currently rewriting all the Record Books despite the fact it is the hardest state to obtain an archery tag in the nation. Gun tags are relatively easy to get. It is presumed that current government entities are literally frozen by the Iowa Bowhunter’s Association. The reality is the Iowa Bowhunters Association is so politically connected they continue to prevent non resident hunters from obtaining the appropriate number of deer tags to give outsiders the opportunity to archery hunt Iowa. It’s an insane situation as the State of Iowa is a poor state and could really use the tourism dollars. I have literally watched hundreds of Iowa Whitetail Outfitters shut their doors. Landowners lose lease money. Hotels lose bookings. Even local business’s are struggling in rural areas when all could be saved if the State would simply stop discriminating against non resident hunters.
Despite it all gun tags are easily obtained, as are late season Muzzleloader tags. Usually the first year one tries to get a gun tag they will receive one.
Archery tags take 2 to 3 years of application to obtain, but they are well worth the wait. Iowa will continue to rewrite the record books despite operating under this handicap. To think what Iowa’s number of entries would be if archery tags could be obtained over the counter. Literally Iowa’s biggest tourism attraction is kept in check by one politically connected organization. What a shame.
Wisconsin Whitetail Deer Hunting: Wisconsin tags are easy to obtain and the
state is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. This state will continue to produce big deer over and over again without a doubt.
In 2007 I traveled to Wisconsin to try and lease ground. I obtained a plat book and literally spent months trying to set up a division of my outfitting service in Wisconsin. Each landowner I spoke with had one of two things to say when I ask to lease their ground. They either were avid deerhunters and were loyal to family and friends and simply refused to lease, or the landowner wanted over $65 per acre to lease ground. The problem with $65 per acre for leasing is that an outfitter would have to overhunt the ground so hard to pay for it that clients attending would be madder than a hornet. Simply put. Wisconsin is a hard State to get into and if you book with an outfitter prepare to be placed on an overhunted property. Get this……………….to guide in Wisconsin you must be a resident of the State according to Wisconsin Law. I found this to be virtually discriminating and one day you will see this State be sued for discrimination regarding this issue. It’s literally a deterrent to prevent outside business’s from entering the state for outfitting which I believe would again in turn hurt its economic state regarding tourism. What is it with whitetail that would make a man or governmental system “hog” all the deer for themselves.
Missouri Whitetail Deer Hunting: Wow, who would have thought I would rank
the State of Missouri as #3. Missouri was ranked as the #6 State in 2002. Since 2005 Missouri has enacted a law that any buck shot must have at least 4 points on one side of the rack. This law combined with Missouri’s current level of quality will eventually catapult this state into the next best thing to Iowa. I have watched Missouri’s deer herd vastly improve in quality as I am a Missouri resident. In fact hunters of IMB Outfitters have reported in 2007 that Missouri produced better success rates than Pike County, Illinois in all facets of the season. Early season hunting, pre rut, the rut, gun season, and late muzzleloader. Missouri is the sleeping giant that is being awakened. Prepare to see Missouri bucks begin to take the covers of many Whitetail Specialty Magazines soon and often.
Illinois Whitetail Deer Hunting: Illinois is simply spectacular and will always be.
Illinois is what I call a “shotgun only” state.. This means firearms hunters may only use a shotgun or muzzleloader during the firearms season. This makes killing a monster buck a tad more difficult. In “shotgun only” states deer simply live longer and produce more trophy bucks as a result. Iowa shares this in common with Illinois. Its one of the reasons these two states will always thrive. At last count, Pike County, Illinois was the #1, County in the Nation for number of entries in the record books.
Pike County, Illinois has many outfitter and guides to choose from. Virtually almost every farm is leased by an outfitter. Every outfitter sports a Quality Deer Management Program which prevents hunters from killing small deer. While one can complain that Illinois is being hunted too much the truth is that it is not. Leases are still somewhat reasonable. Think about this. If virtually every farm enforces a Quality Deer Management Program its like having an entire State saying, “You can’t shoot a buck under 125 inches.” That will forever pay dividends. I have hunters that will hunt nothing but Illinois. I can tell them all the stories I have about Iowa and I still can’t convince them to leave Illinois. If you’ve ever experienced an Illinois Rut then you exactly what I’m talking about. Its like literally watching a Realtree or Mossy Oak Hunt Video.
Kansas Whitetail Deer Hunting: Kansas has typically ranked low on the top ten
list due to the fact nobody could get a tag unless you bribed a landowner. Kansas changed its whitetail conservation laws surrounding tag obtainment in 2008 making Kansas a tag friendly state. Now hunters will be able to pursue Kansas deer at will. Watch its numbers rise higher and higher. The problem with Kansas is that only a small portion of the state is great deer hunting which will always prevent Kansas from making the top of the list.
Minnesota Whitetail Deer Hunting: I am not a fan of this State. So much hunting
has occurred in this state that its number of entries will keep it in the top ten states for several years to come. I believe it’s on the decline.
Ohio Whitetail Deer Hunting: Ohio has been producing some great bucks over
the past year or so. One reason is because archery hunters are able to use crossbows even if they don’t have a physical impairment which may distort its number of entries. Ohio is also a “shotgun only” state which will continue to provide Ohio’s herd to mature.
Texas Whitetail Deer Hunting: While Texas is a wonderful place full of
wonderful people I simply am not a fan of Texas hunting. I booked a hunt in Texas and literally what it consisted of was my outfitter pouring corn on a road and putting me in a tower blind. As soon as he drove off deer were in the road eating. I felt as if I were not employing any tactics whatsoever if an effort to feel some type of ownership of a buck harvested. I didn’t even shoot even though I could have. This may be because I’m a Missouri resident and find much enjoyment in pattering big deer and outsmarting them. I just couldn’t enjoy a Texas hunt. Now hunting hogs is a different story. I would drive to Texas anytime to hunt hogs. If your from Texas please don’t get offended by this as if I was a Texan I might have a different take on things. The other weakness with Texas is that only certain areas hold big deer. Literally their were only 5 counties in the whole state that had over 30 Boone and Crockett animals harvested in it up till 2001.
Kentucky Whitetail Deer Hunting: Simply put, Kentucky offers good deer
Hunting but only in certain areas. Kentucky will forever be limited because of this situation and may not even remain in the to ten listings when updated.
Nebraska Whitetail Deer Hunting: Nebraska had not allowed non residents to
rifle hunt until two years ago. This has given Nebraska deer to grow up without the pressures of non resident hunters. Nebraska is simply awesome on its Eastern half. Over the past 3 years my outfitting service (IMB Outfitters) has simply killed big buck after big buck with ease. In fact the first rifle season and the second rifle season non residents could hunt most hunters were tagged out with giant bucks the very day of the hunt.
In conclusion, the whitetail deer continues to be the most sought after big game animal in the United States of America. There is something so special about this animal. If you’re a whitetail hunter you know what I mean when I say, “Its in our veins.” To continue to harvest record book deer you not only need to predict deer movement but watch the nation as a whole as it transforms with trends of certain locations | <urn:uuid:d434fd9f-638c-456f-ad13-3224d29f010c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.imbmonsterbucks.com/info.php?id=125 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963172 | 3,264 | 1.546875 | 2 |
There have been many accounts on Facebook and on various blogs (including this lovely account from Katy Evans-Bush: http://baroqueinhackney.com/2012/06/27/the-reign-of-poems/) of the Rain of Poems that showered down on London on Tuesday night, making a welcome change from the month of the ordinary wet kind of rain that’s drowned out summer. It was, as many commentators have already said, a joyous and exuberant occasion that brought poets from all over the world together with the citizens of London. At twilight, a helicopter appeared in the skies above Jubilee Gardens, and dropped little packages containing hundreds of poems which fluttered down into the hands of waiting spectators. It was a grey evening (as most evenings have been recently), and so the poems were caught in a floodlight that caused the white paper they were printed on to glow ghostly silver (more like snow than rain). In all, 100,000 poems were released over a half-hour period. Because of the light winds, poems were scattered onto the surrounding bridges, the roofs of flats, as far as Fleet Street and the Strand across the river.
The creators of this project are Casagrande http://www.loscasagrande.org/, a Chilean art collective, whose practice is publishing-based and whose aim is to distribute poetry through a series of interventions and ‘art actions’ (as they say on their website) to the public. All their poetic actions and other activities are free to the audience receiving them; their slogan is ‘can’t be sold, can’t be bought’ (no se vende ni se compra). The Rain of Poems over London is part of a larger project of releasing poems over cities that have been bombed during military action. Their first ‘cargo of poems’ was dropped over Santiago in 2001, and since then they have performed the ‘Bombing of Poems’ over Berlin, Warsaw, Guernica and Dubrovnik. They have applied to re-enact the project over Dresden.
The poems that are dropped are by poets from the host nations, and they are printed in both English and Spanish. Because the London event also marks the beginning of Poetry Parnassus, the mammoth Olympic gathering of 200 poets (one from each nation participating in the 2012 London Games), they have also been represented. In the fight (yes, fight – it may be the only time in my life when I see people jostling and jumping to catch poems) to grab one of the falling bits of paper, I managed to scoop up four poems – from Andrés Anwandter of Chile, Oxmo Puccino of Mali, Tom Warner of the UK, and Katerina Iliopoulou of Greece. A completely random and accidental meeting of poets brought to me by chance and changing wind velocity.
Casagrande says that this performance ‘creates an alternative image of the past and is a gesture of remembrance as well as being a metaphor for the survival of cities and people.’ What I like about their project is the democracy of it. On one level, it is about remembrance and resilience, as they say, but on a more basic level, it is about the circulation of poetry to as wide an audience as possible, who simply have to be present (and possibly good at catching) to receive work which is distributed to them for free. It is a political statement in the stand against war, but also in its mode of publishing: I think of the broadsheets of the 17th century, which were used to circulate ideas. We have lost that culture of radical publishing (although bloggers and tweeters are bringing it back) in the spool of twenty-four-hour television news. This is the poem as art action, as object (the poems are beautifully designed and printed, on recycled paper and using biodegradable inks), as statement, as an emotional and spiritual connection of people. The performance is a beautiful and moving gesture, but also a spectacle. Shouldn’t all art and poetry bring together those elements? | <urn:uuid:a9f85f3b-2cff-4bd9-abf5-18140b7cb262> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://invectiveagainstswans.tumblr.com/tagged/Santiago | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972219 | 864 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Yesterday Danny posted a typically thoughtful piece on Google’s success, on the occasion of its ten year anniversary. Titled The Google Hive Mind, the piece addresses an age-old question about Google: does it have a master plan?
Danny argues that, in essence, the company does not, and runs through a convincing number of examples that support his thesis.
But as with every argument, I think there’s another side. Danny writes:
Rather than follow a rigid top-down master plan, the company’s direction and success has been shaped by decisions often taken independently of how they’ll benefit the company as a whole. But collectively, those decisions DO form a master plan, a hive mind that dictates what the company will do.
I don’t agree with this. I think Google has made scores of moves calculated by centralized senior management to benefit the company as a whole, AND, at the same time, has green-lit scores of other projects which, taken as a whole, are in no way centrally planned. Examples of centrally planned moves? The AOL deal. The Dell distribution deal. Chrome. Gmail (I disagree with Danny that this was not a centrally planned move. Same with Checkout.) Book search (Google knew it was in for a legal fight and it engaged because it felt it was in the company’s, and culture’s, best interest.) YouTube (very much a central decision). Ummmm….going public.
In fact, the going public piece is perhaps the most important one of all. Google has to keep growing, and it has to keep shareholders happy. Growing on a large base is hard, so it’s best to try as many new potential big hit markets as you can. That means taking some bets on stuff that might fizzle (Orkut, Knol) and others that might really tick off your best partners and customers (Orkut, Knol, Checkout, and many more).
I think Google has a central plan, and Danny’s Hive Mind is a key part of it. As Danny writes:
Perhaps success on the fast moving internet means having a hive mind, a fuzzy business logic where you look more at products individually rather than how they contribute to a master plan. Or maybe that’s what you do if you want to be a giant on the internet, offering more than one product.
The hive mind is a great idea, but it’s not the whole story of Google. When it comes to key decisions, I think the hive mind that really matters is the triumvirate of Sergey, Larry, and Eric. | <urn:uuid:5e2abcf1-099e-43fc-9730-5af5a4317f60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://battellemedia.com/archives/2008/09/on_the_google_hive_mind_there_is_a_center.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964146 | 545 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Having an ill or uncomfortable pet can be very concerning to most pet owners. As our dogs and cats become more like family, we wish them to be happy and healthy members of our household. Trusty Vet is similar to a clinic where you would take your child for a mild illness. The most common reasons that pets visit the veterinarian include:
- Skin and ear problems
- Respiratory infections with sneezing and coughing
- Gastrointestinal upset like vomiting and diarrhea
- Urinary tract infections
- Strains, sprains and arthritis pain
- Cuts or hot spots
- Endocrine diseases like diabetes in cats and hypothyroidism in dog.
At Trusty Vet, our aim is to help your pet with these typical sicknesses. If a discovery is made that your pet has a more extreme illness or injury, a referral will be made to a more full-service hospital where critical care and hospitalization can be provided so that your pet has the best chance for recovery.
When your dog or cat is sick, diagnostic testing can provide additional information that may not be evident during the veterinarian’s physical exam. At Trusty Vet, we make every effort to provide a rapid diagnosis to ease your pet’s discomfort as quickly as possible.
Digital radiographs or “x-rays” help to identify changes in your pet’s chest, abdomen, and bones that may be causing them to be ill or uncomfortable. With the digital software, the radiograph images appear on a high resolution screen instantly. The veterinarian can then zoom in to get a better look at the image and also rotate it or change how dark or light an image appears to aid in diagnosis. If an image is difficult to interpret, it can easily be sent by internet transmission to a board certified radiologist who can further analyze the radiograph and present a report in a matter of hours.
Laboratory testing covers not only the traditional bloodwork you would expect for an ill pet, but also microscope analysis and other symptom specific testing. The veterinarian has the option to order blood testing to be performed in the hospital to receive results within an hour or to be submitted to an outside laboratory at a reduced cost with an expected turn-around of 1-2 days. The choice will be based on a discussion with the pet owner and the severity of the pet’s symptoms.
The microscope is a valuable tool in the veterinary setting allowing specific diagnosis of many skin, ear, intestinal parasite, and urinary problems. There are a number of additional tests that the veterinarian may perform at Trusty Vet including checks for glaucoma or corneal ulcers of the eyes and blood pressure monitoring to name a few.
Every effort will be made to allow you and your dog or cat to leave Trusty Vet feeling better. The diagnostic and treatment decisions will be made after a discussion with the veterinarian and we will aim to answer any questions you may have before you leave the hospital. | <urn:uuid:19de79e6-40a2-4904-a85b-4e21e7ca75f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.trustyvet.com/your-pets-care/sick-pet-care | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94391 | 604 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Imagine this: You walk to the corner store with your paycheck loaded on an electric card and slip it into an ATM-like machine. You take out a short term, high interest loan, download $60 into a savings account, transfer 40 bucks to your checking account, pay your electric bill, send fifty dollars to your sister who lives overseas -- and, oh yes, purchase that George Forman grill you’ve been eyeing. Finally, the machine spits out $31.35, coins and all, in cash that you requested. You do all this with one swipe of the card.
What is so tellingly futuristic about this scene is not the technology – we’re pretty much already there. It’s the virtual walls you just crashed through which, for now at least, separate various forms of financial and commercial transactions.
No walls have arguably been more impenetrable than those between banks and check cashing stores, more politely known as financial service centers. Like the kind of neighborhoods they are associated with, check cashers have operated for years on the other side of the tracks from bank branches, kept apart by regulatory boundaries and divergent business cultures.
But lately, driven by new technologies and a growing appreciation for the enormous, untapped profit and market opportunities in low-income neighborhoods, maverick providers of traditional banking services and check cashers have been taking pages from each other's playbooks and, in some cases, even collaborating. This experimentation will not only shape the course of neighborhood banking in New York and nationwide, but also redefine who and what is considered part of the banking mainstream.
Commercial banks, thrifts and even most credit unions have long looked down their noses on check cashing operations, and, by extension, the predominately low-income people who use them, concluding there was either too little profit to be gained, or too much respectability to lose, in this gritty business.
On the other hand, check cashing operations, which offer products and services like money orders, pre-paid debit cards, utility payments and remittances, dominate certain inner city turfs by deliberately shunning the alleged white collar elitism of the banking industry. The 660 check cashing centers in New York specialize in serving customers in search of a simple financial transaction, rather than the institutional relationship sought by retail bankers.
Despite their different worlds, a few banks, such as Chase and Banco Popular, have over the years attempted modest, fairly low-impact, forays into check cashing or have, on occasion, purchased check cashing operations. Yet none have brought non-traditional financial services into the core of their business or have used these so-called “fringe” services to link customers to banking products.
Outside New York, however, some banks have been testing check cashing services in their branch lobbies alongside traditional teller lines and are creating new financial service prototypes.
Pioneering In The Bronx
Taking careful note of developments in areas such as California and Ohio, the Checkspring Community Corporation, headquartered in the Bronx, currently has a bank charter application pending in New York State. If its charter is approved, Checkspring will be poised to introduce a more fully integrated bank/check casher business model, the likes of which the New York City market has never seen.
Some of this territory has already been traveled through a collaboration between RiteCheck, a prominent check cashing chain, and Bethex Federal Credit Union, both of which serve low-income populations in the Bronx. In 2001 they piloted a program in which members of Bethex accessed their accounts through RiteCheck storefronts and cashed their checks at RiteCheck for free or at a reduced fee (In PDF Format) . The program worked so well that RiteCheck is expanding it to include partnerships with several new credit unions.
As options for electronically transmitting cash increase, and use of the traditional check diminishes, check cashers are trying to find new ways to engage customers and add value to their lives. In May of this year the Financial Services Centers of America (FiSCA), the trade association for check cashing operations, announced the roll-out of a “revolutionary”, “All Access” Savings Program, which promises to provide “underserved Americans greater access to mainstream financial services” by giving check cashing customers the ability to make electronic deposits in federally insured, interest bearing, savings accounts.
7-Eleven and Wal-Mart In On The New Trend
While a few industry watchers I talked to in New York see these developments as more or less isolated events, Jennifer Tescher, the Director of the Chicago-based Center for Financial Services Innovation, views them as part of a certifiable industry trend and realignment. She insists that “the entire financial services industry is dramatically changing in ways that weren’t even possible five years ago”.
Tescher points to the rise of the non-bank sector in financial services as an indicator of how segmentations within the financial services universe are dissolving. In 2003 the nation’s largest convenience store chain, 7-Eleven, using their own “virtual commerce” technology, placed kiosks in a thousand of its convenience stores machines that enabled customers to conduct ATM transactions, cash checks to the penny, purchase money orders, send wire transfers and pay bills.
A year later Wal-Mart raised the bar. Wal-Mart offers check cashing, money orders and wire transfers while also providing banking services in “Wal-Mart Money Centers”. Some analysts believe Wal-Mart, which targets low-income customers and is the world’s biggest retailer, is trying to create a physical and psychological, environment for the customer in which banking, alternative financial services and shopping are collapsed into a single retail experience.
A Gold Rush In Low-Income Financial Services
The sudden “discovery” of the low-income financial services niche by retailers and mainstream bankers is propelled by the explosion in the alternative financial services industry. The lure of this market comes at a time when banks are finding intensified competition in middle class, suburban markets. Meanwhile, branch presence in low income areas has been steadily declining over the last thirty years. One quarter of Black and Latino families, as well as 25 percent of all American families making less than $20,000 per year, don’t have bank accounts.
The very idea of a “fringe” economy is somewhat misleading. About a quarter of the nation’s gross domestic product reflects unreported income and a study conducted by Social Compact, which promotes business investment in inner city communities, estimates that Harlem, a poster child for fringe financial services, has a $1 billion cash economy. And as low income families look for ways to move cash around, check cashers are there to serve them. The alternative financial services industry is racking up an estimated $200 billion in transactions annually.
Of course alternative financial services are widely viewed as exploitative of poor people, particularly in states where there is a lack of regulatory restraint. Customers have very little opportunity to save and build assets using alternative financial services, and whereas banks have some semblance of a mandate to give back to communities where they do business because of the Community Reinvestment Act, check cashing operations have no such obligation.
But in the end, financial service centers are so compelling to their customers because they provide convenience and a wide range of options, with few questions asked: Money orders function as checking accounts. Where banks place holds on checks, check cashing offers immediate liquidity. Pre-paid debit cards, otherwise known as stored value cards, can facilitate everything from long distance phone calling and credit card purchases, to bill paying and, now, even limited-service savings accounts. The fact that check cashers charge, some say, unreasonable fees, is in a way no different that what low-income people expect from a bank or any other kind of capitalist institution doing business in the â€hood.
The Filene Research Institute, which studies issues affecting the future of credit unions, believes so much in the future of alternative financial services that it has created a program that counsels credit unions on how to offer check cashing products. Citing what they see as the declining relevance of credit unions, thrifts and banks in certain areas, Filene issues a stern warning to depositories of all stripes: Begin adopting the ways of the check casher or perish.
Some banks have clearly seen the writing on the wall.
Union Bank of California (UBC) owns and operates over 50 hybrid financial service outlets, in which check cashing services are offered in banks and stores, and banking services are offered in check cashing locations.
KeyBank, just one of many enthusiastic UBC disciples across the country, has created “KeyBank Plus”, a separate product (and teller) line designed especially for low-income customers without bank accounts. Officials from KeyBank maintain that, once a customer enters a Plus branch, Key creates conditions that will prompt that customer to establish a long term - and higher profit margin – relationship.
“The banking industry has done an amazing job of sending messages of exclusion through its product design and minimum balances.” says Edna Sawady, chief operating officer for community development at KeyBank. “At banks many customers fear that they won’t qualify for something…In check cashing lines you don’t run the risk of being rejected”.
Rising Challenges and Criticisms
Regulatory agencies will be challenged to catch up to, much less stay ahead of, these changes because the fundamental elements that help us make distinctions between financial services industries -- the deposit, the check, the branch, credit -- are themselves moving, morphing targets.
Pre-paid debit cards, for example, are exploding in popularity and operate in a virtually unregulated environment. As pre-paid debit cards are used to perform traditional banking functions, like checking, what classifications and regulatory jurisdictions will be applied to monitor and standardize their use?
Financial service entrepreneur Joe Coleman of RiteCheck, a co-engineer of the RiteCheck/Bethex collaboration, is leery of banks encroaching on his territory. He thinks RiteCheck and credit unions like Bethex, whose products are designed for low-income people, have a future together because “we have the same customers”
New York poses its own particular restrictions for check cashers. One notorious service that is popular throughout the country, pay day lending, a type of short term, very high interest loan, is illegal in New York. More importantly New York requires that licensed financial service centers cannot operate within 3/10 of a mile from one another and cannot charge a check cashing fee exceeding 1.5 percent of the check’s face value.
But ultimately, it is the low profit margin on fringe financial services (Coleman calls it “1 million people with a dollar”) that is most daunting to institutions who don’t measure success by the number of live bodies in their lobby. Even Joy Cousminer, president of Bethex and Joe Coleman’s collaborator, acknowledges this tension. “Check cashers lose less money on a bad check than on a slow line. With us, it’s exactly the opposite.”
Cousminer also doubts that banks are actually interested in building relationships with poor people and believes banks are in fact keeping their check cashing and banking customers distinct and separate.
Whether banks using integrated bank-check cashing services are making money on the check cashing side, or through the “migration” of customers to the bank side, or both, is unclear. At least one of the bank representatives I spoke to refused to disclose that information. What is clear is if Checkspring, or any other New York bank, faithfully follows the UBC and KeyBank strategy, and doesn’t mind masses of poor people in its lobby, it stands a fighting chance of turning a profit after a few years. UBC has been at it for thirteen years and Keybank is preparing to expand its program dramatically. Once one bank pulls it off in New York, others might follow.
Not everyone thinks this a good thing. Sarah Ludwig, executive director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project fears that banks will, in trying to turn a profit, give shorter shrift to the goal of building a bridge between the underserved and asset-building opportunities. “We’ve got this massive problem of low-income people needing essential financial services,” says Ludwig, “but now banks are starting to provide services that not comparable to the services that are provided” in middle class areas.
For Ludwig, and many other advocates who are highly critical of the check cashing industry, alternative financial services are a symptom of the problem, not a solution. “The fringe products that banks offer will look cleaner and meet regulatory standards, but the bottom line is they are still inferior products…There is an unequal, two-tiered financial services industry…We shouldn’t try to serve the low-income market in a way that perpetuates this segmentation.”
Coleman shrugs off this criticism. “In banks there is a middle class prejudice. They want to sign you up. They think everybody wants to be like them...I know we are helping people. We are helping them build their lives.”
Mark Winston Griffith, a founder of the non-profit Central Brooklyn Partnership and a fellow at the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, has been in charge of the community development topic page since its inception in 2003. | <urn:uuid:a6ec0c7f-a5aa-4243-9d8d-1c4e88d3f386> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/topics/2863-neighborhood-banking-is-about-to-change | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949272 | 2,828 | 1.625 | 2 |
Appleton — A graduate of Lawrence University in Appleton has been named one of three winners of the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Thomas Steitz and two others shared the prestigious honor Wednesday for their cellular research that contributed to the development of antibiotics.
A Lawrence spokesman says Steitz graduated from Wauwatosa High School in 1958 and what was then called Lawrence College in 1962.
Steitz's former academic adviser remembers the 69-year-old as one of his favorite students.
Robert Rosenberg is now an 83-year-old adjunct professor of chemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. He says Steitz was a top student, someone who was curious and asked insightful questions.
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- Mayfair, Mayfair Collections in Wauwatosa seen as complements, not competitors | <urn:uuid:64d9000a-49a5-4bac-906b-b32179252314> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wauwatosanow.com/news/63678087.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950513 | 303 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Understanding capitalism's elastic production of money and moving on beyond Adam Smith and 'fractional reserve banking' - Ann Pettifor reviews Geoffrey Ingham's Capitalism
Modern finance is generally incomprehensible to ordinary men and women..... The level of comprehension of many bankers and regulators is not significantly higher. It was probably designed that way. Like the wolf in the fairy tale:
“All the better to fleece you with.”
Satyajit Das, in Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives. (2010, FT-Prentice Hall)
Geoffrey Ingham is one of a handful of academics not blinded by the smoke and mirrors of today’s monetary ‘alchemists’. His excellent The Nature of Money (Polity, 2004) reveals a sounder grasp of credit-money than many contemporary heterodox economists and almost all orthodox, monetarist economists.
Just as with The Nature of Money, Ingham’s Capitalism adds a great deal to our understanding of the systemic nature of capitalism. Like the distinguished sociologists on whose shoulders he stands, Ingham draws on those theorists whose work he “found to be most valuable”. They are Adam Smith, Marx and Weber, but also Joseph Schumpeter and John Maynard Keynes – who are included he writes,
“not only for their seminal heterodox contributions to the economic analysis of capitalism, but because this heterodoxy is implicitly ‘sociological’ ”. (ibid. p.2)
This book is therefore a must-read for both sociologists and economists; indeed for anyone wanting to deepen their understanding of the systemic nature of today’s global financial crisis.
However, while Ingham’s review of heterodox analyses is illuminating, it is, by his own admission, not comprehensive and, I will argue, includes a number of flawed analyses which are the subject of current debate, and discussed in some detail in this review.
First while acknowledging that capitalism’s hallmark is the “elastic production of money” he then retracts, and suggests that private credit-creation is constrained by the practice of ‘fractional reserve banking’ – a form of commercial banking probably not practised since the founding of the Bank of England in 1694. Again this is the subject of heated debate within the economics sphere, so more on the subject below.
Second Ingham, like many economists, blames the inflation of the 1970s on the ‘the power of monopoly capital and their labour forces to mark up their respective prices’. (p.86) This analysis appears to discount the role played by the City of London in creating excessive credit - ‘too much money chasing too few goods and services’ - after Chancellor Anthony Barber’s assault on banking regulation in 1971.
Third, by his own admission, Ingham arbitrarily excludes from his list of heterodox theorists a number of 20th century thinkers who have greatly illuminated our understanding of both the systemic nature of capitalism but also its dutiful hand-maiden, neoliberal economic theory. While I respect his right to choose the most influential, the inclusion of progressive 20th century thinkers would have added considerable value to this study of capitalism.
These disagreements are not new, and I am not the first to raise them. However given the extent to which society, political parties and progressives have a ‘blind spot’ for the admittedly opaque role played by private bankers in the economic life of nations, I believe it important to raise further discussion about ‘fractional reserve banking’ and the causality of inflation.
My high regard for Ingham’s work meant that these disagreements provoked a response in the form of this long review essay - to stimulate debate on the issues he has illuminated so clearly in his study of contemporary capitalism.
Ingham is a Reader in Sociology at Cambridge, and his books build on the work of other fine sociologists: Georg Simmel (The Philosophy of Money, 1907); Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1905) and Charles Wright Mills (The Power Elite, 1956).
He defines capitalism in terms first used by Keynes: as a ‘monetary production economy’. He explains that
“bank credit-money and financial asset markets give the capitalist system its dynamism, flexibility and adaptability; on the other hand, they inevitably generate asset price ‘bubbles’ financed by debt and the inevitable defaults that sooner or later burst them.” (p.230).
Ingham’s understanding of capitalism as a monetary production economy makes a refreshing change from more typical characterisations of capitalism. While the creation of private or indeed public credit-money ‘out of thin air’ is fundamental to capitalism, it is not widely understood as such by the general public. Central bank monetary operations such as ‘quantitative easing’ (QE) or the ECB’s proposed, but not as yet enacted, ‘outright monetary transactions’ (OMT) have been regular practice since the establishment of the Bank of England in1694. While there is nothing new in the creation of what a US Government Agency estimates at $16 trillion of new money, nevertheless QE came as something of a revelation to the general public.
They were not alone. With notable exceptions, many economists failed to fully understand the processes behind the production of credit-money – not just by central bankers, but more importantly by private, commercial bankers. Not only is this fundamental aspect of capitalism both misunderstood and overlooked, it is seldom properly analysed or taught in universities. As Andy Haldane, Executive Director, Financial Stability at the Bank of England noted in a recent contribution to the website, Vox EU:
“Cycles in money and bank credit are familiar from centuries past. And yet, for perhaps a generation, the symptoms of this old virus were left untreated. That neglect allowed the infection to spread from the financial system to the real economy, with near-fatal consequences for both.
Two developments – one academic, one policy-related – appear to have been responsible for this surprising memory loss. The first was the emergence of micro-founded dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DGSE) models in economics. Because these models were built on real-business-cycle foundations, financial factors (asset prices, money and credit) played distinctly second fiddle, if they played a role at all.
The second was neglect for aggregate money and credit conditions in the construction of public policy frameworks. Inflation targeting assumed primacy as a monetary policy framework, with little role for commercial banks' balance sheets as either an end or an intermediate objective. And regulation of financial firms was in many cases taken out of the hands of central banks and delegated to separate supervisory agencies with an institution-specific, non-monetary focus.”
This neglect by economists but also policy-makers of commercial bank balance sheets, should not come as a surprise. As Satyajit Das argues in the quotation that opens this review: ignorance makes it easier for financiers to dupe and fleece both customers and tax-paying citizens.
While economists and many bank regulators turned a blind eye, what happened next, Haldane notes
“was extraordinary. Commercial banks' balance sheets grew by the largest amount in human history. For example, having flatlined for a century, bank assets-to-GDP in the UK rose by an order of magnitude from 1970 onwards. A similar pattern was found in other advanced economies.”
Was it a coincidence that the economics profession and media commentators were diverted by micro and macroeconomic blind alleys, while the private finance sector binged on credit-creation and more or less discreetly built up the largest balance sheets in history?
Is it still a coincidence that many mainstream economists consciously detach themselves from modern finance, disdaining any engagement with today’s global economic failure? The Royal Economic Society – Britain’s most prestigious economic club - lists the following as highlights from the 2012 Economic Journal:
Learning from the Crowd: Regression Discontinuity Estimates of the Effects of an Online Review Database by Michael Anderson & Jeremy Magruder
The Effects of Promotions on Heart Disease: Evidence from Whitehall by Michael Anderson & Sir Michael Marmot
Micro-costs: Inertia in Television Viewing – by Constança Esteves-Sorenson & Fabrizio Perretti.
Of course micro-economic analysis serves useful, practical social and economic purposes. But the dominance of micro-economic analysis within the academic and commercial professions has served only to confuse and obscure. Stephen Cecchetti explains why. At a workshop organised by the Bank of International Settlements, in May 2012 he highlighted a key flaw at the heart of most micro-economic modelling:
“Let’s say that we are trying to measure tide height at the beach. We know that the sea is filled with fish, and so we exhaustively model fish behaviour, developing complex models of their movements and interactions….The model is great. And the model is useless. The behaviour of the fish is irrelevant for the question we are interested in: how high will the seawater go up the beach?....By building microeconomic foundations we are focusing on the fish when we should be studying the moon.”
It is no wonder that mainstream, orthodox academic micro-economists could not answer the Queen’s famous question: why was the crisis not predicted? Their models had missed the macroeconomic forces, the surge and deluge that ‘beached’ many banks and other financial institutions in 2007-9.
As the financial crisis rolls on across the Eurozone, as unemployment rises across the world and economic failure intensifies, many economists remain detached from debates, and ignorant of financial factors (asset prices, money and credit). Their closer attention could help shape policy, stabilise the global economy, and alleviate human suffering. Instead many are caught like rabbits in headlamps: ignorant as to how the private banking system created/leveraged debts ‘vast as space’ with which to crash the economy – and therefore of policies for de-leveraging and stabilising an unbalanced global economy.
Instead we are obliged to depend for insights into the crisis on the analyses of sociologists such as Geoffrey Ingham.
Regulatory capture and recourse to complexity
In his introduction to Politics, Ingham notes that nineteenth century sociological texts have very little to say about the monetary and financial aspects of capitalism.
“In this respect we get more guidance from the great economists such as Schumpeter and Keynes. But they and other economists concerned with the systemic structure of capitalism are, unfortunately, not likely to be encountered in an undergraduate sociology course.” (Ibid p.1)
Nor are they likely to be encountered in an under- or even post-graduate economics course. So, when the crisis broke politicians and policy-makers had few wise, academic economists to turn to. The world’s regulators had been drilled in economic orthodoxy, based on Adam Smith’s 18th century theory of money and credit, and so were at a loss as to what to do. Instead they turned for advice to the very people that had caused the crisis.
Robert Jenkins, an investment banker, has chaired an investment firm and also the trade association representing the UK investment industry. He is now a member of the Financial Policy Committee of the Bank of England. In a speech published by the Bank, he recently complained of regulatory capture by the banking system:
“Driven by hubris, greed and stupidity bankers led the charge off the cliff. But where were the regulators? Why did they not see it coming? Why did they not prevent it? Why did they trust bankers to know what was best for banking? In short, how could regulators have been so dumb as to believe that bankers were so smart?
As financial panic spread I watched in disbelief as bankers trooped through the doors of Downing Street to advise Government on how best to address a problem which bankers themselves had largely created. Far from being discredited, the guidance of these “experts” was eagerly sought – and with virtually no counterbalancing input from other stakeholder groups. Over the succeeding months officials went on to tap a more appropriate range of expertise. But at that key moment in time - capture was complete.”
Politicians and central bankers, led by the widely admired Federal Reserve’s Alan Greenspan, faithfully followed the economic orthodoxy of financial de-regulation that had created the conditions for the crash.
During the period of the inflating credit bubble policy makers had obliged the private banking sector by deliberately turning a blind eye to the way that credit inflated asset prices during the 90s and 00s. While policies for holding down the inflation of wages and prices were enforced, asset price inflation was allowed to let rip. Only after the ‘credit crunch’ on ‘debtonation day’ 9 August 2007 did some (not all) policy-makers turn their attention to the deflation of a massive, global asset price bubble, fuelled by expensive, unregulated credit - easy but dear money.
Blindness to the activities of the private finance sector allowed the rich – the owners of assets (e.g. property, stocks and shares, private equity, race horses, complex financial products (CDOs etc.), works of art) to quietly use easy credit to inflate the value of their assets. By this means were they obscenely enriched. Those without assets and therefore without access to ‘easy credit’, were correspondingly impoverished. Furthermore, as the incomes of those who worked by hand and brain fell, and the need to borrow rose, so did the cost of their risky borrowing.
Thus did the rich get richer, and the poor poorer.
Despite blatant regulatory failure, few of the powerful have repented of the orthodoxy, or learned from the experience. Haldane, one of the more astute of the Bank of England’s insiders, pointed out in a recent speech that regulators have reacted to the crisis in a typically human way: by masking their ignorance of the causes, not with a ‘mea culpa’ but with more complexity. Anxious to cover up their failure to predict the crisis, and their earlier mistaken de-regulation policies, banking supervisors rushed to build a highly complex, but still ineffectual regulatory skyscraper: a ‘Tower of Basel’ which, Haldane argues, is “at risk..of over-balancing.”
This confusion and muddle is not entirely accidental. Satyajit Das is right. Down the ages, both central and private bankers have been masterful in designing complex and opaque financial systems, clothing these in mystical and arcane language - all the better with which to disguise the speculative, exploitative and risky activities of capitalism’s bankers. Orthodox economists in particular, have deliberately been blind (or blinded) to the private sector’s financial operations.
So it is not surprising that, at the heart of this confusion and muddle that is the global financial crisis there lies a deliberate, profound and widespread ignorance of the very nature of credit and money.
The great divide in economics
Ingham both understands and clearly explains the great divide in economics between those, from Adam Smith onwards, who regard money as “a neutral medium that facilitated exchange on the ‘great wheel of circulation’ ” – and those like Keynes, Schumpeter and Minsky, who had a much sounder understanding of capitalism’s ability to effortlessly create a vast and ever-expanding bubble of credit-money.
Ingham, as with Schumpeter, rightly regards the ‘elastic production’ of credit-money by bankers as a fundamental and systemic part of capitalism’s success, but also as causal to its periodic, devastating crises.
He begins by reminding us that Adam Smith
“relegated money to a secondary, passive role in his analytical system. …..This ‘great wheel of circulation’ was not to be confused with the real wealth of society that resided in the factors of production and goods that it circulated.” (ibid. p. 10)
“…In the era of precious-metal money, credit instruments – bills of exchange and promissory and bank notes – were to be distinguished from ‘real’ money. Thus, although credit was important in facilitating trade and production, it was not an autonomous force or factor of production….” (ibid. p. 41)
For the orthodox, the economy is based on barter, and money is just its 'neutral veil'. Paul Samuelson in his book, Economics (taught in every Economics 101 course in most of the world’s universities, and now in its 17th edition) instructs students that:
"Even in the most advanced industrial economies, if we strip exchange down to its barest essentials and peel off the obscuring layer of money, we find that trade between individuals or nations largely boils down to barter." (My emphasis)
The Bank for International Settlements – the central bankers’ bank – commented on the orthodox approach in a recent working paper by Claudio Borio: The financial cycle and macroeconomics: What have we learnt?
“Finance came to be seen effectively as a veil – a factor that, as a first approximation, could be ignored when seeking to understand business fluctuations. And when included at all, it would at most enhance the persistence of the impact of economic shocks that buffet the economy, delaying slightly its natural return to the steady state (e.g. Bernanke et al.)”
Ingham draws parallels between Smith’s relegation of money to a secondary role with Karl Marx’s similar “underestimation of the role played by money in crises.” (ibid. p 24)
“Marx correctly identified the capitalist mode of production’s distinctive Money-Commodity-Money (M-C-M) circuit. But, in common with Adam Smith and most nineteenth century economic thinkers Marx was less clear about the way in which capitalism is uniquely characterized by a banking system that can create an unlimited amount of credit-money that fuels crises either through the financing of over-production and/or speculation.” (ibid. p. 24)
It is remarkable three hundred years after the publication of The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith’s flawed analytical system still has a powerful hold on today’s orthodox economists. Ingham rightly notes that
“…..together with the work of later theorists such as Friedrich Hayek (1889-1992) and Milton Friedman (1912-2006), The Wealth of Nations forms the basis for the hegemony of today’s economic ‘neo-liberalism’.”
Similarly there are many progressive economists who have a blind spot for the role played by capitalism’s elastic production of credit in inflating assets. No less a prominent and sound economist as CEPR’s Dean Baker, argue that
“The basic story of the U.S. macro economy over the last 15 years is pretty straightforward. We have an economy that was driven by two bubbles, the stock bubble in the '90s and the housing bubble in the last decade.” (Doctors Remove Bullet From Victim's Head, Seek to Determine Cause of Death, The Huffington Post, August 27, 2012.)
Bankers as ‘intermediaries’
Thanks to the dominance of Adam Smith’s flawed analytical system, the widespread assumption remains that credit plays a secondary role in the real economy (where e.g. stocks and shares are exchanged and houses bought and sold). From there the orthodox would have us believe that banks and bankers are mere ‘intermediaries’ between borrowers and savers: that savings are needed for investment; and loans are made from deposits.
Economists, sociologists, central bankers, commercial bankers, presidents and politicians have known since before the founding of the Bank of England in 1694 that the very opposite is true.
Private bankers are not mere intermediaries.
Savings are not needed for investment.
Private bank loans issued by commercial bankers create deposits.
There is no money in the bank when a borrower applies for a loan.
It is the loan application that, together with the promise of both collateral and repayment, creates deposits. Deposits in turn create economic activity (investment and employment) and income (wages, salaries, profits and tax revenues). These can be used to repay loans/debts.
If the system is to remain stable and work well, then it is essential that credit-creation is part of a virtuous economic circle. One in which carefully regulated credit drives sound investment in economic activity, which in turn generates income in the form of wages/salaries/profits and tax revenues, used in part to repay debt.
The system quickly becomes unstable if credit creation is not invested in income-generating activity that is ecologically, socially and politically sustainable. Debt inevitably becomes unpayable if credit is invested at high, unsustainable rates of interest that exceed profits and the ability to repay. And the system becomes unstable if credit is largely used for speculation.
The stories economists tell about money
Despite these fundamental aspects of capitalism being known for centuries, many persist in denial of capitalism’s greatest power – the elastic production of money - but also of its propensity to collapse if not managed and regulated.
This denial is most clearly manifest in the stories economists tell about money.
The orthodox story is that banks act simply as go-betweens ‘twixt borrowers and savers. This narrative is so pervasive that, astonishingly, it informs the approach of Tim Geithner, who as US Treasury Secretary was probably one of the most powerful finance ministers in the world. In his written Testimony on Financial Regulatory Reform to the US’s Congressional Financial Services Committee on 23 September, 2009, he said:
“Stripped of its complexities, the purpose of a financial system is to let those who want to save - whether for vacation, retirement or a rainy day - save. It is to let those who want to borrow - whether to buy a house or build a business - borrow. And it is to use our banks and other financial institutions to bring savers’ funds and borrowers’ needs together and carefully manage the risks involved in transfers between them.
The job of a financial system, in other words, is to efficiently allocate savings and risk.”
The argument rages: Paul Krugman
And while the Nobel prize-winning Keynesian economist Paul Krugman towers over fellow economists by rebutting false neoliberal theory; by fully engaging in public debates about the financial crisis, and by proposing progressive remedies, he alas, also falls prey to the thesis that ‘banks act as intermediaries’ between savers and borrowers.
In a column for the New York Times (NYT) posted at 12.09 p.m. on 27 March, 2012 Krugman responded sharply to a pointed attack on him by Prof. Steve Keen in a blog titled: ‘Primer on Minsky’. In his blog Keen explored
“the capacity for the banking sector to create spending power 'out of nothing'—to quote Schumpeter.” (Steve Keen, EconoMonitor, 26th March, 2012.)
Krugman responded thus:
“As I (and I think many other economists) see it, banks are a clever but somewhat dangerous form of financial intermediary, one that exploits the law of large numbers to offer a better trade-off between liquidity and returns, but does so at the cost of taking on very high leverage, with all the risks that entails.
Banks don’t create demand out of thin air any more than anyone does by choosing to spend more; and banks are just one channel linking lenders to borrowers.
I know I’ll get the usual barrage of claims that I don’t understand banking; actually, I think I do, and it’s the mystics who have it wrong.” (Paul Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal, Banking Mysticism, New York Times, 27th March, 2012.)
Later that day, in a NYT post titled Minsky and Methodology (Wonkish) Krugman made the astonishing point that he was
“….all for including the banking sector in stories where it’s relevant; but why is it so crucial to a story about debt and leverage?”
He returned to the subject on the 30th March in a post titled Banking mysticism, continued , with this:
“There are vehement denials of the proposition that banks’ lending is limited by their deposits…. This is all wrong…
“First of all, any individual bank does, in fact, have to lend out the money it receives in deposits. Bank loan officers can’t just issue checks out of thin air; like employees of any financial intermediary, they must buy assets with funds they have on hand. I hope this isn’t controversial, although given what usually happens when we discuss banks, I assume that even this proposition will spur outrage.”
His comments did spur outrage – because loan officers can “just issue checks out of thin air” as Martin Wolf noted in the Financial Times on 9th November, 2010:
"The essence of the contemporary money system is creation of money, out of nothing, by banks often foolish lending."
Of course bank clerks demand collateral for the credit, and insist on a contract for repayments over a term and at an agreed rate of interest. While there are physical limits to the number of assets that can be offered as collateral, nevertheless credit creation can be expanded by inflating asset prices – thereby increasing the value of collateral, and with it, the ‘production’ of new loans/debt set against the rising value of the asset.
Like Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) challenged the dominant orthodoxy. He was scathing of the view that banks build
“financial reservoirs …collecting together little pools of savings for lending on. (He) and others saw that capitalist banks produced new money by the act of lending, in the sense that the deposits that were created when money was advanced to a borrower were not taken from existing savings or matched by incoming deposits. Money was produced simply by the debt contract between banks and borrowers. Schumpeter clearly grasped that the essential capitalist practice was the actual ‘production’ of bank credit-money out of nothing more than the promise of repayment.” (ibid. p 39). (My emphasis).
Keynes and the doctrine of private credit-creation
Keynes – whose understanding of money and credit is central to The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money – would have been dismayed by Prof Krugman’s words. Because, as Schumpeter reminds us, he was concerned above all with monetary theory and policy, and made strenuous efforts to spread understanding of the nature of credit and bank money; of the importance of the interest rate to prosperity and economic justice; and of the ability of those engaged in private credit-creation to hinder economic stability and precipitate capitalist crises. ‘Interest and Money’ are fundamental to the General Theory.
In his magisterial History of Economic Analysis (written after Keynes’s death and published posthumously in 1954 by his wife Elizabeth Boody) Schumpeter wrote:
“it proved extraordinarily difficult for economists to recognise that bank loans and bank investments do create deposits…And even in 1930, when the large majority had been converted and accepted the doctrine as a matter of course, Keynes rightly felt it necessary to re-expound and to defend the doctrine at some length…and some of the most important aspects cannot be said to be fully understood even now.” (Allen and Unwin History of Economic Analysis 1954. p 1114)
More than fifty years after Schumpeter wrote these words, economists as powerful as Secretary Tim Geithner still appear unable to grasp that bank loans create deposits. And it is sobering to consider that Keynes’s monetary theory, on which Schumpeter and Minsky subsequently built their theories, is totally absent from the curriculum of the faculty of Cambridge University’s economics department. (For more on this theme see my post on the Real World Economics Review blog: Cambridge excludes Keynesians from conference on Keynes. 20 June, 2011.)
Ingham, who clearly rates Schumpeter, fails to point out that his understanding of bank credit-money owes a great deal to Keynes’s body of monetary theory. Indeed Ingham, while including Keynes in his list of heterodox analysts of capitalism, skates over Keynes’s contribution to our understanding of the inner workings of capitalism. He is (to my mind) a little disdainful of the great economist, describing him as simply ‘making capitalism work better’ (ibid. p. 43).
By so doing Ingham underestimates Keynes’s attack on the ‘hallmark’ of capitalism’s systemic failings – the ‘elastic production’ of credit.
Second, and vital for both reasons to do with economic stability and prosperity, but also public morality, Ingham pays scant attention to one aspect of economic policy: the role of the private de-regulated banking system in ratcheting up the ‘price’ of money - interest rates - to the detriment of both private and public sectors, society and the ecosystem.
Keynes wrote in 1933 that “the transformation of society… may require a reduction in the rate of interest towards vanishing point within the next thirty years.” He argued that a low rate of interest was fundamental to a) the repayment of debt, b) the health of firms and households, and c) to economic activity and stability. That rates have to be low across the full spectrum of both public and private lending: for safe and risky loans; real, short and long-term loans – and not just for central bank loans made to the banking sector at the ‘base’ or ‘policy rate’.
Today we are well aware that low interest rates are vital for the health of the ecosystem too. When the burden of debt repayments rise, then the exploitation of both labour and the ecosystem is compounded too.
For orthodox economists that argue money is commodity-related, variations in interest rates are believed to be beyond our control. Rates are determined instead, they argue, by the invisible hand of market forces.
For Keynes the rate of interest on ‘fountain pen’ or ‘keystroke’ credit was not, and could not be anything other than a social construct: agreed and fixed by committees (or cabals) of men.
So it is that central bankers determine base, or policy rates – once known as the ‘bank rate’. Committees of men in central banks raise or lower rates in line with economic conditions as e.g. in recent crises: when after the bursting of the dot.com bubble in 2001 and after the ‘credit crunch’ of August, 2007 rates were quickly and dramatically lowered.
Second the LIBOR scandal that swirled around Barclays Bank in the spring of 2012 (and now swirls around other banks) brought to the attention of the general public (and the regulatory authorities!) the role played by back office ‘submitters’ in ‘fixing’ the inter-bank rate of interest. LIBOR - the London Inter- Bank Offer Rate - was fixed or manipulated so that bankers could profit from trades, or give the impression they were more creditworthy than they were.
The Economist is right to describe the LIBOR rate as the most important figure in finance because, according to the UK’s Financial Services Authority, LIBOR is the reference price for $300 trillion of loans and transactions around the world. These range from interest rate swaps to direct lending and the pricing of mortgages to ordinary people, as well as commercial loans to businesses.
Third, commercial bankers, with one eye on their competitors, fix rates for each agreed loan, after an assessment of the risk posed by the project being financed and the borrower.
Unlike a commodity, therefore, the ‘price’ – or the rate of interest – for money and credit cannot be subject to market forces.
This was Keynes’s point: because of the nature of credit-creation, the ‘price’ or cost of borrowing is unlike any other price. It cannot be determined by the forces of ‘supply and demand’. It can only be a social construct – a ‘policy rate’ set by committees of men (sic) in central banks; LIBOR - fixed by an unregulated cabal of commercial bankers; or the rates set by individual commercial bankers.
It was because private bankers were opposed to managing rates in the interests of society as a whole; because they wanted to retain the power to fix interest rates out of sight of regulators, or society as a whole, that Keynes’s ideas were so inimical to the finance sector. His monetary theory, his policies for a) managing/regulating capital mobility (essential if commercial interest rates are to be kept low); b) the regulation of credit creation, and c) his insistence on low, managed rates of interest – all these were policies deployed to great effect in the 1930s and during the ‘golden age’ of capitalism, from 1945-71. However, they presented a profound threat to finance capital, and to the interests of the City of London and Wall Street in particular.
So Keynes’s theories and policies were quietly buried – with the acquiescence of both Keynesian ‘friends’ and the encouragement of Monetarist foes. Instead the ideas of Adam Smith were revived and used to inform the work of influential ‘Keynesians’ like Paul Samuelson and N. Gregory Mankiw of Harvard – to name but two – as well as the monetarist Chicago School.
Keynes’s fiscal policies for full employment and for recovery from financial crisis were then presented as his sole outstanding legacy – isolated from The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.
The myth of ‘fractional reserve banking’
In his analysis of the money market and the production of credit-money, Ingham, surprisingly, argues a straightforward orthodox case. On the one hand, he acknowledges that
“capitalist banks produce money when they make loans, creating deposits which are drawn on, spent as money and, then, deposited back into the system by recipients.” (Ibid p.75)
However he then goes on to argue that
“conventional banking practice specifies a ‘fractional reserve’ – usually around 10 per cent of deposits – that banks should keep in order that depositors can withdraw savings. Thus for every £100 deposited (bank liabilities owed to depositors) a bank is able to advance loans (bank assets owed by borrowers) of £90. “(Ibid p. 75)
Ingham is not alone in assuming that ‘private banking practice’ specifies that banks maintain a ‘fractional reserve’ of loans. Lord Adair Turner, of the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) refers throughout a recent speech to the notion of ‘fractional reserve banking’, and the new economics foundation (nef) in its otherwise excellent book on money and banking - Where does money come from? - falls into the same trap.
In fact it is most unlikely that fractional reserve banking was ‘conventional banking practice’ in the days before the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694. Early goldsmiths quickly discovered that they could issue more paper loans than they had gold in their vaults. As the system evolved paper loans, based as they were on trust and a promise of repayment, quickly eclipsed the value of the gold supposedly underpinning the loans. Nevertheless the myth was sustained. Nef’s Josh Ryan Collins et al. note in their book that by the 1840s “despite the Bank of England’s notes being linked to gold, currency and banking crises remained frequent and inflation remained.” If bankers had kept a ‘fractional reserve’ of metal to back up paper loans, then ‘Ponzi finance’ banking panics and systemic banking crises would largely have been avoided.
Nevertheless the recurrent history of financial panics and crises has not stopped bankers and the economics profession from maintaining the defence, and the pretence that all lending is but a ratio (or multiplier) of deposits lodged with the bank, or reserves lodged with the central bank.
The opposite is the case. It is only when banks extend credit (loans) that deposits (liabilities) and central bank reserves (required for clearing or to be held against deposits) are created. As Claudio Borio of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) argues in the above-mentioned paper:
“the banking system does not simply transfer real resources, more or less efficiently, from one sector to another; it generates (nominal) purchasing power. Deposits are not endowments that precede loan formation; it is loans that create deposits.”
This disagreement with Geoffrey Ingham is important and fundamental because an adherence to the concept of fractional reserve banking implies a) that lending is constrained or disciplined by deposits; and b) that banks have made sufficient, if limited, provision for liabilities and losses by linking loans to deposits or reserves.
It also implies that central banks can stimulate commercial bank credit creation by increasing central bank reserves.
Professor Steve Keen in his book ‘Debunking Economics’ has demolished the argument by the governor of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, that a massive injection of ‘base money’ by the central bank into the reserve accounts of private banks would result in a far larger sum of bank-created credit being added to the economy – as much as $10 trillion (for the by then $2.15 trillion injected by Governor Bernanke’s Federal Reserve.) So while the injection of central bank ‘quantitative easing’ did help prevent a deflationary spiral, the impact was small, as Keen notes:
“There is little doubt that this massive, unprecedented injection of base money did help reverse the deflation that commenced very suddenly in 2008, when inflation fell from plus 5.6% in mid-2008 to minus 2.1% a year later – the sharpest fall in inflation in post-World War II history. But I expect Bernanke was underwhelmed by the magnitude of the change: inflation rose from minus 2.1 per cent to a peak of 2.7 per cent, and it rapidly fell back to a rate of just 1 per cent. That is very little inflationary bang for a large amount of bucks.”
The build-up of a vast bubble of unsecured credit by private financial interests before the crisis of 2007-9, the subsequent contraction of private credit creation, and the ongoing global financial crisis make plain that central bank reserves played virtually no role in first constraining credit creation pre-crisis or expanding private credit creation, post-crisis.
The fact is that private credit creation is not limited by either deposits, or central bank reserves, or ‘fractional reserve banking practice’. Central bank reserves and private bank deposits are a consequence of de-regulated commercial credit creation. And as Marshall Auerback argues: “Bank loans create deposits and are made without reference to the reserve positions of the banks.”
If private commercial banks are today constrained in their lending, that is because of a) their vast and often incalculable liabilities, losses and effective insolvency, b) the decline of economic activity and associated income caused in part by the Great Recession, c) a consequential lack of confidence amongst bankers that borrowers can generate the income needed to repay loans, and d) a reluctance by indebted borrowers to borrow more, for fear that continuing crises and austerity will constrain profits and income, and their ability to finance debt repayments.
The Chicago School and ‘fractional reserve banking’
‘Fractional reserve banking’ is based on Chicago School monetarist theory, long discredited. Professor Steve Keen discusses at length the ‘neat, plausible and wrong’ monetarist model of how money is created in Debunking Economics.. He argues that Milton Friedman’s ‘money multiplier’ model
“assumes that banks need excess reserves before they can make loans, and then these excess reserves allow loans to be made, which create more deposits. Each new loan reduces the level of excess reserves, and the process stops when this excess has fallen to zero.”
The direction of causation is the very reverse of that modelled by monetarists. If after lending, banks have insufficient reserves, they turn to the central bank. And the central bank is obliged to provide reserves, on demand. As Keen notes:
“the direction of causation flowed, not from reserves to loans, but from loans to reserves.”
Keen cites a senior vice-president of the New York Federal Reserve, Alan Holmes who wrote of the ‘naïve assumption’ behind the monetarist ‘fractional reserve banking’ model, and argued that:
“In the real world, banks extend credit, creating deposits in the process, and look for the reserves later.”
While neat, plausible and wrong, the monetarist model had one advantage. When applied in Britain in the 1980s, the theory was aimed at the central bank money supply, ignoring credit generated by the liberalised commercial banking system. To control private credit creation, the Bank of England was encouraged to raise interest rates.
This was a little like trying to discourage tomato-growers from growing too many tomatoes by increasing the price of tomatoes. (With the proviso that tomatoes are not comparable to credit at all.)
Orthodox economist David Smith explains in The Rise and Fall of Monetarism (Penguin, 1987) how monetarist theory failed:
“Controlling (commercial) bank lending was rather more difficult....With the abandonment of exchange controls in 1979 and the corset in 1980, the task fell to (central bank) interest rates to control bank lending, and they did not do so. In the recessionary condition of 1980, higher interest rates actually boosted bank lending….In 1985 and 1986 real interest rates were at historically very high levels of, on average, 6 or 7 per cent. Even so, by the summer of 1986 bank lending was rising fast enough to push up sterling M3, on its own, by 2 per cent a month.” (ibid. p 152)
And so, as William Keegan argues in his book Mrs Thatcher’s Economic Experiment (Penguin 1984):
“when the (monetarist) evangelicals found the links between the money supply and the economy were not quite what they believed, and not quite so easy to control, they redoubled their efforts to control one particular component of the money supply, namely the public sector borrowing requirement.”
By excluding the liberalised private banking system from the application of their theory, the Chicago School won the support of bankers, and of politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. They failed however to control the ever-expanding supply and then drastic contraction of private credit. Above all their apparent blind spot for the private banking sector meant that credit creation before the 2007/9 crisis was increasingly aimed at the massive capital gains that can be made (in advance of a crash) from speculation.
The excision of private banking from their theory and model no doubt delighted the finance sector, but it fatally undermined the academic and policy-making reputations of monetarists.
The Chicago Plan re-visited
Despite the abject failure of monetarist theory in the 1980s, the ‘fractional reserve banking’ fiction is widely accepted, and informs much of the debate around banking reform. A recent IMF Working Paper by Michael Kumhof and Jaromir Benes, ‘The Chicago Plan re-visited’ has been pounced on, not just by monetarists, but by progressive activists and economists. The latter supporters of the Kumhof and Benes proposal are concerned to subordinate the finance sector to society’s wider interests, and prevent another explosion of debt such as the one that crashed the global economy in 2007-9.
But the build-up of debt that led to the crash was not the fault of private credit creation alone. It was largely due to decisions by elected politicians and other public authorities to remove a) constraints on capital mobility, b) long-standing and successful regulatory ‘ceilings’ on private credit creation, and c) ceilings on interest rates. Above all, these public authorities chose to turn a blind eye to the fraudulent and criminal activities of private bankers.
That failure has seriously undermined public confidence in the banking system, but also in public authorities. That is why, we can surmise, progressive economists like Josh Ryan-Collins of the new economics foundation defend the Kumhof and Benes proposal. In a recent blog Ryan-Collins explained that the original Chicago Plan was produced in the 1930s by
“the US’s top economic minds Henry Simons and Irving Fisher (who) came to the conclusion that the best way to reform the financial sector following the Great Depression was not to constrain bank’s ability to create the money but simply remove this privilege and hand it over to the state.
… Banks would still exist but they would only have the power to intermediate and allocate state money, not to create it…. Instead, the sovereign would decide on the quantity of money in circulation and it would be issued interest free as it was for many hundreds of years in Britain prior to the emergence of fractional reserve banking in the late 18th century...”
The Kumhof and Benes proposal is indeed based on the monetarist ideas of the Chicago School, one that seeks to limit the quantity of money, and that would restore the role of banks to intermediaries between savers and borrowers. Only now the proposal is to eclipse the role of the private sector altogether, and only allow lending backed by a 100% reserve requirement. In other words, all banks or lenders would first have to mobilise 100% of the funds needed for lending. This would massively constrain the availability of credit. Second, the plan is to limit the quantity of credit created to decisions by ‘the sovereign’ – presumably central bank civil servants and their colleagues in finance ministries who “would decide upon the correct quantity of money in circulation”.
Given that credit creation should ideally reflect a multitude of risk assessments of society’s varied and complex needs for finance to kick-start economic activity, should a) the quantity of credit be a limited sum? (decided by ‘the sovereign’), and b) should the task of allocating interest-free credit be limited to civil servants in central banks and finance ministries?
I think not.
First, limiting credit creation to a fixed quantity assumes that there is a fixed quantity of potential economic activity: employment, investment, innovation, caring for the vulnerable, creating works of art, conservation etc. Linking all current and future activity to a fixed quantity of reserves (or bars of gold, or supplies of fossil fuel) limits the ability of the (public and private) banking system to generate sufficient and varied credit for society’s purposeful and hopefully expanding economic activity. (By economic activity I mean all forms of gainful employment.)
Limiting the quantity of credit is certainly one way of limiting employment. Thus monetarist theory and policies both tolerated and sustained a massive rise in unemployment in the 1930s and 1980s.
The Kumhof and Benes proposal is no more than a revival of these policies: the ‘barbaric relic’ that was the gold standard.
Orthodox monetary theory is largely informed by the interests of creditors. The gold standard was largely designed to protect the interests of moneylenders concerned to protect the value of their assets – loans – and to ensure their assets were not eroded by inflation. To this end it was argued that society could only afford, or be trusted to employ a fixed sum of economic activity – equal and limited to a quantity of scarce lumps of gold dug out of the earth – and used by moneylenders as collateral. And so it was that the gold standard operated as a fantastic machinery for protecting the interests of creditors, while constraining and depressing economic activity, in particular employment. That is, until society rebelled against the moneylenders and demanded change. Change was duly brought about in the UK in 1931 and the US in 1933: first as a result of the influence of Keynes and then as a result of the leadership of President Roosevelt.
This is not to deny that limits or ceilings must be placed both on private credit creation but also on the level of interest rates. The purpose of such regulation will be to maintain economic stability and minimise speculation; to ensure that projects are both productive and sustainable, and not speculative purposes; that they are affordable, i.e. that the income generated will cover repayment of the debt; and that the rate of interest is repayable and sustainable.
But monetarists are on the whole opposed to democratic regulation of the private sector, believing wrongly, that ‘the invisible hand’ is best placed to manage the quantity of credit, its allocation and pricing.
I beg to disagree. The public authorities, guided by democratic institutions, are best placed to design and build a regulatory framework for the management of the great public good that is credit – in the interests of society as a whole, not just financial elites. We know that it is possible to create such a framework, because that is what the public authorities took responsibility for during the ‘golden age’ of economics (1945-70) when the finance sector was more carefully managed and regulated.
However, whilst public authorities may best set the regulatory framework, I do not believe that civil servants are best placed to make the myriad daily decisions on the risk-assessment and allocation of credit to small and large borrowers. Private commercial bankers and their loan clerks, on the other hand, operating within a well regulated and legally enforceable framework which must include capital control, have a legitimate role to play in assessing the risk of millions of small and large projects seeking finance; and in allocating credit. For this, they would be entitled to earn a small but reasonable fee, as was so in the past.
Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater…
Today society faces multiple challenges, including the resolution of the gravest financial crisis in history, the revival of economic activity, and the restoration of full employment.
However, the most formidable challenge we face is climate change: extreme weather events caused by a warming planet, fuelled by toxic fossil fuel emissions. UN agencies estimate that immense sums are needed to protect both human and other species – by e.g. shoring up coastlines, bio-diversity conservation, energy efficiency and investment in renewable energy etc.
Limiting the quantity of credit creation to a fixed sum to be decided by civil servants would impose deflationary forces on the economy – just as the gold standard did. It would limit the ability of society to finance the multitude of varied, complex, affordable and sustainable activities needed to achieve the transformation of the global economy away from fossil fuels.
But limiting the quantity of credit is also a hopeless endeavour in a world of innovative and subversive finance: peer-to-peer lending, crowd-funding and alternative currencies.
Far better for the achievement of economic, political and ecological stability would be regulation of the commercial banking system; and of the quality, issuance and ‘price’ of the public good that is credit.
There are severe limitations on our ability to tackle climate change. These include the degree to which we have already degraded the earth’s atmosphere and made species extinct; our limited political will, intelligence and ingenuity; the scarce physical resources available; the second law of thermodynamics. All these are serious, physical limitations on our capacity to save the planet.
Credit, by contrast, faces no such limitation. Credit is an intangible public good, a little like clean air or water. It is based on trust in each other; trust that can be destroyed, but if bolstered by sound institutions, has infinite capacity. Because of the frailty of human nature; because of our experience of financial fraudsters and criminals, this trust must be grounded in democratic public institutions, including a sound, well-managed and regulated banking system and an impartial judicial and criminal justice system. With these in place, trust manifests itself as unlimited supplies of finance for the achievement of society’s goals. That is why the ‘there is no money’ myth pedlars are so wrong. In countries with sound monetary and banking systems, there need never be a shortage of finance. By contrast, in low-income (sic) countries without sound democratic public institutions, the banking system does not function, is not supported by regulation, or by judicial and criminal justice systems. As a result economic activity (investment and employment) is severely curtailed.
Credit, well managed and regulated, enables society to do what we can do. As Keynes remarked “we can afford what we can do”. He despaired of “the imbecile idiom of the financial fashion” that implied:
“We destroy the beauty of the countryside because the unappropriated splendors of nature have no economic value. We are capable of shutting off the sun and the stars because they do not pay a dividend. London is one of the richest cities in the history of civilization, but it cannot ‘afford’ the highest standards of achievement of which its own living citizens are capable, because they do not ‘pay’."
Of course we cannot afford that which we cannot do; or that which is unsustainable in economic or ecological terms. That is why a well-managed credit system will be regulated so that it does not exceed the potential and capacity of the economy - and thus inflame inflationary forces. It will not contract credit and so induce a deflationary spiral. It will not exceed the ecosystem’s assets (e.g. forests, fish, land) to provide resources for debt repayment. A well-managed and regulated system of credit will inhibit the exponential exploitation of labour. Above all it will protect the public good that is trust.
Above all our credit creation system must be managed to make it possible for society as a whole – not just a tiny financial elite – to mobilise the resources needed to achieve that which is in the interests of society (and the ecosystem) as a whole.
Regulating private banking’s creation of credit so that it is aimed at society’s determination of sound, productive activity and not at speculation, is fundamental to achieving that goal.
So let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let’s not give up on a great civilizational advance: sound banking, legal and other institutions for the protection of trust and the creation of credit at affordable and morally acceptable rates of interest. Credit that enables society to do what we can do.
Central banks and quantitative easing (QE)
The phenomenon of QE – when central banks inject money into the banking system by purchasing assets (e.g. bonds) - has taught the public that new money or liquidity for both private banks and for governments is not dependent on existing ‘savings’. Instead it can be conjured out of thin air.
That wider public understanding is a reason for optimism.
Today, over five years since ‘debtonation day’ on 9th August, 2007, central bank support for the economy is largely, but not exclusively directed with virtually no conditionality at the commercial banking system. QE, coupled with low and effectively negative rates of interest for bankers (not for the rest of the economy); government guarantees for too-big-to-fail banks; aided by capital mobility – all this taxpayer-backed support has helped rich investors mobilise resources to speculate in, and inflate the prices of assets in all parts of the world.
But QE has done little to ensure wider economic recovery.
This is because QE is not aimed at the interests of society as a whole. Both orthodox economic theory and central bank regulation prevents central banks from linking and co-ordinating monetary policy with fiscal policy.
This reveals a key flaw in debates about monetary policy. Namely that it is not enough for central banks or even private banks to create finance. Far more important is the spending of that finance.
In today’s climate of financial crisis and austerity, private, heavily-indebted firms are fearful of undertaking investment. Individual, household and company debts in all leading economies are at very high levels, and de-leveraging or extinguishing these debts is slow, if it happens at all. At the same time around the world, government policies are directly aimed at shrinking the economy, causing bankruptcies and unemployment to rise. No wonder indebted private firms are hoarding what cash they have, and refusing to invest.
Governments have had to compensate for economic failure caused by banking crises, fraud and theft - by increasing public debt. They are doing this while shrinking economic activity, and therefore also the income (tax revenues) needed to pay down public debt. But raising taxes in this Great Recession is also counter-productive because that would further shrink the economy.
In these circumstances, central bank finance (conjured ‘out of thin air’) could be used to support public investment (spending) in sound, productive projects; this would begin the process of reviving employment and economic activity. This could be undertaken via the private banking sector, or by direct support for public investment.
Central bank finance could also be used to address the threat of energy insecurity and climate change. Above all, by supporting investment and economic recovery, it would begin the process of generating income for the repayment of both public and private debts.
However none of this is possible because of the forbidding ‘imbecile idiom’ of orthodox economic theory – backed by political parties, both conservative and social democratic. And so the global financial crisis stumbles on…
Instead central bank support for the private banking system has led to the phenomenon that President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil called a "liquidity tsunami": a large pool of speculative capital that originated within the western banking system, and is now aimed at countries like Brazil. The owners of this capital have used low central bank rates of interest (available only to banks and financial institutions) and government guarantees to borrow and seek out high returns in markets beyond their home market. They have done this by speculation in food and commodities, in property and other emerging market assets. This has caused inflation, overheating and asset bubbles in those economies. These are new and possibly bigger asset bubbles and Ponzi schemes than those that emerged before the 2007-9 crisis.
Emerging market asset bubbles are likely to implode and threaten more banking failures and future global financial stability. Only this time, central banks responsible for the activities of unregulated western financial institutions, will have limited resources or tools with which to rescue too-big-to fail banks, and to stabilise the system.
Governments, ‘independent’ central banks and money
Nevertheless, governments have benefited from the creation of liquidity. Britain is a good example. Here, the government in the form of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee have authorised Bank staff to purchase up to a quarter of all UK Government debt – well in excess of £300bn.
In other words, the British government has required its own nationalised bank, the Bank of England to help finance its outstanding debt, albeit in a roundabout way, by purchasing UK government bonds or gilts in the capital markets. By purchasing and thus removing gilts from the bond market, and placing them on the BoE balance sheet, the Bank raised the price of gilts and lowered the yield. These gilts attract regular coupon payments from the UK Treasury. As a result, the Bank of England has now accumulated a large ‘cash balance’ or profit on these purchases.
Since 2009, the Bank of England has therefore effectively financed the Coalition government’s deficit and made it less reliant on ‘the international bond markets’ or ‘bond vigilantes’ for funding.
As Jo Owen remarked in the Financial Times on 12 March, 2012:
“As a result of QE the public sector (the Treasury) is paying interest to itself (the BoE) on debt that it owes to itself…”
And we might add, at a rate of interest determined by the ‘independent’ committee of men appointed and mandated by the British Chancellor, and based at the Bank of England.
The recent furore over the British Chancellor’s decision to transfer £35bn of the ‘cash balance’ back to the Exchequer from the Bank of England’s Quantitative Easing facility, revealed just how unfamiliar is the Bank of England’s role in financing the British government, to the British media and economic establishment.
Chris Giles, the chief economic correspondent of the Financial Times had his ‘faith’ in the system shaken:
“It is rare to have a moment of epiphany in economic commentary. Few developments disprove your previous beliefs entirely and such is the economic uncertainty that it is easy and comforting to hold on to views far too long. At 11:30 last Friday, I had such a moment.
A Treasury press release entitled ‘Changes to cash management operations’ showed my faith in the credibility of the UK government’s economic strategy to be misplaced.”
Epiphanies such as that outlined above are experienced by those who place their understanding of economic processes and of the ‘independence’ of the nationalised Bank of England on ‘faith’.
Private credit-money and the subordination of the state
Ingham follows a review of those economists who, in his view, added to our fundamental understanding of capitalism, with a brief history of the founding of the Bank of England in 1694. He explores and illuminates the
“mechanism that connects capitalist finance with the state in a relationship of mutual advantage in which each has an interest in the survival and prosperity of the other”. (ibid. p 73)
And he makes the important point that the fusion of private bank credit and state currency was made possible back in 1694 by the balance of power between the monarch and the bourgeoisie and their acceptance of mutual dependence.
“It represented a delicate balance between too much state power, which might readily have suppressed the private alternative credit-money, and too little state power, which would not have been able to impose an acceptable public currency denominated in a stable money of account.” (ibid. p.73.)
That ‘delicate balance’ has been disrupted by a succession of financial crises. Today capitalist finance has created a vast web of complex financial products that are traded outside the sound regulatory frameworks of states, and that confound central bankers. Nevertheless, by these means, the finance sector creates liquidity needed for transactions across global borders and markets. This unlimited credit-creation is designed to defy the limits of central bank regulation. As Andy Haldane noted in his aforementioned Jackson Hole speech to central bankers, since even computers can’t track all the necessary variables in the massively interlinked financial world, there is little hope that humans can.
Private markets as a ‘creditor-god’
But there is a deeper point here, one that Ingham understands. Since 1694 the Bank of England has appeared to have a monopoly over the creation of money, the issue of bank notes, and the generation of liquidity. By undertaking monetary operations– the selling of state debt – the Bank has since 1694 monopolised the injection of liquidity into the banking system.
But that has changed. Central bankers have steadily conceded their monopoly over the creation of liquidity to private bankers/financiers/speculators.
Rather than restraining finance capitalism the ongoing crisis of capitalism has accelerated a process that began with dismantling of measures for maintaining the balance between state and finance. This dismantling includes the dissolution of the Bretton Woods System, the de-regulation of financial markets, and the expansion of markets in complex derivatives and securitisation.
As a consequence, central banks no longer hold a monopoly over the creation of liquidity. This loss of a dominant role can be understood as a result of the radically changed relationship between capitalist finance and states. This in turn is an outcome of economic orthodoxy’s contempt for the state; or for what Keynes called “the general organisation of resources as distinct from the particular problems of production and distribution which are the province of the individual business technician and engineer.”
The awful truth is that central banks have lost control over private and international financial markets, which have extended and consolidated their global power – and their ability to disrupt global economic activity.
Ironically even as capitalism continues its attack on the state and as prolonged economic weakness and financial failure persists, capitalist finance has become more dependent on state financing. It has succeeded in capturing, effectively looting, and then subordinating states to the interests of – capitalist finance.
As the Humboldt professor of literature, Prof. Josef Vogl reminded economists at the 2012 meeting of George Soros’s Institute for New Economic Thinking in Berlin:
“central banks and states have monetized the liabilities of capital markets; once ‘lenders of last resort’, they have become ‘investors’ or ‘borrowers of last resort’. The debts of private banks were financed [by governments] by raising loans from private banks. Contrary processes have been installed, in which the socialization of private debts corresponds with the privatization of national debts. Financial markets became integral to the administration of public debts, accompanied by an expansion of their logic, their rules, their imperatives and interests. This implies, finally, the shifting of the reserves of sovereignty. The financialization of government structures, the mediation between public and private debts have mechanized political decisions as market-driven decisions; the markets themselves have become a sort of creditor-god, whose final authority decides the fate of currencies, social systems, public infrastructures, private savings, etc.” (My emphasis) From: Sovereignty Effects, INET Conference Berlin, April 12, 2012, Panel: Which Way Forward?”
The challenge now facing the world is this: can democratic states regain control over “the fate of currencies, social systems, public infrastructures, private savings etc.” – or are we forever beholden and victim to unseen and unaccountable ‘creditor-gods’?
Are the world’s people, their social and political organisations, their small and large businesses going to tolerate regular financial and economic crises, in which the ‘creditor-gods’ make all the gains, raid the balance sheets of taxpayer-backed central banks, while real incomes of taxpayers fall, governments remain supine, opportunities for this and future generations diminish, and social and political breakdown threaten? Or is it inevitable that people will mobilise – behind reactionary as well as democratic political organisations – to resist such onslaughts on their taxes and living standards?
Given the challenge posed to Haute Finance by right-wing and fascist political parties in for example the Eurozone, and given the weakness of more progressive political organisations, my own prognosis is pessimistic.
Blaming the inflation of the 1970s on its victims
Another point of disagreement with Geoffrey Ingham’s Capitalism is his analysis of the inflation of the 1970s (ibid. p 86) – an analysis he shares with many progressive academics, including for example, the highly regarded Philip Pilkington in a series of essays on monetarism for the website Naked Capitalism (17 July, 2012).
Ingham effectively endorses the overwhelming neoliberal consensus on the causes of inflation: namely that
“increases in commodity prices, especially oil, added impetus to the underlying structural causes of increased government expenditure and the power of monopoly capital and their labour forces to mark up their respective prices.”(ibid p. 86)
Along with most economists, he confuses cause with effect. Like many, many others, he effectively blames Keynes for the inflation of the 1970s, arguing that
“the commitment to full employment meant that….corporations and their labour forces, empowered by the absence of the ‘reserve army of the unemployed’ used their leverage continuously to mark up prices and wages.”
However, as Geoff Tily argued in Keynes Betrayed, this analysis skates over the substantial financial de-regulation that began in the 1960s and climaxed first with President Nixon’s unilateral dismantling of the regulated Bretton Woods system in 1971; and in the same year (in Britain) with the Conservative government’s introduction of Competition and Credit Control (dubbed ‘all competition and no control’ by many economists.)
As we have argued above, the Bank of England’s tacit agreement to the introduction of Competition and Credit Control removed restraints on the power of private bankers to create credit – and enhanced their powers to fix and increase the ‘price’ of credit, i.e. the rate of interest.
De-regulation led inevitably to a massive expansion of credit at effectively higher real rates of interest than had prevailed during the regulated Keynesian ‘Golden Age’. This ‘easy money’ led in turn to inflation, first to price followed by wage inflation, and then by asset price inflation. Moreover, high borrowing costs constrained investment. These together eventually led to the implosion of unpayable debts and economic failure that we have witnessed in recent years.
Competition and Credit Control was amplified by the ‘Big Bang’ of 1986; but there can be no question that the origins of today’s financial crisis lies, not with the ‘Big Bang’, but with 1960s and 70s de-regulation or liberalisation – by both the US authorities, the Bank of England and the British Treasury. (For more on this, see chapter one of my book The coming first world debt crisis, Palgrave, 2006).
‘Too much money chasing too few goods and services’ led, in turn, to the inflation of prices, which spiralled upwards. Both corporations and labour unions reacted predictably. Their actions were not causal. They were a reaction to the cause of inflation: the ‘elastic production’ by private bankers of credit-money.
Neither Ingham nor the many economists that share his view can explain why during 1945-71, when the Keynesian framework of managed finance was dominant, inflation was subdued, and “corporations and their labour forces” declined to use their “leverage to mark up prices and wages”.
Ingham’s list: the missing economists
Finally: Ingham’s list of classical theorists of capitalism ends with Keynes, who died in 1946. He defends the limited number on the list:
“I have reached the outrageous conclusion that no social scientist over the past half century has added anything that is fundamentally new to our understanding of the capitalist economic system.” (Ibid. p.2).
I would disagree. Karl Polanyi (1886-1964) Hyman Minsky (1919-1996) and Herman Daly (1938 - ) have added fundamentally to our understanding of the systemic nature of the capitalist economic system, and its impacts on both human society but also the ecosystem. Polanyi’s analysis of neoliberalism and society’s response is scandalously under-represented in economic and political literature. Ingham touches on his analysis of money, land and labour as false commodities, but takes it no further. This is disappointing given that, unlike all the other great economists identified by Ingham, Polanyi had the most acute understanding of the disastrous impact of the false commodity that is money on both labour and the environment. In that sense Polanyi’s analysis of the systemic nature of capitalism was far ahead of most of the great economists identified by Ingham, but also of his time.
Second, there can be no question that Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis (summarised here by Professor Steve Keen) is fundamental to an understanding of the systematic instability of capitalism. Indeed it was what Minsky learned at the feet of Schumpeter - that investment is not financed by savings, but by the endogenous expansion of the money supply by banks – that remains fundamental to an understanding of capitalism, today’s financial crisis, and to capitalism’s inherent instability.
So while Ingham’s book provides us with an incisive analysis of capitalism and its fundamental ‘hallmark’: the ‘elastic production’ of ever-expanding and inflationary credit money, it suffers by falling back at points on neoliberal analyses and assumptions. Thereby – though this is certainly not his intent - he reinforces some of the flawed thinking that lets the finance sector off the hook, and allows financiers to continue escaping both scrutiny and regulation while they flagrantly confiscate public assets.
But Ingham raises important issues: with a deeper understanding of capitalism’s ability to create ever expanding amounts of credit-money, how does a democratic society once again rein in, regulate and subordinate the private finance sector to the wider public interest? How does society regain control over the public good that is credit and a sound banking system, and use both for financing society’s most important needs – including the need to tackle the threat of climate change?
Second, as Professor Vogl asks: “how can public goods (including liquidity) avoid being confiscated by the finance economy?” And how can they be restored to public accountability?
If we can move on from Adam Smith’s 300 year-old flawed analytical system to a proper understanding of the powers and public goods we have, due to ignorance, outsourced to the private banking sector – then perhaps as both economists and citizens we might finally be able to understand the creation of money – by both central and private banks - ‘out of thin air’. Only with this understanding will it be possible to devise policies, regulation and strategies to tackle and once again subordinate global finance to the interests of society and the ecosystem.
That is why Ingham’s work is so important: it helps us move on beyond Adam Smith towards a fuller understanding of the public good that is credit.
*Cross-posted with thanks to PRIME
1. First published in 2008, it was republished with a postscript on the financial crisis and its aftermath in 2011.
2. There are important exceptions of course: Prof Victoria Chick’s Macroeconomics After Keynes (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press (1983); Geoff Tily’s Keynes Betrayed (Palgrave Macmillan, reprint edition, 2010); and the finance team at the new economics foundation in London. See their ‘Where does money come from?’
3. I am grateful to Dr Geoff Tily for sharing his insights into the inflation of the 1970s. For more detail see his Keynes Betrayed (2006, 2010).
4. For more detail of the source of this number, see this post by Senator Bernie Sanders who commissioned a report on the cost of Federal Reserve bailouts from the US Government’s Accountability Office, the GAO. http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3
5. What have economists ever done for us? By Andy Haldane, Bank of England executive director, Financial Stability on 1st October, 2012. http://www.voxeu.org/article/what-have-economists-ever-done-us
6. BIS Papers No 65. Threat of fiscal dominance? A BIS/OECD workshop on policy interactions between fiscal policy, monetary policy and government debt management after the financial crisis. Basel, 2 December, 2011.
7. Attributed to M.Gustave de Puynode, and quoted in Dunning Macleod, H. The theory and Practice of Banking, in Chapter IV of The Theory of Credit, Longmans, London, 1879.
8. Making Good Financial Regulation: Towards a Policy Response to Regulatory Capture, Bank of England, 25 September 2012. http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2012/speech603.pdf
9. The dog and the frisbee. Paper by Andrew G Haldane, Executive Director, Financial Stability and member of the Financial Policy Committee and Vasileios Madouros, Economist, Bank of England. Given at the Jackson Hole Symposium, 31 August, 2012.
10. P. Samuelson, 1973, Economics, 9th Ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, quoted in G. Ingham, The Nature of Money, Polity Press, 2004.
13. John Maynard Keynes: National Self-Sufficiency The Yale Review, Vol. 22, no. 4 (June 1933), pp. 755-769.
14. The rotten heart of finance. A scandal over key interest rates is about to go global
The Economist, Jul 7th 2012 | http://www.economist.com/node/21558281
15. Pushing the reset button on LIBOR. 28 September, 2012. Speech by Martin Wheatley - Managing Director, FSA, and CEO Designate, FCA at the Wheatley Review of LIBOR. http://www.fsa.gov.uk/library/communication/speeches/2012/0928-mw.shtml
16. Monetary and Financial Stability: Lessons from the Crisis and from classic economics texts. Adair Turner Speech at South African Reserve Bank, 2nd November 2012. http://www.fsa.gov.uk/static/pubs/speeches/1102-at.pdf
17. Where does money come from? A guide to the UK monetary and banking system. Second edition. Written by Josh Ryan Collins, Tony Greenham, Richard Werner and Andrew Jackson. Published by nef 2012. http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/where-does-money-come-from
18. Ibid. p.42.
19. The financial cycle and macroeconomics: What have we learnt? Claudio Borio. BIS Working Paper No 395. December, 2012. http://www.bis.org/publ/work395.pdf
20. Debunking Economics by Professor Steve Keen, published by Zed Books, 2011. Pg.305.
21. Ibid. Pg.305.
22. The Chicago Plan does not deserve to be revisited. 23 October 2012. Macrobits. http://macrobits.pinetreecapital.com/the-chicago-plan-does-not-deserve-to-be-revisited/
23. For a more detailed rebuttal of ‘fractional reserve banking’ see Bill Mitchell’s Blog of 21 April, 2009. http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=1623
24. Ibid. ‘The mythical Money Multiplier’ Pg. 306-312.
25. Ibid. p. 309
26. The Chicago Plan Revisited by Jaromir Benes and Michael Kumhof. IMF Working Paper: August, 2012. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp12202.pdf
27. From A return to Sovereign Money? Blog on Open Democracy site by Josh Ryan-Collins, 17 December 2012. http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/josh-ryan-collins/return-to-sovereign-money
29. John Maynard Keynes, "National Self-Sufficiency," The Yale Review, Vol. 22, no. 4 (June 1933), pp. 755-769. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/interwar/keynes.htm
30. For more on this, see the Bank of England’s report: The distributional effects of asset purchases, in the Quarterly Bulletin. 2012 Q3 | Volume 52 No. 3 http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/qb1203.pdf
31. See the Rio Times of 16 April 2012. http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-politics/rousseff-warns-of-tsunami-of-money/#
32. For more on the inflationary impact of global liquidity, see the Bubble Bubble: The Emerging Markets Bubble (or The “BRIC” Bubble) by Jesse Colombo http://www.thebubblebubble.com/emerging-markets-bubble/
33. For more on the Bank of England’s Asset Purchase facility, visit the Bank of England’s website: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/markets/Pages/apf/default.aspx
34. Financial Times, 12 March, 2012: The Bank of England should make the QE debts disappear by Jo Owen.
36. Policy ploys risk UK economic credibility Financial Times, 14 November, 2012. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2dba8ab0-2da3-11e2-9988-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2EfbvTKDy
37. Keynes broadcast on 14 March, 1931 on state planning. Reproduced on page 87 of the Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, Vol XXI. Activities 1931-9: World Crises and Policies in Britain and America.
39. Keynes Betrayed: The General Theory, the Rate of Interest and 'Keynesian' Economics, by Dr. Geoff Tily, Palgrave Macmillan http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?is=9780230277014http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?is=9780230277014 | <urn:uuid:b8b85b35-afeb-4cda-8c9f-0e50976eaee1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/ann-pettifor/power-to-create-money-out-of-thin-air | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947594 | 17,352 | 1.742188 | 2 |
This is our first iPhone application. Japanese My Way is a flash card application to assist with
Japanese learning. It has a 160,000+ word and 6,500+ kanji dictionary from which you can build you
own flash decks to drill. It also has 150,000+ sample sentences all cross referenced to the dictionary
so you can see how the words are used
Japanese My Way also has a unique Kanji grading function that allows you to also play games drawing
kanji and kana and is able to recognize whether the answer is correct or incorrect based on stroke
order and position. In addition to this, you can also choose which conjugation you wish to drill so that
you can practice recognizing the various word forms.
Japanese My Way
Kana Practice is a cut down version of Japanese My Way that just includes the Hiragana and
Katakana flash decks. It is designed for beginning Japanese students who are not ready to buy the full
version of Japanese My Way, but want to learn the Kana and see how well the application works. | <urn:uuid:b6a5bf49-4b67-4f62-8df1-3afd27dc4ab3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rakudasoft.com/products.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956888 | 220 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Egypt's Morsi Reportedly Poised To Allow Military To Arrest Civilians
Originally published on Sat December 8, 2012 2:47 pm
Some outraged protesters remain around the Egyptian presidential palace in Cairo today, as opponents of President Mohammed Morsi defy his recent ruling granting himself executive powers that can't be questioned by a court.
Now there's word he may have signed a new order allowing soldiers to detain and arrest civilians, a right that's reserved for police officers.
Egypt's Ahram Online reports soldiers could arrest people if Morsi asks the army to step in to "coordinate the preservation of security and protection of vital premises with police."
That might include a situation like last week's clashes between pro- and anti-Morsi demonstrators that left several people dead. Or it could be broader than that. The new decree was allegedly adopted by the Egyptian Cabinet and Morsi reportedly has yet to sign it.
Egypt's army released a pointed statement of its own today, warning both supporters and opponents of Morsi's administration and his Muslim Brotherhood political party that they must solve their disputes through dialogue, Reuters reports.
"The opposite of that will bring us to a dark tunnel that will result in catastrophe and that is something we will not allow," the army said.
Today, Morsi is hosting a day of "comprehensive dialogue" between his party and opponents, including secular and Christian leaders, though the opposition has rejected his call for talks. As VOA notes, leaders are furious over what they see as Morsi's executive power grab. They also want to call off the upcoming vote on a draft Egyptian constitution.
That proposed document was hastily finished last week by a group of delegates mostly made up of Islamists. Opposition members quit in frustration before it was completed, saying the rights of women, secular Egyptians and Christians were ignored.
Morsi set a referendum on the document for Dec. 15, but yesterday his administration surprisingly postponed early voting on the constitution, scheduled to get under way shortly, and The Associated Press says Morsi's aides have begun to hint the entire vote could be called off.
Meanwhile, if the Egyptian president opts to sign the new decree granting the army arrest powers, he'll imitate a step Egypt's military rulers tried to take earlier this year until they were stopped by Egyptian judges. Ahram Online says Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces passed the army arrest powers rule on June 13 while it still governed the country. Ten days later, the Egyptian Supreme Court overturned it. At that time, there was no parliament, and Morsi hadn't yet taken power.
Now Morsi is president: He, too, has no parliament to veto his actions. But unlike the military council, Morsi has declared his executive decisions beyond the reach of Egypt's courts. | <urn:uuid:477f20ea-b6a6-478d-8ab0-2e2ec9a1f4b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wmot.org/post/egypts-morsi-reportedly-poised-allow-military-arrest-civilians | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978182 | 557 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Money & Finance
What you need to know about tax deductions
(BPT) - You probably know tax deductions are an important part of your income tax return and that you want as many as possible. But do you understand how deductions actually save you money or how to determine which ones you can claim on your tax return? “Simply put, deductions lower the amount of your taxable income,” ...
Expert tips for doing your own taxes online
(BPT) - Thanks to the convenience of online tax return preparation websites, more Americans are doing their own taxes. Do-it-yourself tax preparation solutions give taxpayers a fast, convenient and affordable way to file income tax returns. “Doing your own taxes really isn’t as daunting as it may seem,” says Jessi Dolm...
Boomers connect at rapid pace
(BPT) - Even though they’re still common, jokes about clueless baby boomers calling their kids to figure out how to use technology are starting to feel outdated. While today’s youngest generations are practically born with tablets, smartphones and laptops in their hands, grandparents are also adopting technology at a st...
The Financial Horrors of Hurricanes [Infographic]
Superstorm Sandy dramatically affected the East Coast. In fact, with an estimated $50 billion in damage and economic losses, Sandy could go down as the second-costliest hurricane in U.S. history. This infographic from InsuranceQuotes.com shows some of the financial horrors of hurricanes.
Give your identity a health checkup
When it comes to your health, the old adage, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," still rings true. It's doubly valid when you're talking about the health of your digital and financial identity. Giving your identity a checkup is every bit as important as getting your annual physical and flu shot, or exercis...
A road map to avoid common credit mistakes
To err is human, but some mistakes - whether just dumb or well-intentioned - may seem like they can only be fixed through divine intervention. Common credit mistakes can make you feel that way. Staying alert and prepared can help you avoid some of the most-damaging credit mistakes.
Four costly car mistakes to avoid
Car care is no longer defined by the season. Modern cars don't need special attention during the winter months with the exception of changing to winter tires depending on where you live. Instead, the reliability and life of your car depends on you following good maintenance practices. Avoiding these common car care mista...
Style insight: 4 easy ways to update your wardrobe for $25 or less
When you look in your closet, are you inspired by what you find, or has your personal style become bland? If you want to update your wardrobe, you don't need a complete overhaul and a bottomless budget. By adding a few key pieces you can instantly breathe life into your existing collection of clothes - and the best part ...
Gas-saving holiday travel tips
The holidays are for giving, but with all the driving around for shopping, parties and family events, you may end up giving more at the gas station due to Grinch-like fuel costs. Holiday jeer can quickly become holiday cheer, though, by simply practicing some gas-saving tips. | <urn:uuid:a4b874d6-2dda-46a8-aeea-1b62caa7b96d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chanute.com/pages/ara/push?class=next_page&per_page=12&x_page=10&rel=next&instance=Money | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952957 | 681 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Gang of 6 plan would raise taxes
Exactly who would pay more and how much is unclear. But cherished deductions like the one for mortgage interest are targeted.
Would your taxes go up or go down if the Gang of Six plan were adopted? That's the $1 trillion question.
That $1 trillion is the amount of new revenue in the 10-year deficit-reduction plan drafted by a bipartisan group of six U.S. senators. The rest of the plan to trim the deficit by $3.7 trillion would come from spending cuts.
This paragraph in the plan will interest you: "Reform, not eliminate, tax expenditures for health, charitable giving, homeownership, and retirement, and retain support for low-income workers and families." Yes, popular tax deductions like that for mortage interest would be on the table.
(Of course, nothing is certain here. President Obama and House Republicans are once again having talks on raising the debt ceiling and, The Washington Post reports, "According to congressional sources, Obama has apparently offered to forgo any tax increases in the initial deal, postponing an overhaul of the tax code until next year.")
But, just in case the Gang of Six plan remains in play, let's discuss what it could mean to your taxes. (On Wednesday, we looked at its proposed changes to Social Security and Medicare.) Warning: We're short on details here because the official plan outline (.pdf file), quite frankly, doesn't have many.
Post continues after video.
Fewer tax brackets. The plan proposes three (we now have six) and would lower the top rate -- and the corporate tax rate -- from 35% to a range of 23% to 29%. That would be great news for rich folks. "That could provide a windfall for wealthy taxpayers because the 35% tax bracket currently applies to taxable income above $379,150," said The Associated Press.
Mortgage interest. Upper-income folks might get a lower tax rate overall but they'd likely lose some of this popular deduction, which disproportionately provides tax relief for the well-to-do. (Want proof? Read this column at The New York Times.)
The details would be left to a Senate committee to hash out. MIT economist William Wheaton made this prediction to NPR:
Well, I suspect that the proposal most likely to emerge out of the Senate committee is one where the interest on second homes is eliminated, one where the total amount of mortgage debt will be capped at a lower level than the $1 million that it's currently capped at, and, rather than having an interest deduction where the deduction ranges from 15% all the way up to 38% for very wealthy Americans, will be a constant 10, 12 or 15% in the form of a tax credit.
Charitable contributions. Again, no details. However, Suzanne Perry notes at The Chronicle of Philanthropy that the president's debt commission "called for replacing the charitable deduction with a 12% tax credit. However, it would be available only for amounts donated beyond 2% of the taxpayer's adjusted gross income."
Health insurance. The health insurance benefit you get through work isn't taxed now, but it could be under this plan. (So-called Cadillac health care plans will be taxed, beginning in 2018, as part of health care reform.) Gerald McEntee, head of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, said the Gang of Six plan "would destabilize employer-sponsored health care coverage for 160 million Americans."
Retirement savings. I don't know about you, but not paying taxes now on the money I put in an IRA and solo 401k is a huge incentive to save for retirement. Brian H. Graff, executive director of the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries, commented: "Raising short-term revenues by reducing the tax deferral incentives created to provide retirement security for millions of American workers and retirees is not in the long-term interest of American workers or their children."
Repeal of the alternative minimum tax, commonly called the AMT. About 20 million Americans who would otherwise have to pay this tax already get a pass every year from Congress, so that won't make much difference to folks.
All told, that's an estimated $1 trillion in extra revenue over 10 years, but also a tax break of $1.5 trillion, according to the Gang of Six. Confused? This Washington Post column explains how they can make that claim.)
Some think their numbers are way off. Marc A. Thiessen opined in The Washington Post that the Gang of Six plan would actually raise taxes by $3 billion over 10 years. He wrote:
Current law assumes that, over the next decade, taxes will go up by some $4.5 trillion because of tax cut expirations. The Gang of Six reduces this $4.5 trillion tax increase by $1.5 trillion -- and calls it a tax cut. But the practical result is really a $3 trillion tax increase over what Americans pay today.
More on MSN Money:
Why not privatize social security? First, remove the cap of $106,800 to allow for more funds to be saved for retirement. Second, take the 7.2% that is paid to FICA and put that money in to a personal retirement account that has a selection of funds just like a 401(k) plan. (The personal retirement account would only allow distributions only at retirement age or due to a permanent disability.) If participation in a 401(k) plan is required and the employer match of 4% then a person would be saving 15.2% for retirement which is more than most people save now. (7.2% personal retirement account, 4% 401(k) account and 4% employer match)
For the 7.2% the employer’s pays social security for each employee. That amount would be used to fund social security for people who won’t have enough time in a private retirement account or disable. Since the cap would be removed the percentage employers pay can be adjusted lower for higher income individuals. Now, only those individuals who don’t have enough savings in their retirement accounts or disabled individuals would quality for social security. So, if you have over two million in retirement accounts you wouldn’t quality for social security.
Granted there would need to be a lot more thought put in to this before it becomes a reality but overall it should be doable.
Why not privatize social security?
" I now send you out as sheep amongst the wolves."
@Just a thought-
You give a perfect answer for a perfect world.
Social Security and Medicare are separate accounts and shouldn't be on the agenda with the federal budget. and its deficit.
Social Security as a whole is in the black.... The Federal government has no right to use this money for anything but for its intended purpose.
I'd like to see the Media place importance of getting this information out to our elder population.
Are you guys on Facebook? They just posted the following question on MSN Money's wall:
Please tell us: would you be ok losing some of your mortgage interest tax deduction in order to help pay down the deficit?
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A new federal safety report shows toddlers and minority children make up a disproportionate number of drowning victims. | <urn:uuid:e2ad6792-da06-42f8-b296-a0652197890e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.msn.com/saving-money-tips/post.aspx?post=a57e7349-f636-4fb4-9a4e-26a2d49e8d2b | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952767 | 1,658 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Workers injured in Syrian camp in Jordan
- From: AAP
- January 08, 2013
HUMANITARIAN workers distributing aid to Syrian refugees in northern Jordan after destructive rains have been injured in a "stampede", officials say.
"Refugees started to push each other as they ran towards the aid workers. They hurled stones at each other and there was a stampede, which hurt some aid workers," Anmar Hmud, a government spokesman for refugee affairs, told AFP on Tuesday.
"At least one of the aid workers was taken to hospital."
The incident occurred as aid workers were helping some of the 62,000 Syrians sheltering in the Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan near the Syrian border, where hundreds of tents have been destroyed by two days of heavy rains.
"Bad weather and heavy rain in the past two days have affected 500 tents in Zaatari," Ali Bibi, in charge of cooperation and international relations at UN refugee agency UNHCR, told AFP.
"We are now are working with the Jordanian government to move hundreds of refugees to caravans."
There are 4000 caravans and 4,500 tents at the six month old camp, which has seen several protests against poor living conditions, including a lack of electricity.
Jordan, which says it is hosting more than 290,000 Syrians, suffers bad weather in winter, including the torrential downpours seen in recent days. | <urn:uuid:acf64793-5a7a-4cf6-930c-b7a55db4ad5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/workers-injured-in-syrian-camp-in-jordan/story-e6frfkui-1226549900161?from=public_rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981698 | 294 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Any citizen who respects the home country would know the importance of a national flag. This is a symbol of dignity and deserves immense respect. Allowing the flag to fall on the ground is a great disrespect to the nation. Even unintentionally, such a catastrophe must not occur. This is the reason why you must make use of stainless steel flagpole that is strong and durable. This would make sure that flags never encounter any discourteous incidents. They remain to proclaim honor, to convey a message, to boast of victory or to declare the territory. Flying and managing the flags are no longer tough with the installation of the right flagpoles.
Once your flags are ready, you must dedicate some time in choosing the stainless steel flagpole that compliments it. You must be taking into consideration the location for erecting the flagpole. The location often narrows down your choice as certain areas like mountains, desert plains and coastal areas require the ones that can withstand strong wind gusts. The height above the sea level is a factor that would help you determine the one that you need as the load created by wind is influenced greatly by this.
Once you have chosen your location, you need to think about its purpose. Today it is not just the national flags that you find in your neighborhood, but also the ones for advertising. There are logos, slogans and emblem on the flags of organizations, government buildings, colleges and universities, sports franchise, etc. These business flags are mounted to attain maximum visibility. These can be an alternative to the advertising banners as these receive respect. These permanent fixtures need to be tall and sturdy. The stainless steel flagpole is the ideal choice as the alloy elements have the following features: corrosion resistance, heat resistance, fire resistance, aesthetic appearance, ease of fabrication, impact resistance, etc. You must not forget to take into account the length of the pole. If there is an obstruction to the view, you might need longer poles that would not bend or fall at any cost.
The galvanized flagpole would ensure that it is highly durable. Due to their high resistance to rusting these are perfect for even those coastal locations where rusting occurs quicker. If required you have the versatility to choose a dramatic color that would make your flagpole standout. However, this is a rare phenomenon as they are considered to be better the way they are.
There are expert manufacturers whom you can find online who would take into account your requirements prior to the construction of the stainless steel flagpoles. The creativity and engineering skills produce the best quality and highly durable poles. These decorative poles are ideal is you are searching for customized solutions. Whether it is for the national flag or your business flag, it is vital that you purchase the poles from the best dealers. The flags would proclaim the existence of your business when the customers would walk by it. This is a great long term investment and an excellent advertising technique. | <urn:uuid:0c5944b4-d0d5-4426-abb3-89fdeada90e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.org/excellent-stainless-steel-flagpole/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956445 | 586 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Ida Matthys, director of the atelier for Sophia Graydon, worked with Erin Hennes, right, on a pattern Monday in northeast Minneapolis.
Glen Stubbe, Star Tribune
Monica Nassif, right, founder and CEO of Sophia Graydon, and Ida Matthys, director of the atelier, stood with coral Italian silk robes, part of the spring collection.
Glen Stubbe, Star Tribune
Stitching a route to bring jobs home
- Article by: DEE DePASS
- Star Tribune
- January 14, 2013 - 9:02 PM
Not long ago, Jen Guarino looked around her J.W. Hulme handbag company in St. Paul and realized something was missing.
"We lost a whole generation of skill development," Guarino said. After 30 years of outsourcing, the U.S. garment and textiles industry is short on workers who know how to cut leather, stitch silk and bind seams into beautiful purses and garments ready for the showroom floor.
With older textile workers retiring, "We are running at an incredible rate right now and we can't find skilled labor," Guarino said. Determined to fix the problem, she tapped community colleges, hired interns and then convened industry friends for a brainstorming session.
The result is the Makers Coalition, a group of 16 midwestern manufacturers determined to create jobs by teaching American students to use industrial cutters, steamers and factory sewing machines to fabricate garments, purses, satchels, bedding and other products, right here in the United States.
The first 22-week course starts Wednesday at Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis. Tuition is $3,600, but most students will receive scholarships. The first class has 20 students.
While the Makers Coalition was founded by Guarino, the CEO of J.W. Hulme Co., she is not in this alone.
Lifetrack Resources, a St. Paul-based nonprofit, applied for and won a $75,000 Twin Cities United Way grant to cover scholarships. Dunwoody College of Technology helped with the curriculum, workshop space and some equipment.
Other businesses joining the coalition include handbag maker Urban Junket, the northeast Minneapolis luxury sleepwear company Sophia Graydon, dance-costume maker Kellé Cos., sewing contractor Airtex Design Group and Pierrepont Hicks, which makes men's silk ties, boots and blankets.
Students going through the program will learn to cut patterns, use industrial-grade sewing machines and handle materials ranging from dainty silks and chiffons to coarse leather and thick canvas.
"The real strength of this training is that it is being developed in close collaboration with industry leaders and local business owners," said Tatjana Hutnyak, business services manager at Lifetrack Resources. "Program graduates will gain a specific skill set that is a great fit and is in direct demand by employers."
Coalition businesses said they hope to hire graduates. Others hope they can develop enough new local talent to lure overseas sewing contracts stateside.
"There are hundreds of thousands of people out of work in the white-collar sector and beyond, while we have a crisis-level lack of skilled workers in U.S. manufacturing,'' Guarino said. "We need to quickly redress that balance and begin repairing manufacturing for the future."
Instruction will focus on industry standards, material handling, proper cutting and sewing techniques, equipment and tips of the trade. In addition to course work, students will intern at coalition businesses to gain hands-on experience.
Monica Nassif, owner of Sophia Graydon, said she's looking forward to training an intern in the art of handling fine and exacting fabrics.
Nassif's eight full- and part-time workers currently design, cut, pin and sew sleepwear samples in Minneapolis. Full production for the line of high-end cashmere, silk, linen and cotton lounge wear takes place in New York.
"They do some beautiful work in New York. But I'd prefer to have the work done here," Nassif said. "This Dunwoody program is really geared toward production."
Upon graduation, students will receive an industry certificate as a sewing and production specialist. The hope is that graduates will find permanent jobs in the garment or sewing industry that pay $12 to $16 an hour.
While classes formally start this month, the project has been a long time coming. Coalition members held their first brainstorming session nearly a year ago and then formed a board of directors.
Dee DePass • 612-673-7725
© 2013 Star Tribune | <urn:uuid:16a6fdc3-bd7c-4982-ab77-c21585f57690> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.startribune.com/printarticle/?id=186801631 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939946 | 967 | 1.601563 | 2 |
In addition, air quality is a concern, with high ozone levels expected today, for Southeastern Pennsylvania and all of New Jersey. Anyone with a lung condition, such as asthma, should avoid exertion or prolonged exposure outdoors. For more, go to AIRNow.gov.
Thursday is expected to be worse with a high approaching the record of 99 for June 21, which has stood since 1923.
Such conditions can be health-threatening, especially to children, the elderly, the infirm, and anyone doing strenuous activity outdoors. Use fans and air-conditioning, drink plenty of fluids, and, if you have to be outside, work in rest breaks indoors or in the shade.
Anyone with heat-related medical questions or concerns can call 215-765-9040, the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging's Heatline, today from noon till midnight, and Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to midnight. City Health Department nurses will be on-site to speak with callers.
Friday will see some relief under partly sunny skies with a chance of showers and thunderstorms and a high of 92. Conditions will feel more comfortable, with lower humidity, and with lows dipping to 68.
"It won't drop off a lot," said Hayes, who noted normal high temperatures are in the mid 80s for this time of year. "The record for Friday is 100. I don't think we'll see that. But we'll be a good 12 to 15 degrees above normal for the next few days."
Hayes explained that the cooler air, "will come in pieces," starting on Friday, then more on Saturday.
"So we'll have to wait a few days before we see a significant difference," Hayes said.
Saturday should see a high of about 87 and a low of 66. The forecast for Sunday is similar.
For the record, the summer solstice is 7:09 p.m. — that astronomical moment in time when the Sun reaches its most northern point in the sky, and marks the longest day of the year. After today, the days start getting shorter.
For more on the forecast, see Philly.com's weather page. | <urn:uuid:fcab5070-c33f-43ae-922a-c5551c432a70> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.philly.com/2012-06-21/news/32336434_1_excessive-heat-warning-high-ozone-levels-unhealthful-air | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957298 | 443 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Each spring, high school students from the Museum Ambassadors program facilitate a Family and Community Day for the public. Hailing from all corners of the Cleveland area, these 10th-12th graders create projects summarizing their experiences at the museum during the past school year. Prior to the April 29th Community Day, students met with museum staff, planned an activity for visitors, and marketed the event in their schools and communities. This year more than 800 visitors participated.
It’s never too early to gain experience in a field of interest, especially as a high school student. For Aaron, Jake, Patrick, and Leah, tenth grade students at Trinity High School, they are getting a head start on their careers by interning in the museum’s curatorial department every Thursday for the entire school year.
By Robin VanLear Artistic Director of Community Arts I recently spent 10 days in New Orleans for Mardi Gras in hopes of inspiration and ideas to bring more music to Parade the Circle,the museum’s annual June event. New Orleans is known for its music. Cleveland is known for its music. | <urn:uuid:3c6ae329-aa97-4bf4-9b24-f38096b86eb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clevelandart.org/tags/high | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970768 | 228 | 1.757813 | 2 |
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Courses in this program are listed under RLST.
The Religious Studies Program, available as a minor, gives students a broad knowledge of humanity's rich religious heritage and increases their appreciation of the human religious experience. The program is interdisciplinary, drawing on the resources of many departments.
Professors from seven UMBC departments, as well as visiting instructors, offer courses in the Religious Studies Program.
The variety of responses that belief systems historically have given to such questions as the existence of good and evil, the problem of undeserved suffering, the role of religion in secular society and the afterlife, and the historical dimensions of religion all are considered.
The interdisciplinary nature of the minor, which combines different approaches to the study of religion, should make it appealing to students of widely differing backgrounds and majors.
To earn a minor in religious studies, in addition to their major in another field, students must complete 18 credits in approved religious studies courses. RLST 100 (also listed as HIST 120), RLST 200 and RLST 349 (also listed as SOCY 349) are required. In choosing their remaining nine credits, students should bear in mind the following rules:
No more than nine of the 18 total credits may be from any one department
A grade of “C” or better must be earned in all courses applied toward the minor
A course taken on a P/F basis will not count toward the minor
At least nine credits of the total 18 must be at the 300-400 level.
Students interested in concentrating in religious studies as a minor field should consult the director in the Department of History for assistance in choosing appropriate courses.
The program director provides advising for students in the program.
Evening courses are sometimes available, but the program cannot be completed on a part-time, evening basis. | <urn:uuid:c8c58a91-1b51-4bf1-80c1-e8209b0e672a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.umbc.edu/catalog/2011/display.php?major=37 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936299 | 452 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Collectible Casino Chips
Collectors Turn to Casino Chips, Seeking Fun, Profit and a Link to Gambling History Through These Fascinating and Colorful Pieces of Clay and Plastic That Don't Lose Their Value Even After They Leave the Gaming Table
From the Print Edition:
Michael Douglas, May/Jun 98
It was December 31, 1958. New Year's Eve in Cuba. Thousands of partiers were gambling in the island's famous Havana casinos--among them the Flamingo, Riviera, Tropicana, Hilton and Capri. The reveling ended, however, with word that Cuban President Fulgencio Batista had fled the country, leaving it to revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara. With a new government poised to take control of the island in the coming days, Cuban peasants sacked the casinos that had long barred them from entering. Gaming tables and slot machines were avenues.
Nearly 30 years later, the value of those chips has been restored many times over. Cuban chips have become prized possessions to many within the expanding cadre of casino chip collectors.
It's not the value of Cuban chips, however, that attract most of today's collectors.
"I felt they had true beauty, the artwork and history behind them," says one New York chip collector who doesn't want his identity known, should it make it more difficult for him to bring chips out of Cuba. "The reason I started collecting Cuban chips is because the casino business is interwoven with the history of Cuba. It is one of the few places where there was an immediate cessation of gambling--at midnight on December 31st, 1958. The Revolution and antigaming sentiment is interwoven."
While a handful of enthusiasts around the world collect Cuban chips, it is the modern-day gaming chip, primarily from the post-Second World War era in Las Vegas, that is most prized by the majority of collectors. That period is bracketed by the first hotel and casino on the Las Vegas strip, the El Rancho Vegas, which opened in 1941 and closed in 1960, and the strip's latest gaming establishment, New York-New York, which opened in early 1997.
Ten years ago, casino chip collectors in the United States numbered fewer than 25. Many of them were gamblers who slipped a chip into their pocket as a memento of the action. Today, there are approximately 2,000 active members in the nonprofit Casino Chip and Gaming Token Collectors Club (CC>CC), making it the largest specialty club within the American Numismatic Association. At the club's 1997 convention at the Aladdin casino in Las Vegas, collectors bid a total of $47,000 at auction for a variety of casino chips.
The growth of the hobby has been nothing less than unbelievable to longtime collectors, many of whom thought they were the only ones quirky enough to care for little, round pieces of clay and plastic stamped with the names of long-forgotten casinos. Two recent developments have fueled collector interest in casino chips. The first is the steady spread of gambling across the United States. "Every time a new gaming jurisdiction opens up, the people from that area become instant chip collectors," says CC>CC founder and president Archie Black. The second reason may be evident to anyone who's visited a casino in the past few years. New computer-aided design capabilities, laser-etching technologies and manufacturing techniques now allow manufacturers to produce chips with beautiful full-color designs and photographs. Today's chips rarely have only the denomination and casino name stamped on either side.
Most casinos now regularly issue limited editions of chips to commemorate casino events: a George Foreman fight chip from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, a George Burns 100th birthday chip from Caesars Palace Las Vegas, a Luciano Pavarotti chip from Foxwoods in Connecticut and Resorts International in Atlantic City, and a Kentucky Derby chip from the Tropicana in Las Vegas and in Atlantic City. These commemorative chips are "live" and can be used at the gaming tables, though they're usually snapped up by collectors within days of their issue.
The beauty of collecting casino chips lies in their value from the onset. Most other collectibles lose value after being bought at retail and then may slowly appreciate. Baseball cards, for example, become valuable only after certain star players have noteworthy careers. The majority of all other cards remain worthless. That's not the case with casino chips. "If you buy a chip off the table at face value, you can always cash it back in for exactly what you paid for it," says Black. "If the casino goes bankrupt or changes name, the chip is worth even more."
While collectors enjoy watching the value of their collections grow, most acquire chips today because they are drawn to the history of towns such as Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Havana. "When I was growing up here, I remember certain clubs that are no longer downtown or on the Strip," says Ron Lurie, who was mayor of Las Vegas from 1987 to 1991 and is now the director of marketing for Arizona Charlie's hotel and casino. "There was the Lucky Club, Diamond Jim's, the Boulder Club and one special club--the Pussycat a'GoGo. They had one little craps table and one 21 table. It was just a place to go to dance and hang out for people of our age. That's where I met my wife." When Lurie started collecting casino chips two years ago, he went about acquiring the usual commemorative chips as well as those from the old Las Vegas casinos. Lurie now has about 700 chips in his collection, but it's a single chip from the Pussycat a'GoGo, now worth about $75, that is one of his prized possessions.
You must be logged in to post a comment. | <urn:uuid:56090700-88bb-4b51-89bc-343801881751> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cigaraficionado.com/webfeatures/show/id/Collectible-Casino-Chips_8118 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962311 | 1,192 | 1.6875 | 2 |
DENVER (AP) -- The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will do another environmental analysis of drilling on Colorado's Roan Plateau looking at a range of options, including revoking existing oil and natural gas leases.
The agency announced its plan Friday in response to a ruling by a federal judge in June faulting it for not following protocol when it approved drilling on the plateau, which looms over the Colorado River.
The BLM said it will also look at barring drilling on its top -- as proposed by Garfield County communities -- as well as allowing the existing leases to continue. The review will also consider the cumulative effects of drilling in the surrounding area.
The BLM approved phased-in drilling on the Roan in 2007 and environmental groups sued to block it. | <urn:uuid:004cc7d6-89b9-48a4-a79c-2b7c6c645b36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbc11news.com/home/headlines/Roan-Plateau-options-include-revoking-leases-188419711.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964433 | 155 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Gardner's Gangster's Hangout
The Riviera Roadhouse in Gardner has a fascinating history. Jack Rittenhouse mentions it in his guide book as a cafe at the intersection of the road into Gardner and Route 66. The Riviera Restaurant and Tavern was built in 1928. James Girot, a South Wilmington businessman, moved buildings from Gardner and South Wilmington and put them all together to form the Riviera structure as it stands today. The Riviera is a true roadhouse! Once movie legends Gene Kelly and Tom Mix regularly stopped here. This was a favorite haunt of Al Capone and was known as a gangster hangout too. Slot machines and booze were offered to the discrete customer during prohibition. In fact, there's a freezer in the basement with a heavy iron door that was used to hide booze and gambling machines in case of a raid.
Today the Riviera still serves the traveler a good home cooked meal and a stop at the Riviera is to step back in time to the 1930s and 1940s. Speaking of stepping back, while at the Riviera make sure to step out back and see the old Streetcar Diner. The Streetcar Diner is a preservation project of the Illinois Route 66 Association. The Preservation Committee rescued it from destruction and are in the process of restoring it now.
The streetcar is over one hundred years old and yes it truly was a horse drawn streetcar at one time. In 1932 George Kaldem purchased it with the intention of converting it into a roadside diner and moved the streetcar to Gardner. This was a no-frills operation, simple and to the point. A small sign on the exterior identified it as a diner, and its reputation for good food soon brought in the customers. For a while it was even used as an unofficial bus stop for the Greyhound line. The diner closed in 1939 but its history was not complete yet. Over the years it became a summer cottage, a children’s playhouse and rental property for workers at the Joliet Arsenal in W.W. II. In 1955 Gordon Gunderson who had married the daughter of Jim Girot, original owner of the Riviera Restaurant purchased the streetcar, and the streetcar was moved once more to its present location behind the Riviera.
It was used as a place for family reunions, picnics, lodging for fisherman and eventually a storage shed. Over the years the diner fell into disrepair until John Weiss, the President of the Illinois Route 66 Preservation Committee discovered it. Restoration then began on this historic streetcar and diner from the early days of Route 66. The dinner is not quite complete yet, but knowing the Illinois crew it will be soon! Thanks guys for preserving a part of our past in Gardner.
Quote from: The Road Wanderer
|Scale Model Riviera Roadhouse (1:100)|
Fire destroys Riviera Restaurant
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
GARDNER — Much history went up in smoke Tuesday when flames leveled the Riviera Restaurant on Old Route 66, a reputed favorite hangout of Chicago mobster Al Capone. Authorities were not saying earlier today if arson was involved. However, investigators were checking the smoking embers this morning, and Gardner Fire Chief Randy Wilkey said the site is currently being treated as a crime scene. Oddly enough, the front wall of the restaurant, still bearing the name, Riviera, remained standing while flames gutted the rest of the building Tuesday night. The wall was still in place earlier today, noted passerby Jim Serena, who was the second on the scene when the Gardner Fire Department was dispatched at 7:04 p.m. Tuesday to the site.
Built in 1928, the Riviera was 50 percent engulfed in flames when Gardner firefighters arrived. The restaurant is four to five miles north of the village on the “Mother Road,” as Old Route 66 is known. “Because of the structure of the building and its layout, the fire spread pretty rapidly”, Wilkey said today. “We set up a defense attack, and saved what we could save”. The Riviera has been closed, and no one was in the restaurant, nor the living quarters at the back of the structure, at the time of the blaze. “It had been closed down, and had gone back to the original owners”, Wilkey said. “There was a leasee who was leasing the building, and he had backed out of his lease. The building was unoccupied. Both the residential and commercial sections of the building were unoccupied”.
The building’s history was known throughout the state, and had spread as far as Europe, Wilkey said, recalling the many Europeans who have regularly stopped at the Gardner Fire Station, local police department and other establishments through the years for directions to the site“. They were fascinated”, he said.
More than 23 area fire departments were at the scene Tuesday. Due to some miscommunication with a couple of police dispatch centers, some fire departments were delayed in their response.“Whether the dispatch centers were overwhelmed, I can’t answer that question”, Wilkey said. “All I know is, we had some area departments that should have been there that were not dispatched to be there”.
Article from: Morris Daily Herald | <urn:uuid:75da9f21-62db-42b6-9ce0-11cfb47bf675> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://route66art.blogspot.com/2012/01/scale-models-riviera-roadhouse.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981738 | 1,095 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Disguised members of the "hacktivist" group called Anonymous took to the streets of Los Angeles in March 2008 to protest near buildings associated with the Church of Scientology. Similar demonstrations were held in cities mainly in the U.S. and Europe.
Originally published on Fri September 16, 2011 5:17 pm
"Hacktivists" are hitting the streets.
The cyberguerrilla group Anonymous — known for high-profile computer attacks on corporate and government targets — is urging its followers to come out from behind their PCs on Saturday and occupy Wall Street.
The aim: an Arab Spring-style protest over the "abuse and corruption of corporations, banks and governments."
Time was when it took a fair amount of expertise to launch the kinds of illegal computer attacks that have become the hallmarks of "hacktivist" groups like Anonymous.
Today, just about anyone can download user-friendly software capable of crippling websites. One such tool is LOIC [Low Orbit Ion Cannon], which was used in Anonymous' attack on MasterCard, Visa and other companies late last year.
It's rumored that the group will release another weapon, called #RefRef, on Saturday.
One of the most popular sports in Ireland is the rough contact game of hurling.
It was created by ancient Celtic warriors, and now it's found a niche following among some soldiers in the U.S. A group of National Guardsmen in New Hampshire formed a hurling team to stay in shape after Middle East deployments.
Statistics released today by the Justice Department show that the number of violent crimes in the country continued their downward trend, dropping a surprising 12 percent in 2010.
The AP reports:
The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported there were 3.8 million violent crimes last year, down from 4.3 million in 2009. Experts aren't sure why. The expectation had been that crime would increase in a weak economy with high unemployment like that seen in 2010.
A view of the Campo Rubiales oil field camp in eastern Colombia, in April 2010. Colombia's oil production has doubled since 2005 with the help of oil workers who were fired nearly a decade ago by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, shown during a debate on Sept. 12 in Tampa, has come under fire for an executive order he issued in 2007 mandating that young girls in Texas receive the HPV vaccine.
The most dramatic moment of the GOP debate in Florida last Monday revolved around Gov. Rick Perry and his 2007 executive order mandating that all 11- and 12-year-old girls in Texas get the HPV vaccine. The human papillomavirus vaccine protects women and teens against a sexually transmitted disease that causes cervical cancer.
During the debate, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann called Perry's executive order an example of crony capitalism.
The Davis-Monthan Air Force base in Tucson, Ariz. is on lockdown. The AP, as well as local news outlets, report the Air Force base has confirmed that it has stepped up security, but it refused to give details of the situation.
The AP reports:
Senior Airman Timothy Dunaway says traffic has been reduced to a single point entry but he refused to elaborate.
He says the Sonoran Science Academy on the base is on lockdown.
Republican leaders in Pennsylvania's Legislature want to change how Electoral College votes in the state are allocated. Changing from a winner-takes-all system to a proportionate one based on congressional districts could help the GOP candidate gain a few extra votes in 2012. But the plan is controversial — even among Republicans. | <urn:uuid:dcb848f4-daaf-4c00-860d-cec88e75450f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ketr.org/node?page=2975 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969505 | 737 | 1.71875 | 2 |
You might have heard about the recent kerfuffle over the Facebook terms of service. If you didn’t, this brief summary from Rocketboom will get you up to speed.
Mostly, it was about whether or not you could revoke their license to use and distribute your material by deleting your account. Their argument was that they couldn’t practically delete material from their backups and, if you’d sent things to someone else, they weren’t willing to delete that material if you deleted your account. These aren’t unreasonable concerns, but their approach was to require perpetual licenses for all material and all uses. The change was far broader than needed to achieve those goals – more nuance was required in their terms. After lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth, Facebook withdrew their initial set of changes, then, a few days ago, released a re-written set of terms that appear to be much less contentious. In particular, they explicitly state ‘People should own their information’. Hear, hear.
But, that’s not the point of this post. I’m interested in the fact that they’ve chosen to release two documents; one a high-level statement of principles, the other a statement of user rights and responsibilities. Compared to the old terms, which were legalistic and dense, these documents are quite readable. This, I applaud.
It’s not entirely clear, however, which one of them represents the real terms and conditions. Which is legally binding? If there’s a conflict, which takes priority? If they’re not binding, then where are the real terms of service? Most likely, the statement of user rights and responsibilities is meant to be the binding terms and conditions.
Generally, I really like the idea of providing a human-readable license alongside a legally rigorous version, because no one really ever reads terms of service, even though they should, and at least part of the reason is that they’re generally impenetrable. If the relationship between the two is clear and there are no incongruities, then great! Of course, language often isn’t that precise, and you can see how problems might arise.
A great example of this approach is in the Creative Commons license. When they were launched, much was said about licenses being written ‘legal code’ in that we have trained engineers and machines to read and use them, being lawyers and courts respectively. Let’s run with this, and see how a few concepts from software can be applied.
Software design are just common ways of thinking and solving particular problems that crop up again and again in various contexts. They might be abstract, and pertain to the way code is written (such as the decorator and singleton patterns), or they might be more concrete features that are applied such as, for example, common interface widgets like menus, scroll bars, and drop down boxes. In some form, design patterns probably appear in everything that people design. However, in software, these patterns are explicitly sought for, studied and re-applied. I’m not aware of this being a common practice in law, but I would expect the benefits of clarity, scalability, and re-usability that this brings to software engineering would be really useful in legal engineering.
Like software, legal systems can become horribly complex. In software, a major means of reducing this complexity is to employ modularity – problems are defeated by dividing and conquering. Where possible, software consists not of a single monolith of tightly coupled code, but of hierarchically organized components that interact cohesively. Benefits of this approach are a reduction in complexity, re-usability and portability of parts, and conceptual tools for analyzing and engineering models of complex systems. Various coding paradigms exist, the best known of which is object oriented programming; aspect-oriented programming and programming by contract are other paradigms that facilitate modularity. In law, there’s obviously some modularity (law is broken down into individual acts and codes, which are broken into articles, sections, clauses and so forth). Unlike well-engineered software, however, these components are strictly hierarchical and cannot be taken out of context.
Wrappers are an example of a pattern that allows software engineers to insulate themselves from the idiosyncracies of a messy component, a third-party driver, or a piece of hardware. Basically, an engineer writes a piece of code that knows all about how to handle the mess, then presents a nice clean interface that other engineers can work with without having to learn about the details of the mess themselves. Imagine if, instead of having to read all of the messy details of a complex license, you could just inquire, through a simple, well-defined interface, if certain conditions were true.
Before any of this makes sense, it’s important to consider the difference between informal language (that which we use every day), and formal language, where the meaning of all symbols and elements is defined within a particular lexicon, much as all software languages are. That is, legal writing needs to follow formal rules. One obvious problem here is that is required to be able to address pretty much any conceivable situation; this is effectively impossible to do with formal language, as you quickly end up with self-referentiality (which then allows self-contradiction a la the Epimenides paradox). If you don’t believe me, read Hofstadter’s ‘Gödel, Escher, Bach’ first, then argue with me. To overcome this problem, then, we need to have some way of insulating the parts that can be modeled formally (effectively, the parts that are most clear and logic) from the parts that cannot (effectively, everything that’s subjective in some way). The wrapper pattern mentioned above allows for this – tokens can be used to represent subjective elements; these tokens are treated as simple propositions within the formal part of the system, then spat out at the end. Incidentally, this is how propositional logic, and almost all written reasoning works. However, lest I make this sound easy, I should mention that while, hypothetically, this is possible, it’s unclear whether or not the resulting system of formal law and subjective tokens are workable.
If, hypothetically, enough of the mechanics of law could be formalized in such a way that it can be treated computationally, all sorts of things become possible. Firstly, there no longer needs be a legal priesthood whose job it is to parse the complexities of legal argument and language and explain this to the masses – this can be by software, and learned systematically. Imagine if legal code could be translated through some filter into a human-readable form. Imagine if you could query, using a well-defined interface whether a body of law has certain properties, or if certain activities are true. Imagine if law was extensible and modular. Imagine if the legal system was simple, accessible, and thin enough that legal disputes could be resolved in a matter of seconds rather than years, through software interfaces rather than the courts.
I don’t know which parts of this are actually plausible, or if it’s even possible. However, it t would make damned interesting research project for someone. I wonder if someone’s already tried..
I’ve been using the chat client Digsby for a while now, and it’s pretty awesome. It’s comparatively new (less than a year), but quite stable, feature complete, and adds a bunch of new features that simplify things substantially.
Given the proliferation of social networks and messaging networks, it’s quite nice to have one tool that bridges them. I don’t have to deal with the fact that not everyone uses the same tools – Digsby gives me a list of everyone, and when I want to talk with them, it just works.
I love tools that hide complexity without being simplistic.
If you’re in the business of writing and delivering presentations and you think that there might be people out there interested in seeing them, I heartily recommend SlideShare.
It’s simple – make an account, fill out your profile, then upload presentations as PowerPoint files or PDFs. Then they’re viewable in your browser using their flash widget. You can restrict who has access to slides, or make them public. There’s even a full screen presentation mode; in principle, you could substitute it for actually hauling copies of your presentations around with you – just bring them up in the browser..
Anyway, I’ve chucked up a bunch of old presentations from my Masters. Later I’ll upload some more recent works including the lecture slides for Educ122. All available at http://www.slideshare.net/xorgnz | <urn:uuid:611e5e10-a479-4708-983c-c73a976730a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.meme-hazard.org/blog/tag/software/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955854 | 1,838 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Woman Offers Meditation To The Homeless
Apr. 4 - KGO (KGO) -- If you are homeless in the Bay Area, there are a number of places you can turn to for shelter, clothing and food. But none is as unusual as a one-woman effort now underway in San Francisco. She's offering peace of mind.
The practice of meditation has been around for thousands of years. But what's happening in this room is unique. This is believed to be the first meditation project in the nation designed for those who are homeless or living on the edge.
Rev. Jana Drakka, Buddhist monk: "Our aim is to be at peace with whatever comes up."
You might think meditation is something only yuppies do, but one purpose of meditation is to reduce stress, and as anyone living on the streets will tell you, it's certainly stressful being homeless.
Rev. Jana Drakka, Buddhist monk: "I have had people, especially when I first started doing this about three years ago, people would say are you crazy."
Rev. Jana Drakka is a Buddhist monk who grew up in Scotland. She first began working with the homeless by going into the city's single room hotels to conduct funeral services for those who died. Meditation is her way of helping the living.
Rev. Jana Drakka, Buddhist monk: "Everything in this life can and will be taken away from us, but while we're alive, there's one thing no one can take away. They can take away your home, your job, your health can go, but freedom of mind -- we are all free."
Steve Eastman believes meditation is helping him move forward despite being surrounded by poverty, violence, alcohol and drugs.
Steve Eastman, meditation client: "The more calm, the more centered, the more rational you are, the more likely it is that you can get some services or find some help."
Carla Thompson, meditation client: "People are doing drugs and alcohol because they are looking for an escape. They are looking for peace and someone needs to teach them how to become at peace with themselves."
That's what 54-year-old monk, Priscilla Fleischer, is trying to do. She facilitates five groups a week. Priscilla Fleischer is a clinical social worker from UCSF. She works with the homeless and sometimes sits in on the sessions.
Priscilla Fleischer, UCSF: "She has offered to people who one would not think could benefit from this kind of intervention, I think a lot of hope."
At a drop in center in the Tenderloin, Drakka adds movement and stretching along with deep breathing exercises. Research has been done on the medical benefits of meditation, but not specifically on this population and these sessions. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence.
Anibal Mejia, Mission Neighborhood Resource Ctr.: "We've seen a lot of our clients who've attended the groups regularly use a little bit less drugs or cease using drugs."
Carlos Mendoza Hernandez, Tenderloin Housing Clinic: "Their attitudes have changed completely. They are able to focus on every day, normal life."
Drakka was once homeless herself. Now, as a monk she lives at the San Francisco Zen Center and considers the meditation sessions a way of giving back to the community.
Porter Davis, Meditation Client: "She's reaching out to try to engage people in something she has a passion for."
Drakka receives no money for her work, but would like to expand the program. And is hoping to do that someday with community support.
For more information please click on: www.sfzc.org
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- weather: Bay Area weather forecast for Wednesday | <urn:uuid:dd63c9c8-b368-40b3-848a-9563ff1f6101> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/assignment_7&id=5184227 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964648 | 891 | 1.789063 | 2 |
SCOTUS to take up Myriad gene patent case
The U.S. Supreme Court will determine whether human genes can be patented, Reuters reports. That's potentially bad news for Myriad Genetics ($MYGN), only a few months after the company won a U.S. Court of Appeals legal victory affirming its right to protect intellectual property for isolated genes involved in its cancer tests.
Specifically, the Myriad case will be the focus of the Supreme Court review--an ongoing fight to protect patents regarding two genes linked respectively to hereditary breast and ovarian cancers, the story explains. The court agreed on Friday that it would hear the case.
In August, the company prevailed in a 2-1 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Patient and medical advocates have long opposed the patent, arguing that the legal protection holds back scientific progress, and that you can't patent what is a product of nature anyway.
At issue: whether the company's isolation of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes is a patentable thing.
The Supreme Court's decision to take up the case was expected. Longer term, it creates some risk for Myriad, which has been generating banner revenue thanks in part to its BRACAnalysis test. The test, at issue under the legal case, generates the bulk of Myriad's revenue and continues to be in high demand. It is a gene-expression assay that can determine a woman's risk of developing breast cancer. | <urn:uuid:6cc52bc9-849c-4e92-a2ea-388c9b4b883c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fiercemedicaldevices.com/story/scotus-take-myriad-gene-patent-case/2012-11-30 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934331 | 304 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Have you considered using GLI?
I saw it, but I wrote my own instead. I did so for several reasons:
1: GLI has too narrow of a focus. It centers around the `texture2D`. That's great... unless you're not working with 2D textures. I see no need to have that restriction. Why are 3D textures, cubemaps, arrays, etc forbidden? I know that GL Image currently only implements 1D and 2D textures, but I'm going to start cubemaps soon.
2: Relative difficulty to use. There is no quick and easy way of just telling it to upload a `texture2D` to OpenGL. My GL Image library takes of 3 lines to go from a file to an OpenGL texture. And the last one is just a deletion of the glimg::ImageSet object, so if you stick it in a smart pointer, it only takes 2. The SDK is intended for new users. And while I'm totally fine with new users seeing the details of how texture uploading actually works, I would rather they do so in a proper, structured learning environment. IE: my tutorials.
3: Undocumented. This is a deal-breaker for me. The SDK is for a relatively new user, so clear and strong documentation is absolutely paramount.
The other issues are just personal pet-peeves of mine. I don't get why you needed the GTX vs. core concept here. In GLM, that made sense, as you want a demarcation between what GLSL provides (GLM core) and what additional convenience functions you've added.
Also, it's header-only. Again, in GLM, that made sense, as most of the functions were tiny and templated. `texture2D` is not a template. `gli::load` is not a template. I just don't feel that I should have to compile the entire C++ source to a DDS loader, in every .cpp file that I include it in, just to be able to load DDS's. This is what static libraries are for, after all. Not everything needs to be header-only.
Overall, I just felt that it wasn't ready for the SDK. GLM is a much more mature tool, while GLI seems to be simply whatever you needed for your examples. Plus, writing an image loader wasn't that hard. | <urn:uuid:17165493-0134-47b1-a7ac-17cdd159c074> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/showthread.php/176192-Suggestions-feedbac-for-the-Unofficial-OpenGL-SDK?p=1230400 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964373 | 498 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Where you argue and what it says about your relationship
After a row, when couples have a post-mortem, they pour over what was said and how they feel. The last thing they analyse is where the argument happened. But maybe they should, marital therapist Andrew G Marshall has been surveying where couples fight. He believes that the location can reveal what the conflict is really about.
Top Three Places for arguments
It’s not just back seat driving, traffic jams and poor map reading that makes the car the place you are most likely to have a row. In our busy 21st century lives, it is one of the few extended times that we spend with our partners. Unlike at home, it is hard to storm off when arguments get heated. Plus with the driver’s attention fixed on the road, we think a controversial issue might be easier to slip into general conversation. Certainly our partner will find it harder to spot if we are anxious, blushing or being devious. However without direct eye, our body language and intentions and more likely to be misunderstood.
What it says about your relationship: With a driver and a passenger, nowhere are the issues of control and power more out in the open. Arguments in the car are really about who is in charge. Modern couples like to feel they are equal, but underneath the surface one half often feels powerless.
Solve it: In successful relationships control is divided. For example one will be in charge of money while the other organises the social life. Draw up a list of activities, areas of the house and responsibilities and put down who has the final say by each. If the balance is uneven, discuss which areas can be passed over. Always consult your partner in your areas and be careful not to belittle their opinions.
This is mission control in any house and the place that couples are most likely to meet at stressful times – like first thing in the morning. The kitchen also throws up plenty of fuel for a row: washing up left lying around, clothes not taken out of the tumble drier or using the last of the milk. If you have children, it often provides somewhere to hiss at each other away from prying ears – busy watching TV in the living room or finishing their homework in their bedrooms.
What it says about your relationship: Do you really feel appreciated? At the bottom of many domestic arguments: one half or both feel taken for granted. However rather than focus on the causes, many couples unwittingly concentrate on the small surface issues and beat themselves up because they believe the rows are out of all proportion.
Solve it: Complements and ‘thank you’ are really important. Nobody can ever have enough praise. When first courting, we leave each other notes and buy surprise bars of chocolate – don’t stop just because the relationship is established. Next time you tell your partner they love them – add on one of the reasons why. It might seem like a joke: ‘because you make a mean lasagne’ but it makes you love declaration seem less of a reflex and more grounded.
3. Out and About
Many couples deliberately discuss controversial subjects in coffee shops and restaurants. They feel it is harder to lose their tempers in public and hope witnesses will keep them both rational. Other couples row at parties after alcohol has loosened their tongues or because secretly they hope friends or family will take their side. Finally, shopping with your partner is another opportunity for conflict.
What it says about your relationship: In these relationships, an argument is often seen as a failure. You try and be rational and many times convince yourself there is really nothing major to be angry about – so why upset the apple cart? However a lot of feelings are being repressed.
Solve it: Understand that rows are part of a healthy relationship. Letting off steam can be the first step to solving a dispute. If you are go out to discuss issues to be away from the kids, think again. Hearing their parents bring up issues and solve them is the best way for children to learn how to do it themselves.
Bottom Three Places for arguments
1. Living Room
The television is often the focus in the living room and an ever present excuse not to engage: “could we talk about this later, I’m watching my programme.” Although generally a pacifier, TV can occasionally be the source of conflict. The jealous monitor whether their partner is too interested in semi-clothed actresses or actors. Plot lines can also stand in for submerged issues: “that’s just the sort of thing you’d do.”
What it says about your relationship: These couples are depersonalising their conflict, because they are afraid it will get out of hand. However talking about issues second hand – through the soaps – takes the argument out of your hands into the script writers’.
Solve it: Learn the three key skills of a good row. Don’t criticise the person (you’re lazy) instead criticise the behaviour (please don’t leave the towels on the floor) Tackle one subject at the time. Really listen – rather than rehearse your side of the argument.
Couples are more likely to kiss and make up in the bedroom than row. Although different levels of desire can cause tension, sex in general is such a difficult subject couples repress rather than talk over these issues. If the relationship is in real crisis, one partner will often go earlier and pretend to be asleep when the other finally comes to bed.
What it says about your relationship: Arguing in the bedroom is a sure sign that you are over tired. Tension at bedtimes will make sleep more difficult and further exacerbate the problem. How good is your love life? Has an okay sex life drifted into something boring and unfulfilling.
Solve it: Look at your priorities. Are you taking on too much? How can you change your evenings to give more time to talk and solve problems. Don’t be afraid to also set aside time for love making – so sex is no longer the last effort of an exhausted mind and body.
It is not the soothing effect of nature that makes this the place couples are least likely to fight. Arguing in public is embarrassing enough without having to face witnesses the next day and, unlike family, neighbours are particularly unforgiving and prone to gossiping. The British weather also means, we’re not outside long enough to fall out for half the year.
What it says about your relationship: These arguments are out of control and a sign that a couple can’t live together but can’t let go. They promise that next time round, everything will be better but soon fall into the same old pattern.
Solve it: Agreeing to try harder is not enough. Your relationship needs a major overhaul and that is difficult on your own. Reading self help books is useful but ultimately counselling is best. This will help you unpick destructive patterns which probably have their roots in both of your childhood’s.
Learning to argue effectively is one of the most important steps for putting the passion back into your relationship and is covered in detail in chapters three and four of ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you.’ | <urn:uuid:d6ac570b-9c82-4771-84c8-c55033d4c0c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.andrewgmarshall.com/features/where-you-argue-and-what-it-says-about-your-relationship/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960669 | 1,510 | 1.617188 | 2 |
First we saw it with Romney's comments about the Olympics, now we're seeing it with Romney's comments comparing the state of Israel's economy with that of the Palestinian-controlled territories: Speaking the truth is now politically incorrect and undiplomatic.
Romney's quote via the Associated Press:
As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality[.]
And yet, this is the AP's headline: Romney outrages Palestinians by saying Jewish culture helps make Israel more successful
As if on cue and standing by, the Palestinians screamed RACISM:
The reaction of Palestinian leaders to Romney's comments was swift and pointed.
"What is this man doing here?'' said Saeb Erekat, a top Palestinian official. "Yesterday, he destroyed negotiations by saying Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and today he is saying Israeli culture is more advanced than Palestinian culture. Isn't this racism?''
Let's all pause now and thank Obama and his media minions for turning facts into racism.
Romney continued: "And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things,'' Romney said, citing an innovative business climate, the Jewish history of thriving in difficult circumstances and the "hand of providence.''
And the AP continued [emphasis mine]:
Romney, in comparing the Israeli and Palestinian economies, made no mention of the fact that Israel has controlled the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem since capturing them in the 1967 war. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but continues to control access, and has enforced a crippling border blockade since the Islamic militant Hamas seized the territory in 2007.
And the AP made no mention of the fact that the Palestinians and the Arab countries who use them for PR purposes have targeted innocent Israeli citizens for a half-century now, making these controls necessary -- which means the Palestinians are stewing in the juices of their own making and completely in control of their own fate.
The AP also made no mention of the fact that Israel controlling the borders did not destroy the Palestinian economy. It was Palestinian suicide bombers that made controlling the border necessary -- proving once again that the Palestinians are sleeping in the bed they themselves made.
Knowing how desperate the media is to get Obama elected, what I sniff in the subtext of this AP piece is a jumping off point that will lead Democrats and Obama's Media Palace Guards to start asking if Romney is some sort of closet anti-Semite.
Though everything Romney said was true and complimentary about Jewish and Israeli culture -- that this is a remarkable people who have thrived economically and every other way under the most difficult of circumstances -- it wouldn’t surprise me if the second part of this media narrative doesn’t attempt to twist what Romney said as promoting a Jewish stereotype that will go something like this…
Romney said Joooooz are good at making money!!!!
Obama's in trouble, Romney's trip to Israel was wildly successful, and this means the media must find something -- anything! -- with which to tear Romney down.
We all know that, when it comes to protecting Obama, the media is always eager and ready to scream bigot -- eager and ready to turn facts and compliments and anything it can get its corrupt hands on into racism.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC | <urn:uuid:16bd6d14-084a-481b-a472-eeaf6d857d33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/07/30/Racism-Romney-Palestinians | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95577 | 746 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images
Addressing the delegates.
Addressing the delegates. Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images
President Barack Obama is this morning delivering his first address to the United Nations General Assembly. As we reported earlier, among the messages he has for other world leaders will be that they can't wait for the USA to solve all of the globe's problems.
You'll have many ways to follow the address. NPR will broadcast it live (click here to find a station near you). NPR.org will be streaming the audio. The cable news networks will have it on the air as well.
And we're live-blogging in this post as the president speaks. Just click "play" below and our updates should flow in automatically. You can also submit comments at the bottom of the player. We'll publish as many as we can while the president's speaking.
Update at 10:50 a.m. ET. The president has finished his address. Now, if you click the "play" button, you can read what he had to say. Or, you can click here for a transcript.: | <urn:uuid:22f27cdf-58dc-42fb-85f5-11a1fbae0d0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/09/obama_addresses_un.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965811 | 230 | 1.5625 | 2 |
So the debates are over and the clear consensus appears to be that President Obama took two out of three. Unfortunately for the president he chose the wrong one to lose, and resoundingly -- the first. That first debate did something that most of the political pundits say presidential debates don't do (short of a major mistake) -- change the direction of the race.
Prior to the Oct. 3 domestic policy debate, the president was gradually building his lead. Major donors who were spending millions of dollars on commercials attacking Obama were wondering if it was time to close the check books. Republicans were disillusioned and baffled as to how their guy was losing to a president when gas prices were so high and the economy still sluggish.
But on Oct. 3, the most watched of the three debates, Romney came off as confident, aggressive and presidential. Obama was laid back and aloof. In the days after, the momentum shifted to Romney. And despite unemployment dropping to 7.8 percent (finally breaking the 8-point barrier) and the president having a strong performance in the Oct. 16 "town hall" debate, the momentum appears to have stayed with Romney, though it has slowed.
Will Monday's final debate on foreign policy, where it was Romney's turn to look passive and unsure, change the election again? My guess is not. Americans do not show much interest in foreign policy until it whacks them over the head (military entanglement in Vietnam leading to unpopular war, Iran hostage crisis, 9/11).
But I think a new strategy announced Tuesday by the Obama campaign could change things and potentially close the deal for the president. President Obama released a minute-long, positive and personal commercial that will be shown in swing states. We are unlikely to see it on Connecticut TV, but you can view it here.
My guess is that those last few undecided voters, sick of the steady stream of attack ads they have seen for months, will embrace this optimistic message, which recalls Reagan's "Morning in America" appeal in the 1984 election. It will be difficult for the Romney camp to respond. Do they attack it, going negative once again and risk further alienating voters? Or do they respond with a positive message of their own, but one less likely to persuade voters to fire Obama?
The president, criticized in this campaign for not offering a vision for his next term, also announced the release of a 20-page booklet: "The New Economic Patriotism: A PLAN FOR JOBS & MIDDLE-CLASS SECURITY". The campaign says 3.5 million copies are being printed and it will be made available online.
It is probably no accident that the more detailed plan on the economy, jobs and energy comes after the debates, limiting Romney's ability to respond and attack it.
Here are the president ideas on the economy, on manufacturing, on small business, his tax and health care proposals, and helping seniors.
Romney has had his five-point economic plan out for sometime now.
All indications are this election will come down to the wire. It should be a wild last two weeks. And don't be surprised if votes are still being counted on Wednesday Nov. 7 in an effort to figure out who won. Of course Connecticut, considered solidly blue for Obama, will be more viewer than participant. | <urn:uuid:655b0288-f179-469e-b1ec-cc6fa8c2668d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shorepublishing.com/article/20121023/INTERACT010201/121029894/0/INTERACT0102 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974798 | 676 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Banks try to put past sins behind them at Davos
By Alexander Smith, ReutersDAVOS, Switzerland -- Leaders of the world's largest banks have gone some way to persuading investors that their industry's near-death experience is over, even though the public still don't trust them.
January 25, 2013, 12:57 am TWN
However, a recent rebound in banking shares — which has pushed the Thomson Reuters Global Banks index up 5 percent this year — possibly hides a crisis still threatening the existence of many in the sector as its leaders meet in Davos.
The Libor rigging scandal, rogue trading, mis-selling, the breaking of anti-money laundering rules and debate over staff bonuses have all ensured the banks remain in the dog house, four years after the financial crisis brought many to their knees.
Banks and financial service companies were once again at the bottom of the pile in the Edelman “Trust Barometer,” released this week in Davos where many bankers are attending the World Economic Forum. Although they scored slightly better in the survey of 26 countries than last year, only 50 percent of respondents said they trust banks and financial institutions, against a 77 percent score for technology companies.
Many are producing profits for shareholders again, but the rules of the game have changed and banks and their advisers recognize it will take years to rebuild public confidence.
“Banks need to change their business models. Financial service providers need to be reminded that it all about service to clients and clients need to be put back at the core. Self-interest has to take a backseat,” Axel Weber, former Bundesbank chief and now chairman of Swiss bank UBS, said on Wednesday.
With senior industry figures predicting that only a handful of major global banks will emerge stronger from the financial crisis, the outlook for those that do not is uncertain. JPMorgan, HSBC and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are those most often mentioned among the winners, with smaller players suffering from higher capital requirements, a low interest rate environment and stiffer regulatory demands.
This has prompted action to cut costs and focus on what bankers often describe as their “core competencies.” UBS, for instance, has cut 10,000 jobs and pulled back from areas such as fixed income trading. Many banks have also staged wholesale retreats from certain businesses, such as commodity trading, or selective withdrawals from countries or regions.
Some, including JPMorgan Chairman and chief executive Jamie Dimon, say the basic banking model is not broken and that the excesses of the precrisis period have been curtailed. “You want financial services, you just don't want them to be leveraged or (to) blow up,” Dimon said during a panel discussion involving bankers, regulators and politicians.
The mantra of putting customers first echoes around the corridors in the Swiss Alpine ski resort, but this is still drowned out by protests about the unintended consequences of regulations aimed at preventing another crisis.
“We should have better regulation, but not necessarily more. We will not achieve (economic) growth unless we have a proper financial industry that lends money that fuels growth,” said Andrey Kostin, chairman and chief executive of Russia's VTB Bank. | <urn:uuid:650e61c2-1809-4218-aae1-afb094b3ee17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/global-markets/2013/01/25/368512/Banks-try.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963155 | 663 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Hi I have to write this illustration essay about a role model,I chose my mother.Can you please tell if this is good enough or do I need to change anything also Im struggling the conlusion.Thank you
To write about my role models, I could have picked teachers, I could have picked
people extremely influential in their field, and I could have picked models and other pleasing individuals.But
instead, I found the perfect combination of all three: my Mother.
My Mother actually is an ordinary woman, but in her tiny appearance lies an extraordinary
brave, amazing and very kind heart.
She cooks food for us, she keeps the house clean and everything in order. All the household things are in
charge of her .She is always around doing something, you never see her taking a break. The only time where
she really rests is during the night when she is sleeping.
My mother has been with me and my brothers since we were born.Her entire life she has dedicated to us, she
took care with a great devotion that only a mother knows how to do it
She is my role model for a lot of reasons.Every time I wake up in the morning I smell a good aroma of a
delicious morning and this is when I understand that my Mum is awake.She is always the first person in my
family to wake up in morning and to make breakfast for me and me brothers because my brothers have to go
to work early in the morning.
Even that my life has gaps my Mum filled all of it.She never left space to feel the absence of my father
because she played very well the role of a father and a perfect role of a mother; a mother that everyone
would like to have.She fights so that we have a better life; life that she dreamed for herself. She never lacked
the courage, so I appreciate her that she never gave up taking into account the big difficulties that we
passed.My Mother is a determined woman who taught me the right direction of my road, more importantly, she
has helped me appreciate this life as a precious gift of ordinary life and true happiness by her kind words.
I always try to help my Mum with the household, but she always refuses my help not because she
doesnít need it, but she tells that she doesnít need my help and tells me to go study.She doesnít want
me to miss my studies.She always reminds me that I have to study hard everyday if I want my
tomorrow to be a better day.
She encourages us with everything we do and shows us that we can do anything if we set our minds to
do it, because of what she has shown me I donít think I will ever be afraid of what the future may
hold.It took me a very long time to understand what strong impact my mum has in my life.With these
virtues she had great influence on me.It made me understand that I had to fight for myself if I want
that next day to be a better day.
Mother is the most precious gift that God has given me.I can not imagine my life without her because
she means everything to me.
She always has good advice and good taste. I admire my mother because she
teaches me about life experience and she takes care of me before she can take
care of herself. My mother works so hard for our family and for my best. When I grow
up I will take care of her as the way she did to me right now. | <urn:uuid:34593ab3-b38b-4b61-a6c0-c2a1968675a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/editing-writing-topics/181878-urgent-illustration-essay-help.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977025 | 737 | 1.5 | 2 |
Canada: Lift Blood Donation Ban for Some Gay Men -- Doctors
May 26, 2010
It is time to relax the 27-year prohibition against blood donation by gay men, says a report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
However, Canadian Blood Services spokesman Ron Vezina responded that the journal article adds no new evidence to the question of the donation ban. Any alteration of the organization's policy would come after a review of data from countries in which the ban has been lifted, he said.
"We're looking forward to when that data comes because we don't think Canadians want to be guinea pigs. We think they want us to make changes that are based on empirical evidence and science," Vezina said.
The ban's chief supporters today include members of the hemophilia community, Wainberg said. In years past, HIV-tainted blood products infected many hemophiliacs.
While saying gay men with multiple sex partners should still be barred from donating blood, the authors proposed that the ban be reduced for monogamous men to one year from the last new sexual encounter.
The article, "Reconsidering the Lifetime Deferral of Blood Donation by Men Who Have Sex With Men," was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (2010; doi: 10.1503/cmaj.091476).
This article was provided by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update. Visit the CDC's website to find out more about their activities, publications and services.
Add Your Comment:
(Please note: Your name and comment will be public, and may even show up in
Internet search results. Be careful when providing personal information! Before
adding your comment, please read TheBody.com's Comment Policy.) | <urn:uuid:db90529d-878d-4551-850a-fad6eb162aeb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thebody.com/content/art56799.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936073 | 381 | 1.726563 | 2 |
JUNEAU -- Yukon Pacific Corp.'s relinquishment of a right-of-way grant for a natural gas pipeline project should have no implications for any future gas line proposals.
That's according to Graham Smith, a spokesman for the state pipeline coordinator's office.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management last week announced that it had received and accepted a request from Yukon Pacific to relinquish a federal right-of-way grant that it had held since 1992.
BLM said the project proposed a pipeline parallel to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and the option of building a liquefied natural gas facility at Valdez. Yukon Pacific lost its conditional state right-of-way grant in 2008 and the project never materialized.
Smith said he doesn't see Yukon Pacific's experience having any implications for future gas line plans. | <urn:uuid:04cba000-3fa8-46af-a2fb-53866f1d7b7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.adn.com/2011/10/31/2148361/yukon-pacific-cedes-gas-pipeline.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945407 | 176 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Nationwide, the shale oil and gas industries will create 1.5 million jobs by 2015 and 3 million jobs by 2020, said the study prepared by energy research firm IHS. Companies invested $87.3 million in the industry in 2012 and that figure will grow to $353 million by 2035, for a net total investment of more than $5 trillion, IHS said.
Pennsylvania ranks No. 2, behind Texas, in shale energy jobs, the report said.
“Shale energy is a game changer for America and for Pennsylvania,” Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the institute, said in a statement.
Shale gas activity in 2012 will generate $1.2 billion in state and local taxes and fees in Pennsylvania, not including the more than $200 million in impact fees collected this year, the HIS study said.
The study credits Pennsylvania with 25,628 direct shale-industry jobs in 2012.
“Shale energy has already provided a major boost to our state, and this study clearly demonstrates that Pennsylvania will see even more jobs and revenue in the coming years,” Gene Barr, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, said in a statement.
Critics have charged that industry studies overstate shale’s jobs impact. Last year, the Keystone Research Center, reacting to reports that the industry had created 48,000 jobs, reviewed state jobs figures and determined that the core industries in Marcellus Shale development created a significantly smaller 9,288 jobs between the fourth quarters of 2007 and 2010, a period of major industry ramp-up, and that ancillary industries had lost employment.
Joining the institute to underwrite the IHS study were the American Petroleum Institute, American Chemistry Council, America’s Natural Gas Alliance and the Natural Gas Supply Association. | <urn:uuid:81b94d2b-7a85-419f-82d4-cad319e1936f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://centralpennbusiness.com/article/20121221/CPBJ01/121229936/0/daily.asp/Study-calculates-shale-energy's-economic-jobs-impact | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944721 | 377 | 1.710938 | 2 |
It seems that recently I keep running into situations where people, that even when given appropriate amount of input, come to distinctly incorrect conclusions. (Hopefully my doctors will be immune from this apparent epidemic.) Rather than get discouraged, I think back to the following anecdote first told to me by my friend Pat an eon ago. It helps me keep my sanity (and my cool).
A researcher was studying crickets.
One day she took a cricket and put it in a large box. She clapped her hands and the cricket jumped.
She then took the cricket out of the box, pulled off one of its legs, and placed the cricket back in the box. When she clapped, the cricket jumped, although not quite as high as the first time when the cricket had all its legs.
She repeated the process a second time; a third time; a fourth time; and a fifth time — until the cricket only had one leg attached. Each time the researcher clapped her hands, the startled cricket would jump.
Finally, the researcher removed the cricket’s last leg. She placed the cricket back in the box and clapped her hands. However, the cricket failed to jump. She clapped again. The cricket remained still. She clapped a third time and still no response from the cricket.
“Ah, ha!”, the researcher concluded. “Crickets without legs cannot hear.”
Thanks for checking in. | <urn:uuid:3c4f8101-9e90-408b-93f2-0c2f2d83d64c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://carlascorner.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/crickets-without-legs/?like=1&_wpnonce=07995c002f | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98036 | 299 | 1.507813 | 2 |
MANY PEOPLE try to start businesses even if they don’t have the personal capital to do so. A few lucky ones acquire investors or grants to get started. Those passionate about starting a business should not worry about the fact that they don’t have money. There are small business loans that they can apply for to get them started. Many people don’t get the business loans because they simply don’t bother to do the research. If they knew what to look for, where to look, and what strategy to use, they would likely be able to get a loan of some kind to help them get their new business off the ground.
Where to look for a small business loan
People assume that all banks loan money to people willing to start up small business. The problem with this assumption is that some banks are very strict when it comes to issuing loans. This probably comes from past experiences that probably ended badly or the bank’s desired focus to offer personal loans only. Those starting small businesses should identify the financial institutions that are willing to offer small business loans. The loans should not be confused with grants which may require someone to meet some certain qualifications.
Strategy used on searching for the loans
The first thing, when thinking about applying for a small business loan, is to identify the bank or financial institution from which you would like to apply for the loan. Thereafter, try to find out what procedures and rates they use for issuing small business loans, as well as the requirements for getting the loan. From there, figure out from the data collected whether or not getting the loan is going to be possible. If the requirements are too difficult to meet or the interest rates or terms are too strict, look for another institution. This is not only smart, but helps one avoid disappointments and frustrations in the future.
What increases chances of getting a small business loan?
- Writing a business plan. In that plan, include everything that has to do with the business. Indicate how much capital is needed, and how it is going to be spread out to meet the needs of the business. How is the business going to survive competition? Such things give the lending party a taste of what should be expected when the business is launched and adds good faith to their investment.
- Issuing the bank some form of collateral. No bank or lending institution wants to give out money to a person who does not have proof that they can pay it back in the event that the new business doesn’t survive the launch. If it comes to that, they need to have something that will compensate the money that has been lost such as a home, vehicles, or other property of significant value.
- Having strong business minds supporting the conception of the business. It is even better if the support comes from experienced business personalities. They tend to give the new business an edge which will, thus, increase chances of getting the business.
- Having absolute trust in the success in the new business. The reason why some people do not get loans is not that their ideas are bad; it is because they do not believe that their businesses can actually succeed. While no lending institution can see a lack of faith stamped on your face, it can be seen in your business plan and how you act during interviews. Don’t apply for a loan until your business is ready, and don’t start a business until you are ready. | <urn:uuid:ff370068-d2d1-437e-a964-814939bb765c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.expertbusinessadvice.com/money-management/Thinking-About-a-Small-Business-Loan-Start-Here-3968.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972161 | 697 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Clark, Alonzo, is a grandson of Zephaniah Clark, who died June 4, 1816, in Sand Lake, Rensselaer county, N.
Y. The latter married Zulyma Cooley, who died March 4, 1826. Their children were: Isaac, Abel R, Freeman, William
B., father of our subject Zephaniah, Thos. S., Claremond, Zulyma, Lydia, Telhassa. Wm. B., father of our subject,
was born in Williamstown, Mass., April 27, 1792, and died January 27, 1860, married Tryphosa Childs, who was born
April 27, 1792, at Williamstown, Mass., and died July 27, 1872. There children were.: Alonzo, born January 2, 1815,
Minerva, born Maçch 21, 1817; Alvin, born August 26, 1818, at Sand Lake, Rensselaer county, N. Y.; William,
born September 5, 1819, Freeman, born July 12, 1821; Edward born, June 25, 1823; Zephaniah, January 7. 1826, at
Troy; Matilda. born February 10, 1828; Lura, born November 1, 1829, at Sand Lake; George E., born November 1, 1832.
at Alexander, Genesee county, and Abel R., born at Carlton, Orleans county, September 20, 1834. Alonzo was educated
in a public school at Troy, until the age of thirteen, when he came to the town of Alexander, Genesee county, N.
Y., to live with his uncle R. B. Cady, where his father and family moved in the spring of 1830. April 1, 1834,
they removed to Carlton on the farm adjoining the farm where Alonzo now resides on a farm consisting of 56 acres
of land. Mr. Clark has served as justice of the peace in said town over twenty years. He is a member of the I.
O. G. T., Kuckvllle Lodge No. 374 and is an elder in the Methodist Episcopal church at the latter place. February
9, 1840, he married Mary A. Blood, born January 17, 1816, and died April 11, 1883. Their children: Hettie T., born
November 9, 1840; Lucinda M., born October 2, 1842 died September 25, 1851; Orrin A., born October 14, 1845, who
married Mary Richatds and had two children, Alva L. died September 22, 1872, and John A.; George R, born September
28, 1848, married Julia Pitts, no children except an adopted daughter, Nellie M. Mary O., born March 6, 1852, married
Arnell P. Sherman (deceased) and had two children. Ethel I. (deceased) and Belva M.; Hattie N., born February 22,
1856, and Louis A. born February 13, 1862.
Landmarks of Orleans County, New York
Edited by: Hon. Isaac C. Signor
Assisted by: H. P. Smith and others
D. Mason & Co., Publishers
Syracuse, N. Y. 1894
Orleans County, NY
Names A to B
Names C to F
Names G to H
Names H to M
Names N to R
Names T to Z
For all your genealogy needs visit Linkpendium | <urn:uuid:cdf1e759-3b14-4d7a-a231-bc59aa7cc74d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onlinebiographies.info/ny/orle/clark-a.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971583 | 756 | 1.59375 | 2 |
From the lip-syncing imbroglio, to reports on tween gymnasts and Han Chinese kids posing as ethnic minorities, to coverage that's focused on human rights, pollution and China's challenge to West, one could argue that Beijing is getting kicked in the teeth on a daily basis by the Western press.
Are we being too tough?
Some people, like Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia, think it's a legitimate question to ask. Others in the fraternity of journalists say "we're just doing our job." A few more think we're pathetic and should be tougher on the Red Chinese.
My view of it, as usual, is a muddle. On the factual stuff, what's happening in and around the Games, I say let 'em have it. I've spent years reporting in China, wrote lots of tough stories, got tossed out after the June 4th crackdown in 1989, had my share of run-ins with the local authorities, and saw the thuggishness of the one-party state up close and personal. I have no problem with tough pieces.
But as to the big-think on the meaning of the Beijing Olympics, my basic take is this: the Games are to the punditocracy what a hanging curveball is to an aging home-run hitter. Slamming China is the simplest way out and if you whiff, well, at least that's better than trying to beat out a grounder. Context, nuance, background, depth of reporting, all that kind of stuff really messes up the prevailing narrative which is this - China is a systemic challenge to our way of life and these Olympics prove it.
Let's take two recent pieces from pundits. To be fair, I chose a piece from the New York Times and from the Post.
The Times piece is an Aug. 11 column by David Brooks -- Harmony and the Dream -- in which he says that the world can be divided up into two types of societies - individualist and collectivist. America is individualist and China is collectivist. Brooks then goes on to say that individualist countries tend to put rights and privacy first while "people in collective societies tend to value harmony and duty." So with that Brooks has handily explained why China is a one-party state and we're a democracy. It really is that simple. I guess.
Then Brooks goes on: The Olympics, and particularly the opening ceremony, is a sign of the rise of a collectivist society "to rival the West."
"It was part of China's assertion that development doesn't come only through Western, liberal means, but also through Eastern and collective ones," Brooks states. He then broadens this theory to say: "If Asia's success reopens the debate between individualism and collectivism (which seemed closed after the cold war), then it's unlikely that the forces of individualism will sweep the field or even gain an edge." Takeaway? China is a challenge. Not just because it's big and bad but because they think different over there and the Olympic Ceremony proves it.
I wonder if Brooks has ever seen American marching bands, or line dancing, or visited a high school where the coolest kids are always part of a group - say, the football or basketball teams. I would argue that in many way Americans bow more to the group than the Chinese, which explains why the Chinese party-state has been so intent on forcing comformity.
Even more, I wonder if Brooks has ever driven in China (look out for grandma!), or sharpened his elbows in the scrum that forms each time you try to get off an airplane, or tried to get Chinese co-workers to band together. Let's just say in the decade that I've lived in China (over the course of 30 years), I haven't seen or heard much collectivist impulse except when it was rammed down the throats of ordinary Chinese.
And as to Brooks' point about China's rise being attributed somehow to collectivist impulses. Wait a second. The most dynamic sector of China's economy is the private one. It's a nation of entrepreneurs. It's a culture of entrepreneurs. Look at Hong Kong, or Sydney, or Main Street Flushing and now Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu. That's Chinese and it's "individualist" up the wazoo.
Harold Meyerson's piece Aug. 13 - The Drums of Change - got my goat for a different reason. First, comparing the Russian attack on Georgia with the Chinese opening ceremony he opined that it's the Chinese we really have to fear. A 4-hour extravaganza over an invasion. Hmmm.
Meyerson noted that during the parade of athletes China's flag bearer, Yao Ming, was accompanied by a 9-year-old boy who dug two classmates out of the rubble of the Sichuan earthquake. When asked by NBC why he did it, the boy said "he was a hall monitor and that it was his job to take care of his schoolmates," Meyerson wrote, adding "that answer may tell us more than we want to know."
The boy "was a responsible little part of a well-ordered hierarchy," said Meyerson.From that he concludes that the answer "works brilliantly as an advertisement for an authoritarian power bent on convincing the world that its social and political model is as benign as any democracy's."
What am I missing here? How is a sense of responsibility, instilled in any leader, no matter how small, in any society (ever hear of a class president?), taken as a sign of totalitarian brainwashing or a propaganda campaign? Don't we hear this kind of sentiment in the voices of Americans who go down into mines or back into fires to save their comrades? "I'm the fire chief, I couldn't leave my men behind." And so what if it's a 9-year-old? Bully for him. If anything, China's system discourages the type of initiative evidenced by pint-sized hero. Maybe that's the reason he was marching next to Yao.
Meyerson ends his piece with the following line: "A nation that can assemble 2,000 perfectly synchronized drummers has clearly staked its claim as the world's assembly line." That's definitely food for thought. | <urn:uuid:3d4b9e60-449c-49ee-a864-7b44cbb9941b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/pomfretschina/2008/08/should_we_give_china_a_break.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971728 | 1,294 | 1.75 | 2 |
Call for school playing fields size protection to stay
Labour is calling for ministers to rethink their plans to scrap some of the current protections for school playing fields in England.
New school premises regulations due to come into force this week will ditch the requirement for schools to have minimum size sports fields.
But the new guidelines simply calls for "suitable outdoor space" for PE and play.
The government denied protection for sports fields was being removed.
It said schools were simply being freed from burdensome regulation so they could decide what was best.
The current rules on school playing fields were introduced by Labour in 1999 to ensure schools have enough space for competitive team sports.
They specify that playing fields should be cover between 5,000 and 75,000 sq m, depending on the number of pupils.'Olympic legacy'
They also created the general presumption that schools would be banned from selling off playing field, which can only be given by the education secretary.
It followed concerns an estimated 10,000 playing fields were sold off between 1979 and 1997.
Labour leader Ed Miliband has tabled an Early Day Motion in the Commons on the issue calling for the new school premises legislation to be scrapped.
End Quote Department for Education
We have not, in any way, relaxed the extremely strict statutory controls on the disposal of school playing field land”
Shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg said: "Instead of building the positive Olympic legacy the public wants, David Cameron is doing the opposite and making it much harder for young people to get involved in sport.
"We need our schools to have the best possible sports facilities so that we encourage a new generation of Olympic athletes, and healthy and active young people. By telling schools they no longer need proper playing fields the government is letting down our young people.
"Labour believes all pupils should have access to playing fields, regardless of where they go to school. David Cameron said he wanted to "spread privilege" in education - he should show he means it by reversing this decision before even more damage to school sport is done."
A spokesman for the Department for Education said: "For the first time these regulations require all schools to provide space for all the activities in their PE curriculum and for outdoor play.
"We have made the rules much easier for schools to follow by removing bureaucratic restrictions and freeing schools up to decide what is best for their pupils.
"We have not, in any way, relaxed the extremely strict statutory controls on the disposal of school playing field land. We have only approved disposals if the school has closed, has merged or if equal or better facilities are being put in their place."
He added that current regulations were so prescriptive that they meant, for example, that, if a 900-pupil secondary school wanted to take one additional pupil in one year they would need to find a whole extra football pitch. | <urn:uuid:6d1e3dcc-3854-49ea-a978-b918bacf82e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20123673 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973696 | 585 | 1.570313 | 2 |
This factoid probably will not convince your wife that you’re entitled to a certain number of sandwiches in this relationship, but it does represent how “traditional” wedding contains “traditions” that many people don’t know the exact meaning of.
While “bride” means “cook,” groom means “male child,” which was either meant to undermine the maturity level of men or is just another one of language’s random and meaningless quirks.
In other news, the “kiss” dates back to the earliest days of civilization in the Middle East and was used as a formal seal to argeements, contracts, marriages, etc. (so overall, not especially romantic). The term “tie the knot” goes back to Roman times when the bride wore a girdle tied with many knots that the groom had the duty of untying.
So what do you think; do we blindly and thoughtlessly carry out traditional practices, or have each of these practices acquired a new meaning in our day and age? | <urn:uuid:3979bdf8-2eff-465c-ad54-0ef794027f9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.omg-facts.com/Other/The-Word-bride-Is-Derived-From-An-Old-En/52138?fromTP | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963182 | 226 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The Rattler - Two-masted trading schooner on the maritime adventure
CAPTAIN DAVID GRIEF/SYN/1956-57. Skippered by Captain David Grief
(Maxwell Reed), the Rattler ("that can sail with the best of
them") plied the South Seas around Melanesia (near Australia) in search of adventure.
Crew members were Mickey Simpson as Boley the Bosun; Mel
Prestige as Jackie the deck hand. Tudor Owen costarred as David's
partner, Elihu Snow and Maureen Hingart costarred as Anuna, a
beatutiful native girl
and Grief's companion on the Rattler.
The TV series was loosely based on
characters created by Jack London (1876-1916) in his book "A
Son of the Sun: The Adventures of Captain David Grief." It was
shot on location in Mexico and produced by Guild Films, Inc. / Pathe Pictures, Inc.
The program's 39 episodes were reissued in 1957 as JACK LONDON
Captain David Grief TV Ad Illustration
In the book, London's character Captain David Grief is a South
Pacific tycoon who owns plantations and trading stations from New
Guinea to Samoa, as well as pearling fisheries in the Paumotus,
rubber acreages in the Louisiades and a fleet of steamers that ply
the South Seas.
The stories in his book were inspired by Jack London's own
travels in the South Seas on a leaky yacht called
William Snow played David Grief on 22 episodes of the Australian
remake TALES OF THE SOUTH SEAS that aired on Network 10.
Photo of the SS Jack London (named for the author)
Back to Top | <urn:uuid:aedc4490-7630-41ee-92e7-453e4a808793> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tvacres.com/boats_sailing_rattler.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937778 | 381 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Few rituals are more awkward than end-of-year tipping. How much do you give your trainer at the gym? What about your regular postal worker or newspaper delivery service? Or parking lot attendants? The list of potential recipients is probably longer than your holiday shopping list, but deciding how much to spend can be even more stressful because there's so much uncertainty about how much, and who, to tip.
[In Pictures: 10 Ways to Avoid Online Scams]
Here's a guide to making sure that you tip well, but not wastefully—and that you still have a happy trainer, newspaper delivery person, and parking lot attendant in the new year.
Postal workers: Postal workers cannot receive cash or any gifts worth more than $20, which is an appropriate tip during the holidays, says Judith Bowman, founder of Protocol Consultants International. You can also give more personal gifts, such as baked goods or a gift certificate (under $20 in value, of course).
Personal caregivers, such as daycare teachers: Cash gifts are definitely appreciated and, in some cases, expected. Consider joining up with other parents to give each teacher $100 to $300. Think of it more as a holiday gift than a tip.
Doormen of residential buildings: Plan on giving each worker at least $20 and sometimes closer to $100, depending on the type of building and its traditions. Ask longtime residents or the building manager if you're unsure. Throughout the year, if the doorman provides extra service, such as bringing up your groceries, tip between $5 and $10 per trip.
[In Pictures: 10 Ways to Save on Food Costs]
Cleaning service provider: Give the value of one visit. If you usually pay $100 per week, then give at least an extra $100 around the holidays.
Regular hairstylist, trainer, aesthetician, and other service providers: Similar to the cleaning service recommendation, consider giving a tip equal to the value of one visit. This guideline only applies to people you see regularly (more than once a month). Otherwise, a 20 percent tip per visit without an additional holiday boost is standard.
Newspaper delivery person: A gift of between $10 and $20 or more in an envelope will help show your appreciation for all those cold and rainy mornings you can pick up your paper without a coat.
Garbage collectors: This thankless job often gets overlooked at tipping time, but consider giving each worker at least $20. If you leave extra garbage any time throughout the year, then leave an additional $10 to $20 for their effort.
Skycaps, porters, and hotel doormen you meet along your holiday travels: The skycap at the airport typically gets $2 to $3 per bag, says Bowman. If you are running late and they are of particular assistance, then add $1 to $2 per bag. A flat $20 goes a long way in saying "thank you." When in doubt, always tip up. As for doormen at hotels, tip anywhere from $2 to $5. For housekeeping services, tip $1 to $2 per night. There is usually a hotel-provided envelope that you can use for this purpose.
People to skip: Here's some good news for your budget. There's no need to tip the owner of an establishment (such as a hair salon), salaried staff (such as salespeople), full-service gas attendants, furniture delivery people (charges are included), or a flower delivery person, says Bowman.
Final words of advice: Tipping 10 to 15 percent is old-school, says Bowman. The new standard is 20 percent and up. And if you're a regular customer at a restaurant, you might want to consider leaving more to guarantee that you get good service on each visit. After all, says Bowman, the literal translation of "to tip" is "to ensure promptness."
If it seems like tipping rates keep rising, it's because they are—prices are rising. "The cost of living has gone up for people in the service industry, too," says Bowman. "If you want to 'play,' be prepared to 'pay,' especially for exceptional service and personalized attention."
Corrected on 12/14/2011: A previous version of this story incorrectly said postal workers can receive cash tips, which is prohibited. | <urn:uuid:0fb75cba-0e66-424f-9a02-52868409efdc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2011/12/06/guide-to-holiday-tipping-etiquette?s_cid=related-links:TOP | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955806 | 897 | 1.601563 | 2 |
A Stronger Nation for All: Why I Fight for Comprehensive Immigration Reform in CongressPosted December 10th, 2012 by Senator Robert Menendez
Para español, haga clic aquí.
The 2012 Presidential election was, in many ways, a mandate to enact immigration reform that provides a roadmap to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants present in the U.S. I have said on numerous occasions that I consider immigration reform to be the civil rights issue of our time, and I believe now is the time to act on it.
Less than two weeks ago, I stood with my colleagues from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and reiterated my commitment to advancing common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform that serves America’s interests, promotes fairness and the rule of law which is essential to the strongest democracy in the world, and contributes effectively and meaningfully to our economic recovery and well-being. I believe that immigration reform must include several important elements, many of which tie closely to MomsRising’s current Blog Carnival theme of Protecting Family Unity, Strengthening Communities, and Ensuring a Thriving Economy with Contributions of Immigrants:
- Legalization of the 11 million undocumented immigrants present in the U.S. with a pathway to earned citizenship. Undocumented immigrants would be required to register with the government, pay their taxes, learn English and pay a fine and then they could apply for permanent residency and begin a journey to earned citizenship.
- Family unification: We must keep families together. No spouse should be separated from their loved one, and no child should be separated from their parents because of their immigrant status. This is an outdated immigration policy, one that has an increasingly disruptive effect on other aspects of American life.
- Dream Act: Any reform needs to include the Dream Act to give undocumented students a pathway to earned citizenship and an opportunity to contribute fully to our nation’s economy.
- Business reforms: We should include STEM reform that exempts science, technology, engineering, and math advanced students from the numerical limits on green cards.
- Birthright citizenship: We should not create a permanent underclass by eliminating citizenship for children born in the U.S.
- Reasonable enforcement: We must build upon the efforts from the billions of dollars already spent on border and interior enforcement.
Advancing comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) starts with embracing our shared American values and recognizing the immense contributions of immigrants to our nation’s culture, economy, and prosperity. Reform reaches well beyond the interests of immigrant communities that turned out at the polls on Election Day—it is also in our economic interest. Studies have shown that CIR would increase our federal revenue by billions of dollars each year and inject an estimated $1.5 trillion to our nation’s GDP over a decade, demonstrating that power of reform to aid our nation’s recovery.
As the son of Cuban immigrants and the only Latino Senate Democrat, I will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that the voices of all Americans are heard in Washington and that the issues of greatest importance to our communities are prioritized and addressed. We must work together to find common ground and come to an agreement that will bring millions of Americans out of the shadows so that they can contribute fully to the recovery, and so that we can all – as one nation – benefit from it. | <urn:uuid:d4a6c46f-b828-41b7-ab02-a8d51a123ba1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.momsrising.org/blog/a-stronger-nation-for-all-why-i-fight-for-comprehensive-immigration-reform-in-congress/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954482 | 683 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Mount Union College Celebrates Black History Month
February 28, 2008
Mount Union College held a variety of events in celebration and recognition of Black History Month throughout the month of February.
Author and hip-hop historian Kevin Powell was the featured speaker on Tuesday, February 5 at 10:30 a.m. in the Dewald Chapel.
One of the leading voices of his generation, Powell is a writer, community activist, hip-hop historian, public speaker and entrepreneur. Educated at Rutgers University, he has published seven books, including “Someday We’ll All Be Free.” His address was followed by a book signing in the Hoover-Price Campus Center.
The Monty Alexander Trio performed at the Mount Union Theatre on Sunday, February 10 at 3 p.m.
The annual Black Student Union Soul Food Dinner and Fashion Show was held on Friday, February 15 at 7:30 p.m. in the Solarium of HPCC.
“Kingdom” was shown on Movie Night on Tuesday, February 19 at 6 p.m. in the Alumni Room of HPCC.
“Heartbeat Africa – an Afro-centric percussion performance, sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, was held at 7 p.m. in the Mount Union Theatre.
On Sunday, February 24, the Black Student Union Production “A Journey through Reality: Understanding and Escaping Stereotypes” was held at 7 p.m. in Presser Recital Hall. | <urn:uuid:5ed03a39-99a6-47c6-aa2f-9493badbb28d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mountunion.edu/mount-union-college-celebrates-black-history-month | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969978 | 313 | 1.671875 | 2 |
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Spurred in part by the deadly shootings last month at an elementary school in Connecticut, Shelby Township police officers will become more frequent visitors to schools in 2013.
Township police Chief Roland Woelkers announced recently his department will emphasize “community policing,” a concept that encourages officers to initiate more personal contact with the community. At the top of that list are schools, the chief said.
“(Officers) will be going in and meeting the principals, the kids and checking the security of the building,” Woelkers said recently during an interview for Shelby This Week. “We had already been planning to step that up a little bit.”
In addition, the chief plans to assign a second liaison officer to work in elementary school buildings.
Shelby Township police had been working to update their role in school security for months. Last summer, in fact, officers used Ewell Elementary School to train for a potential “active shooter” situation. The shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., put Shelby Township’s plans on a faster track, the chief said.
“In light of what’s gone on recently, we want to ... make the kids and the community feel comfortable that the police department is stepping up security to try to make schools as safe as possible,” Woelkers said.
The chief recently met with Utica Community Schools Superintendent Christine Johns and her staff to discuss school security. Like most school districts, Utica has implemented changes of its own since the Sandy Hook killings. But officials welcomed increased police involvement.
“We greatly appreciate the leadership of Chief Woelkers and his commitment to continue working with the district and our community on school security measures,” the superintendent said. “The collaborative efforts in Shelby Township and all of our law enforcement agencies allow us to constantly assess and enhance school safety.”
While school security gets most of the headlines, Woelkers also wants officers to apply a more personal approach to patrols. In suburban police departments, officers spend much of their shift in their patrol cars. Woelkers hopes to change that.
“We’re going to encourage and mandate they get out of the cars and get into the community,” the chief said.
Woelkers said the new policies will be implemented later this month to coincide with scheduled shift changes.
“I like the plan for more police personal contact and visibility in our community,” said Shelby Township Supervisor Rick Stathakis. “I commend Chief Woelkers in his efforts to strive for better results in the police department by understanding what our residents need and then delivering against those needs without raising costs.” | <urn:uuid:1ebbf1de-9f50-4886-9ae9-96cc2b97e383> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macombdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130113/NEWS01/130119981 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964359 | 565 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Fighting For Illinois Black Enterprises
Black businesses across the State of Illinois face unprecedented challenges. However, the challenges many of us face are common to all businesses. The Chamber is concerned about the plight of our membership and how best we can weather the current storm. The purpose of this section is to highlight some of the challenges unique to our business community and present our position on these vital issues.
OUR KEY ISSUES
The Black Chamber of Commerce (23 chapters in Illinois) and the National Black Chamber of Commerce (largest black trade association in the world) will strongly advocate for the following:
- FOCUS ON LOCAL RESIDENTS. 45% of construction manpower hours be worked by residents living in the zip codes and census tracts surrounding all Olympic venues (Note: On the New Kennedy King College 40% of manpower hours where worked by Englewood residents)
- FIGHT AGAINST FRAUD. 50% construction contracts to be awarded to black and other minorities in the Chicago-land area. (City goals of 25% minority and 5% women are unacceptable) Given what happen with front and fraudulent minority companies in the past we will be on the look out and report them to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution.
- NO PROJECT LABOR AGREEMENTS. PLA's or Project Labor Agreements (union only shop) are unacceptable. We must qualify each and every PLA. We must look at the demographic goals of each geographical area which are set by the U.S. Dept of Labor and match that with the current capacity of the applicable construction unions. As many of you are aware the racist and sexist construction unions moved all of their training programs outside of the city limits to the detriment of our people. If the construction unions don't have the numbers a complaint will be filed to stop the setup for discrimination per Harry C. Alford Co-founder/Pres/CEO National Black Chamber of Commerce. (As we all know the Obama Administration won't accept discrimination). All elected officials at the city, county and state level must move this route in the 21st century to deal with the discrimination in the construction industry. We may have to sue the 2016 Olympic Committee if they try to setup a PLA that doesn't meet these standards. Our people have been betrayed long enough. (Remember 2016 Olympic Committee wants to use local funds and state guarantees that we all would have to pay back) So we should benefit from OWN TAX DOLLARS.
- INCREASED MONITORING. Monitoring of contractors (No company that was an affirmative action monitor during the minority contracting scams shall be disqualified)
- FIGHT FOR PROMPT PAYMENT. Prompt Payment must be part of the Community Benefits Agreements. 30 days after prime contractors receives funds subcontractors and workers must be paid.
- TRAINING TO CLOSE THE GAP. Paid on the job construction training must be part of the Community Benefits Agreement as well. We have a national program that is currently at work in the Gulf Coast Rebuilding Effort. In less than 2 years 20,000 Katrina and Rita residents have been trained in construction. We reached our goal 14 months ahead of schedule of the 20,000 trained and currently working in the Gulf - 70% are black and being paid $19 - $26 per hour (prevailing wage - Davis Bacon Act). Only requirements 8th grade education in math and reading. Also, be able to pass a drug test) THAT'S IT!!!!!! We will recruit more trainees in the future for the program. | <urn:uuid:0a0cdfd2-1202-45aa-9756-40d878f111e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ilbcc.us/issues.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941851 | 716 | 1.75 | 2 |
Washington (CNN) -- Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. John Kerry said Tuesday the importance of Afghanistan war documents leaked by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.org should not be overstated.
"I think it's important not to over-hype, or get excessively excited about the meaning of those documents," Kerry, D-Massachusetts, told the committee.
The senator called the leak of the documents "unacceptable."
"It breaks the law and equally importantly it compromises the efforts of our troops, potentially, in the field and has the potential of putting people in harm's way," he said.
WikiLeaks.org published Sunday what it says are more than 75,000 U.S. military and diplomatic reports about Afghanistan filed between 2004 and January of this year.
Kerry stressed that most, if not all, of the documents date to before December, when President Barack Obama outlined a new strategy for the war that Kerry said addressed many of the issues raised by the leaked reports. | <urn:uuid:f5402c09-0a7a-48ae-91f9-c3f1abe9afd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/27/afghanistan.hearing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961843 | 200 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Nuggets of Management Wisdom #10
Never manage through reports; instead manage through your people.
It may sound moronic to even think that someone can try to manage through reports. But in a flash of corporate eureka moment, I realized that this is what many managers in many organizations do. They try to manage through reports instead of trusting the abilities of the people they manage. As a result, utter chaos prevails and things never get done. And to top up all these, everyone in the company transforms into a report jock churning out reports 80% of one’s time. Discussion and reports take center-stage while action and execution take a backseat.
Reports have a simple purpose – to give you a good enough view of the situation with reasonable accuracy so that you can plan and execute your actions wisely. Expecting anything more than this from reports is a sure shot way to bring gigantic inefficiencies in the system. Once the report has done its primary duty of giving a view, the ball should move to people’s court for action.
Why some managers manage through reports?
First, they are control freaks who want to control everything from top to bottom irrespective of whether it is worth their attention or not.
Second, they don’t hire right. Hiring becomes a playground for favouritism, promoting people to their level of incompetence, and wrong assessment of competencies. You can manage through people only if you have right people at right place. They just try to hire people who are their alter ego, and definitely not smarter than they are.
Third, they don’t trust the people they hire and are basically a great fan of command and control philosophy of management.
Fourth, they have poor delegation skills.
Fifth, they lack basic leadership skills like inspiring and motivating people to action. They just don’t know how to put the fire in their people’s belly so that people embrace their leader’s dreams as their own.
Sixth, reports are the ideal place to hide a manager’s own shortcomings under a pile of carefully designed sentences and tables of data that are creatively interpreted.
So what to do…
First, throw away all unnecessary reports from your system. Simplify the rest. If your people are spending more than 10% of their working time on making reports and MIS, then something is wrong with the system (at least in sales & marketing domain of consumer goods companies).
Second, hire bright people whom you can trust. Don’t shy away from hiring people who are smarter than you. People aspect is the most important aspect of effective management. Next on importance ladder is process.
Third, delegate effectively. Neither everything is worth your attention, nor are you competent enough to tackle everything.
Fourth, talk in numbers as they don’t lie. In my experience, reports are the most effective tool for rationalization with all those creative structuring of sentences and interpretation of data. Don’t fall into that trap as it is a vicious cycle with the potential to choke the system. Also, talk about solutions not problems. Reports have a tendency to focus too much on problem and too little on solution. Problems have no end, so better talk about solutions, one at a time. And to become solution oriented you need to become action oriented rather than reports oriented or discussion oriented. | <urn:uuid:8cc383dc-7011-46f5-a8bd-6aeb03844906> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mayankkrishna.blogspot.com/2007/02/nuggets-of-management-wisdom-10.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967437 | 693 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Protestors gather outside GOP debate
Protestors carrying signs reading "Tax the Rich," "Stop the War on Workers" and "Don't Feed Corporate Greed" gathered outside the Florida State Fairgrounds on Monday, hours before the start of a Republican presidential candidate debate sponsored by CNN and the Tea Party Express.
The Rev. Bruce Wright, a member of the Poor People's Human Rights Campaign, founded in 1996, was among the organizers of the protest. He said he also plans to organize protests during the Republican National Convention set for Tampa in 2012.
"One of our platforms and concerns is tax cuts for the rich. We believe that needs to end. We believe that loopholes need to end. That foreclosures need to stop and that jobs need to stop being shipped overseas," Wright said. "We also have a strong stance against the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq."
Wright said he expected several hundred protesters at the fairgrounds, at various locations. About three dozen were stationed near the Tea Party Express bus and CNN remote studio at the fairgrounds.
Among them is Susie Shannon, a member of the AFSCME union who works at the University of South Florida. The Republican candidates, she said, need to focus less on deficit reduction and more on jobs. Protestor David Maynard, a member of the Socialist Party of Florida, had this to say about the presidential candidates: "Of the Republican candidates, one is crazier than the next one and Obama is a lousy candidate."
Maynard criticized Obama for expanding the war on terror, not closing Guantanamo, and caving on the public option in the federal health care legislationi.
"He has not done any of the things he said he was going to do," Maynard said. | <urn:uuid:e2b760b2-640b-41aa-9d49-adea6f05cc31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/protestors-gather-outside-gop-debate/2038721 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975396 | 359 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Mostly Cloudy ~
High: 89°F ~ Low: 67°F
Monday, May 20, 2013
Population questionsPosted Thursday, August 9, 2007, at 9:02 AM
This morning's Tennessean has a story that is part of their continuing series on the impact that massive growth is having on the mid-state area.
This one deals with our Hispanic neighbors:
The latest census estimate shows Tennessee with the largest Hispanic population in its history -- but there probably are thousands more who weren't counted.
If you remember, the T-G reported earlier this summer that census estimates were probably way off due to the number of those who simply didn't report themselves.
While the latest census figures from 2006 say that 11.7 percent of Bedford County is currently Hispanic, which gives the county the highest number per capita in Tennessee, Boyce has been told by Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] officials that that figure is likely 20 percent or even more.
The Tennessean article gives the official census numbers for Bedford County as 12 percent, the highest in the state, but also agrees with what we reported in July.
In Robertson County, for example, the census estimates 3,546 Hispanic residents, but Robertson County Mayor Howard Bradley said the county sheriff estimates the number closer to 7,000 to 10,000 in the fast-growing county of 62,000 people.
The question is: How many of these folks do we actually have here, and with the costs involved with providing services for them, what does this mean for the future of Bedford County and other rural areas? If we receive state and federal money based on the head count and if those numbers are totally inaccurate, what then?
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Brian Mosely is a staff writer for the Times-Gazette.
Hot topicsAbout that Labor Day story...
(89 ~ 6:49 PM, Aug 29)
About "Welcome to Shelbyville"
Anonymous tips ...and why many of them are anonymous
Suspended for saying "no" to drugs
The rumor mill | <urn:uuid:2ae81c37-a1a1-4e83-acb1-f3d22d0d8886> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.t-g.com/blogs/brianmosely/entry/12612/desc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954703 | 436 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Another one of those 419 or Nigerian scams
July 31, 2008
Most of us are probably already aware of the so-called Nigerian or 419 scams but I’m sure there are still a few who would believe the outrageous propositions and eventually become a victim.
For the uninitiated, a Nigerian scam is a scam trick in which the target is persuaded to advance a sum of money in exchange for a supposedly larger gain. That is why this modus operandi is also called advance fee fraud.
The usual story used by these scammers is that a prominent or wealthy person needs help in moving his millions of dollars from one country to another. In return, the target is promised a percentage of the total cash. However, before the transaction can begin, the scammer requests from the target a sum of money supposedly to pay for fees or other expenses. After the target has sent money to the scammer, the former will no longer receive any correspondence from the scammer.
This scam is called Nigerian scam because most of these letters originate from Nigeria. It is also called 419 scam, with “419″ referring to the article of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud. Snopes.com has an extensive explanation about this type of scam.
A sample Nigerian scam letter is the one below which I received in my email just a few minutes ago:
From: Williams Jones <email@example.com>
Subject: MY PROPOSAL
Date: Thursday, July 31, 2008
I am in search for an agency/ individual to assist us in transfer of TWENTY MILLION POUNDS (£20Million Pounds )and subsequent investment in properties in your country,
you will be required to
(1) Assist in the transfer of the said sum
(2) Advise on lucrative area for investment
(3) Assist us in purchase of properties.
(4) send me your company details, home address and private telephone/fax number
(5) Open a new Bank account where this money will be transferred into. Or send me a trusted account
If you decide to render your service to us in this regard, 15% of the total sum of the above will be for you, and while the rest will be for investment.
And this money belongs to my late father who died last two year. And that is why I am now looking for trust and reliable company that can help me to invest this money in business. And it is because i don’t have register company to back up this funds for investment in business.
Please if you are interested kindly reply me with your direct phone no and full names so that i can give you the modalities.
Make you sure you don’t fall for this! These outrageous proposals are nothing but sham and scam! | <urn:uuid:4e25d9fb-1186-40e7-962e-ddbac1f30845> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pinoymoneytalk.com/nigerian-fraud-419-scam/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952761 | 578 | 1.804688 | 2 |
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